s gains in it.
In June 1546 a peace was concluded by which England engaged to surrender
Boulogne on payment of a heavy ransom, and France to restore the annual
subsidy which had been promised in 1525.

[Sidenote: The Peace.]

What aided in the close of the war was a new aspect of affairs in
Scotland. Since the death of James the Fifth the great foe of England in
the north had been the Archbishop of St. Andrews, Cardinal Beaton. In
despair of shaking his power his rivals had proposed schemes for his
assassination to Henry, and these schemes had been expressly approved.
But plot after plot broke down; and it was not till May 1546 that a
group of Scotch nobles who favoured the Reformation surprised his castle
at St. Andrews. Shrieking miserably, "I am a priest! I am a priest! Fie!
Fie! All is gone!" the Cardinal was brutally murdered, and his body hung
over the castle-walls. His death made it easy to include Scotland in the
peace with France which was concluded in the summer. But in England
itself peace was a necessity. The Crown was penniless. In spite of the
confiscation of the abbey lands in 1539 the treasury was found empty at
the very opening of the war: the large subsidies granted by the
Parliament were expended; and conscious that a fresh grant could hardly
be expected even from the servile Houses the government in 1545 fell
back on its old resource of benevolences. Of two London merchants who
resisted this demand as illegal one was sent to the Fleet, the second
ordered to join the army on the Scotch border; but it was significant
that resistance had been offered, and the failure of the war-taxes which
were voted at the close of the year to supply the royal needs drove the
Council to fresh acts of confiscation. A vast mass of Church property
still remained for the spoiler, and by a bill of 1545 more than two
thousand chauntries and chapels, with a hundred and ten hospitals, were
suppressed to the profit of the Crown. Enormous as this booty was, it
could only be slowly realized; and the immediate pressure forced the
Council to take refuge in the last and worst measure any government can
adopt, a debasement of the currency. The evils of such a course were
felt till the reign of Elizabeth. But it was a course that could not be
repeated; and financial exhaustion played its part in bringing the war
to an end.

[Sidenote: Charles and the League of Schmalkald.]

A still greater part was played by the aspect of affairs