The commotion produced by these proceedings was unexampled. One after another of the men who had by Knox's side led the entire movement of the Reformation and to whom he had been spokesman, secretary, and counsellor, came with grave looks and anxious urgency to do what they could to procure his submission. The Master of Maxwell, hitherto his great friend, but who now broke off from him entirely, was the first to appear; Then Speirs of Condie (whom he convinced), then Murray and Lethington with whom he held one of those long arguments which were of frequent recurrence, and which are always highly dramatic—the dour preacher holding his own like a stone wall before all the assaults, light, brilliant, and varied, of the accomplished secretary, whose smile of contempt at the unconquerable personage before him and his "devout imaginations" is often mingled with that same exasperation which drove Mary to the womanish refuge of tears. But no one could move him. And at last the day, or rather night, of the trial came.
It was in December, the darkest moment of the year, between six and seven in the evening, when the Lords assembled at Holyrood, and the formidable culprit was introduced to their presence. The rumour had spread in the town that Knox was to be put on his trial, and the whole Congregation came with him down the Canongate, filling the court of Holyrood with a dark surging mass of men, who crowded the very stairs towards the room in which the council was held. The lords were "talking ane with another" in the preliminary moment before the council was formed, when Knox entered the room. They were then told to take their places, headed on one side by "the Duke" Chatelherault, and on the other by Argyle. Murray, Glencairn, Ruthven, the Earl Marischal, Knox's tried companions in arms, who had stood with him through many a dark day, took their seats with averted looks, his judges now, and judges offended, repulsed, their old sympathies aggravating the breach. Then came the Queen "with no little worldly pomp," and took the chair between those two rows of troubled counsellors, Lethington at one side, Maxwell at the other. She gave an angry laugh as she took her place. "Wat ye[4] whereat I laugh?" she said (or is reported to have said) to one of these intimate supporters. "Yon man gart me greit, and grat never tear himself: I will see if I can gar him greit."
The proceedings being opened, Knox's letter was read. It was not a conciliatory letter, being in reality a call if not to arms yet to that intervention of an army of resolute men which had overawed the authorities again and again in earlier times. It contained the usual vehement statements about that crime of saying mass which, or even to permit it, was the most desperate of public offences in Knox's eyes: and there is little doubt that it exaggerated the danger of the crisis, and contained at least one misleading statement as to matters of which there was no proof. When it was read a moment of silence ensued, and then Lethington spoke:—
"Maister Knox, are ye not sorry from your heart, and do ye not repent that sic ane letter has passed your pen, and from you is come to the knowledge of others?"
John Knox answered, "My Lord Secretaire, before I repent I must be taught my offence."
"Offence!" said Lethington; "if there were no more but the convocation of the Queen's lieges the offence cannot be denied."
"Remember yourself, my lord," said the other, "there is a difference between ane lawful convocation and ane unlawful. If I have been guilty in this, I have often offended since I came last in Scotland; for what convocation of the brethren has ever been to this day with which my pen served not? Before this no man laid it to my charge as a crime."
"Then was then," said Lethington, "and now is now. We have no need of such convocations as sometime we have had."
John Knox answered, "The time that has been is even now before my eyes; for I see the poor flock in no less danger now than it has been at any time before, except that the Devil has gotten a vissoure upon his face. Before he came in with his own face discovered by open tyranny, seeking the destruction of all that has refused idolatrie; and then I think ye will confess the brethren lawfully assembled themselves for defence of their lives. And now the Devil comes under the cloke of justice to do that which God would not suffer him to do by strength."
"What is this?" said the Queen. "Methinks ye trifle with him. Who gave him authoritie to make convocation of my lieges? Is not that treason?"