In this exalted humour Catherine's letter found Paul and the Roman clergy. The Pope had already informed Cifuentes that he meant to proceed to "deprivation." The letters of execution had been so drawn or re-drawn as to involve the forfeiture of Henry's throne,[354] and Ortiz considered that Providence had so ordered it that the Pope was now acting _motu proprio_ and not at the Queen's solicitation. Cifuentes was of opinion, however, that Paul meant to wait for the Queen's demand, that the responsibility might be hers. Chapuys's courier was ordered to deliver Catherine's letter into the Pope's own hands. Cifuentes took the liberty of detaining it till the Emperor's pleasure was known. But no one any longer doubted that the time was come. France and England were no longer united, and the word for action was to be spoken at last. At no period of his reign had Henry been in greater danger. At home the public mind was unsettled. A large and powerful faction of peers and clergy were prepared for revolt, and abroad he had no longer an ally. England seemed on the eve of a conflict the issue of which no one could foresee. At this moment Providence, or the good luck which had so long befriended him, interposed to save the King and save the Reformation. Sforza, Duke of Milan and husband of Christina of Denmark, died childless on the 24th of October. Milan was the special subject of difference between France and the Empire. The dispute had been suspended while the Duke was alive. His death reopened the question, and the war long looked for for the Milan succession became inevitable and immediately imminent. The entire face of things was now changed. Francis had, perhaps, never seriously meant to join in executing the Papal sentence against England; but he had intended to encourage the Emperor to try, that he might fish himself afterwards in the troubled waters, and probably snatch at Calais. He now required Henry for a friend again, and the old difficulties and the old jealousies were revived in the usual form. Both the great Catholic Powers desired the suspension of the censures. The Emperor was again unwilling to act as the Pope's champion while he was uncertain of the French King. Francis wished to recover his position as Henry's defender. The Pope was an Italian prince as well as sovereign of the Church, and his secular interest was thought to be more French than Imperial. No sooner was Sforza gone than the Cardinal Du Bellay and the Bishop of Macon were despatched from Paris to see and talk with Paul. They found him still too absorbed in the English question to attend to anything besides. He was in the high exalted mood of Gregory VII., imagining that he was about to reassert the ancient Papal prerogative, and again dispose of kingdoms.