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 expected arrival from France of a relieving fleet under the Marquis d'Elbeuf. This fleet, however, was dispersed by a storm, and obliged to return to France; and Francis II., realising the difficulty of conducting operations at so great a distance from his bases, and the probability that, in spite of all his efforts, Leith would fall sooner or later, came to terms.

The Treaty of Edinburgh, signed on July 6th, 1560, procured the evacuation of Scotland by French troops, the razing of the fortifications of Leith and Dunbar, and the payment of a fine for Mary's blazoning of the arms of England with those of Scotland and France.

Mary declined to be a party to this arrangement; but as her husband, Francis II., died on December 5th, 1560, and as France was thenceforward less intimately concerned with the affairs of Scotland, Mary's refusal gained her nothing. Indeed, a full and frank concession of the English demands in 1560 might have spared her the long tragedy which ended at Fotheringay in 1587. Mary returned to Scotland from France in August, 1561. An English squadron, then at sea, is generally supposed to have received orders to intercept her, in order that she might be detained in England until she should ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh; but she was not sighted by it, and she landed without any interference.

It was ever part of Elizabeth's policy to encourage and support the Protestant party on the continent. After the accession of Charles IX. to the throne of France, the long growing tension between the Protestants and Catholics in France reached breaking point; and in 1562, as a consequence of the massacre of Vassy, religious war broke out there. As the chief strength of the Protestants lay along the north-west coasts of the country, the civil war extended to the Channel, whither each party dispatched numerous privateers. Most of these vessels confused piracy with their privateering, and the trade of neutrals suffered so intolerably that Elizabeth found no difficulty in discovering a pretext for lending material support to the Huguenots. They had long begged for her assistance, and had offered to put the port of Le Hâvre into her hands. In 1562, therefore, she accepted the offer, and in