the end." She may
have desired that very thing: "Ye may get that sooner than ye believe,"
she said; but Knox expressed his disbelief that he would ever get it.
Papists would never argue except when "they were both judge and party."
Knox himself never answered Ninian Winzet, who, while printing his
polemic, was sought for by the police of the period, and just managed to
escape.

There was, however, a champion who, on November 19, challenged Knox and
the other preachers to a discussion, either orally or by interchange of
letters. This was Mary's own chaplain, Rene Benoit. Mary probably knew
that he was about to offer to meet "the most learned John Knox and other
most erudite men, called ministers"; it is thus that Rene addresses them
in his "Epistle" of November 19.

He implores them not to be led into heresy by love of popularity or of
wealth; neither of which advantages the preachers enjoyed, for they were
detested by loose livers, and were nearly starved. Benoit's little
challenge, or rather request for discussion, is a model of courtesy. Knox
did not meet him in argument, as far as we are aware; but in 1562,
Fergusson, minister of Dunfermline, replied in a tract full of
scurrility. One quite unmentionable word occurs, and "impudent lie,"
"impudent and shameless shavelings," "Baal's chaplains that eat at
Jezebel's table," "pestilent papistry," "abominable mass," "idol
Bishops," "we Christians and you Papists," and parallels between Benoit
and "an idolatrous priest of Bethel," between Mary and Jezebel are among
the amenities of this meek servant of Christ in Dunfermline.

Benoit presently returned to France, and later was confessor to Henri IV.
The discussion which Mary anticipated never occurred, though her champion
was ready. Knox does not refer to this affair in his "History," as far
as I am aware. {199} Was Rene the priest whom the brethren menaced and
occasionally assaulted?

Considering her chaplain's offer, it seems not unlikely that Mary was
ready to listen to reasoning, but to call the Pope "Antichrist," and the
Church "a harlot," is not argument. Knox ended his discourse by wishing
the Queen as blessed in Scotland as Deborah was in Israel. The mere fact
that Mary spoke with him "makes the Papists doubt what shall come of the
world," {200a} says Randolph; and indeed nobody knows what possibly might
have come, had Knox been sweetly reasonable. But he told his friends
that, if he was not mistaken,