Somerset in fact was one of those visionaries who are the despair of more clear-sighted persons who are in sympathy with their objects. He suffered from a permanent incapacity for realising the immense difficulties in his way, and the infinite tact necessary to the accomplishment of his aims. Hence the methods he adopted were invariably calculated to bring into full play every conceivable force that could act in opposition. Sincerely anxious to alleviate the lot of the rural population, he went out of his way to irritate the landlord class into more effective combination. Almost alone in a desire for the widest religious toleration, the moderation of his ecclesiastical laws was discounted by the licence of speech and action allowed to the progressives. In like manner, his theory of Scottish policy was admirable, his practice absurd. The Union of England and Scotland was his ideal, as it was to be the ideal in later years of that most acute of Scottish politicians, Lethington. But he could not appreciate the absolute necessity that the Union should be by consent; and even while endeavouring to procure it by consent, for which he appealed in noble language whereof the sincerity is apparent, he adopted methods which aroused the hostility even of those Scots who were most favourably disposed to Union in the abstract. By making common cause with the Reformers, he might have check-mated France; yet he neglected his opportunity. His own solution of the problem was the marriage of Edward and Mary, which he might have brought about by diplomatic persuasion, or by carrying the Reformers with him. Yet he could see nothing for it but to dictate his terms at the sword's point, the one quite certain way of making sure that they would be rejected, by setting even the Reformers against him. To make matters worse, it was in his mind to re-assert the English sovereignty; to which Henry had indeed audaciously affirmed his claim, though only as a right held in reserve. This intention he had already conveyed not to the Scots but to the French who warned him that they would stand by their old allies: while the mere suspicion of such an insult in Scotland was enough to rouse the fiercest hostility of the whole nation. [Sidenote: Pinkie (Sept.)]