Reformed worship, so that their ministers were emboldened to preach and administer the sacraments in public, even without the permission of the government, for which until then they had waited. Meanwhile, in the month of July, a formal petition had been presented to the Regent by the Protestant barons, requesting her to restrain the violence of the clergy, and asking liberty of worship according to a restricted plan, to which they were willing to conform until their grievances should be examined and redressed. To this she replied after her usual plausible fashion, in such a way as to make them believe that she was friendly to their proposals. But the hollowness of her words is apparent from the fact that in the very same month she was in consultation with the archbishop of St. Andrews, as to the course which should be adopted for checking the Reformation; yet, as she needed the help of the Protestants at the meeting of the Parliament in November for the carrying of certain measures on which her heart was set, nothing was done openly by her against them until after that date. In December, however, she gave the primate such assurances of her support, that he summoned the Reformed preachers to {118} appear before him at St. Andrews on the and of February following, to answer the charges of usurping the sacred office and of disseminating heresy. This proceeding on his part stirred up the Protestant nobles, so that they informed the Regent that if the trial went on they would be present to see justice done, and she, fearing the consequences, prevailed upon the archbishop to prorogue the trial. At the same time she summoned a convention of the nobility to meet at Edinburgh on the 7th of March, and induced the archbishop to call a provincial council of the clergy to meet in the city on the first of the same month. When the clergy met, two representations were laid before them, one from the Protestants, asking what they felt to be needed, and another from persons still attached to the Roman Catholic faith, praying for the redress of certain grievances in ecclesiastical administration; but both were treated with indifference. A secret treaty had been entered into by them with the Queen Regent, wherein they had promised to raise a large sum of money to enable her to put down all heresy, and so in the most uncompromising confidence they confirmed all the doctrines and practices of the Church, and declared that both the preachers who administered the sacraments after the Reformed manner, and those who received them at their hands should be excommunicated.