7.7 571

Henry is still besotted with Anne Boleyn, queen Catherine asks a diplomat to appeal to her Habsburg relatives. Now the emperor has captured the pope in Italy, cardinal Woolsey promises the king to get a mandate from the cardinals to handle Henry's divorce demand and personally goes to Paris in triumph, to sign a treaty with the French king Francis I. Ann's father Thomas Boleyn tells the incredulous king about the cardinal's stealing confiscated monastical goods. After utterly abject humiliation at Henry's feet, Charles Brandon is allowed to win his return to court by arm-wrestling. When the pope escapes to Orvieto, Thomas Cromwell pleases the king by proposing Ann's former tutor as messenger to present his divorce requests; Woolsey has him intercepted, reads the draft documents and lets him go, sneering the mission is hopeless; the king is furious when it fails indeed.