Mair ferylie can play at the fute-ball;
And for the cartis, the tabels, and the dyse,
Above all parsouns I may beir the pryse."
In Sir David's poem, entitled 'The Cardinal,' exposing the personal vices and tyrannical conduct of Cardinal Beaton, who was assassinated at St. Andrews in 1546, that prelate is represented as a great gamester: [130]
"In banketting, playing at cartis and dyce,
Into sic wysedome I was haldin wyse;
And spairit nocht to play with king nor knicht,
Thre thousand crownes of golde upon ane night."
In the examination of Thomas Forret, a dean of the Kirk, and vicar of Dollar, on a charge of heresy brought against him by John Lauder, a tool of Cardinal Beaton's, at Edinburgh, 1st March, 1539, Forret's answer to one of the charges of his accuser, affords some idea of the manner in which many bachelor priests of the period were accustomed to spend their tithes:
"Accuser. False Heretic, thou sayest it is not lawful to Kirkmen to take their teinds (tythes) and offerings and corps-presents, though we have been in use of them, constitute by the Kirk and King, and also our holy father the Pope hath confirmed the same?