rench pressure Wolsey was as resolute to free
her from the dictation of Ferdinand, and this the resentment of Henry at
his unscrupulous desertion enabled him to bring about. Crippled as she
was, France was no longer formidable as a foe; and her alliance would not
only break the supremacy of Ferdinand over English policy but secure Henry
on his northern border. Her husband's death at Flodden and the infancy of
their son raised Margaret Tudor to the Scotch regency, and seemed to
promise Henry a hold on his troublesome neighbours. But her marriage a
year later with the Earl of Angus, Archibald Douglas, soon left the Regent
powerless among the factions of warring nobles. She appealed to her
brother for aid, while her opponents called on the Duke of Albany, the son
of the Albany who had been driven to France in 1484 and heir to the crown
after the infant king, to return and take the regency. Albany held broad
lands in France; he had won fame as a French general; and Scotland in his
hands would be simply a means of French attack. A French alliance not only
freed Henry from dependence on Ferdinand but would meet this danger from
the north; and in the summer of 1514 a treaty was concluded with the
French king and ratified by his marriage with Henry's youngest sister,
Mary Tudor.

[Sidenote: Francis the First]

The treaty was hardly signed when the death of Lewis in January 1515 undid
this marriage and placed his young cousin, Francis the First, upon the
throne. But the old king's death brought no change of policy. Francis at
once prepared to renew the war in Italy, and for this purpose he needed
the friendship of his two neighbours in the west and the north, Henry and
the ruler of the Netherlands, the young Charles of Austria. Both were
willing to give their friendship. Charles, jealous of Maximilian's desire
to bring him into tutelage, looked to a French alliance as a security
against the pressure of the Emperor, while Henry and Wolsey were eager to
despatch Francis on a campaign across the Alps, which would at any rate
while it lasted remove all fear of an attack on England. A yet stronger
ground in the minds of both Charles and Henry for facilitating the French
king's march was their secret belief that his invasion of the Milanese
would bring the young king to inevitable ruin, for the Emperor and
Ferdinand of Aragon were leagued with every Italian state against Francis,
and a Swiss army prepared to dispute with him the pos