se complications, he had a right to depend.

In 1512, France had been on the point of declaring her religious
independence; and as late as 1525, Francis entertained thoughts of offering
the patriarchate to Wolsey.[254] Charles V., postponing his religious
devotion for the leisure of old age, had reserved the choice of his party,
to watch events and to wait upon opportunity; while, from his singular
position, he wielded in one hand the power of Catholic Spain, in the other
that of Protestant Germany, ready to strike with either, as occasion or
necessity recommended. If his Spaniards had annexed the New World to the
papacy, his German lanzknechts had stormed the Holy City, murdered
cardinals, and outraged the pope's person: while both Charles and Francis,
alike caring exclusively for their private interests, had allowed the Turks
to overrun Hungary, to conquer Rhodes, and to collect an armament at
Constantinople so formidable as to threaten Italy itself, and the very
Christian faith. Henry alone had shown hitherto a true feeling for
religion; Henry had made war with Louis XII. solely in the pope's quarrel;
Henry had broken an old alliance with the emperor to revenge the capture of
Rome, and had won Francis back to his allegiance. To Henry, if to any one,
the Roman bishop had a right to look with confidence. But the power of
England was far off, and could not reach to Rome. Francis had been baffled
and defeated, his armies destroyed, his political influence in the
Peninsula annihilated. The practical choice which remained to Clement lay
only, as it seemed, between the emperor and martyrdom; and having, perhaps,
a desire for the nobler alternative, yet being without the power to choose
it, his wishes and his conduct, his words to private persons and his open
actions before the world, were in perpetual contradiction. He submitted
while his heart revolted; and while at Charles's dictation he was
threatening Henry with excommunication if he proceeded further with his
divorce, he was able at that very time to say, in confidence, to the Bishop
of Tarbes, that he would be well contented if the King of England would
marry on his own responsibility, availing himself of any means which he
might possess among his own people, so only that he himself was not
committed to a consent or the privileges of the papacy were not trenched
upon.[255]

Two years later, when the course which the pope would really pursue under
such circumstances wa