e factions had obliged them to remit their
efforts in Scotland, and had been one chief cause of Elizabeth's
success, were determined not to relinquish their authority in France,
or yield to the violence of their enemies. They found an opportunity
of seizing the king of Navarre and the prince of Conde; they threw
the former into prison; they obtained a sentence of death against the
latter; and they were proceeding to put the sentence in execution, when
the king's sudden death saved the noble prisoner, and interrupted the
prosperity of the duke of Guise. The queen mother was appointed regent
to her son Charles IX., now in his minority: the king of Navarre was
named lieutenant-general of the kingdom: the sentence against Conde was
annulled: the constable was recalled to court: and the family of
Guise, though they still enjoyed great offices and great power, found a
counterpoise to their authority.

* Forbes, vol. i. p. 214. Throgmorton, about this time,
unwilling to intrust to letters the great secrets committed
to him, obtained leave, under some pretext, to come over to
London.

{1561.} Elizabeth was determined to make advantage of these events
against the queen of Scots, whom she still regarded as a dangerous
rival. She saw herself freed from the perils attending a union of
Scotland with France, and from the pretensions of so powerful a prince
as Francis; but she considered, at the same time, that the English
Catholics, who were numerous, and who were generally prejudiced in favor
of Mary's title, would now adhere to that princess with more zealous
attachment, when they saw that her succession no longer endangered the
liberties of the kingdom, and was rather attended with the advantage of
effecting an entire union with Scotland. She gave orders, therefore, to
her ambassador, Throgmorton, a vigilant and able minister, to renew his
applications to the queen of Scots, and to require her ratification
of the treaty of Edinburgh. But though Mary had desisted, after her
husband's death, from bearing the arms and title of Queen of England,
she still declined gratifying Elizabeth in this momentous article; and
being swayed by the ambitious suggestions of her uncles, she refused to
make any formal renunciation of her pretensions.

Meanwhile the queen mother of France, who imputed to Mary all the
mortifications which she had met with during Francis's lifetime, took
care to retaliate on her by like injuries; a