{188} His situation became very critical in April 1571, when Kircaldy received the Hamiltons, with their forces, into the castle. Their inveteracy against him was so great, that his friends were obliged to watch his house during the night. They proposed forming a guard for the protection of his person when he went abroad; but the governor of the castle forbade this, as implying a suspicion of his own intentions, and offered to send Melvil, one of his officers, to conduct him to and from the church. “He wold gif the woulf the wedder to keip,” says Bannatyne. Induced by the importunity of the citizens, Kircaldy applied to the duke and his party for a protection to Knox; but they refused to pledge their word for his safety, because “there were many rascals and others among them who loved him not, that might do him harm without their knowledge.”[235] Intimations were often given him of threatenings against his life; and one evening a musket‑ball was fired in at his window, and lodged in the roof of the apartment in which he was sitting. It happened that he sat at the time in a different part of the room from that which he had been accustomed to occupy, otherwise the ball, from the direction it took, must have struck him.[236] Alarmed by this occurrence, a deputation of the citizens, accompanied by his colleague, waited upon him, and {189} renewed a request which they had formerly made, that he would remove from Edinburgh, to a place where his life would be in greater safety, until the queen’s party should evacuate the town. But he refused to yield to them, apprehending that his enemies wished to intimidate him into flight, that they might carry on their designs more quietly, and then accuse him of cowardice. Being unable to persuade him by any other means, they had recourse at last to an argument which prevailed. They told him that if he was attacked, they were determined to risk their lives in his defence, and if blood was shed in the quarrel, which was highly probable, they would leave it on his head. Upon this he consented to remove from the city, “sore against his will.”[237]