Bribes, as lavish as they were barefaced, were offered to jurists for decisions confirming the view that marriage with a deceased brother's widow was invalid in fact, and incapable of dispensation. The French Universities were influenced until some sort of irregular dictum, afterwards formally repudiated, was obtained in favour of Henry, and in Italy French and Spanish intrigue were busy at work, the one extorting from lawyers support to the English view, the other by threats and bribes preventing its being given. This, however, was a slow process, and of doubtful efficacy after all; because, whilst the final decision on the divorce lay with the Pope, the opinions of jurists and Universities, even if they had been generally favourable to Henry, instead of the reverse, could have had ultimately no authoritative effect. Henry began to grow restive by the end of 1530. All his life he had seemed to have his own way in everything, and here he found himself and his most ardent wishes unceremoniously set aside, as if of no account. Other kings had obtained divorces easily enough from Rome: why not he? The answer that would naturally occur to him was that his affairs were being ineptly managed by his ministers, and he again yearned for Wolsey. The Cardinal had in the meanwhile plucked up some of his old spirit at York, and was still in close communication with the French, and even with the Emperor's ambassador. Again Norfolk became alarmed, and a disclosure of the intrigue gave an excuse for Wolsey's arrest. It was the last blow, and the heart of the proud Cardinal broke on his way south to prison, leaving Henry with no strong councillor but the fair-faced woman with the tight mouth who sat in his wife's place. She was brave; "as fierce as a lioness," the Emperor's ambassador wrote, and would "rather see the Queen hanged than recognise her as her mistress"; but the party behind her was a divided one, and the greatest powers in Europe were united against her. There was only one way in which she might win, and that was by linking her cause with that of successful opposition to the Papacy. The Pope was a small Italian prince now slavishly subservient to the Emperor: Luther had defied a greater Sovereign Pontiff than he; why should Clement, a degenerate scion of the mercantile Medicis, dare to dictate to England and her King? CHAPTER V 1530-1534 HENRY'S DEFIANCE--THE VICTORY OF ANNE