either because he was frightened by
her denunciations, nor from alarm at the usual occurrence of an equinoctial
storm. Many motives combined to dissuade him from further hesitation. Six
years of trifling must have convinced him that by decisive action alone he
could force the pope to a conclusion. He was growing old, and the
exigencies of the succession, rendered doubly pressing by the long
agitation, required immediate resolution. He was himself satisfied that he
was at liberty to marry whom he pleased and when he pleased, his
relationship to Catherine, according to his recent convictions, being such
as had rendered his connection with her from the beginning invalid and
void. His own inclinations and the interests of the nation pointed to the
same course. The King of France had advised it. Even the pope himself, at
the outset of the discussion, had advised it also. "Marry freely," the pope
had said; "fear nothing, and all shall be arranged as you desire." He had
forborne to take the pope at his word; he had hoped that the justice of his
demands might open a less violent way to him; and he had shrunk from a step
which might throw even a causeless shadow over the legitimacy of the
offspring for which he longed. The case was now changed; no other
alternative seemed to be open to his choice, and it was necessary to bring
the matter to a close once and for all.

But Henry, as he said himself, was past the age when passion or appetite
would be likely to move him, and having waited so many years, he could
afford to wait a little longer, till the effects of the Calais conferences
upon the pope should have had time to show themselves. In December, Clement
was to meet the emperor at Bologna. In the month following, it might be
hoped that he would meet Francis at Marseilles or Avignon, and from their
interview would be seen conclusively the future attitude of the papal and
imperial courts. Experience of the past forbade anything like sanguine
expectation; yet it was not impossible that the pope might be compelled at
last to yield the required concessions. The terms of Henry's understanding
with Francis were not perhaps made public, but he was allowed to dictate
the language which the French cardinals were to make use of in the
consistory;[394] and the reception of Anne Boleyn by the French king was
equivalent to the most emphatic declaration that if the censures of the
church were attempted in defence of Catherine, the enforcement