The Reformers, popular with the middle and with part of the upper classes, needed only to win English support to make themselves perfectly secure.

The difficulty in this course lay in Queen Elizabeth's natural dislike of Knox on account of his _First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women_.

In this war-whoop, aimed against the Marys of England and Scotland, Knox had argued that "to promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion or empire above any realm is repugnant to nature, contrary to God, and, finally, it is the subversion of good order and of all equity and justice." The author felt not a little embarrassment when a Protestant woman ascended the throne of England and he needed her help.

But to save his soul he "that never feared nor flattered any flesh" could not admit that he was in the wrong, nor take back aught that he had said.
He seems to have acted on Barry Lyndon's maxim that "a gentleman fights but never apologizes." When he wrote Elizabeth, [Sidenote: July 20, 1559] all he would say was that he was not her enemy and had never offended her or her realm maliciously or of purpose.

He seasoned this attempt at reconciliation by adding a stinging rebuke to the proud young queen for having "declined from God and bowed to idolatry," during her sister's reign, for fear of her life.
But the advantages of union outweighed such minor considerations as bad manners, and early in 1560 a league was formed between England and the Lords of the Congregation.