Now, in the first place, this could not be joyful news to set Mary dancing; as it was apt to prevent what she had most at heart, her personal interview with Elizabeth.  She understood this perfectly well, and, in conversation with Randolph, after her return to Edinburgh, lamented the deeds of her uncles, as calculated “to bring them in hate and disdain of many princes,” and also to chill Elizabeth’s amity for herself—­on which her whole policy now depended (May 29). {216a} She wept when Randolph said that, in the state of France, Elizabeth was not likely to move far from London for their interview.  In this mood how could Mary give a dance to celebrate an event which threatened ruin to her hopes?

Moreover, if Knox, when he speaks of “persecution begun again,” refers to the slaughter of Huguenots by Guise’s retinue, at Vassy, that untoward event occurred on March 1, and Mary cannot have been celebrating it by a ball at Holyrood as late as May 14, at earliest. {216b} Knox, however, preached against her dancing, if she danced “for pleasure at the displeasure of God’s people”; so he states the case.  Her reward, in that case, would he “drink in hell.”  In his “History” he declares that Mary did dance for the evil reason attributed to her, a reason which must have been mere matter of inference on his part, and that inference wrong, judging by dates, if the reference is to the affair of Vassy.  In April both French parties were committing brutalities, but these were all contrary to Mary’s policy and hopes.

If Knox heard a rumour against any one, his business, according to the “Book of Discipline,” was not to go and preach against that person, even by way of insinuation. {216c} Mary’s offence, if any existed, was not “public,” and was based on mere suspicion, or on tattle.  Dr. M’Crie, indeed, says that on hearing of the affair of Vassy, the Queen “immediately after gave a splendid ball to her foreign servants.”  Ten weeks after the Vassy affair is not “immediately”; and Knox mentions neither foreign servants nor Vassy. {216d}

The Queen sent for Knox, and made “a long harangue,” of which he does not report one word.  He gives his own oration.  Mary then said that she could not expect him to like her uncles, as they differed in religion.  But if he heard anything of herself that he disapproved of, “come to myself and tell me, and I shall hear you.”  He answered that he was not bound to come “to every man in particular,” but she could come to his sermons!  If she would name a day and hour, he would give her a doctrinal lecture.  At this very moment he “was absent from his book”; his studies were interrupted.

“You will not always be at your book,” she said, and turned her back.  To some papists in the antechamber he remarked, “Why should the pleasing face of a gentlewoman affray me?  I have looked in the faces of many angry men, and yet have not been afraid above measure.”

He was later to flee before that pleasing face.