Historians, who would have us believe that Elizabeth was constantly bringing England to the verge of ruin by her stinginess and want of spirit, represent this combination as highly formidable. It required careful watching; but the only thing that could make it really dangerous was rash and premature employment of force by England--the course advocated not only by Burghley, but by the whole Council. Elizabeth seems to have stood absolutely alone in her opinion; but here, as always, though she allowed her ministers to speak their minds freely, she did not fear to act on her own judgment against their unanimous advice. To carry out their schemes, Guise and the Jesuits sent to Scotland a nephew of the late Regent Lennox, Esmé Stuart, who had been brought up in France, and bore the title of Count d’Aubigny (September 1579). He speedily won the heart of the King, who created him Earl, and afterwards Duke of Lennox. Elizabeth soon obtained proof of his designs, and urged Morton to resist them by force. But the favourite, professing to be converted to Protestantism, enlisted the preachers on his side, and, by this unnatural coalition, Morton was brought to the scaffold (June 1581). During the interval between his arrest and execution, the English Council were urgent with Elizabeth to invade Scotland, rescue the Anglophile leader, and crush Lennox. She went all lengths in the way of threats. Lord Hunsdon was even ordered to muster an army on the Border. But this last step at once produced an energetic protest from the French ambassador; and in Scotland there was a general rally of all parties against the “auld enemies.” Elizabeth had never meant to make her threats good, and Morton was left to his fate. She was quite right not to invade Scotland; but, that being her intention, she should not have tempted Morton to treason by the promise of her protection. No male statesman would have been so insensible to dishonour. The death of the man who, next to Moray, had been the mainstay of the Reformation and the scourge of the Marian party, was received with a shout of exultation from Catholic Europe. Already in their heated imaginations the Jesuits saw the Kirk overthrown and the vantage ground gained for an attack on England. Some modern historians--with less excuse, since they have the sequel before their eyes--make the same blunder. The situation was really unchanged. Morton, who had the true antipathy of a Scottish noble to clerics of all sorts, had plundered the Kirk ministers, and tried to bring them under the episcopal yoke. He had quarrelled with most of his old associates of the Congregation. It was their enmity quite as much as the attack of Lennox that had pulled him down. When he was out of the way they naturally reverted to an Anglophile policy. The weakness of the Catholic party was plainly shown by the fact that Lennox himself, the pupil of the Jesuits, never ventured to throw off the disguise of a heretic.