Twelve wooden altars, to be erected in St. Giles’s, are said by Knox’s continuator to have been found in Holyrood. {250c}

Mary’s schemes, whatever they extended to, were broken by the murder of Riccio in the evening of March 9.  He was seized in her presence, and dirked by fifty daggers outside of her room.  Ruthven, who in June 1564 had come into Mary’s good graces, and Morton were, with Darnley, the leaders of the Douglas feud, and of the brethren.

The nobles might easily have taken, tried, and hanged Riccio, but they yielded to Darnley and to their own excited passions, when once they had torn him from the Queen.  The personal pleasure of dirking the wretch could not be resisted, and the danger of causing the Queen’s miscarriage and death may have entered into the plans of Darnley.  Knox does not tell the story himself; his “History” ends in June 1564.  But “in plain terms” he “lets the world understand what we mean,” namely, that Riccio “was justly punished,” and that “the act” (of the murderers) was “most just and most worthy of all praise.” {251a} This Knox wrote just after the event, while the murderers were still in exile in England, where Ruthven died—­seeing a vision of angels!  Knox makes no drawback to the entirely and absolutely laudable character of the deed.  He goes out of his way to tell us “in plain terms what we mean,” in a digression from his account of affairs sixteen years earlier.  Thus one fails to understand the remark, that “of the manner in which the deed was done we may be certain that Knox would disapprove as vehemently as any of his contemporaries.” {251b} The words may be ironical, for vehement disapproval was not conspicuous among Protestant contemporaries.  Knox himself, after Mary scattered the party of the murderers and recovered power, prayed that heaven would “put it into the heart of a multitude” to treat Mary like Athaliah.

Mary made her escape from Holyrood to Dunbar, to safety, in the night of March 11.  March 12 found Knox on his knees; the game was up, the blood had been shed in vain.  The Queen had not died, but was well, and surrounded by friends; and the country was rather for her than against her.  The Reformer composed a prayer, repenting that “in quiet I am negligent, in trouble impatient, tending to desperation,” which shows insight.  He speaks of his pride and ambition, also of his covetousness and malice.  That he was really covetous we cannot believe, nor does he show malice except against idolaters.  He “does not doubt himself to be elected to eternal salvation,” of which he has “assured signs.”  He has “knowledge above the common sort of my brethren” (pride has crept in again!), and has been compelled to “forespeak,” or prophesy.  He implores mercy for his “desolate bedfellow,” for her children, and for his sons by his first wife.  “Now, Lord, put end to my misery!” (Edinburgh, March 12, 1566).  Knox fled from Edinburgh, “with a great mourning of the godly of religion,” says a Diarist, on the same day as the chief murderers took flight, March 17; his place of refuge was Kyle in Ayrshire (March 21, 1566). {252a}