Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/597

1543.] playing, so he now thought, in nis impatience, on Henry's credulity, and were serious only in their anxiety for his money. He advised Henry to stay his liberality, and in the treachery which he saw around him he could console himself with the English reflection, 'that though plainness and truth were ofttimes abused with subtlety and falsehood, yet in the end alway truth triumphed, when falsehood should take reproach.'

To the present conclusion the tide had been setting from the moment of the return of the prisoners. Then, and throughout the history of Henry's transactions with Scotland, the professions were all of one kind, the actions of another. The Cardinal and the queen-mother had been among the loudest in their protests of anxiety for the English alliance. The lords who perhaps sincerely desired it were as inconstant in their conduct as Beton and Mary of Guise were false in their declarations.

So entirely had the leading statesmen accustomed themselves to treat words as convenient counters, that, in the face of the attitude of defiance which the nation had assumed, it is no matter of surprise to us to find the Scotch Parliament, within a few days of Sadler's last despairing letter, ratifying in form the treaties of Greenwich. The reluctance ceased from the momsnt that the Queen was secure in Stirling. A convention of the nation sat in August, at which, though the Cardinal did not appear, the majority of the nobles were