In this pleasant promotion of his friends and relatives and their innumerable followers, in the prodigal encouragement of the artists, musicians, poets, and jewellers who flocked to Rome from all parts, Leo spent two years which were only slightly clouded by the rapid exhaustion of the Papal treasury. Meantime, however, the political situation had once more claimed his impatient attention, and we may for the moment confine ourselves to that interesting aspect of his work. Louis, disgusted with the Papacy, approached Ferdinand of Spain and was prepared to abandon to him his claims on Milan, Genoa, and Naples. This prospect of the enclosure of Papal territory in a Spanish vice threw the Pope into a fit of diplomatic activity. He secretly negotiated with Venice and Florence and Ferrara, and sent a legate to England to help to reconcile Henry VIII with Louis. He trusted to induce these Powers to form a league with him for the purpose of driving the Spaniards out of Italy, and aimed at securing Naples for his brother.[295] In October the French King married Mary Tudor, and the Spanish spectre was laid. But, with the unvarying logic of Papal politics, the fear of Spain was succeeded by a fear of France, and the Pope had recourse to the kind of diplomacy which is characteristic of him, and in which, we are assured, he took great pleasure. He made a secret treaty with Spain for the defence of Italy, and a secret treaty of alliance with Louis against Spain.[296] He encouraged Louis, who held out to him the prospect of Naples, to attack Italy, and secretly promised to assist Milan and the Emperor against the French if Louis did attack Italy, which he thought improbable. He thus, he thought, secured a principality for Giuliano, whichever side won. "When you have made a league with one man," he used to say, "there is no reason why you should cease to negotiate with his opponent."