Cranmer was on the archiepiscopal throne: if Anne Boleyn were now to take her seat on the royal throne by the side of Henry, it was the pope’s opinion that everything would be lost. Clement recurred once more to his favorite suggestion of bigamy, already advised by him in 1528 and 1530. True, this suggestion could not be acceptable either to Henry or to Charles V., but that made it all the better in the eyes of the pontiff: he would then have the appearance of assenting to the king’s plans without running the least risk of seeing them realized. ‘Rather than do what his Majesty asks,’ he said to one of the English envoys, ‘I would prefer granting him the necessary dispensation to have two wives: that would be a smaller scandal.’[258] [Sidenote: Tenacity Of The Pope.] The tenacity with which the pope advised Henry again and again to commit the crime of bigamy has not prevented the most illustrious advocates of catholicism from exclaiming that ‘to have two wives at once is a mystery of iniquity, of which there is no example in Christendom.’[259] A singular assertion after a cardinal and then a pope had on several occasions advised what they called ‘a mystery of iniquity.’ Again, for the third time, the king refused a remedy that was worse than the disease. The pope wished at any price to prevent Rome from losing England; and turning to the other side, he resolved to try to gain over Charles V. and prevail upon him not to oppose the divorce. In order to succeed, Clement determined to undertake a journey to Bologna in the worst season of the year. He started on the 18th of November with six cardinals and a certain number of attendants, and took twenty days to reach that city by way of Perugia. Most of his officers had done everything to dissuade him from this painful expedition, but in vain. The rain fell in torrents; the rivers were swollen and unfordable; the roads muddy and broken up; the mules sank of fatigue one after another; the couriers who preceded him solicited the pope to travel on foot: and at last his Holiness’s favorite mule broke its leg. It mattered not: he must oppose the Reformation of England: the poor pontiff, already sick, had but this one idea. But the discomforts of the journey increased; the pope often arrived at inns where there was no bed, and had to sleep among the straw.[260] At last he reached Bologna on the 7th of December, but in such a plight that, notwithstanding his love for ceremonies, he entered the city furtively.