He was still more indignant at their management in settling the provision for the ministers of the church. Hitherto they had lived chiefly on the benevolence of their hearers, and many of them had scarcely the means of subsistence; but repeated complaints having obliged the privy council to take up the affair, they came at last to a determination, that the ecclesiastical revenues should be divided into three parts; that two of these should be given to the ejected popish clergy; and that the third part should be divided between the court and the protestant ministry![55] The persons {44} appointed to “modify the stipends,”[56] were disposed to gratify the queen, and her demands were readily answered, while the sums allotted to the ministers were as ill paid as they were paltry and inadequate. “Weall!” exclaimed Knox, when he heard of this disgraceful arrangement, “if the end of this ordour, pretendit to be takin for sustentatioun of the ministers, be happie, my judgement failes me. I sie twa pairtis freelie gevin to the devill, and the third mon be devyded betwix God and the devill. Who wald have thocht, that when Joseph reulled in Egypt, his brethren sould have travellit for victualles, and have returned with emptie sackes unto thair families? O happie servands of the devill, and miserabill servants of Jesus Christ, if efter this lyf thair wer not hell and heavin!”[57] At a conference held on this subject, {45} Maitland complained of the ingratitude of the ministers, who did not acknowledge the queen’s liberality to them. “Assuredly,” replied Knox, with a derisive smile, “such as receive any thing of the queen are unthankful, if they acknowledge it not; but whether the ministers be of that rank or not, I greatly doubt. Has the queen better title to that which she usurps, be it in giving to others, or in taking to herself, than such as crucified Christ had to divide his garments among them? Let the papists who have the two parts, some that have their thirds free, and some that have gotten abbacies and feu‑lands, thank the queen; the poor preachers will not yet flatter for feeding their bellies. To your dumb dogs, formerly ten thousand was not enough; but to the servants of Christ, that painfully preach his evangell, a thousand pound! how can that be sustained?”――“These words,” he himself tells us, “were judged proud and intolerable, and engendered no small displeasure to the speaker.”[58]