But she succeeded—she pleased. The lords filled Holyroodhouse, their companies the precincts; every man was Queen Mary’s man. The city wrought at its propynes and pageants against her entry in state. Mr. Knox, grimly surveying the company at his board, called her Honeypot.
There were those of her own religion who might have had another name for her. One morning there was a fray after her mass, when the Lord Lindsay and a few like him hustled and beat a priest. They waited for him behind the screen and gave him, in their phrase, ‘a bloody comb.’ Now, here was a case for something more tart than honey—at least, the clerk thought so. He had come running to her full of his griefs: the holy vessels had been tumbled on the floor, the holy vestments were in shreds; he (the poor ministrant) was black and blue; martyrdom beckoned him, and so on.
‘Nay, good father, you shall not take it amiss,’ she had said to him. ‘A greater than you or I said in a like case, “They know not what they do.”’
‘Madam,’ says the priest, ‘there spake the Son of God, all-discerning, not to be discerned of the Jews. But I judge from the feel of my head what they do, and I think they themselves know very well—and their master also that sent them, their Master Knox.’
‘I will give you another Scripture, then,’ replied she. ‘It is written, “By our stripes we are healed.”’
‘Your pardon, madam, your pardon!’ cried the priest: ‘I read it otherwise. St. Peter saith, “By His stripes we are healed”—a very different matter.’
She grew red. ‘Come, come, sir, we are bandying words. You will not tell me that you have no need of heavenly physic, I suppose?’
‘I pray,’ said he, ‘that your Majesty have none. Madam, if it please you, but for your Majesty’s kindred, the Lord James and his brethren, I had been a dead man.’
‘You tell me the best news of my brothers I have had yet,’ said she, and sent him away.