the Queen-mother, rivals as
they were, vied with each other in apparent goodwill to the marriage;
but there was a steady refusal to break the league with France, and the
"English lords," as the Douglas faction were called, owned themselves
helpless in the face of the national jealousy of English ambition. The
temper of the nation itself was seen in the answer made by the Scotch
Parliament which gathered in the spring. If they consented to the young
Queen's betrothal, they not only rejected the demands which accompanied
the proposal, but insisted that in case of such a union Scotland should
have a perpetual regent of its own, and that this office should be
hereditary in the House of Arran. Warned by his very partizans that the
delivery of Mary was impossible, that if such a demand were pressed
"there was not so little a boy but he would hurl stones against it, the
wives would handle their distaffs, and the commons would universally die
in it," Henry's proposals dropped in July to a treaty of alliance,
offensive and defensive, he suffered France to be included among the
allies of Scotland named in it, he consented that the young Queen should
remain with her mother till the age of ten, and offered guarantees for
the maintenance of Scotch independence.

[Sidenote: Scotland and France.]

But modify it as he might, Henry knew that such a project of union could
only be carried out by a war with Francis. His negotiations for a treaty
with Charles had long been delayed through Henry's wish to drag the
Emperor into an open breach with the Papacy, but at the moment of the
King's first proposals for the marriage of Mary Stuart with his son the
need of finding a check upon France forced on a formal alliance with the
Emperor in February 1543. The two allies agreed that the war should be
continued till the Duchy of Burgundy had been restored to the Emperor
and till England had recovered Normandy and Guienne; while the joint
fleets of Henry and Charles held the Channel and sheltered England from
any danger of French attack. The main end of this treaty was doubtless
to give Francis work at home which might prevent the despatch of a
French force into Scotland and the overthrow of Henry's hopes of a
Scotch marriage. These hopes were strengthened as the summer went on by
the acceptance of his later proposals in a Parliament which was packed
by the Regent, and by the actual conclusion of a marriage-treaty. But if
Francis could spare neith