The Queen, rather hurt, went off to supper, but next morning did her best to make friends with Knox over other matters.  She complained of Ruthven, who had given her a ring for some magical purpose, later explained by Ruthven, who seems to have despised the superstition of his age.  The Queen, says Ruthven, was afraid of poison; he gave her the ring, saying that it acted as an antidote.  Moray was at Lochleven with the Queen, and Moray believed, or pretended to believe, in Ruthven’s “sossery,” as Randolph spells “sorcery.”  She, rather putting herself at our Reformer’s mercy, complained that Lethington alone placed Ruthven in the Privy Council.

“That man is absent,” said Knox, “and therefore I will speak nothing on that behalf.”  Mary then warned him against “the man who was at time most familiar with the said John, in his house and at table,” the despicable Bishop of Galloway, and Knox later found out that the warning was wise.  Lastly, she asked him to reconcile the Earl and Countess of Argyll—­“do this much for my sake”; and she promised to summon the offending priests who had done their duty. {228a}

Knox, with his usual tact, wrote to Argyll thus:  “Your behaviour toward your wife is very offensive unto many godly.”  He added that, if all that was said of Argyll was true, and if he did not look out, he would be damned.

“This bill was not well accepted of the said Earl,” but, like the rest of them, he went on truckling to Knox, “most familiar with the said John.” {228b}

Nearly fifty priests were tried, but no one was hanged.  They were put in ward; “the like of this was never heard within the realm,” said pleased Protestants, not “smelling the craft.”  Neither the Queen nor her Council had the slightest desire to put priests to death.  Six other priests “as wicked as” the Archbishop were imprisoned, and the Abbot of Crossraguel was put to the horn in his absence, just as the preachers had been.  The Catholic clergy “know not where to hide their heads,” says Randolph.  Many fled to the more tender mercies of England; “it will be the common refuge of papists that cannot live here . . .” {228c} The tassels on the trains of the ladies, it was declared by the preachers, “would provoke God’s vengeance . . . against the whole realm . . " {229a}

The state of things led to a breach between Knox and Moray, which lasted till the Earl found him likely to be useful, some eighteen months later.

The Reformer relieved his mind in the pulpit at the end of May or early in June, rebuking backsliders, and denouncing the Queen’s rumoured marriage with any infidel, “and all Papists are infidels.”  Papists and Protestants were both offended.  There was a scene with Mary, in which she wept profusely, an infirmity of hers; we constantly hear of her weeping in public.  She wished the Lords of the Articles to see whether Knox’s “manner of speaking” was not punishable, but nothing could be done.  Elizabeth would have found out a way. {229b}