Note 556 — Chapter XVII
Reading edition
State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 318. The Queen of Navarre, who was constant to the English interests, communicated to the secretary of Sir John Wallop (the resident minister at Paris), an account of a conversation between herself and the Papal nuntio.
Ferrara had prayed her “to help and put her good hand and word that the French king might join the Emperor and his master for the wars against the Almayns and the King of England, which king was but a man lost and cast away.”
“Why, M. l’Ambassadeur,” the queen answered, “what mean you by that? how and after what sort do you take the King of England?”—“Marry,” quoth he, “for a heretic and a Lutheryan. Moreover, he doth make himself head of the Church.”—“Do you say so?” quoth she. “Now I would to God that your master, the Emperor, and we here, did live after so good and godly a sort as he and his doth.” The nuntio answered, “the king had pulled down the abbeys,” “trusting by the help of God it should be reformed or it were long.” She told him that were easier to say than to do. England had had time to prepare, and to transport an army across the Channel was a difficult affair. Ferrara said, “It could be landed in Scotland.”—“The King of Scotland,” she replied, “would not stir without permission from France;” and then (if her account was true) she poured out a panegyric upon the Reformation in England, and spoke out plainly on the necessity of the same thing in the Church of Rome. State Papers, Vol. VIII. p. 289, &c.