The internal force of these several powerful
states, by balancing each other, might long have maintained general
tranquillity, had not the active and enterprising genius of Julius II.,
an ambitious pontiff, first excited the flames of war and discord among
them. By his intrigues, a league had been formed at Cambray,[*] between
himself, Maximilian, Lewis, and Ferdinand; and the object of this great
confederacy was to overwhelm, by their united arms, the commonwealth of
Venice.

* In 1508.

Henry, without any motive from interest or passion, allowed his name to
be inserted in the confederacy. This oppressive and iniquitous league
was but too successful against the republic.

The great force and secure situation of the considerable monarchies
prevented any one from aspiring to any conquest of moment; and though
this consideration could not maintain general peace, or remedy the
natural inquietude of men, it rendered the princes of this age more
disposed to desert engagements, and change their alliances, in which
they were retained by humor and caprice, rather than by any natural or
durable interest.

{1510.} Julius had no sooner humbled the Venetian republic, than he was
inspired with a nobler ambition, that of expelling all foreigners from
Italy, or, to speak in the style affected by the Italians of that age,
the freeing of that country entirely from the dominion of barbarians.[*]
He was determined to make the tempest fall first upon Lewis; and in
order to pave the way for this great enterprise, he at once sought for
a ground of quarrel with that monarch, and courted the alliance of other
princes. He declared war against the duke of Ferrara, the confederate
of Lewis. He solicited the favor of England, by sending Henry a sacred
rose, perfumed with musk and anointed with chrism.[**] He engaged in his
interests Bambridge, archbishop of York, and Henry's ambassador at Rome,
whom he soon after created a cardinal. He drew over Ferdinand to
his party, though that monarch at first made no declaration of his
intentions. And what he chiefly valued, he formed a treaty with the
Swiss cantons, who, enraged by some neglects put upon them by Lewis,
accompanied with contumelious expressions, had quitted the alliance of
France, and waited for an opportunity of revenging themselves on that
nation.

* Guicciard. lib. viii.

** Spel. Concil. vol. ii. p. 725.

{1511.} While the French monarch repelled the attacks of hi