The old church fell swiftly and surely, but some stubborn Scots were also on that side, and Mary of Guise, widow of James V. and Queen Regent, was a foe to be reckoned with. She had the preachers up before her (Knox reproduces her broken Scots with quite comic effect), but nothing came of the matter. The procession did not cease at once with the destruction of the image. In 1558 a “marmouset idole was borrowed fra the Greyfreires,” so Knox tells us, and he adds with a genuine satirical touch, “A silver peise of James Carmichaell was laid in pledge”—evidently the priests could not trust one another, so he suggests. The image was nailed down upon a litter and the procession began. “Thare assembled Preastis, Frearis, Channonis and rottin Papistes with tabornes and trumpettis, banneris, and bage-pypes, and who was thare to led the ring but the Queen Regent hir self with all hir schavelings for honor of that feast.” The thing went orderly enough as long as Mary was present, but she had an appointment to dinner, in a burgher’s house betwixt “the Bowes,” and when she left the fun began. Shouts of “Down with the idol! Down with it!” rent the air, and down it went. “Some brag maid the Preastis patrons at the first, but when thei saw the febilness of thare god (for one took him by the heillis, and dadding his head to the calsey, left Dagon without head or hands, and said: ‘Fie upon thee, thow young Sanct Geile, thy father wold haif taryad four such’) this considered (we say) the Preastis and Freiris fled faster than thei did at Pynckey Clewcht. Thare might have bein sein so suddane a fray as seildome has been sein amonges that sorte of men within this realme, for down goes the croses, of goes the surpleise, round cappes cornar with the crounes. The Gray Freiris gapped, the Black Freiris blew, the Preastis panted and fled, and happy was he that first gate the house, for such ane suddan fray came never amonges the generation of Antichrist within this realme befoir. By chance thare lay upoun a stare a meary Englissman, and seeing the discomfiture to be without blood, thought he wold add some mearynes to the mater, and so cryed he ower a stayr and said: ‘Fy upoun you, hoorsones, why have ye brokin ordour? Down the street ye passed in array and with great myrthe, why flie ye, vilanes, now without ordour? Turne and stryk everie one a strok for the honour of his God. Fy, cowardis, fy, ye shall never be judged worthy of your wages agane!’ But exhortations war then unprofitable, for after that Bell had brokin his neck thare was no comfort to his confused army.” I pass over Knox’s interviews with Mary, well known and for ever memorable, for they express the collision of the deepest passions of human nature set in romantic and exciting surroundings; but one little incident is here within my scope. It was the fourth interview, when Mary fairly broke down. She wept so that Knox, with what seems to us at any rate ungenerous and cruel glee,