Nor were Somerset's activities confined to the campaign against "idolatry," a term conveniently used to include any observances which, in the eyes of the Swiss school, savoured of superstition. With no sense of the limitations of his own intelligence, no suspicion of the subtle skill in adjustment needed at all times to impose ideals on a materially minded community, unable to realise that though his object might be excellent the methods adopted in achieving it might be fruitful of unexpected evils, he conceived in his arrogant self-confidence that he had but to say the word and difficulties would vanish. He resolved to appear as the Poor Man's Friend, establishing a Court of Requests in his own house so that appeal might be made personally to him from the normal processes of the Law; also, he appointed a commission to investigate and deal with that evasion of the agricultural statutes which he imagined to be the actual cause of the prevailing distress. The end in view was admirable, the method high-handed and unconstitutional: the policy won him popularity for the time among the depressed classes, but roused the enmity of nobility and gentry without achieving useful results. [Sidenote: The French in Scotland] Meanwhile, affairs in Scotland were aggravating the tension with France, where the proposal to marry the Scots Queen to the French Dauphin was approved. English troops harried the borders, and in the course of the spring captured and garrisoned Haddington. French troops were landed in Scotland, and the marriage proposal was formally ratified; in spite of a belated offer from the Protector to leave Scotland alone and postpone his own marriage scheme till Edward and Mary were old enough to have views of their own, provided that Scotland would hold aloof from France. French ships, evading the English by sailing round the Orkneys, took Mary on board on the west coast and carried her off in safety to France. A diplomatist would have seized the chance of reviving an English party, when it was found that a violent animosity was growing up between the Scots and the French troops; but the opportunity was allowed to pass, and the animosities were reconciled by some minor successes of Scots and French together against the English: while privateering operations--in other words, authorised piracy--were going on in and near the Channel, which amounted to something not far removed from a state of war between France and England. [Sidenote: The Augsburg Interim]