ho declare
that the cardinal rules all things at his pleasure in Scotland, and
governs the governor himself. In the town of St Johnston he hung up
four respectable citizens, for no other cause than because they had
requested a monk, in the middle of his sermon, not to depart in his
doctrine from the sacred text, and not to mix up notions of his own with
the words of Christ. Along with these a most respectable matron,
carrying a sucking child in her arms, was haled before the tribunal and
condemned to death by drowning. They report that the constancy of the
woman was such that, when her husband was led to the scaffold and
mounted the ladder, she followed and mounted along with him, and
entreated to be allowed to hang from the same beam. She encouraged him
to be of good cheer, for in a few hours, said she, I shall be with
Christ along with you. They declare also that the governor was inclined
to liberate them, but that the cardinal suborned the nobles to threaten
that they would leave him if the condemned were not put to death. When
the cardinal arrived with his army at Dundee, from which the monks had
been expelled, all the citizens took to flight; and when he saw the town
quite deserted he laughed, and remarked that he had expected to find it
full of Lutherans."[316]

[Sidenote: He pleads for National Union.]

[Sidenote: He repels the Cry of Innovation.]

Before the expiry of that year Alesius addressed to the chief nobles,
prelates, barons, and to the whole people of Scotland, his Cohortatio ad
concordiam pietatis ac doctrinae Christianae defensionem. This piece, Dr
Lorimer tells us, "is instinct throughout with the spirit of true
Christian patriotism, as well as with genuine evangelical earnestness
and fervour. Lamenting the distractions of the kingdom by opposing
political factions--the French faction and the English--he [like the
author of the Complaynt of Scotland a few years later] implores his
countrymen to lay aside these divisions, and demonstrates by many
examples from classical history the dangers of national disunion, and
the duty of patriotic concord in defence of the safety and honour of
their common country. His expostulations against the oppression and
cruelty of the bishops, and his allusions to the martyrs who had
suffered in the cause of truth, are full of interest; and his
digression, in particular, upon the character and martyrdom of Patrick
Hamilton, is a noble burst of eloquence and pathos. Whe