an, Francis and Charles formed at
Cambrai a fresh league for the partition of Italy,[238] but they were
soon at enmity and too much involved with their own affairs to think
of the conquest of others. Disaffection was rife in Spain, where a
party wished Ferdinand, Charles's brother, to be King.[239] If Charles
was to retain his Spanish kingdoms, he must visit them at once. He
could not go unless England provided the means. His request for (p. 095)
a loan was graciously accorded and his ambassadors were treated with
magnificent courtesy.[240] "One day," says Chieregati,[241] the papal
envoy in England, "the King sent for these ambassadors, and kept them
to dine with him privately in his chamber with the Queen, a very
unusual proceeding. After dinner he took to singing and playing on
every musical instrument, and exhibited a part of his very excellent
endowments. At length he commenced dancing," and, continues another
narrator, "doing marvellous things, both in dancing and jumping,
proving himself, as he is in truth, indefatigable." On another day
there was "a most stately joust." Henry was magnificently attired in
"cloth of silver with a raised pile, and wrought throughout with
emblematic letters". When he had made the usual display in the lists,
the Duke of Suffolk entered from the other end, with well-nigh equal
array and pomp. He was accompanied by fourteen other jousters. "The
King wanted to joust with all of them; but this was forbidden by the
council, which, moreover, decided that each jouster was to run six
courses and no more, so that the entertainment might be ended on that
day.... The competitor assigned to the King was the Duke of Suffolk;
and they bore themselves so bravely that the spectators fancied
themselves witnessing a joust between Hector and Achilles." "They
tilted," says Sagudino, "eight courses, both shivering their lances at
every time, to the great applause of the spectators." Chieregati
continues: "On arriving in the lists the King presented himself before
the Queen and the ladies, making a thousand jumps in the air, and (p. 096)
after tiring one horse, he entered the tent and mounted another...
doing this constantly, and reappearing in the lists until the end of
the jousts". Dinner was then served, amid a scene of unparalleled
splendour, and Chieregati avers that the "guests remained at table for
seven hours by the clock". The display of costume on the King's part
was equally varied and gorgeo