astonishment, replaced the dead body in the bed, and entered into an agreement to conceal what they had witnessed; but God, unwilling that such a document should be unknown, disclosed it, “both by the amanuensis himself, [Robertus Kambel a Pinkincleugh,] soon after taken off by a similar death, and by others who, although unwillingly, made clear confessions.” De Confusione Calvin. Sectæ apud Scotos, fol. 66, 67. Those who have not access to the work itself, will find the original words extracted, although with some slight inaccuracies, by {353} Mackenzie. Lives of Scottish writers, iii, 131, 132. “All the rest of the Romish writers,” says Mackenzie, “insist upon such like ridiculous stories that are altogether improbable.” Hamilton’s fabrications gave occasion, however, to the publication of that minute and satisfactory narrative of the last illness and death of Knox, drawn up by one who waited on him all the time, and added by principal Smeton to the answer which he made to that virulent writer. See above, p. 219. Yet the popish writers continued to retail Hamilton’s story until a late period. It was published by Knot in his _Protestancy Condemned_, Doway 1654; and in _The Politician’s Catechism_, printed at Antwerp, 1658, “_permissu superiorum_.” Those who wish to see the variations which it had undergone by that time, and who have not met with these writings, may be satisfied by looking into Strype’s Life of Archbishop Parker, p. 367. “The miserable, horrible, detestable, and execrable deaths” of Luther, Calvin, and other heretics of that time, are particularly recorded by James Laing, in the work to which I have repeatedly referred. Note CC, Footnote 332. _Knox’s stipend._――The General Assembly held in March 1573, passed the following act:――“The Assemblie, considering that the travels of umqll Johne Knox, merits favourablie to be remembrit in his posteritie, gives to Margaret Stewart, his relict, and hir thrie daughters of the said umqll Johne, the pension qlk he himselfe had in his tyme of the kirk, and that for the year aproachand and following his deceis, of the year of God 1573, to their education and support, extending to five hundreth merks money, twa ch. quhait, sax ch. beir, four ch. aittes.” Buik of the Universall Kirk, p. 56.