VII. CHAP. his wishes, a brief had been prepared, March 22, 1512, transferring to the King of England the title and the possessions of the most Christian King of France in the event of the English arms being blessed with victory. After the capture of Thérouanne it was believed in London that the king would march upon Paris and renew the fame of Henry V. Bainbridge told the pope that his master wished to go to Reims to be crowned, and pleaded that the brief, which had been deposited with the Cardinal of Sinigaglia, might be published and sent to England.1 In every treaty mention was made of the "recovery" of the lost possessions in France; and even if the phrase was no longer taken very seriously, it served as a convenient diplomatic pretext. It is hardly possible that Henry and his advisers really thought that they could conquer France; but it is certain that they expected to derive an advantage from the annexation of a town here and a fortress there, and if a papal confirmation of the old title could be wrested from the consistory so much the better. Title and territory were pawns in the game, and had their market value. Still, with all these deductions, it remained a fact that Henry alone of the allies had fought the battle of the Church. The autumn parliament granted a subsidy of £160,000 in consideration of the king's great victories; and military and naval preparations were seriously pushed on with a view to renewing the campaign. But meanwhile the league was crumbling to pieces. Henry's policy had hitherto been mainly inspired by Ferdinand, and Ferdinand was trickery incarnate. He had already got what he wanted from the English alliance, and had begun to conceive a jealousy of the proposed match between Mary and Charles. He had made a truce with France just at the moment when his co-operation would have been most valuable to England, and he was now plotting a match between Renée, Louis' second daughter, and his namesake and younger grandson, Ferdinand. His scheme was that France should resign to Renée her rights over Milan, abandon her claims on Naples, and assist the house of Aragon to hold 1A. Ferrajoli, Breve inedito di Giulio II., Archivio della Società Romana, vol. xix., 1896. The brief transferred to Henry "titulum ipsum Christianissimi Regis sive Francorum cum omnibus ipsius Franciæ sive Francorum regni juribus". 1514 THE FRENCH MATCH. 191 VII. Navarre. To throw dust in the eyes of his son-in-law, he sug- CHAP. gested that England should send 6,000 Germans to Guienne before June, 1514; and with inimitable effrontery he went about saying that never in future would he allow himself to be abandoned by his friends as he had been forsaken by England. He Henry knew that Ferdinand was playing him false. was very bitter. He said that he would never trust any one again, and he determined to beat his father-in-law on his own ground. On January 9 Queen Anne of France died, and Louis XII. was in the marriage market. He had made his peace with the Church, but he was fifty-two and gouty. Henry determined to offer him his sister Mary's hand, and to steal from Ferdinand and Maximilian the alliance which was to make Milan a Hapsburg principality. Mary was already pledged to Charles, but the prince's council were inclined to the French connexion, and invented pretexts for delay. The prince, it was alleged, was too young or too feeble to marry just yet, and as Maximilian made a truce with France upon his own account, and did not communicate the fact to Henry till three months later, Henry might with reason assert that it was not he who had broken faith. The first advances towards the French match were dexterously made through the agency of the young Duke de Longueville, one of the prisoners taken at the Battle of the Spurs, and an excellent tennis player, whose winnings from Henry went a long way towards purchasing a ransom. Mary was a gay and graceful girl of seventeen; far too beautiful to be wasted on an elderly and invalid husband, but sufficiently ambitious to appreciate the prospect of being Queen of France. The peace was concluded on July 10, 1514, and in October after a proxy marriage in London, Mary set out with great pomp for France. Tournay was to remain in English hands, and Louis promised to increase the pensions payable from France under the treaty of Etaples. The Kings of England and France were pledged to assist each other against their common foes. It was a brilliant counter-move to Ferdinand's insidious project, and it was capable of specious justification. Henry pointed out to the pope that he had made provision for the entrance into the league of the emperor and the Prince of Castile, and that if no mention had been made of the King of Aragon, it was because Ferdinand VII. CHAP. preferred acting for himself. Margaret was told that the emperor had broken his engagements, and that Henry would have kept his promise if the other side had kept theirs. Meanwhile ambitious plans of revenge were mooted. Charles Brandon, the king's favourite companion, now Duke of Suffolk, had accompanied the Princess Mary to Paris. He was instructed to ask Louis two questions. Would he assist the King of England in expelling Ferdinand from Navarre? Would he, in view of the fact that the kingdom of Castile should descend to sisters, promote Henry's claim upon that portion which belonged to him in virtue of his marriage? Such were the latest refinements of the Christian hero. It was clear that in diplomacy he had now nothing more to learn even from Ferdinand. CHAPTER VIII. THE ASCENDENCY OF THE CARDINAL. VIII. THE triumphs of the last two years redounded to the fame of CHAP. 1 Erasmi Epp., ii., 2; Letters and Papers, Hen. VIII., ii., 87. VOL. V. 193 13 VIII. CHAP. scribed by Giustinian, the Venetian envoy: "He is about fortysix years old, very handsome, learned, extremely eloquent, of vast ability, and indefatigable. He alone transacts the same business as that which occupies all the magistracies, offices, and councils of Venice, both civil and criminal. . . . He is thoughtful and has the reputation of being extremely just; he favours the people exceedingly, especially the poor, hearing their suits and seeking to despatch them instantly. He makes the lawyers plead gratis for all poor suitors. He is in very great repute, seven times more so than if he were pope." The splendour of the chief minister knew no bounds. He had two great crosses of silver, one for the archbishopric and the other for his legacy, always borne before him by two of the tallest and comeliest priests in the realm. On the checker roll of his household there were no less than 500 persons, noblemen and gentlemen, yeomen selected for their height and beauty, grooms and pages, singing men and clerks. One has to traverse eight rooms," wrote Giustinian, "before you reach his audience chamber, and they are all hung with tapestry which is changed once a week." His buildings and pictures, his minstrels and choir of singing boys, his apparel, and the crimson velvet liveries of his attendants were as good as money could buy. "He kept a noble house," says Cavendish, his secretary and biographer, "and plenty of both meat and drink for all comers both for rich and poor, and much alms given at his gates." The state papers are full of records of his sumptuous and resplendent banquets. Probably no subject of the crown in the whole course of English history left upon his contemporaries so deep an impression of wealth, power, and magnificence. The French marriage upon which so many hopes had been built was hardly completed before it was dissolved. On January 1, 1515, Louis XII. died, in his fifty-third year, and the crown of France passed to his nephew, Francis Duke of Angoulême, a youth of twenty years, whose crafty ambitions and heartless frivolities were destined to cost his country dear. All the restless and adventurous spirits in France clustered round the new king, craving excitement and glory from his reign. Ere many weeks had passed it was the common talk that Francis would 1 Giustinian, Disp., App. ii., 309; Letters and Papers, Hen. VIII., iii., 402, |