Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/589

1543.] The ambassadors went and returned. They had found Henry perseveringly moderate—insisting only on essentials, and ready to admit any terms which left the central resolutions unaffected. They left Edinburgh in the beginning of May; at the beginning of June their report was presented to their Parliament; and the French Court being at the moment unable to send a force to assist them in repelling an invasion, and there being no longer any excuse for delay, the Cardinal, with the extreme French party, held aloof from the discussion, foreseeing that, under existing circumstances, they would not carry their point.

There was 'much bickering;' but the alternative of peace or war lay before them in all its harshness. The Catholic fanatics had absented themselves, and the preliminaries of a treaty upon Henry's terms, but with some unimportant reservations, were at last agreed on. The attitude of the opposition gave strength to the peace party; and, as a check on Beton, the Earl of Angus, Lord Maxwell, and others of the Solway prisoners, pledged themselves by a bond to prevent the renewal of the war, to secure the person of the Queen, and, if she were carried off to the Continent by her mother, to be true to Henry, and to acknowledge no government which had not received his sanction. Arran having wavered back to the English side, they promised to support him so long as he remained with them. If the Cardinal, either by assistance from abroad or by intrigues at home, recovered his control in the administration, they would pay him no obedience, and either see the