[John Knox and the Reformation by Andrew Lang]@TWC D-Link book
John Knox and the Reformation

CHAPTER XI: KNOX'S INTRIGUES, AND HIS ACCOUNT OF THEM, 1559
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"A manifest lie," says Knox, "for she never thought of it till we demanded it." He does not give a date to the Regent's paper, but on June 25 Kirkcaldy wrote to Percy that the Regent "is like to grant the other party" (the Reformers) "all they desire, which in part she has offered already." {136a} Knox seizes on the word "offered" as if it necessarily meant "offered though unasked," and so styles the Regent's remark "a manifest lie." But Kirkcaldy, we see, uses the words "has in part offered already" when he means that the Regent has "offered" to grant some of the wishes of his allies.
Meanwhile the Regent will allow freedom of conscience in the country, and especially in Edinburgh.

But the Reformers, her paper goes on, desire to subvert the crown.

To prove this she says that they daily receive messengers from England and send their own; and they have seized the stamps in the Mint (a capital point as regards the crown) and the Palace of Holyrood, which Lesley says that they sacked.

Knox replies, "there is never a sentence in the narrative true," except that his party seized the stamps merely to prevent the issue of base coin (not to coin the stolen plate of the churches and monasteries for themselves, as Lesley says they did).

But Knox's own letters, and those of Kirkcaldy of Grange and Sir Henry Percy, prove that they _were_ intriguing with England as early as June 23-25.


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