Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/594

574 soon as the sea was open. With the details of the action Henry sent a thousand pounds to Arran, and a promise of help in men and money at any moment that he desired it. He urged him to energy. He advised that without delay the Cardinal and his party should be proclaimed traitors; and if any of them fell into his hands, that, profiting by experience, 'he would so bestow them' where they could give no more anxiety; especially he urged the necessity of securing the Queen's person, and removing her from the indefensible palace of Linlithgow to some safer residence.

But Arran had the vice, so rare in a Scotchman, of weakness. The necessity for action paralyzed in him the power to act. He issued proclamations. He talked of raising twenty thousand men. He would bring the Queen into Blackness. He would meet the Cardinal in the field. But meanwhile, he did no one of these things. He sat still, and waited upon events, and laboured to inflict his own inaction on the English. He even implored Henry, if the Borders were wasted, to bear with it, and abstain from punishing the invaders. 'Tell him,' wrote Henry to his ambassador, 'that we shall so chastise those Borderers as with our advice he may plant others in their places; and for this purpose we shave written to our cousin of Suffolk and our Lord Warden of the Marches.' But the temper of steel could not be transfused into lead. The Regent waited on, and the event came. Henry's ships might sweep the seas,