In vain she spoke of her conscience; Knox said that it was unenlightened.
Lethington wished that he would "deal more gently with a young princess unpersuaded." There were three or four later interviews, but Knox, strengthened by a marriage with a girl of sixteen, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, a Stewart, was proof against the queen's fascination.

In spite of insults to her faith offered even at pageants of welcome, Mary kept her temper, and, for long, cast in her lot with Lethington and her brother, whose hope was to reconcile her with Elizabeth.
The Court was gay with riotous young French nobles, well mated with Bothwell, who, though a Protestant, had sided with Mary of Guise during the brawls of 1559.

He was now a man of twenty-seven, profligate, reckless, a conqueror of hearts, a speaker of French, a ruffian, and well educated.
In December it was arranged that the old bishops and other high clerics should keep two-thirds of their revenues, the other third to be divided between the preachers and the queen, "between God and the devil," says Knox.

Thenceforth there was a rift between the preachers and the politicians, Lethington and Lord James (now Earl of Mar), on whom Mary leaned.

The new Earl of Mar was furtively created Earl of Murray and enjoyed the gift after the overthrow of Huntly.
In January 1562 Mary asked for an interview with Elizabeth.