Protestantism in France From Death of Francis I to Edict of Nantes - James Aitken Wylie

had just descended stood the crafty Italian woman,
his mother, Catherine de Medici: might she not
hope to be the sovereign-counselor of her weakminded
son? During the lifetime of her husband,
Henry II, her just influence as the wife had been
baulked by the ascendency of the mistress, Diana
of Poictiers. That rival had been swept from her
path, but another and more legitimate competitor
had come in the room of the fallen favorite. By the
side of Francis II, on the throne of France, sat Mary
Stuart, the heir of the Scottish crown, and the niece
of the Guises. The king doted upon her beauty,[2]
and thus the niece was able to keep open the door
of the royal closet, and the ear of her husband, to
her uncles. This gave the Guises a prodigious
advantage in the game that was now being played
round the person of the king. And when we think
how truculent they were, and how skilled they had
now become in the arts by which princes' favor is
to be won, it does not surprise us to learn that in the
end of the day they were foremost in the race.
Catherine de Medici was a match for them any day
in craft and ambition, but with the niece of her
rivals by the king's side, she found it expedient still
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