Several days elapsed without any person appearing on the part of the queen, and suspecting some new plan to entrap them, the Protestants, after concerting measures to expel the French garrison from Perth, wrote to her Majesty, complaining that the terms of the first treaty were still unfulfilled, and begging her to withdraw her troops from that city in conformity with its stipulations. Their letters remaining unnoticed, they laid siege to Perth, which surrendered, after a feeble resistance, on the 26th June, 1559. Being informed that the Queen resolved to seize Stirling, and cut off the communication between the reformers on the opposite sides of the Frith, by a rapid march they frustrated her plans, and in three days, after they had made themselves masters of Perth, the victorious reformers entered Edinburgh. The Queen on their approach retired to Dunbar,--where she amused them with hopes of an accommodation, in the expectation of being joined with reinforcements from France. Intelligence, in the meantime, was received of the death of the French king, which, while it was favourable to the cause of the reformers, rendered their leaders more negligent and secure. Numbers of them left the city on their private affairs, their followers were obliged to disperse for want of money, and those who did remain were without discipline or restraint. The Queen receiving advice of this, by means of her spies, marched with all the forces she could muster directly to Edinburgh, and possessed herself, on the 25th of July, of Leith. She consented, however, to a truce, to continue till the 5th January, 1560, by which liberty of conscience was secured; Popery was not to be established again where it had been suppressed, the reformers were not to be hindered from preaching wherever they might happen to be, and no garrison was to be stationed within the city. These terms were preserved till she received the expected reinforcements, when she fortified Leith, from which all the efforts of the reformers were unable to dislodge her troops. A mutiny also breaking out among their soldiers for want of pay, and having been defeated in two skirmishes with the French troops, it was resolved, by a majority of the lords of the congregation, to retire to Stirling. This rash step was productive of great terror and confusion, and contrary to the advice of Knox; who, notwithstanding, followed the fortunes of his friends, animating and reviving them by his discourses, and exhorting them to constancy in the good cause. At a meeting held shortly after their arrival at Stirling, it was resolved, to despatch William Maitland, who had lately deserted the Queen’s party to England, to implore the assistance of Queen Elizabeth, and a treaty was at last concluded, by which a body of troops was sent to their assistance. These being joined by most of the Scottish nobility, a peace was established on the 8th July, 1560, by which the reformed religion was fully established in Scotland.