However, this line of argument was stubbornly pursued by Gardiner even in the Pope's presence. Clement at Orvieto was not surrounded by the pomp and splendour customary to his office. The English envoys found him in a little room, seated on a wooden bench which was covered with "an old coverlet not worth twenty pence." But he did not see his way to a restoration of his dignity by an unhesitating compliance with the demands of the English king; on the other hand, the mere fact that his fortunes had sunk so low demanded greater circumspection. He was not likely to escape from dependence on Charles V. by making himself the tool of Francis I. and Henry VIII.; such a proceeding would only lead to the entire destruction of the papal authority. Its restoration must be achieved by holding the balance between the opposing Powers of Europe, and Henry VIII.'s desire for a divorce gave the Pope an opportunity of showing that he was still a personage of some importance. Dynastic questions still depended on his decree, and he could use Henry's application as a means of showing Charles that he had something to fear from the Papacy, and that it was his policy to make the Papacy friendly to himself. So Clement resolved to adopt a congenial course of temporising, in the hope that he might see his advantage in some turn of affairs. No doubt he thought that Henry's matter would soon settle itself; either his passion for Anne Boleyn would pass away, or he would make her his mistress. The stubbornness of Henry, his strange hold upon formal morality while pursuing an immoral course of conduct, his imperious selfwill, which grew by opposition--these were incalculable elements which might have upset the plans of wiser men than Clement VII. So the Pope acted the part of the good simple man who wishes to do what is right. He lamented his own ignorance, and proposed to consult those who were more learned in canon law than himself. When Gardiner said that England asked nothing but justice, and if it were refused would be driven to think that God had taken away from the Holy See the key of knowledge, and would begin to adopt the opinion of those who thought that pontifical laws, which were not clear to the Pope himself, might well be committed to the flames, Clement sighed, and suggested a compromise. Then he added, with a smile, that though canonists said "the Pope has all laws in the cabinet of his breast," yet God had not given him the key to open that cabinet; he could only consult his cardinals.