lencairn, and others of his party. They promised that they would be
enemies to the Regent if she broke any one jot of the treaty. "As much
promised the duke that _he_ would do, if in case that she would not
remove her French at a reasonable day . . . " the duke being especially
interested in their removal. But Huntly is not said to have made _this_
promise--the removal of the French obviously not being part of the
"Appointment." {148a}

Next, the brethren, in arguing with the Catholics about their own
mendacious proclamation of the terms, said that "we proclaimed nothing
which was not _finally_ agreed upon, _in word and promise_, betwixt us
and those with whom the Appointment was made. . . . " {148b}

I can see no explanation of Knox's conduct, except that he and his
friends pacified their consciences by persuading themselves that
non-official words of Huntly and Chatelherault (whatever these words may
have been), spoken after "all was agreed upon," cancelled the treaty with
the Regent, became the real treaty, and were binding on the Regent! Thus
Knox or Kirkcaldy, or both, by letter; and Knox later, orally in
conversation with Croft, could announce false terms of treaty. So great,
if I am right, is a good man's power of self-persuasion! I shall welcome
any more creditable theory of the Reformer's behaviour, but I can see no
alternative, unless the Lords lied to Knox.

That the French should be driven out was a great point with Cecil, for he
was always afraid that the Scots might slip back from the English to the
old French alliance. On July 28, after the treaty of July 24, but before
he heard of it, he insisted on the necessity of expelling the French, in
a letter to the Reformers. {149a} He "marvels that they omit such an
opportunity to help themselves." He sent a letter of vague generalities
in answer to their petitions for aid. When he received, as he did, a
copy of the terms of the treaty of July 24, in French, he would
understand.

As further proof that Cecil was told what Knox and Kirkcaldy should have
known to be untrue, we note that on August 28 the Regent, weary of the
perpetual charges of perfidy anew brought against her, "ashamed not,"
writes Knox, to put forth a proclamation, in which she asserted that
nothing, in the terms of July 23-24, forbade her to bring in more French
troops, "as may clearly appear by inspection of the said Appointment,
which the bearer has presently to show." {149b}

W