Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 2.djvu/151

A.D. 1515.] took her nearly six hours to advance from the Porte St. Denis to the palace. Besides this, she had to witness a grand allegoric pageant; where the union of the lily and the rose of course figured prominently. Then followed jousts and tournaments, in which Brandon—Mary's husband that should have been—carried off nearly all the honours and prizes, whilst poor Louis—the husband that was—sat or lay in a litter, an object of pitiable decay. The gallant Brandon is said, by his good looks and his chivalrous ascendancy, to have excited a great deal of jealousy amongst the French knights; and we may not be far wrong if we attribute the snappishness of Louis to the same cause, for the French writers of the period declare that the attachment betwixt the queen and Brandon was obvious to all eyes, though they conducted themselves with all honour and decorum.

But this unnatural political mésalliance was not destined to be of long duration. Louis wrote in the course of December to Henry, expressing his happiness in possessing so excellent and amiable a wife, and on the 1st of January he expired. The dissipation at Court, consequent on his marriage, is stated in the "Life of Bayard" to have precipitated his end. "For the good King, on account of his wife, had changed the whole manner of his life, he had been accustomed to dine at eight o'clock, now he had to dine at noon; he had been accustomed to retire to rest at six in the evening, and now he had often to sit up till midnight." Louis was greatly beloved by his subjects, who regarded him as a brave, upright, and wise prince, and gave him the honourable title of "the father of his people." His death was a misfortune, if not to his wife, at least to the nation, for it weakened again the alliance with England, and exposed France afresh to the machinations of Maximilian and Ferdinand, two of the greatest dissemblers of any age. These monarchs were extremely anxious to secure Mary now for their grandson Charles, though they had before suffered their original betrothal to be broken. But Francis I., now King of France, exerted himself successfully to defeat their object. There is little doubt that Francis would have liked to have made her his own, but he was recently married to the daughter of Louis and Anne of Brittany, the Princess Claude. That not being possible, he knew, however, where Mary's heart lay, and he did all in his power to strengthen her to follow its dictates.

Ten days after Louis' death, Mary wrote to Wolsey, desiring to know the pleasure of her royal brother regarding her, seeing that the King of France was dead, and giving herself credit for having conducted herself in a manner reflecting all honour on her royal brother and herself. This she followed by a fresh epistle to Henry himself, in which she implored him to recall her home, declaring that there was nothing that she longed for so much as to see his face. Henry dispatched of all others the most welcome messenger to bring her home—her old lover, the Duke of Suffolk, accompanied by Sir Richard Wingfield and Dr. West. Mary, who had been not three months a wife, and now scarcely two months a widow, welcomed Brandon with all her heart, and privately said to him that he had dared once to address her, as desiring to make her his wife, did he now dare to repeat that wish? Brandon, who loved her passionately, was yet deterred by his dread of Henry's resentment, and requested leave to ask Henry's permission; but Mary told him that it would be much easier to obtain Henry's forgiveness when the thing was done, than his leave to do it. Francis warmly seconded this royal wooing, and they were privately married, and set out on their way to England. Mary wrote to announce the marriage to Henry, saying she had once married to please him, and thought it now only reasonable to wed to please herself. Francis also wrote to mollify the royal brother; and though Henry either was, or pretended to be, very angry at first, he soon relented. The duke and duchess did not proceed at once to Court, but retired to their estate in Suffolk. But as Henry was not only greatly attached to his sister, but to Brandon, who had been brought up with them from boyhood, and was highly esteemed by Henry on account of his superiority in all martial and manly exercises, the storm soon blew over. Wolsey is said to have been in the secret from the first, and such war, his influence now, that a much more difficult matter would have given way before it. The young couple were received into favour, and ordered by Henry to be re-married before him at Greenwich, an event which took place on the 13th of May, 1515. So far was the part which Francis I. had taken in this matter from being resented, that he and Henry renewed all the engagements which existed betwixt Louis and Henry, and so satisfactorily that they boasted that they had made a peace which would last for ever.

We have had frequent occasion already to introduce the name of Wolsey; we shall for a long period yet, have still more frequent and more surprising occasion to repeat that name: and it is therefore necessary to take a complete view of the man who was now rapidly rising into a prominence before Europe and all the world, such as has few examples in history, in one whose origin was as mean as his ascent was dazzling, and his fall sudden and irrevocable.

In the reign of Henry VII. we find first the name of Thomas Wolsey coming to public view as the private secretary of the king at the time of the forced visit of the Archduke Philip to the English Court. This originally obscure clergyman was the son of a butcher of Ipswich, who appears to have been wealthy, and, therefore, could afford to give his son an education at the university. Probably the worthy butcher was induced to this step by a perception of the lad's uncommon cleverness, for at Oxford he displayed so much talent that he was soon distinguished by the title of the Boy Bachelor. He became teacher of the grammar-school adjoining Magdalen College, and amongst his pupils had the sons of the Marquis of Dorset, on whom he so far won, that he gave him the somewhat valuable living of Limington, in Somersetshire. This might seem substantial promotion for the butcher's son, but an eagle, though hatched in the nest of a barn-door fowl, is sure to soar up toward the sun. Thomas Wolsey was not destined to the obscurity of a country parish. The same abilities and address which won him the favour of the marquis were capable of attracting far higher patrons. The spirit and genius of Wolsey were as clearly made for the atmosphere of courts and the guidance of kingdoms, as the eagle's wings are for soaring and its claws for clutching