’Women are unworthy to reign; Christians may protect themselves by arms against tyrants!’” The latter excellent doctrine was not then accepted by the Genevan learned.  “I fear that Knox may fill Scotland with his madness.  He is said to have a boon companion at Geneva, whom we hear that the people of Dieppe have called to be their minister.  If he be infected with such opinions, for Christ’s sake pray that he be not sent; or if he has already departed, warn the Dieppe people to beware of him.” {109a} A French ex-capuchin, Jacques Trouille, was appointed as Knox’s successor at Dieppe. {109b}

Knox’s ideas, even the idea that Christians may bear the sword against tyrants, were all his own, were anti-Genevan; and though Calvin (1559-60) knew all about the conspiracy of Amboise to kill the Guises, he ever maintained that he had discouraged and preached against it.  We must, therefore, credit Knox with originality, both in his ideas and in his way of giving it to be understood that they had the approval of the learned of Switzerland.  The reverse was true.

By May 3, Knox was in Edinburgh, “come in the brunt of the battle,” as the preachers’ summons to trial was for May 10.  He was at once outlawed, “blown loud to the horn,” but was not dismayed.  On this occasion the battle would be a fair fight, the gentry, under their Band, stood by the preachers, and, given a chance in open field with the arm of the flesh to back him, Knox’s courage was tenacious and indomitable.  It was only for lonely martyrdom that he never thought himself ready, and few historians have a right to throw the first stone at him for his backwardness.

As for armed conflict, at this moment Mary of Guise could only reckon surely on the small French garrison of Scotland, perhaps 1500 or 2000 men.  She could place no confidence in the feudal levies that gathered when the royal standard was raised.  The Hamiltons merely looked to their own advancement; Lord James Stewart was bound to the Congregation; Huntly was a double dealer and was remote; the minor noblesse and the armed burghers, with Glencairn representing the south-west, Lollard from of old, were attached to Knox’s doctrines, while the mob would flock in to destroy and plunder.

[Bridal medal of Mary Stuart and the Dauphin, 1558:  knox3.jpg]

Meanwhile Mary of Guise was at Stirling, and a multitude of Protestants were at Perth, where the Reformation had just made its entry, and had secured a walled city, a thing unique in Scotland.  The gentry of Angus and the people of Dundee, at Perth, were now anxious to make a “demonstration” (unarmed, says Knox) at Stirling, if the preachers obeyed the summons to go thither, on May 10.  Their strategy was excellent, whether carefully premeditated or not.