Such labours were sure sooner or later to attract the attention of the bishops; and accordingly while he was in the Mearns he was summoned to appear { 100} before them at Edinburgh, in the Church of the Blackfriars, on the 15th May, 1556. They probably imagined that this mere "show of force" on their part would suffice to frighten him into silence. If they did, they reckoned without their host; for encouraged by his friends he came to Edinburgh to meet and face his accusers. But when it came to the pinch, they shrank from the encounter; and so it was that on the very day on which he had been summoned to stand before them, he preached, of all places, in the very lodging of the Bishop of Dunkeld, to a greater audience than he had hitherto addressed in Edinburgh. For ten days he continued morning and afternoon at this work, and so thoroughly was his heart refreshed by it that he writes of it thus to Mrs. Bowes: "O sweet were the death that should follow such forty days in Edinburgh as here I have had three."
But the boldest, if we should not call it the most audacious thing, which he did in this visit, was to address a letter to the Queen Regent, wherein he vindicated himself from the charges made by his enemies against him, and exhorted her to hear the word of God, and regulate her government by its principles. The suggestion to send such an epistle came from the Earl Mareschal and Henry Drummond, who had been brought to hear him by Lord Glencairn, and who declared, on what they said they knew of the queen's mind, that she was in a mood to be propitious. But though the letter is correctly described by Lorimer as one "which for its { 101} courtesy of phrase, and faithfulness of counsel, was equally suitable to her dignity as a queen, and to his character as a minister of God," it met with only a mocking reception. "Please you, my lord, to read a pasquil," said Mary of Guise, after it had been put into her hands, and while she was giving it to the Archbishop of Glasgow, and that was all the notice of it which she condescended to take. This treatment of his expostulation being reported to Knox, revealed to him how little he had to expect from Mary of Guise; and as just at this time letters arrived from Geneva "commanding him, in God's name, as he that was their chosen pastor, to repair unto them for their comfort," he made immediate preparations for his departure thither. He took leave of the several congregations to whom he had preached, and sent on his wife and his mother-in-law to Dieppe before him, there to await his arrival. He reached them in the month of July, and shortly after went with them to Geneva; for in the "Livre des Anglois" there is an entry to the effect that on the 13th of September, 1556, John Knox; Marjory, his wife; Elizabeth, her mother; James ----, his servant; and Patrick, his pupil, were received and admitted members of the English Church and congregation there.