be pleasing to your
Majesty, I endeavoured to divert him from it, and to lead him back to what
I had been previously saying. He was silent for a while, and then, paying
no regard to my interruption, he continued to speak of the 'two wives,'
admitting however that there were difficulties in the way of such an
arrangement, principally it seemed because the emperor would refuse his
consent from the possible injury which it might create to his cousin's
prospects of the succession. I replied, that as to the succession, I could
not see what right the emperor had to a voice upon the matter. If some
lawful means could be discovered by which your Majesty could furnish
yourself with male offspring, the emperor could no more justly complain
than if the queen were to die and the prospects of the princess were
interfered with by a second marriage of an ordinary kind. To this the pope
made no answer. I cannot tell what your Majesty will think, nor how far
this suggestion of the pope would be pleasing to your Majesty. Nor indeed
can I feel sure, in consequence of what he said about the emperor, that he
actually would grant the dispensation of which he spoke. I have thought it
right, however, to inform you of what passed."[395]

This letter is undated, but it was written, as appears from internal
evidence, some time in the year 1532.[396]

The pope's language was ambiguous, and the writer did not allow himself to
derive from it any favourable augury; but the tone in which the suggestions
had been made was by many degrees more favourable than had been heard for a
very long time in the quarter from which they came, and the symptoms which
it promised of a change of feeling were more than confirmed in the
following winter.

Charles was to be at Bologna in the middle of December, where he was to
discuss with Clement the situation of Europe, and in particular of Germany,
with the desirableness of fulfilling the engagements into which he had
entered for a general council.

This was the avowed object of the meeting. But, however important the
question of holding a council was becoming, it was not immediately
pressing; and we cannot doubt that the disquiet occasioned by the alliance
of England and France was the cause that the conference was held at so
inconvenient a season. The pope left Rome on the 18th of November, having
in his train a person who afterwards earned for himself a dark name in
English history, Dr. Bonner, then a famous can