The accession also of young Francis II. and Mary Stuart to the throne of France, under the dominion of their ambitious Guise uncles, had driven a great wedge into the unity of the Catholic League. The Guises, who led the Catholic party in France, were now for a short time masters, on behalf of the young King and his wife, of the national resources, and were prepared to use them in furthering their Scottish niece’s claims to the English throne. This naturally drew Philip more to the side of Elizabeth, however perverse she might be, and, from the very first, rendered abortive the Catholic League secretly cemented by the treaty of Cateau Cambresis. When the death of Francis II., after his short reign, threw the Guises into the background and made Catharine de Medici Regent of France, matters were hardly improved. Philip was always a bad hand at playing another’s game, and though his young French wife lived happily with him, for he was a good husband, the purpose of her going to Spain was never achieved, and Philip was as anxious after his French marriage as before it to prevent his mother-in-law and his English sister-in-law from making common cause against him. They, knowing this as well as he, could, and did, always checkmate or paralyse him when they pleased by simulating friendship with each other, either by marriage talk or by a pretence of common interest. Whilst Catharine de Medici lived this was the problem of Europe, and to Philip it proved an insoluble one. Feria and Alba were for ever advocating the high hand with Elizabeth, but Philip knew that his hollow union with France had drawn all Protestants together, so that if he aided the English Catholics to depose Elizabeth and crush Protestantism in her country, not only would Catholic France be against him, but the Lutheran Germans would be disturbed, and perhaps he might let loose the storm, of which the mutterings were already audible, over his own Netherlands. So, in spite of the Bishop of Aquila’s soft hints and Feria’s warlike advice, Philip decided, notwithstanding Elizabeth’s religious recalcitrancy, upon a policy of palliation and suavity in England. “You must,” he instructed his ambassador, “keep mainly in view by all means to avoid a rupture. I have already pointed out the importance of this, but it is so great that I cannot be satisfied without repeating it many times.” But yet he was ready even thus early if Elizabeth’s subjects attacked her for her religious measures to take full advantage of the opportunity for his own advantage, and so to prevent the French from establishing themselves in England. With these pacific instructions, therefore, he sent the great sum of 60,000 crowns “to gain friends,” and says, “I have also ordered, in case of need, that money shall be raised to fit out a fleet at short notice, so that it may be ready to carry men over to England if required.”