e left
free to choose its own religion; no French troops were to be introduced.
The Protestants were to be allowed complete liberty of worship, but were
to abstain from violence against the old religion, and these
arrangements were to hold till the 10th of the following January. By
this concession of liberty to worship according to their own consciences
the Protestants had apparently attained the main object for which they
had risen, but they well knew that they would enjoy this liberty only so
long as they were strong enough to enforce it. On leaving Edinburgh,
therefore, they proceeded to Stirling, where they came to an agreement
as to their future plan of action. As a necessary precaution for their
immediate security, they entered into a bond of mutual defence and
concerted counsels. Above all, they determined to spare no pains to win
support from England, which, as itself now a Protestant country, could
not look on with indifference while they were engaged in a
life-and-death struggle with France and Rome.

An event that had lately happened gave a new impulse to French action in
Scotland. On July 10th Henry II had been accidentally killed in a
tournament; and Mary Stuart, the niece of the Guises, was now Queen of
France. It was with greater zeal than ever, therefore, that the Guises
sought to direct Scottish affairs according to their own interests. In
the beginning of August the Protestant lords took a decided step: they
sent John Knox to England with instructions that might serve as a basis
of a treaty between England and the Congregation. The instructions were
that if England would assist them against France, the Congregation would
agree to a common league against that country. Knox only went as far as
Berwick; but he brought home a letter containing a reply to the
Protestant overtures from Elizabeth's secretary, Sir William Cecil. The
reply was discouraging; but it contained a practical suggestion, by
which, however, the Protestant leaders were either unwilling or unable
to profit. If it was money they were in need of, Cecil told them, that
need present no difficulty; if they would but do as Henry VIII did with
the monasteries, they would have enough money and to spare. The English
Queen was, in truth, in a position that demanded the wariest going.
Two-thirds of her own subjects were Catholics, and it would be an evil
example to set them if she were to assist rebels in another country.
Moreover, the treaty of Ca