{88c} They ask, as they have the reading of the Scriptures in the vernacular, for common prayers in the same.

They wish for freedom to interpret and discuss the Bible "in our conventions," and that Baptism and the Communion may be done in Scots, and they demand the reform of the detestable lives of the prelates.

{88d} Knox's account, in places, appears really to refer to the period of the Provincial Council of March 1559, though it does not quite fit that date either.
The Regent is said on the occasion of Calder's petition, and after the unsatisfactory replies of the clergy (apparently at the Provincial Council, March 1559), to have made certain concessions, till Parliament established uniform order.

But the Parliament was of November-December 1558.

{89a} Before that Parliament, at all events (which was mainly concerned with procuring the "Crown Matrimonial" for the Dauphin, husband of Mary Stuart), the brethren offered a petition, in the first place shown to the Regent, asking for (1) the suspension of persecuting laws till after a General Council has "decided all controversies in religion"-- that is, till the Greek Calends.