The Regent joined d'Essy with eight thousand Scots; trenches were drawn, and siege guns brought up from the ships; the conditions of the French support were then discussed in detail, and agreed upon. Inside the lines of the camp were the ruins of an abbey which the English had destroyed. On this appropriate spot was held the convention of Haddington. That the Dauphin, and no inferior person, should marry the heiress of Scotland, was the natural desire of her uncles, the powerful and ambitious Guises. Their influence had prevailed. The Crowns of France and Scotland were to be formally and ever united. Scotland was to retain her own laws and liberties. The French would defend her then and ever from her 'auld enemies.'[1] The formal records of the convention declare that the resolution was unanimous; but there were some persons who were able to see that their liberty would be as much in danger from a union with France as from a union with England. The Protector at the last moment had sent an offer with which he had better have commenced. He undertook to abstain from
- ↑ Acts of the Scottish Parliament, 1548.
and advisedly looking about, he cast it in the river, and said, 'Let our Lady now save herself; she is light enough; let her learn to swim.' After this the Scots were troubled no further in such matters.
Here, again, is another fine scene.On a grey summer dawn, 'lying between Dundee and St Andrews, John Knox being so extremely sick that few hoped his life, Master James Balfour willed him to look to the land, and asked him if he knew it, who answered, 'I know it well, for I see the steeple of that place where God first opened my mouth in public to his glory, and I am fully persuaded, how weak that ever I now appear, I shall not depart this life till my tongue shall glorify his holy name in the same place.'' Knox's History of the Reformation
