Series 3 > Scottish correspondence of Mary of Lorraine

260 THE SCOTTISH CORRESPONDENCE OF
the demands of individuals, the exhausted country had
to be succoured with French finances.
In so far as this gave to the war the appearance of a
family concern of the House of Guise, it inevitably added
to the difficulties of the Dowager’s position in Scotland.
She threw herself heart and soul into the struggle, as one
whose fortunes were at stake upon the issues. De Beaugue
extols her inspiring enthusiasm and public-spiritedness :
the Correspondence, in less romantic vein, indicates that
all her interests were indeed absorbed in the prosecution
of the war. Lady Home, Methven and Alexander Gordon
alike show that she kept in close touch with the progress
of events. She used bribery, expostulation and exhorta¬
tion to hold her followers at her command and call; while
she kept a vigilant espionage upon the movements of the
enemy. [No. CCVIII.]
When, however, the time came to strike a vital blow,
she was burdened with ‘ affarris and cummerris ’ at home.
[No. CCXIX.] Some, at least, of these cares arose out of
the growing ill-will between the French and Scots : she
might well be peculiarly sensitive to a discord which was
of portentous import for herself. On the other hand,
quite apart from her personal anxieties, there was sound
reason for her pressing demand for financial help, and for
the urgency of the despatch of Alexander Gordon to
France in October 1549.
The Dowager, watching events with an unsleeping eye,
knew that the hour had come for action. The plague-
stricken town of Haddington had been evacuated about
the middle of September, and Somerset’s administration
was tottering to its fall. His laborious effort to secure
the alliance of the Emperor had notoriously collapsed :
the outworks of Boulogne had fallen to the French :
England itself was in the throes of economic and social
upheaval, and of religious discontent: Scotland, for all