troops landed at the mouth of the Seine were the pitiful wreck of an
army.[1140]

[Footnote 1139: Du Bellay, _Memoirs_, pp. 785-9.]

[Footnote 1140: _State Papers_, ed. 1830-51, i.,
794, 816.]

France could hope for little profit from a continuance of the war, (p. 415)
and England had everything to gain by its conclusion. The terms of
peace were finally settled in June, 1546.[1141] Boulogne was to remain
eight years in English hands, and France was then to pay heavily for
its restitution. Scotland was not included in the peace. In September,
1545, Hertford had revenged the English defeat at Ancrum Moor by a
desolating raid on the Borders;[1142] early in 1546 Cardinal Beton,
the soul of the French party, was assassinated, not without Henry's
connivance; and St. Andrews was seized by a body of Scots Protestants
in alliance with England. Throughout the autumn preparation was being
made for a fresh attempt to enforce the marriage between Edward and
Mary;[1143] but the further prosecution of that enterprise was
reserved for other hands than those of Henry VIII. He left the
relations between England and Scotland in no better state than he
found them. His aggressive imperialism paid little heed to the
susceptibilities of a stubborn, if weaker, foe; and he did not, like
Cromwell, possess the military force to crush out resistance. He would
not conciliate and he could not coerce.

[Footnote 1141: _State Papers_, ed. 1830-51, i.,
877, 879; Odet de Selve, pp. 31, 34.]

[Footnote 1142: _State Papers_, v., 448-52;
_Harleian MS._, 284; _Original Letters_, i., 37.]

[Footnote 1143: Odet de Selve, _Corresp.
Politique_, 1886, pp. 50-120, _passim_.]

* * * * *

Meanwhile, amid the distractions of his Scottish intrigues, of his
campaign in France, and of his defence of England, the King was engaged
in his last hopeless endeavour to secure unity and concord in religious
opinion. The ferocious Act of Six Articles had never been more than
fitfully executed; and Henry refrained from using to the full the powers
with which he had been entrusted by Parliament. The fall of (p. 416)
Catherine Howard may have impaired the influence of her uncle, the
Duke of Norfolk, who had always expressed his zeal for the burning of
heretics; and