Henry, though immediately determined to embrace new measures, was careful to save appearances in the change; and he caused rejoicings to be every where made on account of the victory of Pavia and the captivity of Francis. He publicly dismissed a French envoy, whom he had formerly allowed, notwithstanding the war, to reside at London;[**] but upon the regent of France’s submissive applications to him, he again opened a correspondence with her; and besides assuring her of his friendship and protection, he exacted a promise that she never would consent to the dismembering of any province from the monarchy for her son’s ransom. With the emperor, however, he put on the appearance of vigor and enterprise; and in order to have a pretence for breaking with him, he despatched Tonstal, bishop of London, to Madrid with proposals for a powerful invasion of France. He required that Charles should immediately enter Guienne at the head of a great army, in order to put him in possession of that province; and he demanded the payments of large sums of money which that prince had borrowed from him in his last visit at London. He knew that the emperor was in no condition of fulfilling either of these demands; and that he had as little inclination to make him master of such considerable territories upon the frontiers of Spain.
* Guicciard. lib. xvi.
** Du Bellai, liv. iii Stowe, p. 221. Baker, p. 273.
Tonstal, likewise, after his arrival at Madrid, informed his master that Charles, on his part, urged several complaints against England; and in particular was displeased with Henry, because last year he had neither continued his monthly payments to Bourbon nor invaded Picardy, according to his stipulations. Tonstal added, that instead of expressing an intention to espouse Mary when she should be of age, the emperor had hearkened to proposals for marrying his niece Isabella, princess of Portugal; and that he had entered into a separate treaty with Francis, and seemed determined to reap alone all the advantages of the success with which fortune had crowned his arms.
The king, influenced by all these motives, concluded at Moore his alliance with the regent of France, and engaged to procure her son his liberty on reasonable conditions:[*] the regent also, in another treaty, acknowledged the kingdom Henry’s debtor for one million eight hundred thousand crowns to be discharged in half-yearly payments of fifty thousand crowns; after which Henry was to receive, during life, a yearly pension of a hundred thousand. A large present of a hundred thousand crowns was also made to Wolsey for his good offices, but covered under the pretence of arrears due on the pension granted him for relinquishing the administration of Tournay.
* Du Tillet, Recueil des Traités de Leonard, tom. ii.
Herbert.
Meanwhile Henry, foreseeing that this treaty with France might involve him in a war with the emperor, was also determined to fill his treasury by impositions upon his own subjects; and as the parliament had discovered some reluctance in complying with his demands, he followed, as is believed, the counsel of Wolsey, and resolved to make use of his prerogative alone for that purpose. He issued commissions to all the counties of England, for levying four shillings in the pound upon the clergy, three shillings and fourpence upon the laity; and so uncontrollable did he deem his authority, that he took no care to cover, as formerly, this arbitrary exaction, even under the slender pretence of a loan. But he soon found that he had presumed too far on the passive submission of his subjects. The people, displeased with an exaction beyond what was usually levied in those days, and further disgusted with the illegal method of imposing it, broke out in murmurs, complaints, opposition to the commissioners; and their refractory disposition threatened a general insurrection. Henry had the prudence to stop short in that dangerous path into which he had entered. He sent letters to all the counties, declaring that he meant no force by this last imposition, and that he would take nothing from his subjects but by way of “benevolence.” He flattered himself, that his condescension in employing that disguise would satisfy the people, and that no one would dare to render himself obnoxious to royal authority, by refusing any payment required of him in this manner. But the spirit of opposition, once roused, could not so easily be quieted at pleasure. A lawyer in the city objecting the statute of Richard III., by which benevolences were forever abolished, it was replied by the court, that Richard being a usurper, and his parliament a factious assembly, his statutes could not bind a lawful and absolute monarch, who held his crown by hereditary right, and needed not to court the favor of a licentious populace.[*]
* Herbert Hall.
The judges even went so far as to affirm positively, that the king might exact by commission any sum he pleased; and the privy council gave a ready assent to this decree, which annihilated the most valuable privilege of the people, and rendered all their other privileges precarious. Armed with such formidable authority of royal prerogative and a pretence of law, Wolsey sent for the mayor of London, and desired to know what he was willing to give for the supply of his majesty’s necessities. The mayor seemed desirous, before he should declare himself, to consult the common council; but the cardinal required that he and all the aldermen should separately confer with himself about the benevolence; and he eluded by that means the danger of a formed opposition. Matters, however, went not so smoothly in the country. An insurrection was begun in some places; but as the people were not headed by any considerable person, it was easy for the duke of Suffolk, and the earl of Surrey, now duke of Norfolk, by employing persuasion and authority, to induce the ringleaders to lay down their arms and surrender themselves prisoners. The king, finding it dangerous to punish criminals engaged in so popular a cause, was determined, notwithstanding his violent, imperious temper, to grant them a general pardon; and he prudently imputed their guilt, not to their want of loyalty or affection, but to their poverty. The offenders were carried before the star chamber; where, after a severe charge brought against them by the king’s council, the cardinal said, “that notwithstanding their grievous, offence, the king, in, consideration of their necessities, had granted them his gracious pardon, upon condition that they would find sureties for their future good behavior.” But they, replying that they had no sureties, the cardinal first, and after him the duke of Norfolk, said that they would be bound for them. Upon which they were dismissed.[*]
* Herbert. Hall. Stowe, p. 525. Holingshed, p. 891.
These arbitrary impositions being imputed, though on what grounds is unknown, to the counsels of the cardinal, increased the general odium under which he labored: and the clemency of the pardon, being ascribed to the king, was considered as an atonement on his part for the illegality of the measure. But Wolsey, supported both by royal and papal authority, proceeded without scruple to violate all ecclesiastical privileges, which, during that age, were much more sacred than civil; and having once prevailed in that unusual attempt of suppressing some monasteries, he kept all the rest in awe, and exercised over them an arbitrary jurisdiction. By his commission as legate he was empowered to visit them, and reform them, and chastise their irregularities; and he employed his usual agent, Allen, in the exercise of this authority. The religious houses were obliged to compound for their guilt, real or pretended, by paying large sums to the cardinal or his deputy; and this oppression was carried so far, that it reached at last the king’s ears, which were not commonly open to complaints against his favorite. Wolsey had built a splendid palace at Hampton Court, which he probably intended, as well as that of York Place, in Westminster, for his own residence; but fearing the increase of envy on account of this magnificence, and desirous to appease the king, he made him a present of the building, and told him that, from the first, he had erected it for his use.