nd dreaded the contempt
and ridicule which would follow an open failure.[1048] Moreover, at
the height of his fervour against Henry, he could not refrain from
attempts to extend his temporal power, and his seizure of Urbino
alienated Francis and afforded Henry some prospect of creating an
anti-papal party in Italy.[1049] Francis would gladly join in a
prohibition of English commerce, if Charles would only begin; but
without Charles he could do nothing, and, even when his amity with the
Emperor was closest, he was compelled, at Henry's demand, to punish
the French priests who inveighed against English enormities.[1050] To
Charles, however, English trade was worth more than to Francis, (p. 377)
and the Emperor's subjects would tolerate no interruption of their
lucrative intercourse with England. With the consummate skill which he
almost invariably displayed in political matters, Henry had, in 1539,
when the danger seemed greatest, provided the Flemings with an
additional motive for peace. He issued a proclamation that, for seven
years, their goods should pay no more duty than those of the English
themselves;[1051] and the thrifty Dutch were little inclined to stop,
by a war, the fresh stream of gold. The Emperor, too, had more urgent
matters in hand. Henry might be more of a Turk than the Sultan
himself, and the Pope might regard the sack of St. Thomas's shrine
with more horror than the Turkish defeat of a Christian fleet; but
Henry was not harrying the Emperor's coasts, nor threatening to
deprive the Emperor's brother of his Hungarian kingdom; and Turkish
victories on land and on sea gave the imperial family much more
concern than all Henry's onslaughts on the saints and their relics.
And, besides the Ottoman peril, Charles had reason to fear the
political effects of the union between England and the Protestant
princes of Germany, for which the religious development in England was
paving the way, and which an attack on Henry would at once have
cemented.

[Footnote 1046: _L. and P._, XIV., i., Introd., pp.
xi.-xiii.]

[Footnote 1047: _Ibid._, XIV., i., 714, 728, 741,
767.]

[Footnote 1048: _Cf. ibid._, XIV., i., 1011, 1013;
ii., 99.]

[Footnote 1049: _Ibid._, XIV., i., 27, 37, 92, 98,
104, 114, 144, 188, 235, 884; ii., 357.]

[Footnote 1050: _L