"Regrettable"

Last week in Edinburgh, where, stern John Knox once thundered against the impiety of 16th Century non-Presbyterian queens,-some Scots were up to their favorite game of censuring English morals. Their targets: Princess Elizabeth and husband Philip.

The little Free Church of Scotland, strict Highland offshoot of the Church of Scotland, passed a resolution expressing "grief and concern" that the royal couple, in their visit to Paris (TIME, May 24) had indulged in "racing, theater and nightclub dancing on the Lord's Day."

Said the "Wee Free's" resolution: ". . . We believe this is ... repugnant to the most sacred convictions of the great mass of His Majesty's most loyal subjects, and sets a most regrettable example before the youth of the nation, who look to Their Royal Highnesses for guidance and inspiration . . ."

The Church of Scotland itself, also meeting in Knox's city last week, said nothing. And below the Tweed there were pooh-poohs. Said one palace official: "As guests of the French people, the Princess and her husband shared in a typical continental Sunday. There would appear to be nothing wrong in that." Another who found the Scottish rebuke overly Knoxious was the Venerable J.H.L. Morrell, Archdeacon of Lewes. The royal couple, said Morrell, had "formally done their duty to God by attending divine services on God's day," then had merely "enjoyed themselves naturally and normally as people [in France] normally behave." But nobody knew better than royalty that the stern voice of Scottish conscience could not be entirely ignored. It was not likely to happen again.

-In 1561, when Mary Stuart, Queen of the Scots, brought her court to Edinburgh, Knox cried: "The preachers were wondrous vehement in reprehension of all manner of vice, which then began to abound; and especially avarice, oppression of the poor, excess, riotous cheer, banqueting, immoderate dancing, and whoredom that thereof ensues." Knox titled one famous pamphlet "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women."

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