To William Kirkcaldy, Peter Carmichael, Robert and William Lesley, what was then one of the most formidable fortresses in the kingdom, was assigned as a place of confinement. Built on a huge rock of granite, in the blue, savage Norman Bay, there stood the imposing structure upon which the admiration of the Middle-Ages bestowed the name of the Wonder of the West. Situated some four miles from the nearest point of the mainland, it was guarded by the sea at high water, but became more inaccessible still when, for a couple of hours each day, the ebbing tide left nothing but a wide expanse of treacherous quicksands between it and the coast. This was the abbey-fortress of Mont Saint-Michel, that ‘wonderfully strong place upon the sea-shore,’ which had proved the bulwark of Normandy during the long struggle between England and France, and in which insignificant garrisons of determined men had, time and again, successfully held out against the assaults of beleaguering thousands. Here it was that the four Scottish prisoners were destined to spend many months of captivity. But the very fastness of their isolated prison was not without advantage for them. It inspired the Governor with such confidence that he deemed it unnecessary to deprive them of the restricted liberty that the rock afforded. The only annoyance to which they were submitted, was one which affected them through their religious opinions, and which they shared in common with the Scottish prisoners in other parts of the country. Knox relates that those who were in the galleys were threatened with torments if they would not give reverence to the Mass, and that they would have been compelled to kiss a statue of the Virgin, if one of them had not seized it and cast it into the Loire. At Cherbourg, too, the governor of the castle did his utmost to induce Sir James Kirkcaldy and his companions to attend Mass with him. When they refused to do so, he threatened to compel them; but they warned him that, if he chose to adopt such a course, they would, by their irreverent behaviour, let all present know their contempt for the ceremony. William Kirkcaldy, with his three fellow-captives, was subjected to the same importunities by the captain to whose keeping he had been entrusted at Mont Saint-Michel. With equal firmness, though in a more bantering tone, he replied for himself and for them, that ‘they would not only hear Mass every day but also help to say it, providing they might stick the priests; otherwise not.’