370
REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
[ch. 18.
of it; but the outstanding differences, Magnus urged, if they were to be settled satisfactorily, must be settled between themselves without the intervention of a third party; and he desired the new council, as an evidence of their good intentions, to agree at once to a perpetual peace with England, in which France should not be comprehended.[1]
MarchScotland was as much interested as the sister kingdom in the acceptance of the English minister's overtures; but the necessary confidence was still, as it seemed, impossible; and 'there was a great personage, neither favourable in word nor countenance.'[2] The Bishop of Aberdeen replied in the name of the council. He declined to consider Henry's political philosophy, confining himself to facts. He desired security before his country would commit itself to a treaty. Let the marriage between their young King and the Princess Mary, which was held out to them as a temptation, be converted into a fact—let there be a formal and legal betrothal—and then, he said, 'the whole realm of Scotland was minded and inclined utterly to abandon and leave France, and wholly to be conjoined with England.… Else, remembering their old leagues with France, continued by the space of five or six hundred years, it was thought to the lords of Scotland to be greatly to the reproach of their honour to agree to peace, either perpetual or temporal.'[3] Neither Government would venture a step upon trust.
