Scotland/Scots > Life of John Knox ; and, The life of Alexander Henderson

LIFE OP JOHN KNOX.
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excludes every papist from the throne, and according to
which the reigning monarch, by setting up mass in his
chapel, would virtually forfeit his crown. Is popery
more dangerous now than it was two hundred and fifty
years ago?
Besides his fears for the common cause, Knox had
grounds for apprehension as to his personal safety. The
queen was peculiarly incensed against him on account
of the active hand which he had in the late revolution;
the popish clergy who left the kingdom represented him
as the ringleader of her factious subjects; and she had
signified, before she left France, that she was determined
he should be punished. His book against female go¬
vernment was most probably the ostensible charge on
which he was to be prosecuted; and accordingly we find
him making application through the English resident at
Edinburgh, to secure the favour of Elizabeth, reasonably
fearing that she might be induced to abet the proceed¬
ings against him on this head. But whatever perils he
apprehended, from the personal presence of the queen,
either to the public or to himself, he used not the small¬
est influence to prevent her being invited home. On the
contrary, he concurred with his brethren in this measure
and in defeating a scheme which the duke of Chastelhe-
rault, under the direction of the archbishop of St. An¬
drews, had formed to exclude her from the government.
But when the prior of St. Andrews was sent to France
with the invitation, he urged that her desisting from the
celebration of mass should be one of the conditions of her
return; and when he found him and the rest of the
council disposed to grant her this liberty within her own
chapel, he predicted that “ her liberty would be their
thraldom.”
Soon after her arrival, queen Mary, whether of her
own accord or by advice is uncertain, sent for Knox to
the palace, and held a long conversation with him, in
the presence of her brother, the prior of St. Andrews.
She seems to have expected to awe him into submission