in a few hours was not to be mistaken, however disguised in courteous language. The English emissary saw that he was an unwelcome visitor, and that he must depart with the utmost celerity. 'The Elector,' he wrote,[1] 'thirsted to have me gone from him, which I right well perceived by evident tokens which declared unto me the same.' He had no anxiety to expose to hazard the toleration which the Protestant dukedoms as yet enjoyed from the Emperor, by committing himself to a connection with a prince with whose present policy he had no sympathy, and whose conversion to the cause of the Reformation, he had as yet no reason to believe sincere.[2]
The reception which Vaughan met with at Weimar satisfied him that he need go no further; neither the Landgrave nor the Duke of Lunenberg would be likely to venture on a course which the Elector so obviously feared. He, therefore, gave up his mission, and returned to England.
- ↑ Vaughan to Cromwell: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 509.
- ↑ I consider the man, with other two—that is to say, the Landgrave von Hesse and the Duke of Lunenberg—to be the chief and principal defenders and maintainers of the Lutheran sect: who considering the same with no small difficulty to be defended as well against the Emperor and the bishops of Germany, his nigh and shrewd neighbours, as against the most opinion of all Christian men, feareth to raise any other new matter whereby they should take a larger and peradventure a better occasion to revenge the same. The King's Highness seeketh to have intelligence with them, as they conjecture to have them confederate with him; yea, and that against the Emperor, if he would anything pretend against the King.—Here is the thing which I think feareth the duke.—Vaughan to Cromwell: State Papers, vol. vii. pp. 509–10.
possetque sinistre tale institutum interpretari.—Reply of the Elector: State Papers, vol. vii. p. 503.
