send the original brief to England. The
letter was carried to Spain by her young English confessor, Thomas Abel,
whom she did not entirely trust, and sent with him her Spanish usher,
Montoya; but they had verbal instructions from their mistress to pray the
Emperor to disregard her written request, and refuse to part with the
brief, and to exert all his influence to have the case decided in
Rome.[75] By this it will be seen that Katharine was fully a match in
duplicity for those against whom she was pitted. She never wavered from
first to last in her determination to refuse to acknowledge the sentence
of any court sitting in England on her case, and to resist all attempts to
induce her to withdraw voluntarily from her conjugal position and enter a
nunnery. Henry, and especially Anne, in the meanwhile, were growing
impatient at all this calculated delay, and began to throw the blame upon
Wolsey. "The young lady used very rude words to him," wrote Du Bellay on
the 25th January, and "the Duke of Norfolk and his party already began to
talk big."[76] A few days afterwards Mendoza, in a letter to the Emperor,
spoke even more strongly. "The young lady that is the cause of all this
disorder, finding her marriage delayed, that she thought herself so sure
of, entertains great suspicion that Wolsey puts impediments in her way,
from a belief that if she were Queen his power would decline. In this
suspicion she is joined by her father and the Dukes of Norfolk and
Suffolk, who have combined to overthrow the Cardinal." "The King is so hot
upon it (the divorce) that there is nothing he does not promise to gain
his end.... Campeggio has done nothing for the Queen as yet but to press
her to enter religion."[77]

Henry at length determined that he would wait no longer. His four agents
in Rome had almost driven the Pope to distraction with their
importunities. Gardiner had gone to the length of threatening Clement with
the secession of England from the Papacy, and Anne's cousin, Henry's boon
companion Brian, deploring the Pope's obstinacy in a letter from Rome to
the King, was bold enough to say: "I hope I shall not die until your
Grace has been able to requite the Pope, and Popes, and not be fed with
their flattering words." But in spite of it all, Clement would only
palliate and temporise, and finally refused to give any fresh instructions
to the Legates or help the King's cause by any new act. To Campeggio he
wrote angrily, telling him, f