The coronation took place at Westminster on the following day. The crown was placed upon the young maiden's head in the midst of a great throng of ladies and gentlemen, who were all superbly dressed, and who made the vast edifice in which the service was performed ring with their acclamations and their shouts of "Long live the Queen!" During the ceremonies, Elizabeth placed a wedding ring upon her finger with great formality, to denote that she considered the occasion as the celebration of her _espousal_ to the realm of England; she was that day a bride, and should never have, she said, any other husband. She kept this, the only wedding ring she ever wore, upon her finger, without once removing it, for more than forty years. CHAPTER VII. THE WAR IN SCOTLAND. 1559-1560 Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots.--Their rivalry.--Character of Mary.--Character of Elizabeth.--Elizabeth's celebrity while living.--Interest in Mary when dead.--Real nature of the question at issue between Mary and Elizabeth.--The two marriages.--One or the other necessarily null.--Views of Mary's friends.--Views of Elizabeth's friends.--Circumstances of Henry the Eighth's first marriage.--The papal dispensation.--Doubts about it.--England turns Protestant.--The marriage annulled.--Mary in France.--She becomes Queen of France.--Mary's pretensions to the English crown.--Elizabeth's fears.--Measures of Elizabeth.--Progress of Protestantism in Scotland.--Difficulties in Scotland.--Elizabeth's interference.--Fruitless negotiations.--The war goes on.--The French shut up in Leith.--Situation of the town.--The English victorious.--The Treaty of Edinburgh.--Stipulations of the treaty.--Mary refuses to ratify it.--Death of Mary's husband.--She returns to Scotland. Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots are strongly associated together in the minds of all readers of English history. They were cotemporary sovereigns, reigning at the same time over sister kingdoms. They were cousins, and yet, precisely on account of the family relationship which existed between them, they became implacable foes. The rivalry and hostility, sometimes open and sometimes concealed, was always in action, and, after a contest of more than twenty years, Elizabeth triumphed. She made Mary her prisoner, kept her many years a captive, and at last closed the contest by commanding, or at least allowing, her fallen rival to be beheaded.