Charles made no difficulty in granting an audience, which he seemed rather to court. He was extremely angry. The man had been in his service, he said, for years; and it was ill done to arrest a member of his household without paying him even the courtesy of a first application on the subject. The English government could scarcely be serious in expecting that he would sacrifice an old attendant in any such manner. Wyatt answered sturdily that Brancetor was his master's subject. There was clear proof, he could vouch for it on his own knowledge, that the man committed treason in Spain; and he again insisted on the treaties. The Emperor cared nothing for treaties. Treaty or no treaty, a servant of his own should pass free; "and if he was in the Tower of London," he said, "he would never consent so to charge his honour and conscience." Brancetor had come to Paris under his protection; and the French government would never do him the dishonour of permitting the seizure of one of his personal train.
[Sidenote: Wyatt complains of the treatment of English subjects by the Inquisition.]
He was so displeased, and there was so much truth in what he said, that Wyatt durst not press him further; but opened ground again with a complaint which he had been instructed also to make, of the ill usage of Englishmen in Spain by the Inquisition. Charles again flashed up with imperious vehemence. "In a loud voice," he replied, "that the authority of the Inquisition depended not upon him. It had been established in his realm and countries for good consideration, and such as he would not break--no, not for his grandame."
It was unreasonable, Wyatt replied, to punish men merely for their want of allegiance to Rome. They were no heretics, sacramentaries, Anabaptists. They held the Catholic faith as truly as any man.
[Sidenote: Charles refuses t o interfere.]
"The king is of one opinion," Charles replied, "and I am of another. If your merchants come with novelties, I can not let the Inquisition. This is a thing that toucheth our faith."
"What," Wyatt said, "the primacy of the Bishop of Rome!"
"Yea, marry," the Emperor answered, "shall we now come to dispute of _tibi dabo claves_. I would not alter my Inquisition. No; if I thought they would be negligent in their office, I would put them out, and put others in their rooms."