These proceedings were viewed with deep interest {317} by the court of France. Henry II., having died in July 1559, was succeeded by Francis II., the husband of the young queen of Scots; in consequence of which, the administration of affairs fell entirely into the hands of the duke of Guise and the cardinal of Lorrain. They employed every art of political intrigue to prevent the queen of England from giving assistance to the Scottish Congregation, and to prevail on her to desert them, after she had undertaken their protection. Nor were they altogether unsuccessful in their attempts. Elizabeth, partly from extreme caution and parsimony, and partly from the influence of some of her counsellors, was induced to listen to their plausible proposals; she delayed the march of her army into Scotland, and after the siege of Leith was commenced, suspended the military operations, and engaged in premature negotiations for peace. This last step justly alarmed the Congregation; and while they neglected no means to persuade the English court to perform the stipulations of the late treaty, they prepared for the worst, by renewing their covenant among themselves. Elizabeth at last listened to the advice of her ablest ministers, and resolved to prosecute the war with vigour. No sooner did she evince this determination than the French court yielded to all her demands. The armament which they had lately fitted out at great expense for Scotland had been dispersed by a storm; the frith of Forth was blocked up by an English fleet; and a confederacy had been formed among a number of the nobility in France, to remove {318} the princes of Lorrain from the administration of public affairs, and to free the protestants in that kingdom from the severe persecutions to which they had hitherto been exposed.[463] Influenced by these circumstances, the French cabinet sent plenipotentiaries to Edinburgh, who concluded a treaty with England, by which the Scottish differences were also adjusted. By this treaty it was provided, that the French troops should immediately be removed from Scotland; that an amnesty should be granted to all who had been engaged in the late resistance to the queen regent; that the principal grievances of which they complained in the civil administration should be redressed; that a free parliament should be held to settle the other affairs of the kingdom; and that, during the absence of their sovereigns, the government should be administered by a council to be chosen partly by Francis and Mary, and partly by the estates of the nation. The treaty was signed on the 7th of July; on the 16th, the French army embarked at Leith, and the English troops began their march into their own country; and on the 19th, the Congregation assembled in St Giles’s church, to return solemn thanks to God for the restoration of peace, and the success which had crowned their exertions.[464] In this {319} manner terminated the civil war which attended the Scottish Reformation,