By June 29th
they were in possession of the capital, whence Mary of Lorraine had fled
to the castle of Dunbar.
The cause of the Congregation now appeared to be triumphant, but it
contained elements of weakness of which everyone was aware and which
speedily became manifest. The acts of violence which had attended the
revolt were filling the law-abiding citizens with dismay. The
destruction of church property in Perth and St. Andrew's had been
followed by similar excesses elsewhere. Especially disquieting had been
what had occurred at Scone immediately after the surrender of Perth. In
defiance of the protests of Knox, the lord James, and Argyle, the
reformers of Dundee had sacked and burned to the ground the abbey and
palace of that village--an outrage which Knox himself regretted in the
interest of his own cause. It was a further source of weakness to the
Congregation that their actions easily lent themselves to
misconstruction and misrepresentation. The Regent industriously spread
the plausible report both at home and abroad that their religious
professions were a mere pretext, and that their real object was to
overthrow herself and to make the lord James their king. But, above all,
the nature of the host that supported them was such that it invariably
failed them when their need was the greatest.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81