could see its
imposing array. The Scottish leader pointed out the number and discipline
of the men-at-arms, and the superiority of the equipments of the archers,
and then asked the French Knight whether he could recommend the Scots to
encounter such a numerous and completely accoutred army with a few
ill-trained Highland bowmen, and their light-armed prickers mounted on
little hackneys. He could not but admit the risk was too great. "But yet,"
said he, "if you do not give the English battle they will destroy your
country." "Let them do their worst," replied Douglas, "they will find but
little to destroy. Our people have all retired into the mountains and
forests, and have carried off their flocks and herds and household stuff
along with them. We will surround them with a desert, and while they never
see an enemy they shall never stir a bow-shot from their standards
without being overpowered with an ambush. Let them come on at their
pleasure, and when it comes to burning and spoiling you shall see which
has the worst of it." "But what will you do with your army if you do not
fight," said De Vienne; "and how will your people endure the distress and
famine and plunder which must be the consequences of the invasion?" "You
shall see that our army shall not be idle," was the reply; "and as for our
Scottish people, they will endure pillage, and they will endure famine,
and every other extremity of war, but they will not endure English
masters."

The wisdom of this course was proved by subsequent results. The English
army by the time it reached Edinburgh had got into the most desperate
straits owing to the scarcity of provisions. Multitudes perished from
want, and to escape total destruction a retreat was ordered through those
very districts "which their own merciless and short-sighted policy had
rendered a blackened desert."

There is one important fact brought before us in this connection which
demands a passing notice. The Reformers have often been severely censured
for the wholesale destruction of the ancient Abbeys so intimately
associated with the "fair humanities" of the ritual and worship of the
Church of Rome. The saying attributed to Knox, about pulling down the
rookeries to prevent the crows building, has served as a convenient text
for many a philippic on the iconoclastic spirit and tendency of
Protestantism. But the truth is that Knox had as little sympathy with what
he calls the "rascal multitude," which sometim