Switzerland. The reverse was true.

By May 3, Knox was in Edinburgh, "come in the brunt of the battle," as
the preachers' summons to trial was for May 10. He was at once outlawed,
"blown loud to the horn," but was not dismayed. On this occasion the
battle would be a fair fight, the gentry, under their Band, stood by the
preachers, and, given a chance in open field with the arm of the flesh to
back him, Knox's courage was tenacious and indomitable. It was only for
lonely martyrdom that he never thought himself ready, and few historians
have a right to throw the first stone at him for his backwardness.

As for armed conflict, at this moment Mary of Guise could only reckon
surely on the small French garrison of Scotland, perhaps 1500 or 2000
men. She could place no confidence in the feudal levies that gathered
when the royal standard was raised. The Hamiltons merely looked to their
own advancement; Lord James Stewart was bound to the Congregation; Huntly
was a double dealer and was remote; the minor noblesse and the armed
burghers, with Glencairn representing the south-west, Lollard from of
old, were attached to Knox's doctrines, while the mob would flock in to
destroy and plunder.

[Bridal medal of Mary Stuart and the Dauphin, 1558: knox3.jpg]

Meanwhile Mary of Guise was at Stirling, and a multitude of Protestants
were at Perth, where the Reformation had just made its entry, and had
secured a walled city, a thing unique in Scotland. The gentry of Angus
and the people of Dundee, at Perth, were now anxious to make a
"demonstration" (unarmed, says Knox) at Stirling, if the preachers obeyed
the summons to go thither, on May 10. Their strategy was excellent,
whether carefully premeditated or not.

The Regent, according to Knox, amused Erskine of Dun with promises of
"taking some better order" till the day of May 10 arrived, when, the
preachers and their backers having been deluded into remaining at Perth
instead of "demonstrating" at Stirling, she outlawed the preachers and
fined their sureties ("assisters"). She did not outlaw the sureties. Her
treachery (alleged only by Knox and others who follow him) is examined in
Appendix A. Meanwhile it is certain that the preachers were put to the
horn in absence, and that the brethren, believing themselves (according
to Knox) to have been disgracefully betrayed, proceeded to revolutionary
extremes, such as Calvin energetically denounced.

If we ask who executed the tas