Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/523

 a French attack on England might provoke an imperial onslaught on France.

Still, the endless bickerings with France about Boulogne were very exasperating; and eventually the Protector offered to restore it at once for the sum stipulated in the treaty of 1546, if France would further the marriage between Edward VI and Mary, Queen of Scots. That, however, was the last thing to which the Guises would consent; the preservation of their influence in Scotland was at that moment the mainspring of their action and the chief cause of the quarrel with England. The only condition on which they would keep the peace was the abandonment of Scotland to their designs, and that condition the Protector refused to the last to grant. Before the end of June, 1549, the French had assumed so threatening an attitude that Somerset sent Paget to Charles V with proposals for the marriage of the Princess Mary with the Infante John of Portugal, for the delivery of Boulogne into the Emperor's hands, and for a joint invasion of France by Imperial and English armies. This embassy seems to have alarmed Henry II, and he at once appointed commissioners to settle the disputes in the Boulonnais. The Protector thereupon forbade Paget to proceed with the negotiations for a joint invasion. The Emperor at the same time, doubtful of the value of England's alliance in her present disturbed condition, and immersed in anxieties of his own, declined to undertake the burden of Boulogne, or to knit any closer his ties with England. This refusal encouraged the French king to begin hostilities. He had collected an army on the borders of the Boulonnais; and in August it crossed the frontier. Ambleteuse (Newhaven) was captured through treachery; Blackness was taken by assault; Boulogneberg was dismantled and abandoned by the English; and the French forces sat down to besiege Boulogne.

The success of the French was mainly due to England's domestic troubles. Levies which had been raised for service in France were diverted to Devon or Norfolk. Fortunately, both these revolts were crushed before the war with France had lasted a fortnight. The rising in the west, for which religion had furnished a pretext and enclosures the material, died away after the fight at the Barns of Crediton, and the relief of Exeter by Russell on August 9. The eastern rebels, who were stirred solely by social grievances, caused more alarm; and a suspicion lest the Princess Mary should be at their back gave some of the Council sleepless nights. The Marquis of Northampton was driven out of Norwich, and the restraint and orderliness of the rebels' proceedings secured them a good deal of sympathy in East Anglia. Warwick, however, to whom the command was now entrusted, was a soldier of real ability, and with the help of Italian and Spanish mercenaries he routed the insurgents on August 26 at the battle of Dussindale, near Mousehold Hill. His victory made Warwick the hero of the gentlemen