their bastards. The kings set the worst example: both James IV. and
James V. secured the richest abbeys, and, in the case of James IV., the
Primacy, for their bastard sons. All these abuses were of old standing.
"Early in the thirteenth century certain of the abbots of Jedburgh,
supported by their chapters, had granted certain of their appropriate
churches to priests with a right of succession to their sons" (see 'The
Mediaeval Church in Scotland,' by the late Bishop Dowden, chap. xix. Mac-
Lehose, 1910.) Oppressive customs by which "the upmost claith," or a
pecuniary equivalent, was extorted as a kind of death-duty by the clergy,
were sanctioned by excommunication: no grievance was more bitterly felt
by the poor. The once-dreaded curses on evil-doers became a popular
jest: purgatory was a mere excuse for getting money for masses.

In short, the whole mediaeval system was morally rotten; the statements
drawn up by councils which made vain attempts to check the stereotyped
abuses are as candid and copious concerning all these things as the
satires of Sir David Lyndsay.

Then came disbelief in mediaeval dogmas: the Lutheran and other heretical
books were secretly purchased and their contents assimilated.
Intercession of saints, images, pilgrimages, the doctrine of the
Eucharist, all fell into contempt.

As early as February 1428, as we have seen, the first Scottish martyr for
evangelical religion, Patrick Hamilton, was burned at St Andrews. This
sufferer was the son of a bastard of that Lord Hamilton who married the
sister of James III. As was usual, he obtained, when a little boy, an
abbey, that of Ferne in Ross-shire. He drew the revenues, but did not
wear the costume of his place; in fact, he was an example of the ordinary
abuses. Educated at Paris and Louvain, he came in contact with the