ificed his interests to his own selfish
purposes, and had left him exposed alone to all the danger and expense
of the war. In proportion to his easy credulity, and his unsuspecting
reliance on Ferdinand, was the vehemence with which he exclaimed against
the treatment which he met with; and he threatened revenge for this
egregious treachery and breach of faith.[*] But he lost all patience
when informed of the other negotiation, by which Maximilian was also
seduced from his alliance, and in which proposals had been agreed to
for the marriage of the prince of Spain with the daughter of France.
Charles, during the lifetime of the late king, had been affianced to
Mary, Henry's younger sister; and as the prince now approached the
age of puberty, the king had expected the immediate completion of the
marriage, and the honorable settlement of a sister for whom he had
entertained a tender affection. Such a complication, therefore, of
injuries gave him the highest displeasure, and inspired him with a
desire of expressing his disdain towards those who had imposed on his
youth and inexperience, and had abused his too great facility.

* Petrus de Angleria, Epist. 545, 646.

The duke of Longueville, who had been made prisoner at the battle of
Gumegate, and who was still detained in England, was ready to take
advantage of all these dispositions of Henry, in order to procure a
peace, and even an alliance, which he knew to be passionately desired
by his master. He represented to the king, that Anne, queen of France,
being lately dead, a door was thereby opened for an affinity, which
might tend to the advantage of both kingdoms, and which would serve to
terminate honorably all the differences between them: that she had left
Lewis no male children; and as he had ever entertained a strong desire
of having heirs to the crown, no marriage seemed more suitable to him
than that with the princess of England, whose youth and beauty afforded
the most flattering hopes in that particular: that though the marriage
of a princess of sixteen with a king of fifty-three might seem
unsuitable, yet the other advantages attending the alliance were more
than a sufficient compensation for this inequality; and that Henry, in
loosening his connections with Spain, from which he had never reaped
any advantage, would contract a close affinity with Lewis, a prince
who, through his whole life, had invariably maintained the character of
probity and honor.

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