common doctrinal standpoint should be agreed upon, and
infinite theological discussions took place to bring this about. Henry
would not give way on any principal point, and the Protestant ambassadors
went home again without a formal understanding. But though Henry remained,
as he intended to do, thus unpledged, it was good policy for him to
impress upon the Germans by his ruthless suppression of the monasteries,
and his prohibition of the ancient superstitions, that he was the enemy of
their enemy; and that if he was attacked for heresy, it would be incumbent
upon the Lutherans to be on his side even against their own suzerain.

This was not, however, the only move made by Henry against the
threatening danger of a joint attack of the Catholic powers. He had hardly
thrown off his mourning for Jane before he turned his hand to the old game
of dividing his rivals. His bluff was as audacious and brilliant as usual.
To the imperial and French ambassadors in turn he boasted that either of
their masters would prefer his friendship and alliance to that of the
other; and, rightly convinced that he would really be more likely to gain
latitudinarian Francis than Charles, he proposed in the spring of 1538
that he should marry a French princess. As the two great Catholic
sovereigns drew closer together, though still nominally at war in Italy,
Henry became, indeed, quite an eager wooer. His friend, Sir Francis Brian,
was sent to Paris, secretly to forward his suit, and obtained a portrait
of the Duke of Guise's second daughter, the sister of the King of
Scotland's bride, Mary of Lorraine; with which Henry confessed himself
quite smitten. He had, before this, only three months after Jane's death,
made a desperate attempt to prevail upon Francis to let him have Mary of
Lorraine herself; though she was already betrothed to the King of Scots,
his nephew; but this had been positively and even indignantly refused.
Even the younger daughter of Guise, beautiful as she was, did not quite
satisfy his vanity. Both he and his agent Brian, who was a fit
representative for him, disgusted Francis by suggesting that three other
French princesses should be taken to Calais by the Queen of
Navarre--Francis' sister--in order that they might be paraded before the
King of England for his selection, "like hackneys," as was said at the
time.[184] He thought that the angry repudiation of such an insulting
proposal was most unreasonable. "How can I choose a wif