Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/76

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56
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 21.

had said he would give security for the payment of his debts; but every one knew the value of French securities. He had undertaken that the Scots should be in as much amity with England as himself. This merely implied that, as long as the French King should think it profitable to name the King's Majesty his friend, so long ' would the Scots sit still.' Experience of the French King's duplicity made confidence in his word impossible; 'the only remedy whereof was that, if agreement were made with him, the amity, nevertheless, and league between his Highness and the Emperor, should remain still so in virtue and strength, that in case the French King went about to break any part of his promise, they might be both ready to renew the war against him.'[1]

The desirableness of such 'a remedy' as this had not been doubted. The assurance of the continuance of the feeling was, perhaps, satisfactory. August 18.A formal reply to the offers was meanwhile drawn with necessary speed, and forwarded to Boulogne by the hands of De Courières. Granvelle had dwelt to Wotton chiefly on the inadequacy of the terms granted to Henry. The King discovered with surprise and some disappointment, that the Emperor's own demands were so exorbitant as to make peace impossible. The answer 'was couched in such extremities, and so far out of the limits of the treaty,' 'that he found occasion to think that either the Emperor minded in no

  1. State Papers, vol. x. p. 34.