Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

tears, rather than hurt his conscience and betray the
commonwealth by his silence. This defense but the
more incensed the queen; she ordered him to leave
her presence and await in the ante-chamber the
signification of her pleasure. There he was
surrounded by numbers of his acquaintances and
associates, but he stood "as one whom men had
never seen." Lord Ochiltree alone of all that
dastardly crowd found courage to recognize him.
Turning from the male, but not manly, courtiers,
Knox addressed himself to the queen's ladies. "O
fair ladies," said he, in a vein of raillery which the
queen's frown had not been able to extinguish,
"how pleasing were this life of yours, if it should
ever abide, and then, in the end, we might pass to
heaven with all this gay gear! but fie upon that
knave Death that will come whether we will or no."
Erskine now came to hint to say that the queen
permitted him to go home for the day. Mary was
bent on a prosecution of the Reformer, but her
councilors refused to concur, and so, as Knox says,
"this storm blew over in appearance, but not in
heart."[5]
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