alliances would stand in their way when opportunity of aggrandizement should offer itself. If either France or the Empire became dominant in Europe, England would equally find an enemy in either; and if Stukeley's story was true, the Empire must be supported.
Again, therefore, the question of peace or war was anxiously discussed, and, according to the official habit of the time, the arguments on either side were drawn out in form. Should the King join the Emperor? it was asked. For the affirmative it was urged that he was bound by treaty. The Emperor might be ruined, or would lose Burgundy, and in that case England would lose Calais; the French were bringing the Turks into Christendom, and again some redress must be obtained for the English merchants; the attitude of France was suspicious and menacing, and 'enter into war alone the King might not well;' finally, the Emperor might make peace with France exasperated by desertion, and the Catholic powers might unite against England.[1] For the negative; the exchequer was
- ↑ While the preservation of the holy ointment assured France of the continued favour of Heaven, the French preachers informed their congregations, on analogous grounds, that England had been forsaken. 'No wonder,' said a Jacobin monk in a sermon at Angiers, 'that the King of England has broken faith with France, seeing that he had broken faith with God; disant qu'il estoit hérétique et mêschant, et que le peuple de France debvroit bien louer Dieu et luy rendre grâces, et que nostre roy avoit tournu sa robe et estoit ennemy des Françoys. Depuys continuant sa mêschante affection, il a dict en publique que notre Roy d'Angleterre estoit infi-
of France was sacred, which he said was sent from Heaven above a thousand years ago, and since by miracle preserved; through whose virtue also the King healed les escrouelles.'—Pickering to the Council: MS. Ibid.
