fashion of Knox's
favourite texts in Deuteronomy and Chronicles. This was "beastlie
crueltie." The "History" gives the same account of the Regent's
threatening "words which might escape her in choler" (of course we have
no authority for her speaking them at all), but, in the "History," Knox
omits the threat by the brethren of death against the priests--a threat
which none of his biographers mentions!

If the menace against the priests and the ruin of monasteries were not
seditious, what is sedition? But Knox's business, in Book II. of his
"History" (much of it written in September-October 1559), is to prove
that the movement was _not_ rebellious, was purely religious, and all for
"liberty of conscience"--for Protestants. Therefore, in the "History,"
he disclaims the destruction by the brethren of the monasteries--the mob
did that; and he burkes the threat of death to priests: though he told
the truth, privately, to Mrs. Locke.

Mary did not move at once. The Hamiltons joined her, and she had her
French soldiers, perhaps 1500 men. On May 22 "The Faithful Congregation
of Christ Jesus in Scotland," but a few gentlemen being concerned, wrote
from Perth, which they were fortifying, to the Regent. If she proceeds
in her "cruelty," they will take up the sword, and inform all Christian
princes, and their Queen in France, that they have revolted solely
because of "this cruel, unjust, and most tyrannical murder, intended
against towns and multitudes." As if they had not revolted already!
Their pretext seems to mean that they do not want to alter the sovereign
authority, a quibble which they issued for several months, long after it
was obviously false. They also wrote to the nobles, to the French
officers in the Regent's service, and to the clergy.

What really occurred was that many of the brethren left Perth, after they
had "made a day of it," as they had threatened earlier: that the Regent
called her nobles to Council, concentrated her French forces, and
summoned the levies of Clydesdale and Stirlingshire. Meanwhile the
brethren flocked again into Perth, at that time, it is said, the only
wall-girt town in Scotland: they strengthened the works, wrote everywhere
for succour, and loudly maintained that they were not rebellious or
seditious.

Of these operations Knox was the life and soul. There is no mistaking
his hand in the letter to Mary of Guise, or in the epistle to the
Catholic clergy. That letter is courteo