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HEN to dowry and other matters, be concluded. The terms of arrangement, after a long delay, seemed at length settled; it was agreed to pay the last instalment of the dowry, and nothing was wanting to the betrothal of the young couple but the papal bull of dispensation, when, on Henry's fifteenth birthday, the negotiations were broken off, and the young prince, having attained his majority, was compelled by the king to protest that he was not bound by anything done in his nonage to marry Catherine. Henry's inclinations were probably favourable to Catherine, to judge from the fact of his marrying her as soon as he was his own master, six weeks after his father's death and his own accession to the throne. On the 22nd of April, 1509, occurred the event which made Henry king of England, the eighth of his name. Great and manifold were the rejoicings at his accession. In the pride and beauty of youth, accomplished in arts and arms, brave and generous, rich and fond of splendour, he excited the greatest enthusiasm among a people who loved the monarchy. Lord Bacon describes the opening of this reign as "one of the fairest mornings of a kingdom that hath been known in this land or anywhere else." The coronation of Henry and his queen was celebrated with much magnificence on the 24th of June, 1509. The execution of Empson and Dudley, the instruments of the late king's exactions, was a sacrifice made rather to popular clamour than to strict legality. Henry's chief strength indeed all through his reign, lay in the sympathy which existed and was always maintained between himself and the great body of the people. He inherited from his father a band of very able counsellors; but the two most distinguished statesmen of his reign, Wolsey and Cromwell, were "men of the people," both born in humble homes. For about two years the young king revelled in the gaieties to which the peace and prosperity of his kingdom seemed to invite him. His relations with the continental states were most amicable, and might so have remained but for the intrigues of Pope Julius II., who, after breaking the power of Venice by the league of Cambrai, resolved to check the growing importance of France. To win Henry to his cause the pope sent him the consecrated paschal rose—a gift in those days still regarded with veneration—and saluted him with the title of "head of the Italian league." Henry liked the flattery, and in conjunction with the king of Arragon and the republic of Venice, declared war against Louis XII.

The first English expedition in this war failed. Some naval triumphs, however, were obtained by Sir Thomas Howard. Henry, having obtained the co-operation of the Emperor Maximilian, invaded France in person with a well-appointed army, laid siege to Terouanne, entertained Maximilian splendidly in the English camp, surprised the French into flight in the skirmish of Guinegate, captured Terouanne and then Tournay, and after a magnificent entry into the latter town, terminated his war-pageant before winter came on, and then returned home. During his absence James of Scotland had crossed the borders to revenge on England Henry's execution of a Scotch pirate. On Flodden field, September, 1513, James and the bravest of his nobility perished, and Henry for the rest of his reign was relieved from apprehension in that quarter. The news of the victory of Flodden reached Henry on the day that Tournay surrendered to him. In an interview Henry had at Tournay with Margaret, regent of the Low Countries, he became acquainted with her nephew, Archduke Charles, afterwards so celebrated as the Emperor Charles V.; and it was subsequently agreed with the Emperor Maximilian that Charles should marry Mary, Henry's youngest sister. Such an alliance would have proved very formidable to France; and her able king, by a series of skilful negotiations, gave an entirely new turn to affairs. Louis recovered the friendship of the pope by renouncing the territory of Pisa, pacified Ferdinand of Spain by yielding in the matter of Navarre, gained Maximilian by promising his daughter as a bride for the Archduke Charles, and then informing Henry of the faithlessness of his allies, offered to marry the Princess Mary himself. She was but sixteen and the French king fifty-three; but Henry was so irritated by what he had heard that he made peace with Louis, and sent Mary over to France in October, 1514, to be queen of France for three months, the period which Louis survived his marriage. Among the ladies of Mary's train in this expedition was Anne Boleyn, then a young girl, who was destined to play an important part in the history of Henry's reign. In January, 1515, Francis I. ascended the throne of France, and a year later the Archduke Charles succeeded Ferdinand in the sovereignty of Spain. Three years later, in January, Maximilian died, and the imperial crown of Germany became the object of a brief but fierce competition. The young king of Spain became the Emperor Charles V., and the able and ambitious Francis saw himself in danger of being left to the mercy of his powerful neighbour and rival. In this conjuncture the alliance of England was of vital importance to France. King Francis redoubled his efforts to gain the friendship of Henry and of his minister Wolsey. Already in anticipation of Charles' extended power, a league of close amity had been formed between England and France in October, 1518. It was now agreed that the two sovereigns should meet on the confines of their territories to concert measures for their mutual safety. A spot between Guines and Ardres was fixed upon, and Wolsey was intrusted with the arrangement of the splendid ceremonial. The news of this proposed interview was anything but welcome to the young emperor, who, in order to be beforehand with the king of France, paid a visit to Henry, landing at Hythe on his way to the Netherlands, that he might pay his respects to his aunt Queen Catherine and her royal husband. He used all his address to ingratiate himself with Henry and with Wolsey. After the seventeen days' festivities of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, which are minutely described by Hall and other chroniclers, Henry paid a visit to the emperor at Gravelines, after which Charles again paid his court at London, taking especial care to hint to the great cardinal promises of support in case of a vacancy in the papacy. In addition to imperial flatteries Henry received at this time grateful incense from Rome itself. His indignation at Luther's contemptuous treatment of the angelic doctor Thomas Aquinas, had found vent in the composition of a work entitled "De Septem Sacramentis contra Martinum Luther, heresiarchon." This book was presented to the pope in full conclave. Leo X. compared it to the writings of St. Jerome and St. Augustine; and a brief, signed by twenty-seven cardinals, decreed to the royal author the title of Defender of the Faith (1521). After this Henry could not refuse to join the secret league with the emperor against France. War with France involved at that time war with Scotland, whose alliance was always assiduously cultivated by the French kings with the main object of harassing England. Henry gained no glory by the expeditions he sent out in this war, and the drain upon his finances was severe; Wolsey was disappointed in his hopes of the tiara; and when in 1525 Francis was captured in Pavia, Henry perceived the enormous mistake he had made, and hastened to make peace with France and negotiate for the liberty of her king, while the troops of Charles sacked Rome and held the pope in captivity. With the mention of the execution in 1521 of the duke of Buckingham for having meditated certain crimes against the government, the history of the first half of Henry's reign may close. It was a period during which he was a prosperous, popular, and happy sovereign. In the year 1527 it became apparent that a great change had been wrought in the king's mind, a change which, though it bore seemingly upon his domestic life only, was fruitful of the most momentous consequences to England. With that year in fact properly begins the modern history of England. The king was now in the prime of life, a man of robust habit and strong feelings. His desire for an heir had been disappointed by the death of two sons which Queen Catherine had borne him. The queen's health was bad, and her husband dwelt apart from her. Doubts had crossed his mind that his marriage with Catherine was possibly not lawful. The death of her two sons appeared to him in the light of a judgment from heaven. The legitimacy of her daughter, the Princess Mary, had been questioned by the bishop of Tarbes during a matrimonial negotiation with the king of France. Meanwhile Anne Boleyn, who had returned from France in 1525, and had become a maid of honour to the queen, was distinguishing herself at the court by her talents, her accomplishments, and her beauty. Henry became deeply enamoured of her. She was not slack in encouraging his advances. The unlawfulness of the union with Catherine at once became a state question of great importance. Schools and universities, learned doctors, bishops, cardinals, and the pope, were intreated to solve it.

The pope at Wolsey's instigation was quite prepared to accede to Henry's wishes and pronounce his divorce from Catherine; but the queen of England was aunt to the Emperor Charles V., whose resentment the pope dared not arouse. He therefore temporized; and although he sent Campeggio as his legate to London ostensibly to annul the marriage, he gave private