person, without special permission, should approach
within two leagues of the King's train, "on pain of the halter." As the
French had proposed that both parties should lodge in tents erected on
the field, they had prepared numerous pavilions, fitted up with halls,
galleries, and chambers, ornamented within and without with gold and
silver tissue. Amid golden balls and quaint devices glittering in the
sun, rose a gilt figure of St. Michael, conspicuous for his blue mantle
powdered with golden _fleurs-de-lis_, and crowning a royal pavilion, of
vast dimensions, supported by a single mast. In his right hand he held a
dart, in his left a shield emblazoned with the arms of France. Inside,
the roof of the pavilion represented the canopy of heaven, ornamented
with stars and figures of the zodiac. The lodgings of the Queen, of the
Duchess of Alencon, the King's favorite sister, and of other ladies and
princes of the blood were covered with cloth of gold. The rest of the
tents, to the number of three hundred or four hundred, emblazoned with
the arms of the owners, were pitched on the banks of a small river
outside the city walls. A large house in the town, built for the
occasion, served as a place of reception for royal visitors.

From June 4, 1520, when Henry first entered Guines, the festivities
continued with unabated splendor for twenty days. They were opened by a
visit of Wolsey to the French King, and gave the Cardinal an opportunity
for displaying his love of magnificence, not unaptly reckoned by poets
and philosophers as the nearest virtue to magnanimity. A hundred
archers of the guard, followed by fifty gentlemen of his household,
clothed in crimson velvet with chains of gold, bareheaded, bonnet in
hand, and mounted on magnificent horses richly caparisoned, led the way.
After them came fifty gentlemen ushers, also bareheaded, carrying gold
maces with knobs as big as a man's head; next a cross-bearer in scarlet,
supporting a crucifix adorned with precious stones. Then four lackeys
followed, with gilt batons and pole-axes, in paletots of crimson velvet,
their bonnets in hand adorned with plumes, their coats ornamented before
and behind with the Cardinal's badge in goldsmith's work. Lastly came
the Legate himself, mounted on a barded mule trapped in crimson velvet,
with gold front-stalls, studs, buckles, and stirrups. Over a chimere of
figured crimson velvet he wore a fine linen rochet. Bishops and other
ecclesiastics succe