In January, 1561, the Estates of Scotland ordered James Stuart, Mary's
natural brother, to visit her in France. In spring she met him, and an
envoy from Huntly (Lesley, later Bishop of Ross), who represented the
Catholic party, and asked Mary to land in Aberdeen, and march south at
the head of the Gordons and certain northern clans. The proposal came
from noblemen of Perthshire, Angus, and the north, whose forces could not
have faced a Lowland army. Mary, who had learned from her mother that
Huntly was treacherous, preferred to take her chance with her brother,
who, returning by way of England, moved Elizabeth to recognise the
Scottish queen as her heir. But Elizabeth would never settle the
succession, and, as Mary refused to ratify the Treaty of Edinburgh,
forbade her to travel home through England.




CHAPTER XX. MARY IN SCOTLAND.


On August 19, 1561, in a dense fog, and almost unexpected and unwelcomed,
Mary landed in Leith. She had told the English ambassador to France that
she would constrain none of her subjects in religion, and hoped to be
unconstrained. Her first act was to pardon some artisans, under censure
for a Robin Hood frolic: her motive, says Knox, was her knowledge that
they had acted "in despite of religion."

The Lord James had stipulated that she might have her Mass in her private
chapel. Her priest was mobbed by the godly; on the following Sunday Knox
denounced her Mass, and had his first interview with her later. In vain