Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/520

500 Henry would assist him, he in his turn would be left without an ally.

And to Henry he looked, without doubt, most anxiously, as Henry looked to him. But the King of England was publicly excommunicated, banned, and cut off from the Church; and Charles was, or wished to be, a pious Catholic. He might relinquish active enmity, he might cast on Cromwell the blame of the past, but he hesitated at a positive alliance which, possibly, might compromise his orthodoxy, and necessarily would bring the Papal censures into contempt. He felt his way, as he had done before, to win back the erring sheep to the fold. He undertook to bring about a reconciliation without compromising Henry's consistency. He even promised that the Pope himself should sue for it. This, however, being decisively and for ever impossible, the Emperor for the moment hung back; and Henry, to whom the alliance of either of the rival powers was almost equally welcome, almost equally indifferent, whose only object was to take advantage of the shifting