He had quietly and without resentment returned to his palace; and since he could no longer be a general and warrior, he became again a scholar and poet.

His palace was now again the resort of the scholars and writers of England; and he was always ready, with true princely munificence, to assist oppressed and despised talent; to afford the persecuted scholar an asylum in his palace.

He it was who saved the learned Fox from starvation, and took him into his house, where Horatius Junius and the poet Churchyard, afterward so celebrated, had both found a home--the former as his physician and the latter as his page.

[Footnote: Nott's Life of the Earl of Surrey] Love, the arts, and the sciences, caused the wounds that the king had given his ambition, to heal over; and he now felt no more rancor; now he almost thanked the king.

For to his recall only did he owe his good fortune; and Henry, who had wished to injure him, had given him his sweetest pleasure.
He now smiled as he thought how Henry, who had taken from him the baton, had, without knowing it, given him in return his own queen, and had exalted him when he wished to humble him.
He smiled, and again took in hand the poem in which he wished to celebrate in song, at the court festival that day, the honor and praise of his lady-love, whom no one knew, or even suspected--the fair Geraldine.
"The verses are stiff," muttered he; "this language is so poor! It has not the power of expressing all that fulness of adoration and ecstasy which I feel.