His accomplishments were also considerable, and he spoke Italian, German, French, and Spanish with fluency.

His beauty was remarkable; his personal fascinations acknowledged by either sex; but as a commander of men, excepting upon the battle-field, he possessed little genius.

His ambition was the ambition of a knight-errant, an adventurer, a Norman pirate; it was a personal and tawdry ambition.

Vague and contradictory dreams of crowns, of royal marriages, of extemporized dynasties, floated ever before him; but he was himself always the hero of his own romance.

He sought a throne in Africa or in Britain; he dreamed of espousing Mary of Scotland at the expense of Elizabeth, and was even thought to aspire secretly to the hand of the great English Queen herself.