he case permitted. That the negotiations were full of
inconsistencies, evasions, and contradictions, was natural and inevitable.
To cut the knot without untying it was the only direct course, but that
all means were exhausted before the application of so violent a remedy was
rather a credit than a reproach.

The first inconsistency was in the King. He did not regard his marriage as
valid; therefore he thought himself at liberty to marry again; but he did
not wish to illegitimatise his daughter or degrade Catherine. He disputed
the validity of the dispensation of Julius II.; yet he required a
dispensation from Clement which was equally questionable to enable him to
take a second wife. The management of the case having reverted to Wolsey,
fresh instructions were sent to Sir Gregory Casalis, the regular English
agent at the Papal court, to wait on Clement. Casalis was "bid consider
how much the affair concerned the relief of the King's conscience, the
safety of his soul, the preservation of his life, the continuation of his
succession, the welfare and repose of all his subjects now and hereafter."
The Pope at Orvieto was personally accessible. Casalis was to represent to
him the many difficulties which had arisen in connection with the
marriage, and the certainty of civil war in England should the King die
leaving the succession no better provided for. He was, therefore, to
request the Pope to grant a commission to Wolsey to hear the case and to
decide it, and (perhaps as an alternative) to sign a dispensation, a draft
of which Wolsey enclosed. The language of the dispensation was peculiar.
Wolsey explained it by saying that "the King, remembering by the example
of past times what false claims [to the crown] had been put forward, to
avoid all colour or pretext of the same, desired this of the Pope as
absolutely necessary." If these two requests were conceded, Henry
undertook on his part to require the Emperor to set the Pope at liberty,
or to declare war against him if he refused.

A dispensation, which was to evade the real point at issue, yet to convey
to the King a power to take another wife, was a novelty in itself and
likely to be carefully worded. It has given occasion among modern
historians to important inferences disgraceful to everyone concerned. The
sinister meaning supposed to be obvious to modern critics could not have
been concealed from the Pope himself. Here, therefore, follow the words
which have been fast