readiness to take the field as soon as
he should be, if not forced, at any rate naturally called upon, by any
unforeseen event. It cost Coligny, who was a man of scrupulous honor, a
great struggle to lightly break a truce he had just signed; nevertheless,
in January, 1557, when he heard that the French were engaged in Italy in
the war between the pope and the Spaniards, he did not consider that he
could possibly remain inactive in Flanders. He took by surprise the town
of Lens, between Lille and Arras. Philip II., on his side, had taken
measures for promptly entering upon the campaign. By his marriage with
Mary Tudor, Queen of England, he had secured for himself a powerful ally
in the north; the English Parliament were but little disposed to
compromise themselves in a war with France; but in March, 1557, Philip
went to London; the queen's influence and the distrust excited in England
by Henry II. prevailed over the pacific desires of the nation; and Mary
sent a simple herald to carry to the King of France at Rheims her
declaration of war. Henry accepted it politely, but resolutely.
"I speak to you in this way," said he to the herald, "because it is a
queen who sends you; had it been a king, I would speak to you in a very
different tone;" and he ordered him to be gone forthwith from the
kingdom. A negotiation was commenced for accomplishing the marriage,
long since agreed upon, between the young Queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart,
and Henry II.'s son, Francis, dauphin of France. Mary, who was born on
the 8th of December, 1542, at Falkland Castle in Scotland, had, since
1548, lived and received her education at the court of France, whither
her mother, Mary of Lorraine, eldest sister of Francis of Guise and
queen-dowager of Scotland, had lost no time in sending her as soon as the
future union between the two children had been agreed upon between the
two courts. The dauphin of France was a year younger than the Scottish
princess; but "from his childhood," says the Venetian Capello, "he has
been very much in love with her Most Serene little Highness the Queen of
Scotland, who is destined for his wife. It sometimes happens that, when
they are exchanging endearments, they like to retire quite apart into a
corner of the rooms, that their little secrets may not be overheard." On
the 19th of April, 1558, the espousals took place in the great hall of
the Louvre, and the marriage was celebrated in the church of Notre-Dame.

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