s of
disgust in the popular mind. The threat of invasion evoked a national
enthusiasm for defence. In August, 1538, Henry went down to inspect
the fortifications he had been for years erecting at Dover; masonry
from the demolished monasteries was employed in dotting the coast with
castles, such as Calshot and Hurst, which were built with materials
from the neighbouring abbey of Beaulieu. Commissioners were sent to
repair the defences at Calais and Guisnes, on the Scottish Borders,
along the coasts from Berwick to the mouth of the Thames, and from the
Thames to Lizard Point.[1044] Beacons were repaired, ordnance was
supplied wherever it was needed, lists of ships and of mariners were
drawn up in every port, and musters were taken throughout the kingdom.
Everywhere the people pressed forward to help; in the Isle of Wight
they were lining the shores with palisades, and taking every
precaution to render a landing of the enemy a perilous enterprise.[1045]
In Essex they anticipated the coming of the commissioners by digging
dykes and throwing up ramparts; at Harwich the Lord Chancellor saw
"women and children working with shovels at the trenches and bulwarks".
Whatever we may think of the roughness and rigour of Henry's rule, his
methods were not resented by the mass of his people. He had not lost
his hold on the nation; whenever he appealed to his subjects in a time
of national danger, he met with an eager response; and, had the (p. 376)
schemers abroad, who idly dreamt of his expulsion from the throne,
succeeded in composing their mutual quarrels and launching their bolt
against England, there is no reason to suppose that its fate would
have differed from that of the Spanish Armada.

[Footnote 1044: _L. and P._, XIV., i., 478, 533,
630, 671, 762, 899.]

[Footnote 1045: _Ibid._, XIV., i., 540, 564, 573,
615, 655, 682, 711, 712.]

In spite of the fears of invasion which prevailed in the spring of
1539, Pole's second mission had no more success than the first;[1046]
and the hostile fleet, for the sight of which the Warden of the Cinque
Ports was straining his eyes from Dover Castle, never came from the
mouths of the Scheldt and the Rhine; or rather, the supposed Armada
proved to be a harmless convoy of traders.[1047] The Pope himself, on
second thoughts, withheld his promised bull. He distrusted its
reception at the hands of his secular allies, a