It was determined further, on the recal of the Duke of Norfolk, that the opportunity of the meeting should be taken to give a notice to the pope of the king’s appeal to the council; and for this purpose, Bennet and Bonner were directed to follow the papal court from Rome.  Bennet never accomplished this journey, dying on the route, worn out with much service.[623] His death delayed Bonner, and the conferences had opened for many days before his arrival.  Clement had reached Marseilles by ship from Genoa, about the 20th of October.  As if pointedly to irritate Henry, he had placed himself under the conduct of the Duke of Albany.[624] He was followed two days later by his fair niece, Catherine de Medici; and the preparations for the marriage were commenced with the utmost swiftness and secrecy.  The conditions of the contract were not allowed to transpire, but they were concluded in three days; and on this 25th of October the pope bestowed his precious present on the Duke of Orleans, he himself performing the nuptial ceremony, and accompanying it with his paternal benediction on the young pair, and on the happy country which was to possess them for its king and queen.  France being thus securely riveted to Rome, other matters could be talked of more easily.  Francis made all decent overtures to the pope in behalf of Henry; if the pope was to be believed indeed, he was vehemently urgent.[625] Clement in turn made suggestions for terms of alliance between Francis and Charles, “to the advantage of the Most Christian king;"[626] and thus parried the remonstrances.  The only point positively clear to the observers, was the perfect understanding which existed between the King of France and his spiritual father.[627] Unusual activity was remarked in the dockyards; Italian soldiers of fortune were about the court in unusual numbers, and apparently in favour.[628] An invasion of Lombardy was talked of among the palace retinue; and the emperor was said to distrust the intentions of the conference.  Possibly experience had taught all parties to doubt each other’s faith.  Possibly they were all in some degree waiting upon events; and had not yet resolved upon their conduct.

In the midst of this scene arrived Doctor Bonner, in the beginning of November, with Henry’s appeal.  He was a strange figure to appear in such a society.  There was little probity, perhaps, either in the court of France, or in their Italian visitors:  but of refinement, of culture, of those graces which enable men to dispense with the more austere excellences of character—­which transform licentiousness into elegant frailty, and treachery and falsehood into pardonable finesse—­of these there was very much:  and when a rough, coarse, vulgar Englishman was plunged among these delicate ladies and gentlemen, he formed an element which contrasted strongly with the general environment.  Yet Banner, perhaps, was not without qualifications which fitted him for his mission.  He was not, indeed, virtuous; but he had a certain downright honesty about him, joined with an entire insensibility to those finer perceptions which would have interfered with plain speaking, where plain speaking was desirable; he had a broad, not ungenial humour, which showed him things and persons in their genuine light, and enabled him to picture them for us with a distinctness for which we owe him lasting thanks.