"The good Laird of Pitarro was an earnest professor of Christ, but the great devil receive the Comptroller." It was argued that "many Lords have not so much to spend" as the preachers; and this was not denied (if the preachers were paid), but it was said the Lords had other industries whereby they might eke out their revenues. Many preachers, then or later, were driven also to other industries, such as keeping public-houses. {211a} Knox, at this period, gracefully writes of Mary, "we call her not a hoore." When she scattered his party after Riccio's murder, he went the full length of the expression, in his "History." "Simplicity," says Thucydides, "is no small part of a noble nature," and Knox was now to show simplicity in conduct, and in his narrative of a very curious adventure. The Hamiltons had taken little but loss by joining the Congregation. Arran could not recover his claims, on whatever they were founded, over the wealth of St. Andrews and Dunfermline. Chatelherault feared that Mary would deprive him of his place of refuge, the castle of Dumbarton, to which he confessed that his right was "none," beyond a verbal promise of a nineteen years "farm" (when given we know not), from Mary of Guise. {211b} Randolph began to believe that Arran really had contemplated a raid on Mary at Holyrood, where she had no guards. {211c} "Why," asked Arran, "was it not as easy to take her out of the Abbey, as once it had been intended to do with her mother?" Here were elements of trouble, and Knox adds that, according to the servants of Chatelherault, Huntly and the Hamiltons devised to slay Lord James, who in January received the Earldom of Moray, but bore the title of Earl of Mar, which earldom he held for a brief space. {212a} Huntly had claims on Moray, and hence hated Lord James. Arran was openly sending messengers to France; "his councils are too patent." Randolph at the same time found Knox and the preachers "as wilfull as learned, which heartily I lament" (January 30). The rumour that Mary had been persuaded by the Cardinal to turn Anglican "makes them run almost wild" (February 12). {212b} If the Queen were an Anglican the new Kirk would be in an ill way. Arran still sent retainers to France, and was reported to speak ill of Mary (February 21), but the Duke tried to win Randolph to a marriage between Arran and the Queen. The intended bridegroom lay abed for a week, "tormented by imaginations," but was contented, not to be reconciled with Bothwell, but to pass his misdeeds in "oblivion," {212c} as he declared to the Privy Council (February 20).