Henry VIII. was in consternation. The abjuration of the regent and the political revolution which accompanied it upset his most cherished plans. But the ratification of the treaty with him was so recent that the question might be raised whether the whole of this Stirling business was anything more than a transient mistake, the fruit of Arran’s weakness. He therefore enjoined his ambassador to use his utmost endeavors to recall the regent to his first intentions. It appeared to Henry impossible that Arran should act in a manner so foolish, so dishonorable, so cruel, so pitiless for Scotland, as not only to throw away all the advantages offered to himself, but still more to give up his country to fire and sword and to all the calamities of a terrible war. All these considerations urged by Sadler were fruitless. At length, indignant at the perjury and the insult, Henry recalled his ambassador, declared war on Scotland, ordered the seizure of the numerous Scottish ships which lay in his ports, threw into prison the seamen and the merchants, and sent a herald to announce to the Scots ‘that they had covenanted with a prince of honor that would not suffer their disloyalty unpunished and unrevenged, whose power and puissance, by God’s grace, is and shall be sufficient against them to make them know and feel their own faults and offences. Fear,’ said he, ‘the hand of God over you.’ It was war, war with all its horrors of fire and sword, that Henry in his wrath had determined to wage with Scotland. ‘You shall beat down and overthrow the castle of Edinburgh, burn and sack the capital, with Holyrood and Leith and the villages around, putting man, woman, and child to the sword without exception. To overthrow St. Andrews so as the upper stone may be the nether, and not one stick stand by another.’[309] The wrath of Henry was terrible; but nothing could alarm the presumptuous cardinal. When he heard of the imprisonment of the Scottish merchants and seamen, he smiled and said jestingly, ‘When we have conquered England we will make compensation to the merchants.’ [Sidenote: THE EARL OF LENNOX.]