even
gave him his niece, lady Margaret Douglas, in marriage. In return, Lenox
stipulated conditions, by which, had he been able to execute them, he
must have reduced his country to total servitude.[***]

* Herbert. Stowe, p. 588. Baker, p. 292.

** Goodwin's Annals. Stowe, p. 588.

*** Rymer, vol. xv. p. 28, 29.

Henry's policy was blamed in this sudden and violent incursion, by which
he inflamed the passions of the Scots, without subduing their spirit;
and it was commonly said, that he did too much, if he intended to
solicit an alliance, and too little, if he meant a conquest.[*] But the
reason of his recalling the troops so soon, was his eagerness to carry
on a projected enterprise against France, in which he intended to
employ the whole force of his kingdom. He had concerted a plan with the
emperor, which threatened the total ruin of that monarchy, and must, as
a necessary consequence, have involved the ruin of England. These two
princes had agreed to invade France with forces amounting to above a
hundred thousand men: Henry engaged to set out from Calais; Charles from
the Low Countries: they were to enter on no siege; but leaving all the
frontier towns behind them, to march directly to Paris, where they were
to join their forces, and thence to proceed to the entire conquest of
the kingdom. Francis could not oppose to these formidable preparations
much above forty thousand men.

* Herbert. Burnet.

Henry, having appointed the queen regent during his absence, passed over
to Calais with thirty thousand men, accompanied by the dukes of Norfolk
and Suffolk, Fitzalan earl of Arundel, Vere earl of Oxford, the earl of
Surrey, Paulet Lord St. John, Lord Ferrers of Chartley, Lord Mountjoy,
Lord Grey of Wilton, Sir Anthony Brown, Sir Francis Bryan, and the most
flourishing nobility and gentry of his kingdom. The English army
was soon joined by the count de Buren, admiral of Flanders, with ten
thousand foot and four thousand horse; and the whole composed an army
which nothing on that frontier was able to resist. The chief force of
the French armies was drawn to the side of Champagne, in order to oppose
the imperialists.

The emperor, with an army of near sixty thousand men, had taken the
field much earlier than Henry; and not to lose time while he waited for
the arrival of his confederate, he sat down before Luxembourg, which was
surrendered to him: he thence proceeded to Commercy, on the Meuse, whic