Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/43

1544.] beyond wasting the Borders as usual, and it seems that both he and the King allowed their hopes to deceive them. Beton was to find that the English had a long arm. Henry—who, if he did not aim at a conquest, expected to establish a substantial protectorate—would discover the obstinate nationality of the Scottish people to be as hard to deal with as it had been found by his predecessors.

His plan, as at first conceived, was to seize and fortify Leith, and, if possible, the Castle of Edinburgh. Dumbarton would be placed in his hands by Lennox, and the Earl of Angus would admit a garrison into Tantallon, if his present humour held. In possession of four, or even three, strong fortresses in the heart of the kingdom—so situated that, with the command of the sea, he could throw supplies into them at his pleasure—he expected that, without difficulty, he could re-establish the English party in a decisive superiority, and secure the persons of the obnoxious lords and churchmen.

With these avowed objects, a convention was drawn between the English Government and the Earls of Lennox and Glencairn. On their side the two noblemen engaged—

1. That to their power they would cause the Word