CHAPTER VI.

MATRIMONIAL SCHEMES OF HENRY VII’S LAST YEARS.

 

The age in which Henry VII lived was an age of marriages; scarcely any alliance took place between two Powers without the plan of a matrimonial union between the royal Houses being proposed, and seldom were more important marriages concluded. Henry followed the custom of the times. The safety of his own, and still more of his son’s dynasty, rested to a greater degree than he was willing to admit on his own marriage with Elizabeth of York, and the unions proposed and brought about by him with Spain and Scotland, were to prove of the greatest importance for his country and his dynasty. The matrimonial policy of his later years presents a different picture. He proposed alliances now on this side, now on that; evolved the most extraordinary plans; began much, yet effected little. The first impulse was given to these schemes by the fact that on Arthur’s death, Henry, who was still unmarried, succeeded as Prince of Wales, and that a year later the hand of the king himself became free.

After the wedding, Arthur had retired into his principality of Wales, where a council composed of capable men surrounded him. His tutor Bernard André, who, courtier-like, was, however, inclined to exaggerate praises in the warmest manner his ability and character; unfortunately Arthur was delicate in health, and on the 2nd of April, 1502, died unexpectedly at his castle of Ludlow. For the king this was a heavy blow. When his confessor brought him the sad news, he sent for his wife, who tried to console the afflicted father with words of comfort, only to break down so completely under her sorrow after she had left him, that her attendants sent for the king, who in his turn tried to comfort his wife, as she had him. The prince’s body was brought from Ludlow to Worcester and there buried with great pomp before the high altar of the cathedral. What was now to be the fate of that alliance between the two dynasties, of which this marriage thus early dissolved had laid the foundation? Once more the political situation served Henry in good stead. As the treaty for the partition of Naples between France and Spain had not indicated with sufficient precision the limits of their mutual claims, strife broke Out almost immediately after their common victory, and the confederates turned their weapons against each other.

This new war with France could not fail to make the attitude of England appear of the highest importance to the Spanish monarchs, especially since reports had early reached them of an enticing offer from the French of a marriage between Henry, the new Prince of Wales, and Margaret, afterwards the well-known queen of Navarre, sister to Francis of Angouleme, the presumptive heir to the throne. The Spaniards must therefore lose no time if the old compact were to be preserved in the same form after Arthur’s death. If the first union had been sought by the Tudor king, to gain the friendship of Spain, now it was the Spaniards, who in their desire for the friendship of England, came forward with the new scheme of marriage.

No sooner had the messenger bringing the sad news been received, than, in the beginning of May, 1502, Ferdinand, Duke of Estrada, was despatched on a special mission to Henry. He had a power to conclude a marriage between Katharine, now a widow, and her brother-in-law Henry. Ferdinand and Isabella were anxious to renew, word for word, the old treaty of alliance, which promised protection for all territories of which the parties were at the moment in possession, in order that they might thereby include their recent Italian acquisitions, Apulia and Calabria, which were threatened by France. They even thought they could induce Henry to render them assistance in arms against France by holding out to him the attractive prospect of regaining Guienne and Normandy. Their instructions to their ambassador sound particularly explicit; they set to work with the greatest eagerness, before even ascertaining whether Katharine might not have hopes of a posthumous heir, who would cut off Prince Henry from the succession. It was not till a month later that the Spanish monarchs thought of obtaining definite information on the subject from Estrada.

They were unwilling, however, that their own wishes with regard to the new settlement should be brought too prominently forward, and hence Estrada was instructed to urge that Katharine should at once be sent home, that the hundred thousand crowns of the dowry should be paid back, and her widow’s jointure assigned to her. The natural desire of affectionate parents to see their child again was to be the ostensible reason for their demand; but the real object was simply to drive Henry to make the first proposal of a new scheme of betrothal, to which Estrada might then assent “without betraying that he himself had any special desire in the matter.”

Again Puebla was not intrusted with this business of more than usual importance, and it was left to Estrada to decide how far he should be admitted into confidence. But it so happened that the question of the new betrothal was mooted, possibly on Puebla’s suggestion, between him and Henry, independently of the action of the Spanish monarchs, and they therefore learnt through Puebla that the ground in England was favourable to their plans. There was to be no further mention of any proposals to attack France, but the new betrothal treaty was to be settled as soon as possible; they contented themselves, as before, with drawing off Henry in this way from an alliance with France. It must, therefore, have been very galling to Puebla to find himself ordered to follow in everything the directions of Estrada. In the event of a refusal, the demand was to be adhered to that Katharine should be sent back to her home, and, above all, that the dowry already paid should be returned. They endeavoured to enforce, by a judicial opinion, Henry’s obligation in the matter; and they declared the king would be a monster of iniquity, should he keep the money in defiance of all laws, human and divine.

Henry’s friendship, or at least his neutral attitude, became more and more necessary to them, for their arms, during the year 1502, had not been successful in Italy, and in the same year their disagreement with Philip became more marked, when he appeared in Castile for the first time with his wife, in order to receive homage as heir to the throne. The journey there and back led them through France; the Spaniards had found themselves compelled to intrust Philip, on his return home, with powers to negotiate for peace with Louis, but to England they sent strict injunctions that no engagements entered into in their name by their son-in-law should be considered binding without their express approval. They refused to recognise the treaty concluded at Lyons on the 6th of April, 1503, as it went beyond the instructions given.

Henry having from the outset shown himself prepared to come to terms on the marriage treaty, the matter was quickly arranged; a draft was ready prepared by the 24th of September, 1502, and on the 23rd of June, 1503, the ratification took place at Richmond. The dowry for the first marriage was taken on for the second, and, on the part of the Spaniards, all claims on the sum already paid were given up; the rest was to be paid on the conclusion of the marriage, in London, for the date of which the end of Henry’s fifteenth year was fixed.

The papal dispensation was necessary for this union between Prince Henry and his brother’s widow, and, to obtain it, the question arose, how far the marriage Arthur and Katharine, confirmed by the Church, had been actually consummated by the married couple, who were then almost children. After Arthur’s death, the customary month had been allowed to pass before the title of Prince of Wales, with the revenues, were handed over to Henry. The result of the inquiries instituted by desire of the Spaniards as to the actual consummation of the marriage is to be found in Ferdinand’s communication to his ambassador at Rome, wherein he stated that notwithstanding the marriage, no such consummation had taken place, but that it was well known in England that Katharine was still a maiden, as pure and untouched, as she herself asserted at a subsequent date, as “when she left her mother’s womb.” It was only to protect the new union against any possible objection such as Ferdinand feared might be raised through the cunning of the English, that the treaty of the 23rd of June asked for the papal dispensation, even in the event of the earlier marriage having been consummated.

Two days after the treaty had been concluded, the ceremony of betrothal took place in the house of the Bishop of Salisbury, in Fleet Street, London. This time the business was not confined to the marriage treaty. The quarrel between Spain and England over their navigation policy will be remembered, when the import of wine and woad into England was restricted, and in both countries a prohibition was laid on the freighting of foreign ships with export goods, so long as native ships lay in the harbour. That the English in this matter should be treated by the Spaniards as the Spaniards were by the English, seems to have been regarded by Henry as a violation of the stipulation in the treaty of 1499, that both nations should be placed on an equal footing, and to have been met by him with an increase in the export tolls on woollen and other goods for Spain. He had furthermore cause for complaint against the Spanish seamen, who had seized a French vessel in an English port, and who, by their piracies, were constantly molesting both Englishmen and foreigners.

In order to gain over Henry to the new marriage treaty, the Spaniards promised to remove, in favour of the English, the restriction on exports, and, accordingly, a treaty of commerce and amity on these conditions, also dated the 23rd of June, 1503, accompanied the marriage treaty. But much time was to elapse before the provisions in the treaty, either concerning trade or the marriage, were carried out.

On the 24th and 30th of September, 1503, Ferdinand and Isabella confirmed the treaty of marriage; on the 3rd of March, 1504, Henry did the same. The Spaniards had taken special pains at once to obtain the papal dispensation in the form agreed upon, but here the two Powers encountered their first difficulties. On the 18th of August, 1503, Pope Alexander VI died; on the 18th of October following, his successor, Pius III, also died, and on the 1st of November, was succeeded in the papal chair by Giuliano da Rovere, who assumed the name of Julius II. Henry tried to ingratiate himself with the new Pope; he was the first among the princes to notify his obedience. This he coupled with a petition for the dispensation, promises of which Ferdinand had already secured from Julius, both before and after his election.

It is not very easy to see why Pope Julius, in spite of his friendly assurances, should have postponed the fulfilment of his promises. The difficulties of the case, the necessity of a closer investigation, even doubts as to his own power to grant the dispensation, were put forward; finally, one of the cardinals, commissioned to make the inquiries, fell ill. In July, 1504, the Pope assured Henry that he was prepared to grant the dispensation. Robert Sherbourne, the dean of St. Paul’s, he said, should bring it with him when he came home; yet Sherbourne came without the bull.

It was the English king whom Julius wished to keep in suspense; the Spaniards attained their object more quickly. They had been far more energetic about procuring the dispensation in Rome, and it was said that Isabella desired to see it before her death, which was fast approaching. The Pope was prevailed upon to issue a brief, which should correspond exactly to the bull that was to be granted, and which should be sent as a consolation to Isabella, in order that she “might depart out of this life with a quiet mind”; it was ante-dated the 26th of December, 1503.

Shortly before Isabella’s death Ferdinand sent the original of the brief itself to England, much to the annoyance of the Pope, who declared that he had granted it to the Spaniards only under condition of the strictest secrecy. Now he was bound also to England, and at the same time deprived against his will of every pretext for withholding any longer the bull itself. He therefore promised to send it off to England by Silvester de Giglis, Bishop of Worcester, accredited to Rome by Henry. As nothing more is mentioned of the matter, we suppose Julius must have kept his promise, and that the bishop brought the bull in the spring or summer of 1505 to England.

The bull was also ante-dated the 26th of December, 1503. It was worded more clearly and precisely than the brief, and as the latter had done, granted the dispensation to include the case of the actual consummation of Katharine’s former marriage. The bull was then considered fully sufficient to enable the marriage contract to be concluded. It was not till later, when, in the matter of the divorce of King Henry VIII, the marriage itself was objected to as illegal, that defects and oversights were discovered in the papal dispensation, on the authority of which the marriage had been contracted.

Henry also had honestly bestirred himself in the matter, and yet, when the execution of the treaty on both sides had long since taken place, and after the dispensation had been granted, and probably also after Katharine’s marriage ceremony had been performed by proxy in London, the king suddenly drew back. On the 27th of June, 1505, the day before Prince Henry entered his fifteenth year, the prince placed on record, in the presence of Bishop Fox, that he did not recognise the marriage treaty contracted when prince he was still under age. Although the prince maintained that he was acting of his own free will, it is obvious that herein the boy was only following the command of his father, and this was also the opinion of Bishop Fox himself. This postponement of the marriage marks one of the most peculiar moves in the very eccentric policy of the king’s later years. Once again, indeed, in September, 1505, he declared that the wedding should be solemnized in conformity with the treaty, and that Ferdinand till then ought to keep the rest of the dowry in readiness; but neither one thing nor the other was done.

Commercial relations played a most important part in this very uncomfortable state of affairs. The Spanish sovereigns had promised in the treaty that the restrictions as to freightage should be taken off in favour of the English; but it was not till after the exchange of ratifications, and after the formal betrothal on the 16th of November, 1504, that their decree was issued, by which the English in Spain were to be treated on the same footing with their own subjects. English merchants from Seville and Cadiz first brought home the joyful news. Henry responded on the 12th of March, 1505, with a similar proclamation. He left the Spanish merchants free to transport their goods at will in either Spanish or English ships. Other nations, however, were excepted.

But when Englishmen appeared at Seville in the summer of 1505 with their goods, and wanted to ship wine and oil as return cargo, they were forbidden on the spot to do so, and had to make their return voyage with empty vessels and at a heavy loss. Henry made the most severe reproaches to the Spanish ambassador, who put forward various excuses, alleging that the reason lay in the difficulties of Ferdinand’s position in Castile after the death of his wife, although the proclamation had been issued in her name also at Seville. The Castilian Cortes, on the other hand, decreed that English, Flemish, or other foreign ships might not be freighted in Andalusia, so the counter­measures exacted by Ferdinand could not help much in the matter. As was understood afterwards in England, this was really the result of the fundamental opposition on the part of an influential party to commercial intercourse with England, which took money out of the country and brought nothing in return but the English woollens, whereby the native industries were damaged.2 As far as we know no more changes were introduced during Henry’s life; but if the trade with Spain was not of sufficient importance to make these inconveniences especially felt, they were enough to make the relations between the two kingdoms still more unsatisfactory.

For the rest, the discussion between Ferdinand and Henry turned only on the conclusion of the marriage and the payment of the dowry, and the Princess Katharine, innocent in the matter as she was, found herself in consequence of it in the most distressing position. Henry neither gave her back her dowry, nor let her have, the use of her widow’s jointure, while from Spain there arrived strict orders not to part with her gold and jewels; only for political purposes might she occasionally raise money on them. In the summer of 1504, Henry—at least according to his own assertion—ordered £300 to be paid to her, but in the following March she appealed to Puebla for help, as she had been obliged to contract debts in order to get food. She was, however, always filled with the greatest mistrust for Puebla, for he did nothing for her; in fact, she regarded him as the cause of all her misfortunes. Her household must indeed have presented a sorry appearance, for none of them received their salary, or knew how they could support or dress themselves. Fair words, to one who also was often out of health, could be of little help, and both Henry and Ferdinand behaved very shabbily to the unfortunate young princess.

Katharine was, in short, the victim of a political quarrel. She began early to taste that cup of sorrow which she was destined to drink to the very dregs in England. Henry’s behaviour towards the princess went so far that, in the year 1503, shortly after the death of his own wife, it was rumoured that he, the elderly father-in-law, had designs on her hand. This was, however, an unfounded rumour, and nowhere else do we hear that Henry really made such a mistake as that.

In any case, on the death of Elizabeth, he at once entertained the question of a second marriage, and during the last years of his life he was actively occupied in various schemes to this end, although without success. The news of his supposed designs with regard to Katharine had awakened great apprehension in Spain, and Isabella rejected in the strongest way any possibility of their accomplishment. She therefore seized the opportunity to propose another plan to the king, which should set these first ideas entirely aside, and bind Henry still more closely to Spain. She directed his attention to her niece, the Queen of Naples.

This title was borne by two princesses, mother and daughter, both called Joanna, who lived together in Spain. The elder, Ferdinand the Catholic’s sister, was the widow of Ferdinand I; her daughter was the widow of his nephew, Ferdinand II, of Naples; it was the younger Joanna who was proposed as a bride for Henry. Henry at first made no response; but in January, and again in June, 1504, Estrada was instructed to repeat the proposal, and Puebla asserted that the king often spoke of it, and himself wished for the marriage. Henry also asked for Joanna’s portrait, and for a statement of her age. He really only expressed his acquiescence in the scheme by requests which had for their object to delay the matter and to keep for himself a free hand with Ferdinand ; yet they show that the king, who could scarcely be still attractive to a young woman, was very fastidious on the point of feminine charms, For all the treasures of the world he would not have this promised bride, if she were ugly.

Things had changed very much. Once the Tudor king had begged the favour of being admitted as a kinsman into the Spanish royal House, now he was doubtful whether he would ally himself afresh with Ferdinand, who at this time was forced to contend with Philip for the great central Spanish kingdom of Castile. Henry openly held out hopes that he would treat with both parties, as both were seeking his alliance.

In the autumn of the same year as the war of tariffs, which began in 1504 between England and the Netherlands, the proposal of a marriage between Henry and Margaret had been made by Philip, or rather by his father Maximilian. The express reason for this proposal was to thwart the Spanish schemes with regard to the widowed Queen of Naples. Thus Henry found himself in a most favourable position between these rival competitors for Castile; and in the same way he was able to take advantage of the disputes which had arisen between Ferdinand and Louis of France.

As far back as July, 1502, immediately after Arthur’s death, Isabella had been in some anxiety on account of the French proposals for a marriage between Prince Henry and Margaret of Angouleme. The plan did not meet with much approval in England. It appears to have been again mooted in the autumn of 1504, and Henry fell in with the idea, but in a different way. In June, 1505, French ambassadors again appeared at his court, and in August he despatched his own plenipotentiaries; he proposed to Louis XII a personal interview, and by the remark that if he thought of marrying again he would wish most for a marriage with Margaret of Angoulême, he hinted that he might himself come forward as a candidate in the place of his son. In France the idea of his marrying a young girl of thirteen was actually accepted, whilst in England his marriage with Margaret’s mother Louisa was spoken of; a close treaty of alliance was to accompany this, and extend to their successors.

Henry had, however, no serious intentions in the matter, no alteration being necessary in his relations with France ; and the object to be gained by playing off this alliance against Ferdinand passed away, owing to the Spaniard’s reconciliation with his former rival. Ferdinand had, in fact, begun to work for a new and closer alliance with England, and Henry, though he had no thought of enmity with France, tried to bind the Spanish king under the same one-sided obligations as had been imposed in his own case some time before in the offensive clauses of the treaty of Medina del Campo. Ferdinand refused this, and a fresh proposal from England allowed to each party almost entire freedom of action; meanwhile his own reconciliation with France made any further hostile alliance against France quite superfluous.

After Isabella’s death renewed hostilities between France and Spain seemed imminent on the Pyrenean border and in Naples, which by that time had been quite taken out of the hands of the French; but Louis XII, having obtained the investiture of Milan, the end he had in view when he made friendly overtures to Maximilian, gave up all idea of further conquest in Italy, and accepted willingly Ferdinand’s offers of alliance. The contest for Naples was concluded by the treaty of Blois (October 12, 1505), when Ferdinand received as a marriage portion with the hand of Germaine de Foix, the niece of Louis XII, a girl of eighteen, all French claims on Naples, claims which were to revert to France should there be no children of the marriage. Any further concessions to which Ferdinand had to agree were counter-balanced by the fact that Philip could no longer reckon on the support of France.

Ferdinand now tried to draw the English king as well as the French to his side; but Henry guarded himself against any binding concession, and retained the liberty of joining the party which should offer him the greatest advantages. Francis Marsin, Thomas Braybrooke and John Stile went to Spain as his ambassadors. In the course of their journey to Ferdinand’s court they touched, on the 22nd of June, 1505, at Valencia, in the neighbourhood of which the two queens of Naples resided. They introduced themselves as the bearers of letters and commissions from the Princess of Wales; but this pretext was only to afford them opportunity for making those investigations as to the person, character, and mode of life of the younger Joanna, with which their king had charged them. They had been given a set form of questions, which they had simply to fill in with their answers under each head, to satisfy, as far as was possible, the astonishingly indiscreet curiosity of the king. The paper with these questions and answers is the drollest amongst the political documents of the time of Henry VII with which we are acquainted. The king desired information as to her household, costume, speech, and manner. As an ample mantle concealed the figure of the queen, he had to be satisfied with the information that she was not painted, that she had a pleasant countenance, a clear complexion, brown hair, grey-brown eyes, and a slightly hooked nose, round arms, with delicate hands, a graceful neck and full bosom. Henry wished to be informed of the minutest details: whether she had a tendency to a beard, whether her breath was sweet; and the ambassadors even accomplished the somewhat difficult task of answering this last inquiry. One piece of information proved less satisfactory. She was certainly entitled to an income of thirty thousand ducats, but her property in Naples had been confiscated, and Ferdinand paid her only a yearly pension of some fifteen to sixteen thousand ducats. The Englishmen’s efforts to obtain a portrait of her were not successful, and they heard, moreover, that Joanna’s mother and a faction in Naples were desirous she should marry a far younger man, the Duke of Calabria, son of the last king of Naples, who died in France. Some would, indeed, have preferred this young man as a husband for Katharine, rather than an Englishman.

In Spain, and also in Antwerp, it was rumoured that the marriage was already decided on; it was only considered doubtful if the young princess would accept an elderly husband. We do not know how far Joanna was asked her opinion. In any case, notwithstanding the favourable report of his ambassadors, Henry thought no more of a marriage with her. Other matters had more influence with him than a pretty face and fine figure; the inquiries of his ambassadors at the court of the queens were of quite secondary importance to the real object of their mission. This was to inform himself of Ferdinand’s position in Castile, the state of public feeling about the intended journey of Philip to his kingdom, and the attitude of the nobles and of the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal. The fact was that Henry had a large pecuniary interest in the matter, from the advances he had paid to Philip, whereby he had done his utmost to increase the difficulties of Ferdinand’s position. From Ferdinand himself these objects of the ambassadors were concealed under pretext of negotiations like those already carried on in London, concerning the dilatory execution of the marriage treaty of the 23rd of June, 1503, and the treaty of alliance which was now to be renewed.

Having continued their journey, the ambassadors arrived, on the 14th of July, 1505, in the royal camp at Segovia, and on the 17th had their first audience. In a later interview they were assured by Ferdinand’s confidential adviser, Almazan, that his king, in accordance with Isabella’s will, was determined to keep in his own hands the government of Castile, whilst, on the other hand, they heard that the king’s oppressive rule was not much liked there, and that men were longing for Philip’s arrival in hopes of a mitigation of the taxes, but that various factions existed, that there were fears of future troubles, and that the king of Portugal was on the side of Philip.

This was news which made the alliance with Ferdinand, hitherto so much desired by Henry, seem less worth striving for, and prevented him from regretting his own heavy contributions towards Philip’s expedition to Spain. About the same time that he sent off Marsin and his colleagues, he despatched Antony Savage to Maximilian and Philip, in order to find out how matters stood with them, especially concerning Philip’s plans with regard to Castile and Suffolk, and further, whether Maximilian was in earnest in his offer of the hand of Margaret. He showed himself much less curious in his inquiries about Margaret than about Queen Joanna; it was her dowry that principally interested him. This time also he was more fortunate, for he received two portraits of Margaret. Besides political considerations, one point weighed strongly in her favour as compared with a Neapolitan princess dependent on a Spanish pension, that she as widow of the former heir to the Spanish throne and of the Duke of Savoy, possessed a double widow’s jointure. Maximilian favoured the marriage, and issued his power on the 16th of November, 1505; but nothing had as yet resulted from it, when Philip on his voyage was driven ashore in England. This matrimonial scheme, in fact, originated entirely with Philip and his father; yet Henry did not fail to turn to account the favourable opportunity afforded him.

We know that Philip drew up his power on the 1st of March, 1506, and that the conclusion of the treaty took place on the 20th of March, before he had reached the coast at Falmouth. The most important points came first; the dowry of 300,000 crowns—each crown reckoned at four shillings—and Philip’s obligation to pay yearly 18,850 crowns for his sister’s Spanish jointure, and 12,000 crowns for her allowance as duchess-dowager of Savoy. Henry was to have free control of these sums, and Philip was to be held to punctual payment, under threat of papal excommunication. Margaret’s widow’s jointure in England was fixed at 20,000 crowns. The same thing happened to Henry with the treaty of marriage as with the commercial treaty : he had to wait a long time for Philip’s ratification; but, at last, on the 16th of July, 1506, this was procured, together with a strict promise to pay with punctuality the stipulated sums.

One important question, however, remained—whether Margaret herself was agreeable to this disposal of her hand. Just once, in November, 1505, it had been considered desirable to put the question to the lady, who was residing on her widow’s estate in Savoy, and, according to the report of the Venetian, Quirini, in December, her answer was not favourable. But to overcome a weak woman’s will would not, it was hoped, be difficult, seeing that her father and brother concurred in bringing their influence to bear on her. Both, in accordance with the treaty of the 20th of March, 1506, were to engage to do all in their power to gain Margaret's written agreement before the 1st of August. The time passed by, and in October Henry awoke to the distressing conviction that Philip and Maximilian’s ambassadors could get no other answer from Margaret, but that, after her sad experiences, she was afraid of another marriage.

At this moment Maximilian and Philip were unwilling to put Henry out of humour; he might therefore look for a fulfilment of the commercial treaty. The King of the Romans ascribed his daughter’s refusal to the machinations of the French, but promised for his part not to relax his efforts to bring about the match. In Burgundy also they imagined themselves sure of Henry, “who is still hoping for a union with Madame of Savoy, whom he desires to have more than anyone in the world.”

Contrary to all expectation, the suitor himself threatened again to withdraw. After Philip’s death, in September, 1506, Joanna of Castile had fallen into a melancholy condition of mental incapacity; yet, insane as she was, a royal crown was the prize that would accompany the bestowal of her hand. From the first it was evident that Ferdinand would do all in his power to prevent a second rival like Philip from supplanting him in the government of Castile. It is therefore inexplicable that Henry should have applied to him, and still more so that in his calculations of political advantage Henry should so far forget all human feeling as to seek in marriage a woman who was known to be mad ; nay, he even compelled his daughter-in-law Katharine, Joanna’s sister, to make the obnoxious proposal in his name. This much of shame was, however, left him, that he kept his scheme as secret as possible. A few members of his council and Puebla were alone admitted to his confidence. Puebla seconded him loyally. He wrote that Joanna could find no better husband, and, when united to King Henry, she would soon recover her sound reason; that the English, too, did not seem to take much account of her insanity, as she had already shown her malady would not prevent her from bearing children! that Henry would not be likely to interfere with Ferdinand in the administration of Castile, especially when Joanna was living in England; and a fixed yearly sum would alone have to be paid to England out of the revenues. Henry probably hoped by this means to recoup himself for his own expenses, the large loan he had made to Philip having been irrevocably lost at his death. Katharine was repeatedly made to write for Henry on the subject. He endeavoured to work upon her and her father by declaring void the marriage compact between her and his son, because the dowry had not been remitted, while she complained of the humiliating contempt to which she was subjected on that account in England.

Ferdinand was sagacious enough to put the English king off with a semblance of agreement; he even did not hesitate to commission Katharine to act as his representative in these marriage negotiations together with Puebla, whom she hated. He made ample promises to do his utmost in the matter, being desirous in any case to keep it in his own hands; he was, moreover, convinced that the poor mad woman, who in her infatuation refused to part from the body of her dead husband, would never be induced to contract a new marriage. And if by this procrastination the union already decided on between Henry and Margaret were broken off, Ferdinand would have achieved all he could wish for. Accordingly all his answers were guarded by conditions. He protected himself behind Joanna’s wishes, who, he said, if ever she married again, should receive no other husband than the king of England, so distinguished for his virtues. Meanwhile these delays placed Henry in the most uncomfortable situation with regard to his suit for the hand of Margaret, and Ferdinand, whose paternal heart was, in such matters, not easily affected, was only too well pleased that his daughter, and not he, should bear the brunt of Henry’s anger. Henry now pressed on his cause with more and more vigour. Puebla was made to write that his love was marvellously great; Katharine was compelled even to inform Joanna herself of the deep impression which she had made on the king during her short visit to the English court in February, 1506, and of the sorrow he had felt at her departure. Henry outdid himself in such evidences of want of taste as this; he was incited to press his suit more strongly by a rumour that Joanna was about to marry a French noble—the Lord of Foix.

Ferdinand expressly denied any such projects; at the same time his account of Joanna was not very satisfactory. She was still causing Philip’s corpse to be carried about wherever she went, and would entertain no thoughts of another marriage. He reported her condition as indescribable. She had to be treated with the greatest caution, and could not be contradicted. And so the matter rested. Very strange it was that Henry should not from the beginning have perceived the true state of affairs, and that he should engage in a fruitless negotiation, which brought him neither profit nor glory.

The only result of this interlude was that the relations between the two kings became more strained than ever; Henry tried by obstinately holding back in the affair of the marriage of their children to make Ferdinand more inclined to yield. Other plans for Prince Henry were spoken of, a match with Philip and Joanna’s daughter Eleonora, and again with Margaret of Angouleme, but it was not till the end of 1508 that there was any mention of Henry’s consent to the French proposals.

It would seem, however, that Henry had no serious intention of carrying out these schemes, nor of really breaking off the marriage already agreed to. In these divers projects his sole object was to put pressure on Ferdinand with regard to his own marriage with Joanna, and the payment of the hundred thousand crowns still due of Katharine’s dowry. But Ferdinand was content to let him wait, while Katharine alone suffered. The poor princess was spared no vexation. Her physician on one occasion announced that she had recovered her bodily health, that her only suffering was from troubles of mind, which lay outside the province of medical skill. She and her attendants positively endured privations. No promise made at the time of her marriage was kept. She was treated worse than any other woman in England; and she scarcely ever received money from either Ferdinand or Henry to afford her even temporary assistance. To Henry, Ferdinand insisted emphatically on the fact that the marriage once concluded could not be dissolved; as for the dowry, after having twice succeeded in obtaining a postponement of the date of payment, he at last really held out hopes of paying. At the beginning of 1508, our old friend Fuensalida, now governor of Membrilla, was sent over to England; but as soon as Henry was offered the payment in the form agreed to by treaty, he demanded the whole sum in coin, whereas, according to the treaty, a portion of it was to be covered by the valuables in Katharine’s possession. Ferdinand, who had already once gone so far as to threaten war, now showed himself intensely irritated with this and with the treatment of Katharine, but notwithstanding his angry remonstrances, he gave way on all points, and sent the necessary instructions to the Italian bankers, Grimaldo and Vivaldo. He only impressed caution on his envoy, saying the payment was not to be made if Henry did not permit the completion of the marriage, “for when one has to deal with people of little faith and honour, caution is necessary.” Finally he intimated that the English were even capable of poisoning Katharine in order to keep her dowry.

Ferdinand had been obliged again and again to give way, and his words convey his annoyance. On the other hand, Henry took a certain pleasure in paying out his old ally for humiliations of the same sort, which he had suffered at Spanish hands during the first years of his reign. Scarcely had he extorted all the concessions, when he suddenly announced that, as the payment had been delayed, the treaty was dissolved, and that the marriage should therefore not take place. At the same time he began to intrigue against Ferdinand with other foreign Powers. Finally he refused any longer to admit the Spanish ambassador to audience, and when Fuensalida rode to the palace he was denied admittance by the guard, who seized his mule by the bridle and compelled him to turn back.

Thus the end was bitter enmity between the two monarchs. They did not advance one step towards reconciliation, and Katharine in a letter to her father poured forth despairing lamentations. She declared she could no longer endure her position, that she only received the barest necessaries of life, doled out to her like alms, that she had to sell her household effects, and if Ferdinand did not soon send her assistance something might happen, which neither he nor Henry would be able to prevent. The unhappy princess, who had experienced trouble enough for her three and twenty years, declared in what proved to be her last words before the death of the hard-hearted English king, that she feared she could not survive the trials she had had to endure.

Henry’s own matrimonial project does not afford a sufficient explanation for his constant refusal to conclude the marriage of Katharine and young Henry, and certainly not for his insulting withdrawal at the last, when there could have been no more talk of his own hopes of Joanna. The real aim of Henry’s policy with regard to Ferdinand was still to compel him to give his consent to another marriage project, for not only had Henry, in spite of his designs on Joanna, continued to try to move the cold heart of Margaret, but at the same time and with better result, the marriage already proposed between the Archduke Charles and the Princess Mary was being negotiated. It was the hope of marrying his daughter with the heir presumptive to the enormous dominions belonging to the Spanish and Hapsburg Houses, and of extorting from Ferdinand his formal agreement to the match, that determined Henry’s attitude with regard to the Catholic king.

As far back as the year 1499, the Duke of Milan had talked to the king of a marriage for Mary with his eldest son. Then during the meeting at Calais, Mary’s marriage with the Archduke Charles had been discussed, but the plan was frustrated by the treaties of Lyons and Trent, on the 5th of August and 13th of October, 1501, which bestowed on Charles the hand of Louis XII’s daughter Claude. But the French king had never been in earnest about this, and after his investiture with Milan and his treaty with Ferdinand he made known without reserve the other wishes he entertained. Claude’s marriage with Francis of Angouleme was announced formally in May, 1506, in presence of the Estates assembled at Tours.

Upon this the hopes of the English revived. Already during Philip’s involuntary sojourn in England, compacts, either by word of mouth or by letter, had been made about Charles and Mary, the exact purport of which, however, we do not know. Perhaps there was a desire to make up to Henry for his disappointment with regard to Margaret; at any rate Maximilian, writing on the 14th of September, 1506, to the English king, told him of Louis’s breach of faith, and proposed, as from himself, the marriage of Charles with Mary; Philip’s consent, he said, had been secured by him. In fact, in July, the English envoy, Dr. West, had already spoken on the matter to Philip at Valladolid.

At that time three subjects stood ready for negotiation—the still undecided question of the commercial treaty, the marriage of King Henry with Margaret, and of Charles with Mary. After Philip’s death the agreement about trade was the first to be concluded, and the prospects for Henry himself were the most gloomy. Notwithstanding his efforts to win the insane Joanna, he had prosecuted with energy his suit to Margaret, with a view to securing a bride in any case, and on account of these negotiations had urged as strongly upon Ferdinand the necessity of coming to an agreement about the marriage of Charles and Mary. It was his hopes with regard to Margaret which led him to concede so much in the commercial treaty of May, 1507; in the autumn, negotiations were carried on still more vigorously, and Henry tried to make a favourable impression on the archduchess by a present of six horses and several greyhounds. Margaret does not seem to have been averse to marrying again, for she must have previously expressed some desire on the subject, when her father wrote to her that in no case would Henry consent to her marriage with the Prince of Wales. The son, apparently, would not have been displeasing to her, but Maximilian sought in vain to win her for the father; he was anxious that she should at least keep Henry in good humour in order to prevent him from combining with France and Spain. He promised to stipulate in the marriage contract that she should remain mistress of the Netherlands and live there four months in the year. Puebla was told by Henry that she had written very amiably, and the letter itself was read to him by the king, but all arguments of a personal and political nature, even the suggestion that she would thereby endanger the marriage of Charles and Mary, were of no avail. Margaret excused herself on the grounds of her former ill-luck in marriage, of her fear that she would not have any children, and therefore would be displeasing to Henry; she also laid stress on the unsuitable dowry agreed upon with Philip. To this answer once given, she held firm.

Though it appears from this that Henry himself was not very successful in his efforts to obtain a bride, the other matrimonial alliance between the two royal Houses was, after tedious negotiations, brought to a successful issue in the year 1507. Henry’s plenipotentiary met those of Maximilian and Margaret at Calais, and on the 21st of December concluded two treaties of marriage and alliance; the betrothal was to take place at Easter, 1508, and within a fortnight after the completion of Charles’s fourteenth year the marriage was to be solemnized by proxy in England, and in like manner at the court of Charles; in default of the final conclusion of the marriage and the payment of the first instalment of the dowry, fixed at two hundred and fifty thousand crowns, heavy money penalties were to be incurred. The treaty of alliance of the same date contained the usual obligations for mutual defence, and for protection against rebels.

With much satisfaction Henry announced the conclusion of this treaty to the city authorities. He laid great stress on the advantages to be gained by this new alliance, especially with regard to the free and safe commercial intercourse with all those countries over which Charles would one day rule. The occasion was celebrated in the metropolis by popular rejoicings and bonfires, and the nobles of the country began to exercise themselves in knightly games, in view, it was reported, of the tournaments which would be held in honour of the betrothal.

In July, 1505, the English ambassadors had been received in Spain in a friendly and conciliatory spirit. Ferdinand appeared willing to promote, to the best of his power, a marriage between his grandson Charles and Mary. Now, the treaty having been concluded, the king seemed somewhat put out; he regretted that Henry had not communicated with him beforehand, as he had shown himself favourable to the compact. But his attitude became more hostile when Henry urged upon him, together with the other claims on his compliance, the express obligation to ratify this marriage. Henry was able to adopt this firm attitude towards Ferdinand because of his close alliance with Maximilian and Burgundy. As Katharine, too, somewhat later suggested, Henry, after this matrimonial treaty, would no longer consider Ferdinand necessary to him. Ferdinand expressed himself openly. From what his ambassadors told him, this marriage, instead of increasing their friendship, would, he believed, have a contrary effect. He wondered that so sagacious a king as Henry should ask him to approve of a treaty of which not even a copy had been sent him : for even the most ordinary men are not, as a rule, supposed to sign documents without having studied them. He promised, indeed, to show himself favourable to it, if in return the contract between Katharine and young Henry should at last be concluded; but, in spite of these assurances, he was really resolved not to concur in an alliance thus directed against himself.

That all the princes should seek the friendship of Henry arose once more from the general political situation of the last few years, for, while the attention of the great Powers was turned to Italy, Henry remained in the advantageous position of a spectator not immediately concerned in the affair.

After the renewed contest for Naples between Ferdinand and Louis XII had been decided in Ferdinand’s favour, the enmity, which till then had existed between these two monarchs, yielded to a peaceful accommodation. Almost at the same time, the friendly understanding which had been with difficulty arrived at between Maximilian and France gave place, in consequence of the rupture of the marriage treaty, to a renewal of hostility. In the year 1506 French assistance, hitherto always granted to the Duke of Gueldres, had been withheld; but, in the following year, Louis made use to the full of the opportunity afforded him by this pugnacious firebrand to harass the Regent’s government in the Netherlands, and give them no time to breathe.

The King of the Romans saw with displeasure that Louis had, by his campaign of 1507, re-established his ascendancy in North Italy, and that Ferdinand, after remaining some time in Naples, was able to leave it a secure possession for his crown. But Maximilian was especially angered by the stand made by the other Powers interested in Italy against the scheme he had formed of an armed expedition to Rome for the purpose of getting the imperial crown, which had not yet been bestowed on him. At the same time the idea had again arisen in his mind of regaining the old imperial ascendancy over the Pope and the papal dominions. These extravagant schemes were shattered at the very outset. He once more assumed at Trent, on the 4th of February, 1508, the title of Roman emperor elect; but the campaign he opened with Venice ended in his defeat, and he was forced, on the 6th of June, to conclude a three years’ truce.

He had tried to gain the friendship of England against Spain and France, the two Powers which stood in his way; and it was in the midst of these great political schemes that the negotiations with Henry had been carried on, and the marriage treaty of December, 1507, concluded. Henry showed himself quite ready for any move against Ferdinand. Naples, as well as the whole of the Aragonese inheritance of Maximilian’s grandson Charles, had, for a while at least, been imperilled by Ferdinand’s second marriage. Maximilian constituted himself Philip’s heir, and contested with Ferdinand the regency in Castile, in the interest of the insane Joanna and her young son Charles. Henry himself had already expressed his readiness to help in furthering any claims Maximilian might make on the regency, when the emperor made on his part the same proposal to the English king through Andrea de Burgo, who arrived in London on the 4th of July, 1508.

It is said that negotiations were entered into for a personal meeting between Henry and Margaret and her father. The young Charles was to be sent to England. Henry was, at his own expense, to secure for him the possession of Castile, to marry Joanna, and, as stepfather, to undertake the direction of affairs there, with the authorisation of the emperor, Charles’s de facto guardian. In return, Maximilian was to receive a share of the revenues, and, what he most desired, help from Henry against France. The king, in part at least, fell in with these ideas. He characterised Ferdinand’s administration of Castile as a usurpation, which was only made possible by union with France; and, in order to sever this union, he was prepared to marry the Prince of Wales to Margaret of Angouleme; he actually made plans for a great European coalition to the exclusion of Aragon, which he expected would soon put an end to Ferdinand’s power in Castile.

This friendly answer contained, however, the unpleasant truth that Henry was averse to lending Maximilian aid against France. This was vexatious, as it was France alone that enabled the Duke of Gueldres to continue his resistance so long; but at that time Henry entertained less than ever any idea of hostilities against Louis, from whom he was just expecting another payment due to him by treaty. In response, therefore, to the pressure put on him by Margaret’s envoys, he only showed himself prepared to act as a mediator. He certainly could not plunge into war for an affair that concerned him so little; but as he openly declared that it would never do for Louis to permit the Duke of Gueldres to be annihilated, the old anxiety again arose whether he might not definitely take the side of France, while in France also they did not feel confident of his neutrality. The French, therefore were glad to possess in Richard de la Pole a good ally in the event of any possible hostilities on the part of Henry, and a plan was made, should these occur, of sending a French body of troops to Cornwall under the command of Richard.

We can hardly suppose that Henry’s attitude had any influence on the schemes of the various princes concerned. Maximilian was chiefly affected by the shipwreck of his plans in North Italy; he agreed to accommodation on pressure from his daughter, and empowered her, on the 23rd of July, to conclude a truce for two months with Charles of Gueldres, pending further negotiations, and to come to an understanding also on the subject with France. But it was not till the following October that the duke, deserted by France, was forced to make a truce, which was extended till the conclusion of the negotiations going on between the emperor and France. These were held at Cambray, and were to be conducted by Margaret in the interests of Maximilian, and by the Cardinal d’Amboise as Louis’s representative.

The prospect of an understanding with France made Maximilian alter at once his attitude towards Henry. Already there was much that was unaccountable in the relations with England since the conclusion of the treaties of marriage and amity in December, 1507. On the 22nd of February, 1508, Maximilian executed both treaties, and the treaty of alliance a second time on the 26th of March, in conjunction with Charles; the required written securities of important persons, towns, and corporations, were also in part obtained; but Margaret’s ratification, and that of her own and her father’s pecuniary obligations, which were specially to be fulfilled, were not forthcoming; nor did her envoys appear, who were to hand in the ratifications before Easter, 1508, and to perform the ceremony of betrothal. One excellent excuse for postponement was afforded by a severe illness which attacked Henry in February, 1508, and from which he only slowly recovered in the course of the summer. Henry well knew how he could best gain over the needy emperor, and, on the conclusion of the treaty, promised him, in return for satisfactory securities, a loan of a hundred thousand crowns, for which Maximilian had petitioned when their friendly overtures were beginning in December, 1506. In return, Henry urged the immediate despatch of the embassy for the betrothal.

But Maximilian had not even yet renounced the hope that the treaty of marriage, broken off by Louis, might still be renewed; and in July, 1508, he stated quite openly in presence of his daughter, that his main point in the conclusion of the treaty with England, had been the prospect of receiving a large sum of money from Henry; he intended now to take no further steps until he had ascertained that Henry was satisfied with the securities offered for the loan. He was quite silent about a personal interview, and Henry asked his ambassador, later, whether anything had been said on the subject. In July, 1508, the king expressed more emphatically his old desire for a marriage with Margaret, but Maximilian now showed himself indifferent to a scheme which he had before so zealously urged.

In the month of August, Henry sent to the Netherlands a special envoy to hasten on the matter, and this envoy was none other than his chaplain, Thomas Wolsey, whom he had already, at the beginning of the year, intrusted with a mission to Scotland, and who was afterwards to become the great adviser of his son. We learn nothing as to the details of this first journey of Wolsey’s to the Netherlands; probably his mission was then to set aside the obstacles which still stood in the way of the marriage of Charles and Mary. In this he succeeded, for on the 1st of October, 1508, Margaret executed the marriage treaty, and, on the nth, followed engagements as to the fines fixed by the treaty, should the marriage not take place.

Wolsey, who appeared for the second time in the Netherlands at the beginning of October, announced the arrival of a solemn English embassy, under the leadership of the Earl of Surrey, which had been prepared by Henry in July. On the 11th of October, Maximilian sent out from Schonhoven the Lord of Berghes, with several companions, empowered to exchange ratifications in England, and to conclude the betrothal there in the usual manner; another power, signed by Maximilian and Charles, but for Berghes alone, followed on the 27th. It was not till after the reception of the Englishmen at Antwerp on the 31st, that his embassy set forth and was received at Greenwich on the 7th of December by Henry, who did not conceal his displeasure at the protracted delay. The solemnisation of the marriage took place on the 17th, in presence of the king and numerous witnesses. Berghes, as proxy for Charles, held Mary’s right hand in his, declared, in the French tongue, that he took her for his wedded wife, and the princess having replied in the same manner, he kissed her, and placed a gold ring on her middle finger, as a sign that the union was accomplished.

The financial settlement, described by Maximilian as the most important point, followed this ceremony. We have no exact information on this subject. The emperor left in pawn, for fifty thousand crowns, a large precious stone, called “la riche Fleur de Lys,” in a costly setting; a considerably higher sum, however, was paid him.

Thus, as far as was possible at the time, the union of Charles and Mary was completed; the only one of all the marriage projects of Henry’s last years which might, in the future, promise a successful issue ; but a fate seemed to hang over the work of the king’s later life, and this project also in the end fell to the ground.

Meanwhile he had not forgotten to prosecute the scheme for his own marriage, and this was Wolsey’s chief task on his second mission. Henry wished to leave no stone unturned. The prospect of a substantial reward, should the desired end be attained, was held out to the Bishop of Gurk, to whom Wolsey was specially recommended, and who already held an English benefice. But this last attempt on Henry’s part proved fruitless; his former ally, the emperor, now made difficulties, and it was in vain, too, that Henry tried to move Margaret by a letter addressed directly to herself. From this letter we learn more in detail what his views were. He wanted, as the husband of Margaret, to take into his own hands the administration of the Netherlands, and to the Bishop of Gurk was held out the promise of the entire direction of affairs under the king. It is possible that even this last effort was not made in earnest, for we are told that Henry had already declared himself prepared to renounce Margaret, if he could succeed in obtaining the hand of the insane Joanna and the regency of Castile. Whatever further advantages Henry may have expected from these two pro­jects, whatever he may have imagined he could in the end achieve, the one plan was just as unlikely to be realised as the other.

Now it was that Henry displayed his hostile feeling towards Ferdinand more plainly than ever. At the express desire of the archduchess, he had sent an emissary to the conferences, held at Cambray, by Margaret and the Cardinal d’Amboise; and here, too, more even than in the negotiations we know of with Maximilian, he endeavoured to work against the interests of the Catholic king. Not only was the union between France and Aragon to be severed, but the usurper Ferdinand was to be excluded from all future alliances.

But no one gave heed to such propositions, the fruit of mere personal animosity. England took but little share in the treaty at Cambray of the 10th of December, 1508. Here the affair of Gelderland was the only question settled in accordance with earlier proposals of Henry’s, the kings of France, England, and Scotland being appointed arbitrators; for the rest, the contract between Charles and Claude, the renewal of which Maximilian had so long desired, remained unfulfilled, and Louis’s investiture with Milan was again confirmed, on payment of a sum of money. The Pope, the kings of England and Aragon, and the princes of the Empire were named protectors to guarantee the execution of the treaty.

Still less was there any question of the exclusion of Ferdinand from the secret treaty of alliance formed at the same time, and known as the League of Cambray. This league was based on the same iniquitous political morality as the earlier Franco-Spanish treaty for the partition of Naples. The Powers whose interests were in conflict in Italy made common cause against one victim, Venice, and to each confederate was apportioned, by way of satisfying his claims, a share of the common spoil. At first the compact was only made between the emperor and France, but the Pope and Ferdinand soon joined it, and Henry, who was also free to enter it, alone kept aloof. He only lived to see the first preparations for an attack on the Republic.

The admission of Ferdinand, which ran directly counter to all Henry’s stipulations, would in any case have predisposed him against the League. The feeling of dislike, nay, of hatred against the Aragonese king was almost the main factor in his policy during the last half of the year 1508. In vain do we seek for any really substantial ground for this behaviour; quite at the last, however, it seemed somewhat to change for the better. No doubt the settlement of December, 1507, between Charles and Mary had been, to say the least, unpleasing to Ferdinand, but the fact once accomplished, he showed himself still more prepared to give in. In Spain there were many complaints of contemptuous treatment by England, and also of damage done to trade; but Ferdinand promised that he and Joanna would ratify the marriage treaty as soon as Maximilian and Margaret should have done the same. He only insisted that Katharine’s marriage should first be completed; he declared that he had bound himself to this by oath. Henry’s attitude, too, gave hopes of a change; by a special envoy he announced his wish for the accomplishment of the marriage contract. But Henry VII never fulfilled these better intentions; that was reserved for his son.

Henry’s relations with Spain had ended in a manner which could hardly have been expected from the way they had begun. It was in his dealings with that country that he made his first attempts in politics, and grew to be a master, and nowhere can we trace, more clearly the decline of his policy during the last period of his life. Quite apart from the fact that this policy was from the outset obviously impracticable, his unworthy conduct towards Katharine, and his wooing of the insane Joanna, are episodes which we would willingly obliterate from the history of the first Tudor king.

RELATIONS WITH ROME, SCOTLAND, AND IRELAND.

As had been the case with the Holy League, so now with the League of Cambray, a pretended danger to the Pope was made to serve as a cloak for the political selfishness of the Powers. It was a mere pretext, but for no one more so than for the English king. The conflicts in Italy concerned him but little, the relations between him and the states of Italy being of slight importance. This also was shown in Henry’s relations with the Roman Curia. The prompt recognition of his sovereignty by Innocent VIII., whose bull was expressly confirmed by Alexander VI (October 7, 1494), had been of value to him; so had the intervention of the papal Curia against the rebels who had defied that recognition. Hence his relations with the Pope were marked by a courteous friendliness, which was never seriously affected by slight differences of opinion.

All three Popes, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI, and Julius II, had sent the consecrated cap and sword to Henry, and on each occasion these had been received by him with befitting solemnity. Innocent, however, showed himself somewhat disinclined to raise Morton to the dignity of cardinal, and it was left for Alexander VI to comply with the royal wishes. Julius II also hesitated for a while before he acquiesced in the request for a dispensation for the marriage of Henry and Katharine. Henry in return showed himself somewhat unyielding on the question of the alum trade, which materially concerned the financial interests of the Curia. In defiance of the papal monopoly protected by the Church’s ban, a Spanish ship carried alum from Piombino V in Italy in the first year of Henry’s reign, and had been captured by Englishmen. The Pope’s representatives declared the cargo forfeited, but the English judges decided that the goods of a merchant travelling under the king’s safe conduct were under English protection, and they proved by numerous precedents that the Pope could not encroach on the king’s temporal prerogative. When, at a later date, a similar case arose, Henry went so far as to promise to protect the Pope’s v interests, but frequent complaints of a repetition of the offence during the years 1505 and 1506, when the destruction or seizure of the goods was demanded by the Pope, show that this promise was not kept by England.

With a view to giving a special dignity to his dynasty, which he regarded as the lineal descendant of the House of Lancaster, Henry ardently desired that this House should, by the canonization of the royal martyr Henry VI, add a new saint to the Church of England. He therefore addressed a request to all three Popes, Innocent, Alexander, and Julius, but received from them all nothing beyond evasive answers, and instructions to the Archbishop of Canterbury and others to collect the necessary information on the life and acts of the proposed saint. Henry’s assertion that miracles had been wrought at the tomb of the last of the House of Lancaster was not considered sufficient, and Rome was careful not to raise to this high dignity a king well known to be weak in intellect. All that Julius would grant, was permission for the solemn removal of the bones of Henry VI from Windsor to Westminster.

It is evident that in determining the line of demarcation between the prerogatives of Church and State, Henry acted with caution, though at the same time with the distinct resolve in no way to relinquish his kingly authority. He insisted from time to time that he had no intention of interfering with the rights of the Church, and in matters connected with Church reform he left to the ecclesiastical authorities a perfectly free hand. Monastic discipline had suffered somewhat during the civil wars, and there was need of drastic reform. To this end, in Henry’s first parliament, the bishops were empowered to exceed their proper authority, and to impose secular punishments for immorality on clerics under their jurisdiction. At the beginning of the year 1486, the Convocation of Canterbury passed resolutions condemning the disorderly conduct of the clergy, who spent whole days in taverns, and did not even conform to the rules of dress and tonsure. In March, Pope Innocent commissioned Morton to institute a strict visitation, and to punish offenders. The archbishop forthwith opened pro­ceedings against the Benedictine monastery of St. Albans, where the abbot had squandered the property of the monastery, had permitted laxity in discipline to increase, and had set an adulteress over a nunnery under his authority. Morton himself made a visitation throughout many dioceses, but we have a more detailed account of a visitation undertaken by Bishop Goldwell in the diocese of Norwich. He there discovered scandals of various kinds—lax monastic discipline, intercourse with the world, and par­ticipation in its pleasures, admission of women within the precincts, and gross mismanagement of the property of the monasteries. We also know that Henry himself gave permission to Lawrence Burelly, Vicar-general of the Carmelite Order, to inspect the English religious houses.

Henry maintained his influence in ecclesiastical matters by his appointments to bishoprics. These were generally only conferred on Englishmen, except when Henry desired to reward or bribe a foreigner. In this way, in 1497, John de Giglis obtained the bishopric of Worcester, which on his death shortly after, in 1498, was given to his brother Silvester, who had acted in Rome as Henry’s representative, with Cardinal Hadrian of Castello, appointed in 1504 Bishop of Bath and Wells. The election by the chapter, which took place after the royal permission had been granted, was always in accordance with the king’s recommendation; and in the case of Worcester the temporalities of the see had already been handed over by the king to John de Giglis before the congé d’élire had been granted. The elevation of William Warham to the see of Canterbury as second successor to Morton is noteworthy. The king emphatically commended the choice of Warham to the prior and chapter of the cathedral, and on the 24th of January, 1504, followed the bestowal of the temporalities. The installation and the administration of the oath were accompanied by much ceremonial; in a detailed description of the solemnities, even the bill of fare for the various classes of guests is not forgotten.

Although Henry made concessions from time to time, he was careful to maintain his kingly prerogatives. He was lord over his clergy, and drew from their ranks his most able ministers, such as Morton, Fox, and Warham. With him the , interests of the State were paramount, and this is clearly seen in his dealings with the Curia on the very important question of war against the Turk.

Ever since the crusades, war against the Infidel had continued to be regarded by Christendom as the highest ideal; it was extolled, ardently desired, and promised, but, as the political interests of the European Powers pushed themselves to the front, the enterprise itself receded further and further into the background, till at last the cry became a mere pretence wherewith each might hide the real aim of his selfish policy. The Pope declared that war with the Turks was the ultimate object of the Powers combined together in the Holy League against France; but these Powers could not more strongly have belied his words than they did by their League of Cambray, made some years later against Venice, one of the strongest bulwarks of Christendom towards the east—Venice, which towards the end of the century had for many years carried on an exhausting war against the Turks.

The Turkish war, further, supplied the Pope with a welcome pretext for imposing a crusade tax which should fill the papal coffers. Henry was the prince least interested in these matters; yet, when he returned home after the victory at Stoke in 1487, John de Giglis was sent as papal nuncio to him, with a request for a crusade tax. The attempt does not seem to have been very successful, and when, two years later, Malvezzi appeared with fresh papal indulgences ready for sale, the situation was little favourable for his purpose. Henry, indeed, permitted the papal bull to be promulgated, and Morton himself communicated it to his suffragan bishops, but the task of making the collection was left to the papal emissaries alone. They imagined the bishops to be favourable, but their hearts sank when, on one occasion, having opened their collecting-box after it had been passed round at court, they found that the contributions of the royal family and the assembled dukes, earls, and high officials, only amounted to eleven pounds and as many shillings. Henry, however, at least renounced his claim to any share of the moneys collected. An equally unfavourable moment was selected for a proclamation of a sale of indulgences in the year 1497, just when Henry had succeeded in suppressing the Cornish insurrection; he therefore strongly urged upon Alexander to defer his scheme, at any rate, for the present.

On one occasion it was pointed out to the Pope as a special merit of Henry’s that he, unlike other monarchs, had himself made over to the Roman chair two subsidies for the crusade. Ferdinand and Isabella warned him expressly not to trust such money to Alexander VI, as he was capable of using it for other purposes.

The increasing danger threatened by the advance of the Osmanli from Hungary on Carinthia and Carniola, more especially the serious condition of Venice in the Mediterranean, and the fall of Lepanto, followed shortly afterwards by that of Modon, awakened the anxiety of the whole western world. Ferdinand and Louis XII sent assistance, all turned also to Henry, and urgent requests for help were sent to England during the years 1500 to 1503.

The king received these appeals with some coldness; he went so far, indeed, as to empower Gigli and Cardinal Hadrian in February, 1500, to represent him at a congress in Rome. They were to take part in the deliberations, but were not authorised to make any settlement. In the same way, he had sent to the kings of Spain and France to express his sorrow at the disastrous state of affairs, but regretted that the distance at which his kingdom lay prevented him from giving any substantial help.

Pope Alexander at once tried to utilise the situation in his own fashion. The jubilee year of 1500 had attracted crowds of pilgrims to Rome ; but in order that the blessing of absolution might be extended to those who were unable to visit the holy places, nuncio, Gaspar Pons, was despatched to England at the end of 1501. The proceeds of the indulgences which he had to sell were to be devoted to the Turkish war. Pons had been given the highest powers of absolution, and was provided with a scale for the sale of indulgences, graduated according to the income of each person. The tax of a tenth, which was to have been imposed on the clergy, was by the Province of Canterbury redeemed by a payment of £12,000, but York agreed to the tenth. Pons reaped a golden harvest. Henry himself contributed £4000, but did not desire to hear further about the crusade. It was a noble thing, he said, that the Pope should wish to promote peace among the princes of Christendom, for this holy purpose; he himself, God be thanked, had long been at peace with all of them ; he could, however, offer no help, the claims upon France, Spain, as well as Hungary and Poland, were greater.

As had been shown by his gift of money to the Pope, Henry had not altogether held back from the common cause of Christendom, and this he further proved when at the beginning of 1502 the envoys of the most hard-pressed powers, Venice and Hungary, came over to England. It was reported that he dismissed them in the roughest way, saying, whoever had not the means to carry on war with the Turks ought to make peace; but in fact he promised assistance in money to the Hungarian ambassador, and sent one Geoffrey Blyth to King Ladislaus to treat in the matter. There was considerable delay before payment, but it was finally made, though to what amount we do not know. Henry showed himself much more active, however, when his own interests were involved, and in June, 1502, he sent off 10,000 to Maximilian for his Turkish war, in order to prevent him from supporting Suffolk any longer.

The sacrifices, however, which Henry made for the great cause of Christendom were certainly not heavy, and he steadily refused to give any assistance in men and ships; the ruler of the island kingdom of the West left the defence of the East to those who felt themselves most in danger.

Some time after, when Louis XII, stirred up by Portugal, was negotiating with him about a crusade, we hear him expressing quite different sentiments. Then Henry spoke of a crusade as if it were the ardent desire of his heart, from the fulfilment of which he had been hitherto withheld, but which he now hoped to set on foot, to the praise of God, with the aid of France and Portugal, and perhaps even to take part in it himself.

We might at first suppose this to be mere talk, but many things seem to have weighed upon the king’s mind towards the end of his life, concerning which he desired to make his peace with Heaven. In the year 1506 the knights of Rhodes had appointed him their patron, and in May, 1507, he invited Pope Julius to summon the princes of Christendom to a war against the Infidel. “He had always aimed at peace, and had never striven after conquests. It was repugnant to him to shed Christian blood, but he would willingly shed the blood of unbelievers.” The letter was read before the college of cardinals, and a copy sent to various courts. The Pope declared he had been so much overjoyed at it that he had read it through ten times, but added that for his part he did not need such admonitions. When, however, the time for action arrived, the Pope excused himself. He did no more than show his goodwill by an invitation to Henry to join him in mediating between Maximilian and Louis XII, and trying to turn their arms against the Turks. Yet Henry did not so easily relinquish his idea; he tried to overcome the papal scruples, and spoke to others of a crusade against Africa, and of an armed expedition he proposed to make into Hungary; he also permitted the Pope to proclaim an indulgence to raise funds for building St. Peter’s Church. Shortly before his death a reminder came once more from Rome. The failing king commended the idea, but said his bodily condition made it impossible for him to comply with the summons.

Thus in the question of a crusade, his policy was as uncertain as it was in other directions. Instead of quietly holding to the standpoint of English interests, he indulged in far-reaching schemes and ideas, perhaps he even went so far as to believe that he would be able to carry them out. In any case this was never to be, for at that moment the Pope had joined the League of Cambray, and was making preparations for the overthrow of Venice.

When announcing his willingness to take part in a Turkish war, Henry made an assertion in which he was fully justified, namely, that he was then at peace with the other Powers. However strained his relations with Ferdinand might be, the sagacity habitually displayed by these two monarchs would have prevented any definite rupture between them. The danger that threatened the friendship with Scotland, founded upon the matrimonial alliance, was also only transitory.

Here at first matters had gone on quietly and peacefully. The modest English dowry had been paid with punctuality, and James, going beyond the assurance which he had at first only given by word of mouth, entered on the 12th of July, 1505, into a written agreement not to renew the old alliance of Scotland with France. The very plain-spoken letter he wrote to Charles of Gueldres with regard to Suffolk had been quite to Henry’s mind. He now continued to behave with coldness to Duke Charles, and, following the example set by England, merely responded to appeals for help by declaring himself, in June, 1506, willing to act as a friendly intercessor. He had previously entered into a correspondence with Charles’s antagonist Philip during Philip’s residence in England.

But his conduct was now soon to undergo a change. It was certainly not with the view of promoting Henry’s interests that James interfered in Irish affairs. The elder O’Donnell, who had assumed the position of a ruler in Ulster, was dependent on James, and his son even called him a subject of the Scotch king. He did not, it is true, receive any armed help in his perpetual feuds, but both father and son received from James the assurance of his confidence and good-will.

The fact was that French influence was making itself felt in Scotland ; and here came into play those doubts which had arisen in France as to Henry’s possible attitude with regard to the war in Gelderland, which, stirred up by France, had just broken out again. In January, 1507, James had already written to Henry, this time clearly in the interest of Duke Charles, threatening that if Henry took part with Charles’s enemies, his own alliance with England must be dissolved, and the sword again decide between them? It was a further source of annoyance to Henry that Scotchmen, among whom were men of high rank, travelled through England in disguise and without passports, and even took with them the envoys of foreign Powers. In this manner, James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, and his brother, Sir Patrick Hamilton, of Kincavill, went over to France in the year 1507. In the following January, when they were about to return in the same way, a gentleman, named Hugh Vaughan, went on the king’s bidding to meet them, and conducted them up to London. Banquets, hospitably provided for them by the city authorities, and a solemn reception by the king, could not disguise from them the fact that they were prisoners.

Henry, in a letter of the 23rd of January, 1508, written with his own hand, made complaints to James, and in March sent off Thomas Wolsey to Scotland to adjust the matter. James spoke of the perpetual warfare on the Border between their respective subjects, and Wolsey was forced to confess to Henry that, according to the information he had gathered, the offences of Englishmen were to those of Scotchmen as four to one. James was especially indignant about the treatment of Arran. He allowed that this nobleman had acted in contravention of treaties, but asserted that it had been against his will, and that Henry had therefore no right to be dissatisfied unless James, on receiving his complaint, had refused to punish the earl. He firmly rejected the offer made by Henry that he would release Arran, if he would promise on oath to return again to England, and declared that if Arran acceded to such a condition, he would hang him when he came back to Scotland. He insisted that Henry had no right to punish the offender, but should, in accordance with the treaty, leave that to his ally.

James assured the ambassador in the most solemn manner of his own loyalty to the treaty, and Wolsey, too, was of opinion that he, the queen, and the Bishop of Murray did adhere to it; but that the Scottish nation, nobles as well as commoners, were demanding a renewal of the league with France. Wolsey proposed a personal meeting between the kings, and James seemed inclined to the idea, though his councillors were against it.

Conflicting reports now reached his country of the manner in which Arran was being treated in England. It is clear that Henry surrounded him with guards and cut him off from intercourse with others. A Scotch doctor, who had secretly gained access to his countryman, was turned out with rough words and “almost with violence ” by Vaughan.

Of the final settlement of this affair we have no exact information. In March, 1508, James had made a request for a safe conduct for the Bishop of Murray. On the 16th of June the bishop came to London, and there remained till the 20th of July, about which time the Scotch lords were set at liberty. There exists an agreement to return to England, dated August 8th, made by Sir Patrick Hamilton in the same form which Henry had demanded from Arran, and Arran, on the 13th of August, went security for his brother. Possibly this middle course had been adopted that both parties might to a certain extent get their own way, but Henry’s aim in imposing this obligation is not quite clear; at any rate, thus the affair ended.

Henry had followed Wolsey’s wise counsel, and had not insisted on a condition which James regarded as incompatible with honour, and therefore would, in no case, have granted. It was obviously best, under the circumstances, to cement the alliance by concession, for it was only thus that Henry could succeed in obtaining fresh guarantees against a Franco-Scottish compact. The attitude of Scotland shows very plainly the importance she attached at all times to a policy of peace with France. That Henry was satisfied with the manner in which Wolsey had conducted this affair is shown by the fact that the king employed him immediately afterwards on a mission to the Netherlands. It seems that James had considerable trouble in holding to the alliance with England against the current of public opinion in his court. The picture of the chivalrous king, as it stands out before us in Wolsey’s report, is drawn with something of the same sympathetic feeling that we find in the earlier description of him given by the Spanish Ayala. The friendship between England and Scotland continued so long as Henry VII lived. It was not till the political relations had completely altered, under the reign of his son, that the old enmity between the neighbour countries again broke out.

Of Ireland, which had earlier been the centre of disorder, there is not much to relate during these latter years of King Henry. The country remained as before in a condition of primitive barbarism, distracted by race feuds. Although Henry had left the government almost entirely in the hands of the Lord Deputy Kildare, some few measures were taken, based on the principle laid down by Poynings’ Act, that if all Ireland could not be brought under control, at any rate the districts under English rule should be made as English as possible. Thus an Irish parliament in 1498 was made to enact that English dress and arms should be worn, and that the upper classes should ride “in a saddle, after the English fashion.” The dwellers within the Pale were thereby compelled to adopt English manners, and attempts were made to separate them as much as possible from uncivilized Ireland. A subsequent parliament, in the year 1508, had to give a general order forbidding commercial intercourse with the wild Irish; with England alone was traffic in horses permitted. In spite of all the efforts at a closer union with England, good care was taken to protect the English against bad Irish money.

Kildare kept himself in favour with the king. In the year 1503 he remained for three months in England, and took back with him his son, who had been held there as hostage, and who soon afterwards was raised to the dignity of Lord Treasurer. The perpetual and endless internal struggles are without general interest. The Lord Deputy himself often took up arms. In 1504 he gained a victory at Knockdoe over his son-in-law, the Lord Clanricarde. He sent, through the Archbishop of Dublin, a special report of this feud to the king, and Henry allowed him to act in the matter as he willed. Not only these destructive combats, but con­stant sufferings from failure of crops, cattle disease, and famine checked the development of the uncultivated land, so that Henry might rest satisfied when the parliament of the English Pale voted him from time to time grants of money. He took a prudent middle course with regard to Ireland, and thus at least made secure for himself the modest power which he possessed there. After describing the year 1504, the Irish chronicler Ware remarks that he is now coming to more peaceful times, which will therefore have fewer great deeds and stirring events to offer, “for peace, golden peace, gives not to the historian such material for description as does war.” Thus Ireland also was in the enjoyment of peace when the days of Henry VII were drawing to a close.

With all the errors of his latter years, Henry still remained true to the leading principles of his policy. His later schemes were not, indeed, productive of good, but they were not able to spoil what had already been accomplished. It seems as if Henry himself had desired to sum up his work when, in making the announcement of the marriage treaty of December, 1507, he wrote thus to the city: “This our realm is now environed, and in manner, closed in every side with such mighty princes our good sons, friends, confederates, and allies, that by the help of our Lord the same is and shall be perpetually established in rest and peace and wealthy condition.”

It has been easy to form a mistaken idea of the foreign policy of the king, unaccompanied as it was by the noise of war and martial glory. What it did was to serve as a wall of defence round the kingdom. Assured peace, an honoured position among the Powers, English trade pushed to the front in the general competition, quiet and security at home under the newly consolidated power of the Crown, rendering for the first time possible a prosperous administration of internal affairs,—all this would have been impossible without the prudent, clear-sighted, judicious, and far-seeing policy of Henry VII.

 

CHAPTER VII. MONARCHICAL POLICY.