History of the English People, Volume IV | Page 8

palace to palace till at the opening of
December the tidings met him at Falkland that his queen, Mary of
Guise, had given birth to a child. His two boys had both died in youth,
and he was longing passionately for an heir to the crown which was
slipping from his grasp. But the child was a daughter, the Mary Stuart
of later history. "The deil go with it," muttered the dying king, as his
mind fell back to the close of the line of Bruce and the marriage with

Robert's daughter which brought the Stuarts to the Scottish throne,
"The deil go with it! It will end as it began. It came with a lass, and it
will go with a lass." A few days later he died.
[Sidenote: The Marriage Treaty.]
The death of James did more than remove a formidable foe. It opened
up for the first time a prospect of that union of the two kingdoms which
was at last to close their long hostility. Scotland, torn by factions and
with a babe for queen, seemed to lie at Henry's feet: and the king seized
the opportunity of completing his father's work by a union of the realms.
At the opening of 1543 he proposed to the Scotch regent, the Earl of
Arran, the marriage of the infant Mary Stuart with his son Edward. To
ensure this bridal he demanded that Mary should at once be sent to
England, the four great fortresses of Scotland be placed in English
hands, and a voice given to Henry himself in the administration of the
Scotch Council of Regency. Arran and the Queen-mother, rivals as they
were, vied with each other in apparent goodwill to the marriage; but
there was a steady refusal to break the league with France, and the
"English lords," as the Douglas faction were called, owned themselves
helpless in the face of the national jealousy of English ambition. The
temper of the nation itself was seen in the answer made by the Scotch
Parliament which gathered in the spring. If they consented to the young
Queen's betrothal, they not only rejected the demands which
accompanied the proposal, but insisted that in case of such a union
Scotland should have a perpetual regent of its own, and that this office
should be hereditary in the House of Arran. Warned by his very
partizans that the delivery of Mary was impossible, that if such a
demand were pressed "there was not so little a boy but he would hurl
stones against it, the wives would handle their distaffs, and the
commons would universally die in it," Henry's proposals dropped in
July to a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, he suffered France
to be included among the allies of Scotland named in it, he consented
that the young Queen should remain with her mother till the age of ten,
and offered guarantees for the maintenance of Scotch independence.
[Sidenote: Scotland and France.]

But modify it as he might, Henry knew that such a project of union
could only be carried out by a war with Francis. His negotiations for a
treaty with Charles had long been delayed through Henry's wish to drag
the Emperor into an open breach with the Papacy, but at the moment of
the King's first proposals for the marriage of Mary Stuart with his son
the need of finding a check upon France forced on a formal alliance
with the Emperor in February 1543. The two allies agreed that the war
should be continued till the Duchy of Burgundy had been restored to
the Emperor and till England had recovered Normandy and Guienne;
while the joint fleets of Henry and Charles held the Channel and
sheltered England from any danger of French attack. The main end of
this treaty was doubtless to give Francis work at home which might
prevent the despatch of a French force into Scotland and the overthrow
of Henry's hopes of a Scotch marriage. These hopes were strengthened
as the summer went on by the acceptance of his later proposals in a
Parliament which was packed by the Regent, and by the actual
conclusion of a marriage-treaty. But if Francis could spare neither horse
nor man for action in Scotland his influence in the northern kingdom
was strong enough to foil Henry's plans. The Churchmen were as
bitterly opposed to such a marriage as the partizans of France; and their
head, Cardinal Beaton, who had held aloof from the Regent's
Parliament, suddenly seized the Queen-mother and her babe, crowned
the infant Mary, called a Parliament in December which annulled the
marriage-treaty, and set Henry at defiance.
[Sidenote: War with France.]
The king's wrath at this overthrow of his hopes showed itself in a brutal
and impolitic act of vengeance. He was