clothworkers of the eastern counties, who did not dare oppose it, were, however, obliged to dismiss their men, telling them they had no longer money to pay their wages. Serious riots took place in consequence, which the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk had great difficulty in suppressing. But the opposition raised in the city of London caused the ultimate withdrawal of the demand. On 26 April 1525 Wolsey sent for the mayor and aldermen, and informed them that the king would be satisfied with what they were pleased to give of their own benevolence. But even this was objected to as contrary to the statute of Richard III, by which benevolences were abolished, and finally it was left to every man to ‘grant privily what he would,’ without being called before aldermen or commissioners of any kind.
In the course of the summer it was intimated that the king had received from France very advantageous offers for peace, which would probably make the proposed expedition unnecessary. In fact, on 13 July a forty days' truce was agreed to with the French envoy, De Vaux, and immediately after Brion arrived in London with a commission from Louise of Savoy, regent of France during the imprisonment of her son, Francis I. Henry notified to the emperor that, as he was unable to co-operate with him in the war, he thought it unadvisable to reject the very favourable offers of the French, and before the emperor could reply a new alliance was formally signed on 30 Aug. at Moor in Hertfordshire. On 8 Sept. it was proclaimed in London. The pope and other princes of Italy at once hailed it as a very desirable counterpoise to the growing power of the emperor; but the ratification of Francis could not be obtained so long as he was a prisoner. Charles, on the other hand, was in a position to exact his own terms. On 14 Jan. 1526 his prisoner was driven to sign the treaty of Madrid, giving up Milan, Naples, and Burgundy, and much else besides. Two months later he was restored to his kingdom, leaving his two sons as hostages in Spain. But when pressed to confirm the treaty of Madrid he declined, declaring that it had been wrung from him by compulsion. He was encouraged by the pope, the Venetians, and other Italian powers, who immediately formed a league with him at Cognac (22 May) to protect themselves against Charles, which Henry was earnestly solicited to join. But though glad to see so much opposition to the emperor, Henry had no occasion to enter into war in behalf of the confederates, and preferred to offer his services as a mediator. Nor did his sympathy with the Italian powers lead him to depart from the line of strict neutrality, even when the imperialists, having already made a truce with the pope, perfidiously swooped down upon Rome.
But England still drew nearer to France, or, it might rather be said, contrived to draw France nearer to herself. The great object of Francis now was to secure the deliverance of his sons on as easy terms as possible, and the hard conditions of the treaty of Madrid could only be mitigated by the influence of England, or by a new arrangement with the emperor, including his own marriage with the emperor's sister Eleanor. To prevent his too easy adoption of the latter alternative, Wolsey had been careful to suggest to him that England could offer him a younger and more attractive bride in the Princess Mary. The possibility of such an alliance was a quite sufficient lure to draw the French into rather lengthy negotiations, and a great embassy was sent over to England in the end of February 1527. Under Wolsey's skilful diplomacy France was compelled to offer a very high price for the support of England, in the shape of pensions and tribute; but when it was desired that Mary should be sent over to France as security for the marriage taking effect when she came of age (for otherwise Francis felt it would be unadvisable to give up Eleanor), the request was refused, and it was suggested that Mary's marriage with the second son of Francis would do equally well as a guarantee for the alliance. Thus the bait was withdrawn for the sake of which Francis had already made very large concessions.
The sack of Rome by the imperial troops in May 1527 only added strength to the Anglo-French alliance. It no doubt cowed the pope, and broke up the Italian league, but it exasperated Francis against the emperor, and threw him more than ever into the arms of England. Henry, too, had reasons of his own, quite apart from the political advantages of such an alliance—which in themselves were very great indeed—for desiring to make as much of it as possible; and in July he sent Wolsey over to France, with a splendid train, as his lieutenant, to cement the new alliance by arranging with Francis the terms to be offered to the emperor, and communicating to him a very precious secret—the possibility of the king's divorce from Catherine of Arragon.
Henry had certainly not been a devoted husband. Ten years after his marriage he had a child by Elizabeth Blount, one of the queen's waiting-women, a lad called Henry Fitzroy (1519–1536) [q. v.], whom in 1525, when he was only six years old, he created Duke of Richmond. At the same time honours
