at the period we speak of), “these be the men that corrupt the whole generation in your realm, that catch the pox of one woman, and bear it to another; that be burnt with one woman, and bear it to another.”[632] Clerical morals and manners were not in a much healthier state on the Scottish side of the Border. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, we have not on record any such obscene scandal as was detailed in a previous century in the _Chronicle of Lanercost_ regarding Priest John, who is alleged to have publicly celebrated phallic orgies among the young inhabitants of his parish of Inverkeithing,[633] a town which was certainly a place of no small note and importance in these early days. But clerical morals were still confessedly in a sad state about the time that syphilis first appeared in this part of the island. The _General Satyre_ of Scotland, written, as I have already stated, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, stigmatises amongst other things— “Sic pryd with prellatis, so few till preiche and pray, Sic haunt of harlettis with thame, baythe nicht and day.”[634] Queen Mary would seem to have regarded the health of the high Roman church dignitary who baptized her son James VI. with considerable suspicion, perhaps, however, only in as much as he was one of a class with a very bad character in that respect. King James, in “A Premonition to all most mightie Monarchs, Kings, Free Princes, and States of Christendome,”[635] thus refers to it:—“For first, I am no apostate, as the Cardinal (Bellarmine) would make me, not onely having ever been brought up in that religion which I presently professe, but even my father and grandfather on that side professing the same: and so cannot be properly an Heratike, by there own doctrine, since I never was of their church; and as for the Queene my mother of worthy memorie, although she continued in that religion wherein she was nourished, yet she was so farre from being superstitious or Jesuited therein, that at my Baptisme (although I was baptized by a Popish Archbishop) she sent him word to forbeare to use the spettle in my baptisme; which was obeyed, being indeed a filthy, and an apish trick, rather in scorne than in imitation of Christ; and her owne very words were, that ‘She would not have a pokie priest to spet in her child’s mouth.’”