Henry VIII Part 12

CHAPTER VI. (p. 136)

FROM CALAIS TO ROME.

The wonderful success that had attended Wolsey's policy during his seven years' tenure of power, and the influential position to which he had raised England in the councils of Christendom, might well have disturbed the mental balance of a more modest and diffident man than the Cardinal; and it is scarcely surprising that he fancied himself, and sought to become, arbiter of the destinies of Europe. The condition of continental politics made his ambition seem less than extravagant.

Power was almost monopolised by two young princes whose rivalry was keen, whose resources were not altogether unevenly matched, and whose disputes were so many and serious that war could only be averted by a pacific determination on both sides which neither possessed. Francis had claims on Naples, and his dependant, D'Albret, on Navarre. Charles had suzerain rights over Milan and a t.i.tle to Burgundy, of which his great-grandfather Charles the Bold had been despoiled by Louis XI. Yet the Emperor had not the slightest intention of compromising his possession of Naples or Navarre, and Francis was quite as resolute to surrender neither Burgundy nor Milan. They both became eager compet.i.tors for the friendship of England, which, if its resources were inadequate to support the position of arbiter, was at least a most useful (p. 137) makeweight. England's choice of policy was, however, strictly limited.

She could not make war upon Charles. It was not merely that Charles had a staunch ally in his aunt Catherine of Aragon, who is said to have "made such representations and shown such reasons against" the alliance with Francis "as one would not have supposed she would have dared to do, or even to imagine".[377] It was not merely that in this matter Catherine was backed by the whole council except Wolsey, and by the real inclinations of the King. It was that the English people were firmly imperialist in sympathy. The reason was obvious. Charles controlled the wool-market of the Netherlands, and among English exports wool was all-important. War with Charles meant the ruin of England's export trade, the starvation or impoverishment of thousands of Englishmen; and when war was declared against Charles eight years later, it more nearly cost Henry his throne than all the fulminations of the Pope or religious discontents, and after three months it was brought to a summary end. England remained at peace with Spain so long as Spain controlled its market for wool; when that market pa.s.sed into the hands of the revolted Netherlands, the same motive dictated an alliance with the Dutch against Philip II. War with Charles in 1520 was out of the question; and for the next two years Wolsey and Henry were endeavouring to make Francis and the Emperor bid against each other, in order that England might obtain the maximum of concession from Charles when it should declare in his favour, as all along (p. 138) was intended.

[Footnote 377: _L. and P._, iii., 728. Wolsey's opposition is attributed by the imperial amba.s.sador to Francis I.'s promise to make him Pope, "which we might have done much better".]

By the Treaty of London Henry was bound to a.s.sist the aggrieved against the aggressor. But that treaty had been concluded between England and France in the first instance; Henry's only daughter was betrothed to the Dauphin; and Francis was anxious to cement his alliance with Henry by a personal interview.[378] It was Henry's policy to play the friend for the time; and, as a proof of his desire for the meeting with Francis, he announced, in August, 1519, his resolve to wear his beard until the meeting took place.[379] He reckoned without his wife. On 8th November Louise of Savoy, the queen-mother of France, taxed Boleyn, the English amba.s.sador, with a report that Henry had put off his beard. "I said," writes Boleyn, "that, as I suppose, it hath been by the Queen's desire; for I told my lady that I have hereafore time known when the King's grace hath worn long his beard, that the Queen hath daily made him great instance, and desired him to put it off for her sake."[380] Henry's inconstancy in the matter of his beard not only caused diplomatic inconvenience, but, it may be parenthetically remarked, adds to the difficulty of dating his portraits. Francis, however, considered the Queen's interference a sufficient excuse, or was not inclined to stick at such trifles; and on 10th January, 1520, he nominated Wolsey his proctor to make arrangements for the interview.[381] As Wolsey was also agent for Henry, the French King saw no further cause for delay.

[Footnote 378: The interview had been agreed upon as early as October, 1518, when it was proposed that it should take place before the end of July, 1519 (_L. and P._, ii., 4483).]

[Footnote 379: _Ibid._, iii., 416.]

[Footnote 380: _Ibid._, iii., 514.]

[Footnote 381: _Ibid._, iii., 592.]

The delay came from England; the meeting with Francis would be a (p. 139) one-sided p.r.o.nouncement without some corresponding favour to Charles.

Some time before Henry had sent Charles a pressing invitation to visit England on his way from Spain to Germany; and the Emperor, suspicious of the meeting between Henry and Francis, was only too anxious to come and forestall it. The experienced Margaret of Savoy admitted that Henry's friendship was essential to Charles;[382] but Spaniards were not to be hurried, and it would be May before the Emperor's convoy was ready. So Henry endeavoured to postpone his engagement with Francis.

The French King replied that by the end of May his Queen would be in the eighth month of her pregnancy, and that if the meeting were further prorogued she must perforce be absent.[383] Henry was nothing if not gallant, at least on the surface. Francis's argument clinched the matter. The interview, ungraced by the presence of France's Queen, would, said Henry, be robbed of most of its charm;[384] and he gave Charles to understand that, unless he reached England by the middle of May, his visit would have to be cancelled. This intimation produced an unwonted despatch in the Emperor's movements; but fate was against him, and contrary winds rendered his arrival in time a matter of doubt till the last possible moment. Henry must cross to Calais on the 31st of May, whether Charles came or not; and it was the 26th before the Emperor's ships appeared off the cliffs of Dover. Wolsey put out in a small boat to meet him, and conducted Charles to the castle where he lodged. During the night Henry arrived. Early next day, which was (p. 140) Whitsunday, the two sovereigns proceeded to Canterbury, where the Queen and Court had come on the way to France to spend their Pentecost.

Five days the Emperor remained with his aunt, whom he now saw for the first time; but the days were devoted to business rather than to elaborate ceremonial and show, for which there had been little time to prepare.[385]

[Footnote 382: _L. and P._, iii., 672; _cf._ iii., 742.]

[Footnote 383: _Ibid._, iii., 681, 725.]

[Footnote 384: _Ibid._, iii., 697.]

On the last day of May Charles took ship at Sandwich for Flanders.

Henry embarked at Dover for France. The painting at Hampton Court depicting the scene has, like almost every other picture of Henry's reign, been ascribed to Holbein; but six years were to pa.s.s before the great artist visited England. The King himself is represented as being on board the four-masted _Henry Grace a Dieu_, commonly called the _Great Harry_, the finest ship afloat; though the vessel originally fitted out for his pa.s.sage was the _Katherine Pleasaunce_.[386] At eleven o'clock he landed at Calais. On Monday, the 4th of June, Henry and all his Court proceeded to Guisnes. There a temporary palace of art had been erected, the splendour of which is inadequately set forth in pages upon pages of contemporary descriptions. One Italian likened it to the palaces described in Boiardo's _Orlando Innamorato_ and Ariosto's _Orlando Furioso_; another declared that it could not have been better designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself.[387] Everything was in harmony with this architectural pomp. Wolsey was (p. 141) accompanied, it was said in Paris, by two hundred gentlemen clad in crimson velvet, and had a body-guard of two hundred archers. He was himself clothed in crimson satin from head to foot, his mule was covered with crimson velvet, and her trappings were all of gold.

Henry, "the most goodliest prince that ever reigned over the realm of England," appeared even to Frenchmen as a very handsome prince, "honnete, hault et droit,"[388] in manner gentle and gracious, rather fat, and--in spite of his Queen--with a red beard, large enough and very becoming. Another eye-witness adds the curious remark that, while Francis was the taller of the two, Henry had the handsomer and more _feminine_ face![389] On the 7th of June the two Kings started simultaneously from Guisnes and Ardres for their personal meeting in the valley mid-way between the two towns, already known as the Val Dore. The obscure but familiar phrase, Field of Cloth of Gold,[390] is a mistranslation of the French Camp du Drap d'Or. As they came in sight a temporary suspicion of French designs seized the English, but it was overcome. Henry and Francis rode forward alone, embraced each other first on horseback and then again on foot, and made show of being the closest friends in Christendom. On Sunday the 10th Henry dined with the French Queen, and Francis with Catherine of Aragon. The following week was devoted to tourneys, which the two Kings opened by holding the field against all comers. The official accounts are naturally silent on the royal wrestling match, recorded in French (p. 142) memoirs and histories.[391] On the 17th Francis, as a final effort to win Henry's alliance, paid a surprise visit to him at breakfast with only four attendants. The jousts were concluded with a solemn ma.s.s said by Wolsey in a chapel built on the field. The Cardinal of Bourbon presented the Gospel to Francis to kiss; he refused, offering it to Henry who was too polite to accept the honour. The same respect for each other's dignity was observed with the _Pax_, and the two Queens behaved with a similarly courteous punctilio. After a friendly dispute as to who should kiss the _Pax_ first, they kissed each other instead.[392] On the 24th Henry and Francis met to interchange gifts, to make their final professions of friendship, and to bid each other adieu. Francis set out for Abbeville, and Henry returned to Calais.

[Footnote 385: _Ven. Cal._, iii., 50; _Sp. Cal._, ii., 274.]

[Footnote 386: _L. and P._, iii., 558, an account-book headed "expense of making the _Kateryn Pleasaunce_ for transporting the King to Calais 22 May, 10 Henry VIII.".]

[Footnote 387: _Ven. Cal._, iii., 81, 88; _cf. L.

and P._, iii., 303-14; Hall, _Chronicle_, p. 604, etc.]

[Footnote 388: _L. and P._, iii., 306.]

[Footnote 389: _Ven. Cal._, iii., 80.]

[Footnote 390: Erroneously called "Field of _the_ Cloth of Gold"; cloth of gold is a material like velvet, and one does not talk about "a coat of _the_ velvet".]

[Footnote 391: See Michelet, x., 137-38.]

[Footnote 392: _Ibid._, p. 312.]

The Field of Cloth of Gold was the last and most gorgeous display of the departing spirit of chivalry; it was also perhaps the most portentous deception on record. "These sovereigns," wrote a Venetian, "are not at peace. They adapt themselves to circ.u.mstances, but they hate each other very cordially."[393] Beneath the profusion of friendly pretences lay rooted suspicions and even deliberate hostile intentions.

Before Henry left England the rumour of ships fitting out in French ports had stopped preparations for the interview; and they were not resumed till a promise under the broad seal of France was given that no French ship should sail before Henry's return.[394] On the eve of the meeting Henry is said to have discovered that three or four thousand French troops were concealed in the neighbouring country;[395] (p. 143) he insisted on their removal, and Francis's unguarded visit to Henry was probably designed to disarm the English distrust.[396] No sooner was Henry's back turned than the French began the fortification of Ardres,[397] while Henry on his part went to Calais to negotiate a less showy but genuine friendship with Charles. No such magnificence adorned their meeting as had been displayed at the Field of Cloth of Gold, but its solid results were far more lasting. On 10th July Henry rode to Gravelines where the Emperor was waiting. On the 11th they returned together to Calais, where during a three days' visit the negotiations begun at Canterbury were completed. The ostensible purport of the treaty signed on the 14th was to bind Henry to proceed no further in the marriage between the Princess Mary and the Dauphin, and Charles no further in that between himself and Francis's daughter, Charlotte.[398] But more topics were discussed than appeared on the surface; and among them was a proposal to marry Mary to the Emperor himself.[399] The design proves that Henry and Wolsey had already made up their minds to side with Charles, whenever his disputes with Francis should develop into open hostilities.

[Footnote 393: _Ven. Cal._, iii., 119.]

[Footnote 394: _L. and P._, iii., 836, 842, 843.]

[Footnote 395: _Ven. Cal._, iii., 80.]

[Footnote 396: _Ibid._, iii., 90.]

[Footnote 397: _Ibid._, iii., 121.]

[Footnote 398: _L. and P._, iii., 914.]

[Footnote 399: _Ibid._, iii., 1149, 1150.]

That consummation could not be far off. Charles had scarcely turned his back upon Spain when murmurs of disaffection were heard through the length and breadth of the land; and while he was discussing with Henry at Calais the prospects of a war with France, his commons in Spain broke out into open revolt.[400] The rising had attained (p. 144) such dimensions by February, 1521, that Henry thought Charles was likely to lose his Spanish dominions. The temptation was too great for France to resist; and in the early spring of 1521 French forces overran Navarre, and restored to his kingdom the exile D'Albret.

Francis had many plausible excuses, and sought to prove that he was not really the aggressor. There had been confused fighting between the imperialist Na.s.sau and Francis's allies, the Duke of Guelders and Robert de la Marck, which the imperialists may have begun. But Francis revealed his true motive, when he told Fitzwilliam that he had many grievances against Charles and could not afford to neglect this opportunity for taking his revenge.[401]

[Footnote 400: _Ibid._, iii., 883, 891, 964, 976, 988, 994.]

[Footnote 401: _L. and P._, iii., 1303, 1310, 1315.]

War between Emperor and King soon spread from Navarre to the borders of Flanders and to the plains of Northern Italy. Both sovereigns claimed the a.s.sistance of England in virtue of the Treaty of London.

But Henry would not be prepared for war till the following year at least; and he proposed that Wolsey should go to Calais to mediate between the two parties and decide which had been the aggressor.

Charles, either because he was unprepared or was sure of Wolsey's support, readily agreed; but Francis was more reluctant, and only the knowledge that, if he refused, Henry would at once side with Charles, induced him to consent to the conference. So on 2nd August, 1521, the Cardinal again crossed the Channel.[402] His first interview was with the imperial envoys.[403] They announced that Charles had given them no power to treat for a truce. Wolsey refused to proceed without this authority; and he obtained the consent of the French chancellor, (p. 145) Du Prat, to his proposal to visit the Emperor at Bruges, and secure the requisite powers. He was absent more than a fortnight, and not long after his return fell ill. This served to pa.s.s time in September, and the extravagant demands of both parties still further prolonged the proceedings. Wolsey was constrained to tell them the story of a courtier who asked his King for the grant of a forest; when his relatives denounced his presumption, he replied that he only wanted in reality eight or nine trees.[404] The French and imperial chancellors not merely demanded their respective forests, but made the reduction of each single tree a matter of lengthy dispute; and as soon as a fresh success in the varying fortune of war was reported, they returned to their early pretensions. Wolsey was playing his game with consummate skill; delay was his only desire; his illness had been diplomatic; his objects were to postpone for a few months the breach and to secure the pensions from France due at the end of October.[405]

[Footnote 402: See his various and ample commissions, _ibid._, iii., 1443.]

[Footnote 403: _Ibid._, iii., 1462.]

[Footnote 404: _L. and P._, iii., 1622.]

[Footnote 405: _Ibid._, iii., 1507. "The Cardinal apologised for not having met them so long on account of his illness, but said he could not otherwise have gained so much time without causing suspicion to the French" (Gattinara to Charles V., 24th September, 1521, _ibid._, iii., 1605).]

The conference at Calais was in fact a monument of perfidy worthy of Ferdinand the Catholic. The plan was Wolsey's, but Henry had expressed full approval. As early as July the King was full of his secret design for destroying the navy of France, though he did not propose to proceed with the enterprise till Wolsey had completed the arrangements with Charles.[406] The subterfuge about Charles refusing his powers (p. 146) and the Cardinal's journey to Bruges had been arranged between Henry, Wolsey and Charles before Wolsey left England. The object of that visit, so far from being to facilitate an agreement, was to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance against one of the two parties between whom Wolsey was pretending to mediate. "Henry agrees," wrote Charles's amba.s.sador on 6th July, "with Wolsey's plan that he should be sent to Calais under colour of hearing the grievances of both parties: and when he cannot arrange them, he should withdraw to the Emperor to treat of the matters aforesaid".[407] The treaty was concluded at Bruges on 25th August[408] before he returned to Calais; the Emperor promised Wolsey the Papacy;[409] the details of a joint invasion were settled. Charles was to marry Mary; and the Pope was to dispense the two from the disability of their kinship, and from engagements with others which both had contracted. The Cardinal might be profuse in his protestations of friendship for France, of devotion to peace, and of his determination to do justice to the parties before him. But all his painted words could not long conceal the fact that behind the mask of the judge were hidden the features of a conspirator.

It was an unpleasant time for Fitzwilliam, the English amba.s.sador at the French Court. The King's sister, Marguerite de Valois, taxed Fitzwilliam with Wolsey's proceedings, hinting that deceit was being practised on Francis. The amba.s.sador grew hot, vowed Henry was (p. 147) not a dissembler, and that he would prove it on any gentleman who dared to maintain that he was.[410] But he knew nothing of Wolsey's intrigues; nor was the Cardinal, to whom Fitzwilliam denounced the insinuation, likely to blush, though he knew that the charge was true.

[Footnote 406: _Ibid._, iii., 1440.]

[Footnote 407: _L. and P._, iii., 1395, 1433; _cf._ iii., 1574, where Henry VIII.'s envoy tells Leo X.