In the month of January 1559, our Reformer took his leave of Geneva for the last time.[346] In addition to former marks of respect, the republic, before his {236} departure, conferred on him the freedom of the city.[347] He left his wife and family behind him, until he should ascertain that they could live with safety in Scotland. Upon his arrival at Dieppe, in the middle of March, he received information that the English government had refused to grant him liberty to pass through their dominions. The request had appeared so reasonable to his own mind, considering the station which he had held in that country, and the object of his present journey, that he once thought of proceeding to London without waiting for a formal permission; yet it was with some difficulty that those who presented his letters escaped imprisonment.[348] This impolitic severity was occasioned by the informations of some of the exiles, who had not forgotten {237} the old quarrel at Frankfort, and had accused of disloyalty and disaffection to the queen, not only Knox, but all those who had been under his charge at Geneva, whom they represented as proselytes to the opinion which he had published against female government.[349] There was not an individual who could believe that Knox had the most distant eye to Elizabeth in publishing the obnoxious book; nor a person of judgment who could seriously think that her government was exposed to the slightest danger from him or his associates, who felt no less joy at her auspicious accession than their brethren.[350] If he had been imprudent in that publication, if he had {238} “swerved from the particular question to the general,” his error (to use the words of his respondent) “rose not of malice, but of zeal, and by looking more to the present cruelty, than to the inconveniences that after might follow;” and it was the part of generosity and of good policy to overlook the fault. Instead of this, Elizabeth and her counsellors took up the charge in a serious light; and the accused were treated with such harshness and disdain, that they repented of leaving their late asylum to return to their native country. One cannot help feeling indignant at this weak revenge, when it is considered that Elizabeth had admitted to favour, and retained at court, persons who had endeavoured to prevent her succession, and who had thirsted for her blood;[351] and that those who, under the preceding reign, had advised and practised the greatest severities against the protestants, were now treated with the utmost lenity. Even the infamous Bonner was allowed to appear at court, and, although the queen shuddered at the thought of a man who was polluted with so much blood kissing her hand, yet was he at this time going about London without the smallest molestation.[352] In the {239} first parliament of Elizabeth, one Dr Story made a speech, in which he had the effrontery to justify the cruelties of Mary, to boast of his own