A.D. 1528. CH. 2. lock.' He was but 'seeking pretexts' for delay, as Gardiner saw, till the issue of the Italian campaign of the French in the summer of 1528 was decided. He had been liberated, or had been allowed to escape from Rome, in the fear that if detained longer he might nominate a vicegerent; and was residing at an old ruined castle at Orvieto, waiting upon events, leaving the Holy City still occupied by the Prince of Orange. In the In the preceding autumn, immediately after the congress at Amiens, M. de Lautrec, accompanied by several English noblemen, had led an army across the Alps He had defeated the Imperialists in the north of Italy in several minor engagements; and in January his success appeared so probable, that the pope took better heart, and told Sir Gregory Cassalis, that if the French would only neral will approach near enough to enable him to plead compulsion, he would grant a commission to him, he will Wolsey, with plenary power to conclude the cause. * De Lautrec, however, foiled in his desire If the seem to compel consent. * His Holiness being yet in captivity, as he esteemed himself to be, so long as the Almayns and Spaniards continue in Italy, he thought if he should grant this commission that he should have the emperour his perpetual enemy without any hope of reconciliation. Notwithstanding he was content rather to put himself in evident ruin, and utter undoing, than the king or your Grace shall suspect any point of ingratitude in him; heartily desiring with sighs and tears that the king and your Grace which have been always fast and good to him, will not now suddenly precipitate him for ever: which should be done if immediately on receiving the commission your Grace should begin process. He intendeth to save all upright thus. If M. de Lautrec would set forwards, which he saith daily that he will do, but yet he doth not, at his coming the Pope's Holiness may have good colour to say, 'He was required of the commission by the ambassador of England, and denying the same, he was, eftsoons, required by M. de Lautrec to grant the said commis A.D. 1528. army lost at to bring the Imperialists to a decisive engage- CH. 2. ment, wasted his time and strength in ineffectual petty sieges; and finally, in the summer, on the The French unhealthy plains of Naples, a disaster more fatal Naples. in its consequences than the battle of Pavia, closed the prospects of the French to the south of the Alps; and with them all Wolsey's hopes of realizing his dream. Struck down, not by a visible enemy, but by the silent hand of fever, the French general himself, his English friends, and all his army melted away from off the earth. The pope had been wise in time. He had committed himself in words and intentions; but he had done nothing which he could not recal. He obtained his pardon from the emperor by promising to offend no more; and from that moment never again entertained any real thought of concession. Acting under explicit directions, he made it his object thenceforward to delay and to procrastinate. Charles had no desire to press matters to extremi- Relations ties. War had not yet been declared* against England sion, inasmuch as it was but a letter of justice.' And by this colour he would cover the matter so that it might appear unto the emperour that the pope did it not as he that would gladly do displeasure unto the emperour, but as an indifferent judge, that could not nor might deny justice, specially being required by such personages; and immediately he would despatch a commission bearing date after the time that M. de Lautrec had been with him or was nigh unto him. The pope most instantly beseecheth VOL. I. L your Grace to be a mean that the *Such at least was the ulti- between and Spain. CH. 2. him by Henry; nor was he anxious himself to precipitate a quarrel from which, if possible, he would gladly escape. He had a powerful party in England, which it was unwise to alienate by hasty, injudicious measures; and he could gain all which he himself desired by a simple policy of obstruction. His object was merely to protract the negotiation and prevent a decision, in the hope either that Henry would be wearied into acquiescence, or that Catherine herself would retire of her own accord, or, finally, that some happy accident might occur to terminate the difficulty. It Honourable is, indeed, much to the honour of Charles V. that the empe- he resolved to support the queen. She had thrown herself on his protection; but princes in such matters consider prudence more than feeling, and he could gain nothing by defending her: while, both for himself and for the church he risked the loss of much. He over-rated the strength of his English conduct of ror. placed under arrest. Alarmed by the outcry in London, the king hastily concluded a truce with the Regent of the Netherlands, the language of which implied a state of war; but when peace was concluded between France and Spain, England appeared only as a contracting party, not as a principal, and in 1542 it was decided that the antecedent treaties between England and the empire continued in force.-See LORD HERBERT; HOLINSHED; State Papers, vols. vii. viii. and ix.; with the treaties in RYMER, vol. vi. part 2. intimation that unless the French | merchants and residents were A.D. 1528. connexion, and mistook the English character; but CH. 2. he was not blind to the hazard which he was incurring, and would have welcomed an escape from the dilemma perhaps as warmly as Henry would have welcomed it himself. The pope, who well knew his feelings, told Gardiner, 'It would be for May 4. the wealth of Christendom if the queen were in her grave; and he thought the emperor would be thereof most glad of all;' saying, also, 'that he thought like as the emperor had destroyed the temporalities of the church, so should she be the destruction of the spiritualities." sets out for In the summer of 1528, before the disaster at Campeggio Naples, Cardinal Campeggio had left Rome on his England. way to England, where he was to hear the cause in conjunction with Wolsey. An initial measure of this obvious kind it had been impossible to refuse; and the pretexts under which it was for many months delayed, were exhausted before the pope's ultimate course had been made clear to him. But Campeggio was instructed to protract his journey to its utmost length, giving time for the campaign to decide itself. He loitered into the autumn, under the excuse of gout and other convenient accidents, until the news reached him of De Lautrec's death, which took place on the 21st of August; and then at length proceeding, he betrayed to Francis I., on passing through Paris, that he had no intention of allowing judgment to be passed upon the cause.† Even Wolsey was August 21. * Gardiner to the King: BURNET's Collectanea, p. 426. † Duke of Suffolk to Henry the Eighth: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 183. His language at Paris. A.D. 1528. State of feeling in London. CH. 2. beginning to tremble at what he had attempted, and was doubtful of success. * The seeming relief came in time, for Henry's patience was fast running out. He had been over-persuaded into a course which he had never cordially approved. The majority of the council, especially the Duke of Norfolk and the Duke of Suffolk, were traditionally imperial, and he himself might well doubt whether he might not have found a nearer road out of his difficulties by adhering to Charles. Charles, after all, was not ruining the papacy, and had no intention of ruining it; and his lightest word weighed more at the court of Rome than the dubious threats and prayers of France. The Bishop of Bayonne, resident French ambassador in London, whose remarkable letters transport us back into the very midst of that unquiet and stormy scene, tells us plainly that the French alliance was hated by the country, that the nobility were all for the emperor, and that among the commons the loudest discontent was openly expressed against Wolsey from the danger of the interruption of the trade with Flanders. Flemish ships had been detained in London, and English ships in retaliation had been arrested in the Zealand ports; corn was unusually dear, and the expected supplies from Spain and Germany were cut off; while the derangement of the woollen trade, from the reluctance of the merchants to commerce. venture purchases, was causing distress all over the country, and Wolsey had been driven to the Derange ment of English * Duke of Suffolk to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 183. ↑ HALL, p. 744. |