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BUt Charles having not given any just cause of breach, Wolsey [ 1524] dared not publickly to profess his affection toward the French, with whom notwithstanding by the intercourse of one John Joa∣chim a Geniuese he maintains intelligence, and without the privity
of Henry lays the platform of a new League. The War was very [ 1525] hot between the Emperour and the French. Francis had already taken Milan, and with a mighty Army sate down before Pavia, vowing not to rise from thence until he had taken it. The Duke of Bourbon and the Imperials were in number little inferiour, and stood in want of nothing but money (indeed all in all) wherewith the Pope, the Venetians, and our Henry were to furnish him. Clement, although he had obtained the Papacy chiefly by Charles his means, detained the money which his predecessor Adrian had promised; saying, it beseemed not his Holiness, to intermeddle with the Wars of Princes. The Venetians at first answered coldly, at length plainly denied; for they stood in awe of the French, and were jealous of the Emperour's ambition: And the malicious Cardinal had so played his part with Henry, that the Imperials disappointed of the monthly summs due from him, were ex∣ceedingly distressed. Now Wolsey to make a separation between these two Princes, told the King, that he certainly found that the Emperour did but delude him: that he had indeed promised to marry the King's Daughter; but a rumour was raised by the Spaniards, That this match would be little either for his profit or his honour, forasmuch as upon the point, the Lady Mary was but a Bastard, begotten, it is true, in wedlock, yet incestuously, the match being by the Ecclesiastical Constitutions made unlawful: for he could not lawfully marry Queen Catharine, who had been before married to his Brother Prince Arthur: That both the Old and New Testaments were express against such conjunctions, and that therefore it lay not in the Pope to dispense with them. It is certain that the Emperour's Ambassadors had thus discoursed with Wolsey upon this very point, and Wolsey made his use of it accordingly. He knew the King doated not on his Queen, and buzzed these things in his ears, in hope he would bethink himself of a new Wife. This taking as he desired, and the King lamen∣ting, that for lack of Issue he should leave the Kingdom to a Child, to a Woman, to One, whom, in regard the lawfulness of her birth was questionable, he could not with safety make his Heir; the Cardinal proposed unto him for Wife Margaret Duchess of 〈◊〉〈◊〉, a beautiful Lady, and Sister to the King of France. He knew, that upon his Divorce from Catharine, and Marriage with the other, Henry must of necessity fall foul with the Emperour, and without hope of reconciliation, strongly adhere to the French. That this Divorce was for these reasons set on foot by Wolsey, the Imperial Historians do all accord; neither for ought I ever read, do Ours deny. But howsoever it came to pass, this is certain, That Henry instead of furnishing the Emperour with the money he had promised, demanded all that he had already lent.
Wolsey per∣suades the King to a Divorce.