The deposition of a queen, though {369} a defiance of all the Catholic powers and of all the royalist sentiment of Europe, had succeeded.

The young king was brought up a Protestant, and his mind was so thoroughly turned against his mother that he acquiesced without a murmur in her execution.

At last peace and security smiled upon North Britain.

[Sidenote: Preparation for union with England] The coming event of the union with England cast its beneficent shadow over the reign of Elizabeth's successor.
[Sidenote: Absolution] The Reformation ran the same course as in England earlier; one is almost tempted to hypostatize it and say that it took the bit between its teeth and ran away with its riders.

Actually, the man cast for the role of Henry VIII was James VI; the slobbering pedant without drawing the sword did what his abler ancestors could not do after a life-time of battle.