him in the wars with England, which obedience to their counsels had
brought on him. They procured dispensations from the papal court to
enable his sons, though illegitimate and infants, to hold any
ecclesiastical benefices inferior to bishoprics, and on reaching a
certain age to hold even the highest offices in the church. In this way
they largely added to his revenues during the minority of his sons, and
buoyed him up with the hope that when these sons came to years, and were
formally invested with their dignities, he would have wealthy allies on
whom he could thoroughly depend in his contests with his nobles.

[Sidenote: James the Fifth.]

But though James showed little indulgence to the reformers, and little
favour for their doctrines, he seems to the last to have had less real
liking for the priests of the old faith. No bribery, no flattery, no
solicitations could reconcile him permanently to those who for their own
selfish ends dragged him into courses from which his own better impulses
at times made him revolt. "He incited Buchanan to lash the mendicant
friars in the vigorous verse of the 'Franciscanus.' He encouraged by his
presence the public performance of a play" which, by its exposure of the
vices of the clergy, contributed greatly to weaken their influence. "He
enforced the object of that remarkable drama by exhorting the bishops to
reform their lives, under a threat if they neglected his warning that he
would deal with them after the fashion of his uncle of England" or his
cousin of Denmark. "He repeated the exhortation in his last Parliament,
declaring that the negligence, the ignorance, the scandalous and
disorderly lives of the clergy, were the causes why church and
churchmen were scorned and despised."[47]

So, notwithstanding all measures of repression, the desire for a
reformation quietly grew and spread throughout the nation, especially
among the smaller landed proprietors in Angus and Mearns, in Perthshire
and Fife, in Kyle and Cunningham, as also among the more intelligent
burgesses in the various burghs, and, above all, among the _elite_ of
the younger inmates of the monasteries and of the _alumni_ of the
University. When the poor monarch, as much sinned against as sinning, at
last died of a broken heart,[48] and the Earl of Arran, who claimed the
regency, looked about for trusty supporters to defend his claims against
the machinations of the cardinal and the queen dowager, he deemed it
politic