Knox's colleague and successor, and had not yet developed that
spirit of subserviency to the powers that be which afterwards proved his
ruin.

The printer had also the honour of publishing in St Andrews the last
work which engaged the thoughts of the reformer. This was his 'Answer to
a letter of a Jesuit named Tyrie.' It had been drawn up some years
before, but was now carefully revised and enlarged, and exhibited his
matured views respecting several of the most notable subjects of
controversy between the reformed and unreformed churches. Possibly it
may have been because he had detected through all their disguises the
secret leaning of the two Hamiltons to Romanist or semi-Romanist views
regarding the apostolical succession, the nature of the sacraments, and
the unfailing visibility and perpetuity of the church, that he now so
fully entered into a controversy which previously he had been inclined
to shun. Perhaps this is what is hinted at in the preface, in which he
says: "Wonder not, gentill reidar, that sic ane argument suld proceid
fra me in thir dolorous days after that I have taken gude-night at the
warld and at all the fasherie of the same.... There ar sevin yeares past
sen a scrole send from a Jesuite to his brother was presented unto me be
a faithfull brother requyring sum answer to be maid to the same....
Amongs my other caires I scriblit that which followis, and that in few
dayis; which being finished I repented of my laubour, and purposed
fullie to have suppressed it. Which, na dout I had done, if that the
devil had not steirit up the Jesuites of purpois to trouble godlie
harts, with the same argumentis which Tyrie usis, amplifyed and set
furth with all the dog eloquence that Sathan can devyse for suppressing
of the free progres of the Evangell of Jesus Christ." Then, after a
touching reference to the hard lot of his dispersed flock "suffering
lytill les calamitie than did the faithfull efter the persecutioun of
Steaphen," and an earnest petition that God would grant them one day to
meet in glory, he entreats the brethren to pray for _him_, that God "in
His mercy will pleis to put end to my long and panefull battell," as he
was unable to fight as erewhile he had done, and longed for release,
though still resigned to bear patiently whatsoever God saw meet to lay
upon this, his "wicked carkase."[237]

[Sidenote: The St Andrews Assembly.]

In March 1572 the General Assembly was held at St Andrews in the schoo