508
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 19.
overt acts had declared it to the world. In the middle of May rumours were flying in Paris of a war with England. June 13.In June the belief was general in Europe that the Emperor had privately married the Princess Mary.[1] The debt to England, the impossibility of paying it, and the consequent reasonableness of a quarrel, was in every Frenchman's mouth.[2] The Orleans marriage was no more alluded to. The anti-English party were in the ascendant, and gave the tone to public feeling. Cardinal Beton was again at the Court, and in Beton's presence the Archbishop of Paris affected to complain to Paget of the eagerness of the people.
'It were alms to whip them,' he said. 'But the devil cannot stop them but they will be in the midst of the King's council, and say we shall have war with the Emperor, and the King of England will take the Emperor's part; but if he do, we shall send thither the- ↑ 'M. l'Ambassadeur,' quoth the Admiral to me, 'to be frank with you, I hear strange news, and by such credible report as me thinketh it cannot but be true.' 'What is that?' quoth I. 'Marry,' quoth he, 'by private letters I am informed that the Emperor hath married your daughter.' 'And if so be,' quoth I, 'would you not have my master marry his daughter but to whom ye will, and as you will?' 'Oui-dà,' quoth he, 'and it is already done.' 'I believe it not,' quoth I. 'Par Saint Jehan, il est vrai, da pour tant,' quoth he, 'for I have letters thereof out of Flanders, out of Spain, from Lyons, and from Rome; and the King your master will make war with the Emperor, and will lend him money,' &c.—Paget to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. ix. p. 47.
- ↑ 'I have noted in all my conference with these men, not only the fashion of ill debtors, that do neither intreat for respite nor yet be glad to hear of their debt, but also in a manner an unkind charging of your Majesty. Of their debts every man speaketh, and all the world knoweth they be not able to pay.'—Ibid.
