In the month of March, 1543, an important step was taken by the parliament toward the Reformation of the church, by making it lawful for every subject in the realm to read the holy scriptures in his mother tongue. Lord Maxwell, who brought the matter before the lords of the articles, proposed that "It should be statute and ordained that it shall be lawful for all our sovereign lady's lieges to have the Holy Writ, to wit, the New Testament and Old, in the vulgar tongue, English or Scotch, of a good and true translation, and that they shall incur no crime for the having and reading the same." The bishops, as we may suppose, protested loudly against this measure, but it was passed notwithstanding, and instructions given to the Clerk of Register to have it duly proclaimed at the market-cross; and sent into all parts of the kingdom by order of the regent. This public act in favor of religious liberty was a signal triumph of truth over error. The priests began to cry out with one voice: Heresy! heresy! and that the regent was the promoter of heresy.
"The victory," says Knox, "which Jesus Christ then won over the enemies of the truth was of no little importance. The trumpet of the gospel gave at once a certain sound, from Wigton to Inverness, from south to north. No small comfort was given to the souls, to the families, who till then durst not read the Lord's prayer or the ten commandments in English, through fear of being accused of heresy. The Bible, which had long lain hidden in some out of the way corner, was now openly placed on the tables of pious and well-informed men. The New Testament was indeed already widely circulated, but many of those who possessed it had shown themselves unworthy of it, never having read ten sentences in it through fear of man. Now they brought it, and would chop their familiars on the cheek with it. The knowledge of God was wonderfully increased by the reading of the sacred writings, and the Holy Spirit was given in great abundance to simple men." This important act of the Scottish parliament was never repealed.
Hitherto the Reformation had been advanced in Scotland by books imported from England and the Continent; but now the truth was disseminated, and the errors of popery were exposed by books which issued from the Scottish press. The poets and satirists were also busy. With the poet's usual license, they employed themselves in writing ballads, plays, and satires, on the ignorance and immoralities of the clergy, and the absurdities and superstitions of the popish religion. Such compositions in the Scottish language were read with great avidity by the people, and operated powerfully in alienating the public mind from the Catholic religion.