Norfolk was not wrong. The cardinal, having won over the king by flattery and by the heavy fines extorted from the evangelical Christians, was eager to take advantage of the circumstance for the destruction of the Reform and the satisfaction of some grudges of long standing. A monk named Killon, possessing some poetic talent, had composed, after the fashion of the age, a tragedy on the death of Christ. On the morning of Good Friday, probably in 1536, a numerous audience had assembled at Stirling to hear it. The king himself and the court were present. The piece presented a lively picture of the spirit and the conduct of the Romish clergy. The action was animated, the characters well marked, and the words vigorous and sometimes rude. Fanatical priests and hard-hearted Pharisees instigated the people to demand the death of Jesus, and procured from Pilate his condemnation. The design of this work was so marked that the simplest folk said to one another, ‘It is just the same with us: the bishops and the monks get those persecuted who love Jesus Christ.’[213] The clergy abstained for the moment from molesting Killon, but they took note of his daring drama. Another Gospeller had left very unpleasant memories in Beatoun’s mind. This was the good dean Forrest, who had boldly said that he had never found either a bad epistle or a bad gospel. The cardinal was only waiting for an opportunity to arrest him, Killon, and others. He had not long to wait. When the vicar of Tullybody, near Stirling, was married, Forrest and Killon had attended the ceremony, as well as a monk named Beverage, Sir Duncan Sympson, a priest, a gentleman named Robin Forrester, and three or four other people of Stirling.[214] At the marriage feast, at the beginning of Lent, they had eaten flesh, according to that word of St. Paul, ‘Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat.’ On March 1, 1539, or according to some authorities, on the last day of February,[215] they were all seized and taken before the cardinal and the bishops of Glasgow and Dunkeld, who indulged in practices far more criminal than the eating of what God made for that purpose. [Sidenote: PROSECUTION OF FORREST AND KILLON.] The official accuser, John Lauder, one of Beatoun’s creatures, addressing Forrest rudely, said to him--‘False heretic! thou sayest it is not lawful to kirkmen to take their teinds [tithes] and offerings and corpse presents.’ And the dean Forrest replied, ‘Brother, I said not so: but I said it was not lawful to kirkmen to spend the patrimony of the kirk as they do, as on riotous feasting and on fair women, and at playing at cards and dice: and neither the kirk well maintained nor the people instructed in God’s Word, nor the sacraments duly administered to them as Christ commanded.’ _Accuser_: ‘Dare thou deny that which is openly known in the country? that thou gave again to thy parishioners _the cow_ and the _upmost cloths_, saying you had no right to them? ’