The pulpit may be said to have discharged the functions of the press (a press which was all on one side).  When, in 1562, Ninian Winzet, a Catholic priest and ex-schoolmaster, was printing a controversial tractate addressed to Knox, the magistrates seized the manuscript at the printer’s house, and the author was fortunate in making his escape.  The nature of the Confession of Faith, and of the claims of the ministers to interfere in secular affairs, with divine authority, was certain to cause war between the Crown and the Kirk.  That war, whether open and armed, or a conflict in words, endured till, in 1690, the weapon of excommunication with civil penalties was quietly removed from the ecclesiastical armoury.  Such were the results of a religious revolution hurriedly effected.

The Lords now sent an embassy to Elizabeth about the time of the death of Amy Robsart, and while Amy’s husband, Robert Dudley, was very dear to the English queen, to urge, vainly, her marriage with Arran.  On December 5, 1560, Francis II. died, leaving Mary Stuart a mere dowager; while her kinsmen, the Guises, lost power, which fell into the unfriendly hands of Catherine de Medici.  At once Arran, who made Knox his confidant, began to woo Mary with a letter and a ring.  Her reply perhaps increased his tendency to madness, which soon became open and incurable by the science of the day.

Here we must try to sketch Mary, la, Reine blanche, in her white royal mourning.  Her education had been that of the learned ladies of her age; she had some knowledge of Latin, and knew French and Italian.  French was to her almost a mother-tongue, but not quite; she had retained her Scots, and her attempts to write English are, at first, curiously imperfect.  She had lived in a profligate Court, but she was not the wanton of hostile slanders.  She had all the guile of statesmanship, said the English envoy, Randolph; and she long exercised great patience under daily insults to her religion and provocations from Elizabeth.  She was generous, pitiful, naturally honourable, and most loyal to all who served her.  But her passions, whether of love or hate, once roused, were tyrannical.  In person she was tall, like her mother, and graceful, with beautiful hands.  Her face was somewhat long, the nose long and straight, the lips and chin beautifully moulded, the eyebrows very slender, the eyes of a reddish brown, long and narrow.  Her hair was russet, drawn back from a lofty brow; her smile was captivating; she was rather fascinating than beautiful; her courage and her love of courage in others were universally confessed. {118}