Accordingly, before the king set out for Calais, Charles, according to the secret treaty with Wolsey, sent that minister a grant under his privy seal, from the revenue of the two bishoprics of Badajoz and Placentia, of 7,000 ducats. Henry set forward from London to Canterbury, on his way towards Dover and Calais, attended by his queen and court, with a surprising degree of splendour. Whilst lying there, he was surprised, as it was made to appear, by the news that the emperor had been induced by his regard for the king to turn aside on his voyage towards his German dominions, and had anchored in the port of Hythe, on the 26th of May, 1520. As soon as this news reached Henry, he despatched Wolsey to receive the emperor and conduct him to the castle of Dover, and Henry himself set out and rode by torchlight to Dover, where he arrived in the middle of the night. It must have been a hospitably inconvenient visit at that hour, for Charles, fatigued by his voyage, had gone to bed, and was awoke from a sound sleep by the noise and bustle of the king's arrival. He arose, however, and met Henry at the top of the stairs, where the two monarchs embraced, and Henry bade his august relative welcome. The next day, being Whitsunday, they went together to Canterbury, the king riding with the emperor on his right hand, the Earl of Derby carrying before them the sword of State.
From the cathedral the emperor was conducted by his royal host to the palace of the archbishop, where he was for the time quartered. For three days the archiepiscopal palace was a scene of the gayest festivities; nothing was omitted by Henry to do honour to his august relative; and nothing on the part of Charles to win upon Henry, and detach him from the interests of France. Nor the less assiduously did the politic emperor exert himself to secure the services of Wolsey. He saw that ambition was the great passion of the cardinal, and he adroitly infused into his mind the hope of reaching the Popedom through his influence and assistance. Nothing could bind Wolsey like this fascinating anticipation. Leo X. was a much younger man than himself; but this did not seem to occur to the sanguine spirit of the cardinal, for "all men think all men mortal but themselves;" whilst to Charles the circumstance made his promise peculiarly easy, as he could scarcely expect to be called upon to fulfil it.
On the fourth day Charles embarked at Sandwich for the Netherlands, less anxious regarding the approaching interview of Henry and Francis, for he had made an ardent impression on the king, and had put a strong hook into the nose of his great leviathan—the hope of the triple crown. Simultaneously with the departure of Charles, Henry, his queen and court, embarked at Dover for Calais; and on the 4th of June, 1520, Henry, with his queen, the Queen Dowager of France, and all his court, rode on to Guines, where 2,000 workmen, most of them clever artificers from Holland and Flanders, had been busily engaged for several months in erecting a palace of wood for their reception.
The meeting-place was called, from the splendour of the retinues of the two monarchs, the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," but it did little to cement the alliance between England and France.
On the 25th of June the English Court returned to Calais; half the followers of the nobles were sent home, and then preparations were made for visiting the emperor at Gravelines, and receiving a visit from him at Calais. By the 10th of July all was ready, and Henry set out with a splendid retinue. He was met on the way, and conducted into Gravelines by Charles, with every circumstance of honour and display. Charles, whose object was avowedly to efface any impression which Francis and the French might have made on the mind of Henry at the late interview, had given orders to receive the English with every demonstration of friendship and hospitality, and his orders were so well executed that the English were enchanted with their visit.
On the departure of Charles, Henry and his court embarked for Dover, returning proud of his sham prowess and mock battles, and of all his finery, but both himself and his followers loaded with a fearful amount of debt for this useless and hypocritical display. When the nobles and gentlemen got home, and began to reflect coolly on the heavy responsibilities they had incurred for their late showy but worthless follies, they could not help grumbling amongst themselves, and even blaming Wolsey, as loudly as they dared, as being at the bottom of the whole affair. One amongst them was neither nice nor cautious in his expressions of chagrin at the ruinous and foolish expense incurred, and denounced the proud cardinal's ambition as the cause of it all. This was the Duke of Buckingham. He was executed in 1521 on the absurd charge of having intercourse with astrologers.
The various causes of antipathy between Francis I. and Charles V., which had been long fomenting, now reached that degree of activity when they must burst all restraint. War was inevitable. The first breach was made by Francis. At this crisis Charles appealed to Henry to act as mediator, according to the provisions of the treaty of 1518. Henry at once accepted the office, and entered upon it with high professions of impartiality and of his sincere desire to promote justice and amity, but really with about the same amount of sincerity as was displayed by each of the contending parties. Francis had certainly been the aggressor, and Charles, having intercepted some of his letters, had already convinced Henry, to whom he had shown them, that the invasion of both Spain and Flanders was planned in the French cabinet. Henry's mind, therefore, was already made up before he assumed the duty of deciding; and Charles, from being aware of this, proposed his arbitration. Henry, moreover, was anxious to invade France on his own account, spite of treaties and the dallyings of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, but he had not yet the funds necessary. With these feelings and secrets in his own heart, Henry opened his proposal of arbitration to Francis by declarations of the extraordinary affection which he had contracted for him at the late interview.
HENRY VIII. (After the Portrait by Holbein.)
There was no alternative for the French king but to acquiesce in the proposal; the place of negotiations was appointed to be Calais, and, of course, Wolsey was named as the only man able and fitting to decide between two such great monarchs—Wolsey, who was bound hand and foot to the emperor by the hope of the Popedom. It was a clear case that Francis must be victimised, or the negotiation must prove abortive. Wolsey set out with something more than regal state to decide between the kings. In addition to his dignity of Papal legate a latere, he received the extraordinary powers of creating fifty counts-palatine, fifty knights, fifty chaplains, and fifty notaries; of legitimising bastards, and conferring the degree of doctor in medicine, law, and divinity. By another bull, he was empowered to grant licences to such as he thought proper to read the heretical works of Martin Luther, in order that some able man, having read them, might refute them. This was to pave the way for a royal champion of the Catholic Church against Luther and the devil, and that such a champion was already at work we shall shortly have occasion to show. Such were the pomp and splendour of the cardinal, that when he continued his journey into the Netherlands, with his troops of gentlemen attending him, clad in scarlet coats, with borders of velvet of a full hand's breadth, and with massive gold chains: when they saw him served on the knee by these attendants, and expending money with the most marvellous profusion, Christian, King of Denmark, and other princes then at the Court of the Emperor at Bruges, were overwhelmed with astonishment, for such slavish homage was not known in Germany.