Note 6 — Chapter I · THE NATURE AND NEED OF THE REFORMATION.

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."