, who was still clamouring for the Pope's sentence. "Every
one," he continued, speaking for the Catholic party, whom alone he had
seen, "was angry with the Pope, and angry with the Emperor for not
pressing him further. Peers, clergy, laity, all loved the Queen. She was
patient. She thought that if she could but see the King all might yet be
well. Were the sentence once delivered she was satisfied that he would
submit."[183] The French Ambassador in London, on the other hand,
recommended Francis to force the Pope to hold his hand. He told Chapuys
that "France must and would take Henry's part if a rupture came. The
Emperor had no right to throw Europe into confusion for the sake of a
woman. If the King of England wished to marry again, he should do as Louis
XII. had done under the same circumstances--take the woman that he liked
and waste no more time and money."[184]

At Rome the Pope had been fingering his briefs with hesitating heart. The
first, which he had issued under Charles's eye at Bologna, had been
comparatively firm. He had there ordered Henry to take Catherine back
under penalty of excommunication. The last, though so hardly extracted
from him, was meagre and insignificant. The King, when it was presented,
merely laughed at it. "The Pope," he said, "complains that I have sent the
Queen away. If his Holiness considers her as my wife, the right of
punishing her for the rudeness of her behaviour belongs to me and not to
him."[185]

Ortiz, finding it hopeless to expect a decision on the marriage itself
from the Pope, demanded excommunication on the plea of disobedience to the
Bologna brief. He had succeeded, or thought he had succeeded, in bringing
the Pope to the point. The excommunication was drawn up, "but when it was
to be engrossed and sealed the enemy of mankind prevented its completion
in a manner only known to God." Ortiz continued to urge. The document
could be sent secretly to the Emperor, to be used at his discretion. "If
the Emperor thought fit to issue it, bearing, as it did, God's authority,
God in such cases would infallibly send his terrors upon earth and provide
that no ill should come of it."[186] The Pope was less certain that God
would act as Ortiz undertook for him, and continued to offend the Lord by
delay. In vain Catherine's representative railed at him, in vain told him
that he would commit a great sin and offence against God if he did not
excommunicate a King who was, in mortal sin, keepi