With this last resolution the House rose, having sat seventy-five days, and despatched their business swiftly.  A week later, the news arrived from Rome that there too all was at length over; that the cause was decided, and decided against the king.  The history of the closing catastrophe is as obscure as it is strange, and the account of the manner in which it was brought about is unfortunately incomplete in many important particulars.  The outline only can be apprehended, and that very imperfectly.

On the receipt in Paris of the letter in which Henry threatened to organise a Protestant confederacy, Du Bellay, in genuine anxiety for the welfare of Christendom, had volunteered his services for a final effort.  Not a moment was to be lost, for the courts of Rome were already busy with the great cause; but the king’s evident reluctance to break with the Catholic powers, gave room for hope that something might still be done; and going in person to England, the bishop had induced Henry, at the last extremity, either to entrust him with representative powers, or else to allow him after all to make some kind of concession.  I am unable to learn the extent to which Henry yielded, but that an offer was made of some kind is evident from the form of the story.[703] The winter was very cold, but the bishop made his way to Rome with the haste of good will, and arrived in time to stay judgment, which was on the point of being pronounced.  It seemed, for the moment, as if he would succeed.  He was permitted to make engagements on the part of Henry; and that time might be allowed for communication with England, the pope agreed to delay sentence till the 23rd of March.  This bishop’s terms were approved by the king, and a courier was sent off with letters of confirmation; Sir Edward Karne and Dr. Revett following leisurely, with a more ample commission.  The stone which had been laboriously rolled to the summit of the hill was trembling on the brink, and in a moment might rebound into the plain.

But this was not to be the end.  Some accidental cause delayed the courier; the 23rd of March came, and he had not arrived.  Du Bellay implored a further respite.  The King of England, he said, had waited six years; it was not a great thing for the papal council to wait six days.  The cardinals were divided; but the Spanish party were the strongest, and when the votes were taken carried the day.  The die was cast, and the pope, in spite of himself, his promises, and his conscience, drove at length upon the rocks to which he had been so long drifting.[704] In deference to the opinion of the majority of the cardinals, he pronounced the original marriage to have been valid, the dispensation by which it was permitted to have been legal; and, as a natural consequence, Henry, King of England, should he fail in obedience to this judgment, was declared to be excommunicate from the fellowship of the church, and to have forfeited the allegiance of his subjects.