Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 36.djvu/400

Mary of Guise ii. 94). In the summer of 1551 she accompanied Henry in his progress to Nantes and back to Fontainebleau (, p. 239). The question of the money necessary for Scottish purposes had not been easy to settle, and the treasury officials wished Scotland i were in a fish pool,' Leaving her followers in Paris, Mary paid a visit to her recently widowed mother at Joinville; her father had died in April. Her return to Scotland was delayed by reports that the emperor had sent a squadron to take her, and by the illness and death on 22 Sept., before he was sixteen, of her only surviving son by her first marriage, Francis, duke of Longueville, called 'Le Petit Duc' (Journal of Edward VI, ed. Clarendon Hist. Soc, p. 44;, Les Ducs de Guise). Leaving Dieppe late in October she was driven by a storm into Portsmouth, and sent word to Edward VI that she would take the benefit of the safe-conduct, which he had already given her, to go by land to see him. Arriving by easy stages at Hampton Court, on 31 Oct., she spent a week there and at the bishop's palace in the city, dining in state with the king at Westminster on 4 Nov. (ib. pp. 50-1; , Diary, p. 11). Knox (i. 243; cf. , ''Eccles. Memorials'', ii. 284) puts in her mouth somewhat hyperbolical praise of Edward. Leaving London on the 6th, she reached Scotland about the 24th (, vi. 377; cf. Diurnal, p. 51).

A principal object of her visit to France, according to Lesley (pp. 237-8), was to obtain the governor's post for herself. But the governor refused to lay down his power until the little queen should reach the age of twelve, when she would be able to dispose of it as she pleased. When the French chose to consider Mary as of age on entering her twelfth year, they induced her to transfer the regency to her mother, and the governor reluctantly yielded (Journal of Edward VI, p. 83;, i. 261; , Works, i. 242 n.) In a parliament at Edinburgh on 12 April 1554 he resigned his authority on receiving security for his rights as second person and heir-presumptive; the queen-dowager took his place, and according to Knox (i. 242) 'a crowne was putt upon hir head, als semlye a sight (yf men had eis) as to putt a sadill upoun the back of ane unruly kow' (cf. Acta Parl. Scot. ii. 601).

Mary of Guise was devoted to the interests of her family, and was bent upon bringing the government of Scotland into line with the policy of her brothers the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine. But at first circumstances dictated temporising and conciliatory courses. Their immediate object was to secure the conclusion of the marriage between the dauphin Francis and her daughter Mary. They had to reckon with the more or less open opposition of their rival, the Constable Montmorency, in France, and of Arran, now Duke of Chatelherault, and his brother, Archbishop Hamilton of St. Andrews in Scotland (, pp. 72-3, 78). As the archbishop carried the prelates with him, Mary could not dispense with the support of Cassillis, Glencairn, and the other anti-clerical lords, and was obliged to temporise with their proteges the protestant preachers. They were not likely to protest when she virtually superseded the catholic Huntly [see, fourth ] as chancellor by entrusting the seal to M. de Roubay, though the committal of other chief offices of state to Frenchmen and the confidence she placed in De Houbay and D'Oysel doubtless caused them more inquietude (, Calendar of Foreign State Papers, 1668, vol. ii.) The first years of her regency conformed to the advice of the Duke of Guise in 1655, 'to deal in Scotland in a spirit of conciliation, introducing much gentleness and moderation into the administration of justice,' which she reformed with the advice of Henry Sinclair, dean of Glasgow, in a parliament at Edinburgh in the following June (, i. 721; , vi. 63). It was not until Philip of Spain in 1557 drew Mary of England into his war against France that the regent's French policy brought her into conflict with the Scots. Although she had exchanged assurances of inviolable amity with Queen Mary Tudor on her accession, and concluded a treaty with her in July 1557 (, i. 104), she provoked a war with England in the late summer of that year. She had endeavoured some time before to substitute for the Scottish feudal forces an army paid by a sort of scutage, but she had failed in her efforts. Now the feudal force refused in September to invade England, and she was forced to dismiss it with angry tears (, p. 255;, vi. 66-7). With this recalcitrance was coupled the rapid and aggressive growth of protestantism. Knox, whom she nettled in 1555 by her contemptuous reception of his letter appealing to her to hear the word of God, was the real author of the bond or covenant of 3 Dec. 1557, in which Glencairn, Argyll and his eldest son Lord Lorne, Morton, and Erskine of Dun proclaimed open war upon the established religion. The conclusion of the marriage between her daughter and the dauphin on 24 April 1558 for the moment eased her position.

Knox insinuates that Mary, having nothing further to fear from Archbishop Hamilton