eceived
the eyes of the French ambassador.

Still further to gratify Henry, the pope made a public declaration with
respect to the dispute which had arisen on the extent of his authority,
desiring, or professing to desire, that all persons whatever throughout
Italy should be free to express their opinions without fear of incurring
his displeasure. This declaration, had it been honestly meant, would have
been creditable to Clement's courage: unfortunately for his reputation, his
outward and his secret actions seldom corresponded, and the emperor's
agents were observed to use very dissimilar language in his name. The
double policy, nevertheless, was still followed to secure delay. Delay was
his sole aim,--either that Catherine's death, or his own, or Henry's, or
some relenting in one or other of the two princes who held their minatory
arms extended over him, might spare himself and the church the calamity of
a decision. For to the church any decision was fatal. If he declared for
Charles, England would fall from it; if for Henry, Germany and Flanders
were lost irrecoverably, and Spain itself might follow. His one hope was to
procrastinate; and in this policy of hesitation for two more years he
succeeded, till at length the patience of Henry and of England was worn
out, and all was ended. When the emperor required sentence to be passed, he
pretended to be about to yield; and at the last moment, some technical
difficulty ever interfered to make a decision impossible. When Henry was
cited to appear at Rome, a point of law was raised upon the privilege of
kings, threatening to open into other points of law, and so to multiply to
infinity. The pope, indeed, finding his own ends so well answered by
evasion, imagined that it would answer equally those of the English nation,
and he declared to Henry's secretary that "if the King of England would
send a mandate ad totam causam, then if his Highness would, there might be
given so many delays by reason of matters which his Highness might lay in,
and the remissorials that his Grace might ask, ad partes, that peradventure
in ten years or longer a sentence should not be given."[263] In point of
worldly prudence, his conduct was unexceptionably wise; but something
beyond worldly prudence was demanded of a tribunal which claimed to be
inspired by the Holy Ghost.

The dreary details of the negotiations I have no intention of pursuing.
They are of no interest to any one,--a miserable tissu