Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > Historie and cronicles of Scotland > Volume 1, 1899

CX1V
INTRODUCTION.
the notice of the expedition of Peter Breze to Northumber¬
land in aid of Henry VI.; the praise of Bishop Kennedy,
modified by the censure on his pluralities and extravagant
tomb ; and the account of the part taken by the Scots,
amongst whom was a native of Haddington, in Henry of
Richmond’s victory over Richard III., are almost the only
passages in which he seems directly indebted to Major.
But the indirect influence was considerable. Major set the
example of a Scottish history of the modern, reflective,
and reasoning kind—not merely a chronicle of events, but
an attempt to trace their causes and consequences and
to read their lesson. His work was trammelled with the
bonds of a scholastic method and a half-dead language,
but both writers were moved by the same modern spirit.
This spirit had already touched the old orthodox Catholic
Major; but it had freer play when the pen was taken
up by Pitscottie, a Protestant layman of a younger gen¬
eration, who was ignorant of the Latin of the Sorbonne
and the logic of the schoolmen. While opposed to each
other in their opinions about religion, they agreed in
finding a genuine Scottish patriotism not incompatible
with a desire for an English rather than a French alliance.
This led both authors to pay considerable attention to
contemporary English history. Each was firmly attached
to his own faith ; but, at least as regards the past, Major
was a liberal Catholic and Pitscottie a liberal Protestant.
In the fierce controversies of their own day their paths
severed. Major sat on the council which condemned
Wishart. Pitscottie deemed the latter a martyr, and
calls the Catholic bishops who condemned him ‘bloody
‘ butchers.’
‘ Schir David Lyndesay of the Mont, alias lyon herald