ot speak of establishing Calvinism.

Among those who sign are Morton, who had guilty foreknowledge of the
murder; while his kinsman, Archibald Douglas, was present at the doing;
Sir James Balfour, who was equally involved; Lethington, who signed the
murder covenant; and Douglas of Whittingham, and Ker of Faldonside, two
of Riccio's assassins. Most of the nobles stood aloof.

Presently Throckmorton arrived, sent by Elizabeth with the pretence, at
least, of desiring to save Mary's life, which, but for his exertions, he
thought would have been taken. He "feared Knox's austerity as much as
any man's" (July 14). {256b}

On July 17 Knox arrived from the west, where he had been trying to unite
the Protestants. {256c} Throckmorton found Craig and Knox "very
austere," well provided with arguments from the Bible, history, the laws
of Scotland, and the Coronation Oath. {257a} Knox in his sermons
"threatened the great plague of God to this whole nation and country if
the Queen be spared from her condign punishment." {257b}

Murderers were in the habit of being lightly let off, in Scotland, and,
as to Mary, she could easily have been burned for husband-murder, but not
so easily convicted thereof with any show of justice. The only direct
evidence of her complicity lay in the Casket Letters, and several of her
lordly accusers were (if she were guilty) her accomplices. Her prayer to
be heard in self-defence at the ensuing Parliament of December was
refused, for excellent reasons; and her opponents had the same good
reasons for not bringing her to trial. Knox was perfectly justified if
he desired her to be tried, but several lay members of the General
Assembly could not have faced that ordeal, and Randolph later accused
Lethington, in a letter to him, of advising her assassination. {257c}

On July 29 Knox preached at the Coronation of James VI. at Stirling,
protesting against the rite of anointing. True, it was Jewish, but it
had passed through the impure hands of Rome, as, by the way, had Baptism.
Knox also preached at the opening of Parliament, on December 15. We know
little of him at this time. He had sent his sons to Cambridge, into
danger of acquiring Anglican opinions, which they did; but now he seems
to have taken a less truculent view of Anglicanism than in 1559-60. He
had been drawing a prophetic historical parallel between Chatelherault
(more or less of the Queen's party) and Judas Iscariot, and was not loved
by