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Blast,' to the last of which he intended to affix his name; but Queen Mary dying soon after the appearance of the first, and her successor being regarded by him as an instrument raised up for the good of the Protestant faith, he advanced no farther. In January, 1559, he left Geneva* for the last time, to return to his native country; and having a strong desire, on his way thither, to visit his English hearers, he solicited leave through Sir William Cecil, Secretary of State, for that purpose. His petition however was so far from being granted, that his messenger very narrowly escaped imprisonment.† Knox's doctrine, indeed, contained in his First Blast,' it appears, needed no sequel to disgust Elizabeth.

The refusal of his request, and the harsh treatment of his flock, touched to the quick his irritable temper; and it was with some difficulty that he suppressed his

lation,' which made it's appearance some months after the

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First.' In the ensuing year appeared an answer to the Blast,' under the title of An Harborow for Faithful Subjects.' It proceeded from the pen of John Aylmer, one of the English refugees, who had been Archdeacon of Stowe and tutor to Lady Jane Grey. As it appeared after the accession of Elizabeth, Knox could not help surmising that prudence, quite as much as conscience, stimulated it's author, who became Bishop of London.

* Previously to his departure, the republic conferred upon him the freedom of the city, which Calvin did not obtain till the December following: and to him and Alexander Aless, conjunctively, Bishop Bale (who had been one of his opponents at Frankfort) dedicated his work on Scottish Writers.

+ And yet the blood-stained Bonner was permitted to traverse London unmolested: one Dr. Story, in her first parliament, had the effrontery to justify the cruelties of her predecessor, and to regret their inefficacy; and Tunstall, instead of being consigned (as Stapleton reports) to a prison, had for his dungeon Lambeth Palace, and for his provision the Archbishop's table!

desire of prosecuting a controversy, which he had resolved to abandon.* But greater designs engrossed his attention; and, with a view of prosecuting them, he proceeded directly to Scotland. † The French, he had discovered, had determined to set up the claim of the young Queen of that kingdom to the English crown; and, as a preliminary measure, to suppress the Reformation in her inherited dominions. Convinced that the Scottish Reformers would be unable to resist their machinations, and that it was for the interest of England to give them effectual support, he laid before that court the whole of his information, his suspicions, and his projects; and, in spite of great discouragements, persevered until his endea vours were crowned with success. His arrival in Scotland was not long concealed from the clergy: within a few days, in virtue of a former sentence, he was publicly declared an outlaw and a rebel.' He hurried, therefore, immediately to Dundee; where he found the principal Protestants of Angus and Mearns assembled in large numbers.

A short time before this, the public exercise of

"My First Blast (says he in a letter, dated Dieppe, April 6, 1559) hath blown from me all my friends in England. My con science bears record, that yet I seek the favour of my God, and so I am in the less fear. The Second Blast,' I fear, shall sound somewhat more sharp, except that men be more moderate than I hear they are.-England hath refused me; but because, before, it did refuse Christ Jesus, the less do I regard the loss of this familiarity. And yet have I been a secret and assured friend to thee, O England, in cases which thyself could not have remedied."

+ See the second book of his History, which contains a full account of his conduct, till the Protestants were obliged to apply to England.

the Reformed religion had been introduced into the town of Perth. Fired by this measure the Queen Regent, in bigoted subserviency to the politics of her brothers the Princes of Lorrain, had issued a mandate, summoning all the preachers of the new doctrines throughout the kingdom to a Court of Justice to be held at Stirling on the tenth of May. Conforming to a custom at that time prevalent in Scotland, and determined not to forsake their enlightened and intrepid instructors, the Protestant laity assembled in great numbers to attend their pastors. The Regent, intimidated at their approach, empowered a person of eminent authority with them to promise that the trial should be renounced, provided they advanced no farther. Delighted by this pacific overture, the principal part of the procession returned to their own habitations; the ministers only, with a few of the lay-leaders, remaining at Perth.

Notwithstanding this solemn engagement however, the Queen upon the appointed day ordered the persons who had been summoned to be called to trial, and on their non-appearance to be outlawed. By this base artifice, she totally forfeited the confidence of the whole nation; and, by disclosing to the Protestants her inveterate hostility, she excited them to stand boldly on their defence. While their minds," says Dr. Robertson, "were in that ferment, which the Queen's perfidiousness and their own danger occasioned, Knox mounted the pulpit, and by a vehement harangue against idolatry inflamed the multitude with the utmost rage. The indiscretion of a priest, who immediately after Knox's sermon was preparing to celebrate mass, and began to decorate the altar for that purpose, precipitated them into

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immediate action. With tumultuous but irresistible violence they fell upon the churches in that city, overturned the altars, defaced the pictures, broke in pieces the images, and proceeding next to the monasteries laid those sumptuous fabrics almost level with the ground. This riotous insurrection was not the effect of any concert, or previous deliberation. Censured by the Reformed preachers, and publicly condemned by the persons of most power and credit with the party, it must be regarded merely as an accidental eruption of popular rage."

It gave the Queen-Regent, however, a great advantage over her enemies. Magnifying the casual tumult into a designed and dangerous rebellion, she inflamed the minds of her more orthodox subjects against them, and collecting an army from the adjacent counties, threatened to lay waste the town of Perth with fire and sword. The Protestants indeed, by the promptitude and vigour of their preparations, induced her to propose overtures of accommodation : but in the observance of the stipulated conditions she was so little faithful,* that several even of her own most respectable adherents, particularly the Prior of St. Andrew's and the young Earl of Argyle, distrusting her promises, deserted the court. Determined by the scandalous lives of the Romish clergy, their total neglect of the religious instruction of the people, and the gross profanation of the existing worship, to make à vigorous effort at Reformation, these noblemen fixed upon St. Andrew's as the place for commencing their operations, and appointed Knox to meet them

* Robertson's account of this princess is more favourable than that of Dr. M'Crie; but I have preferred the latter.

in that city. The Archbishop, apprised of his design to preach in the cathedral, informed him that, if he made his appearance with that purpose, he would give orders to the soldiers to fire upon him.' On this, his noble friends strongly dissuaded him from the enterprise. But he firmly withstood all their importunities; and fired with the recollection of the part which he had formerly acted on that spot, and his own sanguine anticipations and prophecies, he intrepidly mounted the pulpit, and preached to a numerous assembly (including many of the clergy) without experiencing the slightest interruption.

The example of St. Andrew's, in abolishing the Popish worship, was quickly followed in other parts of the kingdom; and in the course of a few weeks at Crail, at Cupar, at Lindores, at Stirling, at Linlithgow, and at Edinburgh the houses of the monks were overthrown; and all the instruments, which had been employed to foster superstition, destroyed.*

* These proceedings were celebrated in the singular lays, which were at that time circulated among the Reformers:

'His cardinalles hes cause to mourne,

His bishops are borne a backe;

His abbots gat an uncouth turne,

When shavellings went to sacke.

With burges wives they led their lives,

And fare better than we:

Hay trix, trim göe trix, under the greenwod-tree.

His Carmelites and Jacobines,

His Domenikes had great adoe;

His Cordeiliers and Augustines,

Sanct Francis' ordour to;
The sillie friers mony yeeris

With babling bleerit our ee.
Hay trix, &c.

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