enry, 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 (p. 055)
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.

[Footnote 100: _L. and P._, i., 679.]

[Footnote 101: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 16; _L. and P._,
i., 1740.]

[Footnote 102: _L. and P._, i., 1531.]

[Footnote 103: _Ibid._, ii., 4688; _Ven. Cal._,
ii., 178.]

In the midst of their preparation against infidels, so runs the
preamble to the treaty in which Henry and Ferdinand signified their
adhesion to the Holy League, they heard that Louis was besieging the
Pope in Bologna.[104] The thought of violent hands being laid on the
Vicar of Chr