They were tired of Rome, tired of the profligacy, ignorance, and insatiable greed of the ecclesiastical dignitaries who, too often, were reckless cadets of the noble families.

Many Scots had read the Lutheran books and disbelieved in transubstantiation; thought that money paid for prayers to the dead was money wasted; preferred a married and preaching to a celibate and licentious clergy who celebrated Mass; were convinced that saintly images were idols, that saintly miracles were impostures.

Above all, the nobles coveted the lands of the Church, the spoils of the religious houses.
In Scotland, as elsewhere, the causes of the religious revolution were many.

The wealth and luxury of the higher clergy, and of the dwellers in the abbeys, had long been the butt of satire and of the fiercer indignation of the people.

Benefices, great and small, were jobbed on every side between the popes, the kings, and the great nobles.