[Footnote 96: _Ibid._, ii., 153, 159. The following pedigree may be useful for reference:-- Charles = Margaret the Bold of York, "aunt to all the Pretenders" | | Mary = Emperor Ferdinand = Isabella Maximilian of Aragon | of Castile | (_d._ 1519) | | +---------------------+ | | | Archduke = Juana Catherine Philip | of (_d._ 1506) | Aragon | +----------------------+ | | Charles V., Emperor Ferdinand, Emperor 1519-1556 1556-1564] * * * * * Such was the situation with which Henry VIII. and his council were required to deal. The young King entered the arena of Europe, a child of generous impulse in a throng of hoary intriguers--Ferdinand, Maximilian, Louis XII., Julius II.--each of whom was nearly three times his age. He was shocked to see them leagued to spoil a petty republic, a republic, too, which had been for ages the bulwark of Christendom against the Turk and from time immemorial the ally of England. Venice had played no small part in the revival of letters which appealed so strongly to Henry's intellectual sympathies. Scholars and physicians from Venice, or from equally threatened Italian republics, frequented his Court and Cabinet. Venetian merchants developed the commerce of London; Venetian galleys called twice a year at Southampton on their way to and from Flanders, and their trade (p. 053) was a source of profit to both nations. Inevitably Henry's sympathies went out to the sore-pressed republic. They were none the less strong because the chief of the spoilers was France, for Henry and his people were imbued with an inborn antipathy to everything French.[97] Before he came to the throne he was reported to be France's enemy; and speculations were rife as to the chances of his invading it and imitating the exploits of his ancestor Henry V. It needed no persuasion from Ferdinand to induce him to intervene in favour of Venice. Within a few weeks of his accession he refused to publish the papal bull which cast the halo of crusaders over the bandits of Cambrai. The day after his coronation he deplored to Badoer Louis' victory at Agnadello, and a week later he wrote to the sovereigns of Europe urging the injustice of their Venetian crusade. In September he