It gave him high satisfaction that both the great powers emulously courted the favour and friendship of his King, of which he seemed to have the disposal.
In June 1520 took place within the English possessions on French soil the meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I, which is well designated as the Field of the Cloth of Gold. It was properly a great tournament, proclaimed in both nations, to which the chief lords yet once more gathered in all their splendour. With the festivities were mingled negociations in which the Cardinal of York played the chief part.
Immediately before this in England, and just afterwards on the continent, Henry VIII met Charles V also, with less show but greater intimacy; the negociations here took the opposite direction.
In 1521, when war had already broken out between the two great powers, the cardinal in his King's name undertook the part of mediator. There in Calais he sat to a certain degree in judgment on the European powers. The plenipotentiaries of both sovereigns laid their cases before him: with apparent zeal and much bustle he tried at least to conclude a truce: he complained once of the Emperor, that he disregarded his good advice though weighty and to the point: on which the latter did come a step nearer him. It was a magnificent position if he understood and maintained it. The more powerful both princes became, the more dangerous to the world their enmity should be, the more need there was of a mediating authority between them. But the purity of intention which is required to carry out such a task is seldom given to men, and did not exist in Wolsey. His ambition suggested plans to him which reached far beyond a peace arbitration.
When he promoted that first interview with Francis I against the will of the great men and of the Queen of England, the Emperor's ambassadors, who were thrown into consternation by it, remarked that the French King must have promised him the Papacy, which however, they add, is rather in the Imperial than in the royal gift. It does not appear that the Emperor went quite so far at once, he only warned the cardinal against the untrustworthy promises of the French, and sought to bring him to the conviction—while making him the most advantageous offers—that he could expect everything from him.[82] Clear details he reserved till they met in person; and then he in fact drew him over completely to his side. Under Wolsey's influence King Henry, immediately on the outbreak of the war, gave out his intention of making common cause with the Emperor. For he had not, he said, so little understanding as not to see that the opportunity was thus offered him of carrying out his predecessors' claims and his own, and he wished to use it. Only he preferred not to commence war at once, since he was not yet armed, and since a broader alliance should be first formed. The cardinal hoped to be able to draw the Pope, the Swiss, and the Duke of Savoy, as well as the Kings of Portugal, Denmark, and Hungary, into it. What an impression then it must have made on him, when Pope Leo X, without being pressed, at once allied himself with the Emperor! Wolsey's attempt at mediation—no room for doubt about it is left by the documents that lie before us—was only meant as a means of gaining time. At Calais Wolsey had already given the imperial ambassadors, in the presence of the Papal Nuncio, the most definite assurances as to the resolution of his King to take part in the war against France. Before he returned to England to call the Parliament together, which was to vote the necessary ways and means, he visited the Emperor at Bruges. At the last negociations, being at times doubtful about his trustworthiness, Charles V held it doubly necessary to bind him by every tie to himself. He then spoke to him of the Papacy, and gave him his word that he would advance him to that dignity.[83]
The opportunity for this came almost too soon. When Leo X died, just at this moment, Wolsey's hopes rose in stormy impatience. When the Emperor renewed his assurance to him, he demanded of him in plain terms to advance his then victorious troops to Rome, and put down by main force any resistance to the choice proposed. Before anything could be done, before the ambassador whom Henry VIII despatched at once to Italy reached it, the cardinals had already elected, and elected moreover the Emperor's former tutor, Hadrian. But was not this a proof of his irresistible authority? Hadrian's advanced age made it clear that there would be an early vacancy: and to this Wolsey now directed his hopes. He gave assurance that he would administer the Papacy for the sole advantage of the King and the Emperor: he thought then to overpower the French, and after completing this work he already saw himself in spirit directing his weapons to the East, to put an end to the Turkish rule. At his second visit to England the Emperor renewed his promise at Windsor castle; he spoke of it in his conferences with the King.[84] Altogether the closest alliance was concluded. The Emperor promised to marry Henry's daughter Mary, assuming that the Pope would grant him the necessary dispensation. Their claims to French territories they would carry out by a combined war. Should a difficulty occur between them, Cardinal Wolsey was fixed on as umpire.
So did the alliance between the houses of Burgundy and Tudor come to pass, the basis of which was to be the annihilation of the power of the Valois, and into which the English minister threw his world-wide ambition. From England also a declaration of war now reached Francis I. Whilst the war in Italy and on the Spanish frontiers made the most successful progress, the English, in 1522 under Howard Earl of Surrey, in 1523 under Brandon Earl of Suffolk, both times in combination with Imperial troops, invaded France on the side of the Netherlands, invasions which, to say the least, very much hampered the French. Movements also manifested themselves within France itself, which awoke hopes in the King that he might make himself master of the French crown as easily as his father had once done of the English. Leo X had already been persuaded to absolve the subjects of Francis I from their oaths to him. It was in connexion with this that the second man in France, the Constable of Bourbon, slighted in his station, and endangered in his possessions, resolved to help himself by revolting from Francis I. He wished then to recognise no other King in France but Henry VIII: at a solemn moment, after receiving the sacrament, he communicated to the English ambassador, who was with him, his resolution to set the French crown on King Henry's head: he reckoned on a numerous party declaring for him. And in the autumn of 1523 it looked as if this project would be accomplished. Suffolk and Egmont pressed on to Montdidier without meeting with any resistance: it was thought that the Netherland and English forces would soon occupy the capital, and give a new form to the realm. Pope Hadrian was just dead at Rome; would not the united efforts of the Emperor and the King of England succeed, by their influence on the conclave, especially now that they were victorious, in really raising Wolsey to the tiara?
This however did not happen. In Rome not Wolsey but Julius Medici was elected Pope; the combined Netherland and English troops retreated from Montdidier; Bourbon saw himself discovered and had to fly, no one declared for him. This last is doubtless to be ascribed to the vigilance and good conduct of King Francis, but in the retreat of the troops and in the election of the Pope other causes were at work. In the conclave Charles V certainly did not act with as much energy for Wolsey as the latter expected: Wolsey never forgave him. But he too has been accused of having basely abused the confidence of the two sovereigns: he had kept up friendly connexions all along with Francis I and his mother, and they likewise had given him pensions and presents: he had purposely supported the Earl of Suffolk so ill that he was forced to retreat.[85] Of all the complaints raised against him, not so much before the world as among those who were behind the scenes, this was exactly the most hateful and perhaps the most effectual.
In 1524 the English took no active part in the war. Not till February 1525, when the German and Spanish troops had won the great victory of Pavia and King Francis had fallen captive into the Emperor's hands, did their ambitious projects and thoughts of war reawaken.
Henry VIII reminded the Emperor of his previous promises, and invited him to make a joint attack on France itself from both sides: they would join hands in Paris; Henry VIII should then be crowned King of France, but resign to the Emperor not merely Burgundy but also Provence and Languedoc, and cede to the Duke of Bourbon his old possessions and Dauphiné. The motive he alleges is very extraordinary: the Emperor would marry his daughter and heiress, and would at some future time inherit England and France also and then be monarch of the world.[86] Henry declares himself ready to press on with the utmost zeal, provided he can do it with some security, and himself undertake the conduct of the war in the Netherlands and the support of Bourbon. The letter is from Wolsey, full of copious and pressing conclusions; but should not the far-reaching nature of its contents have been a proof even to him that it could never be taken in earnest?