ABSTRACT
In 1514, the French war ended with a treaty which marked a notable victory for England. But on the last day of that y~ar, Louis XII died, and with him died the marriage alliance which had given reality to the treaty. Henry and Wolsey immediately planned to give the widow to the new French king, Francis I, but the 'French Queen' (as she was known till her death in 1533) put a spoke in that wheel by secretly marrying Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, Henry's personal friend and her own previous choice before she had been forced into the French match. For a time the young couple were in danger of death from Henry's fury, but in the end the king was content with exacting money. Wolsey always claimed that his intercession had saved Suffolk, but there is nothing except his unreliable word to support this, and Henry may well have felt merciful towards his favourite sister and his special friend. In any case, no prospect of Mary Tudor's hand could have stopped Francis I from a course of action that was highly displeasing to England. He was young, active, vigorously athletic, and vainglorious-that is, he had all the qualities of the young Henry VIII himself; the king of England soon felt violently jealous of this younger man who supplanted him in the adulation of men. His own temper, if not the interest of his country, drove Francis to renew the Italian wars, and so he set about pacifying his northern border while engaged in the south. A treaty with the young Archduke Charles of Burgundy removed all threat from that quarter; as for England, Francis was not content with renewing his predecessor's treaty of alliance but made sure by sending the Scottish claimant, the duke of Albany, to stir up trouble in
England's northern neighbour. Albany was fully successful: he overthrew the government of the regent, Henry's sister Margaret, who fled to England with her second husband, the earl of Angus, and Henry-breathing fire-thought seriously of restoring her by force of arms. In the meantime, Francis crossed the Alps and won the great victory of Marignano against the Swiss and Milanese (September 1515); at one stroke all the north of Italy was French again and Rome itself under the French shadow.
