The Protestant lords, undeterred by the absence of Knox, decided to go forward with their programme. In December 1557 the Earl of Argyll, his son Lord Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, Erskine of Dun, and others, met at Edinburgh and signed a bond or covenant, by which they bound themselves solemnly to establish the "Blessed Word of God," to encourage preachers, to defend the new doctrines even with their lives, and to maintain the Congregation of Christ in opposition to the Congregation of Satan. They pledged themselves to introduce the Book of Common Prayer, to insist on the reading of portions of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue on Sundays and holidays, and to appoint preachers wherever the Catholic clergy were unable or unwilling to undertake this work.[14] In many districts, where the lords of the Congregation held sway, measures were taken at once to enforce these resolutions. Confronted with this revolutionary step, the regent and the bishops should have had recourse to strong action, but the former was so interested in the approaching marriage of her daughter to the Dauphin of France (1558) that she did not wish to offend the lords, while the primate, as one of the Hamiltons, disliked the regent because she had supplanted his brother, and contented himself with gentle admonitions. The lords, confident in their strength, met in November 1558, and presented a petition to the regent, in which they demanded that the members of the Congregation should be allowed to meet in the churches, and to follow their own ritual in the vulgar tongue, that Communion should be administered under both kinds, that private individuals should be at liberty to explain difficult passages of the Sacred Scriptures, and that the clergy should be reformed. The regent after consultation with the primate consented to these requests, at least in regard to private religious assemblies, but refused to yield to another petition demanding the abolition of all laws against heresy.[15]