at least after the death of the existing life-renters, at
the disposal of the Crown,[97] and which was indeed afterwards
transferred to it by statute,[98] is generally calculated to have
amounted to nearly one half of the whole wealth of the country. But the
crowning sin of the old hierarchy had been that on the approach of the
Reformation they commenced, in the teeth of their own canons, to
alienate the temporalities which they had held only in trust, to the
lords and lairds around them as private holders. And the process of
waste thus initiated by the Church and the nobles was continued by the
Crown and its favourites; the result being that the aristocracy so
enriched became a body with personal interests hostile to the people and
their new Church. Even in the first flush of the Reformation all that
the Reformers could procure was an immediate 'assumption' by the Crown
of one-third of the benefices. And even of this one-third, only a part
was to go to the Church, the rest being divided between the old
possessors and the Crown; or, as Knox pithily put it, 'two parts are
freely given to the devil, and the third must be divided between God and
the devil.' Even God's part, however, was scandalously ill-paid during
Mary's reign, and in addition the Church objected to receiving by way of
gift from the Crown what they should have received rather as due from
the parishes and the people. This came out very instructively in the
Assembly of December 1566. The Queen was now courting the Protestants,
and had signed an offer for a considerable sum for the maintenance of
the ministers. What was to be said to her offer? The Assembly first
requested the opinion of Knox and the other ministers, as the persons
concerned. They retired for conference, and 'very gravely' answered--

'That it was their duty to preach to the people the Word of God
truly and sincerely, and to crave of the auditors the things
that were necessary for their _sustentation_, as of duty the
pastors might justly crave of their flock.'[99]

This striking reversion to the Apostolic rule--all the more striking
because it is easily reconcilable with the now accepted doctrine of
toleration--was, no doubt, not only in substance but in form the
utterance of Knox. But so also, if we are to judge by internal evidence,
was the formal answer of the Assembly. They accepted the Queen's gift
under the pressure of present necessity, but

Not the less, in con