From Dieppe he had sent a tract to England, praying God to stir up some Phineas or Jehu to shed the blood of "abominable idolaters,"-- obviously of Mary of England and Philip of Spain.

On earlier occasions he had followed Calvin in deprecating such sanguinary measures.

The Scot, after a stormy period of quarrels with Anglican refugees in Frankfort, moved to Geneva, where the city was under a despotism of preachers and of Calvin.

Here Knox found the model of Church government which, in a form if possible more extreme, he later planted in Scotland.
There, in 1549-52, the Church, under Archbishop Hamilton, Beaton's successor, had been confessing her iniquities in Provincial Councils, and attempting to purify herself on the lines of the tolerant and charitable Catechism issued by the Archbishop in 1552.

Apparently a _modus vivendi_ was being sought, and Protestants were inclined to think that they might be "occasional conformists" and attend Mass without being false to their convictions.