Note (back) — Chapter III

But, in spite of Venetian, Spanish and papal instigations to "recover his noble inheritance in France," in spite of his own indignation at the treatment of Venice, and the orders issued in the first year of his reign to his subjects to furnish themselves with weapons of war, for which the long peace had left them unprepared,[100] Henry, or the peace party in his council, was unwilling to resort to the arbitrament of arms. He renewed his father's treaties not only with other powers, but, much to the disgust of Ferdinand, Venice and the Pope, with Louis himself. His first martial exploit, apart from 1,500 archers whom he was bound by treaty to send to aid the Netherlands against the Duke of Guelders,[101] was an expedition for the destruction of the enemies of the faith.[102] Such an expedition, he once said, he owed to God for his peaceful accession; at another time he declared[103] that he cherished, like an heirloom, the ardour against the infidel which he inherited from his father. He repressed that ardour, it must be added, with as much success as Henry VII.; and apart from this one youthful indiscretion, he did not suffer his ancestral zeal to escape into action. His generous illusions soon vanished before the sordid realities of European statecraft; and the defence of Christendom became with him, as with others, a hollow pretence, a diplomatic fiction, the infinite varieties of which age could not wither nor custom stale. Did a monarch wish for peace? Peace at once was imperative to enable Christian princes to combine against the Turk. Did he desire war? War became a disagreeable necessity to restrain the ambition of Christian princes who, "worse than the infidel," disturbed the peace of Christendom and opened a door for the enemies of the Church. Nor did the success of Henry's first crusade encourage him to persist in similar efforts. It sailed from Plymouth in May, 1511, to join in Ferdinand's attack on the Moors, but it had scarcely landed when bickerings broke out between the Christian allies, and Ferdinand informed the English commanders that he had made peace with the Infidel, to gird his loins for war with the Most Christian King.