the sister of the murdered Earl of Warwick, the Countess of Salisbury, mother of Reginald Pole.  This lady had inherited, in no common degree, the fierce nature of the Plantagenets; born to command, she had rallied round her the Courtenays, the Nevilles, and all the powerful kindred of Richard the King Maker, her grandfather.  Her Plantagenet descent was purer than the king’s; and if Mary died and Henry left no other issue, half England was likely to declare either for one of her sons, or for the Marquis of Exeter, the grandson of Edward IV.

In 1515, when Giustiniani,[113] the Venetian ambassador, was at the court, the Dukes of Buckingham, of Suffolk, and of Norfolk, were also mentioned to him as having each of them hopes of the crown.  Buckingham, meddling prematurely in the dangerous game, had lost his life for it; but in his death he had strengthened the chance of Norfolk, who had married his daughter.  Suffolk was Henry’s brother-in-law;[114] chivalrous, popular, and the ablest soldier of his day; and Lady Margaret Lennox, also, daughter of the Queen of Scotland by her second marriage, would not have wanted supporters, and early became an object of intrigue.  Indeed, as she had been born in England, it was held in parliament that she stood next in order to the Princess Mary.[115]

Many of these claims were likely to be advanced if Henry died leaving a daughter to succeed him.  They would all inevitably be advanced if he died childless; and no great political sagacity was required to foresee the probable fate of the country if such a moment was chosen for a French and Scottish invasion.  The very worst disasters might be too surely looked for, and the hope of escape, precarious at the best, hung upon the frail thread of a single life.  We may therefore imagine the dismay with which the nation saw this last hope failing them—­and failing them even in a manner more dangerous than if it had failed by death; for it did but add another doubt, when already there were too many.  In order to detach France from Scotland, and secure, if possible, its support for the claims of the princess, it had been proposed to marry the Princess Mary to a son of the French king.  The negotiations were conducted through the Bishop of Tarbes,[116] and at the first conference the Bishop raised a question in the name of his government, on the validity of the papal dispensation granted by Julius the Second, to legalise the marriage from which she was sprung.  The abortive marriage Scheme perished in its birth, but the doubt which had been raised could not perish with it.  Doubt on such a subject once mooted might not be left unresolved, even if the raising it thus publicly had not itself destroyed the frail chance of an undisputed succession.  If the relations of Henry with Queen Catherine had been of a cordial kind, it is possible that he would have been contented with resentment; that he would have refused to reconsider a question which touched his honour and his conscience; and, united with parliament, would have endeavoured to bear down all difficulties with a high hand.  This at least he might have himself attempted.  Whether the parliament, with so precarious a future before them, would have consented, is less easy to say.  Fortunately or unfortunately, the interests of the nation pointed out another road, which Henry had no unwillingness to enter.