Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/421

1528.] untroubled with theological subtleties, has sketched the popular feeling in a series of scenes shining with laughter and humorous defiance, but so free from bitterness, that even anger seems to melt into contemptuous pity.

There was no occasion to look far for scandal. In Scotland all the chiefest ecclesiastical vices were in the bloom of maturity, coarse, patent, and palpable. The scattered pictures of them which Knox has left are, in fact, the history of Scottish Protestantism.

In a skirmish in one of the Border wars a certain Alexander Ferrier was taken prisoner, and being unransomed, remained several years in captivity. On returning home, at last, he found that 'a priest, according to the charity of kirkmen, had entertained his wife, and wasted his substance.' He was loud in his outcries, and in consequence was 'delated' for heresy, and cited before a tribunal of bishops at St Andrew's. The following sketch appears to have been a literal transcript of the scene which took place in the court: 'Mr Alexander,' being brought in, 'leapt up merrily upon the scaffold, and casting a gamound, said, 'Where are the rest of the players?' Mr Andrew Oliphant (the clerk of the court), offended therewith, said, 'It shall be no play to you, sir, before you depart;' and so began to read his accusation, the first article whereof was that he despited the mass. His answer was, 'I hear more masses in eight days than the bishops there sitting say in a year.' Accused, secondly, for contempt of the sacraments. 'The priests,' he said, 'were the most