Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/249

 TRANSITION 237 her the Archduke Philip. Setting aside Joanna the child Charles was now Lord of Burgundy and Castile, his grandfather Ferdinand having no actual rights in Castile; and his other grandfather Maximilian, who had now succeeded Frederick as emperor, having no rights in Burgundy. Each of the grand- fathers tried to get the child's possessions into his own hands, and each was also extremely anxious to prevent the power of France from increasing. Each tried to make a cat's-paw of the young King of England, Henry vin., till Thomas Wolsey appeared as Henry's adviser, and soon proved himself a match even for such a past master of diplomatic cunning as Ferdinand. Thus these years provide a complication of intrigues and wars, the unravelling of which would occupy too much space. Two battles, however, require a passing note. One is that of Marignano, by which the young French king, Francis I., obtained a temporary supremacy in the north of Marignano, Italy, after defeating an army the strength of 1515 - which lay in the Swiss troops hitherto reputed invincible. The second is the battle of Flodden, which stopped „,. ;_• rr Flodden, 1513. the development of the power of Scotland under James iv., whose death in the battle left the country once more to be torn in pieces by the rivalries of the nobility. By 1 5 19 both Ferdinand and Maximilian were dead; Charles entered upon his complete inheritance, and was elected, as Maximilian's successor, as emperor ; an election in The three which he defeated the young King of France, the Kings, 1519. victor of Marignano, and in which Henry vm. of England was very near being a candidate. The destinies of Europe appeared to be in the hands of these three princes, not one of whom was thirty years old, and of whom Charles was the youngest. Very shortly after the Imperial election, Charles ceded his Austrian dominions to his brother Ferdinand ; who also, by an arrangement with Hungary and Bohemia, presently succeeded to the Crowns of these two kingdoms. At about the same time Sweden became definitely separated from Denmark and Norway, and the dynasty of Gustavus Vasa was established, Denmark and Norway remaining under the dynasty of Oldenburg.