Cassell's Illustrated History of England/Volume 2/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII.
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.—(Continued).
Henry VIII. had returned from the Continent as much inflated with the idea of his military greatness as if he had been Henry V.; his allies, in the meantime, were laughing in their sleeves at the success with which they had duped him. It was true that he had seriously distressed Louis, but it was for the benefit of those allies, who had all reaped singular advantages from Henry's campaign and heavy outlay. The Pope had got Italy freed from the French; Ferdinand of Spain had got Navarre, and leisure to fortify and make it safe; and Maximilian had got Terouenne, Tournay, and command of the French frontiers on the side of Flanders, with a fine pension from England. It was now the time to see what acknowledgment these allies wore likely to make him for his expensive services, and they did not permit him to wait long. While he had been so essentially obliging to the Pope, his Holiness had sent four bulls into his kingdom, by every one of which he had violated the statutes of the realm, especially that of previsors, taking upon himself to nominate bishops and to command the persecution of heretics. The pontiff now went further, and made a secret treaty with Louis of France, by which he removed the excommunication from Louis and the interdict from his kingdom, on condition that Louis should withdraw his countenance from the schismatic council of cardinals; but knowing Henry's vain character, the Pope, to prevent his expressing any anger, sent him a consecrated sword and bonnet, with many fulsome compliments on his valour and royal greatness.
Henry's father-in-law, Ferdinand, was growing old, and having obtained all that he wanted—Navarre—was most ready to listen to Louis' proposals for peace. Louis tempted him by offering to marry his second daughter, Renee, to his grandson Charles, and to give her as her portion his claim on the duchy of Milan. Ferdinand not only accepted with alacrity these terms, without troubling himself about what Henry might think of such treachery, but engaged to bring over Maximilian, Henry's ally and paid agent, but still the grandfather of Charles. When the news of these transactions, on the part of his trusty confederates, reached Henry, he was for a while incredulous, and then broke into a fury of rage. He complained that his father-in-law had been the first to involve him with France by his great promises and professions, not one of which he had kept, and now, without a moment's warning, had not only sacrificed his interests for his own selfish purposes, but had drawn over the Emperor of Germany, who lay under such signal obligations to him. He vowed the most determined revenge. Here was Maximilian, for whom he had conquered Terouenne and Tournay, whom he had subsidised to the amount of 200,000 crowns, and whose grandson Charles was affianced to his sister Mary, who had in a moment forgotten all these benefits and his engagement. As the time was come for the marriage of Charles and the Princess Mary, Henry sent a demand for its completion; Maximilian, who had already agreed to Louis' offer of his daughter Renee, sent an evasive answer, and Henry's wrath knew no bounds. It was impossible for even his egregious vanity to blind him any longer to the extent to which he had been duped all round.
Louis, having thus destroyed Henry's confederacy of broken reeds, next took measures to secure a peace with him. The Duke of Longueville, who was one of the prisoners taken at the Battle of Spurs, was in London, and, instructed by Louis, kept his ears open to Henry's angry denunciations of his perfidious allies. He represented to him that Anne, the Queen of France, being dead, there was a noble opportunity of avenging himself on these ungrateful princes, and of forming an alliance with Louis which would make them all tremble. Mary, the Princess of England, might become Queen of France, and thus a league established between England and France which should decide the fate of Europe.
Henry's resentment and wounded honour would of themselves have made him close eagerly with this proposal; but he saw in it the most substantial advantages, and in a moment made up his mind. He had the policy, however, to appear to demur, and said his people would never consent for him to renounce his hereditary claims in France, which must be the case if such an alliance took place. They would ask themselves what equivalent they should obtain for so great a surrender. The shrewd Frenchman understood the suggestion; he communicated what passed to his Government, and proposals were quickly sent to meet Henry's views. Louis agreed to pay Henry a million of crowns in discharge of all arrears due to Henry VII. from Charles VIIL, &c.; and Henry engaged to give his sister a dower of 200,000 crowns, to pay the expenses of her journey, and to supply her with jewels—probably those of which he had defrauded the Scottish queen. The two kings agreed to assist each other, in case of any attack, by a force of 14,000 men, or, in case of any attack by either of them on another power, by half that number. This treaty was to continue for the lives of the two kings, and a year longer.
Thus was the Holy League, as it had been called, for the defence of the Pope and the church against the King of France, entirely done away with; and this great pretence was not so much as mentioned in any one of these treaties which put au end to it. The King of France strove hard to obtain Tournay again; but, though it was evidently Henry's interest to restore it, his favourite Wolsey, apprehensive of losing the profits of the bishopric, opposed its restoration, and succeeded. Wolsey and Fox of Durham were Henry's plenipotentiaries for the management of the treaty, which was signed on the 7th of August, 1514.
By this treaty, Mary Tudor, Princess Royal of England, a remarkably handsome young woman of sixteen, and passionately attached to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the handsomest and most accomplished man of Henry's Court, was handed over to the worn-out Louis of France, who was fifty-three in years and much older in constitution.
Mary Tudor, as may be supposed, was in no hurry to proceed to France to complete the wedding; but Louis, who, though on the point of going out of the world altogether, was of an amorous disposition, and, impatient for the arrival of his blooming young bride, sent repeatedly to hasten her departure. On the 2nd of September he wrote to Wolsey, who was now all-powerful in the English Court, desiring that he would see that the queen was set forward on her journey, and the Duke of Orleans also wrote to Mary herself, entreating her to hasten her departure. It was, however, another month before she set out, when Henry and a brilliant parly from the Court accompanied the princess to Dover. There both he and Queen Catherine took an affectionate leave of her, and she embarked for Boulogne, attended by a distinguished suit, in which were the conqueror of Flodden, now Duke of Norfolk, and her lover Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Anne Boleyn, a girl of fourteen years of age, or thereabout, was one of her maids of honour. A splendid and numerous party of French nobility received their new queen on landing, and conducted her to Abbeville, where Louis met them, and the marriage was celebrated the next day, October 8th, in the cathedral. The ceremony was brilliant in all circumstances but the condition of the bridegroom. It was performed by a cardinal, and was attended by tho whole French Court in all its splendour; but Louis himself was suffering all the horrors of a violent attack of gout during the whole of it. After the mass there was a grand banquet given, and Louis appeared highly delighted with his wife; but the very next day the scene changed, and, with a ruthlessness of which in such circumstances perhaps a gouty old gentleman only was capable, he dismissed all Queen Mary's English attendants, excepting three, of whom the little Boleyn was one. He would not concede to his bride's entreaties, accompanied by floods of tears, that at least her governess, Lady Guildford, to whom she was fondly attached, and whom she called "Mother Guildford," should remain with her. Brandon and Norfolk, however, proceeded to Paris as ambassadors. Mary, who did not want spirit, protested against this sweeping dismissal of her attendants, and entreated her ancient spouse; but all in vain. To her pleading for her "Mother Guildford," when she could not obtain leave of stay for the others, Louis replied that he was quite as able to entertain her as her governess. Indignant at this treatment, Mary wrote off to her royal brother, and at the same time to Wolsey. She depicted her mortification in glowing terms, and exclaimed, "Would to God that my Lord of York had come with me in the room of Norfolk! for then I am sure I should have been left much more at my heart's ease than I am now." Mary shows in this who was the really influential man at the English Court now; and in addressing Wolsey, who was already Archbishop of York, she called him her loving friend, and, after describing to him her treatment, begged, as he loved her or her brother the king, he would find a means to return to her dear "Mother Guildford."
It does not appear, however, that the crabbed Louis indulged her in this respect. He replied to the Earl of Worcester, who ventured to remonstrate with him on this subject, that the queen was of sufficient age to take care of herself. Louis conducted her to St. Denis, where she was crowned on the 5th of November; the Count of Angoulême, afterwards Francis I., holding the crown over her head during a great part of the ceremony, to ease her of its oppressive weight. Francis, indeed, appears from the first to have been extremely kind and considerate to her. On Monday, the 6th, she made her triumphal entry into Paris, where the brilliant reception which she met with from all classes made some amends for the harshness of her husband. The people flocked in such crowds, and there was such a succession of deputations from the Parliament, the nobility, the university, the corporation, the Chamber of Accounts, &c., that it took her nearly six hours to advance from the Porte St. Denis to the palace. Besides this, she had to witness a grand allegoric pageant; where the union of the lily and the rose of course figured prominently. Then followed jousts and tournaments, in which Brandon—Mary's husband that should have been—carried off nearly all the honours and prizes, whilst poor Louis—the husband that was—sat or lay in a litter, an object of pitiable decay. The gallant Brandon is said, by his good looks and his chivalrous ascendancy, to have excited a great deal of jealousy amongst the French knights; and we may not be far wrong if we attribute the snappishness of Louis to the same cause, for the French writers of the period declare that the attachment betwixt the queen and Brandon was obvious to all eyes, though they conducted themselves with all honour and decorum.
But this unnatural political mésalliance was not destined to be of long duration. Louis wrote in the course of December to Henry, expressing his happiness in possessing so excellent and amiable a wife, and on the 1st of January he expired. The dissipation at Court, consequent on his marriage, is stated in the "Life of Bayard" to have precipitated his end. "For the good King, on account of his wife, had changed the whole manner of his life, he had been accustomed to dine at eight o'clock, now he had to dine at noon; he had been accustomed to retire to rest at six in the evening, and now he had often to sit up till midnight." Louis was greatly beloved by his subjects, who regarded him as a brave, upright, and wise prince, and gave him the honourable title of "the father of his people." His death was a misfortune, if not to his wife, at least to the nation, for it weakened again the alliance with England, and exposed France afresh to the machinations of Maximilian and Ferdinand, two of the greatest dissemblers of any age. These monarchs were extremely anxious to secure Mary now for their grandson Charles, though they had before suffered their original betrothal to be broken. But Francis I., now King of France, exerted himself successfully to defeat their object. There is little doubt that Francis would have liked to have made her his own, but he was recently married to the daughter of Louis and Anne of Brittany, the Princess Claude. That not being possible, he knew, however, where Mary's heart lay, and he did all in his power to strengthen her to follow its dictates.
Ten days after Louis' death, Mary wrote to Wolsey, desiring to know the pleasure of her royal brother regarding her, seeing that the King of France was dead, and giving herself credit for having conducted herself in a manner reflecting all honour on her royal brother and herself. This she followed by a fresh epistle to Henry himself, in which she implored him to recall her home, declaring that there was nothing that she longed for so much as to see his face. Henry dispatched of all others the most welcome messenger to bring her home—her old lover, the Duke of Suffolk, accompanied by Sir Richard Wingfield and Dr. West. Mary, who had been not three months a wife, and now scarcely two months a widow, welcomed Brandon with all her heart, and privately said to him that he had dared once to address her, as desiring to make her his wife, did he now dare to repeat that wish? Brandon, who loved her passionately, was yet deterred by his dread of Henry's resentment, and requested leave to ask Henry's permission; but Mary told him that it would be much easier to obtain Henry's forgiveness when the thing was done, than his leave to do it. Francis warmly seconded this royal wooing, and they were privately married, and set out on their way to England. Mary wrote to announce the marriage to Henry, saying she had once married to please him, and thought it now only reasonable to wed to please herself. Francis also wrote to mollify the royal brother; and though Henry either was, or pretended to be, very angry at first, he soon relented. The duke and duchess did not proceed at once to Court, but retired to their estate in Suffolk. But as Henry was not only greatly attached to his sister, but to Brandon, who had been brought up with them from boyhood, and was highly esteemed by Henry on account of his superiority in all martial and manly exercises, the storm soon blew over. Wolsey is said to have been in the secret from the first, and such war, his influence now, that a much more difficult matter would have given way before it. The young couple were received into favour, and ordered by Henry to be re-married before him at Greenwich, an event which took place on the 13th of May, 1515. So far was the part which Francis I. had taken in this matter from being resented, that he and Henry renewed all the engagements which existed betwixt Louis and Henry, and so satisfactorily that they boasted that they had made a peace which would last for ever.
We have had frequent occasion already to introduce the name of Wolsey; we shall for a long period yet, have still more frequent and more surprising occasion to repeat that name: and it is therefore necessary to take a complete view of the man who was now rapidly rising into a prominence before Europe and all the world, such as has few examples in history, in one whose origin was as mean as his ascent was dazzling, and his fall sudden and irrevocable.
In the reign of Henry VII. we find first the name of Thomas Wolsey coming to public view as the private secretary of the king at the time of the forced visit of the Archduke Philip to the English Court. This originally obscure clergyman was the son of a butcher of Ipswich, who appears to have been wealthy, and, therefore, could afford to give his son an education at the university. Probably the worthy butcher was induced to this step by a perception of the lad's uncommon cleverness, for at Oxford he displayed so much talent that he was soon distinguished by the title of the Boy Bachelor. He became teacher of the grammar-school adjoining Magdalen College, and amongst his pupils had the sons of the Marquis of Dorset, on whom he so far won, that he gave him the somewhat valuable living of Limington, in Somersetshire. This might seem substantial promotion for the butcher's son, but an eagle, though hatched in the nest of a barn-door fowl, is sure to soar up toward the sun. Thomas Wolsey was not destined to the obscurity of a country parish. The same abilities and address which won him the favour of the marquis were capable of attracting far higher patrons. The spirit and genius of Wolsey were as clearly made for the atmosphere of courts and the guidance of kingdoms, as the eagle's wings are for soaring and its claws for clutching royal prey. There was a polarity in his nature which drew him inevitably toward courts. He united in his nature the highest talents for pleasure, talents for yielding grateful homage to his superiors, and for commanding all below him. In a word, he was a great man, not particular about the means of greatness, as sure to rise to the surface of affairs as a cork to the surface of a flood, and of sailing on to glory there, as the most august man-of-war that ever trod down proudly the waves that bore it.
The Lord Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.
Wolsey was all gravity and discretion in the presence of the grave, and all attention to business with a man of official habits whom it was his interest to please; but he could throw off that with the same ease as he threw off his cloak, and come out amongst the genial and the pleasure-seeking one of the most jolly, merry, roystering, and amusing comrades. In his earliest career he is said to have been not so careful of appearances as he ought; and was noted for his unclerical licence of conduct, and his indulgence in the most riotous and sensual dissipations. For his degrading behaviour in his living at Limington, Sir Amias Paulet confined him in the stocks—a disgrace of so flagrant a kind to a clergyman in his own parish, that it was not likely ever to be forgotten; and accordingly, when he rose to power, he took care to avenge himself on the unfortunate Amias by a long course of the severest persecution.
Leaving his country parish where he had been thus disgraced, he seems to have been introduced by Sir John Nanfan to Fox, the Bishop of Winchester, and minister to Henry VII., who introduced him to the king, who was so much satisfied with him that he made him one of the royal chaplains. In this position the extraordinary talents and court aptitude of Wolsey soon became apparent to the cautious old king. He employed him in sundry matters requiring secrecy and address. He was soon advanced to the deanery of Lincoln, and office of the king's almoner. Wolsey was Henry VII.'s envoy to the Duchess of Savoy when that loving monarch had fallen in love with her fortune.
On the accession of Henry VIII., Wolsey rose still higher in the favour of the youthful monarch. Henry 
Scotch Peers demanding the Children of Queen Margaret.(See page 142)
The ascent of Wolsey was now rapid. From the very commencement of his career at Court no man had been able to stand before him. Bishop Fox had first recommended his introduction into the Privy Council because growing old himself, he perceived that the Earl of Surrey, afterwards conqueror of Flodden, and Duke of Norfolk, was winning higher favour with the king than the ancient bishop; because his martial tastes and more courtly character were more attractive to Henry. Wolsey soon showed himself so successful that he not only cast Surrey, but his own patron, into the shade. In everything Wolsey could participate in the monarch's pursuits and amusements. Henry had already an ambition of literary and polemic distinction. He had studied the school divinity, and was an ardent admirer of Thomas Aquinas. Here Wolsey was quite at home; for he was extensively read, and would, as a matter of course, soon refresh himself on any learned topic which was his master's hobby. While he flattered the young king's vanity, he was ready to contribute to his whims and his pleasures.
The churchman was not the less ready at the feast and in affairs of gallantry. He soon perceived Henry's fondness for pageants and expensive Court entertainments, and he at once showed himself the most accomplished master of revels and contriver of decorations and devices that had ever appeared. Fox hitherto had been the "arbiter elegantiarme," but his genius paled at once before the more resplendent one of Wolsey. Wolsey flattered Henry in all his follies to the top of his bent, and soon was seen the ruling power at Court, whether in the hours of business or merriment. With all his deep-lying cunning, and boundless ambition, he had an air of honest bluntness which, above all things, charmed the young king, who delighted in the title of Bluff Harry. At that early period when Henry, says one of the writers of the time, had "as little inclination to trouble himself with business as a wild ox has to be yoked to the plough," Wolsey took care that the business should not be neglected. It was his advice that "the king should hawk and hunt, and, as much as him list, use honest recreations. If so be he should at any time desire suddenly to become an old man, by intermeddling in old men's cares, he should not want those (meaning himself) that would in the evening, in one or two words, relate the effect of a whole day's consultations." And thus the butcher's son was in brief time become the real ruler of the nation, the master of the monarch.
On the 14th of July, 1514, Leo X. addressed a letter to Henry, informing him that his ambassador, Cardinal Bambridge, the Archbishop of York, had died that day; and that, at the request of the deceased, he had promised not to appoint a successor till he had learnt the pleasure of His Majesty. This pleasure, there can be no doubt, was already known; and that the Pope, like every one now, perceiving the power of the favourite, was ready to conciliate him. The king at once named Wolsey to his Holiness, and showed that he was quite satisfied that that nomination would be confirmed, by at once placing the archbishopric and all its revenues in the custody of the favourite. Thus was this great son of fortune at once possessed of the Archbishopric of York, the Bishoprics of Tournay and Lincoln, the administration of the Bishoprics of Worcester, Hereford, and Bath, the possessors of which were Italians, who resided abroad, and were glad to secure a portion of their revenues by resigning to the great native prelate the rest. Henry even allowed Wolsey, with the See of York, to unite that of Durham, as he afterwards did that of Winchester. The Pope, seeing more and more the marvellous influence of the man, before this year was out made him a cardinal. "For," says Hall, "when he was once archbishop, he studied day and night how to be a cardinal, and caused the king and the French king to write to Rome for him." Leo found a strong opposition amongst the cardinals to this promotion; but, desirous to oblige both Henry and Francis, he declared him a cardinal in full consistory, on September 11th. Francis was, at the moment, in Italy, and was in haste to be the first to give Wolsey the joyful news. Wolsey pretended to be unwilling to accept so high a dignity; but Henry settled all his feigned modesty by saluting him as "My lord cardinal."
My Lord Cardinal Wolsey almost immediately received a fresh favour from the Pope, who appointed him legate in England. This commission was originally limited to two years, but Wolsey never relinquished the office again. He obtained from succeeding Popes a continuation of the post, asking from time to time even fresh powers, till he at length exercised within the realm almost all the prerogatives of the Pontiff. The only step above him now was the Papacy itself, and on that dignity he had already fixed his ambitious eye.
From the moment that Wolsey saw himself a cardinal and Papal legate, as well as chief favourite of the king, his ambition displayed itself without restraint, and we shall have to paint, in his career, one of the most amazing instances of the pride, power, and grandeur of a subject. When his cardinal's hat was brought to England, he sent a splendid deputation to meet the bearer of it at Blackheath, and to conduct him through London, as if he had been the Pope himself. He gave a reception of the hat in Westminster Hall, which more resembled a coronation than the official investiture of a subject and a clergyman. His arrogance and ostentation disgusted all the king's old ministers and courtiers. The Duke of Norfolk, with all his military glory, found himself completely eclipsed, and absented himself from Court as much as possible, though he still held the office of Treasurer. Fox, the venerable Bishop of Winchester, who had been the means of introducing Wolsey, found himself superseded by him, and, resigning his office of Keeper of the Privy Seal, retired to his diocese. On taking his leave, the aged minister was bold enough to caution Henry not to make any of his subjects greater than himself, to which the bluff king replied that he knew how to keep all his subjects in order. The resignation of Fox was followed by that of Archbishop Warham, who delivered the Great Seal on the 22nd of December, 1515, resigning his office of Chancellor. Henry immediately handed over the seal to Wolsey, who now stood on the pinnacle of power, almost alone. He was like a great tree which withered up every other tree which came within its shade, and even the kingly power itself seemed centred in his hands. For the next ten years he may be said to have reigned in England, and Henry himself to have been the nominal, and Wolsey the real king. Well might he, in addressing a foreign power, say, "Ego et rex meus," "I and my king."
The state which from this time he assumed was both ecclesiastic and imperial. His dress, his retinue, his establishment, equipage, and attendance were such as no subject over assumed in any country. His person was tall and commanding, his figure portly and majestic; and he arrayed himself in the richest silks and satins, all of the proper cardinal's colour—scarlet, or crimson. His neck and shoulders were clothed with a tippet of costly sables, his robes of dazzling scarlet, his silk gloves of the same colour, his hat the same; and his shoes were one blaze of silver gilt, of pearls and diamonds. To support this grandeur he had an income which was equal to, if it did not surpass, that of the crown. He had a train of 800 persons, many of them knights and gentlemen, and amongst them nine or ten impoverished noblemen; and many of the greatest aristocracy placed their sons in his establishment as the best school for acquiring a proper courtly style, or, more probably, court favour. All his domestics were richly attired, his cook wearing a jerkin of satin or velvet, with a chain of gold round his neck. Whenever he appeared abroad a person of distinction bore his cardinal's hat before him on a cushion. He selected one of the tallest and handsomest priests that he could procure to carry before him a pillar of silver surmounted by a cross, but not contented with this, which he adopted as cardinal, he had another priest, of equal stature and beauty, who carried the ponderous silver cross of York, oven within the diocese of Canterbury, contrary to the established rule and agreement betwixt the prelates of those two sees.
He was the first ecclesiastic in England that indulged himself in wearing silk and gold, and these not merely on his person, but on his saddles and the caparison of his horses. His enormous retinue on all public appearances were mounted on the most splendid steeds, richly ornamented, but he himself, in priestly fashion, rode a mule, with saddle and saddle-cloth of crimson velvet, and with stirrups of silver gilt. Every morning he held a levée after mass, at which he appeared in his complete array of scarlet drapery.
Whilst the great looked on all this grandeur in obsequious but resentful silence, the people settled it in their own minds that the wonderful power of the priest over the fiery nature of the monarch was the effect of sorcery. But Wolsey was no mean or ordinary man. His talents and his consummate address were what influenced the king, who was proud of the magnificence which was at once his creation and his representative; and Wolsey had a grasp, an expanse, and an elevation in his ambition, which had something sublime in them. Though he was in the receipt of enormous revenues, he had no paltry desire to hoard them. He employed them in this august state and mode of living, which he regarded as reflecting honour on the monarch whose chief minister he was, and on the Church in which he hold all but the highest rank. He devoted his funds liberally to the promoting of literature. Ho sent learned men to foreign courts to copy valuable manuscripts which were made accessible by his vast influence. He built Hampton Court Palace, a residence fit only for a monarch, and presented it to Henry as a gift worthy such a subject to such a king. He built a college at Ipswich, his native place, and was in the course of erecting Christ Church at Oxford when his career was so abruptly closed. Besides that, he endowed seven lectureships in Oxford.
With all his haughtiness and overgrown state, he pleased the people by his summary dealings with great offenders, especially with the detested class of public harpies of whom Dudley and Empson had been the chief. That people of small means might obtain justice, he established courts of request, and made other reforms in the administration of the laws. On many occasions, to settle family quarrels, he would offer himself as arbitrator; and in the Court of Chancery, though unacquainted with the quirks and subtleties of law, he decided, on the principle of common sense, to the wonderful satisfaction of clients. So great was the practice brought into his court, that the king, to enable him to get through the business, established four subordinate tribunals, of which that in which the Master of the Rolls still presides is one.
But, on the other hand, Wolsey's towering ambition and self-will led him to commit equal crimes and injustice. No man, or thing, which stood in his way was safe. His domestic domination could brook no rival; the highest and the noblest perished if they offended him; and his foreign policy was dictated entirely by his own private purposes. The primal object of his life was to achieve the Popedom; and as kings or courtiers favoured or opposed his wishes, they experienced his favour or resentment; and so long as his hold on Henry lasted, his frown was war, his smile peace, wherever they fell. Such was Wolsey at this moment; such he continued for a decade of remarkable years. His eye was constantly traversing Europe. In every court and country he had his secret, as well as his avowed, agents. The most hidden movements were quickly revealed to him, and all his machinery was instantly in motion to promote or counteract. In the pursuance of his objects he shamefully abused the confidence of his royal patron, and sacrificed the honour and the interests of the country, and of Europe, in the indulgence of his passions, and the prosecution of his private interests. His ostensible object was to regulate the balance of Europe, threatened in its equilibrium by the rival houses of France and Austria; but his real one was to raise or repress those powers with reference to his claims on the Popedom.
The peace which Henry had made with the young monarch of France, was not destined to be of long continuance. Francis I. soon had the misfortune to offend both Henry and Wolsey, and in their separate interests. James IV. of Scotland had left by his will the regency of his kingdom to his widow. The convention of the states confirmed this arrangement, but on condition that the queen remained unmarried. James V., her son, of whom she was to retain the guardianship, was on his father's death an infant of only a year and-a-half old. In less than seven months after the death of her husband, Margaret was delivered of a second son, Alexander, Duke of Ross; and in less than three months after that she married, in defiance of the convention of the states, Douglas, Earl of Angus, a young man of handsome person, but of an ambitious and headstrong character. This marriage gave great offence to a great number of the nobility, especially those who had a leaning to France. They asserted that Henry of England, the queen's brother, notwithstanding that he had deprived her of her husband, and notwithstanding her difficult position as the widowed mother of an infant king, so far from supporting her, took every opportunity to attack her borders. They therefore recommended that they should recall from France John, Duke of Albany, the son of Alexander, who had been banished by his brother James III., and place the regency in his hands. Albany, though of Scotch origin, was a Frenchman by birth, education, and taste. He had not a foot of land in Scotland, but in France he had extensive demesnes, and stood high in favour of the monarch.
At the head of the party in opposition to the queen was Lord Home, on whose conduct at Flodden aspersions had been cast. By him and his party it was that Albany was invited to Scotland. Henry was greatly alarmed at this proposition, and for some time the fear of a breach induced Francis I. to restrain Albany from accepting the offer. Yet in May, 1515, Albany made his appearance in Scotland. He found that kingdom in a condition which required a firm and determined hand to govern it. The nobility, always turbulent, and kept in order with difficulty by the strongest monarch, were now divided into two factious, for and against the queen and her party. Lord Home, by whom Albany had chiefly been invited, had the ill-fortune to be represented to Albany, immediately on his arrival, as, so far from a friend, one of the most dangerous enemies of legitimate authority in the kingdom. Home, apprised of this representation, and of its having taken full effect on the mind of Albany, threw himself into the party of the queen, and urged her to avoid the danger of allowing the young princes to fall into the hands of Albany, who was the next heir to the crown after them, and was, according to his statement, a most dangerous and ambitious man. Moved by these statements, Margaret determined to escape to England with her sons, and put them, under the powerful protection of their uncle Henry.
Henry had himself made similar representations to her, for nothing would suit his views on the crown of Scotland so well as to have possession of the infant heirs. But Albany was quickly informed of the queen's intentions; he besieged the castle of Stirling, where she resided with the infant princes, compelled her to surrender, and obtaining possession of the princes, placed them in the keeping of three lords appointed by Parliament. Margaret herself, her husband Angus, and Lord Homo, succeeded in escaping to England, where she was delivered of a daughter.
Henry exerted himself to baffle the schemes of Albany and the French party in Scotland; and Home, having succeeded in obtaining permission to return to Scotland, is supposed to have prosecuted Henry's views in strengthening a party against Albany. Home, however, did not escape falling under suspicion. He was seized and placed in custody under the care of his brother-in-law, the Earl of Arran. But instead of Arran proving a trustworthy custodian of Home, that nobleman prevailed on him to unite in his views. Home was suffered to escape, but was weak enough to be beguiled, under a promise of accommodating all matters of difference, to suffer himself, along with Arran, to fall into the hands of Albany. Both of these noblemen were seized and brought to trial, on the ground of neglect of their duty, or of treasonable conduct, at the battle of Flodden, and though the evidence was anything but convincing, they were condemned and executed.
The part which Francis I. evidently had in permitting the passage of Albany to Scotland, and in supporting his party there, had given great offense to Henry. He sent strong remonstrances through his ambassador to Francis, complaining that Albany had been permitted to leave France and usurp the government of Scotland, contrary to the treaty; and that by this means the Queen of Scotland, the sister of the King of England, had been driven from the regency of the kingdom, and the guardianship of her children. Francis I. endeavoured to pacify Henry by assurances that Albany's conduct had received no countenance from him, but that he had stolen away at the urgent solicitation of a strong body of nobles in Scotland. Henry was not convinced, but there was nothing to be obtained by further remonstrances, for Francis was at this moment at the head of a powerful army, while Henry, having spent his father's hoards, was not in a condition for a fresh war without the sanction of Parliament.
Francis was bent on prosecuting the vain scheme of the conquest of Milan, which had already cost his predecessors and France so much. He had entered into alliance with Venice and Genoa, and trusted to be able easily to overcome Maximilian Sforza; the native Prince Sforza, on his part, depended upon the support of the Pope and the Swiss. Francis professed, in the first place, that his design was to chastise the hostile Swiss. These hardy people had fortified all those passes in the Alps by which they calculated that the French would attempt to pass towards Milan, but Francis made his way with 60,000 troops over the mountains in another direction, a large part of his army taking the way to the left of Mount Genèvre, a route never essayed by any army before. The Swiss mercenaries in the service of Sforza, thus taken by surprise, were rapidly defeated by the French, and were on the point of capitulation, when their countrymen, who had been watching to intercept Francis and his army, seeing that he had stolen a march upon them, descended from their mountains, 20,000 strong, and came to the relief of their countrymen under the walls of Milan.
Their courage now rose to the highest pitch, and they determined to give battle to the French. The headquarters of Francis were at Marignano, ten miles from Milan. Reinforcements were expected by the Milanese from the Pope, but a cardinal legate, who was present, urged the Swiss not to wait for these, but to seize the present favourable crisis, when the troops were in the warmth of their confidence, to march against the French and give them battle. The advice was of the most injudicious kind, for the French were not only greatly superior in numbers, but in their artillery, and a few days might bring essential aid to the Swiss. But the counsel was too consonant to the feelings of the Swiss army. They demanded to be led at once against the foe; and, marching forward when the day was considerably advanced, they fell in with the French lines about two hours before sunset. They rushed upon them with such fury that they carried all before them, as though they had suffered no fatigue from their long and hasty march. They drove back whole masses of the French infantry, and captured a considerable quantity of cannon. Francis, alarmed by this formidable impression on his foot, threw himself into the van at the head of his cavalry, and charged along the high raised road, on which the main body of the Swiss stood, the land right and left being marshy, with all the weight of his horse and with his characteristic gallantry. But the Swiss, confident in the memory of their former victories over the French, stood firm, and the battle became desperate. The Swiss broke the lines of the French cavalry repeatedly, and made terrible havoc amongst them. Night fell, but the moon rose, and the conflict raged so long as there was any light. When the moon went down the two armies, still breathing defiance, stood to their ground, and waited impatiently for the dawn to renew the strife.
Francis had fought so long and arduously in the very mêlée that, when the pause came, he dropped upon a cannon completely exhausted, and fell into a deep sleep. But, fatigued as he was, he did not rest long. The smarting of his wounds, for he had been pierced in various places by the lances of the enemy, the uneasiness of his mind, and the songs and shouts of the Swiss, who were sitting on the ground close at hand, carolling airs of triumph, and impatient for light to finish their victory, soon roused him. On examining the state of his army, he found that an awful slaughter of his men had taken place, many of his most distinguished officers had fallen, fifteen pieces of cannon were seized by the enemy, and the prospect for the morrow was anything but hopeful. To add to the disastrous issue of the day's fight, his troops were ill-supplied with refreshments, whilst wine and provisions in plenty had followed the Swiss army from Milan; and they were fortifying themselves with good cheer for the victory. So completely were the Swiss assured of this victory, that the news of the utter defeat of the French spread from their camp, and was carried by couriers to all parts of Italy.
But Francis resolved to contest the point with all his power. During the night he examined carefully his position, made such fresh arrangements as the knowledge of the ground and the events of the first day suggested; encouraged his men, and sent messengers post haste to expedite the march of reinforcements from Venice, which he knew to be on the road. With the first return of dawn the Swiss were afoot, and renewed the battle with augmented impetuosity. Confident of victory, they fought with the persuasion that a vehement attack would be followed by a speedy flight of the French. They found, however, that Francis had taken advantage of the night, and so disposed his artillery, as to rake them murderously in flank as they advanced. But this only caused them to dash forward like wounded lions upon the foe, and such was the fury of their onset, that the French cavalry must have been speedily routed, when up galloped the light horse of the Venetians, led only by Count Alviano, and fell upon their rear. Imagining that the whole of the Venetian army was come up, the Swiss now sounded a retreat; but this was made with such coolness and courage that they kept the order of their ranks, and part still facing the French, part the Venetians, they thus commenced their march back towards Milan. Such was the resolution with which they made this retrograde movement, that they would leave neither their wounded nor their artillery behind them, but carried them all off, and showed such a determined and self-possessed air, that the French, wearied, and having suffered great loss, made no attempt to pursue them.
But the Swiss had left on the field 8,000 of their best men slain, and they were in no condition to pursue the contest as they had begun it. On returning to Milan, they found that Sforza, for whom they had fought, had no money to pay them, and, therefore, having won great admiration by their conduct in this battle, they marched out of Milan and took their way homo by Como. Francis, who had lost nearly as many troops as the Swiss, and some of his most valuable officers, was enabled easily, through this circumstance, to make himself master of Milan.
If the Swiss had acquired reputation by this campaign, Francis had won still more; for against such brave forces he had shown himself still braver, and remained victor finally. The effect at the English Court of this brilliant success was to heighten extremely that discontent with Francis which Henry had shown at the very moment that the chivalric young French king had set out for Italy. Henry, who was ambitious of military renown, was stung to the quick by it, and his envious mood was artfully aggravated by the suggestions of Wolsey. Wolsey hated Francis because he was steadily opposed to his retention of the bishopric of Tournay. Wolsey had prevailed on Henry to disregard the earnest demands for the restoration of this town at the late peace, because he should in case of its surrender lose the ample revenues; Francis, on the other hand, naturally was equally anxious to have Tournay restored to his natural dominion. He therefore supported the claims of the other Bishop of Tournay, who, when the town was taken by the English, had been appointed but not yet installed. Wolsey now found, through his spies, that Francis, while so near Rome, had strongly urged upon the Pope the claims of the French Bishop, and with such effect that he had obtained a bull in his favour. Enraged at this, Wolsey now fanned with all his subtle skill the spleen of Henry's mind, and disposed him to break with Francis. But this was so serious a matter, having recently sworn to maintain peace with that country, and with the rising reputation of Francis, that Henry was prudent enough not to give way to Wolsey's persuasions without counsel with his other experienced ministers. The Duke of Norfolk, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Winchester, were summoned to Court, and the matter laid before them. It is quite certain that, had there been real cause for war with France these ancient counsellors of the crown, who had retired in disgust from the arrogance of Wolsey, would have argued against it; but as they had right on their side they strongly denounced a breach of the peace with France as equally impolitic, dishonourable, and unjust. Wolsey replied in an equally high strain that Francis had shown himself a prince of an aggressive character, of an insatiable ambition, and that his successes in Italy would lead to fresh attempts; and that unless England interposed to crush his soaring spirit of conquest, he would become the terror and molester of all Europe. The Bishop of Durham, and the rest of the counsellors who were under the influence of Wolsey, warmly supported these views, and Henry, distracted by these conflicting opinions, declared that he would adopt the suggestions of both parties; he would take measures to curb the ambition of France, but he would do it so as to avoid an open breach.
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| Henry VIII. | Catherine of Arragon. | Thomas Wolsey. |
His sapient plan was this. Untaught by the gross style in which he had been imposed upon by Maximilian, he resolved to employ him to put down Francis. He therefore dispatched an ambassador to the emperor, who was, as he always had been, poor and greedy of money, to engage him by a large subsidy to march an army into Italy to join his forces to those of Francisco Sforza, the brother of Maximilian Sforza, to take Milan, and place Francisco on the ducal throne. Maximilian Sforza had resigned all his rights to Francis, and was therefore to be set aside. This scheme, which Henry put forth as his own, was, in fact, but another speculation of Wolsey's. Francisco Sforza, desirous to make Milan his own, had already applied to Wolsey, and engaged, if he succeeded, to pay that corrupt and greedy minister 10,000 ducats a year, and in return Wolsey had engaged not only to procure Henry's consent, but to make him the perpetual friend and protector of Sforza.
The Emperor Maximilian having got a large sum in hand, put his troops in motion for Italy, and pursued the journey with the greater alacrity because he was also furnished with bills to a still greater amount on the Friscobaldi, the great Italian bankers. Dr. Richard Pace, Henry's ambassador, hastened on before the emperor with another large sum of money, with which he engaged an army of Swiss to join Maximilian. With this augmented force, the German emperor pursued the route to Milan, where he made a feeble and spiritless attempt against it, and then coolly turned his face homewards and marched back again, saying the Friscobaldi were bankrupts, the bills were waste paper, and his engagement at an end. Henry was justly served for once more trusting to so rotten a reed. In addition to the loss of his money, he had shown Francis his teeth without being able to bite.
On the 12th of November, 1515, Parliament was summoned to meet. Henry had caught a very discouraging glimpse of the iron at the bottom of his father's money-chests, and was, therefore, obliged to ask supplies from his subjects. His application does not appear to have been successful, and Parliament was therefore dissolved on the 22nd of December, and was never called again till the 22nd of July, 1523, an interval of eight years. A Parliament which would not grant money was not likely to be a very favourite instrument with Henry, and this still less so, because it had involved him in a contention with the convocation. The convocation had dared to claim exemption for the clergy from the jurisdiction of the secular courts. The clergy in Henry's interest resisted this claim; it was brought before Parliament, and both the Lords and Commons, as well as the judges, decided against the convocation. Henry, who was at once as fond of power and as bigoted as the Church, found himself in a most embarrassing dilemma, but declared that he would maintain the prerogatives of the crown, and was glad to get rid of the dispute by the dismissal of Parliament.
King Henry VIII. retiring from Council.
On the 11th of February Queen Catherine gave birth to a daughter, who was named Mary, and who survived to wear the crown of England. In the same month died the queen's father, Ferdinand of Spain, one of the most cunning, grasping, and unprincipled monarchs who ever lived, but who had by his Machiavellian schemes united Spain into one great and compact kingdom, and whose sceptre Providence had extended, by the discovery of Columbus, over new and wonderful worlds. His grandson Charles, already in possession of the territories of the house of Burgundy, and heir to those of Austria, succeeded him, as Charles V. Henry had just entered into a commercial treaty with Charles, as far as it regarded the Netherlands, and now perceiving the vast power and greatness which must centre in Charles—for on the death of Maximilian, who was now old, he would also become Emperor of Germany—he was anxious to unite himself in close bonds of interest and intimacy. To this end, he gave a commission to Wolsey, assisted by the Duke of Norfolk, and the Bishop of Durham, to cement and conclude what was called a holy league with the Emperor Maximilian and Charles, the avowed object of which was to combine for the defence of the Church, and to restrain the unbridled ambition of certain princes—meaning Francis. A more unholy league could not be conceived, though the Pope was at the head of it, for there was not a contracting party to it which had not lately entered into leagues of friendship and peace with Francis, who certainly had neither before nor since done anything to injure any of them. This league, so basely misnamed, was undoubtedly promoted by Wolsey with right good will, for he could not forgive Francis's support of his rival Bishop of Tournay.
The sordid Emperor Maximilian, who had so often and so successfully made his profit out of the vanity of Henry, seeing him so urgent to cultivate the favour of his grandson Charles, thought it a good opportunity to draw fresh sums from him. Maximilian was now tottering towards his grave, but he was not the less desirous to pave his way to it with gold. In a confidential conversation, therefore, with Sir Robert Wingfield, the English ambassador at his Court, he delicately dropped a hint that he was grown weary of the toils and cares attending the imperial office. Pursuing the theme, he pretended a great admiration for the King of England; he declared that amongst all the princes of Christendom, he could see none who was so fitted to succeed him in his high office, and at the same time become the champion and protector of Holy Church against its enemies. He therefore proposed to adopt Henry as his son, for a proper consideration. According to his plan, Henry was to cross the Channel with an army. From Tournay he was to march to Trèves, where Maximilian was to meet him, and resign the empire to him, with all the necessary formalities. Then the united army of English and Germans were to invade France, and, whilst they thus sufficiently occupied the attention of Francis, Henry and Maximilian, with another division, were to march upon Italy, crossing the Alps at Coire, to take Milan, and, having secured that city, make an easy journey to Rome, where Henry was to be crowned emperor by the Pope.
In this wild-goose scheme—which equally ignored the fact that Charles V. was the grandson of Maximilian, heir of his kingdom, and therefore neither by the natural affection of the emperor, nor by the will of his subjects, likely to be set aside for a King of England; and the difficulty—the next to an impossibility—of the accomplishment of the enterprise by two such monarchs as Maximilian and Henry—only one thing was palpable, that Maximilian would put his hand on the stipulated sum for all these impossible honours, and then would as quickly find a reason for abandoning the extravagant scheme, as he had already done that of taking Milan. Yet it is certain that, for the moment, it seized on the imagination of Henry, and he dispatched the Earl of Worcester and Dr. Tunstall, afterwards Bishop of Durham, to the Imperial Court, to settle the conditions of this notable scheme. Tunstall, who was not only an accomplished scholar, but a solid and shrewd thinker, no sooner reached the Court of Maximilian than he saw at a glance the hollowness of the plot and the imperial plotter. He, as well as Dr. Richard Pace, the ambassador at Maximilian's Court, quickly and honestly informed Henry that it was a mere scheme to get money. Tunstall, in one of his letters, declared the Emperor's Court to be a place of great dissimulation and fair words; but where no promises were kept. With the boldness of an honest ambassador he dared to write as follows:—
"Please your grace,—Your election to the empire cannot be brought about by no means, for divers considerations. First, that, like as in the election of a Pope, a certain form is to be kept, which, if not observed, maketh the election, to be void; so of ancient time and ordinance of the universal Church, a certain form must be observed in choosing of the emperor; which omitted, the election is void. One of the chief points in the election of the emperor is, that which shall be elected must be native of Germany, and subject to the empire; whereas your grace is not, nor never since the Christian faith the kings of England were subject to the empire; but the crown of England is an empire in itself, much better than now the empire of Rome. Besides that the form of the election containeth that, first, he must be king of the Romans, and the coronation at Rome maketh him to have the name of emperor, where before he is called but king of the Romans. Over this, if the emperor which now is remain still king of the Romans—which I understand he intendeth to do—then, even if your grace were eligible, and under the empire, yet ye could not be chosen emperor, because ye were never king of the Romans. . . . For which considerations I repeat it is impossible that your grace be chosen: and I am afraid lest the said offer—being so specious at the first hearing—was only made to get thereby some money of your grace."
These honest and patriotic statements perfectly unmasked the wily old Maximilian, and Henry escaped the snare. Francis I., having also now secured the duchy of Milan, set himself to conciliate two persons whose amity was necessary to his future peace and security. These were the Pope and Henry of England. The balance of power on the Continent, it was clear, would lie betwixt Francis and Charles V., the King of Spain. On the death of Maximilian, Charles would be King of Austria, and, in all probability, Emperor of Germany. It would be quite enough for Francis to contend with the interests of Charles, whose dominions would then stretch from Austria," with the imperial power of Germany, through the Netherlands to France, and reappear on the other boundary of France, in Spain, without having that gigantic dominion backed by the co-operation of England. Francis had seen with alarm the cultivation of friendship recently betwixt these two formidable neighbours. To counteract these influences, Francis, whilst in Italy, had an interview with the Pope at Bologna, where he so won upon his regard that the Pope agreed to drop all opposition to the possession of Milan by the French.
Having secured himself in this quarter, Francis returned to France, and knowing well that the only way to the good graces of Henry was through the all-powerful Cardinal Wolsey, he caused his ambassador in England to endeavour to win the favour of the great minister. This was not to be done otherwise than by substantial contributions to his avarice, and promises of service in that greatest project of Wolsey's ambition, the succession to the Popedom. Wolsey was at this time in the possession of the most extraordinary power in England. His word was law, with both king and subject. To him all men sought and bowed down, and while he conferred favours with a regal hand, he did not forgot those who had offended him in the days of his littleness. At this period he flung Sir Amias Paulet into prison, and kept him there for some years for having set him in the stocks when he was a wild young rural incumbent, and had raised a riot in a country fair. Not only English subjects, but foreign monarchs sought his favour with equal anxiety. The young King of Spain, to secure him to his views, and knowing his grudge against the King of France, conferred on him a pension of 3,000 livres a year, styling him, in the written grant, "his most dear and especial friend."
Thus were the kings of Spain and France paying humble homage to this proud churchman and absolute minister of England, at the same moment. But Francis felt that he must outbid the King of Spain, and he resolved to do it. He commenced, then, by reminding him how sincerely he had rejoiced at his elevation to the cardinalate, and how greatly he desired the continuance and increase of their friendship, and promised him whatever it was in his power to do for him. These were mighty and significant words for the man who could signally aid him in his designs on the Popedom, and who could settle all difficulties and doubts about the bishopric of Tournay, hitherto such a stumbling-block betwixt them. The letters of Francis were spread with the most skilful, if not the most delicate flatteries; he called him his lord, his father, and his guardian, told him he regarded his counsels as oracles; and whilst they increased the vanity of the cardinal most profusely, he accompanied his flatteries by presents of many extremely valuable and curious things.
Being assured by Villeroi, his resident ambassador at London, that the cardinal lent a willing ear to all these things, Francis instructed the ambassador to enter at once into private negotiation with Wolsey for the restoration of Tournay, and an alliance betwixt the two crowns. This alliance was to be cemented by the affiancing of Henry's daughter, Mary, then about a year-and a half old, to the infant dauphin of France, but recently born! The price which Wolsey was to receive for these services being satisfactorily settled betwixt himself and Francis, the great minister broke the matter to his master in a manner which marks the genius of the man, and his profound knowledge of Henry's character. He presented some of the superb articles which Francis had sent him to the king, saying, "With these things hath the King of France attempted to corrupt me. Many servants would have concealed this from their masters, but I am resolved to deal openly with your grace on all occasions. This attempt, however," added he "to corrupt a servant is a certain proof of his sincere desire of the friendship for the master." Oh! faithful servant! Oh! open and incorruptible man! Henry's vanity was so flattered that he took in every word, and looked on himself as so much the greater prince to have a minister thus admired and courted by the most powerful monarchs.
The way to negotiation was now entirely open. Francis appointed William Gouffier, Lord of Bonivet, Admiral of France; Stephen Ponchior, Bishop of Paris; Sir Francis de Rupecavarde, and Sir Nicholas do Noufville his plenipotentiaries. They set out with a splendid train of the greatest lords and ladies of France, attended by a retinue of 1,200 officers and servants. Francis knew that the way to ensure Henry's favourable attention was to compliment him by the pomp and splendour of his embassy. The French plenipotentiaries were introduced to Henry at Greenwich, on the 22nd of September, 1518, and Wolsey was appointed to conduct the business on the part of the King of England. When they went to business the ambassadors of Francis prepared the way for the greater matters by producing a grant, already prepared, and, therefore, clearly agreed upon beforehand, which they presented to Wolsey, seeming him a pension of 12,000 livres a year, in compensation for the cession of the bishopric of Tournay. This was a direct and palpable bribe; but there was no troublesome and meddlesome opposition in the House of Commons in those days to demand the production of papers, and the impeachment of corrupt ministers. With such a beginning the terms of a treaty were soon settled. They embraced four articles:—A general contract of peace and amity betwixt the two kings and their successors, for ever; a treaty of marriage betwixt the two little babies, the dauphin and Mary Tudor; the restitution of Tournay to France for 600,000 crowns; and, lastly, an agreement for a personal interview betwixt the two monarchs, which was to take place on neutral ground betwixt Calais and Ardres, before the last day of July, 1519.
Henry, charmed with these new arrangements with France, seemed to conceive now as vehement an admiration of Francis, as he had before manifested a jealousy. No doubt, the tone in which Wolsey spoke of him was of the same kind, and the cause of it. Having excited warmth in the great favourite, that warmth was breathed from the favourite on the master, if master Henry at this period could be called, for Wolsey was at the height of his unbounded greatness and power. Every day Henry seemed only more desirous of divesting himself of his prerogatives, and piling them on the cardinal. By one warrant he authorised him to issue congés d'élire, royal assents, restitutions of temporalities to all archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and to all ecclesiastical benefices without so much as consulting the crown. With such power in his hands, he was soon in possession or disposal of almost all the considerable benefices in England, from which he derived an enormous income. The Pope added to this by giving him the bishoprics of Bath and Wells, which had been taken from Cardinal Adrian for a conspiracy against his holiness.
To this spoiled child of fortune both Henry and Francis delegated all the arrangements for the proposed meeting of the monarchs. Francis sent him a warrant on the 10th of January, 1519, empowering him to settle with Henry's commissioners the time, place, and all the other circumstances of the intended interview. The public mind in both France and England was occupied by the details of this royal ceremony to the exclusion of almost every other topic, and both nations saw with wonder the vast and expensive preparations for the pageant. The offence which this unparalleled height of favour enjoyed by the favourite gave to the nobility, caused much secret murmuring, and told against him fearfully when the tide at length turned. The effects of such enormous prosperity were now every day ripening and growing into a strange flagrance in the public eye. Wolsey was a despot of the most decided stamp, and Henry appeared judicially blind. Such was the pride of the cardinal that on solemn feast days he was not contented without saying mass after the manner of the Pope himself. He had bishops and abbots to serve him, and had even noblemen to hand him water and the towel. It was owing to this last piece of arrogance that he is said to have contracted that deadly enmity to the Duke of Buckingham, which never rested till he brought that great nobleman to the block. One day the duke was holding the basin for the king to wash, when the cardinal came and unceremoniously dipped in his hand. The duke, incensed at this indignity, flushed scarlet with anger, and let the water fall into Wolsey's shoes. The cardinal, stung by this insult, said apart to Buckingham that "he would sit on his skirts" for that. Buckingham, to mark his contempt of Wolsey, appeared next day at court in a jerkin, and when the king demanded the reason of that bizarre costume, Buckingham replied merrily that the cardinal had threatened to sit on his skirts, and therefore he had taken this precaution, for if he had no skirts they could not be sat upon.
It was only by such incidental means and by such spirited men as Buckingham that any complaint of my lord cardinal's doings could be brought to the king's notice. Every one was in terror of the overgrown minister. Such was his towering pride at this period that even Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, having addressed him in a letter as "Your loving brother," Wolsey resented it as an indignity, and complained of the primate's presumption in thus challenging an equality with him. On this being reported to the venerable Warham, he only calmly replied, "Don't you yet know that this man is drunk with too much prosperity?"
No one, except the honest Warham, dared to complain to the king of his favourite's proceedings. Wolsey had set up a court of his own, which was an actual inquisition, into which he compelled both laity and clergy, and in this he set himself up as the public censor of morals and opinions. Not only every man's conduct, but every man's conscience was at his mercy. He appointed as judge in this court one John Allen, a man of scandalous life, whom he had himself, as chancellor, condemned for perjury. With such an apt but unworthy tool as this, Wolsey drew a large income by fines upon the dissolute conduct of both laymen, and of monks, and the clergy, who gave him ample scope for it. But though this might have been tolerated in a man of strict life, the people were especially disgusted to see one who indulged himself freely, both in pomp and pleasure, so severe on the licentiousness of others. Nor did Wolsey confine himself to his own court: by his commissions he claimed to possess jurisdiction over all the bishops' courts, especially as it regarded wills; and his decisions on such matters were regarded as most arbitrary and intolerable.
None but Warham dared to bring the complaints and discontents of the public on this score to the ears of Henry, who merely bade Warham tell Wolsey that if anything were amiss to see it amended. But at length a person of the name of Loudon ventured to prosecute Allen, Wolsey's judge, in a court of law, and convicted him of injustice and corruption; and the people were so delighted with this that their clamour reached the king, who was greatly incensed, and gave the cardinal a rebuke, which made him a little more cautious. At the approaching royal meeting, however, we shall see the cardinal occupying the place of sole arbiter of all proceedings; the depository, as it were, of the jurisdiction and glory of the two monarchs of England and France.
But whilst Wolsey was deeply occupied in his plans and preparations for the royal meeting, an event occurred which for a time arrested the attention of all Europe. This was the death of the Emperor Maximilian, and the vacancy in the imperial office. Francis I. and Charles of Spain were the two candidates for its occupation, and the rivalry of these two monarchs seems to have again awakened in Henry the same wish, though the plain statements of Bishop Tunstall had for a time suppressed it. He dispatched a man of great learning, Dr. Richard Pace, to Germany, to see whether there were in reality any chance for him. The reports of Pace soon extinguished any hope of such event, and Henry, with a strange duplicity, then sent off his "sincere longings for success" to both of the rival candidates, Francis and Charles!
Francis declared to Henry's ambassador, Sir Thomas Boleyn, that he would spend three millions of gold, but he would win the imperial crown; but though the German electors were notoriously corrupt, and ready to hold out plausible pretences to secure as much of any one's money as they could, from the first there could be no question as to who would prove the successful candidate. The first and indispensable requisite for election was, that the candidate must be a native of Germany, and subject of the empire, neither of which Francis was, and both of which Charles was. Charles was not only grandson of Maximilian, and his successor to the throne of Austria, and therefore of a German royal house, but he was sovereign of the Netherlands, which were included in the universal German empire.
Even where Francis placed his great strength—the power of bribing the corrupt German electors, the petty princes of Germany, for the people had no voice in the matter—Charles was infinitely beyond him in the power of bribery. He was now monarch of Spain, of the Netherlands, of Naples and Sicily, of the Indies, and of the gold regions of the newly-discovered America. Nor was Francis at all a match for Charles in the other power which usually determines so much in these contests—that of intrigue. Francis was open, generous, and ardent; Charles, cool, cautious, and, though young, surrounded by ministers educated in the school of the crafty Ferdinand-and the able Ximenes to every artifice of diplomatic cunning. Still more, the vulpine Maximilian, at the very time that he was attempting to wheedle Henry of England out of his money, on pretence of securing the imperial dignity for him, had paved the way for his own grandson, by assiduous exertions and promises amongst the electors, promises which Charles was amply able to fulfil. Accordingly, after a lavish distribution of both French and Spanish gold amongst the elector-princes of Germany, Charles was declared emperor on the 28th of June, 1519. Francis, though he professed to carry off his disappointment with all the gaiety of a Frenchman, was deeply and lastingly chagrined by the event; and though he and Charles must, under any circumstances, have been rivals for the place of supremacy on the continent of Europe, there is no doubt that this circumstance struck much deeper the feeling which led to that gigantic struggle betwixt them, which, during their lives, kept Europe in a constant state of warfare and agitation.
Europe at this juncture presented a peculiar aspect. Three monarchs especially stood forth as the arbiters of its destinies, made strikingly prominent above all others by the strength of their dominions, the vigour of their characters, and the superiority of their talents: those of England, France, and Spain. Francis I. was now the ruler of a great and united kingdom, but Charles of Spain was the master of a still more extended empire; to Spain, Austria, and the Netherlands, being added the dominion of the Two Sicilies and the dignity of the imperial crown of Germany. Francis was of a chivalrous, open, frank, and munificent character; Charles V. was of a more reserved, artful, and diplomatic disposition, calculated to win his way by secret negotiations, and to guard against surprises in war. Francis was the more amiable man; Charles, the greater and more politic king. He was of a close and intriguing turn, and rarely have such qualities been supported by so immense a dominion. Francis was calculated to strike by sudden and brilliant exploits, but at the same time liable to run into imprudences and incur misfortunes; whilst the vast power and contiguous territories of these monarchs were sure to bring them into collision. Henry sat upon his isolated seat with a strength and distinction never enjoyed by a British monarch before, placed, as it were, by Providence to assuage the heats, balance the interests, and curb the ambition of those two great Continental kings. But far from possessing the wisdom and the impartiality requisite for such an arbitration, he was at once one of the vainest, the most gullible, and most passionate of mortals. Hence he was continually drawn this way and that by the flatteries of the interested parties, or by the ambitious arts of his great favourite.
Both Charles and Francis were intensely anxious to secure the preference of Henry, because his weight thrown into either balance must give it a dangerous preponderance. Both, therefore, paid assiduous court to him, and still more, though covertly, to his all-powerful minister Wolsey. Francis, aware of the impulsive temperament of Henry, prayed for an early fulfilment of the visit agreed upon of Henry to France. It was decided that the interview should take place in May. The news of this immediately excited the jealousy of Charles, and his ambassadors in London expressed great dissatisfaction at the proposal. Wolsey found he had a difficult part to play, for he had great expectations from both monarchs, and he took care to make such representations to each prince in private, as to persuade him that the real affection of England lay towards him, the public favour shown to the rival monarch being only a matter of political expedience. When the Spanish ambassadors found they could not put off the intended interview, they proposed a visit of their master to the King of England previously, on his way from Spain to Germany. This was secretly arranged with the cardinal, but was to be made to appear quite an unpremeditated occurrence.
Accordingly, before the king set out for Calais, Charles, according to the secret treaty with Wolsey, sent that minister a grant under his privy seal, from the revenue of the two bishoprics of Badajoz and Placentia, of 7,000 ducats. Henry set forward from London to Canterbury, on his way towards Dover and Calais, attended by his queen and court, with a surprising degree of splendour. Whilst lying there, he was surprised, as it was made to appear, by the news that the emperor had been induced by his regard for the king, to turn aside on his voyage towards his German dominions, and had anchored in the port of Hythe on the 26th of May, 1520. As soon as this news reached Henry, he dispatched Wolsey to receive the emperor and conduct him to the castle of Dover, and Henry himself set out and rode by torchlight to Dover, where he arrived in the middle of the night. It must have been a hospitably inconvenient visit at that hour, for Charles, fatigued by his voyage, had gone to bed, and was awoke from a sound sleep by the noise and bustle of the king's arrival. He arose, however, and met Henry at the top of the stairs, where the two monarchs embraced, and Henry bade his august relative welcome. The next day, being Whitsunday, they went together to Canterbury, the king riding with the emperor on his right hand, the Earl of Derby carrying before them the sword of state. Wolsey had pushed forward, and on their entering Canterbury, appeared at the head of a great procession of the clergy, and led the way to the cathedral. This cathedral, containing the shrine of Thomas à Becket, was by far the richest of any in England, for, independent of its ancient date, and many royal and noble benefactors of the last 800 years, the wealth which the pilgrims to Becket's tomb had brought to it was enormous. The venerable cathedral, and the monastery attached to it, stood in the glory of their noble architecture in a very town of ecclesiastical buildings and offices. "Every place," Erasmus says, "was enlightened with the lustre of most precious stones, and the church throughout abounded with more than royal treasure.' The tomb of Becket itself was one blaze of wealth and splendour. It was actually embossed with jewels and gold, and the gold, it was said, was the meanest thing about it.
At this magnificent shrine—so accordant with Spanish ideas of religion—the emperor and Henry paid their homage, depositing their royal gifts, and spending some time in devotion; but it is supposed that, at the very time Henry was paying this outward worship, he was pondering on the wonderful display of wealth, which made so deep an impression on his mind, that this gorgeous shrine was one of the very first that he stripped when he began his onslaught on the ancient Church.
From the cathedral the emperor was conducted by his royal host to the palace of the archbishop, where he was for the time quartered, and there introduced to his aunt, Queen Catherine, and to Mary, the Duchess of Suffolk, and Queen Dowager of France. To her Charles had originally been engaged, and when he now saw her in the blaze of her full-blown beauty, he is said to have been greatly moved, and to have bitterly deplored the political events which had broken that contract, and robbed him of so charming a queen. For three days the archiepiscopal palace as a scene of the gayest festivities; nothing was omitted by Henry to do honour to his august relative; and nothing on the part of Charles to win upon Henry, and detach him from the interests of France. Nor the less assiduously did the politic emperor exert himself to secure the services of Wolsey. He saw that ambition was the great passion of the cardinal, and he adroitly infused into his mind the hope of reaching the Popedom through his influence and assistance. Nothing could bind Wolsey like this fascinating anticipation. Leo X. was a much younger man than Wolsey himself; but this did not seem to occur to the sanguine spirit of the cardinal, for "all men think all men mortal but themselves;" whilst to Charles the circumstance made his promise peculiarly easy, as he could scarcely expect to be called upon to fulfil it.
Meeting of Henry VIII. and Francis I. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
On the fourth day Charles embarked at Sandwich for the Netherlands, less anxious regarding the approaching interview of Henry and Francis, for he had made an ardent impression on the king, and had put a strong-hook into the nose of his great leviathan—the hope of the triple crown. Simultaneously with the departure of Charles, Henry, his queen, and court, embarked at Dover for Calais; and, on the 4th of June, Henry, with his queen, the Queen Dowager of France, and all his court, rode on to Guisnes, where 2,000 workmen, most of them clever artificers from Holland and Flanders, had been busily engaged for several months in erecting a palace of wood for their reception. Henry went, of course, in all the splendour and state that his realm could supply, and Francis and the French court came to their rendezvous in equal pomp of circumstance and luxury of apparel. In Henry's train, besides all his guards and servants, rode one cardinal, one archbishop, two dukes, one marquis, eight earls, and eighteen lords, with all their followers, besides multitudes of knights and gentlemen. The queen, besides the ladies, officers, and servants of her household, was attended by three bishops, one earl, three lords, thirty-three knights, one duchess, seven countesses, fifteen baronesses, nineteen ladies of knights, and many gentlewomen, with all their attendants.
The suite, or, as it might truly be termed, the court of the cardinal, was scarcely less numerous or dazzling than that of the king. Never had the Court of England displayed such magnificence, demonstrating in it the affluence of the country and the ostentation of the monarch.
The wooden palace which had been erected near the castle of Guisnes for the English Court was square, surrounding a court, and each side of the building was 328 feet in length. This building was covered on the outside with sail-cloth, so painted as to resemble squared stone. The walls and roof were adorned with a multitude of statues of warriors, each discharging some weapon as in defence. Over the great gateway stood the figure of a colossal savage, armed with a bow and arrow, and below it this inscription: "Cui adhæreo præest" (He to whom I adhere prevails). This motto was chosen by Henry, for Wolsey had the sole direction of all the preparations and the ordering of all the proceedings and pageants on this occasion, and the words were intended to intimate that the monarch who allied himself to Henry would be the one to gain the ascendancy in Europe: a truly acceptable assurance to Francis, could he rely upon it.
The Field of the Cloth of Gold. From a bas-relief on the Hotel du Bourtheroulde at Rouen.
The palace within was lined with richest silks and tapestry of Arras. It was divided into halls, state-rooms, a most sumptuous chapel, and rooms for the accommodation of the royal family and principal guests. The coilings were covered with silk, or richly painted, the floors decorated with Turkey carpets, and the whole was furnished in the most regal style, and the tables were loaded with massive plate. The altar of the chapel blazed with real or imitative jewels, and its walls glowed with the most gorgeous embroidery. On each side of the gate, on one side, stood a fountain of embowered work, gilt with fine gold, from which flowed red and white wines and hippocras, on which stood a statue of Bacchus, having this inscription: "Faicte bonne chère quy voudra" (Make merry who will). Contiguous to the palace were erected suitable lodges for all the great officers of the household, and other buildings for the ewery, pantry, cellar, buttery, spicery, larder, poultry, and pitcher-house; and in the plain around were pitched 2,800 tents, many of them large and magnificent, covered with cloth of gold or silk. But even yet we should form no adequate idea of the extent of the concourse of great people, or the magnificence of the spectacle, did we not take into the view the houses of the town of Guisnes decorated for the occasion, and so crowded by people of rank and fortune that many who lived in fine castles at home were obliged to lodge in barns and sleep on straw and hay.
To the people of the Continent it was a sight not every day to be had, to behold the King and Queen of England, and all its collected nobility in their highest grandeur; and foreign princes and princesses and nobility flocked thither from all parts, as they flock now-a-days to the coronation of a Russian emperor, and either were entertained by the proud and prodigal English king, or swelled the crush in the little town of Guisnes. "During this triumph," says Hall, "much people of Picardy and Flanders drew to Guisnes, to see the King of England and his honour, to whom victuals of the court were given in plenty, and the conduit of the gate ran wine always. There were vagabonds, ploughmen, labourers, wagoners, and beggars, that for drunkenness lay in routs and heaps; so great resort thither came, that both knights and ladies, that were come to see that nobleness, were fain to lye in hay and straw, and held them thereof highly pleased." Add to this the throngs of richly caparisoned horses, glittering with embroidery and jewels, and the gorgeous attire of both sexes, where nothing was to be seen but silks, velvets, cloth of gold, embroidery, gold chains, and precious stones, and you may have some idea of the enormous expense incurred by Henry and his chief subjects for this grand gala. "Many of the nobles," continues Hall, who was present on the occasion, "carried their castles, woods, and farms on their backs."
Francis had raised for himself an immense pavilion near the town of Ardres. This was supported by a tall mast in the centre, from which were stretched ropes, so that it presented the appearance of a gigantic dome. The outside was covered with cloth of gold, and the roof within represented the vault of heaven, the concave being of blue velvet, and the moon and stars of radiant gold. Unfortunately, a rude tempest of wind and rain assailed the proud pavilion, snapped the ropes, laid all this magnificence in the dirt, and compelled Francis to betake him to the castle of Ardres. As soon as the monarchs were respectively in visiting order, Wolsey set out with a pompous train to wait on the King of France, and a deputation of French nobles made a like visit to the King of England. But the great display of state and the real business were attached to the person of Wolsey. He rode as not only cardinal and legate à latere, but as Henry's plenipotentiary, at the head of such a train of nobles, knights, and prelates, and in such a blaze of splendour, as utterly astonished all the spectators. The whole of this parade was depicted by French artists in books—the "Illustrated News" of the day—to preserve the memory of it. "These," says Hall, "showed the triumphant doings of the cardinal's royalty, as of the number of his gentlemen, knights, and lords, all in crimson velvet, with marvellous number of chains of gold; the multitude of horses, mules, coursers, and carriages, that went before him with sumpters and coffers; his great silver crosses and pillars, his embroidered cushions, and his host of servants, as yeomen and grooms, all clad in scarlet."
Francis, of course, received the great man with all honour and cordiality, and they spent two days together in arranging an additional treaty. Francis was already bound to pay a million of crowds within a certain period; and he now contracted to pay to Henry and his heirs 100,000 crowns annually, in the event of the marriage of the dauphin and the Princess Mary taking place, and their issue being seated on the English throne. It was, moreover, agreed that all matters in dispute regarding Scotland should be left to the determination of Wolsey and of Louisa, the mother of Francis.
The real business thus settled, the two kings prepared to meet. Henry set out dressed in a suit of cloth of silver of damask, striped with cloth of gold; his horse, caparisoned in a most extravagant style with embroidery, and almost weighed down with solid gold bullion, and all his nobles in a similar magnificence. They were to meet in the valley of Ardres, where a tent was pitched for the purpose. But, amid all this show, there was on both sides the most extraordinary distrust, and each party was under the constant apprehension of being entrapped and carried off by the other: such is the friendship of kings. Every possible precaution was taken to prevent a surprise, and the way before them was diligently reconnoitred, to see that there was no lurking ambush. It was ordered that the kings should set out at the same moment, the signal being the firing of a cannon at Guisnes, and the answer of another from Ardres. The number of attendants on each king was to be precisely the same, and the road was to be guarded by the same number of troops of both nations. When the two kings had advanced a little way, each from his own place, Francis caught an alarm from some circumstance, halted, alighted from his horse, and remained in suspense till M. Morret told him there was no danger, when he re-mounted, and rode forward. Precisely a similar fear seized Henry, but the Earl of Shrewsbury said, "Sire, I have seen the Frenchmen; they be more in fear of you and your subjects than your subjects be of them; wherefore, if I were worthy to give counsel, your grace should march forward." "So we intend, my lord," said the king; on which the officers of arms cried, "On afore!"
At length these two monarchs, so brave and imposing in outward apparel and retinues, inwardly so dreadfully afraid of each other, met, and embraced each other on horseback, expressed their great regard for each other; then alighted, and walked arm-in-arm into the tent together, where they conversed familiarly, dined, and then separated for the time, no doubt each congratulating himself that he was safe. Hall, who took a close view of Francis, says, "He is a goodly prince, stately of countenance, and merry of cheer; brown-coloured, great eyes; high-nosed, big-lipped; fair breasted and shouldered; with small legs and long feet."
After this first interview, Francis rode over to Guisnes to visit the Queen Catherine, and Henry at the same time rode to Ardres to pay his respects to Queen Claude. The monarchs spent the day in dancing, and making themselves agreeable to the ladies of the opposite court; and thus their visits went on for some time, but all regulated exactly by the stiff etiquette prescribed by Wolsey. The two queens, amiable and serious women, from the first showed a far greater confidence in each other, which seemed to grow into a real regard. One incident of their mutual behaviour is worth all the vent of this hollow show besides. One morning when Wolsey officiated at high mass before the assembled courts at Guisnes, Henry and Francis received the eucharist, as a pledge of the peace which all these doings were to perpetuate—with what effect a short time demonstrated. When the cardinal entered the separate oratory where the Queens Catherine and Claude were kneeling, side by side, these ladies, before they communicated, tenderly embraced and kissed each other, in token of mutual affection.
The cold formality and restraint of the affair, however, was not long in wearing out the patience of the more frank and generous Francis. One morning early he mounted his horse and rode off towards Guisnes, attended only by two gentlemen and a page. On reaching the temporary palace, a body of 200 English soldiers, who kept guard, were no little astonished to see him. "Surrender your arms!" cried Francis, "you are all my prisoners; and now conduct me to my brother." He entered the room where Henry was fast asleep, and, drawing the curtains, exclaimed, "You are my prisoner!" Henry was for a moment confounded with astonishment at what he saw, but the next, springing from his bed, he clasped Francis in his arms, saying, "My brother, you have played me the most agreeable trick in the world, and have showed me the full confidence I may place in you. I surrender myself your prisoner from this moment." He took up a collar of pearls, worth 15,000 angels, and putting it on Francis, insisted that he should wear it for his sake. Francis returned the compliment, by fixing on Henry's wrist a bracelet of double the value of the collar. The jocund French king was in the merriest humour in the world. He insisted on helping Henry to dress; he warmed his shirt, spread out his hose, and trussed his points for him; and having done this, he mounted his horse again, and rode back to Ardres. What a pity that monarchs and statesmen do not extend such moments into years! We admire the bonhommie, the confidence and good-heartedness of such sallies. Alas! that they are but sallies, and not the enduring conduct of potentates to one another. Were such things their practice and not their aberrations, what a different world they would make of it!
But this act of Francis, instead of being regarded by his ministers, as it seems to us, one of the most natural and sensible things on earth, was looked upon as a freak of excessive folly. Riding back towards Ardres, in the gaiety of his heart, he met a party of his courtiers in high alarm; and his faithful officer, Marshal Fleuranges, said bluntly, "Sire, I am right glad to see you back again; but let me tell you, my master, that you were a fool to do the thing you have done; and ill-luck betide those who advised you to it." "And that was nobody," said Francis, laughing; "the thought was all my own, and could have come from no other head." Henry was not the man to be outdone in a deed like that: of all things he delighted in such surprises, and therefore he speedily returned the visit in the same unceremonious manner; and the barriers of the cardinal's stately etiquette being broken down, the intercourse of the courts went on far more pleasantly.
The tournaments were such as had not been witnessed since the most chivalrous ages. Both Henry and Francis were ardently attached to all martial exercises, and therefore they had, months before this meeting, sent heralds into all the principal cities of Europe, to proclaim by sound of trumpet, the challenge of the kings of England and France, who, as brothers in arms, with fourteen companions, at tilts, tournaments, and barriers, would keep the field against all comers, and invited all valorous knights and gentlemen to come and accept the challenge. In this challenge the two kings showed themselves truer knights than Henry had done to Francis in a ludicrous challenge of another kind, which was never to shave till they met—a challenge which Francis maintained, and appeared with a bushy beard, but Henry with a smooth face, asserting that the queen could not abide a shaggy chin.
These tournaments opened on the 11th of June and terminated on the 23rd. The enclosed arena was 900 feet long, and 320 feet wide, and surrounded by scaffolding and galleries for spectators. The two queens sat as umpires, loaded with silks, cloth of gold, and jewels, the very foot-cloth of Queen Catherine being covered with pearls. There were two tents near the entrance of the arena for the kings to array themselves in, and to rest after their contests, and wine flowed like water. In the centre of the field was raised a mound, on which were planted two artificial trees, the hawthorn for England and the raspberry for France, with their stems and branches lovingly intertwined. The shield of Henry, bearing the arms of England within a garter, hung upon one tree, and that of Francis, with the arms of France within a collar of his order of St. Michael, on the other. Henry was attended by his gallant brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the Marquis of Dorset, Sir William Kingston, Sir Richard Jerningham, Sir Giles Capel, Nicholas Carew, and Anthony Neville; Francis, by the Lords Pol, Montmorency, Biron, and other gentlemen. Numbers of the bravest knights of different countries appeared in the lists to answer the challenges; and six days were spent in tilting with lances, two in fighting with broadswords on horseback, and two on foot at the barriers. There were five battles a day; and in all, such was the valour of the monarchs, or the skilful flattery of their opponents, they came off conquerors.
After the tournaments, the English and French wrestlers appeared and wrestled before the kings and the ladies, in which contest the English bore away the palm. Henry, excited by this scene, seized Francis by the collar, crying, "My brother, I must wrestle with you," and endeavoured to trip up his heels; but the King of France, who was a dexterous wrestler, twisted him round and threw him on the ground with great violence. Henry, mortified at this defeat before the two courts and the concourse of illustrious strangers, rose warmly, and insisted on renewing the contest, but the nobles on both sides interfered and prevented further play. The joustings were succeeded by banquets, balls, masquerades, and mummeries, in which the ladies as well as the gentlemen played their parts. Shakespeare has described these gorgeous festivities in his unequalled style:—
"Men might say,
Till this time pomp was single: but now married
To one above itself. Each following day
Became the next day's master, till the last
Made former wonder its: to-day, the French,
All clinquant, all iii gold, like heathen gods,
Shone down the English: and, to-morrow, they
Made Britain, India: every man that stood,
Showed like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were
As cherubins, all gilt: the madams, too,
Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear
The pride upon them, that their very labour
Was to them as a painting: now, this mask
Was cried incomparable; and the ensuing nights
Made it a fool and beggar. The two kings,
Equal in lustre, were now best, now worst,
As presence did present them: him in eye,Still him in praise: and being present both,
'Twas said they saw but one; and no discerner
Durst wag his tongue in censure. "When these suns
(For so they phrase them) by their heralds challenged
The noble spirits to arms, they did perform
Beyond thought's compass: that former, fabulous story,
Being now seen possible enough, got credit."
King Henry VIII., Act 1, Scene 1.
The end of all these international spectacles—of all these sports and banquetings, and social amusements-shows how little such things can do to bind together the hearts of rival people.
Execution of the Duke of Buckingham
The enormous expenditure, followed by years of difficulty, and, in many cases, of utter ruin, by the actors in them, should have produced some national good. They produced none. The whole was hollow, and left no trace behind more than the glories of a Fata Morgana, which, pictured upon vapour, is blown away by the next breeze. The Field of the Cloth of Gold was immediately preceded by the emperor's visit, exciting deep jealousy in the minds of Francis and the French; and the moment the French retired, the coqueting with the emperor was renewed, and he was actually brought upon the scene as if purposely to give him the closing effect. On the 23rd of June the tournaments closed; on the 24th, Francis spent the day at Guisnes, with the Queen and Court of England, and Henry at Ardres, with the "good queen Claude" and the Court of France. On their way back the two kings met, spent some time in familiar conversation, made many warm expressions of their mutual and lasting regards, embraced, and parted. On the 25th, the English Court returned to Calais, half the followers of the nobles were sent home, and then active preparations were made for visiting the emperor at Gravelines, and receiving a visit from him at Calais. By the 10th of July all was ready, and Henry set out with a splendid retinue for Gravelines. He was met on the way, and conducted into the town, by Charles, with every circumstance of honour and display. Charles, whose object was avowedly to efface any impression which Francis and the French might have made on the mind of Henry at the late interview, had given orders to receive the English with every demonstration of friendship and hospitality, and his orders were so well executed that the English were enchanted with their visit. The next day Henry returned to Calais, accompanied by Charles, his aunt Margaret, and the imperial Court. Then, as if Henry had studied to place Charles precisely in the position which Francis had occupied in the late fête, Charles found a stupendous wooden building erected for his reception, in a circular form, and the ceiling painted to represent the concave of heaven, and the moon and stars, like that of the pavilion of Francis; and as if Nature would do her part to make the resemblance perfect, there came a tempest which damaged it so extensively, that it could not be repaired in time. Notwithstanding, three days were spent in a continual round of banquetings, maskings, balls, and revelries.
It was natural that the attention of Francis and the French nation should be fixed with a keen interest on these merry-makings with the rival monarch, directly upon the heels of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. There were, therefore, numbers of the French emissaries who made their way into the royal palace disguised as maskers, to learn what was actually going on under this surface of gaiety. La Roche, the ambassador of Francis, did not hesitate, moreover, to present himself for an audience with the two kings. Whatever the anxious envoys might make out, everything which passed in public was of a character to move the spleen of the French, who had just put themselves to such expense and trouble to prevent an amity in that quarter. On the fourth day Charles returned with his court to Gravelines, mounted on a splendid horse, the gift of Henry, covered with a cloth of gold, richly studded with precious stones. It was a direct triumph over his rival, Francis, and said more loudly than words—"See what has come of it all!" But Charles did not spare to scatter abroad words of high gratulation too. He everywhere extolled the good fortune of his aunt Catherine, who was married to so great and magnificent a prince. In all this may be traced the hand of Wolsey, who was paying his assiduous court to Charles in pursuit of the promised Papal tiara. Henry was but the puppet, whilst he thought himself the director of everything and the greatest man on earth.
On the departure of Charles, Henry and his court embarked for Dover, returning proud of his sham prowess and mock-battles, and of all his finery, but both himself and all his followers loaded with a fearful amount of debt for this useless and hypocritical display. When the nobles and gentlemen got home and began to reflect coolly on the heavy responsibilities they had incurred for their late showy but worthless follies, they could not help grumbling amongst themselves, and even blaming the cardinal, as loudly as they dared, as being at the bottom of the whole affair. One amongst them was neither nice nor cautious in his expressions of chagrin at the ruinous and foolish expense incurred, and denounced the proud cardinal's ambition as the cause of it all. Buckingham never forgot the threat of Wolsey to sit on his skirts, and Wolsey never forgave the insult of Buckingham throwing the water into his shoes, and making a jest before all the Court of the cardinal's menace, by wearing a short jerkin. He was now to pay a fatal penalty for his insult and his jest.
Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, was the son of that duke who, revolting from Richard III. at the instigation of Bishop Morton, was defeated and beheaded. Though the revolt of Buckingham had operated eventually in favour of Henry VII., yet the present duke, his son, had escaped the jealousy of that monarch almost by miracle, for he was one of those descendants of royalty who always kept him in alarm. He was descended from Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III., and is said to have been not only extremely vain of his royal lineage, but to look with the eye of a true claimant on the crown. Whether this was really the case, or only the insinuation of his enemies, the effect was the same. It afforded the vindictive cardinal a convenient plea for the purposes of his vengeance. Buckingham was one of the most wealthy peers in England—another cause of danger under a monarch like Henry VII.—and he was, moreover, of a bold, free, aspiring temperament; fond of the éclat of a great position, a great house and retinue. He was liberal and even lavish in his conduct, and accustomed himself to talk freely of public affairs, not even sparing the king, especially on account of his blindness in fostering so haughty an upstart as Wolsey. He criticised freely the king's ministers and measures, and that was not a day when an opposition to Government could exist and maintain the privilege of freedom of speech with impunity.
Wolsey, having determined to destroy Buckingham, was not long in preparing his machinery. The duke was accused of having augmented extravagantly his retinue and state before going to the Field of the Cloth of Gold, though the reason for this was obvious enough, and every nobleman had done the same to make a figure on that occasion equal to his compeers. But Wolsey's malice had whispered a traitorous idea of it into Henry's ears before setting out on that occasion, and had particularly excited his jealousy by pointing out that Sir William Bulmer had quitted the king's service, and entered that of Buckingham. Henry, in his anger, had summoned Sir William into the Star Chamber, as though such an act were one of treason, and so alarmed the knight that he fell on his knees and begged pardon: whereupon the king pardoned him, but added these significant words:—"He would have none of his servants hang on another man's sleeve; and what might be thought of his departing, and what might be supposed by the duke's retaining, he could not then declare."
Thus mischief was meant, even before the duke went, but now his movements on his return hastened the crisis of his fate. It appears that, like many nobles and princes of those times, Buckingham had great faith in soothsaying and astrology.
The City of Bruges.—Palace of the Franks.
He had, some years before, had the misfortune to become acquainted with one Hopkins, the prior of the charter-house at Henton, who professed to be able to see into futurity; and this man, on the occasion of Henry setting out on the expedition to Terouenne, had predicted that he would return with fame from France, but that James of Scotland, if he passed the borders, as he was then menacing, would never return alive to his kingdom. The exact accomplishment of both these prophecies produced in Buckingham a profound conviction of Hopkins's prescience, and from that time forward the artful prior was much about the duke. He soon perceived that Buckingham was elated with his royal descent, as a much more preferable one to that of Henry; and the king having no sons, he began to play upon his credulity, and prognosticated the highest destinies for his patron; he insinuated, in fact, that Buckingham would succeed the king on the throne.
All these circumstances were carefully hunted out by Wolsey through his spies, and wade the most of. The plot being ripe, the witnesses against the duke were secured from amongst his own servants. They were apprehended and committed to the Tower, where their hopes and fears could be successfully operated upon, and they could be held in reserve for the occasion. These men are said to have been put to the torture to extort the necessary confessions. They were Hopkins, the prophet, Delacourt, Buckingham's confessor, Perk, his chancelllor, and Charles Knevet, his steward. Whatever might be the case with the rest, the evidence of Knevet seems to have been voluntary and even officious. He was a relative of the duke, and had been his steward and confidential servant, but from some cause had been dismissed by him, and now was a ready and vindictive witness, a fit tool of the cardinal's malice.
Queen Catherine of Arragon. From the Miniature by Holbein.
All being ready, Buckingham, who was residing at his estate of Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, was invited to Court. It is said that he obeyed the summons, unsuspicious of any evil intended him, but it is difficult to suppose this, when his own servants had been already arrested, and thrown into the Tower. He set out, however, and was soon after startled by observing three knights of the king's bodyguard riding at some distance in his rear, attended by a number of armed followers. Appearing to take no note of this, he travelled on to Windsor, and there his suspicions were greatly augmented by seeing those knights and their followers posted, as it were, on guard over him. He was not left long without confirmation strong that he was a doomed man, for the gentleman harbinger of the king, at Windsor, treated him with marked disrespect; and, on reaching Westminster, he went to pay his respects to Wolsey, but was curtly told that he was indisposed. The cardinal's servants had already their cue, and the coldness which they showed him gave the duke the gloomiest apprehensions. Taking his barge to row down to Greenwich, where the Court was, he was met by the barge of Sir Henry Marney, the captain of the body-guard, with a detachment of yeomen of the guard, who arrested him as a traitor, and conveyed him prisoner to the Tower, to the great astonishment and grief of the people, width whom he was highly popular.
A court was formed for his trial, consisting of the Duke of Norfolk, as lord high steward, and seventeen other peers. On the 13th of May, 1521, he was brought to trial, and accused of having entertained traitorous designs against the king's crown and life; of having induced, by solicitations and promises, Hopkins to prophesy in his favour; of debauching the minds of the king's yeoman of the guard, and his servants, by bribes and hopes of benefit; of even threatening the king with death. Buckingham denied all the charges with great indignation, and declared nothing whatever in the indictment amounted to an overt act; but Fineux, the chief justice, replied that the crime consisted in imagining the king's death, and that the words he had spoken were evidence of such imagining. The duke proceeded, however, to examine and refute the charges, one after another, with great eloquence and vehemence of denial, and demanded that his own servants should be called to confront him. This was done «t once. Hopkins, Delacourt, and Perk were made to witness against him; but Knevet was the most fatal of his opponents. He declared that, on the 14th of November, at East Greenwich, he had said to him that when the king had reproved him for retaining Sir William Bulmer in his service, if he had perceived that he could be sent to the Tower, as he once suspected, he would have requested an audience of the king, and, when admitted, would have run him through the body with his dagger, as his father intended to have done to Richard III., at Salisbury, if he had come into his presence. It was added, that had he succeeded in killing the king, he would have cut off the head of the cardinal, and of some others, and then seized the throne.
Words on such trials wore useless; the seventeen peers found him guilty of everything, as they knew they were expected to do; and the Duke of Norfolk, deeply affected, and shedding many tears, for that dirty work was wofully unbefitting the brave victor of Flodden, pronounced sentence against him. Buckingham replied in the same manly manner which had marked him through the whole trial:—"My Lord of Norfolk, you have said to me as a traitor should be said unto; but I was never none. Still, my lords, I nothing malign you for that you have done unto me. May the eternal God forgive you my death, as I do! I shall never sue the king for life; howbeit, he is a gracious prince, and more grace may come from him than I desire. I entreat you, my lords, and all my fellows, to pray for me."
The edge of the axe was then turned towards him, as was the custom towards condemned traitors, and he was conducted by Sir Thomas Lovell to his barge. Sir Thomas requested him to take his seat on the cushions and the carpet prepared for him in the boat, but he declined, saying. "When I came to Westminster I was the Duke of Buckingham, but now I am nothing but Edward Stafford, and the poorest man alive." Persisting in his resolution not to solicit the king's mercy, for, no doubt, he was well convinced that he had an enemy who meant to have his blood, he was brought out of his dungeon to a scaffold on Tower Hill, on the 17th of May, four days after his trial, and there beheaded. His behaviour at the place of execution was of the same lofty character, but more sedate; he died like a brave and an innocent man, and when his head fell the people gave a groan. "God have mercy on his soul!" says the reporter of his trial, "for he was a most wise and noble prince, and the mirror of all courtesy."
The various causes of antipathy betwixt Francis I. and Charles V., which had been long fomenting, now reached that degree of activity when they must burst all restraint. War was inevitable. The first breach was made by Francis. He empowered the Marshal de Fleuranges to raise a small force, and march to the assistance of his father, the Prince of Sedan, who complained of injuries from the emperor, and had sent him a defiance. By the treaty of 1518 betwixt France, England, the Emperor Maximilian, and Charles, then King of Spain, it was stipulated that in case any one of the parties made war on another, the rest of the confederates should call upon him to desist, and if he refused, to declare hostilities against him. Charles now, therefore, appealed to Henry, who sent an ambassador to Francis to admonish him not to break the league by aiding the enemies of the emperor. Francis, who was afraid of giving cause for Henry to join the emperor, at once complied, and ordered Fleuranges to disband his army. But this concession did not prevent Charles from sending a powerful force to chastise the Prince of Sedan, which again roused Francis to oppose this aggression; and to take more effectual means of checking Charles, he seized the opportunity of an insurrection in his Spanish territories to unite with the expelled King of Navarre, Henry D'Albret, for the recovery of his patrimony. The French army rushed across the Pyrenees, and in fifteen days they were in possession of the whole of Navarre. The Spanish insurgents took no part in this invasion, but, on the contrary, when the French, not content with the liberation of Navarre, passed the frontiers of Castile, and were approaching Logrono, Spaniards of all parties united to repel the invaders with such impetuosity, that they not only drove them back from Castile, but expelled them again from Navarre in less time than it had taken to win it.
Whilst Francis made this sudden attack in the south, he had induced De La Marque, Duke of Bouillon, to revolt from Charles, and to invade the Netherlands at the head of a French army. At this crisis Charles appealed to Henry to act as mediator, according to the provisions of the treaty of 1518. Henry at once accepted the office, and entered upon it with high professions of impartiality and of his sincere desire to promote justice and amity, but really with about the same amount of sincerity as was displayed by each of the contending parties. Francis had certainly been the aggressor, and Charles having intercepted some of his letters, had already convinced Henry, to whom he had shown them, that the invasion of both Spain and Flanders was planned in the French cabinet. Henry's mind, therefore, was already made up before he assumed the duty of deciding; and Charles, from being aware of this, proposed his arbitration. Henry, moreover, was anxious to invade France on his own account, spite of treaties and the dallyings of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but he had not yet the funds necessary. With these feelings and secrets in his own heart, Henry opened his proposal of arbitration to Francis by declarations of the extraordinary affection which he had contracted for him at the late interview.
There was no alternative for the French king but to acquiesce in the proposal; the place of negotiations was appointed to be Calais, and, of course, Wolsey was named as the only man able and fitting to decide betwixt two such great monarchs—Wolsey, who was bound hand and foot to the emperor by the hope of the Popedom. It was a clear case that Francis must be victimised, or the negotiation must prove abortive. Wolsey set out with the state of something more than a king to decide betwixt the kings. In addition to his dignity of Papal legate à latere, he received the extraordinary powers of creating fifty counts-palatine, fifty knights, fifty chaplains, and fifty notaries; of legitimizing bastards, and conferring the degree of doctor in medicine, law, and divinity. By another bull, he was empowered to grant licenses to such as he thought proper, to read the heretical works of Martin Luther, in order that some able man, having read them, might refute them. This was to pave the way for a royal champion of the Catholic Church against Luther and the devil, and that such a champion was already at work we shall shortly have occasion to show. Such were the pomp and splendour of the great cardinal, that when Wolsey continued his journey into the Netherlands, with his troops of gentlemen attending him, clad in scarlet coats, with borders of velvet of a full hand's breadth, and with massive gold chains; when they saw him served on the knee by these attendants, and expending money with the most marvellous profusion, Christian, King of Denmark, and other princes then at the Court of the Emperor of Bruges, were overwhelmed with astonishment, for such slavish homage was not known in Germany.
Hampton Court Palace, the Residence of Cardinal Wolsey.
Wolsey landed at Calais on the 2nd of July, 1521, and was received with great reverence. The ambassadors of the emperor had taken care to be there first, that with Wolsey they might secretly settle all the points to be insisted upon. The French embassy arrived the next day, and the discussions were at once entered upon with all that air of solemn impartiality and careful weighing of propositions which such conferences assume, when the real points at issue have been determined upon privately beforehand by the parties who mean to carry out their own views. The French plenipotentiaries alleged that the emperor had broken the treaty of Noyon of 1516, by retaining possession of Navarre, and by neglecting to do homage for Flanders and Artois, fiefs of the French crown. On the other hand, the imperial representatives retorted the breach of the treaty of Noyon on the French, and denounced in strong terms the late invasion of Spain and the clandestine support given to the Duke of Bouillon. The cardinal laboured to bring the fiery litigants to terms, but the demands of the emperor were purposely pitched so high that it was impossible. The differences only became the more inflamed; and on the imperial chancellor, Gattinara, declaring that he could not concede a single demand made by his master, and that he came there to obtain them through the aid of the King of England, who was bound to afford it by the late treaty, Wolsey said that there, of necessity, all his endeavours must end, unless the emperor could be induced to modify his expectations; and that, as his ambassador had no power to grant such modification, rather than all hope of accommodation should fail, he would himself take the trouble to make a journey to the Imperial Court, and endeavour to procure better terms. Nothing could appear more disinterested on the part of the cardinal, but the French ambassadors were struck with consternation at the proposal. They were too well aware of the cardinal's leaning towards Charles; they did not forget the coqueting of the English and the emperor both before and after the meeting at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. and they opposed this proposal of Wolsey with all their power. But their opposition was useless. There can be no doubt that the primal object of Wolsey in his embassy was to make this visit to Charles for his own purpose, and that it had been agreed upon betwixt himself and Charles before he left London. In vain the French protested that such a visit, made by the umpire in the midst of the conference, to one of the parties concerned, was contrary to all ideas of the impartiality essential to a mediator; and they declared that, if the thing was persisted in, they would break off the negotiation and retire. But Wolsey told them that, if they did not remain at Calais till his return, he would pronounce them in the wrong, as the real aggressors in the war, and the enemies to peace and to the King of England. There was nothing for it but to submit.
The cardinal set out on his progress to Bruges on the 12th of August, attended by the imperial ambassadors and a splendid retinue of prelates, nobles, knights, and gentlemen, amounting altogether to 400 horsemen. The emperor met him a mile out of Bruges, and conducted him into the city in a kind of triumph. Thirteen days—a greater number than had been occupied at Calais—were spent in the pretended conferences for reducing the emperor's demands on France, but in reality in strengthening Wolsey's interest with Charles for the Popedom, and in settling the actual terms of a treaty betwixt Charles, the Pope, and the King of England, for a war against France. So deep was the hypocrisy of these parties, that before Wolsey had quitted the shores of England he had received a commission from Henry investing him with full authority to make a treaty of confederacy with the Pope, the Emperor, the King of France, or any other potentate, offensive or defensive, which the king bound himself to ratify; the words "King of France, or other king, prince, or state," being clearly inserted to cover with an air of generality the particular design. The proposed marriage betwixt the dauphin and the Princess Mary was secretly determined to be set aside, and a marriage betwixt Charles and that princess was agreed upon; and, moreover, it was settled that Charles should pay another visit to England on his voyage to Spain. Writing from Bruges to Henry, Wolsey told him all this, and added that it was to be kept a profound secret till Charles came to England, so that, adds Wolsey, "convenient time may be had to put yourself in good readiness for war."
After all this scandalous treachery, called in state language diplomacy, Wolsey returned to Calais, and resumed the conferences, as if he were the most honest man in the world, and was serving two kings about as honest as himself. He proposed to the plenipotentiaries a plan of a pacification, the conditions of which he knew the French would never accept. All this time hostilities were going on betwixt Francis and the emperor. The emperor had taken Mouzon and laid siege to Mezières, and Francis, advancing, raised the siege, but was checked in his further pursuit of the enemy by the Count of Nassau. At this crisis Wolsey interposed, insisting that the belligerents should lay down their arms, and abide the award of King Henry; but this was by no means likely on the part of the French, after what had been going on at Bruges, and therefore Wolsey pronounced Francis the aggressor, and that Henry was bound by the treaty to aid the emperor.
This was but a very thin varnish for the proceedings which immediately took place at Calais, and revealed the result of the interview at Bruges, in an avowed treaty betwixt the Pope, the emperor, and Henry, by which they bound themselves, in order to promote an intended demonstration against the Turks, and to restrain the ambition of Francis, that the three combined powers should, in the spring of 1523, invade France simultaneously from as many different quarters; that, if Francis would not conclude a peace with the emperor on the arrival of Charles in England, Henry should declare war against France, and should break off the proposed marriage betwixt the dauphin and the Princess Mary.
Meantime, the united forces of the Pope and Charles had prevailed in Italy, and expelled the French from Milan; the emperor had made himself master of Tournay, for which Francis had lately paid so heavy a price, and all the advantages that the French could boast of in the campaign to balance these losses were the capture of the little fortresses of Hesdin and Bouchain. Wolsey landed at Dover, on the 27th of November, after the discharge of these important functions, having laid the foundation of much trouble to Europe, by destroying the balance of power betwixt France, the empire, and Spain, which it was the real interest of Henry to have maintained; and having equally inconvenienced the Government at home by carrying the great seal with him, so that those who had any business with it were obliged to go over to Calais, and so that there could be no nomination of sheriffs that year. But his power at this period was unlimited, and nothing could open Henry's eyes to his mischievous and inflated pride, not even his placing himself wholly on a par with the king in the treaty just signed, when he made himself a joint-guarantee, as if he had been a crowned head.
Wolsey had laboured assiduously and unscrupulously for Charles V. in furtherance of his own ambitious views. What convulsions disorganised Europe, what nations suffered or triumphed, troubled him not, so long as he could pave the way to the Papal chair. The time which was to test the gratitude of Charles came much sooner than any one had anticipated. Leo X., who was in the prime of life, elated with the expulsion of the French from Italy, was occupied in celebrating the triumph with every kind of public rejoicing. The moment he heard of the fall of Milan he ordered a Te Deum, and set off from his villa of Magliana to Rome, which he entered in triumph; but that very night he was seized with a sudden illness, and on the 1st of December, but a few days afterwards, it was announced that he was dead, at the age of only forty-six. Strong suspicions of poison were entertained, and it was believed that it had been administered by his favourite valet, Bernabo Malaspina. who was supposed to have been bribed to it by the French party.
The news of Leo's death travelled with all speed to England, and Wolsey, who, amid all his secret exertions to attain the Papal tiara, had declared with mock humility that he was too unworthy for so great and sacred a station, now threw off his garb of indifference, and dispatched Dr. Pace to Rome, with the utmost celerity, to promote his election; and he sent to put the emperor in mind of his promises. On the 27th of December the conclave commenced its sittings. Another of the Medici family, Cardinal Giulio, appeared to have the majority of votes, but for twenty-three days the election remained undecided. The French cardinals opposed Giulio with all the persevering virulence of enemies smarting under national defeat. Numbers of others were opposed to electing a second member of the same family, and Giulio, growing impatient of the stormy and interminable debates which kept him from attending to pressing affairs out of doors, suddenly nominated Cardinal Adrian, a Belgian. This extraordinary stroke was supposed to be intended merely to prolong the time, till Giulio could throw more force into his own party; but Cardinal Cajeton, a man of great art and eloquence, who knew and admired the writings of Adrian, and had probably suggested his name to Giulio, advocated his election with such persuasive power, that Adrian, though a foreigner, and personally unknown, was carried almost by acclamation. And thus, as Dr. Lingard observes, within nine years from the time when Julius drove the barbarians out of Italy, a barbarian was seated as his successor on the Papal throne.
The cardinals had no sooner elected the new Pope than they appeared to wake from a dream, and wondered at their own work. The act appeared to be one of those sudden impulses which seize bodies of people in a condition of great and prolonged excitement, and they declared that it must have been the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. As for Wolsey, it does not appear that his sincere friend the emperor, who had protested that he would have him elected if it were at the head of his army, moved a finger in his behalf. The proud cardinal, however, was obliged to swallow his chagrin, and wait for the next change, Adrian being already an old man; and Dr. Pace remained at Rome to congratulate the new Pontiff on his arrival, and solicit a renewal of his legative authority.
Francis at this crisis made strenuous efforts to regain the friendship of Henry. Probably he thought that the disappointment of Wolsey might cool his friendship for the emperor, or, which was the same thing, diminish his confidence in his promises; whilst Charles was very well aware that Wolsey was much more serviceable to him as minister of England than he could be or would be as Pope. Francis attacked Henry on his weakest side—his vanity. He heaped compliments upon him, and entreated that if he could not be his fast and avowed friend, he would, at least, abstain from being his enemy. To give force to his flatteries, he hold out hopes of increasing his annual payments to England, and when that did not produce the due effect, he stopped the disbursements of that which he had been wont to remit. Finding that even this did not influence Henry, who was kept steady by Wolsey, he laid an embargo on the English shipping in his ports, and seized the property of the English merchants.
At this act of decided hostility, Henry was transported with one of those fits of rage which became habitual in after years. As if he had not long been plotting against Francis, and preparing to make war upon him—as if he had not coolly and even insolently repulsed all his advances and offers of advantage and alliance—he regarded Francis as an aggressor without any cause, ordered the French ambassador to be confined to his house, all Frenchmen in London to be arrested, and dispatched Clarenceux king-at-arms to Paris with a mortal defiance. What particularly exasperated Henry was the news that a whole fleet, loaded with wine, had been seized at Bordeaux, and the merchants and seamen thrown into prison. The English were ordered to make reprisals, and this was the actual state of things when Sir Thomas Cheney, his ambassador, announced by despatch that Clarenceux king-at-arms had declared war on the 21st of May at Lyons; to which the king had replied, "I looked for this a great while ago; for, since the cardinal was at Bruges, I looked for nothing else." The wily manœuvres of Wolsey had deceived nobody.
On the 26th of May, only five days after the declaration of war with France, the Emperor Charles V. landed at Dover. The passion of Henry had precipitated the outbreak of hostilities, for it was not intended that war should be declared till Charles was on the eve of departure from England, so that he might continue his voyage in safety to Spain. The king, however, received his illustrious guest with as much gaiety and splendour as if nothing but peace were in prospect. Wolsey waited on Charles at the landing-place, and, after embracing him, led him by the arm to the castle, where Henry soon welcomed him with great cordiality. Charles calculated much, in the approaching war, on the fleet of Henry; and, to show him its extent and equipment, Henry conducted him to the Downs, and led him over all his ships, especially his great ship, "Henri, Grace à Dieu," which was considered one of the wonders of the world. He then conducted his imperial guest by easy journeys to Greenwich, where the Court was then residing, and introduced him to his aunt, the queen, and her infant daughter, whom it was arranged that he should marry.
At this period the Court of Henry was a scene of great splendour, outward prosperity, and festive enjoyment. Henry was in the flower of his life, being about thirty years of age. His portrait, as drawn by Sebastiano Guistiniani, the Venetian ambassador, gives a very lively and striking idea of him:—"His majesty is as handsome as nature could form him, above any other Christian prince—handsomer by far than the King of France. He is exceedingly fair, and as well proportioned as possible. When he learned that the King of France wore a beard, he allowed his also to grow." This must have been after the Field of the Cloth of Gold, for we are assured that he appeared there with a smooth face. "His beard being somewhat red, has at present the appearance of being of gold. He is an excellent musician and composer, an admirable horseman and wrestler. He possesses a good knowledge of the French, Latin, and Spanish languages, and is very devout. On the days on which he goes to the chase, he hears mass three times, but on the other days as often as five. He has every day service in the queen's chamber at vespers and complin. He is uncommonly fond of the chase, and never indulges in this diversion without tiring eight or ten horses. These are stationed at the different places where he proposes to stop. When one is fatigued he mounts another, and by the time he returns home they have all been used. He takes great delight in bowling, and it is the pleasantest sight in the world to see him engaged in this exercise, with his fair skin covered with a beautiful fine shirt. He plays with the hostages of France, and it is said they sport from 6,000 to 8,000 ducats a day. Affable and benign, he offends no one. He has often said to the ambassador he wished that every one was content with his condition, adding, 'We are content with our islands.'"
These certainly were the halcyon days of Henry and his Court. How little could any one see in the jolly monarch the furious despot of after years! But Henry was at this period as devout as he was jovial. Catherine, who was now about thirty-five, was of a serious and religious cast, thoughtful and amiable. She was a comely woman in her prime, unlike Spanish ladies in general, with auburn hair and a fair complexion, generally dressing richly, often in dark blue velvet, with the hood of five corners, bordered with rich gems, a chain of pearls clustered with rubies round her neck, and a cordelier belt of the same jewels round her waist, hanging to her feet. Unlike her robustious husband, she was by no means fond of field sports, but rather of working embroidery with her maids of honour, and holding serious conversation with such men as Sir Thomas More, who now comes into notice, and the learned Erasmus, who passed some time in England about this period, and who said of her that she spent that time in reading the sacred volume which other princesses occupied in cards and dice. On the throne she led the life of a religious devotee. She rose to prayers in the night at the same hours as the inmates of convents; she dressed for the day at five in the morning, and beneath her royal raiment she wore the habit of St. Francis, being a member of the third order of his community. She fasted on Fridays and Saturdays, and on the vigils of saints' days. She confessed at least once a week, and received the eucharist every Sunday. For two hours after dinner one of her attendants read to her books of devotion.
Erasmus and Sir Thomas More.
Such was the Court of England—such the king and queen—at the time of the emperor's visit. Such a mixture of prosperity, of worldly enjoyment, and religious solemnity seemed little to bode the scenes and manners which afterwards prevailed there. Erasmus was so struck by it that he declared that the royal residence ought rather to be called the Court of the Muses than a palace; and he asked, "What household is there, among the subjects of their realms, that can offer an example of such united wedlock? Where can a wife be found better matched with the best of husbands?"
But even now, beneath this fair surface, the elements of mischief and trouble were at work. With all the king's religious practices, the licentiousness of his nature was beginning to emerge to the light. Already, while on his campaign in France, Henry had formed a liaison with the wife of Sir Gilbert Tailbois, who, after her husband's death, bore him a son in 1519, whom he called Henry Fitzroy. Since then there had been a great scandal about Mary Boleyn, the elder sister of Anne Boleyn; and Catherine had made such a storm on the discovery, as compelled the king to consent to the lady's marriage with a gentleman of the name of Carey; and now Anne Boleyn herself was just coming on the scene, to scatter trouble and dissension through this well-regulated house-hold.
Windsor Castle
For the time, however, all was mirth and jollity. On the 6th of June, Henry conducted the emperor with great state into London, where the inhabitants received him with a variety of shows and pageants. Sir Thomas More spoke the emperor's welcome in a learned oration, and there was a profusion of Latin verses in honour of the occasion. The two monarchs feasted, hunted, and rode at tournaments, whilst their ministers were busily employed in carrying out the terms agreed upon at Bruges into a treaty, which was signed on the 19th at Windsor. The subjects of this treaty were the marriage of Charles with the infant Princess Mary, which the two monarchs bound themselves to see completed, under a penalty, in case of breach of engagement, of 400,000 crowns. Charles also engaged to indemnify Henry for the sums of money due to him from Francis; and, what was most extraordinary, both monarchs bound themselves to appear before Cardinal Wolsey in case of any dispute, and submit absolutely to his decision, thus making a subject the arbiter of monarchs.
The emperor also engaged to indemnify the cardinal for his losses in breaking with Francis, by a grant of 9,000 crowns annually; thus paying this proud priest for being the author of this war. Yet, after all his courting and flattering of Wolsey, after again assuring him of his determination to set him in the Papal chair, it is certain that he hated the man, and only used him as a tool. His aunt, Queen Catherine, had deeply resented the cardinal's pursuit of the Duke of Buckingham to the death, for whom she entertained a high regard; and Wolsey was aware of it, and never forgave her. It was, probably, in reply to Catherine's relation of this tragic event that Charles, whilst on this visit, was overheard to say, "Then the butcher's dog has pulled down the fairest buck in Christendom"—a witticism which flew all over the Court, and was never forgotten by the vindictive Wolsey. Having agreed to bring each 40,000 men into the field, and to attack France simultaneously on the north and the south, and that Charles was to co-operate with the English for the re-conquest of Guienne, the emperor embarked on the 6th of July, and pursued his voyage to Spain.