Perplexed and opposed by the great clan of Hamilton, whose chief, Arran, was nearest heir to the crown, Mary of Guise was now anxious to conciliate the Protestants, and there was a “blink,” as the Covenanters later said,—­a lull in persecution.

After Knox’s release from the French galleys in 1549, he had played, as we saw, a considerable part in the affairs of the English Church, and in the making of the second Prayer-Book of Edward VI., but had fled abroad on the accession of Mary Tudor.  From Dieppe he had sent a tract to England, praying God to stir up some Phineas or Jehu to shed the blood of “abominable idolaters,”—­obviously of Mary of England and Philip of Spain.  On earlier occasions he had followed Calvin in deprecating such sanguinary measures.  The Scot, after a stormy period of quarrels with Anglican refugees in Frankfort, moved to Geneva, where the city was under a despotism of preachers and of Calvin.  Here Knox found the model of Church government which, in a form if possible more extreme, he later planted in Scotland.

There, in 1549-52, the Church, under Archbishop Hamilton, Beaton’s successor, had been confessing her iniquities in Provincial Councils, and attempting to purify herself on the lines of the tolerant and charitable Catechism issued by the Archbishop in 1552.  Apparently a modus vivendi was being sought, and Protestants were inclined to think that they might be “occasional conformists” and attend Mass without being false to their convictions.  But in this brief lull Knox came over to Scotland at the end of harvest, in 1555.  On this point of occasional conformity he was fixed.  The Mass was idolatry, and idolatry, by the law of God, was a capital offence.  Idolaters must be converted or exterminated; they were no better than Amalekites.

This was the central rock of Knox’s position:  tolerance was impossible.  He remained in Scotland, preaching and administering the Sacrament in the Genevan way, till June 1556.  He associated with the future leaders of the religious revolution:  Erskine of Dun, Lord Lorne (in 1558, fifth Earl of Argyll), James Stewart, bastard of James V., and lay Prior of St Andrews, and of Macon in France; and the Earl of Glencairn.  William Maitland of Lethington, “the flower of the wits of Scotland,” was to Knox a less congenial acquaintance.  Not till May 1556 was Knox summoned to trial in Edinburgh, but he had a strong backing of the laity, as was the custom in Scotland, where justice was overawed by armed gatherings, and no trial was held.  By July 1556 he was in France, on his way to Geneva.