The son of a rich butcher of Ipswich, Thomas Wolsey had been brought up with care; honoured when very young with all the degrees of the University of Oxford, he had been recommended to his master by Bishop Fox, the favourite diplomatist of Henry VII., and the king had several times employed him in delicate missions. Upon the death of the old monarch, Bishop Fox, who saw his favour on the decline, had taken care to place Wolsey near the king, and soon the chaplain had distanced all his rivals in the good graces of his master. Better educated than the young king, but too shrewd to allow this to be seen, skilful in the bodily exercises and amusements of his time, Wolsey partook of all the tastes and flattered all the passions of his master, before the period when he was destined to relieve him of the embarrassments and fatigues of the government.
Whilst the dancing and feasting were proceeding at Calais, a French army, commanded by the Duke of Longueville and the famous Chevalier Bayard, was advancing to the assistance of Thérouenne, Henry immediately hastened thither; but the French had instructions to avoid a pitched battle, and they retired, after having placed provisions and reinforcements in the towns, a service which the Count of Angoulême (subsequently Francis I.) continued to render to the besieged, in spite of the badly organized and badly commanded English forces.
Landing Henry VIII. at Calais.
They had been for six weeks before a poor little town, when the Emperor Maximilian joined his brother in arms, the great King of England, with the flower of the knights of Christendom. In his satisfaction at seeing under his orders, in the capacity of a volunteer, the Emperor of the West, Henry VIII. forgot that he had transmitted to him a hundred thousand golden crowns for raising troops, and that Maximilian had brought only a feeble escort. The reception of the emperor was magnificent; all the great English noblemen were clad in cloth of gold and silver, which suffered from the pelting rain that greeted the interview of the two monarchs. On the same day the Scottish herald-at-arms came to the camp of King Henry VIII., to transmit to him the declaration of war of his sovereign. "I have entrusted the Earl of Surrey to cope with your master," abruptly replied the King of England. Before the return of his messenger, King James had risked and lost his game.
The French had, meanwhile, decided to advance upon Thérouenne: the English troops crossed the river to give battle to them; the Emperor Maximilian, with the red rose of Lancaster upon his helmet, directed the operations; the struggle began briskly, but the French cavalry, after charging valiantly, took alarm, and turned back. They caused disorder in the battle corps; the panic became complete: the English pursued the fugitives to the cry of "St. George;" the efforts of the chiefs could not rally the soldiers, and nearly all were made prisoners. "It is a battle of spurs," the captives themselves said, when the king gaily congratulated them upon the ardour which the fugitives had contrived to inspire in their horses, and that name has remained to the engagement. But King Henry delayed before Thérouenne, instead of profiting by his advantages and by the arrival in France of a Swiss army to which he had furnished money. The town capitulated at the end of August, and was razed to the ground upon the advice, and to the advantage, of Maximilian. Just as he had formerly done the work of King Ferdinand, so Henry VIII. was now doing that of the Emperor; instead of advancing into France, he laid siege to Tournay, a French town though in Flanders, that was regarded as prejudicial to the commerce of that country. Maximilian had taken care to promise the bishopric thereof to Wolsey; it was taken without any great resistance on the 22nd of September, but the Swiss had concluded an advantageous treaty with the King of France, and had withdrawn to their mountains. The King of England gave a great tournament, and amused himself for several days at Tournay. He returned to England on the 22nd of October, after having spent large sums of money, without glory or profit; but the star of Wolsey had risen, and Henry VIII. had had the pleasure of dictating to the Emperor.
In the meantime, the Earl of Surrey had justified the confidence of his master; King James crossed the frontier on the 22nd of August with a more considerable army than was usual in Scotland. He had captured several castles, when Surrey met him in the environs of Flodden, an advanced defence of the Cheviot Hills, in an advantageous situation, protected by the course of the Till, one of the tributaries of the Tweed. The English immediately saw the strength of the position, and endeavoured by insulting messages to tempt King James to advance; but the Scots took no heed, and it was found necessary to make the attack. James had neglected to defend the bridge and the ford, but he descended from the mountain and advanced towards the enemy, in good order, "marching like the Germans, without speaking and without making any noise." The old chiefs of the army had advised against giving battle, but James did not listen to them. "If you are afraid of the English, you can return to your home," he said insolently to the old Earl of Angus. The old man burst into tears. "My age renders my body useless in the combat, and my counsels are despised," he cried; "but I leave my two sons and the vassals of the Douglases upon the field of battle; God grant that the prediction of the old Angus may prove false!"
It was four o'clock on the 9th of September, 1513; the guns of the two armies began to thunder; the English artillery was superior and better served than that of the Scots; the latter were the more eager to come to a hand-to-hand struggle. The Earl of Huntley and Lord Home, who commanded the left wing, attacked the English under the orders of Sir Edmund Howard; they fought furiously, and the troops of Sir Edmund, coming in great part from Cheshire, were exasperated, it is said, at finding themselves commanded by a Howard instead of a Stanley, the hereditary chief of their county. They wavered, and the Scottish corps for a long time resisted the cavalry reserve which Lord Dacre brought up. The inhabitants of the frontiers, under the orders of Lord Home, had dispersed to plunder, and refused to renew the attack. "We have fought the advanced guard," they said, "and we have made them retreat; let all do as much as we have." King James was performing wonders in the centre; he had attacked the Earl of Surrey with the flower of his chivalry, and the two generals were about to meet amidst the slaughter, when confusion set in among the highlanders, who had precipitated themselves in a disorderly manner upon the left wing of the English. Half naked and maddened with rage, the mountaineers struck before them without listening to the voice of their chiefs, as though the whole victory depended "upon the heavy blows which they gave." Being soon repulsed in this irregular attack, they were slaughtered one after the other, and the whole effort of the combat was directed towards the centre, where King James continued to fight. In an instant he was crushed; the circle contracted around him; English and Scotch appeared that day to have adopted the ferocious maxim of Sir Thomas Howard, "No quarter." The Scots thronged around their sovereign, defending him with desperate valour; he fell, however, almost at the feet of Surrey; but the struggle continued around his body. He was buried under a heap of dead, who had fallen in his defence. When night at length arrested the slaughter, Surrey was not yet well assured of victory; on the morrow he was compelled to engage in several little skirmishes with detached corps; but the bulk of the Scots withdrew during the night towards the frontier, and the English did not attempt to pursue them. The battle of Flodden had struck a fatal blow to Scotland; her nobility was decimated, many families had lost all their sons; but, on the other hand, the struggle had exhausted their adversaries, and Surrey intrenched himself in Berwick, and shortly afterwards disbanded the greater part of his army. He sent to Queen Catherine the corpse of King James, found upon the field of battle; she herself wrote to King Henry VIII. to announce the victory. "My Henry," she said, "that which God does is well done. Your Grace can see that I can keep my promises, for I send you for your banner the close coat of a king. I could have wished to send you the king himself, but the heart of our English people would not have permitted it." Upon his return, the king rewarded Surrey for his services, by restoring to him the title of Duke of Norfolk, lost by his father, who had fallen on the field of Bosworth. Queen Margaret of Scotland had written to her brother, imploring him to be mindful of the ties of blood, and to spare her orphan son; she was nominated regent, and peace was concluded; the Council of the King of England had for a long time been aware that it was difficult to completely subdue the Scots, and that war with that country, as poor as it was resolute, was rarely profitable to her neighbours, even after victory.
Louis XII. succeeded by his negotiations in breaking off the league formed against him. The court of Rome had received him into favour, and Maximilian became his ally by the promise of the hand of Renee of France, second daughter of the king (subsequently Duchess of Ferrara), for the prince Charles, son of Philip the Fair and Joan the Mad, destined to become better known as the Emperor Charles the Fifth. The young prince had not yet attained marriageable age, but he had been betrothed from tender infancy to the Princess Mary of England, sister of Henry VIII.; the latter soon heard of the treachery which was preparing, but at the same time, and in order to appease his fury, Louis XII., who had recently lost his wife, Anne of Brittany, formerly widow of Charles VIII., proposed to marry the Princess Mary. She was sixteen years of age, and was passionately in love with Charles Brandon, viscount De Lisle, one of the handsomest noblemen, and one of the most skilful in all military exercises at the English court, who was equally devoted to her. King Louis had formerly been an accomplished chevalier; but he was fifty-three years of age, and was afflicted with the gout. When the marriage was celebrated, in spite of the sentiments of the princess, he attended in his litter the tournament at which Charles Brandon, now become Duke of Suffolk, distinguished himself by the most brilliant valour. The nuptial ceremony had taken place upon the 2nd of September, 1513; the king was delighted with his young wife, who, however, reproached him with having sent back to England all her ladies and her English household. The Duke of Suffolk had also returned to London, when, on the 1st of January, 1514, Louis XII. died in Paris, exhausted by the fatigue of his long wars, and the cares which his affairs had caused him; exhausted also, it was said, by the efforts which he had recently made to appear at the rejoicings, in order to please his young bride. His subjects mourned him; they had given him the noble surname of the "Father of his people," a fact due above all to the wise administration of Cardinal d'Amboise. Two months after his death, his widow secretly married the Duke of Suffolk, who had come on behalf of the king, her brother, at the head of the embassy which was to bring her back to England. Marriages of this kind had been frequent formerly, but the royal dignity became every year more haughty, and none was more infatuated therewith than Henry VIII.; he flew into a passion against his sister, whom he would not see on her return. Soon the supplications of Mary and the good offices of Wolsey brought about interviews. Suffolk had formerly been a favourite of the king, who received him into favour. The duke and duchess reappeared at the court; Mary was more beautiful than ever, for she was now happy.