[141] BURNET’S Collectanea, p. 20.  Wolsey to John Cassalis:  “If his Holyness, which God forbid, shall shew himself unwilling to listen to the king’s demands, to me assuredly it will be but grief to live longer, for the innumerable evils which I foresee will then follow.  One only sure remedy remains to prevent the worst calamities.  If that be neglected, there is nothing before us but universal and inevitable ruin.”

[142] Gardiner and Fox to Wolsey; STRYPE’S Memorials, vol. i.  Appendix, p. 92.

[143] His Holiness being yet in captivity, as he esteemed himself to be, so long as the Almayns and Spaniards continue in Italy, he thought if he should grant this commission that he should have the emperour his perpetual enemy without any hope of reconciliation.  Notwithstanding he was content rather to put himself in evident ruin, and utter undoing, than the king or your Grace shall suspect any point of ingratitude in him; heartily desiring with sighs and tears that the king and your Grace which have been always fast and good to him, will not now suddenly precipitate him for ever:  which should be done if immediately on receiving the commission your Grace should begin process.  He intendeth to save all upright thus.  If M. de Lautrec would set forwards, which he saith daily that he will do, but yet he doth not, at his coming the Pope’s Holiness may have good colour to say, “He was required of the commission by the ambassador of England, and denying the same, he was, eftsoons, required by M. de Lautrec to grant the said commission, inasmuch as it was but a letter of justice.”  And by this colour he would cover the matter so that it might appear unto the emperour that the pope did it not as he that would gladly do displeasure unto the emperour, but as an indifferent judge, that could not nor might deny justice, specially being required by such personages; and immediately he would despatch a commission bearing date after the time that M. de Lautrec had been with him or was nigh unto him.  The pope most instantly beseecheth your Grace to be a mean that the King’s Highness may accept this in a good part, and that he will take patience for this little time, which, as it is supposed, will be but short.—­Knight to Wolsey and the King, Jan. 1, 1527-8:  BURNET Collections, 12, 13.

[144] Such at least was the ultimate conclusion of a curious discussion.  When the French herald declared war, the English herald accompanied him into the emperor’s presence, and when his companion had concluded, followed up his words with an intimation that unless the French demands were complied with, England would unite to enforce them.  The Emperor replied to Francis with defiance.  To the English herald he expressed a hope that peace on that side would still be maintained.  For the moment the two countries were uncertain whether they were at war or not.  The Spanish ambassador in London did not know, and the court could not tell him.