During the ascendency that the anticipated coming of a son gave to Katharine, Ferdinand was able to beguile Henry into an offensive league against France, by using the same bait that had so often served a similar purpose with Henry VII.; namely, the reconquest for England of Guienne and Normandy. Spain, the Empire, the Papacy, and England formed a coalition that boded ill for the French cause in Italy. As usual the showy but barren part fell to Henry. Ferdinand promised him soldiers to conquer Normandy, but they never came. All Ferdinand wanted was to keep as many Frenchmen as possible from his own battle-grounds, and he found plenty of opportunities for evading all his pledges. Henry was flattered to the top of his bent. The Pope sent him the blessed golden rose, and saluted him as head of the Italian league; and the young king, fired with martial ardour, allowed himself to be dragged into war by his wife's connections, in opposition to the opinion of the wiser heads in his Council. A war with France involved hostilities with Scotland, but Henry was, in the autumn of 1512, cajoled into depleting his realm of troops and sending an army to Spain to attack France over the Pyrenees, whilst another force under Poynings went to help the allies against the Duke of Gueldres. The former host under the Marquis of Dorset was kept idle by its commander because it was found that Ferdinand really required them to reduce the Spanish kingdom of Navarre, and after months of inactivity and much mortality from sickness, they returned ingloriously home to England. This was Henry's first experience of armed alliances, but he learned nothing by experience, and to the end of his life the results of such coalitions to him were always the same.