Grampian Club > Scotland, social and domestic

311
CHAPTER VII.
CHURCH DISCIPLINE.
At the Reformation, Presbyterian judicatories proceeded
to occupy the position of the old Consistory Courts.
They took cognizance of offences precisely similar, with
the exception of such as "speaking evil of saints," and
" the non-payment of offerings," or those which bore direct
reference to the Catholic faith. Under the Presbyterian
system, the Kirk-session exercised the functions of the
Archdeacon's Commissary, and Presbyterian Synods and
the General Assembly formed an appellate jurisdiction,
similar to that which was exercised by the Archdeacons
and Bishops and the Archbishop of St. Andrews. In
renouncing the doctrinal errors of the Papacy, the
Reformers unhappily did not abjure the intolerant spirit
of those whose ecclesiastical system they had overthrown.
An enactment was passed under their direction, that
all who assisted in celebrating mass should be prosecuted
criminally, and that those who were for the third time
convicted of saying or hearing mass should be deprived
of life. On the 21st May, 1563, John Hamilton, Arch-
bishop of St. Andrews, was, along with forty-seven other
persons, arraigned before the High Court of Justiciary
on the charge of celebrating mass. The Archbishop was
sentenced to imprisonment within "the castell of Edin-
burghe," "thair to remaine during our souerane ladies'