eth refused him,
the Estates had been offended, but Arran himself bore the loss with much
resignation. Now, however, the case was different; and though Mary at
all times treated her young kinsman with kindness, Arran took her prompt
rejection of his present overtures grievously to heart, and his wits,
never very stable, were soon completely overturned. Knox, however, had
now fair warning that Mary Stuart knew herself to be more than a mere
Queen of Scots, and that the infinitely difficult questions, which her
approaching return to Scotland must necessarily raise, were not to be
evaded on easy terms.

There was among these one theoretical question which _ought_ to have
been a difficulty for Knox, but of which he was not now disposed to
make much. According to his view women should not be sovereigns at all.
But, in truth, this was but one branch of the general grievance of
arbitrary power in that age. The Reformation took place, we must always
remember, at a time when the hereditary authority of kings was greater
than either before or since. And this arbitrary power of one man became,
if possible, a little more absurd when it happened to be the power of
one woman. In 1557, Knox had found himself confronted with a Queen of
England, a Queen of Scotland, and a Queen-Regent in Scotland--all of
them ladies immersed in Catholicism, and each in a position which, in
his view, implied the duty of selecting religion for all her lieges. We,
in our time, have a very simple way of getting rid of such an
intolerable difficulty. But in that age a man even of the boldness of
Knox was thankful to mitigate it. He thought he found a mitigation in
the view (held by thinkers and publicists at the time commonly enough)
that women should not be entrusted with such a power; and, in 1558, he
published anonymously his 'First Blast of the Trumpet against the
Monstrous Regiment [Regimen or Rule] of Women.' Though anonymous, the
book was well known to be his; and being Knox's it was founded not so
much on theory as on Scripture precedents, largely misread according to
the exigencies of the argument. But the publication was, in any case, a
practical mistake. Mary of England died immediately after, and was
succeeded by Elizabeth, who was rather more of a woman than her sister,
but to whom Knox and Scotland looked as their only ally against
Continental Catholicism. Knox repeatedly tried to explain to the new
English Queen; but that very great but very f