Soon after this conference, Mary went to Edinburgh, to open in person the first Parliament which had been held since her return to Scotland. Its session continued only from the 26th of May, to the 24th of June 1563; but during that short period, business of some importance was transacted. The Queen on the first day rode to the Parliament House in her robes of state,--the Duke of Chatelherault carrying the crown, the Earl of Argyle the sceptre, and the Earl of Murray the sword.[74] She was present on three or four occasions afterwards; but on the first day she made a speech to the representatives of her people, which was received with enthusiastic applause. This applause was wormwood to Knox, who, with even more than his usual discourtesy towards a sex whom he seems to have despised, says,--"Such stinking pride of women as was seen at that Parliament, was never before seen in Scotland." He was heartily borne out in his vituperations by the rest of the preachers. The rich attire which Mary and the ladies of her court chose to wear, were abominations in their eyes. They held forth to their respective flocks against the "superfluity of their clothes," the "targeting of their tails," and "the rest of their vanity." It was enough, they said, "to draw down God's wrath not only upon these foolish women, but upon the whole realm." At this Parliament the Earldoms of Huntly and Sutherland were declared forfeited; an act was passed for preventing any one from summoning the lieges together without the Queen's consent; some judicious legislative measures of a domestic nature were established; and an act of oblivion for all acts done from the 6th of March 1558, to the first of September 1561, was unanimously carried. This act of oblivion was declared to have no reference whatever to a similar act sanctioned by the Treaty of Edinburgh, the ratification of which was expressly avoided by the Queen. Its object, how--was precisely the same,--namely, to secure the Reformers against any disagreeable consequences which might arise out of the violences they committed during the first heat of the Reformation.
An act of oblivion thus obtained as a free gift from Mary, and not as a consequence of his favourite Treaty of Edinburgh, was by no means agreeable to Knox. He assembled some of the leading Members of Parliament, and urged upon them the necessity of forcing from the Queen a ratification of this treaty. Even the Protestant Lords, however, felt how unjust such a demand would be. The Earl of Murray himself, one of Knox's oldest and staunchest friends, refused to ask Mary to take this step. Knox, in consequence, solemnly renounced Murray's friendship, and a coldness subsisted between them for nearly two years. Foiled in his object, the Reformer had recourse to his usual mode of revenge. He preached another "thundering sermon." The object of this sermon was to convince the people, that as soon as a Parliament was assembled, they had the Queen in their power to make her do what they chose. "And is this the thankfulness that ye render unto your God," said he, "to betray his cause, when ye have it in your hands to establish it as you please?" Before concluding, he adverted to the report that her Majesty would soon be married, and called upon the nobility, if they regarded the safety of their country, to prevent her from forming an alliance with a Papist.