Field of Cloth it to himself. He demanded therefore a personal meeting with Henry, in accordance with a clause in the treaty of 1518. This proposition ripened in 1520 into the magnificent meeting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The two Kings, vain of their persons and their acquirements, permitted and encouraged the most lavish expense on the part of their followers, and Francis had reason to believe that he had gained the friendship of Henry. But Wolsey's interest was already pledged. Just before Henry left England for his meeting with Francis, it had been contrived that Charles should forestall him, and have a private meeting at Canterbury. Nor was this all. No sooner were the festivities in the plain of Ardres over, than Henry visited his nephew Charles at Gravelines, and returned with him to Calais. Henry prefers alliance with Charles. There the outlines of a great alliance were sketched, destined to bear fruit afterwards. In this matter Wolsey had completely succeeded in his schemes. It was to the interest of Charles, and not that of Francis, that England found itself pledged. Nor was an opportunity long wanting to prove this. The rivalry of Francis and the Emperor soon led to a breach of the peace between them, and Francis, taking advantage of the disaffection of parts of Spain, pushed his army across the Pyrenees. At once, in virtue of the great treaty of 1518, it became Henry's duty to side with the aggrieved party. То settle which that might be a court of arbitration was established at Calais, where Wolsey, with great pomp, examined into the quarrel with apparent fairness. He took an opportunity, however, of visiting the Emperor at Bruges, and, almost immediately after, his judgment was pronounced against the French, and Henry found himself, as he had intended, bound to help the Emperor. It was Wolsey's belief in the superior efficacy of the support which the Emperor appears to have distinctly promised him at Bruges, in the event of a new election to the Papacy, to that of Francis, which induced him to attach himself so definitely to the Emperor's interests. But he could have had no difficulty in persuading Henry, jealous of the French King's fame as knight and gentleman, or the people whose woollen trade depended in a very large degree on their friendship with Flanders, to prefer an alliance with Charles. The Emperor was to marry the Princess Mary, and the two nations were to make common cause against Francis. In all directions the new allies 1522] PEACE WITH SCOTLAND 379 were successful. Even the Milanese was won from the French, while Parma and Placentia fell before the Papal troops. The Pope lived just long enough to see the success of his schemes, and died, it is said, from a fever produced by excessive joy. Wolsey saw the object of his ambition within his reach; but in the conclave, as neither he nor his rival, the Cardinal de Medici, had an overwhelming majority, the parties united to elect a third candidate, and Adrian of Utrecht, Charles's tutor, a learned and studious man, was raised to the Papal chair. To paralyse the strength of England, Francis, who, on Venice joining the confederacy against him, found himself absolutely alone, attempted to excite disaffection in Ireland and Scotland. Francis tries Ireland and In Ireland, where disaffection was chronic, and where to excite the insurrection was to depend on a French army which never arrived, no great change was effected. In Scot- 1522. land, since Albany's retirement in 1516, and the return of Angus and the Queen, there had been a stormy period, chiefly occupied by the feuds of the Douglases and Hamiltons. Angus had, however, on the whole, kept his leading position. To destroy his influence, which was favourable to England, the French King induced Albany to return with a large army and threaten the Scotch borders. He was, however, hoodwinked by Lord Dacre, the English Warden, who, though he had scarcely any troops at his disposal, so imposed upon the invaders by the high tone which he assumed, that they were glad to accept a month's armistice at the hands of a man who was entirely in their power. An invasion, repeated in the following year, was defeated by the Earl of Surrey without any severe fighting. "Undoubtedly," writes the commander, "there was never man departed with more shame or more fear than the Duke has done to-day." It was Albany's last appearance in Scotland. Unable to secure the regency, he retired from the country, where Angus ultimately succeeded, with the assistance of Henry, in establishing himself as Regent. The consequence was a peace of eighteen years between the countries. Albany being worsted, peace years is made. for eighteen 1523. In both 1522 and 1523, under the command respectively of Surrey and of Suffolk, expeditions had been undertaken by Expeditions the English in conjunction with the Imperialist forces. against France. Suffolk's expedition reached as far as Mondidier, and it was expected that the combined armies would press on to the capital; for an opening had offered by which Henry thought it not improbable that he might succeed in making good the old English claims upon France. Francis had quarrelled with the Constable of Bourbon, the most important of his subjects, who had declared his intention of seating Henry on the throne, and believed it certain that a large number of the French would join him. About the same time (September 1523) Adrian IV. died, and it seemed as if the plans both of Wolsey and Henry would at length be realized. But the discovery of his treachery compelled Bourbon to take to flight, and it was alone, without any of the party he had expected to assist him, that he fled from the French Court and took service under Charles. At the same time the election to the Papacy had not been managed as Wolsey had hoped. Julius de Medici, Clement VII., had been elected, and Wolsey, enraged at the disappointment of his hopes, grew suddenly lukewarm in the war. The English troops, already weakened by sickness, withdrew from Mondidier, and were disbanded; nor did England during the next year take any active part in the war. Wolsey, indeed, in his disappointment, entered into relations with the Court of France, and a peace between the countries was virtually established. Meanwhile, even the withdrawal of the English failed to check the course of French disaster. Although the army entered the Milanese territory, it could not succeed in holding its ground beyond the Ticino. The following year (1524) brought upon it the whole forces of the Imperialists. It was defeated near Romagnano, where Bayard lost his life. It was compelled to evacuate Italy, and the triumphant Constable, with his fellow-commander Pescara, pushed into France as far as Marseilles. To revenge this insult, Francis again, for the third time, poured his army feated at Pavia. Over Mont Cenis. Again was Milan captured. The new Pope, Clement VII., even sided with him, and To relieve it, early Francis de 1525. in October the siege of Pavia was formed. in the following year the united armies of Pescara and Bourbon marched from Lodi. The battle fought before its walls was a decisive one. The defeat of the French was signal, their career in Italy was for a time closed. Francis himself fell into the hands of the conquerors. This victory was the signal for a complete reversal in the state of politics in Europe, and brought to light the change in Wolsey's views which had followed the election of Pope Clement. In London it was at first hailed with unqualified joy, and Henry thought for a moment that the hour had come for him to re-vindicate the English claims to the French crown, so much so that he wrote 1525] ALLIANCE WITH FRANCE 381 to Charles by the hand of Wolsey, and proposed a scheme for the invasion of France, of which the crown was to fall to him, and to pass afterwards by means of his daughter and heiress Mary, betrothed to the Emperor, to Charles V. himself, or his descendants, who would thus become monarchs of the whole of Europe. But such a total subversion of the European balance did not suit Charles, who was also induced by other causes to hold aloof from too close an alliance with England. Several incidents had produced a coldness between him and his uncle. He found that his betrothed bride, Mary, had been offered to more than one crowned head besides himself, while her youth, for she was only ten years of age, rendered the whole scheme distant and problematical. By some awkward mistake his ambassador's letters had been opened in England. He knew the French envoy to be constantly resident there. Moreover he felt himself strong enough to do without Henry's help. He therefore entirely declined the English proposal. On the other hand, Henry, when once his plans were coldly received, saw more than one reason for changing his alliance. He was in want of money; an alliance with France held out hopes of a goodly sum. According to his theory of the balance of power, it was time to check the overwhelming superiority of the Empire. Perhaps, more than all, he had Wolsey at his elbow, whose views, since his own rejection for the Papacy (on the death of Adrian, when Clement VII. was elected), and since the alliance of the Papacy with France, had undergone considerable change. It was ambition, partly personal, partly of a nobler sort and aiming at the reform of Christendom, which had rendered Wolsey so anxious for the Papacy. Though, as far as he was concerned, that hope was gone, he was still true to the cause of the Church, and when, in the years follow- Sack of Rome. ing the battle of Pavia, he saw the Imperial arms turned 1527. against Rome, till in the year 1527 the sacred city itself was stormed and sacked by the German and Lutheran landsknechts of Bourbon, it was difficult not to believe that the cause of Charles was the cause of the enemies of the Church; and that to join with Francis in upholding the Pope was the right policy for the true Catholic. With this mistaken view England entered into a close alliance with Francis, but it was not till the year 1528 that war was declared against Charles. Consequent change of Alliance with English policy. France. Events had taken place in that period which were to revolutionize England. In carrying on negotiations with France one means of uniting the kingdoms which had been suggested was a marriage between the royal houses. The Princess Mary, it was thought, might marry one of the sons of the French King. This treaty was set on Legitimacy of Henry's marriage with Catherine foot at the close of 1526, and early in its progress the Bishop of Tarbês had raised a question as to the Princess's legitimacy. From the first Henry had not much questioned. liked the marriage with Catherine. It was only at the urgent desire of his councillors, and after his father's death, that he consented to marry her. Nor had the marriage been a very successful one. Several children had been born, but one only, the Princess Mary, had lived; and probably the domestic relations between the King and Queen were not of the happiest. The continuation of the dynasty was naturally one of Henry's chief wishes, and to the councillors by whom he was surrounded, who had found their safety and greatness in the support of the reigning line, and who longed before all things for a permanent rest for England after the troubles of the late wars, it was a matter of the last importance that the succession should, if possible, be undisputed. But had the King died without male issue, there was a cloud of pretenders who could hardly have settled their respective claims without an appeal to the sword. Henry had, indeed, rid himself of two of them. Richard de la Pole, surnamed the White Rose, had died at Pavia. His father had been beheaded by Henry. Buckingham had also suffered death in 1520, charged with some apparently slight matters, intercourse with astrologers, or hasty words, which may have covered some deeper plan. But in the place of Pole the head of the true Plantagenets was now the Countess of Salisbury, the sister of the Earl of Warwick, who had been put to death by Henry VII.; and Buckingham had bequeathed his claims to the Duke of Norfolk with his daughter. The Marquis of Exeter might raise claims to the throne as the grandson of Edward IV; the Duke of Suffolk was Henry's own brother-in-law, while the King of Scotland was the son of Henry's sister. Reasons of state, therefore, combined with Henry's own wishes to excite in his mind a conscientious scruple as to the legitimacy of a marriage, the dissolution of which might give him at once a more agreeable wife and an heir to his throne. Nor were reasons of foreign policy wanting. In an age when marriage was so constantly the tie of national connection, Catherine, whose marriage with Henry had at first been the pledge of the alliance with Spain, stood in Wolsey's way now that he was bent upon using all his efforts against the Emperor. Those therefore who were desirous for the sake of the succession that The state of the succession, |