latry,
and cruel persecution of God's children. And this, in the name of the
eternal God, and of his Son Christ Jesus, whose verity we profess, and
gospel we have preached, and holy sacraments rightly administered,
we signify unto you to be our intent, so far as God will assist us
to withstand your idolatry. Take this for warning, and be not
deceived."[**] With these outrageous symptoms commenced in Scotland that
cant, hypocrisy, and fanaticism which long infested that kingdom, and
which, though now mollified by the lenity of the civil power, is still
ready to break out on all occasions.

The queen regent, finding such obstinate zeal in the rebels, was content
to embrace the counsels of Argyle and the prior of St. Andrew's, and
to form an accommodation with them. She was received into Perth, which
submitted, on her promising an indemnity for past offences, and engaging
not to leave any French garrison in the place. Complaints, very
ill founded, immediately arose concerning the infraction of this
capitulation. Some of the inhabitants, it was pretended, were molested
on account of the late violences; and some companies of Scotch soldiers,
supposed to be in French pay, were quartered in the town; which step,
though taken on very plausible grounds, was loudly exclaimed against by
the congregation.[***]

* A contemptuous term for a priest.

* Keith, p. 85, 86, 87. Knox, p. 134.

* Knox, p. 139.

It is asserted that the regent, to justify these measures, declared,
that princes ought not to have their promises too strictly urged upon
them; nor was any faith to be kept with heretics: and that for her part,
could she find as good a color, she would willingly bereave all these
men of their lives and fortunes.[*] But it is nowise likely that such
expressions ever dropped from this prudent and virtuous princess. On the
contrary, it appears that all these violences were disagreeable to her;
that she was in this particular overruled by the authority of the
French counsellors placed about her; and that she often thought, if the
management of those affairs had been intrusted wholly to herself, she
could easily, without force, have accommodated all differences.[**] [3]

The congregation, inflamed with their own zeal, and enraged by these
disappointments, remained not long in tranquillity. Even before they
left Perth, and while as yet they had no color to complain of any
violation of treaty, they had signed a new co