aples. This was his first object, to
which every other was subsidiary. He was disinclined to a rupture with the
pope; but the possibility of such a rupture had been long contemplated by
French statesmen. It was a contingency which the pope feared:--which the
hopes of Henry pictured as more likely than it was--and Francis, like his
rivals in the European system, held the menace of it extended over the
chair of St. Peter, to coerce its unhappy occupant into compliance with his
wishes. With respect to Henry's divorce, his conduct to the University of
Paris, and his assurances repeated voluntarily on many occasions, show that
he was sincerely desirous to forward it. He did not care for Henry, or for
England, or for the cause itself; he desired only to make the breach
between Henry and Charles irreparable; to make it impossible for ever that
"his two great rivals" should become friends together; and by inducing the
pope to consent to the English demand, to detach the court of Rome
conclusively from the imperial interests.

The two princes who disputed the supremacy of Europe, were intriguing one
against the other, each desiring to constitute himself the champion of the
church; and to compel the church to accept his services, by the threat of
passing over to her enemies. By a dexterous use of the cards which were in
his hands, the King of France proposed to secure one of two alternatives.
Either he would form a league between himself, Henry, and the pope, against
the emperor, of which the divorce, and the consent to it, which he would
extort from Clement, should be the cement; or, if this failed him, he would
avail himself of the vantage ground which was given to him by the English
alliance to obtain such concessions for himself at the emperor's expense as
the pope could be induced to make, and the emperor to tolerate.

Such, in so far as I can unravel the web of the diplomatic correspondence,
appear to have been the open positions and the secret purposes of the great
European powers.

There remains the fourth figure upon the board, the pope himself, labouring
with such means as were at his disposal to watch over the interests of the
church, and to neutralise the destructive ambition of the princes, by
playing upon their respective selfishnesses. On the central question, that
of the divorce, his position was briefly this. Both the emperor and Henry
pressed for a decision. If he decided for Henry, he lost Germany; if he
decid