Mac- Lehose, 1910.) Oppressive customs by which "the upmost claith," or a pecuniary equivalent, was extorted as a kind of death-duty by the clergy, were sanctioned by excommunication: no grievance was more bitterly felt by the poor.

The once-dreaded curses on evil-doers became a popular jest: purgatory was a mere excuse for getting money for masses.
In short, the whole mediaeval system was morally rotten; the statements drawn up by councils which made vain attempts to check the stereotyped abuses are as candid and copious concerning all these things as the satires of Sir David Lyndsay.
Then came disbelief in mediaeval dogmas: the Lutheran and other heretical books were secretly purchased and their contents assimilated.
Intercession of saints, images, pilgrimages, the doctrine of the Eucharist, all fell into contempt.
As early as February 1428, as we have seen, the first Scottish martyr for evangelical religion, Patrick Hamilton, was burned at St Andrews.

This sufferer was the son of a bastard of that Lord Hamilton who married the sister of James III.

As was usual, he obtained, when a little boy, an abbey, that of Ferne in Ross-shire.

He drew the revenues, but did not wear the costume of his place; in fact, he was an example of the ordinary abuses.