Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/105

1544.] The Emperor's intentions should now be ascertained with distinctness. Of all the English ministers Gardiner was most interested in those intentions. The alliance had been the triumph of his policy; if it fell through, his influence at home, already waning, would be lost utterly. Gardiner, therefore, was permitted to go from Calais to Brussels, and to learn Charles's meaning from his own lips. The apology for the peace had been the supposed consent of Henry through the Bishop of Arras; but even by the Bishop's story the maintenance of the treaty had been a condition of that consent; and the French, by their recent attack on Guisnes, had created one of the contingencies for which the treaty definitely provided. The Emperor, therefore, it was thought, would be forced to declare himself; and Henry wrote to him with his own hand, assuring him that, as to Boulogne, even if he would himself surrender it, his subjects would not consent; and entreating him, for the sake of their friendship, not to trifle with him, but to speak the truth, whatever the truth was to be.

The result of the first interview with Charles and his minister was reported on the 27th of October. The Bishop of Winchester, as a partial check upon his tendencies, had been accompanied by Hertford.