The flight and terror of the priests and friars, who, it was remarked, deserted, in his greatest distress, the object of their worship, was the source of universal mockery and laughter.
Encouraged by all these appearances, the congregation proceeded with alacrity in openly soliciting subscriptions to their league; and the death of Mary of England, with the accession of Elizabeth, which happened about this time, contributed to increase their hopes of final success in their undertaking.

They ventured to present a petition to the regent, craving a reformation of the church, and of the "wicked, scandalous, and detestable" lives of the prelates and ecclesiastics.[*] They framed a petition which they intended to present to parliament, and in which, after premising that they could not communicate with the damnable idolatry and intolerable abuses of the Papistical church, they desired that the laws against heretics should be executed by the civil magistrate alone, and that the Scripture should be the sole rule in judging of heresy.[**] They even petitioned the convocation, and insisted that prayers should be said in the vulgar tongue, and that bishops should be chosen with the consent of the gentry of the diocese, and priests with the consent of the parishioners.[***] The regent prudently temporized between these parties; and as she aimed at procuring a matrimonial crown for her son-in-law the dauphin, she was, on that as well as other accounts, unwilling to come to extremities with either of them.
* Knox, p.

121.
** Knox, p.

123.
*** Keith, p.

78, 81, 82.
But after this concession was obtained, she received orders from France, probably dictated by the violent spirit of her brothers, to proceed with rigor against the reformers, and to restore the royal authority by some signal act of power.[*] She made the more eminent of the Protestant teachers be cited to appear before the council at Stirling; but when their followers were marching thither in great multitudes, in order to protect and countenance them, she entertained apprehensions of an insurrection, and, it is said, dissipated the people by a promise[**] [2] that nothing should be done to the prejudice of the ministers.
Sentence, however, was passed, by which all the ministers were pronounced rebels, on account of their not appearing; a measure which enraged the people, and made them resolve to oppose the regent's authority by force of arms, and to proceed to extremities against the clergy of the established religion.
In this critical time, John Knox arrived from Geneva, where he had passed some years in banishment, and where he had imbibed, from his commerce with Calvin, the highest fanaticism of his sect, augmented by the native ferocity of his own character.