[6] Because of its permanent importance, I deem it best to insert here a note from my Introduction to 'The Gude and Godlie Ballatis,' p. lxiv: "We do not need to call in Knox, or Lindsay, or the satirists, in evidence of this humbling fact. The testimony of their own councils, of the Acts of Parliament, and of some of their best men, as Principal Hay in his congratulatory address to Cardinal Betoun, and Ninian Winzet in the sad appeals and confessions inserted in his 'Tractates,' as well as that of impartial modern historians like Tytler and Dr Joseph Robertson, is more than sufficient to establish it beyond contradiction. The testimony of Conæus, who died when about to be raised to the purple, covers almost all that Alesius and Knox have averred: 'In multorum sacerdotum aedibus scortum publicum ... nec a sacrilego quorundam luxu tutus erat matronarum honos aut virginalis pudor.' More notable still is the representation given in the 'Memoire' addressed to the Pope by Queen Mary and the Dauphin, evidently at the instance of Mary of Guise, in which the spread of heresy is expressly attributed to the ignorance and immorality of the clergy. See Appendix B, vol. ii., of Mr Hume Brown's recent biography of Knox." [7] [So early as the 23rd of June 1559, Knox wrote to Mrs Anna Lock: "Diverse channons of Sanct Andrewes have given notable confessiouns, and have declared themselves manifest enemies to the pope, to the masse, and to all superstitioun" (Laing's Knox, vi. 26). In all probability some of these canons were included among the fourteen canons of St Andrews Priory who are mentioned as Protestants in January 1571-72, and of whom twelve were then parish ministers ('Booke of the Universall Kirk,' Bannatyne Club, i. 222). None of these fourteen is found signing the General Band of 13th July 1559, which in St Andrews was adopted as "the letters of junctioun to the Congregatioun"; but eighteen priests did sign it; and of the other thirteen ecclesiastics who there made sweeping recantations, at least six may be held to have joined the congregation, for they not only confessed that "we haif ower lang abstractit ourselfis and beyne sweir in adjuning us to Christes Congregatioun," but they promised "in tyme cuming to assist in word and wark with unfenyiet mynde this Congregatioun" ('Register of St Andrews Kirk-Session,' Scot. Hist. Soc., i. 10-18). In 1573 it was stated that "the most part of the persons who were channons monks and friars within this realme have made profession of the true religion" ('Booke of the Universall Kirk,' i. 280).] [8] [Enacted by the University on 10th June 1416 (M'Crie's Melville, 1824, i. 420).] [9] [Enacted by Parliament on 12th March 1424-25 (Acts of Parliament, ii. 7).] [10] Robertson's Concilia Scotiæ, vol. i. p. lxxviii. [11] [For an account of this Scottish cleric--Thomas, Abbot of Dundrennan--who so greatly distinguished himself at the Council of Basle, see 'Concilia Scotiæ,' vol. i. pp. xcvii-xcix.]