ome they are all exhausted. He is extremely fond of
tennis, at which game it is the prettiest thing in the world to see
him play, his fair skin glowing through a shirt of the finest
texture."

[Footnote 74: _L. and P., Henry VII._, i., 180,
233, 319.]

[Footnote 75:_L. and P._, ii., 395.]

[Footnote 76: Giustinian, _Despatches_, ii., 312;
_Ven. Cal._, ii., 1287; _L. and P._, iii., 402.]

The change from the cold suspicious Henry VII. to such a king as this
was inevitably greeted with a burst of rapturous enthusiasm. "I have
no fear," wrote Mountjoy to Erasmus,[77] "but when you heard that our
Prince, now Henry the Eighth, whom we may well call our Octavius, had
succeeded to his father's throne, all your melancholy left you at
once. For what may you not promise yourself from a Prince, with whose
extraordinary and almost Divine character you are well acquainted....
But when you know what a hero he now shows himself, how wisely he
behaves, what a lover he is of justice and goodness, what affection he
bears to the learned, I will venture to swear that you will need no
wings to make you fly to behold this new and auspicious star. If you
could see how all the world here is rejoicing in the possession of so
great a Prince, how his life is all their desire, you could not
contain your tears for joy. The heavens laugh, the earth exults, all
things are full of milk, of honey, of nectar! Avarice is expelled the
country. Liberality scatters wealth with a bounteous hand. Our (p. 041)
King does not desire gold or gems or precious metals, but virtue,
glory, immortality." The picture is overdrawn for modern taste, but
making due allowance for Mountjoy's turgid efforts to emulate his
master's eloquence, enough remains to indicate the impression made by
Henry on a peer of liberal education. His unrivalled skill in national
sports and martial exercises appealed at least as powerfully to the
mass of his people. In archery, in wrestling, in joust and in tourney,
as well as in the tennis court or on the hunting field, Henry was a
match for the best in his kingdom. None could draw a bow, tame a
steed, or shiver a lance more deftly than he, and his single-handed
tournaments on horse and foot with his brother-in-law, the Duke of
Suffolk, are likened by one who watched them to the combats of
Achilles and Hector. These are no mere trifles below t