the Venetian Government fair pretext for expelling him from their dominions.  A ban was therefore published against him and fourteen of his followers.  The English ambassador declined to interfere in his behalf, and the man left Italy.  At the end of August he appeared at Brussels, where he attempted to excuse himself in an interview with the Venetian ambassador.  Now began a diplomatic correspondence between the English Court and the Venetian Council, which clearly demonstrates what kind of importance attached to this private agent.  The Chancellor Lord Wriothesley, and the Secretary Sir William Paget, used considerable urgency to obtain a suspension of the ban against Dall’Armi.  After four months’ negotiation, during which the Papal Court endeavored to neutralize Henry’s influence, the Doge signed a safe-conduct for five years in favor of the bravo.  Early in 1546 Lodovico reappeared in Lombardy.  At Mantua he delivered a letter signed by Henry himself to the Duke Francesco Gonzaga, introducing ’our noble and beloved familiar Lodovico Dall’Armi,’ and begging the Duke to assist him in such matters as he should transact at Mantua in the king’s service.[230] Lodovico presented this letter in April; but the Duchess, who then acted as regent for her son Francesco, refused to receive him.  She alleged that the Duke forbade the levying of troops for foreign service, and declined to complicate his relations with foreign powers.  It seems, from a sufficiently extensive correspondence on the affairs of Lodovico, that he was understood by the Italian princess to be charged with some special commission for recruiting soldiers against the French.

[Footnote 230:  This letter is dated February 16, 1546.]

The peace between England and France, signed at Guines in June, rendered Lodovico’s mission nugatory; and the death of Henry VIII. in January 1547 deprived him of his only powerful support.  Meanwhile he had contrived to incur the serious displeasure of the Venetian Republic.  In the autumn of 1546 they outlawed one of their own nobles, Ser Mafio Bernardo, on the charge of his having revealed state secrets to France.  About the middle of November, Bernardo, then living in concealment at Ravenna, was lured into the pine forest by two men furnished with tokens which secured his confidence.  He was there murdered, and the assassins turned out to be paid instruments of Lodovico.  It now came to light that Lodovico and Ser Mafio Bernardo had for some time past colluded in political intrigue.  If, therefore, the murder had a motive, this was found in Lodovico’s dread of revelations under the event of Ser Mario’s capture.  Submitted to torture in the prisons of the Ten, Ser Mafio might have incriminated his accomplice both with England and Venice.  It was obvious why he had been murdered by Lodovico’s men.  Dall’Armi was consequently arrested and confined in Venice.  After examination, followed by a temporary release, he prudently took flight into the Duchy of