world," whose advent Randolph prophesied, was verily here, and the Court with its masses, fêtes, sports, and Sunday revelries, became the centre of attraction.1 The reformers grew anxious over the prospect.

All the people had not forsaken the time-honoured faith.2 What spiritual convictions the barons had, required so much confirmation that they would not homologate the First Book of Discipline agreed to by the Protestant Church, until they heard Romanist and Reformer thrash out its dubious articles in a public theological mêlée.3 The sovereign grasped the situation boldly. A week after her arrival an Edict of Toleration was promulgated, forbidding mutual recriminations on religious subjects,— announcing that the state of religion would occupy royal attention, and authorising the celebration of Catholic rites for the Court. Mass was now said in Holyrood, and that desecrated fane, wherein Protestant soldiery stabled their horses and strewed the bones of kings, once more gleamed with a "dim religious light." This was a beacon to the rabbled clergy, who soon reappeared out of their extreme pouertie," in which, “almaiste losit without ony mercy of man," they were compelled to worship in "kirkzaird, chalmeris, barnis, middingis, and killogeis." Winzet, among the rest, sought refuge in Edinburgh.

1 'Cal. Stat. Pap. (For.),' 1560-61, vol. iii. p. 583.

2

1884.

"6

'Laacher Stimmen,' p. 100; M'Crie, 'Life of John Knox,'p. 173. Edin.

3 Knox, 'Hist.,' vol. i. p. 138, footnote; Cunningham, 'Church Hist.,' vol. i. p. 294.

4 'Privy Council Reg. Scot.,' vol. i. pp. 266, 267.

5 Winzet, 'Certain Tractates,' vol. i. p. 113; Alexander Baillie, 'True Information of our Scottish-Calvinian Gospel and Gospellers,' pp. 24 et seq. Wurtzburg, 1628.

6 Winzet, 'Certain Tractates,' vol. i. p. 10; Knox, 'Hist.,' vol. ii. p. 265;

Still the popular antagonism to the priesthood, which was somewhat mollified by the pinch of a famine, was so apparent, that two bishops who came to greet their monarch, scarce dare put their noses out of doors for fear of after claps."1 The Mass was terribly offensive. The irritated preachers, who daily inveighed against the Papacy, and were answered by René Benoist, the chaplain who accompanied Mary from France, at length appealed to the civil magistrate for help.2 Consequently the Protestant magistrates of the capital reissued, on the 2d October 1561, a proclamation against priests, whom they associated with dissolute persons, ordaining them to leave the city on pain of being severely punished. The sovereign, incensed at this conduct, with autocratic promptness "commanded to ward," and deposed the daring provost and bailies, whose offices she caused to be filled by more respectful lieges.* The reformers were once more afraid of losing their hardwon conquest as they saw their opponents crowding back to the capital.5 The Catholic partisans became emboldened when the Queen's confessor, Benoist, entered into the lists with Knox and his associates. However, this interlude soon ended - Randolph wittily styled it a "pastime❞—and the volatile Frenchman abandoned the

'Cal. Stat. Pap. (Scot.),' vol. i. p. 190; Pitcairn, 'Criminal Trials in Scotland,' vol. i. pp. 428, 429, Bann. Club, 1833.

1 'Cal. Stat. Pap. (For.),' 1561-62, p. 278, Lond. 1866; ibid., p. 395.

2 Conæus, 'Vita Mariæ Stuartæ,' p. 57, Rome 1624, 12mo; Jebb, ‘De Vita. . . Mariæ,' &c., ii. p. 22, Lond. 1725, fol.; Keith, 'History of the Affairs of Church and State in Scotland,' vol. ii. p. 124, Spottiswoode Society, 1845.

3 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh,' A.D. 1557-1571, pp. 65, 101, 102, 125, 126. Edin. 1875.

4 Knox, 'Hist.,' vol. ii. pp. 288, 290; Keith, 'Hist.,' vol. ii. p. 91.

5 Cal. Stat. Pap. (For.),' 1561-62, p. 378; M'Crie, 'Knox,' pp. 173-177; Keith, 'Hist.,' vol. ii. p. 115, and vol. iii. p. 211.

Queen, "leaving her alone among heretics, whom, notwithstanding, she continues to resist and counteract to the best of her power. There is no mistaking the imminent peril of her situation." 1

Necessity, meantime, made the Queen tolerant and agreeable to the proposals of her advisers in the government and in the Church, "in order to preserve the last traces of the Catholic faith and worship in the country."2 Important enactments affecting the Established Church were passed.3 The capital was betimes gay with masques and marriages, betimes riotous with turbulent factions. Knox was daily thundering" and writing his history; Quintin Kennedy, "the lypperie Abbot," was engaged on 'Ane Oratioun answering Knox's 'Sermon agains the Mess,' which the Abbot published in February 1562; and Ninian Winzet, who had previously received some rude attention from the reforming party,-touched by the "frenasie" of the times, stepped into the arena, and was speedily recognised as an able polemical writer and apologist for the doctrines and institutions of the Romish Church.5

His professional training gave him a great facility in popularly handling the vexed questions of the day. They had occupied his attention in the grammar-school, where, having formulated his ideas into a series of theological exercises, as was the scholastic practice then, he set them to his pupils for translation into Latin: "Humane childer 2 Ibid., p. 67.

1 Narr. Scot. Cath.,' p. 74.

3 Reg. Priv. Counc. Scot.,' vol. i., pref. pp. xxxv-vii, and pp. 192, 208,

266-268.

4 'Inventaires de la Royne Descosse Douairiere de France: Catalogues of the Jewels, &c., of Queen Mary of Scots,' 1556-1569 preface, p. lxxvii; Keith, 'Hist.,' vol. ii. pp. 119-125; 'Booke of Universall Kirk,' vol. i. p. 11, 12.

5 'Cal. Stat. Pap. (For.),' 1562, p. 539; Letter of Randolph to Cecil, 28th February 1562.

of happy ingynis, mair apt to leir than I wes to teche, to quhom I usit to propone almaist dalie sum theme, argument or sentence, of the quhilk, I wald haif thaim intending to mak orisone or epistle in Latin tong, and thocht that this mater of sedition afore namit had bene ane verray convenient theme to that purpose." 1

In this way his polemical tractates originated. 'The Buke of Four Scoir Thre Questions,' was apparently a collection made up of these exercises and the heads he had sent to Dean Kinloquhy: "For I had collectit thame schortlie wanting buiks, quhen I wes in travell, as thai come in my memorie of former reiding and of conferring with wtheris at that tyme be the way." They were revised, and with a prefatory apologetic epistle in Latin, were circulated in manuscript among friends. Their value was speedily recognised. The book "went currant in the Court and was much esteemed by them of his profession."3

Meantime the banned Romanists, taking courage, emerged from their retreats. Their prospects brightened. To give encouragement, René Benoist, a popular preacher, distinguished Doctor of the Sorbonne, and voluminous writer, afterwards known as "The Pope of the Markets," soon after his arrival with the Queen, addressed from Holyrood, on 19th November 1561, a letter of challenge to Knox and the ministers.4 This epistle, according to David Fergusson-who, in 1562, replied to it in 'Ane answer to ane epistle written by Renat Benedict'— was translated by

1 Winzet, 'Certain Tractates,' vol. i. p. 24. 3 Spotiswood, 'Hist.,' p. 183.

2 Ibid., pp. 55, 60.

"Renatus Benedictus, Verbi Dei Professor, dissertissimo Joanni Knox atque aliis eruditissimis viris, apud antiquitatem nobilem Scotia, vocatis ministris. Christum semper sincere cognoscere profiteri," &c.-' Tracts by David Fergusson, Minister of Dunfermline,' 1563-1572, p. 83. Bann. Club, 1860.

ane certain Frier out of Latine into English." The translator's name is not mentioned. However, in the preface to the reprint of Fergusson's Tracts, Dr Lee attributes this translation to Winzet. The style of this translation resembles that of Winzet. Benoist next issued, on the 10th December 1561, his 'Necessarius atque certus modus tollendæ Religionis discordiæ,' which was afterwards printed in Paris and translated by Winzet.2 Benoist supplemented this by another tract, entitled 'Le triomphe et excellente Victoire de Foy,' &c., which is dated from the Scotch Court on the 2d of August 1562.3 In the Catalogue of Queen Mary's Library in 1578, two works, apparently the Scotch translations of Benoist's pamphlets, are enumerated : 'The maner to tak away the contraversie of religioun be Renatus Benedictus,' and the 'Triumphe of Faith,' but we have no evidence to identify them as the work of Winzet. Anonymous publications were also being circulated, of which Winzet disclaimed the authorship.

But, eager to engage the reformers, Ninian wrote a letter, The first Tractat,'-to Queen Mary, craving royal permission to address the Protestant leaders, and exhorting

1 Cf. 'Tracts by David Fergusson, Minister of Dunfermline,' 1563-1572, p. 5. 2 'Renatus Benedictus, concerning composing Discords in Religion, translated by Ninian Winzet, Paris, 1565;' Ames, ‘Typographical Antiquities,' vol. iii. p. 164, edit. Herbert, Lond. 1790; Ziegelbauer, pt. iii. p. 361. Cf. postea, p. xlvii. Necessarius atque Certus Modus tollendæ Religionis Discordiæ Authore Renato Benedicto, Andegauo, Doctore Theologo Parisiensi.' Parisiis, apud Nicolaum Chesneau, 1562, 8vo, foll. 19. 'Niceron Memoires,' tom. xli. pp. 1-49, Bibliothèque National, Paris, Press-mark D 25707.

3 'La triomphe et excellente victoire de la Foy par le moyen de la veritable et toute puissante parole de Dieu.' "Paris, Nicolas Chesneau, 1562 et 1568 in 8vo feuil 40 sans le Preface datée de la cour de Marie Stuart, Reine d'Ecosse, le 2e Août-1562." Niceron, Mem.,' t. xli. pp. 1-49.

4 'Inventaires de la Royne Descosse Douairiere de France: Catalogues of the Jewels, &c., of Mary Queen of Scots,' 1556-1569, preface, pp. lv, cxliv, cxlvii. Bann. Club, 1863.