[Sidenote: 1595-6.]
‘The king made ane orison before the General Assembly, with many guid
promises and conditions. I pray God he may keep them, be content to
receive admonitions [from the clergy], and be collected himself and his
haill household, and to lay aside his authority royal and be as ane
brother to them, and to see all the kirks in this country weel planted
with ministers. There are in Scotland 900 kirks, of the whilk there are
400 without ministers or readers.’--_Bir._
The admonitions which it was so desirable that the king should
receive, were embodied in a paper called _Offences in the King’s
House_, under the following heads: ‘1. The reading of the Word, and
thanksgiving before and after meat, oft omitted. 2. Week-sermons oft
neglected, and he would be admonished not to talk with any in time of
divine service. 3. To recommend to him private meditation with God in
spirit and in his awn conscience. 4. Banning and swearing is too common
in the king’s house and court, occasioned by his example. 5. He would
have good company about him: Robertland, papists, murderers, profane
persons, would be removed from him. 6. The queen’s ministry would be
reformed. She herself neglects Word and sacrament, is to be admonished
for night-waking, balling, &c., also touching her company--and so of
her gentlewomen.’--_Row._
On the other hand, the king demanded of this assembly sundry
concessions as to his power over the kirk, and that ministers should
not be allowed to meddle with civil affairs or ‘to name any man in the
pulpit, or so vively to describe him as it shall be equivalent to the
very naming of him, except upon the notoriety of a public crime.’
[Sidenote: 1595-6.]
On this occasion the clergy denounced the _common corruption of all
estates within this realm_; namely, ‘an universal coldness, want of
zeal, ignorance, contempt of the Word, ministry, and sacraments, and
where knowledge is, yet no sense nor feeling, evidenced by the want
of family exercises, prayer, and the Word, and singing of psalms; and
if they be, they are profaned and abused, by calling on the cook,
steward, or jackman to perform that religious duty ... superstition and
idolatry entertained, evidenced in keeping of festival-days, fires,
pilgrimages, singing of carols at Yule, &c. ... swearing, banning, and
cursing: profanation of the Sabbath, especially by working in seed-time
and harvest, journeying, trysting, gaming, dancing, drinking, fishing,
killing, and milling: inferiors not doing duty to superiors, children
having pleas of law against their parents, marrying without their
consent; superiors not doing duty to inferiors, as not training up
their children at schools in virtue and godliness; great and frequent
breaches of duty between married persons: great bloodshed, deadly
feuds arising thence, and assisting of bloodshedders for eluding of
the laws: fornications, adulteries, incests, unlawful marriages and
divorcements, allowed by laws and judges ... excessive drinking and
waughting, gluttony (no doubt the cause of this dearth and famine),
gorgeous and vain apparel, filthy speeches and songs: cruel oppressions
of poor tenants ... idle persons having no lawful callings--as pipers,
fiddlers, songsters, sorners, pleasants, strong and sturdy beggars
living in harlotry.... Lying, finally, is a rife and common sin.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: 1596.