e. He sought to avenge his father's
loss of Metz, and persuaded his English wife to join him in war against
young Henry II. With his splendid Spanish troops Philip won a great
victory at St. Quentin.[1] "Has he yet taken Paris?" cried his father
eagerly when the news reached his secluded monastery. But Philip had
not, he had erred from over-caution and given France time to recover.
Two able generals, the great Protestant leader Coligny, and the dashing
Catholic hero of Metz, Francis of Guise, held the Spaniards in check.
Guise even seized Calais, and so snatched from England her last
territory in France (1558). Its loss filled full the measure of poor
Mary's unpopularity with her subjects and also of her own unhappiness.
She had sacrificed everything for love of a husband who had no love for
her. She died the same year. "They will find 'Calais,'" she said,
"engraven on my heart."[2]

[1] See _Battle of St. Quentin_, page 1.

[2] See _England Loses Her Last French Territory_, page 1.

Her Protestant sister, Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, succeeded to
the throne, and England with a cry of relief threw off the hated Spanish
alliance. She was free again. Free, but in infinite danger. The Catholic
Pope and Catholic Philip, remembering that the divorce under which Henry
VIII married Anne Boleyn had never been admitted by the Church, declared
Elizabeth illegitimate, and pointed to her cousin Mary Stuart of
Scotland as the lawful ruler of England. Mary had been married to the
French prince Francis II, who at this moment succeeded his father Henry
II as king of France. Here was a chance indeed for Spain and France and
Scotland all three to unite against Elizabeth and place a second
Catholic Mary on England's throne. Many Englishmen themselves were still
Catholic, and might easily have been persuaded to approve the change.
That Elizabeth, by her cool and cunning diplomacy, managed to evade the
threatened danger, has ever been held as little short of providential by
the Protestants of the world.[3] In truth, however, each of the powers
which might have assailed Elizabeth, had religious difficulties of its
own to encounter.

[3] See _Reign of Elizabeth_, page 8.

In Scotland there was civil war. The Protestant faith had been slow of
introduction there, but under the leadership of John Knox it had become
at length supreme.[4] The Regent, mother of the young queen, Mary
Stuart, had French troops to aid her