After exhortations made and conference held, these subscribed a bond to maintain and assist the preaching of God's holy Evangel, then, of His mere mercy, offered to this realm; and also the ministers thereof against all persons, power, and authority, that would oppose themselves to the doctrine proponed, and by them received. And farther, with the same solemnity, it was protested and promised, that every one should assist others, yea, the whole body of the Protestants within the realm, in all lawful and just actions, against all persons; so that whosoever should hurt, molest, or trouble any of our body, should be reputed enemy to the whole, unless the offender were content to submit himself to the judgment of the Kirk, as established amongst us.... These things done at Ayr, the said John passed to Nithsdale and Galloway, and there, in conference with the Master of Maxwell, a man of great judgment and experience, he communicated such things as he feared. Upon his suggestion, the Master wrote to the Earl Bothwell, enjoining him to behave himself as became a faithful subject, and to keep good quietness in the parts committed to his charge, for so would the crime of his breaking ward be the more easily pardoned. John Knox wrote to the Duke's Grace, and earnestly exhorted him neither to give ear to the Archbishop, his bastard brother, nor yet to the persuasion of the Earl of Huntly; for if he did, he assured him, he and his house should come to a sudden ruin. [Sidenote: The Result of John Knox's Labours in the South.] By such means the south parts were kept in reasonable quietness, during the time that the troubles were in brewing in the north. And yet the Archbishop and the Abbot of Crossraguel did what in them lay to raise some trouble. Besides the fearful bruits that they sparsed abroad, sometimes that the Queen was taken; sometimes that the Earl of Moray and all his band were slain; and sometimes that the Queen had given herself to the Earl of Huntly,--besides such bruits, the Archbishop, to disturb the country of Kyle, where quietness was greatest, raised the Crawfords against the Reids for payment of the Archbishop's Pasch fines; but that was stayed by the labours of indifferent men, who favoured peace. [Sidenote: The Abbot of Crossraguel and John Knox.]