And though Richard spurred his horse till "_le cler sanc en sailloit de tout cousté_," it availed him nothing. Nicolle, having husbanded his horse's powers, came in first at the post. Richard was terribly annoyed, but he "_ne dédaignait de risquer un peu de honte contre beaucoup de plaisir_," like a good many other people. Very naturally, however, he would have his revenge. So the next St. Clement's Day saw the two horses running against one another once more; but it seems that their masters did not this time act as their own jockeys. Ill luck would have it that "Blanche Rose's" jockey, one of his pages, was thrown whilst riding, by which mishap his master lost his bet a second time. After that he did not tempt fortune again on the turf. A month after the first race, Richard made a second attempt to obtain a command under Francis. Accompanied by several "_de nos jonnes seigneurs_," he proceeded to Milan and other places in Italy. "_Dieu les conduie_," piously ejaculates Vigneulles. They arrived, as it turned out, a day after the fair. Peace had been concluded, and the _seigneurs_ returned to Metz without having had occasion to draw their swords. In this year, Henry, through one of his emissaries, tempted Richard with a proposal that he should endeavour to make his peace with the king, and write him a letter in that sense. The king, explained Alamire, the emissary in question, "had the character of being most clement." "So I have heard," replied Richard, scenting the mischief; "and how well I should stand with my present protector, the King of France, if King Henry were to show him my letter!" In the following year Richard once more rode to Paris, seeking employment. This time he was rewarded with a secret mission, on which he was sent into Normandy. It was about this time that Giustiniani learnt from the legate, Campeggio, that Francis favoured "Blanche Rose" more than ever, and Henry and his ministers again began to feel acutely uncomfortable. They had heard, so the State Papers show, that Francis and Richard were plotting mischief: Francis was favouring the Duke of Albany and trying to stir up disturbances in Scotland. There was a scheme on foot, Sir Richard Jernegan reports, according to which the Duke of Albany was to sail from Brittany to Scotland, "there to make business against the king," while "Blanche Rose" was to invade England from Denmark, abetted by the king of that country, and accompanied by that king's uncle, the Duke of Ulske; and Monsieur de Bourbon and the Duke of Vendôme were at the same time to besiege Tournay, which, in the peace of 1514, England had managed to retain. We cannot be altogether surprised, knowing in what systematic manner the Henrys persecuted the De la Poles, to learn that a man was said to have been taken in Champagne, paid by Henry to kill Richard. Indeed the thought of getting rid of Richard by assassination appears to have been habitually uppermost in Henry's mind.