Henry VIII Part 5

"He has paid," wrote Henry, "a heavier penalty for his perfidy than we would have wished." There was some justice in the charge. James was bound by treaty not to go to war with England; he had not even waited for the Pope's answer to his request for absolution from his oath; and his challenge to Henry, when he was in France and could not meet it, was not a knightly deed. Henry wrote to Leo for permission to bury the excommunicated Scottish King with royal honours in St. Paul's.[138]

The permission was granted, but the interment did not take place. In Italy, Louis fared no better; at Novara, on 6th June, the Swiss infantry broke in pieces the grand army of France, drove the fragments across the Alps, and restored the Duchy of Milan to the native house of Sforza.

[Footnote 136: _L. and P._, i., 4398; Ellis, _Original Letters_, 1st ser., i., 83.]

[Footnote 137: _L. and P._, i., 4439, 4441, 4461; _cf._ popular ballads in Weber's _Flodden Field_, and _La Rotta de Scocese_ (Bannatyne Club).]

[Footnote 138: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 909; _Sp. Cal._, i., 137; _L. and P._, i., 4502, 4582.]

The results of the campaign of 1513 were a striking vindication of the refusal of Henry VIII. and Wolsey to rest under the stigma of their Spanish expedition of 1512. English prestige was not only restored, but raised higher than it had stood since the death of Henry V., whose "name," said Pasqualigo, a Venetian in London, "Henry VIII. would now renew". He styled him "our great King".[139] Peter Martyr, a resident at Ferdinand's Court, declared that the Spanish King was "afraid (p. 067) of the over-growing power of England".[140] Another Venetian in London reported that "were Henry ambitious of dominion like others, he would soon give law to the world". But, he added, "he is good and has a good council. His quarrel was a just one, he marched to free the Church, to obtain his own, and to liberate Italy from the French."[141] The pomp and parade of Henry's wars have, indeed, somewhat obscured the fundamentally pacific character of his reign. The correspondence of the time bears constant witness to the peaceful tendencies of Henry and his council. "I content myself," he once said to Giustinian, "with my own, I only wish to command my own subjects; but, on the other hand, I do not choose that any one shall have it in his power to command me."[142] On another occasion he said: "We want all potentates to content themselves with their own territories; we are content with this island of ours"; and Giustinian, after four years' residence at Henry's Court, gave it as his deliberate opinion to his Government, that Henry did not covet his neighbours' goods, was satisfied with his own dominions, and "extremely desirous of peace".[143] Ferdinand said, in 1513, that his pensions from France and a free hand in Scotland were all that Henry really desired;[144] and Carroz, his amba.s.sador, reported that Henry's councillors did not like to be at war with any one.[145] Peace, they told Badoer, suited England better than war.[146]

[Footnote 139: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 340.]

[Footnote 140: _L. and P._, i., 4864.]

[Footnote 141: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 362.]

[Footnote 142: _L. and P._, ii., 1991.]

[Footnote 143: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 1287; Giustinian, _Desp._, App., ii., 309.]

[Footnote 144: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 142.]

[Footnote 145: _Ib._, ii., 201.]

[Footnote 146: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 298; _cf. L. and P._, i., 3081.]

But Henry's actions proclaimed louder than the words of himself (p. 068) or of others that he believed peace to be the first of English interests.

He waged no wars on the continent except against France; and though he reigned thirty-eight years, his hostilities with France were compressed into as many months. The campaigns of 1512-13, Surrey's and Suffolk's inroads of 1522 and 1523, and Henry's invasion of 1544, represent the sum of his military operations outside Great Britain and Ireland. He acquired Tournay in 1513 and Boulogne in 1544, but the one was restored in five years for an indemnity, and the other was to be given back in eight for a similar consideration. These facts are in curious contrast with the high-sounding schemes of recovering the crown of France, which others were always suggesting to Henry, and which he, for merely conventional reasons, was in the habit of enunciating before going to war; and in view of the tenacity which Henry exhibited in other respects, and the readiness with which he relinquished his regal pretensions to France, it is difficult to believe that they were any real expression of settled policy. They were, indeed, impossible of achievement, and Henry saw the fact clearly enough.[147] Modern phenomena such as huge armies sweeping over Europe, and capitals from Berlin to Moscow, Paris to Madrid, falling before them, were quite beyond military science of the sixteenth century. Armies fought, as a rule, only in the five summer months; it was difficult enough to victual them for even that time; and lack of commissariat or transport crippled all the invasions of Scotland. Hertford sacked Edinburgh, (p. 069) but he went by sea. No other capital except Rome saw an invading army.

Neither Henry nor Maximilian, Ferdinand nor Charles, ever penetrated more than a few miles into France, and French armies got no further into Spain, the Netherlands, or Germany. Machiavelli points out that the chief safeguard of France against the Spaniards was that the latter could not victual their army sufficiently to pa.s.s the Pyrenees.[148]

If in Italy it was different, it was because Italy herself invited the invaders, and was mainly under foreign dominion. Henry knew that with the means at his disposal he could never conquer France; his claims to the crown were transparent conventions, and he was always ready for peace in return for the _status quo_ and a money indemnity, with a town or so for security.

[Footnote 147: In 1520 he described his t.i.tle "King of France" as a t.i.tle given him by others which was "good for nothing" (_Ven. Cal._, iii., 45). Its value consisted in the pensions he received as a sort of commutation.]

[Footnote 148: Machiavelli, _Opera_, iv., 139.]

The fact that he had only achieved a small part of the conquest he professed to set out to accomplish was, therefore, no bar to negotiations for peace. There were many reasons for ending the war; the rapid diminution of his father's treasures; the accession to the papal throne of the pacific Leo in place of the warlike Julius; the absolution of Louis as a reward for renouncing the council of Pisa; the interruption of the trade with Venice; the attention required by Scotland now that her king was Henry's infant nephew; and lastly, his betrayal first by Ferdinand and now by the Emperor. In October, 1513, at Lille, a treaty had been drawn up binding Henry, Maximilian and Ferdinand to a combined invasion of France before the following June.[149] On 6th December, Ferdinand wrote to Henry to say he (p. 070) had signed the treaty. He pointed out the sacrifices he was making in so doing; he was induced to make them by considering that the war was to be waged in the interests of the Holy Church, of Maximilian, Henry, and Catherine, and by his wish and hope to live and die in friends.h.i.+p with the Emperor and the King of England. He thought, however, that to make sure of the a.s.sistance of G.o.d, the allies ought to bind themselves, if He gave them the victory, to undertake a general war on the infidel.[150] Ferdinand seems to have imagined that he could dupe the Almighty as easily as he hoped to cheat his allies, by a pledge which he never meant to fulfil. A fortnight after this despatch he ordered Carroz not to ratify the treaty he himself had already signed.[151] The reason was not far to seek. He was deluding himself with the hope, which Louis shrewdly encouraged, that the French King would, after his recent reverses, fall in with the Spaniard's Italian plans.[152] Louis might even, he thought, of his own accord cede Milan and Genoa, which would annihilate the French King's influence in Italy, and greatly facilitate the attack on Venice.

[Footnote 149: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 138, 143; _L. and P._, i., 4511, 4560.]

[Footnote 150: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 132.]

[Footnote 151: _Ibid._, ii., 159.]

[Footnote 152: _Ibid._, ii., 158, 163.]

That design had occupied him throughout the summer, before Louis had become so amenable; then he was urging Maximilian that the Pope must be kept on their side and persuaded "not to forgive the great sins committed by the King of France"; for if he removed his ecclesiastical censures, Ferdinand and Maximilian "would be deprived of a plausible excuse for confiscating the territories they intended to conquer".[153]

Providence was, as usual, to be bribed into a.s.sisting in the (p. 071) robbery of Venice by a promise to make war on the Turk. But now that Louis was prepared to give his daughter Renee in marriage to young Ferdinand and to endow the couple with Milan and Genoa and his claims on Naples, his sins might be forgiven. The two monarchs would not be justified in making war upon France in face of these offers. Venice remained a difficulty, for Louis was not likely to help to despoil his faithful ally; but Ferdinand had a suggestion. They could all make peace publicly guaranteeing the Republic's possessions, but Maximilian and he could make a "mental reservation" enabling them to part.i.tion Venice, when France could no longer prevent it.[154]

[Footnote 153: _Ibid._, ii., 131.]

[Footnote 154: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 153.]

So on 13th March, 1514, Ferdinand renewed his truce with France, and Maximilian joined it soon after.[155] The old excuses about the reformation of the Church, his death-bed desire to make peace with his enemies, could scarcely be used again; so Ferdinand instructed his agent to say, if Henry asked for an explanation, that there was a secret conspiracy in Italy.[156] If he had said no more, it would have been literally true, for the conspiracy was his own; but he went on to relate that the conspiracy was being hatched by the Italians to drive him and the Emperor out of the peninsula. The two were alike in their treachery; both secretly entered the truce with France and broke their promise to Henry. Another engagement of longer standing was ruptured.

Since 1508, Henry's sister Mary had been betrothed to Maximilian's grandson Charles. The marriage was to take place when Charles was (p. 072) fourteen; the pledge had been renewed at Lille, and the nuptials fixed not later than 15th May, 1514.[157] Charles wrote to Mary signing himself _votre mari_, while Mary was styled Princess of Castile, carried about a bad portrait of Charles,[158] and diplomatically sighed for his presence ten times a day. But winter wore on and turned to spring; no sign was forthcoming of Maximilian's intention to keep his grandson's engagement, and Charles was reported as having said that he wanted a wife and not a mother.[159] All Henry's inquiries were met by excuses; the Ides of May came and went, but they brought no wedding between Mary and Charles.

[Footnote 155: _Ibid._, ii., 164; _Ven. Cal._, ii., 389, 391, 401, 405.]

[Footnote 156: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 167.]

[Footnote 157: _L. and P._, i., 4560.]

[Footnote 158: _Ibid._, i., 5203.]

[Footnote 159: _Ven. Cal_., ii., 295. Charles was fourteen, Mary eighteen years of age.]

Henry was learning by bitter experience. Not only was he left to face single-handed the might of Louis; but Ferdinand and Maximilian had secretly bound themselves to make war on him, if he carried out the treaty to which they had all three publicly agreed. The man whom he said he loved as a natural father, and the t.i.tular sovereign of Christendom, had combined to cheat the boy-king who had come to the throne with youthful enthusiasms and natural, generous instincts. "Nor do I see," said Henry to Giustinian, "any faith in the world save in me, and therefore G.o.d Almighty, who knows this, prospers my affairs."[160]

This absorbing belief in himself and his righteousness led to strange aberrations in later years, but in 1514 it had some justification. "Je vous a.s.sure," wrote Margaret of Savoy to her father, the Emperor, (p. 073) "qu'en lui n'a nulle faintise." "At any rate," said Pasqualigo, "King Henry has done himself great honour, and kept faith single-handed."[161]

A more striking testimony was forthcoming a year or two later. When Charles succeeded Ferdinand, the Bishop of Badajos drew up for Cardinal Ximenes a report on the state of the Prince's affairs. In it he says: "The King of England has been truer to his engagements towards the House of Austria than any other prince. The marriage of the Prince with the Princess Mary, it must be confessed, did not take place, but it may be questioned whether it was the fault of the King of England or of the Prince and his advisers. However that may be, with the exception of the marriage, the King of England has generally fulfilled his obligations towards the Prince, and has behaved as a trusty friend. An alliance with the English can be trusted most of all."[162]

[Footnote 160: _L. and P._, ii., 3163.]

[Footnote 161: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 406.]

[Footnote 162: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 246.]

But the meekest and saintliest monarch could scarce pa.s.s unscathed through the baptism of fraud practised on Henry; and Henry was at no time saintly or meek. Ferdinand, he complained, induced him to enter upon the war, and urged the Pope to use his influence with him for that purpose; he had been at great expense, had a.s.sisted Maximilian, taken Tournay, and reduced France to extremities; and now, when his enemy was at his feet, Ferdinand talked of truce: he would never trust any one again.[163] "Had the King of Spain," wrote a Venetian attache, "kept his promise to the King of England, the latter would never have made peace with France; and the promises of the Emperor were equally false, for he had received many thousands of pounds from King (p. 074) Henry, on condition that he was to be in person at Calais in the month of May, with a considerable force in the King's pay; but the Emperor pocketed the money and never came. His failure was the cause of all that took place, for, as King Henry was deceived in every direction, he thought fit to take this other course."[164] He discovered that he, too, could play at the game of making peace behind the backs of his nominal friends; and when once he had made up his mind, he played the game with vastly more effect than Maximilian or Ferdinand. It was he who had been really formidable to Louis, and Louis was therefore prepared to pay him a higher price than to either of the others. In February Henry had got wind of his allies' practices with France. In the same month a nuncio started from Rome to mediate peace between Henry and Louis;[165] but, before his arrival, informal advances had probably been made through the Duc de Longueville, a prisoner in England since the Battle of Spurs.[166] In January Louis' wife, Anne of Brittany, had died. Louis was fifty-two years old, worn out and decrepit; but at least half a dozen brides were proposed for his hand.

In March it was rumoured in Rome that he would choose Henry's sister Mary, the rejected of Charles.[167] But Henry waited till May had pa.s.sed, and Maximilian had proclaimed to the world his breach of promise. Negotiations for the alliance and marriage with Louis then proceeded apace. Treaties for both were signed in August. Tournay remained in Henry's hands, Louis increased the pensions paid by France to England since the Treaty of etaples, and both kings (p. 075) bound themselves to render mutual aid against their common foes.[168]

[Footnote 163: _L. and P._, i., 4864.]

[Footnote 164: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 505.]

[Footnote 165: _Ibid._, ii., 372.]

[Footnote 166: _Ibid._, ii., 505; _L. and P._, i., 5173, 5278.]

[Footnote 167: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 383.]

[Footnote 168: _L. and P._, i., 5305; _Ven. Cal._, ii., 482, 483.]

Maximilian and Ferdinand were left out in the cold. Louis not only broke off his negotiations with them, but prepared to regain Milan and discussed with Henry the revival of his father's schemes for the conquest of Castile. Henry was to claim part of that kingdom in right of his wife, the late Queen's daughter; later on a still more shadowy t.i.tle by descent was suggested. As early as 5th October, the Venetian Government wrote to its amba.s.sador in France, "commending extremely the most sage proceeding of Louis in exhorting the King of England to attack Castile".[169] Towards the end of the year it declared that Louis had wished to attack Spain, and sought to arrange details in an interview with Henry; but the English King would not consent, delayed the interview, and refused the six thousand infantry required for the purpose.[170] But Henry had certainly urged Louis to reconquer Navarre,[171] and from the tenor of Louis' reply to Henry, late in November, it would be inferred that the proposed conquest of Castile also emanated from the English King or his ministers. Louis professed not to know the laws of succession in Spain, but he was willing to join the attack, apart from the merits of the case on which it was based. Whether the suggestion originated in France or in England, whether Henry eventually refused it or not, its serious discussion shows how far Henry had travelled in his resentment at the double dealing of Ferdinand. Carroz complained that he was treated by (p. 076) the English "like a bull at whom every one throws darts,"[172] and that Henry himself behaved in a most offensive manner whenever Ferdinand's name was mentioned. "If," he added, "Ferdinand did not put a bridle on this young colt," it would afterwards become impossible to control him. The young colt was, indeed, already meditating a project, to attain which he, in later years, took the bit in his teeth and broke loose from control. He was not only betrayed into casting in Catherine's teeth her father's ill faith, but threatening her with divorce.[173]

[Footnote 169: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 495.]

[Footnote 170: _Ibid._, ii., 532, 542.]

[Footnote 171: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 192; _L. and P._, i., 5637.]