“I little esteem your French brass, and less set by your power and strength; I know perfectly my right to my reign which you usurp; and except you deny the apparent truth, so do yourselves also; if you neither do nor will know it, yet God and the world knoweth it. The power of your master you see, but my puissance ye have not yet tasted. If he have loving subjects, I am (I thank God) not unstored of the same; and I say this unto you, that before one year pass, I trust to make the highest crown of your country to stoop, and the proudest mitre to have his humiliation. In the meantime tell this to the usurper your master, that within three months I will enter into France, as into mine own true and lawful patrimony, appointing to acquire the same, not with bray of words, but with deeds of men and dint of sword, by the aid of God, in whom is my whole trust and confidence. Further matter at this present I impart not unto you, saving that with warrant you may depart safely and surely into your own country, where I trust sooner to visit you than you shall have cause to bid me welcome.” We can hardly suppose that we have here Henry’s very words. The speech has a certain rhetorical, antithetical cast that inclines us to attribute it to the pen of a chronicler who, we may conjecture further, was writing in Latin. But it probably represents the substance of the King’s reply with sufficient accuracy. Nothing more in the way of negotiation could be done. It only remained to press forward the preparations for war. CHAPTER VII PREPARATIONS FOR WAR