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"Anne of Britany, sometime Queen of France, is dead. King Lewis has no son, yet very much does he desire one heir." "Very like, very like; but with no Queen, how could we send our English yeomen to help him to any heir," said Henry, with a thick, chuckling laugh.

“Mais sauve votre majestie, your highness might send him a Queen," replied the Frenchman; "and one of such rare parts, breeding, and likelihood, that France might soon possess that which she most desires-an heir direct to her throne, and with such share of English blood in him as would form an infiniment better bond of alliance than could be formed with Spain, from whom she has received treachery, loss, insult, and direst injury." "There is a taste of good sound sense and reason to boot in what you utter, Monsieur le Duc."

And your majestie, if de young Charles, Archduke of Spain. neglect a Princess of such rare beauty as de superb Mary, sister to your highness, to cement a convention felt to be rotten, it were well this Princess should be the instrument of all their undoing, and dus your highness will turn de trick on der own heads.'

"Head of me! De Longueville, but it likes us well, and seems probable," said Henry, musing. Then, after a pauseMary is just sixteen; King Lewis sixty: Eh! what say'st

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thou to that?

"A little more dan fifty, please your majestie; and a man active in body, of gallantry and valour, pleasing to de ladies, and right royal in munificence."

"But how knowest thou France desires our sister, Monsieur le Duc," said Henry proudly, with a frown overspreading his brow.

"There is no one thing on de earth so passionately desired by my king. Your Majestie shall make your own conditions, as dey cannot fail to accord with de high honor and christian perfection which all christendom doth know to be in your highness."

The subtle Frenchman had gained his point. The rest of the interview was of inferior moment, suffice it to say the thing was arranged that the Princess Mary should marry King Lewis, —a girl of sixteen, full of youth and promise, (with a feeling of attachment to one of suitable age, of manly acquirements, and most winning manners, already rising in her heart, viz., to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, whose accomplishments and chivalrous fame were not exceeded by any noble in any court of christendom of that age.) This fair girl was to be sacrificed to an old man, a widower, worn out with cares and toils and sickness, to maintain a rotten, worthless policy.

How true is that proverb of royal blood, "the fate of princes is rarely to be envied, most oft to be deplored."

Very different was the effect upon Wolsey, upon calculation respecting the motives and purposes of the coalition of the great powers, to that which we have seen produced on Henry. Indeed, Wolsey feared from the first far more the irritability of the youthful but headstrong monarch, than any serious consequences from the coalition itself. from the coalition itself. He was inclined to augur favorably for the peace of all the powers, and the supremacy of diplomacy, as a consequence, a weapon in which he felt he had most skilful use. Instead of seeing nothing but aggression threatened by this combination, he argued that the monarchs of Spain, France, and Rome, feeling the numbing effects of advancing age and infirmity, were well content to compound for mutual peace and security from broils; Wolsey therefore wisely set about forging arms of proof to protect his King from himself, rather than point a shaft to rankle in the breasts of the confederate monarchs. Whilst racking his brains on this subject, a visitor was announced and was admitted.

A fine, tall young man entered, he was worth describing; his face, though pale and seemingly expressive of deep anxiety had all the marks of youthful beauty, his eyes, dark, long, and somewhat shaded by a heavyish upper lid, gave him the air of a student; but the graceful figure, a small moustache, and a peculiar gait and manner, showed that he was used to camps as well as courts. Nothing could be more graceful and appropriate than his entering acknowledgment of Wolsey-a soldier he might be, but he was something more.

"Eh Charles! what brings thee here at such an hour?”

"I am so much indebted to your Lordship for many an unlooked for kindness, that I am much abashed to be a suitor," replied the young man. Wolsey looked up, and with a peculiar smile, half patronizing, half depreciatory, which pretty plainly showed that he was gratified by the words and manner of the speaker, exclaimed, "His Majesty is too well affected towards you to leave you in need of my humble intercession, though I am pleased to second the good effects of your own merits."

"I am not ignorant how much my fortune hath been owing to your Lordship's advice and timely patronage, nor do I utter a syllable beyond that which my heart assures me. my Lord, I am a suitor, an anxious suitor to you."

But

"Blessed heart! what is't that needs so fearful a preface." The young man with a face almost livid with emotion, and adown which the cold perspiration rolled in heavy drops, exclaimed with energy, "I am in despair, in hopeless utter wretchedness."

"Why, what hast thou done Charles, that racks thee thus?" "Nothing my lord," said the young man in a low tone, and then passionately added, "Oh! if you would intercede for me with his Highness-I cannot exist in this suspense. If I am to be deprived of all hope that she may be mine, death were welcome, nothing insupportable but life."

66 Are you a man to talk thus? I will not say a Christian man, for what mind so opposite to heaven can build a hope to enter it." A deep silence intervened. At length Wolsey resumed in a kinder tone, "What hopeless passion is this; is she already wed?" "Almost as hopeless-affianced."

"To a prince?" asked Wolsey quickly. The other bowed

assent.

"The sister to the king? The alliance is no longer contemplated."

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What," cried the youth, starting up, " Is the report of the speedy union of the Princess to Archduke Charles unfounded?" "The Archduke is already married to King Lewis's daughter, all England will ring with the news to-morrow," replied Wolsey in a cold tone.

"Oh! my lord you give me a new life. If you will but intercede with the King to grant me the hand of the Princess, there is nothing I would not lay down gladly in exchange.'

"Alas, thou hast fallen on evil times for asking favors of his Highness, who takes the news sorely to heart."

The young man was about to urge his suit, when a messenger in haste from the King summoned Wolsey to an instant audience. The Minister and his suitor, Charles, Duke of Suffolk, abruptly broke off the conference.

The Duc de Longueville lost no time in communicating to his sovereign, his interview with Henry the Eighth and he received formal permission to treat finally for the settlement of the terms of marriage between Louis and the Princess Mary.

It was agreed that the Princess was to bring four hundred thousand crowns, as her portion, and enjoy from France as large a jointure as any Queen, even the late heiress of Britany, had done.

It was stipulated that Henry should receive a million crowns from Lewis for certain sums due from a treaty entered into by his father and Lewis, and which the enmity between France and England had suffered to fall into arrears;-that Tournay was to be secured to England, and that Richard de la Pole was to be banished to Mentz.

And finally, that the Kings of England and France should enter into a compact to resist or assail the enemy of either nation, come the offence from what quarter it might.

B

After the audience with the King (already alluded to, as summoned in the middle of an interview between Wolsey and the Duke of Suffolk,) in which Henry laid open to Wolsey his communication with De Longueville, it was determined that Wolsey should announce to the Princess, and prepare her mind for the new dignity which awaited her. Alas! unhappy state! Wolsey repaired without delay to the Dean of Westminster, Mary's confessor, and engaged him to break the matter to the young maiden after matins. It would seem that King and Minister were alike averse to open the subject to the Princess. Mary, upon the first receipt of the news, felt stunned.

The Dean commenced an exhortation which the Princess interrupted by an outbreak of violent grief.

She declared "she would appeal to the King"-unhappy maid!

Then anger assailed her, and she bitterly reproached Wolsey. Plan after plan was formed, resolve succeeded resolve, each plan and resolve the confessor proved bootless.

"The King, my brother, who has ever entertained an affection for me, and has been my champion from childhood, will not consent to it," said Mary.

His Highness has himself proposed and determined it," replied the Dean.

"It was Wolsey-born of cruel parentage, and nursed in a school that owned no sympathy for the young and uncontaminated of the female sex, who has instigated the King to consent to this sacrifice for some paltry sum of crowns, as he has sacrificed Tournay," rejoined she in a towering passion.

The Dean looked aghast-not because he saw a young female in violent excitement-not because he had to witness the storm which was to precede a heavy swelling of the heartnot because the news he had conveyed was sharper than the scimitar of the infidel Moor, to sever the keenest nerves of sensibility, and draw the life-blood-all this he had been used to; it was part of his profession; it constituted some of the consolation which his reservation from domestic ties supplied him with; but he stood aghast at the evident growth of those dreadful doctrines of the Council of Lyons, that infection of Wickliffeism which tainted one of the chosen of his own flock -the beloved sister of the Defender of the Faith-the promising champion of the church, and what was of more importance still, the monarch of the most powerful country in Christendom.

He stood aghast, not in pretence, but really, and found no utterance for the time. The Princess was in a towering passion it was true, but there was in this stirring of the deep waters of her heart, the evolvement of a truth most unpalatable to that

church which owed so much to its dominion over the consciences and bodies of women.

The pause which ensued did more for the Confessor than his most subtle reasonings could have effected. Mary seemed to quail before her own temerity, as Frankenstein did before his own created monster. The Dean saw his advantage, and left the battle to the reserve that had formed this diversion in his favor. He was not much pleased with the subject, which was likely to interfere with the good understanding subsisting between himself and the Princess, and when, in a new resolve she declared she would instantly see the Minister, and try by every means in her power to avert this loathsome alliance, he instantly complied with its propriety, and departed.

In the subsequent interview with Wolsey, the chief early topic was the desirableness of the Minister's intercession on her behalf, which the Princess dwelt upon forcibly. His reply was in substance that which he afterwards repeated on a memorable occasion.

"The King, my master, is right royal and of a great heart: it is not possible for human power to turn him from a purpose he hath once gotten into his head." In reply to Mary's bitter and half-suffocated exclamation, "Oh! wherefore put you then such a dreadful purpose into his highness' head?" he declared that "it was his Majesty broke the matter to him, and that the idea had been suggested and arranged by the Duc de Longueville and King Lewis himself,"-" And now," continued Wolsey in his earnest and suasive manner, "and now most royal and wellbeloved Princess, turn not a deaf ear to what I utter; it will prove hereafter to have been advice useful and well-timed; I lament your deep distress of mind, it was because I would not willingly witness it, that I entrusted the business to your Confessor. The alliance is determined on; the terms are even all concluded, you cannot avert it, in a few hours it will be made public."-The Princess leaned back against a pillar, and covered her face with her hands. "It would pain you hereafter that the world should have been witness of a want of fortitude in one so elevated. It has ever been the lot of Princes to sacrifice themselves for their people-to suffer for their nation's health."

The Princess sobbed, and the tears rolled through her fingers. Her beautifully formed chest (this is no ideal portraiture) heaved with her overwhelming emotion. The Minister continued

"None ever did good to their kind who did not barter in the divine exchange their body and blood; and HE who did the most for man, suffered for man the most, and left us an example