Mary was a Catholic, and her present title to the Crown appeared to most English Catholics to be better than that of Elizabeth herself; and thus she was likely to become, even without her own consent, if need were, the natural head of the Catholic party in England, and the centre of all their hopes. But that her own consent was not wanting was amply shown by the fact that she and her husband had already assumed the arms and titles of King and Queen of England. Individually, moreover, Mary of Scotland, if once acknowledged as a rival, was the most formidable rival that can be imagined. She is one of those few characters in history the charm of whose personality has been such as to enlist an enthusiastic party in her favour in despite of the most odious crimes, and to retain it to remote generations. She was acknowledged in her lifetime—whatever modern criticism of old portraits may say to the contrary—as the most beautiful woman of her time. She was highly educated and variously accomplished. Intellectually clever, shrewd, and capable, she was on a level with the ablest politicians and statesmen of her time, and she possessed in perfection that fascination and charm of manner which is more effective than beauty itself. To all these womanly graces she added brilliant health, wonderful physical strength and activity, and that light-hearted courage and natural contempt of danger which, in a man, makes a leader the idol of his soldiers, and which, when found in a woman, never fails to arouse the wildest enthusiasm and devotion. Such, then, with the whole power of France at her back, was Elizabeth's most formidable foe.
Her only ally was Philip of Spain. Yet the very circumstances which determined her policy at home,
