If Grange had been actuated by the sentiments of hostility which some chose to attribute to him, he could have struck a decisive blow by bringing down the Tolbooth about the ears of those who were assembled within it with the intention of sanctioning and adopting a policy which he believed to be fraught with danger to Scotland. He contented himself, however, with absenting himself from the convention, to which he had been summoned, as a member of the Privy Council,--a dignity which he held in virtue of his office, as Provost of Edinburgh, and with refusing ‘to shoot off any piece of ordnance upon request, after the proclamation.’
Instead of giving Grange credit for his attitude of neutrality, Sussex chose to take umbrage at it. In another of those letters which he prided himself on writing ‘somewhat plainly,’ he reproached the Governor with inconsistency in professing to be ‘at the Queen of England’s devotion in all matters that might continue the amity between both realms,’ and yet refusing to join the Lords convened in Edinburgh. On the very same day, the Earl showed the sincerity of his own desire for amity by writing to Cecil, to suggest a pretext on which the West Borders of Scotland might be invaded, and the Scots weakened--a pretext which Elizabeth admitted that she ‘liked very well,’ and which, before long, was duly seized upon.
Throughout all this plotting and intriguing, the party which had Knox and the Presbyterian clergy at its head, still continued, in its hostility to Mary, to put faith in Elizabeth and her ministers. To the members of it, Grange’s policy caused the greatest anxiety, and the remonstrances which they deemed it their duty to address to their former champion were frequent and vigorous. Verse as well as prose was brought to bear upon him, and a ‘Hailsome Admonition,’ published by the balladist, Robert Semple, presumably about the beginning of September, when the interference of both France and Spain was feared, may serve to show the spirit of these exhortations. It opens with an ungrudging recognition of Grange’s services in the past:--
O Lamp of licht and peirless Peirll of pryse! O worthy Knicht, in martiall deidis most ding![3] O worthy wicht, most vailzeant, war, and wyse! O Captaine, ay constant to the King! O Lustie Lord, that will na wayis maling! O Barroun bauld, of Cheualry the floure! O perfyte Prouest, but maik into this Ring![4] O gudely Grange, but spot vnto this houre!