Francis agreed, but on condition that Henry should wear a bracelet of which he made him a present, and which was double in value to the collar.[*] The king went next day to Ardres without guards or attendants; and confidence being now fully established between the monarchs, they employed the rest of the time entirely in tournaments and festivals.
A defiance had been sent by the two kings to each other’s court, and through all the chief cities in Europe, importing, that Henry and Francis, with fourteen aids, would be ready, in the plains of Picardy, to answer all comers that were gentlemen, at tilt, tournament, and barriers. The monarchs, in order to fulfil this challenge, advanced into the field on horseback, Francis surrounded with Henry’s guards, and Henry with those of Francis. They were gorgeously apparelled; and were both of them the most comely personages of their age, as well as the most expert in every military exercise. They carried away the prize at all trials in those rough and dangerous pastimes; and several horses and riders were overthrown by their vigor and dexterity. The ladies were the judges in these feats of chivalry, and put an end to the rencounter whenever they judged it expedient. Henry erected a spacious house of wood and canvas, which had been framed in London; and he there feasted the French monarch. He had placed a motto on this fabric, under the figure of an English archer embroidered on it, “Cui adhæreo præest,” He prevails whom I favor;[**] expressing his own situation, as holding in his hands the balance of power among the potentates of Europe. In these entertainments, more than in any serious business, did the two kings pass their time, till their departure.
* Mémoires de Fleuranges.
** Mezeray.
Henry paid then a visit to the emperor and Margaret of Savoy at Gravelines, and engaged them to go along with him to Calais, and pass some days in that fortress. The artful and politic Charles here completed the impression which he had begun to make on Henry and his favorite, and effaced all the friendship to which the frank and generous nature of Francis had given birth. As the house of Austria began sensibly to take the ascendant over the French monarchy, the interests of England required that some support should be given to the latter, and, above all, that any important wars should be prevented which might bestow on either of them a decisive superiority over the other. But the jealousy of the English against France has usually prevented a cordial union between those nations; and Charles, sensible of this hereditary animosity, and desirous further to flatter Henry’s vanity, had made him an offer, (an offer in which Francis was afterwards obliged to concur,) that he should be entirely arbiter in any dispute or difference that might arise between the monarchs. But the masterpiece of Charles’s politics was the securing of Wolsey in his interests, by very important services, and still higher promises. He renewed assurances of assisting him in obtaining the papacy; and he put him in present possession of the revenues belonging to the sees of Badajoz and Paleneia in Castile. The acquisitions of Wolsey were now become so exorbitant, that, joined to the pensions from foreign powers which Henry allowed him to possess, his revenues were computed nearly to equal those which belonged to the crown itself; and he spent them with a magnificence; or rather an ostentation, which gave general offence to the people; and even lessened his master in the eyes of all foreign nations.[*]
* Polyd. Virg. Hall.
The violent personal emulation and political jealousy which had taken place between the emperor and the French king, soon broke out in hostilities. But while these ambitious and warlike princes were acting against each other in almost every part of Europe, they still made professions of the strongest desire of peace; and both of them incessantly carried their complaints to Henry, as to the umpire between them. The king, who pretended to be neutral, engaged them to send their ambassadors to Calais, there to negotiate a peace under the mediation of Wolsey and the pope’s nuncio. The emperor was well apprised of the partiality of these mediators; and his demands in the conference were so unreasonable as plainly proved him conscious of the advantage. He required the restitution of Burgundy, a province which many years before had been ceded to France by treaty, and which, if in his possession, would have given him entrance into the heart of that kingdom: and he demanded to be freed from the homage which his ancestors had always done for Flanders and Artois, and which he himself had by the treaty of Noyon engaged to renew.
1521.
On Francis’s rejecting these terms, the congress of Calais broke up; and Wolsey soon after took a journey to Bruges, where he met with the emperor. He was received with the same state, magnificence, and respect, as if he had been the king of England himself; and he concluded, in his master’s name, an offensive alliance with the pope and the emperor against France. He stipulated that England should next summer invade that kingdom with forty thousand men; and he betrothed to Charles the princess Mary, the king’s only child, who had now some prospect of inheriting the crown. This extravagant alliance, which was prejudicial to the interests, and might have proved fatal to the liberty and independence, of the kingdom, was the result of the humors and prejudices of the king, and the private views and expectations of the cardinal.
The people saw every day new instances of the uncontrolled authority of this minister. The duke of Buckingham, constable of England, the first nobleman both for family and fortune in the kingdom, had imprudently given disgust to the cardinal; and it was not long before he found reason to repent of his indiscretion. He seems to have been a man full of levity and rash projects; and being infatuated with judicial astrology, he entertained a commerce with one Hopkins, a Carthusian friar, who encouraged him in the notion of his mounting one day the throne of England. He was descended by a female from the duke of Glocester, youngest son of Edward III.; and though his claim to the crown was thereby very remote, he had been so unguarded as to let fall some expressions, as if he thought himself best entitled, in case the king should die without issue, to possess the royal dignity. He had not even abstained from threats against the king’s life; and had provided himself with arms, which he intended to employ, in case a favorable opportunity should offer. He was brought to a trial; and the duke of Norfolk, whose son, the earl of Surrey, had married Buckingham’s daughter, was created lord steward, in order to preside at this solemn procedure. The jury consisted of a duke, a marquis, seven earls, and twelve barons; and they gave their verdict against Buckingham, which was soon after carried into execution. There is no reason to think the sentence unjust;[*] but as Buckingham’s crimes seemed to proceed more from indiscretion than deliberate malice, the people, who loved him, expected that the king would grant him a pardon, and imputed their disappointment to the animosity and revenge of the cardinal.
* Herbert. Hall. Stowe, p. 513. Holingshed, p. 862.