Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/232

212 indeed a very Christian league and confederacy.' At the same time he surprised Cranmer by telling him that he was prepared for the change at home of the mass into the modern communion. The danger for which Anne of Cleves had been divorced, for which Cromwell had been hunted to death, which the whole energies of the Anglo-Catholics had for ten years been exerted to prevent, had returned at last, and, as it seemed, irresistibly. The Germans, indeed, were so blind to their peril as again to hesitate, and to demand impossible conditions. The false promises of the French betrayed them to their ruin. But the King's intentions remained unaffected. Slow to resolve, he was never known to relinquish a resolution which once he had formed; and Elizabeth did but conclude and establish the changes which her father would have anticipated had another year of life been allowed to him.