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It will be observed that many important facts are alluded to in this letter, of which we have no other knowledge. Cromwell to Cassalis: State Papers, Vol. VII. p. 633. Paul himself said that it was reserved at the intercession of the Princes of Europe. Intercession is too mild a word for the species of interference which was exerted.
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.
The postscript was not issued, it was not spoken of; it was carried secretly to Bologna, and it bears at its foot a further date of the 23rd of December, the very time, that is to say, at which the pope was representing himself to Bennet as occupied only in devising the best means of satisfying Henry, and to Sir Gregory Cassalis, as so convinced of the justice of the English demands, that he had ventured in defence of them to the edge of rupture with the emperor.
With the German princes Henry was scarcely less imperious; and it is noteworthy that the most elaborate defence which he condescended to make is that which was sent to Sir Gregory Cassalis, to be laid before the pope. It was written in reply to the letter in which Cassalis reported the irritation of the Roman court, and enters into the whole ground of complaint against More and Fisher.
In January, 1532, some little time before his conversation with Sir Gregory Cassalis on the subject of the two wives, the pope had composed a pastoral letter to Henry, which had never been issued.
On the 26th of December, two days later, Sir Gregory Cassalis, who had also followed the papal court to Bologna, wrote to the same effect. He, too, had been with the pope, who had been very open and confidential with him. The emperor, the pope said, had complained of the delay in the process, but he had assured him that it was impossible for the consistory to do more than it had done.
By the middle of the winter we find the private messenger associated openly with Sir Gregory Cassalis, the agent of the minister's communications; and a series of formal demands were presented jointly by these two persons in the names of Henry and the legate; which, though taking many forms, resolved themselves substantially into one.
Cassalis, aware of the effect which the news would produce in England, hurried to such friends as he possessed in the conclave to protest against the appointment. The king, he said, would inevitably regard it as injurious to the realm and insulting to himself; and it was madness at such a moment to trifle with Henry's displeasure.
The fact cannot be ascertained, however, because the divorce itself was not discussed at the council table until Wolsey had induced the king to change his policy by the hope of immediate relief. Wolsey has revealed to us fully his own objects in a letter to Sir Gregory Cassalis, his agent at Rome.
Cassalis himself was afterwards disposed to believe that the appointment was made in thoughtlessness, and that the pope at the moment had really forgotten Fisher's position. But this could gain no credit in England. The news reached the government in the middle of June, and determined the fate of the unfortunate bishop; and with it the fate, also, of his nobler companion.
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