wards the Papacy was not primarily the
spoliation of the Church, the repudiation of Katharine, or even the
assumption of control over the temporalities, but that he had arrogated to
himself the spiritual headship in his realm. In most other respects he was
as good a Catholic as Charles, and a much better one than Francis; and yet
under stress of circumstances he was forced into common cause with the
growing party of reform in Europe, whose separation from the Church was
profoundly doctrinal, and arose from entirely different motives from those
of Henry.

The danger that threatened England at the time (early in 1539) was not
really quite so serious as it seemed; for, close as the alliance between
Charles and Francis was, old jealousies were not dead, and a joint war
against England would have revived them; whilst the Papal plan of treating
England commercially as outside the pale of civilisation would have ruined
Charles' subject and was impracticable. But, in any case, the peril was
real to Henry and Cromwell; and under the stress of it they were driven
into the attempted policy of a Protestant confederacy. At the end of
January 1539, Christopher Mont was sent to Germany with the first
overtures. He carried letters of credence to Philip of Hesse, and Hans
Frederick of Saxony, with the ostensible object of asking whether they had
come to any conclusion respecting the theological disputations held in the
previous year between their envoys and the English bishops to establish a
common doctrinal basis. This, of course, was a mere pretext, the real
object of the mission being to discover to what extent Henry could depend
upon the German Protestant princes if he were attacked by their suzerain
the Emperor. A private instruction was given to Mont by Cromwell, to
remind one of the Saxon ministers who had come to England of a former
conversation about a possible marriage between the young Duke of Cleves
and the Princess Mary; and he was to take the opportunity of finding out
all he could about the "beauty and qualities, shape, stature, and
complexion" of the elder of the two unmarried daughters of the old Duke of
Cleves, whose eldest daughter, Sybilla, had married Hans Frederick of
Saxony himself, and was as bold a Protestant as he was. At the same time
approaches were made to Christian III. of Denmark, who had joined the
Evangelical league; and gradually the forces against the Papacy were to be
knitted together. An excuse also w