orgeous entry of Wolsey in his crimson robe on
a mule trapped with gold, the fresh treaty which ratified the alliance,
hardly veiled the new English purpose. A second interview between Charles
and his uncle as he returned from the meeting with Francis ended in a
secret confederacy of the two sovereigns and the promise of the Emperor to
marry his cousin, Henry's one child, Mary Tudor. With her hand passed the
heritage of the English Crown. Henry had now ceased to hope for a son from
Catharine, and Mary was his destined successor. Her right to the throne
was asserted by a deed which proved how utterly the baronage now lay at
the mercy of the king. The Duke of Buckingham stood first in blood as in
power among the English nobles; he was the descendant of Edward the
Third's youngest son, and if Mary's succession were denied he stood heir
to the throne. His hopes had been fanned by prophets and astrologers, and
wild words told his purpose to seize the crown on Henry's death in
defiance of every opponent. But word and act had for two years been
watched by the king; and in 1521 the Duke was arrested, condemned as a
traitor by his peers, and beheaded on Tower Hill. His blood was a pledge
of Henry's sincerity which Charles could not mistake. Francis on the other
hand had never for a moment been deceived by the profuse assurances of
friendship which the king and Wolsey lavished on him. A revolt of the
Spanish towns offered a favourable opportunity for an attack on his rival,
and a French army passed over the Pyrenees into Navarre while Francis
himself prepared to invade the Netherlands. Both princes appealed for aid
under their separate treaties to Henry; and the English sovereign, whom
the quick stroke of the French had taken by surprise, could only gain time
by a feigned mediation in which Wolsey visited both Emperor and King. But
at the close of the year England was at last ready for action, and
Wolsey's solemn decision that Francis was the aggressor was followed in
November by a secret league which was concluded at Calais between the
Pope, the Emperor, and Henry.

[Sidenote: Benevolences]

The conquest of the Milanese by the imperial generals turned at this
moment the balance of the war, and as the struggle went on the accession
of Venice and the lesser Italian republics, of the king of Hungary and
Ferdinand of Austria, to whom Charles had ceded his share in the
hereditary duchy of their house, to the alliance for the recove