than ten thousand armed men landed in the country--and
he had perfectly good reason for saying so. He thoroughly understood
that it was the first step towards a counter-revolution which in time
would cover all Scotland and England, and carry them back to Popery. Yet
he preached to deaf ears. Even Murray was so bewitched with the notion
of the English succession, that for a year and a half he ceased to speak
to Knox; and as it was with Murray, so it was far more with all the
rest--their zeal for religion was gone no one knew where. Of course
Elizabeth would not give way. She might as well, she said, herself
prepare her shroud; and then conspiracies came, and under-ground
intrigues with the Romanist English noblemen. France and Spain were to
invade England, Scotland was to open its ports to their fleets, and its
soil to their armies, giving them a safe base from which to act, and a
dry road over the Marches to London. And if Scotland had remained
unchanged from what it had been--had the direction of its fortunes
remained with the prince and with the nobles, sooner or later it would
have come to this. But suddenly it appeared that there was a new power
in this country which no one suspected till it was felt.

The commons of Scotland had hitherto been the creatures of the nobles.
They had neither will nor opinion of their own. They thought and acted
in the spirit of their immediate allegiance. No one seems to have dreamt
that there would be any difficulty in dealing with them if once the
great families agreed upon a common course. Yet it appeared, when the
pressure came, that religion, which was the play-thing of the nobles,
was to the people a clear matter of life and death. They might love
their country: they might be proud of anything which would add lustre to
its crown; but if it was to bring back the Pope and Popery--if it
threatened to bring them back--if it looked that way--they would have
nothing to do with it; nor would they allow it to be done. Allegiance
was well enough; but there was a higher allegiance suddenly discovered
which superseded all earthly considerations. I know nothing finer in
Scottish history than the way in which the commons of the Lowlands took
their places by the side of Knox in the great convulsions which
followed. If all others forsook him, they at least would never forsake
him while tongue remained to speak and hand remained to strike. Broken
they might have been, trampled out as the Hugueno