to proceed with her by way of justice," a
performance not to be deferred, "either for Parliament or a great
Session." Very Petty Sessions indeed, if any, were to suffice for the
trial of the Queen. {270} There are to be no "temporising solemnities,"
all are to be "stout and resolute _in execution_," Leicester thus writes
to an unknown correspondent on October 10. Killigrew, who was to arrange
the business with Mar, was in Scotland by September 19. On October 6,
Killigrew writes that Knox is very feeble but still preaching, and that
he says, if he is not a bishop, it is by no fault of Cecil's. "I trust
to satisfy Morton," says Killigrew, "and as for John Knox, that thing, as
you may see by my letter to Mr. Secretary, is done and doing daily; the
people in general well bent to England, abhorring the fact in France, and
fearing their tyranny."

"That thing" is _not_ the plan for murdering Mary without trial; if
Killigrew meant that he had obtained Knox's assent to _that_, he would
not write "that thing is doing daily." Even Morton, more scrupulous than
Elizabeth and Cecil, said that "there must be some kind of process"
(trial, proces), attended secretly by the nobles and the ministers. The
trial would be in Mary's absence, or would be brief indeed, for the
prisoner was not to live three hours after crossing the Border! Others,
unnamed, insisted on a trial; the Queen had never been found guilty.
Killigrew speaks of "two ministers" as eager for the action, but nothing
proves that Knox was one of them. While Morton and Mar were haggling for
the price of Mary's blood, Mar died, on October 28, and the whole plot
fell through. {271} Anxious as Knox had declared himself to be to
"strike at the root," he could not, surely, be less scrupulous about a
trial than Morton, though the decision of the Court was foredoomed.
Sandys, the Bishop of London, advised that Mary's head should be chopped
off!

On November 9, 1572, Knox inducted Mr. Lawson into his place as minister
at St. Giles's. On the 13th he could not read the Bible aloud, he paid
his servants, and gave his man a present, the last, in addition to his
wages. On the 15th two friends came to see Knox at noon, dinner time. He
made an effort, and for the last time sat at meat with them, ordering a
fresh hogshead of wine to be drawn. "He willed Archibald Stewart to send
for the wine so long as it lasted, for he would never tarry until it were
drunken." On the 16th th