aring
his family ambition, was in no mood for burning heretics. The Queen
Mother herself carried conciliation so far as to pardon and reinstate
such trebly dyed traitors as the notorious Crichton of Brunston, and she
employed Kirkcaldy of Grange, who intrigued against her while in her
employment. An Edinburgh tailor, Harlaw, who seems to have been a deacon
in English orders, was allowed to return to Scotland in 1554. He became
a very notable preacher. {62a}

Going from Mrs. Bowes's house to Edinburgh, Knox found that "the
fervency" of the godly "did ravish him." At the house of one Syme "the
trumpet blew the auld sound three days thegither," he informed Mrs.
Bowes, and Knox himself was the trumpeter. He found another lady, "who,
by reason that she had a troubled conscience, delighted much in the
company of the said John." There were pleasant sisters in Edinburgh, who
later consulted Knox on the delicate subject of dress. He was more
tolerant in answering them than when he denounced "the stinking pride of
women" at Mary Stuart's Court; admitting that "in clothes, silks,
velvets, gold, and other such, there is no uncleanness," yet "I cannot
praise the common superfluity which women now use in their apparel." He
was quite opposed, however, to what he pleasingly calls "correcting
natural beauty" (as by dyeing the hair), and held that "farthingales
cannot be justified."

On the whole, he left the sisters fairly free to dress as they pleased.
His curious phrase, {62b} in a letter to a pair of sisters, "the prophets
of God are often impeded to pray for such as carnally they love
unfeignedly," is difficult to understand. We leave it to the learned to
explain this singular limitation of the prophet, which Knox says that he
had not as yet experienced. He must have heard about it from other
prophets.

Knox found at this time a patron remarkable, says Dr. M'Crie, "for great
respectability of character," Erskine of Dun. Born in 1508, about 1530
he slew a priest named Thomas Froster, in a curiously selected place, the
belfry tower of Montrose. Nobody seems to have thought anything of it,
nor should we know the fact, if the record of the blood-price paid by Mr.
Erskine to the priest's father did not testify to the fervent act. Six
years later, according to Knox, "God had marvellously illuminated"
Erskine, and the mildness of his nature is frequently applauded. He was,
for Scotland, a man of learning, and our first ama