. Their relations were already embittered by many reciprocal acts
of hostility. Henry VIII. had won his spurs as a theologian by an attack on
Luther. Luther had replied by a hailstorm of invectives. The Lutheran books
had been proscribed, the Lutherans themselves had' been burnt by Henry's
bishops. The Protestant divines in Germany had attempted to conciliate the
emperor by supporting the cause of Catherine; and Luther himself had spoken
loudly in condemnation of the king. The elements of disunion were so many
and so powerful, that there was little hope of contending against them
successfully. Nevertheless, as Henry saw, the coalition of Francis and the
emperor, if the pope succeeded in cementing it, was a most serious danger,
to which an opposite alliance would alone be an adequate counterpoise; and
the experiment might at least be tried whether such an alliance was
possible. At the beginning of August, therefore, Stephen Vaughan was sent
on a tentative mission to the Elector of Saxe, John Frederick, at
Weimar.[617] He was the bearer of letters containing a proposal for a
resident English ambassador; and if the elector gave his consent, he was to
proceed with similar offers to the courts of the Landgrave of Hesse and the
Duke of Lunenberg.[618] Vaughan arrived in due time at the elector's court,
was admitted to audience and delivered his letters. The prince read them,
and in the evening of the same day returned for answer a polite but wholly
absolute refusal. Being but a prince elector, he said, he might not aspire
to so high an honour as to be favoured with the presence of an English
ambassador. It was not the custom in Germany, and he feared that if he
consented he should displease the emperor.[619] The meaning of such a reply
delivered in a few hours was not to be mistaken, however disguised in
courteous language. The English emissary saw that he was an unwelcome
visitor, and that he must depart with the utmost celerity. "The elector,"
he wrote,[620] "thirsted to have me gone from him, which I right well
perceived by evident tokens which declared unto me the same." He had no
anxiety to expose to hazard the toleration which the Protestant dukedoms as
yet enjoyed from the emperor, by committing himself to a connection with a
prince with whose present policy he had no sympathy, and whose conversion
to the cause of the Reformation he had as yet no reason to believe
sincere.[621]

The reception which Vaughan met with at We