Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/586

566 might be nominated by the English Crown. Lastly, the treaty of peace should be immediately drawn, and the Scots should relinquish the French alliance, and bind themselves to make no separate leagues with any foreign county except with Henry's consent.

The arrival of this message brought matters to a crisis. The endurance of England, it appeared, had its limits; and the Scots saw, or seemed to see, that they must choose between acceptance and open war. Arran, whose feeble understanding swayed under every transient impulse, was at first persuaded into defiance; supported by all the lords except Angus, Cassilis, Maxwell, and Glencairn, he determined to reject the terms and face the consequences. The Cardinal tossed aside his now unneeded mask. The fiction of his imprisonment was no longer maintained. He called a convention of the clergy at St Andrew's, where the 'kirkmen,' with all their voices, shouted for war. Supplies were voted to assist the needy noblemen in raising their retainers, and to bribe them to relinquish their designs upon the abbey lands. 'They had liefer,' said Sir George Douglas, 'all the world should sink than they should lose their pomp and glory.' For the moment even those who sincerely desired the success of the English marriage believed it was hopeless. Arran, constant to nothing, was drawn towards the Church party by fear; for a shadow of illegitimacy hung over him which, if desirable, could be converted into a substance. Matthew Stewart, the young Earl of Lennox, next of kin to the Crown in default of the Hamiltons, was introduced from