Page:Life of John Knox (4).pdf/18

18 because bound to transport all the French soldiers to the other side of the Frith, and send commissioners to St Andrew's with full powers to conclude a formal treaty of peace.

Several days clapsed without any person appearing on the part of the queen, and suspecting some new plan to entrap them, the Protestants, after concerting measures to expel the French garrison from Perth, wrote to her Majesty, complaining that the terms of the first treaty were still unfulfilled, and begging her to withdraw her troops from that city in conformity with its stipulations. Their letters remaining unnoticed, they laid siege to Perth, which surrendered, after a feeble resistance, on the 26th June, 1559.

Being informed that the Queen resolved to seize Stirling, and cut off the communication between the reformers on the opposite sides of the Frith, by a rapid anarch they frustrated her plans, and in three days, after they had made themselves masters of Perth, the victorious reformers entered Edinburgh. The Queen on their approach retired to Dunbar,-where she amused them with hopes of an accommodation in the expectation of being joined with reinforcements from France, Intelligence, in the meantime, was received of the death of the French king, which, while it was favourable to the cause of the reformers, rendered their leaders more negligent and secure. Numbers of them left the city on their private affairs, their followers were obliged to disperse for want of money, and those who did remain were without discipline or restraint. The Queen, having received advice of this, by means of her spies, marched with all the forces she could muster directly to Edinburgh, and possessed herself, on the 25th of July, of Leith. She consented, however, to a truce, to continue till