[Footnote 64: The people of England gave frequent proofs of their desire to seize every opportunity of reaping glory from conquests in France. When the Duke of Burgundy and the confederated princes, in the struggle to which we have before referred, applied in the first instance for assistance to Henry IV, Laboureur tells us that Henry replied to the latter that he was compelled to accept the offer of the Duke of Burgundy, to avoid the irritation and discontent of his subjects, which would be raised if he neglected so favourable an opportunity of forwarding the national interests.] That Henry's high spirit predisposed him to listen with readiness and satisfaction to the suggestions of his subjects in this behalf, we may well believe; but that he would have been driven by a dominant ambition to engage in a war of conquest against the acknowledged principles of justice, his character, firmly established by undeniable proofs of a private as well as a public nature, forbids us to admit. It must never be forgotten that those persons who were then universally regarded as the best and safest interpreters of law, human and divine, assured him, on his solemn appeal to them for their judgment,[65] that the cause in which he was embarking was just; (p. 073) and, as many incidents in the sequel establish, he did embark in it without any doubts or misgivings, without the slightest scruple of conscience; on the contrary, with a full confidence in the entire righteousness of his cause, and a most unbounded reliance on the arm of the God of Justice for success.