herein ye may say our firm trust,
perfect hope, and assured confidence is, that our good brother will agree
with us; as well for that it should be partly dishonourable for him to see
decay the thing that was of his own foundation and planting: as also that
it should be too much dishonourable for us--having travelled so far in this
matter, and brought it to this point, that all the storms of the year
passed, it is now come to harvest, trusting to see shortly the fruit of our
marriage, to the wealth, joy, and comfort of all our realm, and our own
singular consolation--that anything should now be done by us to impair the
same, and to put our issue either in peril of bastardy, or otherwise
disturb that [which] is by the whole agreement of our realm established for
their and our commodity, wealth, and benefit. And in this determination ye
know us to be so fixed, and the contrary hereof to be so infeasible, either
at our hands, or by the consent of the realm, that ye must needs despair of
any order to be taken by the French king with the pope. For if any were by
him taken wherein any of these four pieces should be touched--that is to
say, the marriage of the queen our wife, the revocation of the Bishop of
Canterbury's sentence, the statute of our realm, or our late proclamation,
which be as it were one--and as walls, covering, the foundation make a
house, so they knit together, establish, and make one matter--ye be well
assured, and be so ascertained from us, that in no wise we will relent, but
will, as we have before written, withstand the same. Whereof ye may say
that ye have thought good to advertise him, to the intent he make no
farther promise to the pope therein than may be performed."

The ambassadors were the more emphatically to insist on the king's
resolution, lest Francis, in his desire for conciliation, might hold out
hopes to the pope which could not be realised. They were to say, however,
that the King of England still trusted that the interview would not take
place. The see of Rome was asserting a jurisdiction which, if conceded,
would encourage an unlimited usurpation. If princes might be cited to the
papal courts in a cause of matrimony, they might be cited equally in other
causes at the pope's pleasure; and the free kingdoms of Europe would be
converted into dependent provinces of the see of Rome. It concerned alike
the interest and the honour of all sovereigns to resist encroachments which
pointed to such an