oyal learning and unblessed with a kingly conscience.
Against that conviction, so firmly rooted in the royal breast, appeals
to pity were vain, and attempts to shake it were perilous. It was his
conscience that made Henry so dangerous. Men are tolerant of
differences about things indifferent, but conscience makes bigots of
us all; theological hatreds are proverbially bitter, and religious
wars are cruel. Conscience made Sir Thomas More persecute, and glory
in the persecution of heretics,[553] and conscience earned Mary her
epithet "Bloody". They were moved by conscientious belief in the
Catholic faith, Henry by conscientious belief in himself; and
conscientious scruples are none the less exigent for being reached by
crooked paths.

[Footnote 550: _L. and P._, vi., 775. _Hoc volo,
sic jubeo; stet pro ratione voluntas._ Luther
quoted this line _a propos_ of Henry; see his
preface to Robert Barnes' _Bekenntniss des
Glaubens_, Wittemberg, 1540.]

[Footnote 551: _L. and P._, vi., 351; vii., 148.]

[Footnote 552: _Ibid._, iv., 6111.]

[Footnote 553: It has been denied that More either
persecuted or gloried in the persecution of
heretics; but he admits himself that he recommended
corporal punishment in two cases and "it is clear
that he underestimated his activity" (_D.N.B._,
xxxviii., 436, and instances and authorities there
cited).]

CHAPTER VIII. (p. 195)

THE POPE'S DILEMMA.

In February, 1527, in pursuance of the alliance with France, which
Wolsey, recognising too late the fatal effects of the union with
Charles, was seeking to make the basis of English policy, a French
embassy arrived in England to conclude a marriage between Francis I.
and the Princess Mary. At its head was Gabriel de Grammont, Bishop of
Tarbes; and in the course of his negotiations he is alleged to have
first suggested those doubts of the validity of Henry's marriage,
which ended in the divorce. The allegation was made by Wolsey three
months later, and from that time down to our own day it has done duty
with Henry's apologists as a sufficient vindication of his conduct. It
is now denounced as an impudent fiction, mainly on