Henry liked to do sudden and striking things: he gladly seized the opportunity of avenging himself upon his two allies, who, in fact, had not been very faithful to him, and he welcomed De Longueville's idea.

Mary was sixteen, pretty, already betrothed to Archduke Charles of Austria, and, further passionately smitten with Charles Brandon, the favorite of Henry VIII., who had made him Duke of Suffolk, and, according to English historians, the handsomest nobleman in England.

These two difficulties were surmounted: Mary herself formally declared her intention of breaking a promise of marriage which had been made during her minority, and which Emperor Maximilian had shown himself in no hurry to get fulfilled; and Louis XII.

formally demanded her hand.

Three treaties were concluded on the 7th of August, 1514, between the Kings of France and England, in order to regulate the conditions of their political and matrimonial alliance; on the 13th of August, the Duke de Longueville, in his sovereign's name, espoused the Princess Mary at Greenwich; and she, escorted to France by brilliant embassy, arrived on the 8th of October at Abbeville where Louis XII.