Mary had been listening with obvious impatience and no very close attention. She had perhaps made up her mind beforehand. She had again seated herself, and tapped the floor fretfully with her foot, glancing occasionally at her brother as if to ascertain his opinion of the controversy. Moray looked on with the calm approval of a partisan, who thinks his own man is getting the best of it. When Knox paused, the Queen broke in with unusual vehemence.
‘And the book? At least you cannot deny the book, nor its object, nor its reflections on my mother and myself. Even the nice casuistry of Master Knox cannot refine away his authorship of that “First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” Oh! it is a worthy title for a worthy production! and, in any other country under heaven but this, it would have brought its writer to the block. By the crown I wear, in a parallel case, my cousin of England would have had it burnt by the common hangman!’
She breathed quick, and gesticulated more than was her wont. She was lashing herself into anger, the gentle Queen, as she thought of her own weakness and Elizabeth Tudor’s strength. Knox met her glance unmoved. When thus embarked on the tide of argument, he was no more to be influenced by force than persuasion; the softest eyes that ever smiled, and the sternest brows that ever frowned, were alike to him. In the pride of his calling, and the fierce delight of disputation, a man of marble within and without.
‘As to the book that so angers your Majesty,’ said he, ‘I own to it freely. Yes, I wrote it deliberately, and on reflection; nor is there a position laid down, nor an argument adduced in the whole of it, that I fear to establish and substantiate before any ten of the most learned men in Europe!’
‘Then you maintain that I have no just authority even over my own subjects?’ urged the Queen, with difficulty keeping back her tears.
‘These are all fair matters for dispute, madam,’ was his reply. ‘The learned may surely be suffered to discuss such questions unmolested, when they refrain from putting their theories of good government into practice. Plato himself, as I need scarcely remind your Majesty, argued the necessity of many reforms fundamentally opposed to the very principles of the commonwealth in which he lived. The litera scripta manet indeed, madam; but it is for future generations; and no book written, if left unfortified by persecution, ever yet subverted the authority existent at the time it was composed, and against which it may seem to have been aimed. Besides, madam,’ added the churchman, warming into good-humour as he got into the full swing of his oratory, ‘my book was not directed so much against yourself as your namesake, the bloody Jezebel of England, with her wicked satellites, godless Gardiner and blaspheming Bonner, the one on her right hand, and the other on her left! Had I meant to have troubled your estate, madam, would I not have chosen a more fitting time, and a weaker breach in the defences, for my assault?’
‘But at least,’ resumed Mary, a little mollified by this admission, ‘ye cannot deny that ye have taught the people to follow a religion different from that of their prince. How is this to be reconciled with the divine command that subjects should obey their rulers? I cannot wrestle with you in argument, Master Knox; I am but a foolish woman after all; yet here, methinks, I have you on the hip.’
He paused a moment, like a true rhetorician, gratified at an opposition he deemed worthy to be controverted.
‘The objection, madam,’ he answered, ‘is a fair one; yet thus do I demolish it. True religion, it cannot be disputed, cometh from God, and not from the king, else why are we enjoined but to honour the latter, whilst we are to fear, and consequently obey, the former? This is the argument positive. Of the negative, I can produce instances in abundance. The following may be thought sufficient:—The Hebrews were not to conform to the idolatry of Pharaoh or the self-glorification of Nebuchadnezzar the King, nor were the primitive Christians to practise the degrading superstitions of the Roman Emperors.’
‘Good,’ replied Mary; ‘yet we read not that Jew or Christian was justified in resisting with the sword.’