vasion of France.[122] This forced
the Catholic King to reveal his hand. He refused his ratification;[123]
now he declared the conquest of Guienne to be a task of such magnitude
that preparations must be complete before April, a date already past;
and he recommended Henry to come into the truce with Louis, the
existence of which he had now to confess. Henry had not yet fathomed
the depths; he even appealed to Ferdinand's feelings and pathetically
besought him, as a good father, not to forsake him entirely.[124] But
in vain; his father-in-law deserted him at his sorest hour of need. To
make peace was out of the question. England's honour had suffered a
stain that must at all costs be removed. No king with an atom of
spirit would let the dawn of his reign be clouded by such an admission
of failure. Wolsey was there to stiffen his temper in case of need;
with him it was almost a matter of life and death to retrieve the
disaster. His credit was pledged in the war. In their moments of anger
under the Spanish sun, the English commanders had loudly imputed to
Wolsey the origin of the war and the cause of all the mischief.[125]
Surrey, for whose banishment from Court the new favourite had
expressed to Fox a wish, and other "great men" at home, repeated the
charge.[126] Had Wolsey failed to bring honour with peace, his name
would not have been numbered among the greatest of England's
statesmen.

[Footnote 122: _Sp. Cal._, ii., 101.]

[Footnote 123: _Ib._, ii., 118, 122.]

[Footnote 124: _Ib._, ii., 125.]

[Footnote 125: _L. and P._, i., 3356, 3451.]

[Footnote 126: _Ib._, i., 3443.]

Henry's temper required no spur. Tudors never flinched in the face (p. 063)
of danger, and nothing could have made Henry so resolved to go on as
Ferdinand's desertion and advice to desist. He was prepared to avenge
his army in person. There were to be no expeditions to distant shores;
there was to be war in the Channel, where Englishmen were at home on
the sea; and Calais was to be the base of an invasion of France over
soil worn by the tramp of English troops. In March, 1513, Henry, to
whom the navy was a weapon, a plaything, a passion, watched his fleet
sail down the Thames; its further progress was told him in letters
from its gallant admiral, Sir Edmund Howard, who had been strictly
charged to inform the King of the minutest details in the behavi