e sworn to overthrow
her.[89] But this personal motive first became permanently important
when joined with a more general one. The Queen was by no means so
entirely shut out from the events of the day as has been asserted; in
moments of difficulty we find her summoning the members of the Privy
Council before her to discuss the pending questions with them. When
Wolsey began a life and death struggle with the Emperor, the influence
of the Queen, whose most lively sympathies were with her nephew, stood
not a little in his way; it was his chief interest to remove her.

It was indeed the feeling of the time, that family unions and
political alliances must go hand in hand. At the very first proposal
for a reconciliation between England and France, Giberti had advised
the marriage of the English princess Mary, who had been rejected by
the Emperor, with a French prince, and there had been much negociation
about it. But owing to the extreme youth of the princess it was soon
felt that this would not lead to the desired end. If a definitive
rupture was to take place between England and the Burgundo-Spanish
power, Henry VIII's marriage with Catharine must be dissolved and room
thus made for a French princess. This marriage however was itself the
result of that former state of politics which had led to the first war
with France. Wolsey formed the plan of marrying his King, in
Catharine's stead, with the sister or even with the daughter of
Francis I who was now growing up:[90] then only would the alliance
between the two powers become indissoluble. When he was in France in
1527, he said to the Regent, the King's mother, that within a year she
would live to see two things, the most complete separation of his
sovereign from Spain, and his indissoluble union with France.[91]

But to these motives of foreign policy was now added an extremely
important reason of home policy: this lay in the precarious state of
the Succession.

When the King several years before was congratulated on the birth of
his daughter, with an intimation that the birth of a son might have
been still more acceptable, he replied quickly, they were both still
young, he and his wife, why should they not still have a son? But
gradually this hope had ceased, and as hitherto no Queen had ever
reigned in her own right in England, the opinion gained ground that at
the King's death the throne would fall vacant. It had a little before
created a party among the people for th