Preface

Preface

All but a few of the documents here calendared are at present in the Haus-, Hof- und Staats-Archiv at Vienna where they form a part of the great collection of the papers of the emperor Charles V. Although the Vienna archives begin to be rich in documents referring to diplomatic negotiations with England from about the year 1520, they were not utilized for the Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, until the beginning of its third volume which starts with January 1525. Recent reclassification of the archives has turned up a few documents which escaped the editors of Volumes III to VIII, and, for the sake of completeness, these scattered items have been included in this supplement. But more than nine-tenths of the papers here described belong to the rich series for the first five years of the reign of Charles V which was omitted from Volume II.

The omission was more or less deliberate. In 1844 Karl Lanz had begun to publish documents from the Vienna archives, and, in 1853, the Monumenta Hapsburgica published under his editorship a first volume of what promised to be a complete edition of the letters and state papers of the emperor Charles V at Vienna. (fn. 1) Dr. Gustav Bergenroth, the first editor of the Spanish Calendar was under the impression that the publication of these full texts would relieve him of the necessity of calendaring the documents at Vienna. But the series was not continued beyond 1521, and when Don Pascual de Gayangos took over the editorship of the Spanish Calendar with Volume III he started with 1525, hoping perhaps to publish the earlier papers separately.

These papers are here described in accordance with the general plan of the Spanish Calendar. The correspondence printed by Lanz has been omitted. Collation shows that Lanz's printed text is remarkably accurate ; it is available in all large libraries, and the letters printed are adequately noticed in the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, so that the irinclusion in this volume would be of little service. No document calendared in a previous volume of the Spanish Calendar has been redescribed. This is a supplement. On the other hand unpublished documents omitted from previous volumes of the Spanish Calendar, but represented by summaries in the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII have been included in their proper order whenever they have appeared at Vienna. For instance, there are at Vienna drafts of letters from the emperor the originals of which are preserved in London, and originals of letters to him which are represented in the British Museum or the Public Record Office by drafts. When the two texts do not differ substantially, and the summary in the Letters and Papers seems adequate, the notice here is brief. Occasionally it has seemed desirable to provide a fuller summary. Several of the letters noticed in this volume were excerpted by Bradford for his Correspondence of the Emperor Charles V and were calendared in the Letters and Papers from his text. These have been re-summarized in full. Bradford printed not the originals but English translations, sometimes rather free. He rarely printed a whole letter, and did not indicate the extent of his omissions. The complete text not infrequently conveys an impression different from Bradford's excerpt.

Many of the letters here calendared are represented by several copies in the same archives, sometimes, for instance, by the original letter, by one or more preliminary drafts, and by one or more eighteenth century copies. The existence of these additional copies has not been mentioned unless they present interesting differences. Contemporary deciphers have been checked as far as possible against the original ciphered text, but unimportant variations in phrasing have not been noted.

The documents in the Archives du Royaume de Belgique provided a special problem. Since the restitutions made by the Austrian government after 1870, Brussels has had copies of most of the documents having to do with Anglo-Imperial diplomatic relations in the reign of Charles V. Less frequently the original document is in Brussels, a copy having been left in Vienna. It has often been useful to collate these two sets, but in general the text at Vienna has been followed. The Brussels and Vienna collections are not, however, quite parallel. Vienna still has documents, no copies of which are to be found at Brussels, and there are certain bundles relating to English affairs at Brussels, which either were never sent to Vienna or were returned uncopied. It has not been possible to include the contents of these bundles in the present volume. Their omission may be excused on the plea that they concern negotiations peculiar to the Burgundian Netherlands, and form part of a series extending both earlier and later than the limits of the present supplement, and consequently more appropriate for separate publication.

In a slightly different category are those state papers which, while not relating to the imperial embassy in England or primarily concerned with English affairs, nevertheless have some interest for the student of English policy. There was hardly any development affecting international relations between 1512 and 1529, in which Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey had no concern, and a case could be made for the inclusion of many despatches still in the archives, which have at least a tangential reference to Anglo-Imperial diplomacy. A number of papers of this sort, at Simancas and elsewhere, were included by Dr. Bergenroth in his Volume II, but, with the riches of Vienna to draw on, subsequent editors have been forced to limit themselves more strictly, and their practice is followed here, although some extracts from Louis de Praet's reports from France in 1525, and the secret instructions given Poupet de Lachaulx for his mission to the pope and the king of Portugal in 1522 have been included for obvious reasons.

All the documents in this supplement come either from Vienna or from Brussels, except for one stray letter from the library of the University of Gttingen. A rechecking of the manuscripts at the Bibliothque Nationale yielded nothing pertinent, and search in the Vatican archives only revealed how thoroughly Stefan Ehses had dealt with the material relative to Anglo-Imperial relations in his Rmische Dokumente zur Geschichte der Ehescheidung Heinrichs VIII. It seems unlikely that there is any very large unused deposit of documents appropriate for this supplement outside of Spain. But the Spanish civil war made it quite impossible to recheck the Spanish sources. Simancas is probably exhausted, but the publication of the Correspondencia de Gutierre Gomez de Fuensalida by the Duke of Berwick and Alba (Madrid, 1907), a publication in which an invaluable supplement to the Spanish Calendar for the years 15081509 is provided from the resources of the duke's own library, serves to point out the hope that the correspondence of Don Luis Caroz (1510-1516) and of the earlier years of Fray Bernardino de Mesa, very scantily represented at Simancas, may yet prove to survive in some private or provincial Spanish. library.

Perhaps the present editor, since in the course of his task he has rechecked many hundreds of calendar entries against transcripts and originals, may be permitted a word in defence of his predecessors, particularly of the work of Don Pascual de Gayangos, whose work on Volumes III to VII has been severely criticized by bibliographers. It is true that these volumes are not without errors, and that some of these errors in dating and nomenclature thrust themselves upon even the most casual attention. A flawless calendar is too much to hope from human fallibility, and it is often the most obvious blunder which is likeliest to escape editorial vigilance. No one should use any volume of any calendar without being on his guard. But no one need be betrayed by the occasional errors in the first seven volumes of the Spanish Calendar. Common sense, and a general knowledge of the history of the period will provide the necessary corrections. On the other hand, the clumsy but very full summaries in Vols. III to VII of the Spanish Calendar often yield a better indication of the sense of the original, than the shorter, neater versions in the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII. On the whole, they prove an adequate and reliable guide to the documents they describe, far less often in error than criticism would lead one to believe.

The prefaces of Volumes II and III of the Spanish Calendar, and Brewer's prefaces to Volumes III and IV of the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII should be consulted for a detailed analysis of the general course of Anglo-Imperial negotiations from 15201526, and for sketches of most of the persons involved. Two monographs by Wilhelm Busch, Drei Jahre Englischer Vermittlungspolitik (1884) and Cardinal Wolsey und die kaiserlich-englische Allianz (1886), Mignet's La rivalit de Franois I et de Charles Quint, Jacqueton's La politique extrieure de Louise de Savoie, and especially Professor Pollard's Wolsey provide interpretation and comment. Within the limitations of a preface little can be added to these more widely based accounts, and a detailed analysis of the papers which follow seems an unnecessary barrier between the reader and the documents themselves. But perhaps a brief running narrative of the affairs of the emperor's ambassadors in England during the period of the alliance may be useful in explaining references in their letters, and in pointing out matters on which these papers throw new light.

At London, on October 2, 1518, under the guidance of Cardinal Wolsey, who thus deftly wrested from the pope his leadership in the movement for peace, representatives of the papacy and of the kings of England and of France concluded a solemn treaty designed to end forever war among Christian powers. (fn. 2) Signatories agreed not to make war upon each other, and to combine against any aggressor who should violate the pact. As principal contrahents were named the pope, who was to be president of the league, and whose security was declared to be one of its chief objects, Maximilian, king of the Romans, and Charles, king of Spain, whose ambassador, Bernardino de Mesa, bishop of Elne, had participated in the negotiations, as well as the kings of England and of France. The list of confederate powers, included at the instance of one or another of the principals, was a roll of the lesser European states. The signatories undertook not to attack one another, or to encourage rebels in each other's territory, or to permit their vassals and subjects to do any such hostile acts, or to molest in any way the sovereignty or possessions of any confederate power. They promised to consult immediately on notice of any violation of the treaty, and to make a protest to the aggressor ; should their protest fail of effect, they were bound, on a second appeal from the injured party, to declare war against the aggressor, and to prosecute the war vigorously until peace was restored and the guilty power had made full reparation. This treaty had been solemnly and publicly ratified by the representatives of Leo X, Francis I, and Henry VIII at London, and later by Maximilian and his grandson, Charles. A large part of the negotiations prior to England's entrance into the war in 1522 hinged on the terms of this treaty.

When, on the death of Maximilian, Charles, king of Spain, became emperor-elect and a struggle between him and Francis I seemed inevitable, England was left practically the sole guarantor of the treaty of London. The smaller powers had never been asked to ratify directly, and shortly after the beginning of hostilities Leo X abandoned any pretence of neutrality and provoked Lescun, the French governor of Milan, into an attack on the papal states. Throughout 1520 and the early months of 1521, French and imperialists manoeuvred against each other for English support. The sympathies of the English were with their traditional allies ; Henry VIII disliked and distrusted the king of France ; Wolsey was a good enough papalist to sympathize with the pope's fear of French dominance in Italy and his desire to eject the French from Milan. But Wolsey was by now experienced in European diplomacy and may have come to see that, for his own profit and that of his master, the position of neutral arbiter was preferable to that of an ally whose military might was clearly second rate. It was as a neutral arbiter he went to Calais in July 1521 to confer with the representatives of Charles and Francis, and no one who has examined the minutes of that Congress can believe that he was wholly insincere in his efforts to arrange a peaceful agreement. It is true that Wolsey was determined to declare against the French, if he had to declare at all, and that in preparation for this contingency Henry VIII was making ready for war. One object of the treaty of London had been to free Charles from the painful dependence on France imposed by the Treaty of Noyon, and not only were both Wolsey and his master pro-imperialist in sympathy, but the French really were the aggressors as Wolsey had warned them. (fn. 3) But though Wolsey slipped away in August to Bruges to negotiate with the emperor a secret treaty insuring favourable terms of alliance when England declared against the French, (fn. 4) the execution of this treaty, which provided among other things for a declaration of war by Henry against France within thirty days after the arrival of the emperor in England, was contingent upon the failure of the negotiations at Calais, which Wolsey continued to press until the breakdown of the conference in November. It was only then, it may be noted, that Wolsey actually signed the Treaty of Bruges, (fn. 5) which thus became, until its supercession by the treaty of Windsor, a basis for Anglo-Imperialist relations even more important than the Treaty of London. Even then he did not quite close the door to further negotiation with the French.

Wolsey returned to England on November 28, 1521, closely followed by the emperor's resident ambassador, the bishop of Elne, who had been in close touch with him throughout the conference at Calais. This person, Bernardino De Mesa, a native of Cordova, was a Dominican friar who had served Ferdinand the Catholic. During the papacy of Julius II he spent a considerable time in Rome, ostensibly on the business of his order, perhaps also as an agent of the king of Aragon, and gained not a little insight into the workings of the Curia. In 1514 he represented Ferdinand at the court of Louis XII, and shortly afterwards was sent as resident ambassador to England with the task of repairing the damage to the Anglo-Spanish alliance caused by Ferdinand's duplicity in 1513 and 1514, duplicity, which had led to the desertion of the alliance by Henry VIII and the marriage of Henry's sister Mary to the king of France. Ferdinand had already nominated De Mesa to the bishopric of Elna or Elne, an episcopal see, the seat of which was later removed to Perpignan. De Mesa reached England early in March 1515, where, helped by events, he did not do badly from the first. He seems to have been patient, adroit, unobtrusive, tactful ; at first sight a negligible little man who could be snubbed or slighted with impunity, but actually one with a considerable knowledge of men and affairs and a great fund of shrewdness. In 1516 De Mesa was confirmed in his post as resident ambassador by Charles (fn. 6) and, except for an absence of less than a year (November 1518 to September 1519) during which time he was in Spain with Charles, he had held it ever since. During his embassy he negotiated the treaty which provided English money and assistance for Charles' voyage to Spain in 1517, assisted in the negotiations for the Treaty of London, and was instrumental in arranging the interviews between Henry and the emperor in 1520. He had been fully aware of all the negotiations for the secret treaty of Bruges which Wolsey had just signed, and had been constantly consulted by Gattinara and others on the best way to handle the cardinal.

At the end of December 1521, (fn. 7) De Mesa was joined in England by Jacques de Caestres, a Burgundian nobleman and soldier of some distinction. De Caestres was expected to be useful chiefly in arranging with the English the military and naval details of Charles V's visit to his uncle, agreed on for the spring, but he was also empowered to act jointly with De Mesa in all their other business. This might include continuing with the French ambassadors in England the discussions broken off at Calais, but its most urgent points were to obtain a loan of 200,000 crowns, if possible, for Charles' voyage to Spain, and to press Henry either to compel the French to agree to an immediate truce or to join the emperor in war against them. Charles preferred the truce, to safeguard his journey to Spain, and to give him time to deal with the rebels there. But either the truce or immediate English help was, he declared, essential. He repeated that he could no longer sustain the intolerable burdens of the war alone.

In bringing pressure to bear on Francis I to agree to an immediate truce, Charles thought that nothing would be more useful than for Henry VIII to summon the French king as an aggressor under the Treaty of London, warning him of English intervention unless he desisted from further war. The ambassadors in London were provided with imperial letters patent formally demanding such action, which they were urged to deliver at their earliest opportunity. (fn. 8) To this step Wolsey was curiously unwilling to agree. English preparations for war with France were being hastened after Wolsey's return from Calais, but the cardinal still wished to avoid any definite act which would compromise England's neutral attitude, still hoped (or so, at least, the imperialists believed) to play the role of neutral arbiter. He persuaded De Mesa to delay the delivery of the letters patent, and to await the effect of Wolsey's unofficial warnings to Louise of Savoy, even though the bishop's failure to carry out explicit instructions risked seriously annoying his imperial master. (fn. 9) On February 16th, after a scolding from Charles, the ambassadors were finally permitted to hand Henry the letters patent, but Wolsey protested that Henry was not thereby obliged to any course of action (it was his contention that the secret Treaty of Bruges abrogated the relevant provisions of the Treaty of London), and in fact the formal English admonition was further delayed.

Wolsey continued his efforts to cajole or bully the French into some sort of truce almost up to the moment of Charles V's arrival in England. There is no reason to doubt his sincerity. Certainly he was not trying merely to blind the French to the imminence of English participation in the war on the side of the emperor, for his chief reliance was upon a series of increasingly vigorous and specific threats of such participation, unless the French agreed to terms. (fn. 10) For a time he professed high hopes that Louise of Savoy would bring her son to reason, hopes nourished by her letters and by the arrival of ambassadors from France. The chief result of his increasing pressure, however, was to convince the French that English hostility was inevitable, and to impel them to prepare for it by encouraging Albany's anti-English course in Scotland, and withholding the current instalment of the English pension. Francis I had no desire for war with England, but he seems not to have feared it, and to have been too obsessed by his Italian ambitions to let Wolsey's threats make any difference to his plans.

The imperialist ambassadors watched Wolsey's dealings with the French with anxious attention. It was not that they doubted his sincere desire to negotiate a truce, which they also desired. But they were somewhat alarmed at his cautiousness in undertaking definite commitments against the French in Switzerland or elsewhere ; and though De Mesa's language is vague, he seems to have thought it possible that Wolsey might slip out of the military alliance altogether. Against this, the chief imperialist card, though it had to be played circumspectly, was Wolsey's fear that Charles would come to separate terms with the French. (fn. 11) However much Wolsey may have wished to enjoy the profits of neutrality, he could not endure the prospect of being excluded from the settlement of Europe.

How far Wolsey's views differed from Henry's, or whether they really differed at all, is a question which letters such as these can never answer completely. To the ambassadors Henry seemed more straight-forward and simple-minded, less interested in diplomatic negotiation, more bent on glorious conquests in France, (fn. 12) about the likelihood of which Wolsey was sceptical. (fn. 13) In general De Mesa, and his successor de Praet shared the view of the other ambassadors in England at this time that Henry was willing to resign most of the cares of state to his great minister, did not keep his own hand on affairs, even important ones, and, consequently, was easily led by the cardinal. (fn. 14) Wolsey always saw the ambassadors first, and often replied to them ex tempore ; what he said was usually repeated without change by the king at a subsequent interview, and the ambassadors rarely detected any important modification in Wolsey's attitude after he had discussed new proposals with Henry. This, of course, might be evidence merely of good team work between the king and his minister, but the ambassadors did not take it so.

Almost the only subject on which the two appeared to differ at all during the spring of 1522 was the plan for the war at sea. Wolsey strongly urged that as soon as the emperor's convoy from Flanders and the squadron coming from Spain should join the English in the channel, the united fleets should fall upon the French, at sea, if it could catch them there, otherwise in their ports, and destroy their navy. (fn. 15) The plan had much to recommend it. It would insure to the allies, Wolsey thought, complete command of the sea for years to come, would relieve them of the greater part of their subsequent naval expenses, and seriously cripple and dishearten the enemy. Henry professed to consider the plan too risky (fn. 16) ; so did the imperialists, who were chiefly concerned with getting the emperor safely to Spain. (fn. 17) Wolsey later renewed his suggestion in a modified form, this time with Henry's apparent consent, (fn. 18) and something like it was finally adopted, though it did not yield the magnificent results the cardinal had hoped for. But Henry's opposition to Wolsey's proposal in their conversations with the ambassadors may have been merely a matter of tactics. It would be better diplomatic practice for the king not to commit himself too deeply to such a proposal until there was some indication whether the imperialists would favour it.

As the winter wore towards spring it became increasingly clear that the French would not agree to any terms for a truce which the emperor could accept, and that Wolsey's diplomacy would be cut short by the arrival of Charles V in England. Thereupon Henry VIII was bound, by the secret treaty of Bruges, to declare war on France. Consequently, although negotiations with the French continued, the emphasis of the Anglo-Imperial conversations tended to shift from terms to be offered France, to the details of the emperor's reception in England, to the military and naval co-operation which was to follow, and especially to the English loan which was to make Charles' ambitious plans possible. In all these matters the English attitude became more generous as hopes of agreement with France faded. Before the emperor's special envoy, his old tutor at arms, Charles Poupet de Lachaulx, left London for Spain on March 15th, he was able to report the greatest cordiality and apparent eagerness for war on Henry's part, and Juan de Barzia, a Spanish officer who had come to inspect the preparations of the English fleet, was able to re-assure the emperor on that score.

Nevertheless the arrival of Charles V in England was delayed, once by the unpreparedness of his hosts, and twice thereafter by his own preoccupations. In spite of previous alarms his progress to Calais and his crossing to Dover were without incident. He landed at Dover on May 29th, and embarked from Southampton on July 6th. (fn. 19) This collection has no documents for the period of his visit, but the agreements reached at this time were the basis of the diplomatic activity of the next three years. At Windsor on June 16th Charles and Henry concluded a general offensive and defensive alliance. (fn. 20) Three days later, they signed a secret subsidiary treaty renewing the two chief provisions of the secret treaty of Bruges, the betrothal of Henry's daughter Mary, a child of six, to the emperor, and a grandiose plan for their simultaneous invasion of France with two great armies led by the monarchs in person, Henry to march on Paris from Calais, and Charles to invade Guienne or Languedoc and push northward. (fn. 21) The object was nothing less than the complete conquest of France, Henry to have the crown and the western provinces, while the emperor was to recover all the former Burgundian territories and add to them Languedoc, Provence, and the valley of the Rhone something like a reconstitution of the ancient Burgundian kingdom which, with Languedoc should link Spain and Italy to the northern Hapsburg lands. In the light of subsequent events, which revealed the military and financial weakness of the allies and the great defensive strength of France, the scheme appears fantastic, and it may be that cooler heads, Gattinara and Wolsey for instance, were sceptical of its complete fulfilment ; but there was the dazzling memory of Agincourt, the impressive strength (on paper, anyway) of the young emperor, the rumours of wide-spread discontent in France, andno negligible consideration for medieval temperamentsthe legal warrant in history for such a partition. Charles and Henry seem to have taken their plan with complete seriousness, and the "Great Enterprise" which was to put it into effect remained on the agenda of the allies until the end, always postponed because neither monarch could muster the necessary strength. At Bruges the date for the "Great Enterprise" was fixed for the beginning of 1523 ; at Windsor it was moved ahead to 1524. Before Charles V sailed, another secret treaty, signed at Waltham Bishop on July 2nd, laid down in detail the military and naval obligations of the allies until the "Great Enterprise" should begin. (fn. 22)

Just before the emperor's arrival in England, Jacques de Caestres was recalled and a more considerable personage, Louis de Flandres, seigneur de Praet was accredited to Henry's court. The elderly Bishop of Elne, whose health was failing, had begged the emperor for permission to return to Spain, and it was proposed to allow him to accompany the emperor thither, leaving de Praet in England as resident ambassador. (fn. 23) For some reason this plan was not carried out, and De Mesa remained in England until the end of March 1523. From August to March the two ambassadors acted jointly, as far as De Mesa's health allowed, (fn. 24) and though the actual composition of the dispatches to the emperor fell to de Praet's share, it is not possible from their joint letters to distinguish their separate activities. It is probable, however, that discussions with Wolsey were still led by de Mesa, while de Praet took over the more active work of the embassy, particularly the details of military and naval co-operation between the English and the imperialists. After De Mesa's departure, (fn. 25) de Praet served alone as resident until his personal rupture with the English court in February 1525.

Although de Praet wrote the jointly-signed dispatches of the ambassadors from August 1522 to April 1523, the guiding spirit of the embassy during that time seems to have been De Mesa's. After his departure the letters have a different tone, a difference which illustrates the distinction often drawn by Renaissance writers between men of the robe and men of the sword as diplomats. De Mesa was, above all, a conciliatory negotiator. Diplomats generally found Wolsey hard to deal with ; he was impossible to browbeat and difficult to outwit ; tenacious in his aims and opinions, confident of his strength, quite unscrupulous in his methods. De Mesa succeeded with him by a deference that just avoided servility and a practical shrewdness worthy of respect. Wolsey enjoyed impressing ambassadors with his superiority, treating them with a negligence verging on contempt which Henry or Charles or Francis never permitted themselves. At no time did he wring a protest from De Mesa, (fn. 26) who remembered that Wolsey was a great prince of the church while he, himself, though a bishop and an ambassador, was a friar specially vowed to humility. Wolsey was sensitive to criticism ; De Mesa took care that the cardinal should hear how glowingly the ambassador wrote of him, and framed all his letters in such language that Wolsey might have read them without offence. Wolsey was fascinated by Rome ; he regarded the papal court with yearning and exasperation, and perhaps a little uncertainty and awe. De Mesa probably knew more of the inside of Roman politics than anyone else in England, and he was always eager to place his knowledge at Wolsey's disposal. De Mesa assumed towards the cardinal the attitude of a zealous and submissive junior, and was rewarded with a special insight into Wolsey's intentions and with opportunities to influence them never accorded any other ambassador. Though the Spanish bishop kept modestly in the background, the success of imperialist diplomacy in England from 1518 to 1522 owes much to his shrewdness, suppleness and experience.

Louis de Flandres, Seigneur de Praet, who succeeded him, was a noble of the sword ; Lord of Praet, of Wevestene, of Elverdinghe, of Blamertinge, of Spierre, of Meershe, etc., he was descended on his father's side, illegitimately, from Louis de Mle, and on his mother's from Philip the Good, and on both was connected with some of the greatest families of the Low Countries. He had won his spurs in the war of Gueldres in 1507, and had since proved an able and loyal servant of the heirs of Burgundy on the field and at the council. In 1545 his brothers of the Golden Fleece described him as "hautain, ambitieux, ... avare," traits not unapparent in his correspondence, but his ability and loyalty were unquestioned, and he had most of the qualities necessary for a successful ambassador, as his subsequent career amply proved. Nevertheless he was, in most respects, a failure as ambassador in England. Wolsey neither liked nor trusted him, and he reciprocated with scorn and suspicion, though he grudgingly admitted the cardinal's ability. The friction generated between the two proud tempers finally set off the explosion of February 1525, which terminated his embassy, and the ill feeling thus engendered certainly contributed to England's drift towards the alliance with France.

If De Mesa was the only ambassador who never complained of Wolsey's bad manners and bad faith, de Praet complained oftener and louder than any of them. His dislike of Wolsey, at root perhaps the dislike of the aristocrat for the pushing plebeian, may have led him to be more than usually keen to detect symptoms of duplicity in the cardinal, and readier than he need have been to report Wolsey's complaints of the imperialists, and to conclude from them that England was preparing to change sides. Charles V hardly needed de Praet's advice to discount the English alliance, as his secret instructions to Poupet de Lachaulx in March 1522 make plain, but de Praet's influence in Spain certainly militated against cordiality between the allies. This is not to say that de Praet was in any sense an unfaithful ambassador. His reports of English military weakness and of the trend of English public opinion accord with what we know from other sources, and his recommendations of the steps which the emperor would have to take to preserve English friendship could hardly be improved upon.

Throughout de Praet's correspondence with the emperor run the double threads of plans for the prosecution of the war and negotiations for some sort of peace or truce. In the summer and autumn of 1522 Surrey's raid on Brittany and his autumn campaign in Picardy were somewhat disappointing, but they did not represent a major effort, and as diversion they were not without success. At this time the plan of the allies was to stand on the defensive throughout 1523, and to attempt the "Great Enterprise" in the spring of 1524, when, it was hoped, Charles would have reduced Fuenterrabia and perhaps Bayonne, and be ready for a serious invasion of Guienne, while Henry would have finished with the Scots, against whom he intended to launch a formidable invasion. Meanwhile neither ally was quite averse to the proposals for a truce just put forward by Pope Adrian VI. Charles V was really alarmed by the Turkish menace. Not only did his position as emperor give him a general responsibility towards Christendom, but after the fall of Rhodes his own kingdoms of Naples and Sicily and the whole safety of the western Mediterranean was felt to be in danger. Provided his attack on the Scots was not interrupted, Henry had no objection to the lessening of his responsibilities on the Channel and toward the Netherlands, which he was bound by treaty to protect.

It seems improbable that the allies could have agreed on terms which Francis I would accept, but their plans for 1523 were all quite altered by Bourbon's conspiracy. Early in February, Adrien de Croy, Seigneur de Beaurain, one of the emperor's youthful companions in arms and one of the ablest and most energetic of his Burgundian councillors, arrived in England with the news that Charles, count of Montpensier, duke of Bourbon, and Constable of France was willing to rise in revolt against his king provided he was offered the proper inducements and support. (fn. 27) For a long time Wolsey and Henry professed to be incredulous of Bourbon's sincerity and power, but as the negotiations moved forward, as one special ambassador after another came from the emperor urging action, and as it was seen that Charles, at least, believed that Bourbon's rising presaged the complete ruin of the French, a mounting excitement took possession of Henry and Wolsey. They altered their plans against Scotland and prepared to throw a powerful army under the duke of Suffolk into the Boulonnais, even before they had received the assurances for which they had at first stipulated. (fn. 28) Only when some powerful faction of the French nobility were at odds with their king could England hope to conquer France.

In this connection the documents here published throw some doubt on the assumption that Wolsey's eagerness to be pope seriously influenced the English conduct of the war. Although it is still possible to support the interpretation suggested by the extracts published by Bradford that Wolsey was moved to recommend a march on Paris by his hope of winning the emperor's support for his candidacy, the surrounding letters tend to weaken such a reading. It is clear that Henry's hopes of considerable conquests in France had been roused, and that each English forward move was in response to further proof that Bourbon's intentions were serious. The English proposal to besiege Boulogne (fn. 29) was in part dictated by a desire to get some substantial return from the expedition even should the rising come to nothing. The imperialists hoped all along to dissuade the English from the attempt on Boulogne in favour of a bold thrust into the le de France, if they could show that Bourbon would create an effective diversion. Early in September Henry and Wolsey were veering towards this plan, (fn. 30) and certainly there were strong strategic arguments in its favour. The full text of de Praet's letter of October 6th adds to the evidence that the papal elections were not a serious factor in changing Wolsey's mind. Adrian VI died on September 14th, but news of his death did not reach Margaret of Savoy until ten days later, and her letter to de Praet seems to have been delivered on the first. An English courier from Rome brought the same news to Wolsey on the night of the 30th. (fn. 31) But de Praet writes as if the English decision to strike at once into France had been taken quite independently of this news, and some days earlier. Actually Wolsey had urged such a course on Henry at least a fortnight before, (fn. 32) and had written announcing English acceptance of the Burgundian plans on September 26th. (fn. 33) At this time he knew that Adrian was ill, but not that his life was despaired of, and no English steps were taken to advance Wolsey's candidacy until after the 30th. With all this, de Praet's letter is perfectly consistent. In fact it is clear that the news of Bourbon's premature flight, arriving in the same letter from Flanders as that announcing Adrian's death, seriously perturbed Wolsey, and would have inclined him to return to the earlier plan had there been time. No one can be sure what was in the cardinal's mind, but Bradford seems to have excepted from the Spanish correspondence passages, which emphasize the influence of Wolsey's private ambitions on English policy. Set in their full context these passages seem much less damaging than when they stand alone.

The campaign of 1523 failed completely : Bourbon raised no force among his vassals and did not even succeed in reaching Werdenberg's Germans ; on the Spanish frontier, Charles V's operations made no more than the feeblest diversion, not even Bayonne was taken ; Suffolk marched deep into Picardy with the joint English and Burgundian army and then marched out again without having anything to show for the cost of the campaign but a trail of burned villages. The triple attack did not even prevent Bonnivet with a powerful French army from thrusting deep into Lombardy and threatening Milan, which a more dashing general might have captured. The offensive weakness of the allies and the improbability of their ever being able to combine attacks powerful enough to overcome the defensive strength of France was painfully apparent. Meanwhile, just as it was becoming clear to Wolsey that he had permitted his master to count too much on conquests in France, he learned that the election of Clement VII had dashed his own hopes of the papacy. But his increasing coldness towards the imperialists had many causes besides the disappointment of his personal ambitions. That disappointment, indeed, may have influenced him very little. Louis de Praet, who did not hesitate to ascribe selfish personal motives to the cardinal, never mentioned it among his often repeated list of causes for the coldness towards the alliance which made his task in 1524 increasingly difficult.

First on de Praet's list stood the emperor's failure to meet his financial obligations in England. By the treaties of Bruges and Waltham Bishop, Charles had promised to pay to the king of England and to certain members of his court annual sums to compensate them for the loss of the monies they had previously received from France. The payment to Henry, himself, was dignified with the term "indemnity," those to the courtiers were called simply "pensions." They were, de Praet told the emperor bluntly, "the principal source of your influence here." (fn. 34) The indemnity Charles never paid at all. He did make some payments on the pensions, but the last, a half-year late, did not suffice to square the account up to June 1, 1523. In spite of de Praet's urging, the emperor always found other uses for his money, so that in July 1524 Wolsey's annual 9,000 crowns, due under the Treaty of Waltham, had been unpaid for over a year, and some of the payments to other lords were even more in arrears. (fn. 35) Nothing further was paid on them. Moreover, a separate pension on the bishoprics of Badajoz and Palencia, promised Wolsey for his services in 1520 and 1521, proved practically uncollectable because of the opposition of the episcopal officials, a minor but a constant source of irritation. Besides indemnity and pensions Charles owed money for loans from Henry, particularly for 150,000 crowns advanced in 1522, the security for which, in a burst of generosity, Henry had remitted. This sum should have been repaid within the year : and there were some remnants of earlier indebtedness. All in all, and counting the indemnity, Wolsey estimated in November 1524 that the emperor owed his master nearly 500,000 crowns, on which no payment had been made for more than two years. (fn. 36) Yet in every emergencyand 1524 was a series of emergenciesCharles tried to borrow more money in England. No wonder de Praet's presentation of his requests was coldly met.

De Praet felt, or at least assured the emperor that he felt, that Wolsey deliberately exaggerated the extent of the imperialist failures in 1523, in order to have an excuse for inaction in 1524, but without exaggeration the English had ample cause to be discontented with the performance of their allies. Bourbon's failure to raise his vassals as he had promised, and his further failure to take command of Werdenberg's Germans in Franche Comt, Wolsey was able to point out, was evidence, at least, of the weakness of his plot and the frivolity of its leader, if not of his positive treachery. It was small satisfaction for Wolsey to remember that he had distrusted Bourbon all along. Werdenberg's failure to make a junction with Suffolk was even more disappointing. Werdenberg's troops had been paid largely with English money which Wolsey considered they had done nothing to earn. Moreover, Wolsey complained to de Praet, not only had the imperialists interfered with the transmission of Henry's money to Werdenberg and withheld the emperor's share, thus contributing to the break up of the army in Franche Comt, but Werdenberg's infantry had actually been enticed away from his standards by recruiting agents for the emperor's army in Italy, another proof, Wolsey thought, that Charles was sacrificing everything else to his ambitions in the Italian peninsula. This allegation, in one form or another, became the most frequent of what de Praet began to call "the cardinal's customary complaints." The feeble manoeuvres of the Spanish army which had done no more than burn a few miserable Basque villages was another item in Wolsey's list. And finally Wolsey ascribed the failure of the campaign on the Somme, not to its late start, the bad weather, the plague, or Suffolk's ineptitude, but entirely to the weakness and misconduct of the contingent from the Netherlands, and to Margaret's refusal to pay her troops for a winter campaign. Henry was said to feel that only the weakness of his allies had prevented the capture of Paris.

In de Praet's opinion, however, the real reason for Wolsey's reluctance to press the war in 1524 lay in England, where the war and the cardinal were increasingly unpopular. The king of England "made war at a greater cost than any prince in Europe," and as a consequence of two summers of war against France and Scotland, his purse, the length of which had given him his chief weight in European councils, was nearly exhausted. After unexpected resistance, Parliament had finally been bullied into granting considerable supplies, but collections were certain to be slow and difficult, and would not be completed, de Praet shrewdly predicted, without popular disturbance. (fn. 37) Moreover, de Praet pointed out, Henry would be reluctant to deplete his treasury too far, since "it is for his riches alone that his neighbours and many of his subjects respect him." Sentiment throughout the country, de Praet repeated, was overwhelmingly for peace, (fn. 38) and Wolsey, who was regarded as the sole author of the war, was almost universally hated. Even the royal councillors were beginning to combine against him and to accuse him indirectly of dragging Henry into a bootless and ruinous war. In England Wolsey bore the brunt of every allied failure and the burden of transmitting each new imperialist demand. De Praet was unsympathetic, but not unjust. He warned Charlesthe warning came from Queen Catherine, the emperor's auntthat he must try to keep his promises in England, if he expected English friendship, and that to ask too much of Wolsey would be to drive him to desperation.

What Charles chiefly asked in 1524 was help for Bourbon's invasion of Province, either help in money or by another English invasion of Picardy to prevent Francis I from concentrating his whole strength southward. After long negotiation de Praet finally extracted a kind of qualified agreement to share the expenses of Bourbon's campaign, once the Constable was on French soil, (fn. 39) and in August, in consequence of Gregory Casale's mission and of letters from Pescara, there was even a flurry of talk about an immediate English invasion of France. (fn. 40) But in talk it ended. With constant allusions to the failure of the previous autumn, Wolsey insisted on undertakings from the government at Brussels far more sweeping and specific than could be granted, and refused to move a man until he received them. These negotiations, and parallel ones with Spain about the maintenance of Bourbon's army in Provence for the winter, and resumption of the schemes for a joint invasion in the spring were still dragging on, though de Praet had little hope of them, when on October 25th French rumours of Bourbon's disastrous retreat from Marseilles began to be confirmed. (fn. 41) Except for the small sums which Richard Pace was authorized to pay over to Bourbon, England took no part in the war in 1524, and de Praet expended his pleas in vain.

Just as in 1523, the negotiations about continuing the war in 1524 were paralleled by negotiations about a peace or truce. Clement VII had hardly been enthroned before he renewed the peace efforts of his predecessor. (fn. 42) Clement was generally considered as good an imperialist as Adrian, and his efforts to arrange a truce and bring together a peace conference at Rome, may have been quite as welcome to the emperor as Adrian's had been. Certainly Charles did not repulse the archbishop of Capua's mission, and agreed to give his powers for a general conference at Rome with alacrity. (fn. 43) But no pope needed inspiration from the emperor to prefer a negotiated peace in Italy to a clear victory for either side.

Since the result in France was apparently to be a deadlock, Wolsey had every reason to prefer a deadlock in Italy also. This had nothing to do with any conscious adoption by Wolsey of a theory of a European balance of power. The sixteenth century had no such concept none, at least, that the eighteenth would have recognized. Power in Europe as a whole was then too indefinite and shifting and diffused to be precisely balanced, and what all statesmen wanted was to be on the stronger, the winning side. But Wolsey was a churchman and a papalist, and for the papacy the problem had one clear aspect : if the same king held Milan and Naples, then the independence of the pope, caught between these two states, was menaced. This was what Clement feared, and there is abundant evidence that Wolsey sympathized. For some time he had complained to de Praet of the emperor's excessive ambitions in Italy. He now began to inquire how much longer Charles proposed to delay investing Francesco Sforza with the duchy of Milan exactly the question that was uppermost in Clement's mind. (fn. 44) Professor Pollard's brilliant thesis that Wolsey acted on what now looks like a theory of the European balance of power because he seconded the efforts of the papacy to maintain a balance in Italy finds further support in de Praet's dispatches.

But if Wolsey was sympathetic to papal aims, he was responsible for English interests. And his fear that those interests would be ill served by the sort of peace conference at Rome for which Clement was working, and which the emperor appeared to prefer, is quite understandable. De Praet judged that Wolsey hoped to dominate any peace negotiations himself, and would not be enthusiastic about a conference at which he was not the central figure. But Wolsey's repeated assertion that there were many questions at issue between France and England which were appropriate for separate negotiation, and needed to be settled before any general conference, seems quite justified. Wolsey was too old a hand to go to another conference for which no stable foundation had been laid in advance, and knew too well that should the king of France and the emperor agree under the mediation of the pope, England would have to be satisfied with such crumbs as fall to the late bidden guest. His prestige, perhaps his very safety, rested on his extricating England from the war not clearly worse off than before. He would do badly for himself if he had no profit at all to show for the costly venture. Under the circumstances it is hard to blame Wolsey for opening separate conversations, however annoying they might be to the imperialists.

Throughout the spring, summer and autumn of 1524, these separate conversations of Wolsey's were de Praet's chief preoccupation. He heard the rumour of their opening before the first step was taken. (fn. 45) When the first French agent reached Wolsey, de Praet knew of it at once, (fn. 46) and a little later he was able to report that the Frenchman, for whom Wolsey had sent a safe conduct, was Louise of Savoy's own confessor. (fn. 47) De Praet was able to smoke Wolsey out about his mysterious visitor, and after some initial coyness Wolsey admitted that Louise had sent to him to discover on what terms Henry would make peace and what his quarrel was with her son. He replied, he said, that Henry's quarrel was no less than the crown of France, but that he would not refuse to discuss terms with a properly accredited agent. (fn. 48) Later Wolsey wrote this same story to Sampson and Boleyn to be retailed directly to the emperor. De Praet declared he did not believe a word of it, but apparently Wolsey had told him substantially the truth. (fn. 49)

All this was in April. In July a second and more formidable French agent appeared in London, the Genoese Gian Giacomo Passano (Jehan Jockin as everyone called him) seigneur de Vaulx and maitre d'hotel to the dowager queen of France, a cunning, supple and experienced negotiator. Not until Passano had been in England more than three weeks did Wolsey see fit to mention him to de Praet, not indeed, until he learned from Spain that de Praet had noted the Frenchman's arrival at once, and drawn sinister conjectures therefrom in his despatches to the emperor. Wolsey then told de Praet that Passano had been sent at the suggestion of the archbishop of Capua to arrange for the coming of special envoys to England, who would be empowered to discuss such aspects of the peace as could more advantageously be settled separately instead of at the conference in Rome. (fn. 50) The part about Capua was a lie, as de Praet suspected at once and soon verified, and de Praet's conclusion was that Passano's mission was a sequel to that of Louise's confessor, and that he had come to outbid the emperor for England's alliance, and perhaps to arrange for an onslaught on the Netherlands by a joint Anglo-French army. One doubts whether Wolsey intended anything so foolish. Indeed it seems probable that his reports to de Praet of his conversations with Passano contained a good deal of the truth, though of course the foundations were being laid for the more famous negotiations which finally resulted in the treaty of the More. But there was no open violation of existing treaties in Wolsey's continuing discussions with Passano, provided Charles V was notified of them, and de Praet was obliged to see Passano remain on in England, practically, as he complained, a licensed spy, and with the greatest liberty to see Wolsey and to send messengers to France, in spite of all the imperialists' protests.

If de Praet somewhat overestimated the lengths to which Wolsey was prepared to go, none of the outward signs of the approach of an Anglo-French understanding escaped his vigilance, and his general estimate of the direction it would have to take was correct enough. Wolsey hoped for a general peace conference under his auspices ; failing that he would reach a separate agreement with Francis I and change sides. The famous secret diplomacy of the Renaissance was often not so secret, after all, though there were occasions on which it was diplomatic for some government which had foreseen but been powerless to check a realignment, to express anger and surprise when it occurred. And de Praet was also correct in his estimate of French aims. Passano's mission was to keep Wolsey amused and to report on the probability of an English army's crossing the Channel. If diplomatic conversations could keep the English off his back until he had reconquered northern Italy, Francis would make no sacrifices for an English alliance. Wolsey must have seen this indirect object of the French without being able to prevent its achievement. Ignoring England, Francis boldly moved into Provence, and Bourbon's consequent retreat and the parallel French drive into Lombardy was a heavy blow to the tottering Anglo-Imperialist alliance.

Throughout the autumn de Praet continued to present Charles' appeals for help, now more desperately needed than ever, but he did so without any real hope of success. He over-estimated the loyalty of Clement VII to the emperor's cause, even when a succession of alarming reports from the Milanese in November and December showed that the Italian League was breaking up, but, if anything, he under-estimated Wolsey's interest in an imperialist victory. (fn. 51) From England it looked as if Lombardy were lost. The imperialists seemed hopelessly on the defensive, and Wolsey knew, if de Praet did not, that Clement was preparing to change sides. Wolsey had always complained that the whole 1524 campaign had been undertaken without regard for English interests. A bold stroke towards Lyons and beyond might have thrown the French monarchy off balance, but the capture of Marseilles, against which Bourbon had been directed, could only further the emperor's dominance of the Mediterranean. Now Wolsey was able to allege (and perhaps really believed) that Bourbon's failure at Marseilles was due entirely to the emperor's failure to support him with the men and money he had promised, and to the jealousy of Lannoy. (fn. 52) There was much to convince Wolsey that in the emperor he had chosen an ally not only completely egotistical and faithless, but unexpectedly weak. After Bourbon's failure, such an ally might be expected at any moment to make a separate peace without any regard for his obligations towards England. Indeed that was just what de Praet had been urging ever since September. Whether the emperor made peace or not, Wolsey could not ask Henry to fight for him another year, with less prospect of success than ever before, and with a weary, discouraged, and discontented people. By January 1525 Wolsey was ready to come to terms with France.

The presence of de Praet was an obstacle to such a move, but one which Wolsey was prepared to brush aside. It would be embarrassing to have to decide whether to include de Praet in his negotiations, as by treaty he was bound to do, or by excluding him openly, violate the treaties of Windsor before his agreement with the French was signed. Wolsey had unceremonious ways with ambassadors. He had, as de Praet suspected, been tampering with the embassy pouches for some time, and he knew that de Praet had changed in his attitude towards him from reserved suspicion to open animosity and a willingness to undermine his, Wolsey's, position in the Netherlands, at the emperor's court, and even in England. De Praet's vigilant hostility was forcing his hand. Wolsey's bold coup of February 11th, the seizure of de Praet's dispatches, the charge that their contents were treasonable, and the arrest of the ambassador, was designed to neutralize de Praet's hostility at a critical moment, and perhaps also to embroil Henry with the emperor and create a favourable atmosphere for the change the cardinal planned. (fn. 53) When the new French ambassadors reached London, Wolsey wanted a clear field.

It was a stroke of irony that Jean Brinon's first interview with Henry was planned for March 9th, the very day when a sweating courier brought the news that on February 25th the French army had been broken and the French king captured at Pavia. (fn. 54) London blazed with bonfires of rejoicing, and Wolsey and Henry executed an abrupt about face. Henry received, not Brinon, but an embassy which Margaret of Savoy had happened to send from the Netherlands. And he and the cardinal at once began to urge the immediate execution of the "Great Enterprise" for the conquest and partition of France. (fn. 55) Apparently it never occurred to either of them that such a step would, if successful, increase the strength of the emperor far more than it would that of England, and create a power capable of dominating all Europe to the disadvantage of English interests. It did not, because neither of them thought primarily in terms of national interest. The interests of England meant the interests of Henry VIII, and Henry like all his fellow monarchs was a dynast. The link which bound Henry most firmly to the emperor was not the economic interdependence of England and the Netherlands, not the fear of French domination of Europe, not the sentimental tie formed by the fact that Henry was married to the emperor's aunt, but Charles V's betrothal to the princess Mary. Henry seems to have been trying to resign himself to the want of a male heir. To marry his only daughter to the emperor, and see his grandson heir to an empire which should rule Europe as Europe had not been ruled since Roman days, an empire of which England was to be an integral part, though London would never be its capital, was magnificent compensation, savoured the more because Charles V had no parents to share with Henry the pride of being the father of the emperor of the world. It may have been as much a desire to see his grandson the ruler of a united Europe, as it was a dream of reviving the glories of Agincourt which led Henry to yearn for the invasion of France.

That this view of Charles V as the heir, jointly with Mary, to the throne of England, was at the base of the Anglo-Imperial alliance there can be little reasonable doubt. De Mesa emphasizes that it was generally accepted in England. (fn. 56) In 1522 Henry repeated that he was eager to welcome Charles in England "as a son," and that he was determined to prove the emperor's "bon pere" as he habitually signed himself. (fn. 57) If Charles was less effusive, he did everything in his power to encourage Henry to believe that he seriously meant to marry Mary, and he kept up the pretence as long as he felt in need of English help. (fn. 58) During the anxious months of 1524, de Praet wrote again and again that, in spite of all the misfortunes which had weakened the alliance, it could be saved as long as there was no doubt of Charles' firm intention to marry Henry's daughter. (fn. 59) Catherine of Aragon and the archbishop of Capua (fn. 60) emphatically concurred. Events proved them right. In 1524 it was in Henry's power to betroth his daughter to the youthful James V, and even to arrange for the Scottish king to reside in England as his ward. (fn. 61) It would have been a statesmanlike move ; many Scots and most English desired it. (fn. 62) But Henry hesitated, and on the news of Pavia, returned enthusiastically to his more dazzling dynastic project. (fn. 63) In spite of their previous estrangement Charles V could have retained the alliance of England had he thought it worth his trouble.

He did not. He was twenty-five and Mary was not yet nine. He neededhe always neededmoney, and England's treasury had been drained. There was a Portuguese princess of suitable age and with her went 900,000 ducats in cash while a good part of Mary's dowry had been anticipated by loans. The Portuguese marriage was popular in Spain, and Spain he was beginning to see, was the pivot of his power. He had defeated and captured the French king without much help from the English, who had shown themselves to be almost negligible in the field and helpless to carry on a serious continental war without mercenary troops hired on the continent. Charles was preparing to dictate terms of peace in which the claims of England were to receive scant consideration. Meanwhile he coolly notified his prospective father-in-law that unless Mary were sent to him at once, and with her the balance of her dowry, he would consider himself quit of his bargain. (fn. 64) Charles knew the English could not accept his terms if they would. His negotiations for the Portuguese marriage were already well under way.

Charles' messenger, the Commander Pealosa passed through the Netherlands on the way to England. Whether Margaret of Savoy was aghast at the abruptness of her nephew, or whether she merely wanted to withhold the news until certain petty negotiations concerning the Netherlands were over, her meddling did nothing to improve matters. She ordered Pealosa to suppress the clause in his instructions about terminating the betrothal, and Henry was left to learn from his own ambassadors in Spain that his daughter had been jilted. During this time the only diplomatic link between the emperor and the English court was an embassy of Flemings who had been on their way to London when the breach came with de Praet. Their fumbling inefficiency probably worsened relations. Of them all only Jehan de la Sauch seems to have been either industrious or well informed, and he wasas he himself admittedtoo blunt to deal with Wolsey. But a coalition of Talleyrands could not have appeased the English wrath at Charles' cavalier withdrawal. It is hard to blame Henry. In Charles V's reply to the representations of the English ambassadors about the termination of the betrothal, the grave language of the imperial chancery does not conceal the comical insolence of its complete effrontery. (fn. 65) By November 1525 de Praet was writing from Lyons that an Anglo-French alliance again seemed probable. (fn. 66)

With the year 1525, at which point Don Pascual de Gayangos took over the editorship of the Spanish Calendar, the neglected documents in the Vienna archives become infrequent and scattering. There seems to be none for the embassy of Don Iigo de Mendoza (May 1526 to May 1529) who represented the emperor in the first phase of the trouble over Henry's divorce, and only a few for the long embassy of Eustache Chapuys, whose letters are such a precious source for the latter years of Henry's reign. Interest in Chapuys' personality has led me to include his letter to the elder Granvelle, describing his journey to England. (fn. 67) It serves to emphasize Chapuys' initial conception of his mission as a peaceful and conciliatory one. Chapuys was already a trusted member of the emperor's council in the spring of 1529, and in a private letter to Nicholas Perrenot he would have no reason not to be frank. It is only by ignoring dates that Charles V's attitude towards England in the summer of 1529 can be represented as threatening, and the temper of the new English parliament be described as a consequence of national resentment of imperial interference.

Several letters from Chapuys included in the Letters and Papers but omitted from the Spanish Calendar have been noticed briefly for the sake of completeness, but only the hitherto inaccurately described note to Anthoine Perrenot of 22nd July, 1536, has been given in full. (fn. 68) Its text accords with the other evidence of the change in Chapuys' sentiments towards Henry VIII's government during the first seven years of his residence. There is ample evidence in the letters already published that Chapuys' hostility to Henry often outran that of the emperor, and that he was more deeply involved in Catholic conspiracies than his instructions gave him any warrant for.

The last group of letters, (fn. 69) written during the special embassy of Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza in 1537, do a little to fill one of the chief gaps in the file of Chapuys' correspondence. The death of Catherine of Aragon and the fall of Anne Boleyn seemed to open the way for a renewal of the Anglo-Imperial alliance. The emperor hoped that Henry might be induced to declare Mary legitimate, and bring England back to the Roman obedience in return for the hand of Dom Luis of Portugal for his daughter, anda suggestion made before his marriage to Jane Seymour and renewed after her death that of a Habsburg princess for himself. To assist these negotiations Don Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, one of the emperor's ablest negotiators and administrators, was sent to supplement Chapuys' efforts and remained in England more than a year. It would be pleasant to be able to include some letters from Don Diego. The observations of the author of Lazarillo de Tormes on the court of the Tudors would be worth reading. But Chapuys seems to have kept the usual correspondence in his hands as before. The negotiations, of course, came to nothing. Henry and Thomas Cromwell ultimately preferred the Cleves alliance. But certain aspects of them foreshadow the renewed Anglo-Imperial alliance of 1544.

For the minor points touched on in the correspondence here calendared, the reader is referred to the index in which some topical entries have been included. No attempt has been made to index analytically every mention of the principal figures in this correspondence, Wolsey, for instance, or Charles V. To do so would mean an index longer than the text. It is hoped, however, that enough entries have been included to serve as a guide to persons pursuing special interests.

Many librarians and archivists have been good enough to help me in the researches which led to this publication. I am particularly indebted to the Director and Vice-Director of the Haus-, Hof- und Staats-Archiv at Vienna, and to Dr. Oskar Schmid of their staff, whose courteous and learned assistance was invaluable. Without financial aid from the Bureau of International Research, Harvard University and Radcliffe College and, later, from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, I could not have carried on this work ; without the unflagging help of my wife I could not have finished it.