As soon as the English envoys had taken up their quarters at Bologna, the ambassadors of France called to pay their respects. De Gramont, Bishop of Tarbes, was overflowing with politeness, especially to the Earl of Wiltshire. “I have shown much honor to M. de Rochford,” he wrote to his master on the 28th of March. “I went out to meet him. I have visited him often at his lodging. I have fêted him, and offered him my solicitations and services, telling him that such were your orders.”[32] Not thus did Clement VII. act: the arrival of the Earl of Wiltshire and his colleagues was a cause of alarm to him. Yet he must make up his mind to receive them: he appointed the day and the hour for the audience. Henry VIII. desired that his representatives should appear with great pomp, and accordingly the ambassador and his colleagues went to great expense with that intent.[33] Wiltshire entered first into the audience-hall; being father of Anne Boleyn, he had been appointed by the king as the man in all England most interested in the success of his plans. But Henry had calculated badly: the personal interest which the earl felt in the divorce made him odious both to Charles and Clement. The pope, wearing his pontifical robes, was seated on the throne surrounded by his cardinals. The ambassadors approached, made the customary salutations, and stood before him. The pontiff, wishing to show his kindly feelings towards the envoys of the “_Defender of the Faith_,” put out his slipper according to custom, presenting it graciously to the kisses of those proud Englishmen. The revolt was about to begin. The earl, remaining motionless, refused to kiss his holiness’s slipper. But that was not all; a fine spaniel, with long silky hair, which Wiltshire had brought from England, had followed him to the episcopal palace. When the bishop of Rome put out his foot, the dog did what other dogs would have done under similar circumstances: he flew at the foot, and caught the pope by the great toe.[34] Clement hastily drew it back. The sublime borders on the ridiculous: the ambassadors, bursting with laughter, raised their arms and hid their faces behind their long rich sleeves. “That dog was a _protestant_,” said a reverend father. “Whatever he was,” said an Englishman, “he taught us that a pope’s foot was more meet to be bitten by dogs than kissed by Christian men.” The pope, recovering from his emotion, prepared to listen, and the count, regaining his seriousness, explained to the pontiff that as Holy Scripture forbade a man to marry his brother’s wife, Henry VIII. required him to annul as unlawful his union with Catherine of Aragon. As Clement did not seem convinced, the ambassador skilfully insinuated that the king might possibly declare himself independent of Rome, and place the British church under the direction of a patriarch. “The example,” added the ambassador, “will not fail to be imitated by other kingdoms of Christendom.”[35]