Although less than a week elapsed between Kirkcaldy’s interview with Percy and Crofts and the formal recognition of his negotiations by the Lords of the Congregation, the delay appears to have suggested fresh doubts, and possibly suspicions, to the minds of the English agents. On the 20th of July, Crofts wrote from Berwick, informing Cecil that Grange, though expected the day before, had not yet arrived, and suggesting reasons for the delay. ‘Kirkcaldy,’ he wrote, ‘has not yet discovered himself plainly to be of the Protestant party, nor does he come to the Queen-Regent, but feigns himself sick. Money is owing him for serving in the late wars, in hope whereof he drives time. The man is poor and cannot travail in these matters without charges, wherein he must be relieved by the Queen, if these proceedings go forward, and so must as many as be principal doers have relief. They all be poor, and necessity will force them to leave off when all they have is spent, and you know, in all practices, money must be one part.’ A few days later, however, on the 26th of the month, the same writer was able to announce that Kirkcaldy had now ‘declared himself plainly,’ and was with the Protestants. That pecuniary considerations, even if they had influenced him at all, as Crofts had previously stated, had not been allowed to deter him from the course of action which his conscience pointed out to him, was proved by the fact that, as Crofts himself acknowledged, in a later communication, his declaration cost him fifteen or sixteen months’ pay, which he should have received from France. Kirkcaldy’s object and ambition had been the formation of a Protestant alliance, and he had fervently declared that all Europe should know that a league, in the name of God, had another foundation and assurance than factions made by man for worldly commodity. But the result of his negotiations fell very far short of his sanguine hopes. He was obliged to be content for the time with a vague promise of assistance. _VII._ HARASSING THE FRENCH WHILST the heads of the Protestant party were corresponding with England, the Queen-Regent, on her side, had also been preparing for the struggle which she was now determined to force on, though in order to gain time, she had not discouraged the negotiations entered upon with a view to a peaceable settlement. In answer to her appeals for assistance, the French Court sent her a body of troops, to oppose the forces which the Lords of the Congregation were raising. About the middle of August 1559, a thousand men, under the command of an officer named Octavian, landed at Leith, which they at once began to fortify. Protests and proclamations on the part of the Lords having failed to prevent the operations of the French from being actively carried on, under the eyes of the Regent herself, Leith was invested by the forces of the Congregation.