drews, though still detained in France, had been released from, the galleys and prisons at the peace, through English intercession. The French Court desired that the Archbishop and other Scotch prisoners in England should be set at liberty in return.[1] Mason, instructed by the council, said that, if the Scots might go where they pleased, the Archbishop should go also. Henry answered good-humouredly, but nothing was concluded.
Two factions continued to divide the Paris Government. The Ultramontanes, the Guises, and Catherine de' Medici, were for peace and alliance with the Emperor. They hated England; they desired to follow up at Calais their success at Boulogne, and they made the most of these petty disagreements. Montmorency and the King inclined to the older anti-Austrian policy, and the tone of the Court changed from day to day.[2]
- ↑ 'I have, at your request,' said the French King to Mason, 'set at liberty the Scots, which else, by yon sun, should have rotted in their prisons, so cruel was their murder. By my troth, I cannot tell how to answer the world for lack of justice—one good turn deserves another.'—Mason to the Council, July 20: MS. Ibid.
- ↑ Doctor Wotton, writing to Cecil, said: 'The danger is lest our trusty and well-beloved, I dare not say right trusty and well-beloved, friends of France, will use the occasion when she serveth for their purpose; and knowing the great desire that they have to live at peace with us—that is to say, to have Calais again—(for the keeping thereof, they
outrages and evil usages of the King's subjects by such Scots and French as daily pass through the realm by post. And yet because we would not seem ungrateful, we have licensed such Frenchmen as come expressly from the French King, or that be commanded by their ambassadors here. And certainly there is double more passage of the French King's servants through this realm than is of the King's Majesty's own—insomuch as for the ease of the people no Englishman here is suffered to ride by post, but upon his own horse.'—Council to Mason: MS. France, bundle 9, State Paper Office.
