is Diary the notices in
Bannatyne's Memorials, and, in a passage which has been often quoted,
gives a very fresh and vivid sketch of the old reformer. "Bot of all the
benefites I haid that yeir"--the first year he was a student in St
Andrews, and had "drunk of St Leonard's well"--"the greatest," he tells
us, "was the coming of that maist notable profet and apostle of our
nation, Mr Jhone Knox, to St Androis; wha be the faction of the Quein
occupeing the castell and town of Edinbruche was compellit to remove
thairfra with a number of the best, and chusit to com to St Androis. I
hard him teatche ther the prophecie of Daniel that simmer and the wintar
following. I haid my pen and my litle book, and tuk away sic things as I
could comprehend. In the opening upe of his text he was moderat the
space of an halff houre; bot when he enterit to application he maid me
sa to grew and tremble that I could nocht hald a pen to wryt. I hard him
oftymes utter these thretenings [against the faction then] in the hicht
of their pryde, quhilk the eis [_i.e._, eyes] of monie saw cleirlie
brought to pass within few yeirs upon the captean of that castle, the
Hamiltones, and the Quein hirselff. He ludgit down in the Abbay besyde
our Collage."[228] So far was it from being true, as is commonly
asserted, that he had caused the destruction of the abbey and of the
abbey church or cathedral in 1559, that in 1571 he found a habitable
building there, in which he, a frail old man, with his wife and
children, could pass the winter in comfort. It, we know from a letter of
his antagonist, Archibald Hamilton, was "the new ludgene of the
abbey,"[229] or _novum hospitium_, built for the reception of Mary of
Guise, the queen of James V.[230] It was in the immediate vicinity of St
Leonard's College, and our diarist further tells us: "Our regents, Mr
Nicol Dalgleise, Mr Wilyeam Colace, and Mr Jhone Davidsone, went in
ordinarilie to his grace [or devotional exercises] efter denner and
soupper.... Mr Knox wald sum tymes com in and repose him in our Collage
yeard [that is the gardens immediately to the west of the _novum
hospitium_, adjoining St Leonard's College], and call us schollars unto
him and bless us, and exhort us to knaw God and His wark in our contrey,
and stand be the guid cause, to use our tyme weill, and lern the guid
instructiones, and follow the guid exemple of our maisters."[231] No
wonder, in these circumstances, that he is able to add, "Our haill