to
Scotland, was one of the young men concerned, along with Earl Bothwell
and another. "The horror of this fact and the raretie of it commoved all
godlie hearts," said Knox--and yet there was no lack of scandals in that
age notwithstanding the zeal of purification. When the courtiers,
alarmed by this commination (in which every kind of spiritual vengeance
upon the realm and its rulers was denounced), asked, "Who durst avow
it?" the grim Lindsay replied, "A thousand gentlemen within Edinburgh."
Yet if Edinburgh was free from disorders of this kind, it was certainly
far from free of other contentions. The proclamations from the Cross
during Mary's brief reign give us the impression of being almost
ceaseless. The Queen's Majestie proclaimed by the heralds now one
decree, now another, with a crowd hastily forming to every blast of the
trumpet: and the little procession in their tabards, carrying a moving
patch of bright colour and shining ornament up all the long picturesque
line of street, both without and within the city gates, was of almost
daily occurrence. It was some compensation at least for the evils of an
uncertain rule to have that delightful pageant going on for ever.
Sometimes there would arise a protest, and one of the lords, all
splendid in his jewelled bonnet, would step forward to the Lord Lyon and
"take instruments and crave extracts," according to the time-honoured
jargon of law; while from his corner window perhaps John Knox looked
out, his eager pen already drawn to answer, the tumultuous impassioned
sentences rushing to his lips.

When it was found that no punishment was to follow that "enormitie and
fearful attemptal," but that "nightly masking" and riotous behaviour
continued, some of the lords took the matter in their own hands, and a
great band known as "my Lord Duke his friends" took the causeway to keep
order in the town. When the news was brought to Earl Bothwell that the
Hamiltons were "upon the gait," there were vows made on his side that
"the Hamiltons should be driven not only out of the town but out of the
country." The result, however, of this sudden surging up of personal
feud to strengthen the bitterness of the quarrel between licence and
repression, was that the final authorities were roused to make the fray
an affair of State; and Murray and Huntly were sent from the abbey with
their companies to stop the impending struggle. These sudden night
tumults, the din of the struggle and clashi