rising storm,[1] a storm which would be so terrible when it burst 'that it would be better to die than to live.' The Pope was strangely unable to believe that the danger could be real, being misled perhaps by other information from the friends of Queen Catherine, and by an overconfidence in the attachment of the people to the Emperor. He acted throughout in a manner natural to a timid amiable man, who found himself in circumstances to which he was unequal; and as long as we look at him merely as a man we can pity his embarrassment. He forgot, however, that only because he was supposed to be more than a man had kings and emperors consented to plead at his judgment-seat—a fact of which Stephen Gardiner, then Wolsey's secretary, thought it well to remind him in the following striking language:
'Unless,' said the future Bishop of Winchester in the council, at the close of a weary day of unprofitable debating, 'unless some other resolution be taken than I perceive you intend to make, hereupon shall be gathered a marvellous opinion of your Holiness, of the college of cardinals, and of the authority of this See. The King's Highness, and the nobles of the realm who shall be made privy to this, shall needs think that your Holiness and these most reverend and learned councillors either will not answer in this cause, or cannot answer. If you will
- ↑ Burnet's Collectanea, p. 20. Wolsey to John Cassalis: If his Holyness, which God forbid, shall shew himself unwilling to listen to the King's demands, to me assuredly it will be but grief to live longer, for the innumerable evils which I foresee will then follow. One only sure remedy remains to prevent the worst calamities. If that be neglected. there is nothing before us but universal and inevitable ruin.'
