Battle of Flodden.
Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, son of John of Norfolk, who fell at Bosworth, was in charge of the Border at the time. He raised the levies of the northern counties, and marched to meet the Scots. By throwing himself between King James and his retreat on Scotland, he forced the enemy to fight. On Flodden Field, between the Till and the Tweed, the armies met and fought a fierce and doubtful battle which lasted far into the night. Though victorious on one wing, the Scots were beaten in the centre, and their king and most of his nobles fell in a desperate struggle around the royal banner. In the darkness the survivors of the struggle dispersed and fled home. The death of their warlike sovereign, and the slaughter which had thinned their fighting men, kept the Scots quiet for many a day. During the long and troublous minority of James V. King Henry need fear no danger from the north. As a reward for his victory, Surrey was restored to his father's dukedom of Norfolk (1513).
Wolsey.
In these early years of his reign, King Henry had already taken as his chief minister the able statesman who was for twenty years to be the second personage in England. Thomas Wolsey, Dean of Lincoln, was the son of a butcher of Ipswich, who had sought advancement in the Church, the easiest career for an able man of low birth. He had served Foxe, Bishop of Winchester, one of Henry VII.'s chief advisers, and from his service passed into that of the king. He was an active, untiring man, with a great talent for work and organization of all sorts. Henry made him Bishop of Tournay, then Archbishop of York, and finally Chancellor. In this capacity he served for no less than fourteen years, and was the chosen instrument of all his master's schemes. His dignity was increased when, in 1515, the Pope made him a cardinal, and afterwards appointed him his legate in England—an office which seemed to trench over-much on the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury as head and primate of the English Church.
It suited King Henry to have a minister who could relieve him of much of the toil and drudgery of government, who did not fear responsibility, and who was entirely dependent on his master. As long as he was well served, and granted plenty of spare time for his pleasures and enjoyments, he allowed Wolsey a very free hand. The cardinal's head was somewhat turned by his elevation, and he indulged in a pomp and state such as almost befitted a king, never moving about without a sumptuous train of attendants. This arrogance made him much disliked, especially by the old nobility; but the king tolerated it with all the more ease because he preferred that his minister should be less popular than himself. It was always convenient to have some one on whom the blame of royal failures might be laid, and Wolsey, with his ostentation of power and pride, made an admirable shield for his master. Henry allowed him, therefore, the prominence in which his soul delighted, gave him his way in things indifferent, but was ready to check him sharply when he began to develop any tendency to act contrary to his own royal will.
Charles V. and Francis I.
In the earlier days of Wolsey's ministry, the face of Europe was profoundly changed by the deaths of the three old monarchs who had been the contemporaries of Henry VII. Lewis XII. of France died in 1515, Ferdinand of Aragon in 1516, the Emperor Maximilian in 1519. The successors of these old diplomatists were two young men, each slightly junior to the young King of England. In France the reckless and warlike Francis I. succeeded his cousin Lewis XII. In Spain and in the dominions of the house of Hapsburg, Ferdinand and Maximilian were followed by their grandson, Charles V., the child of the emperor's son and the king's daughter. Charles, being already King of Spain, Duke of Burgundy, and Archduke of Austria, was elected Emperor by the Germans in succession to his grandfather Maximilian.
| Charles the Rath, Duke of Burgundy, Holland, and Brabant, Count of Flanders, Luxemburg, and Namur, slain 1477 | = | (1) Isobel of Portugal. (2) Margaret of York. |