After Lethington took the office of secretary to the Congregation, Knox had for some time no great public part in affairs. Fife was invaded by "these bloody worms," as he calls the French; and he preached what he tells us was a "comfortable sermon" to the brethren at Cupar. But Lethington had secured the English alliance: Lord Grey was to lead 4000 foot and 2000 horse to the Border; Lord Winter with fourteen ship set sail, and was incommoded by a storm, in which vessels of d'Elboeuf, with French reinforcements for the Regent, were, some lost, some driven back to harbour. As in Jacobite times, French aid to the loyal party was always unfortunate, and the arrival of Winter's English fleet in the Forth caused d'Oysel to retreat out of Fife back to Leith. He had nearly reached St. Andrews, where Knox dwelt in great agony of spirit. He had "great need of a good horse," probably because, as in October 1559, money was offered for his head. But private assassination had no terrors for the Reformer. {163} Knox, as he wrote to a friend on January 29, 1560, had forsaken all public assemblies and retired to a life of study, because "I am judged among ourselves too extreme." When the Duke of Norfolk, with the English army, was moving towards Berwick, where he was to make a league with the Protestant nobles of Scotland, Knox summoned Chatelherault, and the gentlemen of his party, then in Glasgow. They wished Norfolk to come to them by Carlisle, a thing inconvenient to Lord James. Knox chid them sharply for sloth, and want of wisdom and discretion, praising highly the conduct of Lord James. They had "unreasonable minds." "Wise men do wonder what my Lord Duke's friends do mean, that are so slack and backward in this Cause." The Duke did not, however, write to France with an offer of submission. That story, ben trovato but not vero, rests on a forgery by the Regent! {164} The fact is that the Duke was not a true Protestant, his advisers, including his brother the Archbishop, were Catholics, and the successes of d'Oysel in winter had terrified him; but, seeing an English army at hand, he assented to the league with England at Berwick, as "second person of the realm of Scotland" (February 27, 1560). Elizabeth "accepted the realm of Scotland"--Chatelherault being recognised as heir-apparent to the throne thereof--for so long as the marriage of Queen Mary and Francis I. endured, and a year later. The Scots, however, remain dutiful subjects of Queen Mary, they say, except so far as lawless attempts to make Scotland a province of France are concerned. Chatelherault did not _sign_ the league till May 10, with Arran, Huntly, Morton (at last committed to the Cause), and the usual leaders of the Congregation.