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

LIFE OF JOHN KNOX.
217
question, which he had heard in the university of Bolog¬
na, in Italy; in which the judgments of the learned men,
and the decision of the question, were strongly in favour
of popular liberty, and the limited power of princes.
After long conference, Maitland insisted that the votes
should he called, and that some order should be estab¬
lished for preventing the recurrence of the evils of which
he had complained. But Knox protested against any
decision of the question, which belonged to the whole
General Assembly; and the sentiments of the members
being divided, the conference broke up without coming
to any determinate resolution.
In the month of August, Knox went, by appointment
of the General Assembly, as visitor of the churches in
Aberdeen and the north, where he remained six or seven
weeks. The subsequent Assembly gave him a similar
appointment to Fife and Perthshire.
Our Reformer’s predictions at the last meeting of par¬
liament were now fully realised. Another parliament
was held in the end of 1564, but nothing was done for
securing the protestant religion. The queen’s marriage
approached, and the lords demanded this as the condition
of their consent; but she artfully evaded the demand,
and accomplished her object. While she was arranging
her plans for the marriage, she sent for the superinten¬
dents of Lothian, Glasgow, and Fife (for Knox was now
inadmissible to her presence), and amused them with fair
words. She was not yet persuaded, she said, of the truth
of their religion, but she was willing to hear conference
and reasoning on the subject: she was even content to
attend the public sermons of some of them; and, “ above
all others, she would gladly hear the superintendent of
Angus, for he was a mild and sweet-natured man, with
true honesty and uprightness, Sir John Erskine of Dun.”
But as soon as her marriage with lord Darnly was over,
she told them in very plain and determined language,
“her majesty neither will, nor may leave the religion