This he might have done; and though the issue of such a
document at such a time would have been open to question, it might
nevertheless have been defended. His Holiness, however, did nothing of the
kind. No hint was let fall of the existence of any minatory brief; he
sustained his pretence of good will, till there was no longer any occasion
for him to counterfeit; and two months later it suddenly appeared on the
doors of the churches in Flanders.
Henry at first believed it to be forgery, One forged brief had already been
produced by the imperialists in the course of their transactions, and he
imagined that this was another; even his past experience of Clement had not
prepared him for this last venture of effrontery; he wrote to Bennet,
enclosing a copy, and requiring him to ascertain if it were really
genuine.[409]
The pope could not deny his hand, though the exposure, and the strange
irregular character of the brief itself troubled him, and Bonner, who was
again at the papal court, said that "he was in manner ashamed, and in great
perplexity what he might do therein."[410]
His conduct will be variously interpreted, and to attempt to analyse the
motives of a double-minded man is always a hazardous experiment; but a
comparison of date, the character of Clement himself, the circumstances in
which he was placed, and the retrospective evidence from after events,
points almost necessarily to but one interpretation. It is scarcely
disputable that, frightened at the reception of Anne Boleyn in France, the
pope found it necessary to pretend for a time an altered disposition
towards Henry; and that the emperor, unable to feel wholly confident that a
person who was false to others was true to himself, had exacted the brief
from him as a guarantee for his good faith; Charles, on his side, reserving
the publication until Francis had been gained over, and until Clement was
screened against the danger which he so justly feared, from the
consequences of the interview at Calais.
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