Protestantism in Scotland - James Aitken Wylie

stores of all good things, which were divided
amongst the poor; "no honest man,' says Knox,
"was enriched thereby the value of a groat."[5]
It is to be remarked that in Perth, as in the other
towns of Scotland, it was upon the monasteries that
the iconoclastic vengeance fell; the cathedrals and
churches were spared. The monasteries were in
particularly evil repute among the population as
nests of idleness, gluttony, and sin. Dark tales of
foul and criminal deeds transacted within their
walls were continually in circulation, and the
hoarded resentment of long years now burst out,
and swept them away. The spark that kindled the
conflagration was not Knox's sermon, for few if
any of those rioters had heard it: Knox's hearers
were in their own houses when the affair began.
The more immediate provocative was the wanton
perfidy of the queen, which more disgraced her
than this violence did the mob; and the remoter
cause was the rejection of that moderate measure
of Reformation which the lords of the
Congregation had asked for, protesting at the same
time that they would not be responsible for the
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