From the preceding incidental notices of cards in poems and plays, as well as from the direct evidence of the statute book and the privy purse expenses of the Princess Mary, it would appear that card-playing was common in England during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, both in the cottage and the palace; and there is reason to believe that about the same period the game was equally common in Scotland. William Dunbar, who wrote in the reigns of James IV and James V, in his 'General Satire,' exposing the depravity of all classes of people in the kingdom, thus alludes to the prevalence of dicing and card-playing: "Sic knavis and crakkaris, to play at carts and dyce, Sic halland-scheckaris, qwhilk at Cowkilbyis gryce Are haldin of pryce, when lymaris do convene; Sic store of vyce, sae mony wittis unwyse, Within this land was nevir hard nor sene." In the poems of Sir David Lyndsay, there are several allusions to card-playing; and in his 'Satire of the Three Estaites,' which Chalmers says was first acted at Cupar, Fifeshire, in 1535, the Parson declares himself to be an adept at the game: "Thoch I preich nocht, I can play at the caiche: I wot there is nocht ane amang yow all Mair ferylie can play at the fute-ball; And for the cartis, the tabels, and the dyse, Above all parsouns I may beir the pryse." In Sir David's poem, entitled 'The Cardinal,' exposing the personal vices and tyrannical conduct of Cardinal Beaton, who was assassinated at St. Andrews in 1546, that prelate is represented as a great gamester:[130] "In banketting, playing at cartis and dyce, Into sic wysedome I was haldin wyse; And spairit nocht to play with king nor knicht, Thre thousand crownes of golde upon ane night." In the examination of Thomas Forret, a dean of the Kirk, and vicar of Dollar, on a charge of heresy brought against him by John Lauder, a tool of Cardinal Beaton's, at Edinburgh, 1st March, 1539, Forret's answer to one of the charges of his accuser, affords some idea of the manner in which many bachelor priests of the period were accustomed to spend their tithes: "_Accuser._ False Heretic, thou sayest it is not lawful to Kirkmen to take their teinds (tythes) and offerings and corps-presents, though we have been in use of them, constitute by the Kirk and King, and also our holy father the Pope hath confirmed the same? "_Dean Forret._ Brother, I said not so; but I said it was not lawful to Kirkmen to spend the patrimony of the Kirk, as they do, on riotous feasting, and on fair women, and at playing at cards and dice."[131]