Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/322

 *v -V 302 REIGN OF ELIZABETH, [en. 44. not exempt from obedience to the law of the land, that the mass should be put utterly away, and the reformed service take the place of it in the royal chapel. Mary Stuart had been described by Randolph as so much changed that those who had known her when she was under Murray's and Maitland's tutelage were astonished at the alteration ; manner, words, features, all were different ; in mind and body she was said to be swollen and disfigured by the tumultuous working of her passions. So perhaps she may have appeared in Randolph's eyes ; and yet the change may have been more in Ran- dolph's power of insight than in the object at which he looked. Never certainly did she show herself cooler or more adroit than in her present emergency. She re* plied to the Assembly with returning from Perth to Edinburgh ; and as a first step towards recovering their confidence she attended a Protestant sermon. To the resolution of the General Assembly she delayed her answer, but she issued circulars protesting that neither then nor at any past time had she entertained a thought of interfering with her subjects' religion ; the tolera- tion which she had requested for herself she desired only to extend to others; her utmost wish had been that her subjects might worship God freely in the form which each most approved. 1 A Catholic sovereign sincerely pleading to a Pro- testant Assembly for liberty of conscience might have 1 Circular by the Queen, July 17.