264
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH
[ch. 3.
secured an all but universal consent, except for the secret intrigues of the Spanish agents, and their open direct menaces, when intrigue was insufficient. He complained bitterly of the treachery of the Italians who were in the English pay; the two Cassalis, Pallavicino, and Ghinucci, the Bishop of Worcester. These men, he said, were betraying Henry when they were pretending to serve him, and were playing secretly into the hands of the Emperor.[1] His private despatches were intercepted, or the contents of them by some means were discovered; for the persons whom he named, as inclining against the Papal claims, became marked at once for persecution. One of them, a Carmelite friar, was summoned before the Cardinal Governor of Bologna, and threatened with death;[2] and a certain Father Omnibow, a Venetian who had been in active co-operation with Dr Croke, wrote himself to Henry, informing him in a very graphic manner of the treatment to which, by some treachery, he had been exposed. July 4.Croke and Omnibow were sitting one morning in the latter's cell, 'when there entered upon them the Emperor's great ambassador, accompanied with many gentlemen of Spain, and demanded of the Father how he durst be so bold to take upon him tointermeddle in so great and weighty a matter, the which did not only lessen and enervate the Pope's authority, but was noyful and odious to all Realms Christened.'[3] Omnibow being a man of some
