of his journey presaged
ill; he did not reach England till the end of September, and a month was
wasted in vain efforts to bring Henry to a reconciliation or Catharine to
retirement into a monastery. A new difficulty disclosed itself in the
supposed existence of a brief issued by Pope Julius and now in the
possession of the Emperor, which overruled all the objections to the
earlier dispensation on which Henry relied. The hearing of the cause was
delayed through the winter, while new embassies strove to induce Clement
to declare this brief also invalid. Not only was such a demand glaringly
unjust, but the progress of the Imperial arms brought vividly home to the
Pope its injustice. The danger which he feared was not merely a danger to
his temporal domain in Italy. It was a danger to the Papacy itself. It was
in vain that new embassies threatened Clement with the loss of his
spiritual power over England. To break with the Emperor was to risk the
loss of his spiritual power over a far larger world. Charles had already
consented to the suspension of the judgement of his diet at Worms, a
consent which gave security to the new Protestantism in North Germany. If
he burned heretics in the Netherlands, he employed them in his armies.
Lutheran soldiers had played their part in the sack of Rome. Lutheranism
had spread from North Germany along the Rhine, it was now pushing fast
into the hereditary possessions of the Austrian House, it had all but
mastered the Low Countries. France itself was mined with heresy; and were
Charles once to give way, the whole continent would be lost to Rome.

[Sidenote: The Trial of the Divorce]

Amidst difficulties such as these the Papal court saw no course open save
one of delay. But the long delay told fatally for Wolsey's fortunes. Even
Clement blamed him for having hindered Henry from judging the matter in
his own realm and marrying on the sentence of his own courts, and the
Boleyns naturally looked upon his policy as dictated by hatred to Anne.
Norfolk and the great peers took courage from the bitter tone of the girl;
and Henry himself charged the Cardinal with a failure in fulfilling the
promises he had made him. King and minister still clung indeed
passionately to their hopes from Rome. But in 1529 Charles met their
pressure with a pressure of his own; and the progress of his arms decided
Clement to avoke the cause to Rome. Wolsey could only hope to anticipate
this decision by pushing the tr