Henry VIII Part 6

[Footnote 172: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 201. A Venetian reports that the English were so enraged that they would have killed Carroz had it not been for Henry (_Ven. Cal._, ii., 248), and Carroz was actually placed in confinement.]

[Footnote 173: _L. and P._, i., 5718; _Ven. Cal._, ii., 464.]

Henry had struck back with a vengeance. His blow shivered to fragments the airy castles which Maximilian and Ferdinand were busy constructing.

Their plans for reviving the empire of Charlemagne, creating a new kingdom in Italy, inducing Louis to cede Milan and Genoa and a.s.sist in the conquest of Venice, disappeared like empty dreams. The younger Ferdinand found no provision in Italy; he was compelled to retain his Austrian inheritance, and thus to impair the power of the future Charles V.; while the children's grandparents were left sadly reflecting on means of defence against the Kings of England and France. The blot on the triumph was Henry's desertion of Sforza,[174]

who, having gratefully acknowledged that to Henry he owed his restoration of Milan,[175] was now left to the uncovenanted mercies of Louis. But neither the credit nor discredit is due mainly to (p. 077) Henry. He had learnt much, but his powers were not yet developed enough to make him a match for the craft and guile of his rivals. The consciousness of the fact made him rely more and more upon Wolsey, who could easily beat both Maximilian and Ferdinand at their own game. He was not more deceitful than they, but in grasp of detail, in boldness and a.s.siduity, he was vastly superior. While Ferdinand hawked, and Maximilian hunted the chamois, Wolsey worked often for twelve hours together at the cares of the State. Possibly, too, his clerical profession and the cardinalate which he was soon to hold gave him an advantage which they did not possess; for, whenever he wanted to obtain credence for a more than usually monstrous perversion of truth, he swore "as became a cardinal and on the honour of the cardinalate".[176]

His services were richly rewarded; besides livings, prebends, deaneries and the Chancellorship of Cambridge University, he received the Bishoprics of Lincoln and of Tournay, the Archbishopric of York, and finally, in 1515, Cardinalate. This dignity he had already, in May of the previous year, sent Polydore Vergil to claim from the Pope; Vergil's mission was unknown to Henry, to whom the grant of the Cardinal's hat was to be represented as Leo's own idea.[177]

[Footnote 174: _L. and P._, i., 5319.]

[Footnote 175: _Ibid._, i., 4499, 4921.]

[Footnote 176: _Cf._ _Ven. Cal._, ii., 695; _L. and P._, ii., 1380. Giustinian complains that Wolsey "never said what he meant but the reverse of what he intended to do" (_Ibid._, ii., 3081). This perhaps is no great crime in a diplomatist.]

[Footnote 177: _L. and P._, i., 5110, 5121. Henry's request that Leo should make Wolsey a Cardinal was not made till 12th Aug., 1514 (_L. and P._, i., 5318), at least six months after Wolsey had instructed Pace to negotiate for that honour.]

CHAPTER IV. (p. 078)

THE THREE RIVALS.

The edifice which Wolsey had so laboriously built up was, however, based on no surer foundation than the feeble life of a sickly monarch already tottering to his grave. In the midst of his preparations for the conquest of Milan and his negotiations for an attack upon Spain, Louis XII. died on 1st January, 1515; and the stone which Wolsey had barely rolled up the hill came down with a rush. The bourgeois Louis was succeeded by the brilliant, ambitious and warlike Francis I., a monarch who concealed under the mask of chivalry and the culture of arts and letters a libertinism beside which the peccadilloes of Henry or Charles seem virtue itself; whose person was tall and whose features were described as handsome; but of whom an observer wrote with unwonted candour that he "looked like the Devil".[178] The first result of the change was an episode of genuine romance. The old King's widow, "la reine blanche," was one of the most fascinating women of the Tudor epoch. "I think," said a Fleming, "never man saw a more beautiful creature, nor one having so much grace and sweetness."[179]

"He had never seen so beautiful a lady," repeated Maximilian's amba.s.sador, "her deportment is exquisite, both in conversation (p. 079) and in dancing, and she is very lovely."[180] "She is very beautiful,"

echoed the staid old Venetian, Pasqualigo, "and has not her match in England; she is tall, fair, of a light complexion with a colour, and most affable and graceful"; he was warranted, he said, in describing her as "a nymph from heaven".[181] A more critical observer of feminine beauty thought her eyes and eyebrows too light,[182] but, as an Italian, he may have been bia.s.sed in favour of brunettes, and even he wound up by calling Mary "a Paradise". She was eighteen at the time; her marriage with a dotard like Louis had shocked public opinion;[183] and if, as was hinted, the gaieties in which his youthful bride involved him, hastened the French King's end, there was some poetic justice in the retribution. She had, as she reminded Henry herself, only consented to marry the "very aged and sickly" monarch on condition that, if she survived him, she should be allowed to choose her second husband herself. And she went on to declare, that "remembering the great virtue" in him, she had, as Henry himself was aware, "always been of good mind to my Lord of Suffolk".[184]

[Footnote 178: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 582.]

[Footnote 179: _L. and P._, i., 4953.]

[Footnote 180: _L. and P._, i., 5203.]

[Footnote 181: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 499, 500.]

[Footnote 182: _Ibid._, ii., 511.]

[Footnote 183: _L. and P._, i., 5470.]

[Footnote 184: _Ibid._, ii., 227.]

She was probably fascinated less by Suffolk's virtue than by his bold and handsome bearing. A bluff Englishman after the King's own heart, he shared, as none else did, in Henry's love of the joust and tourney, in his skill with the lance and the sword; he was the Hector of combat, on foot and on horse, to Henry's Achilles. His father, plain William Brandon, was Henry of Richmond's standard-bearer on Bosworth field; and as such he had been singled out and killed in personal (p. 080) encounter by Richard III. His death gave his son a claim on the grat.i.tude of Henry VII. and Henry VIII.; and similarity of tastes secured him rapid promotion at the young King's Court. Created Viscount Lisle, he served in 1513 as marshal of Henry's army throughout his campaign in France. With the King there were said to be "two obstinate men who governed everything";[185] one was Wolsey, the other was Brandon.

In July he was offering his hand to Margaret of Savoy, who was informed that Brandon was "a second king," and that it would be well to write him "a kind letter, for it is he who does and undoes".[186]

At Lille, in October, he continued his a.s.sault on Margaret as a relief from the siege of Tournay; Henry favoured his suit, and when Margaret called Brandon a _larron_ for stealing a ring from her finger, the King was called in to help Brandon out with his French. Possibly it was to smooth the course of his wooing that Brandon, early in 1514, received an extraordinary advancement in rank. There was as yet only one duke in England, but now Brandon was made Duke of Suffolk, at the same time that the dukedom of Norfolk was restored to Surrey for his victory at Flodden. Even a dukedom could barely make the son of a simple esquire a match for an emperor's daughter, and the suit did not prosper. Political reasons may have interfered. Suffolk, too, is accused by the Venetian amba.s.sador of having already had three wives.[187] This seems to be an exaggeration, but the intricacy (p. 081) of the Duke's marital relationships, and the facility with which he renounced them might well have served as a precedent to his master in later years.

[Footnote 185: _L. and P._, i., 4386.]

[Footnote 186: _Ibid._, i., 4405.]

[Footnote 187: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 464. He had made contracts with three different ladies, but had not actually married them all. See below, p. 199 and _D.N.B._, _s.v._ "Brandon".]

In January, 1515, the Duke was sent to Paris to condole with Francis on Louis' death, to congratulate him on his own accession, and renew the league with England. Before he set out, Henry made him promise that he would not marry Mary until their return. But Suffolk was not the man to resist the tears of a beautiful woman in trouble, and he found Mary in sore distress. No sooner was Louis dead than his lascivious successor became, as Mary said, "importunate with her in divers matters not to her honour," in suits "the which," wrote Suffolk, "I and the Queen had rather be out of the world than abide".[188]

Every evening Francis forced his attentions upon the beautiful widow.[189] Nor was this the only trouble which threatened the lovers.

There were reports that the French would not let Mary go, but marry her somewhere to serve their own political purposes.[190] Henry, too, might want to betroth her again to Charles; Maximilian was urging this course, and telling Margaret that Mary must be recovered for Charles, even at the point of the sword.[191] Early in January, Wolsey had written to her, warning her not to make any fresh promise of marriage.

Two friars from England, sent apparently by Suffolk's secret enemies, told Mary the same tale, that if she returned to England she would never be suffered to marry the Duke, but made to take Charles for her husband, "than which," she declared, "I would rather be torn in (p. 082) pieces".[192] Suffolk tried in vain to soothe her fears. She refused to listen, and brought him to his knees with the announcement that unless he would wed her there and then, she would continue to believe that he had come only to entice her back to England and force her into marriage with Charles. What was the poor Duke to do, between his promise to Henry and the pleading of Mary? He did what every other man with a heart in his breast and warm blood in his veins would have done, he cast prudence to the winds and secretly married the woman he loved.

[Footnote 188: _L. and P._, ii., 134, 138, 163.]

[Footnote 189: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 574.]

[Footnote 190: _L. and P._, ii., 70, 85, 114.]

[Footnote 191: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 594; _L. and P._, ii., 124.]

[Footnote 192: _L. and P._, ii., 80, Suffolk to Henry VIII. This letter is placed under January in the _Calendar_, but it was obviously written about 6th March, 1514-15.]

The news could not be long concealed, but unfortunately we have only Wolsey's account of how it was received by Henry. He took it, wrote the cardinal to Suffolk, "grievously and displeasantly," not only on account of the Duke's presumption, but of the breach of his promise to Henry.[193] "You are," he added, "in the greatest danger man was ever in;" the council were calling for his ruin. To appease Henry and enable the King to satisfy his council, Suffolk must induce Francis to intervene in his favour, to pay Henry two hundred thousand crowns as Mary's dowry, and to restore the plate and jewels she had received; the Duke himself was to return the fortune with which Henry had endowed his sister and pay twenty-four thousand pounds in yearly instalments for the expenses of her marriage. Francis proved unexpectedly willing; perhaps his better nature was touched by the lovers' distress. He also saw that Mary's marriage with Suffolk prevented her being used as (p. 083) a link to bind Charles to Henry; and he may have thought that a service to Suffolk would secure him a powerful friend at the English Court, a calculation that was partly justified by the suspicion under which Suffolk henceforth laboured, of being too partial to Francis.

Yet it was with heavy hearts that the couple left Paris in April and wended their way towards Calais. Henry had given no sign; from Calais, Mary wrote to him saying she would go to a nunnery rather than marry against her desire.[194] Suffolk threw himself on the King's mercy; all the council, he said, except Wolsey, were determined to put him to death.[195] Secretly, against his promise, and without Henry's consent, he had married the King's sister, an act the temerity of which no one has since ventured to rival. He saw the executioner's axe gleam before his eyes, and he trembled.

[Footnote 193: _L. and P._, ii., 224.]

[Footnote 194: _L. and P._, ii., 228.]

[Footnote 195: _Ibid._, ii., 367.]

At Calais, Mary said she would stay until she heard from the King.[196]

His message has not been preserved, but fears were never more strangely belied than when the pair crossed their Rubicon. So far from any attempt being made to separate them, their marriage was publicly solemnised before Henry and all his Court on 13th May, at Greenwich.[197] In spite of all that happened, wrote the Venetian amba.s.sador, Henry retained his friendship for Suffolk;[198] and a few months later he a.s.serted, with some exaggeration, that the Duke's authority was scarcely less than the King's.[199] He and Mary were indeed (p. 084) required to return all the endowment, whether in money, plate, jewels or furniture, that she received on her marriage. But both she and the Duke had agreed to these terms before their offence.[200] They were not unreasonable. Henry's money had been laid out for political purposes which could no longer be served; and Mary did not expect the splendour, as d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk, which she had enjoyed as Queen of France. The only stipulation that looks like a punishment was the bond to repay the cost of her journey to France; though not only was this modified later on, but the Duke received numerous grants of land to help to defray the charge. They were indeed required to live in the country; but the Duke still came up to joust as of old with Henry on great occasions, and Mary remained his favourite sister, to whose issue, in preference to that of Margaret, he left the crown by will.

The vindictive suspicions which afterwards grew to rank luxuriance in Henry's mind were scarcely budding as yet; his favour to Suffolk and affection for Mary were proof against the intrigues in his Court. The contrast was marked between the event and the terrors which Wolsey had painted; and it is hard to believe that the Cardinal played an entirely disinterested part in the matter.[201] It was obviously his cue to exaggerate the King's anger, and to represent to the Duke that its mitigation was due to the Cardinal's influence; and it is more than possible that Wolsey found in Suffolk's indiscretion the means of removing a dangerous rival. The "two obstinate men" who had ruled (p. 085) in Henry's camp were not likely to remain long united; Wolsey could hardly approve of any "second king" but himself, especially a "second king" who had acquired a family bond with the first. The Venetian amba.s.sador plainly hints that it was through Wolsey that Suffolk lost favour.[202] In the occasional notices of him during the next few years it is Wolsey, and not Henry, whom Suffolk is trying to appease; and we even find the Cardinal secretly warning the King against some designs of the Duke that probably existed only in his own imagination.[203]

[Footnote 196: _Ibid._, ii., 367, 226. The letters relating to this episode in _L. and P._ are often undated and sometimes misplaced; _e.g._, this last is placed under March, although from Nos. 295, 296, 319, 327, 331, we find that Mary did not leave Paris till 16th April.]

[Footnote 197: _L. and P._, ii., 468.]

[Footnote 198: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 618.]

[Footnote 199: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 638.]

[Footnote 200: _L. and P._, ii., 436.]

[Footnote 201: Brewer's view is that Wolsey saved Suffolk from ruin on this occasion.]

[Footnote 202: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 919.]

[Footnote 203: _L. and P._, ii., 4057, 4308; iii., 1.]