Bourbon still hesitated to formally acknowledge Henry VIII.

as King of France, and promise him allegiance.
But at last his resistance was overcome.

At the moment of crossing the frontier into France, and after having taken the communion, he said to the English ambassador, Sir Richard Pace, in the presence of four of his gentlemen, "I promise you, on my faith, to place the crown, with the help of my friends, on the head of our common master." But, employing a ruse of the old feudal times, the last gasp of a troubled conscience, Bourbon, whilst promising allegiance to Henry VIII., persisted in refusing to do him homage.

Sir Richard Pace none the less regarded the question as decided; and, whilst urging Cardinal Wolsey to act swiftly and resolutely in the interests of their master, he added, "If you do not pay regard to these matters, I shall set down to your Grace's account the loss of the crown of France." Bourbon entered Provence on the 7th of July, 1524, with an army of eighteen thousand men, which was to be joined before long by six or seven thousand more.

He had no difficulty in occupying Antibes, Frejus, Draguignan, Brignoles, and even Aix; and he already began to assume the title of Count of Provence, whilst preparing for a rapid march along by the Rhone and a rush upon Lyons, the chief aim of the campaign; but the Spanish generals whom Charles V.had associated with him, and amongst others the most eminent of them, the Marquis of Pescara, peremptorily insisted that, according to their master's order, he should besiege and take Marseilles.