l ability, but each one of them a man
who obviously thought more of his ambitions, his pleasures, and his
political plans than of his religion. Moreover, each of these rulers
came to the throne before he was of age, and thus lacked the salutary
training of a subordinate position; while, on the other hand, each of
them, through varying causes, wielded a power much greater than that of
any of his recent predecessors.

RULERS OF EUROPE IN 1517

Henry VIII of England was the first of these young despots to assume
authority. Nine years older than the century, he became king in 1509 at
the age of eighteen. His father, Henry VII, had, as we have seen,
snatched power from an exhausted aristocracy. He had been what men
sneeringly called a "tradesman" king, caring little for the show and
splendor of his office, but using it to amass enormous sums of money by
means not over-scrupulous. Young Henry VIII, handsome, dashing, and
debonair, at once repudiated his father's policy, executed the ministers
who had directed it, and was hailed as a liberator by his delighted
people. They quite overlooked the fact that he neglected to restore the
ill-gotten funds, and soon used them in establishing a far more vigorous
tyranny than his father would have dared. Much is forgiven a youthful
king if he be but brave and jovial and hearty in his manner. His
blunders, his excesses of fury, are put down to his inexperience.
Nations are ever yearning for a hero-ruler.

In France a monarch of twenty years, Francis I, ascended the throne in
1515, five years older then than the century. Henry of England had
descended from a family of simple Welsh gentlemen, far indeed at one
time from the crown; Francis I was also of a new line of kings, only a
distant cousin of the childless Louis XII, whom he succeeded. "That
great boy of Angouleme will ruin all," groaned Louis on his death-bed.
Ruin the prosperity of France, he meant, for Louis had been a good and
thoughtful king, cherishing his land and enabling it to rise to the
height of wealth and power, justified by its natural resources and the
ingenuity of its people.

Francis, the "great boy," even more than his rival Henry, proved bent on
being a hero. Like Maximilian of Germany, he sought to be known as the
flower of knighthood. To win his ambition he also was possessed of youth
and wealth, a gallant bearing, and a devoted people. He had intellect,
too, and a love of art. He became the great patron of t