absence, was illegal), and when both parties were summoned to trial, Knox
called together the godly. The Council cleared him of the charge of
making an unlawful convocation (they might want to make one, any day,
themselves), and he was supported by the General Assembly. Similar
conduct of the preachers thirty years later gave James VI. the
opportunity to triumph over the Kirk.

In June 1564 there was still discord between the Kirk and the Lords, and,
in a long argument with Lethington, Knox maintained the right of the
godly to imitate the slayings of idolaters by Phineas and Jehu: the
doctrine bore blood-red fruits among the later Covenanters. Elizabeth,
in May 1564, in vain asked Mary to withdraw the permission (previously
asked for by her) to allow Lennox to visit Scotland and plead for the
restitution of his lands. The objection to Lennox's appearance had come,
through Randolph, from Knox. "You may cause us to take the Lord
Darnley," wrote Kirkcaldy to Cecil, to stop Elizabeth's systems of
delays; and Sir James Melville, after going on a mission to Elizabeth,
warned Mary that she would never part with her minion, now Earl of
Leicester.

Lennox, in autumn 1564, arrived and was restored to his estates, while
Leicester and Cecil worked for the sending of his son Darnley to
Scotland. Leicester had no desire to desert Elizabeth's Court and his
chance of touching her maiden heart.

The intrigues of Cecil, Leicester, and Elizabeth resemble rather a
chapter in a novel than a page in history. Elizabeth notoriously hated
and, when she could, thwarted all marriages. She desired that Mary
should never marry: a union with a Catholic prince she vetoed,
threatening war; and Leicester she offered merely "to drive time." But