And wonder not, Madam, that I call Rome an harlot, for that church is altogether polluted with all kinds of spiritual fornication, as well in doctrine as in matters.” He had afterwards two other conferences with the queen, at the last of which she burst into tears, crying out, “Never prince was used as I am.” Knox’s situation became very critical in April, 1571, when Kircaldy received the Hamiltons, with their forces, into the castle. Their inveteracy against him was so great, that his friends were obliged to watch his house during the night. They proposed forming a guard for the protection of his person when he went abroad; but the governor of the castle forbade this, as implying a suspicion of him, and offered to send Melvil, one of his officers, to conduct him to and from church. “He wold gif the woulf the wedder to keip,” says Bannatyne. Induced by the importunity of the citizens, Kircaldy applied to the Duke and his party for a special protection to Knox; but they refused to pledge their word for his safety, because “there were many rascals and others among them who loved him not, that might do him harm without their knowledge.” Intimations were often given him of threatenings against his life; and one evening, a musket ball was fired in at his window, and lodged in the roof of the apartment in which he was sitting. It happened that he sat at the time in a different part of the room from that in which he had been accustomed to take his seat, otherwise the ball, from its direction, must have struck him. Alarmed by these circumstances, a deputation of the citizens, accompanied by his colleague, waited upon him, and renewed a request which they had formerly made, that he would remove from Edinburgh, to a place where his life would be in greater safety, until the Queen’s party should evacuate the town. But he refused to yield to them, apprehending that his enemies wished to intimidate him into flight, that they might carry on their designs more quietly, and then accuse him of cowardice. Being unable to persuade him by any other means, they at last had recourse to an argument which prevailed. Upon this he consented, “sore against his will,” to remove from the city. In May, 1571, at the desire of his friends, and for greater security, he left that city for St Andrew’s, where he remained until the August following. The cause that forced him to change his residence having ceased to operate, at the express desire of his congregation he again returned, but could not long continue to preside over it, on account of the exhausted state of his health; and on the 9th November, abmitted Mr James Lawson, formerly professor of philosophy at Aberdeen, to be his successor.