Henry had proceeded
to the last unjustifiable extremity as soon as the character of Campeggio's
mission had been made clear to him, as if to demonstrate to all the world
that he was determined to persevere at all costs and hazards.[160] Taking
the management of the negotiation into his own keeping, he sent Sir Francis
Bryan, the cousin of Anne Boleyn, to the pope, to announce that what he
required must be done, and to declare peremptorily, no more with covert
hints, but with open menace, that in default of help from Rome, he would
lay the matter before parliament, to be settled at home by the laws of his
own country.
Meanwhile, the emperor, who had hitherto conducted himself with the
greatest address, had fallen into his first error. He had retreated
skilfully out of the embarrassment in which the pope's imprisonment
involved him, and mingling authority and dictation with kindness and
deference, he had won over the Holy See to his devotion, and neutralised
the danger to which the alliance of France and England threatened to expose
him. His correspondence with the latter country assured him of the
unpopularity of the course which had been pursued by the cardinal; he was
aware of the obstruction of trade which it had caused, and of the general
displeasure felt by the people at the breach of an old friendship; while
the league with France in behalf of the Roman church had been barren of
results, and was made ridiculous by the obvious preference of the pope for
the enemy from whom it was formed to deliver him.
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