Beatoun, while sacrificing many victims, had lit a fire on elevated ground, ‘to the effect that the rest of the bischoppes myght schaw thame selfis no less fervent to suppress the light of God.’[224] That signal was not made in vain. In the town of Ayr, in the midst of the rich plains of that fertile county, was a young gentleman named Kennedy, about eighteen years of age, who had received a liberal education, and had tasted of the Gospel, without however attaining a well-grounded faith; a state sufficiently accounted for by his years. Gifted with some poetic faculty he had not spared the ignorance of the priests. Kennedy was seized and cast into prison. In the same diocese, that of Glasgow, there lived in a convent of the Cordeliers one of those enlightened and pious monks who shone like stars in the deep night of the age. His name was Jerome Russel; his character was good, his wit ready, and his mind enriched with literary acquirements. Wharton, writing to Lord Cromwell in November 1538, speaks of a friar John, a well-informed man who was imprisoned at Dumfries at the instance of the bishops, and who had been loaded with chains because he professed respecting the law of God the same opinions which were held in England.[225] It is not to be doubted that he speaks of Russel. Dumfries is not far from Ayr. The archbishop of Glasgow, Gawin Dunbar, was not of so persecuting a spirit as Beatoun, and as lord chancellor he was invested with the highest authority in the state. It was then the summer of 1539, and as Beatoun, although named cardinal, had not yet received the pontifical act which conferred on him that dignity, he could not have dared to appear in the diocese of Glasgow with his cross borne before him. But it was not enough for him to know that the learned Russel and the young Kennedy were in prison, he must get them burnt. Consequently he sent to Glasgow his favorite agent Lauder, who could affect insinuating manners and put on exaggerated pretensions to compass his ends. The clever notary Andrew Oliphant and the ardent monk Mortman accompanied him, charged to obtain from the archbishop the promise ‘that he would imbrue his hands in the blood of the friends of God.’ Knox therefore calls these three men _Satan’s sergeants_. [Sidenote: TRIAL OF KENNEDY AND RUSSEL.]