ed the sack of so many treasuries of pious
offerings. Lesley says that they wanted to coin the plate in Edinburgh,
and for that purpose seized, as they certainly did, the dies of the mint.
In France, when the brethren sacked Tours, they took twelve hundred
thousand livres d'or; the country was enriched for the moment. Not so
Scotland. In fact the plate of Aberdeen cathedral, as inventoried in the
Register, is no great treasure. Monasteries and cathedrals were certain
to perish sooner or later, for the lead of every such roof except
Coldingham had been stripped and sold by 1585, while tombs had been
desecrated for their poor spoils, and the fanes were afterwards used as
quarries of hewn stone. Lord James had a peculiar aversion to idolatrous
books, and is known to have ordered the burning of many manuscripts;--the
loss to art was probably greater than the injury to history or
literature. The fragments of things beautiful that the Reformers
overlooked, were destroyed by the Covenanters. An attempt has been made
to prove that the Border abbeys were not wrecked by Reformers, but by
English troops in the reign of Henry VIII., who certainly ravaged them.
Lesley, however, says that the abbeys of Kelso and Melrose were "by them
(the Reformers) broken down and wasted." {125a} If there was nothing
left to destroy on the Border, why did the brethren march against Kelso,
as Cecil reports, on July 9, 1559? {125b}

After the devastation the Regent meant to attack the destroyers,
intending to occupy Cupar, six miles, by Knox's reckoning, from St.
Andrews. But, by June 13, the brethren had anticipated her with a large
force, rapidly recruited, including three thousand men under the Lothian
professors; Ruthven's horse; the levies of the Earl of Rothes (Leslie),
and many burgesses. Next day the Regent's French horse found the
brethren occupying a very strong post; their numbers were dissembled,
their guns commanded the plains, and the Eden was in their front. A fog
hung over the field; when it lifted, the French commander, d'Oysel, saw
that he was outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. He sent on an envoy to
parley, "which gladly of us being granted, the Queen offered a free
remission for all crimes past, so that they would no further proceed
against friars and abbeys, and that no more preaching should be used
publicly," for _that_ always meant kirk-wrecking. When Wishart preached
at Mauchline, long before, in 1545, it was deemed nec