On October 16th the insurgent leaders entered Edinburgh with the intention of laying siege to Leith, where the Regent had taken refuge as the safest place in the kingdom. One of their earliest steps was the most audacious they had yet taken. They formally deposed Mary of Lorraine from the regency, on the ground that she had ruled as a tyrant and was betraying the country to a foreign enemy. But they soon found that they had taken a task beyond their strength. Their force amounted to but eight thousand men, most of whom were "cuntrie fellows" with no experience in war, and whose service could not extend beyond a few weeks. To this undisciplined host was opposed a garrison of three thousand trained soldiers, with the command of the sea and intrenched in a town fortified after the best military art of the time. Fortune, moreover, was against the Congregation from the first. A new instalment of one thousand pounds, secretly sent by Elizabeth, was cleverly seized by James, Earl of Bothwell, afterward the notorious helpmate of Mary Stuart. Their arms, also, met with no success. While a detachment of their troops was in pursuit of Bothwell, the enemy found their opportunity and made their way even into the streets of Edinburgh; and on November 25th the reformers sustained so severe a reverse that the capital was no longer a safe place for them. They had no money to pay the few mercenaries whom they had hired; the town was tired of them; and the earl Marischal, who had charge of the castle, held resolutely aloof.
As at the close of their previous rising, the leaders held a council at Stirling to determine their future policy; before they entered on their deliberations, Knox was called upon to preach a sermon--Knox, of whom it was said that he "put more life" into those who heard him "than five hundred trumpets continually blustering" in their ears. The deliberations that succeeded took a sufficiently practical shape. Young Maitland of Lethington, who had lately deserted the Regent for the Congregation, was despatched to England with offers that might induce Elizabeth to give direct support to the cause of Protestantism in Scotland. As to their own future action, the lords made the following arrangement: Châtelherault, Argyle, Glencairn, and the lords Boyd and Ochiltry were to make their head-quarters in Glasgow; while Arran, the lord James, the lords Rothes and Ruthven, and John Knox were to act from St. Andrew's as their centre. Their counsels at an end, they separated with the intention of reassembling at Stirling on December 16th. They had thus tried two falls with the Regent, and in both they had been worsted: the third trial of strength was to have a different ending.