than his brother in obtaining
secular advantages.[538] In his favor Francis made use, in a manner
lavish beyond precedent, of the right of nomination to benefices secured
to the crown by the concordat. Even an age well accustomed to the abuse
of the plurality of offices was amazed to see John of Lorraine at one
and the same time Archbishop of Lyons, Rheims, and Narbonne, Bishop of
Metz, Toul, Verdun, Therouenne, Lucon, Alby, and Valence, and Abbot of
Gorze, Fecamp, Clugny, and Marmoutier.[539] To gratify the French
monarch, Pope Leo the Tenth added to the dignity of the young
ecclesiastic, by conferring upon him the Cardinal's hat a year or two
before he had attained his majority.[540] Shrewd and plausible, the
Cardinal of Lorraine, as he was henceforth called, contributed not a
little to his brother's rapid advancement; and, as it was well
understood that the rich benefices he held and the accumulation of his
wealth would go, at his death, to enrich his nephews, he was treated
with great deference by all the members of his brother's family.

[Sidenote: Marriage of James V. of Scotland to Mary of Lorraine.]

An important era in the history of the Guises is marked by the marriage
effected, in 1538, between James the Fifth of Scotland and Mary of
Lorraine, the eldest daughter of Claude. This royal alliance secured for
the Guises a predominant influence in North British affairs after the
death of James. It brought them into close connection with the crown of
France, when Mary, Queen of Scots, the fruit of this union, was
affianced to the son of Henry the Second, the dauphin, afterward Francis
the Second. It encouraged the adherents of this house to attribute to it
an almost regal dignity, and to intimate more and more plainly its claim
upon the throne of France, as descended through the Dukes of Lorraine
from Charlemagne--a title superior to that of the Valois, who could
trace their origin to no higher source than the usurper Hugh Capet.

[Sidenote: The duke's sons.]

[Sidenote: Francis of Guise.]

[Sidenote: Charles, Cardinal of Guise, and afterward of Lorraine.]

But the second generation of the Guises was destined to exert, during
the reign of Henry the Second, an influence more controlling than the
brothers Claude and John had exerted during his father's reign. The six
sons of Claude--all displaying the grasping disposition of the house
from which they sprang, all aiming at the acquisition of position and
wealth,