To this answer the kirk replied, "That the firmness she expressed to the mass gave no small grief to her good subjects. Their religion was no other than that which Christ revealed, and his apostles preached; which differed from the impiety of the Turks, the blasphemy of the Jews, and the vain superstition of the papists." And upon that, as they run out into a high commendation of their religion, so they require the queen, in the name of God, to embrace the means by which she may be persuaded to the truth; which they offered presently to her, by the preaching of God's word, and by public disputation against the adversaries of it, whensoever she thought it expedient. And as for the mass, they undertook to prove it to be a mass of impiety, from the beginning to the end. As for the prejudice that the queen thinks would follow on her changing her religion, by dissolving the alliance she is in with the king of France, and other foreign princes: they answer, that the true religion is the undoubted means to keep up a perfect confederacy with him, who is the King of kings, and who has the hearts of all princes in his hands, which ought to be more valued than all other confederacies whatsoever."

As to the second article, "They did not intend to defraud her of the patronages; but only, that persons presented to benefices should be tried and examined by the learned men of the kirk, or the superintendents appointed for that end. But as the presentations belong to her, so collation upon them belongs to the church; and the patrons may not present without trial and examination; which, if they might do, must bring great ignorance and disorder into the church. And it was far against all good conscience, for the queen to retain a good part of the benefices in her own hands. This was so contrary both to all divine and human laws, that they were unwilling to open up that whole matter to her. And therefore they beg she would consider, that though the patronage of benefices belonged to her, yet the retention of them in her own hands, and the not giving them to qualified persons, is ungodly, and contrary to all order, and ruinous to the souls of the people. They were desirous to have her necessities relieved: but they add, that the tithes are the patrimony of the church; out of which, in the first place, those who serve in the ministry ought to be relieved, the churches ought to be repaired, and the youth instructed. They concluded with thanks for her willingness to have the ministers provided for: and they pray, that a special condescending on particulars may be thought on.'

But all these petitions were still put off: and the queen,

by her practice among the nobility, began to divide them into factions; and plainly said, when these petitions were read to her, that "she would do nothing in prejudice of the religion she professed* :" and in wrath told them, "she hoped, before a year was expired, to have the mass and the catholic religion professed through the whole kingdom." And she managed the parliament so dexterously, that neither was the treaty of Leith, nor the settlement of religion, made in the parliament of 1560, so much as named, much less confirmed. In this parliament some small provision was made for the ministers, and acts were made against sorcery and adultery, that they should be punished by death. There was indeed an act of oblivion passed for all that was done from the 6th of March 1558, to the 1st of September 1561: but the parliament of the year 1560 came to be looked on as an illegal assembly: so that upon this a great alarm was given to the whole body of the reformed in that kingdom; and the jealousy was increased by the queen's marrying the Lord Darnley. He had been bred up a strict papist, but now pretended to be a protestant; yet as he was all the while suspected of favouring the religion he was bred up in, so he quickly returned to the open profession of it. This gave occasion to another petition in a bolder strain, in which the body of the reformed set forth, "that the true religion was established in that nation; that the mass, and all the idolatry and tyrannical usurpations of the pope, were suppressed, and that they were going on to a perfect reformation; but that all had been stopped now for the space of four years. That upon her arrival, that idol the mass was again set up, and men were put in offices to which they had no right. From such beginnings they saw what they might look for; yet, in hope that God would mollify the queen's heart, and out of their desire to maintain the public peace, they had long expected to see what answer would be made to their petitions. But they saw things grew daily worse and worse. The queen's gates were then set open, in contempt of proclamations set out by herself to the contrary. The patrimony of the church was bestowed on unworthy persons: their ministers were reduced to great poverty, and put to much trouble. Vices of all sorts abounded universally: they therefore prayed the queen to think of redressing these matters, and to answer their other petitions, assuring her of all due obedience to her laws and authority. They also pray that she would give them no occasion to think, that she intended the sub

* Spotswood.

version of the true religion, and the destruction of those who professed it: for they assure her, they would never be subject to that Roman antichrist, nor suffer (as far as it lay in their power to hinder it) any branches of his usurped authority to have place within the realm." This, which is in the Collection (No. xc), prevailed no more than their other petitions had done.

I will add to this a few particulars relating to the affairs of Scotland, as they are set forth in some of these, letters that were sent me from Zurick. Parkhurst, bishop of Norwich, in a letter to Bullinger (which is in the Collection, No. xci), writes, in the year 1566, "that in March last an Italian, called Signior David (whom he charges as skilled in necromancy), who was in great favour with the queen, was dragged out of her room, and stabbed by many hands. And adds, that an abbot was then so wounded, that though he escaped, yet he died of his wounds soon after and that one Black, a Dominican, in great esteem among the papists, was also killed in the court. And upon all that disorder, while the privy-council was sitting, the lords escaped with their lives: since that time, the queen had brought forth a prince. She was reconciled to her husband, and had called home her brother, and the lords that were of the reformed side: but though the queen had borne her son ten weeks before he wrote, yet all that while he was not baptized; for she intended to do it with pomp, and many masses in the great church, though the inhabitants of Edinburgh were resolved to hinder that: they apprehended she would bring over a force from France. He concludes with a prayer, not very evangelical, that God would either convert or confound her. There are circumstances in this letter, of some others killed with Signior David, that I have found nowhere else.'

About the same time, Grindal wrote likewise a letter to Bullinger, which is also in the Collection (No. xcii); in which he thanks him for the letters he had written over concerning the controversy about the habits. He writes, "that it was not credible that a question about things of no moment should have raised so great a disturbance as this had done many, both of the ministers and the people, were designing to withdraw from them, and to set up separate meetings; but most of them were now come to a better mind. He acknowledges their wise and good letters had contributed much towards that: yet some continued still in their former resolutions. It were an easy thing to reconcile them to the queen, if they could be brought to change their mind but till that was done, it was not in their power to

effect it. The bishops, upon their return, and before they were consecrated, had endeavoured all they could to get those things removed that gave occasion to the present dispute; but in that they could not prevail, neither with the queen nor with the parliament. So they, upon consulting among themselves, came to a resolution not to desert their churches for the sake of a few rites that were not unlawful, since the doctrine was entire and pure; in which they agreed in all things with them of Zurick. They saw the good effects of these their resolutions: and those unseasonable contentions, about things indifferent, did not edify, but tear the churches.

"From their own affairs he turns to those of Scotland, where he writes, things were in no good state. They still retained the profession of the truth; but the queen endeavoured by all means to extirpate it she had lately ordered six or seven masses to be said every day in her chapel, and admitted all that pleased to come to them; whereas, at first, she was contented with one private mass, to which no Scotchman was admitted; and whereas it was provided that the ministers should be maintained out of the revenues of the church, she had now for three years stopped all payments; there were no public changes yet made; both the nobility and the people continued very firm, of whom he reckons the earl of Murray the chief. He understood that the queen was in very ill terms with her husband on this account:-There was one David, an Italian, recommended to her by the cardinal of Lorrain, who governed all the councils there, and was secretary of state. The king, finding he had no regard to him, grew uneasy at it; and being young and rash, he entered into a conspiracy with some of the nobility, and some of his court; so the Italian was dragged out of the queen's presence, notwithstanding her earnest entreaties to save him; and he was no sooner out, than many run their daggers into him; so he was murdered without any cause declared. This horrid crime stuck deep in the queen's heart; so that, though she had borne a son to him, she could never forgive him."

The dismal fate of that unfortunate queen is so tender a point, that I will say nothing of it, but in the words of others. There is a letter of Grindal's to Bullinger, dated the 21st of June 1567. All in that letter which relates to this matter is in the Collection (No. xciii), in which these words will be found: "Scotland is fallen into new troubles; for their late King Henry, on the 10th of February, was found dead in a garden near his lodgings. It is not yet agreed how he died. Some say that a few barrels of gun

powder being, on design, laid under the chamber in which he lay; these being kindled, the house was blown up, and so he was thrown out into that garden. Others say, that in the night he was dragged out of his chamber and strangled, and that then the house was blown up. The earl of Bothwell was generally thought the author of this murder: he also procured, by the authority of the archbishop of St. Andrew's, a divorce from his lawful wife and on the 15th of May last the queen had married him, and created him duke of Orkney. Almost all the nobility had left the court before this marriage, when they saw that no inquiry was made into the king's murder: they had a meeting at Stirling, where it appeared, by clear evidences, that the murder was committed by Bothwell: so an army was brought together on design to seize on him, but he made his escape; and it was not then known whither he was gone. Some say the queen was besieged in a certain castle; and others say she was made a prisoner in the castle of Edinburgh, as having been conscious to the murder of her husband. But whatsoever may be in this, that infamous marriage must end tragically with this he concludes that matter, promising him a more particular account when the certainty of it was better understood."

To this I will add another relation that may be more certainly depended on. Cardinal Laurea, whom the pope had sent to be his nuncio in Scotland, may be supposed to have had the best information that he could procure from those of her party, and of her religion, and he would certainly have put the best face possible on that matter, especially after her tragical fate, which raised an universal disposition in all people to think as well of her as was possible; but chiefly among those of that religion: so that I know no relation of that affair that can be so certainly depended on (making still some allowances for the softenings of a partial writer) as that which we find in that cardinal's life, which. was written by the abbot of Piggerol, and was printed at Bologna in the year 1599, in which he gives this account of this whole matter.

Pope Pius the Fifth sent Laurea to be his nuncio in Scotland, to assist and encourage the queen in her zeal : he sent by him twenty thousand crowns to her, as an earnest of further supplies; and wrote to her with his own hand, recommending his nuncio to her. The nuncio came to Paris in the dog-days, and brought him who writes his life along with him to be his secretary. He received letters from the queen of Scots by the hands of the archbishop of Glasgow, who was then her ambassador in France: by these she ex