REIGN OF HENRY VIII.
The King's Accession--State of Europe--Henry and Julius
II.--Treaty between England and Spain--Henry is duped by
Ferdinand--New Combinations--Execution of Suffolk--Invasion of
France--Battle of Spurs--Invasion of England by the Scots--Flodden
Field--Death of James of Scotland--Louis breaks up the Holy
League--Peace with France--Marriage and Death of Louis XII.--Rise
of Wolsey--Affairs in Scotland--Francis I. in Italy--Death
of Maximilian--Henry a Candidate for the Empire--Election of
Charles--Field of the Cloth of Gold--Wolsey's Diplomacy--Failure
of his Candidature for the Papacy--The Emperor in London.
No prince ever ascended a throne under more auspicious circumstances
than Henry VIII. While his father had strengthened the throne, he had
made himself extremely unpopular. The longer he lived, the more the
selfish meanness and the avarice of his character had become conspicuous,
and excited the disgust of his subjects. Henry was young, handsome,
accomplished, and gay. He was in many respects the very opposite of
his father, and the people always give to a young prince every virtue
under the sun. Accordingly, Henry, who was only eighteen, was regarded
as a fine, buxom young fellow; frank, affable, generous, capable of
everything, and disposed to the best.
Fox was grown old, and under Henry VII. had grown habitually
parsimonious. He, therefore, attempted to keep a tight reign on the young
monarch, and discouraged all mere schemes of pleasure which necessarily
brought expense. But the old proverb that a miser is sure to be succeeded
by a spendthrift, was not likely to be falsified in Henry. He was full
of health, youth, vigour, and affluence. He was disposed to enjoy all
the gaieties and enjoyments which a brilliant Court and the resources of
a great kingdom spread around him, and in this tendency he found in the
Earl of Surrey a far more facile counsellor than in Fox.
All this made deep inroads into his parental treasures, but it augmented
his popularity, which he vastly extended by bringing to justice the
two hated extortioners of Henry VII.'s reign. To prepare for this, he
appointed commissioners to hear the complaints of those who had suffered
from the grievous exactions of the late reign; but these complaints
were so loud and so universal that he was soon convinced that it would
be impossible to make full restitution; and he therefore resolved to
appease the injured in some degree by punishing the injurers. A number of
the most notorious informers were therefore seized, set on horses, and
paraded through the streets of London, on the 6th of June, with their
faces to the horses' tails. This done, they were set in the pillory, and
left to the vengeance of the people, who so maltreated them that they all
died soon after in prison. The fate of Dudley and Empson--the two main
instruments of popular oppression--was suspended by the coronation, which
took place on the 24th of the same month. After it was over they were
tried and beheaded.
Henry had been married to Catherine of Aragon on the 3rd of the month at
Greenwich. Whatever pretences Henry made in after years of his scruples
about this marriage--Catherine having been the wife of his elder brother
Prince Arthur--he seems to have felt or expressed none now. Archbishop
Warham had protested against it on that ground in Henry VII.'s time; but
though the princess was six years older than himself, there is every
reason to believe that Henry was now anxious for the match. Catherine
was at this time very agreeable in person, and was distinguished for the
excellence of her disposition and the spotless purity and modesty of her
life. She was the daughter of one of the most powerful sovereigns of
Europe; and the alliance of Spain was held to be essentially desirable
to counteract the power of France. Besides this, the princess had a
large dower, which must be restored if she were allowed to return home.
The majority of his council, therefore, zealously concurred with him in
his wish to complete this marriage; and his grandmother, the sagacious
Countess of Richmond, was one of its warmest advocates. "There were
few women," says Lord Herbert, "who could compete with Queen Catherine
when in her prime;" and Henry himself, writing to her father a short
time after the marriage, sufficiently expresses his satisfaction at the
union:--"As regards that sincere love which we have to the most serene
queen, our consort, her eminent virtues daily more shine forth, blossom,
and increase so much, that if we were still free, her would we yet
choose for our wife before all others." The conduct of Henry for many
years bore out this profession.
To make the general satisfaction complete, Henry summoned a Parliament,
in which the chief topic was the prevention in future of the abominable
exactions of the past; and the obsolete penal statutes on which the
extortioners had acted were formally repealed. The whole number
of temporal peers who were summoned to this Parliament was only
thirty-six--one duke, one marquis, eight earls, and twenty-six barons.
Henry was now at peace with all the world. At home and abroad, so far as
he was concerned, everything was tranquil. No English monarch had ever
been more popular, powerful, and prosperous. Nothing could show more the
advance which England had made of late in strength and importance than
the deference paid to Henry by the greatest princes on the Continent, and
their anxiety to cultivate his alliance. The balance of power in Europe
appeared more widely established than at any former period. England had
freed herself of her intestine divisions, and stood compact and vigorous
from united political power and the active spirit of commerce. The people
were thriving; the Crown, owing to the care of Henry VII., was rich.
Spain had joined its several provinces into one potent state, which was
ruled by the crafty but able Ferdinand. France had begun the same work of
consolidation under Louis XII., by his marriage with Anne of Brittany,
and the union of Brittany with the Crown. Maximilian, the Emperor of
Germany, with his hereditary dominions of Austria, possessed the weight
given him by his Imperial office over all Germany; and his grandson
Charles, heir at once of Austria, Spain, and the Netherlands, was at this
time the ruler of Burgundy and the Netherlands, under the guardianship
of his aunt Margaret of Savoy, a princess of high character for sense
and virtue. Henry had taken the earliest opportunity of renewing the
treaties made by his father with all these princes, and with Scotland,
and declared that he was resolved to maintain peace with them, and to
cultivate the interests of his subjects at home. But this promise he
speedily broke.
The first means of exciting him to mingle in the distraction of the
Continent were found in the fact that Louis XII. of France was reluctant
to continue the annual payment of £80,000 which he made to his father.
Henry had made a considerable vacuum in the paternal treasury chests, and
was not willing to forego this convenient subsidy. There were those on
the watch ready to stimulate him to hostile action. Pope Julius II. and
Ferdinand of Spain had their own reasons for fomenting ill-will between
Louis of France and Henry. Louis had added Milan and part of the north
of Italy to the French crown. Ferdinand had become possessed of Naples
and Sicily, first, by aiding the French in conquering them, and then by
driving out the French. Julius II. was equally averse from the presence
of the French and Spaniards in Italy, but he was, at the same time,
jealous of the spreading power of Venice, and therefore concealed his
ultimate designs against France and Spain, so that he might engage Louis
and Ferdinand to aid him in humbling Venice. For this purpose he engaged
Louis, Ferdinand, and Maximilian of Austria to enter into a league at
Cambray, as early as December, 1508, by which they engaged to assist him
in regaining the dominions of the church from the Venetians. Henry, who
had no interest in the matter, was induced, in course of time, to add his
name to this League, as a faithful son of the Church.
No sooner had Julius driven back the Venetians and reduced them to seek
for peace, than he found occasion to quarrel with the French, and a new
league was formed to protect the Pope from what he termed the ambitious
designs of the French, into which Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Henry
entered. Louis XII., seeing this powerful alliance arrayed against him,
determined to carry a war of another nature into the camp of the militant
Pope Julius. He induced a number of the cardinals to declare against the
violence and aggressive spirit of the pontiff, as totally unbecoming his
sacred character. But Julius, who, though now old, had all the resolution
and the ambition of youth, set this schismatic conclave at defiance.
He declared Pisa, where the opposing cardinals had summoned a council,
and every other place to which they transferred themselves, under an
interdict. He excommunicated all cardinals and prelates who should attend
any such council, and not only they, but any temporal prince or chief who
should receive, shelter, or countenance them.
At the same time that Julius launched his thunders thus liberally at
his disobedient cardinals, he made every court in Europe ring with his
outcries against the perfidy and lawless ambition of Louis, who, not
content with seizing on Milan, he now asserted, was striving to make
himself master of the domains of the holy Mother Church. Henry was
prompt in responding to this appeal. He regarded the claims of the
Church as sacred and binding on all Christian princes; he had his own
demands on Louis, and he was naturally disposed to co-operate with his
father-in-law, Ferdinand. But beyond this, he was greatly flattered by
the politic Pope declaring him "the head of the Italian league;" and
assuring him that Louis by his hostility to the Church, having forfeited
the title of the "Most Christian King," he would transfer it to him.
Henry was perfectly intoxicated by these skilful addresses to his vanity,
and condescended to a piece of deception which, though often practised
by potentates and statesmen, is at all times unworthy of any Englishman;
he joined the Kings of Scotland and Spain, in recommending Louis to make
peace with the Pope, on condition that Bologna should be restored to the
Church, the council of cardinals at Pisa dissolved, and the cause of
Alphonso, the Duke of Ferrara--whose territories Julius, the fighting
Pope, had invaded--referred to impartial judges. These propositions
on the part of Henry were made by Young, the English ambassador; but
Louis, on his part, was perfectly aware at this very time that Henry was
not only in alliance with the Pope and Spain, but had engaged to join
Ferdinand in an invasion of France in the spring. He therefore treated
the hollow overture with just contempt.
Henry was at this time in profound peace with Louis. He had but a few
months before renewed his treaty with him, yet he was at the very time
that he sent his hypocritical proposal of arbitration, diligently, though
secretly, preparing for war with him. He sent a commission to gentlemen
in each county on June 20th, 1511, to array and exercise all the
men-at-arms and archers in their county, and to make a return of their
names, and the quality of their arms, before the 1st of August.
On opening his plans to his council, he there met with strong dissuasion
from war against France, and on very rational grounds. It was contended
that "the natural situation of islands seems not to consort with
conquests on the Continent. If we will enlarge ourselves, let it be in
the way for which Providence hath fitted us, which is by sea." Never
was sounder or more enlightened counsel given to an English king. But
such language was in vain addressed to the ears of Henry, which had been
assiduously tickled by the emissaries of Pope Julius and Ferdinand the
Catholic, who assured him that nothing would be more easy, while they
attacked France in other quarters, than to recover all the provinces
once possessed there. He hastened to form a separate treaty with his
cunning father-in-law, who had his own scheme in it, and this treaty was
signed on the 10th of November, 1511. The preamble of this treaty was a
fine specimen of the solemn pretences with which men attempt to varnish
over their unprincipled designs. It represented Louis as an enemy to God
and religion, a cruel and unrelenting persecutor of the Church, one who
despised all admonition, and had rejected the generous offer of the Pope
to pardon his sins.
And what was this pious scheme, so greatly to the glory of God and of
heaven? It was professedly to seize on the French province of Guienne, in
which Ferdinand promised to help Henry, but in reality to seize Navarre,
in which Ferdinand meant Henry to help him, but took care not to say so.
The old man, long practised in every art of royal treachery, was far too
knowing for the vainglorious young man, his son-in-law.
Things being put into this train, Henry sent a herald to Louis, to
command him not to make war upon the Pope, whom he styled "the father
of all Christians." Louis, who was well acquainted with what was going
on, knew that Pope Julius was as much a soldier and a politician as a
Pope. He was the most busy, scheming, restless, and ambitious old man
of his time. He not only made war on his neighbours, but attended the
field in person, watched the progress of sieges, saw his attendants
fall by his very side, and inspected his outposts with the watchful
diligence of a prudent general. Louis knew that he was at the bottom of
all these leagues against him, and he only smiled at Henry's message.
This herald was therefore speedily followed by another demanding the
surrender of Anjou, Maine, Normandy, and Guienne, as Henry's lawful
inheritance. This, of course, was tantamount to a declaration of war, and
the formal declaration only awaited the sanction of Henry by Parliament.
Parliament was therefore summoned by him on the 4th of February, 1512,
and was opened by Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, with a sermon, the
extraordinary text of which was--"Righteousness and peace have kissed
each other" (Psalm lxxxv. 10). Two-tenths and two-fifteenths were
cheerfully granted Henry for prosecuting the war, and the clergy in
convocation voted a subsidy of £23,000.
Thus zealously supported and encouraged, Henry despatched a declaration
of war, and sent an army of 10,000 men, chiefly archers, with a train of
artillery, under command of the Marquis of Dorset, to co-operate with
the Spaniards for the reduction of Guienne. These troops embarked at
Southampton, May 16th, 1512, and soon landed safely at Guipuscoa, whilst
the fleet under the Lord Admiral, Sir Edward Howard, cruised during the
summer off the coast. But Ferdinand's real object was a very different
one; his intention, as we have seen, was not to secure Guienne for his
duped son-in-law, but Navarre for himself.
[Illustration: GREAT SEAL OF HENRY VIII.]
Navarre was a separate kingdom in possession of John d'Albret, who had
married its heiress, the Infanta Catherine; and, justly suspicious of
the covetous intentions of the King of Spain, he had sought to fortify
himself by a secret treaty with the King of France. While, therefore, the
Marquis of Dorset, the English general, and his army were impatiently
waiting for the Spanish reinforcements, they received from Ferdinand a
message that it would not be safe for them to quit the Spanish frontiers
until they had secured the neutrality of the King of Navarre, who was
also Lord of Béarn, on the French side of the Pyrenees. The English had
thus to wait while Ferdinand demanded of D'Albret a pledge of strict
neutrality during the present war. D'Albret readily assented to this;
but Ferdinand then demanded security for his keeping this neutrality. To
this also John of Navarre freely acceded; which was again followed by a
demand from Ferdinand that this security should consist of the surrender
of six of the most considerable places in his dominions into the hands
of the Spaniards, and of his son as a hostage. The King of Navarre
was compelled to refuse so unreasonable a requisition, and therefore
Ferdinand, professing to believe that D'Albret meant to cut off the
communication of the Spanish army with Spain if it ventured into France,
and showing that he had obtained a copy of the secret treaty of D'Albret
with Louis, immediately ordered the Duke of Alva to invade Navarre. The
Duke soon made himself master of the smaller towns and the open country,
and then summoned, to their profound astonishment, the English to march
into Navarre, and assist him in reducing Pampeluna.
Dorset now perceived the real game that was being played. Having no
orders, however, to do anything but attack Guienne, he refused to move a
foot for the reduction of Navarre, and demanded afresh the supplies of
artillery and horse which had been guaranteed for the former enterprise.
But Ferdinand replied that it was quite out of the question to furnish
him with any till Navarre was made secure; that was the first necessary
step, and that effected, he should be prepared to march with him to
Bayonne, Bordeaux, and to the conquest of all Guienne.
These representations only increased the disgust of Dorset and his army:
but they could do nothing but await the event, and saw themselves thus
most adroitly posted by Ferdinand, as the necessary guard of his position
against the French, whilst he accomplished his long-desired acquisition
of Navarre. So Alva went on leisurely reducing Pampeluna, Ferdinand
still calling on Dorset to accelerate the business by marching to Alva's
support.
Henry did not yet perceive how grossly he had been deluded by his loving
father-in-law, who had only used him to secure a kingdom for himself
most essential to the compactness and power of Spain; and he would have
been led by him to assist in his still contemplated aggressions. In the
meantime Louis, more cognisant of the game, marched his troops into
Béarn, and left them, professedly for his ally, whilst the remnant of
the English army reached home, shorn of its anticipated honours, reduced
in numbers, in rags, and more than half-famished. Henry was disposed to
charge upon Dorset the disasters and disappointments of the expedition,
but the officers succeeded in convincing him that they could not have
done differently, consistent with their orders; but the time was yet far
off when the vainglorious young king was to have his eyes opened to the
selfish deceptions which his Machiavelian father-in-law was practising
upon him.
At sea, the fleet under Sir Edward Howard had not been more successful
than the forces on land. Sir Edward harassed the coasts of Brittany
during the spring and summer, and on the 10th of August fell in with
a fleet of thirty-nine sail. Sir Charles Brandon, afterwards the Duke
of Suffolk, bore down upon the _Cordelier_, of Brest, a vessel of huge
bulk, and carrying 900 men. Brandon's vessel was soon dismasted, and fell
astern, giving place to the _Regent_, the largest vessel in the English
navy, a ship of 1,000 tons. The _Regent_ was commanded by Sir Thomas
Knevet, a young officer of a daring character. He continued the contest
for more than an hour, when another ship coming to his aid, the French
commander set fire to the _Cordelier_, the flames of which soon catching
the _Regent_, which lay alongside of her in full action, both vessels
were wrapt in fire, amid which the crews continued their desperate fight
till the French admiral's ship blew up, destroying with it the _Regent_;
and all the crews went down with the commanders, amid the horror of the
spectators. The rest of the French fleet then escaped into Brest; and Sir
Edward Howard made a vow to God that he would never see the king's face
again till he had avenged the death of the valiant Knevet.
But though Henry had been duped by the wily Ferdinand, and had suffered
at sea, his efforts had inflicted serious evil on the King of France. The
menace of Louis' dominions in the south, and the English fleet hovering
upon his coasts, had prevented him from sending into Italy the necessary
force to ensure lasting advantage there. Before Christmas Julius had
fulfilled his boast that he would drive the barbarians beyond the Alps.
He had done it, says Muratori, without stopping a moment to ask himself
whether this was the precise function of the chief pastor of the Church.
Louis, convinced that the Holy League, as it was called, was proving
too strong for him, employed the ensuing winter in devising means to
break it up, or to corrupt some of its members. Julius, the soul of the
League, died--a grand advantage to Louis--in February, 1513, and the new
pontiff, Leo X., who was Cardinal John de Medici, though he prosecuted
the same object of clearing Italy of the foreigner, did not possess the
same belligerent temperament as his predecessor. Leo laboured to keep
the League together, but at the same time he was engaged in schemes for
the aggrandisement of his own family, and especially of securing to it
the sovereignty of Florence. In pursuing this object, Venice felt itself
neglected in its claims of support against the emperor, and went over
to the alliance with France. Yet the plan of a renewed league between
the Pope, the emperor, the kings of Spain and England, against Louis,
which had long been secretly concocting at Mechlin, was signed by the
plenipotentiaries on the 5th of April, 1513. By this league Leo engaged
to invade France in Provence or Dauphiné, and to launch the thunders of
the Church at Louis. He had managed to detach the emperor from the French
king, and engaged him to attack France from his own side, but not in
Italy. To enable him to take the field, Henry of England was to advance
him 100,000 crowns of gold. Ferdinand engaged to invade Béarn, for which
he particularly yearned, or Languedoc; Henry to attack Normandy, Picardy,
or Guienne. The invading armies were to be strong and well appointed, and
none of the confederates were to make a peace without the consent of all
the rest.
Henry, in his self-confident ardour, blinded by his vanity, little read
as yet in the wiles and selfish cunning of men, was delighted with this
accomplished league. To him it appeared that Louis of France, encompassed
on every side, was certain of utter defeat, and thus as certain to
be compelled to restore all the rich provinces which his fathers had
wrested from England. But little did he dream that at the very moment
he was empowering his plenipotentiary to sign this league, his Spanish
father-in-law was signing another with Louis himself, in conjunction
with James of Scotland and the Duke of Gueldres. By this Ferdinand
engaged to be quiet, and do Louis no harm. In fact, none of the parties
in that league meant to fight at all. Their only object was to obtain
Henry's money, or to derive some other advantage from him, and they would
enjoy the pleasure of seeing him expending his wealth and his energies
in the war on France, and thus reducing his too formidable ascendency in
Europe. Ferdinand's intention was to spend the summer in strengthening
his position in the newly acquired kingdom of Navarre, and Maximilian,
the emperor, having got the subsidy from Henry, would be ready to reap
further benefits whilst he idly amused the young king with his pretences
of service. Henry alone was all on fire to wipe away the disgrace of
his troops and the disasters of his navy; to win martial renown, and to
restore the ancient Continental possessions of the Crown.
The war commenced first at sea. Sir Edward Howard, burning to discharge
his vow by taking vengeance for the death of Admiral Knevet, blockaded
the harbour of Brest. On the 23rd of April he attempted to cut away a
squadron of six galleys, moored in the bay of Conquêt, a few leagues
from Brest, and commanded by Admiral Prejeant. With two galleys, one
of which he gave into the command of Lord Ferrers, and four boats, he
rowed up to the admiral's galley, leaped upon its deck, and was followed
by one Carroz, a Spanish cavalier, and sixteen Englishmen. But the
cable which bound the vessel to that of Prejeant being cut, his ship,
instead of lying alongside, fell astern, and left him unsupported. He
was forced overboard, with all his gallant followers, by the pikes of
an overwhelming weight of the enemy, and perished. Sir Thomas Cheney,
Sir John Wallop, and Sir William Sidney, seeing the danger of Sir Edward
Howard, pressed forward to his rescue, but in vain, and the English
fleet, discouraged by the loss of their gallant commander, put back
to port. Prejeant sailed out of harbour after it, and gave chase, but
failing in overtaking it, he made a descent on the coast of Sussex, where
he was repulsed, and lost an eye, being struck by an arrow. Henry, on
hearing the unfortunate affair of Brest, appointed Lord Thomas Howard to
his brother's post, and bade him go out and avenge his death; whereupon
the French fleet again made sail for Brest, and left the English masters
of the Channel.
In June, Henry deemed himself fully prepared to cross with his army to
Calais. Lord Howard was ordered to bring his fleet into the Channel, to
cover the passage, and on the 6th of June, 1513, the vanguard of the army
passed over, under the command of the Earl of Shrewsbury, accompanied by
the Earl of Derby, the Lords Fitzwalter, Hastings, Cobham, and Sir Rice
ap Thomas. A second division followed on the 16th, under Lord Herbert,
the Chamberlain, accompanied by the Earls of Northumberland and Kent; the
Lords Audley and Delawar, with Carew, Curson, and many other gentlemen.
Henry himself followed on the 30th, with the main body and the rear of
the army. The whole force consisted of 25,000 men, the majority of which
was composed of the old victorious arm of archers.
Before leaving Dover, to which place the queen attended him, Henry
appointed her regent during his absence, and constituted Archbishop
Warham and Sir Thomas Lovel her chief counsellors and ministers. On
the plea of leaving no cause of disturbance behind him to trouble her
Majesty, he cut off the head of the Earl of Suffolk. Henry VII. had
inveigled this nobleman into his hands at the time of the visit of the
Archduke Philip, on the assurance that he would not take his life; but
he seems to have repented of this show of clemency, for on his death-bed
the king left an order that his son should put him to death. The earl
had remained till now prisoner in the Tower, and Henry had been fatally
reminded of him and of his father's dying injunction by the imprudence of
Richard de la Pole, the brother of Suffolk, who had not only attempted to
revive the York faction, but had taken a high command in the French army.
Henry himself, instead of crossing direct to Calais, ran down the coast
as far as Boulogne, firing continually his artillery to terrify the
French, and then returning, entered Calais amid a tremendous uproar of
cannon from ships and batteries, announcing rather prematurely that
another English monarch was come to conquer France. In order to effect
this conquest, however, he found none of his allies fulfilling their
agreements, except the Swiss, who, always alive at the touch of money,
and having fingered that of Henry, were in full descent on the south of
France, elated, moreover, with their victory over the French in the last
Italian campaign. Maximilian, who had received 120,000 crowns, was not
yet visible. But Henry's own officers had shown no remissness. Before
his arrival, Lord Herbert and the Earl of Shrewsbury had laid siege to
Terouenne, a town situate on the borders of Picardy, where they found a
stout resistance from the two commanders, Teligni and Crequi. The siege
had been continued a month, and Henry, engaged in a round of pleasures
and gaieties in Calais amongst his courtiers, seemed to have forgotten
the great business before him, of rivalling the Edwards and the fifth of
his own name. But news from the scene of action at length roused him. The
besieged people of Terouenne, on the point of starvation, contrived to
send word of their situation to Louis, who despatched Fontrailles with
800 Albanian horses, each soldier carrying behind him a sack of gunpowder
and two quarters of bacon. Coming unawares upon the English camp, they
made a sudden dash through it, up to the town fosse, where, flinging
down their load, which was as quickly snatched up by the famishing
inhabitants, they returned at full gallop, and so great was the surprise
of the English that they again cut their way out and got clear off.
[Illustration: MEETING OF HENRY AND THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN. (_See p._
108.)]
On arriving before Terouenne, on the 4th of August, Henry was soon
joined by Maximilian, the emperor. This strange ally, who had received
120,000 crowns to raise and bring with him an army, appeared with only
a miserable complement of 4,000 horse. Henry had taken up his quarters
in a magnificent tent, blazing in silks, blue damask, and cloth of gold,
but the bad weather had driven him out of it into a wooden house. To
do honour to his German ally--who, by rank, was the first prince in
Christendom--Henry arrayed himself and his nobles in all their bravery of
attire. They and their horses were loaded with gold and silver tissue;
the camp glittered with the display of golden ornaments and utensils;
and, in this royal splendour, he rode at the head of his Court and
commanders to meet and escort his guest. They encountered the emperor and
his attendants clad in simple black, mourning for the recent death of
the empress. But there was little opportunity for comparisons--for the
weather was terrible; and they exchanged their greetings amid tempests
of wind and deluges of rain. Maximilian, to prevent any too-well founded
complaints as to the smallness of his force compared with the greatness
of his position, his promises in the alliance, and his princely pay,
declared himself only the king's volunteer, ready to serve under him as
his own soldier, for the payment of 100 crowns a day. He adopted Henry's
badge of the red rose, was adorned with the cross of St. George, and, by
flattering Henry's vanity, made him forget all his deficiencies.
The pleasure of receiving his great ally was somewhat dashed with bitter
by the arrival of the Scottish Lion king-at-arms with the declaration of
war from James IV., accompanied by the information that his master was
already in the field, and had sent a fleet to the succour of the French
king. Henry proudly replied that he left the Earl of Surrey to entertain
James, who would know very well how to do it.
[Illustration: HENRY AND THE CAPTURED FRENCH OFFICERS. (_See p._ 110.)]
The French still continued to throw succours into Terouenne, in spite of
the vigilance of the English. In this service no one was more active than
the Duke of Angoulême, the heir-apparent to the crown, and afterwards
Francis I. When the siege had lasted about six weeks, and the whole
energy of the British army was roused to cut off these supplies of
provisions and ammunition, the French advanced in great force to effect
a diversion in favour of the place. A formidable display of cavalry
issued from Blangy, and marched along the opposite bank of the Lis.
As they approached Terouenne they divided into two bodies, one under
Longueville, the other under the Duke of Alençon. Henry wisely followed
the advice of Maximilian, who knew the country well, and had before this
won two victories over the French in that very quarter. The troops were
drawn out, and Maximilian crossed the river with his German horse and
the English archers, also mounted on horseback. Henry followed with the
infantry.
The French cavalry, who had won a high reputation for bravery and address
in the Italian campaigns, charged the united army brilliantly; but
speedily gave way and rode off. The English archers and German horse gave
chase; the French fled faster and faster, till in hot pursuit they were
driven upon the lines of the main body, and threw them into confusion.
This was, no doubt, more than was intended; for the probable solution
of the mystery is, that the retreat of the advanced body of cavalry was
a feint, to enable the Duke of Alençon to seize the opportunity of the
pursuit by the English to throw the necessary supplies into the town.
This he attempted. Dashing across the river, he made for the gates of the
town, whence simultaneously was made an impetuous sally. But Lord Herbert
met and beat back Alençon; and the Earl of Shrewsbury chased back the
sallying party. In the meantime the feigned retreat of the decoy cavalry,
by the brisk pursuit of the German and English horse, had become a real
one. After galloping almost four miles before their enemies, they rushed
upon their own main body with such fiery haste that they communicated
a panic. All wheeled about to fly; the English came on with vehement
shouts of "St. George!" "St. George!" The French commanders called in
vain to their terror-stricken men to halt, and face the enemy; every
man dashed his spurs into the flanks of his steed, and the huge army,
in irretrievable confusion, galloped away, without striking a single
blow. The officers, while using every endeavour to bring the terrified
soldiers to a stand, soon found themselves abandoned and in the hands of
the enemy. The Duke de Longueville, the famous Chevalier Bayard, Bussy
d'Amboise, the Marquis of Rotelin, Clermont, and La Fayette, men of the
highest reputation in the French army, were instantly surrounded and
taken, with many other distinguished officers. La Palice and Imbrecourt
were also taken, but effected their escape.
When these commanders, confounded by the unaccountable flight of their
whole army, were presented to Henry and Maximilian, who had witnessed
the sudden rout with equal amazement, Henry, laughing, complimented them
ironically on the speed of their men, when the light-hearted Frenchmen,
entering into the monarch's humour, declared that it was only a battle
of spurs, for they were the only weapons that had been used. The Battle
of Spurs has ever since been the name of this singular action, though it
is sometimes called the Battle of Guinegate, from the place where the
officers were met with. This event took place on the 16th of August.
The garrison of Terouenne, seeing that all hope of relief was now over,
surrendered; but, instead of leaving a sufficient force in the place to
hold it, Henry, at the artful suggestion of the emperor, who was anxious
to destroy such a stronghold on the frontiers of his grandson Charles,
Duke of Burgundy, first wasted his time in demolishing the fortifications
of the town, and then, under the same mischievous counsel, perpetrated a
still grosser error. Instead of marching on Paris, he sat down before
Tournay, which Maximilian wished to secure for his grandson Charles. It
fell after eight days' siege.
Here ended this extraordinary campaign, where so much had been
prognosticated, and what was done should have only been the
stepping-stones to infinitely greater advantages. But Henry entered
the city of Tournay with as much pomp as if he had really entered into
Paris instead. Wolsey received the promised wealthy bishopric, and
Henry gratified his overweening vanity by his favourite tournaments and
revelries. Charles, the young Duke of Burgundy, accompanied by his aunt
Margaret, the Duchess-Dowager of Savoy, and Regent of the Netherlands,
hastened to pay his respects to the English monarch, who had been so
successfully fighting for his advantage.
During the reign of Henry VII., Charles had been affianced to Mary, the
daughter of Henry, and sister of the present King of England. As he was
then only four years of age, oaths had been plighted, and bonds to a
heavy amount entered into by Henry and Maximilian for the preservation
of the contract. The marriage was to take place on Charles reaching his
fourteenth year. That time was now approaching; and, therefore, a new
treaty was now subscribed, by which Maximilian, Margaret, and Charles
were bound to meet Henry, Catherine, and Mary in the following spring to
complete this union.
Meantime, the Swiss, discovering what sort of an ally they had got,
entered into a negotiation with Tremouille, the Governor of Burgundy,
who paid them handsomely in money, promised them much more, and saw
them march off again to their mountains. Relieved from those dangerous
visitants, Louis once more breathed freely. He concentrated his forces
in the north, watched the movements of Henry VIII. with increasing
satisfaction, and at length saw him embark for England with a secret
resolve to accumulate a serious amount of difficulties in the way of his
return. France had escaped from one of the most imminent perils of its
history by the folly of the vainglorious English king. Yet he returned
with all the assumption of a great conqueror, and utterly unconscious
that he had been a laughing-stock and a dupe.
We have seen that James IV. of Scotland sent his declaration of war to
Henry whilst he was engaged at the siege of Terouenne. Among the causes
of complaint which James deemed he had against Henry was the refusal to
deliver up the jewels left by Henry's father to the Queen Margaret of
Scotland--a truly dishonest act on the part of the English monarch, who,
with all the wasteful prodigality peculiar to himself, inherited the
avaricious disposition of his father. No sooner, therefore, did Henry
set out for France, than James despatched a fleet with a body of 3,000
men to the aid of Louis, and by his herald at Terouenne, after detailing
the catalogue of his own grievances, demanded that Henry should evacuate
France. This haughty message received as haughty a reply, but James did
not live to receive it.
In August, whilst Henry still lay before Terouenne, on the very same
day that the Scottish herald left that place with his answer, the peace
between England and Scotland was broken by Lord Home, chamberlain to
King James, who crossed the Border, and made a devastating raid on the
defenceless inhabitants. His band of marauders, on their return, loaded
with plunder, was met by Sir William Bulmer, who slew 500 of them upon
the spot, and took 400 prisoners. Called to action by this disaster,
James collected on the Burghmuir, to the south of Edinburgh, such an army
as, say the writers of the time, never gathered round a king of Scotland.
Some state it at 100,000 men; the lowest calculation is 80,000.
James passed the Tweed on the 22nd of August, and on that and the
following day encamped at Twizel-haugh. On the 24th, with the consent
of his nobles, he issued a declaration that the heirs of all who were
killed or who died in that expedition, should be exempt from all charges
for wardship, relief, or marriage, without regard to their age. He
then advanced up the right bank of the Tweed, and attacked the Border
castle of Norham. This strong fortress was expected to detain the army
some time, but the governor, rashly improvident of his ammunition, was
compelled to surrender on the fifth day, August 29th. Wark, Etall,
Heaton, and Ford Castles, places of no great consequence, soon followed
the example of Norham. That accomplished, James fixed his camp on Flodden
Hill, the east spur of the Cheviot Mountains, with the deep river Till
flowing at his feet to join the neighbouring Tweed. In that strong
position he awaited the approach of the English army.
The Earl of Surrey, commissioned by Henry on his departure expressly to
arm the northern counties and defend the frontiers from an irruption
of the Scots, no sooner heard of the muster of James on the Burghmuir,
than he despatched messages to all the noblemen and gentlemen of those
counties to assemble their forces, and meet him on the 1st of September
at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He marched out of York on the 27th of August,
and, though the weather was wet and stormy, and the roads consequently
very bad, he marched day and night till he reached Durham. There he
received the news that the Scots had taken Norham, which the commander
had bragged he would hold against all comers till Henry returned from
France. Receiving the banner of St. Cuthbert from the Prior of Durham,
Surrey marched to Newcastle, where a council of war was held, and the
troops from all parts were appointed to assemble on the 4th of September
at Bolton, in Glendale, about twenty miles from Ford, where the Scots
were said to be lying.
On the 4th of September, before Surrey had left Alnwick, which he had
reached the evening before, he was joined, to his great encouragement,
by his gallant son, Lord Thomas Howard, the Admiral of England, with a
choice body of 5,000 men, whom Henry had despatched from France. From
Alnwick the earl sent a herald to the Scottish king to reproach him with
his breach of faith to his brother, the King of England, and to offer him
battle on Friday, the 9th, if he dared to wait so long for his arrival.
On the 6th of September, the Earl of Surrey had reached Wooler-haugh,
within three miles of the Scottish camp.
When Surrey came in sight, he was greatly struck with the formidable
nature of James's position, and sent a messenger to him charging him
with having shifted his ground after having accepted the challenge, and
calling upon him to come down into the spacious plain of Millfield,
where both armies could contend on more equal terms, the army of Surrey
amounting to only 25,000 men. James, resenting this accusation, refused
to admit the herald to his presence, but sent him word that he had sought
no undue advantage, should seek none, and that it did not become an earl
to send such a message to a king.
This endeavour to induce James by his high and often imprudent sense
of honour to weaken his position not succeeding, on the 8th Surrey at
the suggestion of his son the Lord Admiral adopted a fresh stratagem.
He marched northward, sweeping round the hill of Flodden, crossed the
Till near Twizel Castle, and thus placed the whole of his army between
James and Scotland. From that point they directed their march as if
intending to cross the Tweed, and enter Scotland. On the morning of
Friday, the 9th, leaving their night halt at Barmoor Wood, they continued
this course, till the Scots were greatly alarmed lest the English
should plunder the fertile country of the Merse, and they implored the
king to descend and fight in defence of his country. Moved by these
representations, and this being the day on which Surrey had promised to
fight him, he ordered his army to set fire to their tents with all the
litter and refuse of the camp, so as to make a great smoke, under which
they might descend, unnoticed, on the English. But no sooner did the
English perceive this, than also availing themselves of the obscurity
of the smoke, they wheeled about, and made once more for the Till. As
the reek blew aside, they were observed in the very act of crossing the
narrow bridge of Twizel, and Robert Borthwick, the commander of James's
artillery, fell on his knees and implored his sovereign to allow him
to turn the fire of his cannon on the bridge, which he would destroy,
and prevent the passage of Surrey's host. But James, with that romantic
spirit of chivalry which seems to have possessed him to a degree of
insanity, is said to have replied, "Fire one shot on the bridge, and I
will command you to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. I will have all my
enemies before me, and fight them fairly."
Thus the English host defiled over the bridge at leisure, and drew up in
a long double line, consisting of a centre and two wings, with a strong
body of cavalry, under Lord Dacre, in the rear. They beheld the Scots,
in like form, descending the hill in solemn silence. The two conflicting
armies came into action about four o'clock in the afternoon by the mutual
discharge of their artillery. The thunder and concussion were terrific,
but it was soon seen that the guns of the Scots being placed too high,
their balls passed over the heads of their opponents, whilst those of
the English, sweeping up the hill, did hideous execution, and made the
Scots impatient to come to closer fight. The master gunner of Scotland
was soon slain, his men were driven from their guns, whilst the shot of
the English continued to strike into the heart of the battle. The left
wing of the Scots, under the Earl of Huntly and Lord Home, came first
into contact with the right wing of the English, and fighting on foot
with long spears, they charged the enemy with such impetuosity, that Sir
Edmund Howard, the commander of that wing, was borne down, his banner
flung to the earth, and his lines broken into utter confusion. But at
this moment Sir Edmund and his division were suddenly succoured by the
Bastard Heron. This movement was supported by the advance of the second
division of the English right wing, under the Lord Admiral, who attacked
Home and Huntly, and these again were followed by the cavalry of Lord
Dacre's reserve.
The Highlanders, under Home and Huntly, when they overthrew Sir Edmund
Howard, imagined that they had won the victory, and fell eagerly to
stripping and plundering the slain; but they soon found enough to do to
defend themselves, and the battle then raged with desperate energy. At
length the Scottish left gave way, and the Lord Admiral and the cavalry
of Dacre next fell on the division under the Earls of Crawford and
Montrose, both of whom were slain.
On the extreme right wing of the Scottish army fought the clans of the
Macleans, the Mackenzies, the Campbells, and Macleods, under the Earls
of Lennox and Argyle. These encountered the stout bowmen of Lancashire
and Cheshire, under Sir Edward Stanley, who galled the half-naked
Highlanders so intolerably with their arrows, that they flung down their
targets, and dashed forward with claymore and axe pell-mell amongst the
enemy. The French commissioner, De la Motte, who was present, astounded
at this display of wild passion and savage insubordination, assisted
by other French officers, shouted, stormed, and gesticulated to check
the disorderly rabble, and restrain them in their ranks. In vain! The
English, for a moment surprised by this sudden furious onslaught, yet
kept their ranks unbroken, and, advancing like a solid wall, flung back
their disintegrated assailants, swept them before them, and despatched
them piece-meal. The Earls of Argyle and Lennox perished in the midst of
their unmanageable men.
The two main bodies of the armies only were now left where James and
Surrey were contending at the head of their troops, but with this
difference, that the Scottish right and left were now unprotected, and
those of James's centre were attacked on each side by the victorious
right and left wings of the English. On one side Sir Edward Stanley
charged with archers and pikemen, on the other Lord Howard, Sir Edmund
Howard, and Lord Dacre were threatening with both horse and foot.
[Illustration: EDINBURGH AFTER FLODDEN. (_See p._ 114.)]
James and all his nobility about him in the main body were fighting on
foot, and being clad in splendid armour, they suffered less from the
English archers, who were opposed to them in the ranks of Surrey. On
James's right hand fought his natural son, the accomplished Archbishop of
St. Andrews. Soon the combatants became engaged hand to hand in deadly
struggle with their swords, spears, pikes, and other instruments of
death. Whilst hewing and cutting each other down in furious strife, face
to face, life for life, showers of English arrows fell amid the Scottish
ranks, and dealt terrible destruction to the less stoutly protected. When
the Earls of Bothwell and Huntly rushed to the support of the main body
on the one side, and Stanley, the Howards, and Dacre came to the aid of
Surrey on the other, the strife became terrible beyond description, and
the slaughter awful on every side of the environed Scots. Before the
arrival of the reserves the Scots appeared at one time to have the best
of it, and to be on the very edge of victory; and even after that James
and the gallant band around him seemed to make a stupendous effort, as if
they thought their sole hope was to force their way to Surrey and cut him
down. James is said to have reached within a spear's length of him, when,
after being twice wounded with arrows, he was despatched by a bill. This
decided the day; the Scots, after suffering fearful losses, retreated
next morning from the field, after holding Flodden Hill during the night.
When the news of the Scottish overthrow reached Edinburgh, it plunged
the inhabitants into terrible grief and dismay. Women, weeping and
seeking for tidings of their friends, thronged the streets. But the
civic authorities kept their heads in the crisis. They ordered all the
inhabitants capable of bearing arms to assemble for the defence at the
tolling of a bell. Women and strangers were required to remain at their
work and not to frequent the streets "clamorand and cryand;" while women
of higher station were to repair to church, to offer up prayers "for our
Sovereign Lord and his army, and the townsmen who are with the army." The
crisis soon passed. No invasion was ever likely in view of the serious
losses which the English themselves had suffered, and the city in due
course regained its wonted aspect.
James IV., who fell at Flodden in the forty-first year of his age,
and the twenty-fifth of his reign, was a prince of quick, generous,
and chivalric character. Like his father, he had a taste for the
arts, particularly those of civil and naval architecture; he built
the great ship _St. Michael_, and several churches, and maintained a
Court far superior in its elegance and refinement to that of any of his
predecessors. On such a nature, Henry, by kind and even just treatment,
might have operated so as to excite the most devoted friendship. As it
was, a neighbouring nation, instead of a firm ally, had been made a
more embittered enemy; its prince had been slain, and his kingdom left
exposed, in the peculiar weakness of a long minority, to the ambitious
cupidity of his royal uncle, whose overbearing designs only tended to
defeat that union of the crowns which he was most anxious to ensure,
and to perpetuate crimes, heartburnings, and troubles between the two
governments, for two eventful generations yet to come. Henry, however,
overlooking all these things, on returning home elate with his own
useless campaign, and this brilliant but cruel victory, rewarded Surrey
by restoring to him the title of Duke of Norfolk, forfeited by his father
for his adherence to Richard III., and Lord Thomas Howard, his son,
succeeded, for his part, to the title of Earl of Surrey, which had been
his father's. Lord Herbert was made Earl of Somerset; and Sir Edward
Stanley, Lord Monteagle. At the same time, his favourite, Sir Charles
Brandon, Lord Lisle, the king elevated to the dignity of Duke of Suffolk.
Wolsey, his growing clerical favourite, he made Bishop of Lincoln, in
addition to his French bishopric of Tournay.
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 time to see what acknowledgment those
allies were 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 Provisors, taking upon himself to nominate bishops and to command the
persecution of heretics. The pontiff now went farther, 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 him from expressing
any anger, sent him a consecrated sword and banner, 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,
Rénée, 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 Rénée, 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 be established between England and
France which would 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 on 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 crowns in discharge of all arrears due to Henry VII.
from Charles VIII., &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 an 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, successfully opposed its restoration. 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
beautiful 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.
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."
Mary promptly married her old lover, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
Henry was angry at first, but the storm soon lulled. Wolsey is said
to have been in the secret from the first, and such was 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 between 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 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 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 born in 1471 at Ipswich, where his father was
a wealthy butcher, 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 among his pupils were the sons of the Marquis of
Dorset, on whom he so far won that he gave him the somewhat valuable
living of Lymington, 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 towards 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.
Leaving his country parish, he seems to have been introduced 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 amorous
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 was but nineteen. Wolsey was forty; yet
not a young gallant about the Court could so completely adapt himself
to the fancy of the young pleasure-loving and power-loving king. In
a very few months he was Henry's bosom friend--the associate in all
his gaieties, the repository of all his secrets, the dispenser of all
his favours, and, in reality, his only confidential minister. Henry
seemed wrapped in admiration at the union of intellect and courtly
accomplishment in the wonderful man. He gave him a grant of all
deodands and forfeitures of felony, and went on continually adding to
these other offices, benefices, and grants. In November, 1510, he was
admitted a member of the Privy Council, and from that time he was really
Prime Minister. Henry could move nowhere without his great friend and
counsellor. He took him with him on his expedition to France in 1513,
there conferred on him the wealthy bishopric of Tournay, and on his
return made him Bishop of Lincoln, and gave him the opulent Abbey of St.
Albans _in commendam_.
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 a widely read man, 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.
[Illustration: ARCHBISHOP WARHAM. (_From the Portrait by Holbein._)]
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 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.
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. 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 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 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."
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 held all but the highest rank. He devoted his funds liberally to the
promoting of literature. He 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.
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 large 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
Scottish 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.
[Illustration: _By permission, from the Painting in the City of London
Corporation Art Gallery._
CARDINAL WOLSEY GOING IN PROCESSION TO WESTMINSTER HALL
_By Sir John Gilbert_, R.A., P.R.W.S.]
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
monarchs, were now divided into two factions, 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, accompanied by her husband Angus, and Lord
Home, succeeded in escaping to England, where she was delivered of a
daughter.
The part which Francis I. evidently had in permitting the passage of
Albany to Scotland, and in supporting his party there, had given great
offence 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 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. At Marignano, Francis won a great victory over
them on September 13th, 1515.
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.
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 31st 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.
On the 8th of February, 1516, Queen Catherine gave birth to a daughter,
who was named Mary, and who survived to wear the crown of England. In
the previous month died the queen's father, Ferdinand of Spain, one of
the most cunning, grasping, and unprincipled monarchs that ever lived,
but who had by his Machiavelian 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 regarded
the Netherlands, and 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
with him 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 a 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.
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 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 was 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 impossibility almost, of the accomplishment of the
enterprise by two such monarchs as Maximilian and Henry--only one thing
was palpable, that Maximilian would give his blessing to the stipulated
son for 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 despatched 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 of 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.
[Illustration: HAMPTON COURT PALACE.]
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 between Francis and Charles V., the King of Spain. On
the death of Maximilian, Charles would be ruler 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 between these two formidable neighbours. To counteract these
influences, the French king whilst in Italy had an interview with the
Pope at Bologna, where he so won upon his regard that the Pontiff 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 bowed down, and while he conferred favours
with regal hand, he did not forget those who had offended him in the days
of his littleness. 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 between 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 between 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 between 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 for the friendship of 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 Ponchier, Bishop
of Paris; Sir Francis de Rupecavarde and Sir Nicholas de Neuville 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, securing 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 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 between the two monarchs, which was to
take place on neutral ground between Calais and Ardres, before the last
day of July, 1519.
But while Wolsey was deeply occupied in his plans and preparations for
the royal meeting, an event occurred which for a time arrested the
attention of 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 despatched 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 all 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 outset 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 between them, which, during their lives,
kept Europe in a constant state of warfare and agitation.
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 despatched 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.
From the cathedral the emperor was conducted by his royal host to the
palace of the archbishop, where he was for the time quartered. For three
days the archiepiscopal palace was 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 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.
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, 1520, Henry, with
his queen, the Queen Dowager of France, and all his court, rode on to
Guines, 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.
The meeting-place was called, from the splendour of the retinues of the
two monarchs, the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," but it did little to
cement the alliance between England and France.
On the 25th of June the English Court returned to Calais; half the
followers of the nobles were sent home, and then 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. He was met on the way, and conducted into Gravelines 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.
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 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 Wolsey, 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. This was
the Duke of Buckingham. He was executed in 1521 on the absurd charge of
having intercourse with astrologers.
The various causes of antipathy between 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. 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.
[Illustration: HENRY VIII. (_After the Portrait by Holbein._)]
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
between 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 something more than regal state to decide between the kings.
In addition to his dignity of Papal legate _a latere_, he received the
extraordinary powers of creating fifty counts-palatine, fifty knights,
fifty chaplains, and fifty notaries; of legitimising bastards, and
conferring the degree of doctor in medicine, law, and divinity. By
another bull, he was empowered to grant licences 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 cardinal, that
when he 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 at Bruges, were overwhelmed with
astonishment, for such slavish homage was not known in Germany.
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 they might secretly settle with Wolsey all the
points to be insisted on. 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 on the French
the breach of the treaty of Noyon, 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 became only 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, 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 coquetting 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 prime
object of Wolsey in his embassy was to make this visit to Charles for his
own purpose, and that it had been agreed upon between 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 between 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 between the Dauphin and the Princess Mary
was secretly determined to be set aside, and a marriage between 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 between Francis and the
emperor. The emperor had taken Mouzon and laid siege to Mézières, 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 proposal was by no means
likely to be met with favour on the part of the French, after what had
been going on at Bruges, and therefore Wolsey pronounced that Francis was
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 between the Pope, the emperor, and Henry, by which
they arranged--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
between the Dauphin and the Princess Mary.
In the 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 between 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 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 despatched 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 Cajetan, 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
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 legatine 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 held 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 despatched an envoy 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 dispatch that the envoy 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 manoeuvres 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,
Grâce 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.
[Illustration: GREAT SHIP OF HENRY VIII. (_From the Drawing by Holbein._)]
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 subject of this treaty was 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 the 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 used him only as a tool. His aunt, Queen Catherine,
had deeply resented the cardinal's pursuit of the Duke of Buckingham to
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
not forgotten by the vindictive Wolsey.
Having agreed that each was to bring 40,000 men into the field, that
France was to be attacked 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.