Notwithstanding the prejudice which existed in the English court against our Reformer,[446] on account of his “audacity” in attacking female prerogative, they were too well acquainted with his integrity and influence to decline his services. Cecil kept up a correspondence with him; and in the directions sent { 294} from London for the management of the subsidy, it was expressly provided, that he should be one of the council for examining the receipts and payments, to see that it was applied to “the common action,” and not to any private use.[447]
In the mean time, his zeal and activity, in the cause of the Congregation, exposed him to the deadly resentment of the queen regent and the papists. A reward was publicly offered to any one who should apprehend or kill him; and not a few, actuated by hatred or avarice, lay in wait to seize his person. But this did not deter him from appearing in public, nor from travelling through the country in the discharge of his duty. His exertions at this period were incredibly great. By day he was employed in preaching, by night in writing letters on public business. He was the soul of the Congregation; was always found at the post of danger; and by his presence, his public discourses, and private advices, animated the whole body, and defeated the schemes employed to corrupt or disunite them.[448]
{ 295} The Congregation had lately received a considerable increase of strength by the accession of the former regent, the duke of Chastelherault. His eldest son, the earl of Arran, who commanded the Scots guard in France, had embraced the principles of the Reformation; understanding that the French court, which was entirely under the direction of the princes of Lorrain, intended to throw him into prison, he secretly retired to Geneva, from which he was conveyed to London by the assistance of Elizabeth’s ministers. In the month of August he came to his father at Hamilton. The representations of his son, joined with those of the English cabinet, and with his own jealousy of the designs of the queen regent, easily gained over the vacillating duke, who met with the lords of the Congregation, and subscribed their bond of confederation.[449]
Our Reformer was now called to take a share in a very delicate and important measure. When they first had recourse to arms in their own defence, the { 296} lords of the Congregation had no intention of making any alteration in the government, or of assuming the exercise of the supreme authority.[450] Even after they had adopted a more regular and permanent system of resistance to the measures of the queen regent, they continued to recognise the station which she held, presented petitions to her, and listened respectfully to the proposals which she made for removing the grounds of variance. But finding that she was fully bent upon the execution of her plan for subverting the national liberties, and that her official situation gave her great advantages in carrying on this design, they began to deliberate upon the propriety of adopting a different line of conduct. Their sovereigns were minors, in a foreign country, and under the management of persons to whose influence the evils of which they complained were principally to be ascribed. The queen dowager held the regency by the authority of parliament; and might she not be deprived of it by the same authority? In the present state of the country, it was impossible for a free and regular parliament to meet; but the majority of the nation had declared their dissatisfaction with her administration; and was it not competent for them to provide for the public safety, which was exposed to such imminent danger? These were the questions which formed the topic of frequent conversation at this time.