DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61669#0084
HOLBEIN’S “AMBASSADORS”
if necessary in cipher, whatever of importance might occur in their
respective spheres of duty.1
It is clear that, apart from questions of expediency, some members
of the liberal party in France frankly ranged themselves with the King
of England on this thorny subject. They saw that the interminable
delays of the Pope were dictated only by self-interest, unworthy of the
high office he was called upon to exercise. For that office they had a
profound respect; for the personality of Clement VII., to judge by
scattered utterances in the correspondence of the time, their feeling
bordered on contempt. Henry VIII. had, it was considered, a right to
an answer, whatever the tenour of that answer might be.
From this point of view, and as showing the charm the king could
exercise when such was his good pleasure, a letter written at about this
time by La Pommeraye to the Bishop of Auxerre has its curious side.
2 . . . “ Vous avez raison,” he says, “de me porter envie d’estre avec un si
gentil Prince, car je pense que apres le Roy nostre maistre ne s’en trouva passe
a deux cens ans, un de meilleur esprit, de meilleure grace ny plus magnanime
que cestuy cy : et, a vous parler franchement, le dit Roy nostre maistre est
oblige a luy du bon vouloir qu’il luy porte, dequoy je me sens grandement, car je
suis traictd icy, non pas comme Ambassadeur, mais comme Prince du pays, loge
en la maison3 dudict Sieur Roy, et quand je le veois veoir, toujours mangeant a
sa table ; et pource, ne vous esmerveillez si je vous conforte et prie de porter sa
querelle. . . .
“ Mr. ce Prince a grand envie de chastier les Prestres de ce pays et ne leur
1 Camusat, “ Mesl. Hist.,” Letter of La Pommeraye to the Bishop of Auxerre, March
io, I532-
2 . . . “You are right to envy me being with so amiable a prince, for I think that
after the king our master, there has been none for two hundred years past of greater
intelligence or grace, or more magnanimous than this one. And to speak frankly to you,
the said king our master is under an obligation to him for the good will he shows him,
by which I profit greatly, for I am treated here, not as an ambassador, but as a prince of
the country; lodged in the house of this said king, and, when I go to see him, always
eating at his table. So you must not wonder if I beg and exhort you to uphold his quarrel.
“ This prince has a great wish to chastise the priests of this country and not to allow
them to enjoy such great privileges as has been their habit; which is caused by the wrong
that is being done him at Rome, which is so great that it could not be surpassed. It is a
strange thing that the Emperor should have so much power over the Pope as to prevent him
doing right and justice there where he knows them to be.”
3 Bridewell Palace.
5^
if necessary in cipher, whatever of importance might occur in their
respective spheres of duty.1
It is clear that, apart from questions of expediency, some members
of the liberal party in France frankly ranged themselves with the King
of England on this thorny subject. They saw that the interminable
delays of the Pope were dictated only by self-interest, unworthy of the
high office he was called upon to exercise. For that office they had a
profound respect; for the personality of Clement VII., to judge by
scattered utterances in the correspondence of the time, their feeling
bordered on contempt. Henry VIII. had, it was considered, a right to
an answer, whatever the tenour of that answer might be.
From this point of view, and as showing the charm the king could
exercise when such was his good pleasure, a letter written at about this
time by La Pommeraye to the Bishop of Auxerre has its curious side.
2 . . . “ Vous avez raison,” he says, “de me porter envie d’estre avec un si
gentil Prince, car je pense que apres le Roy nostre maistre ne s’en trouva passe
a deux cens ans, un de meilleur esprit, de meilleure grace ny plus magnanime
que cestuy cy : et, a vous parler franchement, le dit Roy nostre maistre est
oblige a luy du bon vouloir qu’il luy porte, dequoy je me sens grandement, car je
suis traictd icy, non pas comme Ambassadeur, mais comme Prince du pays, loge
en la maison3 dudict Sieur Roy, et quand je le veois veoir, toujours mangeant a
sa table ; et pource, ne vous esmerveillez si je vous conforte et prie de porter sa
querelle. . . .
“ Mr. ce Prince a grand envie de chastier les Prestres de ce pays et ne leur
1 Camusat, “ Mesl. Hist.,” Letter of La Pommeraye to the Bishop of Auxerre, March
io, I532-
2 . . . “You are right to envy me being with so amiable a prince, for I think that
after the king our master, there has been none for two hundred years past of greater
intelligence or grace, or more magnanimous than this one. And to speak frankly to you,
the said king our master is under an obligation to him for the good will he shows him,
by which I profit greatly, for I am treated here, not as an ambassador, but as a prince of
the country; lodged in the house of this said king, and, when I go to see him, always
eating at his table. So you must not wonder if I beg and exhort you to uphold his quarrel.
“ This prince has a great wish to chastise the priests of this country and not to allow
them to enjoy such great privileges as has been their habit; which is caused by the wrong
that is being done him at Rome, which is so great that it could not be surpassed. It is a
strange thing that the Emperor should have so much power over the Pope as to prevent him
doing right and justice there where he knows them to be.”
3 Bridewell Palace.
5^