When the last Duke of Cleves died a few months before, "leaving
all the world his heirs"--to use Henry's own phrase--the Emperor
had stepped in, and over-riding the rights of certain German
princes had bestowed the fief upon his own nephew, the Archduke
Leopold. Now this was an arrangement that did not suit Henry's
policy at all, and being then--as the result of a wise husbanding
of resources--the most powerful prince in Europe, Henry was not
likely to submit tamely to arrangements that did not suit him.
His instructions to Vaucelas were to keep open the difference
between France and the House of Austria arising out of this
matter of Cleves. All Europe knew that Henry desired to marry the
Dauphin to the heiress of Lorraine, so that this State might one
day be united with France; and it was partly to support this
claim that he was now disposed to attach the German princes to
his interests.
Yet what Vaucelas told him in that letter was that certain agents
at the court of Spain, chief among whom was the Florentine
ambassador, acting upon instructions from certain members of the
household of the Queen of France, and from others whom Vaucelas
said he dared not mention, were intriguing to blast Henry's
designs against the house of Austria, and to bring him willy-
nilly into a union with Spain.
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