256 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



he had audience of the king. But notwithstanding 

 he had a good ominous name to have made a peace, 

 nothing followed : for in the mean time the purpose 

 of the French king to marry the duchess could be 

 no longer dissembled. Wherefore the English am 

 bassadors finding how things went, took their leave, 

 and returned. And the prior also was warned from 

 hence to depart out of England. Who when he 

 turned his back, more like a pedant than an ambas 

 sador, dispersed a bitter libel, in Latin verse, against 

 the king ; unto which the king, though he had 

 nothing of a pedant, yet was content to cause an 

 answer to be made in like verse ; and that as speak 

 ing in his own person, but in a style of scorn and 

 sport. About this time also was born the king s 

 second son Henry, who afterward reigned. And 

 soon after followed the solemnization of the marriage 

 between Charles, and Anne, Duchess of Britain, 

 with whom he received the Duchy of Britain as her 

 dowry, the daughter of Maximilian being a little 

 before sent home. Which when it came to the ears 

 of Maximilian, who would never believe it till it was 

 done, being ever the principal in deceiving himself, 

 though in this the French king did very handsomely 

 second it, and tumbling it over and over in his 

 thoughts, that he should at one blow with such a dou 

 ble scorn, be defeated, both of the marriage of his 

 daughter and his own, upon both which he had fixed 

 high imaginations, he lost all patience, and casting 

 off the respects fit to be continued between great 

 kings, even when their blood is hottest, and most 



