eeping
recantations, at least six may be held to have joined the congregation,
for they not only confessed that "we haif ower lang abstractit ourselfis
and beyne sweir in adjuning us to Christes Congregatioun," but they
promised "in tyme cuming to assist in word and wark with unfenyiet mynde
this Congregatioun" ('Register of St Andrews Kirk-Session,' Scot. Hist.
Soc., i. 10-18). In 1573 it was stated that "the most part of the
persons who were channons monks and friars within this realme have made
profession of the true religion" ('Booke of the Universall Kirk,' i.
280).]

[8] [Enacted by the University on 10th June 1416 (M'Crie's Melville,
1824, i. 420).]

[9] [Enacted by Parliament on 12th March 1424-25 (Acts of Parliament,
ii. 7).]

[10] Robertson's Concilia Scotiae, vol. i. p. lxxviii.

[11] [For an account of this Scottish cleric--Thomas, Abbot of
Dundrennan--who so greatly distinguished himself at the Council of
Basle, see 'Concilia Scotiae,' vol. i. pp. xcvii-xcix.]

[12] [The bull of Eugenius the Fourth, addressed to Bishop Kennedy, and
dated 6th July 1440, orders the excommunication of the followers of the
anti-pope, Felix the Fifth, elected by the Council of Basle, to be
published in Scotland (Ibid., p. c.)]

[13] [Dr Mitchell, no doubt, had the Commentary itself before him. Those
who have not access to it will find the dedication in the Appendix to
Constable's 'Major,' Scot. Hist. Soc., pp. 447, 448.]

CHAPTER II.

PATRICK HAMILTON.

It has not been very clearly ascertained how or when the opinions and
writings of Luther were first introduced into Scotland. M. de la Tour,
who in 1527 suffered in Paris for heresy, was accused of having vented
various Lutheran opinions while in Edinburgh in attendance on the Duke
of Albany. This, of course, must have been before 1523. On the 9th June
1523, the same day that John Major was received as Principal of the
Paedagogium, or St Mary's College,[14] Patrick Hamilton was incorporated
into the University of St Andrews;[15] and on 3rd October 1524 he was
admitted as a member of the Faculty of Arts. If he did not from the
latter date act as a regent in the University, he probably took charge
of some of the young noblemen or gentlemen attending the classes. At
that date he was probably more Erasmian than Lutheran, though of that
more earnest school who were ultimately to outgrow their teacher, and
find their congenial home in a new church.

[Sidenote: His