who
naturally favored France, and who married her daughter, the Queen of
Scots, to the Dauphin Francis, [Sidenote: April 24, 1558] both of them
being fifteen years old. By treaty she conveyed Scotland to the king
of France, acting on the good old theory that her people were a
chattel. Though the pact, with its treason to the people, was secret,
its purport was guessed by all. Whereas the accession of Francis II
momentarily bound Scotland closer to France, his death in the following
year again cut her loose, and allowed her to go her own way.

All the while the Reformed party had been slowly growing in strength.
Somerset took care to send plenty of English Bibles across the Cheviot
Hill, rightly seeing in them the best emissaries of the English
interest. The Scotch were drawn towards England by the mildness of her
government as much as they were alienated from France by the ferocity
of hers. In Scotland the English party, when it had the chance, made
no Catholic martyrs, but the French party continued to put heretics to
death. The execution of the aged Walter Milne, [Sidenote: 1558] the
last of the victims of the Catholic persecution, excited especial
resentment.

Knox now returned to his own country for a short visit. [Sidenote:
Knox, August, 1555] He there preached passionately against the mass and
addressed a letter to the Regent Mary of Lorraine, begging her to favor
the gospel. This she treated as a joke, and, after Knox had departed,
she sentenced him to death and burnt him in effigy. From Geneva he
continued to be the chief adviser of the {360} Protestant party whose
leaders drew up a "Common Band," usually known as the First Scottish
Covenant. [Sidenote: December 3, 1557] The signers, including a large
number of nobles and gentlemen headed by the earls of Argyle, Glencairn
and Morton, promised to apply their whole power, substance and lives to
maintain, set forward and establish "the most blessed Word of God and
his congregation." Under the protection of this bond, reformed
churches were set up openly. The Lords of the Congregation, as they
were called, demanded that penal statutes against heretics be abrogated
and "that it be lawful to us to use ourselves in matters of religion
and conscience as we must answer to God." This scheme of toleration
was too advanced for the time.

[Sidenote: 1557]

As the assistance of Knox was felt to be desirable, the Lords of the
Congregation urgently requested