tion was an
impossible one, and retired when Parliament was prorogued in May; and
Gardiner had a convenient attack of gout, which kept him away from Court
until the King found he could not conduct foreign affairs without him and
brought him back.

In the meanwhile Katharine neglected the opportunities offered to her of
combining all these powerful elements in her favour. Nobles, clergy, and
people were almost universally on her side: Anne was cordially hated, and
had no friends but the few religious reformers who hoped by her means to
force the King ever further away from the Papacy; and yet the Queen
continued to appeal to Rome and the Emperor, against whom English
patriotic feeling might be raised by Anne's few friends. The unwisdom of
thus linking Katharine's cause with threats of foreign aggression, whilst
England itself was favourable to her, was seen when the Nuncio presented
to Henry a half-hearted exhortation to take his lawful wife back. Henry
fulminated against the foreigner who dared to interfere between him and
his wife; and, very far from alarming him, the Pope's timid action only
proved the impotence of Rome to harm him. But the results fell upon the
misguided Katharine, who had instigated the step. She was sent from the
More to Ampthill, a house belonging to one of her few episcopal enemies.

All through the summer of 1532 the coming and going of French agents to
England puzzled the Queen and her foreign friends; but suddenly, late in
July, the truth came out. Henry and Anne had gone with a great train on a
hunting tour through the midlands in July; but only a few days after
starting they suddenly returned to London. The quidnuncs whispered that
the people on the way had clamoured so loudly that the Queen might be
recalled to Court, and had so grossly insulted Anne, that the royal party
had been driven back in disgust; and though there was no doubt some ground
for the assertion, the real reason for the return was that the interview
between Henry and the French king, so long secretly in negotiation, had at
last been settled. To enlist Francis personally on the side of the
divorce, and against the clerical influence, was good policy; for the
Emperor could not afford to quarrel both with France and England for his
aunt, and especially as the meeting arranged between Francis and the Pope
at Nice for the betrothal of the Duke of Orleans with Katharine de Medici
was already in contemplation, and threatened the