that the frown of envious nobility would be impotent, the wars of the Roses having annihilated the power of feudal barons, and that he could impose as suddenly as he pleased a check upon the movements of any of his ministers; and he felt that the reins lay secure enough, although loose, upon the neck of one who knew well and pursued heedfully the path of royal inclination. The scholarship of Wolsey, his penetrating judgment, his eloquence and address, the versatility of his talents, and his usual success in the negotiations entrusted to him, — all concurred to establish him in the good opinion of his sovereign. And there is reason to believe that he sincerely aimed at the promotion of his master's welfare. He saw that he could not effectually serve that master without virtually ruling him. He therefore studied his opinions and inclinations; and, instead of vainly attempting to eradicate these, he endeavoured to give them a direction calculated to promote the conceived good of both king and kingdom. If he veered oftentimes with Henry's caprices, it was that he might retain his post at the helm, and be enabled to take advantage of every favouring hour to steer what he believed to be a salutary course. He had early discovered the king's partiality for pleasure and dislike of business : "And whereas," says Cavendish, 'the other ancient councillors would, according to the office of good councillors, diverse times, persuade the king to have some time a recourse unto the council, there to hear what was done in weighty matters, the which pleased the king nothing at all, for he loved nothing worse than to be constrained to do any thing contrary to his pleasure;-that knew the Almoner very well, having a secret intelligence of the king's natural inclination : - so fast as the other councillors counselled the king to leave his pleasure, and to attend to his affairs, so busily did the Almoner persuade him to the contrary; which delighted him very much, and caused him to have the greater affection and love to the Almoner. Thus the Almoner ruled all them that before ruled him; such was his policy and wit." What the king, however, was thus encouraged to let alone, was in no wise neglected by his adviser, and of that the king was thoroughly aware.

As to the grandeur with which Wolsey came to be invested, it was that of a man who was frequently called upon to act as the representative of the English crown, and may have been regarded by the monarch as a suitable and expedient illustration of his own

greatness. Add to this, that Henry, the opulent successor of a parsimonious sire, was himself no favourer of parsimony, no enemy to pageantry and splendour; and that he may, perhaps, have appreciated Wolsey's passion for shows and festivities as an ecclesiastical sanction for his own gaiety.

IX. We are now approaching that year of Wolsey's life, in which the action of Shakspeare's drama commences. In the preceding year, viz. 1519, occurred the death of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, and his throne was then competed for by two eager candidates Charles I. King of Spain, and Francis I. King of France. The decision of the electors in favour of Charles, had excited a strong feeling of enmity between the two princes, each of whom therefore solicitously courted the favour of the English king as a source of security.

By the advice of Wolsey, an agreement had been made in October, 1518, that the kings of England and France should have a ceremonial interview, for the establishment of a good understanding between them; and in 1520 Francis called upon Henry to fulfil that agreement. The time, place, and procedure of an interview were accordingly, at the request of both monarchs, arranged by Wolsey, who appointed that the meeting should take place on the 4th of June (1520), between Ardres and Guisnes, two towns of Picardy, near Calais, belonging respectively to the French and the English, and should be celebrated by a tournament, in which the two sovereigns, each with eighteen companions, should challenge all noble opponents to feats of arms.

While, however, Henry and his court were on their way to the place of interview, the Emperor Charles, in his jealousy of this proceeding, contrived an occasion for visiting the queen, his aunt, at Canterbury. He remained with the English court for four days, and during that time he received the most friendly attentions from Henry, and at the same time ingratiated himself with Wolsey, by assuring him of the papal chair on the next vacancy. Wolsey had

* (E) The parents of Charles V. Emperor of Germany, were Philip of Austria and Joanna of Castile. He had succeeded Ferdinand, his maternal grandfather, as Charles I. King of Spain in 1516. Katharine of Aragon, Queen of England, was his mother's sister.

Francis I., the son of Charles of Orleans and Louisa of Savoy, succeeded Louis XII. as King of France in 1515. He was a distinguished patron of arts and literature.

been for some time indulging hope and employing means of becoming Leo X.'s successor; and the promise now given by the emperor, though it lessened not in the least Wolsey's desire to display his greatness at the approaching festival, made him resolve that the league with France should be immediately afterwards set at nought. Accordingly, after the termination of that festival, the English king on his return visited the emperor at Gravelines, and was accompanied by him from thence to Calais, where they spent a few days together in the most friendly intercourse, - Wolsey, meanwhile, receiving renewed assurances respecting the papacy, and a gift of the revenues of three Spanish bishoprics. Of course, this amicable meeting of Henry with Charles, immediately after the pompous celebration of amity between Henry and Francis, provoked the French king to regard his league with England as a nullity.

The famous, but thus useless, interview in the vale of Andren, became a subject of grievous complaint against Wolsey. For the nobles whom he had summoned to attend the king on that occasion, so vied with each other, and with the French, in splendour, that many of them incurred debts which they were never able to pay; and for this, together with the disgrace of the violated treaty, the cardinal was deemed responsible. The Field of the Cloth of Gold is the name by which the costly celebration is referred to in our annals, and will be found described in many of the Histories of England, but most particularly in the Life of Henry VIII., by Edward Hall, who was himself present at the sight, and whose ample details have been concentrated by Shakspeare in that glowing description with which the play of Henry VIII. commences.

X. Among those who complained of the enormous sacrifice of treasure occasioned by the conference at Guisnes, apparently one of the least reserved was the Duke of Buckingham.* The great wealth and accomplishments of this nobleman had acquired for him

* (F) This was Edward Stafford, third duke of Buckingham, and son of that duke whom Richard III. beheaded. He was the fifth in descent from Anne Plantagenet, daughter and heiress of Thomas, Duke of Gloucester and Earl of Buckingham, youngest son of Edward III. Anne married Edmund, Earl of Stafford, and from this union our duke derived that claim of nearness to the royal succession, the mention of which led to his attainder and execution. His grandfather was slain at the battle of St. Alban's, his great grandfather at that of Northampton, and the father of this last at the battle of Shrewsbury :-so that this nobleman was the fifth head of his family that died a violent death.

an influence which Wolsey regarded with jealousy; and if he really endeavoured to spread dissatisfaction about the ruinous expense of the interview, the cardinal unfortunately found fatal means of revenge. For the duke, who considered himself an heir to the English crown, had been imprudent enough to make remarks occasionally to his friends on this subject, and, in particular, to one Charles Knyvet, the surveyor or steward of his household, whom he was afterwards obliged to discharge for ill conduct, and who then, in resentment, disclosed to Wolsey what his master had said to him and others about the succession. And, no doubt, so perfidious an informant would greatly exaggerate the case, especially if, as the play supposes, the cardinal "showed him gold." The duke was summoned to court from his palace at Thornbury, in Gloucestershire, and was then arrested, and committed to the Tower: this was in April 1521, some time previously to which, in the year 1520, the Earl of Surrey*, Buckingham's son-in-law, had been sent as king's deputy to Ireland; the cardinal's supposed design in this being to preclude the opposition which it was expected Surrey would make to the prosecution of his father-in-law. The principal charges against Buckingham were - that he had expressed to Lord Abergavenny (another of his sons-in-law) his assurance of becoming ruler of the land if Henry died; — that he had told Knyvet, that if he had been committed to the Tower, on the charge of having withdrawn a person, named William Bulmer, from the king's service, he would have done as his father once intended to do to Richard III. at Salisbury, viz. stab the king;—and that, through his chaplain or confessor, John de la Car, he had held communication with a monk of the Chartreux, one Nicholas Hopkins, of the Henton monastery, near Bristol, who pretended to foretell that Henry would die

*(G) This was Thomas Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, who was created Earl of Surrey in 1513, when the dukedom was restored to his father. (See note p. xvii.) He married, as his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Edward Stafford Duke of Buckingham. His niece, the Lady Catharine Howard, became queen ip 1540; and the admirable Henry Howard, his accomplished son, fell a victim to Henry's cruelty in 1547, he himself then narrowly escaping the same fate. He was a prisoner in the Tower during the whole reign of Edward VI., but was restored to his dignities by Mary. His death occurred in 1554.

†(H) Both Nicholas Hopkins and John de la Car, alias De la Court, were monks of the order of the Chartreux. This order was instituted, in 1084, by Bruno, a canon of Rheims, at Chartreux in Dauphiné. The Charterhouse, in London, has

childless, and that Buckingham, or his issue, would obtain the sceptre.

Buckingham owned that he had listened to the vain prophecies of the Carthusian monk, but he eloquently and ably defended himself against the charge of treason. He was, however, convicted, in the court of the lord high steward, by a jury of twenty-one peers, consisting of a duke, a marquis, seven earls, and twelve barons. The Duke of Norfolk, lord high steward on the occasion, shed tears as he pronounced the sentence; after which Buckingham, according to Hall's Chronicle, addressed the court as follows:- 66 'My lord of Norfolk, you have said as a traitor should be said unto, but I was never none. But, my lords, I nothing malign for that you have done to me; but the eternal God forgive you my death, and I do. I shall never sue to the king for life, howbeit he is a gracious prince, and more grace may come from him than I desire. I desire you, my lords, and all my fellows, to pray for me." "Then," adds the same historian, was the edge of the axe turned towards him, and he led into a barge. Sir Thomas Lovell desired him to sit on the cushions and carpet ordained for him: He said, 'Nay; for when I went to Westminster I was Duke of Buckingham; now I am but Edward Bohun, the most caitiff of the world.' Thus they landed at the Temple, where received him Sir Nicholas Vaux and Sir William Sands, and led him through the city, who desired ever the people to pray for him; of whom some wept and lamented, and said,

66

This is the end of evil life; God forgive him! he was a proud prince; it is pity that he behaved him so against his king and liege lord, whom God preserve.' Thus about four of the clock he was brought as a cast man to the Tower." May 1521.

The office of lord high constable, held by this nobleman in virtue of his descent from the Bohuns, Earls of Hereford, was forfeited by his condemnation, and was never after revived in England. He appears to have indulged or affected a preference for the name of Bohun before that of Stafford.

XI. Towards the close of the year of Buckingham's execution, occurred the death of Leo X.; and Wolsey was mortified to find that his hope of succeeding that pontiff (in which hope he had been its name by corruption of the French Chartreuse, a monastery of Carthusians having stood on the same site. This monastery was one of those suppressed by Henry VIII.

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