n's party dwindled away to a handful of desperate politicians, who
still clung to Edinburgh Castle. But Elizabeth's 'peace-makers,' as the
big English cannon were called, came round, at the Regent's request,
from Berwick; David's tower, as Knox had long ago foretold, 'ran down
over the cliff like a sandy brae;' and the cause of Mary Stuart in
Scotland was extinguished for ever. Poor Grange, who deserved a better
end, was hanged at the Market Cross. Secretary Maitland, the cause of
all the mischief--the cleverest man, as far as intellect went, in all
Britain--died (so later rumour said) by his own hand. A nobler version
of his end is probably a truer one: He had been long ill--so ill that
when the Castle cannon were fired, he had been carried into the cellars
as unable to bear the sound. The breaking down of his hopes finished
him. 'The secretary,' wrote some one from the spot to Cecil, 'is dead of
grief, being unable to endure the great hatred which all this people
bears towards him.' It would be well if some competent man would write a
life of Maitland, or at least edit his papers. They contain by far the
clearest account of the inward movements of the time; and he himself is
one of the most tragically interesting characters in the cycle of the
Reformation history.

With the fall of the Castle, then, but not till then, it became clear to
all men that the Reformation would hold its ground. It was the final
trampling out of the fire which for five years had threatened both
England and Scotland with flames and ruin. For five years--as late
certainly as the massacre of St. Bartholomew--those who understood best
the true state of things, felt the keenest misgivings how the event
would turn. That things ended as they did was due to the spirit of the
Scotch commons. There was a moment when, if they had given way, all
would have gone, perhaps even to Elizabeth's throne. They had passed for
nothing; they had proved to be everything; had proved--the ultimate test
in human things--to be the power which could hit the hardest blows, and
they took rank accordingly. The creed began now in good earnest to make
its way into hall and castle; but it kept the form which it assumed in
the first hours of its danger and trial, and never after lost it. Had
the aristocracy dealt sincerely with things in the earlier stages of the
business, again I say the democratic element in the Kirk might have been
softened or modified. But the Protestants ha