Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/413

1539.] the Catholic princes against England. He had been obliged to place the realm in a state of defence; and he took the present opportunity of assuring the Scotch Government that the additional garrisons and fortifications at Berwick were a consequence of the threatened attack upon him, and were meant in no way for a demonstration against his neighbours. He believed, notwithstanding, that the Pope, regardless of everything but the success of his own schemes, had endeavoured to entangle his nephew in the conspiracy. The King of Scots, he trusted, would be too wise to condescend to such purposes; 'but because his realm adjoined unto England, and as a prince and king on whose peril they had not much regard,' the Pope and cardinals 'designed to make him a ringleader and chief setter forth of hostility against his uncle, not caring whether both uncle and nephew should consume each other,' so they might have their way. Let James consider whether the conduct of England towards him for the last twenty years deserved that he should lend himself to its enemies. Let him weigh well what the amities of other princes had cost him, and 'foresee what might chance if he should fortune, for other men's pleasure, to attempt any enterprise, specially where the matter which his Highness defended was God's and his Word's own cause.'

The verbal message was supported in a manner to give it emphasis. The Duke of Norfolk advanced from York to Berwick, and his dreaded name carried with it a panic across the Border. The Catholic league gazed