The question is, What were the terms of treaty? for it is Knox’s endeavour to prove that the Regent broke them, and so justified the later proceedings of the Reformers.  The terms, in French, are printed by Teulet. {141} They run thus:—­

1.  The Protestants, not being inhabitants of Edinburgh, shall depart next day.

2.  They shall deliver the stamps for coining to persons appointed by the Regent, hand over Holyrood, and Ruthven and Pitarro shall be pledges for performance.

3.  They shall be dutiful subjects, except in matters of religion.

4.  They shall not disturb the clergy in their persons or by withholding their rents, &c., before January 10, 1560.

5.  They shall not attack churches or monasteries before that date.

6.  The town of Edinburgh shall enjoy liberty of conscience, and shall choose its form of religion as it pleases till that date.

7.  The Regent shall not molest the preachers nor suffer the clergy to molest them for cause of religion till that date.

8.  Keith, Knox, and Spottiswoode, add that no garrisons, French or Scots, shall occupy Edinburgh, but soldiers may repair thither from their garrisons for lawful business.

The French soldiers are said to have swaggered in St. Giles’s, but no complaint is made that they were garrisoned in Edinburgh.  In fact, they abode in the Canongate and Leith.

Now, these were the terms accepted by the Congregation.  This is certain, not only because historians, Knox excepted, are unanimous, but because the terms were either actually observed, or were evaded, on a stated point of construction.

1.  The Congregation left Edinburgh.

2.  They handed over the stamps of the Mint, Holyrood, and the two pledges.

3. 4, 5.  We do not hear that they attacked any clerics or monastery before they broke off publicly from the treaty, and Knox (i. 381) admits that Article 4 was accepted.

6.  They would not permit the town of Edinburgh to choose its religion by “voting of men.”  On July 29, when Huntly, Chatelherault, and Erskine, the neutral commander of the Castle, asked for a plebiscite, as provided in the treaty of July 24, the Truth, said the brethren, was not a matter of human votes, and, as the brethren held St. Giles’s Church before the treaty, under Article 7 they could not be dispossessed. {142a} The Regent, to avoid shadow of offence, yielded the point as to Article 6, and was accused of breach of treaty because, occupying Holyrood, she had her Mass there.  Had Edinburgh been polled, the brethren knew that they would have been outvoted. {142b}

Now, Knox’s object, in that part of Book II. of his “History,” which was written in September-October 1559 as a tract for contemporary reading, is to prove that the Regent was the breaker of treaty.  His method is first to give “the heads drawn by us, which we desired to be granted.”  The heads are—­