Were we called upon to characterize the age in which Spenser lived, by a single word, we could find none that would better express its combined attributes, than the word which the poet uses in describing his principal hero: "In the person of Prince Arthure," says he in his letter to Raleigh, "I set forth magnificence." The age of Elizabeth was distinguished by magnificence, in the highest sense of the word, by the most brilliant display of great qualities of all kinds; and the hero of the _Faerie Queene_ seems to be the personification of the splendid attributes of the age. A prevailing sentiment, in the mind of Spenser, was the perfectness of character to which the gentlemen of his time aspired, and on this model he fashioned his hero. He observes that "the general end, therefore, of all the books is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in gentle and virtuous discipline." And again, "I labor to pourtraict in Arthure, before he was King, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve moral virtues." And as we read the gorgeous description of the prince, when he first meets the forsaken Una, we could fancy that the magnificent characteristics of the golden age of England had blended together, and blazed forth in one dazzling form before us. JOHN KNOX HEADS THE SCOTTISH REFORMERS A.D. 1559 P. HUME BROWN THOMAS CARLYLE In the year of Martin Luther's death (1546) Protestant doctrines were preached in Scotland by George Wishart. This reformer was burned at St. Andrew's, in the same year (March 12th), at the instigation of Cardinal Beaton. Two months later the Cardinal himself, who practically controlled the Scottish government, was murdered in the castle of St. Andrew's. Beaton's death was "fatal to the Catholic religion and to the French interest in Scotland." The interest of France was represented by the Queen Regent, Mary of Lorraine, also called Mary of Guise, daughter of Claude, Duke of Guise. She was the widow of James V of Scotland, and mother of Mary Stuart, now four years old and living in France. During his brief season of Protestant preaching, Wishart had deeply impressed a scholar, then forty years of age, who gave up his calling as teacher, and in 1547 began to preach the reformed religion at St. Andrew's. This was John Knox.