versies with Knox she was perilously outspoken. No doubt he tried her patience severely; and, irritated by his confident pertinacity and arrogant masterfulness, she may have said more than she meant to say-more than she said to Maitland or Randolph. It was natural, indeed, that a woman whose relations were mainly Catholic should be reluctant to separate herself from them. She desired, of course, to stand well with her uncles and with France. She needed allies; yet in the confused political state of Europe it might chance, should she incur their displeasure, that she would find herself without a friend. The Catholic conspiracies in which she was said to have engaged were the inventions or exaggerations of a fanatical faction. The visit of a Catholic priest was magnified into treason to "true religion."1 Unless she joined the Catholic league (of which there is absolutely no proof), it cannot be fairly said that during her stay in Scotland she was implicated in any plot against Protestantism. On the other hand, it was very commonly believed

of Trent "shall return in vain."

1 Randolph to Cecil, August 1, 1562. Randolph says that Lethington had positively assured him of his certain knowledge that the messenger from the Pope who had come to learn if Mary would send a representative to the Council | ary 14.

2 Randolph's letter of 7th February 1566 (in which he says that Mary had signed the Catholic Bond) is contradicted by Bedford's letter of Febru

that even her uncles (Elizabeth's friendship being once assured) were willing that she should join the Anglican Church;1 and upon the whole, it rather appears that, but for the implacable animosity of the Calvinistic preachers, Maitland's scheme of a religious peace might have succeeded-with incalculable advantage, it need not be added, to either nation.

2

3. In Maitland's letter of 25th October 1561, the earliest intimation of his dissatisfaction with the conduct of the extreme Protestant faction in their treatment of Mary is to be found. Knox had resolved that, so far as in him lay, the policy of moderation, of conciliation, should be defeated. There could be no truce between the idolater and the people of God, between "the Roman harlot" and "the immaculate Spouse of Christ." At whatever cost, Mary should learn the truth. On the Sunday following her return, she heard in the courtyard of the palace the gentlemen of Fife, with the Master of Lindsay at their head, clamouring against the Mass. Not only was the Queen to be deprived of the most solemn sacrament of her Church, but the persons who celebrated it were to be punished according to God's law. "The idolater priest should die the death." Knox passionately declared from

1 Randolph's letters to Cecil, January 30 and February 12,

1562.

2 Calderwood, i. 228.

the pulpit of St Giles', that one Mass was more fearful to him than "ten thousand armed enemies landed in any part of the realm." Arran protested against the proclamation of the 25th August, on the ground that it might protect the Queen's Popish servants who went to Mass against the penalties attaching to idolatry,—a protection which ought not to be afforded, he continued, "na mair nor gif they commit slauchter or murder, seeing that the one is meikle mair abominable and odious in the sight of God than is the others." A peculiar and ponderous vein of pleasantry characterised the entertainments provided for Mary by the Council when she entered the capital in state. Maitland was away -at Westminster on a mission to Elizabeth; and the civic authorities appear to have taken advantage of his absence to introduce some humorous interludes of which the Secretary of State might possibly have disapproved. "Upon Tuesday last she made her entry. She dined in the Castle. The first sight that she saw after

1 In going from Holyrood to the Castle she had avoided the High Street. "Her Highness departit from Holyroodhouse, and raid by the lang gait on the north side of the said burgh, unto the time she come to the Castle, where was an yet made

VOL. II.

for her, at the quhilk she come in and rode up the Castle bank to the Castle, and dined therein."- Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 67. The "Lang Gait" must have skirted the margin of the Nor' Loch.

C

she came out of the Castle was a boy of six years of age, that came, as it were, from heaven out of a round globe, that presented unto her a Bible and Psalter, and the keys of the gate. There, for the terrible signification of the vengeance of God upon idolatry, were burnt Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, in the time of the sacrifice. They were minded to have had a priest burned at the altar at the elevation; the Earl of Huntly stayed that pageant." When, a few days afterwards, Mary went to Perth and St Andrews, a candle standing at her bedside set fire to the curtain.2 It was the judgment of God; she had attended the Popish service in her progress, or, as the Reformers phrased it, "all which parts she polluted with her idolatry;" and this was the appropriate punishment. "Fire followed her very commonlie in that journey." On her return to Edinburgh, she found that the magistrates had issued a proclamation by which drunkards, adulterers, Catholic priests, and other improper characters were banished from the town. Queen was very commovit" at the tenor of the order, and caused the provost and bailies to be removed from office. Knox's indignation at the high-handed action of the Court was unbounded. Yet no redress was to be had,

1 Randolph to Cecil, September 7, 1561.

"The

2 Ibid., September 24, 1561.

3 Knox, ii. 287.

1

"unless we would arm the hands of the people in whom abideth yet some spark of his fear;" for even the Protestant nobles were ready to humour the Queen; "the permission of that odious idol the Mass, by such as have professed themselves enemies to the same, doth hourly threaten a sudden plague." Lethington and the Lord James were mainly responsible for the backsliding of the nobility,-"the whole blame lieth upon their necks." 2 The counsels of "politick heads" were scouted; the courtiers were told by the preachers that they had begun again "to shake hands with the devill;" Maitland was "the father of all mischief;" and a storm of boisterous ridicule was directed against "him that hes the honor to be the Queen's brother." Idolatry, they declared, was never more prevalent in the realm. "And yet who guides the Queen and the Court? who but the Protestants? O horrible slanderers of God and of His holy Gospel! Better it were unto you plainly to renounce Jesus Christ than thus to mock His blessed Evangel." 3

A sermon by Knox was not unfrequently a great political event. His harsh sense was in the highest bursts of his oratory curiously blended

1 Knox to Mrs Anna Locke, October 2, 1561.

2 Knox to Cecil, October 7, 1561.

3 Knox, ii. 362.