56

EDINBURGH SEIZED.

numbered the Regent's force, and on June 13 an arrangement had to be made. Mary was obliged to remove her French, except three sea-board garrisons, out of Fife. A pause of eight days was allowed for a discussion, but Mary sent no envoys to St Andrews. 47 Argyll and Murray wrote to Mary, complaining of the garrison of Scots under French colours in Perth. They say, "Suppose that it" (the clause in the Perth treaty) "was spoken of French soldiers only, yet we took it otherwise, as we still do." They then coerced the garrison in Perth, which evacuated the town (June 25). The abbey and the palace of Scone were next sacked, in spite of the strenuous efforts of Knox and the nobles. Stirling was handled in similar style. Mary retreated to Dunbar, the Congregation entered Edinburgh, found the religious houses already wrecked, and seized Holyrood and the stamps at the mint. On this Mary issued a paper, asserting that religion was a mere cloak for rebellion, and that she had offered to establish liberty of conscience till a Parliament could be held in January, or sooner,-"a manifest lie," writes Knox. Mary declared that the Congregation was intriguing with England, and had seized the stamps at the mint and her palace of Holyrood. Writing four months later, Knox has the assurance to say, "There is never a sentence of the narrative true." They had seized the stamps, but that was to stop the utterance of debased coin. Now the "narrative" is true. As to Mary's concessions, Kirkcaldy says to Percy (June 25) that the Regent "is like to grant the other party" (his party) "all they desire, which in part she has offered already." 48 Are we to believe Knox, or Kirkcaldy? As to the dealings with England, which Mary alleged, Knox had proposed to Kirkcaldy a union with England as against France (June 23). Knox, on June 28, had asked for an interview with Cecil: he was trying, in his own way, to soothe Elizabeth's anger against him, awakened by his blast against "the Monstrous Regiment of Women." It is thus plain that Knox's vehement giving of the lie to Mary is not justified. Indeed he lets out the fact in a later page.49 He and Kirkcaldy were, as Mary said, intriguing with England. Knox avers that Mary said "they sought nothing but her life," and quotes her proclamation, in which she does not say so. The Reformers were, apparently, aiming at nothing less than to alter the succession to the throne.

The eldest son of Châtelherault, Arran, was captain of the Scots Guard in France, and was a Protestant. Henri II. writes

PROPOSED MARRIAGE OF ARRAN AND ELIZABETH. 57

that Arran has caused scandals in Poitou, and has fled to escape arrest. 50 He reached Geneva, and was conducted home by agents of Elizabeth. As early as June 14, Croft, from Berwick, wrote to Cecil on this subject. Arran "is very well bent to religion, and, next his father, he is the only help of the realm." If all their imaginations may take place, they intend to presume to motion a marriage, "You know where." That is, the Reformers, asking the aid of England, in contravention of the recent treaty of peace, wished Elizabeth to marry Arran. The result, if successful, must be to place the house of Hamilton on the throne.51 On June 28 Throckmorton wrote that Whitlowe (an old Scots agent of England under Somerset) proposed a marriage between the queen (Elizabeth) and the Earl of Arran. Mary Stuart understood the situation. She told Mompesat (who had been hunting for Arran) that "he could not do her a greater pleasure than to use Arran as an arrant traitor." 52 These intrigues prove that the Reformers looked to Arran, not to the Lord James, as their future king. Lord James was suspected of aiming at the Crown, but it is probable that this remarkable statesman had no such ambition.

Meanwhile, by occupying Edinburgh, Knox's party had destroyed any shadowy chance of accommodation. Indeed none such could be to them universal toleration was abhorrent, even had the Regent been in earnest. By July 1, Châtelherault, "with almost the whole nobility," says Kirkcaldy, had joined the Brethren. The Second Prayer-Book of Edward VI. was appointed to be read in churches. The property of the Church was to be, for the present, "bestowed upon the faithful ministers." Knox's hatred of the prayer-book soon swept it away; nor did the faithful ministers get "all the fruits of the abbeys." The Reformers would be content with nothing from the Regent but a general Reformation and the dismissal of the French, which some expected her to grant. This letter of Kirkcaldy's is of July 1, the same day as Mary's charges against the Reformers, which Kirkcaldy may not yet have seen.53 She continued to negotiate: she had again won over Châtelherault, Knox says, by insisting that Argyll and Lord James were not allowed to meet her in private. A larger meeting at Preston had no effect. Mary insisted that, where she was, preachers should be silent, and she should have her mass. The Reformers had just told her that they desired "liberty of conscience." 54 They now added that she must not expect this satisfaction; "neither could we suffer that the right administration

58

PROTESTANTS EVACUATE EDINBURGH.

of Christ's true sacraments should give place to manifest idolatry.” 55 There was no possibility of dealing with men so intolerant; and Mary temporised, trusting that the levies of the Congregation would break up, as they began to do. Thus July slipped past, the Reformers dealing with England, while in France the desire was to help the Regent.

Cecil had every wish to aid the Reformers, though Knox, at great length, had demonstrated that he richly deserved damnation.56 Cecil felt that England needed Scotland in opposition to France, where Mary and the Dauphin had assumed the title of King and Queen, and had quartered the arms of England,57 which implied that Elizabeth was illegitimate. Moreover, Cecil had heard from Throckmorton, in Paris, that the Guises advised death and confiscation against Argyll, Lord James, and others.58 Cecil, therefore, cautiously encouraged Knox and Kirkcaldy. His difficulty was with Elizabeth. She detested Knox and all rebels against royal authority. Noailles advised Henri to send Mary and the Dauphin to Scotland, where their presence might be pacifying. Arran's flight

from Poitou, the mortal wound of Henri II. in a tournament, and news of a French expedition to Scotland, coincided, early in July. On the 8th Cecil bade the Protestants do what they had to do quickly.59 On the death of Henri, Throckmorton reported that the new queen, Mary Stuart, "trusts to be Queen of Scotland" (July 11). On July 19 the Lords of the Congregation appealed formally to Elizabeth for aid.60 But as England delayed, and many of the Congregation were scattered, while Erskine, in the castle, threatened to fire on them, the Brethren on July 24 evacuated Leith and Edinburgh, d'Oysel occupying Leith. An arrangement of the most confused kind had been made. The terms are thus stated :—

1. All Protestants, except the inhabitants, shall leave Edinburgh on the 24th.

2. They shall give up the mint stamps and Holyrood; offering hostages for fulfilment.

3. They shall obey the laws, except as to faith.

4. They shall not molest the clergy, or their incomes, before January 10, nor seize their rents.

5. Nor attack churches or monasteries.

6. Till January 10 Edinburgh shall have what religion it chooses. 7. The Regent shall not molest the preachers, nor allow the clergy to do so.61

SINGULAR STATEMENTS OF KNOX.

59

Knox says that his party drew up other articles to this effect:1. That no member of the Congregation should in any way be molested for the late innovations, before the holding of a Parliament on January 10.

2. That idolatry should not be erected where it was, at the moment, suppressed.

3. That the preachers should have freedom to preach everywhere they chanced to come.

4. That Edinburgh should not be garrisoned.

5. That the French should he sent away, "at a reasonable day," and no more brought in, without assent of the nobles and

Parliament.

Knox then writes, "But these our articles were altered, and another form disposeth, as after follows," and then cites the articles of which we have given the substance (p. 58). He goes on, "This alteration in words and order was made without counsel and consent of those whose counsel we had used in all cases before." He appears to mean that he himself, and perhaps other preachers, were not consulted. Before leaving Edinburgh, the Lords published, as the real agreement, a totally different version. It is not the real agreement, it is merely the arrangement originally proposed by the Protestants, but without the article that the French shall be all dismissed by a reasonable day. The Catholics remonstrating against this bad faith, the Brethren declared that these were the actual terms agreed upon, "whatsoever their scribes had after written." Yet Knox calmly admits that the fourth article of the treaty, as given above, securing the clergy from outrages, was suppressed, as "to proclaim anything in their favours we thought it not necessary, knowing that in that behalf they themselves should be diligent enough." This is remarkable conduct in persons so sensitive on the point of honour. Not only did the godly accept one treaty, and proclaim that they had accepted another, but they accused the Regent's scribes of fraudulently altering the very treaty which they had accepted, and then themselves had altered.62 Moreover Knox, in a History written almost at the moment, proclaims this complicated iniquity with cynical candour. The charge which Knox and his party made against "the scribes" is untrue, and Knox knew it. For on July 24, Kirkcaldy, writing to Croft from Edinburgh, announced that his faction had accepted the terms of the Seven Articles as we give them. 63 We need no longer criticise charges of perfidy against

60

PERFIDY OF ELIZABETH.

Mary of Guise. They are matched by the confessed perfidy of the godly.

The Brethren retired to Stirling, made a new band, and kept on asking for English aid. Knox, in his History, says that this was done because they distrusted the Regent. He does not here say that he and his party had long been practising with Cecil. In Edinburgh the Protestants held St Giles' Church, and were shocked when the Regent heard mass in the abbey. In the first days of August Knox visited Berwick. His instructions as to dealing with Croft included political and military matters. Alliance and aid, in men and money, were desired. Knox returned, with Alexander Whitelaw, an English spy, on August 3. Whitelaw was unlucky. Lord Seton, mistaking him for Knox, broke a chair on him, “without any occasion offered to him." Knox reports the fact, but does not here say that he himself had been in England.64 As Laing observes, in the part of Knox's History which was written almost at the time of the events, "the application made for aid from England is scarcely alluded to." 65 Naturally, for Knox was denying that they dealt with England. Little was got from Cecil: with what "authority" in Scotland could he treat? He hinted that Arran, or Lord James, might be selected. However, the Congregation were not wholly neglected. Elizabeth sent Sadleyr to Berwick, and permitted him to expend £3000 in the interests of the Brethren. He was to be very secret, so as not to be found infringing the recent treaty of peace (August).66

Thus began a revival of the old English aid to the Protestant party. On the very day when Elizabeth thus enabled Sadleyr to foster rebellion in Scotland, she also wrote to Mary of Guise. She said that Francis II. had informed her that her Border officials had been dealing with "the rebels." She asked for exact information, "that we may take order for punishing the guilty." 67 Elizabeth continued to fable: the Congregation and the Regent issued proclamations and counter-proclamations: French troops arrived at Leith: Arran passed from France through England, and met Elizabeth. She did not lose her heart to him. He joined the Congregation at Stirling: thence the Lords passed to Châtelherault, at Hamilton, where it was determined to resist the fortification of Leith by the Regent,68 Of all things the Lords wanted more money from England. They bade Mary discontinue the fortification of Leith: she declined, and on October 15