Scottish host drew off under cover of the darkness, having lost in this fatal encounter their gallant king, and almost every gentleman in Scotland capable of bearing arms, besides ten thousand of the common soldiers.

After this terrible overthrow the Scots were glad to make peace. Soon afterwards the war with France was also brought to a close, and within three months Louis was dead.

Francis the First, who succeeded Louis, was a warlike prince, ambitious of conquest and military glory; like Henry, he was also fond of feasts and tournaments and all kinds of athletic sports; and the two kings were disposed at first to be very friendly. In June, 1520, they agreed to meet at Ardres, near Calais, attended by all the chief nobles of England and France. The meeting-place was called the Field of Cloth of Gold; and gold and silver tissue, rich jewels and costly armour met the eye on all sides. The days were spent in feats of arms, the nights in amusement, and the attendants of the two kings were so anxious to excel one another in the splendour of their dress, that many a courtier was said to wear all his estates on his back.

There was another monarch, younger than Henry and Francis, but wiser and more powerful than either of them, who also paid court to the English king. This was Charles, King of Spain, Emperor of Germany, and ruler of the Netherlands and of a large part of Italy. Charles and Francis were jealous of each other's power, and saw that, if they

went to war, the help of England would enable either of them to prevail over the other. Henry liked to feel himself of so much consequence, and used to boast that he held the balance between the two most powerful sovereigns in Europe.

He was too fickle, however, to be a firm friend to either of these great rivals, but in general he sided with Charles, and made war upon France two or three times in the course of his reign. Enormous sums of money were spent in these military operations, which only ended in the conquest of Boulogne and a few other towns.

2

During this period the king had been guided by Thomas Wolsey, who for fifteen years exercised a powerful influence over the destinies of the kingdom, rising to a greater degree of wealth and power than were, perhaps, ever enjoyed by any other English subject. Honours and promotion were showered upon him, until he became Archbishop of York, Chancellor, and Papal Legate. He was also made a Cardinal, with the prospect of being Pope at no distant day.

But with all his splendour, Wolsey did not win much real honour or regard. His arrogance made him hateful both to rich and poor; and directly the king began to look coldly on his favourite minister, every one was ready to hasten his downfall. This was brought about by a series of unforeseen events, which, although apparently trivial at the outset, ultimately led to the most important results.

A purely domestic question, touching the legality of the king's marriage, was the immediate cause of

Wolsey's ruin. For eighteen years Henry had lived happily with Catherine, who, in the meantime, had become the mother of a daughters and two sons. The latter, however, to the king's bitter disappointment, had died in infancy, and he now professed to see in their early death a sign that his marriage with his brother's widow was displeasing to Heaven. These real or pretended religious scruples were no doubt strengthened, if not altogether suggested, by his having taken a fancy to Anne Boleyn, one of the queen's attendants.

Having obtained the Papal sanction to his marriage with Catherine, Henry now sought the same authority for a divorce; but, not wishing to offend either Henry or the queen's cousin, Charles the Fifth, the Pope adopted a policy of delay. He so far yielded, however, to Henry's wishes as to send over Cardinal Campeggio, who, together with Wolsey, held a court to try the case.

At last, after the matter had been dragging on for five years, and the universities and learned men at home and abroad had been consulted in hopes of obtaining opinions favourable to the divorce, Henry, regardless of the Pope's prohibition, privately married Anne Boleyn. The newly appointed primate, Thomas Cranmer, who owed his elevation to the zeal with which he had advocated the king's cause, then pronounced the marriage between Henry and Catherine to have been null and void from the beginning. The marriage with Anne Boleyn was declared lawful; and a few days afterwards she was crowned with great pomp. The forsaken wife, who

steadily refused to forego her title of queen, died three years later.5

More, however, than the fortunes of Catherine and Anne were involved in this affair; for thinking that Wolsey had not served him well, Henry became dissatisfied with him; and the Cardinal's enemies, ever on the watch for the first signs of royal displeasure, plotted to effect his fall. With so many adverse influences at work, this was not long delayed; and deprived of all his wealth and power, Wolsey was banished to York, where he was soon afterwards arrested on a charge of high treason.

The Yorkshire peasants were moved to tears as the sick old man, scarcely able to sit his mule, rode slowly towards the south, well knowing that a short term of imprisonment in the Tower, and then the headsman's axe, were probably in store for the great Cardinal.

An attack of dysentery delayed him at Sheffield Park for eighteen days. Then entering Leicester Abbey one evening late, the light of torches lending a false flush to his worn face, he said to the abbot: 66 Father, I am come to lay my bones among you."

This was too true, for a relapse of his disease acting on a frame broken with anxiety and grief wore his life away, and he died on the 28th of November, 1530, being then in his sixtieth year. His last words "" were, Had I but served my God as diligently as I have served my king, He had not given me over in my grey hairs."

Nor was the fall of Wolsey all. Henry, at first with the hope of extorting from the Pope his con

sent to the divorce, had fallen in with the general desire for a reform of the many abuses that then existed among the clergy. But step by step the breach widened, until at last the king was declared supreme head of the English Church; and all appeals in ecclesiastical matters to Rome were declared illegal.

Even the denial of this title to the king constituted an act of treason, and many estimable men suffered death in consequence. Among the most eminent of these were John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas More, who had succeeded Wolsey as Chancellor.

By the course of conduct we have thus indicated, Henry became an unconscious instrument in the great work of Reformation, that was then stirring Europe to its depths. His part in it, however, was more political than religious; and the great body of the nation was of the same mind, being opposed to the power, but not disagreeing to any extent with the doctrines of Rome.