supernormal premonition, or drew a correct deduction from Scripture, and
make it certain that the Regent did not fall ill after his prophecy.

The Regent died on June 11, half-an-hour after the midnight of June 10. A
report was written on June 13, from Edinburgh Castle, to the Cardinal of
Lorraine, by Captain James Cullen, who some twelve years later was hanged
by the Regent Morton. He says that since June 7, Lord James and Argyll,
Marischal, and Glencairn, had assiduously attended on the dying lady. Two
hours before her death she spoke apart for a whole hour with Lord James.
Chatelherault had seen her twice, and Arran once. {167b} Knox mentions
the visits of these lords, and says that d'Oysel was forbidden to speak
with her, "belike she would have bidden him farewell, for auld
familiarity was great."

According to Knox, the Regent admitted the errors of her policy,
attributing it to Huntly, who had deserted her, and to "the wicked
counsel of her friends," that is, her brothers. At the request of the
Lords, she saw Willock, and said, as she naturally would, that "there was
no salvation but in and by the death of Jesus Christ." "She was
compelled . . . to approve the chief head of our religion, wherein we
dissent from all papists and popery." Knox had strange ideas about the
creed which he opposed. "Of any virtue that ever was espied in King
James V. (_whose daughter she_," Mary Stuart, "_is called_"), "to this
hour (1566) we have seen no sparkle to appear." {168}

With this final fling at the chastity of Mary of Guise, the Reformer
takes leave of the woman whom he so bitterly hated. Yet, "Knox was not
given to the practice so common in his day, of assassinating reputations
by vile insinuations." Posterity has not accepted, contemporary English
historians did not accept, Knox's picture of Mary of Guise as the wanton