revenues were computed nearly to equal those which belonged to the crown itself; and he spent them with a magnificence; or rather an ostentation, which gave general offence to the people; and even lessened his master in the eyes of all foreign nations.[*] * Polyd. Virg. Hall. The violent personal emulation and political jealousy which had taken place between the emperor and the French king, soon broke out in hostilities. But while these ambitious and warlike princes were acting against each other in almost every part of Europe, they still made professions of the strongest desire of peace; and both of them incessantly carried their complaints to Henry, as to the umpire between them. The king, who pretended to be neutral, engaged them to send their ambassadors to Calais, there to negotiate a peace under the mediation of Wolsey and the pope’s nuncio. The emperor was well apprised of the partiality of these mediators; and his demands in the conference were so unreasonable as plainly proved him conscious of the advantage. He required the restitution of Burgundy, a province which many years before had been ceded to France by treaty, and which, if in his possession, would have given him entrance into the heart of that kingdom: and he demanded to be freed from the homage which his ancestors had always done for Flanders and Artois, and which he himself had by the treaty of Noyon engaged to renew. {1521.} On Francis’s rejecting these terms, the congress of Calais broke up; and Wolsey soon after took a journey to Bruges, where he met with the emperor. He was received with the same state, magnificence, and respect, as if he had been the king of England himself; and he concluded, in his master’s name, an offensive alliance with the pope and the emperor against France. He stipulated that England should next summer invade that kingdom with forty thousand men; and he betrothed to Charles the princess Mary, the king’s only child, who had now some prospect of inheriting the crown. This extravagant alliance, which was prejudicial to the interests, and might have proved fatal to the liberty and independence, of the kingdom, was the result of the humors and prejudices of the king, and the private views and expectations of the cardinal.