vast deal of negotiation and evasion, the Pope issued a commission to
Cardinal Wolsey and CARDINAL CAMPEGGIO (whom he sent over from Italy for
the purpose), to try the whole case in England. It is supposed--and I
think with reason--that Wolsey was the Queen's enemy, because she had
reproved him for his proud and gorgeous manner of life. But, he did not
at first know that the King wanted to marry Anne Boleyn; and when he did
know it, he even went down on his knees, in the endeavour to dissuade
him.

The Cardinals opened their court in the Convent of the Black Friars, near
to where the bridge of that name in London now stands; and the King and
Queen, that they might be near it, took up their lodgings at the
adjoining palace of Bridewell, of which nothing now remains but a bad
prison. On the opening of the court, when the King and Queen were called
on to appear, that poor ill-used lady, with a dignity and firmness and
yet with a womanly affection worthy to be always admired, went and
kneeled at the King's feet, and said that she had come, a stranger, to
his dominions; that she had been a good and true wife to him for twenty
years; and that she could acknowledge no power in those Cardinals to try
whether she should be considered his wife after all that time, or should
be put away. With that, she got up and left the court, and would never
afterwards come back to it.

The King pretended to be very much overcome, and said, O! my lords and
gentlemen, what a good woman she was to be sure, and how delighted he
would be to live with her unto death, but for that terrible uneasiness in
his mind which was quite wearing him away! So, the case went on, and
there was nothing but talk for two months. Then Cardinal Campeggio, who,
on behalf of the Pope, wanted nothing so much as delay, adjourned it for
two more months; and before that time was elapsed, the Pope himself
adjourned it indefinitely, by requiring the King and Queen to come to
Rome and have it tried there. But by good luck for the King, word was
brought to him by some of his people, that they had happened to meet at
supper, THOMAS CRANMER, a learned Doctor of Cambridge, who had proposed
to urge the Pope on, by referring the case to all the learned doctors and
bishops, here and there and everywhere, and getting their opinions that
the King's marriage was unlawful. The King, who was now in a hurry to
marry Anne Boleyn, thought this such a good idea, that he sent for
Cran