[126] State Papers, vol. vii. p. 117.

[127] Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii.; HALL, 669.

[128] They were shut up in the Castle of St. Angelo.

[129] State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 18, 19.

[130] The fullest account of Wolsey’s intentions on church reform will be found in a letter addressed to him by Fox, the old blind Bishop of Winchester, in 1528.  The letter is printed in STRYPE’S Memorials Eccles. vol. i.  Appendix 10.

[131] Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii.  It is not uncommon to find splendid imaginations of this kind haunting statesmen of the 16th century; and the recapture of Constantinople always formed a feature in the picture. A Plan for the Reformation of Ireland, drawn up in 1515, contains the following curious passage:  “The prophecy is, that the King of England shall put this land of Ireland into such order that the wars of the land, whereof groweth the vices of the same, shall cease for ever; and after that God shall give such grace and fortune to the same king that he shall with the army of England and of Ireland subdue the realm of France to his obeysance for ever, and shall rescue the Greeks, and recover the great city of Constantinople, and shall vanquish the Turks and win the Holy Cross and the Holy Land, and shall die Emperor of Rome, and eternal blisse shall be his end.”—­State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 30, 31.

[132] Knight to Henry:  State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 2, 3.

[133] Wolsey to Cassalis:  Ibid. p. 26.

[134] The dispensing power of the popes was not formally limited.  According to the Roman lawyers, a faculty lay with them of granting extraordinary dispensations in cases where dispensations would not be usually admissible—­which faculty was to be used, however, dummodo causa cogat urgentissima ne regnum aliquod funditus pereat; the pope’s business being to decide on the question of urgency.—­Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII., Dec. 26, 1532. Rolls House MS.

[135] Knight and Cassalis to Wolsey:  BURNET’S Collect. p. 12.

[136] STRYPE’S Memorials, vol. i., Appendix p. 66.

[137] Sir F. Bryan and Peter Vannes to Henry; State Papers, vol. vii. p. 144.

[138] STRYPE’S Memorials, Appendix, vol. i. p. 100.

[139] Ibid.  Appendix, vol. i. pp. 105-6; BURNET’S Collectanea, p. 13.

[140] Wolsey to the Pope, BURNET’S Collectanea, p. 16:  Vereor quod tamen nequeo tacere, ne Regia Majestas, humano divinoque jure quod habet ex omni Christianitate suis his actionibus adjunctum freta, postquam viderit sedis Apostolicae gratiam et Christi in terris Vicarii clementiam desperatam Caesaris intuitu, in cujus manu neutiquam est tam sanctos conatus reprimere, ea tunc moliatur, ea suae causae perquirat remedia, quae non solum huic Regno sed etiam aliis Christianis principibus occasionem subministrarent sedis Apostolicae auctoritatem et jurisdictionem imminuendi et vilipendendi.