garrison, and on Surrey's approach had retreated hastily into Scotland. For the present all danger from Scotland was over, so Surrey laid down his wardenship of the Borders on December 3, and was succeeded by Lord Dacre.

CHAPTER X

THE next year opened with the thoughts of Wolsey turned decidedly towards peace. On January 24, 1524, he ordered Sampson and Jerningham carefully to sound the Emperor as to peace.1 In March he was again attempting to end the war by means of the Pope. Peace, however, was still distant, and Henry, if not Wolsey, was eagerly intent upon the plans for a fresh invasion of France, to which the now rapidly culminating treason of the Duke of Bourbon seemed to hold out a promise of substantial success. Bourbon fled from the French Court-to put the whole affair in as short a space as possible, as unimportant in a history of England-and at the head of an Imperial army invaded Provence, but the French troops, refusing battle, retired before him, and Bourbon had to content himself with ravaging Provence and then turned to besiege Marseilles. The siege was abortive, and the French King, initiating a military movement very similar to Napoleon's march and the battle of

1 L. and P., vol. iv, No. 60.

Marengo, suddenly crossed the Alps at the head of a large army and captured Milan. Meanwhile Bourbon had been forced to raise the siege, and retreated to Italy by the littoral route. The French fortunes stood high.

Meanwhile, what had Wolsey been doing? As we have seen, he had long tired of the war, if his heart had ever been really in it, and he did not scruple to open secret communications with the regent, Louise de Savoie. Even before Francis had left Blois on his way to check Bourbon's advance into Provence, overtures had passed by means of a monk who had gone from Madame to the Cardinal. But these tentative feelings after peace, as well as some preliminary fencing between the deputy of Calais, Lord Berners, and other French diplomats, were merely preliminary to more important negotiations. Jean Joachim, maître d'hôtel of Madame Louise, arrived in London on the 22nd of June 1524. Ostensibly his visit was a business one of a private nature with some foreign merchants in London; really he came to open overtures for peace. No wonder Wolsey turned a deaf ear to Pace's remonstrances from Bourbon's camp that Henry's promised invasion of Picardy had not yet taken place. The Imperial envoy, De Praet, was suspicious, but was unable to get any definite

1 La Politique extérieure de Louise de Savoie, par G. Jacqueton, Paris, 1892, pp. 48 et seq.

news. It is unnecessary to enter into any detailed account of either of these delicate diplomatic overtures, which have been ably set out for those interested in M. Jacqueton's 'La Politique extérieure de Louise de Savoie,' or into the varying fortunes of the French-Imperialist war in France and Italy, for, though England was the nominal ally of the Emperor and the foe of France, she no longer took any active part in the campaign.

After Francis had captured Milan he committed a series of inexcusable military blunders and eventually laid siege to Pavia, held by Antonio de Leiva for the Emperor, assaulted it twice, and was twice repulsed. Francis also attempted to create a diversion in the Imperialists' rear by sending the Duke of Albany with a portion of his army direct towards Naples. The diversion did him no good and merely weakened his own army. Meanwhile the scattered Imperial forces had time to concentrate and receive reinforcements commanded by Bourbon, Lannoy, the viceroy of Naples, and the Marquis de Pescara. On the night of the 23rd of February 1525, they attacked the French camp, which was prepared to receive them. The fight was stubborn, but an effective sally of the garrison of Pavia proved decisive, and the Imperialist victory was complete. Francis I himself was among the prisoners; he was taken fighting gallantly to the

last. The bulk of the French nobility were either slain on the field of battle or, like the King of Navarre, shared their sovereign's fate. The Duke d'Alençon, who was one of the few to escape, and whose indecision, if not worse, in command of the rearguard of the French army contributed greatly to the crushing defeat, on reaching the regent's court a fugitive was openly accused of being an incompetent coward, and took the accusation so much to heart that he shortly after died of chagrin.

The Abbot of Naejra exultantly announced the news to the Emperor: To-day is the feast of the Apostle St. Matthias, on which day five and twenty years ago your Majesty is said to have been born. Five and twenty thousand times thanks and praises to God for his mercy! Your Majesty is from this day in a position to prescribe laws to Christians and Turks according to your pleasure.' On the 10th of March the wonderful news reached the young Emperor in Madrid; it was tidings that might have turned many an older head, for it meant, in all human probability, the absolute control of Christendom to this youth of twenty-five. Lord of Germany, Austria, the Low Countries, Naples, Milan and Spain, the victory of Pavia made him the master of the rest of Italy and crushed most effectively his only possible rival. But he

1 Sp. Cl., vol. ii. No. 722.