It was evident, that public affairs could not long continue in the position in which they now stood. With the Earl of Murray and the Hamiltons, the greater number of Mary's most experienced counsellors were in a state of banishment. At the head of those who remained was the crafty Earl of Morton, who, though he affected outward allegiance, secretly longed for the return of his old allies and friends of the Protestant party. It was not indeed without some show of reason that the professors of the Reformed faith considered their religion to be exposed at the present crisis to hazard. The King now openly supported Popery; the most powerful of the Lords of the Congregation were in disgrace; several of the Catholic nobility had lately been restored to their honours; some of the Popish ecclesiastics had, by Mary's influence, been allowed to resume their place in Parliament; and above all, ambassadors arrived from the French King and her Continental friends, for the express purpose of advising the Queen to grant no terms to the expatriated nobles, and of making her acquainted, with the objects of the Holy League which had been recently formed. This was the league between Charles IX. and his sister the Queen of Spain, with the consent of her husband Philip, and Pope Pius IV., and at the instigation of Catherine de Medicis and the Duke of Alva, to secure, at whatever cost, the suppression of the Reformation throughout Europe. So great a variety of circumstances, all seeming to favour the old superstition, alarmed the Protestants not a little; but this alarm was unnecessarily exaggerated, and Mary's intentions which were not known at the time, have been misrepresented since.