The Queen and her brother sat in grave deliberation in her Majesty’s private apartment. Moray’s face betrayed, under its usual composure, a sense of triumph and satisfaction. The scheming earl had succeeded in bringing about an interview, from which he expected great things, forgetting, as such intriguers often do, the frank nature of his sister, and the uncompromising character of the churchman whom he wished her to conciliate. He glanced anxiously now and then at the timepiece, for men of his stamp have scant leisure to spare, and something like a smile overspread his features as he detected a bustle in the ante-room which indicated an arrival.

Mary seemed absent and depressed. With her cheek leaning on her hand, she had listened to her brother’s arguments like one whose thoughts are far away. She was already conscious that the burden of state-craft was too heavy for her to bear; her young head and heart, too, were aching under the weight and restrictions of a crown.

She looked up with a weary sigh when the door opened, and a staid usher, too long schooled at court to betray surprise, whatever he might feel, announced the entrance of Mr John Knox.

The Reformer advanced with the grave, dignified air that was habitual to him, and that sprang from no advantages of bodily presence, but from the consciousness of unshaken integrity within. His flowing beard and long black gown accorded well with the severe and thoughtful brow. For an instant, as he lifted his eyes to the beautiful face of his sovereign, they shone with an expression of pity and admiration, that softened his whole countenance; but the gleam was transient, soon to make way for an increased rigidity of demeanour, as the churchman recalled the sacred nature of his office, and the interests he felt commissioned to represent.

The Queen rose when he entered and greeted him courteously. They formed a strange contrast, that pair of disputants; icy winter and leafy June, the budding hawthorn and the gnarled oak-branch, the smiling sunbeam and the keen north blast, could not have been more different. For a moment they were silent, and scanned each other narrowly. Her Majesty, as became her rank, was the first to speak.

‘I have summoned you, Master Knox,’ said she, ‘for that I would not willingly mistrust a friend without an explanation, or condemn a subject unheard. There is sedition abroad in Scotland, and those in whom a Queen should put her confidence conspire to bring her authority to nought. Master Knox, Master Knox! can you answer to your sovereign the heavy charges brought against you?’

‘To my Sovereign, and to hers,’ replied the Reformer, pointing upward. ‘Confront me with mine accusers, madam, and I will put them to open shame.’

‘Nay,’ resumed the Queen, glancing at her brother as if for support, ‘I can judge of your sedition for myself. Have you not written a book expressly to overthrow my just government, wherein the casuistry and lore for which you are celebrated have been employed for the worse purpose; but which, nevertheless, I will commission the most learned men in Europe to refute? Have you not stirred up rebellion, and even caused bloodshed, in England, to sap the very foundations of my throne? Have you not practised the black unhallowed art of magic, rather than leave a stone unturned to further your cruel and undutiful enmity against me, your Queen?’

‘Madam,’ replied the preacher, not without a certain sarcastic admiration in his tone, ‘you are skilled in the knowledge of the schools, and for a gentlewoman tolerably familiar with the laws of logic and the rules of disputation. I will answer your charges categorically and in order. If to teach the word of truth to the discomfiture of idolatry; if to exhort the multitude to that worship of the Spirit which is alone acceptable in the sight of Heaven; if to fulfil the commission of my Master by waging war to death against the Roman Antichrist, to hew down root and branch, and cast into the fire the deadly upas-tree—its breviaries, its scapularies, its masses, its mummeries, its rank blasphemous ceremonials: if this be sedition and rebellion, I plead guilty. If princes are not better served by those who have cast off the yoke of the popish despot, and if subjects are not more loyal who fear God and honour the king, than those who flatter the crown and obey the crozier—if your Grace have not more cheerful homage from your free Scottish people than ever your fathers enjoyed from our priest-ridden forebears—I plead guilty. If mine enemies can prove that one drop of blood hath ever been shed by my influence or my consent, if they can deny that wherever I have lived, at Geneva, in England, at Berwick, and now in Edinburgh, it has been my constant endeavour to inculcate the doctrines of “peace and good-will,” and God hath so blessed my labours that they have borne fruit an hundredfold—I plead guilty. With regard to the charge of magic, I can the more easily bear the brunt of that indictment when I mind me that my Master while on earth was taxed with the same accusation. What said the priests? the priests, madam, who like your own were fain to own all the wealth and power of earth at the loss of heaven—“He casteth out devils,” said they, “by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils.” So far as I have striven to walk in the footsteps of my Master—so far as my weak unworthy efforts have been directed to follow His example—to this also I plead guilty. But if these charges fail, as fail they must when your Grace brings your own clear-sighted reason to bear upon them, the verdict will be “not guilty,” and the accusation of rebellion and sedition falls to the ground.’

Mary had been listening with obvious impatience and no very close attention. She had perhaps made up her mind beforehand. She had again seated herself, and tapped the floor fretfully with her foot, glancing occasionally at her brother as if to ascertain his opinion of the controversy. Moray looked on with the calm approval of a partisan, who thinks his own man is getting the best of it. When Knox paused, the Queen broke in with unusual vehemence.

‘And the book? At least you cannot deny the book, nor its object, nor its reflections on my mother and myself. Even the nice casuistry of Master Knox cannot refine away his authorship of that “First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” Oh! it is a worthy title for a worthy production! and, in any other country under heaven but this, it would have brought its writer to the block. By the crown I wear, in a parallel case, my cousin of England would have had it burnt by the common hangman!’

She breathed quick, and gesticulated more than was her wont. She was lashing herself into anger, the gentle Queen, as she thought of her own weakness and Elizabeth Tudor’s strength. Knox met her glance unmoved. When thus embarked on the tide of argument, he was no more to be influenced by force than persuasion; the softest eyes that ever smiled, and the sternest brows that ever frowned, were alike to him. In the pride of his calling, and the fierce delight of disputation, a man of marble within and without.

‘As to the book that so angers your Majesty,’ said he, ‘I own to it freely. Yes, I wrote it deliberately, and on reflection; nor is there a position laid down, nor an argument adduced in the whole of it, that I fear to establish and substantiate before any ten of the most learned men in Europe!’

‘Then you maintain that I have no just authority even over my own subjects?’ urged the Queen, with difficulty keeping back her tears.

‘These are all fair matters for dispute, madam,’ was his reply. ‘The learned may surely be suffered to discuss such questions unmolested, when they refrain from putting their theories of good government into practice. Plato himself, as I need scarcely remind your Majesty, argued the necessity of many reforms fundamentally opposed to the very principles of the commonwealth in which he lived. The litera scripta manet indeed, madam; but it is for future generations; and no book written, if left unfortified by persecution, ever yet subverted the authority existent at the time it was composed, and against which it may seem to have been aimed. Besides, madam,’ added the churchman, warming into good-humour as he got into the full swing of his oratory, ‘my book was not directed so much against yourself as your namesake, the bloody Jezebel of England, with her wicked satellites, godless Gardiner and blaspheming Bonner, the one on her right hand, and the other on her left! Had I meant to have troubled your estate, madam, would I not have chosen a more fitting time, and a weaker breach in the defences, for my assault?’

‘But at least,’ resumed Mary, a little mollified by this admission, ‘ye cannot deny that ye have taught the people to follow a religion different from that of their prince. How is this to be reconciled with the divine command that subjects should obey their rulers? I cannot wrestle with you in argument, Master Knox; I am but a foolish woman after all; yet here, methinks, I have you on the hip.’

He paused a moment, like a true rhetorician, gratified at an opposition he deemed worthy to be controverted.

‘The objection, madam,’ he answered, ‘is a fair one; yet thus do I demolish it. True religion, it cannot be disputed, cometh from God, and not from the king, else why are we enjoined but to honour the latter, whilst we are to fear, and consequently obey, the former? This is the argument positive. Of the negative, I can produce instances in abundance. The following may be thought sufficient:—The Hebrews were not to conform to the idolatry of Pharaoh or the self-glorification of Nebuchadnezzar the King, nor were the primitive Christians to practise the degrading superstitions of the Roman Emperors.’

‘Good,’ replied Mary; ‘yet we read not that Jew or Christian was justified in resisting with the sword.’

‘The Almighty had not seen fit to give them the power,’ answered Knox.

‘Then you hold that subjects are entitled to take up arms against their sovereign,’ proceeded Mary. ‘In good faith, Master Knox, this is a dangerous doctrine even in these lawless times.’

‘Extreme means are allowable in extreme cases,’ was his reply; ‘the father hath authority over his family, but if the father be seized with madness, it is lawful for the children to rise up against him, and, stripping him of his power, to place him under constraint, for his safety and their own. So is it with princes, madam; and that prince who goeth about in his frenzy to commit iniquity, must be disarmed, deposed, and cast into prison until he hath been brought to a more sober mind, and disciplined to submission under the will of Heaven.’

It was a bold argument to propound in a royal palace in the presence of majesty itself. The Queen looked at her brother, astonished and aghast. True to his part, Moray assumed an air of profound reflection and conviction after mature thought. Again Mary felt goaded to irritation as she wondered how Elizabeth would have brooked a similar discussion, but she commanded herself with a strong effort, and shifted her ground for a new attack.

‘And where shall we find this will of Heaven declared,’ argued the Queen, ‘or who shall decide between you and me when each interprets differently the same command?’

‘The words of Scripture and the ordinances of the Church are sufficient for our guidance,’ replied the preacher.

‘But your Church is not mine’, retorted the Queen. ‘I believe in my heart the Church of Rome to be the true Church of God.’

‘Your will, madam,’ said the other, ‘cannot impose a reason, neither doth opinion constitute argument; I am fully prepared to bear witness against the Scarlet Woman whom ye would fain substitute for the pure Spouse: but I will employ the weapons of controversy, in which mine adversaries are so skilled, to do battle for the right. I will undertake to prove, against the strongest of your priestly disputants, that the Romish Church hath more degenerated from the truth and purity of apostolic teaching, than the Jews from the ordinances handed down to them by their first lawgivers—Moses and Aaron—when they shouted to the Roman governor that he should crucify the innocent, and let Barabbas go free.’

‘My conscience tells me it is not so,’ answered Mary. ‘I cannot contend with you in argument, as it is neither my profession nor my pleasure; but I have read and studied and formed my own conclusions. Why should not my views be as clear as yours, or may we not both be right?’

‘Impossible!’ thundered Knox. ‘Ye shall come out from the ungodly, and shall not be partakers with them—no, not of one single drop in the cup of their abominations. There is but one straight path for monarch and subject, the queen on her throne and the beggar at the gate. I tell you, madam, that if you deviate from it one hair’s-breadth, you shall be lost in the howling wilderness, and become the prey of the raging lion. I will not concede to you one jot nor one tittle; I will prove to you that your tenets are false, your practice sinful, and your ceremonials blasphemous. Stone by stone will I destroy the edifice that priestly ambition hath raised on the foundations of corruption, and cemented with the blood of the prophets from time to time, even unto this day. First of all, I will demolish the very keystone on which the whole fabric rests; I will cast down the idol and trample it under my feet; I will testify in the face of all men against the gross and godless mummery of the mass.’

Mary looked shocked and a little scared at his vehemence; she was irritated, too, by this unscrupulous attack on all she held most sacred, but she controlled herself, and only replied, quietly—

‘Abuse is not argument, Master Knox; neither are assertions of much weight until they are proved.’

He settled his gown on his shoulders, and spreading his hands before him, proceeded to demonstrate his propositions in the manner that had become habitual to him in the pulpit, checking off the main points of his argument on his fingers as he proceeded.

‘Ye maintain the mass,’ said he, ‘to be a sacrifice, and, as such, to be holy in itself, for that things are sanctified which have been once placed upon the altar! Ye argue that in the Scriptures are to be found antitypes that shall support this doctrine, and that Melchizedek, when he brought out bread and wine before Abraham, prefigured the offering which ye now esteem to be the holiest of mysteries. I will not pause to discuss with one of your Majesty’s learning the object with which Melchizedek brought forth these provisions, nor the arguments which may be produced for and against the probability that he simply offered them as refreshment to Abraham and his company. We will let this be for the present, and proceed at once to the very root and core of the matter. Ye shall observe, madam, that of sacrifices, there are two kinds—the sacrifices of propitiation, and the sacrifices of thanksgiving—the propitiatoriÆ and the eucharistiÆ. Now, with regard to the former,’——

‘Hold, sir!’ interrupted the Queen, much to the divine’s disappointment. ‘Now ye are launched on the depths of controversial divinity, which are too profound for me, and ye would fain confuse and overwhelm me with your learned Latin terms; I pray your mercy. Under favour, I shall find those who are better capable than I am of holding their ground in argument against Master Knox.’

‘So be it, madam,’ answered the Reformer, proudly; ‘as in the dark ages our ancestors feared not to encounter the strongest champions armed with fleshly weapons in the lists, so shall I be found, I humbly trust, prompt at the hour of trial to do battle in the cause of truth.’

‘Those champions, at least, turned not their weapons against a weak, helpless woman,’ replied Mary, in a tone of considerable exasperation. ‘When they opposed their sovereign, it was to resist tyranny and oppression: not to deprive him of his dignity, and even curtail him of his very amusements. They fronted him boldly in the field, but they would have scorned to wound him in his tenderest feelings, or to attack him in the privacy of his household.’

‘Your Majesty’s shaft is well aimed,’ replied Knox; ‘yet doth it rebound harmless from the armour of duty in which the minister of the Word is encased. It is my calling, madam, to reprove sin from the pulpit, whether it be found rearing its head on high in the palace, or crawling among the sewers of the street. I tell you, Mary Stuart, that the day will come when your masques and your music and your mummeries shall be recorded against you in such characters of fire as roused Belshazzar and his nobles from their last revelry on earth. In your feastings and fiddlings and dancings, do ye remember the dance of death, down which ye are footing it so thoughtlessly? When your ears are tickled by the foolish squeaking of your lutes, your rebecks, or your virginals, do ye reflect on the awful blast of the last trumpet, and the wail of perdition coming up from the lake of fire?’

‘Then you esteem a simple, innocent measure to be an unpardonable sin?’ retorted the Queen, in high scorn. ‘Master Knox, Master Knox! is there not a certain virtue called Charity, without which all the others are of no avail?’

‘The guilt of the action, madam,’ answered he, argumentatively, ‘depends on the motive of the dancer. David, indeed, leaped and danced before the ark; but it was in pious zeal and singleness of heart. Not so, that child of sin, the daughter of Herodias, graceful and fierce-hearted as the panther, when she danced off the head of John the Baptist. Think ye, madam, that the walls of Holyrood will shelter the guilty more securely than the roof of Antipas? Think ye that can be but a harmless folly in the Queen of Scotland, which entailed the curse of blood on that flaunting minion who so charmed and cozened the Tetrarch of Galilee?’

‘And you dare compare me to her!’ exclaimed Mary, rising from her chair with flashing eyes. ‘This is too much! Moray! Brother! I appeal to you! This is too much!’

And turning away she covered her face with both hands and burst into tears.

Even Knox could not see her thus, unmoved. He hastened to explain away all that was most offensive in his allusions. As far as lay in his uncompromising nature, he strove to modify the virulence of his declamation.

‘Nay, madam,’ said he, ‘to be effectual the remedies of the physician must be unpalatable; but I mean not to offend your Majesty, not to be guilty of any disrespect towards your person. I would that you could see many matters in another and a clearer light, for your own welfare and that of your people. It is my zeal for your Majesty’s happiness here and hereafter that makes me so stern and so unpleasant a counsellor. I will fulfil my duty even at the risk of your Majesty’s displeasure, and yet it grieves me in my human weakness to see your fair face sad. It is my daily prayer that Mary Stuart should be brought into the right path. I am an old man, madam, if not in years, in labour and bodily infirmities. I am no courtier, ye know right well. Believe me, I cherish no disloyalty towards your person. I would fain see you a happy triumphant monarch, the joy of your people, the hope and stay of the godly, a fruitful branch in the vineyard, and a second Deborah in Israel!’

The Queen was easily mollified. A bright smile dried the tears on her face, and she stretched her hand graciously to the zealous Reformer.

‘Ye shall advise with me from time to time, Master Knox,’ said she. ‘If I cannot compete with you in argument, I can at least equal you in truth and sincerity, and a good-will to that which is right.’

The churchman’s stern nature was moved. He bent over the hand she gave him, and made as though he would have touched it with his lips; then dropped it somewhat awkwardly, and resumed with a little embarrassment.

‘I am at your Majesty’s service always, second only to His whose minister I am. Yet I beseech you to dismiss me. I may tarry no longer; even now I shall be blamed that I am not at my book.’

‘Ye cannot be always at your book,’ replied the Queen, smiling. ‘Doth not Solomon tell us, “there is a time for all things?”’

‘Even so, madam,’ answered Knox, moving respectfully towards the door; ‘yet must Time himself be seized by the forelock, for his poll is bald behind. Master Buchanan would not fail to remind your Majesty—

The Queen either imperfectly heard or did not perfectly understand, for she bowed her farewell without replying; but Moray, pondering on the adage, shook his head as he murmured more to himself than to her—

‘There is a time even for seizing the time; and it is but an indiscreet haste that would pluck the pear before it is ripe!’

As Knox traversed the ante-room in leaving the royal audience chamber, he found the Maries sitting at work in that apartment, and paused for an instant on his way through, to contemplate that which was in truth a sufficiently pleasing scene. The ladies were seated in different attitudes at their embroidery, and although, doubtless, they had been in the full tide of conversation previously, there was a profound silence at the moment of his entrance.

Wistfully, nay sadly, with the concerned air of one who looks on a bed of lilies that he foresees are to be withered at night by the early frost, the preacher gazed for an instant on this bevy of beauty ere he uncovered his head to salute them. In doing so, his cap slipped out of his hand to the ground, and it was curious to observe the behaviour of the Maries at this juncture. It is needless to state that Master Knox enjoyed but a small share of popularity amongst these ladies. As the official reprover of all their gaieties and amusements, it may easily be understood that they looked on him with no approving eye, and that if they had one favourite aversion at the court, next to a wet Valentine’s Day, it was Master John Knox.

Though of active habits, the great Reformer was somewhat stiff and enfeebled with rheumatism; he stooped with difficulty, and for a while could not recover his lost head-gear.

Mistress Beton, sitting bolt upright, looked straight beyond him at the opposite wall with the air of being as unconscious of his presence as Mary Hamilton really was. The latter had indeed been all the morning immersed in a brown study from which it seemed impossible to extricate her. Mistress Carmichael was not in the best of humours, and it may be observed that her fair brow had of late been continually clouded, and her eyes full of tears, without apparent cause. She made not the slightest movement of assistance in the old man’s favour, and even whispered something to Mary Seton with marked and offensive indifference; but the latter, springing gaily from her chair, picked up the fallen skull-cap and returned it to its owner with a pleasant smile, which, saucy as it was, brightened her whole face, like a sunbeam.

‘I thank thee, fair mistress,’ said Knox. ‘These old limbs of mine are stiff now, and the time is not far off when they shall be motionless for evermore. Your knees are young and supple; the more cause have you to be thankful and to bend them while you can in prayer.’

‘The neck may be stiff as well as the knees,’ answered Mary Seton, glancing meaningly towards the Queen’s chamber. ‘I hope my loyalty may outlast my lissomeness, if I live to be as old as your reverence!’

He smiled on her sorrowfully yet kindly.

‘The young,’ said he, ‘think that they are to live for ever, and the old hope still to live a few years longer. Fair mistress, fear God, do your duty, and snap your fingers at the chances of life.’

Mistress Beton here interposed with stately scorn.

‘We shall scarce take lessons of Master Knox,’ said she, ‘in our duty towards the Queen. Under favour, sir, we need none of your reverence’s teaching in loyalty and obedience.’

He turned good-humouredly towards her, still smiling.

‘Ye are angry with me, fair ladies,’ said he, ‘and why? Because I am too old to learn your courtly graces, and too honest to use your courtly terms? Because I call a fig a fig, when I see one, and a spade a spade. Nay, ye should rather prize and cherish one who can look even on your beauty without his eyes being dazzled, and tell you the truth for your salvation, rather than a lie for your ruin.’

‘Ye speak fairly,’ answered Mary Seton, who in virtue of her previous civility seemed to have constituted herself in some sort his protectress. ‘Yet I warrant me ye spake not so tenderly to her Majesty even now. I marvel that ye are not abashed to look thus boldly in the face of an anointed Queen!’

‘Nay, young lady,’ answered the preacher, in a tone of pleasant humour, ‘why should the fair face of a gentlewoman frighten me, who have fronted many angry men? Think ye a bonny brow, unscored by guilt, can be an object of terror, whether it be crowned with a circle of gold like hers, or a wealth of bright hair like your own? No, no, the old man can neither be coaxed nor frightened from doing his duty.’

The Maries looked from one to the other in uncertainty. Knox had obviously gained their attention, and he added a few words with a good motive.

‘I tell ye the truth, fair ladies,’ said he, preparing to withdraw. ‘Better take it from me than the truth-teller to whom ye must listen some day, whether ye will or no. Ay! what a goodly life were this if it could last for ever, or if we might but pass to heaven with all this gay gear; but out upon the knave death! that cometh whether we will or no, and strippeth us of all, and taketh us we know not where! Prepare yourselves for him now, fair ladies, while he is afar, so when he cometh ye shall be found watching, and may laugh in his face.’

His admonition was well meant and received with sufficient decorum, but the impression soon faded away, for he had not been gone five minutes ere they fell to discussing his outward appearance, the severity of his manners, the fashion of his garments, and the general unloveliness of his demeanour.