And the pope did in fact feel himself in a dilemma from which all his address was required to extricate him.  He had no support from his conscience, for he knew that he was acting unjustly in refusing the divorce; while to risk the emperor’s anger, which was the only honest course before him, was perhaps for that very reason impossible.  He fell back upon his Italian cunning, and it did not fail him in his need.  But his conduct, though creditable to his ingenuity, reflects less pleasantly on his character; and when it is traced through all its windings, few reasonable persons will think that they have need to blush at the causes which led to the last breach between England and the papacy.

From the time of Catherine’s appeal and the retirement of Campeggio, Clement, with rare exceptions, had maintained an attitude of impassive reserve.  He had allowed judgment to be delayed on various pretexts, because until that time delay had answered his purposes sufficiently.  But to the English agents he had been studiously cold, not condescending even to hold out hopes to them that concession might be possible.  Some little time before the meeting at Calais, however, a change was observed in the language both of the pope himself and of the consistory.  The cardinals were visibly afraid of the position which had been taken by the French king; questions supposed to be closed were once more admitted to debate in a manner which seemed to show that their resolution was wavering; and one day, at the close of a long argument, the following curious conversation took place between some person (Sir Gregory Cassalis, apparently), who reported it to Henry, and Clement himself.  “I had desired a private interview with his Holiness,” says the writer, “intending to use all my endeavours to persuade him to satisfy your Majesty.  But although I did my best, I could obtain nothing from him; he had an answer for everything which I advanced, and it was in vain that I laboured to remove his difficulties.  At length, however, in reply to something which I had proposed, he said shortly,—­Multo minus scandalosum fuisset dispensare cum majestate vestra super duabus uxoribus, quam ea cedere quae ego petebam, it would have created less scandal to have granted your Majesty a dispensation to have two wives than to concede what I was then demanding.  As I did not know how far this alternative would be pleasing to your Majesty, I endeavoured to divert him from it, and to lead him back to what I had been previously saying.  He was silent for a while, and then, paying no regard to my interruption, he continued to speak of the ‘two wives,’ admitting however that there were difficulties in the way of such an arrangement, principally it seemed because the emperor would refuse his consent from the possible injury which it might create to his cousin’s prospects of the succession.  I replied, that as to the succession, I could not see what right the emperor had to a voice upon the matter.