ere to
advise that it should be dropped. Apart from his present infatuation, the
King was a good Christian and would act as one. If he persisted, she might
rely on the Pope's protection. She must consent to nothing which would
imply the dissolution of her marriage. If the worst came, the King would
be made conscious of his duties.[41]

In the middle of October the Legate arrived. He had been ill in earnest
from gout and was still suffering. He had to rest two days in Calais
before he could face the Channel. The passage was wild. A deputation of
Peers and Bishops waited to receive him at Dover. Respectful
demonstrations had been prepared at the towns through which he was to
pass, and a state ceremonial was to accompany his entrance into London.
But he was, or pretended to be, too sick to allow himself to be seen. He
was eight days on the road from the coast, and on reaching his destination
he was carried privately in a state barge to the house provided for his
residence. Wolsey called the next morning. The King was absent, but
returned two days later to the Bridewell palace. There Campeggio waited on
him, accompanied by Wolsey. The weather continued to frown. "I wish,"
wrote Gerardo Molza to the Marchioness of Mantua, "that you could have
seen the two Cardinals abreast, one on his mule, the other carried in his
chair, the rain falling fast so that we were all drenched." The King,
simple man, believed that the documents which he held secured him. The
Pope in sending the Legate had acted in the teeth of the Emperor's
prohibition, and no one guessed how the affair had been soothed down. The
farce was well played, and the language used was what Henry expected.
Messer Floriano, one of Campeggio's suit, made a grand oration, setting
out the storming of Rome, the perils of the Church, and the misery of
Italy, with moving eloquence. The crowd was so dense in the hall of
audience that some of the Italians lost their shoes, and had to step back
barefoot to their lodgings through the wet streets.

The Legate was exhausted by the exertion, but he was not allowed to rest,
and the serious part of the business began at once behind the scenes. He
had hoped, as the Emperor said, that the case might be dropped. He found
Henry immoveable. "An angel from heaven," he wrote on the 17th of
October,[42] "would not be able to persuade the King that his marriage was
not invalid. The matter had come to such a pass that it could no longer be
borne