Charles, who was now preparing to visit England on his way to Spain, was sadly in want of money. Margaret did her best to help him, and in order to raise funds pawned her jewels to the Count of Hochstrate. 'My said Lady, obeying the order of his Majesty, has offered to leave her rings with the said Hochstrate, until he has been acquitted and discharged of the last sums he furnished ... at the very pressing request and insistence of my said Lady, knowing that in this lies his Majesty's honour, but he has behaved so well that he will not keep them.'[81]
Before leaving Bruges the emperor made his will on the 22nd of May 1522, arranging that if he died in Flanders his body was to be buried at Bruges, near his grandmother Mary of Burgundy. He then bade farewell to Margaret and set out for England, sailing from Calais, with a gorgeous retinue of a thousand horse and two thousand courtiers, and landing at Dover towards the end of May, was welcomed by Wolsey in his master's name. It had been arranged that King Henry should meet the emperor on the downs between Dover and Canterbury; but to show him greater honour the king rode into Dover, and after together inspecting the English fleet, which was duly admired by the emperor and his train, the two monarchs made a triumphal progress through Canterbury, Sittingbourne, and Rochester to Gravesend. From Gravesend the splendid processions rowed in royal barges to Greenwich. At the entrance door of the palace Queen Katharine stood awaiting her nephew, surrounded by her ladies, and holding little Princess Mary by the hand. The emperor, kneeling on one knee, then asked for his aunt's blessing, which was readily granted, and from henceforward for six weeks his visit to England was a continual round of feasting, dancing, hunting, masquerading, and splendid entertainments.
But amidst all this hospitality his thoughts were mainly fixed on Spain, and as he wrote to Margaret, 'the six weeks seemed a thousand years.'
Whilst Charles was at Greenwich a messenger arrived from France bearing a letter to King Henry, in which Francis I. bade defiance to the King of England. The letter was handed to the emperor for his perusal, who must have rejoiced at its contents, for now he and his uncle could join forces against their common enemy France; and soon after an eternal friendship was solemnly sworn between them upon the Sacrament in Saint George's Chapel, Windsor, and an abiding alliance in peace and war cemented by Charles's betrothal to his cousin Mary Tudor. Glittering pageants in London and Windsor, where Charles was made a Knight of the Garter under his uncle's presidency, brought his visit to a close, and on July the 6th the emperor set sail once more for the port of Santander.[82]
A few weeks later an Anglo-Belgian army, under Florent d'Ysselstein, Count of Buren, invaded Picardy, whilst the Earl of Surrey's fleet hovered off the Norman coast, and threatened all French shipping in the Channel.
Margaret meanwhile was busily employed in harrowing the Duke of Gueldres, whose troops appeared before Leyden, and pillaged the village of La Haye. The States of Friesland upheld the regent in her endeavours, but it was not until June the 4th, 1524, that a truce was concluded with Gueldres, and peace restored.
Whilst Charles, Henry, and Francis were thus employed wasting each other's strength, the Turkish sultan, Solyman the Magnificent, invaded Hungary with a large army, and took Belgrade. Encouraged by this success, he besieged the Island of Rhodes, then the seat of the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem. The Grand Master of Villers de L'Isle Adam sent imploring messages to the powers of Europe begging for assistance. Adrian VI. did his utmost to persuade Charles and Francis to forget their quarrels and join forces in saving Rhodes, then the chief bulwark of Christianity in the East. On March the 3rd, 1523, he wrote to Charles exhorting him and all Christian princes to make peace with one another, and wage a common war against the Turks. He complains that 'so far all his exhortations have been fruitless, and the Turks have conquered Belgrade on one side, and it is said they have taken Rhodes on the other. There is no doubt that the Turks will continue their conquests in Hungary (where the emperor's sister Mary is queen), as well as in the Mediterranean, till they have rendered themselves masters of the whole of Europe. This danger can only be averted by a reconciliation of all Christian princes....' The Pope ends by saying that he has written in the same sense to the Kings of France and England.[83]
But the rival princes turned a deaf ear to all these entreaties, and after six months of incredible courage, patience, and bravery on the part of the garrison, the gallant little band of knights were forced to capitulate, and the town was razed to the ground. When too late, Charles, Henry, and Francis, ashamed of their conduct, tried to lay the blame of this misfortune on each other, and Charles, by way of reparation, gave the Knights of Saint John the Island of Malta, which from henceforth became the chief home of their order.
The year 1523 was marked by the revolt and conspiracy of the Constable of Bourbon, a powerful and accomplished French nobleman descended from the Montpensier branch of the Bourbon family, who through his marriage with Suzanne, daughter and heiress of the Duke of Bourbon, had acquired the wealth and honours of that powerful house. Francis I. on his accession had made him Constable of France, and treated him with every mark of favour.
When the king left Italy in 1516, Bourbon remained behind as lieutenant-general of the French forces, and greatly distinguished himself by his military talents and valour; but soon after his return to France he fell into disfavour, and from henceforth became the victim of a vindictive persecution. The cause of this sudden change is generally attributed to a passionate attachment on the part of Louise of Savoy, the king's mother, who, on his wife Suzanne's death in 1521, offered her hand to Bourbon; but the Constable declining the honour, the humiliated queen, in revenge, disputed Suzanne's will, herself claiming the succession to the Bourbon estates as next of kin. In this she was aided and abetted by the Chancellor Du Prat, and soon persuaded the king to withhold Bourbon's appointments, and disallow his just claims for money he had furnished during the war in Italy. The Constable at first bore these indignities with great moderation, but when in presence of the whole army the king passed him over, and gave the command of the van to the Duke of Alençon, the injured Constable retired from the Court, and began a secret correspondence with Charles's Ministers, offering his services to the emperor.