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 THE PORTRAITS OF JOHN KNOX. 269 brance of which private fact was naturally precious and priceless all the rest of his life. The actual successes of these 6,000 veteran French were small compared with their expectations ; the weary siege of Haddington, where Somerset had left a garrison, not very wisely thought military critics, they had endless diifficulties with, and, but for the pest among the townsfolk and garrison, were never like to have succeeded in. The fleet however stood gloriously out to sea; and carried home a prize, they themselves might reckon next to inestimable, — ^the royal little Mary, age six, crowned five years ago Queen of Scots, and now covenanted to wed the Dauphin of France, and be brought up in that country, with immense advantage to the same. They steered northward by the Pentland Firth, then round by the Hebrides and West coast of Ireland, prosper- ously through the summer seas; and by about the ^nd of July 1548, their jewel of a child was safe in St. Germain-en-Laye : the brightest and bonniest little Maid in all the world, — setting out, alas, towards the blackest destiny ! — Most of this winter Knox sat in the prison of