s not in favour with either side."[131] A change was passing over public
feeling. Every day gave strength to the King's cause. Archbishop Warham,
who had been hitherto for the Queen, was beginning to waver, and even to
think that he might try the suit in his own court.[132] The Queen, the
Nuncio, the Bishop of Rochester, and the friends who remained staunch to
her agreed unanimously that the boldest course would be the wisest.
Immediate sentence at Rome in the Queen's favour was the only remedy.
Gentleness was thrown away. Let the King see that the Pope was really in
earnest, and he would not venture to go further. Catherine herself wrote
to Clement with the passion of a suffering woman. "Delay," she said,
"would be the cause of a new hell upon earth, the remedy for which would
be worse than the worst that had ever yet been tried."[133] She did not
blame the King. The fault was with the wicked counsellors who misled him.
Once delivered out of their hands, he would be as dutiful a son of the
Church as he had ever been.[134]

It is noticeable throughout that each of the two parties assumed that the
Pope's judgment when he gave it must be on its own side. The King demanded
a sentence in favour of the divorce; the Queen and the Emperor a sentence
that the marriage was good. The Pope was to try the cause; but neither
admitted that the right or the wrong was doubtful, or that the Pope must
hear the arguments before he could decide. Doubtless they were justified
in so regarding the Pope's tribunal. The trial would be undertaken, if a
trial there was to be, with a foregone conclusion; but what kind of a
court of justice could the Rota be if it could be so spoken of, and its
master so be addressed?

Most idolatries pass through the same stage. The idol is whipped before he
is finally discarded. The Holy Ghost is still invited to assist the
Cathedral Chapters in the choice of a Bishop, but must choose the person
already named by the Prime Minister under pain of Praemunire. Men should
choose their idols better. Reasonable beings are not fit objects of such
treatment. Much is to be said in favour of stuffed straw or the graven
image, which the scourge itself cannot force to speak. Anne Boleyn was
jubilant. "She is braver than a lion," wrote Chapuys. She said to one of
the Queen's ladies that she wished all the Spaniards in the world were in
the sea. The lady told her such language was disrespectful to her
mistress. She said she car