Spottiswoode Society > History of the affairs of the Church and State of Scotland from the beginning of the reformation to the year 1568 > Volume 1

92 THE HISTORY OF THE AFFAIRS [1542.
late Act of Parliament, and Proclamation following thereupon.
However, the Governor was not so startled therewith, but
that he continued his care to implement the design of the
Act, for which purpose he desired Mr Sadler to write into
England for some Bibles in English, and for the statutes
and injunctions made lately there by King Henry for the
reformation of the clergy, and extirpation of the Bishop of
Rome's authority. And about a week thereafter, viz. on
the 9th of April, he told the said Mr Sadler, that he had
given direction for admonishing the people to read the
Scriptures sincerely and quietly to themselves for their own
knowledge, without taking upon them any sinister or rash
interpretation of the same, as by Act of Parliament made
in that behalf is fully set forth, with the banishment of all
other English books except the mere Scriptures, being of
the best and truest translation ; and he added — That when
the King of England shall have perfected such books as he
intended to set forth by public authority, containing such a
certain doctrine as is maintainable by the mere truth, if his
Majesty shall bo pleased to send him the same, he would
not fail to publish them here in Scotland. But when he
came to talk of the extirpation of religious persons and their
houses, which the King of England had recommended to
him, he said — That though he desired no less the reforma-
tion of the abuses of the Church, and the extirpation of the
estate of monks and friars, with the abolition of the Bishop
of Rome's usurped authority, than that King did, yet he
owned that that would be a hard matter to bring to pass :
" For," said he, " there be so many great men in the king-
dom that are Papists, that unless the sin of covetousness
bring them into it — that is, the desire of having the lands of
the abbeys in their own possession — he knew no other mean
to win them to his purpose in that behalf. 11 And the truth is,
the Governor seems here to have hit the nail upon the head,
as we commonly speak ; for, how palpable soever some errors
were that had overspread the Christian doctrine, and how-
ever well disposed the great men might have been to apply
proper remedies thereunto, yet it is much to be questioned
whether they had ever gone so readily, as they did after-
wards, into a total suppression of the monasteries and nun-
neries, which by prudent methods might certainly have been