Page:History of england froude.djvu/185

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1529.]
THE FALL OF WOLSEY
163

a fresh vista of difficulties, when they were informed that the further hearing of the cause was transferred to Italy, even Wolsey, with certain ruin before him, rose in protest before such a dream of shame. He was no more the Roman legate, but the English minister.

July 27.'If the advocation be passed/ he wrote to Cassalis,[1] 'or shall now at any time hereafter pass, with citation of the King in person, or by proctor, to the court of Rome, or with any clause of interdiction or excommunication, vel cum invocatione brachii sæcularis, whereby the King should be precluded from taking his advantage otherwise, the dignity and prerogative royal of the King's crown, whereunto all the nobles and subjects of this realm will adhere and stick unto the death, may not tolerate nor suffer that the same be obeyed. And to say the truth, in so doing the Pope should not only show himself the King's enemy, but also as much as in him is, provoke all other princes and people to be the semblable. Nor shall it ever be seen that the King's cause shall be ventilated or decided in any place out of his own realm, but that if his Grace should come at any time to the Court of Rome, he would do the same with such a main and army royal as should be formidable to the Pope and all Italy.'[2]
  1. State Papers, vol. vii. p. 193.
  2. {[blockref}}The Emperor could as little trust Clement as the English, and to the last moment could not tell how he would act.
    'Il me semble,' wrote Inigo di Mendoza to Charles on the 17th of June, 1529,—'il me semble que Sa Sainteté differe autant qu'il peut ce qu'auparavant il avoit promis, et je crains qu'il n'ait ordonné aux legatz ce qui jusques à present avoit resté en suspens qu'ils precedent par la première commission. Ce qui faisant votre Majesté peut tenir la Reine autant que condamné.'—MS. Archives at Brussels.
    The sort of influence to which the