444 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 66. the offers of Lord Seton, but her preference was still for the alliance with Elizabeth, if that alliance could be maintained. Her own and her son's influence in Europe, and even their authority in France, depended on the continuance of the balance which had hitherto been hardly preserved. If once the Protestants combined, and the war of religion broke out, the chieftainship of the two great parties must devolve on Elizabeth and Philip, and the temporizing uncertain House of Valois would be inevitably shipwrecked. Philip had still to settle with Henry for Alencon's proceedings in the Low Countries, and the day of reckoning would assuredly come vith the completion of Parma's reconquest. The object from the French point of view therefore was a triple union between France, England, and Scotland, to which Mary Stuart and James should be parties in op- position to Spain and to Spanish influences. Mauvissiere, from the first moment of the troubles of Scotland, had never ceased to urge this solution of the situation. He undertook himself to reconcile all quarrels there if the Queen would allow him to go to Edinburgh. Alencon, though not yet dead, was notoriously dying ; and if the completion of the treaty with the Queen of Scots and her consequent release was to be one condition, the recognition of the King of Navarre as heir-presumptive in France was to be another. There was much to be said in favour of such a policy, especially when the alternative was a gigantic convulsion of which no one could foresee the end. Could Mary Stuart and James be depended on, no pru-
