Many of the regulations enacted by these two councils were excellent;[243] but the execution of them was committed to the very persons who were interested in support of the evils against which they were directed. Accordingly, the canons of the Scottish clergy, like those of general councils called for the reformation of the church, instead of correcting, served only to proclaim the abuses which prevailed. We know from the declarations of subsequent provincial councils,[244] as well as from the complaints of the people, that the licentiousness of the clergy continued; and the catechism which they had sanctioned seems to have been but little used. I have not found it mentioned by any writer of that age, popish or protestant; and we know of its existence only from the canon of the assembly which authorized its use, and from a few copies of it which have descended to our time.[245] The council which met in 1551, boasts that, through the singular favour of the government, and the vigilance of the prelates, heresy, which had formerly spread through the kingdom, was now repressed, and almost extinguished.[246] There were still, however, many protestants in the nation; but they were deprived of teachers, and they satisfied themselves with retaining their sentiments, without exposing their lives to inevitable destruction by avowing their creed, {168} or exciting the suspicions of the clergy by holding private conventicles. In this state they remained from 1551 to 1554. While the Reformation was in this languishing condition, it experienced a sudden revival in Scotland, from two causes which appeared at first view to threaten its utter extinction in Britain. These were the elevation of the queen dowager to the regency of Scotland, and the accession of Mary to the throne of England. The queen dowager of Scotland, who possessed a great portion of that ambition by which her brothers, the princes of Lorrain, were fired, had long formed the design of wresting the regency from the hands of Arran. After a series of political intrigue, in which she discovered the most consummate and persevering address, she at last succeeded; and, on the 10th of April, 1554, the regent resigned his office to her in the presence of parliament, and retired into private life with the title of duke of Chastelherault. The dowager had at an early period made her court to the protestants, whom Arran had alienated from him by persecution; and, to induce them to favour her pretensions, she promised to screen them from the violence of the clergy. Having received their cordial support, and finding it necessary still to use them as a check upon the clergy, who, under the influence of the primate, favoured the interest of her rival, the queen regent secretly countenanced them, and the protestants were emboldened again to avow their sentiments.