The year of God 1563, there was an universal dearth in Scotland. But in the northland, where, the harvest before, the Queen had travelled, there was an extreme famine, in the which many died in that country. The dearth was great over all, but the famine was principally there. The boll of wheat gave six pounds; the boll of bere, six merks and a half; the boll of meal, four merks; the boll of oats, fifty shillings; an ox to draw in the plough, twenty merks; a wether, thirty shillings. And so all things appertaining to the sustentation of man, in triple and more exceeded their accustomed prices. And so did God, according to the threatening of his law, punish the idolatry of our wicked Queen, and our ingratitude, that suffered her to defile the land with that abomination again, that God so potently had purged, by the power of his word. For the riotous feasting, and excessive banqueting, used in Court and country, wheresoever that wicked woman repaired, provoked God to strike the staff of bread, and to give his malediction upon the fruits of the earth. But, O alas! who looked, or yet looks to this very cause of all our calamities. _STINKING PRIDE OF WOMEN_ 1563.--The Meeting of Parliament. _Laing's Knox_, vol. ii. p. 381. Such stinking pride of women, as was seen at that Parliament, was never seen before in Scotland. Three sundry days, the Queen rode to the Tolbooth; the first day, she made a painted oration, and there might have been heard amongst her flatterers, "_Vox Dianæ_, the Voice of a Goddess (for it could not be Dei) and not of a woman. God save that sweet face. Was there ever Orator spake so properly and so sweetly?" All things misliking the Preacher, they spake boldly against the targetting of their taillies {_i.e._ the adornment of their robes with tassels}, and against the rest of their vanity, which they affirmed should provoke God's vengeance, not only against these foolish women, but against the whole realm.... Articles were presented, for orders to be taken for apparel, and for reformation of other enormities; but all was winked at. _KNOX'S INTERVIEWS WITH THE QUEEN_ 1563.--May or June. Knox and the Queen. _Laing's Knox_, vol. ii. p. 386.