urches of Perth, for to do that was to
prevent "the religion begun" from "going forward." On the Regent's entry
her men "discharged their volley of hackbuts," probably to clear their
pieces, a method of unloading which prevailed as late as Waterloo. But
some aimed, says Knox, at the house of Patrick Murray and hit a son of
his, a boy of ten or twelve, "who, being slain, was had to the Queen's
presence." She mocked, and wished it had been his father, "but seeing
that it so chanced, we cannot be against fortune." It is not very
probable that Mary of Guise was "merry," in Knox's manner of mirth, over
the death of a child (to Mrs. Locke Knox says "children"), who, for all
we know, may have been the victim of accident, like the Jacobite lady who
was wounded at a window as Prince Charles's men discharged their pieces
when entering Edinburgh after the victory of Prestonpans. (This brave
lady said that it was fortunate she was not a Whig, or the accident would
have been ascribed to design.) This event at Perth was called a breach
of terms, so was the attendance at Mass, celebrated on any chance table,
as "the altars were not so easy to be repaired again." The soldiers were
billeted on citizens, whose houses were "oppressed by" the Frenchmen, and
the provost, Ruthven (who had anew deserted to the Congregation), and the
bailies, were deposed.

These magistrates probably had been charged with the execution of priests
who dared to do their duty; at least in the following year, on June 10,
1560, we find the provost, bailies, and town council of Edinburgh
decreeing death for the third offence against idolaters who do not
instantly profess their conversion. {122} The Edinburgh municipality did
this before the abolition of Catholicism by the Convention of Estates in
August 1560. It does not appear that any authority in Perth except that
of the provost and bailies could sentence priests to death; was their
removal, then, a breach of truce? At all events it seemed necessary in
the circumstances, and Mary of Guise when she departed left no _French_
soldiers to protect the threatened priests, but four companies of Scots
who had been in French service, under Stewart of Cardonell and Captain
Cullen, the Captain of Queen Mary's guard after the murder of Riccio. The
Regent is said by Knox to have remarked that she was not bound to keep
faith with heretics, and that, with as fair an excuse, she would make
little scruple to take the li