~Cloud solutions~ | For companies..of all sizes

Not able to explore our Adver-tisement below as no picture is present? Please press this to reload'em.

~Cloud solutions~ | For companies..of all sizes

title of honour worthy of such services and such fame; and it was suggested in the Consistory that Henry deserved to be called the Angelic King.1 His bitterest enemy, Pole, averred that no man had done more for Rome, orhad been so much beloved. Such was his reputation in Christendom that whenhe talkedof putting away a wife who was stricken in years to marry a bride in the early bloom of herbeauty, the world was prepared to admire his scruples rather than to doubt his sincerity. Clement, though not without suspicions, suffered them to be allayed. He spoke of the case as one which was beyond his skill, but which no divine was more competent to decide than Henry himself. Campeggio declared, even at the Imperial Court, his belief that Henry's doubts were real. Cajetan wrote of him in 1534, Cochlaeus in 1535, with the full hiurance that he had been deceived by others, and that his own religious knowledge was teaching him to discover and to repair the error of his advisers. After the final condemnation had been pronounced, a prelate engaged in the affair wrote to him in terms implying that in Rome it was understood that he had been led astray, not by phiion but by designing men. Even Paul III. protested that he had made Fisher a Cardinal in the belief that Henry would esteem the elevation of his subject a compliment to himself. The good faith of Henry was attested by an imposing array of supporters. The Nuncio came to Rome to plead his cause. Stafileo and Simonetta, the foremost judges of the Rota, admitted that it was just. Two French bishops who had visited England, and who afterwards became cardinals, Du Bellay and Grammont, persistently supported [29] it. Cardinal Salviati entreated Clement to satisfy the English demands. Wolsey, on whom the Pope had lavished every token of his confidence; Warham, the sullen and jealous opponent of Wolsey, who had been primate for a quarter of a century, and who was now an old man drawing near the grave; Longland, the Bishop of Lincoln,1 the King's confessor, and a bulwark against heresy—all believed that the marriage wasvoid. The English bishops, with one memorable exception, confirmed the King's doubts.The Queen's advisers, Clerk, Standish, Ridley, successively deserted her. Lee, the adversary of Erasmus, who followed Wolsey at York, and Tunstall, the Bishop of London, who followed him at Durham, went against her. The most serious defection was that of Tunstall; for the school of Erasmus were known to oppose the Divorce, and of the friends of Erasmus among the English clergy, Cuthbert Tunstall was the most eminent. He is the only Englishman whose public life extended through all the changes of religion, from the publication of the Theses to the Act of Uniformity. The love and admiration of his greatest contemporaries, the persecution which he endured under Edward, his tolerance under Mary, have preserved his name in honour. Yet we may suspect that a want of generous and definite conviction had something to do with the moderation which is the mark of his career. He reproved2 Erasmus for his imprudence in making accessible the writings of the early Fathers; and in the deliberations touching the separation from Rome, in the most important Session of the Parliament of England, when he was, by his position, his character, and his learning, the first man in the House of Lords, he allowed himself to be silenced by an order from the King. Tunstall informed Catharine that he had abandoned her cause because he .