A Popular History of England, From the Earliest Times to the Reign of Queen Victoria; Vol. II

by François Guizot

All the authority as well as all the influence in the kingdom now belonged to Cardinal Wolsey; from a plain almoner of the king he had become, in a few years, first Dean of York, then Bishop of Lincoln, at length Archbishop of York; in the year 1515, he was made Chancellor of England, cardinal, and legate of the Pope. All business passed through his hands; all favours depended upon him. An able and assiduous courtier, he contrived to flatter the tastes as well as the passions of his master; he amused him with endless pleasures; he flattered his self-love; he found money to suffice for his expenses, and the king, in return, allowed him to govern the kingdom. At home, the direction which Wolsey had contrived to give to affairs, was not without advantages; he strengthened the royal power upon the ruins of the aristocracy, encouraged commerce, secured the safety of the highways, and caused justice to be administered. Abroad, his personal avidity and the ambition which impelled him towards the throne of St. Peter, imprinted upon his policy a perfidious and venal character, which impelled his country to fatal courses. During more than ten years the history of Wolsey was the history of England; his qualities and vices equally influenced the whole of the nation, of whose destinies he was the real arbiter, since the absolute monarch who then governed the country saw only through the eyes, and heard only through the ears of his minister.

In ascending the throne of France, Francis I. had hastened to confirm the alliance with England which Louis XII. had concluded by his marriage; he was desirous of assuring peace in that quarter, in order to put into execution his projects against Italy, a fatal undertaking, which seemed to afflict with madness the French monarchs one after another, and to lead them to their ruin. Francis I. had covered himself with glory at the battle of Marignan, on the 14th of September, 1515; and Ludovic Sforza had been compelled to give up to him the duchy of Milan. Jealously of so much success began to seize upon King Henry; he complained of the perfidy of the French, who had secretly sent to Scotland the Duke of Albany, the son of him whom King James III. had formerly banished. The French party immediately proposed to entrust to him the regency, at the exclusion of the queen Margaret, who had exasperated her people by marrying, less than nine months after the death of her husband, the young Earl of Angus, bold and handsome, but as ambitious as he was rash and unskilful; Albany had been born in France; he had been brought up there; his regency was necessarily unfavorable to English interests. These reasons, coupled with the councils of Wolsey, who wished to please the court of Rome, from which he had recently received a cardinal's hat, persuaded Henry to conclude a fresh alliance with Maximilian, in order to drive Francis I. from Italy. An insane ambition contributed to urge the King of England into this path. The emperor, feigning to be weary of the supreme power, spoke of ceding the imperial purple to the prince who should show himself deserving of it. The vanity of Henry VIII., was aroused; he despatched two ambassadors to Germany to see how matters stood; but his negotiators were too intelligent and honest to leave him long in error. "The imperial crown is not at the disposal of the emperor," wrote Doctor Tunstall, "but certainly of the electoral princes, and the first condition is that the person elected should be a native of Germany, or at least a subject of the empire, which your Grace is not, because never, since the origin of the Christian faith, have the Kings of England been subjects; thus, I fear, that this proposal, so specious in appearance, has been made only with a view to obtain money of your Grace."

Henry VIII. was convinced, and, according to his custom, he was impelled to the other side by the reaction of his first feelings. Not being able to obtain the empire of Maximilian, he renounced his alliance. Francis I. contrived to gain over Wolsey by rich presents; he recrossed the Alps, entrusting the Constable de Bourbon to govern the duchy of Milan; a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, between France and England was concluded on the 4th of October, 1518, promising to the little dauphin the hand of the Princess Mary, the daughter of Henry VIII., then eighteen months of age. Francis I. was to repurchase Tournay for the sum of six hundred thousand crowns. Wolsey had not forgotten himself in determining these conditions; he had stipulated for a pension of twelve thousand livres, destined to indemnify him for the loss of his bishopric. "The king intends shortly to confer some further gratification upon your Grace," wrote one of the English negotiators to the all-powerful cardinal. "I was asked what would please you most; I said that I knew nothing of that matter, but that some handsome plate or rich jewels appeared to me to be the most suitable."

The jealousy of King Henry towards Francis I. appeared to have given place to a violent admiration; he proposed a personal interview, between Calais and Boulogne, which was to take place in the month of July, 1519. All the preliminaries prescribed by etiquette were already determined on. Henry and Wolsey could set themselves to work to invent the splendours of costumes and arranging festivities, which were to dazzle the court of France, when, in the month of January, 1519, the Emperor Maximilian died suddenly, and the great affair of the succession to the empire absorbed all minds.

For a moment Henry VIII. himself entered the lists, but without much hope or perseverance; the two rivals for the empire were still—as they had been all their lifetime—the King of France, Francis L, and the Archduke Charles, grandson of Maximilian by his son Philip the Fair. Born at Ghent, descending from the House of Austria, hereditary sovereign of the Low Countries, Charles had all the natural claims to the suffrages of the electors, which were wanting in his competitor. His military renown was already brilliant, and prodigal as King Francis might be of the rich presents for which the German princes were eager, the master of the Low Countries, Spain, the Kingdom of Naples, and the West Indies was the richer of the two. In this game, as in all others, Francis I. was to be beaten by Charles V. The King of England had at first hesitated between the two competitors, but he decided in favour of the Archduke, when the latter was definitively elected on the 28th of June. The King of France bore his check with the proud gaiety natural to his race and his country. 'In ambition as in love there should be no rancour,' he said to the Spanish ambassador; but the expenses had been enormous, and the defeat was serious. The two countries were to pay dearly for the rivalry which was thus established between their sovereigns.

Henry VIII. hastened to congratulate the new emperor by the pen of Wolsey, while the cardinal took care to explain the conduct of his master at the court of France. It was important to him, for the moment, to maintain good relations with Francis I. as well as with Charles V. The King of France claimed the performance of the promise of Henry VIII., and the latter was too well pleased to display his magnificence to decline a proposal which had, moreover, come from him in the first place. The interview was fixed for the summer of 1520, and the ambassadors of the emperor in vain made efforts to destroy the project.

The court of England was already at Canterbury, where the king was completing his splendid preparations, when he suddenly learnt that the emperor had arrived in the Channel, and desired to pay him a visit. Wolsey was less surprised than his master; he had secretly entered into negotiations with Charles, who had assured to his "very good friend the cardinal," a pension of seven thousand ducats secured by two Spanish bishoprics. Wolsey was sent by the king to meet the illustrious visitor, who, simply attired in black and scantily attended, landed amidst the magnificent preparations for the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The emperor stopped at Dover, where the King of England came shortly to meet him with great demonstrations of friendship and gratitude. They chatted together until a late hour of the night, and repaired on the morrow in state to Canterbury, the king leaving the right-hand side to the emperor throughout, and the Earl of Derby carrying before him the sword of justice. The cardinal, with all the clergy, came forward to meet the two sovereigns, who prostrated themselves together before the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket, which King Henry VIII. was shortly to profane and despoil of all its treasures. The emperor then presented his respects to his aunt, Queen Catharine, and appeared struck with admiration for the beauty of the Duchess of Suffolk, that Princess Mary to whom he had been betrothed in his childhood, and who had subsequently been rejected for reasons of state. The time for regrets had gone by, and the Emperor Charles V. had not come to England to occupy himself with the beauty of a woman. He securely attached Wolsey to his interest by promising him his important support in his great affair—the election to the pontifical throne. Presents were not forgotten, and when Charles set sail again after a short visit, he had counteracted the fatal effects which the interview of the two sovereigns of France and England might have had upon his policy. No one was more fully aware than Charles V. of the value of splendour and magnificence, under certain circumstances, but none knew better how to dispense with these aids in order to go directly and simply to his end, while reckoning upon his personal influence to preserve and maintain the imperial dignity.

On the 4th of June, 1520, King Henry VIII., the queen, the cardinal, and all the court, embarked for France; the spot fixed upon for the interview was situated between Guines and Ardres; it was there that was to be established the "Field of the Cloth of Gold," which has remained famous in the history of extravagant splendour. Wolsey had been entrusted by France as well as England, with the superintendence of all the festivities; but it was in vain that Francis I. selected the cardinal for his master of the ceremonies; Charles V. had promised to make him Pope.

A palace built of timber and magnificently decorated by Flemish workmen awaited the King of England; a fountain throwing forth streams of white and red wine played constantly at the front, with this invitation to all passers-by, "make good cheer, all who please." Everywhere stood erect grim gigantic figures armed with bows and arrows, and exhibiting the device which Henry had chosen to recall the advances of the Emperor and Francis I.: "Cui adhœreo trœstat." (He whom I support prevails). Precious tapestries, magnificent hangings, gold and silver plate, ornamented the interior of this temporary palace, more substantial than the magnificent pavilion erected by Francis I. The cloth of gold which formed the vault of this pavilion, the blue velvet, studded with stars, on the walls, the silken cords, mixed with Cyprian gold, were unable to resist the gusts of wind which soon arose and beat down into the mud all these splendours; and the King of France was compelled to take refuge in an old castle very near the town of Aries. The two sovereigns had scarcely been installed in their residences, when Cardinal Wolsey, accompanied by a magnificent retinue, repaired to the abode of the King of France, while a deputation of French noblemen performed the same ceremony towards Henry VIII. The visit of Wolsey was, however, not a mere court formality; the marriage treaty was confirmed between him and Francis I.; in the event of the projected union being accomplished, the King of France undertook to pay a pension of a hundred thousand crowns to Henry and his successors, so eager was he to secure the neutrality of England in the war which he foresaw. The arbitration of the affairs of Scotland was consigned to the cardinal himself, in conjunction with Louisa of Savoy, the mother of Francis I. Henry had wished to have the Scots delivered up to him without reserve, but the chivalrous spirit of the King did not permit him to abandon, even on paper, the faithful allies who had paid so cruelly for the useful diversion made in the north of England, when Louis XII. had been simultaneously attacked by the English and the Swiss.