ngregation had quitted it, and she
tried hard, but in vain, to persuade the earl Marischal to surrender the
castle. The arrival of fresh reenforcements from France at the beginning
of December enabled her to abandon her defensive policy and to take
decisive measures for the suppression of revolt. On Christmas Day, while
the Protestant lords were in council at Stirling, two detachments of her
troops, commanded by D'Oysel, drove them precipitately from the town.
Pursuing his advantage, D'Oysel despatched his troops across Stirling
bridge into Fife, and he himself with another detachment crossed from
Leith, apparently with the object of gaining possession of St. Andrew's.
The task proved a hard one. At every step he was beset by the Scots
under Argyle and the lord James. "The said Earl and Lord James," says
Knox, "for twenty-one days they lay in their clothes; their boots never
came off; they had skirmishing almost every day; yea, some days, from
morn to even." Yet, in the teeth of all obstacles, D'Oysel steadily
forced his way to within six miles of St. Andrew's, where Knox and his
friends had all but abandoned hope. But unexpected deliverance was at
hand. On January 23, 1560, a fleet of strange vessels appeared at the
mouth of the Frith of Forth. As a French fleet had been expected for
some weeks, D'Oysel concluded that his armament had come at last. He was
soon undeceived. Under his eyes the strangers seized two ships bearing
provisions from Leith to his own camp. The strange vessels were an
advanced squadron of a fleet sent by Elizabeth to block the Frith of
Forth against further succors from France. It was now D'Oysel who was in
extremities; and before he found himself safe in Linlithgow he had vivid
experience at once of the rigors of a Scotch winter and of the savage
hate which his countrymen had come to inspire in the nation which for
three centuries had called them friends and allies.

Meanwhile, the mission of Maitland to the English court was about to
lead to one of the most notable compacts in the national history. At
Berwick-on-Tweed, the lord James Stewart, Lord Ruthven, and three other
Scottish commissioners met the Duke of Norfolk and concluded a treaty
(February 27th) which was to insure the eventual triumph of the
Congregation, to make Scotland a Protestant country, and at a later day
a constituent part of a Greater Britain. The treaty was in effect a bond
of mutual defence against France--Elizabeth having