necessary dispensation.
Their claims to French territories they would carry out by a combined
war. Should a difficulty occur between them, Cardinal Wolsey was fixed
on as umpire.

So did the alliance between the houses of Burgundy and Tudor come to
pass, the basis of which was to be the annihilation of the power of
the Valois, and into which the English minister threw his world-wide
ambition. From England also a declaration of war now reached Francis
I. Whilst the war in Italy and on the Spanish frontiers made the most
successful progress, the English, in 1522 under Howard Earl of Surrey,
in 1523 under Brandon Earl of Suffolk, both times in combination with
Imperial troops, invaded France on the side of the Netherlands,
invasions which, to say the least, very much hampered the French.
Movements also manifested themselves within France itself, which awoke
hopes in the King that he might make himself master of the French
crown as easily as his father had once done of the English. Leo X had
already been persuaded to absolve the subjects of Francis I from their
oaths to him. It was in connexion with this that the second man in
France, the Constable of Bourbon, slighted in his station, and
endangered in his possessions, resolved to help himself by revolting
from Francis I. He wished then to recognise no other King in France
but Henry VIII: at a solemn moment, after receiving the sacrament, he
communicated to the English ambassador, who was with him, his
resolution to set the French crown on King Henry's head: he reckoned
on a numerous party declaring for him. And in the autumn of 1523 it
looked as if this project would be accomplished. Suffolk and Egmont
pressed on to Montdidier without meeting with any resistance: it was
thought that the Netherland and English forces would soon occupy the
capital, and give a new form to the realm. Pope Hadrian was just dead
at Rome; would not the united efforts of the Emperor and the King of
England succeed, by their influence on the conclave, especially now
that they were victorious, in really raising Wolsey to the tiara?

This however did not happen. In Rome not Wolsey but Julius Medici was
elected Pope; the combined Netherland and English troops retreated
from Montdidier; Bourbon saw himself discovered and had to fly, no one
declared for him. This last is doubtless to be ascribed to the
vigilance and good conduct of King Francis, but in the retreat of the
troops and in the election of