The Cambridge Modern History. R. Nisbet Bain
warning from Wolsey, who had to protect his own house at Westminster with a guard and artillery, failed to take adequate steps to prevent it. Troops were despatched into the City by various routes, and cannon were used to quell the disturbance. Two hundred and seventy-eight citizens were taken prisoners, of whom sixty were hanged in different parts of the City, and some beheaded and quartered, the offence being counted treason on account of the King’s amity with foreign princes. The rest were pardoned at the intercession of the Queen and Wolsey.
Another public calamity which speedily followed was a severe outbreak of the Sweating Sickness-an epidemic which first made notable ravages in England immediately after the accession of Henry VII (1485). Wolsey was dangerously ill of it, and the Court was obliged, both this year and, in the year following (1518), to withdraw from the neighbourhood of London for fear of the infection. Early in 1517 a conspiracy to poison Pope Leo X was discovered at Rome, in which some Cardinals were implicated-among others, Cardinal Adrian de Corneto, the papal Collector in England, who held the bishopric of Bath and Wells, originally bestowed upon him by King Henry VII. He exercised his office of collector by deputy, and his sub-collector, the celebrated Polydore Vergil, had already been imprisoned by Wolsey for an intrigue, and had only been released at the Pope’s urgent intercession. Leo seems to have been equally anxious to spare Adrian himself the full penalty of his guilt; but Henry insisted that he should be deprived alike of his cardinalate and of his English bishopric, intending that the latter should be bestowed on Wolsey In commendam, to be held along with the archbishopric of York. The Pope put off the deprivation as long as possible. But both this and another concession he ultimately consented to make, in order to advance a project of his own. For in March, 1517, the Lateran Council, taking advantage of the general peace in Europe, had proposed a Crusade against the Turk, and Leo had before the year was out already sent Legates to some countries to promote it. Henry VIII, however, objected that it was unusual to admit a foreign Legate in England, but said that he would waive the objection if Wolsey also were made Legate de latere at the same time. A joint legatine commission was accordingly issued by Leo in May, 1518, to Cardinal Campeggio and to Wolsey; whereupon the former proceeded as far as Calais. But Cardinal Adrian was not yet deprived of his bishopric, and powerful intercession was used in his behalf. At Calais, therefore, Campeggio had to remain some weeks, until certain intelligence was received of Adrian’s deprivation, when he was conducted across the Channel in July, and received with great magnificence in London.
Nothing came, indeed, of the expedition against the Turk. The selfishness of princes and the double views of the Popes themselves always interfered with such projects. But the proposal for a general peace had for some time formed an admirable blind for negotiations, which had been secretly in progress for a special alliance between England and France. These arose out of private communications concerning Tournay -first, seemingly about ecclesiastical jurisdiction, for the French Bishop always maintained his claim against Wolsey,—afterwards about the town itself, which the French were anxious to recover. No one yet knew what was going on, when in July, 1518, a protocol was signed by Wolsey and the French ambassador, Villeroy, for the surrender of the city and for the future marriage of the Princess Mary to the Dauphin, born in February of that same year. A magnificent embassy then came over in September, and was received by the King in the presence of Cardinal Campeggio. A treaty of universal peace, as it was called, was signed in London by the French ambassadors and the English Privy Council on October 2, and on the next day the King and the ambassadors swore to it at St Paul’s. It was professedly a treaty betweten Leo X, Maximilian, Francis I, Charles of Spain, and Henry VIII, for mutual | defence against invasion; but it was only signed at present by representatives of England and France, time being given to the Pope and the others to confirm it. This in itself, however, made it first of all a closer alliance with France; and two days later further treaties were signed for the marriage, for the surrender of Tournay, and for the settlement of questions about depredations. Bonnivet, the head of the French embassy, then, as proxy for the Dauphin, formally married Mary at Greenwich on October 5, and finally on the 8th another treaty was signed for an interview between the French and English Kings, to take place at Sandingfield near Calais before April 1 of the following year.
Charles of Castile did not like this treaty, but it was for his own interest to confirm it, and he did so in Spain. Thus it formed a fair beginning for a European settlement, and virtually took Campeggio’s mission out of his hands, making England the negotiator of the general peace, and consequently the arbiter of continental differences. To England, however, the great immediate advantage was. in the first place, that France was willing to buy her friendship, by means of an understanding that Albany must be kept from returning to Scotland, and of the payment of 600,000 crowns for the surrender of Tournay- a city which had been very expensive to keep, and to secure which the King had, in 1515, begun to build a citadel. Wolsey, too, surrendered his ineffectual claims on the bishopric (whose revenues he had never been able to draw) for a pension of 12,000 livres.
Early in the next year (1519) the Emperor Maximilian died (January 12). Charles of Spain and Francis I of France immediately became candidates for the succession; and perhaps these events had their share in putting off the interview between the Kings of France and England. But in May Henry himself became a third competitor, sending Pace (now his own Secretary instead of Wolsey’s) to Germany, to suggest in secret objections to both the other candidates and thus win the Electors in his favour. It was a hopeless project, which Wolsey certainly promoted against his own better judgment, because he saw his master set upon it. Moreover, it was a piece of double dealing towards Francis whose candidature Henry had promised to fsupport; and Francis found it out, but did not let the fact disturb the new amity. Charles was elected Emperor (June 28).
This brings us to the threshold of a new epoch, to be treated of in a later volume. During the latter part of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, the constant tendency had been for every kingdom of Europe to consolidate itself and bring feudal lordships into full subjection to the supreme ruler. France felt this necessity most in order to repel the English invader. England herself was made to feel it by the Wars of the Roses. Spain came together under Ferdinand and Isabel, and drove out the Moors. The House of Burgundy, with its rich inheritance in the Netherlands, was a dangerous neighbour to France and a natural ally of England; but, ending in a female, it became joined with the House of Austria which had already attained to the Empire, and was striving to secure it as a dynastic inheritance. The spirit of the times moved even the Papacy, whose territorial claims in Italy Julius II advanced by a warfare much more earthly than spiritual.
The spirit of the times in political matters had been appreciated by Sir Thomas More whose Utopia is described elsewhere in this volume as a classic product of an age of discovery. Such it was in its most striking aspect; but none the less was it in some parts a most faithful transcript of the Machiavellian politics pursued by the princes of Europe, and not least by the King of England. In More’s ideal island inhabited by intelligent pagans we find precisely those arts practised which were practised in the Courts of Christian Europe. While kingdoms were advancing, and domestic peace and security should have found a firmer basis, the rulers of Christendom were cheating each other, engaging in unjust wars, or, like England, paying Swiss mercenaries to fight without declaring themselves belligerents. Henry VII had watched continental politics without allowing himself to be drawn into continental wars. It was otherwise with Henry VIII. Young and popular, and seated on a throne as secure as his father’s was unstable, to him the glories of war had their attractions, and the practices of the Utopians in the conduct of it were not abhorrent. Such things were merely in the way of statesmanship, and when the King was satisfied there was no one to call him to account.
Yet it was a highly polished age. Many ideas of former days, no doubt, had lost their hold. Chivalry had decayed; the talk of crusades against the Turk had become a mockery; the Eastern Empire had passed away, and the pretensions of the Western Empire had become more unreal than ever. But civilisation had recovered from the disorders of papal schisms, internecine wars, and socialistic insurrections. There was marked progress in art and letters, first in Italy, then over the continent of Europe; and if in England there was little art and the young vernacular literature seemed to have languished since Chaucer’s day, yet this country was scarcely behind other nations in cherishing the revived study of the classics. Long before the close of the £fteenth century English monks, like Prior Sellyng of Canterbury, had brought