tardiness in sending
reinforcements had alone saved Paris.[127]

There could be no doubt, therefore, that a breach with the emperor would in
a high degree be unwelcome to the country. The king, and probably such
members of the council as were aware of his feelings, shrank from offering
an open affront to the Spanish people., and anxious as they were for a
settlement of the succession, perhaps trusted that advantage might be taken
of some political contingency for a private arrangement; that Catherine
might be induced by Charles himself to retire privately, and sacrifice
herself, of her free will, to the interests of the two countries. This,
however, is no more than conjecture; I think it probable, because so many
English statesmen were in favour at once of the divorce and of the Spanish
alliance--two objects which, only on some such hypothesis, were compatible.
The fact cannot be ascertained, however, because the divorce itself was not
discussed at the council table until Wolsey had induced the king to change
his policy by the hope of immediate relief.

Wolsey has revealed to us fully his own objects in a letter to Sir Gregory
Cassalis, his agent at Rome. He shared with half Europe in an impression
that the emperor's Italian campaigns were designed to further the
Reformation; and of this central delusion he formed the keystone of his
conduct. "First condoling with his Holiness," he wrote, "on the unhappy
position in which, with the college of the most reverend cardinals, he is
placed,[128] you shall tell him how, day and night, I am revolving by what
means or contrivance I may bring comfort to the church of Christ, and raise
the fallen state of our most Holy Lord. I care not whit it may cost me,
whether of expense or trouble; nay, though I have to shed my blood, or give
my life for it, assuredly so long as life remains to me for this I will
labour. And how let me mention the great and marvellous effects which have
been wrought by my instrumentality on the mind of my most excellent master
the king, whom I have persuaded to unite himself with his Holiness in heart
and soul. I urged innumerable reasons to induce him to part him from the
emperor, to whom he clung with much tenacity. The most effective of them
all was the constancy with which I assured him of the good-will and
affection which were felt for him by his Holiness, and the certainty that
his Holiness would furnish proof of his friendship in conceding his said
Maj