check on the dreams
of aggression which Francis and Mary had shown in assuming the style of
English Sovereigns. The English ambassador, Throckmorton, fed the alarms
of the Huguenots and pressed them to take up arms. It is probable that
the Huguenot plot which broke out in the March of 1560 in an attempt to
surprise the French Court at Amboise was known beforehand by Cecil; and,
though the conspiracy was ruthlessly suppressed, the Queen drew fresh
courage from a sense that the Guises had henceforth work for their
troops at home.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Edinburgh.]

At the end of March therefore Lord Grey pushed over the border with 8000
men to join the Lords of the Congregation in the siege of Leith. The
Scots gave little aid; and an assault on the town signally failed.
Philip too in a sudden jealousy of Elizabeth's growing strength demanded
the abandonment of the enterprise, and offered to warrant England
against any attack from the north if its forces were withdrawn. But
eager as Elizabeth was to preserve Philip's alliance, she preferred to
be her own security. She knew that the Spanish king could not abandon
her while Mary Stuart was queen of France, and that at the moment of his
remonstrances Philip was menacing the Guises with war if they carried
out their project of bringing about a Catholic rising by a descent on
the English coast. Nor were the threats of the French Court more
formidable. The bloody repression of the conspiracy of Amboise had only
fired the temper of the Huguenots; southern and western France were on
the verge of revolt; the House of Bourbon had adopted the reformed
faith, and put itself at the head of the Protestant movement. In the
face of dangers such as these the Guises could send to Leith neither
money nor men. Elizabeth therefore remained immoveable while famine did
its work on the town. At the crisis of the siege the death of Mary of
Guise threw the direct rule over Scotland into the hands of Francis and
Mary Stuart; and the exhaustion of the garrison forced the two
sovereigns to purchase its liberation by two treaties which their envoys
concluded at Edinburgh in June 1560. That with the Scotch pledged them
to withdraw for ever the French from the realm, and left the government
of Scotland to a Council of the Lords. The treaty with England was a
more difficult matter. Francis and Mary had forbidden their envoys to
sign any engagement with Elizabeth as to the Scottish realm, or to
consent to