Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/458

 Tarbes had gone back to France and returned again, another was concluded on May 29, for maintaining a joint army in Italy. But there were still matters to be settled, for which Henry desired a personal interview with Francis. This the French did not favour, but said that Wolsey would be welcome in France as his master's representative; and Francis himself wrote that he would go to Picardy to meet him.

The King is said to have alleged later,—though there is no sufficient proof of the truth of the story,—that, during this embassy the Bishop of Tarbes had expressed a doubt concerning the Princess Mary's legitimacy, as her mother Catharine had been the wife of Prince Arthur, her father's brother. It was the King himself who was now contemplating a divorce on this plea, although no one yet knew it. As a first step, in May he allowed himself to be cited in private before Wolsey as Legate and called upon to justify his marriage. Nothing came of this proceeding, except that on June 22 Henry shocked his wife by telling her that they must part company, as he found by the opinion of divines and lawyers that they had been living in sin. He desired her, however1, to keep the matter secret for the present; and Wolsey, on his way to France, persuaded both Archbishop Warham and Bishop Fisher that the King was only trying to answer objections raised by the Bishop of Tarbes.

Wolsey himself, however, did not know all the King's mind upon the subject when, after landing at Calais in July, he proceeded through France with a more magnificent train than ever, not as ambassador but as his King's lieutenant, to a meeting with Francis at Amiens. On this matter he believed he was commissioned, not only to hint that Catharine would be divorced, but also to put forward a project for marrying the King to Renée, daughter of Louis XII. This would, of course, have knit firmer the bond between Henry and Francis against the Emperor, who was Catharine's nephew. But in France he was instructed to keep back "the King's secret matter," or only to intimate it very vaguely; and during the whole of his stay there, which extended to two months and a half, he did not venture to say anything definite upon the subject.

Another matter, however, helped to strengthen the case for a union against the Emperor. A month before Wolsey crossed the Channel, news had reached England that Rome had been sacked, and the Pope shut up in the Castle of St Angelo. At Canterbury Wolsey ordered a litany to be sung for the imprisoned Pope, but considered how he could best utilise the incident for the King's advantage. At Amiens on August 18, three new treaties were made, which Henry and Francis ratified forthwith; and among other things it was settled that Mary should be married to the Duke of Orleans instead of to Francis, and that no brief or Bull should be received during the Pope's imprisonment, but that whatever should be determined by the clergy of England and France in the meantime should be valid. It was also agreed what terms should be demanded