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 obliged to make a truce with the Moors, and their services were not required. The men, too, were ill-disciplined, became intoxicated with Spanish wines, had frays with the natives, and returned home in ill-humour. Another expedition of fifteen hundred archers sent under the command of Sir Edward Poynings to the assistance of Margaret of Savoy and the Burgundians against Gelders was at first more satisfactory; for with their aid some places were captured and destroyed (August). But when, after these successes, siege was laid to Venloo and had continued twenty-nine days, Poynings began to feel that their allies were making undue use of the detachment, and it obtained leave to return home. Hereupon, the river being swollen by heavy rains, the Burgundians raised the siege and retired for the winter, wasting the country round about.

Shortly before this began a misunderstanding with James IV of Scotland, on account of acts of piracy stated to have been committed by his sea captain, Andrew Barton. The King sent out against him Lord Thomas Howard, eldest son of the Earl of Surrey, with his younger brother Edward, soon afterwards knighted and created Lord Admiral. In the Downs, Lord Thomas overtook Andrew Barton, who after a fierce fight fell into his hands, mortally wounded, his ship the Lion being captured with her crew by the Englishmen, who after a further chase also took the bark Jenny Pirwyn, the Lion's consort, and brought them both to Blackwall on August 2. The Scotch prisoners appealed to the King for mercy, confessing their offence to be piracy, and were sent out of the country; but James was exceedingly angry, and demanded redress for Barton's death and the capture of his two ships.

In this year (1511) King Henry VIII was also first drawn into continental politics. In 1508 the leading Powers on the Continent had combined against Venice in the League of Cambray; but France, the prime mover in the game, very soon alarmed her confederates, and especially Pope Julius II, by her successes in Northern Italy. Pope Julius thereupon made friends with the Seigniory, and in April, 1510, sent a golden rose to Henry VIII. The surrender of Bologna to the French in May, 1511, and the attempt, in which Louis XII secured the concurrence of the Emperor Maximilian, to set up a Council at Pisa enraged the Pope still more, and drew other princes to his aid. The Holy League was proclaimed at Rome on October 4 between the Pope and Ferdinand of Aragon; and Henry joined it on November 13, promising to make active war against France in the following spring. The recovery of Guyenne, which had now been lost to England for sixty years, was the reward held out to him by the treaty. Accordingly in May, 1512, while the French seemed still to be making head in Italy, having on Easter Sunday cut to pieces the papal and Spanish forces at Ravenna, an expedition was despatched to Spain under the