oubt indeed that it was the revival of these hopes which had
brought about the fall of Cromwell and the recall of Norfolk to power.
Norfolk, like his master, looked to a purification of the Church by a
Council as the prelude to a reconciliation of England with the general
body of Catholicism; and both saw that it was by the influence of the
Emperor alone that such a Council could be brought about. Charles on the
other hand was ready to welcome Henry's advances. The quarrel over
Catharine had ended with her death; and the wrong done her had been in
part atoned for by the fall of Anne Boleyn. The aid of Henry too was
needed to hold in check the opposition of France. The chief means which
France still possessed of holding the Emperor at bay lay in the disunion
of the Empire, and it was resolute to preserve this weapon against him
at whatever cost to Christendom. While Francis remonstrated at Rome
against the concessions made to the Lutherans by the Legates, he urged
the Lutheran princes to make no terms with the Papacy. To the
Protestants he held out hopes of his own conversion, while he promised
Pope Paul that he would defend him with his life against Emperor and
heretics. His intrigues were aided by the suspicions of both the
religious parties. Luther refused to believe in the sincerity of the
concessions made by the Legates; Paul the Third held aloof from them in
sullen silence. Meanwhile Francis was preparing to raise more material
obstacles to the Emperor's designs. Charles had bought his last
reconciliation with the king by a promise of restoring the Milanese, but
he had no serious purpose of ever fulfilling his pledge, and his
retention of the Duchy gave the French king a fair pretext for
threatening a renewal of the war.

[Sidenote: James the Fifth.]

England, as Francis hoped, he could hold in check through his alliance
with the Scots. After the final expulsion of Albany in 1524 Scottish
history became little more than a strife between Margaret Tudor and her
husband, the Earl of Angus, for power; but the growth of James the
Fifth to manhood at last secured rest for the land. James had all the
varied ability of his race, and he carried out with vigour its
traditional policy. The Highland chieftains, the great lords of the
Lowlands, were brought more under the royal sway; the Church was
strengthened to serve as a check on the feudal baronage; the alliance
with France was strictly preserved, as the one security agai