But, with the great revolution in religion, the interest of Scotland was a permanent political league with England, which Knox did as much as any man to forward, while, by resisting a religious union, he left the seeds of many sorrows.
If the Lowland peasantry, from one point of view, were terribly oppressed, we know that they were of independent manners.

In 1515 the chaplain of Margaret Tudor, the Queen Mother, writes to one Adam Williamson: "You know the use of this country.

Every man speaks what he will without blame.

The man hath more words than the master, and will not be content unless he knows the master's counsel.

There is no order among us." Thus, two hundred and fifty years before Burns, the Lowland Scot was minded that "A man's a man for a' that!" Knox was the true flower of this vigorous Lowland thistle.