Beatoun assembled at St. Andrews the prelates and the nobles who enjoyed his confidence. An elevated seat was provided for him in the cathedral, and he sat there in his twofold character of primate and of cardinal. The earls of Huntley, Arran, and Montrose, the earl Marshall, and Lords Erskine, Lyndsay, Fleming, Seaton, and many other barons and men of rank, Gawin, archbishop of Glasgow and chancellor, the bishops of Aberdeen, Galloway, and others besides, abbots and priors, deans and doctors of theology, were around him. David Beatoun, proud to see beneath him that illustrious and brilliant assembly, began to speak. He set forth with warm feeling the dangers to which the multiplication of heretics was exposing the Roman faith: the audacity with which they avowed their opinions, even at the court, where they found too much support, he added, alluding thus to the famous dramatic representation with which James had been so struck. Then impatient to show the serious import of his words, he announced that he had cited before that assembly Sir John Borthwick, brother of the lord of the same name, provost of Linlithgow, who had probably had a hand in the satirical drama. ‘This heretic gives out,’ he said, ‘that the pope has no more authority than other bishops, that his indulgences have no other effect than to deceive the people, that the religious orders ought to be abolished, that all ecclesiastics are at liberty to marry, and in short, that the Scots, blinded by their clergy, do not profess the true faith. He reads and circulates the New Testament in English, and divers treatises of Melanchthon, Œcolampadius, and Erasmus, and refuses to submit to the see of Rome.’ Borthwick, instead of going to St. Andrews, set out in all haste for England, where he was well received by Henry VIII., and was afterwards employed by him as one of his commissioners to the princes of Germany. But although Beatoun could not send the lamb to the slaughter, he could at least find the way to possess himself of the fleece. On May 28 the confiscation of Sir John’s property was pronounced and his effigy was burnt, first at St. Andrews and two days after at Edinburgh. The fire did him no great harm, but it served to give a certain point to the cardinal’s discourse.[232]