VI. REIGN OF HENRY VIII…

VI. REIGN OF HENRY VIII

The King's Accession--State of Europe--Henry and Julius II.--Treaty between England and Spain--Henry is duped by Ferdinand--New Combinations--Execution of Suffolk--Invasion of France--Battle of Spurs--Invasion of England by the Scots--Flodden Field--Death of James of Scotland--Louis breaks up the Holy League--Peace with France--Marriage and Death of Louis XII.--Rise of Wolsey--Affairs in Scotland--Francis I. in Italy--Death of Maximilian--Henry a Candidate for the Empire--Election of Charles--Field of the Cloth of Gold--Wolsey's Diplomacy--Failure of his Candidature for the Papacy--The Emperor in London.

No prince ever ascended a throne under more auspicious circumstances than Henry VIII. While his father had strengthened the throne, he had made himself extremely unpopular. The longer he lived, the more the selfish meanness and the avarice of his character had become conspicuous, and excited the disgust of his subjects. Henry was young, handsome, accomplished, and gay. He was in many respects the very opposite of his father, and the people always give to a young prince every virtue under the sun. Accordingly, Henry, who was only eighteen, was regarded as a fine, buxom young fellow; frank, affable, generous, capable of everything, and disposed to the best.

Fox was grown old, and under Henry VII. had grown habitually parsimonious. He, therefore, attempted to keep a tight reign on the young monarch, and discouraged all mere schemes of pleasure which necessarily brought expense. But the old proverb that a miser is sure to be succeeded by a spendthrift, was not likely to be falsified in Henry. He was full of health, youth, vigour, and affluence. He was disposed to enjoy all the gaieties and enjoyments which a brilliant Court and the resources of a great kingdom spread around him, and in this tendency he found in the Earl of Surrey a far more facile counsellor than in Fox.

All this made deep inroads into his parental treasures, but it augmented his popularity, which he vastly extended by bringing to justice the two hated extortioners of Henry VII.'s reign. To prepare for this, he appointed commissioners to hear the complaints of those who had suffered from the grievous exactions of the late reign; but these complaints were so loud and so universal that he was soon convinced that it would be impossible to make full restitution; and he therefore resolved to appease the injured in some degree by punishing the injurers. A number of the most notorious informers were therefore seized, set on horses, and paraded through the streets of London, on the 6th of June, with their faces to the horses' tails. This done, they were set in the pillory, and left to the vengeance of the people, who so maltreated them that they all died soon after in prison. The fate of Dudley and Empson--the two main instruments of popular oppression--was suspended by the coronation, which took place on the 24th of the same month. After it was over they were tried and beheaded.

Henry had been married to Catherine of Aragon on the 3rd of the month at Greenwich. Whatever pretences Henry made in after years of his scruples about this marriage--Catherine having been the wife of his elder brother Prince Arthur--he seems to have felt or expressed none now. Archbishop Warham had protested against it on that ground in Henry VII.'s time; but though the princess was six years older than himself, there is every reason to believe that Henry was now anxious for the match. Catherine was at this time very agreeable in person, and was distinguished for the excellence of her disposition and the spotless purity and modesty of her life. She was the daughter of one of the most powerful sovereigns of Europe; and the alliance of Spain was held to be essentially desirable to counteract the power of France. Besides this, the princess had a large dower, which must be restored if she were allowed to return home. The majority of his council, therefore, zealously concurred with him in his wish to complete this marriage; and his grandmother, the sagacious Countess of Richmond, was one of its warmest advocates. "There were few women," says Lord Herbert, "who could compete with Queen Catherine when in her prime;" and Henry himself, writing to her father a short time after the marriage, sufficiently expresses his satisfaction at the union:--"As regards that sincere love which we have to the most serene queen, our consort, her eminent virtues daily more shine forth, blossom, and increase so much, that if we were still free, her would we yet choose for our wife before all others." The conduct of Henry for many years bore out this profession.

To make the general satisfaction complete, Henry summoned a Parliament, in which the chief topic was the prevention in future of the abominable exactions of the past; and the obsolete penal statutes on which the extortioners had acted were formally repealed. The whole number of temporal peers who were summoned to this Parliament was only thirty-six--one duke, one marquis, eight earls, and twenty-six barons.

Henry was now at peace with all the world. At home and abroad, so far as he was concerned, everything was tranquil. No English monarch had ever been more popular, powerful, and prosperous. Nothing could show more the advance which England had made of late in strength and importance than the deference paid to Henry by the greatest princes on the Continent, and their anxiety to cultivate his alliance. The balance of power in Europe appeared more widely established than at any former period. England had freed herself of her intestine divisions, and stood compact and vigorous from united political power and the active spirit of commerce. The people were thriving; the Crown, owing to the care of Henry VII., was rich. Spain had joined its several provinces into one potent state, which was ruled by the crafty but able Ferdinand. France had begun the same work of consolidation under Louis XII., by his marriage with Anne of Brittany, and the union of Brittany with the Crown. Maximilian, the Emperor of Germany, with his hereditary dominions of Austria, possessed the weight given him by his Imperial office over all Germany; and his grandson Charles, heir at once of Austria, Spain, and the Netherlands, was at this time the ruler of Burgundy and the Netherlands, under the guardianship of his aunt Margaret of Savoy, a princess of high character for sense and virtue. Henry had taken the earliest opportunity of renewing the treaties made by his father with all these princes, and with Scotland, and declared that he was resolved to maintain peace with them, and to cultivate the interests of his subjects at home. But this promise he speedily broke.

The first means of exciting him to mingle in the distraction of the Continent were found in the fact that Louis XII. of France was reluctant to continue the annual payment of £80,000 which he made to his father. Henry had made a considerable vacuum in the paternal treasury chests, and was not willing to forego this convenient subsidy. There were those on the watch ready to stimulate him to hostile action. Pope Julius II. and Ferdinand of Spain had their own reasons for fomenting ill-will between Louis of France and Henry. Louis had added Milan and part of the north of Italy to the French crown. Ferdinand had become possessed of Naples and Sicily, first, by aiding the French in conquering them, and then by driving out the French. Julius II. was equally averse from the presence of the French and Spaniards in Italy, but he was, at the same time, jealous of the spreading power of Venice, and therefore concealed his ultimate designs against France and Spain, so that he might engage Louis and Ferdinand to aid him in humbling Venice. For this purpose he engaged Louis, Ferdinand, and Maximilian of Austria to enter into a league at Cambray, as early as December, 1508, by which they engaged to assist him in regaining the dominions of the church from the Venetians. Henry, who had no interest in the matter, was induced, in course of time, to add his name to this League, as a faithful son of the Church.

No sooner had Julius driven back the Venetians and reduced them to seek for peace, than he found occasion to quarrel with the French, and a new league was formed to protect the Pope from what he termed the ambitious designs of the French, into which Ferdinand, Maximilian, and Henry entered. Louis XII., seeing this powerful alliance arrayed against him, determined to carry a war of another nature into the camp of the militant Pope Julius. He induced a number of the cardinals to declare against the violence and aggressive spirit of the pontiff, as totally unbecoming his sacred character. But Julius, who, though now old, had all the resolution and the ambition of youth, set this schismatic conclave at defiance. He declared Pisa, where the opposing cardinals had summoned a council, and every other place to which they transferred themselves, under an interdict. He excommunicated all cardinals and prelates who should attend any such council, and not only they, but any temporal prince or chief who should receive, shelter, or countenance them.

At the same time that Julius launched his thunders thus liberally at his disobedient cardinals, he made every court in Europe ring with his outcries against the perfidy and lawless ambition of Louis, who, not content with seizing on Milan, he now asserted, was striving to make himself master of the domains of the holy Mother Church. Henry was prompt in responding to this appeal. He regarded the claims of the Church as sacred and binding on all Christian princes; he had his own demands on Louis, and he was naturally disposed to co-operate with his father-in-law, Ferdinand. But beyond this, he was greatly flattered by the politic Pope declaring him "the head of the Italian league;" and assuring him that Louis by his hostility to the Church, having forfeited the title of the "Most Christian King," he would transfer it to him.

Henry was perfectly intoxicated by these skilful addresses to his vanity, and condescended to a piece of deception which, though often practised by potentates and statesmen, is at all times unworthy of any Englishman; he joined the Kings of Scotland and Spain, in recommending Louis to make peace with the Pope, on condition that Bologna should be restored to the Church, the council of cardinals at Pisa dissolved, and the cause of Alphonso, the Duke of Ferrara--whose territories Julius, the fighting Pope, had invaded--referred to impartial judges. These propositions on the part of Henry were made by Young, the English ambassador; but Louis, on his part, was perfectly aware at this very time that Henry was not only in alliance with the Pope and Spain, but had engaged to join Ferdinand in an invasion of France in the spring. He therefore treated the hollow overture with just contempt.

Henry was at this time in profound peace with Louis. He had but a few months before renewed his treaty with him, yet he was at the very time that he sent his hypocritical proposal of arbitration, diligently, though secretly, preparing for war with him. He sent a commission to gentlemen in each county on June 20th, 1511, to array and exercise all the men-at-arms and archers in their county, and to make a return of their names, and the quality of their arms, before the 1st of August.

On opening his plans to his council, he there met with strong dissuasion from war against France, and on very rational grounds. It was contended that "the natural situation of islands seems not to consort with conquests on the Continent. If we will enlarge ourselves, let it be in the way for which Providence hath fitted us, which is by sea." Never was sounder or more enlightened counsel given to an English king. But such language was in vain addressed to the ears of Henry, which had been assiduously tickled by the emissaries of Pope Julius and Ferdinand the Catholic, who assured him that nothing would be more easy, while they attacked France in other quarters, than to recover all the provinces once possessed there. He hastened to form a separate treaty with his cunning father-in-law, who had his own scheme in it, and this treaty was signed on the 10th of November, 1511. The preamble of this treaty was a fine specimen of the solemn pretences with which men attempt to varnish over their unprincipled designs. It represented Louis as an enemy to God and religion, a cruel and unrelenting persecutor of the Church, one who despised all admonition, and had rejected the generous offer of the Pope to pardon his sins.

And what was this pious scheme, so greatly to the glory of God and of heaven? It was professedly to seize on the French province of Guienne, in which Ferdinand promised to help Henry, but in reality to seize Navarre, in which Ferdinand meant Henry to help him, but took care not to say so. The old man, long practised in every art of royal treachery, was far too knowing for the vainglorious young man, his son-in-law.

Things being put into this train, Henry sent a herald to Louis, to command him not to make war upon the Pope, whom he styled "the father of all Christians." Louis, who was well acquainted with what was going on, knew that Pope Julius was as much a soldier and a politician as a Pope. He was the most busy, scheming, restless, and ambitious old man of his time. He not only made war on his neighbours, but attended the field in person, watched the progress of sieges, saw his attendants fall by his very side, and inspected his outposts with the watchful diligence of a prudent general. Louis knew that he was at the bottom of all these leagues against him, and he only smiled at Henry's message. This herald was therefore speedily followed by another demanding the surrender of Anjou, Maine, Normandy, and Guienne, as Henry's lawful inheritance. This, of course, was tantamount to a declaration of war, and the formal declaration only awaited the sanction of Henry by Parliament. Parliament was therefore summoned by him on the 4th of February, 1512, and was opened by Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, with a sermon, the extraordinary text of which was--"Righteousness and peace have kissed each other" (Psalm lxxxv. 10). Two-tenths and two-fifteenths were cheerfully granted Henry for prosecuting the war, and the clergy in convocation voted a subsidy of £23,000.

Thus zealously supported and encouraged, Henry despatched a declaration of war, and sent an army of 10,000 men, chiefly archers, with a train of artillery, under command of the Marquis of Dorset, to co-operate with the Spaniards for the reduction of Guienne. These troops embarked at Southampton, May 16th, 1512, and soon landed safely at Guipuscoa, whilst the fleet under the Lord Admiral, Sir Edward Howard, cruised during the summer off the coast. But Ferdinand's real object was a very different one; his intention, as we have seen, was not to secure Guienne for his duped son-in-law, but Navarre for himself.

Navarre was a separate kingdom in possession of John d'Albret, who had married its heiress, the Infanta Catherine; and, justly suspicious of the covetous intentions of the King of Spain, he had sought to fortify himself by a secret treaty with the King of France. While, therefore, the Marquis of Dorset, the English general, and his army were impatiently waiting for the Spanish reinforcements, they received from Ferdinand a message that it would not be safe for them to quit the Spanish frontiers until they had secured the neutrality of the King of Navarre, who was also Lord of Béarn, on the French side of the Pyrenees. The English had thus to wait while Ferdinand demanded of D'Albret a pledge of strict neutrality during the present war. D'Albret readily assented to this; but Ferdinand then demanded security for his keeping this neutrality. To this also John of Navarre freely acceded; which was again followed by a demand from Ferdinand that this security should consist of the surrender of six of the most considerable places in his dominions into the hands of the Spaniards, and of his son as a hostage. The King of Navarre was compelled to refuse so unreasonable a requisition, and therefore Ferdinand, professing to believe that D'Albret meant to cut off the communication of the Spanish army with Spain if it ventured into France, and showing that he had obtained a copy of the secret treaty of D'Albret with Louis, immediately ordered the Duke of Alva to invade Navarre. The Duke soon made himself master of the smaller towns and the open country, and then summoned, to their profound astonishment, the English to march into Navarre, and assist him in reducing Pampeluna.

Dorset now perceived the real game that was being played. Having no orders, however, to do anything but attack Guienne, he refused to move a foot for the reduction of Navarre, and demanded afresh the supplies of artillery and horse which had been guaranteed for the former enterprise. But Ferdinand replied that it was quite out of the question to furnish him with any till Navarre was made secure; that was the first necessary step, and that effected, he should be prepared to march with him to Bayonne, Bordeaux, and to the conquest of all Guienne.

These representations only increased the disgust of Dorset and his army: but they could do nothing but await the event, and saw themselves thus most adroitly posted by Ferdinand, as the necessary guard of his position against the French, whilst he accomplished his long-desired acquisition of Navarre. So Alva went on leisurely reducing Pampeluna, Ferdinand still calling on Dorset to accelerate the business by marching to Alva's support.

Henry did not yet perceive how grossly he had been deluded by his loving father-in-law, who had only used him to secure a kingdom for himself most essential to the compactness and power of Spain; and he would have been led by him to assist in his still contemplated aggressions. In the meantime Louis, more cognisant of the game, marched his troops into Béarn, and left them, professedly for his ally, whilst the remnant of the English army reached home, shorn of its anticipated honours, reduced in numbers, in rags, and more than half-famished. Henry was disposed to charge upon Dorset the disasters and disappointments of the expedition, but the officers succeeded in convincing him that they could not have done differently, consistent with their orders; but the time was yet far off when the vainglorious young king was to have his eyes opened to the selfish deceptions which his Machiavelian father-in-law was practising upon him.

At sea, the fleet under Sir Edward Howard had not been more successful than the forces on land. Sir Edward harassed the coasts of Brittany during the spring and summer, and on the 10th of August fell in with a fleet of thirty-nine sail. Sir Charles Brandon, afterwards the Duke of Suffolk, bore down upon the Cordelier, of Brest, a vessel of huge bulk, and carrying 900 men. Brandon's vessel was soon dismasted, and fell astern, giving place to the Regent, the largest vessel in the English navy, a ship of 1,000 tons. The Regent was commanded by Sir Thomas Knevet, a young officer of a daring character. He continued the contest for more than an hour, when another ship coming to his aid, the French commander set fire to the Cordelier, the flames of which soon catching the Regent, which lay alongside of her in full action, both vessels were wrapt in fire, amid which the crews continued their desperate fight till the French admiral's ship blew up, destroying with it the Regent; and all the crews went down with the commanders, amid the horror of the spectators. The rest of the French fleet then escaped into Brest; and Sir Edward Howard made a vow to God that he would never see the king's face again till he had avenged the death of the valiant Knevet.

But though Henry had been duped by the wily Ferdinand, and had suffered at sea, his efforts had inflicted serious evil on the King of France. The menace of Louis' dominions in the south, and the English fleet hovering upon his coasts, had prevented him from sending into Italy the necessary force to ensure lasting advantage there. Before Christmas Julius had fulfilled his boast that he would drive the barbarians beyond the Alps. He had done it, says Muratori, without stopping a moment to ask himself whether this was the precise function of the chief pastor of the Church.

Louis, convinced that the Holy League, as it was called, was proving too strong for him, employed the ensuing winter in devising means to break it up, or to corrupt some of its members. Julius, the soul of the League, died--a grand advantage to Louis--in February, 1513, and the new pontiff, Leo X., who was Cardinal John de Medici, though he prosecuted the same object of clearing Italy of the foreigner, did not possess the same belligerent temperament as his predecessor. Leo laboured to keep the League together, but at the same time he was engaged in schemes for the aggrandisement of his own family, and especially of securing to it the sovereignty of Florence. In pursuing this object, Venice felt itself neglected in its claims of support against the emperor, and went over to the alliance with France. Yet the plan of a renewed league between the Pope, the emperor, the kings of Spain and England, against Louis, which had long been secretly concocting at Mechlin, was signed by the plenipotentiaries on the 5th of April, 1513. By this league Leo engaged to invade France in Provence or Dauphiné, and to launch the thunders of the Church at Louis. He had managed to detach the emperor from the French king, and engaged him to attack France from his own side, but not in Italy. To enable him to take the field, Henry of England was to advance him 100,000 crowns of gold. Ferdinand engaged to invade Béarn, for which he particularly yearned, or Languedoc; Henry to attack Normandy, Picardy, or Guienne. The invading armies were to be strong and well appointed, and none of the confederates were to make a peace without the consent of all the rest.

Henry, in his self-confident ardour, blinded by his vanity, little read as yet in the wiles and selfish cunning of men, was delighted with this accomplished league. To him it appeared that Louis of France, encompassed on every side, was certain of utter defeat, and thus as certain to be compelled to restore all the rich provinces which his fathers had wrested from England. But little did he dream that at the very moment he was empowering his plenipotentiary to sign this league, his Spanish father-in-law was signing another with Louis himself, in conjunction with James of Scotland and the Duke of Gueldres. By this Ferdinand engaged to be quiet, and do Louis no harm. In fact, none of the parties in that league meant to fight at all. Their only object was to obtain Henry's money, or to derive some other advantage from him, and they would enjoy the pleasure of seeing him expending his wealth and his energies in the war on France, and thus reducing his too formidable ascendency in Europe. Ferdinand's intention was to spend the summer in strengthening his position in the newly acquired kingdom of Navarre, and Maximilian, the emperor, having got the subsidy from Henry, would be ready to reap further benefits whilst he idly amused the young king with his pretences of service. Henry alone was all on fire to wipe away the disgrace of his troops and the disasters of his navy; to win martial renown, and to restore the ancient Continental possessions of the Crown.

The war commenced first at sea. Sir Edward Howard, burning to discharge his vow by taking vengeance for the death of Admiral Knevet, blockaded the harbour of Brest. On the 23rd of April he attempted to cut away a squadron of six galleys, moored in the bay of Conquêt, a few leagues from Brest, and commanded by Admiral Prejeant. With two galleys, one of which he gave into the command of Lord Ferrers, and four boats, he rowed up to the admiral's galley, leaped upon its deck, and was followed by one Carroz, a Spanish cavalier, and sixteen Englishmen. But the cable which bound the vessel to that of Prejeant being cut, his ship, instead of lying alongside, fell astern, and left him unsupported. He was forced overboard, with all his gallant followers, by the pikes of an overwhelming weight of the enemy, and perished. Sir Thomas Cheney, Sir John Wallop, and Sir William Sidney, seeing the danger of Sir Edward Howard, pressed forward to his rescue, but in vain, and the English fleet, discouraged by the loss of their gallant commander, put back to port. Prejeant sailed out of harbour after it, and gave chase, but failing in overtaking it, he made a descent on the coast of Sussex, where he was repulsed, and lost an eye, being struck by an arrow. Henry, on hearing the unfortunate affair of Brest, appointed Lord Thomas Howard to his brother's post, and bade him go out and avenge his death; whereupon the French fleet again made sail for Brest, and left the English masters of the Channel.

In June, Henry deemed himself fully prepared to cross with his army to Calais. Lord Howard was ordered to bring his fleet into the Channel, to cover the passage, and on the 6th of June, 1513, the vanguard of the army passed over, under the command of the Earl of Shrewsbury, accompanied by the Earl of Derby, the Lords Fitzwalter, Hastings, Cobham, and Sir Rice ap Thomas. A second division followed on the 16th, under Lord Herbert, the Chamberlain, accompanied by the Earls of Northumberland and Kent; the Lords Audley and Delawar, with Carew, Curson, and many other gentlemen. Henry himself followed on the 30th, with the main body and the rear of the army. The whole force consisted of 25,000 men, the majority of which was composed of the old victorious arm of archers.

Before leaving Dover, to which place the queen attended him, Henry appointed her regent during his absence, and constituted Archbishop Warham and Sir Thomas Lovel her chief counsellors and ministers. On the plea of leaving no cause of disturbance behind him to trouble her Majesty, he cut off the head of the Earl of Suffolk. Henry VII. had inveigled this nobleman into his hands at the time of the visit of the Archduke Philip, on the assurance that he would not take his life; but he seems to have repented of this show of clemency, for on his death-bed the king left an order that his son should put him to death. The earl had remained till now prisoner in the Tower, and Henry had been fatally reminded of him and of his father's dying injunction by the imprudence of Richard de la Pole, the brother of Suffolk, who had not only attempted to revive the York faction, but had taken a high command in the French army.

Henry himself, instead of crossing direct to Calais, ran down the coast as far as Boulogne, firing continually his artillery to terrify the French, and then returning, entered Calais amid a tremendous uproar of cannon from ships and batteries, announcing rather prematurely that another English monarch was come to conquer France. In order to effect this conquest, however, he found none of his allies fulfilling their agreements, except the Swiss, who, always alive at the touch of money, and having fingered that of Henry, were in full descent on the south of France, elated, moreover, with their victory over the French in the last Italian campaign. Maximilian, who had received 120,000 crowns, was not yet visible. But Henry's own officers had shown no remissness. Before his arrival, Lord Herbert and the Earl of Shrewsbury had laid siege to Terouenne, a town situate on the borders of Picardy, where they found a stout resistance from the two commanders, Teligni and Crequi. The siege had been continued a month, and Henry, engaged in a round of pleasures and gaieties in Calais amongst his courtiers, seemed to have forgotten the great business before him, of rivalling the Edwards and the fifth of his own name. But news from the scene of action at length roused him. The besieged people of Terouenne, on the point of starvation, contrived to send word of their situation to Louis, who despatched Fontrailles with 800 Albanian horses, each soldier carrying behind him a sack of gunpowder and two quarters of bacon. Coming unawares upon the English camp, they made a sudden dash through it, up to the town fosse, where, flinging down their load, which was as quickly snatched up by the famishing inhabitants, they returned at full gallop, and so great was the surprise of the English that they again cut their way out and got clear off.

On arriving before Terouenne, on the 4th of August, Henry was soon joined by Maximilian, the emperor. This strange ally, who had received 120,000 crowns to raise and bring with him an army, appeared with only a miserable complement of 4,000 horse. Henry had taken up his quarters in a magnificent tent, blazing in silks, blue damask, and cloth of gold, but the bad weather had driven him out of it into a wooden house. To do honour to his German ally--who, by rank, was the first prince in Christendom--Henry arrayed himself and his nobles in all their bravery of attire. They and their horses were loaded with gold and silver tissue; the camp glittered with the display of golden ornaments and utensils; and, in this royal splendour, he rode at the head of his Court and commanders to meet and escort his guest. They encountered the emperor and his attendants clad in simple black, mourning for the recent death of the empress. But there was little opportunity for comparisons--for the weather was terrible; and they exchanged their greetings amid tempests of wind and deluges of rain. Maximilian, to prevent any too-well founded complaints as to the smallness of his force compared with the greatness of his position, his promises in the alliance, and his princely pay, declared himself only the king's volunteer, ready to serve under him as his own soldier, for the payment of 100 crowns a day. He adopted Henry's badge of the red rose, was adorned with the cross of St. George, and, by flattering Henry's vanity, made him forget all his deficiencies.

The pleasure of receiving his great ally was somewhat dashed with bitter by the arrival of the Scottish Lion king-at-arms with the declaration of war from James IV., accompanied by the information that his master was already in the field, and had sent a fleet to the succour of the French king. Henry proudly replied that he left the Earl of Surrey to entertain James, who would know very well how to do it.

The French still continued to throw succours into Terouenne, in spite of the vigilance of the English. In this service no one was more active than the Duke of Angoulême, the heir-apparent to the crown, and afterwards Francis I. When the siege had lasted about six weeks, and the whole energy of the British army was roused to cut off these supplies of provisions and ammunition, the French advanced in great force to effect a diversion in favour of the place. A formidable display of cavalry issued from Blangy, and marched along the opposite bank of the Lis. As they approached Terouenne they divided into two bodies, one under Longueville, the other under the Duke of Alençon. Henry wisely followed the advice of Maximilian, who knew the country well, and had before this won two victories over the French in that very quarter. The troops were drawn out, and Maximilian crossed the river with his German horse and the English archers, also mounted on horseback. Henry followed with the infantry.

The French cavalry, who had won a high reputation for bravery and address in the Italian campaigns, charged the united army brilliantly; but speedily gave way and rode off. The English archers and German horse gave chase; the French fled faster and faster, till in hot pursuit they were driven upon the lines of the main body, and threw them into confusion. This was, no doubt, more than was intended; for the probable solution of the mystery is, that the retreat of the advanced body of cavalry was a feint, to enable the Duke of Alençon to seize the opportunity of the pursuit by the English to throw the necessary supplies into the town. This he attempted. Dashing across the river, he made for the gates of the town, whence simultaneously was made an impetuous sally. But Lord Herbert met and beat back Alençon; and the Earl of Shrewsbury chased back the sallying party. In the meantime the feigned retreat of the decoy cavalry, by the brisk pursuit of the German and English horse, had become a real one. After galloping almost four miles before their enemies, they rushed upon their own main body with such fiery haste that they communicated a panic. All wheeled about to fly; the English came on with vehement shouts of "St. George!" "St. George!" The French commanders called in vain to their terror-stricken men to halt, and face the enemy; every man dashed his spurs into the flanks of his steed, and the huge army, in irretrievable confusion, galloped away, without striking a single blow. The officers, while using every endeavour to bring the terrified soldiers to a stand, soon found themselves abandoned and in the hands of the enemy. The Duke de Longueville, the famous Chevalier Bayard, Bussy d'Amboise, the Marquis of Rotelin, Clermont, and La Fayette, men of the highest reputation in the French army, were instantly surrounded and taken, with many other distinguished officers. La Palice and Imbrecourt were also taken, but effected their escape.

When these commanders, confounded by the unaccountable flight of their whole army, were presented to Henry and Maximilian, who had witnessed the sudden rout with equal amazement, Henry, laughing, complimented them ironically on the speed of their men, when the light-hearted Frenchmen, entering into the monarch's humour, declared that it was only a battle of spurs, for they were the only weapons that had been used. The Battle of Spurs has ever since been the name of this singular action, though it is sometimes called the Battle of Guinegate, from the place where the officers were met with. This event took place on the 16th of August.

The garrison of Terouenne, seeing that all hope of relief was now over, surrendered; but, instead of leaving a sufficient force in the place to hold it, Henry, at the artful suggestion of the emperor, who was anxious to destroy such a stronghold on the frontiers of his grandson Charles, Duke of Burgundy, first wasted his time in demolishing the fortifications of the town, and then, under the same mischievous counsel, perpetrated a still grosser error. Instead of marching on Paris, he sat down before Tournay, which Maximilian wished to secure for his grandson Charles. It fell after eight days' siege.

Here ended this extraordinary campaign, where so much had been prognosticated, and what was done should have only been the stepping-stones to infinitely greater advantages. But Henry entered the city of Tournay with as much pomp as if he had really entered into Paris instead. Wolsey received the promised wealthy bishopric, and Henry gratified his overweening vanity by his favourite tournaments and revelries. Charles, the young Duke of Burgundy, accompanied by his aunt Margaret, the Duchess-Dowager of Savoy, and Regent of the Netherlands, hastened to pay his respects to the English monarch, who had been so successfully fighting for his advantage.

During the reign of Henry VII., Charles had been affianced to Mary, the daughter of Henry, and sister of the present King of England. As he was then only four years of age, oaths had been plighted, and bonds to a heavy amount entered into by Henry and Maximilian for the preservation of the contract. The marriage was to take place on Charles reaching his fourteenth year. That time was now approaching; and, therefore, a new treaty was now subscribed, by which Maximilian, Margaret, and Charles were bound to meet Henry, Catherine, and Mary in the following spring to complete this union.

Meantime, the Swiss, discovering what sort of an ally they had got, entered into a negotiation with Tremouille, the Governor of Burgundy, who paid them handsomely in money, promised them much more, and saw them march off again to their mountains. Relieved from those dangerous visitants, Louis once more breathed freely. He concentrated his forces in the north, watched the movements of Henry VIII. with increasing satisfaction, and at length saw him embark for England with a secret resolve to accumulate a serious amount of difficulties in the way of his return. France had escaped from one of the most imminent perils of its history by the folly of the vainglorious English king. Yet he returned with all the assumption of a great conqueror, and utterly unconscious that he had been a laughing-stock and a dupe.

We have seen that James IV. of Scotland sent his declaration of war to Henry whilst he was engaged at the siege of Terouenne. Among the causes of complaint which James deemed he had against Henry was the refusal to deliver up the jewels left by Henry's father to the Queen Margaret of Scotland--a truly dishonest act on the part of the English monarch, who, with all the wasteful prodigality peculiar to himself, inherited the avaricious disposition of his father. No sooner, therefore, did Henry set out for France, than James despatched a fleet with a body of 3,000 men to the aid of Louis, and by his herald at Terouenne, after detailing the catalogue of his own grievances, demanded that Henry should evacuate France. This haughty message received as haughty a reply, but James did not live to receive it.

In August, whilst Henry still lay before Terouenne, on the very same day that the Scottish herald left that place with his answer, the peace between England and Scotland was broken by Lord Home, chamberlain to King James, who crossed the Border, and made a devastating raid on the defenceless inhabitants. His band of marauders, on their return, loaded with plunder, was met by Sir William Bulmer, who slew 500 of them upon the spot, and took 400 prisoners. Called to action by this disaster, James collected on the Burghmuir, to the south of Edinburgh, such an army as, say the writers of the time, never gathered round a king of Scotland. Some state it at 100,000 men; the lowest calculation is 80,000.

James passed the Tweed on the 22nd of August, and on that and the following day encamped at Twizel-haugh. On the 24th, with the consent of his nobles, he issued a declaration that the heirs of all who were killed or who died in that expedition, should be exempt from all charges for wardship, relief, or marriage, without regard to their age. He then advanced up the right bank of the Tweed, and attacked the Border castle of Norham. This strong fortress was expected to detain the army some time, but the governor, rashly improvident of his ammunition, was compelled to surrender on the fifth day, August 29th. Wark, Etall, Heaton, and Ford Castles, places of no great consequence, soon followed the example of Norham. That accomplished, James fixed his camp on Flodden Hill, the east spur of the Cheviot Mountains, with the deep river Till flowing at his feet to join the neighbouring Tweed. In that strong position he awaited the approach of the English army.

The Earl of Surrey, commissioned by Henry on his departure expressly to arm the northern counties and defend the frontiers from an irruption of the Scots, no sooner heard of the muster of James on the Burghmuir, than he despatched messages to all the noblemen and gentlemen of those counties to assemble their forces, and meet him on the 1st of September at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He marched out of York on the 27th of August, and, though the weather was wet and stormy, and the roads consequently very bad, he marched day and night till he reached Durham. There he received the news that the Scots had taken Norham, which the commander had bragged he would hold against all comers till Henry returned from France. Receiving the banner of St. Cuthbert from the Prior of Durham, Surrey marched to Newcastle, where a council of war was held, and the troops from all parts were appointed to assemble on the 4th of September at Bolton, in Glendale, about twenty miles from Ford, where the Scots were said to be lying.

On the 4th of September, before Surrey had left Alnwick, which he had reached the evening before, he was joined, to his great encouragement, by his gallant son, Lord Thomas Howard, the Admiral of England, with a choice body of 5,000 men, whom Henry had despatched from France. From Alnwick the earl sent a herald to the Scottish king to reproach him with his breach of faith to his brother, the King of England, and to offer him battle on Friday, the 9th, if he dared to wait so long for his arrival.

On the 6th of September, the Earl of Surrey had reached Wooler-haugh, within three miles of the Scottish camp.

When Surrey came in sight, he was greatly struck with the formidable nature of James's position, and sent a messenger to him charging him with having shifted his ground after having accepted the challenge, and calling upon him to come down into the spacious plain of Millfield, where both armies could contend on more equal terms, the army of Surrey amounting to only 25,000 men. James, resenting this accusation, refused to admit the herald to his presence, but sent him word that he had sought no undue advantage, should seek none, and that it did not become an earl to send such a message to a king.

This endeavour to induce James by his high and often imprudent sense of honour to weaken his position not succeeding, on the 8th Surrey at the suggestion of his son the Lord Admiral adopted a fresh stratagem. He marched northward, sweeping round the hill of Flodden, crossed the Till near Twizel Castle, and thus placed the whole of his army between James and Scotland. From that point they directed their march as if intending to cross the Tweed, and enter Scotland. On the morning of Friday, the 9th, leaving their night halt at Barmoor Wood, they continued this course, till the Scots were greatly alarmed lest the English should plunder the fertile country of the Merse, and they implored the king to descend and fight in defence of his country. Moved by these representations, and this being the day on which Surrey had promised to fight him, he ordered his army to set fire to their tents with all the litter and refuse of the camp, so as to make a great smoke, under which they might descend, unnoticed, on the English. But no sooner did the English perceive this, than also availing themselves of the obscurity of the smoke, they wheeled about, and made once more for the Till. As the reek blew aside, they were observed in the very act of crossing the narrow bridge of Twizel, and Robert Borthwick, the commander of James's artillery, fell on his knees and implored his sovereign to allow him to turn the fire of his cannon on the bridge, which he would destroy, and prevent the passage of Surrey's host. But James, with that romantic spirit of chivalry which seems to have possessed him to a degree of insanity, is said to have replied, "Fire one shot on the bridge, and I will command you to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. I will have all my enemies before me, and fight them fairly."

Thus the English host defiled over the bridge at leisure, and drew up in a long double line, consisting of a centre and two wings, with a strong body of cavalry, under Lord Dacre, in the rear. They beheld the Scots, in like form, descending the hill in solemn silence. The two conflicting armies came into action about four o'clock in the afternoon by the mutual discharge of their artillery. The thunder and concussion were terrific, but it was soon seen that the guns of the Scots being placed too high, their balls passed over the heads of their opponents, whilst those of the English, sweeping up the hill, did hideous execution, and made the Scots impatient to come to closer fight. The master gunner of Scotland was soon slain, his men were driven from their guns, whilst the shot of the English continued to strike into the heart of the battle. The left wing of the Scots, under the Earl of Huntly and Lord Home, came first into contact with the right wing of the English, and fighting on foot with long spears, they charged the enemy with such impetuosity, that Sir Edmund Howard, the commander of that wing, was borne down, his banner flung to the earth, and his lines broken into utter confusion. But at this moment Sir Edmund and his division were suddenly succoured by the Bastard Heron. This movement was supported by the advance of the second division of the English right wing, under the Lord Admiral, who attacked Home and Huntly, and these again were followed by the cavalry of Lord Dacre's reserve.

The Highlanders, under Home and Huntly, when they overthrew Sir Edmund Howard, imagined that they had won the victory, and fell eagerly to stripping and plundering the slain; but they soon found enough to do to defend themselves, and the battle then raged with desperate energy. At length the Scottish left gave way, and the Lord Admiral and the cavalry of Dacre next fell on the division under the Earls of Crawford and Montrose, both of whom were slain.

On the extreme right wing of the Scottish army fought the clans of the Macleans, the Mackenzies, the Campbells, and Macleods, under the Earls of Lennox and Argyle. These encountered the stout bowmen of Lancashire and Cheshire, under Sir Edward Stanley, who galled the half-naked Highlanders so intolerably with their arrows, that they flung down their targets, and dashed forward with claymore and axe pell-mell amongst the enemy. The French commissioner, De la Motte, who was present, astounded at this display of wild passion and savage insubordination, assisted by other French officers, shouted, stormed, and gesticulated to check the disorderly rabble, and restrain them in their ranks. In vain! The English, for a moment surprised by this sudden furious onslaught, yet kept their ranks unbroken, and, advancing like a solid wall, flung back their disintegrated assailants, swept them before them, and despatched them piece-meal. The Earls of Argyle and Lennox perished in the midst of their unmanageable men.

The two main bodies of the armies only were now left where James and Surrey were contending at the head of their troops, but with this difference, that the Scottish right and left were now unprotected, and those of James's centre were attacked on each side by the victorious right and left wings of the English. On one side Sir Edward Stanley charged with archers and pikemen, on the other Lord Howard, Sir Edmund Howard, and Lord Dacre were threatening with both horse and foot.

James and all his nobility about him in the main body were fighting on foot, and being clad in splendid armour, they suffered less from the English archers, who were opposed to them in the ranks of Surrey. On James's right hand fought his natural son, the accomplished Archbishop of St. Andrews. Soon the combatants became engaged hand to hand in deadly struggle with their swords, spears, pikes, and other instruments of death. Whilst hewing and cutting each other down in furious strife, face to face, life for life, showers of English arrows fell amid the Scottish ranks, and dealt terrible destruction to the less stoutly protected. When the Earls of Bothwell and Huntly rushed to the support of the main body on the one side, and Stanley, the Howards, and Dacre came to the aid of Surrey on the other, the strife became terrible beyond description, and the slaughter awful on every side of the environed Scots. Before the arrival of the reserves the Scots appeared at one time to have the best of it, and to be on the very edge of victory; and even after that James and the gallant band around him seemed to make a stupendous effort, as if they thought their sole hope was to force their way to Surrey and cut him down. James is said to have reached within a spear's length of him, when, after being twice wounded with arrows, he was despatched by a bill. This decided the day; the Scots, after suffering fearful losses, retreated next morning from the field, after holding Flodden Hill during the night.

When the news of the Scottish overthrow reached Edinburgh, it plunged the inhabitants into terrible grief and dismay. Women, weeping and seeking for tidings of their friends, thronged the streets. But the civic authorities kept their heads in the crisis. They ordered all the inhabitants capable of bearing arms to assemble for the defence at the tolling of a bell. Women and strangers were required to remain at their work and not to frequent the streets "clamorand and cryand;" while women of higher station were to repair to church, to offer up prayers "for our Sovereign Lord and his army, and the townsmen who are with the army." The crisis soon passed. No invasion was ever likely in view of the serious losses which the English themselves had suffered, and the city in due course regained its wonted aspect.

James IV., who fell at Flodden in the forty-first year of his age, and the twenty-fifth of his reign, was a prince of quick, generous, and chivalric character. Like his father, he had a taste for the arts, particularly those of civil and naval architecture; he built the great ship St. Michael, and several churches, and maintained a Court far superior in its elegance and refinement to that of any of his predecessors. On such a nature, Henry, by kind and even just treatment, might have operated so as to excite the most devoted friendship. As it was, a neighbouring nation, instead of a firm ally, had been made a more embittered enemy; its prince had been slain, and his kingdom left exposed, in the peculiar weakness of a long minority, to the ambitious cupidity of his royal uncle, whose overbearing designs only tended to defeat that union of the crowns which he was most anxious to ensure, and to perpetuate crimes, heartburnings, and troubles between the two governments, for two eventful generations yet to come. Henry, however, overlooking all these things, on returning home elate with his own useless campaign, and this brilliant but cruel victory, rewarded Surrey by restoring to him the title of Duke of Norfolk, forfeited by his father for his adherence to Richard III., and Lord Thomas Howard, his son, succeeded, for his part, to the title of Earl of Surrey, which had been his father's. Lord Herbert was made Earl of Somerset; and Sir Edward Stanley, Lord Monteagle. At the same time, his favourite, Sir Charles Brandon, Lord Lisle, the king elevated to the dignity of Duke of Suffolk. Wolsey, his growing clerical favourite, he made Bishop of Lincoln, in addition to his French bishopric of Tournay.

Henry VIII. had returned from the Continent as much inflated with the idea of his military greatness as if he had been Henry V.; his allies, in the meantime, were laughing in their sleeves at the success with which they had duped him. It was true that he had seriously distressed Louis, but it was for the benefit of those allies, who had all reaped singular advantages from Henry's campaign and heavy outlay. The Pope had got Italy freed from the French; Ferdinand of Spain had got Navarre, and leisure to fortify and make it safe; and Maximilian had got Terouenne, Tournay, and command of the French frontiers on the side of Flanders, with a fine pension from England. It was now time to see what acknowledgment those allies were likely to make him for his expensive services, and they did not permit him to wait long. While he had been so essentially obliging to the Pope, his Holiness had sent four bulls into his kingdom, by every one of which he had violated the statutes of the realm, especially that of Provisors, taking upon himself to nominate bishops and to command the persecution of heretics. The pontiff now went farther, and made a secret treaty with Louis of France, by which he removed the excommunication from Louis, and the interdict from his kingdom, on condition that Louis should withdraw his countenance from the schismatic council of cardinals; but knowing Henry's vain character, the Pope, to prevent him from expressing any anger, sent him a consecrated sword and banner, with many fulsome compliments on his valour and royal greatness.

Henry's father-in-law, Ferdinand, was growing old, and having obtained all that he wanted--Navarre--was most ready to listen to Louis' proposals for peace. Louis tempted him by offering to marry his second daughter, Rénée, to his grandson Charles, and to give her as her portion his claim on the duchy of Milan. Ferdinand not only accepted with alacrity these terms, without troubling himself about what Henry might think of such treachery, but engaged to bring over Maximilian, Henry's ally and paid agent, but still the grandfather of Charles. When the news of these transactions, on the part of his trusty confederates, reached Henry, he was for a while incredulous, and then broke into a fury of rage. He complained that his father-in-law had been the first to involve him with France by his great promises and professions, not one of which he had kept, and now, without a moment's warning, had not only sacrificed his interests for his own selfish purposes, but had drawn over the Emperor of Germany, who lay under such signal obligations to him. He vowed the most determined revenge. Here was Maximilian, for whom he had conquered Terouenne and Tournay, whom he had subsidised to the amount of 200,000 crowns, and whose grandson Charles was affianced to his sister Mary, who had in a moment forgotten all these benefits and his engagement. As the time was come for the marriage of Charles and the Princess Mary, Henry sent a demand for its completion; Maximilian, who had already agreed to Louis' offer of his daughter Rénée, sent an evasive answer, and Henry's wrath knew no bounds. It was impossible for even his egregious vanity to blind him any longer to the extent to which he had been duped all round.

Louis, having thus destroyed Henry's confederacy of broken reeds, next took measures to secure a peace with him. The Duke of Longueville, who was one of the prisoners taken at the Battle of Spurs, was in London, and instructed by Louis, kept his ears open to Henry's angry denunciations of his perfidious allies. He represented to him that Anne, the Queen of France, being dead, there was a noble opportunity of avenging himself on these ungrateful princes, and of forming an alliance with Louis which would make them all tremble. Mary, the Princess of England, might become Queen of France, and thus a league be established between England and France which would decide the fate of Europe.

Henry's resentment and wounded honour would of themselves have made him close eagerly with this proposal; but he saw in it the most substantial advantages, and in a moment made up his mind. He had the policy, however, to appear to demur, and said his people would never consent for him to renounce his hereditary claims on France, which must be the case if such an alliance took place. They would ask themselves what equivalent they should obtain for so great a surrender. The shrewd Frenchman understood the suggestion; he communicated what passed to his Government, and proposals were quickly sent to meet Henry's views. Louis agreed to pay Henry a million crowns in discharge of all arrears due to Henry VII. from Charles VIII., &c.; and Henry engaged to give his sister a dower of 200,000 crowns, to pay the expenses of her journey, and to supply her with jewels--probably those of which he had defrauded the Scottish queen. The two kings agreed to assist each other, in case of any attack, by a force of 14,000 men, or, in case of any attack by either of them on another power, by half that number. This treaty was to continue for the lives of the two kings, and a year longer.

Thus was the Holy League, as it had been called, for the defence of the Pope and the Church against the King of France entirely done away with; and this great pretence was not so much as mentioned in any one of these treaties which put an end to it. The King of France strove hard to obtain Tournay again; but, though it was evidently Henry's interest to restore it, his favourite Wolsey, apprehensive of losing the profits of the bishopric, successfully opposed its restoration. Wolsey and Fox of Durham were Henry's plenipotentiaries for the management of the treaty, which was signed on the 7th of August, 1514.

By this treaty, Mary Tudor, Princess Royal of England, a remarkably beautiful young woman of sixteen, and passionately attached to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the handsomest and most accomplished man of Henry's Court, was handed over to the worn-out Louis of France, who was fifty-three in years, and much older in constitution.

But this unnatural political mésalliance was not destined to be of long duration. Louis wrote in the course of December to Henry, expressing his happiness in possessing so excellent and amiable a wife, and on the 1st of January he expired. The dissipation at Court, consequent on his marriage, is stated in the "Life of Bayard" to have precipitated his end. "For the good king, on account of his wife, had changed the whole manner of his life. He had been accustomed to dine at eight o'clock, now he had to dine at noon; he had been accustomed to retire to rest at six in the evening, and now he had often to sit up till midnight." Louis was greatly beloved by his subjects, who regarded him as a brave, upright, and wise prince, and gave him the honourable title of "the Father of his People." Mary promptly married her old lover, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Henry was angry at first, but the storm soon lulled. Wolsey is said to have been in the secret from the first, and such was his influence now, that a much more difficult matter would have given way before it. The young couple were received into favour, and ordered by Henry to be re-married before him at Greenwich--an event which took place on the 13th of May, 1515. So far was the part which Francis I. had taken in this matter from being resented, that he and Henry renewed all the engagements which existed between Louis and Henry, and so satisfactorily that they boasted that they had made a peace which would last for ever.

We have had frequent occasion already to introduce the name of Wolsey; we shall have still more frequent and more surprising occasion to repeat that name: and it is therefore necessary to take a complete view of the man who was now rapidly rising into a prominence before Europe and the world, such as has few examples in history, in one whose origin was as mean as his ascent was dazzling, and his fall sudden and irrevocable.

In the reign of Henry VII. we find first the name of Thomas Wolsey coming to public view as the private secretary of the king at the time of the forced visit of the Archduke Philip to the English Court. This originally obscure clergyman was born in 1471 at Ipswich, where his father was a wealthy butcher, and, therefore, could afford to give his son an education at the university. Probably the worthy butcher was induced to this step by a perception of the lad's uncommon cleverness, for at Oxford he displayed so much talent that he was soon distinguished by the title of the "Boy Bachelor." He became teacher of the grammar-school adjoining Magdalen College, and among his pupils were the sons of the Marquis of Dorset, on whom he so far won that he gave him the somewhat valuable living of Lymington, in Somersetshire. This might seem substantial promotion for the butcher's son, but an eagle, though hatched in the nest of a barn-door fowl, is sure to soar up towards the sun. Thomas Wolsey was not destined to the obscurity of a country parish. The same abilities and address which won him the favour of the marquis were capable of attracting far higher patrons.

Leaving his country parish, he seems to have been introduced to Fox, the Bishop of Winchester, and minister to Henry VII., who introduced him to the king, who was so much satisfied with him that he made him one of the royal chaplains. In this position the extraordinary talents and Court aptitude of Wolsey soon became apparent to the cautious old king. He employed him in sundry matters requiring secrecy and address. He was soon advanced to the deanery of Lincoln, and office of the king's almoner. Wolsey was Henry VII.'s envoy to the Duchess of Savoy when that amorous monarch had fallen in love with her fortune.

On the accession of Henry VIII., Wolsey rose still higher in the favour of the youthful monarch. Henry was but nineteen. Wolsey was forty; yet not a young gallant about the Court could so completely adapt himself to the fancy of the young pleasure-loving and power-loving king. In a very few months he was Henry's bosom friend--the associate in all his gaieties, the repository of all his secrets, the dispenser of all his favours, and, in reality, his only confidential minister. Henry seemed wrapped in admiration at the union of intellect and courtly accomplishment in the wonderful man. He gave him a grant of all deodands and forfeitures of felony, and went on continually adding to these other offices, benefices, and grants. In November, 1510, he was admitted a member of the Privy Council, and from that time he was really Prime Minister. Henry could move nowhere without his great friend and counsellor. He took him with him on his expedition to France in 1513, there conferred on him the wealthy bishopric of Tournay, and on his return made him Bishop of Lincoln, and gave him the opulent Abbey of St. Albans in commendam.

The ascent of Wolsey was now rapid. From the very commencement of his career at Court no man had been able to stand before him. Bishop Fox had first recommended his introduction into the Privy Council because, growing old himself, he perceived that the Earl of Surrey, afterwards conqueror of Flodden, and Duke of Norfolk, was winning higher favour with the king than the ancient bishop; because his martial tastes and more courtly character were more attractive to Henry. Wolsey soon showed himself so successful that he not only cast Surrey, but his own patron, into the shade. In everything Wolsey could participate in the monarch's pursuits and amusements. Henry had already an ambition of literary and polemic distinction. He had studied the school divinity, and was an ardent admirer of Thomas Aquinas. Here Wolsey was quite at home; for he was a widely read man, and would, as a matter of course, soon refresh himself on any learned topic which was his master's hobby. While he flattered the young king's vanity, he was ready to contribute to his whims and his pleasures.

On the 14th of July, 1514, Leo X. addressed a letter to Henry, informing him that his ambassador, Cardinal Bambridge, the Archbishop of York, had died that day; and that, at the request of the deceased, he had promised not to appoint a successor till he had learnt the pleasure of his Majesty. This pleasure, there can be no doubt, was already known; and that the Pope, like every one now, perceiving the power of the favourite, was ready to conciliate him. The king at once named Wolsey to his Holiness, and showed that he was quite satisfied that that nomination would be confirmed by at once placing the archbishopric and all its revenues in the custody of the favourite. Thus was this great son of fortune at once possessed of the Archbishopric of York, the Bishoprics of Tournay and Lincoln, the administration of the Bishoprics of Worcester, Hereford, and Bath, the possessors of which were Italians, who resided abroad, and were glad to secure a portion of their revenues by resigning to the native prelate the rest. Henry even allowed Wolsey, with the See of York, to unite that of Durham, as he afterwards did that of Winchester. The Pope, seeing more and more the marvellous influence of the man, before this year was out made him a cardinal. "For," says Hall, "when he was once archbishop, he studied day and night how to be a cardinal, and caused the king and the French king to write to Rome for him." Leo found a strong opposition amongst the cardinals to this promotion; but, desirous to oblige both Henry and Francis, he declared him a cardinal in full consistory, on September 11th.

My Lord Cardinal Wolsey almost immediately received a fresh favour from the Pope, who appointed him legate in England. This commission was originally limited to two years, but Wolsey never relinquished the office. He obtained from succeeding Popes a continuation of the post, asking from time to time even fresh powers, till he at length exercised within the realm almost all the prerogatives of the Pontiff. The only step above him now was the Papacy itself, and on that dignity he had already fixed his ambitious eye.

From the moment that Wolsey saw himself a cardinal and Papal legate, as well as chief favourite of the king, his ambition displayed itself without restraint, and we shall have to paint, in his career, one of the most amazing instances of the pride, power, and grandeur of a subject. When his cardinal's hat was brought to England, he sent a splendid deputation to meet the bearer of it at Blackheath, and to conduct him through London, as if he had been the Pope himself. He gave a reception of the hat in Westminster Hall, which more resembled a coronation than the official investiture of a subject and a clergyman. His arrogance and ostentation disgusted the king's old ministers and courtiers. The Duke of Norfolk, with all his military glory, found himself completely eclipsed, and absented himself from Court as much as possible, though he still held the office of Treasurer. Fox, the venerable Bishop of Winchester, who had been the means of introducing Wolsey, found himself superseded by him, and, resigning his office of Keeper of the Privy Seal, retired to his diocese. On taking his leave, the aged minister was bold enough to caution Henry not to make any of his subjects greater than himself, to which the bluff king replied that he knew how to keep his subjects in order. The resignation of Fox was followed by that of Archbishop Warham, who delivered the Great Seal on the 22nd of December, 1515, resigning his office of Chancellor. Henry immediately handed over the seal to Wolsey, who now stood on the pinnacle of power, almost alone. He was like a great tree which withered up every other tree which came within its shade, and even the kingly power itself seemed centred in his hands. For the next ten years he may be said to have reigned in England, and Henry himself to have been the nominal, and Wolsey the real king. Well might he, in addressing a foreign power, say, "Ego et rex meus:" "I and my king."

Whilst the great looked on all this grandeur in obsequious but resentful silence, the people settled it in their own minds that the wonderful power of the priest over the fiery nature of the monarch was the effect of sorcery. But Wolsey was no mean or ordinary man. His talents and his consummate address were what influenced the king, who was proud of the magnificence which was at once his creation and his representative; and Wolsey had a grasp, an expanse, and an elevation in his ambition, which had something sublime in them. Though he was in the receipt of enormous revenues, he had no paltry desire to hoard them. He employed them in this august state and mode of living, which he regarded as reflecting honour on the monarch whose chief minister he was, and on the Church in which he held all but the highest rank. He devoted his funds liberally to the promoting of literature. He sent learned men to foreign courts to copy valuable manuscripts, which were made accessible by his vast influence. He built Hampton Court Palace, a residence fit only for a monarch, and presented it to Henry as a gift worthy such a subject to such a king. He built a college at Ipswich, his native place, and was in the course of erecting Christ Church at Oxford when his career was so abruptly closed. Besides that, he endowed seven lectureships in Oxford.

The peace which Henry had made with the young monarch of France was not destined to be of long continuance. Francis I. soon had the misfortune to offend both Henry and Wolsey, and in their separate interests. James IV. of Scotland had left by his will the regency of his kingdom to his widow. The Convention of the States confirmed this arrangement, but on condition that the queen remained unmarried. James V., her son, of whom she was to retain the guardianship, was on his father's death an infant of only a year-and-a-half old. In less than seven months after the death of her husband, Margaret was delivered of a second son, Alexander, Duke of Ross; and in less than three months after that she married, in defiance of the Convention of the States, Douglas, Earl of Angus, a young man of handsome person, but of an ambitious and headstrong character. This marriage gave great offence to a large number of the nobility, especially those who had a leaning to France. They asserted that Henry of England, the queen's brother, notwithstanding that he had deprived her of her husband, and notwithstanding her difficult position as the widowed mother of an infant king, so far from supporting her, took every opportunity to attack her borders. They therefore recommended that they should recall from France John, Duke of Albany, the son of Alexander, who had been banished by his brother James III., and place the regency in his hands. Albany, though of Scottish origin, was a Frenchman by birth, education, and taste. He had not a foot of land in Scotland, but in France he had extensive demesnes, and stood high in favour of the monarch.

At the head of the party in opposition to the queen was Lord Home, on whose conduct at Flodden aspersions had been cast. By him and his party it was that Albany was invited to Scotland. Henry was greatly alarmed at this proposition, and for some time the fear of a breach induced Francis I. to restrain Albany from accepting the offer. Yet in May, 1515, Albany made his appearance in Scotland. He found that kingdom in a condition which required a firm and determined hand to govern it. The nobility, always turbulent, and kept in order with difficulty by the strongest monarchs, were now divided into two factions, for and against the queen and her party. Lord Home, by whom Albany had chiefly been invited, had the ill-fortune to be represented to Albany, immediately on his arrival, as, so far from a friend, one of the most dangerous enemies of legitimate authority in the kingdom. Home, apprised of this representation, and of its having taken full effect on the mind of Albany, threw himself into the party of the queen, and urged her to avoid the danger of allowing the young princes to fall into the hands of Albany, who was the next heir to the crown after them, and was, according to his statement, a most dangerous and ambitious man. Moved by these statements, Margaret determined to escape to England with her sons, and put them under the powerful protection of their uncle Henry.

Henry had himself made similar representations to her, for nothing would suit his views on the crown of Scotland so well as to have possession of the infant heirs. But Albany was quickly informed of the queen's intentions; he besieged the castle of Stirling, where she resided with the infant princes, compelled her to surrender, and obtaining possession of the princes, placed them in the keeping of three lords appointed by Parliament. Margaret herself, accompanied by her husband Angus, and Lord Home, succeeded in escaping to England, where she was delivered of a daughter.

The part which Francis I. evidently had in permitting the passage of Albany to Scotland, and in supporting his party there, had given great offence to Henry. He sent strong remonstrances through his ambassador to Francis, complaining that Albany had been permitted to leave France and usurp the government of Scotland, contrary to the treaty; and that by this means the Queen of Scotland, the sister of the King of England, had been driven from the regency of the kingdom and the guardianship of her children. Francis I. endeavoured to pacify Henry by assurances that Albany's conduct had received no countenance from him, but that he had stolen away at the urgent solicitation of a strong body of nobles in Scotland. Henry was not convinced, but there was nothing to be obtained by further remonstrances, for Francis was at this moment at the head of a powerful army, while Henry, having spent his father's hoards, was not in a condition for a fresh war without the sanction of Parliament.

Francis was bent on prosecuting the vain scheme of the conquest of Milan, which had already cost his predecessors and France so much. He had entered into alliance with Venice and Genoa, and trusted to be able easily to overcome Maximilian Sforza the native Prince; Sforza, on his part, depended upon the support of the Pope and the Swiss. Francis professed, in the first place, that his design was to chastise the hostile Swiss. These hardy people had fortified those passes in the Alps by which they calculated that the French would attempt to pass towards Milan, but Francis made his way with 60,000 troops over the mountains in another direction, a large part of his army taking the way to the left of Mount Genèvre, a route never essayed by any army before. The Swiss mercenaries in the service of Sforza, thus taken by surprise, were rapidly defeated by the French, and were on the point of capitulation, when their countrymen, who had been watching to intercept Francis and his army, seeing that he had stolen a march upon them, descended from their mountains, 20,000 strong, and came to the relief of their countrymen under the walls of Milan. At Marignano, Francis won a great victory over them on September 13th, 1515.

The effect at the English Court of this brilliant success was to heighten extremely that discontent with Francis which Henry had shown at the very moment that the chivalric young French king had set out for Italy. Henry, who was ambitious of military renown, was stung to the quick by it, and his envious mood was artfully aggravated by the suggestions of Wolsey.

On the 12th of November, 1515, Parliament was summoned to meet. Henry had caught a very discouraging glimpse of the iron at the bottom of his father's money-chests, and was, therefore, obliged to ask supplies from his subjects. His application does not appear to have been successful, and Parliament was therefore dissolved on the 22nd of December, and was never called again till the 31st of July, 1523, an interval of eight years. A Parliament which would not grant money was not likely to be a very favourite instrument with Henry, and this still less so, because it had involved him in a contention with the Convocation. The Convocation had dared to claim exemption for the clergy from the jurisdiction of the secular courts. The clergy in Henry's interest resisted this claim; it was brought before Parliament, and both the Lords and Commons, as well as the judges, decided against the Convocation. Henry, who was at once as fond of power and as bigoted as the Church, found himself in a most embarrassing dilemma, but declared that he would maintain the prerogatives of the Crown, and was glad to get rid of the dispute by the dismissal of Parliament.

On the 8th of February, 1516, Queen Catherine gave birth to a daughter, who was named Mary, and who survived to wear the crown of England. In the previous month died the queen's father, Ferdinand of Spain, one of the most cunning, grasping, and unprincipled monarchs that ever lived, but who had by his Machiavelian schemes united Spain into one great and compact kingdom, and whose sceptre Providence had extended, by the discovery of Columbus, over new and wonderful worlds. His grandson Charles, already in possession of the territories of the house of Burgundy, and heir to those of Austria, succeeded him, as Charles V. Henry had just entered into a commercial treaty with Charles, as regarded the Netherlands, and perceiving the vast power and greatness which must centre in Charles--for on the death of Maximilian, who was now old, he would also become Emperor of Germany--he was anxious to unite himself with him in close bonds of interest and intimacy. To this end, he gave a commission to Wolsey, assisted by the Duke of Norfolk and the Bishop of Durham, to cement and conclude a league with the Emperor Maximilian and Charles, the avowed object of which was to combine for the defence of the Church, and to restrain the unbridled ambition of certain princes--meaning Francis.

The sordid Emperor Maximilian, who had so often and so successfully made his profit out of the vanity of Henry, seeing him so urgent to cultivate the favour of his grandson Charles, thought it a good opportunity to draw fresh sums from him. Maximilian was now tottering towards his grave, but he was not the less desirous to pave his way to it with gold. In a confidential conversation, therefore, with Sir Robert Wingfield, the English ambassador at his Court, he delicately dropped a hint that he was grown weary of the toils and cares attending the Imperial office. Pursuing the theme, he pretended great admiration for the King of England; he declared that amongst all the princes of Christendom, he could see none who was so fitted to succeed him in his high office, and at the same time become the champion and protector of Holy Church against its enemies. He therefore proposed to adopt Henry as his son, for a proper consideration. According to his plan, Henry was to cross the Channel with an army. From Tournay he was to march to Trèves, where Maximilian was to meet him, and resign the empire to him, with all the necessary formalities. Then the united army of English and Germans was to invade France, and, whilst they thus sufficiently occupied the attention of Francis, Henry and Maximilian, with another division, were to march upon Italy, crossing the Alps at Coire, to take Milan, and, having secured that city, make an easy journey to Rome, where Henry was to be crowned emperor by the Pope.

In this wild-goose scheme--which equally ignored the fact that Charles V. was the grandson of Maximilian, heir of his kingdom, and therefore neither by the natural affection of the emperor, nor by the will of his subjects, likely to be set aside for a King of England; and the difficulty, the impossibility almost, of the accomplishment of the enterprise by two such monarchs as Maximilian and Henry--only one thing was palpable, that Maximilian would give his blessing to the stipulated son for these impossible honours, and then would as quickly find a reason for abandoning the extravagant scheme as he had already done that of taking Milan. Yet it is certain that, for the moment, it seized on the imagination of Henry, and he despatched the Earl of Worcester and Dr. Tunstall, afterwards Bishop of Durham, to the Imperial Court, to settle the conditions of this notable scheme. Tunstall, who was not only an accomplished scholar, but a solid and shrewd thinker, no sooner reached the Court of Maximilian than he saw at a glance the hollowness of the plot and of the Imperial plotter. He, as well as Dr. Richard Pace, the ambassador at Maximilian's Court, quickly and honestly informed Henry that it was a mere scheme to get money.

These honest and patriotic statements perfectly unmasked the wily old Maximilian, and Henry escaped the snare. Francis I., having also now secured the duchy of Milan, set himself to conciliate two persons whose amity was necessary to his future peace and security. These were the Pope and Henry of England. The balance of power on the Continent, it was clear, would lie between Francis and Charles V., the King of Spain. On the death of Maximilian, Charles would be ruler of Austria, and, in all probability, Emperor of Germany. It would be quite enough for Francis to contend with the interests of Charles, whose dominions would then stretch from Austria, with the Imperial power of Germany, through the Netherlands to France, and reappear on the other boundary of France, in Spain, without having that gigantic dominion backed by the co-operation of England. Francis had seen with alarm the cultivation of friendship recently between these two formidable neighbours. To counteract these influences, the French king whilst in Italy had an interview with the Pope at Bologna, where he so won upon his regard that the Pontiff agreed to drop all opposition to the possession of Milan by the French.

Having secured himself in this quarter, Francis returned to France, and knowing well that the only way to the good graces of Henry was through the all-powerful Cardinal Wolsey, he caused his ambassador in England to endeavour to win the favour of the great minister. This was not to be done otherwise than by substantial contributions to his avarice, and promises of service in that greatest project of Wolsey's ambition, the succession to the Popedom. Wolsey was at this time in the possession of the most extraordinary power in England. His word was law with both king and subject. To him all men bowed down, and while he conferred favours with regal hand, he did not forget those who had offended him in the days of his littleness. Not only English subjects, but foreign monarchs sought his favour with equal anxiety. The young King of Spain, to secure him to his views, and knowing his grudge against the King of France, conferred on him a pension of 3,000 livres a year, styling him, in the written grant, "his most dear and especial friend."

Thus were the kings of Spain and France paying humble homage to this proud churchman and absolute minister of England at the same moment. But Francis felt that he must outbid the King of Spain, and he resolved to do it. He commenced, then, by reminding him how sincerely he had rejoiced at his elevation to the cardinalate, and how greatly he desired the continuance and increase of their friendship, and promised him whatever it was in his power to do for him. These were mighty and significant words for the man who could signally aid him in his designs on the Popedom, and who could settle all difficulties and doubts about the bishopric of Tournay, hitherto such a stumbling-block between them. The letters of Francis were spread with the most skilful, if not the most delicate flatteries; he called him his lord, his father, and his guardian, told him he regarded his counsels as oracles; and whilst they increased the vanity of the cardinal most profusely, he accompanied his flatteries by presents of many extremely valuable and curious things.

Being assured by Villeroi, his resident ambassador at London, that the cardinal lent a willing ear to all these things, Francis instructed the ambassador to enter at once into private negotiation with Wolsey for the restoration of Tournay, and an alliance between the two crowns. This alliance was to be cemented by the affiancing of Henry's daughter, Mary, then about a year-and-a-half old, to the infant dauphin of France, but recently born! The price which Wolsey was to receive for these services being satisfactorily settled between himself and Francis, the great minister broke the matter to his master in a manner which marks the genius of the man, and his profound knowledge of Henry's character. He presented some of the superb articles which Francis had sent him to the king, saying, "With these things hath the King of France attempted to corrupt me. Many servants would have concealed this from their masters, but I am resolved to deal openly with your grace on all occasions. This attempt, however," added he, "to corrupt a servant is a certain proof of his sincere desire for the friendship of the master." Oh! faithful servant! Oh! open and incorruptible man! Henry's vanity was so flattered that he took in every word, and looked on himself as so much the greater prince to have a minister thus admired and courted by the most powerful monarchs.

The way to negotiation was now entirely open. Francis appointed William Gouffier, Lord of Bonivet, Admiral of France; Stephen Ponchier, Bishop of Paris; Sir Francis de Rupecavarde and Sir Nicholas de Neuville his plenipotentiaries. They set out with a splendid train of the greatest lords and ladies of France, attended by a retinue of 1,200 officers and servants. Francis knew that the way to ensure Henry's favourable attention was to compliment him by the pomp and splendour of his embassy. The French plenipotentiaries were introduced to Henry at Greenwich, on the 22nd of September, 1518, and Wolsey was appointed to conduct the business on the part of the King of England. When they went to business the ambassadors of Francis prepared the way for the greater matters by producing a grant, already prepared, and, therefore, clearly agreed upon beforehand, which they presented to Wolsey, securing him a pension of 12,000 livres a year, in compensation for the cession of the bishopric of Tournay. This was a direct and palpable bribe; but there was no troublesome and meddlesome Opposition in the House of Commons in those days to demand the production of papers, and the impeachment of corrupt ministers. With such a beginning the terms of treaty were soon settled. They embraced four articles:--A general contract of peace and amity betwixt the two kings and their successors, for ever; a treaty of marriage betwixt the two little babies, the Dauphin and Mary Tudor; the restitution of Tournay to France for 600,000 crowns; and, lastly, an agreement for a personal interview between the two monarchs, which was to take place on neutral ground between Calais and Ardres, before the last day of July, 1519.

But while Wolsey was deeply occupied in his plans and preparations for the royal meeting, an event occurred which for a time arrested the attention of Europe. This was the death of the Emperor Maximilian, and the vacancy in the Imperial office. Francis I. and Charles of Spain were the two candidates for its occupation, and the rivalry of these two monarchs seems to have again awakened in Henry the same wish, though the plain statements of Bishop Tunstall had for a time suppressed it. He despatched a man of great learning, Dr. Richard Pace, to Germany, to see whether there were in reality any chance for him. The reports of Pace soon extinguished all hope of such event, and Henry, with a strange duplicity, then sent off his "sincere longings for success" to both of the rival candidates, Francis and Charles!

Francis declared to Henry's ambassador, Sir Thomas Boleyn, that he would spend three millions of gold, but he would win the Imperial crown; but though the German electors were notoriously corrupt, and ready to hold out plausible pretences to secure as much of any one's money as they could, from the outset there could be no question as to who would prove the successful candidate. The first and indispensable requisite for election was, that the candidate must be a native of Germany, and subject of the Empire, neither of which Francis was, and both of which Charles was. Charles was not only grandson of Maximilian, and his successor to the throne of Austria, and therefore of a German royal house, but he was sovereign of the Netherlands, which were included in the universal German empire.

Even where Francis placed his great strength--the power of bribing the corrupt German electors, the petty princes of Germany, for the people had no voice in the matter--Charles was infinitely beyond him in the power of bribery. He was now monarch of Spain, of the Netherlands, of Naples and Sicily, of the Indies, and of the gold regions of the newly-discovered America. Nor was Francis at all a match for Charles in the other power which usually determines so much in these contests--that of intrigue. Francis was open, generous, and ardent; Charles cool, cautious, and, though young, surrounded by ministers educated in the school of the crafty Ferdinand and the able Ximenes to every artifice of diplomatic cunning. Still more, the vulpine Maximilian, at the very time that he was attempting to wheedle Henry of England out of his money, on pretence of securing the Imperial dignity for him, had paved the way for his own grandson, by assiduous exertions and promises amongst the electors--promises which Charles was amply able to fulfil. Accordingly, after a lavish distribution of both French and Spanish gold amongst the elector-princes of Germany, Charles was declared emperor on the 28th of June, 1519. Francis, though he professed to carry off his disappointment with all the gaiety of a Frenchman, was deeply and lastingly chagrined by the event; and though he and Charles must, under any circumstances, have been rivals for the place of supremacy on the Continent of Europe, there is no doubt that this circumstance struck much deeper the feeling which led to that gigantic struggle between them, which, during their lives, kept Europe in a constant state of warfare and agitation.

Both Charles and Francis were intensely anxious to secure the preference of Henry, because his weight thrown into either balance must give it a dangerous preponderance. Both, therefore, paid assiduous court to him, and still more, though covertly, to his all-powerful minister, Wolsey. Francis, aware of the impulsive temperament of Henry, prayed for an early fulfilment of the visit agreed upon of Henry to France. It was decided that the interview should take place in May. The news of this immediately excited the jealousy of Charles, and his ambassadors in London expressed great dissatisfaction at the proposal. Wolsey found he had a difficult part to play, for he had great expectations from both monarchs, and he took care to make such representations to each prince in private, as to persuade him that the real affection of England lay towards him, the public favour shown to the rival monarch being only a matter of political expedience. When the Spanish ambassadors found they could not put off the intended interview, they proposed a visit of their master to the King of England previously, on his way from Spain to Germany. This was secretly arranged with the cardinal, but was to be made to appear quite an unpremeditated occurrence.

Accordingly, before the king set out for Calais, Charles, according to the secret treaty with Wolsey, sent that minister a grant under his privy seal, from the revenue of the two bishoprics of Badajoz and Placentia, of 7,000 ducats. Henry set forward from London to Canterbury, on his way towards Dover and Calais, attended by his queen and court, with a surprising degree of splendour. Whilst lying there, he was surprised, as it was made to appear, by the news that the emperor had been induced by his regard for the king to turn aside on his voyage towards his German dominions, and had anchored in the port of Hythe, on the 26th of May, 1520. As soon as this news reached Henry, he despatched Wolsey to receive the emperor and conduct him to the castle of Dover, and Henry himself set out and rode by torchlight to Dover, where he arrived in the middle of the night. It must have been a hospitably inconvenient visit at that hour, for Charles, fatigued by his voyage, had gone to bed, and was awoke from a sound sleep by the noise and bustle of the king's arrival. He arose, however, and met Henry at the top of the stairs, where the two monarchs embraced, and Henry bade his august relative welcome. The next day, being Whitsunday, they went together to Canterbury, the king riding with the emperor on his right hand, the Earl of Derby carrying before them the sword of State.

From the cathedral the emperor was conducted by his royal host to the palace of the archbishop, where he was for the time quartered. For three days the archiepiscopal palace was a scene of the gayest festivities; nothing was omitted by Henry to do honour to his august relative; and nothing on the part of Charles to win upon Henry, and detach him from the interests of France. Nor the less assiduously did the politic emperor exert himself to secure the services of Wolsey. He saw that ambition was the great passion of the cardinal, and he adroitly infused into his mind the hope of reaching the Popedom through his influence and assistance. Nothing could bind Wolsey like this fascinating anticipation. Leo X. was a much younger man than himself; but this did not seem to occur to the sanguine spirit of the cardinal, for "all men think all men mortal but themselves;" whilst to Charles the circumstance made his promise peculiarly easy, as he could scarcely expect to be called upon to fulfil it.

On the fourth day Charles embarked at Sandwich for the Netherlands, less anxious regarding the approaching interview of Henry and Francis, for he had made an ardent impression on the king, and had put a strong hook into the nose of his great leviathan--the hope of the triple crown. Simultaneously with the departure of Charles, Henry, his queen and court, embarked at Dover for Calais; and on the 4th of June, 1520, Henry, with his queen, the Queen Dowager of France, and all his court, rode on to Guines, where 2,000 workmen, most of them clever artificers from Holland and Flanders, had been busily engaged for several months in erecting a palace of wood for their reception.

The meeting-place was called, from the splendour of the retinues of the two monarchs, the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," but it did little to cement the alliance between England and France.

On the 25th of June the English Court returned to Calais; half the followers of the nobles were sent home, and then preparations were made for visiting the emperor at Gravelines, and receiving a visit from him at Calais. By the 10th of July all was ready, and Henry set out with a splendid retinue. He was met on the way, and conducted into Gravelines by Charles, with every circumstance of honour and display. Charles, whose object was avowedly to efface any impression which Francis and the French might have made on the mind of Henry at the late interview, had given orders to receive the English with every demonstration of friendship and hospitality, and his orders were so well executed that the English were enchanted with their visit.

On the departure of Charles, Henry and his court embarked for Dover, returning proud of his sham prowess and mock battles, and of all his finery, but both himself and his followers loaded with a fearful amount of debt for this useless and hypocritical display. When the nobles and gentlemen got home, and began to reflect coolly on the heavy responsibilities they had incurred for their late showy but worthless follies, they could not help grumbling amongst themselves, and even blaming Wolsey, as loudly as they dared, as being at the bottom of the whole affair. One amongst them was neither nice nor cautious in his expressions of chagrin at the ruinous and foolish expense incurred, and denounced the proud cardinal's ambition as the cause of it all. This was the Duke of Buckingham. He was executed in 1521 on the absurd charge of having intercourse with astrologers.

The various causes of antipathy between Francis I. and Charles V., which had been long fomenting, now reached that degree of activity when they must burst all restraint. War was inevitable. The first breach was made by Francis. At this crisis Charles appealed to Henry to act as mediator, according to the provisions of the treaty of 1518. Henry at once accepted the office, and entered upon it with high professions of impartiality and of his sincere desire to promote justice and amity, but really with about the same amount of sincerity as was displayed by each of the contending parties. Francis had certainly been the aggressor, and Charles, having intercepted some of his letters, had already convinced Henry, to whom he had shown them, that the invasion of both Spain and Flanders was planned in the French cabinet. Henry's mind, therefore, was already made up before he assumed the duty of deciding; and Charles, from being aware of this, proposed his arbitration. Henry, moreover, was anxious to invade France on his own account, spite of treaties and the dallyings of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but he had not yet the funds necessary. With these feelings and secrets in his own heart, Henry opened his proposal of arbitration to Francis by declarations of the extraordinary affection which he had contracted for him at the late interview.

There was no alternative for the French king but to acquiesce in the proposal; the place of negotiations was appointed to be Calais, and, of course, Wolsey was named as the only man able and fitting to decide between two such great monarchs--Wolsey, who was bound hand and foot to the emperor by the hope of the Popedom. It was a clear case that Francis must be victimised, or the negotiation must prove abortive. Wolsey set out with something more than regal state to decide between the kings. In addition to his dignity of Papal legate a latere, he received the extraordinary powers of creating fifty counts-palatine, fifty knights, fifty chaplains, and fifty notaries; of legitimising bastards, and conferring the degree of doctor in medicine, law, and divinity. By another bull, he was empowered to grant licences to such as he thought proper to read the heretical works of Martin Luther, in order that some able man, having read them, might refute them. This was to pave the way for a royal champion of the Catholic Church against Luther and the devil, and that such a champion was already at work we shall shortly have occasion to show. Such were the pomp and splendour of the cardinal, that when he continued his journey into the Netherlands, with his troops of gentlemen attending him, clad in scarlet coats, with borders of velvet of a full hand's breadth, and with massive gold chains: when they saw him served on the knee by these attendants, and expending money with the most marvellous profusion, Christian, King of Denmark, and other princes then at the Court of the Emperor at Bruges, were overwhelmed with astonishment, for such slavish homage was not known in Germany.

Wolsey landed at Calais on the 2nd of July, 1521, and was received with great reverence. The ambassadors of the emperor had taken care to be there first, that they might secretly settle with Wolsey all the points to be insisted on. The French embassy arrived the next day, and the discussions were at once entered upon with all that air of solemn impartiality and careful weighing of propositions which such conferences assume, when the real points at issue have been determined upon privately beforehand by the parties who mean to carry out their own views. The French plenipotentiaries alleged that the emperor had broken the treaty of Noyon of 1516, by retaining possession of Navarre, and by neglecting to do homage for Flanders and Artois, fiefs of the French crown. On the other hand, the Imperial representatives retorted on the French the breach of the treaty of Noyon, and denounced in strong terms the late invasion of Spain and the clandestine support given to the Duke of Bouillon. The cardinal laboured to bring the fiery litigants to terms, but the demands of the emperor were purposely pitched so high that it was impossible. The differences became only the more inflamed; and on the Imperial chancellor, Gattinara, declaring that he could not concede a single demand made by his master, and that he came there to obtain them through the aid of the King of England, who was bound to afford it by the late treaty, Wolsey said that there, of necessity, his endeavours must end, unless the emperor could be induced to modify his expectations; and that, as his ambassador had no power to grant such modification, rather than all hope of accommodation should fail, he would himself take the trouble to make a journey to the Imperial Court, and endeavour to procure better terms. Nothing could appear more disinterested on the part of the cardinal, but the French ambassadors were struck with consternation at the proposal. They were too well aware of the cardinal's leaning towards Charles; they did not forget the coquetting of the English and the emperor both before and after the meeting at the Field of the Cloth of Gold; and they opposed this proposal of Wolsey with all their power. But their opposition was useless. There can be no doubt that the prime object of Wolsey in his embassy was to make this visit to Charles for his own purpose, and that it had been agreed upon between himself and Charles before he left London. In vain the French protested that such a visit, made by the umpire in the midst of the conference to one of the parties concerned, was contrary to all ideas of the impartiality essential to a mediator; and they declared that, if the thing was persisted in, they would break off the negotiation and retire. But Wolsey told them that if they did not remain at Calais till his return, he would pronounce them in the wrong, as the real aggressors in the war, and the enemies to peace and to the King of England. There was nothing for it but to submit.

The cardinal set out on his progress to Bruges on the 12th of August, attended by the Imperial ambassadors and a splendid retinue of prelates, nobles, knights, and gentlemen, amounting altogether to 400 horsemen. The emperor met him a mile out of Bruges, and conducted him into the city in a kind of triumph. Thirteen days--a greater number than had been occupied at Calais--were spent in the pretended conferences for reducing the emperor's demands on France, but in reality in strengthening Wolsey's interest with Charles for the Popedom, and in settling the actual terms of a treaty between Charles, the Pope, and the King of England for a war against France. So deep was the hypocrisy of these parties, that before Wolsey had quitted the shores of England he had received a commission from Henry investing him with full authority to make a treaty of confederacy with the Pope, the emperor, the King of France, or any other potentate, offensive or defensive, which the king bound himself to ratify; the words "King of France, or other king, prince, or state," being clearly inserted to cover with an air of generality the particular design. The proposed marriage between the Dauphin and the Princess Mary was secretly determined to be set aside, and a marriage between Charles and that princess was agreed upon; and, moreover, it was settled that Charles should pay another visit to England on his voyage to Spain. Writing from Bruges to Henry, Wolsey told him all this, and added that it was to be kept a profound secret till Charles came to England, so that, adds Wolsey, "convenient time may be had to put yourself in good readiness for war."

After all this scandalous treachery--called in State language diplomacy--Wolsey returned to Calais, and resumed the conferences, as if he were the most honest man in the world, and was serving two kings about as honest as himself. He proposed to the plenipotentiaries a plan of a pacification, the conditions of which he knew the French would never accept. All this time hostilities were going on between Francis and the emperor. The emperor had taken Mouzon and laid siege to Mézières, and Francis, advancing, raised the siege, but was checked in his further pursuit of the enemy by the Count of Nassau. At this crisis Wolsey interposed, insisting that the belligerents should lay down their arms, and abide the award of King Henry; but this proposal was by no means likely to be met with favour on the part of the French, after what had been going on at Bruges, and therefore Wolsey pronounced that Francis was the aggressor, and that Henry was bound by the treaty to aid the emperor.

This was but a very thin varnish for the proceedings which immediately took place at Calais, and revealed the result of the interview at Bruges, in an avowed treaty between the Pope, the emperor, and Henry, by which they arranged--in order to promote an intended demonstration against the Turks, and to restrain the ambition of Francis--that the three combined powers should, in the spring of 1523, invade France simultaneously from as many different quarters; that, if Francis would not conclude a peace with the emperor on the arrival of Charles in England, Henry should declare war against France, and should break off the proposed marriage between the Dauphin and the Princess Mary.

In the meantime, the united forces of the Pope and Charles had prevailed in Italy, and expelled the French from Milan; the emperor had made himself master of Tournay, for which Francis had lately paid so heavy a price, and all the advantages that the French could boast of in the campaign to balance these losses were the capture of the little fortresses of Hesdin and Bouchain. Wolsey landed at Dover on the 27th of November, after the discharge of these important functions, having laid the foundation of much trouble to Europe, by destroying the balance of power between France, the Empire, and Spain, which it was the real interest of Henry to have maintained; and having equally inconvenienced the Government at home by carrying the Great Seal with him, so that those who had any business with it were obliged to go over to Calais, and so that there could be no nomination of sheriffs that year. But his power at this period was unlimited, and nothing could open Henry's eyes to his mischievous and inflated pride--not even his placing himself wholly on a par with the king in the treaty just signed, when he made himself a joint-guarantee, as if he had been a crowned head.

Wolsey had laboured assiduously and unscrupulously for Charles V. in furtherance of his own ambitious views. What convulsions disorganised Europe, what nations suffered or triumphed, troubled him not, so long as he could pave the way to the Papal chair. The time which was to test the gratitude of Charles came much sooner than any one had anticipated. Leo X., who was in the prime of life, elated with the expulsion of the French from Italy, was occupied in celebrating the triumph with every kind of public rejoicing. The moment he heard of the fall of Milan he ordered a Te Deum, and set off from his villa of Magliana to Rome, which he entered in triumph; but that very night he was seized with a sudden illness, and on the 1st of December, but a few days afterwards, it was announced that he was dead, at the age of only forty-six. Strong suspicions of poison were entertained, and it was believed that it had been administered by his favourite valet, Bernabo Malaspina, who was supposed to have been bribed to it by the French party.

The news of Leo's death travelled with speed to England, and Wolsey, who, amid all his secret exertions to attain the Papal tiara, had declared with mock humility that he was too unworthy for so great and sacred a station, now threw off his garb of indifference, and despatched Dr. Pace to Rome, with the utmost celerity, to promote his election; and he sent to put the emperor in mind of his promises. On the 27th of December the conclave commenced its sittings. Another of the Medici family, Cardinal Giulio, appeared to have the majority of votes, but for twenty-three days the election remained undecided. The French cardinals opposed Giulio with all the persevering virulence of enemies smarting under national defeat. Numbers of others were opposed to electing a second member of the same family, and Giulio, growing impatient of the stormy and interminable debates which kept him from attending to pressing affairs out of doors, suddenly nominated Cardinal Adrian, a Belgian. This extraordinary stroke was supposed to be intended merely to prolong the time, till Giulio could throw more force into his own party; but Cardinal Cajetan, a man of great art and eloquence, who knew and admired the writings of Adrian, and had probably suggested his name to Giulio, advocated his election with such persuasive power, that Adrian, though a foreigner, and personally unknown, was carried almost by acclamation. And thus, as Lingard observes, within nine years from the time when Julius drove the barbarians out of Italy, a barbarian was seated as his successor on the Papal throne.

The cardinals had no sooner elected the new Pope than they appeared to wake from a dream, and wondered at their own work. The act appeared to be one of those sudden impulses which seize bodies of people in a condition of great and prolonged excitement, and they declared that it must have been the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. As for Wolsey, it does not appear that his sincere friend the emperor, who had protested that he would have him elected if it were at the head of his army, moved a finger in his behalf. The proud cardinal, however, was obliged to swallow his chagrin, and wait for the next change, Adrian being already an old man; and Dr. Pace remained at Rome to congratulate the new Pontiff on his arrival, and solicit a renewal of his legatine authority.

Francis at this crisis made strenuous efforts to regain the friendship of Henry. Probably he thought that the disappointment of Wolsey might cool his friendship for the emperor, or, which was the same thing, diminish his confidence in his promises; whilst Charles was very well aware that Wolsey was much more serviceable to him as minister of England than he could be or would be as Pope. Francis attacked Henry on his weakest side--his vanity. He heaped compliments upon him, and entreated that if he could not be his fast and avowed friend, he would, at least, abstain from being his enemy. To give force to his flatteries, he held out hopes of increasing his annual payments to England; and when that did not produce the due effect, he stopped the disbursements of that which he had been wont to remit. Finding that even this did not influence Henry, who was kept steady by Wolsey, he laid an embargo on the English shipping in his ports, and seized the property of the English merchants.

At this act of decided hostility Henry was transported with one of those fits of rage which became habitual in after years. As if he had not long been plotting against Francis, and preparing to make war upon him--as if he had not coolly and even insolently repulsed all his advances and offers of advantage and alliance--he regarded Francis as an aggressor without any cause, ordered the French ambassador to be confined to his house, all Frenchmen in London to be arrested, and despatched an envoy to Paris with a mortal defiance. What particularly exasperated Henry was the news that a whole fleet, loaded with wine, had been seized at Bordeaux, and the merchants and seamen thrown into prison. The English were ordered to make reprisals, and this was the actual state of things when Sir Thomas Cheney, his ambassador, announced by dispatch that the envoy had declared war on the 21st of May at Lyons; to which the king had replied, "I looked for this a great while ago; for, since the cardinal was at Bruges, I looked for nothing else." The wily manoeuvres of Wolsey had deceived nobody.

On the 26th of May, only five days after the declaration of war with France, the Emperor Charles V. landed at Dover. The passion of Henry had precipitated the outbreak of hostilities, for it was not intended that war should be declared till Charles was on the eve of departure from England, so that he might continue his voyage in safety to Spain. The king, however, received his illustrious guest with as much gaiety and splendour as if nothing but peace were in prospect. Wolsey waited on Charles at the landing-place, and, after embracing him, led him by the arm to the castle, where Henry soon welcomed him with great cordiality. Charles calculated much, in the approaching war, on the fleet of Henry; and, to show him its extent and equipment, Henry conducted him to the Downs, and led him over all his ships, especially his great ship, Henri, Grâce à Dieu, which was considered one of the wonders of the world. He then conducted his Imperial guest by easy journeys to Greenwich, where the Court was then residing, and introduced him to his aunt, the queen, and her infant daughter, whom it was arranged that he should marry.

On the 6th of June Henry conducted the emperor with great state into London, where the inhabitants received him with a variety of shows and pageants. Sir Thomas More spoke the emperor's welcome in a learned oration, and there was a profusion of Latin verses in honour of the occasion. The two monarchs feasted, hunted, and rode at tournaments, whilst their ministers were busily employed in carrying out the terms agreed upon at Bruges into a treaty, which was signed on the 19th at Windsor. The subject of this treaty was the marriage of Charles with the infant Princess Mary, which the two monarchs bound themselves to see completed, under a penalty, in case of breach of engagement, of 400,000 crowns. Charles also engaged to indemnify Henry for the sums of money due to him from Francis; and, what was most extraordinary, both monarchs bound themselves to appear before Cardinal Wolsey in case of any dispute, and submit absolutely to his decision, thus making a subject the arbiter of monarchs.

The emperor also engaged to indemnify the cardinal for his losses in breaking with Francis, by a grant of 9,000 crowns annually; thus paying this proud priest for being the author of the war. Yet, after all his courting and flattering of Wolsey, after again assuring him of his determination to set him in the Papal chair, it is certain that he hated the man, and used him only as a tool. His aunt, Queen Catherine, had deeply resented the cardinal's pursuit of the Duke of Buckingham to death, for whom she entertained a high regard; and Wolsey was aware of it, and never forgave her. It was, probably, in reply to Catherine's relation of this tragic event that Charles, whilst on this visit, was overheard to say, "Then the butcher's dog has pulled down the fairest buck in Christendom"--a witticism which flew all over the Court, and was not forgotten by the vindictive Wolsey.

Having agreed that each was to bring 40,000 men into the field, that France was to be attacked simultaneously on the north and the south, and that Charles was to co-operate with the English for the re-conquest of Guienne, the emperor embarked on the 6th of July, and pursued his voyage to Spain.

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VII. THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. (continued)

The War with France--The Earl of Surrey Invades that Country--More elected Speaker--Henry and Parliament--Revolt of the Duke of Bourbon--Pope Adrian VI. dies--Clement VII. elected--Francis I. taken Prisoner at the Battle of Pavia--Wolsey grows unpopular--Change of Feeling at the English Court--Treaty with France--Francis I. regains his Liberty--Italian League, including France and England, against the Emperor--Fall of the Duke of Bourbon at the Siege of Rome--Sacking of Rome, and Capture of the Pope--Appearance of Luther--Henry writes against him--Is styled by the Pope "Defender of the Faith"--Anne Boleyn--Henry applies to the Pope for a Divorce from the Queen--The Pope's Dilemma--War declared against Spain--Cardinal Campeggio arrives in England to decide the Legality of Henry's Marriage with Catherine--Trial of the Queen--Henry's Discontent with Wolsey--Fall of Wolsey--His Banishment from Court, and Death--Cranmer's Advice regarding the Divorce--Cromwell cuts the Gordian Knot--Dismay of the Clergy--The King declared Head of the Church of England--The King's Marriage with Anne Boleyn--Cranmer made Archbishop--The Pope Reverses the Divorce--Separation of England from Rome.

On the departure of the emperor, Henry commanded the Earl of Surrey to scour the Channel before him; and Charles, out of compliment to Henry, named Surrey, who was Lord Admiral of England, also admiral of his own fleet of one hundred and eighty sail. Surrey, having seen Charles safely landed in Spain, returned along the coast of France, ravaging it on all accessible points. He landed at Cherbourg, in Normandy, burnt the town of Morlaix, in Brittany, and many other maritime villages, houses of the people, and castles of the aristocracy. This was preparatory to the great invasion which Henry contemplated. For this purpose he had recalled Surrey from Ireland, where he had conducted himself with much ability, repressed the disorders of the natives, and won the esteem of the chief population. Henry now gave him the command of the army destined to invade France. That army, Henry boasted, should consist of forty thousand men; but the question was, whence the money was to come for its assembly and payment. The Field of the Cloth of Gold, and the entertainment of the emperor, following on many other extravagances, had entirely dissipated the treasures which his father had left him; and, as he was now endeavouring to rule without a parliament, he was compelled to resort to those unconstitutional measures of forced loans, which had always covered with odium the monarchs who used them.

In this unpopular attempt Wolsey was his instrument, and the work he had now to do ensured him a plentiful growth of dislike. In the first place, he exacted a loan of £20,000 from the merchants of London, and scarcely had he obtained possession of it, when he summoned the leading citizens before him, and demanded fresh advances. On the 20th of August, 1522, the lord mayor, aldermen, and the most substantial merchants of London appeared before him, to whom he announced that the king had sent commissioners into the whole realm, to inquire into the actual rents of the lands in each township, what were the names of the owners and occupiers, and what was the value of each man's movable property. According to his account, a new Domesday Book was in preparation; and he, moreover, informed them that his Majesty had ordered a muster in the maritime counties of all the men betwixt the ages of sixteen and sixty, to enrol their names, and the names of the lords of whom they held their lands.

The deputation returned to the city in deep dejection, and made out their lists of such as were merchants and dealers and reputed men of substance. These men, then, themselves waited on the cardinal, and besought him not to put them to their oath as to their real amount of property, for that it was difficult for themselves to make a correct estimate of it, and that, in fact, many an honest man's credit was more than his substance. Wolsey replied that he "dare swear that the substance of London was no less than two millions of gold." From this it was obvious that the cardinal expected from them at least £200,000. But the citizens replied, "Would to God the city were so rich, but it is sore afflicted by the occupying of strangers!" The cardinal promised to see that that should be rectified, and that their loans should be repaid them out of the first subsidy voted by Parliament, which it was intended to call. But the victims did not appear much cheered by these assurances: they knew that Henry was not fond of calling parliaments. If he meant it, why borrow money when it could be voted? And they went away, saying that for the last loan some lent a fifth, and now to ask a tenth again was too much.

By these means, however, money enough was raised to put an army in motion. About the middle of August the Earl of Surrey landed at Calais with 12,000 men, paid by the king, and 3,000 volunteers. There he was joined by a body of German, Flemish, and Spanish horse, making a total force of 16,000. At the head of these he advanced through Picardy and Artois, desolating the country as he went, burning the defenceless towns, the castles of the nobles, and the huts of the peasants, and destroying whatever they could not carry off as spoil. They left the fortified cities, making no attempt except against Hesdin, which they soon quitted, finding their artillery not of weight enough. The French, under the Duke de Vendôme, avoided a general engagement, but they harassed the outskirts of the army, cut off the supplies, and occasionally a number of stragglers. The weather was the great ally of the French, for it was extremely rainy and cold, and occasioned dysentery to break out in the camp. On the appearance of this fatal foe, the foreign troops hastily retired into Béthune, and Surrey soon after led back his main body to Calais, having done the French much mischief, but obtained no single advantage except the seizure of a quantity of booty.

Francis, meantime, had not only kept his army hovering in front of the invaders, but he had sent active emissaries to rouse the Irish and Scots, and thus to distract the attention of the English. In Ireland he turned his attention to the Earl of Desmond, who still maintained in a great measure his independence of the English Crown. Francis offered him an annual pension, on condition that he should take up arms in Ireland against the English power, and the earl, moreover, seduced by the promise that a French army would be sent over, engaged to join it, and never to lay down his arms till he had won for himself a strong dominion in the island, and the remainder for Richard de la Pole, the heir of the house of York. But Francis, having obtained his object by the very alarm created by this negotiation, never sent any troops, never paid the Earl of Desmond any annuity, and the unfortunate chieftain was left to pay the penalty of his rash credulity in the vengeance of the English Government.

In Scotland affairs assumed a more formidable aspect. After the return of Margaret, the queen-mother, from England, she quarrelled with her weak but headstrong husband, the Earl of Angus, and in 1521 sent and invited her old antagonist, the Duke of Albany, to return to Scotland from France, promising to support him at the head of the Government. Nothing could suit the views of France better than this, for it was already menaced by Henry of England. Albany landed at Gairloch on the 19th of November, and thence hastened to the queen at Stirling. This strange, bold, and dissimulating woman, who had all the imperiousness and the sensuality of a Tudor, received him with open arms, and entered at once on such terms of familiarity with him as scandalised all Scotland.

Her husband and his relatives, the Douglases, being summoned by the regent before Parliament, fled towards the Borders, and took refuge in the kirk of Steyle. By means of the celebrated Gawin Douglas, the Bishop of Dunkeld, and one of Scotland's finest poets, who was the uncle of Angus, the fugitives opened a communication with Henry of England. The bishop represented the conduct of Margaret as of the most flagitious kind, attributing to her the design of marrying Albany, and setting aside her own son. It was even asserted, and Lord Dacre, warden of the Western Marches, joined in the assertion, that the life of the young king was in danger, and as much from his own mother as from Albany. There is no question that the conduct of Margaret was most disgraceful; and though Albany was anxious to establish quietness and order in Scotland, and to obtain peace with England, the emissaries of Henry took care to foment strife between the nobles and the Government. Lord Dacre was--according to the system introduced by Henry VII., and continued so long as there was a Tudor on the throne of England--plentifully supplied with money to bribe the most powerful nobles, especially the Homes, to harass the Government by their factions.

It was in vain, therefore, that Queen Margaret wrote to her brother, the King of England, protesting that the accusations against her were base and abominable calumnies, that the Duke of Albany ruled by the choice and advice of Parliament, and that without him there would be no peace in Scotland, nor safety for the king or herself. Henry only replied by upbraiding her with living in shameful adultery, and insisting that Albany should quit Scotland, or that he would make war upon it. He did not stop there--he made the same demand of Parliament, and hearing that Margaret was applying to the Pope for a divorce from Angus, in order to marry Albany, he exerted all his influence with the Church to prevent it. The Scottish Parliament, notwithstanding it contained many traitors, made such by Henry's gold, yet rejected his proposition for the dismissal of Albany; whereupon Henry ordered all Scottish subjects found in England to be driven with insult over the Borders, having a white cross marked upon their backs. And at the same time that he sent Surrey to France, in the spring of 1522, he also bade the Earl of Shrewsbury march across the Tweed to punish the Scots. Shrewsbury obeyed the order with great celerity, and speedily laid waste the fine pastoral country round Kelso, but was met by a superior force and driven back, not however before he had aroused great indignation among the people at the wantonness of his attack and the outrages upon innocent folk and their property with which it was accompanied.

Instead, therefore, of an invasion of Scotland by the English, Henry was threatened with a descent of the Scots on his own kingdom, whilst the gallant Surrey was absent in France. The Duke of Albany, incensed at the reproaches of Henry regarding his connection with Queen Margaret, at the demands for his extradition, and at the ferocious inroad of the Earl of Shrewsbury, declared war against England, with the consent of Parliament. He called for the muster of all the feudal force of the kingdom, and the call was answered with such promptness that he beheld himself at the head of 80,000 men. With such a force, nothing would have been easier to all appearance than to have overrun the north of England, left almost wholly destitute of defence. But though the Scottish people were in earnest, there was treason not only in the camp, but in the very tent of Albany. The money of Dacre was in the pockets of the most powerful nobles, who silently but actively spread disunion through his host; and worst of all, Margaret, who, like her brother, was continually roving in her affections from one person to another, was already weary of Albany, and was in covert communication with Lord Dacre, and betraying the secrets and plans of Albany to him. It is said that Henry, through Lord Dacre, had completely corrupted the queen, probably by assisting her with money, but still more by offering to receive her again to his favour, and to secure her interests by marrying Mary, the Princess of England, to her son, the young King of Scots. Influenced by these hopes, the unprincipled queen exerted herself to weaken the measures of Albany, and to diminish the influence of France in the country as much as possible.

Albany, therefore, though he advanced to the banks of the Tweed, and even reached within a few miles of Carlisle, found the spirit of his host continually on the decline. On the other hand, Lord Dacre had expended his money in extensive bribery, and was almost destitute of soldiers; yet he pretended that a great army was on the march to him, which would show the Scots another Flodden Field, and so imposed on Albany that he was willing to treat instead of being ready to fight. He engaged to disband his forces if Dacre would engage to keep back the imaginary advancing troops of England. Wolsey, who was watching in the northern counties with deep anxiety the result of this contest between military multitudes and political cunning, could not sufficiently express his astonishment, as he saw the stupendous armament of Scotland melt away before the empty bugbears of Lord Dacre's creation. "By the great wisdom and policy of my Lord Dacre, and by means of the safe-conduct lately sent at the desire and contemplation of the Queen of Scots, the said Duke of Albany hath, our Lord be praised, not only forborne his invasion, but also dissolved his army; which, being dispersed, neither shall nor can, for this year, be gathered or assembled again." And the cardinal proceeds to give us a specimen of the easy nature of his political morality, in saying, "And yet the said abstinence [armistice] concluded by my Lord Dacre, he not having your authority for the same, nothing bindeth your grace; but, at your liberty, ye may pursue your wars against the said Scots, if it shall be thought to your highness convenable." On the 11th of September, 1522, the treaty between Albany and Dacre was concluded, and Albany went over to France for fresh supplies of men and money, leaving the Earls of Huntly, Arran, and Argyle to administer affairs during his absence. Thus, about the same time, Henry saw his French and his Scottish campaign for that year terminated.

His great and difficult business was now to raise the necessary funds for prosecuting his further designs against France. For eight years he had forborne to call a Parliament, but to postpone longer a summons of this engine of supply was not possible. He had pushed to the extreme point all the modes, legal and illegal, of extracting funds from his subjects; and the reluctance with which his last forced loan had been conceded, and the solemn promises which he had made to call a Parliament, left him no alternative. No king who ever reigned had a higher notion of the royal prerogative, and the hearty commendation he afterwards bestowed on Charles V. for destroying the last vestiges of free institutions in Spain showed plainly what he would fain have carried out in England. But sturdy as was his Tudor soul, he found that the English people had an equally stubborn will, and on the 15th of April, 1523, he summoned a Parliament at Blackfriars, London, where Wolsey sat at his feet as Chancellor.

The Commons chose, as was supposed through the influence of the Court, Sir Thomas More as Speaker. Sir Thomas was not only a man of profound learning, but a felicitous genius, and extremely witty. His conversation was greatly relished by the queen, who had introduced him to the private suppers with the king, who became as much fascinated by his society. Sir Thomas was evidently well aware of the difficult part which he would have to sustain in such a post, for he hung back from it, declaring how unfit he was for it. But Wolsey, who calculated greatly on his genius, protested that he was qualified for it by his great abilities and judgment more than almost any man. After a few days' session of Parliament, Wolsey went down to the House, contrary to all custom and privilege, and presented a royal message, to the effect that Francis, by his conduct, had made a war absolutely necessary, that the honour of the country was deeply concerned, and that it was a fine opportunity for England to recover all that it had lost in that country. He concluded his address by recommending them to vote immediately a property-tax of twenty per cent., which would raise the sum of £800,000.

Such a sum had never before been asked by any English king in his wildest dreams of foreign conquest. The House sat as if thunderstruck, and in profound silence. Wolsey had imagined that his presence, surrounded by all the symbols of his grandeur, would completely overawe the House; and that with a Court favourite of such distinction as Sir Thomas More, he should carry the monstrous demand by surprise. He had, therefore, come environed by his pompous retinue of prelates and nobles, and with his silver pillars and crosses, his maces, his poleaxes, his hat and Great Seal borne before him. But not all his magnificence moved the Commons where its privileges had been thus grossly invaded, and its money was thus boldly demanded. The whole House sat as silent as the senate of Rome when Brennus and his savage Gauls burst in upon it. Wolsey gazed upon them in amazement, looking from one to another. The proud cardinal then addressed a member by name. The member arose, bowed, and sat down again without uttering a word. Still more surprised at this dumb show, Wolsey called upon another member for an explanation, but obtained none. Growing wrathful, for he was not accustomed to such treatment, he broke out:--"Masters, as I am sent here by the king, it is not unreasonable to expect an answer. Yet, unless it be the manner of your House, as very likely it may, by your Speaker only in such cases to express your mind, here is, without doubt, a most marvellous silence."

Whilst he said this, he looked fixedly and angrily at Sir Thomas More, unquestionably expecting different conduct from him. But Sir Thomas, dropping on his knee, said that the House felt abashed in the presence of so great a personage--which, he added, was enough to amaze the wisest and most learned men of the realm; that the House, according to its ancient privileges, was not bound to return any answer; and as for himself, unless all the members present could put their several thoughts into his head, he was unable to give his grace an answer on so weighty a matter. The cardinal then retired, much displeased with the House, and still more with the Speaker.

After the great minister had retired, the House went into a warm debate. Some of the members affirmed that there was not above £800,000 of cash in the kingdom; and if the money were gathered into the king's hands, no trade could be carried on except by barter. The courtiers urged all the ingenious arguments that they could invent, or with which they were supplied, to show the necessity of the grant; and the king was in such a rage that he is said to have even threatened some of the members with death. It was, in fact, a stout resistance to oppression of the people, and one of the most determined stands for privilege of Parliament ever made in this country.

The contest grew to such a pitch that the cardinal, fearful of the result, determined to go to the House a second time, notwithstanding the clear intimation given him that his presence was considered a breach of privilege. He made them a speech, going over all the arguments which had been advanced by the opposition, and then begged them to tell him what they had to object; but they only returned him the answer, through the Speaker, that they would hear his grace with humility, but could only reason amongst themselves; and he was obliged to go away as he came.

When he had departed, they resumed the debate; and at length, at the earnest entreaty of the Speaker, they voted two shillings in the pound on all who enjoyed twenty pounds a year or upwards; one shilling on all who possessed from two pounds to twenty; and on all subjects with incomes below that scale, a groat a head. This was not a moiety of what the king had demanded, and the payment was spread over four years, so that it did not really amount to above sixpence in the pound. The lesson which Henry here received did not incline him to call another Parliament speedily. He had summoned none for eight years before; and there is no doubt that he asked for this extravagant sum that he might dispense with Parliament for another term as long. He did not, as it was, call another for seven years.

The king, in his anger at the Commons, boasted to the mayor and aldermen of London that he should find a very different spirit amongst the clergy; but even these he tried beyond their patience. He demanded no less than fifty per cent. of the incomes of their benefices, to make up the deficiency from the laity. But the clergy were not disposed to be mulcted of half their incomes at a blow; they made as stout a resistance as the House of Commons. Wolsey, to make sure of them, summoned the convocations of the two provinces, which had met in their usual manner, by his legatine authority, to assemble in a national synod in Westminster Abbey. But there the proctors declared that they had only power to grant money in regular convocation, not in synod; and he was obliged to permit them to depart, and vote in their ordinary way. The convocation of the cardinal's own province of York waited to see what Canterbury would first do, which was more independent of Wolsey's power. In the Lower House the resistance was resolute, and was kept alive by the eloquence of a preacher of the name of Philips, till he was won over to the Court by substantial promotion. In the Upper House, the Bishops of Winchester and Rochester animated the prelates to such opposition, that the grant was not carried for four months, and then, being spread over five years, amounted, not to fifty, but only to ten per cent.

The money obtained at all this cost of difficulty in Parliament, and of unpopularity with the people, was lavishly expended in repelling the attempts of the Scots, in furnishing aid to the allies in Italy, and in preparing for another expedition into France. It was of the first importance, before sending the army across the Channel, to obtain security on the side of Scotland. To this end Henry made fresh overtures to his sister, Queen Margaret, offering to place her at the head of the Government, and to enable her to put down the party of Albany, who was now absent in France collecting fresh means for maintaining the war. He sent the Earl of Surrey, son of the victor of Flodden Field, to co-operate with her, to win over as many as possible of the nobles with money, and to lay waste the Borders, so that they should be incapable of furnishing supplies to an invading army.

Margaret now had every opportunity which a woman of spirit and reputation could wish. She was strongly supported by the power of England, and her great opponent was for ever defeated. She proclaimed her son, and assumed the regency; but her worst enemy was herself. She fell into her old habits; and her scandalous attachment to Henry Stuart, the son of Lord Evandale, soon ruined her prospects. Henry once more abandoned her, and raised her husband, the Earl of Angus, to the chief power. It was in vain that Margaret applied for assistance to Francis I., and humiliated herself so far as to solicit the return of Albany. From this moment there was more tranquillity in Scotland. The French faction, seeing support from France hopeless, were compelled to remain quiet. Truce after truce was established with England; and for eighteen years the Borders rested from hostilities.

The position of the King of France was, at this crisis, becoming more and more critical. His kingdom was environed with perils, and menaced with ruin, which could only be averted by singular courage and address. Against him was arrayed a most formidable confederacy of the Pope, the emperor, the King of England, and the various states of Italy. He had not a single ally, except the King of Scotland, a minor, and without authority. The internal condition of France was extremely discouraging. The wars of Francis in Italy and at home, his gay life and expensive pleasures, with his extravagant grants to his favourites, had exhausted his treasury, and involved him in grave embarrassment. The troops were ill-paid, and, as is usual in such cases, became disorderly and infested the highways, plundered the peasantry, and filled the whole kingdom with alarm and discontent. The Court partook of the licence and distraction of the nation; it was rent by faction, and the most dangerous secret conspiracy was at work in it. This was the doing of the Duke of Bourbon, Constable of France, who had been wronged in a lawsuit with the king.

Charles V. and Henry of England thereupon entered into a secret treaty with the disaffected prince to betray his sovereign and his native country. The transaction was a disgraceful one to all parties concerned. In Bourbon, notwithstanding his grievous wrongs, it was a base as well as an impolitic deed; in Henry and Charles, it was one destructive of the security of the throne, and of every principle of honour which should guide the counsels of kings. Henry felt the vileness of the proceeding, but endeavoured to justify it as a fair retaliation, for that Francis had tampered with his Irish subject, the Earl of Desmond.

The Lord of Beaurain had been employed as the secret agent of the emperor; and Sir John Russell--this being one of the first public notices of the Russells in history--as that of Henry. A private treaty was concluded, of which the substance was as follows:--The emperor and the King of England were to invade France simultaneously, the one in the north, the other in the south, while Bourbon himself was to excite a rebellion in the heart of the kingdom, supported by all the connections of his family, whom he calculated at 200 knights and gentlemen, with their retainers. The attempt was to be made the moment Francis had crossed the Alps; and when the conquest of France was complete, Bourbon, in addition to his appanage of the Bourbonnais and Auvergne, was to receive Provence and Dauphiné, which together were to constitute a kingdom for him. He was, moreover, to receive the hand of the emperor's sister, Eleanor, Queen-Dowager of Portugal. The emperor was to have, as his share of the spoil, Languedoc, Burgundy, Champagne, and Picardy, and Henry VIII. the rest of France.

Such was the traitorous scheme which was now opened up to the astonished gaze of Francis. Had he crossed the Alps before he received the intelligence, it might have been fatal. He had received some dark hints of mischief to be apprehended from Bourbon previously; and on his way south, he had suddenly presented himself at the duke's castle, and called upon him to accompany the expedition to Italy; but the duke made it appear that the state of his health rendered that impossible. Francis, not by any means satisfied, set a strict but secret guard upon his castle, and proceeded to Lyons; but there the news reached him that the pretended sick man had managed to escape in disguise, and was on his way, through the intricacies of the mountains of Auvergne and Dauphiné, to join the emperor's army in Italy.

The Powers of England and the Netherlands appeared, in pursuance of the secret treaty with Bourbon, on the soil of France about the same time. The Duke of Suffolk, Charles Brandon, the commander of the English army, landed at Calais on the 24th of August, and, joining to his troops those collected from the garrisons of Calais, Ham, and Guines, found himself at the head of 13,000 men. He marched on the 19th of September, and the next day fell in with the Imperial troops from the Netherlands, under Van Buren. The allies now amounted to 20,000; but instead of marching to join the Imperial forces coming from Germany, they remained under the walls of St. Omer, debating whether they should do this or invest Boulogne. After having wasted a precious month, they decided to leave Boulogne, and endeavour to form a junction with the Germans. But they had now allowed Francis ample time to thwart all their objects. He had sent a strong detachment, under the Duke of Guise, to throw themselves in the way of the Germans; whilst the Dukes of Vendôme and Tremouille kept a sharp watch over the movements of the allied army. Suffolk and Van Buren traversed Artois and Picardy, crossed the Somme and the Oise, and alarmed Paris by pitching their tents near Laon, within twenty miles of the capital. They had stopped by the way to invest Bray, Montdidier, and some other small places, and now confidently expected the arrival of the German army.

But the Germans by this time were in full flight before the Duke of Guise, and Vendôme and Tremouille manoeuvred more menacingly on the front and flank of the Allies. Tremouille, in particular, grew more and more audacious, beat up their quarters with his cavalry, harassed them by frequent skirmishes, and intercepted their convoys. The position of the allied troops became every day more critical. They were threatened with a growing force in their rear, drawn from the garrisons of Picardy, and there was danger of their supplies, which were all derived from Calais, being cut off. The troops were become sickly, and discontented with their situation. It was high time to retrace their steps, and they commenced their march by way of Valenciennes. But the weather was very rainy, the roads were almost impassable, cold and frost succeeded, and the sickness and murmurs of the troops augmented every day. Numbers perished on the march; all were eager to reach their homes; and, as the Flemings drew near their frontiers, they deserted in shoals. The armies then separated, and Suffolk reached Calais in December, with his forces greatly reduced, and all in miserable condition.

On the 14th of September, whilst the Duke of Suffolk was advancing on Paris, an event occurred which arrested the attention of Cardinal Wolsey even more than the engrossing moves on the great chess-board of war. This was the death of the Pope Adrian. He had occupied the papal chair only about twenty months; and so impatient were the Italians of the Flemish pope and his strict economy, that they styled the doctor who attended him in his last sickness the "saviour of his country." Wolsey lost no time in putting in his claim; and wrote to Dr. Clark, the English ambassador at Rome, telling him to spare neither money nor promises, for that it was by command of the king, who would undoubtedly see all his engagements performed. This time Wolsey was put in nomination, and obtained a considerable number of votes; but there was no real chance for him, for the Italians were clamorous to have no more ultramontane, or, as they styled them, barbarian popes. Charles V., despite his promises to Wolsey, not only did not move a finger in his favour, but threw all his influence into the scale to carry the election of Julius de Medici; whilst the French cardinals, to a man, were opposed to Wolsey as the most dangerous enemy to their sovereign. The conclave met in October, and the discussion was continued through six stormy weeks. The election at length was seen to lie between Jacovaccio Romano and Julius de Medici. Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, who held the most decisive influence in the conclave, threw his weight into the scale for Romano, and the balance hung undecided; but all at once it gave way. Colonna, although he hated the Medici, gave up his opposition, and Julius was unanimously elected.

Wolsey, to all appearance, bore this second disappointment with the equanimity of a philosopher; yet we may justly imagine that it produced a deep change in his feelings towards the emperor, and led to a hostile policy against his interests and those of Queen Catherine, his aunt, in England. But Wolsey had prepared for either event, his election or rejection; and the moment the latter became certain, the whole of the influence of the English Government was employed in favour of the election of Julius de Medici. On the strength of this, the English ambassadors congratulated Julius on his elevation, and solicited the continuance of the legatine commission to Wolsey. The Pope, who assumed the name of Clement VII., not only renewed the commission, but granted it for life, with augmented powers; and added to it a commission to reform or suppress certain religious houses in England. This was a dangerous power, and as Wolsey, in 1525--only two years afterwards--by this authority suppressed a number of monasteries, it is by no means improbable that it led Henry to think of those more sweeping changes of the same kind which he afterwards effected. The money thus procured was devoted, notwithstanding the necessities of the State, to the erection of colleges, where both Wolsey and his master declared they were anxious to educate able men in order to oppose effectually the fast-growing heresies of Martin Luther.

The campaign in Italy opened in the spring of 1524, with wonderfully increased difficulties for the French. Charles V. had appointed the renegade Duke of Bourbon his generalissimo in that country against his own sovereign and compatriots. Henry of England engaged to furnish 100,000 crowns for the first month's pay of the duke's army, and to make a diversion by invading Picardy in July. The emperor promised to defray the cost of the Italian army for the remainder of the campaign, and to invade Languedoc at the same time. Thus supported, Bourbon took the field early in the spring; and by the end of May the duke had completely freed Italy of his countrymen, and driven them across the Alps. The losses of the French in this retreat were dreadful, and perhaps the greatest calamity was the death of the famous Chevalier Bayard, the knight "sans peur et sans reproche," who was killed as he was protecting the rear of the army, on the banks of the Sesia (April 30, 1524.)

Bourbon, ardent and impatient to secure the kingdom which had been promised him in France, as well as thirsting with desire to take the utmost vengeance on Francis I., entreated the emperor to allow him to quit Italy and enter France with his victorious army. The emperor consented, and the Imperial forces soon found themselves descending from the Alps. Unfortunately, Charles had divided the command of this expedition between Bourbon and the Marquis of Pescara, and the certain result was divided councils. Bourbon urged to push forward to Lyons, calculating on his friends and dependants in France flocking to him there; but Pescara had probably different instructions, and accordingly advised that they should descend on Provence, and lay siege to Marseilles. This was palpably the suggestion of the emperor, for he was ambitious of securing Marseilles, and holding it as a key to the south of France, as Calais was to the north, in the hands of the English. Thither, therefore, they marched, entered Provence on the 2nd of July, and on the 19th of August they sat down before Marseilles with an army of 16,000 men.

But the situation of the Imperial troops soon became extremely hazardous there. The place was strongly fortified; it contained a garrison of 3,200 men, and these were zealously supported by 9,000 of the inhabitants, who, detesting the Spaniards, took up arms and fought most gallantly. Bourbon and Pescara spent forty days in mining and bombarding the place, when they became aware of a tempest gathering which boded their utter destruction. This was Francis marching from Avignon at the head of 40,000 men. Neither Henry nor the emperor had made those diversions in Languedoc and Picardy which they had promised, and thus the whole weight of the army of France was at liberty to descend upon them. Bourbon and Pescara precipitately abandoned the siege, made for the Alps, and regained Italy.

At this moment Francis committed a military error, which probably deprived him of the triumph of thoroughly routing his enemies. To have continued the pursuit was almost certain to have destroyed the Imperialist force, for it was worn down by its severe marches, and the road to Lodi by which Pescara retreated was actually strewn with his exhausted horses. The army of Pescara was the sole Imperial force now in Italy, and its defeat would have been the immediate recovery of the Milanese territory. But Francis was beguiled into the delay of besieging Pavia, in which Pescara had left a strong garrison, under Antonio da Leyva. Pavia was a well-fortified city, situated on the deep and rapid Ticino, in a peculiarly strong position, and had repeatedly defied armies for a long time together, particularly those of the Lombards and of Charlemagne. The moment Pescara heard of Francis sitting down before it, he exclaimed that he was saved! Every exertion was made by the Imperialists to profit by the time thus given them. The Duke of Bourbon hastened over the Alps to Germany to raise 12,000 men, for which purpose he had pawned his jewels. Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples, pledged the regular revenues of that kingdom for ready cash for the hiring of troops, and great activity was displayed in raising an army and posting it betwixt the Adda and the Ticino.

For three months Francis continued lying before Pavia, and committed the further error of weakening his forces, by detaching 6,000 of them, under Albany, the late regent of Scotland, to menace the kingdom of Naples.

In the beginning of February, 1525, the Imperialist generals thought themselves strong enough to attack the French in their entrenchments. These entrenchments were very formidable. The rear-guard was posted in the beautiful castle of Mirabello, in the midst of an extensive park, enclosed by high and solid walls. But Leyva, who commanded the garrison, found means to communicate with the Imperial generals outside, and he sent them word that they must either relieve him or that he must attempt to cut his way out, for famine was urgent amongst his troops. The generals themselves were suffering from want of provisions and pay for their troops. In the French camp the wisest commanders counselled Francis to raise the siege and retire to Milan, confident that the enemy must soon disband from want of pay. But Bonivet treated this counsel as mean and dastardly; and, unfortunately, this was the tone most likely to captivate the chivalrous mind of the French king. He resolved to stand his ground.

On the 24th of February, Bourbon, Pescara, and Lannoy, having distracted the attention of the French for several days previously by false attacks, at midnight led out their troops silently to the park. A body of pioneers commenced operations on the wall, and before daylight they had effected a breach of a hundred paces in length, and at dawn they carried the castle by surprise. Francis drew his troops out of their entrenchments and made a push across the Ticino, but he found the bridge demolished, and a strong body of the Spaniards closely drawn up on the banks. Attacked fiercely by the garrison in the rear, and hemmed in by the Imperial army in front, the battle became desperate. Francis had his horse killed under him; the Swiss, contrary to their wont, turned and fled at the first charge; and the Germans, who fought with singular valour, were annihilated to a man. The Spanish musketeers then broke the French ranks; and the king, being already wounded twice in the face, and once in the hand, refused to surrender to the Spaniards who environed him. Fortunately, Pomperant, a French gentleman in the service of the Duke of Bourbon, recognised him, and called Lannoy, to whom the king resigned his sword. Lannoy, kneeling, kissed the king's hand, took the sword, and gave him his own in return, saying it did not become a monarch to appear unarmed in the presence of a subject. The king was relieved of his helmet by James D'Avila; and the Spanish soldiers, who admired his valour, came crowding around him, and snatched the feathers from it, and, when they were all gone, even cut pieces from his clothes, to keep as memorials that they had fought hand to hand with him. Francis was soon left standing in his jerkin and hose, and, despite his misfortune, could not help laughing at his situation, and at the eagerness of the soldiers for something belonging to him.

The amazement and consternation which fell on France at the news of this terrible disaster are scarcely to be imagined. Nothing, indeed, could be more melancholy than the situation of that kingdom. Her king was captive, her most distinguished generals and the flower of the army were taken or slain; powerful and triumphant enemies on all sides were ready to seize her as a spoil, and she was equally destitute of allies, of money, of troops, or wise counsel. Scarcely less was the terror of the princes and the states of Italy, for their only safety--the balance of power--was destroyed, and there appeared no defence against the predominant power of the emperor.

Charles himself assumed an air of singular composure and moderation on the receipt of this brilliant news. He had been daily expecting to hear of the defeat of his army, when, on the 10th of March, came the tidings of this great victory. We may imagine, therefore, his real joy. But such was his command of his feelings that nothing of this appeared in his manner. He perused the dispatches with the most perfect composure, affected even to commiserate the fall of his rival, and moralised sagely on the uncertainty of human greatness. A little time, however, was sufficient to show that this was dissimulation, and his conduct to Francis was ample proof that he had neither pity nor generosity.

Henry of England, on the contrary, gave freedom to his expressions of joy. Though he was actually on his way to coalesce with Francis against Charles, he saw at once the immense advantages this defeat and capture offered for aggressions on his kingdom, and he therefore ordered the most public rejoicings in London and other cities, and rode himself in state to St. Paul's, where Wolsey performed mass, assisted by eleven bishops, in presence of the Court and all the foreign ambassadors; and afterwards Te Deum was sung. Henry then posted off Tunstall, Bishop of London, and Sir Richard Wingfield, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, into Spain to congratulate the emperor on his splendid triumph, and modestly to propose that they should divide France between them.

To induce Charles to consent to this improbable arrangement, Henry proposed at once to put the Princess Mary, who was betrothed to Charles, into his hands--in fact, to make the exchange of her person for that of Francis. Henry was the more buoyed up in these wild notions by the fact that the ambassador of Charles had just been applying for the delivery of the princess.

So confident was Henry of the cession of his claims by the emperor, that he instantly took measures to raise the money necessary for the invasion of France. As he had resolved to rule without the interference of parliaments, he sent out commissioners to every part of the country to levy the sixth part of the goods of the laity and a fourth of those of the clergy. The scheme was entirely unconstitutional, the commissioners performed their part in a harsh and overbearing manner, trusting thus to intimidate the people into compliance, and the consequence was universal resentment and resistance. Clergy and laity, rich and poor, all alike denounced the arbitrary and illegal impost. "How the great men took it," says Hall, "was a marvel: the poor cursed, the rich repugned, the lighter sort railed, and, in conclusion, all men execrated the cardinal as the subverter of the laws and liberties of England. For, said they, if men should give their goods by a commission, then were it worse than the taxes of France, and so England would be bond, and not free." This was the more just because the cardinal in person acted as commissioner in London, and lent all the weight of his office and position to sanction the oppression. He used all his arts to prevail on the citizens to comply, but neither threats nor blandishments moved them. The resistance was obstinate and universal.

In London the excitement became excessive; the people placarded the walls with their complaints, and the clergy preached against the arbitrary tax, and declared that for themselves they would pay no money which was not voted in Convocation. From London the fire spread through the other towns, the people began to take up arms, the clergy to encourage them, and Henry, who was soon terrified, with all his bluster, took the alarm, and declared that he wanted nothing from his loving subjects but as a benevolence. But the very word benevolence awoke a host of hateful recollections. The tumult was only increased by it; and a lawyer in the city published the passage from the Act of Richard III., by which benevolences were abolished for ever. This seemed to arouse the lion spirit in Henry. The prospect of the crown of France was too fascinating to be lightly surrendered; he therefore called together the judges, and demanded their opinion on his power to tax his subjects without Parliament. The venal judges reminded the king that Richard III. was a usurper, and that his Parliament was a factious Parliament, the acts of which were illegal and void, and could in no wise bind a legitimate and absolute king, who, like him, held the Crown by hereditary right. This bold and base doctrine was loudly echoed by the Privy Council, but vain were such authorities with the people. On hearing this decision, they again flew to arms. In Kent they speedily drove the commissioners and tax-gatherers out of the county; in Suffolk they marched in an armed body of 4,000 or 5,000 men, and even threatened the duke of the county, Brandon, the king's brother-in-law, who was the chief commissioner there, with death. Surrey, who stood high in the estimation of the people, interfered to calm them, and to prevent mischief; and Henry saw that the contest was hopeless, and by proclamation retracted his demand. Wolsey, who had been extremely prominent in endeavouring to enforce the detested tax, now caused a report to be industriously circulated, that he had, in truth, never been favourable to it, but the people only replied when they heard it, "God save the king! we know the cardinal well enough."

But Henry might have spared himself this tumult and unpopularity. The emperor was never less likely than now to concede such favours and advantages to him. He was a deep and subtle prince; no man could see more intuitively and instantly the wonderful change in his power and position which the battle of Pavia created. Charles had calculated upon Henry for large subsidies during the war, but instead of receiving these, he had found Henry as much straitened for money as he was himself. It was now discovered that the emperor had already made a truce of six months with France, and he coolly advised the ambassadors to seek from their sovereign power, not negotiations for the invasion of France, but the terms on which the French king should be liberated. To crown all, and leave no question of the feeling which Henry's late conduct had produced in Charles's Court, he wrote to Henry, no longer styling himself his loving uncle and penning the grossest flatteries with his own hand, but he simply and curtly signed himself Charles to official communications duly and officially prepared.

This was a rebuff not to be received complacently by a man of Henry's vain and volcanic spirit. He read the astounding dispatches with an amazement which burst into a tempest of rage. At once a tide of impetuous revulsion flowed over his whole soul. He abandoned in a moment all ideas of conquests, invasions, and the crown of France, and determined to do everything in his power to procure the liberation of Francis, and to unite with him against the perfidious and insulting Spaniard. He had dismissed the French envoys, who were residing privately in London, on the news of the capture of Francis, but he now let it be understood that their presence would be heartily welcome. Louise, the mother of Francis, accepted the hint, and John Brenon, president of the council of Normandy, and her favourite envoy, Giovanni Joacchino, were again despatched to London. A truce for four months was immediately concluded, and Wolsey, who fanned the new flame in Henry's bosom for objects and resentments of his own, soon arranged the terms of a treaty with them. These terms were extremely acceptable to Henry, as they furnished him with a prospect of a considerable addition to his income, without the disagreeable necessity of having to go to Parliament for it. The treaty consisted of six articles. By the first, the contracting parties engaged to guarantee the integrity of each other's territories against all the princes in the world. The object of this was to prevent Francis from bartering any of his provinces with Charles for his liberty. By the second, Francis and his heirs were made to guarantee to Henry the payment of 2,000,000 crowns, by half-yearly instalments, and 100,000 crowns for life, after the payment of that amount. Nine of the chief noblemen of France, and nine of the richest cities also, gave up their bonds for the security of these payments. By the third article, the King of France engaged to pay up all the arrears of the dowry of Mary, the Queen-Dowager of France. The rest of the articles were for the prevention of depredations at sea, for comprehending the King of Scots in the treaty, and for the prevention of the return of the Duke of Albany to Scotland during the minority of James V. This treaty was signed at the king's house in Hertfordshire, on the 30th of August. The cardinal, who never forgot himself on these occasions, was well rewarded for his trouble in promoting and arranging this alliance. He received a grant of 100,000 crowns for his good offices in the affair, and the arrears of his pension in lieu of his surrender of the bishopric of Tournay, the whole to be paid in equal instalments in the course of seven years and a half.

But whilst the French regent, Louise, made these liberal concessions for the friendship of Henry, and showed every apparent disposition to guarantee the conditions, Louise swearing to them, and Francis ratifying them, care was taken to leave a loophole of escape at any future period. The attorney and solicitor-general entered a secret protest against the whole treaty, so that Francis might, if occasion required, plead the illegality of the whole transaction.

But it was not so easy to procure the liberation of the captive King of France. Moderate as Charles had professed to be, and sympathetic regarding the misfortunes of Francis, he soon showed that he was determined to extort every possible advantage from having the royal captive in his hands. He had been detained in the strong castle of Pizzighettone, near Cremona; but, thinking that he should be able to influence the emperor by his presence, he petitioned to be removed to the Alcazar of Madrid. At length, however, on the 14th of January, 1526, was signed the famous treaty called the Concord of Madrid, one of the most grasping and impudent pieces of extortion which one prince ever forced from another in his necessity. By this treaty Francis gave up all that he had offered before--namely, all claims of superiority over Flanders and Artois, and the possession of Naples, Milan, Genoa, and the other Italian territories, for which France had spent so much blood and treasure. But besides this, Francis was to deliver to the emperor his two sons, the Dauphin and the Duke of Orleans, as hostages, and also bind himself, if he did not, or could not, fulfil his engagements within four months, to return and yield himself once more prisoner. He was to marry Queen Eleanora of Portugal, the sister of Charles, and the Dauphin was to marry the Princess Maria, the daughter of Eleanora. But these were but a small part of the demands. Francis was bound to persuade the King of Navarre to surrender his rights in that kingdom to Charles, and the Duke of Gueldres to appoint Charles the heir to his dominions; and if he failed to persuade them, he was to give them no aid when the emperor invaded their states. Next, Francis was to lend his whole navy, 500 men-at-arms, and 6,000 foot-soldiers, to put down the princes of Italy, who were uniting to effect his own freedom! Then, Francis was to pay to the King of England all those sums which the emperor himself had engaged to pay. Still more, he was to restore Bourbon and the rest of the rebels to their estates and honours. The whole of the conditions were so monstrous, that they cannot be read without astonishment at the rapacity of this triumphant prince. But to gain his liberty Francis signed the Treaty.

Henry VIII. was one of the first amongst princes to send ambassadors to congratulate Francis on his restoration to freedom, and to urge him to break every article of the infamous terms which had been forced upon him. Sir Thomas Cheney was sent from England to meet Dr. Taylor, the English ambassador at Paris; and together they proceeded to Bayonne, and were introduced to Francis, who told them he greatly felt the friendship of Henry, who had, indeed, remonstrated with Charles on his behalf, though Charles had not paid much respect to the intercession. There was no need of any arguments from the two English casuists to induce Francis to break the engagements he had entered into. He had never meant to keep them. Before signing the document, he had protested, before two notaries and a few confidential friends, that he had acted under restraint, and that he should hold himself bound to observe none of the conditions which were not just and reasonable.

Two ambassadors had attended him from Spain to take his signature of the Treaty, when he was free and on his own soil, as a ratification of it, which he had engaged to give; but when the ambassadors presented themselves for this purpose, Francis declined, affirming that he could not enter into any such engagements without the advice of his council and the approbation of his subjects. He assured them, however, that he would immediately summon an assembly of the notables at Cognac, and requested them to attend him thither, to learn the decision of the assembly. This body met at that place in June, and declared, with one voice, that the king had no right or power to sever Burgundy from the kingdom without their consent, and such consent they would never give. The Spanish ambassadors were present when this decision was pronounced, and they said that the king, not being able to fulfil his contract, was bound to return to his captivity, and they called upon him to obey. Instead of a direct answer to this demand, a treaty betwixt the King of France, the Pope, the Venetians, and the Duke of Milan, which had been secretly concluded a few days before, was produced, and published in their hearing. As this was tantamount to a declaration of war, the ambassadors demanded their passports, and returned to Spain. The Pope, on entering into this league, absolved Francis from all the forced oaths that he had sworn.

This confederacy of Francis and the Italian princes and states against the emperor, bound the Allies to raise and pay an army of 30,000 foot and 3,000 horse, with a certain number of ships and galleys. The King of France was to be put in possession of the county of Asti and the lordship of Genoa; and Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan, engaged to pay him 50,000 crowns annually. Naples was to be wrested from Charles, and its crown placed at the disposal of the Pope; but the king whom he appointed was to pay an annuity of 75,000 crowns to the King of France. Henry of England, though he declined to take any active part in the league, but consented merely to be nominated its protector, was to have a principality in Naples, with 36,000 ducats a year; and the cardinal, who always came in for his share of spoil, was to have a lordship worth 10,000 ducats.

So closed the year 1526; and the new year opened with preparations for still more terrors for devoted Italy. The Emperor Charles had no money to maintain the troops necessary for the extensive domination that he aimed at, and he therefore allowed the mercenary troops in his employment, rather than in his pay, to indemnify themselves by the plunder of the wretched inhabitants of the countries where they were collected. These troops consisted of a mob of vagabonds, outlaws, and marauders, from every country in Europe, who, by their long course of licentious freedom, were become utterly callous to the sufferings which they inflicted. Freundsberg, a German soldier of fortune, was at the head of 15,000 of these adventurers, consisting of Germans, Spaniards, and Swiss; and Bourbon, at the head of 10,000 more half-starved and half-clad mercenaries, was in possession of the whole duchy of Milan, but with no means of supporting his position. These two ferocious hordes having formed a junction under his banner, clamoured for their pay; Bourbon told them he had no money, and that Milan had been so repeatedly overrun and ravaged, that it was destitute of all means of supporting them; but that he would lead them into the enemy's country--into the richest cities of Italy--where they might amply indemnify themselves for all their past sufferings. Animated by these assurances, they swore to follow him whithersoever he might lead them. They marched on Rome, and sacked it, losing, however, their leader, who fell in the attack.

The news of the sacking of Rome, and the imprisonment of the Pope, excited the most lively sensations of horror and indignation throughout the Christian, and especially the Catholic, world. None appeared more affected than the emperor, by whose troops the sacrilegious deed had been perpetrated. He put himself and his Court into the deepest mourning, forbade rejoicing for the birth of his son, and commanded prayers to be offered in the churches throughout Spain for the liberation of His Holiness. No one could play off a piece of solemn hypocrisy more solemnly than Charles V. Francis and Henry, who were making a fresh treaty of alliance, were at once affected with real or pretended horror. They agreed immediately to invade Italy with 30,000 foot, and 1,000 horse, to join the confederate army there, and drive out the troops of Spain, and liberate the Pope from the Castle of St. Angelo.

But the time was now approaching which was to interrupt the friendship of Henry with the head of the Church of Rome. The Reformation in Germany had made an immense progress, and produced the most astonishing events. The whole mind and intellect of that country had been convulsed by the preaching of the doctrines of Luther. State had been set against state, prince against prince; and the bold monk of Wittenberg had only escaped the vengeance of the Church of Rome by the undaunted championship of the Elector of Saxony. Henry, fond of school divinity from his youth, and a great reader and admirer of Thomas Aquinas, had looked across to Germany with a grim and truculent glance, which seemed to rest on the blunt and unconventional Reformer with an expression of one who longed to strike down the daring heretic, and rid the world of him. As this was out of his power, he determined to annihilate him by his pen; and for this purpose he had written a book against him, with the title of "A Treatise on the Seven Sacraments, against Martin Luther, the Heresiarch, by the Illustrious Prince Henry VIII." This he had caused to be presented to the Pope by the English ambassador, beautifully written and magnificently bound, and Leo X. received it with the most extravagant laudations, and conferred on Henry in 1521 the title of "Defender of the Faith," in a bull signed by himself and twenty-seven cardinals. Henry really believed that he had crushed Luther and all his sect; but the free-mouthed Reformer, who paid no flatteries to king or Pope, soon convinced the literary monarch that he was as much alive as ever. He wrote a reply to Henry, in which, giving him commendation for writing in elegant language, he abused him and his work as broadly as he would have done that of the obscurest mortal. Henry, in his estimation, was "fool," "liar," "ass," "blasphemer." The correspondence which ensued was acrimonious.

The great defender of the faith, at the time at which we are now arrived, was growing dissatisfied with his wife, and was about to seek a divorce from her, which must necessarily involve the Pope in difficulties with the queen's nephew, the Emperor. Henry was married to Catherine when she was in her twenty-fifth year. So long as the disparity of their ages did not appear, for he was six years younger, and so long as she was pleasing in her person, he seemed not only satisfied with, but really attached to her. But she was now forty-two years of age, had undergone much anxiety in her earlier years in England, had borne the king five children, three sons and two daughters, all of whom died in their infancy, except the Princess Mary, who lived to mount the throne. Catherine, of late years, had suffered much in her health, and we may judge from the best-known portrait of her that she had now lost her good looks, and had a bowed-down and sorrow-stricken air.

Anne Boleyn had been living in France, at first as attendant on Mary, King Henry's sister, the queen of Louis XII., and afterwards in the family of the Duke of Alençon. She returned to England on the breaking out of the war with Francis I., in 1522; and seems, by her beauty, wit, and accomplishments, to have created a great sensation in the English Court, where she was soon attached to the service of Queen Catherine. Henry is said to have first met her by accident, in her father's garden, at Hever Castle, in Kent; and was so charmed with her that he told Wolsey that he had been "discoursing with a young lady who had the wit of an angel, and was worthy of a crown." She is supposed at that time to have been about one-and-twenty, a brunette of tall and most graceful figure, and extremely accomplished.

The understanding between Henry and Anne Boleyn soon became obvious to the whole Court. The queen saw it as clearly as any one else, and upbraided Henry with it, but does not seem to have used any harshness to Anne on that account, though she occasionally gave her some sharp rubs. For instance, once when the queen was playing at cards with Anne Boleyn she thus addressed her, "My Lady Anne, you have the good hap ever to stop at a king; but you are like others, you will have all or none." Cavendish, Wolsey's secretary, says the queen at this trying crisis "behaved like a very patient Grissel."

Henry now having resolved to marry Anne Boleyn, as he found he could obtain her on no other terms, felt himself suddenly afflicted with lamentable scruples of conscience for being married to his brother's widow, and entertaining equally afflicting doubts of the power of the Pope to grant a dispensation for such a marriage. For eighteen years these scruples had rested in his bosom without disturbing a moment of his repose. It is true that these doubts had been started before the marriage by Archbishop Warham, but they had no weight with Henry or his father. Henry had gone into the marriage at the age of eighteen with his eyes open, having some time before, by his father's order, made a protest against it for State purposes, and had been ever since, till he saw Anne Boleyn, not only contented but jovial. Now, however, he soon ceased to be merely scrupulous--he became positive that his marriage was unlawful, and set to work to write a book to prove it. The king communicated to Wolsey fully his views regarding the divorce, and Wolsey, who had now his decided quarrel with Charles for deceiving him in the matter of the Papacy, and who was equally the enemy of Catherine, she having openly expressed her resentment of his procuring the destruction of the Duke of Buckingham, readily fell into the scheme. Wolsey was undoubtedly as well aware as any one of the love affair going on between Henry and Anne Boleyn; nothing that was moving at Court could escape him; but he supposed this affair was only of the same kind as the rest of Henry's gallantries, and his notion was that some foreign princess would be selected for Henry's second queen.

But during the discussions on the marriage between the English princess and the French prince, a circumstance had taken place which showed that Henry was resolved to let slip no opportunity of carrying his divorce at all costs. The Bishop of Tarbes suddenly asked the question whether the legitimacy of the Princess Mary was beyond every legal and canonical doubt, considering the nature of the king's marriage with her mother, the queen. Henry and Wolsey affected to be much astonished and agitated at the question; and the King afterwards made it an argument that the idea of the illegality of his marriage, though it had originated with himself, had been greatly strengthened by the question of the bishop, as it showed how apparent the fact was to strangers and even foreigners. Yet the suggestion had undoubtedly been made to the bishop by Wolsey on Henry's behalf. The meaning of the question was quite obvious--it was to serve the cause of the divorce, which was an object highly pleasing to Francis I., in his resentment of the treatment of himself by the Emperor; but it was not believed for a moment to indicate real doubt even on the part of the French king, or he would not have proceeded to confirm the choice of an illegitimate maiden for the Queen of France, or the wife of his son.

At the close of this treaty, Wolsey was sent over to France, rather to show to Europe, and particularly to the King of Spain, the intimate footing between France and England, than for any real use. It was believed that Anne Boleyn and her friends were at the bottom of Wolsey's being sent abroad for a time, that the affairs regarding "the king's secret" might proceed without his cognisance; and, indeed, before his return, it had ceased to be a secret to any one. Anne had become openly acknowledged as the king's favourite, and had assumed an air and style of magnificence and consequence on account of it. Meantime, Wolsey, misled by his idea that the king meant to marry a foreign princess, had committed himself deeply, and supplied fresh and serious materials for his own destruction. He had given hints of the divorce of Henry, and of his probable marriage with a princess of the Court of France. He told Louise, the French king's mother, that "if she lived another year, she should see as great union on one side, and disunion on the other, as she would ask or wish for. These," he added, "were not idle words. Let her treasure them up in her memory; time would explain them."

The cardinal had, in fact, been looking round him at the French Court for a wife for Henry, and had selected the Princess Renée, sister of the late Queen Claude, while Henry himself had settled his choice nearer home. On the return of Wolsey, all being now prepared, Henry communicated to the astonished man the secret of his intended marriage with Anne. Confounded at the disclosure, the proud cardinal dropped on his knees, and, it is said, remained there for some hours pleading with the king against this infatuation, as he deemed it, and which he saw compromised himself with the Court of France, and menaced him darkly in the future, from the deep enmity of her who would thus become his queen. His pleadings and arguments were vain. His fair enemy had made her ground wholly secure in his absence, and Wolsey withdrew with gloomy forebodings.

The communication of the king's secret to Wolsey was immediately followed by more active measures, in which Wolsey, however averse, was obliged to co-operate. The king's treatise was now submitted to Sir Thomas More, who at once saw the peril of acting as a judge in so delicate a matter, declared that he was no theologian, and therefore unqualified to decide. It was next laid before the Bishop of Rochester, who decided against it. Henry then directed Sir Thomas to apply to some other of the bishops; but as he was hostile to the treatise himself, he was not likely to be a very persuasive pleader for it with others. None of the bishops would commit themselves, and Sir Thomas advised Henry to see what St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and the other fathers of the Church said upon it. Henry then employed the more unscrupulous agency of Wolsey with the prelates, who plied them with all his eloquence; but the most that he could obtain from them was that the arguments of the king's book furnished a reasonable ground for a scruple, and that he had better apply to the Holy See, and abide by its decision.

With the nation at large, the proposal of the amorous king was still less popular than with the bishops. They had a great veneration for the insulted Catherine, who had maintained for so many years the most fair and estimable character on the throne, and against whose virtue not a word had ever been breathed. They attributed this scheme to the acts of the cardinal, who was the enemy of the Emperor and the warm ally of France; and they dreaded that the divorce might lead to war and the suppression of the profitable trade with the Netherlands.

Unable to obtain much sanction at home, Henry at length referred the cause to the Pope; and Stephen Gardiner--then known by the humble name of Mr. Stephen--and Bishop Fox went in 1528 to Italy with the Royal instructions. The grand difficulty was to effect the divorce in so legal and complete a manner that no plea might be able to be brought against the legitimacy of the proposed marriage. For three months fresh instructions were issued and revoked, and issued in amended form again, which were laid before Dr. Knight, the king's agent at the Papal Court, and the three brothers Casali, Wolsey's agents, and before Staphilaeo, Dean of the Rota, who had been gained over whilst lately in London.

But the Emperor had not been idle. The Pope, as we have seen, had been shut up by the Imperial troops in the Castle of St. Angelo; and, in negotiation for his liberation, Charles had made it one of the principal stipulations of his release that he should not consent to act preparatory to a divorce without the previous knowledge of Charles himself. Scarcely had the Pope made his escape to Orvieto, when the English emissaries appeared before him. Poor Clement was thrown into a terrible dilemma. The Imperialists were still in possession of Rome, and if he consented to the request of Henry, he had nothing to expect but vengeance from the Emperor. To make the matter worse, a French army, under the command of Lautrec, and accompanied by Sir Robert Jerningham as the English commissary, which had been sent over the Alps to his assistance, and to enable him to recover his capital, loitered at Piacenza, and delayed the chance of the restoration and defence of Rome.

The English envoys presented to him two instruments, which had been prepared by the learned agents above named, by the first of which he was to empower Wolsey, or in case of any objection to him, Staphilaeo, to hear and decide the case of the divorce; and by the second he was to grant Henry a dispensation to marry, in the place of Catherine, any other woman soever, even if she were already promised to another, or related to him in the first degree of affinity. This was a most extraordinary proceeding, an acknowledgment by Henry of the very power in the Pope which he affected to doubt and deny. The objection to the marriage of Henry with Catherine was that she was within the proscribed degree of affinity, having been his brother's wife. Moreover, as Henry was accused, and this instrument appeared to admit the charge, of having established the same degree of relationship, though illicitly, with Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne, as had existed between Catherine and his brother legally, this document was to prevent any objections to the marriage with Anne.

The Pope signed both instruments, but recommended that Henry should keep them secret till the French army, under Lautrec, should arrive, and free him from fears, even for his life, of the vengeance of the Emperor. When this should have taken place, he promised to issue a second commission of the same import, which might at once be publicly proceeded with.

Scarcely, however, had Dr. Knight left Orvieto, when Gregorio da Casali brought a request from the English Court that a legate from Rome might be joined in the commission with Wolsey. To this Clement observed that the King of England was pursuing a very circuitous course. If the king was really convinced in his conscience that his present marriage was null, he had better marry again, and then he himself or a legate could decide the question at once. But if a legate were to sit in jurisdiction, there must be appeals to himself in Rome, exceptions, and adjournments, which would make it an affair of years. But, after saying this, the Pope signed the requisition.

At the instigation of Wolsey, who was anxious that the treaty which he had signed with France should be carried into effect, war was now declared formally against the Emperor. The news of the war was received in England with the utmost disgust and discontent. The people denounced the cardinal as the troubler of the kingdom and the interrupter of its commerce. The merchants refused to frequent the new marts in France, which were appointed instead of their accustomed ones in the Netherlands. The wool-combers, spinners, and clothiers were stopped in their sales by this resolve on the part of the merchants; their people were all thrown out of work; and the spirit of commotion grew so strong that there were serious fears of open outbreaks. In the council, the cardinal had as little support in his policy as he did elsewhere. There was not a member, except himself, who was an advocate of the French alliance; but all his colleagues at the council-table were eagerly watching for some chance which should hasten his downfall. Even the king himself was averse from the war with his nephew; and especially as he was aware that the fear of Charles's resentment deterred Clement from cordially proceeding with the divorce; and Henry hinted that if peace were restored, Charles might be induced to withdraw his opposition. Fortunately, the Flemings were as much incommoded by the breach of commercial relations as the English; and the Archduchess Margaret, the Governess of the Netherlands, had the prudence to make a proposition that peace should be restored. Negotiations commenced, and were carried on for some time for a general pacification; but this being proved unattainable, a peace was concluded with the Netherlands, and the state of war was allowed to remain between England and Spain.

But the fact was, the war, so far as regarded these two countries, was merely nominal; it raged only in Italy, between the French and the Imperialists. Henry had no money for war, and, besides, his whole thoughts and energies were occupied in carrying through the divorce, which he now found a most formidable affair, fresh difficulties starting up at every step. Had Catherine been only an English subject, instead of the aunt of the great monarch of Germany, Flanders, and Spain, Henry would have made short work of his conscience and of the poor woman who was in the way. He would have charged her with some heinous and revolting crime, and severed her head from her shoulders at a blow, and all his difficulties with it. But he had not only royal blood to deal with, but all the ancient prejudices that surrounded it, and which would have made him execrated over the whole world had he spilled it. He knew that Charles was watching intently to catch him at a disadvantage, and he never felt himself safe in his proceedings.

It now occurred to him that, though the Pope had granted permission for Wolsey and the legate to decide this momentous question, yet he might be induced, by the influence of Charles, to revise and reverse the sentence pronounced by his delegates: and this might involve him in inextricable dilemmas, especially should he have acted on the sentence of divorce, and married again.

Clement was placed in a very trying situation. He was anxious to oblige Henry, but to grant the bull confirming the sentence to be pronounced by Wolsey and the Legate, was to annihilate the dogma of Papal infallibility, for Julius II. had granted the Church's dispensation, notwithstanding the fact of Catherine's union with Henry's brother. Clement had been also informed that Henry's object was only to gratify the wish of a woman who was already living in adultery with him. But this was rebutted by a letter already received from Wolsey, assuring the Pope that Anne Boleyn was a lady of unimpeachable character. Driven from this point, Clement still demurred as to the formidable bull; and only consented, after consultation with a convocation of cardinals and theologians, to issue an order for a commission to inquire into the validity of the dispensation granted by Pope Julius, and to revoke it, if it was found to have been by any means surreptitiously obtained.

Campeggio, who had most reluctantly undertaken the appointment of commissioner in this case, was all this time slowly, very slowly, progressing towards England. He was an eminent professor of the canon law, and an experienced statesman. He had been a married man, and had a family; but, on the death of his wife, in 1509, he had taken orders, was made cardinal in 1517, and had been employed by Leo and his successors in various arduous cases to their highest satisfaction. Campeggio arrived in London at last, on the 7th of October, 1528, but in such exhaustion, from violent and long attacks of the gout, that he was carried in a litter to his lodgings, and remained for some time confined to his bed. Henry, with his characteristic hypocrisy, on the approach of the legate, again sent away his mistress, and recalled his obliging wife, with whom he appeared to be living on the most affectionate terms. They had the same bed and board, and went regularly through the same devotions. The arrival of the legate raised the courage of the people, who were unanimous in the favour of the queen, and, though Wolsey made every exertion to silence and restrain them, they loudly declared that, let the king marry whom he pleased, they would acknowledge no successor in prejudice to Mary.

It was a fortnight before the legate was ready to see the king. On the 22nd of October he made his visit, and was, of course, most graciously received by Henry and the cardinal, but they could extract from him no opinion as to the probable result of the inquiry which was at hand. Henry and Wolsey exerted all their arts to win over the great man. The king paid him constant visits; and to mollify and draw him out heaped all sorts of flatteries upon him, and made him the most brilliant promises. He had already made him Bishop of Salisbury, and presented him with a splendid palace in Rome; and he now offered to confer on him the rich bishopric of Durham, and knighted his son Ridolfo, by whom he was accompanied. But nothing moved the impenetrable ecclesiastic; for if favours were heaped on him here, terrors awaited him at Rome if he betrayed the trust of his master, the Pope. He replied to all solicitations that he had every disposition to serve the king, so far as his conscience would permit him. To produce a favourable bias in the opinions of the inexorable man, the judgments of eminent divines and doctors of the canon law on the king's case were laid before him. These he read, but still kept his own ideas locked in his breast.

Henry next endeavoured to obtain from Campeggio the publication of the decretal bull, or, at least, that it should be shown to the Privy Council, but the legate remained firm to his instructions. The king's agents at the same time plied Clement with persuasives to the same end, but with the same result. So far from giving way, the agents informed Henry that the Emperor had given back to the Pope Civita Vecchia and all the fortresses which he had taken from the Holy See, and that it was to be feared that there was a secret understanding between the Pope and Charles. At this news Henry despatched Sir Francis Bryan, Master of the Henchmen, and Peter Vannes, his secretary of the Latin tongue, to Francis I., upbraiding him with his neglect in permitting this to go on; and they then proceeded to Italy, and requested the Pope to cite all Christian princes to meet in Avignon and settle their differences. In the meantime these agents were to consult the most celebrated canonists at Rome on the following extraordinary points:--"1. Whether, if a wife were to make a vow of chastity, and enter a convent, the Pope could not, in the plenitude of his power, authorise the husband to marry again. 2. Whether, if the husband were to enter into a religious order, that he might induce the wife to do the same, he might not afterwards be released from his vow, and have liberty to marry. 3. Whether, for reasons of State, the Pope could not license a prince to have, like the ancient patriarchs, two wives, of whom one only should be publicly acknowledged, and enjoy the honours of royalty."

On the 6th of February, 1529, the intelligence arrived that Clement was dying, and by that time was probably dead. Now was the time to place Wolsey in the Papal chair, and thus end all difficulties. Francis promised cordially to aid in the attempt; but, to their dismay, Clement revived, and dashed their hopes to the ground. Made desperate by these chances, Henry now gave the invalid Pope no rest from his solicitations. His agents forced themselves into his very sick chamber, and demanded that the fatal mandate of dispensation granted by Julius II.--a copy of which Catherine had obtained from Spain--should be revoked, or that Charles should be compelled to exhibit the original. But the Pope remained firm. He declared that he could not depart from the course already prescribed, that Catherine had even entered a protest in his Court against the persons of her judges, and he recommended Henry to lose no time, but to try to determine the matter in his own realm.

The Court which was to try the cause met in the Parliament chamber in the Blackfriars, and summoned the king and queen to appear before it on the 18th of June. Henry appeared by proxy; Catherine obeyed the summons in person, but only to protest against the judges as the subjects of Henry, her accuser, and to appeal to the Pope. This appeal was overruled, and the Court adjourned to the 21st of June. On this day both Henry and Catherine appeared, the king sitting in state on the right hand of the cardinal and legate, and Catherine sat on their left, attended by four friendly bishops. On their names being called, Henry answered "Here!" but Catherine was unable to reply. On being again cited, however, she rose and repeated her protest on three grounds,--first, as being a stranger; secondly, because the judges were subjects, and held benefices, the gift of her adversary; and last, because from such a Court she could not expect impartiality. This protest being held inadmissible, she rose again, crossed herself, and, leaning on her maids, approached the king, threw herself at his feet, and addressed him in a pathetic speech.

On the 25th of June Catherine was summoned before the Court again, but she refused to appear, sending in, however, and causing to be read, her appeal to the Pope. On this she was declared contumacious; and the king's counsellors asserted that the following points had been clearly proved:--That her marriage with Prince Arthur had been consummated, and, therefore, her marriage with Henry was unlawful; that the dispensation of Julius II. had been obtained under false pretences and a concealment of facts; and that the Papal brief which had been sent from Spain was a forgery. They therefore called on the judges to pronounce for the divorce. But even had all this been proved, which it had not, Campeggio was not intending to do anything of the kind. The peace which had been rumoured between the Pope and the Emperor had been signed on the 29th of June, and Clement was now much at his ease. On the 23rd of July, no progress being made, Henry summoned the Court, and demanded judgment in imperious terms. But Campeggio replied with unmoved dignity:--"I have not come so far to please any man for fear, meed, or favour, be he king or any other potentate. I am an old man, sick, decayed, looking daily for death; what should it then avail me to put my soul in the danger of God's displeasure, to my utter damnation, for the favour of any prince or high estate in this world? Forasmuch, then, that I perceive that the truth in this case is very difficult to be known; that the defendant will make no answer thereunto, but hath appealed from our judgment; therefore, to avoid all injustice and obscure doubts, I intend to proceed no further in this matter until I have the opinion of the Pope and such others of his council as have more experience and learning. I, for this purpose, adjourn this Court till the commencement of the next term, in the beginning of October."

It would be difficult to conceive the state of agitation into which the Court of Henry was now thrown. Instead of receiving a decision, it was put off till October; and this was not the worst, for in a few days news arrived that the commission of the cardinals had been revoked by the Pope on the 15th of July, or eight days previous to the adjournment, and that the Papal Court had entertained the appeal of Queen Catherine, and recalled Campeggio. Thus, not even in October was there any chance of a decision, and had such been arrived at now it would have been null, the commission having previously expired. Still worse, while Henry was in the highest state of irritation, there came an instrument from Rome, forbidding him to pursue his cause by the legates, but citing him to appear by attorney in the Papal Court, under a penalty of 10,000 ducats. Campeggio departed from England at the commencement of Michaelmas term. At the interview in which he took his leave of the king, Henry behaved with much politeness to the Italian legate, but treated Wolsey with marked coldness. Showing a disposition to relent later on in the same day, Henry was at once so worked upon by the Boleyn faction that he undertook never more to see the cardinal, whose fall was now certain.

Indeed, on account of his failure to obtain the divorce, Wolsey was doomed to destruction. On the 9th of October, the same month as he opened the Court of Chancery, he perceived a deadly coldness as of winter frost around him. No one did him honour--the sun of Royal favour had set to him for ever. On the same day Hales, the attorney-general, filed two bills against him in the King's Bench, charging him with having incurred the penalty of Præmunire by acting in the kingdom as the Pope's legate. This was a most barefaced accusation, for he had accepted the legatine authority by Henry's express permission; had exercised it for many years with his full knowledge and approbation, and, in the affairs of the divorce, at the earnest request of the king. But Henry VIII. had no law but his own will, and never wanted reasons for punishing those who had offended him.

Of Wolsey, as he appeared at this moment, scathed and stunned by the thunderbolt of the royal wrath, we have a striking picture. The Bishop of Bayonne, the French ambassador, says in a letter:--"I have been to visit the cardinal in his distress, and I have witnessed the most striking change of fortune. He explained to me his hard case in the worst rhetoric that was ever heard. Both his tongue and his heart failed him. He recommended himself to the pity of the king and madame [Francis I. and his mother] with sighs and tears; and at last left me, without having said anything near so moving as his appearance. His face is dwindled to one-half its natural size. In truth, his misery is such that his enemies, Englishmen as they are, cannot help pitying him. Still, they will carry things to extremities. As for his legation, the seals, his authority, etc., he thinks no more of them. He is willing to give up everything, even the shirt from his back, and live in a hermitage, if the king would but desist from his displeasure."

On the 17th of October Henry sent the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to demand the Great Seal; and they are said to have done that duty with some ungenerous triumph. But Wolsey delivered up his authority without complaint, and only sent in an offer surrendering all his personal estate to his gracious master, on condition that he might retire to his diocese on his church property. But the property of Wolsey had long been riveting the greedy eye of Henry, and, next to Anne Boleyn, that was, probably, the "weight which pulled him down." A message was soon brought him by the same noblemen that the king expected an entire and unconditional submission, whereupon he granted to the king the yearly profits of his benefices, and threw himself on his mercy. It was then intimated that His Majesty meant to reside at York Place (Whitehall) during the Parliament, and that Wolsey might retire to Esher Place, in Surrey, a house belonging to his bishopric of Winchester.

On the 3rd of November, after the long intermission of seven years, a Parliament was called together. The main object of this unusual occurrence was to complete the ruin of Wolsey, and place it beyond the power of the king to restore him to favour--a circumstance of which the courtiers were in constant dread. The committee of the House of Lords presented to the king a string of no less than forty-four articles against the fallen minister, enumerating and exaggerating all his offences, and calling upon the monarch to take such order with him "that he should never have any power, jurisdiction, or authority hereafter, to trouble, vex, and impoverish the commonwealth of this your realm, as he hath done heretofore, to the great hurt and damage of almost every man, high or low." This address was carried to the Commons for their concurrence; but there Thomas Cromwell, who by the favour of Wolsey had risen from the very lowest condition to be his friend and steward, and was now advanced to the king's service by the particular recommendation of the cardinal, attacked the articles manfully, and caused the Commons to reject them, as the members were persuaded that Cromwell was acting by suggestion of the king; which is very probable, for so far from Henry showing Cromwell any dislike for this proceeding, he continued to promote him, till he became his prime minister, and was created Earl of Essex.

Henry, having now seized upon all the cardinal's property, the incomes of his bishoprics, abbeys, and other benefices, his colleges at Ipswich and Oxford, with all their furniture and revenues, his pensions, clothes, and even his very tomb, seemed contented to leave him his life. He, therefore, on the 12th of February, 1530, granted him a full pardon for all his real and pretended crimes. He allowed him, moreover, to retain the revenues of York. He gave him also a pension of 1,000 marks a year out of the bishopric of Winchester, and soon after sent him a present of £3,000 in money; and in plate, furniture, &c., the value of £3,374 3s. 7d., and gave him leave to reside at Richmond.

This new flow of royal favour wonderfully revived the cardinal's hopes, and as vividly excited the fears of the Boleyn party. To have this formidable man residing so near them as Richmond was too perilous to be thought of. Some fine morning the king might suddenly ride over there, and all be undone. Henry was, therefore, besieged with entreaties to remove him farther from the Court, and to such a distance as should prevent the possibility of an interview. They prevailed, and Wolsey received an order through his friend Cromwell to go and reside in his archbishopric of York. To the cardinal, who felt a strong persuasion that if he could but obtain an interview with the king all would be set right, this was next to a death-warrant. He entreated Cromwell to obtain leave for him to reside at Winchester, but this was refused, and the Duke of Norfolk, Anne's uncle, sent Wolsey word that if he did not get away immediately into the North he would come and tear him in pieces with his teeth. "Then," said Wolsey, "it is time for me to be gone."

Delighted with their metropolitan, the clergy of York waited upon him in a body, and begged that he would allow himself to be installed in his cathedral, according to the custom of his predecessors. Wolsey, after taking time to consider of it, consented, on condition that it should be done with as little splendour as possible. No sooner, however, was this news divulged than the noblemen, gentlemen, and clergy of the county sent into York great quantities of provisions, and made preparations for a most magnificent feast. But this was suddenly prevented by a very unexpected event. On the 4th of November, only three days before the grand installation was to come off, the Earl of Northumberland, accompanied by Sir William Walsh and a number of horsemen, arrived at Cawood. Wolsey, believing in good news, went out to receive the Earl with a cheerful countenance; and, observing his numerous retinue, he said, "Ah! my lord, I perceive that you observe the precepts and instructions which I gave you, when you were abiding with me in your youth, to cherish your father's old servants." He then took the earl affectionately by the hand, and led him into a bed-chamber. There he no doubt expected to hear good tidings; but the earl, though greatly affected and embarrassed, laid his hand on the old man's shoulder, and said, "My lord, I arrest you of high treason." Wolsey was struck dumb, and stood motionless as a statue. He then bowed to the order, and prepared for his journey. On his way to London he was seized with dysentery at Sheffield Park, the mansion of the Earl of Shrewsbury. The attack left him so weak that he was glad to accept the hospitality of Leicester Abbey, where the abbot, at the head of a procession of the monks, with lighted torches, received him. He was completely worn out, and being lifted from his mule, said, "I am come, my brethren, to lay my bones amongst you." The monks carried him to his bed, where he swooned repeatedly; and the second morning his servants, who had watched him with anxious affection, saw that he was dying. He called to his bedside Sir William Kingston, and amongst others, addressed to him these remarkable words:--"Had I but served God as diligently as I have served the king, he would not have given me over in my grey hairs. But this is the just reward that I must receive for my diligent pains and study, not regarding my service to God, but only to my prince. Let me advise you to take care what you put in the king's head, for you can never put it out again. I have often kneeled before him, sometimes three hours together, to persuade him from his will and appetite, but could not prevail. He is a prince of most royal courage, and hath a princely heart; for, rather than miss or want any part of his will, he will endanger one half of his kingdom." On the 29th of November, 1530, thus died Thomas, Lord Cardinal Wolsey, one of the most extraordinary characters that was ever raised up and again overthrown by the mere will of a king, and who unconsciously contributed to one of the most extensive revolutions of human mind and government which the world has known.

In following the story of Wolsey to its close, we have a little overstepped the progress of affairs. As soon as the great man was out of the way, a ministry was formed of the leading persons of the Boleyn party. The Duke of Norfolk, Anne's uncle, was made President of the Council, Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, Lord Marshal, and the Earl of Wiltshire, the father of Anne Boleyn, had a principal place. Sir Thomas More, unfortunately for him as it proved, was made Lord Chancellor instead of Wolsey, a promotion which he reluctantly accepted. Amongst the king's servants, Stephen Gardiner, who had been introduced and much employed by Wolsey, still remained high in the king's favour, and occupied the post of his secretary. Gardiner, a bigoted Catholic, and afterwards one of the most bloody persecutors of the Reformers, now, however, in trying to promote the wishes of the king for the divorce, unconsciously promoted the Reformation.

The king, returning from the progress which he had made to Moore Park, and to Grafton, remained one night at Waltham. Gardiner and Fox were lodged in the house of a Mr. Cressy, a gentleman of good family. After supper the conversation turned on the grand topic of the day--the king's divorce, and Gardiner and Fox detailed the difficulties that surrounded it, and the apparent impossibility of getting the Pope to move in it. A grave clergyman, the tutor of the family, of the name of Thomas Cranmer, after listening to the discourse, was asked by Fox and Gardiner what he thought of the matter. At first he declined to give his opinion on so high a matter, but being pressed, he said, he thought they were wrong altogether in the way they were seeking the divorce. As the Pope evidently would not commit himself upon the subject, his opinion was that they should not waste any more time in fruitless solicitations at Rome, but submit this plain question to the most learned men and chief universities of Europe: "Do the laws of God permit a man to marry his brother's widow?" If, as he imagined, the answers were in the negative, the Pope would not dare to pronounce a sentence in opposition to the opinions of all these learned men and learned bodies.

On the return of the Court to Greenwich, Fox and Gardiner related this conversation to the king, who instantly swore that "the man had got the right sow by the ear," and ordered him instantly to be sent for to Court. Cranmer, on his arrival, maintained his opinion in a manner which wonderfully delighted Henry, and raised his hope of having at length hit on the true mode of solving the difficulty.

Agents were despatched to obtain the required opinion from the different universities, both in England and on the Continent, well provided with that most persuasive of rhetoricians--money. At his own universities, however, Henry found no little opposition. On the Continent, where Henry's menaces had no weight, his purse was freely opened; and the universities of Bologna, Padua, and Ferrara, as well as many learned men, were prevailed on to take the view that Henry wished. In Germany his agents were far less successful. Both Protestants and Catholics in general condemned his proposed divorce; and Luther and Melanchthon said he had much better follow the example of the patriarchs, and take a second wife, than put away the first without any crime on her part. From France and its fourteen universities Henry expected much more compliance, but he was disappointed. From Orleans, Toulouse, and Bourges, and from the civilians of Angers, doubtful decisions were procured, but the theologians of the last city maintained the validity of the existing marriage. The answers from other universities were either not received or were suppressed.

The scheme of Cranmer had not worked particularly well; the opinions of the universities were for the most part either adverse, or were forced, and those of learned men more opposed than coinciding. There needed a more determined spirit than that of Cranmer to break the way through the wood of embarrassments in which they were involved, and the right man now stepped forward in Thomas Cromwell, the former secretary of Wolsey. He sought an interview with Henry, and determined, according to his own phrase, "to make or mar," thus addressed him:--"It was not," he observed, "for him to affect to give advice where so many wise and abler men had failed, but when he saw the anxiety of his sovereign, he could no longer be silent, whatever might be the result. There was a clear and obvious course to pursue. Let the king do just what the princes of Germany had done, throw off the yoke of Rome; and let him, by the authority, declare himself, as he should be, the head of the Church within his own dominions. At present England was a monster with two heads. But let the king assume the authority now usurped by a foreign pontiff, an authority from which so many evils and confusions to this realm had flowed, and the monstrosity would be at an end; all would be simple, harmonious, and devoid of difficulty. The clergy, sensible that their lives and fortunes were in the hands of their own monarch--hands which could be no longer paralysed by alien interference--from haughty antagonists would instantly become the obsequious ministers of his will."

Henry listened to this new doctrine with equal wonder and delight, and he thanked Cromwell heartily, and had him instantly sworn of his privy council.

No time was lost in trying the efficacy of Cromwell's daring scheme. To sever that ancient union, which had existed so many ages, and was hallowed in the eyes of the world by so many proud recollections was a task at which the stoutest heart and most iron resolution might have trembled; but Cromwell had taken a profound survey of the region he was about to invade, and had learned its weakest places. He relied on the unscrupulous impetuosity of the king's passion to bear him through; he relied far more on the finesse of his own genius. With the calmest resolution, he laid his finger on one single page of the statute-book, and knew that he was master of the Church. The law which rendered any one who received favours direct from the Pope guilty of a breach of the Statute of Præmunire, permitted the monarch to suspend the action of this Statute at his discretion. This he had done in the case of Wolsey. When he accepted the legatine authority, the cardinal took care to obtain a patent under the Great Seal, authorising the exercise of this foreign power. But Wolsey, when he was called in question for the administration of an office thus especially sanctioned by the Crown, neglected to produce this deed of indemnity, hoping still to be restored to the royal favour, and unwilling to irritate the king by any show of self-defence. There lay the concealed weapon which the shrewd eye of Cromwell had detected, and by which he could overturn the ecclesiastical fabric of ages. He declared, to the consternation of the whole hierarchy, that not only had Wolsey involved himself in all the penalties of Præmunire, but the whole of the clergy with him. They had admitted his exercise of the Papal authority, and thereby were become, in the language of the Statute, his "fautors and abettors."

Dire was the dismay which at this charge seized on the whole body of the clergy. The council ordered the Attorney-General to file an information against the entire ecclesiastical body. Convocation assembled in haste, and offered, as the price of a full pardon, £100,000. But still greater were the amazement and dismay of the clergy, when they found that this magnificent sum was rejected unless Convocation consented to declare, in the preamble to the grant, that the king was "the protector and only supreme head of the Church of England." By the king's permission, however, the venerable Archbishop Warham introduced and carried an amendment in Convocation, by which the grant was voted with this clause in the preamble:--"Of which church and clergy we acknowledge His Majesty to be the chief protector, the only and supreme lord, and, as far as the law of God will allow, the supreme head." The wedge was introduced; the severance was certain: the perfect accomplishment of it only awaited another opportunity for an easier issue. The northern convocation adopted the same language, and voted a grant of £18,840.

Henry, under the guidance of Cromwell, now procured an act to be passed by Parliament, abolishing the annates, or first-fruits, which furnished a considerable annual income to the Pope, and another abrogating the authority of the clergy in Convocation, and attaching that authority to the Crown. Feeling that in this struggle he should need the friendship of Francis, he proposed a new treaty with France, which was signed in London on the 23rd of June, 1532; and the more to strengthen the alliance the two monarchs met between Calais and Boulogne. Great preparations were made on both sides, and Henry begged Francis to bring his favourite mistress with him. This was as an excuse for Henry to bring Anne Boleyn, who was now created the Marchioness of Pembroke, and without whom he could go nowhere. It is said that Francis, during the interview, had urged Henry to wait no longer for the permission of the Pope, but to marry the Marchioness of Pembroke without further delay; but it is quite certain that another counsellor was more urgent, and that was--Time. It was high time, indeed, that the marriage should take place if they meant to legitimatise her offspring, for Anne Boleyn was with child. Accordingly, the marriage took place on the 25th of January, 1533. The ceremony, however, was strictly private. In fact the marriage was kept so secret that it was not even communicated to Cranmer, who had just returned from Germany, and taken up his abode in the family of Anne Boleyn. Cranmer, whilst in Germany, had married, Catholic priest as he was, the niece of Osiander, the Protestant minister of Nuremberg. This lady he had brought secretly to England, and was now living a married priest, in direct violation of the Church that he belonged to.

Archbishop Warham was now dead, and Henry nominated Cranmer to the vacant primacy. He was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on the 30th of March, 1533, and he was immediately ordered to proceed with the divorces. The new primate, therefore, wrote on the 11th of April, a formal letter to the king, soliciting the issue of a commission to try that cause, and pronounce a definite sentence. This was immediately done; and Cranmer, as the head of this commission, accompanied by Gardiner, now Bishop of Winchester, the Bishops of London, Lincoln, Bath, and Wells, with many other divines and canonists, opened their court at Dunstable, in the monastery of St. Peter, six miles from Ampthill, where the queen resided. On the 12th of May Cranmer pronounced Catherine contumacious, and on the 23rd, he declared her marriage was null and invalid from the beginning. On the 28th, in a court held at Lambeth, the archbishop pronounced the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn to be good and valid. On the 1st of June, being Whit Sunday, Anne was crowned with every possible degree of pomp and display.

Henry, notwithstanding his separation from Rome, was anxious to obtain the sanction of his marriage by the Pope; but, instead of that, Clement fulminated his denunciations against him over Europe. He annulled Cranmer's sentence on Henry's first marriage, and published a bull excommunicating Henry and Anne, unless they separated before the next September, when the new queen expected her confinement. Henry despatched ambassadors to the different foreign courts to announce his marriage, and the reasons which had led him to it; but from no quarter did he receive much congratulation.

However sincere and earnest the two principals in this contest, the Pope and Henry, might be, there were at work in the Court of England and the Court of Rome parties really more powerful than their principals, who were resolved that the two desiderata to this pacification never should be yielded. Cromwell and his party commenced an active campaign in Parliament for breaking beyond remedy the tie with Rome, and establishing an independent church in this country. This able man, who for his past services was now made Chancellor of the Exchequer for life, framed a series of bills, and introduced them to Parliament, soon after the Christmas holidays. These included an act establishing the title of the king as supreme head of the English Church, and vesting in him the right to appoint to all bishoprics, and to decide all ecclesiastical causes. Payments or appeals to Rome were strictly forbidden by the confirmation of the Annates Act, the Act against "Peter Pence," and that "in Restraint of appeals" whereby the whole Roman jurisdiction in England was decisively repudiated.

By a further bill, the marriage of Catherine--strangely enough at the very moment that Henry had conceded its final decision at Rome--was declared unlawful, and that of Anne Boleyn confirmed. The issue by the first marriage was declared illegitimate, and excluded from the succession, and the issue of the marriage of Anne was made inheritable of the crown, and that only, and any one casting any slander on this marriage, or endeavouring to prejudice the succession of its issue, was declared guilty of high treason, if by writing, printing, or deed, and misprision of treason if by word. Thus was a new power established by the Crown; every person of full age, or on hereafter coming to full age, was to be sworn to obey this act. Not only new powers were thus created, but a new crime was invented; and though this statute was swept away in the course of a few years, yet it is a remarkable one, for it became the precedent for many a succeeding and despotic government.

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