Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/189

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1546.]
THE INVASION.
169

stroyed.[1] But, as with the defeat of Ancram Muir, a single reverse produced little difference in the bearings of the war: Surrey was superseded; March.in March Lord Hertford was again in France with thirty thousand men, while Lord Lisle, 'God's own knight,' as he was called, was preparing a fleet at Portsmouth a third more powerful than that which had baffled D'Annebault. The Emperor had accepted and signed a revised version of the treaty, by which he again bound himself to interfere if England or the Calais Pale was invaded, and his differences with France left little doubt that this time he would keep his word. The Germans had halted between two opinions till the course which they ought to have followed was no longer open to them. At one moment they deplored their rejection of the English advances;[2] they entreated Henry again to join them,[3] even though they declined to take part with him in the war;[4] in the next, careless of offending him, and reckless of the consequences, they threw open their frontiers to the recruiting officers of the French.[5] April.Christopher Mont remonstrated with the Landgrave, and the Landgrave

  1. Surrey to Henry VIII.: State Papers, vol. xi. p. 3, &c.
  2. 'Discessum Domini Bucleri plerique omnes Protestantes et boni viri dolent. Cupiunt enim conjunctionem cum serenissimo rege inire quod modo in hisce comitiis Francfordianis fore speraverant. Vident enim Romanum episcopum cum suis complicibus non desistere a cœlo terræ confundendo; et ut in causâ cum serenissimo rege conjuncti sunt, ita admodum cupiunt communi consilio et sociis armis ereptam libertatem contra Romani episcopi tyrannidem vindicare.'—Mont to Paget: State Papers, vol. x. p. 822.
  3. Ibid. vol. xi. p. 33.
  4. Ibid. vol. x. p. 36.
  5. 'One thing there is which much offendeth the King's Majesty, that seeing the French King is in