At these words the accuser interrupted him, and cried with all his might, ‘Thou heretic, renegade, traitor, and thief, it was not lawful for thee to preach, ... and we forethink that thou hast been a preacher too long.’ Then all the prelates, terrified at the thought that he was going to set before that vast audience the very substance and pith of his teaching, said one to another, ‘He is so crafty, and in Holy Scriptures so exercised, that he will persuade the people to his own opinion and raise them against us.’ Wishart, perceiving that he had no chance of a fair hearing before that ecclesiastical court, said, ‘I appeal from my lord cardinal to my lord the governor.’ ‘What,’ replied Lauder, ‘is not my lord cardinal the second person within this realm, chancellor of Scotland, archbishop of St. Andrews, bishop of Mirepoix [in Languedoc], commendator of Arbroath, legatus natus, legatus a latere ...?’ He recited so many titles, says the chronicler, that you might have laden a ship with them, much sooner an ass.[347] ‘Whom desirest thou to be thy judge?’ cried Lauder.
THE TRIAL.
Wishart replied with meekness, ‘I refuse not my lord cardinal, but I desire the Word of God to be my judge, and the temporal estate, with some of your lordships mine auditory; because I am here my lord governor’s prisoner.’ But the priests mocked him, saying, ‘Such man, such judge!’ According to them, the laymen who might have been appointed his judges were heretics also, like him.
The cardinal, without further delay, was going to have sentence of condemnation passed; but some who stood by counselled him to read the articles of accusation, and to permit Wishart to answer to them, in order that the people might not be able to say that he was condemned without a hearing.
Lauder therefore began—‘Thou, false heretic, renegade, traitor, and thief, deceiver of the people, despisest the holy Church’s, and in like case contemnest my lord governor’s authority; for when thou preachedst in Dundee, and wert charged by my lord governor’s authority to desist, thou wouldst not obey, but perseveredst in the same. Therefore the bishop of Brechin cursed thee, and delivered thee into the hands of the devil, and gave thee in commandment that thou shouldst preach no more; yet notwithstanding thou didst continue obstinately.’
Wishart: ‘My lords, I have read in the Acts of the Apostles that it is not lawful for the threatenings and menaces of men to desist from the preaching of the Evangel.’
Lauder: ‘Thou, false heretic, didst say that a priest standing at the altar saying mass was like a fox wagging his tail in July.’[348]
Wishart: ‘My lords, I said not so. These were my sayings: the moving of the body outward, without the inward moving of the heart, is nought else but the playing of an ape, and not the true serving of God.’
Lauder: ‘Thou false heretic, traitor, and thief, thou saidst that the sacrament of the altar was but a piece of bread baken upon the ashes.’
Wishart: ‘I once chanced to meet with a Jew when I was sailing upon the water of the Rhine. By prophecies and many other testimonies of the Scriptures I approved that the Messiah was come, the which they called Jesus of Nazareth. He answered, You adore and worship a piece of bread baken upon the ashes, and say that is your God. I have rehearsed here but the sayings of the Jew, which I never affirmed to be true.’ At these words the bishops shook their heads, spitting on the ground and crying out, and showed in all ways that they would not hear him.