offers; he had been as often
warned by trusty advisers that no non-German prince stood a chance of
election; he had expressed his content with his own islands, which,
Tunstall told him with truth, were an Empire worth more than the
barren imperial crown.[264] Pace went far too late to secure a party
for Henry, and, what was even more fatal, he went without the
persuasive of money. Norfolk told Giustinian, after Pace's departure,
that the election would fall on a German prince, and such, said the
Venetian, was the universal belief and desire in England.[265] (p. 103)
After the election, Leo expressed his "regret that Henry gave no
attention to a project which would have made him a near, instead of a
distant, neighbour of the papal States". Under the circumstances, it
seems more probable that the first alternative in Pace's instructions
no more represented a settled design in Henry's mind than his
often-professed intention of conquering France, and that the real
purport of his mission was to promote the election of the Duke of
Saxony or another German prince.[266]

[Footnote 259: _L. and P._, iii., 149.]

[Footnote 260: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 1227.]

[Footnote 261: _Ibid._, ii., 1246.]

[Footnote 262: _Ibid._, ii., 1163.]

[Footnote 263: _L. and P._, iii., 137.]

[Footnote 264: _Ibid._, ii., 2911.]

[Footnote 265: _Ven. Cal._, ii., 1220.]

[Footnote 266: _L. and P._, ii., 241.]

Whether that was its object or not the mission was foredoomed to
failure. The conclusion was never really in doubt. Electors might
trouble the waters in order to fish with more success. They might
pretend to Francis that if he was free with his money he might be
elected, and to Charles that unless he was free with his money he
would not, but no sufficient reason had been shown why they should
violate national prejudices, the laws of the Empire, and prescriptive
hereditary right, in order to place Henry or Francis instead of a
German upon the imperial throne. Neither people nor princes nor
barons, wrote Leo's envoys, would permit the election of the Most
Christian King;[267] and even if the electors wished to elect him, it
was not in their power to do so. The whole of the nation, said Pace,
was in arms and furious for Charles; and had Henry been elected, they
would in their indignation have