ttention toward that equal balance of power
which it was necessary to keep between the two contending potentates,
the preservation of which he always boasted to be his peculiar office.
He had expected that his union with the Emperor might afford him an
opportunity of recovering some part of those territories in France which
had belonged to his ancestors, and for the sake of such an acquisition
he did not scruple to give his assistance toward raising Charles to a
considerable preeminence above Francis. He had never dreamed, however,
of any event so decisive and so fatal as the victory at Pavia, which
seemed not only to have broken, but to have annihilated, the power of
one of the rivals; so that the prospect of the sudden and entire
revolution which this would occasion in the political system filled him
with the most disquieting apprehensions. He saw all Europe in danger of
being overrun by an ambitious prince, to whose power there now remained
no counterpoise; and though he himself might at first be admitted, in
quality of an ally, to some share in the spoils of the captive monarch,
it was easy to discern that with regard to the manner of making the
partition, as well as his security for keeping possession of what should
be allotted him, he must absolutely depend upon the will of a
confederate, to whose forces his own bore no proportion.

He was sensible that if Charles were permitted to add any considerable
part of France to the vast dominions of which he was already master, his
neighborhood would be much more formidable to England than that of the
ancient French kings; while at the same time the proper balance on the
Continent, to which England owed both its safety and importance, would
be entirely lost. Concern for the situation of the unhappy monarch
cooperated with these political considerations; his gallant behavior in
the battle of Pavia had excited a high degree of admiration, which never
fails of augmenting sympathy; and Henry, naturally susceptible of
generous sentiments, was fond of appearing as the deliverer of a
vanquished enemy from a state of captivity. The passions of the English
minister seconded the inclinations of the monarch. Wolsey, who had not
forgotten the disappointment of his hopes in two successive conclaves,
which he imputed chiefly to the Emperor, thought this a proper
opportunity of taking revenge; and, Louise courting the friendship of
England with such flattering submissions as were no less