A distinguished Scottish biographer of Mary’s, the late Sir John Skelton, has thought that the uncharitable treatment she received from Knox was the principal cause why she remained a Catholic. "Knox," he writes, "was the foremost of the Reformers; yet Mary had found that Knox was narrow-minded, superstitious, and fiercely intolerant,--so narrow-minded, intolerant and superstitious that he had no difficulty in believing that the orderly course of nature was interrupted because the Queen dined on wild fowl and danced till midnight. If this was Protestantism, she would have none of it. Nor can we blame her much. The eccleciastical dictator at Edinburgh was as violent and irrational (it might well appear to her) as the ecclesiastical dictator at Rome. Was it worth her while to exchange the infallible Pope of the Vatican for the infallible Pope of the High Street?"[#] (Maitland of Lethington, Vol. II., Chap. I.) [#] The inconsistency of those who, having appealed to private judgment from the authority of the Pope, persecuted all who would not recognize their own authority, is nowhere more conspicuous than in the case of the early Scottish Reformers. By the end of the first six months of its existence, the Congregation formulated the following anathema with which to pursue rebellious subjects: "And this his sin, by virtue of our ministry we bind, and pronounce the same to be bound in heaven and earth. We further give over into the hands and power of the devil the said A.B. of the destruction of his flesh; straitly charging all that profess the Lord Jesus, to repute and to hold him accursed, and unworthy of the familiar society of Christians; declaring unto all men that such as hereafter, before his repentance, shall haunt or familiarly accompany him are partakers of his impiety, and subject to the like condemnation." In spite of all this, I venture to say there is no historical evidence that Mary ever contemplated a change of religion. What answer does she herself give to these statements? Just before her departure from France, in conversation with Throckmorton, the English Ambassador, who was probing her mind on the question of religion, she made what may be called a formal declaration of her faith:-- "I will be plain with you; the religion which I profess I take to be the most acceptable to God, and neither do I know, nor desire to know, any other. Constancy becometh all folks well, but none better than princes, and such as rule over realms, especially in matters of religion. I have been brought up in this religion, and who might credit me in anything, if I should show myself light in this case." Her courageous opposition to every attempt to deprive her of Mass in the Chapel-Royal of Holyrood, is well known to readers of history; and furthermore it is evident that she continued her religious devotions there as long as it was in her power to do so.