Stuart dynasty

THE CHURCH AT BAY. 137
was destined to reap its reward in the gradual per-
meation of Knox's opinions throughout Scotland, and,
after the lapse of eleven yeai's, there was a general
acknowledgment that he was the mainspring of the
Reformation in that land. He was in Scotland for
a short time in 1555, but the date of 1559 may be
taken as that when Knox became conspicuous.
Meantime, the death of Henry VIII. on January
29, 1547, had not altered the policy of England
towards Scotland, whose army was crushed by the
Protector Somerset at Pinkie, near Musselburgh, in
September of the same year. The defeated nation,
with no other resources left, rallied round the crown
represented by the child of six years, who, after a
sojourn on the island of Inchmahone on Lake Men-
teith, was spirited off to France under convoy of a
French squadron, and landed safely at Brest on
August 30, 1548. With the Queen of Scotland
on this occasion travelled her illegitimate half- ^
brother Lord James Douglas, son of James V. by a
daughter of Lord Erskine. Brought up with his
sister, this youth, aged seventeen years, was just old
enough to discover the anomalies of his own
position ; and it is not wonderful to read of him
hereafter, as Earl of Murray, suspected by his enemies
to be desirous of wearing Mary Stuart's surrendered
crown. An ambition this, represented to him as a
right, for his mother always averred that she was the
lawful wife of James V.
The character of the Queen's half-brother, best
known in history as " Murray," remains one of the