may fill Scotland with his madness. He is said to have a boon companion
at Geneva, whom we hear that the people of Dieppe have called to be their
minister. If he be infected with such opinions, for Christ's sake pray
that he be not sent; or if he has already departed, warn the Dieppe
people to beware of him." {109a} A French ex-capuchin, Jacques Trouille,
was appointed as Knox's successor at Dieppe. {109b}

Knox's ideas, even the idea that Christians may bear the sword against
tyrants, were all his own, were anti-Genevan; and though Calvin (1559-60)
knew all about the conspiracy of Amboise to kill the Guises, he ever
maintained that he had discouraged and preached against it. We must,
therefore, credit Knox with originality, both in his ideas and in his way
of giving it to be understood that they had the approval of the learned
of Switzerland. The reverse was true.

By May 3, Knox was in Edinburgh, "come in the brunt of the battle," as
the preachers' summons to trial was for May 10. He was at once outlawed,
"blown loud to the horn," but was not dismayed. On this occasion the
battle would be a fair fight, the gentry, under their Band, stood by the
preachers, and, given a chance in open field with the arm of the flesh to
back him, Knox's courage was tenacious and indomitable. It was only for
lonely martyrdom that he never thought himself ready, and few historians
have a right to throw the first stone at him for his backwardness.

As for armed conflict, at this moment Mary of Guise could only reckon
surely on the small French garrison of Scotland, perhaps 1500 or 2000
men. She could place no confidence in the feudal levies that gathered
when the royal standard was raised. The Hamiltons merely looked to their
own advancement; Lord James Stewart was bound to the Congregation; Huntly
was a double dealer and was remote; the minor noblesse and the armed