between them and the throne, the haven where they
would be. They never produced a great statesman, but their wealth,
numbers, and almost royal rank made them powerful.

At this moment the eldest son of the house, the Earl of Arran, was in
France. As a boy, he had been seized by the murderers of Cardinal
Beaton, and held as a hostage in the Castle of St. Andrews. Was he there
converted to the Reformers' ideas by the eloquence of Knox? We know not,
but, as heir to his father's French duchy of Chatelherault, he had been
some years in France, commanding the Scottish Archer Guard. In France
too, perhaps, he was more or less a pledge for his father's loyalty in
Scotland. He was now a Protestant in earnest, had retired from the
French Court, had refused to return thither when summoned, and fled from
the troops who were sent to bring him; lurking in woods and living on
strawberries. Cecil despatched Thomas Randolph to steer him across the
frontier to Zurich. He was a piece in the game much more valuable than
his father, whose portrait shows us a weak, feebly cunning, good-natured,
and puzzled-looking old nobleman.

Till Arran returned to Scotland, the Hamiltons, it was certain, would be
trusty allies of neither faith and of neither party. When the Perth
tumult broke out, Lord James rode with the Regent, as did Argyll. But
both had signed the godly Band of December 3, 1557, and could no more be
trusted by the Regent than the Hamiltons.

Meanwhile, the gentry of Fife and Forfarshire, with the town of Dundee,
joined Knox in the walled town of Perth, though Lord Ruthven, provost of
Perth, deserted, for the moment, to the Regent. On the other hand, the
courageous Glencairn, with a strong body of the zealots of Renfrewshire
and Ayrshire, was moving by forced marches to join the brethren. On May
24, the Regent, instead of attacking, halted at Auchterarder, fourteen
miles away, and sent Argyll and Lord James to parley. They were told
that the brethren meant no rebellion (as the Regent said and doubtless
thought that they did), but only desired security for their religion, and
were ready to "be tried" (by whom?) "in lawful judgment." Argyll and
Lord James were satisfied. On May 25, Knox harangued the two lords in
his wonted way, but the Regent bade the brethren leave Perth on pain of
treason. By May 28, however, she heard of Glencairn's approach with Lord
Ochiltree, a Stewart (later Knox's father-in-law); Glencairn, by