he one hand,
any 'alteration or innovation of the state of religion' as Her Majesty
found it in the realm on her arrival, and, on the other, any tumult or
violence, especially against Her Majesty's French domestics and
followers. So, on the first Sunday, while the Evangel was publicly
preached in St Giles in Edinburgh, and in all the great towns and burghs
of Scotland, mass was privately celebrated in her chapel at Holyrood,
the Lord James with his sword keeping the door, to 'stop all Scottish
men to enter in,' whether to join in the worship or to disturb it. It
was drawing a different line from that which had been fixed by the
recent Parliament, whose Acts also the new Queen had evaded ratifying.
Knox's passion against 'idolatry,' beyond all other forms of false
religion or irreligion, was fully shared by the mass of his followers,
and he tells us that, on this occasion, he worked in private 'rather to
mitigate, yea to sloken, that fervency that God had kindled in others.'
But in the pulpit 'next Sunday' he said that 'one Mass was more fearful
to him than if ten thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the
realm, of purpose to suppress the whole religion'--an exaggeration of
intolerance which is unintelligible, until we remember that the 'one
mass' which he was thinking of was that of the ruler who might soon have
the power, and perhaps had already the intention, of suppressing
religion.

Mary had come to Scotland with the deliberate plan of conciliating and
capturing her native kingdom, and she was not the woman to shrink from
whatever seemed to be necessary in the process. It may have been her
brother who suggested a meeting between two people whom, in different
ways, he certainly liked as well as admired. In any case, Knox was now
at once sent for to the Court, and there followed the first of the
famous interviews between Knox and the Queen, recorded in the Fourth
Book of his History. The detailed truth of these Dialogues is not to be
inferred merely from their vigour and verisimilitude. It results equally
from the fact that, throughout, Knox represents the young Queen as
meeting him with perfect intelligence, while on most points she actually
has the better of the argument. The vindication of Knox has come, not so
much from what he has himself so faithfully recorded, as from the
judgment of history on the whole situation, and on the relation to it of
speakers who were also actors.

The first is probably