Of the consummate skill with which Ferdinand, from the middle of 1509 to the end of 1511, played off his allies and rivals one against the other, until he had accomplished the central object of his diplomacy in the great Confederation against Louis XII., we may read in the history of France and of Italy, of England and of Germany, rather than in the Chronicles of Aragon. For King Ferdinand pulled the strings that moved the puppets, while he remained wellnigh hidden himself. But by the end of 1511 the showman was compelled to make his own appearance upon the stage of European warfare; and Ferdinand was ever less successful as an actor than as an impresario. His policy for the past two years had been the formation of a league against his dearly-beloved uncle-in-law, Louis XII., by the aid of his dearly-beloved son-in-law, Henry VIII. Queen Katharine, who had already played the part of embassador to her English father-in-law, was to make use of her influence over her English husband; and if the queen should refuse to advise King Henry to go to war with France, her confessor was to tell her that she was bound as a good Christian to do so. To coerce the confessor, Ferdinand applied to the Pope; and to control the Pope, he betrayed to him, in secret, the whole scheme of King Louis XII. as regarded the plunder of the States of the Church. It is easy to understand what an effect the communication of the French king’s plans of spoliation produced upon the excitable and irascible Julius. When he had learned that he was not only to be robbed of his temporalities, but that he was to be deposed and imprisoned in case he should prove spiritually intractable, he hastened, in spite of his age and his infirmities, to traverse the snow-covered mountains, that he might meet his enemy in the field.