erefore, but to go on.

While Wolsey had been hesitating, the King had, unknown to him, sent his
secretary, Dr. Knight, to Rome with directions to obtain access if
possible to the Pope, and procure the dispensation which had been already
applied for to enable him to marry a second time without the formalities
of a judgment. Such an expedient would be convenient in many ways. It
would leave Catherine's position unaffected and the legitimacy of the
Princess Mary unimpugned. Knight went. He found that without a passport he
could not even enter the city, still less be allowed an interview. "With
ten thousand crowns he could not bribe his way into St. Angelo." He
contrived, however, to have a letter introduced, which the Pope answered
by telling Knight to wait in some quiet place. He (the Pope) would "there
send him all the King's requests in as ample a form as they were desired."
Knight trusted in a short time "to have in his custody as much, perfect,
sped, and under lead, as his Highness had long time desired."[26]

Knight was too sanguine. The Emperor, finding the Pope's detention as a
prisoner embarrassing, allowed him, on the 9th of December, to escape to
Orvieto, where he was apparently at liberty; but he was only in a larger
cage, all his territories being occupied by Imperial troops, and he
himself watched by the General of the Observants, and warned at his peril
to grant nothing to Catherine's prejudice. Henry's Secretary followed him,
saw him, and obtained something which on examination proved to be
worthless. The negotiations were left again in Wolsey's hands, and were
pressed with all the eagerness of a desperate man.

Pope Clement had ceased to be a free agent. He did not look to the rights
of the case. He would gladly have pleased Henry could he have pleased him
without displeasing Charles. The case itself was peculiar, and opinions
differed on the rights and wrongs of it. The reader must be from time to
time reminded that, as the law of England has stood ever since, a marriage
with a brother's widow was not a marriage. As the law of the Church then
stood, it was not a marriage unless permitted by the Pope; and according
to the same law of England the Pope neither has, nor ever had, any
authority to dispense with the law. Therefore Henry, on the abstract
contention, was in the right. He had married Catherine under an error. The
problem was to untie the knot with as little suffering to either as the
nature of t