[Sidenote 1: War with France] [Sidenote 2: Scotland] By the end of May the war could no longer be postponed, and was duly declared. It was still some months before Surrey took the field in France at the head of the English forces--conducting his campaign on the general principles of Anglo-Scottish border warfare--ravaging, burning, and rousing the hatred of the country population, but striking no blow. If Henry seriously contemplated the idea of reviving old claims to the French crown, he could have adopted no worse policy. Charles of course gave no practical assistance, and the allies each blamed the other for the futility of the operations. Albany on the other hand had been back in Scotland for some months; and in opposition to Angus--in conjunction therefore with Margaret --threatened an invasion as soon as the French expedition started. The ingenious Lord Dacre however by sheer bluff--there is no other word-- succeeded in procuring an armistice when the English border was all but defenceless. After this exhibition, Albany found it as well to retire to France; while Wolsey used the occurrence to urge upon Charles that Scotland required too much attention to allow French expeditions to be practicable. [Sidenote: 1523 Progress of the war] With 1523 events took a turn more favourable to Charles. The Duke of Bourbon, Constable of France, turned against the King, on the ground of insults more or less fancied, and of a genuine attempt to deprive him of his inheritance by legal process. The idea was revived in Henry's mind that in alliance with some of the French nobility he might make himself King of France as Henry V. had done; so Wolsey had to develop an active policy against France. His hand being thus forced, the Cardinal devoted his energies to making the combination against the French King really serious, coercing Venice into the coalition. The military operations however were not in train till the autumn; Suffolk, whose military skill was extremely limited, commanded the English expedition, and marched into the interior instead of falling on Boulogne as Wolsey had advised; Bourbon did nothing useful; Charles's troops gave their attention to Fontarabia instead of to a combined operation. From the English point of view the whole campaign was a complete fiasco. Wolsey had been set to carry out a policy of which he disapproved, with instruments of whose incompetence he was fully conscious; and the results were probably neither better nor worse than what he and the cooler onlookers like Sir Thomas More expected. The one thing that Wolsey could do, he had done: he had placed Surrey on the Northern border to deal with the inevitable return to Scotland of Albany with threats of invasion. Surrey was successful: Albany having advanced into England was obliged to fall back, and the border country was subjected to the usual process of raiding and harrying. [Sidenote: Election of Pope Clement VII.]