270 HISTORY OF KING HENRY VII. 



spake as great as ever he did before, and entert ained 

 them with dilatory answers : so as the formal part 

 of their ambassage might well warrant and require 

 their further stay. The king hereupon, who doubted 

 as much before, and saw through his business from 

 the beginning, wrote back to the ambassadors, 

 commending their discretion in not returning, and 

 willing them to keep the state wherein they found 

 Maximilian as a secret, till they heard further from 

 him : and meanwhile went on with his voyage royal 

 for France, suppressing for a time this advertisement 

 touching Maximilian s poverty and disability. 



By this time was drawn together a great and 

 puissant army into the city of London ; in which 

 were Thomas, Marquis Dorset, Thomas, Earl of 

 Amndell, Thomas, Earl of Derby, George, Earl of 

 Shrewsbury, Edmund, Earl of Suffolk, Edward, 

 Earl of Devonshire, George, Earl of Kent, the Earl 

 of Essex, Thomas, Earl of Ormond, with a great 

 number of barons, knights, and principal gentlemen; 

 and amongst them Richard Thomas, much noted 

 for the brave troops that he brought out of Wales. 

 The army rising in the whole to the number of five 

 and twenty thousand foot, and sixteen hundred 

 horse; over which the king, constant in his ac 

 customed trust and employment, made Jasper, Duke 

 of Bedford, and John, Earl of Oxford, generals 

 under his own person. The ninth of September, in 

 the eighth year of his reign, he departed from 

 Greenwich towards the sea ; all men wondering that 

 he took that season, being so near winter, to begin 

 the war ; and some thereupon gathering, it was a 



