notes, “skarslie could Marnock, hir secreat chalmerboy gett neapkynes to hold hys eyes dry for the tearis: and the owling besydes womanlie weaping, stayed hir speiche.” Then he is bidden to withdraw to the outer chamber and wait her Majesty’s pleasure. No one will speak to him, except the Lord Ochiltree, and he is there an hour. The Queen’s Maries and the other court ladies are sitting in all their gorgeous apparel talking, laughing, singing, flirting, what not? and all at once a strange stern figure, the representative of everything that was new and hostile, addresses them, nay, unbends as he does so, for he merrily said: “O fayre Ladyes, how pleasing war this lyeff of youris yf it should ever abyd, and then in the end that we myght passe to heavin with all this gay gear. But fye upoun that knave Death, that will come whither we will or not! And when he hes laid on his ariest, the foull worms wil be busye with this flesche, be it never so fayr and so tender; and the seally soull, I fear, shal be so feable that it can neather cary with it gold, garnassing, targatting, pearle, nor pretious stanes.” Were they awed, frightened, angry, scornful, contemptuous? Who can tell? Knox takes care that nobody has the say but himself. You may believe him honest—but impartial! We have no account on the other side. Mary did not write memoirs; if she had, it is just possible that Knox had therein occupied the smallest possible place, and the beautiful Queen’s Maries vanished even as smoke. There _were_ writers on the other side, but they mostly invented or retailed stupid vulgar calumnies. We have one picture by Nicol Burne—not without point—of Knox and his second wife, Margaret Stuart, the daughter of Lord Ochiltree and of the royal blood, whom he married when he was sixty and she was sixteen. It tells how he went a-wooing “with ane great court on ane trim gelding nocht lyke ane prophet or ane auld decrepit priest as he was, bot lyke as he had bene ane of the blud royal with his bendis of taffetie feschnit with golden ringis and precious stanes.” All that Knox did was characteristic. This, however, is amusing. On Sunday 19th August 1565, a month after his marriage to Mary, Darnley attended church at St. Giles’. Knox was, as usual, the preacher. He made pointed references to Ahab and Jezebel, and indulged in a piquant commentary upon passing events. The situation must have had in it, for him, something fascinating. There was the unwilling and enraged Darnley, and the excited and gratified congregation. Knox improved the occasion to the very utmost. He preached an hour beyond the ordinary time. Perhaps that additional hour was his chief offence in Darnley’s eyes. He “was so moved at this sermon and being troubled with great fury he passed in the afternoon to the Hawking.” You excuse the poor foolish boy! [Illustration: REV. JAMES GUTHRIE, From an old Engraving]