towards us, neglect, or omit to do with all your diligence, whatsoever shall be in your power for the due performance of our pleasure to you declared, or halt or stumble at any part or specialty of the same; Be ye assured that we, like a prince of justice, will so extremely punish you for the same, that all the world beside shall take by you example, and beware contrary to their allegiance to disobey the lawful commandment of their Sovereign Lord and Prince.

“Given under our signet, at our Palace of Westminster, the 9th day of June, 1534."[724]

So Henry spoke at last.  There was no place any more for nice distinctions and care of tender consciences.  The general, when the shot is flying, cannot qualify his orders with dainty periods.  Swift command and swift obedience can alone be tolerated; and martial law for those who hesitate.

This chapter has brought many things to a close.  Before ending it we will leap over three months, to the termination of the career of the pope who has been so far our companion.  Not any more was the distracted Clement to twist his handkerchief, or weep, or flatter, or wildly wave his arms in angry impotence; he was to lie down in his long rest, and vex the world no more.  He had lived to set England free—­an exploit which, in the face of so persevering an anxiety to escape a separation, required a rare genius and a combination of singular qualities.  He had finished his work, and now he was allowed to depart.

In him, infinite insincerity was accompanied with a grace of manner which regained confidence as rapidly as it was forfeited.  Desiring sincerely, so far as he could be sincere in anything, to please every one by turns, and reckless of truth to a degree in which he was without a rival in the world, he sought only to escape his difficulties by inactivity, and he trusted to provide himself with a refuge against all contingencies by waiting upon time.  Even when at length he was compelled to act, and to act in a distinct direction, his plausibility long enabled him to explain away his conduct; and, honest in the excess of his dishonesty, he wore his falsehood with so easy a grace that it assumed the character of truth.  He was false, deceitful, treacherous; yet he had the virtue of not pretending to be virtuous.  He was a real man, though but an indifferent one; and we can refuse to no one, however grave his faults, a certain ambiguous sympathy, when in his perplexities he shows us features so truly human in their weakness as those of Clement VII.

* * * * *

NOTES.

[1] Printed in FOXE, vol. iv. p. 659, Townsend’s edition.

[2] 24 Hen.  VIII. cap. 4.

[3] Bishop Latimer, in a sermon at Paul’s Cross, suggested another purpose which this act might answer.  One of his audience, writing to the Mayor of Plymouth, after describing the exceedingly disrespectful language in which he spoke of the high church dignitaries, continues, “The king,” quoth he, “made a marvellous good act of parliament that certain men should sow every of them two acres of hemp; but it were all too little were it so much more to hang the thieves that be in England.”—­Suppression of the Monasteries, Camden Society’s publications, p. 38.