On 29th May 1546, while the applause of priests and friars was still ringing in his ears, and he was proudly congratulating himself on the progress of his new fortifications, and the success of all his measures to secure the triumph of his party and his own complete personal ascendancy, the cardinal was suddenly surprised by conspirators in his stronghold, and cut off by "a fate as tragical and ignominious" as almost "any that has ever been recorded in the long catalogue of human crimes."[84] Only the deep feeling of relief thus given from merciless oppression could prompt or excuse the lines of Sir David Lindsay-- "As for the Cardinal, I grant He was a man we weill culd want, And we'll forget him sune; But yet I think the sooth to say, Although the loon is weill away, The deed was foully dune."[85] When it became known that the conspirators who assassinated Betoun meant to hold the castle of St Andrews, they were joined by a considerable number of their friends from among the reforming gentry of Fife, and gradually by others from a greater distance who were friendly to the Reformation and the English alliance, and in consequence were then being subjected to many annoyances at the hands of the regent and his new following. Among these last, about Pasche 1547--in charge of his pupils, the sons of certain lairds in East Lothian--came John Knox, whose life, ever since he had cast in his lot with Wishart, had been made so miserable to him by the regent's bastard brother[86]--the aspirant to the vacant archbishopric--that, but for this refuge unexpectedly opened to him, he would have found it necessary to leave his native land and follow Alesius, Fyfe, and others to Germany or Switzerland. At the time when he arrived in St Andrews there was a truce between the regent and the occupants of the castle, and with the latter the inhabitants of the city had pretty free intercourse. The reforming citizens resorted at times to the services in the chapel of the castle; and John Rough, the chaplain of the garrison, under the powerful protection he enjoyed, occasionally forced his way into the parish church and preached there to the assembled citizens. [Sidenote: His Call to the Ministry.]