ve said all that I could to his Holiness and the Cardinals without
offending them," he reported to Charles. "Your Majesty may believe me when
I say that these devils are to a man against us. Some take side openly,
being of the French or English faction; others will be easily corrupted,
for every day I hear the English Ambassador receives bills for thousands
of ducats, which are said to go in bribery."[168]

Promises were given in plenty, but no action followed, and Ortiz had the
same story to tell Catherine. "Your Ambassador at Rome," she wrote to her
nephew, "thinks the Pope as cold and indifferent as when the suit began. I
am amazed at his Holiness. How can he allow a suit so scandalous to remain
so long undecided? His conduct cuts me to the soul. You know who has
caused all this mischief. Were the King once free from the snare in which
he has been caught he would confess that God had restored his reason. His
misleaders goad him on like a bull in the arena. Pity that a man so good
and virtuous should be thus deceived. God enlighten his mind!"[169]

To the Emperor himself, perhaps, the problem was growing more difficult
than he expected. He himself at last pressed for sentence, but sentence
was nothing unless followed by excommunication if it was disobeyed, and
the Pope did not choose to use his thunder if there was to be no
thunderbolt to accompany it. The Cardinal Legate in Spain assured him that
the Emperor would employ all his force in the execution of the censures.
The Pope said that he prized that promise as "a word from Heaven." But
though Charles might think the English King was doing what was wrong and
unjust, was it so wrong and so unjust that fire and sword were to be let
loose through Christendom? Chapuys and Catherine were convinced that there
would be no need of such fierce remedies. They might be right, but how if
they were not right? How if England supported the King? The Emperor could
not be certain that even his own subjects would approve of a war for such
an object. Three years later, when the moment for action had arrived, if
action was to be taken at all, it will be seen that the Spanish Council of
State took precisely this view of the matter, and saw no reason for
breaking the peace of Europe for what, after all, was but "a family
quarrel." The Pope was cautious. He knew better than his passionate
advisers how matters really stood. "The Pope may promise," Mai said, "but
as long as the world remains