ntry, to which her
husband, by these deeds, was to succeed if she died without issue. Young
as she was, Mary was perfectly able to understand the infamy of the
transaction, and probably was not so careless as to sign the deeds
unread.

Even before this secret treaty was drafted, on March 10, 1557, Glencairn,
Lorne, Erskine, and the Prior of St. Andrews--best known to us in after
years as James Stewart, Earl of Moray--informed Knox that no "cruelty" by
way of persecution was being practised; that his presence was desired,
and that they were ready to jeopard their lives and goods for the cause.
The rest would be told to Knox by the bearer of the letter. Knox
received the letter in May 1557, with verbal reports by the bearers, but
was so far from hasty that he did not leave Geneva till the end of
September, and did not reach Dieppe on his way to Scotland till October
24. Three days later he wrote to the nobles who had summoned him seven
months earlier. He had received, he said, at Dieppe two private letters
of a discouraging sort; one correspondent said that the enterprise was to
be reconsidered, the other that the boldness and constancy required "for
such an enterprise" were lacking among the nobles. Meanwhile Knox had
spent his time, or some of it, in asking the most godly and the most
learned of Europe, including Calvin, for opinions of such an adventure,
for the assurance of his own conscience and the consciences of the Lord
James, Erskine, Lorne, and the rest. {76a} This indicates that Knox
himself was not quite sure of the lawfulness of an armed rising, and
perhaps explains his long delay. Knox assures us that Calvin and other
godly ministers insisted on his going to Scotland. But it is quite
certain that of an armed rising Calvin absolutely disapproved. On April
16, 1561, writing to Coligny, Calvin says that he was consulted several
months before the tumult of Amboise (March 1560) and absolutely
discouraged the appeal to arms. "Better that we all perish a hundred
times than that the name of Christianity and the Gospel should come under
such disgrace." {76b} If Calvin bade Knox go to Scotland, he must have
supposed that no rebellion was intended. Knox tells his correspondents
that they have betrayed themselves and their posterity ("in conscience I
can except none that bear the name of nobility"), they have made him and
their own enterprise ridiculous, and they have put him to great trouble.
What is he to