In this letter, he also communicates his advice on the delicate question of resistance to supreme rulers. {212} They had consulted him on this subject, and he had submitted it to the judgment of the most learned men on the continent. Soon after they had agreed to the marriage of their young queen to the dauphin of France, the Scots began to be jealous of the designs of the French court against their liberties and independence. Their jealousies increased after the regency was transferred to the queen dowager, who was wholly devoted to the interest of France, and had contrived, under different pretexts, to keep a body of French troops in the kingdom. It was not difficult to excite to resistance the independent and haughty barons of Scotland, accustomed to yield a very limited and precarious obedience even to their native princes. They had lately given a proof of this by their refusal to co‑operate in the war against England, which they considered as undertaken merely for French interests. And, encouraged by this circumstance, the duke of Chastelherault had begun, under the direction of his brother, the archbishop of St Andrews, to intrigue for regaining the authority which he had reluctantly resigned. Our Reformer displayed his moderation, and the soundness of his principles, by the advice which he gave at this critical period. He did not attempt to inflame the irascible minds of the nobility by aggravating the male‑administration of the queen regent; far less did he advise them to join with the duke, and others who were discontented with the government, and to endeavour in this way to advance their cause. Instead of this, he informed them that it was {213} currently reported on the continent that a rebellion was intended in Scotland; and he solemnly charged all the professors of the protestant religion to avoid accession to it, and to beware of countenancing those who sought to promote their private and worldly ends by disturbing the government. “He did not mean,” he said, “to retract the principle which he had advanced in former letters, nor to deny the lawfulness of inferior magistrates, and the body of a nation, resisting the tyrannical measures of supreme rulers.” He still held, that there was “a great difference between lawful obedience, and a fearful flattering of princes, or an unjust accomplishment of their desires, in things which be required or devised for the destruction of a commonwealth.” The nobility were the hereditary guardians of the national liberties; and there were limits beyond which obedience was not due by subjects. But recourse ought not to be had to resistance, except when matters were tyrannically driven to an extreme. And it was peculiarly incumbent on the protestants of Scotland to be circumspect in all their proceedings, that they might give their adversaries no reason to allege that seditious and rebellious designs were concealed under the cloak of zeal for reforming religion. His advice and solemn charge