The plan of a divorce was no doubt unpopular.

So violent was the indignation against Anne Boleyn that she hardly dared to stir abroad.

But popular feeling ran almost as bitterly against the Papacy.

The sight of an English king and an English queen pleading before a foreign tribunal revived the old resentment against the subjection of Englishmen to Papal courts.

The helplessness of Clement in the grasp of the Emperor recalled the helplessness of the Popes at Avignon in the grasp of the kings of France.