Brief arrived, the Nuncio was allowed to present it. The King took it with
a smile and passed it on to the Privy Council, talked to him
good-humouredly of indifferent matters, and had never been more polite. In
a light way he told the Nuncio that he knew of his attempt to persuade the
Bishops to agree to nothing to the Pope's prejudice; but his anxiety was
unnecessary; no injury would be done to the Pope, unless the Pope brought
it upon himself. The King's graciousness was but too intelligible. To
Catherine and Chapuys and all their friends the meaning of it was that
Henry had made himself "Pope" in England. The Queen foresaw her own fate
as too sure to follow. She feared "that, since the King was not ashamed of
doing such monstrous things, and there being no one who could or dared
contradict him, he might, one of these days, undertake some further
outrage against her own person."[144]

The blame of the defeat was thrown on the unfortunate Clement. The Pope's
timidity and dissimulation, wrote Chapuys, had produced the effect which
he had all along foretold. It had prejudiced the Queen's interests and his
own authority. Her cause was making no progress. The Pope had promised Mai
that if the King disobeyed his first brief and allowed Anne Boleyn to
remain at court he would excommunicate him, and now all that he had done
had been to issue another conditional brief less strong than the first,
and the Lady was left defiant and with as much authority as ever. The
Queen had begun to think that the Pope had no desire to settle the matter,
and, as Norfolk observed to Chapuys, was glad that the Princes should be
at discord, for fear they might combine to reform the clergy. If the Pope
had directly ordered the King to separate from the Lady Anne, the King
would never have claimed the supremacy[145] which had caused such
universal consternation. The Chancellor [Sir Thomas More] was so horrified
at it, Chapuys said, that he would quit office as soon as possible. The
Bishop of Rochester was sick with grief. He opposed as much as he could;
but they threatened to fling him and his friends into the river, so he had
to yield at last, and had taken to his bed in despair. The Bishops, it was
thought, would now do anything against the Queen which they were ordered,
especially seeing how cold and indifferent the Pope seemed about her fate.
The Nuncio had questioned the King about the nature of his new Papacy. The
King told him that if the Po