HENRY VII. on his death-bed saw clearly that his policy of thwarting Ferdinand and seizing the government of Castile in favour of his son-in-law was not one which could be followed out by an inexperienced prince, and much as he distrusted Aragon, he knew it would be better that his son should have him for a friend at the outset than be entangled at once in his rancorous schemes. The prince must buy his own experience, and Henry's advice to him was to marry Katharine with all convenient speed, for naturally she could not remain a hostage in the young King's hands as she had in those of his father. With the King's death dropped the policy of peace at any price, for his son was of the new age, eager to join in the battles of Europe and rich enough to afford himself the gratification of military glory. More than once his father, distrusting all men, had fought for peace with his back to the wall, but Henry VIII., who dreamed of entering Paris at the head of a victorious army, regarded distrust of Spain as a mere maggot in the paternal brain, and, with the wealth of the greatest pawnbroker in Europe at his back, was eager to take the offensive against France.
For the first three years of his reign the King, new-married and happily, was guided by his father-in-law, and was merely a tool in his hands, and in spite of John Stile's warning from Valladolid, Henry did not doubt his goodwill. In order to understand Ferdinand's policy it must be borne in mind that he was influenced by a fear which overhung all his dealings with his allies and his enemies—the fear that Castile would rise against him in favour of its prince. Philip's order to void the country within twenty days[46] was never forgotten, and he lived in hope that Charles might never emerge from a sickly boyhood, for though his daughter, Philip's widow, was a negligible quantity, his grandson, alas, was not. The greater part of Ferdinand's revenues were said to be derived from Castile. He made war and carried his arms into Italy, Africa and France at her expense, but legally his only status there was that of regent for his daughter, Queen Joanna, who existed at Tordesillas, watching there for the resurrection in ten years of her dead husband, Philip, and was, "of no sadness nor wisdom more than a young child and very feeble."[47] Her hysteria had been allowed to develop into clear craziness. Ferdinand trusted none of the Castilian nobles, who feared that his amity with Henry and the latter's marriage with Katharine would deprive them of English help for their prince. After the ratification of the marriage between Mary and Charles, he took into his own hands as precaution all the castles of Galicia,[48] for many of the nobles, like Gonsalvo the great captain, had offered their services secretly to the Emperor for their prince, and Ferdinand feared that Maximilian's success in Northern Italy might preface the revolt of Naples and Sicily to the Prince of Castile. England had been ruled out of the Treaty of Cambrai as not having a stake in Italy, and now Ferdinand wanted to keep her neutral till it suited his convenience. So he proclaimed himself Henry's faithful friend, brother and ally, and said that he accounted all causes belonging to Henry, and himself, and the Queen's grace and the Lady Mary, his noble sister, and the Prince of Castile, as one thing and cause without variance, and that he governed Castile solely for the weal of the prince, "the whych ys and schalbe hys eyre of all hys landys after hys decesse." It was to be a nice little family party, with Ferdinand as paternal despot. He had not the faintest idea in the world of making Charles, whom he hated, his universal heir, but in the wisdom of John Stile, the English agent in Spain, "wordes maye be spoken wythe dyssymulacyon."[49] There was, however, discord in the family. Ferdinand declared that though there was no open breach between him and the Emperor, there was "a little grudge and variance for the governacyon of the realm of Castile," in which the Emperor was unreasonable, and he trusted Maximilian would soon be reformed with reason. At this moment he was working for some modus vivendi with him concerning this "governacyon," and that once arranged, he intended to make common cause with him against France, whose Italian conquests were causing Spain great uneasiness. He made all his dealings with the Low Countries depend on this settlement, and refused to pay Lady Margaret's jointure, long in arrears, and other pensions owing to Flemish subjects, till that was settled. If the Emperor's future was unprosperous in Italy, Margaret was to have a slack answer, but if Maximilian sped prosperously, then Margaret might have her jointure on condition that she negotiated the amity between the Emperor and Aragon.[50]
With France, as may be seen, Ferdinand did not mean to break till it served his purpose. In John Stile's words:—"as touching to the French King that he [Ferdinand] also intendeth for to continue in amity with him, as long as that your highness and your good-father shall think standeth with the honours and profits of your highnesses, and no longer nor otherwise; the King your good-father being joyous and glad that your highness is in amity and good peace with all Christian princes, and his majesty not counselling nor advising your highness as yet for to move any war unto any outward prince, unless that great causes should move your highness there unto."[51] Verily a treaty solemnly sworn to on the Gospels and in sight of the Host was but a cloak to hide new sins against the amity! In his great desire to keep his son-in-law entirely in his own pocket, and to forward this present policy, he had great difficulty in finding an ambassador to send to the English court: a natural Castilian was openly for the prince, an Aragonese for the French, and he ended by sending Luis Carroz, who was well tarred with his master's stick.
After the contract at Cambrai the French, with their usual quick resoluteness, were first in the field in Italy, but their successes, culminating in the battle of Agnadello, 14th May 1509, and the capture of the Venetian general d'Alviano, delighted no one but Maximilian, who hoped to find his opportunity in the weakness of the Venetians, and besieged Padua. The other members of the League, Ferdinand and the Pope, feared both French and Emperor, and the one tore his beard and secretly received at Rome the Venetian envoys asking for help, while the other, who already saw Maximilian holding Naples for his grandson, allowed the Venetians to use his ships, and sent provisions from Naples to Venice, to revictual Padua. "Il cherchait tenir toujours l'Empereur si bas qu'il ne pourroit lever la tÊte," grumbled Gattinare to Margaret,[52] but all the same to break with "ce marrano" would draw in its train trouble with Gueldres and difficulty in getting payment of the duchess's jointure, so those on the gangway between the Empire and France had to sit quietly waiting on opportunity. At this moment Maximilian was the only member of the League who was pursuing a single aim. He wanted to crush the Venetians. Ferdinand, while ostensibly trying to bring about an understanding with Maximilian, was secretly practising against him, and Louis XII., at whose court Imperial, Burgundian and Spanish ambassadors were squabbling over their masters' affairs, was supposed to be furthering this amity between Ferdinand and Maximilian, but all the while was secretly moving against it. He said, for Maximilian had been rebuffed before Padua, that it was not a fair moment to treat, for "un homme reculÉ ne fait jamais appointtement À son profite, et que si l'on veult faire bon appointtement il la fault faire la lance sur la cuisse."[53] Just what Maximilian could not do. "Je ne scay quel Diable fait ses affairs si malheureux,"[54] said the exasperated Burgundian agent De Burgo. However, by December 24 an understanding had been arranged between the grandparents of Charles, and amity concluded. Naples was secured to Aragon, so far as Maximilian was concerned, and Ferdinand began to weave his web round France.
He begged Henry, but secretly, for fear of the French getting wind of it (for the Spanish ambassador in France said that the French had their spies in England, and nothing was spoken in London but straightway it was known in Paris), to try and conclude a league between England, the Emperor, Spain, Flanders; Portugal would join, and Spain would be secure, no stab in the back for her. Henry must write to Julius II. and ask him to join, "so that the said amity and lyage may be made and established before the French King shall have knowledge of the same." For, he lisped to John Stile through his lost front tooth, such a noble league came by the great power and mercy of Almighty God, as did the accord and amity between the Emperor and himself, so that the French King should not attain unto his cruel purpose to destroy and subdue all the countries of Italy. Under such high patronage he foresaw no difficulty in reconciling the Venetians and the Emperor, for simultaneous inspired advice from England, Spain and Rome was to make the Venetians restore to the Emperor all that they had of his, and Louis was to find himself alone and at bay before the kings of Europe. In order to bring Henry's interests into the ring, Ferdinand emphasized the subtle policy of France, for, victorious in North Italy, she would turn her arms against the South, and wrest Naples from the crown of Castile and Aragon. All the same, till the establishment of this great league he ordered Henry to pass the time with the French King in goodly terms—in fact, to do as did his father-in-law, and always lean to the best advantage.[55] So the English ambassadors at Rome were hand in glove with the Venetians, and daily plotted with them and the Aragonese to the great prejudice of the league of Cambrai.[56]
Time now revealed the weak point in Ferdinand's calculations. Maximilian would not be won over, and in spite of English and Aragonese practices Venice would not give up her conquests. So that the rotten rags of the league of Cambrai had to be patched together, and Ferdinand told Henry that he must give all aid to the kings of the league to destroy the Venetians. But whatever you do, live in peace with France, is the chorus of all his letters. How to do this while the Duchess of Savoy was asking persistently for help against the Duke of Gueldres,[57] and the Scots were buying guns[58] in the Netherlands? France was backing Gueldres as usual with men and money, and in reply to the complaints of the Flemish agents, Louis XII. only shook his head over "ce mauvais sujet" of a duke and wished the devil might fly away with him for a disturber of the peace. Margaret must make what terms she could, so she turned to England. Henry was arming and preparing for events. He bought forty-eight guns from Hans Popenruyter, the gunfounder at Malines,[59] and was to have them as cheap as the prince, said Margaret, who seized those bought by the Scots and resold them to Henry.[60] She said distinctly, however, that she would neither be party to the league with Aragon against France nor persuade her father thereto unless Henry promised help against Gueldres.[61] To defend the Flemish border against Gueldres was a left-handed way of making war on France, and Ferdinand would not approve. So Henry followed his "good-father's" advice and imitated him, and in April accepted the Golden Rose from Julius II.,[62] while two months later he confirmed the treaty made with France in March 1510.[63] If Henry was Ferdinand in miniature, "Julius was Julius indeed," and in August a letter from him to Henry was intercepted by the French. Its contents were forwarded to Henry by Maximilian, who denied the truth of the Pope's statement that he and Ferdinand had entered into a league with the Papacy against France. This was only the Pope's evil plan to assist the Venetians "au contraire de la ligue de nous tous rois car les dits Veniciens ont gagnÉ ses mignons et privez conseillers."[64] Louis XII. now wrote to James IV. of Scotland to remind him of the ancient league between their countries.[65] Henry, still passing the time with all parties, told the Pope he would join the league when Maximilian and Ferdinand did:[66] then he wrote to the Council of the Cardinals at Milan, supporters of and supported by France and Maximilian, promising assistance in settling[67] the perplexities of the Church; and almost in the same breath he promised Ferdinand one thousand archers.[68] Hence Sir Robert Wingfield, ambassador to the Emperor, was taken aback and perplexed by the demand that Henry should countenance the General Council at Pisa and the articles devised against the Pope which were set forward in the name of the Emperor and the French King, and he told the bishop of Gurk that the King would gladly have known the Emperor's mind before the imperial foot had been so far in the bushel.[69] The crux of the situation was Maximilian's attitude towards the Venetians, whose terms of peace he refused. Neither would he have aught to do with Pope or Aragon against France. Margaret, however, came to the rescue, for peace negotiations with Gueldres on the basis of the Duke's marriage with the Archduchess Isabeau,[70] sister to the Prince of Castile, had come to nothing, as they were meant to. She was still anxious for Henry's support in Flanders, and as the price he exacted was the alliance, she threw into that scale her influence with her father. So long, however, as the rumour ran that Ferdinand intended to put the crown of Naples on the head of the bastard of the Archbishop of Saragossa, to the prejudice of the Prince of Castile, Maximilian refused to have anything to do with him,[71] and Margaret wrote that until this suspicion was weeded from her father's mind, the League of the Holy Trinity, symbolized by the three princes, would never take place. Ferdinand's answer was to send the bastard to Malines as hostage.[72] In the naÏve blasphemy of the age Ferdinand and Henry were the father and son, so that the Third Person was the one symbolized by Maximilian. Louis XII. was watching Margaret, and, thanks to the French party in the Flemish Council and French merchants married to Englishwomen as spies in England, he lacked no news. He warned her that he had been told of her league, but affected not to believe the gossip.[73] However, by July he knew the truth, for Margaret's efforts had borne fruit for her gathering, and Henry, as hansel-money for the future league, sent Sir Edward Ponynges and 1500 archers[74] into the Low Countries to help Castile against Gueldres. "Je suis adverty," said Louis XII. to Andreas de Burgo, "que ma cousine m'a fort piquÉ en Angleterre," and added one to the score against his former playmate. Matters moved secretly till October, when the Holy League against France between the Pope, Aragon and Venice was published, by which Ferdinand was to find the men and the other two the money for chasing the French from Lombardy. England joined it [November 1511],[75] and now France had but one ally, whom she was exceedingly nervous about losing, and tried to steady by the offer of a marriage between RenÉe of France and the Archduke Ferdinand, brother to Charles. Maximilian coquetted with the league, and by the end of the year rumour had it that his ambassador, the ubiquitous Gurk, had already taken his lodging in Venice at St Paul's, and that Louis might make mince-meat of his duchy.[76]
At the French Court nothing was talked of but the possibility of an English invasion: 25,000 men said spies, "prÊts À monter en mer" and invade by Calais at any moment: and Louis was so irritable and depressed that the whole Court was profoundly discouraged,[77] for Aragon and England were like to be two prongs in the back of the country. True, Gueldres could be loosed again on Flanders and the Scots on England, but the adage then as now was true, and vicarious warfare was seldom satisfactory. The old weapon of supporting a pretender to the English throne, blunt, rusty, and out of date as it had so rapidly become, reappeared, and Richard de la Pole, Captain of Almains,[78] was styled and treated as King of England in France.[79] A lean, blackavised French priest with a crooked eyebrow, Louis' faithful spy,[80] carried the correspondence between Pole and his family, which eventually led to the execution of Earl Edmund in the Tower. The taking of Brescia by the Duke of Nemours [February 1512] cheered up the French Court, and by April, when the English King-at-arms arrived with Henry's defiance, "not in his coat but clad like a gentleman," the English scarce had almost become vieux jeu, and the country had regained its poise. Henry said he had no choice but to make war in aid of his allies, the Pope and Aragon, and Louis replied if that was all, he did it with little reason. Still, the French King hoped to keep Margaret and the Emperor out of the alliance, while the English agents in Flanders were working hard to bring them within it, and to keep them to the old amity. The Governess of the Netherlands had one idea all through, the crushing of Gueldres, whose thieving raids and besieging excursions kept the eastern border in a state of harried poverty. The duke claimed sovereign rights which Flanders did not recognize, and France had always found it paid to support him. In consequence of the dual suzerainty, Imperial and French, to the Burgundian provinces, there were always two parties in the Flemish Council, the French and the Burgundian, or, as it was now, the English. The Burgundian was Margaret's party, and she over-rode the opposition of the French sympathizers, but she could not prevent their clogging the execution of her purposes by secret intrigues with France. Louis gave up all hope of detaching her from the English. Maximilian, on the other hand, was, in his fickleness, surer game than his daughter, for though in June [1512] he dismissed the French ambassadors from Brussels, telling them that if they would not go when they could, they should not when they would,[81] in October he was practising with Louis at Cologne.
MAXIMILIAN, EMPEROR OF GERMANY
FROM THE PAINTING BY ALBRECHT DÜRER AT VIENNA
Between these months much happened to the unfortunate English ambassadors who were attempting to finish the negotiations begun with the Emperor in May. First Maximilian dismissed the French ambassadors. That looked hopeful. Then he refused to allow the gentlemen of Flanders to serve in Henry's army. Next he demanded 100,000 crowns of gold down on declaring war with France, and said that the Pope or Aragon would willingly give him as much. He knew his worth to the league! Then he departed suddenly, saying the whole business was safe in his daughter's hands. Now began endless delays. Margaret had no formal commission:[82] she did not think her father would be pleased to find himself in the same boat as the Venetians [the veriest abc of dealing with Maximilian]; and the real reason was that by means of Duke George of Saxony, Gueldres had proposed a truce with the Emperor which Margaret was willing to accept. So the Governor of Bresse and the Count de Berghes, both Margaret's adherents in the council, fought shy[83] of Sir Edward Ponynges and Sir Thomas Boleyn, and the stomach of the English was much diminished by waiting. Margaret, "a perfect friend to England," suggested, after a couple of months' waiting, that they should fee the Emperor's secretaries to keep her commission in his memory,[84] and a fortnight later she asked Sir Thomas if he would lay a wager on its soon coming. Gladly, said he, and they shook hands on it; a courser of Spain to an English hobby.[85] The Emperor's secretaries wanted to know the form the commission was to take. The English said the same as at Cambrai;[86] that is, full powers to treat, and no doubt Margaret wanted that too, for when it did come in restricted form, at the beginning of September (though it was dated August 2 at Cologne) for a whole day she was so cross that the ambassadors could not see her.[87] On September 4 they discussed the treaty, which was confined to Henry and Maximilian; Flanders was to be neutral. The English said the Imperial alliance alone was dear at 150,000 ducats, and Henry refused to treat save on the previous understanding, which included Flanders.
All this time the English army, sent to Guienne to invade France according to the treaty of the Holy League of November 1511, had been idly kicking its heels and waiting for Ferdinand to co-operate for the recovery of the province. But Ferdinand did nothing, and the men, wearied with idleness and worn by lack of victuals in a disorderly camp, mutinied and returned home ingloriously in the Autumn[88]. In October, however, there came rumours from the Bishop of LiÈge,[89] the centre of French influence in the Low Countries, of the defeat of the French in the south, and Maximilian broke off negotiations with Louis and turned to the English, with the result that Gueldres broke again across the Maas, with "good effect, for the inhabitants were in a manner fast asleep and are now awake."[90] The Duke's French reinforcements had an encounter with the LiegÉois, and Maximilian himself was nearly kidnapped on his way from Cologne by the Duke's men, disguised as Burgundians.[91] But news of the impotence of the English excursion into Guienne soon became public property, and their undisciplined and disgraceful retreat was the joke of Court and camp. Margaret was annoyed for two reasons: the first that Gueldres was very active and that French negotiations had been broken off, and the second that the rich English were but reeds to lean on. So when in October Henry refused to pay 50,000 crowns for entertaining the Swiss against the French,[92] and asked that the Emperor's subjects (in the Low Countries) should be prevented from serving the French, the President of Bresse replied that Maximilian had prevented one thousand Swiss from taking French service, "which answer was so colorably made that a man might savour the color of it all the chamber." Then my Lady Margaret spoke "with a qualm of a little melancholy about her stomach" [Ponynges' way of saying she was in a great rage], "if ye be disposed to delay it [the treaty] we shall defer it as well as you," saying besides, that "Englishmen had so long abstained from war that they lacked experience from disuse and it was reported that they were now weary of it." She wrote to her father in this mood and caused more delays,[93] and when the ambassadors remonstrated, she said openly to them, "Where had we been now if this confederation had been concluded between your master and us?"[94] All fair promises and sweet words, but no deeds, were to be found at Malines. From Scotland came the gibe that the English soldiers could not easily be induced to invade France or Gueldres after their Biscayan experience,[95] and though Henry declared that the return of the army was sanctioned by the King of Aragon and himself because of the constant rains in Guienne, and "the intolerable pains of the soldiers of our said army, which in the barren country had perseverantly lain in the fields,"[96] no one believed his report. The joke of the thing is, that, as a matter of fact, from September to January there reigned superb weather in Biscay that year.[97] Ferdinand said he believed that Henry had given secret orders for the return.[98] But the supreme insult came from Maximilian, who proposed that the command of the English army in France should be handed over to him while Henry remained in England. The Emperor counselled the King not to stir out of his country, but to keep the people in awe and bridle the Scots.[99] He would take command for 100,000 crowns. Nothing more was needed to increase Henry's war fever. He had a bull from Julius II.[100] granting indulgence to those who served in the holy war against France; his agents were already in Italy buying armour, for the Frescobaldi had made a corner of it in Milan;[101] in Zeeland, collecting ships for the passage, where they bid against the French;[102] in Flanders, buying horses and feeing men.[103] At home Wolsey was busy with military organization and his schemes for a more efficient commissariat and transport, while Henry and Admiral Howard, following the admiral's advice, "for no cost sparyng, let provision be maad: for it is a weel-spent peny that saveth the pownd,"[104] were working to bring the navy up to some sort of fighting standard. And into this busy Court, full of young men dreaming of loot and military glory, and enthusiastic old men like Sir Gilbert Talbot, who, having served Henry's father and grandfather, was now "minded so sore and purposed to have served the King's grace and in this journey, that I almost forgot God and set my heart on none other thing, but only how I might best serve his grace at this time,"[105] came Maximilian's proposal. Gueldres saved the situation. His activity, veiled by renewed offers of truce,[106] inclined Margaret to the English as a poor prop, but her only one, and many Flemish nobles offered their services to Henry.[107] The final ruin to Henry's faith in his allies was to come very soon, and of it he was warned by John Stile from Valladolid. Ferdinand made a truce with the French for one year. It came about this way. The Emperor and the Pope, despairing of accommodation with the Swiss, had made a league together to the great displeasure of Aragon, who, oddly enough, in view of what followed, resented that any league should be made suddenly without his consent or England's. He also feared that such league would cause the Venetians to adjoin themselves to the French, and of a likelihood with the Turks, so that Louis would be stronger than ever. Anne of Brittany, the French Queen, was anxious for a Cisalpine peace, and as a means to this end wanted to ignore English rights and marry the Princess RenÉe to Charles of Castile, with the duchy of Brittany as dowry.[108] Ferdinand told Stile a fisher's tale[109] about his having dispatched the Provincial of the Grey Friars to England by way of France to be Queen Katharine's confessor, and that on his way he had been taken prisoner and carried to Blois, and that Anne had had him released and sent him back to Spain, carrying a letter of peace to the Queen of Aragon. All which tale was but nutshells, for the return of the Provincial with the letter was preached in open pulpit by a friar of his own order, who admonished the people to pray for peace. Ferdinand grasped at the proposed truce as a moment in which to gain strength to carry out his original plan for the complete isolation of France and the annexation of Navarre. So in devious pursuit of this plan, on March 16, 1513, new articles to the treaty with Aragon were signed in London, and Henry was again bled, and at Malines the Aragonese ambassador attempted to rid the Flemish council of ChiÈvres and the French party and replace them with people more agreeable to his master,[110] while at Valladolid John Stile was told positively that the truce between France and Aragon was accomplished.[111] All fair writing and slack deeds in Spain also, "for the Spaniards," said Stile, "are by nature so hasty and envious to all strangers that they despise every man."
Ferdinand did not succeed in ousting the French party at Malines, and it continued to grumble at the English in Zeeland, where it said they only made war on the Flemish and were so dull that they let French vessels pass unchallenged.[112] Lord ChiÈvres, the head of it, made tremendous capital out of a carack belonging to one Andreas Scarella, the Sta Maria de Loretto,[113] which had been sold in Zeeland to the French, but the English got wind of the transaction and lifted her, cargo and all. The council said this interference was grossly impertinent, and were hot and intemperate over the matter, and not at all repentant for their "seditious" ways in favouring the French King, which made it impossible to conserve their ports and havens as Henry would have liked. They said they could do that well enough for themselves without troubling the English. Henry had laid an embargo on all trade between the Low Countries and France, and he now offered if this matter were dropped to allow them to resume their trade under "letters testimonials," English captains to have the right of search.[114] However, in spite of the strength of the French party, on March 16 Maximilian, with a final haggle over the rate of exchange, signed the treaty with Henry, who steadily refused to have any Swiss in his pay, saying that his army was so powerful that he hoped to lead it to Paris, "especially our father of Aragon making war against our said enemy." Next month, April, Henry knew of his father-in-law's perfidy,[115] but he passed the time in Spanish fashion, and went the length of forcing Ferdinand's ambassador to sign the treaty of the Holy League, concluded at Malines on April 5,[116] by which the Pope was to invade Dauphiny; the Emperor, the trans-Alpine provinces; Henry, Picardy, Normandy and Aquitane; Ferdinand, BÉarne and Languedoc. Luis Carroz swore to it publicly in St Paul's on April 25,[117] and then wrote to Spain that in spite of Ferdinand's secret orders he had been forced to do so for fear of the consequences of refusal.[118]
As was to be expected, the Emperor, who quivered to every wind, again wavered at news of this Franco-Spanish truce. The news had reached him spiced (by Ferdinand) with the lie that Henry was privy to it, and though Wingfield indignantly told him that Henry was not "so light or of so little resolution to arm him at all pieces and then call for a pillow,"[119] he said that if Henry entered the truce he would also. However, in the end, stiffened by resentment and by the English attitude, he definitely ordered his subjects in the Low Countries to serve Henry, and the Count de Ligny and others took service.
All this time the English had been skirmishing with the French in the Calais Pale[120] and the Welshmen of the garrison had done some damage. Sampson Norton, the head of the arsenal, had been taken prisoner, and the French party at Malines tried to prevent his exchange.[121] The English fleet had been exercising in the channel in March, a brave show, and now letter packets need not be dropped overboard to save them from French hands.[122] In April the organization of the land forces was approaching something like order, and the fleet was sailing along the coast of Brittany, which Howard hoped to make a desert for many a year, looking for the enemy. Never was such a navy seen, and PrÉjan and his French fleet dare not hove in sight, so the gallant admiral went to find them and his death. But if French ships were not in evidence in the channel, French agents were thick in Flanders. The Count de Ligny was balked in raising troops for England by a "lord bearing a French order,"[123] who warned the towns against him as a favourer of the English, and Louis told the Ghentois they would rue any help they gave. Sir Robert Wingfield, carrying the treaty from Brussels to the Emperor at Trier for ratification, found that "French crowns fly far,"[124] and twice on his journey he barely escaped ambuscades. The second one was laid by the son of Robert de la Marck, who a week before had taken four Englishmen to his father's castle at Hesdin. The Franco-Spanish truce was soon common property, and Margaret had an anxious moment, but she was relieved when the English ambassadors told her of the noble deeds at sea of their countrymen against the French, and "she took a letter out of her purse wherein the tidings were written concerning the bruit and common rumour of the truce between the King of Aragon and the French King, and brake the said letter, casting it on the ground saying these words, 'Let the universal bruit and vulgar opinion give place to the truth.'"[125]
Ferdinand was furious at the English attitude, for he felt his golden goose had passed out of his hand, and he was not calmed by the news of the victory at Brest and the burning of the French ships. He raked up all the old grievances against the marriage of Mary and Charles, pointed by the fact that Charles was now riper in years, and would soon be of age. In May the dreaded league between France and Venice was known at Valladolid, and it weighed greatly on his stomach that the shrewd turn he had hoped to play France was likely to recoil on his own head, for Maximilian and Henry were sure to remain allied. He was right, but it was touch and go with Maximilian. The Emperor said roundly to Wingfield, who came up with him at Augsburg, that if France were to regain Milan he would have enough to do there without actually invading France, though Louis were "the most worthy vitupere of any prince living." However, a couple of days later, in Augsburg Cathedral, after mass sung by his own chapel with exquisite organs, with his hand on the Gospels and Canon he swore to the treaty with Henry.[126] There seemed some chance of his holding to his oath this time, for his words appeared "to pass more roundly than they were wont to do." Alas for hopes! Two days had hardly passed [17th May 1513] ere a wind from the south veered him round. The Venetians and the French were allied, and he told Wingfield that had he been advertised of these news he would never have sworn, and now it was as impossible for him to send an army to France as it was for a man who had promised to run a furlong to do so if he broke his leg. But he said he would do his best to run out the remainder on a stilt. Poor Wingfield! "The French," he groaned, "are so subtle that they can blind and corrupt the whole world."[127] Margaret, however, was steadfast and impervious to French corruption, and said she felt herself safe from France behind English arrows,[128] but the French party in her council left few stones unturned in their efforts to avert war. Charles' Spanish secretary was sent secretly into France to try and break the treaty of marriage between Mary and the prince, and to practise a negotiation between Louis XII. and the Emperor.[129] Louis said that Margaret and Lord Berghes had assisted the English against the opinion of the council, and he kept for them a pensÉe. It took the familiar form of Gueldres at this moment. Ferdinand, said spies at Blois, was called a traitor in France, and so he was, for at Malines he posed as Henry's friend, and rated Margaret for not giving him adequate assistance. He begged her to ask the King of England to use his counsel, and promised to assent to anything that would advance the amity with England, and also re-assented to the marriage treaty. "A very wise prince," said Margaret, "in whose subtle understanding is comprised many profound matters: his mind and intent are good."[130]
The defeat of the French at Novarro set all Rome daily expectant to hear of their extermination by the English in Picardy, while experts in Germany shook their heads over such a possibility.[131] They said that the advantage lost last year in Guienne would not be easily recovered. Wingfield expressed the English feeling of confidence when he wrote "but such is God and better which only is the head of your enterprise, and hath given the noble courage and hardiness to elect of yourself the cost, travell and jeopardy, to attain the honour and glory that must needs follow."[132]
