jecting it, Charles consented also to waive his objections to the interview between Francis and the Pope, February.on which he had looked hitherto with so much suspicion; provided that the Pope would bear in mind some mysterious and unknown communication which had passed at Bologna.[1]
Thus was Francis won. He cared only, as the Pope had seen, for his own interests; and from this time he drew away, by imperceptible degrees, from his engagements to England. He did not stoop to dishonour or treacherous betrayal of confidence, for with all his faults he was, in the technical acceptation of that misused
- ↑ The Emperor's answer touching this interview is come, and is, in effect, that if the Pope shall judge the said interview to be for the wealth and quietness of Christendom, he will not be seen to dissuade his Holiness from the same; but he desired him to remember what he showed to his Holiness when he was with the same, at what time his Holiness offered himself for the commonwealth to go to any place to speak with the French King.—Bennet to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 464.
announced previously that he would consent to no such interview, unless your Highness were also comprised in the same; and if it were so condescended that your Highness and he should be then together, yet you two should go after such a sort and with such power that you would not care whether the Pope and Emperor would have peace or else coups de baston.'—Wallop to Henry, from Paris, Feb. 22. But this was scarcely a complete account of the transaction; it was an account only of so much of it as the French King was pleased to communicate. The Emperor was urgent for a council. The Pope, feeling the difficulty either of excluding or admitting the Protestant representatives, was afraid of consenting to it, and equally afraid of refusing. The meeting proposed to Francis was for the discussion of this difficulty; and Francis, in return, proposed that the great Powers, Henry included, should hold an interview, and arrange beforehand the conclusions at which the council should arrive. This naïve suggestion was waived by Charles, apparently on grounds of religion.—Lord Herbert, Kennet's Edit. p. 167.
