prognosticated both humanity from her soft and obliging deportment, and penetration from her taste in all the refined arts of music, eloquence, and poetry.[**] And as the Scots had long been deprived of the presence of their sovereign, whom they once despaired ever more to behold among them, her arrival seemed to give universal satisfaction; and nothing appeared about the court but symptoms of affection, joy, and festivity. * Keith, p. 179. Jebb, vol. ii. p. 483. ** Buchan. lib. xvii. c. 9. Spotswood, p. 178, 179. Keith, p. 180. Thuan. lib xxix. c. 2. The first measures which Mary embraced confirmed all the prepossessions entertained in her favor. She followed the advice given her in France by D’Oisel and the bishop of Amiens, as well as her uncles; and she bestowed her confidence entirely on the leaders of the reformed party, who had greatest influence over the people, and who, she found, were alone able to support her government. Her brother, Lord James, whom she soon after created earl of Murray, obtained the chief authority; and after him Lidington, secretary of state, a man of great sagacity, had a principal share in her confidence. By the vigor of these men’s measures, she endeavored to establish order and justice in a country divided by public factions and private feuds; and that fierce, intractable people, unacquainted with laws and obedience, seemed, for a time, to submit peaceably to her gentle and prudent administration. But there was one circumstance which blasted all these promising appearances, and bereaved Mary of that general favor which her agreeable manners and judicious deportment gave her just reason to expect. She was still a Papist, and though she published, soon after her arrival, a proclamation enjoining every one to submit to the established religion, the preachers and their adherents could neither be reconciled to a person polluted with so great an abomination, nor lay aside their jealousies of her future conduct. It was with great difficulty she could obtain permission for saying mass in her own chapel; and had not the people apprehended, that if she had here met with a refusal, she would instantly have returned to France, the zealots never would have granted her even that small indulgence. The cry was, “Shall we suffer that idol to be again erected within the realm?” It was asserted in the pulpit, that one mass was more terrible than ten thousand armed men landed to invade the kingdom:[*] Lord Lindesey, and the gentlemen of Fife, exclaimed, “that the idolater should die the death;” such was their expression. One that carried tapers for the ceremony of that worship was attacked and insulted in the court of the palace. And if Lord James and some popular leaders had not interposed, the most dangerous uproar was justly apprehended from the ungoverned fury of the multitude.[**] * Knox, p. 287. ** Knox, p. 284, 285, 287. Spotswood, p. 179.