eded from the
Holy Ghost." {262a} Yet now Knox had used the very same argument from
Paul's conformity which, in 1556, he had scouted! The Mass was not in
question in 1568; still, if Paul was wrong (and he did get into peril
from a mob!), how could Knox now bid the English brethren follow his
example? {262b} (See pp. 65-67 supra.)

To be sure Mary was probably at large, when Knox wrote, with 4000 spears
at her back. The Reformer may have rightly thought it an ill moment to
irritate Elizabeth, or he may have grown milder than he was in 1559, and
come into harmony with Bullinger. In February of the year of this
correspondence he had written, "God comfort that dispersed little flock,"
apparently the Puritans of his old Genevan congregation, now in England,
and in trouble, "amongst whom I would be content to end my days. . . . "
{263a}

In January 1570, Knox, "with his one foot in the grave," as he says, did
not despair of seeing his desire upon his enemy. Moray was asking
Elizabeth to hand over to him Queen Mary, giving hostages for the safety
of her life. Moray sent his messenger to Cecil, on January 2, 1570, and
Knox added a brief note. "If ye strike not at the root," he said, "the
branches that appear to be broken will bud again. . . . More days than
one would not suffice to express what I think." {263b} What he thought
is obvious; "stone dead hath no fellow." But Mary's day of doom had not
yet come; Moray was not to receive her as a prisoner, for the Regent was
shot dead, in Linlithgow, on January 23, by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, to
the unconcealed delight of his sister, for whom his death was opportune.

The assassin, Bothwellhaugh, in May 1568, had been pardoned for his
partisanship of Mary, at Knox's intercession. "Thy image, O Lord, did so
clearly shine on that personage" (Moray)--he said in his public prayer at
the Regent's funeral {263c}--"that the devil, and the people to whom he
is Prince, could not abide it." We know too much of Moray to acquiesce,
without reserve, in this eulogium.

Knox was sorely disturbed, at this time, by the publication of a jeu
d'esprit, in which the author professed to have been hidden in a bed, in
the cabinet of a room, while the late Regent held a council of his
friends. {264a} The tone and manner of Lindsay, Wood, Knox and others
were admirably imitated; in their various ways, and with appropriate
arguments, some of them urged Moray to take the crown for his life.