Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/335



N the retreat of the English army a convention of the Estates assembled at Stirling; the young Queen was sent, under the care of Lord Erskine, to the impregnable fortress of Dumbarton, and while the Protector was expecting to hear of the arrival of commissioners at Berwick to ask for peace, couriers were hastening to France with an offer of Mary and the Scottish crown to the Dauphin. The Protector, when he learnt what they had done, made a fresh appeal to Scottish good feeling. He insisted that the marriage of Edward and Mary was obviously intended by Providence. England did not wish for conquest—it desired only union. It won battles and offered friendship, love, peace, equality, and amity. The Scots and English were shut up in one small island apart from the world; they were alike in blood, manners, form, and language—it was monstrous that they should continue to regard one another with mortal hatred. It would be better for the Scots to be conquered by England than succoured by France: conquered or unconquered, England only