Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 11.djvu/245

 1581.] THE JESUITS IN SCOTLAND. 229 tinual challenge to liis resentment ; and though he could have borne it philosophically had Elizabeth adopted him in her place, it was a ground of quarrel which he could not but recognize, so long as he was treated as an alien and enemy. England was associated in his mind with Morton's despotism, with his dreary childhood at Stir- ling, with the- austere discipline which had denied him all amusement. Lennox and Lennox's friends had broken his fetters, changed his schoolbooks for the hunt- ing-field, and emancipated him from the lectures with which the ministers had dosed him from their pulpits. It was but natural that he should look to Lennox and his kinsmen in France, both for the enjoyment of his present freedom and the realization of his expectations for the future. The English alliance being gone, the next step was to renew the traditionary league with France. The conspirators would have preferred Spain, had circum- stances permitted; but an alliance between Scotland and Spain would have driven the French Court more absolutely upon England. The Duke of Guise being a knight of the order of St Esprit, which Henry III. had founded, affected to shrink from acting against his sovereign, and considered that Scotland judiciously handled might be the cement of the union between the Catholic powers, which the Pope so passionately desired, and which Guise, for the sake of France as well as of the general cause, was so eager to promote. France, it was perfectly certain, could not and would not permit Spain to act alone either in Scotland or in England.