There was much more high-flown compliment both from Katharine and her step-daughter before the gouty ambassador went on his way; but it is evident that Katharine, like her husband, was at this time (May 1545) apprehensive as to the intentions of Charles and his French allies towards England, and was still desirous to obtain some aid in the war under the treaty, in order, if possible, to weaken the new friendship with France and the Catholic alliance. In the meanwhile the failure of Gardiner's policy, and the irritation felt at the Emperor's abandonment of England, placed the minister somewhat under a cloud. He had failed, too, to persuade the Emperor personally to fulfil the treaty, as well as in his negotiations for peace with the French; and, as his sun gradually sank before the King's annoyance, that of Secretary Paget, of Hertford, of Dudley, and of Wriothesley, now Lord Chancellor, a mere time-serving courtier, rose. The Protestant element around Katharine, too, became bolder, and her own participation in politics was now frankly on the anti-Catholic side. The alliance--insincere and temporary though it was--between the Emperor and France, once more produced its inevitable effect of drawing together England and the German Lutherans. It is true that Charles' great plan for crushing dissent by the aid of the Pope was not yet publicly known; but the Council of Trent was slowly gathering, and it was clear to the German princes of the Schmalkaldic league that great events touching religion and their independence were in the air; for Cardinal Farnese and the Papal agents were running backward and forward to the Emperor on secret missions, and all the Catholic world rang with denunciation of heresy. In June the new imperial ambassador, Van Der Delft, sounded the first note of alarm from England. Katharine Parr's secretary, Buckler, he said, had been in Germany for weeks, trying to arrange a league between the Protestant princes and England. This was a matter of the highest importance, and Charles when he heard of it was doubly desirous of keeping his English brother from quite breaking away; whilst in September there arrived in England from France a regular embassy from the Duke of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, the Duke of Würtemburg, and the King of Denmark, ostensibly to promote peace between England and France, but really bent upon effecting a Protestant alliance. Henry, indeed, was seriously alarmed. He was exhausted by his long war in France, harassed in the victualling of Boulogne and even of Calais, and fully alive to the fact that he was practically defenceless against an armed coalition of the Emperor and France. In the circumstances it was natural that the influence over him of his wife, and of his brother-in-law Hertford, both inclined to a reconciliation with France and an understanding with the German Protestants, should increase.