An important member was added to the deputation. One day when the king was occupied with this affair, Thomas Cranmer appeared at the door of his closet with a manuscript in his hand. Cranmer had a fine understanding, a warm heart, a character perhaps too weak, but extensive learning. Captivated by the Holy Scriptures, he desired to seek for truth nowhere else. He had suggested a new point of view to Henry VIII. “The essential thing,” he said, “is to know what the Word of God teaches on the matter in question.” “Show me that,” exclaimed the king. Cranmer brought him his treatise, in which he proved that the Word of God is above all human jurisdiction, and that it forbids marriage with a brother’s widow. Henry took the work in his hand, read it again and again, and praised its excellence. A bright idea occurred to him. “Are you strong enough to maintain before the Bishop of Rome the propositions laid down in this treatise?” said the king. Cranmer was timid, but convinced and devoted. “Yes,” he made answer, “with God’s grace, and if your Majesty commands it.” “Marry, then,” exclaimed Henry with delight, “I will send you.”[29] Cranmer departed with the others in January, 1530. [Sidenote: Clement’s Alarm.] While Henry’s ambassadors were journeying slowly, Charles V., more exasperated than ever against the divorce, endeavored to gain the pope. Clement VII., who was a clever man, and possessed a certain kindly humor, but was at heart cunning, false, and cowardly, amused the puissant emperor with words. When he learned that the King of England was sending an embassy to him, he gave way to the keenest sorrow. What was he to do? which way could he turn? To irritate the emperor was dangerous; to separate England from Rome would be to endure a great loss. Caught between Charles V. and Henry VIII., he groaned aloud; he paced up and down his chamber gesticulating; then suddenly stopping, sank into a chair and burst into tears. Nothing succeeded with him: it was, he thought, as if he had been bewitched. What need was there for the King of England to send him an embassy? Had not Clement told Henry through the Bishop of Tarbes: “I am content the marriage should take place, provided it be without my authorization.”[30] It was of no use: the pope asked him to do without the papacy, and the king would only act with it. He was more popish than the pope. To add to his misfortunes, Charles began to press the pontiff more seriously, and yielding to his importunities, Clement drew up a brief on the 7th of March, in which he commanded Henry “to receive Catherine with love, and to treat her in all things with the affection of a husband.”[31] But the brief was scarcely written when the arrival of the English embassy was announced. The pope in alarm immediately put the document back into his portfolio, promising himself that it would be long before he published it.