Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/556

536 and the Mediterranean; on the other, feeding in Scotland the animosities of the nation against the English, and the special hatred of the clergy against Henry and the Reformation:—

Charles V., embarrassed between his orthodoxy as a Catholic and his duties as a prince, resolute, apparently, to check the ambition and punish the treachery of Francis, to compose the spiritual anarchy which distracted the Empire, and to drive back the advancing wave of Mahometanism which threatened to close the Protestant controversies in Europe, as Kaled and Omar nine centuries before had closed the quarrels of the sects in Antioch and Alexandria; yet knowing well that for such undertakings steel and powder would do more for victory than the lightnings of the Vatican; and, in spite of himself and of the anger of the Pope, compelled into an alliance with the heretic of England; hoping, if it might be so, to win him back to conformity; satisfied, if persuasion should fail, that with a clear conscience he might leave him to his fate, when his support should no longer be necessary; finally, doing for the day what the exigencies of the day demanded, and leaving the morrow to resolve its own difficulties:—

Paul III., concentrating under the influence of Reginald Pole the whole energies of his nature into a blind and malignant hatred of Henry VIII.; alarmed at the progress of Solyman, yet counting him a spirit of light, compared with a rival 'head of the Church;' disapproving the Koran, yet fearing less injury to the