The education which Mary had received in France, whatever embellishments it added to her beauty, was the very worst which can be conceived for fitting her to rule her native country in the present juncture. Of a temper naturally violent, the devotion which she had been accustomed to see paid to her personal charms, rendered her extremely impatient of contradiction.[35] Habituated to the splendour and gallantry of the most luxurious and dissolute court in Europe, she could not submit to those restraints which the severer manners of her subjects imposed; and while they took offence at the freedom of her behaviour, she could not conceal the antipathy and disgust which she felt at theirs.[36] Full of high notions of royal prerogative, she regarded the late proceedings in Scotland as a course of rebellion against her legitimate authority. Nursed from her infancy in a blind attachment to the Roman catholic faith, every means had been employed, before she left France, to strengthen this prejudice, and to inspire her with aversion to the {23} religion which had been embraced by her people. She was taught that it would be the great glory of her reign to reduce her kingdom to the obedience of the Roman see, and to co‑operate with the popish princes on the continent in extirpating heresy. If she forsook the religion in which she had been educated, she would forfeit their powerful friendship; if she persevered in it, she might depend upon their assistance to enable her to chastise her rebellious subjects, and to prosecute her claims to the English crown against a heretical usurper. With these fixed prepossessions, Mary came into Scotland; and she adhered to them with singular pertinacity to the end of her life. To examine the subjects of controversy between the papists and protestants, with the view of ascertaining on which side the truth lay,――to hear the reformed preachers, or permit them to lay before her the grounds of their faith, even in the presence of the clergy whom she had brought along with her,――to do any thing, in short, which might lead to a doubt in her mind respecting the religion in which she had been brought up, were compliances against which she had formed an unalterable determination. As the protestants were in possession of power, it was necessary for her to temporize; but she resolved to withhold her ratification of the late proceedings, and to embrace the first favourable opportunity to overturn them, and re‑establish the ancient system.[37]