d on the cardinals, Du
Bellay said, for they spoke one way, and voted another.[707]

Thus all was over. In a scene of general helplessness the long drama
closed, and, what we call accident, for want of some better word, cut the
knot at last over which human incapacity had so vainly laboured. The Bishop
of Paris retired from Rome in despair. On his way back, he met the English
commissioners at Bologna, and told them that their errand was hopeless, and
that they need not proceed. "When we asked him," wrote Sir Edward Karne to
the king, "the cause of such hasty process, he made answer that the
imperialists at Rome had strengthened themselves in such a manner, that
they coacted the said Bishop of Rome to give sentence contrary to his own
mind, and the expectation of himself and of the French king. He showed us
also that the Lady Princess Dowager sent lately, in the month of March
past, letters to the Bishop of Rome, and also to her proctors, whereby the
Bishop of Rome was much moved for her part. The imperials, before the
sentence was given, promised, in the emperor's behalf, that he would be the
executor of the sentence."[708]

This is all which we are able to say of the immediate catastrophe which
decided the fate of England, and through England, of the world. The deep
impenetrable falsehood of the Roman ecclesiastics prevents us from
discovering with what intentions the game of the last few weeks or months
had been played; it is sufficient for Englishmen to remember that, whatever
may have been the explanation of his conduct, the pope, in the concluding
passage of his connection with this country, furnished the most signal
justification which was ever given for the revolt from an abused authority.
The supreme judge in Christendom had for six years trifled with justice,
out of fear of an earthly prince; he concluded these years with uniting the
extreme of folly with the extreme of improbity, and pronounced a sentence,
willingly or unwillingly, which he had acknowledged to be unjust.

Charity may possibly acquit Clement of conscious duplicity. He was one of
those men who waited upon fortune, and waited always without success; who
gave his word as the interest of the moment suggested, trusting that it
might be convenient to observe it; and who was too long accustomed to break
his promises to look with any particular alarm on that contingency. It is
possible, also,--for of this Clement was capable--that he knew from the
beg