g so much that both the Austrian and Spanish matches became
impossible. On October 6, Knox, who suspected more than he knew, told
Cecil that out of twelve Privy Councillors, nine would consent to a
Catholic marriage. The only hope was in Moray, and Knox "daily thirsted"
for death. {231a} He appealed to Leicester (about whose relations with
Elizabeth he was, of course, informed) as to a man who "may greatly
advance the purity of religion." {231b}

These letters to Cecil and Leicester are deeply pious in tone, and reveal
a cruel anxiety. On June 20, three weeks after Knox's famous sermon,
Lethington told de Quadra, the Spanish Ambassador, that Elizabeth
threatened to be Mary's enemy if she married Don Carlos or any of the
house of Austria. {231c} On August 26, 1563, Randolph received
instructions from Elizabeth, in which the tone of menace was unconcealed.
Elizabeth would offer an English noble: "we and our country cannot think
any mighty prince a meet husband for her." {231d}

Knox was now engaged in a contest wherein he was triumphant; an affair
which, in later years, was to have sequels of high importance. During
the summer vacation of 1563, while Mary was moving about the country,
Catholics in Edinburgh habitually attended at Mass in her chapel. This
was contrary to the arrangement which permitted no Mass in the whole
realm, except that of the Queen, when her priests were not terrorised.
The godly brawled in the Chapel Royal, and two of them were arrested, two
very dear brethren, named Cranstoun and Armstrong; they were to be tried
on October 24. Knox had a kind of Dictator's commission from the
Congregation, "to see that the Kirk took no harm," and to the
Congregation he appealed by letter. The accused brethren had only "noted
what persons repaired to the Mass," but they were charged with divers
crimes, especially invading her Majesty's palace. Knox therefore
convoked the Congregation to meet in Edinburgh on the day of trial, in
the good old way of overawing justice. {232a} Of course we do not know
to what lengths the dear brethren went in their pious indignation. The
legal record mentions that they were armed with pistols, in the town and
Court suburb; and it was no very unusual thing, later, for people to
practise pistol shooting at each other even in their own Kirk of St.
Giles's. {232b}

Still, pistols, if worn in the palace chapel have not a pacific air. The
brethren are also charged with assaulti