e. {177b} Lesley, Bishop of Ross, in his "History,"
praises the humanity of the nobles, "for at this time few Catholics were
banished, fewer were imprisoned, and none were executed." The nobles
interfering, the threatened capital punishment was not carried out. Mob
violence, oppression by Protestant landlords, Kirk censure, imprisonment,
fine, and exile, did their work in suppressing idolatry and promoting
hypocrisy.

No doubt this grinding ceaseless daily process of enforcing Truth, did
not go far enough for the great body of the brethren, especially the
godly burgesses of the towns; indeed, as early as June 10, 1560, the
Provost, Bailies, and Town Council of Edinburgh proclaimed that idolaters
must instantly and publicly profess their conversion before the Ministers
and Elders on the penalty of the pillory for the first offence,
banishment from the town for the second, and death for the third. {177c}

It must always be remembered that the threat of the death penalty often
meant, in practice, very little. It was denounced, under Mary of Guise
(February 9, 1559), against men who bullied priests, disturbed services,
and ate meat in Lent. It was denounced against shooters of wild fowl,
and against those, of either religious party, who broke the Proclamation
of October 1561. Yet "nobody seemed one penny the worse" as regards
their lives, though the punishments of fining and banishing were, on
occasions, enforced against Catholics.

We may marvel that, in the beginning, Catholic martyrs did not present
themselves in crowds to the executioner. But even under the rule of Rome
it would not be easy to find thirty cases of martyrs burned at the stake
by "the bloudie Bishops," between the fifteenth century and the martyrdom
of Myln. By 1560 the old Church was in such a hideous decline--with
ruffianly men of quality in high spiritual places; with priests who did
not attend Mass, and in many cases could not read; with churches left to
go to ruin; with license so notable that, in one foundation, the priest
is only forbidden to keep a _constant_ concubine--that faith had waxed
cold, and no Catholic felt "ripe" for martyrdom. The elements of a
League, as in France, did not exist. There was no fervently Catholic
town population like that of Paris; no popular noble warriors, like the
Ducs de Guise, to act as leaders. Thus Scotland, in this age, ran little
risk of a religious civil war. No organised and armed faction existed