With commendable prudence, seeing he was addressing a papist queen, honest Alexander says:
‘With mess nor matins noways will I mell,
To judge them justly passes my ingine;
They guide nocht ill that governs weel themsel.’
Yet he deems himself at liberty to remark—doubtless suspecting that Mary would not be much displeased—that instead of old idols has now come in another called Covetice, under whose auspices, certain persons, while
1561-2
‘Singing Sanct David’s psalter on their books,’
are found
‘Rugging and ryving up kirk rents like rooks.’
‘Protestants,’ he goes on to say,