Page:Comic History of England.djvu/196

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192
HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

Calais the two disgruntled monarchs spent a fortnight jousting, tourneying, in-falling, out-falling, merry-making, swashbuckling, and general acute gastritis.

It was a magnificent meeting, however, Wolsey acting as costumer, and was called "The Field of the Cloth of Gold." Large, portly men with whiskers wore purple velvet opera-cloaks trimmed with fur, and Gainsborough hats with ostrich feathers worth four pounds apiece (sterling). These corpulent warriors, who at Calais shortly before had run till overtaken by nervous prostration and general debility, now wore more millinery and breastpins and slashed velvet and satin facings and tinsel than the most successful and highly painted and decorated courtesans of that period.

The treaty here made with so much pyrotechnical display and éclat and hand-embroidery was soon broken, Charles having caught the ear of Wolsey with a promise of the papal throne upon the death of Leo X., which event he joyfully anticipated.

Henry, in 1521, scored a triumph and earned the title of Defender of the Faith by writing a defence of Catholicism in answer to an article written by Martin Luther attacking it. Leo died soon after, and, much to the chagrin of Wolsey, was succeeded by Adrian VI.

War was now waged with France by the new