ximilian tried to
oppose a Council to the Pope, Henry VIII dissuaded the latter from it
with a zeal full of unction. He drew him over in fact to his side:
they undertook a combined campaign against France in which they won a
battle in the open field, and conquered a great city, Tournay. Aided
by the English army Ferdinand the Catholic then possessed himself of
Navarre, which was given up to him by the Pope as being taken when it
was in league with an enemy of the Church. Louis's other ally, the
Scottish King James IV, succumbed to the military strength of North
England at Flodden, and Henry might have raised a claim to Scotland,
like that of Ferdinand to Navarre: but he preferred, as his sister
Margaret became regent there, to strengthen the indirect influence of
England over Scotland. On the whole the advantages of his warlike
enterprises were for England small, but not unimportant for the
general relations of Europe. The predominance of France was broken: a
freer position restored to the Papacy. Henry VIII felt himself
fortunate in the full weight of the influence which England had won
over European affairs.

It was no contradiction of the fundamental ideas of English policy,
when Henry VIII again formed a connexion with Louis XII, who was now
no longer formidable. He even gave him his younger sister to wife, and
concluded a treaty with him, by which he secured himself a money
payment, as his predecessors had so often done before. Yet he did not
for this break at all with Ferdinand the Catholic, though he had
reason to complain of him: rather he concluded a new alliance with
him, only in a less close and binding manner. He would not have
endured that the successor of Louis XII (who died immediately after
his marriage), the youthful and warlike Francis I, after he had
possessed himself of Milan, should have also advanced to Naples. For a
moment, in consequence of these apprehensions, their relations became
less close: but when the alarm proved to be unfounded, the alliance
was renewed, and even Tournay restored for a compensation in money.
Many personal motives may have contributed to this, but on the whole
there was sense and system in such a policy. The reconquest of Milan
did not make the King of France so strong that he would become
dangerous, particularly as on the other side the monarchy which had
been prepared by the Spanish-Netherlands' connexions now came into
existence, and the grandson of Ferdinand and Maxi