With Henry the Eighth we reach a new example in our history of an English soldier-king. Young, able, accomplished, and ambitious, he was strongly imbued with the military spirit, and possessed many qualities that must have made him a popular and might have made him a distinguished commander. He excelled in every exercise of arms; he was the finest archer in his kingdom; he had studied the art of war in the best authorities; he understood the conduct both of a siege and of a campaign; and lastly, he was no mean artillerist. This last attribute, however, he shared with several sovereigns of his time. Artillery was a favourite hobby with the crowned heads of Europe, possibly as a symbol of their military strength, for being unable to give themselves the pleasure of a great review owing to the inevitable confusion and expense, they were fain to console themselves with the several pieces, each one of them called by its pet name, that composed their park of ordnance. Altogether Henry was a prince who bade fair to restore the military prestige of England. [Sidenote: 1509.] [Sidenote: 1511.] His first step was to increase his standing force by the creation of a second body-guard of men-at-arms,[92] composed of young men of noble blood; the reason given being that there were far too many such young men in the kingdom who were untrained in arms. The corps, as might have been expected with the best dressed sovereign in Europe, was so gorgeously arrayed that it perished after a few years under the weight of its own cost. His next act was more practical, a writ to the sheriffs for the better enforcement of the Statute of Winchester, which is interesting for its attempt to restore the command of the forces of the shore to their original holders.[93] Concurrently, however, we encounter a large number of the old-fashioned indents and commissions of array, all issued in prospect of English intervention in the eternal strife of the Hapsburgs and the Valois.[94] In 1512 an expedition was sent to the south of France, and there the defects of the army were lamentably seen. Although the importation of hand-guns and arquebuses shows that England was not blind to the progress of fire-arms in Europe, this force was armed principally if not exclusively with the old-fashioned bows and bills, and worse than all, these bows, which had been issued from the stores in the Tower, were found nearly all of them to be useless. Moreover, the victuals were "untruly served" to the men, their pay was withheld from them, and, acutest of all grievances, they could get no beer. The Council of War, in which the command was vested, could never agree as to a plan of operations, and though it kept the men thus inactive made no attempt to drill or exercise them. The natural result was a mutiny. One large band struck work for eightpence a day in lieu of the regular sixpence, several others swore that nothing should keep them from going home, and the disturbance was only quelled by the