imar satisfied him that he need
go no further; neither the Landgrave nor the Duke of Lunenberg would be
likely to venture on a course which the elector so obviously feared. He,
therefore, gave up his mission, and returned to England.

The first overtures in this direction issued in complete failure, nor was
the result wholly to be regretted. It taught Henry (or it was a first
commencement of the lesson) that so long as he pursued a merely English
policy he might not expect that other nations would embroil themselves in
his defence. He must allow the Reformation a wider scope, he must permit it
to comprehend within its possible consequences the breaking of the chains
by which his subjects' minds were bound--not merely a change of jailors.
Then perhaps the German princes might return some other answer.

The disappointment, however, fell lightly; for before the account of the
failure had reached England, an event had happened, which, poor as the king
might be in foreign alliances, had added most material strength to his
position in England. The full moment of that event he had no means of
knowing. In its immediate bearing it was matter for most abundant
satisfaction. On the seventh of September, between three and four in the
afternoon, at the palace of Greenwich, was born a princess, named three
days later in her baptism, after the king's mother, Elizabeth.[622] A son
had been hoped for. The child was a daughter only; yet at least Providence
had not pronounced against the marriage by a sentence of barrenness; at
least there was now an heir whose legitimacy the nation had agreed to
accept. Te Deums were sung in all the churches; again the river decked
itself in splendour; again all London steeples were musical with bells. A
font of gold was presented for the christening. Francis, in compensation
for his backslidings, had consented to be godfather; and the infant, who
was soon to find her country so rude a stepmother, was received with all
the outward signs of exulting welcome. To Catherine's friends the offspring
of the rival marriage was not welcome, but was an object rather of bitter
hatred; and the black cloud of a sister's jealousy gathered over the cradle
whose innocent occupant had robbed her of her title and her expectations.
To the king, to the parliament, to the healthy heart of England, she was an
object of eager hope and an occasion for thankful gratitude; but the seeds
were sown with her birth of those misfortune