The more to cement the union between these princes, a new treaty was some time after concluded at London; in which Henry agreed finally to renounce all claims to the crown of France; claims which might now indeed be deemed chimerical, but which often served as a pretence for exciting the unwary English to wage war upon the French nation. As a return for this concession, Francis bound himself and his successors to pay forever fifty thousand crowns a year to Henry and his successors; and that greater solemnity might be given to this treaty, it was agreed that the parliaments and great nobility of both kingdoms should give their assent to it. The mareschal Montmorency, accompanied by many persons of distinction, and attended by a pompous equipage, was sent over to ratify the treaty; and was received at London with all the parade which suited the solemnity of the occasion. The terror of the emperor’s greatness had extinguished the ancient animosity between the nations; and Spain, during more than a century, became, though a more distant power, the chief object of jealousy to the English.
This cordial union between France and England, though it added influence to the joint embassy which they sent to the emperor, was not able to bend that monarch to submit entirely to the conditions insisted on by the allies. He departed, indeed, from his demand of Burgundy as the ransom of the French princes; but he required, previously to their liberty, that Francis should evacuate Genoa, and all the fortresses held by him in Italy; and he declared his intention of bringing Sforza to a trial, and confiscating the duchy of Milan, on account of his pretended treason. The English and French heralds, therefore, according to agreement, declared war against him, and set him at defiance. Charles answered the English herald with moderation; but to the French he reproached his master with breach of faith, reminded him of the private conversation which had passed between them at Madrid before their separation, and offered to prove by single combat that he had acted dishonorably. Francis retaliated this challenge, by giving Charles the lie; and, after demanding security of the field, he offered to maintain his cause by single combat. Many messages passed to and fro between them; but though both princes were undoubtedly brave, the intended duel never took place. The French and Spaniards, during that age, zealously disputed which of the monarchs incurred the blame of this failure; but all men of moderation every where lamented the power of fortune, that the prince the more candid, generous, and sincere, should, by unhappy incidents, have been reduced to so cruel a situation, that nothing but his violation of treaty could preserve his people, and that he must ever after, without being able to make a proper reply, bear to be reproached with breach of promise, by a rival inferior to him both in honor and virtue.
But though this famous challenge between Charles and Francis had no immediate consequence with regard to these monarchs themselves, it produced a considerable alteration on the manners of the age. The practice of challenges and duels, which had been part of the ancient barbarous jurisprudence, which was still preserved on very solemn occasions, and which was sometimes countenanced by the civil magistrate, began thenceforth to prevail in the most trivial incidents; and men, on any affront or injury, thought themselves entitled, or even required in honor, to take revenge on their enemies, by openly vindicating their right in single combat. These absurd, though generous maxims, shed much of thee best blood in Christendom, during more than two centuries; and notwithstanding the severity of law and authority of reason, such is the prevailing force of custom, they are far from being as yet entirely exploded.
CHAPTER XXX.
HENRY VIII
1527.
Notwithstanding the submissive deference paid to papal authority before the reformation, the marriage of Henry with Catharine of Arragon, his brother’s widow, had not passed without much scruple and difficulty. The prejudices of the people were in general bent against a conjugal union between such near relations; and the late king, though he had betrothed his son when that prince was but twelve years of age, gave evident proofs of his intention to take afterwards a proper opportunity of annulling the contract.[*] He ordered the young prince, as soon as he came of age, to enter a protestation against the marriage;[**] and on his death-bed he charged him, as his last injunction, not to finish an alliance so unusual, and exposed to such insuperable objections. After the king’s accession, some members of the privy council, particularly Warham, the primate, openly declared against the resolution of completing the marriage; and though Henry’s youth and dissipation kept him, during some time, from entertaining any scruples with regard to the measure which he had embraced, there happened incidents sufficient to rouse his attention, and to inform him of the sentiments generally entertained on that subject. The states of Castile had opposed the emperor Charles’s espousals with Mary, Henry’s daughter; and among other objections, had insisted on the illegitimate birth of the young princess.[***] And when the negotiations were afterwards opened with France, and mention was made of betrothing her to Francis or the duke of Orleans, the bishop of Tarbe, the French ambassador, revived the same objection.[****] But though these events naturally raised some doubts in Henry’s mind, there concurred other causes, which tended much to increase his remorse, and render his conscience more scrupulous.
* Morison’s Apomaxis, p. 13.
** Morison’s Apomaxis, p. 13. Heylin’s Queen Mary, p. 2.
*** Lord Herbert, Fiddes’s Life of Wolsey.
**** Rymer vol. xiv. p. 192, 203. Heylin, p. 3.