sovereign, but says of “God’s chosen children” (the Protestants), that “their victory standeth not in resisting but in suffering,” “in quietness, silence, and hope,” as the Prophet Isaiah recommends.  The Isaiahs (however numerous modern criticism may reckon them) were late prophets, not of the school of Elijah, whom Knox followed in 1554 and 1558-59, not in 1552 or 1555, or on one occasion in 1558-59.  “The Elect of God” do not “shed blood and murder,” Knox remarks, though he approves of the Elect, of the brethren at all events, when they do murder and shed blood.

Meanwhile Knox is more than willing to run the risks of the preacher of the truth, “partly because I would, with St. Paul, wish myself accursed from Christ, as touching earthly pleasures” (whatever that may mean), “for the salvation of my brethren and illumination of your Grace.”  He confesses that the Regent is probably not “so free as a public reformation perhaps would require,” for that required the downcasting of altars and images, and prohibition to celebrate or attend Catholic rites.  Thus Knox would, apparently, be satisfied for the moment with toleration and immunity for his fellow-religionists.  Nothing of the sort really contented him, of course, but at present he asked for no more.

Yet, a few days later, he writes, the Regent handed his letter to the Archbishop of Glasgow, saying, “Please you, my Lord, to read a pasquil,” an offence which Knox never forgave and bitterly avenged in his “History.”

It is possible that the Regent merely glanced at his letter.  She would find herself alluded to in a biblical parallel with “the Egyptian midwives,” with Nebuchadnezzar, and Rahab the harlot.  Her acquaintance with these amiable idolaters may have been slight, but the comparison was odious, and far from tactful.  Knox also reviled the creed in which she had been bred as “a poisoned cup,” and threatened her, if she did not act on his counsel, with “torment and pain everlasting.”  Those who drink of the cup of her Church “drink therewith damnation and death.”  As for her clergy, “proud prelates do Kings maintain to murder the souls for which the blood of Christ Jesus was shed.”

These statements were dogmatic, and the reverse of conciliatory.  One should not, in attempting to convert any person, begin by reviling his religion.  Knox adopted the same method with Mary Stuart:  the method is impossible.  It is not to be marvelled at if the Regent did style the letter a “pasquil.”

Knox took his revenge in his “History” by repeating a foolish report that Mary of Guise had designed to poison her late husband, James V.  “Many whisper that of old his part was in the pot, and that the suspicion thereof caused him to be inhibited the Queen’s company, while the Cardinal got his secret business sped of that gracious lady either by day or night.” {71a} He styled her, as we saw, “a wanton widow”; he hinted that she was the mistress of Cardinal Beaton; he made similar insinuations about her relations with d’Oysel (who was “a secretis mulierum"); he said, as we have seen, that she only waited her chance to cut the throats of all suspected Protestants; he threw doubt on the legitimacy of her daughter, Mary Stuart; and he constantly accuses her of treachery, as will appear, when the charge is either doubtful, or, as far as I can ascertain, absolutely false.