The news could not be long concealed, but unfortunately we have only Wolsey's account of how it was received by Henry. He took it, wrote the cardinal to Suffolk, "grievously and displeasantly," not only on account of the Duke's presumption, but of the breach of his promise to Henry.[193] "You are," he added, "in the greatest danger man was ever in;" the council were calling for his ruin. To appease Henry and enable the King to satisfy his council, Suffolk must induce Francis to intervene in his favour, to pay Henry two hundred thousand crowns as Mary's dowry, and to restore the plate and jewels she had received; the Duke himself was to return the fortune with which Henry had endowed his sister and pay twenty-four thousand pounds in yearly instalments for the expenses of her marriage. Francis proved unexpectedly willing; perhaps his better nature was touched by the lovers' distress. He also saw that Mary's marriage with Suffolk prevented her being used as (p. 083) a link to bind Charles to Henry; and he may have thought that a service to Suffolk would secure him a powerful friend at the English Court, a calculation that was partly justified by the suspicion under which Suffolk henceforth laboured, of being too partial to Francis. Yet it was with heavy hearts that the couple left Paris in April and wended their way towards Calais. Henry had given no sign; from Calais, Mary wrote to him saying she would go to a nunnery rather than marry against her desire.[194] Suffolk threw himself on the King's mercy; all the council, he said, except Wolsey, were determined to put him to death.[195] Secretly, against his promise, and without Henry's consent, he had married the King's sister, an act the temerity of which no one has since ventured to rival. He saw the executioner's axe gleam before his eyes, and he trembled.
At Calais, Mary said she would stay until she heard from the King.[196] His message has not been preserved, but fears were never more strangely belied than when the pair crossed their Rubicon. So far from any attempt being made to separate them, their marriage was publicly solemnised before Henry and all his Court on 13th May, at Greenwich.[197] In spite of all that happened, wrote the Venetian ambassador, Henry retained his friendship for Suffolk;[198] and a few months later he asserted, with some exaggeration, that the Duke's authority was scarcely less than the King's.[199] He and Mary were indeed (p. 084) required to return all the endowment, whether in money, plate, jewels or furniture, that she received on her marriage. But both she and the Duke had agreed to these terms before their offence.[200] They were not unreasonable. Henry's money had been laid out for political purposes which could no longer be served; and Mary did not expect the splendour, as Duchess of Suffolk, which she had enjoyed as Queen of France. The only stipulation that looks like a punishment was the bond to repay the cost of her journey to France; though not only was this modified later on, but the Duke received numerous grants of land to help to defray the charge. They were indeed required to live in the country; but the Duke still came up to joust as of old with Henry on great occasions, and Mary remained his favourite sister, to whose issue, in preference to that of Margaret, he left the crown by will. The vindictive suspicions which afterwards grew to rank luxuriance in Henry's mind were scarcely budding as yet; his favour to Suffolk and affection for Mary were proof against the intrigues in his Court. The contrast was marked between the event and the terrors which Wolsey had painted; and it is hard to believe that the Cardinal played an entirely disinterested part in the matter.[201] It was obviously his cue to exaggerate the King's anger, and to represent to the Duke that its mitigation was due to the Cardinal's influence; and it is more than possible that Wolsey found in Suffolk's indiscretion the means of removing a dangerous rival. The "two obstinate men" who had ruled (p. 085) in Henry's camp were not likely to remain long united; Wolsey could hardly approve of any "second king" but himself, especially a "second king" who had acquired a family bond with the first. The Venetian ambassador plainly hints that it was through Wolsey that Suffolk lost favour.[202] In the occasional notices of him during the next few years it is Wolsey, and not Henry, whom Suffolk is trying to appease; and we even find the Cardinal secretly warning the King against some designs of the Duke that probably existed only in his own imagination.[203]