The reformer considered these appearances as declarations of divine wrath against the iniquity of the land, and he is evidently solicitous to establish them upon good evidence. There can be no difficulty in admitting the facts he refers to. The debate must be as to what the facts were. Most probably they were resolvable into a simple example of the _aurora borealis._ * * * * * The crimes of unruly passion and of superstition predominated in this age; but those of dexterous selfishness were not unknown. [Sidenote: 1563-4. FEB.] Thomas Peebles, goldsmith in Edinburgh, was convicted of forging coin-stamps and uttering false coin--namely, _Testons_, _Half-testons_, _Non-sunts_, and _Lions_ or _Hardheads_. It appeared that he had given some of his false hardheads to a poor woman as the price of a burden of coal. With this money she came to the market to buy some necessary articles, and was instantly challenged for passing false coin. ‘The said Thomas being named by her to be her warrant, and deliverer of the said false coin to her, David Symmer and other bailies of the burgh of Edinburgh come with her to the said Thomas’s chalmer, to search him for trial of the verity. He held the door of his said chalmer close upon him, and wald not suffer them to enter, while [till] they brake up the door thereof upon him, and entered perforce therein; and the said Thomas, being inquired if he had given the said poor woman the said lions, for the price of her coals, confessit the same; and his chalmer being searched, there was divers of the said irons, as well sunken and unsunken, together with the said false testons, &c., funden in the same, and confessit to be made and graven by him and his colleagues.’ Thomas was condemned to be hanged, and to have his property escheat to the queen.--_Pit._ * * * * * [Sidenote: MAR. 22.] In consequence of the slaughter of the Laird of Cessford, in an encounter with the Laird of Buccleuch, at Melrose, in 1526, a feud had ever since raged between their respective dependents, the Kerrs and Scotts. In 1529, there had been an effort to put an end to this broil by an engagement between Walter Kerr of Cessford, Andrew Kerr of Ferniehirst, Mark Kerr of Dolphinston, George Kerr, tutor of Cessford, and Andrew Kerr of Primsideloch, for themselves and kin on the one part, and Walter Scott of Branxholm, knight, with sundry other gentlemen of his clan on the other side, whereby the latter became bound to perform the four pilgrimages of Scotland--that is, to the churches of Melrose, Dundee, Scone, and Paisley--as a reparation for the slaughter. Bad blood being nevertheless kept up, Sir Walter Scott of Branxholm, Laird of Buccleuch, was slain on the streets of Edinburgh by Cessford, in 1552.[25] [Sidenote: 1563-4.]