n and Armstrong were summoned "that a door
may be opened to execute cruelty upon a greater multitude." To put it
mildly, the General Assembly sanctioned contempt of Court. Unluckily for
Scotland contempt of Court was, and long remained, universal, the country
being desperately lawless, and reeking with blood shed in public and
private quarrels. When a Prophet followed the secular example of
summoning crowds to overawe justice, the secular sinners had warrant for
thwarting the course of law.

As to the brethren and the idolaters who caused these troubles, we know
not what befell them. The penalty, both for the attendants at Mass and
for the disturbers thereof, should have been death! The dear brethren,
if they attacked the Queen's servants, came under the Proclamation of
October 1561; so did the Catholics, for _they_ "openly made alteration
and innovation of the state of religion. . . . " They ought "to be
punished to the death with all rigour." Three were outlawed, and their
sureties "unlawed." Twenty-one others were probably not hanged; the
records are lost. For the same reason we know not what became of the
brethren Armstrong, Cranstoun, and George Rynd, summoned with the other
malefactors for November 13. {236}

CHAPTER XVII: KNOX AND QUEEN MARY (continued), 1564-1567

During the session of the General Assembly in December 1563, Knox was
compelled to chronicle domestic enormities. The Lord Treasurer,
Richardson, having, like Captain Booth, "offended the law of Dian," had
to do penance before the whole congregation, and the sermon
(unfortunately it is lost, probably it never was written out) was
preached by Knox. A French apothecary of the Queen's, and his mistress,
were hanged on a charge of murdering their child. {237a} On January 9,
1564-65, Randolph noted that one of the Queen's Maries, Mary Livingstone,
is to marry John Sempill, son of Robert, third Lord Sempill, by an
English wife. Knox assures us that "it is well known that shame hastened
marriage between John Sempill, called 'the Dancer,' and Mary Livingstone,
surnamed 'the Lusty.'" The young people appear, however, to have been in
no pressing hurry, as Randolph, on January 9, did not expect their
marriage till the very end of February; they wished the Earl of Bedford,
who was coming on a diplomatic mission, to be present. {237b} Mary, on
March 9, 1565, made them a grant of lands, since "it has pleased God to
move their hearts to join