Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/231

1546.] He was taken to the Guildhall, accused of heresy on the sacrament, tried and condemned. Only at the last moment Henry received an intimation of his servant's danger through Lord Russell; but he required him by a royal warrant to be instantly set at liberty.

The first step was followed up by a public evidence of his intentions far more marked. As long as he was embarrassed with the war his advances to the Germans were explained, and perhaps in their earlier stages had been caused, by political convenience. He was now himself at peace, and the danger from the Emperor, so long foreseen, was on the point of bursting upon Saxony. Their recent treatment of England had imposed but a slight obligation on the King; to interfere to help the Lutheran princes. He now once more, as if to signify to his own subjects and to the world his resolution to go forward with the Reformation, offered to unite with them in a league offensive and defensive, to be called 'the League Christian.' Inasmuch as he would be called on for larger contributions than any other prince, he desired for himself the principal authority; but his object, he said, was 'nothing more than the sincere union and conjunction of them all together in one godly and Christian judgment and opinion in religion, following the Holy Scriptures or the determination of the Primitive Church' in the first general councils. He entreated again that their 'learned men' would come to England, and settle with him their minor differences, and 'so, they being united and knit together in one strength and religion, it might be called