disturbance,
he ordered Edmond de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, to be beheaded in the
Tower, the nobleman who had been attainted and imprisoned during the
late reign. Henry was led to commit this act of violence by the dying
commands, as is imagined, of his father, who told him that he never
would be free from danger while a man of so turbulent a disposition as
Suffolk was alive. And as Richard de la Pole, brother of Suffolk, had
accepted of a command in the French service, and foolishly attempted
to revive the York faction, and to instigate them against the present
government, he probably by that means drew more suddenly the King's
vengeance on this unhappy nobleman.

At last, Henry, attended by the duke of Buckingham and many others of
the nobility, arrived at Calais, and entered upon his French expedition,
from which he fondly expected so much success and glory.[*] Of all those
allies on whose assistance he relied, the Swiss alone fully performed
their engagements. Being put in motion by a sum of money sent them by
Henry, and incited by their victories obtained in Italy and by their
animosity against France, they were preparing to enter that kingdom with
an army of twenty-five thousand men; and no equal force could be opposed
to their incursion. Maximilian had received an advance of one hundred
and twenty thousand crowns from Henry, and had promised to reenforce the
Swiss with eight thousand men, but failed in his engagements. That
he might make atonement to the king, he himself appeared in the Low
Countries, and joined the English army with some German and Flemish
soldiers, who were useful in giving an example of discipline to Henry's
new-levied forces. Observing the disposition of the English monarch
to be more bent on glory than on interest, he enlisted himself in his
service, wore the cross of St. George, and received pay, a hundred
crowns a day, as one of his subjects and captains. But while he
exhibited this extraordinary spectacle, of an emperor of Germany serving
under a king of England, he was treated with the highest respect by
Henry, and really directed all the operations of the English army.

* Polyd. Virg. lib. xxvii. Bellarius, lib. xiv.

Before the arrival of Henry and Maximilian in the camp, the earl of
Shrewsbury and Lord Herbert had formed the siege of Terouane, a town
situated on the frontiers of Picardy; and they began to attack the place
with vigor. Teligni and Crequi commanded in the town, an