Mayor went further still, even to the blameworthy extreme of asserting that in certain cases the king might be put to death.[20] These political principles, professed by one who occupied a Roman Catholic chair, thoroughly scholastic and superstitious, must have influenced the convictions of Buchanan, who afterwards, in his dialogue _De Jure Regni apud Scotos_, professed opinions which were energetically controverted, even by Protestants. ‘In the beginning,’ said he, ‘we created legitimate kings, and we established laws binding equally on them and on ourselves.’[21] These political heresies of the sixteenth century are the truths of our days. The principles of Mayor were certainly not received without exception by Knox, but they had probably something to do with the firmness with which he maintained the rights of the Word of God in the presence of Mary Stuart. For the moment, Knox, disgusted with the barren theology of his master--a stanch scholastic on many points--forsook the wilderness of the schools and applied himself to the quest of the living fountains of the Word of God. In 1523 Mayor removed from Glasgow to St. Andrews. [Sidenote: PATRICK HAMILTON AT ST. ANDREWS.] It was to St. Andrews that Patrick Hamilton betook himself on his return from the Continent, after a visit to the bereaved family of Kincavil. He was admitted on June 9 of the same year into the University of the metropolitan city, and on October 3 of the following year he was received member of the faculty of letters. St. Andrews had powerful attractions for him. No other university in the kingdom had on its staff so many enlightened men; and the college of St. Leonard’s, which he entered, was the one whose teaching had the most liberal tendencies. The studies which he had pursued, the knowledge which he had acquired, and the rank which he held, gave him distinction among his fellow-disciples. Buchanan, a severe judge, looked on him as a ‘young man of great intellect and of astonishing learning.’[22] Hamilton held the hypocrisy of the monks in such abomination that he never would adopt either their dress or their way of life; and although he was abbot of Ferne he never took up his residence in his monastery. Skilled in the musical art, he composed a chant in parts, which was performed in the cathedral, and delighted the hearers. He did more: he dreamed, as all reformers do at the outset of their career, of the transformation of the Catholic Church; he resolved to seek the imposition of hands, ‘in order,’ says Fryth, ‘that he might preach the pure Word of God.’ Hamilton did not, to be sure, preach at that time with the boldness and the power of a Luther or a Farel. He loved the weak; he felt himself weak; and being full of lowly-mindedness, he was content to impart faithfully the truth which he had received.