For various reasons, however, this was the policy which the Guises chose to pursue. Nor did they proceed to assert her right with any particular delicacy or caution. Whenever the Dauphin and his Queen came into public, they were greeted as the King and Queen of England; and the English arms were engraved upon their plate, embroidered upon their scutcheons and banners, and painted on their furniture.[22] Mary's favourite device, also, at this time, was the two crowns of France and Scotland, with the motto, _Aliamque moratur_, meaning that of England. The prediction made by the Duke of Alva, on observing this piece of empty parade, was but too fatally fulfilled,--"That bearing of Mary Stuart's," said he, "will not be easily borne." About this time Mary seems to have been attacked with the first serious illness which had overtaken her in France. It was not of that acute description which confined her to bed, but was a sort of general debility accompanied with a tendency to frequent fainting. It is mentioned in Forbes's State Papers, that on one occasion, to prevent her from swooning in church, her attendants were glad to bring her wine from the altar. There were some at the French Court who would have felt little grief had this illness ended fatally, considering how serious a blow Mary's death would have been to the too predominating influence of the House of Guise. In England, the news would have been particularly agreeable to Elizabeth, whose ambassador at Paris eagerly consoled her with the intelligence that Mary was not expected to be of long continuance. The natural strength of her constitution, however, soon restored her to her former health and spirits.