The Wives of Henry the Eighth and the Parts They Played in History. Martin A. S. Hume

which for its splendour should surpass all other regal displays, was constantly urged by the French hostages in England by order of Francis, as a means of showing to the world that he could count upon Henry. To the latter the meeting was agreeable as a tribute to his power, and as a satisfaction to his love of show, and to Wolsey it was useful as enhancing his sale value in the eyes of two lavish bidders. To Charles, who shared none of the frivolous tastes of his rival sovereigns, it only appealed as a design against him to be forestalled and defeated. When, therefore, the preparations for the Field of the Cloth of Gold were in full swing early in the year 1520, Charles, by a brilliant though risky move such as his father Philip would have loved, took the first step to win England to his side in the now inevitable struggle for supremacy between the Empire and France. Whilst he was still wrangling with his indignant Castilian parliament in March, Charles sent envoys to England to propose a friendly meeting with Henry whilst on his way by sea from Spain to Flanders. It was Katharine’s chance and she made the most of it. She had suffered long and patiently whilst the French friendship was paramount; but if God would vouchsafe her the boon of seeing her nephew in England it would, she said to his envoys, be the measure of her desires. Wolsey, too, smiled upon the suggestion, for failing Francis the new Emperor in time might help him to the Papacy. So, with all secrecy, a solemn treaty was signed on the 11th April 1520, settling, down to the smallest details, the reception of Charles by Henry and Katharine at Sandwich and Canterbury, on his voyage or else at a subsequent meeting of the monarchs between Calais and Gravelines.

      It was late in May when news came from the west that the Spanish fleet was sailing up the Channel;[29] and Henry was riding towards the sea from London ostensibly to embark for France when he learnt that the Emperor’s ships were becalmed off Dover. Wolsey was despatched post-haste to greet the imperial visitor and invite him to land; and Charles, surrounded by a gorgeous suite of lords and ladies, with the black eagle of Austria on cloth of gold fluttering over and around him, was conducted to Dover Castle, where before dawn next morning, the 27th May, Henry arrived and welcomed his nephew. There was no mistaking the cordiality of the English cheers that rang in peals from Dover to Canterbury and through the ancient city, as the two monarchs rode side by side in gorgeous array. They meant, as clearly as tone could speak, that the enemy of France and Queen Katharine’s nephew was the friend for the English people, whatever the Cardinal of York might think. To Katharine it was a period of rejoicing, and her thoughts were high as she welcomed her sister’s son; the sallow young man with yellow hair, already in title the greatest monarch in the world, though beset with difficulties. By her stood beautiful Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, twice married since she had, as a child, been betrothed under such heavy guarantees to Charles himself; and, holding her mother’s hand, was the other Mary Tudor, a prim, quaint little maid of four, with big brown eyes. Already great plans for her filled her mother’s brain. True, she was betrothed to the Dauphin; but what if the hateful French match fell through, and the Emperor, he of her own kin, were to seal a national alliance by marrying the daughter of England? Charles feasted for four days at Canterbury, and then went on his way amidst loving plaudits to his ships at Sandwich; but before he sailed he whispered that to Wolsey which made the Cardinal his servant; for the Emperor, suzerain of Italy and King of Naples, Sicily, and Spain, might do more than a King of France in future towards making a Pope.

      By the time that Henry and Francis met early in June on the ever-memorable field between Ardres and Guisnes, the riot of splendour which surrounded the sovereigns and Wolsey, though it dazzled the crowd and left its mark upon history as a pageant, was known to the principal actors of the scene to be but hollow mockery. The glittering baubles that the two kings loved, the courtly dallying, the pompous ceremony, the masques and devices to symbolise eternal amity, were not more evanescent than the love they were supposed to perpetuate. Katharine went through her ceremonial part of the show as a duty, and graciously received the visit of Francis in the wonderful flimsy palace of wood, drapery, and glass at Guisnes; but her heart was across the Flemish frontier a few miles away, where her nephew awaited the coming of the King of England to greet him as his kinsman and future ally. Gravelines was a poor place, but Charles had other ways of influencing people than by piling up gewgaws before them. A single day of rough, hearty feasting was an agreeable relief to Henry after the glittering insincerity of Guisnes; and the four days following, in which Charles was entertained at Calais as the guest of Henry and Katharine, made up in prodigality for the coarseness of the Flemish fare;[30] whilst Wolsey, who was already posing as the arbitrator between all Christian potentates, was secured to the side of the Emperor in future by a grant of the bulk of the income from two Spanish bishoprics, Badajoz and Palencia.

      Already the two great rivals were bidding against each other for allies, and Charles, though his resources were less concentrated than those of Francis, could promise most. Leo X. for his own territorial ambition, and in fear of Luther, rallied to the side of the Emperor, the German princes seconded their suzerain, and the great struggle for the supremacy of Christendom began in March 1521. England by treaty was bound to assist France, but this did not suit Wolsey or Henry in their new mood, and the Cardinal pressed his arbitration on the combatants. Francis reluctantly consented to negotiate; but minds were aflame with a subject that added fierceness to the political rivalry between Charles and Francis. The young Emperor, when he had met the German princes at Worms (April 1521), had thrown down the gage to Luther, and thenceforward it was war to the knife between the old faith and the new spirit. Henry, we may be certain to the delight of Katharine, violently attacked Luther in his famous book, and was flattered by the fulsome praises of the Pope and the Emperor. In the circumstances Wolsey’s voyage to Calais for the furtherance of arbitration was turned into one to conclude an armed alliance with Charles and the Pope. The Cardinal, who had bent all others to his will, was himself bent by the Emperor; and the arbitrator between two monarchs became the servant of one. By the treaty signed at Bruges by Wolsey for Henry, Charles contracted an engagement to marry his little cousin, Princess Mary, and to visit England for a formal betrothal in the following year.

      How completely Wolsey had at this time surrendered himself to the Emperor, is evident from Katharine’s new attitude towards him. During his period of French sympathy she had been, as we have seen, practically alienated from state affairs, but now in Henry’s letters to Wolsey her name is frequently mentioned and her advice was evidently welcome.[31] During his absence in Flanders, for instance, Wolsey received a letter from Henry, in which the King says: “The Queen, my wife, hath desired me to make her most hearty recommendation unto you, as to him that she loveth very well; and both she and I would fain know when you would repair unto us.” Great news came that the Emperor and his allies were brilliantly successful in the war, but in the midst of victory the great Medici, Pope Leo X., though still a man in his prime, died. There is no doubt that a secret promise had been made by Charles to Wolsey of his support in case a vacancy in the Papacy arose, but no one had dreamed of its occurring so quickly,[32] and Charles found his hand forced. He needed for his purpose a far more pliable instrument in the pontifical chair than the haughty Cardinal of York. So, whilst pretending to work strenuously to promote Wolsey’s elevation, and thus to gain the goodwill of Henry and his minister, he took care secretly that some humbler candidate, such as the one ultimately chosen by the Conclave, his old schoolmaster, Cardinal Adrian, should be the new Pope. Wolsey was somewhat sulky at the result of the election, and thenceforward looked with more distrust on the imperial connection; but, withal, he put as good a face on the matter as possible; and when, at the end of May 1522, he again welcomed the Emperor in Henry’s name as he set foot on English soil at Dover, the Cardinal, though watchful, was still favourable to the alliance. This visit of the young Emperor was the most splendid royal sojourn ever made in England; and Henry revelled in the ceremonies wherein he was the host of the greatest monarch upon earth.

      Charles came with a train of a thousand horse and two thousand courtiers; and to feed and house such a multitude, the guilds of London, and even the principal citizens, were obliged to make return of all their spare beds and stocks of provisions in order to provide for the strangers. The journey of the monarchs was a triumphal progress from Dover through Canterbury, Sittingbourne, and Rochester to Gravesend. On the downs between Dover and Canterbury, Henry and a great train of nobles was to have met his nephew; but the more to do him honour the King rode into Dover itself, and with pride showed his visitor his new great ship the Harry Grace à Dieu, and the rest of the English fleet; whereupon, “the Emperor and