been earnestly labouring to remove the disagreeable impression which Henry had made on Christian III. by his blundering Lübeck policy in 1534. Barnes had been sent to Hamburg for this purpose early in the year. He was himself an ardent Protestant who never once suspected the possibility of a Catholic reaction in England; and as his zeal more than supplied the lack of diplomatic skill, his efforts seem to have met with great success[640]. The King of Denmark was now in close alliance with John Frederic, and Barnes was soon enabled to persuade them to arrange to send a joint embassy to the King of England to treat of the political league which was to follow a theological agreement[641]. But at this juncture Burckhard and Baumbach returned with a very discouraging report, which obtained full confirmation by the news which arrived a week later, that the Six Articles had actually been passed[642]. The enthusiasm of the Lutherans was of course considerably dampened, and they wrote to Henry that if a league was to be treated of at all, he would have to be the one to send ambassadors; they could not themselves venture to visit England because of the machinations against the Evangelical cause there[643]. Even in Cleves, where Henry and Cromwell had sought an alliance of a purely political nature, unhampered by religious restrictions, the news of the passage of the Six Articles created profound distrust, and we may well believe that John Frederic discouraged his brother-in-law from continuing negotiations with England, after the proof of Henry’s perfidy that he had just received. We are not surprised to find that the matrimonial projects which formed the basis of the alliance with Cleves came to a complete standstill during the month of July. The proposals for a match between Duke William and the Princess Mary had apparently never been very popular: they were now definitely abandoned and never revived. To the other plan, for a marriage of Henry and the Duchess Anne, an unexpected objection had arisen. It appears that ever since 1527 a plan for a marriage between the King’s intended bride and the son of Duke Anthony of Lorraine had been under discussion. For twelve years the form of continuing the negotiations for this union had been kept up on both sides, with the idea of bringing pressure on the Emperor, though all hope of an actual completion of the match must have been abandoned long before this time. But now that the union with England seemed less desirable, the Duke of Cleves of course made the most of the opportunity of evading the requests of Henry that was afforded by the Lorraine affair. The claims of Duke Anthony and his son would have to be satisfied, he said, before his sister could be offered to Henry[644].