t the choice
lay before him to die a martyr or else to be perverted. God, he hoped,
would permit the first. The spirit of one of the murdered Carthusians had
appeared to the brotherhood and informed them of the glorious crown which
had been bestowed on Fisher.[353]

In this exalted humour Catherine's letter found Paul and the Roman clergy.
The Pope had already informed Cifuentes that he meant to proceed to
"deprivation." The letters of execution had been so drawn or re-drawn as
to involve the forfeiture of Henry's throne,[354] and Ortiz considered
that Providence had so ordered it that the Pope was now acting _motu
proprio_ and not at the Queen's solicitation. Cifuentes was of opinion,
however, that Paul meant to wait for the Queen's demand, that the
responsibility might be hers. Chapuys's courier was ordered to deliver
Catherine's letter into the Pope's own hands. Cifuentes took the liberty
of detaining it till the Emperor's pleasure was known. But no one any
longer doubted that the time was come. France and England were no longer
united, and the word for action was to be spoken at last.

At no period of his reign had Henry been in greater danger. At home the
public mind was unsettled. A large and powerful faction of peers and
clergy were prepared for revolt, and abroad he had no longer an ally.
England seemed on the eve of a conflict the issue of which no one could
foresee. At this moment Providence, or the good luck which had so long
befriended him, interposed to save the King and save the Reformation.

Sforza, Duke of Milan and husband of Christina of Denmark, died childless
on the 24th of October. Milan was the special subject of difference
between France and the Empire. The dispute had been suspended while the
Duke was alive. His death reopened the question, and the war long looked
for for the Milan succession became inevitable and immediately imminent.

The entire face of things was now changed. Francis had, perhaps, never
seriously meant to join in executing the Papal sentence against England;
but he had intended to encourage the Emperor to try, that he might fish
himself afterwards in the troubled waters, and probably snatch at Calais.
He now required Henry for a friend again, and the old difficulties and the
old jealousies were revived in the usual form. Both the great Catholic
Powers desired the suspension of the censures. The Emperor was again
unwilling to act as the Pope's champion while he was uncertain