At any rate, the total result in 1520 was that Henry was in separate alliance with Francis on one side and with Charles on the other; alliances which neither could afford to break, but on which neither could rely.
The main interest of Wolsey's career, from the national point of view, attaches to his conduct of foreign policy: and in the confusion of alliances and counter-alliances it is not always easy to recognise the objects of that policy or its fundamental consistency. The aim always in view was to prevent any Power or combination of Powers from dominating Europe; to substitute diplomacy for the actual arbitrament of arms; to secure for England recognition as the true arbiter without involving her in war. The three first-class Powers of the earlier years were reduced to two by the combination under one head, Charles V., of Spain and the Empire, with France as the sole Continental rival.
But behind Wolsey's own policy was the traditional one of hostility to France, popular in the country, supported by the nobility, and offering attractions to an ambitious and martial-minded monarch who was not yet thirty years of age: whose Queen moreover was by birth and sympathy a strong partisan of Spain. Hence the Cardinal was liable to be forced out of his mediatorial position into one of hostility to France.
On the other hand, Francis and Charles each desired to strengthen his own position at the expense of the other. Each therefore desired an alliance with England close enough to secure her aid in an aggressive programme. But while Charles required active assistance and subsidies, seeking to throw on England the real burden of accomplishing his designs, Francis was comparatively satisfied with English neutrality. Again, while an aggressive alliance with Charles offered some uncertain prospects of the acquisition of French territory, circumstances were once more tending to enable Francis to utilise the ancient Scottish alliance as a means of holding England in check.
Since the decisive battle of Flodden, Scotland had not to any marked degree influenced Wolsey's European diplomacy. The blow dealt to her had been too serious: and the nobles, always turbulent, had never been more so than during the years which followed the great defeat. Queen Margaret, sister of the English King, a woman of only five and twenty when James was killed, made haste to marry the young Earl of Angus within a year of the event. The Douglases had frequently headed the Anglicising factions of the Scottish nobility, whereas the country at large constantly favoured the traditional alliance with France and hostility to the Southron. At present, the Douglases of whom Angus was the chief headed one faction: the Hamiltons, whose chief was Arran, headed the other. The marriage put an end to the arrangement under which Margaret had been Regent; there was intriguing and fighting to obtain possession of the person of the infant King; the Duke of Albany, [Footnote: Albany's father had been brother of James III.; their sister was Arran's mother.] of the royal house, who had been bred in France, was sent for, in the hope that as Regent he would compose discords. In the summer of 1515 he arrived. In the meantime, Dacre, in charge of the English border, had been fomenting quarrels [Footnote: _Lang_, _Hist. of Scotland_, i., 395. L. & P., ii., 779, 795.] and suborning outlaws to raid and devastate in the border counties, and plotting unsuccessfully to have James carried off into England to the tender care of his uncle. Albany, for his part, demanded the custody of the child, which was refused by Margaret; who however was forced to surrender with a show of friendliness. But she herself very shortly took refuge in England.