With the Test Act and the establishment of the High Commission the system which the Queen had till now pursued in great measure ceased. Elizabeth had "drawn the sword." It is possible she might still have clung to her older policy had she foreseen how suddenly the danger which appalled her was to pass away. At this crisis, as ever, she was able to "count on Fortune." The Test Act was hardly passed when in February 1563 the Duke of Guise was assassinated by a Protestant zealot, and with his murder the whole face of affairs was changed. The Catholic army was paralyzed by its leader's loss, while Coligni, who was now strengthened with money and forces from England, became master of Normandy. The war however came quietly to an end; for Catharine of Medicis regained her power on the Duke's death, and her aim was still an aim of peace. A treaty with the Huguenots was concluded in March, and a new edict of Amboise restored the truce of religion. Elizabeth's luck indeed was chequered by a merited humiliation. Now that peace was restored Huguenot and Catholic united to demand the surrender of Havre; and an outbreak of plague among its garrison compelled the town to capitulate. The new strife in which England thus found itself involved with the whole realm of France moved fresh hopes in Mary Stuart. Mary had anxiously watched her uncle's progress, for his success would have given her the aid of a Catholic France in her projects on either side of the border. But even his defeat failed utterly to dishearten her. The war between the two Queens which followed it might well force Catharine of Medicis to seek Scottish aid against England, and the Scottish Queen would thus have secured that alliance with a great power which the English Catholics demanded before they would rise at her call. At home troubles were gathering fast around her. Veil her hopes as she might, the anxiety with which she had followed the struggle of her kindred had not been lost on the Protestant leaders, and it is probable that Knox at any rate had learned something of her secret correspondence with the Pope and the Guises. The Scotch Calvinists were stirred by the peril of their brethren in France, and the zeal of the preachers was roused by a revival of the old worship in Clydesdale and by the neglect of the Government to suppress it. In the opening of 1563 they resolved "to put to their own hands," and without further plaint to Queen or Council to carry out "the punishment that God had appointed to idolaters in his law." In Mary's eyes such a resolve was rebellion. But her remonstrances only drew a more formal doctrine of resistance from Knox. "The sword of justice, madam, is God's," said the stern preacher, "and is given to princes and rulers for an end; which, if they transgress, they that in the fear of God execute judgements when God has commanded offend not God. Neither yet sin they that bridle kings who strike innocent men in