ience to be placed in, but once even a
cardinal embarks in politics the working of his conscience is temporarily
suspended. In world politics the Ten Commandments are apt to become a
negligible quantity.

Henry's conscience was becoming more and more tender. Much may be urged in
favour of the divorce from a political point of view, and no doubt Henry
had a powerful faculty of self-persuasion--such men can grow to believe
that whatever they desire is right, that "there is nothing either good or
bad but thinking makes it so." It is a pity, however, that Henry's
scruples did not assert themselves before the marriage with Katharine took
place, for the ethical arguments against such an union were then equally
strong. Indeed, these scruples appear to have been a "family failing," for
Henry's sister Margaret, Queen of Scotland, obtained a dispensation of
divorce from Rome on far slenderer grounds. To make matters worse for
Henry, Rome was sacked--the Pope was a prisoner in the Emperor's hands. In
this state of things, the Pope was naturally disinclined to give offence
to the Emperor by divorcing his aunt (Katharine).

At all costs, the Pope must be set free--on this errand Wolsey now set out
for France. But Charles V. was no less wily than Wolsey, and dispatched
Cardinal Quignon to Rome to frustrate his endeavours, and to deprive
Wolsey of his legatine powers. A schism between Henry and Wolsey was now
asserting itself--Wolsey being opposed to the King's union with Anne
Boleyn. ("We'll no Anne Boleyns for him!") Wolsey desired that the King
should marry the French King's sister, in order to strengthen his
opposition to Charles V. of Spain.

The Cardinal was indeed in an unenviable position. If the divorce
succeeded, then his enemy, Anne Boleyn, would triumph and he would fall.
If the divorce failed, then Henry would thrust from him the agent who had
failed to secure the object of his master. And in his fall the Cardinal
would drag down the Church. It is said that Wolsey secretly opposed the
divorce. This is fully brought out in Shakespeare's play, and is indeed
the main cause of Wolsey's fall.

There was for Henry now only one way out of the dilemma into which the
power of the Pope had thrown him--that was to obtain a dispensation for a
bigamous marriage. It seems that Henry himself cancelled the proposition
before it was made. This scruple was unnecessary, for the Pope himself
secretly made a proposition "that His Majesty m