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 LIBRARY, 
 
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 THE 
 
 EEIGN OF HENKY VIII 
 
 FKOM HIS ACCESSION TO THE DEATH OF WOLSEI, 
 
 REVIEWED AND ILLUSTRATED FROM 
 ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 J. S. BEEWEE, M.A. 
 
 PEOFESSOE OF ENGLISH LITEKATDRE AND HISTORY IN EING'S COLLEGE, LONDON, 
 
 pkeachee at the eolls, and honoeaet fellow of 
 queen's college, OXFOED. 
 
 EDITED 
 
 BY JAMES GAIRDNER 
 
 of the public eecoed office. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES.— VOL. I. 
 
 WITH PORTRAIT. 
 
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 LONDON: 
 JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 
 
 1884.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 nilXTED BY WILLIAM CHJWES ANT) SONS, LIMITED, 
 
 STAMFOUD STREET AN1> CHARING CROSS. 
 
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 IDA 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 The work here laid before the public in a collected form con- 
 sists of four different treatises, which were originally published 
 as prefaces to the four volumes of " Letters and Papers of the 
 Eeign of Henry VIII.," edited by Professor Brewer for the 
 Master of the Piolls. Like the other " Calendars " of the EoUs 
 Series, that work is addressed to a comparatively limited 
 public, and the ordinary reader cannot be expected to give 
 much attention to the ponderous volumes in which it is con- 
 tained. Yet there is but one opinion among those who have 
 read these prefaces, not only of their high value to the 
 historical student, but also of their very great interest as 
 literary compositions ; and these considerations made it 
 desirable to bring them together in a form more convenient 
 than that in which they originally appeared. Application was 
 accordingly made to the Lords of the Treasury, who, on 
 careful consideration of the case, consented to their being 
 republished separately, on condition that it should be here 
 stated '' that the Prefaces have no official character or 
 authority, and that their republication is permitted at the 
 urgent request of the friends of Professor Brewer, on account 
 of their literary interest." 
 
 It was said by some, when these Calendars first appeared, 
 that Professor Brewer had set himself to write a history of 
 the reign of Henry VIII. He himself did not entertain such 
 an exalted opinion of his performance ; and in one place he 
 distinctly says, " It is not my business to write history, but to 
 show the bearings of these new materials upon history. 
 
 ' Trefaco to vol. ii. p. clxxxix. 
 
 »» 1
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 The editor has therefore refrained from calHng the work what 
 it is clear the author himself would not have called it. The 
 following pages do not, in point of fact, contain a detailed 
 systematic narrative of all that was done in the times of which 
 they treat ; but they certainly do contain a review of the 
 reign of Henry VIII. down to the death of Wolsey, as clear 
 sighted as it is comprehensive, drawn from the latest sources 
 of information, carefully collected and arranged by the author 
 himself. 
 
 And herein consists the special value of this work. For 
 it was not the production of any dull antiquary, laboriously 
 collecting documents and unable afterwards to see the true 
 significance of his own discoveries. The writer, if he was not 
 a historian, certainly possessed in a very high degree the 
 qualifications needful for writing history. His knowledge of 
 the period of which he wrote was unsurpassed. Yet it 
 was not the exclusive knowledge of a specialist who knows 
 nothing beyond his subject. His familiarity with the sources 
 of English history in all other periods, his mature scholar- 
 ship, and his intimate acquaintance with the whole range of 
 English literature, which he had spent his best years in 
 teaching young men to study, prevented anything like a 
 narrow or one-sided estimate, either of the men or of the 
 movements which he made it his business to describe. 
 Qualifications such as these, it may be said without difiidence, 
 are by no means common, even among the more pretentious 
 writers of our annals. But there are others more uncommon 
 still which may be said to give Mr. Brewer — as among 
 historical writers — a place entirely by himself. For it is 
 hardly to be expected, in ordinary cases, that those more 
 general requisites — special stud}^ and broad general scholar- 
 ship, extensive reading, and at the same time careful and 
 accurate judgment — so necessary to the writing of history, 
 should be combined with the palseographic experience and 
 plodding industry which deciphers the written evidences on 
 which all sound history is based. Few indeed have been the 
 historians who have really examined with their own eyes and
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 handled with then- own hands the must}- documents on whicli 
 they built their inferences ; fewer still who could pass critical 
 judgments on the handwritings, so as to identify the authors 
 of anonymous letters, note the significance of endorsements, 
 and discriminate between an original manuscript and a copy 
 of later date. But in matters such as these Mr. Brewer was 
 more expert than those with whom it might be supposed to be 
 a business. He brought together manuscripts which before lay 
 in hopeless confusion ; ascertained their dates, their author- 
 ship, and then- significance by the light of internal evidence ; 
 perused and reperused and compared with others hosts of 
 difficult and obscure documents, until they had yielded up 
 their secrets ; and finally gathered up the results of his 
 researches in clear, systematic order, illuminating the whole 
 subject for the general reader as well as for the student by the 
 clearest and most lucid exposition. 
 
 The work which he was called upon to do in the Public 
 Eecord Office was to catalogue and chronologize a number of 
 miscellaneous documents of the reign of Henry VIH., which 
 it was believed would throw much light upon the history of 
 the Eeformation. A primary examination of these materials 
 convinced him that their importance had not been over- 
 magnified, but that no satisfactory Calendar of them could be 
 drawn up unless the whole collection from which they 
 originally came were examined and catalogued along with 
 them. For at that time the Public Piecords were dispersed in 
 five different repositories, and there was the State Paper 
 Office besides, now amalgamated with the Eecord Department. 
 Portions of these miscellaneous papers had been transferred 
 from one office to another, and those most easily dated and 
 classified had been taken away to complete the early series of 
 State Papers. Moreover, it was impossible to stop at these 
 repositories, for the very same process of collecting and 
 separating out of the public archives a quantity of their more 
 interesting contents had been begun two centuries before by 
 Sir Eobert Cotton, and the result is that the same correspond- 
 ence is still found divided, part being hi tlie Public Eecord 
 1. b
 
 Vi PREFACE. 
 
 Office, and part in the British Museum. Even parts of the 
 same letter, as Mr, Brewer remarks in some introductory 
 observations, were not unusually found in different libraries ; 
 addresses were detached from the letters to which they 
 belonged, and enclosures inserted in wrong envelopes. 
 
 " To add to the confusion," Mr. Brewer continues, "special 
 modes of arrangement were adopted in different offices ; and 
 not unfrequently the system pursued under one officer was 
 modified or reversed by his successor. The original bundles 
 appear to have been broken up, under the keepership of 
 Arthur Agarde, when the Treasury of the Exchequer was 
 rifled of its most precious contents, to augment the collections 
 of Sir Eobert Cotton. Their order was further disturbed by 
 Mr. John Cayley, who arranged many of the letters in an 
 alphabetical order of names. Some preferred a topographical, 
 others a diplomatic, arrangement. But as none of these 
 projects were completed, and never could be so long as 
 portions of the same series remained in different depositories, 
 these successive attempts at arrangement ended, as might be 
 expected, in utter confusion." 
 
 The way in which Mr. Brewer dealt with the problem may 
 as well be recorded in his own words also : — 
 
 " A return to the primitive arrangement of the papers, 
 however desirable, was altogether impossible, for no memo- 
 randa had been kept of these changes. To have catalogued 
 the papers as they stood was scarcely more possible. No- 
 thing remained except to bring the different series together, 
 and patiently proceed dc novo to arrange the whole in uni- 
 form chronological order. The task was extremely difficult 
 and fatiguing. The labour was increased by the dispersion 
 of the papers, the variety of experiments to which they had 
 l)een subjected at different intervals, and the total obliteration 
 of all traces of their original sequence. The letters are 
 seldom dated ; their dates had to be determined by internal 
 evidence. Many turn exclusivel}^ upon personal topics, or 
 refer to events little known. Long and tedious researches 
 had to be made for obscure names, and events not less
 
 TREFACE. vii 
 
 obscure ; often without any successful result, often where the 
 success bore no proportion to the time and labour spent upon 
 it. Tedious and unsatisfactory as the task proved to be, it 
 was necessary, in some instances, to replace the books and 
 bundles, as nearly as could be guessed, in their ancient order, 
 and insert once more dated among the undated documents, 
 
 ' incedens per ignes 
 Suppositos cineri doloso.' 
 
 " But even where the events were more noticeable, as in the 
 political relations of England with the Continent during the 
 first half of the 16th century, letters of credence or compli- 
 ment, drafts of instructions, many without date or signature, 
 not in the handwriting of the author, but of his scribe, were 
 far from being easily arranged. Events frequently repeat 
 themselves with extraordinary likeness in the various political 
 combinations of those times. It is not easy, for instance, to 
 assign to their proper years undated memoranda relating to 
 the intricate wars and policy of Italy. The diplomatic cor- 
 respondence between England and France in 1518 or 1519, 
 and again in 1525 and 1526, or that of Flanders in 1516 
 and 1517, as compared with 1522 and 1523, is deceptive 
 enough. To determine the due sequence of papers referring 
 to the designs of France upon Tournay and the English pale, 
 to follow without confusion the crooked lines of Scotch 
 politics under the Duke of Albany, to keep every minute and 
 instruction, every rough draft and memorandum for each 
 ambassador, in its proper month and year, where no help is 
 lent by signature, date or handwriting, is more laborious than 
 they know who have never tried it. Nothing seems more 
 easy or obvious after the true order has been discovered; 
 nothing is more perplexing before. 
 
 " The first step was to number all the documents in the 
 several bundles, boxes, and portfolios as they were produced 
 to me ; then to deal into boxes marked with the regnal and 
 dominical year all papers of which the dates were certain, 
 setting aside for the present the less certain and obvious. 
 The residue thus set aside had to be examined again and
 
 Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 again, subjected to various processes, and reduced to the 
 smallest compass compatible with accuracy of arrangement. 
 
 "After repeated examination the undigested mass, con- 
 sisting of fragments, anonymous letters, or papers which 
 defied all chronological arrangement, had to be indexed for 
 convenience of reference, in the expectation that during the 
 f;)rmation of the Calendar fresh evidence might turn up, 
 doubts be cleared, or the missing portions and fragments or 
 defective letters be discovered. 
 
 " To the difficulty arising from a general absence of dates 
 in papers of this early period must be added the uncertainty 
 in the different modes of calculation adopted by different 
 nations. Some states followed the Roman, some the old 
 style. Some commenced the year on Christmas Day, some 
 at the variable feast of Easter. In some instances the same 
 writer followed no rule, but wavered between both styles, like 
 the Emperor Maximilian ; some adopted the style of the place 
 where they chanced to be staying, or of the correspondent to 
 whom their letters were addressed. This uncertainty in the 
 chronology of the times involved the necessity of numerous 
 researches among the Privy Seals, Patent Polls, and other 
 muniments at the Eecord Office. It was indispensable, to 
 arrive at some certain data for determining the shifting dates 
 of uncertain papers. At last, by one method or another, and 
 finally by comparing the entire series of despatches of this or 
 that ambassador, wherever such a comparison could be made, 
 the date of each separate document was determined with 
 tolerable exactness. Step by step the whole series emerged 
 from confusion." 
 
 This result, however, was only achieved by a most com- 
 prehensive mode of dealing with the contents not only of 
 the Eecord Office, but also of the British Museum, and all 
 other public libraries so far as they related to the reign of 
 Henry VIII. The necessity for a thorough examination of 
 the Cottonian Manuscripts was obvious from the fact already 
 stated, that the state papers contained in that collection 
 formed at one time a part of the Public Eecords ; and the
 
 PREFACE. ix 
 
 difficulties of chronologizing the papers imperatively required 
 that no other manuscrij)ts should be neglected which might 
 possibly throw a gleam of light on the political history of 
 the period. Hence the Harleian, Lansdowne, and other 
 collections in the British Museum, the manuscripts in the 
 Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, the treasures in the 
 various college libraries at Oxford and Cambridge, so far as 
 they contained original evidences bearing on the reign of 
 Henry YIIL, were all carefully noted and epitomized in the 
 same way as the documents in the Public Record Office. 
 Nor was even this enough. It was important to include 
 printed letters also, of which the originals do not now exist ; 
 and no letter written by or to an Englishman at this 
 period, or even by a foreigner if it contained news about 
 English affairs, escaped Mr. Brewer's researches. " I ought, 
 perhaps," he modestly saj'S, "to apologize for including 
 the letters of Erasmus and Peter Martja-, But only those 
 letters of Erasmus are here noticed which were written by 
 him during his residence in England, or received by him 
 from Englishmen during his residence abroad, or are of direct 
 importance to English history. His corresj)ondents were men 
 of high standing in the region of politics. He numbered 
 among his intimate friends Warham, Tunstal, More, Pace, 
 Sampson, and Ammonius, secretary for the Latin and Italian 
 tongues to Henry YIII. No one was better acquainted than 
 Ammonius with the proceedings between this country and 
 Piome. These letters, therefore, have a claim upon the 
 historical student beyond the personal importance of the 
 names under which they were published." 
 
 But how much labour even the letters of Erasmus involved 
 would hardly be known from the few brief sentences in which 
 Mr. Brewer refers to this part of his very complicated task. 
 "Unhappily," he says, "the dates in all the printed copies 
 are strangely confused and inaccurate. I have, therefore, been 
 compelled to arrange them by their internal evidence, retain- 
 ing the printed dates at the foot of the abstracts. The order 
 adopted by Le Clerc in his splendid collection of the works of
 
 X PEEFACE. 
 
 Erasmus, published at the Hague, is certainly faulty. He 
 was followed implicitly by Jortin." To find that, in a 
 collection of letters all distinctly dated as if by the writers 
 themselves, many thus assigned to the year 1511 were 
 certainly written in the year 1513, and that, in fact, not a 
 single date is to be taken on trust without inquiry, is certainly 
 an unpleasant experience to one in search of historical 
 accuracy. Mr. Brewer had, on a smaller scale, the same 
 problem with the letters of Erasmus that he had in reducing 
 to order the State papers of the realm. ■ 
 
 But we have not even yet exhausted the comprehensiveness 
 of Mr. Brewer's plan. 
 
 "I have included," he tells us, " a summary of the Privy 
 Seals and Signed Bills, both for their chronological and their 
 historical importance. These documents had to be fi-equently 
 searched during the formation of the Calendar. They have the 
 advantage of being dated with rigid accuracy.^ To the time of 
 the compilation of this Catalogue they were kept on files, with- 
 out any order. They are now chronologically arranged, and 
 their number has been augmented by subsequent researches. 
 
 "As the contents of the Privy Seals and Signed Bills are 
 generally entered on the Patent Polls, and form their most 
 valuable and interesting materials, it seemed only a small 
 extension of labour to include the remaining entries, and thus 
 make the Index to the Patent Rolls complete. That labour 
 was greatly lightened by a manuscript Calendar of these Polls, 
 prepared and in great part comj)leted by Mr. Poberts, the 
 present Secretary of the Record Office ; and though it did not 
 suit the purposes of this work to adopt the fuller descriptions 
 of Mr. Roberts, or follow, as he does, the miscellaneous order 
 of the Rolls, I am glad to acknowledge my obligations to the 
 conscientious labours of that gentleman. 
 
 " The collation of the Signed Bills and Fyiyj Seals was 
 often of service in detecting errors in the entries on the 
 Patent Rolls. Such mistakes have been noticed wherever 
 they seemed important. 
 
 ' There are a few unimportant exceptions.
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 " To the Patent Eolls I have added an abstract of the 
 Parliament Eolls, and propose to add one of the Privy 
 Council books as soon as they fall within the scope of my 
 work. The papers and memoranda lately brought to light 
 will supply great deficiencies in those books, and prove not 
 the least curious part of the whole collection. 
 
 " The Scotch Eolls contain the commissions of ambassadors 
 and agents accredited by England to Scotland, and curious 
 notices of the diplomatic relations between the two countries. 
 The French Eolls detail the same information for France, 
 with a larger amount of miscellaneous matter. Both were 
 frequently consulted by Eymer for his edition of the Foedera, 
 and a full summary of their contents will be found in this 
 Catalogue." 
 
 It was only after all this vast labour had been gone 
 through, after State papers and letters had been thoroughly 
 sifted and described, after Patents, Privy Seals, and Signed 
 Bills had been all likewise fully examined and summarized, 
 after the whole of those documents had been carefully 
 chronologized and the result already printed, that Mr. Brewer 
 sat down to write these prefaces, which are here presented in 
 another form. No historian certainly ever addressed himself 
 to his work with so much preparation — indeed, no one could 
 have done so, however able and willing, and however self- 
 denying, until the Government of this country had seen the 
 wisdom of authorizing the formation of a Calendar of its 
 Public Eecords and State Papers ; nor could the result have 
 been easily achieved even then if old restrictions and for- 
 malities had not been to a great extent removed, and the work 
 placed in the hands of one who knew so thoroughly what was 
 wanted in the interests of historical study.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. T. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HKXEY VIII. AXD EUROPE. 
 
 Contrast between the reiga of Henry VIII. and that of Henry YII 
 Diminished influence of England on the Continent 
 
 (Personal qualities of Henry YIII. ... 
 His poiJularity 
 His appearance ... 
 
 Contemporary sovereigns — Lewis XII. and Maximilian 
 Ferdinand of Arragon 
 Effects of the League of Cambray 
 Lewis XII. in Italy 
 Cordiality of England and France 
 The Council of Pisa 
 Loss of Italy by the French 
 
 Expedition to Spain under the Marquis of Dorset 
 Disaffection among the troops ... 
 They return home ... ... ... * ... 
 
 Wolsey has the management of the war 
 Gallant death of Sir Edward Howard 
 Henry inyades France in person 
 And James IV. invades England ... 
 The Duke of Orleans ... 
 Ferdinand's treachery 
 Lewis XII. a widower 
 Prince Charles and Henry's sister Mary 
 Marriage of Mary to Lewis XII. 
 
 1 
 3 
 
 4 
 7 
 8 
 10 
 11 
 12 
 13 
 15 
 1(> 
 18 
 18 
 20 
 21 
 22 
 25 
 26 
 27 
 31 
 32 
 36 
 37 
 39 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 INTERNAL CONDITION Ol' ENGLAND. 
 
 Pleasure and pageantry 
 /The King's early married life . . . 
 ^eath of his infant son 
 
 Results of the Wars of the Roses 
 
 II. 
 45 
 •Mi 
 48
 
 XIV 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Decline of Monasticism 
 
 The Privy Council 
 
 Public business falls chiefly on Wolsey 
 
 His personal appearance, history, and character 
 
 Ambassadors 
 
 Changes in social life ... 
 
 Crown lands 
 
 Wealth and power of the sovereign 
 
 PAGE 
 
 50 
 52 
 57 
 60 
 64 
 68 
 69 
 70 
 
 /^ 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SUFFOLK AND MARY.— DESIGNS OF FRANCIS I. 
 
 Death of Lewis XII. 
 
 Suffolk sent to Prance 
 
 His conversations with Francis I. 
 
 How Francis learned his secret 
 
 His negociations ... 
 /He and Mary privately married 
 ^ The King's displeasure at it 
 VThe open marriage 
 
 Francis starts for Italy 
 
 Crosses the Alps 
 
 The Cardinal of Sion 
 
 The battle of Marignano 
 
 ..c 74 
 
 76 
 
 ... 77 
 
 80 
 
 ... 85 
 
 86 
 
 ... 90 
 
 94 
 
 ... 96 
 
 100 
 
 ... 101 
 
 102 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE BATTLE OF MARIGNANO. 
 
 How the news was received in different quarters 
 
 Henry and his great galley 
 ' Richard Pace 
 
 The Swiss desii'e to serve England 
 —Pace's mission 
 
 •Maximilian ti-ies to get hold of the money 
 
 Sir Robert Wingfield 
 
 Persuaded by the Emperor to disobey instructions ' 
 
 Receives a rebuff from Wolsey, and stands upon his dignity 
 
 The expedition begins to move 
 
 The Emperor hangs back ... 
 
 And deserts his allies 
 
 Sion and Pace imprisoned 
 
 Maximilian extorts money from Pace 
 
 Offers the King the Duchy of Milan and the Imperial Crown 
 
 A further remittance for the Swiss sent to Pace ... 
 
 Who is threatened and cajoled for money by Maximilian 
 
 Wingfield complains of Pace to the King 
 
 Receives an unpleasant message for the Emperor 
 
 And brings down a severe censure on himself 
 
 105 
 106 
 112 
 113 
 114 
 116 
 117 
 119 
 121 
 122 
 124 
 127 
 132 
 132 
 135 
 136 
 137 
 140 
 141 
 145
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 XV 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TREATY OF XOYOX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prince Charles courts an alliance with Francis I. ... ... ... liS 
 
 Becomes King of Spain ... ... ... ... ... 151 
 
 The Treaty of Noyon ... ... ... ... ... ... 153 
 
 Conduct of the Emperor ... .. ... ... ... 154 
 
 He agrees to come to the Lovr Countries and remove Charles's councillors 155 
 
 Obtains money from England for the journey ... ... ... 157 
 
 Yet accepts the treaty of Noyon ... ... ... ... ... 159 
 
 Tunstal demands an explanation ... ... ... ... IGO 
 
 Wolsey pursues the same com-se as before ... ... ... ... 163 
 
 Tunstal's advice ... ... ... ... ... ... 166 
 
 Knight's view of matters ... ... ... ... ... ... 167 
 
 The King is fully informed already ... ... ... ... 171 
 
 The deceivers are outwitted ... ... ... ... ... 173 
 
 Need of Charles's presence in Spain ... ... ... ... 174 
 
 For which he wants money of England ... ... ... ... 179 
 
 His voyage to Spain ... ... ... ... ... ... 181 
 
 CHAPTEE, VI. 
 
 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 
 
 Wolsey's policy towards France 
 
 Secret negociations 
 
 Ofifer of Francis for the surrender of Tournay 
 /a French embassy comes over ... 
 \ Its object carefully disguised 
 X A matrimonial treaty 
 '1 A more splendid embassy comes 
 V Banquet to the ambassadors 
 
 T?he Dauphin man-ied by proxy to the Princess Mary 
 
 English embassy to France in return ... 
 
 184 
 186 
 188 
 190 
 190 
 194 
 197 
 199 
 200 
 202 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SCOTCH AFFAIRS. 
 
 Competitors for the see df St. Andrews 
 jSecond marriage of Queen Margaret 
 iHer adventures ... 
 .Arrival of Albany in Scotland ... 
 
 Intrigues of Lord Dacre 
 
 Margaret besieged in Stirling Castle 
 ■ She escapes to England ... 
 
 Her retura ... 
 ', Execution of Hume and his brother 
 \ Murder of La Bastie .. 
 
 207 
 208 
 209 
 211 
 212 
 213 
 215 
 221 
 222 
 223
 
 XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VJII. 
 
 DOMESTIC HISTORY. 
 
 TACJK 
 
 j The King's expenditure ... ... ... ... ... ... 226 
 
 / Pageants ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 228 
 
 ' Private life of the King ... ... ... ... ... ... 230 
 
 Birth of the Princess Marj ... ... ... ... .. 231 
 
 Henry's patronage of art and letters ... ... ... ... 2.33 
 
 Luther and indulgences ... ... ... ... .. 234 
 
 The sweating sickness ... ... ... ... ... ... 237 
 
 Wolsey Lord Chancellor ... ... ... ... ... 241 
 
 Henry's solicitude for him ... ... ... ... ... 212 
 
 fieueral dislike of foreigners ... ... ... ... ... 244 
 
 Evil May day ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 245 
 
 Dr. Standish and the Eoyal supremacy ... ... ... ... 250 j 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ■\V0LSEY CARDINAL AND LEG.VTE. 
 
 .,__--'A\'"olsey at the height of power ... ... ... ... ... 256 
 
 The plot against Leo X. ... ... ... ... ... 263 
 
 Polydore Vergil in disgrace ... ... . . ... ... 264 
 
 ' ~Wolsey made a Cardinal ... ... ... ... ... 266 
 
 The proposed crusade against the Turks ... ... ... ... 274 
 
 Campeggio's mission to England ... ... .. ... 279 
 
 His receiDtiou as joint legate with Wolsey ... ... ... ... 281 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TWO BOOKS or THE PEKIOH. 
 
 Erasmus's Greek Testament ... ... ... ... ... 285 
 
 More's Utopia ... ... ... ... ... ... 288, 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE IMPERIAL ELECTIO.V. 
 
 Death of the Emperor Maximilian ... ... . ... ... 298 
 
 The struggle for empire ... ... ... .. ... 303 
 
 Henry VIII. a candidate ... ... ... . ... 310 
 
 Wolsey finesses with the Pope .. . ... . . ... ... 312 
 
 Pace sent to Germany ... ... ... .. ... ... 314 
 
 Finds he is too late ... ... ... ... ... ... 317 
 
 Francis hides his resentment at Henry's intrigues ... ... ... 319 
 
 England also ostensibly cordial towards France ... ... ... 321 
 
 '/
 
 CONTENTS. xvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preparations for an interview between Henry YIII. and Francis ... 323 
 
 Charles V. less inclined to France ... ... .. ... 325 
 
 Offer of Mary's hand to the Emperor . . ... ... ... 326 
 
 Arransrements for an interview between Henry and Charles Y. ... 328 
 
 The Spaniards dilatory ... .. ... ... ... ... 332 
 
 The French active ... ... ... ... ... ... 334 
 
 Arrangements for the Frencli interview pressed forward ... ... 338 
 
 The Emperor's visit to England ... .. ... ... 345 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 Henry sails for Calais ... ... ... ... ... ... 347 
 
 Palace erected at Guisnes ... ... ... ... ... 348 
 
 Wolsey visits Francis at Arde ... ... ... ... ... 351 
 
 Meeting of the two Kings ... ... ... ... ... 353 
 
 Meeting of Henry VIII. and the Emperor at Gravelines ... ... 356 
 
 Mary's hand offered to Charles V. ... ... ... ... 359 
 
 England remonstrates against the fortification of Ai'de . . ... 361 
 
 Francis prepares to invade Italy ... ... . . . . 362 
 
 The Emperor's perplexities ... ... ... ... ... 364 
 
 Diet of Worms dissolved ... ... ... ... ... 366 
 
 The Emperor secretly negociates for a marriage with Portugal . . . 367 
 
 But Wolsey is not to be trifled with ... ... ... ... 369 
 
 And Tunstal is recalled .. ... ... ... ... ... 373 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE DUKE OF BUCKI?fGHAM. 
 
 Buckingham present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold ... ... 375 
 
 377 
 ... 379 
 
 382 
 ... 384 
 
 388 
 ... 392 
 
 395 
 ... 398 
 
 401 
 
 His instructions to his chaplain Gilbert ... 
 
 Kny vet not the informer ... 
 
 Examination of the Duke's surveyor 
 
 Apprehension of Buckingham 
 
 Depositions against him 
 (His trial 
 )His e.xccution 
 (what men said of it, abroad and at home 
 
 Division of his property 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE CALAIS CONFEKENCE. 
 
 Policy of Wolsey to prevent a union of Francis and the Emperor ... 4-05 
 
 Francis prepares for war ... ... ... ••• ••• ^^ 
 
 Fitzwilliam sent to Franco ... ■• ... • ■•• '1<)9 
 
 The Emperor and Francis both accept the mediation of England ... 412
 
 XVlll 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Wolsey to be sent to Calais, ostensibly to adjust their differences 
 
 Interview of Henry with the Imperial ambassadors 
 
 Wolsey sets out ... 
 
 Gives audience to the Imperial and French ambassadors . . . 
 
 Wolsey deceives Francis ... 
 
 Fitzwilliam's indignant answer to Marguerite 
 
 Return of Wolsey 
 
 He receives the Abbej^ of St. Alban's 
 
 PACE 
 
 414 
 416 
 418 
 419 
 421 
 422 
 425 
 427 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DEATH OF LEO X. WAR WITH FRA.VCE. 
 
 Death of Leo X. ... ... ... ... 
 
 His triumph over the French ... 
 
 Wolsey a candidate for the papacy ... 
 
 His extraordinary proposal to the Bishop of Elua 
 
 The Conclave 
 
 Election of Adrian VI. 
 
 His character 
 
 War declared against France ... 
 
 The Emperor's second visit to England 
 
 Difficulties of the commissariat 
 
 Invasion of Fi-ance 
 
 The treason of Bourbon 
 
 The Emperor thinks of marrying Isabella of Portugal 
 
 Beaiu-ain sent a second time to England 
 
 His intrigue with Bourbon apart 
 
 429 
 430 
 433 
 438 
 440 
 447 
 448 
 451 
 451 
 454 
 456 
 458 
 463 
 465 
 466 
 
 \ 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE PARLTAMEN'T OF 1523. 
 
 Parliament summoned ... ... ... ... ... 4^9 
 
 Sir Thomas More chosen Sjaeaker . . ... ... ... 470 
 
 Tradition of his conduct as Speaker ... ... ... 47]^ 
 
 Wolsey proposes a subsidy ... ... ... ... . . 473 
 
 The House declines to discuss matters in his presence ... ... 475 
 
 Wolsey rejects the grant of the Commons ... ... ... 476 
 
 Contemporary account of the debates ... ... ... ... 473 
 
 Mnrmurs in the country ... ... ... ... ... 479 
 
 The Act for the subsidy ... ... ... ... ... 431 
 
 Early history of Thomas Cromwell .. ... ... ... 482 
 
 His speech in Parliament ... ... ... ... ... ... 434 
 
 Prorogation of Parliament ... ... ... ... ... 439 
 
 Payment of members ... ... ... ... ... ... 4,g\ 
 
 The convocations of York and Canterbury summoned to meet at West- 
 minster ... ... ... ... ... ... 492 
 
 The loan ... ... ... ... ... ... 49.], 
 
 Oppressive taxation ... ... ... ... ... ... 495 
 
 A
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 SIX 
 
 V 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 INVASION OF FRANCE. 
 
 Henry's expectation of conquering France . . . 
 
 Revolt of Bourbon 
 
 The Venetians abandon France 
 
 The spirit of Francis rises to the emergency 
 
 Suffolk invades France 
 
 Proposed siege of Boalogne 
 
 Alarm at Paris ... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 498 
 499 
 500 
 503 
 504 
 505 
 509 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
 How Scotland was affected by the treaty between England and France 511 
 
 ^><Margaret seeks a divorce from Angus ... ... ... ... 513 
 
 And promotes the return of Albany ... ... ... ... 514 
 
 Who returns accordingly ... ... ... ... ... 519 
 
 Dacre's bitter reply to Margaret ... ... ... ... ... 521 
 
 Ga win Douglas sent to England ... ... ... ... 523 
 
 Angus makes peace with Albany ... ... ... ... ... 525 
 
 Clarencieux sent to Scotland ... ... ... .. ... 52(> 
 
 Henry writes to the Estates of Scotland, demanding the dismissal of 
 
 Albany ... ... ... ... ... ... 527 
 
 Henry's demands rejected ... ... ... ... ... 529 
 
 Neither England nor Scotland desires war ... ... ... ... 529 
 
 The Scots determine, too late, to invade England ... ... 531 
 
 While secret negociations proceed ... ... ... ... ... 531 
 
 Albany advances to the Borders ... ... ... ... 532 
 
 Agrees to a truce ... ... ... ... ... ... 533 
 
 Dacre's letter to Wolsey on the subject ... ... ... SSI- 
 Albany returns to France .. . ... ..-. ... ... ... 537 
 
 Effects of his withdrawal ... ... ... ... ... 538 
 
 Surrey takes the command against Scotland ... ... ... 510 
 
 The war renewed ... ... ... ... ... ... 542 
 
 */^Iargaret's ambition as peacemaker ... ... ... ... 514 
 
 Albany's return to Scotland ... ... ... .. ... 51" 
 
 Margaret wavers ... ... ... ... ... ... 550 
 
 Albany makes great preparations against England W ... ... 551 
 
 Alarm of Surrey ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 553 
 
 Wolscy's sagacious advice ... ... ... ... ... 554 
 
 Albany's attack on Wark Castle ... ... ... ... ... 557 
 
 His retreat ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 558 
 
 Effect of the Border wars .. ... ... ... ... ... 5f>1 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DEATH or. ADRIAN VI. SIEGE OF UIIODES. 
 
 Deatli of Adrian VI. 
 
 His character and administration 
 
 5G5 / 
 5(;(>/
 
 <' 
 
 XX CONTEMTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 His distress at the capture of Rhodes ... ... ... ... 570^ 
 
 Wolsey and the papacy ... . . . . ... ... 573 
 
 The Conclave ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 576 
 
 Election of Clement VII. ... ... ... ... ... 579^ 
 
 The siege and capture of Rhodes ... ... ... ... ... 580 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LUTHER AND HENRY VIII. 
 
 /The Augustinian Friars of Saxony 
 Luther's Scholastic training 
 
 The age preceding the Reformation not particularly immoral . . 
 Henry's ambition to write against heresy 
 
 Writes in reply to Luther's treatise, De Cnpticitafe Bahylonica 
 His book presented to the Pope 
 Title of J'tcZei Pe/ensor given to Henry 
 Luther's reply to the King 
 More' 8 answer to Luther .. 
 
 Appendix ... ... ... ... .. ... ... (310 
 
 507^ 
 
 599 
 
 600 
 
 601 
 
 602 
 
 603 
 
 605 
 
 606 
 
 60S
 
 THE PtEIGN OF HENEY VIII. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 HENRY VIII. AND EUROPE. 
 
 The Middle Ages came to a close in England with the death of 
 Henry VII. and the accession of his son. The contrast 
 between the two reigns, even taken by themselves, is typical 
 of an expiring feudalism and the dawn of a new era. It is 
 reflected not merely in the events and literatm^e of the period, 
 but still more vividly in the correspondence of Henry VIII.'s 
 time as compared with that of his father. Where the 
 documents of the reign of Henry VII. are reckoned by tens, 
 those of Henry VIII. may be reckoned by hundreds. Whilst, 
 under the former, reports of ministers and ambassadors are 
 confined to political news, told in general with a dryness and 
 succintness characteristic of the monarch to whom they were 
 addressed, the letters addressed to Henry VIII. are full of 
 miscellaneous information and lively personal details. The 
 writers seem to be conscious that the young King takes more 
 than ordinary interest in the appearance, manners, doings, 
 and designs of his contemporaries. His personality makes 
 itself felt immediately on his accession ; it penetrates in 
 different degrees all classes in the nation, from the highest to 
 the lowest. Though the prime ministers and agents of his 
 father were retained, and the political maxims of the last 
 reign remained unchanged, the spirit of the times is trans- 
 formed. The youth, the frankness, and even that ostentation 
 in which the secure position of Henry VIII. enabled him to 
 indulge, broke down that reserve in which the closer nature 
 and more perilous position of his father induced liiiu con- 
 tinually to fence himself. 
 
 That change finds its most adequate expression in t]](! papers 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 2 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [AD. 
 
 to which the modern student has access through the " Calen- 
 dar," pubHshed in our days by the authority of the Govern- 
 ment. In the earher pages of that work little more will be 
 found than the names and offices of those who were destined 
 to play their parts in the great drama that followed and 
 developed itself with unexampled rapidity and energy. Whole 
 pages are occupied with notices of commissions, rolls of 
 sheriffs, appointments at court — indications of a regular 
 order long established — as if nothing had interrupted for 
 centuries the even flow of the nation, and no such event as 
 the Keformation were at hand to break up the great deeps. 
 But as the reign proceeds questions of greater moment break 
 upon the nation ; the correspondence multiplies in variety and 
 detail. The individuality of the writers is more strikingly 
 displayed ; a new era has risen with the new reign, deepening 
 every hour into the fuller day. A more lively curiosity in the 
 proceedings of their contemporaries, especially on the Conti- 
 nent, from which they had long been virtually excluded, 
 pervades the mind of Englishmen. A fuller conviction exists 
 of their own strength, as of men entering on and fully pre- 
 pared for a new stage of existence. Their judgment is more 
 confident and penetrating, less apt to submit to established 
 traditions, less willing to defer to constituted authority. Their 
 criticisms on things passing around them are freer and not 
 unfrequently marked with indignation. Their reports of the 
 times, lively and minute, contain shrewd observations on the 
 characters, appearance, and actions of those with whom these 
 English agents have to deal. Already they begin to display 
 the peculiar temper and genius of the nation. Plodding and 
 cautious, not easily susceptible of emotion, they look with 
 apparent stolidity, real or assumed, on what is before them. 
 Inferior in statecraft to the Frenchman or the Spaniard, the 
 veteran diplomatists of Europe thought it scarcely worth while 
 to deceive such inexperienced negociators. It was no credit 
 to assume the mask before men who had never sounded the 
 turbid depths of political intrigue. Everywhere on the Conti- 
 nent the notion prevailed that England was wealthy and 
 easily duped, even by intellects of no heavier calibre than 
 Maximilian's. It possessed none of the warlike or administra- 
 tive genius of its great rival ; and none of the prestige which 
 still clung to the Holy Eoman Empire. It was not fit to be 
 named in the same breath with the reserved and metaj)hysical 
 Spaniard. A wealthy parvenu in the great family of nations
 
 1509.] HIS ACCESSION. 3 
 
 — no more — its riches and resources were to patch up the 
 broken finances of Ferdinand, Lewis, or the Empire. And 
 the correspondence of the time shows the little pains taken 
 by the sovereigns and statesmen of the age to conceal their 
 designs, or veil the contempt they entertained for English 
 simpHcit}^ and honesty. 
 
 The feeling was not unnatural. In the long civil wars 
 which had desolated the country during the last century, Eng- 
 land had lost its influence on the Continent. From policy and 
 temperament Henry VII. was little inclined to interfere in 
 foreign politics. It was enough to provide for the security of 
 his throne. He was satisfied to feel his way without in- 
 dulging in needless exhibitions of confidence or chivalrous 
 designs, which might bring glory, but certainly brought 
 hazard. Great projects, if he formed any, he kept to himself, 
 and before the time for action had arrived he had grown 
 afraid of his own conceptions. So, during his reign, England 
 rose to no higher estimate on the Continent than that of a third 
 or fourth rate power. Even this degree of importance was 
 rather accorded to the sagacity of a king, whose wonderful 
 abiUty had been displayed tlirough twenty years of unexampled 
 dif&culty, than to the genius and character of the nation itself. 
 
 But it was not to be expected that the respect paid to the 
 experience and reserve of Henry VII. should be as submis- 
 sively yielded to the youth of Henry VIII. The old sovereigns 
 of Europe were not at all prepared to recognize his right of 
 interference in continental politics. He was but a youth 
 among kings and emperors old enough to be his uncles. His 
 gaiety of disposition and unbounded generosity were no secret. 
 Without the title of Catholic or Christian, he was the most 
 Christian and Catholic son of the Church, To Ferdinand he 
 paid the deference of a son-in-law, to Maximilian that of a 
 nephew. Obligations which they considered as nominal, ho 
 regarded as real ; for Pope, father-in-law, or ally, would 
 never, at any moment, have scrupled to sacrifice to their own 
 interests a son and a nephew who entertained such romantic 
 notions of duty. The difference of their conceptions of honour 
 from his is abundantly manifested in State papers ; and no 
 one who examines these sources will be at a loss to see that 
 they would have engaged Henry VIII., under the most 
 solemn promises of aid and fidelity, to the most perilous 
 adventures, and then have shamelessiy abandoned him, 
 whenever it suited their convenience.
 
 4 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 At his accession to the crown he was in the prime of youth 
 and manly beauty. Had he lived in a more poetic age and 
 died before his divorce, he might, without any great effort of 
 imagination, have stood for the hero of an epic poem. He 
 possessed just those qualities which Englishmen admire in 
 their rulers at all times — a fund of good temper, occasionally 
 broken by sudden bursts of anger, vast muscular strength, 
 and unflinching courage. In stature he towered above all his 
 contemporaries. From the brilliant crowd that surrounded 
 him he could at once be distinguished by his commanding 
 figure, and the superior graces of his person. In an age 
 remarkable for feats of strength, and when bodily skill was 
 held in highest estimation, no one outdid him in the tourna- 
 ment. Man and horse fell before him, and lance after lance, 
 at the jousts held in Tournay in honour of the Lady Margaret 
 and the Emperor Maximilian.^ It may be thought that the 
 courtesy of the age and place prevented either sul)ject or 
 foreigner from contesting the palm with one who commanded 
 the armies of England. But other feats are recorded of his 
 personal skill and activity, which can scarcely be attributed 
 to flattery. He was no less an adept in the great national 
 weapon than in the more exclusively aristocratic pastime of 
 the tilt-yard. He drew the best bow of his age ; and in the 
 mastery of it was a match for the tallest archers of his own 
 guard. Tayler, then clerk of the parliament, who served in 
 the siege of Tournay, tells in his amusing Diary ^ how he saw 
 the King diverting himself with his archers in a private 
 garden, and as much surpassing them in their own weapon as 
 he exceeded them in the graces of his person. He spoke 
 French, Italian, and Spanish.^ Of his proficiency in Latin a 
 
 ^ Sagudino, an unexceptionable excelling all the others, shivering 
 
 witness, says : " The preparations for many lances, and unhorsing one of his 
 
 the joust being at length accomplished, opponents: so that the show was 
 
 this most serene King made his ap- most beautiful, and I only regret not 
 
 pearance in very great pomp. On havintr time to describe it in full" 
 
 his side were ten of these noblemen on (Giustinian's Desp., i. 81). 
 most capital horses, all with housings ^ " Calendar," vol. i. No. 4284. 
 
 of one sort, namely, with cloth of gold This work, of which the exact title 
 
 with a raised pile, his Majesty's war. is " Letters and Papers, Foreign and 
 
 horse being caparisoned in the same Domestic, of the Reign of Hetiry 
 
 manner. And in truth he looked like VIII.," will be understood to be re- 
 
 St. George, in person, on its back. ferred to hereafter (whenever no other 
 
 The opposing party consisted of ten authority is cited) by such references 
 
 other noblemen, also in rich array, and as I. 4284, in which the Roman number 
 
 very well mounted, so that really I indicates the volume, and the Arabic 
 
 never saw such a sight. Then they the number of the entry in that volume, 
 
 began to joust, and continued tliis sport unless a page is specified instead of 
 
 for three hours, to the constant sound the number of the entiy. — Ed. 
 of the trumpets and drams, the King ^ In the Bibliotheque Nationiale
 
 1509.] HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 5 
 
 specimen has been preserved among the letters of Erasmus. 
 All suspicion of its genuineness is removed by the positive 
 assertion of Erasmus, that he had seen the original and 
 corrections in the Prince's own hand. In the business of the 
 State, he was, with the exception of Wolsey, the most assiduous 
 man in his dominions. He read and noted the despatches of 
 his ministers and ambassadors without the aid of a secretary 
 or interpreter. He spoke French fluently, though he had 
 never been in France ; and we have a curious confirmation of 
 his ability in this respect in a letter from the Lady Margaret 
 of Savoy. When Suffolk, in a fit of uncouth gallantry, made 
 love to this lady at Tournay, and stole a ring from her finger, 
 she was unable to make him understand her wish to reclaim 
 it, from his ignorance of French. " One night at Tournay, 
 being at the banquet, after the banquet he put himself upon 
 his knees before me, and me speaking and him playing, he 
 drew from my finger the ring and put it upon his, and since 
 (afterwards) showed it to me : and I took to laugh, and to 
 him said that he was a thief, and that I thought not that the 
 Elng had with him led thieves out of his country. This word 
 larron he could not understand." So she was compelled to call 
 in the aid of the King to interpret her meaning to the Duke.-^ 
 
 Among his lighter accomplishments, still more rare 
 among the sovereigns and nobility of that age, was his skill in 
 the practice and theory of music. We learn from Sagudino,^ 
 secretary to Giustinian, who visited England in 1515, that the 
 King practised the lute, organ, and harpsichord^ "day and 
 night," and was passionately fond of music. " He was 
 extremely skilled in music," is the remark of Giustinian an 
 Italian, accustomed to hear the best composers of his own 
 country, when the musicians of Italy were scarcely less 
 eminent than its painters.* Nicolo Sagudino writes in 1517 
 that "he remained ten days at Eichmond with the ambassador, 
 and in the evening they enjoyed hearing the King play and 
 sing, and seeing him dance, and run at the ring by day ; in 
 all which exercises he acquitted himself divinely." 
 
 The vast number of warrants, letters, and despatches 
 
 at Paris, there is an entire letter in * Or spinet accordiufj to Mr. 
 
 French, the body and address in the Brown's note at p. 83. The inatrn- 
 
 King's hand, evidently composed ex- mcnt was in all jn-obability tho 
 
 clusively by himself. It is addressed virginals, of which wo hoar so much 
 
 to Francis I., on the birth of Edward in those days. — I'jD. 
 VI. and the death of Jano Seymour. ■• For furtlier proofs, sco Mr. Jl. 
 
 ' I. 4851. Brown's note to Giust. Desp., i. ^97. 
 
 * Gia.st. Desp., i. 80.
 
 6 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 which every day demanded his attention and required his 
 signature — and such a signature as was not struck off in a 
 hurry — is entirely at variance with the popular notion that 
 he gave himself up wholly to amusement, and was indifferent 
 to more serious occupations. Had such been the case the 
 business of the nation must have fallen into confusion or 
 come to a stand, and we should have seen some traces of it 
 in the correspondence of the time. On the contrary, nothing 
 could exceed the regularity and despatch in every department 
 of the State, as shown by the documents now preserved in the 
 Eecord Office. Above all, is the interest Henry took in the 
 navy, and the corresponding zeal he was able to make others 
 feel for this important branch of the service. Men of inferior 
 rank were sure of his favour and attentive hearing if they had 
 any experience of the sea, or could communicate information 
 on this favourite subject. Details about the speed, the size, 
 and capacity of his ships never came amiss. When Gerard 
 de Pleine arrived in England, from the Lady Margaret, he 
 found the King in his new ship the Great Harry, with the 
 Queen, the bishops, and the nobility,^ acting as a guide to his 
 new visitors. Admiral Howard,^ who fell in the great action 
 in Brest, dwells with minute complacency on the speed of the 
 different vessels under his command. He enlarges on the 
 theme, with the pride and garrulity of a sailor, to no cold or 
 indifferent ear : " Sir, your good ship is the flower, I trow, of 
 all ships that ever sailed." — " Sir, she is the noblest ship 
 of sail, is this great ship at this hour, that I trow be in 
 Christendom." And then he goes on to tell how they came 
 in one after another. " And there was a foul tail between the 
 Mary George and another." And he begs he may be excused 
 the length of his letter, but the King commanded him "to 
 send word how every ship did sail." 
 ^^^ Sis delight in gorgeous pageantry and splendid ceremonial, 
 if without any studied design, was not without advantage. 
 Cloth of gold and tissue, New Year's gifts, Christmas mas- 
 querades and May-day mummeries, fell with heavy expense 
 on the nobility, but afforded a cheap and gratuitous amuse- 
 ment to the people. The roughest of the populace were not 
 excluded from their share in the enjoyment. Sometimes, in 
 a boisterous fit of delight, he would allow and even invite the 
 lookers-on to scramble for the rich ornaments of his own dress 
 and those of his courtiers. Unlike his father, he showed him- 
 
 » I. 5173. * I. p. 514. 
 
 \
 
 1509.] HIS POPULARITY. 7 
 
 self everywhere. He entered with ease into the sports of 
 others, and allowed them with equal ease to share in his. To 
 this hearty compliance with the national humour, which no 
 subsequent acts, however arbitrary or cruel, could altogether 
 obliterate ; to the impression produced by his frankness and 
 good humour ; to his unquestionable courage, and ability to 
 hold his own against all comers, without the adventitious aid 
 of his exalted position — Henry VIII. owed much of that 
 popularityjwhich seems unintelligible to modern notions. 
 
 In fact, it is almost impossible to exaggerate his popularity 
 during those early years, or the fascination which he exercised 
 over the minds of his subjects. The old feudal nobility, scarred 
 and broken by the civil broils of the last century, had never 
 recovered that haughty independence which had once success- 
 fully defied the royal authority. Their spirit had fallen with 
 their power; and the small remnant that survived remembered 
 too well the unbending rule of Henry VII. to venture on fresh 
 rebellions. They acquiesced in the succession of his son with 
 a tameness and submission strikingly at variance with the 
 rugged insubordination of their ancestors. They had nothing 
 to fear, if they had little to hope from his frankness. The 
 clergy, insecure, and jealous of the laity, expected to find a 
 champion in one who was universally acknowledged to be the 
 most orthodox and dutiful son of the Church ; whilst the 
 people, looking little beyond the^ gratification of the hour, 
 were delighted with the splendour and munificence of the new 
 reign, which stood out in striking contrast to the parsimonious 
 and almost puritanical reserve of Henry A^II. 
 
 I will not undertake to say how much of his popularity 
 was to be attributed to other motives than those of loyalty. 
 The position of the King was remarkable ; he was the poise 
 and centre of the nation, and no party in it could afford to 
 neglect his favours. The factions of the time regarded each 
 other with watchful jealousy. Their unanimity was that of 
 enemies who take the measure of each other's strength, and 
 are unwilling to commence the strife. In the council, Norfolk, 
 Surrey, and Buckingham looked with jealous eye on the in- 
 fluence of Fox and the ecclesiastics. The predilection of 
 Henry for theology, his love of learning and the fine arts, 
 seemed to give the clergy a hold upon him which the lay 
 members of the council dreaded and despised. The bishops 
 were on their part equally apprehensive of Henry's love of 
 enterprise, and his dreams of conquest. Outside the cabinet
 
 8 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 more unanimity apparently prevailed. The old Yorkist faction 
 showed no symptoms of animation. With great wisdom and 
 forbearance Henry YII. had condoned the offences of many of 
 the Northern chieftains, and advanced them to place, if not 
 to power. The heads of the party had been laid in the dust, 
 and there was no man of sufficient trust or strength to bind 
 the smouldering embers into a firebrand, and launch it upon 
 the rich provinces of the South. But there were elements of 
 discord, though dispersed and for the present harmless, which 
 one false move at home, one signal discomfiture abroad, 
 would have brought into perilous union. These Northern 
 chiefs still remembered Pdchard HI., and yielded a precarious 
 subjection. Brought up from their infancy to war, nursed in 
 the forays of the Borders, accustomed to obey no laws except 
 those of their own imposing, they looked with displeasure on 
 a silken King, reigning on the banks of the Thames, and 
 treated his deputies and lieutenants with ill-disguised insolence 
 and contempt. The gentry and nobility of Yorkshire, Cum- 
 berland, Westmoreland, and the Borders jjrojDortioned their 
 obedience to then* inclination. They harboured the King's 
 enemies, they thwarted his lieutenants of the Marches, or 
 betrayed them to the Scotch. 
 
 But for the present, and in the South at least, Englishmen 
 had found at last a living counterpart of that ideal loyalty 
 which they had often longed for, and seldom been able to 
 realize. That ideal is not ours ; it falls far short of our con- 
 ceptions ; still it must be judged by the times. And no 
 attentive reader of the papers or chronicles of the reign will be 
 at a loss to find a counterpart to those passionate expressions 
 of loyalty which Shakespeare has put into the mouth of Wolsey. 
 
 For the personal appearance of the King we are indebted 
 to the accounts of strangers. Giustinian, the Venetian 
 ambassador, in a secret memoir intended for the Seignory, 
 thus described him a year or two after his accession : " His 
 Majesty," he says, " is twenty-nine years old, and extremely 
 handsome. Nature could not have done more for him. He 
 is much handsomer than any other sovereign in Christendom ; 
 a great deal handsomer than the King of France ; very fair, 
 and his whole frame admirably proportioned. On hearing 
 that Francis I. wore a beard, he allowed his own to grow ; 
 and as it is reddish, he has now got a beard that looks like 
 gold. He is very accomplished ; a good musician ; composes 
 well; is a most capital horseman; a fine jouster; speaks
 
 1509.] HIS PERSONAL APPEARANCE. 9 
 
 good French, Latin, and Spanish ; is very religious ; hears 
 three masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes five on 
 other days. He hears the Office every day in the Queen's 
 Chamber ; that is to say, vesper and compline. He is very 
 fond of hunting, and never takes his diversion without tiring 
 eight or ten horses, which he causes to be stationed beforehand 
 along the line of country he means to take ; and when one is 
 tired he mounts another, and before he gets home they are all 
 exhausted. He is extremely fond of tennis, at which game it 
 is the prettiest thing in the world to see him play, his fair 
 skin glowing through a shirt of the finest texture." ^ 
 
 To the same purport is an earlier account written in 1515 
 by the Venetian Pasqualigo. " His Majesty," says the am- 
 bassador, "is the handsomest potentate lever set eyes on: 
 above the usual height, with an extremely fine calf to his leg ; 
 his complexion very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed 
 straight and short in the French fashion, and a round face, 
 so very beautiful that it would become a pretty woman, his 
 throat being rather long and thick." ^ 
 
 To the same authorities we are indebted for an account of 
 the King's appearance at a solemn reception. After passing 
 the ranks of the body-guard, which consisted of three hundred 
 halberdiers, with silver breastplates, who " were all as big as 
 giants," he and his fellows were brought to the King. They 
 found him standing under a canopy of cloth of gold, leaning 
 against his gilt throne, on which lay a gold brocade cushion, 
 with the gold sword of state. " He wore a cap of crimson 
 velvet, in the French fashion, and the brim was looped up all 
 round with lacets and gold enamelled tags. His dou])let was 
 in the Swiss fashion, striped alternately with white and 
 crimson satin, and his hose were scarlet, and all slashed from 
 the knee upwards. Very close round his neck he had a gold 
 collar, from which there hung a rough cut diamond, the size 
 of the largest walnut I ever saw, and to this was suspended a 
 most ])eautiful and very large round pearl. His mantle was of 
 purple velvet lined with white satin, the sleeves open, with 
 a train more than four Venetian yards long. This mantle 
 was girt in front like a gown, with a thick gold cord, from 
 which there hung large golden acorns like those suspended 
 from a cardinal's hat ; over this mantle was a very handsome 
 gold collar, with a pendant St. George entirely of diamonds. 
 Beneath the mantle he wore a pouch of cloth of gold, which 
 
 ' GiuBt. Desp., ii. ;j]2. ^ Ibid., i. 8G.
 
 10 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 covered a dagger ; and his fingers were one mass of jewelled 
 rings." ^ 
 
 But all this splendour must have appeared more dazzling 
 when contrasted with the courts and persons of contemporary 
 sovereigns. Age had not yet abated the ambition of Lewis XII. 
 or blunted the activity of his intellect, but it had made sad 
 ravages in his person. Long before his death at the age of 
 fifty-three, he is everywhere spoken of as an infirm old man, 
 the victim of disease. " Has not the King of France had the 
 small pox ? " asks a nobleman gf Gerard de Pleine, with 
 malicious curiosity.^ The terms applied to him in Peter 
 Martyr's unceremonious letters are far from flattering. On^ 
 his own acknowledgment to the English ambassadors, "he 
 was a sickly body," and not fond of having too curious eyes 
 about him.^ His treasures had been exhausted in ruinous 
 wars. He had neither the inclination nor the means for that 
 pomp and splendour which the parsimony of Henry VII. had 
 liberally accumulated for Henry VIII. 
 
 The bankrupt Emperor Maximilian, " the man of few 
 pence," as he was styled in derision throughout Europe, had 
 even less means for rivalling the splendour of the English 
 court. Always receiving large sums for services he never 
 performed, the activity of his intellect was concentrated on 
 shifts and expedients for raising money which never made 
 him richer. In the pursuit of it, there was no meanness to 
 which he would not stoop, even to the sale of honour and 
 of empire. The correspondence contained in this volume 
 abounds with such instances. • The most barefaced and im- 
 portunate of beggars, he felt no delicacy in appropriating to 
 his own use the sums entrusted him for other purposes. And 
 yet he set up a claim for fastidiousness and modesty. He 
 was too scrupulous and conscientious ; and allowed his pride 
 to stand in the way of his interests ! When Dr. Knight, on 
 April 18, 1514, asked Lady Margaret for an explanation of 
 some suspicious movements of the Emperor, then coquetting 
 with France in violation of his written engagements, she said 
 "she Jid not know the reason; but from the manner which 
 was pJbuliar to her fat4]^r and her, and all their house, there 
 was sfmething he would have which he would not press." 
 She llmented that such was the manner of their house ; and 
 
 ' Ginst. Desp., i. 86. says he was the victim of gout and 
 
 * I. 5203. elephantiasis. (Ep. 427.) But, of 
 
 ^ Lewis evidently suffered from coui'se, he does not speak technically. 
 Bome scorbutic affection, Peter Martyr
 
 1509.] CONTEMPORAKY SOVEREIGNS. 11 
 
 had it been her aud her father's fortune to have come of a 
 low house and humble stock, her father and herself must have 
 died for hunger, " rather than their courage should have 
 served them to have asked a'-God's name." In the English 
 camp at Tournay he took pay and served as a soldier under 
 the King of England. There Tayler, clerk of the Parliament, 
 saw him, and thus describes this renowned Head of the Holy 
 Pioman Empire in his diary already noticed: " The Emperor," 
 he says,^ "is of middle height, with open and manly counte- 
 nance and pale complexion. He has a snub nose aud a grey 
 beard; is affable, frugal, and an enemy to pomp. His 
 attendants are dressed in black silk or woollen." 
 
 The portrait of Ferdinand, as drawn by contemporaneous 
 and independent writers, is scarcely more flattering. Peter 
 Martyr, who was in constant attendance upon him at Valla- 
 dolid, ridicules his uxoriousness, in common with the rest of 
 the world, and Machiavelli with equal truth condemns his 
 suspicious and niggardly disposition. His ungenerous or 
 timid j)olicy had estranged from his councils the ablest of his 
 nobility. In his single hand he still grasped all the adminis- 
 trative functions of the State, which had long since outgrown 
 his powers. "For in truth, sovereign lord," says Stile,^ 
 addressing Henry VIII., " according to my allegiance and 
 fidelity unto your Highness, the King of Arragon, your good 
 father, is a noble, wise, and well fortunate prince of himself, 
 having right few noblemen of his council unto whom he may 
 surely trust, except that it be his secretary Almacan, and a 
 gentleman called Fernando de Vega, and other such men 
 learned in the law, and men of base manner (low degree) ; 
 and never a lord meddles in his counsel, except the Conde de 
 Cifuentes, which is a wise knight, and of no great lands nor 
 rents. For the which, and it please your grace, the King your 
 said good father taketh great labour and pain with his royal 
 person, daily giving audience, and hearing all the matters and 
 causes of this realm, and of all his realms, himself, be they of 
 never so little substance ; for all the causes here that resound 
 not to their own profits, or perforce, be endless." 
 
 Such were the contemporaries of Henry VIII. As their 
 political intrigues occupy a prominent place in history from 
 the very outset of the reign, some remarks on the object which 
 each of them had in view, will enable the reader to follow the 
 course of events with greater facility. 
 
 ' I. p. 625. * I. 490.
 
 12 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 For the first two years after Henry's accession, England 
 remained little more than an idle spectatbr of foreign in- 
 trigues. The league of Cambray ^ had virtually excluded it 
 from all share in continental politics, and prostrated Europe 
 at the feet of a powerful triumvirate. Henry VII. had quietly' 
 acquiesced in the dishonest compact. We must in charity 
 believe that his closeness towards the latter years of his life 
 had a little impaired and " perished his understanding."^ 
 
 Ostensibly the work of Margaret of Savoy, the real author 
 of this league was George Cardinal d'Amboise, who willingly 
 abandoned the empty honour of its consummation to that 
 princess, the daughter and confidante of Maximilian, whilst 
 the substantial benefits of its arrangements were reaped by 
 France. That Maximilian should have been cajoled might 
 have been expected ; that Julius II. should have been a con- 
 senting party can be attributed only to the blindness of his 
 exasperation against the Venetians. By the terms of the 
 compact Eimini and Ravenna were reserved for the Pope ; 
 Brescia, Bergamo, Crema, and Cremona, for Lewis XII. ; the 
 more splendid acquisitions of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, and 
 Friuli fell to Maximilian ; Trano and Otranto to Ferdinand. 
 The real advantage rested with Lewis. He was content for 
 the time to abandon his claim upon the rich cities of the 
 south ; for what man of military genius would commit so 
 capital a blunder as to make the southern peninsula of Italy 
 the basis of great military operations ? He needed, moreover, 
 Ferdinand's friendship. Content with the modest acquisition 
 of Crema and Cremona, he abandoned to Maximilian the rich 
 prizes of Padua and Verona. But Padua and Verona were 
 more tempting to sight than tractable to the touch. Their 
 subjection would have demanded all the energy, skill, and 
 resources which the greatest military power could command ; 
 it might be left with perfect safety to the poor, ill-adjusted, 
 desultory efi^orts of one whose greatest schemes evaporated in 
 bluster. Whilst Ferdinand, safe in the possession of a wealthy 
 and obedient son-in-law, was weaving his nets, like a solitary 
 spider, for his own exclusive advantage, whilst Julius was 
 snorting vengeance, and Maximilian dozing over his stove,^ 
 
 ' Concluded Dec. 1, 1508. publications show that he tried to 
 
 * Bacon's Essay on " Friendship." separate the confederates. But it 
 
 — It is, perhaps, too much to say was not his interest to quarrel with 
 
 that Heniy VII. " acquiesced in the France. — Ed. 
 
 dishonest compact." He simply had ' The expression of Erasmus. His 
 
 nothing to do with it ; and recent Flemish subjects were even less com-
 
 Io09.] LEWIS XII. IN ITALY. 13 
 
 Lewis had started off to the scene of conquest. With the 
 energy and adrc^tness of his nation, he had opened the 
 campaign as early as April, 1509. By the battle of Agnadel, 
 on the 14th May, and the capture of the Venetian general 
 D'Alviano, he had become master in effect of the north of 
 Italy. 
 
 This was evidently more than his good friends and con- 
 federates had anticipated, with the exception, perhaps, of 
 Maximilian. He writes with unaffected delight to his daughter 
 Margaret of the successes of his faithful ally, and is persuaded 
 that such good fortune is only a prelude to that promised aid 
 of five hundred lances which Lewis had engaged to lend him 
 for the reduction of Padua. With very different feelings 
 Julius beheld the ascendancy of his hated rival. He bit his 
 lips and stroked his beard in vexation.^ He had baited the 
 trap for himself by his own intemperate passion. Ferdinand 
 concealed his feelings. He would not entrust them even to 
 his son-in-law. So much of them, however, as he permitted 
 to transpire are made known to us in a letter of John Stile, 
 then in the court of Arragon, dated September 9, 1509.^ 
 " Touching the commandment of your Highness," proceeds 
 the ambassador in his quaint and homely style, " I demanded 
 of the King your good father, how that his Majesty intendeth 
 for to be and continue in amity with the Emperor and with 
 the French King, and with evcriche of the said princes. To 
 the which, an it please your Grace, the answer of the King 
 your good father was, that he is fully determined for to con- 
 tinue in amity with the Emperor, for that there is none other 
 cause reasonable betwixt them, by the which any variance or 
 breach of peace should be ; trusting that the Emperor will be 
 reformed, and suffer him with the governacion of the realm of 
 Castile " — the great point in debate between them. " And as 
 touching the French King, that he also intendeth for to con- 
 tinue in amity with him, as lonr/ as that your Hifjlincss and 
 your fjood father shall think standeth luith the honours and profits 
 of your hif/hness, and no longer " Then follows this cautious 
 advice : " The King your said good father being joyous and 
 glad that your highness is in amity and good peace with all 
 Christian Princes, and his Majesty not counselling nor advising 
 
 plimptitary. "Jo pric h Dicu quo sa 230). 
 
 tarditc no soit cause do heaucoup do ' " Pras ira in tnrbatorcm nalliim 
 
 maux. ,7e tie SQciij quel diable fait ses nutriro barbam ciii<,nilo tonus dicitur " 
 
 affaires si mulheureux" (Do \invj;o to (Pot. Martyr, Ep. 451). 
 Marguerite. Lett, do Louis Xll. i. * I. 490.
 
 14 THE EEIGN OF HENRY YHI. [A.D. 
 
 your highness as yet for to move any war unto any outward 
 jorinces, unless that great causes shall move your highness there- 
 unto." 
 
 From this it appears that Henry had already sounded the 
 intentions of Ferdinand as to an expedition against France. 
 But gladly as Ferdinand would have crippled the jjower of 
 France, he dreaded no less the influence of Maximilian. More 
 strangely still, he was afraid of his dutiful son-in-law. The 
 marriage of the Princess Mary with Archduke Charles must 
 naturally favour a settlement of the claims of the latter to 
 Castile — claims which Ferdinand had resolved never to recog- 
 nize. To friend or enemy he measured his conduct hy his 
 fears ; as this party or that gained the ascendancy, and were 
 likely to support the rights of the Archduke, Ferdinand turned 
 against them. For the present, however, the Emperor was 
 the more to be dreaded. The turn of affairs in Italy alarmed 
 the aj)prehensions of Ferdinand. " An it please your grace," 
 says Stile,^ " the King of Arragon, your good father, doth not 
 nor will not take pleasure in the Emperor's prosperous estate. 
 He is in doubt of the realm of Naples that they woll yield 
 themselves unto the Emperor for the Prince of Castile, in case 
 that the Emperor's cause prospers in Italy." So, without 
 openly opposing, Ferdinand threw every sort of discourage- 
 ment in the way of Maximilian, refused to let his fleet aid in 
 the conquest of the Venetians, and masked his conduct with so 
 much doubt and hesitation that the poor Emperor was in a 
 continual flutter of hope and despair — at once amused, 
 encouraged, and betrayed. 
 
 With the tact of a woman, Margaret saw through the 
 artifice ; but the simple-minded Emperor, in the conceit of his 
 own sagacity, outwitted his daughter to his own disadvantage. 
 He would not be led by a woman. He offered to accept the 
 terms proposed him by Ferdinand, in the hope of securing his 
 assistance in Italy.^ To the delight of Margaret,^ the arrange- 
 ment ended in a total rupture. Meanwhile we find by the 
 letters of Stile, of the 3rd of December,^ that Henry had not only 
 made a proffer of his services to Ferdinand, but had since been 
 in correspondence with France. " Your noble good father is 
 not contented nor pleased with the answers the French King 
 
 ' I. 490, pp. fi9, 70. ^ Lettres de Max. et de Marg., i. 
 
 ^ See his extraordinary letter, p. 189. Oct. 
 Sept. 5, 1509, aud March 31, 1510 * 1509. Recited in one of 11th 
 
 (Le Glay's Lettres de Max. et de of Jan., 1510, p. 113. 
 Marg., i. 185, 252).
 
 1510.] 
 
 CORDIALITY OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 
 
 15 
 
 made to your Highness." These letters have not been pre- 
 served. But we know the result. Ferdinand, now thoroughly 
 alarmed, desired Henry to send a private mission to the 
 Emperor, and induce him to join in a league which should 
 comprehend the Emperor, England, Ferdinand, and the 
 Prince of Castile. Both were to write secretly to the Pope 
 and obtain his concurrence "to the intent that the French 
 King shall not nor may not attain unto his cruel purpose for 
 to destroy all the country of Italy," ^ 
 
 But the resolutions of Ferdinand and Maximilian were not 
 to be trusted. With war on their lips they were ready to 
 temporize ; one to gain money, the other because peace and 
 policy were more advantageous than violence. France had 
 nothing to fear from the indecision of the Emperor, and 
 nothing to hope from the promises of Ferdinand. Secret 
 negociation went on through most part of the year 1510, 
 without any open rupture. The fiery Julius employed all his 
 energies, but in vain, to detach Ferdinand and Maximilian 
 from their unholy ally. Every day the power of France grew 
 strong in Italy, and threatened to overawe the papacy. But 
 nobody moved. Even England continued indifferent ajjpa- 
 rently. Pageants and tournaments constituted its most 
 serious occupations. If more ambitious designs had entered 
 the thoughts of Henry VIII., young as he was, he still 
 possessed enough of his father's reserve to conceal his future 
 intentions. As late as the 26th of July, 1510, Docwra and 
 West, the English ambassadors, were sent to Paris and 
 received with every demonstration of respect. The cordiality 
 of the two kings continued unabated. West, on the part of 
 the King of England, enlarged on the unalterable affection 
 between the two crowns, to the extreme satisfaction of 
 Lewis.^ The King of England would do more, he said, to 
 oblige his Most Christian Majesty than for all other princes in 
 the wide world. The King of France was not a whit behind 
 in profuseness of compliments. 
 
 » I. p. 115. 
 
 « See I. No. 1104, sq. In tho 
 Lett, de Louis XII. (i. 263), Dr. Mota, 
 who was present at tho audience 
 given to these ambassadors, thus 
 describes the interview : " Nudius 
 tertius immediate post f)randiural{cf(i8 
 sua Kristianissima Majestas dcdit cia 
 primam audientiam, in qua nos in- 
 terfuimus. Scribam per aliam postam 
 aliqua de particulariljus ; nuncsoium- 
 niodo BignilicamuB baec pauca, quod 
 
 Doctor (West) non potuisset habere 
 orationern ma^^is ad honoreiu ct satis- 
 fjictio'.iem Kristianissiini Ref^is ; ot 
 inter csetera dixit, quod plus amabat 
 et ajstimabat et erat factuius plus pro 
 sua majcstate qiiam pro cx'teria om- 
 nibus 1 iriiici[)ibus. Item dixit Hepem 
 I'oro semper tnnquam bdiium ob 
 raturalemlilium Kristianissimi Jie^j^is; 
 ct ox piirto sua) majestatis fuit ctiam 
 oiJlimo rcspoDBum."
 
 16 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [AD. 
 
 This is not the first time in history that France, by its 
 singular adroitness and dexterity, saw the Continent at its feet. 
 Nor was it the only time that it lost all the advantages it had 
 gained, by a single act of folly and bravado. Upon the 
 ostensible pretext of ecclesiastical reform, but in reality to 
 revenge himself on Julius II., Lewis set on foot the Council at 
 Pisa. The most zealous advocate for ecclesiastical reform 
 could not be misled by such pretences. He could not expect 
 to see the spirit of peace and holiness shedding its influence 
 over an assembly summoned for the purposes of strife and 
 division, however much, in common with many of his age, he 
 might have looked to a General Council as the only remedy 
 for the troubles of Christendom. Barely supported by a few 
 prelates notoriously in the interests of France, the Council fell 
 into discredit from the beginning.^ Its promoters, in their 
 anxiety to gain credit with the world, published the names of 
 certain cardinals among its adherents without their sanction. 
 They were glad to disavow it and denounce it. The secret 
 and open enemies of Lewis eagerly laid hold of the pretext to 
 stigmatize him as the enemy of Holy Church. The " King 
 Catholic " could do no less than come forward in its defence. 
 Henry, the Pope's most obedient son, was bound to assert the 
 cause of his spiritual father. From a turbulent sovereign, 
 engaged in advancing his own exclusive interests, Julius was 
 suddenly transformed into the champion of Christendom. He 
 stood before the eyes of Europe as the uncompromising 
 defender of that pure Faith of which Lewis and the Turk 
 were the deadliest and most accursed enemies. The world 
 justified the calumny. The arrogance of the French, and the 
 cruel use they had made of their victories in Italy, recalled to 
 the memories of men the sanguinary persecutions of their 
 Christian brethren by the Infidels. A parallel to " the Son of 
 Iniquity " had been found in the Most Christian King. Nor 
 was Julius slow to see and seize his advantage. Nothing 
 could daunt his indomitable energy. He flourished both 
 swords. He opposed Council to Council, and army to army. 
 He had fallen sick through anxiety and vexation, and had been 
 like to die. Condoling cardinals had fluttered round his 
 death-bed, as they supposed, and his attendants had stripped 
 him to his last shirt. But he rose up when given over, and 
 in midwinter led his troops on foot in the midst of ice and 
 snow. Ferdinand at once made an alliance with the Pope 
 
 » Wingtield, May 24, 1511. See Calendar.
 
 1511.] THE COUNCIL OF PISA. 17 
 
 and the Venetians/ and used all his influence to induce Henry 
 to join. 
 
 Maximilian, in the mean time, marching pari passu "^ith 
 Lewis, had taken to himself with inexpressible complacency 
 the notion of an opposition Council. He had requested his 
 daughter Margaret to send deputies to Pisa. She had told 
 him, like a sensible woman, " Monseigneur, under your great 
 correction, it seems to me you ought not to mix yourself up 
 with this Council which is to be held at Pisa. Leave it to the 
 Pope, to whom the cognizance of such things belongs." He 
 was not to be dissuaded. Again he urges ; again she replies : 
 " Touching the sending of deputies to Pisa, of which you 
 have written to me, Monseigneur, it seems to me, that as you 
 are the governor of Monseigneur my nephew, and my lord 
 and father, it will be sufficient if you send deputies for us 
 both. And, to tell you the truth, our finances here are so 
 low we cannot muster a penny for any such purpose." 
 Abandoned by all, he was now left to weather the storm 
 alone. Pieproach and contumely pressed upon him from all 
 sides. He was taunted for his heresy by Julius and Ferdinand."^ 
 Even Henry could not help telling him that those who had 
 advised or supported the " Conciliable," as he contemptuously 
 called it, had incurred the censures of the Church ; and he 
 read MaximiHan a grave lecture on the sinfulness of setting at 
 defiance the authority of his Holy Father.^ 
 
 It was in vain for Lewis or the Council to make head 
 against the general prejudice. The loss of Bologna by the 
 Pope, May, loll, the splendid military achievements of 
 Gaston de Foix,* the siege of Brescia (Feb. 19, 1512), the 
 victory at Eavenna (April 11, 1512), the terrors inspired by 
 
 ' Nov. 1510. forms Lewis that though Ferdinand 
 
 * Lett, de Max. ct Marg., i. 421. imagined he could do as he liked with 
 
 ^ 1. 1828, 4182. From a letter pre- England, himself and Daiizolles had 
 
 served in the Bibliotheque Nationale devices in store to break the project, 
 
 at Paris (8464 = 2928), it appears that He then enters largely into the 
 
 Julias had sent a nuncio into England villainous schemes ho intended to put 
 
 asearly as June, 1511, to engage Henry in use to defeat the purposes for 
 
 in a league against France. The which he was sent by the Pope, and 
 
 writer, no less a person than the nuncio make Henry believe that his mission 
 
 himself, proceeds to betray the whole was really intended for the very oppo- 
 
 design to Lewis; tells him that the site purpose for which it was ostensibly 
 
 Papal army is in confusion, that the despatched. The letter is dated from 
 
 King of Arragon is desirous of peace, London, June, 1511 ; but who the 
 
 and had sent his troops from Africa traitor was, I have not been ablo to 
 
 to Naples ; that he wished for a league discover. 
 
 between himself, the Pope, and Eng- '' For the ultimate fate of Gaston 
 
 land ; and to this Henry was well de Foix, not mentioned by any other 
 
 disposed. But the writer further in- writers, see I. 3311. 
 
 VOL. 1. C
 
 18 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 his conquests, failed to regain for Lewis the advantages he 
 had forfeited. Before the winter of 1512 he had lost every 
 foot of ground in Italy, on which so much blood and treasure 
 had been spent. Justice sits at the wheel of Fortune. The 
 prime agent of the League of Cambray against the unhappy 
 Venetians was to reap the fruits of his own lessons. Lewis 
 now saw himself face to face with a powerful confederacy,^ 
 consisting of the Pope, the Emperor, the Kings of Arragon 
 and England. The cruelties of which he had been guilty in 
 Italy were to be retaliated on himself. In the swirling of St. 
 Peter's boat,^ consequent upon the dissensions raised by this 
 degenerate son of the Church, his more obedient brothers had 
 taken counsel together, by letters and messengers, how they 
 should best protect it from the storm, and find a remedy, if 
 need be, even to the cutting off of the rebellious member. 
 
 Tandem sic Deo disponente, it was arranged that Ferdinand 
 of Arragon should invade the Southern, England the Western 
 and the central provinces. Maximilian was to receive 200,000 
 gold crowns for making himself generally useful in molesting 
 the extra-Italian dominions of Lewis. Julius, with anathemas 
 in one hand and blessings in the other, should fulminate his 
 censures, as often as required by his allies, against all who 
 upheld and comforted this prodigal son who had endeavoured 
 to rend the indivisible coat of Christ's Church ; whilst plenary 
 indulgence was in store for those who assisted this Holy 
 Confederacy with men and victuals. 
 
 Whilst these matters had been in preparation, England in 
 the summer of 1512 had fleshed its sword in a continental 
 war — now for the first time after many years of inaction, for 
 the expedition of Lord Darcy to Cadiz in 1511 had proceeded 
 no further, owing to mutual jealousies. By arrangement 
 between Henry and Ferdinand, a simultaneous attack was to 
 be made upon France in opposite quarters.^ Ferdinand, 
 supported by a large body of English troops under the 
 Marquis of Dorset, was to invade Guienne, whilst Henry 
 himself prepared to attack Normandy or Picardy. A measure 
 of so much boldness can be attributed to no other genius than 
 Wolsey's, and we learn from the letters of Knight, that he 
 was generally reputed the author of the war.* The armament 
 
 * The Holy League, concluded be- (Rym. xiii. 358). 
 tween the Pope and Ferdinand, Oct. ^ See I. 3243, 3298, 3313, 3350, 
 
 11 ; joined by Henry the December 3352, 3355, 3356, 3388, 3451, 3584, 
 
 following. 3593, 3614, 3662. 
 
 2 " Petri navicula fluctnante " * See I. 3356 and 3451.
 
 1512.] WAR WITH FRANCE. 19 
 
 was ready by May, 1512/ and landed on the coast of Spain, 
 June 7."^ But even the genius of Wolsey could not enforce 
 strict discipline amongst raw soldiers drawn from hasty levies, 
 and impatient of service in a foreign land. Great as his 
 energy was, it failed to overcome the incapacity of com- 
 manders, whose personal bravery but ill atoned for their 
 inexperience. Insubordination broke out in the fleet and the 
 army ; the seamen plundered the victuals when the soldiers 
 were sea-sick ; ^ no provision had been made for their landing, 
 and no tents for their shelter. The troops slept out in the 
 fields and under bushes, exposed to incessant rains, and the 
 tropical sun of a Spanish sky. The season was pestilential ; ^ 
 the hot wines of Spain increased the evil ; worst of all, no 
 beer was to be had, and the English had not yet learnt to fight 
 without it. "And it please your Grace," says Stile, in his 
 quaint fashion, "the greatest lack of victuals that is here is 
 of beer, for your subjects had lever for to di-iuk beer than 
 wine or cider; for the hot wines doth harm them, and the 
 cider doth cast them in disease and sickness." The disorders 
 and discontents were augmented by their total inaction. 
 Faithless to all his promises, Ferdinand had failed to join 
 them. He answered the repeated entreaties of the Marquis 
 with excuses for delay. Instead of adhering to his arrange- 
 ment made with Henry, he was busy in securing for himself 
 the kingdom of Navarre. In August, Stile writes to the 
 King:^ "And it please your grace, as touching the King 
 yom- good father and his council, as ever before this, accord- 
 ing to the truth, I have certified unto joiiv grace tliat their 
 words and writings be so diligent and so fair, and their deeds 
 so immeasurably slack, that I cannot judge, say, ne write 
 what is to be thought or done ; and continually I do write, 
 according to the commandment of your grace, to the King 
 your good father, and always his Majesty, by his letters, 
 answereth that he will perform everything unto 3^our grace, 
 and that all the delays of time hath been for the best ad- 
 vantage for your enterprize of Guicnne, that Navarre should 
 be first put in a surety ; the which surety could not be had 
 otherwise than it is now had. And of a surety. Sovereign 
 Lord, at my last being with the King your good father, I was 
 so plain with his highness that I never saw his Majesty 
 
 ' I. 3188. ^ I. 3243. 
 
 ' Not without its parallel in modem times. 
 
 ♦ I. 3298. " I. 3;J55
 
 20 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 further out of patience than with me at that time, saying I 
 believed not him, his Majesty affirming with many oaths that 
 all his drift and entent was for the surety and weal of the 
 Holy Church, and for your enterprize of Guienne. And in 
 case, Sovereign Lord, that the entent or purpose of his 
 Majesty he otherwise, it is hard for to trust the oaths and 
 words of a prince or any other Christian man that so sweareth 
 or sayeth it. It is evidently seen and known, by his policy 
 and long drifts he attaineth many things to other men's 
 pains." 
 
 No wonder the troops became intractable, and disaffection 
 sprang up among officers and men.^ A large number refused 
 to serve any longer unless their wages were increased from 
 6d. to 8^. the day. The dearness of all necessaries in Spain, 
 even the commonest, placed them out of the reach of the 
 ordinary soldier. The mutiny was quelled, and one of the 
 ringleaders suffered. But the inefficient management of those 
 in command is strongly condemned in the summary expres- 
 sions of Dr. Knight, who was then in the camp, and sent 
 home to Wolsey accounts of its mismanagement. No martial 
 exercises were kept, no training was insisted on, musters were 
 neglected, many had been slain, others had died, and some 
 had deserted. The instructions they received were dis- 
 regarded, " and many of our council," he concludes with 
 bitter sarcasm, " may suffer no counsel." 
 
 A letter from the same writer to Wolsey,^ dated 4th of 
 October, presents the rare and humiliating spectacle of a 
 council of war held by the English commanders at St. Sebas- 
 tian on the 28th of Aug., when the disaffection had reached 
 its height. By a breach of discipline, unexampled in the 
 military annals of England, the army resolved to return 
 home, in direct violation of the King's commands. They had 
 provided ships and baked their biscuit by the first week in 
 October, turning a deaf ear to the entreaties of Ferdinand, 
 and threatening their officers who dared advise them to stay. 
 According to Polydore Vergil, who was exceedingly well in- 
 formed on the subject, and evidently compiled this portion of 
 his history from authentic materials, the indignation of the 
 King was unbounded. He wrote to Ferdinand to stop them 
 at all hazards, and cut every man's throat who refused 
 obedience. But the order came too late. The world was 
 breathless with astonishment at such a flagrant act of in- 
 
 ' I. 3356. 2 I. 3451.
 
 1512.] THE TROOPS RETURN HOME. 21 
 
 subordination, and expected from the King some signal mark 
 of his displeasure. He would have brought the Manpiis and 
 his associates to trial.^ But it was hard to discriminate 
 where all were guilty alike. The matter was hushed up, and 
 further proceedings were abandoned at the earnest request of 
 the Council. 
 
 The news of this disgrace was not unacceptable to foreign 
 coui-ts and ministers. It confirmed the mean opinion enter- 
 tained by them of the military inexperience of Henry, and 
 deepened their conviction of English intractability and mis- 
 management. Even the Emperor and his daughter Margaret, 
 though on the verge of bankruptcy, and stooping to every sort 
 of meanness to extract a loan of 50,000 crowns from England, 
 could not resist the temptation of throwing the popular taunt 
 into the teeth of the English ambassador: "You see," said 
 they, "Englishmen have so long abstained from war, they 
 lack experience from disuse; and," added Margaret, "if the 
 report be true, they are sick of it already." ^ The sarcasm 
 circulated from mouth to mouth, and was so bitterly felt, that 
 Henry considered it incumbent upon him to draw up formal 
 instructions for his ambassadors, stating that Ferdinand and 
 he had mutually agreed upon the return of the troops in 
 consequence of the rainy weather.^ 
 
 In fact, so signal a failure at the outset of his reign, and 
 in the first attempt which England had made for many years 
 to take part in a continental war, was infinitely more disas- 
 trous than it appears to us at this day, and threw an air of 
 ridicule over the King's more ambitious pretensions. To the 
 veteran politicians of Europe, accustomed to regard France 
 as the first military power of the time, habituated to this 
 conviction by its splendid victories in Italy, dreading its 
 shrewd diplomacy and experienced statesmen, it appeared 
 more than ordinarily quixotic and absurd for a young 
 sovereign, who had never witnessed a siege, and never seen 
 a sword drawn except at a tournament, to undertake the 
 conquest of so great a kingdom. And, beside the blot on the 
 national escutcheon, the late failure was the more disastrous 
 from its effect on the minds of those whom Henry wished to 
 conciliate, and whose co-operation, or at least whose tacit 
 consent was requisite, before he could prosecute his cherished 
 
 ■ Hist, xxvii. p. 13, ed. 1011. Europe. No man was bettor iuformod 
 
 P olydore was factor for Card. Hadrian, on European politics, 
 who managed to gain for a time the '•' I. 'MHii. 
 
 confidence ol' al) the sovereigns of ^ I. 3555.
 
 22 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 design with any tolerable chance of success. To invade 
 France on the Flemish frontier, as he had proposed, it was 
 expedient for him to gain the good will of the Emperor and 
 his grandson Charles, Prince of Castile. The toilsome 
 negociations by which he endeavoured to fix the shambling, 
 shuffling, irresolute Maximilian to some definite and distinct 
 arrangement are detailed in the letters of Poyninges and his 
 associates.^ Much, however, as Maximilian hankered after 
 English crowns, it was easy to see that he placed little con- 
 fidence in the warlike genius of England ; he had no expecta- 
 tion that she would succeed in the struggle. He dallied with 
 France, and offered but a feeble resistance to its fascinations.^ 
 Whilst, on the other hand, the governors of the Prince of 
 Castile, the betrothed of the King's own sister, made no secret 
 of their little esteem for the English arms, they were at no 
 pains to dissemble their preference for its rival, and looked 
 with studied contempt on Henry's preparations. Had any 
 wavered before, the failure on Guienne was decisive. 
 
 If England is to right itself with Europe, and wipe out the 
 stain of its recent discomfiture, needful it is she should fall to 
 work in earnest. War was not the wish of Fox or Wolsey. 
 They had rather opposed it, and thrown all their influence 
 into the opposite scale. Now the directing genius of the 
 enterprize was not Norfolk or Brandon, but Wolsey himself ; 
 ^ and his vast influence with the King dates from this event. 
 Though holding no higher rank than that of Almoner, it is 
 clear that the management of the war, in all its multifarious 
 details, has fallen into his hands. He it is who determines 
 the sums of money needful for the expedition, the line of 
 march, the number and arrangement of the troops, even to 
 the fashion of their armour and the barding of their horses. 
 It is he who superintends the infinite details consequent on 
 the shii^ment of a large army. He corresponds with Gonson 
 and Fox about the victualling,^ and is busy with beer, beef, and 
 biscuit, transports, foists, and empty casks.^ He puts out or 
 puts in the names of the captains and masters of the fleet, 
 and apportions the gunners and the convoys.^ Ambassadors, 
 admirals, generals, paymasters, pursers, secretaries, men of 
 all grades, and in every sort of employment, crowd about him 
 for advice and information. By the unconscious homage paid to 
 
 ' Commencing at I. 3196. * See his remarkable memoranda, 
 
 - See I. 3555. I. 4311. 
 
 ' I. 3946, 4056. May 21, 1513. * See I. 3977.
 
 1513.] WOLSEY'S MANAGEMENT. 23 
 
 genius in times of difficulty, he stands confessed as the master 
 and guiding spirit of the age. Well may Fox say, " I pray God 
 send us with speed, and soon deliver you out of your out- 
 rageous charge and labour ; else ye shall have a cold stomach, 
 little sleep, pale visage, and a thin belly, cum pari egestiojie.'" ^ 
 There was no lack of energy on all sides. Men felt that 
 the credit of England was pawned in the encounter. But 
 vigom- and energy could not of themselves overcome the inert 
 resistance of incapacity and inexperience. To bring together 
 a large army from every part of England, to secure unity of 
 action among officers who had never before served together, 
 to assemble shipping from different ports, to ascertain the 
 tonnage and sailing capabilities of the transports, to make the 
 necessary provision of beef and bread and beer, to place all on 
 board without confusion, to provide against minute accidents 
 proverbially fatal to large bodies, demanded an amount of 
 forethought, energy, patience, and administrative genius not 
 to be found in any other man of that age. There was no war 
 department, and no traditions of office to fall back upon. It 
 is clear from the correspondence of the time that though 
 Wolsey was surrounded by willing instruments, they had to 
 look up to him for their instructions. He had seen no service ; 
 he had never so much as handled a sword, or tested the merits 
 of a falconet or a culverin. His education had been that of a 
 churchman ; and till now he had only been employed in a 
 subordinate cajjacity. Since the memory of the oldest 
 Englishman, no enterprize on so large a scale had ever been 
 undertaken by the nation. Not one in all that numerous host 
 had seen much of foreign service. They had to encounter a 
 great and powerful nation, full of veteran soldiers, accustomed 
 to conquest, engaged for years in foreign wars, and rich in 
 those resources which can alone bring war to a successful 
 termination. Such an enterprize, with all the long training 
 and subdivisions of modern official experience, must ajipear in- 
 credibly bold ; how much more at that time, when the untrained 
 genius of one churchman had to compensate for official defects 
 and delinquencies, to ride triumphant over the inefliciency of 
 officers, the absence of a commissariat, the disorganization 
 of an army unaccustomed to discipline, unused to command, 
 brought at haphazard from the plough, and never mustered 
 for exercise except at the caprice or vanity of some great 
 landed proprietor or some reluctant lord of the county *? 
 
 ' I. 4103.
 
 24 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 To modern notions the motive for such an enterprize will 
 doubtless appear inadequate. But war had not then lost all 
 traces of its chivalrous aspect. It was the chosen field for the 
 display of personal skill, courage, and gallantry ; — a tourna- 
 ment on a grander scale. So long as martial exercises 
 remained in vogue, so long as every gentleman was trained to 
 feats of arms, war became a necessity ; and those dangerous 
 pastimes, which often toppled over the nice distinctions of 
 game and earnest, were only redeemed from childishness by 
 this necessity. War, like the duelling of later times, stood 
 not on adequate motives ; or found them adequate when 
 measured by the spirit of the age. " Let nations," says Lord 
 Bacon,^ "that pretend to greatness have this, that they be 
 sensible of wrongs, and that they sit not too long upon a 
 provocation." And in that age nations that were not sensible 
 to wrong and ready for war, with and almost without provoca- 
 tion, must have forfeited all claims to distinction, and 
 abandoned the hope of security as well as of greatness. It 
 was the race in which all started for the prize, who felt a 
 drop of genuine blood in their veins ; the heat of exercise 
 which kept heart and body healthy, when no other employ- 
 ment that could be considered noble, no other chance of 
 distinction, was open to men. 
 
 The expedition put to sea in March, 1513, under the 
 command of Sir Edward Howard. It was arranged that the 
 King should follow in June with the main body. Sir Edward 
 had already gained reputation by his conduct in the late war 
 of Guienne. His letters detailing the movements of the fleet 
 will be read with interest.^ There is something of that tone 
 of self-confidence in them which will remind the reader of 
 Wolfe and Nelson ; and in men of more doubtful courage 
 would be deemed vainglorious. The French had made great 
 preparations to keep the sea and intercept the passage with a 
 fleet of fifty sail. The English navy at the time consisted of 
 twenty-four ships, of which the total tonnage amounted to 
 8,460 tons.^ It carried 2,880 seamen and 4,650 soldiers. The 
 Admiral's ship, the Mari/ Rose, was of 600 tons, and carried 
 200 mariners. His subordinates in command were Sir Edward 
 Echyngham, Sir Henry Shirborne, Sir William Sidney, Sir 
 Thomas Cheney, all equally anxious with himself to win the 
 King's favour and signalize their valour against the French. 
 On the 25th of April Sir Edward caught sight of the French 
 
 > Essay xxix. ^ I. 3820, 3857, 3877, 3903. ' I. 3977.
 
 1513.] FATE OF ADMIRAL HOWARD. 25 
 
 galleys laid up in shallow water. They were protected by 
 bulwarks on both sides, " planted so thick with guns and 
 crossbows that the quarrels ^ and the gunstones came together 
 as thick as hailstones." '^ He at once resolved to board them 
 with his boats. The rest must be told in the words of Sir 
 Edward Echyngham, who was present at the engagement.^ 
 " The admiral boarded the galley that Pryer John was in " (Prior 
 John was an English corruption of the name of Pregian, the 
 French Admiral), "and Charran the Spaniard with him, and 
 sixteen others. By advice of the Admiral and Charran they 
 had cast anchor [into the rails] of the French galley, and 
 fastened the cable to the capstan, that if any of the galleys 
 had been on fire they might have veered the cable and fallen 
 off ; but the French hewed asunder the cable, or some of our 
 mariners let it slip, and so they left this [brave man] in the 
 hands of his enemies." In the melee, at ebb of the tide, no 
 one came to his support. " There was a mariner wounded in 
 eighteen places, who by adventure (by mere chance) recovered 
 unto the buoy of the galley, so that the galley's boat took him 
 up. He said he saw my Lord Admiral thrust against the rails 
 of the galley with marris pikes. Charran's boy teUs a like 
 tale; for when his master and the Admiral had entered, 
 Charran sent him for his hand-gun, which before he could 
 deliver, the one galley was gone off from the other, and he 
 saw my Lord Admiral waving his sword and crying to the 
 galleys, ' Come aboard again ! Come aboard again ! ' which 
 when my Lord saw they could not, he took his whistle from 
 about his neck, wrapped it together and threw it into the 
 sea." On making inquiries the next morning they could learn 
 no more from the French Admiral than that, " one leapt into 
 his galley with a gilt target on his arm, whom he had cast 
 overboard with marris pikes." Such was the end of Sir 
 Edward Howard, whose loss was universally lamented : " for 
 there was never a nobleman so ill lost as he was, that was of 
 so great courage and had so many virtues, and that ruled so 
 great an army so well as he did, and kept so great order and 
 true justice." 
 
 It was a costly sacrifice ; but the gallantry of the action 
 retrieved in the eyes of the world the reputation of England.' 
 At such a time, when unbounded admiration was felt for 
 personal bravery, and victory depended much less on scientific 
 
 ' Qwarre?8 or gwarreaMa; were square * lb. 
 
 iron bolts shot from crossbows. ■* Henry took to lionrt tlio AdiniriirH 
 
 * I. 4005. fall, and oxprosaed bis displcusuro Uiat
 
 26 THE REIGN OF HENRY YHI. [A.D. 
 
 combinations, such a '' a dangerful enterprize " was fruitful in 
 momentous consequences. It fastened on the imagination of 
 both nations. From this man's example his countrymen 
 jumped to the conviction that nothing was too arduous, and 
 no odds on the side of an enemy justified retreat. From this 
 man's daring the world took the measure of English courage 
 generally. The French dared no longer dispute the possession 
 of the narrow seas. The news was received with feelings of 
 alarm and discontent by those who had hitherto disparaged 
 the prowess of England. Its importance may be judged by 
 the effect it had on those who were meditating treachery, and 
 seeking an opportunity to make their peace with France. The 
 victory gained over the French by sea, on St. Mark's day, as 
 Knight informs the King,^ gave no satisfaction to his father-in- 
 law, Ferdinand. James IV., then plotting an invasion of 
 England, condoles with Henry : " Surely your late Admiral, 
 ' quha decessit to his grete honour,' was a greater loss than 
 winning all the French galleys would have been to your 
 advantage." He spoke more truth than he intended. But it 
 was some consolation to remind his brother-in-law of his great 
 loss in the full swing of his triumph. The most undeniable 
 evidence of the importance of the victory were the sedulous 
 endeavours taken to underrate it. 
 
 On June 30, 1513, Henry took shipping and arrived at 
 Calais with the main body. The vanguard had crossed some 
 days before, under the command of Charles Brandon Viscount 
 Lisle, better known afterwards as Duke of Suffolk. The pro- 
 gress of the army step by step to the surrender of Tournay on 
 Sept. 24, is traced by Tayler in his minute and faithful Diary.^ 
 The news and correspondence received during the expedition, 
 the arrangements for the army, the cost of preparation, the 
 " moving accidents " of the field, are here accurately detailed. 
 The main body under the King marched in three divisions : 
 first came the van-ward with the chief of the ordnance ; then 
 the middle-ward with the king himself; last the rear-ward 
 under the Lord Chamberlain,^ the Earl of Northumberland, 
 and others.* The King was preceded by the Household, to 
 the number of 300, mustered under the Trinity banner; in 
 
 he had been so badly supported. His heard of , and the most manly handled." 
 
 brother and successor, Lord Thomas I. 4020. 
 
 Howard, however, exculpates all who * I. 4058. ^ I. 4284. 
 
 were concerned in the action, and ex- * Charles Somerset Lord Herbert, 
 
 presses his opinion that "it was the soon afterwards created Earl of 
 
 most dangerful enterprize he ever Worcester. * I. 4306.
 
 1513.] CAPTURE OF TOUENAY, 27 
 
 advance -^as the unhappy Duke of Buckingham with his 400 
 men. His banner was followed by Mr. Almoner (Wolsey) 
 commanding 200, the Bishop of Durham (Ruthal) with 100, 
 Fox, the Bishop of Winchester, with the same number. Next 
 came the King with his banner and guard of 600 men, the 
 priests and singers of the chapel to the number of 115, secre- 
 taries, clerks, sewers, grooms and pages of the chamber, with 
 Peter Carmehanus^ his lutanist, whose bad taste and false 
 quantities furnished endless jokes for Erasmus.^ The King 
 decamped from Calais, July 21, arrived before Terouenne on 
 the 1st of August, and was visited by the Emperor on the 
 12th. The experienced eye of Maximilian at once detected a 
 capital blunder in the king's strategic position, of which his 
 enemies, however, had failed to avail themselves. In fact, not- 
 withstanding the disuse of war and the impetuosity of the 
 Enghshmen, the experience and superior skill of the French 
 proved of small service to them. The veteran regiments of 
 Lewis, still remaining on the other side of the Alps, had been 
 shivered into fragments at the terrible battle of Novara.^ Sick 
 at heart and feeble in body, Lewis himself had driven over in a 
 carriage from Paris, but was prevented by illness from taking 
 part in the action. With the exception of La Palice and the 
 well-known Chevalier Bayard, made prisoner at Terouenne, 
 we miss the great names of the veterans who had served in 
 the campaigns of Italy. 
 
 The surrender of Terouenne on the 22nd of Aug., was 
 followed by that of Tournay on Sept. 24.* 
 
 During the King's absence in France James IV. of Scotland 
 had seized the opportunity of executing his long cherished 
 project — the invasion of England. The letters of this King to 
 the different potentates of Europe^ have an indu-ect interest 
 in connection with this subject which may justify a few words 
 of comment. Not that their contents are always very im- 
 portant. They add something, though not much, to the 
 scanty information we have of the state of Scotland in those 
 
 ' I. 4314. connts of his life in the camp. 
 
 * I. 2001. I do not suppose that => Juno G. 
 
 Wolsey and Fox were present at any * For an account of the demolition 
 
 engagement ; but that they attended of the fortifications of Terouenne see 
 
 the army is certain. Taylor states I. 4431. 
 
 that on one occasion Fox suffered * A selection of those was printed 
 
 from a kick of his mule. We know, by Ruddimann in 1722 from a manu- 
 
 from the amusing letters of Erasmus, scrii)t in tlio Advocates' Lil>rary, 
 
 that Ammonius was tlicro, and em- Edinl)urgh. Ahslracts bolliof I hcao 
 
 ployed hiniHolf in sending homo to his and of others still unpriiited will bo 
 
 witty correspondent ludicrous ac- found in the Calendar. Ed.
 
 28 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 turbulent times, "With the exception of these few facts, the 
 history is nothing more than the turbulent doings of an 
 intractable nobility, who — 
 
 " laid about them at their wills and died." 
 
 By means not very easily traced, a thin sprinkling of the new 
 learning had been introduced into Scotland. Here and there, 
 among a barbarous and unlettered nobility, hardly able to 
 write their own names, might be found a scholar w^hose 
 command of the Latin tongue would not have disgraced 
 Muretus. James IV. was one of these ; and his Latin letters, 
 as compared with the general Latin letters of that age, are 
 not unworthy of Erasmus, who is said to have been his 
 master. But they are too often characterized by a feeble 
 elegance, that shrinks in dismay from the rough and ready 
 Latinity of earlier times, and so lose in force, perspicuity, and 
 directness. The character of James was not unlike his letters. 
 That he had some reputation for learning is clear from the 
 remarkable letter addressed to him by Polydore Vergil, who 
 was engaged at the time in composing his history.^ A better 
 proof may be found in the interest he took in the studies of 
 the youthful Archbishop of St. Andrews.^ But with these 
 good qualities James had the vices of his family — a great 
 conceit of his own wisdom and statecraft ; an unshaken belief 
 in his own powers as a universal peacemaker. Without the 
 means of preserving peace and dignity at home, he was thrust 
 forward by his vanity to mediate between the great conflicting 
 powers of Em-ope. He was bearded and defied in the iDrecincts 
 of his palace, not merely by his nobility but by his bishops ; 
 and at the time when he was making pompous professions of 
 what he intended to do to secure the peace and salvation of 
 Christendom, he was writing letters to the Pope to save him 
 from the insolent encroachments of the Archbishop of Glasgow. 
 That such a King, though not without some amiable qualities, 
 should be untrue to his word, and in this respect most 
 opposite to his rival, my readers will have expected. Among 
 all the documents of the time none are more painful than 
 those in which Dr. West, the English ambassador, afterwards 
 Bishop of Ely, describes his various interviews with James. 
 A mouth before the expedition to Teroueune he had been sent 
 by Henry into Scotland to ascertain the intentions of the 
 Scottish King, and bring him, if possible, to some resolute 
 1 1. 751. 
 
 * I. 379, 3618. This Archbishop was his own natural son, Alexander Stuart.
 
 1513.] THE SCOTCH INVASION. 29 
 
 answer. The cool, patient, and determined bearing of the 
 Englishman, who never betrays his temper or the contempt 
 he feels for the swagger of James and his repeated prevarica- 
 tions, the ability with which he unravels his contradictions 
 and hunts him out from one subterfuge after another, the 
 King " sore moved and chafed," plunging and floundering 
 from one false statement or imprudent admission to another, 
 form a striking but not agreeable picture.^ 
 
 He was bound by treaty between the two nations not to 
 levy war against England, but allow their mutual disputes to 
 be decided by arbitration. James had no intention to regard 
 his oath, but he had not the courage to announce his deter- 
 mination to break it. He had written to the Pope already for 
 a dispensation ; and failing this, had resolved to obey his own 
 inchnation. Such was the state of hostility between the two 
 kingdoms, that, notwithstanding the ties of blood, open war 
 between the two Princes could never have been considered 
 unnatural at any time. But James contrived to make his 
 own share in the rupture wear a look of meanness and 
 treachery. When the King was away, and all eyes were bent 
 on the siege of Terouenne, James began his march into 
 England. His defiance, sent by Boss Herald, reached Henry 
 in the field before Terouenne, Aug. 11. If not a perfidious, 
 it was an unchivalrous advantage. It told badly for James in 
 the estimation of his contemporaries. From Henry it pro- 
 voked no other reply than an expression of his disbelief that 
 James would disregard the solemn obligation of an oath ; but 
 if such were his intention he doubted not the Scotch King 
 would live to repent it.^ No change was made in his arrange- 
 ments. The only person who appears to have been despatched 
 to meet this contingency was Euthal, Bishop of Durham,^ 
 who returned to London, and immediately put himself into 
 communication with the Lord Treasurer Surrey appointed 
 Lieutenant-General of the North, and hastened towards 
 Norham to arrange for its defence. "You are not so busy 
 with war in Terouenne as I am encumbered with it in Eng- 
 land," writes Katharine to Wolsey on the 13th of August. 
 They are all here very glad to be busy with the Scots, for they 
 take it for a pastime. My heart is very good to it, and I am 
 horribly busy with making standards, banners, and badges."* 
 
 Could James have foreseen the result it would have added 
 
 • I. 1920, 3128, 3129, 3811, 3838, 3882. ' I. P- 621. 
 
 ^ I. 4^88. * I- 4398.
 
 30 THE REIGN OF HENRY YIII. [AD. 
 
 to the bitterness of bis deatb, tbat be was to fall by tbe bands 
 of a woman. For tbere is no doubt tbat Katbarine berself 
 was tbe soul of tbe enterprize. Sbe quieted uneasy tbougbts 
 of Henry's dangers by occupying berself in warlike prepara- 
 tions. Tbe story of ber address to tbe soldiers, as detailed by 
 Peter Martyr,^ may be apocrypbal ; not so tbe evidences of ber 
 activity, as fm'nisbed by official documents. But tbe rasbness 
 of James, bis impatience to take bis rival at disadvantage, 
 and strike tbe blow before Henry could return, proved bis 
 worst enemies. Tbe battle of Flodden remains a lasting 
 monument of bis incapacity. Of tbe correspondence relating 
 to it, tbe letters of Rutbal to Wolsey, lately discovered, are 
 among tbe most curious.^ Tbe Bisbop is bewildered between 
 joy and grief, between wonder at tbe great victory obtained 
 and greater wonder, if possible, tbat tbere sbould bave been 
 sucb a number of goodly men, "so well fed and fat," left 
 among tbe slain. " Tbe Scotcb," as be tells Wolsey, " bad a 
 "large army and mucb ordnance, and plenty of victuals."^ 
 He would not bave believed " tbat tbeir beer was so good, bad 
 it not been tasted and viewed by our folks, to tbeir great 
 refresbing."* At one time be is for accumulating bonours on 
 my Lord Treasurer, wbo must be a Duke at least for bis 
 victory. " And if ye made twenty for Lords witb tbeir styles, 
 and tbe residue witb ' Trusty and well-beloved,' it would do 
 very mucb good." At anotber time be attributes tbe entire 
 glory of tbe day to " tbe banner of St. Cutbbert. Tbe banner- 
 men won great bonor, and gained tbe King of Scots' banner, 
 wbicb now stands beside tbe sbrine. Tbe King fell near bis 
 banner." — " Tbe victory bas been tbe most bappy tbat can be 
 remembered. All believe it bas been wrougbt by tbe inter- 
 cession of St. Cutbbert, wbo never suffered injury to be done 
 to bis Cbm'cb unrequited. But for tbat tbe Scotcb migbt bave 
 done mucb more barm." Eising above all tbese varied ex- 
 pressions of triumpb and wonderment is beard tbe sound of 
 his grief for tbe destruction of bis castle of Norbam ; " wbicb 
 news toucbed me so near witb inward sorrow tbat I bad lever 
 to bave been out of tbe world tban in it." However, be 
 'expresses bis trust tbat by penance, and spending on it 
 
 * Ep. 527. plied to the English army of the North 
 2 I. 4460, sq. on this occasion was of abetter quality 
 ^ See I. 4460, sq. acd higher price than ordinary. It 
 
 * Yet, as if the Scotch had been cost 10s. the pipe, the usual price 
 excellent judges of strong beer, as no being 7s. 6d. 
 
 doubt they were and are, the beer sup-
 
 1513.] THE DUKE OF ORLEANS. 31 
 
 10,000 marks the next four years, life raay still be made 
 tolerable. These remarks are followed by expressions of 
 resignation worthy of so wealthy a i:)relate : "I never felt the 
 hand of God so sore touching me as in this, whereof I most 
 humbly thank Him ; and after the inward search of conscience, 
 to know the cause of the provocation of God's displeasure 
 against me, I shall reform it, if it be in my power, and regard 
 Him more than the world hereafter." 
 
 On the capture of Tournay, Maximilian, now thoroughly 
 won over by English crowns and the discomfiture of France, 
 was earnest with Henry to push his advantage to the utter- 
 most. Polydore Vergil is willing to attribute it to Henry's 
 moderation, that he turned a deaf ear to the Emperor's 
 proposal. France had been sufficiently humbled to perceive 
 its error ; enough had been done to avenge the injuries of the 
 Church. Without wishing to detract from the praises bestowed 
 on him by Polydore for acting like a Christian Prince, we may 
 reasonably believe that the lateness of the season, the difficulty 
 of keeping such an army on foot, and the delicate state of 
 affairs in Scotland, were strong motives in urging Henry's 
 return. The late brilliant victories had fully sustained the 
 honour of England ; and in defeating his enemies Henry per- 
 haps had learned to respect them. 
 
 Among the prisoners taken at the Battle of Spurs ^ was 
 Louis d' Orleans, the young Duke of Longueville, and Marquis 
 of Eothelyn, " un tres honneste jeune prince, whom I should 
 pity," says Philip de Bregilles, writing to Margaret of Savoy, 
 " if he were not a Frenchman." The young Duke was sent to 
 London, to the safe-keeping of Queen Katharine, much to her 
 annoyance ; for she could find no one fit to attend upon him 
 except my Lord Montjoy, the friend of Erasmus, who was 
 then going over to Calais. Therefore, like a sensible woman, 
 much too busy to have the care of lively French noblemen, 
 she recommended that he should be disposed of in the Tower.^ 
 Young as the Duke was, he was in high estimation with 
 Lewis Xn., who had appointed him the year before his mis- 
 fortune governor of Boulogne and the whole of Normandy. 
 , The tendency in England at the time to admire and imitate 
 French fashions and French manners is well known. The 
 great dramatist, in his wonderful play of Henry VHL, has 
 given prominence — not more, however, than is warranted by 
 
 ' I. 4405. The Battle of Spurs Bomye, near Terouenno, on August 18. 
 was fought at Gaincgaste, or ratlier at ' I. 4433.
 
 32 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 history — to this passion in the EngHsh aristocracy. Then, as 
 on subsequent occasions, French captives and hostages were 
 courteously received and caressed by their English masters. 
 How the young prisoner spent his time we are not permitted 
 to learn precisely, from want of the necessary documents, at 
 least here in England — a mortification to which students of 
 English history are continually exposed. He was evidently 
 taken into favour ; contrived, with the dexterity of a French- 
 man, to make himself agreeable, perhaps to Queen Katharine 
 herself, certainly to the King and to Wolsey. He was not 
 slow in turning these advantages to the interests of Lewis, as 
 will be seen in the sequel. 
 
 Henry had returned to England in November, fully re- 
 solved, to all appearance, to continue the war, and make 
 additional preparations in the ensuing spring. There is no 
 reason to doubt the sincerity of his intentions, or of his 
 resolution to continue the war in spite of the insincerity and 
 defection of his allies.^ At its commencement he could scarcely 
 have reposed much faith in the constancy of Ferdinand. He 
 had heard of the dissatisfaction expressed by his father-in- 
 law at the naval advantages gained by the Howards over the 
 French. Ferdinand's subsequent abandonment of the league 
 to which he had sworn a few months before,^ — the treacherous 
 and underhand mission of his minister Quintana to form an 
 alliance with France, when the conquest of that country by 
 England seemed inevitable, — could not have been unknown to 
 Henry, or occasioned him much surprise. Peter Martyr, on 
 the information of Stile,^ represents Henry as extremely 
 indignant at Ferdinand's conduct, and protesting he will never 
 trust him again ; but this may be no more than Stile's version 
 of the remonstrance which Henry thought proper to address to 
 Ferdinand, through his ambassador, and not the expression of 
 his actual feelings. Externally there was no change in his 
 resolutions or designs. He appeared bent upon the conquest 
 of France as much as ever. His ambassadors were instructed 
 to demand leave from Maximilian and Charles to take up 
 troops in the Low Countries.* They were ordered to remonstrate 
 with the Emperor for his vacillation, and insist on the fulfil- 
 ment of his engagements against France. Yet it appears from 
 
 1 See the remarkable letter to the ^ I. 4794. The Emperor had 
 
 new Pope, Leo. X. I. 4502. agreed, through his daughter Mar- 
 
 * He had actually concluded a garet, to a treaty with Henry, to carry 
 
 treaty with Henry for invading France on the war against France, Nov. 15, 
 
 as late as Oct. 17, 1513. 1513. I. 4530. 
 
 3 I. 4864.
 
 1514.] TREACHERY OF FERDINAND. 33 
 
 the correspondence at this time^ that the Kmg and his ministers 
 were fully aware that Maximilian was playing a double game. 
 Whilst keeping up appearances with England, he was sidling 
 and coquetting with France, anxious to secure the best terms 
 from the highest bidder. 
 
 On the 24th of Jan., 1514, the Emperor wrote to his 
 daughter Margaret announcing Quintana's arrival from the 
 court of Ferdinand, and his proposal for an accommodation 
 with France.^ Margaret in return tried hard to persuade him 
 that he could not in honour assent to the offered arrangement.^ 
 She warned him that the only object of Ferdinand was to 
 amuse him. No man, as she told him frankly, ought to know 
 better than he how little dependence was to be placed on 
 French promises. Besides, Ferdinand's interest and his own 
 were diametrically opposed. If Henry, she said, had agreed 
 to an accommodation with France (as Ferdinand pretended, 
 and Maximilian affected to believe), he would have communi- 
 cated the information to his ally ; but she was convinced 
 there was no truth in the insinuation ; and if a hint of Quin- 
 tana's negociation transpired, or the suspicions of the King of 
 England were awakened, it would put thoughts into his head 
 he never would otherwise have entertained. The Emperor 
 must consider how perilous that contingency would be, for if 
 the King of England threw off his allies, and expressed a 
 desu'e for an accommodation with France, his terms would be 
 accepted with open arms. He needed not the help of Ferdinand 
 or Maximilian for an arrangement with Lewis, who would 
 be only too happy to receive him without caring for his 
 allies. With the tact of a woman she easily perceived that 
 the widowhood of Lewis XII.,^ and the unsatisfactory state 
 of the marriage settlement between Prince Charles and 
 the Princess Mary opened the way for a union between the 
 two crowns, of which France would only be too glad to avail 
 itself. 
 
 " Monseigneur," she urges some days after, "there is great 
 reason to fear that these fair offers are only put forward, on 
 the part of France, to escape the storm that would fall upon 
 it, if every one were as ready to do his duty as the King of 
 England, who has made incredible preparations for continuing 
 the war. . . . Ferdinand may desire peace, for he is old and 
 
 ' I. 4G22, 4725, 4831. Lott. Max. et Mnrfj., ii. p. 221. 
 
 * Lett. Max. ct Marg., ii. 229. The * ilia Quocu bad died Jau. i). 
 order of these letters is incorrect. 
 
 VOL. I. I>
 
 34 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 infirm ; but that is not the interest of Monsieur (Prince 
 Charles) and his dominions.^ . . . This young king, be well 
 assured, will aid you with his person and his purse, without 
 any deceit (like France) or hypocrisy (like Ferdinand), if you 
 give him no occasion to act otherwise ; car je vous asseure, 
 Monseigneur, que en luy n'a nulle faintise ; par quay en ce que 
 luy touche, Von doit aller de semhlable maniere et ne luy rompre 
 nulle promese.'^ 
 
 The advice was as prudent as it was honourable. But this 
 was not the only occasion on which Margaret had reason to 
 suspect that Maximilian disclosed to her only half his inten- 
 tions, and asked her advice when he had formed his resolution 
 already. He announced to her, on the 9th of Ai)ril, that the 
 King Catholic and himself had agreed to a truce for a year 
 with Lewis, upon an assurance from Quintana that Henry 
 would make no objection. Her comment is very significant : 
 " Monseigneur, the news you have sent me is very important, 
 and very much opposed to my judgment (entendemeat).^ I 
 know not how the King of England will accept it, considering 
 the great preparations he has made for war. However, 
 Monseigneur, I do not want to know more than you are willing 
 to communicate. I doubt not you have acted with the best 
 intentions, and understand these affairs much better than 
 I do." 
 
 In this same year, and at the time when this correspond- 
 ence was going on between father and daughter, he who was 
 the chief and unconscious subject of it had been struck down 
 by sickness.^ Peter Martyr tells his correspondent Furtado, 
 in March : " The King of England has had the fever, and his 
 physicians were afraid it would turn into pustules called the 
 small pox {variolce) J" ^ By the instructions sent to Spinelly ^ 
 on this occasion, it is stated to have been the small pox, 
 apparently less dreaded than the plague — the universal scourge 
 and terror of this century. Henry had escaped all danger by 
 the end of February, and rose from his bed with renewed 
 resolutions to continue his conquests in France. He then 
 learnt for the first time the full extent of Ferdinand's cunning 
 and insincerity. By a series of secret negociations, for which 
 he was famous, he had contrived to detach the Pope and 
 Maximilian from the confederacy, and in conjunction with 
 them had agreed to an armistice with France for twelve 
 
 1 Lett. Max. et Marg., ii. pp. 227, 228. ^ Ibid., ii. p. 245. 
 
 ' I. 4726, 4727, and 4845. * I. 4845. ^ I. 4831.
 
 1514.] TREACHERY OP FERDINAND. 35 
 
 months. The dnpHcity of which he had been guilty was 
 increased, if jDossible, by the meanness of his excuses : — It 
 was his duty to promote peace ; he could not prevail upon his 
 conscience to be a party any longer to a war against Christian 
 princes, to which he had hitherto consented much against his 
 will. He had never liked the war ; had always expected that 
 he would be betrayed by the English, and left to bear the 
 burthen alone, which was more than an old man at his time 
 of life ought to think of. Besides, the King of France had 
 begged for peace ; — to refuse it was inhuman ; it was horrible. 
 When such a king humbly sought reconciliation, and under 
 such circumstances, he could not find it in his heart to refuse 
 him, especially as he was anxious to devote the few days he 
 might be spared to expeditions, not against the friends but 
 the enemies of the Faith. 
 
 When he framed these excuses he knew full well that no 
 one would believe them. He knew that they would not 
 convince any one of the honesty of his j)roceedings, or impose 
 upon the meanest understanding. If they served any j^urpose 
 beyond that of mere diplomatic conventionalism, it was to 
 trail off inquiry from the true cause, which was not so much as 
 hinted at. It was the policy of Ferdinand to keep all things, 
 if possible, in statu quo ; and balance against each other the 
 different powers of Europe. He was afraid of the aggrandise- 
 ment of his son-in-law ; he was afraid of the projected 
 marriage of Prince Charles with the Princess Mary, lest it 
 should lead to a demand of Castile by the former. By the 
 skilful arrangements he had so secretly concluded he hoped 
 that he had effectively prevented the further progress of all 
 parties, and he trusted that out of gratitude for his compliance 
 the King of France would shelter him from the vengeance his 
 treachery had deserved. But, like most cunning men, he had 
 overreached himself. 
 
 Henry saw all his hopes reft from him by his own fatlier- 
 in-law, and all his labours dashed to the ground. His indig- 
 nation for the moment knew no bounds. He reproached 
 Ferdinand for his ingratitude and deceit — reminded him that 
 at his own earnest entreaty he had entered on the war, had 
 gone to vast expense, and directed the war in person, Jle 
 broke off all communications with Ferdinand, and swore he 
 would never trust him again. Maximilian, on the other 
 hand, conscious of his treachery, did not stay to weather 
 the storm, but withdrew, like a coward, from the king's ro-
 
 36 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 proacbes, and allowed the whole fury of them to fall upon 
 Margaret.^ 
 
 A few weeks after, strange rumours had got into circula- 
 tion. Anne of Brittany, Queen of Louis XII., had died on 
 Jan. 9, 1514, "underly lamented,"^ in the language of the 
 day. On April 20, Gattinara writes to Margaret that it 
 was commonly reported, "the old gallant would marry the 
 young girl,"^ The report was probably premature, but it is 
 certain that some correspondence had been going on between 
 his master and Henry by the means of the Duke of Longue- 
 ville, who has been already mentioned. He writes to Wolsey 
 from Canterbury as early as March 16, stating he had 
 received a packet from France expressing the cordial feelings 
 of his Sovereign towards Henry. The matter was kept a pro- 
 found secret. Not the slightest hint of it was conveyed to the 
 English ministers or the ambassadors at the different courts, 
 who, like the rest of the world, were kej)t in entire ignorance 
 of the negociation. Whether a marriage with Henry's sister 
 Mary formed part of the original design cannot at present be 
 ascertained. She was not more than seventeen years of age, 
 and Lewis was fifty-two. Contemporary accounts describe her 
 as the most beautiful woman of her times, though somewhat 
 under size for a Tudor. " This last Sunday in Lent," says an 
 unknown correspondent to Margaret,^ "I saw the Princess Mary 
 dressed in the Milanese fashion ; and I think never man saw 
 a more beautiful creature, or one possessed of so much grace 
 and sweetness." Gerard de Pleine, writing to the Archduchess, 
 bears similar testimony : "I would not write to you about the 
 princess until I had seen her several times. I assure you 
 
 ' No one, I think, can read the gloryoes " (Lett, de Max. et Marg., 
 
 extraoi'dinary letter of Maximilian to ii. 38). The idea of Maximilian being 
 
 his daughter Margaret, in which he worshipped as a saint by Margaret 
 
 professes his intention of becoming a must, to the readers of this corre- 
 
 pope and a saint, and resist the con- spondence, appear infinitely comical ! 
 
 elusion that the Emperor was flighty Yet the old Emperor is perfectly 
 
 at times. One expression — not to say serious, as is shown by his other 
 
 more than one — in that letter is so letters, 
 extraordinary, that it is hardly possi- ^ I. 4692. 
 
 ble to suppose it could have emanated ' " On dit communement que le dit 
 
 from a sane intellect. He tells Eoy d'Arragon traicte le paix d'entre 
 
 Margaret he is sending the Bishop of les Roys par le moyen des mariages, 
 
 Gurce to Rome, to have himself made que entendez assez, et la bon vieillard 
 
 coadjutor to the Pope, and succeed to imdt avoir la jeune garce, pour essayer 
 
 the Papacy. He intends to be sainted s'il pourra encoires avoir ung fils; mais 
 
 after his death ; and then he proceeds j'entends qu'il est bien debile." Lett. 
 
 in this extraordinary strain: — "et il de Louis XII. iv. 300. These corre- 
 
 vous sera de necessite que, apres ma spondents of Margaret were not always 
 
 mort, vous seres constraint de me very refined in their language, 
 adorer, dont je me trouvere bieu * April, 1514.
 
 15U.] MARY AND PEINCE CHARLES. 37 
 
 that she is one of the most beautiful young women in the 
 world. I think I never saw a more charming creature. She 
 is very graceful. Her deportment in dancing and in conver- 
 sation is as pleasing as you could desire. There is nothing 
 gloomy or melancholy about her. I am certain if you had 
 seen her you would never rest until you had her over. I 
 assure you she has been well educated. It is certain, from 
 everything I hear, that she is much attached to Monsieur 
 (Prince Charles) ; of whom she has a very bad picture. And 
 never a day passes that she does not express a wish to see 
 him ' plus de dix fois, comme Ton m'a aflirme.' I had 
 imagined that she would have been very tall ; but she is of 
 middling height, and, as I think, a much better match in age 
 and person for the prince, than I had heard or could have 
 believed before I saw her." ^ 
 
 By the terms of the original compact Prince Charles was 
 bound to consummate the marriage in the May of this year, 
 when he had turned fourteen. But his governor Maximilian, 
 now completely under the influence of Ferdinand, would come 
 to no definite arrangement, and invented various excuses to 
 avoid a decisive answer.^ Margaret did all that she could to 
 fence off the evil day ; and wrote to her father in agony, as 
 one pretext gave way after another.^ The prince was too 
 young, or he was too ill, or he was not in the way. She was 
 feebly suj)ported by the Emperor, who was disingenuous and 
 vacillating. Her efforts were thwarted in every way by the 
 Prince's Council, who hated her influence, and feared their 
 authority would be undermined by the alliance with England. 
 They were, moreover, under the influence of France.^ Peter 
 Martyr says, in a letter dated June 8, 1514 : ^ — " The sister of 
 the King of England was betrothed to Prince Charles on con- 
 dition that he should marry her when he had passed the age 
 of fourteen. The king is urgent to have the marriage com- 
 pleted, as the Prince was of the age required on the 24th 
 of Feb. last. But Maximilian and Ferdinand require its 
 postponement, as the prince is naturally of a feeble constitu- 
 tion." The excuse was not perhaps entirely without founda- 
 tion. The feebleness, both physical and mental, of his 
 mother, cast its shadow on the earlier and later years of 
 
 ■ Juno 30. editor has most strangely perverted 
 
 * April 28, 1514. their arraTigcment. 
 
 ' Her letters on this snbject to * Knijriit, May 2, 10, lull. 
 
 Maximilian will be found in tlic Lett. ^ 1. 5152. 
 
 de Max. et Marg., ii. 254 and 117. The
 
 38 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 Charles V. He was a sickly boy, of a sedate and melancholy 
 disposition, grave and business-like beyond his years. Peter 
 Martyr, in one of his letters,^ endeavouring to impress his 
 correspondent with a favourable notion of the Prince, then in 
 his thirteenth year, dwells much upon the gravity of Charles. 
 Even then he was a solemn censor of the manners of his 
 attendants, and never failed to administer a severe rebuke if 
 they had been guilty of any excesses over night. In fact, if 
 he had one overmastering quality it was that of gravity ; — a 
 gravity that was never pierced by a single ray of passion or 
 generous enthusiasm. The romantic affection of Mary, the 
 appeals of Luther, the destruction of Eome fresh from the 
 hands of Piaphael and Michael Angelo, the fears of Katharine, 
 and the curses of Spain, fell like water on that staid and 
 decorous nature, and left no mark. At fifteen he was his own 
 prime minister, and got out of bed at midnight to answer the 
 despatches of his ambassadors. From his earliest years there 
 was no spirit of boyish intemperance in Charles ; no excesses 
 to be corrected, no frivolity to be restrained. In active sports 
 he took little or no delight ; so that Margaret, writing on one 
 occasion to Maximilian, thought it a grand piece of news to 
 announce that the prince had been out hunting.^ The utmost 
 excess of which Charles is recorded to have been guilty in his 
 youth, was that of dancing himself into an illness at his 
 sister's marriage. In a chivalrous age, and with two such 
 rivals as Henry VIII. and Francis I., he was never betrayed 
 into an unconscious fit of romance or generosity. No good 
 saying, no act of forgetfulness, no imj)ropriety, so far as I can 
 remember, is recorded of him. He was universally solemn, 
 decorous, and insipid ; indifferent to the feelings of others, 
 and never forgetful of his own. Sordid as Maximilian in his 
 money dealings, he was without Maximilian's carelessness, 
 irresolution, and nonchalance. That preciseness which after- 
 wards found scope in regulating clocks, manifested itself even 
 now. It presided over the amusements of the boy and pre- 
 scribed the affections of the man. One of his love letters to 
 Mary is preserved,^ ^Titten probably to dictation ; but it is so 
 dull and decorous, it might as well have been his own compo- 
 sition. Love he felt not, and he made no effort to prevent 
 the rupture. The story of his regret in after life is a mere 
 
 * Let. 515. cha.sse ; aultrement on pourra pens^ qui 
 
 ^ " Nous fumes bien jonyeulx," fust hastart." — Lett. Max. at Marg., 
 
 returns the old Emperor, "que nostre i. 211. 
 
 filz Charles prenne tant de ple'sir a la ^ I. 4606.
 
 1514.] MARY AND LEWIS XII. 39 
 
 invention. Who can wonder, therefore, that a respectable 
 Scotch clerg3'man of the last age, on the look-out for a hero, 
 should have thought he had found one in Charles V. The 
 mistake is precisely one into which he was likely to fall — into 
 which Princess Mary fell with her had picture. 
 
 Early in June,^ if not before, Lewis sent to demand the 
 hand of Maiy. He was ably seconded in his negociations by 
 Longueville. There was not much to choose between a sickly, 
 melancholy boy of fourteen, and a valetudinarian of fifty-two. 
 What solicitations were used to obtain her consent we know 
 not ; perhaps Gerard de Pleine has exaggerated her attach- 
 ment ; perhaps, in that age, female scruples and female 
 delicacy were not much respected. The love affairs of the 
 Tiidors never ran in a straight or smooth channel. We learn 
 from her subsequent letters, when she was married to Suffolk, 
 that her reluctance, whatever it might be, was overcome by 
 the assurance, that if she would comx^l}" with her brother's 
 wishes in this instance, on the next occasion of the kind she 
 should be at liberty to do as she pleased ; — a promise of which 
 she afterwards availed herself. She was induced openly to 
 renounce her contract with Charles on the SOtli of July,^ at 
 the royal manor of Wanstead, in the presence of Brandon and 
 others, — and in August to make a public declaration of her 
 engagement to Lewis,^ and appoint the Earl of Worcester as 
 her proxy .^ The whole course of her wooing, her love letters, 
 the number of her dresses, her attendants, her reception at 
 Paris, her coronation and life at the French court, may be 
 read in the State j)apers of the period.^ 
 
 She was conducted across the water with a splendid 
 retinue, and met Lewis at Abbeville in the first week of 
 October. The description given by Peter Martyr of his 
 appearance as he sate on a great Spanish war-horse covered 
 with magnificent trappings, giving unmistakable indications 
 of premature senility, with moist lips and slouching gait, we 
 may charitably trust, is somewhat exaggerated. But the 
 contrast was the more remarkable when Lewis took her by 
 
 ' I. 5164. See also the Com- it is Mary, and not Anne Ikilcyn, 
 
 mission, July 29. who was Jille d'honncur to W:irf,'arot 
 
 2 I. 5282. of Savoy and the subject ol" that lady's 
 
 » I. 5322. letter to Sir Thomas Boloyn, cited by 
 
 * I. 5347. M. Le Glay in his able edition of (lie 
 
 * I., p. 848, sq. I take this oppor- Lett, do Max., etc., ii. p. 4t;i. Tliis 
 tnnity of correcting a common error. Icitter has never attracted the atteii- 
 It was not Anne, but Mary IJoleyn, tion of English liislorian.'<, Hlrang<>lv 
 her elder sister, who attended the enough. See especially the lettors ot 
 Princess into France ; and no doubt Worcester, Oct 3.
 
 40 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 the hand in all the freshness of youth and beauty, — beautiful 
 (as Peter Martyr says) without the adventitious aids of art, 
 and with her native roses on her cheek. (Epist. 542.) They 
 were detained at Abbeville some weeks, as Lewis was suffering 
 from the gout. The marriage ceremony had no sooner been 
 concluded than all her English servants were dismissed. 
 Mary does not scruple to ascribe this measure to the Duke 
 of Norfolk. "I marvel much," she writes to Henry,^ "that 
 my Lord of Norfolk would at alh times so lightly grant every- 
 thing at their requests here. I am well assured that when ye 
 know the truth of everything, as' my mother Guldeford can 
 show you, ye would little have thought I should have been 
 thus intreated. Would God my Lord of York (Wolsey) had 
 come with me in the room of my Lord of Norfolk ; for then I 
 am sure I should have been left much more at my heart's ease 
 than I am now."^ 
 
 ' Oct. 12. See also lier letters to 
 Wolsey of the same date. 
 
 ^ Her appeal to Wolsey was not 
 witliont effect, as will be seen from 
 the following letter addressed by him 
 to Lewis, copied from the French 
 archives. For this interesting docu- 
 ment I am indebted to the Rev. Joseph 
 Stevenson. 
 
 " Sire, le plus treshumblement que 
 faire je puis a votre bonne grace me 
 recommande. 
 
 " Sire, pour ce qu'il vous a plu de 
 votre grace me advertir par voz lettres, 
 datees a Beauvais le xxvj. jour du moys 
 precedent, que je vous ay fait singullier 
 plaisir de ouvertement et privement 
 vous escriprede ce que jevous escripviz 
 auparavant, me pryant contynuer et 
 faire le semblable, et tout ainsi que je 
 feroye, si j'estoye de votre estroit and 
 prive conseil : 
 
 " A ceste cause, Sire, je vous veuil 
 bien advertir d'une chose. S'est que 
 la ou le Roy, mon Souverain Seigneur 
 et Maistre, votre bon frere, avoit or- 
 donne pour la vraye, parfaicte and 
 entiere confidence qu'il avoit en 
 Madame de Guylford, quelle seroit 
 avec la Royne, sa seur, votre com- 
 paigne, pour les bonnes meurs et 
 experience qu'il congnoissoit qu'elle 
 avoit et bien parlant le langaige ; affin 
 ausi que la Royne, sa dite seur, peust 
 estre menlx conseillee et advertye par 
 elle, comme elle se devoit en tons 
 endroitz regir et conduire envers vous; 
 considerant oultre que la Royne, sa 
 dite bonne seur, est une jeune dame, 
 
 et que quant elle se trouveroit pardela, 
 non ayant le langaige parfaictement, 
 ne aucune congnoissance a nuUes des 
 dames depardela, a qui elle pourroit 
 discouvrir telles passions que les fem- 
 mes out, et que si elle n'avoit quelque 
 une de sa congnoissance a qui elle 
 pourroit dire et declarer familliere- 
 ment son cueur, quelle se trouveroit 
 qiiasy comme desolee, dont elle pour- 
 roit prendre aucun regret et desplaisir, 
 que par aventure seroit occasion de 
 prendre quelque malladye, et son corps 
 en estre de pis, que Dieu ne veuille : 
 Et si tel accident advenoit, je croy, 
 Sire, que vous en serez le plus dollenc 
 et desplaisent. Et pour ce, Sire, que 
 j'ay sceu et entendu que la dite Dame 
 de Guilford est a Boullongue, pour 
 faire son retour parde9a, et quelle 
 estoit des tout dischargee, doubtant 
 que le Roy, mon dit maistre, s'il en 
 avoit la congnoissance, qu'il trouveroit 
 la chose aucunement estrange, je me 
 suys enhard[y] descripre a la dite 
 dame de scjoourner encores audit lieu 
 de Boullongue, jusques ad ce que je 
 vous eusse sur ce escript ma simple 
 et petite oppinion. Ce que je faiz. 
 Sire, a present. Et me semble. Sire, 
 soubz correction, que la devez pour 
 quelque espace de temps retenir au 
 service de la Royne votre dite com- 
 paigne et non sy soubitement la dis- 
 charger, veu et considere que le Roy, 
 votre dit bon frere, la tiree hors d'un 
 lieu solitaire; la ou elle estoit deliberee 
 de non jamais en partir pour aller au 
 service de la Royne, sa dite bonne
 
 1514] ALLIANCE OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 41 
 
 The truth of the compLaiiit is substantiated in some 
 measure by a letter from Suffolk to Wolsey;^ who directly 
 attributes the dismissal of the Queen's servants to Norfolk and 
 his sou, " because they were of Wolsey's choosing, and not 
 theirs ; " and advises him to have it redressed. 
 
 The alliance between the two crowns was not popular in 
 England or the Netherlands ; at least the disappointed corre- 
 spondents of Margaret endeavoured to make it appear so, and 
 magnified to the utmost the murmurs of the discontented. 
 But, if we look back to the last three years, it cannot be denied 
 that a vast advance has been made in the political position of 
 England. From a second-rate kingdom, under the dictation 
 of Ferdinand, it had at once risen to the highest rank in the 
 confederacy of nations. Its power was not the less imposing 
 or dreaded, because in the moment of victory it had acted 
 with moderation. 
 
 The marriage dazzled the eyes of Europe. France was 
 in one continual dream of delight. English ambassadors 
 swarmed about the French court, which they had never 
 visited before, to congratulate the bride and bridegroom, to 
 feast their eyes ou the pageants or take part in the tourna- 
 ments. But in the midst of all this mirth, a conversation 
 was going on between Dorset, Worcester, and Eobertet, the 
 purj)ort of which can scarcely be gathered from the dark and 
 
 seur ; et je ne faiz doubte nulle, Sire, temps, et vous n'estez content do sou 
 
 que quant vous I'aurez bien congneue, demeure la, il vous plaira, Sire, m'en 
 
 que la trouverez dame saige, honorable, advertir, et je feray tant envers le 
 
 et secrete, toute desirante et preste Eoy, inon dit maistre, qu'il y pourvcyra 
 
 d'ensnyvir et acomplyr en toutes de sorte que vous serez content. Mais 
 
 choses a elle possible votre vouUente il me semble. Sire, que si toust vous ne 
 
 et vous plaisirs, en tout ce que vous la devez descharger, ains entretenir 
 
 luy ordonncrez et commenderez, quel- pour la consollacion de la Koyne, votre 
 
 que rapport que vous ait este, ou pourra dite compaigne, et jusques ad ce quelle 
 
 estre fait au contraire ; comme j'ay eit mcilleuro exjjcrience et congnois- 
 
 escript plus a plain a monseigneur lo sance pardola. Vous supplyant, Sire, 
 
 vous chambrelan, pour le vous deolairer me signiffier et advertir dc votre boii 
 
 de ma part. plaisir et intenciou sur co, attiu que 
 
 " Au surplus, Sire, je vous supplye j'en puisse advertir la dite dame, et 
 
 que votre bon plaisir soit de me par- quelle congnoisse comme clle se devra 
 
 donncr et tenir pour excuse, si je mo conduyre en cost endroyt. Priant au 
 
 suystoutenhardy d'ainsy promptement dciiiourant notre Seigneur qu'il vous 
 
 et entierement vous advertir de costo doint, Sire, bonne vie et longiie. 
 
 matiere, et considerer que jo le faiz "Au manoir de Eltliam, lo x.xiij. 
 
 a bonne intcncion pour letressingullier jour d'Octobre. 
 
 desir que j'ay de nourrir et entretenir " Votre tres humble ofc tres 
 
 le Roy, votre dit bon frere et vous, en obeyssant servitem', 
 
 amour, amytie et bien vueillance " T. Eiioit. 
 
 ensemble. Dorso. " A la bonne grace 
 
 " Et pour faire fin a ma lettre, du Roy." 
 Sire, si vous advisez appres et quelle 
 
 aura este pardola quelquo cspaco do ' No. 5512.
 
 42 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 oracular bints dropped in the correspondence of these ministers. 
 It is so silent and so dark, that their fellow-ambassadors in 
 the same com't have no notion of it, and Ferdinand for once 
 was thrown off his guard. Suffolk writes to Henry, on the 
 3rd of November, that his letters were opened. "He had 
 sent letters which be would not should have been seen, which 
 the King knows well." After a variety of manoeuvres to gain 
 the ear of Lewis unseen, Suffolk is sent for by Lewis to come 
 and visit his two daughters. In the midst of this innocent 
 occupation, seeing the King at leisure, " and the chamber well 
 rid," be took out his secret letter, and told the French king 
 be bad a private message for him from bis master. Not a 
 word is dropped by himself or Dorset, of the exact nature of 
 this commission. "We have had," says Dorset, "divers 
 communications with the (French) Privy Council. "We leave 
 (omit) to write because the charge is my Lord of Suffolk's. 
 But, as far as I can perceive, all things go well, and to our 
 master's honor." ^ 
 
 What was the purport of that communication we learn 
 only from the reply of Lewis himself,^ — not from the 
 English, but the French archives. After thanking the King 
 for sending so important a personage as the Duke, Lewis 
 professes his desire to deal frankly with his new brother-in- 
 law. With the proposition^ made him by the English ambas- 
 sadors, that he should assist Henry in expelling Ferdinand 
 from Navarre, as a punishment for having violated his engage- 
 ments, Lewis expresses his willingness to comply, and to raise 
 an army for that purpose. To the second proposition, which 
 was far more startling, he makes a more cautious answer. It 
 seems that Henry bad insisted that as the kingdom of Castile 
 descended in equal portions to the sisters Katharine and Joan,* 
 and be bad married one of the sisters, he had a right to 
 Castile, and as be was resolved to assert his claim he was 
 anxious to know what aid Lewis would lend him for that 
 purpose. Lewis excuses himself from giving any advice on 
 this head, because he was not acquainted with the laws and 
 customs of Spain, but if Henry would set an enterprize on 
 foot for recovering the whole or part of Castile, Lewis would 
 take bis part without further inquiry ; " mais la et quant le 
 
 ' I. 5606. choly state of this unfortunate lady 
 
 * I. 5637. will be found in the letters of John 
 ' Knight was the author of this Stile and Peter Martyr. Both kuew 
 
 proposition. See his letter to Wolsey. her well, and had no reason for palli- 
 
 * The best account of the melan- ating the unwelcome truth.
 
 loll.] HENRY'S DESIGNS AGAINST FERDINAND. 43 
 
 Eoy d'Angleterre troiivera par son conseil qii'il peult et doit 
 faire I'entreprise mencionnee es dits articles, tant pour expeller 
 le dit Eoy d'Arragon du dit royaume de Navarre, que aussi 
 pour recouvrer le dit royaume de Castille, en tout ou partie, 
 le Eoy lors, et en ce cas, sans soy vouloir informer autrement 
 des dites querelles, est delibere et resolu de pourter le querelle 
 du dit Eoy d'Angleterre." This important concession, how- 
 ever, is coupled with a reservation that in the mean time, 
 without disclosing their intentions, both parties should hear 
 what the ambassadors of Arragon had to say, and communicate 
 the result to each other. 
 
 The death of Lewis, shortly after, put an end to this 
 extraordinary project, of which no distinct record remains 
 except in this letter of the French archives.
 
 44 THE KEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 INTERNAL CONDITION OF ENGLAND. 
 
 During this time the domestic events of the reign are com- 
 paratively barren and unimportant. For two years or more 
 after the King's accession, the court and the people were too 
 much occupied with pleasure and pageantry to pay attention 
 to more serious matters ; a little later war and foreign politics 
 threw domestic affairs into the background. The chroniclers 
 have been unjustly condemned for filling their pages with 
 accounts of masques and revels, as if their attention had been 
 engrossed by these to the exclusion of graver subjects. But 
 at home, during the first two years, there was little else to 
 chronicle. It was one unbroken round of amusements — revels 
 at Christmas — masques and archery at May-day- — tilting, and 
 running at the ring the rest of the year. King, ministers, and 
 people were occupied with no higher thoughts than such 
 fantastic sports. The chroniclers are justified also by a 
 curious letter of Queen Katharine to her father Ferdinand. 
 "These kingdoms of your highness," she tells him with delicate 
 flattery,^ " are in great tranquillity, and show great affection to 
 my lord and myself. The time is spent in continual feasting." 
 Empson and Dudley^ are borne to premature graves with little 
 notice ; the unfortunate Edmund De la Pole with less. The 
 masques were not a whit less brilliant, or the maskers less 
 lively. Who could expect that tragic and "hearse-like airs" 
 should succeed such careless easy strains ? Or that broken 
 hearts and forms of blood should change places with all that 
 mirth and laughter ? These chroniclers see more into the 
 texture of life than their philosoj)hical critics. The reign of 
 Henry VIII. was " a dark and melancholy work upon a 
 
 * I. 368. the crime of extortion, but for con- 
 
 ^ I must refer the reader to a very structive treason in attempting to 
 
 curious paper (I. 1212) containing the escape from the Tower ; a crime 
 
 last will and confession of this un- which long disgraced English juris- 
 
 fortunate minister. It seems from prudence. 
 
 that paper that he did not suffer for
 
 1509-14.] HIS EAELY MAEEIED LIFE. 45 
 
 lightsome ground : " and therefore, in the language of the 
 dramatist, " sad, high, and working." 
 
 For the xDresent, whatever scruples might afterwards arise, 
 there was nothing to interfere with Henry's affection for 
 Katharine. Of his marriage he writes in the highest spirits 
 to Margaret of Savo}'- ; ^ he assures Ferdinand his love for 
 Katharine is such that if he were still free, he would choose 
 her in preference to all others.'^ In virtues befitting a Queen 
 and a woman no one will deny her pre-eminence. The small 
 disparity of age was rather in her favour at so early a period 
 of their married life. She was a Spaniard born, of the bluest 
 blood, of the noblest descent, of the proudest court in Europe. 
 Ferdinand had not thought that in bestowing her on an English 
 prince he was receiving a favour. What was Henry VII, in 
 the eyes of Europe when he ascended the throne '? Or what 
 were the chances that he could hold it ? It was he, not they, 
 who received the favour, and touched his bonnet when the names 
 of Ferdinand and Isabella were mentioned in his presence.^ 
 Accounts vary as to Katharine's personal appearance (as of 
 what woman will they not, according to the taste or humour 
 of the spectator?). "She is rather ugly than otherwise," 
 says Nicolo Sagudino, secretary to the ambassador Gius- 
 tinian.^ " She is not handsome," says the ambassador him- 
 self, " but has a very beautiful complexion."^ " She is of a 
 lively and gracious disposition; quite the opposite of the 
 Queen her sister (Joan) in complexion and manner," says 
 Gerard de Pleine.^ She danced well, was a good musician ; 
 was better educated, wrote and read much better, and com- 
 posed in English more correctly than half the ladies of her 
 court. Above all, her love and admiration for Henry were 
 unbounded. There was not such a paragon in the world. He 
 was her hero, her paladin. " With his health and life," she 
 writes with affectionate solicitude to Wolsey, "nothing can 
 come amiss to him ; without them I can see no manner good 
 thing shall fall after it." '^ She is persuaded that the victory 
 at Flodden and the capture of Terouenne " is all owing to the 
 King's piety." ^ Her greatest comfort in his absence is to 
 
 1 I. 224. further on (see p. 117), did the same 
 
 2 I. 3:58. in deference to Henry VIII., in con- 
 ' This curious piece of diplomatic versation with the English ambaa- 
 
 courtcsy, which was fir.st revealed sador. — Ed. 
 
 by Mr. Bergenroth's researches at * Despatches, i. 81. 
 
 Simancas, was not practised by ' Despatches, ii. 313. 
 
 Henry VII. only, and perhaps did » I. 5203 (p. 835). 
 
 not mean so much as is here implied. ' I. 4398 (Aug. 13, 1513). 
 
 The Emperor Maximilian, as noticed ' 1. 4417.
 
 46 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 hear from Wolsey of the King's health, and all the news of 
 his proceedings.^ After the battle of Flodden she writes to 
 Henry that she sends him " the piece of the King of Scots' 
 coat which John Glyn now bringeth. In this your grace 
 shall see how I can keep my promise, sending you for your 
 banners a King's coat." She tells him she is praying for his 
 return, and with characteristic devoutness is setting out on a 
 pilgrimage to our Lady at Walsingham for that purpose.^ 
 
 One great grief had befallen her which had redoubled her 
 anxiety and devotion.^ To the inexpressible delight of the 
 King and the nation, a prince had been born Jan. 1, 1511. 
 A household and officers were appointed for the royal babe.'* 
 His Serjeant at arms with 12fZ. a day, and his clerk of the 
 signet with an annuity of 20L, are immortalized in Privy Seals 
 and Treasury Warrants. Even the name of his nurse, Eliza- 
 beth Pointes, is recorded, and that of the yeoman of his beds 
 and wardrobe. Preparations were made to celebrate the 
 joyous event with all the fantastic splendour and magnificence 
 characteristic of the times. In the spirit of the days of 
 romance, the King, in the garb of a knight, held the barriers 
 with three others against all comers. Articles of the challenge 
 were put forth in conformity with the strict rules of ancient 
 chivalry.^ Coeur loyal, the title assumed by Henry himself, 
 Valliaunt desyr, the appellation of Sir Edmund Nevill, Bon 
 valoir, of the Earl of Devonshire, and Joyaux penser, of Sir 
 Thomas Knevet, were to recall to the world once more the 
 golden days of good report and knightly deeds. But the 
 bright vision faded almost as soon as the pageant itself. On 
 Feb. 22 this desire of all eyes died ; and the following 
 entry, signed by the King and his council, is found among the 
 wages of minstrels, lords of misrule, and salaries of ambas- 
 sadors, grim and emotionless as death itself : — 
 
 » I. 4432. 
 
 2 I. 4451. 
 
 ' Peter Martyr mentions another. 
 He states that Henry, in his indig- 
 nation at the treachery of Ferdinand, 
 had bitterly reproached her with her 
 father's infidelity, and vented his anger 
 against her in no measured terms. 
 Her grief brought on premature child- 
 birth. (See I. 5718.) We learn from 
 Holinshed and Stow that the Queen 
 was delivered of a Prince in Novem- 
 ber, 1514, which died soon after. No 
 notice of this event is found among 
 any of the official documents ; no 
 
 rejoicings at its birth, as on a previous 
 occasion, and no notice of its burial. 
 Probably it was still-born. But the 
 imputation of Peter Martyr is devoid 
 of all probability. How could he, 
 living at that time at Valladolid, come 
 to the knowledge of this story ? More 
 probably it was a malicious report, 
 with no other foundation than the ill 
 humour of the Spanish court, never 
 favoui'able to Henry, and now more 
 than ever exasperated at his alliance 
 with France. 
 
 « I. 1495, 1513, 1862. 
 
 * I. 1491.
 
 1509-14] 
 
 DEATH OF HIS INFANT SON. 
 
 47 
 
 By the King. 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 Trusty and welbeloved, we greet you well. And forasmuch as our 
 subject John Tomson of London, waxchandler, hath delivered in tapers 
 of wax of 3 lb. the piece the weight of 432 lb. , to burn about the hearse of 
 the late Prince, our dearest son, within our monastery of Westminster, 
 over and above the charges of the said hearse, whicli before this hath 
 been accompted for and paid to the said Tomeson by Sir Andrew Winde- 
 sore, keeper of our Great Wardrobe : We therefore will and command 
 you forthwith and without delay, upon the sight of these our letters, to 
 content and j)ay unto the said John Tomson or his assignee for the said 
 432 lb. of wax after the rate of 31. I4s. 8d. the 100, amounting in the 
 whole to the sum of sixteen pounds sterlings. And these our letters shall 
 be your sufficient warrant and discharge in that behalf. Given under 
 our signet at our castle of Windsor, the 13th day of July, the tliird year 
 of our reign. 
 
 T. Surrey— Ri. Wynton— C. Somerset — Harry Marny— T. Englefild. 
 
 To our trusty and welbeloved servant, John 
 Heron, treasurer of our Chamber.^ 
 
 With these exceptions, there was nothing in those early 
 3'ears to cloud the brilliancy of the reign. The conspiracies 
 that had troubled Henry VII. so often, dared not raise their 
 front against Henry VIII. The Simnels and Warbecks had 
 disappeared altogether. The only miserable shadow of a 
 pretender, Eichard De la Pole,^ was a fugitive in France, 
 
 ' There appear in the same accounts, 
 about the same time, various entries 
 of donations to religious orders ; among 
 others, the following, probably rela- 
 ting to the same event : — 
 30 June loll. Henry VIII. to John 
 Hekon. 
 
 To pay 58s. for "one 
 
 hundredth of pure wax," 
 
 given in alms to the Friars 
 
 Observants, Greenwich. 
 
 Greenwich, 30 June, 3 Hen. 
 
 VIII. 
 Among the warrants to the 
 Treasurer of the Chamber is an order 
 dated Feb. 25, 1512, to pay Wm. 
 Lambert, " yeoman of the beds with 
 oar late dearest son, the Prince de- 
 ceased," 41. lis. 3d., for his year's 
 wages endinj; Candlemas last, and for 
 expense of boat-hire from Richmond 
 to Baynard's Castle for conveying the 
 wardrobe there, 7s. 25 Feb., 3 Hen. 
 VIII.; and another dated Dec. 12, 
 1512, to pay " Wm. Lambert, late 
 yeoman of the wardrobe of beds with 
 our dearest son the Prince deceased," 
 his wages for "keeping the same stuff" 
 from the Feast of Purification last to 
 the Feast of Circumcision, "by the 
 space of 326 da^-s, after the rate of 
 3d. for every day:" total, 41. 18d. 
 Westm., 12 Dec, 4 Hen. Vlll. 
 
 ^ Of the execution of Edmund De 
 la Pole in 1513, no notice is found in 
 contemporary documents except in 
 the letter of Peter Martyr (No. 4324), 
 where it is attributed to his treason- 
 able correspondence with his brother. 
 The Wardrobe Warrants contain the 
 following order : — 
 
 " By the King. 
 " Henry R. 
 
 " We will and charge yon, that 
 unto our trusty and welbeloved knight 
 for our body. Sir Richard Cholmeley, 
 deputy lieutenant of our Tower of 
 London, ye deliver or cause to be 
 delivered for the use of Edmund De 
 la Pole and William his brother these 
 parcels following: first, for either of 
 them two gowns, the one of russet 
 furred with fox, and the other of 
 tawney furred with black bogye, price 
 of every yard 5s. ; for either of tliem 
 two doublets, the one of black satin, 
 the other of black velvet ; for either 
 of them throe pair of hoson and three 
 shirts ; for eitlier of them three ])air 
 of sheets ; for either of them a black 
 bonnet, three pair of shoes or slipporn, 
 throe dozen silk points and a ribbon 
 girdle. And those our letters shall bo 
 unto you sutticiont warrant and dis- 
 charge at all times hereafter. Given 
 under our signet at our uiaiiur of
 
 J 
 
 48 THE EEIGN OF HENRY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 dependent on a precarious subsistence, and surrounded by 
 spies who transmitted notice of his movements to England. 
 The nation at large was content and flourishing. It is 
 astonishing to observe the rapidity with which it had settled 
 down to order in the reign of Henry VII. after so many years 
 of civil dissension. It would lead us to infer that those wars 
 were the wars of a class, and not of the nation ; and that the 
 effects of them have been greatly exaggerated. With the 
 single exception of Cade's rebellion,^ they had nothing in 
 common with the revolutions of later or earlier times. They 
 were not wars against classes, against forms of government, 
 against the order or the institutions of the nation. It was the 
 rivalry of two aristocratic factions struggling for superiority, 
 neither of them hoping or desiring, whichever obtained the 
 upper hand, to introduce momentous changes in the State or 
 its administration. The main body of the people took little 
 interest in the struggle ; in the towns at least there was no 
 intermission of employment. The war passed over the nation, 
 ruffling the surface, toppling down high cliffs here and there, 
 washing away ancient landmarks, attracting the imagination 
 of the spectator by the mightiness of its waves, and the noise 
 of its thunders ; but the great body below the surface remained 
 unmoved. No famines, no plagues, consequent on the in- 
 termittence of labour caused by civil war, are recorded ; even 
 the prices of land and provisions scarcely varied more than 
 they have been known to do in times of profoundest peace. 
 
 But the indirect and silent operation of these conflicts was 
 much more remarkable. It reft into fragments the con- 
 federated ranks of a powerful territorial aristocracy, which 
 had hitherto bid defiance to the King, however popular, how- 
 ever energetic. Henceforth the position of the Sovereign in 
 the time of the Tudors, in relation to all classes of the people, 
 became very different from what it had been : the royal 
 supremacy was no longer a theory, but a fact. Another class 
 had sprung up on the decay of the ancient nobility. The 
 great towns had enjoyed uninterrupted tranquillity, and even 
 flourished, under the storm that was scourging the aristocracy 
 and the rural districts. Their population had increased by 
 numbers whom fear or the horrors of war had induced to find 
 
 Greenwich, the 23rd day of July, the ' Which is not a real exception 
 
 first year of oar reign. after all, for Shakespeare was certainly 
 
 " To oiu- trusty and welbeloved wrong in attributing to Cade's move. 
 
 Sir Andrew Wyndysor, knight, ment the democratic character of Wat 
 
 keeper of our GreatWai-drobe." Tyler's. — Ed,
 
 1509-14.] KESULTS OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. 49 
 
 shelter behind stone walls. The diminution of agricultural 
 labourers converted into soldiers by the folly of their lords, 
 had turned corn-lands into pasture, requiring less skill, less 
 capital, and less labour. Consequently, a new class of men, 
 at the commencement of this century, were occupying the 
 soil and had invested their money in land ; and a complaint 
 is made to the Parliament of Henry VIII. that " in conse- 
 quence of the occupation of land by merchants, clothiers, and 
 others,"^ housekeeping had decayed, and tillage had been 
 turned into pasture. The petition assumes as self-evident 
 that picturesque form of the happiness of ancient days, not 
 uncommon in such complaints. But this tendency to recall 
 the past, and invest it with brilliant but imaginary colours, 
 was characteristic of the reign. It was the same with knight 
 and peasant. The bright sunset of a departing age, from 
 which men were rapidly and unconsciously drifting, still 
 fascinated many minds, and filled them with wistfulness and 
 regrets. When every man was contented, say the petitioners, 
 with one farm, there was plenty of everything, as "every 
 acre of land ploughed bore the straw and chaff besides the 
 corn, able, with the help of the shack in the stubble, to feed 
 as many great beasts as the land would keep laid in leyes ; 
 and by the winnowing of corn there were kept at every barn- 
 door pigs and poultry, to the comfort of the people in every 
 shire. Now in a town of twenty or thirty dwellings the 
 houses are decayed, the people gone, the churches in ruins, 
 and in many parishes nothing more than a neatherd or a 
 shepherd or a warner is to be seen." 
 
 But allowing that this account may be exaggerated, it 
 could scarcely be entirely without foundation. The efforts of 
 the Legislature to regulate wages and punish vagabondism are 
 a proof that many irregularities did exist. Licences to beg, 
 and the continuous efforts to repress unlicensed begging, 
 indicate the prevalence of beggary. In fact, while wages 
 remained high in the towns, and skilled labour commanded 
 good prices, the drying up of the ordinary employments and 
 means of food in the agricultural districts led probably to the 
 wretchedness described by Sir Thomas More in his Utopia, 
 and the severe measures required to suppress it. If Latimer 
 thought that two acres of hemp, sown up and down England, 
 " were all too little to hang the thieves in it," the prevalence of 
 thieving must have been notorious. And these statements are 
 
 ' I. 5727. 
 VOL. I. K
 
 \) 
 
 50 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 countenanced by the frequent complaints of robbers made by 
 Erasmus when resident in England, and still more by a letter 
 of Peter Martyr, dated May 19, 1513 : ^ " John Stile told him 
 that a band of robbers had attacked the King's wagons carry- 
 ing money to the wars, and afterwards fled to sanctuary. But 
 the King caught 80 of them before they could escape, and 
 hanged them all." 
 
 To the religious foundations, which had sprung up in 
 such numbers in every shire of England, and engrossed the 
 revenues of the secular and parochial clergy, the civil dis- 
 turbances of the last century were specially disastrous. Dis- 
 cipline had relaxed and could not easily be enforced. The 
 springs of charity which had supported the smaller houses 
 ceased to flow ; the estates of the greater houses, by the loss 
 of their tenantry, were neglected and became unproductive. 
 Debt, with no chance of redemption, weighed heavily upon 
 all. An extreme measure was required to avoid the scandal 
 and misery caused by this state of things ; and Wolsey, by an 
 Act not altogether unlike what we have seen in our own days 
 applied to Ireland,^ found it necessary to suppress and sell the 
 smaller and more encumbered houses. The larger, which 
 still remained, were necessarily modified by the circumstances 
 of the times, and their religious character impaired. They 
 admitted a number of lay inmates, or at least kept open house 
 for persons not connected with their foundations. In some 
 cases the abbots were bound to give endowments to scholars 
 of the King's nomination, or provide them with competent 
 benefices ; ^ pensions and corrodies were granted under the 
 Privy Seal to yeoman ushers of the wardrobe and the 
 chamber, to clerks of the kitchen, sewers, secretaries, and 
 gentlemen of the chapel royal,* and these were strictly en- 
 forced, whatever might be the other incumbrances of the 
 house. We find Ammonius, in a letter to Erasmus, discussing 
 
 1 I. 4096. 
 
 ^ It is important to note tliat this 
 was written in the year 1862. The 
 author, of course, alludes to the En- 
 cumbered Estates Act (1848), the 
 memory of which, and of all the good 
 it did while in operation, has since 
 been almost effaced by causes of which, 
 doubtless, the less said here the 
 better. — Ed. 
 
 » I. 1235, 1360. One of the most 
 interesting of these cases is that of a 
 pension jjaid by the prior of St. Frides- 
 wide's, Oxford, to Reginald Pole, then 
 
 a student in the Uuiversity of Oxford, 
 afterwards Cardinal. No. 4190. Amongr 
 the warrants to the treasurer of the 
 Chamber is an entry dated Feb. 17, 
 1511-12, commanding him to pay "for 
 the behoof of our scholar, Raynold 
 Pole, son unto the said Lady Margaret 
 Pole," 121. assigned to him for his study 
 and learning for this year ensuing, 
 " like as we be minded to give unto 
 him yearly the same exhibition here- 
 after/' Westm., Feb. 17, 3 Hen. VIII. 
 * I. 49, 60, 106, 615, 920, 1072, 
 1081, 1595.
 
 1509-14.] DECLINE OF MONASTICISM. 51 
 
 the question where the latter is to lodge when he comes to 
 London. The Augustinians have only unfurnished apart- 
 ments. He will not recommend the monastery where he is 
 lodging, as they keep a poor table. Another is not to be 
 thought of ; it is too mean, and the rooms are not com- 
 fortable.^ Expressions strangely at variance with modern 
 notions of monastic seclusion and religious asceticism. 
 
 But, in fact, respect for monastic life had in a great 
 measure passed away with the necessity that created it. The 
 writings and example of Erasmus himself, a monk leading a 
 secular life, caressed by bishops and all the eminent men of 
 his time, were not of a nature to inspire respect for monastic 
 institutions. In England, no minister, no ecclesiastic, no 
 scholar, of any eminence, had of late years sprung from the 
 religious orders. Their influence over public opinion, at least 
 in the southern counties of England, had been entirely 
 eclipsed, and tliey had done nothing to recover it. That in 
 so large a body of men, so widely dispersed, seated for so 
 many centuries in the richest and fairest estates of England, 
 for which they were mainly indebted to their own skill, per- 
 severance, and industry, discreditable members were to be 
 found (and what literary chiffonnier, raking in the scandalous 
 annals of any profession, cannot find filth and corruption ?) is 
 likely enough ; but that the corruption was either so black or so 
 general as party spirit would have us believe, is contrary to all 
 analogy, and is unsupported by imj)artial and contemporary 
 evidence. The general complaint against them is that of 
 ignorance and bigotry ; and — what an Englishman would now 
 consider as the root of all evil — the absence of any ostensible 
 employment. Of this, however, more will be said hereafter. 
 
 The laxity thus introduced by the events of the last 
 century, and the occupation of bishops in political affairs, 
 allowed a freedom in religious practice and discussion to 
 spring up unchecked among the middle classes. Except a 
 man with more zeal than discretion chose to obtrude his 
 heresies in the face of his diocesan, he had little chance of 
 incurring the penalty of martyrdom. Of course then, as now, 
 there were exceptions. The canons were enforced with dif- 
 ferent degrees of severity in different dioceses. A prelate 
 might di^,tinguish himself by unreasonable severity ; — he 
 might enforce the law against a length of beard, ^ or laxity of 
 opinions, liut, in general, the indifference or contempt with 
 
 ' I. 1982. * The cauonists are very strict upon clerical buarda.
 
 52 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 which the bishops regarded departures from established 
 doctrines, especially when that dissent was not attended with 
 scholarship, was more galling in many cases than when they 
 lamiched against it their ecclesiastical fulminations. At a 
 later period, when Lutheranism grew into notice by its daring 
 defiance of ecclesiastical authority, the bishops changed their 
 measures, and became more strict and vigilant. The King's 
 own book against Luther gave a new tone to the age, and a 
 sharper edge to ecclesiastical discipline. But as late as 1520, 
 diversities of religious opinion spread among the lower orders, 
 especially in the towns, without much notice from the 
 hierarchy. We find Ammonius, indeed, bantering Erasmus, 
 who was very susceptible of cold, on the price of faggots, in 
 consequence of the daily multiplication of heresy, and Erasmus 
 answering in the same tone.-^ But this is a sort of banter 
 which must not be interpreted too literally. Had it been 
 literally true, a man of so mild a temper as Erasmus, and an 
 enemy to religious persecution, would scarcely have indulged 
 in so cruel a jest. Foxe, who was not likely to have overlooked 
 such instances, records only two cases of capital punishment 
 for heresy during this early period of Henry's reign.^ The 
 rapid increase of religious independence among the lower and 
 more illiterate classes in London, as stated by the Italian 
 secretary,^ may be accepted as a fact. But, saving their old 
 fi'eedom of taxing the Pope and his doings, and the cherished 
 national privilege of preaching and being preached to, the 
 general body of the people had not yet learned to question the 
 established doctrines of the Church. For the most part they 
 paid Peter pence, and heard mass, and did as their fathers 
 had done before them. 
 
 I turn to some remarks on the ministers and ambassadors 
 through whom the business of the nation was carried on, at 
 home and abroad. 
 
 Sir Harris Nicolas has collected with great assiduity all 
 that relates to the constitution and powers of the Privy 
 Council.^ Unfortunately his researches point to a later period, 
 and he has been able to throw very little light on the functions 
 and formation of that body as it existed in the early years of 
 
 I I, 1948, 1957. freely indulg^ed in those very faults 
 
 ^ Had Foxe, the Martyrologist, of suppression and equivocation for 
 
 been an honest man, his carelessness which he condemned his opponents. 
 
 and credulitywould have incapacitated ' Ammonius was Italian secretary 
 
 him from being a trustworthy his- to Henry VIII.— Ed. 
 
 torian. Unfortanately he was not '' Proceedingsof the Privy Council. 
 
 honest ; he tampered with the docu- Pref. to Vol. VII. 
 
 ments that came into his hands, and
 
 l/)09-14.] THE PRIVY COUNCIL. 53 
 
 Henry VIII. It is certain, however, from the answer made by 
 Heni-y YIII. to the rebels of Yorkshire in 1536, that the 
 appointment of the Lords of the Council, — of the Privy Council, 
 as it is sometimes called, — was entirely dependent on the 
 King's pleasure. As some of the great officers of the Crown 
 had no seat at the Council, so men holding no office, and of 
 no rank, were to be found among its numbers.^ In fact, the 
 Privy Council at this time was apparently nothing more than 
 a body of advisers whom the King might summon at pleasure 
 to his presence, without binding himself to accept their sug- 
 gestions ; without necessarily consulting them on matters of 
 great moment. He might declare w^ar, or determine peace, 
 or form treaties, or enter upon the most important negotia- 
 tions, not only without their advice, but without so much as 
 making them privy to his intentions. To our modern notions 
 it will seem strange that the orders of the Privy Council, 
 which are pretty frequent at the commencement of the reign, 
 should diminish in number in proportion as events become 
 important, as if they had been entrusted only with the ordi- 
 nary and formal business of the administration. In all 
 matters of domestic, and still more of foreign, politics the 
 King was absolute. No check was imposed upon his in- 
 clinations by his ministers or the House of Commons. Even 
 as late as 1526, when a body of regulations was issued for 
 the establishment of a Council, it will be seen that the 
 Council was far from being of the highest consideration 
 in the State. " Forasmuch as the Lord Cardinal," it is 
 stated, "the Lord Treasurer of England, Lord Privy Seal, 
 Lord Steward, and divers other Lords and personages before 
 mentioned, by reason of their attendance at the terras for 
 administration of justice, and exercising of their offices, and 
 
 ' The King, in his answer to the The entire list embraced the following 
 
 demands of the rebels (State Papers, names; — the Archbishop (Warham), 
 
 I. 507), specifies as members of the the Bishops of Wincliester, London, 
 
 Privy Council in these early years the Rochester, and Durham, the Earls 
 
 Treasurer (S'lrrey), the High Steward of Surrey, Oxford, Shrewsbury, and 
 
 of the Household (Shrewsbury), Lords Worcester, Sir Tlnmas Lovell, Sir 
 
 Marney and Darcy, the Archbishop of Henry Marny, Sir T. Brandon, Sir T. 
 
 Canterbury (Warham), and the Bishop Enf-lefeld, Sir Edw. Puyniuges, Sir 
 
 of Winchester (Fox). The rest, he John Husee, Sir H. Wiat, Sir Th. 
 
 says, were lawyers and priests. Among Darcy, Dr. Yong, T. Docwra, and tho 
 
 the latter he doubtless includes Wolsey, law officers Sir J. Cutte, Sir J. Fynoux, 
 
 who was only Almoner when he sate and others. Wolsey does not appear 
 
 in the Council. It is strange, and to have had a seat in tho Councd till 
 
 hardly candid, that he should have Nov., 1511, and therefore 1. 679 is 
 
 omitted the names of the Earls of misdated in tho Calendar, and should 
 
 Oxford and Worcester, and Dr. Huthal, probably bo referred to that year. 
 Bishop of Durham, Secretary of State.
 
 54 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 other reasonable impediments shall many seasons fortune 
 to be absent from the King's court, and specially in term 
 times, to the intent the King's highness shall not be any 
 season unfurnished of an honourable presence of councillors 
 about his grace, with whom his highness may confer upon the 
 premises at his pleasure; — it is ordered that the persons 
 hereafter mentioned shall give their continual attendance on 
 the causes of his said Council, unto what place soever his 
 highness shall resort." Then follow the names of the Lord 
 Chamberlain, the Bishop of Bath, and others. " And because 
 per case it may chance some of these aforenamed persons to 
 be absent, be it always provided that the Bishop of Bath, the 
 Secretary, Sir Thomas More, and the Dean of the Chapel, or 
 two of them at the least, always be present, being every day in 
 the forenoon by 10 of the clock at the furthest, and at after- 
 noon by two of the clock, in the King's dining chamber, or in 
 such other place as shall fortune to be appointed for the 
 Council Chamber." ^ 
 
 The great officers of the Crown were Warham Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, Chancellor ; Thomas Earl of Surrey, Lord 
 High Treasurer; Fox Bishop of Winchester, Privy Seal; Sir 
 Edward Howard, Lord High Admiral ; the Earl of Shrews- 
 bury, Steward of the Household ; Lord Herbert, Chamberlain ; 
 Euthal Bishop of Durham, Secretary of State. Of the 
 members of the Privy Council who enjoyed the greatest 
 influence, Wolsey, as might be expected, occupies the most 
 conspicuous place. Next to him was the Duke of Norfolk, " a 
 person of extreme authority ; " to whose jealousy of the 
 Cardinal foreign ministers, when they could not succeed with 
 Wolsey, were more than once indebted for valuable informa- 
 tion. Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, nearer than any 
 other to the King in ago, tastes, and love of martial exercises, 
 shared much of his confidence, although he was infinitely 
 inferior to Henry in all literary and intellectual qualifications. 
 " He is associated with his Majesty," says Giustinian, " tan- 
 quam intclUgentiam assistentem orbi, which governs, commands, 
 and acts with authority scarcely inferior to the King him- 
 self." ^ Next in authority was Fox, Bishop of Winchester ; 
 
 • Ordinances for the Household simply addressed, " To the King's 
 
 (Soc. of Antiquaries), 160. — I have Majesty," etc. 
 
 abridged one or two needless expres- ^ Brown's Four Tears at the Court 
 
 sions. I may observe that the style of Hevry VIII., i. 119. As Mr. Brown 
 
 "King in Council" has no warrant remarks, the "orb" which governs is 
 
 whatever from any document of this evidently Wolsey. — Ed. 
 early date. The letters are always
 
 1509-14.] ARCHBISHOP WARHAM AND FOX. 55 
 
 last of all, Euthal, the patient drudge of Wolsey. Warham is 
 seldom mentioned, and none of the rest appear to have en- 
 joyed any consideration. 
 
 It will seem strange that the name of Warham should 
 occur so seldom except in connection with his hio-h le^al 
 functions. He is never engaged in any diplomatic mission of 
 importance. He appears from the first to have declined all 
 public business. Drafts, memoranda, and letters are frequent 
 in the handwriting of Fox, Euthal, and Wolsey. But nothing 
 of the kind is found in the handwriting of Warham. In the 
 bustle and excitement consequent on the wars in Guienne and 
 Flanders, and the naval preparations against the French, 
 Warham remained an impassive spectator. He fell at the 
 first from the great group which surrounded the throne of the 
 young prince, and lost whatever influence he might otherwise 
 have commanded by his station and experience. To what 
 causes this neglect is to be attributed, it is by no means easy 
 to discover. The vulgar supposition which imputes it to 
 jealousy on the part of Wolsey is without foundation. Long 
 before Wolsey's name ajipears among the king's advisers, 
 Warham's want of influence is visible. Jealousy of the Arch- 
 bishop's power over the young king would have been the most 
 causeless thing imaginable ; for he never had any. He was 
 never acceptable either to Henry or to Katharine. His 
 munificence to Erasmus procured for him the praise and 
 gratitude of that somewhat venal scholar ; but with the solitary 
 exception of Erasmus, and perhaps of the unhappy Duke of 
 Buckingham, for whom he seems to have entertained some 
 kindness, it would be hard to point out a single person with 
 whom Warham lived on terms of friendship. Probably, there- 
 fore, the little influence he enjoyed at court may be attributed, 
 with more justice, to a hardness and inflexibility of temper, 
 which could not bend to the new state of things, or comply 
 with the impetuous and stirring movements of Henry VIIL, 
 so contrary to the stateliness, reserve, and mystery of the 
 previous reign. In 1513 we have indications that the Arch- 
 bishop was engaged in a dispute with Fox,-^ the most devout 
 and gentle of all Henry's ministers. We find Katharine, no 
 less gentle and conscientious than Fox, in allusion to the same 
 dispute, hinting at the same infirmity ; ^ and Warham's own 
 letters at a subsequent period confirm the impression of his 
 discourtesy, not to say moroseness. 
 
 ' " A lord of extreme authority and goodness," says Giustijiian, i. 1G3. 
 * I. 4452.
 
 56 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 Nor does the common tradition, wbicli owes its parentage 
 to the spite of Polydore Vergil, whom Wolsey bad committed 
 to prison, rest on any better foundation. Tbis historian, 
 who never forgot tbe injury, and never could forgive the 
 Cardinal, would have us believe that Wolsey paved tbe way 
 for bis own advancement by supplanting Fox, and driving him 
 from tbe Council. Tbe calumny, like many others affecting 
 tbe intimacies of great men, has no foundation. It was better 
 suited to tbe atmosphere of Eome than of England. And bad it 
 been uttered here, Polydore would probably have been told, as 
 one of bis countrymen was told by an Englishman on a similar 
 occasion : " Nou isto vivitur illic, quo tu rere modo.'" Tbe 
 insinuation is at variance with the correspondence of tbe two 
 ministers. We see in their letters, not only the cordial friend- 
 ship which existed between them, but also the rooted disin- 
 clination of Fox to a life of diplomacy. It is only with the 
 strongest arguments that Wolsey can prevail on him to give 
 bis attendance at the court, and occupy bis seat at the Council 
 table. He was always anxious to get away. He felt it incon- 
 sistent with his duties as a bishop to be immersed in politics, 
 and be laments it to Wolsey, in a letter to be noted hereafter, 
 in terms the sincerity of which cannot be mistaken. In fact 
 tbe noblest minds of tbe time often experienced tbe bitter 
 struggle between tbe King as their conscience and their con- 
 science as their King. Others than Fox regretted that they 
 had neglected their spiritual calling to serve tbe State. 
 
 It must also be remembered that Fox belonged to tbe old 
 order of things, when monastic seclusion to men of bis devout 
 turn, and total retirement from secular employments seemed 
 tbe only life that deserved the name of rehgious. Great was 
 tbe fascination exercised by Henry VII., and still more by 
 Henry VIII., over the minds of such men ; but times of com- 
 punction came when tbis total alienation of thought and action 
 from their duties as spiritual men became an intolerable 
 burthen. So far from driving Fox from tbe court, it is the 
 utmost that Wolsey can do to bring him there ; and when be 
 succeeds, it is evidently more out of compassion for Wolsey's 
 incredible labours than his own inclination. 
 
 In this respect tbe statesmen of Henry differ greatly from 
 those of EHzabeth. Numerous are the complaints of tbe 
 weariness and expense of public employment. There is not 
 an ambassador who does not send reiterated entreaties to tbe 
 King or Wolsey to be recalled and released. Men of still lower
 
 1509-14] PUBLIC BUSINESS FALLS ON WOLSEY. 57 
 
 grade petition continually for exemption from offices which 
 were greedily sought a century later. The simpler and 
 sincerer habits of those days, must not be measured by the 
 finesse and dissimulation of later times. Habits of seclusion 
 were congenial to the age. 
 
 So the main weight of public business fell upon Euthal 
 and Wolsey ; the former of whom had the reputation of being 
 the wealthiest prelate in England, and was not altogether 
 exempt from the imputation of penuriousness. His import- 
 ance was due to his close connexion with Wolsey,^ and to his 
 dignity as Bishop of Durham. Owing to the proximity of 
 Durham to the borders, none but a wealthy prelate could hold 
 that see with efficiency. It demanded a princely income to 
 keep Norham and the neighbouring fortresses in repair, and 
 provide against the continual incursions of the Scots. It 
 needed a wealthy bishop, but no more ; the less formidable for 
 genius or ambition the better. For there were elements of 
 discord and insubordination in the North, which might burst 
 forth at any time, and find a nucleus for their organization in 
 an active and enterprizing prelate. On that head there was 
 not much to apprehend from the talents or ambition of 
 Euthal. The numerous letters and drafts in his handwriting, 
 often mistaken for Wolsey's, and probably written at Wolsey's 
 dictation, show Euthal's labour and patience. His own letters 
 do not inspire much respect for his judgment or his genius. 
 
 Unlike his fellows in the Council, Wolsey's attention to 
 business was not distracted by the duties of a high ecclesias- 
 tical appointment, or even the claims of large territorial 
 estates. He held at this time no other preferment than the 
 deanery of Lincoln. The bent of his genius was exclusively 
 political ; but it leaned more to foreign than domestic politics. 
 It shone more conspicuous in great diplomatic combinations, 
 for which the earlier years of the reign furnished favourable 
 opportunities, than in domestic reforms. No man understood 
 so well the interests of this kingdom in its relations to foreign 
 powers, or pursued them with greater skill and boldness. 
 The more hazardous the conjuncture, the higher his spirit 
 soared to meet it. His intellect expanded with the occasion. 
 Even at this early time he knew the extent of his power, and 
 the temper of those with whom he had to deal. In a very 
 characteristic letter to his vicar-general at Tournay, Dr. 
 
 ' " Singing treble to the Cardinal's base," is the expression of Giastinian, 
 i. 260.
 
 58 THE REIGN OF HENRY YHI. [A.D. 
 
 Sampson, who alleged the difficulties he encountered in his 
 administration there, Wolsey tells him to do his duty :^ "Ye 
 need not douht thereof ; the pope would not offend me for one 
 thousand such as the elect ^ is, nor there is no such thing 
 spoken of nor intended. I would not have you muse upon the 
 moon, but to go straightly and wisely to my matters." Proud 
 Cardinal and proud prelate were the terms lavished upon him 
 by men as proud as himself, with much less reason to be 
 proud. From a humble station, by his own unassisted efforts 
 he had raised himself to the most conspicuous position, not in 
 this nation only, but throughout the whole of Europe. " He 
 was seven times greater than the Pope himself," is no exagge- 
 ration of the Venetian Giustinian ; for he saw at his feet, what 
 no Pope had for a long time seen, and no subject before or 
 since, Princes, Kings, and Emperors courting his smiles. 
 Born to command, infinitely superior in genius to those who 
 addressed him, piercing their motives at a glance, he was lofty 
 and impatient. But there is not a trace throughout his 
 correspondence of the ostentation of vulgar triumph or 
 gratified vanity. Grave and earnest, it occasionally descends 
 to irony — is sometimes pungent, never vainglorious. Am- 
 bassadors from foreign courts, when they first visit England, 
 address themselves to the King, and write letters to the 
 Council. After a few weeks a little penetration enables them 
 to discover by whose judgment and decision every great 
 question will be eventually decided. 
 
 But throughout the whole period of his long administra- 
 tion, and through all his correspondence, it is remarkable how 
 small a portion of his thoughts is occupied with domestic 
 affairs ; and with religious matters still less. Looking back 
 upon the reign, and judging it as we do now by one great 
 event, and one only, it aj)pears inconceivable that a man of 
 80 much penetration and experience should have taken such a 
 little interest in the religious movements of the day, and 
 regarded Luther and the progress of the Eeformation with so 
 little concern. Grand also and munificent as were his notions 
 of education, it is hard to find any statesman of his eminence 
 who manifested less interest in the revival of letters, and 
 cared less for Ciceronianisms and Latin elegancies. When, 
 from a variety of causes, questions of domestic interest became 
 
 ' I. p. 949. the English ; who was never con- 
 
 * The French bishop elected to the secrated, but was continually seeking 
 see of Tournay before its conquest by recognition from the Pope. — Ed.
 
 1509-14.] WOLSEY'S CAREER. 59 
 
 paramount, and the Sovereign and the nation were engrossed 
 in rehgious discussions, the genius of Wolsey was no longer 
 required. It no longer occupied the entire field of politics. 
 The result was fatal ; younger men understood the temper of 
 the times better than he ; they had the advantage of mixing 
 in the strife with minds less prejudiced by the traditional 
 maxims of the j)ast ; they were less trammelled by rules 
 which no longer suited the rapid changes of the age. But so 
 long as domestic questions remained in abeyance — so long 
 as the movements of Francis I., Charles V., or the Pope, 
 were immeasurably more important than labourers' wages, 
 the exactions of the London clergy, or the excesses of the 
 Ecclesiastical courts — so long the genius of Wolsey rode 
 triumj)hant. No one could for a moment mount within his 
 sphere, or contest his superiority. 
 
 The eclipse of his greatness was inevitable. It was in 
 some measure owing to the dying off of his older associates 
 who had served under Henry VII. — to the youth and inex- 
 perience of the men about Henry VIII. — to the reluctance 
 with which Wolsey admitted fresh hands to a share of his 
 labours. More than once he was urged by the King to promote 
 younger associates, and provide for contingencies in the public 
 service. More than once he finds excuses for complying, not 
 from envy or selfishness ; but, like other great and successful 
 ministers who have long stood supreme and alone, he grew 
 more fastidious as he grew older ; he was less willing to 
 hazard his measures by intrusting them to others, or damage 
 the success of his plans through the indiscretion and inex- 
 perience of younger heads. With the failing natural to old 
 age, he was more willing to tax his waning strength, than 
 undertake the ungracious and unpalatable task of communi- 
 cating his designs and explaining their bearings to raw asso- 
 ciates. The policy was fatal ;— it angered the King, it raised 
 up a host of enemies in the able and rising courtiers. It left 
 Wolsey friendless when he most needed friends ; and the 
 moment an opportunity offered of attacking the minister 
 behind his back, it was readily seized on. Without any great 
 ingratitude on the part of his Sovereign, his fall was inevitable; 
 the work and the time had outgrown him ; — and the expression 
 put into his mouth by the great dramatist, "the King has gone 
 beyond me," expresses Wolsey's profound conviction of the real 
 causes of his disgrace, and the impossibility of his rcstoratum. 
 
 But of his wonderful genius, most wonderful in the earlier
 
 60 
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 stage of his career, abundant proofs will be found in the 
 corres2Dondence of the time. The policy of Henry VIII. at the 
 outset presented as great a contrast to the policy of Henry VII. 
 as the administration of Cromwell did to his predecessor's. 
 No minister so thoroughly understood that change as Wolsey, 
 or entered upon it with so much zeal and energy. 
 
 Of his personal appearance the most faithful record will 
 be found in his picture at Hampton Court. On that portrait 
 the memorial sent by Sebastian Giustiuian to his Signory in 
 1519 is the best comment : — 
 
 "He is about forty-six years old," says the writer, "very 
 handsome,^ learned, extremely eloquent, of vast ability, and 
 indefatigable. He alone transacts the same business as that 
 which occupies all the magistracies, offices, and councils of 
 Venice, both civil and criminal ; and all state affairs likewise 
 are managed by him, let their nature be what it may. 
 
 "He is pensive, and has the reputation of being extremely 
 just. He favours the people exceedingly, and especially the 
 poor, hearing their suits and seeking to despatch them 
 instantly. He also makes the lawyers plead gratis for all 
 paupers. He is in very great repute, seven times more so 
 than if he were Pope.^ 
 
 "He is the person," continues the ambassador, "who 
 rules both the King and the entire kingdom. On the ambas- 
 sador's first arrival in England he used to say, ' His Majesty 
 ivill do so and so ; ' subsequently by degrees he went on for- 
 getting himself, and commenced saying, ' We shall do so and 
 so ; ' at this present he has reached such a pitch that he 
 says, ' / shall do so and soJ* " 
 
 The story of his low birth, though noticed by Giustinian, 
 is apparently exaggerated.^ Its common version is hardly 
 
 * Tet his imiDlacable enemies, 
 Skelton and Eoy, state that he was 
 disfigured by the small-pox. Skelton 
 adds that he was 
 
 " So full of melancholy, 
 With a flap afore his eye." — 
 Why come ye not to Court ? ver. 1166. 
 
 Apparently a hanging eye-lid. He 
 elsewhei-e speaks of Dr. Balthazar, 
 Queen Katharine's surgeon, being em- 
 ployed by Wolsey for a complaint in 
 his eye. Ver. 1194. It is noticeable 
 that Holbein gives Wolsey's side face 
 only. 
 
 2 Desp. ii. 314. 
 
 ^ The story was probably set afloat 
 
 by Skelton. Speaking of the dread 
 entertained of Wolsey by the nobiUty, 
 he has these lines : — ■ 
 
 " They dare not look out at doors 
 For dread of the mastiff cur ; 
 For dread the butcher's dog 
 Would worry them like a hog." 
 
 Why come ye not to Court ? ver. 293. 
 
 And again he asserts : — 
 
 " His base progeny 
 And his greasy genealogy ; 
 He came out of the sink royal 
 That was cast out of a butcher's 
 stall."— Ver. 488.
 
 1509-14] DESCRIPTION OF WOLSEY. 61 
 
 consistent with the Privy Seal/ Feb. 21, 1510, granted to 
 Edmund Daundy, of Ipswich, empowering him to found a 
 chantry in the southern nave of St. Lawrence, Ipswich, to 
 pray for the good estate of the King and the Queen, and 
 among others for the souls of Eobert Wolsey and Joan his 
 wife, father and mother of Thomas Wolsey, Dean of Lincoln. 
 Indeed, had the story been true, it is highly improbable that 
 it would have escaped the notice of his implacable enemy 
 Polydore Vergil. He was educated at Oxford for the priest- 
 hood, but from the expression in his father's will, published 
 by Fiddes, appears to have felt some reluctance at taking 
 orders. Many evidences remain of his skill in the Latin 
 tongue, but none that he was a master of any other, whether 
 French or Italian. Though theology was not his forte, yet 
 even his old enemy and maligner, Polydore Vergil, admits 
 his abilities as a theologian.^ According to the same writer, 
 he was a Thomist, and induced the King to study the works 
 of Aquinas. Beneath the malice of his personal enemies it 
 is easy to trace the more obvious traits of his person and 
 character. He was extremely popular in his manners ; 
 offended the older courtiers of the last reign by his wit, 
 and by the absence of that reserved and solemn demeanour 
 which, we can readily believe, was acceptable at the court 
 of Henry VII. From the bitter and indiscriminate satire of 
 Skelton, written at a later period, we gain a few other personal 
 traits of the Cardinal. After affirming that the French, 
 though defeated in legitimate warfare, shot crowns at the 
 cardinal's hat and blinded him — 
 
 "That he ne see can, 
 To know God or man ; " 
 
 he proceeds in the following strain : — 
 
 "He is set so high 
 In his liierarchy, 
 Of frantic phrenesy 
 And foolish jihantasy, 
 That in the Chamber of Stars 
 All matters there he mars. 
 Clapping his rod on the Board, 
 No man dare speak a word ; 
 For he hath all the saying, 
 Without any renaying.-' 
 He roUeth in his records, 
 And saith, ' How say ye, my Lords ? 
 
 ' 1.899. * "Divinis littcrisnon indoctus," p. 17. ^Contradiction.
 
 62 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 Is not my reason good ? ' 
 
 Good even, good Robin Hood ! * 
 
 Some say, ' Yes ; ' and some 
 
 Sit still as they were dumb. 
 
 Thus thwarting over them 
 
 He ruleth all the roast 
 
 With bragging and with boast." * 
 
 Expressive enough this, of the Cardinal's abrupt behaviour to 
 the Lords in the Star Chamber. The charge of not keeping 
 the Lent fast, a graceless accusation from Skelton, has some 
 foundation in fact : 
 
 ' ' In Lent, for a repast, 
 He eateth capons stewed, 
 Pheasant and partridge mewed." 
 
 for we find in the records of the time that, in consequence of 
 the weakness of his stomach, Wolsey had obtained a dispen- 
 sation from Leo X. to eat flesh in Lent. The poet is not less 
 severe against the Cardinal's conduct as chancellor, and his 
 contempt of the lawyers who pleaded before him : 
 
 "At the Common Pleas, 
 Or at the King's Bench, 
 He wringeth them such a wrench, 
 That all our learned men 
 Dare not set their pen 
 To plead a true trial 
 Within Westminster Hall. 
 In the Chancery where he sits, 
 But such as he admits, 
 None so hardy to speak. 
 He saith, ' Thou huddypeke, 
 Thy learning is tod lewd ; ' " 3 
 
 He then alludes to divisions in the Privy Council ; ^ — to the 
 vast crowd of suitors who attended the Cardinal's palace at 
 Hampton Court as compared with the King's Court ; — to the 
 influence which the Cardinal exercised over the King's mind : 
 
 " That all is but nut-shells 
 That any other saith : 
 He hath in him such faith." ' 
 
 Not satisfied with this indiscriminate condemnation of 
 Wolsey's public conduct, Skelton proceeds to attack him for 
 his want of learning : 
 
 "He was but a poor master of art ; 
 God wot, had little part 
 
 * They are coTnpelled to be civil ver. 181. Written about 1524. 
 as one is to a robber who demands ^ lb. 383. 
 
 his pnrse. ■* lb. 401. 
 
 * Why come ye not to Court ? ' lb. 440.
 
 >o 
 
 1509-14.] DISLIKE OF WOLSEY. 6 
 
 Of the quadrivials, 
 Nor yet of tri vials/ 
 Nor of philosopliy. 
 
 3(i 3K V SfC 
 
 His Latin tongue doth hobble, 
 He doth but clout and cobble 
 In Tully's faculty. " 2 
 
 And for this charge there might be some foundation in the 
 little apparent interest taken by Wolsej^ in classical learning. 
 Such indifference was enough to expose him to the attacks of 
 the popular writers of the day. But abuse so virulent and 
 unguarded defeats itself. Besides, in animosity against the 
 Cardinal, Skelton was animated by party feelings. He was 
 a native of Norfolk, had evidently resided some time at 
 Norwich,^ was intimate with the Duke of Norfolk and his 
 son, and never omits any opportunity of recommending him- 
 self to their good graces by praising some member of the 
 family, or blackening their personal and political adversaries.* 
 Yet when occasion demanded, Skelton could be as servile to 
 Wolsey as at other times he was severe. 
 
 For the long feud between Wolsey and his formidable 
 rival in the cabinet, Thomas Earl of Surrey, the Treasurer, 
 created for his victory at Flodden Duke of Norfolk, there is 
 much better authority. From one of Wolsey's own letters® 
 it is clear that Polydore Vergil was not far wrong in stating 
 that he and Fox regarded this nobleman with dislike. They 
 suspected him of tempting the King into habits of extravagance, 
 and fostering his passion for military distinction. Polydore 
 insinuates that the earl made use of his influence with the 
 King for t]ie selfish purpose of repairing his estates crippled 
 by the late civil wars. I cannot find any documents which 
 justify this assertion. No extraordinary gifts to the Earl in 
 land or money are to be found among the earlier records of 
 the reign ; with the exception of his patent of nobihty, and 
 the annuities granted him after the battle of Flodden ; ^ — a 
 victory which eclipsed all others in the estimation of his 
 contemporaries, and could scarcely be overpaid by any honours 
 or emoluments. In common with other members of his family, 
 
 ' That is, ftitVier of the higher or distancn from the patns of that city. 
 
 lower university training. * One of his most biting pocma 
 
 * Vcr. 5U9. is upon Christopher Garnish, whoso 
 
 ' The scene of his most popular name frcqiicnlly occurs in the Calendar. 
 
 poem, " Pliilip Sparrow," is laid at " I. ;J143. 
 
 Carrovv A\)\ti-y, the ruins of wliicli * I. 4GU4. 
 
 remained not lung since at a little
 
 61 THE EEIGN OF HENRY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 the Duke was not partial to Wolsey. He disliked the influence 
 exercised by the Churchmen over the young King, and pro- 
 bably hoped to counteract their authority by engaging Henry 
 in foreign conquests and removing him from the sphere of 
 their influence. The feud descended to the next Duke ; and 
 their party was espoused by the Earl of Northumberland. 
 They would have been much more formidable opponents, but 
 for the affection which the King entertained for Charles 
 Brandon, afterwards Duke of Suflolk. Henry's partiality to 
 this brilliant nobleman exceeded the bounds of ordinary 
 friendship. He pushed Brandon's fortunes with the affection 
 and assiduity of a brother. But Suffolk managed a war-horse 
 much better than he wielded a pen.^ He took but little 
 interest in politics, and his subsequent marriage with Mary, 
 the King's sister, compelled him to espouse the side of Wolsey 
 rather than of Norfolk. The other members of the Council 
 had a vote, no more ; vox et jJrteterea nihil. 
 
 Of the offices connected with the Privy Council little needs 
 be said. The chancellorship of the Exchequer was a patent 
 office of forty marks a year. The King's secretary, if Erasmus 
 may be trusted, was a more lucrative post. The most eminent 
 of the number was Eichard Pace, who in these early years 
 appears only as the faithful servant and executor of Cardinal 
 Bainbridge. The Secretaries of State were secretaries, and no 
 more, employed in making fair copies of despatches. The 
 secretary for the Latin tongue was Andreas Ammonius, the 
 friend and correspondent of Erasmus ; the secretary for 
 the French tongue, Peter Meautys, whose salary amounted to 
 no more than forty marks a year.^ 
 
 Of the ambassadors of the time few seem to have been 
 drawn from the higher class of the nobility. The duties and 
 emoluments, and even the honour of such appointments, were 
 not sufiiciently tempting. The usual fixed pay of a resident 
 was five shillings a day, increased by occasional bounties from 
 the King. In some instances the ambassador was paid as 
 much as 20s. per diem, but this sum included his own travel- 
 ling expenses and diet and those of his suite. John Stile, 
 sent to reside with the King of Ai-ragon, Jan. 20, 1511, is 
 
 * Of the three greatest noblemen is the most tortuous and ingenionsly 
 
 of the time, the Duke of Suffolk, the perverse. Doubtless it was phouetic ; 
 
 Duke of Buckingham, and the Marquis and fastidious readers will be shocked 
 
 of Dorset, it would be hard to say to learn that the aspirate often pre- 
 
 which was the most illiterate. Per- dominated where it had no right, 
 haps the spelling of the Duke of Suffolk - I. 5«8.
 
 1509-14.] AMBASSADOES. 65 
 
 paid 10,s. a day ; Sir Eobert Drury and Lord Dacre, ambas- 
 sadors into Scotland, 20s. a day; June 19, 1511. Dr. Yonrf, 
 Master of the Eolls, on his embassy into France, July 18, 
 1511, the same. When the Bishop of Eochester (Fisher), the 
 Prior of St. John's, and the x\bbot of Wynchcombe, were sent 
 ambassadors to the Pope, Feb. 5, 1512, the first and 
 second received 800?., the third 800 marks, for their expenses 
 during 160 days. Dr. West, ambassador into Scotland, 
 April 16, 1512, had 20s. a day, and Lord Dacre, sent with 
 him, 40s. a day. In addition to his pay as an ambassador, 
 John Stile receives a pension, May 12, 1511, of 40 marks 
 yearly for his services beyond sea; Thomas Spinelly, 50L, 
 Dec. 23, 1511.^ But their emoluments and their dignity 
 were entirely dependent on the King's liberality; and, as the 
 sums given them were often irregularly paid, and generally in 
 arrears, the position of an ambassador was not always to be 
 coveted. More, writing to Erasmus,^ in his usual pleasant 
 strain, describes in lively colours the miseries to which an 
 English plenipotentiary was subjected. " Tunstal," he says, 
 " has just left this ; having spent scarcely ten days here, and 
 none to his own satisfactioii. He has been anxiously and 
 arduously employed all the time in setting forth those things 
 which belong to an ambassador's commission. No sooner is 
 this over, than, vastly against his will, he is thrust again on 
 a new legation, without any warning. I never liked the office 
 of an ambassador. We laymen and you priests are not on 
 equal terms on such occasions ; for you have no wives or 
 children at home, or find them wherever you go. Whereas 
 whenever we laymen are away, we are called back by the love 
 of our wives and our families. When a priest starts on his 
 mission, he can take his whole family with him, and feed at 
 the King's expense, those whom he must otherwise have fed 
 at home ; but whenever I am absent I have two families to 
 keep, one at home and one abroad. The King provides 
 tolerably well for those whom I must take with me ; but no 
 consideration is paid to those whom I leave behind. You 
 know what a kind husband I am ! what an indulgent father, 
 and lenient master ! and yet for all this I cannot prevail on 
 my wife, children, and servants to close their mouths and 
 stop eating until I return." The miseries of ambassadors, 
 
 * These notices are from the warrants directed to the Treasurer of tLo 
 Chamber. 
 
 » PJp. ii. IG. 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 thus jocosely insisted on by More, find an echo in earnest in 
 the correspondence of tlie ministers at the different courts ; 
 and though the cares of their employment were sometimes 
 alleviated by donatives or appointments, it was sufficiently 
 onerous and ill-paid to deter many competitors from seeking it. 
 
 Of the ambassadors thus employed few were of high birth, 
 or, with one exception, of high position. John Stile, the 
 English ambassador at the expensive court of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, was a man of no rank or education. His English is 
 extremely uncouth and often obscure. It is not improbable 
 that he was engaged in business, like others in the same 
 position.^ Peter Martyr calls him a gentleman of the chamber. 
 This may well be ; for such occupations were not considered 
 incompatible with a place at court. Thus, Kichard Lloid, 
 groom of the chamber, is searcher in the port of Yarmouth ; ^ 
 Brian Tuke, clerk of the signet, obtains a licence to export 
 kerseys ; ^ James Worsley, groom of the robes, to import wine 
 and woad ; * Giles Talbot, groom of the chamber, to import 
 400 tons of the same ;^ Sir Wistan Brown and William Sydney, 
 to export 2,000 sacks of wool.^ They may have retailed these 
 licences to Italian or other merchants, and occupied their 
 offices as searchers by deputy. But whether they traded in 
 their own names, or used their influence at Court in obtaining 
 these licences for others, never seems to have been either 
 questioned or condemned. 
 
 Another of these ambassadors, Thomas Spinelly, the Eng- 
 lish resident in Flanders at the court of the Archduchess, was 
 evidently a merchant like his brothers. His earlier letters 
 are written in French, his latter ones in English ; but he 
 wrote neither of those languages with elegance, and barely 
 with correctness. He seems to have been by birth an Italian ; 
 but little else is known of him beyond the information 
 furnished by his own correspondence. Like Stile, he appears 
 to have been employed by Henry VII. He died in the King's 
 service at the court of Spain in 1524. Sir Robert Wingfield, on 
 the contrary, the ambassador with Maximilian, was of a good 
 family, settled in the county of Suffolk, and evidently a man 
 of some literary culture, — a gift he did not hide in a corner. 
 He was deputy of Calais, but discharged the duties of that 
 
 ' The name of John Stile, grocer court of Arragon. 
 (that is, engrosser), London, alias ^ I. 700. 
 
 scribe, occurs in I. 1662; and again, * I. 1873, 3700. 
 
 of John Stile, collector at the port of * I. 2058. 
 
 Plymouth (I. 1810), who is certainly = I. 4746. 
 
 the same as the ambassador at the ^ I. 3143.
 
 1509-14.] AMBASSADORS. G7 
 
 place by Sir Richard Wingfield, his brother. His allowance at 
 the court of the Emperor was '20s. a day/ and the liberal 
 grants made him by the King are evidences of the estimation 
 in which he was held.^ He, too, seems to have been emploj^ed 
 by Henry VH. In fact, with the exception of Cardinal Bain- 
 bridge at Eome, the same names of English and foreign 
 residents occur under both reigns. Cardinal Baiubridge was 
 selected for his high ecclesiastical position in a court entirely 
 governed by Archbishops and Cardinals. His wealth probably 
 was an additional motive. For none but a wealthy prelate 
 could hope to support the expense of a residence at Eome. 
 His rival in the same court, De Giglis, Bishop of Worcester, 
 who was supposed to be instrumental in Bainbridge's death, 
 had been in the service of Henry VII. So was Hadrian de 
 Corneto, the patron of Polydore Vergil ; both of whom seem to 
 have tasted the bounty of Henry VIII. The letters of these 
 ecclesiastics, and the correspondence relating to Bainbridge's 
 murder, are of the greatest interest. Above all, the letter of 
 Wolsey to the Bishop of Worcester,^ partly on that subject, and 
 partly on the efforts made to obtain for him the cardinalate, 
 will repay an attentive perusal. Sir Edward Ponynges, Dr. 
 "Will. Knight, Su- Thomas Boleyn, Dr. Tunstal and Dr. Yong, 
 Masters of the Piolls, and the Earl of Worcester, were employed 
 on occasional missions of more than usual delicacy and import- 
 ance. But the permanent residents were generally men of a 
 lower position. This policy was inaugurated by Henry VII. 
 It seemed to his reserved and suspicious temper safer to trust 
 meaner instruments, whom he could shake off at j)leasure 
 without incurring danger from their resentment. It was more 
 economical. The employment of humbler men had, moreover, 
 this advantage : they could more easilj^ accommodate them- 
 selves to circumstances, and collect information with greater 
 readiness than men of higher rank and pretensions. We are 
 gainers by this policy in the minuteness of details furnished 
 by such negociators, and in the absence of all affectation of 
 political sagacity. They report the occurrences of the hour 
 and the day with a laborious fidelity, which is of the utmost 
 value to the modern historian, and forms a refreshing contrast 
 to the dry and pompous formalities of later diplomatists. Of 
 the actions and personal appearances of Maximilian and 
 
 ' From the 20th of May, 1510, to ^ Soo Index to Vol. i. of tlu- 
 
 the 3lBt of Oct., 1512, his full allow- Calendar, 
 ance was 896i. See Calendar, Vol. ii. ' I. 54G5. 
 
 p. 1459.
 
 G8 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 Ferdinand, of the movements of the miconqnerahle Julius, 
 the Cffisar of all Pontiffs, more trustworthy information can 
 be gained from the unpretending reports of Wingfield, Spinelly, 
 or even Bainbridge, than from any other sources. 
 
 But it is desirable to know something, not merely of 
 ministers and ambassadors, but of the nation. Of what 
 elements were the people, the gentry, the nobility composed ? 
 What classes were now on their way to promotion? What 
 changes were taking place in social life ? A careful study of 
 the grants from the Crown, partly enrolled on the Patent 
 Eolls, but many of them only recorded in the Privy Seals and 
 Signed Bills of the reign, supplies the best answer to these 
 questions. It is from documents such as these, bald and 
 uninteresting as they may seem, that we must look in future 
 for any light on the history of the English gentry and of that 
 body of men who from the time of the Reformation have been 
 identified with all the great constitutional struggles in this 
 country. The dissensions which ploughed up the land in the 
 previous century exterminated with few exceptions the old 
 race of nobility. A few, like the Duke of Norfolk, still 
 remained, rather as fragments of their ancient grandeur, to 
 connect the era of the Tudors with that of the Plantagenets, 
 than in the full integrity of their might. But the civil wars 
 turned up a new soil to the surface, from which all the great 
 names in modern history have sprung ; and the cradle of the 
 new race is to be seen in these Signed Bills and Privy Seals. 
 
 This will be understood more clearly when we describe the 
 nature of the information which these documents contain. 
 Among them are to be found the nominations of ambassadors, 
 confirmations of treaties, commissions, summonses for Con- 
 vocation and Parliament, creations of nobility, conges d'elire 
 of bishops, abbots, and priors, presentations to livings and 
 pensions, stewardships of forests and manors, distribution of 
 forfeited lands, appointments at court, pensions, lists of 
 sheriffs, mortmain licences, wardships, cancels of recog- 
 nizances wrung from his subjects by Henry VII., licences to 
 import and export merchandize, to beg alms for the redemption 
 of captives and the like. But even this list will scarcely convey 
 to the reader a just idea of the significance of these documents, 
 unless he bear in mind that they are also the records of the , 
 personal acts of the Sovereign, not of his ministers. No other 
 papers, in fact, can give such an adequate notion of the 
 enormous powers of the Crown, under the Tudors, or show
 
 1509-14.] WEALTH AND POWER OF THE SOVEREIGN. 69 
 
 more distinctlj^ the steps by which it had been aggrandized 
 under Henry YII. Under Henry VHI. the patronage and the 
 revenues of the Crown were immense. Besides the ordinary 
 grant of tonnage and poundage, the expenses of the King's 
 household were provided for by an annual grant of 19,400Z., 
 not including the assignments for the Wardrobe. To these 
 must be added the sums received from Lewis XII., the sub- 
 sidies voted to the King in various years by the Commons and 
 the Convocation, benevolences exacted under the title of free 
 gifts, and loans that were never repaid. Happily these were 
 not of frequent occurrence. When, however, the necessities 
 of the Crown were urgent, the nobility and gentry were sent 
 down to their several counties to stir up the liberality of the 
 inhabitants. They were commanded to bring up their 
 tenantry and the neighbouring towns to meet together, in 
 order to determine on a contribution for the King, and each 
 man's quota. A troublesome opponent or refractory minority 
 was easily controlled by a threat of being sent to London, to 
 state their objections before the Privy Council — a threat which 
 generally proved effectual in silencing opposition. For the 
 expenditure of these and other sums, levied on the nation, the 
 King was responsible to no one. He had no control beyond 
 his own sense of right, or the dread of unpopularity, always a 
 potent check upon the Tudors. Henry VII., by his ministers 
 Empson and Dudley, imposed fines, upon different pretexts, 
 under the names of recognizances, with what justice may be 
 seen in the acts of his son and successor. The early pages of 
 the Calendar are loaded with cancels of these recognizances. 
 In more than one instance, the writ is even charged with a 
 clause that such recognizances were made " without any cause 
 reasonable or lawful, by the undue means of certain of the 
 learned Council of our late father, contrary to the law, reason, 
 and good conscience, to the manifest charge and peril of the 
 soul of our late father, and that the sums contained in those 
 recognizances cannot be levied without the evident peril of 
 our late father's soul, which we would for no earthly riches 
 see nor suffer."^ 
 
 These remarks, however, can only give a feeble idea of the 
 wealth and power of the Sovereign. Small chance as there 
 was of successful opposition to his wishes, the King was in 
 some measure dependent for these sources of his revenue on 
 the good will of his subjects. There were others for whicli lie 
 
 • 1. lOOi, also' 1756, «(/.
 
 70 THE REIGN OF HENKY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 was not dependent upon them in any measure, and in the 
 employment of which they would no more have presumed to 
 express an opinion than he would have thought of demanding 
 it. In the union of the houses of York and Lancaster in 
 Henry VII., it must not be forgotten that, besides a union of 
 claims to the Crown, there was a union of estates. Before this 
 time Yorkist or Lancastrian had to supply the expense and 
 means for war from one-half only of the revenues which fell 
 into the hands of Henry VII. The lands of attainted and 
 rebellious nobles were confiscated to the Crown ; the estates 
 of a Yorkist increased the Crown lands of a Lancastrian, the 
 triumphant Yorkist retaliated the same measure on his 
 Lancastrian opponent. When the war ended, heirs and 
 claimants had died off, or were in ill-favour or under suspicion 
 of disaffection ; and even when the attainted lands were 
 restored, some portion stuck fast in the transit ; a part was 
 voluntarily surrendered to secure the remainder. The re- 
 bellions under Henry VII. added greatly to these acquisitions ; 
 and the reader has only to turn over a few pages of the 
 Calendar to see how the Crown lands had augmented through- 
 out the length and breadth of England by the attainders of 
 the De la Poles, the Salisburies, the Charltons, the Empsons, 
 and the Dudleys. In fact, treason was more profitable to 
 Henry VII. than any other branch of his revenue. 
 
 Amidst the legal and state fictions of this day, it is hard 
 to realize the true position of a Tudor sovereign in the six- 
 teenth century. The lands of the Crown, by whatever means 
 acquired, were as much in the King's power as those of any 
 other landlord. His personal management and control of 
 them were as unlimited. He exchanged them, cut down the 
 timber, built up or pulled down, appointed stewards or 
 managers as he pleased, and at whatever salary he pleased. 
 The revenues he derived from them were his own, to employ 
 or waste at his pleasure. It is probable that this vast increase 
 of estates under the first Tudors did not bring a proportionate 
 increase of revenue ; but it placed the power and supremacy 
 of the King on a footing it had never been placed on before. 
 It afforded him numerous opportunities of bestowing lucrative 
 appointments on his courtiers. He had at his own immediate 
 disposal the stewardships of forests, manors, chaces, castles, 
 fisheries, and mines ; the collectorshij)s of customs in various 
 ports ; nominations to churches on his estates ; not to mention 
 his ancient right of wardship and marriage, which now sunk
 
 1509-14.] WEALTH AND POWER OF THE SOVEREIGN. 71 
 
 into an insignificant item compared with the more splendid 
 and kicrative ofdces at his sole disposal. What is the result ? 
 The forests and chaces maintained a numerous and hardy 
 race of men, trained to arms, and ready for the King's service 
 at any time he should deem fit to employ them. They formed 
 a standing army without its obnoxious features ; without the 
 dangers to which standing armies are subject, of becoming 
 mischievous weapons in the hands of their officers. The 
 appointment of customs at various ports was not only a 
 reward for past services, but a watch on the loyalty and 
 disaffection of the towns, and the indirect means for trans- 
 mitting important information of foreign or domestic insurrec- 
 tions. Even wardshij)s were not without their uses in this 
 respect ; for the King could, as we have positive evidence that 
 he did, entrust to those of whose fidelity he had no suspicion 
 the wardship, training, and marriage of the sons and daughters 
 of disaffected families. Of course, appointments of ambas- 
 sadors, commissions in the army and navy, had been in his 
 gift from time immemorial ; but now, in consequence of the 
 vast augmentation of the Crown lands, he could supplement 
 the small wages attached to such employments by some 
 lucrative post on the royal estates. 
 
 It may be thought that, after all, Henry would be guided 
 by his ministers ; that he could know nothing or little of the 
 hundreds of claimants on his bount3\ As an answer to that 
 objection, we find among the warrants to the Treasurer of the 
 Chamber,^ signed by the King, one in favour of William 
 Wynesbury, his Lord of Misrule, directing the treasurer to 
 pay him 51., " upon a prest, (i.e. as an advance) towards his 
 reward for his business against this Christmas next ensuing." 
 But annexed to the above is a note from the petitioner to the 
 following effect : — " If it shall like your Grace to give me too 
 much, I will give you none again ; and if your Grace give 
 me too little, I will ask more." An indication of the freedom 
 with which Henry sometimes allowed himself to be addressed, 
 for he granted the petition ; and still more, of the petitioner's 
 conviction tliat the writ would be read by the King. 
 
 But we have better evidence than this. On examinhig 
 these appointments, it is remarkable how many of them are 
 made to those who are or have been in personal attendance 
 on the Sovereign. Scarcely any man holds an office of import- 
 ance who is not familiarly known to the King. The Howards, 
 
 ' Dated Dec. 9, 1509.
 
 72 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 the Brandoos, the Jerninghams, the Sydneys, the Plantagenets, 
 the Sherbornes, the FitzwilHams, the Marneys, were or had 
 all been squh-es or knights of the Body or gentlemen of the 
 Chamber. The King's patronage naturally flows in this 
 direction ; and we have this curious result, that not only all 
 great and important offices in the army, the navy, and all 
 influential departments of the State, are filled by men who 
 have been in personal attendance on the King, but that the 
 exclusive road to promotion is dependent on this personal 
 service. No minister dispenses or even shares the patronage 
 of the Crown ; he may recommend, but evidently that recom- 
 mendation is confined within the narrow circle of those who 
 are already known to the Sovereign by personal and assiduous 
 service. All this has changed the King's position, and vastly 
 augmented his power. Unlike the old haughty nobility, who 
 kept a jealous watch over the powers of the Crown, and, in the 
 absence of constitutional restraints, acted as a check upon 
 the undue extension of its prerogatives, the ministers under 
 the Tudors, taken from a lower rank, looked up to the Crown 
 and the extension of its authority as a support for their own. 
 They are the servants of the Crown, an epithet which the 
 ancient nobility of a past age would have rejected with disdain, 
 as they w^ould have rejected that subordination which it 
 signified. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary for me to point the moral suggested 
 by these remarks. It begins to shape itself in the dim vision 
 of the past, and the confusion of the civil wars. As it drifts 
 along the current of events, it assumes more gigantic and 
 more definite proportions. War, peace, and even rebellion 
 force the consideration of it on the minds of men. It flits in 
 dim consciousness across the thoughts of devout men like Fox 
 in their struggle between loyalty and conscience. It stings 
 fierce men into treason, and thoughtful men into disobedience. 
 Even the passions of men and the policy of kings, with no 
 higher object than their own selfish interests, become instru- 
 mental to its develo]3ment. The ecclesiastics who surrounded 
 the throne of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., and sanctioned 
 with their presence and authority the acts of both those 
 monarchs, invested royalty with a spiritual influence in the 
 minds of the people which could not be disintegrated from it, 
 or resumed when the Kings changed their religious princij)les, 
 and dismissed their spiritual ministers. The royal supremacy 
 w^as now to triumph after years of efl'orts apparently fruitless
 
 1509-14.] THE KOYAL SUPREMACY. 73 
 
 and often purposeless. That which had been present to the 
 Endish mind for centuries was now to come forth in distinct 
 consciousness armed with a power which nothing could resist. 
 Yet that it should come forth in such a form is marvellous. 
 All events had prepared the way for the king's temporal 
 supremacy. Opposition to papal authority was familiar to 
 men ; but a spiritual supremacy, an ecclesiastical headship, 
 as it separated Henry VIII. from all his predecessors by an 
 immeasm-able interval, so was it without precedent and at 
 variance with all tradition. Fools could raise objections, the 
 wisest could hardly catch a glimpse of its profound significance.
 
 74 THE REIGN OP HENRY VUI. [A.D. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SUFFOLK AND MARY— DESIGNS OF FRANCIS I. 
 
 The political fabric reared by Wolsey with so much labour, 
 skill, and perseverance, fell to the ground at the death of 
 Lewis XII. By the marriage of the Princess Mary with Lewis 
 the policy of the treaty of Cambray had been turned back 
 upon its authors. One chief object of that policy had been, 
 as explained already, to shut out England from all interference 
 in continental politics ; to render France, in effect, the dictator 
 of Europe ; and, what in those days was scarcely less im- 
 portant for this purpose, to leave the Pope entirely dependent 
 on the will of the Christian King. But by this marriage 
 alliance Wolsey had contrived, under the semblance of an 
 equal partition of authority, to make England in reality pre- 
 dominant. So it was felt to be by Lewis himself, and more 
 so by his successor. The feeble health of the King, prematurely 
 a.ged,^ and shorn of his due influence by this new affinity, was 
 no match for the ambition of Henry or the genius and vigour 
 of Wolsey, now in the prime of his life.^ Ferdinand, advanced 
 in years, and not less a martyr to sickness, was contented to 
 let things take their course, provided he was not molested in 
 his own dominions, and his new conquest of Navarre was not 
 called in question. Maximilian, penniless, fertile in devices 
 for raising money too transparent to deceive, and never a 
 penny the richer, even when his plots were successful, was a 
 greater terror to his friends than to his enemies. No prince 
 
 * In that age life wasted and waned extreme age in the wasted face and 
 
 apace. Men were old and worn out at neck, the long bony fingers and feeble- 
 
 60. Lewis XII. did not live to com. ness of their grasp, died at the early 
 
 plete his 54th year, and was a wreck, age of 52, completely worn out in 
 
 not merely by the report of his mind and body. The fearful excite- 
 
 enemies, but by his own admissions ment throiigh which they had passed 
 
 to Suffolk and others. Francis I. died told heavily upon them ; — like men 
 
 at 53 ; Maximilian at 60 ; Charles V. who had struggled and buffeted for 
 
 at 59. Wolsey, who passed for "an life in a stormy sea, and saved it only 
 
 old man broken with the storms of to drag out a few weary years on dry 
 
 State," even before his fall, died at land. 
 
 55. More remarkable still, Hem-y VII., ^ He was only 40 or 41. 
 whose portraits show indications of
 
 1515.] ENGLAND'S MOMENTARY ASCENDENCY. 75 
 
 had grander schemes, or less ahihtj^ and perseverance. Ready 
 to pawn the Holy Eoman Empire to the highest hidder, it was 
 fortunate for the tranquillity of Europe that none of the 
 Frescobaldi or Fuggers of that age would advance the money 
 on any security Maximilian could offer. Nominally the 
 governor of his grandson Charles, he possessed no real in- 
 fluence. Grandson and ministers were alike deaf to his 
 entreaties for money, and jealous of the interference of 
 Margaret of Savoy, who furthered his schemes with the 
 adroitness of a female politician and the fidelity of a daughter. 
 
 So the triumph of Wolsey was complete. For his triumph 
 it was, and none ventured to dispute his claim. It was his 
 first great effort at diplomacy ; and his influence dated from 
 that effort. With what prudence and ingenuity he had 
 mastered the difficulties that stood in his way cannot be told. 
 He had to overcome the reluctance of Mary herself, even at 
 that time attached to Suffolk, and break off her engagement 
 with Charles. This was but a small part of his task. It was 
 not to be expected that Francis would submit without a 
 struggle to a match which imperilled his succession. The 
 difficulties were greater at home. Any union with France was 
 unpopular; it was not acceptable even to those councillors 
 who shared the King's confidence. The old nobility, rej^resented 
 by Norfolk,^ opposed it ; and the more so as Wolsey's success 
 sealed his supremacy and their downfall. 
 
 The debates upon this marriage and the alliance with 
 France had given rise to a mortal struggle in the Privy 
 Council between the old party and the new, of which only 
 feeble indications have reached us. Would the King yield to 
 this new influence and new nobility, of whom Suffolk was the 
 chief, or would he continue his old advisers ? The struggle 
 had ended in a triumph for Wolsey, to be dissipated by the 
 death of Lewis XII. The powers of confusion were again 
 abroad. A powerful minority, irritated by defeat, had resolved 
 once more to strike for supremacy. Matters abroad wore a 
 gloomier aspect ; — a young sovereign on the throne of France, 
 
 ' " Would God my Lord of York Norfolk and his son, to whom it was 
 
 (Wolsoy) had come with me in the owinfi^ that Mary's servants wore dis- 
 
 room of my Lord of Norfolk, for then char<,fod on their arrival in Paris bo- 
 
 I am sure I slioiild have been left cause they were of Wolsey's choosinpr, 
 
 much more at my heart's ea.«e than I not theirs. It is wortli ohservinf,' tliat 
 
 am now." — Mary to Henry VIJL, I. at the tournament Iioid at the Knwieli 
 
 5488. And in I. 5512 Suffolk tells court in Jionour of Mary's murriuKe, 
 
 Wolsey that he will perceive the no mention occurs of any of tho 
 
 hostile intentions of the Duke of Ilowards.
 
 76 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.li 
 
 full of ardent hopes and ambition, the darling of all the daring 
 and restless spirits of the age, despised the English alliance ; 
 — Charles and his ministers were sulky and offended, — Fer- 
 dinand old and distrustful, — Maximilian ready to sell himself, 
 his lance-knechts, and the Swiss, to work for pay, plunder, 
 or conquest ; — war gloomed in all directions and in all forms. 
 Who was to ride the storm, and manage the elements ? — that 
 was the question, which every man asked, and each one 
 answered in his own way. 
 
 This struggle, productive of so many momentous conse- 
 quences, drew Suffolk and Wolsey closely together. The first 
 thing to be done was to send an embassy, and congratulate 
 Francis I. on his accession. At the head^of it was the Duke 
 of Suffolk, who had only returned from France six weeks 
 before. The deputation arrived at Senlis on Saturday the 
 27th of January.^ Francis was then at Eheims for his 
 " sacring," and desired the ambassadors to meet him at 
 Noyon on Thursday, Candlemas eve. No reception could be 
 more gracious or condescending. He gave them hearty 
 welcome ; asked lovingly after the health of the king and the 
 queen, expressed his pleasure at this renewal of the good 
 understanding between the two countries, and appointed a 
 formal audience for Friday, February 2. That day West, 
 afterwards Bishop of Ely, made a Latin harangue, a weari- 
 some and indispensable part in such ceremonials. He 
 enlarged on the virtues and qualities of a good ruler, and con- 
 cluded by expressing a hope that the future conduct of Francis 
 would be conformable to the promises he had made, when 
 Duke of Angouleme. To his livelier audience the speech had 
 too much the air of a homily ; but they were civil enough to 
 say that the matter was good, and the Latin elegant, Francis 
 thanked the deputation for their compliments, and alluded to 
 the death of his predecessor. They had good reason, he said, 
 to be sorry, "forasmuch as the late King had married the 
 Princess Mary, of which marriage," he said, " he was a great 
 cause, trusting that it should have long endured." In their 
 reply the ambassadors thanked the King in their master's 
 name for the singular comfort he had given Mary in this 
 season of her affliction, calling to his mind "how lovingly he 
 had written to Henry, by his last letters, that he would neither 
 do her wrong, nor suffer her to take wrong of any other 
 person, but be to her as a loving son should be to his mother." 
 
 ' II. 105.
 
 1515.] FRANCIS I. AND SUFFOLK. 77 
 
 Francis answered, " lie could do no less for his honour, seeing 
 that she was Henry's sister, a nohle princess married to his 
 predecessor ; " and he expressed a hope that she would write 
 to England, and report, " how lovingly he had behaved to 
 her." Thus ended the public audience. 
 
 The same day, sending for the Duke into his bedchamber, 
 Francis thus addressed him : " My Lord of Suffolk, so it is 
 that there is a bruit in this my realm that you are come to 
 marry with the queen, your master's sister." Utterly taken 
 aback by this announcement, it was in vain that the discomfited 
 Suffolk stammered oat a denial, and protested he had no such 
 intentions. In the utmost confusion, he entreated the King 
 not to impute to him so great a folly as to come into a strange 
 realm and marry a Queen there without the consent of the 
 Sovereign, " I ensure your grace," he added, " I have no such 
 purpose, nor it was ever intended on the King my master's 
 behalf, nor on mine." Francis replied, that if Suffolk would 
 not be plain \^ith him he must be i^lain with the Duke ; and 
 then proceeded to inform him that Mary herself had broken 
 the matter to him, and he for his part had promised " on his 
 faith and truth, and by the troth of a King," that he would do 
 his best to help her. He then detailed certain secrets which 
 had passed between Mary and Suffolk,^ calling up the deepest 
 crimson into Suffolk's face. " And when," continues Suffolk, 
 describing the interview to Wolsey, " he had done thys, I cold 
 do non lyes but to thanke hes grace for the greth godues that 
 his grace in tynded to schaw unto the quyene and me ; how 
 by et (howbeit) I schowd hes grace that I was lyke to by ondon 
 (to be undone) if the matter schold coume to the knollag of 
 the kyng me masster." Francis reassured him ; told him to 
 be under no apprehension, for as soon as ever he reached 
 Paris he would see the Queen, and then both should write 
 letters with their own hand to Henry " in the best manner 
 that could be devised." Suffolk concluded by expressing his 
 satisfaction at what had passed : " My Lord," he says, repeat- 
 ing the conversation to Wolsey, " after mine opinion, I find 
 myself much bounden to God, considering that he that I feared 
 most is contented to be the doer of this act himself, and to 
 
 give yon in yonr hand my faitli and 
 troth, by tho word of a Kinijr, that I 
 
 * " The which I knew no man alive 
 
 could tell them but she ; and when he , , ,.11 
 
 told them I was abashed, and he saw shall never fail her or you, but to help 
 
 it, and said : ' Bo not disturbed, for and advance this matter betwixt her 
 
 you shall say that you have found a and you with as good a will aa 1 would 
 
 kind friend and a loving ; and because for mine own self.' " 
 you shall not think no wrong of her, I
 
 78 THE EEIGN OF HENRY YIIT. [A.D. 
 
 instance the King my master in the same for me, whereby his 
 grace shall be marvellously discharged, as well against his 
 council as all the other noblemen in his realm." 
 
 Wolsey's reply to this letter is of so much importance to 
 the clear understanding of this strangest of all negociations 
 that I venture to insert it entire. The draft only remains at 
 the Record Office. The words in italics were inserted by 
 Wolsey himself. 
 
 " My Lord, 
 
 ' ' In my most hearty manner I recommend me unto your good 
 Lordship, and have received your letter written with your own hands, 
 dated at Paris ^ the 3rd day of this month, and as joyous I am, as any 
 creature Kving, to hear as well of your honorable entertainment with the 
 French king, and of his loving mind towards you for your marriage with 
 the French queen, our master's sister, as also of his kind ofier made unto 
 you, that both he and the said French queen shall effectually write unto 
 the king's grace for the obtaining of his good will and favour unto the 
 same. The contents of which your letter I have at good leisure declared 
 unto the king's highness, and his grace marvellously rejoiced to hear of 
 your good speed in the same, and how substantially and discretely ye 
 ordered and handled yourself in your words and yoin* communication 
 with the said French king, when he first secretly brake with you of the 
 said marriage. And therefore, my Lord, the king and I think it good 
 that ye procure and solicit the speedy sending unto his grace of the letters 
 from the said French king touching this matter, assuring you that the King 
 continueth firmly in his good mind and purpose towards you, fur the accom- 
 plishment of the said marriage, albeit that there he daily on every side 
 practices made to the let of the same, ivhich I have withstanded hitherto, and 
 doubt not so to do till ye shall have achieved your intended purpose ; and ye 
 shall say, by that time that ye know all, that ye have had of me a fast friend. 
 
 "The king's grace sends unto you at this time not only his especial 
 letters of thanks unto the French king for the loving and kind entertain- 
 ment of you and the other ambassadors with you, and for his favorable 
 audience given unto you and them, but also other letters of thanks to the 
 queen his wife, and to other personages specified in your letter jointly 
 sent with the other ambassadors to the king's grace. And his Highness 
 is of no less mind and affection than the French king is for the con- 
 tinuance of good peace and amity betwixt them. And his grace will 
 favourably hear such ambassadors as the said French king shall send 
 hither to commune and treat upon the same : and upon the overture of 
 their charges ye shall be with all diligence made privy thereunto. The 
 Lady of Suffolk is departed out of this present life ; and over this, my Lord, 
 the king's grace hath granted unto you all such lands as be come into his 
 hands by the decease of the said Lady of Suffolk ; and also by my pursuit 
 hath given unto you the lordship of Claxton, which his highness had of 
 my Lord Admiral for 1,000 marks, which he did owe to his grace. 
 
 "And finally, my Lord, whereas ye desired at your departing to have 
 an harness made for you, the king's grace hath willed me to write unto 
 you, that he saith that it is impossible to make a perfect headjsiece for 
 you, unless that the manner of the making of your sight were assuredly 
 known. And because I am no cunning clerk to describe the plainness of 
 such a thing, inasmuch as ye shall perceive by this my writing what the 
 matter meaneth, ye may make answer to the king's [grace] upon the same, 
 like as ye shall think good. 
 
 An error for Senlis.
 
 loio.] FRANCIS' ENTRY INTO PARIS. 79 
 
 ^^ And whereas ye write that the French king is of no less good will 
 totvards me than Iiis predecessor was, I pray you to thank his grace for the 
 same, and to offer him 7ny poor service, which, next my master, shall have 
 mine heart for the good will and mind which he heareth to you ; beseeching 
 you to have my affairs recommended, and that I may have some end in the 
 same, one way or other. And thus for lack of more leisure I hid you most 
 heartily fareu-eJl , hescechitig yon to have me recommended to the queen^s grace. 
 
 " From my house besides IVestmiiister." 
 
 Suffolk and bis fellows went on to Paris, and arrived there 
 on February 4. Tbe King stayed bebind at Compiegne to 
 give audience to tbe ambassadors sent by Cbarles, Prince of 
 Castile, for a marriage between himself and Madame Pienee, 
 tbe youngest daughter of Lewis XII, , then four years old. 
 Ferdinand, the old King of Spain, with unwise rivalry had 
 demanded her hand, at the same time, for the Infant Ferdinand, 
 thus early fomenting a misunderstanding between the two 
 brothers. On the 13th, Francis made his entry into Paris. 
 " M. de Nassau and M. de St. Py," says Gattinara, who was 
 present on the occasion, writing to Margaret of Savoy — 
 
 "were on a scaffold, with the queen and the ladies to view the sight ; 
 and on the same scaffold were the duke of Suffolk and the deputy of 
 Calais (Wingfield), who have left off their mourning ; and we others were 
 in a hoiise, and looked out of the windows at the pageant. Very near us, 
 in another house, was the queen widow (Mary), and certes, Madame, the 
 entry was fine and sumptuous. First came the archers of the town, a 
 goodly number, all with their habits of goldsmith's work of one pattern ; 
 then the eschevins and governors of the town, all attired in black velvet, 
 with a great train of people ; after them, the crafts, dressed in silks, and 
 all on horseback ; then the foot soldiers of the town in great number, 
 dressed en Suisse ; then the provost on horseback and the town councillors, 
 in scarlet ; and next his archers, bedizened with goldsmith's work ; after 
 them " la Justice du Chastellet," with a dozen councillors in scarlet and 
 fur hooda {chaperons) ; then the general of the finances, followed by the 
 accountants, in cloth of silk and splendid furs ; then 80 members of the 
 court of parliament, in scarlet, with their hoods on their shoulders, and 
 the four presidents, with their mantles and hoods, and caps on their 
 heads, clothed in the same manner as I am, when we pronounce our 
 arrets. After a short interval followed 200 pensionai'ies, all armed and 
 trapped, accoutred and covered, both horse and man, with cloth of gold 
 of various fashions and devices ; — a sight very gorgeous to behold. Next 
 followed the Swiss Guard ; then the old knights of the Order, armed, 
 trapped, and accoutred with cloth of gold ; amongst whom I recognized 
 M. de Piennes, M. de Bussy d'Amboise the elder, M. de Champdenyer, and 
 M. des Chanes. Then came the ushers of the Chancery in great innnber, 
 and the masters of re(juests, attired in l)lack velvet fuiTcd with hi ires; 
 then a horse by itself, which carried the little casket of the seal, set upon 
 a cushion on the saddle, which was of blue velvet sprinkled with Jleurs de 
 lis of gold ; then came the Chancellor, wearing over his crimson robe a 
 scarlet cloak, cut on both sides in a difi'ereiit manner from those of the 
 others, and a different cap on his head. Afterwards came the jtage.s and 
 the equerry of the king, all dressed in white, jiartly in velvet and partly 
 in silver cloth ; and the liorses, all Si>anish, were also accoutred in white ; 
 then the trumpeters, the heralds, and the kings of arms, in white silk
 
 80 THE REIGN OF HENRY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 robes, bearing their coats of arms ; next the king, armed, upon his barbed 
 horse, wholly accoutred in white and in cloth of silver. The king did not 
 keep under the canopy (pale), but displayed his horsemanship by con- 
 tinually curvetting and prancing. And there were good horses and riders 
 who did marvels to attract the notice of the ladies. After the king, and 
 behind the canopy, came the princes of the blood, so richly accoutred, 
 mounted, and barbed, that I know not how to describe them. Then came 
 the 200 gentlemen of the king's household ; all armed and barbed in 
 divers colours, some more richly than others, and they marched in troops 
 and in battalions, with their Linces on their thighs, and morions on their 
 heads. Finally came the 400 archers of the guard, all armed and bearing 
 lances. 
 
 " After the king's servants had passed, we waited to see the queen 
 pass as she returned to the palace. First came 20 horses of the duke of 
 Suffolk's servants, all attired in grey damask, with many of M. de Nassau's 
 gentlemen ; next those of his household and of his litter, with M. de 
 Nassau and M. de Sainct Py in front. The queen's litter followed, with 
 the queen and Madame d'Angouleme. In another litter were Madame 
 Renee and the daughter of the Duke of Longueville lately deceased, and 
 another young lady. A third litter contained the old Madame de Bourbon 
 and the young Madame d'Alengon, sister to the king. Five other litters 
 followed. After these came the acquinees to the number of 24 ; the first 
 14 ladies being dressed in cloth of gold, the others in various fashions. 
 The duke of Suffolk spoke as he walked with the fii'st of the said ladies, 
 who some say was the Duchess of Longueville. Next followed tlu"ee 
 chariots iilled with ladies. 
 
 " This evening a banquet was held in the palace, in which M.M. de 
 Nassau and Sainct Py supped with the King. The ambassador of the 
 Pope sate next the king on his right hand, then the duke of Suffolk, M. 
 de Nassau, the deputy of Calais, and M. de Sainct Py, the Venetian 
 ambassador, and no more. On the left hand were seated : — M. d'Alengon, 
 M. de Bourbon, his brother who was made duke, M. de Lorraine, M. de 
 Vendome, who has also lately been made duke, and others, whom I have 
 forgotten , as I was not there. The banquet is said to have been sumptuous. 
 
 " This morning M. de Nassau was told that an answer would be given 
 us to-day, which has not been the case. The king has caused the English 
 embassy to go to him ; and the grand master, M. de Boissy, M. de Bussy 
 the elder, and three or four great personages, have gone to accompany 
 and conduct them, which it is not the custom to do until after the first 
 audience. This appears to be done in order to make us advance ; but as 
 we do not know the wishes of our master, the king and his council will 
 perhaps think we have come only to entertain them. 
 ''Paris, 16 Feb. 1515. 
 
 " I forgot to say that at the entry there were a great number of eccle- 
 siastics, and more than 300 Cordeliers, without mentioning the other 
 Orders ; for after the king had caught sight of them, they were made pass 
 thi'ough other streets where the men-at arms did not come." 
 
 There were anxious hearts at the gay ceremony. On the 
 Tuesday previous Suffolk had paid his first visit to Mary. 
 To his inquiries of the French King's behaviour, she replied, 
 in general terms, as if evading the question, that he had been 
 in hand with her about many matters, but on hearing of 
 Suffolk's arrival had promised to desist, praying her not to 
 disclose what he had said to her, either to the King or Suffolk; 
 " for because your grace (Henry) should not take none un-
 
 1515.] MARY AND FEANCIS I. 81 
 
 kindness therein." Suflfolk would fain have persuaded himself 
 that Francis had observed his promise: "I think," says the 
 Duke, writing to Henry,^ "hen'old do anything that should 
 discontent your grace ; or else I will say that he is the most 
 untrue man that lives." The same day the Duke wrote to 
 Wolsey,^ to say he had been in hand with Mary to ascertain 
 the nature of the communications between her and Francis, 
 of which he had written in his last ; and she had confessed 
 that Francis had used importunities that made her " so wearv 
 and so afeard " he would try to ruin Suffolk, that she had 
 thought it best to be candid, and had said to him : " Sir, I 
 beseech you that you will let me alone, and speak no more to 
 me of these matters ; and if you will promise me by your faith 
 and truth, and as you are a true prince, that you will keep it 
 counsel and help me, I will tell you all my whole mind." On 
 his promise of secrecy, Mary avowed her engagement, to 
 Suffolk, begging the King to have pity and mitigate her 
 brother's displeasure. 
 
 Once already she had been sacrificed to political considera- 
 tions, and might reasonably apprehend that the promises 
 made her by Henry would not be permitted to take effect, if 
 an eligible match were demanded by the nation, or dictated 
 by national expediency. Henry was aware of her affection for 
 Suffolk before her late portentous union with Lewis. He had 
 promised her, when she parted with him " at the water side,"^ 
 that if, to oblige him, she would marry Lewis this time, she 
 should be permitted on the next occasion to do " as she hst."^ 
 But besides her brother's good will, the consent of others had 
 to be gained, " hinderers," as she calls them, and enemies to 
 the man she loved, who would not scruple to retard his 
 advancement. Her marriage was the topic of conversation in 
 every com*t of Europe ; political agents and ambassadors 
 canvassed the chances of this or that suitor for the Fair 
 Queen, La Roijne Blanche, as she was commonly called, 
 whose hand was eagerly sought for its own sake, and not less 
 for the prospective advantages it held out in the uncertainty 
 of Henry's issue. What was the nature of the offers made 
 her by Francis, whose Queen ^ had been ah-eady consigned to 
 
 ' Feb. 8. II. 133. livery ; " " et mesmes pour ce que le 
 
 II. 131. roy (Francis) est puissant, ot qn'il y 
 
 ' No. 227. ha sif^ne et ai)iJari;nco que Tcjifunt 
 
 * No. 228. qu'elle jjorto sera gross ot puissant." 
 
 ' Claude, like hor mother, was very — Gattinara to Margaret, Feb. 14. 
 
 short and very corpulent. " She is Le Glay, Negociutinns, ii. 53. See 
 
 with child : — many fear for her de- also Calendar, II. (!17. 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 the tomb by the seers and prognosticators of the time, I do 
 not care to inquire. More than once she had been pestered 
 by his soHcitations within the first week of her widowhood,^ 
 sometimes in his own behalf, sometimes in behalf of others, 
 and among the rest for the Duke of Savoy. '^ "If Mary con- 
 tinue at this court," writes Gattinara to Margaret of Savoy, 
 "they speak of her marriage with your brother-in-law, whom 
 the King, as I am told, has invited to court, and offered to 
 furnish with money." The Duke of Lorraine, as the Emperor 
 told Maraton, was anxious to have her, and his suit was 
 favoured by the King of France.^ To this list must be added 
 the Duke of Bavaria and the Prince of Portugal. Maximilian, 
 too, who had foresworn matrimony, and resigned himself to the 
 hopes of canonization, entertained designs upon the hand of 
 this modern Penelope. In the depth of his embarrassments, 
 and the difficulty of finding some decent pretext to raise money, 
 a negociation for a marital alliance with England, whether 
 successful or not, held out the prospect of wealth in earnest, 
 or at least a liberal loan from the purse of so rich a brother- 
 in-law. Not long since he had written to his daughter 
 Margaret, declaring that he would never marry again for 
 "beauty or money," were he to die for it.* But beauty he 
 could resist; not so the charms of money. "Madam," says 
 Lewis Maraton, writing to Margaret on the 9th of Februar}^, 
 " I have received your letter this morning, dated Brussels, the 
 1st February, with the portrait of a certain j^erson whom you 
 know ; and after dinner, when the Emperor was in his chamber, 
 I showed it him. He kept his eyes fixed upon the portrait for 
 a full half-hour or more ; and after thus attentively gazing he 
 summoned a secretary who had seen the said personage, and 
 asked him if it was very like. The secretary told him, ' there 
 could not be a better likeness.' The Emperor has commis- 
 sioned me to ask you, without letting.it be known that he had 
 taken any interest in the matter, to write to the king of 
 England to get the lady into his own hands, urging his 
 majesty of England that if she be married in France, and 
 were to die without heirs, his kingdom would be exj^osed to 
 great hazards."^ The Emperor's application arrived too late, 
 and was strangled in the birth, like most of his projects. 
 
 But whilst sovereigns were looking wistfully at the great 
 
 1 Nos. 134, 139. * Negociations, ii. 73 n. 
 
 * Charles III., Duke of Savoy. " Corresp. de Max., ii. 379. 
 
 Negociations, ii., 46, 47, Feb. 4. * Le Glay, Negociations, etc., ii. 73.
 
 1515.] MARY AND SUFFOLK. 83 
 
 prize, and politicians at home and abroad were speculating 
 on the chances, or projecting matches for Mary, she had taken 
 the matter into her own hands. She possessed, like the rest 
 of the Tudors, though with less opportunities of displaying it, 
 a spice of that wilfulness, which more than once, in cases of 
 emergencj'-, served her family in lieu of nobler qualities, and, 
 if not magnanimity itself, might easily be mistaken for it. 
 The attentions of Francis had been intolerable, ungenerous, 
 and unmanly, especially in her forlorn and youthful state. 
 She had waived the subject, when pressed by Suffolk, with 
 natural modesty and reluctance. But to Henry himself she 
 sjDoke out more plainly.^ She told him she had been com- 
 pelled to disclose to Francis her affection for Suffolk, in order 
 to be relieved of the annoyances of his suit, which was not to 
 her honour ; and, in conclusion, she urged her brother for 
 leave to return, that she might not be exposed to a repetition 
 of them. Henry's answer was not such as she might have 
 expected. There was a party in the Council who opposed her 
 union with the Duke for obvious reasons. She wrote to her 
 brother a second time, reminding him of his promise : ^ 
 
 '* Sir, — Your grace knoweth well that I did marry for your pleasure 
 this time ; and now I trust that you will suffer me to do what me list to 
 do. For, Sire, I know well . . . rs ■' that they doth (do) ; and I insure 
 your grace that my mind (atiection) is not there where they would have 
 me ; and I trust your grace Avill not do so to me, that have always been so 
 glad to fulfil your mind as I have been ; whereto I beseech your grace will 
 have granted. . . . For if you will have me married in any place, saving 
 whereas my mind is, I will be there whereas your grace nor none otlier 
 shall have any joy of me ; for I promise yovir grace you shall hear that 
 I will be in some religious house, the which I think your grace would be 
 very son-y of, and your realm also. Sir, I know well that the king tliat 
 is now wll send to your grace for his imcle the duke of Savoy for to marry 
 me ; bvit I trust your grace will not do it." 
 
 She then tells him that he knows " where she purposeth to 
 marry, if ever she marry again ; " meaning Suffolk, who, as 
 she adds, had many hinderers about his grace. 
 
 Meanwhile Suffolk's opponents in the Council had not 
 been inactive. They had employed a friar, named Langley, 
 to poison her ear against the Duke."* The friar told her that 
 Suffolk and Wolsey had dealings with the devil, and "by the 
 puissance of the said devil" kept Henry subject to their wills. 
 
 ' II. 163. marry her elsewhere. Some pas8ai,'os, 
 
 ' II. 228. now lost, havo been supplied from 
 
 * The passage is mutilated in the Musters' Extracts, in Jesus Colleyo, 
 
 original manuscript, but she evidently Oxford. 
 
 refers to Suffolk's opponents in the * II. 138. 
 
 Council, who were urgiug Henry to
 
 84 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 He assured her that Suffolk, by his diaboHcal arts, had 
 caused the disease " in Compton's leg; "^ for he knew "the 
 premises well, and could not doubt it was the Duke's doing." 
 So Wolsey was left to fight her battles single-handed. The 
 disputes at the Council table were long and obstinate. If 
 Suffolk triumphed, and a good understanding were, by his 
 means, promoted between the two Sovereigns, Wolsey and he 
 would monopolize their master's favour, as the Duke hinted. 
 If he failed, he must not only forfeit the hand of Mary, but, 
 to all appearance, he and Wolsey would be irretrievably ruined. 
 That Henry should tolerate such scandals, ringing so loudly 
 throughout the courts of Europe ; that he should apparently 
 care so little for Mary's comfort and reputation as to expose 
 her week after week to the importunities of Francis ; — still 
 more, that he should continue with Francis on the most 
 friendly terms, as if nothing had happened ; — are difficulties 
 not easily solved. Was it confidence in his sister's honour, 
 though she was but a widow of eighteen ? Did he disbelieve 
 her fears, and think that her assertions were unfounded ? 
 
 Two other jorojects were bound up with Suffolk's commis- 
 sion : one was, to obtain possession of the jewels presented to 
 Mary by her late husband ; the other, to make profit out of 
 the wish of Francis to recover Tournay.^ It is recorded 
 that at her marriage with Lewis " a great diamond and a 
 tablet with a great round pearl "^ formed part of the bridal 
 offerings. The Earl of Worcester wrote in glowing terms of 
 "the goodliest and richest sight of jewels that ever he saw."^ 
 All of them, the King had told Worcester, were destined for 
 Mary's use ; but he added, merrily laughing, " My wife shall 
 not have all at once, but at divers times ; " for he would 
 have " many and at divers times kisses and thanks for them." 
 These jewels, and Mary's claim to them, now formed the basis 
 of a long and intricate negociation, in the conduct of which 
 Mary's honour and happiness held but a secondary place. 
 The price of her hand was to be the Duke's success in accom- 
 plishing this intricate and difficult task ; and as Suffolk's 
 abilities as a negociator, though sharpened by his affection 
 for Mary, were not brilliant, he was no match for the subtle 
 
 ' No doubt Sii" William Compton, tions does not appear. The first 
 
 who was in great favour with Henry mention of Tournay is in Feb. 10 
 
 VIII., and afterwards died of the (II. 140). 
 "sweating sickness." ^ 1.5495. 
 
 * Whetlier these were part of * I. 5468. 
 
 Suffolk's oriy-inal and secret iastruc-
 
 1315.] MARY AND SUFFOLK. 85 
 
 politicians of the French court. If his accompHshments as a 
 mathematician were no hetter than his speUing, it may be 
 doubted whether a " sum in addition of money " would not 
 have proved to him an inextricable mystery. At all events, 
 he staggered under the ditficulties of his task, and panted to 
 get away from the " stinking prison " of Paris, as he calls it, 
 in words more emphatic than elegant. Again and again he 
 earnestly besought the King "to call him and the Queen his 
 sister home." ^ " Her grace nor I shall never be merry to 
 win," he tells Henry, " and therefore I beseech your grace she 
 and I may be in your remembrance." 
 
 In reply to these urgent and repeated entreaties, Wolsey, 
 their unflinching friend, entreated the two lovers to have 
 patience. He told Suffolk that the King, after the sittings of 
 the Council, had called him apart, and bade him write to 
 Suffolk to use all his efforts to obtain from Francis Mary's 
 gold plate and jewels ; ^ and until this were accomplished, 
 Suffolk and the Queen would not obtain licence to retm-n. " I 
 assure you," continues Wolsey, "the hope that the King hath 
 to obtain the said plate and jewels is the thing that most 
 stayeth his grace constantly to assent that ye should marry 
 his sister ; the lack whereof, I fear me, might make him cold 
 and remiss and cause some alteration, whereof all men here, 
 except his grace and myself, would be right glad." 
 
 The terms imposed were somewhat of the hardest. In a 
 fit of stinginess, more befitting his father, Henry demanded 
 the restoration of Mary's jewels and furniture ; all the ex- 
 penses of her passage were to be returned, and the sums 
 reimbursed that had been laid out in providing her bridal 
 apparel. Though rarely accustomed to remonstrate, Suffolk 
 and the commissioners could not but complain of such extreme 
 demands. "As the queen," they wrote to Wolsey,^ "shall 
 have all her stuff returned, we think it is not reasonable to 
 demand such sums as have been laid out by the king's officers 
 for provision of the same, for she may not have both the 
 money and stuff. And sithence it is Hkely that we shall 
 commune with reasonable men, we would be rather loth to 
 demand anything out of season." Every day the negociations 
 became more hampered and more perplexed ; the generous 
 spirit in which they had been commenced was fast disappear- 
 ing, and was superseded by the less amiable desire of each 
 
 • II. 115. This letter was written of that date, 
 apparently about the 21st of Fob. ^ II. 20.'J. 
 
 Compare No. 82, whicli is evidently ^ H- 2,04,.
 
 86 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 party to outwit and overreacli the other. The EngHsh, in- 
 structed from home, especially by Suffolk's opponents — who, 
 to suit their own party purposes, urged the King to unreason- 
 able demands — endeavoured to obtain an advantageous ex- 
 change for Tournay. They insisted on the delivery of the 
 jewels which Lewis had promised or given her, and the dowry 
 he had settled upon her. The French negociators fell back 
 upon the promise made at Mary's marriage, that Tournay 
 should be restored unconditionally ; and pleaded in return 
 that the jewels had been given to Mary only as Queen of 
 France, and could not be transported out of the realm. The 
 disposition of the two courts became daily more bitter and 
 impracticable, and Mary's hopes of a happy union with 
 Suffolk more distant every hour. She wrote to her brother to 
 say that all her plate and jewels should be "at his command- 
 ment ; " and she only regretted that the gift was not so large 
 as it might have been, in consequence of the difficulties 
 created by the negociation.^ "And, Sir," she added, in a 
 tone of respect contrasting with the more familiar address of 
 her earlier letters, " over and above this, I most humbly 
 beseech your grace to write to the French king and all your 
 ambassadors here, that they make all the speed possible, that 
 I may come to your grace, for my singular desire and comfort 
 is to see your grace, above all things in this world.''^ 
 
 We may overlook this extravagant expression of affection 
 for her brother in a young woman of nineteen, brought 
 unexpectedly into the prospect of a union with the man she 
 had long loved, the success of which depended entirely on 
 that brother's consent. But there was a stronger reason for 
 this urgency and vehemence, unknown to all except herself 
 and Suffolk ; — Mary was married already, and her marriage 
 could no longer be kept secret. The history of this strange 
 affair may be learnt from a letter of Suffolk's, addressed to 
 the King, and inclosed in another to Wolsey, for Wolsey's 
 perusal. Whether the letter was delivered to the King or not 
 is uncertain, for to Wolsey alone were the secrets of this love- 
 making confided, and his advice was implicitly followed, even 
 to the expressions contained in the letters of the Queen-widow.^ 
 After stating that he had done his best to obtain " hall her 
 stouf and jowyelles," Suffolk continues,^ "I find you so good 
 lord to me, that there is nothing that grieves me, but that she 
 and I have no more to content your grace. But, Sir, as she 
 
 ' II. 229. 2 See the carious instance in II. 272. " II. 80.
 
 1515.] PEIVATELY MARRIED. 87 
 
 lias written to you of her own hand, she is content to give you 
 all that her grace shall have hy the right of her woshound 
 (hushand) ; and, if it come not to so much as your grace 
 thought, she is content to give j^our grace what sum you shall 
 he content to axe, to he paid on her jointure, and all that she 
 has in this world." Then, after entreating the King, as well 
 he might, not "to let his enemies have the advantage over 
 him," he thus proceeds : — 
 
 " Sir, one thing I ensin-e your grace, that it shall never be said that 
 I did oliend jowr grace in word, deed, or thought, but for this matter 
 touching the queen, your sister, the which I can no longer nor will not 
 liide from your grace. Sir, so it is, that when I came to Paris,' the queen 
 was in hand with me the lirst day I came, and said she must be short 
 with me, and oj^en to me her pleasure and mind. And so she began, and 
 showed how good lady she was to me, and if I would be ordered by her 
 she would never have none but me. She showed me she had verily 
 vmderstood as well by friar Langley and friar Fr . . that and ever she 
 came in England, she should never have me ; and therefore she swore 
 that and I would not marry her at once, she would never have me, nor 
 never come to England." 
 
 Then follows a passage, unfortunately too mutilated to be 
 intelligible, but apparently implying that she had received 
 information that Suffolk's purpose was to take her to England 
 and marry her elsewhere : — 
 
 " I axed her what it was ; and she said that the best in France (Francis) 
 had said unto her, that and she went into England she should go into 
 Flanders.2 To the which she said that she had rather to be torn in 
 pieces than ever she should come there ; and with that she wept. Sir, 1 
 never saw woman so weep ; and when I saw that, I showed unto her 
 grace that there was none such thing, vipon my faith, with the best words 
 I could : but in none ways I could make her to believe it. And when I 
 saw that, I showed her grace that and her grace would be content to 
 wi-ite inito your grace and obtain your good will, I would be content ; or 
 else I durst not, because I had made unto your grace such a promise. 
 AVhereunto, in conclusion, she said : 'If the king, my brother, is content, 
 and the French king both, the one by his letters and the otlier by his 
 words, that 1 should have you, I will have the time after my desire, or 
 else I may well think that the woi-ds of the men in these parts, and of 
 them in England, be true — that you are come to 'tice me home, to the 
 intent that I may be married into Flanders ; — which I will never, even to 
 die for it ; and so I possessed the French king ere you came. And if you 
 will not be content to follow my end (comply with my determination), 
 look never after this day to liave the same proffer again.' " 
 
 Eather than lose all, Suffolk tells the King he thought it best 
 to comply ; and so she and he were privately married in the 
 
 ' The 4th of Feb. His interview at that time pending for marryiii-,' 
 
 with Mary took place next day. Charles to lleuee, sister to Qiio(mi 
 
 ^ To be married to Charles of Claude. The purpose of snch a deceit 
 
 Castile. This was an artifice on the is as obvious as it was diBhouourable. 
 part of Francis, for ncgociatious .were
 
 88 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 presence of ten persons only, none of his fellows from England 
 being made aware of his intentions : for Mary would not suffer 
 it; "for she said and I did so she thought they would give 
 me counsel to the contrary." 
 
 Suffolk's pathetic appeal was seconded by the following 
 letter from Mary : ^ — 
 
 " Pleaseth your grace, to my greatest discomfort, sorrow, and discon- 
 solation, but lately I have been advertised of the great and high dis- 
 pleasure which your highness beareth unto me and my Lord of Suffolk for 
 the marriage between us. Sir, I will not in any wise deny but tliat I have 
 offended your grace, for the which I do put myself most humblynn your 
 clemency and mercy. Nevertheless, to the intent that your highness 
 should not think that I had simply, carnally, and of any sensual appetite 
 done the same, I having no regard to fall in your grace's displeasure, 
 I assure your grace that I had never done against your ordinance and 
 consent, but by reason of the great despair wherein I was put by the two 
 friars . . . which hath certified me, in case I came to England, your 
 council would never consent to the marriage between the said Lord and 
 me, with many other sayings concerning the same marriage ; so that 
 I verily thought that the said friars would never have offered to have 
 made me like overture unless they might have had charge from some of 
 your council ; the which put me in such consternation, fear, and doubt of 
 the obtaining of the thing which I desired most in this world, that I rather 
 chose to put me in your mercy by accomplishing the marriage than to put 
 me in the order of your council, knowing them to be otherwise minded. 
 Wliereupon, Sir, I put my lord of Suffolk in choice whether he would 
 accomj^lish the marriage within four days, or else that he should never 
 have enjoyed me ; whereby I know well that I constrained him to break 
 such promises he made your grace, as well for fear of losing me, as also 
 that I ascertained him that by their consent I would never come into 
 England. And now that your grace knoweth the both offences of the 
 which I have been the only occasion, I most humbly, and as your most 
 sorrowful sister, requiring you to have compassion upon us both, and to 
 pardon our offences, and that it will please your grace to write to me and 
 my lord of Suffolk some comfortable words, for it shall be the greatest 
 comfort for \is both. 
 
 ' ' By your loving and most humble sister, 
 
 "Maky."2 
 
 In a letter to Wolsey the Duke writes : — ^ 
 
 " My Lord, — I recommend me to you, and so it is that I wit that you 
 have been the chief in . . . and has been the helper of me, so that I am 
 obliged to you next God and my master, and therefore I will hide none 
 thing from you, trusting that you will help me now as you have done hall 
 ways. Me Lord, so it is that when I came to Paris I heard many things 
 which put me in great fear, and so did the queen both ; and the queen 
 
 > 11. 226. 
 
 ^ This touching- and eloqcent letter 
 is written in Mary's laborious holo- 
 graph, with very little correction. I 
 have no doubt that it was coijied 
 from an original, dictated or over- 
 looked bj Wolsey, as on another oc- 
 casion. (See p. 93, post.) The style 
 is too sruarded and the tone too 
 
 humble for Mary, who certainly be- 
 lieved that she had a perfect right to 
 dispose of her own hand as she 
 pleased ; not to insist upon casual 
 expressions hero and there which are 
 not those of a young woman who had 
 very little practice in writing. 
 3 II. 222.
 
 1515.] SUFFOLK DESIRES TO BE MARRIED OPENLY. 89 
 
 would never let me be in rest till I had granted her to be married ; and 
 so to be plain with you, I have married her heartily, and has lien with 
 her, insomuch as far [as in] me lies 'that she be with child. My Lord I 
 am not in a little sorrow if the king should know it, and that his grace 
 should be displeased with me ; for I ensure you that I had rather 'a died 
 than he should be miscontent, and ... or for me nown good lord, since 
 you have brought . . . hitherto, let me not be undone now, the whiche I 
 fear me shall be, without the help of you. Me Lor, think not that ever 
 you shall make any [friend] that shall be more obliged to you ; and 
 therefore me nown good Lord . . . help." 
 
 Then after a very mutilated passage, impljdng that Francis 
 and his mother would write to Henry in his and Mary's 
 favour, he adds : "Me Lord, I doubt not they will write this 
 for me, or how you shall think best they should write." Then 
 he proceeds to tell Wolsey that in France, 
 
 " they max"ry as well in Lent as out of Lent, with licence of any bishop. 
 Now my Lord, you know all, and in you is all my trust, beseeching you 
 now of your assured help, and that I may have answer from you of this 
 and of the other writings as shortly as may be possible, for I ensure you 
 that I have as heavy a heart as any man living, and shall have till I may 
 hear good news from you." 
 
 This letter was apparently accompanied by the following,^ 
 although the former is preserved in the British Museum, and 
 the latter at the Eecord Oftice, — such separation of documents 
 being not uncommon. I have retained the original spelling 
 as a specimen of the Duke's orthography, though not the 
 most intricate by any means. Both are wholly in Suffolk's 
 hand. 
 
 " Me Lord, — For to in deus the quyenes mattar and myene un to the 
 kynges grace, I thynke byest for your fourst entre you scliold dyllewar 
 un to to (sic) hem a dymond wyet a greth pryell, wyche you schall rysayef 
 wyet thys from the quyen hes sustar. Ryquyer hem to take et aworth, 
 asuarryng hes grace y' whan soo ewar sclie schall have the possesseuu of 
 the resedeu y*^ he schall have the chowse of them acourdyng unto her 
 formar wrettyng. Me Lord, sche and I bowth rymyttys thes mattar holla 
 to your dysskras[eun], tresting y' in hall hast posscbbyll wj'e schall her 
 from you som good tydynges tocheng howar afyei'es, wher wycth I 
 lytjuyer you to depeche this byrrar, and y* he taii-e for noon oddar cans. 
 By youre, the 5 day of Mache, at tyn a cloke at neth. 
 
 " Chaulys Suffolk. 
 
 "Tomy Lord of York." 
 
 I think it is clear from these and other expressions 
 scattered throughout his correspondence that Suffolk had left 
 England in the first instance with a promise from Henry 
 that he should be united to Mary on her return ; the King, at 
 least, would offer no obstacle to their union. How far Mary 
 
 ' " Fyer mo lyes ; " query, fear nio lest ? * IL 223.
 
 90 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [AD. 
 
 was right in supposing that if she returned that promise would 
 be evaded, or what were its precise terms, we have no means 
 of deciding. It is clear from the tone of his letter to Wolsej^ 
 that Suffolk did not apprehend any settled displeasure on the 
 part of his Sovereign. He had pledged his word to the King 
 not to take advantage of Mary's affection or precipitate their 
 union. The offence was venial, and he assured himself of an 
 easy and prompt forgiveness. But Wolsey understood his 
 master's temper much better than Suffolk, and he replied to 
 the Duke, in the following letter, every word of which must 
 have struck a pang into Suffolk's heart : ^ 
 
 " My Lord, — Witli sorrowful heart I write unto you, signifying unto 
 the same that I have to my no little discomfort and inward heaviness 
 perceived by your letters, dated at Paris the 5th day of this instant 
 month, how that you be secretly married unto the king's sister, and have 
 accomjianied together as man and wife. And albeit ye by your said 
 letters desired me in no wise to dis[c]lose the same to the king's grace, 
 yet seeing the same toucheth not only his honor, your promise made to 
 his grace, but also my truth towards the same, I could no less do but 
 incontinent upon the sight of your said letters, declare and shew the 
 contents thereof to his highness, which at the first hearing could scantly 
 believe the same to be true ; but after I had showed to his grace that by 
 your ovni writing I had knowledge thereof, his grace, giving credence 
 thereunto, took the same grievously and displeasantly, not only for that 
 ye durst presume to marry liis sister without his knowledge, btit also for 
 breaking of your promise made to his grace in his hand, I being present, 
 at Eltham ; having also such a[n] assured affiance in your truth, that for 
 all the world, and to have been torn with wild horses, ye would not have 
 broken your oath, promise, and assurance, made to his grace, which doth 
 well perceive that he is deceived of the constant and assured trust that he 
 thought to have found in you, and so his grace would I should expressly 
 write unto you. And for my part, no man can be more sorry than I am 
 tliat ye have so done, being so incumbered therewith that I cannot devise 
 nor study the remedy thereof, considering that ye have failed to him 
 which hath brought you up of low degree ^ to be of this great honor ; and 
 that ye were the man in all the world he loved and trusted best, and was 
 content that with good order and saving of his honor ye should have in 
 marriage his said sister. Cursed be the blind afiection and counsel that 
 hath brought you hereunto ! fearing that such sudden and unadvised 
 dealing shall have siidden repentance. 
 
 " Nevertheless in this great perplexity I see no other remedy but first 
 to make your humble pursuits by your own wi'iting, causing also the 
 French king, the queen, with other your friends, to write : with this also 
 that shall follow, which I assure you I write unto you of mine own head 
 without knowledge of any person living, being in great doubt whether the 
 same shall make your peace or no ; notwithstanding, if any remedy be, it 
 shall be by that way. It shall be well done that, with all diligence 
 possible, ye and the queen bind yourself by obligation to pay yearly to 
 the king during the queen's life £4,000 of her dower ; and so ye and she 
 shall have remaining of the said dower £6,000 and above to Live withal 
 yearly. Over and besides this ye must bind yovu'self to give unto the 
 
 » II. 224. 
 
 * The words " low degree " were inserted in the place of " nowgth."
 
 1515.] THE KING'S DISPLEASURE. 91 
 
 king the plate of gold and jewels which the late French king had. And 
 whereas the queen shall have full restitution of her dote, ye shall not 
 only give entirely the said dote to the king, but also cause the French 
 king to be bound to pay to the king the 200,000 crowns, which his grace 
 is bounden to pay to the queen, in the full contentation of the said dote 
 de iiovissiinis ih'iiarUs, and the said French king to acqiiit the king for the 
 payment thereof ; like as the king hath more at the large dechired his 
 pleasure to you, by his letters lately sent unto you. This is the way to 
 make your peace ; whereat if ye deeply consider what danger ye be and 
 shall be in, having the king's displeasure, I doubt not both the queen 
 and you will not stick, but with all eflectual diligence endeavour your- 
 selves to recover the king's favor, as well by this mean as by other sub- 
 stantial true ways, which by mine .advise ye shall use, and none other, 
 towards his gi-ace, whom by corbobyll drifts and ways you cannot abuse. 
 Now I have told you my opinion, hardily follow the same, and trust not 
 too much to j-our own wit, nor follow not the counsel of them, that hath 
 not more deeply considered the dangers of this matter than they have 
 hitherto done. 
 
 " And as touching the overtures made by the French king for 
 Tonmay, and also for a new confederation with tlie king and him, like as 
 1 have lately written to you, I would not advise- you to wade any further 
 in these maters, for it is to be thought that the French king intendeth 
 to make his hand by favoring you in the attaining to the said marriage ; 
 which when he shall perceive that by your means he cannot get such 
 things as he desireth, peradventure he shall show some change and 
 alteration in the queen's afiairs, whereof great inconvenience might 
 ensue. Look wisely therefore upon the same, and consider you have 
 enougli to do in redressing your own causes ; and th'nk it will be hard to 
 induce the king to give you a commission of trust, which hath so lightly 
 regarded the same towards his grace. 
 
 " Thus I have as a friend declared my mind unto you, and never 
 trust to use nor have me in anything contrary to truth, my master's 
 honor, jn'ofits, wealth, and surety ; to the advancement and fm-therance 
 whereof no creature living is more bounden ; as our Lord knowyth, who 
 send you grace to look well and deeply upon your acts and doings ; for ye 
 put yourself in the greatest danger that ever man was in." 
 
 With SO many anxieties, and the dread of punishment 
 hanging over his head, it is not to he wondered that Suffolk's 
 negociations at the French court failed of success. His enemies 
 accused him of studying his own interests with Mary and 
 neglecting the interests of the nation. They insinuated that 
 he had sacrificed the purposes of his mission to ingratiate 
 himself with the French King. He desired to have "some 
 word of comfort " from Henry ; but none apparently came. 
 The French, on their side, were displeased with him for the 
 jewel he had sent to England on first announcing his marriage, 
 and demanded its restoration as an heirloom of the Queens of 
 France. They assured him that Queen Claude had such a 
 mind to it she would never be satisfied without it.^ As for the 
 restoration of Mary's property and jewels, Sull'olk tells Wolsey 
 he had done his best ; but it passed his learning, whether she 
 
 > II. App. 7.
 
 92 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 had her right, or had been outwitted by the subtlety of the 
 French ministers. Above all other things Mary's condition 
 occasioned him great perplexity. His intimacy with her was 
 daily becoming more notorious ; his honour and hers was 
 compromised whilst the marriage was kept strictly private. 
 No man with a spark of courage and generosity could endure 
 to see the woman whom he loved exposed to such a scandal, 
 or himself and his Sovereign pointed at by the public finger of 
 scorn in every court of Christendom. " My Lord," he says to 
 Wolsey, in great anguish, " at the reverence of God help that 
 I may be married, as I go out of France, openly, for many 
 things of which I will awartes (advertize) you by mine next 
 letters. Give me your advice whether the French King and 
 his mother shall write again to the King for this open 
 marriage ; seeing that this privy marriage is done, and that 
 I think none otherwise but that she is with child." ^ 
 
 It was now unfortunately the season of Lent, and Easter 
 Sunday did not fall until the 8th April. No licence could be 
 obtained wdthout a dis23ensation, and such a course would 
 have given rise to unfavourable comments in England, where 
 these ecclesiastical restrictions w^ere, at present, more closely 
 observed than in France. Possibly there might be other 
 motives of a political nature, with which we are not acquainted. 
 But, whatever they were, the wishes of Suffolk and Mary were 
 disregarded. Notwithstanding their earnest entreaties for a 
 speedy and favourable reply, there seems to have been a total 
 cessation of correspondence from England between the 12th of 
 March and the 3rd of April. In the displeasure of Henry, and 
 the momentary triumph of Suffolk's enemies, it w^as uncertain 
 what line of conduct the King would pursue. For a subject 
 to marry the sister of his Sovereign, without his consent, was 
 a thing unheard of in England ; and the Duke's enemies 
 called loudly for signal vengeance on the man who had been 
 guilty of such gross presumption. At last Mary obtained 
 leave to depart the first week after Easter ; for Francis was 
 now impatient to start on his Italian expedition. On the 14th 
 of April she gave a receipt at the Abbey of Clugny in Paris for 
 200,000 gold crowns, including 20,000 paid for her travelling 
 
 ' Her eldest son was born 11th Boleyn and Lady Elizabeth Grey stood 
 
 March, 1516, and was named Henry, as proxies for Queen Katharine and 
 
 from his godfather, Henry VIII. (II. the Princess Mary. Her godfather 
 
 1652). The eldest daughter was bom was Thomas Eamridge, Abbot of St. 
 
 at Bishop's Hatfield, 17th July, 1517, Alban's, whose mouument still remains 
 
 and named Frances. See the account in the abbey church, now the cathedral 
 
 of her chiistening in II. 3489. Lady of St. Alban's.
 
 1515.] SUFFOLK'S DANGEK. 93 
 
 expenses, as a moiety of her dowry ; ^ but her gokl pLite and 
 her jewels, with the exception of " four hagucs of no great 
 vahie " ^ were never restored, on the beggarly plea that 
 Francis, sorely displeased at the loss of the diamond called 
 the Mirror of Naples, would do no more.^ On the 16th the 
 pair started for England, and reached Montreuil on the 22nd, 
 uncertain of their reception, and even of the fate which awaited 
 them. At Calais they were afraid to leave the house, as the 
 Duke would have been killed by the angry mob.^ On his road 
 to the seaside Suffolk addressed the following letter to his 
 master : — ^ 
 
 " Most gracious Sovereign Lord, — So it is that I am informed divers 
 ways that all your whole council, mj^ Lord of York excepted, with many 
 other, are clearly determined to ' tympe ' your grace that I may either be 
 put to death or be put in prison, and so to be destroyed. Alas, Sir, I 
 may say that I have a hard fortune, seeing that there was never none of 
 them in trouble but I was glad to help them to my power, and that your 
 grace knows best. And now that I am in this none little trouble and 
 sorrow, now they are ready to help to destroy me. But, Sir, I can no 
 more but God forgive them whatsoever comes on me ; for I am determined. 
 For, Sir, your grace is he that is my sovereign lord and master, and he 
 that has brought me up out of nought ; and I ani your subject and 
 servant, and he that has offended your grace in breaking my promise that 
 I made your grace touching the queen your sister ; for the which I, with 
 most humble heart, I will yield myself unto your grace's hands to do 
 with my poor body your gracious pleasure, not fearing the malice of 
 them ; for I know your grace of such nature that it cannot lie in their 
 powers to cause you to desti'oy me for their malice. But what punish- 
 ment I have I shall thank God and your grace of it, and think that I 
 have well deserved it, both to God and your grace ; as knows ' howar ' 
 Lord, who send your grace your most honourable heart's desire with long 
 life, and me most sorrowful wretch your gracious favour, what soitows 
 soever I endure therefor. At Mottryli, the 22nd day of April, by your 
 most humble subject and servant, 
 
 " Chakles Suffolke." 
 
 But Henry showed no signs of relenting. A day or two 
 after the following letter addressed by Mary to her brother is 
 found in the form of a draft carefully revised by Wolsey : — 
 
 " My most dear and most entirely beloved brother, in most Jinmhle 
 manner I recommend me to your grace. Dearest brother, I doubt not 
 but ye have in your good remembrance, that Avhereas for the good of 
 peace, and for the furtherance of your atJairs, ye moved me to marry with 
 my lord and late husband King Loys of France, whose soul God pardon, 
 though I luiderstood that he was very aged and sickly, yet for the 
 advancement of the said peace and for the furtherances oi your causes I 
 was contented to conform myself to your said motion, so that if L should 
 fortune to survive the said late king, I might with your good will marry 
 
 • II. 319. worth 10,000 crowns. (II. 4;i7.) 
 
 == 'J'he Chancellor of France, how- » II. 3443. 
 
 ever, insisted that " the jewel of * IT. 399. 
 
 Naples " was worth .30,000 crowns, ' II. 367. 
 
 and the 18 pearls Mary had received,
 
 9t THE REIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 myself at my liberty without your displeasure. Whereunto, good brother, 
 ye condescended and granted, as ye well know, promising unto me that 
 in such case ye would never provoke or move me but as mine own heart 
 and mind should be best pleased, and that wheresoever I should dispose 
 myself ye woxild wholly be contented with the same. And upon that 
 your good comfort and faithful promise, I assented to the i<a!d marriage ; 
 else 1 would never have granted to, as at the same time I showed unto 
 you more at large. Now that God hath called my said late husband to 
 His mercy and that I am at my liberty, dearest brother, remembering the 
 great virtues which I have seen and perceived heretofore in my Lord of 
 iSuftblk, to whom I liave always been of good mind, as ye well know, I 
 have affixed and clearly determined myself to marry with him ; and the 
 same, I assure you, hath proceeded only of mine own mind, without any 
 request or labovir of my said Lord of Sufiblk, or of any other person. 
 And to be plain with your grace, I have so bound myself unto him, that 
 for no cause earthly I will or may vary or change from the same. Where- 
 fore, my good and most kind brother, I now beseech your grace to take 
 this matter in good part, and to give unto me and to my said Lord of 
 Suffolk your good will herein ; ascertaining you, that upon the trust and 
 comfort which I have for that you have always honourably regarded your 
 promise, I am now comen out of the realm of France, and have j^ut 
 myself within your jurisdiction, in this your town of Calais, where I 
 intend to remain till such time as I shall have answer from you of your 
 good and loving mind herein ; which I would not have done but upon the 
 faithful trust I have in your said promise. Humbly beseeching your 
 grace for the great and tender love, which ever hath been and shall be 
 between you and me, to bear your gracious mind and show yourself to be 
 agreeable hereunto, and to certify me by your most loving letters of the 
 same ; till which time I will make mine abode here, and no further enter 
 your realm. 
 
 " And to the intent it may please you the rather to condescend to this 
 my most hearty desire, I am contented, and expressly promise and bind 
 me to you by these presents, to give you all the whole dote which was 
 delivered with me, and also all such plate of gold and jewels as I shall 
 have of my said late husband's. Over and besides this I shall, rather 
 than fail, give vou as much yearly part of my dower to as great a sum as 
 shall stand with your will and pleasure. And of all the premises I 
 promise, upon knowledge of your good mind, to make unto you sufficient 
 bonds. Trusting verily that in fulfilling of your said promise t(j me made, 
 ye will show your brotherly love, aff'ection, and good mind to me in this 
 behalf, which to hear of I abide with most desire, and not to be miscon- 
 tented with my said Lord of Suffolk, whom of mine inward good mind 
 and affection to him I have in manner enforced to be agreeable to the 
 same without any request by him made, as knoweth our Lord, whom I 
 beseech to have yovir grace in his merciful governance." ^ 
 
 The effect of this letter is unknown, for we have no further 
 notice of Mary and her troubles. Henry contented himself 
 with taking her plate and jewels, and binding her in an 
 obligation of 24,000L to repay the expenses of her former 
 marriage with Lewis, by yearly instalments of 1,000/., and 
 to give up her dowry to its full amount,^ The terms were 
 rigidly enforced. On the 13th of May she was openly espoused 
 
 ' The draft is in Tuke's hand, himself, 
 much corrected ; the words in italics ^ See II. 436, pp. 1488, 1489. 
 
 were corrected or added by Wolsey
 
 1515.] 
 
 THE OPEN MAERIAGE. 
 
 95 
 
 to Suffolk at Greenwich,^ in presence of the King and Queen. 
 Sir William Sidney, the Duke's relative, was despatched to 
 Francis with instructions:^ "That, considering there were 
 no more privy to the secret marriage made between them in 
 France, but only the said French king, and none privy here 
 thereunto but the king, to whom the said French king and 
 duke disclosed the same, the said Sir Wm. Sidney shall say 
 that the king's grace desireth and perfectly trusteth that, for 
 the honor of the said French queen, and for avoiding all evil 
 bruits which may ensue thereof, he will reserve and keep the 
 same at all times hereafter secret to himself without making 
 anj'- creature privy thereunto, like as the king shall do for 
 his part." 
 
 Henceforth Mary's name drops from the page of histoiy, 
 and is only mentioned in connection with some court banquet 
 or ceremonial. Her dower continued to form a subject of 
 dispute between the two courts for three years after, and 
 more than once Suffolk complained of the pecuniary diffi- 
 culties into which he was plunged by the hard terms imposed 
 upon him by his royal brother-in-law.^ 
 
 1 II. 468. 
 
 * II. 1129, Act for lier jointure. 
 
 ' Upon the whole, Suffolk had 
 reason to felicitate himself that it 
 was no worse. He had a narrow 
 escape, and was indebted for it en- 
 tirely to Wolsey. There were other 
 circumstances in his jarivate history, 
 not known perhaps to his opponents, 
 or to the King or his Council, which 
 would pi-obably have thwarted all 
 Wolsey's efforts to save the Duke, had 
 they trarif pired. He had been twice 
 married already, before his union with 
 Mary, and his first wife was still alive. 
 It seems that in after years, and about 
 the time of Wolsey's disgrace, the Duke 
 entertained suspicions of the validity 
 of his marriage with Mary, and the 
 legitimacy of her children. Conse- 
 quently he applied to Pope Clement 
 VII. for a bull annulling all objections 
 which might hoieafter be raised 
 against their union. The bull was 
 granted apparently on an ex j)^'''^^ 
 statement set forth by the Duke him- 
 self, and the facts detailed are strange 
 enough. The bull was exhibited ac- 
 cording to the notarial attcsiation, 
 which is without .signature, Vjy iialph 
 Cantrell and Humph. Wingfield, the 
 Duke's rctainei-8, to Rich. Nyx, Bishop 
 
 of Norwich, August 20, 1529. (IV. 
 5859.) 
 
 We learn from it the following 
 facts of Suffolk's early life. When 
 he was a young man in the reign of 
 Henry Vll. he was contracted to a 
 lady named Ann Brown, per verba de 
 prcesenti ; but before the marriage 
 was celebrated, he obtained a dis- 
 pensation, and then married one 
 Margaret Mortymer alias Brandon,* 
 living in the diocese c;f London. With 
 her he cohabited. For some cause — 
 and here his arguments for dissolving 
 the marriage forcibly remind us of 
 those of his master — he resolved to 
 separate from his wii'e, on the plea 
 that they were in the second and third 
 degrees of afiinity; — that Margaret, 
 and Ann his first betrothed, were 
 within the prohibited degrees of con- 
 sanguinity ; — "ac etiam ex eo [quod] 
 avia tua et genitor oliin conjugis dicta9 
 Margaret ;i' fiator et soror fuerant." 
 
 * I havo corrected the footnote 
 here, as I see no evidence that this 
 lady (notwithstanding the alias of 
 Brandon) was Snllolk's aunt, and tlio 
 ground ol' allinity quoted from the bull 
 a little further on seems to imply tho 
 contrary. — Ed.
 
 96 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HPJNRY VIII. 
 
 [AD. 
 
 On Suffolk's return to England the negociations in France 
 fell into the bands of West, afterwards Bishop of Ely ; a man 
 of great ability, and not easily misled. But in every point 
 of bis commission, even to tbe prevention of the Duke of 
 Albany's return to Scotland, Suffolk bad been foiled, and to 
 recover tbe lost ground was impossible. Secure of bis treaty 
 witb England, wbicb bad been signed in London on tbe 5tb 
 of April, ^ Francis was indifferent to tbe threats and remon- 
 strances of West. He bad agreed to pay one million of gold 
 crowns due from Lewis XII. to Henry VIII., and all otber sums 
 owing to Mary for ber dower. So, having locked the door on 
 bis old enemy, and with nothing to fear from that quarter for 
 the present, be started at once from Paris, impatient to carry 
 
 The bull goes on to state that the 
 Duke, considering that his marriage 
 was not legal, stung by his conscience, 
 and reflecting that lapse of time, in- 
 stead of dimiuishing only increased 
 his crime, determined on a divorce, 
 and appeared before the oiiicial of the 
 archdeacon, who, as Suffolk alleges, 
 pronounced the maiTiage to be null 
 and void. He then married Ann Brown, 
 by whom he had a daughter named 
 Ann, whom he committed to the care 
 of his old love, Margaret of Savoy, and, 
 after his marriage with Mary Queen 
 dowager of France, brought home to 
 England (II. 529). The pope granted 
 the bull as supplementing all defects 
 and omissions in the ecclesiastical 
 courts in England ; " supplentes omnes 
 et singulos defectns tam juris quam 
 facti, si qui forsan intervenerint in 
 eisdem ; " and the Duke's issue by 
 Ann Brown and Mary of France were 
 thus declared legitimate. To defeat 
 any claim on the part of his first wife, 
 Margaret Mortymer, she and her friends 
 were subjected to ecclesiastical cen- 
 sure, should they make any attempt 
 to invalidate this decree. The bull is 
 dated Orvieto, May 12, 1528, just as 
 the legate Campeggio was starting on 
 his last mission to England. 
 
 These circumstances give point to 
 the rebuke administered to the Duke 
 for his insolence at the trial of Katha- 
 rine. He had never shown himself 
 grateful, and, little to his credit, was 
 a main instrument in Wolsey's ruin, 
 making use of his influence with 
 Francis to poison the mind of the 
 King against his former favourite. 
 Cavendish reports that when Queen 
 Katharine's trial was going on at 
 Blackfriars, "the duke of Suffolk 
 
 stepped forth from the king, and by 
 his commandment spake these words 
 with a stout and a hault countenance : 
 ' It was never merry in England,' quoth 
 he, ' whilst we had cardinals among 
 us ; ' which words were set forth with 
 such a vehement countenance, that 
 all men marvelled what he intended ; 
 to whom no man made answer. Then 
 the duke spoke again in great despight. 
 To the which words my Lord Car. 
 dinal, perceiving his vehemency, 
 soberly made answer and said : ' Sir, 
 of all men in this realm, ye have least 
 cause to dispraise or be offended with 
 cardinals ; for if I simple Cardinal had 
 not been, you should have had at this 
 present no head upon your shoulders, 
 whei'ein you should have a tongue to 
 make any such report in despight of 
 us, who intend you no manner of 
 displeasure.' Then, with a hint at 
 Suffolk's clandestine proceedings in 
 this mission — a hint well understood 
 by the duke and the king — Wolsey 
 proceeded : ' My Lord, I pray you, 
 show me what ye would do if ye were 
 the king's commissioner in a foreign 
 region, having a weighty matter to 
 treat upon ; would ye not advertize 
 the king's Majesty or ever ye went 
 through with the same ? * * * Where- 
 fore, tny Lord, hold your peace, and 
 frame your tongue like a man of 
 honour and wisdom, and speak not 
 so quickly and reproachfully by your 
 friends ; Jor ye knoiu best what friend- 
 ship ye have received at my hands, the 
 which I yet never revealed to no person 
 alive before noiv, neither to my glory, 
 ne to your dishonour." ' (Life of 
 Wolsey, 232). Suffolk was wisely 
 silent. 
 
 • II. 301.
 
 1515.] FRANCIS I. 97 
 
 out his Italian expedition, leaving West to follow or not as he 
 pleased. In fact, he wanted no English eyes to spy into his 
 intentions ; least of all, eyes so active and suspicious as 
 West's. The Council of Charles were entirely at his devotion. 
 Charles himself had heen hetrothed to Madame Eenee. 
 Should England, unfaithful to the treaty, venture to move, 
 he had taken the precaution of sending Alhany into Scotland 
 with a large sum of money ; and nothing was easier than to 
 endanger and hamper his rival wdth an irritating and perti- 
 nacious border warfare, on the very verge of those counties 
 which were least affected to Henry's rule. If this project 
 failed he had still a card to play in The White Bose, Richard 
 de la Pole, the exiled claimant of the dukedom of Suffolk, 
 whom Francis fostered, pitied, and cajoled with promises of 
 restoration to the crown of England. 
 
 Francis was now in his twenty-first year.^ His accession 
 to the throne had been the signal for all the ardent and 
 adventm'ous spirits of the age to rally round him, dissatisfied 
 with that English alliance, to which Lewis had ingloriously 
 resigned himself. His person is too well known to need 
 description here, but most readers will be surprised to hear 
 that Silvester de Giglis, the Bishop of Worcester, not a favour- 
 able witness, who had seen him with the Pope at Bologna, 
 describes him at this period of his life as tall and broad- 
 shouldered, with an oval and handsome face, very slender in 
 the legs, and much inclined to corpulence.^ The contrast 
 of his legs to his stomach seems to have fastened on the 
 memory of his visitors. Pasqualigo, who saw him in Paris, 
 gives an amusing account of a conversation he had with 
 Henry YIII. on the personal appearance and manners of his 
 cousin of France.^ " His majesty came to me and said : 'Is 
 the king of France as tall as I am ? ' I told him there was 
 little difference. ' Is he as stout ? ' I told him he was not. 
 ' What sort of legs has he ? ' I replied ' Spare.' Whereupon 
 he opened the front of his doublet, and placing his hand on 
 his thigh, said, ' Look here ; I have a good calf to my leg.' " 
 Trivulcio told Giustinian^ that Francis was so extremely 
 liberal he would drain the very blood from his veins ; but his 
 mother, Louise of Savoy, hoarded money, and interfered in 
 everything. He regretted that the king was under petticoat 
 government, remained so short a period at the council board, 
 
 ' Henry was three years older. ^ J I- I ' 1- 
 
 ^ II. rzsi. * 1- ''i"o-i. 
 
 VOL. I. U
 
 08 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 was fond of amusement, and wasted so much of his time in 
 his mother's chamber. But Trivulcio belonged to the old 
 school, and was of a jealous and suspicious temper. That 
 the influence of Louise was great is apparent from the letters 
 of the Flemish and English envoys. And she deserved it, for 
 never did mother more idolize a son. She had witnessed the 
 accession of him of whom she was so fond and so proud with 
 unrestrained delight. " God has amply recompensed me," 
 she writes in her diary on that occasion, " for all the sorrows 
 and incommodities I have endured in my earlier years. 
 Humility has kept me company, and patience has never 
 abandoned me." Her inward satisfaction displayed itself out- 
 wardly " A good report," says Solomon, "maketh the bones 
 fat," and so it proved with her. " The king's mother," says 
 Gattinara to Margaret of Savoy, ^ " appears to me much 
 younger and fresher looking than she was four years ago." 
 " Sir," writes Suffolk to Henry VHI., " it is she that rules all ; 
 and so may she well ; for I never saw woman like to her, 
 both for [wit], honor, and dignity."^ "She hath a great 
 stroke in all matters with the King her son," he observes on 
 another occasion.^ In all his ambitious projects she en- 
 couraged him ; she hoarded money, refused marriage, for his 
 sake, lavished upon him all those epithets which could rouse 
 even the most dormant ambition, " C'est mon filz glorieux et 
 triomphant Cesar." " L 'exaltation de mon Cesar," she 
 murmured to herself as she noted down his exploits in her 
 diary. " He is young," says Sir Eobert Wingfield, writing 
 to Henry VHI. ,4 " mighty, insatiable ; always reading or talk- 
 ing of such enterprises as whet and inflame himself and his 
 hearers. He keepeth no silence ; for his common saying is 
 to all that he speaketh with, tliat his trust is that by his 
 [valor and] industry the things which have been lost, lettyn, 
 [and spoiled] by his ignoble predecessors shall be recovered, 
 and that the monarchy of Christendom shall rest under the 
 banner of France, as it was wont to do. And your IMajesty 
 may be sure that at this day it is no small part of that 
 kingdom that would the same were true." 
 
 In this temper and with these incitements, Francis now 
 started on the conquest of IVIilan. He kept all his plans to 
 himself, not disclosing his intentions even to his best allies, 
 the Venetians. All correspondence with England ceased. In 
 
 » Feb. 4, 1515, in Le Glay's Ndgoc. ' II. 105. 
 
 « II. 82. " II. 2536.
 
 1515.] 
 
 FRENCH INVASION OF ITALY. 
 
 99 
 
 vain Wolsey and the King fretted and fumed at this galling 
 neglect, which wore the air of contempt ; in vain they treated 
 with an ill-assumed indifference the rumour that Francis was 
 meditating the conquest of Italy without communicating his 
 intentions to them. " Sir ambassador," exclaimed Henry, 
 pale with anger, to Giustinian, who had announced ^ to him 
 with malicious candour the departure of Francis from Lyons, 
 " the French King will not go into Italy this year, though he 
 Bays so. I believe he is afraid of me, and that will prevent 
 him from crossing the Alps." On Sebastian stating that the 
 French King was adored by his subjects, " By God ! " exclaimed 
 Henry, " he gives them poor reason to love him, running thus 
 at the very commencement of his reign into the toil and 
 charges of war." " The King of France never cares," says 
 Wolsey to the same ambassador three days after, " to ask aid 
 of England ; he omits to make us the least communication of 
 his intentions, showing in how small account he holds his 
 Majesty. Think, sir ambassador, whether this is to be borne, 
 and say if these are the fashions of confederates ! " ^ Now 
 and then Louise sent a letter so well timed as to come too 
 late to do mischief, offering ample amends for any apparent 
 injury or neglect. Piegardless of all idle menaces Francis 
 held on his way. Ferdinand, who had already been in treaty^ 
 with Francis to secure his late conquest of Navarre, was too 
 old and too ill to offer serious opposition. Maximilian wasted 
 the time in hunting or coquetting with the Princess of 
 Hungary,^ a young girl not yet in her teens. " The Emperor," 
 said Pope Julius, "is fickle and inconstant; he is always 
 dunning for money, which he spends in hunting the chamois ; 
 yet he must be conciliated in the devil's name,^ and money 
 always provided for him." ^ From him there was no danger. 
 So Francis, the new Cid, started from Lyons for Grenoble at 
 the end of July. The passes in Italy had already been occu- 
 pied by the Swiss under their captain general, Galeazzo 
 Yisconti. Galeazzo ' makes their number not more than 6,000, 
 
 » Julv 3, 1515. 
 
 2 11.^66. 
 
 3 II. 685. 
 
 * Anne, daufrTiter of Ladislaus VTT. 
 of IInnf!:ary, afterward.s marriofl to 
 Ferdinand of Austria, brother of 
 Ci^iarles V., who became King of 
 Hungary in her right. 
 
 ' " Conciliandus nomine diaboli. 
 
 • II. 1876. 
 
 ' See his letter, II. 1349. Guic- 
 
 ciardini reckons them at 20,000 ; half 
 of whom kept the passes. Tlie 
 French were more than double the 
 number. But in such warfare ijositiou 
 was more than number. "The king 
 of Arrairon, fearing at first" (says 
 Giiicciai-dini) "lost such groat pre- 
 parations should bo made against 
 him, had armed his frontiers, and 
 ])erpetually united the realm of 
 Navarre to that of Castile ; but as
 
 100 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 in consequence of the defection of Berne, Friburg and Soleure, 
 who had gone home from want of pay. They were posted at 
 Susa, commanding the two roads from Mont Cenis and 
 Geneva, by one of which the French must pass or abandon 
 their artillery. In this perplexity it was proposed by Triulcio 
 to force a lower passage across the Cottian Alps leading to 
 Saluzzo. The attempt was attended with almost insurmount- 
 able difficulties. There was no regular road ; — every foot of 
 ground had to be gained hand to hand by pioneers, filling up 
 ravines and undermining rocks or fencing the dangerous 
 sloj)es, as they dragged their heavy guns with toilsome march 
 to the steep summits of the mountains. Arrived at the top, 
 the prospect was still more formidable. The mountain sloped 
 to the bottom with sharp and projecting cliffs, unsafe for the 
 giddy footing even of an unencumbered passenger. Men in 
 armour fell headlong into the abyss ; horses plunged and 
 struggled in vain with their unmanageable burthens, lost 
 their footing, and rolled thundering over the precipice with 
 guns, carriages, and drivers. But the French troops with 
 wonderful spirits and alacrity — never mounting higher than 
 when they have to overcome the most formidable natural 
 difficulties — were not to be baffled. They dropped their 
 artillery by cables from steep to steep ; down one range of 
 mountains and up another, until five days had been spent in 
 this perilous enterprise, and they found themselves safe in the 
 plains of Saluzzo. Hapi^ily the Swiss, secure in their position 
 at Susa, had never dreamed of the possibility of such a 
 passage. The men-at-arms and the foot under La Palice 
 clambered over the rocks, some by one passage and some 
 another. 
 
 Prosper Colonna, who commanded in Italy for the Pope, 
 was sitting down to his comfortable dinner at Villa Franca 
 when a scout covered with dust dashed into his apartment 
 announcing that the French had crossed the Alps. The next 
 minute the town was filled with the advanced guard, under the 
 Sieur d'Ymbercourt and the celebrated Bayard. The Swiss 
 at Susa had still the advantage of position, and might have 
 hindered the passage of the main body of the French ; but 
 they had no horse to transport their artillery, were badly led, 
 
 soon as he found that the war was in. had done of all covenants and con- 
 tended for Italy, he dismissed all the tracts made to them the years before." 
 companies he had levied, holding no The accuiacy of Guicciardini in this 
 more reckoning of his promises, made part of his narrative is exactly borne 
 that year to his confederates, than he out by the contemporary documents.
 
 1515.] THE FKENCH CROSS THE ALPS. 101 
 
 and evident!}^ divided in their councils. They retired upon 
 Novara without accompHshing any other feat except that of 
 sacking and plundering Chivasso and Vercelli. In fact the 
 hrilliant enterprise and audacity of the French in crossing the 
 Cottian Alps had won for them the victory, and dazzled and 
 dismayed the confederates. Cardona, the Spanish viceroy, 
 lingered in Verona ; Leo temporized and hesitated in his 
 plans ; the Gallicizing Swiss at Novara openly advocated the 
 French cause, and the dissension was increased by the back- 
 wardness of Ferdinand in sending the pay he had promised 
 them. 
 
 There was in the armies of the Swiss, now constantly 
 recruited by fresh and hungry adventurers, an ecclesiastic 
 named Matthew Scheiner, Cardinal of Sion, who plays an 
 important part in the transactions of this particular period. 
 He was a man of inexhaustible activity, of rough and ready 
 eloquence, and highly esteemed by his countrymen. He 
 hated, or at least affected to hate the French, with a hatred 
 that nothing could extinguish. The Swiss were now at Milan, 
 intending to effect a junction with the viceroy of Naples, who 
 had advanced to Cremona. Early in the morning of the 13th 
 of September, Sion called the troops together at beat of drum, 
 ^ in the courtyard of the castle of Milan ; then, mounting a 
 chair in the midst of them, he harangued them on the valour 
 and glory of their nation.^ They were, he exclaimed, the real 
 rulers of this world : they it was who dispensed crowns and 
 empires ; without them no prince could be assured of his 
 dominions, and with them the weakest might j^romise himself 
 assured victory. He enlarged upon their conquests in Italy, 
 reminded them how popes and kings had sought their alliance, 
 and ended by pointing to the French camp and promising 
 them an easy conquest.^ " There," said he, " are treasures 
 sufficient to enrich you all for life ; glory enough to make you 
 the most redoubtable nation on the face of the earth." It 
 was in vain that Galeazzo and others more experienced in 
 these matters denounced the folly of the enterprize, and 
 advised delay .^ Sion's speech was received with enthusiastic 
 cries ; hogsheads of wine were broken up and distributed 
 
 ' " Corame tin reynard qui picfiche employed by ITcnry VIII., but tlipy 
 
 les poules," HayH Fleuranges, ch. 50. never could a^'n-c. Their iiitripieH 
 
 ^ Marillac, V. de Bourbon, 158, ed. with tlic KwisH and llie French occiipy 
 
 Bucbon. many pages in this vuhaiio of tlio 
 
 * See Galeazzo's letter (II. 1349). calendar. 
 Sion and Galeazzo were afterwards
 
 102 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 among the troops ; the cornet de hoeiif sounded the rendez- 
 vous through the camp and the streets of Milan/ and every 
 man hurried forward, anxious to be the first to assail and 
 plunder the French. The French camp was at Marignano, 
 about twelve miles distant. The day was hot and dusty. 
 The advanced guard of the French was under the command of 
 the Constable of Bourbon, whose vigilance defeated any 
 advantage the Swiss might otherwise have gained by the 
 suddenness and rapidity of their movements. At nine o'clock 
 in the morning, as Bourbon was sitting down at table, a scout, 
 dripping with water, made his appearance. He had left Milan 
 only a few hours be^re, had waded the canals, and came to 
 announce the approach of the enemy. Bom^bon ordered his 
 horse, and galloped to the King's quarter. As they stood dis- 
 cussing the probability of the news, a gentleman-at-arms rode 
 up, saying that a great cloud of dust had been seen in the 
 direction of Milan.^ The Swiss came on apace ; they had dis- 
 encumbered themselves of their hats and caps, and thrown off 
 their shoes, the better to fight without slipping. They made 
 a dash at the French artillery, and were foiled after hard 
 fighting, though Galeazzo avers that they cajitured fifteen 
 great guns, and drove the French back half a mile.^ Marillac, 
 who was with Bourbon that day, admits that the French could 
 make no impression on the main body of the Swiss, who 
 fought with such obstinacy and determination, that the French 
 recoiled, and at one time gave over the battle for lost. It was 
 an autumnal afternoon ; the sun had gone down ; dust and 
 night-fall separated and confused the combatants. The French 
 trumpets sounded a retreat ; both armies couched down in the 
 darkness within cast of a tennis-ball of each other.* The 
 cornets de vache of the Swiss blared and brayed through the 
 night, answered by the French trumpets and clarions. Where 
 they fought, there each man laid down to rest when darkness 
 came on, within hand-grip of his foe ; — foot-soldier pike in 
 hand, the horseman in the saddle, the gunner with his lin- 
 stock, longing for the dawn. 
 
 It was Friday morning ; ^ the autumnal mist crawled slowly 
 
 ' Fleuranges, cap. 50. charg'e, for that they had no oppor- 
 
 ^ Marillac, p. 158. tunity to carry them away." 
 
 ' II. 1349. Whether it was so, or * " Si prez," says Francis, writing 
 
 that Galeazzo made capital of the cur- to Louise, " que j'eusse bien tiro un 
 
 rent report of their capture, I cannot eteuf, et n'y a.vait qn'un fosse entre 
 
 decide. Guicciardini, speaking of the deux." It was pitch dark, and there 
 
 retreat of the Swiss, states : " Some was no moon that night, 
 
 say they buried 15 pieces of great ^ Sept. 14. 
 artillery, which they won at the first
 
 1515.] BATTLE OF MAEIGNANO. 103 
 
 away, and once more exposed the combatants to each other's 
 view. The advantage of the ground was on the side of the 
 French. They were drawn up in a valley protected by a ditch 
 full of water. Though the Swiss had taken no refreshment 
 that night/ they renewed the fight with unimpaired animosity 
 and vigour. A party of them broke into the French camp, 
 and found their way to Bourbon's quarters, where they fell to 
 rifling the provisions and the wine-casks, and were burnt to 
 death in the cellars and magazines. Another band lost their 
 way. Francis, surrounded by a body of mounted gentlemen, 
 performed prodigies of valour. The night had given him 
 opportunity for the better arrangement of his troops ; ^ and 
 as the day wore on, and the sun grew hot, the Swiss, though 
 " marvellously deliberate, brave, and obstinate," began to give 
 way. The arrival of the Venetian general, D'Alviano, with 
 fresh troops, made the French victory complete.^ 
 
 But the Swiss retreated inch by inch with the greatest 
 deliberation, carrying off their great guns on their shoulders ; 
 their helmets, their armour, and every part of their person 
 which was unprotected was covered with the shafts of the 
 Gascon cross-bowmen, who did great execution. The French 
 were too exhausted to follow. And their victory had cost 
 them dear ; for the Swiss, with peculiar hatred to the French 
 gentry and the lance-knights, had shown no mercy. They 
 spared none, and made no prisoners.^ 
 
 The glory of the battle was great, and that at a time when 
 such glory was most coveted, and war opened the only road to 
 distinction. At that day there was not a sovereign in Europe 
 who did not envy Francis the fame he had acquired in this his 
 first battle. His old censor, Trivulcio, who accused him of 
 lying in bed too late, and wasting his time in his mother's 
 chamber, admitted that this battle had been fought not by 
 men but by giants,^ and that the eighteen battles at which he 
 had been present were but the squabbles of little children in 
 
 Such is Galeazzo's statement. ^ Francis had not taken off his 
 
 Gnicciardini says that Sion had pro- armour all night, but threw himself to 
 
 visions brought them from Milan. sloop for a few hours on a gun-carriage. 
 
 The two statements are not so irre- (Du Hellay.) 
 
 concileable as they miglit appear at ^ D'Alviano arrived on the field at 
 
 first sight. It is difficult to see how ten in the morning; but tlio Swiss were 
 
 refreshments could be brought in already retiring. (Du Bellay.) The 
 
 sufficient quantity, and effectually fight lasted till noon. (Galeazzo.) 
 
 distributed, at so short a notice, and * " Us ne s'ei)ergnoient jwint, non 
 
 in so dark a night. It is admitted plus quo sangliers echauffos," remarks 
 
 on all hands that the Swiss despised Francis, 
 
 the French, and promised themselves " Guicciardini. 
 an easy victoiy.
 
 104 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 1515. 
 
 comparison with this. The Swiss, the best troops in Europe 
 and hitherto reckoned invincible, had been beaten by the men 
 they despised as effeminate, whom they called in derision 
 " hares in armour." ^ They had been the terror and scourge 
 of Italy, equally formidable to friend and foe, and now their 
 prestige was extinguished. But it was not in these merely 
 military aspects that the battle of Marignano was important. 
 No one who reads the French chronicles of the times, can fail 
 to perceive that it was a battle of opinions and of classes even 
 more than of nations; of a fierce and rising democratical 
 element, now rolled back for a short season, only to display 
 itself in another form against royalty and nobility; — of the 
 burgher classes against feudality. When Sion inflamed the 
 fierce passions of the Swiss by telhng them that they were 
 the real dispensers of power, he spoke a language which, in 
 one form or another, had been silently making its way to the 
 hearts of the lower orders throughout all the nations of 
 Europe. The old romantic element, overlaid for a time by 
 the pohtical convulsions of the last century, had once more 
 gained the ascendant. It was to blaze forth and revive, before 
 it died out entirely, in the Sydneys and Ealeighs of Queen 
 Elizabeth's reign ; it was to hghten up the glorious imagina- 
 tion of Spenser before it faded into the dull prose of Puritan 
 divinity, and the cold grey dawn of inductive philosophy. 
 But its last great battle was the battle of Marignano. 
 
 > " Efc vous assenre, Madame, que cntion." (Francis to Madame Louise.) 
 
 j'aiveuleslansquentsmesurer la pique He also admits, in common with 
 
 aaxSuisses, la lance aux gens d'arrues; Guicciardini, that the seneschal 
 
 et ne dira-on plus que les gens d'armes d'Armagnac, in charge of the artillery, 
 
 sont lievres amies, car sans point de had contributed greatly to their 
 
 faute, ce sont eux qui ont fait I'exe- success.
 
 ( 105 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EFFECTS OF THE BATTLE OF MARIGNANO. 
 
 The news of the battle of Marignano was received in the 
 different courts of EuroiDe with very different emotions. Leo 
 for a time left off his intrigues, and hastened to make his 
 peace with the conqueror. Charles sent letters of congratula- 
 tion ; Ferdinand trembled for his possessions in the South of 
 Italy, and for the effects of that selfish policy which had 
 deprived him of effectual help when he most required it. To 
 Erasmus, then at Basle, busy with his New Testament, the 
 defeat of the Swiss furnished pleasant matter for jesting.^ 
 "Our friends, the Swiss," he writes, "are in a great fume, 
 because the French would not politely allow themselves to be 
 beatem as they were beaten by you English, but sent many 
 of them to the right about with their great guns. They have 
 returned home fewer in number than when they started ; 
 ragged, gaunt, disfigured and wounded, their ensigns torn, 
 their festal songs turned into funeral dirges." Giustinian, 
 the Venetian ambassador, gleeful as a schoolboy when he 
 could throw grit into Wolsey's bread, was not sorry at the 
 opportunity of carrying him the tidings. At first Wolsey had 
 persuaded himself that Francis would never pass into Italy ; 
 when that hope failed, he had assured himself, on the faith of 
 letters received from Brussels, that Francis must inevitably 
 be defeated. On the 25th of September, eleven days after the 
 victory at Marignano, he had told Sebastian, on his asking 
 the news,^ that he had letters from Brussels of the ISth,""^ 
 quoting advices from Verona of the 12th, and describing the 
 perilous position of the Most Christian King. He lamented, in 
 pathetic terms, the ruin which he foresaw must ensue from 
 the mad folly of a misguided young man, and the pertinacity 
 of the Venetians in not abandoning the French alliance. On 
 
 » II. 985. ^ Tliis must bo Spinelly'a letter of 
 
 * He had jnst been made Cardinal, tlio 19th. See No. 1)27. 
 and was more thau usually gracioua.
 
 106 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 the 11th of October, as Wolsey still affected to disbelieve the 
 news of the French victory, Giustinian had the satisfaction of 
 assuring him there could be no doubt of the fact. The King 
 had been duly notified of the victory by Francis himself and 
 his mother Louise, but, with extraordinary pertinacity, refused 
 to credit the unwelcome tidings.^ With an incredulity almost 
 childish, he treated the letters as forgeries, and the report as 
 a political canard got up by the French to suit their own 
 purposes. In order to disabuse him Francis sent an agent to 
 England, named De Bapaume, with Guienne herald. The 
 envoy's account of his reception presents an accurate and 
 lively picture of the King himself, and the conflicting emotions 
 of the court. Henry was then building his great galley, called 
 The Virgin Mary, in honour of the French Queen.^ The 
 report is addressed to Louise of Savoy. 
 
 " Madam, on Thursday last, the 25th of this month,^ I received the 
 letters which you were pleased to send me by the present bearer, Guyenne 
 herakl, dated the 18th. And as the hour was late, and the king of 
 Enghmd, the two queens, and the council were gone to the great galley, 
 I could not on that day accomplish your commands, or do what was con- 
 tained in your letters. The next day before I left there arrived a servant 
 of M. de la Fayette, captain of Boulogne, who brought other letters of 
 yours, dated the 16th, with a cipher enclosed. 
 
 "Forthwith, Madam, I departed from this town in company with the said 
 herald, and visited the said king of England in his chateau at Greenwich. 
 And after I had made him the most cordial x"ecommendations from my 
 master and yourself, the herald presented his Majesty with the two letters 
 written by the king. He did not take any great pleasure in reading 
 them ; for it seemed, to look at him, as if tears would have burst from his 
 eyes, so red were they from the pain he suffered in hearing and under- 
 standing the good news and prosperity of my master, who had advertised 
 him thereof by his letters.* . . . 
 
 ' ' Madam, after reading the said letters, the king of England called me 
 apart, and privately asked me what news there was from the king of 
 Arragon, and whether the king my master intended to make war on him 
 for the kingdom of Naples. I replied, I thought not, and that I neither 
 knew nor had heard anything about it. I had been given to understand 
 that my master would return from Italy into France with his army, at 
 the feast of All Saints, or soon after. On this he told me, he understood 
 so from the king's letters. Then he asked me about the arrangements 
 with the Pope. I told him they were made and concluded. He replied : 
 It was not so ; for the contrary was the case, and the Pope had yet to 
 ratify, and he knew better than I ; for my master and you would have let 
 him know if it had been so. Then he asked me about the Emperor ; 
 
 1 Sir Richard Wingfield had sent ^ II. 1113. 
 
 the news from Calais on the 27th of ^ He means October. 
 
 September (see II. 953), but it was * " Et en icelles lisant il ny prenoit 
 
 not believed in England until some pas grant plaisir, tellement qu'il 
 
 time after, and Spinelly kept up the sembloit, a le veoir, queles larmes luy 
 
 delusion (see II. 958). This is the deussent tumber des yeulx, tant les 
 
 more remarkable as it was known at avait rouges de la paine qu'il souffi'oit," 
 
 Brussels at least as early as the 23rd. etc.
 
 1515.] HOW HEXEY RECEIVED THE NEWS. 107 
 
 where he was, and what he was doing ? 1 told him I had heard no news 
 of him ; only I had learnt from some private persons that he was seekino- 
 the friendship of the king my master. Then his Majesty said he knew 
 well where he was, and what he was about ; and as for seeking the friend- 
 ship of the king my master, quite the contrary was the truth : and there 
 he stojiped. 
 
 "He next inquired how many Swiss had fallen in the battle. To 
 which I made answer, about 20,000. This assertion he would not believe, 
 although Guyenne herald assured him of it. He protested that not more 
 than 10,000 Swiss, who formed the vanguard, fought with the king and 
 his army ; and that ihe rearguard, which contained the great body of the 
 Swiss, took no part in the engagement, nor struck a single blow ; for the 
 king or his j^redecessors had bribed them, and made an agreenient with 
 them. His Majesty asserted he was well informed of this by letters from 
 persons present at the battle, who had written the truth of the matter. 
 On this the Admiral (Surrey), and other lords and gentlemen who were 
 present, seeing that the king could not dissemble his resentment, or even 
 pretend to take pleasure in the prosperity of his ally, began saying that 
 he ought to be very joyful that the king, his good brother and ally, had 
 defeated the Swiss, who were so tierce and haughty that they liad 
 presumed to name themselves the rulers and correctors of princes ; — that 
 the gloiy and reno-ivn of all gentlemen and nobles were extinguished and 
 annihilated by their usurpation and arrogance ; — with other words to this 
 effect. Hereupon his Majesty said, that certainly he was very glad, for 
 the Swiss wtre nothing hut villains, and he had ever known them to 
 be such ; and the lansquenetz, whom he called Almains, were greatly 
 superior, and better soldiers than they. And he asked me, now that 
 Christian j^rinces were agreed and on good tenns, what better could they 
 do than make war upon the Turk ? Hereupon all present gave their 
 advice, concluding that it would be well so to do, saying that the kings of 
 France and of England were young and powerful, and that since 
 Charlemagne there had not been in Christendom any princes who could 
 do it better than they. This discourse was long kept up. ... At the 
 king's departure I asked him if he would be jjleased to write to my 
 master. He answered. Yes ; and to that end he would send the letters 
 of the king to his council. . . . 
 
 "Madam, after this I went immediately to my lord the Duke of 
 Sufiblk, who was at the said chateau ; to whom I communicated all the 
 news. He answered me much more civilly than the king, and told me he 
 was as glad of the prosperity of the king my master as any man in the 
 kingdom of France, if not more so ; praying me to make his humble 
 recommendations to you. I reminded him of the kind treatment the king 
 had shown him in France, and the good words they had had togetlier, as 
 you charged me in your letters. He told me it was true, and for this 
 cause he reputed himself obliged to do the king more pleasure and service 
 than any other prince. And then 1 declared to him the contents of the 
 cipher which you had sent ; pointing oiit to him the things which were 
 being done over here, as well by land as by sea. He told me it was 
 true that the king of England had made an appearance of preparing 
 himself for war, and for this cause liad got ready a small number of ships, 
 and on land had likewise shown some diligence in assembhng men, and 
 having them ready ; but this he had done solely to content liis .sul)jec't.s, 
 who desired in my master's absence that England should go to war with 
 him ; but the king himself had no such inclination. The duke said the 
 king of England would maintain the peace and amity between the two 
 kingdoms ; and there was nothing so nuicli to l)e desired as that tliey 
 shoidd see each other and speak together ; and he will never rest till tliiH 
 come to pass ; for he is of opinion that after that there will never arise 
 any question or debate between tliem ; an<l he prayed me to write these 
 thing.s to the king and yourself, and to return to him at hia liouse near
 
 108 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 this town immediately after the feast of All Saints, when he would send 
 for me, and speak more plainly to me of this matter. 
 
 "I left him, and, accompanied with the herald, went to my lord the 
 Cardinal of York, being at Westminster, whom likewise I informed of the 
 good news of the king and his prosperity. He told me he rejoiced at it, 
 and that he esteemed the victory of the king and his success as much as if 
 they had been the king's his master, by reason of the alliance and friend- 
 ship between them. He thanked the king and you for making him 
 participator of the news, and said he was pleased to hear it above all 
 tilings in the world. Then I gave him to understand the contents of 
 your cii^her, and told him that if he and the king of England thought 
 that the king my master at his departvire into Italy had not left his 
 kingdom strong and powerful, and chiefly the towns on the frontiers, they 
 had been greatly deceived ; although the king had never thought that the 
 king of England would attempt to invade his country and make war upon 
 him in his absence, considering the treaty of peace and amity existing 
 between them. On this he laid his hand on his breast, and swore to me 
 that the king his master had never thought of such a thing, nor his 
 council ; and as for the ships which he had prepared during this time, and 
 chiefly his great galley, that was done solely to give pleasure and jiastime 
 to the queen and queen Mary his sister ; and that it was true that on 
 Thursday last the king, the said queens, and all the council had dined on 
 board, and made the greatest cheer and triumph that could be devised. 
 And with regard to preparations by land, the king of England had done 
 nothing with intent to make war on Fi-ance or on Scotland, but only for 
 the purpose of keeping himself ready for all contingencies ; for if the king 
 his master had resolved on making war upon the Scotch, he would have 
 done so by land, and not by sea. In saying this, however, he did not 
 mean to have it understood that, if the duke of Albany did not abstain 
 from the injuries and violent dealing he had used towards the queen of 
 Scotland, his master's sister, and her children, and if he did not make 
 amends for the same, the king of England would not endeavour, when 
 time and place offered, to make him acknowledge and repair them, as he 
 had formerly told me, and charged me to write to you ; but on his faith 
 there was not at present any such thing in meditation. Both the cardinal 
 and the duke of Suflblk advised me not to speak to the king of this, for 
 fear he should entertain some suspicion. So I have deferred doing so till 
 it please you to send me further instructions. 
 
 "Madam, when the answers of the cardinal and the duke of Suffolk, 
 who do not agree, are weighed and considered by you, you will take such 
 counsel as you may think best. I am and shall always be of opinion that 
 if the king my master had met with worse success in Italy, the king of 
 England would have certainly prepared with all his power to descend upon 
 France ; this is now quite common and well known over here. But, God 
 be thanked, it is no longer necessary to think of such things, ^ for all is 
 changed with our good fortune ; and as for Scotland, if war is to take 
 place there, it cannot be within six months and more from this date, 
 because there will not be sufficient time for it. 
 
 " I wrote to you that the Great Chamberlain of Scotland (Hume) had 
 been taken prisoner by the duke of Albany ; and such was the fact : but 
 the Cardinal has since told me, he has escaped, and is at present in this 
 kingdom. The Cardinal informed me that the duke of Albany had 
 delivered him into the custody of the earl of Arran, who has married the 
 Chamberlain's sister, and the said earl released him without the know- 
 ledge of the duke ; and he and the said earl came away into this kingdom, 
 where they remain at present with the queen of Scotland ; by reason of 
 which, as the same Cardinal said, they are at this time more mutinous 
 in Scotland than ever ; and though the greatest part was heretofore with 
 
 * " II ne s'en fault plus donner de mal temps."
 
 1515.] THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR'S SUSPICIONS. 109 
 
 the said lord of Albanj^ thej- have now abandoned him, and he is much 
 reduced. So, in spite of him, the uncle of the said chamberlain and 
 others his relatives and friends were at liberty and released from prison. 
 Subsequently I made enquiiy of the herald of arms of Scotland to know 
 if this was the case, who told me he did not know for certain, but he 
 believed it was not. . . . 
 
 " JNIadam, those who were on Thursday last in the galley, dining with 
 the said king of England, have told me for certain that there are in the 
 said galley 207 pieces of artillery, large as well as small, of which 70 are 
 • if copper and cast (fo}de), and the rest of iron, with four or live thousand 
 bullets, and four or five hundred barrels of powder. The galley is pro- 
 pelled by six score oars, and is so large that it will hold 800 or 1000 
 fighting men. The king of England acted as master of the galley, 
 wearing a sailor's coat and trowsers of frise cloth of gold ; he had on a 
 thick chain, in which were five links, and amongst the same there were 
 three plates of gold, on which vsas written, as a device, ' Dieu est^ mon 
 Droit ;' and at the bottom of the said chain was a large whistle, with which 
 he whistled almost as loud as ^ a trumpet or clarionet. Mass was sung on 
 board by the bishop of Durham ; and the galley was named by queen 
 Mary, ' The Virgin Mary.' 
 
 "Madam, after these things I went twice to the said Cardinal of 
 York, who sent for me ; and on each occasion, and especially yesterday 
 in the presence of the bishops of "Winchester and Durham, he told me 
 that the king of England and his comicil considered the language which 
 the king my master had used in his letters to the king of England was 
 very strange ; viz that the king of France had not suspected that so noble 
 and so virtuous a prince, loving his own honour and fearing God, as the 
 king of England, would have wished to make war upon him, contrary to 
 his faith, and promise, without first advertising and informing him of the 
 same, and without signifying it to him and letting him know it, in order 
 that, if there was any fault, it might be amended, or at any rate he might 
 prepare to defend himself : which words the said king of England and all 
 his council considered very harsh and unpleasant. . . . 
 
 "After further arguments to this eiiect they said they hoped the 
 king of France would henceforth behave more graciously and use more 
 gracious words in his communications, as their master woiild to him. 
 To this the writer replied, that his master's letters were couched in 
 nothing but gracious and good terms ; and if they would otherwise 
 interpret them, the fault lay in the king of England and Ids council, for 
 the king of England had written in still riuler terms to his master ; 
 otherwise the king w^ould never have nuide him such a reply. Other 
 arguments passed on both sides. In the conclusion it was agi-eed that 
 henceforward they should write as good brothers and allies ought to do. 
 
 " This done til ey spoke to me afterwards of the jewels which queen 
 Mary deiuands, telling me that the answers which the king of France 
 had given were like all his previous rei>lies, and that the objections 
 contained in the said letters, by which the king pretended he was not 
 bound to deliver up the jewels, were unreasonable, as tlie king of 
 England had represented to him by a bishop, liis ambassador, whom he 
 had sent for that purpose ; that my lord chancellor and the said bishop, 
 the ambassadors, had many times met together, l)ut tliat they could not 
 determine the matter ; and it appeared to them, that tlic king deceased 
 had given the jewels to the said (pieen Mary to adorn and decorate lier 
 person, although this was after the mairiage for the most jiait, and that 
 they ought to be delivered up. I defended myself as well as J could ; and 
 so, at the end, they deferred the matter, without saying moi-e al)out it. 
 I believe they see clearly that this is only reasonable. 
 
 "Afterwards they proceeded to the Scotch business ; and tliough I 
 
 » Hie. " " Apres force de."
 
 110 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 had told them that T had no commission from the king, and so knew 
 nothing about it, they nevertheless did not omit to reiterate the com- 
 plaints which I have rejieated so often to you ; viz. the ill treatment 
 which they say my lord the duke of Albany lias sho\vn to the queen of 
 Scotland, in having taken from her her children, deprived her of the 
 government, seized all her goods, and driven her out of the said kingdom, 
 with only one gown, and no attendance : adding that the said lord duke 
 of Albany had caused it publicly to be proclaimed throughout the said 
 kingdom that every one should prepare himself for war against the king 
 of England, who was coming to assail them in order to take and subvert 
 their kingdom, — a thing which the said king of England, as they say, 
 never purposed to do. . . . They prayed me to write these things to you, 
 to the end that it might please the king and you to prevent them. . , . 
 
 ' ' Madam, I was afterwards alone with the Cardinal of York, who 
 charged me to write to the king and yourself that there is no prince in 
 this world that the king of England loves better or holds more dear than 
 he does tlie king of France. He swore and afhrmed this to me, with his 
 hand on his breast. He said they were both young, and there was the 
 greatest similarity between them in nobility, magnanimity, and virtue, 
 wherefore they ought the more to love one another ; and he humbly 
 prayed the king and yoti to treat the king his master well, stating that 
 the king of England for his part would do more than he was bound to do : 
 and on this subject may it please you to consider that the time is no 
 longer such as it used to be. 
 
 ' ' To learn how the Scotch business stood, I asked him about it ; and 
 he told me that if the king would recall the duke of Albany, — allow the 
 estates of that country and the Scotch parliament to nominate guardians 
 of the children and take the administration of the realm during the 
 minority of the king of Scotland, the queen retaining the name only, and 
 allowed to go and come with her children when and as often as she 
 pleased, — and if her goods and dowry were restored, and she enabled to 
 return to Scotland, — then all would be appeased, and there would never 
 be occasion for war. But if this were not done, the king of England was 
 resolved to aid his sister, and to do so much that she should have what 
 belongs to her. I also spoke to him touching the king of Arragon, 
 because I had heard that within a few days past something had taken 
 place between the king of Arragon and them, and how they had renewed 
 their ancient amity, and amongst other things had engaged that if the 
 king of England made war on Scotland the king of Arragon should assist 
 him ; and also if the king of France made war on the king of Arragon in 
 Guienne, the king of England should succour him. Hereupon the 
 Cardinal told me, that if the king would treat the king of England well, 
 and not do anything contrary to the treaty of peace and amity between 
 them, I might assure you on his part, that the king of England would 
 not -make an alliance with the king of Arragon, or any other person, pre- 
 judicial to the king my master. . . . 
 
 "Madam, I have written a long letter in order to obey you. I trust 
 it will not tire you, and very humbly pray the king and yourself that I 
 may return. . , . 
 
 " At London this 6th day of November." 
 
 It might be true in the language of diplomacy that up to 
 the date of the battle of Marignano Henry had not been guilty 
 of any overt act which could be construed into a breach of his 
 treaty with France, whatever might have been his inclinations. 
 The time had not yet arrived for forming a i>owerful con- 
 federacy against his rival, with any tolerable hopes of success.
 
 1515.] 
 
 MAXIMILIAN AND THE SWISS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Ferdinand, as I have stated before, was content to remain 
 neutral, undoubtedly believing, like the other rulers of Europe, 
 that the ambition of Francis would end in his ruin, and t^ie 
 Swiss would secure an easy victory. There was better expec- 
 tation of Maximilian. The imperial cities of Brescia and 
 Yerona were menaced by the Venetians, and the Emperor was 
 in danger of losing every foot of land in Italy. He had the 
 reputation of being an able soldier. Better than all, he had 
 great influence with the Swiss, and could bring any number 
 of them or of German lance-knights into the field. Such men, 
 to whom war was a trade from their infancy, had so manifest 
 a superiority over the raw national militia of other countries, 
 that no king had any chance of success without their aid. 
 That superiority was not merely in their superior training and 
 experience. Beyond that of keeping their arms and imple- 
 ments in full trim, war was their only employment. Whereas 
 the national militia — and that of England especially, taken 
 from the plough-tail at few and irregular intervals for muster, 
 clothed in ill-fitting and old-fashioned habiliments which 
 descended from father to son, badly cleaned and scarcely ever 
 complete — must have presented a spectacle more ludicrous 
 than formidable, as they took the field in rusty head-pieces 
 and cumbrous body armour, hastily patched together for the 
 occasion. It is clear, from the various unsuccessful attempts 
 described in contemporary papers to prevent even the armour 
 furnished by the King from being pawned or purloined, that 
 native troops were of small account in a continental war. 
 
 But then who could trust Maximilian, himself as much a 
 mercenary as the Swiss, and ready like them to sell himself 
 to the highest bidder ? At the very time when he was abusing 
 the French to Sir Eobert Wingfield, and declaiming against 
 their subtle practices, he w^as giving private audience to 
 French ambassadors,^ and. listening to the projiosals of his 
 grandson Charles for a closer amity with France.^ Always 
 extravagant and always in difficulties, any aid from Maximilian 
 had to be purchased at a heavy cast. But Wolsey was inclined 
 
 » II. 786. 
 
 * Duriiij? the evontfnl months of 
 Aucrnst aiifl Spptember the Emperor 
 Bpent mnch of his time in hunting ; — 
 a trick which he had when he wished 
 to get out of the way of the honest 
 and simple-minded Sir Robert Wing- 
 field, wlio was continually deluded, 
 bat never suspected his Imperial 
 Majesty. He imagined that the 
 
 Emperor withdrew himself into the 
 solitudes of the woods to meditate on 
 the best mean.s of succouring Verona, 
 and taking vengeance on the French. 
 It is surprising that he did not per. 
 coive that Maximilian's passion for 
 the chase was always at the liigliest 
 when a message from France was in 
 the way. See 11. bT-i, btiti, 900, 
 
 9oy.
 
 112 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 to venture. The successes of Francis in Italy, bis league and 
 evident good understanding with the Po}3e, had thoroughly 
 alarmed Ferdinand, and provoked the resentment of England. 
 The former had sent an ambassador, and, what was still more 
 unusual with him, rich presents to Henry to invoke his aid. 
 But whatever was done must be done secretly. The treaty 
 with France still stood in the way. The French King bad 
 carefully avoided all literal violation of it ; and Henry could 
 not, without breach of faith, venture upon open aggressions. 
 
 There was in the Cardinal's service an ecclesiastic, of 
 
 whose early career little is known — Eichard Pace, immortalized 
 
 by Shakespeare, and reckoned by some as scarce inferior to 
 
 Wolsey himself in ability or in the favour of Henry. The 
 
 date and place of his birth are unknown. He tells us himself,^ 
 
 however, that he lived in a menial capacity with Thomas 
 
 Langton, the predecessor of Fox in the see of Winchester. 
 
 The Bishop, discovering Pace's proficiency in music, believed 
 
 he would make a scholar, and so furnished him with the 
 
 requisite means to study at Padua ; for this prelate, like 
 
 others of his order in that age, used to say of himself, that he 
 
 considered he had been advanced to his high dignity solely 
 
 for the purpose of fostering learning. He had a school attached 
 
 to his palace, where he superintended the education of the 
 
 boys; and " it was his great delight," says Pace, "to hear 
 
 the boys repeat to him at night the lessons they had said to 
 
 their schoolmaster during the day ; and whoever acquitted 
 
 himself to the Bishop's satisfaction never failed of being praised 
 
 and rewarded. For the good Bishop had always these words 
 
 in his mouth : Virtus laiidata crescit. If a dull boy ajjpeared 
 
 before him, but one who was willing to learn, the Bishop never 
 
 reproached him with his stupidity, but cheered and exhorted 
 
 him to do his best, and to overcome nature by diligence, 
 
 setting before him the shining example of others who had 
 
 surmounted similar obstacles." ^ During his stay in Italy, 
 
 Pace seems to have made the acquaintance of Erasmus, 
 
 Tunstal, and William Latimer. He returned to England, 
 
 settled at Oxford — as Wood thinks,^ with some reason, at 
 
 Queen's College, of which Langton had been the provost ; was 
 
 taken into the service of Bainbridge, who succeeded Langton 
 
 in the provostship, and went with him to Piome, when he was 
 
 Cardinal and Archbishop of York, at the close of the year 
 
 ' De Doctrina, 27. of gratitude to his earliest patron. 
 
 ^ Pace excuses himself for diverg- ^ Wood's Ath. i. 29. 
 
 ing from his subject to pay this tribute
 
 1515.] THE SWISS DESIKE TO SERVE ENGLAND. 113 
 
 1509. When Bainbridge was poisoned, Pace, who had been 
 appointed one of the Cardinal's executors, was extremely active 
 in bringing the offenders to justice. His pertinacity and 
 resolution in this matter brought down upon him the resent- 
 ment of De Giglis, Bishop of Worcester, who was strongly 
 suspected of being implicated in Bainbridge' s murder ; with 
 what degree of truth must for ever remain uncertain, for the 
 court of Eome were not willing to prosecute the matter too 
 strictly, and Worcester's services at the time in procuring the 
 cardinalate for Wolsey imposed silence on his accusers. Pace 
 returned to England in March, 1515, with a recommendation 
 to Wolsey fi*om Sir Eichard Wingfield ; ^ and from this time 
 to the close of the year we hear no more of him. He was now 
 to be employed by the Cardinal on a secret mission of the 
 greatest importance, and his correspondence on that occasion 
 occupies a considerable space among the state papers of the 
 next two years.^ 
 
 After the battle of Marignano and the surrender of Milan 
 the Swiss had made their way back to their mountain homes, 
 greatly dissatisfied and exasperated at their defeat. Cardinal 
 Sion returned to the Emperor, and here he fell in with Sir 
 Piobert Wingfield, not the most discreet or reticent of English 
 ambassadors, and learned from him the dissatisfaction of 
 England at the successes of Francis, and still more at the 
 omnipotence of French influence in the court of Flanders, 
 where it displayed itself in all the forms of arrogance, insult, 
 and opposition to the English commissioners appointed to 
 carry out the treaty of intercourse with Charles of Castile.^ 
 On the 2nd of October * Wingfield wrote to Wolsey to say that 
 the Cardinal of Sion had informed him the Swiss desired 
 nothing better than to serve the King with 20,000 men at 
 40,000 florins a month. The Emperor, he questions not, will 
 add as many horse and artillery as shall be necessary, for a 
 reasonable sum, " for all the world knoweth that he is not best 
 purveyed of money ; " and then Wingfield concludes with a 
 
 * II. 273. Thomas More was oniitUn'ed with 
 
 * This correspondence extends to Tnnstal, and Young, then Master of 
 189 letters; viz. 149 from Pace, and the Rolls. It was in this bis first visit 
 40 to him. Of these, one or two only to Flanders, in a public capacity, tliat 
 have been hitherto known to historians. he had the op|iortQnity of making 
 Not more than seven of them appear those observations on tho political 
 in the eleven volumes of State Papers abuses of the times, which ho ai'tcr- 
 of Henry VIII. published under tho wards set forth, with such ('X(|nisite 
 sanction of the State Paper Com- humour and keen good aonao, in his 
 mission. Uto[)ia. 
 
 ' This is the mission on which Sir * II. 982. 
 
 YOL. I. 1
 
 114 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 flourish from his own trumpet, which the mutilation of the 
 letter has unfortunately marred, oi" Henry's triumphant coro- 
 nation in France. On the 8th of October ^ Knight wrote from 
 Brussels with great eagerness, urging Wolsey to enter at once 
 on a war with the ancient enemy and rival of England. " If 
 he is suffered to invade the innocent, England will lose all 
 her friends." He pressed the Cardinal not to lose the oppor- 
 tunit3\ Now is the time a league can be made with the Swiss, 
 " which shall be a scourge to the pride of France ; notwith- 
 standing divers in England say that they he villains and disdain 
 to hear speak of them. But if ye will not have them, the 
 Frenchmen shall. Well fare the villanies that keepeth and 
 favoreth the rest of noblesse ! The Church, the Empire, and 
 all other princes desire their confederation, save only we, 
 which might have more profit by them than all others." 
 
 It was creditable to England that it should be so. The 
 facts here disclosed by Knight constitute the best apology for 
 the measures now adopted by Wolsey and the King, scarcely 
 well-judged, and certainly at variance with their usual policy. 
 Papal and French emissaries were busy among the Swiss, 
 and Pace was sent to counteract their intrigues. His mission 
 was one of some delicacy, and required more than usual tact 
 and adroitness. With the view of lulling suspicion it was to 
 be given out that he was acting only in a private capacity. 
 He was ordered to put himself in communication with Cardinal 
 Sion and Sforza Duke of Milan ; and after thanking them for 
 the kind wishes they had expressed, that Wolsey should urge 
 the King of England to recover his rights and inheritance in 
 France by the aid of the Swiss, Pace was instructed to say, 
 that Wolsey would " spare neither body, life, nor goods " to 
 join with so excellent and noble a prelate as the Cardinal of 
 Sion, whom he knew above all Christian prelates to be most 
 minded to that universal peace, and some glorious expedition 
 against the Infidels, as soon as a check shall have been laid 
 on the great ambition of France.^ If the Swiss could be 
 persuaded to give battle to France on their side of the mountains, 
 the King of England would no doubt advance them 100,000 
 crowns of gold for two months' service.^ At the suggestion of 
 Sion the terms were afterwards increased to 120,000 crowns 
 for 20,000 men, to serve wherever England might think fit to 
 employ them. 
 
 Pace started towards the close of October; crossed to 
 
 » II. 1003. ^ II. 1095. ^ II. 1065, 1146.
 
 1515.] PACE'S MISSION. 115 
 
 Calais ; passed Sir Thomas More on his waj^ to Antwerp, 
 where he arrived on the 25th ; escaped "through the dominions 
 of Eobert de la Marche, called The Devil,'" by byepaths to 
 Spires on 1st November; reached Inspruck on the 8th; 
 opened his commission to Sion, and found him so ready for 
 the enterprize that if Pace had brought money, and not 
 promises only, the Swiss would have attacked the French in 
 ten days' time.^ He arrived at Constance on the 22nd, and 
 at Zurich on the 24th. " Nothing can be done here without 
 money," he says ; " the French king has offered them 200,000 
 crowns, and we sola spes." They had been too often beguiled 
 by large offers. " The Pope ought to contribute," he adds ; 
 " but, except they see his money, the Swiss say they will not 
 believe the Pope's word, spoken or written." The arrange- 
 ment of 120,000 crowns for two months was now increased to 
 140,000 ; in February Galeazzo Visconti, their commander, 
 demanded 300,000.^ Their greed was excessive, and they 
 flocked to the English standard in overwhelming numbers ; 
 but all had to be engaged, at least had to be paid, for fear the 
 rest should take offence. " I am at expences intolerable for 
 to bear amongst the Swiss " (writes Pace to Burbank), " whom 
 a man must have always at meat and drink with him, or 
 shame his prince, his master, and himself." " The Swiss be 
 unreasonable in asking money, and remedy is there none ; 
 quia talis est illorum barharies ut pecuniam petitam ncfjanti 
 mortem minentur.''^ English royals and nobles, in spite of 
 Pace's care and precaution, melted away like snow in the 
 sun ; and Wolsey could not supply gold with sufficient rapidity 
 to satisfy their insatiable demands. 
 
 It was not to be expected that Maximilian could remain 
 unmoved at such a sight ; — English gold falling in showers 
 so near him, and not a drop to quench his intolerable thirst. 
 He had been dallying for a long time with the French, unable 
 to decide whether for a sum of French crowns he should 
 abandon all hopes of Italy for ever, or make terms with his 
 good son in England, more to his honour, and probably not 
 less for his interest. Had the French advanced their terms, 
 or had Maximilian entertained better opinions of their 
 solvency, he would not have hesitated what course to adopt. 
 His conduct is not very intelligible, and we can only guess at 
 it in the absence of the documents from foreign archives. 
 But this much is obvious : If he joined England ho might 
 
 » II. 1135, 114G. ^ II. 415.
 
 116 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 have a chance of selling his aid to Henry at a high price ; 
 and whilst he invaded Italy ostensibly with the purpose of 
 leading the Swiss and attacking the French, he might succour 
 his own cities of Verona and Brescia, and recover his lost 
 territory from the Venetians, at the expense of his ally. This 
 seems to have been his first idea ; — this done, he could drive 
 a better bargain with France by selling his friendship when it 
 was most valuable to France and most disastrous to England. 
 To keep him favourable to France he was surrounded by 
 ministers in the French interest, who never ceased represent- 
 ing to him the value of the French alliance in colours most 
 attractive to a needy and extravagant man. " Though I 
 assure your grace," says Wingfield to Wolsey, " that the 
 Emperor hath as great favor and affection for the King's 
 Highness as is possible, yet his council, being of other mind, 
 may so impeach and retard the affairs that they shall not fail 
 to be riglit largely stopped of their course." ^ Therefore 
 Wingfield thought it would be well, if it would please the 
 King and Wolsey, that he and Pace had lOOL of secret service 
 money to distribute amongst such of the Emperor's council 
 as they should deem fitting ! German venality must have 
 been cheap, when the favours of a whole court could be 
 purchased at such a sum. 
 
 As soon, therefore, as Maximilian had obtained an inkling 
 of what was going forward, he wrote to his daughter Margaret^ 
 to inform her that he had learned from Pace that Henry had 
 deposited 100,000 gold crowns at Antwerp to be delivered in 
 wages to the Swiss. He begged her to send to Antwerp, and 
 inquire of Sir Thomas Spinelly if such were the fact, and, if 
 it proved correct, to contrive and get hold of the money, and 
 secretly deliver it to the factors of the Fuggers to be deposited 
 in the imperial treasury. He jDurposed, without asking 
 authority from England, to obtain the entire control of the 
 money. Two days after, he wrote again to say, that as 
 Francis had helped the Venetians to lay siege to Brescia and 
 Verona, he could not believe that the offers of accommodation 
 made him by the French King, through the Archduke Charles, 
 were to be trusted. The revenues of the two cities, he says, 
 are worth some millions, and he hoped to be able to prevent 
 them from falling into the hands of the Venetians ; but at 
 present his allies had abandoned him, and he was powerless. 
 Now, however, when least expected, an opportunity had pre- 
 
 • II. 1447. - Dec. 1, 1515. II. 1231.
 
 1516.] SIR ROBERT WINGFIELD. 117 
 
 sented itself in the desire of England to attack the French in 
 Italy, and he hastened to avail himself of it. His instrument 
 for that purpose was Sir Eobert Wingfield. 
 
 Sir Eobert belonged to a class of statesmen then rapidly 
 disappearing before a younger, more versatile and expert 
 generation, of whom Wolsey might be considered as the chief. 
 He speaks of himself as living in the days of Henry VI., ^ — of 
 bis long experience as a negociator,^ — of the white hairs 
 " which he had gotten in the cold snowy mountains of 
 Germany, which have the power to make all hares and 
 partridges that abide amongst them white, where my beard 
 (which I have promised to bear to our Lady of Walsingham, 
 an God give me life) is wax so white that whilst I shall wear 
 it I need none other mean to cause women rejoice little in my 
 company."^ He had the quaintness and precision of a man 
 of the old school, and both are visible in his conversation, his 
 letters, and his handwriting, with a tinge of pedantry not 
 unbecoming a man of his years, and displaying itself in the 
 use of Latinized English and classical references. He was 
 a little proud of himself, but more proud of the Wingfields, as 
 he was bound to be ; was easily hurt, but bore no malice. If 
 there was any creature in the world that he hated, it was 
 a Frenchman. He devoutly believed that the French had 
 been at the bottom of all the evils that had happened in 
 Christendom during the last 400 vears. He had not 
 read Baker's Chronicle, like Sir Roger de Coverley, for he 
 lived 200 years before Baker's Chronicle was written ; but 
 he had read the English Chronicles of his days, and he 
 could tell * how " disceivately King Philip dealt with King 
 Eichard the Fh'st, called Coeur de Lion, being in the Holy 
 Land ; how, by the subtle mean of the same. King John was 
 accursed, and his realm laid under an interdict ; how Henry V. 
 won all France ; how Henry VIII. had good right to be king 
 of France, for it was notorious that his ancestor and pro- 
 genitor king Edward the Third refused to do homage for the 
 duchy of Guienne, because he would not by this mean deface 
 or impair his title in the crown of France ; " and so forth. 
 He was, in short, the most guileless, upright, humane, and 
 valiant of all bachelor knights, as he called himself ; stiff and 
 formal, somewhat conceited and pedantical, but full of a wise, 
 gracious, hearty, and forgiving humanity, which was not the 
 worse because it had a smack of his pecuUar failings. 
 
 • II. p. 334. 2 II. p. 131, 3 See II. 1131. * II. p. 334.
 
 118 THE KEIGN OF HENKY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 I know not whether it was more to his credit or Maxi- 
 milian's that he had been so long in the court of the latter, 
 and yet persisted in believing that the Emperor was the best, 
 the wisest, the most profound, the most honest and patriotic 
 of mortal men. " Seeing is believing; " but no seeing would 
 have converted Sir Eobert. Had he beheld the Emperor in 
 the very act of the most flagrant turpitude, he would have 
 set it down to the score of a subtle and inscrutable policy 
 designed to cover some act of sublime virtue, which in the end 
 would ensure the peace and the happiness of Christendom. 
 If the Emperor ran away from the battle-field — if he falsified 
 his word, if he shuffled and prevaricated. Sir Eobert imputed 
 it all to that mysterious wisdom which must needs reside in 
 the heart of an Emperor. Maximilian, though no genius 
 himself, found little difficulty in managing such a man. To 
 Sir Eobert he was universally respectful ; listened to his 
 tedious speeches without betraying signs of impatience, and 
 treated him occasionally, and his despatches, with most 
 magnificent courtesy. He professed to make Sir Eobert the 
 depository of his secrets, to unbosom to Sir Eobert those 
 deeper feelings and designs he could trust to no others, not 
 even to his most intimate councillors. To the proud and 
 susceptible Englishman he spoke of his King in " the most 
 hearty and most aflectuous manner; " raised his bonnet when 
 he received or referred to his despatches ; had tears in his 
 eyes (the veteran deceiver !) when he thought what a virtuous, 
 loving, and noble son he had in Wingfield's master. The 
 King's remembrances, he said, were as comfortable to him 
 " as the figure of the crucifix which is brought by the cure to 
 his parishien that lieth in extremis / " ^ 
 
 Pace had been strictly enjoined to keep the money in his 
 own hands, and employ it exclusively in wages for the Swiss, 
 for Wolsey was too well acquainted with the Emperor's fail- 
 ings to allow him any share in the transaction. Pace was to 
 communicate directly with Galeazzo, and sufi^er no interven- 
 tion on the part of the Emperor. This being so, the Emperor 
 could find no decent pretext for drawing the money into his 
 own hands. He therefore began with pointing out to Wing- 
 field the dangers arising from the French successes in Italy. 
 Francis would have the Pope at his disposal ; he would keep 
 Maximilian so employed by aiding the Venetians that the 
 latter would have no opportunity of succouring the Neapolitan 
 
 » II. p. 387.
 
 1516.] WmGFIELD DISOBEYS INSTRUCTIONS. 119 
 
 territory, and thus the South Hke the North must fall to the 
 French. "My son, the prince (Charles)," he continued, 
 " being so young, and his council clearly French, the French 
 King shall for money lead him after his appetite ; which 
 premises, if they shall fortune to take effect, I cannot see how 
 the realm of England shall remain without broilerie and great 
 danger." ^ Then he suggested that (/" the league proposed 
 by England (between the Pope, Henry, Arragou, and the 
 Emperor) could be carried into effect with provision for the 
 Swiss, it would be for the weal of Christendom ; " but the 
 sickness," he said, "was so great and pernicious that it must 
 be cured or (before) the said medicine may be prepared, the 
 convenient drugs be so distant one from another ; and also 
 he (the Pope) that should be chief hath now of late given 
 hearing and favor to the French enchantments, in such wise, 
 that as long as the French remain in Italy the said head is 
 not to be treated with in that matter, and likewise the 
 Swissers." In the simplicity of his heart Wingfield wrote to 
 Wolsey three days after,'-^ that he and the Emperor had can- 
 vassed the plans proposed by the Cardinal for the coming 
 campaign, and he doubted not that as the case then stood 
 Wolsey would perceive " it was not meet to attempt the 
 Swissers by any of the ways expressed and assigned " in 
 Wolsey's letter ; — a piece of audacity which shows how totally 
 ignorant Wingfield was of the true state of things, and still 
 more of the character of those with whom he had to deal. As 
 if this had not been enough, he proceeds, with extraordinary 
 complacency in his own sagacity, to state that it was the 
 Emperor's wish that Pace should make Wingfield privy to all 
 his charges, and follow his advice and counsel from time to 
 time ; " and as touching the Swissers, if they will not now 
 condescend that 10,000 of them may join the Emperor, which 
 hath had his armies ready in Verona and Brescia, with more 
 footmen and horsemen put in a-readiness to join with them 
 by the space of three mouths and more, to his marvellous 
 great cost and charge, they will never be got in any manner 
 of way ; and then by necessity there is none other remedy but 
 to wage (employ) 10,000 lance-knights and 1,000 horse," — the 
 Emperor's own troops : — so falling blindly into the trap which 
 it was the special purpose of the King and Wolsey to avoid. 
 
 The anger of the Cardinal with his unseasonable inter- 
 ference may be better imagined than described. He was not 
 
 ' II. 2351. * n. l<K)t.
 
 120 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 accustomed to brook opposition from bis equals or even 
 superiors in tbe Privy Council. Even at tbis early date tbe 
 great minister was omnipotent ; "all really depends upon 
 bim," says Giustinian writing bome to tbe Council of Ten. 
 An inferior man would bave dismissed Wingfield from bis 
 post ; — would bave made a fuss, and superseded bim. Not so 
 be ; to tbe credit of tbe reign, a freedom of opinion and dissent 
 was allowed in official men, wbicb disappeared in after times. 
 Omnipotent as Wolsey was, and impatient of contradiction, be 
 never used bis power to remove an inferior from bis post 
 because tbat inferior tbougbt fit sometimes to disagree witb 
 bim. If an ambassador failed in tbe expectations tbat bad 
 been formed of bim, it was deemed more discreet to send an 
 inferior agent, as occasion migbt arise, to supplement bis 
 deficiencies. Sucb a policy was not witbout advantage. 
 Tbe long experience of a man of inferior talents compensated 
 for brigbter natural powers ; tbe credit gained at foreign 
 courts by tbe permanency of bis appointment gave respect 
 and influence to tbe agent. So, far from employing bis 
 autbority in recalling tbe representatives at foreign courts, 
 Wolsey seldom listened to tbeir repeated applications for dis- 
 missal, even wben tbey demanded it in a momentary fit of 
 disgust, or were fretted into impatience by a reprimand, wbicb 
 be sometimes administered witb considerable severity. 
 
 Tbey, on tbe otber band, accustomed to rebuffs, wbicb tbe 
 sensitive bonour of later times considers intolerable, did tbeir 
 best out of a sense of duty to tbeir King and country. Tbe 
 peculiar position of tbe Tudors fostered tbis feeling of personal 
 responsibility to tbe Sovereign. Tbe King was tbe only repre- 
 sentative of tbe nation ; Parliament was little more tban an 
 institution for granting subsidies and regulating duties on bats 
 and caps. No ambassador, no political agent, cared tbe least 
 wbat Parliament migbt or migbt not tbink of bis conduct. 
 To Parliament be would never bave appealed against an act of 
 ministerial severity or oppression. His sole object was to 
 please tbe King, and next, perbaps, bis minister. And wbilst 
 the King, as in tbe Tudor times, put bimself at tbe bead of 
 tbe nation, knelt witb bis people at tbe altars of St. Paul's or 
 Westminster, fougbt openly at tbe tilt witb bis nobles, came 
 bome a-Maying from Greenwicb witb pasteboard Gogs and 
 Magogs and a noisy rabblement at bis beels, sbot witb bis 
 own arcbers of tbe guard, discussed tbe New Testament of 
 Erasmus witb friars and bisbops, read all bis despatches,
 
 1516.] HOW WINGFIELD RECEIVED A REBUFF. 121 
 
 was everywhere seen, heard, and talked of, and that without 
 bating an atom of his dignity, the entire personality of the 
 nation was wrapped up in the King, and a unity was given to 
 its aim and action, individually and collectively, which never 
 had existed before, and possibly never will again. The divine 
 right of kings was identified with the divine right of national 
 existence and independence. 
 
 But to return to Sir Eobert. What reply Wolsey made to 
 his despatch we do not know ; but, whatever it was, it was 
 scarcely pleasant to the old knight's honest and sensitive 
 pride. He had often spoken of resigning before ; now, like a 
 true Englishman, he breathed not a word of resignation. In 
 silent and solemn dignity he mounted his tallest horse, wrote 
 home a letter to Wolsey, said he had done nothing to hinder 
 business, and proceeded to read him a lecture on the duties of 
 ministers. " Ministers," he said, " should possess four things, 
 viz. wit, learning, good-will, and experience. For my part," 
 he continued, " I am not ashamed to give place to your 
 secretary (Pace) in the first twain, and as to the third it 
 were too great a shame for me to give place to any ; and in 
 the fourth, both to eschew arrogance and comparison, I will 
 leave the judgment of that part to such as have practised with 
 us both." ^ He was a little annoyed, and could not help 
 showing it. Pace's commission was a secret ; it nowise inter- 
 fered with Sir Kobert's duties : but Pace had the control of the 
 money and the management of the expedition ; — the two things 
 which Maximilian desired and hoped to obtain by means of 
 Wingfield. Nothing can show more clearly the opposite 
 characters of the two men — the old and the new school — than 
 the letter written by Pace on the same occasion. He had 
 been too long in the court at Rome, and had seen too much of 
 its proceedings at the death of Cardinal Bainbridge, to be 
 influenced by great names and fair pretensions. For the 
 Emperor he cared not a jot ; and in this he was encouraged 
 by Galeazzo and the Swiss.^ They told Pace they would have 
 no Emperor in the field, for on a previous occasion he had 
 received for them 100,000 crowns from England, and had 
 never paid them more than 40,000 florins! " Nothing can 
 hurt my cause," he declared to Wolsey, "but only the 
 Emperor's slowness. I do hourly tarry for his resolution, 
 but these Almains be so diligent in resolving their matters, 
 they had liever lose a great city than rise from their dinner 
 > XL 1582. * n. 1170.
 
 122 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 to defend it." Then in answer to a letter from Wolsey,'^ 
 expressing a doubt lest Pace should be guided by Wingfield's 
 counsels, he tells Burbank, " Sir, you may show unto my lord 
 Cardinal mine opinion of Summer-shall-be-green ^ (the name by 
 which Sir Eobert was known in Pace's circle), and put his 
 grace out of doubt that dreams and new inventions cannot let 
 (hinder) me to do that see I most expedient according to my 
 charge." 
 
 To no purpose did Maximilian lavish his blandishments 
 and caresses on this clever diplomatist. He sent polite invita- 
 tions to Pace, but Pace politely declined them. A small taste 
 only of the liberality of England as an encouragement for the 
 enterjirize. No, not a ducat, until he was fairly in motion. 
 So, to his great chagrin, Maximilian was compelled to abandon 
 his ordinary routine of excuses, and drop his intrigues with 
 the French for a time at least. At last the expedition got 
 under weigh : the Swiss were commanded by Galeazzo and 
 Pace ; the Emperor took the lead at the head of his own 
 troops. The two armies marched a mile apart. The first 
 detachment started on the 20th of February, 1516, and was 
 rapidly followed. As early as the 29th the Emperor had 
 reached Maran in the Tyrol ; was at Trent on the 2nd of 
 March ; left on the 9th for Italy, intending to be at the fray 
 himself, if possible. "I pray God," says Wingfield,^ "send 
 him speed, as yesterday the good Prince received the sacra- 
 ment and made his Paske,* so that from henceforth he may 
 the more liberally intend to martial acts." Pace was in high 
 spirits. If the King and the Cardinal could see what he sees, 
 they would not "miss the opportunity for a million of gold," 
 he exclaims in an access of military enthusiasm.^ At that 
 moment of triumph even his dislike and habitual distrust of 
 the Emperor were forgotten. " The Emperor undertakes this 
 expedition," he wrote to Wolsey,*^ " against the mind of all his 
 council. All the good is done by himself. It is a pity to hear 
 how they do peel and pluck him of his money, whereby his 
 
 ' 1565, sq. expression to Sir John, " thou latter 
 
 - I think the expression must Lammas!" These glimpses of the im- 
 
 liave been derived from some popular pressions of rural life, still lingering 
 
 ballad; for in another letter to the in the English mind, and recorded in 
 
 same correspondent Pace writes : these cant phrases, are veiy curious. 
 
 " As touching new inventions of ^ II. 1644. 
 
 Siimmer-shall-he- Green, you did very * Easter Sunday fell this year on 
 
 wisely and kindly offer your life 23rd March. 
 
 therein. For you shall not die there- * II. 1564. 
 
 for." Are the last words a quotation * II. 1634. 
 
 also ? rrince Hemy uses a kindred
 
 1516.] TRANSMISSION OF MONEY. 123 
 
 good intents be oftentimes greatly let. Surely of his own 
 person no man can honestly make other relation, but that he 
 is a noble, wise, kind, and manly Prince." Wingfield could 
 only express his admiration by the extravagant remark, that 
 God and the King this year " had done miracles."^ 
 
 One difficulty stood in the way which even the genius of 
 Wolsey could not entirely surmount, — but one, — and that was 
 the difficulty of sending money from England. There were 
 but two ways then of foreign exchange ; either to transmit 
 coin direct to the army by messengers, or ship bullion to 
 Antwerp, there to be exchanged and forwarded to its destina- 
 tion by the bankers Frescobaldi, the Fuggers, or the Campucci. 
 The merchants were not always to be trusted ; their terms for 
 discounting were exorbitant; they took their own time in sending 
 the money to its proper destination, and had a thousand 
 excuses for delay which no one could contravene. To trust 
 messengers with large sums of bullion was less satisfactory. 
 How was it to be disposed about their persons and how escape 
 discovery ? How could it be stowed in sufficient quantity for 
 so large a host ? How were the carriers themselves to make 
 their way in safety through a hostile territory, swarming with 
 robbers, where even single and unencumbered travellers dared 
 scarcely venture ? Such a sum as 300,000 gold crowns could 
 not even be shipped from England without provoking discus- 
 sion and attracting attention. All kinds of excuses were 
 invented to draw curiosity and cupidity off the scent. A score 
 of times did Giustinian urge upon the Cardinal that he was 
 sending money to the Emperor for a war against Italy; as 
 often was he met with the reply that his suspicions were un- 
 founded. On one occasion,^ after listening most patiently for 
 a quarter of an hour to Giustinian's remonstrances (a thing 
 not very usual), the Cardinal went so far as to say, "I will 
 speak to you with all sincerity and truth, as it becomes a 
 Cardinal, on the honour of the cardinalate " (his favourite 
 expression), laying his hand upon his breast: "It is true 
 that this most serene king has remitted money to Flanders, 
 which will reach Germany and perhaps Italy ; for two pur- 
 poses ; — the first is for the purchase of inlaid armour, the 
 other for a quantity of very fine jewels pledged by certain 
 princes in France, Germany, and Italy. Altbough the money 
 may reach our ambassadors, it will not come into the power 
 of the Emperor ; for you need not think tliat the king would 
 
 ■ II. 1633. " Jan. 2, 1516. No. 1380.
 
 124 THE REIGN OF HENRY YIH. [A.D. 
 
 expend his treasure to aid the Emperor in the recovery of 
 Brescia and Verona. No man in this kingdom has so much as 
 thought of such a thing, or of waging war on the King of 
 France, or of opposing any of his undertakings. By the 
 honour of the cardiualate what we tell you is the truth, and 
 they who have asserted otherwise lied in their teeth." ^ Yet, 
 in spite of so solemn a contradiction, the rumour spread in all 
 directions. Knight heard of it at Mechlin. The Italian 
 merchants in Antwerp had informed him, as he wrote, that 
 none of the Italian bankers could furnish half the sum required, 
 "in the high parts of Almain " — not even the Fuggers and the 
 Belzers. Already since Christmas last, he added, one mer- 
 chant had taken sanctuary at Antwerp for a debt of 35,000L 
 Flemish, of which the staplers would lose 12,000L^ To send 
 over 50,000L in coin to Italy, for soldiers' pay, was a gigantic 
 enterprize, of which modern times can form no conception. 
 
 For the present all things went merrily; Swiss and 
 imperialists trooped along with assured hopes of victory. On 
 the 11th of March the army reached Verona ; on the 12th it 
 crossed the Mincio ; on the 23rd it was at the banks of the 
 Adda.^ Onwards and onwards, with a rapidity that astonished 
 the Venetian light horse, and compelled the French to shut 
 the gates of Milan, and protect it with a broad belt of fire and 
 desolation. Onwards across tottering bridges and through 
 waving fields of corn ; for the road was more familiar than 
 their own homes to these Swiss and German freebooters. 
 
 On Easter Monday (24th) the invaders had reached within 
 nine miles of Milan ; ^ one brisk push, and all would be over. 
 Easter Tuesday dawned, but a change had now come over the 
 Emperor. The story is a strange one and will best be told in 
 Pace's letter to Wolsey. 
 
 "In my last letters I advertised your gi-ace of the Emperor at the 
 river of Ade (Adda), and how wisely and valiantly he behaved upon 
 Easter even, when the Frenchmen and the A^enetians showed themselves 
 to be in areadiness to fight with him and the Swiss. Now your grace 
 shall understand that my lord Cardinal Sedunensis,^ lord Galias,'* with all 
 other captains, upon Easter Monday moved, desired, and prayed most 
 instantly the said Emperor to persecute the Frenchmen, and shewed him 
 evidently that they could in no wise keep Milan if he would be contented 
 to use their counsel. But it was not possible to induce him thereunto ; 
 
 ^ Other members of the council five miles of Milan, where they lay 
 
 made similar answers when Gius- till the next day, the 25th." Sir 
 
 tinian applied to them. See II. 1294. Rob. Wingfleld, No. 1736. 
 
 - II. 1384-. ^ The Cardinal of Sion, whom Pace 
 
 * II. 1699. always speaks of by his Latin title. 
 
 * II. 1721, " Prewtelle, within ^ Galeazzo Visoonti.
 
 1516.] THE EMPEROR HANGS BACK. 125 
 
 and no man could ne can conject what tiling moved him to be so slack at that 
 time, when every man did see the victory in his hands, and the expulsion 
 of the Frenchmen out of Italy. But iipon Easter Tuesday in the morn- 
 ing, being within nine miles of Milan, he sent for Sir Robert Wingtield 
 and me, and, showing himself to be sore moved, said that he had perfect 
 knowledge that the French king had offered unto the king's grace our 
 master to forsake utterly Scotland, and to set apart all his practices there, 
 so that his grace would keep hrm peace and anuty with him. Hereunto 
 we made this answer : that his Majesty should in no wise be moved 
 herewith, for we would lose our lives if it should be found by him or any 
 other man that the king's grace had or did intend by any means to let 
 this his enterprise in Italy, but rather to advance it and set it forthward ; 
 and showed three evident reasons against the same : one, that his grace 
 paid the Swisses' wages in the aid of his Majesty ; the other, that his 
 grace had sent his ambassadors unto his nephew the jn'ince of Castile, for 
 to ofier unto him men and money witli his own person for defence of his 
 realm, which the French king intendeth to usurp ; thirdly, I declared 
 unto him the king's mind in making a universal confederation betwixt his 
 Majesty and others comprised in the commission lately sent by your 
 grace to Sir Robert Wingtield and me. The said Emperor could not deny 
 but these our reasons were evident, and made this answer only, viz. that 
 he trusted that the king's grace would not forsake him. For all this yet 
 that day he would not move, but did sit still in pensiveness, and was 
 angry Avith every man that did move him to set forthward. 
 
 " About night he sent for my lord the Cardinal Sedunensis, Sir 
 Robert Wingtield, and me, and said plainly he could not perform his 
 promise made unto the Swiss in paying the residue of their wages for the 
 two months, unto such time that the king's money should come, for he 
 had none for to content his own army, ne yet to sustain his household, 
 and for that cause was compelled to return back and not to lay siege to 
 the city of Milan. My said lord Cardinal was sore troubled with these 
 words, and in most wise and substantial manner, using all reasons con- 
 venient for that jjurpose, moved him to the contrary, putting no doubt 
 (as truth was) in taking of the said city of Milan, where he should lack no 
 money. Sir Robert Wingtield affirmed the same. As for me I did 
 plainly show unto him the most great inconvenients that should ensue 
 upon his return, viz. loss of all his cities in Italy evident, the realms of 
 Naples and Navarre, his own extreme dishonour, with the loss of the 
 king's money expended in his aid. But neither reason ne persuasion 
 could move him to do well. Wherefore we thought it necessary to speak 
 with his own most secret servants and councillors, whom we found as evil 
 contented with him as we were ourselves ; for they did not only show 
 unto him all the inconvenients before rehearsed, but also added tliereunto, 
 that if he should draw back without cause or peril at that time, no man 
 within Almain would esteem him the valor of one groat. 
 
 " Whiles we were in this communication, arrived from Milan a 
 Spaniard, a vile peison, sent from the duke of Bourbon to the Emperor, 
 with this message : that if the said Emperor would come to Milan, and 
 drink with him, he .should be welcome ; if not, he would meet the Emperor 
 by the way. Herewith the Emperor showed himself to be very glad, and 
 commanded the manjuis of Brandenbui-g to send a trumpet inmiediately to 
 the said duke, and otier him battle the day following afore the walls of 
 Milan, and to show him that he that had otiered him battle at the three 
 rivers, viz. Mynce, Oleo, and Ade,' would not be afraid to fight with him 
 at Milan. And herein he kept his ju-omise, and went thither with all the 
 army in goodly and sure order, ready to liave made an end of this 
 business. But the said duke, when he did see this, ho sent the said 
 trumpet again with word unto the Emperor that he would tight, but not 
 
 ' The Mincio, Oglio, and Adda.
 
 126 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 at that time, knowing right well that it was not possible for him to obtain 
 the victory. The Emperor, this answer had, would tarry no longer, 
 though the lord Galias advertised him that the Frenchmen could in no 
 wise bide within the city two days, both for lack of horse-meat and fear 
 of insurrection of the people against them, wliich undoubtedly had 
 followed if the Emperor would have continued there but one night ; but 
 neither he, ne my lord Cardinal, ne none other, could induce him there- 
 unto. 
 
 " The Frenchmen, immediately after his returning, did begin to burn 
 the suburbs of the city, and destroyed utterly the habitations of 60,000 
 honest poor men, fearing that the Swiss would have lien in them, as they 
 intended to do if the Emperor had not let them. The said Swiss, seeing 
 his departing, sent unto him two of their chief captains for to advertise 
 him, that it was not their manner to show their backs to their enemies, and 
 therefore they would not depart. The Emperor made unto them this 
 answer : that he would lead them another way, where they should have a 
 sure victory, without any great shedding of blood ; and so desired them 
 to follow him, or else he would have from them his horsemen and 
 artillery : and by these means he had them from thence, to their incredible 
 discontentation. And he himself passed the river of Ade again, the 
 righter way towards Almain than the Frenchmen, saying that he had 
 certain practice there for to take the town of Crema ; but this was but a 
 tiling feigned for to colour his flying. 
 
 " The Swiss went to the city of August, straightway towards Milan, 
 which city the lord Galias and they did take by force. The castle 
 thereof was by the space of six hours valiantly defended by the Frenchmen, 
 who did slay four or five Swiss, wherewith the residue were so moved 
 that they made a vow [not] to depart unto the time they had taken the 
 said castle by force, and slain every Frenchman within it. They set so 
 fiercely upon [it] that it was not possible for the Frenchmen to defend it 
 longer. First, they ofiered to yield themselves unto the mercy of the 
 Swiss ; but they would take no condition, but killed every man found 
 within it, to the number of 150 ; and divers there were that ofiered 
 thousands of crowns for their lives, but nothing could help. This done 
 they sent a message to the Emperor, by the counsel of the lord Galias and 
 me, with these tidings, and for to desire him either to come personally 
 with his army, or else, if he feared his own person, to send his horsemen 
 unto them, and put himself in surety in the city of Brixia (Brescia), or 
 any other place where it would please him, until such time as they had 
 expelled the Frenchmen out of Italy. 
 
 " I assiu'e your lordship the Swiss neither doth ne will lack in anything 
 concerning the destruction of the Frenchmen. The Emperor hath kept 
 no promise with them. Nothing grieveth them but this, that the 
 Emperor goeth more backward than forthward, and putteth every man 
 in suspicion of his flying away into Almain ; and if he so do, this enteiv 
 prise is clean lost (quod Deus avertat !) to the ruin evident of himself and 
 the destruction of all Christendom. My lord Cardinal Sedunensis, the 
 lord Galias, and I, be almost dead for sorrow ; and the said lord Galias 
 hath desired [me] to write these words, to be kept secret unto your 
 grace, viz. that if the Emperor do at this time fly withoat cause, he shall 
 commit greater treason against all princes Christian than ever did Judas 
 against Christ. 
 
 " The Swiss will in no case that the lord Galiace or T depart from 
 them, though the Emperor fly away ; but they will keep both him and 
 me in pledge of their wages, as well for the residue of the second month 
 as the whole of the third, if they shall continue the said third month and 
 deserve their wages, as they will surely do if the Emperor let them not. 
 If he do let them, they intend to do him a shrewd turn. They have 
 knowledge that the said Emperor should say he feared them, which saying
 
 1516.] THE EMPEROR WITHDRAWS. 127 
 
 is but a frivoll excuse and seeking of an occasion to fly away ; for no one 
 living could have served him more faithfully than they have done hither- 
 to ward, and so they will continue if he give them none occasion to the 
 contrary. From the city , the first day of April." 
 
 Was it a trick of the Emperor from the first? Was it in 
 a sudden fit of resentment at not having received money from 
 England ? Had he been dekided by the French ; or, what is 
 more probable, had he sold himself and his honour, too often 
 sold before, for French gold ? Francis wrote to Palvoisin, his 
 ambassador at Kome, only a week before, '^ that the Emperor 
 had been soliciting his amity through the Prince of Castile. 
 But as this letter was evidently intended to be seen by the 
 Pope, who was vacillating between one party and the other ; 
 and as Francis had sent in it a very significant message that 
 he intended, if necessary, to pass into Italy with an army, 
 and in that case he " would crave the honor once more 
 of kissing the feet of his Holiness ; " it may be doubted 
 whether this statement, so damaging to Maximilian's repu- 
 tation, was anything more than a political ruse. But the 
 exact truth of this and other passages of history can never 
 be known until other Governments, following the example 
 of this country, shall throw open their archives to historical 
 inquirers.^ 
 
 The Emperor continued to hover at a distance, and would 
 take no resolution. Sir Robert Wingfield's account of the 
 matter may be seen in a letter dated the 4th of April.^ It is 
 of course the Emperor's version. It rested upon two points; — 
 first, his inability to convey provisions and money in conse- 
 quence of the superiority of the enemy's cavalry ; and, secondly, 
 his fear of the Swiss, Germans, and Spaniards, who were 
 mutinous for lack of pay. Satisfactory to no one else, this 
 excuse was sufficient for the Emperor. Turning a deaf ear to 
 all remonstrance, he hastened to put as large a space as he 
 could between his own army and the Swiss under Pace and 
 Galeazzo. He allowed the enemy's cavalry to scour the country, 
 and cut off all communication between himself and his ex- 
 asperated allies.^ He recrossed the Adda without warning, 
 and turned his steps in the direction of Bergamo. The Swiss 
 were fed with promises of his speedy return, but he took care 
 to prevent them from doing mischief by carrying oil" the gun- 
 
 • March 17, 1516. No. 1680. Calorulars of their contents are etill 
 
 ^ Since thin was written in 1861, wantinj^. — Kd. 
 the Archives of most forei<,'n countries ^ ll.l7-'5*'. 8of! also No. 1752. 
 
 have been made more accessible; but * 11. 1746, p. 4U3.
 
 128 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. lA.D. 
 
 powder. To Wingfield he held out assurance "that he would 
 join again, and bring the enterprise to its desired end." ^ And 
 Wingfield, as a matter of course, believed him. But with his 
 promises to return he hurried off in the opposite direction, and 
 in a few days shut himself up in the walls of Trent, leaving 
 Pace and Galeazzo to their fate.^ Sick at heart and ill at ease. 
 Pace wrote to the Cardinal : ^ 
 
 " I am advertised by Sir Robert Wingfield that the Emperor will not 
 leave this enterprise, but see an end thereof ; nevertheless, he doth go 
 backward still towards Alniain, and now is in Valle Camonica. The 
 Marquis of Brandenburg is coining towards us with his men at arms. If 
 he will join his army with us, we shall sleep no longer, as we have done 
 these 15 days by tlie Emperor['s] express commandment, which, if we 
 should have broken, the Emperor would have been gone. Yesterday the 
 Swiss did send unto him two ambassadors, for to have a final conclusion 
 of his mind ; for they will have no more delays ne trifles, for this delaying 
 of time and also of money is death to them and all us." — From Laude 
 (Lodi), the 10th of April. 
 
 Five days after Pace continues : 
 
 "The Emperor, notwithstanding his late writing unto the Swiss, and 
 promise made for to join with them, is undoubtedly departed in great 
 haste towards Almain, and afoi-e this time is arrived nigh unto Trent. 
 This his sudden departing hath marvellously discouraged the Swiss, with 
 all other desiring the prosperous success of the enterprise. Nevertheless, 
 because that he hath left behind him the marquis of Brandenburg with his 
 army, and commanded him to join with us, some hope there is that he 
 will not mar all. 
 
 " The lord Galias hath at this time a very good intelligence with the 
 Pope, which hath proceeded by the king's writing unto his Holiness, and 
 also by my writings according to your Grace's commandment. Your 
 Grace shall have some knowledge thereof by a letter from the Cardinal 
 Saint Mary in Porticu, directed unto the said lord Galiace, whereof he 
 sendeth a copy at this time in ciphers unto Master Anchises. If the 
 Emperor had not gone backward, the Pope had been surely ours afore 
 this time ; insomuch that now the French king doth complain of his 
 Holiness's dissimulation, saying that he hath nothing of him but letters. 
 
 * ' Yesterday arrived here a courier with letters of the Emj^eror directed 
 unto the lord Galiace, desiring him to declare the contents of the same 
 unto the Swiss, which were these : First, that they should be of good 
 comfort, for he would shortly join with them again, with great power and 
 all provision necessary for continuance of this war. Secondarily, that 
 five and twenty thousand florins of the king's money, which they had long 
 lacked, was brought into the city of Brixia (Brescia), from thence to be 
 conveyed immediately into the field to them by the marquis of Brandenburg. 
 To whom we sent two captains of the Swiss for to understand the truth of 
 the said money : and they advertised their company here that the said 
 sum was within Brixia ; but at such time as the governor of the city 
 would have sent it with a sufficient company unto the said marquis, the 
 Emperor['s] soldiers being in the city did sequester the same there, for so 
 much owed unto them by the said Emperor. The Swiss, hearing of this, 
 hath begun marvellously to murmur amongst themselves against the 
 Emperor, saying that now twice they have been betrayed by him sith the 
 
 » II. 1752. - April 15. ^ jj 1754
 
 1516.] DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE SWISS. 129 
 
 beginning of this enterprise ; once at his departing from Milan, which 
 they might have taken if he would have suffered them to have lodged 
 there but one night ; and now again in this sequestration of the king's 
 money ; for they think it is done by his consent, and that he will do in 
 like manner with the residue of the king's money, which he writeth to be 
 at the city of Trent, or nigh thence. Wherefore the Swiss, seeing that 
 they can lie no longer there, both for lack of victual and money, they 
 have concluded to go themselves against the said money, having both the 
 said lord Galiace and me for hostages and prisoners ; and also to know 
 what the Emperor intendeth. For, notwithstanding his daily fair writings 
 (without effect), they can belieYe none other but that he will betray us 
 all, and go straight into High Almain ; whereby this enterprise shall be 
 utterly destroyed and the king's money cast away, not only to the 
 Emperor's extreme rebuke and shame, but also to the great damage of all 
 his friends ; and, for to speak more plainly, to the ruin of all Christendom, 
 excejit that God and wise princes make substantial provision against the 
 same. 
 
 ' ' The lord Galias and I both be at this time sick in our beds, and 
 almost dead, more for thought than for sickness, considering the unreason- 
 able demeanour of the Emperor, for he hath no manner of cause thus to 
 deal, having by us hourly perfect knowledge that all thing[s] doth 
 succeed prosperously for his intent against the Frenchmen ; for not only 
 the rebels of Switzerland hath forsaken the Frenchmen, and many more 
 Swiss doth come in to our aid, but also the A'enetians and they be at 
 variance amongst themselves, and neither of them hath any money to 
 sustain their armies : insomuch that tliree days passed Master Andreas 
 Gritie, general captain of the said Venetians, was like to be slain in his 
 own house by his own soldiers for lack of money. Furthermore, all the 
 country is in areadiness to arise to our aid. These premises be occasion, 
 which (as me seemeth) should not only move an Emperor to set forthward, 
 but an ass : yet he neither will set forthward himself, ne suffer us to 
 do ; for he hath left us artillery without gunpowder, and hath daily pro- 
 mised to send us some ; but as yet we did see none, but hath been 
 compelled by force to consume twenty-two days in vain. 
 
 ' ' The said marquis of Brandenburg is gone personally to Brixia for to 
 see if he can get the said money sequestered, and to bring it to the Swiss. 
 And when I had written thus far, we had letters from the s:iid manpiis, 
 containing his arrival unto the said city of Brixia, and that the soldiers 
 within w(3uld not suffer him to enter, ne to have the said money, biit 
 compelled him to depart without it ; so that the lord Galiace and I be 
 now in extreme desperation, not so much for the evident jeopardy of our 
 lives, as for the loss of this great enterprise, by the false and crafty mean 
 of them that hath retained in this manner the King's money, nothing 
 appertaining unto them. 
 
 " To show plainly the truth unto your Grace, everything is now clean 
 out of order here, and very little hope of any amendment by reason of the 
 Emperor's thus departing. Few men or none doth know surely the cause 
 thereof, but many doth sui)pose it is the death of the late king of Hungary,^ 
 and the lucre that he should win by tlie same, whereof he had tidings at liis 
 being within six miles of Milan, and after that never had mind to go 
 forthward, but the day following began to draw back towards Almain. 
 Some doth suspect a secret practice with tlie French king for a large sum 
 of money, as it is comprised in my lord the Cardinal Saint Mary in I'orticu's 
 letters ; but hereof I could never have any perfect knowledge, and as yet 
 I think it is not true. I am informed that the said Emperor intendeth to 
 write unto the king's Grace in excusatioii of tliis his (Icparting, Miat ho 
 feared that not only the Swiss but also his own lanceknighta would, for 
 
 ' Ladislaus VT. or VII. 
 VOL. I. ^
 
 130 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 lack of money, have sold him unto the Frenchmen, if he should have 
 tarried at the city of Milan anywhile. He may write what it pleaseth him, 
 or cause other to do the same ; but I assure your lordship all that is but 
 trifles. These my letters doth contain the very truth of the Emperor's 
 acts ; tarn in bono qumn in malo veritatem scribo, postposita ouini affectione. 
 For it is impossible for the Swiss to be more obedient unto any prince 
 than they have been unto him, and yet be ; and so will they continue if 
 the default be not in him. 
 
 "From Laude, the 15 of April." 
 
 A month passed, but no amendment. Then Pace wrote 
 again : — ^ 
 
 "Please it [your] Grace, — From the city of Laude I did write unto 
 the same three letters, containing the Emperor's sudden and wilful 
 departing from the walls of Milan, which undoubtedly the Swiss had 
 taken if the said Emperor would have tarried there but two days ; but 
 neither counsel, nor reason, nor resp[ect] to his own or his friends' 
 honour, could induce him to remain, but he returned immediately towards 
 Almain, leaving the Swiss at the said city of Laude, and commanding 
 them to continue there until such time as he should return again with a 
 greater army, more great guns and gunpowder, whereof he left none with 
 the Swiss ; but unto this day he kept no manner of promise in any of 
 these premises. Wherefore the said Swiss, seeing tlaeiiiselves hereby 
 deceived, and having also knowledge that the Emjseror's soldiers in Brixia 
 had intercepted 2.3,000 florins of the king's money, sent unto them, and, 
 lacking victuals, departed unto the city of Bergamo, where was abundance 
 of victuals, and there tarried 10 or 12 days, as Veil for the Emperor, who 
 never did come, as for the kin[g]'s money promised to them by me sub 
 poena capitis, according to your Grace's commandment, for to retain them. 
 
 " In the meantime tidings came to us that my lord Cardinal Sedunensis 
 was sent in haste from the Emperor into the tield as his lieutenant, and 
 should bring with him all the king's money, and content them to the 
 uttermost. And herewith they were so glad that they came running to 
 my house, and said that they alone, without the Emperor, would flght 
 with the Frenchmen, though they were in number an 100,000. But when 
 my said lord Cardinal was arrived, they shortly had knowledge that he 
 had brought but one and twenty thousand florins ; which sum, when they 
 had paid unto them, truly they did murmurate among themselves that 
 there was no more money ; and the night after there departed 7 or 8,000, 
 saying that if there had been any more money my said lord Cardinal 
 should have brought it, and that they were deceived by him as much as 
 by the Emperor. 
 
 " The Frenchmen, knovring of the departing of so many Swiss, jointly 
 vtith the Venetians did draw within three mile of us, so that we were 
 compelled to depart from the said city of Bergamo, because it was none 
 equal place for us to flght in. But all the chief captains of the Swiss did 
 come unto the lord Gaiiace and me, and comforted us, saying that for the 
 Emperor they would not move one foot to strike battle, but for the king's 
 sake they would go immediately into the plain field, and sufl"er the 
 Frenchmen to follow them — having this opinion that they fled for fear — 
 and there put themselves [in] ordinance and tight with the said French- 
 men, notwithstanding the departing of one half of their company. And 
 thus they did in deed. But when the Frenchmen did see them in this 
 areadiness for to strike battle, they made a show with their horsemen 
 alone, leaving their footmen and artillery behind them. The Swiss did 
 draw nigh unto the said horsemen, and commanded their trumpets to be 
 
 » No. 1877.
 
 1516.] SIGN AND PACE IMPRISONED. 131 
 
 blown and provoked them to battle ; but it would not be. The Swiss, 
 seeing this, went towards tliem within gxmshot, and caused the great 
 artillery to be shot amongst them, wherewith divers, both men-of-arms 
 and light horse, were slain, and the residue departed clean out of the 
 field. The Swiss being afoot could not follow them, and the better part 
 of the Emperor's horsemen were departed out of o[ur] field for lack of 
 their wa[g]es, and 2,000 lance-knights in like manner, to the great 
 discontentation of the Swiss, numbering that amongst other deceits. 
 
 " This done, we went to a town named Bixansane, and there the 
 Swiss would tarry a day or two for money. As soon as we arrived there, 
 my lord the Cardinal Sedunensis, the count Cariate, and I, were taken 
 and put to hold, and it was laid unto our charge that we had kept no 
 promise with them ; and for that cause, if they had not money the same 
 day, they would convey us as prisoners into their country. Hoc facfum 
 fuit a furtnfe popidu pruter voluntatem ducurn. My said lord Cardinal 
 Sedunensis was put that day to great jeopardy of his life by reason of 
 certain his adversaries, who instigated the people to destroy him. Sed 
 Deus noluit ut taiduni mali eveniret tanto viro ; for the same night arrived 
 a messenger with x[x]xij m. florins, and thus we were all three delivered 
 out of prison. The day following arrived Mr. Leonard Friscobalde, 
 with as much money as was sufficient to pay their whole wages of three 
 months which they had served ; and so I contented them according to 
 my promise made unto them. Then they were marvellously well contented 
 with the king's Grace, considering that his promises were no fables, but 
 truly performed. 
 
 " The lord Galiace was sore sick in the city of Brixia (Brescia) when he 
 had knowledge that I was in hold ; and because he could not depart out 
 thereof for the Venetians' soldiers lying alway tliereabout, he conveyed 
 himself in the night over a mountain, and descended into lake of Garde, 
 and did come to me by water, thinking that I had been in greater peril 
 than I was. At his coming we had perfect knowledge that the Emi)eror 
 would join with us no more. Whereupon the Swiss did convocate [t heir 
 council, and there determined that it was not possible for them alone to 
 proceed, as truth was ; and this they declared unto the lord Galiace and 
 me, saying that they would never hereafter trust the Emperor, neither 
 serve him, but they would alway be ready to serve the king's Grace at his 
 pleasure. When we were driven to this extremity, we did see no remedy 
 but for to procure with all diligence amongst the captains that they would 
 be contented to advertise the superiors of all the cantons, that tlie king's 
 Grace hath contented them abundantly for their service, and to desire 
 them that they will establish none amity with France but rather with the 
 king's Grace. And all this they have done in the best manner that the 
 said lord Galiace and I could devise ; so that I trust this thing shall 
 succeed right well, and that the said lord Galiace shall save his reputation 
 amongst them, which he was like clean to lose by the Emperor's un- 
 reasonable demeanour, and for the lack of the Idng's money at their day. 
 
 " The Phriperor hath now in his field but 4,000 lanceknights and 1.000 
 Swiss, and a great captain of the same. These be departed for to defend 
 Verona and Brixia, which stand in great jeopardy of losing ; de quo valde 
 quidem doleo. Snl Caisar {fcator Deum) loiKje plus damrd mtretur. 
 
 "Besides my three letters sent unto your Grace from the city of 
 Laude, I did write one also from Bergamo, containing all thing[8j 
 necessary to be written, after mine opinion. Glad would I be to have 
 knowledge of my four said letters ; for I am advertised that in this court 
 they do lay watch for to intercept my letters, fearing them as comprising 
 the jjlain truth in everything. They would not that any fault sliouM bo 
 laid unto their master, but to the Swi.ss, who, 1 assure [your] (irace, 
 upon my faith to God and to the king, luive done in this oriterpriso all 
 that it was possible for men to do ; but the Emperor, to liis mcstunablo
 
 132 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 rebuke and shame, would not suffer them to take Milan when they were 
 sure to have it, as it is evidently known through all Italy. The Emperor 
 hath so dishonoured himself that no man need care whe'r he have him 
 friend or enemj^. Nevertheless good it is to use tlie counsel of the good 
 memoi-y of Pope July, who said these words formally of the said Emj^eror : 
 Jmperator est levis et inccmstaris ; alienee jKCunice semper mendicus, quam 
 meile consumtt in venandis camuciis : est iamen conciliandus nomine diaboli, 
 et pecunia ei semper est danda. 
 
 ***** 
 
 " Tims Jesu preserve your Grace. From Trent, 12 Maij. 
 
 " Fidelissimus 8'"% R. P." 
 
 " Where your Grace doth write to have understood there that the 
 Emperor was piit back by force by the French army, it is not so ; for he 
 was never put back, but went voluntarily and shamefully back, when he 
 might have won all. The Frenchmen never durst fight with the Swiss, — 
 they ever showed themselves so invincible when any feat of arms was to 
 be done. They never skirmished with the Frenchmen but they were put 
 back, and not we, both with shame and loss." 
 
 The disastrous result of the expedition brought out, as 
 such things do, the baser nature of all concerned in it. The 
 Swiss fell into disorder, plundered, sacked, or murdered what- 
 ever fell in their way. Pace, Sion, and Galeazzo were thrown 
 into prison. To increase these misfortunes, a bitter feud 
 broke out between the leaders. Sion, never friendly with 
 Galeazzo since the battle of Mariguano, was now more incensed 
 against him than ever. He suspected Galeazzo's intimacy 
 with Pace ; and accused both of impeding the measures 
 necessary for success.^ The Emperor, with his usual facility 
 of giving away that which did not belong to him, had promised 
 no small sums of money to the army, and sent Sion to demand 
 it from Pace.^ On Pace's refusal, high w^ords ensued ; the 
 Emperor threatened that he would have the money, whether 
 Pace liked it or not, asseverating that if he did not have what 
 he desired he would return home again : "like children," adds 
 Pace, "that say they will not go to school without bread and 
 butter. Sion dares not refuse him, and Sir Robert takes him 
 for a God, and thinks that all his deeds and thoughts do 
 proceed ex Spiritii Sancto.'' Against such malign influences 
 it would have been hard for Pace to stand firm under the 
 most favourable circumstances. 
 
 Maximilian, with a meanness and inhumanity almost 
 incredible, took advantage of Pace's helpless condition, to 
 extort from him a large sum of money upon the threat, if 
 Pace refused, to make terms with France, and write over to 
 England that Pace had been the cause of his defection. The 
 
 ' II. 1982. 2 II. 1817.
 
 1516.] THE EMPEROR EXTORTS MONEY FROM PACE. 133 
 
 soul of the Holy Eoman Empire certainly dwelt in a low place 
 when the Emperor could condescend to such an act ; and we 
 should have been fairly entitled to disbelieve the statement 
 had it rested on less impeachable authority than Pace's own. 
 Here is the letter which he wrote to Wolsey, sick in bed and 
 sad at heart for his dishonourable treatment : — ^ 
 
 " Please it your Grace, — This day the Emperor, having the consense 
 of Sir Robert Wingtiekl that Mr. Leonard Friscobalde, this present 
 bearer, should lend unto his Majesty G0,000 florins for the continuance of 
 this enterprise against the Frenchmen, made also great instance iinto me 
 to consent unto the same— both, in the king's name, as his ambassadors. 
 I, considering the great sum of money expende[d] already without the 
 obtent of the king's purpose, showed that I had neither commission so to 
 do, nor authority ; the Swiss, a2nid quos erat autoritas mea, being departed 
 out of the field. After that he had understood this mine answer, he said 
 that he was sure that the king's grace would not for that sum of money 
 suffer him to lose both his honour and cities in Italy, as Brixia and 
 Verona ; and sent also word unto me, lying sick in my bed, that, if I 
 would not consent thereunto, he would write inito the king's Highness, 
 that I alone had been the total ruin of this enterprise, having no manner 
 of respect to his honour or the king's, and therefore he should be com- 
 pelled to make peace with France to the destruction of all Christendom. 
 I, hearing and noting diligently these his words, and considering what 
 gi"eat inconvenients might ensue if he should do as he said, caused myself, 
 sick as I am, to be borne unto him, and shewed the causes, afore 
 rehearsed, why I durst not consent unto his desire ; adding also this 
 (without fear), that whensoever any sum of money did come into his 
 servants' hands, it was robbed from him and unthriftily expende[d] and 
 little or nothing distribut[ed] amongst the army. Nevertheless, [I] 
 showed unto his Majesty that I had liever lose my life than ever he 
 should have cavise to make any peace with France, to the destruction of 
 all Christendom, for any my default. And so I have c(msented unto the 
 same, and desired this bearer to accomplish his desire, who, for your 
 Grace's sake, hath so done gladly. Wherefore I can no less do but 
 desire your Grace to see him rejiaid again shortly without loss ; for 
 surely he is [a] faithful servant to the king's Highness and your Grace. 
 He hath an obligation of the Emperor's, binding him to repay the money, 
 if the king's grace be not content so to do ; sed Ccesar solvit ad cahndas 
 GrcEcas. 
 
 " The said Emperor intendeth to send again into England Mr. 
 Hesdynge. I know no cause why, but for money. Your Grace must be 
 well ware of him ; for in this last sum conveyed by him he hatli not dealt 
 faithfully with the king ; for he hath ke])t 1,000 and 200 scudi for liiinself, 
 and paid against the merchants' will (no cause known why) 11,000 scudi, 
 with more, as this bearer can declare at large unto your Grace. He is 
 one of those that is miscontented with me, because I can never consent 
 that tlie King's money be cast away at every unthrift's desire, asking in 
 the Emperor's name, but would have it, according to the King's mind 
 and your Grace's commandment, expende[d] faithfully amongst tlie poor 
 soldiers, putting hourly their lives in jeopai'dy pro conmmni iitriiii«jne 
 pri.wA'pis hmorc. et totti(.s (Jhn'sfiani orhis hovo. It shall please your Gi-aco 
 alway to remember this — (whatsoever Mr. Hesdynge sliall procure in 
 England), — that all money put in the Emjieror's hands, or committed to 
 any of his, shall be, in great part thereof, evil expende[d], as this present 
 
 ' II. 189G.
 
 134 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 bearer can at large show unto the same, and declare what business and 
 trouble I have only in resisting against this. 
 
 ****** 
 "Ex Tridento, xvj. Maij. 
 
 " E. D. V R">"' fidelissimus S'"% 
 
 " Ri. Pacexjs, segrotus." 
 
 Sir Robert, a man of fastidious honour and delicacy, made 
 no remonstrances. In the stress of the times he was guilty 
 of acts which even the sternest necessity could barely excuse. 
 Attending on Maximilian, and separated from Pace, with 
 whom he had a joint commission, he ventured to sign receipts 
 for money in Pace's hand ; "having feigned Pace's signature, 
 and sealed in his name with a cornelian in figure of a head." ^ 
 That was bad enough ; but worse remains. Wingfield found, 
 in a budget from Wolsey, a private letter addressed to Pace. 
 Sir Piobert broke it open. "It is one of the first (he says) 
 I ever opened without consent of the party;" and in it he 
 found expressions ajpplied to himself far from complimentary ; 
 as, Suminer-shall-he-Green. A man of more worldly wisdom 
 than Sir Piobert would have resealed the letter, and kept his 
 own counsel. But Sir Eobert could not digest his resentment. 
 He wrote to Wolsey: "Where in the part by which he 
 toucheth me he calleth me Green-Summer, verily my good 
 Lord,^ it is long sith that I have had to write to such as I 
 was familiar with, that Summer ivas Green.'' In the irritation 
 of the moment he could not help comparing his own merits 
 with the errors of Pace, which, but for his interference, he 
 insisted, would have produced the greatest mischief. 
 
 It was clear to Wolsey that in such a temper of mind no 
 expedition could succeed. On Pace, Galeazzo, and Sion he 
 enjoined, in terms not likely to be disobeyed, mutual recon- 
 ciliation.^ Of Wingiield's extraordinary conduct he took no 
 notice for the present. When Sir Robert wrote in the highest 
 terms * of the Emperor's retreat, who had " so cawtely " with- 
 drawn himself from such imminent peril, when he endorsed 
 the Emperor's plea, that unless money were forthcoming all 
 would be ruined, " et Gallus regnabit ubique," ^ Wolsey made 
 no answer. Amongst the multiplicity of his schemes to raise 
 money Maximilian hit upon a new project. He proposed to 
 make Henry Duke of Milan, in lieu of the rightful claimant, 
 Francis Sforza, and invest him afterwards with the Empire. 
 
 > II. p. 514. Pace's seal was a ^ II. 1983, 1984. 
 
 head of Cicero. ♦ II. 2095. 
 
 2 II. 1775, Wolsey, to whom the ' II. 2026. 
 letter was addressed.
 
 1516.] NEW DEVICES OF MAXIMILIAN. 135 
 
 Sir Piobert, with ludicrous solemnit}^ announced this absurd 
 proposal on the 17th of May, 1516.^ That morning the 
 Emperor had sent for him, and, no other person being present, 
 addressed him in the following terms: — "First, I desire yon 
 to make my most hearty and affectuous recommendations 
 unto my most dear and well-beloved brother, the king jonr 
 master, which by word doth call me father, and I do call him 
 son, which I do take right gladly upon me, and that by reason 
 of years ; for in effect his bounty, kindness, affection, and 
 comfort hath been and is so medicinable to me, that he is to 
 be esteemed and taken for my father, and I for his son, inso- 
 much that he shall be sure to have me at all times and in all 
 points that may be in my power, as glad and desirous to 
 advance all that may be to his honour and laud, as though 
 I were his proper son." After this magniloquent preamble 
 the Emperor proceeded to state that his army was ready to 
 take the field. He then offered to invest the King with the 
 Duchy of Milan, desiring the King to break war with France 
 as soon as possible ; to cross the sea with 2,000 horse and 
 4,000 archers ; make his way through Flanders to Treves, 
 where the Emperor would not fail to meet him, attended by 
 the Electors and Princes, Then leaving the Duke of Suffolk 
 in command, the Emperor, acting " as superintendent," would 
 jjroceed with the King to Eome, and see the imperial crown 
 placed upon his head. 
 
 Unfortunately, this intelligence, entrusted exclusively to 
 Wingfield with such an air of mystery, had been discussed 
 and talked about some days before, and had been already 
 communicated by Pace to Wolsey.^ To dissuade him from 
 countenancing such an absurdity was scarcely needful. 
 " Whilst we looked for the crown imperial," says Pace,'' " we 
 might lose the crown of England, which is this day more 
 esteemed than the Emperor's crown and all his empire." It 
 was a chimera ; a stale trick invented by Maximilian to raise 
 money, for he would " hke to pill and poll the said duchy, 
 and all Italy, under pretence of keeping them till the king 
 came." ^ But it was no part of Wolsey's policy to undeceive 
 
 • II. 1902. Grace by the Emperor's command- 
 « 12th of May. II. 1878. ment, upon tlie re.si},niation of tlm 
 » 11. 1923. diKiiity iuiiK'rial to bo made by him 
 
 * See also 1931. This is the text unto tlie kinf,''s HiKhnesH, and the 
 of Pace's letter: said Emperor's mind in the way 
 
 " Please it your Grace,— Sir Kobert which the kiuK's Grace should take 
 Winprfield hath showed unto me one in coming to accept the said resigna- 
 letter of his, wxitten unto the King's tion, accompanied witli 4,0()0 archers
 
 136 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENEY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 the Emperor or Wingfield. They were left to pursue, un- 
 molested, their own devices. The Emperor's schemes, what- 
 ever his intentions might be, worked out the purposes of 
 Wolsey's equally well and equally economically. That policy 
 was to keep Francis I. in continual agitation, and prevent any 
 avowed union between him and the Emperor. The reason of 
 this will appear hereafter. So when Pace expressed the 
 bitterest regret at the Emperor's misconduct and the failure 
 of the expedition, Wolsey wrote him a letter of encouragement. 
 He thanked Pace for his labours : ^ — told him if the Swiss 
 could not invade France this year, so much the better ; as the 
 King would not be ready before the spring. Pace must apply 
 himself with renewed vigour to repair past errors ; to encourage 
 the Swiss, and tell the Emperor that the King was in good 
 hope he would make use of the first opportunity, and, like a 
 valiant captain, proceed against his enemies who had defamed 
 him in all countries. A sum of 48,000 florins was placed at 
 Pace's disposal to engage the Swiss, but no part of it was to 
 
 and 2,000 horse, and so to proceed 
 forward imto Home, there for to 
 be crowned Emperor. My lord, this 
 offer made by the Emperor is great, 
 but I do marvel that the Emperor, or 
 any other man, would move the king's 
 Highness for to come through Flanders 
 and Almain with such a company ; for 
 his Grace might be destroyed only by 
 thieves and villains, of whom in 
 Almain is great plenty. Over this, 
 the Emperor hath made a promise 
 uncertain, nothing knowing of the 
 mind of the Electors of the Empire, 
 which by all likelihood will never 
 consent thereunto, because they will 
 laot suffer that dignity to go oat of 
 their nation ; part for that they will 
 not consent to anything moved by the 
 said Emperor, being dissentient from 
 him in everything. If this should 
 fortune, the king's Grace should get 
 by this promise nothing but shame, 
 and put his person in jeopardy. 
 Fm'thermore, I cannot judge it good 
 counsel for to move the king's Grace 
 to be so long absent out of his realm ; 
 for such misorder therein might fall, 
 that whilst we looked for the crown 
 imperial we might lose the crown of 
 England, which this day is more 
 esteemed than the Emperor's crown 
 and all his empire, et non iiamerito. 
 Finally, this resignation of the dignity 
 impei-ial, and the way imagined for to 
 set it, is but a castle made in the air, 
 
 and a vain thing, and peradventure 
 an inventive for to pluck money from 
 the king craftily." 
 
 The rest of the letter is occupied 
 with exposing the injustice of the 
 Emperor in thus endeavouring to 
 supplant Francis Sforza, the rightful 
 duke of Milan. If this proposal were 
 adopted, Pace insists the Emperor 
 " would occupy the said duchy him- 
 self, under this pretext, to give it 
 unto the king's Grace, and there to 
 tarry unto such time that his Grace 
 should come and fett (fetch) the in- 
 vestiture thereof, which, with surety, 
 is impossible to do ; and he in the 
 mean while, by the king's aid, would 
 pele and poll the said duchy and all 
 Italy, and deprive the poor duke of 
 Bari of his right : which appeareth 
 and is evidently declared by privileges 
 granted by the said Emperor in forma 
 autentica, sealed with his great seal 
 and subscribed with his own hand, 
 and be so substantially made, that by 
 no manner of reason or justice they 
 can be annulled or revoked; et non 
 solum lefjitiniisfiliis, sed etiam natural, 
 ibus et spiiriis ducis Lodovici, patris 
 ducis Bari, ducatmn Mediolani con- 
 cedunt. Wherefore necessary it is that 
 the first order taken in the said Duke 
 of Bari's cause be observed, both for 
 the King's honour and profit," etc. 
 " Trideuti, 21 Maij." 
 
 • II. 1965.
 
 1516.] WOLSEY HUMOURS THE EMPEEOE. 137 
 
 be expended before be bad ascertained tbat the Swiss bad a real 
 intention to figbt, not merely make a sbow of battle and retm*n.^ 
 It was enougb for Maximilian to know that 50,000 florins 
 were again in Pace's bands to prevent bim from making any 
 immediate arrangement witb France. Tbat could be done at 
 any time, when further exj^ectations from England were at an 
 end. Once already be bad intimidated Pace, without ex- 
 periencing any unpleasant consequences. On the lOtb of 
 June,"^ t-.ree days after the money arrived, be sent bis treasurer 
 Yillinger and the Marquis of Brandenburg to demand provision 
 for 5,000 lance-knights and 2,000 horse in Lorraine ; " and to 
 induce me hereunto (writes Pace to Wolsey) they said, if it 
 were not done, the said army would run to the French king's 
 wages ; which saying is common amongst them when they 
 intend to deceive a man in plucking his money." Pace 
 replied, he bad no commission to meddle with money ; and 
 "if the Emperor wanted anything with England, he bad bis 
 ambassador there." This answer must have been reported 
 witb unusual celerity,^ for the same day Maximilian wrote to 
 Pace that he bad ordered a levy of 10,000 men in the Tyrol, 
 in doing which be bad spent all bis money, and be therefore 
 requested Pace to transmit to Trent and Verona the 50,000 
 florins be bad just received, otherwise the new Swiss levies 
 would go over to the enemy. If Pace, as he alleged, was for- 
 bidden " to meddle with these matters until further orders," 
 Maximilian would undertake to excuse him to bis master. 
 Next day came a civil letter from Villinger, desiring Pace to 
 communicate to bim the answer be intended for the Emperor, 
 and to be with the Emperor on the morrow.^ Pace replied 
 the next day (14tb of June) that the 50,000 florins had been 
 recalled, and he was going to Constance. A week passed, 
 and no change ; Maximilian fretted and chafed : — as well 
 might the angry sea soften the obdurate rocks. So, finding 
 Pace inflexible, in a moment of irritation be ordered bim to 
 leave the imperial domains, taxing bim wdth having procured 
 the revocation of the money out of spite.^ Forgetful alike of 
 his interest and bis dignity, be threatened Pace with bis 
 heaviest resentment if be were found loitering in bis dominions, 
 in any one place, more than two days. Pace prepared to 
 depart, greatly to the discomfort of the Emperor's messengers. 
 It was not his departure but bis money tbat they wanted. 
 
 ' ir. 1912. 
 
 * II. 20.34. 
 
 ' II. 2035. 
 
 * II. 2043, 
 
 See Pace's note to this letter. 
 
 • II. 2070,
 
 138 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 They heard his resolution, to follow the Emperor's mandate, 
 with dismay. The Emperor's command should be obeyed ; ^ 
 though, to say the least, it was a harsh one, especially in the 
 last clause of it, to be addressed to an ambassador of the King 
 of England. Seeing him in earnest, the imperial messengers 
 said the whole matter might be compromised, if Pace would 
 lend the Emperor only 20,000 florins in the King his master's 
 name. Pace answered, that their proposal came unfortunately 
 too late ; for if after a command to depart he should now 
 remain and pay such a sum, it would be a great rebuke to the 
 Emperor, and would show that he was dismissed for no fault 
 of his own, but because he had declined to pay " what was 
 not in his power to pa}^" 
 
 At this juncture a new actor appeared upon the stage, — 
 M. Hesdin, maitre d'hotel to Margaret of Savoy, who had 
 always professed a deep interest in the King of England, and 
 was supposed to hate the ministers of Charles for their in- 
 clination to Erance. He assailed Pace with softer arguments, 
 and words 
 
 " Sweet as honey from his lips distilled." 
 
 He lamented the Emperor's hasty command ; — was sure he 
 could induce the Emperor to revoke it ; — foresaw in this mis- 
 understanding the unhappiness of Christendom, and entreated 
 Pace to stay. But wisely he said nothing that day of the 
 20,000 florins. Next day, when his arguments might be 
 supposed to have produced the desired effect, Hesdin pressed 
 upon Pace the desirableness of complying with the Emperor's 
 demand. Firm to his purpose, Pace would not depart from 
 his resolution for friend or foe, for threats or cajolery. And 
 doubtless many an hour afterwards, when Pace had returned 
 as secretary to Henry VIIL, and his influence with the King 
 was second only to Wolsey's, the history of this adventure 
 with the Emperor, and the various devices put in force by 
 him for obtaining the money, formed an amusing topic of 
 conversation. 
 
 Yet, mean and ludicrous as Maximilian's perplexities 
 appear in the recital. Englishmen, in spite of themselves, and 
 in spite of his real demerits, could not help feeling pity for 
 the dilapidated Emperor. No money could pass his hands 
 without diminution in the passage ; no bond he gave was 
 worth the paper on which it was written ; no promise he made 
 could be relied on ; and yet he was popular, not with his own 
 
 » II. 2076.
 
 1516] PACE THREATENED AND CAJOLED FOR MONEY. 139 
 
 subjects only, but with strangers. His schemes to raise funds 
 were so awkward and so palpable they deceived no one ; his 
 necessities so urgent they almost excused his artifices. Then, 
 moreover, the empire had not yet been divested of its old 
 traditions and the accumulated honours of many centuries. 
 To see its last representative reduced to beggary, ready to 
 pawn "his dukedom for a denier," and unable to purchase 
 a dinner, — was a sight to stir noble and generous minds. It 
 did so on this occasion. Pace, Wolsey, Tuustal, the King 
 himself relented, rather than press too hardly on the chief of 
 Christendom, whose awkward attempts at finesse generally 
 ended in his own discomfiture, and brought more tears in his 
 own eyes than smiles in other men's. 
 
 The Emperor's demands fell with his hopes. Instead of 
 48,000 florins, let Pace pay the 2,588 he had received from 
 the Frescobaldi, and depart in peace. ^ No, not even that 
 sum ; it had been spent already on the King's affairs ; and he 
 ordered Pace out of the chamber. " Pace," he exclaimed to 
 Wingfield in the bitterness of his disappointment, " by the 
 council of his schoolmaster Galeaz has endangered the 
 common enterprise. All things were in good train, and 
 nothing was wanting but the entertainment of the said 5,000 
 Swiss, which he had desired of Pace as he would have desired 
 God." Such insolence was intolerable. He fell to downright 
 abuse, and expressed to Wingfield his wonder that the King 
 should commit so important a charge " to such a proterve and 
 dissimuling person as Pace ; for whatsoever he saitli now, 
 within an hour he turneth it off another, or rather into twenty 
 divers fashions. But he hath gone to school witli that bald 
 Gallias, which betrayed and sold his master that brought him 
 up ; and therefore it is a less marvel that he with his disciple 
 would have served me of the same." But all this fury was in 
 vain. If he ordered Pace to go. Pace prepared to start ; the 
 next five minutes he countermanded the order, and Pace 
 stayed. If he ordered Pace out of his presence, out of his 
 presence Pace went. If he stormed and raved. Pace remained 
 silent ; if he cajoled or intimidated, he was no nearer the 
 object : absolutely Pace would not depart from his instruc- 
 tions ; not a florin would he disburse without an order from 
 England. Four days after,'^ Wingfield made suit, beseeching 
 Pace to procure 500 florins for the Emperor to buy powder 
 and ball ; but Pace turned a deaf ear to all entreaties. 
 
 » II. 2104. ^ July 1, 151G. II. 2133.
 
 140 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [AD. 
 
 The firmness and moderation of Pace, thus standing alone 
 — not aided, as he ought to have been, but rather opposed, by 
 his countryman Wingfield, — preserving the dignity of his 
 demeanour in the midst of so many difficulties, — was duly 
 appreciated in England. He received the thanks of the King 
 and the Cardinal, with a more substantial mark of favour in 
 his appointment as Secretary of State. Yet, much as he had 
 reason to suspect and dislike the Emperor, he was not blinded 
 by the treatment he had received to the policy of keeping 
 him on good terms. He wrote to Wolsey,^ that he had been 
 threatened with death for refusing to advance money ; " but," 
 he added with wonderful prudence and self-control, " this 
 demeanour must be clean set apart (not considered), and the 
 Emperor, quaUscumque est, be entertained. The king does 
 right to assist him; " sed Ccesar est puer indigens tutofe, et 
 consiliarios habet corrvptissimos et omtmnn honorum dovmii sui 
 expilatores." He urged that the king, instead of repudiating 
 the bond of 60,000 florins extorted by Maximilian, should 
 rather pay it, and help "the poor marcheante," who had 
 thought to do an acceptable service to the king, " and did 
 that is done at such a time as the Emperor {quod mirabile 
 dictu est) had not sufficient money to pay for his dinner." 
 
 Sir Robert blundered on, as honest, well-meaning, con- 
 ceited mediocrity is apt to do. Fully convinced of his own 
 superior merits, and believing that he stood as high in the 
 favour and confidence of his royal master at home as he did 
 in that of his Imperial Majesty abroad, he ventured with 
 more freedom than discretion to arraign Pace's conduct, and 
 still more his appointment as Secretary of State. Impressed 
 with the notion of his own superior ability and experience, he 
 had broadly insinuated that Pace was deficient in those 
 qualities which were indispensable for his new position. From 
 Pace he had evidently glanced at the Cardinal.^ 
 
 With a confidence and indiscretion displaying a total 
 blindness to the real state of the times, he addressed a letter 
 to the King.^ It appears that in the interval the Emperor 
 had gone to Constance in the firm persuasion that Pace would 
 be induced to relent. High words had passed between them, 
 as already described, and the dispute was evidently approach- 
 ing its climax. Wingfield was sent for. After riding all 
 night, he arrived at Constance (as he reports) about 8 in the 
 morning ; " and soon after mine arrival, Master Hans Eeyner 
 
 » II. 2152. « II. 2154. ' II. 2095.
 
 1516.] WIXGFIELD'S GRAVE INDISCRETIONS. 141 
 
 came to me from bis Majesty, and showed me a long process, 
 accusing Master Pace in divers things, and most specially 
 that his Majesty should be perfectly informed, that the said 
 Master Pace and the Visconte Galias have written such letters 
 to your Highness and to my lord Cardinal of York, against 
 him, that by the mean he findeth j-our Grace all alienate ; 
 which his Majesty esteemeth to be the more certain, because 
 that now of late he hath desired of Master Pace to make pro- 
 vision for the payment of a month's wages to such Swisses as 
 were now in the common army, and he hath refused so to do : 
 with which refuse, the said Mr. Hans showed me that the 
 Emperor was grieved marvellously; for he was informed that 
 the said Master Pace had sufficient provision of money with 
 him, by exchange of the Fuggers, and also that the said 
 Master Pace had showed unto his Majesty his own self that 
 he hath commission not only to wage 15,000 Swisses of new, 
 but also authority to give them three score thousand florins in 
 reward." Mr. Hans further assured Wingfield, that the 
 Emperor was convinced this "was none other but covert 
 treason wrought to his ruin, and the wasteful effusion of your 
 treasure." Happily, the impending ruin was averted by 
 Wingfield' s providential arrival — so Wingfield writes — for the 
 Emperor would have charged Master Pace to have departed 
 out of all places of his jurisdiction, without sojourning in any 
 place of the same above a night and a day, upon pain of his 
 life ; and now that I was come the Emperor had sent him 
 unto me to declare the same." 
 
 In his vainglorious dream Wingfield received from the 
 King a letter for the Emperor.^ It was the first the King had 
 "written to Maximilian since his ignoble retreat from ]\lilan. 
 With it came another for Wingfield himself, the contents of 
 which he was commissioned to communicate. To his Imperial 
 Majesty, calm and reserved in tone, it was far from com- 
 plimentary. The King took occasion to thank him for his 
 offer of the Dukedom of Milan, but as the French were still in 
 possession of it, he thought it would be time enough to accept 
 the Emperor's " loving offers " when he had renewed the 
 expedition, and, by chastising the French, had re-established 
 his honour, " greatly hindered by his desisting from the fore- 
 said enterprise, whereof the Frenchmen, as well in France as 
 elsewhere, made dishonourable bruits right displcasant to us 
 to hear or understand." Ho touched upon the rumour of the 
 
 ' II. 2176. It should have been placed uuder the 11th of June.
 
 142 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 Duke of Savoy's efforts to negociate an arrangement between 
 France and Maximilian ; expressed bis conviction tbat tbere 
 could be no trutb in a report so disgraceful to tbe Emperor ; 
 wbo must bave too mucb regard to bis own cbaracter, and 
 tbe welfare of Cbristendom, to entertain sucb a proposal. 
 And as for any furtber assistance in tbe sbape of money, tbe 
 King considered tbe sums already advanced by bim bad been 
 employed solely in succouring tbe imperial towns of Brescia 
 and Yerona, to tbe neglect of tbeir common interests, and 
 wondered tbat Wingfield bad ventured, on bis own resjDon- 
 sibility, to advance tbe Emperor 60.000 florins. Sbould tbe 
 King be called upon to repay it, Wingfield would be held 
 responsible for tbe loss and for any alienation it migbt cause 
 between bis Majesty and tbe Emperor. In tbe end Wingfield 
 was enjoined to lay aside bis enmity to Pace, and act cordially 
 witb bim for tbe common good. 
 
 Sir Eobert read tbis letter witb a rueful countenance. He 
 bad done bis best witbin tbe last .few bours to sootbe tbe dis- 
 consolate Emperor, and flatter bim witb bopes of a favourable 
 answer from England. Tbe answer bad come mucb sooner 
 tban be bad anticipated, and of a tenor tbe very reverse of 
 wbat be bad expected. How was be to break tbe unwelcome 
 news ? But be bad no alternative : tbe Emperor was to leave 
 tbe next day early, and be must act at once. He sent bis 
 Majesty word tbat be bad received a credence from England, 
 and would be glad to know wben sbould be bave tbe bonour 
 of presenting it. " Immediately," was tbe reply. It was 
 tben eigbt o'clock in the evening. " Wben I was come to bis 
 presence," says Wingfield, "and every man avoided save be 
 and I, I presented your letters unto bim, making your most 
 hearty and affectuous recommendations, in tbe best manner 
 I could ; which your letters when be had opened and read, a' 
 looked a long while upon the subscription, and be said in tbis 
 wise : ' These be letters of credence to be declared by you ; 
 howbeit I do perceive right well by tbe subscription, without 
 hearing more, that tbe matter of your credence sballnot be so 
 pleasant unto me as I hoped and trusted, whereby I do know 
 right well tbat such as I hoped to find my perfect and assured 
 friends bave their ears more inclined, and give more credence 
 to mine enemies' words tban to me, or those of my friends ; but 
 I must have patience in that, as I bave had in many other 
 things. Nevertheless, declare your credence, and I shall give 
 you tbe hearing, but not with so joyful a heart as I would."
 
 1516.] wixgfield's uxpleasant message. 143 
 
 Wingfield was greatly moved. He could not behold so 
 much humility and so much innocence trampled upon by the 
 malice of designing men without strong feelings of indigna- 
 tion. He longed to relieve the oppressed and defy the 
 oppressor. The King, in his letter, had urged the Emperor 
 to recover his tarnished reputation, but Wingfield ventured to 
 qualify the asperity of his commission. The Emperor was 
 not so blamable as he was reported ; "for though his 
 enemies " — here Wingfield glanced at Pace — " would gladly 
 he were more largely defamed, yet amongst good and in- 
 different judges, if they wot well of what mind and courage he 
 is, they would rather marvel at his diligence and dexterity." 
 Another article touching the Emperor's underhand negocia- 
 tions with the Duke of Savoy, Wingfield took the liberty of 
 omitting entirely ; " because I perceived at the beginning it 
 was not meet to touch him nigh the quick ; " and as for the 
 statement that the King's money had been spent upon Brescia 
 and Verona, " verily, my most loved and dread sovereign lord 
 and only master," says Wingfield most pathetically, " I would 
 that such as hath informed your Highness were in your most 
 gracious presence, and I also ; and I doubt not but he should 
 have red cheeks, and he be not past shame, for his unjust 
 saying. For your Highness maybe sure that no man knoweth 
 more in that matter than I, though I write not so much as 
 other men do ; and sure I am that, and your Grace hath 
 caused such letters of the Cardinal Sedunensis to be well 
 looked upon and examined, as I have sent to your Highness 
 at divers times, which is one [ofj the most virtuous and faith- 
 ful men that ever I w#s acquainted with, it shall well appear 
 when and how your money hath been rather cast away than 
 well spent; except such sums as hath comen to the Emperor's 
 hands : " and he asserts that this war had cost Maximilian 
 above 200,009 florins.^ 
 
 When Wingfield had finished, the Emperor " made a long 
 pause after his custom," and then said : " I cannot perceive 
 by the credence that ye have declared that my brother, the 
 king your master, hath restored to Leonard Eriscobald the 
 G0,000 florins that were borrowed of him, or that he intendeth 
 
 * Sir Robert of course believed bis sion to spend. Tlio author of the 
 
 own assertion; but the difficulty which " History of tlie Leatrne of Canibniy " 
 
 will occur to most readers, who know pretends i hat Ferdinand, a little hcforo 
 
 anything of Maximiliiui and his he died, h-nt the Knipcror 120,000 f,'old 
 
 finances, will be to account for 200,000 crowns. (" liist. de hi Li<,nic." 11.306.) 
 
 florins being in the Emperor's posses- That is oven more incredible.
 
 144 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 to provide the 100,000 florins that I desired him to prepare ; 
 but he rather willeth me to prepare repayments of tlie said 
 60,000 florins to Friscobald. Verily I esteemed well in the 
 beginning that your credence should not be so pleasant to me 
 as I trusted it should have been ; but I do perceive well that 
 all things hath diminished the affection and love that my 
 brother hath had to me, whereof I am sorry, and know no 
 remedy but patience ; and, as I told you in the beginning, I 
 perceived the same by the subscription of m.y brother's letters; 
 for in former letters he named me brother and father, whereas 
 the name of father is now changed into cousin ; wherefore I 
 wish you to be treasurer of this letter, for I will not that any 
 man should be privy he is so changed to me- ward." 
 
 So meek a reply, no doubt, sank deeply into the heart of the 
 reporter, who, after a fling at Galeazzo, then proceeds to notice 
 that part of the King's letter which alluded to the bad under- 
 standing " betwixt Master Pace, now your secretary, and me," 
 and the King's injunction " that nother indignation or dis- 
 pleasure be taken against him through Wingfield's procure- 
 ment for his j)lain dealing." He expressed regret that the 
 King should think him capable so "to demean himself against 
 the said Master Pace or any other, but as an honest poor 
 gentleman should." He asserted that he had treated Pace as 
 a brother, but Pace could not bear to hear the Emperor 
 praised, nor would Wingfield hear him dispraised. Then, 
 dilating, after his fashion, upon the confidence to be shown to 
 old and experienced ministers,^ "which on my conceit (he 
 says) is a religion not to be annulled for any new sect," he 
 adds, "I know not the foundation; and to say the sooth, though 
 I have none envy that in so little time and for so- poor service, 
 he (Master Pace) hath attained to so high a room as that of 
 your principal secretary ; yet in some things me seemeth and 
 also know well that he hath largely offended in that art : for 
 the name of secretary hath the foundation upon the knowledge 
 of such things as ought to be kejit secret ; in which I know 
 well that he hath greatly erred ; for when I made him privy 
 to such secret things as the Emperor had ordained me to write 
 unto your Highness to the intent he might be the more wary 
 how he should order himself concerning the said secrets 
 betwixt the Emperor and you, he went forthwith and showed 
 the same to the Duke of Bari,^ advising him that it was the 
 
 ' Here the letter is mutilated. 
 
 * Francis Maria Sforza, brother of Maximilian Sforza, Duke of Milan.
 
 1516.] WIXGFIELD'S PKESUMPTION. 145 
 
 Cardinal Sedunensis' procurement and mine ; -which the said 
 duke would not keep secret, but laid the same to the said 
 Cardinal's charge : of which, as I esteem, he (Sion) hath 
 advertized your Highness by his letters, which are not of such 
 levity as those of Galias, whose malice, fraud, and iniquity 
 hath not onlj^ abused Master Pace, but hath caused Master 
 Pace to abuse many others. And in all such abuses as I may 
 know that your Highness taketh either loss or dishonour, 
 there is no power that shall may only stop my mouth, but 
 only your Highness's commandment. And one thing I assure 
 your Grace of, that he is known over all at this day so 
 perverse towards the Emperor that, considering the authority 
 he hath, and his notable remuneration for so small and inutil 
 service that he hath done, it is verily judged that your affection 
 towards the Emperor is now sore refrigerate." 
 
 It was not to be expected that a letter so rash, indiscreet, 
 and boastful, so full of unjust insinuations against others — 
 for, be it observed, insinuations were made as much against 
 Wolsey's honesty as against Pace— would be allowed to pass 
 without rebuke. Sir Eobert might have gone on for some time 
 longer, buzzing about the Emperor, occasionally starting into 
 harmless acts of impertinence ; but on this occasion he had 
 ventured far beyond the bounds of reasonable indulgence, and 
 his vagaries were becoming mischievous. The following com- 
 munication from England brought him speedily to his senses. 
 
 Heney VIII. to Sir Robert Wingfield.^ 
 
 " Trusty and right well beloved . . . , — It is right well known how 
 long the fraternal Pove and amity], with paternal and filial kindness, 
 hath been rooted, est[ablished and] continued betwixt the Emperor, 
 whom we have always [taken and] reputed as our good father, and us. . . . 
 For the entertainment [and] continuance whereof, ye by our connnission 
 a[nd authority] have had the room and ofHce of a mediator, to the intent 
 that no occasion sounding to the hy[ndering and] diminishing thereof might 
 be given, to enge[nder any] scruiile of unkindness or diffidence betwixt 
 hy[m and us]. Howbeit we and our coinicil, upon jirobable g[rounds 
 and] sundry vehement presumptions and c<)nject[ures, perceive h]()w that 
 by occasion of the advancement of such money, as by your means and 
 acquittance was by Leonard Friscobalde made to the Emperor, witliout 
 any authority or commission by us to you given, and tlie repetition 
 thereof now demanded, for satisfaction and reimbursement thereof to the 
 creditors, to be contented and paid by the said Emperor, there is some 
 hindrance in appearance of the mutual kindness betwixt the said Emperor 
 and us, which should never have chanced if this money had not been 
 advanced to him witlumt our commission ; considering tliat as well by 
 such our sundry gifts of large sums of [money] as we have made unto 
 him, as by the entertainment of the Swisses to our right great cost and 
 charge [from their country] to Milan, for liis honour, and conservation of 
 
 ' 11. 2177. 
 
 VOL. I. ^
 
 146 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 his cities and countries in those parts, he had not only good cause to give 
 unto us singular tha[iiks, but also] rather thereby to augment than 
 diminish the amity rooted and established between him and us. Whe[re- 
 of we] thought right expedient to advertise you, to the [intent that, by] 
 all the means and politic ways ye can, ye [exert your]self, not only to 
 entertain and firmly to establish [the] love and amity that ever hath been 
 betwixt him [and us], but also to remove all scruples, sounding to [the] 
 derogation thereof, by mean of the occasion and cause before written ; 
 for in case any alteration of the Emperor's mind towards us shall now be 
 apparent, otherwise than it hath been heretofore, we cannot ascribe ne 
 arrect it to any other thing or deed, but only to the advancement of the 
 said money, without our commandment, and the repetition of the same 
 now made ; whereunto expedient it is ye take substantial regard in 
 avoiding the danger that may thereof to you ensue. 
 
 " For, to be plain with you, we now evidently perceive, more by 
 your own writings [than] by the relation of any other, that ye, having 
 better opinion in [yourself than] your wisdom or qualities can attain to, 
 not only by elaticjn of a glorious mind, moved by the instigation of envy 
 and malice against our secretary, Mr. Pace, have mo[re considered] your 
 sensual appetites than regarded our commandments, weal, profit, or 
 surety ; as it api^eareth evidently, as we[ll by] the advancement and 
 laying out of our money [without] commandment, as in continual 
 practices, by you daily made and driven, to put the Emperor in comfort 
 £to expect] the advancement of more money, to our intolerab[le costs and] 
 charges. And whereas ye advaunt yourself [to be a medi]ator for the 
 perseverant continuance of paternal and [ti]Iial love and amity betwixt 
 the Emperor and us, your deeds be clearly repugnant to your words ; for 
 by these your drifts inducing the Emperor continually to demand money 
 of us, and the not accomplishing of his desires, which is importable for us 
 to sustain or do, ye have not only hindered the mutual intelligence 
 betwixt the said Emperor and us, but also put him in such jealousy 
 against our said secretary, Mr. Pace, by contrived surmises of seditious 
 writing against the Emperor, that he hath banished him his court and 
 countries ; and rather than these inconvenients should ensue betwixt the 
 Emperor and us by your vainglorious ways, more studying to get thanks 
 than regarding our honor, profit, or surety, better it were y[ou had] 
 never been born. 
 
 " When we consider your undiscreet writing, expressing the disdainous 
 and envious mind that ye be of the advancement and promotion of our 
 said [secretary], Mr. Pace, whom in your said writing ye dispraise [and] 
 slander, with the fantastical argument that ye make, to conclude our 
 affection to be refrigerate towards the Emperor, by cause we have 
 rewarded our said secretary with so notable a remuneration for so inutill 
 service, he being of so perverse mind towards the Emperor, and the 
 protestation and requisition [by] you made, that in case his merits shall 
 fortune to lead him to any inconvenient or danger in those parts, we 
 should not impute or arrect the occasion thereof to you ; it causeth us and 
 our council to think, that either malicious fumes hath blinded your 
 intelligence so that ye little regard what ye write, or else ye supjiose and 
 think that we and our council have no cajiacity to discern your notorious 
 folly. For as touching the promotion of our said secretary, whom ye 
 dispraise, inasmuch as he hath better followed our commandments and 
 commissions than ye have done, we think he hath well deserved this 
 advancement and better. And though he had never done unto us any 
 service in those parts, yet in consideration of his learning, wisdom, and 
 activeness, our mind was to prefer him to that room before his departing, 
 so that your sophistical argument before written is a great fallacy and 
 folious invention [which] cannot proceed. And well assured may ye be, 
 that in case any danger or inconvenient shall chance unto him in those
 
 1516.] WINGFIELD SEVERELY CENSUEED. 147 
 
 parts, we must and will arrect it precisely to you, and in such wise punish 
 you therefor, as all other shall take terrible example thereby. For what- 
 soever ye or any other have surmised to the Emperor for Ids hindrance, 
 we have now expressly declared to the said Emperor by our letters, that 
 our said secretary never wrote anjrthing unto us but good and honourable 
 of him, as much commending his valiantness, wisdom, and other his 
 notable acquitayles, as could be devised, making also true and plain 
 certificate unto us of all things occurrant there from time to time, rather 
 deser\dng thereby the Emperor's thanks than his indignation, which we 
 believe verily had not fortvmed to him unless the Emperor had been by 
 your seditious re]iorts provoked thereunto. 
 
 " And as touching the Cardinal Sedunensis, whom ye much praise, 
 and the count Galeas by you greatly dispraised, they be personages to us 
 unknown. Nevertheless, for the laudable reports that we have heard of 
 them, and that they were the persons most meet to further and [promote] 
 this enterprise of the Swisses against the Frenchmen, we were the rather 
 induced to practice with them, minding always not only the honor and 
 surety of the Emperor, but also the advancement of the same, and 
 conservation of his estate in those parts. For which purpose we have 
 laid o\it and expended right great and large sums of money ; and if for 
 this our kindness we should be finally rewarded by sinister reports with 
 distrust, suspicion, and displeasure, we may say our kindness hath been 
 evil employed. Wherefore we will and straitly charge you that, all 
 dissemblance put apart, ye endeavor yourself to entertain the amity and 
 intelligence betwixt the Emperor and us, wherein we shall stedfastly 
 and perseverantly continue without alteration for our part ; assuring you 
 that in case we may perceive any alienation of his mind therein, we must 
 ascribe it unto you for such causes and considerations as be above 
 specified, whereunto we will ye take special regard in avoiding our 
 indignation to your uttermost peril. And as touching the request 
 heretofore made by the Emperor to our said secretary, for the advance- 
 ment of more money, inasmuch as the letters of exchange were revoked, 
 it was not possible to be done ; wherefore the Empei-or hath no cause of 
 displeasure against him. The reasons moving us to revoke our letters of 
 exchange were these : First, because we supposed the expedition against 
 the Frenchmen to be clearly extinct and done by the returning of the 
 Swisses to their countries. Secondly, forasmuch as the Emperor liy his 
 letters to us had so effectually commended Friscobald for his diligent 
 towardness and faithful acquittal, we minded by the revocation thereof to 
 take the commission from the Fokers, and to have caused the money to 
 be paid by the hands of Friscobald and his factors when the case should 
 require ; and in such wise we will ye show to the said Emperor."
 
 148 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 CHAPTEE V. 
 
 THE TREATY OF NOYON. 
 
 In more than one of Wingfield's "vainglorious" letters the 
 King had been urged by the Emperor — wiiether in sincerity or 
 not remains to be shown — to assist him in punishing the 
 ministers of his grandson Charles, who had sided throughout 
 with the French. To their machinations he imputed the 
 success of the French arms and the dangers now menacing the 
 whole of Italy. In Wingfield's fantastic language, it was they 
 who had sold Naples : ^ " Blessed be those honorable coun- 
 cillors of the young king ^ which have brewed the beverage to 
 the ruin of the Emperor, of which ruin the said young king is 
 like to be very heavy to the damage of all Christendom." To 
 understand these allusions and how far Sir Eobert was justified 
 in his opinion of the Emperor's honour and integrity, we must 
 look back a little. 
 
 From the first moment that Francis ascended the throne 
 Charles and his ministers had courted a French alliance with 
 unceasing assiduity. In their treatment of England they had 
 exhibited not only indifference but studied contempt and dis- 
 like. The leaders of the young Prince's councils, Chievres 
 and the Chancellor (Sauvage), prompted mainly by a desire 
 to retain their supremacy, threw the weight of their influence 
 into the scale of France — tempted also, if the report be true, 
 by the pecuniary rewards which Francis offered so liberally 
 for their favours. It may be thought that Charles was too 
 young to be responsible for the acts of his ministers, and too 
 indifferent to the charms of the Princess Mary to have con- 
 ceived either grief or indignation at seeing her consigned to 
 the arms of another. But all writers agree in his precocity ; not 
 a single act in the after period of his life indicates the least 
 dissatisfaction with these his earliest advisers ; nor so long as 
 
 * IT. 1937. Netherlands, had just become King of 
 
 * Charles, still residing in the Simin by the death of Ferdinand.
 
 lolC] PRINCE CHAELES SEEKS A FRENCH ALLIANCE. 149 
 
 they lived did he ever withdraw his confidence and favour from 
 them. Quite the reverse. As for his alhance with Mary, 
 Philip Dalles, the envoy sent to congratulate Francis on his 
 accession, has preserved the .following anecdote which seems 
 to indicate that the loss of Mary caused a deeper dissatisfac- 
 tion than has been generally supposed. On one occasion 
 Charles was told in a company of young people, that he was a 
 cuckold (coqu), and had lost his wife, and ought to take 
 another : one proposed this lady, another that ; some Madame 
 Eenee, others the daughter of Portugal or of Hungary. " I 
 (said Dalles) replied that the Prince preferred Madam Pienee." 
 "He is quite right," answered Charles promptly, "she is 
 much the best prize ; for if my wife chanced to die before me 
 I should then be Duke of Brittany." The mind which at such 
 an age, and on such an occasion, could travel to such a con- 
 tingency, was worthy of the discipline in which it had been 
 trained. As I have said in the first chapter of this work, 
 there was no careless betrayal of youthful indiscretion in 
 Charles whether as Archduke, King, or Emperor. Over all 
 appetites, but one, he had perfect control from childhood 
 ux)wards. 
 
 In the instructions which he gave to his ambassadors ^ 
 announcing that he was out of his tutelage, and condoling with 
 Francis on the death of the late King Lewis, the same 
 decorous resignation to the will of Providence, the same keen 
 regard to his own interests, may be traced, though blurred 
 wdth the formalities of a State paper. They are directed to 
 inform the new monarch that Charles is his own master ; and 
 though great is his grief at the death of the late King of 
 France, yet, remembering that all mankind, great and small, 
 are subject to mortality, and that the " late king was an 
 ancient man,^ infirm, and sickly, and that in the concerns of 
 this life the will of the Lord must be done, — all things con- 
 sidered, the aforesaid Charles feels himself mightily comforted 
 by the accession of the new sovereign." But the main drift 
 of this mission was to negociate, in the first place, a marriage 
 with Madame Pvenee, then four years old ; and in the next, to 
 excuse the alliance which had hitherto existed between England 
 and Flanders, as passed in the Archduke's minority, and for 
 which he ought not to be held responsible. The terms he 
 demanded were so exorbitant, the aim to extort money from a 
 
 ' Jan. 19, 1515. Le Glay, Negoc. " IIo wrh only in hia lilty-lhinl 
 
 i. 2. year when be died.
 
 150 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHL [A.D. 
 
 King, liberal and young like Francis, so apparent, that more 
 than once the negociation was near coming to an abrupt 
 termination. Even when completed it was one of the condi- 
 tions insisted on by Charles that his future Queen, young as 
 she was, should be taken from her family, and delivered to his 
 care, with a certain amount of money, jewels, and property 
 settled upon her, of which he was to become the possessor in 
 the event of her death. 
 
 This union with France had more than one advantage to 
 recommend it : — it settled the disputes between the two 
 countries in relation to the future possession of Naples ; it 
 gave peace to Flanders, then greatly impoverished; and it 
 enabled Charles and his ministers to sit aloof, unconcerned, 
 whilst the other great powers of Europe proceeded to arbitrate 
 their differences by the sword. Whether, on a broad view of 
 history, countries in the long run prosper by this policy of 
 non-interference, is a question not to be determined here. 
 Between running like famished mastiffs to take part in a street 
 brawl, and the armed interposition of reason and charity, 
 there is a wide difference. The sternest neutrality may be as 
 selfish, and as destructive of true magnanimity, as hot and 
 precipitate anger. No nation ever became great by either 
 course alone, — certainly not at the time of which I am 
 speaking. 
 
 It could not be expected that during the predominance of 
 such feelings and principles English negociations would prosper 
 in Flanders. Attempts were made, but with little success, to 
 renew the amity and free commercial intercourse between the 
 two peoples. The negociators were Tunstal and More, after- 
 wards the celebrated chancellor, then for the first time com- 
 mitted, to the great regret of Erasmus, to a life of politics 
 instead of letters. More was mainly employed, no doubt, for 
 his high character and legal attainments ; he possessed, above 
 all men of his age, the qualifications required for the temperate 
 and successful adjustment of disputes between the English and 
 Flemish merchants, complicated by the anxiety of the latter 
 to force English trade back again to Bruges, then rapidly 
 waning before the increasing popularity of Antwerp.^ Unfor- 
 tunately we have none of More's correspondence for this 
 period, when he first gathered those impressions of the Low 
 Countries and of the political state of the times which he 
 afterwards produced in his Utopia. For our knowledge of 
 
 1 TI. 581.
 
 1516.] CHARLES BECOMES KING OF SPAIN. 151 
 
 what passed, we are mainly indebted to Sir Thomas Spinelly, 
 whose gossip is amusing enough, but rests often on no better 
 foundation than hearsay. He was evidently not initiated into 
 the secrets of either party, and was frequently imposed upon 
 by both. His English prejudices made him a convenient 
 instrument for Margaret of Savoy, or the Emperor through 
 her, whenever it was desirable to draw off the English 
 negociators on a false scent. Months elapsed, but the English 
 commissioners could make no impression on Charles or his 
 court until the close of 1515. Even then it is probable that 
 the desire of Chievres to obtain a loan from this country was 
 a much stronger inducement to moderation than any real 
 change of sentiment.-^ 
 
 The death of Ferdinand the Catholic in February, 1510, 
 threw the destinies of Europe into the hands of three young 
 sovereigns, nearly of the same age, and for this and other 
 reasons jealous and suspicious of each other's glory and 
 achievements. This is the date of Charles's emancipation 
 from tutelage. From that time to the death of Henry VIII. 
 the political history of Europe is little more than the combina- 
 tions and intrigues of these monarchs to prevent any one of 
 their number from rising to a dangerous superiority. With 
 this period commences the system of modern political adjust- 
 ments which continues to this day to be the basis of European 
 diplomacy. By the death of Ferdinand, the relations between 
 Charles and Francis were altered; hitherto he had been a 
 vassal of France, and at the first interview of his envoys with 
 Francis they had been reminded of this subservience, in terms 
 not agreeable to the inferior. Now the vassal in the extent of 
 his kingdoms exceeded his suzerain ; and in the prospect of the 
 imperial succession stood far above him.^ His interests, 
 present and future, brought Charles more directly and more 
 frequently into collision with Francis than they could do with 
 Henry. Yet with this vast extent of territory, with the old 
 and new world tied, as it were to his girdle, Charles was so 
 miserably poor that he could not raise so mean a sum as 
 
 ' 11. 1291. by liim or any one. TIk; envoy fired 
 
 2 At the interview of Dalles with up at the insult, but did not vi'nturo 
 
 Francis, three days after the death of to object to the offensive expression ; 
 
 Lewis XII., tlx! former told Francis " Sire," he said, " it will bo your lault 
 
 that the Archduke was very younp, if Monsieur the Prince of Castile docH 
 
 and desired to live on f,'ood terms with not live on as ^""^1 t"""8 ^'*" y°" '^'! 
 
 him. The king said, in his reply, that the king his father did : and 1 would 
 
 be would be a good friend to Charles, have you know, no iricnd or runstil 
 
 "because he is mon vassal :" but ho can do you more jiarni than be. Lo 
 
 would not be managed or over-reached Clay, Ndyoc. i. 590.
 
 152 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIIl. [A.D. 
 
 300,000 crowns to take his journey into Spain.^ The wealth 
 of Henrj^ his faeihty in parting with it, seemed to point him 
 out as the Sovereign to whom Charles should ally himself ; 
 hut, for reasons not well known — and which never can be 
 thoroughly known until foreign archives have been thrown 
 open to examination — no efforts of the English ambassadors, 
 not even the interests of Charles himself, could induce him to 
 abandon the French alliance, or treat this country otherwise 
 than with haughtiness and neglect. The successes of Francis 
 in Italy, the mismanagement of the Emperor, seemed only to 
 serve as additional inducements for strengthening the French 
 alliance, and imperilling his succession to Spain and the 
 Empire. A policy so suicidal, and which, if eventually suc- 
 cessful, must have ended in making Francis Emperor of the 
 West, can only be attributed to the dread entertained by 
 Chievres and his fellow-ministers of Maximilian and Henry. 
 Their alliance would have given a deadly blow to that party 
 which had hitherto governed the Archduke exclusively ; and, 
 rather than incur that danger, any sacrifice was to be pre- 
 ferred. 
 
 The French, on their side, watched these negociations with 
 their habitual keenness. The least indication of an English 
 tendency in the court of the King Catholic, as he was now 
 styled,^ was instantly punished by some act of aggression on 
 the part of the Duke of Gueldres, the hereditary enemy of 
 Charles, the restless invader of his dominions, who needed no 
 instigation from France to satisfy his desire of vengeance or 
 aggression. What Scotland was to England, Gueldres was to 
 Charles ; and the latter could not move a step towards his 
 Spanish dominions without exposing his frontier on the side 
 of Gelderland to fire and sword. Aware of this perplexitj^ 
 and probably the secret instigators of it, the French now 
 proposed a closer amity. A more cheerful face was exhibited 
 to England ; its envoys were received with greater courtesy ; 
 the Venetian ambassador even wrote to say that the friendship 
 of the two courts looked ominous, for Castile " was quite 
 hand-in-glove with Henry." ^ But their energies in reality 
 were bent on a closer intimacy with France, in which they 
 hoped to include the Emperor, now more than ever inclined 
 to listen to such proposals since his inglorious retreat from 
 the Italian expedition. 
 
 Charles now became the object of the intrigues of both 
 
 1 II. 1511. " II. 1668. ' II. 1845.
 
 1516.] THE TREATY OF NOYOX. 153 
 
 courts. On one side England offered him a loan of 20,000 
 marks to bear bis cbarges into Spain,^ binting at tbe same 
 time tbat be sboiild take England on bis way, " to avoid sea- 
 sickness, and keep clear of tbe Frencli coast." Pensions were 
 privately promised to Cbievres and tbe Cbancellor. Notbing 
 could be more plausible tban tbe conduct of tbese ministers ; 
 tbey professed tbemselves "weary of tbe Frencli and tbeir 
 dissimulation." An excuse was never wanting. Wben tbey 
 were taxed witb submissiveness to France ; — it was done 
 merely to prevent tbe Frencb from bindering tbe journey to 
 Spain ; once tbere tbe King would sbow bimself in bis true 
 colours.^ Wbile tbese negociations were pending, a secretary 
 of tbe Frencb King, named De Neufville, bad arrived at 
 Brussels. He was frequently closeted witb Cbievres, but bis 
 communications were innocent ; tbey bad no bigber object 
 tban tbe discussion of some unsettled points relating to tbe 
 marriage treaty of the Queen of Arragon ; — tbis, and no 
 more.^ Tbe utmost candour and openness were exbibited on 
 botb sides. True, tbe Frencb bad offered anotber marriage 
 alliance to Charles ; but tbese negociations bad only been 
 entertained on their part to gain time till Charles should be 
 peaceably settled in bis new dominions. The journe}' into 
 Spain was a wide and convenient pretext. If tbe English 
 desired to bind them in a united effort against tbe French in 
 Italy, tbe expenses to be incurred and tbe charges against 
 Gueldres prevented their contributing to so worthy an object."* 
 Were tbey taxed witb playing a double game ? They must 
 keep on good terms with France, and condescend apparently 
 to its demands, or have France for their enemy, and tbeir 
 master's voyage prevented.^ On tbe 13th of July came another 
 great personage from Paris, tbe Grand Master of France. 
 Tunstal urged Cbievres and tbe cbancellor to beware of Frencb 
 practices and take heed of a Frencb marriage.^ Suddenly 
 Charles, like bis grandfather Maximilian, was taken with a 
 passion for bunting ; be was not to be seen.' Tbe Emperor 
 about tbe same time had become invisible, even to his faithful 
 admirer Sir Piobert.^ Why pursue the progress of dissimu- 
 lation any further? By the 13tb of August tbe treaty of 
 Noyon was completed. Its discussions bad been kept a pro- 
 found secret ; so profound tbat three days after it bad been 
 
 ' In Jane. Sec II. 2006. * II. 2165. 
 
 * II. 2075, 2079. " II. 2^06. 
 2 June : 20U'J. ' II. 221<J. 
 
 * II. 2132. » II. 2224, 2248.
 
 154 THE REIGN" OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 signed Maximilian was trying to amuse Henry with a proposal 
 to descend into the Low Countries and assist him "in pulling 
 up the tares from the wheat; "^ or rather, in pulling down 
 the potent ministers of his grandson. On the faith of this 
 promise he had induced the King to reimburse Friscobald the 
 60,000 florins for which Pace had been dragged out of his 
 sick bed.^ 
 
 But the end had not yet come. With real or well assumed 
 repugnance Maximilian, as if loth to face the English ambas- 
 sador, desired his secretary Maraton to inform Wingfield of 
 the secret terms concluded at Noyon. In its arrangements 
 England had been passed over without notice. Charles had 
 consented to take Anne, the French King's infant daughter, in 
 the place of Eenee ; and France in return had waived all 
 claims to Naples. The Venetians were to be called on to pay 
 the Emperor 200,000 florins for Brescia and Verona. Sir 
 Eobert was thunderstruck. Could this be that Maximilian 
 who had vowed eternal vengeance against the French, and 
 persuaded Wingfield they were worse than Judas ? On the 
 faith of such protestations Wingfield had pawned his honour, 
 and would have staked his life. He had assured his master 
 of Maximilian's desire to repair the blunders of the last 
 campaign. On his own responsibility he had advanced the 
 Emperor 60,000 florins. In contradiction to the advice of 
 Pace he had been a party to the gross device of the Emperor 
 for making Henry Duke of Milan, and placing on his head the 
 Imperial crown. Now Empire, Dukedom, money, all were lost. 
 The million and a half spent by Henry on the war^ had 
 evaporated in smoke. The invasion of France was a ridiculous 
 dream ; its supremacy had been established, and all the efforts 
 to counteract that supremacy were dashed by the cunning 
 contrivances of two men (Chievres and the Chancellor), the 
 Emperor's own nominees. Sir Eobert w^as abashed, and could 
 make no answer. He wrote, in reply to Maraton's communi- 
 cation,^ "that hitherto the Emperor's Majesty had peculiarly 
 suffered his bounty and goodness to vanquish his great wisdom 
 and experience ; "—(in less courtly phrase, he had allowed 
 himself to be duped by others of less intelligence than himself ;) 
 — now Sir Eobert hoped his goodness would give way before 
 his experience ; that he would take vengeance on those who 
 had endeavoured to separate him from his tried friends, and 
 
 > II. 2286. 2 II. 2291. 
 
 2 Yet Wolsey sets it down at 80,000L only. No. 210-i. * II. 2310.
 
 1516.] WAS THE EMPEROR A PARTY? 155 
 
 " strike his enemies with fear and confusion." There "was 
 one hope left : Maraton had solemnly assured him that the 
 Emperor was no party to these arrangements.^ Sir Eohcrt 
 was comforted ; his letter was read to Maximilian. The 
 Emperor would follow his suggestion : he had never thought 
 of ahandoning England ; if the King would remain firm, 
 nothing should separate their friendship.^ His heart had 
 been torn by one apprehension, that Henry would not help 
 him ; but now that he was assured of the contrary he would 
 arm and straight set forward. Once more Sir Eobert was 
 delighted; it was needless, he said, "to stimul the Emperor 
 very busily," ^ for no man could be better disposed. When 
 he found himself strong and united with the Catholic King he 
 would not fail to punish the traitors. In the abundance of 
 his hope and charity, Wiugfield had not only forgiven Pace, 
 but had even induced the Emperor to take Pace into favour, 
 on the assurance that his " jjroterve conduct " should not be 
 repeated. Two days after Maraton wrote to him again : " The 
 Emperor is continually urged to accejit this foul peace with 
 France." Wingfield mast come and counteract those intrigues ; 
 but unless he could muster 6,000 gold florins, his success 
 would be questionable.^ The Emperor desired 10,000 crowns ; 
 then he would leave for Namur. Wolsey offered 5,000 if he 
 would come to Calais, and 5,000 more when there. The 
 Emperor (writes his daughter Margaret to the imperial ambas- 
 sadors in England) is very poor ; the least they can do is to 
 allow him 10,000 florins a month while he is away ; ^ — he is 
 very much pressed by the French ; but nothing except his 
 urgent poverty will induce him to listen to their proposals. 
 
 The measures now adopted were of Henry's minting. He 
 proposed to meet the Emperor in the Low Countries, and join 
 with him in removing those " corrupt councillors " of Charles,® 
 who had attempted to break the old friendship between England 
 and Burgundy. The King of Castile was bound by the treaty 
 of Noyon to marry the daughter of the French King, provided 
 that in the event of her death he should marry another not 
 yet born. " This is the most slanderous alhance," exclaimed 
 Henry, "that ever was heard of; and the disparity of ages 
 great; for the King of Castile is seventeen yeai's old; the 
 French King's daughter not one year." The Emperor cun- 
 
 1 IT. p. 712. * Sopt. 1, 1516. II. 2335, 2:i39. 
 
 ^ J I. z:515. " J J. 2357. 
 
 » LL 2319. « II. ^3«7.
 
 156 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 ningly lamented that he had never been imphcitly trusted ; 
 was sorry his advice had not borne the fruit desired by both. 
 He had done his uttermost, and was so extremely driven " he 
 knew no remedy but to accept this detestable peace." ^ The 
 Venetian offer of 200,000 ducats was tempting ; with the aid 
 of it he should be able to help the King and assist himself 
 against France. Could such arguments be resisted ? Was 
 he to abandon Verona, to which he had sent that day 40,000 
 florins and 10,000 florins' worth of cloth (as he told Wingfield), 
 only for the want of a small sum from England, which should 
 be punctually repaid? To urge his request with greater 
 cogency. Cardinal Sion was sent into this country — a man of 
 great vigour and no less plausibility.^ He had a long colloquy 
 with the King and Wolsey at Greenwich, and the same day 
 the two Cardinals dined together. On his return Wolsey was 
 observed to be angry and excited.^ Since he had been -at the 
 helm, men said, they had never seen him in such a state of 
 perturbation. Sebastian, who narrates the interview, was at 
 a loss to guess the cause. He thought it might arise from 
 " the insolence of this Cardinal of Sion," or the receipt of 
 fresh intelligence at variance with the asseverations of the 
 imperial ambassador, " who tells lies by the dozen." We, 
 who know much more than he did of Cardinal Sion's letters, 
 may with much better reason infer, that the anger of Wolsey 
 was roused by the Emperor's unblushing effrontery in im- 
 puting the failure of the late expedition to the Cardinal's 
 noncompliance with his ceaseless demands for money ; or else 
 to the unscrupulous calumnies of Sion, who slandered Pace 
 and Galeazzo,"^ taxing them with spending the sums entrusted 
 to them to gratify theii- own inclinations, without regard to 
 the common interests of the confederates. More probably, 
 Wolsey refused to lend himself to the wild projects and bound- 
 less expenditure that found no limits in the overweening 
 ambition and desires of Sion. The projects he had conceived 
 may be guessed from the draft of a proposal in his own hand, 
 submitted to the King and Wolsey.^ To prevent Verona from 
 falling into the hands of the French, he required that the 
 King of England should advance the Emperor 40,000 crowns ; 
 then by the next Christmas the Emperor should visit Brabant, 
 
 * II. 2441. of the money destined for the Swiss. 
 2 Oct. II. 2449. (II. 2500.) The charge was purely 
 ' II. 2464. malicious. 
 
 * II. 2473. He accused Galeazzo * Oct, II. 2463. 
 of having appropriated 100,000 crowns
 
 1516.] PROPOSAL TO REMOVE CHARLES' COUNCILLORS. 157 
 
 and depose " those wicked governors " of Charles — Chievres 
 and the Chancellor. Here he was to be joined by Henry, who 
 should be pressed to receive the imperial crown ; and thus the 
 King should become the champion of Christendom, the Emperor 
 his lieutenant to fight under his banner, and the Dukedom 
 of Milan his fief. Could Wolsey be a party to such wild 
 schemes ? ^ 
 
 The Emperor's treasurer, Fillinger, notoriously addicted to 
 the French interests, wrote to Sion, congratulating him on 
 his dexterous negociation in procuring from England 40,000 
 crowns,^ which he trusted was only an earnest of good things 
 to come. All parties — a rare thing on such occasions — seemed 
 equally pleased ; those who were paid, and those who had to 
 pay. Sion left on the 8th of November with presents from 
 the King and Wolsey to the value of 4,000 ducats ; ^ and he 
 dropped a modest memorial for Wolsey, requesting an annual 
 pension for his services to England until the next vacant 
 bishopric.^ The Swiss were promised 30,000 crowns annually. 
 Wingfield was beside himself with this last loving and liberal 
 act of his master. The Emperor dilated on it in such pathetic 
 terms, that Sir Eobert, as he tells us himself, " could scantly 
 abstain from tears." So much happiness for 40,000 crowns ! 
 What might not come of it? The Swissers would "dance 
 after his pipe." The Emperor's descent so suddenly in harness 
 would " put water on the fire " kindled by the French and their 
 " fautors." Even Charles had kissed the rod, and expressed 
 his " contrition " if anything had been done by him or his, 
 prejudicial to their common interests (so at least the Emperor 
 told Wingfield) ; and as for his grandson's councillors, "they 
 were so besotted and blinded with promises and crowns of 
 France that they cared nothing about their master or him, so 
 they might carry the whole of Christendom into the French 
 bands to his peril and that of Henry "^ The Emperor was 
 therefore "determined to descend into the Low Countries, 
 and provide such a remedy there as God will." On the 21st 
 of November he pressed for payment of 10,000 crowns for the 
 first month, as without them his visit must be abandoned. 
 
 1 See Henry's remarkable letter to same letter shows that it was the King, 
 
 Wolsey (U. 2218), on receivint? the im- and not Wolsey, who was anxious for 
 
 perial ambassadors. "Touching the the Emperor to visit the Low Count rio8. 
 resif^nation of the imperial crown, the " II. 2508. 
 
 ambassadors spoke generally, but they ' II. 2.') 1'.3. 
 
 thought the Emperor woaUl resign it : * 11. 2528. 
 
 and we think they mean nothing." The * II. 25.'J().
 
 158 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [AD. 
 
 By the 24th, with the help of 6,000 florins advanced by Wing- 
 field, he had proceeded four hundred miles on his journey.^ 
 Arrived at Hagenau in the Nether Alsace, and the money 
 duly paid, the qualms of Maximilian began to return. He 
 was afraid after all he should be compelled to follow the 
 wishes of his council, of which " some been either blinded, 
 abused, or corrupted by the French and their adherents."^ 
 Wingfield insisted on the faithfulness of his master, as proved 
 by all his actions ; urged how he had put himself to great 
 business and huge charge and cost for the weal of Christendom, 
 the defence of the Emperor and his nephew. It might be 
 nothing more than the old, stale trick of the Emperor, to 
 practise on Wingfield's fears, and extract money more rapidly 
 from England ; or it might be one mode of preparing the 
 unsuspecting ambassador for that revelation, which could not 
 long be delayed. One incident must be told as illustrating 
 the relations and characters of the two men. On riding to 
 church, " I upon his left hand," says Wingfield,^ " being 
 approached nigh to the church door, there came a hen, being 
 right fair and diverse of colour, which peaceably did light 
 upon my bridle hand, as she had been a hawk, and there 
 remained without moving." When one of the ushers pro- 
 ceeded to remove it, the Emperor seemed to be greatly taken 
 with it ; and, says Wingfield, " he esteemed verily the same 
 to presage some good fortune, and at the least be esteemed 
 that before the end of the year the Lady of France * should 
 come unto my hand." Out of such stuff did Sir Eobert weave 
 comfort for himself. 
 
 By the 3rd of December the Emperor's doubts had thickened. 
 He did not question Henry's liberality ; yet, unless he were 
 assured of some monthly provision, he was certain his council 
 would never consent to his making this descent.^ On the 5th, 
 Sir Robert, in conjunction with Sion, agreed to pay the 
 Emperor 30,000 florins ; influenced by the assertion of 
 Fillinger, that if he went to Flanders there would be no 
 money, and he must submit to the dictation of Chievres and 
 the Chancellor.^ On the 8th, Margaret of Savoy wrote to 
 Hesdin, her ambassador in England, that he must do his best 
 to procure the 10,000 florins from Henry; — the Emperor 
 
 » II. 2589. Jien. 
 
 - II. 2fi05. ^ II. 2626 ; and compare with this 
 
 3 II. 2605. 2627. 
 
 * Gallus, a Frenchman ; Gallina, a * II. 2636.
 
 lolC.} THE EMPEROR'S DOUBLE DEALING. 159 
 
 would certainly come, and nothing more was required than 
 for the money to be lodged at Treves. " Fail not," she tells 
 him, "for God's sake, as all the good and ill of our affairs 
 turns upon it." As the King of England had already 
 advanced so much, 10,000 florins more were but a trifle. 
 Hesdin must contradict the rumour in circulation that the 
 Emperor had made terms with France. She knows the 
 contrary from his letters and those of Maraton. He is to 
 assure the King of England there is not a word of truth in 
 the scandal; the Emperor would never have thought of such 
 a thing without first consulting his brother of England. Pos- 
 sibly he shows an outward complaisance, but that is only 
 assumed to further the designs of Wolsey and Sion. But, she 
 adds with increasing earnestness, if Hesdin ever in his life 
 wished to serve her and the Emperor, he must at all hazards 
 obtain the 10,000 florins. ^ 
 
 It was a little too gross. Four days before that letter was 
 sent, the chivalrous Maximilian, the candidate for the honours 
 of saintship, and the representative of the Holy Eoman 
 Empire, had secretly taken his oath to the treaty of Noyon, 
 and resigned all claim upon Italy for 200,000 ducats;— and 
 that Margaret knew.^ There was no remedy. " I am told," 
 says Tunstal, who communicated the intelligence, "by your 
 Grace's friends, that it is taken for a surety that the lord 
 Chievres hath turned the Lady Margaret as well as the 
 Emperor, and that she, seeing the great inclination that the 
 King of Castile hath to the said lord Chievres, and thinking 
 that it cannot be removed, has yielded. For which cause 
 your Grace should show no more to her servants than as 
 much as ye cared not that the lord Chievres know " (she 
 had been imjDlicitly trusted in England under the impression 
 that she was inalienably attached to English interests) ; " for 
 whatsoever she knoweth it cometh out by one means or other. 
 And the same your friends do think it shall be meet for your 
 Grace so to use liberality to your Grace's friends, tJiat your 
 Grace keep always yourself strong enough in your coffers to u-ith- 
 stand the malice of the French king.'' ^ 
 
 The King and Wolsey were incredulous. It was impossible. 
 The news could not be true. The latter wrote to Tunstal to 
 tell him^ that Henry thought he must have been deceived, 
 and the report had been devised by Chievres and the Chan- 
 cellor to make the King mistrust the Emperor and my Lady, 
 
 ' II. 2G52. ^ II. 2G33. » II. 2640. * II. 2700.
 
 160 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 secure their own power, and counteract the practices of Henry 
 and Maximilian. Tmistal was to use every effort to discover 
 the truth. "It may he," wrote Wolsey, "that the Emperor 
 doth play on hoth hands, using the nature of a participle, 
 which taketh jMrtem a nomine et partem a verho." If either 
 the Emperor or my Lady have any honour they will not fall 
 in with France without the King's consent, having bound 
 themselves by letters under their own hands. By letters from 
 Sion, the Emperor, and the Lady Margaret, of as late date as 
 Tunstal's, the King had been assured that the Emperor would 
 keep his promise, — that he was going to the Low Countries to 
 break the amity between the Kings of Castile and France, and 
 remove Chievres and the Chancellor from office ; though 
 meanwhile, to avert their suspicions, he pretended to be in- 
 clined to peace. The King sent the 10,000 florins demanded 
 by the Emperor for that purpose; and if Tunstal could be 
 sure that the Emperor had not made peace with France, he 
 was empowered to deliver the money to my Lady, "binding 
 her by her honour not to dissemble." 
 
 The cold and cautious character of this minister, destined 
 afterwards to take a prominent part in advancing the Refor- 
 mation, much to his own regret, is discernible in this negocia- 
 tion. He was one of those whose first thoughts were more 
 trustworthy than his second. His habitual caution and 
 timidity foiled his first and better judgment. Wolsey's letter 
 threw him into great perplexity. It was left to his own 
 responsibility whether he should pay or withhold the money ; 
 and no man liked responsibility less than Tunstal. His 
 answer is a model of prudent diplomacy.^ He began by re- 
 hearsing all the points of Wolsey's instructions ;— had read them 
 over very oft, " to comprise well the king's mind by the same. 
 And after I had more fully apperceived the contents of them, 
 I was as greatly perplexed in my mind as ever I was in my 
 Kfe, considering the present state of this court,^ which is, that 
 such as do favour the King's Grace and the Emperor dare 
 not now of long time come at me, nor yet send to me, for fear 
 of falling into the displeasure of these governors, which here 
 do all, and no man dare offend them, they be so great with 
 the king of Castile their master." He proceeds to say, that 
 in order to obviate the suspicions of these ministers, he had 
 received a message from the Lady Margaret desiring him to 
 forbear all personal interviews. Therefore he had no alter- 
 
 1 jj_ 2702. " Of Brussels.
 
 1516.] TUNSTAL DEMANDS AN EXPLANATION. 161 
 
 native except to communicate with her by Eichmond herald. 
 Eichmond demanded of her, " whether this peace late made 
 betwixt the Emperor and the French king was made by the 
 consentment of the Emperor or not, and how it fortuned that 
 he, contraiy to his promise and hers made by their letters, 
 should consent to any such appointment. She said it was 
 done for to abuse those governors for the time, to the intent 
 the Emperor might more easily achieve his purpose ; but for 
 all that, she said, she had sure and late words, both from the 
 Emperor and the Cardinal of Sion, that whatsoever thing he 
 doth outwardly for abusing of these men she should not 
 regard it ; for surely he was fixed in his mind not to vary 
 from the appointment taken with the king of England and 
 her, for no offer that could be made him." In confirmation 
 of this statement she took care to show the herald letters from 
 the Emperor's court, expressing his unalterable resolution. 
 The Emperor, it is true, had put Verona into the hands of the 
 King of Castile because Charles could keep it better than he, 
 but the Emperor had no intention of abandoning it to the 
 French ; no heed must be given to such things as Tunstal 
 heard or saw, for there should soon come a physician "who 
 should heal all these sores." In such a combination of 
 treachery it was hard to decide. If Tunstal refused the money 
 he knew full well that the Emperor with his usual trickiness 
 would plead that refusal as his excuse for joining France 
 openly ; if he paid it, he had to incur the anger of his sovereign 
 for his blunder. He chose the latter alternative. But before 
 doing so he sent Eichmond to Lady Margaret to tell her that 
 " whereas at her request the king had suj^Ji^lied the Emperor 
 with money, and not failed him in his need, he trusted that 
 now she, regarding her honour and virtue, would not abuse 
 the king's most trusted friend" (Wolsey), but if she really 
 thought that the Emperor had joined the treaty of Noyon, she 
 would plainly tell him so. " It were long to write," continues 
 Tunstal, " the words which she answered again as Eichmond 
 showed me ; but the effect was, that rather than she would 
 consent to any such fraud and so distain her honour, she had 
 liever enter into some religion, never to come al)road nor to 
 look man in the face again ; that all the world if she were 
 such a one would speak dishonour of her." On this assurnnce 
 Tunstal paid the 10,000 golden florins. "What else could 
 he do? 
 
 The affair looked far from satisfactory, least of all for 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 Wolsey. He had now become the prime and almost sole 
 adviser of the King. Archbishop Warham had permanently- 
 withdrawn from the council ; Fox was seldom there ; Suffolk 
 was either in disgrace or offended ; Euthal, bishop of Durham, 
 never uttered a single word in opposition to the great Cardinal ; 
 the others were mostly men of inferior talents and birth. 
 Eightly or wrongly, Wolsey was considered as exclusively 
 responsible for the policy now pursued. He wrote to Wing- 
 field,^ " The king is marvellously perplexed and anguished to 
 understand by letters from his ambassador, Mr. Tunstal, in 
 the court of the king of Arragon, that, contrary to all such 
 promises as the Emperor hath made to the king, yet without 
 his consent and knowledge he hath taken and made a truce 
 with the French king ; not only, if it be so, to the ruin of all 
 Christendom, but also to his perpetual shame." He added 
 that the King trusted the Emperor's honom*, and hoped the 
 report was not true, " but the contrived drifts of M. de Chievres 
 to induce the king to mistrust the Emperor." Wingfield was 
 commissioned to show this letter to the Emperor, and tell him 
 that if the report were not true the king would at their meet- 
 ing pay him 20,000 florins, in addition to the 10,000 sent 
 already to Tunstal ; if otherwise," the king was not minded to 
 give him one florin, but should have cause never to trust him 
 or speak honour of him again." To this letter Sion replied '"^ 
 that the Emperor, in consequence of his necessities, had been 
 compelled to give up Verona to Charles, and the messengers 
 sent for that purpose had been seduced by the regents. Had 
 he tried to remove them abruptly it would have been worse ; 
 as it was, he should gain his end by this apparent compliance 
 with their wishes. He did not deny that Maximilian had 
 sent his mandate for accepting the treaty of Noyon, but this 
 would only give him an opportunity of visiting his nephew, 
 and explaining to him in person the ingloriousness of the 
 compact, and bringing him over to Henry's views. The King 
 need not fear the Emperor would deceive him, for he was too 
 well acquainted with the subtlety and deceitfulness of the 
 French. " There was not a drop of French blood in his veins, 
 nor a French hair in his head." He hated all Frenchmen to 
 the backbone. It is to be regretted that Wingfield did not 
 write on this occasion, but referred the king to Sion's letter ; 
 for which he incurred a reprimand, and was ordered to be 
 more attentive in future.^ 
 
 J II. 2678. ^ II. 2707. * II. 2714.
 
 1517.] WOLSEY PURSUES THE SAME COURSE. 16 
 
 o 
 
 If Sion's excuses indicate a rooted belief in the unlimited 
 credulity of Englishmen, he held that belief in common with 
 most foreigners and all members of the imperial court. He 
 had been fortified in that impression by his late munificent 
 reception here ; he had seen more wealth and abundance than 
 had ever entered the imagination of a poor mountaineer 
 Bishop and a needy follower of the penniless Maximilian. Like 
 strangers then, and since, he had drawn a hasty inference that 
 Englishmen were careless of money because they were bounti- 
 ful in spending it, and that it needed only the flimsiest pretence, 
 or the boldest asseveration, to induce them to part with it. 
 There was, as I have stated before, a sort of insular inex- 
 perience in diplomatic chicanery, traceable to our natural 
 position ; and, partly perhaps as a consequence of it, a disin- 
 clination to trickery and intrigue, which made English 
 diplomatists fair game to the wily and unscrupulous. But it 
 must be reckoned something worse than a want of ordinary 
 political sagacity if Wolsey allowed himself to be deceived by 
 these absurd and transparent excuses of Sion, Maximilian, and 
 Margaret. Affecting ostensibly to accept the Emperor's 
 excuses as genuine, he made no alteration in his measures ; 
 he continued to look forward with anxiety to the time when 
 the Emperor should descend to the Lovv Countries, and, 
 executing signal chastisement on the perfidious ministers of 
 Charles, should by a grand coup de main exonerate himself 
 from those suspicions which for the last nine months had 
 gathered round his intentions. If such a dream crossed the 
 imagination of Sir Eobert Wingfield, and buoyed up the mild 
 enthusiasm of a mind which no experience could disenchant, 
 it was no more than might have been expected. But that 
 Wolsey should be misled is as incredible as it is inconsistent 
 with the popular conception of his character. It was but the 
 venture of 40,000 crowns, of which 10,000 only had yet been 
 paid. Did he, like a bold gamester, stake his luck upon the 
 chance, knowing the whole time that the cards were against 
 him ? Or, conscious of his mistake, did he continue the same 
 line of policy, though outwitted by the Emperor, that he might 
 not seem to confess himself mistaken? Or whilst ostensibly — 
 and to every minister and ambassador — he appeared bent upon 
 carrying this point, was he in fact, secretly and unknown to all, 
 carrying out another design which no one suspected ? Which 
 of these surmises is the most correct will appear in the sc(iuel. 
 For the present he exhibited no change of conduct towards
 
 164 THE KEIGN OF HENEY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 the Emperor. He listened without impatience to the details 
 of the Emperor's advance to the Netherlands, and to Sir 
 Eobert's repeated assurances of his constancy.^ Sir Robert, 
 for one, had no doubt, in his own quaint phraseology, that the 
 Emperor adopted this course, which seemed so " apparent to 
 the enemies' purpose, to the intent he might the more surely 
 convey himself to execute the desired obviation (to meet 
 Charles) and to lead everything pertinent to the same by such 
 paths as might least appear to the enemies." He did not 
 pretend to fathom the deeps of so profound a mind as Maxi- 
 milian's ; nor did he in his humility expect so great a revela- 
 tion. For that the time had not yet come. " The Emperor 
 would conserve the same till it might come into the forge, 
 where it shall may not only take the convenient heat that may 
 proceed of personal heat and ventilation, but also take the 
 right and desired form which the good Prince hath sought a 
 long season, as who saith, through fire and water, with such 
 a perseverance as hath not been oft seen in other princes." 
 As for Maximilian himself it was a happy thing, when he had 
 received the 10,000 florins, that no French " wolf " ^ crossed 
 his path, and so gave him an opportunity of signalizing his 
 fraternal affection " for his brother and son, the King of 
 England." " I have not given any cause to suspect or mis- 
 trust me, nor will," he exclaimed in the fervour of his grati- 
 tude : "for though by means of the king my nephew^ the 
 French do esteem to have great hold on me, and that by virtue 
 of my seal, yet I doubt not but my brother doth esteem to have 
 greater hold by my solemn oath, which I will never break. 
 And, besides that, I am bound by this order which I bear ; " 
 — and he put his hand to his collar of the Garter, and with 
 the other opened his gown, and set forth his leg with the Garter, 
 and over that said : " It is not best ye tempt me any more in 
 that matter of diffidence ; for to you I have showed so largely 
 my heart and mind, both by word and deed, that further I 
 may not, but gif (unless) I would open mine heart, and cause 
 you to read what is written in it."* That, of course, was a 
 test which Sir Robert, to whom these words were addressed, 
 could not think of demanding. 
 
 So matters went on. Maximilian came down to the neigh- 
 bourhood of Brussels ; and the English agents looked forward 
 with the deepest anxiety to the time when he should appear 
 
 > January, 1517. No. 2791. "nephew," like the Latin nepos, was 
 
 - II. 2775. used for both relations. 
 
 * His ffrandson Charles. The word ^ II. 2790.
 
 1517.] DISHONESTY OF MAXIMILIAN. 165 
 
 as an avenging Jupiter among the corrupt and conscience- 
 stricken ministers of his grandson. But Maximilian was not 
 the man to do anything in haste ; besides, he had spent the 
 last 10,000 florins advanced him from England, and there 
 were yet more florins to be had, if he could make it appear 
 that he intended to keep his promise. The Bishop of Paris 
 was waiting for him at Louvain ; the English ambassadors at 
 Brussels : Charles, inconsolable for the loss of the old Queen 
 of Naples, was not to be seen.-^ So the Emperor's visit to his 
 grandson was delayed ; and still longer his vengeance on those 
 perfidious governors. The French held his bond for the 
 surrender of Yerona ; he had no interest, therefore, in 
 deceiving them ; but he might still make his market with the 
 English by continuing their delusion. We need much the 
 French version of these transactions, in order to see them in 
 their true light. It cannot be doubted that Maximilian had 
 long since ^ arranged his plans, and never really intended to 
 depose the ministers of Charles. It is more than probable 
 that he was in their pay all the time he was pretending to the 
 English court that he hated them for their perfidy. It is 
 certain that his daughter Margaret was a party to this dis- 
 simulation; that she made use of her assumed regard for 
 England to abuse the Enghsh ministers, and betray their 
 secrets to Chievres and the Chancellor, whom she seemed to 
 detest and fear. Her professions of honesty were so many 
 deliberate falsehoods calculated to serve her own interests and 
 those of her father ; the more monstrous because they were 
 always attended with such earnest professions of veracity. 
 Her interests as much as Maximihan's were secured by the 
 treaty of Noyon. 
 
 The deceit could be maintained no longer. It w\as im- 
 possible for Tunstal and the English ministers to shut their 
 eyes to the fact that Maximilian had no intention to fulfil his 
 promises ; equally impossible was it for them to continue in 
 ignorance of that which all the world knew— how Maximihan 
 had sworn to the treaty of Noyon, and was on the best possible 
 terms with Chievres and the French. Margaret had played 
 out her last manoeuvre ; the Emperor the last of his smilhig 
 speeches. As it is the last we shall hear of, it may be worth 
 while to repeat it here. When the Earl of Worcester called 
 upon him to know his intentions,'' the Emperor said to him, 
 ag both wore the Order of the Garter, '' that they were com- 
 
 ' II. 2821. « In December, 1510. ' February 3. No, 28G0.
 
 166 THE REIGN OF HENRY YHI. [A.D. 
 
 panions for that day; and, furthermore, that the Duke of 
 Brunswick, who supped with him the night before, had said 
 unto him, that because his Majesty had so late given hearing 
 to the French he seemed to feel a great savour of the same ; 
 wherefore his Majesty had put roses about his neck that 
 morning to the intent that by their sweet savour the French 
 odour might be taken away." The narrator of this small 
 witticism is Sir Eobert Wingfield, as my readers will have 
 anticipated. 
 
 The English court had been grossly deceived. It had paid 
 Maximilian's expenses to the Low Countries under the impres- 
 sion that he would put down the ministers of Charles, and 
 that money had been employed by the Emperor to defeat this 
 purpose, and promote his own interests, to the detriment of 
 his ally. "Our simple advice to your Grace is," wrote the 
 English ambassadors to Henry,^ " that shutting your purse in 
 time to come, by all good means possible to be with words 
 devised, to entertain the Emperor and my Lady (Margaret of 
 Savoy) ^ as they do your Grace. We think verily the Emperor 
 will, if he can, cast a figure to come by the 20,000 florins 
 promised at the meeting (in case he enter not further intelli- 
 gence with France), excusing the breaking of his promise by 
 one means or other." Apprehensive of Henry's anger, and 
 what rash measures he might insist upon when the deceit of 
 the Emperor should come to his hearing, Tunstal wrote very 
 earnestly to Wolsey : ^ 
 
 " Please it your Grace to understand, that at this time, for to under- 
 stand the king's matters perfectly, ye must first read the letter subscr[ibed] 
 by us all, and after the other subscribed by my lord Chamberlain and me, 
 and thirdly the king may read the letter sent at this time to his Grace 
 by me, whereunto I am sure he will make your Gr[ace] privy ; whereof 
 the eftect is that such olfer as hath been made to th[e] king to resign him 
 the empii-e cannot be performed, by reason[s] in the same contained.* 
 Here we find great dissimulation and f[air] words, but no promises to be 
 kept, if they were such as we do take th[em]. My lord Cardinal 
 Sedunensis saith he hath done his best. My Lady letteth as she took 
 our part fastly, but I am feard she dissim[uleth], and have also done 
 awhile ; her words be good to us and w[e] let as we both believed them, 
 and put all our confidence in her ; but we cannot perceive but that all in 
 deeds sings in one acco[rd]. Since I have seen the progress of our 
 affairs, and have considered t[he] tales of Don John de la Nucha, with 
 whom yet my Lady remaineth miscontent, I have thought that he was 
 driven out of the cou[ncil] chiefly by her because she thought he knew 
 too much of the Emp[eror's] dealing, which among the Spaniards he 
 kept not counsel. I wrote that the coming of the Emperor should declare 
 
 * II. 2910. pretends, for the treaty of Noyon is 
 
 2 They state in the same letter beneficial to her lands." 
 
 that Margaret was not candid: "She ^ II. 2923. 
 
 does not dislike the governors, as she * See II. 2911.
 
 1517] TUNSTAL'S ADVICE. 167 
 
 whether h[is] tale of my Lady, or my Lady['s] tale of him, were more 
 true, for each accused otlier on one point of uttering of secrets. I am 
 afraid all his tale was not untrue. My Lord, at the revere[nce] of God, 
 move the king to make good counsel at this time, and refrain his first 
 passions, in which doing ye shall do his Grace marvel[lous] great service. 
 I think verily all these fair promises were made to get monej^ of the 
 king ; wherefore best is to dissemble wisely this past, and to shut the 
 king's purse in time coming, but in any wise to entertain such amity as is 
 already betwixt the Emperor, the King our master, and also betwixt our 
 master and the king of Castile, lest in other ways doing the king should 
 remain destitute of friends ; surely I trust for all this to see the daj^ that 
 they shall be glad to seek in our master. In my mind our importune 
 seeking so much of this new amity hath made more hindrance than 
 fui-therance, and maketh them believe they may lead our master (which 
 cannot lack them as they think), as they list. . . . Wlien I call to my 
 remembrance all these matters ; — how the Emperor hath sent divers 
 ambassadors to his nephew, which for this confirmation have spoken 
 great words openly, and also outward a[ss]urance which the Emperor 
 made that he would not speak witli the F[rench] ambassadors, I have 
 thought all this was to abuse us and to g[et] our master's money, seeing 
 after his coming in person contrary effects do follow in both. . . . 
 
 " Wherefore, after such sober manner, help so to order all things at 
 this time that our master cast not utterly away these his ancient friends 
 upon this new displeasure. I tru[st] in the end the repentance shall be 
 theirs, if our master will take a little patience, whereunto I beseech your 
 Gra[ce] to help. And thus Almighty Jesus preserve your Grace to his 
 pleasure, with the accomplishment of your desires. Arm y[oui'] Grace 
 Avith patience, which here we do learn and have not shewed us to any to 
 perceive so far as we do. From Mechlin, the 13th day of February. 
 
 ' ' By your most humble headman, 
 
 " Cuthber[t] Tunstal." 
 
 This letter from Tunstal was followed by two others, 
 denouncing the Emperor's conduct in terms of natural but 
 not misplaced indignation. The first is to Wolsey from Dr. 
 "William Knight,^ an able and sagacious minister, whose 
 correspondence exhibits on this and otlier occasions a sound- 
 ness of judgment and extraordinary moderation, notwithstand- 
 ing his feelings of resentment at the trick played by the 
 Emperor. 
 
 "Pleaseth it your Grace to understand that sith the coming of the 
 Emperor into these parts, it hath appeared daily more and more evidently, 
 that such things as he hath ottered and promised in time past unto the 
 king our sovereign be but abuses and dissinuiled colours, and all to the 
 intent to bring his matters better to his piirjtose, both with France, and 
 also with these governors liere, whcjse authority appeareth greatly 
 augmented by the descent of the Emperor into these parts. For where 
 divers and esi)ecial]y Spaniards disdained greatly the governance, trusting 
 that the coming of the Emperor should a' redressed right great enormities 
 committed by them, and for this consideration neither did them honour 
 nor made suit unto them, now seeing the inclinaticm of tlie Em]ieror unto 
 corriiption, whicli for money selleth not only his honour, but in manner 
 is persuaded for tlie same to all inconveniences that France aud tlieso 
 governers will, they follow the time ; but undoubtedly they speak greivt 
 
 ' ii. 2yyo.
 
 108 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 dishonour of the Emperor. This augmentation of authority and con- 
 tinuance in the same must follow necessarily, and that with increase ; 
 for they at the king's charge, their master, doth satisfy at this time both 
 the Emperor's covetous mind, and those that be about him also ; and 
 that so largely, that all other princes' liberality sha[ll] be greatly 
 extenuate thereby. They be the cause of yielding up of Verona ; for 
 over and above that great sum that the French king giveth unto the 
 Emperor, they promised to gratify unto the Emperor also on the king's 
 behalf ; and furthermore he shall have a yearly pension of Spain. And 
 over this, these governors, as it is privily spoken, hath concluded a 
 marriage for a great sum of money between Madame Alienor, the eldest 
 daughter of this house, and the prince of Portugal ; and of the said sum 
 the Emperor shall have his part. 
 
 " Thinketh your Grace that the Emperor being always prodigal and 
 consequently continually in necessity and need, which selleth his blood 
 and honour in this manner for money, will keep any promise that either 
 he hath or shall make unto the King 1 At Villefort, where he did give 
 audience unto the French ambassadors, he said to the king at his depart- 
 ing, ' Mons filz, vous ales trumper les Fran^oiz, et moy je va trumper les 
 Angloise ; ' and immediately revoked his word and said : ' Nonne, je va 
 voire ce que je puis /aire avecque les Angloise.' Such like reasons that 
 should give right conjecture, or rather very proofs, that all the Emperor's 
 promises to the King's highness be but illusions founded upon dissimula- 
 tion, I must write, and so many, that it should be tedious for your Grace 
 to read ; and specially I write the less, because my lord Chamberlain ^ 
 writeth [a]part, and Sir Thomas Spinelly abundantly. If I had been of 
 counsel with my lord Chamberlain, in my poor mind, I should Qiave] 
 advised his lordship to have made none overture touching the governance 
 here, considered that he might see evidently that their authority increased 
 after their first communication with the Emperor, and might be right well 
 assured, that whatsoever was declared should immediately after be signified 
 to the governors ; wliich I understand was done the next day ensuing ; et 
 frustra niti et nihil jrrceter odium queer ere, etc. 
 
 ' ' Your Grace showed me that ye would break the marriage between 
 the kings of Spain and France. I think it might be easily done ; but 
 peradventiire, under your Grace's correction, it were not best that such 
 occasion should come of us ; for there is an article in the treaty of Noyon, 
 whereby the king of Spain renounceth all his title and right that he hath 
 unto the kingdom of Neapolis for ever, in case he do not perform the said 
 marriage ; and also the king bindeth him, and all his subjects, and all 
 their goods, wherever they may be taken, to be as prize lawful, in case 
 the king observe not the said article ; and though this bond be unlawful 
 and contrary to right, yet it should be [a] colour for the Frenchmen to do 
 great displeasure, and in conclusion should redound to our great slander 
 to be of so gi'eat inconvenie[nce]. And as for breaking of the marriage 
 your Grace may be assured it will not hold, for the lord Cliievres hath 
 begun to satisfy the king's pleasure, and suflered him to enter in ludum 
 Veneris, and therefore I cannot think that he will abide the time of the 
 young princess of France ; so that with little sufferance of time your Grace 
 shall see that he that was first cause of the said marriage shall be like 
 cause of breach of the same and loss of Neapolis also . 
 
 " The coming of the king through England, though he would be con- 
 tent, yet should nothing ensue but expenses of your goods in vain : for if 
 he come your Grace may think that all liis council shall be of the sect of 
 Chievres, and all the liberality that ye should use towai'ds them should be 
 lost. Treaty ye should make none that the king would confirm ; for they 
 shall say when they be once at liberty, as was said by the treaty concluded 
 at Windsor by king^ Pliilip this king's father, that if they had been at 
 
 ' The earl of Worcester.
 
 1517.] KNIGHT'S SCHEME. 169 
 
 liberty they would not a' made any like treaty ; and therefore when Icino- 
 Philip was required to confirm, he refused it. And as for meetin<i; of the 
 Emperor witli the king's Grrace, nothing can follow but importable charges, 
 both loss of time and goods, and putting in hazard the king's reputation 
 and your Grace's also ; without your Grace could study how to do the 
 king's matters profitably with the Emperor by some such means as the 
 Imperator useth, which I think would break your Grace's mind too mucli, 
 or (ere) ye should bring it to good efl:ect, considered that the Emperor 
 hath neither money nor ware for any prince to thrive by, that meddleth 
 much with him. Such money as should be wasted by the aforesaid ways 
 luay be well employed for victualling of the city of Tournay in season, or 
 for some enterprise to be made upon the Scots, or elsewhere, more necessary. 
 Et quantum ad resignacionem,^ etc., merce sunt nugce. 
 
 " I see nothing more convenient at this time to distiu'b part of these 
 governors' enterprises than (for because the duke of Alva, the duke del 
 Infantazo, the Constable of Castile, witli other the chiefs of Spain, be 
 marvellously miscontent both with the governe of the Cardinal of Toledo ^ 
 in Spain, and with these that governeth here ; and were minded to 
 assemble at Burgos, and from thence by ambassade to signify unto the 
 king that the realm of Castile was not wont to be governed in such manner 
 as it is now ; wherefore they would beseech his Grace to come into his 
 realm, for they would not be connnaunded by any other than by his 
 Highness) — than that the king should send to his ambassador, there 
 resident, that might show on his behalf unto the said lords, or secretly to 
 such as it should he thought best, what inconveniences hath ensued by the 
 misgovernment here, and what is like to follow ; and so to show that where 
 the late king, of most noble memory, did leave the kingdom of Neapolis 
 clear and free unto the crown of Castile, the governors here had made the 
 said realm bond and tributary unto France ; and not only so, but hath 
 bound their king in such case, which is marvellous hard to keep and none 
 of the noble estates of Spain would advise or counsel his grace to keep ; 
 which if he do not, that then the right and title of Neapolis by their 
 means is renounced for ever ; reciting also other articles of the treaty of 
 Noyon, which sheweth to be done by the only subjects of France and 
 not by any of the king's true subjects ; declai-ing more apertely the 
 atfection that these governors hath to France, as appeareth by giving of 
 the noble promotions, which can not stand with the weal of their master ; 
 and that the king, for the singular love that he beareth unto the king of 
 Castile, as he is naturally boimd to do, is of the opinion, that he heareth 
 say that the lords of Spain be ; that is to say, that or ever further 
 inconvenience be imagined by these governors, which by prodigtU largitiou 
 and promises of the king's goods maintain their inordinate authority, 
 impoverisliing the king, regarding neither his profit nor honor, the said 
 king be instantly desired by the noble estates to repair unto his realm of 
 Castile ; and what shall be thought good and expedient by the said lords 
 for the weal, profit, and honor, of their king and master, tlie king's 
 ambassador may promise, on the king's behalf, that he shall with his 
 piuissant aid, assist and maintain them to the best of his power. The 
 estates of Spam which be fierce of nature, and now acceiuled against these 
 men, if they find assistance and favour of some great personage, I think 
 they would follow their opinion more ol)stinately. And if by this means 
 the king miglit win the lords of Spain, as by mine opinion he shouUl, then 
 might he be assured of this Icing, and consequently enter sucli amity witli 
 Spain as he would. If this be thought good counsel by tlie king and your 
 grace, and afterwards be wisely handled, many piu'itoses sliall be altered, 
 and specially this governance, which hateth the king and yonr (J race 
 mortally ; and the Emperor shall not have so great advantage l)y hia 
 
 ' The resignation of the empire to Ileury. ' Xiuicucs.
 
 170 THE EEIGN OF HENRY YHI. [A.D. 
 
 dissimulation as he looketli for. It is said undoubtedly that these 
 governors and the Cardinal of Toledo, governor of Spain, be reconciled ; 
 therefore if there be anything to be done in Spain the rather the 
 better. . . . 
 
 " Finally, I think there is no ways more convenient than that the king 
 do call home his ambassadors, and it cannot be long or his Grace shall be 
 desired ; for this time is clean contrary to all that we desire, and that by 
 reason of corruption. The Pope is good French, and all the rest, that 
 may do anything, from Rome to Calais ; therefore Avithout that, that I 
 have mentioned before, do help, I can study for nothing. Your Grace 
 pardon me that I am so plain. I think if I were not I should both de- 
 ceive the king and your Grace also, which I shall never do during my life ; 
 beseeching your Grace to be favorable and gracious imto me. These long 
 pains, true service, and importable charges would somewhat be remem- 
 bered if your Grace would help. And thus the Holy Ghost preserve you. 
 
 " At Brussels, the 16"> day of February. 
 
 ' ' Your most bound and assured beadman, 
 
 "William Knighte." 
 
 The other ^ is from the Earl of Worcester and Dr. Tunstal, 
 and was, like the foregoing, addi-essed to the Cardinal : 
 
 " My Lord, — Please it your Grace to understand, that the 14th day of 
 this month the Emperor a[t] Brussels did swear solemnly the amity and 
 treaty of Noyon at the great church, th[ere] being present the king of 
 Castile also with many noblemen of both courts ; and this day the lord 
 Chievres and the Chancellor, as we be informed from Bruxe[lles], do go 
 to Cambray, but wherefore we know not ; but we hear say that it is to 
 con[clude] a marriage betwixt Madame d'Angouleme "^ and the Emperor, 
 with whom, as it [is] said, he shall have 500,000 crowns ; what other 
 treating they shall have we know not, peradventure for a meeting of all 
 the princes, or for going by Fra[nce] of the king of Castile, or some like 
 matter. Lewis Maraton, in whom Ave have no fantasy of fidelity to our 
 master's affairs, for all his painted words, doeth say that the Emperor will 
 come hither and treat with us of diver [s] our secret matters shortly, by 
 which time he trusteth we shall have word ou[t] of England touching our 
 letters of the 12th day of this present ; so that w[e] perceive he hearkeneth 
 all of that matter to know how our master will take th[e] entering of this 
 new amity, to look if our master would put more in the Emperor's trust, 
 which now late hath deceived him in making this peace. 
 
 ' ' What our mind is touching that matter, ye know by our letters of 
 the 12th, sen[t] to the king ; which is, that the king should never consent 
 thereto, but by good word[s] to entertain such amity as ye have already 
 with both the princes ; and as for this breaking of promises, pass it over 
 with dissimulation, and trust no m[ore] in your outward afi'airs to promises 
 of any persons, but to trust to your own self ; for here we see nothing but 
 abusion by fair words to suck money from our master, and to deceive him 
 in the end. I, the lord Chamberlain, spake to the Emperor at my first 
 coming, desiring that I might come unto him familiarly as one of his 
 servants at all time, as I reputed me to be ; but after he sent me word by 
 Lewis Maraton, that we should not come to hi[m] until he sent for us, 
 and when he would have us he would send for us ; for else his business 
 was so great he might not attend us ; which, I pray you, show the king 
 our master. 
 
 "The Cardinal Sedunensis giveth us good words, but we perceive he 
 hath no such stroke with the Emperor as ye went (weened), and whether 
 he knew long before of this peace of Noyon indeed, before he advertised 
 
 ' II. 2940. 2 Mother of Francis I.
 
 1517.] THE KING FULLY PREPARED. 171 
 
 your Grace, we know not ; but by many appearance we believe verily yea, 
 and so of iny Lady likewise. \\e perceive by the framing of all thino's 
 here that the king of Castile is not like to be at the meeting, if the Emperor 
 and the king should meet. Wherefore, touching that matter, with all 
 other, we beseech yoiu- Grace to help we may know the king's pleasure. 
 
 "In the beginning the Emperor let as he would not speak with the 
 French ambassadors, to amuse us ; but the Emperor and thej^ have met 
 at a close, and they have all their purpose, and be departed from 
 Brussels, as we understand ; whereby ye may perceive tliat all those 
 I'emonstrances which were made, that he should not speak with them, were 
 but colors to blind us withal, as the eflects manifestly do show. . . . 
 
 "Wherefore, to repeat all our mind in few words, our advice is, as we 
 wrote in our last letters more largely, that by good words entertaining 
 both the Emperor and the king of Castile in such amity as is already with 
 them made, our master should not compromise this matter to the Emperor, 
 nor to suffer neither my Lady, nor the Cardinal Sedunensis, nor no 
 stranger, to lead the bridle of his afiarrs no longer ; which if they do, it 
 will be to the Emperor's great gain, and to our master's disadvantage no 
 little. And in the end ye shall find them but delusions, as we think ; 
 howbeit we think best that our master do withdraw his foot out of these 
 matters, as [if] he perceived not so far as he doth ; and to give good words 
 for good Avords, which yet they give us, thinking our heads to be so gross 
 that we perceive not their abuses, which we dissimule to perceive, because 
 we know not how the king our master will take these matters or order us 
 in them. 
 
 " And albeit that the Emperor hath had the king's money to pay his 
 costs to come down to swear this peace of Noyon indeed, and no such 
 effects do follow as the king looked for at his coming, yet we tlunk it well 
 spent, both because our master hath kept all promises to his honour, 
 and also because this small expense and charge shall avoid a greater, 
 which the Emperor was about, as it seemeth, to bring him unto. And 
 thus Almighty Jesus preserve your Grace to his pleasure. 
 
 "From Mechlin, the 18th day of February. 
 
 " Yours assured to our powers, 
 
 " C. WOECESTER. 
 
 " CUTHBERT TUNSTAL." 
 
 But the King liacl long been prepared for these revelations. 
 Already on the 12th of February, even Wingfield, never inclined 
 to despair, had written to Wolsey that the secret negociations 
 against Charles's ministers, and a stricter alliance with Eng- 
 land, could never take effect ;^ and two days before, Giustinian 
 in his amusing despatches thus describes his interview with 
 Henry, on going to announce to him the surrender of Verona 
 to the Venetians : ^ " Though I could not go to Greenwich by 
 water, owing to the very thick ice, the journey by land like- 
 wise being difficult on account of the frozen and dangerous 
 roads, I however rode thither ; and after I heard mass with 
 the King, I acquainted him with the news in such language as 
 I deemed apt, adding many expressions calculated to produce 
 a favourable impression. His Majesty thanked me, and 
 remained in the greatest astonishment, repeating several 
 
 1 II. 2U12. * H. 289G.
 
 172 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY YIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 times, * How cau that be ? '—as by advices be bad received it 
 was impossible. On being assured the intelligence was true 
 lie seemed to believe it, and said, ' Verily the Emperor has 
 been deceived by the king of France, and I know how.' " 
 The next day Giustinian communicated the same news to 
 Wolsey ; and, if he is to be believed, the Cardinal " was sur- 
 prised and astonished to the utmost. To make sure of the 
 fact, he demanded to see the letters ; and was very cold in his 
 congratulations to Giustiuian's secretary on an event so 
 fortunate to Venice.^ Sebastian exults at the thought that 
 the news was received with the greatest possible vexation. 
 Unfortunately for Giustiuian's discernment as a negociator, 
 the King and Wolsey had long since forestalled his intelligence. 
 As early as the 4th of February, Cardinal Sion wrote to say, 
 " On the 8th, Verona belonged to the Emperor ; on the 9th, to 
 the King Catholic ; on the 15th, to the French ; on the 17th, 
 to the Venetians." ^ 
 
 The news took neither the King nor his minister by sur- 
 prise. They had been fully prepared for it. But not a word 
 of reproach escaped from the lips of either. In his reply to 
 the letters of Tunstal, Worcester, and his other ambassadors, 
 the King states, in the calmest manner, that although he had 
 in the first instance written to them to express very sharply 
 his dissatisfaction with the Emperor's conduct, yet, as Sion 
 had assured Wolsey that the Emperor, notwithstanding all 
 appearances, would perform all his promises, the King would 
 refrain and wait.^ They were commissioned to tell Maximilian, 
 that though the King was somewhat pensive at the deliverance 
 of Verona and the Emperor's acceptance of the treaty of 
 Noyon, yet, considering his wisdom, the King was willing to 
 think all was done for the best. At the same time he let 
 them know that he was not deceived " by the Emperor's 
 brittleness and sudden mutations," or that levity and incon- 
 stancy which made him seek " other occasions upon light 
 displeasures to color his unconstant dealings, and so cause- 
 less depart from a friend." However, it was better " to 
 
 * I do not wish to impeach Gius- 
 tinian's veracity, though I have no 
 great opinion of his political sagacity. 
 It seems never to have occurred to 
 him how improbable it was that the 
 King should have kept such important 
 tidings from the Cardinal for a day 
 and night, especially as the two were 
 at no greater distance from each other 
 
 than Greenwich and London. But, as 
 I have said, the delivery of Verona was 
 known to Wolsey and the King long 
 hefore it was known to Giustinian. It 
 was part of the policy of both to affect 
 the utmost surprise that the Emperor 
 could have been guilty of falsehood. 
 
 2 II. 2869. See also 2862, 2863. 
 
 » II. 2958.
 
 1517.] THE DECEIVERS OUTWITTED. 173 
 
 dissemble for a season until they should see the end." They 
 were to continue their negociations on the same footing and 
 for the same pur^Doses as if nothing had happened. 
 
 The policy was sound and ingenious ; it was calculated to 
 take the deceivers in their own craftiness, better than the 
 loudest denunciations of deceit. Some men are eventually 
 victorious because they never know when they are beaten ; 
 the retaliation of others on their deceivers is tenfold more 
 ample and more terrible, because, till their opportunity has 
 come, they never betray by word, look, or gesture, any con- 
 sciousness of the injury received. By the expenditure of 
 10,000 florins, an inconsiderable sum, Wolsey had tested the 
 full value of all Maximilian's promises ; by betraying no dis- 
 trust he fathomed all his designs. By pretending to believe 
 his professions of attachments, after all that had taken place, 
 he gave others the strongest reason for supposing that that 
 attachment was not without foundation ; and thus was Maxi- 
 mihan brought under the suspicions of his new friends. 
 Aware of the Emperor's inconstancy, no less than Wolsey 
 himself; quite as convinced as he that Maximilian's friend- 
 ship was more costly than his enmity ; Francis knew that 
 when the money, the price of his acquiescence in the treaty 
 of Noyon, was spent, more must be provided, or, as Henry 
 said, Francis must expect that Maximilian would abandon 
 him on the most frivolous pretext and take part with his 
 enemies. Suspected by France, not trusted by England, 
 despised by Charles and his ministers for his vacillation and 
 deceit, Maximilian had totally disqualified himself by this 
 last act from taking any further part in European politics. 
 From this time he sank into insignificance. 
 
 As for Charles and his ministers, the treaty of Noyon and 
 the perfidy of Maximilian had exempted them from all dread 
 of foreign interference. If Charles really believed, as he was 
 taught, that the Emperor wished to bring him under tutelage 
 and make a child of him again, that belief had now vanished ; 
 and with it any feeling of coldness and displeasure he might 
 have conceived against England for supporting Maximilian. 
 Chievres and the Chancellor no longer dreaded the loss of 
 their influence, or the predominance of English or Imperial 
 interests. As they had nothing to dread from England they 
 were inclined to conciliation. Perhaps Chievres was not 
 altogether insincere when ho remarked to Lady Margaret, 
 after this denouement, " that he hoped in six months to bo as
 
 174 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 high in Henry's favour as those who reckoned themselves the 
 best EngHsh." ^ Perhaps, too, he was not sorry to have an 
 opportunity of showing Henry, at the cost of Maximilian, the 
 mistake he had made in preferring the Emperor's friendship 
 to theirs ; and in supposing that he could gain, by the 
 Emperor's influence over Charles, advantages which his 
 ministers were determined to refuse. For, as might be ex- 
 pected, notwithstanding Maximilian's and Margaret's ostenta- 
 tion of mystery, Chievres and the Chancellor had been perfectly 
 well acquainted with all that had been passing. They knew 
 the meaning of Maximilian's vapouring ; the promises he had 
 made to take the King of Castile into his own keeping, and to 
 punish his ministers ; the sums he had extorted from England 
 under these pretences. The Emperor soon became a burthen 
 to his new friends. "The Emperor," writes Spinelly,^ "is 
 again without money ; and if he tarry here (at Brussels) the 
 Lady Margaret will have to provide it for him," — a hopeless 
 effort. " The Vice-chancellor of Arragon tells me that Chievres 
 will be glad of the amity of England, but dares not let it be 
 known or give any cause of suspicion to the French until the 
 king reaches Spain." 
 
 In fact the journey of Charles into Spain was now the 
 great question which occupied his exclusive attention. A year 
 and three months had elapsed, and as yet he had made no 
 preparation for taking possession of the kingdom left him by 
 Ferdinand. Urgent entreaties came from day to day, and 
 hints of disaffection which, if not speedily suppressed by his 
 presence, might prove fatal to his rights. This part of his 
 life, and especially his treatment of the celebrated Ximenes, 
 is little known, and from want of authentic materials has been 
 treated very meagrely by modern historians. I hasten, there- 
 fore, to point out briefly what help may be obtained from State 
 papers for a clearer insight into this portion of modern history. 
 Our only agent in the Spanish court at the time was John 
 Stile, wiiose letters are not the least interesting of those which 
 I have noticed in a previous chapter. A man of no great 
 genius or political insight, he never indulged in theories or 
 guesses; — he contented himself with narrating what he saw, 
 and sometimes what he heard talked about, in an unaffected, 
 artless style, which makes his description of passing events 
 invaluable, especially when compared with the ambitious and 
 glowing narratives of the Spanish chroniclers. Stile was at 
 
 ' II. 2992. March 6, 1517. "^ March 30 : 3076.
 
 1517.] NEED OF CHARLES' PRESENCE IN SPAIN. 175 
 
 Madrid when Ferdinand died,^ and, as in duty bound, sent 
 immediate notice of the event to his royal master. His first 
 letter has been lost, but the contents are briefly recapitulated 
 in the second, dated the 1st of March.'^ He states that Ferdinand 
 died in the "village of Madrygalegeo," on his way to Seville, 
 eight leagues from Our Lady of Guadalupe. " Few estates or 
 men of honor were present at the decease of the king, your 
 said father. The queen, his wife,^ was there, and was the day 
 before come from the parts of Arragon. The king, jonr said 
 father, wilfully shortened the days of his life, always in fair 
 weather or foul labouring in hawking and hunting, following 
 more the counsel of his falconers than of his physicians." 
 Stile then proceeds to detail the chief provisions in the late 
 King's will : — the sums left to his Queen and his nephews ; 
 the number and names of his executors ; the sale of his 
 jewels; "that no man should wear for him sackcloth nor 
 long beard," etc. He then continues : " It is to be marvelled, 
 and it please your Grace, that the late king, your father, of 
 Arragon, had no manner of treasure ; and after that he was 
 deceased there would never a nobleman, spiritual nor temporal, 
 go with the corpse to Granada, except the marquis of Denya. 
 Nor here hath been no great obsequies done for the said king, 
 nor mourning made ; never less seen for any prince. For 
 those that he most loved and trusted first repaired to the 
 Prince's ambassador with flatterings.* And the queen of 
 Arragon (Germaine) returned to Our Lady of Guadalupe, and 
 it please your Grace, on the last day of January." The 
 Cardhial of Toledo (Ximenes) and the Dean of Louvaine had 
 the exclusive management : " notwithstanding, and it please 
 your Grace, there is little love or stedfastness among the 
 states of these parts one with another, yet they dare not 
 move in word or deed against their prince or his deputies of 
 Andalusia ; " where, as Stile says, dissension had already 
 begun to show itself between the Duke of Medina Sidonia 
 and Don Pedro Jeron. He then tells an anecdote of the poor, 
 incapable Johanna, which is, I believe, unknown.^ "Also, 
 
 ' The news of Ferdinand's death with a cruel melancholike humour, so 
 
 was concoalod from Katharine, then as she led a most lamentable life in 
 
 in labour with the princess Mary. the Castle of Tordesillas, wi.eiein Kin^ 
 
 - II. IfilO. Fertlinand, her father, had lodged 
 
 3 Germaine de Foix, his second her, a pleasant and eonunodious place, 
 
 ^jfg Lewis Terrier, of Valencia, had charge 
 
 *' The Dean of Louvain, afterwards of her, bein<? also captain of the castlo 
 
 Adrian VI. of Tordesillas; but he was unfit for 
 
 "This princess was possessed such a business; for whether by hia
 
 176 THE EEIGN OF HEKEY VIII. [A.D, 
 
 and it please your Grace, tlie queen of Castile is as yet as 
 that she was in the life of the late King her father ; and, as 
 reason is, her subjects would be glad that she was amended 
 of her disease. And for that intent, upon a three or four days 
 passed, hither is come certain persons to the Cardinal and to 
 the Lords and Council from the town of Tordesillas, where 
 the said queen is ; and these said persons have brought testi- 
 monials and writings that there be certain persons, priests, 
 physicians, and other, amongst the which one is the Doctor 
 Soto, the said queen's physician, the which he and the other 
 priests, with clergy and physic, upon pain of their lives, having 
 licence, will undertake for to remedy the queen of her disease 
 within the space of three months, saying that she is cumbered 
 with sprites by witchcraft," 
 
 By his next letter,^ dated the 3rd of April, we learn that 
 Charles had sent a message toXimenes and the council in Spain, 
 desiring them to have him proclaimed King, as he had been 
 in Flanders ; a request to which they declined to accede whilst 
 Johanna was ahve, unless Charles was there in person. The 
 proclamation in Flanders, made without the assent of the 
 states of Castile, had produced great irritation. So Stile adds, 
 that in case Charles come not hither in the summer, " many 
 inconveniences and troubles will arise, for the treasurers say 
 they have no money belonging to the crown. The Cardinal 
 (Ximenes) is rich, having above 400,000 ducats in treasure, 
 and is a covetous Grey Friar, and will not depart with any 
 part of his said treasure, for the defence and weal of this 
 land, without good surety of the Prince." Such was Stile's 
 estimate of the great Cardinal. 
 
 Charles was in great straits, and his difficulties were 
 increased by the jealousy and suspicion of his ministers. 
 
 slowness growing by reason of his age, vants prevail anything with Jier. She 
 
 or through ignorance, he conld never often complained that she was kept 
 
 get her to lodge in any pleasant and like a prisoner, and that they withheld 
 
 well-aired chamber of the castle ; but her from the government of affairs, 
 
 she would always lurk in dark and like a private person." — " Mayeme's 
 
 obscure places near the ground, fit to Hist, of Spain," by Grimeston, p. 935. 
 entertain and augment her melancho- Among otlier fancies, she had a 
 
 like humour. She did abhor soft and humour " to make them leave the 
 
 delicate beds, and would lie upon the dishes full of meat in her chamber, 
 
 ground ; and if she did lay herself upon not suffering them to carry any one 
 
 a board covered with a carpet, it was away; so as the meat corruptino- made 
 
 by great importunity. It was not a stinking savor." 
 possible to make her wear a furred » II. 1732. Many of Stile's letters 
 
 gown in winter, nor anything that have been unfortunately lost; and 
 
 was rich. She was often three days even if they found their way into 
 
 together without eating ; neither could foreign libraries, being written in 
 
 the prayers nor persuasions of herser- cipher, they would be as good as lost.
 
 1518.] OPPOSITION TO CHARLES IN SPAIN. 177 
 
 They were doubtful of their reception in Spain ; doubtful also 
 if tliej' should be able to retain their authority with such a 
 rival as Ximenes, and such nobles as the Duke of Alva and 
 the Constable of Castile. Maximilian still lingered in the Low 
 Countries, much to their annoyance, and Margaret was not to 
 be trusted. On the other hand, every successive post brought 
 news of the disputes between Ximenes and other members of 
 the council. "The king," writes Spinelly, "must go this 
 summer, or his realm will be in great peril ; for since the 
 Constable of Castile has resisted the Cardinal, many lords 
 and towns have followed his example, and their number 
 increases." ^ The health of Ximenes himself was giving way. 
 In the autumn of 1516 he was reported to be dying ; the same 
 report was repeated in the spring of the next year.^ Evidently 
 he was the only person on whom Charles could thoroughly 
 rely. In fact, but for the ability and loyalty of Ximenes, 
 Charles would never have enjoyed the kingdom of Spain. The 
 coldness and ingratitude he displayed to this minister are well 
 known, and need not be described here ; but, dark as that in- 
 gratitude is known to be, history has yet failed to record its full 
 enormity. It is more than probable that Charles would have 
 lingered out another year in his Flemish dominions, but fol- the 
 discovery of a plot hinted at in these pages, and fully confirmed 
 by his own correspondence. Whether Francis, his ally, was 
 concerned in the plot, cannot be determined at present. We 
 must wait for fuller explanations from the French archives. 
 
 It is weU known that the inclinations of Ferdinand, his 
 grandfather, had been fixed on his other grandson Don 
 Ferdinand, who had been constantly brought up at the 
 Spanish court, nor was it until the last moment that the old 
 King could be persuaded to alter the disposal of his kingdom 
 in favour of the elder brother. The hatred of the Spaniards 
 for Charles's Flemish favourites, the delay he made in visiting 
 Spain, the coldness with which he treated the Spaniards who 
 visited him, turned the affections of more than one powerful 
 nobleman and prelate towards his brother. As early as the 
 2nd of April, 1516, Spinelly mentions^ that the captain of 
 Perpignan had intercepted a letter, in French, from the Arch- 
 bishop of Aries " to the Infant of Fortune," offering the assist- 
 ance of France to procure for him the crown. The rumour 
 was repeated next year^ by the Cardinal of Sion, who told 
 Tunstal and others that trouble was likely to arise, from the 
 
 > April 11, 1517. ^ II. 3300. ' II.1S31. ' AprU VJ, lol7 : ■nVA. 
 \0h. I. -N
 
 178 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [AD, 
 
 Spaniards refusing to obey the council of Flanders, and the 
 Flemings that of Spain ; and he added that if Charles did not 
 go shortly to Spain, his brother would be crowned in his 
 stead. The rumour grew stronger as time advanced. Yet it 
 might have been set down for an idle tale, or as one of the 
 numerous fictions invented to suit a political purj)ose, had 
 we not the King's own letter, dated from Middleburgh, 7th of 
 September,^ the day before he started, addressed to Ximenes, 
 and detailing the whole conspiracy. In that letter he tells 
 Ximenes how he had heard that certain treasonable proposals 
 had been made to the Infant Ferdinand, and that he had been 
 urged to declare himself governor of Castile in the name of 
 his mother. To anticipate the danger, Gonsalvo de Guzman 
 had been commanded to avoid the court. Ximenes is directed 
 to seek a private interview with Ferdinand. He is to make 
 kno^Ti to the Prince, in the softest and most insinuating 
 manner, his brother's resolution of removing the officers of 
 his household, and substituting others in their place. A 
 minister in the interest of Charles was to sleep in Ferdinand's 
 chamber, in order that when the j)rince is awake he may have 
 some one to talk to. Ximenes is further to assure the prince 
 that these measures have been ordered by Charles solely out 
 of regard to his brother's interest ; that the sole motive he 
 now has in visiting Castile is to provide for the comfort of 
 Ferdinand, for whom he is ready to sacrifice life itself. The 
 King added that the unfavourable reports about Chievres and 
 the Chancellor were wholly untrue. No two lords could be 
 more devoted to him. He was now with the fleet, ready to 
 sail on the morrow. The Cardinal was further instructed 
 to employ every species of argument to induce Ferdinand to 
 take these arrangements in good part. He was to send the 
 Comendador and the Bishop of Astorga, with whom Charles 
 was greatly displeased, out of the way, to banish them from 
 the court, without permitting them to take leave of Ferdinand. 
 Should it so happen that in fulfilling these injunctions Ximenes 
 encountered opposition, he was ordered to employ force. These 
 instructions were to be carried out to the letter, and kept pro- 
 foundly secret. 
 
 It is not known what reply Ximenes made to this com- 
 munication. We infer from the answer of Charles that it 
 was perfectly satisfactory.^ Never profuse in his gratitude, 
 he thanked the Cardinal in the warmest terms for the ability 
 
 ' In Cranvella. " Sept. 27. Grauvele.
 
 1517.] HENRY AIDS CHAELES. 179 
 
 he had shown in fulfilling his injunctions, and regretted to 
 hear of his ill health. How he repaid him when he arrived in 
 Spain is well known ; perhaps Maximilian was not far from 
 the truth when he exclaimed, in the bitterness of his heart, 
 that his grandson Charles " was as cold and immovable as 
 an idol " (statue). 
 
 But important as was this voyage into Spain — more im- 
 portant than even those who urged it most were aware of — it 
 could not be accomplished without the aid of England ; and 
 to counteract the policy of England, to ply Maximilian with 
 every inducement to betray it, had employed the industry of 
 Charles and his ministers for the last two years and a half. 
 On the side of Friesland, the Duke of Gueldres, his irreconcil- 
 able enemy, backed by the influence, i^robably by the money, 
 of France,^ was making continual inroads. " Aspre has been 
 taken," Tunstal writes,^ " and the inhabitants cruelly slain. 
 The town of the Hay (Hague), because it is open, is left desolate, 
 and the people fled for fear. This business delays the King's 
 preparations." In terms still more precise, Charles wrote to 
 his ambassadors in England,^ that it was not possible for him 
 to provide against the disturbances caused by the Duke of 
 Gueldres, without assistance from Henry. No other course 
 then remained, except to court the favour of England as 
 eagerly as he had formerly rejected it. The conduct of 
 Chievres and the Chancellor became as conciliating as 
 formerly it had been cold and insolent.^ The praises lavished 
 by Chievres on the Cardinal knew no bounds : — without his 
 aid the cordiality between Charles and Henry could never 
 have been established ; his master knows right well that the 
 chief security of his dominions is in the good will of England. 
 And the English court deserved these expressions of gratitude. 
 In his utmost need, when Charles could scarcely keep Flanders, 
 much less take possession of Spain, Henry had advanced liim 
 100,000 florins. He wished that Charles should visit England 
 on his way — a request afterwards abandoned on the plea of 
 the King's infirmity. Spinelly, now taken into confidence, 
 WTote to say there was no hoi)e " that the Catholico at his 
 going into Spain should pass by England with a small com- 
 pany, sending his army to Falmouth; for many the which 
 know his feeble complexion doth continually persuade the 
 same " (urge that plea). The sweating sickness, then raging 
 
 ' II. 3108, 3300, 3536. Francis, ^ July G. Moiiiiini'uhi llubsbur- 
 
 howovor, denied it (3508J. gica, Abtln^il II. JJd. 1. 1(5. 
 
 2 July 13, 1517. * II. 3337.
 
 180 THE EEIGN OF HENKY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 in England, would have furnished a valid excuse, had the 
 feebleness of Charles's complexion been a mere fiction.^ One 
 other condition was insisted on : that in repaying the loan he 
 should also repay 35,000 crowns expended during his minority 
 by England for the reduction of Gueldres and Venloo. This 
 condition he would have avoided like the former,^ but his 
 necessities were too urgent. " If Henry will not consent," he 
 writes to his ambassadors, " to lend the 100,000 florins, with- 
 out including the 35,000 gold crowns in the arrangement, you 
 are to agree to it, but not readily." The sum must be had 
 under any circumstances, for delay jeopardized his chances in 
 Spain, and Gueldres continued his ravages. 
 
 The court of England was not inclined to remember old 
 grudges, or seize an ungenerous advantage. His ambassadors 
 were magnificently received ; " partly," says Sebastian, not 
 very well pleased at the turn affairs were now taking, " to 
 cajole the Catholic King, partly because one of the ambassa- 
 dors, a youth of about 20 years old and extremely handsome, 
 is of a most illustrious family descended from three Emperors.^ 
 His father is governor of Flanders, his father-in-law is De 
 Chievres. He is, moreover, the boon companion of the 
 Catholic king, sharing all liis secrets as familiarly as if he were 
 his brother." Nothing could exceed the sumptuousness of 
 their entertainment^ or that of the jousts which followed. The 
 jousts ended, preparations were made for a banquet. At the 
 head of the hall sate his Majesty, with the Queen on his right, 
 and next her the Cardinal, and Mary late Queen of France on 
 his left. The feast was regal, the display of gold and silver 
 plate enormous. The banquet over, the King and his guests 
 repaired to another hall, where the Queen's ladies were, and 
 dancing went on for two hours : " the King," says the narrator, 
 doing marvellous things both in dancing and jumping, 
 proving himself, as he in truth is, indefatigable." The French 
 ambassadors were not present. Their conduct seemed 
 mysterious to Sebastian, and well it might. Nor were his 
 doubts at all better satisfied when he told them it was reported 
 they were negociating a league with England. They smiled, 
 
 * Charles had "greedy eyes" {avari contemporaries. These qualities have 
 
 ocelli), says the Venetian envoy, — made him unconsciously attractive to 
 
 was a gross feeder, and subject to modem historians, 
 
 dyspepsia. Hence ill-health and his ^ II. 3142. 
 
 fluctuation of spirits, enhanced by ^ rpj^g sieur d'Aussy. 
 
 hereditary melancholy. Allied also * See Nos. 3455, 3462 ; and for the 
 
 to this physical and psychological un- plan and arrangement of the banquet 
 
 soundness there was a tinge of senti- the curious paper, 3446. 
 mentalism in Charles not found in his
 
 1517.] CHAELES' VOYAGE TO SPAIN. 181 
 
 and said nothing. Eeally this reserve of one's friends is very 
 strange, thought Sebastian ; and so it was. 
 
 But for the present one thing only was talked of; and that 
 was the journey into Spain, and when it should take place. 
 July was beginning to wane, and the King's preparations 
 seemed scarcely more advanced than they were a year ago. 
 From the 5th of June to the 7th of September he loitered 
 at Middleburg. On the 27th of August, Tunstal, who was 
 with him, wrote to Wolsey ^ to say that he did not think the 
 King would leave as the moon was waning ; though Charles 
 asserted he would go, even if it were winter. On the 7th of 
 September, " he was shriven once again, for he was houselled 
 at the last opposition of the moon," ^ started the same evening 
 for Flushing, and set sail the next morning. The weather 
 was fau", but the voj^age not without accidents. Off the coast 
 of Winchelsea a ship containing the King's horses was burnt 
 to the water's edge, and all hands perished. A strong wind 
 from the S.E. drove the ships into Plymouth roads ;^ not many 
 hours after they were becalmed. On the 19th they found 
 themselves off the coast of Asturias, by the mismanagement 
 of the pilot. Charles and his sister Eleanor, for whom the 
 greatest apprehension was felt, endured the distresses and 
 fatigues of the voyage with greater magnanimity than practised 
 sailors. At four o'clock in the afternoon Charles landed at 
 a rocky and desolate spot, some miles distant from Villa 
 Viciosa, and was compelled to proceed with his sister and 
 aU his company on foot toward the nearest village, without 
 refreshment or change of apparel. No preparations had 
 been made for their landing. They were in a poor country, 
 without horses or other necessaries.'^ The village did not 
 contain, says Spinelly, more than forty houses ; — such houses 
 as may at this time be seen in Spanish villages, utterly 
 destitute of the comforts and even ordinary necessaries 
 of life. To increase their misfortunes, the wind changed 
 suddenly to the N.N.W., drove the fleet to St. Ander, and with 
 it all their bedding, clothes, and furniture. For the first time, 
 adds Spinelly, Lord Chievres, and others of the noblemen 
 attending on the King, had nothing more than trusses of straw 
 or the bare earth to sleep on. But the loss of their horses was 
 a greater inconvenience than sleeping in the open air. No 
 carriages, no means of travelling were to be had ; not even the 
 ordinary bullock waggon, the horror of Spanish travellers ; 
 
 » II. 3C41. * II. 3666. * II. 3692. * II. 3705.
 
 182 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 " for," says Spinelly, " in that mountainous country the 
 principals go afoot," and the prevalence of sickness in the 
 chief towns had cut off all intercourse on pain of death. The 
 shortness of provisions compelled the King to set forward on 
 the third day. By this time they had mustered about forty 
 horses and a few bullock waggons, the company consisting of 
 200 persons. Charles mounted a hobby lent him by Spinelly ; 
 the ladies were packed in the waggons ; the cavaliers, by twos 
 and threes en Groiqncr on pack-horses ; the majority trudged 
 on foot. And in this shabby array, after four days' hard 
 travelling, the King arrived at St. Vincent, 60 miles distant 
 from Villa Viciosa. They who know what travelling is in the 
 north of Spain with the ordinary fare and conveyance of the 
 country, will readily apprehend the fatigue of such a journey, 
 especially to ladies accustomed all their lives to the luxuries 
 of a court, and whose excursions from Brussels had never 
 extended further than Mechlin or Ghent. "Nevertheless," 
 says Spinelly, who accompanied the cavalcade on foot, " con- 
 sidering the surety and sweetness of the land, every one 
 suffered it joyously in patience." If anything could render 
 such a mode of travelling pleasant, it was the remembrance 
 of the alternate becalming and hurricane of a late autumnal 
 voyage in the Bay of Biscay. 
 
 To the royal party, compelled thus unexpectedly to rough 
 it, and accustomed only to the rich manufacturing towns of 
 the Low Countries, everything seemed as strange, wild, and 
 entertaining as it does to the modern traveller. The peculiari- 
 ties which struck Spinelly have remained unaltered after the 
 lapse of three centuries. " The country," he says, " is very 
 mountainous, and abounds in chestones (chesnuts), on which 
 most of the inhabitants live instead of corn. They have also 
 a kind of oats to make bread of for the nobles and gentlemen, 
 though that the worst of them reckon to be the best born ; 
 and marvellously they be grounded upon the nobleness of 
 blood, seeing that they have been those that have conquered 
 Castile out of the hands of the Infidels ; having, by reason of 
 such opinion, proudness enough in comparison of their goods 
 and riches. Their arrayments be small jackets of coarse light 
 cloth, with bare legs and feet ; and commonly they wear long 
 beards and hair, being well made persons and wonderly light 
 (lissome) ; and, as far as I may conject upon good informa- 
 tion, they may be compared unto Irishmen." A comparison 
 evidently referring to the Basques ; the exactness of which no 
 one who knows the two peoj)le will venture to dispute.
 
 1517.] CHAELES' ARRIVAL IN SPAIN. 183 
 
 The King was well receired. If during the voyage he still 
 entertained any fears of his brother Ferdinand, they were 
 allayed by the rumours which met him at his landing. 
 Ximenes had removed the Comendador of Calatrava and the 
 Bishop of Astorga, and given the charge of Don Ferdinand to 
 the Marquis of Aguilar ; " with the king's consent," said the 
 rumour, " because they had endeavoured to make Don 
 Ferdinand king of Arragon against reason and the will of the 
 Catholic king deceased." ^ It was no concern of Charles to 
 set that rumour right. 
 
 Letters from Spain came very irregularly; and we lose 
 much of Spinelly's gossiping and amusing correspondence at 
 the time when it would have been most interesting and 
 important. Consequently, of the subsequent movements of 
 Charles, and the death of Ximenes, nothing is told us. On 
 the 31st of October Charles was at Bezzarryll^ with Chievres 
 and the Chancellor. These powerful favourites are accused of 
 keeping their master away from the great minister, and 
 poisoning his ear against Ximenes. On the 8th of November 
 the Cardinal died ; and the popular tradition of Charles's 
 ingratitude receives full confirmation by his treatment of the 
 Cardinal's memory. Stile writes on the 11th of February, to say 
 that the King had appropriated to his own use the money left 
 by Ximenes in legacies to his servants and charitable bequests, 
 to the amount of 212,000 ducats of gold, alleging that he had 
 done more damage in casting down the walls of Navarre than 
 all his wealth amounted to ! The Flemish ministers were still 
 supreme ; no Spaniard had a voice in the council, with the 
 exception of the bishop of Badajoz and Don Garcia de Padilla.^ 
 The archbishopric, estimated at 100,000 ducats per annum, 
 was given to Chievres' nephew. Cardinal de Croy, fettered, 
 however, with certain pensions.^ 
 
 And here we leave Charles for a time. Charles in Spain, 
 Maximilian liors de combat, the two ancient rivals remained 
 face to face — England and France ; France crippled in its 
 finances by the war in Italy and by the large sums advanced 
 to different statesmen in the courts of Europe ; England, 
 under the administration of Wolsey, husbanding its resources, 
 and less prodigal in its expenditure from year to year. 
 
 ■ II. p. 1169. and many Spaniards were glad tliercof, 
 
 * II. 37fJ4. ^ II. 3937. thinking ho sliould follow the .yonng 
 
 * II. 387'i, " Thorc was a lumonr," council (the Spanish party), ilowboil, 
 says Spinelly, " that the king was they have been deceived ; for his 
 amorous of a goodly gentlewoman of amours be succeeded very cold." 
 
 the queen of Arragou's (Johanna) j
 
 184 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 CHAPTEE VI. 
 
 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 
 
 Hitherto it had been Wolse3''s ostensible policy to raise up 
 some counteracting influence to the overgrown power of 
 France. Whether he ever contemplated an invasion of that 
 country by Henry in person, may, I think, be very reasonably 
 doubted. At least I find no serious preparations for such an 
 event. It was his object rather to subsidize the continental 
 powers, to keep Francis well employed in Italy, by advancing 
 money to Maximilian and the Swiss, and by supporting the 
 imperial claims. If Charles could not be induced to league 
 with England, any aid he might lend to France was to be 
 neutralized, at least for a time. With a league consisting of 
 the Pope, Ferdinand, England, the Emperor, and the Swiss, 
 Wolsey might reasonably expect that the efforts of Francis 
 towards aggrandizement in Em-ope would be effectually re- 
 jDressed. But Ferdinand, never hearty in any scheme that 
 did not promote his own immediate interests, lent no assist- 
 ance. Of Maximilian enough has been said ah-eady. Leo X., 
 fearing and hating the Emperor and Francis alike, and rightly 
 jealous of the proximity and influence of both, oscillated 
 dubiously between the two, alternately flattering and betray- 
 ing both.^ So far from the policy of Wolsey meeting with the 
 success he had anticipated, or replacing England in the 
 position it held at the death of Lewis XII., no other effect had 
 been gained, at the close of the year 1516 and the treaty of 
 Noyon, than that of tying all the great powers to the chariot 
 wheels of France, and rendering her the sovereign and dictator 
 of Europe. The result was mortifying enough to the vanity 
 of Henry VIII., who watched with any other feeling than that 
 of complacency the progress of his brilliant and successful 
 rival. 
 
 If the language of the Venetian ambassador may be trusted, 
 
 * Of his meeting with Francis at descriptions hj eye-witnesses in II. 
 Bologna, see two very interesting 1281, 1284.
 
 1517.] UXCERTAIX RUMORS. 185 
 
 France was the great object of hatred and suspicion, and 
 "Wolsey vras only biding his time to wreak vengeance upon it 
 for its repeated perfidies. What these perfidies were no one 
 exactly knew, though every English minister, Pace, Wingfield, 
 Spinelly, and even Tunstal fully believed them. Eumours, 
 indeed, had been in circulation as early as January, 1517,^ 
 that a better understanding existed between the two courts 
 than warranted this belief. Francis, with the exception of his 
 expedition into Italy, had studiously avoided giving any 
 offence to England. His conduct, with one exception, had 
 been uniformly conciliator3\ He was fully aware of the efforts 
 secretly made by Henry, and his virtual transgression of the 
 alliance existing between them. But he gave vent to no 
 expressions of anger or resentment. Even the help he is 
 supposed to have afforded Albany was exaggerated ; and this 
 help was granted in conformity with the treaties existing 
 between France and Scotland ; had been openly avowed to the 
 English ambassadors from the first ; was ex]3ressly understood, 
 and therefore could constitute no just cause of complaint- 
 But whilst he and his agents wrote from time to time, that 
 France was desirous of a closer alliance, it was believed in 
 England, that this was a mere invention to throw England off 
 its guard : — " All things are full of deceit, et Judas non dormit," 
 was Pace's comment on the news. By the 4th of April, 1517, 
 a rumour had found its way into the court at Brussels, " that 
 Henry was intriguing with France against the Emperor and 
 the king of Castile." A few days later the report assumed 
 a more definite shape. " Your Grace," writes Spinelly on the 
 8th, " is said to be in great practice to restore Tournay to the 
 French and make a new treaty." On the 15th we learn from 
 Worcester that the French ambassador with the King of Castile 
 was spreading the report, " that England was soliciting a 
 stronger amity with France, but without sending regular 
 ambassadors." The whole proceeding was enveloped in 
 mystery ; the rumour rose and fell ; it was variously asserted 
 and denied ; how it had arisen no one could tell ; and no one 
 seemed to have any certainty about it. The regular diplomatic 
 relations between the two countries had been interrupted since 
 the return of Suffolk, and had never been regularly renewed. 
 Nothing could be more tantalizing to those who were concerned 
 in discovering such secrets ; no bribe and no intrigue were of 
 the least help in unveiling the mystery. Wolsey and the King 
 
 > II. p. 902.
 
 186 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIIT. [A.D. 
 
 betrayed no change in their words or actions. For months 
 the Venetian ambassador continued to write to his Senate and 
 the Doge of Wolsey's inveterate hatred to France ; for months 
 he congratulated himself on the effects which his arguments 
 had produced in mollifying the Cardinal's resentment. It 
 was France, the Cardinal repeated to the unsuspecting 
 Venetian, that was at the bottom of all the troubles of 
 Christendom; it was France that had invited the Turk — ■ 
 worse than the Turk himself. It was the restless ambition of 
 France, her incessant military preparations, her warlike dis- 
 position, that involved England in continual expense, and 
 disturbed the peace of the world. His master was a mag- 
 nanimous sovereign inchned to peace, and most reluctantly 
 compelled to abandon peace and tranquillity, and adopt 
 aggressive measures against France and you Venetians its 
 allies, " because he has heard of the determination of France 
 to molest him." ^ Giustinian assured him that Francis had 
 no such intentions ; if he had, the Venetians would do what 
 they could to prevent it. Wolsey desired no more. He wished 
 to divine the true intentions of France without appearing to 
 suspect them ; and he obtained the assurance he desired, from 
 time to time, by pretending to the Venetian ambassador that the 
 republic was helping Francis to embroil Europe and disturb 
 Christendom ; — they, of all nations, the most averse to war ! 
 
 Meanwhile very obscure and mysterious letters had been 
 passing between De Crequy, Dean of Tournay, Dr. Sampson, 
 Wolsey's commissarj^ and Charles Somerset, Earl of 
 Worcester. How long this correspondence had been going 
 on, and whether the whole series has been preserved, cannot 
 be determined. The first letter which has reached us, though 
 evidently not the first in the negociation, is dated 11th of March, 
 1517,^ at the very time when Charles, Maximilian, and their 
 ministers were congratulating themselves on their excellent 
 understanding with France, and were signing the treaty of 
 Cambray. The negociator on the French side was no less 
 a person than the Duke of Orleans. From the Duke's letter 
 it appears that the proposal had been broken to him by the 
 Dean of Tournay ; ^ whether or not on the Dean's own sugges- 
 tion, does not appear. A hint dropped in a letter of Worcester's 
 of the same date would lead us to infer thrt Henry was privy 
 to this proposal, if he was not the author of it.^ Before the 
 
 » Feb. 2, 1518. 3 II. 3007. 
 
 ' II. 3006. 4 II. 3005.
 
 1517.] 
 
 SECRET XEGOCIATIONS. 
 
 187 
 
 24th of March the Grand Master of France (Boissi) had been 
 soimded, and Worcester was then waiting for further instruc- 
 tions to see how the project would be accepted.^ Both parties 
 were cautious of committing themselves ; each was suspicious 
 of the other's intentions. By the 13th of April the matter 
 brightens ; then Sampson wrote to Wolsey, that it had been 
 suggested to him by the Dean of Tournay of what advantage 
 it would be if peace could be made between France and 
 England. Sampson expressed his concurrence in the wish, 
 but stated that he could not undertake to communicate that 
 wish to his employer. The Dean, he added, has twice made 
 peace between the two realms, and will be glad to do so again. 
 Long before that letter Wolsey had been in communication 
 with Worcester on the same subject,^ and Sampson's remarks 
 were intended to disengage the Cardinal from all personal 
 risk or responsibility in this intricate and delicate negociation, 
 which now, notwithstanding all these extraordinary pre- 
 cautions, was beginning to transpire.^ The negociation lingered 
 
 > II. 3048. 
 2 II. 3127. 
 
 ' Pace -writes to Wolsey on the 
 16tli of May (No. 3247) : 
 
 " Please it your Grace,— The 10th 
 day of this present month, Mr. Anchises 
 Vicecomes returned omt of France into 
 Swissland in haste, sent only, as he 
 saith, for to speak with me from the 
 French king. And because he durst 
 not arrive unto this city for fear of 
 trouble by some of the Emperor's ser- 
 vants, he hath advertised me largely 
 of these things following ; viz. that 
 the said French king himself did ex- 
 amine him of his going into England, 
 and abiding there, and did make great 
 inquisition of the king's grace's man. 
 ners and yours ; whereunto (as he 
 saith) he made as discreet and honor- 
 able answer as he could devise : so 
 that the said French king (si ipse vera 
 refert) did both say and swear that he 
 doth love the king above all other 
 princes Christian, and therefore he 
 doth marvel that liis Grace is alway 
 contrary and adversary unto him, and 
 that he intendeth never to offend his 
 Grace in any manner of cause, but 
 provoked by pure necessity ; adding 
 unto that these words, viz. that his 
 cousin of England cannot desire that 
 thing of him that he would deny. 
 
 "As touching your Grace, he did 
 ask the said Mr. Anchises whether it 
 were possible for him by any mean to 
 
 obtain your Grace's favours ; where- 
 unto he made (as he saith) this 
 answer — that it were impossible to 
 induce your Grace by any means to 
 do that that should be contrary to the 
 king's honour or profit. This done, he 
 made wonderful inquisition of my per- 
 son, not only of my qualities, but also 
 of the stature of my body, and said 
 that I had caused him to expend two 
 millions of gold ; but, notwithstand- 
 ing that, if I would help that your 
 Grace would move the king to make 
 a perfect amity with him, he would 
 give unto me monies auri ; and as for 
 your Grace, you should not only have 
 peaceable possession of the bishopric 
 of Tournay by resignation, but also 
 any other thing as good as that. And 
 to the intent that this thing might 
 come to a good and short effect, he 
 would grant unto me his safe conduct 
 to come surely to Milan, and from 
 thence to be conveyed in like matmer 
 into France to his person, and from 
 thence to be brought, as honorably as 
 I would desire myself, to Calais gates. 
 " My Lord, these promi.scs the said 
 Mr. Anchises hath signified to mc, by 
 the French king's express command, 
 ment, as he saith; but whether all 
 these things, or part, or nothing, be 
 true, I will not judge (but remit tlio 
 matter to your Grace's wisdom), know- 
 ing that the said Mr. AncliiscM liath 
 Bworn fidelity to the said French kiutj.
 
 188 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 CA.D. 
 
 on, but we Lave no further means of tracing it in this state. 
 In June ^ the sieur de la Guiche, a favourite with both courts, 
 who had been in England before, made his appearance in 
 London. Sebastian thought it mysterious, — endeavoured to 
 learn the cause of his coming, but settled down in the con- 
 viction that it had no higher purpose than to arrange certain 
 private differences ! A month after Giustinian began to suspect 
 there might be something more in it.^ The reserve of these 
 Frenchmen was very strange ! But it looked harmless, espe- 
 cially when on the 26th of the same month ^ an indenture 
 appeared, regularly drawn and signed by the two commis- 
 sioners, the earl of Worcester and De la Guiche, professing to 
 devise means for the redress of grievances, and providing that 
 suitable commissioners should be sent from both sides to sit 
 at Calais on the 1st of Sej)tember, make compensations, receive 
 complaints, and save the merchants the expenses of the Law 
 Com'ts. Sebastian thought it was all right ; the same round 
 of visits, — the same round of denunciations against France. 
 On the 26th of August, formal commissioners were appointed ; 
 among them Sir Thomas More, just then famous for his 
 Utojna. 
 
 By this time it had oozed out that Francis had offered 
 400,000 crowns for the surrender of Tournay, and England 
 was not supposed to be adverse to the bargain.'* The ministers 
 of Charles were becoming uneasy at the prospect of a more 
 kindly intercourse between the two nations. They had hitherto 
 done their utmost to keep both asunder. On the 14th of 
 September the report reached the ears of the Pope. The 
 treaty was now pushed on with greater vigour and openness. 
 Stephen Poncher, Bishop of Paris, arrived at Boulogne, and 
 only waited for advices from the Cardinal to cross over. 
 
 But this, I think, undoubtedly be true and the king of Castile hath made one 
 
 -that the French king would gladly 
 agree with the king's Grace. And this 
 I do perfectly know — that the said Mr. 
 Anchises, the Count Galiace, with all 
 that sect, doth labour that this thing 
 may come to pass, some of them being 
 mediators therein, knowing right well 
 that they shall obtain great things 
 thereby if it come to pass. Over and 
 above the premises, the French king 
 said, that if the king were aggrieved 
 with any his practices in Scotland, 
 that he was not author or cause thereof, 
 but his predecessor. 
 
 " My Lord, we have now here 
 strange tidings — that the Emperor 
 
 new peace with the French king, con 
 eluded at Cambray the 11th day of 
 April : quod si est verum non puto fidem 
 ah lis emendam, qui nuUam hahent. 
 De rebus Italicis nihil certius habeo illis 
 qucB proxime scripsi. I did give none 
 answer unto Anchises but this only — 
 that I durst not meddle with a matter 
 of so great importance without the 
 king's commandment. 
 
 " Valeat felicissime BT" D. v., cui 
 me humillime commendo et trado. Ex 
 Constantia, 16 Maij 1517." 
 
 1 II. 3415. ' II. 3520, 
 
 2 II. 3445. * II. 3666.
 
 1517.] UNPOPULAKITY OF FKAXCIS. 189 
 
 Meanwhile, true or not, rumours got into circulation of the 
 unpopularity of the French King and his exactions. " A fat 
 Cordelier " had declared in his sermon, that the King was 
 ■worse than Nero. The avocats were in a state of great com- 
 motion. The university of Paris, disgusted with the concordat, 
 had displayed their disaffection by defamatory libels, and their 
 ofQcers were thrown into prison. The students took the 
 matter into their own hands, and displayed their hostility in 
 their own peculiar fashion. A farce of more than usual 
 audacity was written and acted, in which the dramatis persona} 
 were personified representations of the vices and abuses of the 
 court ; Le Medecin, Dame Rapinne, Lehon Gensdarme, Le 
 Tout, La Poulette. This last personage was the daughter of 
 president Le Cocq, and wife of an avocat, a lady of whom 
 Francis was supposed to be enamoured. On a subsequent 
 occasion,^ a trumpeter, sent by the King to read a proclama- 
 tion, was surrounded by the angry students. They cut off his 
 horse's ears, broke his trumpet as he descended from the 
 stage, and compelled him to seek safety in flight. Next day 
 the maj^or with 400 men-at-arms came down to apprehend the 
 ringleaders, but was driven back. The day after the proctor 
 of the university marched down to the parliament house with 
 4,000 scholars in armour, and demanded by what authority 
 these measures had been taken. The cause of the students 
 was supported by the Constable Bourbon, no longer on good 
 terms with Francis ; the Duke of Lorraine had retired in dis- 
 content because he had been asked to stand godfather to the 
 Dauphin in company with the Duke of Urbino.^ Nassau had 
 followed his example. These reports may have been exag- 
 gerated, but they are too numerous, and come from too many 
 quarters, to be entirely destitute of foundation. 
 
 These and other causes made Francis anxious for peace. 
 The assurances given by Wolsey to De la Guiche at his 
 dej)arture, that England would prefer the alliance of France 
 to all others, were cordially received ; ^ and from this period 
 the negociation fell exclusively into the hands of De la Guiche 
 and the Bishop of Paris on the French part, of Piuthal, Bishop 
 of Durham, and the Earl of Worcester, on the English.* At 
 Henry's wish the French commissioners crossed over to 
 England in October. The sweating sickness was then making 
 its appearance ; the King moved from place to place to avoid 
 it, and Wolsey himself was in ill health. Sebastian writes on 
 
 • II. 4154. * II. 3314. ' II. 3711. * H. 3723, 3739.
 
 190 THE REIGN OF HEXEY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 the 11th of November:^ "Two ambassadors have arrived 
 here from the Most Christian king, the bishop of Paris, and 
 Monseigneur de la Guiche. It is said they are come about 
 certain reprisals; but I do not believe that envoys of such 
 dignity would have been sent on so trivial a mission. The 
 king is abroad, and keeps moving from one place to another, 
 on account of the plague, which has made great ravages in 
 the king's household; some of the pages who slept in his 
 Majesty's chamber have died, so he has dismissed the whole 
 court, both his own and that of the most serene queen ; and 
 only three of his favorite gentlemen, with Dionysius Memo the 
 musician, are with him, and accompany the king and queen 
 through every peril. Neither his Majesty nor the Cardinal 
 will return until after the Christmas holidays, and then only 
 provided the plague cease." If Wolsey's expressions of dis- 
 satisfaction with France, openly made and repeated, especially 
 to Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador, were sincere, we must 
 infer that the negociation now lingered, and was near going 
 off altogether. 
 
 When Charles and his ministers heard the news of it in 
 Spain they were naturally anxious to prevent it, and, if 
 possible, get Tournayinto their own hands. But Charles had 
 no money; he was already indebted in 100,000 crowns to 
 Henry YIII., and could not or would not offer any equivalent in 
 exchange.^ The English court did not wish to offend him ; — 
 it would have experienced the utmost mortification had Charles 
 once more thrown himself into the arms of France, as he or 
 at least his ministers felt great inclination to do. So the real 
 state of the negociation in regard to Tournay was carefully 
 concealed or sedulousl}^ misrepresented. The Archbishop of 
 Armagh and John Lord Berners, the celebrated translator of 
 Froissart, were sent into Spain ^ to Charles to express their 
 master's delight at his safe arrival, to proffer mutual com- 
 munication of all secrets between them, and explain away the 
 new uegociations with France. England, they were told to 
 say, had sent to Francis to desire redress for injuries at sea, 
 and the latter had taken this opportunity of sending over the 
 
 * II. 3788. in it. If this exijedient fail, and the 
 
 2 The King of Spain, says Spinelly King my master be determined to get 
 
 (3872), is anxious to have Tournay in rid of Tournay, they projiose to take 
 
 his hands, but fears the indignation of it by way of gift, and the King Catholic 
 
 the French ; and if they may have the to acknowledge himself debtor to the 
 
 French King's consent by the means King my master, for a sum of money, 
 
 of the grand master, according to the by antedated bonds ! 
 devices at Cambray; they will speak * II. 4135.
 
 1517.] AKTIFICES TO DELUDE CHARLES. 191 
 
 Bishop of Paris and M. de la Giiiche, ostensibly with the view 
 of repressing piracy, really to urge the surrender of Tournay, 
 and offer for it a large sum. When the King expressed his 
 unwilhngness to accede to the proposal without consulting 
 Charles, the French had assured him there would be no need 
 of such a step, as they were on excellent terms with the King 
 Catholic, but now that Francis had not been able to obtain 
 his wishes, he was seeking to recover Tournay by force. The 
 King of England rejoiced at the determination of Charles to 
 observe his oath inviolably, and "his virtuous incHnation to 
 true and faithful dealing." In return for so much confidence 
 and cordiality he was moved to send the Catholic King warn- 
 ing of the artifices of France. " When the ambassadors have 
 an opportunity of speaking with the king alone they shall tell 
 him that Francis is not much attached to his queen (Claude), 
 who is small of stature, and far from beautiful ; and as she is 
 now with child there may be some danger in her delivery." 
 They shall fm-ther urge that Francis, " who has heard of the 
 rare beauty of the lady Eleanor the king's eldest sister, and 
 considers her prospects for the succession in Spain, is en- 
 deavouring to prevent her marriage with the king of Portugal ; 
 intending, in the event of his own queen dying, to marry 
 Eleanor himself.^ It is true that this might seem an honorable 
 
 ' This lady's history forms a little king of Portugal for the marriage of 
 
 romance. She was eldest sister to the lady Eleanor, saying she was 
 
 Charles, and attached to one of his infortunate, being of so noble and 
 
 favourites, Lewis Count Palatine. virtuous a condition, and for lack of 
 
 Whilst the King was at Middleburgh, youth " (she was then not more than 
 
 waiting to start for Spain, he snatched twenty) " almost compelled to take 
 
 a letter out of her bosom, which a husband of 48 years, with eight 
 
 proved to be a declaration of love children, the which, before those that 
 
 from the Palatine. The Count was God might send her, unto the crown 
 
 immediately dismissed in disgrace, and all other things shall bo preferred ; 
 
 Charles obstinately refusing to listen to and though the Chancellor speaks but 
 
 any intercession in his favour (IL 3641, (qu. not ?) of the conclusion I sujiposeit 
 
 3646). When she arrived in Spain a is very nigh, and that in such case the 
 
 negociation was set on foot to marry young sister (Katliarine) shall be mar- 
 
 her to Emmanuel the Fortunate, King ried to the prince of Portugal. . . . The 
 
 of Portugal, an old man with a large lady Eleanor, by the testament of her 
 
 family. It had been intended in the fatlier, and by the ancient custom of 
 
 fii'st instance that she should have been the crown of Castile, Rluiuld Iiavo for 
 
 married to his son, the Prince, and her marriage 200,000 ducats; howheit, 
 
 Lady Margaret be given to the father ; the king of Portugal demands nothing 
 
 but, this project failing, she was sacri- but the ai)j)arel for her body, and is 
 
 ficcd to the heartless intrigues of content to make her a fair dower iiiion 
 
 Chievres and the Chancellor. "I sure land and rent." On the doalii of 
 
 Biguify to your Hitrhncss" (writes Emmanuel in l.">21, she seems to have 
 
 Spinelly to Henry VIII., 2nd of April, r(;turued to Madrid, and reniaiiiod 
 
 1518), " that this afternoon the Chan- there when Francis I. was tukoa 
 
 cellor showed mo a secret, how they ])risoncrat the battloof Pavia. Accord. 
 
 had been in great practices with the ing to the commou historiuns, she
 
 192 THE REIGN OF HENRY Yin. [A.D. 
 
 match ; but if it were carried into effect, the lives of Charles 
 and his brother Ferdinand would never be safe from the 
 artifices of France." 
 
 Similar precautions were used towards Sebastian ; to a 
 degree so far beyond the apparent importance of the Venetian, 
 as would almost lead the reader to suspect that the King and 
 the Cardinal took delight in mystifying this worthy envoy of 
 the republic of fishermen.^ On one occasion, when he hurried 
 into Wolsey's presence with a budget of French news, the 
 Cardinal with unusual graciousness ^ took the envoy's arm, 
 and carried him to the King, On his assuring Henry that 
 Francis did not intend to attack any one unless provoked by 
 manifold injuries, the King laughed and replied : " If he bore 
 me any good will, he would not esteem me so lightly as he 
 does, by wronging my subjects and refusing redress. I per- 
 ceive that though his ambassadors, who came here, used 
 language as agreeable as could be desired, and were not 
 ashamed to ask peace in their master's name, yet on their 
 return no justice was done to my subjects. I am not going to 
 make war upon him, if he shows me proper respect, and I 
 would fain distinguish myself against the Infidel ; not by mere 
 words and boasting, or levying money for a crusade, and then 
 
 showed so much commiseration in her well " (Ibid. 249) ; — -Margaret of 
 adversity for the royal captive, and Navarre, for a less legitimate reason 
 contributed by her attention so much (Ibid. 291). When Suffolk was sent 
 to the re-establishment of his health, into France on Anne Boleyn's behalf 
 that Francis, out of gratitude, married he held a conversation with Margaret, 
 her, on his release from captivity, respecting the Queen, which he re- 
 alleging that he had been better tended peats to Heuiy VIII., so gross and 
 by her at Madrid than ever he was at indelicate, that if the revelations she 
 Paris by Louise his mother, or Claude then made to him were tnie, the 
 his wife. He told Wolsey, however, corresijondence between Francis and 
 that he was moved to his union " more his sister goes far to justify the 
 for necessity than any private favor imputations that have since been pro- 
 to my lady Eleanor;" and said still pagated against Margaret's purity, 
 more plainly to the Earl of Rochford Whether what she said was true or 
 (Boleyn) that "she was one of the not, nothing could show a more flagrant 
 great number he had the least desire disregard to decency than such a con- 
 unto." (State Papers, vii. 181). And versation with a comparative stranger, 
 probably there was as much sincerity ' The Venetians were in veiy bad 
 in one assertion as in the other. repute in England, and were regarded 
 Her life was far from happy. in the light of half regular traders 
 Henry VIII. and his ministers did all and half pirates. It is possible that 
 they could to sow ill will and distrust their opposition to the Pope, and their 
 betweenher and her faithless husband, alliance with the Turk, added to their 
 through dread of her influence being known friendship for France, con- 
 exerted in behalf of the Emperor. tributed to this unfair estimate of the 
 The Queen-mother disliked her lest republic in the minds of our country- 
 she should undermine her authority, men during this century. 
 — " The Spanish ladies and the French - Sometimes, in his more con- 
 ladies (says Bryan) be at a jar; the descending moods, Wolsey allowed the 
 French ladies mock them every day, ambassador to kiss his hand, 
 and that the Spanish ladies spy very
 
 1518.] DEXrXCIATIONS OF FRANCE. 193 
 
 doing notliing." On another occasion be rode over to Rich- 
 mond with an alarming story of the invasion of the Tm-k, to 
 which the King rephed with a sarcasm that must have made 
 Giustinian's ears tingle : " His Excellency the Doge is on such 
 good terms with the Turk, he has nothing to fear." Sebastian 
 made a long and lame apology for this renegade act of the 
 great republic, msisting upon the necessity of conciliating the 
 Sultan in their unprotected condition. ' ' Write to your Signory, 
 sir ambassador," replied the King, "to be more apprehensive 
 of a certain person, that shall be nameless, than of the Great 
 Turk ; one who is plotting worse things for Christendom than 
 Sultan Selim. As for me, I am anxious for peace, but I am 
 so prepared that, should the king of France attack me, he 
 will find himself deceived." And he added this expression, 
 Incidct in for earn quam fecit ; the pit he made for others he 
 shall fall into himself. After a while the King said : " Let 
 me ask you this one question. If the king of France acts 
 sincerely by us, w^hy does he not have justice done to our 
 subjects ? Then, again, how can I put up with his sending 
 the duke of Albany into Scotland, w^here my nephew is king ? 
 The king of France sends this duke into Scotland, who will 
 perhaps put the king to death, in like manner as his brother 
 died, which I never intend to suffer. I am king of this island, 
 and am perfectly satisfied,^ and yet it seems to me I do not 
 do my duty thoroughly, nor govern my subjects well ; and if 
 I could have greater dominion, nay, upon my oath, if I could 
 be Lord of the world, I would not ; as I know I could not do 
 my dut}^, and that for vaj omissions God will call me into 
 judgment. Whereas, this king is a greater lord than I ; he 
 has a larger kingdom and more territory ; and yet he is not 
 content, but chooses to meddle in matters which appertain to 
 me. But I have more than he has, and shall have more troops 
 whenever I please." 
 
 Candid and magnanimous as this avowal appears, with 
 the exception of the last sentence, it is certain that at this 
 very time the King and Wolsey were on a very good under- 
 standing with France. Even Sebastian was only half deceived. 
 He could scarcely trust his senses, when he heard the King 
 talk so glibly of his preparations against France, and yet 
 when he looked abroad observed no bustle or note of them. 
 Only three days after this harangue, Clarcncicux returned 
 from the French court, where he had been sent by Henry, in 
 
 > Intended as a hint to him whom it conccrued, that Ilcnry did not intend 
 to compete for the Emjiirc. 
 
 VOL. I. O
 
 194 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 company M'ith a French herald, bringing letters from Francis 
 announcing the birth of the Dauphin, much to the King's 
 satisfaction.^ Yet long after this, when the terms of the 
 negociation were known and almost settled on both sides, 
 Wolscy and the King continued to hold the same language to 
 the bewildered Venetian.^ On one occasion when Sebastian's 
 companion, the Spanish ambassador, employed his choicest 
 rhetoric in urging the crusade, Wolsey cut him short with the 
 rejoinder, that this was no time to make preparations. Then 
 turning to the Venetian, " You are in a perilous position, but 
 more from the Christian than the true Turk." Sebastian, 
 however, began to guess that the whole was a scene enacted 
 for the behoof of the Spaniard. Nor was he far wrong in his 
 conjecture ; for when t)ie Spaniard had left the room, Wolsey 
 spoke of the French King in more decorous terms, saying, 
 " If I perceive the king of France means well to his Majesty, 
 and will do justice, I will conclude this union. The king of 
 France has now got a son, and the king of England a daughter. 
 I will unite them by these means." Yet even after this he 
 bad not dropped the disguise entirely, for when Sebastian told 
 him in the course of a subsequent interview, that Francis had 
 alwaj'S displayed great affection to Venice, " Don't be taken 
 by surprise," replied Wolsey ; " you Venetians have often been 
 deceived by the kings of France." Sebastian retorted : "Alius 
 fuit Ludovicus, alius Franciscus." " Galli sunt omnes " (rogues 
 all), rejoined Wolsey. 
 
 Hitherto the negociations had only embraced the surrender 
 of Tournay, and the terms of a stricter alliance. The birth of 
 the Dauphin, Feb. 28, 1518, seemed to open, as Wolsey had 
 hinted, the prospect of a closer union between the two crowns. 
 The proceedings were inaugurated by a letter from Stephen 
 Poncher, the aged Bishop of Paris, expressing his anxiety to 
 further peace, as he had done in the days of Lewis XII., and 
 reminding the Cardinal of a conversation which had passed 
 between them at the arrangements for Tournay.^ He sent at 
 the same time his secretary, John Gobelin,^ — a name since 
 famous throughout the world, — to remind the Cardinal that 
 the Bishop had not forgotten the desire exjDressed by Wolsey, 
 when he and De la Guiche were ambassadors in England ; 
 
 1 II. 4014. relation between them, if any, I have 
 
 2 II. 404". not been able to discover. As artificers 
 ' April 8, 1518 : 4063. of this kind were highly favoured by 
 * Giles Gobelin, the celebrated the great ecclesiastics of the age, I 
 
 manufacturer, was contemporaneous have little doubt that both belonged 
 with this John ; but what was the to the same family.
 
 1518.] NEGOCIATIOXS WITH FEAXCE. 195 
 
 that if the Queen of France who was then pregnant, should 
 have a son, a marriage might be contracted between him and 
 the Princess Mary. The King his master was aware of 
 Wolsey's desire to further the amity between the two crowns, 
 and hoped for his good offices in the matter. If agreeable to 
 the Cardinal, he requested the negociation might be secret 
 and sjjeed}^, and carried on under the pretext of an arrange- 
 ment for Tournay. Wolsey's answer has not been preserved 
 in the English archives ; it may probably be found in France. 
 We learn, however, from a letter of the Bishop's dated the 14th 
 of May,-^ that he considered it so important as to submit it at 
 once to Francis ; and both concurred in the Cardinal's sugges- 
 tion that the negociations should be carried on through some 
 trusty messenger, in preference to a more ostentatious 
 embassy. The management of the whole affair fell into the 
 hands of Wolsey. The King was of course privy to it ; but 
 when Dr. Clerk was despatched from the Cardinal to the 
 Court, then residing at Woodstock in consequence of the 
 j)lague, the King took him apart, and strictly enjoined him 
 that "in no wise should he make mention of London 
 matters " (that is, the French treaty then negociated by 
 Wolsey alone in London) "before his lords." These lords 
 were the Dukes of Buckingham and Suffolk, Lovell, and 
 Marny,^ all members of the Privy Council. It is jn'obable that 
 Lovell was aware of these proceedings ; ^ — that Suffolk, who 
 always favoured the French mterests, and had a^^parently 
 retired from court when its measures were hostile to Francis, 
 more than guessed what was going on, can scarcely be 
 doubted. For some reasons, not clearly explained, disagree- 
 ments had arisen between Suffolk and Wolsey,* to which I 
 shall refer at greater length hereafter, occasioned apparently 
 by the fact that the Duke had employed his influence with the 
 French ambassadors to learn the secrets of their mission. At 
 least, it is not easy to put any other interpretation on Pace's 
 words. He states ^ that after Suffolk received the sacrament, 
 on Easter day, he desired Pace to hear him speak, and said, 
 " he had been accused as untrue to the king's Grace, as well 
 in the accej)ting of a protection offered unto him by the French 
 king, as in putting the French orators, at their late being here 
 or afore their coming, in comfort of the restitution of Tournay." 
 This Suffolk denied. In a subsequent conversation with 
 
 ' II. 41GG. « II. 1248, 1256, 1257, 1258, 1278, 
 
 « II. 4121. 1289, 1331, 43 K!. 
 
 » See ibid. * April 7. No. 40G1.
 
 196 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.T). 
 
 Pace/ he spoke strongly of bis desire for reconciliation with 
 Wolsey, " confirming with solemn oaths, in most humble 
 manner, the most faithful love and servitude that he intendeth 
 to use towards jour Grace, during his life, in all manner of 
 things touching your honor." 
 
 As both Kings were equally anxious for the match, it pro- 
 ceeded without further impediment.^ By the 9th of July,^ the 
 articles were drawn and concluded, and nothing now remained 
 but the formal acceptance of them by the high contracting 
 parties. Bonnivet, the admiral, was sent into England on a 
 more splendid mission than any which had yet left the shores 
 of France. He was attended by the Bishop of Paris, and a 
 numerous train ; thirt}^ gentlemen, and fifty archers, with 
 wrestlers, musicians, and tennis players.'* The largeness of 
 the company occasioned some irregularity in its arrival. On 
 the 28th of August, the Bishop landed at Sandwich, and was 
 directed to wait at Gravesend, where a barge -v^uld be ready 
 for his reception. The rest of the embassy had not yet 
 started from Calais.^ The weather was stormy, and it was 
 not thought consistent with the King's dignity to receive one 
 party without the other. Even then, if we may credit Gius- 
 tinian, all difficulties had not disappeared. He found the 
 Cardinal and the Bishop in close conclave. High words had 
 passed between them. The arrival of the Bishop unattended 
 had awakened the dormant suspicions of the English, that 
 after all Francis intended to deceive them ; and the extreme 
 secrecy observed even now by Wolsey shows how cautiously he 
 guarded himself against such a contingency. The real points 
 in debate may be seen in Wolsey's letter to the King.^ It was 
 he who insisted on having the best of the bargain ; even then, at 
 the eleventh hour, he wrung additional concessions from the 
 French. One of these concessions had reference to Scotland ; 
 Albany should not be permitted to return thither ; a stipulation 
 which occasioned the King of France the greatest annoyance. 
 
 Sebastian was anxious to penetrate the mystery, and dis- 
 cover in what state the matter stood. He only half relished 
 
 ' July 11. No. 4308. ^ ij_ 4303. 
 
 * Whilst it was proceeding, Pace * II. 4356. Their names are given 
 
 mentions a curious argument he had in No. 4409. 
 held with the King, whether the * II. App. p. 1540. 
 
 marriage of princes was regulated by ^ Ibid. See also the French re- 
 
 the same laws as that of private per- port. No. 44/9. It appears that they 
 
 sons ; the King holding the negative. had taken alarm at the offer of Charles 
 
 (4275.) Itis worth observing how the to prevent the marriage and the sur- 
 
 whole history of Henry VIII. con- render of Tournay. 
 stantly impinges on this topic.
 
 1518.] THE FEEXCH EMBASSY. 197 
 
 this close intimacy between France and England, wliich lie 
 had formerly urged with vehemency when he saw there was 
 no hope of it ; now it was near its accomplishment, it seemed 
 to have no other effect than that of throwing himself and the 
 republic into the shade. He rode over to Eltliam on the 18th 
 of September, under the plausible pretext of offering the King 
 his warmest congratulations on the peace and union between 
 the two crowns — (he could always succeed better with the King 
 than the Cardinal), — hoping in reality, at some unguarded 
 interval, to make himself " master of the situation." Unfor- 
 tunately for him, the King was going out for an airing, and 
 he learnt no more than that peace had not yet been concluded, 
 with a hint that many details still remained for discussion. 
 B}^ no means baffled by this disappointment, the envoy hurried 
 away to Sir Thomas More, the newly made councillor, then 
 attending on the King as one of his secretaries. "I adroitly 
 turned the conversation — (they are his own words) — to those 
 negociations concerning peace and marriage ; but More did not 
 open, and pretended not to know in what the difficulties con- 
 sisted, declaring that the Cardinal of York ' most solely,' to use 
 his own expression, transacted this matter with the French 
 ambassadors, and when he has concluded then he calls in the 
 councillors, so that the king himself scarcely knows in what 
 state matters are." ^ 
 
 All difficulties were arranged at last ; — the voice of dispute, 
 and the sharp dialectics of dii^lomatists striving to outwit each 
 other, were silent before the public rejoicings, as the gay trains 
 of ambassadors in strange and picturesque array passed along 
 the streets. On the 23rd of September the Lord Admiral made 
 his appearance with an enormous cavalcade, exceeding 600 
 horsemen, in splendid equipages, attended by 70 mules and 
 7 waggons loaded with baggage, to the immense delight of the 
 good citizens of London.^ Such an embassy had never been 
 seen within its walls before. They were met by the Lord 
 
 ' IT. 4138. color of trussery (bagf^ago) of the 
 
 ^ Hall, who is not to be exclusively ambassadoi-s." Chron. p. 5U3. And 
 
 trusted, for his sti-ong English anti- again, after the ambassadors had been 
 
 pathies to everything foreign often lodged in the Tailors' Hall, he adds : 
 
 pei-verted his judgment, states that " When these lords were in tlieir 
 
 the embassy was " accompanied with lodgings, then the French hardware 
 
 many noblemen and young fresh men opened their wares, atid made the 
 
 gallants of the court of France to the Tailors' liall like to the paunde of a 
 
 number of 80 and more ; and with mart. At tliis doing many an Euglish- 
 
 them came a great number of rascal man grudged, but it availed not" 
 
 and pedlars and jewellers, and Ijrought (]). 59 I). Evil May Day was not yet out 
 
 over hats and caps and divers mer- of their thought.s, nor tlie hatred they 
 
 chandize uncustomed, all under the felt for foreign merchants and artiliccrs.
 
 198 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 Surrey, High Admiral, with IGO lords and gentlemen, on the 
 part of England, resolved not to be outdone by their French 
 rivals. The mounted procession numbered 1,400, half French 
 and half English, 30 of them being the Scotch guards of the 
 French King, accompanied by the same number of English 
 guards. On the 20th the King, attended by the legates, gave 
 them a public audience at Greenwich in a magnificent 
 assembly of all the nobles of the realm.-^ The Bishop of Paris 
 delivered the oration. He enlarged on the blessings of peace, 
 and the happy prospects which now dawned upon Christendom 
 by the union of its two most powerful Sovereigns, concluding 
 his speech by demanding the hand of Princess Mary for the 
 Dauphin, The reply was delivered by Nicholas West, Bishop 
 of Ely, in much the same strain, and of course with the 
 expected conclusion. This done, the King " got upon his legs, 
 and calling all the French gentlemen one by one, embraced 
 them very graciously." Then he led the French ambassador 
 and Wolsey into an inner chamber, leaving the legate Cam- 
 peggio, who happened to be present with other ambassadors, 
 standing at the door. Sebastian is very much scandalized at 
 the little respect paid by England to the Holy See.^ 
 
 On the 3rd of October (Sunday) the King, with a train of 
 1,000 mounted gentlemen richly dressed, attended by the 
 legates and all the foreign aml)assadors, went in procession to 
 St. Paul's. The mass was sung by Vv^olsey, assisted by the 
 Bishops and mitred abbots. Pace preached the sermon. The 
 service ended, the King took his oath. " The ceremonial," 
 says Bonnivet, writing to Francis, and familiar with such 
 displays, "was too magnificent for description. To-morrow 
 (the 5th of Oct.) they go to Greenwich ; and I," he adds, 
 "shall be in great glory for that day, as they desire me to 
 personate Mons. the Dau]3hin a.8 fiance to Madame the Prin- 
 cess." All were in high glee : feasting and rejoicing prevailed 
 everywhere. The same day the King dined with the Bishop 
 of London, returning afterwards to Durham House in the 
 Strand, from which he had started in the morning. 
 
 "After dinner the Cardinal of York was followed by the 
 entire company to his own house (at Westminster), where 
 they sate down to a most sumptuous supper, the like of which, 
 
 ' The Admiral (Bonnivet) was in —Hall. 
 a gown of cloth of silver raised, furred ^ rj,j^g heads of the treaty will be 
 
 with rich sables, and all his company found in II. 4468. The marriage was 
 
 almost were in a new-fashioned gar- to take place as soon as the Dauphin 
 
 inent called a shemew (chemay), which attained his 14th year. Mary would 
 
 was in effect a gown cut in the middle. then be 16.
 
 1518.] BANQUET TO THE AMBASSADORS. 199 
 
 I fancy (says Giustiuian), was never given by Cleopatra or 
 Caligula ; the whole banqueting hall being so decorated with 
 huge vases of gold and silver, that I fancied myself in the 
 tower of Chosroes, where that monarch caused divine honors 
 to be paid him. After supj)er a mummery, consisting of twelve 
 male and twelve female dancers, made then- appearance in 
 the richest and most sumptuous array possible, being all 
 dressed alike. After performing certain dances in their own 
 fashion, they took off their visors. The two leaders were the 
 king and Queen Dowager of France,^ and all the others were 
 lords and ladies, who seated themselves apart from the tables, 
 and were served with countless dishes of confections and other 
 delicacies. After gratifying their palates, they gratified their 
 eyes and hands ; large bowls, filled with ducats and dice, were 
 placed on the tables for such as liked to gamble : shortly after 
 which the supper-tables were removed, when dancing recom- 
 menced, and lasted until midnight. 
 
 "When the banquet was done, in came six minstrels 
 disguised, and after them followed three gentlemen in wide 
 and long gowns of crimson satin, every one having a cup of 
 gold in his hands ; the first cup was full of angels and royals, 
 the second had divers bales of dice, and the third had certain 
 pairs of cards. These gentlemen offered to play at mum- 
 chance, and when they had played the length of the first 
 board, then the minstrels ble^ up, and then entered into the 
 chamber twelve ladies disguised ; the first was the king him- 
 self and the French queen ; [the 2nd,] the duke of Suffolk and 
 the lady Daubney ; [3rd,] the lord Admiral and the lady 
 Guilford; [4th,] Sir Edw. Ne\dlle and Lady St. Leger; [5th,] 
 Su' Henry Guilford and IMrs. (]\Iiss) Walden ; [6th,] Captain 
 Emery and ]VIrs. Anne Carew ; [7th,] Sir Giles Capel and lady 
 Elizabeth Carew ; [8th,] Nicholas Carew and Anne Browne ; 
 [9th,] Francis Brian and Elizabeth Blount ; [10th,] Henry 
 Norris and Anne Wotton ; [11th,] Francis Poyntz and IVIary 
 Fyennes ; [12th,] Ai-thur Pole and ]\iargaret Bruges. 
 
 " On this company twelve knights attended in disguise, 
 and bearing torches. All these thirty-six persons were dis- 
 guised in one suit of fine green satin all over covered with 
 cloth of gold, under-tied together with laces of gold, and had 
 
 ' Katharine was near her confine- the qneen dowager of France at the 
 
 ment at the time, and took no part adniinil's k)(l^nn<j " (1541); — a dis- 
 
 in these festivities. Envious people torted report of the supijor lucutioued 
 
 abroad reported that " the king went in the text, 
 privily a mumming and dancing with
 
 200 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 masking hoods on their heads : the ladies had tires made of 
 braids of damask gold, with long hairs of white gold. All 
 these maskers danced at one time, and after they had danced 
 they put off their visors, and then they were all known. The 
 admiral and lords of France heartily thanked the king that it 
 pleased him to visit them with such disport."-^ 
 
 On the 5th of October the bridal ceremonies were celebrated 
 at Greenwich. The King took his station in front of the 
 throne ; on one side stood Mary of France and Queen 
 Katharine ; in front of her mother was the Princess Mary, 
 just two years old, dressed in cloth of gold with a cap of black 
 velvet on her head blazing with jewels. On the other side 
 stood the two legates, Wolsey and Campeggio. After a speech 
 by Dr. Tunstal,^ the Princess was taken in arms ; the consent 
 of the King and Queen was demanded and granted; and 
 Wolsey approached with a diminutive gold ring fitted to the 
 young lady's finger, in which was a diamond of great value. 
 The Lord Admiral, as proxy for the bridegroom, passed it over 
 the second joint ; the bride was blessed, and mass performed 
 by Wolsey, the King and the whole court attending it. These 
 ceremonials were followed by a series of entertainments of the 
 most costly description. The bill of fare for one day, the 7th 
 of October, is preserved,^ and enables us to form some con- 
 ception of their magnificence. Among the sohd viands were 
 3,000 loaves of bread, 3 tuns and 2 pipes of wine, 6 tuns and 
 7 hogsheads of ale, lOf carcases of beeves, 56 of muttons, 
 3 porkers, 4 fat hogs, 10 pigs, 2 doz. fat capons, 5 doz. and 
 7 Kentish capons, 7 doz. of a coarser kind, 27 doz. of 
 chickens, 2J doz. of pullets, 15 swans, 6 cranes, 32 doz. 
 pigeons, 54 doz. of larks, 5 doz. and 8 geese, 4 peacocks, 
 18 peachicks, 35 lbs. of dates, 26 lbs. of prunes, 31 lbs. of 
 small raisins, 32 lbs. of almonds, 4 lbs. of green ginger, 4 lbs. 
 of marmalade, 3,000 pears, 1,300 apples, 220 quinces, 5| lbs. 
 of long comfits, 28 lbs. of small, 16| gallons of cream, 16 
 gallons of milk, 6 gallons of frumenty, 7 gallons of curds, 
 367 dishes of butter. Among other items set down in the 
 King's Book of Payments for the occasion is the sum of 
 
 1 11. 4481. These details suggested person declared the meaning of the 
 
 to Shakspeare his scene of the masqued pageant. 
 
 ball in Eomeo and Juliet. At the next = Hall says that mass had been 
 
 page, m describing another pageant previously sung by Ruthal, Bishop of 
 
 Hall (p. 595) says : " Then entered Durham. Probably before that part 
 
 Eeport (Rumour), apparelled in crim- of the ceremonial took place at which 
 
 son satin full of tongues, sitting on a Mary was present, 
 
 flying horse with wings," etc. This ^ ji_ pp i5i4_5.
 
 1518.] THE MAEEIAGE CEEEMONIES. 201 
 
 1,000Z. advanced to the King for " playing-money," gambling; 
 SOOl. at one time in rewards to the French King's gentlemen, 
 1,829/. lis. in plate at another. The sum paid for " an hall 
 place " (haiit pas ?) in St. Paul's Church^ for the marriage of 
 the Princess was 211. ; for " the mummery held at my lord 
 Cardinal's place at Westminster, and for the disguising at 
 Greenwich, 230L 4.s. 4(?." ^ The personal expenses of the King 
 for that month were 9,606L 2s. dd. as against 3,085Z. 6s. lOd. 
 of the previous year. The whole court during the celebration 
 was engrossed with one unvarying round of festivities. In 
 the memory of the oldest inhabitant no occasion like it had 
 ever happened in England. When Mary was married to 
 Lewis XII. the rejoicings were confined exclusively to France. 
 This match, on the other hand, afforded Wolsey an oppor- 
 tunity for displaying his genius in splendid pomp and 
 ceremonial ; and his genius was as conspicuous in these 
 minor things as in negociating a treaty for managing a 
 nation. To the King, still a young man, ardently fond of 
 personal display, and more fitted for it than any one of his 
 time by his strength, stature, and agility, his good looks and 
 love of activity, such an occasion as this was not unwelcome. 
 Nothing more was needed to complete his happiness than a 
 personal interview with Francis. A few solemn triflers might 
 shake their heads at the thought of England being once more 
 tied up in reversion to a foreign crown, or complain with 
 grave faces that " these gentlemen of France were very 
 fresh ; " ^ but Katharine was still a j^oung woman, the nation 
 was anxiously expecting the birth of a prince, and the solid 
 advantages of the union could not be denied. 
 
 The old councillors, who had hitherto stood aloof from the 
 German policy of Wolsey, openly applauded the match. Fox, 
 who is reported (on no better authority than that of Polydore 
 Vergil) to have withdrawn from the Council in disgust, wrote 
 a letter in terms unusually warm for so cold and reserved a 
 prelate : " It was the best deed," he tells Wolsey, " that ever 
 was done for England, and next to the king the praise of it is 
 due to you." ^ How Katharine herself accepted this alliance 
 for her daughter, so contrary in all appearance to her family 
 predilections, to her stern Spanish piety and asceticism, we 
 have no evidence to show ; but if Wolsey stood high in the 
 
 ' Although the marriage was ccle- celcljration of it at St. Paul's. — Ed. 
 brated Ijy proxy "in the Queen's great " II. ]). 1479. 
 
 chamber at Greenwich" (II. 44.80), it * Hall, 
 
 would apjicar that there was a public ■* II. 4540.
 
 202 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 opinion of bis lojnl master before, tbis last stroke of policy 
 raised bim bigber still. No subject bad ever been exalted to 
 sucb a dazzling beigbt ; omnipotent witb bis own King, be 
 bad in effect tbe wbole sovereignty of Em-ope at bis beck. 
 Francis professed to be entirely guided by bis councils ; 
 Cbarles, more distant and baugbty, owed to bis good offices 
 tbe safe possession of Spain, and bis projects of tbe Imperial 
 crown depended on tbe continuance of Wolsey's favour. As 
 for Leo X., Giustinian did not exceed tbe trutb wben be 
 stated tbat Wolsey " was seven times more in repute tban if 
 be bad been tbe Pope bimself." ^ In fact, wbilst Leo by 
 turns trembled before Cbarles and Francis, and intrigued 
 against botli to deliver bimself from tbeir oppressive patronage, 
 Wolsey, independent of eitber, bad it in bis power to make 
 botb feel keenly tbe consequences of bis friendsbip or resent- 
 ment. Tbe independence of tbe Sovereign Pontiff was but a 
 sbadow ; if be got rid of one dictator, it was only to fall under 
 tbe more galling tyranny of anotber. Tbe two rivals for 
 supremacy in Italy were as tbe upper and tbe netber mill- 
 stone, grinding tbemselves wben tbey ceased to grind tbe Pope. 
 Tbe embassy from France was followed by an embassy 
 from England in return. It consisted of tbe Earl of Worcester, 
 West, Bisbop of Ely, Dokwra, Prior of St. Jobn's, and Sir 
 Nicbolas Vaux.^ Tbey reacbed Dover on tbe 13tb of November, 
 crossed to Calais tbe next day (Sunday), but, owing to a 
 storm, bad tbe misfortune to leave part of tbeir train and 
 tbeir borses bebind. On tbe 27tb thej left for Boulogne, 
 wbere tbey were received "in great triumpb witb sbooting of 
 guns," ^ and were lodged in tbe castle. On tbe 29tb tbey were 
 attended by La Fayette to Montreuil ; tbence to Abbeville on 
 tbe 1st of December.* Here tbe mayor and mercbants of tbe 
 town, after a solemn reception, presented tbem witb tbree 
 puncbeons of wine. Tbe Bisbop entertained tbem at bis 
 fatber's bouse ; " wbere tbe old fatber, a very impotent old 
 man, liaving no more use of reason tban a cbild, met tbem in 
 bis gallery, and made tbem a rigbt good supper." On tbe 
 3rd to Amiens ; wbere, being Friday, tbe burgesses offered 
 tbem " great carps, great pikes, trouts, barbels, crevisses, 
 great eels, and four puncbeons of wine." On Sunday tbey 
 divided tbeir company for straitness of lodging, agreeing to 
 meet at Senlis on Tuesday.^ Tbey reacbed St. Denys on tbe 
 
 ' Brown's Four Tears at the Court ^ II. 4163. 
 
 of Henry VIIL, ii, 314. * II. 4638. 
 
 * 11.4593. * At this place they wrote to Wolsey
 
 1518.] ENGLISH EMBASSY TO FKANCE. 203 
 
 9tli ; ^ here the abhot sent them right good plenty of wine ; " 
 and next day made them " a right good feast ; " — for their 
 new continental friends and allies seem to have been quite 
 alive to the national infirmity. A league from Paris they 
 were met by the Bishop, and 100 gentlemen of the King's 
 house. Then came the provost with "the merchants," and 
 the courtiers in the faubourgs. As they passed along they 
 were met by " divers gentlemen masked, some of whom rode 
 amongst us, and looked upon every man as they rode, amongst 
 whom we surely suppose the king himself was." Their 
 audience was appointed on Sunday the 12th, at the palace ; 
 "where, in a very great chamber, appointed with blue 
 hangings full of fleurs-de-lis, with the floor covered with the 
 same,^ and seats prepared round for the noblemen, as it was 
 within your realm,^ closed round about with rails, the king 
 himself sate in a chair raised four steps from the ground, 
 under a rich cloth of estate, with a pall of cloth of gold, and a 
 cushion of the same under his feet."^ The steps of the dais 
 were covered with violet-coloured velvet powdered with fleurs- 
 de-lis. Francis was dressed in a robe of cloth of silver, 
 embroidered with flowers, and lined with herons' feathers. 
 His doublet was cloth of gold. But on his head he wore only 
 his ordinary cloth cap. On his right was the Eoman legate, 
 seated under a gold canopy, then the King of Navarre, with 
 the Dukes of Alencon, Bourbon, and others ; on the left, four 
 Cardinals, the iDapal nuncio, and ambassadors, the Chevalier 
 Duprat, and a crowd of Bishops. 
 
 After all were duly seated, the English ambassadors made 
 their appearance. They were conducted through the press by 
 200 gentlemen armed with battle-axes.^ Worcester was 
 dressed in a vest of crimson satin lined with sables, Vaux in 
 
 to inquire whether the gentlemen that ceived, and to them was showed a fair 
 
 be not appointed to go with my Lord young child ; and when they had seen 
 
 of Ely to see the Dauphin are to wait him they departed. The fame went 
 
 upon my Lord Chamberlain (Wor- that the French king at this time had 
 
 cester), or take the straight way home. no son, but that this was but a color 
 
 They had already written on the 28th of the French king." — Chron. p. 51)6. 
 of November to say, "that the Dauphin * 11.4052,4001. 
 
 was at Blois in good health." This is ''■ Blue tiles, such as are now seen 
 
 explained by a story in Hall, ex- in the palace at Blois. 
 aggerated, no doubt, and coloured by ^ The oversight is curious, for tho 
 
 his peculiar ]jrejudicc8 : " After divers letter was addressed to Wolsey. 
 feasts, jousts, and banquets made to * II. 46(51. 
 
 the English ambassadors, the Bishop '" Tho readers of Shakspearo'a 
 
 of Ely, with Sir Thomas Bolcyn and Homy VIII. will remember tlie hul)l)tib 
 
 Sir Richard Weston, were sent by tho at tho christening of tho princess 
 
 French king to Coniac to see tho Elizabeth, and the rough usage of the 
 
 Dolphyn, where they were well re- crowd.
 
 204 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 cloth of gold lined with the same, the Bishop of Ely in his 
 rochet, the Lord of St. John in black satin. Then came 
 twenty English gentlemen, superbly dressed in cloth of gold, 
 with pendants in their bonnets, and massive gold chains 
 romid their necks and waists, studded with jewels. As they 
 arrived at the middle of the platform, Francis descended from 
 his seat, embraced them, and ordered them to be seated. 
 Then West rose to speak, of course in Latin, the sole medium 
 of communication on these occasions, and delivered himself 
 not merely "with good emphasis and discretion," but, if Hall 
 may be trusted, "with such a bold spirit that the Frenchmen 
 much praised his audacity."^ At the conclusion of the 
 ceremony, the King rose, descended from his throne, and 
 embraced all the English gentlemen, an acknowledgment of 
 a similar compliment paid to the French gentlemen at Green- 
 wich. That done, he withdrew to another chamber, accom- 
 panied by Worcester. To the Earl he expressed his great 
 satisfaction at the peace ; — declared that " from henceforth he 
 would repute himself and his subjects as Englishmen, and 
 the king's Grace, oiu' master and his subjects, as Frenchmen; 
 and that it might so appear, he would endeavour himself to 
 learn English." When Worcester presented his letters, partly 
 written with the King's hand, Francis raised them to his lips 
 with becoming reverence, read them, and put them in his 
 bosom, saying "that he had all the letters that ever his 
 Grace had sent him in his own custody and keeping, and he 
 would in like manner keep these." France had some right to 
 be proud of the best-bred gentleman in Europe. 
 
 On Tuesday, the 14th, the embassy proceeded to Notre 
 Dame, where the Scotch guard " kept the room." Mass 
 done, the legate advanced to the high altar, and gave a 
 solemn benediction with plenary indulgence. Then the King 
 advanced from his traverse, followed by the English commis- 
 sioners. A cardinal held the book, the legate standing 
 before him ; whilst Francis signed the oath with his own 
 hand. " Sire, ye have done a noble act to-day," said the 
 legate. "By my faith," replied the King, "I have done it 
 with a good heart and good will." Then aU went to dinner 
 with the Bishop of Paris, " who gave them a stately banquet 
 
 ' What occasion there could be for mastery of the Latin tongue, to speak 
 
 " audacity," except that of delivering before men, some of whom, like the 
 
 a Latin oration before a critical Cardinal Legate, Bibiena, then present, 
 
 audience, I do not perceive. If that were the corresjiondents of Bembo, 
 
 is what Hall meant, it did require and gloried in the coveted title of 
 
 not only considerable conlideuce, but Ciceroniani.
 
 1518.] ENGLISH EMBASSY TO FRANCE. 205 
 
 served solely on gold plate ; " after dinner to the Duke of 
 Bourbon's to a supper, equall}' costly. The whole was con- 
 cluded with an entertainment on the 22nd, at the Bastille, " a 
 small fortress surrounded by very high walls, turrets, and a 
 moat, constructed of yore as a bulwark to the city." It was 
 now near mid- winter, and the weather stormy and rainy. But 
 the French, never at a loss w^here taste and ingenuity are 
 required, were as distinguished in displays of this kind then 
 as they are now.^ The inner courtyard of the Bastille was 
 carefully laid over with smooth timber, and covered with an 
 awning of blue canvas, setting weather and rain at defiance. 
 The canvas was painted blue, to represent the heavens, and 
 powdered with gilt stars and planets ; the galleries were 
 festooned with alternate strips of white and tawny, the royal 
 colours. The floor was carpeted in the same manner. From 
 the centre hung an immense chandelier, " throwing such a 
 marvellous blaze of light on the starry ceiling as to rival the 
 sun." A raised j^latform ran along the whole length of the 
 apartment, carpeted like the hall, with benches all round, 
 covered with gold brocade. Over-arching the platform was a 
 latticed bower of box, ivy, and evergreens, from which roses 
 and other flowers trailed. The King took his seat at the 
 table on a high dais, covered with cloth of gold, placing the 
 Duchess of Alencon on his left, and next her the Bishop of 
 Ely. On his right was the papal legate, with the beautiful 
 Countess of Borromeo, daughter of Galeazzo Visconti ; next 
 her the Earl of Worcester, with noblemen and ladies 
 alternately. The gentlemen of the embassy dined at tables 
 on the floor below the platform. Dancing commenced to the 
 sound of trumpets and fifes, and lasted until nine, when 
 supper was served on gold and silver dishes, each com'se 
 being announced by a flourish of trumpets. The supper 
 ended, different companies of maskers successively appeared 
 in quaint costume ; and last of all the King, dressed in a long 
 close-fitting vest of white satin, embroidered with gold, in- 
 tfended to represent Christ's robe, with compasses and dials, 
 the meaning of which puzzled the spectators. Then dancing 
 recommenced, and the whole was finished by ladies handing 
 round to all the company confections and bon-bons on silver 
 dishes. The entertainment is said to have cost the King of 
 France more than 450,000 crowns.'^ 
 
 * II. 4G74. Rawclon Brown's? curious Appeuclix to 
 
 ^ These who wish to pursue these the despatches of Giustiuiau. 
 details auy further may consult Mr.
 
 206 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VUI. [A.D. 1518. 
 
 The embassy returned. France was now the ally of 
 England, but for that alliance it had made great concessions 
 and sacrifices. It had i^urchased its own property from 
 England at a heavy cost. It had paid dearly for a possession 
 which England would not have retained at any price. It had 
 agreed to desist from all interference in the affairs of Scotland, 
 its most steady and ancient ally. The wings of its ambition 
 were clipped. So bitter, and apparently so unpopular, had 
 the military career of Francis proved to many of his subjects, 
 that they welcomed the friendship of England with every 
 demonstration of delight. The wheel had turned round, and 
 Wolsey had fulfilled his promise. He had united the two 
 nations. Once more England stood arbiter among the 
 sovereigns of Europe ; — without a blow ; by the mere force 
 of Wolsey's policy. His triumph was complete ; his enemies 
 had not a word to say.
 
 ( 207 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SCOTCH AFFAIRS. 
 
 In the last four chapters we have traced at some length the 
 story of our diplomatic relations with foreign Powers at a 
 period of special interest in continental history. The internal 
 policy of our own country during the same period is, with one 
 exception, of much less interest and importance. That excep- 
 tion relates to the flight of Queen Margaret from Scotland, 
 and her refuge in England, told in the State papers with a 
 minuteness that forms a striking contrast to the meagre and 
 unsatisfactory narrative of Scotch historians in general. To 
 follow the documents it will be necessary for the reader to 
 bear in mind the following events. 
 
 By the death of the accomplished Alexander Stuart ^ on 
 the field of Flodden, the metropolitan see of St. Andrew's fell 
 vacant. Three competitors started up for the vacancy: 
 Gawin Douglas, the translator of Virgil, supported by the 
 influence of England ; John Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrew's ; 
 and Andrew Forman, Bishop of Murray, whose name is of 
 frequent occurrence in the Scotch diplomatic correspondence. 
 The Bishop of Murray was higher in favour than either of his 
 rivals at the Papal and the French courts. Julius II. had 
 promised him a cardinalate.^ Lewis XII. had created him 
 Archbishoj^ of Bourges, and emj^loyed him as his mediator 
 with the Pope. The claims of Hejiburn were, in the first 
 instance, espoused by Alexander Hume, Chamberlain of 
 Scotland : subsequently Hume took part with Forman, and 
 thus drew down upon himself the resentment of Hepburn. 
 Even before the death of James IV. fierce dissensions had 
 broken out among the hierarchy of that country ; now, after 
 their preponderance had been greatly augmented by the fatal 
 
 ' He was the pupil of Erasmns, read without holding his book to the 
 
 who has embalmed his memory in very end of his nose. Wliat other 
 
 some of tlio most charminf^ passages fate could ho cxi)eot iii such a m6Ue 
 
 of his Adagia. Erasmus tells us ho as that at Flodden ? 
 
 was so near-sighted that he could not ^ II. 77G.
 
 208 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIIT. [A.D. 
 
 destruction of the nobility at Flodden and the minority of 
 James V., the power and rights of the Crown were set at 
 defiance. The Church presented a scene of rapine and dis- 
 order darker even than the rest of that dark kingdom. 
 "Every man takes up abbacies that may. . . . They tarry 
 not quhilk benefices be vacant ; they take them or {i.e. before) 
 they fall ; for they tyne (lose) the virtue if the}^ touch ground " — 
 is the quaint and sarcastic remark of Inglis, Margaret's 
 secretary.^ 
 
 Such was the state of things when Margaret, four months 
 after the birth of her posthumous son,^ and within a year of 
 the death of James IV.,^ married her second husband, Archi- 
 bald Douglas, Earl of Angus, a handsome young man, — 
 " vehementi quodam animi impetu concitata," remarks Leslie, 
 — a remark which characterized the whole family in these 
 affairs. She lost by her marriage the little remains of authority 
 she had nominally retained over her proud and impetuous 
 subjects; — a result to which she herself contributed by ad- 
 vancing the interests of her husband's relatives. James Beton, 
 Archbishop of Glasgow, exasperated at the loss of the chancel- 
 lorship, threw himself immediately into opposition, and marched 
 upon Edinburgh. Margaret fled with Angus to Stirling. 
 She was in great distress, — she had pawned her jewels, and 
 lost her friends. Whether Henry ever contemplated making 
 an ofl^er of her hand during her widowhood to Lewis XIL, as 
 Dacre proposed, we have no means of deciding. It is not 
 unlikely. When she was in England Wolsey was heard to 
 
 ' II. 50. this hard man, who burnt villages on 
 ^ This son was born April 30, 1514. the borders by the score, and reckoned 
 Her troubles had already begun, and up the death or imprisonment of 
 were not entirely consequent upon her hundreds of poor inhabitants with as 
 second marriage, as some have repre- little compunction as if they had been 
 sented. This is clear from Lord so many sheep or oxen, had a soft and 
 Dacre's letter to Henry VIII. (1.4951.) romantic spot in his heart. Inaletter 
 He writes that in the parliament held to Wolsey about a certain Lady 
 in April, it had been enacted, that all Pickering, whom he wished to marry, 
 fortresses in Scotland should be de- he says : " She has only 40L a year, 
 livered to the three estates, — a blow her goods are of little value, her 
 apparently aimed at Stirling ; — that a father's lands will descend to her 
 bill for Albany's recall had been read, children" (she was a widow). "The 
 but was not concluded. The Scotch letter I wrote unto your Grace con- 
 had already been in correspondence cerning her was more for love than 
 with the Duke. Then, adds Dacre, in any profit; and that she is young, 
 the cold, grim, and granite policy of and that I have but one son, and 
 the times : " The queen has taken her am desirous to have more, so it will 
 chamber in Stirling Castle ; if the stand with the pleasure of God." II. 
 French king (Lewis XII.) please to 4541. 
 
 marry her he can have her." The ^ She married Angus, August 6, 
 
 letter is dated April 8. Anne of 1514. 
 Brittany died January 9 before. Yet
 
 1514-15.] QUEEN MAEGAEET'S DIFFICULTIES. 209 
 
 say " that he tvouIcT have resigned the Cardinars hat, or lost 
 a finger of his right hand, to have married her to the Emperor 
 Maximilian." ^ Some sort of argument was^in fact set up 
 for that purpose. Scotland, it was pretended, was under an 
 interdict at the time of her marriage, and so her union with 
 Angus was null and void.^ But in Margaret, as in Mary, 
 Henry found a will as imperious as his own in matters of the 
 heart. Where these Tudors set their affections there they 
 gave their hands, regardless of all considerations but one ; 
 and from their resolutions, once taken, nothing could divert 
 them. . In this state of uncertainty she received a letter from 
 Hem-y on the 22nd of November.^ She was then at war with 
 her refractory subjects. Hepburn had laid siege to the castle 
 of St. Andrew's ; she herself was daily expecting to be attacked 
 in Stirling castle. Hume, the Chamberlain, " the post of this 
 conspiration," usurped all authority, and treated her and her 
 adherents as rebels. She desired Henry to send an army into 
 Scotland, and keep him well employed ; from the rest she 
 could defend herself till aid came from England. She beirs 
 to hear from her brother every month: "and gif my party 
 adversary counterfeits ohy letters in my name, or gif they 
 compel me to write to you for concord, the subscription shall 
 be but thus : Margaret R., na mare." "* That would show she 
 had written under compulsion. 
 
 The expected aid did not come ; she was taken a few days 
 after from Stirling to Edinburgh by her enemies, Arran and 
 the Chamberlain ; escaped with Angus on the 21st of Novem- 
 ber ; ^ threw herself again into Stirling, and was closely 
 besieged by the Prior of St. Andrew's. So matters stood at 
 the commencement of 1515. Both parties were now anxiously 
 expecting the arrival of Albany. It had been part of the 
 pm-pose of Suffolk and his fellows, in their embassy of con- 
 gratulation, to prevent, if possible, the Duke from receiving 
 aid from France. In this they were unsuccessful. The design 
 of Suffolk to marry the French Queen placed him at once in 
 a false position at the French court, and tied his hands. 
 Francis and his ministers professed utter ignorance of any 
 design upon the part of Albany to cross the sea.^ There was 
 no means of meeting such an allegation. The English am- 
 bassadors, however well convinced of the fact, had only 
 uncertain rumours to oppose. The Duke's steps were carefully 
 
 ' II. 186.3. ■• Instead of, Your loving sister, 
 
 II. 1 845. Margaret R. 
 
 3 I. 5614. * II. 5641. " II. 105. 
 
 VOL. I. ' P
 
 210 THE KEIGN OF HENRY YHI. [A.D. 
 
 dogged by English spies ; the port from which he was to sail 
 well known ; and English vessels hovered about the passage 
 to intercept hinj.^ Francis himself, more young and confident 
 than his ministers, made no concealment of his intentions. 
 AVhen Suffolk and the rest proposed to conclude the peace 
 between the two crowns on condition that Francis should 
 agree by a secret article not to send Albany to Scotland, he 
 proudly refused. The altercation (it was little less) lasted 
 two hours, but the King's resolution remained unshaken. He 
 had promised the Scots to send Albany, and he could not now 
 retract his promise with honour. They urged, " he was the 
 most suspect person that could be sent, for he not only pre- 
 tended to the crown of Scotland, but had been invited by their 
 master's enemies." The only satisfaction they could obtain 
 was a promise that Francis would undertake that the Duke 
 should do no injmy to England ; and if he failed to appease 
 the disturbances in three or four months, he should be recalled. 
 The promise to send Albany, the King urged, had been made 
 to the Scots by Lewis XII., and therefore his successor was 
 bound to perform it.^ 
 
 His ministers, more wary, and conscious of the fact that 
 Henry was already actively interposing in the affairs of 
 Scotland, offered to stop Albany for three months, if Henry 
 in the meantime would engage to give no aid to his sister, but 
 allow both parties in Scotland to settle their differences by 
 themselves. The English replied : They had no authority to 
 make such an agreement, and would not make it if they had ; 
 but if Francis sent the Duke to aid one party, their master 
 "would send another as big as he" to help his sister. The 
 French said : England has already prepared ships which are 
 now cruising on the coast ; and as they cannot be intended 
 against France, whose alliance England is now seeking, they 
 must be intended against Scotland. The ambassadors replied, 
 about that matter they knew nothing.^ 
 
 These remarks will explain a number of difficulties which 
 have hitherto puzzled English and Scotch historians. It has 
 appeared strange that in so critical a period Henry should 
 have rendered such ineffectual aid to Margaret. Her mes- 
 sengers were all this time in England urging, in the strongest 
 terms, a speedy and effective demonstration. That seemed 
 the wisest policy. If it were only known that England was 
 making preparations to advance to Margaret's relief, it would 
 
 1 II. 287. « II. 296. 3 II, 304.
 
 1515.] AREIVAL OF ALBANY. 211 
 
 inspire her friends with confidence, and intimidate her foes. 
 Neither the Queen's hfe nor her husband's was safe in a 
 country abandoned to furious civil strife, and never nice in 
 shedding royal blood. In January, Hamilton set an ambush 
 of 600 men to slay Angus as he was coming from Glasgow. 
 Lennox had pounced upon Dumbarton. Every day the Queen 
 expected to be deprived of her children. She was surrounded 
 by spies on all sides. " God send," she writes to her brother, 
 " I were such a woman as might go with my bairns in mine 
 arm, I trow I should not be long fra you." It was the same 
 with all classes, high or low. As might be expected, when 
 the chiefs quarrelled, every Scotchman, as a matter of course, 
 with his keen appetite and canine sagacity for strife, was only 
 too ready to share in the fray. " Ye know the use (fashion) 
 of this country," says Sir James Inglis^ more than three 
 hundred years ago ; " every man speaks of what he will with- 
 out blame. There is na slander punished ; the man hath ma 
 words na (than) the master, and will not be content except he 
 ken his master's counsel. There is na order among us." 
 Yet no help came. 
 
 Equally, on the other side, Albany's inexplicable delay 
 filled his followers with fear and perplexity. He did not 
 leave St. Malo, where he had been hovering about for a 
 month, watching the white sails of the English cruisers, until 
 the 18th of MojJ. The exact day of his disembarkation is not 
 known ; it was sedulously concealed. His first letter was 
 addressed to Francis L, from Glasgow, May 22nd,^ doubtless 
 from the house of his great ally the Archbishop there. But 
 by that time Francis was out of ear-shot of English remon- 
 strances. He had started on his expedition for Milan, and 
 cared not to have his whereabouts known. Albany, at his 
 arrival, threw himself into the arms of Hepburn, Margaret's 
 most implacable enemy. The fiery pride of Hume was 
 offended at this injudicious preference of his rival. He 
 veered round to the Queen's party ; and Murray became 
 indifferent. 
 
 By the comprehension of Scotland in the treaty with 
 France, Henry was precluded from all overt acts of aggression 
 on the kingdom of his nephew. Whatever was to be done, 
 especially against Albany, could only be done by intrigues 
 with Margaret, or continual raids upon the borders. For the 
 latter some pretext was never long wanting. A hard, stern 
 ' II. 50. ^ II. ■1U4.
 
 212 THE EEIGN OF HENKY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 people, reckless of life — for property they had none, — 
 familiarized from their cradles with bloodshed and robbery, 
 nurtured among burning homesteads and smoking ricks — 
 accustomed to look out on every bright moonlit night in the 
 summer for the rapid moss-trooper swooping down with his 
 black gangs on any spot recovered by a greener vegetation 
 from the drear}'' waste — from sire to son inheriting blood 
 wdiich cried aloud for vengeance and throbbed in their veins 
 for the wrongs of country and kinsmen, — they never waited 
 to consider how far they might be violating the laws of 
 treaties, or what amount of provocation justified retaliation. 
 The implacable feuds of the two people had drawn a band of 
 desolation of many miles in extent, from Berwick to Carlisle 
 — so dreary, so desolate, that centuries of peaceful occupation 
 have not yet sufficed entirely to obliterate its traces. Chief of 
 the English Marches was Thomas Lord Dacre, sometimes 
 called Lord Dacre of the North ; fierce, imperious, and in- 
 defatigable ; not so fiery as Hotspur, but one to whom might 
 be applied, more truly than to Hotspur himself, the ex- 
 aggerated expression of Prince Henry, — one that "would kill 
 some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, wash his 
 hands, and say to his wife : ' Fie upon this quiet life, I want 
 work.' " But Dacre, unlike Hotspur, was a man of great 
 policy, habituated to all those arts of disguise and surprise 
 which had been fostered by his border life. He was the 
 person now appointed to carry out the designs of Henry 
 against Scotland ; — an everlasting thorn to prick the sides of 
 Albany, and keep him in perpetual alarm. 
 
 His first move was to disengage Hume, the Chamberlain, 
 still further from his ancient friends, and set him up as a 
 rival to the duke.^ This was not difficult. Albany had been 
 received at Edinburgh with acclamations. No better proof 
 can be given of his great popularity than the unusual efforts 
 made by Henry to detain him in France. At the meeting of 
 the Scotch Parliament on the 12th of July, the sword was 
 borne before him by the Earl of Arran, without any regard to 
 Margaret ; a coronet was set upon his head by Angus and 
 Argyle, and he was nominated Protector until the King 
 reached the age of eighteen. Dacre had taken the precaution 
 to despatch his brother Sir Christopher, like another invisible 
 Ate, to stir the blood of the disafiected lords, and prompt the 
 neutrals to disaffection. It required very little art to crusk 
 
 » II. 779.
 
 1515.] MAEGAKET BESIEGED IN STIRLING. 213 
 
 the clusters of " ripe hate, like a wine ; " or to note the 
 
 way— 
 
 "It worked -while each grew drunk : ' 
 
 but one art — and that was, not to seem to work in behalf of 
 England, which the Scotch feared, hated, and suspected. 
 Albany, who had little capacity for ruling, began unwisely by 
 revenging past injuries, and striking at the adherents of 
 Margaret. Lord Drummond, the grandfather of Angus, was 
 sent to Blackness for maltreating a herald of Albany's a year 
 before. Gawin Douglas was committed to the sea tower of 
 St. Andrew's, for his English predilections. Eight lords were 
 appointed to have the supervision of the young King, and 
 four of them were sent to Margaret with an intimation to 
 select three. Margaret was then at Stirling. On hearing of 
 their approach she took the young King by the hand, then a 
 child of two years old, and with her nurse carrying the other 
 Prince in her arms, posted herself in the gateway of the castle 
 attended by Angus, and resolutely waited the coming of the 
 lords. The moment they were seen approaching within three 
 yards of the gate, she commanded them to stand and deliver 
 their message. They replied they had brought her a com- 
 mission to deliver into their hands the King and his brother. 
 At the instant the portcullis dropped ; and Margaret refused 
 all further parley, declaring that the castle was her own, and 
 that by the will of her husband she was the guardian of his 
 children. On the fifth day she offered to commit them to the 
 care of three lords of her own nomination ; but her proposition 
 was refused, and Albany resolved to make himself master of 
 the fortress. For this purpose he employed the services of 
 her husband, Angus ! '■ 
 
 The possession of the two Princes was of the utmost 
 importance ; and Albany was determined not to be baffled. 
 Stu'ling w^as strictly besieged by Lennox, Borthwick, Bothwell, 
 and others, hereditary enemies of the Douglas. Angus, who 
 had withdrawn from Stirling, was commanded on his allegiance 
 to return, and assist in " keeping victuals from the (^ueen and 
 her party." This gratuitous cruelty and impolitic measure of 
 the Duke gave Dacre the opportunity he desired. He arranged 
 for Angus and the Chamberlain to ride to Stirling with CO horse 
 and carry off the two Princes. They managed to speak with 
 Margaret, and smuggle in George Douglas, the Earl's brother. 
 Unfortunately sixteen of the party were lost as they cn- 
 
 » II. 779, 783.
 
 214 THE EEIGN OF HENRY YHI. [A.D. 
 
 clecavoiired to steal away unperceivecl. But Dacre had aceom- 
 jDlished one part of his purpose : — an irreconcHable feud 
 sprung up between Albany and the Chamberlam. 
 
 On Saturday, 4th of August, Albany appeared before 
 Stirlmg, accompanied with 7,000 men and a park of artillery : 
 among the number was the celebrated Mons Meg, now laid up 
 in honourable inactivity in the castle at Edinburgh. It had 
 been arranged by Margaret and her husband, that in the 
 event of the Duke assaulting the castle, Margaret should take 
 the young King, and, placing him on the ramparts^ in sight 
 of the invaders, with a crown on his head and a sceptre in his 
 hand, testify by this act that the war was directed against the 
 King's own person. The formidable nature of Albany's 
 pre^mration drove this and all thoughts of resistance out of 
 the heads of the besieged. George Douglas with the rest 
 fled, leaving Margaret and the young Princes to their fate. 
 In her distress she had no alternative except to surrender. 
 She put the keys of the fortress into the young King's hands, 
 and, descending with him to the gate, delivered them to the 
 keeping of the Duke ; beseeching the regent, at the same 
 time, to show favour to her children and her husband.^ She 
 was remanded to the castle, and closely watched by Albany's 
 adherents. 
 
 So far Dacre had succeeded above his expectations in 
 exasperating Margaret against the regent, and rendering all 
 sincere reconciliation between them impossible. But the two 
 Princes had escaped the snare. His next device was to entice 
 Albany to invade England, and thus by breaking the com- 
 prehension give Henry a just pretext for sending an army 
 into Scotland. This was not easy ; it might, however, be 
 accomplished. By sheltering the disaffected nobles in the 
 English marches, Albany might be provoked to make a 
 sudden attempt to cross the borders and secure their persons.^ 
 No device seemed more available for that purpose than the 
 feud between Albany and the Chamberlain; and as Hume 
 had been warden of the marches for Scotland, this j^lan 
 seemed the most feasible. If attacked by Albany he could 
 
 ^ II. 783. "^ IT. 788. that policy ; and how nnscrupulonsly 
 
 ^ This is only one specimen of the they pursued it — goaded on, as Dacre 
 
 systematic policy pursued by the was, by dread of being thought to do 
 
 Tudors towai'ds Scotland and its rulers. his work incomiDletely, and not nn- 
 
 The conduct of Dacre is but one in- frequently stimulated by personal and 
 
 stance of many which might be pro- national hatred of the Scotch. Of 
 
 duced to show how thoroughly such that hatred this age happily can form 
 
 ministers entered into the spirit of no conception.
 
 1515.] DACRE'S INTRIGUES. 215 
 
 readily retreat into the English borders; if he required 
 ammunition, nothing was easier than to send it him from 
 Berwick, or allow him to take it by a feint. Such was Dacre's 
 suggestion ; and it seems to have been acted on ; ^ although it 
 sometimes happened that those who had to carry out these 
 plans did not understand them, and thought that Dacre was 
 intriguing with Albany. Hume had a stronghold on the 
 borders, named Fast Castle, which appeared admirably 
 adapted to the plot. It was victualled by Hume at the 
 suggestion of Dacre, "meaning to do the Duke all the 
 annoyance he could, and take refuge in England when he 
 could hold it no longer."^ Alarmed at these intentions, 
 Albany commanded Arran and Lennox to dislodge him. At 
 the suggestion, doubtless, of Dacre, Hume made a shov; of 
 submission, and offered it to Albany if he would come and 
 take it with a small band. On his appearing before the walls 
 Lady Hume refused to deliver it.^ By Dacre's advice it was 
 delivered at last to Lord Fleming, but in so ruinous a con- 
 dition as to render its possession worthless.'* Hume had set 
 it on fire, taken away the iron gates, unroofed all the houses 
 and chambers, left *'no thakke " or covering over any part, 
 except only a vault,^ where Fleming lay with a small company. 
 Dissatisfied even with this destruction, Hume retook the 
 castle, drove out Fleming, levelled the walls to the ground, 
 and, in the expressive language of the day,^ ''dammed up the 
 well for evermore." Dacre might well boast he had got the 
 Chamberlain into his power, and there was no probability of 
 his reconciliation with the Duke. " It is the interest of the 
 Chamberlain to be true," he wrote to Sir Anthony Ughtred, 
 captain of Berwick, who was mystified with this crooked 
 policy ; " I am aware of his movements, and cannot be 
 beguiled."'^ In his desire for revenge, Hume, like the horse 
 in the fable, had taken a new and rougher rider on his back. 
 Six months before he was the most powerful noble in Scotland, 
 now a houseless man and an exile. The arts of Dacre were 
 prospering. He had prepared a bed of thorns for Albany. 
 He was trailing round the regent an inextricable web of 
 intrigue and faction, and was enchanted at the prospect. 
 
 I return to Margaret, whom we left a prisoner, strictly 
 
 » II. 218. evident that the English n;irrators 
 
 * Aug. 7. II. 788. meant one and the same place. 
 » Aug. 14. ^11. 850. 
 
 * Though spoken of as " Home * II. 861. 
 castle " in Nos. 850 and 861, and ' II. p. nO. 
 " Fast castle " elBewhere, I think it is
 
 216 THE EEIGX OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 watched, in Stirling castle. She bad desired her brother to 
 send her aid in the shape of an army; in bis inability to 
 comply with this request Henry invited her to take refuge in 
 England.^ Dacre was instructed to convey her safely into 
 her brother's dominions from Douglas castle, or any other 
 place within ten miles this side of Stirling. Margaret alleged, 
 in answer to this proposal, that she would rather follow it 
 " than be the greatest lady in the world; "^ but neither she, 
 her husband, nor his uncle Gawiu Douglas, could see how it 
 was to be executed ; for she was sm-rounded on all sides by 
 spies, and all her communications were intercex)ted. She 
 added a significant hint that in the event of no succours 
 coming she should be compelled to submit to the Duke, as she 
 had no means of defending herself.^ It is probable that 
 neither Margaret nor her advisers approved of a flight to 
 England, except as a desperate remedy. So long as they had 
 hopes of maintaining themselves in Scotland, that was better 
 than refuge in England, however honourable ; refuge there 
 involved the destruction of her party, and all her expectations 
 as Queen. In vain Henry's agents endeavoured to combat 
 these objections.^ The capture of her two sons, and her own 
 imprisonment at Stirling, had destroyed her hopes ; and if 
 Albanj'-'s letters and her own may be trusted, she had learned 
 to acquiesce in her fate ; or at least pretended so to do. She 
 returned to Edinburgh in token of her satisfaction at the 
 regent's conduct ; ^ she had even written to her brother, 
 expressing a wish that she and Albany should continue in 
 such a course that peace might be preserved between them ; 
 she expressed her approbation of the course taken by parlia- 
 ment in reference to the royal children ; and as this letter 
 was signed in the way she had arranged with Henry w^hen he 
 was to consider her writing as spontaneous, we must believe 
 that these professions at the time w^ere sincere.^ She added 
 at the close of the letter a very suspicious clause, that as she 
 had not more than eight weeks to her time, she intended to 
 lie in at Linlithgow in twelve days.'^ The letter was dated 
 from Edinburgh, August 20th. Apparently this was a i)re- 
 concerted signal between herself and Dacre, to whom she 
 
 ^ II. 62. had compelled Margaret to -write and 
 
 , " II. 47. express lier satisfaction to her brother 
 
 ^ II. 48. against her will ; and that he had 
 
 * 11. 66. received a secret message from her to 
 
 ' See August 10. II. 795. that effect, to be communicated to 
 
 ® Yet Alexander Hume -wrote to Dacre (Xo. 846). 
 
 Dacre on the 24th to say that Albany ' II. 832.
 
 1515.] MAEGAKET ESCAPES TO ENGLAND. 217 
 
 wrote at the same time. By some contrivance the letter was 
 not des23atclied until the end of the month. 
 
 On the 1st September/ Dacre requested her to change 
 Linlithgow for Blacater, near Berwick, when he promised to 
 wait upon her. She wrote in reply by Sir Robert Carr, that 
 Dacre did not comprehend her real position ; she was kept in 
 strict watch by Albany in Edinburgh, her friends were in 
 "ward," her revenues withheld. Escape was not easy. To 
 follow Dacre's advice, and reach Blacater, she would feign 
 sickness, go to Linlithgow with the earl her husband, and 
 there take her chamber. She proposed to leave on the first 
 or second night, accompanied only by her husband and four 
 or five servants ; the Chamberlain was to meet her with 
 "40 hardy and well striking fellows," two or three miles from 
 the town. It was suggested that in the event of failure, he 
 should set fire to some village, as if his intentions had been 
 nothing more than a border raid, and then wait for a better 
 opportunity. It was now the 7th of September, and Dacre 
 was at Etall. The plot could not apparently be carried out 
 so soon as was expected. Nearly a month slipped away, but 
 on Sunday, September 30th, Margaret arrived at Harbottle ; 
 and the Sunday after, in the words of Dacre, was immediately 
 " delivered of a fair young lady," christened the next day with 
 such conveniences as they could muster.'-^ This was the 
 celebrated Margaret Douglas, afterwards married to the Earl 
 of Lennox. When her escape became known to Albany, he 
 wrote to her the most urgent entreaties to return to Scotland, 
 apologized for the part he had taken in reference to her 
 children, and attributed the act entirely to the States.^ If she 
 would return to Scotland "to her gesine " (her lying-in) he 
 l^romised to restore everything in seven days, and take Angus 
 into favour. It is needless to say that these offers were rejected 
 with scorn. On the 10th she notified to him her delivery " of 
 a Christian soul, being a young lady," ^ and demanded the 
 governance of her children. The answer of the Council of 
 Scotland to this demand was extraordinary ; still more as it 
 was manifestly dictated by Albany. They told her that the 
 governance of the realm expired with the death of her husband, 
 and devolved upon the States ; that Albany had been appointed 
 by her consent ; that she had forfeited the guardianship of 
 her children by her second marriage ; that in all temporal 
 
 ' IT. 885. » II. 879, 1027. 
 
 ' II. 1044, 1672. * II. 1011.
 
 218 THE EEIGN OF HEXKY Till. [A.D. 
 
 matters " the realm of Scotland has been immediately subject 
 to Almighty God, not recognizing the Pope or any superior upon 
 earth" 
 
 It was in vain that Albany employed threats and blandish- 
 ments alternately. He wrote to Queen Mary/ whom he had 
 personally known in France, to her husband the Duke of 
 Suffolk, to Henrj', and to Wolsey ; ^ his intentions, he said, 
 were studiously misrepresented, and Dacre — without mention- 
 ing his name — had kept the truth from the King's ears. 
 Truth was not the thing wanted, least of all peace. It was 
 Dacre's object to keep Albany in perpetual alarm ; to throw 
 over the borders the lawless troopers of Northumberland, 
 Eiddesdale, Tynedale, and Gillesland, and withdraw them the 
 moment Albany appeared in force. By all the means his 
 fertile brains could devise, he fomented the animosities of 
 the nobles, especially of the Humes ; he held out to them 
 promises of munificent rewards from his master on condition 
 that they should never make terms with Albany ; and he took 
 care, in his private correspondence with the Duke, that Albany 
 should be in no temper or condition to make advances. 
 " They are resolved," he says, in a letter to the King,^ "to 
 annoy the Duke, who is well weary from the continued spoil- 
 ing, bm-ning, and slaughter in Scotland." Dacre was inde- 
 fatigable in these devices ; an inimitable agent of mischief 
 and destruction. In his hands the passions, the selfishness, 
 the treachery of men were more desolating instruments than 
 fire and sword, for turning a fruitful land into a wilderness. 
 
 Henry was desirous that Margaret should spend her 
 Christmas in London, and take part in the pageantry of that 
 season,"* into which no one entered with greater zest than 
 himself. But her delivery had been followed by a severe and 
 protracted illness. From Harbottle she had been removed 
 to Morpeth, to Dacre's intolerable expense, and was some 
 days in accomplishing the journey. She was too feeble to 
 bear the jolting of horses in the litter, and was carried the 
 whole distance on the shonlders of Dacre's servants. Sir 
 Christopher Garneys, whom Skelton the poet has made the 
 subject of his bitterest invectives, was sent to visit her in 
 December, and carry her the King's presents. He gives an 
 aflecting picture of the Queen and the woman, racked by 
 excruciating pains, which could not extinguish the delight she 
 took in the new dresses just arrived from London. " I think 
 
 1 II. 1025. ■ II. 1024, 1030. ^ jj io44. « 11. 1223.
 
 1515-16.] MARGARET IN ENGLAND. 219 
 
 her," he sajs/ "one of the lowest-brought ladies with her 
 great i^ain of sickness that I have seen, and escape. Her 
 Grace hath such a pain in lier right leg that these three weeks 
 she may not endure to sit up while her bed is a-making ; and 
 when her Grace is removed, it would pity any man's heart to 
 hear the shrieks and cries that her Grace giveth." ^ Imme- 
 diately she heard of the presents, she had herself borne in 
 a chair out of her bedroom into the great chamber, to feast 
 her eyes on the rich stuffs her brother had sent her. "When 
 she had seen everything," continues Garneys, " she bid the 
 lord chamberlain (Hume, who had followed her to Morpeth) 
 and the other gentlemen come in and look at them ; exclaim- 
 ing, with an air of triumph, ' So, my Lords, here ye may see 
 that the King my brother hath not forgotten me, and that he 
 would not I should die for lack of clothes ! ' " Garneys adds 
 that she had a wonderful love of apparel, and had caused the 
 go^vns of cloth of gold and tinsen (tinsel) to be made against 
 this term of Christmas, " and likes the fashion so well she 
 will send for them and have them held before her once or 
 twice a day to look at." She had already in the castle twenty- 
 two gowns of cloth of silk and gold, and had sent to Edinburgh 
 for more. 
 
 In this flutter of delight she was unconscious of the great 
 loss which had befallen her. The Duke of Kothesay, her 
 favomite child, had died a few days before, on the 18th of 
 December. The news was known to Dacre, but no one dared 
 break it to Margaret. She herself was too much occupied 
 with her clothes to notice the anxious looks of her attendants. 
 The Duke, by all accounts, was a beautiful and winning boy ; 
 and Margaret, who had not seen him since she left Edinburgh, 
 was never tired of talking about him. "If it comes to her 
 knowledge," says Garneys, " it will be fatal to her. These 
 four or five days of her own mind it hath pleased her grace to 
 show unto me how goodly a child her younger son is, and her 
 grace praiseth him more than she doth the king her eldest 
 son." ^ In such unobserved corners nature peeps out. No 
 amount of brocade, no mountain heaps of political intrigue, 
 could smother it entirely. 
 
 ' II. 1350. fore wonlrl she tako colosos, mortcrong, 
 
 ^ It was a disease in the hip-joint : almond milk, good broths, pottages, or 
 
 according to Dacre and Magnus, pro- boiled incatH, but only roast meat with 
 
 bably sciatica. She was a very un. jcjjb'es, and that very scantily." (H. 
 
 manageable patient. " Her long con- 1387.) 
 finement," says Dacre, "1ms destroyed ' 11.1759,1829. 
 
 her appetite, nor at any time hereto-
 
 220 THE REIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 In April tlie Queen's liealtli was re-established, and she 
 started southward on her progress. The journey was not 
 pressed upon her solely from motives of affection. Dacre was 
 afraid that the resort of the Scotch nobles to Morpeth might 
 produce some change in the Queen's inclinations, and possibly 
 tempt her to an accommodation with Albany, who wrote 
 frequently and made many professions. Dacre dictated her 
 letters, and under such management there was no fear of 
 their being too conciliatory.-^ On the 3rd of May the King met 
 her at Tottenham, and "the same day her Grace did ride 
 behind Sir Thomas Parr through Cheapside, about six o'clock, 
 to Baj^ard's castle." ^ She remained in England until June, 
 1517, taking part in the court pageantry, and adding lustre 
 by her presence to those masks and ceremonials, on which, in 
 the absence of more serious occupations, so much attention was 
 then bestowed. Her necessities were pressing ; from Henry 
 she had no regular allowance, and no remittances came from 
 Scotland.^ We find her urgently demanding of Wolsey 200L 
 for her own and her servants' wants at Christmas.^ " I pray 
 you heartily, my lord, put me off no longer, for the time is 
 short ; and if you will do so much for me at this time I pray 
 send me word, for I will trouble you no more with my sending, 
 for then I will speak to the king my brother, for I trust his 
 grace will do so much for me." The King, her son, was in 
 Scotland. Angus, her husband, and Hume, had left her on 
 hearing her resolution to proceed southward.^ Judging by 
 the cautious terms of Caere's letter, there had been a quarrel 
 between them on this subject. They had no appetite for an 
 honourable captivity in England, and from that moment were 
 reconciled to Albany. No wonder Margaret was anxious to 
 return and join her child and her husband. The preparations 
 for a war with France facilitated her wishes. Ostensibly 
 Albany was tired of Scotland, and desu'ous to leave. He pro- 
 
 ^ II. 1671. in LoncTon, etc., 170/. ; till her coming 
 
 « II. 1861. to York, 200L ; for the Queen herself, 
 
 ^ Yet I find the following sums ad- first 180/., and afterwards 666/. 13s. 
 
 vanced for her use in the King's Book 4d. ; to Magnus going with her, 40/. ; 
 
 of Payments (see Calendar, II. pp.1471 to Sir Edw. Benstead attending on her 
 
 seq.) : — In April, 1516, 100/. ; in May, 40 days, 10/. ; Sir Thomas Boleyn, her 
 
 200/., by Magnus ; in July, 100/., by carver, 10?. ; Master Hall, her chai^- 
 
 Sir Thos. Par; in September, 140/. in lain, 66s. St/.; two gentlemen iishers, 
 
 two payments ; in November, 100/. ; 3s. 4(^. a day ; and two grooms of her 
 
 and the same in December. In 1517, chamber, 20(?. a day each; Jamy Dogge, 
 
 in February, 140/. ; and when she was lOOs. The plate given her is estimated 
 
 returning to Scotland in May, the at 125/. Is. 9A. 
 
 following sums were appointed for ■* II. 2729. 
 
 herself and her attendants : — expenses ^ 11.1759.
 
 1517.] MAEGARET RETURNS TO SCOTLAND. 221 
 
 fessed the strongest ^visli for the two kingdoms to remain at 
 peace, and even offered to visit Henry in England, provided 
 he might have sufficient security.-^ This arrangement never 
 took effect. The estates of Scotland refused to let Albany 
 leave until their King was of age.^ When Clarencieux urged 
 him to give some proof of his sincerity, he took the herald's 
 " hand betwixt his two hands, and swore by the faith he 
 owed unto God and by the faith of a gentleman " — a 
 phrase he had apparently picked up from his familiarity with 
 Francis I. — "that he would put himself in his most effectual 
 devoir to have his leave of the Scots to go to England ; and 
 were he not as well minded as any one, in condition he were 
 ready to depart, to go on foot from Edinburgh to London, he 
 would forsake his part in paradise, and give him, body and 
 soul, to all the devils of hell ; and further sware in like 
 manner, upon a piece of the Holy Cross, and on divers other 
 relics, which be in a tablet of gold hanging about his neck." 
 
 In March, 1517, when by the treaty of Noyon all the 
 European powers were in league with France, a truce was 
 concluded between England and Scotland, and Margaret was 
 allowed to return, on condition that she took no part in the 
 administration.^ She commenced her journey in May."^ At her 
 entry into York she was received by the Earl of Northumber- 
 land.^ On Whitsunday, 31st of May, she dined at St. Mary's 
 Abbey. On the 15th of the next month she entered Scotland.^ 
 Albany in the interval had crossed to France on the 8th, 
 leaving as governors in his place the Archbishops of St. 
 Andrews and Glasgow, with the Earls of Huntley, Angus, 
 Argyle, and Ai-ran. Magnus, who attended her and noticed 
 her dejection, thought that she would rather have remained 
 in England. He did the best to comfort and advise her ; but 
 she loitered on the borders, naturally reluctant when the time 
 came to trust herself again to the stormy sea from which she 
 had escaped so recently. "Her Grace," he adds,' "con- 
 sidereth now the honour of England, and the poverty and 
 wretchedness of Scotland, which she did not afore, but in her 
 opinion esteemed Scotland equal to England." 
 
 She was well received, but her authority was not restored, 
 and her influence was less substantial than it was before. 
 What could a woman do among such restless and imperious 
 
 ' II. 2231-5. * II. 33;?f). 
 
 2 II. 2610. " II. 3305. 
 
 » 11. ;ill9. ' Ibid. 
 * II. 3209.
 
 222 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 spirits, proud and defiant under all rule, still more under that 
 of an English Princess? The romantic chivalry towards 
 women, sometimes carried to excess in the South, was scarcely 
 known in Scotland. The Scotch nobility, uneducated as a 
 body, and despising all arts and polite acquirements, spent 
 their lives in endless feuds, devoting the little intellects they 
 had to interminable quarrels, transmitted from sire to son 
 with fatal and unimpaired fidelity. Never engaged in one 
 common enterprize or continental war, no sense of unity as a 
 nation, no national spirit existed among them. There was 
 no centre, as in England, round which the restless and jarring 
 elements might eventually concentrate and find harmony and 
 repose at last ; sovereigns to them were but mockery kings 
 and queens of snow. One bond of union they had, and but 
 one, the worst a people could have, and that was hatred; 
 hatred the most intense for England, and, next to that, for 
 one another. Happily the former continued strong enough 
 and long enough to prevent the latter from running out into 
 its fullest latitude of excess ; and their border warfare, perhaps 
 the most sanguinary that ever stained the annals of any people, 
 had this one advantage, that it gave the Scotch aristocracy 
 and their followers a common enemy, and something of a 
 common interest, and so preserved the nation from utter 
 desolation. I must conclude this portion of my narrative with 
 some remarks on the fate and conduct of the Humes, whose 
 exploits have been so frequently mentioned in these pages. 
 
 When Margaret took her journey to London, Angus and 
 Hume had left her in displeasure, to the extreme disgust of 
 Dacre. Both returned to Scotland, and were reconciled to 
 Albany.-^ From that moment the Chamberlain's fate is in- 
 volved in obscurity. His mother. Lady Hume (according to 
 the partial statement of Margaret, wiiicli was in truth only a 
 political manifesto drawn by Dacre), had been taken from 
 Coldstream by De la Bastie, placed "on a trotting horse in 
 spite of her age," and carried to Dunbar castle, where she 
 was kept " six weeks on brown store-bread and water." ^ 
 The Chamberlain had been attainted in Parliament for the 
 part he had taken in furthering Margaret's escape, and urging 
 an invasion by England. But rumour reported that he had 
 made his peace with the Duke, through the mediati^wi of the 
 Archbishop of St. Andrew's^ (Forman, late Bishop of Murray). 
 Dacre writes to Wolsey on the 26th of October,* but without 
 
 » II. 1759. ■ II. p. 467. ^ II. 1938. * II. 2481.
 
 1517.] EXECUTION OF HUME AND HIS BROTHER. 223 
 
 a passing expression of regret, that the Master of Graj^stoek 
 would explain to hijn the order for the execution of Lord Hume 
 and his brother. They had already been executed some day 
 before this communication/ and their heads had been set on 
 "the town house at Edinburgh."^ That the reconciliation 
 with Albany was sincere on his part is obvious from Spinelly's 
 letters. At the Duke's recommendation Francis I. granted 
 pensions to six of the Scotch noblemen who had hitherto been 
 inclined to England, and the Chamberlain was one of that 
 number,^ As late as on the 29th of August, we find from a 
 letter of Clarencieux '^ to Wolsey that Angus, Hume, and their 
 party, still hung together, and were outwardly submissive to 
 the Duke. Hume's relative, David Hume of Wedderburn,^ 
 states positively that the Chamberlain was slain by Albany 
 " under trust ; " — an assertion not to be accepted without 
 hesitation, considering the quarter from which it emanates. 
 Whatever might be the cause, Hume was condemned by Parlia- 
 ment. A traitor aj^parently on both sides, and studious only 
 of revenge at any sacrifice, his fate was not regretted or con- 
 demned by his own people or by Englishmen. Neither Dacre 
 nor his Sovereign made any effort to save him. 
 
 The clan of the Humes studied revenge. David Hume in 
 desx3air seized the person of the French ambassador,^ but at 
 the bidding of Dacre reluctantly consented to let him go. 
 George Hume took a more ample and speedy revenge. At the 
 death of the Chamberlain, De la Bastie, the bravest and most 
 accomplished knight in Scotland, had been appointed warden 
 of the East Marches. On the 15th of April, 1517,' he was 
 desired by Albany to visit Dacre, then at Naward, and demand 
 the smTender of George Hume and others, according to the 
 agreement lately made between the two nations. Dacre stated, 
 in reply to this demand, that he did not know where George 
 Hume and his brother were to be found. He thought they 
 were in Scotland, but if they were in his borders he would do 
 his best to take them.^ On the IGth of June, La Bastie was 
 one of those who met Margaret on the borders, and welcomed 
 her to Scotland. Towards the end of July ^ he was again with 
 Dacre on the subject of these border disputes. This is the 
 last time we hear of him alive. The Humes had been watch- 
 ing for an opportunity of revenge ; at length, they contrived 
 
 » II. October 8. « II. 4338. 
 
 ' II. 2484. ' II. 3124. 
 
 3 July. II. 2136. « II. 3139. 
 
 * II. 2314. » II. p. 1083. 
 =- II. 4338.
 
 224 THE EEIGN OP HENRY VHL [A.D. 
 
 by a feint to draw out La Bastie, accompanied with a few 
 followers, from the castle of Dunbar, attacked bim in full 
 force, and as bis borse got entangled in a morass,^ in his 
 attempt to escape, slew bim with great cruelty, cut off bis 
 head, which George Hume slung at his saddle-bow, and fixed 
 it upon a pole in the town of Dunse. The Scotch historians 
 date this murder on the 19tb or 20th of September. I think 
 it must have been earlier for the following reasons. Margaret 
 had written to Dacre, desiring him, at the request of the laird 
 of Wedderburn, to send her the prior of Coldingham and bis 
 brother George Hume, for now was the time for them to take 
 her part. She was resolved, she told him, to have " all the 
 rule, or there will be some trouble." It appears that either 
 on her own behalf, or at the suggestion of Angus, she thought 
 it possible, in the confusion which arose on the death of La 
 Bastie, Albany's most important adherent, that she might 
 make a dash at the crown, and regain her authority. It is 
 clear too that she believed the two Humes, notwithstanding 
 this murder, were sheltered and supported by Dacre, who 
 naturally laid himself open to suspicion from the encourage- 
 ment he had given to the Humes and his adoption of an ille- 
 gitimate sou of the late Chamberlain. His reply indicates 
 considerable annoyance, and is barely respectful.^ He began 
 by expressing his astonishment that she should write to him 
 at the request of the laird of Wedderburn ; — he knew nothing 
 of the Humes, nor where they were. Then referring to the 
 murder of La Bastie, which strangely enough had not been 
 openly mentioned in Margaret's letter, he expressed his belief 
 that it was "of a sodendy." He warns Angus "not to lose 
 himself in the taking of a light way with the said laird of 
 Wedderburn," and to do nothing without the advice of his 
 friends in Scotland ; — expressions which can hardly bear any 
 other construction than that Angus had meditated, with the 
 help of the Humes to obtain the government during Albany's 
 absence, and in common with Margaret had imagined that 
 the slaughter of La Bastie had been i^lanned with a view to 
 their interests, not without Dacre's cognizance. 
 
 The cause of the Humes was ruined for ever. Francis I. 
 was then in secret communication with Wolsey for a stricter 
 union between the two crowns ; and on hearing of the death 
 of his ambassador, he dictated an energetic remonstrance to 
 the States of Scotland.^ The States wrote word that nothing 
 
 ' In a place called to this day, in memory of the deed, Battifs Bog, 
 2 II. 3713. ^ II. 4048.
 
 1517.] KUIN OF THE HUMES. 225 
 
 had ever ^-ieved tliem more since the death of their late Iving. 
 They had ah-eady taken measures for punishing the offenders 
 before the receipt of his letters, and had summoned a Parlia- 
 ment for that purpose : — all the Humes had been declared 
 traitors ; their lands and goods forfeited ; one had been caught, 
 hung, di-awn, and quartered ; the rest had fled to England, and 
 were sheltered there in violation of the truce. A demand had 
 been made for their sm-render, which Henry had refused. 
 Naturally Dacre was anxious to free himself from all suspicion 
 of harbouring such delinquents. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 226 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 DOMESTIC HISTORY. 
 
 Great was the contrast which England offered in this respect 
 to the sister kingdom, and Margaret might well return to 
 Scotland with a sigh. In England there was no trouble or 
 dissension ; there she was accustomed to behold a wealthy 
 and obedient people, a submissive clergy, a court where 
 nothing seemed to rule except an unbroken round of pleasure ; 
 splendid amusements, masques, decorations, jewellery, inlaid 
 armour ; cards and dice, ducats and crowns in great silver 
 bowls, luxuries for which money was always forthcoming 
 when needed. All these delights must have appeared to her 
 bewildered imagination, in contrast to her own poverty as 
 Queen of Scotland, like the realization of Aladdin's wonderful 
 lamp. I have stated before^ that the King had the entire 
 and exclusive control of the money j)aid into the Exchequer. 
 He had nothing to do except sign a warrant to John Heron, 
 the treasurer of the Chamber, and whatever sums were in the 
 hands of the receivers of the revenue were instantly paid over 
 to the King's use. There was no Admiralty to control the 
 navy or regulate its expenses ; no commander-in-chief or pay- 
 master-general of the army. All such offices, or their modern 
 substitutes, were combined in the King's person, and he 
 regulated at his own will the finances connected with them. 
 If ships were to be built, he built them out of his privy purse ; 
 if armies were to be raised, they were raised by the same 
 means. The country was called upon for loans and subsidies, 
 and the Parliament determined on the amount ; but it never 
 presumed to regulate the expenditure of the money so 
 collected, or even dictate how it should be applied. If the 
 reader will turn to the remarkable document, entitled "The 
 King's Book of Payments,"^ he will see this subject more 
 clearly at a glance than it could be explained to him by the 
 
 1 See p. 69. « See II. pp. 1441-80.
 
 1509-16.] THE KING'S EXPENDITUKE. 227 
 
 most laborious descrii3tion. On comparing the two years of 
 \Yar, 1512, 1513, followed by 1514, with three years of peace 
 and subsidizing of foreign powers, like Maximilian and the 
 Swiss, the account wdll be found to stand as follows : — Sum 
 total of all expenditure in 1512 was 286,269L ; in 1513 it rose 
 to 699,714L ; in 1514 it declined to 155,757L ; in 1515 to 
 74,007^. ; ^ in 1516 it rose again, from circumstances stated in 
 the note, to 130,779/. ; ^ but sunk in 1517 to 78,887/.^ This 
 extraordinary reduction of expenditure from the moment that 
 Wolsey came into power is one of the most remarkable feats 
 of his administration, and shows how entirely it has been 
 misunderstood by modern historians. It must be remembered 
 also that all the expenses of Tournay are included in these 
 latter years, with the loans to Queen Margaret, presents to 
 ambassadors, and the establishment for Princess Mary. The 
 King too had acquired in the latter years a habit of helping 
 himself to heavy sums, for his own use, without accounting 
 for the mode of their expenditure. In May, 1515, he took 
 3,000Z., in August 3,000/., and again in December 6,000/. ; in 
 June, 1516, 2,000/., and again in October 3,000/, ; in March, 
 1517, 3,000/. ; in December, 1518, 2,000.^ How these sums 
 were employed it would be useless to speculate. They were 
 received by Sir William Compton, the chief gentleman of the 
 King's bedchamber, " for the King's use," and formed no part 
 of the regular expenses for the household, the entertainment 
 of ambassadors, secret or public service-money, all of which 
 are entered at full. The sums disbursed for alms, jewellery, 
 l)late, arms, horses, saddlery, the tilt-yard, Christmas boxes, 
 and new year's gifts, are also accounted for. In 1515 the 
 money paid for silks and velvets, not including minor items, 
 exceeded 5,000/., for plate and jewellery 1,500/. ; in January, 
 1515, for pearls, 566/. ; in December, 1516, for pearls and 
 diamonds, 596/. ; in October, 1518, for sables, 290/. I can 
 only infer, therefore, that the large sums mentioned above 
 were laid out in personal luxuries or expenditure, of which 
 the King and his attendants chose to give no detailed account. 
 His presents to ambassadors were on a most magnificent scale. 
 To the Duke of Longueville, he gave in August, 1514, 
 
 ' From this Bum 6,000L are to be at Toarnay, 11,5391. for ordnance and 
 
 dodacted for war expenses in the simihir items. 
 
 previous years, and 4,000i. as a loan ^ From tliis sum 13, .333?. to bo 
 
 to Cavallary. deducted as a loan to Charles of Spain. 
 
 * Including 6,000i. lent to SuCEclk, * In October this year he spent 
 
 26,000f.forPaceandWinKfield, 5,000/,. 1,000/. at play, and 20/. the montli 
 
 for war expenses, 10,000/. for citadel before.
 
 228 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 2,083L ; ^ to the Prince of Castile's ambassadors in July, 1517, 
 200Z., and 560Z. in plate in the September following ; to the 
 French King's gentlemen in October, 8001., and 1,829L in 
 plate ; to the Cardinal of Sion, in Norember, 1518, 333L 6.s. 8d. 
 There was the same love of splendour, and the same disregard 
 of economy, shown in his amusements.^ New year's gifts, 
 revels at court, tournaments, masques, balls, and interludes 
 form a considerable item in the royal expenditure. Of these 
 many curious accounts will be found in the Calendar of 
 Henry VIII. at the close of the second volume. I can only 
 afford space for two, and must apologize to my readers for 
 entering into these minute details. 
 
 The first is a Christmas festivity held at Westminster in 
 1511. The writer makes no distinction between the antelope 
 and the olyvant (elephant), as one of the supporters of the 
 royal arms.^ 
 
 On the 12 and 13 Feb., 2 Hen. VIII., a jonst of honor was held by the 
 King, with three aids, at Westminster. A forest was constructed within 
 the house of Black Friars, Ludgate, 26 ft. long, 16 ft. broad, 9 ft. high, 
 garnished with artificial " liawthorns, oaks, maples, hazels, birches, fern, 
 broom, and furze, with beasts and birds embossed of sundry fashion, with 
 foresters sitting and going on the top of the same, and a castle in the said 
 forest, with a maiden sitting thereby with a garland, and a lion of great 
 statiire and bigness, with an antelope of like proportion, after his kind, 
 drawing the said pageant or forest, conducted with men in woodwoos' * 
 apparel, and two maidens sitting on the said two beasts. In the which 
 forest were four men of arms, riding, that issued out at times ajapointed ; 
 and on every of the four quarters of the forest were the arms of the four 
 knights challengers. And for the second day were provided and made four 
 rich pavilions, one crowned, the other three with balls of burnished gold." 
 
 For this pageant the following articles were required : 2T ft. of fine 
 oak for mules and other beasts. 78 alder poles for the body of the forest 
 and great beasts, and the closures of the haU door at Westminster. 10 
 bundles of ci'own paper for moulding beasts, the faces of the lion and 
 antelope, &c. ; 7 reams of white Geen paper, for lining the sarcenet that 
 the leaves were made of, and for covering the rocks. 6 fir trees. 4 masts 
 for enclosing the hall door. 1 lb. of Spanish brown for coloring the 
 beasts. 1 lb. of orpiment. 2 doz. green "schyng" paper, for mixing with 
 the ivy and the woodwos' heads and staves. 5 doz. of gold paper for the 
 castle, and the body and legs of the lion. 1 lb. of vermilion for the 
 mouths of the lion and antelope, &c. Canvas of Normandy, 16 ells for 
 the lion and olj^ant ; 9 ells for lining the woodwos'*apparel. 5 bushels of 
 wheat flour, for paste. 4 st. neat's tallow. 5(> doz. silver paper. 2 doz. 
 embossed birds. 2,400 turned acorns and hazelnuts, 118 lbs. orsade for 
 flossing and casing the lion, etc. Holly boughs, fennel stalks, broom 
 stalks, &c. planted with sarcenet flowers and leaves. 6 doz. silk roses, 
 wrought by the maiden into a garland, and delivered to the queen when 
 
 • Not including 500L to John ^ rpj^^ extracts which follow are 
 
 Clarke, who took him prisoner. from the Calendar. Only where quota- 
 
 ^ Various references occur to the tion marks are nsed is the precise 
 
 King's stud and his deer ; some to a language of the original documents 
 
 tame leopard : but none to dogs or followed, 
 falcons, so far as I can remember. * Wild men of the woods ; savages.
 
 1516.] PAGEANTS. 229 
 
 the jousts began. 4 lbs. of iron wire for the lions and olyvant's tails. 
 6 backs of tanned leather for the chains that the lion and the antelope 
 drew the forest with. Gold for gilding the antelope's horns, crowns, &c. 
 3 coifs of Venice gold, for the maiden in the forest, and those that rode 
 on the lion and the olyvant. 4 oz. Tenice ribbon for girdles and the 
 garland presented to the queen. Ivy for the woodwos' heads, belts, and 
 staves. 4 vizors for the woodwos who conducted the forest. 3 lbs. of 
 booellarmanyake (bole Armeniac). Green sarcenet, for the boughs of the 
 forest, 26 ft. long, 10 ft. broad, and 9 ft. high, 153 yds. ; lining a pavilion 
 for the King, 42 yds. ; for 12 hawthorns, 44 yds. ; 12 oaks, 44 yds. ; 
 10 maples, 36 yds. ; 12 hazels, 32 yds. ; 10 birches, 32 yds. ; 16 doz. fern 
 roots and branches, 64 yds. ; 50 broom stalks, 58 yds. ; 16 furze bushes, 
 33 yds. ; lining the maiden's sleeves, 2f yds. ; total, 542 yds. Yellow 
 sarcenet for broom and furze flowers, 22 yds. Russet sarcenet for the 4 
 woodwos' garments, shred like locks of hair or wool, 48 yds. Russet 
 damask, spent by Edmund Skill, tailor, for kirtles of the maiden in the 
 forest, and on the lion and " olj'vant," 10 yds. Yellow damask for the 
 maidens on the lion and " antlope," 10 yds. Blue velvet for a pavilion for 
 the king, 36 yds. Blue and crimson damask for pavilions. 1 yd. of blue 
 sarcenet for a banner in the forest. " Spent and employed on the said 
 four pavilions for jioints to stay the hoops, which points were spent, 
 stolen and wasted at the siege of Terouenne, at the receiving of the 
 Emperor, for the said pavilions did the king royal service to his honor." 
 To Edmund Skill, for making the apparel for the maiden in the forest, 
 those on the lion and the antelope ^ and the woodwos, 42«. lOd. 
 
 ' ' Thys forrest or pageant after the usance had into Westmester gret 
 Hall, and by the kynges gard and other gentyllmen rent, brokyn, and by 
 fors kariyed away, and the poor men that wer set to kep, theyr beds 
 brokjai two of them, and the remnant put ther from with foors, so that 
 noon ther of byt the baar t5anbyr cum near to the kynges ews nor stoor. 
 
 ' ' The second day the 4 jjavelyuns wer savyd to the kynges ews and 
 profyd with meche payn. 
 
 "Memorandum, That the kynges graas at hys'town of Kales cummandyd 
 me Rechard Gybson to kut oon of the sayd pavelyuns, and so yt was and 
 maad an hangyng for an hows of tymbyr of Flandyrs werke. And at the 
 seege of Tyrwyen the sayd hows was geyvn by the kynges graas to my Lord 
 of Wynchester, with tlie saam hangyng so mad of the saam pavelyun." 
 
 The other belongs to 1516, and is as follows: — 
 
 The king being at Eltham, Christmas, 7 Hen. VIII. , instructions were 
 issued to Richard Gibson, by Mr. Wm. Cornish and the master of the 
 revels, to prepare a castle of tindjer in the King's hall, garnished after such 
 devises as shall ensue. Cornish and the children of the chapel also per- 
 formed "the story of Troylous and Pandor richly apparelled, also Kallkas 
 and Kryssyd apparelled like a widow of honour, in black sarcenet and 
 other habiliments for such matter ; Dyomed and the Greeks apparelled 
 like men of war, according to the intent or purpose. After which comedy 
 played and done, a herald cried and made an oy tliat three strange knights 
 were come to do battle with [those] of the said castle ; out [of] which 
 issued three men of arms with jjunching spears, ready to do feats at the 
 barriers, apparelled in white satin and green satin of Bruges, bned with 
 green sarcenet and white sarcenet, and the satin cut thereon. To the said 
 three men of arms entered other three men of arms with like weapons, 
 and apparelled in slops of red sarcenet and yellow sarcenet, and witli .spears 
 made certain strokes ; and after that done, with naked swords fought a 
 fair battle of twelve strokes, and so departed of force. Then out of the 
 castle issued a queen, and with her six ladies, with speeches after the 
 
 ' Correction from " Olyvant."
 
 230 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 device of Mr. Cornisli ; and after this done, seven minstrels apparelled in 
 long garments, and bonnets to the same, of satin of Bruges, white and 
 green, 1 on the walls and towers of the said castle played a melodious song. 
 Then came out of tlie castle six lords and gentlemen apparelled in garments 
 of white satin of Bruges and green, broidered with counterfeit stuff of 
 Flanders making, as brooches, ouches, spangs, and such ; and also six 
 ladies apparelled in six garments of rich satin, white and green, set with 
 H and K of yellow satin, pointed togetlier with points of Kolen gold. 
 These six garments for ladies were of the King's store, newly repaired. 
 All the said ladies heads apparelled with loose gold of damask, as well as 
 with woven fiat gold of damask, &c." The garments were prepared and 
 brought to Eltham for Epiphany night and New Year's night. 
 
 Bought of Wm. Botre and Mr. Thorstoon, 265| yds. white and green 
 satin, for garments for ladies, a doublet for one of the chapel children 
 who played Eulyxes. 5 yds. red satin. 27 yds. yellow satin for Cornish 
 and the ladies of the castle. 51| yds. red and yellow sarcenet for three 
 Greek robes, a double cloak for Troylous, a mantle and bishop's surcoat 
 for Cornish to play Killkass in. 27i yds. white and green sarcenet. 
 Black sarcenet for a surcoat, mantle and widow's hood for Kressyd, and a 
 garment for Cornish when he played the herald, &c. 2 pieces Florence 
 cotton for Kressyd. 12 pieces Cyprus for the lady who played Faith. 7 
 ells Holland cloth for short wide sleeves for Dyomed and his fellows. 
 10 oz. copper ribbon and 12 doz. silk points for binding 7 ladies' collars, 
 coats for minstrels, and for Troylous, Pandor, Dyomed, Eulyxes, and 
 others. 1 qu. 1 nail velvet for shoes for Troylous. 10 hand staves for 
 barriers. G morions. 6 swords for "the men of arms that battled in 
 presence as for the departers with 4 odd staves." To Cornish, for a 
 feather for Troylous, Spanish girdles, itc, 13s. 4(1. For a barber " for 
 there heer trimming and washing of their heads," 4(i. To the tailor, 
 6/. 9s. 10(1 For a cart to carry the stuft" to Eltham, and "hys abod," 
 3 days and nights, 8s. 4(1. 
 
 Expenses of garments. — To Cornish, a mantle, a surcoat of yellow 
 sarcenet, a coat armour, a garment of black sarcenet, and a bonnet. To 
 the two children, Troylous and Pandor, 9 satin doublets, 2 jackets of the 
 old store, a double cloak of sarcenet. To Kryssyd, a mantle, a surcoat, 
 and cottons and wimple. To gentlemen, 6 crimson satin bonnets. 
 3 bases and Greek robes to men at arms. 7 coats and bonnets of satin to 
 minstrels. A gown of white green and satin to Mr. Harry of the chapel. 
 To the seven ladies of the castle, seven gowns of satin of Bruges, with 
 their headdresses. To the six ladies of the court who disguised, their 
 headdresses and stomachers of crimson satin. The feather that Troylous 
 wore. All the girdles, spears, swords, and targets. To the taborets, 
 2 jackets of the store. 
 
 Number of persons for the play. — 15 for the castle ; 7 ladies ; 
 7 minstrels ; 6 lords and gentlemen and 6 ladies disguised ; 6 men at 
 arms ; 3 tamboreens. 
 
 This is admirable fooling. 
 
 Hitherto Henry's reign had been one of uninterrupted 
 prosperity. He was the most popular, the most wealthy, the 
 most envied of monarehs. His ambassadors boasted with 
 reason, that no king was more beloved by his subjects or 
 more readily obeyed than he. Possessed of vast royal 
 demesnes, he could gratify his love of pleasure, his taste, his 
 magnificence, without stint. Never engaged but once in a 
 
 ^ White and green were the Tudor liveries.
 
 1516.] PRIVATE LIFE OF THE KING. 231 
 
 continental war, and that at no great distance, still less in 
 that ruinous game of ambition on which Francis I. expended 
 his energies and his treasures, Henry VIII. had no occasion 
 *' to j)ill and poll his subjects ; " and his rule formed a striking 
 contrast to that of the impoverished Maximilian, and the 
 famished and grasping policy of Charles. Whatever vices or 
 mistakes may have clouded his latter years, they had not yet 
 made their appearance. Compared with the licentiousness of 
 Francis I., his life was a pattern of temperance and purity. 
 Constant he was not to his marriage vow ; but his departures 
 from it were neither frequent nor notorious. The French 
 ambassador wrote home, that " he was a youngster who 
 cared for nothing but girls and hunting, and wasted his 
 father's patrimony." ^ Such scandals are not to be received 
 implicitly ; ambassadors wrote home what they thought would 
 please their own courts, without much concern for the 
 accuracy of their* information. Often ignorant of the real 
 feelings of the court and the nation to which they were 
 accredited, generally ignorant of its language, exposed more 
 than others to imposition, and fed with tales by those who 
 knew their humour, or were purposely set on to mislead 
 them,-~6olitary and unsupported anecdotes repeated in their 
 despatches must not be implicitly accepted, unless they are 
 crossed and supported by other and indejiendent lines of 
 evidence. Not frequently in the absence of better news, they 
 were authorized retailers of gossip, intended quite as much to 
 amuse as to instruct their respective courts. In this instance, 
 the scandal of the French ambassador receives no support 
 from the Venetian or the private correspondence of the times. 
 Notwithstanding his frequent disappointments, the King is 
 represented as treating Katharine uniformly with kindness 
 and respect. If he felt any dissatisfaction, he took care not 
 to express it by word or sign. And her affectionate solicitude 
 for him, especially in the time of the " sweating sickness," is 
 a satisfactory proof that hitherto the love between them had 
 continued unimpaired. 
 
 The birth of the Princess Mary^ threw the Queen into the 
 shade, — I am inclined to think not unwillingly on her part. 
 Her happiness at this, the most joyous event in her ill-starred 
 life, was clouded by the death of her father Ferdinand; of him, 
 who, next to herself, would have been most interested in the 
 event. The news of his death was studiously concealed from 
 
 > II. 1105. ^ Feb. 18, 1516.
 
 232 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 her,^ in dread of the ill effect it might produce ; and if any- 
 thing could have tended to augment her melancholy, it must 
 have been the thought that the only child which survived of 
 all her offspring was ushered into the world in a season of 
 mourning. As for Henry himself, though he would fain have 
 had a boy, he solaced himself in his usual buoyant style : 
 "Domine orator," he said to the Venetian ambassador, who 
 had come to congratulate him on the occasion, and express 
 regret that it had not been a Prince, " we are both young ; if 
 it be a girl this time, by the grace of God, boys will follow." 
 Mary was christened three days after her bu'th, on Wednesday, 
 20th of February, 1516, and had for her godfather Cardinal 
 Wolsey.^ The silver font was brought from the cathedral of 
 Canterbury to Greenwich, for the ceremony.^ Henry, always 
 fond of children, was fond and proud of his daughter to 
 excess. When she was not more than two years old,* he 
 carried her about in his arms in the presence chamber, before 
 the lords and ladies of the court and the foreign ambassadors. 
 Even at this early period of her life, Mary displayed that love 
 of music in which she was afterwards so great a proficient ; — 
 the passion of her whole family.^ The Venetian ambassador, 
 who had introduced an Italian friar, named Memo, to the 
 King, for his great musical talents, gives a charming account 
 of his interview with the little Princess at one of the court 
 receptions. 
 
 "After this conversation, his Majesty caused the princess, 
 his daughter, who is two years old, to be brought into the 
 apartment where we were ; whereupon the right reverend 
 Cardinal (Wolsey) and I, and all the other lords, kissed her 
 hand, pro more ; — the greatest marks of honor being paid her 
 universallj^, more than to the queen herself. The moment 
 she cast her eyes on the reverend Dionj^sius Memo, who was 
 there, she commenced calling out in English, Priest, priest : 
 and he was obliged to go and play for her ; after which the 
 king with the princess in his arms, came to me and said : 
 * Per Deum iste (Memo) est honestissimus vir et unus carissimus ; 
 nullus unquam servivit mihi melius isto.' "® 
 
 ' II. 1563. references to musical instruments and 
 
 ' II. 1573. books pui-chased by the King. 
 
 3 II. p. 1470. ^ II. 3976. Her New Year's gifts 
 
 * Henry's court must not be judged in 1518 were, a gold cup from Wolsey, 
 
 by courts and reception-rooms now. a gold pomander from Mary the 
 
 It was far more easy, gracious, and French Queen, a gold spoon from Lady 
 
 domestic. Devonshire, and two smocks from 
 
 ^ At the close of volume II. of the Lady Mountjoy (p. 1476). 
 Calendar, the reader will find numerous
 
 1516-18.] PATRONAGE OF AET AND LETTERS. 233 
 
 These brilliant and halcyon days seemed the more brilliant 
 from the contrast they presented to the troubled rule of other 
 sovereigns. So the years ran smoothly on. The amusements 
 at court were diversified by hunting and out-door exercises in 
 the morning ; in the afternoon by Memo's music, by the con- 
 secration and distribution of cramp-rings, or the inventing of 
 plasters and compounding of medicines — an occupation in 
 which the King took unusual pleasure. A manuscript ^ is pre- 
 served in the British Museum, entitled Dr. Butts' Diary, 
 containing a variety of liniments and cataplasms devised by 
 his Majesty; — chiefly for excoriations or ulcers in the legs, 
 a disease common in those days, and from which the King 
 himself suffered, and eventually died. Had these complaints 
 been confined to laymen, they might have been attributed to 
 gross feeding and the chafing of armour ; but notices of them 
 occur repeatedly, in all classes, without distinction.^ 
 
 Erasmus describes in glowing terms the court of Henry as 
 a Musgeum of letters and learning, — a polite academy, where 
 arts and sciences flourished under liberal patronage. Queen 
 Katharine was a miracle of learning and piety; the King 
 took more delight in reading good books than any prince of 
 his age. The eulogy, though perhaps highly coloured, was 
 not wholly undeserved. The advancement of men of learning 
 and genius to posts about the King and to high offices in the 
 state, justified in a great measure the praises of Erasmus. 
 Among the favourite preachers were Dean Colet and Grocyn 
 (More's friend) ; Linacre was physician. More privy councillor, 
 Pace secretary, Tuustal Master of the Eolls. 
 
 As we proceed, notices occur of more serious employments 
 than gambling at cards or devising masques. On the 2'lth of 
 
 * MS. Sloane, 1047. Among the wich, to cool and let inflammations, 
 
 contents are: — " The king's Majesty's and take away itch." Besides the 
 
 own plaster. — A plaster devised by king's recipes, there are others by 
 
 the king to heal ulcers without pain, John de Vigo, Dr. Buttes, Dr. Chamber, 
 
 made with pearl and lignum guaiacum. Dr. Augustine, and Dr. Cromer. Most 
 
 — Plaster devised by the king at of them are dated at Greenwich, 
 
 Greenwich, and made at Westminster, Westminster, St. James's, Ampthill, 
 
 to heal excoriations. At Westminster, Fotheringay, Cawoode, Hain])ton 
 
 by the same, to heal swellings in the Court, Petworth, Dover, Canterbury, 
 
 ancles." Knolles, and the More. I do not find 
 
 It is observable in these medica- that Houry over dabbled in alchemy, 
 
 ments, how many apply to various the i-oyal amusement of the Scotch 
 
 kinds of excoriation and ulcers in the kings. The difference of the national 
 
 legs. One is exceedingly curious (f. tastes and characters may bo seen in 
 
 32 b.) : — " A plaster for my lady Anno tlie diflerent employments of tlu^ two 
 
 of Cleves, to mollify and resolve, sovereigns. 
 
 comfort and cease pain of cold and * E.g. West, Bishop of Ely, Comp- 
 
 windy causes." Another is, " an oint- ton (11. 13H), Jerningimni (2581), 
 
 ment devised by his Majesty at Green- Wiuglield (3001), Puco (I'JUU).
 
 234 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 June, 1518, Pace writes to "VVolsey that tlie King was pleased 
 wdtli the commendations given to liis hook by the Cardinal ; and 
 though he does not think it worthy such praise as it had from 
 him and all other great learned men, yet he is very glad " to 
 have noted in your Grace's letters that Ids reasons he called 
 inevitahle, considering that your Grace ivas some time his 
 adversary herein, and of contrary opinion ; "—a passage well 
 worth observing. The same statement is repeated by Pace 
 four days afterwards. Now, though the word hook is used 
 frequently to imply a paper of political instructions or a 
 written agreement,^ in its connection here with the praises of 
 learned men, it seems to me impossible that it can be employed 
 in any other than in its modern meaning. If so, the book to 
 which Pace refers must be the draft of the King's book against 
 Luther, which appeared in 1521. The letters of Erasmus 
 show the rapid progress of Lutheran opinions, even at this 
 early date ; and " swarms of books " were now pouring from 
 the press on the great questions soon destined to engross the 
 minds of men exclusively. Though little or no reference is 
 made to Luther in the English corres^Dondence at this early 
 date, and Lutheranism appears to have been then almost 
 unknown in England, Erasmus thought it necessary to dis- 
 avow to Wolsey'^ not only all friendship for the German 
 reformer, but all personal acquaintance with him. That 
 letter ought to be studied ; for it shows that the King's book 
 grappled with those points especially on which the minds of 
 people were most disturbed. The correspondence of Pace 
 invalidates the supposition that he or More, or both conjointly, 
 were the real authors of the book. They may have assisted 
 in its composition, especiall}^ in correcting the Latin style, but 
 had they been the authors of it Pace would scarcely have held 
 the language he did to Wolsey. 
 
 But the cloud was no bigger than a man's hand — if a 
 cloud at all. Erasmus might be alarmed at the new tone and 
 noisy scurrility which burst upon his ears, so foreign to his 
 notions of dignified scholarship and literary refinement. He 
 might think it would have been better to have left the friars 
 in undisturbed possession of the pulpit, and for the canonists 
 to bemuse themselves in extravagant admiration of the 
 Decretals.^ But to the majority of the world, and to our own 
 
 * So Shakspeare uses it : " Our ^ " seraphic Sextus, continued 
 book is drawn ; we'll but seal." 1 Homenas, how necessary ai'e you to 
 Henry IV.act iii. 1. tlie salvation of jjoor mortals ! O 
 
 * II. 41 63. cherubic Clenaentines ! how perfectly
 
 1518.] INDULGENCES. 235 
 
 nation at that time, it seemed no more tlian a passing bra^vl 
 between two friars — brawls to which the world had been 
 accustomed, and which wise men had ceased to notice. In- 
 dulgences were not new to Europe. They were not even the 
 exclusive invention of the papal court for raising money ; at 
 all events, the temporal Sovereigns of Europe joined in the 
 plot and shared the spoils. On the 8th of December, 1515, 
 Mountjoy wrote from Tournay to Wolsey to tell him, "that 
 a commissary had come from the Pope with great indulgences 
 for the helping to the building of St. Peter's." As nothing of 
 the sort might be published without the sanction of the King, 
 Mountjoy had informed the commissary that he would not be 
 allowed to publish his brief, " but such alms as should be 
 given were to be put in a box with two keys, of which he was 
 to have the one, and Mountjoy the other." The Bishop of 
 Worcester, ambassador for England at the papal court, writes 
 to say,^ that the Poj^e intended sending commissioners to 
 England with indulgences for the same purpose, as he had done 
 to France, Germany, and Spain. The Bishop told his Holiness 
 that such a practice had never been allowed unless the King 
 gave his consent and shared the profits. The Pope offered 
 a fourth. Worcester says, if Wolsey approve, he will en- 
 deavour to obtain a third. In Spain Charles had managed 
 to obtain a loan of 175,000 ducats from the commissioners, in 
 anticipation of the amount to be realized. " The Pope," says 
 Spinelly,^ " has granted the realms of Castile indulgence for 
 three years, which wiU amount to more than 800,000 ducats 
 of gold, net." " For here the common people, whether they 
 will or not, be compelled to take it for a certain sum of 
 money, and the commissioners appointed in this business 
 
 the perfect institution of a true and no othci'wiso than then, shall the 
 
 Christian is contained and described world be universally happy i * * * 
 
 in you ! angelical Extra vagantes ! " Oh how wonderfully if you read 
 
 how many jioor souls that wander up but a demi-canon, short paragraph, or 
 
 and down in mortal bodies through single observation of these sacro-sanct 
 
 this vale of misery would perish were; Decretals ; — how wonderfully, 1 say, 
 
 it not for you! When, ah when, shall do you perceive yourself to kindle iu 
 
 this special gift of grace be bestowed your hearts a furnace of divine love, 
 
 on mankind as to lay aside all other charity to your neighbour — provided 
 
 studies and concerns, to use you, to ho be not a heretic — bold contempt 
 
 peruse you, to understand you, to of all carnal and earthly things, uu- 
 
 know you by heart, to digest you, to shaken contentment in all your affec- 
 
 incorporateyou, to turn yon into blood, tions, and cxstatic elevation of soul 
 
 and incentre you in the deepest von- even to the third heaven ! " — llabelais, 
 
 tricles of their brains, the inmost iv. 51. 
 
 marrow of their bones, and most ' April, 1517 ; Calendar, vol. II. 
 
 intricate labyrinth of their arteries ? Appendix. 
 
 Then, ah then, and no sooner thau then, * January 7, 1518.
 
 236 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 have advanced unto the King by manner of lent (loan) a 
 175,000 ducats ; whose (which) commissioners shall have for 
 their right and labour a penny Flemish for every bull, and 
 the King two royals of silver for every man; that is, upon 
 tenpence English. The Pope hath had in ready money for 
 such grant 27,000 ducats, and 10,000 restored again that he 
 had lent for the payment of the footmen in Spain." It was 
 the same in France, where a great and bitter feud raged 
 between the King and the Parliament. The necessities of 
 Francis compelled him, like Charles, to encourage the sale of 
 indulgences. It was the readiest and the least obnoxious 
 means of raising money. " The king of France," writes one,^ 
 "has gained more money by pardons of the crusade than by 
 all his exactions. People are compelled to listen to these 
 heretic preachers '' — the phrase is remarkable — "and murmur 
 everywhere. They preach that whoever puts 10 sous Tournois 
 into the money-box will go to Paradise; for 10 sous apiece 
 sins shall be forgiven, and souls escape purgatory. They are 
 opposed by the University and doctors of theology ; but too 
 late, as the money has been collected. These indulgences are 
 ruinous to princes and their poor subjects." Such passages 
 as these throw a new hght on that event which led to such 
 momentous consequences. The sale of indulgences was a 
 project devised between the temporal and spiritual rulers of 
 Europe for collecting subsidies from the poor and the labour- 
 ing classes. It was levelled to their capacities and their 
 means.^ By the old and estabhshed system of trentals and 
 private masses the delivery of souls out of purgatory and 
 remission of sins were accessible only to the rich ; now when 
 the same could be accomplished at 10 sous a head, that was 
 the same as bringing within the reach of the poorest a 
 privilege hitherto exclusively confined to their more fortunate 
 brethren. In the former case the privilege was limited to 
 a class whose growing inteUigence and gradual emancipation 
 from credulity, added to other causes, had brought the 
 practice within much narrower limits. Now there was to be 
 no restriction : the sale of pardons was to descend to a much 
 wider circle ; to be sanctioned by the highest authority secular 
 and national ; to be engrafted without stint into the Church's 
 
 * December 1, 1517. ihus dentur gratis propter Deum. Wlien, 
 
 * Tetzel, in his notices affixed to however, application was made to him 
 the church doors, had given out that by a poor scholar on the faith of this 
 the price of these indulgences should clause, Tetzel refused him, and re- 
 be relaxed ; and at the bottom of the quired a small fee — howerer small, 
 notice this clause was added : pauper. See Loscher, i. 306.
 
 151G-17.] THE SWEATING SICKNESS. 237 
 
 system ; to become a great State engine, against "which resist- 
 ance would be ineffectual. So the preachers of indulgences 
 "were opposed by two parties for their novel and pernicious 
 doctrines ; — they were condemned for illegal exactions by the 
 one, and denounced as heretics by the other. They were 
 everywhere opposed by the regular clergy; and it is as 
 heretics and novel preachers transgressing the teaching of the 
 Chm-ch that Luther wrote to the Archbishop of Mayence to 
 interpose his authority and put them down.^ 
 
 Just at this time two scourges were beginning to threaten 
 Christendom, and brought men to more serious thoughts. I 
 refer to the plague and the sweating sickness. With the former 
 I am not concerned at present. For centuries no infection 
 had visited England, which in fearful rapidity and malignancy 
 could be compared with the sudor Anglicus, as it was at first 
 called, from the notion that its attacks were confined to 
 Englishmen, People sitting at dinner, in the full enjoyment 
 of health and spirits, were seized with it, and died before the 
 next morning. An open window, accidental contact in the 
 streets, children playing before the door, a beggar knocking 
 at the rich man's gate, might disseminate the infection, and 
 a whole family would be decimated in a few hours without 
 hope or remedy. Houses and villages were deserted. Where 
 the sickness once appeared, precaution was unavailing ; and 
 flight afforded the only chance of security. 
 
 Dr. Caius, a jDhysician who had studied the disease under 
 its various aspects, gives the following account of its appear- 
 ance : — 
 
 " In the year of our Lord God 1485, shortly after the 7th day of 
 August, at which time king Henry VII. arrived at Milford in Wales out 
 of France, and in the first year of his reign, there chanced a disease 
 
 * " Papal indulgences are hawked Lnlher to the Abp. of Mayence, 
 
 about, under the sanction of your noble October 31, 1517. 
 
 name, for the building of St. Peter's. For what sins should these poor, 
 
 I do not complain so much of the thrifty, temperate, German-Saxons 
 
 preachers' declamations, which I have require indulgences ? The oratory of 
 
 not heard, but I regret tlio utterly Tctzcl was not levelled so much at the 
 
 mistaken notions of the populace about rich and hixurious, nor were his letters 
 
 these indulgences. It is said every- purchased by the educated. The sin 
 
 where that whoever has purchased of sins was, trading upon the new and 
 
 these letters of indulgence shall be rising religious earnestness of the 
 
 sure of salvation. . . . people, who, equally with Lutlier, were 
 
 " Why do these preachers by their asking how men in their sins could be 
 
 fabulous pardons render the people saved ? By faith, replies Luther ; by 
 
 careless and indifferent ? Indulgences indulgences, said Tetzel. It was a 
 
 contribute nothing to salvation of cry, not from the moral but the 
 
 Bonis. They only remove the external spiritual nature of man. And as such 
 
 penalties formerly imposed canonically Luther answered it. 
 (fjlim canonice imjjoni solilain)." —
 
 238 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 among the people, lasting the rest of that month and all September, 
 which for the sudden sharpness and unwont cruelness passed the 
 pestilence. For this commonly giveth in four, often seven, sometime 
 nine, sometime eleven, and sometime fourteen days, respite to whom it 
 vexeth. But that immediately killed some in opening their windows, 
 some in jjlaying with children in their street doors ; some in one hour, 
 many in two, it destroyed ; and at tlie longest to them that merrily dined, 
 it gave a sorrowful supper. As it found them, so it took them ; some in 
 sleep, some in wake, some in mirth, some in care, some fasting and some 
 full, some busy and some idle ; and in one house sometime three, some- 
 time tive, sometime more, sometime all ; of the which if the half in eveiy 
 town escaped, it was thought a great favor. This disease, because it most 
 did stand in sweating from the beginning until the ending, was called 
 here The Siveating Sichiess ; and because it first began in England, it was 
 named in other countries ' The English Sweat. ' " ^ 
 
 From the same authority we learn that it appeared in 
 1506, again in 1517 from July to the middle of December, 
 then in 1528. It commenced with a fever, followed by strong 
 internal struggles of nature, causing sweat. If the constitu- 
 tion proved sufficiently strong to expel the poison, the patient 
 escaped. It was attended with sharp pains in the back, 
 shoulders, and extremities, and then attacked the liver ; pains 
 in the head were succeeded by oppressions of the heart, 
 followed by drowsiness, the whole body becoming inactive 
 and lumpish. It had these further peculiarities that men of 
 middle age and sanguine complexion were most liable to its 
 ravages. Labouring and "thin dieted" men generally 
 escaped it.^ 
 
 It is stated by Caius, in other parts of his work, that the 
 disease was almost peculiar to Englishmen, following them as 
 the shadow does the body in all countries, albeit not at all 
 times.^ Others " it haunted not at all, or else very seldom or 
 once in an age.""^ It never entered Scotland. In Calais, 
 Antwerp, and Brabant it generally singled out English 
 residents and visitors, whilst the native population were 
 unaffected. In despair of escape, and the absence of any 
 sufficient or certain remedies, men gave up all hope of 
 recovery, and yielded to it without a struggle ; seeing how it 
 began " fearfully to invade them, furiously handle them, 
 speedily oppress them, unmercifully choke them, and that in 
 no small numbers, and such persons so notably noble in 
 birth, goodly conditions, grave sobriety, singular wisdom, and 
 great learning." 
 
 In consequence of the peculiarity of the disease in thus 
 singling out Englishmen, and those of a richer diet and more 
 
 ' A Boke or Counseill against the Sweate, f. 9. 
 
 2 f. 18, 19. ' f. 7. ' f. 18.
 
 1516-17.] 
 
 UNHEALTHY HOUSES. 
 
 239 
 
 sanguine temperament, various speculations were set afloat 
 as to its origin and its best mode of cure. Erasmus attributed 
 it to bad bouses and bad ventilation, to the clay floors, the 
 unchanged and festering rushes with which the rooms were 
 strewn, and the putrid offal, bones, and filth which reeked 
 and rotted together in the unswept and unwashed dining-halls 
 and chambers. He urged greater moderation at meals, less 
 use of salt food, the employment of proper scavengers to clear 
 the streets of the various abominations which defiled them.^ 
 Possibly Erasmus was as correct in his surmise as others 
 who possessed and professed no knowledge of physic. Failing 
 of more specific information, the disease may be attributed to 
 a variety of causes growing out of a great alteration in the 
 habits and dietary of the population. Change of place, fresh 
 air, moderate diet, seem to have been the only sure specifics ; 
 and these were pointed out as much by natural instinct as 
 observation : — the meagre suffered less than the gross ; poor 
 agricultural labourers escaped when the rich citizen and the 
 noble perished. During the last century the population of 
 the towns had increased rapidly, without any proportionate 
 
 * "I am frequently astonished and 
 grieved to think how it is that England 
 has been now for so many years 
 troubled by a continual pestilence, 
 especially by a deadly sweat, which 
 appears in a great measure to be 
 peculiar to your country. I have read 
 how a city was once delivered from a 
 plague by a change in the houses, 
 made at the suggestion of aphilosopher. 
 I am inclined to think that this also 
 must be the deliverance for England. 
 
 " First of all, Englishmen never 
 consider the aspect of their doors or 
 ■windows ; — next, their chambers are 
 built in such a way as to admit of no 
 ventilation. Then a great part of the 
 walls of the house is occupied with 
 glass casements, which admit light, 
 but exclude the air, and yet they let 
 in the draft through holes and corners, 
 ■which is often pestilential and stag- 
 nates there. The floors are in general 
 laid with white clay, and are covered 
 with rushes, occasionally removed, but 
 EG imperfectly that the bottom layer 
 is left undisturbed, sometimes for 
 twenty years, harbouring expectora- 
 tions, vomitings, the leakage of dogs 
 and men, ale-di'()p|)ings, scraps of fish, 
 and other abominations not fit to bo 
 mentioned. Whenever the weather 
 changes, a vapour is exhaled, which I 
 
 consider very detrimental to health. 
 I may add that England is not only 
 everywhere surrounded by sea, but is 
 in many places swampy and marshy 
 — (Erasmus no doubt meant Essex), — 
 intersected by salt rivers, to say 
 nothing of salt provisions, in which 
 the common people take so much 
 delight. I am confident the island 
 would be much more salubrious if the 
 use of rushes were abandoned, and if 
 the rooms were built in such a way as 
 to be exposed to the sky on two or 
 three sides, and all the windows so 
 built as to bo opened or closed at 
 once ; and so completely clos(!d as not 
 to admit the foul air through chinks ; 
 for as it is beneficial to health to 
 admit the air, so is it equally beneficial 
 at times to exclude it. The common 
 people laugh at you if you com])lain 
 of a cloudy or foggy day. Thirty 
 years ago if ever I entered a room 
 which had not been occupied for 
 some months, I was sure to take a 
 fever. More moderation in diet, and 
 especially in the use of salt meats, 
 might be of service ; more particularly 
 were public ajdiles appointed to see 
 the streets clcaiied from mud and 
 urine, and tlie snliuibs kept in better 
 order." * * — Erasmus to [John ?] 
 Eraucis, Wolscy's physician.
 
 240 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 increase in their sanitary condition or means of accommoda- 
 tion. The same filthy, open, and stagnant sewers rolled 
 lazily their trihute to the Thames, or left their abominations 
 to breed pestilence in the muddy and unpaved streets, where 
 rank and sickly vegetation crawled and rotted, and fever and 
 death were exhaled from numerous holes and pits. The 
 fresh-water springs had been gradually diminished, or were 
 monopolized by brewers ; the narrow conduits spouted from 
 their pea-shooters exactly the same quantity of pure liquid to 
 supply the wants of thousands as for a century and more had 
 scantily served for tens. Add to these, the old rehgious 
 observances of the town ^copulations had rapidly declined; 
 and the discipline of the Church had fallen into desuetude. 
 Lenten fasts and Advent were treated with contempt in the 
 growing puritanism of the age, which regarded these things 
 as indifferent or superstitious, and overlooked their social and 
 sanitary importance when their religious obligation was dis- 
 puted. Pilgrimages to St. Thomas of Canterbury, in April 
 and May, a month or six weeks' ride on horseback over the 
 fresh fields and salt downs, change of diet and change of air, 
 worked wonders for exhausted frames and overcharged diges- 
 tions ; and "the blissful martyr," St, Thomas, had the credit, 
 and richly he deserved it, "of helping them that were sick" 
 more effectually than the best leech in all the shires of broad 
 England.-^ 
 
 In the reign of Henry VIII. the sickness first made its 
 appearance in April, 1516.^ Its violence abated as usual at 
 the approach of cold weather. It reajDpeared again in the 
 spring of 1517 with alarming fury, and continuing all through 
 the summer into November without interruption, scarcely 
 ceased in the winter, and raged more violently than ever in 
 1518. In that year it was accompanied with the measles and 
 the smallpox.^ Not only amusements but business ceased in 
 a great measure ; crowds and places of public resort were 
 carefully avoided ; noblemen broke up their establishments, 
 and every one in dread of the infection hastened, as best he 
 could, to isolate himself from his neighbours. "Tell your 
 master," said Wolsey to the Earl of Shrewsbury's chaplain, 
 "to get him into clean air, and divide his household in 
 sundry places." No lord, except during his necessary attend- 
 
 * As a specimen of the different British Museum are given in the 
 
 modes of treatment adopted for the Appendix to this volume, 
 sweating sickness, certain extracts ^ II. 1815, 1832. 
 
 from the Additional MSS. in the ^ n^ 432O.
 
 1516-17.] WOLSEY LORD CHANCELLOR. 241 
 
 ance at court, was suffered to keep servant or stuff in his 
 chamber, " considering the misorder that is used by their 
 servants whereby infection ensued." ^ Fairs were put down; 
 and in Oxford, so long as the court resided at Abingdon, 
 orders were given by Sir Thomas More in the King's name 
 that the inhabitants of infected houses should keep in, hang 
 out wisps of straw, and carry white rods, in the same way as 
 the King had ordered the Londoners.^ The King moved from 
 place to place, alarmed at every report of the sickness, whether 
 well or ill founded ; ^ his fears were increased by those of 
 Katharine, not for herself but for him, and by her natural 
 solicitude for the welfare of Princess Mary. The apprehen- 
 sions of the court were not without reason ; the plague fell 
 upon the royal household, and carried off the pages that slept 
 in the King's chamber.^ Every superfluous attendant was 
 dismissed ; and only three favourite gentlemen were retained. 
 But even this precaution proved unavailing ; in the spring 
 three more of the pages died of the plague in the King's 
 palace at Eichmond.^ Ammonius, the Latin secretary, the 
 friend of Erasmus, was dining one day with an acquaintance ; 
 they had arranged to meet the next day,*^ and ride to Merton 
 to escape the infection. The next morning, before his friend 
 had time to get out of bed and dress himself, a messenger 
 arrived to announce the death of Ammonius. He was carried 
 off in eight hours.' As if to show that foreigners enjoyed no 
 special immunity, Giustinian, the Venetian ambassador, was 
 twice attacked by it in the same week, and two of his servants 
 died in his house.^ Foreign ambassadors feared to set foot in 
 England, or were urgent to get away. 
 
 The only man who remained at his post during this 
 general consternation and alarm was Wolsey. In addition to 
 his duties as chief minister, he was now Lord Chancellor. His 
 administration of this great legal office was characterized by 
 the same energy and fearlessness as distinguished his conduct 
 in all other departments. For his zeal and ability as a judge 
 we have the best testimony that could be had ; the testimony 
 of Sir Thomas More. His regularity, decision, and dispatch 
 cannot be questioned ; his impartiality to all classes was never 
 disputed. These formed the topics of satire and complaint. 
 The lawyers hated him for his strict adherence to justice, his 
 
 • TI. 4331. 
 
 
 ' II. 4009. 
 
 2 II. 1125, 
 
 
 « II. 3603. 
 
 ^ n. 4057, sq. 
 
 
 ' II.3G45. 
 
 * Nov., 1517. 
 
 No. 3788. 
 
 « II. 4332. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 242 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 [AD. 
 
 discouragement of petty legal artifices, endless forms, and 
 interminable verbosity ; the nobles bated him still more, 
 because riches and nobility were no recommendation to 
 partiality or favour, as they had been in the days of his 
 predecessors. His own assertion may be accepted when he 
 says, in a letter to Henry YIIL, that the realm was never in 
 greater peace or tranquillity. "All this summer,"^ he adds, 
 " I have had neither riot, felony, nor forcible entry, but your 
 laws be in every place indifferently ministered, without leaning 
 of any manner." He then mentions a fray between the re- 
 tainers of Serjeant Pigot and Sir Andrew Wyndsor, both high 
 in the royal favour, and his intention to bring both parties 
 into the Star Chamber, " that they shall beware how from 
 henceforth they redress their matters with their own hands." 
 In the performance of these arduous and accumulated duties 
 he was attacked by the sweating sickness, to the undisguised 
 delight of all whom he had compelled to pay their just debts 
 to the Crown and submit to the impartial administration of 
 the laws. In June, 1517, he had been so seriously ill that his 
 life was despaired of; " and for many days," says Giustinian, 
 *' neither the nobles, nor other members of the privy council, 
 who are wont to be so assiduous, went near him." ^ In July 
 he was suffering from quinsy : in August he was attacked by 
 the prevailing sickness, and many of his household died ; 
 " this is the fourth time," says Giustinian,'^ who hated him 
 for his firmness ; and the complaint told heavily on his 
 personal appearance. He now proposed a pilgrimage to 
 Walsingham, and then to Our Lady of Grace, to take air and 
 exercise and correct the weakness of his stomach, as he 
 informed his royal master. He performed his vow and 
 returned, but not to escape from a repetition of the attacks 
 the next year.* Henry had not yet learned to be ungrateful. 
 He sent various messages to Wolsey expressive of his satis- 
 faction ; praised the Cardinal's wisdom and diligence ; went 
 so far even as to say before Pace,^ " he was no less contented 
 
 » August, 1517. 11. App. No. 38. 
 
 2 II. 3372. 
 
 3 IT. 3638, 3655. 
 
 * The precautions adopted by 
 Wolsey in consequence of these re- 
 peated attacks were misrepresented 
 by his satirists and disappointed 
 suitors. Allen, a chaplain to the Earl 
 of Shrewsbury, complains that when 
 the Cardinal walked in the pai-k at 
 Hampton Court he would suffer no 
 
 suitor to come near him within bow- 
 shot. (Nov. 25, 1517.) Skelton 
 ridicules him for indulging in light 
 and nutritions diets, such as pheasants 
 and partridges. 
 
 While on this visit to Walsingham, 
 it seems that Wolsey went on to Nor- 
 wich, and arranged a dispute between 
 the citizens and the monks, relative to 
 a piece of ground caUed Tombland. 
 
 ^ II. 4071.
 
 1517.] HENRY'S SOLICITUDE FOR WOLSEY. 243 
 
 with the Cardinars contentation than though he had been his 
 own father ; " asserted before the lords ^ " that there was no 
 man hving who pondered more the surety of his person and 
 the common wealth of his realm." He desired Wolsey, as 
 soon as business would allow, to repair to Woodstock ; " for 
 here," writes Dr. Clerk, through whom the communication 
 was made, " is clear air, which his Grace thinketh ye will like 
 very well." 
 
 It was during the progress of the sickness, probably a few 
 days before Wolsey started on his pilgrimage to Walsingham, 
 that the King addi'essed to him the following letter in his own 
 hand : — 
 
 " Myne awne good Cardinall, I recomande me unto yow with all my 
 hart, and thanke yow for the grette payne and labour that yow do dayly 
 take in my bysynes and maters, desyryng yow (that wen yow have well 
 establysshyd them) to take summe pastyme and comfort, to the intente 
 yow may the longer endure to serve us ; for allways payne can nott be 
 induryd. Surly yow have so substancyally orderyd oure maters, bothe off 
 thys syde the see and byonde, that in myne ojjpynion lityll or no thyng 
 can be addyd. Nevertheles, accordyng to your desyre, I do send yow 
 myne oppynyon by thys berar, the rettbrmation whereof!" I do remyte to 
 yow and the remnante off our trusty counsellors, whyche I am sure wyll 
 substanically loke on hyt. As tochyng the mater that Sir Wyllyam 
 Sandys broght answar off, I am well contentyd with what order so ever 
 yow do take in itt. The Queue my wyif hathe desyryd me to make har 
 most harty recommendations to yow, as to hym that she lovethe very 
 well, and bothe she and I wolde knowe fayne when yow wyll repayer 
 to us. 
 
 ' ' No more to yow att thys tyme, but that with God's helpe I trust we 
 shall dysajioynte oure enymys off theyre intendy d purpose . Wryttyn with 
 the hand off your lovyng master, 
 
 "Henry R." 
 
 So whilst the King, in compliance with his royal instincts 
 and the solicitations of his subjects, took care of his own 
 health — of all considerations the most precious — the Cardinal 
 took care of the State. The court shifted from Richmond to 
 Eeading, from Eeading to Abingdon, thence to Woodstock, or 
 Wallingford, or Farnham, as fear or sickness jjrevailed. 
 Masks and tournaments were at an end for a time ; dice, 
 card-playing, and divinity took their place.^ 
 
 But whatever might be the effect on the court and the 
 courtiers, the sweating sickness had not passed over the land 
 without leaving its mark on the doors and sideposts of the 
 lower population. Then, even more than now, any long 
 
 ' II. 4124. in the hall ! "— Paco to Wol.scy, from 
 
 * " Cardmg and dicing, for this Abingdon, where the com-t was tlicu 
 
 Holy Week, is turned into pickiiig off staying. 
 
 (pitching of ?) arrows over the screen
 
 244 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 absence of the court from London was fraught with evil 
 consequences. It was disastrous to the good order as well as 
 ythe prosperity of the metropolis. The King had nothing to 
 fear from any competitor to the crown : the only relict of the 
 betrampled De la Poles, the last of the White Eoses, was a 
 wretched exile at Metz in Lorraine, beset with spies and 
 scoundrels, and starving on a wretched pittance from the 
 King of France. The State papers of the time are full of the 
 mean and unscrupulous efforts employed to betray him to 
 England and his brother's fate by two emissaries, Hans 
 Nagel and Alamire, who played the traitors' part, and took 
 money from both sides. But London apprentices were a 
 restless and ignorant mob ; the municipality of the city 
 inadequate to the preservation of order it^Don extraordinary 
 occasions, and accustomed to look to the court for help. The 
 late sickness had been disastrous to business ; the city was 
 unguarded ; foreign merchants had swarmed into London 
 in unusual numbers ; and foreign fashions, hitherto dis- 
 countenanced, were growing popular at court in consequence 
 of the increasing communication with the Continent. The 
 general dissatisfaction found vent at a time when it was least 
 expected. Indications of it appeared as early as the spring of 
 1516. On the 28th of Aj)ril in that year Thomas Allen writes 
 to the Earl of Shrewsbury that a bill had been set upon the 
 door of St. Paul's, reflecting on the King and his Council. It 
 insinuated that strangers obtained much money from the 
 King, " and bought wools to the undoing of Englishmen." 
 The reflection w^as evidently aimed at the Venetian and 
 Florentine merchants, the Campucci, Cavalcanti, and Fresco- 
 baldi, but especially the first, who obtained large concessions 
 about this time. This incendiary handbill occasioned great 
 displeasure, "insomuch that in every ward one of the king's 
 council, with the alderman of the same, was commanded to 
 see every man write that could ; and further took every man's 
 books and sealed them, and brought them to Guildhall there 
 to examine them." The examination apparently produced 
 few results ; at least no further notice occurs of it in the 
 papers of this year. But the fire still smouldered and soon 
 after burst into a flame. Hall, in his Chronicle, attributes 
 the disturbance to the boastfulness of the Genoese and the 
 French; but'most of "the strangers were so proud that they 
 disdained, mocked, and oppressed " the poor English artificer, 
 "who could scarce get a living." These and other stories
 
 1517.] DISLIKE OF FOREIGNEKS. 245 
 
 must not be too easily credited : the citizens were actuated by 
 jealousy of rival tradesmen and intense hatred of the least 
 ajjparent invasion of their monopoly. In the Easter of 1517 
 a broker named John Lincoln called upon Dr. Henry 
 Standish,^ warden of the Mendicant Friars, the most popular 
 preacher of the day, and begged him in the sermon which he 
 was to preach on Easter Monday at St. Mary's Spittle to 
 move the mayor and aldermen " to take part with the com- 
 monalty against the strangers." Standish wisely refused. 
 Beaten, but not baffled, Lincoln applied to one Dr. Beale, a 
 canon of the same hospital. He enlarged on the misery of 
 the poor artificers, whose living was taken away by strangers ; 
 " and also how the English merchants could have no utter- 
 ance ; for the merchant strangers brought in all silks, cloth 
 of gold, wine, oil, iron, and such other merchandize, that no 
 man almost buyeth of an Englishman. And also outward 
 thej carry so much English wool, tin, and lead, that English- 
 men that aveuture outward can have no living; which things" 
 (said Lincoln) "have been shewed to the council and cannot 
 be heard. Wherefore " (said Lincoln), " Master Doctor, syth 
 you were born in London, and see the oppression of the 
 strangers, and the great misery of your own native country, 
 exhort all the citizens to join in one against the strangers, 
 raveners, and destroyers of your country." Master Doctor, 
 on hearing this, much lamented their case. "Yea," said 
 Lincoln, " for the Dutchmen (Germans) bring over iron, 
 timber, leather, and wainscot, ready wrought ; nails, locks, 
 baskets, cupboards, stools, tables, chests, girdles with points, 
 saddles, and painted (embroidered) cloths ; so that if they 
 were wrought here Englishmen might get something by it. 
 And beside this they grow into such a multitude that it is to 
 be looked upon ; for I saw on a Sunday this Lent GOO strangers 
 shooting at the popynjay with crossbows, and they make such 
 a gathering to their common box that every botcher will hold 
 plea (go to law) with the city of London." Then taking his 
 leave, he put a paper of grievances into Beale's hand, which 
 Beale promised to study. 
 
 On the Tuesday, after Dr. Standish, Beale preached to a 
 crowded and excited audience, taking for his text, "The 
 heaven is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof ; but the earth 
 
 ' Immortalized for his quarrel him. His name occurs frequently 
 
 with Erasmus. Ho was afterwards with Colet's and Grocyu'a among tlio 
 
 Bishop of St. Asaph, St. Asse, or Do court preachers. 
 Aeino, as Pace and Erasmus called
 
 246 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 he has given to the children of men ; " — coeluni coeli Domino, 
 terrain autem dedit filiis hominum. He argued with no little 
 eloquence and ingenuity, that when God appointed their 
 proper houndaries and habitations to all nations, he gave the 
 land his audience stood upon as an inheritance to Englishmen 
 for ever ; and as birds would defend their nests, so (he urged) 
 ought Englishmen to fight for their country and defend it 
 against aliens. A popular topic, so enforced and so illustrated, 
 was not likely to lose any of its effect. May-Day, the popular 
 festival, was at hand ; and the court, in dread of the sickness, 
 had retired to Kichmond. Two days before, a rumour sprung 
 up, no man could tell from what beginning, that the city 
 would rise, and all strangers be massacred without discrimi- 
 nation. Wolsey sent for the chief members of the corporation, 
 and demanded of the Mayor how the city stood. " Well, and 
 in good quiet," answered the Mayor, as mayors are apt to do. 
 "Nay," said the Cardinal, "we are informed that your young 
 and riotous people will rise and distress the strangers. Hear 
 ye of no such thing? " " No, surely," said the Mayor, " and 
 I trust so to govern them that the king's peace shall not be 
 broken, and that I dare undertake, if I and my brethren the 
 aldermen may be suffered." Wolsey dismissed them with a 
 caution to look well to this matter. The aldermen talked the 
 subject over, differed in their opinions, and no effectual pre- 
 cautions were adopted. According to Hall (whose antipathy 
 to foreigners leads him to extenuate the insurrection in a 
 manner inconsistent with the efforts afterwards used to punish 
 and suppress it), the whole affair was a trifle. Sir John 
 Munday, one of the aldermen, found two apprentices in his 
 ward playing at bucklers, and a great company looking on. 
 As they refused to disperse, he took one of them by the arm, 
 who was immediately rescued. Instantly the cry of Clubs.' 
 Prentices ! was raised ; and in a moment the streets were 
 thronged with a motley crowd of watermen, serving-men, and 
 apprentices, swaj^ing hither and thither, bent on mischief, but 
 not yet resolved what course to take. Some fell to rifling the 
 houses, others ran to Leadenhall, the residence of Peter 
 Meautis, the King's secretary, others to the strangers' 
 quarters, plundering and destroying all that fell in their way. 
 Hall accuses Sir Thomas Parr of exaggerating the report of 
 the disturbance to the King, and greatly underrates the 
 number of the rioters. He condemns Sir Pilchard Cholmeley, 
 lieutenant of the Tower, for needlessly battering the city
 
 1517.] EVIL MAY DAY. 247 
 
 gates, *'in a frantic fmy," "with certain pieces of ordnance, 
 *' -^bich did little barm, bowbeit bis good will appeared." 
 Tbe serving-men and priests engaged in tlie riot escaped, says 
 Hall, "but tbe poor prentices were taken!" Tbe wbole 
 narrative, bowever, is so mucb coloured by tbe writer's 
 j)eculiar prejudices and bis anxiety to exculpate tbe rioters, 
 tbat be assumes as grave facts tbe rbetorical exaggerations of 
 tbe preacber, and is unjust to tbe alien mercbants. He 
 accuses tliem of sbowing open contempt for tbe citizens, 
 depriving tbem of tbeir industry and emoluments, and dis- 
 bonouring tbeir wives and daugbters ; — an accusation of no 
 probability, considering tbe paucity of tbeir number, and tbe 
 dangers to wbicb tbey were exposed from tbe multitude and 
 ii'ritation of tbe citizens. " From tbat day," says Giustinian, 
 referring to tbe day of Beale's sermon, " tbey commenced 
 tbreatening tbe strangers tbat on tbe 1st of May tbey would cut 
 tbem to pieces and sack tbeir bouses." Sebastian gave Wolsey 
 notice of tbe danger, and, apprebensive of tbe consequences, 
 witbdrew to Eicbmond. Tbe rioters rose in tbe nigbt of tbe 
 30tb of April, to tbe number of 2,000, sacked tbe bouses of tbe 
 Frencb and Flemisb artificers, and tben proceeded to tbe resi- 
 dence of Peter Meautis, wbo escaped deatb by biding bimself in 
 tbe belfry of tbe adjoining cburcb. Tbeir next object of attack 
 was tbe Italian quarter, but tbe mercbants tbere bad provided 
 tbemselves witb men, arms, and artillery, and defied tbe mob, 
 w^bo drew off to attack tbe less resolute and tbe defenceless. 
 Mucb greater miscbief would bave arisen but for tbe precau- 
 tionary measures of tbe Cardinal, wbo bad ordered troops to 
 advance by several roads to tbe city, "wdiere tbey found tbe 
 gates closed by tbese seditious ribalds, wbo bad overpowered 
 tbe forces of tbe lord mayor and aldermen, and compelled 
 tbem to open tbe gaols and release tbe prisoners." Tbe gates 
 were forced in difi'erent directions ; tbe preacber, witb twelve 
 of tbe ringleaders, and seventy of tbeir adberents taken. 
 
 On tbe 4tb of May, tbe prisoners were brougbt tbrougb 
 tbe streets to trial, tied witb ropes, two and two ; " some men, 
 some lads, some cbildren of xiii. years." ^ Tbey were tried 
 on tbe statute of bigb treason; tbirteen were found guilty, 
 and condemned to be banged, drawn, and quartered. Gallows 
 were erected in different parts of tbe city, and tbe executions 
 entrusted to Lord Surrey, tbe admiral, son of tbe Duke of 
 Norfolk, as knigbt marsbal, wbo sbowcd tbe unfortunate 
 
 » Hall.
 
 248 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 prisoners no mercy. The armed retainers of the Duke and 
 other noblemen appointed to keep order, regarded the citizens 
 with hatred and disdain, and made no scruple of expressing 
 their feelings in opprobrious words and gestm'es. On Thurs- 
 day, the 7th, Lincoln and the ringleaders were ordered for 
 execution ; but Lincoln alone suffered ; the rest were respited 
 at the foot of the gallows.^ These severities did not all at 
 once produce the effects that had been anticipated. Great 
 murmuring and disaffection rose among the people, especially 
 among the women. Strangers were not safe in the city ; 
 blows were struck, foreigners were eyed with angry glances, 
 though no serious riots ensued. Great as was their fear, 
 their ill will was greater than ever. Numbers still remained 
 in prison, uncertain of their fate. On the 11th the King 
 removed to Greenwich, and received a deputation of the 
 recorder and aldermen, dressed in black, who had come to 
 excuse themselves and beg mercy for the offenders. Henry 
 declined to grant their petition, and referred them to the 
 Chancehor. Eleven days after, attended by the Cardinal, the 
 Council, and the lords spiritual and temporal, the King took 
 his seat on a lofty dais, with great ceremony, in Westminster 
 Hall: the mayor, aldermen, and chief citizens were in 
 attendance. " The king commanded that aU the prisoners 
 should be brought forth. Then came in the poor younglings 
 and old false knaves, bound in ropes, all along one after 
 another, in their shirts, and every one with a halter about his 
 neck, to the number of 400 men and eleven women." ^ The 
 Cardinal as they presented themselves before the King en- 
 treated his Majesty to pardon them. The King refused. 
 Turning to the delinquents, the Cardinal announced the royal 
 determination. On hearing it the culprits fell upon their 
 knees, crying aloud, Mercy, Mercy! Then the Cardinal, 
 falling on his knees, besought his Majesty's compassion, and 
 at length obtained their pardon, which he announced to them 
 with tears in his eyes,^ urging them in a long discourse to be 
 
 ^ Stowaddsacircumstanceomitted connsel he would then do nothing) 
 
 by Hall, whose account he follows in the king granted unto them." — Chron. 
 
 other respects. "It is to be noted p. 506. Five days after Margaret 
 
 that three queens, sc, Katharine returned to Scotland, 
 queen of England, and by her means - Hall. 
 
 Mary the French queen, and Margaret ' Hall, who hated Wolsey, has 
 
 queen of Scots, the king's sisters, then omitted many little circumstances in 
 
 resident in England, long time on his account of this affair, which he 
 
 their knees before the king, had begged thought might be creditable to the 
 
 their pardon, which by persuasion of Cardinal. The best account of it will 
 
 the cardinal Wolsey (without whose be found in Giustinian's despatches.
 
 1517.] ILL FEELING IN THE CITY. 249 
 
 obedient subjects, and not oppose the will of their Prince, 
 who had resolved that all strangers should be well treated in 
 his dominions. "And when the Cardinal told them this," 
 says Sagudino,^ "it was a fine sight to see each man take the 
 halter from his neck, and fling it in the air ; and how they 
 jumped for joy, making such signs of rejoicing as became 
 people who had escaped from extreme peril." ^ 
 
 The city was apparently quieted ; and Hall, its apologist, 
 saj's no more of this disastrous affair, which had ended with 
 much less mischief than might have been anticipated. But 
 the punishment of the ringleaders sunk deep into the minds 
 of the citizens : nothing could shake their conviction that 
 undue i^artiality had been shown to the strangers, and a 
 disproportionate severity to those who had only risen in 
 defence of their inalienable rights as Englishmen. The ill 
 feeling was fostered by the sight of the mutilated remains of 
 those who had suffered for the part they had taken in the late 
 insurrection. " At the city gates," says an eye-witness,^ 
 "one sees nothing but gibbets and the quarters of these 
 wretches, so that it is horrible to pass near them." The 
 memory of what Surrey and other noblemen had done, in 
 their hour of triumph, was treasured up with feelings of 
 resentment by the inhabitants of London. Their time for 
 vengeance had not yet arrived ; but hatred of the nobility 
 became henceforth a strong element in the loyalty of London 
 citizens, and no inconsiderable motive power in the Re- 
 formation. The rebellion burst forth again five months 
 after, when the King and the Cardinal were away. Three of 
 the ringleaders were apprehended, but previous experience 
 had made the mayor and aldermen watchful, and nothing 
 came of it.^ 
 
 The part taken by the religious orders in this dispute, and 
 the identification of the Minorite friars and Dr. Standish with 
 the popular cause, are deserving of notice. It is another 
 proof, overlooked by the historians of the Eeformation, of the 
 favour borne to these orders by the town population. Then, 
 as now, the secular clergy and bishops constituted an eccle- 
 siastical aristocracy, and sympathized with the nobility. They 
 
 ' II. 3259. down, and from thnt time the citizens 
 
 * By this, "the King might per- looked more caiet'ully alter their 
 
 ceive they were none of the discretest apprentices and servants. 
 
 sort," is Hall's frigid comment on this ' II. 32.59. 
 
 denionbtration. He adds, more appro. * II. 3G97. 
 
 priately, that the gallows were takeu
 
 250 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 joined with Erasmus in his ridicule of the friars; and this 
 feehng of contempt for the preaching friar of the lower classes 
 was not inconsistent with the conservatism exhibited by them 
 at a later stage of the Reformation. It must be considered as 
 still more strange that Dr. Standish, the warden of the Friars, 
 should have stood up in defence of the royal supremacy against 
 the whole power of Convocation ;— an act which neither the 
 clergy nor the King ever forgot.^ When the see of St. Asaph 
 fell vacant in 1518, Wolsey, then at the very height of his 
 credit, desired it for the Prior of St. Bartholomew's, but in 
 vain ; and Pace writes to the Cardinal,^ " the king will give 
 St. Asse to friar Standish ; whereof I would be right sorry for 
 the good service he was like to do to the Church. Erit tamen 
 difficile hide rei ohstare {ut mild videtur) quia mnjestas regia 
 ilhim mihi jamjmdem laudavit ex doctrina et omnes isti domini 
 aidici eidemfavent de singidari qvam navavit opera ad ecclesiam 
 Anglicam suhvertendam." The favour thus borne to Standish 
 by the King for his defence of the royal supremacy is not 
 easily reconciled with the popular notions entertained of the 
 Mendicant friars, and the part taken by them in the religious 
 movements of that age. More remarkable is the testimony of 
 Pace that Standish stood high in the good graces of the 
 courtiers, because like them, he was supposed to be no well- 
 wisher to the Church. The readers of Burnet will remember 
 a remarkable document, printed by that historian, containing 
 a most graphic account of the part taken by Standish in the 
 Convocation of 1515.^ I must crave my readers' indulgence 
 for referring to this subject with some minuteness, not merely 
 for its great importance, but because, in the recent arrange- 
 ment of the State papers under the order of the Master of 
 the Piolls, the answer made by the Convocation to the King, 
 when summoned to defend itself for its treatment of Standish, 
 was for the first time brought to light. 
 
 Whilst the Parhament was sitting in 1515, Eichard 
 Kidderminster, Abbot of Winchcombe, preached a sermon at 
 Paul's Cross, wherein he maintained that the Act passed 
 three years before for depriving murderers and other male- 
 factors of the benefit of clergy, was contrary to the law of God 
 and the liberties of the Church. At a council of divines and 
 temporal lords summoned by the King to examine an assertion 
 so derogatory to the laws of their realm, Standish spoke in 
 favour of the Act. The argument employed by him in defence 
 
 > II. 1312-14. 2 II. 4074. * See II. 1313.
 
 1515.] DR. STANDISH. 251 
 
 of it "svas remarkable: "it was not," be said, "against tbe 
 liberty of tbe Cburcb, because it was passed for tbe weal of 
 tbe wbole realm." Upon tbis a divine, wbose name lias not 
 been preserved, remarked tbat tbe exemption of tbe clergy 
 fi'om temporal penalties bad been asserted by tbe canons, and 
 by Cbrist Himself; and, in defence of tbis assertion, be 
 alleged tbe words XoUte tangere Christos mcos. Standisli 
 replied, tbat tbese were not tbe words of Cbrist, but of David 
 a tbousand years before, and were spoken by tbe psalmist 
 because tbe greater number of men were unbelievers in tbose 
 days, and tbey were forbidden by David to molest tbose of tbe 
 true faitb, wbom be called Christos. After some furtber 
 discussion, tbe temporal lords demanded tbat tbe Bisbops 
 sbould compel tbe Abbot to make an apology for wbat be bad 
 said. Tbe Bishops not only refused, but sbortly after sum- 
 moned Standisli to answer before Convocation to certain 
 articles involving the points in dispute. On perceiving their 
 di'ift, Standisli appealed for protection to the King. Tbe two 
 parties were immediately brought into collision : tbe clergy 
 urged the King to maintain bis coronation oath and defend 
 the rights of the Church ; tbe temporal lords appealed to the 
 same oath in maintenance of the rights of the subject, and of 
 Standish in particular. A commission, consisting of the 
 judges, the privy council, certain spiritual and temporal lords, 
 and a few members from the Parliament, was ordered by the 
 King to assemble at Blackfriars, and try tbe question. Tbe 
 arguments employed on both sides are worthy of notice ; and 
 even if the report of them — preserved by a lawyer — was 
 favourable to Standisli, tbe line of defence which he adopted 
 was marked with so much ability as ought to modify the 
 unfavourable judgment left us by Erasmus of the friar's 
 ignorance and bigotry. Ultimately the judges determined 
 that Convocation by its proceedings against Standisli bad 
 incurred the guilt of prcemunire ; and to this judgment tbey 
 appended a clause more in accordance with the 17th than the 
 16th century, that the King, if he pleased, could bold a 
 Parliament by himself and the temporal lords and commons, 
 without the assistance of tbe spirituality, who had no place 
 there except by virtue of their temporal possessions. On this 
 Wolsey, then Archbishop of York, kneeled down before the 
 King, and assured him that the clergy bad no intention of 
 doing anything prejudicial to tbe Crown ; and he for one, 
 who owed bis advancement solely to bis Majesty, would never
 
 252 THE REIGN OF HENRY YHL [A.D. 
 
 assent to anything in derogation of the royal authority. The 
 clergy, he ui'ged, had acted in good faith in this matter, and 
 conformably to the duty, as they believed, imposed upon them 
 by their oaths in defence of the liberties of the Church, and 
 he prayed the King to allow the matter to be referred to the 
 Pope and his council at Eome. The King answered, " We 
 think Dr. Standish has replied to you sufliciently on all 
 points." Fox, Bishop of Winchester, said, " Sir, I warrant 
 you Dr. Standish will not abide by his opinion at his peril." 
 Standish rejoined, "What should one poor friar do alone 
 against all the bishops and clergy of England ? " Then said 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury : in former days many holy 
 fathers resisted the law of the land on this point, and some 
 suffered martyrdom in the quarrel. Fineux, Chief Justice, 
 answered, that the conventing of clerks before the lay judges 
 had been practised by many holy kings, and many fathers of 
 the Church had agreed to it ; adding, " If a clerk be arrested 
 by the secular authority for murder or felony, and is com- 
 mitted to the clergy by the temporal judge, you of the clergy 
 have no authority by your laws to try him." Hereupon the 
 King said, " We are by the sufferance of God king of England, 
 and the kings of England in times past never had any 
 superior but God ; know, therefore, that we will maintain the 
 rights of the crown in this matter like our progenitors ; and 
 as for your decrees, we are satisfied that even you of the 
 spiritualty act expressly against the words of several of them, 
 as has been well shown you by some of our spiritual council. 
 You interpret your decrees at your pleasure ; but as for me, I 
 will never consent to your desire, any more than my pro- 
 genitors have done." The Convocation, in their answer, 
 disavowed in humble and earnest terms any wish to interfere 
 with the prerogative, but they claimed the right of discussing 
 questions affecting the Church with the same unrestricted 
 liberty as questions touching the clergy were discussed in the 
 Parliament. They said: "at sundry times divers of the 
 parliament speak divers and many things, not only against 
 men of the Church and against the laws of the Church, 
 but also sometimes against the king's laws, for the which 
 neither the king nor the prelates of the Church have 
 punished them, nor yet desireth any punishment for their 
 so speaking." ^ 
 
 A little study of these two remarkable documents will be 
 
 1 11. 1313, 1314.
 
 1515.] THE ROYAL SUPREMACY NO NEW THING. 253 
 
 sufficient to dissipate many i")opular misconceptions of the 
 progress, purpose, and character of the Keformation in Eng- 
 land, if those misconceptions have not been shaken ah'eady. 
 The notions that the royal supremacy leapt full-armed from 
 the brains of Henry VIII., that the clergy were irresponsible 
 even in spiritual matters, or that the Pope could dictate from 
 Eome to the Sovereigns of this country, at least to Henry VIII. 
 or Henry VII., beyond what those princes were willing to 
 allow, — still more, that on the papal fiat depended the abstract 
 right or wrong of any question in the minds of the people — 
 are idle phantoms. The canon law had grown up side by side 
 with the laws of the realm. In the weakness and imperfection 
 of other laws, it seemed no more than fitting that the clergy, 
 as a siDiritual body, should be governed by spiritual laws : — 
 the encroachments of those laws, and the difficulty of adjust- 
 ing them with the temporal laws, provoked frequent disputes ; 
 but then it remained with the King to decide how far those 
 spiritual laws should be operative. Convocation could pass no 
 canons without the King's consent ; no bull or ecclesia^stical 
 constitution could be published in this country without his 
 sanction ; no bishop, no abbot, no prior could assume their 
 several offices without the royal permission. As a right, 
 though not always as a fact, the supremacy of the King had 
 continued from time immemorial : the usurpations upon that 
 right were resisted and modified by the energy and will of the 
 Sovereign. But in the reign of Henry VIII. the papal 
 authority in England had ceased to be anything more than a 
 form — a decorum to be observed — a concession to the opinions 
 and usages of the age, which no orthodox son of the Church 
 would wilfully or pointedly disregard, and so put himself out- 
 side the pale of Christendom, and excommunicate himself 
 from what was then considered as " decent society." And 
 here, the question discussed between Standish and his oppo- 
 nents, supposed to have been settled for ever by the blood of 
 St. Thomas, is just as rife in men's minds, and as far from 
 adjustment, as it was three centuries and a half before. The 
 King's supremacy is as vital and energetic a principle in the 
 minds of lawyers and divines, the peril of iircemunire as real, 
 as when at the fall of Wolsey the King exerted that authority 
 which here he was satisfied merely with asserting. 
 
 And what, perhaps, is no less curious, the part taken by 
 Standish presents him and the friars, of whom he was the 
 representative, in a very different light from that in which tlio
 
 254 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D, 
 
 religious orders appear in popular histories/ or in the 
 sarcastic anecdotes of Erasmus. In giving due weight to the 
 testimony of Erasmus it should be remembered that it is the 
 hatred of the scholar and the wit, the man of refinement, of 
 somewhat epicurean tastes and habits, for the vulgar, coarse, 
 and popular preacher of the day. It was the judgment of the 
 exquisite critic, of the favoured visitant at the marble palaces 
 of bishops and cardinals, upon the half- educated priest, very 
 little removed from the low and uneducated classes amongst 
 whom he laboured, and over whom he exercised unbounded 
 control. Atheism, talking Greek in high places, and armed 
 with correct Latinity, was a less disagreeable sight to Erasmus 
 than piety in bad Latin, violating the rules of Lily's grammar. 
 The friars were the assertors of the popular cause against the 
 aristocracy and the hierarchy ; at one time, they sujDported 
 Kings against both orders, braved them at another when their 
 authority was oppressive; — but coarse, energetic, and turbulent 
 in whatever they undertook. 
 
 In fact the sixteenth century was not a mass of moral 
 corruption out of which life emerged by some process unknown 
 to art or nature ; it was not an addled egg cradling a living 
 bird ; quite the reverse. Fervet tottis mundus injustitia sua con- 
 stituenda, is the repeated cry of Luther ; ^ and an age busied 
 with the great questions of righteousness, whether of faith or 
 works, is not a demoralized or degenerate age, at all events, 
 however roughly and rudely the discussion may be carried on. 
 These are not the thoughts which trouble the hearts of men 
 buried in sensuality. It was an age instinct with vast animal 
 life, robust health, and muscular energy, terrible in its rude 
 and unrefined appetites, its fiery virtues, and fierce passions. 
 It had risen from the sleep of the last century "like a giant 
 refreshed with wine." It was this new vigour and strength 
 which alarmed those who had hitherto deemed its old guides 
 sufficient, and were tempted to draw closer the ancient bonds, 
 and knit them more firmly together. State super vias antiquas 
 was the cry of those who, unwilling to look forward, saw with 
 reluctance the scaffolding giving way under which the building 
 
 ^ Unfortunately, in all our popular but against " good works," and the 
 
 histories the Reformation has been stress laid upon them by the ailvocates 
 
 presented from the Elizabethan point of the old religion. If that religion 
 
 of view, when men's impressions and had been in its practice so generally 
 
 notions about it had undergone great corrupt, as it is represented to have 
 
 changes from a variety of causes. been by modern writers, such denun- 
 
 ^ Luther's most earnest remon- ciations were idle, 
 strances were directed, not against bad,
 
 1515.] 
 
 CONSERVATISM AND THE REFORMATION. 
 
 255 
 
 had risen to such grand and majestic proportions. Under 
 that oht system England had emerged from barbarism to 
 civiUzation ; from wandering hordes of broken tribes to the 
 unity of a great nation ; from hovels of clay to cathedrals and 
 palaces ; from the outsconrings of Saxons, Danes, and 
 Normans, to a great, strong, and independent people. It was 
 the admiration of the world for its material wealth and pros- 
 perity; it was not given to lying, as historians nowadays 
 tell us, but manly, candid, and trustworthy ; too honest and 
 straightforward to believe in deceit, and therefore, as State 
 papers show, too easy to be deceived. State super vias antiquas, 
 cried men who looked back upon the goodly deeds of their 
 forefathers, as Englishmen will every now and then cry out 
 by reason of their conservative instincts ; as all men naturally 
 will cry out who have a past upon which they can and they 
 dare look back. So the stronger went forward, and the timid 
 stayed behind ; not necessarily less earnest or less morally 
 pm-e than the bolder and more advanced ; for among laymen 
 Sir Thomas More was surely as honest as Cromwell or Eich, and 
 among churchmen Fisher was as conscientious as Cranmer.^ 
 
 ' " Whereupon Gargantua, fearful 
 lest tlie child should hurt himself, 
 caused four great chains of iron to be 
 made to bind him, and so many strong 
 wooden arches unto his cradle most 
 firmly stacked and morticed in huge 
 frames. . . . Thus continued Panta- 
 gruel [the genius of the Reformation] 
 for a while, very calm and quiet, for 
 he was not able so easily to break 
 those chains, especially having no 
 room in the cradle to give a swing 
 with his arms. But see what hap- 
 pened once on a great holiday that his 
 father Gargantua made a sumptuous 
 banquet to all the princes of his court. 
 Hark what he did, good people ! He 
 strove and essayed to break the chains 
 of the cradle with his arms, but could 
 not, for they were too strong for him. 
 Then did he keep with his feet [i.e. 
 the masses] such a stamping, and so 
 long, that at last he beat out the 
 lower end of his cradle, which not- 
 withstanding was made of a great 
 post five feet square ; and as soon as 
 he had gotten out his feet, he slid 
 down as well as he could till he had 
 got hie soles to the ground, and then 
 
 with a mighty force he rose up carrv- 
 ing his cradle upon his liack lionnd to 
 him, like a tortoise that crawls up 
 against a wall. In this manner he 
 entered into the great hall where they 
 were banqueting, and that very boldly, 
 and did much aifright the company ; 
 yet, because his arms were tied in, he 
 could not reach anything to eat, but' 
 with great pain stooped now and then 
 a little to take with the whole flat of 
 his tongue some good lick, good bit or 
 morsel [i.e. popular liberties, at first, 
 after the Reformation more slowly 
 and grudgingly conceded]. Which 
 wlien his father saw, he saw well 
 enough that they had left him without 
 giving him anything to eat, and tliere- 
 foi'c commanded that ho should bo 
 loosed from the said chains. . . . When 
 he was unchained they made him sit 
 down, where after he had fed very 
 well [the increase of science and 
 education], ho took his cradle and 
 broke it into more than five hundred 
 thousand pieces, witli oiio blow of his 
 fist, sw(!aring lie would never come 
 into it again." — Rabelais, ii. 4.
 
 256 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 WOLSEY, CAKDINAL AND LEGATE. 
 
 It was during the period of which we have just been treating 
 ,.ihat Wolsey's fortunes reached their culminating point. The 
 V^ marriage of Mary with Lewis XII. had greatly advanced his 
 \ influence. It established him in the confidence of the royal 
 family as no minister in his own time or before him, had ever 
 been ; not even Suffolk, the King's brother-in-law. The terms 
 in which he addresses Mary and Margaret, and even Katharine 
 of Arragon, indicate the familiar footing on which he was 
 received by the different branches of the royal family. His 
 first letter to Mary,^ then a widow and a Queen, is conceived 
 more in the tone of a personal friend than of a prime minister. 
 He begs her, "for the old service he has done her," to make 
 no rash engagements ; " and for my part," he concludes, " to 
 the effusion of my blood and spending of my goods I shall 
 never forsake nor leave you." Strange language this to come 
 from the lips of a minister to a Queen in the time of the 
 Tudors ! And both Queens, though neither loved him, were 
 accustomed to this somewhat magisterial tone, and rephed to 
 him in terms of respect and submission. Of the light in 
 which he was regarded by the King evidence has been given 
 already. To the Pope he addressed himself in the canonized 
 terms of humihty, such as no Sovereign, much less a Bishop 
 of those times, whatever his power or however bitter his 
 resentment, would for a moment think of neglecting ; but if 
 Leo X. ever dreamed of temporizing with Wolsey, or putting 
 him off with promises and apologies, he was quickly made to 
 feel who was the real pontiff of the West. His enemies 
 accounted him haughty and imperious ; and much more 
 humility or moderation than Wolsey possessed could scarcely 
 have escaped the imputation. Such a sight as this Cardinal 
 presented was not common to the eyes of Christendom. The 
 
 1 11. 15.
 
 1515-18.] wolsey's power. 257 
 
 great nobles could obtain no audience of him until after four 
 or five applications ; foreign ambassadors not even then. 
 " He is omnipotent," says Erasmus, writing to Cardinal 
 Grimani,^ "All the power of the state is centred in him," is 
 the observation of Giustinian;^ "he is in fact ipse rex.'' 
 " ^Yhether it be by necromancy, witchcraft, or policy, no man 
 knoweth," ^ murmured the people in taverns and highways. 
 Yet undisputed as was the supremacy of this great minister, it 
 was surely no more than might have been expected. In genius, 
 in penetration, m aptitude for business, and indefatigable 
 labour, he had no equal. All despatches addressed to am- 
 bassadors abroad or at home passed through his hands ; — the 
 entire political correspondence of the times was submitted to 
 his perusal, and waited for his decision. Before a single 
 measure was submitted to the Privy Council, it was shaped 
 by Wolsey's hands ; he managed it unaided and alone when it 
 had passed their approval. Fox, the only minister of any 
 experience, seldom attended ; Suffolk dared not offer opposi- 
 tion. Norfolk, who had endeavoured and once had partly 
 succeeded in thwarting Wolsey's authority, had been defeated 
 and yielded. He was too haughty to conceal a temper not 
 less imperious than the Cardinal's, and wanted the flexibility 
 and courtesy of manner required in a successful courtier. Of 
 the rest, Euthal was "the treble to Wolsey's bass;" Lovell 
 and Sir Henry Marney without influence. Serious disputes 
 had arisen more than once, and endangered the Cardinal's 
 position. "Here is a great snarling in the Privy Council," 
 writes Thomas Allen to the Earl of Shrewsbury, " insomuch 
 that my lord Cardinal said to Sir Henry Marney, that the 
 same Sir Henry had done more displeasure unto the king's 
 grace, by reason of his cruelty against the great estates of this 
 realm than any man living. . . . The Cardinal and Sir William 
 Compton are marvellous great. . . . The lord IMarquis 
 (Dorset), the earl of Surrey (afterwards duke of Norfolk), and 
 the Lord Abergavenny were put out of the Council chamber 
 within these four days, whatever that did mean."^ The same 
 writer, a few weeks after, advises the earl not to come up to 
 London ; " for there are some things come not so well to 
 pass" — alluding to the ill success of Wolsey's policy with 
 Maximilian — " wherein feiv were of counsel, as the beginners 
 of the same thought they would have done. I hear some 
 
 ' March .31, 15] 5. ' II. 2733. 
 
 =" iJ. 108G, laSO. * May 31, 151G. 19.09. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 things which are not to be written." ^ These obscure remarks 
 receive further illustration from a letter of Giustinian :^ " For 
 many days and months past the Bishop of Winchester (Fox) 
 and the Archbishop of Canterbury (Warham), who were 
 principal members of the government, have withdrawn them- 
 selves, on account, it is said, of the succour given to the 
 Emperor against the King of France.^ Canterbury was Lord 
 Chancellor, and Winchester Privy Seal, both which ofiices are 
 of extreme importance, and have been resigned by them. The 
 Chancellorship has been conferred on the Cardinal, the Privy 
 Seal on the Bishop of Durham. The Duke of Suffolk, who 
 married the queen-widow of France, has also absented him- 
 self; it is said he is not so much in favour with the king as 
 before. Sir Thomas Lovel, an old servant of the late and the 
 present king, a person of great authority, seems also to have 
 withdrawn himself, and interferes little in the government. 
 So the whole direction of affairs rests, to the dissatisfaction of 
 everybody, with the right reverend Cardinal, the bishop of 
 Durham and the lord Treasurer (Norfolk)." 
 
 Wolsey's position was not a bed of roses. Exposed by his 
 monopoly of the King's favour to the envy of the nobility in 
 general ; to the odium of one class for his cardinalate, of 
 another for his impartial justice or his rigid economy; what- 
 ever line of policy he found it necessary to adopt he was 
 opposed by one party or more in the nation. To the people 
 in general an alliance with France was as distasteful as ever ; 
 to the nobility it was otherwise. The statesmen of the old 
 school believed that union with France implied peace in 
 Christendom, with plenty and economy at home. To them a 
 German alliance seemed but a shadow, or a bottomless waste. 
 Yet popular wilfulness compelled the wiser not unfrequently 
 to abandon their better convictions, and sacrifice the real 
 interests of England to popular clamour. On the other hand, 
 the German was identified even then, and still more in the 
 sequel, with opposition to the Pope. So disputes sprang up 
 in the Council upon the questions of its foreign policy ; Fox, 
 Warham, and Suffolk, who supported French interests, with- 
 drew, but only for a time, — not out of hatred to Wolsey, as 
 Polydore Vergil represents, for all were present at the cere- 
 monies when Wolsey received the cardinal's hat,^ and Suffolk 
 
 ' 11.2018. the French and the German. Norfolk 
 
 2 July 17, 1516, sided with the latter throughout. 
 ' There were two parties in the * II. 1153. 
 
 cabinet, as in the nation at large —
 
 1515-18.] WOLSEY'S DIFFICULTIES. 2-39 
 
 was always desirous of reconciliation. Fox appeared at the 
 Council in November, 1515, again in November, 1516,^ after 
 he is represented as having laid down his office and per- 
 manently retired ; again in December interceding for the papal 
 nuncio, Chieregato ; ^ and again in January, 1517;^ — facts 
 inconsistent with Polydore's account. Opposed to Wolsey's 
 imperial policy, on the marriage of Mary with Lewis XII. 
 Fox wrote to the Cardinal " that was the best deed ever done 
 for England."* 
 
 In further illustration of this obscure subject, so important 
 for a clear understanding of the times, we have a remarkable 
 letter of Wolsey, addressed to De Giglis, Bishop of Worcester, 
 the English agent ?,t the Vatican. The Bishop had reported 
 to Wolsey certain rumours then current at Eome, of a con- 
 spiracy formed by some parties in England to work his 
 destruction by the aid of France ; and of this the Pope had 
 desired him to take warning.^ Wolsey replied ^ that it was 
 impossible to describe the King's gratitude for the information 
 communicated by the Pope; — not that he was really appre- 
 hensive of any danger, for there was no king in the world 
 more ardently beloved or more respected by his subjects. His 
 very looks, he added, strike terror into evil-doers. As for 
 himself and his administration, the kingdom was never in 
 greater unity or repose than at present, " tanti enim justitiam 
 ct oequitatem facio, absit jactantice crimen ; and were I to offer 
 to resign I am sure neither the king nor his nobles would 
 permit it." 
 
 Possibly he might overrate his popularity with the nobles, 
 but his confidence in his own administration of justice 
 was well founded. His worst enemies, his most incessant 
 maligners, were reluctantl}^ compelled to admit that in his 
 functions as Chancellor he behaved admirably.'^ To that post 
 
 ' II. 2559. and has the reputation of being ox- 
 
 * II. 264:3. tretnely just ; ho favors the people 
 
 * II. 2839. exceedingly, and especially the jwor, 
 
 * TI. 45-10. hearing their suits and seeking to 
 
 * The French faction were the despatch thetn instantly. ]Io also 
 chief authors of Wolsey's fall in after makes the lawyers plead gratis for all 
 life, and Suffolk the instrument then, paupers." This is the testimony of 
 as he seems to be alluded to now ; Giustinian, who assuredly was not 
 whether set on by others or his own partial to Wolsey. "In matlers of 
 suggestion is uncertain. He was judicature he behaved himstilf coin- 
 signally insincere and ungrateful. iricndubiy. I hear no widows' sighs 
 The reader will do well to peruse, in nor see orphans' tears in our chronicles 
 reference to this topic, Pace's remark- caused by him. Sure in sucli casoa 
 able letters. wherein his private ends made him 
 
 ' 1 1. .397.'{. not a p.'irt.y, ho was an <'X(u>ll(int 
 
 ' ll.i'Mi).^ 155Z. " Ue is peoBive justicier." — Fuller's Holy fcJtatc, iv. ;i.
 
 260 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 he had been appointed on the resignation of Warham, 22nd of 
 December, 1515 ; not as Polydore Vergil represents, in con- 
 sequence of a successful intrigue, but at the earnest request 
 of the King.^ More's commendation of him is well known.^ 
 " The archbishop," he says, " has succeeded at last in getting 
 quit of the chancellorship, which he has been laboring to do 
 for some years. The king has nominated Wolsey in his 
 room, who acquits himself so well as to outdo all men's 
 expectations ; — and, what must be admitted to be very difficult, 
 even after so excellent a predecessor he gives the greatest 
 satisfaction." The testimony of Fox is to the same effect. 
 At the time when the Bishop is represented as withdrawing 
 from the council table in disgust, he wrote from his retreat to 
 Wolsey, who was anxious to bring him to court, that if he 
 had not the most satisfactorv reason for his absence in his 
 anxiety to visit his diocese after twenty-eight years of neglect, 
 he should be very ungrateful and forgetful, considering 
 Wolsey's goodness to him in times past. He professed that 
 no one had ever greater will to serve the King than he, espe- 
 cially since Wolsey's great charge (of the Chancellorship) ; — 
 " perceiving better, straighter, and speedier ways of justice, 
 and more diligence and labor for the king's rights, duties, and 
 profits to be in you, than ever I see in times past in any other." 
 And he adds a remark, which will seem strange to those who 
 are accustomed to draw their notions of these times from 
 popular histories, — that his absence was not to hunt or hawk, 
 nor yet for quietness of his mind, which is troubled night and 
 day with other men's iniquities more than he dare write ; of 
 which Wolsey told him he had some hiiowledge when he urns 
 rshop of Lincoln.'' ^ 
 
 In the same letter Fox urges him to lay aside all business 
 " from six o'clock in the evening forward," thus showing the 
 Cardinal's indefatigable labours. He rose at an early hour of 
 the morning and regularly heard mass ; then mounting his 
 mule he proceeded to Westminster Hall ; ^ was engaged in 
 
 • II. 1551. ingfs. " If I had served my God with 
 
 ^ More, in a letter addressed to half the zeal I had served my king," 
 
 Warham, after his resignation, speaks was not a temporary regret wrung 
 
 of the difficulty the Archbishop had to from him in the moment of disap- 
 
 encounter in prevailing upon the King pointment, but a thought and some- 
 
 to allow him to resign. — II. Appendix, thing more that had flashed ever and 
 
 3G. anon across his mind through his long 
 
 ' II. 1814. This passage shows and arduous administration. — See also 
 
 how keenly Shakspeare, under all Cavendish, by Singer, p. 105. 
 
 disadvantages, had penetrated into * Cavendish speaks of his being 
 
 the under-current of Wolsey's feel- attended on his way to Westminster
 
 1515-18.] WOLSEY'S INCESSANT LABOURS. 2(31 
 
 court until eleven, and when business required it passed from 
 the court of Chancery to the Star Chamber. Every Sunday 
 whilst the court was at Greenwich, which generally happened 
 dmiug the winter months, he visited the Iving. What remained 
 of the day after these duties were over, was spent in drawing 
 despatches, giving audience to ambassadors, attending to the 
 political news and correspondence of the times, introducing 
 a more regular and economical system into the different 
 branches of the administration — of finance and customs espe- 
 cially. Before his time the accounts had been kept very 
 irregularly : long arrears of debts were allowed to accumulate ; 
 large sums had been advanced by the Crown to noblemen and 
 parasites with no expectation of repayment ; its rights and 
 sources of revenue had been clogged and straitened in various 
 ways ; — all these it was Wolsey's province to bring into a 
 state of efficiency.-^ As might be expected, these reforms 
 drew down great odium upon him, and the charge of penurious- 
 ness. To one naturally profuse Hke Henry VIII., surrounded 
 by extravagant young men, who wasted large sums of money 
 at play and upon the absurd and fantastic fashions of the 
 times, the Cardinal's conduct in this respect was easily mis- 
 represented. To these temporal duties were added his eccle- 
 siastical, as Cardinal and legate. 
 
 Yet his health was by no means strong, nor was the advice 
 of Fox unneeded. Throughout the four years embraced in 
 this volume Wolsey was continually ailing. Four times he 
 was attacked by the sweating sickness.^ In June, 1517, his 
 life was despaired of ; in August his household and himself 
 were again suffering from the popular epidemic.^ In October, 
 
 Hall "with noblemen and gentlemen straitened circumstances. — See Byr- 
 
 of his own family ; "—an expression chinshaw's letter to Wolsey, II. 4(i92. 
 
 intended apparently to apply to the Of the gentlemen in his service, 
 
 young gentlemen and noblemen in Jerningham writes : 
 Wolsey's service. Giustinian speaks " I had obtained a taboret for your 
 
 of two brothers of the Cardinal, one grace, who plays reasonably well, bnt 
 
 of whom, he says, held a benefice. I is oftentimes overseen with drink, 
 
 have found no notice of either, or of which me seemed was not meet for 
 
 any other member of Wolsey's family, your grace, nor to bo in the company 
 
 with one exception. There is a petition of so many young gentlemen as your 
 
 to him from one John Fayrechild, son grace hafli in your service." — Jerning- 
 
 of Elizabeth Wulcy, the Cardinal's ham to Wolsey, IT. 3202. 
 sister, desiring some small place, as ' Of the enormous numl)cr of 
 
 comptroller of the works of Tournay debtors to the Ci'own, and the sums 
 
 (II. 13(;8). But the applicant's name invested, the reader may gain some 
 
 does not occur again in connection notion from the list of loans and 
 
 with any oflicc. His family received recognizances in II. pp. 118I-1490. 
 no benefit from his high offices; even * II. 3372. 
 
 Wynter, his reputed son, now about ' 11. 3G38. 
 
 fourteen years (;ld, was kept in
 
 262 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 1518, he was too unwell to receive the visits of the foreign 
 ambassadors.-^ Yet no interruption took place in the business 
 of the nation. Despatches passed and repassed with their 
 usual punctuality. Scotland, ready to throw the borders into 
 disorder and insurrection, was restrained ; Spain and the 
 Netherlands kept on the best terms ; and France, tired of war, 
 and anxious for an alliance with England, was entertained 
 and certainly outwitted in its negociations for Tournay. 
 
 That he was peremptory, unceremonious, and sometimes 
 lost his temper, must be admitted, — will probably have been 
 expected by those who consider his excessive labours. The 
 extreme difficulties of his position, the impatience of a man 
 of great genius and penetration at the interruptions, follies, 
 and contradictions to which he was exposed by conceited 
 mediocrity or pertinacious self-interest, were a sore trial to 
 a man incessantly employed and fully alive to the value of 
 minutes. The prudence and apprehensions of modern times 
 have divided the great offices once centred in Wolsey, and in 
 him only. His position and power were exceptional, and 
 "must be judged accordingly. He was responsible to no one 
 except his Sovereign; and the King, occupied with fears of 
 the plague or amusements at court, or well satisfied with his 
 minister, had little reason to interfere and less to condemn. 
 Suitors complained that Wolsey was hard of access, that he 
 displayed his resentments too openly, that he adopted too 
 imperious a style for a subject, that he identified himself too 
 much with his own political measures, and proportioned his 
 anger and gratitude accordingly. In one instance be pro- 
 ceeded to lay hands on the papal nuncio, utterl}^ regardless 
 of his sacred character, or his immunity as ambassador, 
 declaring that if the nuncio would not confess the nature of 
 his communications with France, he should be put on the 
 rack.^ The report was probably exaggerated. Still, for a 
 prime minister and a Cardinal to be so far transported beyond 
 himself was, even in that rough age, regarded with astonish- 
 ment. On another occasion, he sent for Sebastian's secretary, 
 and rated him soundly : " I charge your ambassador and you 
 not to write anything out of this kingdom without my consent, 
 
 ' II. 4510, 4529. It was probably or substance within was taken out 
 
 after these repeated attacks, and to and filled up again with part of a 
 
 prevent their recurrence, that the sponge, wherein was vinegar and other 
 
 Cardinal was in the habit, as Caven- confections against the pestilent airs." 
 
 dish relates, of carrying " in his hand * Dec. 7. 151fi. 
 a very fair orange, whereof the meat
 
 1515-18.] THE PLOT AGAINST LEO X. 263 
 
 under pain of the King's indignation and the heaviest 
 penalties ; " and these words he repeated, growing more and 
 more irritated every instant, and gnawing a cane which he 
 held in his hand.^ But such excessive fits of irritation were 
 not usual, and were to be traced in these instances to one and 
 the same cause, in which a curious point of his history is 
 involved. 
 
 In May, 1517, two Cardinals, De Sauli and Sienna, were 
 committed to the castle of St. Augelo, for attempting to poison 
 Leo X. by means of a surgeon.^ Cardinal St. George, papal 
 chamberlain, once a favourite of Julius II., and Cardinal 
 Hadi'ian, formerly papal collector in England, and Bishop of 
 Bath and Wells, were implicated in the conspiracy; St. 
 George, for hearing the intemperate threats of Sienna without 
 revealing them to the Pope ; Hadrian, because Sienna had 
 said in his presence, pointing to the surgeon, "That fellow 
 will get the college out of trouble."^ The accusation might 
 have been treated as a calumny, had not Hadrian, with tears 
 in his eyes, fallen at the Pope's feet, and besought his mercy."* 
 Against Hadrian, Leo entertained a grudge of ancient stand- 
 ing. He had contrived, under the pretence of befriending 
 Hadrian, to exasperate the King of England against him, and 
 obtain the dismissal of Hadrian and his deputy, Polydore 
 Vergil, from the collectorship. Possibly, in his resentment at 
 the Pope's duplicity, Hadrian would have been by no means 
 unwilling had the conspiracy succeeded, even if he declined to 
 take any active part in it himself. Sienna was put to death 
 secretly.^ St. George purchased peace and pardon by a large 
 sum of money. Hadrian fled to Venice, from which place he 
 wrote to Wolsey (19th of July),*^ begging his favourable inter- 
 cession with the King and the Pope. This is probably the 
 last of his letters that has been preserved. His subsequent 
 fate is hidden in impenetrable mystery. Great efforts were 
 made by the Venetians, through Sebastian, their ambassador 
 in England, to obtain Hadrian's restoration. The Venetian 
 had the audacity to abstract from Wolsey's packet a letter 
 addressed by the signory in favour of Hadrian, and present it 
 
 ' IL 3581. that Cardinal St. Gforgo confessed lio 
 
 ^ II. .3277. was an accoDii»lice, uithout the torture 
 
 3 II. as.JC. being applied (No. 3373). The notion 
 
 * II. 3352. Tunstal, speaking of of putting a cardinal on the rack did 
 
 his communication with Fra Nicolas, not seem Htnnigo to Tuustal or his 
 
 the papal comniiBKioner, who was per- corroHpondcnt. 
 
 fectly well informed on this subject, * II. 31(l(). 
 
 states that this friar informed him " II. 3193.
 
 264 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 to the King, unknown to Wolsey.^ This was the secret of 
 Wolsey's wrath. Sebastian, who would not otherwise have 
 been admitted, in consequence of the sweating sickness, pre- 
 tended urgent business ; — was introduced, presented the 
 letter, and met the rebuff he deserved. The King told him 
 that he was perfectly well acquainted with the whole affair, 
 and had received intelligence from the Pope that Hadrian had 
 confessed, and was to be degraded. When Sebastian attempted 
 to excuse the Cardinal, he was cut short by the curt remark, 
 " I understand this matter better than you Venetians ! " 
 Sebastian attributed the King's displeasure to the suggestions 
 of Wolsey, who had obtained the see of Bath in commendam 
 by Hadrian's disgrace. The offence was in reality of much 
 earlier standing. 
 
 Hadrian's factor in England was Polydore Vergil,^ the 
 historian. His imprisonment and loss of employment are 
 notorious. It has been broadly stated by most English 
 historians that his imprisonment was owing to Wolsey's 
 resentment, who, on failing to receive the assistance he ex- 
 pected from Hadrian, in his efforts to obtain the cardinalate, 
 seized his deputy collector, and committed him to the Tower. 
 This tale, with its various embellishments, rests, like many 
 others in which historians indulge without examination, on 
 mere conjecture, and is not very probable. The true cause of 
 Polydore's and his patron's disgrace are laid open in State 
 papers. A wit — and, like wits, not always very careful or 
 scrupulous — Polydore was in the habit of writing letters from 
 England to Hadrian, reflecting on the King, Wolsey, and 
 others. It happened, unfortunately for the writer, that one of 
 these letters fell into the hands of his rival Ammonius ; or, 
 more probably, was intercepted, and sent to Ammonius from 
 Eomei It is not hard to conjecture that Worcester was the 
 agent. The intercepted letter,^ was shown to Wolsey with 
 certain comments expressing the Pope's indignation. In 
 terms neither decent nor discreet Vergil had thrown out 
 imputations against the Pope and the King. He had called 
 the latter a mere boy ; said he was ruled by others, and signed 
 papers without being acquainted with their contents. The 
 Pope stated that he would be glad to have an opportunity of 
 chastising Hadrian, and begged that his and Polydore's letters 
 
 ^ II. 3558. merchant in London. II. 215, 2130. 
 
 ^ Vergil was not an assumed name. ' II. 215. 
 
 He had a brother Jerome Vergil, a
 
 1515-18.] POLYDORE VERGIL IN DISGRACE. 265 
 
 might be intercepted. The letter of Polydore was ambiguously 
 worded, j^et not so completely as to veil its true meaning from 
 those into whose hands it fell. It professed to give a circum- 
 stantial account of the intrigues set on foot to deprive himself 
 and Hadrian of the collectorship. Ammonius was libelled 
 under the name of Harenarius (sandy) ; ^ and De Giglis, the 
 Bishop of Worcester, who had been implicated in the poison- 
 ing of Cardinal Bainbridge, under the nick-name of talpa 
 (mole) significant of his underhand proceedings. He accused 
 the Pope of intriguing with the King, and inducing the latter 
 to write a letter to his Holiness indicating his wish that 
 Hadrian should resign ; though Polydore believed that the 
 King entertained no such desire. A third person is introduced 
 under the monosyllables le. mi., and there can be no doubt 
 that Wolsey is intended. Polydore says he has offered le. vd. 
 1001. annually ; — that le. mi. is hateful to heaven and earth ; 
 — that he is so tyrannical, his influence cannot last ; — all 
 England abuses him; — and, as if that were not enough, "he 
 is now for money's sake treating of peace with the French, 
 without reverence for man or God." Polydore and Hadrian 
 were imperialists ; and the presence of Suffolk at the court of 
 Francis I. gave an air of probability to the rumour. 
 
 It will surprise no one who knows the temper of those 
 times, to learn that Polydore found himself, a few days after, 
 an inmate of the Tower, and his deputy collectorship irre- 
 coverably forfeited.^ He languished in prison until the end 
 of the year, though repeated applications in his favour came 
 from the Pope — instigated apparently by his fears of Hadrian. 
 In his captivity, Polydore addressed the most abject letters to 
 Wolsey for mercy.^ He told Wolsey he had heard with 
 rapture of his elevation to the Cardinal's throne ; and when- 
 ever Wolsey would allow him an opportunity to present him- 
 self, he would gaze and bow in adoration, and his spirit 
 should rejoice in him " as in God my Saviour." He prayed 
 that his punishment might be wholly remitted, and Wolsey's 
 gifts perfected in him, even as he himself ivas jwrfect. It will 
 surprise no one to learn, after this letter, that Polydore went 
 
 > ThewordarenaHus, besides being of Ammonius Boems to be de Arena 
 
 Latin for Ammoiiins, mean.s also a (soe I. 4!)^;}), wliich lie Gnccizod m 
 
 jirize-fighter, and Polydore might in- conformity with iho pedantic taste of 
 
 tend this play upon the word, and I that ago. 
 
 tliink did; — the prize for which * 11.272. 
 
 Ammonius was fighting being the ' H. 070. 
 deputy collectorship. The true name
 
 266 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [AD. 
 
 home in the spring of 1516, and took immortal revenge when 
 he was fairly out of the Cardinal's reach. He sneered at the 
 Cardinal's birth, sneered at his ingratitude, sneered at his 
 buildings, sneered at his administration of justice, sneered at 
 his cardinal's hat. He painted Wolsey, in his history, as 
 an ambitious priest,^ successful only because he was un- 
 scrupulous ; distinguished mainly for his underhanded 
 intrigues in banishing Fox and Warham from the council 
 table. He called him a foolish architect, for building the 
 palace of Bridewell on the muddy banks of the Thames ; ^ a 
 blusterer in chancery, whose administration of justice was a 
 shadow without reality, and doomed to vanish like a shadow ; 
 a vulgar upstart, intoxicated with dignities undeserved ; a 
 parvenu whose brain was turned by his gilded chair, the gold 
 fringes of his cushion and table-cloth — (to which, Polydore 
 forgot to tell his hearers, he had offered to bow down in 
 adoration), — and his cardinal's hat, which was carried before 
 him like an idol, whenever he walked abroad to take the air, 
 by some tall fellow in his livery, and placed conspicuously on 
 the altar in the chapel royal when mass was sung. Our only 
 surprise is, that every historian in succession should have 
 accepted this as a true picture, each adding a little to the 
 original caricatm-e ; — Hall took it from Vergil, Foxe from 
 Hall, Burnet and Strype from Foxe, Hume from Burnet, and 
 so on to the end of the series. 
 
 Wolsey was raised to the cardinalate, on the 10th of 
 September, 1515, by the name of St. Cecilia trans Tiberim. 
 
 ' "Divinis litteris non indoctns," the southern side was unoccupied, and 
 
 is the tame compliment paid him by the Surrey hills stretched away in 
 
 Polydore. That is, he was fit to read endless prospect of green fields and 
 
 his mass-book and thumb his breviary ; hawthorns, and the river was crowded 
 
 — a Thomist, not a Ciceronian; — neither with painted barges flashing along 
 
 a scholar nor a gentleman, but a with watermen in bright liveries and 
 
 respectable sort of hedge-priest. the gayest of company. None but 
 
 ^ Various sums are entered in the the veriest tradesmen and apprentices 
 
 King's Book of Payments for buildings bearing their clogs and lanterns, 
 
 at Blackfriai's, under the snperiu- dreamed of threading the fetid mud 
 
 tendence of Thomas Larke. In Aug., and mantling ditches of Loudon ; or 
 
 1515, 1,000L ; in April, 1516, 1,000/. ; exposing their fine clothes and persons 
 
 in Feb., 1517, the same sum ; and the to the filthy birds and gaunt dogs, 
 
 same sum in June following. It is more quarrelsome than apprentices, 
 
 almost needless to say that Polydore's that snarled and wrangled over the 
 
 sarcasm must not be accepted as garbage cast into the streets by thrifty 
 
 literally true. The north side of the citizens. Bi'idewell, however, was 
 
 Thames was studded with palaces and never a favourite resort of Henry 
 
 noblemen's seats, from Bridewell to VIII. ; and after the trial of Katharine, 
 
 Westminster ; and there could be no Polydore's flurt at its deserted 
 
 more pleasant sight in the world than chambers was probably well founded, 
 the prospect from these houses, when
 
 1515.] WOLSEY MADE A CARDINAL. 267 
 
 The choice of the title was a matter of some difficulty. The 
 Bishop of Worcester wrote ^ to say that he could think of no 
 other aiDpellation than St. Cecilia, "which was lucky, as 
 many popes had proceeded from it." Wolsey always signed 
 himself T. Car^'^ Ebor., was generally so addressed ; and in 
 England not one man in ten thousand was aware of the 
 existence of any other title. The first mention we have of his 
 intended dignity occurs in a letter of Polydore Vergil, from 
 Eome, May 21, 1514,^ some months before the murder of 
 Cardinal Bainbridge. Polydore had broken the subject to 
 Hadrian, then on good terms with Wolsey, desiring him to 
 use his interest with the Pope in obtaining the cardinalate for 
 Wolsey. Four months after, Henry himself wrote to the 
 Pope, urging the same request in behalf of his great minister, 
 " whose merits were such that the king esteemed him above 
 his dearest friends, and could do nothing of the least im- 
 portance without him."^ In his reply to this letter, dated 
 from Eome, 24th of September, 1514,* the Pope tells the King 
 that the promotion demanded by his Majesty for Wolsey was 
 surrounded with difficulties ; it was greatly desired as the 
 highest dignity in the Church ; and he attempted to avoid 
 compliance by a sort of general promise that he would accede 
 to the King's wishes at a suitable opportunity. From this 
 period these negociations at Piome seem to have dropped from 
 the hands of Vergil and Hadrian,, and been transferred to 
 Worcester's. Then followed the death of Bainbridge and the 
 negociations for the marriage of Mary with Lewis XH. 
 Worcester was implicated in that murder, and both out of 
 rivalry to Hadrian, whom he hated, and to secure the favour 
 of Wolsey and the King, in his distress he urged Wolsey's 
 promotion with all the assiduity and skill of which he was 
 master. As Lewis professed great friendship, in consequence 
 of the part taken by Wolsey in the French match, it was 
 expected that he would have employed his influence with Leo 
 in the same direction. So, probably, Hadrian and Vergil, 
 who were imperialists, intrigued against it. But Leo was in 
 no hurry to comply ; precipitancy was not one of his failings. 
 Dilatory and irresolute — fearful of giving ofl'once, yet too 
 cowardly to refuse outright — he offered a compromise.^ He 
 would not create Wolsey a cardinal, but would give him a 
 
 ' II. 9G7. * T. r>4i5. 
 
 * I. 5110.. » 1. 51(Jt. 
 
 5 I. 5318.
 
 268 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 bull for bis promotion on condition be sbould not publicly 
 display tbe insignia. Wolsey wrote to Worcester tbat tbe 
 King was as mucb interested as be was in tbis promotion, 
 and tbis appears to bave been true : " If by your politic 
 bandling tbe Pope can be induced sbortly to make me a 
 Cardinal, ye sball singularly content and please tbe king ; for 
 I cannot express bow desirous tbe king is to bave me advanced 
 to tbe said bonor, to tbe intent tbat not only men migbt 
 perceive bow mucb tbe Pope favoretb tbe king and sucb as 
 be entirely lovetb, but also that tbereby I sball be tbe more 
 able to do bis Grace service." ^ Leo prevaricated : — be bad 
 " a particular regard for Wolsey," but could not break bis 
 oatb : — delay was necessary ; bis promotion could not take 
 place at present witbout causing tbe greatest scandal;^ be 
 was very sorry, but Francis I. and Maximilian bad insisted 
 on tbe creation of tbeir own Cardinals first, and tbe Pope 
 could not venture to offend tbem. Wolsey was indifferent to 
 tbe promotion, so far as be was personally concerned — at 
 least so be ordered Worcester to tell tbe Pope ; — but " bis 
 sense of duty," and desire to see tbe King " a fast friend to 
 bis Holiness," compelled bim to urge it. Tbe King bad 
 always been a firm ally of tbe Pope, and bis wisbes ougbt not 
 to be ligbtly rejected.^ Tbe next letter conveyed a mucb more 
 significant bint, and was calculated to tbrow tbe Pope into an 
 agony. Francis was on bis road to Milan. Tbe eldest son of 
 tbe Cburcb intended to lay bimself with bis battalions of 
 veterans at tbe feet of bis Holy Fatber. To decline tbe visit 
 was impossible; to prevent it, not feasible. "Tbe king's 
 grace marvelletb," writes Wolsey to tbe Bisbop of Worcester,* 
 " tbat tbe Pope delay etb so long tbe sending of tbe red bat to 
 me, seeing bow tenderly, instantly, and often bis grace bath 
 written to bis Holiness for the same." Tbe King, be adds, 
 calls daily for it ; and though he will not distrust tbe Pope's 
 promise, tbe sooner it is fulfilled the better will be be pleased. 
 Then comes the significant hint: — if the King forsake tbe 
 Pope, "he will be in greater danger on tbis day two years 
 than ever was Pope Julius." 
 
 This letter had tbe desired effect : Leo consented, at tbe 
 instigation of Worcester, to create Wolsey "Cardinal sole."^ 
 
 1 I. 5465. from the King, preserved in the 
 
 2 11.312,366,374. Vatican, has been published by Martene 
 » II. 648. in his Monumenta, with other letters 
 
 * II. 763. of Wolsey, strangely overlooked by 
 
 * II. 780. One of these letters English historians. The king urges
 
 1515.] WOLSEY MADE A CARDINAL. 269 
 
 At the same time the King consented to enter the league 
 secretly formed by the Pope, ostensibly for defence of the 
 Church, really for resisting the encroachments of France, on 
 condition of the red hat being sent at once ; — Wolsey adds, 
 " no man earthly helping thereto," which I see no reason to 
 disbelieve. He expressed a wish that the legatine authority 
 should be combined with the cardinalate as most agreeable to 
 the King; but if the Pope proved refractory Worcester was 
 to content himself with obtaining a faculty for the Cardinal to 
 visit the exempt monasteries. That request was not destined 
 to be gratified at present. On the 7th of September,^ Worcester 
 wrote to him from Kome to say that the Pope was highly 
 delighted with his letters from England, and was now so bent 
 on his promotion that he would insist upon it in spite of all 
 the Cardinals, and complete it within eight days. The election 
 took place on the lOth.^ 
 
 It was not in any man's nature to be insensible on such 
 an occasion ; certainly not in Wolsey's. He loved the dignity 
 of the cardinalate, partly no doubt for its autho^it3^ probably 
 as much for its splendour. Since the days of Archbishop 
 Morton no Cardinal had been seen in England, for Bainbridge 
 lived abroad ; and Wolsey was resolved to invest his new 
 dignity M'ith all that splendour and magnificence which no 
 man understood better or appreciated more highly than he. 
 Even in that age of gorgeous ceremonial, before Puritan senti- 
 mentalism had insisted on the righteousness of lawn-sleeves ; 
 — when the sense aches with interminable recitals of cloth of 
 gold, silks, and tapestries, — even then, amidst jewelled mitres 
 and copes, a Cardinal in his scarlet robes formed a conspicuous 
 object. Not that Wolsey was the slave of a vulgar vanity. 
 Magnificent in all his notions and all his doings, — in plate, 
 dress, tapestry, pictures, buildings, the furniture of a chapel 
 or of a palace, the setting of a ring or the arrangements for a 
 congress, — there was the same regal taste at work, — the same 
 
 Wolsey's advancement in the most that, but for this emphatic interposition 
 
 emphatic terms ; — begs the Pope will of Henry VIII., it is questionable 
 
 pay the same attention to whatever whetlier he would ever have given tlie 
 
 Wolsey says as if it had proceeded cardinalate to Wolaey; certainly not 
 
 from his own lips ; — expresses his so soon as he did. But the jiart taken 
 
 extreme anxiety and fervent desire by the King in this affair was forgotten, 
 
 for the day when he shall see Wolsey ignored, or unknown at Wolsey's fall ; 
 
 advanced to the cardinalate; a dignity and his accusers, for obvious reasons, 
 
 he fully deserved, for his genius, represented it as the sole act of Wolsey 
 
 learning,and many achnirable qualities. himself. 
 See II. App. l!i. So strong were tlie ' II. 887. 
 
 fears and such the reluctance of Leo, * II. 892-893.
 
 270 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 powerful grasp of little things auci great. A soul as capacious 
 as tb^ sea, and minute as the sands upon its shores, when 
 minuteness was required, he could do nothing meanly.-^ The 
 last great builder this nation ever had, the few remains which 
 have survived him show the vastness of his mind and the 
 universality of his genius. He could build a kitchen, or plan 
 a college, or raise a tower, as no man since then has been able 
 to build them. It was the same in music. There were no 
 quire boys could sing like his. "My Lord," writes Pace, "if 
 it were not for the personal love that the king's Highness doth 
 bear unto your Grace, surely he would have out of your chapel 
 not children only but also men. For his Grace hath plainly 
 shown unto Cornish (the King's choir-master) that your 
 Grace's chapel is better than his ; for if a new song should be 
 brought unto both to be sung ex improviso, then the said song 
 should be better and more surely handled by your chapel than 
 by his Grace's."^ If Quentin Matsys had a picture on the 
 easel Wolsey was ready to purchase it.^ If there was a 
 curious clock it was secured for him.^ Various notices occur 
 in this volume of his love of tapestry. " One has to traverse 
 eight rooms," says Giustinian, " before you reach his audience 
 chamber ; and they are all hung with tapestry, which is 
 changed once a week." As Cardinal, all his gentlemen 
 appeared in livery of crimson velvet with gold chains, his 
 meaner officers in coats of scarlet bordered with black velvet, 
 a hand broad. " His own dress was fine scarlet or crimson 
 
 ' The expenses of his household this discrepancy, except that it be in 
 
 were something over 30,000L a year, this year he gave Hampton Court to 
 
 modern reckoning ; but this sum in- the liing, and with it no doubt his 
 
 eluded the entertainment of numeroiis entire establishment there. It is 
 
 gentlemen of good family, a very worth noticing that in the latter 
 
 considerable retinue, and all the ex- account Jolin Cromwell is assessed at 
 
 pensesof the Chancery. In 1516, they 40s., and a Robert Cromwell at 4d. 
 
 amounted to 2, 485f. 16.S. 45ii. ; in 1517, But of Thomas Cromwell there is no 
 
 to 2,616L 5s. 2f d. ; in 1518, to 2,897?. notice until the third roll, 20th of 
 
 15s. bid. See II. 4623. His house- March, IS Hen. VIII. (1527), where 
 
 hold has been variously estimated ; at he is assessed on his goods at 50s. 
 
 180 persons in one manuscript of This points out the date of his entry 
 
 Cavendish, at 500 in another, at 800 in the Cardinal's service. 
 in a third, which of course, as being ^^ See also II. 4044. 
 
 the most extravagant, was followed by ^ j ti^int this must be the artist 
 
 Hume and others. There is a subsidy to whom Spinelly refers in a letter to 
 
 roll in the Record Office (bundle 204), Wolsey (II. 1013), when he sends him 
 
 drawn up by Thomas Stanley, in which from Antwerp "a table (picture) for 
 
 the whole household is assessed, in an altar, which was made by the best 
 
 conformity with the act 14 & 15 Hen. master of all this land." I have no 
 
 VIII., at 429 persons ; and another doubt that many of the pictures went 
 
 dated 10th of January, 16 Hen. VIII. into the royal collection at the con- 
 
 (1525), which makes the total not fiscation of Wolsey's property, 
 more than 250. I cannot account for * II. 2332.
 
 lolo.] 
 
 WOLSEY MADE A CARDINAL. 
 
 271 
 
 satiu, taffety or damask, and over all a tippet of fine sable," 
 says Ca;vendisli.^ Some curious indications have been pre- 
 served of bis punctiliousness in these matters. He writes to 
 Worcester : " Considering that the Parliament beginneth in 
 crastino Animarum ^ (November 3), it shall be necessary that 
 I have the habit and hat of a Cardinal ; and whereas there be 
 none here that can make the said habit, [please] send to me 
 two or three hoods of such pattern and colour as Cardinals be 
 wont to wear there (at Rome), and also one paper of caps 
 larger and shallower than those were which your Lordship 
 lately sent to me ; with two great pieces of silk used by 
 Cardinals there for making the kirtles and other like gar- 
 ments." 
 
 But if Wolsey was delighted with his new dignity, the King 
 was scarcely less pleased. He wrote to the Pope to say — and 
 the letter is still preserved in the Vatican" — " that nothing in 
 all his life had given him greater pleasure than the papal brief 
 announcing Wolsey 's election to the College of Cardinals ; he 
 regarded the distinction, thus bestowed on a subject for whom 
 lie entertained the strongest affection, as a favour bestowed 
 upon himself, so great were Wolsey 's gifts and so eminent his 
 services." In fact, though this has often been overlooked or 
 denied, no doubt can exist that the King was at the time fully 
 as much interested in Wolsey's advancement as .was Wolsey 
 himself. 
 
 Great preparations were now made for his installation. 
 On the 7th of October, the Bishop of Worcester's secretary 
 was despatched to England * with the hat and a ring of more 
 than usual value from the Pope, and plenary indulgence for 
 all those who should take part in the ceremony,^ He arrived 
 at Calais on the 7th of November.^ On the 15th he entered 
 London ; at Blackheath he was met by the Earl of Essex and 
 the Bishop of Lincoln, and at the city gates by the mayor, 
 aldermen, and the different crafts with their banners lining 
 
 ' Cavendish knew Wolsey only in 
 his latter years, and the earlier part 
 of his narrative must not bo too im- 
 plicitly trusted, lie describes Wolsey 
 as he saw him. Scarlet was properly 
 the papal colour ; was permitted to be 
 worn by Legates de latere, but was not 
 the unual colour of cardinals, whose 
 •jrdinary dress was an ami)le cape over 
 a violet-coloured rochet; sometimes 
 scarlet, bat not generally. See Liber 
 Ciprini. f. 135. 
 
 " II. 894. In this document some 
 of the wordsare obscure and mutilated. 
 See also 3045. 
 
 3 II. 900. 
 
 * II. 'J'J4. 
 
 * It was not usual to send the hat 
 out of Rome. The ceremonies observed 
 on tliis occasion were in exact cou- 
 formity with the Liher Sacniruni- 
 Cmrcnioniurum put forth by Loo X. iu . 
 1510. 
 
 " II. 1117.
 
 272 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 the streets. At Westminster Abbey the hat was received by 
 the Abbot and eight others, and so carried in state to the high 
 altar.^ On Sunday the Cardinal proceeded from his house at 
 Westminster to the abbey, where mass was sung by Warham, 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by Fox, Euthal, and other 
 Bishops. The sermon was preached by the celebrated Dr. 
 Colet, Dean of St. Paul's. During benedictions and prayers 
 the Cardinal lay grovelling at the foot of the high altar ; then 
 the Archbishop placed the hat upon his head, and the service 
 ended with Te Deum. The new-made Cardinal was conducted, 
 on his return, to the western door of the abbey by the 
 Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, thence to his place at Charing 
 Cross, followed by the great nobility, bannerets, knights, and 
 gentlemen, the Archbishop and Bishops bringing up the rear. 
 The whole was concluded with a magnificent banquet, graced 
 by the King, Queen Katharine, and Queen Mary, all the 
 nobility and clergy, the Barons of the Exchequer, the judges 
 and serjeants-at-law. 
 
 To Polydore Vergil, then languishing in the Tower, the 
 salvos of artillery, the pealing of bells, the acclamations and 
 roar of the populace, thronging to the splendid pageant, must 
 have been far from agreeable sounds. This Le. mi., whom 
 everybody hated, and whose downfall he had predicted as at 
 hand, had jiot fallen ; was not likely to fall, at present. 
 Modern philosophy despises lord mayors' coaches and 
 cardinals' hats; but the philosophy of that age was different. 
 Men delighted in such shows without stopping to reason about 
 them. Now and then some Puritan would start up and 
 inveigh against the immorality of poleaxes and the profane- 
 ness of scarlet cloth, as the livery "of the whore of Babylon." 
 " How think ye ? " said Wolsey to one of this sect ; " were it 
 better for me, being in the honour and dignity that I am, to 
 coin my pillars and poleaxes, and give the money to five or six 
 beggars ? Do you not reckon the commonwealth better than 
 five or six beggars?" "To this I did answer," says Dr. 
 Barnes, who tells the story himself, " that I reckoned it more 
 to the honour of God and to the salvation of his soul, and also 
 to the comfort of his poor brethren, that they were coined and 
 given in alms ; and as for the commonwealth, it did not hang 
 on them, for, as his Grace knew, the commonwealth was afore 
 his Grace, and must be when his Grace is gone ; and the 
 pillars and poleaxes came with him, and should also go away 
 
 ' II. 1153.
 
 1515.] WOLSEY MADE A CARDINAL. 273 
 
 ^\^tll him." And if giving alms to beggars were the final end 
 of man's creation, Dr. Barnes said well.^ But reasoning such 
 as this had not yet grown popular ; beggars, like housebreakers, 
 were not objects of much sympathy : contrariwise, the former 
 were whipped, and the others hanged— often unmercifully, 
 always unsentimentally. The intense conservative and aristo- 
 cratical principle pervading all classes in England in those 
 days and strictly insisting on the due subordination of ranks, 
 would have repudiated with scorn and contempt the equalizing 
 appeal to their common humanity from the unfortunate and 
 the vagabond, and probably have condemned the appellant to 
 the stocks. The day had not yet come, though it was fast 
 approaching, when the fervid eloquence of Puritanism was to 
 proclaim the communistic doctrines of Christianity, and repre- 
 sent all men as equal in that wisdom which alone was to be 
 deemed wisdom, — reading and expounding the Scripture. The 
 old sacramental mysteries of the earlier ages, not to be pro- 
 faned by vulgar eyes were destined to pass away. Impene- 
 trable barriers which had hitherto severed the ecclesiastic 
 from the layman, the knight and nobleman from the burgess, 
 were doomed to fall, and the time was not far distant when a 
 beggar in grace ^ should take the wall of a gentleman without 
 it, and every unwashed artificer prove a match for the bench 
 of bishops. But that time had not yet come ; was not to 
 come so long as Wolsey lived. Now and then the rising spirit 
 of equality wept with Hall over the wrongs done to crimson 
 jackets and fine shirts — but no more. "As soon as Wolsey 
 was Chanceller, he directed commissions into all shires for to 
 put the Statute of Aj)parel and the Statute of Labourers ^ in 
 execution. And he himself one day called a gentleman named 
 Simon Fitz-Pdchard, and took from him an old jacket of crimson 
 
 * " T dare be bold to warrant that a grudoje and call tlipm hypocrites for 
 
 I can find of those who most may tlieir alms, and say that they spent 
 
 Bpend, which were they sure that it upon naughty beggars the good that 
 
 should in this matter do any good was wont to keep good yeomen, and 
 
 would be well content to withdraw that tliereby they both enfeeble and 
 
 from all their other countenance also dishonor the realm." — Sir Thomas 
 
 [external pomp and appearance] the More's Apology, p. 892. 
 chief part of their movables, and of * The old IjoUard text, " that 
 
 their yearly livelihood too, and out of dominion is founded in grace," ol'ton 
 
 hand bestow the one, and with their revived, never utterly oxtinguishod. 
 own hand yearly bestow the other ' This is another proof, if fnrther 
 
 operdy among the poor. And I must proof were needed, of what I liavo 
 
 again be bold to warrant th:it if tiicy stated before .-—that tiio Statute of 
 
 did, even the selfsame folk that now Labourers was made for the employer, 
 
 grudge and call them proud for their not the onaployed. 
 coantcnance, would then find as great 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 velvet and divers brooches, which extreme doing caused him 
 greatly to be hated ; and by his example many cruel officers 
 for malice evil entreated divers of the King's subjects, inas- 
 much that one Shynnynge, mayor of Rochester, set a young 
 man on the pillory for wearing of a riven shirt." ^ 
 
 I have stated that Wolsey was anxious to obtain the 
 legatine authority,^ and requested Worcester to urge his suit. 
 But the Pope demurred. He had given enough ; he had no 
 inclination to bestow more. As Archbishop of York, Wolsey 
 was but legatus natiis, an emi)ty title ; as legate de latere, he 
 would be enabled to take ecclesiastical precedence, and use 
 the insignia of his ecclesiastical authority in both provinces. 
 But what the Pope would not grant spontaneously was wrested 
 from him by the force of circumstances. He had long been 
 anxious to set on foot an expedition against the Turks ; — as 
 early as the summer of 1515 he had used all his influence 
 wdth Wolsey and Warham to levy a 10th or at least a ' 20th 
 from the clergy of England for that purpose. The case was 
 apparently urgent. The Turks had possessed themselves of 
 Syria and Egypt ; they were daily threatening Ehodes, and 
 the Knights of the island had called home all members of 
 their order, and were making great exertions to prepare for 
 the impending struggle.^ Turkish corsairs swarmed in the 
 Mediterranean, and swept the coast from Terracina to Pisa.* 
 On one occasion they plundered the church of Loretto ; on 
 another they sailed up the Tiber, and nearly made a prisoner 
 of the Pope whilst he was hunting at Pali.^ Hungary was on 
 the verge of dissolution, whilst its nobles, with suicidal folly, 
 quarrelled and fought among themselves. On the death of 
 Ladislaus VI. the confusion increased. Without immediate 
 aid, as the Bishop of Vesprim wrote to the Pope,^ the kingdom 
 must fall into the hands of the Turks. The young King of 
 Hungary, only twelve years of age, was utterly incompetent to 
 cope with the dangers of his position.' But Christendom had 
 
 ' Hall's Chronicle, p. 583. to the king of Hungary, is but ten 
 
 2 II. 968. years of age ; howbeit of stature and 
 
 ' See the letters of the Master of bigness he might well be twelve ; and 
 
 Ehodes in the Calendar, Vol. II., under is brown of nature. The young queen 
 
 the name oi Fabricius de Careto. They [Ann] his sister is but twelve years ; 
 
 are extremely interesting, and have nevertheless of growing she seemeth 
 
 never been used. to be fourteen, and of beauty is the 
 
 ■* 11. 1874. fairest I have seen, and hath the 
 
 * II. 2017. fairest hair."— (Wingfield to Henry 
 
 « II. 1709. VIII., July 31, 1515.) This was the 
 
 ' "The young king of Bohemia beautiful princess Ann, married to 
 
 [who afterwards fell at Mohatz], son Ferdinand Archduke of Austria iu
 
 1515-18.] 
 
 THE PROPOSED CRUSADE. 
 
 275 
 
 so often been alarmed with the cry of " The Turk is coming," 
 that when the Turk came at last no one believed it. So the 
 English clergy turned a deaf ear to the voice of the Papal 
 charmers, and refused a disme and even half a disme.^ They 
 declared they would not open a window to so perilous an 
 example as the Pope required, lest when they wished to shut 
 it they should not be able. Already they had paid six-tenths 
 to defend the patrimony of St. Peter, and no real danger was 
 to be apprehended. Leo was bitterly disappointed ; not with- 
 out reason. He had reckoned on Wolsey's gratitude and 
 influence in carrying this measure as a reward for the 
 cardinalate. Wolsey had readily promised his aid ; ^ but 
 
 1516. In' another letter annonncing 
 the espousals (August 9, 1516), Wing- 
 field says, " I pray God send them joy 
 and long life for that the one is as 
 near akin to my lady Princess your 
 daughter (Mary), as goodly may be, 
 and that the other by her mother's 
 side is of your subject's blood, lineally 
 descended from the head house of the 
 Wingfields, and verily to this day I do 
 esteem her to be one of the fairest 
 ladies on live." 
 
 Pace tells a cui'ious story about 
 this yoimg lady : " We have here 
 knowledge for certainty that the 
 Emperor would marry the French 
 King's mother (Louise of Savoy), but 
 she will none of him, fearing a divorce 
 post solutam pecuniam. And the late 
 king of Hungary's daughter, whom the 
 Emperor some years past was bound 
 to marry to the king of Castile, intra 
 annum (see II. 746), or take her him- 
 self, hearing of this treaty of marriage 
 with the French king's mother, is come 
 desperately sick, and saith openly the 
 Emperor shall be her husband and she 
 will none other. Also there be come 
 other divers lords of Hungary with a 
 great complaint of the Emperor that 
 he hath received and expended a very 
 great part of the money of the dowry 
 of the king of Hungary's daughter." 
 (II. 3090.) The young hidy could not 
 ije more than 14; the Emperor was 
 59. This would be wholly incredible, 
 did it not appear from a letter of the 
 Imperial Chancellor to Wol.sey (July 
 10, 1517) that tlie Emperor was tlien 
 at Augsburg on his way to Inspruck, 
 where ho was to marry tlie daughter 
 of the King of Hungary (3456). It 
 is stated by Pahna, Notitia lierum 
 Htmga/ricarum, that .JoIjh Zai)olya, 
 
 waiwode of Transylvania, had deter- 
 mined to possess himself by force of 
 the person of this Princess ; where- 
 upon, at the instance of Thomas 
 Bakatz, Cardinal of Strigonium, who 
 is frequently mentioned in these 
 pages, a double marriage was deter- 
 mined on by the Emperor Maximilian 
 and the King of Hungary. Lewis 
 was to take Mary the Emperor's grand- 
 daughter (afterwards the celebrated 
 Mary of Hungary) ; and the Princess 
 Ann, either Charles or Ferdinand. On 
 the 22nd of July, 1515, both betrothals 
 took place in the church of St. Stephen 
 at Poseu ; Maximilian acting as proxy 
 for Ferdinand, who was then in Spain, 
 with this condition — that if Ferdinand 
 refused the lady, the espousal should 
 be valid as between Maximilian and 
 the Princess! (Palma, ii. 518.) Of 
 the cei'emonies on the occasion Wing- 
 field gives a wonderfully graphic 
 account (II. 746). Notwithstanding 
 the extraordinary disparity of years, 
 the young lady seems to have been 
 perfectly willing to accept tliis 
 arrangement. " The Emperor then 
 gave her a rich crown, and set it upon 
 her head, saying, I give this crown 
 unto you in token that here before 
 these witnesses I promise to do my 
 best to make you queen of Castil(!, 
 and, if that fail, to make you queen 
 of Naples. And, furthermore, if that 
 I shall fortune to fail of both those, I 
 y)romise you by word of an Emperor 
 that, an God stind mo life, I sliall not 
 fail to make you qui;en of tlio Romans 
 and lady of Austria, wliicli may bo 
 valued to a royaumo " — i.e. to marry 
 her himself. 
 ' II. 1312. 
 
 Ml. y67-s.
 
 276 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 Warbam, less courtly, had candidly told the Pope from the 
 first that he could hold out no hopes of any such grant from 
 Convocation.^ So long as the thoughts of princes were 
 entirely engrossed with a European war, it was useless to 
 urge upon them the obligations of unity and the duty of 
 repelling the common enemy ; and to that indifference England 
 mainly contributed. At the meeting of Francis and the Pope 
 at Bologna in December, 1515,^ the former had consented to 
 lay aside all other considerations and devote himself to the 
 cause. The Pope thanked him, with tears in his eyes, as he 
 told Henry, and begged the King to forget his animosity and 
 listen to the prayers of those who were daily in danger from the 
 Turk.^ But Henry did not believe his Holiness. He thought 
 it was only a delusion intended to throw him off his guard. 
 So the expedition made no real progress,* though it was the 
 constant theme of state papers, and Europe was scandalized 
 accordingly.^ When hostilities between the great European 
 powers had been extinguished by the treaty of Noyon in the 
 spring of 1517, the Pope thought the opportunity so long 
 desired had arrived. After a solemn mass, the crusade was 
 determined on in the Council of the Lateran on the 16th of 
 March, and the bull drawn up.^ Various plans were in 
 agitation. It was resolved that an army should be raised, in 
 the first instance, of 60,000 men, to be paid by a tenth levied 
 upon all the estates of Christendom.' Every 50th person was 
 to turn soldier, and the other 49 were to contribute to his 
 support and wages ; all spiritual persons to pay a tenth, all 
 seculars a twentieth. The army thus raised was to be placed 
 under one captain-general, to be assisted by a Papal legate, 
 and if any one refused their summons to join he should be 
 accounted as a rebel and punished accordingly. The care of 
 the north-east was delegated to France, of the north-west to 
 England, of the south-west to the Pope. To keep the Turk 
 employed it was proposed that the Sophi of Persia should be 
 encouraged to make war upon him, and be persuaded, if pos- 
 sible, to embrace the Christian faith. To counterbalance any 
 aid that might be sent to the Infidels from Egypt or else- 
 
 ^ II. 966. far as to hint that the King might, in 
 
 ^ II. 1282. anticipation of the grant, advance the 
 
 ^ See the remarkable acconnt of money from his own treasury. 11.887. 
 
 this celebrated meeting, II. 1281, sq. ^ 11. 2761, 3119, 3163. 
 
 * Yet Leo evidently flattered him- " II. 3040. 
 
 self with success. The King had given ' II. 3815-6. 
 
 his consent, and his Holiness went so
 
 1515-18.] THE PROPOSED CRUSADE. 277 
 
 where, communications ■were to be opened, by means of 
 Christian subjects dweUing in the East, with Prester John 
 of the Indies, the King of Nubia and Ethiopia, and the King 
 of the Georgians. So whilst the Soldan was thus employed 
 on the side" of Arabia and Ethiopia, it was hoped that Syria 
 and Palestine might fall into the hands of the Christians ; 
 and they could easily hold the latter by building fortresses at 
 Joi)pa, Petra, Dan, and Beersheba on the south, and placing 
 a garrison in Mount Sion. In the summer of 1518 an army 
 was to be sent into Africa to encourage the Kings of Tremesin, 
 Fez, and Morocco, and the Arabs in the Libyan mountains, 
 who had not yet submitted to the Turk. The powers of 
 Hungary and Poland, joined with the Scythians and Tartars, 
 were appointed to occupy the northern settlements. Next 
 year the campaign was to be followed up in Africa. Maximilian 
 and the King of Portugal were to throw themselves on Cairo 
 and Alexandria, to be joined by the Kings of England and 
 Denmark and the Great Master of Prussia, whilst the King of 
 France marched through Dalmatia and Croatia, and seized 
 upon Bosnia; then turning theii' armies south-east they 
 might take possession of Philippopolis and Adrianople, and 
 garrisoning them with Tartar troops, who could easily support 
 themselves by plundering the neighbourhood, direct their 
 attention to Chalcedon and Negropont, or some equally 
 advantageous seaport. 
 
 When Africa had thus been emancipated, the Emperor 
 and the King of Portugal were to cross the year after into 
 Greece, take Constantinople, invade Asia Minor, give half 
 Natolia to the Sophi, and retain the rest of Asia and Africa, 
 especially Palestine and Jerusalem, exclusively for the Chris- 
 tians. After these successes it might be feasible to carry 
 (Jhristianity into Persia and Africa : — as for the Turks, thoy 
 were to disappear altogether. All these wondrous results 
 might be obtained in two or three years, at the cost of 
 12,000,000 of ducats. A paltry sum for a universal millennium ! 
 To give practical efficiency to this grand vision it was 
 needful that Leo should send Legates to all the leading 
 Sovereigns of Christendom. Cardinal St. Giles (yEgidius of 
 Viterbo) was despatched to Spain, Cardinal Flisco to Germany, 
 Bibiena (S. Maria in Porticu) to France, and Campeggio was 
 destined for England. In France the Legate was received in 
 a great hall erected for the purpose.^ Francis enlarged upon 
 
 » Dec. 6, 1517. II. 3823. 3830.
 
 278 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 his ardent desire to join in this holy expedition. As eldest 
 son of the Church he offered to serve in person, and put him- 
 self and his kingdom entirely at the disposal of the Pope. 
 But all were not equally enthusiastic ; there wanted not some 
 who still regarded the crusade as an attempt to raise money ; 
 — as a ridiculous chimera.^ Erasmus in his scoffing humour 
 writes to More, and turns into jest the grave devices employed 
 to give an air of solemnity to the design, in which no one, he 
 asserts, had any real faith. " The Pope has put out a pro- 
 hibition that wives, in the absence of their husbands at the 
 war, shall not indulge themselves ; they are to abstain from 
 fine dresses and silks, from gold and jewels ; use no paint, 
 drink no wine, and fast every other day." " But as for your 
 wife," he continues in his bantering style, " she is so serious 
 and devout, she will find no difliculty in complying with 
 the Pope's injunctions." When the King heard of it, and 
 Maximilian's offer to act as generalissimo, " his Grace did 
 right well laugh," says Pace in a letter to Wolsey,^ " at the 
 device of the Emperor enempst the expedition to be made the 
 first year against the Turk, by him, with other men's money, 
 considering that this should be only an expedition of money." 
 When Pace showed his Majesty the letters in which Cam- 
 peggio's mission was mentioned, the King at once remarked 
 that " it was not the rule of this realm to admit Legates de 
 latere.'" But he did not insist on the prohibition; for a fort- 
 night after Wolsey wrote to the Bishop of Worcester ^ that he 
 regretted much to hear of the increasing power of the Turk, 
 which could not be repressed except by a union of Christian 
 princes. He had informed the King of the Pope's intention 
 to send a Legate into England ; but by the municipal law of 
 England, whicli the King was strictly bound to observe, no 
 foreign Cardinal could be admitted to exercise legatine 
 authority within this realm. The King, however, would waive 
 that objection, provided that all those faculties which were 
 usually conceded to legates de jure be suspended, and Wolsey 
 joined in equal authority with Campeggio. The Pope had no 
 alternative except to comply, and the commission was sent to 
 Wolsey as desired.* But this was not the end of the humilia- 
 tion to which the Pope and his Legate were to be subjected. 
 Cardinal Hadrian, the patron of Polydore Vergil, had sig- 
 nalized himself by his opposition to Wolsey on all occasions. 
 
 » II. 3991-2. » April 11, 1518. II. 4073. 
 
 2 II. 4023. * May 17. II. 4170.
 
 1518.] CAEDINAL CAMPEGGIO. 279 
 
 He was now in clisfrrace : — bad fled to Venice : was movinf^ 
 heaven and earth to be pardoned and restored. Maximiban 
 and the Venetians had incurred Wolsey's displeasure for inter- 
 posing in bis favour. The Pope vacillated, was inclined to 
 relent, and delayed passing sentence of deprivation. Wolsey 
 urged, and even threatened ; and Leo replied with a variety 
 of excuses. On Hadrian's disgrace, the bishopric of Bath 
 and Wells bad been conferred upon Wolsey ; ^ but the Pope, 
 by declining to degrade Hadrian, might keep the right of that 
 see an open question, and involve its new possessor in endless 
 litigation and expense. 
 
 Campeggio reached Calais in June, in the full bloom of bis 
 legatine authority, intending at once to cross to England. If 
 he thought to snuff out the pretensions of bis English 
 associate, who had never been at Kome, knew nothing of 
 legates or legatine usages — had not a hat or a cope fit for a 
 procession, — that was no more than any native Italian would 
 have felt towards a tramontane ecclesiastic, whatever his 
 dignity or pretensions. On reaching Calais he found a letter 
 waiting for him from England, stating that the King was 
 greatly displeased with the backwardness of the Pope in 
 depriving Cardinal Hadrian, and the Legate must remain at 
 Calais until the King had perfect satisfaction on that head.^ 
 In vain Campeggio protested that he had written three times 
 to the Pope on the subject, and felt no doubt of bis com- 
 pliance. May passed, June passed, and it was not until the 
 22nd of July that his quarantine was withdrawn, and he was 
 permitted to land on English shores. Now, however pleasant 
 Calais might be for a summer holiday in the v/arm months of 
 May, June, and July, and however courtly the attentions of 
 its deputy, Sir Pdcliard Wingfield, it is hard to conceive any 
 delay more galling or annoying to the dignity of a papal 
 Legate like Campeggio, than this cooling his heels, like an 
 ordinary layman, for many weeks in a rude garrison town ; — 
 with the mortifying consciousness, besides, that his detention 
 depended entirely on the will of the man whom he liad 
 purposed to eclipse. Hall tells a story, greedily repeated by 
 Foxe, that the night before Campeggio entered London, 
 Wolsey, to give greater effect to the solemnity, sent him 
 twelve mules with empty coffers trapped with scarlet ; and 
 thus the cavalcade, with eight others belonging to the Legate, 
 passed through the streets as if they bad carried so much 
 
 ' 11.3504,3544. * 11.4271.
 
 280 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 treasure. In Cheapside one of the mules turned restive, and 
 upset the chests, out of which tumbled old hose, broken shoes, 
 bread, meat, and eggs, with "much vile baggage; " at which 
 the boys exclaimed, " See, see my lord Legate's treasure ! " 
 The story is more malicious than probable. There might be 
 much vile baggage and broken shoes, however ; for the fresh- 
 ness and splendour of the Legate's preparations would be 
 tarnished and injured by his long detention. Accustomed to 
 be received with profuse gratitude and unbounded liberality 
 by the Sovereigns to whom they were sent, these dignitaries 
 were not prepared for any heavy outlay from their own purses. 
 The delay and consequent expense proved a serious annoyance. 
 News, however, came at last of Hadrian's deprivation, and 
 a knight of the Garter was sent to bring over the Legate.^ On 
 the 23rd of July he landed at Deal, and was met by the 
 Bishop of Chichester, the Lords Abergavenny, Cobham, and 
 others, and conveyed by them to Sandwich. Next day he 
 reached Canterbury. Here he was received by the clergy and 
 corporation of the town, and conducted to the cathedral gates, 
 where the Archbishop, the Bishop of Eochester, the Abbots of 
 St. Augustine and Faversham, the Priors of Christchurch and 
 St. Gregory's, attended his coming in full pontificals. After 
 prayers and benediction he was led to the shrine of St. 
 Thomas; was censed and sprinkled with holy water; then 
 conducted to his lodgings in St. Augustine's Abbey. Here he 
 stayed the Sunday. On Monday he set out for Sittingbourne 
 in a great storm of thunder and lightning, attended by a 
 cavalcade of 500 horse. There he dined, and supped and 
 slept at Bexley. On Tuesday he was entertained at a 
 magnificent dinner at Eochester ; thence to Otford, attended 
 all the way by the Archbishop, with a thousand horsemen, in 
 armour and gold chains. On Thursday, at Lewisham ; and 
 after dinner, about one o'clock, he arrived at Blackheath. At 
 this place a more splendid company awaited him, consisting 
 of the Duke of Norfolk, the Bishops of Durham and Ely, the 
 Earl of Surrey, the Lords Darcy and Abergavenny. In a 
 meadow "two miles from London," a tent of cloth of gold had 
 been erected for his reception. The procession was now 
 arranged. The nobility rode in advance ; then came the 
 Legate in full pontificals, with his cross, his pillars, and 
 pole-axes ; next his servants in red livery ; after them the 
 Archbishop's (Wolsey's ?) in one livery, with red hats, except 
 
 ' II. 4348.
 
 1518.] CAMPEGGIO'S RECEPTION. 281 
 
 the chaplains, to the number of 200 horse. As it neared the 
 city gates the whole procession extended uj^wards of two 
 miles. From St. George's Church to London Bridge the way 
 was lined on both sides by friars, monks, and clergy singing 
 hymns, dressed in their habits, with copes of cloth of gold, 
 gold and silver crosses and banners ; and as the Legate passed 
 along they threw uj) clouds of incense in the air, and sprinkled 
 him with holy water. At the foot of the bridge he was 
 received by two Bishops, who presented him with the relics of 
 the saints to kiss, whilst salvos of artillery from the Tower 
 and the river forts rent the air,^ and hundreds of bells pealed 
 from every abbey, priory, and parish church, to the deeper 
 bass of old St. Paul's. In "Gracious Street" the London 
 city companies joined the procession ; at Cheapside he was 
 welcomed by the mayor and aldermen ; and here the celebrated 
 Sii' Thomas More delivered a Latin oration. At St. Paul's 
 the Bishops of Lincoln and London, with the whole cathedral 
 clergy, received him, and led him after another oration to the 
 high altar. This done, the Legate mounted his mule, and 
 was conveyed to his lodgings in Bath Place. 
 
 The reception was magnificent beyond description ; there 
 had been nothing like it seen in England, at least within the 
 memory of living man. It had been prepared and arranged, 
 and the whole expense of it was defrayed, by Wolsey.^ But 
 there was one face wanting to complete the magnificence of 
 the ceremony : that was his own. Archbishops and dukes 
 and all the great nobility were there ; but Wolsey and the 
 King were absent. Sebastian said they were afraid of the 
 sweating sickness.^ 
 
 Campeggio's audience took place five days after at Green- 
 wich, on Tuesday the 3rd of August.* The King entered, 
 
 ' " Salvoes of artillery rent the air York went on the right hand ; and 
 
 as if the very heavens v?onld fall," is then the king, royally apparelled and 
 
 Wolsey's own expressive description accompanied, met them even as though 
 
 addressed to the Bishop of Worcester. botli had come from Rouio, and uo 
 
 II. 4348. brought them both up into his chamber 
 
 2 II. 4348. of presence [a mistake]. And there 
 
 ' II. 4361. was a solemn oration made by an 
 
 * " On Sunday [a blunder for Italian, declaring the cause of the 
 
 Tuesday] these two Cardinals or lisgacy to bo in two articles, one for 
 
 Legates took their barges and came aid against God's enemies, and the 
 
 to Greenwich. Each of them had second for reformation of the clergy 
 
 besides their crosses, two pillars of [the latter is Hall's invention]. And 
 
 silver, two little axes gilt, and two when mass was done [another inven- 
 
 cloak bags embroidered [wliat were tion], they wore had to a chamber, 
 
 these ?], and the Cardinals' hats borne and served with lords and knights [a 
 
 before them. Ami when they came mistake] with much solemnity ; and 
 
 to the king's hall, the Cardinal of after dinner, they took their leave of
 
 282 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 attended by the lords spiritual and temporal, and advanced to 
 the middle of the hall. The Legates " saluted him with great 
 marks of respect."^ The King returned their salutations by 
 taking off his bonnet, and then proceeded towards the upper 
 end of the hall, with Wolsey as the chief Legate on his right, 
 and Campeggio on the left ; their pillars, crosses, and hats 
 borne before them. The Earl of Surrey carried the sword, 
 walking between the Legates. On the right of the throne 
 stood the two primates and the bishops ; on the left, the 
 dukes and lords. Fronting the throne, and a little to the 
 right, were placed two chairs covered with cloth of gold ; in 
 the larger chair sate Wolsey, and a little behind him Cam- 
 peggio.^ Then Wolsey rising, cap in hand, delivered a Latin 
 oration, the King standing whilst it was delivered. " To this 
 his Majesty replied, also in Latin, most elegantly and with all 
 gravity." This done, they seated themselves, and the Legate's 
 brother commenced his oration, dilating on the objects of this 
 solemn mission, — the desire of the Pope for peace and unity 
 in Christendom, — the importance of a crusade against its 
 common enemy the Turk. He was answered by Dr. Taylor 
 on the King's behalf, stating that his Majesty needed not to 
 be reminded of his duty as a Christian. Then the King and 
 the Legates retired to a private chamber. Campeggio's 
 importance expired with this delivery of his mission. He was 
 invited to the usual court entertainments, was present at the 
 solemnity of Mary's espousals with the Dauphin; but, says 
 Sebastian, "little respect was shown to the see Apostolic."^ 
 A remark which requires no comment. 
 
 So the wheel had revolved once more, and all things had 
 apparently returned to the point from which they had started. 
 England and France were again intimately allied, and the 
 alliance cemented by marriage : Charles and Maximilian 
 remained subordinate in the great European confederacy, as 
 they had been four years before. As then, so now, Wolsey 
 stood master of the game, but with far higher advantages. 
 Then he was only Archbishop of York ; now he was Legate, 
 Cardinal, and Lord-Chancellor. Then he was only rising into 
 favour with his Sovereign ; now that favour was confirmed ; — 
 his supremacy was contested then by others not less powerful 
 than himself ; now, even his enemies admitted his superiority, 
 
 the ting, and came to London, and ' II. 4362, 4366. 
 
 rode through the city together in great ^ See the plate opposite, 
 
 pomp and glory to their lodgings." — ' II. 4371. 
 EaU's Chron., p. 593.
 
 1518.] 
 
 THE TWO LEGATES. 
 
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 284 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 1518. 
 
 and, if they did not crouch to it, dared not contest it. Then 
 his influence was Httle felt or acknowledged beyond his own 
 country; now kings and emperors sought his favour. It 
 rested with him to determine whether Europe should have 
 peace or war ; whether a crusade should be or should not be ; 
 who should dictate to the titular Pope, whether a Frenchman, 
 a German, or a Fleming ; and who should overshadow the 
 papal tiara. And all this he had accomplished without 
 moving from his chair, without a blow, with a peace ex- 
 penditure, and a rigid economy. There had never been such 
 a minister in England. Francis and Charles were now strain- 
 ing every nerve for the Imperial crown : — bribes, favours, 
 alliances, were showered by both; the most unblushing 
 venality found as unblushing and prodigal a purchaser. The 
 holy Eoman Empire, Hke a rare bauble — and no better than a 
 bauble — was set up to the highest bidder. It remained with 
 Wolsey to decide to which of the two parties it should be 
 knocked down.
 
 ( 285 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 TWO BOOKS OF THE PERIOD. 
 
 Our review of this period would be incomplete without some 
 notice of the two important works which then made their 
 appearance. I refer to the Greek Testament of Erasmus, and 
 the Utopia of Sir Thomas More. Though printed at Basle, 
 the Greek Testament of Erasmus was strictly the work of his 
 residence in England. In the collation and examination of 
 manuscripts required for the task, he had the assistance of Eng- 
 lishmen ; Englishmen supplied the funds, and English friends 
 and patrons lent him that support and encouragement without 
 which it is very doubtful whether Erasmus would have ever 
 completed the work. He was not always liberal in acknow- 
 ledging his obligations ; yet in his New Testament, hidden 
 away in a page where no one would have expected to find it, 
 he bursts into a sudden fit of enthusiasm and celebrates the 
 praises of Warham in language such as none but Erasmus 
 could command.^ After discanting upon the Archbishop's 
 modesty, labom's, genius, administration of justice (for he was 
 still Chancellor), his patronage of letters and learned men, 
 Erasmus thus pursues the subject : 
 
 " Had it been my good fortune to have fallen in with such a Maecenas 
 in my earlier years, I might, perhaps, have done sometliing for literature. 
 Now, bom as I was in an unhappy age, when barbarism reigned supreme, 
 especially among my own people, by whom the least inclination for 
 literature was then looked upon as little better than a crime, what could I 
 do with my small modicum of talent ? Death carried off Henry de 
 Berghes, bishop of Cambray, my tirst patron ; my second, William lord 
 Mount joy, an English peer, was separated from me by his employments 
 at court and the tumults of war. JJy his means it was my good fortmie, 
 then advanced in life and close upon my fortieth year, to be introduced 
 to archbishop Wareham. Encouraged and cheered by his bounty, I 
 revived ; I gained new youth and strength in the cause of literature. 
 What nature and my country denied me, his bounty supplied." 
 
 These expressions of gratitude were no more than the 
 Archbishop deserved ; in addition to an annual pension he 
 
 ' In Epist. ad Tbessalon. i. cap. 2.
 
 286 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 sent various sums of money to Erasmus, generally through 
 More. Nor were Warham and Mountjoy his only friends. 
 Tunstal and Lupset assisted him in his collations ; Fisher, 
 Fox, More, Colet, Urswick, and Ammonius made him continual 
 presents, and pushed his interest at court. Wolsey, apparently 
 indifferent to literary praise, offered him only a prebend at 
 Tournay — diopov aStvpov as Erasmus calls it, who could never 
 be persuaded to speak well of Wolsey afterwards. ^ When the 
 New Testament appeared, it was applauded by those whom 
 we have been told to regard as the most superstitious and 
 benighted upholders of the old religion. " Lately in a large 
 concourse of people," writes More,^ " the Bishop of Winchester 
 (Fox) affirmed that your version of the New Testament was 
 worth more to him than ten commentaries. The bishops were 
 loud in its praises,^ Warham in particular. Fisher had 
 always been one of its earliest promoters. Tunstal, as I have 
 remarked already, had assisted with his scholarship and his 
 bounty. 
 
 The experiment was a bold one — the boldest that had been 
 conceived in this century or for many centm-ies before it. 
 We are accustomed to the freest expression of opinion in 
 Biblical criticism, and any attempt to supersede our English 
 version, to treat its inaccuracies with scorn, to represent it as far 
 below the science and scholarship of the age, or as a barbarous 
 unlettered production, made from inaccurate manuscripts, 
 and imperfectly executed by men who did not understand the 
 language of the original, would excite little apprehension or 
 alarm.* To explain the text of Scripture exclusively by the 
 rules of human wisdom, guided by the same principles as are 
 freely applied to classical authors, — to discriminate the 
 spm'ious from the genuine, and decide that this was canonical, 
 and that was not — might, perhaps, be regarded as audacious. 
 Yet all this, and not less than this, did Erasmus propose to 
 himself in his edition and translation of the New Testament. 
 He meant to subvert the authority of the Vulgate, and to 
 show that much of the popular theology of the day, its errors 
 and misconceptions, were founded entirely on a misapprehen- 
 sion of the original meaning, and inextricably entangled with 
 the old Latin version. It was his avowed object to bring up 
 the translation of the sacred books, and all criticism connected 
 
 > See II. 889, .890, 1552, 2066. written in the year 1864, before the 
 
 2 II. 2831. project of a Revised Version had 
 
 3 II. 2074, 2196. assumed anything like definite shape. 
 * This, it may be observed, was — Ed.
 
 1516.] ERASMUS' NEW TESTAMENT. 287 
 
 with them, to the level of that scholarship in his days which 
 had been successfully applied to the illustration of ancient 
 authors ; to set aside all rules of interpretation resting merely 
 on faith and authority, and replace them by the philological 
 and historical. And it was precisely for this reason that 
 Luther disliked the work.^ In this respect the New Testament 
 of Erasmus must be regarded as the foundation of that new 
 school of teaching on which Anglican theology professes 
 exclusively to rest ; as such it is not only the type of its class, 
 but the most direct enunciation of that Protestant principle 
 which, from that time until this, has found its expression in 
 various forms : " The Bible alone is the religion of Protestants." 
 Whatever can be read therein or proved thereby is binding 
 uj)on all men ; what cannot, is not to be required of any man 
 as an article of his faith, either by societies or individuals. 
 Who sees not that the authority of the Church was displaced, 
 and the sufficiency of all men individually to read and interpret 
 for themselves was thus asserted by the New Testament of 
 Erasmus ? 
 
 The work found readers where readers were least to be 
 expected ; not merely in universities and among bishops, but 
 with friars and monks and other religious orders. It was 
 talked over in the common rooms of Oxford and Cambridge ; 
 criticized in the refectory of the friars, or the nun's parlours ; 
 preached at from the pulpit and the lecture room ; the topic 
 of conversation at court ; declaimed against before lord mayors 
 and corporations. Violet and scarlet hoods fluttered with 
 emotion at its daring innovations ; black woollen gowns and 
 white enlarged, in corners, to anxious, upturned faces, on the 
 new version which had re-written the Epistles of St. Paul, and 
 put unauthorized phrases into the Magnificat and the Pater 
 nosier. I have already stated that the age was not that sink 
 of corruption which modern historians delights to paint it. 
 And the universal interest taken in this work of Erasmus 
 shows equally that the age was not so illiterate as it is often 
 assumed to be. Popular stories of the Bible being unknown, 
 of the total indifference of the friars to learning, rest like most 
 popular stories on vulgar credulity. Here is a passage from 
 Mere's Utopia, written in 1516, which conveys a very different 
 impression : — 
 
 ' See hifl letters 22 and 29. To Galatians, the profoundest of all his 
 the last, Lutlicr retained the use of works, 
 the Vulgate in his commentary on the
 
 288 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 " Men's tastes differ much ; some are so morose, so sour in disposition, 
 and their judgments so perverse, that people of cheerful and lively 
 temper, v^ho indulge their humors, seem much more happy than those 
 who torment themselves by writing books, or attempting to please or 
 profit the ungrateful and fastidious. Many know nothing of learning and 
 others despise it. To the lover of barbarisms all is rough and distasteful 
 that is not barbarous. The sciolist despises as common place whatever 
 abounds not in antiquated expressions. Some love antiquity only ; the 
 greater part, novelty. This man is of '' so vinegar an aspect " that he can 
 allow no jokes ; another so dull he cannot endure wit. This man's face is 
 so flat he is as much afraid of a nose as the devil of holy water. Some 
 again are so changeable, that their thoughts alter as rapidly as their 
 postures. These sit in taverns, and take upon them to criticise works of 
 genius over their cups. They cannot endure the least ridicule, and con- 
 demn in authoritative tones, ad libitum, with no less advantage than a 
 bald man plucks his neighbour's hair ; for they are so smooth and shorn — 
 these good fellows — they present not a single hair for others to lay hold 
 on. Some are so unthankful that even when they are well pleased with a 
 book they love not the author the more, and are like those rude guests, 
 who, after they have been well entertained, go away with a belly-full, 
 without so much as thanking their host. " 
 
 And this brings me, in conclusion, to some remarks on the 
 Utopia itself. A modern French author, with that sprightliness 
 and lively declamation for which he is justly remarkable, 
 characterizes the Utopia of Sir Thomas More as "an insipid 
 romance in which the author has taken great pains to discover 
 truths already realized by the mystic communists of the middle 
 ages in a more original manner. The design of the work is 
 common-place, its matter ordinary ; it has little imagination, 
 and less sense of reality." ^ There is not the least reason for 
 supposing that More was ever acquainted with the communistic 
 doctrines of the middle ages, or ever wished to establish them. 
 For common tables and community of goods in the institu- 
 tions of Utopia, More M^as indebted to Plato and the laws of 
 ' Lycurgus ; for More was much more familiar with the classical 
 than the middle ages ; — and these were introduced for a 
 different purpose than that which M. Michelet surmises. We 
 readily concede that there is not to be found in the Utopia the 
 wonderful invention, the inexhaustible wit, the profound 
 learning, the broad farce, the abundant physical coarseness, 
 the sarcasm and unextinguishable laughter, the tenderest 
 and profoundest sentiments masquerading in grotesque and 
 ludicrous shapes, the healthy vigorous humanity, overflowing 
 at one time with clear and beautiful truths, and then anon 
 stranded in pools of mud and filth, that are to be found in 
 Rabelais. But the objects of the two men were as different as 
 their natures. The wit and humour of More is that of the 
 
 ' La forme est plate, le fonds commnn. Michelet, Reforme, p. 414,
 
 1516.] MORE'S "UTOPIA." 289 
 
 thoughtful observant Englishman, not breaking out into peals 
 of laughter, but so quiet, sedate, and serious as to demand on 
 the part of the reader something of the same ha.bit of quiet 
 thought and observation, to be fully perceived and enjoyed. 
 More hovers so perj^etually on the confines of jest and earnest, 
 passes so naturally from one to the other, that the reader is in 
 constant suspense whether his jest be serious, or his serious- 
 ness a jest. The book is wonderful]}^ Englishlike ; wonderfully 
 like that balancing habit of mind which trembles on the verge 
 of right and wrong, sometimes struggling on in happier times 
 to clearer vision, sometimes, like More, shutting its eyes and 
 relapsing into older impressions unable to endure suspense 
 any longer. 
 
 In More's own day the Utopia was regarded as a mirror of 
 the political and social evils of the times. ^ " A burgomaster 
 at Antwerp," writes Erasmus, " is so pleased with it, he knows 
 it all by heart." Its popularity is attested by numerous 
 editions ^ and translations. The scene of it is laid in the then 
 scarce-known regions of the West, where Christianity had 
 not yet penetrated. It describes the social and political per- 
 fection to which the people of Utopia had arrived by the mere 
 efforts of natural goodness, as compared with the corrupt 
 institutions and manners of Christendom. The Utopians are 
 not entirely free from usages which seem incompatible with a 
 model republic, and this is part of the author's design. They 
 attempt to prevent war by assassination, and bribe the subjects 
 of their enemy to commit treason. But he must be dull 
 indeed, who does not perceive that Utopia when following out 
 these principles, is removed but a few miles from the English 
 Channel, and that a practice which seems the more odious in 
 these upright and wise Utopians was tenfold more unjustifiable 
 in those who, professing the doctrines of Christ never scrupled 
 to employ the same means against their own enemies. Were 
 the intrigues of Henry VIII. and his minister Dacre against 
 Scotland more moral than these ? Were not their attempts to 
 sow treason and disaffection among the Scotch lords an exact 
 exemplification of this Utopian policy '? Letter after letter in 
 this volume betrays a similar design for decoying or cutting 
 off The White Rose, Be la Pole,^ thus illustrating More's words 
 
 ' II. 29G2, 2996. correspondence passed through Tun- 
 
 ^ The first was at Louvain in 1516, stal's hands when minister in the 
 
 the next at Basle in I'AH, and another, Netherlands. And it is greatly to his 
 
 a few months after, at Paris. credit that he always discouraged 
 
 ^ It is worth noticing that this these speculators in private assassina- 
 VOL. I, U
 
 290 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 to the letter : " By this means it has often fallen out that 
 many of them, even the Prince himself has been betrayed 
 by those, in whom they trusted most ; for the rewards the 
 Utopians offer are so immeasurably great that there is no sort 
 of crime to which men cannot be drawn by them." 
 
 But UtoiDia is nowhere, and was never intended to be, set 
 up as a model to be literally followed. Could More seriously 
 advocate a community of goods, even if as a sound lawyer he 
 could expect to see the Utopian prohibition verified, that the 
 nations of Europe should have fewer laws and no lawyers?^ 
 Could he gravely recommend a purely elective monarchy, 
 even if, with his religious views, he might have justified the 
 marriage of priests, to which he has never given any sanction 
 in his writings? But though the Utopia was not to be 
 literally followed — was no more than an abstraction at which 
 no one would have laughed more heartily than More himself, 
 if interpreted too strictly — Utopia might serve to show to 
 a corrupt Christendom what good could be effected by the 
 natural instincts of men when following the dictates of natural 
 prudence and justice. If kings could never be elective in 
 Europe, Utopia might show the advantage to a nation where 
 kings were responsible to some other will than their own. 
 / If property could never be common, Utopia might teach men 
 how great was the benefit to society when the state regarded 
 itself as created for the well-being of all, and not of a class 
 or a favoured few. Literally property could never be common, 
 except in Utopia ; but it might be so in effect in Christian 
 communities when capital and property were more widely 
 diffused, — when the enormous disproportion between the poor 
 and the rich, the noble and the serf, was modified by social 
 improvements, — when laws were simplified, and the statute 
 
 tion, and gave no credence to the that are both of such a bulk and so 
 numerous spies and vagabonds who dark that they cannot be read or 
 now, and much more in after times, understood by every one of their sub- 
 were employed by Henry to carry jects. 
 
 out this Utopian policy. Strange that " They have no lawyers among 
 
 what then was considered too scan- them, for they consider them as a 
 
 dalous to be done openly should now sort of people whose profession it is 
 
 find defenders on the plea of State to disguise matters as well as to arrest 
 
 necessity ! laws ; and therefore they think it is 
 
 ' " They have but few laws, and much better that every man should 
 
 such is their constitution that they plead his own cause and trust it to 
 
 need not many. They do very much the judge, as in other places the client 
 
 condemn other nations whose laws, does to his councillor. By this means 
 
 together with the commentaries upon they both cut off many delays and find 
 
 them, swell to so many volumes ; for out truth more certainly." A bold 
 
 they think it an unreasonable thing to stroke against trial by jury, 
 oblige men to obey a body of laws
 
 1516.] MORE'S "UTOPIA." 291 
 
 book disencumbered of obsolete and unintelligible Acts, too 
 often put in force to catch the unwary, and made an instrument 
 of oppression by the crown lawyers. 
 
 It might, perhaps, be thought that More attributed too 
 much to nature, — that in the misery and confusion of his 
 times, in the deadlock of all social, political, and religious 
 reforms, in his dissatisfaction at Christianity, as exhibited 
 in the lives of his contemporaries, he gladly turned away to 
 an ideal as little like the reality as possible, and pleased 
 himself, as some did at the French Revolution, with a pure 
 social abstraction removed from all those debasing influences 
 under which men groaned. We might be tempted to think 
 for a moment that he wavered in his allegiance to Christianity, 
 and that the beautiful visions of Platonic republics and ancient 
 patriots, fostered by his classical studies, had for a time over- 
 mastered his imagination, as was the case with many others. 
 Christianity, in his days at least, could present no such 
 heroical virtue, no such grace or beauty, as Paganism had 
 done, and was then doing, with an intensity of attraction to 
 the newly-awakened longings of men, of which we can form 
 no conception. Were monks and friars comparable to the 
 ancient philosopher and his supper of herbs ? Were Christian 
 kings of the sixteenth century, imperious, headstrong, pas- 
 sionate, and arbitrary, immersed in the games of war and 
 ambition, absorbed by the tournament, or the chase, impatient 
 of contradiction, deaf to good advice — comparable to the 
 Catos, the Eeguli, the Spartan or Sabine rulers of the old 
 republics ? Had not the advancement of the faith been made 
 a pretext for spoliation and aggrandizement ? Had not its 
 teachers taken part rather with the oppressors than the 
 oppressed ? Were not half the wars of Christendom trace- 
 able to this one cause ? — ignoble wars that only fostered 
 the evils under which society laboured, strengthening the 
 oppressor and trampling on the weak ? Had More's faith 
 staggered at the trial, it could have occasioned little surprise ; 
 but apparently it did not. For Christianity is introduced 
 among the Utopians ; it is readily received by them from its 
 secret sympathy with their own opinions and institutions in 
 its purer form. 
 
 But a very brief sketch of the Utopian political and social 
 regulations will point out more clearly the prevalent evils of 
 More's days. I wish I might ask my reader to carry in his 
 memory the leading topics of the preceding chapters ; — the
 
 292 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 endless wars, the faithless leagues, the military expenditure, 
 the money and time wasted upon instruments and means of 
 offence to the neglect of all social improvements, unsettled"" 
 habits, trains of idle serving-men re-enacting in the streets the 
 interminable brawls of the Montagues and Capulets, broken 
 and disabled soldiers turning to theft, and filling Alsatia for' 
 lack of employment, labour disarranged, husbandry broken up, 
 villages and hamlets depopulated to feed sheep, agricultural 
 labourers turned adrift, but forbidden to stray, and driven 
 home from tithing to tithing by the lash, to starve ; no poor- 
 houses, no hospitals, though the sweating sickness raged 
 through the land, but the poor left to perish as paupers by 
 the side of the ditches, filling the air with fever and pestilence, 
 houses never swept or ventilated, choked with rotten thatch 
 above and unchanged rushes within, streets reeking with offal 
 and filthy jDuddles, no adequate supply of water for cleanliness 
 or health, penal laws stringently enforced, more stringently 
 as the evils grew greater, crime and its punishment struggling 
 for the upper hand, justice proud of its executions, and 
 wondering that theft multiplied faster than the gibbet. Then 
 again, and unquestionably the greatest blot upon the reign of 
 •\ Henry VIII. — was the sudden revival of obsolete statutes ; 
 ^^^^ as in the punishment of the London apprentices and the~ 
 jjrccmunire in 1530. More's language ^ looks prophetical, as 
 if he pierced into futurity, and saw beneath the popular and 
 fascinating exterior of Henry VIII. the monarch who should 
 one day use the law, not for the protection, but the oppression 
 of his subjects. " One set of ministers," says the supposed 
 traveller in Utopia, " will bring forward some old musty laws 
 that have been antiquated by a long disuse, and which, as 
 they have been forgotten by all the king's subjects, so they 
 have also been broken by them ; and will urge that the levy- 
 ing of the penalties of these laws, as it will bring in a vast 
 treasure, so also fails not of a very good pretence, since it 
 would look like the executing of the law and the doing of justice*' ^ 
 "Another proposes that the judges should be made sure of, 
 that in all causes affecting the king they may always give 
 sentence in his favour, and be sent for to the palace and 
 invited to discuss the matter before the king, that there may 
 
 ' The face of More is remarkable procurins^ bulls from Rome, in which, 
 
 for its peering anxious look, as of a as has been already shown (pp. 267, 
 
 man endeavouring to penetrate into 268), the King was as much implicated 
 
 and yet dreading the future. as his minister. 
 
 * As in Wolsey's attainder for
 
 1516.] MOEE'S "UTOPIA." 293 
 
 be no cause of his, however obviously unjust, in which some 
 among them, either through love of contradiction, or pride of 
 singularity, or desu-e to win favour, will not find out some 
 pretence or another for giving sentence in the king's behalf. 
 . . . And there never will be wanting some pretext for de- 
 claring in the king's favor ; — as, that equity is on his side, 
 or the strict letter of the law, or some forced interpretation 
 of it ; or if none of these, that the royal prerogative ought 
 with conscientious judges to outweigh all other considerations. 
 And these notions are fostered by the maxims, that the king 
 can.do no wrong, however much he may wish to do it ; that 
 not only the property, but the persons of his subjects, are 
 his ; — that a man has a right to no more than the king's 
 goodness think fit not to take from him." 
 
 Extravagant as such doctrines may appear to us in these 
 days, they represent the feelings of the people, and the 
 position of the Sovereign in the days of the Tudors. Absolute 
 in theory, clergy, judges, people strove to render the pre- 
 rogative more absolute, both in theory and practice. So long 
 as Wolsey lived the Church formed some barrier ; afterwards, 
 as it stood for a time without any such control, before the 
 House of Commons or public opinion had yet risen to take 
 the place of the Church, Government was absolutely identified 
 with the will of the Sovereign ; his word was law for the con- 
 sciences as well as the conduct of his subjects. And the 
 remembrance of the civil commotions of the fifteenth century 
 springing solely from a disputed succession — the rooted con- 
 viction that society must relapse once more into confusion 
 under a similar evil — that it was disintegrated, that all social 
 order was bound up in the King, as its only certain and 
 immovable centre — nurtured in the minds of Englishmen 
 the extravagant doctrines thus denounced by More. Any 
 wrong, any injustice, any royal violation of the law, however 
 flagrant, was a more tolerable evil than disobedience, or 
 opposition to the will of the prince, however just or sacred 
 the cause. For that, in the temper of the times, people had 
 no sympathy ; the will of the prince, however expressed, as 
 Eomanist or Protestant, in passing the Six Articles or behead- 
 ing More, in divorcing Queen Katharine or marrying Anne 
 Boleyn, was to be respected. Innocence itself was to plead 
 " guilty," and suffer as guilt, if the King required it. How 
 far Cromwell took advantage of this feeling it is not my 
 present purpose to inquire.
 
 294 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. U-T). 
 
 Such evils as these could have no place among the 
 Utopians. Their monarchy was elective, their government 
 strictly representative: — "The prince is for hfe, but he is 
 removable on suspicion of a design to enslave his people." 
 Strange doctrine this in the reign of Henry VIII. ! Due pro- 
 vision was made for the health, education, employment, re- 
 creation of the people — subjects quite below the consideration 
 of monarchs and ministers in Christian Europe. Every street 
 was twenty feet broad ; ^ every house was built of stone, with 
 its garden behind it for health and recreation; a striking 
 contrast to the mean hovels, mud walls, thatched roofs, 
 straggling with overhanging gables, and shutting out both air 
 and light in the metropolis of England. Labour alternated 
 from town to country and from country to town ; learning 
 followed work, and work learning. Public lectures were given 
 every morning before daybreak ; after supper diversion ; 
 summer in their gardens, winter in their pubHc halls, with 
 music and discourse. No games except chess were allowed, 
 or an allegorical tournament between vices and virtues. All, 
 whatever their condition, male or female, noble or ignoble, 
 were set to learn some trade. Six hom^s for labour, the 
 others for rest ; but that rest must be reasonably employed in 
 reading, exercise, or gardening. Labour common, and property 
 common ; common halls in every district, " where they all 
 meet and eat;" hospitals without the walls, "so large that 
 they may pass for little towns ; by this means, if they had 
 ever such a number of sick, they could lodge them con- 
 veniently, and at sufQcient distances to prevent contagion." 
 No slaughter-houses permitted within the walls, no offal, no 
 pestilential manufactures. In the country these restrictions 
 were relaxed. 
 
 Fathers and grandfathers, sons and daughters-in-law, made 
 one family, and lived under the same roof, like More's own 
 family at Chelsea. In this respect no philosopher ever ex- 
 emplified his own precepts more perfectly than More. And 
 if we may accept the repeated and uniform assurances of his 
 contemporaries — if the respect and affection of all his house- 
 hold, which accompanied him even to the scaffold, be any test 
 — his own practice must have been the noblest proof of the 
 sound wisdom of his theory. Englishmen and strangers 
 admitted to his acquaintance testify to the peace, purity, love, 
 
 * What, then, must the streets of London have been ? Perhaps some 10 or 
 12 fee
 
 1516.] MORE'S "UTOPIA." 295 
 
 coiu'tesy, and refinement that reigned supreme in his family ; 
 — far more Utopian, when compared with what is known of 
 the private lives of his contemporaries, than any household in 
 Utopia itself. 
 
 No wonder, then, that cheerfulness, regard to the welfare 
 and happiness of others, gentleness and good nature, formed 
 a very prominent part in the philosophy of the Utopians, 
 and these not merely as private but public virtues ; — that on 
 the same principle gambling, hunting, and field sports were 
 disallowed, as pleasures purchased by the pain of inferior 
 animals, and degenerating into brutality by frequent in- 
 dulgence.^ Closely connected with these feelings was the 
 attention paid by the Utopians to the condition of the labour- 
 ing classes, and their regulations to prevent the workman, 
 skilled or unskilled, from being ground down to that hopeless 
 wretchedness, which at last burst out into open rebellion here 
 and on the continent. 
 
 " Wlaat justice is this," says Raphael, the imaginary traveller, " that 
 a nobleman, a goldsmith, or a banker, or any other man that does nothing 
 at all, should live in great luxury and splendor, and a carter, a smith, or a 
 ploughman that works harder than the beasts themselves, and is employed 
 in labors of such a nature that no commonwealth could exist for a year 
 without them, should be able to earn so poor a livelihood, and lead so 
 miserable a life, that the condition of the beasts is much better than his ? 
 For as the beasts do not work so constantly, feed almost as well and more 
 pleasantly, have no anxiety for the future, these men, on the contrary, 
 are crushed by a barren and profitless employment, and tormented with 
 apprehensions of want in their old age. What they obtain by tlieir daily 
 labor serves only for their daily maintenance ; — is consumed as fast as it 
 comes in ; — and no surplus is left them to lay up for old age. Is not that 
 government unjust that takes no care of the meaner sort, and when they 
 can no longer serve it, and are oppressed with age, sickness, and want, all 
 the labors and good they have done are forgotten, and their only reward 
 is to die in great misery? Add to this, all the richer sort are often 
 endeavouring to bring the hire of laborers lower, not only by fraudulent 
 practices, but by the laws which they procure to be made to that eftect for 
 regulating labor." '^ 
 
 Nor is More less severe against the foreign policy of the 
 governments of Europe ; their utter carelessness in breaking 
 treaties however solemnly ratified ; their employment of 
 mercenaries ; the absence of all controlling power on the part 
 of the popes, who rather imitated than denounced the per- 
 
 ' It must be remembered that in been born and bred a citizen. 
 More's time no game-seasons were ^ A liard hit against the Statute of 
 
 observed by country gentlemen. Laborers ; — strangely cnougli quoted 
 
 Their whole life was occapicd with of late as an institution of the Tudora 
 
 field sports. Cromwell shot partridges to protect the employed against the 
 
 all the year round ; but then he had employer.
 
 296 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 nicious practices of the secular rulers. " The Utopians," he 
 says, " make no leagues as other nations do. What is the 
 use of leagues ? say they ; do you think that a man will care 
 for words whom natui'al affection fails to reconcile to his 
 fellow-man ? " Then adds More, with grave irony : "In 
 Europe, and especially the parts about us where Christianity 
 is received, the majesty of treaties is everywhere regarded as 
 holy and inviolable, partly from the justice and goodness of 
 kings, partly from the fear and reverence they feel for the 
 sovereign Pontiffs ; for as the latter never take engagements 
 upon them which they do not religiously observe, so they 
 enjoin uj)on all princes to abide by their promises at all 
 hazards, and if they equivocate, subject them to ecclesiastical 
 censures ! For they justly consider it a most indecent thing, 
 for them who claim the title of the faithful to show no faith in 
 their treaties." Again, in illustration of this topic. More 
 observes : if in their wars against their enemies other means 
 fail, "they sow the seeds of dissension among them, and set 
 up the king's brother or some nobleman to aspire to the 
 crown; " a remark which receives ample illustration from the 
 State Papers. — "Or," he continues, "if domestic factions 
 languish, they stir up against them the neighbouring nations; 
 and rummaging out some old claims which are never wanting to 
 princes, supply them abundantly with money for the war, but 
 not with their own troops." Then follows a passage aimed so 
 directly against the policy of England that I wonder More had 
 the courage to insert it, only that as France pursued the same 
 methods, unreflecting readers might not at once perceive how 
 the arrow glanced from one nation to the other : — 
 
 " They hire soldiers from all places, but chiefly from the Zapoletse 
 (the Swiss) ; a hardy race, patient of heat, cold and labor ; strangers to 
 all delights, indifferent to agriculture, careless of their houses and their 
 clothes, studious of nothing but their cattle. They live by hunting and 
 plunder ; born only for war, which they watch all opportunities of engaging 
 in, they embrace it eagerly when offered, and are ready to serve any 
 prince that will hire them, in great numbers. They know none of the 
 arts of life, except how to take it away. They serve their employers 
 actively and faithfully ; but will bind themselves to no certain terms, and 
 only agree on condition that next day they shall go over to the enemy if 
 he promises larger pay, and veer back again the day after at a higher 
 bidding. As war rarely arises in which a greater part of them is not 
 enlisted on both sides, it often happens that kinsmen and most intimate 
 friends, hired from the same cantons, find themselves opposed, engage 
 and kill one another, regardless of these ties, for no other consideration 
 than that they have been hired to do so for a miserable pay, by princes of 
 opposite interests ; and they are so nice in demanding it that they will 
 change sides for the advance of a halfjjenny. And yet their wages are of
 
 1516.] MORE'S "UTOPIA." 297 
 
 no use to them, for they spend them immediately in low dissipation. 
 They serve the Utopians against all the world, for they are the best 
 paymasters. And as the Utopians look out for good men for their owai 
 use at home, they employ the greatest scoundrels abroad ; and they think 
 they do a great service to mankind by thus ridding the world of the 
 entire scum of such a foul and nefarious population." 
 
 But it is time for me to bring these remarks to a close. If 
 any one wishes to see the real condition of Europe at this 
 period — the arbitrary rule of its monarchs bent on their own 
 aggrandisement, and careless of the improvement of their 
 people — the disputes among their councillors, agreed in one 
 point only, to flatter and mislead their sovereigns — the wide 
 separation between the luxury of the rich and the hopeless 
 misery of the poor — the prevalence of crime — the severe 
 execution of justice, earnest for punishment, but regardless of 
 prevention — the frequency of capital punishment — the depopu- 
 lation of villages — the engrossing by a few hands of corn and 
 wool — the scarcity of meat — the numbers of idle gentlemen 
 without emploj'ment — of idle serving-men and retainers turned 
 adi-ift on a life of vagabondism : — in short, whoever wishes to 
 see society full of the elements of confusion, requiring only a 
 small spark to fan them into a flame, may read with advan- 
 tage the Utopia of Sii" Thomas More.
 
 298 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 THE IMPEEIAL ELECTION. 
 
 The Emperor Maximilian died on the 12th of January, 1519. 
 The latter days of his life had been employed in endeavouring 
 to secure for his grandson the reversion of the imperial crown. 
 He prosecuted this object with greater consistency and firm- 
 ness than he did most of his schemes, forged by a brain 
 unusually fertile in expedients, and as rapidl}^ abandoned by 
 his easy and fickle temperament. Through dint of bribery, 
 entreaty, perseverance, and boundless promises, he had 
 succeeded in obtaining assurances of support from four out of 
 the seven electors. The patriotism or avarice of the Elector 
 of Cologne was propitiated by the promise of 20,000 florins in 
 ready money, and a pension of 6,000 florins. Thirty thousand 
 florins and the hand of the infanta Katharine, a lady whose 
 " great beauty and virtue " were enhanced by a dowry of 
 70,000 florins, payable on the day of the election, secured the 
 Marquis of Brandenburg. His brother the Archbishop of 
 Mayence was contented with 52,000 florins, a handsome 
 credence, a service of silver to be selected by himself, and the 
 most exquisite tapestry from the looms of Flanders. The 
 better to confirm him in his allegiance, a pension of 8,000 
 florins was promised to each of his two brothers. As for the 
 King of Bohemia, a boy of fifteen, Maximilian had no cause 
 of solicitude ; his vote was determined already by his marriage 
 with Mary, sister of the King of Castile. Three other 
 members of the electoral College remained undecided ; the 
 Count Palatines, the Archbishop of Treves, and the Elector of 
 Saxony. The last two were inflexible. The enemies of the 
 House of Hapsburg had chosen to congratulate themselves 
 that the last sparks of virtue and patriotism were not extin- 
 guished in the breasts of the noblest, — in the chiefs of their 
 people. Some few were yet to be found in the hierarchy of 
 German feudality, to whom national independence and the
 
 1519.] THE LAST SCHEMES OF MAXIMILIAN. 299 
 
 sanctity of an oath, were something more than empty names. 
 "I swear on these gospels here open before me" — such was 
 the oath repeated after the Archbishop of Mayence by every 
 one of the electors — that " my voice, vote, and my suffrage 
 shall be given unbiassed by any pact, price, pledge or engage- 
 ment under any pretence whatsoever. So help me God, and 
 all His holy saints and angels ! " 
 
 Yet the Archbishoj) of Treves could not behold with com- 
 placency the dangerous neighbourhood and restless aggran- 
 dizement of the House of Hapsburg. The Elector of Saxony 
 had reasons of his own for disliking Maximilian. The Prince 
 Palatine kept aloof, but from different motives. His brother. 
 Count Frederick, had formed a secret attachment to Charles's 
 sister Eleanor, afterwards Queen of Portugal. For this 
 unwarrantable presumption the Count had been coldly and 
 haughtily dismissed — to employ his influence, as might 
 naturally have been expected, with his brother the Elector, in 
 advancing the pretensions of Francis I. But affection for the 
 sister outweighed the insult received from the brother. The 
 Count readily complied with the summons of Maximilian. He 
 even undertook, for a pension of 20,000 florins, to bring over 
 his brother to the Emperor's views. The negociation was 
 costly ; the Palatine demanded no less than 100,000 florins as 
 the price of his vote, and certain other concessions, not needful 
 here to be insisted on. At the cost of half a million of gold 
 florins, in the shape of jjresents, and 70,000 or something 
 more, by way of annuities, Maximilian had contrived to secure 
 or corrupt the highest nobility in Germany. He had fixed, as 
 he thought, the imperial crown in the House of Hapsburg for 
 ever. The price of the Holy Koman Empire, everything 
 considered, was not so exorbitant after all. 
 
 My readers who have pursued with me, in previous 
 chapters, the fortunes of " the penniless Emperor," will 
 naturally inquire how Maximilian could obtain the funds 
 required for so costly a purchase. Of his own, he had nothing 
 to bestow ; he could only pledge his grandson's credit ; and 
 German electors were too well acquainted with the value of 
 royal and imperial engagements to barter their votes for 
 empty promises. More than once the imperial broker had to 
 urge upon his grandson his need of remittances ; more than 
 once was the empire in danger of falling into the hands of 
 Francis I., wlio, more wealthy and less scrupulous than liis 
 rival, squaudored his treasures without present or after
 
 300 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 thought of the consequences. Cautious and penurious, even 
 where great advantages were to be gained, Charles doled out 
 his gold in proportions more suited to a village than an 
 empire. Already at the age of nineteen, unhke his con- 
 temporaries, he possessed the virtue of prudence in perfec- 
 tion. He insisted that his agents should incur no expenses in 
 the election, unless they were certain of success ; that no 
 elector should receive for his vote more than 4,000 florins. 
 With bitter pangs and ill-concealed reluctance he placed to 
 the credit of Maximilian first 100,000 and then 200,000 
 ducats,^ obtained from the bankers of Genoa and Augsburg. 
 From personal experience, better versed in the ways of the 
 world, more alive than most of his contemporaries to the 
 influence of bribery, Maximilian remonstrated. "If," said 
 he, " you wish to gain mankind, you must play at a high 
 stake. Either then follow my counsel and adopt my sugges- 
 tions, or abandon the chance of bringing this affair to a 
 termination satisfactory to our wishes, and creditable to our 
 fame. It would be lamentable if, after so much pain and 
 labor to aggrandize and exalt our house and our jDOsterity, we 
 should now lose all through some pitiful omission or penurious 
 neglect." 
 
 In the midst of all this happiness and bustle, scheming, 
 intriguing, and corrupting, Maximilian died suddenly at Welz 
 in Upper Austria, " vanquished with sickness, which was first 
 a catarrh, and sithence a flux and a fever continual."^ 
 
 The new world, under younger masters, with new notions 
 and untrained energies, was now rapidly drifting away from 
 the old. The grasp of the old, destined to fade away, became 
 every day feebler. Time, the greatest of innovators, had 
 altered the relative positions of the three rulers of Christen- 
 dom, At the death of Maximilian, Henry VIII. was in his 
 28th year, Francis I. in his 25th, Charles in his 19th. All 
 were equally ambitious, all nearly equally powerful, and 
 all equally, though in different ways, greedy of personal 
 distinction. Yet to command the applause of the age it 
 
 * See III. 27. Spinelly is more and make no difficulty of coming to 
 
 precise : " Armestoril is gone to the Frankfort. The king is also bound to 
 
 Emperor with bills of exchange to the make good to the electors a pension of 
 
 value of 250,000 ducats, payable 1st 70,000 florins of gold during their 
 
 April next. The merchants have lives. The town of Antwerp is to 
 
 promised that the Fuggers, the answer for the same," etc. Jan. 20, 
 
 Hochstetters, or Welzers, shall answer 1519 (III. 36). 
 
 the same in February next, that the * Knight, Jan. 14, 1519; III. 25. 
 
 electors may be sore of their money,
 
 1519.] THE NEW ORDER. 301 
 
 was still indispensable that they should be, or seem to be, 
 the champions of the Church. Francis I. was its dearest and 
 its eldest son. Who more ready than he to draw the sword in 
 its defence ? Was it to pursue the heretic and the infidel to 
 the furthest verge of Ind, — was it to sluice out his blood and 
 treasure at the bidding of his Holiness, — none more prompt 
 than he, even when he was invading the patrimony of the 
 Church, or tm-ning a wistful eye to an alliance with the Turk. 
 As for Charles, it had always been the special glory of the 
 kings of Castile to maintain the honour and orthodoxy of the 
 Chm'ch, with a devotion that knew no doubts, and a zeal which 
 overlooked all difficulties. The maintenance of the Faith was 
 as essentially associated m the minds of all men with the 
 imperial dignity, as the iron crown of the Lombards or the 
 coronation robe of Charlemagne. Yet, when his interests 
 required it, the Catholic King was unable to distinguish 
 heretics fi'om Catholics, though they sprang up like tares 
 among the wheat, in every corner of his Flemish dominions. 
 More zealous and devout than either, with something of 
 English earnestness and sincerity, and something perhaps of 
 the narrow and impetuous energy of English prejudice, Henry 
 signalized his attachment to the Faith by drawing his pen in 
 its defence. If his arguments were mean, his Latin was 
 kinglike. It was so far above the level of royal Latinity that 
 people gave out (I shall have to consider with what degree of 
 justice) that whilst the King furnished the arguments, Fisher 
 and Pace supplied or furbished up the Latin. Whatever 
 honom^s, as conquerors or crusaders, the Kings of England 
 might have achieved, they had never attained the proud 
 eminence of being styled " Most Christian " or ** Most 
 Catholic." They had never yet attained the standard of zeal 
 and ability in defence of the Faith, when popes and cardinals 
 could acknowledge their services, and reward them with corre- 
 sponding distinction and gratitude. That achievement was 
 reserved for Henry VIII. Of his own spontaneous and mere 
 motion, unsolicited by popes or nuncios, he overwhelmed the 
 new Titan of heresy ; buried him under a mountain of royal 
 theology and invective, never to rise again ; — so at least popes 
 and bishops assured him, and he was willing to believe. The 
 joy of Leo was unbounded ; for he was at that time in hope 
 (vain hope !) or recruiting an exhausted exchequer by a new 
 loan from England. Latin dictionaries, Ciceronian vocabu- 
 laries, styles and titles, were diligently examined ; various
 
 302 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 epithets proposed and rejected. After months spent in 
 dehberation, Henry, the new candidate for spiritual honours, 
 was admitted into the narrow and exchisive orbit of the 
 Church's patrons. " Defender of the Faith " was nearly as 
 superlative, if not quite, as " Catholic " and " Most Christian," 
 and was regarded with jealousy by the monopolists and 
 admirers of the earlier distinctions. 
 
 To an inexperienced eye, judging by the extent of his 
 dominions, Charles would have appeared the most powerful 
 and the most considerable monarch in Christendom. At the 
 death of Maximilian he held the Low Countries, Burgundy, 
 Naples, Sardinia, and the archduchy of Austria. By the dis- 
 coveries of Columbus and of others, the New World was 
 pouring into his lap, as King of Spain, its unsunned and 
 exhaustless treasures. One sister was married to the King of 
 Hungary, another to the King of Portugal, and a third to the 
 King of Denmark. To his enormous possessions he was soon 
 to annex the Crown of the Empire. But overgrown empires, 
 like overgrown men, more for show than for use, are not 
 easily moved ; and by a kindly law of nature the mischief 
 they are most capable of doing is counteracted by their 
 habitual inertness, not to say insensibility. The cataracts 
 and earthquakes of the world are not half so dangerous as the 
 dripping water, the narrow crevice, or the sightless Lilliputian 
 of the coral reef. So, with all his diffluent, sinewless, and 
 ill-jointed dominions, Charles was more formidable in appear- 
 ance than reality. National jealousies prevented unity of 
 action. Favours shown to Flanders were resented by Spain ; 
 residence in one part of his dominions was a signal for mutiny 
 and discontent in another. Had he attempted in his youth to 
 have made all the clocks of the sixteenth century strike in 
 unison he would not have found it a more difficult task than to 
 insure harmonious co-operation between Spaniard, German, 
 Fleming, and Italian. So the restless activity of Francis I., 
 backed by his compact dominions, was always a match for 
 Charles ; would have been more than a match, had Francis 
 not despised his sallow, gouty, and phlegmatic rival — slow as 
 fate, but like fate pertinacious. With territory less extensive, 
 the King of England possessed more available treasures than 
 either of his rivals. For years the precious metals had flowed 
 into our shores in a steady current, which had never ebbed. 
 As no plate or coin was permitted to pass the English ports, 
 as the industry and frugality of the people had always been
 
 1519.] THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. 303 
 
 uniutermittent, as they bad for centuries escaped the storm 
 of foreign invasion, money and money's worth were abundant. 
 Then, as now, foreigners regarded with envy and amazement 
 the well-stored goldsmiths' and jewellers' shops in the city o1^ 
 London ; then, as now, if foreign states wanted a loan, their 
 eyes were turned towards England. Lance-knights, men-at- 
 arms, Swiss volunteers, Flemish and German artillerymen, 
 the most experienced freebooters and captain adventurers, rose 
 to the sight of English gold. " Only promise to pay," said 
 the Italian or Almain banker to the English agent ; and his 
 promise was better than the bond of an Emperor. 
 
 When Maximilian died, and open competition for the 
 imperial crown was no longer restrained by affectation of 
 reserve, " the attention of all Europe," in the words of a 
 modern historian, was fixed upon the contest. In the grand 
 indefiniteness of the phrase we are aj)t to lose sight of the 
 special significance of the fact. All Europe proceeded not 
 merely to fix its attention, but if possible to fill its pockets 
 and reap its advantage from the coming struggle. Happily, 
 by the late alliance between France and England, no war was 
 then on foot to gratify the cupidity of those roving adventurers, 
 who, in their thirst for plunder, sold their blood for drachmas, 
 and hacked out a precarious subsistence by the sword. Swiss 
 and lance-knight, hunger-starved for some new scene of action, 
 turned their eyes and their footsteps to Germany. For these 
 soldiers of fortune the imperial election was a Camacho's 
 wedding, where money and provisions abounded, and claims 
 for service were not too narrowly scrutinized. Thither flocked 
 the maimed, the halt, and the blind — in character, conduct, 
 and principles. Itinerant chieftains like Sickingen, command- 
 ing a handful of resolute and not over-scrupulous followers, 
 undaunted negociators not too delicate or too squeamish, 
 thriftless patriots eager for the freedom and independence of 
 election, there found what they never would have found in 
 purer and more peaceable times, corruption and employment. 
 Impartial in their favours, the electors took bribes from both 
 candidates, made the same promises to both, and broke them 
 to both with magnanimous indifference. To secure them the 
 unbiassed exercise of their important functions, Charles had 
 raised a considerable body of Swabians. He had contrived to 
 detach Sickingen from the service o^ his rival by a pension of 
 3,000 florins. With six hundred cavaliers in the pay of the 
 King Cathohc, this daring adventurer advanced towards
 
 304 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 Wurtemberg, and, uniting his forces with the League, was 
 ready at any moment, if need were, to secure the impartiahty 
 of the distressed Electors by falling sword in hand on the 
 partizans of the French monarch. The approaches leading 
 to Frankfort were crowded with expectant couriers, anxious 
 canvassers, disinterested soldiers. Troops of rival negociators, 
 followed by brilliant escorts, hurried to and fro ; trains of 
 sumpter mules, laden with coin stuffed in their pack-saddles, 
 plunged and struggled along the dusty roads. Supple agents, 
 with obsequious looks, haunted the chambers, mounted the 
 barges, and watched the countenances of the Electors. Ee- 
 tailers of small gossip found a ready welcome, and reaped a 
 rich harvest from the idle credulity of their listeners. Charles 
 and Francis were alike determined to obtain possession of the 
 imperial crown ; both had resolved to spare no cost in securing 
 their object. Never had there been so much animation in 
 Germany. 
 
 As a consequence of this obstinate competition, the cost of 
 the imperial crown rose in the market. The Archbishop of 
 Mayence, formerly content with 52,000 florins and a few 
 trifles in addition, now demanded 120,000. The Elector of 
 Brandenburg, "the father of all greediness," as the Austrians 
 called him, would accept nothing less than 100,000 gold 
 crowns, with the hand of the infanta Katharine, 30,000 crowns 
 for his vote, " and a good round sum besides." ^ The Arch- 
 bishop of Cologne and the Count Palatine followed in the 
 steps of the Archbishop of Mayence. The projects of Maxi- 
 milian were scattered to the winds. The stipulations he had 
 exacted were disregarded. The Electors pretended that they 
 were absolved from their promises by the death of the 
 Emperor. It was requisite to commence de novo. 
 
 Francis I., as I have said, determined to spare no efforts 
 to win over the Electors. He told Sir Thomas Boleyn, the 
 English ambassador, that his realm was worth six millions 
 yearly, " and he would spend three millions of gold but he 
 would be Emperor." ^ More prudent and old-fashioned than 
 his master, the President Guillart appealed to that chivalrous 
 sense of magnanimity which, notwithstanding his numerous 
 failings, still lurked in the breast of the French monarch. It 
 would be his glory and honour, he told the King, to abstain 
 from force or bribery in gaining the empire : it was more 
 
 1 De Berghes to Margaret, Feb. 16, in Le Glay. 
 
 2 Feb. 28 : III. 100.
 
 1519.] THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. 305 
 
 noble to rely on the brilliant attractions of his power and the 
 merits of his person. "If," replied Francis, "I had to deal 
 only with the virtuous, or with those who even pretended to a 
 shadow of virtue, your advice would be expedient and honest ; 
 but in times like the present, whatever a man sets his heart 
 upon, be it the papacy, be it the empire, or anything else, he 
 has no means of obtaining his object, except by force or 
 corruption. The men with whom I have to deal don't mince 
 mouths in this matter. Long since, had Maximilian been 
 alive, the money demanded for the bargain would have been 
 ready for delivery at all the banks of Germany."^ 
 
 Fully alive to the sentiments of their master, and armed 
 with plenary authority, the agents of Francis spared no 
 expense, no promises, no labour, in accomplishing his wishes. 
 The Electors were to be gained at any cost. Four of the 
 number listened readily to his flattering proposals, offering to 
 abandon their previous engagements, and pledge their votes 
 and interests to France. The hand of the Princess Renee, a 
 dowry of 200,000 crowns, and an annuity of 12,000 florins 
 secured the Elector of Brandenburg. More moderate than his 
 brother, the Archbishop of Mayence was content with 120,000 
 florins, payable in two moieties the same year, the erection of 
 a church at Halle, a perpetual legateship, and the effectual 
 support of the future Emperor in all his claims and privileges. 
 Soft and irresolute, the Elector of Cologne was oi3en to terms, 
 but would make ho promises. The Count Palatine avowedly 
 reserved himself for the highest bidder. Francis was not so 
 far from the attainment of his hopes as his opponents wished 
 to have it believed. 
 
 The agents of Charles began to despair. The Spaniards 
 were as slow as the French were energetic. "Would it not be 
 better, they said, for the King Catholic to end the dispute by 
 waiving his claim in favour of his brother Ferdinand ? 
 Charles never hesitated for a moment : his pride was touched 
 by this allusion to his brother ; no stronger incentive, perhaps, 
 could have been suggested for rousing him to unusual energj^ 
 He replied with dignity, and with some animation, that such 
 a course would be ruinous to his brother's interests and his 
 own. It would, he said, dismember the countries and 
 seignories of Austria, sow disunion between them, sever into 
 its component elements the mighty trunk of that power which 
 
 ' Qnotc!d by Mignot from the original despatch, Feb. 7, Eovue ties Deux 
 Mondcs, Jan., 1854, p. 234. 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 both of them had derived from their ancestors. Their union, 
 like arrows in the quiver, was their strength ; disunited, the 
 shafts would be broken, and their combined authority 
 destroyed. 
 
 Fortunately for Charles, he possessed two active and subtle 
 negociators, whom no difficulties could daunt, no repulses 
 dismay, — De Berghes and Armestorff. " If," said the former 
 to Lady Margaret, " I and Renner had served God as we have 
 served the King, we might have hoped for a good place in 
 Paradise." De Berghes was indefatigable ; — nothing escaped 
 him, no disappointments soured him. He saw it was not the 
 time to be scrupulous, letting I dare not wait upon I would. 
 " If something be not done, and done speedily," he writes on 
 one occasion to Lady Margaret, "this Bastard of Savoy — (an 
 agent for Francis) — will come down upon us with a full purse 
 and a pompous train, and, preaching up the faith of Anti- 
 christ, will turn away many from the orthodox to the French 
 creed. The plague of avarice is as dominant here as else- 
 where." A week after he hints to her that if a thousand horse 
 were sent to the League, it would prove a great security to the 
 Electors on the Rhine, who were desirous of knowing what aid 
 they should have if they were attacked by Francis. The 
 danger was little else than imaginary ; not so the effect of 
 such a demonstration on the minds of the Electors. " If," he 
 adds, " the King of France should resort to violence, Charles 
 could make use of the League to further his election, bon gre 
 mal gre, as has been done on other occasions." With keen 
 perception of the decorous conventionalities to be' observed in 
 these delicate negociations, and as bold a determination to 
 violate them if necessary, De Berghes informed her : " Those 
 who are sent to the electors, especially to the churchmen, 
 must on no account insist on the bonds and promises given by 
 them to the late Emperor. These birds are not to be caught 
 in that fashion ; for the election is free. On the contrary they 
 must say that they trust that messieurs the Electors will bear 
 in mind the arrangements made at the last diet by the 
 Emperor and continue their good wishes to the King Catholic, 
 who will in no wise fail to keep his word." — " But on no 
 account must any attempt be made to obtain written pledges 
 from the Electors ; for they wish to have it publicly believed 
 that they are wholly unfettered in their choice." It may be 
 doubted whether four centuries of hard practice in electioneer- 
 ing have much improved on the principles or procedure of De
 
 1519.] THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. 307 
 
 Berghes in this respect. "Money," he says, "must be had 
 from the Welzers " (the Eothschilds of the Middle Ages) ; 
 "hard cash in gold at the diet." "In this affair of the 
 empire we must not haggle at any fixed sums. Fresh dis- 
 bm-sements of money will constantly be required, as these 
 devils of Frenchmen scatter gold in all directions." ^ 
 
 On the other side, Armestorff was not less dexterous and 
 assiduous than De Berghes. The hinge of the negociation 
 evidently turned on the Archbishop of Mayence ; — if he could 
 be secured, the Elector of Cologne would offer no obstacle. 
 " If we can get these three," wrote Armestorff to Charles, 
 " (Mayence, Cologne, and Palatine,) in good trim, the fourth 
 (the Marquis of Brandenburg) will not abandon them, for fear 
 of forfeiting his share of the spoils." So night and day he 
 set all his faculties to work to gain the Archbishop of Mayence ; 
 as if, to use his own expression, "the salvation of his soul 
 depended upon it." On the 27th of February he arrived at 
 Mayence. 
 
 But the Archbishop — Luther's primate, it will be remem- 
 bered — was not easily gained. He knew his own value ; he 
 knew also that he could dictate his own terms to France, 
 however exorbitant. It was in vain that Armestorff besought 
 him to renew his ancient engagements made with Maxi- 
 milian ; the Elector replied that, as the requisite stipulations 
 had not been observed by Maximilian, these obligations had 
 ceased to be binding. To every offer from Armestorff he 
 turned a deaf ear ; he undervalued the power and popularity 
 of Charles. His efforts to obtain the imj)erial crown, he 
 asserted, would be fruitless. 
 
 Undaunted by this frigid reception, and the ill success of 
 his mission, Armestorff begged permission to speak unre- 
 servedly.^ " I see," he said to the Archbishop, " that our 
 opponents have made you more advantageous offers than we 
 have done, and for that reason you wish to break your engage- 
 ments. Such a course will entail infamy on you and your 
 l)rother, and inflict irreparable injury on the empire and the 
 whole Germanic nation." The Archbishop coldly admitted 
 
 ' We learn from tlio Bame apcnt " No one," says Do Berghes, " will 
 that the Duke of Saxony was resolved have Joachim King of the Romans ; 
 to oppose Francis to the utmost, for he is an intemperate man, with 
 because ho had promised in case of whom no one likes to have any deal- 
 success to make the Marquis of Bran- ings." 
 
 denburg his lieutenant, and the two ^ Mignet, ut supra, p. 241. 
 
 Electors were opposed to each other. f
 
 308 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 that be had received much more tempting offers from the 
 other side, and made no scruple of avowing his intention to be 
 sure of his bargain before he gave his vote. The choice of the 
 Emperor rested, he said, exclusively with himself; for his 
 colleagues would adopt his counsels, and follow his example. 
 If Charles wished to succeed, he must add 100,000 florins to 
 those already promised,^ or take the consequences if he refused. 
 
 Armestorff started with astonishment at the enormity of 
 this new demand. In a fit of resentment, real or affected, he 
 flung himself out of the chamber. The Elector and his 
 brother, he exclaimed, were binding a rod for their own backs, 
 and the vengeance of Heaven would overtake them. His 
 remonstrance was not without effect. Though fond of money, 
 like most of his German contemporaries, and unwilling to let 
 so excellent an opportunity escape him, the Archbishop con- 
 sidered that a smaller sum, with Charles for his sovereign, 
 was a safer and more eligible investment than a larger sum 
 from Francis, coupled with the indignation of his countrymen. 
 Next morning, sending his valet de chambre to Armestorff, he 
 offered to abate his demand, first to 80,000, and, when that 
 was refused, to 60,000, and finally to 50,000 florins. Arme- 
 storff replied, he had no power to accept the offer, but he 
 would write to his master for further instructions. The Arch- 
 bishop, however, declined to wait ; the rest of the electors, he 
 said, as well as himself, were determined to come at once to a 
 final decision, and he did not intend to fall between two stools. 
 Driven to bay, Armestorff ventured to exceed his authority ; 
 he promised the Archbishop an augmentation of the original 
 bargain, provided that he would keep the negociation secret, 
 and induce the other electors to adhere to their original 
 arrangements. After an obstinate debate of three days this 
 additional douceur was settled at 20,000 florins. 
 
 The Archbishop had, probably from the first, contemplated 
 a great reduction in his original demand. For whatever 
 might have been his personal wishes, or however for the sake 
 of his own interests he might intrigue wdth France, he must 
 have been convinced that the people of Germany would never 
 consent to accept Francis for their Emperor. " It was 
 declared here " (that is, by the Spaniards at Cologne), says 
 Pace,^ "that as far as the sun doth exceed all other stars in 
 glory, so far their King (Charles) doth excel all other princes ; 
 and for that cause he was meet to be Emperor." To which, 
 
 1 That is, 152,000 florins of gold in all. ^ m 274.
 
 1519.] THE STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. 309 
 
 " answer was made here, that the sun was not always above 
 the earth, but below it." " The electors," he adds, "are in 
 great perplexity; for this nation will have no French Emperor." 
 In fact, had the election been declared in favour of the French 
 monarch, it is probable that the Swiss, the Swabian League, 
 and a large portion of the population would have been prepared 
 to decide the question by arms, in a manner more agreeable 
 to their own views and wishes.-^ 
 
 When the Archbishop had thus eased his breast, he was 
 not merely as good as his word ; he was far better. He 
 unlocked his cabinet ; he showed Armestorff all the letters he 
 had received from the opposite party, and the advantageous 
 offers contained in them. In the excess of his candour, he 
 discovered to the imperial agent the practices of Francis with 
 the other Electors, of which he was the prime confidant and 
 ' depository. As if this exhibition of good will had not been 
 sufficient, with the zeal and ardour of a new convert he 
 employed his most urgent endeavours to bring over the Elector 
 of Brandenburg to his own views. He besought him to consider 
 the danger and disgrace they should both incur if they suffered 
 the imperial crown to fall into the hands of an alien. He 
 pretended the most disinterested motives for his late conver- 
 sion, resolved that no other Elector should reap the same 
 benefit as himself of a private arrangement. But, in his efforts 
 to convert the Marquis of Brandenburg, he was in danger of 
 being reconverted himself to the cause he had so recently 
 abandoned. The Marquis refused to entertain the Arch- 
 bishop's notions of devotion to German interests; he had 
 pledged himself, he said, to Francis, and could not in honour 
 recede. When Armestorff* returned to Mayence at the end of 
 March, for a final ratification of their arrangement, he found 
 the fickle Archbishop half-inclined to abandon it.'^ Once again 
 he had the same difiiculties to surmount, the same demands 
 
 ' See III. 213, 258. Fleuranges, know anything of tlie rosolnte and 
 
 who had been sent by Francis to daring recklessness of Francis of 
 
 manage the election, attributes his ill Sickingen, who commanded the band, 
 
 success to the failure of Francis I. in will not think this statement likely to 
 
 securing the Swabian League. lie be overcharged. 
 
 states that the band, consisting of On the 27th of March, Julius Card. 
 
 20,000 foot and 4,000 horse, was posted de Medici writes to Caid. Kibiena, 
 
 only three or four leagues distant from that Francesco Secchino (Sickingen) 
 
 Frankfort at the time of the election ; had made an offer to the Emperor " to 
 
 and its proximity had such an effect do whatever his Majesty should com- 
 
 on the Count Palatine that, contrary mand him iu Geriiiiuiy." — Lett, di 
 
 to his promise and intention, he gave Princi[)i, i. OH. 
 his vote to Charles (Ch. 6C). All who * See Le Glay, ii. 376.
 
 310 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 to combat. In the end the Archbishop was a considerable 
 gainer. " I have no faith in that Archbishop of Mayence," 
 said Louise of Savoy to Boleyn, the English ambassador ; and 
 most men will agree in her estimate of his consistency. 
 
 In the midst of these intrigues a new competitor appeared 
 upon the stage in the person of Henry VIII. But for the 
 evidence fui-nished by the letters and instructions of Pace, 
 who was employed on this occasion, it would have seemed 
 incredible that Henry VIII. could have ever seriously enter- 
 tained a design so chimerical and so impolitic ; still less that 
 all his actions in relation to it should have been characterized 
 with unusual feebleness, delay, and vacillation. The news of 
 Maximilian's death was known in England a month after. 
 As early as the 9th of February,^ Boleyn, then in France, 
 wrote to the King of the intention of Francis to become a 
 competitor for the imperial crown. "He bade me," says 
 Boleyn, " lean out at the window with him, and he would tell 
 me what he had done in it, and his whole mind." Francis 
 then proceeded to inform the ambassador that he had received 
 invitations from several Electors; had been promised the 
 votes of four of them, and was overjoyed at the aid offered 
 him by England, especially as his brother, the King of 
 England was not inclined to enter the lists. Again, in that 
 month, and in the next, Charles had earnestly requested the 
 King's interposition with the Pope, who was supposed to 
 encourage the interests of the French King. Yet it was not 
 until the second week in May, when the election was already 
 virtually decided, that Pace was dispatched into Germany to 
 advance the pretensions of his royal master. Was it from 
 hesitation, divided counsels, or ill advice that Henry adopted 
 a line of conduct so foreign to his character, so unlike the 
 resolution of his great minister ? 
 
 It will be remembered that, on various occasions mentioned 
 in previous chapters,^ Maximilian had offered to secure the 
 imperial crown for the King of England. Keen observers like 
 Tunstal, regarding his offer at its true worth, denounced it as 
 chimerical ; even supposing that Maximilian had influence 
 sufficient to fulfil his promise, they insisted on its impolicy 
 and imprudence. In this, as in most other political questions, 
 Tunstal echoed the sentiments of Wolsey. But to the King 
 the project did not appear so wild or so undesirable as their 
 cooler heads would have wished or imagined. Nor is it 
 
 ' III. 70. 2 See pp. 135, 136, 169.
 
 1519.] HENRY YIII. A CANDIDATE. 311 
 
 surprising that Henry, in the vigour of his youth and the 
 pride of his power, should have been fired with the ambition 
 of attaining " the monarchy of Christendom." The Papacy 
 excepted, the empire was the highest honour to which any 
 potentate could aspire. Though little better than an empty 
 title, though scarcely more than the shadow of a great name, 
 destined speedily to become more visionary than ever, its 
 ancient traditions made a deep impression on the romantic 
 heart of the middle ages.^ Its half sacred, half secular 
 dignity, shrouded b}^ a mysterious and unsubstantial grandeur ; 
 its position as the military headship and supremacy of Chris- 
 tendom ; its imperial Bishops and regal princes ; its sacred 
 knights and Teutonic brotherhoods ; its haunted forests and 
 weml mountains ; had all combined to captivate the imagina- 
 tions of men.^ Hoary with the frost of ages, it towered in 
 gigantic proportions above all the monarchies of the world, 
 and its head was lost among the clouds of heaven. Nor can 
 it be doubted that Pace himself, who had frequently visited 
 Italy and Germany, and knew both countries well, had fostered 
 these feelings in the mind of the King, with whom he had now 
 grown a favourite. Wolsey, suffering from dysentery, was 
 often absent. Pace, the King's secretary, always at court, a 
 pleasant and versatile companion, a wit, a scholar, a traveller 
 of no small observation and experience, was acquainted with 
 all the distinguished men and potentates of the time, and had 
 visited every scene of the drama on which the attention of the 
 world was just then fixed. By the brilliancy and charms of 
 his conversation — qualities reflected in his correspondence — 
 he had made his society agreeable to More and Erasmus. 
 He was, besides, a man " of the new learning ; " not so strict 
 or so rigid as the grey-headed ecclesiastics whose rank or 
 office held them about the court. Was it surprising that he 
 should have risen rapidly into favour, that he should have 
 been suspected, though unjustly, of treading too closely on 
 the heels of the great minister ? 
 
 If it were so, it was not the only time in which Pace 
 appears to have countenanced the King's wishes, in opposition 
 
 ' See Macchiovelli's keen remarks. Abovcn alle nations in Pruce. 
 
 Do Repub. ii. 19. In Lcttowe had lio royced and in 
 
 * Thus even Chancer makes his Ruce, 
 
 knij^ht rid(! for his lord's wars into No Christen man so oft of his 
 
 Lithuania and Prussia: — degree." 
 
 " Full ofte tyme he had the board P^ol. to Cant. Tales. 
 begun
 
 312 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 to the judgment of Wolsey. But, whatever that judgment 
 might be, the King's wishes must be obeyed. At tiiat time 
 Campeggio the Legate, supposed to be intimately acquainted 
 with the Pope's sentiments, was residing in England. To 
 discover the Pope's sentiments, to secure if possible his co- 
 operation, was indispensable to success. He was supposed to 
 be unfavourable to the pretensions of Charles, had even in- 
 structed his nuncio in Germany to oppose his election as 
 illegal and uncanonical.^ He might be secretly inclined to 
 Francis, but he had been heard to declare that it w-as not 
 desirable for the good of Christendom that either of these 
 princes should succeed.^ 
 
 A letter addressed by Wolsey to the Bishop of Worcester, 
 the King's ambassador in Eome, preserved in the Vatican, 
 and published by Martene,^ throws some light on this obscm-e 
 transaction. It appears that akeady some secret communica- 
 tion of the King's wishes in regard to the imperial election 
 had been made to the Pope by Cardinal Campeggio. What 
 was the exact nature of that communication, or how it came to 
 the ears of Worcester, we are left to guess. As it did not suit 
 Wolsey's purpose to assume that his correspondent was wholly 
 unacquainted with what had passed, or reveal too much, his 
 expressions are studiously ambiguous. He tells Worcester 
 that, in consequence of the new alliance between France and 
 England, neither he nor the King thought it safe to com- 
 municate their wishes to his Holiness mitil they had first 
 clearly ascertained his inclinations. It had been given out 
 that Leo favoured the French ; and the rumour had been 
 amply confirmed by the conduct of the Papal nuncio in 
 Germany. " Until we had discovered," continues Wolsey, 
 "to which of the two candidates his Holiness inclined, we 
 could trust no letter and no messenger ; for if it so happened 
 that the Pope favoured the king of the French, our designs 
 would have been betrayed, and occasion might have arisen 
 for impairing the present peace between the two kingdoms, to 
 the grievous injury of Christendom." Now, he adds, as the 
 Pope and the King are of one mind touching this election, 
 they can open their minds more freely, and the negociation 
 will be carried on in the usual channel.^ 
 
 > See III. 187, 192, 195, 255. When able. Of the imperial dignity he 
 
 he found opposition useless, Leo altered says: "Imperii dignitas, cujus com- 
 
 his sentiments. paratione alias omnes sunt prope 
 
 ^ Charles to Henry, April 20, 1519. modum nuUae." But he was speaking 
 
 ^ III. 137, compare 149. apparently the King's sentiments 
 
 * The language of Wolsey is notice- throughout the letter.
 
 1519.] WOLSEY FINESSES WITH THE POPE. 313 
 
 He then proceeds to point out to Worcester the dangers 
 that would arise if Francis should succeed in his pretensions. 
 Not content -with his own dominions, he would, argues Wolsey, 
 aspire to the monarchy of the woild, and trample the Papacy 
 under foot. The danger would scarcely he less if Charles 
 became Emperor, for his vast powers and overgrown posses- 
 sions would occasion many troubles in Christendom. There- 
 fore he advises the Pope to keep an even hand between the 
 two competitors ; and if, as probably would be the case, either 
 demanded of him letters in their favour, which could not be 
 refused, he should have recourse to dissimulation, and let it 
 be known among all people that his recommendations were 
 merely formal, Charles being out of the way. If the King of 
 France could be persuaded to desist from his pretensions, 
 England and the Pope might then combine and fix upon some 
 third person equally agreeable to all parties. In making these 
 suggestions Worcester was instructed to watch narrowly the 
 Pope's countenance, to weigh his answers, and discover, if 
 possible, his real inclinations. 
 
 Up to this point, Wolsey had breathed no hint of this 
 third unexceptionable candidate. It was dangerous ground, 
 and demanded careful and cautious handling. Then, as if 
 the suggestion had proceeded from another, and not from 
 himself, he continues: "My most reverend lord Campeggio 
 has submitted to me, that possibly our most serene lord the 
 King might not be disinclined to see some regard had to his 
 own elevation (honoris). He thinks some means might be 
 devised, by which both the king of the French and his Catholic 
 Majesty might be prevented from obtaining the election. I 
 can draw only one meaning from these words of his. I suppose 
 the Legate thinks that the election might possibly be secured 
 in favour of our King. If, then, you wish to do a service 
 agreeable to his most serene Majesty and to me, you will take 
 occasion to broach this matter to his Holiness, but in such 
 a way as if you were entirely ignorant of our wishes. When 
 you have more clearly discovered the intentions of his Holiness, 
 if you find any firm foundation to go upon, it will not be 
 inappropriate in you to remark, that you think it would be 
 highly conducive to the interests of Christendom and of the 
 Holy See, if his Majesty could be prevailed upon to undertake 
 so responsible a dignity, for all the King's endeavours would 
 be concentrated on universal tranquillity and the good of 
 mankind. But you must say, it is much to be feared that his
 
 314 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 foresaid Majesty -will in no wise be prevailed upon to meddle 
 in this affair, seeing that he absolutely refused the imperial 
 crown when it was formerly offered him by Maximilian. You 
 may then suggest, that possibly, if his Holiness would write 
 to me (Wolsey) very earnestly about the matter, I might, 
 without any great labor, exhort and encourage the King to 
 consent to his election, purely out of his desire to promote 
 the welfare of others. In handling this matter, marvellous 
 dexterity and skill will be required. Therefore, I beg your 
 reverend Lordship will give your best attention to what I have 
 said, and send me an explicit answer to every point." 
 
 The latter is dated the 25th of March. Before any answer 
 could arrive, a communication had been received from 
 Worcester, dated some days after, stating that Francis w^as 
 straining every nerve to secure the election ; that the Pope 
 found it difficult to decide between both candidates, but was 
 strongly urged to support the French King. He adds in a 
 postscript, that letters had just come from Campeggio, long 
 after date, signifying the liing's wish that Francis should not 
 be elected, but the Pope thought it too perilous to interfere 
 oi)enly.^ 
 
 March ended, April passed away, and no answer from the 
 PajDal Court. At last about the middle of May, a communica- 
 tion was received from Worcester. If he ever followed Wolsey's 
 instructions, the Pope held out no expectations that he would, 
 openly or otherwise, further the project so cautiously sug- 
 gested by the Cardinal. He affected not to see it, but made 
 a merit of supporting the interest of Charles, as if in so doing 
 he had sacrificed his own inclinations out of deference to the 
 King and Wolsey.^ 
 
 Meanwhile, the King and Wolsey had determined to send 
 Pace into Germany, fm-nished with letters and instructions 
 suitable to the occasion. He was ordered, in the first instance, 
 to discover the temper of the Electors, and their various 
 inclinations. Whenever " he speaketh with the favorers of 
 the French King," so run his instructions,^ "he may use 
 
 * III. 149. So much, however, is Charles. If a third power wore the 
 
 certain that Leo would have preferred imperial crown it would tend to nen- 
 
 any other candidate than Francis or tralize their influence, and preserve 
 
 Charles. What he might openly pro- an equilibrium between the great states 
 
 fess to the ambassadors of either of Europe ; and by this policy alone 
 
 party or their adherents, like the could the Papal court hope to preserve 
 
 Venetians, must not be taken for his its independence, 
 
 real sentiment. It was for his inter- ^ III. 277. 
 
 est to aggrandize neither Francis nor * III. 241.
 
 1519.] PACE IN GERMANY. 315 
 
 words to show the King's inclination to that party ; . . . and 
 in semblable manner be is to use bimself to such of the 
 Electors as incline to the Iving of Castile's party ; so that the 
 King's bigbness be not noted to favor or advance the one 
 party more tban tbe otber." But on these and on all other 
 occasions be is to insinuate objections to tbe prejudice of 
 both, and find means " by provident and circumspect drifts " 
 to drive tbe Electors to choose Henry, "which is of the 
 Germany tongue," or, failing that, one of themselves, "and 
 not to translate the empire, which has been in Germany seven 
 hundred years, to a strange nation ; for if it were eftsoons so 
 translated, it should never return to them again." That the 
 English envoy should be instructed to enlarge on the manifold 
 gifts " of grace, fortune, and nature which be in the King," 
 and bis fitness for so great a dignity, is no more than we 
 should be prepared to expect ; but the other articles of his 
 commission betray either a penuriousness in money matters 
 little to be expected, or a most extraordinary ignorance of the 
 true state of the imperial negociations. Though his instruc- 
 tions are unfortunately mutilated, enough remains to make it 
 clear that he was forbidden to pledge the King's credit without 
 adequate security. Provided the Electors would do the King's 
 grace so much pleasure as to prefer him above all other com- 
 petitors, they should be "rewarded and recompensed for their 
 gratitude," so it exceed not the sum of . . . " But it is the 
 King's pleasure that no communication, writing or instrument 
 whatever shall pass his said ambassador but only con- 
 ditionally ; that is to say, should the King's highness be 
 elected to that dignity, and really attain thereto, then to pay 
 such a sum as shall be agreed betwixt them." ^ 
 
 Had Pace started on his mission three months earlier, 
 had persuasion " sweeter than honey " sate upon his lips, 
 what hopes could he have entertained of gaining over the 
 Electors on such conditions ? What arguments could counter- 
 balance the solid coin of France or Spain, the plate and 
 tapestry, the golden ducats and substantial advantages with 
 which the two continental monarchs had for many weeks 
 dazed tbe eyes and enslaved the wills of these guardians of 
 the imperial crown ? " The English angels," says Eleuranges, 
 in mockery of Pace's embassy, "could not work greater miracles 
 than the crowns of tbe sun." But the golden angels to which 
 he refers never imped their wings, or displayed a feather of 
 
 ' lil. 240.
 
 316 THE REIGN OP HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 their lustrous plumage. So Pace's mission fared exactly as 
 might have been expected. He was courteously but coldly 
 received. The Electors were evidently indifferent to the cause 
 of his master, especially as that cause came recommended 
 with empty hands. Pace flattered the King with hopes of 
 success. He relied on the contradictory rumours sedulously 
 disseminated by interested parties. " No manner of certainty 
 can be gathered out of them after my judgment," he remarks 
 to Wolsey;! "but he that shall come last, after the great 
 practices passed, shall be in as good and peradventure better 
 case than they that came long afore." He built his strongest 
 hope on the great delay which some Fleming had assured him 
 must take place before the election was concluded, and was 
 disappointed in both his expectations. 
 
 On the Ist of June he obtained an audience with the 
 Archbishop of Cologne,^ just before the Elector was starting 
 for Frankfort. Between the 1st and 9th he had an interview, 
 at Mayence, with the Cardinal and his brother the Marquis 
 of Brandenburg, " ready to go in the morning to Frankfort ; " 
 on the 9th, with the Archbishop of Treves, who told him that 
 Henry was not excluded from the election, and that the late 
 Emperor had gone about to promote him. This remark gave 
 Pace an opportunity of enlarging upon the King's qualities, 
 as expressed in his instructions. " Though he is reputed all 
 French," says Pace,^ he behaved himself "like a wise and 
 noble man." The interview finished, in conformity with the 
 ancient rule. Pace, with all other strangers, was ordered to 
 withdraw from Frankfort. Five of the Electors had arrived 
 already. The Duke of Saxony was expected hourly. He had 
 declined the empire, which he might have had if he would, 
 says Pace ; so great was the reputation of "his virtuous and 
 godly living, as of his singular wisdom." Next day. Pace 
 wi-ote again, insisting on the great dissension among the 
 Electors: the indignation of the commonalty against the 
 French was incredible ; they would spend life and goods, he 
 said, against that King if he were elected. They would have 
 preferred Don Ferdinand to his brother, had theii- wishes 
 been consulted, because they felt assured of his residing 
 
 ' III. 255. brother to read, plainly confessing 
 
 It is amusing to find that when " that he had not greatly exercised 
 
 2 
 
 Pace presented the King's letter to the Latin tongue." III. 283. 
 the Archbishop and Elector of Cologne, ^ III. 297 
 
 the Ai'chbishop handed it over to his
 
 1519.] PACE FINDS HE IS TOO LATE. 317 
 
 among them. But, less careful of men's opinions, if not more 
 scrupulous, than his rival, Charles had provided against con- 
 tingencies. An army of 40,000 foot and 6000 horse by his 
 own and the late Emperor's adherents, in the Rhine Provinces, 
 was ready to march and coerce the refractory Electors.^ Pace 
 confu'ms this statement on the 14th, adding that Charles's 
 deputies openly gave out that if they could not gain the 
 election by fair means, they would have it by the sword. 
 The Electors protested against this apparent coercion of their 
 freedom, and the army was moved into the duchy of Wurtem- 
 berg.^ The election approached its termination ; the utmost 
 excitement prevailed ; the wildest rumours were afloat. 
 Francis promised double as much as any other Christian 
 prince would give for the empire. The agents of Charles, not 
 to be outdone, increased their biddings ; hundreds, thousands, 
 of florins j-early to each of the electors, in addition to the 
 pensions already granted, on security of the Spanish eccle- 
 siastics and nobility. '"Here is," says Pace, "the most 
 dearest merchandise that ever was sold ; and after mine 
 opinion, it shall be the worst that ever was bought, to him 
 that shall obtain it." ^ 
 
 Yet, in si)ite of the opinion thus sensibly recorded, even 
 Pace could not resist the general infection. If he had but 
 come some fifteen days sooner ! If, like the King of Castile, 
 he had brought 420,000 gold florins to Frankfort, or sufficient 
 security, Wolsey by this time, he says, " might have sung a 
 Te Deiim laudamus for the election of King Henry VIII. in 
 imperatorem omnium Christianorum ! " ■* The King, he goes on 
 to say, will certainly be proposed at the election ; ^ and the 
 question had been asked him, whether he had authority to 
 accept the empire eo 7iomine. He must have betrayed his 
 excitement, and left himself open to this caustic joke. It is 
 needless to say, that no such intention was ever once enter- 
 tained by any one of the Electors. 
 
 The atmosphere was impregnated with trickery, deceit, and 
 corruption ; and the most veteran craftsmen in these arts 
 were incessantly employed in pursuing their ignoble vocation. 
 Application had been made by Henry to the Pope to inter- 
 pose and delay the election. It appears from one of Pace's 
 
 ' Pace, June 12. 1,500,000 fl. on the election. IH.351. 
 2 Pace, June 22. " Pace, June 20. 
 
 * Besides his other cnf^af^cmcnts, ° Pace, June 14. 
 
 Charles, according to Pace, spent
 
 318 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 letters, written in June, but of Tvliicb the precise date is 
 uncertain, that his Holiness had consented to the King's 
 request,^ and commanded his nuncio, Carracciolo, to act 
 accordingly. But the nuncio, better informed of the Pope's 
 wishes, turned a deaf ear to Pace's entreaties ; ^ — worse than 
 all, the Pope, a few days after, commanded his agent to desist 
 from all further opposition, set on foot a secret negociation 
 for a good understanding with the Catholic King,^ and, instead 
 of interposing delay, as he had promised, hurried on the 
 election.'* The Electors entered the consistory on the 18th of 
 June. It soon became manifest that the choice would fall on 
 the King of Castile. Sickingen, the most powerful and un- 
 scrupulous of his partizans, established himself with his army 
 at Hochst, a few miles distant from Frankfort, ready to com- 
 mence operations at the earliest notice. " There," writes Pace 
 on the 2-J:th, " they cry open war against the French king, and 
 say they will have no emperor but king Charles of Spain." 
 The Count of Nassau, one of their number, armed with the 
 King's great seal, distributed places and offices broadcast to 
 all whose influence could in any way, direct or indirect, 
 conduce to success. These measures were seconded by 
 threats of personal violence. Bonnivet, the most skilful and 
 active of the French King's agents, was warned to desist from 
 canvassing any longer for his master, on pain of his life.^ 
 " The nation is up in arms," says Pace, "and furious to fight 
 for the King Catholic." The day before the Count of Nassau 
 had told him he had so much money, and so many men, that 
 no Frenchman could enter the country "but upon spearis and 
 swerdis poyntes." 
 
 As the Electors had long since made up their minds, delay 
 was useless. The impatience of Charles's partizans, the dread 
 of the plague,^ now beginning to make its appearance at 
 Frankfort, personal considerations of various kinds, induced 
 the Electors gladly to lay hold of the pretext furnished them 
 by the Pope, and resolve on an immediate decision. To pre- 
 serve the forms, though the essentials had disappeared, the 
 two sovereigns were solemnly put in nomination. Their 
 respective claims were urged with all the eloquence of their 
 respective representatives ; those of Charles by the Archbishop 
 
 ' III. 308, 353. of June ; and the Pope's excuses for 
 
 » Pace, June 20. his couduct, III. 393. 
 3 III. 308. * See Mignet, itt supra, p. 260. 
 
 ♦ See Pace, 10th of June and 21th « III, 351.
 
 1519.] FRANCIS HIDES HIS RESENTMENT. 319 
 
 of Mayence, those of Francis by the Archbishop of Treves. 
 To create a diversion in the ranks of the imperiahsts, 
 Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, was put forward. He may 
 have decHned the honour from patriotic feehngs, but any man 
 of ordinary sense and virtue would have hesitated to accept 
 a position he could not hope to maintain without drawing 
 down upon himself the hostility of the three greatest powers 
 of Christendom. The Duke rose to decline the honour. He 
 proffered his vote in favour of Charles, and the great event 
 was over. 
 
 However Pace or even Wolsey might have flattered him- 
 self that their recent negociations in Germany had been 
 veiled in impenetrable secrecy, they had not escaped the keen 
 and vigilant eye of Francis I. It is evident, from the hints 
 dropped by that King and his mother, that both were perfectly 
 well acquainted with the intrigues set on foot at the English 
 court to impede his election.^ Had Francis succeeded, he 
 would undoubtedly have shown his resentment. But the 
 friendship of England had now become more indispensable to 
 him than ever. His reckless extravagance had rendered him 
 very unpopular. The expenses incurred in his late canvass 
 had exhausted his treasury. He was compelled to resort to 
 unusual imposts. On that head the evidence of the Venetian 
 ambassador, Giustinian, who was just then returning from 
 his mission to England, is unimpeachable. He states that 
 the French King and his mother Louise were more unpopular 
 
 ' Of course, Francis had been kept he saith, he heard Master Pace, in his 
 
 perfectly well informed of all that oration that he made unto the said 
 
 was going on by the admiral Bonnivet ; Marquis, observe that none might be 
 
 and Bonnivet himself had come to accepted to the dignity imperial, that 
 
 the knowledge of Pace's most secret was not of the nation or tongue Ger- 
 
 communicatioris with the Electors by manic, but rather to be preferred one 
 
 an act of treachery common enough of their own princes of Almayn. And, 
 
 in electioneering proceedings. At finally, he heard him speak for tlio 
 
 Pace's interview with the Marquis of advancement of the King Catholic, 
 
 Brandenburg in the; town of Mayence, which ho thought sti-ange; and further 
 
 of whicli an account is given in 111. said that, forasmuch as he made this 
 
 290, Bonnivet was secreted l)ehind request, which lie hoard, to the mar- 
 
 the arras. Months after, when the quis of Brandenburg, he is sure that 
 
 two nations were linked ostensibly he made semblable to all other of the 
 
 in the most friendly tics, Bonnivet electors." Such conduct was marked 
 
 told Sir Thomas Jiolcyn, with affected with more than u.sual ill faith; as not 
 
 I'oiicorn, " that when Master Pace only had Ija Matyo bocsn told that 
 
 vv(!nt ambassador to Almayn, he Kngland had promised to aid the cause 
 
 (lionnivet) was with the marquis of of Francis, but Sir Thos. Boleyn had 
 
 Hrandonburg in the town of Mayence, been instructed to assure the King 
 
 in the said Marquis's lodgings, against that his master had laboured to i)ro- 
 
 the great cliiirf;h of our l^ady, whore cure his election initil his cause was 
 
 he waa behind tholapestry; and there, ho2Joless! See 111. -iiti and oM.
 
 320 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 all over France than words could express ; ^ that whilst his 
 subjects were suffering under these oppressions, Louise was 
 accused of hoarding money to aid her son on any sudden 
 emergency. Stern j)unishment followed, though it could not 
 stifle the murmurs of discontent, or the accents of fear goaded 
 into frenzy. The people, says a French correspondent,^ are 
 much enraged at the King's exactions ; of those who remon- 
 strated he has whipped one, and put to death two. The royal 
 demesnes were heavily mortgaged, the church plate pillaged, 
 the nobility and gentry crushed by loans and benevolences. 
 From the success of Charles, Francis had reason to anticipate 
 that all the disputes in Italy, Navarre, and elsewhere would 
 be settled in favour of the Emperor ; the Pope would side 
 with the strongest ; except for the friendship of England, the 
 whole of Europe would be confederated against him. 
 
 To the Venetian, Giustinian, he did not scruple to betray 
 his real feelings towards Henry and his minister. Inquiring 
 one day of the ambassador " what sort of a statesman king 
 Henry made, Giustinian endeavored to evade the question ; 
 for (he says), to bestow praise on that score is impossible, whilst 
 to censure appeared to him unbecoming. After a while, his 
 Majesty still pressing him repeatedly on the subject, he replied 
 that king Henry devoted himself to pleasure and solace, and 
 left the cares of state to the Cardinal. ' By my faith,' rejoined 
 Francis, ' the Cardinal must bear him little good will ; for 
 it is not the office of a good servant to filch his master's 
 honor.' " ^ 
 
 But to Boleyn, the English ambassador at his court, his 
 language, dictated by policy or suggested by his necessities, 
 wore a different aspect. If Wolsey would aspire to the 
 popedom, Francis would secure it for him on the first oppor- 
 tunity. He commanded, he said, the voices of fourteen 
 cardinals, and of the whole Orsini faction at Eome. Let but 
 the Kmg of England and himself remain at one, and they 
 would make popes and emperors at their pleasure.^ His 
 ministers re-echoed the same sentiments. It had never been 
 seen or heard "that one man, being a cardinal, had so great 
 esteem, trust, and reputation " with both kings, of France and 
 England, as fell to the fortune of Wolsey.^ And though, after 
 the untoward event of the election, these flattering expressions 
 
 » See III. p. 144, note. "111.122. 
 
 2 III. 404. ^ III. 131. 
 
 ^ Giustinian's Despatches, ii. p. 318.
 
 1519.] OSTENSIBLE CORDIALITY TOWARDS FRANCE. 321 
 
 of regard were not quite so numerous or so cordial as before, 
 Francis continued from time to time to assure the Cardinal of 
 bis undiminished confidence, and the sense he entertained of 
 Wolsey's services.^ 
 
 Nor, on the other hand, could England very well afford, at 
 this delicate conjuncture, to neglect an ally with whom it was so 
 recently connected by the strictest ties of amity. The marriage 
 contract between Mary and the Dauphin still continued intact. 
 As an earnest of their indissoluble union, Henry, in the person 
 of Boleyn, had stood sponsor to the second son of Francis I., 
 called after his royal godfather.^ From the spring of the 
 year to its close, a succession of proposals and negociations 
 for a personal interview had passed on both sides ; as early 
 as the month of March, a list of persons appointed to attend 
 the King of England at the interview had been submitted to 
 the King of France.^ When the season was so far advanced 
 that it became necessary to defer the arrangements for the 
 present, Boleyn informed Francis that his master had resolved 
 to wear his beard until their meeting, as a proof of his 
 unabated desire for the interview. " And I," said Francis, 
 laying his hand upon his beard, in recognition of this token 
 of affection, "protest I will never put off mine until I have 
 seen the king of England," ^ After such repeated demonstra- 
 tions of unalterable attachment, any sudden rupture was out 
 of the question. In the opinion of Christendom, it would have 
 brought down on the head of its author indelible disgrace ; an 
 opinion not to be hastily or harmlessly defied. It would have 
 
 1 III. 535, 545, 397, 452, G66. I knew not of it. I said that Montpesat 
 
 2 June 5, 1519. See III. 2S9, 306. had been with me at my lodgins?, and 
 
 3 See III. 118, 122, 131, 416, 488, told me likewise ; and [I] further 
 514, 530. said that, as I supposed, it hath lieen 
 
 * III. 416. Beards were apparently by the Queen's desire; for I told my 
 
 portentous. But in matters of the Lady, that I have here-afore time 
 
 beard, Henry, alas! was as faithless known, when the King's grace hath 
 
 as he had been in the more im- worn long his beard, that the Queen 
 
 portant matter of the election ; and hath daily made him great instance, 
 
 his faithlessness was again betrayed. and desired him to put it off for her 
 
 When Montpesat, one of the French sake." Whether Katharine's Spanish 
 
 hostages for Tournay, was allowed to gravity was affected by the beard, I 
 
 return from England to his own know not. The apology was creditable 
 
 country, he seems, among other dis- to Boleyn's powirs of invention. The 
 
 jointed chat, to have informed Louise, excuse was sat isfactory, or passed for 
 
 the queen mother, that Henry had such; as, on farther assuring Louise 
 
 infringed his vow. Louise deemed it that Henry " had greater alTcclion for 
 
 of so much importance as to com- her son than for any king living, she 
 
 municate thofact toBoloyn. She told was well appeased, observing that 
 
 me, says Boleyn, that .\iontpesat had their love was not in their beards, bat 
 
 inforrnodhrir "howthe King my master in their hearts." HI. 514. 
 had put off his beard, and axed me if 
 
 VOL. I. ^
 
 'A22 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [AD. 
 
 softened the mutual antagonism of Francis and the Emperor, 
 and defeated the objects of Wolsey's policy. 
 
 For, notwithstanding the rivalry between the two con- 
 tinental monarchs, it was by no means certain that they 
 might not consent to arrange their differences, and coalesce 
 for their mutual interests. Of the real disposition of Charles 
 little was known at that time in England, and that little did 
 not warrant Wolsey in suj)posing that he would set any great 
 value on an English alliance. Influenced wholly by his 
 Flemish minister, Chievres, who was by extraction a French- 
 man, and warmly devoted to French interests, what reason 
 could there be for anticipating that a prince so cold and 
 taciturn would break through the traditional policy he had 
 hitherto consistently maintained ? In passing from one of 
 his dominions to another by sea, Charles might occasionally 
 find it advantageous to enter an English harbour; beyond 
 this — an advantage not needed if he were on friendly terms 
 with France — it was hard to discover what temptation the 
 friendship of England could offer him. 
 
 So the two powers continued to maintain outwardly the 
 most friendly relations, as if nothing had occurred to interrupt 
 their cordiality. Henry, at least if Wolsey may be considered 
 as an adequate exponent of the King's sentiments, still pro- 
 fessed to feel the deepest interest in the welfare of his French 
 ally ; he volunteered the most disinterested advice, not always 
 indifferent whether Francis followed or refused it. On the 
 other side, Francis and his ministers, with the most candid 
 desire of removing all causes of suspicion and misunderstand- 
 ing between the two crowns, did not fail to call the attention 
 of Wolsey and his master to every instance of bad faith, real 
 or supposed, into which their double policy was sometimes 
 liable to betray them. To make his own king the mediator 
 of Europe — more than Emperor in reality, as himself was 
 more than Pope ; to continue friends with the two great rival 
 powers without offending either ; to keep both asunder by 
 filling their heads with mutual suspicions ; — this was the chief 
 object of Wolsey's policy. It required considerable dexterity, 
 to give it no worse name. How it was pursued, and how it 
 succeeded, I have now to eonsider.'^ 
 
 ' It is worth observiug how little of Christendom. Though one of the 
 
 regard was paid to the Pope by any great contracting powers whose con- 
 
 of the three powers during these sent was indispensable, his Holiness 
 
 negooiations, which affected the whole was treated with little ceremony, ex-
 
 1519.] PREPARATIONS FOR A FRENCH INTERVIEW. 323 
 
 Negoeiations for a personal interview between the Kings of 
 France and England, so often proposed, discussed, postponed 
 in 1519,^ were resumed in 1520 with more apparent earnest- 
 ness than before. The state of Queen Claude's health, who 
 was expecting her delivery at the end of July, made it desirable 
 that the meeting should take place as early as April or May.^ 
 Alarmed also at the news of the growing intimacy between 
 Henry and the new Emperor, who was now seeking the 
 friendship of England, Francis was anxious to hurry on the 
 interview. 
 
 As both kings had consented to appoint Wolsey for their 
 proctor, the arrangements were pushed forward with his usual 
 vigour. Precedents of chivalry were diligently scanned, lists 
 determined, names put in and out, — all the interminable 
 minutiae incidental to such an occasion duly sifted, discussed, 
 arranged and rearranged. Christendom on both sides of the 
 Channel was plunged up to the ears in the entrancing study 
 of pageants and ceremonials. The orthodox arrangement of 
 shields and banners, the places of the combatants, their entry 
 and their exit fi'om the lists, the arming and barbing of their 
 horses, the dimensions and weight of their swords, lances, and 
 battle-axes vexed the brains and contracted the brows of grey- 
 haired veterans. Ancient knights, who had fought and 
 flourished in the brilliant days of Edward IV., deeply read in 
 MaUory's translation of the Gests of Arthur, or the pages of 
 Froissart, resumed their former importance. The greatness 
 of the event appeared to demand new agents. Sir Richard 
 Wingfield was appointed to succeed Sir Thomas Boleyn at the 
 court of Francis, with instructions to make himself agreeable 
 to all parties. Sir Thomas was uncourtly, plodding, business- 
 like, and niggardly; Sir liichard, free, open, and liberal. 
 Though not so chivalrous or enthusiastic as his brother Sir 
 liobert, he was a Winglield, and his name was a passport to 
 favour. 
 
 The instructions carried by the new envoy ^ were marked 
 by a warmth and cordiality of expression singularly at variance 
 with the lukewarmness hitherto shown by the English monarch 
 in all his negoeiations with his royal brother. Sir liichard 
 
 cept when it Raitefl the pnrposoa of bat without avail. See TIT. p. 230 
 
 any of the throe to delay procoedin<^3 and No. 720. 
 
 by profcasin;^ more than usual anxiety ' See partinularly TTI. 118, 122, 
 
 for the advieo and sanction of the 131, 170, 24(5, 31)7, 415, 416. 
 
 head of the Church. Ijeo X. made ^ l]l. 549. 
 
 frequent complaints of this treatment, ' III. G29.
 
 324 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 was to express, in the first instance, the extreme desire felt by 
 his master " to hear continually " of the prosj)erity of his ally. 
 Sensible as the King of England was of the services rendered 
 him by Sir Thomas Boleyn, yet — so Wingfield was instructed 
 to say — in consideration of their ancient amity, his love could 
 not be satisfied without sending " one of his trusty and near 
 familiars, to the intent that by renovelling of ambassadors 
 new testimonies might be found, as well of the perseverance 
 of fraternal love on both parts, as also by such means to 
 further the augmentation thereof from time to time." This, 
 duly delivered with all the grace and emphasis of which 
 "Wingfield was master, "with other pleasaunt devices (conver- 
 sation) of the King's grace, my lady Princess," and my lord 
 Legate by no means forgotten, with " semblable amiable 
 communications," as he presented their letters, was to " suffice 
 for the first audience." He was to follow up on some future 
 occasion the correspondence thus auspiciously commenced, by 
 arguments of a higher strain, levelled at those frank and 
 romantic sentiments which still lingered in the breast of the 
 French King, who, in spite of his many failings, retained some 
 sparks of that chivalrous spirit which contemporary monarchs 
 neither valued nor possessed. It was not the verbal obliga- 
 tions of a nuptial alliance, the vulgar security of hostages, 
 or the stipulations of treaties — so Wingfield was to urge — 
 which formed the strongest ties of friendship, and "knit the 
 assured knot of perseverant amity betwixt them," but the love 
 they bore to each other in their hearts. " For remembering 
 the noble and excellent gifts, as well of nature, touching their 
 goodly statures and activeness ; and of grace, concerning 
 their wondrous wisdoms and other princely virtues ; as also 
 of fortune, depending upon their substances and puissaunce, 
 given unto them by Almighty God, and tvherein more conformity 
 is betwixt them than in or amongst all other Christian princes, 
 it is not to be marvelled though (if) this agreeable consonance 
 of semblable properties and affections do vehemently excite 
 and stir them both, not only to love and tenderly favor each 
 other, but also personally to visit, see and speak together, 
 whereby that thing, which as yet standing upon reports is 
 covered with a shadow, shall be brought to the light, face to 
 face, if it proceed ; and finally make such impression of entire 
 love in their hearts that the same shall be always permanent 
 and never be dissolved, to the pleasure of God, their both 
 comforts, and the weal of all Christendom." To grace his
 
 1519.] THE EMPEROR UNDECIDED. 325 
 
 uegoeiations, Wingfield carried a new sword as a present to 
 the French King ; the secret handling of which it was reserved 
 to the English monarch to divulge.^ 
 
 Let not my readers curl their lips in scorn at such extra- 
 vagant protestations, or denounce them with fierce, uncompli- 
 mentary epithets, proud of their greater simplicity of speech 
 and clearness of vision. Let them not be mistaken. If we 
 except the flattering allusion to Henry YIII. — evidently m- 
 tended for his own eye — the style of Wingfield' s instructions 
 is wholly unlike the general staidness and sobriety of those 
 times. It had its purpose — one that was not to be too 
 plainly expressed, or approached too rudely. It required to 
 be smothered under a multiplicity of details, and hidden in 
 those half-lights in which the diplomatists of those days 
 sometimes delighted to indulge. The real purport of this 
 rhetoric oozes out in a subsequent letter written by Wingfield 
 some days after.^ In some moment of unguarded gaiety or 
 confidence, Wingfield was to extort a promise from Francis 
 not to condescend to any other meeting, — prevent him, in 
 other words, from playing off upon England the same 
 manoeuvre that England was then putting into operation 
 against himself. The task was not easy ; it must have 
 seemed almost impossible. 
 
 To understand this more clearly, it will be necessary to 
 turn back to the negociations then going on between the 
 English court and the new Emperor, Charles V. Like most 
 other rulers of his times, Charles was alternately swayed by 
 a French and an Enghsh party. The influence of Chievres, 
 who supported the former, was now apparently on the decline ; 
 — had been so since the meeting at MontpeUier in 1519 ; — and 
 the Bishop of Elna, the consistent advocate of the opposite 
 poHcy,^ was now appointed to manage the negociations in 
 England. In the month of August after his election, the 
 Emperor, with a condescension as unusual as it was unexpected, 
 sent his favourite, John de la Sauch, into England, instruct- 
 ing him to join with the Bishop in expressing the Emperor's 
 gratitude to the King for the services rendered him by Pace 
 in obtaining the imperial crown.^ As the English court had 
 signified a wish that the alliance between the two sovereigns 
 should be preserved and increased, the imperial ambassadors 
 
 ■ III. 685. menes, March 8, 1516, in Bergenroth's 
 
 "- March 8, No. 666. Calendar. 
 
 ' See his letter to Cardinal Xi- * III. 419.
 
 326 THE KEIGN OP HENRY VIIL [A.D. 
 
 were directed to assure the King that Charles reciprocated the 
 wish, and intended to oblige his Majesty in all things. They 
 were to add that the Emperor was gratified with the King's 
 invitation, and would take the earliest opportunity of visiting 
 England on his way to Spain. Among other ambiguous 
 expressions, there is one which especially deserves attention : 
 — if, Charles said, Henry proposes "to do any feat" he must 
 make sure of the Swiss, and take care that they are not 
 employed against him; for that (said the Emperor) " is the 
 secret of secrets." What could this hint mean ? Had the 
 King of England already entertained some secret intention of 
 invading France, at the very time when negociations for the 
 interview were going on ; or was it the suggestion of the 
 tempter ? What was the feat here alluded to ? By whom 
 were the Swiss to be employed ? 
 
 The proposal for a more intimate alliance thus candidly 
 proposed and accepted by Charles had ulterior objects of the 
 most secret nature, which it was not deemed safe should be 
 committed to writing. On the arrival of the ambassadors in 
 London,^ Hesdin, the Flemish resident, wrote to the Cardinal, 
 requesting an immediate audience with the King. To enforce 
 his application, he told Wolsey that the ambassadors brought 
 with them " agreeable proposals ; " and that De la Sauch had 
 communications to make touching " the marriage, of which 
 the Cardinal knew." " The matter," he added, " will be 
 easily colored ; " and he concluded by saying that Francis 
 was making every effort to induce Charles to pass through 
 France, and had offered his queen and his children as 
 hostages ; — an assertion which, true or false, would not be 
 without its effect on the King and the Cardinal. 
 
 As this letter was written in September, 1519, negociations 
 for transferring the hand of the Princess Mary to the Emperor 
 — for that was the marriage thus obscurely alluded to — must 
 have been under consideration at least as early as the summer 
 of that year. Yet, no longer back than the winter of 1518, 
 Mary had been solemnly betrothed to the Dauphin. What 
 was the reason for this change ? Who was the author of it ? 
 Hesdin seems to attribute it to Wolsey. But he may have 
 paid the Cardinal this compliment only in the hope of securing 
 his attention. Was, then, that union of a princess of England 
 with the Emperor, on whose dominions the sun never set, 
 more tempting and dazzling than the hand of the Dauphin ? 
 
 1 Sept. 11. See III. 449.
 
 1519.] MARY OFFERED TO THE EMPEROR. 327 
 
 Was it simply the ambition of a more magnificent alliance 
 which induced Henry to break faith so easily, or some offence 
 on the part of Francis ? If what in private life would be 
 termed duj^licity were not in diplomacy coloured with the 
 name of political dexterity, it would be hard to justify the 
 conduct of the Cardinal or his master in this intricate affair. 
 
 For reasons not adequately explained — perhaps out of 
 some displeasure at the terms proposed, or suspicion of 
 Wolsey's sincerity, or dissatisfaction, not improbably, at the 
 ostensible amity between this country and France, of which 
 he was doubtless kept well informed by French agents — this 
 auspicious commencement was not followed up by correspond- 
 ing ardour. Charles's subsequent instructions to his ambas- 
 sadors were cold and distant.^ He approved of Wolsey's 
 proposal for a personal interview between himself and the 
 King of England, but he would not undertake to visit England 
 for that purpose exclusively. He contradicted the rumour 
 that he had been treating secretly for a marriage with Eenee, 
 the sister of the French King, unknown to the King and the 
 Cardinal ; but he cautiously avoided committing himself to 
 the proposed union with Mary. With great appearance of 
 communicativeness, he communicated nothing of the least 
 importance. It required no great penetration to discover that 
 the new Emperor, young as he was, fully understood his own 
 interests, and was not to be cajoled or intimidated. Free 
 from every tinge of romance, of sentiment, or of enthusiasm, 
 unlike his French rival, he kept his feelings under absolute 
 control. Appeals to his generosity, his honour, or his candour 
 were idle ; cold, bland, clear-headed, and imperturbable, he 
 estimated such appeals at their full worth. His was an old, 
 very old, head on very young shoulders. 
 
 Yet he could not afford to neglect this opportunity of a 
 closer alliance with England. He could not regard without 
 some degree of uneasiness the growing intimacy of the French 
 and English monarchs, now ostentatiously paraded before the 
 world. He knew — no one better — as Francis had said more 
 than once, that if France and England were brothers in arms 
 they would become absolute, and dictate the law to Christen- 
 dom. As they led, the Pope would follow. His possessions 
 in Italy would be rent irrecoverably from Charles, and all his 
 claims disputed. D'Albret would recover Navarre ; a focus of 
 disaffection, growing hotter and more dangerous every day by 
 
 ' See Dec. 12, III. 551.
 
 ooo 
 
 28 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 the accession of his discontented Spanish subjects, would be 
 established on the very skirts of his dominions. Symptoms 
 of disaffection, not to be disregarded, had shown themselves 
 already. A union of France and England was tantamount 
 to the dismemberment of half his imperial dominions. 
 
 Therefore, although he assumed an air of indifference, in 
 the hope of securing more favourable terms, especially when 
 the interview between Henry and the French King had been 
 abandoned in 1519, Charles had no real intention of rejecting 
 the proposals of England. In the spring of 1520, when the 
 French interview was resumed with greater activity and 
 earnestness than before, he thought it wiser to adopt a more 
 conciliatory tone. As if his last instructions had been too 
 cold and off-handed, he dh'ected his ambassadors ^ to say that 
 he had never meant in his previous instructions to retract his 
 engagements, or violate his promise of a personal interview. 
 Though time was pressing, and affairs were urgent, he was 
 most anxious to enjoy the society of the King and Queen of 
 England. He offered to land at some convenient English 
 port, and gave ample powers to his ambassadors to arrange 
 the preliminaries. They were to insist, if possible, on having 
 the interview in the Isle of Wight. If that was refused, and 
 the King preferred Southampton, as more convenient for the 
 usual festivities, they were to say that the presence of the 
 King and Queen was a greater feast to the Emperor than any 
 that could be offered him. If the King insisted on having his 
 own way, they were to consent. 
 
 These concessions were ample ; more ample than we 
 should be apt at first sight to consider. The punctiliousness 
 of that age demanded that the King should meet the Emperor 
 on his own territory — the inferior attend on his superior. 
 Had the Pope descended from his throne to visit an ordinary 
 bishop in partihus infidelium, such an unusual act of con- 
 descension might have been attributed to pious motives not 
 unbecoming his spiritual functions. But for the Emperor to 
 go out of his way and visit England was regarded as an act 
 of extraordinary condescension, little short indeed of degrada- 
 tion. The world saw with astonishment the greatest monarch 
 of the earth vailing his bonnet to a King who was scarcely 
 considered as a member of the great triumvirate of Christen- 
 dom. Even the Pope could not conceal his indignation and 
 surprise. Had the Emperor sustained a defeat on the field 
 
 » Feb. 26, III. 637. 
 
 t
 
 1520.] AN INTERA^IEW WITH THE EMPEEOR ARRANGED. 329 
 
 of battle, had he experienced a more real but less ostensible 
 diminution of his power and authority, the event would have 
 been regarded with less astonishment. But the necessities of 
 Charles were urgent. He consented not onlj- to waive his 
 own Avishes as to the place of meeting, but he engaged also to 
 hold no interview with any other power. He conceded freelv 
 more than Wingfield had ever ventured to propose to the 
 French King, and what now he had no occasion for proposing. 
 Short of any substantial advantages, there was, in fact, no 
 concession which Charles was not prepared to make to secure 
 the friendship of Henry. 
 
 As the Emperor was too far away at Burgos, it was left 
 to his aunt, the Lady Margaret, regent of the Netherlands, to 
 settle the arrangements for the interview. Her instructions 
 to De la Sauch testify her own and her nephew's anxiety to 
 comply with the conditions offered them by England. Bather 
 than risk any failure, she consented on her own responsibility 
 to waive all dispute as to the place of meeting.^ To hide the 
 necessity they were under of securing this alliance, to make 
 England believe that Francis was at that time soliciting their 
 friendship, she had recourse to the unusual precaution of 
 garbling the Emperor's own letters, and suppressing such 
 parts of them as seemed to her too candid or too imprudent. 
 
 As quick and decisive in her movements as the Emperor's 
 Spanish ministers were slow, formal, and deliberate, the 
 arrangements in her hands advanced rapidly towards a 
 successful termination. Her wishes on this occasion found 
 a warm partizan in Queen Katharine. Long as she had been 
 in England, Katharine still retained her Spanish predilec- 
 tions. News from the Spanish court were as welcome to her 
 as tidings of friends and relations to the solitary in distant 
 worlds. A knowledge of the Spanish tongue was an unfailing 
 recommendation to her favour. It was not often that she 
 took an active part in the amusements or politics of the 
 times ; and when she consented to share in either, it was 
 chiefly against her own inclination, and to please the more 
 buoyant temper of her husband. I do not find that in all the 
 intrigues for the imperial election she ever interfered or ever 
 employed the little influence she possessed in promoting the 
 interests of her nephew. But on this occasion she took not 
 merely an active, but, for her, an obtrusive part. The political 
 was merged in the personal aspect of the question — the queen 
 
 ' 111. G72.
 
 330 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 in the aunt. An officioiisness that woiihl have scarcely been 
 allowed, or, if allowed, been distasteful to herself, seemed fully 
 justified in the affectionate solicitude of a woman anxious to 
 welcome her youthful and illustrious relative. 
 
 Arrangements proceeded rapidly. More lively, more cordial 
 than her nephew, better versed in matters of this nature, 
 Margaret, with the ready tact of her sex, broke at once through 
 the icy formality with which the ministers of Charles had 
 contrived to invest them. Her interposition was agreeable 
 to all parties, to the English court especially, where, de- 
 servedly or not, she was certainly a favourite. She humoured 
 the great Cardinal; she agreed to accept Southampton, or 
 any other place, even Sandwich, if he required it, for the 
 place of meeting. This Sandwich, the ambassadors were 
 careful to inform the Em]peror, " is two leagues from Dover, 
 in the English Downs, as you go towards Zealand." Great 
 vessels, they add, cannot come alongside, but can anchor two 
 leagues off at the turn of the Downs without danger from 
 tempest. Small or middle-sized ships can be moored to the 
 very walls of the town, which is about as large as Vilvorden, 
 only better built.^ 
 
 Wolsey was radiant with good humour. He expressed, 
 with less than his usual reserve, his satisfaction at the turn 
 which events had taken. Sandwich was the best place that 
 could have been fixed upon, considering the state of the 
 arrangements between France and England. He was willing 
 that this auspicious result should be attributed to nothing 
 less than the inspiration of St. Thomas, his patron saint, and 
 the providential interference of the Almighty. His exultation 
 w^as pardonable. By the sheer force of his genius the two 
 greatest monarchs of the West had become his humble 
 servants ; the one was as anxious to outbid the other for his 
 favour as both had been zealous in their contest for the 
 imperial crown ; and now even as then, the one cordially 
 detested the other. The only conjunction which he had 
 reason to apprehend, or which could have proved a serious 
 obstacle to his policy, had been entirely prevented. The 
 recent determination of Charles had placed once more the 
 key of Christendom in the hands of the great Cardinal. Long 
 since had the keys of St. Peter grown idle and rusty. They 
 had ceased to open anything, or to shut ; and the guardian of 
 them, a poor "blind old man" — such was the language of 
 
 » March 19, III. G89.
 
 1520.] KATHAKINE GKEATLY DELIGHTED. 331 
 
 Wolsey himself — had no function on earth, except to employ 
 them at the dictation of the stronger. Terrors of the Papacy ! 
 With such examples before him, the sorriest and most con- 
 temptible wigbt might have bearded the grim phantom with 
 impunit}'. It was formidable to those onl}'' in whose bosoms 
 there still lingered some sparks of faith and reverence. 
 
 In this happy frame of mind, Wolsey was willing to submit 
 to almost any conditions the imperial ambassadors wished to 
 impose. Upon their informing him that they had injunctions 
 from Lady Margaret to adjust various points for their mutual 
 understanding, until the arrival of their colleagues, Wolsey 
 replied gaily, "Come, and you shall be welcome; ask, and 
 you shall have ; speak openly and freely, and we shall say 
 Amen to whatever you require." On Sunday morning, he 
 carried them to the King at Greenwich. 
 
 The ambassadors waited for his Majesty as he came out of 
 his chamber to go to mass, when De la Sauch presented him 
 with Margaret's letters. Service over, they proceeded with 
 the King to the Queen's apartments. Here a long conversa- 
 tion ensued between the King, Katharine, and the Cardinal, 
 about their projected visit to France. Turning to the ambas- 
 sadors, the King said, "Well, I am very glad that affairs are 
 in such good train, and I think all will go well." Then 
 addressing himself to the Queen, he said, " Madam, the 
 Emperor, my brother and your nephew, will come hither this 
 time. I hope we shall see him before we^visit the king of 
 France ; but if we do not, it will not be my fault, for I could 
 do no more. To give the Emperor more time, I have written 
 to the king of France to defer the interview ; but I have taken 
 good care not to tell him the reason, and therefore I am in 
 hopes of receiving from him a favourable answer. He cannot 
 yet know the state in which matters now stand between me and 
 the Emperor ; for if ho did, he would never grant my request ; 
 therefore, the thing must be kept as secret as possible." On 
 this the Queen, clasping her hands, and raising her eyes to 
 Heaven, gave laud unto God for the grace she hoped He would 
 do her, that she might behold her nephew, — saying it was 
 her greatest desire in the world. So saying, she thanked the 
 King, and made him a very low curtsey. The King, removing 
 his bonnet, assured her that he would do all on his part that 
 was possible. Then addressing himself to the ambassadors, 
 he said, with a smiling countenance, " As to what the king of 
 France has said to the Emperor, my good brother and
 
 332 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. LA.D. 
 
 nephew, I make little account of that ; for I am very sure he 
 will not venture to violate the treaties. If you do not want 
 war, he wants it still less. I have also told him frankly, that 
 it will be of no use for us to have an interview, if he is to begin 
 war on the morrow ; for I must abide by my engagement, and 
 protect the invaded against the invader. I will do all that I 
 can to smooth the diiSculties between the two sovereigns ; for 
 it it be not done now, I have very little hope of its being done 
 hereafter. However, I trust that God, who knows my good 
 intentions, will further our wishes. I desire to establish peace 
 in Christendom, and gain some opportunity of doing honor to 
 God, and promoting the Faith by turning our united arms 
 against the Inj&del." 
 
 Matters had already advanced so far that nothing now was 
 required for completing the negociations, except the arrival of 
 the commissioners with the imperial ratification. The King, 
 the Queen, the omnipotent Cardinal were so well disposed, 
 that De la Sauch wrote to Charles, that if one only of their 
 colleagues had arrived everything might have been settled to 
 their wishes. Speed was of the utmost importance. Aware of 
 what was j)assing, Francis, in his anxiety to forestall and 
 outdo his rival, had condescended to yield the ^as d'honneur, 
 and meet the English monarch on his own territory. Whilst 
 he was to be at Arde on the 31st of May, Henry on the same 
 day was to enter Guisnes. Yet, in spite of this concession, so 
 agreeable to their pride, the English more than half repented 
 of the advantage they had gained. In the dazzling prospect 
 of an imperial alliance, they were ready to abandon the French 
 interview. Happily, they were saved from the consequences 
 of such a ste-p by the slow and dilatory proceedings of the 
 Spaniards. Notwithstanding their opportunity, notwithstand- 
 ing the activity and importunity of the French king, the 
 Spaniards courted failure by their usual formality and tedi- 
 ousness. Never were there worse negociators. Days and 
 weeks slipped away, yet their commissioners came not. It 
 was of the utmost importance to the Emperor, as De la Sauch 
 wrote to Chievres,^ to keep Wolsey in good humour, to flatter 
 the King, and by liberal demonstrations of candour and con- 
 fidence counteract the subtle insinuations of Francis at the 
 ensuing interview. Not less needful was it to keep up appear- 
 ances, and make the world believe that Henry was wholly 
 devoted to the Emperor ; for as England led, the Pope and 
 
 > April 7, No. 728.
 
 1520.] THE SPANIARDS DILATORY. 333 
 
 the smaller potentates of Christendom^ would follow. When 
 the agents of Charles expressed some apprehensions as to the 
 intentions of his Holiness, Wolsey readily undertook to mould 
 the Pope entirely to their wishes. Blind men, he said, needed 
 a guide ; ^ and he made no doubt of his ability to lead him. 
 Arrogant as the sarcasm may appear, it was not wholly 
 destitute of foundation. Hating and suspecting the French 
 and German protectorate alike, Leo .would have grasped at 
 any method for eluding both. Yet the commissioners came 
 not. With the pride of haughty and exclusive men, locked up 
 in a rigid peninsula, whose introspection never turns itself 
 outwards to watch the motives and meanings of others, 
 then, as always, the Spaniard was behind the occasion. 
 Too much accustomed to flatter his own self-complacency, 
 he would not condescend to the weakness of other men, or 
 advance one foot towards any object, however important, 
 beyond his usual and measured pace. When we have to 
 deal with men of the world, observes La Sauch, in his secret 
 despatch to the prime minister of Charles, we give them fair 
 words and promise wonders, but all is forgotten when our 
 object is attained. The French give and talk, and make 
 liberal promises. "If you think," he continues, "that the 
 English here will labour for us, out of pure love for our 
 smiles and our good looks, and turn a deaf ear to others, 
 cerfces. Monsieur, j^ou will find yourself "very much mistaken." 
 Agree with the master (Wolsey), he adds, and you need not 
 trouble yourself about the men. So he suggests that if any 
 preferment fell vacant before the Emperor's arrival it should 
 be offered to the Cardinal ; " but it must not be less than 5,000 
 or 6,000 ducats a year, or he will not esteem it." In a similar 
 strain, half bantering, half serious, he turns into ridicule the 
 solemn and transparent manoeuvres of his antiquated coad- 
 jutor, the Spanish Bishop of Elna. The Bishop, in the 
 fulness of his condescension, had made some promise to 
 Wolsey of a gratuity in reversion, when the other numerous 
 obligations of the Emperor had been satisfied, and his engage- 
 ments fulfilled to the many great personages who had done 
 him services at the late election, " Fancy," says De la Sauch 
 to Chievres, " what a value the Cardinal set upon such a 
 
 ' Were England to be devoted to sort of terms we are with the Pope, 
 
 France, says De la Sauch to Chievres, and we should bo abandoned by the 
 
 — and there could bo no better Swiss and the Venetians. April 7, 
 
 authority — it would be very awkward III. p. 255. 
 for us, as we do not know on what ^ See III. p. 255.
 
 334 THE REIGN OF HENRY Vlir. [AD. 
 
 promise ! He never uttered a word, any more than if he had 
 been dumb. This is not the way to deal with great men. 
 The Bishop had much better have held his tongue. It only 
 makes them suspect that we take them pour hetes, and expect 
 them to do what we want on the faith of a promise to be kept 
 some ten or twenty years hence. Thank you for nothing ! 
 As the old song says, ' F aides may wig chandeau quandje suis 
 mort / ' " 
 
 Meanwhile the French were busy and buzzing like flies in 
 the shambles. Every advantage was eagerly seized by them, 
 and vaunted to the utmost. Their activity, their tenacity, 
 their lithe insinuations, were strikingly contrasted with the 
 rigid and solemn stateliness of their rivals ; mortifying to the 
 quick De la Sauch and his comrades, who were compelled to 
 sit still for want of instructions. The apparent success of the 
 French led them to doubt, but without reason, Wolsey's 
 sincerity. " The people here, to a man," wrote De la Sauch 
 to Chievres,^ " detest the French interview ; they say they are 
 leaving their old friends for their old enemies ; that there is 
 no help for it unless the Emperor come ; and in that case they 
 hope the interview may yet be broken off. So j-ou may be 
 sure that you have only Wolsey to gain, which will now be 
 very difficult ; for, no doubt, besides the great gifts he has 
 received from the French, they have promised him the 
 Papacy, which we might have done with much better grace. 
 I see quite well he will be very glad if the Emperor do not 
 come ; for whenever we venture to question his opinions, he 
 gives us our conge, saying, * Bieu ! ne le /aides point ; allez 
 vous en; ' or words to that effect." 
 
 The insinuation that Wolsey received bribes from France 
 appears to me, judging from the whole tenor of the corre- 
 spondence, to rest on no better foundation than the suspicions 
 of De la Sauch — suspicions to which too much weight must 
 not be attributed, whether they emanate from Spanish, 
 Venetian, or other foreign ambassadors. Beyond the facts 
 which fell under their own immediate cognizance, the evidence 
 of such men is worth no more than that of ordinary mortals ; 
 not often so much, for the circuit and means of their intelli- 
 gence were more limited. Drawn off on a false scent to suit 
 the purposes of the government to which they were accredited, 
 anxious not unfrequently to magnify their services at home, 
 agents and ambassadors were apt to exaggerate or lend too 
 
 ' III. p. 256.
 
 1520] DID ALL DEPEND ON BRIBERY? 335 
 
 credulous an ear to rumours which coincided with their own 
 views ; fingxint quod sibi volunt. Frequently they wanted the 
 ability, not seldom the inclination, to take a calm survey of 
 passing events ; and as to testing the evidence on which hear- 
 say information rested, that was generally impossible. 
 
 To this credulity I attribute the broad assertion of La 
 Sauch, that Wolsey and the nobles of England, corrupted by 
 French bribes, were ready to compromise their own honour 
 and the interests of their country. The Spaniard judged 
 others by himself. It was the readiest way for excusing his 
 own incapacity ; the most obvious explanation of his own 
 disappointments. " We must turn their own arts against the 
 P'rench, and not be sparing of our promises," says La Sauch 
 in the letter already referred to, " or Francis will make them 
 drink his auriim potah'ile, and they will tipple a la bouteille, 
 while our ambassadors sit looking on with folded arms. Had 
 this been provided for three or four months ago, the French 
 interview would never have taken place, and our own would 
 have been arranged more consistently with our honour." 
 Then, after telling a curious anecdote of Queen Katharine's 
 holding a council to confer about the interview, in which she 
 had harangued the members present, and made such repre- 
 sentations against the French meeting " as one would not 
 have supposed she dared to do, or even imagine," he adds, 
 " there is no doubt that the French interview is against the 
 will of the Queen and of all the nobles, though some may have 
 already tasted the bottle." ^ 
 
 Quick and lively as he was, this total misconception of 
 Wolsey's intentions and policy is not very creditable to the 
 ambassador's discernment. So far from lending a ready ear 
 to the insinuations of the French, Wolsey was doing his best 
 to delay, if not to hinder, the interview. Nor do these 
 
 ' Katharinewas suspected through- time sho demanded of Wingficld, who 
 
 out of doiug her utmost to hinder the had sncceoded Boleyn, whether ho 
 
 French interview ; not witliout reason. thought the Queen's grace "had any 
 
 Her strong predilections in favour of great devotion to this assembly (inter- 
 
 her nephew did not escape the pene- view)." " Whereunto," says Wingfield, 
 
 trating glances of Louise of Savoy. " I answered, i knew well that there 
 
 " Is not the Queen's grace of England," could not be a more virtuous or wise 
 
 she said with the most artless guile princess anywhere than the Queen my 
 
 to Holoyn, then ambassador in Franco, mistress was, having none other joy 
 
 "aunt to the King of Spain?" or comfort in this world but to do and 
 
 "Madame," said Boleyn, "he is her follow all that she may tliiidc to sland 
 
 sister's son; but the King of England with the King's pleasure." 111. 7^1. 
 
 baa greater affection for your son than The answers of both left the matter 
 
 for any king living." At another as thoy found it.
 
 )36 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENKY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 insinuations receive the least countenance from the corre- 
 spondence of the times. His private letters are numerous ; 
 yet no hint of bribery is to he found in them or in the 
 despatches he received from the French court. Such corrup- 
 tion as De la Sauch intimates could scarcely have existed, 
 when not the slightest indication of it is found in the most 
 confidential intercourse on either side.^ 
 
 ' Mr. Bergenroth thinks otherwise, 
 but produces no other evidence in 
 support of his opinion than what will 
 be found in the Calendar (see III. 
 1321) ; that is, the half-yearly pensions 
 paid by France to Norfolk, Suffolk, 
 and others. I am somewhat surprised 
 that Mr. Bergenroth should have over- 
 looked the title of the book from which 
 he derived his information ; sc. a 
 " Book of Accounts concerning the Pay- 
 tnent of Pensions to the King of England 
 and Englif^h Subjects." (Bergenroth, 
 Cal. ii. p. 284.) If such pensions were 
 given for treasonable purposes, would 
 the King of England have taken a 
 bribe from France to betray himself ? 
 Would such payments, if secret, have 
 been formally I'egistered half-yearly, 
 like any other accounts, without any 
 attempt at concealment ? 
 
 To explain the real nature of these, 
 I must call my reader's attention to 
 the following facts. In the treaty of 
 London, made between England and 
 France on the 7th of Aug., 1.514, on 
 the occasion of the marriage of Princess 
 Mary to Lewis XII., it was stipulated 
 that a million of gold crowns should 
 be paid to Henry VIII., in half-yearly 
 instalments of 50,000 francs (see I. 
 5280, 5306). At the same time letters 
 patent were issued by Lewis, granting 
 certain pensions to Norfolk, Suffolk, 
 Wolsey, and others, in consideration of 
 the services rendered by them on that 
 occasion. Such payments were not 
 uncommon ; as presents, at all events, 
 if not in the shape of annuities ; — and 
 there was no mystery connected with 
 them. As a proof — if proof be needed 
 — in 1518 Henry gave the French 
 gentlemen BOOL, and not long after 
 1,8291. 14s. in plate (see II. p. 1479) 
 — a much larger sum than all the 
 French pensions added together (see 
 also II. 1475, III. 1536) ; and in reward 
 to Chievres, prime minister of the 
 Emperor, 500L, in 1520 (III. 1541). 
 These instances miffht be easily multi- 
 plied. So far Mr. Bergenroth's state- 
 
 ment is unfounded, that the ministers 
 of important powers like France and 
 Spain were inaccessible to " corruption 
 money " — for as such he stigmatizes 
 gifts and annuities of this kind — but 
 that the practice was confined to 
 England and inferior states. 
 
 The agreements thus entered into 
 by Lewis were confirmed by Francis 
 I. shortlv after his accession, on the 
 5th of April, 1515 (see II. 244, 302), 
 and he agreed to make good the 
 arrears due from his predecessor. On 
 the 1st of May following, 50,000 francs 
 were paid at Calais, to commissioners 
 appointed under Henry's sign manual 
 {ib. 381), and undoubtedly at the 
 same time the pensions mentioned by 
 Mr. Bergenroth, for all the receipts 
 are of the same date, and are treated 
 as one affair. They continued to be 
 made in the same manner until the 
 close of 1518, when, in consideration 
 of the surrender of Touruay, the rate 
 of payment was altered, and Wolsey's 
 claim on the bishopric of Toumay was 
 compounded for by an annual pension 
 of 12,000 livres Tournois. About May, 
 1521, they ceased ; Francis making 
 various excuses for delaying these 
 payments, the justice of which he 
 never attempted to ^ deny, or impugn 
 them on the score of dishonesty. War 
 was not declared against France 
 until a year after ; and one of the 
 causes alleged was the refusal of the 
 King of France to fulfil these en- 
 gagements. It was the object of 
 Wolsey, in the interval, to induce the 
 Emperor, as a condition of his alliance 
 with England, to take these responsi- 
 bilities upon himself, and indemnify 
 England for the pecuniary losses it 
 must incur by a rupture with France. 
 And this, doubtless, was the reason 
 why Mr. Bergenroth found in the 
 Spanish archives copies from the 
 French archives of these payments. 
 There was, I repeat, no secrecy in 
 these matters ; there was none in the 
 intentions of Wolsey to obtain, if
 
 1520.] 
 
 ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE EMPEROR'S VISIT. 
 
 337 
 
 But to proceed. The powers so much desired arrived at 
 last. It was arranged that Charles should land at Sandwich 
 in the middle of Ma3\ From Sandwich the two Kings wore 
 to proceed to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury ; and in 
 honour of the event Wolsey had procured from the Pope a 
 plenary indulgence and jubilee.^ At Canterbury the Emperor 
 was to be met by Queen Katharine. The Spaniards pressed 
 hard to have the term prolonged to the end of May, nominally 
 for the convenience of their master, really in the hope that by 
 further delays they might either get rid of the French inter- 
 view, or infuse so much jealousy and suspicion into the minds 
 of both parties as should neutralize any dangerous effects to 
 be anticipated from it. But Wolsey remained firm — not 
 influenced by corrupt motives, as the Spaniards imagined, 
 but, as more careful and impartial thinkers will believe, by 
 other considerations. So long as he held the scales between 
 the two monarchs, he controlled the policy of both. Any 
 
 possible, indemnity from the Emperor ; 
 the whole process of which was 
 submitted to Henry VIII. What 
 foundation there can be in such pro- 
 ceedings for the charge of avarice 
 brought against the King, I am at a 
 loss to see ; and equally am I at a loss 
 to understand what evidence they 
 afford that Wolsey wished to retain 
 his pension from France, and yet 
 obtain compensation from the Emperor 
 for losses he had never sustained. 
 These pensions, part of the general 
 arrangement made by Lewis XII. at 
 his marriage, made so publicly that 
 they passed under his letters patent, 
 were confirmed and reconfirmed by 
 Francis at his. accession. They were 
 open and obvious to all parties. To 
 twist out of them a general charge of 
 corruption against English statesmen, 
 to represent the King's displeasure at 
 Francis, for violating his engagements, 
 as an exhibition of impotent anger 
 and cupidity, is a strange perversion 
 of the facts. Nor is Mr. Bergenroth's 
 discovery a new one, as he imagines, 
 as my readers will see by referring to 
 a copy of these accounts (III. 1321) 
 taken by M. Teulet from the French 
 archives, and deposited in the Record 
 office many years ago. Yet these 
 half-yearly instalments, and no other, 
 paid by Franco to England, repeated 
 from time to time in various pages of 
 Mr. Bergenroth's Calendar, as if they 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 were so many independent proofs of 
 bribery, are the sole evidence on which 
 his accusation rests. 
 
 Long as this note is, I cannot con- 
 clude it without calling my reader's 
 attention to a letter from one of these 
 pensionei's, the Marquis of Dorset, to 
 Wolsey on this subject, in which he 
 complains of the omission of his name 
 from the lists of French pensioners, on 
 the ground that his friends both in 
 France and England would consider 
 such omission as dishonourable, and 
 a bad reward for his services to the 
 King. Would any man in his senses 
 write in this style if these pensions 
 were given for corrupt purposes .-' 
 (See Appendix.) 
 
 Equally slender is the evidence on 
 which Mr. Bergonroth assorts that 
 Pace, the Bishop of Durham, and Brian 
 Tuke were in the Emperor's pay. 
 (Pref. p. cxvi.) The document quoted 
 by Mr. Bergenroth in support of this 
 extraordinary statement (see III. 803) 
 is nothing more than a pa})er of agenda 
 of the Emperor's council at (Jorunna, 
 in which it is proposed to offer Wolsey 
 "a sop in the mouth," and, if he 
 accept it, a pension to Pace and others, 
 to l)o deducted from that offered to 
 Wolsey ! Mr. Bergenroth produces no 
 evidence to show that these oilers 
 were ever made, still less that they 
 were ever accepted. 
 
 • See III. 095.
 
 338 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [AD. 
 
 exclusive preference for either would have compelled him to 
 abandon bis own position. He would have ceased to be 
 mediator, and have become an ally. 
 
 Meanwhile the negociations for the French interview were 
 pushed forward with the greatest rapidity. Resolved to stick 
 at no concessions, provided they involved no real sacrifice, 
 Francis I. was prompt, courteous, and conciliating.^ Contrary 
 to the express wishes of his council, he consented, at Wolsey's 
 suggestion, to advance beyond his own territories, and receive 
 the King of England on English ground in the English pale.^ 
 He permitted Wingfield to resort to his chamber at all times, 
 without waiting for his express permission. To all the points 
 on which the Cardinal desired his pleasure he readily assented, 
 — was, in fact, so ready to condescend to all his requirements, 
 that Henry did not hesitate, as we have seen, to take advantage 
 of this facility, and ask for a longer prorogation of the inter- 
 view, hoping in the interim to bring his communications with 
 the Emperor to a more satisfactory adjustment. But here the 
 courtesy of the French monarch had reached its term. He 
 was not prepared to play his opponent's game, or advance one 
 step further than his own interest dictated. He had so far 
 deferred to the King's wishes already as to put off the inter- 
 view until the end of May, and the tourney to the 4th of June.^ 
 It was unreasonable, he said, to demand more. Then came 
 the unanswerable objection, which neither politeness nor 
 policy could overrule ; — the Queen was eight months in her 
 pregnancy, and further procrastination must prevent her 
 appearance at the meeting. 
 
 To press for delay after such a plea was impossible. The 
 English ambassador could do no less than declare that his 
 master " would not for anything " that the Queen should be 
 absent from the interview, " without the which his highness 
 thought there should lack one great part of the perfection of 
 the feast." "^ The sickness of Wolsey, who appeared to have 
 been attacked by jaundice and colic in April, and the difficulty 
 of completing the necessary preparations within the term 
 prescribed, seemed at first to offer a more reasonable argu- 
 ment for delay. Guisnes and Ardres were equally neglected 
 and ruinous.^ Neither of them was adapted for a royal 
 residence ; least of all for the magnificent entertainments in 
 
 ' III. 645, 666. * Wingfield, March 24. 
 
 ^ III. 643, ' III. 700. 
 
 3 III. 681, 697.
 
 1520.] ARRANGEMENTS FOE THE FRENCH INTERVIEW. 339 
 
 which each sovereign proposed to outdo the other. To remedv 
 this inconvenience, it had been proposed by Francis that the 
 meeting should be held in the fields ; that the Kings, or at 
 least their retinues, should lodge in tents or wooden huts 
 hastily erected for the occasion. But the country supplied no 
 timber ; every foot of wood, not merely for the lodgings, but 
 for the lists, the barriers, and the stages, had to be brought 
 from a great distance.^ Henry's retinue amounted to 3,997 
 persons and 2,087 horses ; the Queen's to 1,175 persons and 
 778 horses. Besides the ordinary accommodations for housing 
 so large and distinguished a company, state apartments had 
 to be provided capacious enough to satisfy the King's and the 
 Cardinal's requirements. There was to be a great chamber 
 124 feet long, 42 feet wide, and 30 feet high, " longer and wider 
 than the White Hall ; " a dining-room 80 feet long, 34 wide, 
 and 27 high, "larger than the greatest chamber in Bride- 
 well ; " a withdrawing-room 60 feet long, 34 wide, and 27 feet 
 high. A chapel — for how could chivalry be divorced from 
 piety ? — duly served with deans, chaplains, and singing boys, 
 formed part of the arrangements. " The clerk of the closet 
 was to warn ten chaplains to accompany the King, and provide 
 the closet with the best hangings, traverse, jewels, images, 
 and altar cloths; " ^whilst the rich copes and vestments given 
 by Henry YH. to the Abbey of Westminster, with all their 
 emblazonments of jewelry and gold embroidery, were to add 
 lustre to the scene, and divide the palm with gilded armour 
 and regal ornaments. Horses and hounds, collars and 
 leashes, horns and baldrics, presents for the Fre^nch nobility 
 and gentry, tasked the ingenuity and swelled the baggage 
 trains of the royal attendants. 
 
 It was an age of pageantry, when even the richest and the 
 noblest found little scope for their inventive faculties except 
 in ceremonials of romance and gallantry. Never had any 
 occasion presented itself better adapted to the prevailing 
 humour of the times. The genius and invention of the age 
 found pleasant occupation in architectural rebuses, and riddles 
 in paint and gilding. Wherever the eye fell, the Tudor badge 
 of the rose stood all ablaze in resplendent colours, "large and 
 stately," tricked out in every form of tortuous device, on 
 canvas, tapestry, and cloth of gold.^ Posies not less ingenious 
 than intricate, the work of the celebrated " Maistre Barkleyo, 
 
 ' III. 825. * III. 70i. Mil. 750.
 
 340 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 the black monk and poet," ^ attracted the gaze of the puzzled 
 spectators by their curious garniture and enigmatical flourishes. 
 Brief as was the time allowed for preparation, and far as the 
 work must have fallen short of the glowing conception of its 
 prime architect, the accounts of eye-witnesses leave no room 
 to doubt the extraordinary splendour of the scene.^ Like 
 similar exhibitions of a later date, and scarcely more restricted 
 in its objects, the pageant was intended to show what England 
 could accomplish in those arts which the age valued above all 
 others. Fired with emulation, both nations sent notices 
 through the world to come and wonder. Even a gigantic 
 glass greenhouse, sj)rawling over half an acre, would have 
 lifted its livid and shapeless length in hopeless rivalry against 
 this burnished summer palace, put up and pulled down in a 
 month, and packed away in boxes for England when its work 
 was over. . For decorative art, even when subservient to these 
 " fierce vanities," had not yet been wholly divorced from 
 religious feeling. Fostered by scholars and ecclesiastics, it 
 had not yet sunk into vulgar obtrusiveness or irretrievable 
 meanness.^ 
 
 Occupied with such designs, Wolsey might fairly have 
 asked for delay, both for " better preparation, and in conse- 
 quence of his maladies, which, if they did so fervently 
 continue" as at present, would hinder his "travelling, to his 
 great regret and inward pensiveness." ^ He might fairly hold 
 out the tempting prospect that if Queen Claude were delivered 
 on the confines of the two kingdoms, when the King and Queen 
 of England were present, she might expect the honour of their 
 becoming sponsors for the child. Under other circumstances 
 such arguments might have proved successful. But Francis 
 had begun to suspect, not without reason, that these repeated 
 applications for delay were little better than a pretext for 
 evading the interview altogether. However studied the secrecy 
 in which the imperial negociations were involved, he was not 
 ignorant of the projected meeting of the King of England and 
 the Emperor. He taxed the English ambassador with the 
 fact ; he desired, through his minister the Admiral, that the 
 visit of Charles should be delayed until after the interview at 
 
 ' Author of " The Ship of Fools." describes the astonishment which he 
 
 III. 737. felt on viewing this spectacle of un- 
 
 2 III. p. .309. paralleled magnificence. See III. 
 
 ^ Budajns, the great Greek scholar, 878. 
 who was present on the occasion, * III. 736.
 
 1520.] EXCUSES FOR DUPLICITY. 341 
 
 Arde. What, he asked, would Henry have thought, if he had 
 arranged on his part for a similar communication with the 
 Iving of Castile ? ^ Eeasonable as the appeal might seem, the 
 Cardinal well knew that Francis was in no condition to enforce 
 it. He scarcely deigned to notice this remonstrance. It 
 would be a strange and ungrateful proceeding, he coldly 
 remarked, if a prince should be debarred from receiving the 
 ambassadors of his ancient friends and confederates. "And, 
 to be plain with you, if the king of Castile should offer to 
 descend at Sandwich or about those parts, as he hath done, 
 to see and visit the King and the Queen, his uncle and aunt, 
 the King being in journeying towards the sea and next there- 
 unto, it were too marvellous ingratitude to refuse the same ; 
 for by such dealing the King might well judge and think that 
 the King om- master neither esteemed, loved, nor favored him." 
 
 Such arguments afforded no loop-hole for discussion. 
 Even the logic of diplomacy must yield to the demands of 
 natural piety. As the condition of the French Queen had 
 proved an insurmountable obstacle to deferring the interview, 
 the claims of hospitality and relationship were equally opposed 
 to the ungraciousness of refusing hospitality to the Emperor, 
 should chance or inclination drive him to the English coast. 
 Nothing remained for Francis except to refuse the conditions, 
 or proceed with the arrangements under all these discourage- 
 ments. To refuse would at once have exposed him to the 
 danger he was most anxious to avert, and have hastened the 
 union between England and the Emperor. And though he 
 must often have felt that he was embarked on a desperate 
 policy, that sooner or later such a conjunction would inevitably 
 take place, he preferred that course which seemed for the 
 present most accordant with his wishes. Possibly by the 
 fascinations of a personal interview, by flattering the vanity 
 of the English monarch, by the blandishments of the hand- 
 somest women in France,^ selected with great care to be 
 present on the occasion, he hoped to thwart the dreaded 
 coalition of his formidable rivals. If he could not absolutelj'' 
 prevent it, he might yet put it off to a distant period when 
 he should be better prepared to meet it. 
 
 So, though more than once in peril of shipwreck, the 
 negociations for the interview went speedily forward, with 
 much apparent, but with little real cordiality. Articles for 
 
 • III. 754. * III. 698.
 
 342 
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 the tourney were arranged; officers were despatched, after 
 the ancient fashion, to Spain, Flanders, and elsewhere,^ to 
 invite all who professed " the maistrie of arms" ^ to meet and 
 take part in these jousts " for the honor and pastime " of the 
 ladies ; proclamations suspended in thoroughfares and puhHc 
 places,^ commanded all vagabonds and idle persons to evacuate 
 the roads leading to the field within six hours "on pain of 
 hanging ; " and enjoined upon gentlemen and officers of every 
 degree to abstain from profane swearing and the use of 
 offensive language. 
 
 The numerous and intricate regulations required in order 
 to control the emulation and curb the angry passions en- 
 gendered by so exciting a pastime, had been duly considered 
 and arranged,^ when a new difficulty arose, bidding fair to set 
 at nought the labour and expense already incurred. Rumours 
 were industriously circulated that Francis was bringing 
 secretly into the field large bodies of men with a ^proportionate 
 quantity of ammunition.^ At the moment when the English 
 monarch was prepared to cross the sea, he was informed that 
 the French King had equipped twelve or fourteen large vessels. 
 Such rumours were easily spread and eagerly believed by 
 partizans on both sides of the Channel, who either looked with 
 dissatisfaction at the proposed interview with an hereditary 
 foe, or grudged Wolsey the power and importance he seemed 
 to acquire from it. As if by magic, the clink of hammers, the 
 hum of preparation, stopped at once, until the Cardinal had 
 received assurance from the French King, under his broad 
 seal, that no vessel should leave any port in Normandy or 
 Brittany until the interview was over.^ 
 
 1 III. 685, 686. 
 
 - III. 699. 
 
 3 III. 841. 
 
 * As many challengers would be 
 " so vainglorious as to wish to run " 
 as long as the day lasted or their 
 horses endured, it was necessary to 
 limit each tilt to six courses. The 
 number of strokes with the sword was 
 to be determined at the pleasure of 
 the ladies, and therefore did not ex- 
 ceed, we may hope, the bounds of 
 charity and discretion. Heavy swords, 
 in which the superior bone and sinew 
 of the EuKlish would give them 
 manifest advantage, were excluded, 
 except on special occasions. The 
 two-handed sword, of the old chivalrous 
 ao-e, was objected to as a dangerous 
 
 weapon, and few gauntlets would resist 
 the stroke of it. In short, the real 
 interest of the meeting consisted in 
 the opportunity it afforded for mag- 
 nificent display, and perhaps some 
 small trial of skill ; but careful pro- 
 vision was duly made against personal 
 hazard ; — and that on prudential con- 
 siderations. In the rivalry of the 
 two nations, and in the tendency, 
 especially of Englishmen, to settle 
 down in right earnest to the work 
 before them, forgetting the limits of 
 mere pastime, without these restric- 
 tions the consequences would have 
 been hazardous. 
 
 ^ III. 819, 825. 
 
 « III. 836, 842.
 
 1520.] PEEPARATIONS FOR THE FRENCH INTERVIEW. 343 
 
 So favourable an opportunity for display of personal skill 
 and daring, of fine clothes, fine horses and fine armour, on 
 such a field and before such a presence, had not occurred 
 within the memory of man. Both nations were full of young 
 blood ; both were adventurous and greedy of distinction ; both 
 anxious to make proof of their activity and valour, for which 
 no such vasty theatre could be found within their ordinary 
 confines. Without offence to distribute places and employ- 
 ments among so many competitors for fame was no easy task. 
 Who should have the honour of sustaining the reputation of 
 England in the lists, or be delegated to the more quiet but 
 less envied honour of guarding the Queen or waiting on my 
 lord Cardinal, gave occasion for interminable anxiety and 
 jealousy. It was impossible for the coolest head or most con- 
 ciliating temper to steer clear of heart-burnings and dissen- 
 sions, and satisfy the claims of all. And though Shakespeare 
 was mistaken in representing the Duke of Buckingham as 
 absent from the interview, he has expressed accurately enough 
 in Buckingham's celebrated speech the bitter disappointment 
 and offended pride of more than one of the nobility, whose 
 employments on this occasion did not correspond with their 
 own estimate of their own merits. " Why the Devil," says 
 Buckingham — 
 
 ^o^ 
 
 "Upon this French going out, took he upon him 
 (Without the privity of the King) to appoint 
 Who should attend on him ? He makes up the file 
 Of all the gentry ; for the most part such 
 To whom as great a charge as little hont)ur 
 He meant to lay upon : and his own letter — 
 The honourable board of council out — 
 Must fetch him in he papers." 
 
 As proctor for both Kings, the appointment of the lists 
 rested exclusively with Wolsey. The arrangements from the 
 greatest to the smallest, were under his control : — yet not 
 " without the privity of the King," as the Duke asserts in his 
 anger ; for Henry was generally consulted, and as generally 
 assented to whatever the Cardinal proposed. 
 
 Many such lists are to be found among the State Papers.^ 
 They are for the most part in the handwriting of Buthal, then 
 Bishop of Durham and Secretary of State ; in other words, 
 they were dictated by the Cardinal; and at his option "the 
 file of all the gentry " was made up. But I find no reason 
 
 • See also tho Rutland Papers, p. 29.
 
 344 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 for supposing that Wolsey was influenced by undue partiality 
 or sought to gratify his own caprices in the selection. On 
 the contrary, the names of the nobility and gentry attending 
 the interview are an evidence that they were taken impartially 
 from every shire of England, solely out of consideration to 
 their rank, their wealth, and their importance. Posts and 
 emploj^ments were allotted according to the exigencies of the 
 occasion, or the capacities of those who were appointed to fill 
 them. And, so far as the Duke of Buckingham was concerned, 
 there is no warrant for supposing that he was suffering at 
 this time under the displeasure of the Cardinal ; rather the 
 reverse. 
 
 He had, indeed, not many months before, incurred the 
 King's displeasure. "According to Hall,^ in November the 
 year before. Sir William Bulmer and others had been sum- 
 moned to the Star Chamber for riots and misdemeanours — 
 offences not uncommon in the young men of that age — Sir 
 William especially, "because he, being the King's servant 
 sworn, refused the King's service, and became servant to the 
 Duke of Buckingham." The King, who presided on this 
 occasion, declared his disp>leasure in his sternest mood, and 
 with greater passion than such an offence would seem to 
 warrant; saying, " that he would none of his servants should 
 bang on another man's sleeve, and that he was as well able 
 to maintain him as the Duke of Buckingham ; and what 
 might be thought by his departing, and what might be sup- 
 posed by the Duke's retaining [him] , he would not then 
 declare. The knight," continues Hall, " kneeled still on his 
 knees, crying the King's mercy, and never a nobleman there 
 durst entreat for him, the King was so highly displeased with 
 him." Yet Sir William was pardoned, and his offence so far 
 forgotten that he was appointed to attend the interview, " in 
 the King's wages," commanding a body of light horse, specially 
 appointed to secure the King's person from surprise.^ The 
 Duke was also taken into favour. Nor can I find any indica- 
 tion that Wolsey at this time employed his great influence to 
 injure Buckingham, unless the omission of the Duke's name 
 from the lists of those who were appointed to take an active 
 
 ' Chron. p. 599. other offenders also mentioned by Hall, 
 
 ^ See III. p. 239. His name occurs Sir Matthew Brown and the Lord 
 
 among those of the gentlemen of York- Howard, were also at Arde (pp. 236, 
 
 shire appointed to attend the King 238, 241) ; the former attending on 
 
 (lb., pp. 237, 241, 248). Two of the the Queen (p. 245).
 
 1520.] THE EMPEROR'S VISIT. 345 
 
 l^art in the tournament be considered as an evidence of the 
 Cardinal's malice.^ 
 
 The King and Queen started for the sea-side on Monday 
 the 21st of May. On Friday the 25th they arrived at Canter- 
 bury. On the 26th news came that the Emperor's fleet was 
 in sight. The same evening Charles landed at Dover, and 
 was received by the Cardinal. "In his retinue," says Hall, 
 " were many noble men, and many fair ladies of his blood, as 
 princes and princesses ; and one lady as chief to be noted 
 was the Princess Avinion. Great joy made the people of 
 England to see the Emperor, and more to see the benign 
 manner and meekness of so high a prince." 
 
 On hearing of the Emperor's arrival, the King rode over to 
 Dover early in the morning. On Whit- Sunday both sovereigns 
 took horse for Canterbury, "the more to solempne the feast 
 of Pentecost. But specially to see the Queen of England, his 
 aunt, was the intent of the Emperor." 
 
 On Thursday, the last day of May, the Emperor embarked 
 at Sandwich for Flanders,^ 
 
 What projects occupied the two monarchs in that solitary 
 ride from Dover to Canterbury, we are not likely to know. 
 Too secret to be trusted to the ordinary channels of negocia- 
 tion, they were of too grave a nature to be discussed before 
 witnesses. Even Wolsey himself appears to have taken no 
 part in them. Eye-witnesses and historians of the times have 
 been careful to detail the ceremonies connected with the 
 Emperor's landing ; his cloth of estate, his black eagle 
 " splayed in cloth of gold." The moderation, not to say 
 meagreness, of his dress and equipage, disproportioned to his 
 rank, as they thought, and unlike the magnificence to which 
 they had been accustomed in England, have all been duly 
 recorded. His fair complexion, his aquiline nose and blue 
 eyes, his pallid face set off with an under-hanging jaw, 
 detracting much from the general intelligence of his counte- 
 nance, his mouth disfigured by small and irregular teeth, are 
 subjects of history. But of the secret motives of his visit, of 
 his meeting with Katharine and the Princess Mary — if indeed 
 
 * Yet this omission may have arisen Holinslied; and Holinshed's account 
 from the Duke's determination never is made up from two distinct and con- 
 to run against the King : — on the tradictory authorities, Hall and Poly- 
 Kinp's side he appears never to have dore Vergil. To the latter wo owo 
 lun at any time, much as he desired most of the popular culumuies against 
 it. 'J"he liistorical (•lenient in Sliake- the Cardinal, 
 speare's Jieury V III. was derived from ^ Hall's Chron., p. 604.
 
 346 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 1520. 
 
 slie was presented to her proposed husband — no information is 
 afforded. This much,, in the absence of more satisfactory data, 
 may be assumed as the true purpose of the Emperor's coming. 
 It is not probable that he would have taken so long a journey, 
 or left Spain then on the eve of a rebellion, merely out of love 
 to the King and Queen of England. If at so momentous a 
 crisis he had resolved on visiting his Flemish dominions, it 
 was not to be present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, or 
 honour with his presence the sumptuous preparations of his 
 rival. Unable to prevent that meeting, uncertain of its con- 
 sequences, by his refusal as the head of Christendom to take 
 any part in it he contrived to condemn it indirectly ; by his 
 proximity to the scene, to neutralize all the advantages 
 expected from it by the French King. 
 
 Nor was this all. Uncertain how far the fascination and 
 chivalrous frankness of Francis I. and the tact of his mother 
 Louise might influence the King and the Cardinal, by abiding 
 for a time in Flanders the Emperor would be better able to 
 keep them steady to his interests ; or at least he would be 
 near at hand to remedy the mischief, if mischief should 
 arise. 
 
 So fenced, prepared, and watched, Henry proceeded to his 
 interview with the French King ; not in that unguarded, care- 
 less humour which some writers have surmised ; nor yet bent 
 on pleasure merely, or the display of his personal splendour 
 and accomj)lishments. The reserve that marked his conduct 
 on more than one occasion, as compared with the freer bearing 
 of his rival, is not to be attributed to haughtiness alone or 
 insular exclusiveuess. Nor, on the part of Francis I., was his 
 frank violation of tedious ceremony, or his romantic display of 
 generous confidence, entirely free from interested motives. 
 He had his purpose to serve, no less than Charles ; and both 
 regulated their actions accordingly.
 
 o 
 
 47 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 
 
 On the day of the Emperor's departure, the King sailed from 
 Dover, and arrived at Calais at eleven o'clock in the forenoon, 
 remaining there until Monday, the 4th of June, when he 
 removed to Guisnes. Situated in a flat and uninviting plain 
 — poor and barren, as the uncultivated border-land of the two 
 kingdoms — Guisnes and its castle offered little attraction, and 
 if possible less accommodation, to the gay throng now to be 
 gathered within its walls. Its weedy moat and dismantled 
 battlements, "its keep too ruinous to mend,"^ defied the 
 efforts of carpenters and bricklayers, as the English commis- 
 sioners pathetically complained ; and, could not by any artifice 
 or contrivance be made to assume the appearance of a for- 
 midable, or even a respectable, fortress to friend or enemy. 
 But on the castle green, within the limits of a few weeks, and 
 in the face of great difficulties, the English artists of that day 
 contrived a summer palace, more like a vision of romance, the 
 creation of some fairy dream (if the accounts of eye-witnesses 
 of all classes may be trusted), than the dull every-day reality 
 of clay-born bricks and mortar. No " palace of art " in these 
 beclouded climates of the West ever so truly deserved its name. 
 As if the imagination of the age, pent up in wretched alleys 
 and narrow dwelling-houses, had resolved for once to throw off 
 its ordinary trammels, and recompense itself for its long 
 restraint, it prepared to realize those visions of enchanted 
 bowers and ancient pageantry on which it had fed so long in 
 the fictions and romances of the Middle Ages. As it was the 
 last display of this kind which I shall have to notice, as it 
 faded rapidly away before the sterner work in which men soon 
 after found themselves engaged, with or against their wills, I 
 have thought it worth while to notice so much of the details 
 as will enable the reader to form some slight conception for 
 
 ' in. 700.
 
 348 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 himself of this scene of enchantment which the genius of the 
 age had contrived for its own amusement. 
 
 The pahice was an exact square of 328 feet. It was pierced 
 on every side with oriel windows and clerestories curiously 
 glazed, the mullions and posts of which were overlaid with 
 gold. An embattled gate, ornamented on both sides with 
 statues representing men in various attitudes of war, and 
 flanked by an embattled tower, guarded the entrance. From 
 this gate to the entrance of the palace arose in long ascent a 
 sloping dais or hall-pace, along which were grouped " images 
 of sore and terrible countenances," in armour of argentine or 
 bright metal. At the entrance, under an embowed landing 
 place, facing the great doors, stood " antique " (classical) 
 figures girt with olive branches. The passages, the roofs of the 
 galleries from place to place and from chamber to chamber, 
 were ceiled and covered with white silk, fluted and embowed with 
 silken hanging of divers colours and braided cloths, " which 
 showed like bullions of fine burnished gold." The roofs of the 
 chambers were studded with roses, set in lozenges, and diapered 
 on a ground of fine gold. Panels enriched with antique carving 
 and gilt bosses covered the spaces between the windows ; 
 whilst all along the corridors and from every window hung 
 tapestry of silk and gold, embroidered with figures. Chairs 
 covered with cushions of Turkey work, cloths of estate, of 
 various shapes and sizes, overlaid with golden tissue and rich 
 embroidery, ornamented the state apartments. The square 
 on every side was decorated with equal richness, and blazed 
 with the same profusion of glass, gold, and ornamental hang- 
 ings ; and " every quarter of it, even the least, was a habita- 
 tion fit for a prince," says Fleuranges, who had examined it 
 with the critical eye of a rival and a Frenchman. 
 
 To the palace was attached a spacious chapel, still more 
 sumptuously adorned. Its altars were hung with cloth of 
 gold tissue embroidered with pearls ; cloth of gold covered the 
 walls and desks. Basins, censers, cruets, and other vessels, 
 of the same precious materials, lent their lustre to its services. 
 On the high altar, shaded by a magnificent canopy of immense 
 proportions, stood enormous candlesticks and other ornaments 
 of gold. Twelve golden images of the Apostles, as large as 
 children of four years old, astonished the eyes of the spectator. 
 The copes and vestments of the officiating clergy were cloth of 
 tissue powdered with red roses, brought from the looms of 
 Florence, and woven in one piece, thickly studded with gold
 
 1520.] THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 349 
 
 and jewelry. No less profusion might be seen in the two 
 closets left apart for the King and the Queen. Images and 
 sacred vessels of solid gold, in gold cloth, cumbrous with 
 pearls and precious stones, attested the rank, the magnificence, 
 and devotion of the occupants. The ceilings of these closets 
 were gilded and painted ; the hangings were of tapestry em- 
 broidered with fretwork of pearls and gems. The chapel was 
 served by thirty-five priests, and a proportionate number of 
 singing boys. 
 
 From the palace a secret gallery led into a private apart- 
 ment in Guisnes Castle, along which the royal visitors could 
 pass and repass at pleasure. 
 
 The King was attended by squires of the body, sewers, 
 gentlemen-ushers, grooms and pages of the chamber ; for all 
 of whom suitable accommodation had to be provided.^ The 
 lord Chamberlain, the lord Steward, the lord Treasurer of the 
 Household, the Comptroller, with their numerous staffs, had to 
 be lodged in apartments adapted to their rank and services. 
 As it was one great object of the interview to entertain all 
 comers with masques and banquetings of the most sumptuous 
 kind, the mere rank and file of inferior officers and servants 
 formed a colony of themselves. The bakehouse, pantry, cellar, 
 buttery, kitchen, larder, accatry, were amply provided with 
 ovens, ranges, and culinary requirements ; to say nothing of 
 the stables, the troops of grooms, farriers, saddlers, stirrup- 
 makers, furbishers, and footmen. Upwards of two hundred 
 attendants were employed in and about the kitchen alone. ^ 
 
 Outside the palace gate, on the green sward, stood a gilt 
 fountain, of antique workmanship, with a statue of Bacchus 
 " birlyng the wine." Three runlets, fed by secret conduits 
 hid beneath the earth, spouted claret, hypocras, and water 
 into as many silver cups, to quench the thirst of all comers. 
 On the opposite side was a pillar wreathed with gold, and 
 supported by four gilt lions ; and on the top stood an image of 
 blind Cupid, armed with bow and arrows. The gate itself, 
 
 ' There were no less than 18 - The provisions consumed in the 
 
 grooms of the chamber, 2 knit^hts, 5 household in one month consisted, 
 
 squires of the body, 11 gentlemen among other items, of 340 beeves, 
 
 ushers, with others, in immediate 2,200 sheep, 800 calves ; 150 tuns of 
 
 attendance on the King's person ; French wines, 4 pipes of hypocras, 
 
 whilst, of the Queen's suite, thero 560 tuns of boor ; spicos to the worth 
 
 were only 3 persons appointed for the of 440J. ; and for fuel and light, 
 
 chamber, called chamherers, and 14 or 4,000 lb. of wax and 5,()00 qrs. of roal 
 
 15 ladies, called ;ientlewomen, whose are set down. The cost was 7,U3iJi, 
 
 duties are not deQued. See III. p. 337.
 
 350 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 built in massive style, was pierced with loop-holes. Its 
 windows and recesses were filled with images of Hercules, 
 Alexander, and other ancient worthies, richly gilt and painted. 
 In long array, in the plain beyond, 2,800 tents stretched their 
 white canvas before the eyes of the spectator, gay with the 
 pennons, badges, and devices of the various occupants ; whilst 
 miscellaneous followers, in tens of thousands, attracted by 
 profit or the novelty of the scene, camped on the grass and 
 fiUed the surrounding slopes, in sj)ite of the severity of provost- 
 marshal and reiterated threats of mutilation and chastise- 
 ment. Multitudes from the French frontiers, or the populous 
 cities of Flanders, indifferent to the political significance of the 
 scene, swarmed from their dingy homes to gaze on kings, 
 queens, knights, and ladies dressed in their utmost splendour. 
 Beggars, itinerant minstrels, vendors of provisions and small 
 luxuries, mixed with waggoners, ploughmen, labourers, and 
 the motley troop of camp followers, crowded round, or stretched 
 themselves beneath the summer's sun on bundles of straw and 
 grass, in drunken idleness. No better lodging awaited many 
 a gay knight and lady who had travelled far to be present at 
 the spectacle, and were obliged to content themselves with such 
 open-air accommodation. Backwards and forwards surged 
 the excited and unwieldy crowd as every hour brought its 
 fresh contingent of curiosity or criticism, in the shape of some 
 new-comer conspicuous for his fantastic bearing, or the quaint 
 fashion of his armour. Each new candidate for the love and 
 honour of the ladies, for popular applause, or less noble 
 objects, was greeted with shouts and acclamations as he 
 succeeded in distinguishing himself from the throng by the 
 strangeness or splendour of his appointments. Christendom 
 had never witnessed such a scene. The fantastic usages of 
 the Courts of Love and Beauty were revived once more. The 
 Mediaeval age had gathered up its departing energies for this 
 last display of its favourite pastime — henceforth to be con- 
 signed, without regret, to "the mouldered lodges of the past." 
 At the time that Henry set sail for Calais Francis started 
 from Montreuil for Arde. It was a meagre old town, long 
 since in ruins ; the fosses and castle of which had been hastily 
 repaired. He was attended on his route by a vast and motley 
 multitude. No less than 10,000 of this poor vagrant crew 
 were compelled to turn back, by a proclamation ordering that 
 no person, without special permission, should approach within 
 two leagues of the King's train, " on pain of the halter." As
 
 1520.] THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 351 
 
 the French had proposed that both parties should lodge in 
 tents erected on the field, they had prepared numerous 
 pavilions, fitted up with halls, galleries, and chambers, orna- 
 mented within and without with gold and silver tissue. Amidst 
 golden balls and quaint devices glittering in the sun, rose a 
 gilt figure of St. Michael, conspicuous for his blue mantle 
 powdered with golden ficurs-de-lis, and crowning a royal 
 pavilion, of vast dimensions, supported by a single mast. In 
 his right hand he held a dart, in his left a shield emblazoned 
 with the arms of France. Inside, the roof of the pavilion 
 represented the canopy of heaven, ornamented with stars and 
 figures of the zodiac.^ The lodgings of the Queen, of the 
 Duchess d'Alen^on, the King's favourite sister, and of other 
 ladies and princes of the blood, were covered with cloth of 
 gold.^ The rest of the tents, to the number of 300 or 400, 
 emblazoned with the arms of the owners, were pitched on the 
 banks of a small river outside the city walls. A large house 
 in the town, built for the occasion, served as a place of 
 reception for royal visitors. 
 
 From the 4tli of June, when Henry first entered Guisnes, 
 the festivities continued with unabated splendour for twenty 
 days. They were opened by a visit of Wolsey to the French 
 King, and gave the Cardinal an opportunity for displaying 
 his love of magnificence, not unaptly reckoned by poets and 
 philosophers as the nearest virtue to magnanimity.^ A 
 hundred archers of the guard, followed by fifty gentlemen of 
 his household, clothed in crimson velvet with chains of gold, 
 bareheaded, bonnet in hand, and mounted on magnificent 
 horses richly caparisoned, led the way. After them came 
 fifty gentlemen ushers, also bareheaded, carrying gold maces 
 with knobs as big as a man's head ; next a cross-bearer in 
 scarlet, supporting a crucifix adorned with precious stones. 
 Four lacqueys followed, with gilt batons and poleaxes, in 
 paletots of crimson velvet, their bonnets in hand adorned with 
 plumes, their coats ornamented before and behind with the 
 Cardinal's badge in goldsmith's work. Lastly came the 
 Legate himself, mounted on a barded mule trapped in crimson 
 velvet, with gold front-stalls, studs, buckles, and stirrups. 
 
 ' This pavilion was aftorwards Faiirio Qiioen, as tlio most royal ,and 
 
 blown down in a ^alo of wind, and the complete of all Iminan vii'tiics : — hut 
 
 uiast broken. Sf!0 III. p. ;J08. tho Tudor concoption of ina^nificeuoo 
 
 ' There can bo no doubt that Ann lias since disai)[)earod and died out 
 
 Boloyn was at this interview. before tho /xiKpotpux'ta of puritauiaui. 
 
 * Accoanted Ijy Sjionser, in hia
 
 352 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 Over a chimere of figured crimson velvet he wore a fine linen 
 rochet. Bishops and other ecclesiastics succeeded, and the 
 whole procession was brought up by fifty archers of the King's 
 guard, their bows bent, their quivers at their sides, their 
 jackets of red cloth adorned with a gold rose before and 
 behind.^ 
 
 In this state the procession approached the town of Arde. 
 Arrived at the King's lodgings Wolsey dismounted, amidst the 
 roar of artillery, and the sound of drums, trumpets, fifes, and 
 other instruments of music. He was received by the King of 
 France, bonnet in hand, with the greatest demonstrations of 
 affection. The visit was returned next day by the French. 
 These ceremonies were preliminary to the meeting of the two 
 sovereigns on Thursday, the 7th of June. On that day, the 
 King of England, apparelled in cloth of silver damask, thickly 
 ribbed with cloth of gold, and mounted on a charger arrayed 
 in the most dazzling trappings overlaid with fine gold and 
 curiously wrought in mosaic, advanced towards the valley of 
 Arde. No man, from personal inclination or personal qualities, 
 was better calculated to sustain his part in a brilliant cere- 
 monial such as then struck the eyes of the spectators. An 
 admirable horseman, tall and muscular, slightly inclined to cor- 
 pulence, with a red beard and ruddy countenance, Henry VIH. 
 was at this time, by the admission of his rivals, the most 
 comely and commanding prince of his age.^ Closely attend- 
 ing on the King was Sir Henry Guildford, the master of the 
 Horse, leading a spare charger, not less splendidly arrayed 
 in trappings of fine gold wrought in ciphers, with headstall, 
 reins, and saddle of the same material. Nine henchmen 
 
 * The pomp and the splendour of among the potentates of Christendom, 
 
 his retinue on this occasion were often It was the purpose of this interview 
 
 urged against Wolsey as a proof of his to show him to the world, surrounded 
 
 pride and presumption. It must be by all those accessories to which the 
 
 remembered, however, that he was imagination of nine-tenths of mankind 
 
 acting as proctor and representative at that time lent itself a willing 
 
 of two kings. As their accredited prisoner. Railway scrip, or a supposed 
 
 representative in the eyes of the most balance at a man's bankers', eiiects 
 
 chivalrous and magnificent nation in that object now. 
 
 the world, acknowledged universally, ^ " The most goodliest prince that 
 
 even then, as supreme in all matters ever reigned over the realm of Eng- 
 
 of art, dress, decoration, or public land." Hall, p. 609. So also the 
 
 pageantry, he might wish to show that French accounts : " Le roy d' Angleterre 
 
 his master, the King of France as well est moult beau prince, efc honneste, 
 
 as of England, did not fall a whit hault et droit ; sa maniere doulce et 
 
 behind the most splendid monarch of benigne : ung peu grasset ; et une 
 
 the age. For the time being, Wolsey barbe rousse, assez grande, qui Iny 
 
 had by his genius raised his master to advient tres bien." 
 the first rank and foremost place
 
 1520.] THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 353 
 
 followed in cloth of tissue, the harness of their horses covered 
 with gold scales. In front rode the old Marquis of Dorset, 
 bearing the sword of estate before the King ; l)ehind came the 
 Cardinal, the Dukes of Buckingham and Suffolk, with the 
 Earl of Shrewsbury and others. 
 
 A shot fired from the castle of Guisnes, and responded to 
 by a shot from the castle at Arde, gave warning that the two 
 princes were ready to set forward. As Henry advanced 
 towards the valley with all his company in military array, the 
 French King might be descried on the oj)posite hill with his 
 dazzling company, in dress, deportment, and the splendour of 
 his retinue not less glorious or conspicuous than his rival. 
 Over a short cassock of gold frieze, he wore a mantle of cloth 
 of gold covered with jewels. The front and the sleeves were 
 studded with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and large loose- 
 hanging pearls ; on his head he wore a velvet bonnet adorned 
 with plumes and precious stones. Far in advance rode the 
 provost-marshal with his archers to clear the ground. Then 
 followed the marshals of the army in cloth of gold, their orders 
 about their necks, mounted on horses covered with gold trap- 
 pings ; next the grand master, the princes of the blood, and 
 the King of Navarre. After them came the Swiss guard on 
 foot, in new liveries, with their drums, flutes, trumpets, clarions, 
 and hautbois ; then the gentlemen of the household ; and 
 immediately preceding the King was the grand constable, 
 Bourbon, bearing the sword naked, and the Grand Ecuyer, 
 with the sword of France, powdered with gold fie lu-s-de-lis. 
 
 As the two companies approached each other, there was a 
 momentary pause. The French watched with some jealousy 
 the close array of the English footmen, who, stretched in a 
 long line on the King's left, marched step for step with all the 
 solemn gravity of their nation, as if they were rather preparing 
 for battle than pastime ; whilst, on the other side, the superior 
 numbers of the French awakened the national jealousy of the 
 Englishmen. " Sir, ye be my king and sovereign," broke in 
 the Lord Abergavenny in breathless haste ; "wherefore, above 
 all I am bound to show you truth, and not to let (stop) for 
 none. I have been in the French party, and they be more in 
 number; — double so many as ye be." Then spoke up the 
 Earl of Shrewsbury, " Sire, whatever my lord of Abergavenny 
 sayeth, I myself have been there, and the Frenchmen be more 
 in fear of you and your subjects than your subjects be of them. 
 Wherefore," said the Earl, " if I were worthy to give counsel. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 v
 
 354 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [AD. 
 
 your grace should march forward." " So we intend, my 
 lord," rejilied the King. "On afore, my masters," shouted 
 the officers of arms ; and the whole company halted, face 
 foremost, close by the valley of Arde. 
 
 A minute's pause — a breathless silence, followed by a slight 
 stir on both sides. Then from the dense array of cloth of 
 gold, silver, and jewelry, of white plumes and waving pennons, 
 amidst the acclamations of myriads of spectators on the sur- 
 rounding hills, and the shrill burst of pipes, trumpets and 
 clarions, two horsemen were seen to emerge, and, in the sight 
 of both nations, slowly descend into the valley from opposite 
 sides. These were the two sovereigns. As they approached 
 nearer they sjuirred their horses to a gallop ; then uncovering, 
 embraced each other on horseback, and after dismounting 
 embraced again. Whilst the two sovereigns proceeded arm 
 in arm to a rich pavilion — which no one else was allowed to 
 enter, except Wolsey on one side and the Admiral of France 
 on the other — the officers on both sides, intermingling their 
 ranks, made good cheer, and toasted each other in broken 
 French and English : " Bons amys, French and English ! " ^ 
 
 Friday and Saturday were occupied in preparing the field 
 for the tournament. The lists, 900 feet in- length and 320 
 feet broad, were pitched on a rising ground in the territory of 
 Guisnes, about halfway between Guisnes and Arde. Galleries 
 hung with tapestry surrounded the inclosure, and, on the 
 right side in the place of honour, were two glazed chambers 
 for the two Queens. A deep foss served to keep off the crowd. 
 The entrances were guarded by twelve French and twelve 
 English archers ; and at the foot of the lists, under a triumphal 
 arch, stood the perron, or tree of nobility, from which the 
 shields of the two Kings were suspended on a higher line than 
 those of the other challengers and answerers. The perron 
 for Henry VIII. was formed of a hawthorn ; and for Francis I., 
 of a raspberry {framhoisier) , in supposed allusion to his name. 
 Cloth of gold served for the trunk and dried leaves ; the foliage 
 was of green silk ; the flowers and fruits of silver and Venetian 
 gold. Under the tree, which measured in compass not less 
 than 129 feet, the heralds took their stand on an artificial 
 mound, surrounded by railings of green damask. 
 
 On Sunday, whilst the French King dined at Guisnes with 
 the Queen of England, the English King dined with the 
 
 ' "Disoient ces parolles : Bons repetant plusieurs foys en beuvant 
 amys, Francoys et Angloys, en les lung a laultre de bon couraige."
 
 1520.] THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD. 3~)5 
 
 French Queen and the Duchess of Alen9on at Arde. On 
 arriving at the Queen's lodgings, Henry was received by 
 Louise of Savoy, and a bevy of ladies magnificently dressed. 
 Passing slowly through their ranks, in leisurely admiration of 
 their charms,^ he reached the apartment where the Queen 
 attended his coming. .As he made his reverence to the Queen, 
 she rose from her chair of state to meet him. Kneeling with 
 one knee on the ground, his bonnet in his hand, he first kissed 
 the Queen, nest Madame, then the Duchess of Alencon, and 
 finally all the princesses and ladies of the company. This 
 done, dinner was announced. At the third service, Mountjoy 
 herald entered with a great golden goblet, crying, in the name 
 of the King of England, " Largess to the most high, mighty, 
 and excellent prince, Henry King of England, &c. Largess, 
 largess ! " The banquet ended at five in the evening, when 
 the King took his leave. To display his skill before the 
 ladies, he set spurs to his horse, making it bound and curvet 
 " as valiantly as an}^ man could do." 
 
 The jousts commenced on Monday the 11th. The rules 
 adopted to secm-e fair play and guard against accidents may 
 be read by those curious in such matters in the original black- 
 letter " Ordonnance," printed at the time.^ 
 
 On the first day the Kings of England and France, with 
 their aids, held the lists against all comers ; and, with the 
 exception of Wednesday, when the wind was too high, the 
 jousts continued without interruption throughout the week. 
 On Sunday the two Kings exchanged hospitality as before. 
 On this occasion Francis, dropping all reserve, visited the 
 King of England before eight in the morning, attended by 
 four companions only, and, entering his apartment without 
 ceremony, embraced him as he was seated at breakfast.^ The 
 jousts were concluded in the following week, with a solemn 
 mass sung by the Cardinal in a chapel erected on the field. 
 The arrangements observed on this occasion, not less elaborate 
 than those by which the feats of arms were regulated, may be 
 read in the same volume as the "Ordonnance."* Here, as 
 in the ceremonial of the lists, the spirit of chivalry reigned 
 triumphant. When the Cardinal of Bourbon, according to 
 the usages of the time, presented the Gospel to the French 
 
 ' " Tont a son aise pour les veoir ' Thisstory has been repeated with 
 
 j\ son plaisir." various eniboUishnunits. 
 
 * Of which an epitome will be * Sec Calendar, IIJ. p. .'511. 
 
 found in the Calendar, III. 870.
 
 356 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 King to kiss, Francis, declining, commanded it to be offered 
 to the King of England, who was too well bred to accept the 
 honour. When the Pax was presented at the Agnus Dei, the 
 two sovereigns repeated the same mannerly breeding. The 
 two Queens were equally ceremonious. After a polite alter- 
 cation of some minutes, when neither would decide who should 
 be the first to kiss the Pax, womanlike they kissed each other 
 instead. A sermon in Latin, enlarging on the blessings of 
 peace, was delivered by Pace at the close of the service ; and 
 an artificial firework, four fathoms long, in the shape of a 
 salamander, was sent up in the air in the direction of Guisnes, 
 to the astonishment and terror of the beholders. The whole 
 was concluded with a banquet, at which the royal ladies, too 
 polite to eat, spent their time in conversation ; but the legates, 
 cardinals, and prelates dined, drank, and ate sans fiction, in 
 another room by themselves. 
 
 On Sunday, the 24th of June, the Kings met in the lists 
 to interchange gifts and bid each other farewell. Henry and 
 his court left for Calais ; Francis returned to Abbeville. 
 
 The two Kings parted, on the best of terms, as the world 
 thought, and with mutual feelings of regret. Yet Henry had 
 already arranged to meet the Emperor at Gravelines, there to 
 settle the terms of a new convention, to the disadvantage of 
 the French King.^ The imperial envoy, the Marquis d'Arschot, 
 arrived at Calais on the 4th of July, and was received by the 
 Duke of Buckingham. On the 5th the King visited Grave- 
 lines, and returned with the Emperor to Calais three days 
 after. The interview, graced by the presence of Charles, his 
 brother Ferdinand, Herman, the Archbishop of Cologne, and 
 the Lord Chievres, though less splendid, was more cordial than 
 the interview wdth the French King, and was meant for 
 business. 
 
 Frugal and reserved, the Emperor contrived, by his simple 
 and unostentatious habits, to render himself more agreeable 
 to his English guests than even Francis had been able to do 
 with all his profuse and expensive civilities. Not, as some 
 may condemn us, in consequence of our national fickleness ; 
 nor, as others may excuse us, because Englishmen preferred 
 the plainer manners of the German or the Fleming ; but 
 because in the interview with France, in spite of appearances, 
 there was no real cordiality. A tournament, in fact, was the 
 least eligible method of promoting friendly feeling ; it was 
 
 » See III. 914, seg.
 
 1520.] INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES AT GRAYELINES. 357 
 
 more likely to engender unpleasant disputes and jealousies. 
 To enforce the rules laid down for preserving order and fair 
 play among the combatants was not an easy or a popular 
 task. National rivahy was apt to break out, and it was hard 
 for the judges to escape the imputation of partiality. Nor 
 did the English, it must be admitted, return from the field 
 in much good humour. With a feeling of complacency en- 
 gendered by their insular position and their long isolation 
 from the Continent, they had been wont to consider them- 
 selves as far superior to the French in all exercises of strength 
 and agility. The French knights had shown themselves fully 
 equal to their English opponents ; the French King was not 
 inferior in personal courage and activity to his English rival.^ 
 Then rumours, such as spring up like the dragon's teeth in 
 vast and motley multitudes, evidently fanned and fostered by 
 Flemish emissaries, continually represented the French as 
 engaged in contriving some act of treachery against the 
 English King and nation. Among the nobles, also, the Dukes 
 of Suffolk and of Buckingham, the Lord Abergavenny and 
 others, were glad of any pretext for maligning a pageant of 
 which Wolsey had the prime direction. 
 
 Francis still hovered on the frontier in the fruitless hope 
 of being invited to take part in this interview with the 
 Emperor. The day before Charles left Ghent, the Lady 
 Vendome and the Duchess her daughter-in-law contrived to 
 have business in that town ; but their artifice was not suc- 
 cessful. Francis was obliged to content himself with the 
 assurance that the visage and countenance of his English ally 
 appeared " not to be so replenished with joy " as at the valley 
 of Arde,^ and that he had given proofs of undiminished affec- 
 tion by riding a courser that Francis had given him. With 
 an impressiveness intended to be candid, he told Sir Eichard 
 Wingfield, who had succeeded as English resident at the 
 French court, that " if the king Catholic were a prince of like 
 faith unto the King his brother (Henry), and that he might 
 perceive from Wolsey that his coming thither (to Calais) 
 might be the cause of any good conclusion between them " 
 (that is, between himself and the Emperor), " he would not 
 fail to come in post, and not to have looked for rank and 
 
 ' Thus Hall, who will not be accused and so well acted his challenge of 
 
 of partiality to the French, says (p. jousts, that he ought ever to be sitoken 
 
 61«) : " The French King on his part of." 
 ran valiantly, breaking spears eagerly, ^ 111.91;}.
 
 358 THE REIGX OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 place to him belonging, but would have put him into the 
 King's chamber as one of the number of the same." But 
 neither his extreme humility, nor his flattering proposal that 
 Henry and himself, " the chief pillars of Christendom," 
 should handle the Pope, whom Francis knew "to be at some 
 season the fearfullest creature of the world, and at some other 
 to be as brave," nor the schemes and blandishments of the 
 ladies, availed. He chafed under his disappointment ; still 
 more at his ill success in counteracting the growing intimacy 
 of Henry and the Emperor. He had exhausted to little 
 purpose, " that liberal and unsuspicious confidence " which 
 too credulous historians are apt to think characterized his 
 proceedings at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, to the dis- 
 advantage of his less attractive and engaging contemporary. 
 He could neither prevent the meeting of his two rivals, nor 
 penetrate their secrets. He was utterly foiled, yet dared not 
 show his resentment. "Whilst the Pope and the Spaniards, 
 unable to penetrate beneath the surface, or read the signs of 
 the times, were puzzled and scandalized at the Emperor's 
 condescension, the world looked on with astonishment, as 
 well it might, to see the two monarchs of the "West thus 
 anxiously soliciting the Cardinal's good graces. What could 
 there be in the son of a butcher to command such deference ? ^ 
 Of the projects discussed at this interview we are not 
 precisely informed. The English version,^ intended for the 
 meridian of the French court, and to lull the suspicions of 
 Francis, is the only account we possess. If any credit be due to 
 a statement prepared under such circumstances and calculated 
 to alienate the French King irrecoverably from the Emperor, 
 we are to believe that the imperial ambassadors had already 
 proposed to Henry to break off his matrimonial engagement 
 with France, and transfer the hand of the Princess Mary to 
 the Emperor. As an inducement for the King to coincide in 
 this arrangement, the Emperor undertook to make war on 
 France by sea and land, and not desist until Henry "had 
 recovered his right and title in the same." ^ The King, 
 according to the same document, rejected such a teacherous 
 overture with the utmost horror, vehemently protesting against 
 its immorality and perfidiousness. That such a proposal was 
 made, though probably not by Chievres,* to whom it is 
 
 * For the arrangements at this in- ^ HI. 936. 
 
 terview, see the Rutland Papers, p. 50. •* 'Ibe proposition was put in the 
 
 ^ See III. p. 346. moulh of Chievres, the minister of
 
 1520.] MAKY'S HAND OFFERED TO CHARLES. 359 
 
 attributed — that it was accepted by England, but with none 
 of the indignation described in the document — is clear bej'ond 
 dispute. Long before any interruption had occurred in the 
 amicable relations between the two countries, before even the 
 landing of Charles at Canterbury, or in the interview in the 
 valley of Arde, it had been secretly proposed that the French 
 engagement should be set aside, and the hand of Mary be 
 transferred to the Emperor.^ The King's horror at this act 
 of faithlessness — if it had any existence bej'Ond the paper on 
 which it was written — must have been tardj- and gratuitous, 
 seeing that the chief purpose of the meeting at Calais was to 
 settle the basis of this matrimonial alliance, and obtain the 
 solemn ratification of the Emperor. 
 
 But Charles was in no hurry to commit himself. His 
 indecision was the result rather of policy than of temper. As 
 the Princess and himself were within the prohibited degrees of 
 relationship, no matrimonial alliance could be concluded 
 between them without a papal dispensation : — a pretext fertile 
 in delay, or, should his interests require it, spacious and con- 
 venient for retracting his engagements. The offer of his 
 hand, whether made in sincerity or not by the Emperor, 
 served his purposes ; it kept Henry faithful to his interests, 
 and opposed an effectual barrier to the blandishments of 
 France. By insisting on a papal disj)ensation, the Emperor 
 reserved for himself a loophole of escape, should he find his 
 union with Mary inexpedient, or desire to extract more 
 advantageous terms from his future father-in-law. His 
 matrimonial projects at this time were somewhat complicated. 
 
 He had bound himself by the most solemn obligations to 
 marrj' the Princess Charlotte of France. Her continued in- 
 disposition, and the disinclination of his Spanish subjects to 
 the match, furnished him with a valid excuse for breaking his 
 engagement. To gratify himself no less than his subjects, 
 the Emperor was already turning his eyes towards a matri- 
 monial alliance with Portugal. Next perhaps to the hand of 
 Mary, such an alliance offered those pecuniary advantages of 
 which Charles at this time stood much in need. His troops 
 were in a state of disorder and insubordination for want of 
 pay. They could neither be suffered to remain where they 
 were, nor be transferred to more friendly territories, lest by 
 their excesses they should convert friends into enemies. His 
 
 Charles "V., because he, more than any French interests. 
 
 other, was supposed to favour the ' Sec III. pp. 425, -458.
 
 31)0 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 ambassadors wanted money even to pay their couriers. Of 
 his vast dominions in the old world, Spain, in a state of 
 insurrection, refused to submit to the extortions of the tax 
 collectors.^ The Flemings, sulky and dissatisfied with the 
 prodigality of the court, would advance no funds for purposes 
 and projects over which they could exercise no control. Never 
 wealthy, jealous, to a fault, of their independence, his new 
 German subjects turned a deaf ear to his entreaties ; whilst 
 Italj'', plundered alike by friend and foe, was in no condition 
 to relieve his increasing necessities. Master of the most 
 extensive dominions in the world, Charles was the least 
 formidable Prince of his age. As Leo X. told the imperial 
 ambassador, his master's power was merely negative : it 
 depended on his opposition to French aggrandizement, which 
 most men feared, and all men suspected. As for the rest, 
 said the sagacious Pontiff, it was more in axDpearance than 
 reality. 
 
 So a marital alliance with England, or rather the aid 
 which so rich a country could afford him, became with Charles 
 a state necessity. But of the three ladies whom he had 
 engaged to wed, not one could be rejected without disastrous 
 consequences. On Madame Charlotte depended the friendship 
 of France ; on the Princess Mary, the alliance of England ; 
 the rejection of Isabella of Portugal was equivalent to the loss 
 of some millions of ducats. It was his policy, therefore, or 
 that of his ministers, to flatter the expectations of each by 
 turns, and reduce none to absolute despair. La Sauch and 
 Barroso carried on the negociations with Portugal — to which 
 his own sister, of course, contributed not a little ; the Bishop 
 of Elna kept the English court in good humour ; whilst 
 Chievres, the most powerful and influential of his advisers, 
 whom Wolsey most feared and hated, not without cause, 
 supported his interests with France. 
 
 For the present, negociations languished on all sides. On 
 liis return from the interviews at Guisnes and Calais, Wolsey 
 had started on a pilgrimage to Walsingham, and all business 
 was suspended in his absence. The King spent most of his 
 time in hunting.'^ The Emperor was occupied in preparing 
 
 ' See particularly III. 976. One become of 5,600,000 ducats of gold 
 
 of the chief causes of the insurrection and other monies received by the 
 
 was the prodigality of the Emperor's Emperor since the death of Ferdinand 
 
 Flemish ministers. The insurgents of Arragon. 
 
 insisted upon knowing what had ^ " There is no other news here,"
 
 1520.] ENGLISH JEALOUSY OF FRANCE. 861 
 
 for his coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. As for France, its 
 relations with Enghind, though ostensibly amiable, were ruffled 
 by various incidents which boded no good to the unit}^ of the 
 two crowns. Too cautious, if not too politic, to express his 
 real sentiments, the French monarch naturally regarded the 
 late interview at Calais with jealousy and distrust. He was 
 too well informed of what had passed not to harbour resent- 
 ment ; too sensible of his danger to display it. A vigorous or 
 angry remonstrance would have given England an excuse for 
 throwing herself at once into the arms of the Emperor. If 
 that step could not be entirely averted, every hour's delay was 
 an advantage. A seeming friendship, however flimsy and 
 hollow, was better than a declaration of open hostility. A 
 show of undiminished amity with England served to intimidate 
 the Pope, and keep in awe the secondary powers of Christen- 
 dom, who were only too ready to declare against him. The 
 task, as might be supposed, was a hard one ; it was in danger 
 of being frustrated every hour by some unforeseen accident, 
 by some trifle, weak as air, invested with exaggerated propor- 
 tions by the jealousy of the two courts, or the mercantile 
 rivaky of the two nations. At the meeting in the valley of 
 Arde, Francis had taken an opportunity of putting the 
 ruinous defences of that town into better condition. The 
 work had been continued when the interview was over. Eager 
 to take offence, Henry complained. He ordered his ambas- 
 sadors to remonstrate. The French were indignant : such a 
 proceeding, they said, was " very strange ; " and the ambas- 
 sadors must have exceeded their commission. The defences, 
 they averred, were necessary for the security of the King's 
 person ; for the loj' alty and obedience of his subjects on the 
 frontiers. The English Court doggedly refused to entertain 
 " this strange overture," as they termed it. They urged that 
 no fortifications had been erected at Arde ever since they were 
 razed, either in this King's reign or in that of his predecessor ; 
 therefore, " it was right strange under the color of this inter- 
 view that the French should attempt to do what might annoy 
 the King's subjects, and put them in suspicion of living in 
 trouble rather than in quietness." With remonstrances that 
 looked like menaces they mingled gentler expostulations. 
 Such works, they said, could be of no advantage to the 
 French King; the friendship of England was a better pro- 
 
 writea Tanstal to Wolsey, then on his continual hunting." Aug. 18. 
 journey, " but goodly pastimes and
 
 362 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 tection than walls or bulwarks. If, however, Francis persisted 
 in this course, Englishmen would be faintly encouraged to 
 take his part, so much they murmured at these i^roceedings.-^ 
 
 The town of Arde was as much a part of the French 
 dominions as Calais was of England ; and Henry would have 
 deemed it strange and unwarrantable if, even under the pre- 
 tence of amity, Francis had protested against similar repairs 
 at Guisnes or Calais. The dispute grew warm ; the King of 
 England and his minister were resolute ; at last Francis 
 yielded. The fortifications of Arde were abandoned, and by 
 the 1st of October, as Sandys wrote to Wolsey,^ not a workman 
 or pioneer was to be found in the place. 
 
 Whilst these causes for irritation arose to disturb the 
 amity of the two Kings, and the Emperor was occupied at 
 Gravelines in making himself agreeable to his new allies, 
 his subjects in Spain, taking advantage of his absence, rose in 
 rebellion under Don Juan Padilla. The enthusiasm inspired 
 by the insurrection, the celerity with which it spread among 
 the commons, indicate some deeper and more abiding cause 
 of disaffection than the greed of the Emperor's Flemish 
 ministers, to whose rapacity and insolence it has been 
 generally attributed. But I have only to consider the fact in 
 its more immediate relation to those events which determined 
 the policy of England. Whilst the whole energies of Charles 
 were taxed to repress rebellion in Spain, he could find no 
 leisure for interfering in the affairs of Italy. So Francis 
 prepared to make the most of his advantage, by invading the 
 jDeninsula, secure of success, and free from interruption. 
 
 The news of his intention fell like a thunderbolt on the 
 astonished ears of the English court. Nothing could be more 
 unwelcome or more disastrous. It was not merely the 
 aggrandizement of French territory which had to be feared, 
 should the French arms prove successful. The mere presence 
 of the French in Italy would at once put a stop to all those 
 designs which English and Imperialists had been prosecuting 
 with the utmost vigour, secrecy, and despatch, and had not 
 yet brought to a successful termination. It had been the 
 object of Wolsey to unite in one firm alhance, offensive and 
 
 * SeeRuthal'slettertotheCardinal snfiRcient answer to the insinnations 
 
 while on his journey to Walsingham, that the King was wholly influenced 
 
 August 18, III. App. No. 10. As in all his measures by his minister, and 
 
 Euthal was expressing the King's scarcely ever looked at his despatches, 
 sentiments before he had received any * III. 1013. 
 
 communication from Wolsey, it is a
 
 1520.] FRANCIS MASTER OF THE SITUATION. S63 
 
 defensive, the Pope, the Emperor, and England. But if 
 Francis persisted in his intention, if he once made his ap- 
 pearance in Italy, all hopes of such a combination were at an 
 end. So far from becoming a party to the league, the Pope, 
 timid and vacillating, would make the best terms that he 
 could with his dreaded and abhorred protector. All Italy 
 would follow his example ; and thus the very instrument 
 which the Cardinal hoped might be brought to bear against 
 France would be turned against himself. 
 
 To oppose the design with threats or open violence would 
 have been mconsistent with those professions of friendship 
 which England still thought fit to adopt towards the French 
 King. Nothing remained but to try the effects of negociation. 
 The English ambassador was instructed to represent to Francis 
 the deep regret with which his master had heard of his inten- 
 tion to cross the mountains. Such a distance, he urged, must 
 separate very friends, and prove a barrier to that free and 
 constant intercourse which had hitherto existed between them. 
 As French interests were so well established in Italy, Henry 
 trusted that there would be no urgent cause for such an 
 expedition. If, however, Francis apprehended the Emperor's 
 designs in that quarter (and that alone could justify his 
 enterprise in the midst of profound peace), his English ally 
 would take ample care to send effectual aid, and join with 
 him in repelling the invader.-^ 
 
 What answer was made by Francis to these amicable 
 remonstrances we are not informed. I find by a subsequent 
 despatch from Sir Nicholas Carew ^ that the English ministers 
 were still labouring at the same anvil, with little apparent 
 success. To discover his real intentions, Carew told the 
 French monarch that after the diet, soon to be held at Worms, 
 the Emperor intended to return into Spain, and extinguish 
 the rebellion in person. More than usually cautious and 
 reticent, Francis replied it was quite needful the Emperor 
 should do so. He was in no mood to betray his intentions, 
 as he was apt to do when drawn into conversation. When 
 Carew informed him that his master had persuaded the Pope, 
 the Emperor, the Swiss, and all the estates of Ital}^ to 
 maintain their amity with France, so that he should have 
 no occasion to cross the mountains, except for his amusement, 
 Francis coldly answered that his expedition was only for the 
 satisfaction of his subjects and the reform of justice. With 
 
 III. 1092. 2 1 J 1 , 1 1 26 ; compare also 1157.
 
 364 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 more courtesy, but less sincerity, his favourite minister, the 
 Admiral, professed the greatest gratitude for Henry's good 
 offices. He thought the English " counsel right good and 
 honorable to the King his master ; " and if matters could be 
 concluded on the other side of the mountains in such a way 
 as not to compromise his master's honour and profit, why — 
 he himself would be content to urge the King to follow Henry's 
 advice, and desist from so expensive an expedition ! 
 
 Matters were beginning to wear a serious aspect. On the 
 part of the Emperor they were not more encouraging. After 
 his coronation at Aix, a ceremony imposed upon him by the 
 constitution of the empire, Charles had to decide at once on 
 his future movements. The condition of Spain and of Italy 
 was equally critical ; both equally demanded his immediate 
 presence. The rebellion was advancing with rapid strides in 
 Spain ; Italy, exposed to the intrigues of the French, was in 
 danger of being lost irretrievably. If Charles turned his steps 
 towards Italy, Spain would be surrendered to the rebels, and 
 Navarre revert to its ancient rulers. The d'Albrets, re- 
 established on their ancient throne, would prove an effectual 
 support to France, and cause incessant trouble to Spain. If, 
 on the other hand, he turned to Spain, the Pope and all the 
 minor potentates of Italy, abandoned to themselves, would fall 
 a prey to the intrigues of the French. 
 
 Besides, he had already bound himself at his coronation to 
 settle the troubles of Germany. What sort of task that was 
 at any time, and still more in 1521, the reader may judge by a 
 memorial of the agenda at the diet at Worms, transmitted to 
 England apparently by Spinelly, at the instigation of Tunstal, 
 and arranged under fifteen heads.^ In addition to the religious 
 controversies and the refutation of Luther's heresies, almost 
 all the disputes by which Germany had been distracted for 
 the last fifty years were to be carefully examined, and, if 
 possible, adjusted. More than thirty bishops were at variance 
 with the temporal lords for their several jurisdictions. Nurem- 
 berg, Wurzburg, Bamberg, Constance, were each engaged in 
 obstinate feuds ; here temporal, there ecclesiastical disputes, 
 
 > See III. 1185. The diet, says had been of little efficacy. The Pope's 
 
 the memorial, will take notice of the curse was disregarded, and Luther's 
 
 books and descriptions {i.e. writings) works were devoured with greater 
 
 made by friar Martin Lutero, a schis- avidity than before : " the which friar 
 
 matic, against the court of Rome. Martin of the elector of Saxon and 
 
 According to the same witness the other princes of this country is 
 
 proceedings already taken against him favored."
 
 1521.] THE EMPEROR'S TERPLEXITIES. 305 
 
 put forth their vigorous and interminable filaments. One 
 projjosal, especially worth notice, was to be carried if possible, 
 and seemed likel}' to raise a storm of opposition ; sc. " that 
 no man, without the consent of the Emperor and Electors, 
 should, for any personal quarrel or other cause, presume to 
 declare war, as had been done in times past : " and to this, 
 says the memorial, the cities and towns were determined to 
 stick fast. 
 
 Could anything show more clearly the confusion and dis- 
 order into which Germany was plunged, or the magnitude of 
 the task undertaken by the Emperor, at the time when every 
 quarter of his dominions was threatened by a domestic or a 
 foreign enemy, and the very units of which society was com- 
 posed were ready to start back into their primeval chaos ? 
 
 Charles was perplexed, and hesitated. His council was 
 divided. One party, of whom Chievres was the chief, was 
 loud and earnest in its asseverations that the ill news from 
 Spain was exaggerated. If, said they, Italy be abandoned, 
 Milan must be lost ; French influence will become predominant 
 in the peninsula ; the Pope, inclined to befriend the Emperor, 
 will make terms with his enemy. These arguments were 
 enforced by numerous Italian exiles driven from their homes 
 through hatred or oppression of French rule ; still more, by 
 the repeated remonstrances of Don Manuel, the Spanish 
 ambassador at the Papal court. But they were not urged 
 solely out of consideration to the Emperor's interests. Chievres 
 and his Flemish favourites had become odious to Spain by 
 their rapacity. To return, and brave the irritation of the 
 Spaniards, was impossible. So in the determination of this 
 political dispute was involved the fall of one party, and the 
 supremacy of its rivals. And not that only. If Charles 
 resolved on returning to Spain, the influence of Chievres 
 would be at an end, and with it all hopes of French supremacy 
 in the councils of the Emperor. This is the key to the policy 
 of Henry and his minister. This was the reason of their 
 urging the Emperor to return to Spain. Their repeated 
 rcjprescntntions of the necessity of such a step, — their solici- 
 tude for this quarter of the imperial dominions, so dispropor- 
 tionate to that charity which nations in general entertain for 
 the troubles of their neighbours, — had this end in view, this, 
 and no other. And to this, and no other cause, must we 
 refer the explosion of wrath with which the Spanish envoy 
 some months before received Wolsey's considerate suggestion,
 
 366 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY YIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 that Madame (Margaret) should cliange places with Chievres, 
 whose grey hairs required repose, and whose presence would 
 be less beneficial in Spain. -^ 
 
 As sickness prevailed at Worms, the diet was dissolved in 
 the end of May, 1521, after a very short conference. It was 
 not reserved for Emperor or Electors to settle in the space of 
 two months the disputes by which Germany was distracted, 
 still less to put back again into the original nutshell from 
 which it had emanated the nascent spirit of reform. The 
 sun-dial of public opinion would not return one degree back- 
 ward for Pope, Emperor, men, or devils. So Luther, fortis- 
 simus peccator, retired from the diet to disseminate winged 
 briefs and letters from his island of Patmos, and fight the 
 devil over again in his solitude of the Wartberg, as he had 
 fought with him among the beasts at Worms. Bishops were 
 
 * The singular conversation to 
 which I refer is slia^htly abridged from 
 a letter addressed by De la Saach, 
 the Spanish envoy, to Chievres himself, 
 April 7, 1520. After telling Chievres 
 hov? Wolsey had said his master was 
 desirous of having Madame present 
 at the interview (at Calais), that all 
 might urge her to go to Spain, as the 
 only means of reducing that kingdom 
 to quiet, he continues : " On the other 
 side, the Cardinal urged that, when 
 our master went into Germany, it 
 might be that you (Chievres) would 
 be desirous of rest, and so would like 
 to have some person in your room ; 
 but that you would not wish to be 
 deprived of all authority ; reasonably 
 enough." But, he added, they could 
 not see how this could be easily 
 brought about unless Madame were 
 sent into Spain. Wolsey continued to 
 insist on the advisability of this course, 
 and the numerous inconveniences which 
 would follow on rejecting it. " Upon 
 this," continues De la Sauch, " I ex- 
 cused you, and I told him that I 
 thought I knew your intentions well 
 enough to assure him that whenever 
 you made up your mind to retire, 
 which I imagined you would do after 
 the King's coronation at Aix, yon 
 w^ould not wish to hold any office, for 
 this would not be retirement {repos). 
 If, on the other hand, you desire to 
 continue your services you would not 
 feel inclined to desert the Emperor; 
 and as to any office or government, you 
 would never become a party to such 
 an exchange as he proposed, and so 
 
 incur the displeasure of Madame. I 
 told him she was the Emperor's aunt, 
 and there was no reason for supposing 
 that he would deprive her of the 
 government of the Netherlands for 
 any one. Wolsey insisted, in reply, 
 that the change was necessary for the 
 Emperor's affairs. ' We will persuade 
 him to this (he said), and that during 
 her absence M. Chievres shall have 
 her place in Flanders.' ' Certes, Mon- 
 sieur,' I replied, ' I think that if 
 Madame wished to go into Spain she 
 would be very welcome, and the King 
 would be glad of it ; but he would not 
 press her to accept it against her 
 will. And as for M. de Chievres, I 
 am sure that whenever he retires from 
 the charge he has about the King he 
 will never undertake any other office.' 
 ' Ah ! Master Secretary,' he replied to 
 me in Latin, ' if you believe that, I 
 perceive well enough that you have 
 no perfect knowledge of the disposition 
 of men in authority.' To this remark 
 I made no reply, but I thought that 
 he fancied all mankind was like him- 
 self, and that he would be very sorry 
 if he were deprived of his authority. 
 On the other hand, I could not help 
 wondering at his extravagant (folle) 
 absirrdity in supposing that if the 
 Kinrr oar master wished Madame to 
 go into Spain, she would rather do so 
 at their persuasion than at his." 
 Chievres was an old man, whose in- 
 fluence had once been paramount with 
 his master. He must have been more 
 than mortal, if ever he forgave the 
 Cardinal this insult.
 
 1521.] CHARLES'S IMATEIMOXIAL PROJECTS. 367 
 
 still doomed to go on quarrelling with temporal lords and 
 temporal lords with bishops. The denunciation of private 
 wars did not hinder Hutten and Sickingen from avenfi^inof 
 then* own quarrels, or those of others, as passion or interest 
 dictated. The daj's when diets could smooth down into unity 
 the ruffled passions, principles, convictions of men, were as 
 equally numbered with the past, as those of Convocation and 
 General Councils. 
 
 But the political complications in which Cbarles found 
 himself involved were augmented by his matrimonial projects. 
 To carr}^ on three such negociations as these simultaneously 
 with secresy and success demanded great tact. His choice 
 varied between England and Portugal, for the rupture with 
 France had already proceeded so far as to cause him little 
 uneasiness. A matrimonial alliance with Portugal suited 
 best his inclination, while one with England best served his 
 political interests. But then the dowry offered by Henry was 
 less in amount than that offered by Portugal ; besides, the 
 English monarch insisted on deducting from it the sums he 
 had already advanced to the Emperor. One hope remained. 
 If he consented to the projected marriage with Mary, the 
 fulfilment of which could be indefinitely postponed on a 
 variety of pretexts, Henry might be induced to declare war 
 against France, and so irretrievably commit himself to a 
 course from which he could not retire with honour. This 
 was all that the Emperor wanted ; that done, he would be 
 free to choose his bride from France, England, or Portugal, 
 as best suited his inclinations or his interests. So the policy 
 of the Emperor was mainly concentrated on two objects ; 
 first, to exact from the King of Portugal as large a dowry as 
 possible ; secondly, to induce England by all means in his 
 power, short of an irrevocable engagement to Mary, to declare 
 war against France. Of the real nature of his negociations 
 with Portugal, the English court was to be kept in ignorance, 
 except so far as a knowledge of the offers of Portugal might 
 serve to advance his interests in England ; whilst the King of 
 Portugal, informed from time to time of the advantageous 
 conditions offered by England, would be induced to bid higher 
 for an imperial son-in-law. 
 
 With the course of these negociations at the court of 
 Portugal I am not concerned. Although the secret was very 
 strictly kept, it did not wholly escape the penetration of 
 Wolsey. Into the trap tlms cunningly prepared for him he
 
 368 TPIE REIGN OF HEXRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 obstinately refused to enter, much to the dissatisfaction of the 
 imperial agents, who vented their anger in abusive epithets, 
 and consoled themselves for their disappointment by insinua- 
 tions against the Cardinal's honesty. It cannot be said that 
 be remained unmoved ; for he was not of a temper to bear 
 indignity with patience. But, conscious of his strength, he 
 treated then' anger and imj)atience with indifference, and not 
 unfrequently with lofty contempt. He had determined on his 
 course ; he had fixed the terms on which the alliance of Eng- 
 land was to be had : — these, and no others ; — they might take 
 them, or go. He would not bate an inch, or depart a hair's 
 breadth from them, let Emperors and imperialists storm as 
 they would. 
 
 And storm they did, for they were not accustomed to con- 
 tradiction. The least pliant, the least courteous, in general 
 the least successful negociator in the world, the Spaniard was 
 detested in every court in Europe. In dealing with the Pope, 
 the Venetians, or inferior powers, he dispensed with the arts 
 of dij)lomacy, not because he despised them, but because he 
 was too proud to condescend, too overbearing to conciliate, 
 where force could be employed with impunity. With England 
 that was impossible. In Wolsey he met with a scorn loftier 
 than his own, and his anger was consequently unbounded. 
 Formal, tedious, corrupt, are the expletives by which Don 
 Manuel and others, in their correspondence with Charles V., 
 found a safety-valve for their vexation, a compensation for 
 their wounded vanity. But to accept, as some have done, 
 such expressions as grave historical evidence, to regard them 
 as anything more than the spleen of the moment, to convert 
 them into a solemn and ponderous charge against Wolsey' s 
 integrity, is altogether absm'd. 
 
 The Emperor's council was no less perplexed and dis- 
 tracted than the Emperor. A million dollars with the hand 
 of the Princess of Portugal was a tempting offer ; but then its 
 acceptance involved the loss of the English alliance, and the 
 union of England with France. That alHance could be had 
 only upon the terms dictated by Wolsey, and these were hard 
 and strict : a dower of 50,000?., the privilege for Henry to 
 declare hostilities against France at his own option, and 
 indemnity for the losses he must incur in so doing. Would it 
 not be possible to cajole or bribe the Cardinal, and so extract 
 from him more favourable terms, a greater deference to the 
 wishes and interests of the Emperor? Might he not, being
 
 lo21.] WOLSEY NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH. 369 
 
 only an Englishman, incapable of conceiving grand theories of 
 universal dominion, and a stranger to that wisdom which a 
 continental education engendered, become a puppet in the 
 diplomatic hands of Cobos, Gattinara, or even Don Manuel ? 
 So weak men judge of the strong ; so small men imagine the 
 great. 
 
 At this time Tunstal was the English ambassador at the 
 imperial court. He had complained already of the wayward- 
 ness, delay, and indecision of the Emperor's council. In no 
 mood to be trifled with, the Cardinal wrote in the King's 
 name to the ambassador, then at Worms. After thanking 
 him for his discreet behaviour and good service, he thus 
 proceeds : ^ " We marvel at the sudden change in the Emperor's 
 council, in resolving not to enter further into this alliance of 
 marriage till he have leave from the Pope, unless we consent 
 to treat all matters simultaneously; sc. make a defensive 
 league with the Pope, take the Swiss into pay, grant him aid 
 against his Spanish rebels, and agree to a new interview. 
 This is far discrepant from the overtures made us at Calais 
 and by his ambassadors in England. For, although, as you 
 state, the Pope's dispensation is necessary for this marriage, 
 as we have foreseen, the parties being in the second degree of 
 consanguinity, the difficulty may be cleared by a bull of dis- 
 pensation. But we will not consent to any treaties or 
 arrangements until this article of the marriage he first fidly 
 concluded, nor join in any league with the Pope and the 
 Emperor until such dispensation be first granted siih j^lumbo, 
 which shall be obtained in the most secret manner.^ 
 
 " We wonder they refuse these things, which are so much 
 to their advantage. For considering the amity between us 
 and France, that our daughter is already honorably bestowed 
 there, and that we are at peace with all Christian princes, what 
 need have loe of any further alliance with Pope or Emperor 
 than such as we have already ? Why should ivc meddle with 
 the Swiss, or make war upon France ? What object have ive 
 to gain in aiding the Emperor against his rebels, except it be 
 from the love we bear him ? Do we stand in need of aid from 
 
 * See III. 1150. I have abrirlgefl had first made sure of the friendship 
 the document, as it consists of 40 of Euj^laud. The favour of Henry, as 
 pages. the ambassador repeatedly told his 
 
 * In spite of all the intrigues and imperial master, was indispensable to 
 threats of Don .Juan Manuel, Leo X. the success of hia ailairs. See 
 could not bo persuaded to make any especially his despatch, Doc. 3, 1520, 
 alliance with the Emperor until ho in Bergenroth's Calendar. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 B
 
 :J70 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 the Emperor, or from any other ? If they make difficulties, 
 we are not minded to bestow our favors upon those who are 
 unwilKng to accept them. We only require this assurance on 
 their part that we may be the more heartily inclined to the 
 Emperor's interest ; for without it we have no special induce- 
 ment to tender his welfare. It will not prevent the Emperor 
 from marrying any person of lawful age before our daughter 
 comes to mature years, as he will only be bound to take her if 
 he be then at liberty." 
 
 Then addressing himself specially to the ear of the ambas- 
 sador, he adds : " This alliance must be concluded before any 
 other convention ; for, if it were delayed until after the league 
 with the Pope, the Emperor and his ministers might insist 
 upon very unreasonable demands, lead us into war and 
 intolerable expenses, bring us into suspicion with our other 
 confederates, and, after we had helped them to play their 
 game, leave us in the lurch." 
 
 After some remarks on the dowry to be given with the 
 Princess, which was not to exceed 50,000L sterling, Tunstal is 
 informed that no particulars will be sent him at present as to 
 the league with the Pope, the entertainment of the Swiss, the 
 aid to be given against the Spanish rebels, — all points of the 
 utmost solicitude to Charles and his ministers, and their main 
 inducement for entering on these negociations for Mary's 
 hand. For, "to be plain with you," he subjoins, "it would 
 be great folly in this young prince, not being more surely 
 settled in his dominions, and so ill provided with treasure and 
 fjood councillors, the Pope also being so brittle and variable, to 
 be led into war for the pleasure of his ministers. It is there- 
 fore not advisable to enter into stricter bonds with the Pope 
 than at present, or be at charges for the Swiss, or to send any 
 embassy to alienate them from France, or give assistance 
 against the rebels in Spain, as the Emperor may reimburse 
 himself by confiscating their lands and goods. As for the 
 interview which they ask for, though it will be expensive to us 
 and our nobles, we shall not object to it, if all else be con- 
 cluded." 
 
 Then, as if to remind the Emperor that these new objec- 
 tions had no place in his thoughts when he first viewed with 
 the utmost jealousy and alarm the personal interview of the 
 French and English monarchs only a few months before, he 
 adds : " At Canterbury, and again at Calais, when this matter 
 was broached, the Emperor was willing to have concluded
 
 1521.] CHARLES MUST GIVE A DEFINITE ANSWER. 371 
 
 this alliance without any dispensation from the Pope ; and we 
 are led to suspect that they now only are seeking to delay it 
 until they have learned from the French ambassador now 
 sent to them what offer will be made [them] by the French 
 king. As we understand that the Emj^eror lately reproved 
 Chievres and the Chancellor (Gattinara) for neglecting Eng- 
 land, and charged them that they should write nothing to us 
 without his express knowledge, if you see no better towardli- 
 ness in them than heretofore, repair to the Emperor himself, 
 show him our mind, note his answers, and how he seems dis- 
 posed ; for we doubt not, when he has well weighed the nature 
 of this bond and the advantage of the match, he will make no 
 further difficulty. Then, if the Emperor's council continue 
 intractable, you shall tell the Emperor secretly, as of yourself, 
 that, in consideration of the old-standing amity between the 
 two sovereigns, there is no prince, your own king excepted, 
 for whom you entertain a stronger regard ; and therefore you 
 are induced for his own sake to tell him what consequences 
 are certain to ensue if he reject this alliance. For if the 
 match between the princess Mary and the Dauphin be suffered 
 to proceed, and the Dauphin become king of France, and in 
 her right king of England, the navies of France and England 
 will shut the Emperor from the seas. If he makes his abode 
 in Spain, the Low Countries will be in danger; and the 
 French King, monarch of two kingdoms and of the Duchy of 
 Milan, will imperil Naples, and attain the monarchy of Chris- 
 tendom. Whereas all these advantages would fall to the 
 Emperor, if he accepted this alliance ; so that he should 
 rather labor himself to break this match with France than stay 
 for England to make any overtures for the same." 
 
 Thus fortified, Tunstal returned once more to the great 
 object of his negociation. The chief impediment to its success 
 was the Flemish minister Chievres, as might have been 
 expected. He was far advanced in years, and resented the 
 suggestion of Wolsey, already mentioned, that he should give 
 himself a little repose, and enjoy the shade of his own laurels, 
 without venturing again into Spain. The advice was not the 
 more palatable because it was wholesome. The rapacity of 
 Chievres and his nephew, the young Cardinal De Croy — 
 Cardinal and Archbishop of Toledo at the age of twenty, self- 
 sufficient and incompetent, had filled the breasts of the 
 Spanish nobles and ecclesiastics with bitter indignation. The 
 old goat, as they complained, in gibing allusion to his name,
 
 372 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 did nothing but fill empty Flemish wells, and, gnawing to the 
 bone his imperial ward, foster poverty and contention in his 
 household.^ But though his influence was on the wane, he 
 was still omnipotent with the Emperor. In his present 
 temper, it was hopeless to expect that Chievres would counte- 
 nance a match with England, and thus augment the influence 
 of that party to which he was personally and politically 
 opposed. In vain Tunstal argued first with one and then 
 with another : points determined at one meeting were un- 
 settled at the next. Pretexts were not wanting to avoid a 
 definitive answer, or put ofi' the ambassador's audience, when 
 it was not likely to prove agreeable. 
 
 First, the terms of the alliance were open to controversy : 
 — the Emperor did not understand Latin, and the papers 
 must be translated into French. Then again his attention 
 was engrossed by the diet at Worms. He had much business 
 with the Electors on the affairs of the empire. At Shrovetide, 
 there was to be " a solemn joust of nobles and gentlemen." 
 His sister's marriage, visits of ceremony from and to the 
 Electors, filled up the interval. It was clear the ambassador 
 would get no answer. " I think," says Tunstal, *' they will 
 delay till they see how the electors are inclined." ^ This was 
 the real secret. If the Emperor could bring them into good 
 humour and some degree of unanimity, he might expect to 
 reap the fruits of his ingenuity and their benevolence, and so 
 stnnd upon his own terms. For Charles was deeply involved. 
 " The household and all the gentlemen been behind of their 
 wages almost trei quarters," says Spinelly ; " whereupon hath 
 grown a great murmur against the lord Chievres." But 
 Charles was not disheartened. On the strength of his new 
 expectations he had borrowed of the Belzers of Augsburg 
 130,000 florins. He was a young man then, and the child 
 of fortune. The reconciliation of the rival claims of the 
 spiritual and temporal powers, the pacification and unity of 
 a,ll Germany, the harmonious cradling of the lion with the 
 kid, of Luther with the Lady of Babylon, — all these were 
 golden visions, easy to be realized by the supreme monarch 
 of Christendom — an Emperor of twenty-one. 
 
 In this juncture Wolsey addressed himself to Henry VIII. 
 
 ' See Pet. Martyr. Epist. 646, et whose aggrandizement he had exposed 
 
 fassim. Within the last four weeks himself to so much obloquy. Spinelly's 
 
 he had sustained a great loss in the letter, III. App. 22. 
 dtath of his favourite nephew, for * III. 1162.
 
 1521.] THE AMBASSADOR MUST RETUEN. 373 
 
 After stating that he bad received letters in cipher from Henry's 
 ambassador with the Emperor, the contents of which be had 
 deciphered, and sent, he proceeds : " This is far discrepant 
 from good and congruence, founded and contrived only for 
 delays, whereby they be like more to lose than your Grace 
 shall ; and great simpleness and lack of good remembrance 
 may be arrected to them, thus to use so wise and expert a 
 prince in his affairs as ye be ; alleging that they cannot treat 
 of the alliance proposed by yom* Grace, the honor of their 
 master saved, except the Pope do dispense with their oath 
 made to France ; whereas, both at Calais and also at Canter- 
 bury they would actually have concluded marriage, if your 
 Highness would have been thereto agreeable, without making 
 any mention of any such dispensation. And whereas your 
 Grace, in the Emperor's privy chamber at Calais objected 
 that the Emperor was bounden by the contract made with the 
 daughter of France by cause he was of full age, notwithstand- 
 ing she was not at like age ; yet the Chancellor expressly 
 denied the same. And though your Grace said according to 
 truth and the law, yet by then- denial it manifestly appeared 
 that they reckoned their master solute, not needing any such 
 dispensation as that they now allege ; and much the less that 
 this promise by your Grace demanded import not so much as 
 an actual and real contract, whereunto at all times they have 
 showed themselves to be agreeable, to the intent thereby your 
 Grace should break with France. . . . 
 
 " And whereas the lord Chievres hath found a new inven- 
 tion, wherein he thinketh that your Grace should be pleased ; 
 that is to say, that a diet within your realm should be holden 
 at Calais betwixt commissioners to be sent thither on both 
 parts, and that they should treat as w^ell of the said alliance 
 as of all other matters ; . . . I cannot see to what pm'pose 
 that diet should serve, or what good effect should come thereof, 
 but only thereby ye should be brought in suspicion with 
 France : and by the color of the same, the Emperor the sooner 
 and rather should make his hand with the same. Wherefore, 
 seeing this their untowardness, and that this answer is their 
 final resolution, it shall be in mine poor opinion well done, 
 that the Master of the Eolls (Tunstal) do no further press 
 them in this behalf; but after a little tarrying there to Imow 
 what conclusion shall be taken in this great assembly of the 
 estates of Almain, and using to the Emperor's own person 
 such words as be contained in his last instructions, ho shall
 
 374 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 1521. 
 
 take his leave and depart. And I assure your Grace, may be 
 or long too they shall on then' hands and feet seek unto your 
 Highness ; for if the French king and they be at pique, as 
 your Grace shall perceive they be right like to be, by the 
 copy of such letters as the French king now writeth to his 
 ambassador, which I send unto the same herewith, Spain also 
 continuing in rebellion, they shall not only have need of your 
 favor, succor, and assistance, but also, if they attempt any- 
 thing by hostility, your Grace not consenting thereto, they 
 shall be utterly undone. Howbeit, in this controversy betwixt 
 these two princes, it shall be a marvellous great praise and 
 honor to your Grace so by your high wisdom and authority to 
 pass between and stay them both that ye be not by their con- 
 tention and variance brought into the war ; which, as I perceive 
 by the latter clause of the French king's letters, he trusteth 
 ye will be in case the Emperor should enter into Italy, and 
 so pluck the crown imperial at Eome with a great army ; 
 whereupon I doubt not but your Grace will take good delibera- 
 tion and be well advised, considering what ye be bounden to 
 do by virtue of such treaties as be passed betwixt you, or ye 
 shall make any promise to the said French king in that 
 behalf."! 
 
 The result will have been anticipated by my readers. 
 When reason fails to open men's eyes to their true interests, 
 what remains ? Moriemini in peccatis vcstris. Con^dering 
 that the Emperor's ministers wilfully rejected a proposal more 
 to the Emperor's profit than to the King's, as Wolsey wrote 
 shortly after to Tunstal, it was the King's pleasure they 
 should be pressed no further. So leaving Sir Thomas Spinelly 
 in his place, he was ordered to return immediately.^ 
 
 ' III. 1213. 2 III. 1214.
 
 ( 375 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 Thus matters stood : Charles remained still at Worms, feasting 
 Electors and denouncing Luther ; Francis I. was in the full 
 bustle of war, levying lance-knights and preparing ordnance ; 
 Henry VIII., digesting, as best he might, the Emperor's 
 strange behaviour, and more strange refusal of his daughter's 
 hand ; Leo X. was oscillating between the French and Imperial 
 alliance — now deluding Don Manuel, and now the French 
 ambassador, by taking them alternately into his confidence, 
 and playing the one off against the other — when an event 
 took place, which struck not only England, but all Europe, 
 with amazement. This was the apprehension of the Duke 
 of Buckingham. 
 
 In Shakesj)eare's play of Henry VIII., the Duke is intro- 
 duced as holding conversation with the Duke of Norfolk. He 
 demands news of the latter touching the interview " 'twixt 
 Guisnes and Arde," on the plea that "all the whole time he 
 was his chamber's prisoner." Now, even if by Norfolk we 
 are to understand Surrey, who became Duke of Norfolk on 
 his father's death in 1524, and no other supposition will suit 
 the chronology of the play — Shakespeare has fallen into a 
 grave historical error. It was not Buckingham, but Norfolk, 
 who should have required an account of the meeting of " those 
 sons of glory, those two lights of men ; " for both Buckingham 
 and his son-in-law Lord Abergavenny were present at the 
 interview. Whereas Norfolk, with Fox, Bishop of Winchester, 
 and other members of the Council, remained in England,^ and 
 Surrey was absent as lieutenant in Ireland. On what authority 
 Shakespeare, who in general adheres closely to Hall in Jiis 
 English historical plays, assumed that Buckingham was con- 
 fined to his chamber " by an untimely ague," 1 have not been 
 able to discover. Not a word of his illness is found in Hall. 
 
 ■ See their letters, 111. 873, 8'J5.
 
 376 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. ! 
 
 i 
 On the contrary, Hall states, correctly enough, that the Duke 
 was appointed, in conjunction with Wolsey, to conduct the 
 French King to his lodgings at Arde, on the last day of those 
 famous festivities.^ Perhaps Shakespeare may have been 
 struck by the fact — not a little remarkable — that to the Duke 
 of Buckingham, next in rank to the Duke of Suffolk, popular, 
 wealthy, and greedy of distinction, no conspicuous part in the 
 tournament was assigned. His name does not appear among 
 the combatants. He abstained from the various feats of arms, 
 in which not Suffolk only, but other noblemen far inferior in 
 rank to the Duke of Buckingham, found numerous oppor- 
 tunities for display. This is the more remarkable, because 
 he appears to have entered with zest and eagerness into 
 such courtly amusements only a few mouths before. As 
 the arrangements were *' ordered by the good discretion of 
 the right reverend cardinal of York," it might be thought that 
 the omission of Buckingham's name was a studied insult ; 
 and hence his indignation at Wolsey for usurping the authority 
 of his master. 
 
 But neither Wolsey's pride nor " an untimely ague " was 
 the true cause of the Duke's exclusion. Once before, when he 
 had been appointed one of the answerers in a tilting at court, 
 he had requested Wolsey to be allowed to run on the King's ' 
 side. If this could not be granted, he begged to be excused 
 from taking any part in the jousts ; ^ and I presume that his 
 excuse was accepted. Unless, then, the King was willing to 
 nomina,te the Duke as one of his own band, at the interview — 
 a favour he could hardly expect — it was not likely that he 
 would consent to run on the opposite side, in contradiction to 
 his own expressed wishes and his notorious dislike of the 
 French. 
 
 Up to this time, then, he had conceived no offence against 
 the Cardinal, or had contrived to conceal his displeasure. It 
 was not known to the King or Wolsey ; for immediately after 
 the French interview the Duke was selected to wait upon the 
 King at Calais and at Gravelines, and assist at the meeting 
 with the Emperor.^ He distinguished himself on this occasion 
 by his cordial reception of the imperial envoy, the Marquis 
 d'Arschot.^ In attributing to the Duke a violent dislike to the 
 French King, Shakespeare adheres to historical accuracy. 
 The Duke's cordiality to the imperial envoy, his desire to 
 
 1 Chron., p. 620. * III. 906. 
 
 2 See II. 2987. 4 III. 903.
 
 1521.] BUCKINGHAM BETRAYED. 377 
 
 in-omote a union with Charles, were prompted as much by 
 that dishke, as by any jealousy, real or supposed, of the 
 Cardiual's overweening influence. From that date until the 
 end of November his name disappears from the page of 
 history. 
 
 In the autumn of 1520 we come upon a paper of instruc- 
 tions^ given by the Duke to his chaplain and chancellor 
 Eobert Gilbert, afterwards produced as a witness against him, 
 and upon whose evidence, as well as that of his steward 
 Charles Knyvet, the Duke was mainly condemned.^ Gilbert 
 enjoyed the Duke's confidence. The names of Gilbert and of 
 Charles Knyvet frequently occur in the Duke's miscellaneous 
 accounts ; for, besides acting in the capacity of chaplain, 
 Gilbert seems to have been employed as a confidential agent 
 in many of the Duke's pecuniary transactions.^ From the 
 paper just referred to it appears that the Duke had already 
 begun to suspect some act of treason in his household. For, 
 among other directions, Gilbert is ordered to proceed to 
 Oxford, and inform Dr. Bentley, the Duke's physician,^ of the 
 Cardinal's conduct, and what Margaret Gedding (apparently 
 a waiting- woman of the Duchess) had declared upon oath 
 respecting Charles Knyvet. The name of Margaret Gedding 
 occurs again shortl}^ after, in connection with this mysterious 
 affair ; Gilbert is directed to ascertain whether Margaret 
 Gedding has misreported the Duke to the Cardinal, and he is 
 ordered to inquu-e of the Lady Fitzwalter,^ the Duke's sister, 
 whether she would advise the Duke to take Margaret again 
 into his service. These notices are followed by one still more 
 remarkable, which might lead us to surmise, if indeed surmise 
 may be safely hazarded on so obscure a subject, that the Duke 
 and the Duchess did not live happily together.^ Gilbert, after 
 delivering a letter to the same Lady Fitzwalter, is directed by 
 the Duke "to show her the demeanor of my Lady our wife, 
 and also to my lord Fitzwalter. And, therefore, my lady 
 Fitzwalter may do us great pleasure and comfort to purvey 
 us of a sad (steady) woman to be about her (the Duchess) ; 
 
 * III. 1070. Heneage, gentleman usher to tho 
 
 ^ See his confession and deposition Cardinal (Wolsey), in reward, 6s, 8d." 
 
 against the Duke, III. p. 494. p. 504. 
 
 2 See pp. 499, 501, 502-505. One * See III. p. 501. 
 
 of these entries is too curious and in- * Robert Ratcliffe, Earl of Fitz- 
 
 teresting not to be noticed ; it refers waiter, married the Duke's sister 
 
 to tho 13th November of this year : Elizabeth. 
 
 " Paid by Robert Gilbert, chajilain to " The Duke's wife was Elinor, 
 
 the Duke, 16th March, to Thomas daughter of Henry, Eai'l of Northum-
 
 378 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 for we think the demeanor of my Lady is such that Margaret 
 Gedding would be loth to be about her ; and to know who told 
 her of the things we should do {i.e. we did) at Southampton." 
 Of this Margaret Gedding we have no other notice than what 
 is furnished by the Duke's private accounts. In 1518 the sum 
 of 151. was paid to her for the funeral of Elizabeth Knyvet, 
 the Duke's cousin ; and she is doubtless the person referred 
 to as " Mrs. G.," that is, Miss Gedding, who receives as a New 
 Year's gift from the Duke the extraordinary sum of 13L 6s. 8d., 
 and her mother 40s. ^ 
 
 It is not improbable that the Duke's conduct in relation to 
 Elizabeth Knyvet was one of the causes of his surveyor's 
 resentment. Evidence occurs more than once of the Duke's 
 arbitrary conduct to his servants and his inferiors. Here we 
 have an information against the Duke for wrongfully with- 
 holding the goods of Elizabeth Knyvet, deceased ; ^ there, a 
 petition to the King from his tenants in Thornbury, complain- 
 ing of the inclosures made by the late Duke of Buckingham.^ 
 In the survey of his lands by the King's officers after his 
 death, it is stated that he had " enclosed into the park " at 
 Thornbury " divers men's lands, as well of freehold as copy- 
 hold, and no recompense as yet is made for the same."* 
 Eents and farms are described as " decayed from inclosures." 
 In the paper already mentioned, Gilbert has orders to see Sir 
 John Coke, lately the Duke's chaplain, arrested for leaving 
 his service contrary to his oath ; and the same process is to 
 be put in force against another of the Duke's dependents, 
 named Gamme. In fact, indications crop out, that, however 
 popular the Duke might have been with comparative strangers, 
 for his courtesy and munificence — virtues which cannot be 
 denied him — he was not beloved by his retainers, or his 
 immediate neighbours. 
 
 berland. To show how intimately the great houses in England, the 
 the Duke's family was connected with following table may be found useful. 
 
 Edward, Duke of Buckingham = Elinor, dau. of Henry, Earl of 
 
 Northumberland. 
 
 Henry Stafford ; Elizabeth ; Katharine ; Mary ; 
 
 mar. mar. mar. mar. 
 
 Ursula d. of Thomas d. of Ralph Neville George Nevill 
 
 Margaret Countess Norfolk. Earl of Lord Abergavenny. 
 
 of Sarum. Westmoreland. 
 
 ' III. p. 498. 3 III. 1288 (6). 
 
 == III. 1288 (10). * III. p. 506.
 
 1521.] WAS KXYVET THE INFORMER? 379 
 
 Upon Charles Knyvet, the Duke's cousin and surveyor, the 
 imputation has hitherto rested of being the foremost to betray 
 the Duke, — the mahce of Wolsey always excepted. So deeply 
 has this conviction been rooted in the minds not only of 
 ordinary readers, but of historians, by the genius of Shake- 
 speare, that it might seem invidious to disturb it. There are 
 reasons, however, for questioning the accuracy of the general 
 impression. The principal culprit was not Knyvet, but 
 Margaret Geddiug, or more probably Eobert Gilbert, the 
 Duke's chaplain and chancellor. That Knyvet was not the 
 first or the original informer — that Wolsey was not so hungry 
 for the Duke's destruction, as historians, unsusjjiciously fol- 
 lowing that old libeller and maligner Polydore Vergil, assume 
 too readil}^ — is clear, I think, from the following unsigned 
 letter addressed to the Cardinal : ^ — 
 
 " Please it your Grace to be remembered ; as touching tlie matter that 
 I showed unto your Grace at More of Charles Knyvet, &c., wherein ye 
 advertised and commanded me that I should handle it furtlier, the best 
 I could, to bring it to light and better knowledge ; so it is that I have 
 communed with him divers times this last term, and persuaded him in the 
 matter as far as I might, in such wise that he should not suspect my 
 meaning therein ; and in effect he resteth still in his first mind, affirming 
 the chief cause of his putting away was for disclosing of certain matters 
 to Mr. Lark, to be opened unto your Grace. I answered him I marvelled 
 much that he did not resort unto Mr. Lark, and showed him the same, it 
 were the next mean to induce your Gi-ace to be his better good lord. 
 He said that your Grace had partly knowledge thereof already ; for this 
 last term ye had sent word to the Duke, by his chancellor,'^ to have him- 
 self in await ; and although that he used to rail upon your Grace, yet that 
 he should take heed liow that he did use himself towards the King's 
 highness. I showed Charles again, though so it were, yet was that 
 neither thankful to him nor his discharge. Then he answered me how 
 that he labored to be the King's servant, and if he were once sworn and 
 admitted, then durst he speak boldly, and would tell all. And further 
 he said, ' Then will I speak, by Saint Mary, for it toucheth the King in 
 deed.' And so, if it please your Grace, of likelihood some great matter 
 there is, or else is Charles a marvellous simple, insolent body. Very good 
 jjolicy it were to h;ive the truth known. 
 
 " The King tliat dead is (whom God pardon !) would handle such a 
 cause circumspectly, and with convenient diligence, for inveigling, and 
 yet not disclose it to the party nor otherwise liy a great space after, l)ut 
 keep it to himself, and always gr(j])e further, having ever good await and 
 esi)ial to the party. I am sure his Highness know of the untrue mind and 
 treason compassed against him by Sir William Stanley and divers otlier 
 great men, two or three years before that he laid it to their charge ; and 
 kej)t it secret, and always gathered u])()n thorn more and more. And as 
 unto this matter, if any weight l>e therein, to bring it to light, under the 
 reformation of your Grace, after my poor mind this were the mean ; — that 
 your Grace should send for Charles to come before you, showing unto him 
 tliat as ye have heard he should be [put] from the Duke, wliereof ye 
 much marvel, considering the great service that lie hath done him, and 
 
 ' ill. 1283. « Robert Gilbert.
 
 S80 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 how near he is of his blood. And thereupon I think that Charles will be 
 plain, and disclose to your Grace everything. If not, your Grace then 
 may show unto him that ye have heard, by divers servants that the Duke 
 hath lately put from him, liow that in his fumes and displeasures he will 
 oftimes rail and misuse himself in his words, as well against your Grace as 
 against the King's highness ; and ye doubt not but that he that hath been 
 so great and secret with him, and in so good trust, that he hath heard and 
 knoweth much more of his inward mind than any other ; charging him 
 therefore to be plain, both for his thank, and also for his own discharge 
 in that behalf, according to the duty of his allegiance ; and that [if] he 
 fear not to speak truly, the King and your Grace both will be his good 
 lord, so that the Duke shall neither do him hurt nor displeasure ; and 
 yet if he color or stick, then your Grace to show yourself more grievous 
 and displeasant unto him. And show him also that great marvel it is that 
 he will conceal unto your Grace that matter which toucheth and con- 
 cerneth as well you as the King's highness, which he hath opened and 
 disclosed to divers other ; reciting him then the effect of my former 
 wi'iting delivered your Grace at More, which at all times I shall be ready 
 to avow and justify, if it so come to pass, as my duty bindeth me, with 
 these premises ; albeit loth were I so to do, if the matter might come 
 otherwise to revelation. 
 
 " Please it your Grace further, there is a bill of articles come this last 
 term to my hands, amongst other remembrances, touching such covenants 
 as Sir Nicholas Vaux bound himself unto by indenture and other wi'iting[s] 
 and bonds, when the King that dead is appointed him to the office of 
 Guysnes ; which writings and indentures I made by the King's command- 
 ment. Meseemeth it requisite that your Grace have sight thereof, to the 
 intent ye may examine at your leisure whether he hath and doth perform 
 and observe everything concerning the same. Therefore I do send your 
 Grace the said bill herein enclosed. I think by leisure I shall find the 
 very copies of the indentures, and also much like writings and indentures 
 touching the Lord Moimtjoie for the office of Hammes. And thus the 
 Blessed Trinity have your Grace always in His holy tuition." 
 
 The original informer, then, and prime mover in this design 
 against the Duke must have been the author of this letter, 
 whoever he was. He must also have been intimate with 
 Knyvet and well acquainted with his secrets. He avows his 
 willingness, if need be, to come forward and justify the in- 
 sinuations he had already thrown out against the Duke in a 
 previous letter to the Cardinal, "if it so come to pass as my 
 duty bindeth me with these premises ; albeit loth were I so to 
 do, if the matter might come otherwise to revelation." 
 
 Now, unless the writer were under some obligation to the 
 Duke, or in danger from his power, it is not easy to surmise 
 upon what grounds he should be loth to avow his knowledge 
 of the Duke's treasonable practices. That the letter must 
 have been written either by some one in the Duke's service, 
 or by one who had been long and intimately acquainted with 
 the Duke's family, is without dispute. Who except Gilbert or 
 Delacourt, the Duke's confessor, could have possessed such an 
 intimate knowledge, as this letter reveals, of what was passing
 
 1521.] BUCKINGHAM NOT WOLSETP'S VICTIM. 8S1 
 
 in the Duke's household? Yet Gilbert, called by Hall "the 
 first accuser of the Duke," must be acquitted of this treachery ; 
 for he is mentioned here, in the third person, as the Duke's 
 chancellor ; — and Delacourt had no such employment at Court 
 as this letter writer appears to have held. The handwriting 
 is clear, stiff, and formal ; like that of one who had been 
 accustomed to make " writings and indentures." Who, again, 
 are the discharged servants alluded to ? Who except Gilbert 
 or Delacourt could have been aware that Wolsey had sent a 
 message some time before to Buckingham, secretly warning 
 him that, though he might indulge in railing against himself, 
 he should take care how he " did use himself towards his 
 Highness " ? Would so important a witness have been per- 
 mitted to go at large, or not have been produced at the trial ? 
 Yet, with the exception of Knyvet, who is out of the question, 
 and of Nicholas Hopkyns, whose handwriting differs from that 
 of the letter, no other witnesses besides Gilbert and Delacourt 
 were produced against the Duke. Both also were committed 
 to safe custody in the Tower; as much, no doubt, out of 
 regard to their personal security, as to the integrity of their 
 evidence. Gilbert's testimony is aggravated by bitter hatred, 
 and malignant betrayal of details in the Duke's conversation, 
 not unlike the tone of a man who had been false to his master, 
 and sought to cover his falsehood by exaggerated statements.^ 
 Can he, then, have been the author of the letter ? And did he 
 speak of himself in the third person, as the Duke's chancellor, 
 in order to escape detection ? 
 
 But be this conjecture probable or not, the letter shows 
 that the popular account of Wolsey's inveterate malice and 
 his supposed designs against the life of the Duke, rest on no 
 certain foundation. The calumny was derived from Polydore 
 Vergil,^ and rests on no other authority. Not a word of it 
 
 ' See his Confession. their intolerable char2:e and expense : 
 2 In that portion of his history "Butnamely the duke of Buckingham, 
 which relates to the Duke, Vergil being a man of a lofty courage, but not 
 sought chiefly to gratify his spite most liberal [this is false], sore repined 
 against the Cardinal, and blacken his that ho should be at so groat charges 
 memory. According to Polydore, — for his furniture forth at this time, 
 who has been literally translated by saying that he knew not for what 
 Holinshed, unsuspiciously followed by cause so much money should be spent 
 Herbert, and of course by most his- about the sight of a vain talk to bo 
 torians since, — on receiving letters to had, and communication to be minis- 
 prepare themselves to attend the King tered, of things of no importaiico. 
 on his journey to France, " and no Wherefore ho stickcd not to say that 
 apparent necessary cause expressed," it was an intolerable matter to obey 
 the nobles grudged that such a costly such a vile and importunate person 
 journey shrjuld bo taken in hand to (as Wolsey)." This is I'olydore's ver-
 
 382 
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIH. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 is to be found in the pages of Hall, whose sympathy with the 
 Duke is so manifest, and so strong his dishke of the Cardinal, 
 that he would scarcely have suppressed a circumstance so 
 unfavourable as this is to the Cardinal's memory, had there 
 been any truth in it. 
 
 The Duke was tried at Westminster by seventeen of his 
 peers, on Monday after Ascension Day, that is, on the 13th of 
 May, the Duke of Norfolk acting as lord high steward. It 
 will be remembered that in Shakespeare's play the Duke is 
 declared guilty by the King at a meeting of the Privy Council, 
 even before his regular trial had taken place; — a process 
 altogether informal. In the Council Chamber in which Queen 
 Katharine and Wolsey are present, the King is represented as 
 
 sion of the report preserved by De la 
 Saach : that when the Duke and 
 other nobles were warned to attend 
 the King at the interview, they were 
 said to hare replied, that as this had 
 been determined on without their 
 cognizance they woiild require at least 
 three months for preparation. 
 
 Vergil then proceeds to tell us 
 that when these words came to the 
 Cardinal's ears, Wolsey, cruel and 
 forgetful of his holy functions (as if 
 Polydore's holy functions consisted in 
 malice and evil speaking), and deter- 
 mined to lure on the Duke to destruc- 
 tion, the better to execute his purpose, 
 sent Surrey, who had married the 
 Duke's daughter (Elizabeth), into Ire- 
 land, " lest he might cast a trump in 
 his way. There was great enmity 
 betwixt the Cardinal and the Earl ; 
 for that on a time when the Cardinal 
 took upon him to check the Earl, he 
 had like to have thrust his dagger 
 into the Cardinal." He adds that 
 an opportunity was given by the 
 arrival of Kildare in England, well 
 provided with money, whom Wolsey 
 resolved to fleece, and therefore 
 accused him to the King, and had 
 Surrey sent in his place. (The false- 
 hood of this statement may be seen 
 by referring to the King's letter to 
 the Council in Ireland, III. 860.) The 
 next step was to get rid of the Earl 
 of Northumberland (whose daughter 
 the Duke had married) ; and therefore 
 the Cardinal picked a quarrel with 
 him for seizing " upon certain wards 
 which the Cardinal said appertained 
 of right to the King : and as North- 
 umberland refused to give them up 
 he was committed to prison. 
 
 " Now, in the meanwhile, the Car- 
 dinal ceased not to bring the Duke 
 out of the King's favor, by such 
 forged tales and contrived surmises as 
 he daily put into the King's head; 
 insomuch that through the infelicity 
 of his fate divers accidents fell out, to 
 the advantage of the Cardinal ; which 
 he not omitting, achieved the thing 
 whereat he so studiously, for the 
 satisfying of his cankered and malicious 
 stomach, laid full aim. Now, it chanced 
 that the Duke coming to London with 
 his train of men, to attend the King 
 into France, went before into Kent, 
 unto a manor-place which he had 
 there. And whilst he stayed in that 
 country till the King set forward, 
 grievous complaints were exhibited to 
 him by his farmers and tenants against 
 Charles Knevet, his surveyor, for such, 
 bribing as he had used there amongst 
 them. Whereupon the Duke took 
 such displeasure against him that he 
 deprived him of his oiiice, not knowing 
 how that in so doing he procured his 
 own destruction." 
 
 Then, after interspersing some 
 remarks, not pertinent to our subject, 
 Polydore proceeds to narrate how the 
 Cardinal, " boiling in hatred against 
 the duke of Buckingham, and thirsting 
 for his blood, devised to make Charles 
 Knyvet an instrument to bring the 
 Duke to destruction." 
 
 That Polydore's narrative is little 
 better than a tissue of misrepresenta- 
 tion, exaggeration, and falsehood, de- 
 vised by this partial historian to 
 gratify his hostility to the Cardinal, 
 is abundantly clear from the docu- 
 ments contained in volume III. of the 
 Calendar.
 
 1521.] PROSECUTION OF BUCKINGHAM IN SHAKESPEARE. 383 
 
 conducting the examination of the Duke's surveyor, Charles 
 Knyvet, in j^erson. The Duke has no one there to defend 
 him ; the witnesses are not subjected to cross-examination, 
 nor is any attempt made to ascertain the accuracy of their 
 charges, or to test their honesty and good faith by the 
 methods now adopted in similar cases. The Duke's guilt is 
 assumed upon their unsupported assertions. In this travestie 
 of justice, the Queen is the only person who appears to retain 
 any sense of what is due to reason and equity ; but she is too 
 feeble an advocate, too much bewildered by the sophistry 
 which she feels, but is unable to unravel, to render the 
 accused any effectual help. Besides, when kings sit in council, 
 who shall contradict them ? When their minds are already 
 made up, " God mend all," is the natural and sole reflection 
 which presents itself to the thoughts of inferiors. Strange as 
 this proceeding may appear, it is not due merely to the poet's 
 imagination. It presents us with a general likeness of State 
 j)rosecutions in the Tudor times. The presumption that men 
 are innocent until they are legally proved to be guilty, the 
 facilities granted to the accused for substantiating his 
 innocence by retaining the ablest advocate, the methods for 
 sifting evidence now in use, had no existence then. In crimes 
 against the sovereign, real or supposed, men were presumed 
 to be guilty until they had proved themselves to be innocent, 
 and that proof was involved in endless difficulties. What 
 advocate or what witness would have ventured to brave the 
 displeasure of a Tudor king, by appearing in defence of a 
 criminal, on whose guilt the King had pronounced already ? 
 
 With the exception of making Wolsey present at the 
 examination of the Duke's servants and surveyor, Shakespeare 
 has strictly adhered to facts in this preliminary examination 
 of the Duke's servants. We have indisputable evidence that 
 it was conducted by the King in person, assisted by Euthal, 
 Secretary of State. For on the 16th of April, Pace, then at 
 Greenwich with the King, wrote, in answer to the Cardinal's 
 request for Euthal to be sent to him, that the King would not 
 suffer him to leave, ^ but had commanded him to tarry at 
 Greenwich for examination of certain things connected with 
 the Duke of Buckingham's servants. He adds that Ptuthal 
 was then sending to Wolsey a letter written by the King's 
 command for " such as shall see to the keeping of the said 
 Duke's house during his absence ; " that is, whilst he was at 
 
 ' 111. i-s.yi.
 
 884 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 London taking his trial ; for he was not then in custody. On 
 the hack also of a private letter addressed to Pace from Kome 
 by the Bishop of Worcester, he has jotted down two or three 
 obscure memoranda relating to this tragic affair, showing 
 that the King had already made up his mind as to the Duke's 
 guilt and condemnation. "The King is convinced," so run 
 these fragmentary notices, " that Buckingham will be found 
 guilty, and be condemned by the Lords ; and for this matter, 
 and for the affairs of Ireland, a Parliament will be summoned." 
 " The monk (Hopkyns) and Delacourt (the Duke's chaplain) 
 have been sent to the Tower. Arthur Pole (the Duke's 
 cousin) has been expelled the court." Then follows a most 
 tantalizing passage, the meaning of which cannot be clearly 
 made out ; and the whole ends with this remark : " As to the 
 countess of Salisbury, nothing has yet been decided, on 
 account of her noble birth and many virtues {honitatem)."^ 
 
 From these passages it seems to me unquestionable, that 
 it was the King himself who was most active in the prosecution 
 of the Duke ; not active only, but, as Shakespeare describes 
 him, fully convinced beforehand of his guilt, and resolved on 
 his condemnation. Why the countess of Salisbury^ (who 
 escaped on this occasion only to fall by the executioner at a 
 later period) was spared " in consequence of her high birth 
 and virtues," I do not pretend to inquire. To some of my 
 readers it may suggest a conclusion I forbear to draw from 
 expressions so brief and so ambiguous. 
 
 Whilst his surveyor and his chancellor, unknown to the 
 Duke, were either in the Tower or closeted with the King at 
 Greenwich, concocting evidence for their master's fall, the 
 Duke was idling away his hours at Thornbury, either in 
 listening to the sermons of Stanley, an Oxford friar (for he 
 was deeply tinctured with religious terrors — no wonder), or 
 in making offerings to the holy relics and blood at Hales, and 
 at other consecrated shrines, in which the neighbourhood of 
 Thornbury abounded.^ On Monday, the 8th ^ of April, a 
 messenger, to whom the Duke ordered a gratuity of a mark, 
 arrived with letters from the King, commanding the Duke to 
 repair instantly to London. He set out, wholly unconscious 
 of the purport of the summons. His progress day by day 
 may be traced in the diary of his accounts. At Beading he 
 
 » See III. 1204. daughter, Ursula. 
 
 - Lord Stafford, the Duke's only ^ See the diary, III. p. 500. 
 
 son, was married to the Countess's * Misprinted 18th. Ibid., p. 501.
 
 1521.] BUCKIXGHAM AITREHENDED. 385 
 
 made an oblation of 6.s. Sd. to " the child of grace ; " to Our 
 Lady of Eyton near Windsor, on the 14th, 6s. 8d. ; and as 
 knight of the garter, he presented to the keeper of the garter 
 robes at Windsor the sum of 20.s. Here, for the first time, 
 the real nature of that mission on which he was bound flashed 
 upon the unhappy prisoner. Wherever he turned, armed 
 men, as if watching his movements, seemed to hover in the 
 distance : at every winding of the road, as if to cut off all hope 
 of escape, real or imaginary, they drew more closely upon 
 him. Such conduct at first attracted no attention. It was 
 not unusual for soldiers and archers to be travelling on the 
 road to Windsor and the metropolis either for the King's 
 service or for other purposes. But as they continued to press 
 upon his rear, and dog his movements, as some of them had 
 even the audacity to take up their lodgings for the night in 
 the hostelries occupied by the Duke, his anger was roused at 
 this seeming impertinence. The morning after he had arrived 
 at Windsor, as he was sitting down to breakfast, seeing a 
 royal pursuivant loitering about the place, the Duke some- 
 what suddenly and sharply demanded of him, what he did 
 there. The messenger replied, that his office lay there, by 
 the King's commandment. Then, for the first time, so well 
 had the secret been observed, the Duke discovered that he was 
 a prisoner. The news fell on him with the abruptness of the 
 headsman's axe. He turned ashy pale, the untasted morsel 
 dropped from his lips, death was before him, escape was 
 impossible. 
 
 Evidently he had not expected this. Since the interview 
 between the two Kings in the vale of Arde, he had retired to 
 the country, never making his appearance in London, or 
 taking any part in the political discussions of the times. He 
 had been employed in superintending his garden,^ making 
 curious knots and summer bowers, or busying himself with 
 the lying-in of Lady Stafford, his son's wife, at Thornbury. If 
 we may judge from his papers, his employments during his 
 retirement were as far removed from treason or plots against 
 the State, as any employments could well be. Next to making 
 religious offerings at different shrines on every holy day,^ for 
 which the Duke seems to have entertained a kind of passion, 
 
 ' TIT. p. 499. TVinfo Edward at Towkr.sbnry ; f^^o 
 
 ^ Jloro are a few : To onr Lady of two idiots — then rof^ardod witli Piipor- 
 
 Kiri^rswood; to St. Aldlielui at stitions reverence, — onoatDriiikwater, 
 
 ilaliiicsbury ; to St. Ann in ( lie Wood ; and another belonging to the Abbot of 
 
 to Our Lady of Jielhoutse, Bristol ; to Chichester. 
 
 VOL. I. - C
 
 386 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 his chief delight was in training horses or purchasing dogs 
 and falcons. Sometimes these occupations were varied by 
 others of a different character. Poets, harpers, minstrels, 
 players, and tumblers amused his tastes and partook of his 
 bounty. On one occasion he gives to three maidens of 
 Kainsham 8cl., in May, " for bringing hawthorns to my lord's 
 grace when he was in his orchard; " at another time he pays 
 6s. Sd. for " a throstle bird." Part of his care is centred on 
 " little Francis,"^ a poor child whom he was bringing up for 
 a scholar at Oxford, on the recommendation of a kind-hearted 
 but crazy enthusiast, Dan Nicholas Hopkyns, a monk of the 
 Charterhouse at Henton, who brought the Duke unintentionally 
 into trouble, and died broken-hearted after his fall.^ 
 
 It is true that the Duke had done nothing to conciliate the 
 powerful Cardinal, now grown more powerful than ever. He 
 
 * This child was placed under the 
 care of the prior of St. John's of Jern- 
 salem, and the items for his expendi- 
 ture are highly curious and interesting. 
 For shaving his head Id., a pair of gloves 
 2d., a pair of shoes 6d., a pair of hose 
 lOd., a silk girdle 6d., writing-paper 
 Id., pen and inkhorn 2d., washing his 
 petticoat sundry times 3d., mending 
 and dry-scouring his Kendal coat 6d., 
 a shirt 20d., walking shoes 8d. " For 
 a hen at Shrovetide, for Francis to 
 sport him with the childer," 7d., a 
 bow 6d., shafts 3d., strings, shooting 
 glove and brace 3d. The Duke gives 
 him 40s. as a reward. See III. 
 pp. 503, 504. 
 
 - Here is the monk's letter, III. 
 1277 :— 
 
 " My most singular and gracious 
 lord in God. I, your poor and un- 
 worthy orator, desirous of your noble 
 Grace's prosperity, which our Lord 
 God omnipotent of His infinite mercy 
 and goodness continually conserve 
 from all misadventure and peril, as 
 well in this miserable woi'ld as in the 
 celestial world to come, where as is 
 perdurable joy ineffable, attempt now 
 to write unto your gracious Highuess, 
 trusting and also beseeching your 
 noble Grace to accept my charitable 
 striving, as your noble Grace has done 
 herebefore. And whereas I now with 
 fervent charity am moved to be de- 
 sirous of your noble Grace's charity, 
 I beseech your Lord's grace (sic) to 
 condescend unto my desirous petition, 
 forasmuch as it is to the augmenting 
 
 of God's service, and specially as I do 
 fey[th]fully trust it will be in time 
 coming to the great comfort of our 
 small company and place. 
 
 " There is now with us a poor 
 child of 14 year of age, which is vir- 
 tuously disposed, intending to be of our 
 holy religion when Almighty God 
 send time lawful ; imto whom, for the 
 virtue and grace that I daily see in 
 him, I owe great favor. Wherefore, 
 if it might please your noble goodness 
 to do your alms upon him, finding him 
 to liis grammar till he be full twenty 
 year, which (when) without doubt I 
 trust verily ye shall have of him a 
 good and a virtuous religious man, 
 and also a true and trusty headman. 
 And moreover, after my confident 
 feeling, I believe it shall be to your 
 Lord's grace as charitable deed before 
 Almighty God, and as well accept as 
 ever was deed of charity by your 
 noble Grace's power done. As knoweth 
 Jesus, which be ever your protector, 
 and at His most pleasure be once 
 your Lord's grace conductor unto our 
 poor place. Amen. 
 
 " Written at Charterhouse, Hen- 
 ton, by your simple and un- 
 worthy orator, 
 " Dan Nych'as Hopkyns, Vicar." 
 
 Addi-essed : " Illustrissimo in 
 Christo Domino, domino Edwardo duci 
 Buckingamias, tradatnr haeo litera 
 cum honore." 
 
 Also : " To the right honorable 
 and his singular good lord, my lord 
 Chamberlain."
 
 1521.] 
 
 BUCKINGHAM APPREHENDED. 
 
 387 
 
 had been at no pains to conceal his dislike and contempt of 
 one, who like a cloud " had darkened his clear sun." Never, 
 like Norfolk and Suffolk, had he graced by his presence those 
 occasions in which Wolsey shone forth, as another and scarcely 
 second sun, in some religious or state ceremonial. But he 
 had taken more than ordinary pains, and apparently not 
 without success, to regain the favour of the King. In August, 
 
 1519, he had entertained Henry and his retinue magnificently 
 at Penshurst for several days.^ The same year he entered 
 into the questionable amusements and gaieties of the court 
 with an abandonment hazardous to a man of his high spirit 
 and hasty temper. Along with other fashions introduced into 
 this country by the French hostages was a taste for gambling, 
 in which the King and many of his immediate attendants 
 engaged with the rash ardour and unguarded inexperience of 
 novices. On one occasion the Duke lost at dice with " the 
 Duke of Suffolk and the Frenchmen " no less a sum than 
 761. Is. M., that is upwards of 1,000L in modern computation.^ 
 At another time, he lost to the Lord Montague 651. 2s. 9d., to 
 the King at tennis 141., to Suffolk at shooting 311. 6s. 8d., 
 and again to Suffolk and others, "since coming to the King," 
 511. 16s. 8d. He was apparently sobered by these and other 
 heavy sacrifices, for no sums are entered in his subsequent 
 accounts for losses incurred at play.^ If we except some hasty 
 and unguarded expressions dropped in the irritation of the 
 moment in the recesses of his family circle — and even these 
 are uncertain — conscious of his blood, his great wealth and 
 popularity, he seems to have been more than usually cautious 
 of provoking the King's displeasure. Until the autumn of 
 
 1520, and for the three years previous, he had been in favour 
 at court, and his offences (if any) had been forgotten or 
 forgiven.* 
 
 To return. The Duke quailed, but only for a moment — as 
 what spirit, however brave, would not quail in the pride of its 
 
 1 III. 412. 
 
 ^ See III. p. 499. On one occasion 
 he paid the Duke of Suffolk in full 
 500 marks, i.e. upwards of 3,000?. of 
 our money, for losses at dice. (p. 505.) 
 
 ' As niif^ht be expected, there aro 
 various entries, at the same time, for 
 money borrowed by the Duke, on his 
 gold chains, jewels, or liis bond ; 
 doubtless in support of this extrava- 
 gance. 
 
 * On Nov. 5, 1519, he had a j^rant 
 from the crovi'n of the wardship of 
 Thomas, son of Gerald FitzGerald, 
 Earl of Kildaro. See also II., Nos. 
 1893, 1959, 2987, 4057, 4061. 4075, 
 4124. From these it will bo seen that 
 up to the interview at the Field of 
 the Cloth of Gold, Buckingham was 
 not only in favour witli the Kinj^, but 
 as ho admits (No. 29S7), ho owed that 
 favour to Wolsey's interposition.
 
 388 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 strengtli ? — at such a sudden prospect of death, and of death 
 in a form so hateful as the doom of a traitor. Ordering his 
 horse immediately, he rode to Tothill Fields, near West- 
 minster. On taking his barge, and landing at the stairs of 
 the Cardinal's palace, his worst apprehensions were confirmed. 
 In reply to his inquiries he was told that the Cardinal was 
 sick, and could not be seen. " Well," said the Duke, not 
 abating a whit of his high spirit at this new demonstration of 
 danger, " I will yet taste of my Lord's wine or (ere) I pass : " 
 and he was conducted to the cellar by one of the Cardinal's 
 gentlemen with all due courtesy and reverence. 
 
 Embarking once more on board his barge, he was rowed 
 down the river to London Bridge. As the barge neared the 
 stairs it was suddenly boarded by Sir Henry Marny, captain 
 of the Guard, attended by a hundred yeomen. Attaching the 
 Duke in the King's name. Sir Henry commanded his attendants 
 to retire to the Duke's manor of the Rose in St. Lawrence 
 Pountney, whilst he carried his prisoner, who had now landed 
 at the Hay Wharf, through Thames Street to the Tower. 
 Here Nicholas Hopkyns, the Carthusian monk, John Dela- 
 court, the Duke's confessor, and Robert Gilbert, his chancellor, 
 were already in custody, pending the Duke's arrival. Shortly 
 after, his son-in-law the lord Abergavenny, and the Lord 
 Montague, were apprehended and sent to the same place. 
 
 The Duke was committed to the Tower on the 16th of 
 April. The indictment was laid at the Guildhall, before Sir 
 John Brugge, lord mayor, and others, on Wednesday, the 8th 
 of May. On the 10th of the same month the Duke of Norfolk, 
 acting as lord high steward, issued his warrant for the attend- 
 ance of the peers at Westminster Hall on Monday, the 13th. 
 Among the peers thus summoned for the Duke's trial were 
 the Duke of Suffolk, the Marquis of Dorset, the Earls of 
 Shrewsbury, Kent, Derby, Devonshire, and Worcester, the 
 Prior of St. John's, with nine other barons, including William 
 Blount, Lord Mountjoy, the celebrated friend and patron of 
 Erasmus. 
 
 The axe was carried before the Duke as he was brought 
 to the bar, between Sir Thomas Lovel, the constable, and Sir 
 Richard Cholmeley, deputy lieutenant of the Tower. The 
 indictment, in the rambling, legal terminology of the times, 
 framed like the Gospel-net to catch all chances of condemna- 
 tion, good or bad, substantial or otherwise, extended over a 
 period of ten years, from 1511 to 1520. It rested exclusively
 
 1521.] DEPOSITIONS AGAINST BUCKINGHAM. 389 
 
 on the depositions of tlie Duke's servants, Delaconrt, Gilbert, 
 and Charles Ivnyvet. Their evidence related chiefly to a 
 correspondence said to have been held by the Duke with 
 Nicholas Hopkyns, a pretender to the gift of prophecy, and 
 seems almost too absurd or too exaggerated to be credible. 
 Hopkyns, so the evidence ran, first exacting an oath of 
 secrecy from Delacourt, bade him inform the Duke that " he 
 should have all," and encouraged him to win the love of the 
 commons. On being questioned how he knew this, Hopkyns 
 replied, "By the grace of God." At another time the monk 
 assured the Duke that the King should have no male issue — 
 a safe prophecy enough, so long as Katharine remained Queen. 
 In April, 1514, according to the same witness, the Duke went 
 to the priory at Henton and was assured by Hopkyns he should 
 be King of England; to which assurance the Duke repHed, 
 that in such a case he would act like a just prince. In con- 
 firmation of this treasonable correspondence, it was alleged 
 that the Duke had given the house to which Hopkyns be- 
 longed an annuity of 61. for a tun of wine, and 20L for a water 
 conduit, of which sum he then and there had traitorously 
 paid lOL 
 
 In Gilbert's evidence the Duke was accused of purchasing 
 cloths of gold and silver, to the amount of 300 marks, for the 
 purpose of distributing them in presents to the King's guards ; 
 of endeavouring to obtain a Kcence from the King for arming 
 certain of his subjects in Wales ; — a charge not unlikely to be 
 true, and, considering the disorders of the principality, and 
 the Duke's large possessions there, not necessarily indicative 
 of any felonious intention. 
 
 But the most invidious and perilous charge, resting wholly 
 on the evidence of his chancellor, Gilbert, has yet to be men- 
 tioned. Gilbert deposed that on the 20th of February, 1520, 
 the Duke told him, at Bletchingley in Surrey, that he would 
 wait for a more convenient season to execute his pm-pose ; 
 and that it would be well if the lords would show their minds 
 to each other, but they were afraid to do so. The Duke said 
 also that all that Henry VII. had done was done wrongfully ; 
 and as for himself he was so great a sinner that he was certain 
 he had not the grace of God, and therefore if he attempted 
 anything he was sure of being punished. 
 
 The evidence of Charles Knyvet, his surveyor, whom the 
 Duke had deprived of his offices, was of a fouler and blacker 
 dye than that of the rest. It will be remembered that in
 
 390 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 1519 the King had heen grievously offended with Sir William 
 Bulmer for leaving his service, and entering the service of 
 the Duke of Buckingham. In reference to this event, Knyvet 
 deposed that the Duke had said, in conversation with him, 
 that he expected nothing less at that time than to have been 
 committed to the Tower ; but if that had been done, the prin- 
 cipal actors — meaning the King and the Cardinal — should 
 have had but little joy ; for he would have done what his 
 father intended to do to Richard III. at Salisbury, when he 
 made suit to come into the King's presence ; kneeling before 
 the King, he would have started up suddenly, and stabbed 
 him on the spot. In saying this, continued Knyvet, he laid 
 his hand upon his dagger, swearing by the blood of the Lord 
 he would do the best to execute his purpose. Shakespeare 
 has adhered so strictly to the facts connected with the Duke's 
 indictment that I need not continue these remarks. 
 
 The depositions against him contained many particulars 
 which it was not deemed prudent to bring forward at the trial. 
 Some of them are apparently so immaterial that it is difficult 
 to discover their bearing on the case. Thus it is deposed 
 (evidently by his chaplain Delacourt) that on the 26th of 
 October, 1520, the Duke, in the presence of his council,^ had 
 said, " I commanded you to bring your books with you ; " 
 and on their affirming they had done so, he thus proceeded : 
 " I intended not to busj^ you or to trouble myself with any 
 such matter at this time, but to commune with you and show 
 you my mind. Ye see I wear a beard, whereof peradventure 
 ye do marvel. But marvel not of it ; for I make a vow unto 
 God that it shaU never be shaven unto such time as I have 
 been at Jerusalem. And if I may obtain the King's licence 
 to perform my promise and vow, it were more to my comfort 
 than if his Grace would give me 10,000Z. ; yea, more glad 
 than if his Grace would give 10,000L land to me and mine 
 heirs." That there was no great wisdom in these words is 
 apparent enough ; but what treason could lurk behind them 
 I confess I am unable to discover. In fact, all the depositions 
 against the Duke show him to have been rather a weak than 
 a wicked man ; — not without ambition, not without hopes, 
 perhaps, of succeeding eventuallj- to the crown ; too vacillating 
 to be innocent, too weak to be dangerous, sinning and re- 
 penting, " letting I dare not wait upon I would." The 
 King might very well have pardoned the Duke, without 
 
 > III. p. 495.
 
 1521.] DEPOSITIONS AGAINST BUCKINGHAM. 391 
 
 fear of sparing a dangerous rival and pretender, had that 
 been all. 
 
 I subjoin, without abridgment, the deposition of Robert 
 Gilbert, the chancellor, as affording the clearest exemplifica- 
 tion of the animus of the chief parties concerned in the prose- 
 cution, and of the sort of legal evidence admitted in trials for 
 high treason during the reigns of the Tudors. 
 
 Confession and Deposition of the Duke's Chancellor.^ 
 
 "First, he saith he heard the said Duke say that he had a writing 
 sealed with the King's broad seal, confessing the acts of parliament, 
 wherein it was enacted that the duke of Somerset, one of the noble 
 ancestors of our sovereign lord, was made mulier, or legitimate, and that 
 the same Duke said that he was minded to have given the same writing 
 to our sovereign lord the King's father, and he said he would not he had 
 so done for ten thousand pounds. 
 
 " Also he saith that he heard the said Duke say at sundry times that 
 my lord Cardinal was an [ijdolator, taking counsel of a spirit how he 
 might contin[ne in th]e King's favour, and that he was the King's bawd, 
 showing him w[hat w]omen were most wholesome, and best of complexion, 
 for his Grace to use ; and that the life that they used was so abominable 
 that God would punish it, and that it could not continue ; and that my 
 lord Cardin[al] is so sore with noble men, that they would be all in his 
 top if the King's gx'ace were displeased with him, and that he would undo 
 all noble men if he could. 
 
 " Also he saith that he heard the said Dvike say, that he had done as 
 good services as any man, and was never rewarded ; and that the King 
 would give his fees, offices, and rewards rather to boys than to noble men, 
 which was small comfort to them to do his Grace services. 
 
 ' ' Also he saith that he heard the said Duke say, that he trusted to see 
 the time that Sir William Compton should be glad to let him have the 
 land again that he had sold him. 
 
 "Also he saith that the said Duke hath always done as much as he 
 could to have favor of the King's guard, and hath many times greatly 
 rejoiced in it, that he thought himself sure of them ; and now of late he 
 hath much studied to make many particular offices in his lands, to the 
 intent that he might retain as many men by the same offices that he could. 
 
 "Also the said Duke would at many times cause to be provided for 
 him in cloth of gold and other silks to the value of three hundred or four 
 hundred marks, and would give it all within a quarter of a year to gentle- 
 men, to get their love. 
 
 " Also of late, when the said Duke had given a doublet of cloth of 
 silver to Sir Edward Neyvell, he rejoiced of it, and said to my lord of 
 Burgavenny that he had gotten the goodwill of his brother Sir Edward 
 Neyvell, and said that he was sure that my lord Burgavenny could not 
 get the goodwill of Sir Edward Neyvell from him. 
 
 "Also he heard the said Duke [gr]udge and be discontented many 
 times that the eaid of War[wick Avas put t]o deatli, and said that God 
 would punish it, and that [he had pu]nished it in that he would not 
 suffer the King's [grace's] issue to prosper, as it appeareth by the [death 
 o]f his son, and that his daughters prosper not, and that tlie King's g[race 
 ha]8 no issue male, and that it would be further iiunish[ud ; and] furthur 
 the said Duke said, that lie would suller till that he might sue a more 
 convenient time, and that it would do well enough if the noblemen durst 
 
 ' Hurl. MS. 283, f. 70.— B. M.
 
 o 
 
 92 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 break their minds together, but some of them mistrusteth, and feareth to 
 break their minds to other, and that marreth all ; so that there is no 
 remedy for us but to suffer till that a convenient time may come, for there 
 be but few of us contented in our minds ; we be so sore and so unkindly 
 handled. 
 
 " Also he saith that if the said Duke might have had convenient time, 
 and have been strong enough to have made his party good, he would have 
 done as much against the King's grace as he could have done ; for he 
 liath said that all that the King's father did was wrong and naught, and 
 he hath at all times grudged against every thing that our sovereign Lord 
 hath done. 
 
 ' ' Also the said Duke said, that he had been such a sinner that he was 
 sure that he lacked grace, and therefore he knew well that he should 
 speed the worse when he should begin to do anything against the King ; 
 and therefore he said he would suffer till that he might see a more 
 convenient time for it. " 
 
 Tlie depositions of the witnesses were read at the trial ; 
 but, if we may draw any conclusion from the silence of Hall, 
 no opportunity was afforded the Duke of confronting and 
 cross-examining the witnesses in person, or of producing 
 evidence in his own defence. He was allowed no counsel; 
 and no other course was open to him for establishing his 
 innocence, beyond the bare denial of the offences charged 
 against him. "When the indictment was openly read," 
 writes Hall, "the Duke said, 'It is false and untrue, and 
 conspired and forged to bring me to my death ; and that will 
 I prove,' — alleging many reasons to falsify the indictment. 
 And against his reasons the King's attorney alleged the 
 examinations, confessions, and proofs of witnesses ; " that is, 
 the confessions and allegations prepared some weeks before, 
 without the knowledge of the Duke, by the King and his 
 ministers at Greenwich. 
 
 " The Duke desired the witnesses to be brought forth. 
 Then was brought before him Sir Gilbert Perke, priest, his 
 chancellor, first accuser of the same Duke ; Master John 
 Delacourt, priest, the Duke's confessor ; and his own hand- 
 writing [was] laid before him, to the accusement of the Duke ; 
 Charles Knevet, esquire, cousin to the Duke, and a monk 
 (Nicholas Hopkyns), Prior of the Charterhouse (at Henton) 
 besides Bath, which, like a false hypocrite, had induced the 
 Duke to the treason, and had divers time said to the Duke 
 that he should be king of England ; but the Duke said that 
 in himself he never consented to it." The depositions were 
 then read, and the witnesses were handed over to the custody 
 of the officers of the Tower.^ 
 
 * In the following paper, under denied the charges brought against 
 his own hand, the Duke substantially liim : —
 
 1521.] 
 
 BUCKINGHAM'S TRIAL. 
 
 393 
 
 " Then spake the duke of Norfolk, and said : ' My lord, 
 the King our sovereign lord Iiatli commanded that you shall 
 have his laws ministered with favor and right to you. Where- 
 fore if you have any other thing to say for yourself, you shall 
 be heard.' Then he was commanded to withdraw him, and so 
 was led into Paradise, a house so named." 
 
 As trials for treason were conducted in those days, it was 
 little better than a question of personal credibility — assertion 
 against assertion ; and very few reasonable men could enter- 
 tain doubts as to the issue. The King had already pronounced 
 judgment ; he had examined the witnesses, encouraged and 
 received their confidence, and expressed his belief of the 
 Duke's guilt. Who was to gainsay it ? Who should be bold 
 
 " Ans[wera made by me the du]ke 
 of Biikingliam beffore Sir Thomas 
 Lovell, knyght, one off the Kyiig's 
 most honorable concell, towchingsnch 
 words as was betwene me and my 
 gostly fader, callyd th[e] wycar 
 generall of Henton. 
 
 " Fyrst, I seye tha[t in] the somer 
 beffore the King's grace whent to 
 Calys, he sent a letter off hys owne 
 hand unto me, and desyryd me that I 
 wold cum over to speke with hym, 
 for he had dyveres thyngs to shewe 
 me, whych he wold schewe no body 
 on hys good wyll ; but iff I myght not 
 cum he wold be content to schewe it 
 to one off my chapeley[usj sue he as I 
 wold trust. Wherupon bycause he 
 had bene longe my goostly ffader, 
 thynking that he coold have infformyd 
 me off sum wrongs that I had doon, 
 or elles to sum materes off pyte, I 
 wrote a letter to hym ageyne, and 
 schewed hym that I myght not cuna 
 to hym, and prayd hym to wryte it to 
 me, or elles to schewe it to Mayster 
 Dalacourt ; whych Mr. Dalacourt came 
 to me ffrora hym, and scyd he wold 
 not wryt, but the nexst tyme that I 
 cum to hym [he] wold schewe it me 
 hymselff ; and su[m time] followyng, 
 whyche [was when the King took his] 
 joruoy in warffar into France, I [con- 
 fessed to] hym ; and when I whas in 
 schryft to hym [he axed me] wheder 
 I schuld goo into France w[ith the 
 King] ; and I schewed hym ye ; and 
 he sayd [that he was very] glad 
 theroff ; ffor he sayd tlie Kyng's grace 
 [would] wyn gret honor ther, and 
 that whe [should] all cum home save 
 ageyne ; bat that the Scotts schuld 
 make sum troby[l]. And then ho 
 
 sayd, iff the kyng off Scotts came 
 [into this realm he] schuld nott goo 
 home ageyn ; and I [asked him] howe 
 he knewe thys, and asyd him wheder 
 he had knowledge thereoff [by] 
 prophesye ; and he seyd, naye, but 
 said to [me] iJx [_I)eo Jiabeo']. 
 
 " And after he axyd me how meny 
 c[hildren] the Kyng had had, and I 
 told hym ; and [he] sayd, I pray God 
 hys issue may co[ntinue], ffor I ffer 
 gretly God ys not contentyd [that] 
 he maky t h not resty [tu] cion accordy ng 
 to the Kyng [his father's will], ffor 
 he herd no [man] speyk thereoff ; and 
 [he] charchyd me, upon my allegiance 
 towards hys Grace, to adwyse hys 
 concell tomake restitution, and wheder 
 he schewde part off thes words . . . 
 can not perffyghtly remember . . . 
 theym, ffor the most part off t 
 and Mayster Dalacourt alsoo * * 
 — Cott. App. xlviii. 109. B.M. 
 
 The substance of this confession 
 has been preserved by Lord Herbert 
 in his History of Henry VIII. 
 According to Herbert the Duke is 
 reported to have said that he repeated 
 these words to his chancellor Gilbert ; 
 and upon his return from France he 
 visited Hopkins, stating that he had 
 told the truth. He adds, that at 
 another time the Duke visited Hop- 
 kyns, with his son Lord Stafford and 
 the Earl of Westmoreland, and that 
 Hopkyns then said that some of his 
 blood should hereafter prove great 
 men. After this ll()i)kyns again sent 
 to the Duke requesting him to help 
 their house at Henton in making their 
 conduit, according to his promise, for 
 the lOL he had formerly given them 
 was all spent. 
 
 #>>
 
 394 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 enough to assert that the King had arrived at a false con- 
 clusion, and that such methods of procedure were fatal to 
 justice ? In a court also, constituted of men who were not 
 lawyers by profession, who had received no training for such 
 nice questions, who understood nothing of the salutary laws 
 of legal evidence, what hope could there be for the accused ? 
 How could he expect that protection which not only innocence 
 but guilt has a right to demand, until the charge be fairly and 
 fully proven ? The only lawyer employed was the attorney- 
 general in behalf of the Crown. But in those days attorney- 
 generals regarded themselves as the servants of the Crown, 
 who had to earn their wages by establishing the guilt of the 
 prisoner. 
 
 So the lords retired, and upon their return into court the 
 sentence of each peer was taken one by one. Then said 
 the Duke of Norfolk to the Duke of Suffolk, " What say 
 you of Sir Edward, duke of Buckingham, touching these 
 high treasons ? " "I say that he is guilty," answered the 
 Duke, laying his hand upon his breast. Every peer made 
 the same response ; and against each of the names entered 
 on the panel — a little scrap of dirty parchment, still pre- 
 served at the Eecord Office — there is to be seen to this 
 day, in the handwriting of the Duke of Norfolk, Dicit quod 
 est culpahilis. 
 
 Then was the Duke brought to the bar to hear his sentence. 
 For a few moments he was overpowered by his emotions. In 
 the extremity of his agony, he chafed and sweat vehemently. 
 Recovering himself, after a while, he made his obeisance to 
 the court. After a short pause, a deathlike silence : " Sir 
 Edward," said the Duke of Norfolk, " you have heard how 
 you be indicted of high treason ; you pleaded thereto not 
 guilty, putting yourself to the judgment of your peers, the 
 which have found you guilty." Then bursting into a torrent 
 of tears (he was an old man, who had faced death unmoved 
 in the field of Flodden), he faltered out, "Your sentence is, 
 that you be led back to prison ; laid on a hurdle, and so 
 drawTi to the place of execution ; there to be hanged, cut down 
 alive, your members to be cut off and cast into the fire, your 
 bowels burnt before your eyes, your head smitten off, your 
 body quartered and divided at the King's will. And God have 
 mercy on your soul ! Amen." 
 
 The Duke heard this horrible sentence with unusual 
 dignity and composure. Turning to the Duke of Norfolk, he
 
 1521.] EXECUTION OF BUCKINGHAM. 395 
 
 quietly replied, " You have said, my lord, as a traitor should 
 be said unto ; but I was never none." Then, addressing him- 
 self to the coui't, he requested that those present would pray 
 for him, assuring them that he forgave them his death, and 
 expressing his determination not to sue for mercy. 
 
 In compliance with the customs of the time, the edge of 
 the axe was tm'ned towards him, as he was led out of the hall 
 by the constable and deputy lieutenant of the Tower. At 
 Westminster stairs he took water, and landing at the Temple 
 was delivered over to Sir Nicholas Vaux and Sir "William 
 Sandys, by whom he was conducted through the city to the 
 Tower. This was about four o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 The proceedings for his trial had commenced on Monday, 
 and lasted some days. Between .the short interval of his 
 sentence and execution, constant to the resolution he had 
 expressed of not suing to the King for mercj^ the Duke pro- 
 tested his innocence and prepared for death. On the following 
 Friday morning, the 17th of May, between eleven and twelve 
 o'clock in the forenoon, at a time when the hills of Surrey 
 were clothed in their freshest verdure, and the then unoccupied 
 banks of the Thames sloped to the water's edge with the 
 tender green and delicate blossom of the white thorn, the 
 Duke's favourite flower, the sombre procession threaded its 
 way through the dark passages of the Tower, and emerged 
 upon the Green. Among the sobs and tears of the spectators, 
 the Duke, led by the two sheriffs, mounted the scaffold with a 
 firm and composed step. Turning himself to the crowd, he 
 requested all men to pray for him, "trusting," he said, "to 
 die the King's true man ; whom, through his own negligence 
 and lack of grace, he had offended." With this brief request, 
 he kneeled at the block. There was a sudden glimmer for an 
 instant in the air, then a dull thud, and the head rolled 
 heavily from the body. The headsman wiped his axe ; the 
 attendants threw a cloth over the headless trunk, to conceal 
 the blood which streamed in torrents over the scaffold, and 
 dripped through the platform on the grass beneath. In rough 
 frieze, barefooted, and bareheaded, six poor Augustinian friars, 
 shouldering a rude coffin, emerged from the shuddering and 
 receding crowd. Gathering up the remains of the once mighty 
 Duke of Buckingham — for the King, satisfied with his con- 
 demnation, had commuted the last extremities of the sentence 
 — they carried the corpse to the church of the Austin Friars.^ 
 
 * Memorandum on the cover of Lambeth MS., No. 316.
 
 o 
 
 96 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIIL [A.D. 
 
 The Duke in his hfetime had been kind to poor rehgious 
 men, and this was the last and only office they could render 
 him. 
 
 An unwise and unguarded man, the Duke had in him little 
 of that metal of which traitors are generally made. Capricious 
 in temper, careless of tongue, even had he contrived to steer 
 his way in safety to less dangerous times, he would never have 
 grasped political power with a steady hand. Formidable 
 from his wealth, his connections, his rank, and his blood, 
 formidable fi-om his nearness to the throne and the barrenness 
 of Katharine, it behoved him to have been either more than 
 usually courteous or more than usually conciliating. He was 
 too proud to be either. He despised the Cardinal, and was at 
 no pains to conceal it. He despised the King for being guided 
 by the Cardinal, and was easily goaded on by treacherous 
 friends and cunning domestics to speak dishonourably, if 
 not treasonably, of his sovereign. If he had committed any- 
 thing worthy of death, if he had conspired against the life 
 or dignity of the King, of which I can find no trace, no 
 probability even, in his private papers, the proofs tendered of 
 his guilt at his trial can satisfy no one at this day. If they 
 are inclusive in themselves, they appear more so from the 
 fact Miat whilst the evidence for the prosecution had been 
 deliberately framed for many weeks, the unhappy prisoner, 
 kept in the dark as to the precise charges to be brought 
 against him, had no time or opportunity to prepare for his 
 defence until the day of his trial ; until then, when the indict- 
 ment was read and the witnesses produced, he had no know- 
 ledge of the crimes he was called upon to answer. But the ' 
 people, though they pitied his fall, had no very clear notions 
 of the reasons for his condemnation ; unaccustomed to question 
 the judgment of their superiors, they accepted the verdict of 
 his peers as conclusive against him. The presumption was 
 stronger than the proof. It was enough for ordinary thinkers 
 that the Duke was a proud man; he was certainly a wealthy 
 man, descended from a stock that was dangerous to royalty, 
 and apt to be overbearing. That he listened readily to 
 prophecies, at a time when prophecies were the oracular 
 expressions of discontent and instruments of mischief, seemed 
 enough to justify the impression of his guilt. So he fell, not 
 without pity, tears alternating with the sterner conviction 
 that his fate was unavoidable. The happiness of the nation 
 was bound up in its King ; and the blood of the noblest was
 
 1521] EXECUTION OF BUCKINGHAM. 397 
 
 not a sacrifice too costly to expiate the least taint or suspicion 
 of disloyalty. 
 
 On the day of the Duke's execution Wolsey was attending 
 on the King as he sate in his chair in his gallery at Greenwich. 
 The King was just then recovering from fever and ague, under 
 which he had been labouring for some days, when the Cardinal 
 took the opportunity of urging that letters of "consolation 
 and credence " should be sent to the widowed Duchess and 
 her son, Lord Stafford.-^ On reminding the King of this 
 request a second time, a few days after, Wolsey added, "If 
 you think them {sc. these letters of condolence) not convenient 
 to j)ass, I remit that to you." 
 
 Of the jury who had concurred in the condemnation of the 
 Duke, two-thirds, perhaps, participated in his sentiments. 
 The exclusion of the ancient aristocracy from office, in con- 
 formity with the Tudor policy ; their hopelessness, as expressed 
 by the Duke, of obtaining any just recognition of their services, 
 however great ; ^ their hereditary hatred of an ecclesiastic, of 
 low birth, like Wolsey, who monopolized the King's favour, 
 and excluded them from their due share of influence in the 
 State ; their fixed aversion to a French alliance ; — all combined 
 to spread a feeling of discontent among them, which might 
 have found a centre in the Duke, however otherwise unfitted 
 by genius or resolution to be the leader of a great conspiracy. 
 Then, again, from the days of Kichard III. the De la Poles 
 had never wholly abandoned their hopes of the crown, between 
 which and themselves there stood so slight, so thin, an 
 obstacle, hopes nearly realized more than once. Such a 
 conspiracy would have been mortal to the Cardinal ; dangerous 
 at least, if not destructive, to the royal authority. Men who 
 looked not deeply into the character of Henry VIII. might 
 easily flatter themselves that a monarch who appeared to 
 surrender his judgment exclusively to his great minister, and 
 spend so much of his time in hunting, amusements, and 
 devotion, would prove no great obstacle to their designs ; 
 and the King, surrounded by a compact and narrow band of 
 the greatest nobles, would have been reduced to a cipher. 
 
 So the execution of the Duke was a State necessity, in 
 strict accordance with Tudor maxims. It crushed entirely all 
 
 ' TII. 1292. King would give his fees, offices, and 
 ^ " He heard the Dake say that he rewards to boys rather tlian to noble- 
 had done as f^ood services as any man, men; which was small comfort to 
 and was never rewarded, and that the them to do his Grace service."
 
 398 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 danger from a suspected quarter. The nobility were more 
 ■humbled, more scared, than ever. That accomplished, there 
 was no reason why mercy should not take the place of judg- 
 ment ; and the moderation of Wolsey is conspicuous in thus 
 moving the King to write these letters of condolence. 
 
 But more remained. 
 
 It was not possible that a nobleman, so eminent as the 
 Duke, could be thus taken off without provoking much discus- 
 sion and many disagreeable suspicions in every court in 
 Europe. It was not politic that the oft-repeated boast of the 
 King's popularity should be considered as devoid of foundation, 
 or that it should be said that the greatest of his nobility were 
 disaffected to his government. In his despatch to the English 
 ambassador at the French court, ^ the Cardinal enjoins him to 
 thank the French King for the offers he had made to defend 
 the King's person, when he first heard of the Duke's attach- 
 ment. He was to say that the King had been aware for some 
 time of the Duke's disaffection ; that he had recently been 
 detected in treason against the King's person and succession, 
 especially against the Princess Mary, with whose alliance in 
 France he was much displeased ; ^ that these things being 
 proved, and at last admitted by himself, he had been executed 
 according to his demerits. As no trace of this charge is to be 
 found in the Duke's indictment, or in the account of his trial, 
 it must be considered as a political figment invented to suit 
 the atmosphere of the French court, and justify, on motives 
 fully appreciated by the French King, the execution of the 
 Duke.^ But though nothing of this appeared on the trial — 
 and there were excellent reasons why it should not, for the 
 Duke would certainly have been regarded as a political martyr 
 to a measure in the highest degree unpopular — there are 
 indications that, in common with Suffolk, Abergavenny, and 
 the people in general, Buckingham regarded the French and 
 this marriage alliance with aversion. Fully to understand 
 the feelings of the times, we must take into account the long- 
 standing rivalry between the two nations. The irrepressible 
 jealousy and excessive dislike with which France, its ambition, 
 its habits, its fashions, its activity under all forms, were then 
 
 ^ III. 1293. for opposing the Cardinal in promoting 
 
 ^ At the Calais conference in the the alHance of France and England. 
 
 following August Wolsey positively III. 1556. 
 
 assured the French minister, Du Prat, ^ III. 1293. 
 
 that Buckingham had been beheaded
 
 1521.] WHAT MEX SAID OF IT. 399 
 
 regarded by the mass of the English people, are barely in- 
 telligible to us now, to whom the conquest of France has 
 ceased to be more than a dim and idle tradition, stirring no 
 blood, awakening no memories and no regrets. But in tliose 
 days men still talked over by the fireside the deeds of their 
 forefathers in the fields of France ; they believed as fully in 
 the right and title of their kings to France as we believe in 
 our title to India or Ireland. Henry's only surviving child 
 and heir was the Princess Mary. The nation had ceased to 
 expect any other. By her union with the Dauphin a way 
 was opened to the succession of a French prince to the throne 
 of England. Nothing could be more odious to the people than 
 such an anticipation ; and there was no policy that Bucking- 
 ham could have adopted which would have secured his object 
 with greater certainty, had he been really desirous of the 
 Cardinal's overthrow, than to have declared himself an enemy 
 to that measm-e, of which Wolsey boasted to be the sole 
 author. With a little more cunning and self-control, he might 
 at this critical moment have filled England with discontent 
 from one end to the other. The suspicions of the King and 
 the Cardinal were not wholly devoid of foundation. They 
 watched the actions of the Duke and his friends with con- 
 siderable apprehension.^ Once only had he been in the 
 company of Francis, and had not left a very favourable 
 impression. Sir Thomas Cheyne details a conversation he 
 had with Francis I. respecting the Duke a short time after.^ 
 Francis, he says, " fell on devising (talking) of the duke of 
 Buckingham, and said he had no fancy to him, and said he 
 thought he should come to that he is now come to. And he 
 reported him to my Lady his mother, whether he said so or 
 no immediately after his coming from Arde." On another 
 occasion,^ Francis, talking on the same subject with Fitz- 
 william, inquired what sort of a man the Duke was ; Fitz- 
 william replied that " he was a high-minded man, and one 
 that would speak sometimes like a man in a rage." Francis 
 said, " he judged him for such a man, and so full of choler 
 that there was nothing could content him." The ambassador 
 rejoined that the King had often given the Duke good Ifessons ; 
 so good that, if he had had any grace, he would never have 
 deserved to be in the Tower ; and he added that the Duke had 
 
 » See the Kind's extraordinary ^ py^^ ^3^ 1522. 
 
 letter to thu Cardiual, 111. 1, and the * 111. 1245. 
 
 note.
 
 400 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 often received warnings as well from Wolsey as from • his own 
 servants. 
 
 The Emperor — for the death of the Duke was a subject of 
 discussion in all the courts of Europe — never very demon- 
 strative, expressed his regret more imperatorum. There had 
 been much talk in his court, he told Wingfield,^ of the Duke's 
 attainder, and it was not easy to prevent it ; but as for himself, 
 he knew too well the King's great virtue and wisdom to suppose 
 he would have had the Duke executed except upon great and 
 just cause. When Wingiield told him that the charges were 
 proved against the Duke, and confessed by him before his 
 death, the Emperor observed that the King could not have 
 done otherwise than he had done. Nevertheless, he said, he 
 was sorry the Duke should have come to such an end ; for he 
 had taken him for a friend, supposing he had been a friend to 
 the King. Such conversations as these must not be accepted 
 for more than they are worth. The ambassador received his 
 cue from the minister ; and if he doubted of its truthfulness, 
 it was not his business to give utterance to his doubts, much 
 less in despatches addressed to his own court and its minister. 
 
 But far away from the metropolis men canvassed in less 
 bated terms the execution of the Duke. On the 18th of June, 
 1521, an information was laid against John Stede, of Warham, 
 Norfolk, for " heinous words against the King's grace." ^ On 
 the Monday in Whitsun week — so runs the deposition of one 
 witness — John Fuller or Fowler came to John Stede at 
 Sydestern, and was hired into his service in Dovehouse Close. 
 Stede asked the new-comer, in whose service he had been ; he 
 replied, in the Duke of Northumberland's.^ Then said Stede, 
 " I am sure my lord and yours is pensive for the duke of 
 Buckingham." To which Fowler answered, he could not tell, 
 for it was not known there upon St. George's day, and he had 
 left the day following. Stede rejoined : " My lord would be 
 pensive if he knew as much as I do ; for I heard that upon 
 Monday his judgment was given unto him before my lord of 
 Norfolk and other lords ; and then the said Duke sat down 
 upon his knee, and desired the Lords that they should desire 
 the King's grace to be good and gracious unto his wife and to 
 his children ; but as for his own life he would not sue. And 
 furthermore he said, ' An he had not offended no more unto 
 God than he had done to the Crown he should die as true 
 
 ^ III. 1328. ' The Duchess of Bnckingham was 
 
 * III. 1356. Northnmber laud's daughter.
 
 15-21.] DITISION OP THE SPOILS. 401 
 
 man as ever was in the world." On another occasion, Sir 
 John Estcott, the parish priest, and Nicholas Parker, my Lord 
 Broke's huntsman, were talking together on the 16th of May 
 in Monkyn Bucland, about the Duke of Buckingham.^ Then 
 said Estcott, it was a pity such an honourable man should 
 order himself so against God and his King, And Parker said, 
 " in counsel," that the Duke seven years ago had made Lord 
 Broke of counsel in this matter, and invited him to join his 
 household. 
 
 But if there were any one who really hoped that the execu- 
 tion of Buckingham would occasion discontent, and end in the 
 overthrow of the Cardinal, they were doomed to disappoint- 
 ment. The nation in general silentlj^ acquiesced in the Duke's 
 fall ; none cared to scrutinize too narrowly the evidence on 
 which he was condemned, or the constitution and procedure of 
 the tribunal before which he had been tried. The King was 
 the fountain of all justice, not in the sense of a dry legal 
 axiom, which as no one disputes, so no one realizes, but in 
 the hearts and intimate convictions of his people. And if 
 that fountain occasionally in turbulent times or distressing 
 emergencies sent forth bitter waters as well as sweet, the 
 nation was not inclined, on that account, to forego their belief 
 in the justice of their sovereigns, or question the benefit of a 
 strong and resolute rule. To those who looked back on the 
 horrors and disorders of the civil wars, the occasional harsh- 
 ness of an arbitrary but regular government seemed a happy 
 exchange for the licentiousness and cruelty of internecine 
 strife. 
 
 The big birds of prey swooped down and clamoured round 
 the noble quarry. The Duke had been one of the richest men 
 of his times. His manors, castles, parks, stewardships were 
 scattered over eleven of the best counties in England.^ Wolsey 
 excepted, he had a more magnificent taste for building than 
 any of his contemporaries, and had spared no expense in 
 decorating his mansion, park, and gardens at Thornbury. At 
 the time of his death he was engaged in erecting a castle 
 " with curious works and stately lodgings." On the east of 
 the castle was " a goodly garden " to walk in, a large orchard 
 with many alleys ; and in different parts of the orchard, " on 
 a good height," were " roosting-places " or summer houses, 
 
 * ITT. 1320. Essex, Bucks, Bedfonlsliiro, Kent, and 
 
 ' (S'c. Hants, Wilts, Gloucestershire, Surrey; not to moutioii liis vast 
 
 Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, possessions in Wales. See III. 128G. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 1)
 
 402 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [AD. 
 
 embowered with white thorn and hazel. The orchard com- 
 municated with a new park, containing 700 deer, and inclosed 
 thirteen fish-ponds, fed by a spring. Crossing the road was 
 another park holding 300 deer ; and two miles from the castle 
 a third, seven miles in extent, filled with 500 fallow and 
 50 red deer. 
 
 Next in value was his borough of Newport in Wales, with 
 its haven full of shipping, and a proper castle with three 
 towers, close to the water's edge ; " the middlest tower having 
 a vault or entry to receive into the said castle a good vessel." 
 Here the Duke exercised the rights of a suzerain, imposing 
 fines and imprisoning offenders. 
 
 Next came the lordship of Tunbridge in Kent, with its 
 castle ; " as strong a castle as few be in England. The town 
 of Tunbridge is a borough large and well inhabited with people, 
 having plenty of water running through it in divers places." 
 Adjoining it was a park of oaks and beeches, giving pasture to 
 300 fallow deer, and embracing in its circuit fifty-two islands. 
 There was also his manor place of Bletchingley, "properly and 
 newly builded ; " with its hall, chapel, chambers, parlours, 
 closets, and oratories newly ceiled, its wainscoted roofs, floors, 
 and walls, " to the intent they may be used at pleasure without 
 hangings." 
 
 Then the town of Brecknock, " a very proper walled town, 
 well builded, and as well paved, with many honest inhabitants 
 in the same, enclosed on the west side thereof with the castle, 
 which is a good and a strong hold, with all houses of offices 
 and lodgings builded after the old fashion." The castle had 
 a hall, the roof of which " was newly and costly made with 
 pendants after a goodly fashion, and into the said castle water 
 was conveyed by a conduit." Adjoining it was a forest and 
 a great mere, " in length nigh three miles and in breadth 
 a mile, well replenished with fish, and specially with 
 breams." 
 
 Kimbolton Castle, in Huntingdonshire, another of his 
 possessions, is described as being " within a moat, well and 
 compendiously trussed together in due and convenient propor- 
 tion." Within a quarter of a mile of it was Stonely priory, a 
 park, and a fox hunt. Then the manor of Writtell, in Essex, 
 partly decayed, but substantially built, " all of gross timber, 
 in a quadrant with a cloister." The commissioners report 
 that this might be made with no great charge a convenient 
 house for the King, " when by any occasion his Grace should
 
 1521.] DIVISION OF THE SPOILS. 403 
 
 be minded to remove from Newhall, or for bunting-time in 
 summer." 
 
 Masstock Castle, in Warwicksbire, anotber portion of bis 
 estates, is described as " a rigbt j^roper tbing after tbe old 
 building ; standing witbin a fair and large moat full of iisb, 
 being builded four-square, and at every corner is a tower 
 covered witb lead, wberein be proper lodgings." Besides its 
 spacious ball, cbapel, and cbambers, tbe apartments in tbis 
 castle "bad cbimneys and draugbts." " Mucb of tbe work," 
 it is added, " was done by my Lady's grace tbe King's grand- 
 dame, and wanted finisliing in sundry wise ; " but it would, at 
 an outlay of lOOZ., make a suitable castle for tbe King and 
 Queen in tbe time of tbeir progress. 
 
 Tbe town of Stafford is returned as " a proper and a fair 
 town, wbicb continually aforetime batb been tbe King's town, 
 albeit tbe benefices in tbe same, and lands lying about it, 
 were tbe late duke of Buckingbam's." Tbe castle stood in a 
 park a mile from tbe town, " upon so goodly an beigbt tbat 
 all tbe country migbt be seen twenty or tbirty miles about ; 
 and one way a man may see to tbe King's lordsbip of Caurs 
 in Wales, tbirty miles from tbence, and anotber way to tbe 
 Iving's bonor of Tutbury." Six of tbe little cbambers in tbe 
 castle bad " draugbts and cbimneys." As it was only fifteen 
 miles from Tutbury, and tbirteen or fourteen from Licbfield, 
 it is suggested tbat it would be "rigbt pleasant for tbe King, 
 wben making bis progress in grease time." ^ 
 
 Otber lordsbips are enumerated and described, but tbose 
 already mentioned will be enougb to give my readers some 
 notion of tbe wealth and magnificence of tbe great Duke. 
 Tbe total annual rental derived from bis possessions in Eng- 
 land and Wales was estimated at 6,0451. 7s. l^d., or about 
 twelve times tbat amount according to our modern com- 
 putation.^ 
 
 Here were noble spoils ; for, witbout detracting mucb from 
 tbe general value of tbe confiscation, tbere were minor estates, 
 manors, offices, stewardsbips, cbapelries to be distributed 
 among tbose who bad boldness enougb to ask and favour 
 enougb to obtain them. Among tbe sharers of tbe spoil we 
 find two of the Duke's judges, the Dukes of Norfolk and 
 Suffolk,^ Sir Nicholas Carew,^ Sir William Fitzwilliam,-'"' Sir 
 
 ' III. 128G. ♦ III. 239G. 
 
 » IIJ. 1288. ' III. 21G7. 
 
 ' III. 2382, 31G2.
 
 404 THE REIGN OF HENRY YIII. [A.D. 1521. 
 
 Griffith Don/ Henry Norris,^ and the two Wingfields.^ In 
 this distribution there might be, there probably was, nothing 
 culpable ; but we have reason to be thankful that such usages 
 exist no longer. 
 
 ^ III. 2587. * III. 2659. ' III. 2043, 2682.
 
 ( ^05 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE CALAIS CONFERENCE. 
 
 j\Iean"^hile the relations between Francis and the Emperor 
 were exevj day becoming less satisfactory. The rebellion of 
 the Emperor's subjects in Spain, his absence at Worms, his 
 incessant occupation with the cares of his new empire, seemed 
 to offer an excellent opportunity to the French King for prose- 
 cuting his own designs, and invading the imperial dominions. 
 But Charles had given no cause for hostility, and he was well 
 aware that, in case of a rupture, the assistance of England 
 would be required against the aggressor. To furnish the 
 Emperor with no pretext for invoking that assistance ; to 
 secm-e it, if possible, for himself, by inducing Charles to strike 
 the first blow; — this was the main object of his policy. To 
 avoid a contingency he clearly foresaw must happen sooner or 
 later, Francis hurried on his preparations. 
 
 To keep England in good humour, to hide from an ally 
 with whom he professed to be on amicable terms so much of 
 his design as it did not suit his purpose to reveal, required no 
 little tact and dexterity. In the unsatisfactory state of his 
 relations with other European powers, as they were jealous 
 and suspicious of his movements, he could not afford to throw 
 away the amity of England. He was conscious that the Pope 
 hated and feared him, and was straining every nerve to unite 
 Italy and the empire against him. The Emperor's hostility, 
 he was aware, was no less personal than political. Therefore, 
 his safety and his ambition alike demanded that Francis 
 should, if possible, prevent those combinations of his enemies 
 to which they were prompted by their fears, their jealousies 
 or their interests. On the other hand, it was equally the 
 policy of Wolsey and the Pope, though for different reasons, 
 to keep Francis and the Emperor employed by fomenting 
 divisions between them. The Pope could only hope to secure 
 his independence by their mutual antagonism. For if two
 
 406 THE EEIGN OP HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 such champions of the Church and irresponsible dictators of 
 Christendom were once united, they would control the Papacy, 
 and distribute the thunders of the Vatican at their pleasure. 
 Weak enough alread}^ the Pope would then have become 
 a weaker and more submissive vassal ; a mere instrument to 
 do their bidding. Now, if Charles or his ambassadors 
 attempted to coerce his Holiness — as they were not disinclined 
 to do whenever they found him less compliant than they 
 wished — if they quartered Spanish and Sicilian troops on the 
 Neapolitan frontier, or afforded convenient relief and refuge 
 to the Pope's enemies and evil-doers, his Holiness had the 
 means of bringing them to reason by lending a ready ear to 
 the French overtures. If Francis, in his turn, sent troops 
 to the Duke of Ferrara, or aided in spoiling the Church's 
 patrimony — an easy method of making the Pope feel the 
 weight of his resentment, without the least diminution of 
 outward respect — the Pope, by promoting the designs and 
 interests of the Spaniards, could as easily retaliate, without 
 appearing to violate the decencies of friendship. In fact, had 
 an intimate union and alliance sprung up between Charles 
 and Francis, that consummation for which many Protestants 
 have panted might have taken place three centuries ago. The 
 temporal power as well as the spiritual independence of the 
 Pope would have ceased to exist. At the same time there 
 would have been no Protestant living to rejoice over its 
 destruction. For the same combination which triumphed 
 over the Papacy would have stamped out every spark of 
 religious freedom. Liberty of conscience and national inde- 
 pendence, weak in their beginnings, cradled so often in the 
 shock and mutual antagonism of the great, would have been 
 successfully coerced, and Luther and his followers have 
 experienced the fate of Huss.^ Whether Wolsey's thoughts 
 ever travelled beyond the more narrow and immediate objects 
 of his policy to the general safety and welfare of Christendom, 
 may be questioned, but that both depended on the measures 
 he unremittingly pursued admits of no dispute. To balance 
 the two great continental powers against each other, to prevent 
 their dangerous conjunction, to trim and adjust the scale when 
 the one or the other predominated, was necessary for the 
 security and aggrandizement of England ; but it was no less 
 
 ' Some writers have supposed that be any such now, I beg to refer them 
 Charles had a secret inclination to to his own letter on this subject iu 
 Luther and his doctrines. If there the Calendar. III. 1237.
 
 1521.] 
 
 FRANCIS PREPARES FOR WAR. 
 
 407 
 
 necessary for the general interests of Christendom, and of 
 every individual state of which Christendom was then 
 comjjosed. 
 
 If, then, it was the policy of the French King to keep his 
 rivals asunder, it was no less the policy of Wolsey to prevent 
 the union of Charles and Francis ; a union neither distant nor 
 improbable, considering the inability of the former, in his 
 present perplexities, to cope with the French monarch. But 
 the task which Francis now proposed to himself was not easy. 
 Already, with his connivance, Henry d'Albret had seized the 
 opportunity of repossessing himself of Navarre, and found his 
 progress unopposed, in consequence of the dissensions among 
 the Castilians. At the same moment Eobert de la Mark, 
 Lord of Bouillon, on the frontiers of Luxembourg and Cham- 
 pagne, took the field at the head of a body of adventurers, led 
 bj^ French officers with the French King's connivance, if not 
 with his positive sanction. In Dauphine the famous Bayard 
 was busily employed in collecting troops. French dockyards 
 swarmed with carpenters ; great galleons and floating batteries 
 towered up in imjDOsing magnitude and number to threaten 
 and annoy the enemy's country.^ Yet all the while Francis 
 professed the most pacific intentions, and. deprecated the 
 suspicion of any sinister motives in himself or in those who 
 were thus actively engaged. It was impossible for the English 
 court to shut its eyes to these facts or their consequences. 
 Taxed with the expedition of the King of Navarre, Francis 
 replied that D'Albret was only setting out to visit his grand- 
 father ; as for Piobert de la Mark, he had never "aided him 
 with a penny," and entirely disapproved of his proceedings ; 
 whilst his own preparations for Italy were only prompted by 
 the wish he had long entertained to see his Duchy of Milan, 
 and to show himself to his subjects there." Howbeit, he said 
 he would make no great haste thitherwards for the present. 
 
 These specious excuses were accompanied with j)rofessions 
 
 ' Francis informed Fitzwilliam, in 
 March, that he had a ship to be ready 
 at Midsummer, somewhat larger than 
 The Great Harry, also the great ship 
 of Scotland, and IG sail bcside,the 
 Bmallest above 350 tons. He has, 
 says Fitzwilliam, " three great galleons 
 that I never heard of such, for they 
 draw so little water that he will bring 
 them so near shore tliat he may land 
 out of thera, witiiout a boat, 500 foot, 
 men and horsemen." This feat 
 
 was to be accomplished by means of 
 a bridge, " that shall be ever carried 
 with them." Fitzwilliam adds, that 
 Francis had also a design of construct- 
 ing galleons with low decks like float- 
 ing batteries. (III. 1198.) " I think 
 he sjjoke to me," says Fitzwilliam, 
 " as Vice-Admiral, and asked me how 
 I liked them ; and 1 praised them 
 enough." The incredulous English- 
 man!
 
 408 THE KEIGN OF HENKY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 of unalterable respect and affection for England. He listened 
 to Henry's ambassadors " marvellous amiably." If their 
 master wished for another interview, he assured them, though 
 he were in Italy, " he would gladly ride in post " to any place 
 where Henry would appoint a meeting.^ His respect for my 
 Lord Cardinal was only second to that which he entertained 
 for his master. The French agents at Eome had contrived to 
 possess themselves of a most important secret. Don Manuel, 
 the imperial ambassador, a blustering and pompous Spaniard, 
 had dropped certain hints of a matrimonial aUiance between 
 the Emperor and a Portuguese princess ; boasting that his 
 master might have secured, if he pleased, the hand of the 
 Princess Mary.^ A report so derogatory to England, so well 
 calculated to produce a rupture between Henry and Charles, 
 was duly conveyed to the French King. With many emphatic 
 denunciations of the calumny, so insulting to his ally, with 
 many protestations that he did not believe it, Francis trans- 
 mitted the report to England. It was received by Henry with 
 no small vexation and chagrin ; the more so, because it was 
 well-founded. Digesting his vexation with a gracious counte- 
 nance, Henry thanked his candid ally for his " manifold 
 demonstrations of friendly kindness," and assured him of the 
 continuance of their friendship. " Such sinister reports," he 
 added, " as those of Don Manuel were only contrived by their 
 enemies to break their friendship, and sow dissension between 
 them. The King was certainly surprised to hear that the 
 Emperor was suing for a dispensation to marry the daughter 
 of Portugal ; but as for the other part of the story, there was 
 no truth in it. True the King of the Eomans had made over- 
 tures, both at Calais and since, to marry Madam, the Princess 
 Mary ; but the King, in consequence of his engagements with 
 France, had peremptorily declined the offer." ^ 
 
 This assertion, as bold as it was untrue, deceived no one. 
 So far from rejecting the Emperor's proposals, Henry had 
 been negociating with him for many months the terms of a 
 matrimonial aUiance, and of this the French King was well 
 aware. But he thought it best to dissemble ; and he answered, 
 with great generosity, that the King needed not have troubled 
 himself with disproving the calumny, as he gave it no 
 credence.* It was, he said, undoubtedly true that the 
 Emperor was seeking a dispensation at Piome to marry the 
 
 * III. 1157, cf. 1202. » Condensed. 
 
 * III. 1258, 1283. * III. 1303.
 
 1521.] riTZWILLIA:\I AT THE FRENCH COURT. 409 
 
 Iving of Portugal's daughter, but as to the report that he might 
 have had my lady Princess, that, he assured the King, he 
 never could believe ; adding, with his usual gallantry, " I had 
 liever have my lady Princess and (even) though the King's 
 grace had ten children, than the King of Portingale's daughter, 
 with all her father's spices." 
 
 Such a reply was as provokingly polite as it was unsatis- 
 factory. It left Francis master of the field, and sole depository 
 of his own intentions. Some new method, as Wolsey discerned 
 at once, must be adopted ; and he was not slow in acting on 
 his discernment. With a rashness which would have appeared 
 uu2)ardonable in less able politicians, he called home from the 
 French court the old and experienced diplomatists Sir Eichard 
 Jerningham and Sir Eichard Wingfield, supplying their places 
 with a 3'Oung man who had never yet been engaged in any 
 public employment — Sir William Fitzwilliam. From the 
 time when Fitzwilliam was not more than ten years of age 
 he had been brought up with the King, and was perfectly 
 familiar with his personal habits, his likings and dislikings. 
 He shared in the King's love of sportsmanship ; was an adept 
 in the craft of venery ; knew that and nautical matters better 
 than anything else. With Latin, strange to say, he was 
 wholly unacquainted ; and though he spoke French fluently, 
 5'et with French spelling and French proper names, as will be 
 seen from his letters, he makes sad havoc. Keen, intrepid, 
 sagacious, he possessed for a courtier the rare and invaluable 
 gift of neither seeing nor talking too much ; he was diligent 
 and straightforward in business ; had a firmness and presence 
 of mind which never forsook him in the most trying 
 emergencies. Proof against menaces, which in a French 
 court he had not much reason to apprehend, he was equally 
 impenetrable to the more common and insidious approaches 
 of finesse and flattery. 
 
 He was cordially welcomed by the French King, who was 
 quite at his ease, and somewhat off his guard, in the presence 
 of an ambassador who, to all appearance, was " neither too 
 deep nor too sufficient." He talked with Fitzwilliam about 
 hunting ; ^ promised he should lodge and hunt with him every 
 day; "opposed (posed) him upon the sight of the view, and 
 also upon all other properties how to know an hart;" dis- 
 cussed with him the propriety of his master having a park for 
 wild swine " half a mile or a quarter in the thickest ground ho 
 
 ' III. IIGI, 1202.
 
 410 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 could find."^ It might have been imagined — it probably 
 was imagined — by the sharpest and subtlest of the French 
 ministers, that they had to deal with a raw inexperienced 
 youth, who was much better versed in the craft of a sportsman 
 than the affairs of kings, popes, or emperors. 
 
 Meanwhile, with his keen and vigilant eyes Fitzwilliam 
 took diligent notice of all that was going on. Albany, or De la 
 Mark, or his son Fleuranges, could have no interview with the 
 French Iving without his perceiving it and guessing the drift 
 of it. When the designs of Francis were too ripe or too 
 momentous for his ministers to be communicative, Fitzwilliam 
 in the equalizing usages and momentary unguardedness of the 
 field, managed to pick up useful scraps of intelligence her- 
 metically sealed from the staid and steady diplomatist in the 
 saloon or the ante-chamber. "Very glad am I to see the 
 towardness of this young man," writes Wolsey to the King, 
 " which (who), in mine opinion and poor judgment, falleth 
 right well to the matter, and indites his letters to good 
 purpose."^ His despatches justify the Cardinal's com- 
 mendation. 
 
 There could be no fitter instrument for Wolsey's purposes. 
 Without appearing to pry into the motives and actions of the 
 French King, without ever travelling beyond the role of mere 
 intelligencer, Fitzwilliam disarmed suspicion. He never 
 alarmed the jealousy of Francis, never flinched before the 
 curious searching eyes and more searching tongue of his 
 mother Louise. It was important above all things to keep the 
 French monarch in good humour. The least surmise on his 
 part, of Wolsey's and his master's intentions, would have 
 snapped short all amicable relations between the two courts ; 
 and matters with the Emperor were not yet on so satisfactory 
 a footing that England could afford to break with one until 
 she had secured the other. Cold, distant, and exacting, the 
 pride and the avarice, or, if that word be too strong, the 
 necessities of Charles, revolted from the conditions attached to 
 the hand of Mary. Who could tell whether, with all his 
 personal antipathy to his brilliant French rival, he would not 
 yet digest his spleen, and content himself with a French 
 bride, if the King of France, like the King of Portugal, would 
 promise a million for a dowry ? At all events, such a con- 
 tingency was not to be hazarded by a prudent statesman; 
 
 ' III. 1176. 
 
 * III. 1192. Compare also Wolsey's letter to Fitzwilliam : No. 1191.
 
 1521.] FITZWILLIAM AT THE FRENCH COURT. 411 
 
 and therefore Fitzwilliam was instructed to continue his 
 discreet manner, using always the most pleasant words to the 
 French King in declaration of Henry's fraternal love.^ He 
 was to assure Francis that his master loved him "above all 
 other princes, most esteeming his amity and constant deal- 
 ing;" that he could take no rest, "nor be contented in his 
 mind, till he should eftsoons attain the sight of his person by 
 a new, secret, loving, and familiar interview."^ 
 
 How well Fitzwilliam carried out his instructions may be 
 judged by the repeated assurances of Francis that he fully 
 reciprocated these tokens of affection : "A foy day gentel- 
 hommes," so Fitzwilliam reports his conversation, " there 
 was no man living he loved better " than his brother of 
 England. "And if," said Francis, "I should not rejoice of 
 this amity that I have with my brother, I know not whereof I 
 should rejoice, for I cannot be allied to [so noble] a man in 
 this world ; for there is no king [to be compared] to him ; for 
 they be childer or men that be not worthy to be esteemed like 
 him. He is worthy to be a king alonely but for his just 
 dealing and his virtue. Let him but send me word to meet 
 him at Calais, and I assure you, in what place soever I be, I 
 shall come to him in post." No eulogist of Henry could 
 desire more. 
 
 But if soberer judgments demand less questionable proofs 
 of the ability of Fitzwilliam and the accommodating disposi- 
 tion of the French King, here is one that cannot be disputed. 
 In the near and almost certain prospect of a continental 
 embroilment, with a powerful enemy across the sea, a cold 
 and hesitating ally in the Emperor, the King of England was 
 naturally reluctant to waste blood and treasure in a war with 
 Scotland. Ireland at the same time was causing him some 
 alarm ; an importunate creditor put off again and again until 
 a more convenient season, but ever more importunate, exact- 
 ing, and intolerant of delay. Mindful, therefore, of the old 
 adage, " If that you will France win, then with Scotland first 
 begin," Henry was anxious that the " weazel Scot " should 
 for the present fold its claws, and keep peaceably within its 
 lair. But how was this to be accomplished ? The armistice 
 with Scotland was fast expiring ; Albany was watching for his 
 opportunity to slip over unnoticed from the French court, and 
 aid and countenance the faction incessantly opposed to Eng- 
 land. French gentlemen, ostensibly with the most peaceable 
 ' III. 1212. ^ 111. 1191.
 
 412 THE KEIGN OF HENKY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 designs, passed and repassed the sea^ between France and 
 Scotland, and an outbreak appeared unavoidable. To punish 
 the temerit}^ of the Scots, to engage in a tedious border war, 
 was a hindrance at best, — might, if not ably and expeditiously 
 concluded, be taken by foreign nations for a proof of weakness. 
 To betray an inclination for peace, still more to sue for it or 
 grant it 'too readily, would be dishonour worse than weakness. 
 What then was to be done ? Francis was to be persuaded to 
 induce the Scotch, as of himself, to sue for peace ; he was to 
 employ his intercession with the King of England to grant 
 that as a favour which Henry was only too anxious to concede. 
 And to this, strange as it may seem, and more than this, 
 though detrimental to his own interests and his influence in 
 Scotland, was Francis induced by the persuasions of Fitz- 
 wdlliam. He enjoined the Scotch to sue for peace, and send 
 ambassadors to England for that purpose ; ^ and Henry was 
 thanked for his generosity in granting terms to Scotland at 
 the French King's solicitation. " The matters of Scotland," 
 writes Fitzwilliam a few days after to the King, in his quiet 
 and significant manner, " are answered after your own 
 mind."^ 
 
 Incessantly employed in crushing a formidable rebellion in 
 Spain, the Emperor had no wish to be embroiled with France, 
 and therefore listened readily to the proposals of Wolsey, that 
 the King of England should act as a mediator, and compose 
 the differences between himself and his rival.^ Wolsey found 
 no difficulty in persuading him " to forbear entering on a war, 
 regarding the state of his affairs in Almayn, Flanders, Spain, 
 Navarre, and his other countries," or of inducing him " to remit 
 these variances" to the King's hand;^ especially as he in- 
 sinuated that in so doing arrangements might be made for an 
 attack upon France at a more convenient season. But with 
 Francis, on the other hand, in spite of the address of Fitz- 
 william, and "the loving communications and pleasant devices " 
 of Jerningham, who was now sent to his assistance, the task 
 was more delicate and more difficult. Immersed in the bustle 
 and excitement of war, his confidence of success was increased 
 
 ' III. 1212. letter, with thow hanswar (answer) 
 
 * III. 1257. to an artykell, I had forgoton whan 
 
 * III. 1227. On the top of this I had clossed (closed) my letter." 
 letter, which is interesting in other Competitive examinations were not 
 respects, Fitzwilliam has written in then. 
 
 his own hand and in his o\to spelling: : * April 28, 1521 j No. 1255. 
 
 " The copy of thow (the) Kiug's ^ II.. 1270.
 
 1521.] FEAXCIS ACCEPTS MEDIATION. 413 
 
 bv the news ^ that the young D'Albret had entered Navarre, 
 had taken St. John Pie de Port, and no later than Saturday 
 last (May 18th) received the keys of Pampeluna, memorable 
 as the place where and the occasion when Ignatius Loyola 
 was wounded. He protested that he could not desist from 
 war, and submit to Henry's arbitration. The Emperor, he 
 said, had oppressed him so long, he could not with honour 
 abandon his enterprize. His army was now ready ; to disband 
 it would be a great disadvantage. Fitzwilliam listened with 
 coolness and attention, allowed him to talk on without inter- 
 ruption, gave him a long line (he knew the arts of a sports- 
 man), then suggested that as the Emperor had already offered 
 to submit to the King's arbitration, Francis, out of friendship, 
 might consent to do the same.^ The French King replied 
 that he was too well acquainted with the Emperor's dissimula- 
 tion to sacrifice his present opportunity ; the commons of 
 Spain were in rebellion, the Electors of Germany had refused 
 aid, and the Swiss had rejected the Emperor's offers. He 
 declined to waste a minute in fruitless negociations ; but — if 
 he ever consented to treat — he would put himself in the King's 
 hands sooner than in any other's. 
 
 The resolution of some men is in their circumstances, not 
 in themselves ; and so it proved now. Fortune, which had 
 hitherto seemed to smile, proved proverbially fickle. The 
 rebellion in Spain was suddenly crushed ; the first advantages 
 gained in Navarre were sacrificed by the rashness and in- 
 capacity of d'Espares. Nassau, a cool, able, and implacable 
 soldier, retaliated tenfold the injuries committed by De la 
 Mark ; destroyed his towns, hung up his garrisons, imprisoned 
 his son, and forced him to sue for an ignoble peace. With 
 misfortune Francis learned moderation. After a little more 
 blustering, a little more show of reluctance — for the cold and 
 quiet observation of Fitzwilliam was not to be deceived — he 
 consented to treat ; for no fear, as he assured Fitzwilliam — 
 for he had no dread of any man living — but only for the love 
 he bore to the Iving his brother, and out of regard for the 
 peace and the quiet of Christendom.'^ 
 
 But the same causes which had induced Francis to listen 
 to pacific counsels encouraged Charles to retract, and breathe 
 nothing but blood and vengeance. He had been informed, on 
 his return from Worms to Maycnce, of the invasion of Navarre 
 and the capture of Pampeluna. Fired with indignation, he 
 
 • May 21; No. 1303. ^ 111. 1315. ' 111. 1331.
 
 414 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 demanded that England, in conformity with the promise made 
 at the meeting at Canterbury, should assist him in punishing 
 the presumption of France ; adding, in a tone half threatening, 
 half reproachful, that, had he been willing to listen to the 
 mediation of others, no variance would have existed between 
 himself and the French King. 
 
 At no time is the life of a prime minister a bed of roses ; 
 and so Wolsey found. The care and study he had bestowed 
 in manipulating the French King now seemed likely to be 
 wasted by this sudden intractability of the Emperor. At 
 length, after many difiiculties — not to weary the reader with 
 a minute account of these tedious negociations — both powers 
 consented to accept Henry's mediation. It was arranged that 
 Wolsey should be sent to Calais ; nominally with full powers 
 to hear and decide their differences ; really for the purpose of 
 concluding a stricter amity with Charles, without exciting the 
 susj)icions of Francis.^ Before, however, he consented to stir 
 one step in this business, he exacted from both princes a 
 written assurance to accept his mediation ; and a promise, 
 at the same time, that, not until his sentence was pro- 
 nounced, should either of them attempt to be reconciled to 
 the other. 
 
 Did both parties consent to this strange convention from 
 conviction of the justice of their cause, or confidence in the 
 impartiality of Wolsey? Did they submit to the conditions 
 thus imposed because they involved no sacrifice, and depended 
 on their own inclinations to break or observe them? Or — 
 more likely — were all parties deceiving, and being deceived ? 
 Francis was not unacquainted with the secret understanding 
 between Henry and the Emperor ; nor could Charles be 
 ignorant of the true motive which demanded that he should 
 make no approaches for reconciliation with his rival. On the 
 other hand, so keen a politician as Wolsey would hardly repose 
 such implicit belief in the promises of the two sovereigns as 
 to think that they would keep their word when it no longer 
 suited their interests or their inclinations. Strange as it may 
 seem, none are more credulous or more blind than those who 
 impose on the credulity of others ; and, harsh as it may be to 
 say so, kings an(^^ their ministers, in the sixteenth century, 
 sate down to the game of political diplomacy with a fixed 
 determination to overreach not only their opponents but their 
 partners. So all parties concerned deliberately resolved on 
 
 ' III. 1340, 1383.
 
 1521.] HENRY'S DUPLICITY. 415 
 
 securing their own advantages, without too nicely scrutinizing 
 the means. 
 
 'V\Tiatever may be thought of this conduct, however contrary 
 it may appear to our present notions of fair and honourable 
 dealing, it was not so considered then. The chivalrous 
 application of the Christian maxim, if it ever had any exist- 
 ence beyond the imagination of poets and romancers, scarcely 
 remained in the times of the Tudors ; and certainly not among 
 the Tudor sovereigns. Perhaps the selfishness, the cruelt}^ 
 the suspicion, engendered by years of civil strife, still left a 
 root of bitterness behind them. To count on the forbearance 
 of their enemy might be an amiable weakness in the Stuarts ; 
 no Tudor would have trusted the generosity of a friend, much 
 less of a foe, or of a friend who might prove a foe. Love of 
 policy for its own sake, strength of will, proneness to suspicion, 
 readiness to forgive, inability to forget, an injury, — these 
 were the characteristics of Henry VIL, and ran through the 
 whole Itae of his descendants. In Henry VH., whose throne, 
 seated on a molehill, was constantly undermined by active and 
 unseen enemies, such taints in the blood were to be expected, 
 and might be excused. Nurtured in distrust, the events of his 
 life had fostered in him the habit of suspicion. It would have 
 been unnatural if none of these defects had descended to his 
 son ; especially as men transmit to their posterity their ignoble 
 as frequently as their nobler qualities. Henry VIII. was the 
 son of Henry VIL From the " Field of the Cloth of Gold," 
 where he and his French ally had met as brothers in arms, 
 and to all outward appearance brothers in affection, Henry 
 retired to meet the Emperor at Calais, to betray and sacrifice 
 to a new alliance the monarch whose hospitality he had accepted 
 and returned. He had solemnly disavowed to the French 
 King that he entertained any purpose of espousing Mary to 
 the Emperor. And now one of the chief articles to be dis- 
 cussed and settled at this Calais conference was the secret and 
 final transfer of her hand to his antagonist. For months the 
 King had been urging his mediation on Francis and the 
 Emperor, assuring both that their honour and their interests 
 should be strictly maintained. Yet from the first he had 
 resolved to betray his French ally, and, under pretence of 
 mediation, waited only for a closer union with the Emperor, 
 and a more convenient season for invading the French 
 dominions. But this the age called policy, and Henry, as 
 we shall see, triumphed in the thought of his superior dexterity.
 
 416 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHL [A.D. 
 
 Whatever may have been Wolsey's part in these intrigues, 
 it is certain that not a single step was taken by him without 
 the full knowledge and hearty concurrence of his master. The 
 following account left us by the imperial ambassadors of their 
 interview with the King of England on this occasion, places 
 this assertion beyond question/ 
 
 The ambassadors were carried down to Windsor in the first 
 week of June, 1521, by Sir Richard Wingfield, and lodged in 
 the house of the dean of the chapel, within the castle. Here 
 they were joined at supper by Pace, the King's secretary. At 
 a late hour in the evening, when his Majesty had returned 
 from the chase, in which he had been engaged all day, the 
 aforesaid master Secretary came to them with a message that 
 the next morning (Wednesday, 5th) the King, after he had 
 risen, would give them a favourable audience. 
 
 The said secretary and Master Wingfield came next morning 
 in search of the ambassadors to their lodgings, and between 
 the hours of ten and eleven in the forenoon conducted them to 
 the palace. After tarrying some time in the ante-chamber, 
 for the King was engaged in conversation with the Duke of 
 Suffolk and the Earl of Worcester, the said secretary came to 
 inform them that his Majesty, after hearing mass, had found 
 himself in such good appetite, consequent upon the exercise 
 he had taken in the chase the day before, that he wished to 
 
 ' The notion, once popular and another qnestion. Yet I think they 
 
 still entertained in some quarters, were as correct and competent jadijes 
 
 that Henry VIII. was an inexperienced on this matter as most modern 
 
 youth, without capacity for business, theorists ; perhaps bettet. To repre- 
 
 without concern for anything beyond sent Henry as a feeble bungler, to 
 
 his pleasures, and little better than a set do-ivn the King and the Cardinal 
 
 tool in the hands of his great minister, as children, compared with the 
 
 seems to me so extremely absurd, that superior political intelligence and 
 
 I should have thought a very slight sagacity of the Emperor and Francis 
 
 perusal of the first volume of the I., is mere prejudice, or mere puerility. 
 
 State Papers of his reign, published It is not the SSyfiara but the Trpdyixara 
 
 some years since by the English which must decide these questions ; 
 
 Government, would have sufficed to and the comparative strength and 
 
 dissipate it for ever. The King prosperity of the three nations at the 
 
 might be more fond of the chase death of their respective sovereigns, 
 
 than his father Henry VII., and in- and for half a century after, is the 
 
 dulge more frequently in violent exer- best criterion of the abilities of their 
 
 cise, to keep down his growing tendency respective rulers. Even if the at- 
 
 to corpulence ; but he kejit a hand no tempted conquest of France was 
 
 less firm, no less absolute, than his chimerical, and involved the sacrifice 
 
 father's, over his ministers. Woe of vast treasure for a barren idea, we 
 
 betide the luckless wight who was have yet to learn that, if war is to be 
 
 careless in sending intelligence, or the permitted at all, it is more ennobling 
 
 post who failed in his duty ! What and less demoralizing when under- 
 
 judgment is to be formed of the taken for profit than for barren 
 
 policy of the King and Wolsey is honour.
 
 1521.] DESIGN OF THE CONFERENCE. 417 
 
 dine before he gave them audience. Dinner was set before 
 them in the said apartment {en la elite sallc) with the Duke of 
 Suffolk, the Earl of Worcester, and another nobleman who 
 was called my Lord Acant (my Lord of Canterbury or the Earl 
 of Kent?). 
 
 Dinner ended, the King sent for them. They were ushered 
 into his presence by the said secretary and ambassador, and 
 then, after reverence done and recommendations made, they 
 presented the Emperor's letters, declaring their charge as they 
 had in all things been instructed to do by the Cardinal. 
 
 The King received them with great courtesy. He expressed 
 himself extremely well pleased, and lovingly affected to the 
 Emperor and his projects ; but he declined to declare himself 
 at present in the way that the Emperor desired ; that is to 
 say, he could not, for many reasons, openly announce his 
 determination of supporting the Emperor in his war against 
 France ; because, in so doing, he could render him no effectual 
 service, and would bring irreparable injury on himself, con- 
 sidering that his enemies were ready whilst he was wholly 
 unprepared. He said that he was of opinion that the Emperor 
 should by all means remain on the defensive, incur as little 
 risk and expense as possible, until they two had consulted 
 together, and fixed on the time and manner of a combined 
 attack, which might easily he settled at the ensuing conference. 
 He remarked, in conclusion, that he fully coincided in Wolsey's 
 opinion, that the Cardinal should he sent to Calais under p?'etence 
 of hearing the grievances of Francis and the Emperor, and as 
 soon as he saw that it was impossihle to hring the two jiarties to 
 agreement he should withdraw, and discuss and conclude u'ith 
 the Emperor the matters and propositions aforesaid ; which was 
 a thing, he said, he most desired. He added another motive 
 for desiring delay : the pensions due from France for the 
 surrender of Tournay in 1518 had not yet been paid ; and too 
 precipitate a declaration of hostility would justify Francis in 
 withholding them.^ 
 
 To the general line of policy here marked out by the King 
 Wolsey strictly adhered in the celebrated conference at Calais ; 
 — a proof, if any were needed, that the King was sincere in 
 the counsel he gave to the ambassadors, and in his professions 
 of friendship for the Emperor. It is not pleasant to see the 
 two great potentates of Christendom descending to artifices 
 which could scarcely bo justified against a declared enemy, 
 
 ,' III. 1395. 
 VOL. 1. 2 K
 
 418 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 much less towards a professed ally. Such conduct, however 
 little it accords with the popular conceptions of Henry's 
 character, or with that homeliness of aim and transparency 
 of purpose we have been taught to expect from him, is far 
 more in harmony with his birth and the traditions of his 
 family. It may, perhaps, be urged in palliation, if not excuse, 
 that Henry believed that Francis would have acted with the 
 same dissimulation had the same opportunity been offered 
 him ; and in his creed of political ethics it was justifiable by 
 deceit to anticipate deceit. Perhaps also the very fact that 
 state-craft was king craft, and not popular craft, did some- 
 thing to encourage the notion, that the vulgar honesty of the 
 multitude was not sufficiently intricate and refined for the 
 atmosphere of politics. All these things the people then left 
 wholly to their rulers. Class theology, class literature, class 
 legislation, class politics, can only become strong, hearty, 
 humane, and national, when they receive the vigorous infusion 
 of a broad lay element. But that was the slow outgrowth of 
 the Reformation. 
 
 Wolsey delayed his journey to Calais as long as it could 
 be delayed with safety or with decency. It was his object to 
 give the Emperor as much time as possible for pushing on 
 his successes, in the event of any future determination at the 
 congress that both parties should remain in the status quo. 
 By too long delay the equilibrium of both might become 
 deranged, and his mediation be rejected or despised. He 
 landed at Calais on the 2nd of August. On the road from 
 London to Dover he was received with great demonstrations 
 of respect ; for the people had persuaded themselves that the 
 purport of his mission was somehow favourable to the 
 Emperor ; and there was not a man throughout the realm 
 of England, from the noble to the lowest bondsman, who did 
 not rejoice at the prospect. When Montpesat, the late French 
 ambassador, returned to the French Court, after a long 
 residence in this country, he expressed his conviction that, 
 with the exception of the King and the Cardinal, " all England 
 after cared not and (if) all the Frenchmen were in the same 
 case they were in in Navarre " — Navarre having been lately 
 recovered by Charles from the French, not without a bitter 
 exhibition of his vengeance.^ But even in this exception 
 Montpesat was deceived ; for Henry, fired with the thought of 
 recovering what even Wolsey did not hesitate to call "his 
 
 ' III. 1456.
 
 1521.] WOLSEY SETS OUT. 419 
 
 righteous inberitanee in France," was to the full as desirous 
 as any of his subjects of seeing that kingdom reduced once 
 more to the condition of a conquered province. Henry V. was 
 still the most popular of English monarchs. The deeds of 
 the brave John Talbot, "the terror of the French," were still 
 watered with the tears of Englishmen, and freshly embalmed 
 in their memory. So the chance of a war with France was 
 as welcome as its alliance was odious ; and though lord 
 mayors and aldermen were not generally to be found among 
 the number of the Cardinal's well-wishers, they attended him 
 on this occasion with profuse demonstrations of respect, 
 bidding him " God speed ! " and confusion to the enemies of 
 England. 
 
 Ai-med against all contingencies, the Cardinal carried with 
 him various commissions, all bearing the same date of the 
 29th of July. By the first he was empowered to settle the 
 differences between Francis I. and Charles V. ; by the second, 
 to conclude a treaty of marriage between the Princess Mary 
 and the Emperor ; by the third, to arrange a league between 
 the Emperor and the King of England for carrying war into 
 France, and recovering the King's dominions. By another 
 set, intended to serve as blinds, he was authorized to treat of 
 a closer amity with Francis I., and, if need be, make a general 
 confederation of all the great powers of Christendom.^ 
 
 The Cardinal was attended on his journey by the Bishops 
 of Durham (Euthal) and Ely (West), the Earl of Worcester, 
 the Prior of St. John's, and the Master of the Piolls (Tunstal). 
 On reaching Calais, he found the imperial deputies waiting his 
 arrival. To them he gave the first audience, apparently the 
 day after. The French ambassadors entered the town on the 
 4th, and were honourably received at the entrance of the 
 English pale by the English marshal. On the 5th they were 
 admitted to an audience. In conversation with the French 
 deputies, the Cardinal enlarged on the determination of the 
 Emperor to prosecute the war with alacrity, and his own 
 anxiety to procure an advantageous truce for their master ; 
 with the imperial deputies he urged the paramount import- 
 ance of the good will and alliance of England. But his 
 greatest ingenuity and skill were bent on securing for his royal 
 master the m,ost advantageous terms at the proposed marriage 
 of the Princess and the Emperor. He insisted on complete 
 indemnity for all losses which England would sustain by its 
 
 ' III. 1443.
 
 420 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 rupture with France. With Mary's hand the Emperor de- 
 manded a milHon ducats. Wolsey reduced the sum to 80,000L 
 The imperiahsts insisted that the Princess should be dehvered 
 into their hands " as soon as she should be seven years of 
 age ; " they also objected to the indemnity, for that, said they, 
 was to buy friendship when they had a right to demand it ; 
 and, whilst Henry wished to be left wholly at liberty, he tied 
 the Emperor to hard conditions. The conditions were disputed 
 with great obstinacy on both sides, the imperialists fearing to 
 make the least concession, lest, if the Cardinal gained in one 
 advantage, he should expect to gain in all. His courage, his 
 perseverance, his indomitable resolution triumphed over every 
 difficulty. Neither threats nor flattery could induce him to 
 yield a single point, or wring from him the slightest conces- 
 sion. On his first arrival at Calais, the Emperor, then at 
 Ghent, had gone to Bruges. From Bruges he wrote to Wolsey 
 the most j)ressing invitations ; determined, as he assured him, 
 to be guided entirely by his counsel. " You and I," he said, 
 " will do more in a day than my ambassadors will do in a 
 month." ^ " You have always told me that you would apprise 
 me of certain things that no man should know except the 
 King, you, and me ; and for my part, I have assured you that 
 I will show you the bottom of my heart : " — true or false, an 
 unusual demonstration of frankness on his part. Two days 
 after he wrote again in terms no less pressing and confiding. 
 On one occasion Wolsey had gone so far as to send out his 
 harbingers, and order his carriages for Bruges ; but finding 
 that the imperial ambassadors were inclined to dally with 
 their engagements, he countermanded his equipage until " a 
 more towardly answer " should be received from the Emperor.^ 
 Whatever else may be denied him, he was certainly not want- 
 ing in political courage. Once resolved, nothing could shake 
 him. Keen, sagacious, precise, a rigid adherent to the strict 
 letter of agreements, as in his person so in his policy he was 
 the type and model of an English statesman. And, like most 
 Englishmen, he set a high value on the litera scripta as the 
 best security from misinterpretation and cavil. To memory 
 and generosity he trusted nothing. 
 
 Such strict and vulgar habits of business were as gall and 
 
 wormwood to the imperious Spaniards, whose formal gravity 
 
 was offended by Wolsey's abruptness and precision. To have 
 
 their words taken down in writing they considered a reflection 
 
 • Aug. ; No. 1475. 2 III. 1479.
 
 1521.] WOLSEY DECEIVES FKANCIS. 421 
 
 uj^on their honour. They despised such precision as an 
 impediment to business, and ridiculed the genius of the man 
 who was so minutely practical, so scrupulously exact. " Sir," 
 ■^M'ites Wolsey to Henry VIII., "if such difficulties, arguments, 
 and persuasions as have been used by the Emperor's council 
 from day to day were to your Grace known, and the reasons 
 by me set forth to the confutation of the same, some time 
 with shar^D words and some time in pleasant manner, with the 
 labors, business, and study that I have taken therein, whereby 
 for lack of sleep I have been inquieted with sundry disorders, 
 your Grace should evidently perceive that I have omitted 
 according to my most bounden duty, as far as my poor wit 
 wiU extend, nothing that might redound to the advancement 
 of your honour and surety." ^ 
 
 It is not my intention to carry my readers through the 
 details of the conference at Calais. Three distinct accounts 
 of it, by each of the j)arties engaged in it, have been pre- 
 served.^ It was not intended from the first — probably, by 
 any party — that it should lead to any definite results, much 
 less determine the disputes between the Emperor and the 
 French King. Of the parties engaged in it, each had purposes 
 of his own to serve. It was the object of England to give the 
 Emperor an advantage over his opponent ; to gain for him, 
 under the disguise of Wolsey's arbitration, what he could not 
 have gained in his own person by open hostility. A sharp 
 and a short war would have been most conducive to the 
 interests of Francis. He had raised a formidable army ; he 
 had taken foreign troops into pay ; his successes in Navarre 
 had inspired his officers with confidence ; restless spirits, like 
 De la Mark, Fleuranges, Bayard, De Foix, and others, were 
 abroad, anxious to signalize their courage by a campaign 
 against the Emperor. Charles, on the other hand, was in 
 want of money and ammunition ; Spain was still disquieted 
 by rebellion ; the troops under Nassau had been decimated by 
 sickness ; England was not only unprepared, but, in prospect 
 of a war with Scotland, must have left its imperial ally to 
 fight single-handed, or make the best terms he could with his 
 formidable rival. To Francis delay was little better than 
 destruction. It impoverished his finances, ruined his best 
 
 • III. 1502. secretary (No. 1817). To tlieso mny 
 
 * The English in Wolsey's own be added the letters from both sides, 
 letters; the imperial bv Gattinaia extending from Nos. 1458 to 1818. 
 {ill. 1810) ; the French 'by du I'rat's
 
 422 THE KEIGN OF HENKY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 provinces, dispirited liis army, discouraged his friends. Yet 
 he cknig with a peevish tenacity to the hope of the neutrality, 
 if not of the friendship, of England. More than half convinced 
 of their fallaciousness, he was willing to be deceived by the 
 Cardinal's promise ; and he allowed the congress to drag its 
 slow length along through four most important months, from 
 July to the end of November. More strangely still, he was 
 content to see its proceedings entirely suspended for nearly 
 three weeks in August, whilst Wolsey was closeted with the 
 Emperor at Bruges. Day after day brought him in reality 
 no nearer to the great object of his wishes. The Emperor, 
 unfettered and fully aware of Wolsey's intentions, continued 
 to act on the offensive, as if no mediation had been thought 
 of. In Champagne and in Italy, Francis was daily losing 
 important advantages ; his reputation was suffering from the 
 superior activity and success of his rival. Yet he still pre- 
 sumed on the friendship of Wolsey, and believed, or at least 
 professed to believe, in his good offices. 
 
 More outspoken or more sagacious, his celebrated sister 
 Marguerite could not forbear expressing her anger at so 
 transparent a deception. After the taking of Arde by Charles, 
 where many Enghshmen had joined the imperialists, she said 
 one day to Fitzwilliam, still ambassador at the French court, ^ 
 " The King (Francis) is now departed towards his journey, 
 and I doubt not by God's help but he shall have good speed, 
 for he goeth upon a good quarrel, and dealeth justly with 
 every prince, and yet all princes go about to deceive him." 
 Fitzwilliam fired up at the insinuation — for, Hke other ambas- 
 sadors, he was kept in the dark as to the King's or the 
 Cardinal's secret intentions — and he answered abruptly, "My 
 master is in the number of all jprinces, but I trust you think 
 that he goeth not about to deceive him." Marguerite, not to 
 be daunted by his brusquerie, answered abruptly, " See ye not 
 how the Cardinal is ever treating of peace, almost to the day 
 of battle ? Our enemies come still upon us ; and Arde, which 
 the King forbore to fortify at your master's request. English- 
 men now have been present at the winning thereof, and helped 
 to raze it. What say ye to that ? And as for trust, that is 
 past. The King will make himself strong, and trust in God." 
 Fitzwilliam replied, "As for the treaty my lord Cardinal hath 
 gone about in the name of my .master, Madam, I made 
 request to the King your brother for the same, in the King 
 
 ' Sept. 15 ; No. 1581.
 
 1521.] MARGUEKITE AND FITZWILLIAM. 423 
 
 my master's behalf, afore any war was begun. And at that 
 time the Emperor was content, and the King your brother 
 would not be contented." "And as for the long time of the 
 making of this peace," continued the ambassador, growing 
 every moment more hot and more impatient (for, as he says 
 of himself, " he was a young man in years, and choleric of 
 complexion "), oblivious also for the time that he was talking 
 to a lady, " there is no man that shall say and prove it, that 
 either my master's or my lord Cardinal's grace drives it on so 
 long, to do the King your brother any displeasure, but only 
 for the good will they have to the tranquillity of all Christen- 
 dom. And if ye shall speak of any particular person, I think 
 they have taken this jDain more for your brother's sake than 
 for an}' man living ; and if there be any man that will say the 
 contrary, I shall prove it as a gentleman, he sayeth untruly. 
 As for Arde, I cannot say whether there were any Englishmen 
 at the razing thereof or not ; but I dare say this, that it was 
 not by the consent nor knowledge of the King's highness nor 
 your grace " {sc. Wolsey, to whom he was writing). Then 
 glancing at the encouragement shown by Francis to Albany, 
 De la Pole, and other English exiles, Fitzwilliam continued, 
 "But there be Englishmen in Flanders as be in France; 
 some banished for murder, some for felony, and some unthrifts 
 that seek . . .^ and if any were there, I reckon they were 
 such." "And I assm-ed her," he tells the Cardinal, "that 
 the King my master was no dissembler ; for there was no 
 man, no, not her brother, nor no other prince living, but and 
 he bare him hardly in hand, that he would be afraid to show 
 it." The candour and honest warmth of Fitzwilliam — for he 
 spoke in perfect simplicity and good faith — produced their 
 effect. Marguerite was pacified, and declared her resolution 
 to repose confidence in the King until she saw reason for the 
 contrary, " which once seen she would never trust man after." 
 This explosion of loyal indignation is amusing. It was 
 owing in some part to the ambassador's suspicion that 
 Marguerite had in this instance been instigated by Louise of 
 Savoy, the profoundest politician and dissembler in the court 
 of her son; "for she stood so nigh she might hear every 
 word." Yet I cannot help thinking that it indicates an uneasy 
 feeling in the mind of the ambassador himself, that after all 
 there might be some truth in the insinuation so derogatory, 
 as ho rightly considered, to his master's and the Cardinal's 
 
 ' The jjassage is unhappily mutilated, like others in the letter.
 
 424 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 honour. For though Machiavellism — or rather those practices 
 and those principles which Machiavelh, finding predominant 
 in his own age, embodied into a system — infected all the 
 courts of Europe, England not excepted, the sense of honour 
 and good faith among individual men happily remained as 
 yet untainted. It was, however, a dangerous ordeal to which 
 the men of this sixteenth century were exposed; an abyss 
 which few could enter without being scathed and scarred by 
 its impure atmosphere. The poisonous aftergrowth of a 
 defective morality, too ready to justify the means for the sake 
 of the end, political finesse, like pious frauds, sprung from 
 that root of an evil principle which too often dwarfed and 
 choked the otherwise noble deeds and noble purposes of grand 
 and courageous natures in the Middle Ages. It was the more 
 dangerous because men yielded to its temptation, in the 
 persuasion that they were thereby serving their country or 
 the cause of God, and not themselves. Happily, we have 
 purged the political horizon. No statesman would nowadays 
 condescend to duplicity to please his sovereign; no ambas- 
 sador would be deceived without resentment into pledging his 
 honour to a falsehood. But it follows not that we are better 
 than they. The practice of some men is better than their 
 theories — God be i)raised ! — and of others it is much worse. 
 
 But such practices draw their own Nemesis after them, 
 and so they did in Wolsey's case. How far this decexDtion, 
 successfully practised on the French, contributed afterwards to 
 his fall ; how far it might tend to shake men's confidence in 
 him, theirs even who were most to profit by his pohcy ; — I will 
 not stay to inquire. Three months were fast waning; Novem- 
 ber was at hand, with its stormy weather, ominous of a rough 
 sea and a disagreeable passage. The Cardinal's health, never 
 strong, had suffered at Calais from the climate, from anxiety, 
 from incessant labour. He was anxious to return ; but it was 
 important before he left that he should patch up a truce 
 between the two contending parties. The preparations of 
 Francis alarmed him ; ^ the Emperor's troops and means were 
 insufficient, and disaster would be attended with serious con- 
 sequences. He was scarcely less afraid of the Emperor's 
 successes than his reverses, for with success he might prove 
 refractory, and refuse England its share of the spoils.^ He 
 pressed on Charles the necessity of an armistice ; he pressed 
 
 » See III. 1488. 
 
 « See III. 1612, 1613, 1616, 1617, 1694.
 
 1521.] WOLSEY EETURNS. 425 
 
 it on Francis. To the former it was indispensable : the 
 troubles in Spain and Flanders, the sickness of his army, the 
 necessity of making seasonable preparations for a united 
 campaign the next summer^ were urgent. To Francis he 
 magnified the losses he had already sustained; the uncer- 
 tainty of success ; the resolution of the Emperor. Both 
 turned a deaf ear to his entreaties. To the French a truce 
 was of no advantage except as a condition of lasting peace. 
 That, of course, neither England nor the Emperor w^anted. 
 If Francis would accept a truce for the present, Wolsey offered 
 to lay his head that peace would follow in six months, on 
 whatever conditions he chose to impose.^ More cautious and 
 clear-sighted than his master, Du Prat urged him to refuse. 
 He had already begun to suspect the sincerity of " M. le 
 Mediatem-," as he termed Wolsey.^ Charles, whose interests 
 had been studied by Wolsey throughout, was not only less 
 compliant, but even hinted to his own ambassador that the 
 Cardinal intended to betray him.* At last, worn out with 
 fruitless opposition, the Cardinal wrote to Worcester and 
 others,^ " I have been here for my part as sore tempested in 
 mind by the untowardness of the chancellor and orators, on 
 every side, putting so many difficulties and obstacles to con- 
 descend to any reasonable conditions of truce and abstinence 
 of war, that night nor day I could have no quietness ne rest, 
 so that almost mine appetite and sleep are sequestrate from 
 me." 
 
 Finding all further stay useless, he returned on the 28tli 
 of November, and reached Dover in a sailing vessel,^ after a 
 stormy passage of fifteen hours. 
 
 Whatever might be Wolsey's own disappointment or dis- 
 satisfaction at the results of his negociation, he experienced 
 no diminution in the favour of his royal master. The King 
 was delighted. It was enough that Francis had been deceived. 
 The former frank interchange of courtesies between himself 
 and his rival was entirely forgotten. Esteem, if that word be 
 not too emphatic, had been succeeded by personal animosity, 
 not to say antipathy. The change appears so sudden, so 
 unaccountable, that late writers have attributed it to dis- 
 
 • See III. 1691. Compare Nos. natural interpretation of hi.s -words 
 1612, 1613, 1616, 1017, 1736. when comparod witli the doi-patclies 
 
 2 III. 1556. of Don Manuel. 
 
 » III. 1743, 1746. » in. 1728. 
 
 ♦ III. 1663. He docs not say so « 111. 1810. 
 openly ; but this seems to uio the
 
 426 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 appointed vanity, and trace it as far back as the interview at 
 the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Fleuranges, who was present 
 on that occasion, has preserved an anecdote, which some have 
 deemed sufficient to account for Henry's bitterness. One day, 
 after the jousts were ended, the wrestlers of France and 
 England advanced to the front, and displayed their skill 
 before the Kings and the ladies ; a beautiful pastime, he 
 remarks, for there were many strong wrestlers present ; ^ and 
 because the King of Prance had not brought any wrestlers 
 from Brittany, the English carried off the j^rize. They next 
 proceeded to drawing the bow, in which the King of England 
 took part, for he was a marvellous good archer and a strong ; 
 and it was very pleasant to see him. These amusements 
 ended, the Kings of France and England retired to their tent, 
 where they drank together. This done, the King of England 
 took the King of France by the collar, saying, " Come, my 
 brother, let us try a fall." After one or two feints, the King 
 of France, who was an expert wrestler, tripped up the heels of 
 his brother of England, and gave him a marvellous somerset. 
 Henry on rising would have tried another round ; but was 
 interrupted, and all were summoned to supper.^ 
 
 If the tale be true — though Fleuranges is not a trust- 
 worthy authority — such defeats as this must have been far 
 too common in those frequent displays of personal prowess, 
 to which that age was addicted, to entail disgrace, or to cause 
 such a lasting resentment. The rivalry of the two monarchs 
 sprung from more natural and more adequate causes. There 
 never had been any real cordiality between them, not even at 
 the interview; and every circumstance since then had tended 
 to augment his dislike of the French monarch, and strengthen 
 his determination of recovering what, in common with most 
 of his subjects, he regarded as his ancient patrimony and 
 "righteous inheritance."^ He had consequently gone heart 
 
 • My readers will remember the going to the said Emperor was for to 
 use made by Shakespeare of this establish good and perfect amity 
 species of entertainment in " As you betwixt the King and him, and to 
 like it." knit an indissoluble knot of love 
 
 * Memoires, ch. 67. betwixt them ; ivhich thing is to their 
 ^ Thus Pace writes to Wolsey : inestimable contentation, rejoice and 
 
 " And now I signify unto your Grace comfort, and redoundeth to your 
 
 that though the commonalty of this Grace's great honor and surety, as it 
 
 realm, of every sort, had no know- evidently appeareth by the common 
 
 ledge of such secret matters as your voice. And the sending forth of the 
 
 Grace hath treated and concluded King's letters for the preparation of 
 
 with the Emperor, yet they do deem the 6000 archers doth somewhat in- 
 
 by conjecture that the cause of your crease this matter ; for every man
 
 1521.] AVOLSEY EECEIVES THE ABBEY OF ST. ALBAN'S. 427 
 
 and hand "with Wolsey in all that he had done at the late 
 conference. Every stroke of policy^ purchased as it might be, 
 at the cost of sincerity and honourable dealing, was regarded 
 by him as a just advantage. It was not merely that Wolsey 
 by his great ability and successful intrigues had secured an 
 imperial son-in-law for the hand of the Princess Mary, had 
 concluded the match at the smallest possible cost, had exacted 
 an indemnity against all pecuniary losses incurred by a 
 rujDture with France : more than all, he had paved the way 
 for the conquest of France itself, and already in his imagina- 
 tion the King beheld himself entering the gates of Paris at 
 the head of a victorious army. He commanded Pace to 
 express to Wolsey how much the King was satisfied with his 
 conduct. He had, he said, shown as great regard to his 
 honour and surety as he himself could have by any manner of 
 study devised. " He thanked God," he added, " that he had 
 such a chaplain by whose wisdom, fidelity, and labor he could 
 obtain greater acquisitions than all his progenitors were able 
 to accomplish with all their numerous wars and battles." ^ 
 A few days after he commanded Pace to write again, and 
 convey to the Cardinal the King's " most hearty thanks for 
 the gi-eat pains and labors sustained (by him) in the bringing 
 of his said aflairs to such conclusion and end, as most 
 redoundeth to his honor and surety, saying that everything 
 in effect is finished according to his own desire." ^ 
 
 During Wolsey's absence at Calais the rich abbey of St. 
 Alban's had fallen vacant by the death of Abbot Eamridge — 
 a personage only known to history as having stood sponsor to 
 the eldest daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and of Mary the 
 French Queen.^ Although one of the most ancient and opulent 
 of the religious foundations in England, the abbey had fallen 
 into great decay, partly in consequence of the civil wars of the 
 last century, partly from the age and infirmities of the last 
 abbot, whose investiture carries us back to 1492. When the 
 monks appeared before the King at Windsor, on the 12th of 
 November, to request his letters patent for a new election, he 
 
 jvdgeth thereby that we shall have war dared to write in this style to the 
 
 against France, whereof they be most Cardinal, liad he not been very well 
 
 desirous ; though peradvrntwe they assured that Wolsey shared the same 
 
 will shortly desire to come home again, sentiments. 
 
 when they be there. Sept. 4." This ' Aug. 29, 1521, iu the heat of the 
 
 last sentence is worth remarking ; for Calais confcrenee. 
 
 it shows what was Pace's opinion of ^ III. 1539, September 3. See 
 
 the clamours of tlie people for a war also No. 1513. 
 
 with France. Nor would he have ^ II. 34«7, 3489.
 
 428 THE REIGN OF HENRY YIH. [A.D. 1521. 
 
 made them a speech, the substance of which, for " its princely 
 and godly motion," Pace, who was present, thought it worth 
 while to repeat to the Cardinal next day.^ As he was penning 
 his letter, he received a communication from Wolsey " touch- 
 ing the monastery of St. Alban's." " And," continues Pace 
 in a postscript, "after I had perused and diligently debated 
 with myself the contents of the same, I went straight to the 
 King's grace with your Grace's letters to him directed in the 
 same matter. And I found him ready to go out a shooting. 
 And yet, that notwithstanding, his Grace received from me 
 the said letters, and, as it chanced happily, commanded me 
 to go down with him by his secret way into the park ; whereby 
 I had as good commodity as I could desire to advance your 
 Grace's petition, as much as the case required. And the King 
 read your Grace's letters himself, and made me privy to the 
 contents of the same. And the few words that his Highness 
 spoke to me in this cause were these : " By God, my lord 
 Cardinal hath sustained many charges in this his voyage, and 
 expended 10,000Z.' Which [I] did affirm and show his Grace 
 of good congruence he oweth unto you som.e recompence. 
 Whereunto his Grace answered that he would rather give unto 
 your Grace the abbey of St. Alban's than to any monk." 
 
 So Wolsey added to his other dignities and emoluments 
 that of the most ancient mitred abbey in England. 
 
 ' See III. 1759.
 
 ( 429 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 DEATH OF LEO X. — WAR WITH FRANCE. 
 
 WoLSEY bad not returned many days when the unexpected 
 intelligence arrived of the death of Leo X. " Eight days 
 past," says Clerk, the English ambassador at Rome, writing 
 to Wolsey of the occurrence,^ " what time tidings came of the 
 winning of Milan, his Holiness was forth a sporting, at a 
 place of his own called Manlian, six miles out of Rome ; and 
 the selfsame day coming home to Rome took cold ; and the 
 next day fell in a fever, which was bis death. At bis coming 
 home from Manlian, I met his Holiness, and methought I 
 never saw him more lusty." The day before Clerk had written 
 to Wolsey to tell him " the Pope's holiness bath been sick 
 these six days, and this night past bad a very sore night, 
 insomuch that bis Holiness's physicians thought be should 
 not a' scaped till day. It is noised that bis Holiness bad rest 
 this day ; bowbeit there be not many that can tell that, for 
 there cometh very few at him. I am credibly informed that 
 bis holiness is in very great danger."^ Rumour was busy, as 
 usual, in assigning all sorts of sinister interpretations to the 
 rapidity of his illness and the fatality of its termination. 
 " He bad eaten or drunk something he should not," said the 
 Spanish ambassador, more familiar with poisons than the 
 homely Englishman. The Italians, expert manipulators of 
 
 ' December 2 : see III. 1825. Sir important correction the passa.Ere 
 
 Henry Ellis, who has printed this affords of the mistake made by his- 
 
 letter (Third Series, i. 280), exemplifies torians in attributing Leo's death to 
 
 the danger of a misplaced colon, and the 2nd of December, instead of eight 
 
 the fatal mistakes into which historians days before that date. There may be 
 
 are sometimes apt to fall, lie reads some doubt whether Leo died on the 
 
 the passage thus : " This morning the 1st or the 2nd of December, consequent 
 
 cardinal Campegins did send me word on the old Italian method of reckoning 
 
 that the Pope's holiness was departed the hours ; there is none wliatover as 
 
 out of this present life, God rest liis to Sir Henry's punctuation or historical 
 
 soul, viii. days past : what time corroction. 
 
 tidings came of the winning," etc.; ^ JIl. 1821i. 
 and then proceeds to argue on the
 
 430 THE REIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 deadly potions, laid the fault, as usual, on the Pope's physicians. 
 It was insinuated that they had flattered him with life, and 
 either cared not to prolong it, or ahridged it by their drugs. 
 When the body was opened the heart was covered with dark, 
 livid spots, and the spleen was wasted. His attendant, who 
 had handed him a draught of wine at supper-time the day 
 before he expired, w'as thrown into prison ; for it was remem- 
 bered that immediately after drinking it, the Vope had com- 
 plained of its bitterness. Strong suspicions of his guilt were 
 not wanting to the credulous : — the same man, early the next 
 morning after the death of the Pope, had been descried by the 
 Papal guards, going out with his hunting dogs at the gate of 
 the Vatican. Others reported that the Pope had died of poison 
 taken in pills of bitter aloe ; a medicine he had been using 
 during the week. Ciacconi, after duly chronicling all this 
 " skimble-skamble stuff," descends at last to the firm standing 
 ground of common sense : the Pope, he observes, died of an 
 obstinate fistula, aggravated by a sudden return from his villa 
 to Eome, just then more than usually unhealthy, from the 
 malaria brought up by a relaxing south-west wind from the 
 Pontine Marshes. This was cause enough for the rai)id illness 
 and death of a Pope who was never over cautious or temperate 
 in his diet.^ 
 
 Clerk's account is probably the true one. Inclined to 
 sensual indulgences, and subject to fits of illness, Leo had 
 experienced one of his old attacks about the 24th of November, 
 when the tidings reached him of the taking of Milan, and the 
 total defeat of the French by the combined papal and imperial 
 troops. The result of that \dctory was to wrest from the 
 bands of his mortal and most formidable enemy, "the 
 griesliest nightmare of the Church's dream " — Milan, Pavia, 
 Parma, Piacenza, Cremona, " and in a manner all the duchy 
 of Milan except two or three strongholds." ^ No victory so 
 signal, or so complete, had fallen to the lot of any Pojdc, since 
 the memory of man. By it, the cause of the French and 
 their adherents in Italy had become hopeless. For it, Leo 
 had long been straining every nerve ; he had patiently endured 
 all sorts of indignities ; he had eluded by policy what he could 
 not control by open resistance. In addition to the regular 
 papal forces, his treasures had been exhausted by keeping in 
 
 ' This is confirmed by the con- App. 7- 
 temporaiy account of Doctor M. Zorzi, ^ clerk, III. 1824. 
 
 quoted by Ranke, Hist, of the Popes,
 
 1521.] SICKNESS OF LEO X. 431 
 
 pay a large body of Swiss mercenaries. Slowly, laboriously, 
 his designs, liable to be scattered by any sudden blast, had 
 grown and ripened. With feverish impatience and trembling 
 anxiety he, the cautious pontiff, watched the long and dreary 
 conference at Calais. At times he had iirmly persuaded him- 
 self that Wolsey, proud of displaying his unlimited influence, 
 would reconcile the French King and the Emperor ; and then 
 all the hopes which Leo had conceived of neutralizing one 
 power by the other, or of employing the Emperor's resentment 
 as an instrument for driving the French out of Italy, would 
 have been scattered to the winds. He fretted under the 
 indignities to which he had been exposed. To determine 
 questions of heresy was the peculiar privilege of the Holy 
 See ; yet the Emperor, instead of sending Luther to Eome, 
 had established the dangerous precedent, and been guilty of 
 the unpardonable usurpation, of conventing Luther before 
 himself. What could be more disastrous to the best interests 
 of the Church than that the chosen champion of Western 
 Christendom should thus permit himself to be led astray, 
 and hearken to evil counsels ? It had ever been the incom- 
 municable privilege of the Holy See to compose the dissensions 
 of temporal potentates ; to interpose in their quarrels ; to 
 rally them round the throne of St. Peter ; to appoint them 
 their several tasks as champions of the faith " once for all 
 delivered to the saints." But greater than popes, more 
 imperious, more influential, more independent than any pope 
 had been for centuries, here was a cardinal, a creature of 
 Leo's own creation, in a remote corner of Europe, dictating, 
 mediating, and arranging ; treating crowned heads and papal 
 nuncios with imperiousness that never faltered, paying no 
 more regard to the Pope's wishes and opinions in these or 
 any other matters, than if he had been a parish priest or 
 a Dominican friar ! Worse than all, throughout the confer- 
 ence, Wolsey had shown no deference to that supremacy, 
 which, more than any, he was helping to subvert. What 
 could a pope — "a poor blind man" — do in these fierce con- 
 troversies ? They were no longer to be settled by texts of 
 Scripture or citations from the Canon law. They demanded 
 political skill and experience ; tact, to be acquired only by 
 those who, like Wolsey, held in their own hands the strings 
 of all state intelligence, knew to a fraction tlic number and 
 strength of every army and navy in Europe, the designs of 
 every monarch whose designs were worth knowing — their
 
 432 THE REIGN OF HEXRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 movements, their finances, their debts, their difficulties, and 
 their temptations. 
 
 But in truth Leo, never wanting in penetration, must have 
 felt that the Papacy was fast sinking into a conventional 
 position most dangerous to all institutions ; that men were 
 ceasing to regard it as the chosen guardian and representative 
 of sacred truths essential to their welfare, and learning to 
 tolerate it as a decorous and agreeable appendage to the 
 political and social necessities of Christendom — as a centre 
 round which it was convenient for that system to revolve, not 
 a pivot essential to its existence ; an emblem of respectability, 
 good if it could be had, not by any means indispensable if it 
 could not. So long as kings, or cardinals, or prime ministers 
 preserved a show of respect for the Holy See, they were acquitted 
 in their own consciences, and in those of others, of any secret 
 insult or oj)en violence they might offer it. Late events had 
 contributed more than ever to eclipse the Papacy in the 
 estimation of mankind, and Leo was j)owerless to prevent 
 them. 
 
 Now, in an auspicious moment, by a sudden and unexpected 
 turn of good fortune, his aspirations had been realized ; — the 
 expulsion of the French from the north of Italy was accom- 
 jDlished, and all who had espoused the French cause shared 
 its humiliation. The result, so long delayed, so much desired, 
 so fickle and so fugitive, was at last within his grasp. At his 
 Manlian villa he received the intelligence of the triumphant 
 entry of his troops into Milan. All the French — so ran the 
 news — had either been made prisoners, or had taken to flight. 
 In the moment of exultation he declared that he had never 
 experienced greater joy in his life ; even the news of his 
 elevation to the papacy had not been half so welcome. He 
 beheld in imagination his enemies prostrate at his feet ; his 
 friends enriched with the spoils distributed with his own 
 hands. Thefeux dejoye of the Swiss, the acclamations of the 
 crowd, rent the air. Restless and excited groups hurried to 
 and fro in the delnium of the hour. Regardless of his 
 strength and failing health — for he was corpulent and troubled 
 by an obstinate internal complaint — late into the night the 
 Pope paced backwards and forwards at the open windows of 
 his apartment, heated by the tumult, kindling with the excite- 
 ment of all around him. Seven days after, his schemes and 
 his hopes had died with him. " Every man here," says 
 Clerk, writing upon the occasion to Wolsey, " beginneth to
 
 1521.] STRUGGLE FOR THE PAPACY. 433 
 
 shift for himself, because of such garboyle and business as 
 out of all order is like to be committed here in this city until 
 such time as we be provided of another Pope. I beseech 
 Almighty God send us one to His pleasure," With such 
 frosty expressions of their sorrow, men resigned themselves 
 to their loss, and turned their thoughts towards Leo's 
 successor. 
 
 Nothing at that moment could have been more inopportune 
 for French influence in Italy than the loss of Milan. The 
 Emperor was predominant at Rome. Resolved to improve 
 the occasion, Don Manuel, the Spanish ambassador, wrote at 
 once to Naples, ordering the Neapolitan troops to be ready 
 for marching. Such was the way in which the freedom of 
 election, whether of Popes or Emperors, was secured in those 
 days. Before the news of Leo's death could be widely known, 
 the Spaniard had taken the precaution to fill his house at 
 Rome with soldiers. Followed by his attendants armed with 
 swords, he visited the different cardinals. He made solemn 
 speeches and tedious visits ; he assured the cardinals that 
 the Emperor was the natural protector of the Church and the 
 watchful guardian of their interests. The cardinals recipro- 
 cated his courtesy : they listened respectfully to his argu- 
 ments ; thronged his ante-room ; requested to be favoured 
 with the names of the imperial candidates. He gave them 
 the names of a dozen — all good imperalists. For any one 
 included in the list they might vote and welcome ; travel 
 beyond it, they must expect the Emperor's displeasure. Why 
 say more ? In that list any one who is at all acquainted with 
 tlie sentiments of Don Manuel will be quite certain that the 
 name of Wolsey was not found. 
 
 Leo died on the 2nd of December, yet Campeggio, hitherto 
 loudest in his professions of unalterable attachment, did not 
 find it necessary to apprize Wolsey of the fact until thirteen 
 days after. Then he wrote to say that there would be many 
 candidates for the Papacy, and a full attendance of cardinals. 
 To the chance of Wolsey being added to the number of pro- 
 spective popes, Campeggio m.ide no allusion. The list was 
 hirge enough already; too large for Campeggio's hopes or 
 wishes.^ " In most cases," wrote Don Manuel to the Emperor, 
 "two or three cardinals endeavour to obtain the election; now 
 all aspire to it." Tlie news must have been generally known 
 
 ' III. 1869. Campeggio himself was a candidate, bat never obtained more 
 than seven votes. 
 
 VOL. 1. 2 V
 
 434 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHT. [A.D. 
 
 in Western Europe within a fortnight after Leo's decease. It 
 was certainly known to the Emperor before the 15th of 
 December. On that day Margaret of Savoy sent the news 
 from Oudenarde to Wolsey, adding that, if he desired it, she 
 would gladly write to the Emperor in his behalf. She was 
 generous enough to add that she thought she should be doing 
 a kindness to her nephew by assisting in Wolsey's promotion.^ 
 As Charles also wrote on the same day, from the same place, 
 it will be thought that, had she"been sincere in her professions, 
 she would have taken time by the forelock, and consulted with 
 the Emperor at once.^ Charles, in his letter,^ avoids all 
 allusion to the Papacy. But the day after he wrote to the 
 Bishop of Elna, his ambassador in England, instructing him 
 to inform the Cardinal and his royal master of Leo's decease. 
 "You shall say," he continues, "to Mons. the Legate, that 
 as we always keep his advancement and exaltation in our 
 good remembrance, and retain a faithful memory of the 
 promise we made to him at Bruges touching the Papacy, in 
 conformity therewith and for the accomplishment of the same, 
 we are resolved to assist him to the best of our power, both in 
 this affair and in all others which may concern him. You 
 shall, therefore, request him to be good enough to let us know 
 his wishes, and what are his inclinations that way ; and we 
 will exert ourselves very willingly in his behalf, and spare no 
 pains. However, we are of opinion that the affair will not 
 soon be settled, and he has already a very good chance of 
 success. Had we been much nearer Italy than we are, and 
 as we should have liked to have been, we could then have 
 shown him more effectually what we would have done for 
 him." In the end he charged his ambassador to employ all 
 his dexterity in this matter, in order to gain the Cardinal's 
 good will ; for he made no doubt that Francis would assail 
 Wolsey with all sorts of fair offers, though it is notorious, he 
 says, that the French Mng can render him no effectual 
 assistance. 
 
 Nothing could apparently be more cordial, or more con- 
 descending ; and so gracious an intimation lost nothing in 
 its transmission through the Bishop of Elna. At that con- 
 juncture it was more than ever necessary for Charles to secure 
 
 III. 1868. and discussed the matter before the 
 
 * It is, I think, highly improbable 15th. 
 that both Margaret and Charles should * III. 1867. * 
 
 not have known of the Pope's death,
 
 1521.] WOLSEY'S CANDIDATURE. 435 
 
 the good offices of the Cardinal. He was in great distress ; 
 he had no means to prosecute the war against France. The 
 advantages he had lately acquired in the north of Italy were 
 in danger of being lost by his inability to follow up his con- 
 quests. In short, he wanted a new loan from England of 
 200,000 ducats, and a body of 3,000 foot — such was the 
 phrase; in other words, the pay of 3,000 footmen, besides 
 the ducats already demanded. These troops were to be 
 raised by the Emperor and the Lady Margaret, and employed 
 at their discretion.^ 
 
 And what, it will be asked, were Wolsey's feelings at this 
 event ? They who have been accustomed to judge of him by 
 popular traditions will be ready with an answer. They will 
 entertain no doubt that, as personal aggrandizement was the 
 ruling motive of his actions, the Papacy must have offered 
 him irresistible attractions. Happily, we know the thoughts 
 of those who had the best opportunities of observing him, and 
 the least inclination to flatter him. They are recorded in the 
 following extract from the Spanish ambassador's despatch to 
 the Emperor.^ 
 
 " Most sacred Caesarean and Catholic Majesty. 
 
 * * * "On the 16th day of this month, after dining at 
 
 Richmond, where the King and the Cardinal were present, tlie Cardinal 
 informed me that he had received letters from the king of France, the 
 originals of which he showed me ; and the contents of which 1 will 
 hereafter submit to your Majesty. He told us, besides, that he had 
 received a letter from the English ambassador in France/' informing him 
 of the death of the Pope, and that cardinals Sion and De Medici had left 
 the camp and gone to Rome ; that the army of your Majesty and of the 
 Pope had been broken up, and the affairs of the French in Italy had 
 returned to their former channel. All this the said ambassador had 
 written to him on the information of the king of France. The king of 
 England is troubled at the news beyond measure, and is in a great state of 
 alarm. Two things, he says, must be provided for with the utmost speed : 
 1st, that no harm befall the kingdom of Naples * * 2ndly, 
 that due provision be made for the election of such a Pope as is devoted 
 to your Majesty and the king of England ; and he must be one on whom 
 you can both rely for advancing your interests. For success in these two 
 points the King and the Cardinal consider that the integrality of your 
 Majesty's army in Italy is of great importance, both for the defence of the 
 said kingdom and for securing the election. 
 
 "As to the person to be chosen for the Papacy, the King is fully 
 
 ' See III. 18G2, 1891 ; and com- to England, Mon. Ilabsh., p. 52j3. 
 
 pare No. 1905. On the otlier hand, Marrjaret's lefcteV, 
 
 ^ Mon. Hab8b.,p. 507. This inter- dated the ir)lli, rcucihcd London en 
 
 view took place on the IGth, tho date the ISth. 'I'lio Emperor was in no 
 
 of the Emi>er<jr'H letter. Tlint letter unnecessary haste to i'lillil his promises. 
 
 did not reach the Bishop's hands until ' This letter from Eitzwilliam is 
 
 the 24th ; that is, eight days, a very not now to be found, 
 long interval in coming from Ghent
 
 436 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 inclined and resolved in favor of the most reverend cardinal of York. He 
 is desirous, more than I can express, that your Majesty should concur in 
 this opinion ; and in order that it may take eifect he will employ his power 
 to the utmost, and will omit nothing that may conduce to that end. For 
 this reason he has resolved to send a person (Pace) to Rome, with letters 
 (the tenor of which I will explain hereafter) to induce and persuade the 
 cardinals to give their votes to the cardinal of York, and condescend to 
 the election of the same. 
 
 "But as the king of England most constantly affirms that he does not 
 intend to attempt anything Avithout the knowledge and advice of your 
 Majesty, with whom he is united in fortune and affection, he does not 
 propose to send his ambassador to Rome, in the first instance, but to 
 your Majesty, to take your advice upon his instructions, and follow your 
 directions." 
 
 The ambassador then proceeds to say that, as in the conduct 
 of this negociation great caution would be required, and in 
 the event of Wolsey not being elected it would be desirable 
 that the choice should fall on Cardinal Medici, the King had 
 prepared two letters — one to be used in favour of Wolsey, the 
 other in favour of De Medici, if Wolsey's advancement proved 
 hopeless. He had also requested the Emperor to write letters 
 of a similar tenor, and give the necessary instructions to Don 
 Manuel, his ambassador at Eome, to carry out their wishes. 
 To show how much the King was bent on securing the Papacy 
 for Wolsey, the ambassador informed his master that Henry 
 had resolved to send his own secretary, Kichard Pace, " as 
 if," to use his own expression, " he sent his very heart." As 
 Pace, he adds, is in great favour with the Venetians, it is 
 thought that he will be of great use in detaching them from 
 the French. *' The secretary," he adds, "has accepted this 
 task, as he hopes he can be of service to your Majesty ; and 
 I dare assure your Majesty that, unless I am mistaken in the 
 man, there is no better imperialist. I think, besides, that if 
 the most -reverend cardinal of York, by obtaining the Papacy, 
 or by any other cause, should not continue much longer about 
 the King's person, Pace will attain the highest post with his 
 master. I wished to explain all this, that your Majesty might 
 understand what kind of a man you have to deal with, and be 
 ruled accordingly." 
 
 The ambassador then details his conversation on this 
 occasion with Wolsey. "He assured the King," he says, "in 
 my presence, with the most solemn oaths and protestations, 
 that he had no intention to accept this election, unless his 
 master and your Majesty should consider that in so doing he 
 could best promote the welfare and honor of both of you. If 
 it appeared to your Majesties that he was a person who could
 
 1521.] WOLSEY'S CANDIDATURE. 437 
 
 be serviceable to you, and one in whom both of you might 
 repose confidence, he would not shrink from any labor ; 
 asseverating that the chief benefit and emolument he expected 
 to reap from this honor was to contribute to your Majesties' 
 exaltation. — Here the King solemnly protested on his royal 
 word that you might trust the Cardinal implicitly.^ — And so," 
 continued he, "your Majesties, like father and son, shall 
 dispose of that see, its authority and power, as if they were 
 yom* own, and give laws to the rest of the world ! " 
 
 " To tell you my own opinion," adds the ambassador in 
 confidence, "I do not believe that the most reverend Cardinal 
 has any great expectation of succeeding, although he does not 
 entirely despair. But he evidently contemplates two results : 
 one is, that he will be able to ascertain your Majesty's real 
 sentiments in this matter, how far your Majesty is to be 
 trusted in case of need, and what faith he may repose in your 
 promises ; seeing that De la Eoche and I, last year, promised 
 him your Majesty's support at this election — an offer he 
 refused at the time, but now he reminds us of it. In the 
 other case, if, with your Majesty's active co-operation, success 
 should prove impossible on this occasion, he will be enabled 
 to put matters in a good train for the next opportunity. I 
 speak this as of myself, and it is my own inference only ; not 
 but what I have said has some foundation in words he has 
 casually dropped. I doubt not but that, if the Cardinal were 
 fully satisfied that your Majesty would really favor him, he 
 would use his power to the utmost with the King in fm'thering 
 your Majesty's interests, inasmuch as even now he is most 
 zealous in fostering and encouraging his master's affection for 
 you, and in exciting his indignation against the French ; so 
 that whatever a Frenchman writes is considered no better 
 than falsehood. * * * London, 19 Dec. 1521." ^ 
 
 Charles was in some perplexity. The writer had warned 
 him that if he had determined on the election of any other 
 candidate than Wolsey, the greatest caution and dexterity 
 would be needed to avoid the resentment and blind the 
 suspicions of the Cardinal.^ Had he believed that his imperial 
 master was sincere in proffering his services to Wolsey on this 
 
 ' Either there is eome Blight con- maturissime debet rem iBtam tractare 
 
 fusion in the original, or the King et uti magna dexteritate, ut luiic 
 
 suddenly breaks in with his assevera- Cardiuali possit Batisfieri, et si alius 
 
 tion, interrupting Wolsey's speech. fuerit eligendus, non perdatur." Bp. 
 
 * III. 18«4. oi Elua, ut supra, p. blO. 
 
 • '* Nunc vero majestas vcstra
 
 438 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIU. [A.D. 
 
 occasion, or that he had not in fact ah-eady decided on some 
 other candidate, this warning and the general tenor of his 
 despatch would have been out of place. Nor, indeed, could 
 any one who reflected a little on the subject entertain much 
 doubt on that head. Was it probable that, if Charles could 
 influence the election, he would be so blind to his own interests 
 as to raise an English Cardinal to the papal throne instead of 
 a staunch imperialist, or prefer an uncertain and imperious 
 friend to a humble and responsible subject ? Against such a 
 temptation his most solemn promise was worth nothing ; nor 
 would he have permitted it to stand in the way of his own 
 interests for a moment. To make promises and to break 
 them as easily, to incur the most solemn obligations without 
 any serious intent of fulfilling them, was no unusual thing 
 with the Emperor. At that very moment, when he had bound 
 himself by a much more sacred vow to marry the Princess 
 Mary, he was meditating a breach of it, and dictating instruc- 
 tions to De la Sauch, whom he was sending to the King of 
 Portugal to explain away his obligations to the English 
 Princess. Was a promise to a cardinal, whom he always 
 suspected and sometimes hated, likely to be more binding on 
 the Emperor's conscience ? Neither at this nor at any other 
 time had he any serious intention of promoting Wolsey to the 
 Papacy. Notwithstanding all his professions of zeal and 
 sincerity, it is questionable whether he ever wrote to his 
 ambassador at Piome in favour of Wolsey ; if he did, no notice 
 of such a letter is to be found in Don Manuel's despatches — 
 and they are not scanty — nor did the imperial ambassador 
 exert his influence in Wolsey's behalf.^ He had arranged his 
 tactics already, and had given the Emperor due notice of his 
 movements. 
 
 On the 24th the Bishop of Elna wrote again to the 
 Emperor, describing a second interview he had had with the 
 Cardinal. The Bishop had assured Wolsey that his master 
 would employ all his influence to promote his election, and 
 could only have wished to have been nearer Italy for the 
 welfare of the Cardinal and the good of Christendom. " He 
 heard all I had to say," continues the Bishop, " attentively, 
 and received it gratefully; and he thanked your Majesty 
 
 ' Charles wrote on Dec. 28 to the whether the letter was ever sent, or 
 
 King and the Cardinal, professing to sent in time to be of use, is the 
 
 send them the copy of a letter which question, 
 he had written to Don Manuel ; but
 
 1521.] WOLSEY'S EXTRAORDINARY PROPOSAL. 439 
 
 with such professions of humility as if he had been elected 
 Pope already through your instrumentality. Perceiving that 
 your Majesty had not forgotten your promise at Bruges, he 
 was in great hopes of success, and began to repeat to me 
 Pace's commission, of which I wrote to you by the last post, 
 adding one thing at which I was greatly astonished ; and, 
 however strange it may seem, I will repeat it to your Majesty. 
 He said that, to secure the election, which he desired for no 
 earthly reason except for the King's exaltation and yours, it 
 would be xevj important that your Majesty's army now in 
 Italy should advance to Eome ; and then, if, after liberal 
 monition and offers, the Cardinals continued refractory, they 
 should be compelled to elect him by force in order that the 
 French faction might be excluded, and Naples and Sicily be 
 saved," He added, that if 100,000 ducats were required to 
 accomplish this object, Wolsey had told him they would be 
 forthcoming ; that the King of France reckoned on having 
 twenty-two cardinals at his disposal ; — " from which I in- 
 ferred," says the Bishop, "that the king of France had made 
 him an offer of his votes and his assistance." 
 
 Whether Wolsey was serious in this extraordinary pro- 
 posal, so much at variance with the popular notions of the 
 freedom of papal elections, or whether he urged it as a touch- 
 stone of the Emperor's sincerity, my readers must decide for 
 themselves. If he spoke seriously, the reckless sincerity with 
 which he expressed his disregard for the conclave, and his 
 total disbelief in its independence, are remarkable. The Pope 
 as a temporal sovereign had ceased, in Wolsey 's estimation, 
 to be more than an instrument for securing certain political 
 advantages. But, as the Head of the Church, his authority 
 was still paramount in spiritual matters. He would have 
 been shocked, as much as any of his contemporaries, at the 
 propagation of opinions derogatory to the Pope's ecclesiastical 
 supremacy, had such acts of insubordination been prominently 
 brought before his notice. But he had seldom been accus- 
 tomed to regard the Papacy in that light. Immersed in 
 politics, and engrossed by diplomacy, it was only the political 
 side of the Papal orbit which presented itself to Wolscy's 
 vision. To him the Pope was little better than a temporal 
 ruler, a unit, by no means the most important, in those 
 combinations of which the chief factors were the King, the 
 Emperor, and their formidable rival. The temporal co-opera- 
 tion of the Pope was to be secured like that of any other
 
 440 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 temporal power — freely, if possible ; if not, by force. Doubtless 
 Wolsey would have made little scruple of handling his cardinal 
 brothers as roughly and unceremoniously as he proposed. 
 How could he respect those of whose venalit}^ he had such 
 overwhelming evidence ? Was dictation backed by arms more 
 culpable than intrigue supported by bribery '? And though 
 the Bishop of Elna professed to be shocked at his disregard of 
 the conventional independence of the conclave, he forgot that 
 only a minute before he had expressed his master's regret for 
 being no nearer Italy, that he might have personally inter- 
 posed his authority with the cardinals, and have corrected 
 the Electors according to his wishes. He was ignorant, 
 perhaps, at the date of his astonishment, that the Neaj^olitan 
 army had already received orders to march, if the conclave 
 proved refractory, and that Civita Vecchia was filled with 
 armed Neapolitan galleys watching the course of the election. 
 Though Wolsey was not the only person who thought that 
 cardinals could be bribed or intimidated, he was the only 
 person who had the honesty and the boldness to avow it. 
 
 The cardinals should have entered the conclave on the 
 18th of December, but the time was delayed until the Cardinal 
 of Ivrea, who had been taken prisoner on his journey from 
 Savoy, had regained his liberty. In the interval Eome 
 became the prey of every intriguer. By the death of the Pope 
 not only the Church lost its spiritual head, but the States of 
 the Church their temporal ruler. The conclave was divided 
 into two factions, headed by Cardinal Colonna and Cardinal 
 De Medici. So obstinate was the strife, the parties so equally 
 balanced, that there seemed little probability of any accommo- 
 dation between them. Out of forty-nine or fifty cardinals De 
 Medici counted on fifteen ^ votes ; with the rest he was ex- 
 tremely unpopular, for his power was dreaded, and his 
 unlimited influence over the late Pope was remembered with 
 some resentment. Next to the Colonnas, the Soderini, of 
 whom the Cardinal of Volterra was both the most eminent and 
 the most acrimonious, signalized themselves by their animosity 
 against De Medici. " This Cardinal," says Clerk, speaking of 
 Volterra, " is a stout man and a wise, and a well spoken, and 
 a man of good authority and reputation here in this court ; 
 and now at his coming, perceiving a great number of these 
 cardinals sore bent to make the cardinal De Medici Pope, first 
 
 ' Don Manuel says 18 ; then, in a says 15 ; thus confirming the accuracy 
 despatch of a subsequent date, he of the English ambassador, Clerk.
 
 1521.] THE CONCLAVE. 441 
 
 did severally solicit each of them to the contrarj', declaring 
 against the said Cardinal that if he should he Pope, that 
 should mar their reckoning to have no new Pope, for he had 
 been Pope now a long season ; and how that they have had 
 good experience what manner a man he is ; with many evil 
 words of the Cardinal's bastardy, tyranny, and how that he 
 had already undone the Church." ^ 
 
 De Medici, it was clear, could not succeed. It was equally 
 clear that no other candidate could be elected without his 
 consent. This gave Clerk, the English ambassador at Eome, 
 on one side, and Don Manuel, on the other, an opportunity of 
 interesting De Medici in behalf of their respective candidates ; 
 but either Don Manuel was the better diplomatist, or the 
 offers he made were more tempting. Clerk did his best to 
 insinuate the great merits of Wolse}^, and obtain from De 
 Medici some hint of encouragement and support. But the 
 v/ily Italian pretended not to understand, and turned a deaf 
 ear to his intimations. He tried his hand with Colonna. 
 " Sir," said Clerk,^ " I do perceive that you be thus right weU 
 minded towards cardinal De Medici, that at the least wise you 
 would be contented to do for any friend of his so that the 
 person had qualities thereafter. May I be so bold as to axe 
 of you what friend of the cardinal De Medici's, being qualified, 
 is there in this college upon whom you may find in your heart 
 to bestow your favour?" ''He answered me," says Clerk, 
 "that there were divers aged men, and each of them were 
 very meet for the room;" and he concluded by saying that 
 he would so endeavour to control the election that he might 
 come to this feast and marriage once again ; " whereas, if 
 they were to elect a young man, the Pope might survive 
 them all. 
 
 To discover his intentions Clerk jn'oposed Cardinal Cam- 
 peggio. Colonna made no open objection, but bade him 
 consult with De Medici. Pieturning to De Medici, Clerk 
 exhorted him not to be too precise in standing out for one of 
 his own nominees, afe Colonna was resolved to oppose him ; 
 " seeing that I knew right well that there were other persons 
 right well qualified, in whom he might as well trust as in any 
 man ; " — of course meaning "VVolsey. Campeggio's name was 
 only a stalking-horse ; no one was more distasteful to De 
 Medici. 
 
 The disorders rapidly increased in the States of the 
 
 > III. p. 805. « 111. p. 807.
 
 442 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 Church, and the election could be delayed no longer. On 
 Friday, St. John's Day, the 27th of December, the cardinals 
 entered the conclave. Some little difficulty was raised at first 
 as to the jjlace and its guardianship). Volterra complained 
 that armed galleys of the Imperialists had filled the harbour 
 of Civita Vecchia, and that 500 of the late Pope's Swiss guard 
 had been stationed in the Palace where De Medici lodged, 
 eager to advance his claims out of love to their late master.^ 
 The danger apprehended from the Swiss was neutralized by 
 raising a thousand foot, and committing the custody of the 
 conclave to the combined troops. The cardinals assembled 
 in the forenoon at the Basilica of St. Peter, in the chapel of 
 Sixtus IV. Mass was sung by Colonna ; after a Latin sermon 
 they proceeded, thirty-nine in number, to the conclave, singing 
 in procession Veni Creator. Here each took possession of his 
 cell. These cells, sixteen feet long by ten feet broad, were 
 arranged in a chapel in the Pope's palace. This done, each 
 went to dinner where his fancy led him. Two hours before 
 nightfall, the whole body met again in a chapel within the 
 conclave, and after the bull of Pope Julius against simoniacal 
 practices had been read, every cardinal, in the presence of 
 the foreign ambassadors, took his corporal oath upon the 
 Holy Evangelists to observe the bull to the best of his abilities. 
 The ambassadors and others were then summoned to their 
 posts. Of the wards, which were three in number, the out- 
 most was held by the Eoman lords and nobility ; the second 
 or middle ward, by the ambassadors ; the third, nearest the 
 assembled cardinals, was committed to the charge of certain 
 prelates, who had likewise in their keeping the keys of the 
 conclave. 
 
 Of the number of the ambassadors thus engaged, and who 
 took up their residence for the time in the palace, were those 
 of Hungary, Portugal, and England ; among them Clerk, to 
 whom we are indebted for these curious particulars. Don 
 Manuel, the Spanish ambassador, was not present. Clerk 
 assigns advanced age as a reason for his absence. A better 
 excuse is extant under his own hand. He had already caused 
 offence by personally canvassing the Electors, and was there- 
 fore given to understand that his presence would be construed 
 into an infraction of the freedom of the conclave. Besides, 
 his market was already made, and he was not solicitous to 
 avail himself of a privilege more onerous than useful. Ascanio 
 
 * See Hadriani Annal., p. 146.
 
 .1521.] THE CONCLAVE. 443 
 
 Colonrica, the Bishop of Algieri, and Eiikenvoert, zealous 
 imperialists, were his active and efficient substitutes. 
 
 Outside the walls of the conclave all was restlessness and 
 intense anxiety to catch, if possible, the faintest hint of the 
 proceedings within. Every plausible rumour, however false, 
 was eagerly caught up, and spread like wildfire through an 
 excited populace, whose sole occupation from daybreak to 
 night was to assemble about the doors of the palace, and 
 speculate on the chances of the election. Friends, partizans, 
 and relatives of expectant Popes, now elated, now dejected, as 
 their hopes rose and fell by some vain report, pressed to the 
 gates or scanned the windows, watching for some sign from 
 those within of the coming decision. Not less interested, but 
 for very different motives, idle multitudes stood on tiptoe to 
 catch the name of the favourite cardinal, that, according to 
 usage, they might anticipate their fellows in plundering his 
 house and ransacking his property, an offence tolerated and 
 overlooked in the general joy and licence of the election. The 
 creaking of a door on its hinges, or the opening of a window, 
 shot through the mass like a spark of electricity. A large 
 body of troops stationed in front of the palace protected the 
 conclave and kept the excited multitude at bay, which other- 
 wise would have stormed the joalace, and dispersed the 
 affrighted cardinals. 
 
 Within all was silence. No noise of their proceedings 
 could pierce the triple fold of prelates, ambassadors, " lords 
 and barons," who kept guard in the three wards with jealous 
 ears and watchful eyes. No letters or tokens were allowed to 
 pass ; meats, pots, and platters — all things, in short, by which 
 intelligence could either be conveyed or indicated — were 
 diligently scrutinized. By an ingenious contrivance, the food 
 of the assembled cardinals was delivered " at a round turning 
 wheel made in the wall," preventing all personal intercourse 
 with those outside. The very offals — happily it was winter — 
 were placed under the same rigid interdict. Once passed the 
 gates, the broken fragments remained, or had to be disposed 
 of by those within as best they could. To add to their dis- 
 comfort (for without some pressure the reluctance of the 
 cardinals to arrive at any decision, where one only could 
 enjoy the prize, would never have terminated), their dishes 
 after a few days were restricted to one kind of meat, with the 
 prospect of further diminution if they failed to agree within a 
 reasonable time. To some of the cardinals who were sickly,
 
 444 THE REIGN OF HENRY VUI. [A.D. 
 
 to others who were advanced in years, such privations were 
 intolerable ; to all the strict confinement was a severe trial, 
 from which they were glad to escape, even at the chance of 
 sacrificing their ambition. None but the stoutest and most 
 resolute could endure so rigid a restraint without discomfort. 
 From day to day the conclave met to go through, without 
 success, the same round of intrigues, the same disputes, com- 
 binations, opposition, voting, and revoting, weariness at last 
 producing that unanimity which reason and persuasion failed 
 to effect. Of this one cardinal at least was well aware, and 
 had taken his measures accordingly. 
 
 The first night was passed in comparative quiet. Next 
 day, in spite of all precautions, rumours were afloat that 
 watchwords and tokens had passed from those within, in- 
 dicating that Cardinal De Medici had no chance of the 
 election. On the third day three cardinals requested, in the 
 name of the College, to have the doors of the conclave opened, 
 " that they might avoid such filthiness as they had there 
 within of the fragments of meat and drink ; the savor whereof, 
 they said, was so great that they could not abide it." ^ The 
 ambassadors and others in charge called a meeting to consider 
 this important proposal ; but concluded on refusing it, leaving 
 the cardinals to find their own remedy. On Thursday, the 
 2nd of -January,^ and the sixth day of the conclave, their food 
 was diminished, and every one had to make his choice 
 whether he would henceforth have boiled meat or roast ; 
 " after which," says Clerk, " they shall get no more." Two 
 days before, Cardinal Grimani, who had come post from 
 Venice to take part in the election, was carried out almost 
 dead from the conclave. One of Cardinal Farnese's servants, 
 in the bustle, took the opportunity of calling to " one of his 
 company, and said to him that he should bring a bigger pot 
 of his master's wine in the morning, for the cardinals liked 
 much that wine everich of them." 
 
 The words were caught up immediately, and interpreted 
 as a secret watchword between Farnese and his friends, of his 
 success at the election. Farnese was a Eoman, of ancient 
 descent and noble connections. He was, besides, one of the 
 most wealthy and influential of the cardinals, and before 
 entering the conclave was considered by all parties as not 
 
 * III. p. 828. generally followed liis accoant of the 
 
 * See Hadr. Annal., p. 148. As election. 
 Clerk was present at the time, I have
 
 15-21.] THE CONCLAVE. 445 
 
 unlikely to succeed to the papal chair. But though a man of 
 great learning, and no inconsiderable abilities, he was haughty 
 and choleric, and inclined to covetousness. Unfortunately 
 also for his advancement, he had formerly espoused the cause 
 of the French; and though he had now abandoned their 
 interests, and professed neutrality, his professions were not 
 considered sincere. His name was inserted last on the list 
 arranged by Don Manuel and Cardinal De Medici. The 
 former had even gone so far as to exact a promise from 
 Farnese, that, in the event of his becoming Pope, he should 
 give secm-ity for his good and faithful behaviour to the 
 Emperor, by sending one of his sons as a hostage to Naples. 
 
 When Farnese had twelve votes Cardinal St. Quatuor, his 
 adherent, cried aloud, Papam hahemus. He was joined by 
 De Medici, Campeggio, and five imperialists ; others followed 
 their example. But the quick eye of his enemy Colonna, 
 casting a rapid glance over his supporters, detected the 
 mancBuvre. Seeing his partizans remain firm, he told his 
 opponents with a loud voice that they were bad arithmeticians, 
 and had made a false reckoning. His assertion was confirmed 
 on a scrutiny ; Farnese was baulked of his chance ; from that 
 day his fortunes declined, and he never again obtained the 
 same number of voices. But Farnese had to pay dearly for 
 this momentary vision of a papal tiara ; for upon the bruit of 
 his election his house was ransacked by the populace. He 
 was famous for his architectural taste, and his magnificent 
 palace in Rome would have shared the same fate had it not 
 been defended by a body of troops and seven or eight great 
 pieces of artillery. 
 
 Hitherto Farnese, Fiesco, and the Bishop of Ostia, a 
 Spaniard, had been the favourites. At no time had De 
 Medici obtained more than six votes. Now Colonna was put 
 into nomination. The battle raged between the two rivals 
 with undiminished violence and obstinacy. The Romans grew 
 impatient ; doubts were entertained whether the conclave 
 would ever come to any determination. Their food was then 
 further diminished with prospect of greater severities. 
 
 Up to this time little notice had been taken of absent 
 cardinals. On one occasion only had the Cardinal of Tortosa 
 been proposed, and received eight votes ; and about the same 
 time seven votes were given to Wolsey. Too clever a diplo- 
 matist to waste his efforts, De Medici reserved his strength 
 whilst the contention was raging at the highest. According
 
 446 THE REIGN OP HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 to Clerk/ — whose testimony is of great weight whenever he 
 speaks from personal ohservation — after the defeat of Farnese, 
 Wolsey was proposed, and had in the first scrutiny nine, in 
 the second twelve, in the third nineteen votes. But if the 
 ordinary accounts of the conclave are to be trusted, Wolsey 
 was put forward on one occasion only, and then received only 
 seven votes. And this is more probable ; for Campeggio, who 
 had no object in depreciating his own services, tells Wolsey, 
 in a letter written when the election was over,^ amidst the 
 confusion of people bursting into the conclave, that he had 
 concerted measures with De Medici in his favour ; and he 
 adds that Wolsey had as many as eight or nine votes at every 
 scrutiny. In another letter,^ written the day before, he 
 assures Wolsey that he was often proposed and was readily 
 supported ; but that the cardinals feared Wolsey's youth, in 
 spite of Campeggio's assertion that he was nearer sixty than 
 fifty. It was not reasonable to expect more ; nor is it pro- 
 bable that Campeggio or De Medici, both candidates for the 
 papal throne, would have heartily supported the claims of 
 Wolsey. Wolsey himself could not have anticipated success. 
 We have Clerk's assurance that he would have stirred earlier, 
 and with greater effect, had the King and the Cardinal's 
 pleasure been made known to him sooner; "but at my 
 departing," he says, " your Grace showed me precisely that 
 ye would never meddle therewith." Too cautious to express 
 all that he thought, he knew well the real cause of his failure ; 
 and that was, in his own words, that Wolsey " favored not all 
 the best the Emperor." 
 
 But if Clerk exaggerated the number of votes obtained by 
 Wolsey in the conclave, he was confirmed in his mistake by 
 that great adept in dissimulation, Cardinal de Medici, after- 
 wards Clement VII. De Medici assured Pace, on his arrival 
 at Florence,^ that in every scrutiny in the conclave he gave 
 bis vote for Wolsey, and caused seventeen or eighteen of his 
 friends to do the same. The statement agrees with Clerk's 
 assertion, but, like his, is inconsistent with Campeggio's 
 letters, and the official accounts.^ The facts of the case are 
 
 > III. I960. told Pace that Wolsey had divers 
 
 ^ III. 1952. voices in the late conclave, by means 
 
 2 III. 1945. of De Medici, his own among the 
 
 * III. 1981. number; but they could never succeed 
 
 * It is remarkable with what per- in their object, the cardinals alleging 
 tinacity this story was repeated. that Wolsey was nimis potens. °IIL 
 Cardinal Sienna, another imperialist, 1990. 
 
 and earnest supporter of De Medici,
 
 1522.] THE ELECTION COXCLUDED. 447 
 
 now for the first time clearly ascertained, and the additional 
 evidence lately discovered helps us to dissipate the obscurity 
 ■which has hitherto hung over these events, and divided the 
 opinions of historians. On the 2-ith of December, three days 
 before the conclave assembled, Don Manuel had informed the 
 Emperor that he had made an arrangement with De Medici 
 that in the event of his election proving unsuccessful, he 
 should give his own vote and the votes of his supporters to 
 the candidate to be nominated by the Spaniard. Four days 
 after he wrote again to the Emperor to say, that, in the event 
 of the choice not falling on De Medici or any other cardinal 
 present in the conclave, he had proposed Tortosa as the 
 imperial candidate. Tortosa was named by the friends of 
 De Medici, and had fifteen votes ; afterwards twenty-two ; on 
 the eleventh scrutiny twenty-six ; and then, by the concurrence 
 of both parties, the requisite number, to the astonishment of 
 all, and the disappointment of many. 
 
 The election had lasted fourteen days, and was concluded 
 on the 9th of January, 1522. According to Campeggio's 
 assertion, in his letter to Wolsey,^ the cardinals had been 
 entirely influenced in their choice by Tortosa's integrity, for 
 few had ever seen him. Others affirmed that the result could 
 only have been brought about by the direct inspiration of the 
 Holy Ghost. The Eoman populace were less pious and less 
 complaisant. On leaving the conclave, the cardinals were 
 greeted with screams, whistling, and shouts of derision ; their 
 pretensions were ridiculed, their persons in danger. What 
 could induce them to elect a stranger, an old man, the 
 Emperor's schoolmaster, and pass over so many able, noble, 
 and wealthy Eomans ? The reader can now judge for himself 
 how far Charles V. fulfilled his jDromise to Henry VIH. and to 
 Wolsey, and furthered the Cardinal's election. He can also 
 judge what degree of credit is due to the Emperor's solemn 
 asseveration that Don Manuel had no sort of commission to 
 favour the election of De Medici or of any other candidate, 
 with the exception of Wolsey, in whose behalf he had written 
 to his ambassador. But he added hypocrisy to insincerity 
 when he stated, " It is not probable that the said Don John 
 made interest for De Medici in particular, judging from the 
 result. On the contrary, the election fell on a party never 
 contemplated, and appears to have been rather the work of 
 God than of man ! " ^^ 
 
 ' III. 1945. » III. 2024.
 
 448 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIEI. [A.D. 
 
 He gained nothing, however, by this stroke of policy. If 
 he expected to find in Adrian VI. a zealous partizan or a 
 convenient instrument, he found himself egregiously deceived. 
 Unlike his predecessor, the new Pope was a man of strict, 
 reserved, and ascetical habits. Leo X. had spent his time 
 gaily, surrounded by poets, by artists, and musicians. He 
 delighted in hunting, hawking, and fishing. A hundred 
 lackeys lounged in his apartments ; half a score of cardinals 
 lent splendour to his ante-rooms. If the patronage of the 
 fine arts, if the cultivation of polite learning, if the love of 
 architecture, statuary, antiquities, the most costly marbles, 
 the most refined paintings, could have reformed the age or 
 repressed heresy, Leo might have gone down to posterity 
 embalmed in the odour of sanctity. His successor had no 
 taste for these things. A Flemish monk, of poor parentage, 
 habituated to the frugality and discipline of the cloister, he 
 retained to the last much of its asceticism, and something of 
 its narrowness. For the arts which entranced Leo he showed 
 little or no indulgence ; and poetry was his abhorrence. As 
 a student at Louvain, he had trodden the old and thorny 
 round of scholastic philosophy, with the phlegmatic perse- 
 verance of his race, and the regularity of a temperament 
 never bew^ildered by unruly passions. He rose at a fixed 
 hour, he prayed at a fixed hour ; he had fixed hours for his 
 meals and his repose ; and he regulated his affections and his 
 intercourse with his friends by the same excellent and unvary- 
 ing rule. His speech was slow, his voice placid and equable, 
 his manners grave ; no irregular enthusiasm flushed his sedate 
 and dignified countenance, or disturbed the lustre of his small 
 gray eyes.^ Qualities such as these were inestimable for 
 success in life, especially in the court of Charles V. 
 
 From a regular and respectable dean of a college he rose 
 to be tutor to Charles, then a boy of seven years old. To the 
 day of his death Charles V. could never translate an ordinary 
 letter written in simjjle Latin, or master the elements of that 
 language in which all public documents were composed, and 
 all princes at that time corresponded. Yet, though Adrian 
 had never succeeded in furnishing the heart of his imperial 
 disciple with the rudiments of learning, though Charles knew 
 no Latin, and not much French, Adrian contrived to impress 
 his imperial pupil with a sense of the worth of outward 
 decorum — a vii'tue for which Charles was always remarkable. 
 
 ' See Moring. Hadriani Vit. ch. 5.
 
 1522.] ADRIAN VI. 449 
 
 At the diet at Worms, in 1521, the young Emperor overheard 
 — what was by no means uncommon — one of the German 
 princes spluttering out horrible German oaths, in more than 
 German profusion. Turning to one of his attendants, Charles 
 is reported to have said, " What would Adrian have thought 
 had he heard us cursing and swearing after this fashion! " 
 Sent into Spain, appointed a member of that council of which 
 the great Ximenes was the soul and the dictator, Adrian w^as 
 honest, plodding, and industrious. But his modest intellect 
 was crushed by the capacious genius of the grand Cardinal, 
 and found no room, no opportunity, for expansion. It was 
 eclipsed a second time, as it had been before by the great 
 minister Chievres, his associate in the education of Charles V. 
 Now created Cardinal, and appointed to the government of 
 Spain whilst Charles was away for his coronation at Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, it was Adrian's misfortune to have the task of 
 quelling an insurrection of the Communeros — a task to which 
 he was wholly unequal. But though he had no influence with 
 the mass in restraining their excesses, such was the respecta- 
 bility of his character that they undertook to bear him harm- 
 less, provided he did not interfere with them.^ 
 
 With such merits and such services, backed by the intrigues 
 of Don Manuel and the still greater recommendation of ad- 
 vanced years — for he was then sixty-four — Adrian was advanced 
 to the Papacy. The official announcement of his election 
 reached him at Vittoria, on the 9th of February ; but six 
 months elapsed before he made his appearance at Eome. 
 From the despatches of the English ambassadors we gather 
 many particulars of his personal history and proceedings, 
 hitherto unknown ; for he was attended from Vittoria to 
 Eome by John Hannibal, afterwards Master of the Eolls. 
 On the state of the great city during the protracted absence 
 of the Pope, the factions among the cardinals, the spoil 
 of Leo's jewels and plate, amounting by report to 300,000 
 ducats,^ the horrible ravages of the plague by which the city 
 was devastated during Adrian's absence, I forbear to enlarge : 
 all these details will be found in the letters of Clerk and Pace. 
 The sea was swarming with Saracens ; the Turk gathering up 
 his strength for a final struggle with the unhappy Ehodians ; 
 disaffection w^as spreading rapidly throu gh the states of the 
 Church. " The cardinals," said Don Manuel, not without 
 some appearance of justice, "had with them at the election 
 
 ' See III. 976. * III. 2046, 210.-,. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 a
 
 450 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [AD. 
 
 the Holy Ghost, but since the}'' have come out of the conclave 
 they have the devil." ^ Still Adrian came not ; and at Rome 
 rumours prevailed that he was dead or would never come, or 
 would transfer the seat of the Papacy to Spain, He was 
 apparently in no hurry to set out. Leo had bequeathed to 
 his successor a debt of 800,000 ducats. In his anxiety to 
 drive the French out of Italy, he had impoverished his jSnances 
 by hiring Swiss mercenaries, and fettered himself with 
 pecuniary engagements he was not able to fulfil. Charles 
 expected that Adrian would walk in the steps of his pre- 
 decessor. But the new Pope entertained no such intentions. 
 He had either taken it into his head, or had been persuaded 
 by the opposite faction, that Don Manuel had endeavoured to 
 hinder his election. The suspicion ripened into fixed aversion, 
 as it will do in men of Adrian's temperament, and extended 
 from the minister to his master. Resenting this suspicion, 
 the haughty Spaniard treated both Pope and cardinals with 
 undisguised and unmeasured contempt. Nor were matters 
 improved when Charles, seeing the inexpediency of retaining 
 at Rome a minister so unpalatable to the Sovereign Pontiff, 
 superseded Don Manuel by the Duke of Sessa. Unhappily 
 for the projects and future conquests of Charles, Adrian from 
 the first had conceived the idea of re-establishing peace, and 
 of turning the united armies of Christendom against the Turk. 
 The project was chimerical, but it was not the less obstinately 
 cherished on that account ; and Adrian was encouraged in it 
 by the Archbishop of Bari, one of the few cardinals to whom, 
 in his inexperience, he lent a ready ear. The Archbishop, 
 though a Spaniard, belonged to a party, still numerous, who 
 regarded with dislike the English alliance, and were anxious 
 to establish peace between France and the Emperor.^ 
 
 Nor were their hopes without foundation. Charles, unable 
 to follow up his late successes in Italy from want of funds, 
 seemed not unwilling to temporize. His English allies hung 
 back, obstinately bent on extorting the hardest conditions ; 
 and the offers of Francis were tempting. More than once he 
 was inclined to recede. Probably, could a complete view be 
 had of the Emperor's policy, from the imperial despatches, 
 
 > III. 2046. Don Manuel, the Duke of Sessa and 
 
 ^ Much curious information for others, in the archives at Simancas, 
 
 these times will be found in M. by M. Gachard, have been of great 
 
 Gachard's "Correspondancede Charles service. Since then Mr. Bergenroth's 
 
 V. et d'Adrien VI." The numerous Calendar has appeared, and added to 
 
 abstracts made from the letters of our information.
 
 1522.] WAR DECLARED AGAINST FRANCE. 451 
 
 his professions of attachment to his " good uncle " and '' good 
 father," the King of England, would he found to he as sincere 
 as most of his other professions. But French influence was 
 now on the wane in the councils of Charles Y., in consequence 
 of the death of Chievres. Though fettered with many con- 
 ditions agreeahle neither to his pride nor his penury, an 
 alliance with England offered him the best chance of obtain- 
 ing that which he needed most, and made no scruple to ask — 
 a loan of some thousands of ducats, munitions of war, and 
 the aid of the Swiss to be subsidized by Henry. Besides, 
 whilst Charles was away pacifying his Spanish subjects, the 
 defence of the Low Countries might be safely entrusted to his 
 future father-in-law. Troops of Spaniards and Burgundians 
 to fight his battles on the border territory of the Netherlands, 
 an EngHsh invasion of Picardy, a partnership, in short, of 
 which the advantages should be his, and the burthens his 
 ally's — these were the conditions he hoped to exact. If he 
 experienced some difficulty in realizing so pleasant a vision, 
 it arose not from the modesty of Charles, but the obstinate 
 punctiliousness of Wolsey, as the Spaniards called it. 
 
 To carry his project into execution, it was necessary for 
 him to obtain from Henry an open declaration of war in his 
 favour. Such a declaration had been hitherto delayed under 
 various pretexts ; chiefly, that the English shipping would be 
 endangered by untimely hostilities with France, and the in- 
 stalments due for Tournay, now some months behindhand, 
 would be lost. Suspecting the intentions of England, yet un- 
 willing to hazard a rupture, Francis had delayed these pay- 
 ments from time to time. Eepeatedly pressed by the English 
 ambassador to make good his engagements, he had as 
 frequently excused himself, until at length both parties, weary 
 of dissimulation, threw off the mask, and openly prepared for 
 war. The event long foreseen was precipitated by disputes 
 between the ships of the two countries. Satisfaction was 
 demanded and refused. Nothing remained but defiance, and 
 that defiance was delivered by Clarencicux Herald to the 
 French King at Lyons, with the usual formalities, on the 
 29th of May.^ It was flung back in the herald's teeth with 
 the proud assurance that if any man said the French King 
 had failed to keep his word, he would give his maligner the 
 lie ; and if Henry took the field he was ready to meet him. 
 
 Charles was in England at the time. He had been received 
 
 ' III. 2292.
 
 452 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 there with imhounded demonstrations of delight. At four 
 o'clock in the afternoon of the 27th of May he landed at 
 Dover/ accompanied by the Duke d'Alva, the Prince of 
 Orange, the Count of Nassau, the Marquis of Brandenburg, 
 and a numerous retinue of Spanish and German nobility. As 
 he touched the shore he was received by the Cardinal on the 
 sands, attended by 300 lords, knights, and gentlemen. Taking 
 the Cardinal's arm, he passed on to Dover Castle. Here he 
 was visited, on Wednesday the 28th, by the King, who had 
 arrived at Canterbury the day before. The next day was 
 spent in religious solemnities ; Friday on board the Great 
 Harry, then lying with the rest of the fleet at Dover. The 
 same afternoon both monarchs started for Canterbury, and 
 were met at the city gates by the mayor and aldermen with 
 the usual speeches. Passing on between two rows of the 
 clergy and religious bodies which lined both sides of the street 
 as far as Christ Church, they were received by the Archbishop 
 and twelve mitred prelates, and made their offerings at the 
 minster. Next day (Saturday) they lodged at Sittingbourne ; 
 the Sunday at Rochester, where they were entertained by the 
 Bishop and his convent. Arriving at Gravesend on Monday, 
 they found a fleet of barges gaily decked, ready to convey 
 them to Greenwich. By six the same afternoon they reached 
 Greenwich amidst salutes of ordnance planted on both sides 
 of the river. As Katharine and her daughter Mary stood at 
 the great gates of the Palace to welcome the Emperor, Charles 
 dropped on his knee in the Spanish fashion, and craved his 
 aunt's blessing. Wednesday and Thursday, the 4th and 5tli 
 of June, were spent in masks and revelry. 
 
 On Friday the whole company set forward to London, " in 
 great triumph," as the Emperor wrote to his favourite La 
 Chaulx, "not only like brothers of one mind, but in the 
 same attire." They were met on the road by John Milborne, 
 the Mayor, and the City Companies, Sir Thomas More making 
 the oration. 
 
 The procession advanced to Southwark. As it passed the 
 Marshalsea and the King's Bench the Emperor requested 
 free pardon for the prisoners. Amidst pageants and devices 
 strangely blended, intermixed with Biblical allusions, stories 
 of the Bound Table, the classics, and ancient mythologies ; 
 amidst fantastic decorations of flowers, fish, and indescribable 
 animals ; amidst fair ladies representing the cardinal virtues ; 
 
 ' III. 2306.
 
 1522.] THE EMPEROR IN ENGLAND AGAIN. 453 
 
 galleries filled with men, -women, and children singing and 
 playing or reciting verses in honour of the auspicious event ; — 
 the j)rocession threaded its way to the conduit at Gracechurch 
 Street, thence to Leadenhall, next to Cornhill, through the 
 Poultry to the great conduit in Cheapside. At St. Paul's the 
 royal party dismounted, and made their offerings at the high 
 altar ; that done, the Emperor retired to his lodgings in Black 
 Friars. After high mass at St. Paul's on Whit Sunday the 
 King and the Emperor went by water to Westminster Ahhey. 
 Here " the sanctuary men cried ' Mercy and pardon.' They 
 were so hasty, and pressed so near, that the serjeants-at-arms 
 could scarce keep them from touching the Emperor and the 
 King." ^ 
 
 On Monday the 9th both monarchs dined and hunted with 
 the Duke of Suffolk in Southwark. Next day to Hampton 
 Court ; Thursday to Windsor ; Friday and Saturday were 
 given up to hunting ; Sunday night to a play in the great hall, 
 of which the French King formed the burthen. An unruly 
 horse was introduced upon the stage. Amity (Henry and the 
 Emperor) sent out their messengers Prudence and Policy, and 
 when they had tamed the horse (France) Force bridled him 
 and reined in his head.^ 
 
 Enough of pageants and feastings ; more, perhaps, than 
 was palatable to the Emperor, who counted the expense, and 
 thought it would have been better bestowed in the shape of 
 a loan to himself, or of wages to his soldiers. 
 
 On Monday the 16th, and the following days, the articles 
 of alliance, the marriage with Mary, the invasion of France,-^ 
 and the partition of its dominions between the expectant 
 conquerors, were arranged, in secret conclave, by the King, 
 the Emperor, and Wolsey. On Friday, the afternoon of the 
 20th, Charles left Windsor for Winchester ; and on Sunday, 
 the Gth of July, embarked for St. Ander at two o'clock in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 Before his departure the Princess Mary, then seven years 
 old, was brought to Windsor to take leave of her affianced 
 husband. The Spaniards said that she promised to grow up 
 a handsome lady. What the Emperor thought of her he was 
 wise enough to keep to himself. He had not visited England 
 to think about ladies ; and in all the vicissitudes of his policy 
 he remained constant to one idea — the union of Spain and 
 
 ' Uall, p. GIO. » See III. 2:522, 23:53. War was 
 
 * Ihid., p. 641. proclaimed on iLo IGtli.
 
 454 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 Portugal. When the battle of life was nearly over, weary of 
 the cares of government, and a martyr to ennui and the gout, 
 when he had nothing to gain, and nothing to hope for, he 
 offered his hand to Mary, then Queen of England, whom he 
 had slighted as a girl of seven years old. But he had other 
 projects in view when he took his last leave of her at Windsor 
 in July, 1522. 
 
 Yet tardy as England had been in drifting into war, and 
 firmly as Wolsey had resolved not to precipitate the final and 
 fatal stroke at the importunities of the Emperor or of the 
 Lady Margaret, when the blow fell at last the nation was not 
 prepared for hostilities. A moderate navy had been got 
 ready for sea under the command of the Earl of Surrey, son 
 of the victor of Flodden, and his vice-admiral Sir William 
 Fitzwilliam, the late ambassador at the French court. So 
 long as the commerce of the country was restricted, so long 
 as no crops were raised beyond what was necessary for average 
 consumption, adequate provision for a navy, still more for an 
 army, with the indispensable requisites of bread, biscuit, beef, 
 fish, and beer — for other supplies were out of the question — 
 was a matter of considerable difficulty.^ Bread, beef, fish, 
 and beer, in the national economics of that time, involved a 
 multitude of intricate arrangements, not to be grasped at once 
 by the genius of a consummate statesman, or mastered off- 
 hand by the most indefatigable industry. If the barley could 
 be collected with no small labour and cost in different counties, 
 it had to be malted ; like the wheat, it could only be ground 
 in small quantities in windmills, or at best in water-mills. 
 Wind and water were sometimes as perverse as the French, 
 and far less submissive than they to the meagre mechanics of 
 the age. It was now midsummer, and the heat was excessive. 
 Salt beef (without which no English sailor could be made 
 amenable to discipline) could not be hastily procured, or, if 
 procured, transported by the slow conveyance of those times 
 to the parts required. There was a hue and cry in all 
 directions for hoops, casks, and barrels. The energies and 
 resources of the nation were taxed to the utmost for hoys, for 
 beer, for fish and beef barrels. Men burning with ardour to 
 fight the French, such was their confidence, admirals, ofiicers 
 great and small, saw their advantages lost, and felt their 
 energies grow cold, owing to that perverse and invincible 
 obstacle — lack of victuals. 
 
 ' A gallon of beer was the daily allowance of every soldier and sailor.
 
 1522.] AN lEKEGULAR COMMISSAEIAT. 455 
 
 Thus, on the 23rd of June (when the summer was rapidly 
 advancmg) Surrey writes to the King bitterly : ^ " The whole 
 complement for 5,000 men, the beer from Portsmouth and the 
 rest from Southampton, was promised by the last of May, 
 and by this date we have with much difficulty been provided 
 with flesh, fish, and biscuit for two months from Hampton, 
 and we can get no more than one month's beer from Ports- 
 mouth. The Yice-admiral was promised his whole comple- 
 ment before to-day ; but few of his ships are victualled for 
 more than three weeks, some only for eight days, and most of 
 them for a fortnight. The victuallers say they have been 
 hindered about the beer for want of casks, but are as far 
 behindhand with flesh, fish, and biscuit as with beer. We 
 cannot do what we intend unless we are better furnished ; 
 and it would be a pity to spend so much without doing some 
 great disi^leasiufe to the enemy, which we see good likelihood 
 of doing if wind and victual serve, doubting much more of the 
 victual than the wind.'* 
 
 In Calais, the general rendezvous for the English forces, 
 matters were no better. It was impossible to keep the troops 
 at sea, and equally impossible to disembark them, for at 
 Calais there was no accommodation, and no provisions. " There 
 is great scarcity here," writes Sir Richard Wingfield ;^ "there 
 has been no wind for grinding wheat and malt, and there is a 
 deficiency of wood for the bakehouses and the brewhouses." 
 And in another letter, " The country is ill provided both with 
 malt and water to brew, by reason of the great drought ; but 
 there will be no lack of Rhenish wine and other victuals." 
 But that " small creature," " Rhenish wine and other victuals," 
 could ill supply the place of English beef and beer. English 
 yeomen with greatest appetites for the fight had accustomed 
 those appetites to the strong and staple diet of the country. 
 On English beef, salt fish, and beer, they ploughed, they 
 sowed, they reaped, they wrestled, pitched the bar, drew the 
 bow, went to bed, and rose at fom* in the morning, with quiet 
 consciences and contented stomachs. Two or three weeks of 
 salt water, with nothing but " Rhenish wine and other 
 victuals," was too severe a trial for any admiral to face, and 
 hope in that interval to keep an efficient crew together. 
 
 Such practical and ignoble difficulties produced, howeveV, 
 one good effect : naval warfare exclusively, and militar,y 
 armaments in a great degree, were necessarily restricted to 
 
 ' III. 2337, abridged. « Aug. 20, III. 2454, 2456, abridged.
 
 456 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 brief manoeuvrings. The fleets could rarely keep the sea 
 beyond a few days' duration. They scoured the Channel at 
 brief intervals, making hurried descents on some defenceless 
 port or maritime town, and the rest of the time was spent in 
 harbour. An army, on the other hand, though furnished 
 originally with scanty stores, was able to maintain itself in 
 the enemy's country, until, by its own wasting fire, and 
 destruction, it was compelled to decamp, and either return 
 home, or find some new scene for its destructive energies. 
 The horrors of war cannot be exaggerated; yet a few men 
 only, like Sir Thomas More or Erasmus, seemed sensible of 
 the magnitude of the evil, or had the boldness and the wisdom 
 to denounce it. Famine and desolation followed the course 
 of the invaders, whose object was, not rapid and decisive 
 victory, that is, war in its most merciful form, but repeated 
 acts of plunder and devastation, until the enemy, bleeding at 
 every pore, succumbed through sheer exhaustion. Barns, 
 corn-fields, churches, villages, and castles were indiscriminately 
 given to the flames. What became of the inoffensive villagers, 
 whose houses were thus burned over their heads, and their 
 whole means of livelihood destroyed, was deemed a matter of 
 no moment ; such considerations never troubled the thoughts 
 of the invader. Here is a specimen of a military bulletin, 
 sent to the King of England from Surrey, then commanding 
 the English forces in France:^ "The Boulonnois (all the 
 country round Boulogne) is so burnt and pillaged that the 
 French have good reason to be angry. Vendome, the French 
 king's lieutenant, has seen his town and castle of Hughclere 
 burnt, he being at Montreuil, seven miles off. All the country 
 w^e have passed through has been burnt ; and all the strong 
 places, whether castles or fortified churches, have been thrown 
 down. I have agreed with the Emperor's council to go to- 
 morrow towards Dorlance (Dourlens), where we hope to be in 
 four or five days, doing meanwhile great displeasure to the 
 French. When we have burnt Dorlance, Corby, Ancre, Bray, 
 and the neighbouring country, which I think will be in about 
 ■three weeks, I cannot see that we can do much more." Four 
 days after, he wrote again to say that he had already, since 
 his last, thrown down and burned " the goodly castle of 
 Frewges," and intended to do the same with the castle of 
 Fresyn to-morrow. "To-day we lay siege to Hesdin; the 
 French have abandoned the town, where the pestilence is 
 
 1 III. 2540, abriged.
 
 1522.] THE HOREOES OF WAE. 457 
 
 raging. The Emperor's council are -willing it shall be burned, 
 which shall be clone within three hoiu's." And he adds, it 
 must be thought very needlessly, " there is universal poverty 
 here, and great fear of this army. I trust the King's grace 
 and you (Wolsey) -will be content with our services here." ^ 
 
 Wars carried on in this spirit could have no other effect 
 than that of brutalizing equally invader and invaded. The 
 extravagance of Francis I., the methods employed by him for 
 maintaining his numerous armies, his oppressive exactions, 
 his insensibility to the calamities thus inflicted, had alienated 
 from him, in a great degree, the patient and enduring loyalty 
 of his subjects. Churches, consecrated plate and jewels, even 
 relics, could plead no exemption from the hand of the spoiler. 
 Apostles were consigned to the melting pot, chalices to the 
 fui-nace ; until, as a writer of the time expresses it, " his 
 people were eaten up to the bones, and the Church cried for 
 vengeance upon him." ^ In this state of things the unhappy 
 population were comparatively indifferent whether they suffered 
 under the rule of a native prince or of a foreigner, and they 
 offered less resistance than otherwise they would have done 
 to the advance of the English troops. But if Henry had 
 employed all his study in devising means for alienating their 
 affections, or making English domination as odious and 
 detestable as possible, he could not have hit uj)on a' more 
 effectual method than war conducted on Surrey's principles, 
 and sanctioned by himself. If the French languished under 
 the legalized oppression of a native sovereign, they had much 
 worse to fear from the cruelty and injustice of a stranger. 
 The spoliations of their own kings faded into nothing when 
 compared with the sullen barbarity of English troops, who 
 spared neither church nor house, rick nor barn. Thirst for 
 retahation, as well as the necessity of defence, braced up the 
 sufferers to exertions which could never have been extracted 
 from their loyalty. In such wars every step adds to the 
 danger and the difficulty of the invader ; a solitude of his own 
 creation all around him, a barren and smoking country at his 
 back, in front stern resistance growing every day more 
 desperate, enemies increasing every day in numbers and 
 
 • III. 2549, abridged. founded (melted) the twelve apostles, 
 
 * III. 2707. " In the base, exile, with other jewels and sacred oma- 
 and poor estate," says Wolsey, of the nieuts of the chiux-hes." — p. 1091. 
 French King, he has " molten the Their is a touch of grand irouy ia 
 garnishing of St. Martin's corpse, and these expressions.
 
 458 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 exasperation. Cruelty gives birth to superstitious terror, a 
 Nemesis from which invading armies are rarely exempt. 
 Their fears mirror for themselves the terrible earnestness of 
 an implacable foe watching his opportunities for vengeance 
 with fierce eyes and panting heart. Happily the approach 
 of winter suspended hostilities, and gave the English com- 
 mander an excuse for returning. He had been tardily sup- 
 ported by the imperialists, who did not want to see France in 
 the power of their ally. Each of the two contracting powers 
 had different objects and conflicting interests. 
 
 Meanwhile an event had taken place which was destined 
 to alter the whole complexion of the war. 
 
 Charles Duke of Bourbon, by blood, by marriage, by 
 alliance, by feudal rights and territories, by position, by 
 military rank, and personal influence, the most formidable 
 subject, and scarce a subject, of Francis I., had taken affront 
 at the conduct of his sovereign. The invasion of France by 
 the Emperor and the King of England appeared to offer him 
 an oj)portunity for revenge. What might be his ulterior 
 hopes he did not live long enough to develop ; nor, if he had 
 lived, would he have had sufficient influence to accomplish. 
 French historians have assigned various reasons for his dis- 
 content : — his ambition, his disputes with Louise of Savoy, her 
 jealousy and her greed. Others have sought a reason for 
 Bourbon's disaffection in the affront offered him by the King, 
 when the command of the vanguard was assigned to the Duke 
 of Alen^on, and the rear to himself and Vendome.^ 
 
 Unconscious or careless of the Duke's displeasure, Francis 
 had sent him in January, 1522, into Languedoc, near the 
 imperial frontiers, with orders to place that part of his 
 dominions in a state of defence.^ How long he remained 
 there — how his time was occupied — no records remain to tell. 
 But if at this early period, far removed from surveillance, in 
 close proximity with the Emperor's officers, Bourbon already 
 entertained treasonable intentions, he had excellent oj^por- 
 tunities for carrying out designs so disastrous to his thought- 
 less and precipitate sovereign. It is certain that long before 
 
 ' The Constable, in his own state- trusted to the Duke of Alenijon in 
 
 ment to Beaurain, justified his revolt preference to himself ; and, 3rdly, by 
 
 by the following reasons : — 1st, that the King's command sentence had 
 
 after his services in Italy he had been given against him in the matters 
 
 been deprived of his pension by of Burgundy. — See III. 3392 ; cf 
 
 Francis ; 2ndly, in the last war in p. 779, and No. 2817. 
 Champagne the van had been en- '^ See III. 1971.
 
 1522.] THE TREASON OF BOURBOX. 459 
 
 the end of that year he had been negociating with the 
 Emperor the terms of his disaffection. For on the 8th of 
 September Charles wrote to his ambassadors in England,^ 
 informing them that the charge of the French army intended 
 for Italy had been offered by the King to Bourbon, and refused 
 by the latter ; that Francis and the Queen-mother had eagerly 
 sought for a reconciliation with Bourbon, but without effect. 
 " Francis," he adds, " spends his time in the chase with the 
 cardinal of Lorraine, and leaves all business to his mother, 
 the admiral (Bonnivet), and the chancellor (Du Prat)." The 
 resentment of Bourbon and his smothered indignation were 
 aggravated by this preference of his rivals and antagonists. 
 In what negociations he w^as occupied during the next few 
 months, we are not informed ; but before the close of Septem- 
 ber, 1522, the Emperor had improved his opportunity so well 
 that the terms of Bourbon's treason were already arranged, 
 and were known to Wolsey.'-^ They must already have been 
 some time under discussion, for Boleyn and Sampson were 
 instructed to tell the Emperor that the King was informed 
 *' by such advertisements as were lately given to the King's 
 admiral (Surrey) by M. Beaurain, that Bourbon, not being 
 contented with the inordinate and sensual governance that is 
 used by the French king, is much inclined, and in manner 
 determined, to reform and redress the insolent demeanors of 
 the said King, and such other indiscreet and light counsellors 
 as have induced him to this great folly and danger that he 
 now standeth in." They are further informed that the Duke 
 is minded to have in marriage one of the Emperor's sisters ; 
 and that the King had been given to understand that this 
 offer, often made before, had lately been renewed by Be Cares 
 (D'Escars),^ cousin german to Bourbon. Moreover the Duke, 
 
 ' ITT. 2522. ' In order to communicatG with 
 
 ^ See III. p. 1091 and No. 2450, Beaurain without excitino: suspicion, 
 
 which should be placed under the D'Escars had arranged witli him that 
 
 same date. The instructions from a servant of the latter i?hould advance 
 
 which the facts mentioned in the text so far beyond the lines as to bo taken 
 
 are taken reached Boleyn and Samp- prisoner, and broujiht to Beaurain. 
 
 son, then in Valladolid, on the 16th It appears that Suffolk was in tho 
 
 of December (cf. No. 2772). They camp at the time, to whom Beaurain 
 
 had been long under consideration, communicated this important informa- 
 
 and were first intended for Spinelly ; tion. Months had elapsed, and yet 
 
 but on the news of his death, which Charles had never breathed a whisi)er 
 
 happened in Spain, 31st of August, of this negociation to tho King or to 
 
 tho names of Boleyn and Sampson Wolsey. It is scarcely possible tliat 
 
 were substituted in Spinelly's place. he was not aware of it. This, I think. 
 
 The paper must have been drawn up is the hidden meaning of the circuni- 
 
 in September or October. stantial and oxpausivo candour dia-
 
 460 THE REIGX OF HEXRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 it is added, was unwilling at first that his proposal should be 
 made known to the King of England; hut now, in considera- 
 tion of his union with the Emperor and his title to France, 
 Bourbon had consented to join with 500 men-at-arms and 
 10,000 foot. The King further proposes that the Emperor 
 should send Beaurain in disguise to negociate with Bourbon ; 
 for, if this affair succeeded, he thought that most part of the 
 nobles of France would follow the example. 
 
 The English ambassadors found the Emperor at first little 
 inclined to be communicative. He made excuses ; complained 
 of poverty ; declined to raise more than the ordinary number 
 of men ; said that half the expenses of the Duke ought to be 
 borne by the King ; that as to giving Bourbon the hand of 
 one of his sisters, he must deliberate, for one of them 
 (Catharine) had been j)romised already to the Duke of Saxony 
 with 200,000 florins. Therefore, he proposed to comj)ound 
 with Bourbon, and offer him in lieu 100,000 florins, of which 
 he thought it reasonable the King should pay half. But 
 though Catharine might be engaged, his other sister, Eleanor, 
 now a widow by the death of her husband, Emanuel of 
 Portugal, in 1521, was at the Emperor's disposal. But here 
 again the indifference of Charles to all other considerations 
 except those of his own political advancement was con- 
 spicuously shown. Eleanor's widowhood exposed her to the 
 importunities of her step-son John III. Her residence in the 
 court of Portugal was too advantageous to be lightly dispensed 
 wdth. " The queen of Portugal," say the same ambassadors, 
 "is not coming," that is to Spain; "the king of Portugal 
 (John in.) is in love with her, and will not suffer her. She 
 has a daughter (Maria) by the King's father, and therefore 
 refuses him ! " ^ On the same day ^ the ambassadors wrote 
 again to say that, notwithstanding the desire expressed by the 
 Emperor " speedily to set forth the matter of the duke of 
 Bourbon, whom he calls his kinsman, he has delayed it from 
 the 17th December to this day." The delay, they thought, 
 arose from his want of money. 
 
 Meanwhile Bourbon had returned to Paris. Upon his 
 entering the court at dinner-time, he was invited by the 
 Queen, with whom he was a favourite, to join her table, for 
 she dined apart from the King that day. " Francis hearing 
 
 played in the King's communication. of foul play; not without reason. 
 
 It is evident from the whole tenor of ' III. 2772. 
 
 it that Wolsey suspected the Emperor ^ j^^^ i^^ ^523 . m. 2773.
 
 1523.] BOUEBON LEAVES PARIS. 461 
 
 of his being there, the more shortly ended his dinner, and 
 came to the Queen's chamber. The Duke, seeing the King, 
 was rising to do his duty. The King commanded him to sit, 
 and not to rise from his dinner ; and then sakited him with 
 these words : ' Senyor, it is showed us that you be or shall be 
 married. Is it truth ? ' The Duke said it was not true. The 
 Iving said that he knew that it was so ; moreover saying that 
 he would remember it, and that he knew his traffic with the 
 Emperor ; eftsoons repeating, that he would remember it. 
 The Duke answered and said, ' Sir, then you menace and 
 threaten me ; I have deserved no such cause ; ' and so de- 
 parted. And after dinner the Duke went to his lodging, and 
 all the noblemen of the court with him." The next day he 
 left Paris abruptly. Such was the account of the rupture 
 which the English ambassadors took down from the Emperor's 
 lips, and transmitted to Wolsey.^ 
 
 Never was more culpable weakness shown by a sovereign 
 than at this interview of Francis with his powerful subject. 
 His upbraidings were altogether untimely. Too late, if he 
 had evidence of Bourbou's treason ; too early, if he had not. 
 But, like the obstinacy of the weak, the indecision of the rash 
 is often more fatal than their rashness. Treason, "like the 
 word of a lie," is the hardest stone a sovereign can throw at 
 a subject ; and, therefore, should be the last. If his suspicions 
 were strong enough to justify so odious a charge, they were 
 strong enough to justify and demand the apprehension of 
 Bourbon. 
 
 It was not thus that Henry VIII. would have acted. No 
 reckless generosity, no chivalrous disinclination to take an 
 unfair advantage, would have prevented him from at once 
 securing the person of his enemy under such circumstances. 
 He would not have presumed on the innocence of the man he 
 had once openly accused of guilt. The culprit must have 
 produced satisfactory evidence to substantiate his innocence, 
 or have suffered if he could not. 
 
 Boleyn and Sampson expressed their astonishment at 
 Bourbon's escape ; and well they might. Perhaps they were 
 thinking of the fate of Buckingham. 
 
 At tlie urgent request of the English ambassadors, the 
 Emperor consented, on the 14th of January, 1523, that 
 Beaurain should be sent with letters to the Duke ; within a 
 few days he altered his mind, and Beaurain was despatched 
 
 ' III. 2879.
 
 462 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 to England.^ " Since the coming of De la Sauch," wrote 
 Boleyn and Sampson to Wolsey, " we have perceived no small 
 change in the Emperor." They were at a loss for the reason. 
 Perhaps it is not so difficult to divine. In the spring of 1523 
 De la Sauch (La Chaux) was despatched with secret instruc- 
 tions to the court of Portugal. To avoid suspicion he was 
 ordered to take England on his way ; to communicate to the 
 King and Wolsey the ostensible purpose of his mission ; that 
 is, to take their advice about the marriage of the new King of 
 Portugal with one of the Emperor's sisters. But there was a 
 secret article in La Chaux's instructions, which he was not to 
 communicate to any one — not even to the most intimate of his 
 English friends. It was of so delicate a nature that, if the 
 King of Portugal inquired about the proposed marriage of the 
 Emperor with the English princess. La Chaux was to tell him 
 that the Emperor reserved it for himself alone, to explain this 
 mystery. Yet, in spite of the Emperor's dissimulation, his 
 secret became known to Wolsey. Strangely enough, he had 
 received a hint of it from the Emperor's aunt, Margaret of 
 Savoy. Why Margaret should have betrayed it, I do not 
 understand. As a Fleming, was she jealous of Spanish 
 influence ? Did she regard the Portuguese alhance with 
 aversion ? 
 
 " There was now of late," says Wolsey, writing to Boleyn 
 and Sampson, "a matter of right weighty importance dis- 
 closed by the lady Margaret to Sir Piobert Wingfield in great 
 secresy, to be notified unto the King's highness, which in 
 effect was this : that the King of Portugal had not only deter- 
 mined to send a great man, being in most authority about 
 him, to the Emperor, but also the Queen of Portugal,^ with 
 the King's sister, who is named a marvellous fair lady, to 
 accompany her to his presence. And forasmuch as it is 
 
 ' Beaurain did not retnrn to 
 Yalladolid until the 12th of March, 
 1523. On the 8th of that mouth, 
 Charles wrote to his ambassadors from 
 Valladolid, that if Beaurain had left 
 England without succeeding in his 
 charge, his despatches must be returned 
 to the Emperor. The affair, he said, 
 had already been so badly managed 
 that it had come to the ears of the 
 French King ; Bourbon had retired 
 from court. As, therefore, it would 
 be dangerous to continue the negocia- 
 tions, the Emperor thought it advisable 
 that Henry and himself should manage 
 
 their affairs apart, each by his own 
 ambassadors. 
 
 This is a sufficient answer to M. 
 Mignot and others, who tax Henry 
 with caprice in first desiring that 
 Beaurain should be sent to Bourbon, 
 and then authorizing his own ambas- 
 sadors to undertake the task. That 
 was the Emperor's own arrangement. 
 " La mobilite soudaine," in his plans 
 and his alliances, with which this able 
 historian charges the English monarch, 
 was forced upon him by the versatile 
 policy of his ally.— III. 2773, 2799. 
 
 ' The Emperor's sister Eleanor.
 
 1523.] THE EMPEROR'S INSIXCERITY. 463 
 
 doubtful, what hath been treated m Portugal by M. de la 
 Shawe (Chaux), and that the sight of so fair a lady being of 
 mature age with the dote of 800,000 ducats, and the inclina- 
 tion of the nobles of Spain, might be a great temptation to the 
 Emperor, he being also in his flourishing youth ; therefore 
 she thinketh right expedient that the King should take a right 
 vigilant eye thereunto, in avoiding the alteration of purpose, 
 by blindness of love, which oftentimes not only breaks the 
 laws of man, but also the laws of God." ^ 
 
 It is refreshing to find in the barren sands of diplomacj'- 
 even so small a tribute to nature as this ; — a tiny green leaf 
 pushing out, as it were, its verdure in some unexpected and 
 repulsive nook. It is pleasant to see grave statesmen ad- 
 mitting that there is a touch of nature stronger than green 
 wax and inky parchment. On one side was Isabella of 
 Portugal, "a marvellous fair lady," with 800,000 ducats; on 
 the other, a princess young but not fair, an exacting father- 
 in-law, an imperious Cardinal, obligations more convenient to 
 assume than to keep. Charles had not fulfilled any one of 
 his promises. In the late war the English troops had been 
 feebly supported ; they had been left to bear the brunt of the 
 invasion. The pay of the Spanish troops had been allowed 
 to fall in arrears, and they were ready to mutiny. At the 
 moment when their presence was most necessary they had 
 been suddenly withdrawn. In addition to these well-founded 
 causes of complaint, the Emperor had not refunded a single 
 ducat of the indemnity he had promised to the King and 
 Wolsey ; ^ and there was little prospect of his doing so. 
 Piecriminations followed. Wolsey, irritated and impatient, 
 reproached the Emperor with breaking his promises ; Charles 
 retorted by asserting that he had failed in nothing except in 
 deferring the indemnity, which Wolsey told him at Bruges 
 was insisted on merely as a form to satisfy the Council. He 
 proposed, with consummate coolness and effrontery, that the 
 King should borrow the money, and he would engage to repay 
 it, principal and interest, within a year. Such a proposal 
 was little better than an insult. 
 
 Charles wavered. Could he have retracted with dignity, 
 or consistently with his own interests, he would, even at that 
 late hour, have broken all his engagements, and made peace 
 
 ' HI. p. lOni. by Henry VTTT. as indemnity for tho 
 
 * He had cnf;af?od by the treaty of ]>(!nsionshitlierto received from France. 
 Windsor to pay loU.OOO g. c. advanced Soo HI. Utii), 'MO.
 
 464 
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 [AD. 
 
 with France. As early as the middle of February the same 
 year, in violation of his arrangements with England, he had 
 taken some steps in this direction. He had sent ample powers 
 to the Pope to conclude a treaty with his formidable rival.^ 
 Through the Archbishop of Bari, tempting proposals had been 
 made to him at the same time by Francis I. ; who was wilHng 
 to deliver Fontarabia, and resign all his claims on Novara 
 and Naples, on the sole condition of retaining Milan. That 
 one condition disconcerted the project. Sore pressed as he 
 was on all sides, Francis refused to abandon his Italian con- 
 federates. But for this, Charles would have accepted the 
 treaty, and have left his English ally to shift for himself.^ 
 By the obstinacy of Francis the treason of Bourbon was 
 crowned with success. Thus the way was paved to the ruin 
 of France and the captivity of its King.^ 
 
 Shut out from this hope, Charles consented at last to 
 enter seriously into negociations with Bourbon; but on one 
 condition, that the King of England should contribute half 
 the expenses. That meant, in effect, as it always did mean, 
 that Henry should pay whatever was necessarj^ for maintain- 
 ing the war against France, and preserving the integrity of the 
 Emperor's dominions. Strange as it may appear, the finances 
 of the empire were exhausted. Notwithstanding the vastness 
 of his dominions and the treasures of the New World, it was 
 only by incredible exertions and capacious promises, never 
 doomed to be fulfilled, that Charles contrived at this period 
 of his reign to keep an army on foot. The despatches of his 
 ambassadors are filled with reiterated complaints of poverty. 
 Spanish troops, Neapolitan troops, Swiss mercenaries, German 
 lanzknechts, are in a chronic state of insubordination, for 
 lack of wages. At one time Francis of Sickingen, the friend 
 of Hutten and Luther, the most efficient and unscrupulous 
 
 1 This is confirmed by Mr. Bergon- 
 roth's Calendar of Spanish State 
 Papers. The Emperor was scarcely- 
 ashamed to avow his perfidy. 
 
 2 III. 3031. 
 
 ^ It is stated by Mr. Bergenroth 
 (Pref. p. clxxvi.) that Henry and 
 Wolsey, instead of availing themselves 
 of the treason of Bourbon, " tried to 
 dissuade the Emperor from espousing 
 the cause of the rebel ; " and that 
 long negociations were required to 
 prove to them " that they were 
 utterly mistaken in Bourbon's inten- 
 
 tions." He insists upon the necessity 
 of this, in order that the corre- 
 spondence may not be misinterpreted. 
 This assertion of Mr. Bergenroth's is 
 the reverse of the facts, as may be 
 seen by the correspondence of the 
 English ambassadors with the Em- 
 peror. But then, in Mr. Bergenroth's 
 volume, documents relating to Boarbon 
 are comparatively rare ; and he had 
 not consulted our English archives for 
 this and other hypotheses put forth 
 in his preface.
 
 1523.] THE EMPEROR SPENDS HENRY'S MONEY. 465 
 
 supporter of imperial claims, is on the point of throwing off 
 his allegiance, and recovering arrears by pouncing on Luxem- 
 burg ; at another, Margaret of Savoy falls into despair at the 
 obstinacy of the Flemings, who refuse to contribute sq much 
 as a beggarly denier. English money advanced for the 
 Spanish navy and the confederate cause disappears in an 
 unaccountable manner. What has become of it ? Wolsey 
 cannot tell. " I have in good manner," he writes to the King, 
 " showed unto the Emperor's ambassadors the lack of wages 
 as well for his army in Picardy, as also the like lack of wages 
 and victuals for his army by the sea. As for Lastano (the 
 Spanish admiral), since the provision of money for his 
 victualling by my means, I never heard word from him, 
 neither of the going of his ships northward ne of the division 
 of the same, to my no little marvel." ' " The right moment 
 is come," writes the Abbot of Najara, treasurer to the 
 Emperor,^ " to ask for 200,000 ducats from the King of 
 England for the Italian army. He can easily spare them by 
 reducing his armaments in England, which are greater than 
 is necessary." Harsh as the imputation may seem, it was 
 the Emperor's purpose to make the most of his rich ally ; to 
 light his battles at the cost of England ; to keep the French 
 King sufficiently occupied at the least possible sacrifice to 
 himself; and thus secure Navarre, Naples, and the North of 
 Italy. The conquest of France he never seriously intended ; 
 least of all, to share it with England. Not he. 
 
 But the obstinacy of Francis, and his unwillingness to 
 relinquish the Duchy of Milan as his rightful inheritance, 
 compelled the Emperor to digest, much against his will, the 
 stinging reproaches of Wolsey, and hasten forward the arrange- 
 ments with Bourbon. On the 29th of May, Beaurain was 
 sent a second time to England, charged with a commission 
 for opening negociations with the Constable. What private 
 instructions he might have carried besides we are not informed. 
 If any, due care was taken that they should not be communi- 
 cated to the English court, for Charles insisted that each 
 power should treat independently of the other. Provided that 
 England would engage to contribute 500 men-at-arms, and 
 10,000 foot, not omitting its share in the support of the Dulce, 
 Beaurain was empowered to enlist the Duke in the cause of 
 the confederates ; to treat with him for a marriage with one 
 of the Emperor's sisters ; to arrange the amount of her dowry, 
 
 ' State I'apciH, i. 104. * Murch 23. See Bcrgonroth's CaUiiulai-. 
 
 VOL. J. 2 JI
 
 466 THE REEGN OF HENRY VHL [A.D. 
 
 taking care to make "as small concession" as might be on 
 the part of the Emperor. In what way his services could be 
 most efficiently employed, was to be left to his own discretion/ 
 Beaurain had no sooner started on his mission than a 
 despatch was forwarded by Wolsey to Knight, then resident 
 in the court of the Lady Margaret, with orders to follow him 
 without delay. At this juncture Bourbon was at Burgus 
 (Bourg en Bresse), whilst the French King with his Queen 
 and his mother the Eegent were idling away their time in 
 Paris, httle aware of what was passing. The precious hours 
 were spent in visiting St. Denis, and performing a round of 
 devotions. After a splendid and solemn mass, the King made 
 his confession to the prior of the Celestines at Paris, in the 
 presence of the court and nobility. Next day, Friday the 
 24th of July, he left his lodgings at the Tournelles, early in 
 the morning, and proceeded, "a grande devotion," to Ste. 
 Chapelle du Palais, to visit the holy place and the relics. 
 This done, he returned to dinner; after dinner he started 
 from Paris on his way to the frontier, accompanied by the 
 Queen, the Eegent, and all the nobility. Two days before his 
 departure he visited the Hotel de Ville, to take a solemn leave 
 of the city. Thanking the provost, the Schevins and the 
 citizens for the aid they had afforded him, he recommended 
 to their loyal protection his affairs and his kingdom, the 
 persons of his Queen and his mother, whom he left regent 
 during his absence.^ In the midst of these leave-takings and 
 affecting solemnities Beaurain and Bourbon were hatching 
 rebellion. 
 
 It was late in the evening of the 17th of July, 1523, when 
 Beaurain arrived at Bourg. Eestless, suspicious, dreading 
 discovery, Bourbon, under pretence of a pilgrimage to Notre 
 Dame de Puy,^ had left Bourg, and withdrawn into the more 
 mountainous and inaccessible parts of his estates, establishing 
 himself at Montbrison. Informed of Beaurain's arrival, he 
 despatched two of his retinue to bring the imperial agent to 
 his presence. Here for two days Beaurain was not permitted 
 to leave his apartment openly, stealing out of his chamber by 
 night, for fear of detection, to visit the Duke. 
 
 Among the articles stipulated, it was arranged that the 
 Duke should espouse either the Queen of Portugal or her 
 
 > See III. 3055. Mondes, for Feb. 15, 1860, p. 887 ; 
 
 2 Journal de Paris, 1.39. from the depositions of witnesses ex- 
 
 ^ Miguet, in llevue des Deux amined on the trial.
 
 1523.] THE INTRIGUE WITH BOURBON. 467 
 
 sister Katharine, with a dowry of 200,000 crowns. A simul- 
 taneous invasion of France b}^ the three powers was arranged 
 at the same time. An attack on Narbonue by the Constable, 
 and on Picardy by England, was to be supported by a rising 
 in the interior, as soon as Francis should have turned his 
 back ui)on Lyons. He was expected to reach Italy about the 
 end of August. The day after Beaurain departed, and de- 
 spatched on the road his secretary Chasteau to acquaint 
 Henry with the result of his mission. 
 
 Knight, who had been ordered to act in concert with 
 Beaurain, never contrived to reach his destination. To escape 
 observation he had taken the road to Basle, under colour of a 
 mission to the Swiss. From Basle he proceeded to Geneva ; 
 crossed over the Jura, and arrived within ten leagues of Bourg 
 on the 13th of July, hesitating to push on through fear of the 
 plague. His movements had been anticipated. Beaurain, 
 after his interview with the Duke, had started already on the 
 13th, reached Pomiere, a castle in Bresse, and left the next 
 day for Genoa, intending to take ship and return to the 
 Emjjeror.^ 
 
 The failure of Knight's mission was unfortunate. If 
 England was to contribute half the expenses for the services 
 of Bourbon, it was necessary to know their precise nature, 
 and not leave them to be adjusted entirely at the Emperor's 
 option. It did not promise well for his sincerity and fair 
 dealing, that in a matter of such intimate concern to both 
 parties he had insisted that each of them should make their 
 arrangements with Bourbon apart. The English court was 
 not satisfied. It could place no reliance on the Emperor's 
 words, or the promises of his ambassadors. Convinced that it 
 was the sole object of Charles to secure his own interests, 
 AYolsey refused to listen to excuses or explanation. Eesolved 
 to judge for himself, when Knight's mission failed, he de- 
 spatched Sir John Piussell on the 2nd of August, in disguise, 
 with orders to discover the Duke's real intentions. 
 
 It was the main purport of his mission to obtain from 
 Bourbon a recognition of the King's title to the throne of 
 France — a project which Beaurain, of course, was little 
 interested in urging. Further, Russell was to insist, if 
 possible, on the suspension of warlike operations for the 
 
 ' These dates, it will be seen, are information iH furnished by Knight, 
 not rcconcilaVjlo with the authorities who spoke only from hearsay, he may 
 quoted by M. Miguet ; but as the have been misinformed.
 
 468 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 1523. 
 
 present year.^ Motives for this delay were pressing. To 
 create a diversion in favour of France, Albany had for some 
 time been preparing to pass into Scotland, supported by 
 French troops and assisted by French pay. The energies of 
 England, already severely taxed by loans to the Emperor, by 
 his failure and incompetence to keep an efficient army on foot 
 unless backed by continual aid from England, were now to 
 be further tested by a subsidy to Bourbon of 100,000 crowns, 
 and the transport of an army into Picardy. The summer 
 was rapidly waning. Long before their united preparations 
 could be ready, the time for warlike operations would have 
 passed away. In those days an autumnal or winter campaign 
 was out of the question. Two wars at the same time — one 
 with France, the other with Scotland ; the one of choice, the 
 other of necessity — were an insupportable burthen. Therefore 
 Wolsey proposed to settle one before he entered on the other. 
 The propriety of such a course could not be doubted. Of 
 Bourbon's artifices to elude the vigilance of Francis I., of the 
 incredible hesitation of the latter in taking the necessary and 
 extreme measures for securing his powerful and traitorous 
 subject, of the escape of Bourbon in the disguise of a merchant, 
 and his final arrival at Genoa, I forbear to speak. The events 
 connected with his treason and escape have been described 
 with great ability by M. Mignet in the Revue des Deux Mondes, 
 to which I refer my readers.^ 
 
 ' Mr. Bergenroth condemns the Thus, at p. cxxiv. of his preface, in 
 
 Cardinal for vacillating between two proof of Wolsey's duplicity, he quotes 
 
 courses ; now advocating the war, a letter of Du Prat, dated Jan. 20, 
 
 and at another time denouncing it, 1522, as if it referred to 1522; and 
 
 according to the caprice of the yet he has elsewhere quoted the same 
 
 moment or the dictates of his avarice ; letter, rightly enough, under 1523. 
 
 whilst Henry, he says, " a vain and The changes in Wolsey's policy were 
 
 self-indulgent prince," was victimized necessitated, partly by the change of 
 
 by his minister, and sacrificed to his circumstances, partly by the uncer- 
 
 selfish manoeuvres. ]\Ir. Bergenroth tainty of the Emperor's proceedings, 
 quotes, in support of his assertion, " For Feb. 15, 1860. The docu- 
 
 documents as contemporaneous, which ments referring to the subject, besides 
 
 were, in fact, written at widely those already mentioned, are III. 
 
 different intervals, and referred to 325Jr, 3297, 3307, 3308, 3399, 3546, 
 
 different stages of the negociation. 3601, 3652.
 
 ( 469 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE PARLIAMENT OF 1523. 
 
 For England to carry on a war of such magnitude with its 
 ordinary resources was impossible. Therefore, once more, 
 after an interval of eight years, ^ the King thought right to 
 summon a Parliament. There was no wish on the part of the 
 nation to throw obstacles in the King's way. Not only was 
 Henry popular with his subjects, but if his popularity had 
 been on the wane, no more effectual means of restoring it 
 could have been devised than the prospect of a war with 
 France. In addition to the strong feelings of aversion created 
 by national rivalry and antipathy, popular animosity had 
 been stimulated by the bickerings and disputes between the 
 commanders of English and French merchant ships, and their 
 incessant conflicts in the Channel. Old claims for reparation 
 of injuries had stood over for the last five years without any 
 satisfactory adjustment. The English merchant fleet, accus- 
 tomed to trade with Bordeaux for most of the wine then 
 consumed in England, had been either stopped in the passage 
 or seized in the port. Wine was not to be had at any cost ; 
 the gentry and nobility of England were reduced for the 
 present to their native beer, or to the small quantity of sweet 
 wines imported from the Levant in the Venetian galleys. 
 And, as if these wrongs had not constituted provocations enough, 
 there was the damning fact that Francis I. was aiding the 
 Scots to invade England, and was attempting to set up a rival 
 claimant to the throne in the person of the exiled De la Pole. 
 That was an offence no Englishman would or could forgive or 
 forget. So the Parliament met in great good humour. 
 
 Its history is more than usually interesting. It brought 
 together for the first time, and into personal contact, three of 
 the most remarkable men of the reign — Wolsey, Thomas More, 
 and Thomas Cromwell. It is the first, I believe, in our par- 
 
 ' In round numbers ; viz. Dec. 1515, to Ainil, 1523.
 
 470 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 liamentary annals, of which something beyond the regular 
 official report has been preserved in the correspondence of the 
 times. As will be seen in the sequel, the personal views, the 
 genius, the character of its more prominent members, now 
 rise into a significance of clearness such as is not visible in 
 the meagre accounts of earlier parliaments. 
 
 The Commons assembled in London,^ in the great chamber 
 at Blaclifriars, on the 15th of April ; and on Saturday, the 
 18th, Sir Thomas More was presented to the King as their 
 speaker. It is probable that their choice fell upon More as 
 much out of deference to the King's wishes as respect for 
 More's abilities and unblemished independence. He stood 
 high in the King's favour. To the infinite regret of Erasmus, 
 he had forsaken the primrose path of classical literature for 
 law and diplomacy ; he had wilfully turned his back on the 
 tempting prospect of becoming the first Ciceronian of his day. 
 But there is no reason for supposing that at this period of his 
 life More regretted the change. His old literary associates 
 looked upon his advancement with feelings not wholly exempt 
 from envy, and wondered at the elevation of his fortunes. 
 But no man grudged More his promotion or emoluments. He 
 still retained his affection for literatiu^e, was still the loving 
 friend and correspondent of Erasmus. To no other did men 
 more readily or more frequently defer as arbiter in disputes, 
 too common at that age, among rival scholars and theologians; 
 and his never-failing wit, his kindliness, his integrity, his 
 strict impartiality, undiminished and unimpaired by his high 
 position, gave weight to his opinions and decisions. No one, 
 perhaps, ever wore his honours with less haughtiness than 
 More ; no one was less dazzled by the favours of a King. He 
 was now under-treasurer of the Exchequer ; was either em- 
 ployed in negociations abroad, or attended on the King as his 
 secretary, especially during Pace's absence. "For the 
 pleasure the King took in his company," says Eoper, " would 
 his grace suddenly sometimes come home to his house at 
 Chelsea to be merry with him ; whither on a time unlocked 
 for he came to dinner ; and after dinner, in a fair garden of 
 his, walked with him by the space of an hour, holding his arm 
 about his neck." ^ 
 
 Such condescension was not peculiar, was not improbable. 
 Unlike his father, Henry, in the earlier period of his reign, 
 treated his nobles and his ministers with an easy confidence, 
 
 » III. 2956. 2 Page 21, Siuger's edition, 1822.
 
 1523.] SIR THOMAS MORE SPEAKER. 471 
 
 Avholly at yariance with modern notions of court etiquette. 
 Though he tolerated no diminution of services and respect, 
 was harsh and severe at the least omission of duty and ob- 
 servance, he would at times descend from his dignity, and 
 play the equal with men of his own choice, such as More and 
 Pace, and even Wolsey. But if careless observers imagined 
 from such instances of familiarity that Henry bated his dignity 
 or surrendered his judgment to his favourites, none knew 
 better than those favourites how little they dared presume on 
 this condescension. 
 
 But Eoper has preserved an anecdote of More's conduct as 
 speaker, generally repeated in our English histories, which 
 cannot easily be reconciled with authentic documents. After 
 reporting the apology made by More on his presentation to the 
 King, Eoper proceeds to tell his readers how Wolsey felt 
 aggrieved that nothing was done or spoken in the House 
 "but that it was immediately blown abroad in every ale- 
 house." To express his dissatisfaction, adds Roper, the 
 Cardinal ventured on the liberty of soundly rating the members 
 for their lightness of tongue, and declared his determination 
 to be present at their debates : "Before whose coming, after 
 long debating there, whether it were better with a few of his 
 lords, as the most opinion of the House was, or with his whole 
 train, royally to receive him there amongst them, 'Masters,' 
 quoth Sir Thomas More, ' forasmuch as my lord Cardinal 
 lately ye wot well laid to our charge the lightness of our 
 tongues for things uttered out of this house, it shall not in my 
 mind be amiss to receive him with all his pomp, with his 
 maces, his i)illars, his poleaxes, his crosses, his hat, and the 
 great seal too ; to the intent that if he find the like fault with 
 us hereafter, we may be the bolder from ourselves to lay 
 blame on those that his Grace bringeth hither with him.' " 
 
 The Cardinal made his appearance ; was received as More 
 had proposed ; and after a long oration in which he advocated 
 the necessity of the subsidy, he proceeded to ask the opinion 
 of various members of the House, all of whom, by a plan 
 preconcerted with More, had agreed to return no answer. 
 "Masters," quoth the Cardinal, "unless it be the manner of 
 your house, as of likelihood it is, by the mouth of your 
 speaker, whom you have chosen for trusty and wise — as 
 indeed he is — in such cases to utter your minds, here is 
 without doubt a marvellous ol)stinate silence ; " and thereupon 
 he required answer of Master Speaker. Then More, " reverently
 
 472 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 on his knees," excused the silence of the House, as abashed 
 by the subhmity of the Cardinal's presence among them, and 
 showed him that it was neither expedient nor agreeable with 
 their ancient privileges to comply with the Cardinal's demands. 
 "Whereupon," adds Eoper, "the Cardinal, displeased with 
 Sir Thomas More that had not in this Parliament in all 
 things satisfied his desire, suddenly arose and departed." ^ 
 
 To conclude Eoper's narrative. After the close of the 
 Parliament, Wolsey, meeting accidentally with More in his 
 gallery at Whitehall, expressed his displeasure at More's 
 conduct in the chair, exclaiming, " Would to God you had 
 been at Kome, master More, when I made you speaker ! " 
 " Your Grace not offended, so would I too, my Lord," quoth 
 Sir Thomas. Then artfully turning the Cardinal's thoughts 
 in another direction. More contrived to mitigate for a time 
 Wolsey' s displeasure ; but Wolsey took his revenge by 
 assiduously urging the King to send Mr. Speaker on a distant 
 embassy to Spain. 
 
 The story is so characteristic of the two men, the dry 
 humour of the reply so like More's wit, that I feel more than 
 usually reluctant to challenge its authenticity. And yet there 
 are grave reasons for suspecting its accuracy. Allowing that, 
 at a time when the functions and privileges of the House of 
 Commons were not so well understood as now, the Cardinal, 
 not accustomed to respect too scrupulously the rights of 
 others, might take upon himself to lecture the assembled 
 Commons, he had certainly no cause for animosity against 
 More. Far from it. More, as will be seen hereafter, sup- 
 ported the measures of the court throughout, and entitled 
 himself, for his services on that occasion, to the gratitude of 
 the King and Wolsey. It was no other than the Cardinal 
 who recommended the King to grant More the ordinary fee of 
 1001. for his conduct as Speaker, and a reward of 1001. for the 
 better maintenance of his household : and he rests his recom- 
 mendation on More's activity in promoting the measures of the 
 court. " The faithful diligence of the said Sir Thomas More 
 in all your causes treated in this your late parliament, as well 
 for your subsidy right honorably passed, as otherwise con- 
 sidered, no man could better deserve the same than he hath 
 done." And he adds weight to this recommendation by 
 saying, "I am the rather moved to put your highness in 
 remembrance thereof, because he is not the most ready to 
 
 ' Eoper's Life of More, p. 18.
 
 1523.] COMMENCEMENT OF THE SESSION. 473 
 
 speak and solicit his ovrn cause ; " — words as honourable to 
 More as they are to the writer, but wholly irreconcilable with 
 Roller's account of the Cardinal's displeasure,^ 
 
 From the following scattered notices we now possess of 
 this memorable Parliament, a more accurate judgment may 
 be formed of More's and of Wolsey's conduct on this momentous 
 occasion. 
 
 The House commenced its sittings on the 15th of April, 
 when the mass of Sjjiritus Sanctus was sung, at which all the 
 Lords attended in their robes. Entering the Parliament 
 chamber the King took his seat on the throne. The Cardinal 
 of York and the Archbishop of Canterbury sat at his feet on 
 the right side ; Tunstal, then Bishop of London, took his 
 station at a railing behind, and made the usual oration. 
 After some general remarks on the duties of kings, and the 
 reasons which had moved his Majesty to summon the Parlia- 
 ment, the Bishox) reviewed, at some length and more labour, 
 the evils of the time which called for redi-ess. The oration 
 ended, the Commons departed to theu" own house to elect a 
 speaker. On his presentation to the King, More, according to 
 the old usage, " disabled himself" — to use Hall's words, from 
 whom these particulars are taken — " both in wit, learning, and 
 discretion, to speak before the King, and brought in for his 
 purjDose how one Phormio desired Hannibal to come to his 
 reading, which thereto assented ; and when Hannibal was 
 come he began to read de re miUtari. When Hannibal per- 
 ceived him he called him arrogant fool, because he would 
 f)resume to teach him, which was master of chivalry, in the 
 feats of war."^ His excuses, of which this specimen is 
 sufficient, were of course set aside, Wolsey, as Chancellor, 
 replied, " that the King knew his wit, learning, and discretion 
 by long experience in his service," and thought that the 
 Commons had chosen him as " meetest of all." More proffered 
 his thanks in the customary phrases, and requested the usual 
 liberty of speech, in the manner reported by Eoper. 
 
 On the 29th of April, the Cardinal, attended by " divers 
 Lords, as well of the spirituality as of the temporality," 
 entered the Commons House ; and, after insisting upon the 
 causes of the war, and the difficulty of maintaining it without 
 
 * See III. 32G7 ; and More's ac- was " not now extant " (p. 13). And 
 knowledgmont, No. 3270. yet that More did speak to the oflect 
 
 * It i.s curiou.s that Roper should stated in the text will appeal' by the 
 have stated that this speech of More's sequel.
 
 474 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 great sums of money, proposed a subsidy, which he thought 
 should not fall short of 800,000L, to be raised by a tax of four 
 shillings in the pound on all men's goods and lands. This 
 done, he left the House. 
 
 Next day the Commons met, when Sir Thomas More took 
 up, and reinforced with more than usual energy, the Cardinal's 
 arguments, urging that it was the duty of every man to make 
 the required concession ; conduct in a Speaker not the least 
 extraordinary in this extraordinary parliament. 
 
 More's arguments were not acceptable to the House. The 
 majority were of opinion that so large a grant of ready money 
 would not only burthen the whole currency of the country, 
 but " that there was not so much money, out of the King's 
 hands, in all the realm " — a mode of reasoning which throws 
 a new light on the economic and political history of the times. 
 For here was a new source of power. The Tudor monarchs 
 were the national bankers, as well as the national kings ; and 
 their numerous loans to their nobility, of which frequent 
 examples will be found in these volumes, were not only a tie 
 on the loyalty of their subjects, but a mode of replenishing 
 their own exchequer. Debasement of the coinage was an 
 easy method of doubling their property. 
 
 The Commons also further objected that as certain loans 
 had been aheady granted to the King, among others four 
 shillings in the pound by the spirituality, the demand was 
 utterly impossible, and would reduce the nation to beggary. 
 
 It was answered, on behalf of the court, that the money 
 demanded ought not to be considered as lost, but transferred 
 to other hands ; just as in markets, " though the money 
 change masters, jet every one is accommodated ; " and further, 
 that no man ought to refuse to support those who fought for 
 the honour and safety of their country. If the soldiers, it 
 was urged, stayed at home in idleness, they would still have 
 to be fed; and they asked no more now, when they were 
 giving the utmost proofs of their patriotism. It might be 
 objected, said the orator, that it would be the tendency of this 
 measure to drain the coin from the poorer classes. Then let 
 the rich, he exclaimed, go themselves, for the King will not 
 refuse them this honour. But if they desire to be exempted, 
 if they seek to impose these burdens upon others, it is not 
 reasonable in them to grudge at paying so small an amount 
 of wages, which even their servants at home would scarcely 
 accept to stand bareheaded before them. If it be objected
 
 1523.] THE DEMAND FOE A SUBSIDY. 475 
 
 that the money will be carried out of England, and left in 
 France, will it not carry with it the men also ? And thus the 
 expense of their support, be it at home or abroad, remains 
 the same. But in truth, he ^n'oceeded to argue, there is no 
 force in such an objection ; for if " the French had invaded 
 us, would the money they brought over, think you, enrich our 
 country ? Should any of us be the better for it ? The worst 
 then that can happen to you will be to eat your beef and 
 mutton here, and wear your country cloth, while others are 
 fighting for 3'our liberty and security." In conclusion, urged 
 the orator, "you need not fear the scarceness of money; for 
 the intercourse of things being so established throughout the 
 world, there always will be a perpetual circulation of all that 
 is necessary. Let us, therefore, do what becomes us, and for 
 the rest entertain so good an opinion, that the war, instead of 
 impoverishing our country, will add new provinces to it." ^ 
 
 In the end a committee was appointed to represent to the 
 Cardinal the sense of the House. But Wolsey remained in- 
 exorable, as might have been expected. The committee 
 meekly requested him to move the King to accept a lower 
 sum. He replied he would rather have his tongue plucked 
 out of his head with red-hot pincers than induce the King to 
 take less than he demanded. ^ 
 
 The debate was resumed, with little apparent hope of 
 unanimity. Then took place the scene upon which Eoper's 
 anecdote is founded. The Cardinal entered the House of 
 Commons, and desired to debate the matter with the assembled 
 members; but he was told that "the fashion of the nether 
 house was to hear, and not to reason but amongst themselves." 
 Foiled in his purpose, the Cardinal endeavoured to remove 
 the objections urged by the committee, insisting, by a refer- 
 ence to the augmentation of the customs, the increase of dress, 
 plate, servants, and luxuries of all kinds, that the riches of 
 the kingdom were greater than they had been represented. 
 His conclusions, warranted by facts, were very unpalatable, 
 
 ' Mr. ITallam, who refers to this rests, I have generally found that he 
 
 debate in his Constitutional History had good authority for his statements. 
 
 of England, is inclined to think that It is not always easy to trace his 
 
 wo arc indebted to Lord Herbert's sources of information. He was often 
 
 imagination for tliese speeches ; and indebted to documents, the originals 
 
 he accuses the noble historian of of which have since been lost ; and 
 
 taking similar liberties on other ccca- the abstracts alone arc preserved in a 
 
 sions. The speech has certainly a volume of his collections, kindly lent 
 
 modern air; but though I know not to mo by the society of Jesus College, 
 
 on what evidence this particular Oxford, 
 passage of Lord Herbert's history
 
 476 
 
 THE EEIGN OP HENRY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 as might be imagined, to the audience whom he wished to 
 concihate.^ 
 
 At last, after an obstinate debate, it was proposed to grant 
 the King two shilhngs in the pomid from incomes of 20Z. and 
 upwards ; from incomes under that amount, but above 40s., 
 one shilling in the pound; and from incomes under 40s., 
 where the possessor was sixteen years old and upwards, four- 
 pence in the pound ; the whole to be paid in two years. The 
 proposal was creditable to the discernment and liberality of 
 the House of Commons. Not so thought Wolsey. " The 
 grant," says Hall, whose accuracy is remarkable on this 
 subject, "was reported to the Cardinal, which therewith was 
 sore discontent, and said that the lords had granted 4s. in the 
 pound ; which was proved untrue, for indeed they had granted 
 nothing, but hearkened all upon the Commons." ^ 
 
 It will appear strange to those who have taken their views 
 of the functions of the House of Commons from modern 
 practice, or the claims put forth by the House in its contro- 
 versies with the Stuart kings, that not only this grant should 
 have been objected to by the Cardinal, in his capacity of Lord 
 Chancellor, but that his veto should have been deemed suffi- 
 cient to invalidate a money grant of the House of Commons. 
 More than this ; whatever the practice or the theory be at 
 present, however ancient the date of its privilege, in the reign 
 of Henry VIII. the concurrence of the House of Lords in a 
 vote of supplies was something more than a mere formality. 
 It may be objected, that the reign of Henry VIII. was of too 
 exceptional a character to be drawn into precedent. Without 
 examining the ground on which this objection is founded, it is 
 enough for me to observe, that this House, of which More 
 was the Speaker, was by no means ignorant of its peculiar 
 privileges. The most violent opposers of the court measures 
 never insisted on the unconstitutional nature of the proceed- 
 In fact, whatever the authors of the Petition of Eights 
 
 mgs 
 
 • Hall's comment on this speech 
 is highly carious. He is not struck 
 any more than others o£ his con. 
 temporaries with the unconstitutional 
 proceeding of the Cardinal in entering 
 the House of ComniouB, but with the 
 arguments employed by him, which 
 would now be considered as strictly 
 parliamentary. When the Cardinal 
 " was departed out of the House," he 
 adds (p. G56), "it was proved that 
 
 honest apparel of the commodities of 
 this realm (i.e. home manufactures), 
 abundance of plate, and honest viands, 
 were profitable to the realm, and not 
 prodigal." So the old sophism which 
 puzzled the moralists of the 18th and 
 the political economists of the 19th 
 century, is somewhat older than has 
 been generally imagined. 
 2 Hall, p. 657.
 
 1523.] THE DEMAND FOR A SUBSIDY. 477 
 
 might afterwards allege against the arbitrary acts of the 
 crown under Charles I. as contrary to "law and custom," 
 they could not have justified their assertion by appealing to 
 the reign of Henry VIII. By the practice of the sixteenth 
 century, it would not have been difiicult to show that every 
 one of the measures denounced by the Parliament of 1628 
 were in ordinary use among the Tudors. But that age was 
 more antiquarian than historical. 
 
 To return. Whether any attempts were made by Wolsey 
 to form a party in the house, as was common enough in after 
 times, I have not been able to discover. Sir Nicholas Vaux, 
 Sir Wm. Sandys, Sir Maurice Berkeley, all of whom had 
 been frequently employed by the Crown, and most of whom 
 still held offices under it, were summoned as peers to the 
 Upper House, ^ We must add to their number Sir Henry 
 Marney, created Baron Marney, and Sir Arthur Plantagenet, 
 created Viscount Lisle, of whom more will be heard hereafter. 
 In the Lower House, a party consisting chiefly of those who 
 were knights of the shire, and in the King's service, made 
 a resolute stand for the measures of the court. Sir John 
 Hussey, of Lincolnshire, afterwards executed for the part he 
 took in the Lincolnshire rebellion, then master of the King's 
 Wards, appealed to the country party : " Let us gentlemen," 
 he said, " of 50/. land and upwards " — the expression " us 
 gentlemen " is worth noting — " give to the King, of our lands 
 1.9. in the pound, to be paid in three years." ^ When the 
 question was put, ten or twelve gentlemen said Yea ; and 
 when the Nay was put, " the Commons," that is the members 
 for the boroughs, declined to vote upon the question, leaving 
 the gentlemen to tax themselves if they pleased ; " and so 
 by ten or twelve persons the gentlemen were burthened with 
 l.s. more than others ; for the which grant Sir John Hussey 
 had much evil will."^ This motion was carried on the 2l8t 
 of May. 
 
 Whilst the question was still under discussion, the follow- 
 ing account of the debates was sent on the 14th of May to 
 
 ' III. 2982. This is remarkable, Acts had as yet passed the Lords and 
 
 for more reasons than one, as bearing Commons. 
 
 on the claim, latc^ly revived by the ^ As I understand it, " for throe 
 
 descendants of the Borkelcys, to sit years." 
 
 aa barons by tenure. The information ^ A letter from this Sir John 
 
 is found in a letter of Sir Richard Hussey, referring to the proceedings 
 
 Lyster, the solicitor general, to Lord of Parliament, will bo found in the 
 
 Darcy. At that date (April 28) no Calendar, 111. 3101.
 
 478 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 Lord Surrey, then commanding the English forces against the 
 Scotch. 
 
 "Please it your good lordship to understand, that sithens the begin- 
 ning of the parliament there hath been the greatest and sorest hold in the 
 Lower House, for payment of two shillings of the pound, that ever was 
 seen, I think, in any parliament. This matter hath been debated and 
 beaten fifteen or sixteen days togiddir ; the highest necessity alleged on 
 the King's behalf to us, that ever was heard of ; and of the contrary, the 
 highest poverty confessed, as well by knights, squires, and gentlemen of 
 every quarter, as by the commoners, citizens, and burgesses. There hath 
 been such hold that the house was like to have been dissevered ; that is to 
 say, the knights being of the King's counsel, the King's servants and 
 gentlemen of the one part, which in so long time were spoken with and 
 made to say Yea ;— it may fortune contrary to their heart, will, and con- 
 science. 
 
 " Thus hanging this matter, yesterday the more part, being the King s 
 servants [and] gentlemen, were there assembled ; and so, they being the 
 more part, willed and gave to the King two shillings of the pound of goods 
 or lands ; the best to be taken for the King ; all lands to pay two shillings 
 of the pound from the lowest to the highest ; the goods to pay two shillings 
 of the pound from twenty pounds upwards ; and from forty shillings of 
 goods to twenty pounds to pay 16d of the pound; and under forty 
 shillings every person to pay 8d. ; this to be paid in two years. I have 
 heard no man in my life that can remember that ever there was given to 
 any one of the King's ancestors half so much at one grant, nor I think 
 there was never such a precedent seen before this time. I beseech 
 Almighty God it may be well and peaceably levied, and surely paid unto 
 the King's grace without grudge, and specially without losing the good 
 wills and true hearts of his subjects, which I reckon a far greater treasure 
 for a king than gold or silver ; and the gentlemen which must take pain 
 to levy this money aniongst the King's subjects, I think, shall have no 
 little business about the same. 
 
 " My lord Cardinal hath promised on his faith that the two shillings 
 of the pound loan money shall be paid with a good w[ill] and with thank ; 
 but no day is appointed thereof. 
 
 " I think now that this matter is so far passed that the parliament 
 will soon be ended. 
 
 " Also the Convocation amongst the priests, the first day of their 
 appearance, as soon as mass of the Holy Ghost at Paul's was done, my 
 lord Cardinal accited all them to appear before him in his Convocation at 
 Westminster ; which so did. And there was another mass of the Holy 
 Ghost, and within six or seven days the priests proved that all that my 
 lord Cardinal's Convocation should do, it should be void, because that the 
 summons was to appear before my lord of Canterbury ; which thing so 
 espied my lord Cardinal hath addres[sed] out of new citations into every 
 country, commanding the priests to appear before him eight days after the 
 Ascension, and then I think they shall have the third mass of the Holy 
 Ghost. I pray God the Holy Ghost be amongst them and us both. 
 
 " I do tremble to remember the end of all these high and new enter- 
 prises, for oftentimes it hath been seen that to a new enterprise there 
 followeth a new manner and strange sequel. God of His mercy send his 
 Grace of such fashion that it may be all for the best. 
 
 " I ascertain you of the king of Denmark's being in Flaunders with 
 xvii. ships with his wife and children. Me seemeth I should not write it 
 unto you, because I think ye be advertised thereof by post. 
 
 " How this two shillings of the pound shall be levied, of what manner 
 or at what days it shall be paid, in good faith I know not as yet.
 
 1523.] PARLIAMENT PROROGUED. 479 
 
 " Out of Spain, we have news that there is a truce or abstinence of war 
 taken between the Emperor and them of France, and I think now that 
 this money is granted so shall it be with lis. 
 
 '' Under your good favor mesemeth, and if ye think it best, it were a 
 gi'acious deed for you to be mean unto the King's highness that ten or 
 twelve thousand pounds of this money might be bestowed on the building 
 up again of the piles and castles of our English borders, specially now that 
 they of Scotland be prostrate by your good and high policy. 
 
 "As other news or aftairs shall chance, so shall 1 be glad with diligence 
 t'advertise you of from time to time. 
 
 "My lord Pri^'y Seal (Ruthal), my lord Vaux, and Sir Thos. Lovell be 
 all three right sick at this present day ; and as it is said, lord Vaux in 
 great danger. 
 
 "Written at London on Ascension Day, by him that during his life 
 shall be glad to be at your commandments with his service." ^ 
 
 This letter, evidentl}^ written by one who was strongly 
 opposed to the grant, and clearly no friend to the Cardinal, is 
 curious in many respects. The author of it would never have 
 ventured to speak with so little reserve, nor have addressed 
 such a communication to Surrey, had he not been aware that 
 the Earl in his secret heart bore no great good will to the 
 Chancellor. From the whole tone and tenor of the letter, 
 from its sarcastic notice of the priests and the Convocation, it 
 may be justly inferred that the writer did not belong to the 
 court or the clerical party. A feeling of discontent was then 
 springing up, destined afterwards to display itself with much 
 greater animosity, against the higher clergy and Wolsey in 
 particular. In fact, the high hand with which the Cardinal 
 had carried his measures, both in Parliament and Convoca- 
 tion, influenced solely by a wish to please the King, tended 
 more than any other cause to increase his unpopularity with 
 all classes. In his zeal for the King's service he had shown 
 too little consideration for the feelings of the nation, too little 
 regard to the remonstrances of the House of Commons. It 
 was natural that, when their opportunity came, they should 
 resent such arbitrary conduct, and involve in the passion of 
 the moment the whole order of which Wolsey was the most 
 eminent member. Alone and unsupported, the Cardinal liad 
 reached a dangerous eminence ; how long he should maintain 
 his position depended exclusively on the gratitude of a master 
 who never suffered too strong a partiality for his servants to 
 stand in the way of his policy. 
 
 Parliament was prorogued to the 10th of June. The 
 nation was in a ferment, and the spirit of discontent was the 
 more to be dreaded as nine-tenths of the population, not 
 
 ' See III. 3024.
 
 480 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 understanding the questions under discussion, assured them- 
 selves that nothing less was intended than a general confisca- 
 tion of their property. I suhjoin a specimen of the popular 
 rumours sent up to the Privy Council from the distant county 
 of Norfolk, by Sir Koger Townsend and others, in the month 
 of May. 
 
 On Tuesday "before the Cross days last," Peter Wylkyn- 
 son, in the vicarage of Gej^ton, in the presence of Sir William 
 Pygote, vicar, Sir John Worme, parish priest, and Agnes, wife 
 of Wm. Whitmore, said he heard it reported that every 
 man of the value of 40s. should pay 20s. to the King ; and 
 every man of 20s. should pay 10s. ; and every man of 10s. 
 5s. ; and that if every man would do as he would, he would 
 take him by the head and pull him down. The vicar asked 
 him whom would he pull down ; and Wylkynson answered, 
 "Harry with the crown." When he was cautioned against 
 using such language, Agnes Wliitmore remarked, "And I had 
 spoken any such words, I were worthy to have been brent." 
 
 According to the deposition of the said Agnes, Wjdkynson 
 further said, " And if it be as my master say, we must have 
 three more taxes, and every man will have to pay half what 
 he is worth. But, and every man would do as I would, we 
 should get him by the head, and bring him down." ^ 
 
 Such rumours, greedily reported, and evidently received, as 
 in this case, with the lively sj-mpathy and secret concurrence 
 of the hearers, even when compelled to turn King's evidence, 
 show how unsettled was the temper of the times, and how 
 dangerous the ground on which the Cardinal was treading. 
 A volcano was smouldering at his feet, ready to burst forth 
 at any moment, and at the touch of any accident to break 
 forth with uncontrollable fury. In London, as the borough 
 members emerged from the House, they were greeted with 
 signs of disapprobation they had certainly done little to 
 deserve. "We hear say, my masters," exclaimed the angry 
 crowd with ironical cheers and shouts of derision, "that you 
 will grant four shillings in the pound. Do so and go home, 
 we advise you." ^ In the temper of the nation and the House 
 of Commons at the time, the first dawnings of that spirit of 
 independence may be discovered which afterwards manifested 
 itself more clearly in the Parliament of 1530. But I cannot 
 agree with the statements of certain modern historians that 
 such increased vigour and independence of the Commons was 
 
 III. 3082. 2 Hall, p. 657.
 
 1523.] THE ACT FOE THE SUBSIDY. 481 
 
 exclusively due to the novel circumstances in which the nation 
 found itself after the death of Wolsey ; or that freedom of 
 discussion, and the right of members to originate measures, 
 unfettered by the Crown, were then for the first time acknow- 
 ledged and allowed. In 1530 new ideas undoubtedly came 
 with the discussion of new and graver questions ; questions 
 more profound and more important than any that had ever 
 been submitted to the discussion of the House ; but it was 
 essentially the same Commons of England, whether discuss- 
 ing war, peace, and subsidies in 1523, or the Royal supremacy, 
 and the relations of Church and State, ten years afterwards. 
 
 When the House re-assembled after the recess, the knights 
 and gentlemen who, by the shortsighted and selfish policy of 
 the borough members, had been allowed to tax themselves, and 
 impose a shilling in the pound upon land assessed at SOL 
 and upwards, resolved to take their opponents at disadvantage, 
 and moved that a similar rate should be levied from goods of 
 the same amount in the fourth year. The motion was 
 obstinately resisted by their opponents ; an angry debate 
 ensued; fierce recriminations passed from one side to the 
 other. The advocates of the motion were taunted with being 
 the enemies of their country. The house divided : the knights 
 of the shire voted to a man in favour of the question ; the 
 burgesses with equal unanimity against it. The dispute was 
 carried on with so much passion and vehemence, that one 
 half of the house was prepared to impeach the other half, and 
 drive measures to extremity. At last, by the persuasion 
 and management of Sir Thomas More, peace was restored, 
 and the measure passed. 
 
 In its complete and final shape the whole Act stood as 
 follows :— For the first and the second year a rate of 5 per cent, 
 was imposed on all lands and goods of the value of 20L and 
 upwards : 2^ per cent, on goods between 201. and 2Z. ; and If 
 per cent, on goods of 40.s., or on yearly wages averaging 20s. 
 In the third year 5 per cent, on all land of 50Z. and upwards ; 
 and in the fourth or the last year, 5 per cent, on personal 
 property of 50/. and upwards. These rates were doubled in 
 cases of aliens. The Act was not to extend to Ireland, Wales, 
 Calais, to the counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and 
 W'estmoreland, to Chester, to the bishopric of Durham, or to 
 Brighton in Sussex. 
 
 It was with no small feeling of satisfaction that Wolsey 
 announced the result of the measure to the King. He had been 
 
 VOL. I. 2 I
 
 482 THE EEIGN OP HENRY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 watching for some time, with no small anxiety, its slow and 
 precarious progress through the House, aware that any hitch 
 or failure could scarcely fail of being most perilous to himself. 
 *' Sir," he says, " though it was thought by the speaker (More) 
 and others of the Commons' House that the book (bill) for the 
 grant now to be passed should have been j)erfected and brought 
 unto me as yesterday, yet nevertheless the same cannot come 
 till to-morrow at the hithermost. And forasmuch as after the 
 [introduction of the bill] into the Upper House, it will require 
 a good tract [of time to] oversee and groundly digest the same 
 to your most profit, and that it [will not be expedient] after 
 the repair of your Highness unto Bridewell to remain long, the 
 [extremity] of sickness reigning somewhat thereabouts con- 
 sidered, it may therefore please your Grace to give command- 
 ment for ordering of your provisions . . . the certain time of 
 your coming to Bridewell, till such season as [your Grace be 
 informed of the] exhibition of the said book."^ 
 
 But though this debate upon the subsidy excited, as might 
 be expected, the greatest passion, and was contested with the 
 utmost vehemence, it was not the only subject, nor for modern 
 readers the most interesting, on which the House was occu- 
 pied. In a speech delivered by a member of no less eminence 
 than Cromwell — for to no one else can it well be attributed — 
 the whole policy of the Government was carefully reviewed. 
 For what borough he sate I have not been able to discover. 
 The accounts of his early career, hitherto accepted, without 
 examination, on the authority of Foxe the martyrologist, 
 cannot easily be reconciled with the authentic information 
 now furnished by state papers.^ His employment as a military 
 adventurer under the Duke of Bourbon, his presence at the 
 siege of Eome, his subsequent travels as a commercial agent 
 to a Venetian merchant, are either wholly fictitious, or so 
 much perverted as to be no better than fictions.^ One part 
 
 * state Papers, I. 116, mntilated. prelates, partly to our commercial 
 
 * Foxc's notions of chronology are relations with Venice. With the 
 not the least extraordinary feature in classical languages Cromwell appears 
 his work. to have had very little acquaintance. 
 
 * His knowledge of Italian, inti- Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, alludes 
 mated by the anecdote of his conver- to this with a sneer, in his letter to 
 sation with Cardinal Pole on the the protector Somerset. Giving an 
 writings of Macchiavelli, might seem account of a conference with the King, 
 to countenance this supposition. But at which he was challenged by Crom- 
 Italian was probably not so rare as well, he intimates that Cromwell 
 French in those days among English- affected a scholarship he did nob 
 men ; pai'tly owing to the constant possess. " As the lord Cromwell was 
 intercourse with Eonie and Italian very stout, ' Come on, my lord of
 
 1523.] THOMAS CROMWELL. 483 
 
 ouly of this biograj)hical romance, in which he is represented 
 as beginning Hfe as a clerk in the English factory at Antwerp, 
 carries with it some appearance of probability ; and yet even 
 that is far from certain. That he traded with Antwerp and 
 Middelburgh is clear ; but this he might have done without 
 ever leaving England. The statement of Cardinal Pole, who 
 was evidently well acquainted with Cromwell and hated him, 
 is perhaps not far from the truth. He reports that Cromwell 
 was born of poor parents in a small village near London 
 (Putney), where his father carried on. the business of a cloth- 
 shearer,^ an employment in which he was certainly succeeded 
 by his son.^ 
 
 The earliest authentic notice that I can find of him is as a 
 servant in the family of the Marquis of Dorset (Grey). Cecily, 
 the dowager marchioness,^ daughter of Edward IV., writes to 
 him to send in haste her trussing bed, and deliver the tents 
 and pavilions in his custody to her son Leonard Gre3^^ The 
 exact date of this letter is uncertain, but it was certainly 
 written some vears before 1522. In 1518 he was certainly 
 residing in London. In 1522 he is addi*essed as " Mr. Thomas 
 Cromwell, dwelling by Fenchurch in London ; " ^ sometimes 
 with the honourable addition of "worshipful" or "right 
 worshipful."^ At this period of his life (1522) he combined 
 the emplojinents of merchant, cloth-dyer, and scrivener ; 
 
 Winchester,' qnoth he ; for that con- Phillips of Putney, it ajipears that not 
 
 ceit he had [that] -whatsoever he ouly did Cromwell succeed his father 
 
 talked with me he knew ever as much in this business, but that it had dc- 
 
 as I, Greek or Latin, and all." Foxe's scended from his grandfather, John 
 
 ilartyr, ii. p. 3 (ed. 1640). Cromwell, who established a fulliui? 
 
 1 The rest of Pole's storj' I subjoin, mill at Putney. At the same time, 
 
 as being probably the foundation of the received story that Cromwell was 
 
 most of the misrepresentations already the son of a blacksmith is not without 
 
 noticed. " I have heard," says Pole, foundation; for his father, Walter 
 
 " that Cromwell was a common soldier Cromwell, was not only apprenticed 
 
 in Italy, that be was even a merchant, to that business (and indeed is often 
 
 but made no further progress in the mentioned in the court rolls under 
 
 business than to be a merchant's the a^ias of Walter Smyth), but com- 
 
 clerk, and keep his master's ledger ; bined the vocations of smith, brewer, 
 
 and I know a merchant very well, a and hostelry -keejier with that of fuller 
 
 Venetian, to whom he was servant. and shearer of cloths. Sec the 
 
 Tired at length of this life he returned " Antiquarian ilagazine " for August, 
 
 home, and took up the business of a 1882. Such combinations, strange as 
 
 lawyer." In which, adds Pole, his they may appear, were not uufrequent 
 
 foreign employments were of great in those days. — Ed. 
 advantage by rendering him more * Widow of Thomas, fourth Marquis 
 
 acute and subtle than ordinary of Dorset. 
 Englishmen. Apolog. § 28. ■* HI. 2i37. 
 
 * From some very interesting in- " III- 1963, 21G1, 25/7. 
 
 vestigations among the court rolls of " III. 2394, 2111, 3081. 
 
 the manor of Wimbledon, by Mr. John
 
 484 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 lending money at interest in the last capacity, and acting as 
 an attorney.^ In the year 1523 he sate as burgess m parlia- 
 ment, and in the December of that year he served on the inquest 
 of the wardmote, in the ward of Bread Street.^ In 1524 he 
 came into Wolsey's service. He had a wife and mother-in- 
 law, named Prior, living at this time.^ Of his sister's family 
 there are many later notices. Among his acquaintances I find 
 the names of the great Italian merchant and banker, Antonio 
 Bonvixi, and of Eichard Pynson, the celebrated printer, but no 
 mention of Frescobald. Even at this early period of his life, 
 Cromwell was remarkable for the fascination of his manners 
 and the attractiveness of his conversation, as appears by the 
 following letter addressed to him by an English factor named 
 Creke who followed the Emperor Charles V. into Spain when 
 he left England in the summer of 1522. After addressing 
 Cromwell as " Carissimo quanto homo in questo mondo," the 
 writer continues, " My love toward you resteth in no less vigor 
 than it did at our last being together. My heart mourneth 
 for your company and Mr. Woodal's as ever it did for men. 
 As I am [a] true Christian man, I never had so faithful affec- 
 tion to men of so short acquaintance in my life ; the which 
 affection increaseth as fire daily. God knoweth what pain I 
 receive[d] in departing. When I consider our ghostly walking 
 in your garden, it make[s] me desperate to contemplate. I 
 would write longer, [but] my heart will not let me." ^ 
 
 In his speech ^ in Parliament, after touching upon the 
 topics insisted on, " as well by the mouth and report of my 
 lord Legate's good grace, as by the recapitulation of the right 
 worshipful, best assured, and discreet Speaker," he expresses a 
 hope that the preparations for war will be prosecuted with 
 vigour, and that their debates will be made known to the King 
 by their " discreet and excellently lettered Speaker." Then, 
 after apologizing for addressing an "audience of so many sage 
 
 ^ It appears from his accounts at 
 the Record Office, that he was in the 
 habit of lending money as early as 
 1518 ; but these were small sums. 
 In 1523 there is an entry of money 
 due to him from P. Deornanter, a 
 Hanso merchant and a spy, to the 
 amount of 80/. ; in 152G, from Charles 
 Knyvett, of 40.y. ; and in 1527, from 
 the Lord Henry Percy, Anne Boleyn's 
 supposed suitor, of 40J. See also III. 
 2447 and 2754. 
 
 ^ III. 3657. The presentments 
 
 are extremely curious. 
 
 3 III. 1963, 2394, 3015. His wife's 
 name was Eliz. Wykys. See No. 3502. 
 His family consisted of one sou, 
 Gregory, and two daughters, Anne 
 and Grace. He had two sisters, 
 Elizabeth and Katharine, the former 
 of whom married William Wellyfed. 
 John Williamson or Williams married 
 his wife's sister Joan, and afterwards 
 assumed the name of Cromwell. 
 
 ^ III. 2394. 
 
 5 III. 2958.
 
 1523.] 
 
 CROM^YELL'S SPEECH IX PARLIAMENT. 
 
 485 
 
 aucl notable persons," he proceeds to detail the advantages 
 ah-eady gained by the confederate arms, and the successes of 
 that " fortunate and sage captain, the earl of Surrey, who 
 remained in the French dominions with a small number of 
 men for six or seven weeks, when all the power of France 
 durst not give him battle. I trust," he says, "the same valiant 
 captain will subdue the Scots, whom the French have so 
 custuously entertained against us."^ 
 
 He then proceeds with great earnestness to deprecate the 
 proposal of the King to conduct the war in person, of which 
 the Cardinal had informed the House. "I am sure," he 
 argues, " that there is no good Englishman which can be merry 
 the day when he happeneth to think that his Grace might 
 perchance be distempered of his health ; so that, albeit I say, 
 for my part, I stomach as a sorry subject may do the high 
 injuries done by the said Francoys (the King of France) unto 
 his most dear sovereign, yet, rather than the King" should go 
 forth, I could, for my part, be contented to forget [them] 
 altogether." 
 
 Then enlarging on the dangers to the army, and the 
 nation in general, if any mischance should befall the King, he 
 insists on this part of his subject in a strain of loyalty, which 
 in any other period of our history would be deemed fantastical. 
 But, in justification of the earnestness of the orator on this 
 head, it must be remembered that he probably spoke the 
 feelings of most of his countrymen at that time. Personal 
 attachment to the King was one ingredient in the general 
 loyalty ; for, in spite of his many failings, it cannot be denied 
 that Henry was popular with his subjects. The remembrance 
 of a past century of civil war, and the dread of an uncertain 
 succession if the King were cut off or his life were in jeopardy, 
 justified any extremities, as afterwards in the reign of Eliza- 
 
 ' The Buccesses of Surrey against 
 France seemed to have produced 
 something of the same effect on the 
 popular imagination as did the wars 
 of Marlborough at a later period. 
 They are thus referred to by Skelton, 
 in his satire against Wolsey, Why 
 come ye not to Court ? — 
 
 " Yet the good earl of Surray, 
 The French men he doth tray, 
 And vexeth them day by day, 
 With all the power he may. 
 The French men he hath fainted, 
 And made their hearts attainted ; 
 
 Of Chivalry he is the flower, 
 
 Our Lord be his succour ! 
 
 The French men ho hath so mated. 
 
 And their courage abated. 
 
 That they are but half men. 
 
 Like foxes iu their den," etc. 
 
 Ver. 150, sq. 
 
 And then the poet insinuates, as a 
 partizan of the Howards, who were 
 evidently leading theopi)osition to tho 
 great minister, that these successes 
 would have been greater had it not 
 been for the bribes received by Wolsey 
 from the French.
 
 486 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 beth, not in arguments only, but in actions. The King de 
 facto was a state necessity ; a law indispensable to all laws. 
 As the speaker urged on this occasion : " How needful it is 
 for us (considering in what case we be) to entreat our 
 sovereign, for our sakes and his daughter's, upon whose 
 wealth and circumspect bestowing, next his noble person, 
 dependcth all our icealths, to restrain his high courage ! " 
 
 Then, applying to himself More's illustration of Hannibal 
 and the sophist, the speaker proceeded to discuss the ways 
 and means for war, and more especially that most difficult of 
 all ijroblems, the commissariat ; insinuating that the harm 
 which could be done by the army in France would not be so 
 great as the expense incurred at home by its support. His 
 arguments on that head are curious. He assumes that before 
 three summers were past the necessities of the army would 
 exhaust all the coin and bullion in the realm, which, accord- 
 ing to his conjectures, could not much exceed one milhon ; for 
 if, he continues, the value of the whole realm exceed not four 
 millions, as my lord Cardinal has told us plainly, of which 
 the possessions (the goods and chattels) are to be reckoned at 
 one million, there can be no doubt that the corn, cattle, com- 
 modities, apparel of men and women, which were never so 
 sumptuous as now, added to the native i^roductions and im- 
 ports,^ which are more abundant than in any past period of 
 our history, amount to two millions more. So, he argues, we 
 should be reduced to coin leather, " as once we did." And if 
 the King were made prisoner, such money would not be taken 
 for his ransom. " If they will nought for their wines but gold, 
 they would think great scorn to take leather for our prince." 
 
 After conjuring up this imaginary danger, he proceeds to 
 discuss with great caution the hazards of a French campaign 
 in all its aspects. To march upon Paris, he argues, would 
 expose the army to the danger of being cut off in detail, and 
 to the greater peril of leaving strong garrisons in its rear. An 
 invasion of Normandy, Brittany, and the neighbouring j^ro- 
 vinces would involve the necessity of diminishing the main 
 army by placing troops in the conquered towns; and the 
 difficulty of victualling them while they remained there must 
 not be overlooked. Past experience, he told the House, 
 furnished a very useful lesson of the danger and expense 
 attending such warfare, of which the King himself had too 
 good experience in the winning of Terouenne, which " cost him 
 more than twenty such ungracious dog-holes could be worth."
 
 1523.] CEO^IWELL'S SPEECH IN PAELIAMEXT. 487 
 
 Tbrougliout the course of his argument the speaker in- 
 sinuated that little real help could be expected from the 
 Emperor or his council, who were either in the pay of France 
 or devoted to French interests. " Even my lord of Chievres, 
 who was most bound to the Emperor, I heard my lord 
 Cardinal say, was corrupted by their policy and gifts ; and 
 since bis majesty's return to Spain, the governors of his 
 archdukedom have granted safe conducts to French and Scotch 
 merchants ; which is a marvellous hindrance ; for if our 
 commodities had been as well kept from them as theirs from 
 us, many a thousand French artificers, who have no living 
 but by working our wools, would have been compelled to cry 
 to the King for peace." 
 
 When the speaker had thus, with great ingenuity and 
 little appearance of opposition to the King's wishes, demon- 
 strated the unadvisableness of a foreign war with France, he 
 proceeded to enunciate his own policy. He proposed that the 
 King should devote all 'his efforts to the subjugation of Scot- 
 land ; for if Scotland were once conquered, then both kingdoms 
 would be brought under one obeisance, law, and policy for 
 ever. This, he said, would procure for his Majesty higher 
 bonom- than had ever yet been attained by any of his pre- 
 decessors, and prove " the greatest abashment " of France. 
 And though, he continued, it be a common saying that in 
 Scotland there is nothing to win but strokes, there is another 
 saying, "Who that intendeth France to win, with Scotland 
 let him begin." It is, be urged, mere folly to think of keeping 
 possessions in France, severed so far from us by the sea, 
 while we allow Scotland, belonging to our island, to recognize 
 another and an independent Prince. Let it be once united to 
 England, and all other possessions will be easily retained. 
 
 Making allowance for occasional extravagance and over- 
 refinement, pardonable in an orator, the speech is remarkable 
 for the vigour of its style, the breadth of its view, and the 
 general soundness of its policy. In all these qualities, in the 
 accurate knowledge it displays of contemporary and past 
 history, it rises far above the general oratory of the times. It 
 gave evidence, moreover, of more than ordinary foresight ; for 
 the anticipations of the speaker were justified by the events 
 of this war, and of many wars in centuries to come. It 
 clearly bodied forth the policy pursued by the Tudors towards 
 Scotland, and furnished its only justification. But what he 
 is here satisfied with slightly enunciating as a passing caution
 
 ■^88 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 became with the Elizabethan statesmen a fixed idea — an mi- 
 doubted maxim : It is folly for England to aim at political 
 aggrandisement abroad, and suffer Scotland— in effect, a part 
 of England — to pay homage and allegiance to an independent 
 Prince. So, if Mary had been a saint, if she had established 
 her innocence ever so triumphantly — a consummation English 
 statesmen never could have sincerely desired or sincerely en- 
 deavoured to aid — the result would have been the same. It 
 was the policy of Henry VIII. to intercept all communication 
 between France and Scotland ; to bring his nephew to Eng- 
 land ; to detain him in honourable caj)tivity — foreshadowing 
 in this the perpetual incarceration of his daughter Mary.^ 
 But James, more cautious than his daughter, or more popular 
 with his subjects, gave no such opportunity as Mary did for 
 admitting English interference. ConsoKdated under Eoman 
 Catholic rule, the Scotch sacrificed their nationality to Knox 
 and presbyterianism, furthered the designs of English states- 
 men, which their fathers had triumphantly defied, and lost 
 their independence. 
 
 If this speech is rightly attributed to Cromwell — and I 
 know of no one else to whom it can be assigned with greater 
 probability, it would justify him, as a burgess, in voting with 
 his party against a measure fatal, in their estimation, to the 
 prosperity of the country. Yet the moderation of its tone, 
 the loyalty of its sentiments, the deference paid throughout 
 both to the Cardinal and the Speaker, must have gone far to 
 disarm any resentment that might otherwise have been felt at 
 an opposition so vigorous and so skilful. In heart, also, 
 Wolsey must have acknowledged the force and accuracy of the 
 speaker's reasoning. No one knew better than he the diffi- 
 culties of the design in which he was engaged, or the hazard 
 of trusting to any earnest aid or hearty co-operation on the 
 part of the Emperor. In violence to his best convictions, he 
 had departed from the policy he had formerly pursued in 
 1517 and 1518. He had been compelled to give way before a 
 powerful combination, to relinquish a peaceful alliance with 
 France for an offensive league with the Emperor ; a step from 
 
 ' Abundant evidence for this asser- A stalworthy stripling, 
 
 hon will be found in the Calendar. There is a whispering and a whifling 
 
 But it was, in fact, so notorious as to He should be hither brought ; 
 
 be openly advocated by Skelton :— But and it were well sought, (If it 
 
 " What say ye of the Scottish king ? ^^ ^°^ ^^^^ managed,) 
 
 That is another thing. ° I trow all will be nought." 
 
 He is but a vomifflino-. Why come ye not to Court ? ver. 343.
 
 1523.] WOLSEY THANKS THE TWO HOUSES. 4S9 
 
 which no possihle advantage to his honour or interest could 
 be derived. The opposition had been humbled by the death 
 of the Duke of Buckingham ; but the ambition of Henry YIII. 
 remained, stimulated by Pace, by Suffolk, by Surrey, and, 
 not the least, by Katharine ; in short, by every one who 
 enjoyed the King's favour, and wished to usurp his confidence. 
 In this perplexity the Cardinal was compelled to give waj^ or 
 perish. He chose the former ; a more circuitous, but equally 
 certain, road to destruction. For not only the death of the 
 Duke of Buckingham and the imperial alliance, but the exac- 
 tion of the loans and subsidies required by the war, and the 
 part taken by Wolsey in this Parliament, laid the foundation 
 of that unpopularity which, fomented by nobles and by 
 satirists, eventually prepared the way for his fall.^ 
 
 In the speech delivered by Wolsey, as Chancellor, to the 
 two Houses, at the prorogation of parliament, after expressing 
 his Majesty's satisfaction for the manner in which they had 
 taken into considera,tion the proiDOsitions submitted to them in 
 his behalf, the Cardinal thus proceeded: "Whereas for the 
 furniture of the said war, both defensive and offensive, ye 
 have, after long pain, study, travel, great charges, and costs, 
 devised, made, and offered an honorable and right large subsidy 
 which ye now have presented, in the name and behalf of all 
 the subjects of this his realm, unto his majesty, his Grace doth 
 not only right acceptably and thankfully receive, admit, and 
 take the same, but also therefor giveth unto you his most hearty 
 thanks ; assuring the same that his Grace shall in such wise 
 employ the said subsidy and loving contribution as shall be to 
 the defence of his realm and of you his subjects, and the perse- 
 cution and pressing of his enemy ; for the attaining of good 
 peace, recovering of his rights, and redress of such injuries as 
 hath been done to you his loving subjects, in time past. And 
 semblably, my Lords, both spiritual and temporal, the King's 
 highness giveth unto you his most cordial thanks, as well for 
 that ye have agreed and given your assents to the said 
 subsidy,^ as also by taking long pain, travel, study, costs, and 
 
 ' There is an obscure allusion to It is somewhat wrong 
 
 this in Skelton's contemporary poem, That his board is so lonf^ ; 
 
 whose satire in its bitterest form Ho monrneth in black clothing." 
 
 dates from the year of this pai'lia- Why come ye not to Court ? ver. 38 1. 
 
 ™®^* =— 2 So, in the parliament of 1510, 
 
 " But there is some traverse the Commons, with coiii<ent of the Lords 
 
 Between some and some, Spiritual and Temporal, grant a supply 
 
 That makes our lyre (Wolsey) so of two-tenths and two-fii'tocuths ; 
 
 glum. and in that case also tho Chancellor
 
 490 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 charges in devising such statutes, acts, and good ordinances 
 as be for the common weal of this his realm." ^ 
 
 The words are remarkable ; for though formally the pro- 
 ceedings of the Crown might appear in many resjDects irrecon- 
 cilable with modern notions of the independence of the House 
 of Commons, and fatal to its control over the public expendi- 
 tm-e, this explicit assurance that the money they had granted 
 should be employed only for constitutional purposes, that the 
 King's cause was the cause of the nation, and the injuries to 
 be redressed as much theirs as his, was in effect a distinct 
 acknowledgment of the great principle on which all the rights 
 and privileges of the House are founded. That the sovereign 
 was as much a part and representative of the nation as the 
 Lords or the Commons themselves — that the Commons, there- 
 fore, " as the express image " and concrete expression of the 
 feelings and principles of the nation as a whole, should reflect 
 the wants, opinions, and feelings of the whole, and not of a 
 mere part, however large — was a juster view of its functions 
 and constitution than is to be found in the speeches of many 
 modern politicians. Nor would there ever have been any 
 necessity to have fenced and guarded its just rights with so 
 many ordinances had this truth been always as clearly recog- 
 nized and acted on as it was on this occasion.^ 
 
 In a brief and lively letter to his friend Creke, Cromwell 
 thus sums up the history of this parliamentary session : ^ 
 
 " Supposing ye desire to know the news current in these 
 parts, for it is said that news refresheth the spirit of life ; 
 wherefore ye shall understand that by long time I, amongst 
 others, have endured a parliament which continued by the 
 space of seventeen whole weeks, where we communed of war, 
 peace, strife, contention, debate, murmur, grudge, riches, 
 poverty, penury, truth, falsehood, justice, equity, &c., and 
 also how a commonwealth might be edified and also continued 
 within our realm. Howbeit, in conclusion, we have done as 
 our predecessors have been wont to do ; that is to say, as well 
 as we might, and left where we began. Ye shall also under- 
 stand the duke of Suffolk, furnished with a great army, goeth 
 
 returns thanks, and dissolves it, in to take off his head. " On the next 
 
 the King's name. See Parry's day," says Mr. Parry, " the bill 
 
 " Parliaments of England," p. 198. passes." Pari, of Eng., p. 201. I can 
 
 * III. 2957. find no authority whatever for this 
 
 2 It is stated by Mr. Parry, that statement ; and it seems to me quite 
 
 when the King was informed of the irreconcilable with what' is known 
 
 opposition made by one of the members of the debate. 
 to the vote of supply, he threatened ^ III. 324-9, Atig. 17.
 
 1523.] PAYMENT OF MEMBERS. 491 
 
 over in all goodly baste, whither I know not ; when I know I 
 shall advertise j'ou. "We have in our parliament granted unto 
 the Iving's highness a right large subsidy, the like whereof was 
 never granted in this realm." 
 
 This, of course, is not to be interpreted strictly. Besides 
 various private acts affecting the family of the late Duke of 
 Buckingham, Sir William Compton, and others, the House had 
 been employed in regulating the sale of woollen cloths, the 
 di-essing of worsteds, the reform of the coinage, the incorpora- 
 tion of the physicians of London, and the iDrivileges to be 
 conceded to those who took part in the war. 
 
 From this detailed account of the parliament of 1523, it 
 will be seen how far the assertion is correct, that a new spirit 
 was infused into the House at a later period of the reign, 
 which had no existence in Wolsey's administration. So little 
 jealousy, it has been urged, was entertained of the power of 
 the Crown before 1530, so distasteful was a residence in 
 London to the burgess and the country gentleman, that they 
 were comparatively indifferent to their parliamentary duties. 
 Measures, it has been stated, were rarely submitted to discus- 
 sion, but accei^ted unchallenged from the hands of authority ; 
 and further, that, to enforce their attendance, the expenses of 
 the members until 1530 had to be defra3^ed by considerable 
 salaries, and their presence secured by compulsory enact- 
 ments. 
 
 But, in the first place, these " considerable salaries " were 
 not confined to the reign of Henry VIII. They reach as far 
 back as the reign of Edward I. In the time of Edward IV. 
 they were fixed at four shillings per day for knights of the 
 shire, and two shillings at least for burgesses, in addition to 
 the charges of going and coming ; and they continued to be 
 made long after the whole line of the Tudors had been gathered 
 to its rest.^ Secondly, as to the statute of 6 Henry VIII., to 
 which reference has been made as enforcing the attendance 
 of reluctant members, the exact words of the enactment will 
 show more clearly its true character and purport. " Forso- 
 much," says the statute, "as commonly ///, tlie end of every 
 parliament divers and many great and weighty matters, as 
 well touching the pleasure, weal, and surety of our sovereign 
 
 ' According to Mr. Parry, Andrew by tlio sheriffs on the places ropr(>. 
 
 Marvel, M.P. for Hull in the reign of sented, it is not likely that they would 
 
 Queen Anne, was the last person who be uniformly paid. Jiesides, what 
 
 received these wages. (Parliaments, member would enforce them if tboy 
 
 etc., p. 200, note.) As they were levied fell into arrears ?
 
 492 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 lord the King, as the common weal of this his realm and 
 subjects, are to be treated, communed of, and by authority of 
 j)arliament to be concluded; so it is that divers knights of 
 shires, citizens for cities, burgesses, &c., long time before the 
 end of the said parliament, of their own authority, depart and 
 go home into their countries, whereby the said great and 
 weighty matters are many times greatly delayed ; " — be it 
 enacted, that from henceforth no member shall depart or 
 absent himself without licence of the Speaker and the House, 
 on pain of losing his wages. 
 
 The object, then, of this enactment was not, as has been 
 rej)resented, to bring reluctant members of distant boroughs 
 and counties to London, and secure their attendance in parlia- 
 ment, but to prevent them, -s^hen there, from departing before 
 the session was ended, without leave of the House. Before 
 1514 the members returned to their homes before the sessions 
 closed without leave, as at a later period with leave. Un- 
 doubtedly then, as now, their zeal and attendance would be 
 quickened when questions of the deepest and widest interest 
 fell under debate. Burgesses and country gentlemen who 
 might think that discussions about cordwainers or " draping 
 of worsteds " could very well be settled in their absence, 
 would require no threat of forfeiting their wages if they refused 
 to attend in their places when the papal supremacy, or the 
 impeachment of the clergy, constituted the exciting topics of 
 the day. 
 
 Convocation, as usual, was summoned by the Archbishop 
 concurrently with the j)arliament, and assembled in St. Paul's. 
 On the first day of its meeting, the Cardinal, after mass, cited 
 the clergy, by virtue of his legatine authority, to appear before 
 him at Westminster.^ An objection was raised against the 
 legality of these proceedings, on the ground that the clergy 
 had been previously cited to appear before the Archbishop. 
 The objection was allowed ; a new summons was issued for 
 the 7th of May.^ The convocation, consisting of the two 
 provinces of York and Canterbury, again met at Westminster 
 on the 2nd of June, and granted to the King a moiety of one 
 year's revenue of all benefices in England, to be levied in five 
 years.^ Of that grant I shall speak presently. 
 
 This assertion of his legatine authority exposed the 
 Cardinal to great obloquy.* Skelton, at that time the most 
 
 1 III. 3024. 3 jjj 3239. 
 
 2 HI. 3013. * See III. 3024.
 
 1523.] GRADUATED SCALE OF TAXATION. 493 
 
 poiDular poet in England, the most audacious and unsparing 
 critic of the Cardinal's fame and conduct, expressed his own 
 sense, and that of many others, in an ex^igram repeated fi'om 
 one end of England to the other : — 
 
 " Gentle Paul, lay down thy sweard, 
 For Peter of Westminster hath shaven thy beard."* 
 
 Nor did so large a grant pass without fierce opposition. It 
 is stated on the authority of Polydore Vergil ^ — and we may 
 trust him for the facts (since, as Dean of Wells, he would have 
 taken his place in convocation), though not for the malicious 
 insinuations he mixes up with them — that the grant was 
 energetically opposed by Fox, Bishop of Winchester, and 
 Fisher, Bishop of Eochester. Eowland Phillips, the celebrated 
 vicar of Croydon, the most eloquent preacher of his age, 
 signalized himself at first by his determined hostility ; but by 
 the machinations of Wolsey, says Vergil, was induced to 
 absent himself, much to the loss of his reputation. It had 
 been computed that the subsidy granted by the Commons 
 would produce 800,000/. It would be important to discover 
 on what data this estimate was founded ; for, whatever may 
 be thought of its policy, this first attempt at taxation on a 
 scientific and impartial basis is a conspicuous proof of the 
 genius and extraordinary audacity of Wolsey. After all the 
 studies of the economists during the last two centuries, we 
 have reverted to the principles and almost to the practice of 
 the great minister, who, with no complete statistics, no means, 
 no organization, such as modern financiers can abundantly 
 command, struck out in the necessity of the moment, under 
 the pressure of a great war, a financial scheme, which has 
 never yet been surpassed in the sweep and fairness of its 
 operation, or the general correctness of its theory. That he 
 should have stood alone, that alone in spite of all opposition 
 from the clergy and the laity he should have carried this pro- 
 ject, are indications of confidence in his powers, and in the 
 fertihty of his resources. Three measures had to be passed — 
 all equally difficult, in the fairness and equity of their inci- 
 dence, all alike sure to provoke strong opposition, and encounter 
 the pressure brought against them by the most influential 
 classes in the realm. To no clamour and no combinations did 
 Wolsey yield. That he was justified in his anticipations, 
 although, in the strong prejudices of his opponents, the 
 
 ' Preserved in Uall, p. 057. * Pago 72.
 
 494 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 burthens imposed by him were considered fatal to England, is 
 clear from the fact that the national prosperity was not im- 
 paired by them. 
 
 Of these measm^es, the subsidy granted by the House of 
 Commons consisted of a graduated tax on real and personal 
 property, commencing at five per cent., to be paid in four 
 years. Tae tax fell much more heavily on the clergy, being 
 no less than fifty per cent, income tax, to be paid by instal- 
 ments in five years. But besides these grants, a property 
 tax, in the shape of a loan, had been already arranged, before 
 Parliament met, and its execution entrusted to certain com- 
 missioners appointed under the King's sign manual,^ These 
 officers had orders to distribute themselves in different hundreds 
 and wapentakes. Without creating alarm, or betraying their 
 intentions, they were empowered to make a survey of every 
 man's property, and receive declarations on oath. If such 
 declarations were not satisfactory, they could examine the 
 neighbours of the declarator as to the value of his possessions 
 by common report, extending their inquiries to spiritual 
 dignities, benefices, brotherhoods, guilds, hospitals, mer- 
 chandise, implements, including property of every kind ; 
 church plate, jewels, and shrines excepted. Artificers and 
 journeymen moving from place to place were to be included 
 in the returns. Spiritual persons were appointed to take, in 
 the x^resence of one or more of the commissioners, the oath of 
 such spiritual men as objected to take an oath before temporal 
 men. The scruples of masters and fellows of colleges in Oxford 
 and Cambridge, bound by their statutes not to divulge their 
 property, were duly regarded. They were exempted from the 
 inquisitorial powers of the commissioners, and Wolsey himself 
 determined the rate of their contributions; with what un- 
 sparing equity will be seen below. 
 
 On property of 20L and reaching to 300/. (in modern 
 equivalents, 200Z. to 3,000/.,) the rating was fixed at 10 per 
 cent. On property from 300/. to 1,000/., it was 13^ per cent. 
 On higher sums than these the rating was left to the discre- 
 tion of the commissioners. They were, besides, to urge, if 
 possible, the immediate payment of the loan, on promise of 
 repayment out of the grants to be made in the forthcoming 
 Parliament. 
 
 It was calculated that the maintenance of the war in 
 Flanders and Scotland, with the expenses for the navj-, would 
 
 ' III. 2484.
 
 1523.] THE LOAN. 495 
 
 amount iu six mouths to 372,404/. 18.s, 4/?.^ The suhsidy 
 granted by the clergy was estimated to produce in one year 
 24,000Z. ; of the laity, if there be no mistake in the figures, 
 104,285?. 18s. 5ld.^ 
 
 Many of the items of the loan thus levied on the clergy 
 deserve the reader's attention. It is clear that Wolsey had 
 no intention of sparing his own order. The charge upon 
 himself amounted to 4,000/. (from 40,000/. to 50,000/. in 
 modern computation); on the Archbishop to 1,000/. ; on Fox, 
 Bishop of "Winchester, to 2,000/. ; on London (only lately con- 
 secrated), to 333/. Gs. 8d. ; Norwich, Ely, Lincoln, Lichfield, 
 Exeter, and Chichester, paid 1,000/. each ; the rest smaller 
 sums. 
 
 The Abbots of Abingdon and Bury paid 1,333/. 6s. Sd. 
 each ; Westminster, Beading, Bamsay, and Glastonbury, 
 1,000/. each ; St. Augustine's, Canterbury, and Gloucester, 
 666/. 13s. 4(/. each ; the rest, sums varying from 500/. 
 to 20/. 
 
 Each of the priories of Christ Church, Canterbury, St. 
 Swithin's, AVinchester, and Ely, were taxed 666/. 13s. M. ; 
 Lewes, 500/. ; Leeds, Durham, Coventry, Worcester, Walsing- 
 ham, 333/. Qs. 8d. each ; the rest, in smaller sums. 
 
 The Abbess of Shaftesbury was charged 1,000/. ; of Wilton, 
 Sion, and Barking, 333/. 6s. 8c/. each ; and the rest, sums 
 varying from 200/. to 133/. 6s. 8d. 
 
 Of the cathedral chapters, Salisbury was taxed at 500/. ; 
 Lincoln, Exeter, and St. Paul's, 333/. 6s. 8t7. each ; the others 
 in smaller sums. 
 
 Of collegiate churches, St. Stephen's, Westminster, and 
 Windsor paid 333/. 6s. 8(/. each; Eton and Winchester, 
 200/. 
 
 In the university of Oxford the highest sum of 333/. Gs. 8d. 
 was paid by Magdalen and New College. All Souls was 
 charged 200/. ; Merton and Corpus, severally, 133/. Gs. 8d. 
 The rest i)aid sums varying from 100/. to 40/. At Cambridge, 
 liing's and King's Hall were assessed at 333/. 6s. 8d. each ; 
 
 ' That is, for tliearmy inFlancleri?, the province of York, boiiipj the first 
 consisting of 20,000 foot and 8,000 fifth, produced 3,932L lO*-. 8tZ. Sup- 
 horse, 292,6S9Z. 6.S. 4d. ; for the army posing the same rate was observed, 
 against Scotland, 47,4G0L ; for the the clergy of the northern province 
 navy, 27,302Z. 5s. 8c?. ; for the garrison would pay, in the course of five? yeiir.s, 
 at Calais, 4,953L G.*. 8d. See No. 19,0Gl.i. 18a-. M., iu addition to tho 
 2743. loans. 
 
 « See III. 2483. The subsidy iu
 
 496 THE REIGN OF HEXRY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 Queen's, at 200Z. ; St. John's and Christ's, at lOOZ. ; Benet, 
 at 66/. 13s. 4d. 
 
 On individual clergymen the burthen must have fallen 
 with extreme severity. The Archdeacons of Eichmond and 
 Lincoln, Dr. Chambre, the King's physician, and our old 
 friend Peter Carmelianus, poet and lutanist, had to contribute 
 severally 333/. 6s. 8d. ; whilst Polydore Vergil, the historian, 
 Dr. Denton, chaplain to Mary the French Queen, Dr. Taylor, 
 clerk to the Parliament, Mr. Larke — whose connection with 
 Wolsey is well known — were severally rated at 200/.^ 
 
 In judging of the magnitude of these sums it is necessarj- 
 to bear in mind that they must not only be increased tenfold 
 in order to raise them to their present equivalents, but that 
 they had to be paid in current coin. Whatever the scarcity 
 of the precious metals, or the difficulty of procuring them, it 
 does not appear that the commissioners had any power to 
 make any change in the mode or date of payment ; and as 
 there must have been at times a scarcity in the currency, the 
 sums paid rather exceeded than fell short of the nominal 
 rates. There are no exact means at present for deciding on 
 the amount contributed by the laity ; but in a paper of a later 
 date than 1522 or 1523 the following sums are set down 
 against the names of the nobility and gentry, whether repre- 
 senting the whole or a part of the loans contributed by them 
 I cannot decide. Lord Arundel, Lord Dacre of the North, the 
 Duchess of Norfolk, Master Palmer, the Steelyard of London, 
 are charged 1,000/. each ; the Italian merchants, 2,000/. ; Sir 
 William Saye, Lady Parr, Lord Clifford, the executors of Sir 
 Thomas Lovell, 1,000 marks each ; the Earl of Northumber- 
 land, 500/. ; Sir Thomas Boleyn, Lord Marney, and others, 
 200/. each ; ^ and so of many others. 
 
 Taxation so oppressive, and yet so general, argues either 
 the greatest boldness in the minister who projected it, of which 
 we have no parallel in history, or his well-founded belief in 
 the prosperity and elasticity of the nation. Perhaj^s both. If 
 also it be remembered that this pressure was to last five 
 years, at a period when agriculture was less assisted by 
 science than it is at present, and when a bad harvest entailed 
 distress which no commerce could relieve, it will appear impos- 
 sible to exaggerate the magnitude of the hazard incurred by 
 Wolsey. Whatever might be the hardship or the temporary 
 evils entailed by these measures, the whole weight of their 
 
 > III. 2483. 2 j^jYZ.
 
 1523.] OPPRESSIVE TAXATION. 497 
 
 responsibilitj'- fell on his shoulders. He might urge in his o-o-n 
 defence that he was one only of the King's advisers, that the 
 Council and the Parliament sanctioned and shared in those 
 proceedings. Such a defence availed nothing ; it was felt that 
 in reality his brain alone had conceived and concerted t]]ese 
 measures, that to his energy and to his authority they owed 
 their existence. Whilst the King, from policy or dislike to 
 business, was scarcely seen, often spent whole days in tlie 
 chase,^ and, Tudor-like, incurred no responsibility, he could, 
 like a Dcus ex machina, when the storm beat too vehemently, 
 graciously interpose, and exclaim, in language suited to the 
 gods of Epicurus — 
 
 " Taxation ! 
 \^nierein ? And what taxation ? My lord Cardinal, 
 You that are blamed for it alike with us, 
 Know you of this taxation ? " 
 
 ' See III. 942, 950, 957, 1558, 2049. 
 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 2 K
 
 498 THE KEIGN OF HEXRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 INVASION OF FRANCE. 
 
 The -war with France was now resumed with great animosity 
 and vigonr. In August, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 
 was appointed to the command of the troops destined for the 
 invasion. Cooler and less interested heads than Henry VIII. 
 might have reckoned on the fall of that kingdom as imminent, 
 and the coronation of an English sovereign at St. Denis as 
 more real than a day-dream. In one of his most characteristic 
 letters to Wolsey, More has touched off this settled persuasion 
 of the King in his graphic way. When More was acting as 
 secretary, and was soliciting the King to sign certain papers 
 just received froni,^ii*Cardinal which required expedition, 
 " his Grace laughed, and said, ' Nay, by my soul, that will 
 not be, for this is my removing day soon at (to) Newhall. 
 I will read the remnant at night.' " At night, that is, six 
 o'clock, after the King had dined, More again presented him- 
 self with his portfolio. The King signified his readiness to 
 sign. " Whereupon," continues More, " at my parting from his 
 Grace yesternight, I received from your Grace a letter, addressed 
 unto his, with which I forthwith returned unto his Grace in 
 the Queen's chamber, where his Grace read openly my lord 
 Admiral's^ letter to the Queen's grace, which marvellously 
 rejoiced in the good news, and specially in that, that the 
 French King should be now toward a tutor, and his realm to 
 have a governor. In the communication whereof, which lasted 
 about one hour, the King's grace said that he trusted in God 
 to be their governor himself, and that they should by this 
 means make a way for him, as king Richard did for his father.''^ 
 By various letters received from French correspondents 
 
 • Sarrey. this realm tliat then it may prove so ; 
 
 ^ State Pap. i. 110. More's remark and else in the stead thereof I pray 
 
 is honourable to his good feelings and God send his Grace an honourable and 
 
 sagacity : " I pray God," he says, profitable peace." And this when the 
 
 " if it be good for his Grace and for war had barely commenced.
 
 1523.] BOURBON'S AUDACITY. 499 
 
 and spies, the King had been led to beheve that France Avas 
 greatly dissatisfied with its monarch ; that the old dj'nasty in 
 Normandy and Guienne, as in the days of the Plantagenets, 
 would be more palatable to the inhabitants, worn down by 
 oppressive taxation and the violence of mercenary troops, 
 than the rule of their native sovereign. Such reports appeared 
 to be countenanced by the revolt of Bourbon and other noble- 
 men of his party. Resisting all the offers of Francis for 
 accommodation, Bourbon had persisted in his sullen resolu- 
 tion. Trusting either to the generosity of Francis I., or his 
 unwillingness to proceed to extremities, Bourbon had fluttered 
 in the rear of the King's army, now far advanced on its road 
 to Lyons in the direction of Italy. Escape had been easy at 
 anytime, yet Bourbon did not attempt to escape. His capture 
 was no less easy, and j^et Francis made no effort to detain 
 him. He was certainly aware of the Duke's treason. To 
 what, then, must we attribute such apparent irresolution on 
 one side, such audacious disregard to safety on the other ? 
 If conjecture may be allowed, Francis was reluctant to offer 
 violence to one so nobly allied and so popular as Bourbon. 
 Perhaps, also, he was yet uncertain of the full extent of his 
 conspiracy, and how far other nobles were implicated in it. 
 There still remained enough of the old spirit of feudalism in 
 France to make it perilous to seize a suzerain of Bourbon's 
 wealth and importance in the midst of his estates. Bourbon 
 at a distance from the Bourbonnois could not so easily elude 
 justice. Lured into the King's presence under the promise of 
 commanding the vanguard in Italy, he would be removed from 
 the neighbourhood where his strength was greatest, and might 
 then be safely apprehended. On the other hand, Bourbon 
 himself, powerful in the midst of friends and dependants, 
 could only dictate terms to Charles V. and Henry VIII., marry 
 the sister of one, and take the pay of the other, if he was able 
 to set Francis at defiance, and persuade others to join in his 
 defection. In September he threw off the mask. While 
 Francis was staying at Grenoble, a page betrayed Bourbon 
 and his confederates.^ Francis returned instantly to Lyons, 
 apprehended St. Vallier and others ; " and for the time of 
 their being in his presence showed unto them good visage, as 
 though he had nothing known ; but before they came to their 
 lodgings they were attached." The head and leader was still 
 at large. One Perrot''' was despatched to apprehend the 
 
 > III. 3392. ^ TeiTot do Waitlij .
 
 500 THE REIGN OP HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 Duke, and bring him into the King's presence. The Duke 
 returned for answer, "that right shortly the King should both 
 hear of him and see him also." Within a few hours after he 
 had escaped in disguise, and the o^Dportunity which Francis 
 failed to take at the flood, now ebbed away, never to return. 
 
 When the treason was known, France was in an uproar. 
 It was impossible to ascertain at first how far the defection 
 had extended. Uncertain of his movements, distrustful of 
 his nobles, Francis shut himself up for a time within the 
 gates of Lyons. ^ Vendome, next in authority and influence to 
 Bourbon, was detained in a sort of honourable imprisonment.^ 
 Lorraine was suspected. Arrests were made from day to day. 
 Not only the expedition into Italy, on which Francis had set 
 his heart, was now effectually stopped ; but the Duke, popular 
 wherever Francis was unpopular, proved a formidable acces- 
 sion to the hostile combinations by which France was menaced. 
 It was necessary to dissemble. To win the Duke back at any 
 concession, Francis offered Bourbon the hand of Madame 
 Renee.^ He proposed to meet Bourbon with six gentlemen 
 only, and settle the terms of their agreement. He promised 
 never to trouble Bourbon in any way, to allow him undis- 
 turbed enjoyment of all his lands in France, and even to let 
 him serve the King of England or the Emperor, provided it 
 was not against himself or his kingdom. But Bourbon re- 
 mained inexorable. The King, he replied, and the Emperor, 
 might do as they pleased ; but as for himself, nothing should 
 ever induce him to trust Francis again, or make peace with 
 him on any terms. To put an effectual end to all further 
 communication, he bade the envoy depart at once, with this 
 assurance, that if any more such messengers were sent to him 
 from the French King he would certainly hang them.^ 
 
 While these difficulties and dangers sj)rung up Hydra-like 
 in the court, the camp, in Paris, and the provinces, the allied 
 sovereigns had been actively and successfully emj)loyed in 
 surrounding the perplexed monarch with a network of 
 hostilities. The aid of the Swiss had been effectually 
 neutralized ; Venice, formerly the faithful ally and humble 
 dei)endant of France, had been induced by Pace to abandon 
 its former faith, and join the league against the Christian 
 King. 
 
 •■>=>' 
 
 To detach the Venetians from France was a measure of 
 
 » III. 3380. ' III. 3332. 
 
 - 111. 3533. * III. 3498.
 
 1523.] THE VENETIANS ABANDON FEANOE. 501 
 
 prime necessity ; not so much for their mercantile importance 
 as for the influence of their example on the rest of Italy. 
 They had always been the warmest and most constant allies 
 of France. They had frequently been solicited and threatened 
 by the late and the present Emperor, but without eifect. The 
 imperial ambassadors at Venice had spent weeks in alternately 
 menacing them with the Emperor's displeasure, or alluring 
 them by the promise of his gratitude. In vain. The Seignory 
 remained unmoved ; it despised the one, it distrusted the other. 
 As usual, the imperial envoys haggled for money. They desired 
 a loan — " a recognition," as Pace calls it — " of 500,000 ducats 
 to be made to the Emperor." The Venetians offered 200,000 
 ducats, to be paid in ten years. The smallness of the sum 
 was bad enough, the delay worse. At last they consented to 
 abandon France, and join the confederacy against her ; but 
 not until they had extorted a promise from Pace that he 
 would obtain a commission from the King of England to act 
 as conservator of the peace and mediator in any difficulties 
 that might happen to arise. They desired the English 
 ambassador to signify to his master, that nothing had induced 
 them to this agreement with the Emperor so much as their 
 wish to j)reserve the amity of England. Let the compliment 
 count for what it is worth ; it is evident that Pace was the 
 main instrument of the league, and without him it would 
 never have been concluded.^ 
 
 The decision of the Seignory had been probably quickened 
 by a measure deemed justifiable in those days. By the usages 
 of war, the limits of which were not then very strictly defined, 
 an embargo was laid on the Venetian galleys trading to 
 England on the security of mutual amity. They were detained 
 under various pretences as if they had belonged to a hostile 
 power. In vain Suriano, the Venetian ambassador, urged 
 upon Wolsey the iDropriety of releasing them. The Venetian 
 galleys, he wrote, detained day by day at Southampton are 
 irreparably injured. The crews have deserted the ships ; some 
 are perishing with hunger, others are compelled to beg their 
 bread ; most of the sailors are returning in the ships of the 
 Genoese merchants, and there will not be men enough to man 
 
 See III. 2847. Even the im- mention how much the Emperor was 
 
 j^erial prothonotary Caracciolo, who indebted for success to tlie " sagacity, 
 
 cannot always conceal his vexation at prudence, and dexterity of Pace in 
 
 the little e:.timation had of himself or ijringing those ncgociations to a satis- 
 
 his master by the Venetians, admits factory conclusion." Seo Bergeurolh's 
 
 it would be " eacrilege " if be did not Calend. ii. No, 579 ; also 5GG.
 
 502 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 the galleys. The masters, he said, had spent all their money 
 during their long detention, and then- goods were spoiled by 
 worms and moths. ^ His remonstrances were unavailing. If 
 the Venetians were not friends and allies with England, they 
 must be considered and treated as its enemies. They must 
 then make up their minds to redeem their losses by sacrificing 
 their friendship with France, or redouble them if they adhered 
 to their ancient alliance. The Seignory preferred the former 
 alternative; and its defection for a time struck a death-blow 
 to French supremacy in Italy. " We shall soon leave the 
 French King without a friend," wrote Pace to "VVolsey in the 
 moment of triumph; "the Gallic eagle before long will not 
 have a single feather to fly with."^ The embargo was taken 
 ofl^ before the treaty was concluded, but not before the favour- 
 able resolution of the Seignory had been known. The final 
 adjustment of the terms between the Emperor and the 
 Venetians was delayed by the death of the Doge, and other 
 causes, until the 29th of July. But long before that date 
 Francis saw his sun sinking rapidly in the peninsula. In a 
 letter to Pace Wolsey informs him that the King had dis- 
 charged the Venetian galleys, and allowed them to depart ; a 
 favour, he thinks, which ought to be " thankfully accepted 
 and substantial!}^ regarded " ! But with this agreeable in- 
 telligence he coupled the announcement, that after the en- 
 larging of the said galleys, as the King was fitting out a fleet 
 at Portsmouth, which lacked certain pieces of artillery, " I of 
 myself, without any consent of their ambassadors here resident, 
 or [of] the patrons of the galleys, willing for the love that I 
 bore them to show a confirmation of their good minds towards 
 the King's grace, took upon me to borrow out of the 'said 
 galleys six great pieces of artillery ; that is to say, of every 
 galley two pieces, trusting that the said Duke and Senate will 
 be contented"!^ Such are the liberties and the duties of 
 friendship. 
 
 In the face of so formidable a combination, a king of less 
 spirit or more prudence than Francis would have succumbed, 
 and made terms with his enemies. And to terms of accom- 
 modation Charles was at all events ready to listen. He had 
 no desire for the conquest of France, least of all to share it 
 with his powerful ally, and his more powerful minister, who 
 
 * Nov. 23, 1522. Compare also relinquetur." — No. 2817. 
 No. 2555. ^ III. 2863. 
 
 " "Nulla peuna qua volet Gallo
 
 1523.] THE SPIRIT OF FEANCIS, 503 
 
 was too cautious to be deceived, too cold to be blinded, by the 
 Emperor's protestations.^ In the hours of their most intimate 
 alliance the Cardinal never scrupled to treat as chimerical the 
 amjjle professions of the Emperor, the prodigious armies he 
 was raising, the sums he engaged himself to pay. His ambas- 
 sadors fretted, bristled up, and chafed at these repeated 
 indignities, and never scrupled to repeat them with interest to 
 the Emperor.^ But their anger and their explanations were 
 alike unheeded. Wolsey w^as convinced that the Emperor 
 either would not, or more probably could not, help either 
 himself or his friends. The despatches of Sampson and 
 Jerningham from the Emperor's court left no room for doubt 
 on that subject.^ 
 
 But Francis would neither abandon his enterprise, nor 
 bate an inch of his pretensions. Though he must have known 
 that he was not popular, and had not deserved popularity ; 
 though his extravagance, his reckless ambition, his disastrous 
 government, joined to the avarice of Louise of Savoy, had 
 alienated from him the affection of his kingdom ; — he deter- 
 mined, in this most trjdng moment of his fortunes, to throw 
 himself on the patriotism of his subjects. The magnitude of 
 the danger was, in fact, his best security. The time was not 
 so distant but that the memory of what France had suffered 
 through the disaffection of its great feudal nobles, and their 
 alliance with England, was comparatively recent — recent, and 
 still bitter. Communal France and feudal France still flowed 
 on like two parallel streams, side by side, but their waters 
 scarcely intermingled. A war with England, a dread of dis- 
 memberment, the imperilment of their own independence in 
 the captivity of their King; these were powerful incentives 
 to union, irresistible arguments for consolidation, a genesis of 
 internal strength and vigour. They carried France in com- 
 parative safety, not only through all the imprudence and 
 excesses of such a reign as that of Francis I., but through the 
 mad follies of Charles IX. and the devastating wars of the 
 Huguenots. Out of the winepress of the 17th century Germany 
 emerged weak, trembling, and disorganized ; England, dis- 
 membered of its national head and national church ; France, 
 as the dictator of the Old World, and, but for the senseless 
 ambition of its rulers, little less than absolute monarch of the 
 New. 
 
 'III. 2881. - III. 30G1. 
 
 « See Spinelly, No. 3532.
 
 504 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 On the 24th of August ^ the Duke of Suffolk crossed over to 
 Calais at the head of the largest army which, as Wolsey in- 
 formed Sampson and Jerningham, had been despatched fi'om 
 these shores for a hundred years.^ He was joined in the first 
 week of September^ by 3,000 horse of the Low Countries, 
 4,000 lanceknights, waggons and " limoners " for transporting 
 the troops, commanded by Count de Buren. To assist in the 
 invasion, 10,000 Almains, under Felix Count Furstemberg, 
 marched in the direction of Bresse, on the eastern frontier ; 
 whilst the Emperor, as usual behindhand, had arranged to 
 occupy Guienne.* As usual also, the requisite number of 
 horses and "limoners " to be provided by Margaret of Savoy 
 were not forthcoming at the critical moment,^ Indifferent to 
 the war, or more probably unwilling to bear any part in the 
 burthens of it, the Flemish subjects of Charles excused them- 
 selves from furnishing the necessary contingents. Disaffected 
 and ill paid, the Germans under Count Furstemberg clamoured 
 for wages ; were ready to leave their ranks and return. It had 
 been stipulated at the outset that the Emperor should advance 
 them their first month's pay ; but it was evident that he was 
 in no condition to fulfil his engagement. Kemonstrances were 
 useless ; it was incumbent on Henry to find the money or 
 abandon the enterprise, after he had proceeded so far and 
 incurred so much trouble and expense. He preferred the 
 former, and transmitted the pay for 10,000 lanceknights. 
 Again he experienced the bad faith of his confederate. After 
 the money had been advanced, it was found that the whole 
 available force under Count Felix, instead of numbering 10,000 
 did not exceed 6,000. Many had deserted already, others were 
 preparing to follow their example.^ The delay, the subter- 
 fuges, the transparent apologies of Lady Margaret and the 
 Emperor's ambassadors^ proved a sore trial to Wolsey's 
 temper. 
 
 " His Grace," writes More to Wolsey, ''commanded me to 
 write unto your Grace, on his behalf, that it might like you to 
 
 ' III. 3281. An account of the it at 13,100. (Chron., p. 662.) To 
 captains and their retinues will be these we must add De Buren's con- 
 found at No. 3288. tingent of 3,000 horse and 4,000 
 
 * According to No. 3288, the army lanceknights. 
 which crossed under Suffolk consisted ^ III. 3294. 
 
 of 10,688 foot, and of ordnance 1,648 ; * III. 3326. 
 
 in all, 12,336. These numbers were » III. 3371; compare also Nos. 
 
 to be augmented by 1,700 men from 3347, 3324, and 3378. 
 Guisnes and Calais, bringing up the " III. 3490 ; compare also 3308, 
 
 total to 14,036 men. Hall estimates 3314, 3318, 3440,
 
 1523.] FKAXCE OPEN TO THE INVADERS. 505 
 
 take the pain to devise a good round letter unto my lady- 
 Margaret, in your own name, to stir them forward in the 
 provision of such things ; as their slackness hitherto much 
 hath hindered the common affairs. His Highness saith that 
 such dealing so often used, and never otherwise, may well 
 give him cause hereafter better to be advised ere he enter into 
 a charge again for their defence, if this be not amended ; and 
 so he required your Grace to write unto her." ^ 
 
 All this time Francis was shut up in Lyons, with about 
 25,000 foot and 2,000 men-at-arms.^ The rest of his available 
 forces had been despatched either into Scotland to the aid of 
 the Duke of Albany, or into Italy to recover the Milanese. 
 With the exception of Boulogne, Therouenne, Dourlens, and 
 other places on the frontiers, which were strongly fortified, the 
 towns in the interior were wholly unprepared for a siege. They 
 had neither ramparts nor garrisons. An open road to Paris 
 offered no obstacle to the enemy's progress. To amuse his 
 foes — to delaj^ if possible, the time (for the season was ad- 
 vancing), and retard their march — Francis sent La Tremouille 
 into Picardy. But this able and active general found the 
 whole country utterly defenceless. To the well appointed and 
 disciplined troops of Suffolk and De Buren he had nothing to 
 oppose except raw and hasty levies raised from the untrained 
 peasantry in the pressure of the hour.^ 
 
 The English and imperial commanders differed as to the 
 plan of operations. Jealous of the designs of Charles, con- 
 vinced that he would employ the confederate troops for his 
 own purposes, without regarding the general interests of the 
 allies, Henry had resoived on besieging Boulogne. " As 
 touching the consultation of the siege to be laid to Boulogne 
 or abandoned," writes More to Wolsey, " his Highness hath 
 commanded me to write unto your Grace, that, notwithstand- 
 ing the reasons of the lord Isilstein (Buren) with the mind of 
 my lady Margaret and the Emperor too, his Grace is, for the 
 prudent reasons mentioned in your Grace's letter, detcr- 
 minately resolved to have the said siege experimented ; 
 whereof, as your Grace writeth, what may hap to fall, who but 
 God can tell ? And all the preparations purveyed for that 
 way, to be now suddenly set aside, or converted where they 
 cannot serve, sending his army far off into the enemy's land, 
 
 ' III. 3346. Mondes, torn. xxv. p. 907), from 
 
 HI. 3297. manuscript authorities. 
 
 ' Seo M. Miguct (Revue dcs Deux
 
 506 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 where we should trust to their provision, of whose slackness 
 and hard handling proof hath been had ere this, and yet no 
 proof had of the Duke's (Bourbon's) fastness, his Highness 
 verily thinketh, as your Grace hath most prudently written, 
 that there were no wisdom therein. And his Grace saith, 
 that your Grace hit the nail on the head, where ye write that 
 the Burgundians would be upon their own frontiers, to the end 
 our money should be spent among them, and their frontiers 
 defended, and themselves resort to their own houses." ^ 
 
 The Imperialists objected that Boulogne was impregnable.^ 
 If their opinion were well founded, the truth coincided with 
 their interests. It was the policy of Charles to conduct the 
 war at the expense of his ally. If his troops were employed 
 in besieging Boulogne, he must keep other garrisons in pay to 
 protect his Flemish subjects on the French frontier. Second- 
 ing ostensibly the designs of England upon France, he was 
 contriving to throw upon the English king the protection of 
 his Flemish dominions. Disengaged from the necessity of 
 their defence, he could concentrate all his strength on the 
 South, secure Navarre, retake Pampeluna, and extend his 
 dominions beyond the Pyrenees. So, careful of his own 
 interests, he fluttered between Burgos and Corunna, perplex- 
 ing his English allies by his apparent irresolution, and callous 
 to their reproaches. 
 
 For reasons not clearly ascertained — probably at the 
 suggestion of Bourbon, from whom Sir John Piussell had now 
 returned — certainly from no undue partiality to the Emperor's 
 interests, as M. Michelet erroneously surmises — Wolsey was 
 induced to abandon the idea of laying siege to Boulogne. His 
 letter to the King announcing and apologizing for that change 
 has not been preserved ; ^ but the tenor of it may be gathered 
 from a letter written by More to Wolsey at the King's com- 
 mand. It is equally honourable to the great minister and his 
 royal master, and will help to dissipate the misconceptions 
 industriously circulated and lately revived to the prejudice of 
 both. For that reason I give the more important portions of 
 it at length : — * 
 
 " It may Hke your good Grace to be advertised that the 
 
 ' Sept. 12. the monarcli happened to be at the 
 
 2 III. 3315-3320. time. When these residences were 
 
 ^ Mnch of the royal correspondence, pulled down, what became of the 
 
 I i^resume, never made its way into pajjers ? 
 
 the State Paper Office, but was kept * III. 3346, 
 
 at the different royal residences where
 
 1523.] PROPOSAL TO BESIEGE BOULOGNE, 507 
 
 King's highness, bj^the hands of his servant, Sir John Eussell, 
 of whose well-achieved errand [to Bourbon] his Grace taketh 
 great pleasure, hath received your most prudent letter, con- 
 taining 3^our wise and substantial counsel and advice concern- 
 ing the siege of Boulogne to be left off at the present time, and 
 his army with proclamations of liberty and forbearing to burn, 
 to proceed and march forward unto the places devised by the 
 duke of Bourbon ; which places, as your Grace upon credible 
 report from all parties is informed, shall easily be taken with- 
 out any resistance ; wherein j'our Grace perceiveth great 
 appearance of winning some great part of France or at least- 
 wise, all that is on this side the water of Somme, which should 
 be as honorable and beneficial unto his Grace and also more 
 tenable than all Normandy, Gascoigne, and Guienne ; requir- 
 ing his Highness, therefore, that your Grace might with all 
 possible diligence be advertised of his mind and pleasure in 
 the premises, to the end that ye might advertise my lord of 
 Suffolk of the same ; and that it w^ould like his Grace to take 
 in good part your foresaid advice and opinion, without arrect- 
 ing (attributing) any lightness to your Grace, though the 
 same were of another sort now than was contained in your 
 late letters addressed unto me ; forasmuch as this declaration 
 of the duke of Bourbon, and his counsel thereupon given, with 
 the good semblance, and grounds and considerations thereof, 
 causeth your Grace to change your opinion. 
 
 " The King has commanded me to write unto jour Grace 
 first concerning this j)oint, that his Highness not only doth 
 not arrect the change of your Grace's opinion to any lightness, 
 but also right well considereth that it proceedeth of a very 
 constant and unchangeable purpose, to the furtherance and 
 advancement of his affairs. And as Ids Highness esteemeth 
 nothing in counsel more perilous thaft \_for~\ one to persever in the 
 maintenance of his advice because lie Jiath once given it, so 
 thinketh he that councillor very commendable ivhich, though there 
 ivere no change in the matter, yet forbeareth not to declare the 
 change of his own opinion, if he either perceive, or think that he 
 perceiveth, the contrary of his former counsel more 2^>'ofltable. 
 Wherefore, in the change of your Grace's opinion in this 
 matter, his Highness not only seeth no manner likelihood of 
 liglitness, but also perceiveth, commendeth, and most afi'ectu- 
 ously thanketh your faithful diligence and high wisdom, so 
 deeply pondering and so substantially advertising his High- 
 ness of such considerations as (the matter so greatly changed)
 
 508 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [AD. 
 
 move your Grace to change your opinion, and to give your 
 prudent advice to the changing of the manner and fashion of 
 his affairs." 
 
 For sentiments so noble and so generous, the ministers and 
 subjects of Henry VIII. might readily forgive the occasional 
 outbursts of a capricious and imperious temper. In the 
 exhibition of these better qualities, though afterwards blunted 
 by age and indulgence, yet never wholly extinguished, we 
 divine the true secret of that fascination which, in spite of 
 all his faults — and they were neither few nor trivial — Henry 
 VIII. exercised over those who surrounded him. To no 
 sovereign did ministers ever dedicate themselves, head • and 
 heart, body and soul, with more intense devotion. It mattered 
 not whether they were reformers or anti -reformers. Catholics 
 or Protestants ; attached, like More, to ancient traditions, or, 
 like Cromwell, identifying the prosperity of the nation and 
 the cause of religion with the unlimited prerogatives of the 
 Crown. No fatigue, no pains, no sacrifices, were too great. 
 There was a heroism in serving a King who, though no hero 
 himself, understood — none better — ^the true temper of man- 
 hood. If he was an exacting, he was also an intelligent, 
 master ; if he expected much, he had discernment enough to 
 appreciate services. In his general impartiality, in the cool- 
 ness and strength of his judgment, except where his passions 
 were concerned, whenever his ministers tendered advice, they 
 were sure of receiving that most grateful of all recognitions to 
 those who volunteer advice — a full, patient, and unbiassed 
 attention. Consequently his praise was coveted as famishing 
 men crave for bread, or drowning men for deliverance, and his 
 censure was dreaded as no King's censure ever was. Men 
 may dislike the reproofs, but no man values the praise, of a 
 weak or a dissolute monarch. No man sacrifices his energies, 
 his brains, and his purposes to a blind and undiscriminating 
 idol. Had Henry been the wilful, capricious, and self-indul- 
 gent monarch he is sometimes represented, the intense 
 personal devotion of such men as Wolsey, Cromwell, More, 
 Gardiner, Fitzwilliam, so unlike each other in all respects, 
 this one excepted, would have been the most unintelligible 
 paradox in history. Weakness is incapable of devotion ; folly 
 does not understand the meaning of sacrifice. 
 
 Fully acquitting the Cardinal of inconsistency, in the 
 letter already referred to, the King examines the grounds on 
 which Wolsey had changed his opinions in a minute and
 
 1523.] ALARM AT PARIS. 509 
 
 masterly way. He states in clear and forcible language liis 
 reasons for adhering to his former convictions. I have not 
 room to insert them here. This difference, however, may be 
 observed in the King's judgment and Wolsey's, Bourbon's, and 
 De Buren's. They trusted for the success of their plan on 
 that most uncertain and fallacious of all calculations to which 
 military men can sm-render their judgment — the blunders and 
 inefficiency of their enemy. The King proceeded on the 
 sounder hj^pothesis that the French King would not unlikely 
 do "as his Highness would himself, if he were in (as our 
 Lord keep him out of) the like case; " that is, he would attack 
 and defeat his enemies in detail before they could consolidate 
 then- powers. The one Horatius, fresh and on his own field, 
 is more than a match for the three isolated Curiatii. Strange 
 is it that this indisputable military axiom, the sum and 
 generalization of military experience, should have sprung up 
 as it were, and stood palpably bodied forth to the mind of the 
 Eoman even before his experience began. The result, at 
 which others arrive by a long and costly process, flashed as 
 an intuition on the clear mirror of his practical mind. And 
 now, after three thousand years, true and fresh as ever, it is 
 never to be transgressed without its Nemesis ! 
 
 But the King's judgment, justified by the taking of Boulogne 
 at a later period of his reign, was not allowed on this occasion 
 to have its way. The combined forces of the English and 
 Imperialists, numbering rather more than 20,000, advanced 
 from Calais, and, without experiencing any opposition, de- 
 vastated the country as far as Montdidier. Montdidier was 
 surrendered on the 27th of October. After occupying Eoye 
 and Nesle, the troops returned once more to the sea-coast in 
 the beginning of November, having accomplished nothing of 
 substantial importance commensurate with the labour and 
 expense of the campaign. From accident or design neither 
 Bourbon nor the Emperor co-operated with the Duke, who 
 returned to Calais, much to the disgust of his royal master ; 
 justifying the conviction that, whatever might be Suffolk's 
 personal bravery, he possessed none of the qualities required 
 in a great general.^ 
 
 Paris, meantime, was in the greatest alarm, expecting 
 daily the approach of the enemy. A post had been despatched 
 
 ' If any reader wishes to trace from the time of their starting, Sept. 
 the niovetnents of the army, he will 19, to tluiir return, Nov. 7, in III. 
 find a journal of their proceedings, 351G. Compare also Noa. 3402, 3485.
 
 510 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 1523. 
 
 to Francis, still at Lyons, to advertise him of the clanger of 
 his capital. On the 31st of October Chabot de Brion entered 
 the city, followed the next day by the Duke of Vendome. 
 They had been sent by Francis to concert measures with its 
 inhabitants for its safety. The speech delivered by Brion to 
 the parliament assembled on this occasion was exactly 
 calculated to inspire them with the resolution of defending 
 themselves to the last extremity. In vehement and vivid 
 language he denounced the treason of Bourbon. The Constable, 
 he said, was a traitor not less to his country than his King. 
 He had combined with their national enemies to bring France 
 into subjection, and only waited for the time when the King 
 had crossed*the mountains, to divide its native land among 
 strangers. It had already been arranged, he told them, that 
 England should have I'lle de France, Picardy, Normandy, and 
 Guienne ; and the King of England be crowned at St. Denis ; 
 Burgundy, Champagne, Dauj)hine, Languedoc, and Provence 
 were to be allotted to the Emperor ; whilst the Duke of 
 Bourbon, with a pension of 50,000 crowns, and the addition 
 to his patrimonial estates of Poitou, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, 
 and the neighbouring counties, should be recognized as regent 
 by Charles and Henry, and hold his office at their discretion. 
 Then, turning his hearers' thoughts in another direction, he 
 insisted on the deep and undying affection which their King 
 had always entertained for his capital. " Sooner than lose 
 Paris," he exclaimed, " our liege lord would sacrifice his life, 
 and all that is dear to him. He is ready to defend you. He 
 is determined to live and die with you. As he cannot be 
 amongst you himself, he has resolved to send his wife, his 
 children, his mother, all that he has, as pledges of his 
 presence ; for he is convinced that if he should lose all, and 
 save Paris — Paris safe — all will be saved." ^ 
 
 It is needless to say that this speech was received with 
 acclamation. The citizens exerted themselves to the utmost ; 
 they imposed a tax ujoon themselves to provide soldiers for 
 defence ; repaired the ramparts ; cleared the ditches. But 
 Suffolk in the mean time had returned to Calais. 
 
 ' See M. Mignefc, Rev., etc., 90S, and the authorities there quoted by him.
 
 ( 511 ) 
 
 CHAPTEE XYIII. 
 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
 Whilst the tlioiiglits of Henry and bis minister were thus 
 engrossed by tbe war, an event of tbe utmost importance bad 
 occurred nearer home ; this was tbe invasion of England by 
 tbe Scots, under tbe Duke of Albany. The treaty of marriage 
 concluded between France and England in tbe latter end of 
 1518 had left Scotland at tbe mercy of its ancient and more 
 powerful rival. No alternative remained except to comply 
 with the comprehension provided for it by France in tbe 
 negociations with England.^ But so long as Dacre remained 
 warden of the Marches, such comprehension was little more 
 than nominal. It did not prevent him from intriguing with 
 tbe Scottish lords ; it did not diminish those incursions on 
 the borders, for which bis own tenantry and bis neighbours 
 needed no additional incitement beyond tbe spur of traditional 
 feuds and tbe inextinguishable desire of plunder. No man 
 knew better than Dacre bow to avail himself of the hot blood 
 and evil passions fostered by these aggressions ; none was 
 more skilful than be in fomenting quarrels among the evil 
 disposed or discontented of the Scottish nobility — " tbe fiddling 
 stick," in his own expressive language, " to bold Scotland in 
 cumber and business." ^ 
 
 Into the treaty between Henry VIII. and Francis I. a 
 secret clause had been introduced, unknown to all parties 
 except tbe principal contrahents, stipulating that Albany 
 should not be permitted to return to Scotland during the 
 minority of James V.^ He was at that time residing at Paris ; 
 and although Francis could have as little right to detain him 
 as Henry to demand his detention, it was thought, as tbe 
 Duke bad married a French lady, and his property was in 
 France, still more as his influence in Scotland depended on 
 the support and countenance be received from the French 
 
 ' II. 4564. ' II. 4217. ' H- 4471.
 
 512 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 King, that it would be comparatively an easy task to hinder 
 his return, or at least to render it ineffectual. Whether the 
 engagement would he strictly observed, depended entirely on 
 the good faith of Francis himself — a slender tie at best ; and 
 Wolsey, in a letter to Dacre, commanded him to keep a sharp 
 look-out, without relying too much on the promise made by 
 their new confederate.^ But though Scotland was the ancient 
 ally of France — was not to be sacrificed at any cost, still less 
 for want of a little duplicity — it did not serve the interests of 
 Francis at present to violate his promise. Nor, in the face of 
 so much danger and uncertainty, was Albany inclined to cross 
 the sea, at the hazard of being taken prisoner by the English 
 fleet, and of expiating his offences in the Tower. Yet every 
 day he remained away his influence in Scotland declined. 
 Every year brought James V. nearer his majority ; and the 
 natural authority of his mother, supported by EngHsh money 
 and English interest, bade fair to eclipse the little power he 
 still retained in Scotland, and reduce him to the condition of 
 a subject. 
 
 The annals of Scotland are, unfortunately, involved in so 
 much obscurity that it is not easy to find a firm footing, or 
 follow any clear or steady light, in tracing the period of its 
 history. What intrigues were set on foot by Albany (if any) 
 to procure or haste a his return, is unknown ; but it is not 
 probable that he would tamely permit himself to be treated 
 as an exile, and make no effort to regain his liberty and his 
 influence. From a letter of the Estates of Scotland dated the 
 4th of January, 1518 (1519 by the modern computation),^ it 
 appears that Albany, in conjunction with Paniter, the Scotch 
 Secretary of State, was already employing his influence with 
 Leo X. to induce his Holiness to interfere and urge upon the 
 French King the importance of restoring him to Scotland. 
 The result of this application is uncertain. But whilst they 
 w^ere thus attempting to gain their object by an indirect course 
 that promised little success, an accident threw into their paths 
 unsoHcited advantages which their most dexterous policy could 
 never have secured. 
 
 In no one respect had Margaret's expectations been realized 
 at her return to Scotland in 1517. She was mortified at dis- 
 covering that her political influence was now more feeble than 
 ever. Disgusted at the neglect of Angus, her husband, who 
 
 1 II. 4547. Tliis letter, as noted at its true date is June 29. See III. 396. 
 III. p. 140, belongs to the year 1519 j " UL 4.
 
 1519.] MAEGAEET SEEKS A DIVOECE FEOM ANGUS. 51 
 
 o 
 
 had attempted to grasp the reins during her absence, and 
 was indifferent to her person as well as her pretensions — 
 exasperated, if popular tradition may be trusted, at the 
 transfer of his attentions to another lady — Margaret had 
 resolved on a divorce. In a letter written to her brother 
 Henry in the spring of 1519 she expatiated on her various 
 grievances. She had been badly treated, she said, by the 
 Scotch lords ; her income ought to have been 9,000/. a year, 
 and she could never obtain more than 2,000L ; instead of 
 being supported by Angus, she had been much molested by 
 him ever since her return, and her troubles were increasing 
 daily. She complained that the Bishop of Dunkeld (Gawin 
 Douglas, the celebrated translator of Virgil), his father's 
 brother, and others of his kinsmen, had caused Angus to deal 
 sharply with her ; that he would have compelled her to sur- 
 render her marriage settlement, and on her refusal had seized 
 her estates at Newark, and detained her revenues. She pro- 
 posed to send a servant to inform her brother of his misdeeds, 
 which were too long to describe ; adding that she 'and her 
 husband had not met these six months, and she was resolved 
 to part with him "if she might by God's law, and with honor 
 to herself ; for he loved her not." ^ 
 
 The letter is curious, as showing the lax notions which 
 prevailed among the Tudors on the subject of divorce, and 
 still more for the naive ignorance it displays of her brother's 
 character. For Margaret expressed a hope that he would aid 
 her in this resolution, and " be kind to her when it came to 
 this point," avowing that she would never marry but where 
 he wished, and would never part with him, whatever she 
 might do with her husband. The answer she received was 
 such as all but herself would have anticipated. Henry sent 
 her a stern message and stinging rebuke by Henry Chadworth, 
 an Observant Friar, remonstrating with her on her intended 
 separation from her husband, and " her reported suspicious 
 living." Nor did Dacre or Wolsey fail to second the King's 
 reproaches in terms more bitter than decorous. Ostensibty 
 
 ' ITT. 16G. This letter has been 100), mentions this disagreement 
 
 referred by some writers to an earlier between Mai'garet and Angus as of 
 
 period, but I think erroneously. For recent date. lioleyn might have 
 
 the settlement to which Margai-et heard of it from Albany, who was 
 
 refersinitC'hor conjunct feoffment") then in the French court, familiar 
 
 was arranged l)y Dacro, Dec. 2;J, 1518 with the King, and frequently attended 
 
 (800 11.4077) ; and lioleyn, in a letter him in his masquerades in the streets 
 
 to Wolsey, dated Feb. 28, 1519 (HI. of Paris and el.-^ewlieie. 
 
 vni,. I. '2 \j
 
 514 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 the friar succeeded so well in his mission that, notwithstand- 
 ing the opposition of Arran and the Chancellor, to whom the 
 Queen showed the letter, Margaret consented to be reconciled 
 to her husband, and Angus expressed his gratitude to Henry 
 at the result.^ 
 
 But the reconciliation was neither sincere nor lasting; 
 and as the quarrel grew wider between them, Margaret threw 
 herself into the arms of Arran and the opposite party — that is 
 into the arms of those who were opposed to England, and 
 whose supremacy was bound up with the aggrandizement of 
 Albany. Contrary, therefore, to her former policy, she was 
 now no less anxious for Albany's return than she had formerly 
 been anxious for his banishment. Nor was Albany backward 
 in meeting her advances. He sent her a letter, stating that, 
 as he was prevented from visiting Scotland, he wished that, 
 with the consent of the Lords, she should take the reins.^ 
 Nothing could be better calculated to secure her favour and 
 gain her confidence than such a proposal ; nothing was better 
 contrived to render Angus more unpalatable to the Queen, or 
 her reconciliation with him more desperate. In acknowledg- 
 ment of her gratitude Margaret wrote more pressing letters, 
 soliciting his return ; she expressed herself satisfied with his 
 conduct, and was willing to entrust her own dignity, and the 
 safety of her son, to Albany's keeping. 
 
 Such vacillation was unpalatable enough to the English 
 court. For months had the King and the Cardinal been using 
 their endeavours to exclude Albany from Scotland ; not without 
 hopes of success. If they prospered in their purpose, Scotland, 
 as Dacre expressed his conviction, would go to ruin for lack of 
 justice ; the Scotch lords would never consent to be ruled by 
 one of their peers, and their ancient feuds would be revived 
 with greater animosity than ever.^ To be frustrated of hopes, 
 BO near their accomplishment, and from a quarter so little 
 expected, was a bitter disappointment. Dacre, than whom 
 no one was better fitted by temper, by training, by the callous- 
 
 1 III. 481, 482. These events are early as Oct., 1518. It is also to be 
 
 referred by Pinkerton (Hist, of Scot- observed, that Angus dates from 
 
 land, ii. 174) to 1518. But, if Leslie Dalkeith, to which place James V. 
 
 is to be trusted, the dispute between had been carried by him in September, 
 
 Arran and Angus did not- break out in consequence of the plague then 
 
 until the autumn of 1519. {Be Rebus raging in Edinburgh. (Leslie, ib. 
 
 Gcitis Scot., p. 374.) Nor is it likely p. 374. 
 T at Angas would have requested - III. 482, 416, 467. 
 
 ■ury to write to the King of France, ^ III. 396. 
 
 behalf of his brother George, as
 
 1519.] DACEE REMONSTRATES WITH MARGARET. 515 
 
 ness of continual Border warfare, and the roughness of band 
 and heart begotten of such employment, to act the part of a 
 stern and inflexible monitor, was selected to remonstrate with 
 Margaret on her misconduct. He fulfilled his mission duly. 
 He expressed his astonishment that, considering the suspicious 
 circumstances attending the death of her son, and Albany's 
 "brutal oaths and iDromises," she had ventured to infringe 
 the articles stipulated in the treaty with France for keeping 
 the Duke out of Scotland — arrangements, as he asserted, 
 exclusively contrived to protect her own interests. He desired 
 her to assure him, under her own hand, for he would accept 
 no other evidence, whether the report of her having written to 
 Francis, desu-ing Albany's return, was well founded. He 
 hoped she would be aljle to deny it, or give satisfactory 
 reasons for her conduct, that he might inform her brother 
 accordingly. If, unhappily the facts should i^rove to be as 
 they were reported, he assured her that her brother would 
 " take less aspect " to her causes, and show himself much less 
 cordial than he had done hitherto.^ 
 
 For an English subject, of no rank or authority, to write 
 in such a fashion to an independent Sovereign, was a pre- 
 sumption few princes would have tolerated. Her reply ^ was 
 in a milder tone than, under the circumstances, could have 
 been anticipated. She admitted that she had formerly desired 
 the removal of Albany, but justified herself from the charge 
 of inconsistency on the ground that she had done so believmg 
 that the Scottish lords would have put an end to their disputes, 
 and have suffered her to enjoy her rights in peace according 
 to their promise. She insisted, on the contrary, that she had 
 been treated with no consideration, and had never experienced 
 less respect than since her last coming into Scotland. Her 
 repeated complaints to her brother and the Cardinal, she told 
 Dacre, had received no answer. She excused her invitation 
 to Albany, on the plea that a letter had been indited to him 
 in French, by his own desire and that of the lords ; and when 
 she was required to sign it she could not resist their impor- 
 tunity, lest she should imperil the welfare of her son and his 
 realm. " My Lord," she continued, not without some show 
 of reason, " I pray you remember that and you were in another 
 realm where you should live your life, ye would do that ye 
 might to please them, so that they should not have any 
 mistrust of you ; and so must I ; for and I should refuse to 
 
 ' III. 373. ^ III. 381.
 
 516 THE REIGN OF HEXRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 have written when I was desh-eiT, the Duke and the lords 
 would have thought that I had stopped his coming, and there- 
 through I might get evil." 
 
 But the truth is that Margaret's alliance wdth Albany at 
 this time was much more intimate than she w^as willing to 
 admit, or than Dacre, with his dreaded Argus-eyes, had been 
 able to discover. She had fully resolved already, not only to 
 part with Angus, but if possible to obtain a divorce. To 
 accompHsh this object^ Albany's friendship was indispensable. 
 As he disposed of all the ecclesiastical benefices in Scotland, 
 and had consequently great influence in the Papal court, 
 success would be certain, if he could be persuaded to further 
 her suit ; at all events, so long as she continued on bad terms 
 with him, his opposition at the court of Eome would prove a 
 formidable, if not an insurmountable, obstacle to her wishes. 
 What steps were taken by the Duke in this matter, at what 
 time he first lent himself to Margaret's purposes, it is im- 
 possible, in the absence of documentary evidence, to state 
 precisely. But it appears by a letter from De GigHs, the 
 Bishop of Worcester, to Wolsey, that the Duke had obtained 
 leave from Francis to visit Kome, and was expected there in 
 April, 1520.^ He was certainly there in June the same year. 
 He must have returned to Paris a short time after the Field 
 of the Cloth of Gold, for he was nominally put under arrest 
 by Francis, and was already at liberty in November!^ Long 
 after he had left Piome his factor was still employed at the 
 Pioman court in soliciting Margaret's divorce;^ for, as in the 
 more famous case of her brother, such suits were not easily 
 or rapidly determined. 
 
 The alHance of Albany and Margaret was a perilous gash 
 to the authority of Angus and to English influence in Scotland. 
 As afterwards in the days of Queen Mary, it was the policy 
 of England to neutralize the independence of Scotland, by 
 fomenting disputes among the nobles ; many of whom were 
 ready to accept English gold, and sacrifice the welfare of 
 their country to party vengeance, or party aggrandizement. 
 In both cases the policy of England had the same object ; it 
 aimed at rendering the Sovereign hateful to the mass of the 
 nation, at no time much inclined to respect the royal authority. 
 But in Mary's case, English statesmen, either more keen- 
 sighted or more favoured by circumstances, cultivated the 
 
 1 See III. 720. 880. « III. 1044. 
 
 3 Oct. 10, 1521 ; No. 1654.
 
 1520.] ALLIANCE OF MARGARET WITH ALBANY. 517 
 
 good will and courted the support of the commons ; and the 
 commons in return, trampled on and neglected hj the lords, 
 and equally indifferent which part}^ of the aristocracy gained 
 the ascendancy, held steadily to the friendship of England, 
 and saw in its predominance a better chance for their own 
 prosperity and aggrandizement than in the rule of their native 
 sovereigns, or the arbitrary conduct of their native nobility. 
 Hem-y YIII. had no such advantages, or failed to perceive and 
 secure them ; and so long as Margaret was ready to be guided 
 by his counsels, no other arts for ensuring political pre- 
 dominance in Scotland were sought for or desired. Supported 
 by her zealous but interested aid, backed by Angus and the 
 Homes, really if not nominally possessed of the young King's 
 person, Albany banished, the Scottish communication with 
 the continent intercepted, the King and the Cardinal might 
 justly consider that English influence was supreme in Scotland, 
 and neglect all further precautions to secure it. If the Scots 
 wished to live in peace and safety, friendship with England 
 was indispensable. At every full moon, destructive forays 
 carried fire and sword to their homesteads ; villages, castles, 
 and monasteries were given indiscriminately to the flames ; 
 border hate and border warfare recognized no distinction of 
 age or sex, of things sacred or profane. Devastation, followed 
 by famine and by pestilence, and persisted in with unrelenting 
 severity, was the never-failing scourge by which the Scots 
 were taught to feel the consequence of English hostility. 
 And as this age stamps out a cattle plague, so that age 
 stamped out religious, moral, political, and national plagues, 
 or what they considered to be such, by fire and sword, by the 
 rack or the headsman's axe. It was the rule of the strong ; 
 the justice and righteousness of which no one in those days 
 thought of disputing. 
 
 But the quarrels between Angus and Margaret gave 
 encouragement to the opposite party, of which Arran was the 
 head. It was the policy of the latter to promote Albany's 
 return. Plis presence was considered not only as a guarantee 
 for the national independence of Scotland, but as a pledge of 
 help from France, and a defiance to England. For these 
 reasons various applications had been made to Francis in the 
 Duke's favour ; but without immediate success. The return 
 of Albany would have been the signal for war with England ; 
 and Francis was already engaged too deeply in hostilities 
 with the Emperor to augment the forces of his enemy by
 
 ol8 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 acceding to the wishes of Albany's partizans/ To gain time, 
 to pacify the dissensions of the nobles, and excuse himself 
 from comph'ing with their requests, Francis sent two ambas- 
 sadors into Scotland^ in the autumn of 1520. 
 
 War at that juncture did not suit the purposes or inclina- 
 tions of either nation. England was, in fact, not less anxious 
 for peace than Scotland. More was to be gained by policy 
 than by the sword. Already by indirect means Henry had 
 contrived to make the French King the unconscious instru- 
 ment of his wishes. If he could be induced to persevere in his 
 resolution, and keep Albany in France, the Duke's interests 
 would be effectually weakened, his party divided, and Margaret, 
 by threats or by cajolery, might be detached from the cause 
 she had so inconsiderately adopted.^ So Wolsey, or rather 
 Dacre, his representative in the North, set to work to carry 
 out this policy strictly to the letter. Money was offered to 
 the more needy or less scrupulous of the Scottish lords ; 
 English protection, or refuge in the English borders, was 
 extended to those whose turbulence and disaffection made 
 even Scotland too strict and constrained a residence for their 
 disorderly habits ; and Margaret was lectured, taunted, 
 threatened, in a style which Tudor blood was rarely accus- 
 tomed to brook with patience. 
 
 The adherents of the Duke lost neither hope nor heart. 
 They redoubled their efforts at the court of France to procure 
 the return of Albany. Eumours circulated, no one knew how, 
 or from what quarter, that the Duke was to land in Scotland 
 in company with the exile De la Pole, the White Eose. Backed 
 by the power of France, Scotland was to give a new King to 
 England, and trample in the dust its proud and unrelenting 
 enemies.^ The growing discontents between the courts of 
 France and England lent plausibility to these reports. With 
 what anxiety and jealousy the rumour was regarded by Henry 
 VHI. and the Cardinal; what efforts were used to throw 
 discredit upon it ; how incessant, how strict, how eager, was 
 the watch kept upon Albany's movements — will be seen by the 
 letters of the Enghsh ambassadors. The Duke's familiarity 
 with Francis, his preparations, his ships, his real or imaginary 
 projects, his threats, promises, and intentions, were all closely 
 scrutinized, analyzed, and weighed in the sensitive balance of 
 
 III. 1046. instructing him liow lie is to proceed 
 
 III. 1046, 1091, 1126-1127. in these matters : III. 1169, 1170. 
 
 ^ See Wolse/stwoletters to Dacre, * III. 1403.
 
 1521.] ALBANY EETUKNS TO SCOTLAND. 519 
 
 jealousy and suspicion. He came and went with more than 
 fehne rapiditj' and noiselessness, "When every one felt con- 
 vinced that he had started on his mission, and would be next 
 heard of at the head of a victorious army in Scotland, 
 suddenly, to the amazement of all, he would reappear in the 
 French court, and falsify all anticipations. One night, about 
 the 1st or 2nd of October, 1521, he was missed : " Albany," 
 writes Fitzwilliam to Wolsey, on the 4th, in cipher and breath- 
 less haste — " Albany has left the court ; but whither I cannot 
 tell, nor whether he will return." Again, on the 6th, and 
 again in cipher as before : "As for the duke of Albany, I 
 cannot learn whither he has gone : some show me he is gone 
 to my Lad}^ (the mother of Francis I.), but whether it be true 
 or not, I know not." The next time, that is some weeks later, 
 he is heard of in Scotland ; but how he got there, and when 
 and where he landed, no one could tell.^ 
 
 It was not without feelings of triumph that Margaret wrote 
 on the 4th of December, from Edinburgh, to Dacre (whom, 
 with all her professions of regard, she must have cordially 
 detested, and not the least because of the necessity of such 
 professions), that Albany had returned. The grammar, the 
 handwriting, and the spelling of her letter, always very 
 uncouth and generally unintelligible, are on this occasion 
 more uncouth and disconnected than usual. The flurry of her 
 spirits, her feminine delight at this opportunity of retaliating 
 on Dacre's superciliousness, seem to have been too strong for 
 her logic, and to have overpowered her small grasp of syntax 
 — feeble at the best. But the reader shall judge for himself, 
 for here are her very words. I could not think of inflicting 
 upon him her spelling and punctuation.^ 
 
 " My lord Dacre, I commend me to you, and wit ye that my lord duke 
 of Albany, governor of Scotland, is come for to do service to the King my 
 son and to the realm, and to help me to be answered and obeyed of my 
 living, the which I have great need of ; for there was never gentlewoman 
 of my estate so evil intreated, and my living holden from me, as I have 
 written often times to you of before. Suppose ye erar (rather) hindei-ed 
 nie tlian furthered me, which had not been your part to do : not the less, 
 since my lord Governor is come into this realm for the good of it, and will 
 for his part help to entertain the amity and i^eace betwixt the King's 
 grace my brother's said realm and this ; wherefore 1 trust it will be siklike 
 the King my brother's mind to do the same, as I trust it has not been his 
 
 ' Albany, in his letters to Henry 1851-3. According to Leslie (p. 378), 
 
 VIII. and Katharine of Arragon, it was at the Garcloch in Lennox, 
 
 states that he landed in Scotland on He eluded Ids enemies by sailing 
 
 the 18th of Nov. ; but he studiously round the West of Ireland, 
 avoids saying at what port. See III. ^ III. 1833.
 
 520 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 mind otherwise. Suppose his servants have not done their part in the 
 keeping of the same, but as yet I pray you my lord to do it that ye should 
 do of reason for the King's grace my brother's and your master's honor, 
 for he should keep it that he promised, and specially to this realm, con- 
 sidering the King my son is so tender to his Grace, and I never failed to 
 him nor shall not. 
 
 " I would have thought to have had thank of the King's grace my 
 brother, and of the realm of England, that I have kept a good part to this 
 realm, both for his honor and mine ; or else all the world might have 
 sj)oken evil of me to have done the contrary to the King my son and the 
 weal of this realm, which could not have been well guided without the 
 duke of Albany [being] governor of this realm, for my son the King is not 
 of age to do it himself. 
 
 " But, my lord, I know Avell ye have done your part to hinder me at 
 the King's grace my brother's hand. Why may ye not fail to me, when ye 
 fail to the ICing's grace my brother ? And better mend in time ne to be 
 worse. Vvliich an ye do not, it will be occasion to this realm and my lord 
 Governor to do such like as ye have done ;. which is receiving of rebels 
 and maintaining of them ; which an ye do not mend, it will be laid to your 
 charge hereafter by the King's grace my brother. 
 
 ''My lord, I write sharply and plainly to you, for I have good cause, 
 both for the King my son's sake and mine own ; for ye have fortified my 
 lord of Angus against me, and counselled him to trouble me, in the 
 contrary of the band that ye caused me to take of him, which ye would 
 break again ; which ye should not have done to your master's sister. And 
 your answer, what shall be your part, that I and this world may lippen 
 to;^ and God keep you. Written at Edinburgh, 4 Dec. 
 
 " Your friend, 
 
 " Margaret R." 
 
 AVhat an outburst of smouldering wrath, what a torrent of 
 indignation ! But it fell upon Dacre with as much effect as 
 the rain might have pattered against any of his own granite 
 rocks. An iron man, too long accustomed, by his wild and 
 irregular mode of life, to the tears of women and children, and 
 the muttered curses of dying men, Dacre neither crumbled 
 into dust at her disapprobation, nor quailed before her anger. 
 More mortifying still, he showed himself not only insensible 
 to her sarcasms, but careless in his own vindication, and fully 
 prepared to repeat his offences. In the guise of a letter he 
 read her a lecture on her own misconduct more in the style of 
 a prince than of a subject replying to a queen. His answer is 
 a model of consummate coolness, unflinching self-confidence, 
 and grave rebuke. His measured tone, his stony coldness, his 
 supreme indifference to her praise or censure, form a striking 
 contrast to Margaret's waspish, spasmodic, and undignified 
 attack. But under that stony coldness he contrived to convey 
 as much contempt and anger, though couched in phrases of 
 seeming courtesy and respect, as in his prudence he dared 
 to exhibit. Bitter throughout, the letter culminates at its 
 
 ' i.e. rely or depend on.
 
 1521.] DACEE'S KEPLY TO MARGARET. 521 
 
 close in a concentrated shower of gall and wormwood, beneath 
 which the offended woman and imprudent Queen must have 
 shrunk and cowered, in vain regret at her own folly and mis- 
 conduct. Here it is : — ^ 
 
 "Madam, I recommend me unto your Grace, and have received your 
 writing by a messenger this bearer. And whereas ye advertise me that 
 the duke of Albany, your governor of Scotland, is come to do service to 
 the King yoiu- son and his realm, and to help you to be answered of your 
 living ; and that I rather hindered your Grace than furthered ; and that 
 your said governor is come for peace, and will for his j^art entreat the 
 unity and peace between my Sovereign your brother's realm and Scotland ; 
 and that my Sovereign's servants have not done theii* part in keeping of 
 the same ; and that ye pray me that I should do that I ought to do, upon 
 reason, for the King my sovereign's honor ; and that his highness should 
 keep that he promises to that realm ; and that ye never faulted to my 
 Sovereign, nor shall not do. ; and that your Grace thought to have had 
 thanks of my Sovereign and his realm that ye have kept so great a party, 
 both for his honor and yours, or else all the world would have spoken ill 
 of your Grace to him, doing the contrary, for the weal of your son and his 
 realm ; and that your said son should not have been well guided without 
 the duke of Albany your governor ; and that ye are informed that I have 
 hindered you at my Sovereign's hand, and why should not I fail to you 
 when I fail to my sovereign Lord ; and better to mend betime than to do 
 worse, wliich will be occasion to the governor to do the same which I have 
 done, — that is, receiving of rebels, and maintaining of them, — the which, 
 if I mend not, will be laid to my charge ; and that your Grace writes 
 plainly to me because of your son's sake and your own ; and that I have 
 given my lord of Angus counsel against you for your trouble, in such 
 things as I gave you counsel in to take of him, the which I would break 
 again ; and that I should not so do to my Sovereign's sister ; and that I 
 should give you answer what your Grace and that realm might lippen to ; — 
 
 "Madam, to make you answer of your writing, that is to me right 
 hard and difficult, because ye have made it by the advice of the duke of 
 Albany, for his pleasure. And what suspicion my sovereign Lord and his 
 realm will think that the said Duke should have the keeping of the King 
 your son my sovereign Lord's nephew, and of his realm and subjects, in 
 rule and governance, seeing the pretended title that the said Duke 
 claimeth to the crown, ye being so favorably assenting to the same ; 
 Madam, I fear me ye forget natural affection and provident reason, and is 
 abused with sinister council and blind i^ersuasions ; and what desire may 
 be imprinted in the hearts of high-minded men to aspire to high dignities, 
 in the which case often times the fear of God and the shame of the world 
 is laid apart ; and if all this suspicion come of your Grace to the King 
 your brother and his council, how his Highness will esteem your light 
 dealing, so little regarding your son his nephew ; — T will refer that to his 
 high pleasure. And as unto the keeping of the peace, and receiving of 
 rebels and maintaining of them, Madam, I have made answer thereof to 
 the Duke, which is, that there is none receipt to my knowledge ; nor no 
 breach nor occasion of breach of peace be of the party of England ; so I 
 have in commandment of his highness along all his marches to do. 
 
 " Madam, where ye say ye never faulted to my Sovereign, but deserved 
 thanks of his Highness and his realm for keeping of his honor and yours, 
 I i)ray God his Grace may take it so in form thereof. And where your 
 Grace saith I liave hindered you at my Sovereign's hand, and that I can- 
 not be true to my sovereign Lord, when I cannot be true to you ; Madam 
 
 ' Calig. B. vi. 197 b. B.M.
 
 522 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 it becomes not me to make such information as ye allege. And as to my 
 truth and duty of allegiance, 1 am sure of myself ; I fear not ; would God 
 in mine opinion ye were as sure of yourself, no comparison made to a 
 great jM-ince's birth as your Grace is, to a poor wretch and subject as 
 1 am. 
 
 " And whereas ye are informed that I should give counsel to my lord 
 of Angus against your Grace in such things as I gave you counsel to take 
 of him ; Madam, I gave him never counsel, but that it might stand with 
 your honor according to my duty, as I am bound to do, for your Grace. 
 And inasmuch as ye took him to be your husband, at your pleasure, with- 
 out consent or counsel of your brother, my Sovereign, or any other of his 
 natural subjects, it were your honor to resort to him, according as ye are 
 bound by the laws of God, or else to show the cause why, by the order of 
 justice, for the declaration of your conscience. 
 
 "Madam, I humbly beseech your Grace to pardon me of my rude 
 Avriting, for my truth leads me. If I otherwise should write, I should 
 flatter your Grace, and not to say by mine opinion as I suppose. As our 
 Lord knoweth, who have your Grace in keeping. 
 
 " At Norham, 8th December." 
 
 So contemptuous a letter, so disparaging to Margaret's 
 judgment, conduct, and abilities, on which she prided herself, 
 was ill calculated to gain her esteem or disarm her resentment 
 in the hour of her triumph. She wrote the day after to Henry, 
 reiterating her assertion that Albany had come into Scotland 
 for the good of her son. Her son, she said, was young — the 
 realm deficient in good rule and justice ; and the Duke's 
 presence would prove the best remedy for these evils. As if 
 to insinuate the intimate nature of that alliance which had 
 now sprung up between herself and the Duke, the latter had 
 written six days before to Dacre, accusing him of harbouring 
 Scotch fugitives, and threatening to disclose his misdeeds to 
 the King of England : whilst Margaret, in a letter to her 
 brother, complains that his subjects received "rebels and 
 broken men ; " and, to leave no doubt at whom this accusation 
 was levelled, added that she had remonstrated with Dacre for 
 neglecting his duty, and only received from him a sharp letter 
 in reply. He ought to be commanded, she said, to keep better 
 rule upon the Borders ; his imputations on her actions pro- 
 ceeded from malice ; whilst Albany ever since his arrival had 
 paid her great deference, and consulted her wishes on all 
 occasions. 
 
 Is it to be imagined that Margaret was so ignorant of her 
 brother's temper as to suppose that her remonstrances would 
 produce any other effect than a passing fit of irritation ? Could 
 she think that Henry would share her views, and mark his 
 displeasure of Dacre's conduct by disgracing him ? If her 
 letters, as it suited Dacre's purpose to insinuate, were really
 
 1521.] GAWIX DOUGLAS SENT TO ENGLAND. 523 
 
 dictated by Albany, and not written freely by herself in the 
 varj-iug passions of the hour, the Duke deserved for these 
 exhibitions of laborious sj^ite and petty malice the contempt 
 which was afterwards showered upon him by both nations. 
 But this hypothesis is hardly compatible with the effect pro- 
 duced by Albany's presence on his own peo^Dle. His reappear- 
 ance restored fresh confidence to his adherents, and struck his 
 enemies with unimaginable terrors. In their uncertainty and 
 bewilderment they des^Datched Gawin Douglas, the Bishop of 
 Dunkeld, to England, with instructions to represent their 
 danger, and desiring him to learn " what supply the King's 
 grace would do them." Their statements, like those of violent 
 partizans, must be read with caution ; but, with the largest 
 allowance for exaggeration and misstatement, natural on such 
 occasions, it is clear that Margaret was now closely united 
 with Albany, and that English influence had suddenly 
 collapsed. The Queen, they reported, was much inclined to the 
 Duke's pleasure ; the two were always together, either forenoon 
 or afternoon ; a divorce between her and Angus was in con- 
 templation ; on his arrival the Duke had visited the Queen at 
 Stirling, had gone in her company first to Linlithgow, and 
 afterwards to Edinburgh, where the King was then residing. 
 Here the Duke had, on receiving the keys of the Castle, 
 delivered them to the Queen, who returned them to Albany. 
 They complained that to secure her favour he had enriched 
 her servants and promoted her favourites : he had made the 
 Bishop of Glasgow Archbishop of St. Andrew's, and advanced 
 the Abbot of Holyrood to the see of Glasgow : whilst Cantley, 
 so often mentioned in this correspondence, was enriched with 
 the abbey of Kilwinning and two other benefices. 
 
 These assertions lost nothing of their pungency and sig- 
 nificance in the mouth of the Bishop of Dunkeld. Facts were 
 indiscriminately marshalled with fiction, the wildest surmises 
 with probable inferences. In his memorial against the Duke, 
 addi'essed by the Bishop to those who were not likely to be 
 exact or critical in testing the accuracy of his statements,^ 
 Albany was stigmatized as the son of a rebel, without a foot 
 of land in Scotland or France, incapable of being the King's 
 tutor, or of holding any office. His conduct, said his episcopal 
 denouncer, was actuated by the sole motive of fear, and all his 
 measures were taken accordingly. He had removed the King 
 " of right tender age," from the castle of Stirling, where ho 
 
 ' IIL 1898.
 
 524 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 was well at ease, " to the windy and right unj)leasant castle 
 and rock of Edinburgh." He had "stuffed" Dunbar, Dum- 
 barton, Inchgarvy, and Stirling with Frenchmen ; while the 
 royal residences and revenues were appropriated by his 
 favourites or foreigners, " whilk are but very knaves." " The 
 King's rich gowns of most fine cloth of gold, furred with finest 
 sables, he has analit " (wasted), continues the Bishop, "to- 
 gether with the hangings and apparellings of his chambers 
 palit of purple and velvet cramosyn, and made clothing thereof 
 to some of his pages and servants, and has coined in placks 
 (groats) the King's great silver stoups, double gilt, that in the 
 whole mounts to one right great sum." To add to his offences 
 he had sold three of the King's great ships, worth 300,000 
 francs, with their ordnance ; ^ had disposed of lands, forfeitures, 
 wardships, marriages, benefices, bishojDrics, at his pleasure. 
 Since his return, continues the exasperated prelate, his wrath 
 kindling at the recital, he has imposed a tax upon Scotland of 
 2o,000L Scotch; has made Eobert Barton, the pirate, con- 
 troller ; " and one Master John Campbell, ane bastard briber, 
 quhilk had not five shillings' worth of good of his own," has 
 been appointed treasurer. By their cunning management the 
 King had been brought into debt 12,000L Scotch ; and yet he 
 was so badly clothed that until his natural sister, the Countess 
 of Morton, took compassion upon him, he had scarcely honest 
 hose or doublet ; and when Albany and the Queen sent him 
 cloth of silver and gold for gowns, these shameless ofiicers 
 had refused to furnish the lining ! 
 
 Not satisfied with these grievous accusations, the Bishop 
 proceeded to charge Albany with having poisoned or starved the 
 Duke of Boss — a statement for which there was as little founda- 
 tion as for many others contained in his memorial. He com- 
 pares Albany to Eichard IH., who paved his way to the throne 
 by the murder of his nephews. " Gif," he concludes, " this duke 
 of Albany's father had died at (in) the faith and peace of his 
 prince, and not rebel or banished, yet then he has alive an 
 elder brother, Alexander Stewart, commendator of Scone and 
 Inchaffray, not in holy orders, but a man able to marry, 
 begotten on the duke of Albany's first wife, umquhile daughter 
 to the earl of Orkney. All that he does, therefore, is without 
 authority, and in defiance of the States of Scotland, who 
 
 1 In 1515 Albany sold to Francis I., Of course the Bishop's statement is 
 with the consent of the States, the not to be interpreted literally, 
 famous St. Michael, for 40,000 francs.
 
 « 
 
 1521.] ANGUS MAKES PEACE \\'ITH ALBANY. 525 
 
 declared he should not be reputed governor unless he had 
 returned before the 1st of August." 
 
 Whatever exaggeration or falsehood there might have been 
 in these details, it is clear from the general purport of them 
 that Albany had returned to Scotland resolved to exercise 
 plenary authority as governor, and that the Queen and the 
 nobles had shown no desire to counteract his wishes. He 
 deposed the officers of Angus on his arrival ; summoned a 
 parliament ; cited the lords who had fled to appear and defend 
 themselves ; and acted with so much apparent vigour and 
 resolution, that Angus was obliged to seek and obtain recon- 
 ciliation through Margaret's intercession. As English in- 
 fluence declined, a spirit of unity appeared to prevail. With 
 Margaret devoted to Albany, Angus and his brother George in 
 voluntary exile, the Homes unable to show themselves, the 
 Duke was triumj)hant and experienced little opposition.^ To 
 the poor Bishop of Dunkeld the blow was fatal. Denounced 
 at home as a traitor, and deprived of his bishopric,^ his 
 mission to England, as the representative of the disaffected 
 lords, seemed little better than a mockery. Confused, ill at 
 ease, uncertain how far the disaffection of his relative Angus 
 would be visited on himself, he wrote to the Cardinal in the 
 following deprecatory and sorrowful terms : — 
 
 " Please it your Grace, sin 1 heard the tidings and writings of j^ester- 
 day, I am and have been so dolorous and full of vehement annoy that I 
 dare not aventure [to] come in your presence, whilk causes me thus write 
 to your noble Grace ; beseeching the same of your great goodness to have 
 companence (compassion) of me, desolate and woeful wight. Albeit I 
 grant I have deserved punition, and am under the King's mercy and 
 yours, not for any fault or demei'it of my own, but by reason of their 
 untruth that caused me labor for the weal of their Prince and their 
 security, whilk now has (have) their own confusion and perpetual shame, 
 and has served me, as your Grace may consider, that solicited the King's 
 highness and your Grace to write and do for them so oftentimes and so 
 largely, in divers sorts, as well to their support and comfort ; wlicreof 
 now I must needs underlie your mercy. Albeit I doubt not but your liigli 
 prudence considers profoundly my part thereof, and my whole true mind 
 all time but (without) any dissimulance, that in good faith am further 
 deceived in this matter than any others, by reason whereof I am so full of 
 sorrow and displeasure, that I am weary of my own life, and promise to 
 God and your noble Grace, as your liumble servant and a true Christian 
 priest, that I shall never have nor take way with the duke of Albany, the 
 
 1 in. 1976. dissensions in Scotland, and had cir- 
 
 * The see was jriven by Albany to culated false reports of her. " And 
 
 Margaret. (III. 1938.) In her in- sin," shesays, "I liolpod to j^cthim the 
 
 stractioDS sent by one of her servants benefice of Dunkeld, I shall help him 
 
 to ITonry, she assorts very bitterly as well fro the same." A truly Tudor 
 
 that Dmikeld was the cause of all the sentiment!
 
 526 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 unworthy earl of Angus, nor no others that assists to the said Duke, but 
 (without) your express command and advice ; nor never shall pass into 
 Scotland, but at your pleasure, so long as this wicked Duke is therein, or 
 has rule thereof. And I trust my brother and other my friends will use 
 my counsel ; albeit yon young witless fool has run upon his own mischief 
 by continual persuasion of wily, subtle men, and for lack of good counsel ; 
 showing to him, I doubt not, many feigned letters and wonderful terrors, 
 that the lord Hume and others would pass in and leave him alone ; and 
 that I would be taken and holdeu'here ; and that Gaiter, the Duke's 
 seci-etary, had appointed Avith tlie King's highness for his destruction, and 
 the Duke to marry the Queen. I doubt not sich things, and mickle mair, 
 has been said." 
 
 TliGH, after expressing his regret that a letter which he 
 had sent from Hamilton Court to his brother had not been 
 desiDatched at an earlier opportunity, he expresses a wish, 
 the uncharitableness of which may be forgiven in the pressure 
 of his misery—" I beseech God that I may see him (Angus) 
 really punished for his demerits, and promise broken made to 
 the King's highness and me his uncle, and shall be glad to 
 sohcit the King's highness and your Grace to this effect at all 
 my power." ^ 
 
 Henry and his ministers had been inclined in the first 
 instance to treat Albany's arrival in Scotland with contempt. 
 They declined to acknowledge the Duke's authority, or enter 
 into any negoeiations with Scotland, so long as he was per- 
 mitted to remain. In conformity with this resolution, Henry 
 wrote to the Estates, accusing the Duke of attempting to 
 procure a divorce for the Queen, with the intent of marrying 
 her himself, and he urged them not to assist Albany, on pain 
 of his displeasure.^ To his sister Margaret, for whom he 
 never entertained any strong affection, he addressed a letter, 
 in terms of unusual bitterness : he reproached her for being 
 so easily abused by Albany ; for her familiarity with him, 
 unbecoming a queen and a woman ; and accused her of a 
 clandestine attempt to get rid of her husband, with a view to 
 marry the Duke. The Estates of Scotland rephed in a firm 
 and temperate letter, declining to accede to his proposals, and 
 denying his imputations. The Duke, they asserted, was the 
 lawful governor of their sovereign, had been repeatedly called 
 by them to that office, and had never interfered with the 
 custody of the King's person, or with any appointment in his 
 
 ' Jan. 31 1522. III. 2007. The Both prelates were friends of Erasmns, 
 
 Bishop s wish was not gratified; he and are mentioaed more than once in 
 
 died a tew weeks after of the plague, his writino-s. 
 then raging in London, and was bnried - III. 2039. 
 
 in the Savoy, close to Bishop Halsey.
 
 1522.] HENRY'S DEMANDS ARE REJECTED. 527 
 
 honsehokl. They expressed their surprise that Henry should 
 believe, that one " who had been nursed with so great honor, 
 and had so tender familiarity with popes and great princes," 
 would contrive any harm against their sovereign's person, or 
 induce the Queen to abandon her husband. If the King of 
 England, they added, with great tact, and perfect knowledge 
 of the man with whom they had to deal, still insisted on the 
 dismissal of Albany, no other alternative would be left for 
 them, except to publish to the world, and to all Christian 
 princes, the necessity they were under, either of depriving 
 Albany, unjustly, of the office lawfully belonging to him, or of 
 submitting to the peril of being invaded by England. 
 
 Margaret's reply was couched in a different strain, but was 
 not less resolute than theirs. Her Tudor blood was fired at 
 the insults to which she had been exposed under the mask of 
 advice and charity. She remonstrated with Henry for his 
 sharp and unkind letter. In reply to his insinuations of her 
 being so easily abused by the Duke, she taxed her brother for 
 his credulity and weakness in trusting to false reports. He 
 possessed but little sense, she told him, of his own dignity, in 
 permitting slanderous reports to be circulated to her discredit, 
 and suffering the Cardinal openly to repeat at the council- 
 table that she loved the Governor to her dishonour. Her 
 rumoured divorce from Angus was a scandal, forged, she said, 
 by the Bishop of Dunkeld, and had never been contemplated 
 by herself or Albany. Then, with something like a threat, 
 she added, that when the proper season arrived she should be 
 ready to justify her conduct ; for she had retained copies of 
 her correspondence wdth the King of England, and by them it 
 would appear to the world that his threat of invasion was 
 groundless and unjustifiable. Had Albany intended wrong to 
 her son, she would have been the first to discover it. She 
 had long hoped, she said, that her brother would have 
 sheltered her from injury ; but her hopes had been vain, and 
 now she had found a better friend in Albany than in any 
 other. She concluded by saying, that Scotland desired peace 
 with England, if it could be had, but if peace could not be had 
 with honour, it would never consent to banish Albany.^ 
 
 If the King imagined, as he reasonably might, that these 
 were not the genuine sentiments of the Queen and the nation, 
 but the " abusion " of Albany, he soon found himself un- 
 deceived. Acting under this impression, Clareucieux had been 
 
 ' Feb. 11 ; III. 2038.
 
 528 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 despatched to Scotland, partly at Margaret's own desire, 
 partly, no doubt, from a wish to ascertain more precisely 
 Albany's influence with the Lords. The herald reached 
 Edinburgh on Candlemas Eve, and found the Queen, not in 
 Halyrood Palace, or in the Castle of Edinburgh (as might 
 have been expected), but lodging in the house of a burgess. 
 On presenting his letters, and hearing what he had to say, 
 Margaret, to use his own expression, was marvellously abashed, 
 saying she perceived that the King held her in great and 
 heinous displeasure, owing to the evil reports he had received. 
 She admitted to the Enghsh envoy that she had desired 
 Albany's return to Scotland, confirming most of the particulars 
 already detailed in her letters. She had been well treated, 
 she said, ever since his arrival, her son was w^ell kept, and 
 neither of them had anything to fear from the Duke. This 
 account of herself was confirmed, six days after, by the Duke, 
 in whose presence, and in that of the herald, she repeated her 
 expressions of gratitude to Albany. 
 
 On Sunday, being Candlemas Day,^ Clarencieux delivered 
 the King's letters to Albany, at Holyrood House. After dinner 
 he sent for the herald to his chamber, and, prefacing what he 
 had to say by some remarks on the bitterness of the King's 
 letter, stated that he had come into Scotland at the invitation 
 of the Lords. He had taken a solemn vow, he said, to return 
 at a proper opportunity, and nothing should tempt him to 
 violate his oath. But as the Lords had appointed him 
 Governor, he would risk life and property in their service. 
 Then glancing at Henry's coarse insinuation of his " damnable 
 abusion " of the King's sister, and his attempt to marry her, 
 he told the herald that when he was last at Eome Margaret 
 had requested him to obtain for her a divorce, as she was 
 unkindly treated by Angus ; but he swore by the Sacrament, 
 which he had seen that day between the priest's hands, he 
 never intended to marry her ; and he marvelled that the King 
 should think so ill of his sister, and that the Cardinal should 
 have stated openly in the council chamber that the Duke 
 treated the Queen as if she were his wife or his concubine. 
 He expressed his desire to be on friendly terms with England, 
 but if he were attacked he would do the best to defend himself. 
 
 The herald met with no better success at his interview with 
 the Lords, then assembled in parliament at the Tolbooth. On 
 delivering his charge to the chancellor of Scotland he desired 
 
 ' III. 2054,.
 
 1522.] THE ANSWER TO CLARENCIEUX. 529 
 
 that the Kmg's letter might be read aloud, in the hope of 
 creating a division among them or eliciting some expressions 
 of disapprobation from those who were thought unfavourable 
 to the Duke. But in this also he was disappointed. 
 
 He was received, as he tells Wolsey, with " grim and angry- 
 looks," both of " high and low." It requires no effort of 
 imagination to picture the blanched and menacing features 
 of these ancient rivals of England, exasperated to the utter- 
 most by repeated injuries ; more accustomed to war and blood- 
 shed than counsel and debate ; resembling rather a gathering 
 of grim soldiers than a peaceful assemblage of senators. The 
 representative of England stood before them, wearing on his 
 tabard the insignia of that nation they most hated. He carried 
 in his hands a letter, conceived in terms more dictatorial than 
 any Scotchman would have tolerated from his native and 
 lawful sovereign. 
 
 The herald was desired to withdraw; he was told, on his 
 return, that they had unanimously invited the Duke, and 
 would on no account dismiss him. If, as Henry said, France 
 had joined with himself against Albany, they felt little obliged 
 by such conduct. But, even if England, France, and the 
 Emperor were united, they had chosen the Governor, and 
 with the Governor they were resolved to live and die.^ 
 
 It was impossible to mistake the meaning of this declara- 
 tion, or to expect any diversimi in the King's favour. If the 
 King had believed Dacre's insinuation, that Albany was un- 
 popular with the Lords, that he and his preparations might 
 be treated with contempt, it was clear from Clarencieux's letters 
 that Dacre had been mistaken. So Henry altered his tone, 
 and deemed it wise to prepare for the worst. He sent the 
 Bishop of Carlisle to assist Dacre in preparing for the defence 
 of the Borders,^ expressing at the same time his intentions to 
 despatch some nobleman into Yorkshire, as his lieutenant, 
 and place the country north of the Trent in a state of readi- 
 ness. The fortifications of Berwick were ordered to be 
 strengthened ; the Homes were apprised that they would be 
 supported in their disaffection, and a sharp watch was kept 
 upon the motions of Albany. Both countries prepared for war. 
 
 But in reality neither desired war. Just then the energies 
 of England were taxed to the utmost in preparing for the 
 invasion of France. Every day the Emperor and his ministers 
 were calling upon England to give proof of its sincerity, by an 
 
 1 in. 2054. ' HI. 2075. 
 
 voi>. I. 2 m
 
 530 THE REIGN OF HENRY YHI. [A.D. 
 
 open declaration of hostilities. The money due from France 
 for the surrender of Tournay was not forthcoming ; the 
 treasury was exhausted ; the loans, in spite of every effort to 
 collect them, and induce prepayment, came in slowly and 
 reluctantly. Border raids might he made and conducted at 
 the expense of the Border gentlemen ; but they were uncertain 
 and ineffectual instruments for retarding the advance of an 
 army, well appointed and led by the Scotch lords, thirsting for 
 retaliation. On the other hand, Albany was fettered by his 
 French engagements. He could not hope to retain his 
 authority unless he were well supported. If the Scottish lords 
 found the men, they looked to Albany to find the money and 
 munitions of war. But Francis was too hardly pressed to 
 provide either. " There are not eighteen barrels of gunpowder 
 in all Scotland," writes Dacre to Wolsey, " and the great 
 Lords will have no war." ^ And though Dacre's information 
 was not always to be implicitly relied on, yet on this occasion 
 his assertion was confirmed by evidence of no less an authority 
 than Albany liimself. In a letter of the 17th of April, ^ Albany 
 tells his French correspondent that the Scotch parliament had 
 been dismissed until the 12th of May ; and in tliat time, if 
 they did not obtain a favourable answer from the French King, 
 they would certainly make terms with England. " The Scotch 
 lords say that the war is merely for the advantage of France, 
 and unless the king of France will issue a bold declaration, 
 and send sufficient assistance, they do not care to stir, as they 
 are weary of fighting for others." 
 
 Nor was this far from the truth. The chief object of 
 Albany's visit to Scotland was not so much to help Scotland 
 against its ancient enemies, to secure for himself either the 
 Scottish crown, or the hand of Margaret, as to create a diver- 
 sion, if possible, in favour of France. Francis hoped that 
 England, hampered by a Scotch invasion, would gladly listen 
 to the dictates of peace, and in that peace France would be 
 comprehended as the ancient ally of Scotland. Nothing shows 
 more completely the depth of humiliation to which France 
 was reduced at the commencement of 1522 than that its 
 monarch, the proudest and gayest in the world, the competitor 
 for empire, the paragon of chivalry and haidte courage, should 
 have condescended to purchase peace at such a price, and seek 
 immunity from war, by the hand and instrumentality of his 
 humble friend and Scotch dependant.^ Failing of a peace, he 
 
 1 III. 2122. - III. 2184. 3 See III. 1950, 2113.
 
 1522.] NEGOCIATIOXS FOR PEACE. 531 
 
 might yet hope to divert England from its purpose of invading 
 France, or divide its powers, by fomenting an insurrection on 
 its northern frontier. Albany was disappointed in both 
 designs. His proposals for a truce, in which France should 
 be comprehended, were rejected by the King and Wolsey with 
 the utmost disdain. The great English minister penetrated the 
 flimsy disguise at once, and treated the Duke's overtures with 
 unconcealed contempt. He regarded Albany's interference 
 much in the same light as that of a cur interposing itself 
 between "two fell-opposed opposites " with a folly equalled 
 only by its presumption.^ By short prorogations of the truce, 
 devised by Dacre, Albany's preparations were frittered away, 
 and he fell under the suspicions of the French King in conse- 
 quence of his inaction. 
 
 In the middle of May, 1522,^ the aid long expected from 
 France arrived, but it was wholly inadequate to the emergency. 
 That same month Francis had been defied by England, and 
 he was no longer in a condition to provide for the safety of 
 his humble ally. Later in the year (x\ugust 13) he was 
 under the necessity of sending an ambassador to Scotland to 
 explain the difficulties of his own position, and express his 
 regret at his inability to render further assistance. The Scotch 
 lords, after mam^ delays, consented at last to an invasion of 
 England on the 2nd of September.^ But their resolution was 
 formed too late. Before the close of the month Albany and 
 Margaret had entered into negociations for peace with Dacre 
 and the captain of Berwick.* After some little coquetting on 
 both sides, cessation of hostilities was agreed upon ; — by 
 Albany, with apparent sincei'ity, for, from some reason not 
 well ascertained, he thought it needful to return to the 
 continent, either to justify himself to the King of France, or 
 to procure additional aid ; — by Dacre, from policy, to win 
 delay, foment suspicion among the Lords, create confusion in 
 Scotland, and invade it when disunited. He was acquainted 
 with the country better than any of his contemporaries ; was 
 less scrupulous also than others of the means he employed, 
 whether force or fraud. But in consequence of these very 
 qualities he was exposed to the jealousy and dislike of all who 
 were associated with him ; and his powers of annoyance were 
 crippled in projoortion. 
 
 ' See III. 1950. ' TIT. 2428. 
 
 2 III. 2271. ' III. 2468-2170 and 2176.
 
 532 
 
 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 Unlmown to the lords of Scotland, the negociations between 
 Albany and Dacre were carried on with great secrecy. Under 
 a show of invading England, Albany advanced to the EngUsh 
 borders/ in the direction of Carlisle. Had he pushed on with 
 vigour he might have dictated his own terms ; for Carlisle 
 was defenceless; and the Earl of Shrewsbury, the English 
 commander, was still at York, unable to advance for lack of 
 supplies.^ The Borders were wholly unprepared. The Earl 
 of Westmoreland could only travel in a litter. Most of the 
 chief captains were dead ; and the plague had raged with so 
 much severity in the North that in Durham alone 3,000 able- 
 bodied men had been carried off by the infection. Through 
 dread of its virulence, the harness in the infected houses was 
 useless, for the soldiers refused to touch it. Besides, as was 
 too common in these Border wars, no spirit of unity prevailed 
 among the inhabitants of different localities. The East 
 IMarches preyed upon the West ; the West on the East and 
 the Middle Marches. Hosts of thieves, lured by hope of 
 indiscriminate plunder, infested the markets, robbed the 
 houses, and burned the mills, indifferent whether they belonged 
 to Scotland or England — or rather, preferring those of the 
 latter, as the booty was richer and more easily taken.^ No 
 treaty had been signed. The English reinforcements had not 
 yet arrived; and the English border lords hung back, declining 
 to stir until their wages were paid. Albany moved from 
 Dumfries to Annan. A few hours' rapid march would have 
 brought him under the walls of Carlisle, feebly defended by 
 crumbling ramparts and ditches, and insufficient ordnance. 
 But Albany, deficient alike in judgment and resolution, was 
 engrossed with the single thought of truce. He suffered him- 
 self to be insulted and deceived by Dacre. Nothing shows 
 more clearly the characters of the two men than their conduct 
 
 > ITT. 2523. 
 
 ^ Shrewsbury to Wolsey, Septem- 
 ber 8 ; No. 2524. 
 
 ^ See IIL 2531. In a letter to 
 Wolsey, the Bishop of Carlisle says, 
 " There is more theft, more extortion 
 here, by English thieves, than there 
 is by all the Scots of Scotland. There 
 is no man, which is not in a strong 
 hold, that hath or may have any cattle 
 or moveables in surety, throughout 
 the bisliopric (Durham) ; and from the 
 bishopric till we come within eight 
 miles of Carlisle ; all Northumberland 
 
 likewise. Hexhamshire, which be- 
 longeth to your Grace, worst of all ; 
 for in Hexham self, every market day, 
 there are four score or 100 strong 
 thieves ; and the poor men and gentle- 
 men see them which did rob them and 
 their goods, and dare neither com- 
 plain of them by name, nor say one 
 word to them. They take all their 
 cattle and horses ; their corn as they 
 carry it to sow, or to the mill to 
 grind; and at their houses bid them 
 deliver what they will have, or they 
 shaU be fired and burnt." No. 2328.
 
 1522.] ALBANY'S ADVANCE TO THE BORDERS. 533 
 
 and corresponelence on tliis occcasion. Thongb the danger 
 was great and imminent, Dacre bated not a jot of bis baugbty 
 and imperious demeanour. Some little time before, in defiance 
 of tbe law of nations, be bad imprisoned Carrick, Albanj^'s 
 berald ; and now, witb a temerity cbaracteristic of bis nature, 
 be ventured to send one of bis own servants, without a safe- 
 conduct, into tbe midst of Albany's camp, nominally under 
 the j)retext of carrying a message, really to ascertain tbe con- 
 dition of Albany's powers. Such acts of audacity very few 
 commanders, even of less rank and authority than Albany, 
 would have allowed to pass without reprisals. But Albany, 
 after a faint remonstrance, suffered bis indignation to evaporate 
 in words, and passed over tbe insult only to encourage its 
 rejDetition. 
 
 Tbe 9th of September bad arrived, and Dacre was under 
 tbe necessity of returning an immediate answer to Albany's 
 proposals. He was then staying at Carlisle. Tbe distance 
 between himself and the Duke was so short that it was difficult 
 to find any pretext for further delay. A direct refusal of 
 Albany's terms would have brought the Duke and his army in 
 a few hours to the walls of Carlisle ; compliance was tbe same 
 as accepting Albany's demand ; — besides Dacre had as yet 
 received no communications from England. To protract the 
 time,^ be pretended to the messenger who brought the Duke's 
 letter with a French superscription, that be did not under- 
 stand that language and sent him back to procure a Scotch 
 translation of it, or bring with him a French interpreter. 
 
 Albany, with singular fatuity, allowed bis opportunities 
 to slip from his band. On the 11th of September he signed 
 an agreement with Dacre at Solam Chapel for an abstinence 
 of one month ; thus dissipating the hopes of his own party, 
 and allowing bis ememies abundant time for preparation. His 
 chief resources were at Edinburgh ; his ships at Leitb. He 
 could only procure scanty, supplies by sea from Dumbarton, or 
 transport provisions and munitions of war by land, over the 
 roughest ground, now rapidly becoming impassable at the 
 approach of winter ; whilst the English fleet, commanding the 
 eastern shores from Newcastle to Berwick, and the western 
 from Chester to Carlisle, needed only time to assemble its 
 powers, and bad war or peace at its option. 
 
 Dacre might well be proud of bis victory — for a victory it 
 was — gained at a small cost, in the face of great odds, solely 
 
 ' Sec III. 2525.
 
 5o4 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 by his own daring and skill. His own account of the matter, 
 sent in a letter to Wolsey the day after/ displays in vivid 
 colours the boldness and genius of the man. 
 
 " My lord, I beseech your Grace of pardon that I have not advertised 
 you from time to time, according to my duty ; but the matters were so 
 difficult, and of so great importance, and had so long tract of time and 
 times, that I could not certify yoiu' Grace of anything till now of the con- 
 clusion, like as ye may perceive, as everything is passed between the 
 queen of Scots, the duke of Albany, and me, by their jwincipal letters and 
 mine answers again, enclosed in a packet, which your Grace shall receive 
 herewith. 
 
 " Please it your Grace, according to my writing sent you from Norham, 
 the duke of Albany with the main power of Scotland mustered a little 
 from Edinburgh, the second day of this instant month of September, and 
 so came forward, sending the earl of Arran his lieutenant with his vanward 
 to the East Borders, who set up his tents a little from Home Castle in our 
 sight, being within four miles of Warkes Castle ; and from thence the said 
 Lieutenant removed towards these We[st] Borders, and fell in company 
 of the Duke, at which time I was in Berwick, where I put in 250 soldiers 
 of the King's garrisons, and also 300 of the country, and for the same 
 made precision of victual for their sustentation ; and by reason of the said 
 victual all corns kept the old price, and rose nothing ; and I, knowe[ing] 
 of the hasty return of the said Duke, discharged the crew of the country 
 wh[ich] was taken in, and paid them wages for a day ; and thereupon I 
 rode from Berwick to these West Borders at post, and came hither upon 
 Saturday last past ; where, according to my said writing from Norham, 
 there was neither gun, b[ow] or arrow in readiness, and the town 
 assaultable, whereby there was no remedy for keeping of the same, but 
 only strength of men ; by reason whereof I was . . . enforced to despoil 
 all mine own houses of such ordnance as was in them, and brought it 
 thither, and appointed and put in the town 1,600 men in wages, besides 
 the inhabitants of the same, making my son captain thereof, which was to 
 his great danger, and to me little comfort, remembering I have but one. 
 Albeit, for the King's honor, and for surety of his castle and town, I could 
 [no] less do, seeing I and my brother Sir Christopher might not be spared 
 from the f[ield], my lord Lieutenant being absent, whose wages I have 
 paid hithertowards at the King's pleasure. 
 
 "Upon Sunday the seventh day, the duke of Albany with his army 
 and ordnance came to the castle of Milke, within 12 miles of this said city ; 
 and by such w[ords] as passed between the said Duke and me, sent unto 
 your Grace in tl^e aforesaid p[acket], your Grace may perceive the time 
 was tracted unto Wednesday at 11 of the clock, when as the said Duke set 
 up his tents ujion the Debateable Ground five miles of this said city, where 
 I came unto his presence on Thursday, [having] certain hostages delivered 
 for me into England, that is to say, the lord Max [well] and the treasurer 
 of Scotland. 
 
 " At my going towards the said Duke, half a mile from him where he 
 lay, two earls of Scotland met me, and conveyed me unto his hall, whereas 
 he and all the lords were about him ; and after my duty done unto him, I 
 removed something backward, saying with an high voice, ' My lord, what 
 displeasure has my Sovereign done unto you, that ye with this great army 
 are come hither to invade his realm ? marvelling that all ye my lords will 
 be aiding to the same, remembering the nighness and proximity of blood 
 betwixt my Sovereign and yours. I come hither for no treaty, but at the 
 instance and desire of my lord here present.' Whereupon the Duke, with 
 
 ' III. 2536.
 
 1522.] DACEE'S LETTER TO WOLSEY. 535 
 
 certain of the lords, went into one chamber within his said hall, and took 
 me with them ; where, after long reasoning, communication, and debating, 
 A\-ith such persuasions and sharp words as I did give tliem, the earls of 
 Huntley, Argyle, Arran, and others, fearing as well the King's army, as 
 also the continuance of mortal war which would have followed upon their 
 beginning, gave plain answer that for no love, favor, desire, or fair promise 
 of the French king they would in no wise attempt war against England, 
 nor invade the same, so they might be sure to have peace of the King's 
 higluiess. And so I departed, and was brought to one other tent ; 
 whereas I had good cheer made by certain lords appointed, and there fell 
 to communication and reasoning how the matter miglit be best brought to 
 pass. Whereupon indentures were drawn ; whereof the one part, signed 
 and sealed, ye shall receive in the foresaid jjacket. 
 
 "My lord, the army of Scotland was of so great puissance of men, 
 above the number of 4 score thousand, and victual for the same, and so 
 well stored of artillery, above 45 jjieces of brass and 1,000 hagbushes 
 carted ui^on trestles, besides handguns innumerable, that in manner, God 
 being indiflerent, it had been impossible to have withstood them ; like as 
 Thomas Musgrave, the King's servant, being there present with me, will 
 inform the King's highness and your Grace at length, whicli comes up 
 with diligence for that purpose. For I assure your Grace, our power in 
 the time could not have been 16,000, and those that came forward came 
 with the worst will that ever did men, and some great men there is that 
 would not come forward, worthy punishment ; and tlierefore, seeing the 
 imminent danger of the castle of Warke, which William Ellerker, captain 
 of the same, having 100 men in his retinue, after the sight of the Duke's 
 vanward and tents set uj), left waste ; and so of force I was driven to 
 sufter the Grayes of Northumberland, by the advice of my lord Warden, 
 [to] enter in the same castle for keeping of it ; and also remembering the 
 small power that we were here, and the weakness of this city, wanting 
 ordnance, which by all likelihood could not have been kept, afore I had 
 seen and viewed their puissance and artillery, and over that for safeguard 
 of this whole country of Cumberland, which all utterly had been destroyed 
 and burnt without remedy hereafter, if the foresaid army had come in it : 
 — therefore I condescended to the said minute of abstinence, humbly 
 beseeching your Grace to be good solicitor and mean for me unto the 
 King's higlmess, that he take no displeasure with me, being so bold to 
 take abstinence, having none authority or commission. But inasmuch as 
 by means thereof their army are skaled, and that they foliously have 
 taken alistinence with me that had none autliority, but only by my words, 
 saying that I had commission, which I could not at that time come to it, 
 it is at the King's pleasure whether he will accept it or not ; and, under 
 your correction, I think it good that this month be accepted, and upon the 
 queen of Scots' desire, which it is thought she will make, that the King's 
 highness condescend to the same abstinence for the space of anotlicr 
 month, for these considerations ensuing : first, that in that time an 
 honorable ambassade may be sent up upon the safeconduct now granted, 
 at the request of the said queen of Scots, which shall make a great division 
 between the Duke and tlie lords of Scotland, remembering their former 
 sayings to the said Duke afore me ; and further they have ottered me they 
 are glad and willing to desire peace of the King's highness and to y . . . no 
 meddling with France, and for surety thereof to make bands or lie such 
 hostages as reasonably sliall be thought, and so tlie continuance of the 
 duke of Albany in Scotland shall be neither profit nor pleasure to the 
 French king. 
 
 " And for the sure custody of the king of Scots, out of the susjjicious 
 keeping of the said Duke, so that he be in the keeping of Scotclimen, true 
 Scotch lords, they can be contented, upon communication at the up coming 
 of the ambassadors, as shall be devised.
 
 536 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 *' And if the King's highness be not content with these ways, then his 
 Highness ni[ust] see money sent down for payment of his garrison's wages 
 for the next montli, [wliicli] lieginneth in the hinder end of this month, 
 amounting to the sum of 6001. , like as it d[oth] appear in the foot of the 
 declaration in the keeping of Sir John Darcy, knt. ; a[nd if] he say that 
 he lias not the said declaration, then it is in the keeping of W[m.] 
 Hasilwodd. 
 
 ' ' My Lord, inasmuch as it is determined that at the end of the next 
 month my lord Percy for the East and Middle Marches, and I for the 
 West IMarches, shall take the charge of them, it shall be more honor to 
 the King that the garrison be discharged rat[her] in the time of this 
 abstinence than when it is plain war. 
 
 " And as for the castle of Warke, which stands in great danger, as is 
 afore specified, and the same being furnished with men and ordnance may 
 do more annoyance [to] the Scots than Berwick, and in mine oi'>inion 
 there can no gun go through the wall of it ; therefore I think it good that 
 Master Hert, who is now with the lord of Shx'ewsbury, be commanded to 
 come in these quarters hastily to see and view as well Berwick, Warke, 
 and this city of Carlisle, as also all along the marches, whei*e I shall bear 
 him company, to the intent that he and I may make certificate to the 
 King's highness and your Grace now at Michaelmas term, the order, form, 
 and manner of everything at length, with our opinions on the same, what 
 is best to be done ; for 2U6-. spended in time with provision shall go as far, 
 as well in works as in victuals, as shall 40s. in the time of a necessity 
 when thing must needs be done. 
 
 "If my lord Lieutenant had come forward, he should have been 
 deceived of such ordnance as is in Berwick, that was appointed for the 
 field ; for when I had caused all the same ordnance to be put in areadiness, 
 and for the exi^edition and receiving of the same sent mine own cart wheels 
 to Berwick, the captain would not sufier tlie same ordnance to be taken 
 out of the town, notwithstanding that I showed unto him the article in the 
 King's instructions containing his high pleasure anenst the same, but by 
 his writing ready to be showed he gave answer that he could depart with 
 none, but only a slange of iron, a sacre and two falcons. And the Blessed 
 Trinity preserve your Grace. At Carlisle, the 12th day of September, at 
 four of the clock in the morning. 
 
 ' ' Yours with his service, 
 
 "Thomas Dacre." 
 
 -^ On communicating the news to the King, the Cardinal 
 broke out into expressions of admiration foreign to his usual 
 habits. He perceived at once the greatness of the advantages 
 thus gained, and the total extinction of that danger which 
 had threatened at one time to defeat the measures on which 
 his thoughts and energies had been concentrated for the last 
 two years. Such a signal success was nothing less than 
 a stroke from Heaven ; operatio dextrse Excelsi, as he termed 
 it.^ Yet the precedent was dangerous. Dacre had acted 
 entirely on his own responsibility. Shrewsbury, when the 
 news arrived, had disbanded his army without waiting for 
 orders, and had retired sick and weary to his home. The 
 fault was a noble one ; fortunate in its results, but a fault 
 
 ' III. 2537.
 
 1522.1 DACRE'S EXCUSE ADMITTED. 537 
 
 still— felix culpa ; and as Henry, jealous of the least neglect, 
 and severe in punishing the slightest contempt of his authority, 
 might not regard it in a favourahle Hght, the Cardinal, ^Yith 
 great skill and judgment, endeavoured to anticipate and dis- 
 arm his resentment. After expatiating on the loss it would 
 be to the French King, who reckoned that this invasion of 
 Scotland would " stand him in stead of a great army," he 
 thus proceeds : " Albeit, Sir, this abstinence of war was 
 suddenly taken and agreed unto without your authority or 
 pleasure known, yet I cannot but see it is to be accounted as 
 felix culpa, and that, your Grace being therewith contented, 
 and taking respect to the state of your affairs northwards, 
 many good effects may thereof ensue ; and at the least I see 
 no other remedy but that ye must take all that is done in 
 good part, making virtue of necessity. Howbeit, to be plain, 
 there hath been too much boldness on your folks' part, as well 
 in taking truce and discharging your army without your 
 knowledge, as in the Duke of Albany great folly in dissolving 
 so great an army, so sumptuously set forth and advanced, 
 without doing any manner act or exploit, upon a bare 
 abstinence of war, concluded without any commission or 
 authority. Nevertheless, the cause of the premises, as may 
 be conjectured, hath only been, quia trcpidaverunt timore uhi 
 non erat timor." 
 
 The King appears to have adopted this sensible advice of 
 his minister ; for, not long after, Dacre acknowledged a letter 
 of thanks received from the King for the services he had 
 rendered on this occasion.^ 
 
 Disbanding his army, Albany repaired to Edinburgh, 
 vainly endeavouring, in conjunction with Margaret, to have 
 France comprehended in the truce. If at the head of a power- 
 ful army the Duke was unable to carry his point, it was not 
 to be expected that Dacre or Wolsey would listen for a moment 
 to a disagreeable jiroposal, backed simply by wishes or threats. 
 After a few ineffectual efforts, made probably with a view of 
 excusing his inability and mismanagement to Francis I., he 
 abandoned the attempt. On the 23rd of October the Duke 
 left Edinburgh for Stirling, appointing as regents certain 
 bishops and lords devoted to his interests, and sailed for 
 France from Dumbarton, on Monday, the 27th of October, 
 promising to return before Assumption Day (August 15), or 
 resign his authority.^ 
 
 ' October 7 ; III. 2598. * III. 2G45.
 
 538 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 Scotcli historians are at a loss to discover an adequate 
 cause for so ignoble a termination of Albany's campaign. At 
 no time in their history, with the exception, perhaps, of the 
 battle of Flodden, had the Scots been able to bring a more 
 numerous or better appointed army into the field ; at no time 
 had a more favourable opportunity presented itself for striking 
 a blow at their ancient enemies with such disastrous effect. 
 The English were not only unprepared, but the largest body 
 which Shrewsbury had proposed to detach from his main 
 army to meet the Scots consisted of no more than 20,000 
 men. Actuated by a narrow spirit of self-interest and self- 
 defence, unwilling to stir from their own country, and leave 
 their homes exposed to the enemy, the Border chiefs, disunited 
 among themselves, delayed to march to the assistance of 
 Dacre. Yet it seems unjust to attribute exclusively to the 
 incapacity and cowardice of Albany an inglorious truce, to 
 which the lords of Scotland were no less a i^arty than him- 
 self. Of disunion in their councils, we have no contemporary 
 evidence. The only explanation probable is to be found in 
 the want of adequate support from France.^ It appears to 
 me that Albany never intended, from the very first, to venture 
 a battle. Under pretence of menacing the Borders, he was 
 covering his design of negociating with Dacre. By an assump- 
 tion of warlike demonstrations he saved his credit with the 
 majority of his adherents ; perhaps, also, the number and 
 efficiency of his preparations were exaggerated by Dacre, from 
 whose letters the account of them is exclusively derived. Or, 
 after all, he might have been acting on the French maxim, 
 reculer imur mieux sauter. 
 
 But, whatever might be the cause, the policy of Albany 
 was fatal to his party and his influence. His adherents, 
 deprived of their chief, were more liable to fall a prey to the 
 intrigues of the English government. It was no longer 
 difficult, by flattery and fair promises, to detach Margaret 
 from the Duke, to inspire her with the intoxicating thought 
 that through her influence alone England had been induced 
 
 * This is the statement of Sir lately returned to Francis to show 
 Thomas Boleyn ; but he was then at him the state of Scotland, provide 
 Yalladolid with the Emperor, and money, captains, and ships, and re- 
 might speak from hearsay only. See turn to Scotland in the spring. He 
 III. 2697. Perhaps Wolsey's state. adds, that, at the Duke's instigation, 
 ment is nearer the truth than any the Scotch lords had failed to fulfil 
 other yet offered. He tells Boleyn their engagement of sending ambas- 
 and Sampson, at that time ambas- sadors into England to treat lor peace, 
 sadors in Spain, that Albany had No. 2764.
 
 1522.] EFFECTS OF ALBANY'S WITHDKAWAL. 539 
 
 to make its late concessions to Albany, and -svould be guided 
 exclusivel}' in its conduct towards Scotland by her wishes and 
 her instructions. It was easy for Dacre to insinuate that 
 Albany's presence in Scotland was the only obstacle to the 
 suj)remacy she coveted so long and so earnestly. His banish- 
 ment, she was taught to believe, would free her from designs 
 which, com'teous in appearance, were intended in reality to 
 deprive her of all authority, and render her dependent on 
 a party unfavourable alike to herself and her son. The design 
 succeeded ; and from this period Margaret's letters betray, 
 not only a change in her sentiments towards Albany, but a 
 quivering, restless anxiety to impress upon the Scotch a due 
 sense of that imjjortance which she wished to possess, and 
 always failed to achieve. It is amusing to watch her incessant 
 efforts to invest herself with a factitious dignity in the eyes of 
 her people, and make them believe that she w^as omnipotent 
 with her powerful brother. She repeatedly urges upon him, 
 in her correspondence, and at this time more frequently than 
 ever, the necessity of letting it be known that his friendship 
 or hostility to Scotland would be determined by her advice 
 and her wishes. She aimed at being the sole mediator 
 between the two countries. By her powerful intercession 
 alone, the sword was to be sheathed or resumed. 
 
 But whilst Dacre and Wolsey together assiduously pursued 
 this Hne of policy towards the Queen, the Cardinal was pre- 
 paring measures for isolating Scotland completely from all 
 hope of foreign aid, and gathering up the undivided power of 
 England, to launch it with full and irresistible effect against 
 its pertinacious foe. The mistakes in the last year's campaign, 
 fortunate as it had proved to England from the folly and 
 incapacity of Albany, had opened Wolsey's eyes to the danger 
 of undertaking two great w^ars at the same time. He had 
 been taught the necessity of providing a more efficient force 
 than the hasty and reluctant levies of the orders ; he had seen 
 the folly of diminishing the efficiency of those forces by want 
 of promptitude in the payment of their wages or provision of 
 arms and ammunition. In the previous year he had evidently 
 underrated the strength, activity, and importance of his 
 adversary. He had never supposed that Albany would have 
 advanced with an army so large and so well appointed to the 
 very walls of Carlisle and Berwick. Wisely calculating the 
 magnitude of the danger he had so providentially escaped, 
 he resolved never again to run the same hazard, or trust to
 
 O40 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 a similar caprice of fortune. Instead of the sickly Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, he pitched upon the Earl of Surrey, who had 
 been engaged since 1522 in scouring the Channel, and making 
 descents on* the French coasts. There could be no fitter 
 general than Surrey to take the command of the forces 
 against Scotland, for Surrey had seen service in various forms 
 and in different countries. By his influence in the North, by 
 his high rank and family connections, he was able to exact 
 from the turbulent gentlemen and noblemen of the Borders 
 that obedience and respect they refused to yield to one chosen 
 from among themselves, whatever his merits or his abilities : 
 whilst long experience of office, unblemished reputation as 
 a soldier, and the share he had in the victory at Flodden, 
 seemed to point out Surrey as qualified above all others for so 
 important and hazardous an employment. 
 
 In the choice of such a general Wolsey showed that he did 
 not underrate the magnitude and importance of the struggle. 
 It was the clearest and most convincing evidence of the valour 
 of his opponents, and of the resistance he expected from them. 
 Nor was this all. An enemy so resolute as the Scotch, and 
 animated against England by the strongest national aversion, 
 demanded his undivided energies. But how could this object 
 be obtained ? How, with a great continental war upon his 
 hands, could he strike so effectual a blow against the power of 
 the Scotch, that they should never trouble him again ? For- . 
 tunately the vacillation of the Emperor furnished him with 
 the desired opportunit}'. From weariness of the war or a 
 desire to enhance his own importance in the eyes of his ally, 
 Charles, at the close of 1522, had desired his ambassadors in 
 England to communicate to Wolsey a copy of certain overtures 
 for a truce which had been submitted to him by the King of 
 France.^ Without caring to ascertain how far the offer was 
 
 * With the usual duplicity charac- secrecy, telling him that neither the 
 
 teristic of his policy, the Emperor ambassadors of the King of England 
 
 had already made some progress in nor those of France must be allowed 
 
 this business, before he thought fit to to suspect the existence of any such 
 
 communicate it to England. In a intention on his part. Though he was 
 
 letter addressed by him to the Duke even then preparing to falsify his 
 
 of Sessa, on the 15th of Feb. 1525, he obligations, he does not hesitate to 
 
 desired his ambassador to inform the avow that he was restricted by his 
 
 Pope that he was neglecting no op- treaty with England from entering 
 
 portunity of effecting a truce with the upon any negociations for peace witti 
 
 King of France; and he had, there- France without fii-st obtaining Henry's 
 
 fore, sent very ample powers to his consent ; and he admits that it would 
 
 ambassadors at the court of Kome, for not redound much to his honour, if it 
 
 that purpose. At the same time, he were known that he had been the 
 
 enjoined on the Duke the utmost first to solicit peace, seeing that the
 
 1523.] WOLSEY'S POLICY TOUCHING FRANCE. 541 
 
 sincere, Wolsey perceived his advantage in it. As the King 
 of France had endeavoured to extort a truce out of the 
 supposed necessities of Enghxnd by means of the Duke of 
 Albany, might not his own policy be turned upon the inventor ? 
 Might not France be induced, in consequence of its difficulties, 
 to purchase peace at the sacrifice of its confederate ? If the 
 negociation succeeded, and Francis, forgetful of his honour, 
 should consent to a truce without comprehending Scotland, 
 then would Scotland be left to the undivided power and 
 vengeance of England ; if it failed, yet the discussion of such 
 a proposition would create suspicion in the mind of the Scots, 
 as if the French King valued their alliance only for his own 
 purposes. Accordingly Wolsey instructed the English ambas- 
 sadors at Valladolid to represent to the Emperor, that a 
 " better and more politic mean " could not be imagined for 
 avoiding superfluous charges — especially as the Emperor found 
 so much difficulty in making the necessary preparations — than 
 to condescend to a truce with the King of France for this 
 year ; " the same to be no other " than a mere cessation and 
 desisting from hostility, not comprehending the realm of Scot- 
 land. If, however, the truce could not be had without the 
 comprehension of Scotland, the King hoped, he said, "so 
 speedily to advance " his enterprises on this side, that the 
 stroke should be struck before the treaty was concluded. 
 
 To obviate unfavourable conjectures, if it should be 
 imagined that such a wish had emanated from the King or 
 from the Emperor, Wolsey took the precaution of writing to 
 the Pope ; suggesting that his Holiness, who was anxious for 
 the peace of Christendom, should, as of himself, malce the 
 necessary proposition to the three powers. To quicken the 
 
 King of France had been the aggressor. examples, did not wait for the consent 
 
 The articles to which he refers were of his English ally, but took the 
 
 solemnly sworn before Wolsey at the initiative without it, consulting oidy 
 
 treaty of Windsor in June, 1522. his own interests and his own incliua- 
 
 We are informed by the same tions. See the letter in Mr. Bergen- 
 
 letter that the Emperor had already roth's Calendar, vol. ii. p. 528. 
 
 sent a copy of similar powers to Mr. Bergenroth, in alluding to 
 
 England, desiring they might be for- these circumstances, accuses Wolsey 
 
 ■warded to Rome in the event of their of dissimulation. He thinks the 
 
 proving satisfactory to Henry. Wolsey, Cardinal blew hot or cold, as suited 
 
 in lieu of them, proposed a truce for his own interests. He does nob appear 
 
 one year only between the Emperor to see that the policy of Wolsey was 
 
 and the Kings of France and England, of necessity shaped by the niovomonts 
 
 excluding their confederates ; aiming, of Albany, and the vacilhitions of 
 
 of course, at the Scots. But the Charles V. As they shifted tlieir 
 
 Emperor, disregarding his most solemn ground, Wolsey was compelled to 
 
 engagements, with that flexibility of change his attitude, 
 which these papers furnish numerous
 
 542 THE EEIGN OF PIENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 sluggish resolves of the Emperor, he was given clearly to 
 understand that, in the event of the war being continued, he 
 would be expected to furnish his stipulated quota of men and 
 money ; and these Wolsey well knew that Charles would be 
 unwilling or unable to provide. He was to be further informed 
 that he must not expect any extra aid from England, as it 
 was now so busily occupied at home. This is the key of 
 Wolsey's policy towards Scotland ; and this is the meaning 
 of that desire of his for a temporary truce with France, which 
 otherwise seems inexplicable. 
 
 It was scarcely to be expected that such an arrangement 
 would be accepted by the Emperor or his council, indifferent 
 to any interests except their own. It was more important, as 
 it was more agreeable, to them, to have the war carried on by 
 England against France, of which they should reap the fruits, 
 than that the powers and resources of England should be 
 expended in an expedition against Scotland, from which they 
 had nothing to fear. In a long memorial addressed to his 
 ambassadors, the Emperor endeavoured to combat this new 
 proposal of the Cardinal's. He contended for the importance 
 of combined and energetic operations against France now, 
 when that kingdom was entangled in so many difficulties. 
 He was willing, he said, to render assistance, if Henry would 
 carry the war into Guienne, and he had collected for that 
 purpose a million and a half of ducats. But the promises of 
 Charles never corresponded to his performances, and Wolsey 
 was too well aware of the value of his offers to depart from 
 the measures he had resolved to adopt. 
 
 By Dacre's arrangement, the truce with Scotland had been 
 prorogued from month to month only, and the last prorogation 
 had expired. The option of extending it remained with Eng- 
 land ; the lords of Scotland desired a further prorogation ; 
 but Wolsey had other intentions. On February the 26th, the 
 Earl of Surrey was appointed lieutenant-general of the army 
 against Scotland, and commissions for musters were sent into 
 all the northern counties.^ 
 
 The Earl arrived at Newcastle on the 10th of April, 
 intending to fix his head-quarters at Berwick. And now the 
 same brutal and indiscriminate warfare was transferred to 
 Scotland which the year before had marked the invasion of 
 France. The country was devastated by incessant and furious 
 inroads ; Eccles, Ednam, Stichell, Kelso, and the whole track 
 
 > His appointment is in Lord Herbert's Hist. Henry VIII., 3 a.
 
 1523.] THE WAR RENEWED WITH SCOTLAND. 543 
 
 as far as Makerston, were given to the sword. At Eccles the 
 invaders were met by a convent of nuns, who surrendered the 
 keys of the abbey, with a promise to cast down in a few days 
 their walls and defences; if they failed, as Dacre informed 
 Surrey, Sir William Bulmer was prepared to burn their abbey 
 about their ears ; so little respect was shown to the weak, the 
 innocent, and the sacred in these terrible wars. From Home 
 Castle to Dunse, and all along the East border, from Eoxburgh 
 and Kelso, between the Tweed and the Teviot, southward to 
 Jedburgh, and Ferniehurst, the whole country was a smoking 
 waste. 
 
 Should Albany arrive, wrote Wolsey on the 30th of August, 
 to the English ambassadors with the Emperor, all Teviotdale 
 and the March have been so destroyed, " that there is left 
 neither house, fortress, village, tree, cattle, corn, or other 
 succor for man ; insomuch as some of the peoj)le which fled 
 from the same, and afterwards returned, finding no sustenta- 
 tion, were compelled to come into England, begging bread, 
 which oftentimes when they eat they die incontinently for the 
 hunger past; and with no imprisonment, cutting of their ears, 
 burning them in the face, or otherwise, can be kept away. 
 Such is the punishment of Almighty God to those that be the 
 disturbers of good peace, rest, and quiet in Christendom." ^ 
 
 The language of Dacre is not less terrible : "If these raids 
 are done well," he exclaims, in a tone of triumph,^ " 2,000 of 
 the garrison may be discharged, and 1,000 only remain on the 
 borders." By such solitude it was hoped that no troops would 
 be required, and the King's treasure spared : whilst a desert, 
 more impassable than the sea, more sterile than its shore, 
 would thus be interposed between Scotland and England. 
 But, adds Dacre, " the captains must be told to command 
 their retinues to burn, or they will not take the trouble to do 
 it." Undeterred by the horror or uncertainty of border frays, 
 some of the more sanguine or thrifty inhabitants of the 
 Scottish borders had protected their poor dwellings with a 
 more durable covering than the ordinary thatch. Such pre- 
 cautions defied the sloth or mischief of the soldiers, and Dacre 
 desired to be furnished with 300 sixpenny axes, for distribution 
 among his captains, as a more effectual instrument for the 
 work of destruction. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Scotch lords, divided among themselves, 
 and left, by the absence of Albany, without any central 
 
 ' III. 3281. 2 in. 30L)8.
 
 514 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 authority, could form no general plan of action, nor agree 
 upon any effectual method of resistance. The commons, 
 stung with resentment for sufferings which they had done 
 nothing to provoke and could do nothing to prevent, turned 
 their anger against the French and the terrified adherents of 
 the Duke of Albany. Denounced as the authors of all these 
 miseries, the unhappy foreigners would have fallen victims to 
 the fury of the populace, had they not anticipated its 
 vengeance by retreating into the castle of Dunbar with all 
 their artillery.^ 
 
 " The King has heard," says Wolsey in a letter to Dacre, 
 " from the Friars Observants, who have returned into Scot- 
 land, that the Scotch, perceiving how they are deluded by the 
 French faction, are beginning to alter their minds. The 
 French have retired to the castle of Dunbar, where they have 
 most of their artillery, living in great dread and fear of them- 
 selves, and doubting to be served as La Batie was," that is, 
 massacred. He suggests to Dacre, that if any man of note 
 would attempt the enterprise — that is, fall upon the French, as 
 the Homes had cut off La Batie — and would undertake to hang 
 the bell about the cat's neck, Albany's faction might be 
 " briefly extincted." ^ 
 
 It is not needful to translate these expressions into plainer 
 English. The Scots were enemies; they were "weasels," 
 and were therefore to be hunted down with as little compunc- 
 tion as vermin. Who can doubt it ? The dictates of humanity 
 were out of the question. 
 
 Wolsey's policy was on the eve of being crowned with 
 success. A strict and unintermittent watch at sea by the 
 English fleet effectually prevented Albany's passage. Month 
 after month slipped away, and nothing was heard of him. 
 To increase the confusion, Dacre, unknown to Surrey, was 
 negociating with the Chancellor of Scotland, in hopes of with- 
 drawing him from his allegiance to the Duke, and inducing 
 him, in conjunction with Margaret, to take the reins into his 
 own hands, supported by the power of England. Margaret, 
 more susceptible to flattery, listened readily to a plot which 
 seemed to promise her that influence for which she had craved 
 and schemed so long, and so ineffectually. What effects the 
 insinuations of Dacre had produced upon her may be seen in 
 her letters. She determined to act independently, and form 
 a party for herself. To arrange a peace with England with- 
 
 » III. 3114. 2 III 2974, 3058, 3114.
 
 1523.] MARGARET'S AMBITION AS PEACE-MAKER. 54-5 
 
 out waiting for Albany's consent, to strengthen the EngKsli 
 interests in Scothind by keeping Albany in France, and 
 expelling his adherents, these were the methods by which she 
 proposed to accomplish her purpose. If peace could be 
 secured by her mediation, and Scotland be relieved of the 
 hostility of England, she might reasonably expect that the 
 Scotch, out of gratitude, would acknowledge her authority ; 
 and even if Albany, supported by foreign troops, should 
 manage to return, he would not venture to violate a peace 
 procured through her means, and sanctioned by the wishes 
 and interests of the people. If she failed in this object, she 
 proposed to take her son out of the custody of the noblemen 
 to whom he was entrusted, and escape with him over the 
 Borders. 
 
 The protracted absence of Albany seemed to favour her 
 designs. He was unable to keep his promise of landing in 
 Scotland at the day appointed. One fleet in the North, 
 another in the West, a third in the Channel, under Fitzwilliam, 
 barred the passage. Any attempt to cross was hopeless. The 
 Scotch lords, tired of waiting, had resolved that if he did not 
 arrive on the last day of August, " as," says Wolsey, " I trust 
 he shall not," they would fall from France, and make an 
 alliance with England. But Margaret had undertaken a task 
 beyond her powers. The Scotch lords refused to follow her 
 bidding ; their national spirit revolted from the rule of an 
 English sovereign. Much as they might dislike the French, 
 they were not yet prepared to sacrifice their hereditary allies 
 to their hereditary enemies. They declined to serve under 
 Margaret's banner ; ^ and even the Chancellor seems to have 
 withdrawn his support from her. August slipped away, and 
 Albany came not. Yet irresolute, wavering between their 
 hatred of England and their unwillingness to entrust the 
 sovereignty of their nation to youthful and inexperienced 
 hands, the lords met on St. Giles's Eve (August 31) in the 
 Tolbooth, as the Abbot of Kelso informed Dacre,^ "about 
 taking forth the young King, and making peace with England." 
 If the same authority is to bo trusted, James, then a boy of 
 eleven years, had written with his own hand to the Queen 
 and the lords, desiring to be set at liberty, and urging an 
 arrangement with England. His request was seconded by 
 Margaret in person, and in all probability would have been 
 granted, had not the French ambassadors assured the assembly 
 
 ' III. 3305. - III. 3325. 
 
 VOL. r. 2 N
 
 546 THE REIGN OP HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 that the Governor would be there in six days. " That," the 
 Queen rephed, insinuating a suspicion of their statement, 
 " was the tidings of the Canongate." But often as they had 
 been disappointed, and improbable as the assurance seemed, 
 the lords determined to wait. They refused to accede to 
 Margaret's wishes, resolving unanimously that if Albany failed 
 to arrive within fourteen days after Michaelmas, the Prince 
 should be left to his own disposal. 
 
 From this date Margaret's influence declined ; her case, as 
 Surrey admitted to Wolsey, was hopeless.^ Even the dread 
 of Enghsh invasion wrought no change in the decision of the 
 Scotch lords. They had seen the worst. These continual 
 and destructive inroads produced no other effect than, as the 
 Lacedaemonian King told his countrymen more than two 
 thousand years ago, such sufferings ever do produce — callous- 
 ness and indifference. When cruelty has done its worst, it 
 defeats itself, and dies of its own sting. Nor, if it had been 
 otherwise, were the afflictions of the common people, as 
 Margaret admitted to Surrey, likely to influence the conduct 
 of the Lords. They, in her emphatic language, laughed at 
 injuries which only tended to alienate the hearts of those who 
 were best affected to England, without terrifying the Lords, 
 who escaped unharmed.^ 
 
 A letter was produced from Albany, in the same parlia- 
 ment, in which Margaret had failed to obtain possession of 
 her son, excusing his delay, and desiring that the King should 
 be detained at Stirling as usual. ^ He attributed his own long 
 absence to a secret design he had set on foot for the welfare 
 of Scotland, but had not yet been able to bring to maturity ; 
 that done, his brother Eichard de la Pole, as Albany called 
 him, tarried only till he knocked at the door, to come forth 
 with an army and invade England. As a further encourage- 
 ment to the lords, it was given out by the Duke's adherents 
 that he had already embarked at some port in Picardy, 
 attended with 200 horse, and 10,000 foot. If this were not 
 an empty boast, and it is scarcely reasonable to suppose that 
 it was wholly the offspring of Albany's vanity, it was evidently 
 the intention of Francis to distract the King of England's 
 attention by attacking him simultaneously in opposite quarters. 
 Whilst Albany invaded the northern provinces with a powerful 
 army, De la Pole was to effect a landing in the West. " I 
 think," says Sir Eobert Wingfield, to whom we are indebted 
 
 ' III. 3349. - III. 3311. ' III. 3315.
 
 1523.] ALBANY'S RETURN TO SCOTLAND. 517 
 
 for this information,^ "that France shall have tow enough on 
 the rock, though they seek not for more work and cost in 
 Scotland or Itah'." It might have been thought that the 
 treason of Bourbon would have compelled Francis to contract 
 his aims, and XDrovide for his own safety and that of his 
 subjects, without courting fresh adventures in a distant quarter. 
 And nothing shows more clearly the resources and elasticity 
 of France, and the indomitable spirit of its ruler than that, 
 threatened as he was by a general combination of all the 
 continental powers, he still fearlessly held up his head, and 
 bade defiance to all his enemies. 
 
 With the Duke of Bourbon " in his bosom," to use Wolsey's 
 expressive words, pressed on all sides, by the Emperor in the 
 South, by Suffolk and de Buren in the West, by the German 
 troojis under Count Felix in the East, reverses attending his 
 arms in Italy, a victorious army advancing without opposition 
 on his capital, and ready to thunder at its gates, Francis yet 
 retained spirit and resolution enough to spare some thoughts 
 for his ancient ally. Before the 25th of September Albany 
 had landed in Scotland : he had contrived, a second time, to 
 run the gauntlet of the English fleet without attracting obser- 
 vation, and effected his disembarkation m Scotland at a time 
 and place equally unknown to friends and enemies.^ The 
 lords at once flocked to his standard ; whatever promises they 
 had held out to Margaret, to Dacre, or to Surrey were now ' 
 given to the winds. No other proof is needed of the great 
 influence exercised by Albany. " The Lords are in such fear 
 of the Duke, looking every hour for him to arrive," writes 
 Surrey to Wolsey, " that and they had laid four of the best of 
 their sons in hostage to forsake him, yet if he came they 
 would break their covenant." The evidence of that influence 
 cannot be questioned, whatever may be thought of the motive 
 thus assigned for it.''^ 
 
 Surrey had now been lying on the Borders for six months, 
 and, with the exception of a furious assault upon Jedburgh, ; 
 
 and the forays already mentioned, nothing of moment had 
 yet been accomplished towards the subjugation of Scotland, ' 
 
 or its emancipation from the influence of Albany. The Earl's 
 forces, superior in numbers to the Scotch, were augmented by 
 the retinues of the Dacres, the Constables, the Cliffords, and 
 all the Border lords. He was well provided with a fleet, i 
 
 ' JIL 2798, 280!). the last occaHion. Seo fIL 3;{(;0. 
 
 ^ Trobaljly at Dumljarton, as ou •* 111. 3351. Soo al«o JS'o. 3361. ^
 
 548 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VKI. [A.D. 
 
 artilleiy, large sums of money, and munitions of war. At 
 Edinburgh Margaret was doing her best to furnish him with 
 intelHgence, and raise a party in his favour. She had 
 impressed upon him, more than once, the uselessness of these 
 Border wars, and the necessity of advancing and striking a 
 blow at Edinburgh itself. She might not have been a very 
 competent judge of military operations, yet, when she told 
 Surrey that a thousand men with artillery would place the 
 capital at his mercy, "if they came suddenly," it is not 
 improbable that, had Surrey followed her advice, and, instead 
 of wasting time and men in petty raids upon the borders, had 
 rapidly concentrated his forces for one great and effective 
 blow, he might have done more towards humbling Albany's 
 party than by all his attacks on isolated forts and undefended 
 villages. What, then, was his reason for hanging back ? 
 Was it, as he stated to Wolsey, that he had not sufficient 
 carriage for victuals even for a single day ? Was it that his 
 forces, when united with Dacre's, would not amount, as he 
 said, to more than 9,000 men, good and bad, and were there- 
 fore insufficient for such an enterprise ? Or did he fear that 
 whilst he was thus engaged at a distance, " leaving the country 
 ungarnished of men," the Scotch would take advantage of his 
 absence, and troop over the Border like hungry wolves, carry- 
 ing death and devastation before them ? It may be that all 
 these considerations contributed to prevent the Earl, though 
 a man of undoubted courage, from attempting the daring feat 
 of a descent upon Edinburgh, even under the most favourable 
 circumstances. But it is also clear that he stood somewhat 
 in awe of the obstinate courage and passionate resistance of 
 the Scots. Even when their houses were unroofed, their 
 strongholds thrown down, their cattle driven off, their crops 
 burnt before arriving at maturity, they contested every inch 
 of ground, with incredible valour, against overwhelming 
 numbers. Famine, plague, unutterable want and waste stared 
 them everywhere in the face ; yet their indomitable spirit 
 could neither be quenched nor subdued. Crescit sub pondere 
 virtus ; and these terrible Border wars, which have left the 
 stamp of their iron hoof on the face of the country ever since, 
 served to bring out that pertinacity of purpose, that inflexible 
 perseverance, that unswerving resolution in the Scot, which 
 have taught him to fear no evil, to be cool and intrepid in the 
 wildest storm, and patient under the most cruel suffering. 
 " I assure your Grace," says Surrey to Wolsey, describing an
 
 1523.] JEALOUSIES OF BOEDER CHIEFS. 549 
 
 attack upon Ferniehirst, " I found the Scots at this time the 
 boldest men and the hottest that ever I saw in any nation," 
 It would be hard, he adds, to encounter them, if they could 
 muster 40,000 as good men as the 1,500 or 2,000 who at that 
 time kept himself and Dacre at bay.^ 
 
 At the same time it must be remembered that Surrey had 
 other difficulties to contend with, as is clear from his various 
 letters, in the insubordination and mutual jealousies of the 
 Border lords. They were divided into various factions, the 
 Constables, the EUerkers, the Tempests, the Savilles, and the 
 Gowers ; all of them mortal enemies to Scotland, and not less 
 mortal enemies to each other ; and all of them — to a man — read}" 
 to settle theu' quarrels with the sword at any moment, whenever 
 they might chance to meet.^ Their ill blood, heated and 
 thickened by generations of animosity, was kept at boiling pitch 
 by the bickerings, the thefts, the disorders and mutual disputes 
 of their several dependants. Every man and boy, from page to 
 henchman, was animated by the spii'it of clanship, and with 
 the name inherited the feuds of his chief. On high days or 
 working days, at church or in the market, at home or on an 
 expedition, their passions broke out for the merest trifle, for 
 the most imaginary wrong, and set men together by the ears, 
 circle extending upon circle, like a weird eddy of autumnal 
 leaves — as wild, as' uncertain, and as purposeless. Any 
 attempt to extinguish the fii'e was hopeless. The contagion 
 was universal, and therefore it found no punishment : it was 
 native to the blood, and therefore it defied all remedy.^ 
 
 Nor can it be supposed that Dacre, whose authority on the 
 Borders had been paramount for many years before Surrey's 
 arrival, would see himself superseded and his authority con- 
 trolled, even by a nobleman, great as was the Earl, without 
 occasional outbursts of jealousy and discontent. More than 
 once, though willing to do justice to Dacre's spirit, activity, 
 and hardihood, Surrey has to lament that Dacre takes bis own 
 course, and endangers the common cause by his wilful and 
 headstrong disobedience. While Dacre who had greater 
 experience of the Borders, had from bo3^hood upwards, been 
 engaged with the Scots, reasonably imagined that his opinions 
 
 • III. 3361. brought up for trial; but no one 
 
 2 III. 3210. could be persuaded to give evidence 
 
 ^ When Surrey was at Newcastle, against them, because there were few 
 
 four arrant thieves who had escaped gentlemen in Northumberland who 
 
 from Alnwick, and eight from New- bad not thieves among their rutiuue. 
 
 castle, with eleven others, were III. 3240.
 
 550 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 were better founded than those of Surrey, a comparative 
 stranger ; and he was not always prepared to sacrifice his con- 
 victions to the demands of discipline. On one occasion he 
 went so far as to refuse to join his forces with the Earl's, 
 except he might be allowed to take his own road — though the 
 shortest — through the wildest part of Scotland.^ On another, 
 when engaged with the Earl upon a foray, he refused at night- 
 fall to lodge his troops within the Earl's camp, and whilst 
 Surrey was at supper the horses broke loose, created a panic 
 in the camp, and 800 out of 1,500 were lost by his pertinacity. 
 " There is no hardier or better knight," says Surrey, recount- 
 ing this misadventure to Wolsey, "but often he neglects order; " 
 — a remark which might have been applied with equal truth 
 to almost every gentleman and nobleman on the Borders.^ 
 
 On Albany's arrival, it was his first object to undo the 
 effects of English policy in Scotland. It had been the chief 
 aim of that policy to form an English party, with Margaret at 
 its head. Albany found no great difliculty in detaching the 
 Queen once more from the side she had so lately espoused. 
 The prioress of Coldstream, her confidant, conveys the im- 
 portant intelligence to Sir William Bulmer, that the Queen is 
 very fickle ; "therefore counsel the man ye know (Surrey) not 
 to take on hand over much of her credence." The Governor, 
 she assures him, had sent her fair words, and she was become 
 half a Frenchwoman already.^ Margaret wavered between 
 her brother and Albany ; had she received encouragement, she 
 would have preferred to have thrown in her lot with the 
 former ; but, strange to say, Henry did not meet her advances. 
 Perhaps he had grown wea,Tj of her society when she was last 
 in England, a few years before, and did not desire to have it 
 renewed. He disliked the expense it entailed upon him ; — 
 that, perhaps, and that only. " Under the King's high cor- 
 rection, and your Grace's," writes Surrey to Wolsey, with the 
 business habits of an Englishman, " methink it were as profit- 
 able, and more good should come thereof, to have her remain 
 in Scotland than to come into England . . . And where three 
 or four hundred pounds in a year should please her well being 
 there (in Scotland), peradventure 1,000 marks or 2,000 should 
 scarcely do so being here." ^ With an impetuous candour, she 
 had offered to start away into England, " in her smock, if need 
 be ; " but her liberal proposal was not as eagerly accepted as 
 it was freely made ; and she had doubts, as well she might 
 
 ' III. 3349. ^ III. 3364. ^ ixi. 3404. ^ III. 3381.
 
 1523.] MARGARET "WAVERS. 551 
 
 have, how she stood in Hem-y's favour. With the insinuating 
 address of a Stuart, Albany had not failed to steal upon her 
 good graces. Next to making numerous promises, b}'^ which 
 he never failed of flattering her vanity, he took the surest way 
 of securing a place in her affections by rendering himself 
 acceptable to the 3'oung prince. He permitted him to ride 
 about Stirling at his pleasure, according to the information of 
 an unknown correspondent ; presented him with two gowns 
 of cloth of gold and cloth of silver, begging him to be blithe 
 and merry, as he was prepared to lay down his life in his 
 service.-^ His attentions were not lost upon Margaret. On 
 Sunday, saj-s the same cynical correspondent, the Governor 
 came to the town with three hundred men, and tarried with 
 the Queen a quarter of an hour, "and she made evil cheer 
 (aj)peared sorrowful) after his departing ; but I trust in God 
 that she shall take no displeasure (hurt) ; for this Monday sin 
 nine hours she has been singing and dancing, and the French- 
 men with her."^ 
 
 ■ Such levity appeared scandalous in a sister of the King of 
 England, still more in one who but a short time before had 
 signaHzed her animosity against the Duke by employing every 
 effort to keep him out of Scotland. With Margaret it was the 
 mere dictate of policy. Placed between two great contending 
 factions, without authority or interest with either, she resolved 
 to use both to her own advantage, and join with those whom 
 she found most willing to advance her purposes. In a letter 
 to her confidant, Patrick Sinclair, sent by her secretly to 
 Surrey, she discloses the real motives of her conduct. She 
 was resolved to know definitely the intentions of both parties 
 towards her before she determined on her course. The 
 Governor, she says, makes her the fairest promises, and 
 Henry's silence is ominous ; still she would rather trust the 
 King; " for the Governor," she adds, " can say one thing, and 
 think another. But all ladies get fair words now while (until) 
 this hosting be done ; but after that I hear say that he will be 
 right sharp, by them that know his mind ; and I dread I shall 
 have my part."^ 
 
 The season was rapidly advancing ; it was necessary for 
 Albany, if he wished to redeem his credit, to bestir himself at 
 once, and make some warlike demonstration against England. 
 According to the information furnished by Margaret to Surrey, •* 
 the French troops attending on the Duke numbered 0,000 
 
 ' III. 342G. 2 in. 34..J.1.. 3 iii^i^ * Iir. 33G8.
 
 5.32 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 foot ; "and I hear say," she adds, " shall be put in the van- 
 guard, because he giveth not great trust to the Scotchmen." 
 Three thousand Almains, whose mode of fighting was novel, 
 and therefore terrible to raw English troops, were expected 
 daily. The Duke's munitions of war were more formidable 
 than had ever been seen in Scotland. Pie had twenty-eight 
 cannons, and four double cannons, the largest that had yet 
 been employed in a siege. " Also," continues Margaret, "he 
 hath great pavasys (shields ? ) ganging upon wheels with the 
 artillery, to shoot and to break the hosts asunder ; and of 
 these he hath many ; and every een of them hath twa sharp 
 swords before them, that none may touch them ; " besides 
 smaller artillery and ample ammunition, and twelve ships 
 with victuals and wine. According to the information of 
 another correspondent, Lord Ogle,^ Albany brought with him 
 to Dumbarton 87 ships, 100 barded horses, 500 light horse, 
 4,000 foot, 500 men-at-arms, 1,000 hagbusshis (musqueteers) , 
 900 serpentines and falcons, 16 great guns, and gunpowder to 
 the value of 10,000 crowns weight. Proclamations were dis- 
 persed by the Duke throughout Scotland, commanding all 
 temporal men between the ages of sixty and sixteen to meet 
 on the 20th of October with thirty days' victual, at the follow- 
 ing rendezvous ; Lothian, Teviotdale, and the parts adjoining 
 under Arran at Lawder ; Kyle, Cunningham,' and Carrick, at 
 Lanark, under Lennox ; the Highlandmen, under Argyle, at 
 Glasgow ; the Northern men at Stirling, under Huntley. 
 
 An army so imposing had never appeared before upon the 
 Borders. Even Surrey, not used to fear, was full of appre- 
 hension. The Duke was expected to march towards England 
 on the next new moon after the 8th of October. The weather 
 had been foul, with rain and snow ; the roads were scarcely 
 passable for great ordnance, except in the direction of Berwick ; 
 but Surrey was too well acquainted with the proud and im- 
 petuous spirit of the Duke, to suppose that he would be 
 diverted from his purpose by such feeble obstacles as these. 
 "By many ways I am advertised," he says in a letter to 
 Wolsey, " that the duke of Albany is a marvellous wilful man, 
 and will believe no man's counsel, but will have his own 
 opinion followed ; and because the French king hath been at 
 so great charges, having his wife's inheritance lying within 
 his dominions, dare not, for no Scottish counsel, forbear to 
 invade this realm. I am also advertised that he is so 
 
 • III. 3403. Compare N 3360, 3362, 3404
 
 1523.] ALARM OF SURREY. 553 
 
 passionate, that and be be apart amongst bis famibars, and 
 doth bear anything contrarious to bis mind and pleasure, bis 
 accustomed manner is to take bis bonnet suddenl}^ off bis bead, 
 and to throw it in the fire, and no man dare take it out, but 
 let it to be brent. My lord Dacre doth affirm, that at bis last 
 beins: in Scotland he did burn above a dozen bonnets after 
 that manner. And if be be such a man, we shall speed the 
 better with him." 
 
 But though Surrey thus expressed bis hopes of victory, be 
 was not wholly satisfied with the means at his disposal for 
 resisting the invasion. No account has been preserved of the 
 forces under bis command, but they could not be, in point of 
 number or of discipline, equal to those of his opponent. The 
 French reinforcements of Albany gave him no trouble; he 
 shared that feeling of contempt with which they were regarded 
 by most Engbsbmen of his time. But the 3,000 Almains were 
 a more formidable force, and the enterprise was proportionably 
 dangerous. 
 
 In these perplexities, the Earl wrote to Wolsey in a tone 
 of remonstrance, not less unusual with him than strange as 
 it must appear to modern readers, accustomed to form an 
 exaggerated estimate of the Cardinal's haughty demeanour, 
 and his master's impatience of reproof. He requests Wolsey 
 that " some noblemen and gentlemen of the King's bouse, of 
 the south parts, may be sent hither, though they bring no 
 great numbers with them. God knowetb," be adds, "if the 
 poorest gentleman of the King's bouse were here, and I at 
 London, and were advertised of these news, I would not fail 
 to kneel upon my knees before the King's grace, to have 
 licence to come hither in post, to be at the day of battle. And 
 if young noblemen and gentlemen be not desirous and willing 
 to be at such journeys, and to take the pain and give the 
 adventure, and the King's highness ivell contented with those 
 that will so do, and not regarding others that ivill he hut {except 
 they he^ dancers, dicers, and carders, his Grace shall not he tvell 
 served when he icoidd he. For men rvithout exjjcrience shall do 
 small service, and experience of tvar ivill not he had ivithout it he 
 sought for, and the adventure given.'' ^ 
 
 Wolsey treated the Earl's apprehensions with coldness, if 
 not with contempt. His reply is no less indicative of his 
 wonderful sagacity, bis keen insight into Albany's character, 
 than it is calculated to inspire the Earl with confidence, and 
 
 •III. 3105.
 
 554 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIH. [A.D. 
 
 sting him to exertion. He told Surrey that he had been 
 needlessly alarmed by the flying reports of the Duke's numbers 
 and ordnance ; that it was impossible for him to assemble his 
 forces in the time specified, and transport his ammunition 
 across the moors in such rainy and tempestuous weather. He 
 demonstrated to Surrey — and he spoke from his own experience 
 of similar cases in England — that it was not possible for the 
 Duke to collect victuals in Scotland for thirty days, within two 
 or three months' time at the least. " Besides," added the 
 Cardinal, "it is not unknown that king James, whom your 
 father and you slew, was a man of great courage, well beloved 
 and in great estimation amongst his subjects ; and yet was it 
 not little difficult for him to bring the Scots, the King's grace 
 being then out of the realm, and the king of Scots having 
 great treasure, victual, harness, ordnance, and provision made 
 of a long season before in the best and most convenable time 
 of the year, to condescend unto the invasion of England; 
 wherein what fortune and success they had may percase be a 
 remembrance and example to those which at a more unmeet 
 time would think to attempt the same." He concluded his 
 letter by assuring the Earl that the King would send him for 
 his comfort the Lord Marquis (Dorset), Sir Nicholas Carew, 
 Sir Francis Brian, Baynton, and others, who had the reputa- 
 tion of being the King's favourites, and were the southern 
 lords to whom Surrey had somewhat contemptuously alluded 
 in his letter.-^ 
 
 With the sagacity of true genius, the Cardinal had already 
 directed the Earl what tactics he was to adopt. ^ Aware of the 
 difficulty experienced by the Scots in procuring provisions, 
 Wolsey advised him to stand on the defensive, and not hazard 
 a battle except at manifest advantage. He was to keep the 
 Duke in check, and prevent him from forcing an engagement 
 by encamping not far from the places which the Duke meant 
 to attack. The advanced season of the year, the impossibility 
 of obtaining supplies upon the Borders, assiduously devastated 
 by Dacre and the Earl during the last nine months, would 
 ruin the Duke's enterprise, and delay was more fatal to him 
 than battle. In venturing his troops against a series of strong 
 forts, any one of which could easily stand a siege of some 
 weeks, Albany had nothing to gain but barren honour ; whilst 
 the Scots, ill supplied, exposed to the inclemency of the 
 weather, and by no means inclined to treat the French and 
 
 1 III. 3421. 2 jij_ 3379_
 
 1523.] WOLSEY'S sagacious ADVICE. 555 
 
 foreign aids of Albany with favour, would soon grow tired of a 
 war from which they derived neither glory nor advantage. If 
 the Earl conducted the "war like Fabius," and amused or 
 wearied the Scots until their provisions were exhausted, be 
 might then pursue them in theii- retreat, disappointed, hungry, 
 discontented with their officers, and a prey to the angry 
 elements. 
 
 These suggestions require no comment. The good sense of 
 them is admirable ; the thorough mastery they display of a 
 subject, to which the Cardinal by education and profession 
 could have given little attention, is an indication of genius 
 equally at home in the most apposite and heterogeneous 
 subjects. Though a proud and imperious man like Surrey 
 might fret under his chains, he could not but feel that be was 
 in the hands of a master ; not one, as Shakespeare describes 
 him (though he puts that speech into the mouth of a waiting- 
 woman, judging kindly but not profoundly), not one that was 
 merely " lofty and sour to them who loved him not," but 
 whose loftiness was endurable for the superiority of his in- 
 tellect. To that superiority even a proud man like Surrey 
 bowed, as all men did ; and in Wolsey's intercourse with the 
 Earl, his authoritative reproof (if so it must be called) of 
 Surrey's impatience was mingled with a frank admission of his 
 own and his father's military excellence ; a bitter-sweet, which 
 exacted fi'om the Earl respect to the opinions of the great 
 minister, who in temper was as lofty as himself, and far 
 above him in all the gifts of genius. 
 
 Whilst Albany had appointed October 20, and Eosley 
 (Roslin ?) More, two miles from Edinburgh, as the rendezvous 
 for such of the troops as were expected from the North, those 
 of the West were to meet at Biggar. The men of Nithsdale, 
 Galloway, and the parts adjoining were to assemble at Moffat ; 
 those of Teviotdale and the March, at Lauder.^ All were to 
 be in their places by the 30th of October. At this time Surrey 
 was at Newcastle, uncertain of the way the Duke would be 
 likely to take ; whether towards Berwick or Carlisle, Avhere 
 Dacre was posted. If he advanced upon Carlisle, fifteen 
 ships-of-war had been provided, to sail to Leith, and burn 
 Edinburgh and Haddington : such, at least, was the report 
 assiduously circulated in the hope that Albany might be 
 deterred from taking the western route, and turn his attention 
 to the East Borders, where Surrey was better prepared to 
 
 ' III. 3409.
 
 556 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIIL [A.D. 
 
 meet liim. The Duke, owing to the' difficulties he experienced 
 in collecting his forces, and in transporting his artillery, 
 advanced by slow marches, unlike a man who feels confident 
 of victory. But he had many difficulties to contend with : the 
 roads were impassable from the incessant rains, the season was 
 far advanced, the Scotch lords hung back, alleging the im- 
 possibility of bringing on their retainers. Neither Huntley 
 nor Lennox was hearty in the cause.-^ On Thursday, the 
 22nd of October,^ the Duke started from Edinburgh. He took 
 the road leading to Lauder, leaving his enemies uncertain of 
 his ultimate destination. It was his own wish to have 
 marched towards Carlisle ; but his better judgment was over- 
 ruled by the Scotch lords, who advised him, in consequence 
 of the weather, to invest Wark and Norham, Despatching 
 Lord Maxwell to the west with 5,000 men,^ he himself turned 
 in the direction of Berwick. 
 
 Before leaving Edinburgh, the Duke had addressed the 
 lords in words calculated to rouse their national spirit, had 
 it not been sufficiently roused already by the injuries they had 
 suffered during the last nine months. After dwelling upon 
 the cost and personal sacrifices he had encountered in order 
 to rescue them from the power of the invader, and secure the 
 independence of Scotland, he desired them to remember the 
 fate of their late liing, and the deaths of their fathers and 
 nobles at Flodden. Their borders had been wasted, their 
 people killed, their kirks and their castles demolished and 
 burnt. And who, he exclaimed, have been the authors of all 
 these evils ? Who but an Earl of England and his father. 
 Could they not, he asked, find it in their hearts to draw the 
 sword for Scotland, and meet that man in battle who had 
 done them this displeasure ? The Scotch lords were men of 
 rugged mould, not used to melting ; but this appeal touched 
 the tenderest fibres. In the tumult of their conflicting 
 emotions, and their passionate energy for revenge, Albany 
 was for a moment transfigured into an angel of deliverance. 
 "They kneeled of their knees," says an eyewitness, "and 
 swore that they would do any thing that he would command 
 them." ^ 
 
 Two days had elapsed since 'the Duke started from Edin- 
 burgh, and he had not yet been able to concentrate his powers. 
 The army marched in three distinct divisions. The Westland 
 
 » III. 3438, 3451. ^ III. 3451, 3459. 
 
 « III. 3456. * III. 3441.
 
 1523.] ALBANY'S ATTACK ON WARK CASTLE. 557 
 
 lords di-ew towards Musselburgh ; the French were at Lauder ; 
 the Northern lords, at Lauderdale. On the 24th, evidently 
 with only one division of his army, Albany advanced to 
 Melrose and Driburgh. Here several days were wasted before 
 his musters and ammunition could arrive.^ Buchanan, who 
 is stated by Pinkerton ^ to have been present, and whose in- 
 formation for this portion of his history was evidently derived 
 from trustworthy sources, affirms that the Duke threw a 
 wooden bridge across the river at this point, and crossed with 
 his host into the English borders, but was compelled to recross 
 the river, as the Scotch refused to follow him. Buchanan 
 seems to have thought that no other means existed for crossing 
 at Meh'ose; yet Dacre speaks of "Melrose Brig," over which 
 the Duke passed, as a well-known structure,^ and omits all 
 notice of this defection of the Scots. 
 
 Surrey by this time had advanced to Alnwick, followed by 
 the Earls of Westmoreland and Northumberland. The Lord 
 Marquis was posted at Berwick with six or seven thousand 
 men ; Darcy, at Bamburgh ; Dacre, at Carlisle or Naworth. 
 KeejDing north of the Tweed, Albany directed his steps towards 
 Kelso. On the 28th he was at Eccles ; the next day, at Home 
 Castle. Here five or six of his great guns were disabled by 
 the fracture of their axletrees. On the 1st of November he 
 laid siege to Wark Castle. 
 
 As soon as the intentions of the Duke had become clearly 
 known to Surrey, he concentrated his power. Whilst Dacre 
 marched with all his disposable forces to Ford, the Earl 
 advanced to Holy Island.^ It is not easy to ascertain the 
 precise numbers on either side. Wark Castle consisted of a 
 dungeon surrounded with double walls. As in most of the 
 Border fortresses, the area between the walls was of great 
 extent ; it served as a place of security for the inhabitants of 
 the surrounding district, and sheltered them, their cattle, and 
 their corn from those sudden and devastating incursions to 
 which they were incessantly exposed. It was defended at this 
 time by Sir WiUiam Lisle and 100 men. Surrey, in a fit of 
 impatience, represents it as untenable, wishes it were drowned 
 in the sea, for no garrison would stay in it.^ Like similar 
 forts on the Borders, it was strong enough to resist any 
 
 » IIL 3477. IIL 3177. 
 
 * Hist, of Scot., ii. 228. Surrey » jji^ 3473. 
 
 states that mauy of his host came •* III. 3499. 
 
 over the Tweed, but he was afraid ' IIL 3506. 
 that Albany would not enter England.
 
 558 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 sudden attack of moss troopers, but not to stand a regular 
 siege ; like others also, its defences had been neglected, and 
 the expense of keeping them in repair was more than the 
 fortress was worth. 
 
 The castle stood on the south of the Tweed. Albany- 
 planted his artillery on the north bank of the river. After 
 battering the walls throughout Sunday and Monday, the 1st 
 and 2nd daj^s of November, he sent, at three o'clock of the 
 afternoon of the 2nd, 1,000 Frenchmen ^ across in boats to 
 carry the place by assault. The besiegers gained the outer 
 court, but were kept at bay by the garrison for an hour and a 
 half. Inch by inch these resolute defenders were forced back 
 into the inner ward. But here numbers proved of little 
 advantage. The French, repulsed in a vigorous sally, were 
 compelled to recross the river with the loss of ten men. We 
 know so little of the real state of Albany's army, or the diffi- 
 culties which he had to encounter, that it is impossible to form 
 a fair judgment of his conduct on this occasion, or divine the 
 reasons why he failed to support the assault. His precipitate 
 retreat, which looks dastardly at least, is still more un- 
 accountable. According to Surrey's statement, the Duke was 
 terrified on hearing of his advance to the support of Wark, 
 which could not have held out many hours longer. But 
 Surrey admits that he himself experienced the greatest 
 difficulty in keeping his own army together. It was the 
 foulest and coldest weather he had ever seen. Scarcity of 
 food, long exposure to the cold, the horrors of winter, had so 
 wearied his men, according to his own statement, that it would 
 have been hard for him to have prevented their dispersion. 
 If it were so with the English, well supplied and supported as 
 they were, and close to their own borders, the difficulty must 
 have been far greater with the Scots, who possessed none of 
 these advantages. Surrey either overlooks these facts, or had 
 no interest in remembering them. And so, though he writes 
 in somewhat boastful terms that Albany had fled like a coward 
 when he " came to present him battle," it is a question whether 
 the Earl was not more indebted to the excessive severity of the 
 weather for his victory, than to his own courage and skill. 
 As a matter of course, he received the King's thanks for his 
 " great travail, labour, study, pain, and dihgence. . . . with 
 
 ' Surrey to Henry AHII. ; III. the stateinent, and says "above ], 000 
 3506. He says 2,000 ; but in a subse- Frenchmen and 500 Scots.' 
 qaent letter (No. 3512) he qualifies
 
 1523.] ALBANY RETIRES. 559 
 
 all effect, right activelj^ valiantly, and with perfect courage, 
 discretion, and good conduct taken and used, by many sub- 
 stantial, discreet, and politic ways for resistance of the said 
 duke of Albany," ^ But what Wolsey thought in the inner- 
 most core of his heart may be gathered from his notes on one 
 of the Earl's dispatches. The result was no more than he 
 had anticijDated. He had warned Surrey that the Duke would 
 never enter England ; that the invasion had been more in 
 show than reality ; that Albany's aim was to tire out his 
 oj^ponents, and seize his advantage when the English troops 
 were disbanded. Wolsey's calculations proved correct,^ and 
 he did not easily forgive the Earl for the enormous expense to 
 which the country had been subjected by superfluous levies. 
 He thought that both men and money might have been spared 
 by the exercise of more care and foresight. 
 
 But whatever might be the motive or the cause of Albany's 
 retreat, it wore the aspect of a most ignominious flight. He 
 had decamped from the abbey of Eccles on Tuesday at mid- 
 night. If we may believe an anecdote preserved in a letter of 
 Surrey to Wolse}^, as the Duke was mounting his horse pre- 
 paratory to his departure, the gentlemen of Teviotdale 
 remonstrated with him on his dastardly conduct. " My lord 
 governor," they exclaimed, "ye have remained in our Borders 
 a long season, so that all that the earl of Surrey hath left un- 
 destroyed, ye and your company have clearly wasted (this 
 was scarcely true), and by the said Earl our Border is for 
 ever undone ; and ye promised us to give him battle, whereby 
 we might recover us. . . . AVherefore we beseech you to abide 
 and give him battle as ye have promised." The Duke replied 
 angrily, " I will give him no battle, for I have no convenient 
 company so to do ; " and immediately galloped off. Hearing 
 these words the said gentlemen, being evil contented, exclaimed 
 with one voice, " By God's blood we will never serve you more, 
 nor never will wear your badges again; " and, tearing them 
 off their breasts, they threw them on the ground, saying, 
 " Would to God we were all sworn English ; " and so departed 
 from the Duke in great anger.'^ 
 
 Perhaps Surrey was not far wrong in his surmise that 
 Albany's estimation in Scotland had sunk for ever. And yet 
 even on that point we must reserve our judgment. It is 
 certain that his retreat did not produce in Edinburgh the 
 profound impression that might have been expected. Margaret, 
 
 ' III. 3531. 2 111.3477. ' III. 3512.
 
 560 THE EEIGN OF HENRY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 indeed, calls it an " unhonest journey," and states that she 
 had not seen the Duke since his return ; but it is clear she 
 had not gained but rather lost influence,^ and that the Scotch 
 lords remained as firmly attached to Albany as before. The 
 Duke, seeing his total inability to bring matters into a better 
 condition, resolved to turn his back upon Scotland for ever, 
 and desired leave of the lords to depart. They earnestly 
 endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose ; offered him 
 the profits of all spiritual benefices in Scotland, with then- 
 goods and services to be at his disposal. Such proofs of their 
 regard, coming from such a quarter, must be regarded as 
 above suspicion, and tend much to qualify the unfavourable 
 impressions of Albany's incapacity and cowardice. Except 
 his belief that Arran, Lennox, and others, would not have 
 followed him into England, but have betrayed him to his 
 enemies, Albany volunteered no explanation of his conduct — • 
 at least, this is Margaret's statement— and yet we find on the 
 same authority that Arran as well as Argyle, contrary to her 
 expectations, had gone over to the Duke on his return to 
 Edinburgh, and were among the number of those who were 
 most anxious to detain him.^ 
 
 This flight of the doughty Duke of Albany furnished the 
 contemporary English satirist with a subject for one of his 
 most popular poems, and afforded him an opportunity of 
 glorifying his patron, the Earl of Surrey. Skelton's verses 
 are of no value, except as expressing the sort of feeling with 
 which Englishmen in general hailed the ignominious defeat 
 of one who had been so long identified with the enemies of 
 their country. When the hearts of the two nations, in their 
 long and obstinate struggle, had been filled with inconceivable 
 bitterness and mutual animosity, such lines as the following, 
 repeated in every nook of every shire in England, served well 
 enough to foment and represent their national antipathies. 
 
 " Rejoice, England, 
 And understand 
 These tidings new, 
 WHiich be as true 
 As the Gospel. 
 This duke so fell 
 Of Albany, 
 So cowardly, 
 AVith all his host 
 Of the Scottish coast, 
 
 ^ See III. 3643. 
 
 * TIT. 36i3. And this is admitted by Surrey j No. 3576.
 
 1523.] POPULAE CONTEMPT OF THE SCOTS. 561 
 
 For all their boast, 
 Fled like a beast. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Dunbar, Dundee, 
 Ye shall trow me. 
 False Scots are ye : 
 Your hearts sore fainted, 
 And sore attainted. 
 Like cowards stark, 
 At the castle of Wark, 
 By the water of Tweed, 
 Ye had evil speed. 
 Like cankered curs. 
 Ye lost your spurs. 
 For in that fray 
 Ye ran away, 
 With hey dog, hey ! 
 For Sir WilUam Lysle 
 Within short while, 
 That valiant knight ! 
 Put you to flight, 
 With his valiaunce. 
 Two thousand of France 
 Then he put back, 
 To your great lack, 
 And utter shame 
 Of your Scottish name. 
 
 Your chief cliieftain, 
 Void of all brain, 
 Duke of Albany, 
 Then shamefully 
 He reculed back 
 To his great lack ; 
 When he heard tell, 
 That my lord Amrell ^ 
 Was coming down 
 To make him froAvn. 
 
 * * * 
 
 Like a coward knight, 
 
 He fled and durst not fight ; 
 
 He ran away by night. " 
 
 In this multitudinous jingle the poem runs on ; incor- 
 porating in its doggrel all the popular prejudices against 
 Albany and the Scots, which the statesmen of the time, 
 though fully aware of their falsehood, never scrupled to employ 
 in a more serious style whenever it suited their purposes. In 
 fact, Skelton's verses are no more than the popular refrain of 
 arguments gravely set forth in royal speeches and ministerial 
 manifestoes, whenever Scotland or the Duke of Albany formed 
 the subject of remonstrance. Here is to be found the calumny, 
 so industriously repeated by Dacre and Surrey, that the 
 
 ' Surrey, Lord Uigh Admiral. 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 562 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. [AD. 
 
 patriotism of the Duke was only a cloak for his OM'n ambition. 
 Thus, addressing Albany, Skelton says : — 
 
 " Ye lire tend 
 For to defend 
 The young Scottisli king ; 
 But ye mean a thing, 
 An' ye could bring 
 The matter about, 
 To jiut his eyes out,^ 
 And put him down, 
 And set his crown 
 On your own head, 
 When he were dead. " 
 
 Here, also, is that ancient English taunt of the falsehood, 
 the pride, and the poverty of the Scotch ; their unnatural 
 alliance with France ; their malicious support of an exiled 
 pretender to the throne of England. Here, too, is the old 
 boast that they should one day be driven from their country. 
 For, says Skelton, in this more of a poet than a prophet — 
 
 " I rede you look about, 
 For ye shall be driven out 
 Of your own land in short space. 
 We will so follow in the chace 
 That ye shall have no grace 
 For to turn your face." 
 
 Such wars as these could not fail of producing deep and 
 permanent effects. But, disastrous as they were at the time, 
 they were not wholly without their advantage to both people. 
 They tended to consolidate England more thoroughly, and to 
 bring out the energies of the Scots. The Northern provinces, 
 too frequently inclined to forget their allegiance and fly off from 
 the Southern, were hurled back from the rocky barriers of 
 Scotland, where every foot of land was bristling with rugged 
 and determined foes, and compelled to make common cause 
 with their southern countrymen. The result would have 
 been far otherwise had Scotland been peopled by a tamer 
 race, or one less jealous of its independence ; whilst, for this 
 country generally, the incessant activity of the Scotch, their 
 close alliance with France, their readiness to take advantage 
 of every incautious or disloyal movement in England, drew 
 Enghshmen closer round their national sovereign ; in Skelton's 
 doggrel— 
 
 ' Alluding, probably, to the treatment of Prince Arthur by his unnatural 
 uncle.
 
 1523.] EFFECT OF THE BOEDER WARS. 563 
 
 "At all hours to be ready 
 With liim to Uve and die. " 
 
 And this was an advantage which, derived by the Tudors 
 from Scotch hostility, was lost to kings of the next generation. 
 Nothing more was required to render the cause of any pre- 
 tender to the crown desperate than to find his cause supported 
 by the Scotch. Nothing tended more to enhance the fading 
 popularity of an English sovereign than to see his rival 
 accepted on the other side of the Tweed. If the claims of the 
 exiled De la Pole had ever any chance of being realized, the 
 moment they were supported by Albany and his people they 
 became utterly desperate. 
 
 As to other effects, Southern men might laugh at the 
 heroic courage of the Scots, and treat the stories told of them 
 with incredulity. To the tame dwellers on the banks of the 
 Thames, the ardent and romantic heroism of Scotch and 
 Border knights, fostered by their peculiar wars, seemed little 
 better than bombast and extravagance. But these incessant 
 alarms, these raids by moonlight, must have produced deep 
 and lasting impressions on the character and imaginations of 
 the denizens of the Northern marches. Inroads into a hostile 
 country, not in broad day, when everything is seen in its true 
 colours, and surprise is hardly possible, but in the dim un- 
 certain light of the moon, when every shadow is exaggerated, 
 every crag, bush, and hollow is peopled by the imagination 
 with deadly foes, and every footfall gives back its echo near 
 and far, must often have blanched the lips, if only for a 
 moment, and curdled the blood of the boldest.^ The desola- 
 tion of these barren moors, the dismantled ruins, the blackened 
 huts, the mouldering ruins of former slaughter ; the spirits of 
 vengeance still lurking in their ancient haunts, demanding blood 
 for blood ; the bleak and moaning sounds, the unearthly noises ; 
 and more, the stern conviction that an implacable enemy was 
 waiting for his revenge, would have it at any cost, but when 
 
 ' There seems to be a peculiar raids by moonlight in which he had 
 
 beauty and aptitude in the words put so often taken part. Like men of 
 
 by Shakespeare into the mouth of passionate sensibility, he is carried 
 
 Hotspur, that perfect ideal of a Border into a trance, into the dreamland of 
 
 chief : — bygone days and familiar thoughts, 
 
 ,, T, TT I ii • , -, by the vividness of his imagination. 
 
 "By HeavenJ methinks it were an j/^ .^ ^j. ^^^^ j^^^^ ^^^,^^ . ^^^j ^,,^ 
 
 easy eap, whole speech, incongruous and ex- 
 To pluck bnght honor from the travagant in any other man, is ex- 
 pale-faced moon. quisilcly beautiful and natural in hi.u. 
 He is thinking of those Border
 
 5)4 THE REIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 1523. 
 
 and at what moment no one could anticipate ; — all these must 
 have acted as potent spells upon the minds of men. Such 
 vague and terrible apprehensions, the more terrible because 
 of their vagueness, no valour could wholly surmount, no 
 resolution could entirely resist. The spirits of men might be 
 set in an iron frame, Hke Caere's; they might be as iron 
 itself; but they must have been more than human to resist 
 the incessant throbs of contagious sympathy occasioned by 
 such occupations. In the fierce raid on Jedburgh, already 
 noticed, when a panic seized the horses, Surrey tells Wolsey, 
 " I dare not write the wonders that my lord Dacre and all his 
 company do say they saw that night, six times, of spirits and 
 fearful sights. And universally, all their company say plainly, 
 the devil was that night among them six times." Who shall 
 paint the effects of that strange gaunt scenery, more wild and 
 drear by the misery and oppression of its population, haunted 
 by reckless men and starving women, who lurked among the 
 ruins of theii" smoking cabins and charred corn crops, steeped 
 to the lips in suffering, and started up at unexpected turns 
 like spectral forms ? Out of the wretchedness and desolation 
 caused by his own hands, the invader shaped for himself 
 imaginary terrors, which like the centaur's robe, could never 
 be shaken off", but clave and ate to the bone.
 
 ( 565 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 DEATH OF ADRIAN VI. SIEGE OF RHODES. 
 
 Whilst these wars were going on between the two countries, 
 died Adrian YI., on the 14th of September, 1523. Ilis death, 
 Hke the deaths of popes in general, was assigned to various 
 causes. Peter Martyr has preserved in his gossiping letters 
 the contradictory rumours of the day : some said he died of 
 an affection in the throat, brought on by uncovering his head 
 at a religious service ; others that he indulged too freely at 
 an entertainment given by Cardinal Santa Croce. Ciaconius 
 attributes his end to his indulgence in Flemish beer. As 
 Peter Martyr was in Spain at the time, he merely re-echoes 
 the Spanish reports ; and, like Spanish reports in general, 
 these flying rumours deserve small credit, for Adrian, a 
 Fleming by birth, was never popular with the Spaniards. If 
 the Flemings hated the Spaniards, their hate was returned 
 with additional haughtiness and contempt. Moreover, Adrian, 
 ungrateful to those to whom he was indebted for his exalta- 
 tion, had shown but small compliance with the wishes of 
 Charles or his ministers — a crime the more heinous in the 
 eyes of the Spaniards, as he had formerly been the Emperor's 
 tutor. A much more affecting and truthful account of his 
 last illness is given in the letters sent to Wolsey by Clerk and 
 Hannibal from Piome. His sickness had been of some dura- 
 tion ; according to Ortis, of no less than forty days.^ He was 
 attacked in August,^ says Clerk, and was confined to his room, 
 seldom giving audience, except once or twice to the Cardinal 
 
 • According to Ortiz, whose throat, and for some days prevented 
 
 authority is not to be disputed, Adrian him from swallowing. Driven from 
 
 was invited to an entertainment by the throat by the force of medicines, 
 
 Beraardino de Carvajal, Cardinal of it attacked tlie kidneys, and rcmnined 
 
 y. Croce. He was taken ill the same there, defying all remedies for thirty 
 
 night, and could drink nothing. On days until the Pope died, 
 returning to the Vatican, the physicians ^ The precise date is unfortunately 
 
 treated his complaint as a catarrh lost in consequence of the mutilation 
 
 which had prodnced ulceration in the of the letter, 
 palate. The ulcer extended to the
 
 566 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 De Medici, who appears to have ingratiated himself with the 
 Pope after the disgrace of Soderini, and to the Emperor's 
 ambassador, the Duke of Sessa, whose contemptuous and 
 imperious treatment were sufficient, without any other cause, 
 to have tormented a weaker man than Adrian VI. out of 
 his hfe. 
 
 According to Clerk,^ the Pope suffered from continual 
 pains in the reins and bladder. As he could obtain no relief, 
 and was greatly weakened, though otherwise a hale and lusty 
 man,^ he called the cardinals together, sitting up in his bed, 
 on the 8th of September, " and there declared unto them 
 what thorough his age and sore vexation of his disease, which 
 still continued, he thought he should depart to the mercy of 
 God." He desired the consent of their eminences to his pro- 
 posed distribution of certain ecclesiastical dignities ; among 
 others, of a cardinal's hat to his countryman, William 
 Enkenvoert, Bishop of Tortosa, his Datary, as a reward for 
 his good and faithful services. Of all the ecclesiastics by 
 whom the Pope was surrounded, Enkenvoert alone enjoyed his 
 confidence. As Adrian w^as not easy of access, and showed 
 little esteem for the Pioman cardinals, treating them with an 
 austerity to which they were unaccustomed, it is not surprising 
 that they attributed this treatment to the hostile influence of 
 his confidential and favourite minister.^ 
 
 The cardinals expressed no small concern at the Pope's 
 proposal. To divert him at once from his resolution, and the 
 cardinal's hat from the unpopular Datary, they urged upon 
 his Holiness, that if it were essential to his happiness in his 
 dying hour to give away cardinals' hats, he had better confer 
 this honour on one of his nephews ; for the Datary, they said, 
 had in all his transactions been uncivil, exacting, stern, and 
 disobliging. The Pope was too fatigued and faint to continue 
 the discussion. He swooned once or twice the night follow- 
 ing, and never afterwards rallied. 
 
 His death was received with little demonstration of con- 
 
 ' III. 3331. must not be received with too im- 
 
 2 See III. p. 1167. plicit a confidence. The Pope was 
 
 ' Mr. Bergenroth (Spanish Calen- in bad odonr with Don Manuel; the 
 
 dar, vol. ii., pref. p. cxli.-ii.) has Duke of Sessa inherited the prejudices 
 
 referred to rumours, circulated by of his predecessor, apparently for no 
 
 the Spanish ministers, far from other reason than the resolution of 
 
 favonrable to the character of the Adrian not to be the tool of imperial 
 
 Datary. He is represented by them, dictation. In angry retaliation, they 
 
 especially in the despatches of the did not scruple to represent the Pope 
 
 Duke of Sessa, as avaricious, grasp- and his ministers to Charles V. in the 
 
 inf{, and amorous. These accounts most unfavourable colours.
 
 1523.] DEATH OF ADRIAN VI. 567 
 
 cern. Perhaps no Pope had for many years heen less popuhir. 
 His manifest incapacity for the duties of his exalted station, 
 the simplicity, not to say hluntness, of his manners, were not 
 adequately relieved by any great qualities of genius or exhibi- 
 tion of administrative skill. He had no taste for painting or 
 sculptm-e, and little for literature ; ^ still less for that literature 
 which was in itself a power, and had been a very effective 
 instrument in the hands of his predecessor, whose defects as a 
 man and a ruler were in a great measure concealed by his 
 patronage of learnmg and the fine arts. The habits of Adrian 
 were as simple as his tastes. At the time of his birth and his 
 education, polite learning had not j^et penetrated into Belgium.^ 
 Brought up in the old school of scholastic theology, he was 
 indebted for the little eminence he had gained in his own 
 country to that learning, which had ceased to command 
 respect at Eome, and was now regarded with disdain by those 
 who considered the professors of it a little better than bar- 
 barians, utterly behind the age, and unfitted for polite and 
 classical society. A monk, or a schoolman, trained in the 
 uncouth habits of the previous century, was a phenomenon to 
 these fastidious Italians ; he was regarded with something of 
 that wonder, not unalloyed with contempt, with which their 
 forefathers might have stared at some savage animal or 
 untutored Goth who had strayed unawares into the marble 
 halls and ivory palaces of the Csesars. Nor had Adrian taken 
 any pains to render himself agreeable to the cardinals by 
 conciliating their prejudices. He rarely Consulted them on 
 matters of moment. He treated them not unfrequently with 
 positive rudeness. When, after many months of expectation, 
 he had reached Leghorn on his first journey to Piome,'^ and 
 
 ' To Cardinal Sadoleti and other says Negro, who retails these stories, 
 
 professors of the new learning Adrian he will take a lesson from Gregory, 
 
 gave great offence by the con- and grind these statues, the lasting 
 
 temptuous tone in which he spoke of memorials of the greatness and the 
 
 the Ciceronians. Reading on one glory of the Romans, into mortar for 
 
 occasion certain elegant Latin letters, building the church of St. Peter, 
 
 an accomplishment on which these March 17, 1523. 
 
 Italians prided themselves excessively, ^ "This pope," says Negro, "has 
 
 he remarked, Sunt litterce unius poetae a pleasing countenance, mixed with 
 
 — i.e. these are the letters of a " metre- gravity. He appears to be sixty at 
 
 ballad monger," a remark more just most, though some say he is sixty- 
 
 than complimentary. On another four. He always speaks Latin — 
 
 occasion, when the Laocoon in the passably well for a foreigner (compor- 
 
 Belvedere was pointed out to hiiu as tdbilmente). Letter to Micheli, Sept. 
 
 the most excellent and wonderful 1, 1522. 
 
 statue in the world, he coldly observed, ^ He was elected Jan. 9, 1522 
 
 Hunt idola urttiquorum. I suppose, (Clerk's letter, 111. 19G0, and Cum-
 
 568 
 
 TPIE REIGN OF HENllY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 was met in great pomp by the cardinals and Italian ambas- 
 sadors, amid the shouts of the people and the firing of guns, 
 lie scarcely deigned to acknowledge their courtesies with a 
 smile. Their munificent offerings, their presents of fruit and 
 wine, were coldly accepted. That night he chose to sup alone, 
 and after supper he left his chamber with so much precipita- 
 tion that the cardinals in the neighbouring apartment had no 
 notice of his departure. At Ostia his steps were equally rapid 
 and undignified. Cardinals, noblemen, ecclesiastics, and 
 ambassadors were hurled along in the impetuous stream of a 
 rude and vulgar mob, mounted on sorry nags and mules, 
 packed up as occasion served, broiling and panting amidst 
 porters, grooms, and baggage drivers, under the cloudless rays 
 of an Italian autumnal sun. 
 
 His first act after the day of his coronation was not less 
 impolitic than ungracious. He revoked all the indulgences 
 {indidta) which had been granted by the cardinals from the 
 24th of January, when his election was notified, to the day of 
 his arrival in Eome. He reduced the referendaries of the 
 Papal court at a stroke from thh'ty to eight, allowing these 
 disappointed holders of place no compensation. As they had 
 purchased their ofiices under the previous Pope, on the under- 
 standing that they should be permanent, Adrian incurred 
 greater odium and opposition by his financial reforms than all 
 such reforms are worth. ^ A simple-minded Fleming, in- 
 capable of counteracting the intrigues of the sharp and wily 
 Italians by whom he was surrounded, guided by Flemish 
 ministers of low birth, unaccustomed to business, and sus- 
 picious of being imposed upon, but unable through want of 
 firmness or genius to avoid it, Adrian suffered the business of 
 the Papal court to drift into inextricable confusion. Pressed 
 on all sides by impatient and importunate suitors, anxious to 
 do right, fearful of committing himself, unskilled in the 
 tortuous processes of the Pioman Chancery, he could only 
 reiterate, in the midst of his perplexities, Co<jitahimus, vide- 
 
 }3eggio, 1945), and did not reach 
 Home until the 29th of Aug. See the 
 Jetter of Hannibal, who attended him ; 
 No. 2521. Wingfield says 31st, but 
 that is a mistake. No. 254'7. 
 
 ^ Negro has preserved another 
 instance of his financial reforms. 
 Shortly after his arrival at Eome, the 
 Palefrenieri (guards) of the late Pope 
 sent a deputation to Adrian. The 
 
 Pope asked, v^hat was their number 
 under Leo X. They replied, a hundred. 
 Crossing himself, in his astonishment 
 at such extravagance, Adrian told 
 them that four would be amply suffi- 
 cient for himself; however, that he 
 might not have less than the cardinals, 
 he consented to retain twelve of them 
 in his service. — Ibid.
 
 1523.] CHAEACTER AND AD]\riNISTEATIOX OF ADRIAN VI. 569 
 
 limns, and refer the baffled petitioner to bis secretary, or the 
 auditor of the treasury. These officers, minute and excessive 
 in their dihgence, but wanting in tact, genius, or experience, 
 confused themselves with an endless multiplicity of small 
 details. More and more entangled at ever}'^ fresh step in the 
 labyrinth, irresolute, despairing of any just or satisfactory 
 result, they could do nothing else in their perplexity than 
 refer the disappointed suitor back to the Pope, who received 
 him with his usual dignified smile, and obsequious maxim, 
 Cogitahimus, vidchimus. "Your holiness," said Balbi, the 
 Austrian envoy, on one of these occasions, " Fabius saved 
 Eome by delay, and you by the same process are destroying 
 it." 
 
 To increase Adrian's troubles, the long period which had 
 elapsed between his election and coronation had not been 
 favourable to habits of order and of good government. A 
 plague devastated Eome, and carried off 28,000 of its in- 
 habitants ^ within three months after his arrival. Adrian was 
 urged to fly : with a firmness becoming the occasion and his 
 exalted position, he determined to remain. But the reputation 
 he might otherwise have gained by such an heroic resolution 
 was lost either by his inactivity, or his inability to find means 
 for staying the plague or alleviating the distress of his people. 
 To have expected from him effectual sanitary precautions in 
 such a distressing emergency would imply a total ignorance 
 of the scientific resources of the 16th century, whether in 
 Eome or in England. But, lacking these, there was always 
 the devout heroism of a Borromeo to fall back upon, and men 
 might believe and grow strong in the efficacy of i^raj^ers, who 
 desjDaired of medical remedies, or disbelieved in the virtues of 
 medical science. But Adrian's heroism was not of this exalted 
 kind. It was rather passive than active ; he shut himself up 
 in the Vatican with Enkenvoert, his Batary, and the secretary 
 Hezius ; rarely, if ever, coming abroad ; beguiling the tedious 
 hours with reading, writing, alchemy, and gardening.'^ 
 
 ' III. 2714. It appears by a letter that henceforth it shall be shut up, 
 
 from the Duke of Sessa, Oct. 31, that and not exposed to the view of the 
 
 the number of deaths exceeded 150 a public (April 14, 1522). Whilst at 
 
 day. Rome the Pope's life was too much 
 
 * His Holiness, says Negro, sings that of a recluse; admirably adapled 
 
 mass every morning at daybreak, and to tlie cloister, unfitted for the duties 
 
 takes great pleasure in gardening. of a sovereign pontiff. He rose long 
 
 For this reason he has procured in- before daybreak to say his olllces, aud 
 
 formation of the Belvedere, saying returned to his couch until dawn, 
 
 that he will have it so well enclosed He then celebrated mass, aud con-
 
 570 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. U.D. 
 
 But the tlioiight which weighed down his mind and 
 crippled his energies, from the first hour he had accepted the 
 pontificate to the last, was the state of the public finances. 
 Leo X., if Hannibal may be trusted, had left a debt of little 
 less than a million to his anxious successor.^ It was the first 
 impulse of Adrian, like that of many others in similar circum- 
 stances, to relieve his immediate necessities by borrowing 
 money from England. " Leo X.," writes Hannibal on the 8th 
 of September,'-^ " has left the present Pope 700,000 ducats in 
 debt, and his voyage has been costly." He had already applied 
 for a loan of 40,000 or 50,000 ducats. "I think," says 
 Hannibal, " 25,000 will content him." The application was 
 not favourably received. The same writer complains that he 
 had written many times of the Pope's necessities, but could 
 obtain no answer.^ England was at that time in no condition 
 to lend money ; its treasury was exhausted by the personal 
 extravagance of the King, by the fetes at Guisnes and Calais, 
 by the mission of Wolsey to settle the disputes between 
 Francis and the Emperor, and by the necessary preparations 
 for war with France and Scotland. Under Leo X. many of 
 the cardinals had crippled their property by purchasing their 
 dignities. But if it had been otherwise, Adrian was not 
 sufficiently gracious to induce them to make sacrifices in his 
 behalf. Baffled, soured, disappointed, pressed by an evil fatal 
 to his popularity — at Eome especially — no course remained 
 for the unhappy Pontiff, except either to curtail the expenses 
 of the State, by forbearing to take part in any measures which 
 required money, or to impose a tax on his reluctant subjects. 
 He attempted both, and consequently offended all. 
 
 During his pontificate, Ehodes, the most distant outwork 
 of Christendom, was exposed to the greatest peril from the 
 Turk. We, indeed, have lived to see PJiodes in the hands of 
 the enemies of the Cross for many centuries, and Christendom 
 as vigorous as ever. But at the time of which I am writing 
 it was the firm conviction of more than half the Christian 
 world that if Ehodes fell, Eome and the rest of Christendom 
 
 tinned some time in prayer. At his prayers, dejeuner, siesta, study, read, 
 
 audiences, of which he was chary, in ing of offices, supper, the whole day 
 
 consequence of his natural timidity is consumed, and very little time is 
 
 and inexperience, his first and habitual left for giving audience." — Relazioni, 
 
 answer was, Videhimus. Part of the etc., Alberi, 2ud Series, iii. p. 112. 
 day was given up to reading and ' III. 2559. 
 
 study. " The fact is," say the Vene- ^ jjj 2521. 
 
 tian envoys, from whom these details ' III. 2539. 
 
 are taken, " that what with masses,
 
 1523.] ADRIAN'S POVERTY AND HELPLESSNESS. 571 
 
 must fall with it ; for the barrier against the heady flood of 
 Mahomedanism would be broken down, and there would be 
 nothing to resist its progress. Adrian told Hannibal, the 
 English ambassador, that he wrote the oftener and more 
 urgently to Christian princes for peace, because of the danger 
 of Ehodes ; " for if that island were taken, the Pope could not 
 stay in Eome, nor could any prince be in tranquillity, as 
 Ehodes was the key of Christendom." ^ He shed tears at the 
 dangers and miseries of these heroic defenders of the Faith, 
 betrayed by the indifference and faithlessness of their brethren, 
 and isolated from the rest of the civilized world. At the 
 reports of their courage and intrepidity, unparalleled in the 
 annals of war, "his bowels were moved by the strength of his 
 emotions," to use his own words. ^ He could not suppress his 
 grief whenever the siege was mentioned, et dum Jit sermo de 
 oppugnatione ilUiis, o'limjnuit lacJiryincc,^ says Hannibal, an 
 eyewitness of his affliction. When the news was at last 
 brought him of the surrender, he stood for a time, silent and 
 immovable ; the profoundest sighs burst from his heart during 
 the sad recital, and he fixed his eyes upon the ground without 
 uttering a single word.'' To his appeals for aid Christian 
 j)rinces had turned a deaf ear and returned a flinty answer ; 
 not wholly from insensibility, partly, indeed, from incredulity. 
 Their charity, so frequently open to the same cry, had now 
 ceased to flow. But partly also, in the attraction of more 
 engrossing interests at home, they felt comparative indifference 
 to the fate of Ehodes. The idea of a common Christendom 
 itself was beginning to pale and wane before the more power- 
 ful realities of the rising nationalities of Europe. Beautiful 
 as a theory, it had ceased to be anything better than a 
 theory; and men cannot live and wax strong on theories, 
 however beautiful. So the voice of the Pope was heard like 
 the ghostly wail of a shadow over the wide waste of Christen- 
 dom, not without pity, but without any permanent effect. 
 The old era was passing away ; it was not in the power of any 
 Pope to stay or to renew it. 
 
 This sense of poverty, combined with a conviction of his 
 helplessness, made Adrian restless, irritable, and impracticable. 
 It increased his natural irresolution ; and that again exposed 
 
 ' III. 2771. thi.s trait alono would bo sufficient to 
 
 "^ III. 2'jO'J. redeem bim from the repulsive colours 
 
 ' III. 2539. ' ill which he has beeu painted by some 
 
 * Negro, March 17, 1523. To mo late writers.
 
 572 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 him to the suspicion and dishke of his former friends and his 
 2)resent subjects. ^Tien Charles and Henry required him, 
 out of gratitude to join the confederacy against France, Adrian 
 demurred. He would give no definite answer. He alleged his 
 X)Overty, he blamed the wasteful management of his prede- 
 cessor. On another occasion,^ when he was urged by Clerk 
 and the imperial ambassador to declare himself in favour of 
 his confederates, he met their appeal with his everlasting 
 smile, and his reiterated excuse of poverty, saying that the See 
 Apostolic received too many profits from France for him to 
 quarrel with it. They plied him with fresh arguments, but 
 Adrian was deaf to their entreaties. " I assure your Grace," 
 says Clerk, forgetting his habitual caution in the irritation of 
 the moment, " Pontifex, velut rupes in mari sita, undique petita 
 Jiuctibus, mansit immohiUs." 
 
 These difficulties exposed him to many calumnies. He 
 was accused of being cold, dissembling, avaricious, and im- 
 practicable — faults rather to be attributed to his position than 
 to himself. Scrupulous of incurring fresh expenses, he was 
 slow to engage himself in measures which required money ; 
 unwilling to raise hopes he could not gratify, he would not 
 promise what he could not perform ; and to those who knew 
 nothing of his embarrassments, his parsimony appeared like 
 meanness. Too keenly sensitive to the sarcasms and pas- 
 quinades of a great and corrupt capital hke Eome, he was once 
 injudicious enough to visit the scoffers with resentment, and 
 reaped in consequence the natural results of such interference 
 — more pitiless and pelting ridicule. 
 
 In that respect no Pope had a more bitter experience than 
 Adrian. In his life he was compared to Tarquin, and the 
 epigram written upon Alexander VI. was revived in his case : 
 
 " Sextus Tarquinius, Sextus Nero, Sextus et iste : 
 Semper et a Sextis diruta Roma fuit." 
 
 At his death a statue was erected to Macerata, his 
 physician, " tanquam patriae liberatori," implying that he had 
 taken off the Pope by poison. Even in his grave his memory 
 was not suffered to rest. He was buried in St. Andrew's 
 chapel, between the tombs of Pius II. and Pius III. ; and 
 immediately this pasquinade appeared, " Impius inter Pios." 
 Never was any city " gladder of Pope's death than they are of 
 this man's," writes Clerk to Wolsey.^ It was rumoured that 
 
 ' June 11, 1523. - III, 3464.
 
 1523.] WOLSEY AND THE PAPACY. 57 o 
 
 he had amassed much treasure ; hut when the doors of his 
 private ai^artments, which he had huilt in the Borgian Tower, 
 and of which he always carried the keys, were hurst open, 
 nothing was found except two mitres, a few cups and jewels, 
 a piece of gold brought from India, belonging to Leo X. ; and, 
 if his enemies may be believed, implements for the transmu- 
 tation of metals. The less creditable stories circulated re- 
 specting him, too readily reported and too greedily received, 
 may be ascribed to malice. Disappointed in their hopes, his 
 enemies attributed the disappearance of his property to Enken- 
 voert. Cardinal of Tortosa, and accused him of carrying it 
 off the day before. He left no money, except 800 crowns 
 in gold. 
 
 Whatever estimation we may be inclined to form of his 
 character, there can be no doubt that upon the Eomans he 
 left a very unfavourable impression. After Adrian VI., no 
 Ultramontane, however exalted his virtues or indisputable his 
 claims, could entertain the least hope of attaining the Papacy. 
 Francis I. was locked up in Lyons, trembling for the fate of 
 his kingdom. The sack of Genoa by the Imperialists had 
 produced a deep impression upon Italy. From the severities 
 inflicted on the besieged, the Italians might learn to infer 
 what sort of treatment they had to expect if they ventured to 
 incur the Emperor's resentment. As Sessa boasted, the 
 Emperor's power at Eome was so great, he might " convert 
 stones into dutiful sons." And yet even he, it is probable, 
 could not have carried the election of a second Adrian. 
 
 But he had no thoughts of so doing. Long before the 
 announcement of the death of Adrian, there cannot, I think, be 
 any doubt that it had been arranged that Cardinal Be Medici 
 should succeed. It was part of the compact implicitly or 
 explicitly made with him at the election of his predecessor. 
 But this was a profound secret. 
 
 The news of the Pope's death was communicated in a 
 letter, of the same date, addressed by Clerk and Hannibal to 
 Wolsey. Before the breath had left the Pope's body, we learn 
 from the same authors, that the Cardinals were discussing the 
 chances of the new election. They told Vrolsey that it was 
 hard as yet to decide upon whom the garland would light ; but 
 if neither Be Medici nor Farnese could secure the Papacy for 
 themselves — and that was not probable — the result might 
 prove favourable to Wolsey. They added, as they might 
 safely do, without fear of contradiction, " if your Grace were
 
 574 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 here present, ye should be as sure of it as ye be of York, and 
 that tota curia Romana, ipsis ctrererendissimis Cardinalihus, una 
 anima, aj^j^robantihus ; nor the Cardinal of Medici, nor yet the 
 proudest of thenTall, would no more look for it [in that event] 
 than they would go to Jerusalem upon their thumbs ! " They 
 warned him, however, that in consequence of the unhappy 
 precedent afforded by Adrian, his absence would prove a 
 formidable obstacle to his success. 
 
 The news reached Wolsey at "the More" on the 30th of 
 September, and he immediately addressed a letter to the King, 
 then at Woodstock, briefly announcing the fact, and stating 
 that though he considered himself " unmeet and unable to so 
 high and great dignity," and he would, rather "than to be 
 ten popes," continue and end his life in the King's service, 
 doing what he could for the honour and wealth of his realm, 
 yet " remembering what mind and opinion your Grace was of, at 
 the last vacation, to have me preferred thereunto, thinking that 
 it should be to the honor, benefit, and advancement of your 
 affairs in time coming, and supposing verily that your High- 
 ness persisteth in the same mind and intent, I shall devise 
 such instructions, commissions, and other writings, as the last 
 time was delivered to Master Pace for that purpose ; and the 
 same I shall send to your Grace by the next post." 
 
 The next day he sent the paper for the King's signature, 
 informing him at the same time that he had "devised a familiar 
 letter in the King's name to the Emperor, which, if it may 
 please your Highness to take the pain for to write with your 
 own hand, putting thereunto your secret sign and mark, 
 being between your Grace and the said Emperor, shall un- 
 doubtedly do singular benefit and furtherance to your gracious 
 intent and virtuous purpose in that behalf." He professed 
 himself wholly resigned to God's will, and equally obliged t.o 
 the King, whatever the result might be, adding that he should 
 never have aspired to so great a dignity, had he not thought 
 that it would conduce to the King's honour and to the welfare 
 of his kingdom. Then alluding to the Emperor, he recalled 
 to the King's memory "the conference and communications " 
 Charles had held with the King in that behalf. He hinted 
 at the arguments employed by Charles on that occasion, and 
 his promise of assistance, if Wolsey could be persuaded to 
 become a candidate for the triple crown. How Charles 
 redeemed his promises remains to be seen. 
 
 The death of the Pope was known to Lady Margaret, the
 
 1323.] THE EMPEROR'S COXDUCT. 575 
 
 Emperor's fiiint, as early as the 25th of September.^ It was 
 communicated to the Emperor himself, in a letter, dated the 
 l(3th of the same month, h}' the Duke of Sessa. The Emperor 
 had expected the result ; for as early as the 13th of July, or 
 afterwards on the 2nd of October, he wrote to the Duke, 
 stating that he had heard of the Pope's illness, and in the 
 event of a new election Sessa was to use all his influence in 
 favour of Cardinal De Medici.^ At this period the Emperor's 
 affairs were far from prosperous ; the tide of success was 
 turning against him ; his succours were behindhand, and his 
 troops, as usual, were murmuring for want of pay. The 
 10,000 Almains under Count Felix, the most important con- 
 tingent in the Emperor's service, refused to serve any longer 
 unless their wages were advanced by England.^ In this 
 dilemma Margaret desired De Praet, the Imperial ambassador 
 in England, to repair to Wolsey, inform him of the death of 
 the Pope, and offer her assistance in promoting his election to 
 the vacant throne."* If we may trust the account sent by the 
 ambassador to Charles, Wolsey expressed his gratitude for 
 these offers, not forbearing to touch upon the promises made 
 by the Emperor when he was with the King at Windsor. He 
 also requested INIargaret to write without a moment's delay to 
 the Imperial ambassadors at Piome ; and, the more to engage 
 the Emperor's aid, he stated that he had made a great point 
 that the King should write a letter to the Emperor in his own 
 hand. 
 
 To this communication, the Emperor, then at Pampeluna, 
 sent no reply until the 27th of November. Then, after ex- 
 pressing his regret that the letter of his ambassadors had 
 been so long on the road, he scrupled not to assure De Praet 
 that the news of the Pope's death had never reached him until 
 the 4th of November or thereabouts. He admitted that a 
 rumour to that effect had been set afloat by the French, but 
 such was their mendacity that the Emperor gave no credence 
 to their reports. He charged his ambassadors to inform the 
 King and the Cardinal that he retained a perfect recollection 
 how he and the King, his good father and brother, had opened 
 their minds on this subject to the Cardinal ; how tliey had 
 exhorted him to think of it, and promised him their best 
 
 ' See III. 3399. where abstracts will bo found of the 
 
 ^ See Mr. Bergenroth's Cataloj^ue same letters, 
 for the letters under those dates ; * See III. 3440, 3559. 
 
 and M. Gachard's Correspondance '' III. 3399; Oct. G. 
 
 d'Adrien VI., etc., pp. 192, 197,
 
 576 THE REIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 services in promoting liis election; and be continued, "that 
 you may be aware with wbat zeal and diligence we have taken 
 up tbis affair in favor of tbe said lord Legate, we send you 
 copies of our letters in bis bebalf, directed to tbe Duke of 
 Sessa, our ambassador at Eome, ivritten before tbe receipt of 
 yours, as well as of otbers afterwards sent to tbe Sacred 
 College . , . You will sbow and read all tbese copies to tbe 
 said sieurs, tbe King and tbe Cardinal." 
 
 Of tbe trutb of tbis statement, and of tbe Emperor's 
 veracitj^ my readers may judge for tbemselves from tbe follow- 
 ing circumstances. On tbe 28tb of October tbe Duke of Sessa 
 wrote to tbe Emperor, stating tbat be bad received letters 
 from England, in wbicb be was strongly urged to further 
 Wolsey's election. Tbe English, be said (alluding to Clerk 
 and Hannibal), think bis election is most sure, " as though 
 God would work a miracle." To comply with these impor- 
 tunities, be informed tbe Emperor that be bad so far con- 
 sented as to recommend Wolsey for the pajDal chair, satisfied 
 that his election was impossible. In bis reply to this com- 
 munication, the Emperor informs Sessa that he fully approves 
 of what has been done ; tbat as soon as ever be heard of 
 Adrian's death he had himself written to Sessa, desiring him 
 to use his efforts in securing the election for Wolsey, but at 
 the same time he had taken the precaution to order the courier 
 who carried the despatch to he detained at Barcelona / His 
 letter is dated tbe 14th of December, and reached Sessa long 
 after the election.^ 
 
 The cardinals bad meanwhile entered the conclave, on tbe 
 1st of October. Tbe wooden cells appointed for their lodgings 
 were separated by short intervals, and w^ere distinguished from 
 each other b}^ the letters of the alphabet. For those eccle- 
 siastics who had been elevated to the cardinalate by the late 
 Pope the decorations were of purple, for the others green. 
 The custody of the palace was entrusted to Ferdinand Silvio, 
 captain of the Swiss ; and 200 Germans were appointed to 
 keep tbe staircases. The arrangements for tbe guard were 
 similar to those adopted at Adrian's election; but in this 
 instance tbe inner or fourth door was kept by the Grand 
 Master of Ebodes, Villiers de Lisle-Adam, who had lately 
 
 ' A notice of these two important the effrontery to write to Wolsey on 
 
 letters will be found in Mr. Bergen- the 16th of December, two days after 
 
 roth's Calendar under their respective this letter to Sessa, stating that he 
 
 dates. had already written to Eome in his 
 
 To keep up the farce, Charles had behalf before he had received the
 
 1523.] 
 
 THE CONCLAVE. 
 
 577 
 
 been expelled by the Turks. To each cardinal^ three servants 
 were allowed, and four to those whose feebleness or ill-health 
 required the indulgence.^ There was also a sacristan, two 
 masters of the ceremonies, two secretaries, musicians for the 
 mass, all of whom were sworn to secrecy. After a search 
 made, on a false rumour, for arms supposed to be hidden in 
 the conclave, the doors were walled up, and the windows 
 locked with four keys, each of which was confided to a different 
 officer. The cardinals confessed ; and the next day, bemg 
 the eighth of the conclave, mass was celebrated, and the 
 sacrament was administered, by Cardinal Sta. Croce in the 
 chapel of St. Nicholas. Shortly after, three French cardinals, 
 Auch, Lorraine, and Bourbon, made their appearance, much 
 to the discomfort of De Medici and the imperialists. Present- 
 ing themselves at the doors of the conclave in their cloaks, 
 or, as Clerk calls them, " their short weeds (which was thought 
 very dissolute), with boots and spm's," they were admitted 
 amidst much laughter. " The Cardinal of Lorraine," he con- 
 tinues in no complacent mood, " was in a gown of crane- 
 coloured velvet, and had a hat with feathers, which hat he 
 left behind him for lesing. It were long to recite unto your 
 Grace the cracks of the French faction, and with how proud 
 boasting words they, upon the arrival of these cardinals, 
 threatened and overlooked every man, persuading assuredly 
 to have a pope at their pleasure, Assuredl}^, the coming of 
 these Cardinals hath troubled and impeached our good 
 purposes marvellously." Hitherto, by sundry means, the 
 cardinals had contrived to send daily information to their 
 friends without ; now they were more strictly guarded.^ On 
 
 King's letters; and he had now 
 written again, as Wolsey would learn 
 from De Praet. (III. 3647). This 
 was done to give colour to his former 
 fictions, and make it appear that he 
 was still in ignorance of the election, 
 although, in his letter to Sessa dated 
 the 14th, he admits that he had been 
 already made acquainted with the 
 result, and that no better pope than 
 De Medici could have been elected. 
 See also No. 3646. 
 
 ' At the first meeting there wore 
 but 35 ; by the subsequent addition 
 of the three French cardinals and the 
 Cax'dinal of Ivrea, the number was 
 made up to 39. (Clerk; III. 3592.) 
 When the numbers exceeded the 
 alphabet the letters on the cells were 
 VOL. I. 
 
 doubled. 
 
 2 See III. 3547. 
 
 ^ Sessa, injhis letter to the Emperor, 
 speaking of the conclave, says that 
 tlie immuring was a mere formality, 
 and the cardinals easily contrived to 
 communicate with the world outside. 
 (October 28. See Mr. Bcrgem-oth's 
 Calendar.) It is possible that, as 
 Clerk states, while I)e Medici's party 
 was supreme, the strictness of the 
 guard was relaxed ; but by the pre- 
 ponderance of their opponents on the 
 arrival of the French, a closer watch 
 was insisted on for a time. Even this 
 could not have been very effectual ; 
 for Clerk, who, as ambassador from 
 England, was one of those who kept 
 watcJi on the palace, and sav,- all that 
 
 2p
 
 578 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 the 8tli their service was reduced, and they were restricted, 
 according to the usual rules, to one kind of meat, either 
 roasted or boiled. 
 
 The conclave was divided into two factions, of seniors and 
 juniors. The latter, numbering about sixteen, supported the 
 claims of De Medici ; the seniors, superior in numbers, were 
 determined to oppose him, and resist the nomination of any 
 one of his party, to the utmost. The struggle was obstinate, 
 and there was no appearance of accommodation. Various 
 means were tried, without avail, by nominating a third party, 
 to reconcile the contending factions ; and in the pertinacity 
 of the strife, the English ambassadors entertained hopes that 
 Wolsey, though an absentee, might carry the election, as 
 Adrian had done before him.^ 
 
 If the account given by Clerk may be trusted, when the 
 officers of the city perceived that the cardinals were not likely 
 to arrange their disputes for some time, they came to the 
 door of the conclave, " where at a hole the Eomans declared 
 unto them divers hurts and annoyances that the city daily 
 suffered by the reason of their long delay, as well in scarcity 
 of victuals as otherwise, through other misruled persons, 
 which they could not order ; and finally said that it was a 
 shame for them, so many wise men as they were, that they 
 did no better or no sooner agree ; exhorting them to leave 
 their particular affections, and to think and lean unto the 
 commonwealth, as wise men and as good men should do." 
 The cardinals returned for answer that if the Eomans could 
 be contented that they " should choose one being absent," 
 meaning Wolsey, they were almost agreed. Whereupon the 
 Eomans " made a great exclamation that in anywise they 
 should choose some man present, etiam si truncum aut stipitem 
 electuri forent." ^ 
 
 In a paragraph added to their letter at a subsequent date, 
 the English ambassadors say, "Pope Alexander was chosen 
 in eight days, Pope July in six. Pope Leo in eight, Pope 
 
 passed, complains that the constitn- and some upon one cause of favor, 
 
 tions for diminishing the diet, and and some upon other ; so that in a 
 
 for accelerating the election, were manner they be victualled there within 
 
 " nothing observed.' " Princes' at their pleasure." — State Papers, 
 
 orators (he says, alluding to Sessa), Hen. VIII. vi. 183. 
 
 deputed the custody be so intermixed ' III. 3464. 
 
 with the cardinals' kinsmen, prelates, ^ So Clerk wrote to Wolsey. Of 
 
 and nobles here of Rome, that we course I do not warrant the accuracy 
 
 cannot, ne dare, order thera accord- of the story, 
 ingly; some by pretext of sickness,
 
 1523.] ELECTION OF CLEMENT VIL 579 
 
 Adrian in fourteen, and that was thought a very long tarrying. 
 This is now the 24th day they have been in the concLave, with 
 such i^ain and disease, that jom Grace would marvel that 
 such men as they be would suffer it. And yet by none out- 
 ward appearance we cannot perceive that we be now anj^thing 
 nearer a Pope than we were the first day they entered the 
 conclave. . . . For there is a score of the old Cardinals that 
 have sworn and conspired together to rather suffer death than 
 to consent unto Medicis. And the cardinal De Medicis hath 
 another band with him, which will suffer with him all that 
 shall be possible to the contrary." 
 
 At last, after many unsuccessful efforts to bring matters 
 to accommodation, the party of Medici prevailed in con- 
 sequence of the intrigues of Colonna, or his real displeasure 
 at the infidelity of his own supporters.-^ Belying on his 
 influence to secure the election, he had agreed with De Medici- 
 to nominate Cardinal Jacobati, on condition that if the nomina- 
 tion did not prove successful Colonna should give his support 
 to De Medici. The latter, confiding in his superior intelligence, 
 and better aware of the real state of feeling among Colonna's 
 suj^porters, agreed to these conditions. Jacobati failed ; and 
 Colonna, irritated at his defeat, fulfilled his word, and, to the 
 consternation of all his friends in the conclave, gave his vote 
 to his implacable enemy De Medici, who was declared duly 
 elected on the 17th of November, the fiftieth day fi-om the 
 time that the cardinals had entered the conclave.^ 
 
 As soon as the news reached the ears of Cardinal Wolsey 
 he addressed a letter to Henry VIII. After briefly and calmly 
 touching upon the protracted disputes in the election, and his 
 own prospects of success as set forth in Clerk's letter of the 
 24th of October, he announced that the choice had fallen on 
 De Medici : "Of which good fortunate news. Sir, your High- 
 ness hath much cause to thank Almighty God, forasmuch as 
 not only he is a perfect and faithful friend to the same, but 
 that also much the rather by your means he hath attained to 
 this dignity. And for my part, as I take God to record, I am 
 more joyous thereof than if it had fortuned upon my person, 
 knowing his excellent qualities most meet for the same, and 
 
 ' It is fully described by Clerk in that his conduct would bo reported 
 
 a letter to Wolsey, 111. 3592. in an unfavourable light to the 
 
 ^ See Clerk, ibid. It is not im- Emperor, who was then omnipotent 
 
 probable that Colonna was influenced in Italy. But who can iiiiravol the 
 
 in givinj^ his votes to De Medici by intrigues of a college of cardinals ? 
 the JJuke of Sesaa, and the conviction
 
 580 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 how great and sure a friend your Grace and the Emperor be 
 hke to have of him, and I so good a father." ^ 
 
 His anticipations were not destined to be realized. Could 
 he have looked into the future, he would have seen Eome 
 sacked and burnt under Clement VII. by the imperial forces ; 
 and England, under the same Pope, divided from its allegiance 
 to the Holy See. More than this ; he would have seen his 
 own fate and untimely fall, intimately blended with the pro- 
 ceedings and conduct of one from whom he had expected so 
 much, and at whose election he had expressed such un- 
 mitigated satisfaction. It is clear that Wolsey never had the 
 , smallest chance of obtaining the Papal tiara; but if such 
 A had been his lot, though he might have retarded the progress 
 of the Keformation, he could never have prevented it. My 
 readers will have perused the events narrated in these pages 
 to little purpose, if they think that this new epoch in the 
 world's progress depended upon the election of a Pope or an 
 Emperor, the disappointment of an Augustinian friar at 
 Wittemberg, or the misconduct of a Papal nuncio. When 
 life is ebbing, and the advent of a new existence is at hand, 
 advancing as noiselessly and yet as certain as the dawn, 
 blandly tolerant of our small cares and griefs as it sweeps 
 along, but not the more to be diverted from its benevolent 
 and irresistible course, we are apt to think that its progress 
 might have been stayed had our wisdom devised different 
 measures, and adopted in due time other remedies than those 
 on which we relied. So is it with the death and the new life 
 of the world. We mistake its causes ; we misread its mean- 
 ing. True love, and not less wise than true, will shed a tear, 
 and strew the dead with flowers ; then turning its face to the 
 grey and shivering dawn, bind up its loins for the new race, 
 though different to our seeming, not less full of life, not less 
 divine, than that which has passed irrevocably away. 
 
 Lamentation over the fall of PJiodes was not confined to 
 Adrian VI. It had reposed so long in undisturbed security, so 
 long had it defied the Infidel, that to imagine the Turk would 
 ever capture Pthodes, " had become a mock and a bye-word." 
 When the news of its fall came at last, the Christian world 
 
 ' Dec. 6; III. 3609. His letter sentiments, and declare Wolsey's 
 
 of congi'atnlation to the Pope, and his satisfaction at having that person for 
 
 instructions on the same occasion to Pope, whom, above all spiritual men 
 
 Clerk and others, will be found at living, he had in his heart " been 
 
 Nos. 3658, 3659. They express similar most affectionate unto."
 
 1522.] THE SIEGE OF RHODES. 581 
 
 refused to believe it. No sooner had its surrender been 
 ascertained beyond dispute, than men Hke Adrian bowed to 
 the stroke with sorrowful submission and silent tears. Their 
 consciences were smitten with self-reproaches and vain regrets. 
 In the midst of their selfish disputes the mighty had fallen, 
 the ancient glory of Christendom had become tarnished. 
 Whilst the professors of the true faith seemed further from 
 peace and unity than ever, the consolidation of the East — 
 inscrutable fact ! — reared on a false basis, had been accom- 
 plished. So long as a handful of devoted knights, shut up in 
 a strong and gloomy fortress, self-excluded from the turmoils 
 and pleasures of this world, guarded the sacred banner of the 
 Church, it was a consolation to the generous and romantic to 
 believe that Christian heroism was not yet wholly extinct. 
 Now this pledge of God's favour had been swept away for 
 the sins of mankind, and the cause of Christianity seemed 
 desperate. 
 
 Of the events of the siege, of the feelings with w'hich it was 
 regarded, many curious notices will be found among our 
 English State Papers. Our own Kings, Henry VII. and 
 Henry VIII., were the protectors of the Order ; and the cor- 
 respondence of the latter with the successive grand masters 
 Caretto and Lisle-Adam cannot be read without interest. In 
 the account of the siege, and the description of Soliman, 
 by the English knight, Nicholas Eoberts, one of the few 
 survivors of that heroic band, many curious details have been 
 preserved, not to be found elsewhere.^ 
 
 To those who had watched the current of events, and the 
 increasing conquests of the Turks in Syria and Egypt, or 
 whose prejudices had not blinded them to the genius and 
 administrative abilities of Soliman, it must have been evident 
 that the independence of the Ehodians was a question of time 
 only. It could not be allowed that a handful of men should 
 set the whole power of the Crescent at defiance, and, instigated 
 partly by the religious enthusiasm of the knight errant, partly 
 by the restless spirit of the sea rover, swoop down from their 
 lofty and solitary eyrie on the defenceless commerce of the 
 Mediterranean, dreaded alike by Christian and by Infidel. 
 The Ehodians were accused of making little difference between 
 the sheep and the goat, between the followers of the Crescent 
 and the Cross. But it must be remembered in their justifica- 
 tion, that this calumny originated with the Venetian and 
 
 ' See the abstract of this letter in III. p. 1272.
 
 582 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 other merchants, who were trafficking their goods, and their 
 souls at the same time, with the enemies of the Church, and 
 dishonouring their Christian calling. This will enable us to 
 account for the cold support which the Ehodians received in 
 their mortal struggle from the mercantile Italian republics.^ 
 
 Fabricius de Caretto, not insensible of the danger, was 
 pref)aring for the worst when he died, in the summer of 1521. 
 Two candidates were put forward to succeed him — Philip 
 Villiers de Lisle-Adam and Sir Thomas Docwra, Prior of St. 
 John's in England. Docwra was recommended by his wealth, 
 his ability, his knowledge of courts, and his great experience ; 
 Lisle-Adam, for the skill with which he had managed the 
 interests of the Order in France and Spain. He had, besides, 
 greatly distinguished himself by a naval victory gained over 
 the soldan of Egypt in the year 1510 ; was seneschal to the 
 previous Grand Master, and in 1514 visitor of all the priories 
 belonging to the Order in France. As his name stood first in 
 the list, and no dissentient voice was raised, Lisle-Adam was 
 elected ^vith acclamation,^ 
 
 At the time of his election Lisle-Adam was at Paris, and 
 immediately prepared to return. But misfortune attended 
 his steps. Francis I., at that time engaged in a war with the 
 Emperor, could lend him little assistance. On his voyage 
 down the Pihone to Marseilles, a vessel filled with arms and 
 ammunition was lost through the negligence of the pilot. 
 Whilst sailing to Nice, a fire broke out in one of his four 
 ships laden with powder. Between Corsica and Sardinia he 
 encountered a terrible storm, in which nine of his crew were 
 struck with lightning ; and he narrowly escaped falling into 
 the clutches of the Turkish pirate Cortagoli,^ who was waiting 
 to intercept him with a large fleet ofl: Cape Malea. 
 
 The Grand Master was received by the Pihodians with 
 enthusiasm, and was even congratulated by Soliman himself 
 on his election. But his joy was of no long duration. Two 
 days before his arrival Belgrade had been taken by the Turk.* 
 By his success on this occasion and at Peterwardein ^ shortly 
 before, Soliman was inspired with hopes of further conquests, 
 
 1 During the progress of tbe siege, 3814. He had lost two of his brothers 
 
 the Venetians banished two of their in an encounter with the Knights, 
 
 citizens for carrying supplies to and the third was at that time a 
 
 Ehodes. See III. 2840. prisoner at Rhodes. 
 
 * His letter to Henry VIII. an- * Sept. 8 ; but, according to Lisle, 
 
 nouncing his election, may be seen at Adam's letter to Wolsey, III. 1741, 
 
 No. 1604. Belgrade was surrendered on the 10th. 
 
 3 Of this Cortagoli see II. 17 and ^ See III. 1471, 1472, 1497.
 
 1521, 1522.] THE SIEGE OF KHODES. 583 
 
 and he resolved to turn his arms against Rhodes. To disguise 
 his intentions, and prevent the princes of Christendom from 
 taking the alarm, and sending reinforcements to the Ehodians, 
 Soliman took the precaution of intercepting all communications. 
 A spy sent to Constantinople contrived to advertise the Grand 
 Master of the Turk's designs by a letter conveyed in a pot of 
 caviare. The danger was urgent ; and Lisle-Adam prepared 
 energetically to meet it.-^ Convoys of sailors, protected by the 
 knights, were sent over to the opposite coast of Asia, to fetch 
 wood ; the corn was cut down before it was ripe ; guns and 
 spears were examined ; hand-millstones provided for grinding 
 corn ; and a survey taken of the ammunition, erroneously 
 estimated as sufficient to last a twelvemonth's siege. The 
 Turkish slaves were invited by large rewards to assist in the 
 general preparations ; absent knights were summoned to 
 retm-n; and an urgent letter, despatched to Henry VIII., 
 requested that Sir Thomas Docwra and Sir Thomas Newport ^ 
 might be sent to Rhodes with the money and corn they had 
 been employed in collecting. These generous efforts of Lisle- 
 Adam were counteracted by the intrigues of Andrew d'Amoral, 
 a Portuguese knight. Chancellor of the Order, and next in 
 authority to the Grand Master. The historians of the time 
 concur in expressing their admiration of the Chancellor's 
 eloquence, his rare scholarship, his familiar acquaintance 
 with the writings of the elder Pliny. But his ambition was 
 equal to his ability ; and in revenge for his disappointment in 
 failing to obtain the Grand Mastership, he is said to have 
 maintained a treasonable correspondence with the Turk, and 
 betrayed the plans of the Rhodians to the enemy.^ 
 
 To add to the Grand Master's disquietude, the Italian 
 knights insisted upon leave of absence. Irritated by his 
 refusal of so unreasonable a demand, they retired in a body to 
 Candia, and were not without great difliculty persuaded to 
 return. 
 
 1 See III. 2117, 2118, and 2324- dated Nov. 13, published in N4gocia- 
 
 2325. tions du Levant, pref., p. 131. See 
 
 ^ It is said that Sir Thomas New- also the statement in Til. 284] , ])rinted 
 
 port, whilst carrying troops and money in Hakluyt, and derived from an 
 
 to Khodes, fell in with a storm, and account of the siege translated out 
 
 was cast away. of French by desire of Sir Thomas 
 
 * This was generally believed at Docwra in 1524. Besides d'Amoral, 
 
 the time, bat the evidence of there was a i-enegado Jew physician, 
 
 d'Amoral's guilt is not satisfactory. who kept up a correspon<lencc witli 
 
 The popular account, however, is con- the Turk by means of a Greek, a 
 
 firmed by a letter of Lisle-Adam to native of Chios, 
 his nephew Eochepot Montmorenci,
 
 58-i THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 On a review the forces of the island were estimated as 
 follows : — 312 knights/ not including officers belonging to the 
 Order, 300 soldiers, 500 Cretans, besides sailors and others ; 
 between 3,000 and 4,000 townsmen capable of bearing arms ; 
 and 1,500 or 2,000 villagers fitted only to dig and carry. To 
 these must be added, a troop of young men brought from 
 Crete to Ehodes by Messer John Antonio de' Bonaldi, a 
 Venetian gentleman, who happened to be trading at that time 
 for wine in the port of Candia, and the crew of a large carrack 
 laden with spices, commanded by Dominic Fornari, a Genoese 
 merchant, who, in returning from Alexandria to Sicily, 
 anchored near Ehodes, and was persuaded to share in the 
 perils of the siege. 
 
 The most ungrateful portion of the task remained. The 
 city, notwithstanding its proximity to the Turk, was sur- 
 rounded with pleasure houses, orchards, and gardens. To 
 supply the necessities and even the luxuries of the wealthiest 
 and most exclusive society in Europe, a thriving Greek popu- 
 lation had gathered round the suburbs. The olive, the vine, 
 the pomegranate, and the fig flourished in profusion beneath 
 the guns of the fort. Eoses with their myriad blossoms — 
 from which the island received its name — fruits and vegetables 
 of all kinds, fowls, cattle, and corn, throve abundantly in the 
 mild and delicious climate. Now every olive, vine, and fig 
 tree within a mile of the fort had to be levelled with the 
 ground. Amidst the lamentations of women and children, 
 houses were razed, gardens demolished, poultry and cattle 
 driven into the town. The Grand Master set the example by 
 devastating with his own hand his own garden situated in 
 front of the French bastion. Labourers and animals, crowded 
 together within the narrow streets, ill provided with adequate 
 lodgings, unaccustomed to the stifling atmosphere and unusual 
 food, languished and died. A pestilence among the cattle 
 was followed by diarrhoea and fever among the men. From 
 
 ' That is, according to Vertot, of Remberton (Pemberton ?), Oct. de 
 
 Provence, 51 ; Auvergce, 26 ; Prance, MontselH (Mansell ?), John Soty, 
 
 62 ; Italy, 47 ; Arragon, etc., 52 ; George Einer, Nicholas Ruberti 
 
 England, 11; Germany, 6; Castile (Roberts), George Asselz(Lascelles ?), 
 
 and Portugal, 57. Of this number 13 Michael Rous. Some of these names 
 
 were appointed to guard the tower of are so disfigured as to defy conjectare. 
 
 St. Nicholas. Besides these, there were Thomas 
 
 According to Yertot, the names Docwra, grand prior, who remained 
 
 of the English knights at the time of in England, Sir John Borough, the 
 
 the muster were John Rawson, William Turcopolier, slain. Sir William Weston, 
 
 Tnest (West or Weston?), Nicholas commander, Nicholas Fairfax, and 
 
 Usel (Hnssey ?), Giles Russell, Thomas Thomas Newport.
 
 1522.] THE SIEGE OF RHODES. 585 
 
 the besieged the plague extended with frightful ravage to the 
 besiegers, and proved more fatal than the sword. The Turks, 
 consisting chiefly of hasty levies drawn from the rustic popu- 
 lation, had no tents, but encamped in the open air. Habituated 
 to no other occupation than that of feeding cattle, impatient 
 of the tediousness of a protracted siege, the privations they 
 had to endure were augmented by unclean habits, half-cooked 
 meat, ill-baked bread, and a scanty supply of water ; for the 
 Ehodians had taken the precaution to fill the wells outside the 
 town with flax and putrid garbage. 
 
 The main body of the Turkish fleet, preceded a few days 
 before by a detachment of thirty galleys, hove in sight on the 
 24th of June. According to the account of Nicholas Roberts,^ 
 it consisted of 500 sail ; according to others, of 350. The 
 difference may be reconciled on the supposition that the 
 witnesses took their reckoning at different periods of the siege, 
 before and after the main body of the Turks had been rein- 
 forced. After mancBuvring some time, apparently with a view 
 of disj)laying their power, the fleet passed in a long line in 
 view of the town, and harboured a few miles off at Parambolin 
 (Lindo ?). To allay the excitement and calm the minds of 
 the inhabitants, Lisle-Adam had given orders, on the 25th 
 (24th ?) of June, for a solemn service to be celebrated in the 
 church of St. John. Sermon done, at the close of the mass, 
 the Grand Master solemnly commended himself, his Order, 
 and the town to the protection of their patron saint. " And 
 above all other words, which were too long to tell, he besought 
 him meekly that it would please him to take the keys of that 
 miserable city; the which keys he presented, and laid upon 
 the pJtar before the image, beseeching St. John to take the 
 keeping and protecting thereof and of all the religion." 
 
 The same day on which the fleet was descried, a procession 
 of the host, followed by the Order and the whole i)opulation 
 on foot, traversed the streets of Rhodes. Scarcely had the 
 last wailing note of the litany died away, and the last acolyte 
 disappeared, when young and old — men, women, and children; 
 knights, priests, and friars ; the sick, the impotent, and the 
 
 ' TIT. 3026. Hannibal, who was (i.e. light galleys with 16 or 18 oars 
 
 likely to be well informed, says, " 300 on each side, and two rowers to each 
 
 sail well armed" (No. 2539). Accord- oar), G4 groat ships, 6 or 7 galleons 
 
 ing to the account preserved in TTak- {i.e. armadas), 30 galliires, besides a 
 
 luyt, the fleet consisted of the follow- large detachment kept at sea to pre- 
 
 irig vessels : 30 galleasses, 103 galleys, vent reiuforcomonta from entering 
 
 15 taforees (horse boats), 20 foists Rhodes.
 
 586 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 cripple — mounted with breathless anxiety the city walls, there 
 to gaze upon that formidable fleet, which was now doubling 
 the neighbouring shore ; to gaze, as the contemporary 
 accounts declare, with deathlike stillness and horrible fascina- 
 tion, as djdng men gaze, on the fatal instruments of their own 
 destruction. 
 
 The Turks consisted, by some accounts, of 40,000 fighting 
 men and 60,000 miners ; or, if we may fill up the gaps in the 
 letter of Sir Nicholas Eoberts, of " 100,000 fighting men, and 
 50,000 labourers with spades and picks, which were the occasion 
 of the taking of Ehodes." Though strongly fortified, it was by 
 no means qualified to resist a siege, and was easily invested. 
 It was surrounded by a double, according to some accounts by 
 a triple, wall, strengthened by thirteen towers and five bastions, 
 defended by a deep foss and a counterscarp ; and, judging of 
 the deadly effects of their guns during the siege, and the man}- 
 batteries brought up by the Turks, the utmost skill had been 
 displayed by the knights in arranging their defences. Strict 
 disciplinarians, well acquainted with the art of war, they had 
 spared no pains in training their followers. Nothing was 
 wanting, either on the part of their commander or of their 
 engineers — of whom Gabriel Martinengo, a gentleman of 
 Brescia, was the most eminent — to turn their limited resources 
 to the best advantage. And though, perhaps, the more 
 regular armour of the knight was deprived of half its advan- 
 tage, by the heat of the climate and the season of the year, 
 yet in their numerous sallies their long spears must have 
 proved deadly and effective weapons against the yielding 
 garments of the Turks, armed with a scimitar and narrow 
 shield.-^ 
 
 To stimulate the exertions of the luaights, each nation was 
 appointed to its respective post. At the French bastion, on 
 the extreme left, stood the French knights, commanded by Sir 
 John St. Aubin, with the banner of Jieurs de Us. Next to 
 them were the German knights, under their eagles, led by 
 their commander Walderic. Then came the knights of 
 Auvergne, commanded by the chevalier Dumesnil. The most 
 dangerous post was assigned to the Spaniards, commanded by 
 
 ' Morally, the effects on their Turkish officers. Clearly, in their 
 
 followers were not less important. estimation, these " infidel dogs " knew 
 
 The Christian writers of the times nothing of chivalry, always associated 
 
 speak with the greatest contemi^t of in the minds of that generation with 
 
 the turbans and silk vestments of the knightly armour.
 
 1522.] THE SIEGE OF KHODES. 587 
 
 Francois de Carrieres, and to the English knights under Sir 
 Nicholas Hussey. Here the Turk made his hottest assaults, 
 and here also the Grand Master took his station shortly after 
 the siege commenced. To Angelo Geutili was assigned the 
 Italian hastion ; and to Berenger de Lioncel that of the Pro- 
 vencal knights, towards the extreme right. These were the 
 most important. Sir John Borough, an Englishman, Turco- 
 polier of the Order, was appointed, with four others, to rein- 
 force the Spanish and English bastions whenever they were 
 too hotly pressed, and was shot w^hilst carrying off a banner 
 from the enemj'. 
 
 Lisle-Adam combined the piety and asceticism of the monk 
 with the valour, self-devotion, and intrepidity of the knight 
 errant. He shared the lot of the common soldier ; exposed 
 himself to the same dangers, endured the same privations. 
 Snatching a hasty meal on the ramparts in the daytime, he 
 not unfrequently continued at his post until the third watch 
 of the night. A block of stone, a chance log, served him for 
 a pillow when he sought a brief interval of repose, worn out 
 with incessant labour or mental excitement. A cold and 
 rigorous judgment might have condemned him for exposing 
 his person too fi-eely in the various sallies of the garrisons, or 
 in the desperate assaults made by the enemy, as they breached 
 the walls, and poured like a torrent into the town, overwhelm- 
 ing for an instant with their irresistible numbers the scanty 
 ranks of its defenders. On all other occasions he was calm, 
 cautious, and self-collected ; was never elated by success, never 
 depressed by the most formidable dangers, or the apparent 
 hopelessness of his cause. In the alternations of good and ill 
 fortune, in the opposite and contradictory duties of controlling 
 the rash and urging the reluctant, of providing against dis- 
 affection from within— not uncommon in a mixed population 
 — and daily increasing dangers from without, he lost none of 
 that calmness, dignity, and composure for which eyewitnesses 
 tell us he was remarkable. The grace, majesty, and sweet- 
 ness which secured for him in more peaceable times the love 
 and veneration of beholders, remained untarnished and un- 
 diminished in all the trying events of this most daring and 
 desperate enterprise. What little time could be spared from 
 the incessant duties of governor, leader, and commander, was 
 given to devotion. In his cuirass and helmet — ready at the 
 call of duty — he spent a portion of the night in prayer, 
 prostrate at the foot of the altar ; or, laying aside his gauntlets.
 
 588 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 busied himself with his Psalter, devoutly repeating the Psalms 
 of David.i 
 
 Towards the close of July, the Turk commenced the assault 
 by erecting a battery opposite the Spanish and English 
 bastions. But his fire was soon silenced by the guns of the 
 Ehodians, directed by the Brescian Martinengo, who had 
 entered the town on the 24th of the same month. The 
 attempts of the enemy to renew their works proved equally 
 unsuccessful. The ground, a hard impenetrable rock, dis- 
 mantled of every tree, cottage, and projection which could 
 afford shelter or baffle the artillery of the besieged, exposed 
 them to the incessant and fatal fire of the town. The Ehodians, 
 grown familiar with danger, sallied out, and completed their 
 discomfiture with the sword. A month had elapsed, and the 
 invaders had made no progress. Baffled in their hopes of an 
 easy victory, unaccustomed to the hardships and perils of a 
 protracted siege, exposed to the continual fire and sallies of the 
 garrison, without fuel, scantily supplied with water and pro- 
 vision, the Turkish soldiers grew every day more reluctant to 
 obey, more inclined to insubordination, when Soliman himself 
 entered the camp.^ 
 
 His appearance was the signal for fresh efforts and more 
 formidable tactics. Anxious to wipe off the disgrace they had 
 incurred, the Turkish generals exerted themselves to the 
 utmost, and pushed forward their works with renewed vigour. 
 The wretched pioneers were again forced to the trenches 
 with the bastinado or the sword ; and Lisle-Adam, unwilling 
 to venture the loss of a single man against such fearful odds, 
 resolved to remain on the defensive. 
 
 The Ehodians were chiefly annoyed by two batteries ; one 
 of which, mounting twelve brazen mortars, shot stone balls 
 into the town seven palms in circumference ; and the other, 
 of forty guns, carried balls, some of nine, and others of eleven 
 
 ' Sach is the general estimate of grief at the loss of Ehodes; and his 
 
 his character as given by Fontani, judgment was warped — as human 
 
 who knew him well, and was in close judgment often is — by the ill success 
 
 personal attendance on the Grand of the Grand Master and the sui-render 
 
 Master during the siege. It must be of Ehodes, which the Pope took much 
 
 confessed, however, that Pope Adrian to heart. He was also said to have 
 
 entertained a less favourable opinion been greatly influenced by the English 
 
 of Lisle-Adam's talents and ability. knight Sir Thomas SheiSeld, who voted 
 
 He thought him a man " of small for Lisle-Adam in the election of the 
 
 policy and less wit," and not fitted to mastership, to the exclusion of his 
 
 govern such an Order (III. 3025). own countryman, Sir Thomas Docwra 
 
 But then it must be remembered that (Nos. 3025, 3026). 
 
 Adrian spoke in the impotence of his ^ August 28.
 
 1522.] THE SIEGE OF KHODES. 589 
 
 palms in circumference.^ Shells filled with comhustihles, 
 bursting in the air, and scattering fire on the besieged — " a 
 thing very inhuman and fearful," and little used among 
 Christians — carried dismay among the unfortunate Ehodians. 
 By degrees, however, they grew accustomed to the danger, 
 and learned to avoid it. Precautions also were adopted, 
 among others, the ringing of a bell, to warn the inhabitants 
 when an explosion was expected. So out of 2,000 balls ten 
 only proved fatal. 
 
 The vast numbers of the Turks, roughly reckoned from 
 150,000 to 200,000, enabled them to carry on their opera- 
 tions without intermission, and keep the besieged incessantly 
 employed. They had already raised two mounds overtopping 
 the walls by ten or twelve feet, and advanced their works to 
 the counterscarp. The knights performed prodigies of valour ; 
 even the Turkish slaves seemed to have been animated by 
 the enthusiasm of their masters, and to have laboured with 
 incredible activity and pertinacity. The courage of the 
 Ehodians was kept alive by the eloquence of the Genoese 
 archbishop, Leonardo Calestrini, and other rehgious men of 
 the town.^ By the skill of Martinengo, the breaches were 
 repaired as soon as formed. The besiegers, everywhere driven 
 from their works, in despair of making further progress by 
 bombardment, proceeded to countermine the walls. 
 
 They had already advanced so far in their works that on 
 the 5th of September they had blown up a great part of the 
 English bastion, and planted seven ensigns on the ruins. 
 The Grand Master was engaged at the time in hearing mass 
 
 » These dimensions may seem ex- by despair. One Greek woman whose 
 
 aggerated, but their accuracy is con- husband had been slain, iu the ex- 
 
 firmed by the great oriental historian, treniity of her grief, and in dread of 
 
 Von Hammer, who took a voyage to the town being taken by the Turk, 
 
 Ehodcs especially for the purpose of cut the throats of her two children, 
 
 ascertaining these and other facts and, throwing their bodies with all 
 
 connected with the siege. According that she had on a funeral pile, rushed 
 
 to some accounts, the Turkish artillery madly into the ranks of the besiegers, 
 
 consisted of six cannons perriers, and lost her life. Another, a 
 
 shooting a stone of 3^ feet ; 15 pieces Spaniard, who had the reputation of 
 
 of iron, for stones of five or six spans ; a saint, and had lately returned from 
 
 14 great bombards, for stones of 11 a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, traversed 
 
 spans; 12 pot guns, shooting balls of the streets of IJhodes, barefooted and 
 
 brass and copper full of wild fire, poorly clad, animating the towusp(>oplo 
 
 which burst in the air, and fell on the to acts of bravery, affirming that it 
 
 inhabitants ; with many other pieces had been revealed to her from Heaven, 
 
 of smaller dimensions. See III. 2841. that their present suilerings were 
 
 2 As has been seen on more than sent to them as a scourge lor then- 
 one occasion of this kind, the women sins, but that Divine mercy would 
 distinguished themselves greatly by never forsake theui. 
 their enthusiastic corn-age, inspired
 
 590 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 at the neighbourmg chapel. The officiating priest had just 
 pronounced the versicle, " Deus, in adjutorium yneum," when 
 the whole town was shaken, by the explosion of the mine, as 
 if by an earthquake. " I accept the augury," exclaimed 
 Lisle-Adam, and rushing to the breach, now filled with the 
 enemy, compelled them to give way. The Turks fell back 
 over the battlements and the broken wall with precipitation. 
 In vain their general attempted to stem the flight of the 
 fugitives by cutting them down with his own sabre. Knights 
 and townsmen fought in the breach without distinction. 
 Whenever the Turks repaired their losses and renewed the 
 fight with fresh reinforcements, they were met by showers of 
 stones, pitch, and sulphur. Nothing could resist the impetuous 
 onslaught of the Khodians, whose courage was animated by 
 despair. At last the Turks, deaf to command, fled in con- 
 sternation ; and their own batteries, turned against the 
 retreating columns, produced a terrible carnage. 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding this ill success, the assault was 
 renewed a few days after. Even the Ehodian historians 
 cannot withhold their tribute of admiration for the inde- 
 fatigable energy and undaunted bravery displayed by the 
 Infidels on these occasions. Fifteen assaults were given on 
 as many different days in the course of a month, and with no 
 better success than the first ; yet the besiegers were not to be 
 disheartened, nor did they betray any symptoms of abandon- 
 ing the enterprise. Their sufferings were great, their priva- 
 tions increased as the year advanced ; reinforcements were 
 daily expected by the Ehodians ; winter was coming on. To 
 abridge the protracted horrors of a siege scarcely less disastrous 
 to the Turk than the Christian, Soliman resolved by one 
 vigorous effort to make himself master of the town. On the 
 24th of September he brought up into the port of Ehodes 
 a hundred galleys to support his land forces. The Spanish 
 and English bastions were again selected as the main points 
 of attack. An unusual excitement in the camp of the besiegers, 
 the evening before, led the Grand Master to suspect their 
 designs. But his scanty and daily decreasing numbers could 
 do little towards repairing their tottering defences ; and, worn 
 out with incessant fatigue and exertion, they were scarcely 
 able to man the walls. At daybreak the Turk doubled the 
 strength of his batteries, and, under cover of the smoke, 
 advanced to the attack, assaulting the town in different 
 quarters. Animated by the presence of the Sultan, who
 
 1522.] THE SIEGE OF RHODES. 591 
 
 beheld the fight from a small eminence visible to the whole 
 army, the Tm-ks fought with more than usual vigour. Their 
 commander was the first to mount the wall, standard in hand, 
 when a shot from the Ehodian guns swept him headlong over 
 the parapet. Undismayed at the spectacle, rage, pity, and 
 revenge took possession of the hearts of his followers. They 
 exposed themelves recklessl}^ to danger, resolved to avenge his 
 fate, and put their enemy to the sword. Again and again 
 they advanced with blind ungovernable fury. If they recoiled 
 a few moments before the steady fire of the Ehodians and the 
 resistless lances of the knights, it was only to sweep back 
 again, like an angry wave, with greater might, and in more 
 overwhelming numbers. Here, at the English bastion, the 
 press was the greatest, the fight deadliest ; the whole thoughts 
 and energies of besiegers and besieged nerved and contracted 
 to the uttermost. But whilst the attention of the Grand Master 
 and the knights was thus fully occupied in one direction, a 
 body of the Turks contrived to obtain possession of the 
 Spanish bastion unobserved. Mounting the walls, they shouted 
 to their companions to join them, and were quickly reinforced. 
 An obstinate struggle ensued, and lasted for six hours. The 
 Turks, aware of their advantage, were determined to maintain 
 it. Inch by inch the Ehodians were driven back, and the 
 Tm'kish standard floated on the battlement. Just then a 
 cross fire from the Ehodian guns, sweeping the breach made 
 by the enemy, cut off the approach of the Turkish reinforce- 
 ments. One of the knights, with a handful of followers, 
 mounting the bastion by the casemate, reached the platform 
 sword in hand. Falling on the Turks like an exploding 
 planet, he compelled them to give way; cleared the walls, 
 turned the fire of the guns against those who were preparing 
 to scale, tore down the enemy's standards, and rescued the 
 town from its most imminent danger. Women and children, 
 the sick and the wounded, took part in this dreadful action, 
 as vigorously pressed as it was obstinately resisted. Those 
 who were too young or too feeble for manlier tasks supplied 
 the defenders with bread and wine ; the stronger piled up 
 earth and stones to assist in repairing the breaches, or to 
 serve in annoying the assailants. The fight had lasted six 
 hours when the Grand Master, cautiously withdrawing 200 
 fresh men from the tower of St. Nicholas, compelled the 
 janissaries to give way, but not until they had loi't 15,000 of 
 their comrades dead in the foss or on the ramparts.
 
 592 THE KEIGN OF HEXEY YIII. [A.D. 
 
 Foiled at all points, Soliman resolved to abandon the siege. 
 He had already lost several of his bravest bashaws, more than 
 100 standards, and 60,000 of his janissaries. He was per- 
 suaded by an Albanian renegade, who had stolen out of the 
 town, to persevere in his efforts, as the Ehodians were reduced 
 to great extremities, and had nothing left but bread and water. 
 Of the knights, 300 only survived ; and the rest of the garrison 
 scarcely amounted to 3,000.-^ 
 
 From time to time rumours had penetrated the nearest 
 ports of Europe of the heroic and hopeless defence of the 
 knights. By letters from Candia, two days since, writes 
 Hannibal, then at Eome, to Wolsey,^ " the Pope has word 
 that the Turk hath given two cruel assaults, and they of the 
 city doubt sore of the third. They had never so little pro- 
 vision within the city as they have now." There is no news, 
 writes another correspondent, some time after, except from 
 Ehodes, which is being besieged, and in great extremities ; 
 the Turks press the siege, though they have lost 60,000 men.^ 
 But with these came other and conflicting reports ; that the 
 Turk, despairing of success, had resolved to abandon his 
 attempt ; that he had put his bashaws to death, in a fit of 
 rage ; and his troops were on the eve of rebellion. And even 
 the long and animated defence of the Ehodians flattered the 
 hopes of men at a distance, whose minds were idly stirred by 
 tales of suffering and endurance from which they were them- 
 selves exempt. 
 
 Lisle-Adam had not failed, in this extremity, to send out 
 messengers to procure additional supplies, and quicken the 
 sympathy and aid of the Pope and the princes of Christendom. 
 But Adrian, as we have seen, was in no capacity to do more 
 than weep, and recommend their cause to the charity of 
 others. Unhappily also it seemed as if Heaven and the 
 elements had combined for their destruction. A convoy laden 
 with men and provisions, which had started from Marseilles 
 under the orders of certain French knights, encountered a 
 storm, and never reached its destination. The succours 
 collected by another of their number, Sir Thomas Newport, 
 were lost by a similar casualty. The Prior of St. Martin, 
 returning with reinforcements, fell in with the Turkish galleys 
 before he could enter the port of Ehodes, and was compelled 
 to abandon his enterprise. Left to their fate, deprived of all 
 
 » See III. 2775, 2818. « September 12, III. 2539. 
 
 * Gilberti to Wolsev ; III. 2775.
 
 1522.] THE SIEGE OF RHODES. 593 
 
 assistance, the knights resolved to sell their lives dearly, and 
 die rather than fall into the hands of their enemies. 
 
 Taught caution by experience, the Turk abandoned his 
 previous tactics, and confined himself to undermining the 
 walls. His chief efforts were directed, as before, to the 
 English and Spanish bastions. Notwithstanding the diihcult 
 uatm-e of the ground, the ingenious defences of Martinengo, 
 and the resistance of the knights, the works steadily advanced. 
 The town was fast becoming a mere wreck. If we may trust 
 the historians of the time, it had been pierced and honey- 
 combed by sixty different mines. The steeples of the churches 
 had been beaten down ; the wall of the English and Spanish 
 bastion was levelled with the barbican. By the 17th of 
 October the enemy had turned the defences of the English 
 quarter, and, ammunition failing, met with little resistance 
 from the Spanish. To add to their misfortunes, Martinengo 
 was disabled by a stray shot in the eye, and could no longer 
 direct the defences. According to Lisle-Adam they had 
 already made such a breach in the wall that thirty or forty 
 horsemen could enter abreast, and had carried their trenches 
 150 paces within the town.-^ Once more, therefore, on St. 
 Andrew's eve (29th of November) the Turks advanced in great 
 numbers to the breach, resolved to carry the town by assault ; 
 but they were again driven back, leaving 11,000 of their men 
 dead upon the field. The loss of the Ehodians amounted 
 to 180. 
 
 " After that day," says Eoberts, ''the Turks pm-posed to 
 give us no more battle, but to come into our town by trenches, 
 insomuchthat tbey made . . } great trenches, and by the space 
 of a month did come almost into the midst of our town, inso- 
 much that there lay nightly within our town . . . thousand 
 Turks. The trenches' were covered with thick tables, and holes 
 made in them for their spingardes, that we could not approach 
 them. And a month after that, [though] we saw precisely that 
 the town was lost, we would never give over, in esperance of 
 succors. And at such time as we saw that there came no succors, 
 nor no succors ready to come, and considering that the most 
 part of our men were slain, [and that] we had no j^owder, nor 
 no manner of ammunition or victuals, but alonely bread and 
 water, we were as men desperate and determined to die upon 
 
 ' Letter to his nephew Rochepot below. 
 Montmorenci, iV(%oc7ah'ons d« l/cvanfe, -The letter is, unfortunately, 
 
 i. 94. See also Nicholas Roberts, mutilated in this and otlier jilucos. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 Q
 
 594 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 them in the field, rather than to be put upon stakes ; for we 
 thought not that he would give us our lives, considering that 
 there were slain so many of his men. And in the mean 
 season they came to parlement with us, and did ask of us 
 whether we would make any partido, and said that the Great 
 Turk was content that if we would give him the walls of the 
 town he would give us our lives and our goods. The 
 commonalty of the town hearing this great proffer, came to 
 the Lord Master, and said that, considering that the . . . and 
 strength of the town is taken, and all the munition spent, and 
 the most part of your knights and men slain, and also seeing 
 there is no succors ready to come, we determine to accept this 
 partido that the Great Turk giveth us, for the lives of our 
 wives and children. The Lord Master, hearing the opinion 
 of the whole commonalty was to take the partido, fell down 
 almost dead ; and what time he recovered himself, he seeing 
 them continue in the same mind, consented to the same." 
 According to Lisle-Adam's letter, already quoted, Soliman 
 further offered to treat with lenity such of the inhabitants as 
 chose to remain ; they were to continue free of all tribute for 
 five years, and their children exempt from serving as janis- 
 saries, as was usual in other parts of Greece. He adds that 
 this liberal offer of Soliman was due to Divine grace, " seeing 
 the advantage the enemy had over us, the injury and expense 
 he had incurred by the siege, during which we had no aid or 
 succour except from God only." On the knights' side there 
 had fallen 700, on the Turks' more than 80,000, by war or 
 sickness. 
 
 To settle the preliminaries of the treaty a deputation was 
 appointed to wait upon the Grand Seignior, of whom Nicholas 
 Eoberts was one.^ He found Soliman " in a red pavilion, 
 standing between two gold lions, marvellous rich and 
 sumptuous, sitting in a chair, and no creature with him in the 
 pavilion ; which chair was of gold, and the work of fine gold ; 
 his guards standing [outside], to the number of 22 ... ; 
 they be called Sulakys. This number is continually about 
 his person. He hath the number of 40,000 of them. They 
 wear on their heads a long white cap, and at the top of the 
 cap the white ostrich feather, which giveth great show." 
 
 The preliminaries were interrupted by the dissatisfaction 
 of the townspeople, who now refused what they had before 
 desired; and the siege recommenced. On the 17th of Decem- 
 
 » See III. 3026.
 
 1522.] THE SIEGE OF EHODES. 595 
 
 ber an engagement took place, but negociations were again 
 resumed at the instance of the citizens, and terminated on 
 the 28th of December. It was agreed that 24 knights should 
 be given as hostages. A band of 4,000 janissaries were sent 
 to take possession of the town, and, if we may believe the 
 Christian historians, committed great cruelties and excesses. 
 They broke up the tombs of the knights, destroyed the images 
 in the churches, and turned the sick and wounded out of the 
 hospitals. 
 
 But such barbarities must not be attributed to Soliman. 
 In his treatment of the Grand Master there was a mixture of 
 barbarism and dignity, of tenderness and heedlessness, such 
 as history has taught us to expect in Oriental monarchs. On 
 one occasion he allowed the Grand Master, who was advanced 
 in years, to stand before his tent from daybreak, for many 
 hours, in a dense shower of rain and hail, without offering 
 him any refreshment. When the two met, they regarded each 
 other for some time with silent admiration ; Soliman suffered 
 his hand to be kissed by the Grand Master, and urged him to 
 enter the Turkish service. Complimenting the Sultan on 
 his generosity, Lisle-Adam replied that a ruler ought to incur 
 any indignity rather than abandon his peoj^le in misfortune ; 
 a sentiment in which Soliman concurred, and dismissed the 
 Grand Master with respect, presenting him, and each of the 
 knights who attended him, with a scarlet robe. 
 
 On another occasion Soliman entered the city, and, visiting 
 the Grand Master unexpectedly, found him engaged in making 
 preparations for his departure. As the Grand Master would 
 have fallen on his knees, Soliman forbade him ; and moving 
 slightly his fez with his right hand — a species of reverence 
 never paid by the Turkish Sultans except to God and their 
 Prophet — he addressed the Grand Master with the word 
 " Babba " (Father), a term of the highest regard and affection. 
 I would rather not believe Fontani, who says that the Sultan 
 had given secret orders to put the Grand Master and the rest 
 of the knights on board a war gallej^, and carry them oft' to 
 Constantinople. At the same time it must be admitted that 
 such tokens of Eastern affection have been often reported, 
 and can scarcely be wholly devoid of foundation. The same 
 writer, who had seen the Turk on horseback, though he did 
 not admire his manner of riding, admits that Soliman was 
 not deficient in dignity. In complexion he was slightly 
 bronzed, was erect in stature, and, notwithstanding his black
 
 596 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [AD. 1522. 
 
 and rather fierce eyes, had a pleasant and commanding 
 comitenance. 
 
 After many hardships by sea, the Imights landed in Crete. 
 They reached Messina in the May following ; thence to Eome, 
 where Lisle-Adam was met on his arrival by the cardinals 
 and others, and conducted to the Vatican amidst the universal 
 sympathy of the spectators.^ 
 
 ^ A letter from the Sultau to his surrender of the island, will be found 
 ood friends the Venetians, dated in the Lettere di Principi, ii. p. 35, 
 from Rhodes, Dec. 29, announcing the ed. 1557.
 
 ( 597 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LUTHER AND HENRY VIII. 
 
 Is there a conservation and transmission of force in the moral 
 as well as the phj^sical world ? Whilst politicians were thus 
 tormenting themselves and others with ingenious and barren 
 combinations, whilst the old props and buttresses of Christen- 
 dom appeared to be fast crumbling to decay, there was growing 
 up a new power in an obscure and forgotten corner, which, 
 like the Tm'k himself, seemed to gather life out of death, and 
 thrive on the ruin and confusion of the times. 
 
 Among the latest and the least esteemed of the religious 
 communities of Europe was the Saxon Congregation of 
 Augustinian friars.^ It had given no doctors of eminence to 
 the schools, like other Orders, no popes or rulers to the 
 Church. Founded at the close of the 15th century, dis- 
 tinguished by its poverty, its spirit of independence and fervid 
 religious zeal, it was regarded with suspicion even by the 
 general body to which it nominally belonged. For two 
 centuries the Dominican and Franciscan had ruled absolutely 
 over the realm of thought and theological speculation. If 
 popes were its ostensible heads, the masters of the schools 
 commanded its real obedience. Professing a nominal submis- 
 sion to established rules of faith, they had habituated their 
 own minds and those of their followers to the freest and most 
 daring speculations. What doubts have since been mooted, 
 what difficulties suggested, in morals, religion, or politics, 
 during three centuries of unfettered religious inquiry, which 
 they, the schoolmen, have not anticipated and dissected with 
 the calmness of scientific anatomists ? The real precursors of 
 the Pieformation, which, after their labours, had become in- 
 evitable, with a subtlety, patience, and " unwearied travail of 
 
 ' Luther was born in 1483, and two, at the time when Staupitz was 
 entered the order of Augustinian its Vicar-Genera). 
 Eremite friars at the age of twenty-
 
 598 
 
 THE REIGN OF HENRY VHI. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 wit," never surpassed, they had pierced and drilled, by their 
 " vermiculate questions," the solid body of the general belief, 
 until under the guise of its defenders they had become its 
 most dangerous enemies. Every form of difficulty or error 
 which had ever entered the brains of others or themselves, 
 had been so carefully stated, so laboriously refuted, that 
 doubts which might have died of themselves, or have obtained 
 at best a narrow and precarious existence, gained a fatal 
 immortality and activity by their writings. For error is too 
 subtle to yield to dialectics ; and such is the perverseness of 
 the human mind, the poison remains when the antidote is 
 Long since the time had passed away when the 
 
 forgotten.^ 
 
 * There is a profound remark by 
 Lord Bacon on the inefficiency of the 
 scholastic method, and its tendency 
 to propagate error. " Were it not 
 better," he says, " for a man in a fair 
 room to set up one great light . . . 
 than to go about with a small watch 
 candle into every corner ? " For, he 
 observes, " as you carry the light into 
 one corner you darken the rest." As 
 the candle travels in succession from 
 question to question, the ghost of 
 dead errors revive in the dark, and 
 are invested with gigantic propor- 
 tions. That central light which 
 reason could not supply, Luther 
 claimed for faith, as the sun of reason. 
 And here I may be allowed to remark 
 on the close analogy in the mental 
 pose of Luther and Bacon ; with this 
 difference — that whilst the latter was 
 exclusively interested with the relation 
 of man to nature and her kingdom, 
 Luther's sole concern was the relation 
 of man to God and the Kingdom of 
 Heaven. In both there was the same 
 intense dislike to abstract specula- 
 tion, however ingenious : the same dis- 
 trust of the mere intellectiial powers ; 
 the same hatred of Aristotle and the 
 habits of thought engendered by the 
 study of the Greek philosopher. That 
 nuditas onwni, which Bacon considered 
 indispensable for the successful pro- 
 seciition of natural knowledge, was 
 with Luther a necessary condition 
 for religious truth. " Knowledge," 
 says Lord Bacon, " is the double of 
 that which is; " and the highest per- 
 fection of man is to reflect exactly, 
 not his own thoughts, biit the external 
 realities of nature. So in Luther's 
 conception, the perfect righteousness 
 of man is the mere and passive mirror 
 of the righteousness of God, which is 
 
 revealed in those who are willing to 
 accept it by faith. But though both 
 of these philosophers insisted upon 
 the worthlessness of our human 
 powers per se — though both asserted 
 that man has nothing but what he 
 receives, and God's goodness and 
 grace are infinite, — they never sup- 
 posed that it was indifferent how that 
 goodness was sought ; or that a wrong 
 method of seekingit, however laborious 
 or conscientious, could be crowned 
 with success. Wrong methods of 
 investigation in the natural world 
 lead only to error and confusion. So 
 is it in the world of grace. " Claudus 
 in via antevertit cursorem extra viam," 
 observes Lord Bacon ; a truth which 
 Luther repeats in his own particular 
 phraseology again and again. It was 
 this conviction, and his strong sense 
 of the mischief occasioned by the 
 opposite error, which lent such force 
 and energy to his language. It was 
 the wrong method of the popular 
 religion, more than the barrenness, 
 despondency, and immorality en- 
 gendered by it, which seemed so 
 heinous to him, aud worthy of the 
 severest denunciations. Whether he 
 was right or wrong ; whether by the 
 full blaze of the truth which he saw he 
 was in some degree blinded, not unlike 
 Bacon, and unable to do full justice 
 to other sides of it ; — I have not to 
 inquire. But if this account be true, 
 he must be accorded the position of a 
 great and original thinker. He was 
 not, like many of his contemporaries, 
 a denouncer of errors merely — a Thor 
 with a hammer of destruction of more 
 than usual power and pretension, as 
 he is too often represented ; but the 
 constructive side of his teaching is 
 not less important to man in his
 
 1522.] LUTHER'S SCHOLASTIC TRAINING. 599 
 
 simple Franciscan or zealous Dominican thought his mission 
 fulfilled if he brought back into the fold the erring flock and 
 ignorant multitudes of populous towns. His real kingdom 
 was the battle-field of the schools, and there he claimed to 
 rule alone by the undivided supremacy of his intellect. 
 
 It was fortunate, perhaps, for Luther's independence of 
 thought and action that he did not enroll himself in either of 
 these more eminent Orders, where his ardour, his indefatigable 
 industrj^ and extraordinary logical acuteness, might have found 
 a congenial sphere and unremitting occupation. Popular 
 wi-iters are fond of insisting on the more obvious side of his 
 character — on his courage, his homeliness, his broad humour 
 — overlooking the influences of his scholastic training, his 
 logical acuteness, his love of foiling his opponents with their 
 own weapons, — weapons which he had learned to wield with 
 more abilit}^ than they. For no man was better versed than 
 he in the writings of the schoolmen, none knew better than he 
 their weakest points, their most flagrant contradictions. For 
 the few grains of precious ore that might perchance be found 
 he had, with unslaked thirst and unbiassed assiduity, turned 
 over and sifted the controversial dust-heaps of the day. Every- 
 W'here he shows himself much better versed in that learning 
 he is accused of impugning than his opponents who undertake 
 to defend it. He is more at home with the Canonists than 
 the cardinals themselves ; more familiar than the most 
 approved teachers of his time with the subjects of their teach- 
 ing. For between him and them there was this vital difference 
 ■ — ^of men who had painfully toiled with no higher motive than 
 Ijrofessional responsibility, or desire of fame, and the fainting 
 wretch, sick with the love of truth, who must die or find it, 
 indifferent to all other considerations. That truth exists, that 
 it is to be found, that it passes all price, is the spur to exertion 
 in such men. It is the sustaining energy against their own 
 weakness and hesitation, the opposition of the world, the 
 serried ranks of prejudice and error, the clouds and darkness 
 which seem to settle down at midday on their plainest path. 
 That is the faith of all great pioneers for truth — a faith after- 
 wards enunciated by Luther in terms more precise and theo- 
 logical, but which was working in him, perhaps unconsciously, 
 long before his controversy with Tetzel or his rejection of the 
 Papal authority. 
 
 divine relations than the rules of in- well-being, 
 ductive philosophy are to his scientific
 
 6IJ0 
 
 THE KEIGN OF HENRY VIII. 
 
 [A.D. 
 
 It has been tliou2;lit that the success of the Eeformation 
 was mainly due to the purity of the morahty it inculcated, or 
 rather to the general corruption of all classes — of the clergy 
 in particular — in the fifteenth century. The declamations of 
 moralists and theologians, the invectives of satirists, even 
 the evidence of criminal courts, on such a subject as this, 
 whether in the 16th or the 19th century, are too partial to 
 be decisive. Neither authentic documents, nor the literature 
 and character of the times, nor, if national ethics are 
 essentially connected with national art, its artistic tendencies, , 
 warrant us in believing that the era preceding the Eeformation ' 
 was more corrupt than that which succeeded it.-^ It is im- 
 possible that the clergy can have been universally immoral, 
 and the laity have remained sound, temperate, and loyal. 
 But if these general arguments are not sufficient, I refer my 
 readers to a very curious document, dated the 8th of July, 
 1519,^ when a search was instituted by different commissioners, 
 on Sunday night, in London and its suburbs, for all suspected 
 and disorderly i:)ersons. I fear no parish in London, nor any 
 town in the United Kingdom, of the same amount of popula- 
 tion, would at this day pass a similar ordeal with equal credit. 
 
 But, however this may be, it is clear from the writings of 
 Luther himself during these three years, and still more from 
 his most celebrated work De Captivltate Babylonica, that he 
 did not rest his teaching on the moral, but the theological 
 aspect of the questions in dispute. To the latter, not to the 
 former phase, was it indebted for its popularity. It might be 
 a more than Babylonish captivity, that the Church should 
 disfigure the doctrine of the Sacraments ; that it should deter- 
 mine of its own authority their nature, and the mode of their 
 administration ; should give them here, and withhold them 
 there, as a tyrant over God's heritage : but the immorality 
 consisted in the slavery, not in the consequences to which 
 that slavery had led — in the confusion between things divine 
 and human, with which the Pope for his own purposes had 
 succeeded in perplexing the consciences of men.^ 
 
 ^ Consider these names : Leonardo 
 da Vinci, 1452-1520 ; Alb. Durer, 
 1471-1528; Raphael, 1483-1520; Del 
 Sarto, 1483-1525; Michael Angelo, 
 1474-1564. In other subjects, Luther 
 himself, 1484-1546 ; Erasmus, 1467- 
 1536 ; Copernicus, 1473-1543 ; Picus 
 of Mirandola, 1463-1496. 
 
 - III. 365. 
 
 ^ In this celebrated treatise, which 
 contains the essential rudiments of 
 the writer's doctrine, Luther reduces 
 all sacraments strictly to one ; sc. 
 faith in the Word ; that is, in the 
 promises of God, confirmed to man by 
 the death of His Son : — other sacra- 
 ments, as they are called, are no more 
 
 than 
 
 and emblems of those
 
 1522.] THE KING'S BOOK. 601 
 
 The dispute with Tetzel might have been forgiven ; the 
 burning of the Pope's bulls might have been attributed to the 
 rude and rough extravagance of the German ; but Luther's 
 attack on the cardinal doctrine of Sacrifice — interwoven as it 
 was, not merely with the accepted tlieology of the day, but 
 •with all that was lovely and attractive, in the self-abasement, 
 loyalty, and devotion of the old world — could not be mistaken, 
 or its purpose overlooked. The sentence had gone forth to 
 the world that all sacrifice had been abolished in one great 
 sacrifice, all action absorbed in one great suffering and satisfac- 
 tion. It was more blessed to believe than do, to receive than 
 to give ; for the empty hands of faith were more acceptable in 
 God's sight than the full hecatombs of charity. Christendom 
 stood aghast ; its deepest emotions were roused. Not only 
 was the veil rudely torn away from the sanctuary it had 
 hitherto regarded with distant awe and unquestioning rever- 
 ence, but that sanctuary itself and its services w^ere now held 
 up to the world as no better than a whited sepulchre, the court 
 of Death, the stronghold of Antichrist. 
 
 Some time before the appearance of this celebrated treatise, 
 Henry had determined to signalize his theological acquire- 
 ments and his devotion to the Church by writing against the 
 prevailing heresies of the times. That he had entertained 
 this intention at an early period of Luther's career is plain 
 from a letter of Pace to Wolsey, dated the 24th of June, 1518, 
 in which the writer refers to the commendations given by 
 Wolsey to the King's book. He states, as from his Majesty, 
 that though the King does not think it deserving of so much 
 praise as it had received from the Cardinal and other "great 
 learned men," yet he is glad to have " noted in your Grace's 
 letters that his reasons be called inevitable, considering that 
 yom- Grace was some time his adversary herein, and of 
 contrary opinion."^ It is clear, therefore, that the King 
 must have been employed some time before the date of this 
 letter, on his self-appointed task. 
 
 The authors of the history of the Augustinian Friars claim 
 for Bernard Andre, the poet, the credit of engaging the King 
 in this novel path of theological controversy. Whatever 
 
 promises, inKtitutcd to encourage and is not of faitli is sin ; " i.e. is common 
 
 confirm men's faith. Faith, then, or to the Gentile and unrcgencrate. 
 belief in those promises, is that which ' II. 4257. This is confirmed by 
 
 constitutes the peculiar sacrifice, the a subsequent letter written four days 
 
 life, the work of a Christian, in strict after. No. 4206. 
 language. In this sense, " whatever
 
 602 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VIH. ^ [A.D. • 
 
 might have been Henry's intentions in the first instance, they 
 received a fresh impulse and a more definite direction in 1520, 
 by the appearance of Luther's treatise De Captivitate Bahy- 
 lonica. The opinions of Luther had akeady gained so much 
 notoriety that Tunstal, then at Worms, states in a letter to 
 Cardinal Wolsey^ that the Germans were so addicted to 
 Luther, that, rather than he should be oppressed by the Pope's i 
 authority, who had already condemned his opinions, they ! 
 were resolved to spend a hundred thousand of their lives in 
 his defence. " He hath written a book," says Tunstal, " since 
 his condemnation, De Captivitate Bahylonica Ecclesice, wherein 
 he holdeth that four of the sacraments be only de jure positivo, 
 by the Pope's ordinance, so called, viz. Confirmatio, Ordo, 
 Extrema Unctio, and Matrimonium ; and that Baptismus, \ 
 Eucharistia, and Pwnitentia, be de jure divino et evangelii. ' 
 They say there is much more strange opinion in it, near to j 
 the opinions of Boheme. I pray God keep that book out of 
 England." 
 
 In spite of Tunstal' s warnings, before April, 1521, the \ 
 dreaded book had found its way into England. On the 21st 
 of that month Pace writes to Wolsey : " At mine arrival to the 
 King this morning, I found him looking upon a book of 
 Luther's. And his Grace showed unto me that it was a new j 
 work of the said Luther's. I looked upon the title thereof, 
 and perceived by the same that it is the same book put into 
 print which your Grace sent unto him by me written." After 
 some further conversation, he assured the Cardinal that " the 
 King was very joyous to have these tidings from the Pope's 
 Holiness at such time as he had taken upon him the defence 
 of Christ's Church with his pen ;" — and had resolved to 
 " make an end therein the sooner." 
 
 This letter was followed by another from the King himself, 
 on the 21st of May, to Leo X., in which he expresses his ' 
 anxiety to suppress the Lutheran heresy ; and, to testify his 
 zeal for the Faith, he proposes to dedicate to the Pope this 
 the first offspring of his intellect, that all men may see he is 
 as ready to defend the Church with his pen as with his sword. 
 
 Notwithstanding this urgent speed, the King's book was 
 not completed until the 25th of August, 1521,^ i^robably in 
 
 * January 19, 1521 ; from a letter to the Society of Jesus College, 
 
 preserved in Master's collections for Oxford. See Appendix to this volume. 
 
 Lord Herbert's history. I am in- No. III. 
 debted for the use of this manuscript * III. 1510.
 
 15'22.J THE KING'S BOOK. 603 
 
 consequence of the Duke of Buckingham's trial. Then Wolsej' 
 writes to Clerk that the King's book is completed, and he 
 sends the ambassador directions how it is to be presented to 
 the Pope. Clerk is to deliver a copy of it, privately, to his 
 Holiness, covered with cloth of gold, and subscribed by the 
 King's own hand ; — " wherein the King's grace hath devised 
 and made two verses inserted in the said book by the King's 
 own hand." If, on perusal, it was approved by the Pope, the 
 ambassador is charged to have it set forth with the papal 
 authority, and request leave to present it publicly in full con- 
 sistor}' there to receive the papal sanction. With this despatch 
 Clerk received twenty-eight copies in the month of September.^ 
 One of them, bound with cloth of gold as directed, he presented 
 to Leo — "the trim decking" of which his Holiness liked very 
 well ; and, opening it, read successively jQve leaves of the in- 
 troduction "without interruption." "And, as I suppose," 
 adds Clerk, " he would never a' ceased till he had read it 
 over." " At such j)laces as he liked, and that seemed to be 
 at every second line, he made ever some demonstration, vel 
 niitu vel verbo ; whereby it appeared that he had great pleasure 
 in reading. And when his Holiness had read a great season 
 I assure your Grace he gave the book a great commendation, 
 and said there was therein much wit and clerkly conveyance ; 
 and how that there were many great clerks that had written 
 in the matter, but this book should seem to pass all theirs. 
 His Holiness said that he would not 'a thought that such a 
 book should have come from the King's grace, who hath been 
 occupied necessarily in other feats, seeing that other men 
 which hath occupied themselves in study all their lives cannot 
 bring forth the like." Then, taking the book from the Pope's 
 hand. Clerk drew his attention to the verses written by the 
 King in honor of his Holiness; " and because the King's grace 
 had written the said verses with a very small pen, and because 
 I knew the Pope to be of a very dull sight, I would have read 
 unto his Holiness the said verses ; and his Holiness, quadam 
 aviditate legendi, took the book from me, and read the said 
 verses three times very promptly, to my great marvel, and 
 commended them singularly." '^ 
 
 * III. 1574. The famous verses are as fol- 
 
 * The Asserfio was printed at Lon- lows : — 
 
 don by Richard Pynson, July 12, 1521. ,,.1 tt • t t-» • 
 
 i..„-iii, L I-.- " Anglorum rex Henncus, Leo Decimo, 
 
 It passed through numerous editious, ^ •, , •■ 
 
 of which an account is given by Sir tt icj • 2. 1. j. • -i- » 
 
 T. vir 01 • r /. ■ Houopusetfideitestemetaniiotiaa. ' 
 
 Henry Jiilhs, 3rd series or Oi'ig. ' 
 
 Letters, i. p. 256. Possibly these verses were not the
 
 604 THE REIGN OF HENRY VIIL [A.D. 
 
 On his telling the Pope that he had received a number of 
 other copies "no worse manner covered and clasped" than 
 that which his Holiness held in his hand, Leo desired to have 
 five or six more, "to the intent he might deliver them to 
 sundry cardinals learned." What opinions might have been 
 expressed by other members of the Sacred College we have no 
 means of ascertaining ; but Campeggio in his letter to Wolsey 
 is unable to restrain the transports into which he was thrown 
 by a perusal of the King's " aureus libellus." Nothing, he 
 assured Wolsey, could be better expressed or better argued ; — 
 the King was inspired more by an angelic than a human 
 spirit.^ Thus fortified. Clerk prepared for his great coup in 
 the consistory held on the 2nd of October for this special 
 purpose. 
 
 Either from apprehension of carrying the farce too far — 
 for no Pope ever possessed more worldly sagacity — or dreading 
 some disturbance if too much notoriety was given to this 
 affair, Leo declined Clerk's urgent request for a public con- 
 sistory. If, said he, a public consistory were summoned, 
 besides the clergy, a great crowd of laymen would be present ; 
 and whereas Lutheranism had been silenced for a time, and 
 the minds of men are quieted, " this act should put them in 
 fresh remembrance, and renew the old sore." ^ It was urged 
 by Clerk, that if any such there were, they would be brought 
 to reason "by the gravity of this act," and the conclusive 
 arguments contained in the King's book. But the Pope 
 remained inflexible. He was, in fact, bent upon getting 
 through this business with as little notoriety as he conveniently 
 could, without giving offence to any. Therefore, on the 
 Wednesday when Clerk, according to appointment, attended 
 at the palace, after hearing mass "his Holiness went into the 
 
 King's own composition ; for Burnet parfitted) is far more excellent and 
 has published a letter from Wolsey to princely, and shall long continue for 
 the King, professing to be taken from your perpetual memory, whereof your 
 the State Paper Office — the original Grace shall be more plenarily informed 
 of which has since disappeared — in by the said Mr. Tate. I do send aho 
 which the Cardinal says, that he has unto your Highness the choice of certain 
 sent jMr. Tate (Tuke ?) to the King verses to he written in the hook to he 
 " with the book bounden and di-essed, sent to the Pope in your own hand, with 
 which ye purpose to send to the Pope's the subscription of your name, to 
 Holiness, with a memorial of such remain in archivis Ecclesice ad per- 
 other as be also to be sent by him petitarn et immortalem vestrce majestatis 
 with his authentic bulls to all other gloriam, laudevi et memoriam." Bur- 
 princes and universities. And albeit, net, iii. Records, No. 3. 
 Sir, this book is right honorable, * III. 1592. 
 
 pleasant and fair, yet I assure your * Luther had not yet emerged 
 
 Grace that which Hall hath written from his Patmos. 
 (which within four days will be
 
 1522.] DEFENDER OF THE FAITH. 605 
 
 place where consistories were accustomed to be kept ; and 
 within a little while called in such prelates as were tarrying 
 without to the number of twenty. And immediately after," 
 continues Clerk, "the master of the ceremonies came unto 
 me, and informed me somewhat of the ceremonies ; and 
 amongst other that I should kneel upon my knees all the time 
 of mine oration. Whereat I was somewhat abashed, for 
 methought I should not have my heart nor my spirits so much 
 at my liberty. I feared greatly lest they should not serve me 
 so well kneeling as they would standing. Howbeit, there was 
 no remedy ; and needs I must do as the master of the cere- 
 monies did tell me. And so following him, I entered the 
 place of th. . . , where the Pope's Holiness sate in his majesty 
 upon a [dais], three steps from the ground, underneath a cloth 
 of [estate]. Afore him, in a large quadrant, upon stools, sate 
 the bishops in their consistorial habits, to the number of 
 twenty." He was then presented by the master of the cere- 
 monies, and after three obeisances the Pope allowed Clerk to 
 kiss his foot ; but as he attempted to rise, " his Holiness," he 
 says, " took me by the shoulders and caused me to kiss first 
 the one cheek and then the other." Then, returning to the 
 stool which had been placed for him. Clerk pronounced his 
 oration on his knees.-^ The Pope made a complimentary 
 reply. He thanked God for raising uj) such a Defender of the 
 Faith, and inspiring him with the power and the wish to 
 grapple with such an abominable monster as Luther. On 
 calling two or three days afterwards, His Holiness con- 
 descended " to use very good words " touching Clerk's oration, 
 and took occasion at the same to assure him that the Holy 
 See would do as much for the confirmation of the King's book, 
 " as ever was done for the works of St. Augustine or St. 
 Jerome." 
 
 The day after Clerk's appearance in the consistory, the 
 title of Fidei Defensor was conferred by the Pope on 
 Henry YHL^ 
 
 The news reached England at the end of October. On the 
 4th of November, Pace, then at court, wrote to Wolsey, stating 
 that the King had received his extracts from Clerk's letters, 
 and was rejoiced to hear " of the Pope's singular contentation 
 of his book against Luther, and how honorably and lovingly 
 it was accepted by his Holiness." He repeated the same 
 
 • The substance of his oration will be found in III. 1656. 
 « III. 1659.
 
 606 THE EEIGN OF HENEY VIII. [A.D. 
 
 information on the 17tli of the same month, adding, that 
 " whereas the King perceived the great honor, land, and com- 
 mendation he had attained by the writing of his book against 
 the detestable heresies of Martin Luther, and that it had 
 pleased the Pope's holiness, in memory of that Catholic work, 
 to give unto him the high and most excellent title of Defensor 
 of the Faith, to the perpetual renown and glory of him and all 
 his successors, his Highness saith that though God hath sent 
 unto him a little learning, whereby he hath attempted to write 
 against the erroneous opinions and heresies of the said Luther, 
 yet he never intended so to do afore he was by your Grace 
 moved and led thereunto. Wherefore his Highness saith that 
 your Grace must of good congruitybe partner of all the honor 
 and glory he hath obtained by that act." ^ 
 
 Owing to the rank of its author, and the imposing ceremony 
 with which it was ushered into the world, the King's book 
 passed rapidly through various editions. It was translated 
 into German and published at Leipsic in 1523 ; into English 
 a few years later. " It was multiplied into many thousands," 
 says Cochlffius, " by various printers ; and filled the whole 
 Christian world with joy and admiration." ^ 
 
 Luther had scarcely returned from his Patmos in the 
 castle of the Wartberg, when his attention was called to the 
 King's book. He suspected its real author was Edward Lee, 
 the enemy of Erasmus, afterwards Archbishop of York, who 
 had drawn down upon himself the animosity of the Germans, 
 both Protestant and Catholic. 
 
 To the man who has grappled with Apollyon in the Valley 
 of the Shadow of Death, any Goliath of Vanity Fair, however 
 gigantic, must appear no better than an empty wind-bag. In 
 the flush of his might he is sometimes liable to forget the 
 weakness and ignorance of his fellow-men. So was it with 
 Luther. The spirit of victory was strong upon him. In his 
 reply, dated from Wittemburg, July 15, 1522, he shows the 
 King no mercy. " The King's book," he says, " has been put 
 forth to his everlasting disgrace." " He was a fool for allow- 
 ing his name to be abused by a parcel of empty-headed 
 sophists, and for stuffing his book with lies and virulence, 
 reminding the world of nothing more than of Lee or his 
 shadow, and of such fat swine as are mewed in the sty of St. 
 Thomas. The Pharaoh of England, like the tyrant of old, is 
 not without his false prophets, Jannes and Jambres." Then, 
 
 > III. 1772. 2 Acta Martini Lutheri, p. 48.
 
 1522.] LUTHER'S ANSWER TO THE KING. 607 
 
 hj way of apology for tliis indecorous severity, be continues : 
 " If the King bad been guilty of error such as is common to 
 men, be miglit bave been treated witb indulgence. Now that 
 — damnable rottenness and worm as be is — be knowingly and 
 wilfully sets bimself to compose lies against tbe Majesty of 
 my King in Heaven, it is only rigbt tbat I, in tbe cause of mj^ 
 King, sbould bespatter bis Englisb majesty wdtb bis own mud 
 and bis own filtb, and tread under my feet tbat crowned bead 
 {cownam) wliicb tbus blaspbemes against Cbrist. 
 
 " And since it is notorious tbat tbese Tbomists are a dull 
 and beavy-beaded race of sopbists, tban wbom in tbe wbole 
 range of buman nature tbere is notbing more stupid and 
 blockisb, and as our good Henry wisbes, in tbis book of bis, 
 to be reckoned a first-rate Tbomist, wbilst be dreams and 
 snores, among otber matters, de charactere et vi sacramentali 
 in aquis — absurdities wbicb even bis brotber sopbists in tbeir 
 universities bave abandoned as untenable — I bave tbougbt it 
 rigbt to snub and to piucb bim witb sbarp words, and rouse 
 bim, if possible, out of bis letbargy. . . . His book is a 
 favourite witb om' sopbistical neighbours, for no otber reason 
 tban tbat it is so intensely Tbomistic ; — and asses love 
 nettles." ^ 
 
 My reader may easily guess, from tbis specimen of tbe 
 prelude, tbe st3de and temper of Lutber's reply. Tbe King's 
 book contained notbing, it must be confessed, tbat could 
 enlighten the consciences of men, or shake tbe convictions of 
 those who had already adopted tbe Lutheran doctrines. It 
 reproduced, without novelty or energy, the old common-places 
 of authorit}^ tradition, and general consent. The cardinal 
 principles of Luther's teaching tbe King did not understand, 
 and did not therefore attempt to confute. Contented to point 
 out the mere straws on tbe surface of the current — the 
 apparent inconsistencies of Luther, his immoderate language, 
 bis disparagement of authority, the royal controversialist 
 never travels beyond the familiar round ; and reproduces, 
 
 ' That is, Lulher ridicules the idea sacraments. It will be gathered from 
 
 of there bein? any Bacramental eflScacy these remarks tliat the Reformer did 
 
 in the water of baptism, or the not, like the Schoolmen, consider the 
 
 material elements of the mass. That priest as of the essence of either 
 
 eflBcacy exists only in the promise of sacrament. It is not easy to escape 
 
 God, which, by His own ordinance, the conclusion that, according to this 
 
 accompanies these outward and visible doctrine, any and all water is bajitism, 
 
 signs, wherever they are received in any bread and wine spiritual as well 
 
 faith. This is that consubstantiation as material aliment, to the faithful, 
 which Luther recognized in both
 
 608 THE EEIGN OF HENRY VHI. [A.D. 
 
 without force, originality, or feeling, the weaiy topics he had 
 picked up, without much thought or research, from the theo- 
 logical manuals of the day. Even his invective is as mean 
 and as feeble as his logic. Even when discussing the Papal 
 supremacy he puts on the blinkers with his harness, and is 
 as docile and as orthodox as if he had never opposed the 
 publication of a papal bull, or refused admission to a papal 
 nuncio. 
 
 Such being the case, we may wonder at Luther's needless 
 violence and acrimonj^ ; of which he himself seems to have 
 been ashamed, and attempted afterwards to excuse it in a letter 
 to the King, on the ground that he was instigated to write in 
 this bitter fashion by certain persons who were not favourable 
 to his Majesty. Who they were he nowhere states, nor have 
 1 been able to discover. He adds, that he hears the King is 
 beginning to favour the professors of the Gospel, and has 
 grown weary of his former councillors. 
 
 But in his apology, whilst magnifying the King's clemency 
 he fell into the mistake, on some false information, of affecting 
 to disbelieve the authorship of the King's book. He attributes 
 it to some cunning sophists, who had abused the King's con- 
 fidence, without being aware of the danger they were incurring 
 from the King's indignation when the facts should be dis- 
 covered — " especially that monster the Cardinal of York 
 (Wolsey), the public detestation of God and man, the plague 
 of your Majesty's kingdom ! " 
 
 This letter, written in September, 1525, is curious, as 
 Luther had received some intimation, probably from Chris- 
 tiern IL, that Wolsey had fallen under the King's displeasure ; 
 but his invective against the Cardinal was premature. It is 
 not surprising that Henry rejected his advances with scornful 
 coldness, and bluntly contradicted every one of his insinuations. 
 
 The violence and bitterness of Luther called forth replies 
 conceived in the same offensive tone and temper ; among 
 others, from Sir Thomas More, under the pseudonym of 
 William Eosse,^ no less foul and scurrilous. I should be glad 
 
 ' Gruilielnius Rosseus. I fear The book was published in London, 
 
 More's authorship of this work cannot 4*°, 1523, and is always included in 
 
 be denied. The letter prefixed to it More's collected Latin works. In the 
 
 is so full of More's lively wit and spark- letter of his supposed correspondent 
 
 ling dramatic humour, the Latin is from London it is stated, that when 
 
 so far above the heavy controversial Luther's answer was first brought to 
 
 style of the times — of Fisher's, for the King he merely smiled at the 
 
 instance — that no one but More can abuse contained in it ; and being 
 
 lay reasonable claim to its paternity. asked his opinion remarked, that the
 
 1522.] 
 
 MORE'S ANSWER TO LUTHER. 
 
 609 
 
 to believe that More was not the author of this work. That 
 a nature so pure and gentle, so adverse to coarse abuse, and 
 hitherto not unfavourable to the cause of religious reform, 
 should soil its better self with vulgar and offensive raillery, 
 destitute of all wit and humour, shocks and pains, like tliQ mis- 
 conduct of a dear friend. For round no man in this great reign 
 do our sj^mpathies gather so strongly as round More ; in no 
 man is humanity with its various modes, its sun and shadow, 
 its gentleness and kindliness, its sorrows and misgivings, so 
 attractively presented as in More. But this was precisely the 
 danger, the fatal danger, to which men of More's temperament 
 were exposed by Luther's heedless and unnecessary violence. 
 They turned away in disgust from doctrines defended in such 
 a style, in a temper so impatient and so arrogant. The cause 
 of truth was imperilled when taunts and ridicule, and all the 
 ignobler shapes of controversy, took possession of the field. 
 To Luther it mattered not. In this outspoken unreserve, this 
 lava-like passion, pouring out the whole torrent of his feelings 
 without stint or measure, his bluff German temperament found 
 health and relief as in a violent kind of exercise. To others 
 >the injury was irreparable. 
 
 antlior of such petulant and virulent 
 invective was only fit to act the fool 
 at a Lord Mayor's banquet. The King 
 further remarked, that he should not 
 think of answering Luther's invective, 
 or advise any one else to answer it. 
 
 but his querists were at liberty to do 
 as they pleased. We must, I thinli, 
 accept this anecdote on no less an 
 authority than More's, who was 
 generally at this time about the King. 
 
 VOL. 1. 
 
 2 11
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 1. — Cures for the Sweating Sickness. (See p. 240.) 
 
 A Book of Eeceipts, witb the signatures of T. Darcy and A. 
 Darcy. 
 
 For the new sweating sickness which was the 20th year of the 
 reign of King Henry the Eighth. — " Take endive, sowthistle, mary- 
 gold, mercury, and nightshade, three handfuls of all, and seethe 
 them in conduit water, from a quart to pint, then strain it into a 
 fair vessel, then delay it with a little sugar to put away the tart- 
 ness, and then drink it when the sweat taketh j^ou, and keep you 
 warm ; and by the grace of God ye shall be whole." 
 
 " For the same. — Take three large spoonfuls of water of 
 dragons, and a quarter of a spoonful of fine treacle of Gean, and> 
 half a nutshellfiill of unicorn's horn scraped small, and a quarter 
 of a spoonful of fine good powder of maces, and make all that same 
 hot, and so let the patient drink it, and keep him well, neither 
 over hot nor over cold, but whole in his arms and feet, and let him 
 keep him by taking clothes off him by little and little, till he be 
 dried up, and let him use wholesome meats, and by the grace of 
 God he shall not perish. Probatum est of my Lord Darcy and 30 
 persons in his house all in peril." — Add. MS. 1592, f. 100. 
 
 A special medicine for the pestilence. — " Take half an handful 
 of rew, called herbe grace, a handful marygold, half an handful 
 fetherfew, a handful sorrel, a handful burnet, and half a handful 
 dragons, the top in summer, the root in winter; wash them in 
 running water, anil put them in an earthen pot, with a pottle of 
 D'unning water, and let them seethe soberly to nigh the half be 
 consumed, and then draw aback the pot, to it be almost cold, and 
 then strain it into a fair glass and keep it close, and use thereof 
 morn and even, and when need is oftener; and if it be bitter, 
 delay it with sugar candy ; and if it be taken afore the pimples 
 break forth, there is no doubt but with the grace of Jesus it shall 
 amend any man, woman, or child. Probatum est, a° 13 H. VIII." 
 —Ibid., f. 49. 
 
 " A medicine for the pestilence, sent to my Lord Darcy from 
 the Menery, from my Lad}' Whethyll. — My Lord, in my best 
 manner I recommend me unto your Lordship, and very sorry I am
 
 APPENDIX. 611 
 
 of your great heaviness. My Lord, the cause of my writing to you 
 at this time is to advertise your Lordship of a pi'oved medicine ; 
 that is, to take treacle and vinegar, and temper them together, and 
 put thereto some running water to allay the vinegar with, and 
 take three or four good spoonfuls fasting, you and all yours, four 
 or five mornings, and fast an hour after it, and by the giace of 
 God ye shall find it shall do great good ; and then my good Lord, 
 I beseech our Lord to preserve you and all yours, and send you as 
 good health as I woll myself. This medicine have I proved 
 myself. 
 
 '• Item, the said Lord used at all times of necessity for to take 
 powder of imperial treacle of Gean, vinegar, spring water, and 
 powder of unicorn's horns, timely fasting, and neither to drink nor 
 eat to noon ; this is proved for a good preparatif." — f. 103. 
 
 " By Dr. Cromer, proved Avith Katharine Constable. — R oleum 
 Eos'an popelionis, and ^1 mellis dispnmati, 5^ aquas plantag. et 
 ros'rum parte unam must' ; fiat unguentum et cum pluma colum- 
 bina tingatur locus delence." — f. 104. 
 
 " The king's medicine for the pestilence. — Take a handful of 
 sawge of vertue, a handful of herbe grace, a handful of elder 
 leaves, and a handful of red briar leaves, and stamp them 
 together, and strain them in a fair cloth with a quart of white 
 wine, and then take a quantity of ginger, and mingle them 
 all together, and drink of that medicine a spoonful every day, 
 nine days together, an<i after nine days ye shall be whole, for 
 the whole year, by the grace of God. And if it fortune that 
 one be sore taken with the plague before he hath drunk of the 
 same medicine, let him take the water of scabies, and a spoonful 
 of betony water, and a quart of fine treacle, and put them all 
 together, and cause the person to drink it, and it shall put out all 
 the venom ; and if it fortune that the botch do appear, then take 
 of leaves of briars, elders, and mustard seed, and stamp them all 
 together, and make a plaster thereof, and lay it to the sore, and it 
 shall draw out all the venom, and the person shall be whole." — 
 f. 130. 
 
 " A proved medicine against the pestilence, called the philo- 
 sopher's egg.- — ^Take first an egg and break an hole in one end 
 thereof, and do out the white from the yolk as clean as you 
 can ; then take whole saifron and fill the shell therewith by the 
 yolk, then close it at both ends with two half egg shells ; then 
 rake it in the embers till it be so hard that you may stamp it to 
 fine powder in a mortar, shell and all ; then take as much white 
 mustard seed as the weight of the egg and the saffron is and grind 
 it as small as meal ; then take the 4th part of an oz. of a dittony 
 root, and as much of turmontell and of crownutcs one dram ; 
 stamp this tkree sundry times very fine in a mortar, and then mix
 
 012 APPENDIX. 
 
 them three well together ; after that take as a thing most needful 
 the root of angelica and pimpernel, of each one drachm, and make 
 them to powder and mix with the rest ; then compound herewith 
 4 or 5 grains a quantity of unicorn's horn if it be possible to be 
 gotten, and take so much weight as all these powders come to of 
 fine treacle, and stamp the same with the powders in a mortar, till 
 they be all mixed and hang to the pestle, and then it is perfectly 
 made ; put this electuary in glass boxes, and you may keep it 20 
 or 30 years ; the longer the better." — f. 159b. 
 
 " How this electuary is to be used, and of the ordering of the 
 patient. Item, when the patient is infected of the pestilence, let 
 him take as soon as he can this electuary or ever it infect the 
 heart ; a crown weight of gold, and as much of some treacle, if it 
 be for a man, but if it be for a woman, let them take less, and that 
 must be well broken together. And if the pestilence come with 
 cold, then give him the said electuary with half a cruse of white 
 wine, tempered together ; but if it come with heat, then give it to 
 him with plantony water, or with well water and vinegar mixt 
 together ; and when he hath drunk the same let the patient go to 
 his naked bed, and cover him warm, and let him lie 6, 8, or 10 
 hours as he is able to endure it, for to sweat, for the more he 
 bweateth the better, for the sickness vadeth with the sweat ; but if 
 you cannot sweat, then heat two or three bricks or tiles in the fire 
 and warm (sic) them in a moist linen cloth, and lay them by his 
 sides in the bed, and that shall cause him to sweat; and remember, 
 as the patient sweateth, to wipe away the sweat from his body 
 downward with hot dry cloths, and his sweating being ended you 
 must shift his shirt and all the bedding with fresh warm clothes, 
 using him very warm from any cold taking in the meantime, and 
 let him sit well wrapped by a warm fire while his bed is preparing 
 to be made." 
 
 " How the patient shall behave himself when he hath ended his 
 sweating. — Let the keeper of the sick beware of the breath of the 
 patient in his sweat ; also let the clothes be well aired and washed ; 
 and because ho shall be faint and distempered after his sickness, he 
 shall eat no flesh nor drink wine for the space of one week, but let 
 him use this comfortness for the heart ; — as conserve of bugloss or 
 red roses, and specially he shall drink three or four days after he 
 hath sweat, morning and evening, three quints of the juice of 
 sorrel, with one oz. of conserve of sorrel, mixed together, and so 
 forth, with all besides that is comfortable for the heart. Also, if 
 one take the quantity of a bean of the said electuary, with some 
 good wine, it shall keep him from the infection of the pestilence." 
 
 " The order to make the water. — Take rue, egremony, w^orm- 
 wood, salendine, sage, balm, rosemary, mugwort, dragons, pimpernel, 
 marigolds, f ether few, burnet, sorrel, and a little roots of elecampane.
 
 APPENDIX. 613 
 
 scraped and shred small, and mince all the herbs small, and as 
 mucli more rosemary as of any of the other herbs, and you must 
 have them of the like weight ; then soak them in the best white 
 wine you can get, three days and three nights, and after wring out 
 the wine from the herb.s, and still the herbs by themselves, and 
 after still the wine, and that water is good for agues ; but put it 
 not to the water of the herbs, for that water wdth a little treacle 
 or metridatum shall drive any sickness from the heart." — Addit. 
 MS. 1592.— f. 160. 
 
 As through the default " of good ruling and dieting in meat 
 and drink, men fallen often into this sickness, therefore when the 
 pestilence reigneth in country, the man that wol be kept fro that 
 evil, him needeth him to keep fro outrage and excess in meat and 
 eke drink, ne use no baths, ne sweat not too much, for all these 
 openeth the pores of the body, and maketh the venomous airs to 
 enter, and destroyeth the lively spirits in man, and enfeebleth the 
 body; and sovereignly haunting of lechery, for that enfeebleth the 
 kind, and openeth the pores that wicked airs may enter. Also, 
 use little or naught of these : garlick, onions, leeks, or other such 
 meats that bring a man into an unkindly heat. Also, suffer not 
 greatly thirst that time, and if thou thirst greatly look thou drink 
 but measurably to slake thy thirst ; and the best drink were cold 
 water, menged with vinegar or tysan." The poison enters at the 
 pores in one of the " cleansing places" of the principal members, 
 i.e. heart, liver, and brain ; and unless the patient is bled within 
 18 hours, it fastens on one place, and casts him into an ague, and 
 maketh a botch in some of the three cleansing places, or near them. 
 " Pricking or flakering of blood " is a sign of the sickness. " If the 
 matter be guided under the armhole, it cometh of the heart, and 
 then bleed on the vein that is called the cardiac, and on the same 
 side that the evil is in." If between the thighs and the body, 
 bleed on the foot, or between the ancle and the heel ; or else " be 
 thou ventu.sed on the thighs with a box beside the botch." If it 
 appear in the head or arms, bleed on the vena cephalica in the 
 same arm ; or else above the hand between the thumb and next 
 finger; "or else be thou ventused between the shoulders with 
 boxes till the blood be drawn out." The heart should be comforted 
 with cold electuaries, to temper the great heat thereof. Water 
 should be stilled from dittany, seabiose, pimpernel, and tormentil. 
 He should not eat much flesh, but chickens sodden with water, or 
 fresh fish roasted to eat with vinegar. Pottage of almonds is good, 
 and for dritdc tysan, or in the heat small ale. If he wishes wine, 
 give him vinegar and water; white wine is better than red. A 
 powder of the above herbs with bole armeniac and terra sigillata 
 should be taken in the drink.— Addit. MS. 2320.— f. 16: 
 
 " After a prescription for a drink of herbs. — Another for them
 
 614 APPENDIX. 
 
 that are clerks for to say hit every day with a crosse on the forhed. 
 Per sigiuim tau "|"_ A peste et fame libera nos Jesu. Hie est 
 titulus triumphans, Jesus Nnzarenus Bex Judseorum. Christus venit 
 in pace, et Deus homo factus est Jesus. In nomine Patris et Filii 
 et Spiritns Sancti. Amen." 
 
 " Salve crux Christi. |+'| Salve nos quod de pr^senti angustia 
 pestilential salvatrix nostra es. Salve crux Christi, salva nos. 5 
 paternosters, 6 aves, 1 credo." 
 
 " Another very true medicine. — For to say every day at seven 
 parts of your body, 7 paternosters, and 7 Ave Marias, with 1 credo 
 at the last. Ye shal begyn at the ryght syde, under the ryght 
 ere, saying the 'paternoster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen 
 tuum,' with a cross made there with your thumb, and so say the 
 paternoster full complete, and 1 Ave Maria, and then under the 
 left ear, and then under the left armhole, and then under the left 
 the (thigh ?) hole, and then the last at the heart, with 1 paternoster, 
 Ave Maria, with 1 credo ; and these thus said daily, with the grace 
 of God is there no manner drede hym. Quod pro certo probatum 
 est cotidie."— Addit. MS. 6716, f. 98. 
 
 " A special medycyn for the pestilence. — In primis, 1 hanfull 
 off marigollen, 1 hanfull off fetherfew, and halffe a hanfull oif rewe, 
 and 1 hanfull of buruo, a quantyte oif dragons off the lewys or the 
 mores, and 1 hanfull off sorrell ; and thake alle these erbys toghether, 
 and whasche them in rynnyng whater, and than take a potell ofi" 
 runnyng whater, and sethe the all your erbys in the pottell of 
 water, tylle hyt be sodyn to a quarte, and soo take hit the syke 
 blode warme."— Addit. MS. 113. 
 
 " Qui potet jus radicum bis tortfe pimpernellee, madefelonis, 
 solsequii, absinthii, rutse seu tanasiee, in peste, et non vomit, 
 evadet." 
 
 " Commixtio aquarum istarum herbarum, viz., diptamni pim- 
 pernellae, gentillte, tormentillte, et scabiosa3, et hasc potio in 
 pestilencia est nobilissima, vel de qualibet herba per se."^Ib. 783. 
 
 II. — Note as to Pensions. (See p. 337, footnote.) 
 
 Dorset to Wolsey, 1 Sept. [1525]. 
 
 " Please it your Grace, that where at my last being with you 
 at More, I moved your Grace, among other my suits, to be one of 
 the pensioners of France, as I was before; for if I should be 
 omitted, and another put in my stead, it should not a little grieve 
 me, considering that as well such as be my kinsmen in France, as 
 my friends, here in England, then knew me as one of the same 
 pensioners, and what they shall think in the same I do wholly 
 remit it unto your Grace. I have been at all times ready, and in
 
 APPENDIX. 615 
 
 all parties (parts), to serve the King's highness to the best of my 
 little power, and many times to my great cost and charge ; with 
 the which I ever held myself as well content as any poor subject 
 within this realm," etc. 
 
 III. Luther. (See p. 602.) 
 Extracts from Masters' MS., Jesus College, Oxford. 
 
 " After the election of Charles Emperor, Tunstal was sent to be 
 at the Diet of Wormbes. 
 
 "Jan. 21, 1521. — He writes to cardinal Wolsey that the 
 Germans everywhere are so addicted to Luther, that, rather than 
 he shall be oppressed by the Pope's authority (who hath already 
 condemned his opinions), the people will spend a hundred thou- 
 sand of their lives. They have informed the Emperor that he is a 
 good and virtuous man, besides his learning. 
 
 " He offereth to make his defence, and revoke those opinions 
 which he cannot defend by Holy Scripture. 
 
 " After he perceived that he should not be permitted to come 
 to the Diet hither, as once it was accorded, and safeconduct granted 
 unto him, (which, at the instance of the Pope's orator, was 
 revoked,) despairing to be heard in his defence, did openly in the 
 town of Wittemberg gather the people and the University together, 
 and burn the decretals, &c., as books erroneous, as he there 
 declared ; which his declaration he put in print in the Dutch 
 tongue, and sent it all about the country ; which declaration by 
 some idle fellow hath been translate into Latin, which I send your 
 Grace herein enclosed, to the intent ye may see it, and burn it 
 when ye have done, and also that your Grace may call before you 
 the printers and booksellers, and give them a strait charge that 
 they bring none of his books into England, nor translate them 
 into English, &c. 
 
 " The matter is run so far the princes cannot appease it. The 
 original was the great sum of money that goeth yearly to Eome 
 for annates, which the country would be rid of, and the benefices 
 be given by the Pope to such persons as do serve at Eome unlearned, 
 as cooks and horsekeepers, &c. ; so that the easiest I can think will 
 be that the Pope shall lose the said annates and benefices. 
 
 " He hath written a book since his condemnation, De Capt. 
 Bahylonica Ecclesise, wherein he holdeth that four of the sacraments 
 be only de jure positivo by the Pope's ordinance, so called, viz. 
 Covjirmatio, Ordo, Extrema Unctio, and Matrimonium ; and that 
 Baptismus, Eucharistia, and Psenitentia be de jure divino et cvangelii. 
 They say there is much more strange opinion in it, near to the 
 opinions of Boheme. I pray God keep that book out of England.
 
 616 APPENDIX. 
 
 " At the exeqiay of the cardinal of Croy, in the presence of 
 the Electors, the Emperor, the Pope's ambassador, and the Cardinals, 
 a friar preacher made a sermon, and in the beginning said the 
 Pope was Vicarius Chrisii in spirituaUbus, and the cardinals and 
 bishops were Apostoli, &g. But how his tongue turned in his head 
 I cannot tell ; but after he concluded that the Emperor, when they 
 do amiss, should reform their abuses, ctiam usque ad depositionem ; 
 whereupon the Pope's Nuncius, having commission against Luther, 
 called him, laying the premises to his charge ; which said Nuncius 
 hath been openly threatened by many gentlemen not to inter- 
 meddle with him. In his said sermon he exhorted the Emjieror 
 and all the princes to go into Italy, which is of the Empire, and to 
 reform such abuses as be there; whereunto I understand many 
 of the princes be inclined, because every man thinketh to gain 
 thereby. I'he said friar preacher is since ordained to preach here 
 all the Lent, b}' whom I know not, 
 
 " Luther offereth, if the Emperor will go to Pome to reform 
 the Church, to bring him 100,000 men, whereunto the Emperor, as 
 a virtuous prince, will not hearken. The said Luther hath many 
 great clerks that hold with him, save in some points, which the 
 said Luther hath put forth more than he can or will justify, to the 
 intent that on the residue he might be heard, and a council called 
 for reformation, whereof the Pope will not hear, but standeth to 
 his sentence of condemnation." 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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