It was this which had given back to the pope his courage. It was this which
Bennet had now to report to Henry. The French alliance, it was too likely,
would prove a broken reed, and pierce the hand that leant upon it.

Henry knew the danger; but danger was not a very terrible thing either to
him or to his people. If he had conquered his own reluctance to risk a
schism in the church, he was not likely to yield to the fear of isolation;
and if there was something to alarm in the aspect of affairs, there was
also much to encourage. His parliament was united and resolute. His queen
was pregnant. The Nun of Kent had assigned him but a month to live after
his marriage; six months had passed, and he was alive and well; the
supernatural powers had not declared against him; and while safe with
respect to enmity from above, the earthly powers he could afford to defy.
When he finally divorced Queen Catherine, he must have foreseen his present
position at least as a possibility, and if not prepared for so swift an
apostasy in Francis, and if not yet wholly believing it, we may satisfy
ourselves he had never absolutely trusted a prince of metal so
questionable.

The Duke of Norfolk was waiting at the French court, with a magnificent
embassy, to represent the English king at the interview. The arrival of the
pope had been expected in May. It was now delayed till September; and if
Clement came after all, it would be for objects in which England had but
small concern. It was better for England that there should be no meeting at
all, than a meeting to devise schemes for the massacre of Lutherans. Henry
therefore wrote to the Duke, telling him generally what he had heard from
Rome; he mentioned the three topics which he understood were to form the
matter of discussion; but he skilfully affected to regard them as having
originated with the imperialists, and not with the French king. In a long
paper of instructions, in which earnestness and irony were strangely
blended, he directed the ambassador to treat his good brother as if he were
still exclusively devoted to the interests of England; and to urge upon
him, on the ground of this fresh delay, that the interview should not take
place at all.[601]

"Our pleasure is," he wrote, "that ye shall say--that we be not a little
moved in our heart to see our good brother and us, being such princes of
Christendom, to be so handled with the pope, so much to our dishonour, and
to the pope's and t