keep them would be impossible. Sheer necessity forbade Philip to suffer
the union of the three crowns of the west on the head of a French king;
and the French marriage of Mary Stuart pledged him to oppose her
pretensions and support Elizabeth's throne. For a moment he even dreamed
of meeting the union of France with Scotland by that union of England
with Spain which had been seen under Mary. He offered Elizabeth his
hand. The match was a more natural one than Philip's union with her
sister, for the young king's age was not far from her own. The offer
however was courteously put aside, for Elizabeth had no purpose of
lending England to the ambition of Spain, nor was it possible for her to
repeat her sister's unpopular experiment. But Philip remained firm in
his support of her throne. He secured for her the allegiance of the
Catholics within her realm, who looked to him as their friend while they
distrusted France as an ally of heretics. His envoys supported her cause
in the negotiations at Cateau-Cambresis; he suffered her to borrow money
and provide herself with arms in his provinces of the Netherlands. At
such a crisis Elizabeth could not afford to alienate Philip by changes
which would roughly dispel his hopes of retaining her within the bounds
of Catholicism.

[Sidenote: Elizabeth and the Papacy.]

Nor is there any sign that Elizabeth had resolved on a defiance of the
Papacy. She was firm indeed to assert her father's claim of supremacy
over the clergy and her own title to the throne. But the difficulties in
the way of an accommodation on these points were such as could be
settled by negotiation; and, acting on Cecil's counsel, Elizabeth
announced her accession to the Pope. The announcement showed her purpose
of making no violent break in the relations of England with the Papal
See. But between Elizabeth and the Papacy lay the fatal question of the
Divorce. To acknowledge the young Queen was not only to own her mother's
marriage, but to cancel the solemn judgement of the Holy See in
Catharine's favour and its solemn assertion of her own bastardy. The
temper of Paul the Fourth took fire at the news. He reproached Elizabeth
with her presumption in ascending the throne, recalled the Papal
judgement which pronounced her illegitimate, and summoned her to submit
her claims to his tribunal. Much of this indignation was no doubt merely
diplomatic. If the Pope listened to the claims of Mary Stuart, which
were urged on him