compliment to his ally to be desirable was to review the English army, when he charmed every one with his courtesy and unaffected manliness. 'I brought him,' said Sir John Wallop, 'to the upper part of the camp, and so along. He, beholding well our army, standing fourscore in a rank, and after having beheld the fortifications thereof, did like them marvellously well—and so did all the other strangers that came with him—saying he had not seen anything of that sort—meaning a trench that I devised more than a pike length and a half from the carts. To whom I said, the first device of such trenches was made to annoy him. How, quoth he, and when? I answered, it was when the French King's camp lay joining to Vienne, when his Majesty came into Provence, I being there at that time. And as he rode a little lower, beholding the same, he saw upon the top of the said trench all your Majesty's captains and petty captains, appointed right well, like men of war, in very warlike apparel. He asked me who were those; and I showed him that they were the captains and the lieutenants of the footmen, and the most part your Majesty's household servants: 'Par ma foy, disoit il, voila une belle bande de gentilhommes.' He began to tell me how sick he had been; and the day before he came hither he assayed his harness, which was a great deal too wide for him, notwithstanding he had made him a great doublet bombasted with cotton. He said further, if the French King come, as he saith he will, I will live and die with you Englishmen.'[1]
- ↑ Wallop to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. ix. p. 522.
