The King, no doubt fully aware of Wolsey's plan, was as usual willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike; not caring how much wrong he did if he could only gloze it over to appear right and save his own responsibility before the world. The first formal step, which was taken in April 1527, was carefully devised with this end. Henry, representing that his conscience was assailed by doubts, secretly consulted certain of his councillors as to the legality of his union with his deceased brother's widow. It is true that he had lived with her for eighteen years, and that any impediment to the marriage on the ground of affinity had been dispensed with to the satisfaction of all parties at the time by the Pope's bull. But trifles such as these could never stand in the way of so tender a conscience as that of Henry Tudor, or so overpowering an ambition as that of his minister. The councillors--most of those chosen were of course French partisans--thought the case was very doubtful, and were favourable to an inquiry. On the 17th May 1527, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, who, it will be recollected, had always been against the marriage; with Wolsey, Stephen Gardiner, and certain doctors-of-law, held a private sitting at the York House, Westminster, at which the King had been cited to appear and answer the charge of having lived in incest with his sister-in-law. The Court was adjourned twice, to the 20th and 31st May, during which time the sham pleadings for and against the King were carefully directed to the desired end. But before the first sitting was well over the plot got wind and reached Katharine. The Queen and the imperial connection were popular, Wolsey and the French were feared and detested. The old nobility and the populace were on the Queen's side; the mere rumour of what was intended by the prelates at York House set people growling ominously, and the friends of the Spanish-Flemish alliance became threateningly active. The King and Wolsey saw that for a decree of nullity to be pronounced by Warham and Wolsey alone, after a secret inquiry at which the Queen was not represented, would be too scandalous and dangerous in the state of public feeling, and an attempt was made to get the bishops generally to decide, in answer to a leading question, that such a marriage as that of the King and Katharine was incestuous. But the bishops were faithful sons of the Papacy, and most of them shied at the idea of ignoring the Pope's bull allowing the marriage. Henry had also learnt during the proceedings of the sacking of Rome and the imprisonment of Clement, which was another obstacle to his desires, for though the Pope would doubtless have been quite ready to oblige his English and French friends to the detriment of the Emperor when he was free, it was out of the question that he should do so now that he and his dominions were at the mercy of the imperial troops.