Page:The Book of the Courtier.djvu/720

NOTES TO THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE COURTIER Geryon was the mythical three-headed king of Hesperia, the theft of whose cattle constituted the tenth of the Twelve Labours of Hercules. Note 455, page 275. "The crimes of the tyrants against their subjects and the members of their own families had produced a correlative order of crime in the people over whom they tyrannized. Cruelty was met by conspiracy. Tyrannicide became honourable; and the proverb, 'He who gives his own life can take a tyrant's,' had worked itself into the popular language." (Sy- monds's " Renaissance in Italy," i, 154.) " The study of the classics, especially of Plutarch, at this time as also during the French Revolution, fired the imagination of patriots." (Id., 151, note 2.) Note 456, page 275. Similar exhortations to a fresh crusade are of frequent occurrence in Italian literature of this period, and were often used by popes and princes as a cover for their selfish designs. Note 457, page 275. The meaning obviously is that if they had not been exiled, they never would have enjoyed their present prosperity. Plutarch tells the story in four slightly varying forms. Note 458, page 276. MONSEIGNEUR D'Angouleme afterwards became Francis I (see note iii). Even stronger evidence of the author's admiration than this and another passage (see page 57), is afforded by the Proem with which he originally intended to preface the dialogues, but for which he seems to have been led by political considerations to substitute the introduction finally printed. Note 459, page 276. Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards Henry VIII, (born 1491; died 1547), was the younger son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, and was educated for the church. Having succeeded his father in 1509, he married (in accordance with his parents' wish) his elder brother Arthur's widow, Catherine, the youngest child of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic. His accession was hailed witlv enthusiasm. Left rich through his father's avarice, he was generous, frank, handsome, exceptionally robust, and an accomplished athlete and scholar. Good men were delighted ^vith the purity of his life, his gaiety pleased the courtiers, and sober statesmen found in him a singular capacity for business. Besides being a musician, he spoke Latin, French and Spanish, and was very devout, — usually attending mass five times daily. Even as late as 1521 he dedicated to the pope an anti- Lutheran tract on the Seven Sacraments, and in return received the title of Defender of the Faith. As an offset to the enormities of his later life, it is only just to remem- ber that he raised England to the rank of a great European power, and that for twenty years he did nothing to mar the harmony of his reign. Note 460, page 276. 'His great father,' i.e., Henry VII, (born 1457; died 1509), was the son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, (a son of Henry 412