Then follows the Proclamation.

Probably we may supply the words:  “. . .  Zealous Brethren caused a paper to be affixed upon the gates and posts,” and so on.  The paper so promulgated purported to be a warning from the poor of Scotland that, before Whitsunday, “we, the lawful proprietors,” will eject the Friars and residents on the property, unlawfully withheld by the religious—­“our patrimony.”  This feat will be performed, “with the help of God, and assistance of his Saints on earth, of whose ready support we doubt not.”

As the Saints, in fact, were the “Zealous Brether . . .” who affixed the written menace on “all the Friars’ places,” they knew what they were talking about, and could prophesy safely.  To make so many copies of the document, and fix them on “all the Friars’ places,” implies organisation, and a deliberate plan—­riots and revolution—­before Whitsunday.  The poor, of course, only exchanged better for worse landlords, as they soon discovered.  The “Zealous Brethren”—­as a rule small lairds, probably, and burgesses—­were the nucleus of the Revolution.  When townsfolk and yeomen in sufficient number had joined them in arms, then nobles like Argyll, Lord James, Glencairn, Ruthven, and the rest, put themselves at the head of the movement, and won the prizes which had been offered to the “blind, crooked, widows, orphans, and all other poor.”

After Parliament was over, at the end of December 1558, the Archbishop of St. Andrews again summoned the preachers, Willock, Douglas, Harlaw, Methuen, and Friar John Christison to a “day of law” at St. Andrews, on February 2, 1559. (This is the statement of the “Historie.”) {91} The brethren then “caused inform the Queen Mother that the said preachers would appear with such multitude of men professing their doctrine, as was never seen before in such like cases in this country,” and kept their promise.  The system of overawing justice by such gatherings was usual, as we have already seen; Knox, Bothwell, Lethington, and the Lord James Stewart all profited by the practice on various occasions.

Mary of Guise, “fearing some uproar or sedition,” bade the bishops put off the summons, and, in fact, the preachers never were summoned, finally, for any offences prior to this date.

On February 9, 1559, the Regent issued proclamations against eating flesh in Lent (this rule survived the Reformation by at least seventy years) and against such disturbances of religious services as the Protest just described declared to be imminent, all such deeds being denounced under “pain of death”—­as pain of death was used to be threatened against poachers of deer and wild fowl. {92a}