English army which came on in one long
line; and they attacked it with a body of
spearmen, under LORD HOME. At first they
had the best of it, but the English recovered
themselves so bravely, and fought with such
valour, that when the Scottish King had
almost made his way up to the Royal standard,
he was slain, and the whole Scottish power
routed. Ten thousand Scottish men lay
dead that day on Flodden Field, and among
them, numbers of the nobility and gentry.
For a long time afterwards, the Scottish peasantry
used to believe that their King had
not been really killed in this battle, because
no Englishman had found an iron belt he
wore about his body as a penance for having
been an unnatural and undutiful son. But,
whatever became of his belt, the English had
his sword and dagger, and the ring from his
finger, and his body too, covered with wounds.
There is no doubt of it, for it was seen and
recognised by English gentlemen who had
known the Scottish King well.

When King Henry was making ready to
renew the war in France, the French King
was contemplating peace. His queen dying
at this time, he proposed, though he was
upwards of fifty years old, to marry King
Henry's sister, the Princess Mary, who,
besides being only sixteen, was betrothed to
the Duke of Suffolk. As the inclinations of
young Princesses were not much considered
in such matters, the marriage was concluded,
and the poor girl was escorted to France,
where she was immediately left as the French
King's bride, with only one of all her English
attendants. That one was a pretty young
girl named ANNE BOLEYN, niece of the Earl
of Surrey, who had been made Duke of
Norfolk after the victory of Flodden Field.
Anne Boleyn's is a name to be remembered,
as you will presently find.

And now the French King, who was very
proud of his young wife, was preparing for
many years of happiness, and she was looking
forward, I dare say, to many years of misery,
when he died within three months, and left
her a young widow. The new French monarch,
FRANCIS THE FIRST, seeing how important it
was to his interests that she should take for
her second husband no one but an Englishman,
advised her first lover, the Duke of
Suffolk, when King Henry sent him over to
France to fetch her home, to marry her. The
Princess being herself so fond of that Duke,
as to tell him that he must either do so then,
or for ever lose her, they were wedded; and
Henry afterwards forgave them. In making
interest with the King, the Duke of Suffolk
had addressed his most powerful favorite
and adviser, THOMAS WOLSEY—a name very
famous in history for its rise and downfall.

Wolsey was the son of a respectable butcher
at Ipswich, in Suffolk, who gave him so
excellent an education that he became a
tutor to the family of the Marquis of Dorset,
who afterwards got him appointed one of the
late King's chaplains. On the accession of
Henry the Eighth, he was promoted and taken
into great favor. He was now Archbishop
of York; the Pope had made him a Cardinal
besides; and whoever wanted influence in
England, or favor with the King, whether
he were a foreign monarch, or an English
nobleman, was obliged to make a friend of
the great Cardinal Wolsey.

He was a gay man, who could dance and
jest, and sing and drink; and those were the
roads to so much, or rather so little, of a
heart as King Henry had. He was wonderfully
fond of pomp and glitter, and so was the
King. Pie knew a good deal of the Church
learning of that time, much of which consisted
in finding artful excuses and pretences for
almost any wrong thing, and in arguing that
black was white, or any other color. This
kind of learning pleased the King too.
many such reasons, the Cardinal was high in
estimation with the King, and being a man
of far greater ability, knew as well how to
manage him, as a clever keeper may know
how to manage a wolf or a tiger, or any other
cruel and uncertain beast, that may turn upon
him and tear him any day. Never had there
been seen in England such state as my Lord
Cardinal kept. His wealth was enormous:
equal, it was reckoned, to the riches of the
Crown. His palaces were as splendid as the
King's, and his retinue eight hundred strong.
He held his Court, dressed out from top to
toe in flaming scarlet, and his very shoes
were golden, set with precious stones. His
followers rode on blood horses, while he, with
a wonderful affectation of humility in the
midst of his great splendor, ambled on a
mule with a red velvet saddle and bridle and
golden stirrups.

Through the influence of this stately priest,
a grand meeting was arranged to take place,
in France, but on ground belonging to England,
between the French and English Kings.
A prodigious show of friendship and rejoicing
was to be made on the occasion, and heralds
were sent to proclaim with brazen trumpets
through all the principal cities of Europe,
that on a certain day, the Kings of France
and England, as companions and brothers
in arms, each attended by eighteen followers,
would hold a tournament against all knights
who might choose to come.

CHARLES, the new Emperor of Germany
(the old one being dead), wanted to prevent too
cordial an alliance between these sovereigns,
and so came over to England before the King
could repair to the place of meeting; and besides
making an agreeable impression upon
him, secured Wolsey's interest by promising
that his influence should make him Pope when
the next vacancy occurred. On the day when
the Emperor left England, the King and all
the Court went over to Calais, and thence to
the place of meeting, between Ardres and
Guisnes, commonly called the Field of the Cloth
of Gold. Here, all manner of expense and