d the enmity
of Gardiner had conspired to entangle her, has often been celebrated.
May it not be conjectured, that such an example, given by one of whom
she entertained a high opinion, might exert no inconsiderable influence
on the opening mind of Elizabeth, whose conduct in the many similar
dilemmas to which it was her lot to be reduced, partook so much of the
same character of politic and cautious equivocation?

Henry discovered by experiment that it would prove a much more difficult
matter than he had apprehended to accomplish, either by force or
persuasion, the marriage of young Edward with the queen of Scots; and
learning that it was principally to the intrigues of Francis I., against
whom he had other causes also of complaint, that he was likely to owe
the disappointment of this favourite scheme, he determined on revenge.
With this design he turned his eyes on the emperor; and finding Charles
perfectly well disposed to forget all ancient animosities in sympathy
with his newly-conceived indignation against the French king, he entered
with him into a strict alliance. War was soon declared against France by
the new confederates; and after a campaign in which little was effected,
it was agreed that Charles and Henry, uniting their efforts, should
assail that kingdom with a force which it was judged incapable of
resisting, and without stopping at inferior objects, march straight to
Paris. Accordingly, in July 1544, preceded by a fine army, and attended
by the flower of his nobility splendidly equipped, Henry took his
departure for Calais in a ship the sails of which were made of cloth of
gold.

He arrived in safety, and enjoyed the satisfaction of dazzling with his
magnificence the count de Buren whom the emperor sent with a body of
horse to meet him; quarrelled soon after with that potentate, who found
it his interest to make a separate peace; took the towns of Montreuil
and Boulogne, neither of them of any value to him, and returned.

So foolish and expensive a sally of passion, however characteristic of
the disposition of this monarch, would not merit commemoration in this
place, but for the important influence which it unexpectedly exerted on
the fortune and expectations of Elizabeth through the following train of
circumstances.

The emperor, whose long enmity with Henry had taken its rise from what
he justly regarded as the injuries of Catherine of Arragon his aunt, in
whose person the whole royal family of Sp