Cecil himself was not without his fears, and urged the Protestants in Scotland to stand firm. Randolph's answer shows how much he trusted Knox's tenacity, however much he might sometimes deprecate his violence: "Where your honour exhortethe us to stowteness, I assure you the voyce of one man is hable in one hower to put more lyf in us than five hundred trompettes contynually blusteringe in our eares."[354] He was able to write after Mary's arrival: "She (Mary) was four days without Mass; the next Sunday after arrival she had it said in her chapel by a French priest. There were at it besides her uncles and her own Household, the Earle of Montrose, Lord Graham ... the rest were at Mr. Knox sermon, as great a number as ever was any day."[355] Mary's advisers, her uncles, knew how dangerous the state of Scotland was for their designs, and counselled her to temporise and gradually win over the leading Reforming nobles to her side. The young Queen entered on her task with some zest. She insisted on having Mass for her own household; but she would maintain, she promised, the laws which had made the Mass illegal in Scotland; and it says a great deal for her powers of fascination and dissimulation that there was scarcely one of the Reforming nobles that she did not win over to believe in her sincerity at one time or another, and that even the sagacious Randolph seemed for a time to credit that she meant what she said.[356] Knox alone in Scotland read her character and paid unwilling tribute to her abilities from his first interview with her.[357] He saw that she had been thoroughly trained by her uncles, and especially by the Cardinal of Lorraine, and that it was hopeless to expect anything like fair dealing from her: "In verry dead hir hole proceadings do declayr that the Cardinalles lessons ar so deaplie prented in hir heart, that the substance and the qualitie ar liek to perische together. 1 wold be glaid to be deceaved, but I fear I shall not. In communication with her, I espyed such craft as I have not found in such aige."[358] Maitland of Lethington thought otherwise. Writing to Cecil (Oct. 25th, 1561) he says: "You know the vehemency of Mr. Knox spreit, which cannot be brydled.... I wold wishe he shold deale with her more gently, _being a young princess unpersuaded_."[359] It was thought that Mary might be led to adopt the Reformation if she were only tenderly guided. When Mary's private correspondence is read, when the secret knowledge which her co-religionists abroad had of her designs is studied and known, it can be seen how true was Knox's reading of her character and of her intentions.[360] He stood firm, almost alone at times among the leading men, but faithfully supported by the commons of Scotland.[361]