Knox was horrified at the Queen’s action, and immediately predicted a sudden plague. But what annoyed him most was, that certain Protestant lords, who had professed strong opposition to the Mass, were now inclined to tolerate it in the Queen’s chapel. He took care, in his weekly sermons, to make known his opinion of these "politick heads" and to give the people timely warning of the chastisement with which God would certainly visit the nation for permitting idolatry. The young Queen, who was still in her teens, must have keenly felt the reproaches that were being cast on herself and her religion, and, although she succeeded in showing herself cheerful in company, we may be sure her heart was sad and that memory often carried her back to earlier days, in which she experienced nothing but gentle treatment and the respectful homage of a nation of brave men, ready to draw the sword in her defence. However, it would be unjust to the Scottish people to think that the treatment which Mary received in Edinburgh was a correct index to the feeling of the country at large. The hearts of the Scottish people were with their Queen, and remained with her unto the end. Her fiercest enemies were found in the extreme religious party led by Knox. An amicable understanding with these was impossible. The Protestant nobles--except those who were zealous followers of Knox--did not, as far as I can see, care much what religious devotions the Queen practised, so long as she took no steps towards restoring the old religion. The fact that many of them had enriched themselves from church property readily explains their opposition to every movement in that direction. But the turbulent section of the nobles and the Congregation controlled by Knox, were not the people of Scotland. This is a fact it would be well to note, for, it seems to me, many people fall into the error that the friends and the enemies of Mary in Scotland were divided on purely religious lines. It is true, the storm in which she was shipwrecked, was mainly a religious one; yet all the Protestants were by no means opposed to her. Many of her best friends, who stood by her in every peril, and supported her cause until the last hope of her restoration was dead, were Protestant nobles.