Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/43

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1533.]
THE LAST EFFORTS AT DIPLOMACY.
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through the intervention of the Pope, as a preliminary for a packed council, and for a holy war against the Lutherans[1]—a combination of ominous augury to Christendom, from the consequences of which, if Germany was to be the first sufferer, England would be inevitably the second.

Meanwhile, as the French alliance threatened to fail, the English Government found themselves driven at last to look for a connection among those powers from whom they had hitherto most anxiously disconnected themselves. Sept. 6.At such a time Protestant Germany, not Catholic France, was England's natural friend. The Reformation, was essentially a Teutonic movement; the Germans, the English, the Scotch, the Swedes, the Hollanders, all were struggling on their various roads towards an end essentially the same. The same dangers threatened them, the same inspiration moved them; and in the eyes of the orthodox Catholics they were united in a black communion of heresy. Unhappily, though this identity was obvious to their enemies, it was far from obvious to themselves. The odium theo-
  1. Sir John Hacket, writing from Ghent on the 6th of September, describes as the general impression that the Pope's 'trust was to assure his alliance on both sides.' 'He trusts to bring about that his Majesty the French King and he shall become and remain in good, fast, and sure alliance together; and so ensuring that they three (the Pope, Francis, and Charles V.) shall be able to reform and set good order in the rest of Christendom. But whether his Unhappiness's—I mean his Holiness's—intention is set for the welfare and utility of Christendom, or for his own insincerity and singular purpose, I remit that to God and to them that know more of the world than I do.'—Hacket to Cromwell; State Papers, vol. vii. p. 506.