ut need of petition on our part; and if we had added our
entreaties, it should have been but as men yielding to a causeless anxiety,
and wasting words for which there was no occasion. Since, however, neither
the merit of the cause nor the recollection of the benefits which you have
received, nor the assiduous and diligent supplications of our prince have
availed anything with your Holiness; since we cannot obtain from you what
it is your duty as a father to grant; the load of our grief, increased as
it is beyond measure by the remembrance of the past miseries and calamities
which have befallen this nation, makes vocal every member of our
commonwealth, and compels us by word and letter to utter our complaints.

"For what a misfortune is this,--that a sentence which our own two
universities, which the University of Paris, and many other universities in
France, which men of the highest learning and probity everywhere, at home
and abroad, are ready to defend with word and pen, that such sentence, we
say, cannot be obtained from the apostolic see by a prince to whom that see
owes its present existence. Amidst the attacks of so many and so powerful
enemies, the King of England ever has stood by that see with sword and pen,
with voice and with authority. Yet he alone is to reap no benefit from his
labours. He has saved the papacy from ruin, that others might enjoy the
fruits of the life which he has preserved for it. We see not what answer
can be made to this; and meanwhile we perceive a flood of miseries
impending over the commonwealth, threatening to bring back upon us the
ancient controversy on the succession, which had been extinguished only
with so much blood and slaughter. We have now a king most eminent for his
virtues, and reigning by unchallenged title, who will secure assured
tranquillity to the realm if he leave a son born of his body to succeed
him. The sole hope that such a son may be born to him lies in the being
found for him some lawful marriage into which he may enter; and to such
marriage the only obstacle lies with your Holiness. It cannot be until you
shall confirm the sentence of so many learned men on the character of his
former connection. This if you will not do, if you who ought to be our
father have determined to leave us as orphans, and to treat us as
castaways, we shall interpret such conduct to mean only that we are left to
care for ourselves, and to seek our remedy elsewhere. We do not desire to
be