The Lords, in the other letter, are reminded that they had resolved to hazard life, rank, and fortune for the delivery of the brethren:  the first step must be to achieve a godly frame of mind.  Knox hears rumours “that contradiction and rebellion is made by some to the Authority” in Scotland.  He advises “that none do suddenly disobey or displease the established authority in things lawful,” nor rebel from private motives.  By “things lawful” does he mean the command of the Regent to invade England, which the nobles refused to do?  They may “lawfully attempt the extremity,” if Authority will not cease to persecute, and permit Protestant preaching and administration of the Sacraments (which usually ended in riot and church-wrecking).  Above all, they are not to back the Hamiltons, whose chief, Chatelherault, had been a professor, had fallen back, and become a persecutor.  “Flee all confederacy with that generation,” the Hamiltons; with whom, after all, Knox was presently to be allied, though by no means fully believing in the “unfeigned and speedy repentance” of their chief. {80a}

All the movements of that time are not very clear.  Apparently Lorne, Lord James, and the rest, in their letter of March 10, 1557, intended an armed rising:  they were “ready to jeopardise lives and goods” for “the glory of God.”  If no more than an appeal to “the Authority” for tolerance was meant, why did Knox consult the learned so long, on the question of conscience?  Yet, in December 1557, he bids his allies first of all seek the favour of “the Authority,” for bare toleration of Protestantism.

From the scheme of March 10, of which the details, unknown to us, were orally delivered by bearer, he appears to have expected civil war.

Again, just when Knox was writing to Scotland in December 1557, his allies there, he says, made “a common Band,” a confederacy and covenant such as the Scots usually drew up before a murder, as of Riccio or Darnley, or for slaying Argyll and “the bonny Earl o’ Murray,” under James VI.  These Bands were illegal.  A Band, says Knox, was now signed by Argyll, Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, and Erskine of Dun, and many others unknown, on December 3, 1557.  It is alleged that “Satan cruelly doth rage.”  Now, how was Satan raging in December 1557?  Myln, the last martyr, was not pursued till April 1558, by Knox’s account.

The first godly Band being of December 1557, {80b} and drawn up, perhaps, on the impulse of Knox’s severe letter from Dieppe of October 27, in that year; just after they signed the Band, what were the demands of the Banders?  They asked, apparently, that the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. should be read in all parish churches, with the Lessons:  if the curates are able to read:  if not, then by any qualified parishioner.  Secondly, preaching must be permitted in private houses, “without great conventions of the people.” {81a} Whether the Catholic service was to be concurrently permitted