YAMES K TO ABDICA TION OF QUEEN MAR Y. 61
The priests, resolving not to permit the day to pass without the usual celebration, borrowed
a small statue of the saint from the Grey Friars, which they firmly secured with iron
clamps to the “ fertorie ” or shrine,‘ in which it was usually borne aloft. And the more
fully to do honour to the occasion, and to overawe the turbulent populace, the Fiegent was
prevailed on to grace the procession with her presence. The statue was borne through the
principal streets of Edinburgh in great pomp, attended by the canons of St Giles’s Church,
and all the chief clergy in full canonicals, “ with tabrons and trumpets, banners and bagpipes.
It was convoyed about,
and brought down the Hie Street to the common Cross. The Queen Regent dined that
day in Alexander Carpenter’s house, betwixt the Bowes. When the idol returned back,
she left it and went in to her dinner.”=
The presence of the Regent had produced the desired effect in restraining the populace
from violence, but no sooner did she withdraw, than the Little St Giles,” as they contemptuously
styled the borrowed statue, was attacked with the most determined violence,
and speedily shared the fate of its predecessor. The scene is thus graphically told by the
same historian from whom we have already quoted ;-‘( Immediately after the Queen
entered her lodging, some of them drew near to the idol, as willing to help to bear him
up, and getting the fertorie upon their shoulders, beganne to shudder, thinking thereby
the idol should have fallen. Then began
one to cry ‘ Down with the Idol I down with it ! ’ So without delay it was pulled down.
The patrons of the priests made some brags at the first ; but when the priests and friars
saw the feebleness of their god, they fled faster than they did at Pinkey Cleugh.’ One of
the professors [of the reformed doctrines) taking Saint Giles by the heels, and dadding
his head to the causeway, left Dagon without head or hands ; exclaiming, Fy on thee,
Young Saint Giles, thy father would not have been so used ! ’ The friars fleeing,” and as
Knox exultingly declares, ‘( down go the crosses, off go the surplices, round caps and cornets
with the crowns. The Grey Friars gaped, the Black Friars blew, the Priests panted
and fled, and happy was he that got first to the house, for such a sudden fray came never
among the generation of antichrist within this realm before.” ‘
This same year, 1558, Knox issued his famous “ first blast of the trumpet against the
monstrous regiment of women,” in which he attacks the Regent, along with Mary Queen
of England, and, indeed, all female rule ; by which he afterwards brought on himself the
personal enmity of Queen Elizabeth, even more than that of those against whom it was
directed. By his instructions the reforming party had organised themselves under the name
of the CONGREQATIOaNn,d their leaders now assumed the guidance in all the great movements
that occurred, entering into negotiations and treaties like a sovereign power. The
accession of Queen Elizabeth to the throne of England further added to their influence, as
she failed not to strengthen, by every available means, the hands of the Protestant party,
and it consisted with her wonted course of policy thus to maintain her ascendancy by undermiuing
the power of an opponent, rather than incur the consequences of an open rupture.
The unfortunate claim which the chiefs of the house of Guise, uncles to the youthful Queen
of Scotland, put forward in her name, as the legitimate successor of Queen May of Eng-
.
The Queen Regent led the ring for honour of the feast.
But that chance was prevented by yron nailes.
.
’ Calderwood‘e Hiatory, VOL i p. 346. ’ Koor’s Hist, p. 95.
Pertow, a little coffer or chest ; a casket-Jamieson.
a Ante, p. 51.
