Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/204

184  in pace sung for his soul. Because the weather was hot,' says the pitiless Knox, 'and his funeral could not suddenly be prepared, it was thought best to bestow enough of great salt upon him, a coffin of lead, and a corner in the bottom of the Sea Tower, to await what exequies his brethren the bishops would bestow upon him.'

Thus perished David Beton, and with him the cause of the Papacy in Scotland. The national faction survived his death. Mary of Guise and her friends continued to lean upon France, and the ancient religion appeared for a few years longer to maintain itself at their side. But the spirit of Romanism as a living superstition was extinguished with its latest representative; and the mass was no longer the expression of a true inward belief. Those who professed to be the friends of the Church shared with its enemies in its present plunder. In a few years the once beautiful fabric lay prostrate in confused ruin.