The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part C.: From Henry VII. to Mary — David Hume — John Shaqi
The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol. I., Part C.: From Henry VII. to Mary
David Hume · en
The emperor, acquainted with the king’s extreme earnestness in this
affair, was determined that he should obtain success by no other
means than by an application to him and by deserting his alliance with
Francis, which had hitherto supported, against the superior force
of Spain, the tottering state of the French monarchy. He willingly
hearkened, therefore, to the applications of Catharine, his aunt; and
promising her his utmost protection, exhorted her never to yield to the
malice and persecutions of her enemies. The queen herself was naturally
of a firm and resolute temper; and was engaged by every motive to
persevere in protesting against the injustice to which she thought
herself exposed. The imputation of incest, which was thrown upon her
marriage with Henry, struck her with the highest indignation: the
illegitimacy of her daughter, which seemed a necessary consequence, gave
her the most just concern: the reluctance of yielding to a rival, who,
she believed, had supplanted her in the king’s affections, was a very
natural motive. Actuated by all these considerations, she never
ceased soliciting her nephew’s assistance, and earnestly entreating
an evocation of the cause to Rome, where alone, she thought, she could
expect justice. And the emperor, in all his negotiations with the pope,
made the recall of the commission which Campeggio and Wolsey exercised
in England a fundamental article.[*]
* Herbert, p. 225. Burnet, vol i. p. 69.
The two legates, meanwhile, opened their court at London, and cited the
king and queen to appear before it. They both presented themselves; and
the king answered to his name, when called: but the queen, instead of
answering to hers rose from her seat, and throwing herself at the king’s
feet, made a very pathetic harangue, which her virtue, her dignity, and
her misfortunes rendered the more affecting. She told him, that she
was a stranger in his dominions, without protection, without council,
without assistance; exposed to all the injustice which her enemies were
pleased to impose upon her: that she had quitted her native country
without other resource than her connections with him and his family, and
had expected that, instead of suffering thence any violence or iniquity,
she was assured in them of a safeguard against every misfortune: that
she had been his wife during twenty years, and would here appeal to
himself, whether her affectionate submission to his will had not merited
better treatment, than to be thus, after so long a time, thrown from
him with so much indignity: that she was conscious--he himself was
assured--that her virgin honor was yet unstained when he received her
into his bed and that her connections with his brother had been carried
no further than the ceremony of marriage: that their parents, the kings
of England and Spain, were esteemed the wisest princes of their time,
and had undoubtedly acted by the best advice, when they formed the