Persecution at St. Andrews: Walter Myln is burned.
Shortly after these things, that cruel tyrant and unmerciful hypocrite, falsely called Archbishop of St. Andrews, apprehended that blessed martyr of Christ Jesus, Walter Myln; a man of decrepit age, whom most cruelly and most unjustly he put to death by fire in St. Andrews, the twenty-eighth day of April, the year of God 1558. This did highly offend the hearts of all godly, and immediately after his death a new fervency arose amongst the whole people; yea, even in the town of St. Andrews, the people began plainly to damn such unjust cruelty. In testification that the death of Walter Myln would abide in recent memory, there was cast together a great heap of stones at the place where he was burned. The Archbishop and the priests, offended, caused this to be removed once or twice, with denunciation, by cursing, of any man who should there lay a stone. But their breath was spent in vain; for the heap was always renewed, until the priests and papists did by night steal away the stones to build their walls, and for other their private uses.
Having no suspicion that the Queen Regent approved of the murder of Walter Myln, we did most humbly complain of this unjust cruelty, requiring that justice in such cases should be administered with greater indifference.[131] A woman born to dissemble and deceive, she began to lament to us the cruelty of the Archbishop, excusing herself as innocent. She declared that sentence had been given without her knowledge, because the man had been a priest at one time; and the Archbishop's officer had prosecuted him without any commission from the civil authority, ex officio, as they term it.
The Protestants appeal to Parliament.
Still unsuspicious, we required some order to be taken against such enormities; and this she promised, as she had often done before. But because a Parliament was to be held shortly after, for certain affairs pertaining rather to the Queen's particular profit than to the commodity of the commonwealth, we thought good to expose our matter unto the whole Parliament, and from them to seek some redress. Therefore, with one consent, we did offer to the Queen and Parliament a letter in this tenor:—
"Unto your Grace, and unto you, Right Honourable Lords of this present Parliament, humbly mean and show your Grace's faithful and obedient subjects: That we are daily molested, slandered, and injured by wicked and ignorant persons, place-holders of the ministers of the Church, who most untruly cease not to infame us as heretics, and under that name most cruelly have persecuted divers of our brethren, and further intend to execute their malice against us, unless by some godly order their fury and rage be bridled and stayed. Yet in us they are able to prove no crime worthy of punishment, unless it be that to read the Holy Scriptures in our assemblies, to invocate the name of God in public prayers, with all sobriety to interpret and open the places of Scripture that be read, to the further edification of the brethren assembled, and truly according to the holy institution of Christ Jesus to minister the Sacraments, are crimes worthy of punishment. Of other crimes they are not able to convict us.... Most humbly require we of your Grace, and of your right honourable Lords, Barons, and Burgesses assembled in this present Parliament, prudently to weigh, and, as becometh just judges, to grant these our most just and reasonable petitions:—
"Firstly, ... We most humbly desire that all such Acts of Parliament, as in the time of darkness gave power to the Churchmen to execute their tyranny against us, by reason that we were delated heretics, may be suspended and abrogated until a General Council, lawfully assembled, shall have decided all controversies in religion.
"Secondly, Lest this mutation should seem to set all men at liberty to live as they list, we require that it be enacted by this present Parliament that the prelates and their officers be removed from the place of judgment; granting unto them, not the less, the place of accusers in the presence of a temporal judge, before whom the Churchmen shall be bound to call any accused by them of heresy....
"Thirdly, We require, that all lawful defences be granted to the persons accused.... Also, that place be granted to the party accused to explain and interpret his own mind and meaning; which confession we require to be inserted in public Acts, and to be preferred to the depositions of any witnesses, seeing that none that is not found obstinate in his damnable opinion ought to suffer for religion.
"Lastly, We require, that our brethren be not damned for heretics, unless, by the manifest Word of God, they be convicted to have erred from that faith which the Holy Spirit witnesseth to be necessary to salvation....