midable bull; and only consented, after consultation with a convocation of cardinals and theologians, to issue an order for a commission to inquire into the validity of the dispensation granted by Pope Julius, and to revoke it, if it was found to have been by any means surreptitiously obtained.
Fox arrived in England with these instruments in the beginning of May, and was received by Henry in the apartments of Anne, who, on hearing the contents of them, imagining them much more decisive than they were, went into transports of exultation, believing all difficulties now over, and promised all sorts of advancement to the man who had brought them. There was a clause in the commission legitimising the Princess Mary, though the marriage of the mother should be proved invalid. An assembly of divines and casuists was immediately assembled, who subjected every clause of the instruments to a close examination; and Gardiner was again sent off to Italy with new instructions, requesting that Cardinal Campeggio should be joined in the commission with Wolsey, as a prelate more experienced in the forms of the Roman courts. Wolsey, in fact, became alarmed at the weight of responsibility which was threatening him; and it may be said to be this fear which involved Henry in all the difficulties and delays which followed. Wolsey could by the first commission have decided for the divorce, and Henry would have been at liberty to marry; but now the decision would have to be referred back to Rome, and Clement availed himself of this, as we shall see, to defer the dreaded decision, which must involve him irretrievably with the emperor.
Wolsey by this time had taken a serious view of his position in the matter, and it had filled him with the direst apprehensions. He saw on either hand a host of enemies ready to seize an occasion to overthrow him. He was hated by both queens, and by all their relatives and partisans. If he decided for the divorce, the party which was hostile to France, and all those in favour of Catherine, the emperor, and the Flemish alliance, so important to the commerce of the nation, would use every means in their power to destroy him on the first opportunity. If he decided against the divorce, the vengeance of his master, whose furious passions and terrible temper he well knew, would fall like a thunderbolt upon him, and the resentment of Anne, and all her relatives and followers, would ensure his certain downfall; whilst, if he favoured the new mistress, his fate would be little bettor, for he was confident both she and her kins-folk were, one and all, his implacable enemies and rivals, and only waited for her marriage to ruin him with the king, and thrust him down from his high estate. Under these circumstances he began to hesitate, and when Henry urged him to dispatch, he ventured to say that, though he was bound to the king by endless gratitude, and was ready to spend his goods, blood, and life in his service, yet he was under still greater obligations to God, and was bound to do justice, and if the dispensation of Julius was found to be valid, to pronounce it so.
At this declaration from his minister, whom he had raised from the dust, and set on a level with princes, the fury of Henry burst loose, and he heaped on him the most terrible terms of abuse and menace. Wolsey felt that he stood on the edge of a precipice, and prepared for his fall. He hastened to finish his different buildings, and to obtain the charters for his colleges, and declared to his intimate friends that as soon as the divorce was pronounced, and the succession to the crown firmly settled, he would retire to his diocese, and devote the remainder of his life to his ecclesiastical duties. Meantime, he forwarded a fresh despatch to Rome, imploring the Pope, in the most supplicatory terms, to sign the decretal bull, which he promised should be kept secret, considering that his possession of such a bull would be a sure guarantee that his decision would never be revoked. The Pope gave way to the importunities of Gardiner, so far as to sign the bull: but believing that if Wolsey once had it in his hands, he would publish it, and throw the whole onus of the measure upon him, he took care to commit it to the keeping of Campeggio, with the strict injunction never to let it go out of his hands, but to read it to the king, and the cardinal, and then privately to commit it to the flames.
At this exciting crisis, and in the pleasant month of May, the Court and capital were thrown into consternation by the re-appearance of that scourge of the nations in those days, the sweating sickness. We have related the terrible mortality attending this malady on its first appearance in 1485, but the mode of healing the disease was now so well understood by the physicians, that they who followed strictly their regulations were in no real danger. It only required to lie quietly in bed for twenty-four hours, when the danger was over. But any violation of this rule by which the patient was exposed to the air, stopped the profuse perspiration, and the patient died in a few hours. The disorder now appeared first amongst the female attendants of Anne Boleyn, and Henry had her hurried off forthwith to Hever Castle, in Kent, her father's residence. But she carried the aura of the complaint with her, and it spread through the family. She herself, and her father, Lord Rochford, were in extreme danger, but Dr. Butts, the Royal physician, who attended her, brought them safely through. Henry, who was as great a coward as he was a braggadocio of courage and heroism, fled precipitately from the infected place, shut himself up from all approach of his own servants or strangers, and frequently changed the scene of his residence. He was seized with such fear, that he became most pious and amiable. He sent for Queen Catherine, with whom he had long ceased to cohabit; expressed the greatest affection for her, lived with her as a most devoted husband, and attended constant devotions with her. He confessed every day, and took the sacrament with Catherine every Sunday and saint's day. He seemed struck with remorse for his late stern treatment of the cardinal, and sent to him regulations for his diet during the continuance of the pestilence, insisting on hearing from him every day, and on his being so near that the same physician might attend both of them in case of illness.
The cardinal, who had also fled like his sovereign, and concealed himself, was busied in settling the affairs of his soul. He made his will and sent it to Henry, as it no doubt was made magnificently in his favour, and he accompanied it by the most humble assurances that "never for favour, mede, gift, or promysse, had he done or consented to anything that myght in the least poynte re
