foul warfare".[444] Henry himself was responsible; for Wolsey
wrote on his behalf urging the destruction of Dourlens and the
adjacent towns.[445] If Henry really sought to make these territories
his own, it was an odd method of winning the affections and developing
the wealth of the subjects he hoped to acquire. Nothing was really
accomplished except devastation in France. Even this useless warfare
exhausted English energies, and left the Borders defenceless against
one of the largest armies ever collected in Scotland. Wolsey and Henry
were only saved, from what might have been a most serious invasion, by
Dacre's dexterity and Albany's cowardice. Dacre, the warden of the
marches, signed a truce without waiting for instructions, and before
it expired the Scots army disbanded. Henry and Wolsey might reprimand
Dacre for acting on his own responsibility, but they knew well (p. 158)
enough that Dacre had done them magnificent service.[446]

[Footnote 443: _L. and P._, iii., 2362.]

[Footnote 444: _Ibid._, iii., 2541.]

[Footnote 445: _Ibid._, iii., 2551.]

[Footnote 446: _L. and P._, iii., 2537.]

The results of the war from the English point of view had as yet been
contemptible, but great things were hoped for the following year.
Bourbon, Constable of France, and the most powerful peer in the kingdom,
intent on the betrayal of Francis, was negotiating with Henry and
Charles the price of his treason.[447] The commons in France, worn to
misery by the taxes of Francis and the ravages of his enemies, were
eager for anything that might promise some alleviation of their lot.
They would even, it appears, welcome a change of dynasty; everywhere,
Henry was told, they cried "Vive le roi d'Angleterre!"[448] Never,
said Wolsey, would there be a better opportunity for recovering the
King's right to the French crown; and Henry exclaimed that he trusted
to treat Francis as his father did Richard III. "I pray God," wrote
Sir Thomas More to Wolsey, "if it be good for his grace and for this
realm, that then it may prove so, and else in the stead thereof, I
pray God send his grace an honourable and profitable peace."[449] He
could scarcely go further in hinting his preference for peace to the
fantastic design which now occupied the minds of his masters. Probably
his opinion of the war was not far from that of old Bishop Fox, who
declared: "I have determined, a