Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/47

1544.] treacherous. One week Lennox was reported to be wavering, and Angus to have again relapsed to Beton. The next week brought news that Angus and his brother were prisoners in Blackness. Among the various offers and informations, one proposal was made which requires particular mention, affecting as it does the character of a remarkable party and of many remarkable men.

In the novelty of a first acquaintance with the Old Testament, the Scotch Protestants beheld in the history of the chosen people a counterpart of their own position. They, too, were a 'remnant' whom idolatrous tyrants would compel to burn incense to Baal. They, too, were betrayed by apostate governors who had turned away from the truth and had joined with the enemies of the Lord. And seeing how, under 'the covenant,' the oppressors were disposed of—how the letter of the law was set aside by the spirit—how the Ehuds, the Jaels, the Jehus, the Jehoiadas—how those who smote tyrants in the field with the sword, or in the closet with the dagger, were accounted faithful servants,—they imagined that conduct which in the Bible was emphatically applauded was a safe precedent for imitation. As