will not proceed as to the marriage of the Duchess, without the Pontiff's dispensation; as the King's nobility daily press him to marry, and age comes on apace, Charles must not think it strange, if he seek alliance elsewhere!" He then informs Wyatt that he will soon be recalled, and succeeded by Mr. Richard Pate.1

She

By the 12th, Crumwell had received the letter of Wriothsley, when he immediately apprised his Majesty of its contents.5 No change in affairs could possibly be more welcome to my Lord Privy Seal, who had never courted alliance with the Emperor, and probably saw that his royal Master had been befooled all along. At all events, the matrimonial affair was now at an end, and Henry's personal negociations for a political marriage, have entirely failed. To fail a second time, as a Royal negotiator, and to be foiled, not only by two gentlemen, or Francis and Charles in 1538, but by two ladies, in 1539, must have been mortifying in the extreme. For it must be observed that though Henry continued ever writing to Wyatt ; the Emperor, by his commission, had remitted the negotiation for a wife, to his sister Mary, the Regent of the Low Countries; and she had managed to gain time, with no inferior address. is said to have terminated the business, by declaring that the Duchess of Milan was too nearly allied to Henry's first Queen, to admit of such a union, without a dispensation from the Pontiff, a humiliation to which, of course, his Majesty could never bow. The proposal he must have viewed as an insult. As for the Lady Duchess-Dowager herself, the daughter of Christiern King of Denmark, if she replied as has been often affirmed, Henry was also reminded of his second Queen, in no flattering terms. The words were "If she had two heads, one should have been at the service of his Majesty; whereas having but one, she preferred to lead a single life." In the meanwhile, however, Crumwell is taking special care, that Chapuis shall not be permitted to leave Calais, till Wriothsley on his way home has arrived at that town in safety.6

But if his Majesty felt at all fretted by this rumour of invasion, and the prose of these "barking preachers" on the Continent, he had been not less annoyed by poetry, supposed to come from Scotland; while some fear was entertained that his nephew, the King, would unite with the Continental powers against him. In the close of last year, Sir Thomas Wharton, Warden of the West Marches, had written to Crumwell, in no small alarm, about a "ballad" in satire of Henry; inclosing a copy, and adding that he had employed two several spies, to proceed to Edinburgh respecting it! His informer had affirmed that it "was devised by the Bishops."7 Not satisfied with this, he writes to King James himself, in

4 Harl. MS., No. 282, fol. 50. Pate is by mistake frequently named Tate in the Catalogue, and occasionally so in the State Papers. He was appointed to succeed, but ultimately proved a false man, was attainted, and remained beyond seas.

$ Gov. State Papers, i., p. 595.

6 Idem, p. 597.

7 Idem, vol. v., p. 145.

January, and on the 31st; his Majesty replies from his palace of Linlithgow, that as he never had heard of "sic ballats" before, he rather suspected them to be "imagined and devised" by some of Wharton's own nation, and "lieges of our dearest uncle's."8 Three days before this letter, however, Sir Christopher Mores, one of the Berwick Commissioners, had informed Crumwell, that on Wednesday the 22d of January "in a place called the Queen's ferry, amidst a great storm of wind and weather, an ambassador out of France had arrived, and being received by the King's Secretary, was conducted with thirty horsemen to the Scotch King, for what purpose, he could not yet show."9

10

Meanwhile the "ballat" was still the great affair: for Holgate, Bishop of Llandaff, and President of the Council of the North had also written to James; so that it cost his Majesty another long letter, from his palace of Edinburgh on the 5th of February." On the same day, also open proclamation was issued, and directed "to be made at Dumfries and other places, that no one should take, have, read, publish, or send copies of ony sik famous, despitefull and unhonest ballats, rhymes, or makings, -to destroy all copies that could be found, and diligent search to be made for any "who had made ballats or sangs in defamation and blaspheming of (the King) his dearest uncle."

The Council of the North too, by the 9th of March, had caught letters passing from Ireland to the Pontiff, as well as to Cardinal Pole; 11 and in short nothing would satisfy Henry but that the Duke of Norfolk himself must go down to the Northern borders, to ascertain the actual state of things, and examine the means of defence. By his first letter of the 29th of March, to Crumwell, the Lord Privy Seal, there were no good news. The Castle of Berwick was greatly dilapidated, and the troops of Northumberland miserably "ill horsed:" the only consolation. was, that he heard the Borderers of Scotland were worse horsed than they" but there was now evidently something a great deal more formidable than a Scotch song, or any rhyming prophecy. James had taken care to make the most of the "ballad;” professing that he was "not less heavy and thoughtful" than Bishop Holgate himself; and now he affirms that "he will never break with the King, his uncle, during his life, with many more very good words." And yet Norfolk has heard that on Thursday last, the 27th, proclamation was made at Edinburgh, and in all parts of Scotland, for "every man between 16 and 60 to be ready, upon 24 hours' warning, on pain of death-that there were new trimmed, and part of them new made, in the Castle of Edinburgh, 16 great pieces, as cannons and culverns, and 60 smaller pieces for the field, all which were to be fully ready before the 26th of

8 Cotton MS., Calig. B. iii., fol. 191. Original. 10 Gov. State Papers, v., 148, 149.

9 Gov. State Papers, vol. v., p. 147. 11 Idem, p. 151.

April; and two ships bound for Flanders, were to bring as many hand guns with them as they could." On the day before this proclamation, "a friar, in preaching before the young Queen at Lithgow, had been extolling the Pontiff's authority, the Bishops of Glasgow, Galloway, and Aberdeen, being present, but no temporal Lords:"12 and different individuals had said—" If ye (England) and France agree well, we and ye shall agree well; for as France doth with you, so will we do."

« By divers other ways,” adds the Duke, "I am advertised that the Clergy of Scotland be in such fear, that their King should do there, as the King's Highness hath done in this realm, that they do their best to bring their Master to the war; and by many ways I am advertised, that a great part of the temporality there would their King should follow our ensample, which I pray God give him grace to come unto." But his Grace of Norfolk, meanwhile, believes that the Abbot of Arbroath, (David Betoun,)" is gone into France to know what help his Master shall have, as well of the French King as of the Bishop of Rome, if he break with us."

"Daily cometh unto me, some gentlemen and some clerks, which do flee out of Scotland, as they say, for reading of Scripture in English; saying that, if they were taken, they should be put to execution. I give them gentle words; and to some, money. Here is now in this town, and hath been a good season, she that was wife to the late Captain of Dunbar, and dare not return, for holding our ways, as she saith. She was in England and saw Queen Jane. She is Sir Patrick Hamilton's daughter, and her brother was burnt in Scotland, three or four years ago."

His Grace closes with a little spice of flattery-" Requiring your good Lordship to have me most humbly recommended to the King's Majesty, making mine excuse for not writing to his Highness concerning the premises. And thus our Lord have you my very good Lord in his tuition. Written at Berwick, the 29th day of March." 13

But are these actually the words of the Duke of Norfolk, and that so late as the 29th of March 1539? They are; and the reader must not fail to observe with what artful craftiness he is here trying to impose upon Crumwell, or put him off his guard, for now he would affect to be the most zealous man of his age; and, by way of finish, having once subscribed his name, with his own hand he adds this postscript—" If these ungracious Priests may not bring their King to war this summer, I am in good hope that once ere Christmas, the King of Scots will take much of their land into his own hands; which to bring to pass shall lack

12 It is curious enough that at the same time, only four days after, or the 30th of March, Tunstal was practising before Henry, by boldly preaching the opposite doctrine, and denouncing Cardinal Pole in the severest terms. This was to mould the Monarch for all the advice which that party intended soon to give, if it had not been already tendered.

13 Gov. State Papers, v., p. 153-156. By the way, we have here positive evidence of the extent to which Tyndale's translation was prevailing in North Britain, of which more in its proper place. Though Norfolk could not be expected to be very accurate as to the martyrdom of Patrick Hamilton; he cared for none of these things. It had taken place precisely eleven years before this.

no setting forth on my behalf, if any of his secret servants come hither unto me !"

In short the letter throughout was equal to any thing from the pen of his friend, Stephen Gardiner; for soon after the Duke's return to London, the style adopted will appear to have been the highest essence of hypocrisy. And he soon returned; the last letter from him to Crumwell seems to be from Richmond in Yorkshire, on the 9th of April. He will be in very good time to unite vigorously with Gardiner and Tunstal, in thwarting the Lord Privy Seal.

During these three months it certainly had been no very easy task for Crumwell to manage his disturbed Master, or ward off his fears; and the more so that, though a bold and determined man hitherto, he had quite enough to do with himself. Already he had his trembling moments, and his own anxiety is quite manifest, even when he is striving, so graphically, to cheer the King. Thus on the 17th of March he writes

"Many bruits, rumours and reports be made, as well in and from Flanders, as in and from some other parts, the grounds whereof being unexpressed, and all things well weighed, not like to be such indeed as is reported. Men may sometime upon accumulation of suspicions and light conjectures, take a fantasy indeed, that their suspicions be true; or trusting some false reporters, which might fortune hath shewed them some true things, may perchance be deceived by them. Or marking the words of the inconstant and fickle people babbling abroad, think the same cannot be so much in the people's mouth without some ground, as smoke is not without fire. But for all this, some time such things do vanish away as the wind. Yet nevertheless, I cannot but so to think, that your Grace will not be further moved or pricked by such reports, or letters, upon such unknown reports, suspicions, and tales grounded, than the things do appear: for assuredly, to my judgment, the things be more and further otherwise bruited abroad, than the meaning and the deed is. Assuredly, as it is good to be ware and circumspect, so no less is to be avoided over much suspicion, to the which if any man be once given, he shall never be quiet in mind. These I do not write as thinking your Grace needeth any warning thereof, being of so high excellent wit, prudence, and long experience; but that I would declare unto your Majesty, how I do for my part, take the things, and as I think other men should take them; and that no more celerity nor precipitation of things should be used than of congruency. For undoubtedly I take God to be not only your Grace's protector, but a marvellous favourer; so that in my heart I hold me assured, although all the rest should have conspired against your Grace, yet ye shall prevail through his grace, assuredly."14

While, however, Henry had been so long and so busy negotiating to no purpose; the German States had not been forgotten, and Crumwell, ever watching on the times, now found that his opportunity was come. After their Ambassadors had been dismissed by his Majesty with Tunstal's

14 Gov. State Papers, i., p. 601.

reply, last year, the Emperor had been soliciting their aid against the Turk, of whom he was afraid; but they were as firm to their principles with him, as they had been with the King of England. In these circumstances, as the English Monarch was not likely to make any pacific agreement with the Court of France, especially while such a man as Bonner was there, urging, after his own manner, the claims of his royal Master, for the arrears of money long due by Francis; and as it was then uncertain how far the Emperor and the King of France would second the official fury of the Pontiff; Henry must bow to the humiliation of sending Mount and Paynell once more to those very States, whose ambassadors he had dismissed. After the return of those ambassadors to Germany, last September, no letters arrived either to Crumwell or his Master, and "fearing," says Strype, "lest these Germans might comply with the Emperor on some terms," Mount and Paynell had been despatched from England in December last to the Duke of Saxony, and the Landgrave of Hesse."15 The enquiry then to be made, whether these German Princes remained stedfast in their faith as to their professed religious principles, must have been a mere fetch to open up negotiations of a secular character; and so the Embassy merged into one such subject. It is true that we shall find Burghart, who had been in England last year, arrive with the English Envoys upon their return in April, bringing a long answer from Saxony and Hesse, as to those matters of faith, with a letter also from Melancthon to the King; but long before then we have pointed evidence to show, not only that another Queen for Henry was the main point, but that considerable progress had been made, before his Majesty was told that he could not have the Duchess of Milan. It was a political marriage on which the Monarch was bent, and he had been negotiating in two quarters at the same time. It has been often affirmed, that Crumwell recommended the Princess Anne of Cleves to Henry; but of this, no positive evidence has ever been adduced, and the instructions given to Mount and Paynell, on such a subject, must have been not only with his Majesty's previous sanction, but given directly by himself. There is, however, no question that Crumwell leaped at the proposal and urged it on. So early as the 10th of March this is quite apparent,16 and on the 18th, when addressing the King, still more so; proving decidedly that the one negotiation was proceeding, before the other was broken off.

"Please your most noble Majesty to be advertised, that this morning I have received letters from your Grace's servants, Christopher Mount and Thomas Paynel, written at Frankford the 5th of this present month, the effect whereof is that on the day of February last, the said Christopher had access to the Duke of Saxony, to whom, all other being afar off, he declared the effect of his

15 Gov. State Papers, i., p. 609.

16 See Cotton MS., Vitell. B. xxi., fol. 133.