Mary’s evil fortunes began with her birth. Her dying father, heart- broken over a disastrous battle, lived only a week after his “poor lass,” as he called her, was born. Then Henry VIII. of England saw in this infant niece of his a means of uniting the two crowns, much in the way by which a wolf unites itself with the lamb it devours, by having a marriage contracted between her and his only son, Prince Edward. He sent negotiators to enforce, under threats, his project. There was much opposition amongst the Scottish nobility. It looked like surrendering their country to England. They said to Henry’s negotiators, “If your lad were a lass, and our lass were a lad, would you then be so earnest in this matter; and could you be content that our lad should, by marrying your lass, become King of England? No! your nation would never agree to have a Scot for King; and we will not have an Englishman as our King. And tho’ the whole nobility of the realm should consent thereto, yet the common people would rebel against it; the very boys would hurl stones, and the wives handle their distaffs against it.” Henry was wroth exceedingly, threatened war, and demanded the custody of the child-Queen. To have him for an ally against the Queen-Regent and her minister, the persecutor Beaton, the Reformers temporized, and the Scottish Parliament consented to the match; Mary to be sent to Henry when she was ten years old. In the meantime Henry got embroiled with France; and Scotland, under the influence of the Queen-Regent, allied itself with that country. Henry sent an army into Scotland. There were some Scottish successes; but at Pinkie, in 1547, the English general Somerset gained a complete victory. Before this event Henry had died; but his long cherished object, the possession of the child of Scotland, was still pressed, and now seemed on the point of attainment. But the Scottish people were irritated and alarmed to such a degree that they resolved to make the projected marriage impossible, by marrying their young mistress to the Dauphin of France, and sending her to be brought up at the French court. To this resolve Parliament gave a hasty assent; and in July 1548, the poor child, now in her sixth year, accompanied by her four Maries—girls her own age, of noble birth, her present play-fellows and future companions— was shipped off to France.