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 pay did not fall into his majesty's own most untrustworthy hands. Maximilian, indeed, though he actually managed to clutch a small portion (by no fault on Pace's part), betrayed the enterprise most shamefully in the spring of 1516, when there really seemed great hope of driving out the French from Milan, and made very lame excuses for his conduct. But meanwhile the death of Ferdinand in January produced a new change. Young Charles of Castile, Maximilian's grandson, became king of Spain; but he remained for the present in Belgium, and his councillors leaned to France. Maximilian said he would come down from the Tyrol and remove them and get him to join the league. It was only another pretence for extracting money from England, but it was convenient to humour him. He did come down; but having got what he wanted out of England, before the end of the year he sold all his claims on Italy for two hundred thousand ducats by accepting the treaty of Noyon, made in August between France and Spain. Wolsey's comment on the news was that the emperor seemed to be like a participle, which was in some degree a noun, in some degree a verb. But the king, under his guidance, accepted the most transparent excuses for Maximilian's conduct and made no change in his policy, thereby bringing the emperor under suspicion of his new friends and destroying completely his significance in European politics.

Wolsey's policy now was to let both Francis and the young king of Spain find out the value of alliance with England; for France wanted to recover Tournay, and Charles wanted money to take him to his new kingdom, where there was serious danger, if he delayed, that his brother Ferdinand would be crowned in his place. But delayed Charles was, both by want of money and by an invasion of his Dutch dominions by the Duke of Gueldres. A loan from Henry VIII, however, ultimately enabled him to sail for Spain in September 1517. As to France, England was still supposed to be watching her with jealousy and ill-will. But very secret communications had begun even in February 1517 between Charles Somerset, first earl of Worcester [q. v.], at Brussels and the dean of Tournay, referring probably in the first place to difficulties in the ecclesiastical administration (for the diocese of Tournay lay chiefly in Flanders), but leading ultimately to correspondence with the Duke of Orleans, and a suggestion that the city itself might be surrendered to Francis for four hundred thousand crowns. In November Stephen Poncher, bishop of Paris, and Peter de la Guiche came over to England to arrange matters.

Meanwhile the riot on ‘Evil Mayday’ (1517) had been met by prompt measures of repression, by which Wolsey earned the gratitude of the foreign merchants in London; and a few days after he no less earned the gratitude of many of the rioters themselves, who, after the execution of twenty of the ringleaders, were pardoned at his earnest intercession. Shortly afterwards the sweating sickness became alarmingly prevalent. Wolsey had four repeated attacks during the summer, and in June his life was despaired of. Still he was so unremitting in his attention to business that the king himself, besides various messages, wrote to him with his own hand, both to thank him and to urge him to take some relaxation. Acting perhaps on this advice, he set out on pilgrimage to Walsingham in August, which, however, seems to have done him little good, as he still suffered from fever after his return and was ill again next year.

At Rome, in the spring of 1517, Cardinal Adrian de Castello [q. v.], papal collector in England, was involved in the conspiracy of two other cardinals to poison Leo X, and fled to Venice. His quondam sub-collector, Polydore Vergil [q. v.], had already been imprisoned by Wolsey just before he was made cardinal for letters reflecting on the king and him, and had only been released after some time at the pope's intercession. There is no doubt, moreover, that Cardinal Adrian himself had acted against Wolsey's interests at Rome. The king now urged Leo to deprive him of his cardinalate, and promised Wolsey his bishopric of Bath and Wells. Leo, however, was timid and interposed delays for a whole year, till circumstances compelled him to give way.

In the spring of 1518 Bishop Poncher, having returned to Paris, sent his secretary to England suggesting that the proposed agreement for Tournay should be made the foundation for a European peace, as the Turk was threatening Christendom. The pope was just then urging a crusade, and a legate for the purpose had been received at Paris in December. Other legates were to be sent to other princes and Cardinal Campeggio to England. The king at once intimated to the pope that it was an unusual thing to admit a foreign cardinal in England as legate, but that he would waive his objection on that point if the legate's powers were restricted and Wolsey were joined with him in equal authority. The pope felt compelled to yield, and on 17 May created Wolsey legate de latere as Campeggio's asso-