ON his arrival, Knox found matters in the most critical state in Scotland. The queen regent had thrown off the mask which she had long worn, and avowed her determination forcibly to suppress the Reformation. As long as she stood in need of the assistance of the protestants, to support her authority against the Hamiltons, and to procure the matrimonial crown for her son‑in‑law, the dauphin of France, she courted their friendship, listened to their plans of reform, professed her dissatisfaction with the ecclesiastical order, and her desire of correcting its corruption and tyranny as soon as a fit opportunity offered, and flattered them, if not with the hopes of her joining their party, at least with assurances that she would shield them from the fury of the clergy. So completely were they duped by her consummate address and dissimulation, that they complied with all her requests, restrained their preachers from teaching in public, and desisted from presenting to the parliament a petition which they had prepared; nor {246} would they believe her to be insincere, even after different parts of her conduct had afforded strong grounds for suspicion. But, having accomplished the great objects which she had in view, she at last adopted measures which completely undeceived them, and discovered the gulf into which they were about to be precipitated. As this discovery of the regent’s duplicity produced consequences of the greatest importance; as it completely alienated from her the minds of the reformers, and aroused that spirit of determined and united opposition to her insidious policy, and her violent measures, which ultimately led to the establishment of the Reformation; and as the facts connected with it have not been accurately or fully stated in our common histories,[360] the reader may not be displeased at having the following more circumstantial detail laid before him.