Knox immediately obeyed the call, and had proceeded as far as Dieppe on his
way to Scotland, when he received letters from the latter country containing the
most discouraging accounts of the state of the kingdom and of the protestant interest there. Grieved and disappointed beyond expression, he again returned to Geneva, where he remained for another year. During this period he assisted in making a new translation of the Bible into English, and also published his "Letter to the Queen Regent," his "Appellation and Exhortation," and "The first Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regiment of Women." Matters having at length taken a more favourable turn in Scotland, the protestant lords sent a second invitation to Knox to join them, accompanied by the gratifying intelligence that the queen-regent had promised them her countenance and protection. He placed little reliance on these promises, but he readily
obeyed the call of his friends to return to his native country.
He sailed from Dieppe on the 22nd of April, and arrived safely in Leith on the 2nd of May, 1559. The distrust which Knox entertained of the good faith of the queen-regent was not without sufficient cause. By the time he arrived, that artful but able princess, conceiving that she had no longer any occasion for assistance from the protestants, not only gave them to understand that they had nothing more to hope from her, but openly avowed her determination to suppress the Reformation by every means in her power, and to employ force for that purpose if it should be found necessary.
In this spirit she authorized archbishop Hamilton to summon the reformed preachers before him in St Andrews to answer for their conduct, giving him at the same time, a similar assurance of protection and support with that which she had a short while before given to the protestants. A threat, however, having been conveyed to her that the preachers would not go unattended to the impending trial, she deemed it prudent to prorogue it until she should be in a better state of preparation, and accordingly wrote to the primate to delay any further proceedings in the matter for the time. On the faith of receiving assistance from France, which had united with Spain for the extirpation of heresy, she soon after resumed the process against the protestant preachers, and summoned them to stand trial at Stirling. Thither Knox, though he had been proclaimed an outlaw and a rebel, by virtue of the sentence formerly pronounced against him, determined to repair to assist his brethren in their defence, and to share the dangers to which they might be exposed.
The artifice of the queen-regent, however, deprived him of the opportunity of carrying this generous resolution into effect. The preachers in their progress to Stirling, were attended by large bodies of people, who had determined to abide by them during the impending trial. Unwilling, however, to give the queen-regent any offence by approaching her in such numbers, they halted at Perth, and sent Erskine of Dun before them to Stirling to assure her that they meditated no violence nor entertained any but the most peaceable intentions. Not reconciled, however, by this representation to the approach of so great a multitude, she had recourse to dissimulation to prevent their coming nearer. She informed Erskine, that she would stop the trial, if he would prevail upon his brethren to desist from their journey. Unsuspicious of the deception she intended to practise, Erskine was persuaded to write to the assembled protestants, requesting them to proceed no further, and intimating that he was authorized by the queen to promise them that no trial of their preachers should take place. Rejoiced by these very welcome and very unexpected overtures, they instantly complied with the regent's request, and the greater part of them returned to their homes. When the appointed day of trial came, however, the summonses of the preachers were called in court by the express orders of the queen. They
