heless, 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.[169] 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.[170]
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.[171] 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,[172] "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 connexion 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.[173]

The reception which Vaughan met with at Weimar 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.

[Sidenote: The failure a not unprofitable lesson 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