Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/411

1538.] do Longueville, landed in Scotland on the 16th of June, 1538. Her person was a link which bound the country to France and the Papacy. Her character, at once fearless and cunning, passionately religious, and unembarrassed with moral scruples, qualified her in no common degree for the remarkable part which she was to play. A coadjutor devout and treacherous as herself, and even more able, came forward at the same time, in the person of David Beton, who had succeeded his uncle in the archbishopric of St Andrew's, and had been raised by the discretion of those who had discerned in small services the greatness of his powers, to the dignity of a cardinal. These two, the Queen and Beton, became the supporters of the throne; and, except for brief luminous intervals, were thenceforward the directors of Scottish policy.

In the winter of 1538–9 earnest messages were going to and fro between Holyrood, Flanders, Paris, and Rome; and in the end of March, when the mysterious fleet was arming in the harbours of the Netherlands, English spies reported from Edinburgh that Francis had desired James to have an army in readiness by the 15th of May, either to co-operate with an invading force, or to distract the attention of Henry, while French and Imperial troops were landed at some point on the southern coast. It was added that James had hesitated, and that Beton had in consequence gone to Pans to learn in detail the nature of the proposed measures, and whether or how far Scotland would be supported should the invasion fail, and should she,