1515] FRENCH INTERFERENCE IN SCOTLAND 373 regency should be taken from her, and given to the Duke of Albany (1515). This Prince came over from France, where he was naturalized, and succeeded in getting the late King's children into his hands. Margaret sought refuge in England, where, after a time, Angus, who had been kidnapped and carried to France, joined her. They thus supplied Henry with an instrument by which he could carry on his intrigues in Scotland. The ill-fated marriage, which led to the misfortunes of Mary Queen of Scots, was the union of the two families of Margaret by her respective husbands, James and Angus.' French interfer land. This attempt of the French to re-establish that influence in Scotland which the policy both of Henry and his father had been directed to destroy, naturally attracted the atten- ence in Scottion of Henry, and was made a cause of complaint at the French Court, with which, though the treaty still existed, there had already ceased to be cordiality. The gay and beautiful young English Princess had led her husband, always a valetudinarian, to change his habit of life. His dinner-hour had been moved from eight to twelve in the morning; his bed-time, usually six, had been sometimes advanced even till midnight. His health yielded to this change of life, and he died three months after his marriage. With him passed Death of Louis away the real strength of the treaty. His widow almost immediately married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the King's favourite companion and her own old lover, braving the royal anger, which seems on this occasion to have been slight, and afterwards founding a family with some claim to the throne. The new King of France, Francis I., who at his accession had been XII. weakens between the the treaty nations. 1 John, Duke of Albany, Admiral of France, was the son of Robert, Duke of Albany, the younger brother of James III., who had retired to France to escape from his brother, whom he had been opposing, in the year 1479. He was welcomed and assisted by Louis XI. 2 Mary was daughter of James V., Margaret's son by James IV. Darnley was son of Earl of Lennox, by Margaret Douglas, daughter of Margaret by Angus. Count of Angoulême, a descendant of the younger son of Louis of Orleans, assassinated in 1407, as Louis XII. had been a descendant of the elder son, was a knight of that new chivalrous school which had taken the place of the real chivalry of the earlier middle ages, and which, while it inculcated the love of adventure and recklessness of its predecessor, did not exclude the slyness and self-seeking of Italian diplomacy. It seemed to him, therefore, as only consistent with his knighthood to reconquer the Milanese from Maximilian Sforza; so he assembled an army secretly at Lyons, without much scruple as to the means he employed for raising the requisite money, turned the position of the Swiss (at that time the most dreaded mercenaries in Europe), who were then lying at Susa, and poured his army by more southern passes into the plains of Piedmont. The Swiss had fallen back to cover Milan, but were defeated at the battle of Marignano (Sept. 13, 1515), which Trivulzio,1 the veteran commander of the French army, spoke of as "the battle of the Giants," after which Milan was at once occupied by the French. This sudden restitution of French influence in Italy excited the attention of all Europe, yet Henry did not think that the capture of the Milanese alone compromised the relations of the European powers sufficiently to authorize him in plunging heartily into a war. He therefore contented himself with subsidizing the Emperor and the Swiss, and refrained from active participation in the war, although great efforts were made to secure his assistance. To gain the support of Wolsey, who had now become Henry's chief adviser, the Pope raised him to the rank of Cardinal; while, in the following year, Maximilian is said to have made a most extraordinary proposition. He offered to resign the Empire in favour of Henry, and, if the authorities are to be believed, made every arrangement for his coronation, and for a subsequent joint attack upon France. The wisdom of Henry and his advisers rejected this proposal, and Francis, having secured his object, was willing to make peace. A threatened advance of the Turks gave the required opportunity. This people, under Selim, had conquered Egypt and Syria, and was threatening Europe. Under cover of a peace for the purpose of opposing the Mahomedans, 1 Gian Giacomo Trivulzio, a Milanese noble attached to the interests of France, and & marshal of that kingdom. He died in 1518 in disgrace, pleading in vain that he had fought eighteen battles for Francis I. and his predecessors. His tomb bears the inscription, "J. J. Trivultius, Antonii filius qui n'anquam quierit hic quiescit— Tace." 1516] PEACE WITH FRANce and sPAIN 375 Peace, and con federacy be tween England, France, Spain. in the year 1518 a confederacy was made between England, France and Spain, by which they bound themselves to mutual support against any aggressor, though the aggressor were one of themselves; and thus the long and costly wars which had followed the League of Cambrai were closed by a treaty which left Europe nearly in the same position as before they began. 1518. Wolsey. While these wars had been occupying the attention of Europe, the position of chief adviser to the Crown in England had fallen to Thomas Wolsey. Of no high extraction, this able and ambitious man had sought to rise through the Church, which held out hopes of success even to the lowest born. He was educated at Oxford, became a Fellow of Magdalen, tutor to the children of the Marquis of Dorset, incumbent of Lymington, and in the earlier part of the century was made chaplain to Henry VII. Early introduced to public life by the Bishop of Winchester, he was employed, and did good service, in the negotiations which Henry entered upon with regard to a second marriage. He was rewarded with the Deanery of Lincoln, and his ability being appreciated by Henry VIII., he was shortly sworn of the Privy Council. The management of the war had fallen chiefly into his hands, and his rise became exceedingly rapid. On the capture of Tournay, he received the bishopric of that city. In 1514 he was made Archbishop of York, and in the following year, when Warham, the aged Archbishop of Canterbury, withdrew from the chancellorship on occasion of some difference in the Council, the vacant office was given to Wolsey. In 1515, Leo attempted to secure his services by making him a Cardinal, and the following year he reached the summit of ecclesiastical ambition, short of the Papacy itself, by being appointed Made Legate. Legate, with full powers, in England. This list of offices does not exhibit all his sources of wealth. He was in receipt of yearly payments both from Francis and from Charles of Spain. He held also the Bishopric of Bath, which he afterwards changed for the richer one of Durham. His means of It seems probable that this statesman had acquired his influence over Henry partly by similarity of tastes, and partly by industriously sparing him trouble. His great ability and untiring energy enabled him to do all that was necessary for securing his the government of the country, freeing Henry from the restraint which the Privy Council might have exercised upon his power. actions, and leaving him at leisure to indulge himself in those splendid amusements and pageantries in which he found his chief delight during the earlier part of his reign. Having once secured his position, however, Wolsey was by no means a minister without a policy. Of all classes in England the Church had been the least weakened by the long civil wars. The house of Lancaster had always favoured its interests, and during the reign His policy. of Henry VII. the chief offices in the ministry had been confided to Churchmen, who were the best educated men in England, and the instruments best fitted for carrying on the pacific policy of the King. To uphold this supremacy of the Church was Wolsey's primary object. It was for this that he lent himself to an ostentatious display of wealth and authority which would have been almost ridiculous had it had no object. His biographer is very full of his vast household of five hundred dependants, of his silver pillars and silver crosses; and an absurd description is given, on excellent authority, of how, when the Pope sent him his Cardinal's hat packed in the wallet of his ordinary courier, Wolsey provided the man with robes of rich material, and sent him back to Dover, to bring the hat up with all due ceremony, while trains of knights and bishops were sent to meet and welcome it. But he saw more clearly than most men the approach of the struggle which was to convulse Europe for the next hundred years. He was besides far too great a lover of justice and far too good a governor to wish to tolerate the abominable abuses which found their home in the monasteries. He was therefore bent upon forestalling the coming storm; but his desire was that the reform should be from within, and not from without the Church. To carry out these reforms was the main wish of his life, and it was to enable him to do so that he hazarded the breach of the well-known statute of Præmunire, and accepted the legatine authority which could alone give him power to act with effect against the monasteries, which were independent of the bishops. But besides being a Churchman, Wolsey was essentially an Englishman, and some of the apparent inconsistencies in his policy can be explained by the conflict of these interests. He was also undoubtedly ambitious, and eagerly sought the Papacy. But it is not improbable that his chief object in this pursuit too was the hope of carrying out on a grander scale the reforms which he had planned in England. Where the interests of the Church were not touched, his views, like those of most able 1516] WOLSEY'S POLICY 377 governors who feel themselves superior to the men around them, were very arbitrary; and he lent himself willingly to the views of Henry on this point, like him detesting disorder and anarchy, and like him thinking that the best form of government was that under which the ignorant should be coerced for their own advantage. Such a man was inevitably opposed to the interests of the nobles, whose party was represented in the Council by the Duke of Norfolk. Equally inevitably would he be disliked by the commonalty, and the literature of the time is full of the sharpest satires directed against him. The strength of his position was the favour of the King and the success of his policy. Should either of these fail his fall was inevitable. He had now entered fully upon an arbitrary career. From the year. 1515 to 1523 no Parliament was called. stantly wanted for the wars was collected by forced loans and benevolences. Arbitrary rule. The money which was con When the Death of 1519. Henry a candi- Empire. It was under the guidance of this minister that England entered into the new phase of European politics which followed upon the death of Maximilian in the year 1519. Ferdinand of Spain had died three years before, and had been suc- Maximilian. ceeded in that country by his grandson Charles. This young prince, the son of the Archduke Philip, was thus already in possession of Spain and of the Netherlands, with some sort of hereditary claim to be elected Emperor of Germany. But Francis I. did not desire so powerful a rival, and determined to dispute with him the imperial crown. Henry, somewhat puffed up by the offer Maximilian had made him a few years previously, determined that he too would enter the lists, although there was probably never the remotest chance of his success. election came on, finding the success of his own employer impossible, the English ambassador threw the weight of his influence wholly into the German side of the balance, and Charles was elected Emperor; and thus Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and the Empire were all in the hands of one prince. This contest somewhat slackened the ties of friendship between Henry and Francis; while, on the other hand, the help he had received led Charles to hope that he might secure the alliance of English alliance Henry. The friendship of England had become of sought by both paramount importance to these rival claimants for the Francis. supremacy of Europe; and as it was not yet apparently firmly secured by either of them, Francis determined, if possible, to attach elected. Charles and |