the sacred plate of the Church in a fane which had been the Delphi of Scotland.  Lethington appears to have obtained most of the portable property of St Salvator’s College except that beautiful monument of idolatry, the great silver mace presented by Kennedy, the Founder, work of a Parisian silversmith, in 1461:  this, with maces of rude native work, escaped the spoilers.  The monastery of the Franciscans is now levelled with the earth; of the Dominicans’ chapel a small fragment remains.  Of the residential part of the abbey a house was left:  when the lead had been stripped from the roof of the church it became a quarry.

“All churchmen’s goods were spoiled and reft from them . . . for every man for the most part that could get anything pertaining to any churchmen thought the same well-won gear,” says a contemporary Diary.  Arran himself, when he arrived in Scotland, robbed a priest of all that he had, for which Chatelherault made compensation.

By the middle of June the Regent was compelled to remove almost all her French soldiers out of Fife.  Perth was evacuated.  The abbey of Scone and the palace were sacked.  The Congregation entered Edinburgh:  they seem to have found the monasteries already swept bare, but they seized Holyrood, and the stamps at the Mint.  The Regent proclaimed that this was flat rebellion, and that the rebels were intriguing with England.

Knox denied it, in the first part of his History (in origin a contemporary tract written in the autumn), but the charge was true, and Knox and Kirkcaldy were, since June, the negotiators.  Already his party were offering Arran (the heir of the crown after Mary) as a husband for Elizabeth, who saw him but rejected his suit.  Arran’s father, Chatelherault, later openly deserted the Regent (July 1).  The death of Henri II., wounded in a tournament, did not accelerate the arrival of French reinforcements for the Regent.  The weaker Brethren, however, waxed weary; money was scarce, and on July 24, the Congregation evacuated Edinburgh and Leith, after a treaty which they misrepresented, broke, and accused the Regent of breaking. {111a}

Knox visited England, about August 1, but felt dissatisfied with his qualification for diplomacy.  Nothing, so far, was gained from Elizabeth, save a secret supply of 3000 pounds.  On the other hand, fresh French forces arrived at Leith:  the place was fortified; the Regent was again accused of perfidy by the perfidious; and on October 21 the Congregation proclaimed her deposition on the alleged authority of her daughter, now Queen of France, whose seal they forged and used in their documents.  One Cokky was the forger; he saw Arran use the seal on public papers. {111b} Cokky had made a die for the coins of the Congregation—­a crown of thorns, with the words Verbum Dei.  Leith, manned by French soldiers, was, till in the summer of 1560 it surrendered to the Congregation and their English allies, the centre of Catholic resistance.