Boulogne was safe for the time, but a French fleet entered the Solent, and effected a landing at Bembridge. Skirmishing took place in the wooded, undulating country between the shore and the slopes of Bembridge Down; the English retreated and broke the bridge over the Yar. This checked the French advance, though a force which was stopped by that puny stream could not have been very determined. A day or two later the French sent round a party to fill their water-casks at the brook which trickles down Shanklin Chine; it was attacked and cut to pieces.[1139] They then proposed forcing their way into Portsmouth Harbour, but the mill-race of the tide at its mouth, and the mysteries of the sandbanks of Spithead deterred them; and, as a westerly breeze sprang up, they dropped down before it along the Sussex coast. The English had suffered a disaster by the sinking of the _Mary Rose_ with all hands on board, an accident repeated on the same spot two centuries later, in the loss of the _Royal George_. But the Admiral, Lisle, followed the French, and a slight action was fought off Shoreham; the fleets anchored for the night almost within gunshot, but, when dawn broke, the last French ship was hull-down on the horizon. Disease had done more than the English arms, and the French troops landed at the mouth of the Seine were the pitiful wreck of an army.[1140] [Footnote 1139: Du Bellay, _Memoirs_, pp. 785-9.] [Footnote 1140: _State Papers_, ed. 1830-51, i., 794, 816.] France could hope for little profit from a continuance of the war, (p. 415) and England had everything to gain by its conclusion. The terms of peace were finally settled in June, 1546.[1141] Boulogne was to remain eight years in English hands, and France was then to pay heavily for its restitution. Scotland was not included in the peace. In September, 1545, Hertford had revenged the English defeat at Ancrum Moor by a desolating raid on the Borders;[1142] early in 1546 Cardinal Beton, the soul of the French party, was assassinated, not without Henry's connivance; and St. Andrews was seized by a body of Scots Protestants in alliance with England. Throughout the autumn preparation was being made for a fresh attempt to enforce the marriage between Edward and Mary;[1143] but the further prosecution of that enterprise was reserved for other hands than those of Henry VIII. He left the relations between England and Scotland in no better state than he found them. His aggressive imperialism paid little heed to the susceptibilities of a stubborn, if weaker, foe; and he did not, like Cromwell, possess the military force to crush out resistance. He would not conciliate and he could not coerce. [Footnote 1141: _State Papers_, ed. 1830-51, i., 877, 879; Odet de Selve, pp. 31, 34.]