which promised the best hopes for peace, and to redress the equilibrium in Europe upon which the English power depended. France was still rich in resources, and was made to pay or rather promise the vast sum of two million crowns in instalments, and an annuity of a hundred thousand a year to the King for England's friendship, whilst Francis was forced to abandon all his claims on Italy and Burgundy (January 1526), and marry the Emperor's sister Leonora, before he was permitted to return to France, at peace once more. It is true that every party to the treaties endeavoured to evade the fulfilment of his pledges; but that was the custom of the times. The point that interests us here is that the new policy now actively pursued by Wolsey of close friendship with France, necessarily meant the ruin of Katharine, unless she was dexterous and adaptable enough either to reverse the policy or openly espouse it. Unfortunately she did neither. She was now forty-one years of age, and had ceased for nearly two years to cohabit with her husband. Her health was bad; she had grown stout, and her comeliness had departed; all hopes of her giving to the King the son and heir for whom he so ardently craved had quite vanished, and with them much of her personal hold upon her husband. To her alarm and chagrin, Henry, as if in despair of being succeeded by a legitimate heir, in 1525, before signing the new alliance with France, had created his dearly loved natural son, Henry Fitzroy, a duke under the royal title of Duke of Richmond, which had been borne by his father; and Katharine, not without reason, feared the King's intention to depose her daughter, the betrothed of the Emperor, in favour of an English bastard. We have in previous pages noticed the peculiar absence of tact and flexibility in Katharine's character; and Wolsey's ostentatious French leanings after 1525 were met by the Queen with open opposition and acrimonious reproach, instead of by temporising wiliness. The Emperor's off-hand treatment of his betrothed bride, Mary Tudor, further embittered Katharine, who was thus surrounded on every side by disillusionment and disappointment. Charles sent commissioners to England just before the battle of Pavia to demand, amongst other unamiable requirements, the prompt sending of Mary, who was only nine years old, to Flanders with an increased dowry. This was no part of the agreement, and was, as no doubt Charles foresaw and desired, certain to be refused. The envoys received from Henry and Katharine, and more emphatically from Wolsey, a negative answer to the request,[35] Mary being, as they said, the greatest treasure they had, for whom no hostages would be sufficient.[36] Katharine would not let her nephew slip out of his engagement without a struggle. Mary herself was made soon after to send a fine emerald to her betrothed with a grand message to the effect that when they came together she would be able to