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* Polyd. Virg. lib. xxvii.

** Mmoires du Bellal, lib. i.

The French monarch, having succeeded so well in this negotiation, began to enlarge his views, and to hope for more considerable advantages by practising on the vanity and self-conceit of the favorite. He redoubled his flatteries to the cardinal, consulted him more frequently in every doubt or difficulty, called him in each letter “father,” “tutor,” “governor,” and professed the most unbounded deference to his advice and opinion. All these caresses were preparatives to a negotiation for the delivery of Calais, in consideration of a sum of money to be paid for it; and if we may credit Polydore Virgil, who bears a particular ill-will to Wolsey, on account of his being dispossessed of his employment and thrown into prison by that minister, so extraordinary a proposal met with a favorable reception from the cardinal. He ventured not, however, to lay the matter before the council: he was content to sound privately the opinion of the other ministers, by dropping hints in conversation, as if he thought Calais a useless burden to the kingdom:[*] but when he found that all men were strongly riveted in a contrary persuasion, he thought it dangerous to proceed any further in his purpose; and as he fell soon after into new connections with the king of Spain, the great friendship between Francis and him began gradually to decline.

* Polyd. Virg. lib. xxvii.

The pride of Wolsey was now further increased by a great accession of power and dignity. Cardinal Campeggio had been sent as legate into England, in order to procure a lithe from the clergy, for enabling the pope to oppose the progress of the Turks; a danger which was become real, and was formidable to all Christendom, but on which the politics of the court of Rome had built so many interested projects that it had lost all influence on the minds of men. The clergy refused to comply with Leo’s demands: Campeggio was recalled; and the king desired of the pope that Wolsey, who had been joined in this commission, might alone be invested with the legatine power, together with the right of visiting all the clergy and monasteries, and even with suspending all the laws of the church during a twelvemonth. Wolsey, having obtained this new dignity, made a new display of that state and parade to which he was so much addicted. On solemn feast-days, he was not content without saying mass after the manner of the pope himself: not only he had bishops and abbots to serve him; he even engaged the first nobility to give him water and the towel. He affected a rank superior to what had ever been claimed by any churchman in England. Warham, the primate, having written him a letter in which he subscribed himself “your loving brother,” Wolsey complained of his presumption in thus challenging an equality with him. When Warham was told what offence he had given, he made light of the matter. “Know ye not,” said he, “that this man is drunk with too much prosperity?”

But Wolsey carried the matter much further than vain pomp and ostentation. He erected an office which he called the legatine court; and as he was now, by means of the pope’s commission and the king’s favor, invested with all power, both ecclesiastical and civil, no man knew what bounds were to be set to the authority of his new tribunal. He conferred on it a kind of inquisitorial and censorial powers even over the laity, and directed it to inquire into all matters of conscience; into all conduct which had given scandal; into all actions which, though they escaped the law, might appear contrary to good morals. Offence was taken at this commission, which was really unbounded; and the people were the more disgusted, when they saw a man who indulged himself in pomp and pleasure, so severe in repressing the least appearance of licentiousness in others. But to render his court more obnoxious, Wolsey made one John Allen judge in it, a person of scandalous life,[*] whom he himself, as chancellor, had, it is said, condemned for perjury: and as it is pretended, that this man either extorted fines from every one whom he was pleased to find guilty, or took bribes to drop prosecutions, men concluded, and with some appearance of reason, that he shared with the cardinal those wages of iniquity.

* Strype’s Memorials, vol. i. p. 125.

The clergy, and in particular the monks, were exposed to this tyranny; and as the libertinism of their lives often gave a just handle against them, they were obliged to purchase an indemnity by paying large sums of money to the legate or his judge. Not content with this authority, Wolsey pretended, by virtue of his commission, to assume the jurisdiction of all the bishops’ courts, particularly that of judging of wills and testaments; and his decisions in those important points were deemed not a little arbitrary. As if he himself were pope, and as if the pope could absolutely dispose of every ecclesiastical preferment, he presented to whatever priories or benefices he pleased, without regard to the right of election in the monks, or of patronage in the nobility and gentry.[*]

* Polyd. Virg. lib. xxvii.

No one durst carry to the king any complaint against these usurpations of Wolsey, till Warham ventured to inform him of the discontents of his people. Henry professed his ignorance of the whole matter. “A man,” said he, “is not so blind any where as in his own house: but do you, father,” added he to the primate, “go to Wolsey, and tell him, if any thing be amiss, that he amend it.” A reproof of this kind was not likely to be effectual: it only served to augment Wolsey’s enmity to Warham: but one London having prosecuted Allen, the legate’s judge, in a court of law, and having convicted him of malversation and iniquity, the clamor at last reached the king’s ears; and he expressed such displeasure to the cardinal, as made him ever after more cautious in exerting his authority.

1519.

While Henry, indulging himself in pleasure and amusement, intrusted the government of his kingdom to this imperious minister, an incident happened abroad which excited his attention. Maximilian, the emperor, died; a man who, of himself, was indeed of little consequence; but as his death left vacant the first station among Christian princes, it set the passions of men in agitation, and proved a kind of era in the general system of Europe. The kings of France and Spain immediately declared themselves candidates for the imperial crown, and employed every expedient of money or intrigue, which promised them success in so great a point of ambition. Henry also was encouraged to advance his pretensions; but his minister Pace, who was despatched to the electors, found that he began to solicit too late, and that the votes of all these princes were already prengaged either on one side or the other.

Francis and Charlea made profession from the beginning of carrying on this rivalship with emulation, but without enmity.

This whole narrative has been copied by all the historians from the author here cited: there are many circumstances, however, very suspicious, both because of the obvious partiality of the historian, and because the parliament, when they afterwards examined Wolsey’s conduct, could find no proof of any material offence he had ever committed, and Francis in particular declared, that his brother Charles and he were, fairly and openly, suitors to the same mistress; the more fortunate, added he, will carry her; the other must rest contented.[*]

* Belcario, lib. xvi. Guicciard. lib. xiii.

But all men apprehended that this extreme moderation, however reasonable, would not be of long duration; and that incidents would certainly occur to sharpen the minds of the candidates against each other. It was Charles who at length prevailed, to the great disgust of the French monarch, who still continued to the last in the belief that the majority of the electoral college was engaged in his favor. And as he was some years superior in age to his rival, and, after his victory at Marignan and conquest of the Milanese, much superior in renown, he could not suppress his indignation at being thus, in the face of the world, after long and anxious expectation, disappointed in so important a pretension. From this competition, as much as from opposition of interests, arose that emulation between those two great monarchs, which, while it kept their whole age in movement, sets them in so remarkable a contrast to each other: both of them princes endowed with talents and abilities; brave, aspiring, active warlike; beloved by their servants and subjects, dreaded by their enemies, and respected by all the world: Francis, open, frank, liberal, munificent, carrying these virtues to an excess which prejudiced his affairs: Charles, political, close, artful, frugal; better qualified to obtain success in wars and in negotiations, especially the latter. The one the more amiable man; the other the greater monarch. The king, from his oversights and indiscretions, naturally exposed to misfortunes; but qualified, by his spirit and magnanimity, to extricate himself from them with honor: the emperor, by his designing, interested character, fitted, in his greatest successes, to excite jealousy and opposition even among his allies, and to rouse up a multitude of enemies in the place of one whom he had subdued. And as the personal qualities of these princes thus counterpoised each other, so did the advantages and disadvantages of their dominions. Fortune alone, without the concurrence of prudence or valor, never reared up of a sudden so great a power as that which centred in the emperor Charles. He reaped the succession of Castile, of Arragon, of Austria, of the Netherlands: he inherited the conquest of Naples, of Grenada: election entitled him to the empire: even the bounds of the globe seemed to be enlarged a little before his time, that he might possess the whole treasure, as yet entire and unrifled, of the new world. But though the concurrence of all these advantages formed an empire greater and more extensive than any known in Europe since that of the Romans, the kingdom of France alone, being close, compact, united, rich, populous, and being interposed between the provinces of the emperor’s dominions, was able to make a vigorous opposition to his progress, and maintain the contest against him.