The assembly of the church framed an address, in which, after telling her that her mass was a bastard service of God, the fountain of all impiety, and the source of every evil which abounded in the realm, they expressed their hopes, that she would ere this time have preferred truth to her own preconceived opinion, and have renounced her religion, which, they assured her, was nothing but abomination and vanity.

They said, that the present abuses of government were so enormous, that if a speedy remedy were not provided, God would not fail in his anger to strike the head and the tail, the disobedient prince and sinful people.

They required, that severe punishment should be inflicted on adulterers and fornicators.

And they concluded with demanding for themselves some addition both of power and property.[*] The ringleader in all these insults on majesty was John Knox; who possessed an uncontrolled authority in the church and even in the civil affairs of the nation, and who triumphed in the contumelious usage of his sovereign.

His usual appellation for the queen was Jezebel; and though she endeavored by the most gracious condescension to win his favor, all her insinuations could gain nothing on his obdurate heart.
She promised him access to her whenever he demanded it; and she even desired him, if he found her blamable in any thing, to reprehend her freely in private, rather than vilify her in the pulpit before the whole people: but he plainly told her, that he had a public ministry intrusted to him; that if she would come to church, she should there hear the gospel of truth, and that it was not his business to apply to every individual, nor had he leisure for that occupation.[**] The political principles of the man, which he communicated to his brethren, were as full of sedition, as his theological were of rage and bigotry.