On Mary's return to Edinburgh she found that an attempt had been made, through the conjoined influence of Knox and Murray, to stir up to sedition some of the more bigoted Presbyterians--on the plea that Darnley favoured Popery. Two or three hundred of the malcontents, or _brethren_, as Knox calls them, assembled at St Leonard's Hill, and their mutinous proceedings might have led to disagreeable consequences, had not Mary arrived just in time to disperse and overawe them.[95] Murray and his associates, keeping at a greater distance, held some secret meetings at Loch-Leven, and then assembling at Stirling on the 17th of July, openly raised the standard of rebellion. But, amidst all these troubles, Mary, conscious that she had right upon her side, remained undaunted, and, at no period of her life, did her strength of mind appear more conspicuous. To retain that confidence, which she knew the great majority of her subjects still placed in her, she issued proclamations announcing her determination to abstain, as she had hitherto done, from any interference in the matter of religion; she wrote, with her own hand, letters to many of her nobles, assuring them of the integrity of her intentions; and, she sent requisitions to all upon whom she could depend, calling on them to collect their followers, and come armed to her assistance. The Earl of Murray, on the other hand, having thrown off his allegiance to his own Sovereign, became entirely subservient to the wishes and commands of Elizabeth. He and his friends wrote to request that she would send them, as a proof of her sincerity in the cause, the sum of three thousand pounds to meet the expenses of the current year; and they would thus be able, they imagined, to carry every thing before them, unless Mary received foreign assistance. They likewise suggested that Lord Hume, whose estates lay on the Borders, and who was one of the Scottish Queen's most faithful servants, should be harassed by some ostensibly accidental incursions;--that the Bishop of Dumblane, who was to be sent on an embassy to the Continent, should be delayed in London till "his budgets were rifled by some good slight or other;"--and that Bothwell, whom Mary was about to recall, to obtain his assistance in her present difficulties, should be "kept in good surety" for a time.[96] To all this Elizabeth replied, that if the Lords suffered any inconvenience, "they should not find lack in her to succour them." She hinted, however, that the less money they asked the better, advising them "neither to make greater expense than their security makes necessary, nor less which may bring danger." "This letter," says Keith, "is an evident demonstration of the English Queen's fomenting and supporting a rebellion in Scotland; and the rebellious Lords knew too well what they had to trust to."