History of the English People, Volume III: The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540Green, John Richard
History
History of the English People, Volume III: The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540
Green, John Richard
Great Britain -- History
The adjournment was a mere evasion. The pressure of the Imperialists had
at last forced Clement to summon the cause to his own tribunal at Rome,
and the jurisdiction of the Legates was at an end. "Now see I," cried the
Duke of Suffolk as he dashed his hand on the table, "that the old saw is
true, that there was never Legate or Cardinal that did good to England!"
The Duke only echoed his master's wrath. Through the twenty years of his
reign Henry had known nothing of opposition to his will. His imperious
temper had chafed at the weary negotiations, the subterfuges and perfidies
of the Pope. Though the commission was his own device, his pride must have
been sorely galled by the summons to the Legates' court. The warmest
adherents of the older faith revolted against the degradation of the
crown. "It was the strangest and newest sight and device," says Cavendish,
"that ever we read or heard of in any history or chronicle in any region
that a King and Queen should be convented and constrained by process
compellatory to appear in any court as common persons, within their own
realm and dominion, to abide the judgement and decree of their own
subjects, having the royal diadem and prerogative thereof." Even this
degradation had been borne in vain. Foreign and Papal tribunal as that of
the Legates really was, it lay within Henry's kingdom and had the air of
an English court. But the citation to Rome was a summons to the king to
plead in a court without his realm. Wolsey had himself warned Clement of
the hopelessness of expecting Henry to submit to such humiliation as this.
"If the King be cited to appear in person or by proxy and his prerogative
be interfered with, none of his subjects will tolerate the insult.... To
cite the King to Rome, to threaten him with excommunication, is no more
tolerable than to deprive him of his royal dignity.... If he were to
appear in Italy it would be at the head of a formidable army." But Clement
had been deaf to the warning, and the case had been avoked out of the
realm.
[Sidenote: Wolsey's fall]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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