CARDINAL.] The reign of Wolaey may be considered as having begun after the return of Henry from his expedition to France, towards the close of the year 1513 ; and henceforth the affairs of the kingdom for fourteen or fifteen years were directed principally by the interests of his ambition, which governed and made subservient to its purposes even the vanity and other passions of his master.
The history of the greater part of this period consists of Henry's transactions with his two celebrated contemporaries, Francis I. of France, the successor of Louis XII., and Charles, originally archduke of Austria, but who became king of Spain as Charles I. by the death of his mother's father, Ferdinand, in 1516, and three years after was elected to succeed his paternal grandfather Maximilian I. as emperor of Germany. [Cusames V.; Faseets I.] His position might have enabled the English king in some degree to hold the balauce between these two irreconcileable rivals, who both accordingly made it a principal point of policy to endeavour to secure his frieudship and alliance; but his inilueuce on their long contention was in reality very inconsiderable, directed as it was for the most part either by mere caprice, or by nothing higher thau the private resentments, ambitions, and vanities of himself or his minister. The foreign policy of this reign had nothing national about it, either in reality or even iu semblance ; it was neither regulated by a view to the true interests of the country, nor even by any real, however mistaken, popular sentiment. Henry had himself boen a caudidate for the imperial dignity when the prize was obtained by Charles; but he never had for a moment the least chance of success. For a short time he remained at peace, both with Charles and Francis ; the former of whom paid him a visit at Dover in the end of May 1520; and with the latter of whom he had a few days after a seemingly most amicable interview, celebrated under the name of the 'Field of the Cloth of Gold,' In the neighbourhood of Calais. Wotsey'a object at this time
however was to detach his master from the interests of the French king; and a visit which Henry paid to the emperor at Grnveliues, on his way home, showed Francis how little he was to count upon any lasting effect of their recent cordialities. Before the close of the following year Henry was formally joined in league with the emperor and the pope; and iu March 1522, he declared war against France. In the summer of the same year the emperor flattered him by paying him a visit at London; his vanity having also been a short time before gratified In another way by the title of 'Defender of the Faith' bestowed upon him by pope Leo X. (recently succeeded by Adrian VI.) for a Latin treatise which he had published On the Seven Sacraments,' in confutation of Luther. Henry continued to attach himself to the interest of the emperor,—even sending an army to France, in August 1523, under the Duke of Suffolk, which succeeded in taking several towns, though only to give them up again in a few mouths,—until the disappointment, for the second time, of Wolsey'e hope of being made pope through the influence of Charles, on the death of Adrian in September of the last-mentioned year, is supposed to have determined that minister upon a change of politics. Before the memorable defeat and capture of Francis at the battle of Pavia, 24th of February 1525, the English king had made every preparation to break with the emperor; having actually commenced negotiations for a price with Franeia's ally, James V., the young king of Scotland, on condition of giving James in marriage his daughter the princess Mary (afterwards queen), who had been already promised to the emperor. In August he concluded a treaty of peace and alliance with France; and after the release of Francis, in March 1526, Henry was declared protector of the league styled Most Clement and Most Iloly,' which was formed under the auspices of the pope for the renewal of the war against Charles.