2th of July, the pope issued a
brief, declaring Cranmer's judgment to have been illegal, the English
process to have been null and void, and the king, by his disobedience, to
have incurred, _ipso facto_, the threatened penalties of excommunication.
Of his clemency he suspended these censures till the close of the following
September, in order that time might be allowed to restore the respective
parties to their old positions: if within that period the parties were not
so restored, the censures would fall.[612] This brief was sent into
Flanders, and fixed in the usual place against the door of a church in
Dunkirk.

Henry was prepared for a measure which was no more than natural. He had
been prepared for it as a possibility when he married. Both he and Francis
must have been prepared for it on their meeting at Calais, when the French
king advised him to marry, and promised to support him through the
consequences. His own measures had been arranged beforehand, and he had
secured himself in technical entrenchments by his appeal. After the issue
of the brief, however, he could allow no English embassy to compliment
Clement by its presence on his visit to France. He "knew the pope," as he
said. Long experience had shown him that nothing was to be gained by
yielding in minor points; and the only chance which now remained of
preserving the established order of Christendom, was to terrify the Vatican
court into submission by the firmness of his attitude. For the present
complications, the court of Rome, not he, was responsible. The pope, with a
culpable complacency for the emperor, had shrunk from discharging a duty
which his office imposed upon him; and the result had been, that the duty
was discharged by another. Henry could not blame himself for the
consequences of Clement's delinquency. He rather felt himself wronged in
having been driven to so extreme a measure against his will. He resolved,
therefore, to recall the embassy, and once more, though with no great hope
that he would be successful, to invite Francis to fulfil his promise, and
to unite with himself in expressing his resentment at the pope's conduct.

His despatch to the Duke of Norfolk on this occasion was the natural sequel
of what he had written a few weeks previously. That letter had failed
wholly of its effect. The interview was resolved upon for quite other
reasons than those which were acknowledged, and therefore was not to be
given up. A promise, however,