had never before been heard of within the realm.
Many of the best of the Reformed deplored the handle it would give to
the blasphemies of their foes. Even my grandfather was smitten with
consternation and grief; for he could not but think that such a temporal
outrage would be followed by a terrible temporal revenge as ruthless and
complete. Sober minds shuddered at the sudden and sacrilegious
overthrow of such venerable structures; and many that stood on the
threshold of the house of papistical bondage, and were on the point of
leaving it, retired in again, and barred the doors against the light,
and hugged their errors as blameless compared with such enormities. To
no one did the event give pleasure but to John Knox. "The work," said
he, "has been done, it is true, by the rascal multitude; but when the
nests are destroyed the rooks will fly away."

The thing, however, most considered at that time was the panic which
this intemperance would cause to the Queen Regent; and my grandfather,
seeing it had changed the complexion of his mission, resolved to return
the same evening by the Queensferry to the Lord James Stuart at
Edinburgh. For the people no sooner cooled and came to a sense of
reflection, than they discerned that they had committed a heinous
offence against the laws, and, apprehending punishment, prepared to
defend themselves.

Thus, by the irresolute and promise-breaking policy of the Queen was the
people maddened into grievous excesses, and many of those who submitted
quietly in the faith of her assurances, and had returned to their
respective homes, considered the trumpet as sounded, and began to gird
themselves for battle.

CHAPTER XX

It's far from my hand and intent to write a history of the tribulations
which ensued from the day of the uproar and first outbreaking of the
wrath of the people against the images of the Romish idolatry; and
therefore I shall proceed, with all expedient brevity, to relate what
farther, in those sore times, fell under the eye of my grandfather, who,
when he returned to Edinburgh, found the Lord James Stuart on the point
of proceeding to the Queen Regent at Stirling, and he went with him
thither.

On arriving at the castle, they found the French soldiery all collected
in the town, and her Highness, like another fiery Bellona, vowing to
avenge the calamities that had befallen the idols and images of Perth;
and summoning and envoking the nobility, and every man of su