So peremptory a conviction and so determined a purpose were of no sudden growth, and had been probably maturing in his mind for years, when the gangrene was torn open by the Bishop of Tarbes, and accident precipitated his resolution.  The momentous consequences involved, and the reluctance to encounter a probable quarrel with the emperor, might have long kept him silent, except for some extraneous casualty; but the tree being thus rudely shaken, the ripe fruit fell.  The capture of Rome occurring almost at the same moment, Wolsey caught the opportunity to break the Spanish alliance; and the prospect of a divorce was grasped at by him as a lever by which to throw the weight of English power and influence into the papal scale, to commit Henry definitely to the catholic cause.  Like his acceptance of legatine authority, the expedient was a desperate one, and if it failed it was ruinous.  The nation at that time was sincerely attached to Spain.  The alliance with the house of Burgundy was of old date; the commercial intercourse with Flanders was enormous, Flanders, in fact, absorbing all the English exports; and as many as 15,000 Flemings were settled in London.  Charles himself was personally popular; he had been the ally of England in the late French war; and when in his supposed character of leader of the anti-papal party in Europe he allowed a Lutheran army to desecrate Rome, he had won the sympathy of all the latent discontent which was fermenting in the population.  France, on the other hand, was as cordially hated as Spain was beloved.  A state of war with France was the normal condition of England; and the reconquest of it the universal dream from the cottage to the castle.  Henry himself, early in his reign, had shared in this delusive ambition; and but three years before the sack of Rome, when the Duke of Suffolk led an army into Normandy, Wolsey’s purposed tardiness in sending reinforcements had alone saved Paris.[127]

There could be no doubt, therefore, that a breach with the emperor would in a high degree be unwelcome to the country.  The king, and probably such members of the council as were aware of his feelings, shrank from offering an open affront to the Spanish people., and anxious as they were for a settlement of the succession, perhaps trusted that advantage might be taken of some political contingency for a private arrangement; that Catherine might be induced by Charles himself to retire privately, and sacrifice herself, of her free will, to the interests of the two countries.  This, however, is no more than conjecture; I think it probable, because so many English statesmen were in favour at once of the divorce and of the Spanish alliance—­two objects which, only on some such hypothesis, were compatible.  The fact cannot be ascertained, however, because the divorce itself was not discussed at the council table until Wolsey had induced the king to change his policy by the hope of immediate relief.