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 Greek scholarship home from Italian universities; and Erasmus himself, who first came to England in 1497 or 1498, and was set to teach Greek at Cambridge in 1510, found the country a special abode of scholarship. More, Colet, Grocyn and Linacre were the men in whom this culture was most conspicuous; and Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fisher were the leading patrons of learning. The people, too, were polished in their manners. English urbanity struck even a Venetian who visited the country about the year 1500. But Erasmus found in English social intercourse something more than mere urbanity. “Did you but know the endowments of Britain,” he writes to his poetical friend Andrelinus, “you would run hither with winged feet, and if the gout stopped you, you would wish yourself a Daedalus. To mention one thing out of many. There are here nymphs of divine beauty, gentle and kind, whom you may well prefer to your Camoenae. Moreover there is a fashion never sufficiently commended. Wherever you go you are received by every one with kisses; when you take leave you are dismissed with kisses. You return, kisses again are renewed. People come to you and kisses are dffered; they take their leave and kisses are again distributed. Wherever you meet there are kisses in abundance; in short wherever you move all things are charged with kisses. And, Faustus, if you once tasted how sweet and fragrant they are, you would be glad to sojourn in England, not for ten years only like Solon, but to your dying day.”
Such was English social life before the days of Puritanism; but it must be said, this pleasant freedom of manners was accompanied by much laxity with regard to social ties. Our Venetian visitor found, side by side with English courtesy, an absence of domestic affection which seemed to him altogether amazing: of licentiousness he saw instances in this country, but none of a man in love; and though Englishmen kept jealous guard over their wives, offences against married life could always among them in the end be condoned for money. For their children they seemed to have