The prejudices entertained against our Reformer by the friends of absolute monarchy, were taken up in all their force, subsequently to the revolution, by the adherents of the Stuart family, whose religious notions, approximating very nearly to the popish, {246} joined with their slavish principle respecting non‑resistance to kings, led them to disapprove of almost every measure adopted at the time of the Reformation, and to condemn the whole as a series of disorder, sedition, and rebellion against lawful authority. The spirit by which the Jacobitish faction was actuated, did not become extinct with the family which had so long been the object of their devotion; and while they transferred their allegiance to the house of Hanover, they retained those principles which had incited them repeatedly to attempt its expulsion from the throne. The alarm produced by that revolution which of late has shaken the thrones of so many of the princes of Europe, has greatly increased this party; and with the view of preserving the present constitution of Britain, principles have been widely disseminated, which, if they had been generally received in the sixteenth century, would have perpetuated the reign of popery and arbitrary power in Scotland. From persons of such principles, nothing favourable to our Reformer can be expected. But the greatest torrent of abuse, poured upon his character, has proceeded from those literary champions who have come forward to avenge the wrongs, and vindicate the innocence, of the peerless and immaculate Mary, queen of Scots! Having conjured up in their imagination the image of an ideal goddess, they have sacrificed to the object of their adoration all the characters, which, in that age, were most estimable for learning, patriotism, integrity, and religion. As if the quarrel which they had espoused exempted them {247} from the ordinary laws of controversial warfare, and conferred on them the absolute and undefeasible privilege of calumniating and defaming at pleasure, they have pronounced every person who spoke, wrote, or acted against that queen, to be a hypocrite or a villain. In the raving style of these writers, Knox was “a fanatical incendiary――a holy savage――the son of violence and barbarism――the religious Sachem of religious Mohawks.”[318]