n of the feudal lordship of the English King over Scotland.
The Scottish Parliament, through the efforts of Cardinal Beaton,
rejected the proposal, and the furious Henry declared war, with
instructions to sack, burn, and put to death without mercy, Cardinal
Beaton's destruction being especially enjoined. The Cardinal, in the
{284} meantime, was trying to stamp out the Reform-fires which were
spreading with extraordinary swiftness. There were executions and
banishments. Wishart, the Reformer and friend of John Knox, was burned
at the stake. Following this there was a conspiracy for the death of
the Cardinal, who was assassinated, and his Castle of St. Andrew became
the stronghold of the conspirators. John Knox, for his own safety,
took refuge with them, and upon the surrender of the castle to a French
force, Knox was sent a prisoner to the French galleys.

The infant Queen, now six years old, was betrothed to the grandson of
Francis I. and conveyed by Lord Livingston to France for safe-keeping
until her marriage. Her mother, Mary of Guise, was Regent of Scotland,
and doing her best to stem the tide of Protestantism. The spread of
the Reformed faith was amazing. It took on at first a form more
ethical than doctrinal. It was against the immoralities of the clergy
that a sternly moral people rose in its wrath, and, on the other hand,
it was the reading of the Scriptures, and interpreting them without
authority, for which men were condemned to the {285} stake, their
accusers saying, "What shall we leave to the bishops to do, when every
man shall be a babbler about the Bible?" Carlyle says the Reformation
gave to Scotland a soul. But it might have fared differently had not a
co-operating destiny at the same time given Scotland a John Knox! Knox
was to the Reformed Church in Scotland what the body of the tree is to
its branches. He not only poured his own uncompromising life into the
branches, but then determined the direction in which they should
inflexibly grow. Knox had been the friend and disciple of Calvin in
Geneva. The newly awakened soul in Scotland fed upon the theology of
that great logician as the bread of heaven, and Calvinism was forever
rooted in the hearts and minds of the people.

The marriage of Queen Mary with the Dauphin had been quickly followed
by the death of Henry II., and her young consort was King of France.
Queen Elizabeth, in response to an appeal from the Reformed Church,
sent a flee