passing over the claims of Henry's sisters, but on the score of Edward IV.'s grandson, the Marquis of Exeter, might, thought Chapuys, (p. 306) be removed by appealing to the notorious sentence of Bishop Stillington, who, on the demand of Richard III., had pronounced Edward IV.'s marriage void and his children illegitimate.[860] Those who had been the King's firm supporters when the divorce first came up were some of them wavering, and others turning back.[861] Archbishop Lee, Bishops Tunstall and Gardiner, and Bennet,[862] were now all in secret or open opposition, and even Longland was expressing to Chapuys regrets that he had ever been Henry's confessor;[863] like other half-hearted revolutionists, they would never have started at all, had they known how far they would have to go, and now they were setting their sails for an adverse breeze. It was the King, and the King alone, who kept England on the course which he had mapped out. Pope and Emperor were defied; Europe was shocked; Francis himself disapproved of the breach with the Church; Ireland was in revolt; Scotland, as ever, was hostile; legislation had been thrust down the throats of a recalcitrant Church, and, we are asked to believe, of a no less unwilling House of Commons, while the people at large were seething with indignation at the insults heaped upon the injured Queen and her daughter. By all the laws of nature, of morals, and of politics, it would seem, Henry was doomed to the fate of the monarch in the Book of Daniel the Prophet,[864] who did according to his will and exalted and magnified himself above every god; who divided the land for gain, and had power over the treasures of gold and silver; who was troubled by tidings from the east and from the north; who went forth with (p. 307) great fury to destroy and utterly make away many, and yet came to his end, and none helped him. [Footnote 852: _Ibid._, vi., 918.] [Footnote 853: _L. and P._, vi., 508; vii., 121.] [Footnote 854: _Ibid._, v., 1324.] [Footnote 855: _Ibid._, v., 416.] [Footnote 856: See _Transactions of the Royal Hist. Soc._, N.S., xviii.; _L. and P._, vi., 1419, 1445, 1464, 1467, 1468.] [Footnote 857: _L. and P._, v., 609, 807; vi., 815, 821.] [Footnote 858: _Ibid._, vi., 446, 541; vii., 114.] [Footnote 859: _Ibid._, vi., 1164.] [Footnote 860: _L. and P._, vii., 1368.] [Footnote 861: Even Norfolk, and Suffolk and his wife wanted to dissuade Henry in 1531 from persisting in the divorce (_ibid._, v., 287).] [Footnote 862: _Ibid._, v., 696.] [Footnote 863: _Ibid._, vii., 14.] [Footnote 864: Daniel xi., 36-45.]