Thus at the close of the year 1538, England was trembling at the prospect of a coalition of France and Spain against her. The outlook was certainly alarming, and demanded united action at home. But at this very moment the King and his minister could not agree on the best method of averting the peril which was threatening. Each adopted his own way of meeting it, and the history of the year 1539 is the story of the varying success of the two methods when brought into conflict. We shall see that fortune twice inclined to favour Cromwell, only to desert him, after he had become so hopelessly committed to the policy which he had adopted in face of the opposition of the King, that there was no drawing back, and he paid the penalty for his rashness with his life. CHAPTER XIII THE CATHOLIC REACTION AND THE ALLIANCE WITH CLEVES The first few months of the new year brought no improvement in the state of England’s foreign affairs. Having postponed the Lutheran alliance which Cromwell had so strongly advocated in the end of 1538, for fear of losing his position of neutrality between France and Spain, Henry was driven back on his own policy of seeking safety for England in direct negotiations with Charles and Francis. Matrimonial agitations had failed--malicious tale-bearing had not borne fruit, so the King took the more straightforward course of making direct complaints that he was spoken of with too little respect in foreign parts. He sent grumbling letters to his neighbours, accusing them of permitting evil reports to be circulated about him. He caused the President of the Council of the North to request James of Scotland to suppress and punish the authors of several ‘spyttfull ballades,’ which had been published about the wrongfully usurped authority of the King of England, and also wrote to Wyatt in Spain, commanding him to protest against the malicious and unreasonable lies of the ‘barking prechers ther’ who slandered him behind his back[604]. But these petty remonstrances had no effect in diminishing the growing cordiality of Francis and Charles, or their hatred of England: in fact the two continental sovereigns seemed better friends than ever. On January 12, representatives of both monarchs met at Toledo and concluded an agreement not to make any new alliances, either political or matrimonial, with the King of England, without each other’s consent[605]. The news of this treaty was a deathblow to Henry’s hopes; and the King was reluctantly forced to admit that his minister’s scheme of a German alliance offered better chances of safety for England than any other. So he again gave his consent to a renewal of negotiations for an outside league, though, as we shall soon see, it was on a basis somewhat different from that of the previous ones.