In this the clergy are mercilessly attacked for greed and wantonness.

[Sidenote: 1540] The New Testament is highly praised by some of the characters introduced into the poem, but a pardoner complains that his credit has been entirely destroyed by it and wishes the devil may take him who made that book.

He further wishes that "Martin Luther, that false loon, Black Bullinger and Melanchthon" had been smothered in their chrisom-cloths and that St.Paul had never been born.
[Sidenote: Mary Stuart, born Dec.

8, 1542] When James V died, he left the crown to his infant daughter of six days old, that Mary whose beauty, crimes and tragic end fixed the attention of her contemporaries and of posterity alike.

For the first three years of her reign the most powerful man in the kingdom was David Beaton, Cardinal Archbishop of St.Andrews.