It was the downfall of Moray, and, as Knox points out, of the whole temporising Protestant policy since the Queen came to Scotland. Moray saw that clearly enough, and confederating with a number of the other Lords to protest against the marriage and the proposed kingship, the whole party were within three months driven out of Scotland by the energy of the Queen. In the field, Knox confesses, 'her courage increased manlike so much, that she was ever with the foremost.' And in her proclamation she frankly made it her case against the recalcitrant nobility 'that the establishment of Religion will not content them, but we must be forced to govern by Council, such as it shall please them to appoint us; a thing so far beyond all measure, that we think the only mention of so unreasonable a demand is sufficient ... for what other thing is this but to dissolve the whole policy, and in a manner to invert the very order of nature, to make the Prince obey and subjects command?' For now the triumph of absolutism and of Rizzio, as the Papal agent, was complete--more so than Moray or Knox knew. France and Spain, long divided, seemed at last to be working together for the faith. And the greatest of European monarchs, though he declined to wed his heir in Scotland, had by no means abandoned the cause there. On the contrary, in this very spring of 1565, while the Darnley-marriage was preparing, the savage Alva and Granvelle were laying down at Bayonne, by Philip's authority, the first lines of the plan for sending an Armada against Protestant England, in order to place Mary on its throne: and the assurance to that effect, given by Alva's own lips to Mary's envoy, was carried by him to Scotland in time to swell the exultation of her nuptials.[112]