queen, now at Dunbar, a pretence for raising an army, ostensibly to enable her to resent the indignity which had been shown to her person by the assassins of Rizzio, and to punish the perpetrator of that deed, but in reality, to overawe the protestants. On the approach of the queen and her forces to Edinburgh, Knox, long since aware of the dislike which she entertained towards him, deemed it prudent to leave the city. On this occasion he retired to Kyle, and soon afterwards went to England to visit his two sons, who were there living with some relations of their mother's. Knox returned again to Edinburgh, after an absence of about five or six months. During that interval two events had taken place, which entirely ruined the queen's authority in the kingdom, and left him nothing to fear from her personal resentment; these were the murder of Darnley and her marriage with Bothwell. He therefore resumed his charge without interruption, and proceeded to take that active part in the national affairs, both political and religious, which the times required, and for which he was so eminently fitted; and, soon after, had the satisfaction of seeing the protestant religion securely established by the laws of the land, and that of the popish church utterly overthrown by the same authority.
In the month of October, 1570, he was struck with apoplexy, and although it only interrupted his preaching for a few days, he never recovered from the debility which it produced.
The irritability of the times, and the vindictive spirit of the popish faction, still animating its expiring efforts, placed the life of the great reformer once more in danger, and once more compelled him to seek safety in flight. His enemies endeavoured first to destroy his reputation by the most absurd and unfounded calumnies; and failing utterly in these, they made an attempt upon his life. A shot was fired in at the window at which he usually sat; but happening to ba seated at a different part of the table from that which he generally occupied, the bullet missed him, but struck the candlestick which was before him, and then lodged in the roof of the apartment.
Finding that it was no longer safe for him to remain in Edinburgh, he retired to St Andrews, where he continued till the end of August, 1572, when he again returned to Edinburgh. His valuable and active life was now drawing fast to a close. On the 11th of the November following he was seized with a cough, which greatly affected his breathing, and on the 24th of the same month expired, after an illness which called forth numerous instances of the magnanimity of his character, and of the purity and fervour of that religious zeal by which he had been always inspired. He died in the sixty-seventh year of his age, "not so much," says Dr M'Crie, "oppressed with years as worn out and exhausted by his extraordinary labours of body and anxieties of mind." His body was interred in the church-yard of St Giles, on Wednesday the 26th of November, and was attended to the grave by all the nobility who were in the city, and an immense concourse of people. When his body was laid in the grave, the regent, who was also at the funeral, exclaimed in words which have made a strong impression from their aptness and truth, "There lies he who never feared the face of man."
L
LAING, Alexander Gordon, whose name is so mournfully connected with the history of African discovery, was born at Edinburgh on the 27th of De-
