council to answer for their
persistence in preaching.[96] Knox at once resolved to throw in his lot
with his brethren, and went north to Dundee where the zealous
Protestants of Fife, Angus, and Mearns were already assembling,
determined to make common cause with their preachers, and to go forward
in peaceful form to Stirling in order that they might do so, and leave
the queen and her council in no doubt as to the position which they were
henceforth to occupy towards her and them. They accordingly marched
forward from Dundee to Perth, and sent on Erskine of Dun to Stirling to
apprise the queen and council of their attitude and intentions. It is
said that she promised Erskine that the prosecution of the preachers
would be abandoned, but they were condemned in absence and outlawed, and
the breach between the two parties thus became irrevocable. Nothing
remained for the queen, from her point of view, but to prosecute the
matter to the bitter end, if thereby she might succeed in silencing and
repressing the Protestants.

[Sidenote: Preaches in St Andrews.]

After the regent's falsehood to Erskine and persistence in her fatal
policy, the reformers proceeded at once to set about such reform as they
desired, and commenced rather roughly at Perth, where they had the
majority of the population in their favour. Knox, along with Moray,
went to Fife as soon after as it became apparent that forcible measures
must be taken to secure toleration for the Protestants. After a few
brief visits to other towns he presented himself at the public
preaching-place in St Andrews. Modern historians will not allow us to
say that it was in that city that he had received his university
training, or had first listened to the preaching of the reformed
doctrines, or been brought to a personal knowledge of the truth; but
they leave untouched, as previously stated, the more important facts
that it was there, when in charge of his pupils at the university, that
he had first ventured at the hazard of his life openly to make known to
others that which had been blessed of God to the quickening of his own
soul, and publicly to exert in the cause of the Reformation those rare
gifts of telling argument and persuasive speech which were destined so
signally to contribute to its ultimate and permanent triumph throughout
the land. It was there, probably in the old parish church, that he had
been first solemnly called to the ministry of the Word in the reformed
chu