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

LIFE OF JOHN KNOX.
197
From deference to the opinion which she had expressed
of the bishop of Galloway, he inquired more narrowly
into his conduct, and postponed the election. And the
report which he gave of the queen’s gracious answer
operated in her favour on the public mind.
But if his zeal suffered a temporary intermission, it
soon re-kindled with fresh ardour. On the 19th of May,
the archbishop of St. Andrews and a number of the prin¬
cipal Papists were arraigned, by the queen’s orders, be¬
fore the lord Justice-General, for transgressing the laws;
and having come in her Majesty’s will, were committed
to ward. But this was merely a stroke of policy, to en¬
able her more easily to carry her measures in the par¬
liament which met on the following day.
This was the first parliament which had met since the
queen’s arrival in Scotland; and it was natural to expect
that they would proceed to ratify the treaty of peace
made in July 15G0, and the establishment of the protest-
ant religion. If the acts of the former parliament were
invalid, as the queen had repeatedly declared, the pro-
testants had no law on their side; they held their reli¬
gion at the mercy of their sovereign,! and might be re¬
quired, at her pleasure, to submit to popery, as the re¬
ligion which still possessed the legal establishment. But
so well had she laid her plans, such was the effect of her
insinuating address, and, above all, so powerful was the
temptation of self-interest on the minds of the protestant
leaders, that, by general consent, they passed from this
demand, and lost the only favourable opportunity, during
the reign of Mary, for giving a legal security to the re¬
formed religion, and thereby removing one principal
source of jealousies. An act of oblivion, securing indem¬
nity to those who had been engaged in the late civil war,
was indeed passed; but the mode of its enactment vir¬
tually implied the invalidity of the treaty in which it
had been originally embodied; and the protestants, on
their bended knees, supplicated, asaboon from their sove¬
reign, what they had formerly won with their swords.