And now, as before, her energy swept the field clear
of her enemies, and she returned to Edinburgh victorious. Knox may not
have known of the formal Band; but he was even more opposed to his Queen
than were those who signed it, and on 17th March 1566 he 'departed of
the Burgh at two hours afternoon, with a great mourning of the godly of
religion.' Five days before, on the very day, indeed, after Mary had
ridden away through the night from Holyrood, he had penned, 'with
deliberate mind to his God,' his retrospective confession,[114]
prefixing to it the prayer--

'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and put an end, at thy good
pleasure, to this my miserable life; for justice and truth are
not to be found among the sons of men!'

It was the old sigh, which has been breathed from the most heroic hearts
in times of crisis and failure; 'Let me now die, for I am not better
than my fathers!' And here once again it was premature. For the Queen,
now awakened to the whole situation, saw how rash had been her recent
aggressive policy. After the birth of her son in June 1566, instead of
framing Parliamentary enactments against the new religion, she vaguely
proposed to make some provision for the ministers, and allowed the
banished lords, one by one, to come back. And though they now found
their unfortunate confederate, Darnley, in neglect and disgrace, they
found also their sovereign passing rapidly under a new and more
controlling influence; and the Earl of Bothwell was a nominal
Protestant. Knox at first was forbidden to return to his pulpit, and he
visited the Churches in Ayrshire and Fife, occupying himself among other
things in revising the first four books of his history--the only part
which is finished by his trenchant pen. But in December the General
Assembly met in Edinburgh, and Knox was with them. We have already seen
the striking answer sent by this Assembly[115] as to the proposed gifts
of the Queen. But their attention was arrested at this moment by another
and very inconsistent order of the Crown restoring the Archbishop of St
Andrews, the head of the old hierarchy, to his consistorial
jurisdiction, contrary to the law of 1560. It was either a very absurd,
or a very alarming, step; and Knox, at the request of the Assembly,
prepared a powerful manifesto on the subject. He then went away, with
their approval, on a long-meditated visit to England, to visit his sons
in Northumberland or Yorkshire, and to strengthe