It was at this crisis that the progress of the Reformers in Scotland arrested the attention of the Government in England, and a letter was received from Sir Henry Percy by Kirkaldy of Grange, inquiring into the real objects of the Lords of the Congregation. Kirkaldy replied that they meant nothing but the reformation of religion; that they had purged the churches of imagery and other Popish stuff wherever they had come, and that they pulled down such friaries and abbeys as would not receive the Reformed faith; but that they had not meddled with a pennyworth of the Church's property, reserving the appropriation of that to the maintenance of godly ministers hereafter; that if the Queen-Regent would grant them spiritual liberty and send away the Frenchmen, they would obey her; if not, they would hear of no agreement. Knox also wrote to Percy in the name of the whole Congregation, and entreated that England should aid them in their struggle, telling them, in his sturdy way, that if it did it would be better for it; if not, though Scotland might suffer, England could not escape her share of the trouble.
ELIZABETH. (From the Portrait by Isaac Oliver.)
The parsimony of Elizabeth, however, and the caution of her minister Cecil, withheld all efficient aid from the Scottish Reformers at the time that it was most essential. Whilst the Queen-Regent delayed any active proceedings in the hope of the arrival of fresh troops from France, and the knowledge that the irregular army brought into the field by the Scottish barons could not long be kept together, Elizabeth deferred the promised subsidies. In this predicament, the Lords of the Congregation made still more impassioned appeals to Cecil, and Knox wrote to him entreating him to abate the prejudice of Elizabeth towards him. But that prejudice was of the most bitter and unconquerable kind in the heart of Elizabeth. Knox had perpetrated the unpardonable offence to Elizabeth in writing his "First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women." While Elizabeth hesitated, the Regent was fortifying Leith.
At last the English queen determined to help her fellow-religionists, and by the treaty of Berwick agreed to aid them in an attack on the Regent. The Covenanters prepared for an assault on Leith, by constructing scaling-ladders in the High Church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, to the great scandal of the preachers, who prognosticated that proceedings begun in sacrilege would end in defeat. This soon appeared likely to be the result, for the money sent from England being exhausted, the soldiers clamoured for pay, and the army of 12,000 was on the verge of melting away very rapidly. In great alarm, the leaders vehemently entreated Elizabeth for more money, and making a struggle with her natural parsimony, she sent £4,000 to Cockburn of Ormiston, who undertook the perilous office of conveying it to headquarters. But a man who afterwards became notorious for the audacity of his crimes, the Earl of Bothwell, who now professed to be a zealous supporter of the Congregation, and had by this means obtained the knowledge of the transmission of the treasure, waylaid Cockburn, and carried off the money. This was a severe blow to the Congregation, and was speedily followed by another. Haliburton, provost of Dundee, had led a party of Reformers to attack Leith. He had planted his heavy artillery on an eminence near Holyrood; but whilst the majority of the leaders were attending a sermon, the French garrison attacked the battery, and drove the Reformers back into the city with great slaughter.
AUTOGRAPH OF ELIZABETH.
Even the arrival of an English army did not mend matters. The siege was carried on against Leith in a manner little creditable to the ancient fame of the English; as for the Scots, Sadler said, "they could climb no walls:" that is, they were not famous for conducting sieges and taking towns by assault. The English, who had acquired great fame in that kind of warfare, now seemed to have forgotten their skill, though they had lost none of their courage. Their lines of circumvallation were ill-drawn, their guns were ill-directed, their trenches were opened in ground unfit for the purpose, and they were repeatedly thrown into disorder by sorties of the enemy. To make matters worse, the supplies of the Scots became exhausted, and they began to make their usual cries to the English for more money. But from the English court came, instead of the all-needful money, signs of discouragement. Elizabeth still maintained her equivocal conduct, and the Lords of the Congregation were greatly alarmed to find her actually negotiating with the sick Queen-Regent for an accommodation. At the very time that the Scots and the English were engaged in a smart action at Hawkhill, near Lochend, during the siege, Sir James Croft and Sir George Howard were with the dying Mary of Guise in the castle of Edinburgh. Elizabeth still declared that she was not fighting against Francis and Mary, the king and queen of France and Scotland, but against their Ministers in the latter country, and simply for the defence of her own realm against their attempts. She desired Sir Ralph Sadler to express her willingness to treat, and to make it clear that she was no party to any design to injure or depose the rightful queen. What she aimed at was the expulsion of the French from Scotland as dangerous to her own dominions, and he was instructed, if the old plea was raised—namely, that the French only remained there to maintain the throne of their mistress against disaffected subjects—to state that his sovereign would not admit this plea, as it was a mere pretence, and would not lay down her arms till the Queen of Scots was also secured in her just power and claims.
On the 10th of June, 1560, the Queen-Regent died in the castle of Edinburgh. On her death-bed she entreated Lord James Stuart, and some others of the Lords of the Congregation, as well as her own courtiers, to support the rightful power of her daughter: but, as the events showed, and the treacherous, ambitious character of the bastard brother of Queen Mary rendered probable, to very little purpose. The Queen-Regent's decease, however, opened a way to negotiation. The insurrectionary feeling in France made the French court readily support such a proposition, and it was agreed that the French and English commissioners should meet at Berwick on the 14th of June. The English commissioners were Cecil and Dr. Wotton, Dean of Canterbury; the French, Monluc, Bishop of Valence, and Count de Randon. Perhaps four more acute diplomatists never met. On the 16th of June, they proceeded to Edinburgh, passing through the English camp on the way, where they were saluted by a general discharge of firearms. By the 6th of July all the conditions of peace were settled, and it was announced both to the besiegers and besieged that hostilities were at an end.
The French commissioners stood stoutly for the rights and prerogatives of the Crown, but they were compelled to yield many points to the imperturbable firmness of Cecil. Dunbar and Inchkeith were surrendered as well as Leith. The French troops, excepting a small garrison in Dunbar and another in Inchkeith, were to be sent home and no more to be brought over. An indemnity for all that had passed since March, 1558, in Scotland, was granted; every man was to regain the post or position which he held before the struggle, and no Frenchman was to hold any office in that kingdom. A Convention of the three Estates was to be summoned by the king and queen, and four-and-twenty persons were to be named by this Convention, out of whom should be chosen a Council of twelve for the government of the country, of whom the Queen should name seven, and the Estates five. The king and queen were not to declare war, or conclude peace, without the concurrence of the Estates; neither the Lords nor the members of the Congregation should be molested for what they had done, and Churchmen were to be protected in their persons, rights, and properties, and to receive compensation for their losses according to the award of the Estates in Parliament.