o
hear them and what answer to make, there presented us a very venerable
man of big stature, and grave and stout countenance, grey haired and
very humble like, who, after much and very low courtesie, bowing down
with his face near the ground, and touching my shoe with his hand, began
his harangue in the Spanish tongue, whereof I understood the substance;
and, I being about to answer in Latin, he having only a young man with
him to be his interpreter, [who] began and told over again to us in good
English.

[Footnote 350: The baillies of towns in Scotland are equivalent to
aldermen in England. The author here refers to the town of Anstruther, a
sea port town of Fife, on the northern shore of the Firth of Forth, of
which he was minister. There are two Anstruthers, easter and wester,
very near each other, and now separate parishes; but it does not appear
to which of these the present historical document refers: Perhaps they
were then one.--E.]

[Footnote 351: The town-house; but now generally applied to signify the
prison, then, and even now, often attached to the town hall.--E.]

The sum was, That king Philip his master had rigged out a navy and army
to land in England, for just causes to be avenged of many intollerable
wrongs which he had received of that nation. But God, for their sins,
had been against them, and by storm of weather had driven the navy _by_
[past] the coast of England, and him with certain captains, being the
general of twenty hulks, upon an isle of Scotland called the Fair isle,
where they had made shipwrack, and were, so many as had escaped the
merciless seas and rocks, more nor [than] six or seven weeks suffered
great hunger and cold, till conducting that bark out of Orkney, they
were come hither as to their special friends and confederates, to kiss
the kings majesties hand of Scotland, and herewith he _becked_ [bowed]
even to the _yeard_ [ground]; and to find relief and comfort thereby to
himself, these gentlemen, captains, and the poor souldiers, whose
condition was for the present most miserable and pitiful.

I answered this much in sum, That, howbeit neither our friendship, which
could not be great, seeing their king and they were friends to the
greatest enemy of Christ, the pope of Rome, and our king and we defied
him, nor yet their cause against our neighbours and special friends of
England, could procure any benefit at our hands for their relief or
comfort; nevertheless they should know by