Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/40

20 usefulness in his new career. He had the custody of the castle of Dumbarton, where a supply of powder and thirty thousand crowns had been landed for the use of the Government. He refused to surrender either the castle or its contents. The Earl of Angus recovered courage at this accession of strength; Lennox joined him in a letter to Henry, in which the past was apologized for, and the English army was invited to hasten across the Border; and, as a cement to the new friendship, the Earl of Lennox professed himself a suitor for the hand of Lady Margaret Douglas, the daughter of Angus and the niece of the King.

There was no occasion to press Henry to speed. With or without assistance from a native faction, he had resolved this time to teach the Scots that, although engaged with France, he was really able to punish them; and he was making his preparations on a scale which they could not easily resist. Two hundred ships were collected at Newcastle, which would land at Leith ten thousand men. Four thousand horses were to advance from Berwick under Lord Evers, and join them before the walls of Edinburgh.

The Cardinal being openly supported by the Pope, Henry would not relinquish the desire of committing the Emperor in the quarrel. The treaty had made no distinction in enemies; and he requested an auxiliary force of a thousand Spaniards; not so much, he avowed, for the increase of strength which they would bring to