During forty days they are obliged to serve in the army without receiving pay; after that time they receive three crowns and a half for a period of service determined beforehand. The fleet consists of one hundred and fifty vessels. It now only remains for me to tell you who are the friends of the King, and what consequences his divorce might have, and I shall then add a few words on the most Reverend the Cardinal York. Since the affair of the divorce has come up [Falier is writing in 1531, and Henry VIII. married Anne Boleyn the next year] the Pope [Clement VII.] is not in his Majesty’s good graces. If the Holy Father will not grant the King permission to divorce, the result will be a very great advantage for the English crown, and a great danger to the Roman Church, for the King will detach himself from the latter, and will seize all the revenues of the ecclesiastical benefices; this will yield the Crown more than six million ducats [£4,500,000]. Falier was not mistaken, unless, perhaps, in his figures. He proceeds to speak of the relations between England and all the other European states, after which he returns to the question of the divorce, expressing himself in a very singular way for a Catholic. It must be remembered, however, that he was a Venetian, and therefore a man of business first, and a baptized Christian afterward. The Englishman [Henry VIII.] must necessarily divorce, for he wishes to have a legitimate son, and he has lost all hope of one being born to him by the Lady Catharine [of Aragon]. He will therefore marry his favourite [Anne Boleyn] the daughter of the Earl of Vuilcer (_sic_) [Wiltshire--note the Venetian’s phonetic spelling!] as soon as possible. He will have trouble, for the faction that is for the Queen will rise. It is quite clear that Venetian diplomatists did not indulge themselves in sentiment, and the information they presented to the Senate was as brutally frank and coldly precise as a medical diagnosis. They sought for facts and did not philosophise about them. Here is Falier’s opinion of Cardinal Wolsey:-- The King and the kingdom were in his hands, and he disposed of everything as the King himself might have done, or the Pope. All the princes were obliged to bow down to him. He received one hundred and fifty thousand ducats yearly over and above the gifts which he had from the English and the foreign princes. He counted much on France, with which kingdom he kept up extremely affectionate relations. His court was magnificent, more magnificent than the King’s. He spent all his income, he was very proud, and he wished to be adored like a god rather than respected as a prince.