Taking advantage of what they called breach of treaty as regards the soldiers left in Perth, Lord James and Argyll, with Ruthven, had joined the brethren, accompanied by the Earl of Menteith and Murray of Tullibardine, ancestor of the ducal house of Atholl.  Argyll and Lord James went to St. Andrews, summoning their allies thither for June 3.  Knox meanwhile preached in Crail and Anstruther, with the usual results.  On Sunday, June 11, {123a} and for three days more, despising the threats of the Archbishop, backed by a hundred spears, and referring to his own prophecy made when he was in the galleys, he thundered at St. Andrews.  The poor ruins of some sacred buildings “are alive to testify” to the consequences, and a head of the Redeemer found in the latrines of the abbey is another mute witness to the destruction of that day. {123b}

It is not my purpose to dilate on the universal destruction of so much that was beautiful, and that to Scots, however godly, should have been sacred.  The tomb of the Bruce in Dunfermline, for example, was wrecked by the mob, as the statue of Jeanne d’Arc on the bridge of Orleans was battered to pieces by the Huguenots.  Nor need we ask what became of church treasures, perhaps of great value and antiquity.  In some known cases, the magistrates held and sold those of the town churches.  Some of the plate and vestments at Aberdeen were committed to the charge of Huntly, but about 1900 ounces of plate were divided among the Prebendaries, who seem to have appropriated them. {124} The Church treasures of Glasgow were apparently carried abroad by Archbishop Beaton.  If Lord James, as Prior, took possession of the gold and silver of St. Andrews, he probably used the bullion (he spent some 13,000 crowns) in his defence of the approaches to the town, against the French, in December 1559.  A silver mace of St. Salvator’s College escaped the robbers.

[Head of Christ.  St. Andrews.  Excavated from the ruins of the Abbey by the late Marquis of Bute:  knox4.jpg]

There is no sign of the possession of much specie by the Congregation in the months that followed the sack of so many treasuries of pious offerings.  Lesley says that they wanted to coin the plate in Edinburgh, and for that purpose seized, as they certainly did, the dies of the mint.  In France, when the brethren sacked Tours, they took twelve hundred thousand livres d’or; the country was enriched for the moment.  Not so Scotland.  In fact the plate of Aberdeen cathedral, as inventoried in the Register, is no great treasure.  Monasteries and cathedrals were certain to perish sooner or later, for the lead of every such roof except Coldingham had been stripped and sold by 1585, while tombs had been desecrated for their poor spoils, and the fanes were afterwards used as quarries of hewn stone.  Lord James had a peculiar aversion to idolatrous books, and is known to have ordered the burning of many manuscripts;—­the loss to art was probably greater than the injury to