The young King entered the arena of Europe, a child of generous impulse in a throng of hoary intriguers--Ferdinand, Maximilian, Louis XII., Julius II .-- each of whom was nearly three times his age.

He was shocked to see them leagued to spoil a petty republic, a republic, too, which had been for ages the bulwark of Christendom against the Turk and from time immemorial the ally of England.

Venice had played no small part in the revival of letters which appealed so strongly to Henry's intellectual sympathies.

Scholars and physicians from Venice, or from equally threatened Italian republics, frequented his Court and Cabinet.

Venetian merchants developed the commerce of London; Venetian galleys called twice a year at Southampton on their way to and from Flanders, and their trade (p.