in these court-contentions, an ability partaking both of firmness and pliancy.  The difficulties of foreign policy found her equally active and prudent.  The greatest peril which France could at that time incur arose from the maintenance of the union between the King of England and Charles V. At the first news of the battle of Pavia, Henry VIII. dreamed for a moment of the partition of France between Charles and himself, with the crown of France for his own share; demonstrations of joy took place at the court of London; and attempts were made to levy, without the concurrence of Parliament, imposts capable of sufficing for such an enterprise.  But the English nation felt no inclination to put up with this burden and the king’s arbitrary power in order to begin over again the Hundred Years’ War.  The primate, Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote to Cardinal Wolsey, “It is reported to me that when the people had orders to make bonfires for the capture of the King of France, many folks said that it was more reason for weeping than for rejoicing.  Others openly expressed their desire that the King of France might be set at liberty, that a happy peace might be concluded, and that the king might not attempt to conquer France again, a conquest more burdensome than profitable, and more difficult to keep than to make.”  Wolsey himself was cooled towards Charles V., who, instead of writing to him as of old, and signing with his own hand, “your son and cousin,” now merely put his name, Charles.  The regent, Louise of Savoy, profited ably by these feelings and circumstances in England; a negotiation was opened between the two courts; Henry VIII. gained by it two millions of crowns payable by annual instalments of fifty thousand crowns each, and Wolsey received a pension of a hundred thousand crowns.  At first a truce for four months, and then an alliance, offensive and defensive, were concluded on the 30th of August, 1525, between France and England; and the regent, Louise of Savoy, had no longer to trouble herself about anything except the captivity of the king her son and the departure of her daughter Margaret to go and negotiate for the liberation of the prisoner.

The negotiation had been commenced, as early as the 20th of July, at Toledo, between the ambassadors of Francis I. and the advisers of Charles V., but without any symptom of progress.  Francis I., since his arrival in Spain, had been taken from strong castle to strong castle, and then removed to Madrid, everywhere strictly guarded, and leading a sad life, without Charles V.’s coming to visit him or appointing him any meeting-place.  In vain did the emperor’s confessor, the Bishop of Osma, advise him to treat Francis I. generously, and so lay upon him either the obligation of thankfulness or the burden of ingratitude; the majority of his servants gave him contrary counsel.  “I know not what you mean to do,” wrote his brother, the Archduke Ferdinand; “but, if I were wise enough to know how to give you good counsel,