An act of oblivion thus obtained as a free gift from Mary, and not as a consequence of his favourite Treaty of Edinburgh, was by no means agreeable to Knox. He assembled some of the leading Members of Parliament, and urged upon them the necessity of forcing from the Queen a ratification of this treaty. Even the Protestant Lords, however, felt how unjust such a demand would be. The Earl of Murray himself, one of Knox's oldest and staunchest friends, refused to ask Mary to take this step. Knox, in consequence, solemnly renounced Murray's friendship, and a coldness subsisted between them for nearly two years. Foiled in his object, the Reformer had recourse to his usual mode of revenge. He preached another "thundering sermon." The object of this sermon was to convince the people, that as soon as a Parliament was assembled, they had the Queen in their power to make her do what they chose. "And is this the thankfulness that ye render unto your God," said he, "to betray his cause, when ye have it in your hands to establish it as you please?" Before concluding, he adverted to the report that her Majesty would soon be married, and called upon the nobility, if they regarded the safety of their country, to prevent her from forming an alliance with a Papist. "Protestants as well as Papists," says Knox's biographer, "were offended with the freedom of this sermon, and some who had been most familiar with the preacher, now shunned his company." There must have been something more than usually bitter and unjust in a discourse which produced such results. It was the occasion of the last and most memorable interview which the Reformer had with Mary. As soon as she was made acquainted with the manner in which he had attacked her, she summoned him to her presence. He was accompanied to the palace by Lord Ochiltree, and some other gentlemen; but John Erskine of Dun, a man of a mild and gentle temper, was the only one allowed to enter Mary's apartment along with Knox. The Reformer found his Queen in considerable agitation. She told him she did not believe any prince had ever submitted to the usage she had experienced from him. "I have borne with you," she said, "in all your rigorous manner of speaking, both against myself, and against my uncles; yea, I have sought your favour by all possible means; I offered unto ye presence and audience whensoever it pleased ye to admonish me; and yet I cannot be quit of you." She then passionately burst into tears, so that, as Knox says with apparent satisfaction, they could scarce "get handkerchiefs to hold her eyes dry; for the tears and the howling, besides womanly weeping, stayed her speech." The preacher, when he was allowed to speak, complacently assured her Majesty that when it pleased God to deliver her from that bondage of darkness and error wherein she had been nourished, she would not find the liberty of his tongue offensive. He added, that in the pulpit he was not his own master, but the servant of Him who commanded