But this arrangement did not suit France better than it did her enemy. If England was to join Philip in the war, she must be open to counter attack and reprisals. But if England could strike indirectly so could France, and by such means a national rupture might be precipitated which would allow of a French invasion over the Scottish border and the siege of the English fortresses in France. So again the English Protestant exiles in France were feasted and made much of by Henry II. They were a turbulent lot of young gallants whose brawls and adventures had scandalised the French Court: but now they suddenly assumed a new importance. Thomas Stafford, the nephew of Cardinal Pole, a cadet of his family with no valid claims whatever, was the most hairbrained of the crew, and took it into his head to pose as the rightful pretender to the English Crown. Henry could not openly countenance such a pretension, but Stafford was allowed to recruit men for his attempt. Frenchmen, Scots, and discontented English, a motley rabble of lawless adventurers, flocked to his standard at Rouen, in ignorance of their exact destination. Sailing in two well-armed ships from Dieppe, he suddenly descended upon Scarborough. Affairs were in so critical a condition in England that anything might have happened, and Wotton, the English ambassador in France, believed that if Thomas Stafford once secured a footing in England he might draw to him all the discontented element, to Mary’s undoing. Stafford, however, was not of the stuff from which successful pretenders are made. He seized Scarborough Castle in April, whilst Philip was still in England, and at once announced that he came to claim the Crown and deliver the country from the yoke of the Spaniards, who intended to rule it by force. But in a day or two the Catholic Earl of Westmorland with his militia took him by surprise and Thomas Stafford’s bubble burst before it was well inflated, greatly to Noailles’ scorn and annoyance. The retribution for treason came swiftly, and before a month was out the heads of the principal rebels had fallen on the block on Tower Hill. But a gust of indignation passed over England at the attempt, prompted as it had been by the French, and suddenly the idea of war with France, the enemy of the Queen, became popular. Henry II. did his best to explain away his complicity;[113] but Mary, transported with rage, dismissed Noailles, and Philip was delighted to find that England was now ready to join him nationally in a war against France.