Mary opened the conversation by expressing her surprise that he should have formed so very unfavourable an opinion of herself; and requested to know what could have induced him to commence his calumnies against her so far back as 1559, when he published his book upon the "monstrous government of women."[47] Knox answered, that learned men in all ages considered their judgments free, and that, if these judgments sometimes differed from the common judgment of mankind, they were not to blame. He then ventured to compare his "First Blast of the Trumpet" to Plato's work "On the Commonwealth," observing, with much self-complacency, that both these books contained many new sentiments. He added, that what he had written was directed most especially against Mary--"that wicked Jezabel of England." The Queen, perceiving that this was a mere subterfuge, said, "Ye speak of women in general." Knox confessed that he did so, but again went the length of assuring her, though the assurance seems to involve a contradiction, that he had said nothing "intended to trouble her estate." Satisfied with this concession, Mary proceeded to ask, why he could not teach the people a new religion without exciting them to hold in contempt the authority of their Sovereign? Knox found it necessary to answer this question in a somewhat round-about manner. "If all the seed of Abraham," said he, "should have been of the religion of Pharaoh, what religion should there have been in the world? Or if all men, in the days of the Roman Emperors, should have been of the religion of the Roman Emperors, what religion should have been on the face of the earth? Daniel and his fellows were subject to Nebuchadnezzar and unto Darius, and yet they would not be of their religion." "Yea," replied Mary promptly, "but none of these men raised the sword against their princes." "Yet you cannot deny that they resisted," said Knox, refining a little too much; "for those who obey not the commandment given them, do in some sort resist." "But yet," said the Queen, perceiving the quibble, "they resisted not with the sword." The Reformer felt that he had been driven into a corner, and determined to get out of it at whatever cost. "God, Madam," said he, "had not given unto them the power and the means." "Think ye," asked Mary, "that subjects having the power may resist their princes?" "If princes exceed their bounds, Madam," said Knox, evidently departing from the point, "no doubt they may be resisted even by power." He proceeded to fortify this opinion with arguments of no very loyal kind; and Mary, overcome by a rudeness and presumption she had been little accustomed to, was for some time silent. Nay, Randolph, in one of his letters, affirms that he "knocked so hastily upon her heart that he made her weep." At length she said, "I perceive then that my subjects shall obey you, and not me, and will do what they please, and not what I command; and so must I be