The Blind, Crooked, Bedrels [bedfast], Widows, Orphans, and all other Poor, so visited by the hand of God as they may not work,
TO
The Flocks of all Friars within this realm, we wish restitution of wrongs bypast, and reformation in time coming, for salutation.
Ye yourselves are not ignorant, and though ye would be it is now, thanks to God, known to the whole world, by His infallible word, that the benignity or alms of all Christian people pertains to us allanerly [exclusively]; which ye, being hale of body, stark, sturdy, and able to work, what [partly] under pretence of poverty (and nevertheless possessing most easily all abundance) what [partly] through cloaked and hooded simplicity, though your proudness is known, and what [partly] by feigned holiness, which now is declared superstition and idolatry, have these many years, express against God's word and the practice of His Holy Apostles, to our great torment alas! most falsely stolen from us. And as ye have, by your false doctrine and wresting of God's word (learned of your father Satan), induced the whole people high and low, into sure hope and belief, that to clothe, feed, and nourish you is the only acceptable alms allowed before God, and to give one penny or one piece of bread once in the week, is enough for us; Even so ye have persuaded them to build to you great hospitals, and maintain you therein by their purse, which only pertains now to us by all law, as builded and doted [given] to the poor—of whose number ye are not, nor can be repute, neither by the law of God, nor yet by no other law proceeding of nature, reason, or civil policy.... We have thought good, therefore, before we enter with you in conflict, to warn you, in the name of the great God, by this public writing, affixed on your gates, where ye now dwell, that ye remove forth of our said hospitals betwixt this and the feast of Whitsunday next, so that we the only lawful proprietors thereof may enter thereto, and afterward enjoy these commodities of the Kirk, which ye have hereunto wrongously holden from us: Certifying you, if ye fail, we will at the said term, in whole number (with the help of God and the assistance of His saints in earth, of whose readie support we doubt not), enter and take possession of our said patrimony, and eject you utterly forth of the same.
Let him therefore that before has stolen, steal no more; but rather let him work with his hands that he may be helpful to the poor.
FROM THE WHOLE CITIES, TOWNS, AND VILLAGES OF SCOTLAND,
THE FIRST DAY OF JANUARY, 1558 {1559}.[74]
As it turned out, this summons was in some cases literally fulfilled, and a revolutionary ejectment carried out by Whitsunday 1559. But now from another side came another warning to put the house of the Church in order. The Catholic barons presented a petition for its reform, and the Regent called a Provincial Council on 1st March. It dealt, however, almost exclusively with the lives and duties of the clergy, and leaving untouched the central grievance—the legal authority of the Church and of the Pope over all subjects—had no effect whatever on the public. Immediately after, all 'unauthorised' preaching was forbidden. The Protestants, astonished, waited on the Regent and reminded her of her promises. She replied, in words which were often recalled during the reigns of her Stewart descendants, that 'it became not subjects to burden their Princes with promises, farther than it pleaseth them to keep the same,' and the preachers were ordered to appear before her at Stirling. But now Knox, who had kept up constant communication from Geneva with his friends, suddenly appears on the scene. On 2d May he writes from Edinburgh to Mrs Locke: