But besides this the chief foreign affairs took a turn which made it impossible to carry out Wolsey's political ideas. In the summer of 1528 the attacks of the allies on Naples were repulsed, and their armies annihilated. In the spring of 1529 the Emperor got the upper hand in Lombardy also. How utterly then did the oft-proposed plan, of depriving him of the supreme dignity, sink into nothingness: he was stronger than ever in Italy. The Pope was fortunate in not having joined the allies more closely; the relations of the States of the Church with Tuscany made a union with the Emperor necessary; he had a horror of a new quarrel with him. And as the Emperor now took up the interests of his mother's sister in the most earnest manner, and protested against proceeding by a Commission granted for England, the Pope could not possibly let the affair go on unchecked. When the English ambassadors pressed him, he exclaimed to them (for apart from this he would gladly have shown more favour to the King) that he felt himself as it were between anvil and hammer. Divers proposals were made, one more extraordinary than the other, if only the King would give up his demand;[99] but this was no longer possible. The two cardinals, Campeggi and Wolsey, had to begin judicial proceedings: King and Queen appeared before the Court, Articles were put forward, witnesses heard: the Correspondence shows that the King and Anne Boleyn expected with much confidence a speedy and favourable decision.[100] Wolsey too did not yet abandon this hope. It was thought at the time that he did not do all he might have done for it, that in fact he no longer favoured it, seeing as he did that it would turn out to the advantage of his rivals.[101] But it was in truth his fate, that the consequences of the design which originated with him recoiled on his own head. If it succeeded, it must be disadvantageous to him: if it failed, he was lost. The exhortations he addressed to the French Court, to exert yet once more its whole influence with the Papal Court for this matter, sound like a cry of distress in extreme peril. He had only undertaken it to unite France and England; the thing was reasonable and practicable, the Pope would not wish by refusing it to offend both crowns at once; he would value it more highly than if he himself were raised to the Papacy. But he had now to find that King Francis, as well as Pope Clement, was seeking a separate peace with the Emperor. Wolsey had given Henry the strongest assurances on this point, that such a thing would never happen, France would never separate herself from him. But yet this now happened, and how could any influence from that quarter on the Roman Court be still expected in favour of England, in a matter which was so highly offensive to the Emperor! The legates received from Rome distinct instructions to proceed slowly, and in no case to pronounce a decision.[102] While King Henry and those around him were eagerly