Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/290

270 A yet more critical occasion of quarrel was the condition of Scotland. The treaty of 1543, by which the Scotch Assembly had promised their young Queen to Edward, was still legally uncancelled. The influence of France had interrupted the fulfilment of it, and Cardinal Beton and the Church party had dragged the country into war instead of marriage; but at the close of the struggle, Henry VIII. had insisted successfully that the Scotch should reaccept their engagements; and there was still a party in Scotland sufficiently wise and farsighted to prefer the alliance of England to that of France. It was not to be doubted, however, that the compliance of the French Government had been extorted rather than given, and unless the Courts of London and Paris could arrive at some amicable understanding, by intrigue or force there would soon be fresh interference. But, on the other hand, 'the Italian question' was as far from settlement as ever. The death of the Duke of Orleans had broken up the arrangement by which it was to have been set at rest, and that quarrel would sooner or later break into flame again. The wisdom after the event which determines what ought to have been done in this or that embarrassment, is usually good for little; but it seems certainly that England having Boulogne and the Boullonnaise in its hands, and being still the creditor of the French Government for a heavy sum of money, political skill might have turned such advantages to