The town-council of Edinburgh were accustomed annually, at this time, to bestow upon their chief a bullock, which was called The Provost’s Ox, twelve pounds Scots being allowed for the purpose of buying the best that was to be had. They also now gave him a tun of wine, and twelve ells of velvet to make him a gown, as an acknowledgment of special services he had done to the city.—City Register, apud Maitland.
1565-6. Mar. 2.
‘... it was ordainit by the ministers, exhorters, and readers of this realm, that they should begin ane public abstinence fra that day aucht hours afternoon, whilk was Saturday, unto Sunday at five hours at even, and then to take but bread and drink, and that in ane sober manner, during the whilk time the people to be occupiet in prayers and hearing the word of God; and as meikle to be done the next Sunday thereafter, for to pray to the eternal God that he wald saften and pacify his angry wrath whilk appearandly is come upon us for our sins, and specially that God wald inform, mollify, and make soft the hearts of our sovereigns towards our nobility whilk are now banished in England....’—D. O.
These nobles were meanwhile arranging very active measures by the arm of flesh to bring about the desired change. Before the second fast had taken place, Riccio lay cold with his fifty-six wounds in the ante-chamber of Holyrood, the palace was in the hands of Morton, and the exiled lords had returned to Edinburgh.
1566. June.
Paul Methven, originally a baker in Dundee, afterwards minister of Jedburgh, for an immorality of a gross kind, was excommunicated by the General Assembly in 1563. He was from the first penitent, offering to submit to any punishment which the church might impose for his offence, ‘even if it were to lose any member of his body.’ After two or three years of troubles and buffetings to and fro, he succeeded in inducing the Assembly to look mildly on his case. ‘It was ordainit that he present himself personally before the Assembly, and, being entrit, [he] prostrate[d] himself before the whole brethren with weeping and howling, and, being commandit to rise, might not express farther his request, being, as appeared, so sore troublit with anguish of heart.’ The penance imposed gives a striking idea of the discipline of these Calvinistic fathers: ‘The said Paul upon the twa preaching-days betwixt the Sundays, sall come to the kirk door of Edinburgh when the second bell rings, clad in sackcloth, bareheaded and barefooted, and there remain while [until] he be brought in to the sermon, and placed in the public spectacle above the people ... in the next Sunday after sall declare signs of his inward repentance to the people, humbly requiring the kirk’s forgiveness; whilk done, he sall be clad in his awn apparel, and received in the society of the kirk as ane lively member thereof.’
1566. June 19.