The History of the Reformation of the Church of Scotland

and as soon as they were in the Town, they were apprehended, and on the morrow sent all three to the Black Ness, where they remained as it pleased the Cardinals graceless Grace, and that was till the Band of Manred, and of service, set some of them at liberty. And thus the Cardinal with his craft persuaded on every side; so that the Scots Proverb was true in him, So long rinnes the Fox, as he fute hes. Whether it was at this journey, or at another, that that bloody butcher executed his cruelty upon the innocent persons in S. Johnston, we cannot affirm: neither yet therein study we to be curious, but rather we travel to express the verity, whensoever it was done,¹ than scrupulously and exactly to appoint times▪ which yet we omit not, when the certainty occurs. The verity of that cruel fact is this;² At S. Pauls day, before the first burning of Edinburgh, came to S. Johnston the Governor and Cardinal, and there upon envious delation, were a great number of honest men and women called before the Cardinal, and accused of heresy. And albeit they could be convinced of nothing, but only of suspicion that they had eaten a Goose upon Friday, four men were adjudged to be hanged, and a woman to be drowned; which cruel and most unjust sentence, was without mercy put in execution: the husband was hanged, and the wife, having a sucking babe upon her breast,³ was drowned. O Lord, the Land is not yet purged from such beastly cruelty, neither hath thy just vengeance yet stricken all that were criminal of ⟨p. 54⟩their blood. But the day approacheth when that the punishment of that cruelty, and of others, will evidently appears. The names of the men that were hanged, were, James Hunter, William Lamb, William Anderson, James Ruvals, Burgess of Saint Johnston. At that same time were banished, Sir Henry Eldar, John Eldar, Walter Piper, Laurence Pullar, with divers others, whose names come not to our knowledge. That sworn enemy to Christ Jesus, and unto all in whom any spark of knowledge appeared, had about that time in prison divers;⁴ amongst whom was John Roger, a black Friar, godly and learned, one that had fruitfully preached Christ Jesus, to the comfort of many in Angus and Mearnes, whom that bloody man caused to murder in the ground of the Sea Tower in S.