ABSTRACT
The actual history of the divorce is extremely complicated and confused, full of t\vists and turns which it would be pointless to follo\v. At first, Henry thought he could get his divorce from the pope, the only proper authority, as others had done before him; the matrimonial adventures of his sister Margaret and his friend Suffolk, both of whom had been freed from inconvenient commitments by a compliant papacy, provided recent precedents, and, after all, the pope owed both king and cardinal a burden of gratitude. It all began with a secret collusive action in May 1527 when Walsey summoned Henry before his legatine court to explain why he was living in sin with his brother's \vidow. He intended to establish a prima facie case for declaring the marriage invalid which would then be confirmed by the pope. But the apparently unexpected indignation with which Catherine received the ne\vs first arrested the easy progress of the matter; and \vhen, late in May, the imperialist troops sacked Rome and took the pope prisoner the situation changed entirely. Wolsey, well aware that all his power depended on the successful accomplishment of Henry's desires, now proved full of invention, but at all points Clement VII, horrified at the quandary into which he had been put, was a match for him. In 1527, the cardinal proposed to act with the assistance of the Church without Rome-capto papa-a plan \vhich was wrecked first by the failure of the French cardinals to back him up and then by the politic 'liberation' of Clement in December. In 1528, therefore, Wolsey concentrated on getting a sufficient commission from the pope which would enable him to dissolve the marriage and free Henry in all respects for re-marriage. rfhe king insisted throughout on the safest dispensation that could be got: there must never be a shadow of doubt on his s(cond marriage and the issue he hoped it would produce, and therefore fun papal
authority was necessary. He had thus no use for Clement's desperate suggestion that Henry should get himself divorced in England and in any way he liked, or even commit bigamy, as long as the papacy was not involved. Wolsey wanted a decretal commission virtually empowering him to declare the marriage void; instead the pope at last (April 1528) granted a commission to try the case as though it had not already beentried and settled in Henry's own mind. This public commissionwas made out to \Volsey and Cardinal Campeggio, bishop of Salisbury and protector of England at the papal curia. Further pressure, however, together with the French successes in Italy early in 1528, induced Clement to add a secret decretal commission which he entrusted to Campeggio with private instructions not to use it. By October, when Campeggio at last reached England, the situation in Italy had been completely reversed by the imperialist triutnph at Genoa \vhich once nlore persuaded the pope that his way lay with Charles V.
