n the Gospels which Major afterwards published in Paris and
dedicated to the Archbishop of St Andrews and other prominent churchmen
in Scotland. But his sympathies were more with the young canons of the
Augustinian priory than with the Old Scholastic; and probably it was
that he might take a place among the teachers of their daughter college
of St Leonard's that he was received as a member of the Faculty of Arts.
Skilled in the art of sacred music, which the _alumni_ of that college
were bound specially to cultivate, he composed what the musicians call a
mass, arranged in parts for nine voices, and acted himself as leader of
the choir when it was sung in the cathedral. He is said to have taken on
him the priesthood about this time, that he might be formally admitted
"to preach the word of God." But he was not then of age for priests'
orders, and Dr David Laing is doubtful if he was in orders at all, and
certainly no mention is made of his degradation from orders before his
martyrdom, and the final summons of Betoun seems to imply that he had
never been authorised to preach at all.

[Sidenote: Parliament and Heresy.]

The years 1525 and 1526 were very unquiet years in Scotland, various
factions contending with varying success for the possession of the
person of the young king. It was on the 17th July of the former year
that his Parliament passed its first Act against the new opinions, in
which, after asserting that the realm had ever been clean "of all sic
filth and vice," it enacted, "that na maner of persoun strangear that
hapnis to arrife with their schippis within ony part of this realm bring
with thaim ony bukis or werkis of the said Lutheris his discipillis or
servandis, desputt or rehers his heresyis or opunyeouns bot geif
[_i.e._, unless] it be to the confusioun therof, and that be clerkis in
the sculis alanerlie, under the pane of escheting of ther schippis and
gudis and putting of ther persouns in presoun."[16] In consequence of a
letter from the pope, urging the young king to keep his realm free from
stain of heresy, the scope of the Act was extended in 1527 by the
chancellor and Lords of Council so that it might apply to natives of the
kingdom as well as to strangers resorting to it for purposes of
commerce.[17]

[Sidenote: James Betoun's Motives.]

In 1526 the primate, Archbishop James Betoun, uncle of the cardinal,
having taken a keen part in the political contentions of the day with
the faction which l