n Westminster glittered with
cloth of gold and gems and velvet. Once again courtiers came to the lists
disguised as hermits, to kneel before Katharine, and then to cast off
their gowns and stand in full panoply before her, craving for leave to
tilt in her honour. Once again fairy bowers of gold and artificial flowers
sheltered sylvan beauties richly bedizened, the King and his favourites
standing by in purple satin garments with the solid gold initials of
himself and his wife sewn upon them. Whilst the dazzling company was
dancing the "scenery" was rolled back. It came too near the crowd of
lieges at the end of the hall, and pilfering fingers began to pluck the
golden ornaments from the bowers. Emboldened by their immunity for this,
people broke the bounds, swarmed into the central space, and in the
twinkling of an eye all the lords and ladies, even the King himself, found
themselves stripped of their finery to their very shirts, the golden
letters and precious tissues intended as presents for fine ladies being
plunder now in grimy hands that turned them doubtless to better account.
Henry in his bluff fashion made the best of it, and called the booty
largesse. Little recked he, if the tiny heir whose existence fed his
vanity throve. But the babe died soon after this costly celebration of his
birth.

During the ascendency that the anticipated coming of a son gave to
Katharine, Ferdinand was able to beguile Henry into an offensive league
against France, by using the same bait that had so often served a similar
purpose with Henry VII.; namely, the reconquest for England of Guienne and
Normandy. Spain, the Empire, the Papacy, and England formed a coalition
that boded ill for the French cause in Italy. As usual the showy but
barren part fell to Henry. Ferdinand promised him soldiers to conquer
Normandy, but they never came. All Ferdinand wanted was to keep as many
Frenchmen as possible from his own battle-grounds, and he found plenty of
opportunities for evading all his pledges. Henry was flattered to the top
of his bent. The Pope sent him the blessed golden rose, and saluted him as
head of the Italian league; and the young king, fired with martial ardour,
allowed himself to be dragged into war by his wife's connections, in
opposition to the opinion of the wiser heads in his Council. A war with
France involved hostilities with Scotland, but Henry was, in the autumn of
1512, cajoled into depleting his realm of troops and sendi