Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 9.djvu/258

 244 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH, 54. force in the State. The poor clay which a generation earlier the haughty baron would have trodden into slime, had been heated red-hot in the furnace of a new faith ; and Randolph, though at first he could ill realize the change, found himself in an altered world. With Murray was gone all that was conciliatory, all that was gentle, all that was chivalrous in Scottish Protestantism. It was shaped by Knox into a creed for the people a creed in which the ten commandments were more im- portant than the sciences, and the Bible than all the literature of the world ; narrow, fierce, defiant, but hard as steel, and with strength enough to prevent Elizabeth's diplomacies from ruining both herself and Scotland. The first public act of Randolph was to take part in a mournful solemnity. The body of the Regent Murray was brought from Linlithgow to Leith, and thence on the I4th of February to its resting-place in St Giles' church. The country for the moment forgot its feuds to pay honour to the noblest of Scotland's sons. Lords and gentlemen, knights and citizens, all who were able, came together to take part in the sad pro- cession. The standard was borne by Grange. Five earls and three barons * carried the coffin, and behind was a train of mourners 'in such sorrow' as Randolph 'never saw.' Three thousand people were in the church, and the funeral sermon was preached by Knox. His text was ' Blessed are the dead which die in the 1 Morton, Mar, Glencairn, Cassilis, Ruthven, Lindsay, Ochiltree, and Crlamis.