eans fully believing in the "unfeigned and
speedy repentance" of their chief. {80a}

All the movements of that time are not very clear. Apparently Lorne,
Lord James, and the rest, in their letter of March 10, 1557, intended an
armed rising: they were "ready to jeopardise lives and goods" for "the
glory of God." If no more than an appeal to "the Authority" for
tolerance was meant, why did Knox consult the learned so long, on the
question of conscience? Yet, in December 1557, he bids his allies first
of all seek the favour of "the Authority," for bare toleration of
Protestantism.

From the scheme of March 10, of which the details, unknown to us, were
_orally_ delivered by bearer, he appears to have expected civil war.

Again, just when Knox was writing to Scotland in December 1557, his
allies there, he says, made "a common Band," a confederacy and covenant
such as the Scots usually drew up before a murder, as of Riccio or
Darnley, or for slaying Argyll and "the bonny Earl o' Murray," under
James VI. These Bands were illegal. A Band, says Knox, was now signed
by Argyll, Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, and Erskine of Dun, and many others
unknown, on December 3, 1557. It is alleged that "Satan cruelly doth
rage." Now, how was Satan raging in December 1557? Myln, the last
martyr, was not pursued till April 1558, by Knox's account.

The first godly Band being of December 1557, {80b} and drawn up, perhaps,
on the impulse of Knox's severe letter from Dieppe of October 27, in that
year; just after they signed the Band, what were the demands of the
Banders? They asked, apparently, that the Second Prayer Book of Edward
VI. should be read in all parish churches, with the Lessons: _if the
curates are able to read_: if not, then by any qualified parishioner.
Secondly, preaching must be permitted in private houses, "without great
conventions of the people." {81a} Whether the Catholic service was to be
concurrently permitted does not appear; it is not very probable, for that
service is idolatrous, and the Band itself denounces the Church as "the
Congregation of Satan." Dr. M'Crie thinks that the Banders, or
Congregation of God, did not ask for the universal adoption of the
English Prayer Book, but only requested that they themselves might bring
it in "in places to which their authority and influence extended." They
took that liberty, certainly, without waiting for leave, but their demand
appears to apply to all parish churches.