Then began the struggle between the fascinating Queen, Mary Stuart, one of the fairest flowers of the French Renaissance, and the unbending preacher, trained in the sternest school of the Reformation movement--a struggle which was so picturesque, in which the two opponents had each such strongly marked individuality, and in which the accessories were so dramatic, that the spectator insensibly becomes absorbed in the personal side of the conflict, and is tempted to forget that it was part of a Revolution which was convulsing the whole of middle and western Europe. A good deal has been written about the rudeness with which Knox assailed Mary in public and in private, and his conversations with her are continually referred to but seldom quoted in full. It is forgotten that it was Mary who wished to try her gifts of fascination on the preacher, just as Catherine de' Medici tried to charm de Bèze before Poissy; that Knox never sought an interview; that he never approached the Court unless he was summoned by the sovereign to her presence; that he was deferential as a subject should be; and it was only when he was compelled by Mary herself to speak on themes for which he was ready to lay down his life that he displayed a sternness which monarchs seldom experience in those to whom they give audience. What makes these interviews stand forth in history is that they exhibit the first clash of autocratic kingship and the hitherto unknown power of the people. It was an age in which sovereigns were everywhere gaining despotic power, when the might of feudal barons was being broken, when the commonalty was dumb. A young Queen, whose training from childhood had stamped indelibly on her character that kingship meant the possession of unlimited autocratic privileges before which everything must give way, who had seen that none in France had dared dispute the will of her sickly, dull boy-husband simply because he was King, was suddenly confronted by something above and beyond her comprehension: "'What have ye to do,' said sche, 'with my marriage? Or what ar ye within this Commounwealth?' '_A subject borne within the same_,' said he, 'Madam. And albeit I neather be Erle, Lord, nor Barroun within it, yitt hes God maid me (how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the same.'"[362] Modern democracy came into being in that answer. It is curious to see how this conflict between autocratic power and the civil and religious rights of the people runs through all the interviews between Mary and Knox, and was, in truth, the question of questions between them.[363]