land's friendship, whilst Francis was forced to abandon
all his claims on Italy and Burgundy (January 1526), and marry the
Emperor's sister Leonora, before he was permitted to return to France, at
peace once more. It is true that every party to the treaties endeavoured
to evade the fulfilment of his pledges; but that was the custom of the
times. The point that interests us here is that the new policy now
actively pursued by Wolsey of close friendship with France, necessarily
meant the ruin of Katharine, unless she was dexterous and adaptable enough
either to reverse the policy or openly espouse it. Unfortunately she did
neither. She was now forty-one years of age, and had ceased for nearly two
years to cohabit with her husband. Her health was bad; she had grown
stout, and her comeliness had departed; all hopes of her giving to the
King the son and heir for whom he so ardently craved had quite vanished,
and with them much of her personal hold upon her husband. To her alarm and
chagrin, Henry, as if in despair of being succeeded by a legitimate heir,
in 1525, before signing the new alliance with France, had created his
dearly loved natural son, Henry Fitzroy, a duke under the royal title of
Duke of Richmond, which had been borne by his father; and Katharine, not
without reason, feared the King's intention to depose her daughter, the
betrothed of the Emperor, in favour of an English bastard. We have in
previous pages noticed the peculiar absence of tact and flexibility in
Katharine's character; and Wolsey's ostentatious French leanings after
1525 were met by the Queen with open opposition and acrimonious reproach,
instead of by temporising wiliness. The Emperor's off-hand treatment of
his betrothed bride, Mary Tudor, further embittered Katharine, who was
thus surrounded on every side by disillusionment and disappointment.
Charles sent commissioners to England just before the battle of Pavia to
demand, amongst other unamiable requirements, the prompt sending of Mary,
who was only nine years old, to Flanders with an increased dowry. This was
no part of the agreement, and was, as no doubt Charles foresaw and
desired, certain to be refused. The envoys received from Henry and
Katharine, and more emphatically from Wolsey, a negative answer to the
request,[35] Mary being, as they said, the greatest treasure they had, for
whom no hostages would be sufficient.[36] Katharine would not let her
nephew slip out of his engagement without a
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