Henry VIII. and Wolsey (1509-1529.)
The reign of King Henry VIII. is characterized by three great
facts, which have left a profound impression upon the destinies
of England; religious reform, the absolute power of the crown in
principle and often in practice, and the social and even
political progress of the nation, notwithstanding the great
outburst of tyranny on the part of the government and of
servility on the part of the people. The history of this reign is
naturally divided into two periods: Henry VIII. under the
influence of Wolsey, his favourite, and in a short time his prime
minister; Henry VIII. alone, after the disgrace and death of
Wolsey. The first of these two periods extends from 1509 to 1529,
the second from 1529 to 1547.
The young king ascended the throne under happy auspices and
profoundly different from his father, whose shuffling policy and
avaricious prudence had often exasperated his people, the
extravagant tastes of Henry VIII., his playful humour, his open
manners, his skill in all bodily exercises as well as the
remarkable intelligence of which he gave promise, had raised very
high the national hopes. He was not yet eighteen years of age; he
was tall, robust, and handsome, and people loved to see him pass
through the streets when starting for the hunt, where he would
tire out several horses; his vices and even his minor faults did
not yet manifest themselves. His marriage with the Princess
Catharine of Aragon, which took place on the 3rd of June, 1509,
caused keen satisfaction; the princess was twenty-five years of
age, she had resided for six years past in England, of which she
spoke the language well; a bull of the Pope had dissipated all
doubts as to the legitimacy of the union; on the 24th of June,
the king and the queen were solemnly crowned at Westminster.
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The young king had surrounded himself with many of the old
servants of his father, according to the advice of his
grandmother, the old Countess of Richmond, whom he often
consulted; but, from the first day, inspired both by a feeling of
justice and by the spirit of reaction, he repudiated Empson and
Dudley, making known his intention of punishing them; his
counsellors identified themselves with this policy, but they
would have been personally compromised if the "leeches" of the
late king had been publicly accused of having sucked the blood
and substance of the subjects; all the servants of Henry VII. had
more or less exactions upon their consciences, and it was
resolved to accuse the two lawyers of having hatched a plot to
"deprive the present king of his rights and inheritance."
Improbable as was the charge, the cause was judged beforehand and
for peremptory reasons; Empson and Dudley were declared guilty of
treason, and condemned to death. They languished one year in the
Tower before the execution of their sentence; all their property
was seized, and it was rumoured among the people that the queen
was interceding in their favour; numerous petitions were
addressed to the king demanding their death, and they were
executed on Tower Hill, on the 17th of August, 1510, to the great
satisfaction of the nation.
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Henry VIII. was young and brilliant; he had not, like his father,
learnt prudence in the hard school of exile; he thirsted for
military glory; he willingly, therefore, allowed himself to be
persuaded by his father-in-law, the astute Ferdinand, and by the
warlike Pope, Julius II., to enter into the league which they had
formed against Louis XII., formerly Duke of Orleans, now King of
France, who had resumed the projects of his predecessor, Charles
VIII., against Italy, adding thereto his pretensions to the Duchy
of Milan, in the name of his grandmother, Valentine of Milan. A
first herald from the King of England came to pledge Louis XII.
to abstain from making war against the Pope, "the father of all
Christians;" a second herald claimed the cession of Anjou, Maine,
Normandy and Guienne, "a request which was equivalent to a
declaration of war." Henry VIII. convoked his Parliament and
demanded subsidies. The English had not lost their taste for
invasions of France, however little glorious the last might have
been: money still abounded in the coffers of the old king,
notwithstanding the expenditure of three years of pleasure and
merry-makings. A fine army was soon on foot, and prepared to
embark from Calais, when King Ferdinand suggested the idea of
first attacking Guienne: he at the same time sent his fleet,
which was intended to conduct the English troops to the foot of
the Pyrenees; his son-in-law accepted his proposal, and ten
thousand men embarked under the orders of the Marquis of Dorset,
accompanied by a multitude of volunteers belonging to the noblest
families of England.
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The mouth of the river Bidassoa had been reached, and Dorset
desired to set foot in France, but he was awaiting the artillery
which King Ferdinand had promised him; the latter was occupied in
assembling considerable forces in Biscay, and as the English
thought of marching to the siege of Bayonne, they learnt that it
would be dangerous to leave behind them the little independent
kingdom of Navarre. Ferdinand, supported by the two armies,
commenced his negotiations. John d'Albret willingly consented to
preserve neutrality; but the King of Spain demanded the free
passage of his troops, the custody of the more important
fortresses, and, as a hostage, the Prince of Viana, heir to the
throne of Navarre. Upon, the refusal of the poor little
sovereign, the Spanish army advanced into his territory, seized
upon several towns, and the Duke of Albe, who was in command,
proposed to the Marquis of Dorset to effect a junction with him
in order to besiege Pampeluna. The English began to open their
eyes; they refused to make war elsewhere than in France, and
claimed the artillery and horses promised. "When we shall have
finished," was the answer, "you shall have all that you desire."
Pampeluna was taken, and Navarre joined to Spain; but the English
general renewed his demands; and an offer was made to march with
him against Béarn, where John d'Albret had taken refuge, instead
of attacking Bayonne or Bordeaux. This was too much; Dorset
refused to advance; the King of Spain despatched an ambassador to
his son-in-law; but when the credulous monarch had given the
order to follow the movements of the Spaniards, the English
troops had retired and had loudly announced their resolution of
returning to their country.
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This was of little importance to the Spaniards; their object was
accomplished. The presence of the English army upon the Bidassoa
had prevented Louis XII. from sending assistance to the King of
Navarre; vessels were provided for the revolted English, who
returned to England towards Christmas, 1512, half naked,
emaciated by the poor living which King Ferdinand had allotted
them, but too numerous and too much exasperated for punishment to
be inflicted upon them. This first experience, however, was not
destined to suffice to open the eyes of Henry VIII. regarding the
policy of his father-in-law.
The check suffered by Dorset had not discouraged the young king,
and he resolved to lead his armies himself into France. Louis
XII. had been driven out of Italy, his frontiers were menaced by
the Holy League; he was very anxious to raise up difficulties for
the King of England within his own dominions; he addressed
himself to Scotland, still the faithful ally of France. King
James had causes for complaint against his brother-in-law; his
best commanders, Andrew and John Barton, having suffered losses
at sea, the king had given them, to enable them to indemnify
themselves, letters of marque, of which they made use to capture
English merchant ships; Sir Edward Howard, son of Lord Surrey,
fell upon them as upon pirates and defeated them; Andrew Barton
received a wound, of which he died. The King of Scotland claimed
reparations in this respect; he also demanded the jewels
bequeathed by Henry VII. to his daughter Margaret, which her
brother had kept.
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Some attempts at negotiations on the part of Henry VIII. had
little result; the young king, before setting sail for France,
took the precaution of causing the fortifications of the frontier
towns of Scotland to be repaired, and entrusted Lord Surrey with
the duty of watching King James with a good army, while his
master should proceed to the Continent to attack King Louis.
The war had already begun under fatal auspices; Sir Edward Howard
with a large fleet, had appeared in the month of March, 1513, at
the entry to the road of Brest, of which he had made himself
master. Reckoning upon his success, he had begged the king to
come himself to reap the glory of it; upon the refusal of Henry,
Howard had attacked the squadron and the town of Brest; he had
been repulsed, and had lost his life in an attempt at boarding,
throwing into the sea his chain and gold whistle, in order that
those trophies might not fall into the hands of the enemies.
Another son of Lord Surrey, Lord Thomas Howard, had taken command
of the fleet, and repulsed the French, when King Henry landed at
Calais on the 30th of June, 1513, to the roar of the artillery of
the town, and of the salutes of the vessels, true emblems of the
noise and splendour so dear to the young monarch.
King Ferdinand, who had drawn his son-in-law into the league
against France, had recently concluded with that country a
private peace, recognizing the annexation of Navarre to Spain;
but the self-love of Henry VIII. did not allow him to retreat; he
had formed an alliance with the Emperor Maximilian, who promised
to join him at Calais. The red rose, the favourite emblem of King
Henry VIII., was about to efface by its splendour the lily of
France, and while Lord Herbert was laying siege to Thérouenne,
the warlike court was diverting itself at Calais with endless
jousts and festivals, the organization of which were often
entrusted to the almoner of the king, Wolsey, who grew every day
in his master's favour.
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The son of a rich butcher of Ipswich, Thomas Wolsey had been
brought up with care; honoured when very young with all the
degrees of the University of Oxford, he had been recommended to
his master by Bishop Fox, the favourite diplomatist of Henry
VII., and the king had several times employed him in delicate
missions. Upon the death of the old monarch, Bishop Fox, who saw
his favour on the decline, had taken care to place Wolsey near
the king, and soon the chaplain had distanced all his rivals in
the good graces of his master. Better educated than the young
king, but too shrewd to allow this to be seen, skilful in the
bodily exercises and amusements of his time, Wolsey partook of
all the tastes and flattered all the passions of his master,
before the period when he was destined to relieve him of the
embarrassments and fatigues of the government.
Whilst the dancing and feasting were proceeding at Calais, a
French army, commanded by the Duke of Longueville and the famous
Chevalier Bayard, was advancing to the assistance of Thérouenne,
Henry immediately hastened thither; but the French had
instructions to avoid a pitched battle, and they retired, after
having placed provisions and reinforcements in the towns, a
service which the Count of Angoulême (subsequently Francis I.)
continued to render to the besieged, in spite of the badly
organized and badly commanded English forces.
[Image]
Landing Henry VIII. at Calais.
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They had been for six weeks before a poor little town, when the
Emperor Maximilian joined his brother in arms, the great King of
England, with the flower of the knights of Christendom. In his
satisfaction at seeing under his orders, in the capacity of a
volunteer, the Emperor of the West, Henry VIII. forgot that he
had transmitted to him a hundred thousand golden crowns for
raising troops, and that Maximilian had brought only a feeble
escort. The reception of the emperor was magnificent; all the
great English noblemen were clad in cloth of gold and silver,
which suffered from the pelting rain that greeted the interview
of the two monarchs. On the same day the Scottish herald-at-arms
came to the camp of King Henry VIII., to transmit to him the
declaration of war of his sovereign. "I have entrusted the Earl
of Surrey to cope with your master," abruptly replied the King of
England. Before the return of his messenger, King James had
risked and lost his game.
The French had, meanwhile, decided to advance upon Thérouenne:
the English troops crossed the river to give battle to them; the
Emperor Maximilian, with the red rose of Lancaster upon his
helmet, directed the operations; the struggle began briskly, but
the French cavalry, after charging valiantly, took alarm, and
turned back. They caused disorder in the battle corps; the panic
became complete: the English pursued the fugitives to the cry of
"St. George;" the efforts of the chiefs could not rally the
soldiers, and nearly all were made prisoners. "It is a battle of
spurs," the captives themselves said, when the king gaily
congratulated them upon the ardour which the fugitives had
contrived to inspire in their horses, and that name has remained
to the engagement.
{162}
But King Henry delayed before Thérouenne, instead of profiting by
his advantages and by the arrival in France of a Swiss army to
which he had furnished money. The town capitulated at the end of
August, and was razed to the ground upon the advice, and to the
advantage, of Maximilian. Just as he had formerly done the work
of King Ferdinand, so Henry VIII. was now doing that of the
Emperor; instead of advancing into France, he laid siege to
Tournay, a French town though in Flanders, that was regarded as
prejudicial to the commerce of that country. Maximilian had taken
care to promise the bishopric thereof to Wolsey; it was taken
without any great resistance on the 22nd of September, but the
Swiss had concluded an advantageous treaty with the King of
France, and had withdrawn to their mountains. The King of England
gave a great tournament, and amused himself for several days at
Tournay. He returned to England on the 22nd of October, after
having spent large sums of money, without glory or profit; but
the star of Wolsey had risen, and Henry VIII. had had the
pleasure of dictating to the Emperor.
In the meantime, the Earl of Surrey had justified the confidence
of his master; King James crossed the frontier on the 22nd of
August with a more considerable army than was usual in Scotland.
He had captured several castles, when Surrey met him in the
environs of Flodden, an advanced defence of the Cheviot Hills, in
an advantageous situation, protected by the course of the Till,
one of the tributaries of the Tweed.
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The English immediately saw the strength of the position, and
endeavoured by insulting messages to tempt King James to advance;
but the Scots took no heed, and it was found necessary to make
the attack. James had neglected to defend the bridge and the
ford, but he descended from the mountain and advanced towards the
enemy, in good order, "marching like the Germans, without
speaking and without making any noise." The old chiefs of the
army had advised against giving battle, but James did not listen
to them. "If you are afraid of the English, you can return to
your home," he said insolently to the old Earl of Angus. The old
man burst into tears. "My age renders my body useless in the
combat, and my counsels are despised," he cried; "but I leave my
two sons and the vassals of the Douglases upon the field of
battle; God grant that the prediction of the old Angus may prove
false!"
It was four o'clock on the 9th of September, 1513; the guns of
the two armies began to thunder; the English artillery was
superior and better served than that of the Scots; the latter
were the more eager to come to a hand-to-hand struggle. The Earl
of Huntley and Lord Home, who commanded the left wing, attacked
the English under the orders of Sir Edmund Howard; they fought
furiously, and the troops of Sir Edmund, coming in great part
from Cheshire, were exasperated, it is said, at finding
themselves commanded by a Howard instead of a Stanley, the
hereditary chief of their county. They wavered, and the Scottish
corps for a long time resisted the cavalry reserve which Lord
Dacre brought up. The inhabitants of the frontiers, under the
orders of Lord Home, had dispersed to plunder, and refused to
renew the attack.
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"We have fought the advanced guard," they said, "and we have made
them retreat; let all do as much as we have." King James was
performing wonders in the centre; he had attacked the Earl of
Surrey with the flower of his chivalry, and the two generals were
about to meet amidst the slaughter, when confusion set in among
the highlanders, who had precipitated themselves in a disorderly
manner upon the left wing of the English. Half naked and maddened
with rage, the mountaineers struck before them without listening
to the voice of their chiefs, as though the whole victory
depended "upon the heavy blows which they gave." Being soon
repulsed in this irregular attack, they were slaughtered one
after the other, and the whole effort of the combat was directed
towards the centre, where King James continued to fight. In an
instant he was crushed; the circle contracted around him; English
and Scotch appeared that day to have adopted the ferocious maxim
of Sir Thomas Howard, "No quarter." The Scots thronged around
their sovereign, defending him with desperate valour; he fell,
however, almost at the feet of Surrey; but the struggle continued
around his body. He was buried under a heap of dead, who had
fallen in his defence. When night at length arrested the
slaughter, Surrey was not yet well assured of victory; on the
morrow he was compelled to engage in several little skirmishes
with detached corps; but the bulk of the Scots withdrew during
the night towards the frontier, and the English did not attempt
to pursue them.
{165}
The battle of Flodden had struck a fatal blow to Scotland; her
nobility was decimated, many families had lost all their sons;
but, on the other hand, the struggle had exhausted their
adversaries, and Surrey intrenched himself in Berwick, and
shortly afterwards disbanded the greater part of his army. He
sent to Queen Catherine the corpse of King James, found upon the
field of battle; she herself wrote to King Henry VIII. to
announce the victory. "My Henry," she said, "that which God does
is well done. Your Grace can see that I can keep my promises, for
I send you for your banner the close coat of a king. I could have
wished to send you the king himself, but the heart of our English
people would not have permitted it." Upon his return, the king
rewarded Surrey for his services, by restoring to him the title
of Duke of Norfolk, lost by his father, who had fallen on the
field of Bosworth. Queen Margaret of Scotland had written to her
brother, imploring him to be mindful of the ties of blood, and to
spare her orphan son; she was nominated regent, and peace was
concluded; the Council of the King of England had for a long time
been aware that it was difficult to completely subdue the Scots,
and that war with that country, as poor as it was resolute, was
rarely profitable to her neighbours, even after victory.
Louis XII. succeeded by his negotiations in breaking off the
league formed against him. The court of Rome had received him
into favour, and Maximilian became his ally by the promise of the
hand of Renee of France, second daughter of the king
(subsequently Duchess of Ferrara), for the prince Charles, son of
Philip the Fair and Joan the Mad, destined to become better known
as the Emperor Charles the Fifth.
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The young prince had not yet attained marriageable age, but he
had been betrothed from tender infancy to the Princess Mary of
England, sister of Henry VIII.; the latter soon heard of the
treachery which was preparing, but at the same time, and in order
to appease his fury, Louis XII., who had recently lost his wife,
Anne of Brittany, formerly widow of Charles VIII., proposed to
marry the Princess Mary. She was sixteen years of age, and was
passionately in love with Charles Brandon, viscount De Lisle, one
of the handsomest noblemen, and one of the most skilful in all
military exercises at the English court, who was equally devoted
to her. King Louis had formerly been an accomplished chevalier;
but he was fifty-three years of age, and was afflicted with the
gout. When the marriage was celebrated, in spite of the
sentiments of the princess, he attended in his litter the
tournament at which Charles Brandon, now become Duke of Suffolk,
distinguished himself by the most brilliant valour. The nuptial
ceremony had taken place upon the 2nd of September, 1513; the
king was delighted with his young wife, who, however, reproached
him with having sent back to England all her ladies and her
English household. The Duke of Suffolk had also returned to
London, when, on the 1st of January, 1514, Louis XII. died in
Paris, exhausted by the fatigue of his long wars, and the cares
which his affairs had caused him; exhausted also, it was said, by
the efforts which he had recently made to appear at the
rejoicings, in order to please his young bride. His subjects
mourned him; they had given him the noble surname of the "Father
of his people," a fact due above all to the wise administration
of Cardinal d'Amboise.
{167}
Two months after his death, his widow secretly married the Duke
of Suffolk, who had come on behalf of the king, her brother, at
the head of the embassy which was to bring her back to England.
Marriages of this kind had been frequent formerly, but the royal
dignity became every year more haughty, and none was more
infatuated therewith than Henry VIII.; he flew into a passion
against his sister, whom he would not see on her return. Soon the
supplications of Mary and the good offices of Wolsey brought
about interviews. Suffolk had formerly been a favourite of the
king, who received him into favour. The duke and duchess
reappeared at the court; Mary was more beautiful than ever, for
she was now happy.
All the authority as well as all the influence in the kingdom now
belonged to Cardinal Wolsey; from a plain almoner of the king he
had become, in a few years, first Dean of York, then Bishop of
Lincoln, at length Archbishop of York; in the year 1515, he was
made Chancellor of England, cardinal, and legate of the Pope. All
business passed through his hands; all favours depended upon him.
An able and assiduous courtier, he contrived to flatter the
tastes as well as the passions of his master; he amused him with
endless pleasures; he flattered his self-love; he found money to
suffice for his expenses, and the king, in return, allowed him to
govern the kingdom. At home, the direction which Wolsey had
contrived to give to affairs, was not without advantages; he
strengthened the royal power upon the ruins of the aristocracy,
encouraged commerce, secured the safety of the highways, and
caused justice to be administered.
{168}
Abroad, his personal avidity and the ambition which impelled him
towards the throne of St. Peter, imprinted upon his policy a
perfidious and venal character, which impelled his country to
fatal courses. During more than ten years the history of Wolsey
was the history of England; his qualities and vices equally
influenced the whole of the nation, of whose destinies he was the
real arbiter, since the absolute monarch who then governed the
country saw only through the eyes, and heard only through the
ears of his minister.
In ascending the throne of France, Francis I. had hastened to
confirm the alliance with England which Louis XII. had concluded
by his marriage; he was desirous of assuring peace in that
quarter, in order to put into execution his projects against
Italy, a fatal undertaking, which seemed to afflict with madness
the French monarchs one after another, and to lead them to their
ruin. Francis I. had covered himself with glory at the battle of
Marignan, on the 14th of September, 1515; and Ludovic Sforza had
been compelled to give up to him the duchy of Milan. Jealously of
so much success began to seize upon King Henry; he complained of
the perfidy of the French, who had secretly sent to Scotland the
Duke of Albany, the son of him whom King James III. had formerly
banished. The French party immediately proposed to entrust to him
the regency, at the exclusion of the queen Margaret, who had
exasperated her people by marrying, less than nine months after
the death of her husband, the young Earl of Angus, bold and
handsome, but as ambitious as he was rash and unskilful; Albany
had been born in France; he had been brought up there; his
regency was necessarily unfavorable to English interests.
{169}
These reasons, coupled with the councils of Wolsey, who wished to
please the court of Rome, from which he had recently received a
cardinal's hat, persuaded Henry to conclude a fresh alliance with
Maximilian, in order to drive Francis I. from Italy. An insane
ambition contributed to urge the King of England into this path.
The emperor, feigning to be weary of the supreme power, spoke of
ceding the imperial purple to the prince who should show himself
deserving of it. The vanity of Henry VIII., was aroused; he
despatched two ambassadors to Germany to see how matters stood;
but his negotiators were too intelligent and honest to leave him
long in error. "The imperial crown is not at the disposal of the
emperor," wrote Doctor Tunstall, "but certainly of the electoral
princes, and the first condition is that the person elected
should be a native of Germany, or at least a subject of the
empire, which your Grace is not, because never, since the origin
of the Christian faith, have the Kings of England been subjects;
thus, I fear, that this proposal, so specious in appearance, has
been made only with a view to obtain money of your Grace."
Henry VIII. was convinced, and, according to his custom, he was
impelled to the other side by the reaction of his first feelings.
Not being able to obtain the empire of Maximilian, he renounced
his alliance. Francis I. contrived to gain over Wolsey by rich
presents; he recrossed the Alps, entrusting the Constable de
Bourbon to govern the duchy of Milan; a treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, between France and England was concluded
on the 4th of October, 1518, promising to the little dauphin the
hand of the Princess Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII., then
eighteen months of age.
{170}
Francis I. was to repurchase Tournay for the sum of six hundred
thousand crowns. Wolsey had not forgotten himself in determining
these conditions; he had stipulated for a pension of twelve
thousand livres, destined to indemnify him for the loss of his
bishopric. "The king intends shortly to confer some further
gratification upon your Grace," wrote one of the English
negotiators to the all-powerful cardinal. "I was asked what would
please you most; I said that I knew nothing of that matter, but
that some handsome plate or rich jewels appeared to me to be the
most suitable."
The jealousy of King Henry towards Francis I. appeared to have
given place to a violent admiration; he proposed a personal
interview, between Calais and Boulogne, which was to take place
in the month of July, 1519. All the preliminaries prescribed by
etiquette were already determined on. Henry and Wolsey could set
themselves to work to invent the splendours of costumes and
arranging festivities, which were to dazzle the court of France,
when, in the month of January, 1519, the Emperor Maximilian died
suddenly, and the great affair of the succession to the empire
absorbed all minds.
For a moment Henry VIII. himself entered the lists, but without
much hope or perseverance; the two rivals for the empire were
still--as they had been all their lifetime--the King of France,
Francis L, and the Archduke Charles, grandson of Maximilian by
his son Philip the Fair.
{171}
Born at Ghent, descending from the House of Austria, hereditary
sovereign of the Low Countries, Charles had all the natural
claims to the suffrages of the electors, which were wanting in
his competitor. His military renown was already brilliant, and
prodigal as King Francis might be of the rich presents for which
the German princes were eager, the master of the Low Countries,
Spain, the Kingdom of Naples, and the West Indies was the richer
of the two. In this game, as in all others, Francis I. was to be
beaten by Charles V. The King of England had at first hesitated
between the two competitors, but he decided in favour of the
Archduke, when the latter was definitively elected on the 28th of
June. The King of France bore his check with the proud gaiety
natural to his race and his country. 'In ambition as in love
there should be no rancour,' he said to the Spanish ambassador;
but the expenses had been enormous, and the defeat was serious.
The two countries were to pay dearly for the rivalry which was
thus established between their sovereigns.
Henry VIII. hastened to congratulate the new emperor by the pen
of Wolsey, while the cardinal took care to explain the conduct of
his master at the court of France. It was important to him, for
the moment, to maintain good relations with Francis I. as well as
with Charles V. The King of France claimed the performance of the
promise of Henry VIII., and the latter was too well pleased to
display his magnificence to decline a proposal which had,
moreover, come from him in the first place. The interview was
fixed for the summer of 1520, and the ambassadors of the emperor
in vain made efforts to destroy the project.
{172}
The court of England was already at Canterbury, where the king
was completing his splendid preparations, when he suddenly learnt
that the emperor had arrived in the Channel, and desired to pay
him a visit. Wolsey was less surprised than his master; he had
secretly entered into negotiations with Charles, who had assured
to his "very good friend the cardinal," a pension of seven
thousand ducats secured by two Spanish bishoprics. Wolsey was
sent by the king to meet the illustrious visitor, who, simply
attired in black and scantily attended, landed amidst the
magnificent preparations for the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The
emperor stopped at Dover, where the King of England came shortly
to meet him with great demonstrations of friendship and
gratitude. They chatted together until a late hour of the night,
and repaired on the morrow in state to Canterbury, the king
leaving the right-hand side to the emperor throughout, and the
Earl of Derby carrying before him the sword of justice. The
cardinal, with all the clergy, came forward to meet the two
sovereigns, who prostrated themselves together before the shrine
of St. Thomas a Becket, which King Henry VIII. was shortly to
profane and despoil of all its treasures. The emperor then
presented his respects to his aunt, Queen Catharine, and appeared
struck with admiration for the beauty of the Duchess of Suffolk,
that Princess Mary to whom he had been betrothed in his
childhood, and who had subsequently been rejected for reasons of
state. The time for regrets had gone by, and the Emperor Charles
V. had not come to England to occupy himself with the beauty of a
woman.
{173}
He securely attached Wolsey to his interest by promising him his
important support in his great affair--the election to the
pontifical throne. Presents were not forgotten, and when Charles
set sail again after a short visit, he had counteracted the fatal
effects which the interview of the two sovereigns of France and
England might have had upon his policy. No one was more fully
aware than Charles V. of the value of splendour and magnificence,
under certain circumstances, but none knew better how to dispense
with these aids in order to go directly and simply to his end,
while reckoning upon his personal influence to preserve and
maintain the imperial dignity.
On the 4th of June, 1520, King Henry VIII., the queen, the
cardinal, and all the court, embarked for France; the spot fixed
upon for the interview was situated between Guines and Ardres; it
was there that was to be established the "Field of the Cloth of
Gold," which has remained famous in the history of extravagant
splendour. Wolsey had been entrusted by France as well as
England, with the superintendence of all the festivities; but it
was in vain that Francis I. selected the cardinal for his master
of the ceremonies; Charles V. had promised to make him Pope.
A palace built of timber and magnificently decorated by Flemish
workmen awaited the King of England; a fountain throwing forth
streams of white and red wine played constantly at the front,
with this invitation to all passers-by, "make good cheer, all who
please." Everywhere stood erect grim gigantic figures armed with
bows and arrows, and exhibiting the device which Henry had chosen
to recall the advances of the Emperor and Francis I.: "_Cui
adhœreo trœstat_." (He whom I support prevails).
{174}
Precious tapestries, magnificent hangings, gold and silver plate,
ornamented the interior of this temporary palace, more
substantial than the magnificent pavilion erected by Francis I.
The cloth of gold which formed the vault of this pavilion, the
blue velvet, studded with stars, on the walls, the silken cords,
mixed with Cyprian gold, were unable to resist the gusts of wind
which soon arose and beat down into the mud all these splendours;
and the King of France was compelled to take refuge in an old
castle very near the town of Aries. The two sovereigns had
scarcely been installed in their residences, when Cardinal
Wolsey, accompanied by a magnificent retinue, repaired to the
abode of the King of France, while a deputation of French
noblemen performed the same ceremony towards Henry VIII. The
visit of Wolsey was, however, not a mere court formality; the
marriage treaty was confirmed between him and Francis I.; in the
event of the projected union being accomplished, the King of
France undertook to pay a pension of a hundred thousand crowns to
Henry and his successors, so eager was he to secure the
neutrality of England in the war which he foresaw. The
arbitration of the affairs of Scotland was consigned to the
cardinal himself, in conjunction with Louisa of Savoy, the mother
of Francis I. Henry had wished to have the Scots delivered up to
him without reserve, but the chivalrous spirit of the King did
not permit him to abandon, even on paper, the faithful allies who
had paid so cruelly for the useful diversion made in the north of
England, when Louis XII. had been simultaneously attacked by the
English and the Swiss.
{175}
King Henry held aloof as long as it was a question of business;
when the rejoicings and ceremonies were begun, he filled the
scene, almost alone. The two kings met and embraced on horseback,
according to the ceremony decided upon in order to avoid delicate
questions of etiquette; the most affectionate protestations were
exchanged. The noblemen of the two courts mixed together
amicably, the jousts were about to commence; everywhere around
the lists the emblems of France and England were conjoined; for
six days the combatants fought with lances, for two with swords,
for two in the melee, at the barriers. Henry VIII. and Francis I.
fought side by side, like two brothers in arms, facing all
comers. The two kings finally essayed wrestling matches, much in
vogue in England; but King Henry, more trained, was less nimble
than his adversary; he was overthrown; he demanded his revenge,
but the assistants interposed there had been enough combats.
Banquets, balls, masquerades and theatrical representations now
claimed their turn.
So many mutual diversions did not suffice to efface the old
distrust born of the long wars and political rivalries; King
Francis desiring one morning to commence the day with eclat,
repaired alone to the quarters of the English before King Henry
had risen, and touching him gaily upon the shoulder: "So you are
my prisoner, my brother," he said. Henry VIII. sprang from his
couch, touched by this proof of confidence, and Francis,
continuing the jest, acted as valet to him, assisted him to
perform his toilet, and ended by exchanging presents with him. On
leaving the camp, the King, of France met one of his friends the
Sire de Fleuranges.
{176}
"I am glad to see you again in safety, sire," said the latter;
"but let me tell you, my master, that you have acted foolishly;
and may the evil consequences fall upon those who advised you."
"Nobody advised anything," said the king, "all came from my head
and could not come from elsewhere." Henry VIII. returned the
visit familarly on the marrow. But the moment for separation had
arrived; the affairs of the two kingdoms claimed the attention of
the two sovereigns, and the rejoicings were beginning to exhaust
their purses. For years the lands of more than one nobleman were
still recovering from the loans contracted to make a good
appearance at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; it was said that
the greater number of the French carried all their property upon
their backs.
The Emperor Charles V. had forbidden his subjects to respond to
the invitation addressed to all the knights in Christendom, and
it was to Gravelines that King Henry VIII. went to see him;
Charles reconducted him as far as Calais; but the French
ambassadors were unable to learn anything of the result of their
conference. Before separating Charles promised to accept his dear
uncle of England as arbitrator in all the differences which might
arise between the King of France and himself, a promise easy to
keep for one who held arms in his hand and took care to submit to
arbitration only questions of little importance. The king
returned to London, "in good health, but with a light purse."
says the chroniclers.
{177}
There had not been wanting among the citizens, and even among the
great noblemen who had not accompanied King Henry to the Field of
the Cloth of Gold, censures upon the insane expenditure of the
court; none had spoken more loudly than the Duke of Buckingham,
and he had gone beyond the bounds of prudence. The blood of the
Plantagenets flowed in his veins; he was a descendant of a
daughter of the Duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III.; he was
rich, magnificent, bold, intelligent. So many qualities and
advantages rendered him dangerous; Wolsey profited by the first
opportunity to ruin him. It was related that an astrological
monk, consulted by the duke, had affirmed that his son, young
Stafford, "would go far and high," in other terms, it was
concluded therefrom, that the young man would succeed, to the
throne of Henry VIII. A similar ground of fear had cost the head
of the Earl of Suffolk. Wolsey, who had, on several occasions,
been offended by the haughtiness of the duke, caused him to be
summoned to the court shortly after the king returned from
France. The duke set out without any mistrust; but scarcely had
he arrived in London when he found himself watched and followed
with more persistency than respect. He was proceeding down the
Thames in his boat, when he was arrested and conducted to the
Tower, to the astonishment and indignation of the people. He was
accused of having urged the monk to disloyal predictions, of
having plotted with the servants of the king, uttering threats
against his majesty, and the cardinal. The duke maintained that
not one single _fact_ could be brought forward against him,
but he was condemned beforehand, and the Duke of Norfolk, who
presided over the tribunal, burst into tears while pronouncing
the sentence, which he had the cowardice to sign.
{178}
Buckingham replied with proud firmness, protesting to the end his
innocence, and refusing to ask pardon of the king. The people
wept at the sight of his execution, on the 17th of June, 1521;
executions had not yet been sufficiently frequent under the new
reign to harden and debase men's hearts.
The blood of Buckingham still reeked upon his scaffold, when
Henry VIII. undertook to add to his glory as monarch and knight a
splendour of a new kind. We have seen how the reformation was
born in England, under the inspiration of Wykliffe, or rather,
how it had then, for the first time, assumed a name and
proclaimed doctrines. Since that time it had never ceased to grow
and develope, slowly, silently, notwithstanding the martyrdom of
some persons, nearly all obscure, who perished at the stake from
year to year, maintaining the fire which smouldered beneath the
ashes. For four years past, everything had been changed; Luther
had applied the axe to the tree in Germany, and the renown of his
work had penetrated throughout all England. Meanwhile external
signs were not yet alarming for the Church of Rome, and less
still for its doctrines; the people rose above all against the
monks, then very numerous in England, whose irregularities had,
several times, attracted the attention of the popes. Henry VIII.
resolved to defend the Catholic faith against the attacks of
Luther. On the 15th of May, Wolsey had given to the bishops
orders to burn, in all the parishes of England, the dangerous
books, and to cause to be affixed to the doors of all the
churches a list of the heresies of Luther, in order to teach the
people to beware of them.
{179}
On the 20th of May, King Henry had written to Louis of Bavaria,
asking him to burn Luther with all his books, "for the
accomplishment," he said, "of which good work, sacred and
acceptable to God, we offer sincerely with all our hearts, our
royal favour, our aid and assistance, and even, if necessary, our
blood." But Luther had already appeared before the Diet of Worms,
where, boldly maintaining his ground, he had wrested from the
emperor, who was an adept in the matter, the exclamation, "Upon
my soul, the monk speaks well and with marvellous courage." The
monk was in safety at Wurtenburg, hidden for awhile from the fury
of his enemies. King Henry had no other resource against him than
"the pen of a ready writer." He applied himself to the task, and
published in the summer of 1521, a _Defence of the Seven
Sacraments against Martin Luther_, of which a copy,
magnificently copied and bound, was, through the care of Wolsey,
presented to Pope Leo X. in full consistory, in the month of
October, by the English ambassador at Rome. After reading it, the
Holy Father bestowed upon the royal author the name of
_Defender of the Faith_, a glorious addition to his other
titles, and one of which he was eventually to make a strange use.
Luther replied to Henry VIII., refusing to believe that the
treatise was the work of his pen, and then proceeded leisurely to
dispose of the document. When afterwards the reformer desired to
alter his judgment and effect a reconciliation with the monarch,
who, in his fashion, was placing himself at the head of the
religious movement in his dominions, Henry had not forgiven him
for having refused the title of author to him, and was not more
favourably disposed towards him for attributing to him at length
the composition of a work of which he had spoken so badly.
{180}
The king published everywhere in his kingdom the two letters of
Luther, with a reply, and a warning to the "pious author," which
testified to the small liking which had always experienced for
"this insane monk."
While Henry VIII. was examining the works of the Fathers of the
Church, or causing them to be examined, and was writing a
treatise on theology, the war had recommenced between France and
Spain. Francis I. had invaded Navarre, but he had been repulsed;
his attempts upon the Low Countries had not been fortunate, and
Pope Leo X. had recently formed a fresh alliance with the
emperor. In his embarrassments, Francis I. invoked the good
offices of the King of England, who promised his arbitration,
and, thereupon, despatched Wolsey to come to an understanding
with the emperor upon the dismemberment of the French monarchy.
The cardinal, to whom his master had consigned full powers,
landed on the 30th of June at Calais, with a magnificent retinue,
and held several conferences with the emissaries of the two
sovereigns; but the first act of the comedy was not long, and
Wolsey shortly repaired to Bruges, "in order," he said, "to
incline the emperor towards peaceful measures." The negotiator
was accompanied by so many noblemen, his servants were so
brilliantly attired and ornamented with so many jewels, that King
Christian of Denmark, who was then at Bruges, was confounded,
especially when he saw the cardinal served by men of the highest
rank, on their knees, a ceremony that was as yet unknown in
Germany.
[Image]
Cardinal Wolsey Served By Noblemen.
{181}
The daily expenses of Wolsey were enormous, but he still hoped
that Pope Leo X. (his junior by several years) would be carried
off by some accident; it was necessary, therefore, at any price,
to secure the support of the emperor. The whole secret of the
English policy at this period lay there.
On the 19th of August, Wolsey wrote from Bruges to his master.
The emperor urged Henry VIII. to declare war against France; but
the cardinal had said that it was necessary to await the visit of
Charles to England. "He swears in the presence of Our Lady,"
added Wolsey, "that he holds himself bound to you for ever above
all other princes;" in faith of which, the emperor promised to
marry the little Princess Mary, who had been solemnly betrothed
to the dauphin four years before. The preliminaries being agreed
upon, Wolsey returned to Calais, where the French ambassadors
contrived to preserve their gravity and to restrain from
indignation, while the cardinal formally resumed the negotiations
for peace. When Francis I. had rejected an unacceptable project,
Wolsey, deploring his obstinacy, impartially declared, in his
quality of arbitrator, that the King of France was the aggressor,
and that the King of England was bound to lend his concurrence to
his ally, the Emperor Charles. A treaty was therefore signed at
Calais, between the Pope, the Emperor, and King Henry VIII.,
according to which, "in order to check the guilty ambition of
France, and to hasten the moment for a general crusade against
the Turks," all the covenanters were to fall at once upon King
Francis I. from different sides.
{182}
Hostilities had not been relaxed during the negotiations, and the
affairs of the King of France continued to progress unfavourably;
he had lost nearly all his conquests in Italy, when Pope Leo X.
delighted at the capture of Parma and Piacenza, the siege of
which he had urged with vigour, died suddenly on the 1st of
December, at the age of forty-six years, not without some
suspicion of poisoning--thus justifying the hopes which the
cardinal had founded upon the accidents to which Italian princes
were then particularly subject. It was a great blow to the
league, but none was more interested than Wolsey, who was
informed of the event with prodigious rapidity, and he
immediately took steps to remind the emperor of his engagements,
at the same time despatching to Rome his secretary, Pace, to
manage his business at the sacred college, which was very
considerable then, in consequence of the numerous nominations
which Leo X. had made.
For twenty-three days thirty-nine cardinals were shut up in
conclave for the election of the new Pope, without being able to
agree together. Cardinal Julius de Medicis, who had distinguished
himself in the recent war, mustered one-third of the suffrages;
but he could not contrive to overstep this number; some hesitated
to give to the deceased Pope a successor from his family; the
cardinals of the French party and some imperialists dreaded the
Cardinal Julius. Nobody spoke of Wolsey. At length one day the
Medicis, seeing that they could not pass their candidate, whose
army, moreover, was awaiting him with impatience, themselves
proposed, suddenly, Adrian, cardinal of Tortosa, a Flemish
prelate, who had formerly been the tutor of the Emperor, and who
was employed by him in his affairs in Spain.
{183}
No one believed in his election; gradually several cardinals
deposed their votes in his favour; Cardinal Cajetan made a great
speech to celebrate the virtues and merits of the new candidate,
who was unknown to the greater number of his compeers. While he
spoke, the disposition of the conclave changed suddenly; when the
votes was counted, Adrian found himself elected by the direct and
sudden inspiration of the Holy Ghost, it was affirmed. Upon his
arrival in Rome, the new Pope received the compliments of
Cardinal Wolsey, through the medium of his secretary, Pace; the
ambition of the English minister was disappointed, but Pope
Adrian VI. was old and worn out: Wolsey waited.
Francis I. had made several attempts to regain the affection of
the King of England; but as they remained without result, he
suspended the payment of the pension which he allowed to Henry
VIII., placed an embargo on the English vessels which were in his
ports, and seized the goods of the merchants. The anger of King
Henry had not been satisfied with the most violent reprisals
against the French people who were in his dominions, when the
emperor landed at Dover. The moment was propitious for his
designs; Henry VIII. promised him an army of forty thousand men,
and undertook to invade the north of France. Charles V., had
undertaken to indemnify the King of England for the loss of the
French pension, but he began by borrowing a large sum of money,
notwithstanding the financial embarrassments of the English
monarch.
{184}
Every day, in fact, added to his distress in the matter of money,
for every day brought fresh festivities and prodigalities. The
emperor proceeded from magnificence to magnificence during his
sojourn in England.
When he set sail, Wolsey knew not what expedient to have recourse
to in order to procure the necessary funds for the equipment of
the army.
King Henry VIII. had imitated the example of the last years of
his father; he did not give himself the trouble to convoke
Parliament. A loan of twenty thousand pounds sterling was
forcibly exacted from the merchants of London, but scarcely had
they paid that sum, when the principal among them were summoned
before the cardinal. He declared to them that the king had chosen
them to make throughout the kingdom an inquiry concerning the
property of all, upon which property the king intended to raise a
tenth for the defense of the kingdom. The aldermen resisted,
affirming that money was not only wanting in the coffers of the
king, but everywhere else; Wolsey replied, that the clergy had
undertaken to give up a quarter of their wealth; finally a
compromise was arrived at, and the royal treasury was once more
enriched with the substance of the people. But the popularity of
Wolsey was sinking beneath this ever-increasing oppression, and
the results of the war were not of a nature to afford consolation
to the unhappy people ruined by the preparations for the
struggle. The Earl of Surrey, after bringing back the Emperor to
Spain, had pillaged, on his return, the coast of Brittany. He
then placed himself at the head of the army, which numbered
fifteen thousand men only, of whom three thousand were
volunteers, and one thousand German mercenaries; the season was
late, the English traversed Artois and followed the banks of the
Somme, ravaging the country, burning down villages, but avoiding
the castles and fortified towns.
{185}
The French army had instructions not to risk a pitched battle;
but it cruelly harassed the English. The rain assisting, grave
distempers broke out among the troops of Surrey; in the middle of
October, the English, abandoned by their foreign auxiliaries,
were compelled to retreat to Bethune without having accomplished
anything; the money collected with so much difficulty was
expended, and the exchequer was again empty.
The King of France once more sought to obtain support in the
neighbourhood of his enemies; he endeavoured to stir Ireland to
revolt, and addressed himself with this object to the Earl of
Desmond, who claimed a certain independence, promising him troops
and money if he would act for him in enrolling his fellow
countrymen; Desmond applied himself to his task, but neither
French money nor soldiers were forthcoming, and the earl stood
alone exposed to the vengeance of the English government. Affairs
were not much better directed in Scotland. The regent Albany,
still in contention with Queen Margaret, asked of his Parliament
authority to repair to France to seek assistance; upon his return
with a small body of troops, he found everything in confusion,
and Margaret caused the regency of her second husband, the Earl
of Angus, to be proclaimed. Having shortly afterwards quarrelled
with him, she demanded a divorce, which King Henry VIII., who had
not yet had an affair of the sort himself rigorously opposed it.
{186}
The disorders went on increasing in Scotland; the most violent
accusations were hurled from one party to the other. Albany was
recalled to power; Henry VIII. insisted that he should be
dismissed as the friend of France; and upon the refusal of the
Scottish Parliament, he declared war. Lord Shrewsbury, made the
first attempt at an invasion which was repulsed, and the regent
entered England with a numerous army. Lord Dacre, who was in
command at the frontier, had scarcely any troops, but he talked
so loudly of the forces that were approaching--of the anger of
King Henry VIII., of the dangers which were about to befall
Scotland, that Albany took alarm and obtained the promise of an
armistice of one month, in order that a peace might be
negotiated. The skillful guardian of the frontiers allowed the
retreat of the army against which he would not have been able to
contend, and the Duke of Albany set sail for France. It became
necessary at length to convoke a Parliament in England; loans,
taxes, benevolences were exhausted. Notwithstanding the taste of
Henry VIII. for absolute power, he had a sense of necessity and
knew how to submit to it. Sir Thomas More was chosen as speaker
of the House of Commons; he had been drawn into the service of
the court several years before; the king delighted in his
brilliant and varied conversation and gave every mark of
recognition to his learning and ability. Under his direction, the
Commons proved less obstinate than had been anticipated; they
claimed the right to inquire into affairs, and the nation
supported them from without by the interest which it took in all
that was said in the House, "Why do they concern themselves so
much with my affairs?" the king exclaimed angrily.
{187}
Wolsey hoped to intimidate the Commons by presenting himself
before them in person, accompanied by a numerous retinue which
filled the House; the cardinal-chancellor set forth in a pompous
speech that the war promised to England all that it had formerly
possessed in France, and that the Commons assuredly would not
hesitate to vote a tax of twenty per cent, upon property. Sir
Thomas More had given the word to his colleagues; it was agreed
not to discuss in the presence of the cardinal, and this
exorbitant demand was listened to in silence, with downcast eyes;
no reply was made. Wolsey called upon several members one after
the other; all rose at his haughty voice, then sat down again
without saying anything. The minister flew into a passion; More
then placed one knee upon the ground, alleging as the excuse of
the Commons that they were agitated by the presence of so great a
personage, and that, besides, they wished to discuss amongst
themselves the demand which had been made of them. Wolsey was
compelled to retire, and the Commons sent a deputation to the
king, asking for a reduction of the tax. Wolsey returned, more
and more exasperated, endeavouring to draw the members of the
House into discussion by interrogating them upon their objection.
The Commons remained firm, and granted only a tax of a
tenth--half of what the cardinal had demanded. He was
unsuccessful also before the convocation of the clergy, and,
notwithstanding his power as legate, he found himself compelled
to accept, instead of the fifty per cent, which he boldly
demanded at first, a gift of a tenth for five years.
{188}
Reduced as were the subsidies, they still exceeded all that had
ever been hitherto granted to the sovereigns of England. "I pray
to the Lord Almighty," wrote at this period Mr. Ellis, a member
of the House of Commons, "that the subsidy may be paid to his
Grace, without reserve, and without his losing the hearts and
good will of his subjects, treasures which I hold more precious
to a king than silver and gold; the gentle entrusted to collect
the money will not, I think, have a small task." Already during
the session of the Parliament, the members had been insulted in
the street by the inhabitants of London, who dragged them by the
sleeve, crying, "You are going to give four shillings in the
pound; May our malediction accompany you even to your dwellings!"
Insurrections took place in several counties; but the king threw
the whole obloquy of the measure upon the cardinal, and washed
his hands of it while pocketing what remained of the money after
the plunderings of the tax collectors, great and small.
A fresh expedition was being prepared against France. The Duke of
Suffolk had placed himself at the head of the troops in the month
of August, 1523. A powerful auxiliary was counted upon at the
very court of Francis I.; the Constable Bourbon offended by his
master, pursued by the jealous hatred of Louise of Savoy, who had
hoped to become his wife, had succumbed to his desire for
vengeance; he had betrayed his country and undertaken to serve
her enemies. As soon as the King of France should have crossed
the Alps, in his expedition to Italy, the Constable, with seven
thousand men, was to co-operate in the attacks of the English and
Imperialists.
{189}
The plot was suspected; King Francis delayed his departure, and
the Constable, who had feigned an illness, was compelled to fly
into Italy. The allies entered upon the campaign alone and too
late; they were moreover disconcerted in their operations by the
absence of the troops of the Constable. Francis I. everywhere
faced the enemy in France, while his faithful servant, Admiral
Bonnivet, commanded the army of Italy.
The Duke of Suffolk was not destined for more glory than the Earl
of Surrey; he delayed before St. Omer, instead of affecting a
junction with the Germans who had invaded Burgundy; at length,
when he desired to pass, it was too late, the French army cut off
his communications; he was without provisions, his troops were
suffering from grave distempers. It was necessary to fall back
upon Calais. This unfortunate campaign almost cost the Duke of
Suffolk his head, so great was the anger of King Henry.
Pope Adrian VI. had died (4th of September, 1523) after a
pontificate of twenty months; his austere conscience had so
greatly exasperated the Italians, that the physician who had
attended him during his illness was styled the "Saviour of his
country." The hopes of Wolsey blossomed again; he hastened to
write to King Henry to assure him of the repugnance which he
should experience at leaving his good master and burthening
himself with so heavy a duty as the government of Christendom.
Henry understood, and caused the emperor to be reminded of all
his promises, commanding his ambassador at Rome also to spare
nothing in order to insure the election of the minister.
{190}
This time Wolsey was among the number of the candidates; he had
even brought together sufficient votes, but the Italians, the
people of Rome, came almost beneath the windows of the conclave,
crying out that there had been too many _barbarians_ on the
seat of St. Peter, and that they would have no more. This
opposition, supported by the efforts of the French cardinals,
secured the tiara to cardinal Julius de Medicis. He had had the
intention of retaining his name, but he was reminded that no Pope
who had done so had reigned two years, and he assumed the title
of Clement VII.
Wolsey was too sagacious not to contrive to conceal his
disappointment; the instructions of Henry VIII. were, moreover,
to assist Cardinal de Medicis if the election of the chancellor
of England was impossible; the new Pope immediately confirmed
Wolsey in his office of legate, authorizing him even to suppress
in England the religious houses which he should find to be
corrupt. The cardinal made use of this authority with moderation,
employing the property of the closed monasteries in endowing the
colleges and universities, in order, he said, to instruct learned
doctors "capable of refuting the ever-growing and widespread
heresies of the monster, Martin Luther."
The French army, under the orders of Admiral Bonnivet, had
obtained some success in Italy; but when that commander had to
deal with the Constable Bourbon, placed by the emperor at the
head of his troops, he suffered check after check; the loss of
nearly all the towns was crowned by the death of the brave
Bayard, the flower of European chivalry.
{191}
The invasion of France was resolved upon, and Charles V. besought
Henry VIII. to make an attack in the north; but England was weary
of making war without glory, and the king, who had, while
advancing in years, conceived as little liking as he had little
aptitude for the command of armies, refused his co-operation,
promising money, however, which he did not pay. Bourbon and the
Marquis of Peschiera entered France, but, contrary to the advice
of the Constable, who wished to march upon Lyons, they delayed at
the fruitless siege of Marseilles, and the generals, urged by the
proximity of the army which Francis I. had gathered together at
Avignon, re-entered Italy. To his misfortune the king of France
followed them there; the struggle began before Pavia, which the
French were besieging; all the forces of the empire were united
there, and on the 24th of February, 1525, when the combat ceased,
the French army was decimated and the king a prisoner. "All is
lost, save honour!" wrote the captured monarch, who had valiantly
defended himself, to his mother. He was immediately conducted to
the fortress of Pizzighitone, and people rejoiced greatly in
England at the victory of the emperor, as though King Henry VIII.
had not been upon the point, a few months before, of separating
himself from the league, in order to become reconciled with the
King of France.
The victory caused the scale to incline to the side of Charles
V., and Henry hastened to despatch ambassadors to him, promising
to invade France in conjunction with the emperor, in order to
divide that kingdom amicably.
{192}
As preliminaries of the treaty, the King of England proposed to
ascend the throne of France, which belonged to him by right of
inheritance, while Charles should content himself with the
provinces formerly dependant upon the House of Burgundy. In order
to accomplish this dazzling project, fresh taxes were demanded
without any vote of Parliament, recent experience of the temper
of that body not having been favourable; but this was too much.
Insurrections broke out on all sides; placards insulting to the
king and the cardinal were affixed by night upon the walls; arms
were taken up against the commissioners. Wolsey perceived that it
was necessary to yield, and the king, more bold in words than in
deeds, speedily announced that he revoked and annulled his
demands; it was also repeated very loudly that the cardinal had
always been opposed to this fresh _benevolence_, that it was
at his entreaty that the king abandoned it; but the people said,
"God bless the king; as to the cardinal, we know him but too
well."
The rejoicing had been neither general nor spontaneous in England
after the battle of Pavia and the captivity of Francis I. "I have
heard it related," wrote Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury,
formerly a minister of Henry VII., to the cardinal, "that the
people said in several places that it would be a subject rather
for weeping than for rejoicing that the King of France was a
prisoner; if he could recover his liberty, and there should be a
good peace, the king would no longer dream of retaking France,
the conquest of which would be more burdensome to England than
profitable, and the maintenance more burdensome than the
conquest."
{193}
Charles V., deemed himself henceforth master of the situation,
and the style of his letters changed in tone after the battle of
Pavia. He was weary of the oscillations and perfidies of the
English policy; he no longer wrote to his _good uncle_ with
his own hand, and his letters were signed _Charles_, without
any reminder of the ties of kindred. He rejected the idea of
invading France. "The game was in the toils," it was said; "of
what use was it to chase it any longer?" Francis I. had been
transferred to the Alcazar of Madrid, at his request, and was
anxious to negotiate personally with the emperor, but no
interview was granted him. The negotiators demanded of the
captive king the renunciation of all his pretensions upon Italy,
the rehabilitation of the Constable Bourbon in his rank and
property, and the cession of Burgundy. Francis I. resisted this
last point; he struggled for a long while, and even abdicated in
favour of the dauphin. At one moment he threatened to starve
himself to death, and the emperor saw himself upon the point of
losing all the fruits of his victory. At length, on the 14th of
January, 1526, after eleven months' captivity, the King of France
signed the treaty of Madrid, taking care, however, to protest
before a priest, a notary, and some friends, against the
constraint placed upon him; then springing upon his
Barbary-horse, brought for him to the frontier, he galloped back
to his territory, crying, "I am king once more." All the
conditions of the treaty were already trodden under foot.
{194}
During the captivity of Francis I., Henry VIII. had concluded a
close and advantageous alliance with Louise of Savoy, regent of
the kingdom; a sum of two millions of crowns had been promised
him, as well as a pension of a hundred thousand crowns. The
cardinal received thirty thousand crowns for the cession of the
bishopric of Tournay, and a hundred thousand crowns as a reward
for his services to France. The Dowager Queen of France, Mary,
duchess of Suffolk, was to have her dowry liquidated. It was
moreover forbidden the Duke of Albany to re-enter Scotland during
the minority of James V.
As soon as he had arrived in Paris, Francis I. ratified the
engagements made by his mother, assuring the emissaries of Henry
VIII. that he cared for nothing when once he was in good and
faithful friendship with his Grace, the King of England. The
league formerly concluded against the King of France, was
reformed against the emperor; the Pope absolved Francis I. of his
oaths, and allied himself with the Kings of France and England,
with the republics of Florence and Venice, and with the Duke of
Milan, with a view to recommence hostilities.
A coldness had arisen since the preceding year (1525) between
King Henry and his all-powerful minister; the king had found, it
was said, that the cardinal abused the authority which had been
confided to him by the Pope, and that he had driven too many
monks from their monasteries. The rumour of this disagreement
reached Germany, and it was upon this point that Luther wrote to
Henry VIII., attributing to Wolsey all the evil which had been
wrought in England, and congratulating the king on his having
rejected "this monster and abomination to God and man, the ruin
of the kingdom, and the blight of all England." The compliments
of Luther were premature; the king and the cardinal had become
reconciled, and Henry answered the reformer with emphatic
encomiums upon Wolsey, and bitter reproaches directed against
Luther for his marriage with Catherine of Bora.
{195}
The two sovereigns of France and England did not keep their
promises to the Pope better than those made to the emperor. All
the weight of the war fell upon Clement VII., who was soon
compelled to throw himself upon the mercy of Charles V. A treaty
was signed between them, but less than a month afterwards the
Spaniards entered Rome by surprise, and the Pope was compelled to
take refuge in the castle of St. Angelo. Passing from convention
to convention, from perfidy to perfidy, with alternations of
successes and reverses, Clement VII. found himself at length in
the month of May, 1527, besieged in Rome by the Constable
Bourbon, who was killed in the assault of the 5th of May, at the
moment when his ferocious soldiers were taking possession of the
city, which they gave up to fire and sword. Not even from the
Gauls and the Goths had the Eternal City suffered so much.
Notwithstanding the corruption of the Roman Church and the secret
indignation which was felt against her, a cry of horror was
raised from one end to the other of Christendom. Wolsey wrote to
Henry VIII. to remind him of his title of _Defender of the
Faith_, and to ask him to act in favour of the papal
authority; but the king was absorbed in matters which were
destined to undermine all his old devotion to Rome. He followed
the example of King Francis I., and both monarchs abandoned to
his unhappy fate the ally whom they had involved in an unequal
struggle.
{196}
The King of England had recently, in fact, entered upon a course
which was in the end to lead him further and to change his policy
more than he had foreseen. An inconsistent and faithless husband,
he had caused his wife, Queen Catharine of Aragon, many sorrows,
which she had borne with grave dignity and a somewhat rigid
meekness. He had, nevertheless, retained a certain respect for
her; the queen was generally beloved and esteemed, but Henry
VIII. had made the acquaintance of a young maid of honour of her
court--beautiful, intellectual, graceful, brought up in France,
whither, when yet quite a child, she had accompanied the Princess
Mary, when she went there to espouse Louis XII., and Anne Boleyn
had awakened a violent passion in the heart of the king. Did she
from the first lay claim to the position of her royal mistress.
Did she resist the love of the king from virtue or from ambition?
None can say. She was of good birth; her father, Sir Thomas
Boleyn, had been several times employed in diplomatic missions by
the king and the cardinal; her mother was the daughter of the
Duke of Norfolk. She lived constantly at the court, and the queen
could not have been ignorant of an intrigue which, since 1527,
had formed a subject of conversation among all the courtiers.
In order to marry Anne Boleyn, it was necessary to annul the
marriage with Catharine of Aragon. King Henry VIII., after
seventeen years of union found himself smitten with scruples as
to the legitimacy of his marriage with the widow of his brother;
he found proof of the wrath of God in the numerous losses which
had been sustained by his family.
{197}
The queen had given him six children, but had lost all save her
eldest daughter, the Princess Mary. He very ostentatiously
displayed his affection for Catharine, but the delicacy of his
conscience did not permit him to live in peace with her. He began
to experience a desire to surround himself with learned doctors
able to throw light upon the laws divine and human which he might
have involuntarily violated. Various secret motives favoured the
passion of the king. Notwithstanding the declarations of Henry
VIII. with regard to the impossibility of the Lutheran heresies
taking root in the soil of England, the doctrines of the
Reformation had silently made great progress; the partisans of
the new doctrine knew Queen Catherine to be ardently and
sincerely a Catholic; there was no support to be expected from
her. On the other hand, Wolsey, the faithful servant of the
Church of Rome, was exasperated against the emperor, the nephew
of Catharine, who had failed him in the pontifical elections, and
he wished to strengthen the alliance which united his master to
France, by inducing him to marry Renee, the second daughter of
Louis XII. The cardinal did not foresee any serious obstacles to
his project from the affair of Anne Boleyn, but the divorce
served his policy. Negotiations were then in progress for the
marriage of the Princess Mary with the Duke of Orleans, son of
the King of France, and the ambassadors of Francis I. were
enabled to assure themselves personally of the truth of the
rumours which attributed to the King an insane love for Anne
Boleyn. He danced with her all night at the masquerade given in
their honor.
{198}
Wolsey soon afterwards proceeded to France, magnificently
escorted in his embassy, like Thomas a Becket in former times.
When he came back, the alliance between the two crowns was closer
than ever, and he had himself assured Louise of Savoy that she
would soon see a princess of her blood seated upon [the] throne
of England; but the king had spent the time during his absence in
seeking in Leviticus and in St. Thomas Aquinas arguments against
his marriage with Catharine, and the first news which saluted the
cardinal upon his return was the announcement, made by the king,
of his fixed determination to make Anne Boleyn Queen of England.
Wolsey fell upon his knees; his policy and principles, such as
they were, revolted at this marriage. In earlier times the Kings
of England had frequently married their female subjects; but that
period was gone by, and the regal dignity was too exalted to be
brought so low. At the first remonstrance, the minister perceived
that discussion was useless; he bowed his head, and resolved to
serve his master according to his will and pleasure. He did not,
however, infuse any ardour into the business: Anne Boleyn soon
perceived this, and conceived thenceforth an enmity against the
cardinal which was destined to bring about his ruin.
The task of examining the Treatise upon the divorce was assigned
to Sir Thomas More, but the learned jurist felt the danger of
such a trust, and consulted several bishops; the greater number
hesitated: all referred to the Pope the decision of so great an
affair. A scruple analogous to that which had so suddenly arisen
in the mind of the king had preoccupied many people at the time
of the marriage. The bull of the Pope had satisfied all minds,
and it was thought hard to find the question resuscitated after
so many years of agreement. It was absolutely necessary to take
the matter before Clement VII.
{199}
The emperor had foreseen the blow, and had prepared to avert it.
Considering the projected divorce as an insult to his family, he
had been careful, before negotiating with the Pope, besieged by
the imperialists in the castle of St. Angelo, to forewarn him
against the intentions of the King of England, and to make
mention of them in conversation. Clement VII., however, had
escaped, and from his refuge at Orvieto, he awaited the approach
of the French army under the orders of Lautrec. Instead of the
soldiers that he expected, he was attacked by the agents of King
Henry, who demanded authorization for the Cardinal Legate in
England to decide the question of the divorce, with the
assistance of a second legate, sent from Rome. The Pope was
greatly embarrassed; the army upon which he counted was partly
maintained by English gold. He signed the authorization, thus
letting the weight of the decision fall again upon Wolsey. The
matter of the bull of Julius II. was referred to a commission
which was competent to revoke it if the dispensation had been
obtained by means of false representations. Out of consideration
for the Princess Mary, she was to be legitimated in case of the
divorce of her mother. Such was the result of the negotiations
which were prolonged, with various alternations, from the end of
the year 1527 to the beginning of the year 1528.
{200}
This decision, which fully satisfied Henry VIII. greatly troubled
the cardinal; he demanded that Cardinal Campeggio should be sent
to him from Rome to share the dreaded responsibility which was
imposed upon him; he gently suggested to the king the doubts and
difficulties which several bishops had expressed to him. The king
flew into a passion, forgetting in his fury the long services of
his minister. Wolsey tremblingly yielded, and caused the Pope to
be implored to sign the decretal bull which was to approve his
decision by anticipation. The Pope signed, at the same time
charging Cardinal Campeggio to keep the bull secret and to
produce it only in case of absolute necessity.
An epidemic, known as the sweating sickness, which caused the
death of many persons, and even placed Anne Boleyn in danger,
arrested, for a while, the progress of affairs; terrified by this
visitation, the king became reconciled with Queen Catherine,
zealously resumed all the practices of religion, and appeared to
forget Anne Boleyn, who was in the country, suffering from
illness. But with the danger the good resolutions of Henry
disappeared, and the great noblemen of the court received an
order to present themselves at the levee of the favorite as at
that of the queen. Cardinal Campeggio had just arrived in
England, and it was expected that the legates would at once
convoke the commission. But affairs in Italy once more changed
aspect; the emperor was again assuming the ascendant in that
country, and the Italian legate was too crafty to set the Pope at
variance with a conqueror, who might perhaps shortly be imposing
laws. Lautrec, who for a while had appeared victorious, was
besieged by the imperialists within his camp, near Naples, where
he died on the 15th of August, from grief as much as from
sickness.
{201}
The unhappy remains of his army were compelled to capitulate, and
the Pope opened up secret negotiations with the emperor.
Campeggio continued to procrastinate; it was necessary to gain
time at any price. For a moment the Pope had been thought to be
dying, and Wolsey had appeared to be very near the height of his
ambition; but Clement recovered his health, and the King of
France himself was negotiating with the emperor. Henry VIII.
despatched, under the great seal, the formal order to the two
legates to assemble their commission, and to proceed to the
inquiry into the divorce. The court met in the great Hall of the
Black Friars, on the 13th of May, 1529.
The king and queen had been summoned; when his name was called,
Henry replied without hesitating, "Present," Catherine,
accompanied by four bishops, instructed to plead her cause, did
not respond to the summons; but she arose, and, crossing the
hall, threw herself at the feet of the king, imploring him in
most touching terms, with affecting dignity and sweetness, to
have pity on her, to remember the duties which she had rendered
him, and not to inflict upon her a dishonor which she did not
deserve. She rose amidst the involuntary emotion of all present,
and left the hall whilst the king was protesting his attachment
to her, and attributing all these persecutions to the scruples of
his conscience. "It was not," he said, "my lord cardinal who had
suggested the idea of the divorce, as the queen asserted; but the
Bishop of Lincoln, his confessor, and several other prelates, had
enjoined him to address himself to the Pope."
{202}
Catherine had refused to be present henceforth at the sittings;
the inquiry therefore proceeded without her. The advocates of the
king, who alone spoke, proved, or pretended to prove, all the
facts which they had advanced; they, concluded by pronouncing the
invalidity of the marriage. The king urged Wolsey, and Wolsey
pressed Campeggio to deliver the judgment; but the affairs of the
Pope had been arranged; he had concluded, on the 29th of June, an
advantageous treaty with the emperor, and no longer feared the
anger of the king. Again, on the 23rd of July, when the advocates
of the king demanded a definitive reply, "I have not come here,"
said Campeggio, "to satisfy a man from fear or from hope of a
reward, be he king or potentate. I am old, sick, and infirm, and
every day I expect death. Of what avail would it be therefore, to
me to place my soul in danger of perdition for the favour of a
prince? In the doubt and difficulties which shroud this affair,
wherein the defendant will not plead her cause, I defer the
decision until we shall have had the advice of the Pope and other
experienced persons of his council. I adjourn the tribunal until
the month of October."
As he finished speaking, the Duke of Suffolk, brother-in-law of
King Henry, struck his fist upon the table, exclaiming, "Never
has a cardinal done any good for England." Wolsey took this
reproach upon himself, and, turning towards Suffolk, he reminded
him angrily of the services he had rendered him. "Without me," he
said, "cardinal as I am, you would not at this hour possess a
head upon your shoulders, or a tongue to insult us with. We are
here only as deputies charged to examine an important matter, and
we cannot proceed without the decision of our supreme chief. Be
calm, my lord, remember what you owe me, and what I thought never
to reveal to living man for your dishonor and my glory."
{203}
The court assembled no more; but it was soon known that, a
fortnight previously, the Pope had revoked the mission of the
legates, and that he had received the appeal of Queen Catherine.
Campeggio was preparing to quit England, and Henry VIII. was able
to control his resentment so far as to take leave of him with
courtesy, even offering him presents; but at Dover, at the moment
when the aged legate was about to embark, a troop of men-at-arms
penetrated into his apartment, and searched all his coffers,
pretending to seek a treasure belonging to Wolsey, but doubtless,
in quest of the decretal bull signed by the Pope, of which the
cardinal was known to be the bearer. Nothing, however, was found,
and Campeggio set sail, leaving his compeer of the sacred college
to bear alone the whole weight of his master's anger.
As long as Anne Boleyn had not been assured of the favour of the
king, she had sought the good graces of Wolsey; but for a long
time since then she had sworn to destroy him. All the great
noblemen, weary of the yoke which weighed upon them, and ashamed
of having been so long governed by the son of a butcher, united
themselves to her who was about to become their queen, in order
to precipitate the ruin of the minister.
{204}
The king lent ear to all the statements against Wolsey; he was
above all seduced by the hope of confiscation; for the fortune of
Wolsey was enormous. The court made a short journey, and the
cardinal was not invited to take part in it. However, when he
contrived to meet the king at Grafton, in Northamptonshire, Henry
received him so affectionately, that the conspirators were
greatly discouraged. The influence of the beautiful mistress Anne
Boleyn, restored the position of affairs. On the morrow, Wolsey
received orders to return to London; He was never again to see
the face of his master.
It was the period of the opening of the courts of justice; Wolsey
took his seat in the court of chancery, but none of the servants
of the king hastened any longer to do honour to him; the hour of
disgrace had come; and on the same day, Hales, the
attorney-general, accused him of having illegally exercised in
England the office of papal legate. None knew better than Wolsey
the worth of the laws in the eyes of his master; they had
together made and violated many, but Wolsey also knew that his
ruin had been resolved upon, and all his courage disappeared
under this conviction. He confessed all; the crimes that he had
committed as well as those which he had not committed; he
admitted all the counts of the indictment, and placed himself
solely at the mercy of the king. On condition of retaining his
rank and ecclesiastical property, he voluntarily deprived himself
of all that he was possessed of in favour of his royal master,
saying that he held all through his favour. But so much haste
could not disarm his enemies; the Dukes of Suffolk and Norfolk
ordered him to retire to his mansion at Esher, as the king
counted upon installing himself in his palace of York Place
(since known as Whitehall).
{205}
The cardinal made no resistance; but when the emissaries demanded
the great seal, Wolsey drew himself up: "The great seal of
England was consigned to me by my sovereign," he said, "I hold it
for life in virtue of his letters patent, and I cannot deliver it
up upon a simple word from your mouth." He held out
notwithstanding their insults, and only resigned the great seal
on the morrow, upon the order signed by the king. "I am grieved
to think that your Grace is about to be taken to the Tower," said
his treasurer, Sir William Gascoyne, whom he was commissioning to
remit to the king an inventory of his wealth. "It is a cowardly
falsehood!" cried Wolsey angrily; "I have done nothing to deserve
to be arrested; it simply pleases the king's grace to take
possession at once of this residence," and he embarked for Esher.
The people gathered in crowds on both banks of the Thames,
expecting to see the fallen minister take that "traitor's"
highway, which was rarely traversed a second time; their
expectations were disappointed; the boat glided along softly as
far as Putney. As the cardinal was mounting his mule to proceed
to Esher, one of the chamberlains of the king, Sir John Norris,
presented himself before him, and consigned to him a ring which
the king had sent with some words of consolation. "Take courage,"
added Sir John, "and we shall see you higher than ever." Wolsey
dismounted, knelt in the dust at the side of the road, returned
thanks to God for the return of favour which the king manifested
towards him; and then rising, "I have no longer anything to
give," he said, "and your news would deserve half a kingdom."
{206}
He offered, however, to Sir John Norris, a small golden chain
accompanied by a crucifix. "Yet," he added, "if I could send to
my sovereign at least a token of my gratitude--" and as he was
seeking about him, his looks fell upon his jester: "Take him," he
said, "for the amusement of a noble master; he is well worth a
thousand pounds."
The gleam of favour from the king was destined to be transitory.
He felt difficulty in separating himself completely from a friend
of twenty years' standing, who had flattered, amused, served, and
governed him for such a long time past; but the cabal was more
powerful than past services, and Wolsey, lonely and cast down,
soon fell ill. "Nothing that he had told me excited so much
compassion in me as his appearance," wrote the French ambassador,
who had been to see him; "his countenance has fallen away by one
half. He is ready to give everything, even to the gown which he
wears, provided the displeasure of the king be withdrawn from
him." The fallen minister in vain besieged the monarch with the
most humble epistles. No token of the royal favour came back to
lighten his darkness until the moment when his life was actually
in danger. Henry VIII. then relented; he sent his physician to
the sick prelate, saying that he would not lose him for twenty
thousand pounds, and this mark of remembrance did more than all
the remedies for the cure of the cardinal. He had been condemned
in the Court of King's Bench, and an indictment had been
presented to the Parliament which Henry VIII. had recently
convoked; but the indictment was rejected, and the king extended
his protection to his old servant.
{207}
At the same time, he took possession of all his ecclesiastical
benefices, so that Wolsey found himself deprived of everything,
and in want of the necessaries of life. Henry VIII. granted his
pardon, and caused some articles of furniture and a little money
to be remitted to him; but orders were given to him to reside
henceforth in his diocese. Slowly and regretfully, Wolsey set out
for York, forsaking that court where he had passed his life, and
where his heart still lingered. Having arrived at the seat of the
duties which yet remained to him, he embraced them with
unexpected ardour. The fallen minister appeared to comprehend the
importance of his episcopal office, and to seek from God the
consolations which men refused him. His clergy, delighted, became
more and more attached to him, and wished to formally celebrate
his enthronization. Wolsey consented, on condition that no great
display should be made; but on the day fixed for the ceremony, as
the cardinal was at table, it was announced that the Earl of
Northumberland was coming. Wolsey rose to receive him; the earl
had been brought up in the cardinal's house, and no doubt he
brought good tidings from the king. Northumberland appeared
agitated; he hesitated; at length, placing his hand upon the
shoulder of the old man, "My lord cardinal," he said, "I arrest
you on a charge of high treason." Wolsey remained dumb and
motionless; when he recovered his speech it was to burst into
sobs and lamentations. His enemies had discovered a
correspondence which he still carried on with the Pope and the
King of France; they had persuaded Henry that it tended to
prevent his marriage with Anne Boleyn. The prelate was doomed
this time to be lodged in the Tower.
{208}
He was, however, not destined to travel so far. The fatal blow
had been struck. The population of his diocese was attached to
him, and would have willingly attempted to rescue him; but the
cardinal made no resistance; he followed Northumberland like a
condemned man marching to his execution. On the way, he was
attacked by a violent indisposition, and was compelled to stay
for a fortnight at the residence of the Earl of Shrewsbury. When
he resumed his journey, he was so weak that it was found
necessary to support him upon his mule. He arrived in the evening
at Leicester Abbey; on entering this refuge he said to the abbot,
"My father, I have come to lay my bones among you." The monks
carried him to his bed; he was never to rise from it again. Swoon
followed upon swoon; his servants, who were passionately devoted
to him, saw that he was dying; they summoned Kingston, the
Lieutenant of the Tower, who was entrusted with his keeping, and
whom Wolsey had asked for. "Remember me humbly to his Majesty,"
said the cardinal in a feeble voice; "beg him, in my name, to
retrace in his recollection what has passed between him and me
from the beginning, particularly with regard to Queen Catharine,
and let him say himself whether I have offended him or not. He is
a prince of royal heart and marvellous courage, for rather than
renounce the smallest part of his will, he would risk one half of
his kingdom. I have often begged him upon my knees, for three
hours, to forego his resolution; but I have not been able to
succeed therein.
{209}
And I will tell you, Master Kingston, that if I had served God as
diligently as I have served my king, He would not have abandoned
me in my old age; it is my just reward; I have not considered my
duties towards God, but only my duty towards my prince." Shortly
after these words, which were to be repeated a hundred and fifty
years later by Colbert, dying in the service of Louis XIV.,
Cardinal Wolsey expired, on the 29th of November, 1529, in his
sixtieth year, and was buried without pomp, at midnight, in the
Chapel of Our Lady, in the same monastery.
Cavendish, the chamberlain of the cardinal, who had been present
during his last moments, himself came to announce to the king the
death of his master. Henry was at Hampton Court, a magnificent
palace built by Wolsey, who had offered it to the king. He was
shooting with a bow when the messenger presented himself before
him: a momentary emotion appeared upon his countenance, then he
added quickly, "I know that the cardinal had hidden in a certain
place the sum of fifteen hundred pounds; do you know it?" The sum
had been consigned to a priest, whom Cavendish indicated. The
king caused the assertion to be repeated. "Hold your tongue about
that," he said, "it is a matter between you and me; three keep a
secret easily when two are cut off: if my cap knew what I think,
I would cast it into the fire. If I hear a word of this spoken I
shall know who has revealed it." The king sent the chamberlain
away with some praises for his fidelity towards his old master.
The conscience of the sovereign acquitted him, no doubt, of all
excess of kindness towards his old servant.
[Image]
Henry VIII.
{210}