By the end of May the war could no longer be postponed, and was duly declared. It was still some months before Surrey took the field in France at the head of the English forces—conducting his campaign on the general principles of Anglo-Scottish border warfare—ravaging, burning, and rousing the hatred of the country population, but striking no blow. If Henry seriously contemplated the idea of reviving old claims to the French crown, he could have adopted no worse policy. Charles of course gave no practical assistance, and the allies each blamed the other for the futility of the operations. Albany on the other hand had been back in Scotland for some months; and in opposition to Angus—in conjunction therefore with Margaret —threatened an invasion as soon as the French expedition started. The ingenious Lord Dacre however by sheer bluff—there is no other word— succeeded in procuring an armistice when the English border was all but defenceless. After this exhibition, Albany found it as well to retire to France; while Wolsey used the occurrence to urge upon Charles that Scotland required too much attention to allow French expeditions to be practicable.
[Sidenote: 1523 Progress of the war]
With 1523 events took a turn more favourable to Charles. The Duke of Bourbon, Constable of France, turned against the King, on the ground of insults more or less fancied, and of a genuine attempt to deprive him of his inheritance by legal process. The idea was revived in Henry's mind that in alliance with some of the French nobility he might make himself King of France as Henry V. had done; so Wolsey had to develop an active policy against France. His hand being thus forced, the Cardinal devoted his energies to making the combination against the French King really serious, coercing Venice into the coalition. The military operations however were not in train till the autumn; Suffolk, whose military skill was extremely limited, commanded the English expedition, and marched into the interior instead of falling on Boulogne as Wolsey had advised; Bourbon did nothing useful; Charles's troops gave their attention to Fontarabia instead of to a combined operation. From the English point of view the whole campaign was a complete fiasco. Wolsey had been set to carry out a policy of which he disapproved, with instruments of whose incompetence he was fully conscious; and the results were probably neither better nor worse than what he and the cooler onlookers like Sir Thomas More expected. The one thing that Wolsey could do, he had done: he had placed Surrey on the Northern border to deal with the inevitable return to Scotland of Albany with threats of invasion. Surrey was successful: Albany having advanced into England was obliged to fall back, and the border country was subjected to the usual process of raiding and harrying.
[Sidenote: Election of Pope Clement VII.]
Once again, the closing months of the year witnessed a papal election; and for the second time Wolsey was disappointed. The reign of Adrian closed in September. It had been brief, well intentioned, and honest: but ineffective. The Pope's efforts at reform had been met by the solid vis inertiae of the ecclesiastical world. His successor, the Medici, Clement VII., was destined to play a much more important part in history, and, buffeted by forces which he could not control, to become the instrument whereby England was severed from Rome. In this election Charles played the same part as before. He promised Wolsey his support, wrote letters to Rome which were delayed till too late, and actually expended his influence on behalf of Medici. Again, though Wolsey's anxiety to achieve the papacy has probably been much exaggerated, he would have been more than human if he had not inwardly resented the Emperor's behaviour. It is to be noted in connexion with this election that Wolsey actually proposed the employment of armed coercion to secure a convenient choice—a rather gross method of condemning the theory that the Conclave reached its decision by Divine guidance.
[Sidenote: 1524 Wolsey's difficulties]
The year had but six weeks more to run when Clement was finally elected. In 1524 the belligerents were all desirous of ending the war, but none was willing to make concessions to hasten that end. The allies had good reason to suspect each other of trying to make separate terms with Francis; each hoped to extract concessions from the French King as the price of defection. Wolsey in fact was neither able nor willing to carry on active hostilities. England had gone into the war with a light heart; but when Parliament was called upon in the summer of 1523 to vote the necessary funds, the light-heartedness was modified, and the funds were voted with extreme reluctance, under something very near akin to compulsion; and the collecting of the taxes aroused angry complaint—the blame being as usual laid on the Cardinal. He was well aware that any increase in the burden would be a dangerous matter to propose, and very dangerous indeed to try and carry through; yet without more funds an active campaign was impossible. Therefore, as concerned the Continent, Wolsey on the one hand sought to induce Charles to assent to a fresh conference where England should mediate as to the claims and counter-claims of Charles and Francis; and on the other made private overtures to Francis.
[Sidenote: Intrigues in Scotland]
In Scotland, the game of intrigue was actively carried on. Albany retired permanently to France soon after the failure of his invasion. While he was in Scotland, Margaret had sided with him; now she began to fall in with the English policy, and was eager for the "erection" of her son—that is for his recognition as actual King though he was barely twelve years old. Throughout the summer, schemes were on foot for a peace conference—the real object being the kidnapping of Beton, the Archbishop of St. Andrews, coadjutor of Albany, Chancellor of Scotland, and the most resolute opponent of the Anglicising party and policy. Wolsey is quite explicit on this point in a letter to Dacre, though Surrey, who had just succeeded to the Dukedom of Norfolk by the death of the victor of Flodden, never grasped this peculiar method of diplomacy. Beton declined to be trapped; still, the "erection" was carried through. [Footnote: L. & P., vol. iv., part i., 549. Cf. Lang, Hist. Scot., pp. 405, 406. Beton was to have a safe-conduct, and the kidnapping was to be done by Angus, at the time in England, quite as a private personal matter. Angus had come to England from France, whither he had been removed by Albany.] By dint of bribery, many of the anti-English party had now changed sides along with Margaret, with the curious result that Angus, who was bound to be in opposition to his wife, allied himself to Beton. Next year, however, the French or anti-English party in Scotland suffered a serious blow when the French King was vanquished and taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia.
[Sidenote: 1525 Pavia]