of which discipline was completely relaxed. Several attempts were made to bring about a reformation, but on account of the exemptions and special privileges claimed by the religious houses, such attempts were doomed to failure, whether they were made by the bishops or by the regular superiors. Nothing less than a papal visitation, in which the visitors could have relied upon the full power of the Church and State, would have sufficed to put an end to the evil, and unfortunately no such step was taken in time to avert the calamity. As elsewhere, so too in Scotland, it was no uncommon thing to find one man holding several benefices to which the care of souls was attached, notwithstanding all the canons that had been passed against such a glaring abuse. The clergy, following the example of so many of their superiors, showed themselves entirely unworthy of their position. Many of them were quite negligent about preaching and instructing their flock, completely regardless of clerical celibacy, and oftentimes they devoted more attention to their farms and to their cattle than to their religious obligations. One has only to refer to the decrees of the diocesan synods held by Archbishop Forman of St. Andrew's (1515- 22),[3] to the national synods of 1549-1552, and to the letter of Cardinal Sermoneta to the Pope in 1557[4] to see how grievous were the abuses flourishing in all departments of the Church in Scotland at the time when the very existence of Catholicism in the kingdom was trembling in the balance. The root of all this evil was the destruction of the independence of the Church, and its complete subjugation to the crown and to the lords. As a result, when the crisis came and when most of the lords went over to the party of Knox, they found but little resistance from their unworthy relatives, whom they had introduced into positions of trust, not that they might promote religion, but that they might live by it, and in the end betray it.