After living together for four days at Boulogne, Henry and Francis went to Calais, where the latter found his apartments hung with cloth of gold, embroidered with pearls and precious stones. At table, the viands were served on one hundred and seventy dishes of solid gold. Henry gave a grand masked ball, at which the King of France was considerably tantalised by a masked lady of very elegant manners with whom he danced. She spoke French like a Frenchwoman, abounded in wit and grace, and knew, in its most trifling details, all the scandal of the court of France. The king declared the lady to be charming, and her neck the prettiest he had ever seen. He little imagined then that this neck would one day be severed by the orders of Henry VIII. At the end of the dance, the King of England, with a smile, removed the lady's mask, and showed the features of Anne Boleyn, Marchioness of Pembroke, who (it will be recollected) had been brought up at the court of the French king's sister.[260]
Pleasure did not make the two princes forget business. They were again closeted, and signed a treaty, in accordance with which they engaged to raise an army of 65,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, intended apparently to act against the Turks.[261] Du Bellay's policy was in the ascendant. 'The great king,' he said, 'is staggering from his obedience.'[262]
=FRANCIS THREATENS SEPARATION.=
Wishing to make a last effort before determining to break with the pope, Francis summoned Cardinals de Tournon and de Gramont, men devoted to his person, and said to them: 'You will go to the holy father and lay before him in confidence both our grievances and our dissatisfaction. You will tell him that we are determined to employ, as soon as may be advisable, all our alliances, public as well as private, to execute great things ... from which much damage may ensue and perpetual regret for the future. You will tell him that, in accord with other christian princes, we shall assemble a council without him, and that we shall forbid our subjects in future to send money to Rome. You will add—but as a secret and after taking the pope aside—that in case his holiness should think of censuring me and forcing me to go to Rome for absolution, I shall come, but so well attended that his holiness will be only too eager to grant it me....
'Let the pope consider well,' added the king, 'that the Germans, the Swiss League, and several other countries in Christendom, have separated from Rome. Let him understand that if two powerful kings like us should also secede, we should find many imitators, both Italians and others;[263] and that, at the least, there would be a greater war in Europe than any known in time past.'[264]
Such were the proud words France sent to Rome. The two kings separated. A young prince, held captive by Charles V., gave them the first opportunity of acting together against both emperor and pope.
[243] Le Grand, Hist. du Divorce de Henri VIII. i. p. 20.
[244] 'Ex oppido unde fluctu Lexoviorum.'—Rommel, Philippe le M. ii. p. 259.
[245] History of the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, vol. iv. bk. xiv. ch. xii.
[246] Lutheri Epp. iv. p. 201—Dec. 1530.