[28] [The saying in slightly different forms may be found in Laing's Knox, i. 42; Calderwood's History, i. 86; Spottiswoode's History, i. 130.]
[29] [Various dates, ranging between 1529 and 1533, have been assigned for Forrest's martyrdom.]
[30] [William Arth.]
[31] [It was probably in 1530 that he left Scotland.]
[32] [Howard and Barlo, in writing from Edinburgh on the 13th of May 1536, say, that to the Scots the reading of God's Word "in theyr vulgare tonge is lately prohybitede by open proclamation" (Lemon's State Papers, v. 48). Norfolk, writing to Crumwell from Berwick on the 29th of March 1539, says: "Dayly commeth unto me some gentlemen and some clerkes, wiche do flee owte of Scotland as they saie for redyng of Scripture in Inglishe; saying; that, if they were taken, they sholde be put to execution" (Ibid. v. 154). In the Epistle to James VI. prefixed to the Bassandyne Bible, it is said: "The false namit clergie of this realme, abusing the gentle nature of your Hienes maist noble gudschir of worthie memorie, made it an cappital crime to be punishit with the fyre to have or rede the New Testament in the vulgare language." One of the charges on which Sir John Borthwick was condemned, on the 28th of May 1540, was that he possessed a copy of the New Testament in the vernacular ('Register of St Andrews Kirk Session,' Scot. Hist. Soc., i. 98).]
[33] Diurnal of Occurrents, p. 15.
[34] Laing's Knox, i. 58.
[35] [Foxe alleges that Gourlay and Stratoun were condemned and burned, "because, after great solicitation made by the king, they refused to abjure and recant" (Cattley's Foxe, iv. 579); but, on the other hand, the writer of the Diurnal of Occurrents (p. 18) and Bishop Lesley (History, 1830, p. 149) assert that Gourlay did abjure.]
[36] Such was the punishment meted out to him for endeavouring to do in a scriptural way what rulers of the church were doing in disregard of the laws of Scripture as well as the laws of their church. Pitscottie knew no other cause why he was burned save that "he was in the East-land, and came home, and married a wife contrary to the form of the pope's institution because he was a priest; for they would thole no priest to marry, but they would punish and burn him to the dead; but if he had used ten thousand whores he had not been burnt" (Pitscottie's History, 1778, p. 236).
[37] [In the letter, dated 29th December 1537, granting his escheat to his father, he is described as "umquhill Walter Stewart" (M'Crie's Knox, 1855, p. 316). Calderwood places his recantation and accidental death in 1533 (History, Wodrow Society, i. 104).]