er, was an abominable stretch of French power. They
were not subjects of France. The terms on which they surrendered are not
exactly known. Knox avers that they were to be free to live in France,
and that, if they wished to leave, they were to be conveyed, at French
expense, to any country except Scotland. Buchanan declares that only the
lives of the garrison and their friends were secured by the terms of
surrender. Lesley supports Knox, {30a} who is probably accurate.

To account for the French severity, Knox tells us that the Pope insisted
on it, appealing to both the Scottish and French Governments; and
Scotland sent an envoy to France to beg "that those of the castle should
be sharply handled." Men of birth were imprisoned, the rest went to the
galleys. Knox's life cannot have been so bad as that of the Huguenot
galley slaves under Louis XIV. He was allowed to receive letters; he
read and commented on a treatise written in prison by Balnaves; and he
even wrote a theological work, unless this work was his commentary on
Balnaves. These things can only have been possible when the galleys were
not on active service. In a very manly spirit, he never dilated on his
sufferings, and merely alludes to "the torment I sustained in the
galleys." He kept up his heart, always prophesying deliverance; and once
(June, 1548?), when in view of St. Andrews, declared that he should
preach again in the kirk where his career began. Unluckily, the person
to whom he spoke, at a moment when he himself was dangerously ill, denied
that he had ever been in the galleys at all! {30b} He was Sir James
Balfour, a notorious scoundrel, quite untrustworthy; according to Knox,
he had spoken of the prophecy, in Scotland, long before its fulfilment.

Knox's health was more or less undermined, while his spiritual temper was
not mollified by nineteen months of the galleys, mitigated as they
obviously were.

It is, doubtless, to his "torment" in the galleys that Knox refers when
he writes: "I know how hard the battle is between the spirit and the
flesh, under the heavy cross of affliction, where no worldly defence, but
present death, does appear. . . . Rests only Faith, provoking us to call
earnestly, and pray for assistance of God's spirit, wherein if we
continue, our most desperate calamities shall turn to gladness, and to a
prosperous end. . . . With experience I write this."

In February or March, 1549, Knox was released; by April he w