s_, in that
same year Mary died, and Elizabeth succeeded to the throne of England.
And just as the accession of Catholic Queen Mary had condemned female
rule in the eyes of Knox, the accession of Protestant Queen Elizabeth
justified it in the eyes of his colleagues. Female rule ceases to be an
anomaly, not because Elizabeth can "reply to eight ambassadors in one
day in their different languages," but because she represents for the
moment the political future of the Reformation. The exiles troop back to
England with songs of praise in their mouths. The bright occidental
star, of which we have all read in the Preface to the Bible, has risen
over the darkness of Europe. There is a thrill of hope through the
persecuted Churches of the Continent. Calvin writes to Cecil, washing
his hands of Knox and his political heresies. The sale of the "First
Blast" is prohibited in Geneva; and along with it the bold book of
Knox's colleague, Goodman--a book dear to Milton--where female rule was
briefly characterised as a "monster in nature and disorder among
men."[69] Any who may ever have doubted, or been for a moment led away
by Knox or Goodman, or their own wicked imaginations, are now more than
convinced. They have seen the occidental star. Aylmer, with his eye set
greedily on a possible bishopric, and "the better to obtain the favour
of the new Queen,"[70] sharpens his pen to confound Knox by logic. What
need? He has been confounded by facts. "Thus what had been to the
refugees of Geneva as the very word of God, no sooner were they back in
England than, behold! it was the word of the devil."[71]

Now, what of the real sentiments of these loyal subjects of Elizabeth?
They professed a holy horror for Knox's position: let us see if their
own would please a modern audience any better, or was, in substance,
greatly different.

John Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, published an answer to Knox,
under the title of "An Harbour for Faithful and true Subjects against
the late Blown Blast concerning the government of Women."[72] And
certainly he was a thought more acute, a thought less precipitate and
simple, than his adversary. He is not to be led away by such captious
terms as _natural_ and _unnatural_. It is obvious to him that a woman's
disability to rule is not natural in the same sense in which it is
natural for a stone to fall or fire to burn. He is doubtful, on the
whole, whether this disability be natural at all; nay, when he is l