eated to Wolsey, who mentioned them
openly at his table before more than a hundred gentlemen. A person present
exclaimed, "That speech has lost the emperor more than a hundred thousand
hearts among us;"[165] an expression which reveals at once the strength and
the weakness of the imperial party. England might have its own opinions of
the policy of the government, but it was in no humour to tolerate treason,
and the first hint of revolt was followed by an instant recoil. The
discovery of more successful intrigues in Scotland and Ireland completed
the destruction of Charles's influence;[166] and the result of these
ill-judged and premature efforts was merely to unite the nation in their
determination to prosecute the divorce.

Thus were the various parties in the vast struggle which was about to
commence gravitating into their places; and mistake combined with policy to
place them in their true positions. Wolsey, in submitting "the king's
matter" to the pope, had brought to issue the question whether the papal
authority should be any longer recognised in England; and he had secured
the ruin of that authority by the steps through which he hoped to establish
it; while Charles, by his unwise endeavours to foment a rebellion, severed
with his own hand the links of a friendship which would have been seriously
embarrassing if it had continued. By him, also, was dealt the concluding
stroke in this first act of the drama; and though we may grant him credit
for the ingenuity of his contrivance, he can claim it only at the expense
of his probity. The pope, when the commission was appointed for the trial
of the cause in England, had given a promise in writing that the commission
should not be revoked. It seemed, therefore, that the legates would be
compelled, in spite of themselves, to pronounce sentence; and that the
settlement of the question, in one form or other, could not long be
delayed. At the pressure of the crisis in the winter of 1528-9, a document
was produced alleged to have been found in Spain, which furnished a pretext
for a recall of the engagement, and opening now questions, indefinite and
inexhaustible, rendered the passing of a sentence in England impossible.
Unhappily, the weight of the king's claim (however it had been rested on
its true merits in conversation and in letters) had, by the perverse
ingenuity of the lawyers, been laid on certain informalities and defects in
the original bull of dispensation, which had