She dealt with him very earnestly, for two hours before supper, to persuade the western gentlemen to desist from all interruption of the catholic worship. He told her majesty, that if she would exert her authority in executing the laws of the land, he could promise for the peaceable behaviour of the protestants; but if she thought to elude them, he feared there were some who would let the papists understand that they should not offend with impunity. “Will ye allow, that they shall take my sword in their hands?” said the queen. “The sword of justice is God’s,” replied the Reformer with equal firmness, “and is given to princes and rulers for one end, which, if they transgress, sparing the wicked and oppressing the innocent, they who, in the fear of God, execute judgment where God has commanded, offend not God, although kings do it not.” Having produced some examples from scripture to show that criminals might be punished by persons who did not occupy the place of supreme rulers, he added, that the gentlemen of the West were acting strictly according to law; for the act of parliament gavepower to all judges within their bounds, to search for and punish those who should transgress its enactments. He concluded with inculcating a doctrine which has seldom been very pleasing to princes. “It shall be profitable to your majesty to consider what is the thing your grace’s subjects look to receive of your majesty, and what it is that ye ought to do unto them by mutual contract. They are bound to obey you, and that not but in God: ye are bound to keep laws to them. Ye crave of them service: they crave of you protection and defence against wicked doers. Now, madam, if you shall deny your duty unto them, (which especially craves that ye punish malefactors,) think ye to receive full obedience of them? I fear, madam, ye shall not.” The queen broke off the conversation with evident marks of displeasure.
Having imparted the substance of what had passed between them to the earl of Murray, Knox meant to return to Edinburgh next day without waiting for any further communications with the queen. But a message was delivered to him at an early hour in the morning, desiring him not to depart until he had again spoken with her majesty. He accordingly met her at a place in the neighbourhood of Kinross, where she took the amusement of hawking. This interview was very different from that of the preceding evening. Waiving entirely the subject on which they had differed, she conversed with him upon a variety of topics, with the greatest familiarity and apparent confidence. Lord Ruthven (she said) had offered hera ring; but she could not love that nobleman.She knew that he used enchantment;[101] yet he had been made a member of her privy council; and she blamed secretary Lethington for procuring his admission into that body. Knox excused himself from saying any thing of the secretary in his absence. “I understand,” said she, introducing another subject of discourse, “that ye are appointed to go to Dumfries, for the election of a superintendent to be established in these countries.” He answered in the affirmative.“But I understand the bishop of Athens[102] would be superintendent.”—“He is one, madam, that is put in election.”—“If you knew him as well as I do, you would not promote him to that office, nor yet to any other within your kirk.” Knox said that the bishop deceived many, if he did not fear God. “Well, do as you will; but that man is a dangerous man.”
Knox wished to take his leave of her majesty, but she pressed him to stay. “I have one of the greatest matters that have touched me, since I came into thisrealm, to open to you, and I must have your help in it,” said she, with an air of condescension and confidence as enchanting as if she had put a ring on his finger. She then entered into a long discourse with him concerning a domestic difference between the earl and countess of Argyle. Her ladyship had not, she said, been so circumspect in every thing as could have been wished, but still she was of opinion that his lordship had not treated her in an honest and godly manner. Knox said that he was not unacquainted with the disagreeable variance which had subsisted between that honourable couple, and, before her majesty’s arrival in this country, had effected a reconciliation between them. On that occasion, the countess had promised not to complain to any creature before acquainting him; and having never heard from her on that subject, he had concluded that there was nothing but concord between her and his lordship. “Well,” said the queen, “it is worse than ye believe. But do this much for my sake, as once again to put them at unity, and if she behave not herself as she ought to do, she shall find no favour of me; but in any wise let not my lord know that I have requested you in this matter.” Then introducing the subject of their reasoning on the preceding evening, she said, “I promise to do as ye required: I shall cause summon all offenders; and ye shall know that I shall minister justice.”—“I am assured then,” said he, “that ye shall please God, and enjoy rest and tranquillity within your realm, which to your majesty ismore profitable than all the pope’s power can be.”Upon this he took his leave of the queen.[103]
This interview exhibits one part of Mary’s character in a very striking light. It shows how far she was capable of dissembling, what artifice she could employ, and what condescensions she could make, when she was bent on accomplishing a favourite object. She had formerly attacked the Reformer on another quarter without success, and was convinced that it was vain to think of working on his fears; she now resolved to try if she could soothe his stern temper by flattering his vanity, and disarm his jealousy by strong marks of confidence. There is reason to think that she partly succeeded in her design. For, though he was not very susceptible of flattery, and must have been struck with the sudden change in the queen’s views and behaviour, there are few minds that can altogether resist the impression made by the condescending familiarity of persons of superior rank; and our feelings, on such occasions, chide as uncharitable the cold suspicions suggested by our judgment. In obedience to her majesty’s request, he wrote a letter to the earl of Argyle, which was not very pleasing to that nobleman. From deference to the opinion which she had expressed, he enquired more narrowly into the conduct of the bishop of Galloway, and finding some grounds of suspicion, postponed the election. And the reportwhich he gave of the queen’s gracious answer operated in her favour on the public mind.[104]
But if his zeal suffered a temporary intermission, it soon kindled with fresh ardour. On the 19th of May, the archbishop of St Andrews and a number of the principal papists were arraigned by the queen’s orders, before the Lord Justice General, for transgressing the laws; and, having come in her majesty’s will, were committed to ward.But this was merely a stroke of policy, to enable her the more easily to carry her measures in the parliament which met on the following day; and accordingly the prisoners were set at liberty as soon as it was dissolved.[105]
This was the first parliament which had been held since the queen’s arrival in Scotland; and it was natural to expect that their first business would be to ratify the treaty of peace made in July 1560, and the establishment of the protestant religion. If the acts of the former parliament were invalid, as the queen had repeatedly declared, the protestants had no law on their side; they held their religion at the mercy of their sovereign, and might be required, at her pleasure, to submit to popery, as the religion which still possessed the legal establishment. But so well had she laid her plans, such was the effect of her insinuating address, and, above all, so powerful was the temptation of self‑interest on the minds of the protestant leaders, that, by general consent, they passed from this demand, and lost the only favourableopportunity which presented itself, during the reign of Mary, for giving a legal security to the reformed religion, and thereby removing one principal source of national fears and jealousies. An act of oblivion, securing indemnity to those who had been engaged in the late civil war, was indeed passed;but the mode of its enactment virtually implied the invalidity of the treaty in which it had been originally embodied; and the protestants, on their bended knees,[106] supplicated, as a boon from their sovereign, what they had formerly won with their swords, and repeatedly demanded as their right.The other acts made to please the more zealous reformers were expressed with such studied and glaring ambiguity, as to offer an insult to their understandings.[107]
Our Reformer was thunderstruck when first informed of the measures which were in agitation, and could scarcely believe that it was seriously intended to carry them into execution. He immediately procured an interview with some of the leading members of parliament, to whom he represented the danger of allowing that meeting to dissolve without obtaining the ratification of the acts of the preceding parliament, or at least those acts which established the Reformation. They alleged that the queen would never have agreed to call them together, if they had persisted in these demands; but that there was aprospect of her being soon married, and on that occasion they would obtain all their wishes. In vain he reminded them that poets and painters had represented Occasion with a bald hind‑head; in vain he urged, that the event to which they looked forward would be accompanied with difficulties of its own, which would require all their skill and circumspection. Their determination was fixed. He now perceived the full extent of the queen’s dissimulation; and the selfishness and servility of the protestant leaders affected him deeply.
So hot was the altercation between him and the earl of Murray on this subject, that an open rupture ensued. Knox had long looked upon that nobleman as one of the most sincere and steady adherents of the reformed cause; and therefore felt the greater disappointment at his conduct.Under his first irritation he wrote a letter to Murray, in which, after reminding him of his condition when they first became acquainted in London,[108] and the honours towhich he had been raised by providence, he solemnly renounced friendship with him, as one who preferred his own interest and the pleasure of his sister to the advancement of religion, left him to the guidance of the new counsellors whom he had chosen, and exonerated him from all future concern in his affairs.This variance, which continued nearly two years, was very gratifying to the queen, and to others who disliked their former familiarity, and who failed not (as Knox informs us) to “cast oil into the flame, until God did quench it by the water of affliction.”[109]
Before the dissolution of the parliament, the Reformer embraced an opportunity of disburdening his mind in the presence of the greater part of the members assembled in his church. After discoursing of the great mercy of God shown to Scotland, in marvellously delivering them from bondage of soul and body, and of the deep ingratitude which he perceived in all ranks of persons, he addressed himself particularly to the nobility. He praised God that he had an opportunity of pouring out the sorrows of his heart in the presence of those who could attest the truth of all that he said. He appealed to their consciences,if he had not, in their greatest extremities, exhorted them to depend upon God, and assured them of preservation and victory, provided they preferred the divine glory to their own lives and secular interests. “I have been with you in your most desperate temptations (continued he, in a strain of impassioned eloquence): in your most extreme dangers I have been with you.St Johnston, Cupar‑moor, and the Craggs of Edinburgh,[110] are yet recent in my heart;yea, that dark and dolorous night wherein all ye, my lords, with shame and fear, left this town, is yet in my mind;[111] and God forbid that ever I forget it! What was, I say, my exhortation to you, and what has fallen in vain of all that ever God promised unto you by my mouth, ye yourselves yet live to testify. There is not one of you, against whom was death and destruction threatened, perished: and how many of your enemies has God plagued before your eyes! Shall this be the thankfulness that ye shall render unto your God? To betray his cause when you have it in your hands to establish it as you please?” He saw nothing (he said) but a cowardly desertion of Christ’s standard. Some had even the effrontery to say that they had neither law nor parliament for their religion. They had the authority of God for their religion, and its truth was independent of humanlaws; but it was also accepted within this realm in public parliament, and that parliament he would maintain to have been as lawful and as free as any parliament that had ever been held within the kingdom of Scotland.
In the conclusion of his discourse, he adverted to the reports of her majesty’s marriage, and of the princes who courted her hand; and (desiring the audience to mark his words) he predicted the consequences which would ensue, if ever the nobility consented that their sovereign should marry a papist.