Pauli Iovii Novocomensis opera quotquot extant omnia

who was then conspicuous in the highest place of grace and power, a man of very sharp intellect, but depraved, and pestilent with many evil arts. He, with dire and finally ruinous adulation for himself, argued that the cause of the divorce was of the most just law, because the sacred laws prohibited Henry from being the husband of her who was previously married to his brother Arthur, and he professed that there would not be lacking those learned in sacred law and theologians, especially from the Parisian school, who were far the most famous, who would subscribe to the divorce with their declared opinions; for he desired the King to be entangled in amorous pleasures and made most uxorious by new nuptials, so that he alone, intolerable in ambition and pride above all mortals, might possess the most full power of usurped rule. Pope Clement also fed the insane hopes of the King, bound by a recent benefit and in no way appeased from his mind against Caesar in his heavy injury, so that he did not deter the King from such a foul undertaking with the free severity that he should have, but kindly promised through frequent legates that he would follow the judgments of legal experts in that suit of divorce. Soon after, Thomas, father of the Boleyn woman, came to Clement from Bologna, an embassy having been undertaken for that purpose, and Cardinal Campeggio was sent to Britain, to whose tribunal Queen Catherine spoke her case with masculine prudence. But the judgments of the shameful suit, drawn out for a long time, had such an outcome that almost all departed toward adulation, and the Pope, with Caesar demanding that it be decreed against the divorce, suffered it to be decided by the sentence of twelve men. But then the Boleyn woman, cast down in hope of marriage, and the King himself, stirred by the pain of the repulse, turned all their anger against the one of York, the author and persuader of the new marriage, and by a great mockery of Fortune, the man, in power and wealth next to royal pride, is in a point of time despoiled of his reputation and all his fortunes and is cast into exile, the Fates pressing him into deserved punishments to such an extent that, having been dragged back from his journey, he expired, overcome by pain and fear among the ministers of capital affairs. His death was most joyful to almost everyone, because a few years earlier Henry had killed Edward Buckingham, a Duke remarkable in virtue and wealth among the peers, having been most unjustly condemned by the accuser himself. Furthermore, Henry, in a marvelous way, being strangely incensed against Pope Clement, by whom he said he had been deluded and deceived by a contract, passed a law by which he abrogated the authority of the Roman Pontiff, and all the temples and priesthoods of Royal right were assessed, especially with Cromwell as advisor, learnedly instructed in the arts of the Yorkist, whom the Boleyn woman had raised from a sordid place to the very task of governing the Republic, he being most ready for her with all study and daring. That law was written and promulgated with a judgment most unjust; for beyond the cause of religion, toward which no one, even if a wicked Christian, would not have looked, ancient treaties, inviolate before by so many Kings, were disturbed with execrable rashness; for it was clear in their own Annals that King John, three hundred years ago, had given himself and his succeeding kings, and the sacred temples and priesthoods of the whole kingdom, to the authority and empire of the Roman Pontiff, Vicar of the divine Peter the Apostle, with a free voice, and had paid certain weights of gold every year by way of tribute, when Innocent III had hurled the lightning bolts of anathema against the King himself, who was usurping the right of judging and appointing the Bishop of Canterbury, having also stirred against him the French King, who, to indicate the injury of Innocent, had crossed into Britain with a strong fleet. But in that most turbulent storm of all, overwhelmed by a huge tempest of cruelty, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, very grave in much doctrine and character, and most holy, and Thomas More, master of letters, than whom no one was better in intellect, learning, candor, and probity, are killed by the axe, because they had defended the cause of Queen Catherine with Christian freedom.