Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/216

 OF ELIZABETH. [en. 53 Measured by years his career was wonderfully brief. He was twenty-five when the English, were at Leith : he was thirty-five when he was killed. But in times of revolution men mature quickly. His lot had been cast in the midst of convulsions where, at any moment, had he cared for personal advantages, a safe and prosperous course lay open to him ; but so far as his conduct can be traced, his interests were divided only between duty to his country, duty, as he understood it, to God, and affection for his unfortunate sister. France tried in vain to bribe him, for he knew that the true good of Scotland -lay in alliance and eventual union with its ancient enemy ; and he preferred to be used, trifled with, or trampled on by Elizabeth to being the trusted and valued friend of Catherine de Medici. In all Europe there was not a man more profoundly true to the principles of the Reformation, or more consistently in the best sense of the word a servant of God. His house was compared to ' a holy temple/ where no foul word was ever spoken. A chapter of the Bible was read every day after dinner and supper in his family. One or more ministers of the Kirk were usually among his guests, and the conversation chiefly turned on some serious subject. Yet no one was more free from sour austerity. He quarrelled once with Knox, ' so that they spoke not together for eighteen months/ because his nature shrunk from extremity of intolerance, because he insisted that while his sister remained a Catholic she should not be interdicted from the mass. The hard convictions of the old Reformer were justified by the