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136 and, instructed by Louis, kept his ears open to Henry's angry denunciations of his perfidious allies. He represented to him that Anne, the Queen of France, being dead, there was a noble opportunity of avenging himself on these ungrateful princes, and of forming an alliance with Louis which would make them all tremble. Mary, the Princess of England, might become Queen of France, and thus a league established between England and France which should decide the fate of Europe.

Henry's resentment and wounded honour would of themselves have made him close eagerly with this proposal; but he saw in it the most substantial advantages, and in a moment made up his mind. He had the policy, however, to appear to demur, and said his people would never consent for him to renounce his hereditary claims in France, which must be the case if such an alliance took place. They would ask themselves what equivalent they should obtain for so great a surrender. The shrewd Frenchman understood the suggestion; he communicated what passed to his Government, and proposals were quickly sent to meet Henry's views. Louis agreed to pay Henry a million of crowns in discharge of all arrears due to Henry VII. from Charles VIIL, &c.; and Henry engaged to give his sister a dower of 200,000 crowns, to pay the expenses of her journey, and to supply her with jewels—probably those of which he had defrauded the Scottish queen. The two kings agreed to assist each other, in case of any attack, by a force of 14,000 men, or, in case of any attack by either of them on another power, by half that number. This treaty was to continue for the lives of the two kings, and a year longer.

Thus was the Holy League, as it had been called, for the defence of the Pope and the church against the King of France, entirely done away with; and this great pretence was not so much as mentioned in any one of these treaties which put au end to it. The King of France strove hard to obtain Tournay again; but, though it was evidently Henry's interest to restore it, his favourite Wolsey, apprehensive of losing the profits of the bishopric, opposed its restoration, and succeeded. Wolsey and Fox of Durham were Henry's plenipotentiaries for the management of the treaty, which was signed on the 7th of August, 1514.

By this treaty, Mary Tudor, Princess Royal of England, a remarkably handsome young woman of sixteen, and passionately attached to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the handsomest and most accomplished man of Henry's Court, was handed over to the worn-out Louis of France, who was fifty-three in years and much older in constitution.

Mary Tudor, as may be supposed, was in no hurry to proceed to France to complete the wedding; but Louis, who, though on the point of going out of the world altogether, was of an amorous disposition, and, impatient for the arrival of his blooming young bride, sent repeatedly to hasten her departure. On the 2nd of September he wrote to Wolsey, who was now all-powerful in the English Court, desiring that he would see that the queen was set forward on her journey, and the Duke of Orleans also wrote to Mary herself, entreating her to hasten her departure. It was, however, another month before she set out, when Henry and a brilliant parly from the Court accompanied the princess to Dover. There both he and Queen Catherine took an affectionate leave of her, and she embarked for Boulogne, attended by a distinguished suit, in which were the conqueror of Flodden, now Duke of Norfolk, and her lover Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Anne Boleyn, a girl of fourteen years of age, or thereabout, was one of her maids of honour. A splendid and numerous party of French nobility received their new queen on landing, and conducted her to Abbeville, where Louis met them, and the marriage was celebrated the next day, October 8th, in the cathedral. The ceremony was brilliant in all circumstances but the condition of the bridegroom. It was performed by a cardinal, and was attended by tho whole French Court in all its splendour; but Louis himself was suffering all the horrors of a violent attack of gout during the whole of it. After the mass there was a grand banquet given, and Louis appeared highly delighted with his wife; but the very next day the scene changed, and, with a ruthlessness of which in such circumstances perhaps a gouty old gentleman only was capable, he dismissed all Queen Mary's English attendants, excepting three, of whom the little Boleyn was one. He would not concede to his bride's entreaties, accompanied by floods of tears, that at least her governess, Lady Guildford, to whom she was fondly attached, and whom she called "Mother Guildford," should remain with her. Brandon and Norfolk, however, proceeded to Paris as ambassadors. Mary, who did not want spirit, protested against this sweeping dismissal of her attendants, and entreated her ancient spouse; but all in vain. To her pleading for her "Mother Guildford," when she could not obtain leave of stay for the others, Louis replied that he was quite as able to entertain her as her governess. Indignant at this treatment, Mary wrote off to her royal brother, and at the same time to Wolsey. She depicted her mortification in glowing terms, and exclaimed, "Would to God that my Lord of York had come with me in the room of Norfolk! for then I am sure I should have been left much more at my heart's ease than I am now." Mary shows in this who was the really influential man at the English Court now; and in addressing Wolsey, who was already Archbishop of York, she called him her loving friend, and, after describing to him her treatment, begged, as he loved her or her brother the king, he would find a means to return to her dear "Mother Guildford."

It does not appear, however, that the crabbed Louis indulged her in this respect. He replied to the Earl of Worcester, who ventured to remonstrate with him on this subject, that the queen was of sufficient age to take care of herself. Louis conducted her to St. Denis, where she was crowned on the 5th of November; the Count of Angoulême, afterwards Francis I., holding the crown over her head during a great part of the ceremony, to ease her of its oppressive weight. Francis, indeed, appears from the first to have been extremely kind and considerate to her. On Monday, the 6th, she made her triumphal entry into Paris, where the brilliant reception which she met with from all classes made some amends for the harshness of her husband. The people flocked in such crowds, and there was such a succession of deputations from the Parliament, the nobility, the university, the corporation, the Chamber of Accounts, &c., that it