According to every canonical law of the Roman church, the claim of Mary Stuart to the English throne was preferable to that of her cousin Elizabeth. Her uncles, the Guises, represented that Anne Boleyn's marriage had never been lawful, and that Elizabeth was therefore illegitimate. In an evil hour, she and her husband quartered the arms of England with their own, and assumed the titles of King and Queen of Scotland and England. And Elizabeth's indignation was further excited by the insult which the pope had inflicted, in declaring her birth illegitimate. She, therefore, resolved to gratify, at once, both her ambition and her vengeance, encouraged by her ministers, who wished to advance the Protestant interest in the kingdom. Accordingly, Elizabeth, with consummate art, undermined the authority of Mary in Scotland, now distracted by religious as well as civil commotions. Mary was a Catholic, and had a perfect abhorrence and disgust of the opinions and customs of the reformers, especially of John Knox, whose influence in Scotland was almost druidical. The Catholics resolved to punish with fire and sword, while the Protestants were equally intent on defending themselves with the sword. And it so happened that some of the most powerful of the nobility were arrayed on the side of Protestantism. But the Scotch reformers were animated with a zeal unknown to Cranmer and his associates. The leaders had been trained at Geneva, under the guidance of Calvin, and had imbibed his opinions, and were, therefore, resolved to carry the work of reform after the model of the Genevan church. Accordingly, those pictures, and statues, and ornaments, and painted glass, and cathedrals, which Cranmer spared, were furiously destroyed by the Scotch reformers, who considered them as parts of an idolatrous worship. The antipathy to bishops and clerical vestments was equally strong, and a sweeping reform was carried on under the dictatorship of Knox. Elizabeth had no more sympathy with this bold, but uncouth, reformer and his movements, than had Mary herself, and never could forgive him for his book, written at Geneva, aimed against female government, called the "First Blast of a Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women." But Knox cared not for either the English or the Scottish queens, and zealously and fearlessly prosecuted his work, and gained over to his side the moral strength of the kingdom. Of course, a Catholic queen resolved to suppress his doctrines; but nearly the whole Scottish nobility rallied around his standard, marching with the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other. The queen brought in troops from France to support her insulted and tottering government, which only increased the zeal of the Protestant party, headed by the Earls of Argyle, Arran, Morton, and Glencairn, and James Stuart, Prior of St. Andrews, who styled themselves "Lords of the Congregation." A civil war now raged in