niece should bring an accession of England, as she had already done of Scotland, to the crown of France, engaged the king not to neglect the claim; and, by their persuasion, he ordered his son and daughter-in-law to assume openly the arms as well as title of England, and to quarter these arms on all their equipages, furniture, and liveries. When the English ambassador complained of this injury he could obtain nothing but an evasive answer; that as the queen of Scots was descended from the blood royal of England, she was entitled, by the example of many princes, to assume the arms of that kingdom. But besides that this practice had never prevailed without permission being first obtained, and without making a visible difference between the arms, Elizabeth plainly saw that this pretension had not been advanced during the reign of her sister Mary; and that, therefore, the king of France intended, on the first opportunity, to dispute her legitimacy, and her title to the crown. Alarmed at the danger, she thenceforth conceived a violent jealousy against the queen of Scots; and was determined, as far as possible, to incapacitate Henry from the execution of his project. The sudden death of that monarch, who was killed in a tournament at Paris, while celebrating the espousals of his sister with the duke of Savoy, altered not her views. Being informed that his successor, Francis II., still continued to assume, without reserve, the title of King of England, she began to consider him and his queen as her mortal enemies; and the present situation of affairs in Scotland afforded her a favorable opportunity, both of revenging the injury, and providing for her own safety.
The murder of the cardinal-primate at St. Andrew’s had deprived the Scottish Catholics of a head whose severity, courage, and capacity had rendered him extremely formidable to the innovators in religion; and the execution of the laws against heresy began thenceforth to be more remiss. The queen regent governed the kingdom by prudent and moderate counsels; and as she was not disposed to sacrifice the civil interests of the state to the bigotry or interests of the clergy, she deemed it more expedient to temporize, and to connive at the progress of a doctrine which she had not power entirely to repress. When informed of the death of Edward, and the accession of Mary to the crown of England, she entertained hopes that the Scottish reformers, deprived of the countenance which they received from that powerful kingdom, would lose their ardor with their prospect of success, and would gradually return to the faith of their ancestors. But the progress and revolutions of religion are little governed by the usual maxims of civil policy; and the event much disappointed the expectations of the regent. Many of the English preachers, terrified with the severity of Mary’s government, took shelter in Scotland, where they found more protection, and a milder administration; and while they propagated their theological tenets, they filled the whole kingdom with a just horror against the cruelties of the bigoted Catholics, and showed their disciples the fate which they must expect, if ever their adversaries should attain an uncontrolled authority over them.
A hierarchy, moderate in its acquisitions of power and riches, may safely grant a toleration to sectaries; and the more it softens the zeal of innovators by lenity and liberty, the more securely will it possess those advantages which the legal establishments bestow upon it. But where superstition has raised a church to such an exorbitant height as that of Rome, persecution is less the result of bigotry in the priests, than of a necessary policy; and the rigor of law is the only method of repelling the attacks of men who, besides religious zeal, have so many other motives, derived both from public and private interest, to engage them on the side of innovation. But though such overgrown hierarchies may long support themselves by these violent expedients, the time comes when severities tend only to enrage the new sectaries, and make them break through all bounds of reason and moderation. This crisis was now visibly approaching in Scotland; and whoever considers merely the transactions resulting from it, will be inclined to throw the blame equally on both parties; whoever enlarges his view, and reflects on the situations, will remark the necessary progress of human affairs, and the operation of those principles which are inherent in human nature.
Some heads of the reformers in Scotland, such as the earl of Argyle, his son Lord Lorne, the earls of Morton and Glencarne, Erskine of Dun, and others, observing the danger to which they were exposed, and desirous to propagate their principles, entered privately into a bond or association; and called themselves the “congregation” of the Lord, in contradistinction to the established church, which they denominated the congregation of Satan. The tenor of the bond was as follows: “We, perceiving how Satan, in his members, the Antichrist of our time, do cruelly rage, seeking to overthrow and to destroy the gospel of Christ and his congregation, ought, according to our bounden duty, to strive in our master’s cause, even unto the death, being certain of the victory in him. We do therefore promise, before the majesty of God and his congregation, that we, by his grace, shall with all diligence continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives, to maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed word of God and his congregation; and shall labor, by all possible means, to have faithful ministers, truly and purely to minister Christ’s gospel and sacraments to his people: we shall maintain them, nourish them, and defend them, the whole congregation of Christ, and every member thereof, by our whole power, and at the hazard of our lives, against Satan, and all wicked power who may intend tyranny and trouble against the said congregation; unto which holy word and congregation we do join ourselves; and we forsake and renounce the congregation of Satan, with all the superstitious abomination and idolatry thereof; and moreover shall declare ourselves manifestly enemies thereto, by this faithful promise before God, testified to this congregation by our subscriptions.
At Edinburgh, the third of December, 1557.”[*] Had the subscribers of this zealous league been content only to demand a toleration of the new opinions, however incompatible their pretensions might have been with the policy of the church of Rome, they would have had the praise of opposing tyrannical laws, enacted to support an establishment prejudicial to civil society: but it is plain that they carried their views much further; and their practice immediately discovered the spirit by which they were actuated. Supported by the authority which they thought belonged to them as the congregation of the Lord, they ordained that prayers in the vulgar tongue[*] should be used in all the parish churches of the kingdom; and that preaching and the interpretation of the Scriptures should be practised in private houses, til God should move the prince to grant public preaching by faithful and true ministers.[**] Such bonds of association are always the fore-runners of rebellion; and this violent invasion of the established religion was the actual commencement of it.
Before this league was publicly known or avowed, the clergy, alarmed with the progress of the reformation, attempted to recover their lost authority by a violent exercise of power, which tended still further to augment the zeal and number of their enemies. Hamilton, the primate, seized Walter Mill, a priest of an irreproachable life, who had embraced the new doctrines; and having tried him at St. Andrew’s, condemned him to the flames for heresy. Such general aversion was entertained against this barbarity, that it was some time before the bishops could prevail on any one to act the part of a civil judge, and pronounce sentence upon Mill; and even after the time of his execution was fixed, all the shops of St. Andrew’s being shut, no one would sell a rope to tie him to the stake and the primate himself was obliged to furnish this implement.
The man bore the torture with that courage which, though usual on these occasions, always appears supernatural and astonishing to the multitude.
The people, to express their abhorrence against the cruelty of the priests, raised a monument of stones on the place of his execution; and as fast as the stones were removed by order of the clergy, they were again supplied from the voluntary zeal of the populace.[***] It is in vain for men to oppose the severest punishment to the united motives of religion and public applause; and this was the last barbarity of the kind which the Catholics had the power to exercise in Scotland.
* The reformers used at that time King Edward’s liturgy in Scotland. Forbes, p. 155.
* Knox, p. 122.
Some time after, the people discovered their sentiments in such a manner as was sufficient to prognosticate to the priests the fate which was awaiting them. It was usual on the festival of St. Giles, the tutelar saint of Edinburgh, to carry in procession the image of that saint; but the Protestants, in order to prevent the ceremony, found means, on the eve of the festival, to purloin the statue from the church; and they pleased themselves with imagining the surprise and disappointment of his votaries. The clergy, however, framed hastily a new image, which in derision was called by the people young St. Giles; and they carried it through the streets, attended by all the ecclesiastics in the town and neighborhood. The multitude abstained from violence so long as the queen regent continued a spectator; but the moment she retired, they invaded the idol, threw it in the mire, and broke it in pieces. The flight and terror of the priests and friars, who, it was remarked, deserted, in his greatest distress, the object of their worship, was the source of universal mockery and laughter.
Encouraged by all these appearances, the congregation proceeded with alacrity in openly soliciting subscriptions to their league; and the death of Mary of England, with the accession of Elizabeth, which happened about this time, contributed to increase their hopes of final success in their undertaking. They ventured to present a petition to the regent, craving a reformation of the church, and of the “wicked, scandalous, and detestable” lives of the prelates and ecclesiastics.[*] They framed a petition which they intended to present to parliament, and in which, after premising that they could not communicate with the damnable idolatry and intolerable abuses of the Papistical church, they desired that the laws against heretics should be executed by the civil magistrate alone, and that the Scripture should be the sole rule in judging of heresy.[**] They even petitioned the convocation, and insisted that prayers should be said in the vulgar tongue, and that bishops should be chosen with the consent of the gentry of the diocese, and priests with the consent of the parishioners.[***] The regent prudently temporized between these parties; and as she aimed at procuring a matrimonial crown for her son-in-law the dauphin, she was, on that as well as other accounts, unwilling to come to extremities with either of them.
* Knox, p. 121.
** Knox, p. 123.
But after this concession was obtained, she received orders from France, probably dictated by the violent spirit of her brothers, to proceed with rigor against the reformers, and to restore the royal authority by some signal act of power.[*] She made the more eminent of the Protestant teachers be cited to appear before the council at Stirling; but when their followers were marching thither in great multitudes, in order to protect and countenance them, she entertained apprehensions of an insurrection, and, it is said, dissipated the people by a promise[**] [2] that nothing should be done to the prejudice of the ministers.
Sentence, however, was passed, by which all the ministers were pronounced rebels, on account of their not appearing; a measure which enraged the people, and made them resolve to oppose the regent’s authority by force of arms, and to proceed to extremities against the clergy of the established religion.
In this critical time, John Knox arrived from Geneva, where he had passed some years in banishment, and where he had imbibed, from his commerce with Calvin, the highest fanaticism of his sect, augmented by the native ferocity of his own character. He had been invited back to Scotland by the leaders of the reformation; and mounting the pulpit at Perth, during the present ferment of men’s minds, he declaimed with his usual vehemence against the idolatry and other abominations of the church of Rome, and incited his audience to exert their utmost zeal for its subversion. A priest was so imprudent, after this sermon, as to open his repository of images and relics, and prepare himself to say mass.
The audience, exalted to a disposition for any furious enterprise, were as much enraged as if the spectacle had not been quite familiar to them: they attacked the priest with fury, broke the images in pieces, tore the pictures, overthrew the altars, scattered about the sacred vases; and left no implement of idolatrous worship, as they termed it, entire or undefaced. They thence proceeded, with additional numbers and augmented rage, to the monasteries of the Gray and Black friars, which they pillaged in an instant: the Carthusians underwent the same fate: and the populace, not content with robbing and expelling the monks, vented their fury on the buildings which had been the receptacles of such abomination; and in a little time nothing but the walls of these edifices were left standing. The inhabitants of Coupar, in Fife, soon after imitated the example.[***] ** See note B, at the end of the volume.
The queen regent, provoked at these violences, assembled an army, and prepared to chastise the rebels. She had about two thousand French under her command, with a few Scottish troops; and being assisted by such of the nobility as were well affected to her, she pitched her camp within ten miles of Perth. Even the earl of Argyle, and Lord James Stuart, prior of St. Andrew’s, the queen’s natural brother, though deeply engaged with the reformers, attended the regent in this enterprise, either because they blamed the fury of the populace, or hoped by their own influence and authority to mediate some agreement between the parties. The congregation, on the other hand, made preparations for defence; and being joined by the earl of Glencarne from the west, and being countenanced by many of the nobility and gentry, they appeared formidable from their numbers, as well as from the zeal by which they were animated. They sent an address to the regent, where they plainly insinuated, that if they were pursued to extremities by the “cruel beasts” the churchmen, they would have recourse to foreign powers for assistance; and they subscribed themselves her faithful subjects in all things not repugnant to God, assuming, at the same time, the name of the faithful congregation of Christ Jesus.[*] They applied to the nobility attending her, and maintained, that their own past violences were justified by the word of God, which commands the godly to destroy idolatry, and all the monuments of it; and though all civil authority was sacred, yet was there a great difference between the authority and the persons who exercised it;[**] and that it ought to be considered, whether or not those abominations, called by the pestilent Papists religion, and which they defend by fire and sword, be the true religion of Christ Jesus. They remonstrated with such of the queen’s army as had formerly embraced their party, and told them, “that as they were already reputed traitors by God, they should likewise be excommunicated from their society, and from the participation of the sacraments of the church which God by his mighty power had erected among them; whose ministers have the same authority which Christ granted to his apostles in these words, ‘Whose sins ye shall forgive shall be forgiven, and whose sins ye shall retain shall be retained.’”[***] * Knox, p. 129.
** Knox, p. 131.
*** Knox, p. 133.
We may here see, that these new saints were no less lofty in their pretensions than the ancient hierarchy: no wonder they were enraged against the latter as their rivals in dominion. They joined to all these declarations an address to the established church; and they affixed this title to it: “To the generation of Antichrist, the pestilent prelates and their ‘shavelings’[*] in Scotland, the congregation of Christ Jesus within the same sayeth.” The tenor of the manifesto was suitable to the title. They told the ecclesiastics, “As ye by tyranny intend not only to destroy our bodies, but also by the same to hold our souls in bondage of the devil, subject to idolatry, so shall we, with all the force and power which God shall grant unto us, execute just vengeance and punishment upon you: yea, we shall begin that same war which God commanded Israel to execute against the Canaanites; that is, contract of peace shall never be made till you desist from your open idolatry, and cruel persecution of God’s children. And this, in the name of the eternal God, and of his Son Christ Jesus, whose verity we profess, and gospel we have preached, and holy sacraments rightly administered, we signify unto you to be our intent, so far as God will assist us to withstand your idolatry. Take this for warning, and be not deceived.”[**] With these outrageous symptoms commenced in Scotland that cant, hypocrisy, and fanaticism which long infested that kingdom, and which, though now mollified by the lenity of the civil power, is still ready to break out on all occasions.
The queen regent, finding such obstinate zeal in the rebels, was content to embrace the counsels of Argyle and the prior of St. Andrew’s, and to form an accommodation with them. She was received into Perth, which submitted, on her promising an indemnity for past offences, and engaging not to leave any French garrison in the place. Complaints, very ill founded, immediately arose concerning the infraction of this capitulation. Some of the inhabitants, it was pretended, were molested on account of the late violences; and some companies of Scotch soldiers, supposed to be in French pay, were quartered in the town; which step, though taken on very plausible grounds, was loudly exclaimed against by the congregation.[***] * A contemptuous term for a priest.
* Knox, p. 139.
It is asserted that the regent, to justify these measures, declared, that princes ought not to have their promises too strictly urged upon them; nor was any faith to be kept with heretics: and that for her part, could she find as good a color, she would willingly bereave all these men of their lives and fortunes.[*] But it is nowise likely that such expressions ever dropped from this prudent and virtuous princess. On the contrary, it appears that all these violences were disagreeable to her; that she was in this particular overruled by the authority of the French counsellors placed about her; and that she often thought, if the management of those affairs had been intrusted wholly to herself, she could easily, without force, have accommodated all differences.[**] [3] The congregation, inflamed with their own zeal, and enraged by these disappointments, remained not long in tranquillity. Even before they left Perth, and while as yet they had no color to complain of any violation of treaty, they had signed a new covenant, in which, besides their engagements to mutual defence, they vowed, in the name of God, to employ their whole power in destroying every thing that dishonored his holy name; and this covenant was subscribed, among others, by Argyle and the prior of St. Andrew’s.[***] ** See note C, at the end of the volume.
These two leaders now desired no better pretence for deserting the regent and openly joining their associates, than the complaints, however doubtful, or rather false, of her breach of promise. The congregation also, encouraged by this accession of force, gave themselves up entirely to the furious zeal of Knox, and renewed at Crail, Anstruther, and other places in Fife, like depredations on the churches and monasteries with those formerly committed at Perth and Coupar. The regent, who marched against them with her army, finding their power so much increased, was glad to conclude a truce for a few days, and to pass over with her forces to the Lothians. The reformers besieged and took Perth; proceeded thence to Stirling, where they exercised their usual fury; and finding nothing able to resist them, they bent their march to Edinburgh, the inhabitants of which, as they had already anticipated the zeal of the congregation against the churches and monasteries, gladly opened their gates to them. The regent, with the few forces which remained with her, took shelter in Dunbar, where she fortified herself, in expectation of a reënforcement from France.
Meanwhile, she employed her partisans in representing to the people the dangerous consequences of this open rebellion; and she endeavored to convince them, that the Lord James, under pretence of religion, had formed the scheme of wresting the sceptre from the hands of the sovereign. By these considerations many were engaged to desert the army of the congregation; but much more by the want of pay, or any means of subsistence; and the regent, observing the malecontents to be much weakened, ventured to march to Edinburgh, with a design of suppressing them. On the interposition of the duke of Chatelrault, who still adhered to her, she agreed to a capitulation, in which she granted them a toleration of their religion, and they engaged to commit no further depredations on the churches. Soon after, they evacuated the city; and before they left it, they proclaimed the articles of agreement; but they took care to publish only the articles favorable to themselves, and they were guilty of an imposture, in adding one to the number, namely, that idolatry should not again be erected in any place where it was at that An agreement concluded while men were in this disposition, could not be durable; and both sides endeavored to strengthen themselves as much as possible against the ensuing rupture, which appeared inevitable. The regent, having got a reënforcement of one thousand men from France, began to fortify Leith; and the congregation seduced to their party the duke of Chatelrault, who had long appeared inclined to join them, and who was at last determined by the arrival of his son, the earl of Arran, from France, where he had escaped many dangers from the jealousy, as well as bigotry, of Henry and the duke of Guise. More French troops soon after disembarked under the command of La Brosse, who was followed by the bishop of Amiens, and three doctors of the Sorbonne. These last were supplied with store of syllogisms, authorities, citations, and scholastic arguments, which they intended to oppose to the Scottish preachers, and which, they justly presumed, would acquire force, and produce conviction, by the influence of the French arms and artillery.[**] * See note D, at the end of the volume.
The constable Montmorency had always opposed the marriage of the dauphin with the queen of Scots, and had foretold that, by forming such close connections with Scotland, the ancient league would be dissolved; and the natives of that kingdom, jealous of a foreign yoke, would soon become, instead of allies, attached by interest and inclination, the most inveterate enemies to the French government. But though the event seemed now to have justified the prudence of that aged minister, it is not improbable, considering the violent counsels by which France was governed, that the insurrection was deemed a favorable event; as affording a pretence for sending over armies, for entirely subduing the country, for attainting the rebels,[*] and for preparing means thence to invade England, and support Mary’s title to the crown of that kingdom.
The leaders of the congregation, well acquainted with these views, were not insensible of their danger, and saw that their only safety consisted in the vigor and success of their measures. They were encouraged by the intelligence received of the sudden death of Henry II.; and having passed an act from their own authority, depriving the queen dowager of the regency, and ordering all the French troops to evacuate the kingdom, they collected forces to put their edict in execution against them. They again became masters of Edinburgh; but found themselves unable to keep long possession of that city. Their tumultuary armies, assembled in haste, and supported by no pay, soon separated upon the least disaster, or even any delay of success; and were incapable of resisting such veteran troops as the French, who were also seconded by some of the Scottish nobility, among whom the earl of Bothwell distinguished himself., Hearing that the marquis of Elbeuf, brother to the regent, was levying an army against them in Germany, they thought themselves excusable for applying, in this extremity, to the assistance of England; and as the sympathy of religion, as well as regard to national liberty, had now counterbalanced the ancient animosity against that kingdom, this measure was the result of inclination no less than of interest.[**] [5] Maitland of Lidington, therefore, and Robert Melvil, were secretly despatched by the congregation to solicit succors from Elizabeth.
** See note E, at the end of the volume.
The wise council of Elizabeth did not long deliberate in agreeing to this request, which concurred so well with the views and interests of their mistress. Cecil in particular represented to the queen, that the union of the crowns of Scotland and France, both of them the hereditary enemies of England, was ever regarded as a pernicious event; and her father, as well as Protector Somerset, had employed every expedient both of war and negotiation to prevent it: that the claim which Mary advanced to the crown rendered the present situation of England still more dangerous, and demanded on the part of the queen the greatest vigilance and precaution; that the capacity, ambition, and exorbitant views of the family of Guise, who now governed the French counsels, were sufficiently known; and they themselves made no secret of their design to place their niece on the throne of England: that deeming themselves secure of success, they had already, somewhat imprudently and prematurely, taken off the mask; and Throgmorton, the English ambassador at Paris, sent over, by every courier, incontestable proofs of their hostile intentions:[*] that they only waited till Scotland should be entirely subdued; and having thus deprived the English of the advantages resulting from their situation and naval power, they prepared means for subverting the queen’s authority: that the zealous Catholics in England, discontented with the present government, and satisfied in the legality of Mary’s title, would bring them considerable reënforcement, and would disturb every measure of defence against that formidable power: that the only expedient for preventing these designs, was to seize the present opportunity, and take advantage of a like zeal in the Protestants of Scotland; nor could any doubt be entertained with regard to the justice of a measure founded on such evident necessity, and directed only to the ends of self-preservation: that though a French war, attended with great expense, seemed the necessary consequence of supporting the malecontents in Scotland, that power, if removed to the continent, would be much less formidable; and a small disbursement at present would, in the end, be found the greatest frugality: and that the domestic dissensions of France, which every day augmented, together with the alliance of Philip, who, notwithstanding his bigotry and hypocrisy, would never permit the entire conquest of England, were sufficient to secure the queen against the dangerous ambition and resentment of the house of Guise.[**] Append. 24.
Elizabeth’s propensity to caution and economy was, though with some difficulty,[*] overcome by these powerful motives and she prepared herself to support by arms and money the declining affairs of the congregation in Scotland. She equipped a fleet, which consisted of thirteen ships of war; and giving the command of it to Winter, she sent it to the Frith of Forth: she appointed the young duke of Norfolk her lieutenant in the northern counties; and she assembled, at Berwick, an army of eight thousand men under the command of Lord Gray, warden of the east and middle marches. Though the court of France, sensible of the danger, offered her to make immediate restitution of Calais, provided she would not interpose in the affairs of Scotland, she resolutely replied, that she never would put an inconsiderable fishing-town in competition with the safety of her dominions;[**] and she still continued her preparations. She concluded a treaty of mutual defence with the congregation, which was to last during the marriage of the queen of Scots with Francis, and a year after; and she promised never to desist till the French had entirely evacuated Scotland.[***] And having thus taken all proper measures for success, and received from the Scots six hostages for the performance of articles, she ordered her fleet and army to begin their operations.
Rymer, tom. xv. p. 569.
{1560.} The appearance of Elizabeth’s fleet in the frith disconcerted the French army, who were at that time ravaging the county of Fife; and obliged them to make a circuit by Stirling, in order to reach Leith, where they prepared themselves for defence. The English army, reënforced by five thousand Scots,[*] sat down before the place; and after two skirmishes, in the former of which the English had the advantage, in the latter the French, they began to batter the town; and, though repulsed with considerable loss in a rash and ill-conducted assault, they reduced the garrison to great difficulties. Their distress was augmented by two events; the dispersion by a storm of D’Elbeuf’s fleet, which carried a considerable army on board,[**] and the death of the queen, regent, who expired about this time in the Castle of Edinburgh; a woman endowed with all the capacity which shone forth in her family, but possessed of much more virtue and moderation than appeared in the conduct of the other branches of it. The French, who found it impossible to subsist for want of provisions, and who saw that the English were continually reënforced by fresh numbers, were obliged to capitulate; and the bishop of Valence and Count Randan, plenipotentiaries from France, signed a treaty at Edinburgh with Cecil and Dr. Wotton, whom Elizabeth had sent thither for that purpose. It was there stipulated, that the French should instantly evacuate Scotland; that the king and queen of France and Scotland should thenceforth abstain from bearing the arms of England, or assuming the title of that kingdom; that further satisfaction for the injury already done in that particular should be granted Elizabeth; and that commissioners should meet to settle this point, or, if they could not agree, that the king of Spain should be umpire between the crowns.
Besides these stipulations, which regarded England, some concessions were granted to the Scots; namely, that an amnesty should be published for all past offences; that none but natives should enjoy any office in Scotland; that the states should name twenty-four persons, of whom the queen of Scots should choose seven, and the states five, and in the hands of these twelve should the whole administration be placed during their queen’s absence; and that Mary should neither make peace nor war without consent of the states.[***] In order to hasten the execution of this important treaty, Elizabeth sent ships, by which the French forces were transported into their own country.
147. Knox, p. 229.
Thus Europe saw, in the first transaction of this reign, the genius and capacity of the queen and her ministers. She discerned at a distance the danger which threatened her; and instantly took vigorous measures to prevent it. Making all possible advantages of her situation, she proceeded with celerity to a decision; and was not diverted by any offers, negotiations, or remonstrances of the French court. She stopped not till she had brought the matter to a final issue; and had converted that very power, to which her enemies trusted for her destruction, into her firmest support and security. By exacting no improper conditions from the Scottish malecontents, even during their greatest distresses, she established an entire confidence with them; and having cemented the union by all the ties of gratitude, interest, and religion, she now possessed an influence over them beyond what remained even with their native sovereign. The regard which she acquired by this dexterous and spirited conduct, gave her every where, abroad as well as at home, more authority than had attended her sister, though supported by all the power of the Spanish monarchy.[*] The subsequent measures of the Scottish reformers tended still more to cement their union with England. Being now entirely masters of the kingdom, they made no further ceremony or scruple in fully effecting their purpose. In the treaty of Edinburgh, it had been agreed, that a parliament or convention should soon be assembled; and the leaders of the congregation, not waiting till the queen of Scots should ratify that treaty, thought themselves fully entitled, without the sovereign’s authority, immediately to summon a parliament. The reformers presented a petition to this assembly, in which they were not contented with desiring the establishment of their doctrine, they also applied for the punishment of the Catholics, whom they called vassals to the Roman