arms {p.274} and ammunition. Their finances
were soon prosperous. Wild spirits of all nations--Scots, English,
French, whoever chose to offer--found service under their flag. They
were the first specimens of the buccaneering chivalry of the next
generation--the germ out of which rose the Drakes, the Raleighs, the
Hawkinses, who harried the conquerors of the New World.

In vain Wotton protested. The French king affected to be sorry. The
Constable said that France was large; things happened which ought not
to happen, yet could not be helped; the adventurers should be put
down, if possible.

"These men brought nothing with them out of England," Wotton doggedly
replied, "and were in such good credit with the people in France that
nobody would lend them a shilling, and yet had they found ships which
they had armed, and manned with good numbers of soldiers. What would
the queen's highness think?"

The French court, in affected deference to such complaints, armed
vessels, which they pretended were to pursue the privateers to their
nest; but, as Wotton ascertained, they were intended really to act as
their consorts.[582]

[Footnote 582: Letters of Wotton to the Queen:
_French MSS._, bundle 13, State Paper Office.]

It was plain that the French king did not anticipate any long
{p.275} continuance to the truce of Vaucelles. In fact, Paul IV.,
whose schemes in Italy that truce had arrested, had succeeded in
inducing him to break it. Lest his oath should make a difficulty, the
pope had an ever-ready dispensation; and Paul's nephew, Cardinal
Caraffa, came to Paris in July to make arrangements for the expulsion
of the Spaniards from Naples.[583]

[Footnote 583: Wotton to Petre: _MS._ Ibid. Compare
Sir James Melville's _Memoirs_, p. 38.]

To insure Henry the continued support of the papacy, Paul undertook to
create French cardinals on so large a scale as would give him the
command of the next election. Henry, in spite of the entreaties of
Montmorency, promised, on his side, to send an army to Paul's support;
and the pope, without waiting for the arrival of the French troops,
seized the Duchy of Paleano, and excommunicated the Colonnas, as the
friends of the enemies of the Holy See. Scarcely caring to look for a
pretext, he declared the Spanish prince deprived of the kingdom of
Naples; and himself attempted to put in force his sentence against the
Duke