Stuart dynasty

140 THE STUART DYNASTY.
flexible Hamilton for loss of dignity and power at
home.*
Four years later, on April 24, 1558, the Scottish
Queen married the Dauphin of France, who was
destined in a few months' time to become
Francis IT.
Henry II. being accidentally wounded in a tourna-
ment in July 1559 by the Count de Montgomery,
died in a few days, and consequently Mary
and Francis were hailed King and Queen of
France.
Fatal prospect apparently for those who hoped for
unity of the English and Scotch crowns, and the
peaceful establishment of Protestantism in those
countries !
Mary, acting under the prompting of her uncles
the Cruises — one of whom, the Cardinal of Lorraine,
became First Minister, and his brother, the Duke of
Cruise, Commander-in-Chief — took the fatal step of
quartering the arms of England with her own, by
which means the jealousy of Elizabeth and enmity
of English statesmen were speedily to be aroused ;
as although France had won the long struggle for
Mary's hand, her ministers must have expected
sooner or later to reckon with the might of England.
And this because there were potent signs which led
to the belief that the Marian persecutions in England
were not fated to issue in the final establishment
of Roman Catholicism in that county, so that when
Mary Tudor died in November 1558, and Elizabeth
* Burke's ' Peerage,' p. ii.