realty as either parent might have acquired, but was incapable of other inheritance, direct or collateral.1

The Church was obliged to submit to this temporising tolerance of evil, and condescended to entreaty since force was no longer permitted. In 1581 the Council of Rouen, while deploring the number of monks and nuns who had left their convents, apostatised, and married, directs that they shall be tempted back, treated with kindness, and pardon be sought for them from the Holy See. In the final settlement of the religious troubles, the concessions made by Henry III. were renewed and somewhat amplified by the Edict of Nantes in 1598.3 When the reaction came, however, these provisions were held to be only retrospective in their action, and were not admitted as legalising subsequent marriages. Thus in 1628 a knight of Malta, in 1630 a nun, and in 1640 a priest of Nevers, who had embraced Calvinism, ventured on matrimony, but were separated from their spouses and the marriages were pronounced null. These decisions were based on the principle that the celibacy of ecclesiastics was prescribed by municipal as well as by canon law, and that a priest in abjuring his religion did not escape from the obligations imposed upon him by the laws of the kingdom."

In Scotland, as in France, the question of sacerdotal marriage may be considered as having virtually been settled in advance. Lollardry had not been confined to the southern portion of Great Britain. It had penetrated

1 Edit de 1576, Art. 9.-Edit de Poitiers, Art. Secrets, No. 8 (Isambert, T. XV. pp. 283, 331).

2 Concil Rotomag. ann. 1581 cap. de Monasteriis § 32 (Harduin. X. 1253). 3 Edit de Nantes, Art. Secrets, No. 39 (Isambert, T. XVI. p. 206).

4 Grégoire, Hist. du Mariage des Prêtres en France, pp. 58–9.

5 A decision rendered on the argument of the distinguished avocat-général Omer Talon expressly states "que la prohibition du mariage des personnes constituées dans les ordres etant une loi de l'Etat aussi bien que de l'Eglise, un prêtre malgré sa profession de Calvinisme, était demeuré sujet aux lois de l'Etat, et dès lors n'avait pas pu valablement contracter mariage."-Bouhier de l'Ecluse, de l'Etat des Prêtres en France, Paris, 1842, p. 12.

into Scotland, and had received the countenance of those whose position and influence were well calculated to aid in its dissemination among the people. In 1494, thirty of these heretics, known as "the Lollards of Kyle," were prosecuted before James IV. by Robert Blacater, Archbishop of Glasgow. Their station may be estimated from the fact that they escaped the punishment due to their sins by the favour of the monarch, "for divers of them were his great familiars." The thirty-four articles of accusation brought against them are mostly Wickliffite in tendency, and their views on the question of celibacy are manifested in the twenty-second article, which accuses them of asserting "That Priests may have wives according to the constitution of the Law and of the Primitive Christian Church."1

The soil was thus ready for the plough of the Reformation; while the temper of the Scottish race gave warrant that when the mighty movement should reach them, it would be marked by that stern and uncompromising spirit which alone could satisfy conscientious and fiery bigots, who would regard all half-measures as pacts with Satan. Nor was there lacking ample cause to excite in the minds. of all men the desire for a sweeping and effectual reform. Corruption had extended through every fibre of the Scottish Church as all-pervading as that which we have traced throughout the rest of Christendom.

Not long after the year 1530, and before the new heresy had obtained a foothold, William Arith, a Dominican, ventured to assail the vices of his fellow churchmen. In a sermon preached at St. Andrews, with the approbation of the heads of the universities, he alluded to the false miracles with which the people were deceived, and the abuses practised at shrines to which credulous devotion was invited. "As of late dayes," he proceeded, "our Lady

1 Knox, History of the Reformation in Scotland, p. 3 (ed. 1609).

of Karsgreng hath hopped from one green hillock to another: But, honest men of St. Andrewes, if ye love your wives and daughters, hold them at home, or else send them in good honest company; for if ye knew what miracles were wrought there, ye would thank neither God nor our Lady." In another sermon, arguing that the disorders of the clergy should be subjected to the jurisdiction of the civil authorities, he introduced an anecdote respecting Prior Patrick Hepburn, afterwards Bishop of Murray. That prelate once, in merry discourse with his gentlemen, asked of them the number of their mistresses, and what proportion of the fair dames were married. The first who answered confessed to five, of whom two were bound in wedlock; the next boasted of seven, with three married women among them; and so on until the turn came to Hepburn himself, who, proud of his bonnes fortunes, declared that although he was the youngest man there, his mistresses numbered twelve, of whom seven were men's wives. Yet Arith was a good Catholic, who, on being driven from Scotland for his plain speaking, suffered imprisonment in England under Henry VIII. for maintaining the supremacy of the Pope.

How little concealment was thought requisite with regard to these scandals is exemplified in the case of Alexander Ferrers, which occurred about the same time. Taken prisoner by the English and immured for seven years in the Tower of London, he returned home to find that his wife had been consoled and his substance dissipated in his absence by a neighbouring priest, for the which cause he not unnaturally "spake more liberally of priests than they could bear." By this time heresy was spreading, and severe measures of repression were considered necessary. It therefore was not difficult to have the man's disrespect

1 Knox, pp. 15-16.-Calderwood's Historie of the Kirk of Scotland, I. 83-5 (Wodrow Soc.).

ful remarks construed as savouring of Lutheranism, and he was accordingly brought up for trial at St. Andrews. The first article of accusation read to him was that he despised the Mass, whereto he answered, "I heare more Masses in eight dayes than three bishops there sitting say in a yeare." The next article accused him of contemning the sacraments. "The priests," replied he, "were the most contemnors of the sacraments, especially of matrimony." "And that he witnessed by many of the priests there present, and named the man's wife with whom they had meddled, and especially Sir John Dungwaill, who had seven years together abused his own wife and consumed his substance, and said: because I complain of such injuries, I am here summoned and accused as one that is worthy to be burnt: For God's sake, said he, will ye take wives of your own, that I and others whom ye have abused may be revenged on you." Old Gawain Dunbar, Bishop of Aberdeen, not relishing this public accusation, sought to justify himself, exclaiming, "Carle, thou shalt not know my wife"; but the prisoner turned the tables on him, "My lord, ye are too old, but by the grace of God I shall drink with your daughter or I depart." "And thereat there was smiling of the best and loud bishop had a daughter married with Andrew Balfour in that town." The prelates who sat in judgment found that they were exchanging places with the accused, and, fearful of further revelations from the reckless Alexander, commanded him to depart; but he refused, unless each one should contribute something to replace the goods which his wife's paramour had consumed, and finally, to stop his evil tongue, they paid him and bade him be gone.1

laughter of some, for the

All prelates, however, were not so sensitive. When Cardinal Beatoun, Archbishop of St. Andrews, primate of Scotland, and virtual governor of the realm, about the

1 Knox, pp. 16-17.

year 1546 married his eldest daughter to the eldest son of the Earl of Crawford, he caused the nuptials to be celebrated with regal magnificence, and in the marriage articles, signed with his own hand, he did not hesitate to call her

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my daughter." It is not difficult, therefore, to credit the story that the night before his assassination was passed with his mistress, Marion Ogilby, who was seen leaving his chamber not long before Norman Leslie and Kirkaldy of Grange forced their way into his castle.1 His successor in the see of St. Andrews, John Hamilton, was equally notorious for his licentiousness; and men wondered, not at his immorality, but at his taste in preferring to all his other concubines one whose only attraction seemed to be the zest given to sin by the fact that she was the wife of one of his kindred.2

This is testimony from hostile witnesses, and we might perhaps impugn their evidence on that ground, were it not that the Catholic Church of Scotland itself admitted the abandoned morals of its members when the rapid progress of Calvinism at length drove it in self-defence to attempt a reform which was its only chance of salvation. In the last Parliament held by James V. before his death in 1542, an Act was passed exhorting the prelates and ecclesiastics in general to take measures "for reforming of their lyvis, and for avoyding of the opin sclander that is gevin to the haill estates throucht the spirituale mens ungodly and dissolut lyves."3 Nothing was then done, in spite of this solemn warning, though the countenance afforded to the Reformers by the Regent Arran, strengthened by his alliance with Henry VIII., was daily causing the heresy to assume more dangerous proportions. When, therefore, the Catholic party, rallying after the murder of Cardinal

1 Buchanan. Rer. Scot. Hist. Lib. xv.-Robertson, Hist. of Scot. B. II.-Knox 71-2.-Calderwood I. 222.

2 Buchanan, Lib. xv.

8 Wilkins IV. 207.