not trust his subjects: they had risen once of themselves, and he knew too well the broken promises, the treachery and cruelty, with which he had restored order, to risk their fury, should they receive effective support from abroad. Without striking a single blow, the Catholic powers might achieve a glorious triumph, and heal the gaping wound in the body of Christ.[1] So wrote, and so thought the English traitor, with all human probabilities in his favour, and only the Eternal Powers on the other side. The same causes which filled Pole with hope struck terror into weak and agitated hearts in the country which he was seeking to betray; the wayfarers on the highroads talked to each other in despair of the impending ruin of the kingdom, left naked without an ally to the attacks of the world.[2]
Spreading around him such panics and such expectations, the Emperor entered France almost simultaneously with the departure of Anne of Cleves from her mother's side to the shores of England. Pity that, in
- ↑ Epist. Reginaldi Poli, vol. v. p. 150. In this paper, Pole says that the Duke of Norfolk stated to the King in a despatch from Doncaster, when a battle seemed imminent, 'that his troops could not be trusted; their bodies were with the King, but their minds with the rebels.' His information was, perhaps, derived from his brother Geoffrey, who avowed an intention of deserting.
- ↑ 'The said Helyard said to me that the Emperor was come into France, and should marry the King's daughter; and the Duke of Orleans should marry the Duchess of Milan, and all this was by the Bishop of Rome's means; and they were all confedered together, and as for the Scottish King, he was always the French King's man, and we shall all be undone, for we have no help now but the Duke of Cleves, and they are so poor they cannot help us.'—Depositions of Christopher Chator: Rolls House MS. first series.
