8. The Treaty of Edinburgh. 1560.—In spite of Cecil's urgency Elizabeth was slow to assist the Scottish rebels. For some months Mary of Guise had been gathering French troops to her support, and she at last had a foreign army at her command powerful enough to make her mistress of Scotland, and to form the nucleus of a larger force which might afterwards be sufficiently powerful to make her mistress of England. This was more than Elizabeth could bear, and in January 1560 she sent her fleet with troops to the help of the Lords of the Congregation. The French retreated into Leith, where they were besieged by the allied forces. In June the Regent died, and in July Leith surrendered. By a treaty signed at Edinburgh the French agreed to leave Scotland, and to acknowledge Elizabeth's title to the English crown. In December Francis II. died, and as his brother, who succeeded him as Charles IX., was too young to govern, his mother, Catherine de Medicis, acted as regent. Catherine was jealous of the Duke of Guise, and also of his niece, Mary Stuart, the widow of her eldest son.[13] Mary, finding no longer a home in France, was driven for refuge to her own unruly realm of Scotland.
9. Scottish Presbyterianism. 1561.—The Scots had not failed to profit by the cessation of authority following on the death of Mary of Guise. They disclaimed the authority of the Pope and made it punishable to attend mass, the penalty for the third offence being death. The English Reformation had been the work of the king and of the clergy of the Renascence, and had, therefore, been carried on under the form of law. The Scottish Reformation had been the revolutionary work of the nobility and of the Calvinistic clergy. In England the power of the State had been strengthened. In Scotland it was weakened. Almost from the beginning the nobles who had taken part in the revolution showed signs of disagreement. A few of them were earnest Protestants, but there were more who cared only for political or personal ends. "I have lived many years," said the aged Lord Lindsay; "now that it hath pleased God to let me see this day ... I will say with Simeon, 'Now lettest Thou thy servant depart in peace.' "Hey then!" said Maitland of Lethington sarcastically, when he heard that the clergy claimed to govern the Church and own its property in the place of the bishops, "we may all bear the barrow now to build the house of the Lord." Knox organised the Church on a democratic and Presbyterian basis with Church Courts composed of the minister and lay elders in every parish, with representative Presbyteries in every group of parishes, and with a representative General Assembly for all Scotland. Like a prophet of old, Knox bitterly denounced those who laid a finger on the Church's discipline. The nobles let him do as he would as far as religion was concerned, but they insisted on retaining nominal bishops, not to rule the Church, but to hold the Church lands and pass the rents over to themselves.
A 'milled' half-sovereign of Elizabeth, 1562-1568.
10. Mary and Elizabeth. 1561.—In August 1561 Mary landed in Scotland, having come by sea because Elizabeth refused to allow her to pass through England unless she would renounce her claim to the English crown. Mary would perhaps have yielded if Elizabeth would have named her as her successor. Elizabeth would do nothing of the kind. She had a special dislike to fixing on any one as her successor. About this time she threw into prison Lady Catherine Grey for committing the offence of marrying without her leave. Lady Catherine was the next sister of Lady Jane Grey, and therefore Elizabeth's heir if the will of Henry VIII. in favour of the Suffolk line (see p. [410]) was to be held binding. Elizabeth no doubt had a political object in showing no favour to either of her expectant heirs. By encouraging Catherine's hopes she would drive her Catholic subjects to desperation. By encouraging Mary's she would drive her Protestant subjects to desperation. Yet there was also strong personal feeling to account for her conduct. She was resolved never to marry, however much her resolution might cost her. Yet she too was a very woman, hungry for manly companionship and care, and, though a politician to the core, was saddened and soured by the suppression of her womanly nature. To give herself a husband was to give herself a master, yet she dallied with the offers made to her, surely not from political craft alone. The thought of marriage, abhorrent to her brain, was pleasant to her heart, and she could not lightly speak the positive word of rejection. Even now, in the vain thought that she might rule a subject, even if she became his wife, she was toying with Lord Robert Dudley, the handsome and worthless son of the base Northumberland. So far did she carry her flirtations that tales against her fair fame were spread abroad, but marry him she never did. Her treatment of the Lady Catherine was doubtless caused far less by her fear of the claims of the Suffolk line than by her reluctance to think of one so near to her as a happy wife, and as years grew upon her she bore hardly on those around her who refused to live in that state of maidenhood which she had inflicted on herself.