the other the
greater monarch. The king, from his oversights and indiscretions,
naturally exposed to misfortunes; but qualified, by his spirit and
magnanimity, to extricate himself from them with honor: the emperor, by
his designing, interested character, fitted, in his greatest successes,
to excite jealousy and opposition even among his allies, and to rouse up
a multitude of enemies in the place of one whom he had subdued. And as
the personal qualities of these princes thus counterpoised each other,
so did the advantages and disadvantages of their dominions. Fortune
alone, without the concurrence of prudence or valor, never reared up of
a sudden so great a power as that which centred in the emperor Charles.
He reaped the succession of Castile, of Arragon, of Austria, of the
Netherlands: he inherited the conquest of Naples, of Grenada: election
entitled him to the empire: even the bounds of the globe seemed to
be enlarged a little before his time, that he might possess the whole
treasure, as yet entire and unrifled, of the new world. But though the
concurrence of all these advantages formed an empire greater and more
extensive than any known in Europe since that of the Romans, the kingdom
of France alone, being close, compact, united, rich, populous, and being
interposed between the provinces of the emperor's dominions, was able
to make a vigorous opposition to his progress, and maintain the contest
against him.

Henry possessed the felicity of being able, both by the native force
of his kingdom and its situation, to hold the balance between those two
powers; and had he known to improve by policy and prudence this singular
and inestimable advantage, he was really, by means of it, a greater
potentate than either of those mighty monarchs, who seemed to strive for
the dominion of Europe. But this prince was in his character heedless,
inconsiderate, capricious, impolitic; guided by his passions or his
favorite; vain, imperious, haughty; sometimes actuated by friendship for
foreign powers, oftener by resentment, seldom by his true interest.
And thus, though he exulted in that superiority which his situation in
Europe gave him, he never employed it to his own essential and durable
advantage, or to that of his kingdom.

{1520.} Francis was well acquainted with Henry's character, and
endeavored to accommodate his conduct to it. He solicited an interview
near Calais; in expectation of being able by familiar conversation to
ga