eyes of the world, if he did not use every effort, and endure every hazard, to revenge so great an indignity.[*] Soon after, James sent the master of Gray and Sir Robert Melvil to enforce the remonstrances of Keith, and to employ with the queen every expedient of argument and menaces. Elizabeth was at first offended with the sharpness of these applications; and she replied in a like strain to the Scottish ambassadors. When she afterwards reflected, that this earnestness was no more than what duty required of James, she was pacified; but still retained her resolution of executing the sentence against Mary.[**] It is believed, that the master of Gray, gained by the enemies of that princess, secretly gave his advice not to spare her, and undertook, in all events, to pacify his master. * Spotswood, p. 351. ** Spotswood, p. 353. The queen also, from many considerations, was induced to pay small attention to the applications of James, and to disregard all the efforts which he could employ in behalf of his mother. She was well acquainted with his character and interests, the factions which prevailed among his people, and the inveterate hatred which the zealous Protestants, particularly the preachers, bore to the queen of Scots. The present incidents set these dispositions of the clergy in a full light. James, observing the fixed purpose of Elizabeth, ordered prayers to be offered up for Mary in all the churches; and knowing the captious humor of the ecclesiastics, he took care that the form of the petition should be most cautious, as well as humane and charitable: “That it might please God to illuminate Mary with the light of his truth, and save her from the apparent danger with which she was threatened.” But, excepting the king’s own chaplains, and one clergyman more, all the preachers refused to pollute their churches by prayers for a Papist, and would not so much as prefer a petition for her conversion. James, unwilling or unable to punish this disobedience, and desirous of giving the preachers an opportunity of amending their fault, appointed a new day when prayers should be said for his mother; and that he might at least secure himself from any insult in his own presence, he desired the archbishop of St. Andrews to officiate before him.