waiting; and it was resolved that commissioners should at once be sent to lay the wishes of the Estates before Elizabeth.[34]

If Mary of Scotland died without issue, Arran was, after his father, the next heir to the Crown; but it can scarcely be doubted that the Lords of the Congregation did not contemplate waiting for the extinction of the Stuart line. Mary had not been in Scotland since her childhood. She was Queen of France; and, in all probability, she would remain in France for the rest of her life. So long as Mary of Guise was Regent, so long as Frenchmen governed Scotland, so long as Scotland, like France, adhered to the Catholic Faith, the power of the house of Stuart was hardly, if at all, impaired by the absence of the queen. But now all this was at an end. Mary of Guise was dead. An English army had expelled the soldiers of France. The government of Scotland was in the hands of Scotsmen. The Scottish nation was no longer Catholic. To celebrate the mass was an offence against the law; and the Scottish clergy were using the Prayer-book of Edward the Sixth. Thus it was a mere form of words to call Mary Stuart Queen of Scotland as well as of France. Of real power she no longer possessed a vestige; and it is easy to see that in the first bloom of the Scottish Reformation, with Knox in full vigour, and with the whole country in revolt against the Romish priesthood, the marriage of Arran would very likely have been followed by the triumph of the Protestant Hamiltons over the Catholic Stuarts, and the union of the two nations, with one crown, and probably with one form of Church government.

Perhaps in the history of great events we too seldom remember that kings and queens are, after all, merely men and women. Here was a crisis at which the Protestants of England and Scotland were unanimous in wishing the Defender of their Faith to enter upon a contract, by means of which she would accomplish what had been one of the great ends of English policy from the days of Edward the First to those of Henry the Eighth. But that contract was one which concerned her as a woman rather than as a queen; and she knew that the ceremony which might put the Crown of Scotland within reach of the Queen of England would, while uniting the kingdoms, separate Elizabeth Tudor from Robert Dudley. The Protestants of England knew this, and dread of the Dudley marriage, as well as their anxiety to cement the alliance with Scotland, made them support the pretensions of Arran.

But suddenly, before Elizabeth had made up her mind, the death of Francis the Second saved her from the necessity of giving a definite answer to the Scottish commissioners. This event, by which the Crowns of France and Scotland were once more separated, opened a new scene in the drama of international politics, and enabled her to escape from the dilemma in which she found herself. She thanked the Scottish Estates for the goodwill which they had displayed towards her; and she assured them that she regarded the offer of marriage as a token of their wish “to knit both theis kingdomes presently in Amytye, and hereafter to remaine in a perpetual Amytye.” But in the meantime, though she had a high opinion of the Lord Arran, she was not disposed to take a husband, and she thought that the friendship of the nations could be maintained without a marriage. With this unsatisfactory answer the commissioners were obliged to be content.[35]

Then came the return of Mary to Scotland, her stubborn refusal to ratify that clause of the Treaty of Edinburgh by which she was to give up using the title of Queen of England, her quarrels with the reformers, and the long series of misfortunes and misdeeds which ended only with the tragedy of Fotheringay.

The failure of the marriage negotiations was taken as an insult by the Scots; and doubtless this accounts, to some extent, for the cordial way in which Mary, in spite of her adherence to the Church of Rome, was welcomed on her return from France. The project of uniting the kingdoms by a royal marriage was not again renewed in so definite a form; but during the numerous intrigues spread over so many years, the purpose of which was to find a husband for the Queen of Scots, the effect which her marriage would have upon the relations of England and Scotland was never lost sight of. If the suitor for her hand was a Protestant, he was favoured by those who desired to see peace between the two nations; if he was a Catholic, by those who desired a renewal of the French alliance, or at least a rupture with England.[36] Protestant or Catholic? that was the great question for England and Scotland then, as for the rest of Europe. Everything turned upon that. During Mary’s short sojourn at Holyrood, and during the long years of her captivity in England, everything—conspiracies against Elizabeth; the rise and fall of Regents in Scotland; the civil wars with all their treachery and bloodshed; the assassinations; the beheadings—every episode and every scheme, however disguised, was a part of the contest between the old faith and the new.

During these years of trouble the Protestants of the two countries drew gradually together; and in the year 1586 the kingdoms entered into a compact which lasted until the death of Elizabeth and the accession of James to the throne of England.

The Duke of Guise asked James of Scotland to join the Holy League. But to this invitation he returned no answer; and Sir Edward Wotton, who was sent as ambassador to the Court of Holyrood, found that James was ready to form an alliance with Elizabeth and Henry of Navarre in defence of the Protestant religion. A Scottish Parliament, which met at St. Andrews in July 1585, authorised the king and his Council to enter upon a league, more strict and firm than any previous league, between England and Scotland, which, the Estates said, were naturally allies, and were alike exposed to the assaults of the common enemy.[37] In the following year commissioners for both kingdoms met, and signed the League. It was agreed that the sovereigns of England and Scotland should defend the Protestant religion against all comers. There was to be an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the countries. If England was invaded at a point at a distance from Scotland, an army of seven thousand Scotsmen was to march to assist her. If Scotland was invaded at any place distant from England, twelve thousand Englishmen were to help her. If the invasion took place near the Borders, James was to send as many troops as he could muster to the spot. If any trouble arose in Ireland, none of the inhabitants of Scotland were to be permitted to go thither. Neither kingdom was to shelter rebels fleeing across the Border. All former treaties of friendship between the countries were to remain in force; and James bound himself to see, when he reached the age of