146 JEROME CARDAN. 



hastened. Laval, the French ambassador, and also 

 another confidential agent of the King of France, were 

 offering him eight hundred gold crowns a year; and 

 further, promising a chain of five hundred gold pieces 

 if he would kiss hands and at once leave the court 

 of London. There were others also who endeavoured to 

 secure his services for Charles V, who was at that 

 time besieging Metz. Jerome declined both offers. He 

 would not go to the emperor because he was then in a 

 position of the utmost difficulty, where he, indeed, lost 

 the greater part of his army through cold and hunger. 

 He would not go to the King of France because he 

 thought it wrong to forsake his liege lord and to give 

 in adhesion to the enemy 1 . His spirit shrank also from 

 court servitude, because, as he said, he thought it foolish, 

 life being so short, to become a dead man for the sake of 

 a livelihood, and to be unhappy for a long while, in the 

 hope of being some day happy 2 . Resisting, therefore, all 

 temptation, Jerome set his face in a determined manner 

 towards Milan. Another temptation also he resisted. He 

 steadily refused to acknowledge the title of King Edward 

 to be styled Defender of the Faith, in prejudice of the 

 Pope, and took from the court a reward of a hundred gold 

 crowns, rather than of five hundred or a thousand which 



1 De Vita Propria, cap. xxxii. for the preceding. 



2 De Libris Propriis. Lib. ult. Op. Tom. i. p. 131. 



