The years from 1559 to 1567 were the most critical in the whole history of the Reformation. The existence of the Protestantism of all Europe was involved in the struggle in Scotland; and for the first and perhaps last time in her history the eyes that had the furthest vision, whether in Rome, for centuries the citadel of mediævalism, or in Geneva, the stronghold of Protestantism, were turned towards the little backward northern kingdom. They watched the birth-throes of a new nation, a British nation which was coming into being. Two peoples, long hereditary foes, were coalescing; the Romanists in England recognised the Scottish Queen as their legitimate sovereign, and the Protestants in Scotland looked for aid to their brethren in England. The question was: Would the new nation accept the Reformed religion, or would the reaction triumph? If Knox and the Congregation gained the upper hand in Scotland, and if Cecil was able to guide England in the way he meant to lead it (and the two men were necessary to each other, and knew it), then the Reformation was safe. If Scotland could be kept for France and the Roman Church, and its Romanist Queen make good her claim to the English throne, then the Reformation would be crushed not merely within Great Britain, but in Germany and the Low Countries also. So thought the politicians, secular and ecclesiastical, in Rome and Geneva, in Paris, Madrid, and in London. The European situation had been summed up by Cecil: "The Emperor is aiming at the sovereignty of Europe, which he cannot obtain without the suppression of the Reformed religion, and, unless he crushes England, he cannot crush the Reformation." In this peril a Scotland controlled by the Guises would have been fatal to the existence of the Reformation.