tissue of falsehood which will be met with even Cн. 5. in the fertile pages of Italian subtlety.

With this general understanding of the relation between the great parties in the drama, let us look to their exact position in the summer

of 1532.

A.D. 1532.

the Turks.

Charles was engaged in repelling an invasion Invasion of of the Turks, with an anarchical Germany in his rear, seething with fanatical anabaptists, and Germany. clamouring for a general council.

Anarchy in

France and

act with

against

June.

Henry and Francis had been called upon to England furnish a contingent against Solyman, and had decline to declined to act with the emperor. They had Charles undertaken to concert their own measures be- Solyman. tween themselves, if it proved necessary for them to move; and in the mean time Cardinal Mission of Grammont and Cardinal Tournon were sent by the o Francis to Rome, to inform Clement that unless cardinals to he gave a verdict in Henry's favour, the Kings of France and England, being une mesme chose, Ostensively would pursue some policy with respect to him, the divorce.

* The wishes of the French Court had been expressed emphatically to Clement in the preceding January. Original copies of the two following letters are in the Bibliothèque Impérial at

Paris :

country; he says that it cannot
be equitably dealt with at Rome,
where he cannot be present. He
himself, the Queen, and the other
witnesses, are not to be dragged
into Italy to give their evidence;
and the suits of the Sovereigns
of England and France have

The Cardinal of Lorraine to always hitherto been determined

Cardinal

6

at Rome.

in their respective countries.

'Nevertheless, by no entreaty can we prevail on the Pope to nominate impartial judges who will decide the question in England.

Paris, Jan. 8, 1531-2. 'RIGHT REVEREND FATHER AND LORD IN CHRIST.-After our most humble commendations -The King of England complains loudly that his cause is The King's personal indignanot remanded into his own tion is not the only evil which

two

French

Rome.

CH. 5. to which he would regret that he had compelled them to have recourse. So far their instructions

A.D. 1532.

has to be feared. When these
proceedings are known among
the people, there will, perhaps,
be a revolt, and the Apostolic
See may receive an injury which
will not afterwards be easily re-
medied.

'I have explained these things
more at length to his Holiness,
as my duty requires. Your
affection towards him, my lord,
I am assured is no less than
mine. I beseech you, therefore,
use your best endeavours with
his Holiness, that the King of
England may no longer have
occasion to exclaim against him.
In so doing you will gratify the
Most Christian King, and you
will follow the course most ho-
nourable to yourself and most
favourable to the quiet of Chris-
tendom.

'From Abbeville.'

and afterwards from Chantilly, in our good brother's behalf; and we have further entreated you, through our ambassador residing at your Court, to put an end to this business as nearly according to the wishes of our said good brother as is compatible with the honour of Almighty God. We have made this request of you as well for the affection and close alliance which exist between ourselves and our brother, as for the filial love and duty with which we both in common regard your Holiness.

'Seeing, nevertheless, Most Holy Father, that the affair in question is still far from settlement, and knowing our good brother to be displeased and dissatisfied, we fear that some great scandal and inconvenience may arise at last which may cause the

Francis the First to Pope Cle- diminution of your Holiness's

ment the Seventh.
'Paris, Jan. 10, 1531-2.
'MOST HOLY FATHER,-You
are not ignorant what our good
brother and ally the King of
England demands at your hands.
He requires that the cognizance
of his marriage be remanded to
his own realm, and that he be
no further pressed to pursue the
process at Rome. The place is
inconvenient from its distance,
and there are other good and
reasonable objections which he
assures us that he has urged upon
your Holiness's consideration.

Most Holy Father, we have
written several times to you,
especially of late from St. Cloud,

authority. There is no longer that ready obedience to the Holy See in England which was offered to your predecessors; and yet your Holiness persists in citing my good brother the King of England to plead his cause before you in Rome. Surely it is not without cause that he calls such treatment of him unreasonable. We have ourselves examined into the law in this matter, and we are assured that your Holiness's claim is unjust and contrary to the privilege of kings. For a sovereign to leave his realm and plead as a suitor in Rome, is a thing wholly impossible,* and therefore, Holy

*Chose beaucoup plus impossible que possible.

Сн. 5.

A.D. 1532.

arrange a

between

were avowed and open. A private message revealed the secret means by which the pope might escape from his dilemma; the cardinals were to negotiate a marriage between the Duke of Orleans Secretly to and the pope's niece (afterwards so infamously marriage famous), Catherine de Medicis. The marriage, the Duke as Francis represented it to Henry, was beneath of Orleans the dignity of a prince of France, he had rine de consented to it, as he professed, only for Henry's sake;* but the pope had made it palatable by a secret article in the engagement, for the grant of the duchy of Milan as the lady's dowry.

and Cathe

Medicis.

fensive and

France and

June 23.

Henry, threatened as we have seen with do- League of mestic disturbance, and with further danger on defensive the side of Scotland, which Charles had succeeded between in agitating, concluded, on the 23rd of June, a England. league, offensive and defensive, with Francis, the latter engaging to send a fleet into the Channel, and to land 15,000 troops in England if the emperor should attempt an invasion from the sea. For the better consolidation of this league, Proposed and to consult upon the measures which they between would pursue on the great questions at issue in Henry and Christendom, and lastly to come to a final un

interview

Francis.

A.D. 1532.

Letter of the Bishop of Paris from

CH. 5. derstanding on the divorce, it was agreed further that in the autumn the two kings should meet at Calais. The conditions of the interview were still unarranged on the 22nd of July, when the Bishop of Paris, who remained ambassador at the English court, wrote to Montmorency to suggest that Anne Boleyn should be invited to accompany the King of England on this occasion, and that she should be received in state. The letter was dated from Ampthill, to which Henry had escaped for a while from his Greenwich friars and other Ampthill. troubles, and where the king was staying a few weeks before the house was given up to Queen Catherine. Anne Boleyn was with him; she now, as a matter of course, attended him everywhere. Intending her, as he did, to be the mother of the future heir to his crown, he preserved what is technically called her honour unimpeached and unimpaired. In all other respects she occupied the position and received the homage due to the actual wife of the English sovereign; and in this capacity it was the desire of Henry that she should be acknowledged by a foreign prince.

The bishop's letter on this occasion is singularly interesting and descriptive. The court were out hunting, he said, every day; and while the king was pursuing the heat of the chase, he and Mademoiselle Anne were posted together, each with a crossbow, at the point to which the deer was to be driven. The young lady, in order that the appearance of her reverend cavalier might correspond with his occupation, had made him

A.D. 1532.

Boleyn to

to Bou

a present of a hunting cap and frock, a horn CH. 5. and a greyhound. Her invitation to Calais he pressed with great earnestness, and suggested Anne that Marguerite de Valois, the Queen of Navarre, be invited should be brought down to entertain her. The logne. Queen of France being a Spaniard, would not, he thought, be welcome: 'the sight of a Spanish dress being as hateful in the King of England's eyes as the devil himself.' In other respects the reception should be as magnificent as possible, and I beseech you,' he concluded, 'keep out of the court, deux sortes de gens, the imperialists, and the wits and mockers; the English can endure neither of them.'*

* Francis seems to have desired

qu'ils ne demeurrent ensembles

that the intention of the interview sans compagnie de dames, pour ce que les bonnes cheres en sont tous jours meilleures: mais il fauldroit que en pareil le Roy menast la Royne de Navarre à Boulogne, pour festoyer le Roy d'Angleterre.

should be kept secret. Henry found this impossible. 'Monseigneur,' wrote the Bishop of Paris to the Grand Master, 'quant à tenir la chose secrette comme vous le demandez, il est mal aisé; combien que ce Roy fust bien de cest advis, sinon qu'il le treuve impossible; car a cause de ces provisions et choses, qu'il fault faire en ce Royaulme, incontinent sera sceu a Londres, et de la par tout le monde. Pourquoy ne faictes vostre compte qu'on le puisse tenir secret.

'Monseigneur, je sçay veritablement et de bon lieu que le plus grant plaisir que le Roy pourroit faire au Roy son frere et a Madame Anne, c'est que le dit seigneur m'escripre que je requiere le Roy son dit frere qu'il veuille mener la dicte Dame Anne avec luy a Callais pour la veoir et pour la festoyer, afin

Quant à la Royne pour rien ce Roy ne vouldroit qu'elle vint: Il häit cest habillement à l'Espagnolle, tant qu'il luy semble veoir un diable. Il desireroit qu'il pleust au Roy mener à Boulogne, messeigneurs ses enfans pour les veoir.

'Surtout je vous prie que vous ostez de la court deux sortes de gens, ceulx qui sont imperiaulx, s'aucuns en y a, et ceux qui ont la reputation d'estre mocqueurs et gaudisseurs, car c'est bien la chose en ce monde autant häie de ceste nation.'-Bishop of Paris to the Grand Master: LEGRAND, vol. iii. pp. 555, 556.