ligion. It was the fight,
not of French factions, but of Protestantism and Catholicism, that was
to be fought out on the fields of France. The two warring elements of
Protestantism were represented in the Huguenot camp where German
Lutherans stood side by side with the French Calvinists. On the other
hand the French Catholics were backed by soldiers from the Catholic
cantons of Switzerland, from the Catholic states of Germany, from
Catholic Italy, and from Catholic Spain. The encounter was a desperate
one, but it ended in a virtual triumph for the Guises. While the German
troops of Coligni clung to the Norman coast in the hope of subsidies
from Elizabeth, the Duke of Guise was able to march at the opening of
1563 on the Loire, and form the siege of Orleans.

[Sidenote: Mary and Protestantism.]

In Scotland Mary Stuart was watching her uncle's progress with
ever-growing hope. The policy of Murray had failed in the end to which
she mainly looked. Her acceptance of the new religion, her submission to
the Lords of the Congregation, had secured her a welcome in Scotland and
gathered the Scotch people round her standard. But it had done nothing
for her on the other side of the border. Two years had gone by, and any
recognition of her right of succession to the English crown seemed as
far off as ever. But Murray's policy was far from being Mary's only
resource. She had never surrendered herself in more than outer show to
her brother's schemes. In heart she had never ceased to be a bigoted
Catholic, resolute for the suppression of Protestantism as soon as her
toleration of it had given her strength enough for the work. It was this
that made the strife between the two Queens of such terrible moment for
English freedom. Elizabeth was fighting for more than personal ends. She
was fighting for more than her own occupation of the English throne.
Consciously or unconsciously she was struggling to avert from England
the rule of a Queen who would have undone the whole religious work of
the past half-century, who would have swept England back into the tide
of Catholicism, and who in doing this would have blighted and crippled
its national energies at the very moment of their mightiest
developement. It was the presence of such a danger that sharpened the
eyes of Protestants on both sides the border. However she might tolerate
the reformed religion or hold out hopes of her compliance with a
reformed worship, no earnest Protestant either