right to the throne. Mary Queen of Scotland, the grand-daughter of
Henry VIII.'s eldest sister Margaret, was from the legal point of view
the lawful heir; but as she was the wife of the Dauphin of France at
the time of Elizabeth's accession, Englishmen generally did not wish
to recognise her claim for precisely the same reasons that drove them
to oppose Queen Mary's marriage with Philip II. of Spain. After the
death of her French husband and her return to Scotland opinion began
to change in her favour, and this grew stronger in Catholic circles,
when she fled into England to claim the support of her cousin Queen
Elizabeth against the Scottish rebels (1568). A strong body even in
the council favoured the plan of a marriage between Mary and the Duke
of Norfolk, and the recognition of their rights and the rights of
their children to the throne on the death of Elizabeth, as the best
means of avoiding civil war and of escaping from the delicate position
created by the presence of Scotland's Queen in England. Norfolk was
regarded as a kind of Protestant and was backed by a very considerable
body of the council, but his communications with Philip II. of Spain,
who favoured the marriage, and with the Catholic lords of the north,
who, driven to extremes by religious persecution and by the treatment
accorded to Mary in England, were not unwilling to depose Elizabeth,
he professed his intention of becoming a Catholic. Elizabeth, however,
was strong against the marriage, and Cecil, though he pretended to
favour it, supported the views of his sovereign. Rumours of
conspiracies especially in the north were afloat. The noblemen of
Lancashire had met and pledged themselves not to attend the English
service; the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland declared openly
their attachment to the Catholic Church; the attitude of Wales and
Cornwall was more than doubtful, and the Spanish ambassador was well
known to be moving heaven and earth to induce his master to lend his
aid.[18]