religion or the impiety of the mass, and that her apostasy would
lose her the friendship of her allies on the continent, they replied
by assuring her, that their religion was undoubtedly the same which had
been revealed by Jesus Christ, which had been preached by the apostles,
and which had been embraced by the faithful in the primitive ages; that
neither the religion of Turks, Jews, nor Papists was built on so solid
a foundation as theirs; that they alone, of all the various species of
religionists spread over the face of the earth, were so happy as to be
possessed of the truth; that those who hear, or rather who gaze on the
mass, allow sacrilege, pronounce blasphemy, and commit most abominable
idolatry; and that the friendship of the King of kings was preferable to
all the alliances in the world.[*]

The marriage of the queen of Scots had kindled afresh the zeal of the
reformers, because the family of Lenox was believed to adhere to the
Catholic faith; and though Darnley, who now bore the name of King Henry,
went often to the established church, he could not, by this exterior
compliance, gain the confidence and regard of the ecclesiastics. They
rather laid hold of the opportunity to insult him to his face; and Knox
scrupled not to tell him from the pulpit, that God, for punishment of
the offences and ingratitude of the people, was wont to commit the rule
over them to boys and women.[**] The populace of Edinburgh, instigated
by such doctrines, began to meet and to associate themselves against
the government.[***] But what threatened more immediate danger to
Mary's authority, were the discontents which prevailed among some of the
principal nobility.

* Keith, p. 550, 551.

** Keith, p. 546. Knox, p. 381.

*** Knox, p. 377.

The duke of Chatelrault was displeased with the restoration, and still
more with the aggrandizement of the family of Lenox, his hereditary
enemies; and entertained fears lest his own eventual succession to the
crown of Scotland should be excluded by his rival, who had formerly
advanced some pretensions to it. The earl of Murray found his credit at
court much diminished by the interest of Lenox and his son; and began
to apprehend the revocation of some considerable grants which he
had obtained from Mary's bounty. The earls of Argyle, Rothes, and
Glencairne, the lords Boyde and Ochiltry, Kirkaldy of Grange, Pittarow,
were instigated by like motives; and as these were the persons who