Series 3 > Scottish correspondence of Mary of Lorraine

viii CORRESPONDENCE OF MARY OF LORRAINE
finally he was induced to believe that war was preferable
to a peace which might be rudely broken when Henry
saw his opportunity.’ 1 These brave hopes soon went
out in gloom. Hard upon the disaster of Solway Moss
followed the death of James v., bequeathing to his infant
daughter a kingdom divided against itself and a heritage
of strife.
Scotland, rent by heresy and unrest, seemed likely to
fall an easy prey to the snares of England. The Corre¬
spondence, which shows how this fate was avoided, like¬
wise indicates a strange cycle in the affairs of history—•
an intermingling, as it were, of destiny and human
agency. It is seen that Scotland escaped from the nets
of England only to be enmeshed in the toils of France,
until, in the end, she cut the strangling bond with the help
of an English knife.
Politically, the cycle was complete. The Auld Alliance
had died a violent death, and in its place there was born
a new friendship between the auld enemies. Nationalism
and religion were the two pillars of the bridge that spanned
the gulf between the sister kingdoms. The Correspond¬
ence traces an ecclesiastical, no less than a political, cycle
of events. As far as England was concerned, it was
nationalism, identified with the Protestant succession,
that forced the hand of Elizabeth to support the Scots
insurgents. In Scotland, at the beginning of the period,
the Roman Church was identified with the cause of inde¬
pendence : at the end of the period the movement of the
Reformation swept away the barriers of opposition on the
flood tide of patriotism.
Nationalism, indeed, is the dominant note struck by
the Correspondence. It was perhaps inevitable that
politics should crowd the canvas to the exclusion of
1 Papal Legate in Scotland, S.H.R. xi. 2.