burghers, with Glencairn representing the south-west, Lollard from of
old, were attached to Knox's doctrines, while the mob would flock in to
destroy and plunder.

[Bridal medal of Mary Stuart and the Dauphin, 1558: knox3.jpg]

Meanwhile Mary of Guise was at Stirling, and a multitude of Protestants
were at Perth, where the Reformation had just made its entry, and had
secured a walled city, a thing unique in Scotland. The gentry of Angus
and the people of Dundee, at Perth, were now anxious to make a
"demonstration" (unarmed, says Knox) at Stirling, if the preachers obeyed
the summons to go thither, on May 10. Their strategy was excellent,
whether carefully premeditated or not.

The Regent, according to Knox, amused Erskine of Dun with promises of
"taking some better order" till the day of May 10 arrived, when, the
preachers and their backers having been deluded into remaining at Perth
instead of "demonstrating" at Stirling, she outlawed the preachers and
fined their sureties ("assisters"). She did not outlaw the sureties. Her
treachery (alleged only by Knox and others who follow him) is examined in
Appendix A. Meanwhile it is certain that the preachers were put to the
horn in absence, and that the brethren, believing themselves (according
to Knox) to have been disgracefully betrayed, proceeded to revolutionary
extremes, such as Calvin energetically denounced.

If we ask who executed the task of wrecking the monasteries at Perth,
Knox provides two different answers.

In the "History" Knox says that after the news came of the Regent's
perfidy, and after a sermon "vehement against idolatry," a priest began