Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

John Knox and the Reformation by Andrew Lang
page 144 of 280 (51%)
On April 29, from the Castle of Edinburgh, she wrote a letter to d'Oysel,
commanding in Leith. She told him that she was suffering from dropsy;
"one of her legs begins to swell. . . . You know there are but three
days for the dropsy in this country." The letter was intercepted by her
enemies, and deciphered. {166a} On May 7, the English and Scots made an
assault, and were beaten back with loss of 1000 men. According to Knox,
the French stripped the fallen, and allowed the white carcases to lie
under the wall, as also happened in 1746, after the English defeat at
Falkirk. The Regent saw them, Knox says, from the Castle, and said they
were "a fair tapestry." "Her words were heard of some," and carried to
Knox, who, from the pulpit, predicted "that God should revenge that
contumely done to his image . . . even in such as rejoiced thereat. And
the very experience declared that he was not deceived, for within few
days thereafter (yea, some say that same day) began her belly and
loathsome legs to swell, and so continued, till that God did execute his
judgments upon her." {166b}

Knox wrote thus on May 16, 1566. {167a} He was a little irritated at
that time by Queen Mary's triumph over his friends, the murderers of
Riccio, and his own hasty flight from Edinburgh to Kyle. This may excuse
the somewhat unusual and even unbecoming nature of his language
concerning the dying lady, but his memory was quite wrong about his
prophecy. The symptoms of the Regent's malady had begun more than a week
before the Anglo-Scottish defeat at Leith, and the nature of her
complaint ought to have been known to the prophet's party, as her letter,
describing her condition, had been intercepted and deciphered. But the
deciphering may have been done in England, which would cause delay. We
cannot, of course, prove that Knox was informed as to the Regent's malady
before he prophesied; if so, he had forgotten the fact before he wrote as
he did in 1566. But the circumstances fail to demonstrate that he had a
DigitalOcean Referral Badge