Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/599

1543.] more on the road to his spiritual father's palace, not any more to persuade him to accept the treaty, not to arrest him for treason, but to ask pardon at his feet, of God and Holy Church, for his own delinquencies. His attitude was now satisfactory: he was welcomed as a returned prodigal. After confessing his offences in having given encouragement to heresy, he was absolved and taken back into the Church. The Cardinal had won the battle, and Scotland was again united.

The reconciliation, which was intended to secure the independence of the country, was immediately marked by a public assertion of it. A proclamation was sent out that the infant Queen would forthwith be crowned at Stirling. A council of state was chosen, under the presidency of the queen-mother, in which, as an evidence of the return of unanimity, a seat was offered to the Earl of Angus; and the English ambassador, in danger of his life, dared not appear outside his doors. 'I assure you,' he wrote at this crisis to a friend, 'there was never so noble a prince's servant as I am so evil entreated as I am, among these unreasonable people; nor I think never man had to do with so rude, so inconstant, and beastly a nation as this is. They neither esteem the honour of their country nor their own honesty, nor yet—which they ought principally to do—their duty to God, and love and charity to their Christian brethren.' The Cardinal returned in triumph to the capital. Instead of the hostages which