together in the state of matrimony." {237c} She
had ever since January been making the bride presents of feminine finery.

These proceedings indicating no precipitate haste, we may think that Mary
Livingstone, like Mary of Guise, is only a victim of the Reformer's taste
for "society journalism." Randolph, though an egregious gossip, says of
the Four Maries, "they are all good," but Knox writes that "the ballads
of that age" did witness to the "bruit" or reputation of these maidens.
As is well known the old ballad of "Mary Hamilton," which exists in more
than a dozen very diverse variants, in some specimens confuses one of the
Maries, an imaginary "Mary Hamilton," with the French maid who was hanged
at the end of 1563. The balladist is thus responsible for a scandal
against the fair sisterhood; there was no "Mary Hamilton," and no "Mary
Carmichael," in their number--Beaton, Seton, Fleming, and Livingstone.

An offended Deity now sent frost in January 1564, and an aurora borealis
in February, Knox tells us, and "the threatenings of the preachers were
fearful," in face of these unusual meteorological phenomena. {238}

Vice rose to such a pitch that men doubted if the Mass really was
idolatry! Knox said, from the pulpit, that if the sceptics were right,
_he_ was "miserably deceived." "Believe me, brethren, in the bowels of
Christ, it is possible that you may be mistaken," Cromwell was to tell
the Commissioners of the General Assembly, on a day that still was in the
womb of the future; the dawn of common sense rose in the south.

On March 20, much to the indignation of the Queen, the banns were read
twice between Knox and a lady of the Royal blood and name, Margaret
Stewart, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, a girl not above sixteen, in January
1563, when Randolph first speaks of the wooing. {239} The good Dr.
M'Crie does not mention the age of the bride! The lady was a very near
kinswoman of Chatelherault. She had plenty of time for reflection, and
as nobody says that she was coerced into the marriage, while Nicol Burne
attributes her passion to sorcery, we may suppose that she was in love
with our Reformer. She bore him several daughters, and it is to be
presumed that the marriage, though in every way _bizarre_, was happy.
Burne says that Knox wished to marry a Lady Fleming, akin to
Chatelherault, but was declined; if so, he soon consoled himself.

At this time Riccio--a valet de chambre of the Queen in 1561-62--"bega