What is thrust upon us by the narrative of events in Scotland is the singular moderation alike of the representatives of the old and the new religion. Heretics had been burned indeed, but the number was inconsiderable compared with that of similar victims in other countries; and, even in the day of their triumph, the Scottish Protestants, in spite of the stern threat of their legislation, were guiltless of a single execution on the ground of religion. What is still more striking is, that difference of faith begot no fanatical hate among the mass of the people. In France and Spain men forgot the ties of blood and country in the blind fury of religious zeal, but in Scotland we do not find town arrayed against town and neighbor denouncing neighbor on the ground of a different faith. That this tolerance was not due to indifference the religious history of Scotland abundantly proves. It was in the convulsions attending the change of the national faith that the Scottish nation first attained to a consciousness of itself, and the characteristics it then displayed have remained its distinctive characteristics ever since. It is precisely the combination of a fervid temper with logical thinking and temperate action that have distinguished the Scottish people in all the great crises of their history.
It soon appeared that the Protestant triumph was not so complete as it might have seemed. Those who saw furthest--and none was more keenly alive to the fact than Knox--were well aware that many a battle must yet be fought before the new temple they had built should stand secure against the assault of open enemies and equivocal friends. The inherent difficulties of the situation became speedily manifest. Mary and Francis refused to ratify the late measures--a fact, says Knox, "we little regarded or do regard." What he did regard, however, was the continued alliance and support of England; and he was now to learn that, having attained her own objects, Elizabeth was not disposed to be specially cordial in her future relations to the Protestants in Scotland. It had been for some time in the minds of the Protestant leaders that a marriage between Elizabeth and the Earl of Arran would be an excellent arrangement for both countries; and in October a commission was actually sent to make the proposal. The reply of Elizabeth was that "presently she was not disposed to marry." An important event made this rebuff additionally unwelcome: on December 5th, Francis II, the husband of Mary Stuart, unexpectedly died. Had her husband lived, Mary might have continued to live in France, which had been so long her home, and Scotland might have been left in large degree to settle its own affairs. Now the probability was that Mary would return to her own country, and with all the authority and prestige of a legitimate sovereign renew the battle that had been lost by her mother. It was, therefore, with gloomy forebodings that all sincere well-wishers to the Reformed Church in Scotland saw the close of this year of their apparent triumph.