friendship was to the King, but God or the Devil was preventing it."[1]
Henry gave his own version of the story to the English Ministers at Charles's court.
"The Emperor's Ambassador," he said, "has been with us at Greenwich with offers to renew the alliance, the conditions being that he would allow the Emperor to reconcile us with the Pope, that we will declare our daughter Mary legitimate and give her a place in the succession, that we will help him against the Turks, and declare war against France should France invade Milan.
"Our answer was that the breach of amity came first from the Emperor himself. We gave him the Imperial crown when it lay with us to dispose of. We lent him money in his difficulties, etc. In return he has shown us nothing but ingratitude, stirring the Bishop of Rome to do us injury. If he will by express writing desire us to forget his unkind doings, or will declare that what we consider unkindness has been wrongly imputed to him, we will gladly embrace his overtures; but as we have sustained the wrong we will not be suitors for reconciliation. As to the Bishop of Rome, we have not proceeded on such slight grounds as we would revoke or alter any part of our doings, having laid our foundation on the Law of God, nature, and honesty, and established our work thereupon with the consent of the Estates of the Realm in open and high court of Parliament. A proposal has been made to us by the Bishop himself which we have not yet embraced, nor would it be expedient that a reconciliation should be compassed by any other means. We should not think the Emperor earnestly desired a
- ↑ April 21.—Calendar, Foreign and Domestic.
