h was made of the Praemunire. The Pope was being urged to
excommunicate the King and declare him deposed. The clergy, through whom
the Pope would act, were to be forced to admit that they were subjects of
the Crown and were bound to obey the laws of their country. It was in no
idle vanity, no ambitious caprice that Henry VIII. demanded the title
which has been so much debated. It was as a practical assertion of the
unity and independence of the realm. England was to have but one sovereign
supreme within her own limits, with whom no foreign prince, secular or
spiritual, had a right to interfere; and an acknowledgement of their
obligation was demanded in ample form from the order which looked
elsewhere for its superior. The black regiments were to be compelled to
swear allegiance to the proper sovereign.

Clement's mind had always misgiven him that, if he pushed Henry too far,
mischief would befall him. He had refused the last brief till it was
extorted from him.[141] As if Mai had not been pressing and vehement
enough, Catherine had now at Rome a special representative of her own, Dr.
Ortiz, a bitter Catholic theologian with the qualities which belong to
that profession. Mai and Ortiz together, listening to no excuse, drove the
Pope on from day to day, demanding sentence with its inevitable
consequence. The Cardinals were alarmed. One of them told Mai that, in
his opinion, the original dispensation really was void, that Julius had
no faculty to dispense in such a case. The Pope suggested that the affair
might be suspended for two years. It might then, perhaps, drop and be
forgotten. He enquired whether, if the King consented to plead by proxy
before him, the Emperor would agree to _any accommodation_. Should the
case go on, it might last fifteen or twenty years. All the Cardinals, said
Mai, nay, the Pope himself, would like to put off the affair entirely, to
avoid trouble.[142] The Court of Rome had, in fact, discovered at last
that matters were really serious, that Henry would not be played with, and
that the quarrel must be peaceably settled. Mai and Ortiz were furious.
They insisted on immediate action. Delay, they said, would be injurious to
the Queen. Their orders were to urge the Pope to proceed and pass
sentence, whether the parties appeared or not. They hinted that very soon
there would be no more trouble from England; they had been told, and they
believed, that, with the clergy on Catherine's side, a Papal decree