t to trial? Her
hand was forced.

It appears to myself, under correction, that all this part of the history
of the Reformation has been misunderstood by our older historians. Almost
without exception, they represent the Regent as dissembling with the
Reformers till, on conclusion of the peace of Cateau Cambresis (which
left France free to aid her efforts in Scotland), April 2, 1559, and on
the receipt of a message from the Guises, "she threw off the mask," and
initiated an organised persecution. But there is no evidence that any
such message commanding her to persecute at this time came from the
Guises before the Regent had issued her proclamations of February 9 and
March 23, {94a} denouncing attacks on priests, disturbance of services,
administering of sacraments by lay preachers, and tumults at large. Now,
Sir James Melville of Halhill, the diplomatist, writing in old age, and
often erroneously, makes the Cardinal of Lorraine send de Bettencourt, or
Bethencourt, to the Regent with news of the peace of Cateau Cambresis and
an order to punish heretics with fire and sword, and says that, though
she was reluctant, she consequently published her proclamation of March
23. Dates prove part of this to be impossible. {94b}

Obviously the Regent had issued her proclamations of February-March 1559
in anticipation of the tumults threatened by the Reformers in their
"Beggar's Warning" and in their Protestation of December, and arranged to
occur with violence at Easter, as they did. The three or four preachers
(two of them apparently "at the horn" in 1558) were to preach publicly,
and riots were certain to ensue, as the Reformers had threatened. Riots
were part of the evangelical programme. Of Paul Methuen, who first
"reformed" the Church in Dundee, Pitscottie writes that he "ministered
the sacraments of the communion at Dundee and Cupar, and caused the
images thereof to be cast down, and abolished the Pope's religion so far
as he passed or preached." For this sort of action he was now summoned.
{95a}

The Regent, therefore, warned in her proclamations men, often challenged
previously, and as often allowed, under fear of armed resistance, to
escape. All that followed was but a repetition of the feeble policy of
outlawing these four or five men. Finally, in May 1559, these preachers
had a strong armed backing, and seized a central strategic point, so the
Revolution blazed out on a question which had long been smoulderin