WILDER and wilder grew the world, as if the bags
of Æolus had been untied. I can but touch the out-
side of the political history. Francis I. had gone
careering into Lombardy, and had got himself taken
prisoner at Pavia, all lost but honour. France, Eng-
land, and the Pope, fearing that Charles would restore
the throne of the Cæsars, or perhaps make himself
Pope also -- for that was thought a possibility --
made a frightened league together: Henry VIII. to
be the special protector of the Apostolic See, the Pope
in turn to do him a small service, relieve him of his
old Spanish wife, and let him marry a younger woman
to raise up children to succeed him. The King's
request was not in itself unreasonable. Henry had
married his brother's widow under a dispensation of
doubtful legality. The legitimacy of the Princess
Mary had been challenged, and if he died without a
son there would be a disputed succession and a fresh
War of the Roses. Catherine was past child-bearing.
It was just one of those situations in which the dis-
pensing powers of the Pope might be usefully exerted,
and Clement, so far as he was himself concerned,
would have made no objection at all. The Emperor,
too, it is likely, in the distracted state of Europe,
would have hesitated in raising obstacles to a natural
demand, and flinging a fresh poisoned ingredient into
the witches' caldron; but Catherine's consent was
needed if there was to be an amicable separation, and

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