of tongues were busy for twelve months weaving logical subtleties, and all for nothing.  The truth was left unspoken because it was not convenient to speak it, and all parties agreed to persuade themselves and accept one another’s persuasions, that they meant something which they did not mean.  Beyond doubt the theological difficulty really affected the king.  We cannot read his own book[285] upon it without a conviction that his arguments were honestly urged, that his misgivings were real, and that he meant every word which he said.  Yet it is clear at the same time that these misgivings would not have been satisfied, if all the wisdom of the world—­pope, cardinals, councils, and all the learned faculties together—­had declared against him, the true secret of the matter lying deeper, understood and appreciated by all the chief parties concerned, and by the English laity, whose interests were at stake; but in all these barren disputings ignored as if it had no existence.

It was perhaps less easy than it seems to have followed the main road.  The bye ways often promise best at first entrance into them, and Henry’s peculiar temper never allowed him to believe beforehand that a track which he had chosen could lead to any conclusion except that to which he had arranged that it should lead.  With an intellect endlessly fertile in finding reasons to justify what he desired, he could see no justice on any side but his own, or understand that it was possible to disagree with him except from folly of ill-feeling.  Starting always with a foregone conclusion, he arrived of course where he wished to arrive.  His “Glasse of Truth” is a very picture of his mind.  “If the marshall of the host bids us do anything,” he said, “shall we do it if it be against the great captain?  Again, if the great captain bid us do anything, and the king or the emperor commandeth us to do another, dost thou doubt that we must obey the commandment of the king or emperor, and contemn the commandment of the great captain?  Therefore if the king or the emperor bid one thing, and God another, we must obey God, and contemn and not regard neither king nor emperor.”  And, therefore, he argued, “we are not to obey the pope, when the pope commands what is unlawful."[286] These were but many words to prove what the pope would not have questioned; and either they concluded nothing or the conclusion was assumed.

We cannot but think that among the many misfortunes of Henry’s life his theological training was the greatest; and that directly or indirectly it was the parent of all the rest.  If in this unhappy business he had trusted only to his instincts as an English statesman; if he had been contented himself with the truth, and had pressed no arguments except those which in the secrets of his heart had weight with him, he would have spared his own memory a mountain of undeserved reproach, and have spared historians their weary labour through these barren deserts of unreality.