Knox was accused by the English exiles of High Treason, because he charged queen Mary with cruelty, and said that the emperor was as great an enemy to Christ as Nero. But his accusers, it might easily be shown, used stronger language on this subject than ever he did. Mr Strype informs us that the protestants who felt and outlived the persecution of Mary, used the very worst epithets in speaking of her character. Memorials of the Reform, iii. 472. We need no other proof of this than the Oration composed by John Hales, and pronounced by a nobleman before queen Elizabeth, at her entrance upon the government. Speaking of the late persecution under Mary, the orator exclaims, “O cruelty! cruelty! far exceeding all crueltys committed by those ancient and famous tyrants, and cruel murderers, Pharaoh, Herod, Caligula, Nero, Domitian, Maximine, Dioclesian, Decius; whose names, for their cruel persecution of the people of God, and their own tyranny practised on the people, have been, be, and ever shall be in perpetual hatred, and their souls in continual torments in hell.” The late Queen he calls “_Athalia, malicious Mary, unnatural woman; no, no woman, but a monster, and the Devil of hell, covered with the shape of a woman_.” See Works of the Rev. Samuel Johnston, p. 144. Nor did they speak in more civil terms of foreign princes. Take, for an example, the invective of Aylmer against the French king, Henry II. “Is he a king or a devil, a Christian, or a Lucifer, that bi his cursed confederacie so encourageth the Turke? Oh! wicked catife and fierebrand of hell, which, for th’ increasing of his pompe and vayn glory, (which he shall not long enjoy,) wil betray Christ and his cross, to his mortal enemy. Oh, foolish Germains! which see not their own undoing, which conspire not together with the rest of Christian princes to pull such a traytour to God, and his kingdom, by the eares out of France, and hang him against the sonne {416} a drying. The devill hath none other of his sede nowe but him, to maintaine both the spiritual and the temporall antichryste, the Pope and the Turke. Wherefore seeing he hath forsaken God, lyke an apostata, and sold himself to the devil, let us not doubte but God will be with us against him, whensoever he shall seek to wrong us; and I trust he will now, in the latter age of the worlde, shew his myght in cuttynge of this proude Holofernes’ head by the handes of our Judith. Oh! blessed is that man that loseth his lyfe against such a Termagaunt! Yea, more blessed shall they be that spend their lyves against him than against his great maister, the Turke: for the Turke never understode the crosse of Christ; but this Turkish apostata is named a devellis name, _Christianissimus_, and is in the very heart of Christendome, and lyke a traiterous Saracene, is Christ’s enemy.” Harborowe for Faithfull Subjects, Q. 1. Strasborowe, 1559.