as they were resolved.  They discovered that Francis I. had given Bonnivet four hundred thousand crowns in gold that he might endeavor to bribe the electors; it was, according to report, double the sum Charles of Austria had promised for the same object; and his agents sent him information of it, and received this answer:  “We are wholly determined to spare nothing and to stake all for all upon it, as the matter we most desire and have most at heart in this world. . . .  The election must be secured, whatever it may cost me.”  The question before the seven elective princes who were to dispose of the empire was thenceforth merely which of the two claimants would be the higher and the safer bidder.  Francis I. engaged in a tussle of wealth and liberality with Charles of Austria.  One of his agents wrote to him, “All will go well if we can fill the maw of the Margrave Joachim of Brandenburg; he and his brother the elector from Mayence fall every day into deeper depths of avarice; we must hasten to satisfy them with speed, speed, speed.”  Francis I. replied, “I will have Marquis Joachim gorged at any price;” and he accordingly made over to him in ready money and bills of short dates all that was asked for by the margrave, who on the 8th of April, 1519, gave a written undertaking to support the candidature “of the most invincible and Most Christian prince, Francis, by the grace of God King of the French, Duke of Milan, and Lord of Genoa, who, what with his vigorous age, his ability, his justice, his military experience, the brilliant fortune of his arms, and all other qualities required for war and the management of the commonwealth, surpasses, in the judgment of every one, all other Christian princes.”  But Charles of Austria did not consider himself beaten because two of the seven electors displayed avarice and venality.  His aunt Margaret and his principal agent in Germany, the Chamberlain Armerstoff, resumed financial negotiations with the Archbishop of Mayence, for his brother the margrave as well as for himself, and the archbishop, without any formal engagement, accepted the Austrian over-bid.  “I am ashamed at his shamelessness,” wrote Armerstorff to Charles.  Alternate and antagonistic bargaining went on thus for more than two months.  The Archbishop of Cologne, Hermann von Wied, kept wavering between the two claimants; but he was careful to tell John d’Albret, Francis I.’s agent, that “he sincerely hoped that his Majesty would follow the doctrine of God, who gave as much to those who went to work in His vineyard towards the middle of the day as to those who had been at it all the morning.”  Duke Frederick of Saxony was the only one of the seven electors who absolutely refused to make any promise, as well as to accept any offer, and preserved his independence, as well as his dignity.  The rumor of all these traffickings and these uncertainties rekindled in Henry viii., King of England, a fancy for placing himself once more in the ranks; but