be restored to them; occasions would have been taken to tamper with the credulous, and to inflame the minds of the superstitious; and the reformers might soon have found reason to repent their ill‑judged forbearance.[406] * * * * * Our Reformer was along with the forces of the Congregation when they faced the army of the regent in {277} Cupar‑moor;[407] he accompanied them on their expedition to Perth.[408] and in the end of June arrived with them at Edinburgh.[409] On the same day he preached in St Giles’s, and next day in the Abbey church. On the 7th of July, the inhabitants of the metropolis met in the Tolbooth, and made choice of him as their minister. With this choice, which was approved of by his brethren, he judged it his duty to comply, and immediately began his labours in the city.[410] On their arrival at Edinburgh, the lords of the Congregation had sent deputies to Dunbar, to assure the queen that they had no intention of throwing off their allegiance, and to induce her to yield to reasonable terms of accommodation. As a preliminary, she agreed to release their ministers from the sentence of outlawry, and allow them to preach to those who chose to hear them.[411] Meanwhile, she was busily employed in endeavours to disunite her opponents. Having spun out the negotiations which they had opened with her, until she understood that the greater part of their forces had left them, she advanced suddenly with her army to Edinburgh. The protestants took up a position on the east side of Craigingate,[412] and resolved to defend the capital, though against superior forces;[413] but Leith having opened its gates {278} to her, and lord Erskine, who commanded the castle, threatening to fire upon them, they were forced to conclude a treaty, by which they agreed to leave Edinburgh. They stipulated, however, that the inhabitants should be left at liberty to use that form of worship which was most acceptable to them.[414] Knox would have remained with his congregation after the regent took possession of the city; but the nobles, knowing the value of his services, and the danger to which his life would be exposed, insisted on his accompanying them.[415] Willock, who was less obnoxious to the hatred of the court and clergy, was therefore substituted in his place; and the prudence and firmness which this preacher displayed in that difficult situation proved that he was not unworthy of the choice which had fallen on him. The regent was extremely anxious to have the Roman catholic service re‑established in the church of St Giles, and employed the earl of Huntly to persuade the citizens to declare in favour of the measure; but neither the authority of the queen, nor the entreaties which Huntly employed, both in private and at a public meeting called with that view, could prevail with them to swerve from their profession of the reformed religion, or to relinquish the