sheer force of his tyranny and despotic will, baffled them both. While
Cromwell, the greatest genius in Europe, thought he held all the
threads of intrigue in his own hands, his royal master by the dogged
pursuit of one end overthrew the minister's entire scheme. Saturated
though he was with Machiavellian theories, a man of one book, and that
book The Prince, Cromwell lost all by his inability to read the bent of
Henry's mind and purpose.

Henry VIII. and his elder sister, Margaret, were strikingly alike in
character. Both proved themselves to be cruel, vindictive,
unscrupulous, sensual, and vain. Both were extraordinarily clever, but
Henry being far better educated than his sister, contrived to cut a
much more imposing, if not a more dignified, figure. In the matter of
intrigue, there was nothing to choose between them. That Henry
succeeded where Margaret failed, was owing to the fact that
circumstances were in his favour and not in hers. Given two such
characters, the only parts that were possible to them were dominating
ones. Henry was master of the situation all through the piece; Margaret
was not, but she could play no other part. Had she been differently
constituted, had she been barely honest, true, constant, and pure,
there is no limit to the love and loyalty she would certainly have
inspired.

But, for want of insight into Margaret Tudor's disposition, the
Scottish people were repeatedly betrayed by one whose interests they
fondly hoped had become, by marriage with their king, identical with
their own. She had come among them at an age when new impressions are
quickly taken and experiences of every kind have necessarily been very
limited, but to the end of her days she remained an alien in their
midst.