earls of Lenox and Glencairn, and the elect bishop of Caithness, brother to the earl of Lenox, in May 1544*. The articles are published. They promised, that they should cause the word of God to be truly taught in their countries. 2dly, They should continue the king's faithful friends. 3dly, They should take care that the queen be not secretly carried away. 4thly, They should assist the king to seize on some castles on the borders." And they delivered the elect bishop of Caithness to the king, as a hostage for their observing these things. On the other hand," the king engaged to send armies to Scotland, both by sea and land; and to make the earl of Lenox (written in this Levinax), as soon as he could, governor of Scotland: and that he should bestow his niece, Lady Margaret Dowglas, on him." There was a fuller agreement made with them, with more particulars in it, on the 26th of June; and a pension of 2501. was assigned to the earl of Glencairn, and 125l. to his son, both during life. Those in the castle of St. Andrew's were also taken into the king's protection. And they promised to promote the marriage, and the king's interest, and to deliver up the castle when demanded. There were also private agreements made with Norman Lesly, Kircaldy of the Grange, and some others, all to be found in Rymer.

The often-cited Seckendorf tells us t, that at this time they in Germany began to have greater hopes of the king than ever. Mount was again sent to offer an alliance with him. He excused all the late proceedings. He said, Cromwell had rashly said, "that he hoped to see the time, that he should strike a dagger into the heart of him that should oppose the Reformation" which his judges thought was meant of the king. He said, Barnes had indiscreetly provoked the bishop of Winchester. He also blamed their ambassadors for entering into disputes in writing with the king. He believed Melancthon and Bucer would have managed that matter with more success. Bucer seconded Mount's motions, and magnified what the king had already done; though there was no complete reformation yet effected.

This did not move the elector: he looked on the king as an enemy to their doctrine. His whole design in what he had done was, to make himself the head of the church, to which he was not called of God. His government was tyrannical, and his life flagitious; so he looked for no good from him. The king of France moved him to undertake a mediation between him and the king, but the elector referred that to a general meeting of those who were engaged in the Tom, 15. Seck. 1. iii, p. 121.

* Rymer.

common Smalcaldic league. The princes of Germany having their chief dependence on the kings of France and England, saw how much they were weakened and exposed to the emperor, by the war which was going on between those two kings; so they sent some empowered by them to try if it was possible to prevent that war, and to mediate a reconciliation between them. To these, when they delivered their message to the king, he complained of the injustice and wilfulness of the French king. He thought their interposition could have no effect, and he used these words in an answer to their memorial, "We give them well to understand, that we do both repose an ampler and a fuller confidence in them than the French king either doth or will do."

De Bellay, who, being oft employed, understood those matters well, tells us, that the emperor and King Henry had agreed to join their armies, and to march directly into France*. He tells in another place t, that if King Henry had followed the opinion of his council, which was for his landing in Normandy with thirty thousand men, he would have carried that whole duchy; and he ascribes his error in that matter to the providence of God, that protected France from so great a danger. The emperor had proposed to the king, that upon the junction of their two armies they should march straight to Paris; for they reckoned that both their armies would have amounted to ninety thousand foot, and twenty thousand horse. But after the emperor had drawn the king into his measures, he went on taking some towns, pursuing his own ends, and then made his own peace with France, and left the king engaged in the war. So the king finding the emperor's main army was not like to join him, some bodies out of the Netherlands only coming to act in conjunction with him; upon that he sent the duke of Norfolk to besiege Montrevel, and he himself sat down before Bulloigne. Marshal Bies, governor of Bulloigne, apprehending the importance of Montrevel, carried a considerable part of the garrison of Bulloigne with him, and threw himself into Montrevel: by this means he left Bulloigne weak, and in ill hands. In the mean time the emperor took Luxembourg, and some other places; so all the project with which he had amused the king vanished, and a peace was struck up between him and the king of France.

The French sent an army to raise the siege of Montrevel; and they were moving so as to get between the duke of Norfolk and the king's army. Upon which the duke of

Norfolk raised the siege: but Bulloigne was taken; and that small conquest was out of measure magnified by those who saw their own advantage in flattering their master, though at a vast charge he had gained a place scarce worth keeping.

The emperor had that address, and he had so strong a party about the king, that even all this was excused, and the intercourse between the two courts was not discontinued.

In one point the emperor was necessary to the king, and he kept his word to him. It is certain the king had apprehensions of the council that was now sitting at Trent, and the more because Pole was one of the legates sent to preside in it; who, as he had reason to apprehend, would study to engage the council to confirm the pope's censure thundered out against the king; and it was believed he was named legate for that end. The king of France had offered to Gardiner, that, if the king would join with him, he would suffer no council to meet, but as the king should consent to it. But his fluctuating temper was so well known, that the king trusted in this particular more to the emperor, whose interest in that council he knew must be great; and the emperor had promised that the council should not at all intermeddle with the matter between the pope and the king. The effect showed he was true in this particular.

The king finding himself so disappointed, and indeed abandoned by the emperor, sent the earl of Hartford, with Gardiner, to him, to expostulate with him. A letter of the king's was sent by them to the emperor, written in a very severe strain, charging him with perfidy. The emperor either had the gout, or pretended to have it, so that he could not be spoke with. His chief ministers at that time, who were Grandville, and his son the bishop of Arras, delayed them from day to day, and discovered much chicane, as they wrote; upon which they grew so uneasy, that at last they demanded a positive answer; and then these ministers told them, that the emperor could not carry on the war longer against France: but he offered to mediate a peace between England and France. After that they.complain that they saw the pretence of mediation was managed deceitfully; for the emperor's design upon Germany being now ready, he apprehended those two kings, if not engaged in war one with another, would support the princes of the empire, and not suffer the emperor, under the pretence of a religious war, to make himself master of Germany. There

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fore he studied to keep up the war between France and England. I find Maurice of Saxony was this year, during the emperor's war with France, in his court. Whether he was then mediating or treating about his perfidious abandoning the elector and the other princes of the Smalcaldic league, I know not.

(1545.) Before the king went out of England, a great step was made towards the reforming the public offices. A form of procession in the English tongue was set out by the king's authority, and a mandate was sent to Bonner to publish it. The title of it was, "" An Exhortation to Prayer, thought meet by his majesty and his clergy to be read to the people;" also, "A Litany, with suffrages, to be said, or sung, in the time of the processions." In the Litany they did still invocate the blessed Virgin, the angels and archangels, and all holy orders of blessed spirits, all holy patriarchs and prophets, apostles, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, and all the blessed company of heaven, to pray for them. After the word conspiracy, this is added, from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormites." The rest of the Litany is the same that we still use, only some more collects are put at the end, and the whole is called a prayer of procession. To this are added some exercises of devotion, called Psalms, which are collected out of several parts of Scripture, but chiefly the Psalms they are well collected; and the whole composition, as there is nothing that approaches to popery in it, so it is a serious and welldigested course of devotion. There follows a paraphrase on the Lord's prayer: on the fourth petition, there are expressions that seem to come near a true sense of the presence of Christ in the sacrament; for by daily bread, as some of the ancients thought, the sacrament of the eucharist is understood, which is thus expressed, "The lively bread of the blessed body of our Saviour Jesu Christ, and the sacred cup of the precious and blessed blood which was shed for us on the cross. This agrees with our present sense, that Christ is present; not as he is now in heaven, but as he was on the cross. And that being a thing past, he can only be present in a type and a memorial. The preface is an exhortation to prayer, in which these remarkable words will be found: It is very convenient, and much acceptable to God, that you should use your private prayer in your mothertongue; that you, understanding what you ask of God, may more earnestly and fervently desire the same, your hearts and minds agreeing to your mouth and words." This is indeed all over of a pious and noble strain, and, except the invocation of the saints and angels, it is an unexceptionable

composition. At the same time, Katharine Parr, whom the king had lately married, collected some prayers and meditations, "wherein the mind is stirred patiently to suffer all affliction here, to set at nought the vain prosperity of this world, and always to long for the everlasting felicity;" which were printed in the year 1545.

But so apt was the king, whether from some old and inherent opinions that still stuck with him, or from the practices of those who knew how to flatter him suitably to his notions, to go backward and forward in matters of religion; that though on the 15th of October, 1545, he ordered a mandate to be sent to Bonner, to publish the English procession ordained by him, which was executed the day following; yet on the 24th of that month there was a letter written to Cranmer, declaring the king's pleasure for the setting up an image that had been taken down by his injunctions; ordering him at the same time to abolish the use of holy water, about St. John's tide, and to take down an image called Our Lady of Pity in the Pew, for the idolatry that was committed about it. At this time it was discovered that great indulgences, with all such-like favours, were sent from Rome to Ireland; so that generally in that kingdom the king's supremacy was rejected, and yet at the same time it appears that many were put in prison for denying the presence in the sacrament: and a proclamation was set out, both against Tindall's New Testament, and Coverdale's.

Thirleby, bishop of Westminster, was sent ambassador to the emperor; and afterwards Secretary Petre was sent to the same court. Mount continued likewise to be employed, but without a character: he seems to have been both honest and zealous; and in many letters, writ both in the year 1545, and 1546, he warned the king of the emperor's designs to extirpate Lutheranism, and to force the whole empire to submit to the pope and the council, then sitting at Trent. The German princes sent over a vehement application to the king, to consider the case of Herman, bishop of Colen, praying him to protect him, and to intercede for him. They gave a great character of the man, of which Mount makes mention in his letters; but I do not find that the king interposed in that matter. The emperor seemed to enter into great confidences with Thirleby, and either imposed on him, or found him easily wrought on: he told him that the king of France was making great levies in Switzerland, and he was well assured that they were not designed against himself; so he warned the king to be on his guard. This being inquired into, was not only denied by the court of France,