What Knox wanted is very obvious.  He wanted to prevent Mary Stuart from enjoying her hereditary crown.  She was a woman, as such under the curse of “The First Blast of the Trumpet,” and she was an idolatress.  Presently, as we shall see, he shows his hand to Cecil.

Before the Reformers entered Edinburgh Mary of Guise retired to the castle of Dunbar, where she had safe access to the sea.  In Edinburgh Knox says that the poor sacked the monasteries “before our coming.”  The contemporary Diurnal of Occurrents attributes the feat to Glencairn, Ruthven, Argyll, and the Lord James. {135a}

Knox was chosen minister of Edinburgh, and as soon as they arrived the Lords, according to the “Historie of the Estate of Scotland,” sent envoys to the Regent, offering obedience if she would “relax” the preachers, summoned on May 10, “from the horn” and allow them to preach.  The Regent complied, but, of course, peace did not ensue, for, according to Knox, in addition to a request “that we might enjoy liberty of conscience,” a demand for the withdrawal of all French forces out of Scotland was made. {135b} This could not be granted.

Presently Mary of Guise issued before July 2, in the name of the King and Queen, Francis II. and Mary Stuart, certain charges against the Reformers, which Knox in his “History” publishes. {135c} A remark that Mary Stuart lies like her mother, seems to be written later than the period (September-October 1559) when this Book II. was composed.  The Regent says that the rising was only under pretence of religion, and that she has offered a Parliament for January 1560.  “A manifest lie,” says Knox, “for she never thought of it till we demanded it.”  He does not give a date to the Regent’s paper, but on June 25 Kirkcaldy wrote to Percy that the Regent “is like to grant the other party” (the Reformers) “all they desire, which in part she has offered already.” {136a}

Knox seizes on the word “offered” as if it necessarily meant “offered though unasked,” and so styles the Regent’s remark “a manifest lie.”  But Kirkcaldy, we see, uses the words “has in part offered already” when he means that the Regent has “offered” to grant some of the wishes of his allies.

Meanwhile the Regent will allow freedom of conscience in the country, and especially in Edinburgh.  But the Reformers, her paper goes on, desire to subvert the crown.  To prove this she says that they daily receive messengers from England and send their own; and they have seized the stamps in the Mint (a capital point as regards the crown) and the Palace of Holyrood, which Lesley says that they sacked.  Knox replies, “there is never a sentence in the narrative true,” except that his party seized the stamps merely to prevent the issue of base coin (not to coin the stolen plate of the churches and monasteries for themselves, as Lesley says they did).  But Knox’s own letters, and those of Kirkcaldy of Grange and Sir Henry Percy, prove that they were intriguing with England as early as June 23-25.  Their conduct, with the complicity of Percy, was perfectly well known to the Regent’s party, and was denounced by d’Oysel to the French ambassador in London in letters of July. {136b} Elizabeth, on August 7, answered the remonstrances of the Regent, promising to punish her officials if guilty.  Nobody lied more frankly than “that imperial votaress.”