The daily expenses of Wolsey were enormous, but he still hoped that Pope Leo X. (his junior by several years) would be carried off by some accident; it was necessary, therefore, at any price, to secure the support of the emperor. The whole secret of the English policy at this period lay there.
On the 19th of August, Wolsey wrote from Bruges to his master. The emperor urged Henry VIII. to declare war against France; but the cardinal had said that it was necessary to await the visit of Charles to England. "He swears in the presence of Our Lady," added Wolsey, "that he holds himself bound to you for ever above all other princes;" in faith of which, the emperor promised to marry the little Princess Mary, who had been solemnly betrothed to the dauphin four years before. The preliminaries being agreed upon, Wolsey returned to Calais, where the French ambassadors contrived to preserve their gravity and to restrain from indignation, while the cardinal formally resumed the negotiations for peace. When Francis I. had rejected an unacceptable project, Wolsey, deploring his obstinacy, impartially declared, in his quality of arbitrator, that the King of France was the aggressor, and that the King of England was bound to lend his concurrence to his ally, the Emperor Charles. A treaty was therefore signed at Calais, between the Pope, the Emperor, and King Henry VIII., according to which, "in order to check the guilty ambition of France, and to hasten the moment for a general crusade against the Turks," all the covenanters were to fall at once upon King Francis I. from different sides.
Hostilities had not been relaxed during the negotiations, and the affairs of the King of France continued to progress unfavourably; he had lost nearly all his conquests in Italy, when Pope Leo X. delighted at the capture of Parma and Piacenza, the siege of which he had urged with vigour, died suddenly on the 1st of December, at the age of forty-six years, not without some suspicion of poisoning—thus justifying the hopes which the cardinal had founded upon the accidents to which Italian princes were then particularly subject. It was a great blow to the league, but none was more interested than Wolsey, who was informed of the event with prodigious rapidity, and he immediately took steps to remind the emperor of his engagements, at the same time despatching to Rome his secretary, Pace, to manage his business at the sacred college, which was very considerable then, in consequence of the numerous nominations which Leo X. had made.
For twenty-three days thirty-nine cardinals were shut up in conclave for the election of the new Pope, without being able to agree together. Cardinal Julius de Medicis, who had distinguished himself in the recent war, mustered one-third of the suffrages; but he could not contrive to overstep this number; some hesitated to give to the deceased Pope a successor from his family; the cardinals of the French party and some imperialists dreaded the Cardinal Julius. Nobody spoke of Wolsey. At length one day the Medicis, seeing that they could not pass their candidate, whose army, moreover, was awaiting him with impatience, themselves proposed, suddenly, Adrian, cardinal of Tortosa, a Flemish prelate, who had formerly been the tutor of the Emperor, and who was employed by him in his affairs in Spain. No one believed in his election; gradually several cardinals deposed their votes in his favour; Cardinal Cajetan made a great speech to celebrate the virtues and merits of the new candidate, who was unknown to the greater number of his compeers. While he spoke, the disposition of the conclave changed suddenly; when the votes was counted, Adrian found himself elected by the direct and sudden inspiration of the Holy Ghost, it was affirmed. Upon his arrival in Rome, the new Pope received the compliments of Cardinal Wolsey, through the medium of his secretary, Pace; the ambition of the English minister was disappointed, but Pope Adrian VI. was old and worn out: Wolsey waited.
Francis I. had made several attempts to regain the affection of the King of England; but as they remained without result, he suspended the payment of the pension which he allowed to Henry VIII., placed an embargo on the English vessels which were in his ports, and seized the goods of the merchants. The anger of King Henry had not been satisfied with the most violent reprisals against the French people who were in his dominions, when the emperor landed at Dover. The moment was propitious for his designs; Henry VIII. promised him an army of forty thousand men, and undertook to invade the north of France. Charles V., had undertaken to indemnify the King of England for the loss of the French pension, but he began by borrowing a large sum of money, notwithstanding the financial embarrassments of the English monarch. Every day, in fact, added to his distress in the matter of money, for every day brought fresh festivities and prodigalities. The emperor proceeded from magnificence to magnificence during his sojourn in England.
When he set sail, Wolsey knew not what expedient to have recourse to in order to procure the necessary funds for the equipment of the army.
King Henry VIII. had imitated the example of the last years of his father; he did not give himself the trouble to convoke Parliament. A loan of twenty thousand pounds sterling was forcibly exacted from the merchants of London, but scarcely had they paid that sum, when the principal among them were summoned before the cardinal. He declared to them that the king had chosen them to make throughout the kingdom an inquiry concerning the property of all, upon which property the king intended to raise a tenth for the defense of the kingdom. The aldermen resisted, affirming that money was not only wanting in the coffers of the king, but everywhere else; Wolsey replied, that the clergy had undertaken to give up a quarter of their wealth; finally a compromise was arrived at, and the royal treasury was once more enriched with the substance of the people. But the popularity of Wolsey was sinking beneath this ever-increasing oppression, and the results of the war were not of a nature to afford consolation to the unhappy people ruined by the preparations for the struggle. The Earl of Surrey, after bringing back the Emperor to Spain, had pillaged, on his return, the coast of Brittany. He then placed himself at the head of the army, which numbered fifteen thousand men only, of whom three thousand were volunteers, and one thousand German mercenaries; the season was late, the English traversed Artois and followed the banks of the Somme, ravaging the country, burning down villages, but avoiding the castles and fortified towns. The French army had instructions not to risk a pitched battle; but it cruelly harassed the English. The rain assisting, grave distempers broke out among the troops of Surrey; in the middle of October, the English, abandoned by their foreign auxiliaries, were compelled to retreat to Bethune without having accomplished anything; the money collected with so much difficulty was expended, and the exchequer was again empty.
The King of France once more sought to obtain support in the neighbourhood of his enemies; he endeavoured to stir Ireland to revolt, and addressed himself with this object to the Earl of Desmond, who claimed a certain independence, promising him troops and money if he would act for him in enrolling his fellow countrymen; Desmond applied himself to his task, but neither French money nor soldiers were forthcoming, and the earl stood alone exposed to the vengeance of the English government. Affairs were not much better directed in Scotland. The regent Albany, still in contention with Queen Margaret, asked of his Parliament authority to repair to France to seek assistance; upon his return with a small body of troops, he found everything in confusion, and Margaret caused the regency of her second husband, the Earl of Angus, to be proclaimed. Having shortly afterwards quarrelled with him, she demanded a divorce, which King Henry VIII., who had not yet had an affair of the sort himself rigorously opposed it. The disorders went on increasing in Scotland; the most violent accusations were hurled from one party to the other. Albany was recalled to power; Henry VIII. insisted that he should be dismissed as the friend of France; and upon the refusal of the Scottish Parliament, he declared war. Lord Shrewsbury, made the first attempt at an invasion which was repulsed, and the regent entered England with a numerous army. Lord Dacre, who was in command at the frontier, had scarcely any troops, but he talked so loudly of the forces that were approaching—of the anger of King Henry VIII., of the dangers which were about to befall Scotland, that Albany took alarm and obtained the promise of an armistice of one month, in order that a peace might be negotiated. The skillful guardian of the frontiers allowed the retreat of the army against which he would not have been able to contend, and the Duke of Albany set sail for France. It became necessary at length to convoke a Parliament in England; loans, taxes, benevolences were exhausted. Notwithstanding the taste of Henry VIII. for absolute power, he had a sense of necessity and knew how to submit to it. Sir Thomas More was chosen as speaker of the House of Commons; he had been drawn into the service of the court several years before; the king delighted in his brilliant and varied conversation and gave every mark of recognition to his learning and ability. Under his direction, the Commons proved less obstinate than had been anticipated; they claimed the right to inquire into affairs, and the nation supported them from without by the interest which it took in all that was said in the House, "Why do they concern themselves so much with my affairs?" the king exclaimed angrily. Wolsey hoped to intimidate the Commons by presenting himself before them in person, accompanied by a numerous retinue which filled the House; the cardinal-chancellor set forth in a pompous speech that the war promised to England all that it had formerly possessed in France, and that the Commons assuredly would not hesitate to vote a tax of twenty per cent, upon property. Sir Thomas More had given the word to his colleagues; it was agreed not to discuss in the presence of the cardinal, and this exorbitant demand was listened to in silence, with downcast eyes; no reply was made. Wolsey called upon several members one after the other; all rose at his haughty voice, then sat down again without saying anything. The minister flew into a passion; More then placed one knee upon the ground, alleging as the excuse of the Commons that they were agitated by the presence of so great a personage, and that, besides, they wished to discuss amongst themselves the demand which had been made of them. Wolsey was compelled to retire, and the Commons sent a deputation to the king, asking for a reduction of the tax. Wolsey returned, more and more exasperated, endeavouring to draw the members of the House into discussion by interrogating them upon their objection. The Commons remained firm, and granted only a tax of a tenth—half of what the cardinal had demanded. He was unsuccessful also before the convocation of the clergy, and, notwithstanding his power as legate, he found himself compelled to accept, instead of the fifty per cent, which he boldly demanded at first, a gift of a tenth for five years. Reduced as were the subsidies, they still exceeded all that had ever been hitherto granted to the sovereigns of England. "I pray to the Lord Almighty," wrote at this period Mr. Ellis, a member of the House of Commons, "that the subsidy may be paid to his Grace, without reserve, and without his losing the hearts and good will of his subjects, treasures which I hold more precious to a king than silver and gold; the gentle entrusted to collect the money will not, I think, have a small task." Already during the session of the Parliament, the members had been insulted in the street by the inhabitants of London, who dragged them by the sleeve, crying, "You are going to give four shillings in the pound; May our malediction accompany you even to your dwellings!" Insurrections took place in several counties; but the king threw the whole obloquy of the measure upon the cardinal, and washed his hands of it while pocketing what remained of the money after the plunderings of the tax collectors, great and small.