KNOX AND QUEEN MARY STUART, 1561-1563.
Beautiful in person, attractive in manner, able, acute, brilliant even,
in intellect, Mary Stuart had many qualities which might have been
turned to good account for the welfare of her country. But, brought up
in a French court, her moral code was neither of the highest nor the
purest; educated under the supervision of her uncles of Lorraine, she
was taught to believe that the one great object of her life was to
advance the interests of the Roman Catholic Church; and sister-in-law
to him whose name is for ever blackened by the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, she was not likely to be over scrupulous as to the means
which she would employ to gain her end. So far as she had shaped a
policy to herself, when she came to Scotland, it would seem to have
been to temporize with the Protestants, until she had time either to
fascinate them by the spell of her personal magnetism or to crush them
by her power; then to make the throne of Scotland a stepping-stone to
that of England, to which she claimed to be the lawful heir, and so to
bring that realm also back {158} to its allegiance to the Pope. This
made her and Elizabeth implacable enemies. They were neighbours; they
were cousins; they were queens, these two, and the struggle between
them was to the death. One or other must go down. Each played a deep
and deceitful game, but Elizabeth was moved by ambition for herself,
while Mary was devoted to a cause, and so it is that as she lays her
head upon the block at Fotheringay it is encircled with the halo of a
kind of martyrdom, and the eye of the sternest judge is for the moment
blinded to the guilt of her life by the tear of pity which dims it as
he looks upon the manner of its close.
Knox and she from the very first seem to have singled each other out
for a conflict hand to hand. He saw that everything which he counted
dear depended on the manner in which she was dealt with; and she
perceived that he was the moving spirit in that religious revolt which
it was her mission to put down. He feared the effect of her
blandishments upon others, and she recognised the magnitude of his
influence upon the people. He saw that if she could be baffled in her
efforts to re-establish popery in the land, the victory would be
finally won; and she felt that so long as he had the opportunity of
swaying the multitude by the fervour of his eloquence, there was no
hope of gaining the end on which her heart was fixed. He was afraid of
the effect of what his friend Campbell of Kingzeancleugh called "the
sprinkling of the holy water of the court" upon the less reliable of
his adherents; and she feared the fervour of {159} his prayers to God,
and the power of his appeals to his fellow-men. So there came to be
for some time a kind of duel between them, and the issue was at last a
victory for Knox. We need not approve unqualifiedly of everything
which he did or said in the course of the struggle, yet we must rejoice
in the result, for Knox "builded better than he knew," and secured, not
immediately but ultimately, the triumph of a larger liberty than that
which he at the time believed in; while she was the representative of
absolute power, and of a feudalism which looked upon the common people
as existing for her convenience and aggrandisement rather than upon
herself as the servant of the state. "What are you in this
commonwealth?" was her haughty question to him on one occasion. "A
subject born within the same," was his ever-memorable answer, and the
outcome of it has been that now in the land he loved the sovereign is
for the subjects, and not the subjects for the sovereign; it is a
little difference verbally, but in reality the gulf between the two is
that which divides freedom from slavery.
The first collision between them occurred a few days after her landing.
Naturally enough, as some may think, she gave orders for the
celebration of a solemn mass in the chapel of Holyrood on the first
Sabbath after her arrival. She knew of the law passed by the
Parliament in 1560; she had probably heard from Lord James Stuart the
warning which had been given to him when he went to France, and
therefore this act on her {160} part was a virtual throwing down of the
gauge of battle at the feet of the Protestants. And thus they
themselves interpreted it. Some may imagine that they attached undue
importance to it; yet as Protestantism is still insisted on as a _sine
qua non_ to succession to the British throne, those who approve the
continuance of the Revolution settlement cannot consistently condemn
them. Moreover, it is not to be forgotten that to the Reformers the
mass was more than even an idolatrous service. It was a sign of many
other things: thumbscrews, racks, galley chains, gibbets and the like,
which were inseparably connected with papal supremacy, and in truth, as
one has said, "A man sent to row in French galleys and such like for
teaching the truth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest
humour." When therefore her purpose became known, great excitement was
created among the Protestants, and some spoke of preventing her by
force from carrying it out; but Knox used his influence in private,
against such a proposal. On the following Sunday, however, from his
pulpit he showed his sense of the gravity of the crisis, when, after
exposing the idolatry that was in the mass, he alleged that "one mass
was more fearful unto him than if ten thousand armed enemies were
landed in any part of our realm of purpose to suppress the whole
religion." Hearing of this outburst Mary sent for him to the palace,
whether of her own motive or at the suggestion of others is not known,
and he had then, in the presence of Lord James Stuart, the first of
{161} those interviews which have been so harped upon by his
vituperators. We must refer our readers for the details to Knox's own
account in his "History," which has been little more than simply
modernised by McCrie, and must content ourselves with a mere summary of
what occurred. She began by attacking him for the writing of the
"First Blast," and after he had vindicated himself as best he could for
that, she charged him with having taught the people to receive a
religion different from that which was allowed by their princes. This
brought out his views as to the limits of obedience to civil rulers,
and on her interpreting his words to mean that her subjects should obey
him and not her, he vehemently repudiated that misapprehension, and
alleged that both rulers and subjects should obey God, and that kings
should be foster-fathers, and queens nursing-mothers to His Church.
That elicited the question from her which is the Church of God? and for
answer thereto he referred her to the Scriptures. This in its turn
raised the inquiry whose interpretation of Scripture was to be
accepted? which he answered by laying down the duty of private judgment
and of the comparing of one part of Scripture with another. At length
she very humbly remarked that she was not able to contend with him, but
that if she had those present with her whom she had heard they could
answer him, and he expressed his readiness to meet before her in
argument "the learnedest papist in Europe." To this she somewhat
tartly retorted, "You may perchance get that sooner {162} than you
believe," and he replied a little sarcastically to the effect that if
he ever got it, then indeed it would be sooner than he believed. He
took his leave in this courtly yet scriptural fashion, "Madame, I pray
God that you may be as blessed within the commonwealth of Scotland as
ever Deborah was in the commonwealth of Israel."
Thus for the first time they measured their strength, and the result
was, in common speech, a draw. Mary found that Knox was made of more
unyielding stuff than those whom heretofore she had been in the habit
of meeting; and John formed an estimate of Mary's ability which his
subsequent experience only served to confirm. It was to be no child's
play between them. He could not afford to give so subtle and ready an
adversary the least advantage. Writing to Cecil after this interview
he says, "The Queen neither is, neither shall be of our opinion, and in
very deed her whole proceedings do declare that the cardinal's lessons
are so deeply printed in her heart that the substance and the quality
are like to perish together. I would be glad to be deceived, but I
fear I shall not. In communication with her I espied such craft as I
have not found in such age."
Matters went on after this with tolerable quietness for months, and
Knox kept up his stated labours as the minister of Edinburgh. What
these were seem now to be surprising. He preached twice every Sunday,
and thrice besides during the week on other days. He met regularly
once a week with his elders for the oversight of {163} the flock; and
attended weekly the assembly of the ministers, for what was called "the
exercise on the Scriptures." These stated and constant labours, with
the addition of frequent journeyings by appointment of the General
Assembly to perform in distant parts of the country very much the duty
of a superintendent for the time, were exceedingly exhausting; and the
city council, wishing to relieve him of some of his duties, came (in
April, 1562) to a resolution to call the minister of the Canongate to
undertake the half of his charge; but their object was not accomplished
till June of the following year, when John Craig became his colleague.
Meanwhile the Reformer came again into collision with the court. In
the beginning of March, 1562, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal
Lorraine made that assault on a peaceable and defenceless congregation
of Huguenots, which is known in French history as the Massacre of
Vassy; and when the report of that was received by Mary, she was so
delighted that she gave in honour of the occasion a splendid ball in
the palace to her foreign servants, by whom dancing was kept up to a
very late hour. This act of hers was exceedingly painful to Knox, for
he had many warm friends among the Protestants of France, and his heart
was saddened by the tidings of the treatment to which they had been
subjected. Accordingly he gave vent to his feelings in his pulpit on
the following Sunday, when he preached from the text, "Be wise now, ye
kings; be instructed, ye judges of the earth." After discoursing on
the dignity {164} of magistrates and the obedience which was due to
them, he lamented and condemned the vices to which they were too
commonly addicted, and made some severe strictures on their conduct,
affirming, among other things, "that they were more exercised in
fiddling and flinging, than in reading or hearing God's word," and that
"fiddlers and flatterers" (John was evidently fond of alliteration)
"were more precious in their eyes than men of wisdom and gravity." The
report of his discourse was carried by some one to Mary; and though he
had made no direct assault upon her, he was summoned on the next day to
the palace. Introduced to a chamber in which she sat, surrounded by
her maids of honour and principal courtiers, he was treated to a long
"harangue," as he calls it (but it was no doubt a proper scolding), on
the enormity of his conduct. Very wisely he heard that out without
interruption; then, when his "innings" came, he complained that he had
evidently been misreported to her, and craved leave to repeat to her
precisely what he had said, thus adroitly contriving that for that time
at least she should listen to a sermon. Beginning with the text, he
went over the main points of his discourse, which, among other things,
had in it this piece of sound sense: "And of dancing, madame, I said
that albeit in Scripture I find no praise of it, and in profane writers
that it is termed the gesture rather of those that are mad and in
frenzy than of sober men; yet do I not utterly condemn it, providing
that two vices be avoided: the former, that the principal {165}
vocation of those that use that exercise be not neglected for the
pleasure of dancing; and the second, that they dance not as the
Philistines their fathers, for the pleasure they take in the
displeasure of God's people." The accuracy of his rehearsal of his
sermon having been confirmed by those who had heard it when it was
originally given, the Queen said it was bad enough, but admitted that
it had not been so reported to her; and then very naively asked, that
if he heard anything of her that "misliked" him, he would come to
herself and speak of it to her privately. But Knox believed that
publicity was one great means of securing the vigilance, and through
that the safety, of the people, and therefore he declined to accede to
her request, on the ostensible ground that with the multiplicity of his
labours he had not the time for running about the court and his
congregation individually to deal with them for what he saw amiss. On
this occasion Knox was the champion of "free speech," and "scored" a
victory, so that he departed "with a reasonable merry countenance;" and
when some of the bystanders said, "He is not afraid," he made reply,
"Why should the pleasing face of a gentle woman affray me? I have
looked on the faces of many angry men, and yet have not been afraid
above measure," and so he left the Queen and the court for that time.
The Romanists, encouraged by the hope of success, began now to put
forth strenuous exertions, both military and controversial, to recover
their lost ground; but the {166} rising of the Earl of Huntly in the
north was put down by the vigour of Lord James Stuart, who was now
known as the Earl of Murray; and the success of the abbot of
Crossraguel, in debate with Knox, was not such as to encourage others
to follow in his footsteps. That dignitary, in his chapel in
Kirkoswald, had, on August 30th, 1562, read a series of articles on the
mass and kindred subjects, which he offered to defend against all
comers; and on the following Sunday Knox, who happened to be in the
neighbourhood and heard of the challenge, came to the church to meet
him. But though he had courteously intimated to the abbot that he
would be present, that dignitary did not put in an appearance, and Knox
himself preached in the chapel. At the close of the service a letter
from the abbot was put into his hand; and, after negotiations, they met
on the 28th of September in the house of the provost of Maybole, where
forty persons on each side were admitted as witnesses. The debate
lasted for three days, and strangely enough was made by the abbot to
turn mainly on the significance of the act of Melchizedek in bringing
forth bread and wine when he went out to meet Abraham returning from
his victories over the five kings, which Knox averred "appertained
nothing to the purpose." At the end of the third day Knox, on the
ground of the scanty accommodation at Maybole, proposed that they
should adjourn to Ayr to finish the discussion; but this was declined
by the abbot, who promised to come to Edinburgh and resume it there if
the Queen would permit. {167} But he never came to the metropolis,
though Knox alleges that he himself had applied to the Privy Council
for the necessary permission. As usual in such cases, the victory was
claimed for each by his own partisans; but to counteract the false
reports that were circulated, Knox prepared and published the curious
tract, purporting to be an accurate account of the debate, which Dr.
Laing has reprinted in the sixth volume of the Reformer's works; and
though the discussion itself was on an entirely irrelevant issue, Knox
dealt with the very heart of the question in the prologue of his
pamphlet, which is written in his most vigorous and trenchant style.
One extract will show how sarcastic he could sometimes be, and with
what grim humour he could occasionally treat even the most sacred
subjects. He has been comparing the making of the "wafer-god" to that
of the idols so witheringly described by Isaiah in the 40th and 41st
chapters of his prophecies, and then proceeds as follows: "These are
the artificers and workmen that travail in making of this god, I think
as many in number as the prophet reciteth to have travailed in making
of the idols; and if the power of both shall be compared, I think they
shall be found in all things equal, except that the god of bread is
subject unto more dangers than were the idols of the Gentiles. Men
made them: men make it. They were deaf and dumb: it cannot speak,
hear, or see. Briefly, in infirmity they wholly agree, except that (as
I have said) the poor god of bread is most miserable of all other
idols; for according to their {168} matter whereof they are made, they
will remain without corruption for many years; but within one year that
god will putrefy, and then he must be burned. They can abide the
vehemency of the wind, frost, rain, or snow; but the wind will blow
that god to sea, the rain or the snow will make it dough again; yea,
which is most of all to be feared, that god is a prey (if he be not
well kept) to rats and mice; for they will desire no better dinner than
white round gods enow. But, oh then, what becometh of Christ's natural
body? By miracle it flies to heaven again, if the papists teach truly;
for how soon soever the mouse takes hold, so soon flieth Christ away,
and letteth her gnaw the bread. A bold and puissant mouse! but a
feeble and miserable god! Yet would I ask a question: 'Whether hath
the priest or the mouse greater power?' By his words it is made a god;
by her teeth it ceaseth to be a god: let them advise and answer."
Truly there is a ring of honest old Hugh Latimer in all this; and if
there were many such passages in Knox's sermons, it is not difficult to
explain how it was that "the common people heard him gladly."
In the May of the following year (1563), Knox was sent for by Mary to
Loch Leven, where she was at the time residing, and treated to another
"interview," in which she endeavoured to induce him to use his
influence to put a stop to the prosecution of certain parties for their
celebration or countenancing of the mass. But nothing of importance
resulted, though from his own showing it is apparent that on this
occasion he was very {169} nearly thrown off his guard by the skill of
her acting and the "glamour" of her presence.
In this same month Parliament met for the first time since Mary's
arrival in Scotland, and Knox confidently expected that the Treaty of
Leith would be ratified, and the establishment of religion by the
Parliament of 1560 would be put beyond all question by its action. But
he was doomed to disappointment. The "holy water of the court" had not
been without effect; the Protestant leaders had slackened in their
enthusiasm, and what he regarded as a great opportunity was lost. He
expostulated with many of the principal men of the party on the
subject, but his efforts were in vain; and the "contention" between him
and Murray over it was "so sharp" that there was a breach of friendship
between them which lasted for more than a year. The effect of all this
upon him was exceeding depressing; and on a Sunday before the
dissolution of Parliament he took occasion to unburden his soul to his
congregation. He expressed his sadness at the thought that those who
had in their hands the opportunity to establish God's cause had
actually betrayed it; he affirmed that the Parliament by which the
Protestant Confession was adopted and the Church reformed was as free
and lawful as any ever held in Scotland; and as reports of the Queen's
marriage were now in circulation, he warned them of the consequences
that would ensue if she should marry a papist. His words gave great
offence to many Protestants as well as Romanists; and when the Queen
heard of them {170} he was again summoned into her presence. This was
the occasion on which the much talked of "tears" were so plentifully
shed, and therefore we may reproduce the account of it given by McCrie,
which is itself only a condensation into the language of to-day of the
narrative given by Knox in his History.
"Her Majesty received him in a very different manner from what she had
done at Loch Leven. Never had prince been handled (she passionately
exclaimed) as she was: she had borne with him in all his rigorous
speeches against herself and her uncles; she had offered unto him
audience whenever he pleased to admonish her. 'And yet,' said she, 'I
cannot be quit of you. I vow to God I shall be once revenged.' On
pronouncing these words with great violence she burst into a flood of
tears which interrupted her speech. When the Queen had composed
herself, he proceeded calmly to make his defence. Her grace and he had
(he said) at different times been engaged in controversy, and he never
before perceived her offended with him. When it should please God to
deliver her from the bondage of error in which she had been trained,
through want of instruction in the truth, he trusted that her Majesty
would not find the liberty of his tongue offensive. Out of the pulpit,
he thought, few had occasion to be offended with him; but there he was
not master of himself, but bound to obey Him who commanded him to speak
plainly, and to flatter no flesh on the face of the earth.
"'But what have you do with my marriage?' said the {171} Queen. He was
proceeding to state the extent of his commission as a preacher, and the
reasons which led him to touch on that delicate subject; but she
interrupted him by repeating her question: 'What have ye to do with my
marriage? Or what are you in this commonwealth?' 'A subject born
within the same, madame,' replied the Reformer, piqued by the last
question, and the contemptuous tone in which it was proposed. 'And
albeit I be neither earl, lord, nor baron in it, yet has God made me
(how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the
same. Yea, madame, to me it appertains no less to forewarn of such
things as may hurt it, if I foresee them, than it doth to any of the
nobility; for both my vocation and conscience requires plainness of me.
And therefore, madame, to yourself I say that which I spake in public
place: whensoever the nobility of this realm shall consent that ye be
subject to an unfaithful husband, they do as much as in them lieth to
renounce Christ, to banish His truth from them, to betray the freedom
of this realm, and perchance shall in the end do small comfort to
yourself.' At these words the Queen began again to weep and sob with
great bitterness. The superintendent (Erskine of Dun, who was
present), who was a man of mild and gentle spirit, tried to mitigate
her grief and resentment: he praised her beauty and her
accomplishments, and told her that there was not a prince in Europe who
would not reckon himself happy in gaining her hand. During this scene,
the severe and inflexible mind of the Reformer displayed {172} itself.
He continued silent, and with unaltered countenance, until the Queen
had given vent to her feelings. He then protested that he never took
delight in the distress of any creature; it was with great difficulty
that he could see his own boys weep when he corrected them for their
faults, far less could he rejoice in her Majesty's tears; but seeing he
had given her no just reason of offence, and had only discharged his
duty, he was constrained, though unwillingly, to sustain her tears,
rather than hurt his conscience and betray the commonwealth through his
silence.
"This apology inflamed the Queen still more: she ordered him
immediately to leave her presence, and wait the signification of her
pleasure in the adjoining room. There he stood as 'one whom men had
never seen'; all his friends (Lord Ochiltree excepted) being afraid to
show him the smallest countenance. In this situation he addressed
himself to the court ladies, who sat in their richest dress in the
chamber. 'O fair ladies, how pleasing were this life of yours, if it
should ever abide, and then, in the end, that we might pass to heaven
with all this gay gear! But fie upon that knave Death, that will come
whether we will or not!' Having engaged them in a conversation, he
passed the time till Erskine came and informed him that he was allowed
to go home until her Majesty had taken further advice. The Queen
insisted to have the judgment of the Lords of Articles, whether the
words he had used in the pulpit were not actionable; but she was
persuaded to desist from a {173} prosecution. 'And so that storm
quieted in appearance, but never in the heart.'"[1]
At this time, when many of his friends were cold toward him, an effort
was made by some of his enemies to blacken his moral character by
accusing him of a vile offence, but the lie had nothing in it to make
it formidable. It was "a lie that was all a lie," and so it could be
"met and fought with outright." The vindication was so complete that
now very few remember that the allegation was ever made, and we refer
to it here only to show that he too was made an illustration of the
poet's words: "Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt
not escape calumny."
Much more serious was the attempt made about this same time to convict
him of high treason. During the absence of Mary in Stirling, and on
the day of the observance of the communion in the Protestant churches,
her servants at Holyrood had taken measures for having the mass
celebrated with more than usual publicity and splendour. The result
was a scene of confusion and "brawling," almost indeed of riot, which
was caused by the interference of some Protestants who were present.
Two of these were afterwards indicted for their offence, which was
called in the technical language of the country and the time,
"forethought felony, hame-sucken, and invasion of the palace." Knox
had been empowered by a general commission from the Church to ask the
presence of the Protestant leaders in Edinburgh for {174} consultation
and assistance in any emergency which in his judgment might require the
same; and believing that the prosecution of these men might issue in
very serious consequences, he drew up under the advice of the friends
with whom he usually acted a circular letter, which he sent to the
principal gentlemen of the "congregation," stating the circumstances,
and asking them without fail to come to Edinburgh for the trial. A
copy of this letter found its way into the hands of Mary, who laid it
before the Privy Council, by whom it was pronounced to be treasonable.
The Queen was exultant. Now was her opportunity, and she resolved to
turn it to the best advantage. An extraordinary meeting of the
councillors and other noblemen was convened to be held at Edinburgh
about the middle of December, 1563, to try the cause. Some urged Knox
to acknowledge that he had done wrong, and cast himself on the Queen's
mercy, but that he absolutely refused to do, because he did not believe
that he had committed an offence; and when Secretary Maitland and
Murray called upon him, and somewhat ungenerously sought to get out of
him the nature of the defence which he meant to set up, he very wisely
put an end to the conversation with them, and resolved to keep his own
counsel until he was actually called to vindicate his conduct.
When the day came, he stood forth as the champion of the liberty of
assembly, as before he had appeared in vindication of free speech; and
so admirably did he plead his cause that he was acquitted, if not
unanimously {175} at least _nem. con._, of the charge which had been
brought against him.
Much has been said of the bearing of Knox towards Queen Mary, and said,
as we believe, most unjustly, for though he felt himself constrained to
oppose her course, and would not yield to her wishes, yet he was never
rude, or irreverent, or ungentlemanly. As Carlyle says, "he was never
in the least ill-tempered with her Majesty;" and most of those who
accuse him in this matter, we shrewdly suspect, have never read the
accounts of his interviews with her, but have simply accepted the
common babblement which has been so long current regarding them. No
candid student of the rehearsal of these interviews in Knox's History,
we are sure, could refuse to endorse the accuracy of Carlyle's
statement of the case when he says "Mary often enough bursts into
tears, oftener than once into passionate long continued fits of
weeping, Knox standing with mild and pitying visage, but without the
least hair's-breadth of recanting or recoiling, waiting till the fit
pass, and then with all softness but with all inexorability taking up
his theme again."
But while Knox's manner toward her Majesty has been most
microscopically examined, very little attention has been given to
Mary's manner toward Knox; and on this particular occasion, in the
presence of the council and the nobles, sitting too as a kind of court
before which he was on trial for high treason, it was flippant and
unmannerly in the extreme, and was besides entirely {176} incompatible
with the presence in her of a judicial spirit. When she entered the
chamber and took her seat, she first smiled, and then burst into a loud
guffaw, saying, "This is a good beginning, but wot you whereat I laugh?
That man made me weep, and shed never a tear himself. I will see now
if I can make him weep." Then after his letter had been read, and he
was defending himself, she cried, "What is this? Methinks you trifle
with him. Who gave him authority to make convocation of my lieges? Is
not that treason?" There spake the despot, for beneath the velvet of
her glove there was always a hand of iron; but she touched a chord that
vibrated to a note which she had not thought to sound when she used
these words, for Ruthven said boldly and categorically, "No, madame!"
The gruff nobleman was immediately commanded by her Majesty to "hold
his peace," and Knox went on with his defence in such a way that he
successfully vindicated his right to call and hold a meeting of his
friends for any lawful purpose when and where he chose. He was next
questioned about the statement in his letter to the effect that he
feared the prosecution of these men would open a door for the
infliction of cruelty upon a greater number; and as he was proceeding
to enlarge upon the deeds of the papists in France, and denouncing
those who had done them, he was interrupted by the ejaculation of one
of the nobles, "You forget yourself; you are not in the pulpit." This
called forth the often quoted words, "I am in the place where I am
demanded of my {177} conscience to speak the truth; and, therefore, the
truth I speak; impugn it who so list." The Queen now felt that a
defeat was imminent, and as a last resort, she tried to work on the
sympathy of her lords by referring once more, but this time in another
fashion, to the fact that Knox had made her weep. That, however, only
gave him an opportunity of rehearsing all that had occurred on the
occasion to which she had referred, and thereby made his victory the
more sure. But what is to be said of her conduct throughout on this
trial? "Heard you ever, my lords, a more despiteful and treasonable
letter?" "You shall not escape so." "Is it not treason to accuse a
prince of cruelty?" "Lo! what say you to all that?" These are a few
of her expressions when she was sitting as a judge, and with these, and
others already quoted, before us, is it not idle to speak of justice,
far less of mannerliness or gentlewomanliness in the case?
Ungentlemanliness is bad enough,--though even of that we maintain that
there was nothing in Knox's treatment of his queen,--but to seek to
overbear a court as Mary did at this time, by the manifestation of her
eagerness to have the accused condemned, either by fair means or foul,
is infinitely worse. The spirit of Mary here was that of Jeffreys long
after. It was indeed far from being so coarsely and brutally
expressed, but it is worthy of all reprobation, and in view of the
facts which we have here presented, it is little wonder that Hume, in
writing to the historian Robertson, should have said, "I am afraid that
you, as well as myself, have drawn Mary's character {178} with too
great softenings. She was undoubtedly _a violent woman at all times_."
But he never altered his representation in his work, and to him,
perhaps, more than to all others, the prevalent misconception of our
Reformer's character, manner, and motives is to be traced.
The result of this trial was announced by Secretary Maitland, when he
said to Knox that he was at liberty to return home for that night. But
though his voice was smooth, his soul was full of wrath, and Mary's
mortification vented itself in taunting the very man who had given her
the letter, for voting for the acquittal of him who wrote it. Thus
again the Reformer triumphed, and it is with a glow of satisfaction
akin to that with which Nehemiah recounts his escape from Sanballat,
that he finishes the record thus: "That night was neither dancing nor
fiddling in the court, for madame was disappointed of her purpose,
which was to have had John Knox in her will, by vote of her nobility."
[1] McCrie's "Works," vol. i. pp. 206-8.
{179}