James Froude - History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. III

The challenge might naturally have touched Francis, whose one sound quality was personal courage; but on this occasion the competitors had exchanged their characters. Francis had the start in the field: he had twelve thousand picked troops in Turin; the remainder of the invading force was distributed in impregnable positions over Piedmont and Savoy. 23 23 Sir Gregory Cassalis to Cromwell: State Papers , Vol. VII. For once he determined to win a reputation for prudence as well as daring, and he left Charles to seek his remedy where he could find it. The Pope entreated, but in vain; and the campaign followed which was so disastrous to the Empire, which for a time reversed so signally the relative position of the two princes, and defeated the expectations of the keenest statesmen.

June. Charles invades Provence.

He finds the country wasted.

He is unable to advance.

August. He loses 30,000 men and retreats.

Finding himself too late, without delay and difficulty, to expel the French out of their Italian conquests, Charles, in spite of the remonstrance of his generals, and relying, as was thought, on a repetition of the treason of the Duke of Bourbon, by one or more of the Gallican nobility, 24 24 “Omnes qui sollerti judicio ista pensitare solent, ita statuunt aliquid proditionis in Galliâ esse paratum non dissimile Ducis Borboniæ proditioni. Non enim aliud vident quod Caæsarem illuc trahere posset.” – Sir Gregory Cassalis to Cromwell: State Papers , Vol. VII. led his army into Provence. He trusted either that he would find the country undefended, or that the French chivalry, when attacked in their homes, would, with their usual recklessness, risk a decisive battle; or, at least, that in a fertile district he would find no difficulty in procuring provisions. In each of his calculations he found himself fatally mistaken. The inhabitants of Provence had themselves destroyed their crops, and driven away their cattle. In his front, Montmorency lay intrenched at Avignon, and Francis between Lyons and Valence, in fortified camps. Time and necessity had on this occasion been enlisted as the allies of France; and with the garrison of Marseilles in his rear intercepting his supplies, unable to advance, and shut up in a country which had been left barren as an Arabian desert, the Emperor sate still in the sultry summer heats, while his army melted away from him with famine and disease. De Leyva, his ablest commander, and thirty thousand veterans, miserably perished. He escaped only from being driven into the sea by a retreat; and crept back into Italy with the broken remnant of his forces, baffled and humiliated in the only European war into which no fault of his own had plunged him.

Indifferent attitude of England.

Of the feelings with which these events were regarded by Henry, we have little evidence. No positive results followed from the first interchange of messages, but Charles so far endured the tone in which his advances had been received, that fresh communications of moderate friendliness were interchanged through Sir Gregory Cassalis at the beginning of the summer. 25 25 See Cassalis’s Correspondence with Cromwell in May, 1536: State Papers , Vol VII. In July Henry offered his services as a mediator with the court of France both to the Emperor and to the Queen Regent of the Netherlands. 26 26 The clearest account which I have seen of the point in dispute between Charles V. and Francis I. is contained in a paper drawn by some English statesman apparently for Henry’s use. — Rolls House MSS. first series, No. 757. At the same time English engineers were in the French camp in Provence, perhaps as professional students of the art of war, perhaps as volunteers indirectly countenanced by the government. 27 27 When the English army was in the Netherlands, in 1543, the Emperor especially admired the disposition of their entrenchments. Sir John Wallop, the commander-in-chief, told him he had learnt that art some years before in a campaign, of which the Emperor himself must remember something, in the south of France. The quarrel, in reality, admitted of no solution except by the sword; and if the English felt no absolute satisfaction in seeing two powers crippling each other’s strength, who, a few months previously, were in league for their own ruin, the government at least saw no reason to co-operate with either side, in a cause which did not concern them, or assist in bringing a dispute to a close which had broken out so opportunely for themselves.

Meanwhile the probabilities of a reunion with Rome had for a moment brightened. It was stated at the close of the last volume that, on the discovery of the adulteries of the queen, a panic arose among the Reformers, lest the king should regard her crime as a judgment upon the divorce, and in the sudden revulsion retrace his steps. It was seen, too, that after her punishment their fears were allayed by an act of parliament against the Papal usurpations, the most emphatic which had yet been passed, and that the country settled back into an equilibrium of permanent hostility. There are circumstances remaining to be explained, both with respect to the first alarm and to the statute by which it was dispelled.

May. Expectations formed at Rome on the disgrace of Queen Anne.

May 27. The Pope entreats Sir Gregory Cassalis to intercede with Henry for a reconciliation.

The partial advances which had been made by the Pope had been neither accepted nor rejected, when, on the 20th of May, a courier from England brought the news of Anne’s misdemeanours to Rome. The consistory would have been more than mortal if they had not been delighted. From the first they had ascribed the king’s conduct to the infatuating beauty of Catherine’s rival. It was she who, tigress-like, had thirsted for the blood of their martyrs, and at her shrine they had been sacrificed. 28 28 Pole, in writing to Charles V., says that Henry’s cruelties to the Romanists had been attributed wholly to the “Leæna” at his side; and “when he had shed the blood of her whom he had fed with the blood of others,” every one expected that he would have recovered his senses. – Poli Apologia ad Carolum Quintum . Her character appeared at last in its true colours; the enchantment was broken, and the abhorrence with which Henry’s name had so lately been regarded was changed throughout Italy to a general feeling of pity. 29 29 “The news, which some days past were divulged of the queen’s case, made a great tragedy, which was celebrated by all men’s voices with admiration and great infamy to that woman to have betrayed that noble prince after such a manner, who had exalted her so high, and put himself to peril not without perturbation of all the world for her cause. But God showed Himself a rightful judge to discover such treason and iniquity. All is for the best. And I reckon this to the king’s great fortune, that God would give him grace to see and touch with his hand what great enemies and traitors he lived withal.” – Harvel to Starkey, from Venice, May 26: Ellis, second series, Vol. II. p. 77. The precious sheep who had been lost to the Church would now return to the fold, and the Holy Father would welcome back his erring child with paternal affection. 30 30 Pole to Contarini: Epist. , Vol. I. p. 457. This seems to have been the general expectation; unquestionably it was the expectation of the Pope himself. Paul sent again for Sir Gregory Cassalis, and after expressing his delight that God had delivered the king from his unhappy connexion, he told him that he waited only for the most trifling intimation of a desire for reunion to send a nuntio to England to compose all differences and to grant everything which the king could reasonably demand. 31 31 “Dicerem in ipso me adeo bonum animum reperisse ut procul dubio vestra Majestas omnia de ipso sibi polliceri possit.” – Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII.: MS. Cotton. Vitellius , B 14, fol. 215. Limiting, like a man of business, the advantages which he had to offer to the present world, the Pope suggested that Henry, in connexion with himself, might now become the arbiter of Europe, and prescribe terms to the Empire as well as to France. For himself and for his office he said he had no ambition. The honour and the profit should alike be for England. An accession of either to the pontificate might prove its ruin. 32 32 Neque ea cupiditate laborare ut suas fortunas in immensum augeat aut Pontificales fines propaget unde accidere posset ut ab hâc.. institutâ ratione recederet. – Ibid. The MS. has been injured by fire – words and paragraphs are in places wanting. In the present passage it is not clear whether Paul was speaking of the Papal authority generally, or of the Pontifical states in France and Italy. He lauded the king’s early character, his magnanimity, his generous assistance in times past to the Holy See, his devotion to the Catholic faith. Forgetting the Holy League, glossing over the Bull of Deposition as an official form which there had been no thought of enforcing, he ventured to say that for himself he had been Henry’s friend from the beginning. He had urged his predecessor to permit the divorce; at Bologna he had laboured to persuade the Emperor to consent to it. 33 33 Causâ vero matrimonii et in consistoriis et publice et privatim apud Clementem VII. se omnia quæ [potuerit pro] vestrâ Majestate egisse; et Bononiæ Imperatori per [horas] quatuor accurate persuadere conatum fuisse. – Sir Gregory Cassalis to Henry VIII.: MS. Cotton. Vitellius , B 14, fol. 215. He had sent a red hat to the Bishop of Rochester only that he might have the benefit of his assistance at the approaching council; and when he heard of his death, being surrounded by solicitations and clamours for vengeance, he had but seemed for a time to consent to measures which would never have been executed.