It was a fortnight afterwards before Henry VIII.

himself quitted Calais, where festivities and tournaments had detained him too long for what he had in hand, and set out on the march with twelve thousand foot to go and join his army before Therouanne.

He met on his road, near Thournehem, a body of twelve hundred French men-at-arms with their followers a-horseback, and in the midst of them Bayard.

Sire de Piennes, governor of Picardy, was in command of them.

"My lord," said Bayard to him, "let us charge them: no harm can come of it to us, or very little; if, at the first charge, we make an opening in them, they are broken; if they repulse us, we shall still get away; they are on foot and we a-horseback;" and "nearly all the French were of this opinion," continues the chronicler; but Sire de Piennes said, Gentlemen, I have orders, on my life, from the king our master, to risk nothing, but only hold his country.