Be mercyfull to me, O God.
1574-5.
His own personal extravagances were not less remarkable. He erected at Dalkeith a magnificent palace, richly adorned with tapestries and pictures, and fitter for a king than a subject. Here he lived in an appropriate style. All this he did at the expense of his enemies. He kept a fool named Patrick Bonny, who, seeing him one day pestered by a concourse of beggars, advised him to have them all burnt in one fire. ‘What an impious idea!’ said the Regent. ‘Not at all,’ replied the jester; ‘if the whole of these poor people were consumed, you would soon make more poor people out of the rich.’—Jo. R. B. Hist.
1575. Mar. 30.
‘There was ane calf calfit at Roslin, with ane heid, four een, three lugs [ears], ane in the middle, and ane on ilk side, twa mouths.’[96]—Sinclair of Roslin’s MS. additions to Extracta ex Chronicis Scotie.
June.
A number of French Protestants having at this time taken refuge in London in great poverty, there was a collection in Edinburgh for their benefit, one person being commissioned to go ‘through the Lords of Session, advocates, and scribes,’ and another ‘to pass to the deacons and crafts,’ in order to gather their respective contributions.—R. G. K. E.