ect, augmented by
the native ferocity of his own character. He had been invited back to
Scotland by the leaders of the reformation; and mounting the pulpit at
Perth, during the present ferment of men's minds, he declaimed with
his usual vehemence against the idolatry and other abominations of the
church of Rome, and incited his audience to exert their utmost zeal for
its subversion. A priest was so imprudent, after this sermon, as to open
his repository of images and relics, and prepare himself to say mass.
The audience, exalted to a disposition for any furious enterprise, were
as much enraged as if the spectacle had not been quite familiar to them:
they attacked the priest with fury, broke the images in pieces, tore the
pictures, overthrew the altars, scattered about the sacred vases; and
left no implement of idolatrous worship, as they termed it, entire or
undefaced. They thence proceeded, with additional numbers and augmented
rage, to the monasteries of the Gray and Black friars, which they
pillaged in an instant: the Carthusians underwent the same fate: and the
populace, not content with robbing and expelling the monks, vented
their fury on the buildings which had been the receptacles of such
abomination; and in a little time nothing but the walls of these
edifices were left standing. The inhabitants of Coupar, in Fife, soon
after imitated the example.[***]

* Melvil's Memoirs, p. 24. Jebb. vol. ii. p. 446.

** See note B, at the end of the volume.

*** Spotswood, p. 121. Knox, p. 127.

The queen regent, provoked at these violences, assembled an army, and
prepared to chastise the rebels. She had about two thousand French under
her command, with a few Scottish troops; and being assisted by such of
the nobility as were well affected to her, she pitched her camp within
ten miles of Perth. Even the earl of Argyle, and Lord James Stuart,
prior of St. Andrew's, the queen's natural brother, though deeply
engaged with the reformers, attended the regent in this enterprise,
either because they blamed the fury of the populace, or hoped by their
own influence and authority to mediate some agreement between the
parties. The congregation, on the other hand, made preparations for
defence; and being joined by the earl of Glencarne from the west, and
being countenanced by many of the nobility and gentry, they appeared
formidable from their numbers, as well as from the zeal by which they
were animated. They sent an