the Tudors to the German
Protestants.]

[Sidenote: Mission of the Bishop of Hereford to counteract the French.]

Different indeed would have been the future, both of England and for
Germany, if such a league had been possible, if the pressure which
compelled this most natural alliance had continued till it had cemented
into rock. But the Tudors, representatives in this, as in so many other
features of their character, of the people whom they governed, could
never cordially unite themselves with a form of thought which permitted
resistance to authority, and which they regarded as anarchic and
revolutionary. They consented, when no alternative was left them, to
endure for short periods a state of doubtful cordiality; but the
connexion was terminated at the earliest moment which safety permitted;
in their hatred of disorder (for this feeling is the key alike to the
strength and to the weakness of the Tudor family), they preferred the
incongruities of Anglicanism to a complete reformation; and a
"midge-madge"[477] of contradictory formularies to the simplicity of the
Protestant faith. In essentials, the English movement was political
rather than spiritual. What was gained for the faith, we owe first to
Providence, and then to those accidents, one of which had now arisen,
which compelled at intervals a deeper and a broader policy. To
counteract the French emissaries, Christopher Mount, in August, and in
September, Fox, Bishop of Hereford, were despatched to warn the Lutheran
princes against their intrigues, and to point out the course which the
interests of Northern Europe in the existing conjuncture required. The
bishop's instructions were drawn by the king. He was to proceed direct
to the court of Saxony, and, after presenting his letters of credit, was
to address the elector to the following effect:

[Sidenote: Henry's message to the Elector of Saxony.]

[Sidenote: He desires, in connexion with other princes who have the same
cause at heart, to maintain the middle way of truth, according to God's
word.]

[Sidenote: September. He has heard that the Lutherans are again
inclining to Rome; and he desires to know their true intentions.]

"Besides and beyond the love, amity, and friendship which noble blood
and progeny had carnally caused and continued in the heart of the King's
Highness towards the said duke and his progenitors, and besides that
kindness also which of late by mutual communication of gratuities had
been