I. was introduced and
considered. Wolsey declared that in a case so intricate the canon lawyers
must be consulted, and he asked for the opinions of the assembled bishops.
The bishops, one only excepted, gave dubious answers. The aged Bishop of
Rochester, reputed the holiest and wisest of them, said decidedly that the
marriage was good, and the Bull which legalised it sufficient.

These proceedings were not followed up, but the secrecy which had hitherto
been observed was no longer possible, and Catherine and her friends learnt
now for the first time the measure which was in contemplation. Mendoza,
writing on the day following the York Place meeting to the Emperor,
informed him, as a fact which he had learnt on reliable authority, that
Wolsey, for a final stroke of wickedness, was scheming to divorce the
Queen. She was so much alarmed that she did not venture herself to speak
of it, but it was certain that the lawyers and bishops had been invited to
sign a declaration that, being his brother's widow, she could not be the
wife of the King. The Pope, she was afraid, might be tempted to take part
against her, or the Cardinal himself might deliver judgment as Papal
Legate. Her one hope was in the Emperor. The cause of the action taken
against her was her fidelity to the Imperial interests. Nothing as yet
had been made formally public, and she begged that the whole matter might
be kept as private as possible.[9]

That the Pope would be willing, if he dared, to gratify Henry at Charles's
expense was only too likely. The German Lutherans and the German Emperor
were at the moment his most dangerous enemies. France and England were the
only Powers who seemed willing to assist him, and a week before the
meeting of Wolsey's court he had experienced in the most terrible form
what the imperial hostility might bring upon him. On the 7th of that same
month of May the army of the Duke of Bourbon had taken Rome by storm. The
city was given up to pillage. Reverend cardinals were dragged through the
streets on mules' backs, dishonoured and mutilated. Convents of nuns were
abandoned to the licentious soldiery. The horrors of the capture may have
been exaggerated, but it is quite certain that to holy things or holy
persons no respect was paid, and that the atrocities which in those days
were usually perpetrated in stormed towns were on this occasion eminently
conspicuous. The unfortunate Pope, shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo,
looked down