THE ERA OF THE COUNTER-REFORMATION 265 party. The tragic story of her reign, the ill-fated marriage with her cousin Darnley v his murder and her marriage with his murderer, her enforced abdication in favour of her infant son, the rally of her supporters and her flight to England, form a painful and picturesque episode in Scottish history. For nearly twenty years she remained a prisoner in England, the centre of every plot for the removal of Elizabeth" and for the restoration of a Romanist monarchy. Meanwhile the Protestant lords governed Scotland, and in England Romanism was more and more identified, both by the government and in popular opinion, with disloyalty. For fifty years after the death of Charles v. the interest of European history is fixed upon the struggle between Spain and the Netherlands, between Spain and England, and centre of between Catholics and Huguenots in France, interest. These three struggles are perpetually overlapping each other and becoming involved together, while in all three the pre- dominant element is sometimes religious and sometimes political. In France throughout the reigns of Francis 1. and Henry 11. the Crown had constantly repressed the Huguenots while it was quite ready to ally itself with Protestants against 2. France : Catholics abroad. On the other hand many of the The Hugue- nobles were Huguenots by conviction, and many others hoped to gain power for themselves by supporting the Huguenots. The Bourbon or Navarre branch of the royal family which stood next in succession to the throne after the sons of Henry 11. took the Huguenot side, on which the greatest name was that of Admiral Coligny. At the head of the other party was the powerful family of Guise, whose chief was the most popular and successful soldier in France. It was for a long time the policy of Catherine de Medici, the Queen Mother, to prevent either party from being crushed, lest the control of the government should pass from her own hands into those of its chiefs. Foreign policy, however, was dominated by the fear of Spain, and therefore by an inclination to support the Protestant powers and Protestant rulers in antagonism to Spain.
