temptation, would no longer be able to restrain him. From Campeggio's
letters, [Footnote: Brewer, ii., 296.] it is evident that the King had
mastered his own case thoroughly, and knew the legal aspects better than
any one else: also, that the intention was to declare Mary his heir unless
there should be male issue of the new marriage. The Legate let slip that in
view of the determined attitude of Henry and Wolsey, he would have to await
further instructions from Rome; whereupon he was again threatened with the
secession of England from the Roman Obedience. Next, the two Cardinals
tried to induce Katharine to accede to a divorce without a formal trial; on
the ground that thereby she would ensure that save on the single point of
the re-marriage any demand she might put forward would be granted, and much
scandal would be averted. The Queen took some days to consider her reply:
but was absolutely obdurate. She was Henry's wife; she could not and would
not profess that she was not. On every ground, she would fight to the last.

Campeggio did his best to impress the Pope with the urgency of the case:
but Clement was more than ever afraid of Charles, and persisted in the
first place that proceedings were to be postponed and prolonged by every
effort of ingenuity, and in the second that no verdict adverse to the
marriage was to be pronounced without his ratification.

[Sidenote: Henry's attitude]

Henry for his part, learning or knowing before that Ferdinand had received
from Pope Julius a confirmation of the dispensation in ampler terms, urged
upon Katharine the necessity of obtaining this document in her own
interests--hoping that there would be a chance of repudiating it as a
forgery. Also he instructed his agents at Rome to persuade the Pope to give
him a dispensation for re-marriage, without a divorce, if Katharine retired
into a nunnery; [Footnote: _L. & P._, iv., 2157, 2161. Brewer, ii.,