y. They meant,
as clearly as tone could speak, that the enemy of France and Queen
Katharine's nephew was the friend for the English people, whatever the
Cardinal of York might think. To Katharine it was a period of rejoicing,
and her thoughts were high as she welcomed her sister's son; the sallow
young man with yellow hair, already in title the greatest monarch in the
world, though beset with difficulties. By her stood beautiful Mary Tudor,
Duchess of Suffolk, twice married since she had, as a child, been
betrothed under such heavy guarantees to Charles himself; and, holding her
mother's hand, was the other Mary Tudor, a prim, quaint little maid of
four, with big brown eyes. Already great plans for her filled her mother's
brain. True, she was betrothed to the Dauphin; but what if the hateful
French match fell through, and the Emperor, he of her own kin, were to
seal a national alliance by marrying the daughter of England? Charles
feasted for four days at Canterbury, and then went on his way amidst
loving plaudits to his ships at Sandwich; but before he sailed he
whispered that to Wolsey which made the Cardinal his servant; for the
Emperor, suzerain of Italy and King of Naples, Sicily, and Spain, might do
more than a King of France in future towards making a Pope.

By the time that Henry and Francis met early in June on the ever-memorable
field between Ardres and Guisnes, the riot of splendour which surrounded
the sovereigns and Wolsey, though it dazzled the crowd and left its mark
upon history as a pageant, was known to the principal actors of the scene
to be but hollow mockery. The glittering baubles that the two kings
loved, the courtly dallying, the pompous ceremony, the masques and devices
to symbolise eternal amity, were not more evanescent than the love they
were supposed to perpetuate. Katharine went through her ceremonial part of
the show as a duty, and graciously received the visit of Francis in the
wonderful flimsy palace of wood, drapery, and glass at Guisnes; but her
heart was across the Flemish frontier a few miles away, where her nephew
awaited the coming of the King of England to greet him as his kinsman and
future ally. Gravelines was a poor place, but Charles had other ways of
influencing people than by piling up gewgaws before them. A single day of
rough, hearty feasting was an agreeable relief to Henry after the
glittering insincerity of Guisnes; and the four days following, in which
Charles was entert