n that he should
be sent to Calais under colour of hearing the grievances of both
parties: and when he cannot arrange them, he should withdraw to the
Emperor to treat of the matters aforesaid".[407] The treaty was
concluded at Bruges on 25th August[408] before he returned to Calais;
the Emperor promised Wolsey the Papacy;[409] the details of a joint
invasion were settled. Charles was to marry Mary; and the Pope was to
dispense the two from the disability of their kinship, and from
engagements with others which both had contracted. The Cardinal might
be profuse in his protestations of friendship for France, of devotion
to peace, and of his determination to do justice to the parties before
him. But all his painted words could not long conceal the fact that
behind the mask of the judge were hidden the features of a conspirator.
It was an unpleasant time for Fitzwilliam, the English ambassador at
the French Court. The King's sister, Marguerite de Valois, taxed
Fitzwilliam with Wolsey's proceedings, hinting that deceit was being
practised on Francis. The ambassador grew hot, vowed Henry was (p. 147)
not a dissembler, and that he would prove it on any gentleman who
dared to maintain that he was.[410] But he knew nothing of Wolsey's
intrigues; nor was the Cardinal, to whom Fitzwilliam denounced the
insinuation, likely to blush, though he knew that the charge was true.

[Footnote 406: _Ibid._, iii., 1440.]

[Footnote 407: _L. and P._, iii., 1395, 1433; _cf._
iii., 1574, where Henry VIII.'s envoy tells Leo X.
that the real object of the conference was to gain
time for English preparations.]

[Footnote 408: _Ibid._, iii., 1508; _Cotton MS_.,
Galba, B, vii., 102; see also an account of the
conference in _L. and P._, iii., 1816, 1817.]

[Footnote 409: _Ibid._, iii., 1868, 1876.]

[Footnote 410: _L. and P._, iii., 1581.]

Wolsey returned from Calais at the end of November, having failed to
establish the truce to which the negotiations had latterly been in
appearance directed. But the French half-yearly pensions were paid,
and England had the winter in which to prepare for war. No attempt had
been made to examine impartially the mutual charges of aggression
urged by the litigants, though a determination of that point could
alone justify