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 His mysterious retreat was branded by the English as a shameful flight, and satirised in contemptuous verse by Skelton, the poet laureate. But the truth seems to be that several of the Scotch lords deprecated a policy of invasion as being only in the interest of France. Albany's influence was clearly on the wane; for next year he met a Parliament in May, and again obtained leave for a brief visit to France on the understanding that if he did not return in August his authority was at an end. He left immediately and never returned again.

Meanwhile, on the death of Adrian VI in September, 1523, Charles V again promised with the same insincerity as before to advance Wolsey's candidature for the papacy as advantageous alike to England and himself. But on November 19 Giuliano de' Medici, a great friend of both princes, was elected as Clement VII. He soon after confirmed for life Wolsey's legatine authority, which at first had been only temporary but had been prolonged from time to time.

In 1524 the war made little progress after February, when the Emperor recovered Fuenterrabia; all parties were exhausted. But little came of the mission of a Nuncio (Nicholas von Schomberg, Archbishop of Capua), whom the Pope sent to France, Spain, and England successively to mediate a peace. Negotiations went on with Bourbon on the part both of the Emperor and Henry for a joint attack on France. But the King and Wolsey had long suspected the Emperor's sincerity, and were determined that there should be either peace or war in earnest. Bourbon invaded Provence, and laid siege to Marseilles; whereupon orders were issued in England, September 10, to prepare for a royal invasion in aid of the Duke. The siege of Marseilles, in itself, was entirely in the Emperor's interest; no English army crossed the Channel, and Bourbon was forced to abandon the enterprise.

Henry, in the meantime, had been feeling his way to a separate peace with France, in case the Emperor showed himself remiss in fulfilling his engagements. In June a Genoese merchant, Giovanni Joachino Passano, came over to London, as if on ordinary business. He was soon known to be -an agent of Louise of Savoy, the French King's mother, who had been left Regent in her son's absence. His stay in England was unpopular with the English, but his secret negotiations with Wolsey were disavowed, and in January, 1525, another French agent, Brinon, President of Rouen, joined him in London.

Francis, seeing how matters lay, made a sudden descent into Italy and recovered Milan, which he had lost in the spring. But the protracted siege of Pavia ended with the defeat and capture of the French King, which seemed to throw everything into the Emperor's hands, and it was not likely that he would share with his allies the fruits of his victory. Wolsey, however, had been ordering matters so as to secure his master's interests, whether the French should succeed or fail