'If his Holiness, which God forbid, shall show 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 follow .
. . Nothing before us but universal and inevitable ruin.' Too good
reason there was for the confession of the Pope himself to Gardner,
'What danger it was to the realm to have this thing hang in suspense
. . . That without an heir-male, etc., the realm was like to come to
dissolution.' Too good reason for the bold assertion of the
Cardinal-Governor of Bologna, that 'he knew the guise of England as
few men did, and that if the King should die without heirs-male, he
was sure that it would cost two hundred thousand men's lives; and
that to avoid this mischief by a second marriage, he thought, would
deserve heaven.' Too good reason for the assertion of Hall, that
'all indifferent and discreet persons judged it necessary for the
Pope to grant Henry a divorce, and, by enabling him to marry again,
give him the hope of an undisputed heir-male.' The Pope had full
power to do this; in fact, such cases had been for centuries integral
parts of his jurisdiction as head of Christendom. But he was at once
too timid and too time-serving to exercise his acknowledged
authority; and thus, just at the very moment when his spiritual power
was being tried in the balance, he chose himself to expose his
political power to the same test. Both were equally found wanting.
He had, it appeared, as little heart to do justice among kings and
princes as he had to seek and to save the souls of men; and the
Reformation followed as a matter of course.

Through the tangled brakes of this divorce question Mr. Froude leads
us with ease and grace, throwing light, and even beauty, into dark
nooks where before all was mist, not merely by his intimate
acquaintance with the facts, but still more by his deep knowledge of