and devotion from the Apostolic See.... It is useless for Campeggio to think of reviving the marriage. If he did it would lead to worse consequences. Let him therefore proceed to sentence. Prostrate at the feet of his Holiness I most urgently beg of him to set aside all delays." This cry, wrung evidently from Wolsey's heart at the knowledge of his own danger, is the first articulate expression of the tremendous religious issue that might depend upon the conduct of the various parties in the divorce proceedings. The fire lit by Luther a few years previously had spread apace in Germany, and had reached England. All Christendom would soon have to range itself in two divisions, cutting athwart old national affinities and alliances. Charles had defied Luther at the outset; and the traditions of his Spanish house made him, the most powerful monarch in Europe, the champion of orthodoxy. But his relations with the Papacy, as we have seen, had not been uniformly cordial. To him the Pope was a little Italian prince whilst he was a great one, and he was jealous of the slightest interference of Rome with the Spanish Church. His position in Germany, moreover, as suzerain of the princes of the Empire, some of whom already leant to Lutheranism, complicated the situation: so that it was not yet absolutely certain that Charles would finally stake everything upon the unification of the Christian Church by force, on the lines of strict Papal authority. On the other hand, both Francis and Henry had for political reasons strongly supported the Pope in his greatest distress, and their religion was certainly no less faithful than that of the Emperor. It was inevitable that, whichever side Charles took in the coming religious struggle, would not for political reasons commend itself to Francis, and _vice versa_; and everything depended upon the weight which Henry might cast into one scale or the other. His national traditions and personal inclination would lead him to side with Charles, but at the crucial moment, when the first grain had to be dropped into the balance, he found himself bound by Wolsey's policy to Francis, and at issue with the Emperor, owing to the relationship of the latter to Katharine. Wolsey felt, in the letter quoted above, that the Pope's shilly-shally, in order not to offend the Emperor, would drive the impatient King of England to flout, and perhaps break with, the Papacy, and events proved that the Cardinal was right in his fears. We shall see later how the rift widened, but here the first fine crevice is visible.