Page:The Queens of England.djvu/303

 KATHARINE OF ARRAGON. 263 and a half out of the town, and conducted him, with every mark of respect that could be shown to a sovereign, to his lodgings. The cardinal accompanied Francis to Compiegne, where a treaty was made by which the Princess Mary was to marry the Duke of Orleans, and Francis was to wed Leonora, the sister of Charles ; and the pope, then kept a prisoner in the castle of St. Angelo, should be set free by mediation or force, as soon as possible. While this treaty was going on, the English ambas- sadors in Spain were written to by Wolsey to desire that all rumors of a divorce between Katharine and Henry should be contradicted, and to assure Charles the Fifth that any such had only originated in an objection made by the Bishop of Tarbes, when he had lately been in England, concerning the legitimacy of the Princess Mary. This excuse had also been made to the privy council of Henry, when he first touched on the illegality of his marriage to them ; but it probably was suggested only by the crafty monarch himself as an excuse for seeking a divorce. On the 16th of September, Wolsey departed from Compiegne, loaded with costly gifts by Francis, who conducted him through the town, and a mile beyond it, accompanied by the titular King of Navarre, the pope's legate, and the highest of the French nobility. In return for this stately embassy, Francis, the following month, sent the grand master, Anne de Mont- morency, John de Belloy, Bishop of Bayonne, John Brisson, first president of Rouen, and Le Seigneur de Humieres, as his ambassadors, to ratify the treaty in England. These, with a noble train of no fewer than six hundred horse, were conducted to London on the 20th of October, and lodged in the Bishop of London's palace. On the 10th of November they were en- tertained by the king at Greenwich with a feast, said by Belloy to be the most sumptuous he had ever seen, and followed by a comedy, in which the Princess Mary took a part. On the same day Henry received, by the hand of Montmorency, the order of St. Michael, and Francis, in Paris, that of the Garter, sent over to him by three knights of that order, with Sir Thomas Wriothesley, "garter herauld." In 1528, Charles the Fifth first intimated to Henry his knowl- edge and disapproval of the intended divorce. This intimation was given in the answer sent by Clarencieux king-of-arms, who had accompanied Guyenne, king-of-arms, to Burgos, on the 22d of January, 1528, to declare war on the parts of Henry and Francis against Spain, unless certain conditions were complied