lished. The English nation found themselves
accordingly engaged in a contest with which they had no concern, which,
as the event proved, was very much against their interests, and in which
the moving cause for their entanglement was the devotion of a weak, bad,
ferocious woman, for a husband who hated her. A herald sent from England
arrived in France, disguised, and was presented to King Henry at Rheims.
Here, dropping on one knee, he recited a list of complaints against his
majesty, on behalf of the English Queen, all of them fabricated or
exaggerated for the occasion, and none of them furnishing even a decorous
pretext for the war which was now formally declared in consequence. The
French monarch expressed his regret and surprise that the firm and
amicable relations secured by treaty between the two countries should
thus, without sufficient cause, be violated. In accepting the wager of
warfare thus forced upon him, he bade the herald, Norris, inform his
mistress that her messenger was treated with courtesy only because he
represented a lady, and that, had he come from a king, the language with
which he would have been greeted would have befitted the perfidy
manifested on the occasion. God would punish this shameless violation of
faith, and this wanton interruption to the friendship of two great
nations. With this the herald was dismissed from the royal presence, but
treated with great distinction, conducted to the hotel of the English
ambassador, and presented, on the part of the French sovereign with a
chain of gold.

Philip had despatched Ruy Gomez to Spain for the purpose of providing
ways and means, while he was himself occupied with the same task in
England. He stayed there three months. During this time, he "did more,"
says a Spanish contemporary, "than any one could have believed possible
with that proud and indomitable nation. He caused them to declare war
against France with fire and sword, by sea and land." Hostilities having
been thus chivalrously and formally established, the Queen sent an army
of eight thousand men, cavalry, infantry, and pioneers, who, "all clad in
blue uniform," commanded by Lords Pembroke and Clinton, with the three
sons of the Earl of Northumberland, and officered by many other scions of
England's aristocracy, disembarked at Calais, and shortly afterwards
joined the camp before Saint Quentin.

Philip meantime had left England, and with more bustle and activity than
was usual with him