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diff --git a/14016.txt b/14016.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec0f6b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/14016.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8775 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, John Knox and the Reformation, by Andrew Lang + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: John Knox and the Reformation + +Author: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: November 10, 2004 [eBook #14016] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN KNOX AND THE REFORMATION*** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1905 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +John Knox and the Reformation + + +[John Knox. From a Posthumous Portrait. Beza's Icones, 1850: knox1.jpg] + +To Maurice Hewlett + + + + +PREFACE + + +In this brief Life of Knox I have tried, as much as I may, to get behind +Tradition, which has so deeply affected even modern histories of the +Scottish Reformation, and even recent Biographies of the Reformer. The +tradition is based, to a great extent, on Knox's own "History," which I +am therefore obliged to criticise as carefully as I can. In his valuable +John Knox, a Biography, Professor Hume Brown says that in the "History" +"we have convincing proof alike of the writer's good faith, and of his +perception of the conditions of historic truth." My reasons for +dissenting from this favourable view will be found in the following +pages. If I am right, if Knox, both as a politician and an historian, +resembled Charles I. in "sailing as near the wind" as he could, the +circumstance (as another of his biographers remarks) "only makes him more +human and interesting." + +Opinion about Knox and the religious Revolution in which he took so great +a part, has passed through several variations in the last century. In +the Edinburgh Review of 1816 (No. liii. pp. 163-180), is an article with +which the present biographer can agree. Several passages from Knox's +works are cited, and the reader is expected to be "shocked at their +principles." They are certainly shocking, but they are not, as a rule, +set before the public by biographers of the Reformer. + +Mr. Carlyle introduced a style of thinking about Knox which may be called +platonically Puritan. Sweet enthusiasts glide swiftly over all in the +Reformer that is specially distasteful to us. I find myself more in +harmony with the outspoken Hallam, Dr. Joseph Robertson, David Hume, and +the Edinburgh reviewer of 1816, than with several more recent students of +Knox. + +"The Reformer's violent counsels and intemperate speech were remarkable," +writes Dr. Robertson, "even in his own ruthless age," and he gives +fourteen examples. {0a} "Lord Hailes has shown," he adds, "how little +Knox's statements" (in his "History") "are to be relied on even in +matters which were within the Reformer's own knowledge." In Scotland +there has always been the party of Cavalier and White Rose +sentimentalism. To this party Queen Mary is a saintly being, and their +admiration of Claverhouse goes far beyond that entertained by Sir Walter +Scott. On the other side, there is the party, equally sentimental, which +musters under the banner of the Covenant, and sees scarcely a blemish in +Knox. A pretty sample of the sentiment of this party appears in a +biography (1905) of the Reformer by a minister of the Gospel. Knox +summoned the organised brethren, in 1563, to overawe justice, when some +men were to be tried on a charge of invading in arms the chapel of +Holyrood. No proceeding could be more anarchic than Knox's, or more in +accordance with the lovable customs of my dear country, at that time. But +the biographer of 1905, "a placed minister," writes that "the doing of +it" (Knox's summons) "was only an assertion of the liberty of the Church, +and of the members of the Commonwealth as a whole, to assemble for +purposes which were clearly lawful"--the purposes being to overawe +justice in the course of a trial! + +On sentiment, Cavalier or Puritan, reason is thrown away. + +I have been surprised to find how completely a study of Knox's own works +corroborates the views of Dr. Robertson and Lord Hailes. That Knox ran +so very far ahead of the Genevan pontiffs of his age in violence; and +that in his "History" he needs such careful watching, was, to me, an +unexpected discovery. He may have been "an old Hebrew prophet," as Mr. +Carlyle says, but he had also been a young Scottish notary! A Hebrew +prophet is, at best, a dangerous anachronism in a delicate crisis of the +Church Christian; and the notarial element is too conspicuous in some +passages of Knox's "History." + +That Knox was a great man; a disinterested man; in his regard for the +poor a truly Christian man; as a shepherd of Calvinistic souls a man +fervent and considerate; of pure life; in friendship loyal; by jealousy +untainted; in private character genial and amiable, I am entirely +convinced. In public and political life he was much less admirable; and +his "History," vivacious as it is, must be studied as the work of an old- +fashioned advocate rather than as the summing up of a judge. His +favourite adjectives are "bloody," "beastly," "rotten," and "stinking." + +Any inaccuracies of my own which may have escaped my correction will be +dwelt on, by enthusiasts for the Prophet, as if they are the main +elements of this book, and disqualify me as a critic of Knox's "History." +At least any such errors on my part are involuntary and unconscious. In +Knox's defence we must remember that he never saw his "History" in print. +But he kept it by him for many years, obviously re-reading, for he +certainly retouched it, as late as 1571. + +In quoting Knox and his contemporaries, I have used modern spelling: the +letter from the State Papers printed on pp. 146, 147, shows what the +orthography of the period was really like. Consultation of the original +MSS. on doubtful points, proves that the printed Calendars, though +excellent guides, cannot be relied on as authorities. + +The portrait of Knox, from Beza's book of portraits of Reformers, is +posthumous, but is probably a good likeness drawn from memory, after a +description by Peter Young, who knew him, and a design, presumably by +"Adrianc Vaensoun," a Fleming, resident in Edinburgh. {0b} + +There is an interesting portrait, possibly of Knox, in the National +Gallery of Portraits, but the work has no known authentic history. + +The portrait of Queen Mary, at the age of thirty-six, and a prisoner, is +from the Earl of Morton's original; it is greatly superior to the +"Sheffield" type of likenesses, of about 1578; and, with Janet's and +other drawings (1558-1561), the Bridal medal of 1558, and (in my opinion) +the Earl of Leven and Melville's portrait, of about 1560-1565, is the +best extant representation of the Queen. + +The Leven and Melville portrait of Mary, young and charming, and wearing +jewels which are found recorded in her Inventories, has hitherto been +overlooked. An admirable photogravure is given in Mr. J. J. Foster's +"True Portraiture of Mary, Queen of Scots" (1905), and I understand that +a photograph was done in 1866 for the South Kensington Museum. + +A. LANG. + +8 Gibson Place, St. Andrews. + + + + +CHAPTER I: ANCESTRY, BIRTH, EDUCATION, ENVIRONMENT: 1513(?)-1546 + + +"November 24, 1572. + +"John Knox, minister, deceased, who had, as was alleged, the most part of +the blame of all the sorrows of Scotland since the slaughter of the late +Cardinal." + +It is thus that the decent burgess who, in 1572, kept The Diurnal of such +daily events as he deemed important, cautiously records the death of the +great Scottish Reformer. The sorrows, the "cumber" of which Knox was +"alleged" to bear the blame, did not end with his death. They persisted +in the conspiracies and rebellions of the earlier years of James VI.; +they smouldered through the later part of his time; they broke into far +spreading flame at the touch of the Covenant; they blazed at "dark +Worcester and bloody Dunbar"; at Preston fight, and the sack of Dundee by +Monk; they included the Cromwellian conquest of Scotland, and the shame +and misery of the Restoration; to trace them down to our own age would be +invidious. + +It is with the "alleged" author of the Sorrows, with his life, works, and +ideas that we are concerned. + +John Knox, son of William Knox and of --- Sinclair, his wife, {2a} unlike +most Scotsmen, unlike even Mr. Carlyle, had not "an ell of pedigree." The +common scoff was that each Scot styled himself "the King's poor cousin." +But John Knox declared, "I am a man of base estate and condition." {2b} +The genealogy of Mr. Carlyle has been traced to a date behind the Norman +Conquest, but of Knox's ancestors nothing is known. He himself, in 1562, +when he "ruled the roast" in Scotland, told the ruffian Earl of Bothwell, +"my grandfather, my maternal grandfather, and my father, have served your +Lordship's predecessors, and some of them have died under their +standards; and this" (namely goodwill to the house of the feudal +superior) "is a part of the obligation of our Scottish kindness." Knox, +indeed, never writes very harshly of Bothwell, partly for the reason he +gives; partly, perhaps, because Bothwell, though an infamous character, +and a political opponent, was not in 1562-67 "an idolater," that is, a +Catholic: if ever he had been one; partly because his "History" ends +before Bothwell's murder of Darnley in 1567. + +Knox's ancestors were, we may suppose, peasant farmers, like the +ancestors of Burns and Hogg; and Knox, though he married a maid of the +Queen's kin, bore traces of his descent. "A man ungrateful and +unpleasable," Northumberland styled him: he was one who could not +"smiling, put a question by"; if he had to remonstrate even with a person +whom it was desirable to conciliate, he stated his case in the plainest +and least flattering terms. "Of nature I am churlish, and in conditions +different from many," he wrote; but this side of his character he kept +mainly for people of high rank, accustomed to deference, and indifferent +or hostile to his aims. To others, especially to women whom he liked, he +was considerate and courteous, but any assertion of social superiority +aroused his wakeful independence. His countrymen of his own order had +long displayed these peculiarities of humour. + +The small Scottish cultivators from whose ranks Knox rose, appear, even +before his age, in two strangely different lights. If they were not +technically "kindly tenants," in which case their conditions of existence +and of tenure were comparatively comfortable and secure, they were liable +to eviction at the will of the lord, and, to quote an account of their +condition written in 1549, "were in more servitude than the children of +Israel in Egypt." Henderson, the writer of 1549 whom we have quoted, +hopes that the agricultural class may yet live "as substantial commoners, +not miserable cottars, charged daily to war and slay their neighbours _at +their own expense_," as under the standards of the unruly Bothwell House. +This Henderson was one of the political observers who, before the +Scottish Reformation, hoped for a secure union between Scotland and +England, in place of the old and romantic league with France. That +alliance had, indeed, enabled both France and Scotland to maintain their +national independence. But, with the great revolution in religion, the +interest of Scotland was a permanent political league with England, which +Knox did as much as any man to forward, while, by resisting a religious +union, he left the seeds of many sorrows. + +If the Lowland peasantry, from one point of view, were terribly +oppressed, we know that they were of independent manners. In 1515 the +chaplain of Margaret Tudor, the Queen Mother, writes to one Adam +Williamson: "You know the use of this country. Every man speaks what he +will without blame. The man hath more words than the master, and will +not be content unless he knows the master's counsel. There is no order +among us." + +Thus, two hundred and fifty years before Burns, the Lowland Scot was +minded that "A man's a man for a' that!" Knox was the true flower of +this vigorous Lowland thistle. Throughout life he not only "spoke what +he would," but uttered "the Truth" in such a tone as to make it unlikely +that his "message" should be accepted by opponents. Like Carlyle, +however, he had a heart rich in affection, no breach in friendship, he +says, ever began on his side; while, as "a good hater," Dr. Johnson might +have admired him. He carried into political and theological conflicts +the stubborn temper of the Border prickers, his fathers, who had ridden +under the Roses and the Lion of the Hepburns. So far Knox was an example +of the doctrine of heredity; that we know, however little we learn in +detail about his ancestors. + +The birthplace of Knox was probably a house in a suburb of Haddington, in +a district on the path of English invasion. The year of his birth has +long been dated, on a late statement of little authority, as 1505. {4} +Seven years after his death, however, a man who knew him well, namely, +Peter Young, tutor and librarian of James VI., told Beza that Knox died +in his fifty-ninth year. Dr. Hay Fleming has pointed out that his natal +year was probably 1513-15, not 1505, and this reckoning, we shall see, +appears to fit in better with the deeds of the Reformer. + +If Knox was born in 1513-15, he must have taken priest's orders, and +adopted the profession of a notary, at nearly the earliest moment which +the canonical law permitted. No man ought to be in priest's orders +before he was twenty-five; Knox, if born in 1515, was just twenty-five in +1540, when he is styled "Sir John Knox" (one of "The Pope's Knights") in +legal documents, and appears as a notary. {5} He certainly continued in +orders and in the notarial profession as late as March 1543. The law of +the Church did not, in fact, permit priests to be notaries, but in an age +when "notaires" were often professional forgers, the additional security +for character yielded by Holy Orders must have been welcome to clients, +and Bishops permitted priests to practise this branch of the law. + +Of Knox's near kin no more is known than of his ancestors. He had a +brother, William, for whom, in 1552, he procured a licence to trade in +England as owner of a ship of 100 tons. Even as late as 1656, there were +not a dozen ships of this burden in Scotland, so William Knox must have +been relatively a prosperous man. In 1544-45, there was a William Knox, +a fowler or gamekeeper to the Earl of Westmoreland, who acted as a secret +agent between the Scots in English pay and their paymasters. We much +later (1559) find the Reformer's brother, William, engaged with him in a +secret political mission to the Governor of Berwick; probably this +William knew shy Border paths, and he may have learned them as the Lord +Westmoreland's fowler in earlier years. + +About John Knox's early years and education nothing is known. He +certainly acquired such Latin (satis humilis, says a German critic) as +Scotland then had to teach; probably at the Burgh School of Haddington. A +certain John Knox matriculated at the University of Glasgow in 1522, but +he cannot have been the Reformer, if the Reformer was not born till 1513- +15. Beza, on the other hand (1580), had learned, probably from the +Reformer, whom he knew well, that Knox was a St. Andrews man, and though +his name does not occur in the University Register, the Register was very +ill kept. Supposing Knox, then, to have been born in 1513-15, and to +have been educated at St. Andrews, we can see how he comes to know so +much about the progress of the new religious ideas at that University, +between 1529 and 1535. "The Well of St. Leonard's College" was a +notorious fountain of heresies, under Gawain Logie, the Principal. Knox +very probably heard the sermons of the Dominicans and Franciscans +"against the pride and idle life of bishops," and other abuses. He +speaks of a private conversation between Friar Airth and Major (about +1534), and names some of the persons present at a sermon in the parish +church of St. Andrews, as if he had himself been in the congregation. He +gives the text and heads of the discourse, including "merry tales" told +by the Friar. {6} If Knox heard the sermons and stories of clerical +scandals at St. Andrews, they did not prevent him from taking orders. His +Greek and Hebrew, what there was of them, Knox must have acquired in +later life, at least we never learn that he was taught by the famous +George Wishart, who, about that time, gave Greek lectures at Montrose. + +The Catholic opponents of Knox naturally told scandalous anecdotes +concerning his youth. These are destitute of evidence: about his youth +we know nothing. It is a characteristic trait in him, and a fact much to +his credit, that, though he is fond of expatiating about himself, he +never makes confessions as to his earlier adventures. On his own years +of the wild oat St. Augustine dilates in a style which still has charm: +but Knox, if he sowed wild oats, is silent as the tomb. If he has +anything to repent, it is not to the world that he confesses. About the +days when he was "one of Baal's shaven sort," in his own phrase; when he +was himself an "idolater," and a priest of the altar: about the details +of his conversion, Knox is mute. It is probable that, as a priest, he +examined Lutheran books which were brought in with other merchandise from +Holland; read the Bible for himself; and failed to find Purgatory, the +Mass, the intercession of Saints, pardons, pilgrimages, and other +accessories of mediaeval religion in the Scriptures. {7} Knox had only +to keep his eyes and ears open, to observe the clerical ignorance and +corruption which resulted in great part from the Scottish habit of +securing wealthy Church offices for ignorant, brutal, and licentious +younger sons and bastards of noble families. This practice in Scotland +was as odious to good Catholics, like Quentin Kennedy, Ninian Winzet, +and, rather earlier, to Ferrerius, as to Knox himself. The prevalent +anarchy caused by the long minorities of the Stuart kings, and by the +interminable wars with England, and the difficulty of communications with +Rome, had enabled the nobles thus to rob and deprave the Church, and so +to provide themselves with moral reasons good for robbing her again; as a +punishment for the iniquities which they had themselves introduced! + +The almost incredible ignorance and profligacy of the higher Scottish +clergy (with notable exceptions) in Knox's youth, are not matter of +controversy. They are as frankly recognised by contemporary Catholic as +by Protestant authors. In the very year of the destruction of the +monasteries (1559) the abuses are officially stated, as will be told +later, by the last Scottish Provincial Council. Though three of the four +Scottish universities were founded by Catholics, and the fourth, +Edinburgh, had an endowment bequeathed by a Catholic, the clerical +ignorance, in Knox's time, was such that many priests could hardly read. + +If more evidence is needed as to the debauched estate of the Scottish +clergy, we obtain it from Mary of Guise, widow of James V., the Regent +then governing Scotland for her child, Mary Stuart. The Queen, in +December 1555, begged Pius IV. to permit her to levy a tax on her clergy, +and to listen to what Cardinal Sermoneta would tell him about their need +of reformation. The Cardinal drew a terrible sketch of the nefarious +lives of "every kind of religious women" in Scotland. They go about with +their illegal families and dower their daughters out of the revenues of +the Church. The monks, too, have bloated wealth, while churches are +allowed to fall into decay. "The only hope is in the Holy Father," who +should appoint an episcopal commission of visitation. For about forty +years prelates have been alienating Church lands illegally, and churches +and monasteries, by the avarice of those placed in charge, are crumbling +to decay. Bishops are the chief dealers in cattle, fish, and hides, +though we have, in fact, good evidence that their dealings were very +limited, "sma' sums." + +Not only the clergy, but the nobles and people were lawless. "They are +more difficult to manage than ever," writes Mary of Guise (Jan. 13, +1557). They are recalcitrant against law and order; every attempt at +introducing these is denounced as an attack on their old laws: not that +their laws are bad, but that they are badly administered. {9} Scotland, +in brief, had always been lawless, and for centuries had never been +godly. She was untouched by the first fervour of the Franciscan and +other religious revivals. Knox could not fail to see what was so patent: +many books of the German reformers may have come in his way; no more was +wanted than the preaching of George Wishart in 1543-45, to make him an +irreconcilable foe of the doctrine as well as the discipline of his +Church. + +Knox had a sincerely religious nature, and a conviction that he was, more +than most men, though a sinner, in close touch with Him "in whom we live +and move and have our being." We ask ourselves, had Knox, as "a priest +of the altar," never known the deep emotions, which tongue may not utter, +that the ceremonies and services of his Church so naturally awaken in the +soul of the believer? These emotions, if they were in his experience, he +never remembered tenderly, he flung them from him without regret; not +regarding them even as dreams, beautiful and dear, but misleading, that +came through the Ivory Gate. To Knox's opponent in controversy, Quentin +Kennedy, the mass was "the blessed Sacrament of the Altar . . . which is +one of the chief Sacraments whereby our Saviour, for the salvation of +mankind, has appointed the fruit of His death and passion to be daily +renewed and applied." In this traditional view there is nothing +unedifying, nothing injurious to the Christian life. But to Knox the +wafer is an idol, a god "of water and meal," "but a feeble and miserable +god," that can be destroyed "by a bold and puissant mouse." "Rats and +mice will desire no better dinner than white round gods enough." {10} + +The Reformer and the Catholic take up the question "by different +handles"; and the Catholic grounds his defence on a text about +Melchizedek! To Knox the mass is the symbol of all that he justly +detested in the degraded Church as she then was in Scotland, "that +horrible harlot with her filthiness." To Kennedy it was what we have +seen. + +Knox speaks of having been in "the puddle of papistry." He loathes what +he has left behind him, and it is natural to guess that, in his first +years of priesthood, his religious nature slept; that he became a priest +and notary merely that he "might eat a morsel of bread"; and that real +"conviction" never was his till his studies of Protestant +controversialists, and also of St. Augustine and the Bible, and the +teaching of Wishart, raised him from a mundane life. Then he awoke to a +passionate horror and hatred of his old routine of "mumbled masses," of +"rites of human invention," whereof he had never known the poetry and the +mystic charm. Had he known them, he could not have so denied and +detested them. On the other hand, when once he had embraced the new +ideas, Knox's faith in them, or in his own form of them, was firm as the +round world, made so fast that it cannot be moved. He had now a pou sto, +whence he could, and did, move the world of human affairs. A faith not +to be shaken, and enormous energy were the essential attributes of the +Reformer. It is almost impossible to find an instance in which Knox +allows that he may have been mistaken: d'avoir toujours raison was his +claim. If he admits an error in details, it is usually an error of +insufficient severity. He did not attack Northumberland or Mary Stuart +with adequate violence; he did not disapprove enough of our prayer book; +he did not hand a heretic over to the magistrates. + +While acting as a priest and notary, between 1540, at latest, and 1543, +Knox was engaged as private tutor to a boy named Brounefield, son of +Brounefield of Greenlaw, and to other lads, spoken of as his "bairns." In +this profession of tutor he continued till 1547. + +Knox's personal aspect did not give signs of the uncommon strength which +his unceasing labours demanded, but, like many men of energy, he had a +perpetual youth of character and vigour. After his death, Peter Young +described him as he appeared in his later years. He was somewhat below +the "just" standard of height; his limbs were well and elegantly shaped; +his shoulders broad, his fingers rather long, his head small, his hair +black, his face somewhat swarthy, and not unpleasant to behold. There +was a certain geniality in a countenance serious and stern, with a +natural dignity and air of command; his eyebrows, when he was in anger, +were expressive. His forehead was rather narrow, depressed above the +eyebrows; his cheeks were full and ruddy, so that the eyes seemed to +retreat into their hollows: they were dark grey, keen, and lively. The +face was long, the nose also; the mouth was large, the upper lip being +the thicker. The beard was long, rather thick and black, with a few grey +hairs in his later years. {12} The nearest approach to an authentic +portrait of Knox is a woodcut, engraved after a sketch from memory by +Peter Young, and after another sketch of the same kind by an artist in +Edinburgh. Compared with the peevish face of Calvin, also in Beza's +Icones, Knox looks a broad-minded and genial character. + +Despite the uncommon length to which Knox carried the contemporary +approval of persecution, then almost universal, except among the +Anabaptists (and any party out of power), he was not personally rancorous +where religion was not concerned. But concerned it usually was! He was +the subject of many anonymous pasquils and libels, we know, but he +entirely disregarded them. If he hated any mortal personally, and beyond +what true religion demands of a Christian, that mortal was the mother of +Mary Stuart, an amiable lady in an impossible position. Of jealousy +towards his brethren there is not a trace in Knox, and he told Queen Mary +that he could ill bear to correct his own boys, though the age was as +cruel to schoolboys as that of St. Augustine. + +The faults of Knox arose not in his heart, but in his head; they sprung +from intellectual errors, and from the belief that he was always right. +He applied to his fellow-Christians--Catholics--the commands which early +Israel supposed to be divinely directed against foreign worshippers of +Chemosh and Moloch. He endeavoured to force his own theory of what the +discipline of the Primitive Apostolic Church had been upon a modern +nation, following the example of the little city state of Geneva, under +Calvin. He claimed for preachers chosen by local congregations the +privileges and powers of the apostolic companions of Christ, and in place +of "sweet reasonableness," he applied the methods, quite alien to the +Founder of Christianity, of the "Sons of Thunder." All controversialists +then relied on isolated and inappropriate scriptural texts, and Biblical +analogies which were not analogous; but Knox employed these things, with +perhaps unusual inconsistency, in varying circumstances. His "History" +is not more scrupulous than that of other partisans in an exciting +contest, and examples of his taste for personal scandal are not scarce. + + + + +CHAPTER II: KNOX, WISHART, AND THE MURDER OF BEATON: 1545-1546 + + +Our earliest knowledge of Knox, apart from mention of him in notarial +documents, is derived from his own History of the Reformation. The +portion of that work in which he first mentions himself was written about +1561-66, some twenty years after the events recorded, and in reading all +this part of his Memoirs, and his account of the religious struggle, +allowance must be made for errors of memory, or for erroneous +information. We meet him first towards the end of "the holy days of +Yule"--Christmas, 1545. Knox had then for some weeks been the constant +companion and armed bodyguard of George Wishart, who was calling himself +"the messenger of the Eternal God," and preaching the new ideas in +Haddington to very small congregations. This Wishart, Knox's master in +the faith, was a Forfarshire man; he is said to have taught Greek at +Montrose, to have been driven thence in 1538 by the Bishop of Brechin, +and to have recanted certain heresies in 1539. He had denied the merits +of Christ as the Redeemer, but afterwards dropped that error, when +persistence meant death at the stake. It was in Bristol that he "burned +his faggot," in place of being burned himself. There was really nothing +humiliating in this recantation, for, after his release, he did not +resume his heresy; clearly he yielded, not to fear, but to conviction of +theological error. {15a} + +He next travelled in Germany, where a Jew, on a Rhine boat, inspired or +increased his aversion to works of sacred art, as being "idolatrous." +About 1542-43 he was reading with pupils at Cambridge, and was remarked +for the severity of his ascetic virtue, and for his great charity. At +some uncertain date he translated the Helvetic Confession of Faith, and +he was more of a Calvinist than a Lutheran. In July 1543 he returned to +Scotland; at least he returned with some "commissioners to England," who +certainly came home in July 1543, as Knox mentions, though later he gives +the date of Wishart's return in 1544, probably by a slip of the pen. + +Coming home in July 1543, Wishart would expect a fair chance of preaching +his novel ideas, as peace between Scotland and Protestant England now +seemed secure, and Arran, the Scottish Regent, the chief of the almost +Royal House of Hamilton, was, for the moment, himself a Protestant. For +five days (August 28-September 3, 1543) the great Cardinal Beaton, the +head of the party of the Church, was outlawed, and Wishart's preaching at +Dundee, about that date, is supposed by some {15b} to have stimulated an +attack then made on the monasteries in the town. But Arran suddenly +recanted, deserted the Protestants and the faction attached to England, +and joined forces with Cardinal Beaton, who, in November 1543, visited +Dundee, and imprisoned the ringleaders in the riots. They are called +"the honestest men in the town," by the treble traitor and rascal, +Crichton, laird of Brunston in Lothian, at this time a secret agent of +Sadleir, the envoy of Henry VIII. (November 25, 1543). + +By April 1544, Henry was preparing to invade Scotland, and the "earnest +professors" of Protestant doctrines in Scotland sent to him "a Scottish +man called Wysshert," with a proposal for the kidnapping or murder of +Cardinal Beaton. Brunston and other Scottish lairds of Wishart's circle +were agents of the plot, and in 1545-46 our George Wishart is found +companioning with them. When Cassilis took up the threads of the plot +against Beaton, it was to Cassilis's country in Ayrshire that Wishart +went and there preached. Thence he returned to Dundee, to fight the +plague and comfort the citizens, and, towards the end of 1545, moved to +Lothian, expecting to be joined there by his westland supporters, led by +Cassilis--but entertaining dark forebodings of his doom. + +There were, however, other Wisharts, Protestants, in Scotland. It is not +possible to prove that this reformer, though the associate, was the agent +of the murderers, or was even conscious of their schemes. Yet if he had +been, there was no matter for marvel. Knox himself approved of and +applauded the murders of Cardinal Beaton and of Riccio, and, in that age, +too many men of all creeds and parties believed that to kill an opponent +of their religious cause was to imitate Phinehas, Jael, Jehu, and other +patriots of Hebrew history. Dr. M'Crie remarks that Knox "held the +opinion, that persons who, according to the law of God and the just laws +of society, have forfeited their lives by the commission of flagrant +crimes, such as notorious murderers and tyrants, may warrantably be put +to death by private individuals, provided all redress in the ordinary +course of justice is rendered impossible, in consequence of the offenders +having usurped the executive authority, or being systematically protected +by oppressive rulers." The ideas of Knox, in fact, varied in varying +circumstances and moods, and, as we shall show, at times he preached +notions far more truculent than those attributed to him by his +biographer; at times was all for saint-like submission and mere "passive +resistance." {17} + +The current ideas of both parties on "killing no murder" were little +better than those of modern anarchists. It was a prevalent opinion that +a king might have a subject assassinated, if to try him publicly entailed +political inconveniences. The Inquisition, in Spain, vigorously +repudiated this theory, but the Inquisition was in advance of the age. +Knox, as to the doctrine of "killing no murder," was, and Wishart may +have been, a man of his time. But Knox, in telling the story of a murder +which he approves, unhappily displays a glee unbecoming a reformer of the +Church of Him who blamed St. Peter for his recourse to the sword. The +very essence of Christianity is cast to the winds when Knox utters his +laughter over the murders or misfortunes of his opponents, yielding, as +Dr. M'Crie says, "to the strong propensity which he felt to indulge his +vein of humour." Other good men rejoiced in the murder of an enemy, but +Knox chuckled. + +Nothing has injured Knox more in the eyes of posterity (when they happen +to be aware of the facts) than this "humour" of his. + +Knox might be pardoned had he merely excused the murder of "the devil's +own son," Cardinal Beaton, who executed the law on his friend and master, +George Wishart. To Wishart Knox bore a tender and enthusiastic +affection, crediting him not only with the virtues of charity and courage +which he possessed, but also with supernormal premonitions; "he was so +clearly illuminated with the spirit of prophecy." These premonitions +appear to have come to Wishart by way of vision. Knox asserted some +prophetic gift for himself, but never hints anything as to the method, +whether by dream, vision, or the hearing of voices. He often alludes to +himself as "the prophet," and claims certain privileges in that capacity. +For example the prophet may blamelessly preach what men call "treason," +as we shall see. As to his actual predictions of events, he occasionally +writes as if they were mere deductions from Scripture. God will punish +the idolater; A or B is an idolater; therefore it is safe to predict that +God will punish him or her. "What man then can cease to prophesy?" he +asks; and there is, if we thus consider the matter, no reason why anybody +should ever leave off prophesying. {18a} + +But if the art of prophecy is common to all Bible-reading mankind, all +mankind, being prophets, may promulgate treason, which Knox perhaps would +not have admitted. He thought himself more specially a seer, and in his +prayer after the failure of his friends, the murderers of Riccio, he +congratulates himself on being favoured above the common sort of his +brethren, and privileged to "forespeak" things, in an unique degree. + +"I dare not deny . . . but that God hath revealed unto me secrets unknown +to the world," he writes {18b}; and these claims soar high above mere +deductions from Scripture. His biographer, Dr. M'Crie, doubts whether we +can dismiss, as necessarily baseless, all stories of "extraordinary +premonitions since the completion of the canon of inspiration." {19} +Indeed, there appears to be no reason why we should draw the line at a +given date, and "limit the operations of divine Providence." I would be +the last to do so, but then Knox's premonitions are sometimes, or +usually, without documentary and contemporary corroboration; once he +certainly prophesied after the event (as we shall see), and he never +troubles himself about his predictions which were unfulfilled, as against +Queen Elizabeth. + +He supplied the Kirk with the tradition of supernormal premonitions in +preachers--second-sight and clairvoyance--as in the case of Mr. Peden and +other saints of the Covenant. But just as good cases of clairvoyance as +any of Mr. Peden's are attributed to Catherine de Medici, who was not a +saint, by her daughter, La Reine Margot, and others. In Knox, at all +events, there is no trace of visual or auditory hallucinations, so common +in religious experiences, whatever the creed of the percipient. He was +not a visionary. More than this we cannot safely say about his prophetic +vein. + +The enthusiasm which induced a priest, notary, and teacher like Knox to +carry a claymore in defence of a beloved teacher, Wishart, seems more +appropriate to a man of about thirty than a man of forty, and, so far, +supports the opinion that, in 1545, Knox was only thirty years of age. In +that case, his study of the debates between the Church and the new +opinions must have been relatively brief. Yet, in 1547, he already +reckoned himself, not incorrectly, as a skilled disputant in favour of +ideas with which he cannot have been very long familiar. + +Wishart was taken, was tried, was condemned; was strangled, and his dead +body was burned at St. Andrews on March 1, 1546. It is highly improbable +that Knox could venture, as a marked man, to be present at the trial. He +cites the account of it in his "History" from the contemporary Scottish +narrative used by Foxe in his "Martyrs," and Laing, Knox's editor, thinks +that Foxe "may possibly have been indebted for some" of the Scottish +accounts "to the Scottish Reformer." It seems, if there be anything in +evidence of tone and style, that what Knox quotes from Foxe in 1561-66 is +what Knox himself actually wrote about 1547-48. Mr. Hill Burton observes +in the tract "the mark of Knox's vehement colouring," and adds, "it is +needless to seek in the account for precise accuracy." In "precise +accuracy" many historians are as sadly to seek as Knox himself, but his +peculiar "colouring" is all his own, and is as marked in the pamphlet on +Wishart's trial, which he cites, as in the "History" which he +acknowledged. + +There are said to be but few copies of the first edition of the black +letter tract on Wishart's trial, published in London, with Lindsay's +"Tragedy of the Cardinal," by Day and Seres. I regard it as the earliest +printed work of John Knox. {20} The author, when he describes Lauder, +Wishart's official accuser, as "a fed sow . . . his face running down +with sweat, and frothing at the mouth like ane bear," who "spat at +Maister George's face, . . . " shows every mark of Knox's vehement and +pictorial style. His editor, Laing, bids us observe "that all these +opprobrious terms are copied from Foxe, or rather from the black letter +tract." But the black letter tract, I conceive, must be Knox's own. Its +author, like Knox, "indulges his vein of humour" by speaking of friars as +"fiends"; like Knox he calls Wishart "Maister George," and "that servand +of God." + +The peculiarities of the tract, good and bad, the vivid familiar manner, +the vehemence, the pictorial quality, the violent invective, are the +notes of Knox's "History." Already, by 1547, or not much later, he was +the perfect master of his style; his tone no more resembles that of his +contemporary and fellow-historian, Lesley, than the style of Mr. J. R. +Green resembles that of Mr. S. R. Gardiner. + + + + +CHAPTER III: KNOX IN ST. ANDREWS CASTLE: THE GALLEYS: 1547-1549 + + +We now take up Knox where we left him: namely when Wishart was arrested +in January 1546. He was then tutor to the sons of the lairds of +Langniddrie and Ormiston, Protestants and of the English party. Of his +adventures we know nothing, till, on Beaton's murder (May 29, 1546), the +Cardinal's successor, Archbishop Hamilton, drove him "from place to +place," and, at Easter, 1547, he with his pupils entered the Castle of +St. Andrews, then held, with some English aid, against the Regent Arran, +by the murderers of Beaton and their adherents. {22} Knox was not +present, of course, at Beaton's murder, about which he writes so +"merrily," in his manner of mirth; nor at the events of Arran's siege of +the castle, prior to April 1547. He probably, as regards these matters, +writes from recollection of what Kirkcaldy of Grange, James Balfour, +Balnaves, and the other murderers or associates of the murderers of the +Cardinal told him in 1547, or later communicated to him as he wrote, +about 1565-66. With his unfortunate love of imputing personal motives, +he attributes the attacks by the rulers on the murderers mainly to the +revengeful nature of Mary of Guise; the Cardinal having been "the comfort +to all gentlewomen, and _especially to wanton widows_. His death must be +revenged." {23a} + +Knox avers that the besiegers of St. Andrews Castle, despairing of their +task, near the end of January 1547 made a fraudulent truce with the +assassins, hoping for the betrayal of the castle, or of some of the +leaders. {23b} In his narrative we find partisanship or very erroneous +information. The conditions were, he says, that (1) the murderers should +hold the castle till Arran could obtain for them, from the Pope, a +sufficient absolution; (2) that they should give hostages, as soon as the +absolution was delivered to them; (3) that they and their friends should +not be prosecuted, nor undergo any legal penalties for the murder of the +Cardinal; (4) that they should meanwhile keep the eldest son of Arran as +hostage, so long as their own hostages were kept. The Government, +however, says Knox, "never minded to keep word of them" (of these +conditions), "as the issue did declare." + +There is no proof of this accusation of treachery on the part of Arran, +or none known to me. The constant aim of Knox, his fixed idea, as an +historian, is to accuse his adversaries of the treachery which often +marked the negotiations of his friends. + +From this point, the truce, dated by Knox late in January 1547, he +devotes eighteen pages to his own call to the ministry by the castle +people, and to his controversies and sermons in St. Andrews. He then +returns to history, and avers that, about June 21, 1547, the papal +absolution was presented to the garrison merely as a veil for a +treasonable attack, but was rejected, as it included the dubious phrase, +Remittimus irremissibile--"We remit the crime that cannot be remitted." +Nine days later, June 29, he says, by "the treasonable mean" of Arran, +Archbishop Hamilton, and Mary of Guise, twenty-one French galleys, and +such an army as the Firth had never seen, hove into view, and on June 30 +summoned the castle to surrender. The siege of St Andrews Castle, from +the sea, by the French then began, but the garrison and castle were +unharmed, and many of the galley slaves and some French soldiers were +slain, and a ship was driven out of action. The French "shot two days" +only. On July 19 the siege was renewed by land, guns were mounted on the +spires of St. Salvator's College chapel and on the Cathedral, and did +much scathe, though, during the first three weeks of the siege, the +garrison "had many prosperous chances." Meanwhile Knox prophesied the +defeat of his associates, because of "their corrupt life." They had +robbed and ravished, and were probably demoralised by Knox's prophecies. +On the last day of July the castle surrendered. {24} Knox adds that his +friends would deal with France alone, as "Scottish men had all +traitorously betrayed them." + +Now much of this narrative is wrong; wrong in detail, in suggestion, in +omission. That a man of fifty, or sixty, could attribute the attacks on +Beaton's murderers to mere revenge, specially to that of a "wanton +widow," Mary of Guise (who had, we are to believe, so much of the +Cardinal's attentions as his mistress, Mariotte Ogilvy, could spare), is +significant of the spirit in which Knox wrote history. He had a strong +taste for such scandals as this about the "wanton widow." + +Wherever he touches on Mary of Guise (who once treated him in a spirit of +banter), he deals a stab at her name and fame. On all that concerns her +personal character and political conduct, he is unworthy of credit when +uncorroborated by better authority. Indeed Knox's spirit is so unworthy +that for this, among other reasons, Archbishop Spottiswoode declined to +believe in his authorship of the "History." The actual facts were not +those recorded by Knox. + +As regards the "Appointment" or arrangement of the Scottish Government +with the Castilians, it was not made late in January 1547, but was at +least begun by December 17-19, 1546. {25a} On January 11, 1547, a spy of +England, Stewart of Cardonald, reports that the garrison have given +pledges and await their absolution from Rome. {25b} With regard to +Knox's other statements in this place, it was not _after_ this truce, +first, but before it, on November 26, that Arran invited French +assistance, if England would not include Scotland in a treaty of peace +with France. An English invasion was expected in February 1547, and +Arran's object in the "Appointment" with the garrison was to prevent the +English from becoming possessed of the Castle of St. Andrews. Far from +desiring a papal pardon--a mere pretext to gain time for English +relief--the garrison actually asked Henry VIII. to request the Emperor, +to implore the Pope, "to stop and hinder their absolution." {25c} Knox +very probably knew nothing of all this, but his efforts to throw the +blame of treachery on his opponents are obviously futile. + +As to the honesty of his associates--before the death of Henry VIII. +(January 28, 1547), the Castilians had promised him not to surrender the +place without his consent, and to put Arran's son in his hands, promises +which they also made, on Henry's death, to the English Government; in +February they repeated these promises, quite incompatible with their vow +to surrender if absolved. Knox represents them as merely promising to +Henry that they would return Arran's son, and support the plan of +marrying Mary Stuart to Prince Edward of Wales! {26a} In March 1547, +English ships gathered at Holy Island, to relieve the castle. Not on +June 21, 1547, as Knox alleges, but before April 2, the papal absolution +for the murderers arrived. They mocked at it; and the spy who reports +the facts is told that they "would rather have a boll of wheat than all +the Pope's remissions." {26b} Whatever the terms of the papal remission, +they had already, before it arrived, bound themselves to England not to +accept it save with English concurrence; and England, then preparing to +invade Scotland, could not possibly concur. Such was the honesty of +Knox's party, and we already see how far his "History" deserves to be +accepted as historical. + +Next, what is most surprising, Knox's account of the month of ineffectual +siege by the French, while he was actually in the castle, rests on a +strange error of his memory. The contemporary diary, Diurnal of +Occurrences dates the _sending_ (the arrival must be meant) of the French +galleys, not on June 29, as Knox dates their arrival, but on July 24. +Professor Hume Brown says that the Diurnal gives the date as _June_ 24 (a +slip of the pen), "but Knox had surely the best opportunity of knowing +both facts" {27a}--that is, the number of the galleys, and the date of +their coming. Despite his unrivalled opportunities of knowledge, Knox +did not know. It is not quite correct to say that "Knox in his 'History' +shows throughout a conscientious regard to accuracy of statement." +Whatever the number of the galleys (Knox says twenty-one; the Diurnal +says sixteen), on July 13-14, they are reported by Lord Eure, at Berwick, +as passing or having just passed Eyemouth. {27b} They did not therefore +suffer for three weeks at the garrison's hands, or for three weeks desert +the siege, but probably reached the scene of action before the date in +the Diurnal (July 24), as, on July 23, the French Ambassador in England +heard that they were investing the castle. {27c} Allowing five or six +days for transmission of news, they probably began the attack from the +sea about July 16 or 17, not, as Knox says, on June 30. Perhaps he is +right in saying that the French galleys only fired for two days and +retreated, rather battered, to Dundee. Land forces next attacked the +hold, which surrendered on July 29 (as was known in London on August 5), +that is, on the first day that the _land_ battery was erected. + +Knox gives a much more full account of his own controversies, in April- +June 1547, than of political events. He first, on arrival at the castle, +drew up a catechism for his pupils, and publicly catechised them on its +tenets, in the parish kirk in South Street. It is unfortunate that we do +not possess this catechism. At the time when he wrote, Knox was possibly +more of "Martin's" mind, as he familiarly terms Luther, both as to the +Sacrament and as to the Order of Bishops, than he was after his residence +in Geneva. Wishart, however, was well acquainted with Helvetic doctrine; +he had, as we saw, translated a Helvetic Confession of Faith, perhaps +with the view of introducing it into Scotland, and Knox may already have +imbibed Calvinism from him. He was not yet--he never was--a full-blown +Presbyterian, and, while thinking nothing of "orders," would not have +rejected a bishop, if the bishop _preached_ and was of godly and frugal +life. Already sermons were the most important part of public worship in +the mind of Knox. + +In addition to public catechising he publicly expounded, and lectured on +the Fourth Gospel, in the chapel of the castle. He doubted if he had "a +lawful vocation" to _preach_. The castle pulpit was then occupied by an +ex-friar named Rough. This divine, later burned in England, preached a +sermon declaring a doctrine accepted by Knox, namely, that any +congregation could call on any man in whom they "espied the gifts of God" +to be their preacher; he offered Knox the post, and all present agreed. +Knox wept, and for days his gloom declared his sense of his +responsibility: such was "his holy vocation." The garrison was, +confessedly, brutal, licentious, and rapacious, but they "all" partook of +the holy Communion. {28} + +In controversy, Knox declared the Church to be "the synagogue of Satan," +and in the Pope he detected and denounced "the Man of Sin." On the +following Sunday he proved, from Daniel, that the Roman Church is "that +last Beast." The Church is also anti-Christ, and "the Hoore of Babylon," +and Knox dilated on the personal misconduct of Popes and "all shavelings +for the most part." He contrasted Justification by Faith with the +customs of pardons and pilgrimages. + +After these remarks, a controversy was held between Knox and the +sub-prior, Wynram, the Scottish Vicar of Bray, Knox being understood to +maintain that no bishop who did not preach was really a bishop; that the +Mass is "abominable idolatry"; that Purgatory does not exist; and that +the tithes are not necessarily the property of churchmen--a doctrine very +welcome to the hungry nobles of Scotland. Knox, of course, easily +overcame an ignorant opponent, a friar, who joined in the fray. His own +arguments he later found time to write out fully in the French galleys, +in which he was a prisoner, after the fall of the castle. If he "wrate +in the galleys," as he says, they cannot have been always such floating +hells as they are usually reckoned. + +That Knox, and other captives from the castle, were placed in the galleys +after their surrender, was an abominable stretch of French power. They +were not subjects of France. The terms on which they surrendered are not +exactly known. Knox avers that they were to be free to live in France, +and that, if they wished to leave, they were to be conveyed, at French +expense, to any country except Scotland. Buchanan declares that only the +lives of the garrison and their friends were secured by the terms of +surrender. Lesley supports Knox, {30a} who is probably accurate. + +To account for the French severity, Knox tells us that the Pope insisted +on it, appealing to both the Scottish and French Governments; and +Scotland sent an envoy to France to beg "that those of the castle should +be sharply handled." Men of birth were imprisoned, the rest went to the +galleys. Knox's life cannot have been so bad as that of the Huguenot +galley slaves under Louis XIV. He was allowed to receive letters; he +read and commented on a treatise written in prison by Balnaves; and he +even wrote a theological work, unless this work was his commentary on +Balnaves. These things can only have been possible when the galleys were +not on active service. In a very manly spirit, he never dilated on his +sufferings, and merely alludes to "the torment I sustained in the +galleys." He kept up his heart, always prophesying deliverance; and once +(June, 1548?), when in view of St. Andrews, declared that he should +preach again in the kirk where his career began. Unluckily, the person +to whom he spoke, at a moment when he himself was dangerously ill, denied +that he had ever been in the galleys at all! {30b} He was Sir James +Balfour, a notorious scoundrel, quite untrustworthy; according to Knox, +he had spoken of the prophecy, in Scotland, long before its fulfilment. + +Knox's health was more or less undermined, while his spiritual temper was +not mollified by nineteen months of the galleys, mitigated as they +obviously were. + +It is, doubtless, to his "torment" in the galleys that Knox refers when +he writes: "I know how hard the battle is between the spirit and the +flesh, under the heavy cross of affliction, where no worldly defence, but +present death, does appear. . . . Rests only Faith, provoking us to call +earnestly, and pray for assistance of God's spirit, wherein if we +continue, our most desperate calamities shall turn to gladness, and to a +prosperous end. . . . With experience I write this." + +In February or March, 1549, Knox was released; by April he was in +England, and, while Edward VI. lived, was in comparative safety. + + + + +CHAPTER IV: KNOX IN ENGLAND: THE BLACK RUBRIC: EXILE: 1549-1554 + + +Knox at once appeared in England in a character revolting to the later +Presbyterian conscience, which he helped to educate. The State permitted +no cleric to preach without a Royal license, and Knox was now a State +licensed preacher at Berwick, one of many "State officials with a +specified mission." He was an agent of the English administration, then +engaged in forcing a detested religion on the majority of the English +people. But he candidly took his own line, indifferent to the +compromises of the rulers in that chaos of shifting opinions. For +example, the Prayer Book of Edward VI. at that time took for granted +kneeling as the appropriate attitude for communicants. Knox, at Berwick, +on the other hand, bade his congregation sit, as he conceived that to +have been the usage at the first institution of the rite. Possibly the +Apostles, in fact, supped in a recumbent attitude, as Cranmer justly +remarked later (John xiii. 25), but Knox supposed them to have sat. In a +letter to his Berwick flock, he reminds them of his practice on this +point; but he would not dissent from kneeling if "magistrates make known, +as that they" (would?) "have done if ministers were willing to do their +duties, that kneeling is not retained in the Lord's Supper for +maintenance of any superstition," much less as "adoration of the Lord's +Supper." This, "for a time," would content him: and this he obtained. +{33a} Here Knox appears to make the civil authority--"the +magistrates"--governors of the Church, while at the same time he does not +in practice obey them unless they accept his conditions. + +This letter to the Berwick flock must be prior to the autumn of 1552, in +which, as we shall see, Knox obtained his terms as to kneeling. He went +on, in his epistle to the Berwickians, to speak in "a tone of moderation +and modesty," for which, says Dr. Lorimer, not many readers will be +prepared. {33b} In this modest passage, Knox says that, as to "the chief +points of religion," he, with God's help, "will give place to neither man +nor angel teaching the contrary" of his preaching. Yet an angel might be +supposed to be well informed on points of doctrine! "But as to +ceremonies or rites, things of smaller weight, I was not minded to move +contention. . . ." The one point which--"because I am but one, having in +my contrary magistrates, common order, and judgments, and many +learned"--he is prepared to yield, and that for a time, is the practice +of kneeling, but only on three conditions. These being granted, "with +patience will I bear that one thing, daily thirsting and calling unto God +for reformation of that and others." {33c} But he did not bear that one +thing; he would _not_ kneel even after his terms were granted! This is +the sum of Knox's "moderation and modesty"! + +Though he is not averse from talking about himself, Knox, in his +"History," spares but three lines to his five years' residence in England +(1549-54). His first charge was Berwick (1549-51), where we have seen he +celebrated holy Communion by the Swiss rite, all meekly sitting. The +Second Prayer Book, of 1552, when Knox ministered in Newcastle, bears +marks of his hand. He opposed, as has been said, the rubric bidding the +communicants kneel; the attitude savoured of "idolatry." + +The circumstances in which Knox carried his point on this question are +most curious. Just before October 12, 1552, a foreign Protestant, +Johannes Utenhovius, wrote to the Zurich Protestant, Bullinger, to the +effect that a certain vir bonus, Scotus natione (a good man and a Scot), +a preacher (concionator), of the Duke of Northumberland, had delivered a +sermon before the King and Council, "in which he freely inveighed against +the Anglican custom of kneeling at the Lord's Supper." Many listeners +were greatly moved, and Utenhovius prayed that the sermon might be of +blessed effect. Knox was certainly in London at this date, and was +almost certainly the excellent Scot referred to by Utenhovius. The +Second Prayer Book of Edward VI. was then in such forwardness that +Parliament had appointed it to be used in churches, beginning on November +1. The book included the command to kneel at the Lord's Supper, and any +agitation against the practice might seem to be too late. Cranmer, the +Primate, was in favour of the rubric as it stood, and on October 7, 1552, +addressed the Privy Council in a letter which, without naming Knox, +clearly shows his opinion of our Reformer. The book, _as it stood_, said +Cranmer, had the assent of King and Parliament--now it was to be altered, +apparently, "without Parliament." The Council ought not to be thus +influenced by "glorious and unquiet spirits." Cranmer calls Knox, as +Throckmorton later called Queen Mary's Bothwell, "glorious" in the sense +of the Latin gloriosus, "swaggering," or "arrogant." + +Cranmer goes on to denounce the "glorious and unquiet spirits, which can +like nothing but that is after their own fancy, and cease not to make +trouble and disquietude when things be most quiet and in good order." +{35} Their argument (Knox's favourite), that whatever is not commanded +in Scripture is unlawful and ungodly, "is a subversion of all order as +well in religion as in common policy." + +Cranmer ends with the amazing challenge: "I will set my foot by his to be +tried in the fire, that his doctrine is untrue, and not only untrue but +seditious, and perilous to be heard of any subjects, as a thing breaking +the bridle of obedience and loosing them from the bond of all princes' +laws." + +Cranmer had a premonition of the troubled years of James VI. and of the +Covenant, when this question of kneeling was the first cause of the +Bishops' wars. But Knox did not accept, as far as we know, the mediaeval +ordeal by fire. + +Other questions about practices enjoined in the Articles arose. A +"Confession," in which Knox's style may be traced, was drawn up, and +consequently that "Declaration on Kneeling" was intercalated into the +Prayer Book, wherein it is asserted that the attitude does not imply +adoration of the elements, or belief in the Real Presence, "for that were +idolatry." Elizabeth dropped, and Charles II. restored, this "Black +Rubric" which Anglicanism owes to the Scottish Reformer. {36a} He "once +had a good opinion," he says, of the Liturgy as it now stood, but he soon +found that it was full of idolatries. + +The most important event in the private life of Knox, during his stay at +Berwick, was his acquaintance with a devout lady of tormented conscience, +Mrs. Bowes, wife of the Governor of Norham Castle on Tweed. Mrs. Bowes's +tendency to the new ideas in religion was not shared by her husband and +his family; the results will presently be conspicuous. In April 1550, +Knox preached at Newcastle a sermon on his favourite doctrine that the +Mass is "Idolatry," because it is "of man's invention," an opinion not +shared by Tunstall, then Bishop of Durham. Knox used "idolatry" in a +constructive sense, as when we talk of "constructive treason." But, in +practice, he regarded Catholics as "idolaters," in the same sense as +Elijah regarded Hebrew worshippers of alien deities, Chemosh or Moloch, +and he later drew the inference that idolaters, as in the Old Testament, +must be put to death. Thus his was logically a persecuting religion. + +Knox was made a King's chaplain and transferred to Newcastle. He saw +that the country was, by preference, Catholic; that the life of Edward +VI. hung on a thread; and that with the accession of his sister, Mary +Tudor, Protestant principles would be as unsafe as under "umquhile the +Cardinal." Knox therefore, "from the foresight of troubles to come" (so +he writes to Mrs. Bowes, February 28, 1554), {36b} declined any post, a +bishopric, or a living, which would in honour oblige him to face the fire +of persecution. At the same time he was even then far at odds with the +Church of England that he had sound reasons for refusing benefices. + +On Christmas day, 1552, {37a} he preached at Newcastle against Papists, +as "thirsting nothing more than the King's death, which their iniquity +would procure." In two brief years Knox was himself publicly expressing +his own thirst for the Queen's death, and praying for a Jehu or a +Phinehas, slayers of idolaters, such as Mary Tudor. If any fanatic had +taken this hint, and the life of Mary Tudor, Catholics would have said +that Knox's "iniquity procured" the murder, and they would have had fair +excuse for the assertion. + +Meanwhile charges were brought against the Reformer, on the ground of his +Christmas sermon of peace and goodwill. Northumberland (January 9, 1552- +53) sends to Cecil "a letter of poor Knox, by the which you may perceive +what perplexity the poor soul remaineth in at this present." We have not +Knox's interesting letter, but Northumberland pled his cause against a +charge of treason. In fact, however, the Court highly approved of his +sermon. He was presently again in what he believed to be imminent danger +of life: "I fear that I be not yet ripe, nor able to glorify Christ by my +faith," he wrote to Mrs. Bowes, "but what lacketh now, God shall perform +in His own time." {37b} We do not know what peril threatened the +Reformer now (probably in March 1553), but he frequently, later, seems to +have doubted his own "ripeness" for martyrdom. His reluctance to suffer +did not prevent him from constant attendance to the tedious +self-tormentings of Mrs. Bowes, and of "three honest poor women" in +London. + +Knox, at all events, was not so "perplexed" that he feared to speak his +mind in the pulpit. In Lent, 1553, preaching before the boy king, he +denounced his ministers in trenchant historical parallels between them +and Achitophel, Shebna, and Judas. Later, young Mr. Mackail, applying +the same method to the ministers of Charles II., was hanged. "What +wonder is it then," said Knox, "that a young and innocent king be +deceived by crafty, covetous, wicked, and ungodly councillors? I am +greatly afraid that Achitophel be councillor, that Judas bear the purse, +and that Shebna be scribe, comptroller, and treasurer." {38a} + +This appears the extreme of audacity. Yet nothing worse came to Knox +than questions, by the Council, as to his refusal of a benefice, and his +declining, as he still did, to kneel at the Communion (April 14, 1553). +His answers prove that he was out of harmony with the fluctuating +Anglicanism of the hour. Northumberland could not then resent the +audacities of pulpiteers, because the Protestants were the only party who +might stand by him in his approaching effort to crown Lady Jane Grey. Now +all the King's preachers, obviously by concerted action, "thundered" +against Edward's Council, in the Lent or Easter of 1553. Manifestly, in +the old Scots phrase, "the Kirk had a back"; had some secular support, +namely that of their party, which Northumberland could not slight. +Meanwhile Knox was sent on a preaching tour in Buckinghamshire, and there +he was when Edward VI. died, in the first week of July 1553. {38b} + +Knox's official attachment to England expired with his preaching license, +on the death of Edward VI. and the accession of Mary Tudor. He did not +at once leave the country, but preached both in London and on the English +border, while the new queen was settling herself on the throne. While +within Mary's reach, Knox did not encourage resistance against that +idolatress; he did not do so till he was safe in France. Indeed, in his +prayer used after the death of Edward VI., before the fires of Oxford and +Smithfield were lit, Knox wrote: "Illuminate the heart of our Sovereign +Lady, Queen Mary, with pregnant gifts of the Holy Ghost. . . . Repress +thou the pride of those that would rebel. . . . Mitigate the hearts of +those that persecute us." + +In the autumn of 1553, Knox's health was very bad; he had gravel, and +felt his bodily strength broken. Moreover, he was in the disagreeable +position of being betrothed to a very young lady, Marjorie Bowes, with +the approval of her devout mother, the wife of Richard Bowes, commander +of Norham Castle, near Berwick, but to the anger and disgust of the Bowes +family in general. They by no means shared Knox's ideas of religion, +rather regarding him as a penniless unfrocked "Scot runagate," whose +alliance was discreditable and distasteful, and might be dangerous. +"Maist unpleasing words" passed, and it is no marvel that Knox, being +persecuted in one city, fled to another, leaving England for Dieppe early +in March 1554. {39} + +His conscience was not entirely at ease as to his flight. "Why did I +flee? Assuredly I cannot tell, but of one thing I am sure, the fear of +death was not the chief cause of my fleeing," he wrote to Mrs. Bowes from +Dieppe. "Albeit that I have, in the beginning of this battle, appeared +to play the faint-hearted and feeble soldier (the cause I remit to God), +yet my prayer is that I may be restored to the battle again." {40a} Knox +was, in fact, most valiant when he had armed men at his back; he had no +enthusiasm for taking part in the battle when unaided by the arm of +flesh. On later occasions this was very apparent, and he has confessed, +as we saw, that he did not choose to face "the trouble to come" without +means of retreat. His valour was rather that of the general than of the +lonely martyr. The popular idea of Knox's personal courage, said to have +been expressed by the Regent Morton in the words spoken at his funeral, +"here lieth a man who in his life never feared the face of man," is +entirely erroneous. His learned and sympathetic editor, David Laing, +truly writes: "Knox cannot be said to have possessed the impetuous and +heroic boldness of a Luther when surrounded with danger. . . . On more +than one occasion Knox displayed a timidity or shrinking from danger, +scarcely to have been expected from one who boasted of his willingness to +endure the utmost torture, or suffer death in his Master's cause. Happily +he was not put to the test. . . ." {40b} + +Dr. Laing puts the case more strongly than I feel justified in doing, for +Knox, far from "boasting of his willingness to face the utmost torture," +more than once doubts his own readiness for martyrdom. We must remember +that even Blessed Edmund Campion, who went gaily to torture and death, +had doubts as to the necessity of that journey. {40c} + +Nor was there any reason why Knox should stay in England to be burned, if +he could escape--with less than ten groats in his pocket--as he did. It +is not for us moderns to throw the first stone at a reluctant martyr, +still less to applaud useless self-sacrifice, but we do take leave to +think that, having fled early, himself, from the martyr's crown, Knox +showed bad taste in his harsh invectives against Protestants who, staying +in England, conformed to the State religion under Mary Tudor. + +It is not impossible that his very difficult position as the lover of +Marjorie Bowes--a position of which, while he remained in England, the +burden fell on the poor girl--may have been one reason for Knox's flight, +while the entreaties of his friends that he would seek safety must have +had their influence. + +On the whole it seems more probable that when he committed himself to +matrimony with a young girl, the fifth daughter of Mrs. Bowes, he was +approaching his fortieth rather than his fiftieth year. Older than he +are happy husbands made, sometimes, though Marjorie Bowes's choice may +have been directed by her pious mother, whose soul could find no rest in +the old faith, and not much in the new. + +At thirty-eight the Reformer, we must remember, must have been no +uncomely wooer. His conversation must have been remarkably vivid: he had +adventures enough to tell, by land and sea; while such a voice as he +raised withal in the pulpit, like Edward Irving, has always been potent +with women, as Sir Walter Scott remarks in Irving's own case. His +expression, says Young, had a certain geniality; on the whole we need not +doubt that Knox could please when he chose, especially when he was looked +up to as a supreme authority. He despised women in politics, but had +many friends of the sex, and his letters to them display a manly +tenderness of affection without sentimentality. + +Writing to Mrs. Bowes from London in 1553, Knox mentions, as one of the +sorrows of life, that "such as would most gladly remain together, for +mutual comfort, cannot be suffered so to do. Since the first day that it +pleased the providence of God to bring you and me in familiarity, I have +always delighted in your company." He then wanders into religious +reflections, but we see that he liked Mrs. Bowes, and Marjorie Bowes too, +no doubt: he is careful to style the elderly lady "Mother." Knox's +letters to Mrs. Bowes show the patience and courtesy with which the +Reformer could comfort and counsel a middle-aged lady in trouble about +her innocent soul. As she recited her infirmities, he reminds her, he +"started back, and that is my common consuetude when anything pierces or +touches my heart. Call to your mind what I did standing at the cupboard +at Alnwick; in very deed I thought that no creature had been tempted as I +was"--not by the charms of Mrs. Bowes, of course: he found that Satan +troubled the lady with "the very same words that he troubles me with." +Mrs. Bowes, in truth, with premature scepticism, was tempted to think +that "the Scriptures of God are but a tale, and no credit to be given to +them." The Devil, she is reminded by Knox, has induced "some +philosophers to affirm that the world never had a beginning," which he +refutes by showing that God predicted the pains of childbearing; and Mrs. +Bowes, as the mother of twelve, knows how true _this_ is. + +The circular argument may or may not have satisfied Mrs. Bowes. {43} + +The young object of Knox's passion, Marjorie Bowes, is only alluded to as +"she whom God hath offered unto me, and commanded me to love as my own +flesh,"--after her, Mrs. Bowes is the dearest of mankind to Knox. No +mortal was ever more long-suffering with a spiritual hypochondriac, who +avers that "the sins that reigned in Sodom and Gomore reign in me, and I +have small power or none to resist!" Knox replies, with common sense, +that Mrs. Bowes is obviously ignorant of the nature of these offences. + +Writing to his betrothed he says nothing personal: merely reiterates his +lessons of comfort to her mother. Meanwhile the lovers were parted, Knox +going abroad; and it is to be confessed that he was not eager to come +back. + + + + +CHAPTER V: EXILE: APPEALS FOR A PHINEHAS, AND A JEHU: 1554 + + +No change of circumstances could be much more bitter than that which +exile brought to Knox. He had been a decently endowed official of State, +engaged in bringing a reluctant country into the ecclesiastical fold +which the State, for the hour, happened to prefer. His task had been +grateful, and his congregations, at least at Berwick and Newcastle, had, +as a rule, been heartily with him. Wherever he preached, affectionate +women had welcomed him and hung upon his words. The King and his +ministers had hearkened unto him--young Edward with approval, +Northumberland with such emotions as we may imagine--while the Primate of +England had challenged him to a competitive ordeal by fire, and had been +defeated, apparently without recourse to the fire-test. + +But now all was changed; Knox was a lonely rover in a strange land, +supported probably by collections made among his English friends, and by +the hospitality of the learned. In his wanderings his heart burned +within him many a time, and he abruptly departed from his theory of +passive resistance. Now he eagerly desired to obtain, from Protestant +doctors and pontiffs, support for the utterly opposite doctrine of armed +resistance. Such support he did not get, or not in a satisfactory +measure, so he commenced prophet on his own lines, and on his own +responsibility. + +When Knox's heart burned within him, he sometimes seized the pen and +dashed off fiery tracts which occasionally caused inconvenience to the +brethren, and trouble to himself in later years. In cooler moments, and +when dubious or prosperous, he now and again displayed a calm opportunism +much at odds with the inspirations of his grief and anger. + +After his flight to Dieppe in March 1554, Knox was engaged, then, with a +problem of difficulty, one of the central problems of his career and of +the distracted age. In modern phrase, he wished to know how far, and in +what fashion, persons of one religion might resist another religion, +imposed upon them by the State of which they were subjects. On this +point we have now no doubt, but in the sixteenth century "Authority" was +held sacred, and martyrdom, according to Calvin, was to be preferred to +civil war. If men were Catholics, and if the State was Protestant, they +were liable, later, under Knox, to fines, exile, and death; but power was +not yet given to him. If they were Protestants under a Catholic ruler, +or Puritans under Anglican authority, Knox himself had laid down the rule +of their conduct in his letter to his Berwick congregation. {45} +"Remembering always, beloved brethren, that due obedience be given to +magistrates, rulers, and princes, without tumult, grudge, or sedition. +For, howsoever wicked themselves be in life, or howsoever ungodly their +precepts or commandments be, ye must obey them for conscience' sake; +except in chief points of religion, and then ye ought rather to obey God +than man: _not to pretend to defend God's truth or religion, ye being +subjects, by violence or sword, but patiently suffering what God shall +please be laid upon you for constant confession of your faith and +belief_." Man or angel who teaches contrary doctrine is corrupt of +judgment, sent by God to blind the unworthy. And Knox proceeded to teach +contrary doctrine! + +His truly Christian ideas are of date 1552, with occasional revivals as +opportunity suggested. In exile he was now asking (1554), how was a +Protestant minority or majority to oppose the old faith, backed by kings +and princes, fire and sword? He answered the question in direct +contradiction of his Berwick programme: he was now all for active +resistance. Later, in addressing Mary of Guise, and on another occasion, +he recurred to his Berwick theory, and he always found biblical texts to +support his contradictory messages. + +At this moment resistance seemed hopeless enough. In England the +Protestants of all shades were decidedly in a minority. They had no +chance if they openly rose in arms; their only hope was in the death of +Mary Tudor and the succession of Elizabeth--itself a poor hope in the +eyes of Knox, who detested the idea of a female monarch. Might they "bow +down in the House of Rimmon" by a feigned conformity? Knox, in a letter +to the Faithful, printed in 1554, entirely rejected this compromise, to +which Cecil stooped, thereby deserving hell, as the relentless Knox (who +had fled) later assured him. + +In the end of March 1554, probably, Knox left Dieppe for Geneva, where he +could consult Calvin, not yet secure in his despotism, though he had +recently burned Servetus. Next he went to Zurich, and laid certain +questions before Bullinger, who gave answers in writing as to Knox's +problems. + +Could a woman rule a kingdom by divine right, and transfer the same to +her husband?--Mary Tudor to Philip of Spain, is, of course, to be +understood. Bullinger replied that it was a hazardous thing for the +godly to resist the laws of a country. Philip the eunuch, though +converted, did not drive Queen Candace out of Ethiopia. If a tyrannous +and ungodly Queen reign, godly persons "have example and consolation in +the case of Athaliah." The transfer of power to a husband is an affair +of the laws of the country. + +Again, must a ruler who enforces "idolatry" be obeyed? May true +believers, in command of garrisons, repel "this ungodly violence"? +Bullinger answered, in effect, that "it is very difficult to pronounce +upon every particular case." He had not the details before him. In +short, nothing definite was to be drawn out of Bullinger. {47a} + +Dr. M'Crie observes, indeed, that Knox submitted to the learned of +Switzerland "certain difficult questions, which were suggested by the +present condition of affairs in England, and about which his mind had +been greatly occupied. Their views with respect to these coinciding with +his own, he was confirmed in the judgment which he had already formed for +himself." {47b} + +In fact, Knox himself merely says that he had "reasoned with" pastors and +the learned; he does not say that they agreed with him, and they +certainly did not. Despite the reserve of Bullinger and of Calvin, Knox +was of his new opinions still. These divines never backed his views. + +By May, Knox had returned to Dieppe, and published an epistle to the +Faithful. The rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt had been put down, a blow to +true religion. We have no evidence that Knox stimulated the rising, but +he alludes once to his exertions in favour of the Princess Elizabeth. The +details are unknown. + +In July, apparently, Knox printed his "Faithful Admonition to the +Professors of God's Truth in England," and two editions of the tract were +published in that country. The pamphlet is full of violent language +about "the bloody, butcherly brood" of persecutors, and Knox spoke of +what might have occurred had the Queen "been sent to hell before these +days." The piece presents nothing, perhaps, so plain spoken about the +prophet's right to preach treason as a passage in the manuscript of an +earlier Knoxian epistle of May 1554 to the Faithful. "The prophets of +God sometimes may teach treason against kings, and yet neither he, nor +such as obey the word spoken in the Lord's name by him, offends God." +{48} That sentence contains doctrine not submitted to Bullinger by Knox. +He could not very well announce himself to Bullinger as a "prophet of +God." But the sentence, which occurs in manuscript copies of the letter +of May 1554, does not appear in the black letter printed edition. Either +Knox or the publisher thought it too risky. + +In the published "Admonition," however, of July 1554, we find Knox +exclaiming: "God, for His great mercy's sake, stir up some Phineas, +Helias, or Jehu, that the blood of abominable idolaters may pacify God's +wrath, that it consume not the whole multitude. Amen." {49a} This is a +direct appeal to the assassin. If anybody will play the part of Phinehas +against "idolaters"--that is the Queen of England and Philip of +Spain--God's anger will be pacified. "Delay not thy vengeance, O Lord, +but let death devour them in haste . . . For there is no hope of their +amendment, . . . He shall send Jehu to execute his just judgments against +idolaters. Jezebel herself shall not escape the vengeance and plagues +that are prepared for her portion." {49b} These passages are essential. +Professor Hume Brown expresses our own sentiments when he remarks: "In +casting such a pamphlet into England at the time he did, Knox indulged +his indignation, in itself so natural under the circumstances, at no +personal risk, while he seriously compromised those who had the strongest +claims on his most generous consideration." This is plain truth, and +when some of Knox's English brethren later behaved to him in a manner +which we must wholly condemn, their conduct, they said, had for a motive +the mischief done to Protestants in England by his fiery "Admonition," +and their desire to separate themselves from the author of such a +pamphlet. + +Knox did not, it will be observed, here call all or any of the faithful +to a general massacre of their Catholic fellow-subjects. He went to that +length later, as we shall show. In an epistle of 1554 he only writes: +"Some shall demand, 'What then, shall we go and slay all idolaters?' +_That_ were the office, dear brethren, of every civil magistrate within +his realm. . . . The slaying of idolaters appertains not to every +particular man." {49c} + +This means that every Protestant king should massacre all his +inconvertible Catholic subjects! This was indeed a counsel of +perfection; but it could never be executed, owing to the carnal policy of +worldly men. + +In writing about "the office of the civil magistrate," Knox, a Border +Scot of the age of the blood feud, seems to have forgotten, first, that +the Old Testament prophets of the period were not unanimous in their +applause of Jehu's massacre of the royal family; next, that between the +sixteenth century A.D. and Jehu, had intervened the Christian revelation. +Our Lord had given no word of warrant to murder or massacre! No +persecuted apostle had dealt in appeals to the dagger. As for Jehu, a +prophet had condemned _his_ conduct. Hosea writes that the Lord said +unto him, "Yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel +upon the house of Jehu," but doubtless Knox would have argued that Hosea +was temporarily uninspired, as he argued about St. Paul and St. James +later. + +However this delicate point may be settled, the appeal for a Phinehas is +certainly unchristian. The idolaters, the unreformed, might rejoice, +with the Nuncio of 1583, that the Duc de Guise had a plan for murdering +Elizabeth, though it was not to be communicated to the Vicar of God, who +should have no such dealings against "that wicked woman." To some +Catholics, Elizabeth: to Knox, Mary was as Jezebel, and might laudably be +assassinated. In idolaters nothing can surprise us; when persecuted +they, in their unchristian fashion, may retort with the dagger or the +bowl. But that Knox should have frequently maintained the doctrine of +death to religious opponents is a strange and deplorable circumstance. In +reforming the Church of Christ he omitted some elements of Christianity. + +Suppose, for a moment, that in deference to the teaching of the Gospel, +Knox had never called for a Jehu, but had ever denounced, by voice and +pen, those murderous deeds of his own party which he celebrates as "godly +facts," he would have raised Protestantism to a moral pre-eminence. Dark +pages of Scottish history might never have been written: the consciences +of men might have been touched, and the cruelties of the religious +conflict might have been abated. Many of them sprang from the fear of +assassination. + +But Knox in some of his writings identified his cause with the palace +revolutions of an ancient Oriental people. Not that he was a man of +blood; when in France he dissuaded Kirkcaldy of Grange and others from +stabbing the gaolers in making their escape from prison. Where idolaters +in official position were concerned, and with a pen in his hand, he had +no such scruples. He was a child of the old pre-Christian scriptures; of +the earlier, not of the later prophets. + + + + +CHAPTER VI: KNOX IN THE ENGLISH PURITAN TROUBLES AT FRANKFORT: 1554-1555 + + +The consequences of the "Admonition" came home to Knox when English +refugees in Frankfort, impeded by him and others in the use of their +Liturgy, accused him of high treason against Philip and Mary, and the +Emperor, whom he had compared to Nero as an enemy of Christ. + +The affair of "The Troubles at Frankfort" brought into view the great +gulf for ever fixed between Puritanism and the Church of England. It was +made plain that Knox and the Anglican community were of incompatible +temperaments, ideas, and, we may almost say, instincts. To Anglicans +like Cranmer, Knox, from the first, was as antipathetic as they were to +him. "We can assure you," wrote some English exiles for religion's sake +to Calvin, "that that outrageous pamphlet of Knox's" (his "Admonition") +"added much oil to the flame of persecution in England. For before the +publication of that book not one of our brethren had suffered death; but +as soon as it came forth we doubt not but you are well aware of the +number of excellent men who have perished in the flames; to say nothing +of how many other godly men have been exposed to the risk of all their +property, and even life itself, on the sole ground of either having had +this book in their possession or having read it." + +Such were the charges brought against Knox by these English Protestant +exiles, fleeing from the persecution that followed the "Admonition," and, +they say, took fresh ferocity from that tract. + +The quarrel between Knox and them definitely marks the beginning of the +rupture between the fathers of the Church of England and the fathers of +Puritanism, Scottish Presbyterianism, and Dissent. The representatives +of Puritans and of Anglicans were now alike exiled, poor, homeless, +without any abiding city. That they should instantly quarrel with each +other over their prayer book (that which Knox had helped to correct) was, +as Calvin told them, "extremely absurd." Each faction probably +foresaw--certainly Knox's party foresaw--that, in the English +congregation at Frankfort, a little flock barely tolerated, was to be +settled the character of Protestantism in England, if ever England +returned to Protestantism. "This evil" (the acceptance of the English +Second Book of Prayer of Edward VI.) "shall in time be established . . . +and never be redressed, neither shall there for ever be an end of this +controversy in England," wrote Knox's party to the Senate of Frankfort. +The religious disruption in England was, in fact, incurable, but so it +would have been had the Knoxians prevailed in Frankfort. The difference +between the Churchman and the Dissenter goes to the root of the English +character; no temporary triumph of either side could have brought Peace +and union. While the world stands they will not be peaceful and united. + +The trouble arose thus. At the end of June 1554, some English exiles of +the Puritan sort, men who objected to surplices, responses, kneeling at +the Communion, and other matters of equal moment, came to Frankfort. They +obtained leave to use the French Protestant Chapel, provided that they +"should not dissent from the Frenchmen in doctrine or ceremonies, lest +they should thereby minister occasions of offence." They had then to +settle what Order of services they should use; "anything they pleased," +said the magistrates of Frankfort, "as long as they and the French kept +the peace." They decided to adopt the English Order, barring responses, +the Litany, the surplice, "and many other things." {54} The Litany was +regarded by Knox as rather of the nature of magic than of prayer, the +surplice was a Romish rag, and there was some other objection to the +congregation's taking part in the prayers by responses, though they were +not forbidden to mingle their voices in psalmody. Dissidium valde +absurdum--"a very absurd quarrel," among exiled fellow-countrymen, said +Calvin, was the dispute which arose on these points. The Puritans, +however, decided to alter the service to their taste, and enjoyed the use +of the chapel. They had obtained a service which they were not likely to +have been allowed to enforce in England had Edward VI. lived; but on this +point they were of another opinion. + +This success was providential. They next invited English exiles abroad +to join them at Frankfort, saying nothing about their mutilations of the +service book. If these brethren came in, when they were all restored to +England, if ever they were restored, their example, that of sufferers, +would carry the day, and their service would for ever be that of the +Anglican Church. The other exiled brethren, on receiving this +invitation, had enough of the wisdom of the serpent to ask, "Are we to be +allowed to use our own prayer book?" The answer of the godly of +Frankfort evaded the question. At last the Frankfort Puritans showed +their hand: they disapproved of various things in the Prayer Book. Knox, +summoned from Geneva, a reluctant visitor, was already one of their +preachers. In November 1554 came Grindal, later Archbishop of +Canterbury, from Zurich, ready to omit some ceremonies, so that he and +his faction might have "the substance" of the Prayer Book. Negotiations +went on, and it was proposed by the Puritans to use the Geneva service. +But Knox declined to do that, without the knowledge of the non-Puritan +exiles at Zurich and elsewhere, or to use the English book, and offered +his resignation. Nothing could be more fair and above-board. + +There was an inchoate plan for a new Order. That failed; and Knox, with +others, consulted Calvin, giving him a sketch of the nature of the +English service. They drew his attention to the surplice; the Litany, +"devised by Pope Gregory," whereby "we use a certain conjuring of God"; +the kneeling at the Communion; the use of the cross in baptism, and of +the ring in marriage, clearly a thing of human, if not of diabolical +invention, and the "imposition of hands" in confirmation. The churching +of women, they said, is both Pagan and Jewish. "Other things not so much +shame itself as a certain kind of pity compelleth us to keep close." + +"The tone of the letter throughout was expressly calculated to prejudice +Calvin on the point submitted to him," says Professor Hume Brown. {56} +Calvin replied that the quarrel might be all very well if the exiles were +happy and at ease in their circumstances, though in the Liturgy, as +described, there were "tolerable (endurable) follies." On the whole he +sided with the Knoxian party. The English Liturgy is not pure enough; +and the English exiles, not at Frankfort, merely like it because they are +accustomed to it. Some are partial to "popish dregs." + +To the extreme Reformers no break with the past could be too abrupt and +precipitous: the framers of the English Liturgy had rather adopted the +principle of evolution than of development by catastrophe, and had wedded +what was noblest in old Latin forms and prayers to music of the choicest +English speech. To this service, for which their fellow-religionists in +England were dying at the stake, the non-Frankfortian exiles were +attached. They were Englishmen; their service, they said, should bear +"an English face": so Knox avers, who could as yet have no patriotic love +of any religious form as exclusively and essentially Scottish. + +A kind of truce was now proclaimed, to last till May 1, 1555; Knox aiding +in the confection of a service without responses, "some part taken out of +the English book, and other things put to," while Calvin, Bullinger, and +three others were appointed as referees. The Frankfort congregation had +now a brief interval of provisional peace, till, on March 13, 1555, +Richard Cox, with a band of English refugees, arrived. He had been tutor +to Edward VI., the young Marcellus of Protestantism, but for Frankfort he +was not puritanic enough. His company would give a large majority to the +anti-Knoxian congregation. He and his at once uttered the responses, and +on Sunday one of them read the Litany. This was an unruly infraction of +the provisional agreement. Cox and his party (April 5) represented to +Calvin that they had given up surplices, crosses, and other things, "not +as impure and papistical," but as indifferent, and for the sake of peace. +This was after they had driven Knox from the place, as they presently +did; in the beginning it was distinctly their duty to give up the Litany +and responses, while the truce lasted, that is, till the end of April. In +the afternoon of the Sunday Knox preached, denouncing the morning's +proceedings, the "impurity" of the Prayer Book, of which "I once had a +good opinion," and the absence, in England, of "discipline," that is, +interference by preachers with private life. Pluralities also he +denounced, and some of the exiles had been pluralists. + +For all this Knox was "very sharply reproved," as soon as he left the +pulpit. Two days later, at a meeting, he insisted that Cox's people +should have a vote in the congregation, thus making the anti-puritans a +majority; Knox's conduct was here certainly chivalrous: "I fear not your +judgment," he said. He had never wished to go to Frankfort; in going he +merely obeyed Calvin, and probably he had no great desire to stay. He +was forbidden to preach by Cox and his majority; and a later conference +with Cox led to no compromise. It seems probable that Cox and the anti- +puritans already cherished a grudge against Knox for his tract, the +"Admonition." He had a warning that they would use the pamphlet against +him, and he avers that "some devised how to have me cast into prison." +The anti-puritans, admitting in a letter to Calvin that they brought the +"Admonition" before the magistrates of Frankfort as "a book which would +supply their enemies with just ground for overturning the whole Church, +and one which had added much oil to the flame of persecution in England," +deny that they desired more than that Knox might be ordered to quit the +place. The passages selected as treasonable in the "Admonition" do not +include the prayer for a Jehu. They were enough, however, to secure the +dismissal of Knox from Frankfort. + +Cox had accepted the Order used by the French Protestant congregation, +probably because it committed him and his party to nothing in England; +however, Knox had no sooner departed than the anti-puritans obtained +leave to use, without surplice, cross, and some other matters, the Second +Prayer Book of Edward VI. In September the Puritans seceded, the anti- +puritans remained, squabbling with the Lutherans and among themselves. + +In the whole affair Knox acted the most open and manly part; in his +"History" he declines to name the opponents who avenged themselves, in a +manner so dubious, on his "Admonition." If they believed their own +account of the mischief that it wrought in England, their denunciation of +him to magistrates, who were not likely to do more than dismiss him, is +the less inexcusable. They did not try to betray him to a body like the +Inquisition, as Calvin did in the case of Servetus. But their conduct +was most unworthy and unchivalrous. {58} + + + + +CHAPTER VII: KNOX IN SCOTLAND: LETHINGTON: MARY OF GUISE: 1555-1556 + + +Meanwhile the Reformer returned to Geneva (April 1555), where Calvin was +now supreme. From Geneva, "the den of mine own ease, the rest of quiet +study," Knox was dragged, "maist contrarious to mine own judgement," by a +summons from Mrs. Bowes. He did not like leaving his "den" to rejoin his +betrothed; the lover was not so fervent as the evangelist was cautious. +Knox had at that time probably little correspondence with Scotland. He +knew that there was no refuge for him in England under Mary Tudor, "who +nowise may abide the presence of God's prophets." + +In Scotland, at this moment, the Government was in the hands of Mary of +Guise, a sister of the Duke of Guise and of the Cardinal. Mary was now +aged forty; she was born in 1515, as Knox probably was. She was a tall +and stately woman; her face was thin and refined; Henry VIII., as being +himself a large man, had sought her hand, which was given to his nephew, +James V. On the death of that king, Mary, with Cardinal Beaton, kept +Scotland true to the French alliance, and her daughter, the fair Queen of +Scots, was at this moment a child in France, betrothed to the Dauphin. As +a Catholic, of the House of Lorraine, Mary could not but cleave to her +faith and to the French alliance. In 1554 she had managed to oust from +the Regency the Earl of Arran, the head of the all but royal Hamiltons, +now gratified with the French title of Duc de Chatelherault. To crown +her was as seemly a thing, says Knox, "if men had but eyes, as a saddle +upon the back of ane unrewly kow." She practically deposed Huntly, the +most treacherous of men, from the Chancellorship, substituting, with more +or less reserve, a Frenchman, de Rubay; and d'Oysel, the commander of the +French troops in Scotland, was her chief adviser. + +[Picture of King James V and Mary of Guise: knox2.jpg] + +Writing after the death of Mary of Guise, Knox avers that she only waited +her chance "to cut the throats of all those in whom she suspected the +knowledge of God to be, within the realm of Scotland." {60} As a matter +of fact, the Regent later refused a French suggestion that she should +peacefully call Protestants together, and then order a massacre after the +manner of the Bartholomew: itself still in the womb of the future. "Mary +of Guise," says Knox's biographer, Professor Hume Brown, "had the +instincts of a good ruler--the love of order and justice, and the desire +to stand well with the people." + +Knox, however, believed, or chose to say, that she wanted to cut all +Protestant throats, just as he believed that a Protestant king should cut +all Catholic throats. He attributed to her, quite erroneously and +uncharitably, his own unsparing fervour. As he held this view of her +character and purposes, it is not strange that a journey to Scotland was +"contrairious to his judgement." + +He did not understand the situation. Ferocious as had been the English +invasion of Scotland in 1547, the English party in Scotland, many of them +paid traitors, did not resent these "rebukes of a friend," so much as +both the nobles and the people now began to detest their French allies, +and were jealous of the Queen Mother's promotion of Frenchmen. + +There were not, to be sure, many Scots whom she, or any one, could trust. +Some were honestly Protestant: some held pensions from England: others +would sacrifice national interests to their personal revenges and clan +feuds. The Rev. the Lord James Stewart, Mary's bastard brother, Prior of +St. Andrews and of Pittenweem, was still very young. He had no interest +in his clerical profession beyond drawing his revenues as prior of two +abbeys; and his nearness to the Crown caused him to be suspected of +ambition: moreover, he tended towards the new ideas in religion. He had +met Knox in London, apparently in 1552. Morton was a mere wavering +youth; Argyll was very old: Chatelherault was a rival of the Regent, a +competitor for the Crown and quite incompetent. The Regent, in short, +could scarcely have discovered a Scottish adviser worthy of employment, +and when she did trust one, he was the brilliant "chamaeleon," young +Maitland of Lethington, who would rather betray his master cleverly than +run a straight course, and did betray the Regent. Thus Mary, a +Frenchwoman and a Catholic, governing Scotland for her Catholic daughter, +the Dauphiness, with the aid of a few French troops who had just saved +the independence of the country, naturally employed French advisers. This +made her unpopular; her attempts to bring justice into Scottish courts +were odious, and she would not increase the odium by persecuting the +Protestants. The Duke's bastard brother, again, the Archbishop, sharing +his family ambition, was in no mood for burning heretics. The Queen +Mother herself carried conciliation so far as to pardon and reinstate +such trebly dyed traitors as the notorious Crichton of Brunston, and she +employed Kirkcaldy of Grange, who intrigued against her while in her +employment. An Edinburgh tailor, Harlaw, who seems to have been a deacon +in English orders, was allowed to return to Scotland in 1554. He became +a very notable preacher. {62a} + +Going from Mrs. Bowes's house to Edinburgh, Knox found that "the +fervency" of the godly "did ravish him." At the house of one Syme "the +trumpet blew the auld sound three days thegither," he informed Mrs. +Bowes, and Knox himself was the trumpeter. He found another lady, "who, +by reason that she had a troubled conscience, delighted much in the +company of the said John." There were pleasant sisters in Edinburgh, who +later consulted Knox on the delicate subject of dress. He was more +tolerant in answering them than when he denounced "the stinking pride of +women" at Mary Stuart's Court; admitting that "in clothes, silks, +velvets, gold, and other such, there is no uncleanness," yet "I cannot +praise the common superfluity which women now use in their apparel." He +was quite opposed, however, to what he pleasingly calls "correcting +natural beauty" (as by dyeing the hair), and held that "farthingales +cannot be justified." + +On the whole, he left the sisters fairly free to dress as they pleased. +His curious phrase, {62b} in a letter to a pair of sisters, "the prophets +of God are often impeded to pray for such as carnally they love +unfeignedly," is difficult to understand. We leave it to the learned to +explain this singular limitation of the prophet, which Knox says that he +had not as yet experienced. He must have heard about it from other +prophets. + +Knox found at this time a patron remarkable, says Dr. M'Crie, "for great +respectability of character," Erskine of Dun. Born in 1508, about 1530 +he slew a priest named Thomas Froster, in a curiously selected place, the +belfry tower of Montrose. Nobody seems to have thought anything of it, +nor should we know the fact, if the record of the blood-price paid by Mr. +Erskine to the priest's father did not testify to the fervent act. Six +years later, according to Knox, "God had marvellously illuminated" +Erskine, and the mildness of his nature is frequently applauded. He was, +for Scotland, a man of learning, and our first amateur of Greek. Why did +he kill a priest in a bell tower! + +In the winter or autumn of 1555, Erskine gave a supper, where Knox was to +argue against crypto-protestantism. When once the Truth, whether +Anglican or Presbyterian, was firmly established, Catholics were +compelled, under very heavy fines, to attend services and sermons which +they believed to be at least erroneous, if not blasphemous. I am not +aware that, in 1555, the Catholic Church, in Scotland, thus vigorously +forced people of Protestant opinions to present themselves at Mass, +punishing nonconformity with ruin. I have not found any complaints to +this effect, at that time. But no doubt an appearance of conformity +might save much trouble, even in the lenient conditions produced by the +character of the Regent and by the political situation. Knox, then, +discovered that "divers who had a zeal to godliness made small scruple to +go to the Mass, or to communicate with the abused sacraments in the +Papistical manner." He himself, therefore, "began to show the impiety of +the Mass, and how dangerous a thing it was to communicate in any sort +with idolatry." + +Now to many of his hearers this essential article of his faith--that the +Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist and form of celebration were +"idolatry"--may have been quite a new idea. It was already, however, a +commonplace with Anglican Protestants. Nothing of the sort was to be +found in the _first_ Prayer Book of Edward VI.; broken lights of various +ways of regarding the Sacrament probably played, at this moment, over the +ideas of Knox's Scottish disciples. Indeed, their consciences appear to +have been at rest, for it was _after_ Knox's declaration about the +"idolatrous" character of the Mass that "the matter began to be agitated +from man to man, the conscience of some being afraid." + +To us it may seem that the sudden denunciation of a Christian ceremony, +even what may be deemed a perverted Christian ceremony, as sheer +"idolatry," equivalent to the worship of serpents, bulls, or of a foreign +Baal in ancient Israel--was a step calculated to confuse the real issues +and to provoke a religious war of massacre. Knox, we know, regarded +extermination of idolaters as a counsel of perfection, though in the +Christian scriptures not one word could be found to justify his position. +He relied on texts about massacring Amalekites and about Elijah's +slaughter of the prophets of Baal. The Mass was idolatry, was Baal +worship; and Baal worshippers, if recalcitrant, must die. + +These extreme unchristian ideas, then, were new in Scotland, even to +"divers who had a zeal to godliness." For their discussion, at Erskine +of Dun's party, were present, among others, Willock, a Scots preacher +returned from England, and young Maitland of Lethington. We are not told +what part Willock took in the conversation. The arguments turned on +biblical analogies, never really coincident with the actual modern +circumstances. The analogy produced in discussion by those who did not +go to all extremes with Knox did not, however, lack appropriateness. +Christianity, in fact, as they seem to have argued, did arise out of +Judaism; retaining the same God and the same scriptures, but, in virtue +of the sacrifice of its Founder, abstaining from the sacrifices and +ceremonial of the law. In the same way Protestantism arose out of +mediaeval Catholicism, retaining the same God and the same scriptures, +but rejecting the mediaeval ceremonial and the mediaeval theory of the +sacrifice of the Mass. It did not follow that the Mass was sheer +"idolatry," at which no friend of the new ideas could be present. + +As a proof that such presence or participation was not unlawful, was not +idolatry, in the existing state of affairs, was adduced the conduct of +St. Paul and the advice given to him by St. James and the Church in +Jerusalem (Acts xxi. 18-36). Paul was informed that many thousands of +Jews "believed," yet remained zealous for the law, the old order. They +had learned that Paul advised the Jews in Greece and elsewhere not to +"walk after the customs." Paul should prove that "he also kept the law." +For this purpose he, with four Christian Jews under a vow, was to purify +himself, and he went into the Temple, "until that an offering should be +offered for every one of them." + +"Offerings," of course, is the term in our version for sacrifices, +whether of animals or of "unleavened wafers anointed with oil." The +argument from analogy was, I infer, that the Mass, with its wafer, was +precisely such an "offering," such a survival in Catholic ritual, as in +Jewish ritual St. Paul consented to, by the advice of the Church of +Jerusalem; consequently Protestants in a Catholic country, under the +existing circumstances, might attend the Mass. The Mass was not +"idolatry." The analogy halts, like all analogies, but so, of course, +and to fatal results, does Knox's analogy between the foreign worships of +Israel and the Mass. "She thinks not _that_ idolatry, but good +religion," said Lethington to Knox once, speaking of Queen Mary's Mass. +"So thought they that offered their children unto Moloch," retorted the +reformer. Manifestly the Mass is, of the two, much more on a level with +the "offering" of St. Paul than with human sacrifices to Moloch! {66} + +In his reply Knox, as he states his own argument, altogether overlooked +the _offering_ of St. Paul, which, as far as we understand, was the +essence of his opponents' contention. He said that "to pay _vows_ was +never idolatry," but "the Mass from the original was and remained odious +idolatry, therefore the facts were most unlike. Secondly, I greatly +doubt whether either James's commandment or Paul's obedience proceeded +from the Holy Ghost," about which Knox was, apparently, better informed +than these Apostles and the Church of Jerusalem. Next, Paul was +presently in danger from a mob, which had been falsely told that he took +Greeks into the Temple. Hence it was manifest "that God approved not +that means of reconciliation." Obviously the danger of an Apostle from a +misinformed mob is no sort of evidence to divine approval or disapproval +of his behaviour. {67} We shall later find that when Knox was urging on +some English nonconformists the beauty of conformity (1568), he employed +the very precedent of St. Paul's conduct at Jerusalem, which he rejected +when it was urged at Erskine's supper party! + +We have dwelt on this example of Knox's logic, because it is crucial. The +reform of the Church of Christ could not be achieved without cruel +persecution on both parts, while Knox was informing Scotland that all +members of the old Faith were as much idolaters as Israelites who +sacrificed their children to a foreign God, while to extirpate idolaters +was the duty of a Christian prince. Lethington, as he soon showed, was +as clear-sighted in regard to Knox's logical methods as any man of to- +day, but he "concluded, saying, I see perfectly that our shifts will +serve nothing before God, seeing that they stand us in so small stead +before man." But either Lethington conformed and went to Mass, or Mary +of Guise expected nothing of the sort from him, for he remained high in +her favour, till he betrayed her in 1559. + +Knox's opinion being accepted--it obviously was a novelty to many of his +hearers--the Reformers must either convert or persecute the Catholics +even to extermination. Circumstances of mere worldly policy forbade the +execution of this counsel of perfection, but persistent "idolaters," +legally, lay after 1560 under sentence of death. There was to come a +moment, we shall see, when even Knox shrank from the consequences of a +theory ("a murderous syllogism," writes one of his recent biographers, +Mr. Taylor Innes), which divided his countrymen into the godly, on one +hand, and idolaters doomed to death by divine law, on the other. But he +put his hesitation behind him as a suggestion of Satan. + +Knox now associated with Lord Erskine, then Governor of Edinburgh Castle, +the central strength of Scotland; with Lord Lorne, soon to be Earl of +Argyll (a "Christian," but not a remarkably consistent walker), with +"Lord James," the natural brother of Queen Mary (whose conscience, as we +saw, permitted him to draw the benefices of the Abbacy of St. Andrews, of +Pittenweem, and of an abbey in France, without doing any duties), and +with many redoubtable lairds of the Lothians, Ayrshire, and Forfarshire. +He also preached for ten days in the town house, at Edinburgh, of the +Bishop of Dunkeld. On May 15, 1556, he was summoned to appear in the +church of the Black Friars. As he was backed by Erskine of Dun, and +other gentlemen, according to the Scottish custom when legal proceedings +were afoot, no steps were taken against him, the clergy probably dreading +Knox's defenders, as Bothwell later, in similar circumstances, dreaded +the assemblage under the Earl of Moray; as Lennox shrank from facing the +supporters of Bothwell, and Moray from encountering the spears of +Lethington's allies. It was usual to overawe the administrators of +justice by these gatherings of supporters, perhaps a survival of the old +"compurgators." This, in fact, was "part of the obligation of our +Scottish kyndness," and the divided ecclesiastical and civil powers +shrank from a conflict. + +Glencairn and the Earl Marischal, in the circumstances, advised Knox to +write a letter to Mary of Guise, "something that might move her to hear +the Word of God," that is, to hear Knox preach. This letter, as it then +stood, was printed in a little black-letter volume, probably of 1556. +Knox addresses the Regent and Queen Mother as "her humble subject." The +document has an interest almost pathetic, and throws light on the whole +character of the great Reformer. It appears that Knox had been reported +to the Regent by some of the clergy, or by rumour, as a heretic and +seducer of the people. But Knox had learned that the "dew of the +heavenly grace" had quenched her displeasure, and he hoped that the +Regent would be as clement to others in his case as to him. Therefore he +returns to his attitude in the letter to his Berwick congregation (1552). +He calls for no Jehu, he advises no armed opposition to the sovereign, +but says of "God's chosen children" (the Protestants), that "their +victory standeth not in resisting but in suffering," "in quietness, +silence, and hope," as the Prophet Isaiah recommends. The Isaiahs +(however numerous modern criticism may reckon them) were late prophets, +not of the school of Elijah, whom Knox followed in 1554 and 1558-59, not +in 1552 or 1555, or on one occasion in 1558-59. "The Elect of God" do +not "shed blood and murder," Knox remarks, though he approves of the +Elect, of the brethren at all events, when they _do_ murder and shed +blood. + +Meanwhile Knox is more than willing to run the risks of the preacher of +the truth, "partly because I would, with St. Paul, wish myself accursed +from Christ, as touching earthly pleasures" (whatever that may mean), +"for the salvation of my brethren and illumination of your Grace." He +confesses that the Regent is probably not "so free as a public +reformation perhaps would require," for that required the downcasting of +altars and images, and prohibition to celebrate or attend Catholic rites. +Thus Knox would, apparently, be satisfied for the moment with toleration +and immunity for his fellow-religionists. Nothing of the sort really +contented him, of course, but at present he asked for no more. + +Yet, a few days later, he writes, the Regent handed his letter to the +Archbishop of Glasgow, saying, "Please you, my Lord, to read a pasquil," +an offence which Knox never forgave and bitterly avenged in his +"History." + +It is possible that the Regent merely glanced at his letter. She would +find herself alluded to in a biblical parallel with "the Egyptian +midwives," with Nebuchadnezzar, and Rahab the harlot. Her acquaintance +with these amiable idolaters may have been slight, but the comparison was +odious, and far from tactful. Knox also reviled the creed in which she +had been bred as "a poisoned cup," and threatened her, if she did not act +on his counsel, with "torment and pain everlasting." Those who drink of +the cup of her Church "drink therewith damnation and death." As for her +clergy, "proud prelates do Kings maintain to murder the souls for which +the blood of Christ Jesus was shed." + +These statements were dogmatic, and the reverse of conciliatory. One +should not, in attempting to convert any person, begin by reviling his +religion. Knox adopted the same method with Mary Stuart: the method is +impossible. It is not to be marvelled at if the Regent did style the +letter a "pasquil." + +Knox took his revenge in his "History" by repeating a foolish report that +Mary of Guise had designed to poison her late husband, James V. "Many +whisper that of old his part was in the pot, and that the suspicion +thereof caused him to be inhibited the Queen's company, while the +Cardinal got his secret business sped of that gracious lady either by day +or night." {71a} He styled her, as we saw, "a wanton widow"; he hinted +that she was the mistress of Cardinal Beaton; he made similar +insinuations about her relations with d'Oysel (who was "a secretis +mulierum"); he said, as we have seen, that she only waited her chance to +cut the throats of all suspected Protestants; he threw doubt on the +legitimacy of her daughter, Mary Stuart; and he constantly accuses her of +treachery, as will appear, when the charge is either doubtful, or, as far +as I can ascertain, absolutely false. + +These are unfortunately examples of Knox's Christianity. {71b} It is +very easy for modern historians and biographers to speak with genial +applause of the prophet's manly bluffness. But if we put ourselves in +the position of opponents whom he was trying to convert, of the two Marys +for example, we cannot but perceive that his method was hopelessly +mistaken. In attempting to evangelise an Euahlayi black fellow, we +should not begin by threats of damnation, and by railing accusations +against his god, Baiame. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII: KNOX'S WRITINGS FROM ABROAD: BEGINNING OF THE SCOTTISH +REVOLUTION, 1556-1558 + + +Knox was about this time summoned to be one of the preachers to the +English at Geneva. He sent in advance Mrs. Bowes and his wife, visited +Argyll and Glenorchy (now Breadalbane), wrote (July 7) an epistle bidding +the brethren be diligent in reading and discussing the Bible, and went +abroad. His effigy was presently burned by the clergy, as he had not +appeared in answer to a second summons, and he was outlawed in absence. + +It is not apparent that Knox took any part in the English translation of +the Bible, then being executed at Geneva. Greek and Hebrew were not his +forte, though he had now some knowledge of both tongues, but he preached +to the men who did the work. The perfections of Genevan Church +discipline delighted him. "Manners and religion so sincerely reformed I +have not yet seen in any other place." The genius of Calvin had made +Geneva a kind of Protestant city state [Greek text]; a Calvinistic +Utopia--everywhere the vigilant eyes of the preachers and magistrates +were upon every detail of daily life. Monthly and weekly the magistrates +and ministers met to point out each other's little failings. Knox felt +as if he were indeed in the City of God, and later he introduced into +Scotland, and vehemently abjured England to adopt, the Genevan +"discipline." England would none of it, and would not, even in the days +of the Solemn League and Covenant, suffer the excommunication by +preachers to pass without lay control. + +It is unfortunate that the ecclesiastical polity and discipline of a +small city state, like a Greek [Greek word polis], feasible in such a +community as Geneva at a moment of spiritual excitement, was brought by +Knox and his brethren into a nation like Scotland. The results were a +hundred and twenty-nine years of unrest, civil war, and persecution. + +Though happy in the affection of his wife and Mrs. Bowes, Knox, at this +time, needed more of feminine society. On November 19, 1556, he wrote to +his friend, Mrs. Locke, wife of a Cheapside merchant: "You write that +your desire is earnest to see me. Dear sister, if I should express the +thirst and languor which I have had for your presence, I should appear to +pass measure. . . . Your presence is so dear to me that if the charge of +this little flock . . . did not impede me, my presence should anticipate +my letter." Thus Knox was ready to brave the fires of Smithfield, or, +perhaps, forgot them for the moment in his affection for Mrs. Locke. He +writes to no other woman in this fervid strain. On May 8, 1557, Mrs. +Locke with her son and daughter (who died after her journey), joined Knox +at Geneva. {73} + +He was soon to be involved in Scottish affairs. After his departure from +his country, omens and prodigies had ensued. A comet appeared in +November-December 1556. Next year some corn-stacks were destroyed by +lightning. Worse, a calf with two heads was born, and was exhibited as a +warning to Mary of Guise by Robert Ormistoun. The idolatress merely +sneered, and said "it was but a common thing." Such a woman was +incorrigible. Mary of Guise is always blamed for endangering Scotland in +the interests of her family, the Guises of the House of Lorraine. In +fact, so far as she tried to make Scotland a province of France, she was +serving the ambition of Henri II. It could not be foreseen, in 1555, +that Henri II. would be slain in 1559, leaving the two kingdoms in the +hands of Francis II. and Mary Stuart, who were so young, that they would +inevitably be ruled by the Queen's uncles of the House of Lorraine. +Shortly before Knox arrived in Scotland in 1555, the Duc de Guise had +advised the Regent to "use sweetness and moderation," as better than +"extremity and rigour"; advice which she acted on gladly. + +Unluckily the war between France and Spain, in 1557, brought English +troops into collision with French forces in the Low Countries (Philip II. +being king of England); this led to complications between Scotland, as +ally of France, and the English on the Borders. Border raids began; +d'Oysel fortified Eyemouth, as a counterpoise to Berwick, war was +declared in November, and the discontented Scots, such as Chatelherault, +Huntly, Cassilis, and Argyll, mutinied and refused to cross Tweed. {74} +Thus arose a breach between the Regent and some of her nobles, who at +last, in 1559, rebelled against her on the ground of religion. While the +weak war languished on, in 1557-58, "the Evangel of Jesus Christ began +wondrously to flourish," says Knox. Other evangelists of his pattern, +Harlaw, Douglas, Willock, and a baker, Methuen (later a victim of the +intolerably cruel "discipline" of the Kirk Triumphant), preached at +Dundee, and Methuen started a reformed Kirk (though not without being +declared rebels at the horn). When these persons preached, their hearers +were apt to raise riots, wreck churches, and destroy works of sacred art. +No Government could for ever wink at such lawless actions, and it was +because the pulpiteers, Methuen, Willock, Douglas, and the rest, were +again "put at," after being often suffered to go free, that the final +crash came, and the Reformation began in the wrack and ruin of +monasteries and churches. + +There was drawing on another thunder-cloud. The policy of Mary of Guise +certainly tended to make Scotland a mere province of France, a province +infested by French forces, slender, but ill-paid and predacious. Before +marrying the Dauphin, in April 1558, Mary Stuart, urged it is said by the +Guises, signed away the independence of her country, to which her +husband, by these deeds, was to succeed if she died without issue. Young +as she was, Mary was perfectly able to understand the infamy of the +transaction, and probably was not so careless as to sign the deeds +unread. + +Even before this secret treaty was drafted, on March 10, 1557, Glencairn, +Lorne, Erskine, and the Prior of St. Andrews--best known to us in after +years as James Stewart, Earl of Moray--informed Knox that no "cruelty" by +way of persecution was being practised; that his presence was desired, +and that they were ready to jeopard their lives and goods for the cause. +The rest would be told to Knox by the bearer of the letter. Knox +received the letter in May 1557, with verbal reports by the bearers, but +was so far from hasty that he did not leave Geneva till the end of +September, and did not reach Dieppe on his way to Scotland till October +24. Three days later he wrote to the nobles who had summoned him seven +months earlier. He had received, he said, at Dieppe two private letters +of a discouraging sort; one correspondent said that the enterprise was to +be reconsidered, the other that the boldness and constancy required "for +such an enterprise" were lacking among the nobles. Meanwhile Knox had +spent his time, or some of it, in asking the most godly and the most +learned of Europe, including Calvin, for opinions of such an adventure, +for the assurance of his own conscience and the consciences of the Lord +James, Erskine, Lorne, and the rest. {76a} This indicates that Knox +himself was not quite sure of the lawfulness of an armed rising, and +perhaps explains his long delay. Knox assures us that Calvin and other +godly ministers insisted on his going to Scotland. But it is quite +certain that of an armed rising Calvin absolutely disapproved. On April +16, 1561, writing to Coligny, Calvin says that he was consulted several +months before the tumult of Amboise (March 1560) and absolutely +discouraged the appeal to arms. "Better that we all perish a hundred +times than that the name of Christianity and the Gospel should come under +such disgrace." {76b} If Calvin bade Knox go to Scotland, he must have +supposed that no rebellion was intended. Knox tells his correspondents +that they have betrayed themselves and their posterity ("in conscience I +can except none that bear the name of nobility"), they have made him and +their own enterprise ridiculous, and they have put him to great trouble. +What is he to say when he returns to Geneva, and is asked why he did not +carry out his purpose? He then encourages them to be resolute. + +Knox "certainly made the most," says Professor Hume Brown, "of the two +letters from correspondents unknown to us." He at once represented them +as the cause of his failure to keep tryst; but, in April 1558, writing +from Geneva to "the sisters," he said, "the cause of my stop to this day +I do not clearly understand." He did not know why he left England before +the Marian persecutions; and he did not know why he had not crossed over +to Scotland in 1557. "It may be that God justly permitted Sathan to put +in my mind such cogitations as these: I heard such troubles as appeared +in that realm;"--troubles presently to be described. + +Hearing, at Dieppe, then, in October 1557, of the troubles, and of the +faint war with England, and moved, perhaps, he suggests, by Satan, {77a} +Knox "began to dispute with himself, as followeth, 'Shall Christ, the +author of peace, concord, and quietness, be preached where war is +proclaimed, and tumults appear to rise? What comfort canst thou have to +see the one part of the people rise up against the other,'" and so forth. +These truly Christian reflections, as we may think them, "yet do trouble +and move my wicked heart," says Knox. He adds, hypothetically, that +perhaps the letters received at Dieppe "did somewhat discourage me." +{77b} He was only certain that the devil was at the bottom of the whole +affair. + +The "tumults that appear to arise" are probably the dissensions between +the Regent and the mutinous nobles who refused to invade England at her +command. D'Oysel needed a bodyguard; and he feared that the Lords would +seize and carry off the Regent. Arran, in 1564, speaks of a plot to +capture her in Holyrood. Here were promises of tumults. There were also +signs of a renewed feud between the house of Hamilton and the Stewart +Earl of Lennox, the rival claimant of the crown. There seems, moreover, +to have been some tumultuary image-breaking. {78} + +Knox may have been merely timid: he is not certain, but his delay passed +in consulting the learned, for the satisfaction of his conscience, and +his confessed doubts as to whether Christianity should be pushed by civil +war, seem to indicate that he was not always the prophet patron of modern +Jehus, that he did, occasionally, consult the Gospel as well as the +records of pre-Christian Israel. + +The general result was that, from October 1557 to March 1558, Knox stayed +in Dieppe, preaching with great success, raising up a Protestant church, +and writing. + +His condition of mind was unenviable. He had been brought all the way +across France, leaving his wife and family; he had, it seems, been met by +no letters from his noble friends, who may well have ceased to expect +him, so long was his delay. He was not at ease in his conscience, for, +to be plain, he was not sure that he was not afraid to risk himself in +Scotland, and he was not certain that his new scruples about the +justifiableness of a rising for religion were not the excuses suggested +by his own timidity. Perhaps they were just that, not whisperings either +of conscience or of Satan. Yet in this condition Knox was extremely +active. On December 1 and 17 he wrote, from Dieppe, a "Letter to His +Brethren in Scotland," and another to "The Lords and Others Professing +the Truth in Scotland." In the former he censures, as well he might, +"the dissolute life of (some) such as have professed Christ's holy +Evangel." That is no argument, he says, against Protestantism. Many +Turks are virtuous; many orthodox Hebrews, Saints, and Patriarchs +occasionally slipped; the Corinthians, though of a "trew Kirk," were +notoriously profligate. Meanwhile union and virtue are especially +desirable; for Satan "fiercely stirreth his terrible tail." We do not +know what back-slidings of the brethren prompted this letter. + +The Lords, in the other letter, are reminded that they had resolved to +hazard life, rank, and fortune for the delivery of the brethren: the +first step must be to achieve a godly frame of mind. Knox hears rumours +"that contradiction and rebellion is made by some to the Authority" in +Scotland. He advises "that none do suddenly disobey or displease the +established authority in things lawful," nor rebel from private motives. +By "things lawful" does he mean the command of the Regent to invade +England, which the nobles refused to do? They may "lawfully attempt the +extremity," if Authority will not cease to persecute, and permit +Protestant preaching and administration of the Sacraments (which usually +ended in riot and church-wrecking). Above all, they are not to back the +Hamiltons, whose chief, Chatelherault, had been a professor, had fallen +back, and become a persecutor. "Flee all confederacy with that +generation," the Hamiltons; with whom, after all, Knox was presently to +be allied, though by no means fully believing in the "unfeigned and +speedy repentance" of their chief. {80a} + +All the movements of that time are not very clear. Apparently Lorne, +Lord James, and the rest, in their letter of March 10, 1557, intended an +armed rising: they were "ready to jeopardise lives and goods" for "the +glory of God." If no more than an appeal to "the Authority" for +tolerance was meant, why did Knox consult the learned so long, on the +question of conscience? Yet, in December 1557, he bids his allies first +of all seek the favour of "the Authority," for bare toleration of +Protestantism. + +From the scheme of March 10, of which the details, unknown to us, were +_orally_ delivered by bearer, he appears to have expected civil war. + +Again, just when Knox was writing to Scotland in December 1557, his +allies there, he says, made "a common Band," a confederacy and covenant +such as the Scots usually drew up before a murder, as of Riccio or +Darnley, or for slaying Argyll and "the bonny Earl o' Murray," under +James VI. These Bands were illegal. A Band, says Knox, was now signed +by Argyll, Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, and Erskine of Dun, and many others +unknown, on December 3, 1557. It is alleged that "Satan cruelly doth +rage." Now, how was Satan raging in December 1557? Myln, the last +martyr, was not pursued till April 1558, by Knox's account. + +The first godly Band being of December 1557, {80b} and drawn up, perhaps, +on the impulse of Knox's severe letter from Dieppe of October 27, in that +year; just after they signed the Band, what were the demands of the +Banders? They asked, apparently, that the Second Prayer Book of Edward +VI. should be read in all parish churches, with the Lessons: _if the +curates are able to read_: if not, then by any qualified parishioner. +Secondly, preaching must be permitted in private houses, "without great +conventions of the people." {81a} Whether the Catholic service was to be +concurrently permitted does not appear; it is not very probable, for that +service is idolatrous, and the Band itself denounces the Church as "the +Congregation of Satan." Dr. M'Crie thinks that the Banders, or +Congregation of God, did not ask for the universal adoption of the +English Prayer Book, but only requested that they themselves might bring +it in "in places to which their authority and influence extended." They +took that liberty, certainly, without waiting for leave, but their demand +appears to apply to all parish churches. War, in fact, was denounced +against Satan's Congregation; {81b} if it troubles the Lords' +Congregation, there could therefore be little idea of tolerating their +nefarious creed and ritual. + +Probably Knox, at Dieppe in 1557 and early in 1558, did not know about +the promising Band made in Scotland. He was composing his "First Blast +of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women." In England and +in Scotland were a Catholic Queen, a Catholic Queen Mother, and the Queen +of Scotland was marrying the idolatrous Dauphin. It is not worth while +to study Knox's general denunciation of government by ladies: he allowed +that (as Calvin suggested) miraculous exceptions to their inability might +occur, as in the case of Deborah. As a rule, a Queen was an "idol," and +that was enough. England deserved an idol, and an idolatrous idol, for +Englishmen rejected Kirk discipline; "no man would have his life called +in trial" by presbyter or preacher. A Queen regnant has, ex officio, +committed treason against God: the Realm and Estates may have conspired +with her, but her rule is unlawful. Naturally this skirl on the trumpet +made Knox odious to Elizabeth, for to impeach her succession might cause +a renewal of the wars of the Roses. Nothing less could have happened, if +a large portion of the English people had believed in the Prophet of God, +John Knox. He could predict vengeance on Mary Tudor, but could not see +that, as Elizabeth would succeed, his Blast would bring inconvenience to +his cause; or, seeing it, he stood to his guns. + +He presently reprinted and added to his letter to Mary of Guise, arguing +that civil magistrates have authority in religion, but, of course, he +must mean only as far as they carry out his ideas, which are the truth. +In an "Appellation" against the condemnation of himself, in absence, by +the Scottish clergy, he labours the same idea. Moreover, "no idolater +can be exempted from punishment by God's law." Now the Queen of Scotland +happened to be an idolater, and every true believer, as a private +individual, has a right to punish idolaters. That right and duty are not +limited to the King, or to "the chief Nobility and Estates," whom Knox +addresses. "I would your Honours should note for the first, that no +idolater can be exempted from punishment by God's Law. The second is, +that the punishment of such crimes as are idolatry, blasphemy, and +others, that touch the Majesty of God, doth not appertain to kings and +chief rulers only" (as he had argued that they do, in 1554), "but also to +the whole body of that people, and to every member of the same, according +to the vocation of every man, and according to that possibility and +occasion which God doth minister to revenge the injury done against His +glory, what time that impiety is manifestly known. . . . _Who dare be so +impudent as to deny this to be most reasonable and just_?" {83} + +Knox's method of argument for his doctrine is to take, among other texts, +Deuteronomy xiii. 12-18, and apply the sanguinary precepts of Hebrew +fanatics to the then existing state of affairs in the Church Christian. +Thus, in Deuteronomy, cities which serve "other gods," or welcome +missionaries of other religions, are to be burned, and every living thing +in them is to be destroyed. "To the carnal man, . . . " says Knox, "this +may rather seem to be pronounced in a rage than in wisdom." God wills, +however, that "all creatures stoop, cover their faces, _and desist from +reasoning_, when commandment is given to execute his judgement." Knox, +then, desists from reasoning so far as to preach that every Protestant, +with a call that way, has a right to punish any Catholic, if he gets a +good opportunity. This doctrine he publishes to his own countrymen. Thus +any fanatic who believed in the prophet Knox, and was conscious of a +"vocation," might, and should, avenge God's wrongs on Mary of Guise or +Mary Stuart, "he had a fair opportunity, for both ladies were idolaters. +This is a plain inference from the passage just cited. + +Appealing to the Commonalty of Scotland, Knox next asked that he might +come and justify his doctrine, and prove Popery "abominable before God." +Now, could any Government admit a man who published the tidings that any +member of a State might avenge God on an idolater, the Queen being, +according to him, an idolater? This doctrine of the right of the +Protestant individual is merely monstrous. Knox has wandered far from +his counsel of "passive resistance" in his letter to his Berwick +congregation; he has even passed beyond his "Admonition," which merely +prayed for a Phinehas or Jehu: he has now proclaimed the right and duty +of the private Protestant assassin. The "Appellation" containing these +ideas was published at Geneva in 1558, with the author's, but without the +printer's name on the title-page. + +"The First Blast" had neither the author's nor printer's name, nor the +name of the place of publication. Calvin soon found that it had given +grave offence to Queen Elizabeth. He therefore wrote to Cecil that, +though the work came from a press in his town, he had not been aware of +its existence till a year after its publication. He now took no public +steps against the book, not wishing to draw attention to its origin in +Geneva, lest, "by reason of the reckless arrogance of one man" ('the +ravings of others'), "the miserable crowd of exiles should have been +driven away, not only from this city, but even from almost the whole +world." {84} As far as I am aware, no one approached Calvin with +remonstrance about the monstrosities of the "Appellation," nor are the +passages which I have cited alluded to by more than one biographer of +Knox, to my knowledge. Professor Hume Brown, however, justly remarks +that what the Kirk, immediately after Knox's death, called "Erastianism" +(in ordinary parlance the doctrine that the Civil power may interfere in +religion) could hardly "be approved in more set terms" than by Knox. He +avers that "the ordering and reformation of religion . . . doth +especially appertain to the Civil Magistrate . . . " "The King taketh +upon him to command the Priests." {85} The opposite doctrine, that it +appertains to the Church, is an invention of Satan. To that diabolical +invention, Andrew Melville and the Kirk returned in the generation +following, while James VI. held to Knox's theory, as stated in the +"Appellation." + +The truth is that Knox contemplates a State in which the civil power +shall be entirely and absolutely of his own opinions; the King, as +"Christ's silly vassal," to quote Andrew Melville, being obedient to such +prophets as himself. The theories of Knox regarding the duty to revenge +God's feud by the private citizen, and regarding religious massacre by +the civil power, ideas which would justify the Bartholomew horrors, +appear to be forgotten in modern times. His address to the Commonalty, +as citizens with a voice in the State, represents the progressive and +permanent element in his politics. We have shown, however, that, before +Knox's time, the individual Scot was a thoroughly independent character. +"The man hath more words than the master, and will not be content unless +he knows the master's counsel." + +By March 1558, Knox had returned from Dieppe to Geneva. In Scotland, +since the godly Band of December 1557, events were moving in two +directions. The Church was continuing in a belated and futile attempt at +reformation of manners (and wonderfully bad manners they confessedly +were), and of education from within. The Congregation, the Protestants, +on the other hand, were preparing openly to defend themselves and their +adherents from persecution, an honest, manly, and laudable endeavour, so +long as they did not persecute other Christians. Their preachers--such +as Harlaw, Methuen, and Douglas--were publicly active. A moment of +attempted suppression must arrive, greatly against the personal wishes of +Archbishop Hamilton, who dreaded the conflict. + +In March 1558, Hamilton courteously remonstrated with Argyll for +harbouring Douglas. He himself was "heavily murmured against" for his +slackness in the case of Argyll, by churchmen and other "well given +people," and by Mary of Guise, whose daughter, by April 24, 1558, was +married to the Dauphin of France. Argyll replied that he knew how the +Archbishop was urged on, but declined to abandon Douglas. + +"It is a far cry to Loch Awe"; Argyll, who died soon after, was too +powerful to be attacked. But, sometime in April 1558 apparently, a poor +priest of Forfarshire, Walter Myln, who had married and got into trouble +under Cardinal Beaton, was tried for heresy, and, without sentence of a +secular judge, it is said, was burned at St. Andrews, displaying serene +courage, and hoping to be the last martyr in Scotland. Naturally there +was much indignation; if the Lords and others were to keep their Band +they must bestir themselves. They did bestir themselves in defence of +their favourite preachers--Willock, Harlaw, Methuen; a ci-devant friar, +Christison; and Douglas. Some of these men were summoned several times +throughout 1558, and Methuen and Harlaw, at least, were "at the horn" +(outlawed), but were protected--Harlaw at Dumfries, Methuen at Dundee--by +powerful laymen. At Dundee, as we saw, by 1558, Methuen had erected a +church of reformed aspect; and "reformed" means that the Kirk had already +been purged of altars and images. Attempts to bring the ringleaders of +Protestant riots to law were made in 1558, but the precise order of +events, and of the protests of the Reformers, appears to be dislocated in +Knox's narrative. He himself was not present, and he seems never to have +mastered the sequence of occurrences. Fortunately there exists a +fragment by a well-informed writer, apparently a contemporary, the +"Historie of the Estate of Scotland" covering the events from July 1558 +to 1560. {87a} There are also imperfect records of the Parliament of +November-December 1558, and of the last Provincial Council of the Church, +in March 1559. + +For July 28 {87b} four or five of the brethren were summoned to "a day of +law," in Edinburgh; their allies assembled to back them, and they were +released on bail to appear, if called on, within eight days. At this +time the "idol" of St. Giles, patron of the city, was stolen, and a great +riot occurred at the saint's fete, September 3. {87c} + +Knox describes the discomfiture of his foes in one of his merriest +passages, frequently cited by admirers of "his vein of humour." The +event, we know, was at once reported to him in Geneva, by letter. + +Some time after October, if we rightly construe Knox, {88a} a petition +was delivered to the Regent, from the Reformers, by Sandilands of Calder. +{88b} They asserted that they should have defended the preachers, or +testified with them. The wisdom of the Regent herself sees the need of +reform, spiritual and temporal, and has exhorted the clergy and nobles to +employ care and diligence thereon, a fact corroborated by Mary of Guise +herself, in a paper, soon to be quoted, of July 1559. {88c} They ask, as +they have the reading of the Scriptures in the vernacular, for common +prayers in the same. They wish for freedom to interpret and discuss the +Bible "in our conventions," and that Baptism and the Communion may be +done in Scots, and they demand the reform of the detestable lives of the +prelates. {88d} + +Knox's account, in places, appears really to refer to the period of the +Provincial Council of March 1559, though it does not quite fit that date +either. + +The Regent is said on the occasion of Calder's petition, and after the +unsatisfactory replies of the clergy (apparently at the Provincial +Council, March 1559), to have made certain concessions, till Parliament +established uniform order. But the Parliament was of November-December +1558. {89a} Before that Parliament, at all events (which was mainly +concerned with procuring the "Crown Matrimonial" for the Dauphin, husband +of Mary Stuart), the brethren offered a petition, in the first place +shown to the Regent, asking for (1) the suspension of persecuting laws +till after a General Council has "decided all controversies in +religion"--that is, till the Greek Calends. (2) That prelates shall not +be judges in cases of heresy, but only accusers before secular tribunals. +(3) That all lawful defences be granted to persons accused. (4) That the +accused be permitted to explain "his own mind and meaning." (5) That +"none be condemned for heretics unless by the manifest Word of God they +be convicted to have erred from the faith which the Holy Spirit witnesses +to be necessary to salvation." According to Knox this petition the +Regent put in her pocket, saying that the Churchmen would oppose it, and +thwart her plan for getting the "Crown Matrimonial" given to her son-in- +law, Francis II., and, in short, gave good words, and drove time. {89b} + +The Reformers then drew up a long Protestation, which was read in the +House, but not enrolled in its records. They say that they have had to +postpone a formal demand for Reformation, but protest that "it be lawful +to us to use ourselves in matters of religion and conscience as we must +answer to God," and they are ready to prove their case. They shall not +be liable, meanwhile, to any penalties for breach of the existing Acts +against heresy, "nor for violating such rites as man, without God's +commandment or word, hath commanded." They disclaim all responsibility +for the ensuing tumults. {90a} In fact, they aver that they will not +only worship in their own way, but prevent other people from worshipping +in the legal way, and that the responsibility for the riots will lie on +the side of those who worship legally. And this was the chief occasion +of the ensuing troubles. The Regent promised to "put good order" in +controverted matters, and was praised by the brethren in a letter to +Calvin, not now to be found. + +Another threat had been made by the brethren, in circumstances not very +obscure. As far as they are known they suggest that in January 1559 the +zealots deliberately intended to provoke a conflict, and to enlist "the +rascal multitude" on their side, at Easter, 1559. The obscurity is +caused by a bookbinder. He has, with the fatal ingenuity of his trade, +cut off the two top lines from a page in one manuscript copy of Knox's +"History." {90b} The text now runs thus (in its mutilated condition): " +. . . Zealous Brether . . . upon the gates and posts of all the Friars' +places within this realm, in the month of January 1558 (1559), preceding +that Whitsunday that they dislodged, which is this . . . " + +Then follows the Proclamation. + +Probably we may supply the words: ". . . Zealous Brethren caused a paper +to be affixed upon the gates and posts," and so on. The paper so +promulgated purported to be a warning from the poor of Scotland that, +before Whitsunday, "we, the lawful proprietors," will eject the Friars +and residents on the property, unlawfully withheld by the religious--"our +patrimony." This feat will be performed, "with the help of God, _and +assistance of his Saints on earth, of whose ready support we doubt not_." + +As the Saints, in fact, were the "Zealous Brether . . ." who affixed the +written menace on "all the Friars' places," they knew what they were +talking about, and could prophesy safely. To make so many copies of the +document, and fix them on "all the Friars' places," implies organisation, +and a deliberate plan--riots and revolution--before Whitsunday. The +poor, of course, only exchanged better for worse landlords, as they soon +discovered. The "Zealous Brethren"--as a rule small lairds, probably, +and burgesses--were the nucleus of the Revolution. When townsfolk and +yeomen in sufficient number had joined them in arms, then nobles like +Argyll, Lord James, Glencairn, Ruthven, and the rest, put themselves at +the head of the movement, and won the prizes which had been offered to +the "blind, crooked, widows, orphans, and all other poor." + +After Parliament was over, at the end of December 1558, the Archbishop of +St. Andrews again summoned the preachers, Willock, Douglas, Harlaw, +Methuen, and Friar John Christison to a "day of law" at St. Andrews, on +February 2, 1559. (This is the statement of the "Historie.") {91} The +brethren then "caused inform the Queen Mother that the said preachers +would appear with such multitude of men professing their doctrine, as was +never seen before in such like cases in this country," and kept their +promise. The system of overawing justice by such gatherings was usual, +as we have already seen; Knox, Bothwell, Lethington, and the Lord James +Stewart all profited by the practice on various occasions. + +Mary of Guise, "fearing some uproar or sedition," bade the bishops put +off the summons, and, in fact, the preachers never were summoned, +finally, for any offences prior to this date. + +On February 9, 1559, the Regent issued proclamations against eating flesh +in Lent (this rule survived the Reformation by at least seventy years) +and against such disturbances of religious services as the Protest just +described declared to be imminent, all such deeds being denounced under +"pain of death"--as pain of death was used to be threatened against +poachers of deer and wild fowl. {92a} + +Mary, however, had promised, as we saw, that she would summon the nobles +and Estates, "to advise for some reformation in religion" (March 7, +1559), and the Archbishop called a Provincial Council to Edinburgh for +March. At this, or some other juncture, for Knox's narrative is +bewildering, {92b} the clergy offered free discussion, but refused to +allow exiles like himself to be present, and insisted on the acceptance +of the Mass, Purgatory, the invocation of saints, with security for their +ecclesiastical possessions. In return they would grant prayers and +baptism in English, if done privately and not in open assembly. The +terms, he says, were rejected; appeal was made to Mary of Guise, and she +gave toleration, except for public assemblies in Edinburgh and Leith, +pending the meeting of Parliament. To the clergy, who, "some say," +bribed her, she promised to "put order" to these matters. The Reformers +were deceived, and forbade Douglas to preach in Leith. So writes Knox. + +Now the "Historie" dates all this, bribe and all, _after the end of +December_ 1558. Knox, however, by some confusion, places the facts, +bribe and all, _before April_ 28, 1558, Myln's martyrdom! {93a} Yet he +had before him as he wrote the Chronicle of Bruce of Earlshall, who +states the bribe, Knox says, at 40,000 pounds; the "Historie" says +"within 15,000 pounds." {93b} + +In any case Knox, who never saw his book in print, has clearly dislocated +the sequence of events. At this date, namely March 1559, the preaching +agitators were at liberty, nor were they again put at for any of their +previous proceedings. But defiances had been exchanged. The Reformers +in their Protestation (December 1558) had claimed it as lawful, we know, +that they should enjoy their own services, and put down those of the +religion by law established, until such time as the Catholic clergy "be +able to prove themselves the true ministers of Christ's Church" and +guiltless of all the crimes charged against them by their adversaries. +{93c} That was the challenge of the Reformers, backed by the menace +affixed to the doors of all the monasteries. The Regent in turn had +thrown down her glove by the proclamation of February 9, 1559, against +disturbing services and "bosting" (bullying) priests. How could she +possibly do less in the circumstances? If her proclamation was +disobeyed, could she do less than summon the disobedient to trial? Her +hand was forced. + +It appears to myself, under correction, that all this part of the history +of the Reformation has been misunderstood by our older historians. Almost +without exception, they represent the Regent as dissembling with the +Reformers till, on conclusion of the peace of Cateau Cambresis (which +left France free to aid her efforts in Scotland), April 2, 1559, and on +the receipt of a message from the Guises, "she threw off the mask," and +initiated an organised persecution. But there is no evidence that any +such message commanding her to persecute at this time came from the +Guises before the Regent had issued her proclamations of February 9 and +March 23, {94a} denouncing attacks on priests, disturbance of services, +administering of sacraments by lay preachers, and tumults at large. Now, +Sir James Melville of Halhill, the diplomatist, writing in old age, and +often erroneously, makes the Cardinal of Lorraine send de Bettencourt, or +Bethencourt, to the Regent with news of the peace of Cateau Cambresis and +an order to punish heretics with fire and sword, and says that, though +she was reluctant, she consequently published her proclamation of March +23. Dates prove part of this to be impossible. {94b} + +Obviously the Regent had issued her proclamations of February-March 1559 +in anticipation of the tumults threatened by the Reformers in their +"Beggar's Warning" and in their Protestation of December, and arranged to +occur with violence at Easter, as they did. The three or four preachers +(two of them apparently "at the horn" in 1558) were to preach publicly, +and riots were certain to ensue, as the Reformers had threatened. Riots +were part of the evangelical programme. Of Paul Methuen, who first +"reformed" the Church in Dundee, Pitscottie writes that he "ministered +the sacraments of the communion at Dundee and Cupar, and caused the +images thereof to be cast down, and abolished the Pope's religion so far +as he passed or preached." For this sort of action he was now summoned. +{95a} + +The Regent, therefore, warned in her proclamations men, often challenged +previously, and as often allowed, under fear of armed resistance, to +escape. All that followed was but a repetition of the feeble policy of +outlawing these four or five men. Finally, in May 1559, these preachers +had a strong armed backing, and seized a central strategic point, so the +Revolution blazed out on a question which had long been smouldering and +on an occasion that had been again and again deferred. The Regent, far +from having foreseen and hardened her heart to carry out an organised +persecution and "cut the throats" of all Protestants in Scotland, was, in +fact, intending to go to France, being in the earlier stages of her fatal +malady. This appears from a letter of Sir Henry Percy, from Norham +Castle, to Cecil and Parry (April 12, 1559) {95b} Percy says that the +news in his latest letters (now lost) was erroneous. The Regent, in +fact, "is not as yet departed." She is very ill, and her life is +despaired of. She is at Stirling, where the nobles had assembled to +discuss religious matters. Only her French advisers were on the side of +the Regent. "The matter is pacified for the time," and in case of the +Regent's death, Chatelherault, d'Oysel, and de Rubay are to be a +provisional committee of Government, till the wishes of the King and +Queen, Francis and Mary, are known. Again, in her letter of May 16 to +Henri II. of France, she stated that she was in very bad health, {96a} +and, at about the same date (May 18), the English ambassador in France +mentions her intention to visit that country at once. {96b} But the +Revolution of May 11, breaking out in Perth, condemned her to suffer and +die in Scotland. + +This, however, does not amount to proof that no plan of persecution in +Scotland was intended. Throckmorton writes, on May 18, that the Marquis +d'Elboeuf is to go thither. "He takes with him both men of conduct and +some of war; it is thought his stay will not be long." Again (May 23, +24), Throckmorton reports that Henri II. means to persecute extremely in +Poitou, Guienne, and Scotland. "Cecil may take occasion to use the +matter in Scotland as may seem best to serve the turn." {96c} This was +before the Perth riot had been reported (May 26) by Cecil to +Throckmorton. Was d'Elboeuf intended to direct the persecution? The +theory has its attractions, but Henri, just emerged with maimed forces +from a ruinous war, knew that a persecution which served Cecil's "turn" +did not serve _his_. To persecute in Scotland would mean renewed war +with England, and could not be contemplated. If Sir James Melville can +be trusted for once, the Constable, about June 1, told him, in the +presence of the French King, that if the Perth revolt were only about +religion, "we mon commit Scottismen's saules unto God." {97} Melville +was then despatched with promise of aid to the Regent--if the rising was +political, not religious. + +It is quite certain that the Regent issued her proclamations without any +commands from France; and her health was inconsistent with an intention +to put Protestants to fire and sword. + +In the records of the Provincial Council of March 1559, the foremost +place is given to "Articles" presented to the Regent by "some temporal +Lords and Barons," and by her handed to the clergy. They are the +proposals of conservative reformers. They ask for moral reformation of +the lives of the clergy: for sermons on Sundays and holy days: for due +examination of the doctrine, life, and learning of all who are permitted +to preach. They demand that no vicar or curate shall be appointed unless +he can read the catechism (of 1552) plainly and distinctly: that +expositions of the sacraments should be clearly pronounced in the +vernacular: that common prayer should be read in the vernacular: that +certain exactions of gifts and dues should be abolished. Again, no one +should be allowed to dishonour the sacraments, or the service of the +Mass: no unqualified person should administer the sacraments: Kirk +rapine, destruction of religious buildings and works of art, should not +be permitted. + +The Council passed thirty-four statutes on these points. The clergy were +to live cleanly, and not to keep their bastards at home. They were +implored, "in the bowels of Christ" to do their duty in the services of +the Church. No one in future was to be admitted to a living without +examination by the Ordinary. Ruined churches were to be rebuilt or +repaired. Breakers of ornaments and violators or burners of churches +were to be pursued. There was to be preaching as often as the Ordinary +thought fit: if the Rector could not preach he must find a substitute who +could. Plain expositions of the sacraments were made out, were to be +read aloud to the congregations, and were published at twopence ("The +Twopenny Faith"). Administration of the Eucharist except by priests was +to be punished by excommunication. {98a} Knox himself desired _death_ +for others than true ministers who celebrated the sacrament. {98b} His +"true ministers," about half-a-dozen of them at this time, of course came +under the penalty of the last statute. + +He says, with the usual error, that _after_ peace was made between France +and England, on April 2, 1559 (the treaty of Cateau Cambresis), the +Regent "began to spew forth and disclose the latent venom of her double +heart." She looked "frowardly" on Protestants, "commanded her household +to use all abominations at Easter," she herself communicated, "and it is +supposed that after that day the devil took more violent and strong +possession in her than he had before . . . For incontinent she caused +our preachers to be summoned." + +But _why_ did she summon the same set of preachers as before, for no old +offence? The Regent, says the "Historie," made proclamation, during the +Council (as the moderate Reformers had asked her to do), "that no manner +of person should . . . preach or minister the sacraments, except they +were admitted by the Ordinary or a Bishop on no less pain than death." +The Council, in fact, made excommunication the penalty. Now it was for +ministering the sacrament after the proclamation of March 13, for +preaching heresy, and stirring up "seditions and tumults," that Methuen, +Brother John Christison, William Harlaw, and John Willock were summoned +to appear at Stirling on May 10, 1559. {99a} + +How could any governor of Scotland abstain from summoning them in the +circumstances? There seems to be no new suggestion of the devil, no +outbreak of Guisian fury. The Regent was in a situation whence there was +no "outgait": she must submit to the seditions and tumults threatened in +the Protestation of the brethren, the disturbances of services, the +probable wrecking of churches, or she must use the powers legally +entrusted to her. She gave insolent answers to remonstrances from the +brethren, says Knox. She would banish the preachers (not execute them), +"albeit they preached as truly as ever did St. Paul." Being threatened, +as before, with the consequent "inconvenients," she said "she would +advise." However, summon the preachers she did, for breach of her +proclamations, "tumults and seditions." {99b} + +Knox himself was present at the Revolution which ensued, but we must now +return to his own doings in the autumn and winter of 1558-59. {100} + + + + +CHAPTER IX: KNOX ON THE ANABAPTISTS: HIS APPEAL TO ENGLAND: 1558-1559 + + +While the inevitable Revolution was impending in Scotland, Knox was +living at Geneva. He may have been engaged on his "Answer" to the +"blasphemous cavillations" of an Anabaptist, his treatise on +Predestination. Laing thought that this work was "chiefly written" at +Dieppe, in February-April 1559, but as it contains more than 450 pages it +is probably a work of longer time than two months. In November 1559 the +English at Geneva asked leave to print the book, which was granted, +provided that the name of Geneva did not appear as the place of printing; +the authorities knowing of what Knox was capable from the specimen given +in his "First Blast." There seem to be several examples of the Genevan +edition, published by Crispin in 1560; the next edition, less rare, is of +1591 (London). {101} + +The Anabaptist whom Knox is discussing had been personally known to him, +and had lucid intervals. "Your chief Apollos," he had said, addressing +the Calvinists, "be persecutors, on whom the blood of Servetus crieth a +vengeance. . . . They have set forth books affirming it to be lawful to +persecute and put to death such as dissent from them in controversies of +religion. . . . Notwithstanding they, before they came to authority, +were of another judgment, and did both say and write that no man ought to +be persecuted for his conscience' sake. . . ." {102a} Knox replied that +Servetus was a blasphemer, and that Moses had been a more wholesale +persecutor than the Edwardian burners of Joan of Kent, and the Genevan +Church which roasted Servetus {102b} (October 1553). He incidentally +proves that he was better than his doctrine. In England an Anabaptist, +after asking for secrecy, showed him a manuscript of his own full of +blasphemies. "In me I confess there was great negligence, that neither +did retain his book nor present him to the magistrate" to burn. Knox +could not have done that, for the author "earnestly required of me +closeness and fidelity," which, probably, Knox promised. Indeed, one +fancies that his opinions and character would have been in conflict if a +chance of handing an idolater over to death had been offered to him. +{102c} + +The death of Mary Tudor on November 17, 1558, does not appear to have +been anticipated by him. The tidings reached him before January 12, +1559, when he wrote from Geneva a singular "Brief Exhortation to England +for the Spedie Embrasing of Christ's Gospel heretofore by the Tyrannie of +Marie Suppressed and Banished." + +The gospel to be embraced by England is, of course, not nearly so much +Christ's as John Knox's, in its most acute form and with its most +absolute, intolerant, and intolerable pretensions. He begins by +vehemently rebuking England for her "shameful defection" and by +threatening God's "horrible vengeances which thy monstrous unthankfulness +hath long deserved," if the country does not become much more puritan +than it had ever been, or is ever likely to be. Knox "wraps you all in +idolatry, all in murder, all in one and the same iniquity," except the +actual Marian martyrs; those who "abstained from idolatry;" and those who +"avoided the realm" or ran away. He had set one of the earliest examples +of running away: to do so was easier for him than for family men and +others who had "a stake in the country," for which Knox had no relish. He +is hardly generous in blaming all the persons who felt no more "ripe" for +martyrdom than he did, yet stayed in England, where the majority were, +and continued to be, Catholics. + +Having asserted his very contestable superiority and uttered pages of +biblical threatenings, Knox says that the repentance of England +"requireth two things," first, the expulsion of "all dregs of Popery" and +the treading under foot of all "glistering beauty of vain ceremonies." +Religious services must be reduced, in short, to his own bare standard. +Next, the Genevan and Knoxian "kirk discipline" must be introduced. No +"power or liberty (must) be permitted to any, of what estate, degree, or +authority they be, either to live without the yoke of discipline by God's +word commanded," or "to alter . . . one jot in religion which from God's +mouth thou hast received. . . . If prince, king, or emperor would +enterprise to change or disannul the same, that he be of thee reputed +enemy to God," while a prince who erects idolatry . . . "must be adjudged +to death." + +Each bishopric is to be divided into ten. The Founder of the Church and +the Apostles "all command us to preach, to preach." A brief sketch of +what The Book of Discipline later set forth for the edification of +Scotland is recommended to England, and is followed by more threatenings +in the familiar style. + +England did not follow the advice of Knox: her whole population was not +puritan, many of her martyrs had died for the prayer book which Knox +would have destroyed. His tract cannot have added to the affection which +Elizabeth bore to the author of "The First Blast." In after years, as we +shall see, Knox spoke in a tone much more moderate in addressing the +early English nonconformist secessionists (1568). Indeed, it is as easy +almost to prove, by isolated passages in Knox's writings, that he was a +sensible, moderate man, loathing and condemning active resistance in +religion, as to prove him to be a senselessly violent man. All depends +on the occasion and opportunity. He speaks with two voices. He was very +impetuous; in the death of Mary Tudor he suddenly saw the chance of +bringing English religion up, or down, to the Genevan level, and so he +wrote this letter of vehement rebuke and inopportune advice. + +Knox must have given his biographers "medicines to make them love him." +The learned Dr. Lorimer finds in this epistle, one of the most fierce of +his writings, "a programme of what this Reformation reformed should be--a +programme which was honourable alike to Knox's zeal and his moderation." +The "moderation" apparently consists in not abolishing bishoprics, but +substituting "ten bishops of moderate income for one lordly prelate." +Despite this moderation of the epistle, "its intolerance is extreme," +says Dr. Lorimer, and Knox's advice "cannot but excite astonishment." +{104} The party which agreed with him in England was the minority of a +minority; the Catholics, it is usually supposed, though we have no +statistics, were the majority of the English nation. Yet the only +chance, according to Knox, that England has of escaping the vengeance of +an irritable Deity, is for the smaller minority to alter the prayer book, +resist the Queen, if she wishes to retain it unaltered, and force the +English people into the "discipline" of a Swiss Protestant town. + +Dr. Lorimer, a most industrious and judicious writer, adds that, in these +matters of "discipline," and of intolerance, Knox "went to a tragical +extreme of opinion, of which none of the other leading reformers had set +an example;" also that what he demanded was substantially demanded by the +Puritans all through the reign of Elizabeth. But Knox averred publicly, +and in his "History," that for everything he affirmed in Scotland he had +heard the judgments "of the most godly and learned that be known in +Europe . . . and for my assurance I have the handwritings of many." Now +he had affirmed frequently, in Scotland, the very doctrines of discipline +and persecution "of which none of the other leading Reformers had set an +example," according to Dr. Lorimer. Therefore, either they agreed with +Knox, or what Knox told the Lords in June 1564 was not strictly accurate. +{105} In any case Knox gave to his country the most extreme of +Reformations. + +The death of Mary Tudor, and the course of events at home, were now to +afford our Reformer the opportunity of promulgating, in Scotland, those +ideas which we and his learned Presbyterian student alike regret and +condemn. These persecuting ideas "were only a mistaken theory of +Christian duty, and nothing worse," says Dr. Lorimer. Nothing could +possibly be worse than a doctrine contrary in the highest degree to the +teaching of Our Lord, whether the doctrine was proclaimed by Pope, +Prelate, or Calvinist. + +Here it must be observed that a most important fact in Knox's career, a +most important element in his methods, has been little remarked upon by +his biographers. Ever since he failed, in 1554, to obtain the adhesion +of Bullinger and Calvin to his more extreme ideas, he had been his own +prophet, and had launched his decrees of the right of the people, of part +of the people, and of the individual, to avenge the insulted majesty of +God upon idolaters, not only without warrant from the heads of the +Calvinistic Church, but to their great annoyance and disgust. Of this an +example will now be given. + + + + +CHAPTER X: KNOX AND THE SCOTTISH REVOLUTION, 1559 + + +Knox had learned from letters out of Scotland that Protestants there now +ran no risks; that "without a shadow of fear they might hear prayers in +the vernacular, and receive the sacraments in the right way, the impure +ceremonies of Antichrist being set aside." The image of St. Giles had +been broken by a mob, and thrown into a sewer; "the impure crowd of +priests and monks" had fled, throwing away the shafts of the crosses they +bore, and "hiding the golden heads in their robes." Now the Regent +thinks of reforming religion, on a given day, at a convention of the +whole realm. So William Cole wrote to Bishop Bale, then at Basle, +without date. The riot was of the beginning of September 1558, and is +humorously described by Knox. {107} + +This news, though regarded as "very certain," was quite erroneous except +as to the riot. One may guess that it was given to Knox in letters from +the nobles, penned in October 1558, which he received in November 1558; +there was also a letter to Calvin from the nobles, asking for Knox's +presence. It seemed that a visit to Scotland was perfectly safe; Knox +left Geneva in January, he arrived in Dieppe in February, where he +learned that Elizabeth would not allow him to travel through England. He +had much that was private to say to Cecil, and was already desirous of +procuring English aid to Scottish reformers. The tidings of the Queen's +refusal to admit him to England came through Cecil, and Knox told him +that he was "worthy of Hell" (for conformity with Mary Tudor); and that +Turks actually granted such safe conducts as were now refused to him. +{108a} Perhaps he exaggerated the amenity of the Turks. His "First +Blast," if acted on, disturbed the succession in England, and might beget +new wars, a matter which did not trouble the prophet. He also asked +leave to visit his flock at Berwick. This too was refused. + +Doubtless Knox, with his unparalleled activity, employed the period of +delay in preaching the Word at Dieppe. After his arrival in Scotland, he +wrote to his Dieppe congregation, upbraiding them for their Laodicean +laxity in permitting idolatry to co-exist with true religion in their +town. Why did they not drive out the idolatrous worship? These epistles +were intercepted by the Governor of Dieppe, and their contents appear to +have escaped the notice of the Reformer's biographers. A revolt followed +in Dieppe. {108b} Meanwhile Knox's doings at Dieppe had greatly +exasperated Francois Morel, the chief pastor of the Genevan congregation +in Paris, and president of the first Protestant Synod held in that town. +The affairs of the French Protestants were in a most precarious +condition; persecution broke into fury early in June 1559. A week +earlier, Morel wrote to Calvin, "Knox was for some time in Dieppe, +waiting on a wind for Scotland." "He dared publicly to profess the worst +and most infamous of doctrines: 'Women are unworthy to reign; Christians +may protect themselves by arms against tyrants!'" The latter excellent +doctrine was not then accepted by the Genevan learned. "I fear that Knox +may fill Scotland with his madness. He is said to have a boon companion +at Geneva, whom we hear that the people of Dieppe have called to be their +minister. If he be infected with such opinions, for Christ's sake pray +that he be not sent; or if he has already departed, warn the Dieppe +people to beware of him." {109a} A French ex-capuchin, Jacques Trouille, +was appointed as Knox's successor at Dieppe. {109b} + +Knox's ideas, even the idea that Christians may bear the sword against +tyrants, were all his own, were anti-Genevan; and though Calvin (1559-60) +knew all about the conspiracy of Amboise to kill the Guises, he ever +maintained that he had discouraged and preached against it. We must, +therefore, credit Knox with originality, both in his ideas and in his way +of giving it to be understood that they had the approval of the learned +of Switzerland. The reverse was true. + +By May 3, Knox was in Edinburgh, "come in the brunt of the battle," as +the preachers' summons to trial was for May 10. He was at once outlawed, +"blown loud to the horn," but was not dismayed. On this occasion the +battle would be a fair fight, the gentry, under their Band, stood by the +preachers, and, given a chance in open field with the arm of the flesh to +back him, Knox's courage was tenacious and indomitable. It was only for +lonely martyrdom that he never thought himself ready, and few historians +have a right to throw the first stone at him for his backwardness. + +As for armed conflict, at this moment Mary of Guise could only reckon +surely on the small French garrison of Scotland, perhaps 1500 or 2000 +men. She could place no confidence in the feudal levies that gathered +when the royal standard was raised. The Hamiltons merely looked to their +own advancement; Lord James Stewart was bound to the Congregation; Huntly +was a double dealer and was remote; the minor noblesse and the armed +burghers, with Glencairn representing the south-west, Lollard from of +old, were attached to Knox's doctrines, while the mob would flock in to +destroy and plunder. + +[Bridal medal of Mary Stuart and the Dauphin, 1558: knox3.jpg] + +Meanwhile Mary of Guise was at Stirling, and a multitude of Protestants +were at Perth, where the Reformation had just made its entry, and had +secured a walled city, a thing unique in Scotland. The gentry of Angus +and the people of Dundee, at Perth, were now anxious to make a +"demonstration" (unarmed, says Knox) at Stirling, if the preachers obeyed +the summons to go thither, on May 10. Their strategy was excellent, +whether carefully premeditated or not. + +The Regent, according to Knox, amused Erskine of Dun with promises of +"taking some better order" till the day of May 10 arrived, when, the +preachers and their backers having been deluded into remaining at Perth +instead of "demonstrating" at Stirling, she outlawed the preachers and +fined their sureties ("assisters"). She did not outlaw the sureties. Her +treachery (alleged only by Knox and others who follow him) is examined in +Appendix A. Meanwhile it is certain that the preachers were put to the +horn in absence, and that the brethren, believing themselves (according +to Knox) to have been disgracefully betrayed, proceeded to revolutionary +extremes, such as Calvin energetically denounced. + +If we ask who executed the task of wrecking the monasteries at Perth, +Knox provides two different answers. + +In the "History" Knox says that after the news came of the Regent's +perfidy, and after a sermon "vehement against idolatry," a priest began +to celebrate, and "opened a glorious tabernacle" on the high altar. +"Certain godly men and a young boy" were standing near; they all, or the +boy alone (the sentence may be read either way), cried that this was +intolerable. The priest struck the boy, who "took up a stone" and hit +the tabernacle, and "the whole multitude" wrecked the monuments of +idolatry. Neither the exhortation of the preacher nor the command of the +magistrate could stay them in their work of destruction. {111} Presently +"the rascal multitude" convened, _without_ the gentry and "earnest +professors," and broke into the Franciscan and Dominican monasteries. +They wrecked as usual, and the "common people" robbed, but the godly +allowed Forman, Prior of the Charter House, to bear away about as much +gold and silver as he was able to carry. We learn from Mary of Guise and +Lesley's "History" that the very orchards were cut down. + +If, thanks to the preachers, "no honest man was enriched the value of a +groat," apparently dishonest men must have sacked the gold and silver +plate of the monasteries; nothing is said by Knox on this head, except as +to the Charter House. + +Writing to Mrs. Locke, on the other hand, on June 23, Knox tells her that +"the brethren," after "complaint and appeal made" against the Regent, +levelled with the ground the three monasteries, burned all "monuments of +idolatry" accessible, "and priests were commanded under pain of death, to +desist from their blasphemous mass." {112} Nothing is said about a +spontaneous and uncontrollable popular movement. The professional +"brethren," earnest professors of course, reap the glory. Which is the +true version? + +If the version given to Mrs. Locke be accurate, Knox had sufficient +reasons for producing a different account in that portion of his +"History" (Book ii.) which is a tract written in autumn, 1559, and in +purpose meant for contemporary foreign as well as domestic readers. The +performances attributed to the brethren, in the letter to the London +merchant's wife, were of a kind which Calvin severely rebuked. Similar +or worse violences were perpetrated by French brethren at Lyons, on April +30, 1562. The booty of the church of St. Jean had been sold at auction. +There must be no more robbery and pillage, says Calvin, writing on May +13, to the Lyons preachers. The ruffians who rob ought rather to be +abandoned, than associated with to the scandal of the Gospel. "Already +reckless zeal was shown in the ravages committed in the churches" (altars +and images had been overthrown), "but those who fear God will not +rigorously judge what was done in hot blood, from devout emotion, but +what can be said in defence of looting?" + +Calvin spoke even more distinctly to the "consistory" of Nimes, who +suspended a preacher named Tartas for overthrowing crosses, altars, and +images in churches (July-August, 1561). The zealot was even threatened +with excommunication by his fellow religionists. {113a} Calvin heard +that this fanatic had not only consented to the outrages, but had incited +them, and had "the insupportable obstinacy" to say that such conduct was, +with him, "a matter of conscience." "But _we_" says Calvin, "know that +the reverse is the case, for God never commanded any one to overthrow +idols, except every man in his own house, and, in public, those whom he +has armed with authority. Let that fire-brand" (the preacher) "show us +by what title _he_ is lord of the land where he has been burning things." + +Knox must have been aware of Calvin's opinion about such outrages as +those of Perth, which, in a private letter, he attributes to the +brethren: in his public "History" to the mob. At St. Andrews, when +similar acts were committed, he says that "the provost and bailies . . . +did agree to remove all monuments of idolatry," whether this would or +would not have satisfied Calvin. + +Opponents of my view urge that Knox, though he knew that the brethren had +nothing to do with the ruin at Perth, yet, in the enthusiasm of six weeks +later, claimed this honour for them, when writing to Mrs. Locke. Still +later, when cool, he told, in his "History," "the frozen truth," the mob +alone was guilty, despite his exhortations and the commandment of the +magistrate. Neither alternative is very creditable to the prophet. + +In the "Historie of the Estate of Scotland," it is "the brethren" who +break, burn, and destroy. {113b} In Knox's "History" no mention is made +of the threat of death against the priests. In the letter to Mrs. Locke +he says, apparently of the threat, perhaps of the whole affair, "which +thing did so enrage the venom of the serpent's seed," that she decreed +death against man, woman, and child in Perth, after the fashion of Knox's +favourite texts in Deuteronomy and Chronicles. This was "beastlie +crueltie." The "History" gives the same account of the Regent's +threatening "words which might escape her in choler" (of course we have +no authority for her speaking them at all), but, in the "History," Knox +omits the threat by the brethren of death against the priests--a threat +which none of his biographers mentions! + +If the menace against the priests and the ruin of monasteries were not +seditious, what is sedition? But Knox's business, in Book II. of his +"History" (much of it written in September-October 1559), is to prove +that the movement was _not_ rebellious, was purely religious, and all for +"liberty of conscience"--for Protestants. Therefore, in the "History," +he disclaims the destruction by the brethren of the monasteries--the mob +did that; and he burkes the threat of death to priests: though he told +the truth, privately, to Mrs. Locke. + +Mary did not move at once. The Hamiltons joined her, and she had her +French soldiers, perhaps 1500 men. On May 22 "The Faithful Congregation +of Christ Jesus in Scotland," but a few gentlemen being concerned, wrote +from Perth, which they were fortifying, to the Regent. If she proceeds +in her "cruelty," they will take up the sword, and inform all Christian +princes, and their Queen in France, that they have revolted solely +because of "this cruel, unjust, and most tyrannical murder, intended +against towns and multitudes." As if they had not revolted already! +Their pretext seems to mean that they do not want to alter the sovereign +authority, a quibble which they issued for several months, long after it +was obviously false. They also wrote to the nobles, to the French +officers in the Regent's service, and to the clergy. + +What really occurred was that many of the brethren left Perth, after they +had "made a day of it," as they had threatened earlier: that the Regent +called her nobles to Council, concentrated her French forces, and +summoned the levies of Clydesdale and Stirlingshire. Meanwhile the +brethren flocked again into Perth, at that time, it is said, the only +wall-girt town in Scotland: they strengthened the works, wrote everywhere +for succour, and loudly maintained that they were not rebellious or +seditious. + +Of these operations Knox was the life and soul. There is no mistaking +his hand in the letter to Mary of Guise, or in the epistle to the +Catholic clergy. That letter is courteously addressed "To the Generation +of Anti-Christ, the Pestilent Prelates and their Shavelings within +Scotland, the Congregation of Jesus within the same saith." + +The gentle Congregation saith that, if the clergy "proceed in their +cruelty," they shall be "apprehended as murderers." "We shall begin that +same war which God commanded Israel to execute against the Canaanites . . . " +This they promise in the names of God, Christ, and the Gospel. Any +one can recognise the style of Knox in this composition. David Hume +remarks: "With these outrageous symptoms commenced in Scotland that +hypocrisy and fanaticism which long infested that kingdom, and which, +though now mollified by the lenity of the civil power, is still ready to +break out on all occasions." Hume was wrong, there was no touch of +hypocrisy in Knox; he believed as firmly in the "message" which he +delivered as in the reality of the sensible universe. + +A passage in the message to the nobility displays the intense ardour of +the convictions that were to be potent in the later history of the Kirk. +That priests, by the prescription of fifteen centuries, should have +persuaded themselves of their own power to damn men's souls to hell, cut +them off from the Christian community, and hand them over to the devil, +is a painful circumstance. But Knox, from Perth, asserts that the same +awful privilege is vested in the six or seven preachers of the nascent +Kirk with the fire-new doctrine! Addressing the signers of the godly +Band and other sympathisers who have not yet come in, he (if he wrote +these fiery appeals) observes, that if they do _not_ come in, "ye shall +be _excommunicated_ from our Society, and from all participation with us +in the administration of the Sacraments . . . Doubt we nothing but that +our church, _and the true ministers of the same_, have the power which +our Master, Jesus Christ, granted to His apostles in these words, 'Whose +sins ye shall forgive, shall be forgiven, and whose sins ye shall retain, +shall be retained' . . . " Men were to be finally judged by Omnipotence +on the faith of what Willock, Knox, Harlaw, poor Paul Methuen, and the +apostate Friar Christison, "trew ministeris," thought good to decide! +With such bugbears did Guthrie and his companions think, a century later, +to daunt "the clear spirit of Montrose." + +While reading the passages just cited, we are enabled to understand the +true cause of the sorrows of Scotland for a hundred and thirty years. The +situation is that analysed by Thomas Luber, a Professor of Medicine at +Heidelberg, well or ill known in Scottish ecclesiastical disputes by his +Graecised name, Erastus. He argued, about 1568, that excommunication has +no certain warrant in Holy Writ, under a Christian prince. Erastus +writes:-- + +"Some men were seized on by a certain excommunicatory fever, which they +did adorn with the name of 'ecclesiastical discipline.' . . . They +affirmed the manner of it to be this: that certain presbyters should sit +in the name of the whole Church, and should judge who were worthy or +unworthy to come to the Lord's Supper. I wonder that then they consulted +about these matters, when we neither had men to be excommunicated, nor +fit excommunicators; for scarcely a thirtieth part of the people did +understand or approve of the reformed religion." {117} + +"There was," adds Erastus, "another fruit of the same tree, that almost +every one thought men had the power of opening and shutting heaven to +whomsoever they would." + +What men have this power in Scotland in 1559? Why, some five or six +persons who, being fluent preachers, have persuaded local sets of +Protestants to accept them as ministers. These preachers having a +"call"--it might be from a set of perfidious and profligate murderers--are +somehow gifted with the apostolic grace of binding on earth what shall be +bound in heaven. Their successors, down to Mr. Cargill, who, of his own +fantasy, excommunicated Charles II., were an intolerable danger to +civilised society. For their edicts of "boycotting" they claimed the +sanction of the civil magistrate, and while these almost incredibly +fantastic pretentions lasted, there was not, and could not be, peace in +Scotland. + +The seed of this Upas tree was sown by Knox and his allies in May 1559. +An Act of 1690 repealed civil penalties for the excommunicated. + +To face the supernaturally gifted preachers the Regent had but a slender +force, composed in great part of sympathisers with Knox. Croft, the +English commander at Berwick, writing to the English Privy Council, on +May 22, anticipated that there would be no war. The Hamiltons, +numerically powerful, and strong in martial gentlemen of the name, were +with the Regent. But of the Hamiltons it might always be said, as +Charles I. was to remark of their chief, that "they were very active for +their own preservation," and for no other cause. For centuries but one +or two lives stood between them and the throne, the haven where they +would be. They never produced a great statesman, but their wealth, +numbers, and almost royal rank made them powerful. + +At this moment the eldest son of the house, the Earl of Arran, was in +France. As a boy, he had been seized by the murderers of Cardinal +Beaton, and held as a hostage in the Castle of St. Andrews. Was he there +converted to the Reformers' ideas by the eloquence of Knox? We know not, +but, as heir to his father's French duchy of Chatelherault, he had been +some years in France, commanding the Scottish Archer Guard. In France +too, perhaps, he was more or less a pledge for his father's loyalty in +Scotland. He was now a Protestant in earnest, had retired from the +French Court, had refused to return thither when summoned, and fled from +the troops who were sent to bring him; lurking in woods and living on +strawberries. Cecil despatched Thomas Randolph to steer him across the +frontier to Zurich. He was a piece in the game much more valuable than +his father, whose portrait shows us a weak, feebly cunning, good-natured, +and puzzled-looking old nobleman. + +Till Arran returned to Scotland, the Hamiltons, it was certain, would be +trusty allies of neither faith and of neither party. When the Perth +tumult broke out, Lord James rode with the Regent, as did Argyll. But +both had signed the godly Band of December 3, 1557, and could no more be +trusted by the Regent than the Hamiltons. + +Meanwhile, the gentry of Fife and Forfarshire, with the town of Dundee, +joined Knox in the walled town of Perth, though Lord Ruthven, provost of +Perth, deserted, for the moment, to the Regent. On the other hand, the +courageous Glencairn, with a strong body of the zealots of Renfrewshire +and Ayrshire, was moving by forced marches to join the brethren. On May +24, the Regent, instead of attacking, halted at Auchterarder, fourteen +miles away, and sent Argyll and Lord James to parley. They were told +that the brethren meant no rebellion (as the Regent said and doubtless +thought that they did), but only desired security for their religion, and +were ready to "be tried" (by whom?) "in lawful judgment." Argyll and +Lord James were satisfied. On May 25, Knox harangued the two lords in +his wonted way, but the Regent bade the brethren leave Perth on pain of +treason. By May 28, however, she heard of Glencairn's approach with Lord +Ochiltree, a Stewart (later Knox's father-in-law); Glencairn, by cross +roads, had arrived within six miles of Perth, with 1200 horse and 1300 +foot. The western Reformers were thus nearer Perth than her own +untrustworthy levies at Auchterarder. Not being aware of this, the +brethren proposed obedience, if the Regent would amnesty the Perth men, +let their faith "go forward," and leave no garrison of "French soldiers." +To Mrs. Locke Knox adds that no idolatry should be erected, or alteration +made within the town. {120} The Regent was now sending Lord James, +Argyll, and Mr. Gawain Hamilton to treat, when Glencairn and his men +marched into Perth. Argyll and Lord James then promised to join the +brethren, if the Regent broke her agreement; Knox and Willock assured +their hearers that break it she would--and so the agreement was accepted +(May 28). + +It was thus necessary for the brethren to allege that the covenant was +broken; and it was not easy for Mary to secure order in Perth without +taking some step that could be seized on as a breach of her promise; +Argyll and Lord James could then desert her for the party of Knox. The +very Band which Argyll and Lord James signed with the Congregation +provided that the godly should go on committing the disorders which it +was the duty of the Regent to suppress, and they proceeded in that holy +course, "breaking down the altars and idols in all places where they +came." {121a} "At their whole powers" the Congregations are "to destroy +and put away all that does dishonour to God's name"; that is, monasteries +and works of sacred art. They are all to defend each other against "any +power whatsoever" that shall trouble them in their pious work. Argyll +and Lord James signed this new Band, with Glencairn, Lord Boyd, and +Ochiltree. The Queen's emissaries thus deserted her cause on the last +day of May 1559, or earlier, for the chronology is perplexing. {121b} + +As to the terms of truce with the Regent, Knox gives no document, but +says that no Perth people should be troubled for their recent destruction +of idolatry "and for down casting the places of the same; that she would +suffer the religion begun to go forward, and leave the town at her +departing free from the garrisons of French soldiers." The "Historie" +mentions no terms except that "she should leave no men of war behind +her." + +Thus, as it seems, the brethren by their Band were to go on wrecking the +homes of the Regent's religion, while she was not to enjoy her religious +privileges in the desecrated churches of Perth, for to do that was to +prevent "the religion begun" from "going forward." On the Regent's entry +her men "discharged their volley of hackbuts," probably to clear their +pieces, a method of unloading which prevailed as late as Waterloo. But +some aimed, says Knox, at the house of Patrick Murray and hit a son of +his, a boy of ten or twelve, "who, being slain, was had to the Queen's +presence." She mocked, and wished it had been his father, "but seeing +that it so chanced, we cannot be against fortune." It is not very +probable that Mary of Guise was "merry," in Knox's manner of mirth, over +the death of a child (to Mrs. Locke Knox says "children"), who, for all +we know, may have been the victim of accident, like the Jacobite lady who +was wounded at a window as Prince Charles's men discharged their pieces +when entering Edinburgh after the victory of Prestonpans. (This brave +lady said that it was fortunate she was not a Whig, or the accident would +have been ascribed to design.) This event at Perth was called a breach +of terms, so was the attendance at Mass, celebrated on any chance table, +as "the altars were not so easy to be repaired again." The soldiers were +billeted on citizens, whose houses were "oppressed by" the Frenchmen, and +the provost, Ruthven (who had anew deserted to the Congregation), and the +bailies, were deposed. + +These magistrates probably had been charged with the execution of priests +who dared to do their duty; at least in the following year, on June 10, +1560, we find the provost, bailies, and town council of Edinburgh +decreeing death for the third offence against idolaters who do not +instantly profess their conversion. {122} The Edinburgh municipality did +this before the abolition of Catholicism by the Convention of Estates in +August 1560. It does not appear that any authority in Perth except that +of the provost and bailies could sentence priests to death; was their +removal, then, a breach of truce? At all events it seemed necessary in +the circumstances, and Mary of Guise when she departed left no _French_ +soldiers to protect the threatened priests, but four companies of Scots +who had been in French service, under Stewart of Cardonell and Captain +Cullen, the Captain of Queen Mary's guard after the murder of Riccio. The +Regent is said by Knox to have remarked that she was not bound to keep +faith with heretics, and that, with as fair an excuse, she would make +little scruple to take the lives and goods of "all that sort." We do not +know Knox's authority for these observations of the Regent. + +The Scots soldiers left by Mary of Guise may have been Protestants, they +certainly were not Frenchmen; and, in a town where death had just been +threatened to all priests who celebrated the Mass, Mary could not abandon +her clerics unprotected. + +Taking advantage of what they called breach of treaty as regards the +soldiers left in Perth, Lord James and Argyll, with Ruthven, had joined +the brethren, accompanied by the Earl of Menteith and Murray of +Tullibardine, ancestor of the ducal house of Atholl. Argyll and Lord +James went to St. Andrews, summoning their allies thither for June 3. +Knox meanwhile preached in Crail and Anstruther, with the usual results. +On Sunday, June 11, {123a} and for three days more, despising the threats +of the Archbishop, backed by a hundred spears, and referring to his own +prophecy made when he was in the galleys, he thundered at St. Andrews. +The poor ruins of some sacred buildings "are alive to testify" to the +consequences, and a head of the Redeemer found in the latrines of the +abbey is another mute witness to the destruction of that day. {123b} + +It is not my purpose to dilate on the universal destruction of so much +that was beautiful, and that to Scots, however godly, should have been +sacred. The tomb of the Bruce in Dunfermline, for example, was wrecked +by the mob, as the statue of Jeanne d'Arc on the bridge of Orleans was +battered to pieces by the Huguenots. Nor need we ask what became of +church treasures, perhaps of great value and antiquity. In some known +cases, the magistrates held and sold those of the town churches. Some of +the plate and vestments at Aberdeen were committed to the charge of +Huntly, but about 1900 ounces of plate were divided among the +Prebendaries, who seem to have appropriated them. {124} The Church +treasures of Glasgow were apparently carried abroad by Archbishop Beaton. +If Lord James, as Prior, took possession of the gold and silver of St. +Andrews, he probably used the bullion (he spent some 13,000 crowns) in +his defence of the approaches to the town, against the French, in +December 1559. A silver mace of St. Salvator's College escaped the +robbers. + +[Head of Christ. St. Andrews. Excavated from the ruins of the Abbey by +the late Marquis of Bute: knox4.jpg] + +There is no sign of the possession of much specie by the Congregation in +the months that followed the sack of so many treasuries of pious +offerings. Lesley says that they wanted to coin the plate in Edinburgh, +and for that purpose seized, as they certainly did, the dies of the mint. +In France, when the brethren sacked Tours, they took twelve hundred +thousand livres d'or; the country was enriched for the moment. Not so +Scotland. In fact the plate of Aberdeen cathedral, as inventoried in the +Register, is no great treasure. Monasteries and cathedrals were certain +to perish sooner or later, for the lead of every such roof except +Coldingham had been stripped and sold by 1585, while tombs had been +desecrated for their poor spoils, and the fanes were afterwards used as +quarries of hewn stone. Lord James had a peculiar aversion to idolatrous +books, and is known to have ordered the burning of many manuscripts;--the +loss to art was probably greater than the injury to history or +literature. The fragments of things beautiful that the Reformers +overlooked, were destroyed by the Covenanters. An attempt has been made +to prove that the Border abbeys were not wrecked by Reformers, but by +English troops in the reign of Henry VIII., who certainly ravaged them. +Lesley, however, says that the abbeys of Kelso and Melrose were "by them +(the Reformers) broken down and wasted." {125a} If there was nothing +left to destroy on the Border, why did the brethren march against Kelso, +as Cecil reports, on July 9, 1559? {125b} + +After the devastation the Regent meant to attack the destroyers, +intending to occupy Cupar, six miles, by Knox's reckoning, from St. +Andrews. But, by June 13, the brethren had anticipated her with a large +force, rapidly recruited, including three thousand men under the Lothian +professors; Ruthven's horse; the levies of the Earl of Rothes (Leslie), +and many burgesses. Next day the Regent's French horse found the +brethren occupying a very strong post; their numbers were dissembled, +their guns commanded the plains, and the Eden was in their front. A fog +hung over the field; when it lifted, the French commander, d'Oysel, saw +that he was outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. He sent on an envoy to +parley, "which gladly of us being granted, the Queen offered a free +remission for all crimes past, so that they would no further proceed +against friars and abbeys, and that no more preaching should be used +publicly," for _that_ always meant kirk-wrecking. When Wishart preached +at Mauchline, long before, in 1545, it was deemed necessary to guard the +church, where there was a tempting tabernacle, "beutyfull to the eie." + +The Lords and the whole brethren "refused such appointment" . . . says +Knox to Mrs. Locke; they would not "suffer idolatrie to be maintained in +the bounds committed to their charge." {126a} To them liberty of +conscience from the first meant liberty to control the consciences and +destroy the religion of all who differed from them. An eight days' truce +was made for negotiations; during the truce neither party was to +"enterprize" anything. Knox in his "History" does not mention an attack +on the monastery of Lindores during the truce. He says that his party +expected envoys from the Regent, as in the terms of truce, but perceived +"her craft and deceit." {126b} + +In fact, the brethren were the truce-breakers. Knox gives only the +assurances signed by the Regent's envoys, the Duke of Chatelherault and +d'Oysel. They include a promise "not to invade, trouble, or disquiet the +Lords," the reforming party. But, though Knox omits the fact, the +Reformers made a corresponding and equivalent promise: "That the +Congregation should enterprise nothing nor make no invasion, for the +space of six days following, for the Lords and principals of the +Congregation read the rest on another piece of paper." {126c} + +The situation is clear. The two parties exchanged assurances. Knox +prints that of the Regent's party, not that, "on another piece of paper," +of the Congregation. They broke their word; they "made invasion" at +Lindores, during truce, as Knox tells Mrs. Locke, but does not tell the +readers of his "History." {127a} It is true that Knox was probably +preaching at St. Andrews on June 13, and was not present at Cupar Muir. +But he could easily have ascertained what assurances the Lords of the +Congregation "read from another piece of paper" on that historic waste. +{127b} + + + + +CHAPTER XI: KNOX'S INTRIGUES, AND HIS ACCOUNT OF THEM, 1559 + + +The Reformers, and Knox as their secretary and historian, had now reached +a very difficult and delicate point in their labours. Their purpose was, +not by any means to secure toleration and freedom of conscience, but to +extirpate the religion to which they were opposed. It was the religion +by law existing, the creed of "Authority," of the Regent and of the King +and Queen whom she represented. The position of the Congregation was +therefore essentially that of rebels, and, in the state of opinion at the +period, to be rebels was to be self-condemned. In the eyes of Calvin and +the learned of the Genevan Church, kings were the Lord's appointed, and +the Gospel must not be supported by the sword. "Better that we all +perish a hundred times," Calvin wrote to Coligny in 1561. Protestants, +therefore, if they would resist in arms, had to put themselves in order, +and though Knox had no doubt that to exterminate idolaters was thoroughly +in order, the leaders of his party were obliged to pay deference to +European opinion. + +By a singular coincidence they adopted precisely the same device as the +more militant French Protestants laid before Calvin in August 1559-March +1560. The Scots and the Protestant French represented that they were +illegally repressed by foreigners: in Scotland by Mary of Guise with her +French troops; in France by the Cardinal and Duc de Guise, foreigners, +who had possession of the persons and authority of the "native prince" of +Scotland, Mary, and the "native prince" of France, Francis II., both +being minors. The French idea was that, if they secured the aid of a +native Protestant prince (Conde), they were in order, as against the +foreign Guises, and might kill these tyrants, seize the King, and call an +assembly of the Estates. Calvin was consulted by the chief of the +conspiracy, La Renaudie; he disapproved; the legality lent by one native +prince was insufficient; the details of the plot were "puerile," and +Calvin waited to see how the country would take it. The plot failed, at +Amboise, in March 1560. + +In Scotland, as in France, devices about a prince of the native blood +suggested themselves. The Regent, being of the house of Guise, was a +foreigner, like her brothers in France. The "native princes" were +Chatelherault and his eldest son, Arran. The leaders, soon after Lord +James and Argyll formally joined the zealous brethren, saw that without +foreign aid their enterprise was desperate. Their levies must break up +and go home to work; the Regent's nucleus of French troops could not be +ousted from the sea fortress of Dunbar, and would in all probability be +joined by the army promised by Henri II. His death, the Huguenot +risings, the consequent impotence of the Guises to aid the Regent, could +not be foreseen. Scotland, it seemed, would be reduced to a French +province; the religion would be overthrown. + +There was thus no hope, except in aid from England. But by the recent +treaty of Cateau Cambresis (April 2, 1559), Elizabeth was bound not to +help the rebels of the French Dauphin, the husband of the Queen of Scots. +Moreover, Elizabeth had no stronger passion than a hatred of rebels. If +she was to be persuaded to help the Reformers, they must produce some +show of a legitimate "Authority" with whom she could treat. This was as +easy to find as it was to the Huguenots in the case of Conde. +Chatelherault and Arran, native princes, next heirs to the crown while +Mary was childless, could be produced as legitimate "Authority." But to +do this implied a change of "Authority," an upsetting of "Authority," +which was plain rebellion in the opinion of the Genevan doctors. Knox +was thus obliged, in sermons and in the pamphlet (Book II. of his +"History"), to maintain that nothing more than freedom of conscience and +religion was contemplated, while, as a matter of fact, he was foremost in +the intrigue for changing the "Authority," and even for depriving Mary +Stuart of "entrance and title" to her rights. He therefore, in Book II. +(much of which was written in August-October or September-October 1559, +as an apologetic contemporary tract), conceals the actual facts of the +case, and, while perpetually accusing the Regent of falsehood and +perfidy, displays an extreme "economy of truth," and cannot hide the +pettifogging prevarications of his party. His wiser plan would have been +to cancel this Book, or much of it, when he set forth later to write a +history of the Reformation. His party being then triumphant, he could +have afforded to tell most of the truth, as in great part he does in his +Book III. But he could not bring himself to throw over the narrative of +his party pamphlet (Book II.), and it remains much as it was originally +written, though new touches were added. + +The point to be made in public and in the apologetic tract was that the +Reformers contemplated no alteration of "Authority." This was untrue. + +Writing later (probably in 1565-66) in his Third Book, Knox boasts of his +own initiation of the appeal to England, which included a scheme for the +marriage of the Earl of Arran, son of the Hamilton chief, Chatelherault, +to Queen Elizabeth. Failing issue of Queen Mary, Arran was heir to the +Scottish throne, and if he married the Queen of England, the rightful +Queen of Scotland would not be likely to wear her crown. The +contemplated match was apt to involve a change of dynasty. The lure of +the crown for his descendants was likely to bring Chatelherault, and +perhaps even his brother the Archbishop, over to the side of the +Congregation: in short it was an excellent plot. Probably the idea +occurred to the leaders of the Congregation at or shortly after the time +when Argyll and Lord James threw in their lot definitely with the +brethren on May 31. On June 14 Croft, from Berwick, writes to Cecil that +the leaders, "from what I hear, will likely seek her Majesty's" +(Elizabeth's) "assistance," and mean to bring Arran home. Some think +that he is already at Geneva, and he appears to have made the +acquaintance of Calvin, with whom later he corresponded. "They are +likely to motion a marriage you know where"; of Arran, that is, with +Elizabeth. {131} Moreover, one Whitlaw was at this date in France, and +by June 28, communicated the plan to Throckmorton, the English +Ambassador. Thus the scheme was of an even earlier date than Knox claims +for his own suggestion. + +He tells us that at St. Andrews, after the truce of Cupar Muir (June 13), +he "burstit forth," in conversation with Kirkcaldy of Grange, on the +necessity of seeking support from England. Kirkcaldy long ago had +watched the secret exit from St. Andrews Castle, while his friends +butchered the Cardinal. He was taken in the castle when Knox was taken; +he was a prisoner in France; then he entered the French service, acting, +while so engaged, as an English spy. Before and during the destruction +of monasteries he was in the Regent's service, but she justly suspected +him of intending to desert her at this juncture. Kirkcaldy now wrote to +Cecil, without date, but probably on June 21, and with the signature +"Zours as ye knaw." Being in the Regent's party openly, he was secretly +betraying her; he therefore accuses her of treachery. (He left her +publicly, after a pension from England had been procured for him.) He +says that the Regent averred that "favourers of God's word should have +liberty to live after their consciences," "yet, in the conclusion of the +peace" (the eight days' truce) "she has uttered her deceitful mind, +having now declared that she will be enemy to all them that shall not +live after her religion." _Consequently_, the Protestants are wrecking +"all the friaries within their bounds." But Knox has told us that they +declared their intention of thus enjoying liberty of conscience _before_ +"the conclusion of the peace," and wrecked Lindores Abbey during the +peace! Kirkcaldy adds that the Regent already suspects him. + +Kirkcaldy, having made the orthodox charge of treachery against the woman +whom he was betraying, then asks Cecil whether Elizabeth will accept +their "friendship," and adds, with an eye to Arran, "I wish likewise her +Majesty were not too hasty in her marriage." {133a} On June 23, writing +from his house, Grange, and signing his name, Kirkcaldy renews his +proposals. In both letters he anticipates the march of the Reformers to +turn the Regent's garrison out of Perth. On June 25 he announces that +the Lords are marching thither. They had already the secret aid of +Lethington, who remained, like the traitor that he was, in the Regent's +service till the end of October. {133b} Knox also writes at this time to +Cecil from St. Andrews. + +On June 1, Henri II. of France had written to the Regent promising to +send her strong reinforcements, {133c} but he was presently killed in a +tourney by the broken lance shaft of Montgomery. + +The Reformers now made tryst at Perth for June 25, to restore "religion" +and expel the Scots in French service. The little garrison surrendered +(their opponents are reckoned by Kirkcaldy at 10,000 men), idolatry was +again suppressed, and Perth restored to her municipal constitution. The +ancient shrines of Scone were treated in the usual way, despite the +remonstrances of Knox, Lord James, and Argyll. They had threatened +Hepburn, Bishop of Moray, that if he did not join them "they neither +could spare nor save his place." This was on June 20, on the same day he +promised to aid them and vote with them in Parliament. {133d} Knox did +his best, but the Dundee people began the work of wrecking; and the +Bishop, in anger, demanded and received the return of his written promise +of joining the Reformers. On the following day, irritated by some show +of resistance, the people of Dundee and Perth burned the palace of Scone +and the abbey, "whereat no small number of us was offended." An old +woman said that "filthy beasts" dwelt "in that den," to her private +knowledge, "at whose words many were pacified." The old woman is an +excellent authority. {134} + +The pretext of perfect loyalty was still maintained by the Reformers; +their honesty we can appreciate. They did not wish, they said, to +overthrow "authority"; merely to be allowed to worship in their own way +(and to prevent other people from worshipping in theirs, which was the +order appointed by the State). That any set of men may rebel and take +their chances is now recognised, but the Reformers wanted to combine the +advantages of rebellion with the reputation of loyal subjects. Persons +who not only band against the sovereign, but invoke foreign aid and seek +a foreign alliance, are, however noble their motives, rebels. There is +no other word for them. But that they were _not_ rebels Knox urged in a +sermon at Edinburgh, which the Reformers, after devastating Stirling, +reached by June 28-29 (?), and the Second Book of his "History" labours +mainly to prove this point; no change of "authority" is intended. + +What Knox wanted is very obvious. He wanted to prevent Mary Stuart from +enjoying her hereditary crown. She was a woman, as such under the curse +of "The First Blast of the Trumpet," and she was an idolatress. +Presently, as we shall see, he shows his hand to Cecil. + +Before the Reformers entered Edinburgh Mary of Guise retired to the +castle of Dunbar, where she had safe access to the sea. In Edinburgh +Knox says that the poor sacked the monasteries "before our coming." The +contemporary Diurnal of Occurrents attributes the feat to Glencairn, +Ruthven, Argyll, and the Lord James. {135a} + +Knox was chosen minister of Edinburgh, and as soon as they arrived the +Lords, according to the "Historie of the Estate of Scotland," sent envoys +to the Regent, offering obedience if she would "relax" the preachers, +summoned on May 10, "from the horn" and allow them to preach. The Regent +complied, but, of course, peace did not ensue, for, according to Knox, in +addition to a request "that we might enjoy liberty of conscience," a +demand for the withdrawal of all French forces out of Scotland was made. +{135b} This could not be granted. + +Presently Mary of Guise issued before July 2, in the name of the King and +Queen, Francis II. and Mary Stuart, certain charges against the +Reformers, which Knox in his "History" publishes. {135c} A remark that +Mary Stuart lies like her mother, seems to be written later than the +period (September-October 1559) when this Book II. was composed. The +Regent says that the rising was only under pretence of religion, and that +she has offered a Parliament for January 1560. "A manifest lie," says +Knox, "for she never thought of it till we demanded it." He does not +give a date to the Regent's paper, but on June 25 Kirkcaldy wrote to +Percy that the Regent "is like to grant the other party" (the Reformers) +"all they desire, which in part she has offered already." {136a} + +Knox seizes on the word "offered" as if it necessarily meant "offered +though unasked," and so styles the Regent's remark "a manifest lie." But +Kirkcaldy, we see, uses the words "has in part offered already" when he +means that the Regent has "offered" to grant some of the wishes of his +allies. + +Meanwhile the Regent will allow freedom of conscience in the country, and +especially in Edinburgh. But the Reformers, her paper goes on, desire to +subvert the crown. To prove this she says that they daily receive +messengers from England and send their own; and they have seized the +stamps in the Mint (a capital point as regards the crown) and the Palace +of Holyrood, which Lesley says that they sacked. Knox replies, "there is +never a sentence in the narrative true," except that his party seized the +stamps merely to prevent the issue of base coin (not to coin the stolen +plate of the churches and monasteries for themselves, as Lesley says they +did). But Knox's own letters, and those of Kirkcaldy of Grange and Sir +Henry Percy, prove that they _were_ intriguing with England as early as +June 23-25. Their conduct, with the complicity of Percy, was perfectly +well known to the Regent's party, and was denounced by d'Oysel to the +French ambassador in London in letters of July. {136b} Elizabeth, on +August 7, answered the remonstrances of the Regent, promising to punish +her officials if guilty. Nobody lied more frankly than "that imperial +votaress." + +When Knox says "there is never a sentence in the narrative true," he is +very bold. It was not true that the rising was merely under pretext of +religion. It may have been untrue that messengers went _daily_ to +England, but five letters were written between June 21 and June 28. To +stand on the words of the Regent--"_every day_"--would be a babyish +quibble. All the rest of her narrative was absolutely true. + +Knox, on June 28, asked leave to enter England for secret discourse; he +had already written to the same effect from St. Andrews. {137a} If Henri +sends French reinforcement, Knox "is uncertain what will follow"; we may +guess that authority would be in an ill way. Cecil temporised; he wanted +a better name than Kirkcaldy's--a man in the Regent's service--to the +negotiations (July 4). "Anywise kindle the fire," he writes to Croft +(July 8). Croft is to let the Reformers know that Arran has escaped out +of France. Such a chance will not again "come in our lives." We see +what the chance is! + +On July 19 Knox writes again to Cecil, enclosing what he means to be an +apology for his "Blast of the Trumpet," to be given to Elizabeth. He +says, while admitting Elizabeth's right to reign, as "judged godly," +though a woman, that they "must be careful not to make entrance and title +to many, by whom not only shall the truth be impugned, but also shall the +country be brought to bondage and slavery. God give you eyes to foresee +and wisdom to avoid the apparent danger." {137b} + +The "many" to whom "entrance and title" are not to be given, manifestly +are Mary Stuart, Queen of France and Scotland. + +It is not very clear whether Knox, while thus working against a woman's +"entrance and title" to the crown on the ground of her sex, is thinking +of Mary Stuart's prospects of succession to the throne of England or of +her Scottish rights, or of both. His phrase is cast in a vague way; +"many" are spoken of, but it is not hard to understand what particular +female claimant is in his mind. + +Thus Knox himself was intriguing with England against his Queen at the +very moment when in his "History" he denies that communications were +frequent between his party and England, or that any of the Regent's +charges are true. As for opposing authority and being rebellious, the +manifest fundamental idea of the plot is to marry Elizabeth to Arran and +deny "entrance and title" to the rightful Queen. It was an admirable +scheme, and had Arran not become a lunatic, had Elizabeth not been "that +imperial votaress" vowed to eternal maidenhood, their bridal, with the +consequent loss of the Scottish throne by Mary, would have been the most +fortunate of all possible events. The brethren had, in short, a perfect +right to defend their creed in arms; a perfect right to change the +dynasty; a perfect right to intrigue with England, and to resist a French +landing, if they could. But for a reformer of the Church to give a dead +lady the lie in his "History" when the economy of truth lay rather on his +own side, as he knew, is not so well. We shall see that Knox possibly +had the facts in his mind during the first interview with Mary Stuart. +{138} + +The Lords, July 2, replied to the proclamation of Mary of Guise, saying +that she accused them of a purpose "to invade her person." {139a} There +is not a word of the kind in the Regent's proclamation as given by Knox +himself. They denied what the Regent in her proclamation had not +asserted, and what she had asserted about their dealings with England +they did not venture to deny; "whereby," says Spottiswoode in his +"History," "it seemed there was some dealing that way for expelling the +Frenchmen, which they would not deny, and thought not convenient as then +openly to profess." {139b} The task of giving the lie to the Regent when +she spoke truth was left to the pen of Knox. + +Meanwhile, at Dunbar, Mary of Guise was in evil case. She had sounded +Erskine, the commander of the Castle, who, she hoped, would stand by her. +But she had no money to pay her French troops, who were becoming +mutinous, and d'Oysel "knew not to what Saint to vow himself." The Earl +of Huntly, before he would serve the Crown, {139c} insisted on a promise +of the Earldom of Moray; this desire was to be his ruin. Huntly was a +double dealer; "the gay Gordons" were ever brave, loyal, and bewildered +by their chiefs. By July 22, the Scots heard of the fatal wound of Henri +II., to their encouragement. Both parties were in lack of money, and the +forces of the Congregation were slipping home by hundreds. Mary, +according to Knox, was exciting the Duke against Argyll and Lord James, +by the charge that Lord James was aiming at the crown, in which if he +succeeded, he would deprive not only her daughter of the sovereignty, but +the Hamiltons of the succession. Young and ambitious as Lord James then +was, and heavily as he was suspected, even in England, it is most +improbable that he ever thought of being king. + +The Congregation refused to let Argyll and Lord James hold conference +with the Regent. Other discussions led to no result, except waste of +time, to the Regent's advantage; and, on July 22, Mary, in council with +Lord Erskine, Huntly, and the Duke, resolved to march against the +Reformers at Edinburgh, who had no time to call in their scattered levies +in the West, Angus, and Fife. Logan of Restalrig, lately an ally of the +godly, surrendered Leith, over which he was the superior, to d'Oysel; and +the Congregation decided to accept a truce (July 23-24). + +At this point Knox's narrative becomes so embroiled that it reminds one +of nothing so much as of Claude Nau's attempts to glide past an awkward +point in the history of his employer, Mary Stuart. I have puzzled over +Knox's narrative again and again, and hope that I have disentangled the +knotted and slippery thread. + +It is not wonderful that the brethren made terms, for the "Historie" +states that their force numbered but 1500 men, whereas d'Oysel and the +Duke led twice that number, horse and foot. They also heard from +Erskine, in the Castle, that, if they did not accept "such appointment as +they might have," he "would declare himself their enemy," as he had +promised the Regent. It seems that she did not want war, for d'Oysel's +French alone should have been able to rout the depleted ranks of the +Congregation. + +The question is, What were the terms of treaty? for it is Knox's +endeavour to prove that the Regent broke them, and so justified the later +proceedings of the Reformers. The terms, in French, are printed by +Teulet. {141} They run thus:-- + +1. The Protestants, not being inhabitants of Edinburgh, shall depart +next day. + +2. They shall deliver the stamps for coining to persons appointed by the +Regent, hand over Holyrood, and Ruthven and Pitarro shall be pledges for +performance. + +3. They shall be dutiful subjects, except in matters of religion. + +4. They shall not disturb the clergy in their persons or by withholding +their rents, &c., before January 10, 1560. + +5. They shall not attack churches or monasteries before that date. + +6. The town of Edinburgh shall enjoy liberty of conscience, and shall +choose its form of religion as it pleases till that date. + +7. The Regent shall not molest the preachers nor suffer the clergy to +molest them for cause of religion till that date. + +8. Keith, Knox, and Spottiswoode, add that no garrisons, French or +Scots, shall occupy Edinburgh, but soldiers may repair thither from their +garrisons for lawful business. + +The French soldiers are said to have swaggered in St. Giles's, but no +complaint is made that they were garrisoned in Edinburgh. In fact, they +abode in the Canongate and Leith. + +Now, these were the terms accepted by the Congregation. This is certain, +not only because historians, Knox excepted, are unanimous, but because +the terms were either actually observed, or were evaded, on a stated +point of construction. + +1. The Congregation left Edinburgh. + +2. They handed over the stamps of the Mint, Holyrood, and the two +pledges. + +3. 4, 5. We do not hear that they attacked any clerics or monastery +before they broke off publicly from the treaty, and Knox (i. 381) admits +that Article 4 was accepted. + +6. They would not permit the town of Edinburgh to choose its religion by +"voting of men." On July 29, when Huntly, Chatelherault, and Erskine, +the neutral commander of the Castle, asked for a plebiscite, as provided +in the treaty of July 24, the Truth, said the brethren, was not a matter +of human votes, and, as the brethren held St. Giles's Church before the +treaty, under Article 7 they could not be dispossessed. {142a} The +Regent, to avoid shadow of offence, yielded the point as to Article 6, +and was accused of breach of treaty because, occupying Holyrood, she had +her Mass there. Had Edinburgh been polled, the brethren knew that they +would have been outvoted. {142b} + +Now, Knox's object, in that part of Book II. of his "History," which was +written in September-October 1559 as a tract for contemporary reading, is +to prove that the Regent was the breaker of treaty. His method is first +to give "the heads drawn by us, which we desired to be granted." The +heads are-- + +1. No member of the Congregation shall be troubled in any respect by any +authority for the recent "innovation" before the Parliament of January +10, 1560, decides the controversies. + +2. Idolatry shall not be restored where, on the day of treaty, it has +been suppressed. + +3. Preachers may preach wherever they have preached and wherever they +may chance to come. + +4. No soldiers shall be in garrison in Edinburgh. + +5. The French shall be sent away on "a reasonable day" and no more +brought in without assent of the whole Nobility and Parliament. {143a} + +These articles make no provision for the safety of Catholic priests and +churches, and insist on suppression of idolatry where it has been put +down, and the entire withdrawal of French forces. Knox's party could not +possibly denounce these terms which they demanded as "things unreasonable +and ungodly," for they were the very terms which they had been asking +for, ever since the Regent went to Dunbar. Yet, when the treaty was +made, the preachers did say "our case is not yet so desperate that we +need to grant to things unreasonable and ungodly." {143b} Manifestly, +therefore, the terms actually obtained, as being "unreasonable and +ungodly," were _not_ those for which the Reformers asked, and which, +_they publicly proclaimed_, had been conceded. + +Knox writes, "These our articles were altered, and another form +disposeth." And here he translates the terms as given in the French, +terms which provide for the safety of Catholics, the surrender of +Holyrood and the Mint, but say nothing about the withdrawal of the French +troops or the non-restoration of "idolatry" where it has been suppressed. + +He adds, "This alteration in words and order was made" (so it actually +_was_ made) "without the knowledge and consent of those whose counsel we +had used in all cases before"--clearly meaning the preachers, and also +implying that the consent of the noble negotiators for the Congregation +_was_ obtained to the French articles. + +Next day the Congregation left Edinburgh, after making solemn +proclamation of the conditions of truce, in which they omitted all the +terms of the French version, except those in their own favour, and stated +(in Knox's version) that all of their own terms, except the most +important, namely, the removal of the French, and the promise to bring in +no more, had been granted! It may be by accident, however, that the +proclamation of the Lords, as given by Knox, omits the article securing +the departure of the French. {144a} There exist two MS. copies of the +proclamation, in which the Lords dare to assert "that the Frenchmen +should be sent away at a reasonable date, and no more brought in except +by assent of the whole nobility and Parliament." {144b} + +Of the terms really settled, except as regards the immunity of their own +party, the Lords told the public not one word; they suppressed what was +true, and added what was false. + +Against this formal, public, and impudent piece of mendacity, we might +expect Knox to protest in his "History"; to denounce it as a cause of +God's wrath. On the other hand he states, with no disapproval, the +childish quibbles by which his party defended their action. + +On reading or hearing the Lords' proclamation, the Catholics, who knew +the real terms of treaty, said that the Lords "in their proclamation had +made no mention of anything promised to _them_," and "had proclaimed more +than was contained in the Appointment;" among other things, doubtless, +the promise to dismiss the French. {145a} + +The brethren replied to these "calumnies of Papists" (as Calderwood +styles them), that they "proclaimed nothing that was not _finally_ agreed +upon, _in word and promise_, betwixt us and those with whom the +Appointment was made, _whatsoever their scribes had after written_, +{145b} who, in very deed, had altered, both in words and sentences, our +Articles, _as they were first conceived_; and yet if their own writings +were diligently examined, the self same thing shall be found _in +substance_." + +This is most complicated quibbling! Knox uses his ink like the cuttle- +fish, to conceal the facts. The "own writings" of the Regent's party are +before us, and do not contain the terms proclaimed by the Congregation. +Next, in drawing up the terms which the Congregation was compelled to +accept, the "scribes" of the Regent's party necessarily, and with the +consent of the Protestant negotiators, altered the terms proposed by the +brethren, but not granted by the Regent's negotiators. Thirdly, the +Congregation now asserted that "_finally_" an arrangement in conformity +with their proclamation was "agreed upon _in word and promise_"; that is, +verbally, which we never find them again alleging. The game was to foist +false terms on public belief, and then to accuse the Regent of perfidy in +not keeping them. + +These false terms were not only publicly proclaimed by the Congregation +with sound of trumpets, but they were actually sent, by Knox or +Kirkcaldy, or both, to Croft at Berwick, for English reading, on July 24. +In a note I print the letter, signed by Kirkcaldy, but in the holograph +of Knox, according to Father Stevenson. {146} It will be remarked that +the genuine articles forbidding attacks on monasteries and ensuring +priests in their revenues are here omitted, while the false articles on +suppression of idolatry, and expulsion of the French forces are inserted, +and nothing is said about Edinburgh's special liberty to choose her +religion. + +The sending of this false intelligence was not the result of a +misunderstanding. I have shown that the French terms were perfectly well +understood, and were observed, except Article 6, on which the Regent made +a concession. How then could men professionally godly venture to +misreport the terms, and so make them at once seem more favourable to +themselves and less discouraging to Cecil than they really were, while at +the same time (as the Regent could not keep terms which she had never +granted) they were used as a ground of accusation against her? + +This is the point that has perplexed me, for Knox, no less than the +Congregation, seems to have deliberately said good-bye to truth and +honour, unless the Lords elaborately deceived their secretary and +diplomatic agent. The only way in which I can suppose that Knox and his +friends reconciled their consciences to their conduct is this: + +Knox tells us that "when all points were communed and agreed upon by mid- +persons," Chatelherault and Huntly had a private interview with Argyll, +Glencairn, and others of his party. They promised that they would be +enemies to the Regent if she broke any one jot of the treaty. "As much +promised the duke that _he_ would do, if in case that she would not +remove her French at a reasonable day . . . " the duke being especially +interested in their removal. But Huntly is not said to have made _this_ +promise--the removal of the French obviously not being part of the +"Appointment." {148a} + +Next, the brethren, in arguing with the Catholics about their own +mendacious proclamation of the terms, said that "we proclaimed nothing +which was not _finally_ agreed upon, _in word and promise_, betwixt us +and those with whom the Appointment was made. . . . " {148b} + +I can see no explanation of Knox's conduct, except that he and his +friends pacified their consciences by persuading themselves that +non-official words of Huntly and Chatelherault (whatever these words may +have been), spoken after "all was agreed upon," cancelled the treaty with +the Regent, became the real treaty, and were binding on the Regent! Thus +Knox or Kirkcaldy, or both, by letter; and Knox later, orally in +conversation with Croft, could announce false terms of treaty. So great, +if I am right, is a good man's power of self-persuasion! I shall welcome +any more creditable theory of the Reformer's behaviour, but I can see no +alternative, unless the Lords lied to Knox. + +That the French should be driven out was a great point with Cecil, for he +was always afraid that the Scots might slip back from the English to the +old French alliance. On July 28, after the treaty of July 24, but before +he heard of it, he insisted on the necessity of expelling the French, in +a letter to the Reformers. {149a} He "marvels that they omit such an +opportunity to help themselves." He sent a letter of vague generalities +in answer to their petitions for aid. When he received, as he did, a +copy of the terms of the treaty of July 24, in French, he would +understand. + +As further proof that Cecil was told what Knox and Kirkcaldy should have +known to be untrue, we note that on August 28 the Regent, weary of the +perpetual charges of perfidy anew brought against her, "ashamed not," +writes Knox, to put forth a proclamation, in which she asserted that +nothing, in the terms of July 23-24, forbade her to bring in more French +troops, "as may clearly appear by inspection of the said Appointment, +which the bearer has presently to show." {149b} + +Why should the Regent have been "ashamed" to tell the truth? If the +bearer showed a false and forged treaty, the Congregation must have +denounced it, and produced the genuine document with the signatures. Far +from that, in a reply (from internal evidence written by Knox), they +admit, "neither do we _here_ {149c} allege the breaking of the +Appointment made at Leith (which, nevertheless, has manifestly been +done), but"--and here the writer wanders into quite other questions. +Moreover, Knox gives another reply to the Regent, "by some men," in which +they write "we dispute not so much whether the bringing in of more +Frenchmen be violating of the Appointment, which the Queen and her +faction cannot deny to be manifestly broken by them in more cases than +one," in no way connected with the French. One of these cases will +presently be stated--it is comic enough to deserve record--but, beyond +denial, the brethren could not, and did not even attempt to make out +their charge as to the Regent's breach of truce by bringing in new, or +retaining old, French forces. + +Our historians, and the biographers of Knox, have not taken the trouble +to unravel this question of the treaty of July 24. But the behaviour of +the Lords and of Knox seems characteristic, and worthy of examination. + +It is not argued that Mary of Guise was, or became, incapable of worse +than dissimulation (a case of forgery by her in the following year is +investigated in Appendix B). But her practices at this time were such as +Knox could not throw the first stone at. Her French advisers were in +fact "perplexed," as Throckmorton wrote to Elizabeth (August 8). They +made preparations for sending large reinforcements: they advised +concession in religion: they waited on events, and the Regent could only +provide, at Leith (which was jealous of Edinburgh and anxious to be made +a free burgh), a place whither she could fly in peril. Meantime she +would vainly exert her woman's wit among many dangers. + +Knox, too, was exerting his wit in his own way. Busied in preaching and +in acting as secretary and diplomatic agent to the Congregation as he +was, he must also have begun in or not much later than August 1559, the +part of his "History" first written by him, namely Book II. That book, +as he wrote to a friend named Railton {150} on October 23, 1559 (when +much of it was already penned), is meant as a defence of his party +against the charge of sedition, and was clearly intended (we reiterate) +for contemporary reading at home and abroad, while the strife was still +unsettled. This being so, Knox continues his policy of blaming the +Regent for breach of the misreported treaty of July 24: for treachery, +which would justify the brethren's attack on her before the period of +truce (January 10, 1559) ran out. + +One clause, we know, secured the Reformers from molestation before that +date. Despite this, Knox records a case of "oppressing" a brother, +"which had been sufficient to prove the Appointment to be plainly +violated." Lord Seton, of the Catholic party, {151a} "broke a chair on +Alexander Whitelaw as he came from Preston (pans) accompanied by William +Knox . . . and this he did supposing that Alexander Whitelaw had been +John Knox." + +So much Knox states in his Book II., writing probably in September or +October 1559. But he does not here say what Alexander Whitelaw and +William Knox had been doing, or inform us how he himself was concerned in +the matter. He could not reveal the facts when writing in the early +autumn of 1559, because the brethren were then still taking the line that +they were loyal, and were suffering from the Regent's breaches of treaty, +as in the matter of the broken chair. + +The sole allusion here made by Knox to the English intrigues, before they +were manifest to all mankind in September, is this, "Because England was +of the same religion, and lay next to us, it was judged expedient first +to prove them, which we did by one or two messengers, as hereafter, in +its own place, more amply shall be declared." {151b} He later inserted +in Book III. some account of the intrigues of July-August 1559, "in its +own place," namely, in a part of his work occupied with the occurrences +of January 1560. {152a} + +Cecil, prior to the compact of July 24, had wished to meet Knox at +Stamford. On July 30 Knox received his instructions as negotiator with +England. {152b} His employers say that they hear that Huntly and +Chatelherault have promised to join the Reformers if the Regent breaks a +jot of the treaty of July 24, the terms of which Knox can declare. They +ask money to enable them to take Stirling Castle, and "strength by sea" +for the capture of Broughty Castle, on Tay. Yet they later complained of +the Regent when she fortified Leith. They actually _did_ take Broughty +Castle, and then had the hardihood to aver that they only set about this +when they heard in mid-September of the fortification of Leith by the +Regent. They aimed at it six days after their treaty of July 24. They +asked for soldiers to lie in garrison, for men, ships, and money for +their Lords. + +Bearing these instructions Knox sailed from Fife to Holy Island, near +Berwick, and there met Croft, the Governor of that town. Croft kept him, +not with sufficient secrecy, in Berwick, where he was well known, while +Whitelaw was coming from Cecil with his answers to the petitions of the +brethren. Meanwhile Croft held converse with Knox, who, as he reports, +says that, as to the change of "Authority" (that is of sovereignty, +temporary at least), the choice of the brethren would be subject to +Elizabeth's wishes. Yet the brethren contemplated no change of +Authority! Arran ought to be kept secretly in England "till wise men +considered what was in him; if misliked he put Lord James second." As to +what Knox told Croft about the terms of treaty of July 24, it is best to +state the case in Croft's own words. "He (Knox) excusys the +Protestantes, for that the French as commyng apon them at Edynbrogh when +theyr popoll were departed to make new provysyon of vytaylles, forcyd +them to make composycyon wyth the quene. Whereyn (sayeth he) the +frenchmen ar apoynted to departe out of Scotland by the xth of thys +monthe, and they truste verely by thys caus to be stronger, for that the +Duke, apon breche of promys on the quene's part, wyll take playne parte +withe the Protestantes." {153} + +This is quite explicit. Knox, as envoy of the Lords, declares that in +the treaty it is "appointed" that the French force shall leave Scotland +on August 10. (The printed calendars are not accurate.) No such matter +occurred in the treaty "wyth the quene." Knox added, next day, that he +himself "was unfit to treat of so great matters," and Croft appears to +have agreed with him, for, by the Reformer's lack of caution, his doings +in Holy Island were "well known and published." Consequently, when +Whitelaw returned to Knox with Cecil's reply to the requests of the +brethren, the performances of Knox and Whitelaw were no secrets, in +outline at least, to the Regent's party. For this reason, Lord Seton, +mistaking Whitelaw for Knox (who had set out on August 3 to join the +brethren at Stirling), pursued and broke a chair on the harmless Brother +Whitelaw. Such was the Regent's treacherous breach of treaty! + +During this episode in his curious adventures as a diplomatist, Knox +recommended Balnaves, author of a treatise on "Justification by Faith," +as a better agent in these courses, and with Balnaves the new envoy of +Elizabeth, Sadleir, a veteran diplomatist (wheedled in 1543 by Mary of +Guise), transacted business henceforth. Sadleir was ordered to Berwick +on August 6. Elizabeth infringed the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, then +only four months old, by giving Sadleir 3000 pounds in gold, or some such +sum, for the brethren. "They were tempting the Duke by all means +possible," {154a} but he will only promise neutrality if it comes to the +push, and they, Argyll and Lord James say (Glasgow, August 13), are not +yet ready "to discharge this authority," that is, to depose the Regent. +Chatelherault's promise was less vigorous than it had been reported! + +Knox, who now acted as secretary for the Congregation, was not Sir Henry +Wotton's ideal ambassador, "an honest man sent to lie abroad for his +country." When he stooped to statements which seem scarcely candid, to +put it mildly, he did violence to his nature. He forced himself to +proclaim the loyalty of his party from the pulpit, when he could not do +so without some economy of truth. {154b} He inserted things in his +"History," and spoke things to Croft, which he should have known to be +false. But he carried his point. He did advance the "union of hearts" +with England, if in a blundering fashion, and we owe him eternal +gratitude for his interest in the match, though "we like not the manner +of the wooing." The reluctant hand of Elizabeth was now inextricably +caught in the gear of that great machine which broke the ancient league +of France and Scotland, and saved Scotland from some of the sorrows of +France. + +The papers of Sadleir, Elizabeth's secret agent with the Scots, show the +godly pursuing their old plan of campaign. To make treaty with the +Regent; to predict from the pulpit that she would break it; to make false +statements about the terms of the treaty; to accuse her of their +infringement; to profess loyalty; to aim at setting up a new sovereign +power; to tell the populace that Mary of Guise's scanty French +reinforcements--some 1500 men--came by virtue of a broken treaty; to tell +Sadleir that they were very glad that the French _had_ come, as they +would excite popular hatred; to make out that the fortification of Leith +was breach of treaty;--such, in brief, were the methods of the Reformers. +{155} + +They now took a new method of proving the Regent's breach of treaty, that +she had "set up the Mass in Holyrood, which they had before suppressed." +_They_ were allowed to have their sermons in St. Giles's, but _she_ was +not to have her rites in her own abbey. Balnaves still harped on the non- +dismissal of the French as a breach of treaty! + +Arran, returning from Switzerland, had an interview with Elizabeth in +England, in mid-September, was smuggled across the Border with the astute +and unscrupulous Thomas Randolph in his train. With Arran among them, +Chatelherault might waver as he would. Meanwhile Knox and Willock +preached up and down the country, doubtless repeating to the people their +old charges against the Regent. Lethington, the secretary of that lady, +still betrayed her, telling Sadleir "that he attended upon the Regent no +longer than he might have a good occasion to revolt unto the Protestants" +(September 16). + +Balnaves got some two to three thousand pounds in gold (the sum is +variously stated) from Sadleir. "He saith, whatever pretence they make, +the principal mark they shoot at is to make an alteration of the State +and authority." This at least is explicit enough. The Reformers were +actually renewing the civil war on charges so stale and so false. The +Duke had possibly promised to desert her if she broke the truce, and now +he seized on the flimsy pretence, because the Congregation, as the +leaders said, had "tempted him" sufficiently. They had come up to his +price. Arran, the hoped-for Hamilton king, the hoped-for husband of the +Queen of England, had arrived, and with Arran the Duke joined the +Reformers. About September 20 they forbade the Regent to fortify Leith. + +The brethren say that they have given no "provocation." Six weeks +earlier they had requested England to help them to seize and hold +Broughty Castle, though the Regent may not have known that detail. + +The Regent replied as became her, and Glencairn, with Erskine of Dun, +wrecked the rich abbey of Paisley. The brethren now broke the truce with +a vengeance. + + + + +CHAPTER XII: KNOX IN THE WAR OF THE CONGREGATION: THE REGENT ATTACKED: +HER DEATH: CATHOLICISM ABOLISHED, 1559-1560 + + +Though the Regent was now to be deposed and attacked by armed force, Knox +tells us that there were dissensions among her enemies. Some held "that +the Queen was heavily done to," and that the leaders "sought another end +than religion." Consequently, when the Lords with their forces arrived +at Edinburgh on October 16, the local brethren showed a want of +enthusiasm. The Congregation nevertheless summoned the Regent to depart +from Leith, and on October 21 met at the Tolbooth to discuss her formal +deposition from office. Willock moved that this might lawfully be done. +Knox added, with more reserve than usual, that their hearts must not be +withdrawn from their King and Queen, Mary and Francis. The Regent, too, +ought to be restored when she openly repented and submitted. Willock +dragged Jehu into his sermon, but Knox does not appear to have remarked +that Francis and Mary were Ahab and Jezebel, idolaters. He was now in a +position of less freedom and more responsibility than while he was a +wandering prophet at large. + +On October 24 the Congregation summoned Leith, having deposed the Regent +_in the name of the King and Queen, Francis and Mary_, and of themselves +as Privy Council! They did more. They caused one James Cocky, a gold +worker, to forge the great seal of Francis and Mary, "wherewith they +sealed their pretended laws and ordinances, tending to constrain the +subjects of the kingdom to rebel and favour their usurpations." Their +proclamations with the forged seal they issued at St. Andrews, Glasgow, +Linlithgow, Perth, and elsewhere; using this seal in their letters to +noblemen, who were ordered to obey Arran. The gold worker, whose name is +variously spelled in the French record, says that the device for the +coins which the Congregation meant to issue and ordered him to execute +was on one side a cross with a crown of thorns, on the other the words +VERBUM DEI. The artist, Cocky, was dilatory, and when the brethren were +driven out of Edinburgh he gave the dies, unfinished, to John Achison, +the chief official of the Mint, who often executed coins of Queen Mary. +{158a} As Professor Hume Brown says of the audacious statement of the +brethren, that they acted in the name of their King and Queen, their use +of the forged Royal seal, "as covering their action with an appearance of +law, served its purpose in their appeals to the people." Cocky and +Kirkcaldy were hanged by Morton in 1573. + +The idea of forging the great seal may have arisen in the fertile brain +of Lethington, who about October 25 had at last deserted the Regent, and +now took Knox's place as secretary of the Congregation. Henceforth their +manifestoes say little about religion, and a great deal about the French +design to conquer Scotland. {158b} + +To the wit of Lethington we may plausibly attribute a proposal which, on +October 25, Knox submitted to Croft. {159} It was that England should +lend 1000 men for the attack on the Regent in Leith. Peace with France +need not be broken, for the men may come as private adventurers, and +England may denounce them as rebels. Croft declined this proposal as +dishonourable, and as too clearly a breach of treaty. Knox replied that +he had communicated Croft's letter "to such as partly induced me before +to write" (October 29). Very probably Lethington suggested the idea, +leaving the burden of its proposal on Knox. Dr. M'Crie says that it is a +solitary case of the Reformer's recommending dissimulation; but the +proceeding was in keeping with Knox's previous statements about the +nature of the terms made in July; with the protestations of loyalty; with +the lie given to Mary of Guise when she spoke, on the whole, the plain +truth; and generally with the entire conduct of the prophet and of the +Congregation. Dr. M'Crie justly remarks that Knox "found it difficult to +preserve integrity and Christian simplicity amidst the crooked wiles of +political intrigue." + +On the behaviour of the godly heaven did not smile--for the moment. +Scaling-ladders had been constructed in St. Giles's church, "so that +preaching was neglected." "The preachers spared not openly to say that +they feared the success of that enterprise should not be prosperous," for +this reason, "God could not suffer such contempt of His word . . . long +to be unpunished." The Duke lost heart; the waged soldiers mutinied for +lack of pay; Morton deserted the cause; Bothwell wounded Ormiston as he +carried money from Croft, and seized the cash {160a}--behaving +treacherously, if it be true that he was under promise not to act against +the brethren. The French garrison of Leith made successful sorties; and +despite the valour of Arran and Lord James and the counsel of Lethington, +the godly fled from Edinburgh on November 5, under taunts and stones cast +by the people of the town. + +The fugitives never stopped till they reached Stirling, when Knox +preached to them. He lectured at great length on discomfitures of the +godly in the Old Testament, and about the Benjamites, and the Levite and +his wife. Coming to practical politics, he reminded his audience that +after the accession of the Hamiltons to their party, "there was nothing +heard but This lord will bring these many hundred spears . . . if this +Earl be ours, no man in such a district will trouble us." The Duke ought +to be ashamed of himself. Before Knox came to Scotland we know he had +warned the brethren against alliance with the Hamiltons. The Duke had +been on the Regent's side, "yet without his assistance they could not +have compelled us to appoint with the Queen upon such unequal conditions" +in the treaty of July. So the terms _were_ in favour of the Regent, +after all is said and done! {160b} + +God had let the brethren fall, Knox said, into their present condition +because they put their trust in man--in the Duke--a noble whose +repentance was very dubious. + +Then Knox rose to the height of the occasion. "Yea, whatsoever becomes +of us and our mortal carcases, I doubt not but that this Cause (in +despite of Satan) shall prevail in the realm of Scotland. For as it is +the eternal truth of the eternal God, so shall it once prevail . . ." +Here we have the actual genius of Knox, his tenacity, his courage in an +uphill game, his faith which might move mountains. He adjured all to +amendment of life, prayer, and charity. "The minds of men began to be +wonderfully erected." In Arran and Lord James too, manifestly not +jealous rivals, Randolph found "more honour, stoutness, and courage than +in all the rest" (November 3). + +Already, before the flight, Lethington was preparing to visit England. +The conduct of diplomacy with England was thus in capable hands, and +Lethington was a persona grata to the English Queen. Meanwhile the +victorious Regent behaved with her wonted moderation. "She pursueth no +man that hath showed himself against her at this time." She pardoned all +burgesses of Edinburgh, and was ready to receive the Congregation to her +grace, if they would put away the traitor Lethington, Balnaves, and some +others. {161a} Knox, however, says that she gave the houses of the most +honest men to the French. The Regent was now very ill; graviter +aegrotat, say Francis and Mary (Dec. 4, 1559). {161b} + +The truth is that the Cause of Knox, far from being desperate, as for an +hour it seemed to the faint-hearted, had never looked so well. Cecil and +the English Council saw that they were committed; their gift of money was +known, they must bestir themselves. While they had "nourished the +garboil" in Scotland, fanned the flame, they professed to believe that +France was aiming, through Scotland, at England. They arranged for a +large levy of forces at Berwick; they promised money without stint: and +Cecil drew up the paper adopted, as I conceive, by the brethren in their +Latin appeal to all Christian princes. The Scots were to say that they +originally took arms in defence of their native dynasty (the Hamiltons), +Mary Stuart having no heirs of her body, and France intending to annex +Scotland--which was true enough, but was not the cause of the rising at +Perth. That England is also aimed at is proved by the fact that Mary and +Francis, on the seal of Scotland, quarter the arms of England. Knox +himself had seen, and had imparted the fact to Cecil, a jewel on which +these fatal heraldic pretensions were made. The Queen is governed by +"the new authority of the House of Guise." In short, Elizabeth must be +asked to intervene for these political reasons, not in defence of the +Gospel, and large preparations for armed action in Scotland were +instantly made. Meanwhile Cecil's sketch of the proper manifesto for the +Congregation to make, was embodied in Lethington's instructions (November +24) from the Congregation, as well as adapted in their Latin appeal to +Christian princes. + +We may suppose that a man of Knox's unbending honesty was glad to have +thrown off his functions as secretary to the brethren. Far from +disclaiming their idolatrous King and Queen (the ideal policy), they were +issuing proclamations headed "Francis and Mary," and bearing the forged +signet. Examples with the seal were, as late as 1652, in the possession +of the Erskine of Dun of that day. In them Francis and Mary denounce the +Pope as Antichrist! Keith, who wrote much later, styles these +proclamations "pretty singular," and Knox must have been of the same +opinion. + +After Lethington took the office of secretary to the Congregation, Knox +had for some time no great public part in affairs. Fife was invaded by +"these bloody worms," as he calls the French; and he preached what he +tells us was a "comfortable sermon" to the brethren at Cupar. But +Lethington had secured the English alliance: Lord Grey was to lead 4000 +foot and 2000 horse to the Border; Lord Winter with fourteen ship set +sail, and was incommoded by a storm, in which vessels of d'Elboeuf, with +French reinforcements for the Regent, were, some lost, some driven back +to harbour. As in Jacobite times, French aid to the loyal party was +always unfortunate, and the arrival of Winter's English fleet in the +Forth caused d'Oysel to retreat out of Fife back to Leith. He had nearly +reached St. Andrews, where Knox dwelt in great agony of spirit. He had +"great need of a good horse," probably because, as in October 1559, money +was offered for his head. But private assassination had no terrors for +the Reformer. {163} + +Knox, as he wrote to a friend on January 29, 1560, had forsaken all +public assemblies and retired to a life of study, because "I am judged +among ourselves too extreme." When the Duke of Norfolk, with the English +army, was moving towards Berwick, where he was to make a league with the +Protestant nobles of Scotland, Knox summoned Chatelherault, and the +gentlemen of his party, then in Glasgow. They wished Norfolk to come to +them by Carlisle, a thing inconvenient to Lord James. Knox chid them +sharply for sloth, and want of wisdom and discretion, praising highly the +conduct of Lord James. They had "unreasonable minds." "Wise men do +wonder what my Lord Duke's friends do mean, that are so slack and +backward in this Cause." The Duke did not, however, write to France with +an offer of submission. That story, ben trovato but not vero, rests on a +forgery by the Regent! {164} The fact is that the Duke was not a true +Protestant, his advisers, including his brother the Archbishop, were +Catholics, and the successes of d'Oysel in winter had terrified him; but, +seeing an English army at hand, he assented to the league with England at +Berwick, as "second person of the realm of Scotland" (February 27, 1560). +Elizabeth "accepted the realm of Scotland"--Chatelherault being +recognised as heir-apparent to the throne thereof--for so long as the +marriage of Queen Mary and Francis I. endured, and a year later. The +Scots, however, remain dutiful subjects of Queen Mary, they say, except +so far as lawless attempts to make Scotland a province of France are +concerned. Chatelherault did not _sign_ the league till May 10, with +Arran, Huntly, Morton (at last committed to the Cause), and the usual +leaders of the Congregation. + +With the details of the siege of Leith, and with the attempts at +negotiation, we are not here concerned. France, in fact, was powerless +to aid the Regent. Since the arrival of Throckmorton in France, as +ambassador of England, in the previous summer (1559), the Huguenots had +been conspiring. They were in touch with Geneva, in the east; on the +north, in Brittany, they appear to have been stirred up by Tremaine, a +Cornish gentleman, and emissary of Cecil, who joined Throckmorton at +Blois, in March 1560. Stories were put about that the young French King +was a leper, and was kidnapping fair-haired children, in whose blood he +meant to bathe. The Huguenots had been conspiring ever since September +1559, when they seem to have sent to Elizabeth for aid in money. {165a} +More recently they had held a kind of secret convention at Nantes, and +summoned bands who were to lurk in the woods, concentrate at Amboise, +attack the chateau, slay the Guises, and probably put the King and Queen +Mary under the Prince de Conde, who was by the plotters expected to take +the part which Arran played in Scotland. It is far from certain that +Conde had accepted the position. In all this we may detect English +intrigue and the gold of Elizabeth. Calvin had been consulted; he +disapproved of the method of the plot, still more of the plot itself. But +he knew all about it. "All turns on killing Antonius," he wrote, +"Antonius" being either the Cardinal or the Duc de Guise. {165b} + +The conspiracy failed at Amboise, on March 17-19, 1560. Throckmorton was +present, and describes the panic and perplexity of the Court, while he +eagerly asks to be promptly and secretly recalled, as suspicion has +fallen on himself. He sent Tremaine home through Brittany, where he +gathered proposals for betraying French towns to Elizabeth, rather +prematurely. Surrounded by treachery, and destitute of funds, the Guises +could not aid the Regent, and Throckmorton kept advising Cecil to "strike +while the iron was hot," and paralyse French designs. The dying Regent +of Scotland never lost heart in circumstances so desperate. + +Even before the outbreak at Perth, Mary of Guise had been in very bad +health. When the English crossed the Border to beleaguer Leith, Lord +Erskine, who had maintained neutrality in Edinburgh Castle, allowed her +to come there to die (April 1, 1560). + +On April 29, from the Castle of Edinburgh, she wrote a letter to d'Oysel, +commanding in Leith. She told him that she was suffering from dropsy; +"one of her legs begins to swell. . . . You know there are but three +days for the dropsy in this country." The letter was intercepted by her +enemies, and deciphered. {166a} On May 7, the English and Scots made an +assault, and were beaten back with loss of 1000 men. According to Knox, +the French stripped the fallen, and allowed the white carcases to lie +under the wall, as also happened in 1746, after the English defeat at +Falkirk. The Regent saw them, Knox says, from the Castle, and said they +were "a fair tapestry." "Her words were heard of some," and carried to +Knox, who, from the pulpit, predicted "that God should revenge that +contumely done to his image . . . even in such as rejoiced thereat. And +the very experience declared that he was not deceived, for within few +days thereafter (yea, some say that same day) began her belly and +loathsome legs to swell, and so continued, till that God did execute his +judgments upon her." {166b} + +Knox wrote thus on May 16, 1566. {167a} He was a little irritated at +that time by Queen Mary's triumph over his friends, the murderers of +Riccio, and his own hasty flight from Edinburgh to Kyle. This may excuse +the somewhat unusual and even unbecoming nature of his language +concerning the dying lady, but his memory was quite wrong about his +prophecy. The symptoms of the Regent's malady had begun more than a week +before the Anglo-Scottish defeat at Leith, and the nature of her +complaint ought to have been known to the prophet's party, as her letter, +describing her condition, had been intercepted and deciphered. But the +deciphering may have been done in England, which would cause delay. We +cannot, of course, prove that Knox was informed as to the Regent's malady +before he prophesied; if so, he had forgotten the fact before he wrote as +he did in 1566. But the circumstances fail to demonstrate that he had a +supernormal premonition, or drew a correct deduction from Scripture, and +make it certain that the Regent did not fall ill after his prophecy. + +The Regent died on June 11, half-an-hour after the midnight of June 10. A +report was written on June 13, from Edinburgh Castle, to the Cardinal of +Lorraine, by Captain James Cullen, who some twelve years later was hanged +by the Regent Morton. He says that since June 7, Lord James and Argyll, +Marischal, and Glencairn, had assiduously attended on the dying lady. Two +hours before her death she spoke apart for a whole hour with Lord James. +Chatelherault had seen her twice, and Arran once. {167b} Knox mentions +the visits of these lords, and says that d'Oysel was forbidden to speak +with her, "belike she would have bidden him farewell, for auld +familiarity was great." + +According to Knox, the Regent admitted the errors of her policy, +attributing it to Huntly, who had deserted her, and to "the wicked +counsel of her friends," that is, her brothers. At the request of the +Lords, she saw Willock, and said, as she naturally would, that "there was +no salvation but in and by the death of Jesus Christ." "She was +compelled . . . to approve the chief head of our religion, wherein we +dissent from all papists and popery." Knox had strange ideas about the +creed which he opposed. "Of any virtue that ever was espied in King +James V. (_whose daughter she_," Mary Stuart, "_is called_"), "to this +hour (1566) we have seen no sparkle to appear." {168} + +With this final fling at the chastity of Mary of Guise, the Reformer +takes leave of the woman whom he so bitterly hated. Yet, "Knox was not +given to the practice so common in his day, of assassinating reputations +by vile insinuations." Posterity has not accepted, contemporary English +historians did not accept, Knox's picture of Mary of Guise as the wanton +widow, the spawn of the serpent, who desired to cut the throat of every +Protestant in Scotland. She was placed by circumstances in a position +from which there was no issue. The fatal French marriage of her daughter +was a natural step, at a moment when Scottish independence could only be +maintained by help of France. Had she left the Regency in the hands of +Chatelherault, that is, of Archbishop Hamilton, the prelate was not the +man to put down Protestantism by persecution, and so save the situation. +If he had been, Mary of Guise was not the woman to abet him in drastic +violence. The nobles would have revolted against the feeble Duke. {169} + +On July 6, the treaty of Edinburgh was concluded by representatives of +England (Cecil was one) and of France. The Reformers carried a point of +essential importance, the very point which Knox told Croft had been +secured by the Appointment of July 1559. All French forces were to be +dismissed the country, except one hundred and twenty men occupying Dunbar +and Inchkeith, in the Firth of Forth. A clause by which Cecil thought he +had secured "the kernel" for England, and left the shell to France, a +clause recognising the "rightfulness" of Elizabeth's alliance with the +rebels, afforded Mary Stuart ground, or excuse, for never ratifying the +treaty. + +It is needless here to discuss the question--was the Convention of +Estates held after the treaty, in August, a lawful Parliament? There was +doubt enough, at least, to make Protestants feel uneasy about the +security of the religious settlement achieved by the Convention. +Randolph, the English resident, foresaw that the Acts might be rescinded. + +Before the Convention of Estates met, a thanksgiving day was held by the +brethren in St. Giles's, and Knox, if he was the author of the address to +the Deity, said with scientific precision, "Neither in us, nor yet in our +confederates was there any cause why thou shouldst have given unto us so +joyful and sudden a deliverance, for neither of us both ceased to do +wickedly, even in the midst of our greatest troubles." Elizabeth had +lied throughout with all her natural and cultivated gift of falsehood: of +the veracity of the brethren several instances have been furnished. + +Ministers were next appointed to churches, Knox taking Edinburgh, while +Superintendents (who were by no means Bishops) were appointed, one to +each province. Erskine of Dun, a layman, was Superintendent of Angus. A +new anti-Catholic Kirk was thus set up on July 20, before the Convention +met and swept away Catholicism. {170} Knox preached vigorously on "the +prophet Haggeus" meanwhile, and "some" (namely Lethington, Speaker in the +Convention) "said in mockage, we must now forget ourselves, and bear the +barrow to build the houses of God." The unawakened Lethington, and the +gentry at large, merely dilapidated the houses of God, so that they +became unsafe, as well as odiously squalid. That such fervent piety +should grudge repairs of church buildings (many of them in a wretched +state already) is a fact creditable rather to the thrift than to the +state of grace of the Reformers. After all their protestations, full of +texts, the lords and lairds starved their preachers, but provided, by +roofless aisles and unglazed windows, for the ventilation of the kirks. +These men so bubbling over with gospel fervour were, in short, when it +came to practice, traitors and hypocrites; nor did Knox spare their +unseemly avarice. The cause of the poor, and of the preachers, lay near +his heart, and no man was more insensible of the temptations of wealth. + +Lethington did not address the Parliament as Speaker till August 9. Never +had such a Parliament met in Scotland. One hundred and six barons, not +of the higher order, assembled; in 1567, when Mary was a prisoner and the +Regent Moray held the assembly, not nearly so many came together, nor on +any later occasion at this period. The newcomers claimed to sit "as of +old custom"; it was a custom long disused, and not now restored to +vitality. + +A supplication was presented by "the Barons, gentlemen, Burgesses, and +others" to "the nobility and Estates" (of whom they do not seem to reckon +themselves part, contrasting _themselves_ with "yourselves"). They +reminded the Estates how they had asked the Regent "for freedom and +liberty of conscience with a godly reformation of abuses." They now, by +way of freedom of conscience, ask that Catholic doctrine "be abolished by +Act of this Parliament, and punishment appointed for the transgressors." +The Man of Sin has been distributing the whole patrimony of the Church, +so that "the trew ministers," the schools, and the poor are kept out of +their own. The actual clergy are all thieves and murderers and "rebels +to the lawful authority of Emperors, Kings, and Princes." Against these +charges (murder, rebellion, profligacy) they must answer now or be so +reputed. In fact, it was the nobles, rather than the Pope, who had been +robbing the Kirk, education, and the poor, which they continued to do, as +Knox attests. But as to doctrine, the barons and ministers were asked to +lay a Confession before the House. {172} + +It will be observed that, in the petition, "Emperors, Kings, and Princes" +have "lawful authority" over the clergy. But that doctrine assumes, +tacitly, that such rulers are of Knox's own opinions: the Kirk later +resolutely stood up against kings like James VI., Charles I., and Charles +II. + +The Confession was drawn up, presented, and ratified in a very few days: +it was compiled in four. The Huguenots in Paris, in 1559, "established a +record" by drawing up a Confession containing eighty articles in three +days. Knox and his coadjutors were relatively deliberate. They aver +that all points of belief necessary for salvation are contained in the +canonical books of the Bible. Their interpretation pertains to no man or +Church, but solely to "the spreit of God." That "spreit" must have +illuminated the Kirk as it then existed in Scotland, "for we dare not +receive and admit any interpretation which directly repugns to any +principal point of our faith, to any other _plain_ text of Scripture, or +yet unto the rule of charity." + +As we, the preachers of the Kirk then extant, were apostate monks or +priests or artisans, about a dozen of us, in Scotland, mankind could not +be expected to regard "our" interpretation, "our faith" as infallible. +The framers of the Confession did not pretend that it was infallible. +They request that, "if any man will note in this our Confession any +article or sentence repugning to God's Holy Word," he will favour them +with his criticism in writing. As Knox had announced six years earlier, +that, "as touching the chief points of religion, I neither will give +place to man or angel . . . teaching the contrair to that which ye have +heard," a controversialist who thought it worth while to criticise the +Confession must have deemed himself at least an archangel. Two years +later, written criticism was offered, as we shall see, with a demand for +a written reply. The critic escaped arrest by a lucky accident. + +The Confession, with practically no criticism or opposition, was passed +en bloc on August 17. The Evangel is candidly stated to be "death to the +sons of perdition," but the Confession is offered hopefully to "weak and +infirm brethren." Not to enter into the higher theology, we learn that +the sacraments can only be administered "by lawful ministers." We learn +that _they_ are "such as are appointed to the preaching of the Word, or +into whose mouth God has put some sermon of exhortation" and who are +"lawfully chosen thereto by some Kirk." Later, we find that rather more +than this, and rather more than some of the "trew ministeris" then had, +is required. + +As the document reaches us, it appears to have been "mitigated" by +Lethington and Wynram, the Vicar of Bray of the Reformation. They +altered, according to the English resident, Randolph, "many words and +sentences, which sounded to proceed rather of some evil conceived opinion +than of any sound judgment." As Lethington certainly was not "a lawful +minister," it is surprising if Knox yielded to his criticism. + +Lethington and Wynram also advised that the chapter on obedience to the +sovereign power should be omitted, as "an unfit matter to be treated at +this time," when it was not very obvious who the "magistrate" or +authority might be. In this sense Randolph, Arran's English friend, +wrote to Cecil. {174a} The chapter, however, was left standing. The +sovereign, whether in empire, kingdom, duke, prince, or in free cities, +was accepted as "of God's holy ordinance. To him chiefly pertains the +reformation of the religion," which includes "the suppression of idolatry +and superstition"; and Catholicism, we know, is idolatry. Superstition +is less easily defined, but we cannot doubt that, in Knox's mind, the +English liturgy was superstitious. {174b} To resist the Supreme Power, +"doing that which pertains to his charge" (that is, suppressing +Catholicism and superstition, among other things), is to resist God. It +thus appears that the sovereign is not so supreme but that he must be +disobeyed when his mandates clash with the doctrine of the Kirk. Thus +the "magistrate" or "authority"--the State, in fact--is limited by the +conscience of the Kirk, which may, if it pleases, detect idolatry or +superstition in some act of secular policy. From this theory of the Kirk +arose more than a century of unrest. + +On August 24, the practical consequences of the Confession were set forth +in an Act, by which all hearers or celebrants of the Mass are doomed, for +the first offence, to mere confiscation of all their goods and to +corporal punishment: exile rewards a repetition of the offence: the third +is punished by death. "Freedom from a persecuting spirit is one of the +noblest features of Knox's character," says Laing; "neither led away by +enthusiasm nor party feelings nor success, to retaliate the oppressions +and atrocities that disgraced the adherents of popery." {174c} This is +an amazing remark! Though we do not know that Knox was ever "accessory +to the death of a single individual for his religious opinions," we do +know that he had not the chance; the Government, at most, and years +later, put one priest to death. But Knox always insisted, vainly, that +idolaters "must die the death." + +To the carnal mind these rules appear to savour of harshness. The carnal +mind would not gather exactly what the new penal laws were, if it +confined its study to the learned Dr. M'Crie's Life of Knox. This +erudite man, a pillar of the early Free Kirk, mildly remarks, "The +Parliament . . . prohibited, under certain penalties, the celebration of +the Mass." He leaves his readers to discover, in the Acts of Parliament +and in Knox, what the "certain penalties" were. {175} The Act seems, as +Knox says about the decrees of massacre in Deuteronomy, "rather to be +written in a rage" than in a spirit of wisdom. The majority of the human +beings then in Scotland probably never had the dispute between the old +and new faiths placed before them lucidly and impartially. Very many of +them had never heard the ideas of Geneva stated at all. "So late as +1596," writes Dr. Hay Fleming, "there were above four hundred parishes, +not reckoning Argyll and the Isles, which still lacked ministers." "The +rarity of learned and godly men" of his own persuasion, is regretted by +Knox in the Book of Discipline. Yet Catholics thus destitute of +opportunity to know and recognise the Truth, are threatened with +confiscation, exile, and death, if they cling to the only creed which +they have been taught--after August 17, 1560. The death penalty was +threatened often, by Scots Acts, for trifles. In this case the graduated +scale of punishment shows that the threat is serious. + +This Act sounds insane, but the Convention was wise in its generation. +Had it merely abolished the persecuting laws of the Church, Scotland +might never have been Protestant. The old faith is infinitely more +attractive to mankind than the new Presbyterian verity. A thing of slow +and long evolution, the Church had assimilated and hallowed the world-old +festivals of the year's changing seasons. She provided for the human +love of recreation. Her Sundays were holidays, not composed of gloomy +hours in stuffy or draughty kirks, under the current voice of the +preacher. Her confessional enabled the burdened soul to lay down its +weight in sacred privacy; her music, her ceremonies, the dim religious +light of her fanes, naturally awaken religious emotion. While these +things, with the native tendency to resist authority of any kind, +appealed to the multitude, the position of the Church, in later years, +recommended itself to many educated men in Scotland as more logical than +that of Knox; and convert after convert, in the noble class, slipped over +to Rome. The missionaries of the counter-Reformation, but for the +persecuting Act, would have arrived in a Scotland which did not +persecute, and the work of the Convention of 1560 might all have been +undone, had not the stringent Act been passed. + +That Act apparently did not go so far as the preachers desired. Thus +Archbishop Hamilton, writing to Archbishop Beaton in Paris, the day after +the passing of the Act, says, "All these new preachers openly persuade +the nobility in the pulpit, to put violent hands, and slay all churchmen +that will not concur and adopt their opinion. They only reproach my Lord +Duke" (the Archbishop's brother), "that he will not begin first, and +either cause me to do as they do, or else to use rigour on me by +slaughter, sword, or, at least, perpetual prison." {177a} It is probable +that the Archbishop was well informed as to what the bigots were saying, +though he is not likely to have "sat under" them; moreover, he would hear +of their advice from his brother, the Duke, with whom he had just held a +long conference. {177b} Lesley, Bishop of Ross, in his "History," +praises the humanity of the nobles, "for at this time few Catholics were +banished, fewer were imprisoned, and none were executed." The nobles +interfering, the threatened capital punishment was not carried out. Mob +violence, oppression by Protestant landlords, Kirk censure, imprisonment, +fine, and exile, did their work in suppressing idolatry and promoting +hypocrisy. + +No doubt this grinding ceaseless daily process of enforcing Truth, did +not go far enough for the great body of the brethren, especially the +godly burgesses of the towns; indeed, as early as June 10, 1560, the +Provost, Bailies, and Town Council of Edinburgh proclaimed that idolaters +must instantly and publicly profess their conversion before the Ministers +and Elders on the penalty of the pillory for the first offence, +banishment from the town for the second, and death for the third. {177c} + +It must always be remembered that the threat of the death penalty often +meant, in practice, very little. It was denounced, under Mary of Guise +(February 9, 1559), against men who bullied priests, disturbed services, +and ate meat in Lent. It was denounced against shooters of wild fowl, +and against those, of either religious party, who broke the Proclamation +of October 1561. Yet "nobody seemed one penny the worse" as regards +their lives, though the punishments of fining and banishing were, on +occasions, enforced against Catholics. + +We may marvel that, in the beginning, Catholic martyrs did not present +themselves in crowds to the executioner. But even under the rule of Rome +it would not be easy to find thirty cases of martyrs burned at the stake +by "the bloudie Bishops," between the fifteenth century and the martyrdom +of Myln. By 1560 the old Church was in such a hideous decline--with +ruffianly men of quality in high spiritual places; with priests who did +not attend Mass, and in many cases could not read; with churches left to +go to ruin; with license so notable that, in one foundation, the priest +is only forbidden to keep a _constant_ concubine--that faith had waxed +cold, and no Catholic felt "ripe" for martyrdom. The elements of a +League, as in France, did not exist. There was no fervently Catholic +town population like that of Paris; no popular noble warriors, like the +Ducs de Guise, to act as leaders. Thus Scotland, in this age, ran little +risk of a religious civil war. No organised and armed faction existed to +face the Congregation. When the counter-Reformation set in, many +Catholics endured fines and exile with constancy. + +The theology of the Confession of Faith is, of course, Calvinistic. No +"works" are, technically, "good" which are not the work of the Spirit of +our Lord, dwelling in our hearts by faith. "Idolaters," and wicked +people, not having that spirit, can do no good works. The blasphemy that +"men who live according to equity and justice shall be saved, what +religion soever they have professed," is to be abhorred. "The Kirk is +invisible," consisting of the Elect, "who are known only to God." This +gave much cause of controversy to Knox's Catholic opponents. "The notes +of the true Church" are those of Calvin's. As to the Sacrament, though +the elements be not the _natural_ body of Christ, yet "the faithful, in +the right use of the Lord's Table, so do eat the body and drink the blood +of the Lord Jesus that He remains in them and they in Him . . . in such +conjunction with Christ Jesus as the natural man cannot comprehend." + +This is a highly sacramental and confessedly mystical doctrine, not less +unintelligible to "the natural man" than the Catholic theory which Knox +so strongly reprobated. Alas, that men called Christian have shed seas +of blood over the precise sense of that touching command of our Lord, +which, though admitted to be incomprehensible, they have yet endeavoured +to comprehend and define! + +A serious task for Knox was to draw up, with others, a "Book of the +Policy and Discipline of the Kirk," a task entrusted to them in April +1560. In politics, till January 1561, the Lords hoped that they might +induce Elizabeth (then entangled with Leicester, as Knox knew) to marry +Arran, but whether "Glycerium" (as Bishop Jewel calls her) had already +detected in "the saucy youth" "a half crazy fool," as Mr. Froude says, or +not, she firmly refused. She much preferred Lord Robert Dudley, whose +wife had just then broken her neck. The unfortunate Arran had fought +resolutely, Knox tells us, by the side of Lord James, in the winter of +1559, but he already, in 1560, showed strange moods, and later fell into +sheer lunacy. In December died "the young King of France, husband to our +Jezebel--unhappy Francis . . . he suddenly perished of a rotten ear . . . +in that deaf ear that never would hear the truth of God" (December 5, +1560). We have little of Knox's poetry, but he probably composed a +translation, in verse, of a Latin poem indited by one of "the godly in +France," whence he borrowed his phrase "a rotten ear" (aure putrefacta +corruit). + + "Last Francis, that unhappy child, + His father's footsteps following plain, + To Christ's crying deaf ears did yield, + A rotten ear was then his bane." + +The version is wonderfully close to the original Latin. + +Meanwhile, Francis was hardly cold before Arran wooed his idolatrous +widow, Queen Mary, "with a gay gold ring." She did not respond +favourably, and "the Earl bare it heavily in his heart, and more heavily +than many would have wissed," says Knox, with whom Arran was on very +confidential terms. Knox does not rebuke his passion for Jezebel. He +himself "was in no small heaviness by reason of the late death of his +dear bedfellow, Marjorie Bowes," of whom we know very little, except that +she worked hard to lighten the labours of Knox's vast correspondence. He +had, as he says, "great intelligence both with the churches and some of +the Court of France," and was the first to receive news of the perilous +illness of the young King. He carried the tidings to the Duke and Lord +James, at the Hamilton house near Kirk o' Field, but would not name his +informant. Then came the news of the King's death from Lord Grey de +Wilton, at Berwick, and a Convention of the Nobles was proclaimed for +January 15, 1561, to "peruse newly over again" the Book of Discipline. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII: KNOX AND THE BOOK OF DISCIPLINE + + +This Book of Discipline, containing the model of the Kirk, had been seen +by Randolph in August 1560, and he observed that its framers would not +come into ecclesiastical conformity with England. They were "severe in +that they profess, and loth to remit anything of that they have +received." As the difference between the Genevan and Anglican models +contributed so greatly to the Civil War under Charles I., the results may +be regretted; Anglicans, by 1643, were looked on as "Baal worshippers" by +the precise Scots. + +In February 1561, Randolph still thought that the Book of Discipline was +rather in advance of what fallen human nature could endure. Idolatry, of +course, was to be removed universally; thus the Queen, when she arrived, +was constantly insulted about her religion. The Lawful Calling of +Ministers was explained; we have already seen that a lawful minister is a +preacher who can get a local set of men to recognise him as such. Knox, +however, before his return to Scotland, had advised the brethren to be +very careful in examining preachers before accepting them. The people +and "every several Congregation" have a right to elect their minister, +and, if they do not do so in six weeks, the Superintendent (a migratory +official, in some ways superior to the clergy, but subject to periodical +"trial" by the Assembly, who very soon became extinct), with his council, +presents a man who is to be examined by persons of sound judgment, and +next by the ministers and elders of the Kirk. Nobody is to be "violently +intrused" on any congregation. Nothing is said about an university +training; moral character is closely scrutinised. On the admission of a +new minister, some other ministers should preach "touching the obedience +which the Kirk owe to their ministers. . . . The people should be +exhorted to reverence and honour their chosen ministers as the servants +and ambassadors of the Lord Jesus, obeying the commandments which they +speak from God's mouth and Book, even as they would obey God himself. . . . " +{182} + +The practical result of this claim on the part of the preachers to +implicit obedience was more than a century of turmoil, civil war, +revolution, and reaction. The ministers constantly preached political +sermons, and the State--the King and his advisers--was perpetually +arraigned by them. To "reject" them, "and despise their ministry and +exhortation" (as when Catholics were not put to death on their instance), +was to "reject and despise" our Lord! If accused of libel, or treasonous +libel, or "leasing making," in their sermons, they demanded to be judged +by their brethren. Their brethren acquitting them, where was there any +other judicature? These pretensions, with the right to inflict +excommunication (in later practice to be followed by actual outlawry), +were made, we saw, when there were not a dozen "true ministers" in the +nascent Kirk, and, of course, the claims became more exorbitant when +"true ministers" were reckoned by hundreds. No State could submit to +such a clerical tyranny. + +People who only know modern Presbyterianism have no idea of the despotism +which the Fathers of the Kirk tried, for more than a century, to enforce. +The preachers sat in the seats of the Apostles; they had the gift of the +Keys, the power to bind and loose. Yet the Book of Discipline permits no +other ceremony, at the induction of these mystically gifted men, than +"the public approbation of the people, and declaration of the chief +minister"--later there was no "_chief_ minister," there was "parity" of +ministers. Any other ceremony "we cannot approve"; "for albeit the +Apostles used the imposition of hands, yet seeing the miracle is ceased, +the using of the ceremony we judge it not necessary." The miracle had +_not_ ceased, if it was true that "the commandments" issued in +sermons--political sermons often--really deserved to be obeyed, as men +"would obey God himself." C'est la le miracle! There could be no more +amazing miracle than the infallibility of preachers! "The imposition of +hands" was, twelve years later, restored; but as far as infallible +sermons were concerned, the State agreed with Knox that "the miracle had +ceased." + +The political sermons are sometimes justified by the analogy of modern +discussion in the press. But leading articles do not pretend to be +infallible, and editors do not assert a right to be obeyed by men, "even +as they would obey God himself." The preachers were often right, often +wrong: their sermons were good, or were silly; but what no State could +endure was the claim of preachers to implicit obedience. + +The difficulty in finding really qualified ministers must be met by +fervent prayer, and by compulsion on the part of the Estates of +Parliament. + +Failing ministers, Readers, capable of reading the Common Prayers +(presently it was Knox's book of these) and the Bible must be found; they +may later be promoted to the ministry. + +Stationary ministers are to receive less sustenance than the migratory +Superintendents; the sons of the preachers must be educated, the +daughters "honestly dowered." The payment is mainly in "bolls" of meal +and malt. The state of the poor, "fearful and horrible" to say, is one +of universal contempt. Provision must be made for the aged and weak. +Superintendents, after election, are to be examined by all the ministers +of the province, and by three or more Superintendents. Other ceremonies +"we cannot allow." In 1581, a Scottish Catholic, Burne, averred that +Willock objected to ceremonies of Ordination, because people would say, +if these are necessary, what minister ordained _you_? The query was hard +to answer, so ceremonies of Ordination could not be allowed. The story +was told to Burne, he says, by an eyewitness, who heard Willock. + +Every church must have a schoolmaster, who ought to be able to teach +grammar and Latin. Education should be universal: poor children of +ability must be enabled to pass on to the universities, through secondary +schools. At St. Andrews the three colleges were to have separate +functions, not clashing, and culminating in Divinity. + +Whence are the funds to be obtained? Here the authors bid "your Honours" +"have respect to your poor brethren, the labourers of the ground, who by +these cruel beasts, the papists, have been so oppressed . . . " They +ought only to pay "reasonable teinds, that they may feel some benefit of +Christ Jesus, now preached unto them. With grief of heart we hear that +some gentlemen are now as cruel over their tenants as ever were the +papists, requiring of them whatsoever they paid to the Church, so that +the papistical tyranny shall only be changed into the tyranny of the +landlord or laird." Every man should have his own teinds, or tithes; +whereas, in fact, the great lay holders of tithes took them off other +men's lands, a practice leading to many blood-feuds. The attempt of +Charles I. to let "every man have his own tithes," and to provide the +preachers with a living wage, was one of the causes of the distrust of +the King which culminated in the great Civil War. But Knox could not +"recover for the Church her liberty and freedom, and that only for relief +of the poor." "_We speak not for ourselves_" the Book says, "but in +favour of the poor, and the labourers defrauded . . . The Church is only +bound to sustain and nourish her charges . . . to wit the Ministers of +the Kirk, the Poor, and the teachers of youth." The funds must be taken +out of the tithes, the chantries, colleges, chaplainries, and the +temporalities of Bishops, Deans, and cathedrals generally. + +The ministers are to have their manses, and glebes of six acres; to this +many of the Lords assented, except, oddly enough, those redoubtable +leaders of the Congregation, Glencairn and Morton, with Marischal. All +the part of the book which most commands our sympathy, the most Christian +part of the book, regulating the disposition of the revenues of the +fallen Church for the good of the poor, of education, and of the Kirk, +remained a dead letter. The Duke, Arran, Lord James, and a few barons, +including the ruffian Andrew Ker of Faldonside, with Glencairn and +Ochiltree, signed it, in token of approval, but little came of it all. +Lethington, probably, was the scoffer who styled these provisions "devout +imaginations." The nobles and lairds, many of them, were converted, in +matter of doctrine; in conduct they were the most avaricious, bloody, and +treacherous of all the generations which had banded, revelled, robbed, +and betrayed in Scotland. + +There is a point in this matter of the Kirk's claim to the patrimony of +the old Church which perhaps is generally misunderstood. That point is +luminous as regards the absolute disinterestedness of Knox and his +companions, both in respect to themselves and their fellow-preachers. The +Book of Discipline contains a sentence already quoted, conceived in what +we may justly style a chivalrous contempt of wealth. "Your Honours may +easily understand _that we speak not now for ourselves_, but in favour of +the Poor, and the labourers defrauded . . . " Not having observed a +point which "their Honours" were not the men to "understand easily," +Father Pollen writes, "the new preachers were loudly _claiming for +themselves_ the property of the rivals whom they had displaced." {186} +For themselves they were claiming a few merks, and a few bolls of meal, a +decent subsistence. Mr. Taylor Innes points out that when, just before +Darnley's murder, Mary offered "a considerable sum for the maintenance of +the ministers," Knox and others said that, for their sustentation, they +"craved of the auditors the things that were necessary, as of duty the +pastors might justly crave of their flock. The General Assembly accepted +the Queen's gift, but only of necessity; it was by their flock that they +ought to be sustained. To take from others contrary to their will, whom +they serve not, they judge it not their duty, nor yet reasonable." + +Among other things the preachers, who were left with a hard struggle for +bare existence, introduced a rule of honour scarcely known to the barons +and nobles, except to the bold Buccleuch who rejected an English pension +from Henry VIII., with a sympathetic explosion of strong language. The +preachers would not take gifts from England, even when offered by the +supporters of their own line of policy. + +Knox's failure in his admirable attempt to secure the wealth of the old +Church for national purposes was, as it happened, the secular salvation +of the Kirk. Neither Catholicism nor Anglicanism could be fully +introduced while the barons and nobles held the tithes and lands of the +ancient Church. Possessing the wealth necessary to a Catholic or +Anglican establishment, they were resolutely determined to cling to it, +and oppose any Church except that which they starved. The bishops of +James I., Charles I., and Charles II. were detested by the nobles. Rarely +from them came any lordly gifts to learning and the Universities, while +from the honourably poor ministers such gifts could not come. The +Universities were founded by prelates of the old Church, doing their duty +with their wealth. + +The arrangements for discipline were of the drastic nature which lingered +into the days of Burns and later. The results may be studied in the +records of Kirk Sessions; we have no reason to suppose that sexual +morality was at all improved, on the whole, by "discipline," though it +was easier to enforce "Sabbath observance." A graduated scale of +admonitions led up to excommunication, if the subject was refractory, and +to boycotting with civil penalties. The processes had no effect, or none +that is visible, in checking lawlessness, robbery, feuds, and +manslayings; and, after the Reformation, witchcraft increased to +monstrous proportions, at least executions of people accused of +witchcraft became very numerous, in spite of provision for sermons thrice +a week, and for weekly discussions of the Word. + +The Book of Discipline, modelled on the Genevan scheme, and on that of +A'Lasco for his London congregation, rather reminds us of the "Laws" of +Plato. It was a well meant but impracticable ideal set before the +country, and was least successful where it best deserved success. It +certainly secured a thoroughly moral clergy, till, some twelve years +later, the nobles again thrust licentious and murderous cadets into the +best livings and the bastard bishoprics, before and during the Regency of +Morton. Their example did not affect the genuine ministers, frugal God- +fearing men. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV: KNOX AND QUEEN MARY, 1561 + + +In discussing the Book of Discipline, that great constructive effort +towards the remaking of Scotland, we left Knox at the time of the death +of his first wife. On December 20, 1560, he was one of some six +ministers who, with more numerous lay representatives of districts, sat +in the first General Assembly. They selected some new preachers, and +decided that the church of Restalrig should be destroyed as a monument of +idolatry. A fragment of it is standing yet, enclosing tombs of the wild +Logans of Restalrig. + +The Assembly passed an Act against lawless love, and invited the Estates +and Privy Council to "use sharp punishment" against some "idolaters," +including Eglintoun, Cassilis, and Quentin Kennedy, Abbot of Crosraguel, +who disputed later against Knox, the Laird of Gala (a Scott) and others. + +In January 1561 a Convention of nobles and lairds at Edinburgh perused +the Book of Discipline, and some signed it, platonically, while there was +a dispute between the preachers and certain Catholics, including Lesley, +later Bishop of Ross, an historian, but no better than a shifty and +dangerous partisan of Mary Stuart. The Lord James was selected as an +envoy to Mary, in France. He was bidden to refuse her even the private +performance of the rites of her faith, but declined to go to that +extremity; the question smouldered through five years. Randolph expected +"a mad world" on Mary's return; he was not disappointed. + +Meanwhile the Catholic Earls of the North, of whom Huntly was the fickle +leader, with Bothwell, "come to work what mischief he can," are accused +by Knox of a design to seize Edinburgh, before the Parliament in May +1561. Nothing was done, but there was a very violent Robin Hood riot; +the magistrates were besieged and bullied, Knox declined to ask for the +pardon of the brawlers, and, after excursions and alarms, "the whole +multitude was excommunicate" until they appeased the Kirk. They may have +borne the spiritual censure very unconcernedly. + +The Catholic Earls now sent Lesley to get Mary's ear before the Lord +James could reach her. Lesley arrived on April 14, with the offer to +raise 20,000 men, if Mary would land in Huntly's region. They would +restore the Mass in their bounds, and Mary would be convoyed by Captain +Cullen, a kinsman of Huntly, and already mentioned as the Captain of the +Guards after Riccio's murder. + +It is said by Lesley that Mary had received, from the Regent, her mother, +a description of the nobles of Scotland. If so, she knew Huntly for the +ambitious traitor he was, a man peculiarly perfidious and self-seeking, +with a son who might be thrust on her as a husband, if once she were in +Huntly's hands. The Queen knew that he had forsaken her mother's cause; +knew, perhaps, of his old attempt to betray Scotland to England, and she +was aware that no northern Earl had raised his banner to defend the +Church. She, therefore, came to no agreement with Lesley, but confided +more in the Lord James, who arrived on the following day. Mary knew her +brother's character fairly well, and, if Lesley says with truth that he +now asked for, and was promised, the earldom of Moray, the omen was evil +for Huntly, who practically held the lands. {191a} A bargain, on this +showing, was initiated. Lord James was to have the earldom, and he got +it; Mary was to have his support. + +Much has been said about Lord James's betrayal to Throckmorton of Mary's +intentions, as revealed by her to himself. But what Lord James said to +Throckmorton amounts to very little. I am not certain that, both in +Paris with Throckmorton, and in London with Elizabeth and Cecil, he did +not moot his plan for friendship between Mary and Elizabeth, and +Elizabeth's recognition of Mary's rights as her heir. {191b} Lord James +proposed all this to Elizabeth in a letter of August 6, 1561. {191c} He +had certainly discussed this admirable scheme with Lord Robert Dudley at +Court, in May 1561, on his return from France. {191d} Nothing could be +more statesmanlike and less treacherous. + +Meanwhile (May 27, 1561) the brethren presented a supplication to the +Parliament, with clauses, which, if conceded, would have secured the +stipends of the preachers. The prayers were granted, in promise, and a +great deal of church wrecking was conscientiously done; the Lord James, +on his return, paid particular attention to idolatry in his hoped for +earldom, but the preachers were not better paid. + +Meanwhile the Protestants looked forward to the Queen's arrival with +great searchings of heart. She had not ratified the treaty of Leith, but +already Cardinal Guise hoped that she and Elizabeth would live in +concord, and heard that Mary ceded all claims to the English throne in +return for Elizabeth's promise to declare her the heir, if she herself +died childless (August 21). {192} + +Knox, who had not loved Mary of Guise, was not likely to think well of +her daughter. Mary, again, knew Knox as the chief agitator in the +tumults that embittered her mother's last year, and shortened her life. +In France she had threatened to deal with him severely, ignorant of his +power and her own weakness. She could not be aware that Knox had +suggested to Cecil opposition to her succession to the throne on the +ground of her sex. Knox uttered his forebodings of the Queen's future: +they were as veracious as if he had really been a prophet. But he was, +to an extent which can only be guessed, one of the causes of the +fulfilment of his own predictions. To attack publicly, from the pulpit, +the creed and conduct of a girl of spirit; to provoke cruel insults to +her priests whom she could not defend; was apt to cause, at last, in +great measure that wild revolt of temper which drove Mary to her doom. +Her health suffered frequently from the attempt to bear with a smiling +face such insults as no European princess, least of all Elizabeth, would +have endured for an hour. There is a limit to patience, and before Mary +passed that limit, Randolph and Lethington saw, and feebly deplored, the +amenities of the preacher whom men permitted to "rule the roast." "Ten +thousand swords" do not leap from their scabbards to protect either the +girl Mary Stuart or the woman Marie Antoinette. + +Not that natural indignation was dead, but it ended in words. People +said, "The Queen's Mass and her priests will we maintain; this hand and +this rapier will fight in their defence." So men bragged, as Knox +reports, {193a} but when after Mary's arrival priests were beaten or +pilloried, not a hand stirred to defend them, not a rapier was drawn. The +Queen might be as safely as she was deeply insulted through her faith. +She was not at this time devoutly ardent in her creed, though she often +professed her resolution to abide in it. Gentleness might conceivably +have led her even to adopt the Anglican faith, or so it was deemed by +some observers, but insolence and outrage had another effect on her +temper. + +Mary landed at Leith in a thick fog on August 19, 1561. She was now in a +country where she lay under sentence of death as an idolater. Her +continued existence was illegal. With her came Mary Seton, Mary Beaton, +Mary Livingstone, and Mary Fleming, the comrades of her childhood; and +her uncles, the Duc d'Aumale, Francis de Lorraine, and the noisy Marquis +d'Elboeuf. She was not very welcome. As late as August 9, Randolph +reports that her brother, Lord James, Lethington, and Morton "wish, as +you do, she might be stayed yet for a space, and if it were not for their +obedience sake, some of them care not though they never see her face." +{193b} None the less, on June 8 Lord James tells Mary that he had given +orders for her palace to be prepared by the end of July. He informs her +that "many" hope that she will never come home. Nothing is "so necessary +. . . as your Majesty's own presence"; and he hopes she will arrive +punctually. If she cannot come she should send her commission to some of +her Protestant advisers, by no means including the Archbishop of St. +Andrews (Hamilton), with whom he will never work. It is not easy to see +why Lord James should have wished that Mary "might be stayed," unless he +merely dreaded her arrival while Elizabeth was in a bad temper. His +letter to Elizabeth of August 6 is incompatible with treachery on his +part. "Mr. Knox is determined to abide the uttermost, and others will +not leave him till God have taken his life and theirs together." Of what +were these heroes afraid? A "familiar," a witch, of Lady Huntly's +predicted that the Queen would never arrive. "If false, I would she were +burned for a witch," adds honest Randolph. Lethington deemed his "own +danger not least." Two galleys full of ladies are not so alarming; did +these men, practically hinting that English ships should stop their +Queen, think that the Catholics in Scotland were too strong for them? + +Not a noble was present to meet Mary when in the fog and filth of Leith +she touched Scottish soil, except her natural brother, Lord Robert. {194} +The rest soon gathered with faces of welcome. She met some Robin Hood +rioters who lay under the law, and pardoned these roisterers (with their +excommunication could she interfere?), because, says Knox, she was +instructed that they had acted "in despite of the religion." Their +festival had been forbidden under the older religion, as it happens, in +1555, and was again forbidden later by Mary herself. + +All was mirth till Sunday, when the Queen's French priest celebrated Mass +in her own chapel before herself, her three uncles, and Montrose. The +godly called for the priest's blood, but Lord James kept the door, and +his brothers protected the priest. Disappointed of blood, "the godly +departed with great grief of heart," collecting in crowds round Holyrood +in the afternoon. Next day the Council proclaimed that, till the Estates +assembled and deliberated, no innovation should be made in the religion +"publicly and universally standing." The Queen's servants and others +from France must not be molested--on pain of death, the usual empty +threat. They were assaulted, and nobody was punished for the offence. +Arran alone made a protest, probably written by Knox. Who but Knox could +have written that the Mass is "much more abominable and odious in the +sight of God" than murder! Many an honest brother was conspicuously of +the opinion which Arran's protest assigned to Omnipotence. Next Sunday +Knox "thundered," and later regretted that "I did not that I might have +done" (caused an armed struggle?), . . . "for God had given unto me +credit with many, who would have put into execution God's judgments if I +would only have consented thereto." Mary might have gone the way of +Jezebel and Athaliah but for the mistaken lenity of Knox, who later +"asked God's mercy" for not being more vehement. In fact, he rather +worked "to slokin that fervency." {195} Let us hope that he is forgiven, +especially as Randolph reports him extremely vehement in the pulpit. His +repentance was publicly expressed shortly before the murder of Riccio. +(In December 1565, probably, when the Kirk ordered the week's fast that, +as it chanced, heralded Riccio's doom.) Privately to Cecil, on October +7, 1561, he uttered his regret that he had been so deficient in zeal. +Cecil had been recommending moderation. {196} + +On August 26, Randolph, after describing the intimidation of the priest, +says "John Knox thundereth out of the pulpit, so that I fear nothing so +much as that one day he will mar all. He ruleth the roast, and of him +all men stand in fear." In public at least he did not allay the wrath of +the brethren. + +On August 26, or on September 2, Knox had an interview with the Queen, +and made her weep. Randolph doubted whether this was from anger or from +grief. Knox gives Mary's observations in the briefest summary; his own +at great length, so that it is not easy to know how their reasoning +really sped. Her charges were his authorship of the "Monstrous Regiment +of Women"; that he caused great sedition and slaughter in England; and +that he was accused of doing what he did by necromancy. The rest is +summed up in "&c." + +He stood to his guns about the "Monstrous Regiment," and generally took +the line that he merely preached against "the vanity of the papistical +religion" and the deceit, pride, and tyranny of "that Roman Antichrist." +If one wishes to convert a young princess, bred in the Catholic faith, it +is not judicious to begin by abusing the Pope. This too much resembles +the arbitrary and violent method of Peter in The Tale of a Tub (by Dr. +Jonathan Swift); such, however, was the method of Knox. + +Mary asking if he denied her "just authority," Knox said that he was as +well content to live under her as Paul under Nero. This, again, can +hardly be called an agreeable historical parallel! Knox hoped that he +would not hurt her or her authority "so long as ye defile not your hands +with the blood of the saints of God," as if Mary was panting to +distinguish herself in that way. His hope was unfulfilled. No "saints" +suffered, but he ceased not to trouble. + +Knox also said that if he had wanted "to trouble your estate because you +are a woman, I might have chosen a time more convenient for that purpose +than I can do now, when your own presence is in the realm." He _had_, in +fact, chosen the convenient time in his letter to Cecil, already quoted +(July 19, 1559), but he had not succeeded in his plan. He said that +nobody could _prove_ that the question of discarding Mary, on the ground +of her sex, "was at any time moved in public or in secret." Nobody could +_prove_ it, for nobody could publish his letter to Cecil. Probably he +had this in his mind. He did not say that the thing had not happened, +only that "he was assured that neither Protestant nor papist shall be +able to prove that any such question was at any time moved, either in +public or in secret." {197} + +He denied that he had caused sedition in England, nor do we know what +Mary meant by this charge. His appeals, from abroad, to a Phinehas or +Jehu had not been answered. As to magic, he always preached against the +practice. + +Mary then said that Knox persuaded the people to use religion not allowed +by their princes. He justified himself by biblical precedents, to which +she replied that Daniel and Abraham did not resort to the sword. They +had not the chance, he answered, adding that subjects might resist a +prince who exceeded his bounds, as sons may confine a maniac father. + +The Queen was long silent, and then said, "I perceive my subjects shall +obey you and not me." Knox said that all should be subject unto God and +His Church; and Mary frankly replied, "I will defend the Church of Rome, +for I think that it is the true Church of God." She could not defend it! +Knox answered with his wonted urbanity, that the Church of Rome was a +harlot, addicted to "all kinds of fornication." + +He was so accustomed to this sort of rhetoric that he did not deem it out +of place on this occasion. His admirers, familiar with his style, forget +its necessary effect on "a young princess unpersuaded," as Lethington put +it. Mary said that her conscience was otherwise minded, but Knox knew +that all consciences of "man or angel" were wrong which did not agree +with his own. The Queen had to confess that in argument as to the +unscriptural character of the Mass, he was "owre sair" for her. He said +that he wished she would "hear the matter reasoned to the end." She may +have desired that very thing: "Ye may get that sooner than ye believe," +she said; but Knox expressed his disbelief that he would ever get it. +Papists would never argue except when "they were both judge and party." +Knox himself never answered Ninian Winzet, who, while printing his +polemic, was sought for by the police of the period, and just managed to +escape. + +There was, however, a champion who, on November 19, challenged Knox and +the other preachers to a discussion, either orally or by interchange of +letters. This was Mary's own chaplain, Rene Benoit. Mary probably knew +that he was about to offer to meet "the most learned John Knox and other +most erudite men, called ministers"; it is thus that Rene addresses them +in his "Epistle" of November 19. + +He implores them not to be led into heresy by love of popularity or of +wealth; neither of which advantages the preachers enjoyed, for they were +detested by loose livers, and were nearly starved. Benoit's little +challenge, or rather request for discussion, is a model of courtesy. Knox +did not meet him in argument, as far as we are aware; but in 1562, +Fergusson, minister of Dunfermline, replied in a tract full of +scurrility. One quite unmentionable word occurs, and "impudent lie," +"impudent and shameless shavelings," "Baal's chaplains that eat at +Jezebel's table," "pestilent papistry," "abominable mass," "idol +Bishops," "we Christians and you Papists," and parallels between Benoit +and "an idolatrous priest of Bethel," between Mary and Jezebel are among +the amenities of this meek servant of Christ in Dunfermline. + +Benoit presently returned to France, and later was confessor to Henri IV. +The discussion which Mary anticipated never occurred, though her champion +was ready. Knox does not refer to this affair in his "History," as far +as I am aware. {199} Was Rene the priest whom the brethren menaced and +occasionally assaulted? + +Considering her chaplain's offer, it seems not unlikely that Mary was +ready to listen to reasoning, but to call the Pope "Antichrist," and the +Church "a harlot," is not argument. Knox ended his discourse by wishing +the Queen as blessed in Scotland as Deborah was in Israel. The mere fact +that Mary spoke with him "makes the Papists doubt what shall come of the +world," {200a} says Randolph; and indeed nobody knows what possibly might +have come, had Knox been sweetly reasonable. But he told his friends +that, if he was not mistaken, she had "a proud mind, a crafty wit, and an +indurate heart against God and His truth." She showed none of these +qualities in the conversation as described by himself; but her part in it +is mainly that of a listener who returns not railing with railing. + +Knox was going about to destroy the scheme of les politiques, Randolph, +Lethington, and the Lord James. They desired peace and amity with +England, and the two Scots, at least, hoped to secure these as the +Cardinal Guise did, by Mary's renouncing all present claim to the English +throne, in return for recognition as heir, if Elizabeth died without +issue. Elizabeth, as we know her, would never have granted these terms, +but Mary's ministers, Lethington then in England, Lord James at home, +tried to hope. {200b} Lord James had heard Mary's outburst to Knox about +defending her own insulted Church, but he was not nervously afraid that +she would take to dipping her hands in the blood of the saints. Neither +he nor Lethington could revert to the old faith; they had pecuniary +reasons, as well as convictions, which made that impossible. + +Lethington, returned to Edinburgh (October 25), spoke his mind to Cecil. +"The Queen behaves herself . . . as reasonably as we can require: if +anything be amiss the fault is rather in ourselves. You know the +vehemency of Mr. Knox's spirit which cannot be bridled, and yet doth +utter sometimes such sentences as cannot easily be digested by a weak +stomach. I would wish he should deal with her more gently, being a young +princess unpersuaded. . . . Surely in her comporting with him she +declares a wisdom far exceeding her age." {201a} Vituperation is not +argument, and gentleness is not unchristian. St. Paul did not revile the +gods of Felix and Festus. + +But, prior to these utterances of October, the brethren had been baiting +Mary. On her public entry (which Knox misdates by a month) her idolatry +was rebuked by a pageant of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. Huntly managed to +stop a burning in effigy of a priest at the Mass. They never could cease +from insulting the Queen in the tenderest point. The magistrates next +coupled "mess-mongers" with notorious drunkards and adulterers, "and such +filthy persons," in a proclamation, so the Provost and Bailies were +"warded" (Knox says) in the Tolbooth. Knox blamed Lethington and Lord +James, in a letter to Cecil; {201b} in his "History" he says, "God be +merciful to some of our own." {201c} + +The Queen herself, as a Papist, was clearly insulted in the proclamation. +Moray and Lethington, the latter touched by her "readiness to hear," and +her gentleness in the face of Protestant brutalities; the former, +perhaps, lured by the hope of obtaining, as the price of his alliance, +the earldom of Moray, were by the end of October still attempting to +secure amity between her and Elizabeth, and to hope for the best, rather +than drive the Queen wild by eternal taunts and menaces. The preachers +denounced her rites at Hallowmass (All Saints), and a servant of her +brother, Lord Robert, beat a priest; but men actually doubted whether +subjects might interfere between the Queen and her religion. There was a +discussion on this point between the preachers and the nobles, and the +Church in Geneva (Calvin) was to be consulted. Knox offered to write, +but Lethington said that he would write, as much stood on the +"information"; that is, on the manner of stating the question. Lethington +did not know, and Knox does not tell us in his "History" that he had +himself, a week earlier, put the matter before Calvin in his own way. +Even Lord James, he says to Calvin, though the Abdiel of godliness, "is +afraid to overthrow that idol by violence"--idolum illud missalicum. +{202} + +Knox's letter to Calvin represents the Queen as alleging that he has +already answered the question, declaring that Knox's party has no right +to interfere with the Royal mass. This rumour Knox disbelieves. He adds +that Arran would have written, but was absent. + +Apparently Arran did write to Calvin, anonymously, and dating from +London, November 18, 1561. The letter, really from Scotland, is in +French. The writer acknowledges the receipt, about August 20, of an +encouraging epistle from Calvin. He repeats Knox's statements, in the +main, and presses for a speedy reply. He says that he goes seldom to +Court, both on account of "that idol," and because "sobriety and virtue" +have been exiled. {203a} As Arran himself "is known to have had company +of a good handsome wench, a merchant's daughter," which led to a riot +with Bothwell, described by Randolph (December 27, 1561), his own "virtue +and sobriety" are not conspicuous. {203b} He was in Edinburgh on +November 15-19, and the London date of his anonymous letter is a blind. +{203c} + +It does not appear that Calvin replied to Knox, and to the anonymous +correspondent, in whom I venture to detect Arran; or, if he answered, his +letter was probably unfavourable to Knox, as we shall argue when the +subject later presents itself. + +Finally--"the votes of the Lords prevailed against the ministers"; the +Queen was allowed her Mass, but Lethington, a minister of the Queen, did +not consult a foreigner as to the rights of her subjects against her +creed. + +The lenity of Lord James was of sudden growth. At Stirling he and Argyll +had gallantly caused the priests to leave the choir "with broken heads +and bloody ears," the Queen weeping. So Randolph reported to Cecil +(September 24). + +Why her brother, foremost to insult Mary and her faith, unless Randolph +errs, in September, took her part in a few weeks, we do not know. At +Perth, Mary was again offended, and suffered in health by reason of the +pageants; "they did too plainly condemn the errors of the world. . . . I +hear she is troubled with such sudden passions after any great unkindness +or grief of mind," says Randolph. She was seldom free from such godly +chastisements. At Perth, however, some one gave her a cross of five +diamonds with pendant pearls. + +Meanwhile the statesmen did not obey the Ministers as men ought to obey +God: a claim not easily granted by carnal politicians. + + + + +CHAPTER XV: KNOX AND QUEEN MARY (continued), 1561-1564 + + +Had Mary been a mere high-tempered and high-spirited girl, easily harmed +in health by insults to herself and her creed, she might now have turned +for support to Huntly, Cassilis, Montrose, and the other Earls who were +Catholic or "unpersuaded." Her great-grandson, Charles II., when as +young as she now was, did make the "Start"--the schoolboy attempt to run +away from the Presbyterians to the loyalists of the North. But Mary had +more self-control. + +The artful Randolph found himself as hardly put to it now, in diplomacy, +as the Cardinal's murderers had done, in war, when they met the +scientific soldier, Strozzi. "The trade is now clean cut off from me," +wrote Randolph (October 27); "I have to traffic now with other merchants +than before. They know the value of their wares, and in all places how +the market goeth. . . . Whatsoever policy is in all the chief and best +practised heads of France; whatsoever craft, falsehood, or deceit is in +all the subtle brains of Scotland," said the unscrupulous agent, "is +either fresh in this woman's memory, or she can bring it out with a wet +finger." {205} + +Mary, in fact, was in the hands of Lethington (a pensioner of Elizabeth) +and of Lord James: "subtle brains" enough. _She_ was the "merchandise," +and Lethington and Lord James wished to make Elizabeth acknowledge the +Scottish Queen as her successor, the alternative being to seek her price +as a wife for an European prince. An "union of hearts" with England +might conceivably mean Mary's acceptance of the Anglican faith. It is +not a kind thing to say about Mary, but I suspect that, if assured of the +English succession, she might have gone over to the Prayer Book. In the +first months of her English captivity (July 1568) Mary again dallied with +the idea of conversion, for the sake of freedom. She told the Spanish +Ambassador that "she would sooner be murdered," but if she could have +struck her bargain with Elizabeth, I doubt that she would have chosen the +Prayer Book rather than the dagger or the bowl. {206a} Her conversion +would have been bitterness as of wormwood to Knox. In his eyes +Anglicanism was "a bastard religion," "a mingle-mangle now commanded in +your kirks." "Peculiar services appointed for Saints' days, diverse +Collects as they falsely call them in remembrance of this or that Saint . +. . are in my conscience no small portion of papistical superstition." +{206b} "Crossing in Baptism is a diabolical invention; kneeling at the +Lord's table, mummelling," (uttering the responses, apparently), "or +singing of the Litany." All these practices are "diabolical inventions," +in Knox's candid opinion, "with Mr. Parson's pattering of his constrained +prayers, and with the mass-munging of Mr. Vicar, and of his wicked +companions . . ." (A blank in the MS.) "Your Ministers, before for the +most part, were none of Christ's ministers, but mass-mumming priests." He +appears to speak of the Anglican Church as it was under Edward VI. (To +Mrs. Locke, Dieppe, April 6, 1559.) {207a} As Elizabeth brought in +"cross and candle," her Church must have been odious to our Reformer. +Calvin had regarded the "silly things" in our Prayer Book as "endurable," +not so Knox. Before he came back to Scotland, the Reformers were content +with the English Prayer Book. By rejecting it, Knox and his allies +disunited Scotland and England. + +Knox's friend Arran was threatening to stir up the Congregation for the +purpose of securing him in the revenues of three abbeys, including St. +Andrews, of which Lord James was Prior. The extremists raised the +question, "whether the Queen, being an idolater, may be obeyed in all +civil and political actions." {207b} + +Knox later made Chatelherault promise this obedience; what his views were +in November 1561 we know not. Lord James was already distrusted by his +old godly friends; it was thought he would receive what he had long +desired, the Earldom of Moray (November 11, 1561), and the precise +professors meditated a fresh revolution. "It must yet come to a new +day," they said. {207c} Those about Arran were discontented, and nobody +was more in his confidence than Knox, but at this time Arran was absent +from Edinburgh; was at St. Andrews. + +Meanwhile, at Court, "the ladies are merry, dancing, lusty, and fair," +wrote Randolph, who flirted with Mary Beaton (November 18); and long +afterwards, in 1578, when she was Lady Boyne, spoke of her as "a very +dear friend." Knox complains that the girls danced when they "got the +house alone"; not a public offence! He had his intelligencers in the +palace. + +There was, on November 16, a panic in the unguarded palace: {208a} "the +poor damsels were left alone," while men hid in fear of nobody knew what, +except a rumour that Arran was coming, with his congregational friends, +"to take away the Queen." The story was perhaps a fable, but Arran had +been uttering threats. Mary, however, expected to be secured by an +alliance with Elizabeth. "The accord between the two Queens will quite +overthrow them" (the Bishops), "and they say plainly that she cannot +return a true Christian woman," writes Randolph. {208b} + +Lethington and Randolph both suspected that if Mary abandoned idolatry, +it would be after conference with Elizabeth, and rather as being +converted by that fair theologian than as compelled by her subjects. +Unhappily Elizabeth never would meet Mary, who, for all that we know, +might at this hour have adopted the Anglican via media, despite her +protests to Knox and to the Pope of her fidelity to Rome. Like Henri +IV., she may at this time have been capable of preferring a crown--that +of England--to a dogma. Her Mass, Randolph wrote, "is rather for despite +than devotion, for those that use it care not a straw for it, and jest +sometimes against it." {208c} + +Randolph, at this juncture, reminded Mary that advisers of the Catholic +party had prevented James V. from meeting Henry VIII. She answered, +"Something is reserved for us that was not then," possibly hinting at her +conversion. Lord James shared the hopes of Lethington and Randolph. "The +Papists storm, thinking the meeting of the queens will overthrow Mass and +all." + +The Ministers of Mary, les politiques, indulged in dreams equally +distasteful to the Catholics and to the more precise of the godly; dreams +that came through the Ivory Gate; with pictures of the island united, and +free from the despotism of Giant Pope and Giant Presbyter. {209} A +schism between the brethren and their old leaders and advisers, Lord +James and Lethington, was the result. At the General Assembly of +December 1561, the split was manifest. The parties exchanged +recriminations, and there was even question of the legality of such +conventions as the General Assembly. Lethington asked whether the Queen +"allowed" the gathering. Knox (apparently) replied, "Take from us the +freedom of Assemblies, and take from us the Evangel . . ." He defended +them as necessary for order among the preachers; but the objection, of +course, was to their political interferences. The question was to be +settled for Cromwell in his usual way, with a handful of hussars. It was +now determined that the Queen might send Commissioners to the Assembly to +represent her interests. + +The plea of the godly that Mary should ratify the Book of Discipline was +countered by the scoffs of Lethington. He and his brothers ever +tormented Knox by persiflage. Still the preachers must be supported, and +to that end, by a singular compromise, the Crown assumed dominion over +the property of the old Church, a proceeding which Mary, if a good +Catholic, could not have sanctioned. The higher clergy retained +two-thirds of their benefices, and the other third was to be divided +between the preachers and the Queen. Vested rights, those of the +prelates, and the interests of the nobles to whom, in the troubles, they +had feued parts of their property, were thus secured; while the preachers +were put off with a humble portion. Among the abbeys, that of St. +Andrews, held by the good Lord James, was one of the richest. He appears +to have retained all the wealth, for, as Bishop Keith says, "the grand +gulf that swallowed up the whole extent of the thirds were pensions given +gratis by the Queen to those about the Court . . . of which last the Earl +of Moray was always sure to obtain the thirds of his priories of St. +Andrews and Pittenweem." In all, the whole reformed clergy received +annually (but not in 1565-66) 24,231 pounds, 17s. 7d. Scots, while Knox +and four superintendents got a few chalders of wheat and "bear." In +1568, when Mary had fallen, a gift of 333 pounds, 6s. 8d. was made to +Knox from the fund, about a seventh of the money revenue of the Abbey of +St. Andrews. {210} Nobody can accuse Knox of enriching himself by the +Revolution. "In the stool of Edinburgh," he declared that two parts were +being given to the devil, "and the third must be divided between God and +the devil," between the preachers and the Queen, and the Earl of Moray, +among others. The eminently godly Laird of Pitarro had the office of +paying the preachers, in which he was so niggardly that the proverb ran, +"The good Laird of Pitarro was an earnest professor of Christ, but the +great devil receive the Comptroller." + +It was argued that "many Lords have not so much to spend" as the +preachers; and this was not denied (if the preachers were paid), but it +was said the Lords had other industries whereby they might eke out their +revenues. Many preachers, then or later, were driven also to other +industries, such as keeping public-houses. {211a} Knox, at this period, +gracefully writes of Mary, "we call her not a hoore." When she scattered +his party after Riccio's murder, he went the full length of the +expression, in his "History." + +"Simplicity," says Thucydides, "is no small part of a noble nature," and +Knox was now to show simplicity in conduct, and in his narrative of a +very curious adventure. + +The Hamiltons had taken little but loss by joining the Congregation. +Arran could not recover his claims, on whatever they were founded, over +the wealth of St. Andrews and Dunfermline. Chatelherault feared that +Mary would deprive him of his place of refuge, the castle of Dumbarton, +to which he confessed that his right was "none," beyond a verbal promise +of a nineteen years "farm" (when given we know not), from Mary of Guise. +{211b} Randolph began to believe that Arran really had contemplated a +raid on Mary at Holyrood, where she had no guards. {211c} "Why," asked +Arran, "was it not as easy to take her out of the Abbey, as once it had +been intended to do with her mother?" + +Here were elements of trouble, and Knox adds that, according to the +servants of Chatelherault, Huntly and the Hamiltons devised to slay Lord +James, who in January received the Earldom of Moray, but bore the title +of Earl of Mar, which earldom he held for a brief space. {212a} Huntly +had claims on Moray, and hence hated Lord James. Arran was openly +sending messengers to France; "his councils are too patent." Randolph at +the same time found Knox and the preachers "as wilfull as learned, which +heartily I lament" (January 30). The rumour that Mary had been persuaded +by the Cardinal to turn Anglican "makes them run almost wild" (February +12). {212b} If the Queen were an Anglican the new Kirk would be in an +ill way. Arran still sent retainers to France, and was reported to speak +ill of Mary (February 21), but the Duke tried to win Randolph to a +marriage between Arran and the Queen. The intended bridegroom lay abed +for a week, "tormented by imaginations," but was contented, not to be +reconciled with Bothwell, but to pass his misdeeds in "oblivion," {212c} +as he declared to the Privy Council (February 20). + +In these threatening circumstances Bothwell made Knox's friend, Barron, a +rich burgess who "financed" the Earl, introduce him to our Reformer. The +Earl explained that his feud with Arran was very expensive; he had for +his safety to keep "a number of wicked and unprofitable men about +him"--his "Lambs," the Ormistouns, {213} young Hay of Tala, probably, and +the rest. He therefore repented, and wished to be reconciled to Arran. +Knox, pleased at being a reconciler where nobler men had failed, and +moved, after long refusal, by the entreaties of the godly, as he tells +Mrs. Locke, advised Bothwell first to be reconciled to God. So Bothwell +presently was, going to sermon for that very purpose. Knox promised to +approach Arran, and Bothwell, with his usual impudence, chose that moment +to seize an old pupil of Knox's, the young Laird of Ormiston (Cockburn). +The young laird, to be sure, had fired a pistol at his enemy. However, +Bothwell repented of this lapse, and at the Hamilton's great house of +Kirk-of-Field, Knox made him and Arran friends. Next day they went to +sermon together; on the following day they visited Chatelherault at +Kinneil, some twelve miles from Edinburgh. But on the ensuing day (March +26) came the wild end of the reconciliation. + +Knox had delivered his daily sermon, and was engaged with his vast +correspondence, when Arran was announced, with an advocate and the town +clerk. Arran began a conference with tears, said that he was betrayed, +and told his tale. Bothwell had informed him that he would seize the +Queen, put her in Dumbarton, kill her misguiders, the "Earl of Moray" +(Mar, Lord James), Lethington, and others, "and so shall he and I rule +all." + +But Arran believed Bothwell really intended to accuse him of treason, or +knowledge of treason, so he meant to write to Mary and Mar. Knox asked +whether he had assented to the plot, and advised him to be silent. +Probably he saw that Arran was distraught, and did not credit his story. +But Arran said that Bothwell (as he had once done before, in 1559) would +challenge him to a judicial combat--such challenges were still common, +but never led to a fight. He then walked off with his legal advisers, +and wrote to Mary at Falkland. {214a} If Arran went mad, he went mad +"with advice of counsel." There had come the chance of "a new day," +which the extremists desired, but its dawn was inauspicious. + +Arran rode to his father's house of Kinneil, where, either because he was +insane, or because there really was a Bothwell-Hamilton plot, he was +locked up in a room high above the ground. He let himself down from the +window, reached Halyards (a place of Kirkcaldy of Grange), and was thence +taken by Mar (whom Knox appears to have warned) to the Queen at Falkland. +Bothwell and Gawain Hamilton were also put in ward there. Randolph gives +(March 31) a similar account, but believed that there really was a plot, +which Arran denied even before he arrived at Falkland. Bothwell came to +purge himself, but "was found guilty on his own confession on some +points." {214b} + +The Queen now went to St. Andrews, where the suspects were placed in the +Castle. Arran wavered, accusing Mar's mother of witchcraft. Mary was +"not a little offended with Bothwell to whom she has been so good." +Randolph (April 7) continued to think that Arran should be decapitated. +He and Bothwell were kept in ward, and his father, the Duke, was advised +to give up Dumbarton to the Crown, which he did. {215a} This was about +April 23. Knox makes a grievance of the surrender; the Castle, he says, +was by treaty to be in the Duke's hands till the Queen had lawful issue. +{215b} Chatelherault himself, as we said, told Randolph that he had no +right in the place, beyond a verbal and undated promise of the late +Regent. + +Knox now again illustrates his own historical methods. Mary, riding +between Falkland and Lochleven, fell, was hurt, and when Randolph wrote +from Edinburgh on May 11, was not expected there for two or three days. +But Knox reports that, on her return from Fife to Edinburgh, she danced +excessively till after midnight, because she had received letters "that +persecution was begun again in France," by the Guises. {215c} Now as, +according to Knox elsewhere, "Satan stirreth his terrible tail," so did +one of Mary's uncles, the Duc de Guise, "stir his tail" against one of +the towns appointed to pay Mary's jointure, namely Vassy, in Champagne. +Here, on March 1, 1562, a massacre of Huguenots, by the Guise's +retainers, began the war of religion afresh. {215d} + +Now, in the first place, this could not be joyful news to set Mary +dancing; as it was apt to prevent what she had most at heart, her +personal interview with Elizabeth. She understood this perfectly well, +and, in conversation with Randolph, after her return to Edinburgh, +lamented the deeds of her uncles, as calculated "to bring them in hate +and disdain of many princes," and also to chill Elizabeth's amity for +herself--on which her whole policy now depended (May 29). {216a} She +wept when Randolph said that, in the state of France, Elizabeth was not +likely to move far from London for their interview. In this mood how +could Mary give a dance to celebrate an event which threatened ruin to +her hopes? + +Moreover, if Knox, when he speaks of "persecution begun again," refers to +the slaughter of Huguenots by Guise's retinue, at Vassy, that untoward +event occurred on March 1, and Mary cannot have been celebrating it by a +ball at Holyrood as late as May 14, at earliest. {216b} Knox, however, +preached against her dancing, if she danced "for pleasure at the +displeasure of God's people"; so he states the case. Her reward, in that +case, would he "drink in hell." In his "History" he declares that Mary +did dance for the evil reason attributed to her, a reason which must have +been mere matter of inference on his part, and that inference wrong, +judging by dates, if the reference is to the affair of Vassy. In April +both French parties were committing brutalities, but these were all +contrary to Mary's policy and hopes. + +If Knox heard a rumour against any one, his business, according to the +"Book of Discipline," was not to go and preach against that person, even +by way of insinuation. {216c} Mary's offence, if any existed, was not +"public," and was based on mere suspicion, or on tattle. Dr. M'Crie, +indeed, says that on hearing of the affair of Vassy, the Queen +"immediately after gave a splendid ball to her foreign servants." Ten +weeks after the Vassy affair is not "immediately"; and Knox mentions +neither foreign servants nor Vassy. {216d} + +The Queen sent for Knox, and made "a long harangue," of which he does not +report one word. He gives his own oration. Mary then said that she +could not expect him to like her uncles, as they differed in religion. +But if he heard anything of herself that he disapproved of, "come to +myself and tell me, and I shall hear you." He answered that he was not +bound to come "to every man in particular," but she _could_ come to his +sermons! If she would name a day and hour, he would give her a doctrinal +lecture. At this very moment he "was absent from his book"; his studies +were interrupted. + +"You will not always be at your book," she said, and turned her back. To +some papists in the antechamber he remarked, "Why should the pleasing +face of a gentlewoman affray me? I have looked in the faces of many +angry men, and yet have not been afraid above measure." + +He was later to flee before that pleasing face. + +Mary can hardly be said to have had the worse, as far as manners and +logic went, of this encounter, at which Morton, Mar, and Lethington were +present, and seem to have been silent. {217a} + +Meanwhile, Randolph dates this affair, the dancing, the sermon, the +interview, not in May, but about December 13-15, 1562, {217b} and +connects the dancing with no event in France, {217c} nor can I find any +such event in late November which might make Mary glad at heart. Knox, +Randolph writes, mistrusts all that the Queen does or says, "as if he +were of God's Privy Council, that knew how he had determined of her in +the beginning, or that he knew the secrets of her heart so well that she +neither did nor could have one good thought of God or of his true +religion." His doings could not increase her respect for his religion. + +The affair of Arran had been a sensible sorrow to Knox. "God hath +further humbled me since that day which men call Good Friday," he wrote +to Mrs. Locke (May 6), "than ever I have been in my life. . . ." He had +rejoiced in his task of peace-making, in which the Privy Council had +practically failed, and had shown great naivete in trusting Bothwell. The +best he could say to Mrs. Locke was that he felt no certainty about the +fact that Bothwell had tempted Arran to conspire. {218} + +The probability is that the reckless and impoverished Bothwell did intend +to bring in the desirable "new day," and to make the Hamiltons his tools. +Meanwhile he was kept out of mischief and behind stone walls for a +season. Knox had another source of annoyance which was put down with a +high hand. + +The dominie of the school at Linlithgow, Ninian Winzet by name, had lost +his place for being an idolater. In February he had brought to the +notice of our Reformer and of the Queen the question, "Is John Knox a +lawful minister?" If he was called by God, where were his miracles? If +by men, by what manner of men? On March 3, Winzet asked Knox for "your +answer in writing." He kept launching letters at Knox in March; on March +24 he addressed the general public; and, on March 31, issued an appeal to +the magistrates, who appear to have been molesting people who kept +Easter. The practice was forbidden in a proclamation by the Queen on May +31. {219a} "The pain is death," writes Randolph. {219b} If Mary was +ready to die for her faith, as she informed a nuncio who now secretly +visited her, she seems to have been equally resolved that her subjects +should not live in it. + +Receiving no satisfactory _written_ answer from Knox, Winzet began to +print his tract, and then he got his reply from "soldiers and the +magistrates," for the book was seized, and he himself narrowly escaped to +the Continent. {219c} Knox was not to be brought to a written reply, +save so far as he likened his calling to that of Amos and John the +Baptist. In September he referred to his "Answer to Winzet's Questions" +as forthcoming, but it never appeared. {219d} Winzet was Mary's chaplain +in her Sheffield prison in 1570-72; she had him made Abbot of Ratisbon, +and he is said, by Lethington's son, to have helped Lesley in writing his +"History." + +On June 29 the General Assembly, through Knox probably, drew up the +address to the Queen, threatening her and the country with the wrath of +God on her Mass, which, she is assured, is peculiarly distasteful to the +Deity. The brethren are deeply disappointed that she does not attend +their sermons, and ventures to prefer "your ain preconceived vain +opinion." They insist that adulterers must be punished with death, and +they return to their demands for the poor and the preachers. A new +rising is threatened if wicked men trouble the ministers and disobey the +Superintendents. + +Lethington and Knox had one of their usual disputes over this manifesto; +the Secretary drew up another. "Here be many fair words," said the Queen +on reading it; "I cannot tell what the hearts are." {220a} She later +found out the nature of Lethington's heart, a pretty black one. The +excesses of the Guises in France were now the excuse or cause of the +postponement of Elizabeth's meeting with Mary. The Queen therefore now +undertook a northern progress, which had been arranged for in January, +about the time when Lord James was made Earl of Moray. {220b} + +He could not "brook" the Earldom of Moray before the Earl of Huntly was +put down, Huntly being a kind of petty king in the east and north. There +is every reason to suppose that Mary understood and utterly distrusted +Huntly, who, though the chief Catholic in the country, had been a traitor +whenever occasion served for many a year. One of his sons, John, in +July, wounded an Ogilvy in Edinburgh in a quarrel over property. This +affair was so managed as to drive Huntly into open rebellion, neither +Mary nor her brother being sorry to take the opportunity. + +The business of the ruin of Huntly has seemed more of a mystery to +historians than it was, though an attack by a Catholic princess on her +most powerful Catholic subject does need explanation. But Randolph was +with Mary during the whole expedition, and his despatches are better +evidence than the fables of Buchanan and the surmises of Knox and Mr. +Froude. Huntly had been out of favour ever since Lord James obtained the +coveted Earldom of Moray in January, and he was thought to be opposed to +Mary's visit to Elizabeth. Since January, the Queen had been bent on a +northern progress. Probably the Archbishop of St. Andrews, as reported +by Knox, rightly guessed the motives. At table he said, "The Queen has +gone into the north, belike to seek disobedience; she may perhaps find +the thing that she seeks." {221a} She wanted a quarrel with Huntly, and +a quarrel she found. Her northward expedition, says Randolph, "is rather +devised by herself than greatly approved by her Council." She would not +visit Huntly at Strathbogie, contrary to the advice of her Council; his +son, who wounded Ogilvy, had broken prison, and refused to enter himself +at Stirling Castle. Huntly then supported his sons in rebellion, while +Bothwell broke prison and fortified himself in Hermitage Castle. Lord +James's Earldom of Moray was now publicly announced (September 18), and +Huntly was accused of a desire to murder him and Lethington, while his +son John was to seize the Queen. {221b} Mary was "utterly determined to +bring him to utter confusion." Huntly was put to the horn on October 18; +his sons took up arms. Huntly, old and corpulent, died during a defeat +at Corrichie without stroke of sword; his mischievous son John was taken +and executed, Mary being pleased with her success, and declaring that +Huntly thought "to have married her where he would," {221c} and to have +slain her brother. John Gordon confessed to the murder plot. {221d} His +eldest brother, Lord Gordon, who had tried to enlist Bothwell and the +Hamiltons, lay long in prison (his sister married Bothwell just before +Riccio's murder). The Queen had punished the disobedience which she +"went to seek," and Moray was safe in his rich earldom, while a heavy +blow was dealt at the Catholicism which Huntly had protected. {222a} +Cardinal Guise reports her success to de Rennes, in Austria, with +triumph, and refers to an autograph letter of hers, of which Lethington's +draft has lately perished by fire, unread by historians. As the Cardinal +reports that she says she is trying to win her subjects back to the +Church, "in which she wishes to live and die" (January 30, 1562-63), +Lethington cannot be the author of that part of her lost letter. {222b} + +Knox meanwhile, much puzzled by the news from the north, was in the +western counties. He induced the lairds of Ayrshire to sign a Protestant +band, and he had a controversy with the Abbot of Crosraguel. In +misapplication of texts the abbot was even more eccentric than Knox, +though he only followed St. Jerome. In his "History" Knox "cannot +certainly say whether there was any secret paction and confederacy +between the Queen herself and Huntly." {222c} Knox decides that though +Mary executed John Gordon and other rebels, yet "it was the destruction +of others that she sought," namely, of her brother, whom she hated "for +his godliness and upright plainness." {222d} His upright simplicity had +won him an earldom and the destruction of his rival! He and Lethington +may have exaggerated Huntly's iniquities in council with Mary, but the +rumours reported against her by Knox could only be inspired by the +credulity of extreme ill-will. He flattered himself that he kept the +Hamiltons quiet, and, at a supper with Randolph in November, made +Chatelherault promise to be a good subject in civil matters, and a good +Protestant in religion. + +Knox says that preaching was done with even unusual vehemence in winter, +when his sermon against the Queen's dancing for joy over some unknown +Protestant misfortune was actually delivered, and the good seed fell on +ground not wholly barren. The Queen's French and Scots musicians would +not play or sing at the Queen's Christmas-day Mass, whether pricked in +heart by conscience, or afraid for their lives. "Her poor soul is so +troubled for the preservation of her silly Mass that she knoweth not +where to turn for defence of it," says Randolph. {223a} These +persecutions may have gone far to embitter the character of the victim. + +Mr. Froude is certainly not an advocate of Mary Stuart, rather he is +conspicuously the reverse. But he remarks that when she determined to +marry Darnley, "divide Scotland," and trust to her Catholic party, she +did so because she was "weary of the mask which she had so long worn, and +unable to endure any longer these wild insults to her creed and herself." +{223b} She had, in fact, given the policy of submission to "wild +insults" rather more than a fair chance; she had, for a spirited girl, +been almost incredibly long-suffering, when "barbarously baited," as +Charles I. described his own treatment by the preachers and the +Covenanters. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI: KNOX AND QUEEN MARY (continued): 1563-1564 + + +The new year, 1563, found Knox purging the Kirk from that fallen brother, +Paul Methuen. This preacher had borne the burden and heat of the day in +1557-58, erecting, as we have seen, the first "reformed" Kirk, that of +the Holy Virgin, in Dundee, and suffering some inconvenience, if no great +danger, from the clergy of the religion whose sacred things he overthrew. +He does not appear to have been one of the more furious of the new +apostles. Contrasted with John Brabner, "a vehement man inculcating the +law and pain thereof," Paul is described as "a milder man, preaching the +evangel of grace and remission of sins in the blood of Christ." {224a} + +Paul was at this time minister of Jedburgh. He had "an ancient matron" +to wife, recommended, perhaps, by her property, and she left him for two +months with a servant maid. Paul fell, but behaved not ill to the mother +of his child, sending her "money and clothes at various times." Knox +tried the case at Jedburgh; Paul was excommunicated, and fled the realm, +sinking so low, it seems, as to take orders in the Church of England. +Later he returned--probably he was now penniless--"and prostrated himself +before the whole brethren with weeping and howling." He was put to such +shameful and continued acts of public penance up and down the country +that any spirit which he had left awoke in him, and the Kirk knew him no +more. Thus "the world might see what difference there is between +darkness and light." {225a} + +Knox presently had to record a scandal in a higher place, the capture and +execution of the French minor poet, Chastelard, who, armed with sword and +dagger, hid under the Queen's bed in Holyrood; and invaded her room with +great insolence at Burntisland as she was on her way to St. Andrews. +There he was tried, condemned, and executed in the market-place. It +seems fairly certain that Chastelard, who had joined the Queen with +despatches during the expedition against Huntly, was a Huguenot. The +Catholic version, and Lethington's version, of his adventure was that +some intriguing Huguenot lady had set him on to sully Queen Mary's +character; other tales ran that he was to assassinate her, as part of a +great Protestant conspiracy. {225b} + +Randolph, who knew as much as any one, thought the Queen far too familiar +with the poet, but did not deem that her virtue was in fault. {225c} Knox +dilates on Mary's familiarities, kisses given in a vulgar dance, dear to +the French society of the period, and concludes that the fatuous poet +"lacked his head, that his tongue should not utter the secrets of our +Queen." {225d} + +There had been a bad harvest, and a dearth, because the Queen's luxury +"provoked God" (who is represented as very irritable) "to strike the +staff of bread," and to "give His malediction upon the fruits of the +earth. But oh, alas, who looked, or yet looks, to the very cause of all +our calamities!" {226a} + +Some savage peoples are said to sacrifice their kings when the weather is +unpropitious. Knox's theology was of the same kind. The preachers, says +Randolph (February 28), "pray daily . . . that God will either turn the +Queen's heart or grant her short life. Of what charity or spirit this +proceeds, I leave to be discussed by great divines." {226b} The prayers +sound like encouragement to Jehus. + +At this date Ruthven was placed, "by Lethington's means only," on the +Privy Council. Moray especially hated Ruthven "for his sorcery"; the +superstitious Moray affected the Queen with this ill opinion of one of +the elect--in the affair of Riccio's murder so useful to the cause of +Knox. "There is not an unworthier in Scotland" than Ruthven, writes +Randolph. {226c} Meanwhile Lethington was in England to negotiate for +peace in France; if he could, to keep an eye on Mary's chances for the +succession, and (says Knox) to obtain leave for Lennox, the chief of the +Stuarts and the deadly foe of the Hamiltons, to visit Scotland, whence, +in the time of Henry VIII., he had been driven as a traitor. But +Lethington was at that time confuting Lennox's argument that the Hamilton +chief, Chatelherault, was illegitimate. Knox is not positive, he only +reports rumours. {226d} Lethington's serious business was to negotiate a +marriage for the Queen. + +Despite the recent threats of death against priests who celebrated Mass, +the Archbishop Hamilton and Knox's opponent, the Abbot of Crossraguel, +with many others, did so at Easter. The Ayrshire brethren "determined to +put to their own hands," captured some priests, and threatened others +with "the punishment that God has appointed to idolaters by His law." +{227a} The Queen commanded Knox to meet her at Lochleven in +mid-April--Lochleven, where she was later to be a prisoner. In that +state lay the priests of her religion, who had been ministering to the +people, "some in secret houses, some in barns, some in woods and hills," +writes Randolph, "all are in prison." {227b} + +Mary, for two hours before supper, implored Knox to mediate with the +western fanatics. He replied, that if princes would not use the sword +against idolaters, there was the leading case of Samuel's slaughter of +Agag; and he adduced another biblical instance, of a nature not usually +cited before young ladies. He was on safer ground in quoting the Scots +law as it stood. Judges within their bounds were to seek out and punish +"mass-mongers"--that was his courteous term. + +The Queen, rather hurt, went off to supper, but next morning did her best +to make friends with Knox over other matters. She complained of Ruthven, +who had given her a ring for some magical purpose, later explained by +Ruthven, who seems to have despised the superstition of his age. The +Queen, says Ruthven, was afraid of poison; he gave her the ring, saying +that it acted as an antidote. Moray was at Lochleven with the Queen, and +Moray believed, or pretended to believe, in Ruthven's "sossery," as +Randolph spells "sorcery." She, rather putting herself at our Reformer's +mercy, complained that Lethington alone placed Ruthven in the Privy +Council. + +"That man is absent," said Knox, "and therefore I will speak nothing on +that behalf." Mary then warned him against "the man who was at time most +familiar with the said John, in his house and at table," the despicable +Bishop of Galloway, and Knox later found out that the warning was wise. +Lastly, she asked him to reconcile the Earl and Countess of Argyll--"do +this much for my sake"; and she promised to summon the offending priests +who had done their duty. {228a} + +Knox, with his usual tact, wrote to Argyll thus: "Your behaviour toward +your wife is very offensive unto many godly." He added that, if all that +was said of Argyll was true, and if he did not look out, he would be +damned. + +"This bill was not well accepted of the said Earl," but, like the rest of +them, he went on truckling to Knox, "most familiar with the said John." +{228b} + +Nearly fifty priests were tried, but no one was hanged. They were put in +ward; "the like of this was never heard within the realm," said pleased +Protestants, not "smelling the craft." Neither the Queen nor her Council +had the slightest desire to put priests to death. Six other priests "as +wicked as" the Archbishop were imprisoned, and the Abbot of Crossraguel +was put to the horn in his absence, just as the preachers had been. The +Catholic clergy "know not where to hide their heads," says Randolph. Many +fled to the more tender mercies of England; "it will be the common refuge +of papists that cannot live here . . ." {228c} The tassels on the trains +of the ladies, it was declared by the preachers, "would provoke God's +vengeance . . . against the whole realm . . " {229a} + +The state of things led to a breach between Knox and Moray, which lasted +till the Earl found him likely to be useful, some eighteen months later. + +The Reformer relieved his mind in the pulpit at the end of May or early +in June, rebuking backsliders, and denouncing the Queen's rumoured +marriage with any infidel, "and all Papists are infidels." Papists and +Protestants were both offended. There was a scene with Mary, in which +she wept profusely, an infirmity of hers; we constantly hear of her +weeping in public. She wished the Lords of the Articles to see whether +Knox's "manner of speaking" was not punishable, but nothing could be +done. Elizabeth would have found out a way. {229b} + +The fact that while Knox was conducting himself thus, nobody ventured to +put a dirk or a bullet into him--despite the obvious strength of the +temptation in many quarters--proves that he was by far the most potent +human being in Scotland. Darnley, Moray, Lennox were all assassinated, +when their day came, though the feeblest of the three, Darnley, had a +powerful clan to take up his feud. We cannot suppose that any moral +considerations prevented the many people whom Knox had offended from +doing unto him as the Elect did to Riccio. Manifestly, nobody had the +courage. No clan was so strong as the warlike brethren who would have +avenged the Reformer, and who probably would have been backed by +Elizabeth. + +Again, though he was estranged from Moray, that leader was also, in some +degree, estranged from Lethington, who did not allow him to know the +details of his intrigues, in France and England, for the Queen's +marriage. The marriage question was certain to reunite Moray and Knox. +When Knox told Mary that, as "a subject of this realm," he had a right to +oppose her marriage with any infidel, he spoke the modern constitutional +truth. For Mary to wed a Royal Catholic would certainly have meant peril +for Protestantism, war with England, and a tragic end. But what +Protestant could she marry? If a Scot, he would not long have escaped +the daggers of the Hamiltons; indeed, all the nobles would have borne the +fiercest jealousy against such an one as, say, Glencairn, who, we learn, +could say anything to Mary without offence. She admired a strong brave +man, and Glencairn, though an opponent, was gallant and resolute. England +chose only to offer the infamous and treacherous Leicester, whose +character was ruined by the mysterious death of his wife (Amy Robsart), +and who had offered to sell England and himself to idolatrous Spain. +Mary's only faint chance of safety lay in perpetual widowhood, or in +marrying Knox, by far the most powerful of her subjects, and the best +able to protect her and himself. + +This idea does not seem to have been entertained by the subtle brain of +Lethington. Between February and May 1563, the Cardinal of Lorraine had +reopened an old negotiation for wedding the Queen to the Archduke, and +Mary had given an evasive reply; she must consult Parliament. In March, +with the Spanish Ambassador in London, Lethington had proposed for Don +Carlos. Philip II., as usual, wavered, consented (in August), +considered, and reconsidered. Lethington, in France, had told the Queen- +Mother that the Spanish plan was only intended to wring concessions from +Elizabeth; and, on his return to England, had persuaded the Spanish +Ambassador that Charles IX. was anxious to succeed to his brother's +widow. This moved Philip to be favourable to the Don Carlos marriage, +but he waited; there was no sign from France, and Philip withdrew, +wavering so much that both the Austrian and Spanish matches became +impossible. On October 6, Knox, who suspected more than he knew, told +Cecil that out of twelve Privy Councillors, nine would consent to a +Catholic marriage. The only hope was in Moray, and Knox "daily thirsted" +for death. {231a} He appealed to Leicester (about whose relations with +Elizabeth he was, of course, informed) as to a man who "may greatly +advance the purity of religion." {231b} + +These letters to Cecil and Leicester are deeply pious in tone, and reveal +a cruel anxiety. On June 20, three weeks after Knox's famous sermon, +Lethington told de Quadra, the Spanish Ambassador, that Elizabeth +threatened to be Mary's enemy if she married Don Carlos or any of the +house of Austria. {231c} On August 26, 1563, Randolph received +instructions from Elizabeth, in which the tone of menace was unconcealed. +Elizabeth would offer an English noble: "we and our country cannot think +any mighty prince a meet husband for her." {231d} + +Knox was now engaged in a contest wherein he was triumphant; an affair +which, in later years, was to have sequels of high importance. During +the summer vacation of 1563, while Mary was moving about the country, +Catholics in Edinburgh habitually attended at Mass in her chapel. This +was contrary to the arrangement which permitted no Mass in the whole +realm, except that of the Queen, when her priests were not terrorised. +The godly brawled in the Chapel Royal, and two of them were arrested, two +very dear brethren, named Cranstoun and Armstrong; they were to be tried +on October 24. Knox had a kind of Dictator's commission from the +Congregation, "to see that the Kirk took no harm," and to the +Congregation he appealed by letter. The accused brethren had only "noted +what persons repaired to the Mass," but they were charged with divers +crimes, especially invading her Majesty's palace. Knox therefore +convoked the Congregation to meet in Edinburgh on the day of trial, in +the good old way of overawing justice. {232a} Of course we do not know +to what lengths the dear brethren went in their pious indignation. The +legal record mentions that they were armed with pistols, in the town and +Court suburb; and it was no very unusual thing, later, for people to +practise pistol shooting at each other even in their own Kirk of St. +Giles's. {232b} + +Still, pistols, if worn in the palace chapel have not a pacific air. The +brethren are also charged with assaulting some of the Queen's domestic +servants. {232c} + +Archbishop Spottiswoode, son of one of the Knoxian Superintendents, says +that the brethren "forced the gates, and that some of the worshippers +were taken and carried to prison. . . . " {232d} Knox admits in his +"History" that "some of the brethren _burst in_" to the chapel. In his +letter to stir up the godly, he says that the brethren "passed" (in), +"and that _in most quiet manner_." + +On receiving Knox's summons the Congregation prepared its levies in every +town and province. {233a} The Privy Council received a copy of Knox's +circular, and concluded that it "imported treason." + +To ourselves it does seem that for a preacher to call levies out of every +town and province, to meet in the capital on a day when a trial was to be +held, is a thing that no Government can tolerate. The administration of +justice is impossible in the circumstances. But it was the usual course +in Scotland, and any member of the Privy Council might, at any time, find +it desirable to call a similar convocation of his allies. Mary herself, +fretted by the perfidies of Elizabeth, had just been consoled by that +symbolic jewel, a diamond shaped like a rock, and by promises in which +she fondly trusted when she at last sought an asylum in England, and +found a prison. For two months she had often been in deep melancholy, +weeping for no known cause, and she was afflicted by the "pain in her +side" which ever haunted her (December 13-21). {233b} + +Accused by the Master of Maxwell of unbecoming conduct, Knox said that +such things had been done before, and he had the warrant "of God, +speaking plainly in his Word." The Master (later Lord Herries), not +taking this view of the case, was never friendly with Knox again; the +Reformer added this comment as late as December 1571. {233c} + +Lethington and Moray, like Maxwell, remonstrated vainly with our +Reformer. Randolph (December 21) reports that the Lords assembled "to +take order with Knox and his faction, who intended by a mutinous assembly +made by his letter before, to have rescued two of their brethren from +course of law. . . . " {234a} Knox was accompanied to Holyrood by a +force of brethren who crowded "the inner close and all the stairs, even +to the chamber door where the Queen and Council sat." {234b} Probably +these "slashing communicants" had their effect on the minds of the +councillors. Not till after Riccio's murder was Mary permitted to have a +strong guard. + +According to Knox, Mary laughed a horse laugh when he entered, saying, +"Yon man gart me greit, and grat never tear himself. I will see gif I +can gar him greit." Her Scots, textually reported, was certainly +idiomatic. + +Knox acknowledged his letter to the Congregation, and Lethington +suggested that he might apologise. Ruthven said that Knox made +convocation of people daily to hear him preach; what harm was there in +his letter merely calling people to convocation. This was characteristic +pettifogging. Knox said that he convened the people to meet on the day +of trial according to the order "that the brethren has appointed . . . at +the commandment of the general Kirk of the Realm." + +Mary seems, strangely enough, to have thought that this was a valid +reply. Perhaps it was, and the Kirk's action in that sense, directed +against the State, finally enabled Cromwell to conquer the Kirk-ridden +country. Mary appears to have admitted the Kirk's imperium in imperio, +for she diverted the discussion from the momentous point really at +issue--the right of the Kirk to call up an armed multitude to thwart +justice. She now fell on Knox's employment of the word "cruelty." He +instantly started on a harangue about "pestilent Papists," when the Queen +once more introduced a personal question; he had caused her to weep, and +he recounted all their interview after he attacked her marriage from the +pulpit. + +He was allowed to go home--it might not have been safe to arrest him, and +the Lords, unanimously, voted that he had done no offence. They repeated +their votes in the Queen's presence, and thus a precedent for "mutinous +convocation" by Kirkmen was established, till James VI. took order in +1596. We have no full narrative of this affair except that of Knox. It +is to be guessed that the nobles wished to maintain the old habit of +mutinous convocation which, probably, saved the life of Lethington, and +helped to secure Bothwell's acquittal from the guilt of Darnley's murder. +Perhaps, too, the brethren who filled the whole inner Court and +overflowed up the stairs of the palace, may have had their influence. + +This was a notable triumph of our Reformer, and of the Kirk; to which, on +his showing, the Queen contributed, by feebly wandering from the real +point at issue. She was no dialectician. Knox's conduct was, of course, +approved of and sanctioned by the General Assembly. {235} He had, in his +circular, averred that Cranstoun and Armstrong were summoned "that a door +may be opened to execute cruelty upon a greater multitude." To put it +mildly, the General Assembly sanctioned contempt of Court. Unluckily for +Scotland contempt of Court was, and long remained, universal, the country +being desperately lawless, and reeking with blood shed in public and +private quarrels. When a Prophet followed the secular example of +summoning crowds to overawe justice, the secular sinners had warrant for +thwarting the course of law. + +As to the brethren and the idolaters who caused these troubles, we know +not what befell them. The penalty, both for the attendants at Mass and +for the disturbers thereof, should have been death! The dear brethren, +if they attacked the Queen's servants, came under the Proclamation of +October 1561; so did the Catholics, for _they_ "openly made alteration +and innovation of the state of religion. . . . " They ought "to be +punished to the death with all rigour." Three were outlawed, and their +sureties "unlawed." Twenty-one others were probably not hanged; the +records are lost. For the same reason we know not what became of the +brethren Armstrong, Cranstoun, and George Rynd, summoned with the other +malefactors for November 13. {236} + + + + +CHAPTER XVII: KNOX AND QUEEN MARY (continued), 1564-1567 + + +During the session of the General Assembly in December 1563, Knox was +compelled to chronicle domestic enormities. The Lord Treasurer, +Richardson, having, like Captain Booth, "offended the law of Dian," had +to do penance before the whole congregation, and the sermon +(unfortunately it is lost, probably it never was written out) was +preached by Knox. A French apothecary of the Queen's, and his mistress, +were hanged on a charge of murdering their child. {237a} On January 9, +1564-65, Randolph noted that one of the Queen's Maries, Mary Livingstone, +is to marry John Sempill, son of Robert, third Lord Sempill, by an +English wife. Knox assures us that "it is well known that shame hastened +marriage between John Sempill, called 'the Dancer,' and Mary Livingstone, +surnamed 'the Lusty.'" The young people appear, however, to have been in +no pressing hurry, as Randolph, on January 9, did not expect their +marriage till the very end of February; they wished the Earl of Bedford, +who was coming on a diplomatic mission, to be present. {237b} Mary, on +March 9, 1565, made them a grant of lands, since "it has pleased God to +move their hearts to join together in the state of matrimony." {237c} She +had ever since January been making the bride presents of feminine finery. + +These proceedings indicating no precipitate haste, we may think that Mary +Livingstone, like Mary of Guise, is only a victim of the Reformer's taste +for "society journalism." Randolph, though an egregious gossip, says of +the Four Maries, "they are all good," but Knox writes that "the ballads +of that age" did witness to the "bruit" or reputation of these maidens. +As is well known the old ballad of "Mary Hamilton," which exists in more +than a dozen very diverse variants, in some specimens confuses one of the +Maries, an imaginary "Mary Hamilton," with the French maid who was hanged +at the end of 1563. The balladist is thus responsible for a scandal +against the fair sisterhood; there was no "Mary Hamilton," and no "Mary +Carmichael," in their number--Beaton, Seton, Fleming, and Livingstone. + +An offended Deity now sent frost in January 1564, and an aurora borealis +in February, Knox tells us, and "the threatenings of the preachers were +fearful," in face of these unusual meteorological phenomena. {238} + +Vice rose to such a pitch that men doubted if the Mass really was +idolatry! Knox said, from the pulpit, that if the sceptics were right, +_he_ was "miserably deceived." "Believe me, brethren, in the bowels of +Christ, it is possible that you may be mistaken," Cromwell was to tell +the Commissioners of the General Assembly, on a day that still was in the +womb of the future; the dawn of common sense rose in the south. + +On March 20, much to the indignation of the Queen, the banns were read +twice between Knox and a lady of the Royal blood and name, Margaret +Stewart, daughter of Lord Ochiltree, a girl not above sixteen, in January +1563, when Randolph first speaks of the wooing. {239} The good Dr. +M'Crie does not mention the age of the bride! The lady was a very near +kinswoman of Chatelherault. She had plenty of time for reflection, and +as nobody says that she was coerced into the marriage, while Nicol Burne +attributes her passion to sorcery, we may suppose that she was in love +with our Reformer. She bore him several daughters, and it is to be +presumed that the marriage, though in every way _bizarre_, was happy. +Burne says that Knox wished to marry a Lady Fleming, akin to +Chatelherault, but was declined; if so, he soon consoled himself. + +At this time Riccio--a valet de chambre of the Queen in 1561-62--"began +to grow great in Court," becoming French Secretary at the end of the +year. By June 3, 1565, Randolph is found styling Riccio "only governor" +to Darnley. His career might have rivalled that of the equally low-born +Cardinal Alberoni, but for the daggers of Moray's party. + +In the General Assembly of June 1564, Moray, Morton, Glencairn, Pitarro, +Lethington, and other Lords of the Congregation held aloof from the +brethren, but met the Superintendents and others to discuss the recent +conduct of our Reformer, who was present. He was invited, by Lethington, +to "moderate himself" in his references to the Queen, as others might +imitate him, "albeit not with the same modesty and foresight," for +Lethington could not help bantering Knox. Knox, of course, rushed to his +doctrine of "idolatry" as provocative of the wrath of God--we have heard +of the bad harvest, and the frost in January. It is not worth while to +pursue in detail the discourses, in which Knox said that the Queen +rebelled against God "in all the actions of her life." Ahab and Jezebel +were again brought on the scene. It profited not Lethington to say that +all these old biblical "vengeances" were "singular motions of the Spirit +of God, and appertain nothing to our age." If Knox could have understood +_that_, he would not have been Knox. The point was intelligible; +Lethington perceived it, but Knox never chose to do so. He went on with +his isolated texts, Lethington vainly replying "the cases are nothing +alike." Knox came to his old stand, "the idolater must die the death," +and the executioners must be "the people of God." Lethington quoted many +opinions against Knox's, to no purpose, opinions of Luther, Melanchthon, +Bucer, Musculus, and Calvin, but our Reformer brought out the case of +"Amasiath, King of Judah," and "The Apology of Magdeburg." As to the +opinion of Calvin and the rest he drew a distinction. They had only +spoken of the godly who were suffering under oppression, not of the godly +triumphant in a commonwealth. He forgot, or did not choose to remember, +a previous decision of his own, as we shall see. + +When the rest of the party were discussing the question, Makgill, Clerk +Register, reminded them of their previous debate in November 1561, when +{240} Knox, after secretly writing to Calvin, had proposed to write to +him for his opinion about the Queen's Mass, and Lethington had promised +to do so himself. But Lethington now said that, on later reflection, as +Secretary of the Queen, he had scrupled, without her consent, to ask a +foreigner whether her subjects might prevent her from enjoying the rites +of her own religion--for that was what the "controversies" between her +Highness and her subjects really and confessedly meant. {241a} + +Knox was now requested to consult Calvin, "and the learned in other +Kirks, to know their judgment in that question." The question, judging +from Makgill's interpellation, was "whether subjects might lawfully take +her Mass from the Queen." {241b} As we know, Knox had already put the +question to Calvin by a letter of October 24, 1561, and so had the +anonymous writer of November 18, 1561, whom I identify with Arran. Knox +now refused to write to "Mr. Calvin, and the learned of other Kirks," +saying (I must quote him textually, or be accused of misrepresentation), +"I myself am not only fully resolved in conscience, but also I have heard +the judgments in this, and all other things that I have affirmed in this +Realm, of the most godly and most learned that be known in Europe. I +come not to this Realm without their resolution; and for my assurance I +have the handwritings of many; and therefore if I should move the same +question again, what else should I do but either show my own ignorance +and forgetfulness, or else inconstancy?" {241c} He therefore said that +his opponents might themselves "write and complain upon him," and so +learn "the plain minds" of the learned--but nobody took the trouble. +Knox's defence was worded with the skill of a notary. He said that he +had "heard the judgments" of "the learned and godly"; he did not say what +these judgments were. Calvin, Morel, Bullinger, and such men, we know, +entirely differed from his extreme ideas. He "came not without their +resolution," or approval, to Scotland, but that was not the question at +issue. + +If Knox had received from Calvin favourable replies to his own letter, +and Arran's, of October 24, November 18, 1561, can any one doubt that he +would now have produced them, unless he did not wish the brethren to find +out that he himself had written without their knowledge? We know what +manner of answers he received, in 1554, orally from Calvin, in writing +from Bullinger, to his questions about resistance to the civil power. +{242a} I am sceptical enough to suppose that, if Knox had now possessed +letters from Calvin, justifying the propositions which he was +maintaining, such as that "the people, yea, _or ane pairt of the people_, +may execute God's jugementis against their King, being ane offender," +{242b} he would have exhibited them. I do not believe that he had any +such letters from such men as Bullinger and Calvin. Indeed, we may ask +whether the question of the Queen's Mass had arisen in any realm of +Europe except Scotland. Where was there a Catholic prince ruling over a +Calvinistic state? If nowhere, then the question would not be raised, +except by Knox in his letter to Calvin of October 24, 1561. And where +was Calvin's answer, and to what effect? + +Knox may have forgotten, and Lethington did not know, that, about 1558- +59, in a tract, already noticed (pp. 101-103 supra), of 450 pages against +the Anabaptists, Knox had expressed the reverse of his present opinion +about religious Regicide. He is addressing the persecuting Catholic +princes of Europe: " . . . Ye shall perish, both temporally and for ever. +And by whom doth it most appear that temporally ye shall be punished? By +_us_, whom ye banish, whom ye spoil and rob, whom cruelly ye persecute, +and whose blood ye daily shed? {243a} There is no doubt, but as the +victory which overcometh the world is our faith, so it behoveth us to +possess our souls in our patience. We neither privily nor openly deny +the power of the Civil Magistrate. . . . " + +The chosen saints and people of God, even when under oppression, lift not +the hand, but possess their souls in patience, says Knox, in 1558-59. But +the idolatrous shall be temporally punished--by other hands. "And what +instruments can God find in this life more apt to punish you than those" +(the Anabaptists), "that hate and detest all lawful powers? . . . God +will not use his saints and chosen people to punish you. _For with them +there is always mercy_, yea, even although God have pronounced a curse +and malediction, as in the history of Joshua is plain." {243b} + +In this passage Knox is speaking for the English exiles in Geneva. He +asserts that we "neither publicly nor privately deny the power of the +Civil Magistrate," in face of his own published tracts of appeal to a +Jehu or a Phinehas, and of his own claim that the Prophet may preach +treason, and that his instruments may commit treason. To be sure all the +English in Geneva were not necessarily of Knox's mind. + +It is altogether a curious passage. God's people are more merciful than +God! Israel was bidden to exterminate all idolaters in the Promised +Land, but, as the Book of Joshua shows, they did not always do it: "for +with them is always mercy"; despite the massacres, such as that of Agag, +which Knox was wont to cite as examples to the backward brethren! Yet, +relying on another set of texts, not in Joshua, Knox now informed +Lethington that the executors of death on idolatrous princes were "the +people of God"--"the people, or a part of the people." {244a} + +Mercy! Happily the policy of carnal men never allowed Knox's "people of +God" to show whether, given a chance to destroy idolaters, they would +display the mercy on which he insists in his reply to the Anabaptist. + +It was always useless to argue with Knox; for whatever opinion happened +to suit him at the moment (and at different moments contradictory +opinions happened to suit him), he had ever a Bible text to back him. On +this occasion, if Lethington had been able to quote Knox's own statement, +that with the people of God "there is always mercy" (as in the case of +Cardinal Beaton), he could hardly have escaped by saying that there was +always mercy, _when the people of God had not the upper hand in the +State_, {244b} when unto them God has _not_ "given sufficient force." For +in the chosen people of God "there is _always_ mercy, yea even although +God have pronounced a curse and malediction." + +In writing against Anabaptists (1558-59), Knox wanted to make _them_, not +merciful Calvinists, the objects of the fear and revenge of Catholic +rulers. He even hazarded one of his unfulfilled prophecies: Anabaptists, +wicked men, will execute those divine judgments for which Protestants of +his species are too tender-hearted; though, somehow, they make exceptions +in the cases of Beaton and Riccio, and ought to do so in the case of Mary +Stuart! + +Lethington did not use this passage of our Reformer's works against him, +though it was published in 1560. Probably the secretary had not worked +his way through the long essay on Predestination. But we have, in the +book against the Anabaptists and in the controversy with Lethington, an +example of Knox's fatal intellectual faults. As an individual man, he +would not have hurt a fly. As a prophet, he deliberately tried to +restore, by a pestilent anachronism, in a Christian age and country, the +ferocities attributed to ancient Israel. This he did not even do +consistently, and when he is inconsistent with his prevailing mood, his +biographers applaud his "moderation"! If he saw a chance against an +Anabaptist, or if he wanted to conciliate Mary of Guise, he took up a +Christian line, backing it by texts appropriate to the occasion. + +His influence lasted, and the massacre of Dunavertie (1647), and the +slaying of women in cold blood, months after the battle of Philiphaugh, +and the "rouping" of covenanted "ravens" for the blood of cavaliers taken +under quarter, are the direct result of Knox's intellectual error, of his +appeals to Jehu, Phinehas, and so forth. + +At this point the Fourth Book of Knox's "History" ends with a remark on +the total estrangement between himself and Moray. The Reformer continued +to revise and interpolate his work, up to 1571, the year before his +death, and made collections of materials, and notes for the continuation. +An uncertain hand has put these together in Book V. But we now miss the +frequent references to "John Knox," and his doings, which must have been +vigorous during the troubles of 1565, after the arrival in Scotland of +Darnley (February 1565), and his courtship and marriage of the Queen. +These events brought together Moray, Chatelherault, and many of the Lords +in the armed party of the Congregation. They rebelled; they were driven +by Mary into England, by October 1565, and Bothwell came at her call from +France. The Queen had new advisers--Riccio, Balfour, Bothwell, the +eldest son of the late Huntly, and Lennox, till the wretched Darnley in a +few weeks proved his incapacity. Lethington, rather neglected, hung +about the Court, as he remained with Mary of Guise long after he had +intended to desert her. + +Mary, whose only chance lay in outstaying Elizabeth in the policy of +celibacy, had been driven, or led, by her rival Queen into a marriage +which would have been the best possible, had Darnley been a man of +character and a Protestant. He was the typical "young fool," indolent, +incapable, fierce, cowardly, and profligate. His religion was dubious. +After his arrival (on February 26, 1565) he went with Moray to hear Knox +preach, but he had been bred by a Catholic mother, and, on occasion, +posed as an ardent Catholic. {246} It is unfortunate that Randolph is +silent about Knox during all the period of the broils which preceded and +followed Mary's marriage. + +On August 19, 1565, Darnley, now Mary's husband, went to hear Knox preach +in St. Giles's, on the text, "O Lord our God, other lords than Thou have +ruled over us." "God," he said, "sets in that room (for the offences and +ingratitude of the people) boys and women." Ahab also appeared, as +usual. Ahab "had not taken order with that harlot, Jezebel." So Book V. +says, and "harlot" would be a hit at Mary's alleged misconduct with +Riccio. A hint in a letter of Randolph's of August 24, may point to +nascent scandal about the pair. But the printed sermon, from Knox's +written copy, reads, not "harlot" but "idolatrous wife." At all events, +Darnley was so moved by this sermon that he would not dine. {247a} Knox +was called "from his bed" to the Council chamber, where were Atholl, +Ruthven, Lethington, the Justice Clerk, and the Queen's Advocate. He was +attended by a great crowd of notable citizens, but Lethington forbade him +to preach for a fortnight or three weeks. He said that, "If the Church +would command him to preach or abstain he would obey, so far as the Word +of God would permit him." + +It seems that he would only obey even the Church as far as he chose. + +The Town Council protested against the deprivation, and we do not know +how long Knox desisted from preaching. Laing thinks that, till Mary +fell, he preached only "at occasional intervals." {247b} But we shall +see that he did presently go on preaching, with Lethington for a +listener. He published his sermon, without name of place or printer. The +preacher informs his audience that "in the Hebrew there is no conjunction +copulative" in a certain sentence; probably he knew more Hebrew than most +of our pastors. + +The sermon is very long, and, wanting the voice and gesture of the +preacher, is no great proof of eloquence; in fact, is tedious. Probably +Darnley was mainly vexed by the length, though he may have had +intelligence enough to see that he and Mary were subjects of allusions. +Knox wrote the piece from memory, on the last of August, in "the terrible +roaring of guns, and the noise of armour." The banded Lords, Moray and +the rest, had entered Edinburgh, looking for supporters, and finding +none. Erskine, commanding the Castle, fired six or seven shots as a +protest, and the noise of these disturbed the prophet at his task. As a +marginal note says, "The Castle of Edinburgh was shooting against the +exiled for Christ Jesus' sake" {248a}--namely, at Moray and his company. +Knox prayed for them in public, and was accused of so doing, but +Lethington testified that he had heard "the sermons," and found in them +no ground of offence. {248b} + +[Mary Stuart. From the portrait in the collection of the Earl of Morton: +knox5.jpg] + +Moray, Ochiltree, Pitarro, and many others being now exiles in England, +whose Queen had subsidised and repudiated them and their revolution, +things went hard with the preachers. For a whole year at least (December +1565-66) their stipends were not paid, the treasury being exhausted by +military and other expenses, and Pitarro being absent. At the end of +December, Knox and his colleague, Craig, were ordered by the General +Assembly to draw up and print a service for a general Fast, to endure +from the last Sunday in February to the first in March, 1566. One cause +alleged is that the Queen's conversion had been hoped for, but now she +said that she would "maintain and defend" {248c} her own faith. She had +said no less to Knox at their first interview, but now she had really +written, when invited to abolish her Mass, that her subjects may worship +as they will, but that she will not desert her religion. {249a} It was +also alleged that the godly were to be destroyed all over Europe, in +accordance with decrees of the Council of Trent. Moreover, vice, +manslaughter, and oppression of the poor continued, prices of commodities +rose, and work was scamped. The date of the Fast was fixed, not to +coincide with Lent, but because it preceded an intended meeting of +Parliament, {249b} a Parliament interrupted by the murder of Riccio, and +the capture of the Queen. No games were to be played during the two +Sundays of the Fast, which looks as if they were still permitted on other +Sundays. The appointed lessons were from Judges, Esther, Chronicles, +Isaiah, and Esdras; the New Testament, apparently, supplied nothing +appropriate. It seldom did. The lay attendants of the Assembly of +Christmas Day which decreed the Fast, were Morton, Mar, Lindsay, +Lethington, with some lairds. + +The Protestants must have been alarmed, in February 1566, by a report, to +which Randolph gave circulation, that Mary had joined a Catholic League, +with the Pope, the Emperor, the King of Spain, the Duke of Savoy, and +others. Lethington may have believed this; at all events he saw no hope +of pardon for Moray and his abettors--"no certain way, unless we chop at +the very root, you know where it lieth" (February 9). {249c} Probably he +means the murder of Riccio, not of the Queen. Bedford said that Mary had +not yet signed the League. {249d} We are aware of no proof that there +was any League to sign, and though Mary was begging money both from Spain +and the Pope, she probably did not expect to procure more than tolerance +for her own religion. {250a} The rumours, however, must have had their +effect in causing apprehension. Moreover, Darnley, from personal +jealousy; Morton, from fear of losing the Seals; the Douglases, kinsmen +of Morton and Darnley; and the friends of the exiled nobles, seeing that +they were likely to be forfeited, conspired with Moray in England to be +Darnley's men, to slay Riccio, and to make the Queen subordinate to +Darnley, and "to fortify and maintain" the Protestant faith. Mary, +indeed, had meant to reintroduce the Spiritual Estate into Parliament, as +a means of assisting her Church; so she writes to Archbishop Beaton in +Paris. {250b} + +Twelve wooden altars, to be erected in St. Giles's, are said by Knox's +continuator to have been found in Holyrood. {250c} + +Mary's schemes, whatever they extended to, were broken by the murder of +Riccio in the evening of March 9. He was seized in her presence, and +dirked by fifty daggers outside of her room. Ruthven, who in June 1564 +had come into Mary's good graces, and Morton were, with Darnley, the +leaders of the Douglas feud, and of the brethren. + +The nobles might easily have taken, tried, and hanged Riccio, but they +yielded to Darnley and to their own excited passions, when once they had +torn him from the Queen. The personal pleasure of dirking the wretch +could not be resisted, and the danger of causing the Queen's miscarriage +and death may have entered into the plans of Darnley. Knox does not tell +the story himself; his "History" ends in June 1564. But "in plain terms" +he "lets the world understand what we mean," namely, that Riccio "was +justly punished," and that "the act" (of the murderers) was "most just +and most worthy of _all_ praise." {251a} This Knox wrote just after the +event, while the murderers were still in exile in England, where Ruthven +died--seeing a vision of angels! Knox makes no drawback to the entirely +and absolutely laudable character of the deed. He goes out of his way to +tell us "in plain terms what we mean," in a digression from his account +of affairs sixteen years earlier. Thus one fails to understand the +remark, that "of the manner in which the deed was done we may be certain +that Knox would disapprove as vehemently as any of his contemporaries." +{251b} The words may be ironical, for vehement disapproval was not +conspicuous among Protestant contemporaries. Knox himself, after Mary +scattered the party of the murderers and recovered power, prayed that +heaven would "put it into the heart of a multitude" to treat Mary like +Athaliah. + +Mary made her escape from Holyrood to Dunbar, to safety, in the night of +March 11. March 12 found Knox on his knees; the game was up, the blood +had been shed in vain. The Queen had not died, but was well, and +surrounded by friends; and the country was rather for her than against +her. The Reformer composed a prayer, repenting that "in quiet I am +negligent, in trouble impatient, tending to desperation," which shows +insight. He speaks of his pride and ambition, also of his covetousness +and malice. That he was really covetous we cannot believe, nor does he +show malice except against idolaters. He "does not doubt himself to be +elected to eternal salvation," of which he has "assured signs." He has +"knowledge above the common sort of my brethren" (pride has crept in +again!), and has been compelled to "forespeak," or prophesy. He implores +mercy for his "desolate bedfellow," for her children, and for his sons by +his first wife. "Now, Lord, put end to my misery!" (Edinburgh, March 12, +1566). Knox fled from Edinburgh, "with a great mourning of the godly of +religion," says a Diarist, on the same day as the chief murderers took +flight, March 17; his place of refuge was Kyle in Ayrshire (March 21, +1566). {252a} + +In Randolph's letter, recording the flight of these nobles, he mentions +eight of their accomplices, and another list is pinned to the letter, +giving names of men "all at the death of Davy and privy thereunto." This +applies to about a dozen men, being a marginal note opposite their names. +A line lower is added, "John Knox, John Craig, preachers." {252b} There +is no other evidence that Knox, who fled, or Craig, who stood to his +pulpit, were made privy to the plot. When idolaters thought it best not +to let the Pope into a scheme for slaying Elizabeth, it is hardly +probable that Protestants would apprise their leading preachers. On the +other hand, Calvin was consulted by the would-be assassins of the Duc de +Guise, in 1559-60, and he prevented the deed, as he assures the Duchesse +de Ferrare, the mother-in-law of the Duc, after that noble was murdered +in good earnest. {252c} Calvin, we have shown, knew beforehand of the +conspiracy of Amboise, which aimed at the death of "Antonius," obviously +Guise. He disapproved of but did not reveal the plot. Knox, whether +privy to the murder or not, did not, when he ran away, take the best +means of disarming suspicion. Neither his name nor that of Craig occurs +in two lists containing those of between seventy and eighty persons +"delated," and it is to be presumed that he fled because he did not feel +sure of protection against Mary's frequently expressed dislike. + +In earlier days, with a strong backing, he had not feared "the pleasing +face of a gentlewoman," as he said, but now he did fear it. Kyle suited +him well, because the Earl of Cassilis, who had been an idolater, was +converted by a faithful bride, in August. Dr. M'Crie {253a} says that +Mary "wrote to a nobleman in the west country with whom Knox resided, to +banish him from his house." The evidence for this is a letter of +Parkhurst to Bullinger, in December 1567. Parkhurst tells Bullinger, +among other novelties, that Riccio was a necromancer, who happened to be +dirked; by whom he does not say. He adds that Mary commanded "a certain +pious earl" not to keep Knox in his house. {253b} + +In Kyle Knox worked at his "History." On September 4 he signed a letter +sent from the General Assembly at St. Andrews to Beza, approving of a +Swiss confession of faith, except so far as the keeping of Christmas, +Easter, and other Christian festivals is concerned. Knox himself wrote +to Beza, about this time, an account of the condition of Scotland. It +would be invaluable, as the career of Mary was rushing to the falls, but +it is lost. {253c} + +On December 24, Mary pardoned all the murderers of Riccio; and Knox +appears to have been present, though it is not certain, at the Christmas +General Assembly in Edinburgh. He received permission to visit his sons +in England, and he wrote two letters: one to the Protestant nobles on +Mary's attempt to revive the consistorial jurisdiction of the Primate; +the other to the brethren. To England he carried a remonstrance from the +Kirk against the treatment of Puritans who had conscientious objections +to the apparel--"Romish rags"--of the Church Anglican. Men ought to +oppose themselves boldly to Authority; that is, to Queen Elizabeth, if +urged further than their consciences can bear. {254a} + +Being in England, Knox, of course, did not witness the events associated +with the Catholic baptism of the baby prince (James VI.); the murder of +Darnley, in February 1567; the abduction of Mary by Bothwell, and her +disgraceful marriage to her husband's murderer, in May 1567. If Knox +excommunicated the Queen, it was probably about this date. Long +afterwards, on April 25, 1584, Mary was discussing the various churches +with Waad, an envoy of Cecil. Waad said that the Pope stirred up peoples +not to obey their sovereigns. "Yet," said the Queen, "a Pope shall +excommunicate _you_, but _I_ was excommunicated by a pore minister, +Knokes. In fayth I feare nothinge else but that they will use my sonne +as they have done the mother." {254b} + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII: THE LAST YEARS OF KNOX: 1567-1572 + + +The Royal quarry, so long in the toils of Fate, was dragged down at last, +and the doom forespoken by the prophet was fulfilled. A multitude had +their opportunity with this fair Athaliah; and Mary had ridden from +Carberry Hill, a draggled prisoner, into her own town, among the yells of +"burn the harlot." But one out of all her friends was faithful to her. +Mary Seton, to her immortal honour, rode close by the side of her fallen +mistress and friend. + +For six years insulted and thwarted; her smiles and her tears alike +wasted on greedy, faithless courtiers and iron fanatics; perplexed and +driven desperate by the wiles of Cecil and Elizabeth; in bodily pain and +constant sorrow--the sorrow wrought by the miscreant whom she had +married; without one honest friend; Mary had wildly turned to the man +who, it is to be supposed, she thought could protect her, and her passion +had dragged her into unplumbed deeps of crime and shame. + +The fall of Mary, the triumph of Protestantism, appear to have, in some +degree, rather diminished the prominence of Knox. He would never make +Mary weep again. He had lost the protagonist against whom, for a while, +he had stood almost alone, and soon we find him complaining of neglect. +He appeared at the General Assembly of June 25, 1567--a scanty gathering. +George Buchanan, a layman, was Moderator: the Assembly was adjourned to +July 21, and the brethren met in arms; wherefore Argyll, who had signed +the band for Darnley's murder, declined to come. {256a} The few nobles, +the barons, and others present, vowed to punish the murder of Darnley and +to defend the child prince; and it was decided that henceforth all +Scottish princes should swear to "set forward the true religion of Jesus +Christ, as at present professed and established in this realm"--as they +are bound to do--"by Deuteronomy and the second chapter of the Book of +Kings," which, in fact, do not speak of establishing Calvinism. + +Among those who sign are Morton, who had guilty foreknowledge of the +murder; while his kinsman, Archibald Douglas, was present at the doing; +Sir James Balfour, who was equally involved; Lethington, who signed the +murder covenant; and Douglas of Whittingham, and Ker of Faldonside, two +of Riccio's assassins. Most of the nobles stood aloof. + +Presently Throckmorton arrived, sent by Elizabeth with the pretence, at +least, of desiring to save Mary's life, which, but for his exertions, he +thought would have been taken. He "feared Knox's austerity as much as +any man's" (July 14). {256b} + +On July 17 Knox arrived from the west, where he had been trying to unite +the Protestants. {256c} Throckmorton found Craig and Knox "very +austere," well provided with arguments from the Bible, history, the laws +of Scotland, and the Coronation Oath. {257a} Knox in his sermons +"threatened the great plague of God to this whole nation and country if +the Queen be spared from her condign punishment." {257b} + +Murderers were in the habit of being lightly let off, in Scotland, and, +as to Mary, she could easily have been burned for husband-murder, but not +so easily convicted thereof with any show of justice. The only direct +evidence of her complicity lay in the Casket Letters, and several of her +lordly accusers were (if she were guilty) her accomplices. Her prayer to +be heard in self-defence at the ensuing Parliament of December was +refused, for excellent reasons; and her opponents had the same good +reasons for not bringing her to trial. Knox was perfectly justified if +he desired her to be tried, but several lay members of the General +Assembly could not have faced that ordeal, and Randolph later accused +Lethington, in a letter to him, of advising her assassination. {257c} + +On July 29 Knox preached at the Coronation of James VI. at Stirling, +protesting against the rite of anointing. True, it was Jewish, but it +had passed through the impure hands of Rome, as, by the way, had Baptism. +Knox also preached at the opening of Parliament, on December 15. We know +little of him at this time. He had sent his sons to Cambridge, into +danger of acquiring Anglican opinions, which they did; but now he seems +to have taken a less truculent view of Anglicanism than in 1559-60. He +had been drawing a prophetic historical parallel between Chatelherault +(more or less of the Queen's party) and Judas Iscariot, and was not loved +by the Hamiltons. The Duke was returning from France, "to restore Satan +to his kingdom," with the assistance of the Guises. Knox mentions an +attempt to assassinate Moray, now Regent, which is obscure. "I live as a +man already dead from all civil things." Thus he wrote to Wood, Moray's +agent, then in England on the affair of the Casket Letters (September 10, +1568). + +He had already (February 14) declined to gratify Wood by publishing his +"History." He would not permit it to appear during his life, as "it will +rather hurt me than profit them" (his readers). He was, very naturally, +grieved that the conduct of men was not conformable to "the truth of God, +now of some years manifest." He was not concerned to revenge his own +injuries "by word or writ," and he foresaw schism in England over +questions of dress and rites. {258a} + +He was neglected. "Have not thine oldest and stoutest acquaintance" +(Moray, or Kirkcaldy of Grange?) "buried thee in present oblivion, and +art thou not in that estate, by age, {258b} that nature itself calleth +thee from the pleasure of things temporal?" (August 19, 1569). + +"_In trouble impatient, tending to desperation_," Knox had said of +himself. He was still unhappy. "Foolish Scotland" had "disobeyed God by +sparing the Queen's life," and now the proposed Norfolk marriage of Mary +and her intended restoration were needlessly dreaded. A month later, +Lethington, thrown back on Mary by his own peril for his share in +Darnley's murder, writes to the Queen that some ministers are +reconcilable, "but Nox I think be inflexible." {259a} + +A year before Knox wrote his melancholy letter, just cited, he had some +curious dealings with the English Puritans. In 1566 many of them had +been ejected from their livings, and, like the Scottish Catholics, they +"assembled in woods and private houses to worship God." {259b} The +edifying controversies between these precisians and Grindal, the Bishop +of London, are recorded by Strype. The bishop was no zealot for +surplices and the other momentous trifles which agitate the human +conscience, but Elizabeth insisted on them; and "Her Majesty's Government +must be carried on." The precisians had deserted the English Liturgy for +the Genevan Book of Common Order; both sides were appealing to Beza, in +Geneva, and were wrangling about the interpretation of that Pontiff's +words. {259c} + +Calvin had died in 1564, but the Genevan Church and Beza were still +umpires, whose decision was eagerly sought, quibbled over, and disputed. +The French Puritans, in fact, extremely detested the Anglican Book of +Common Prayer. Thus, in 1562, De la Vigne, a preacher at St. Lo, +consulted Calvin about the excesses of certain Flemish brethren, who +adhered to "a certain bobulary (bobulaire) of prayers, compiled, or +brewed, in the days of Edward VI." The Calvinists of St. Lo decided that +these Flemings must not approach their holy table, and called our +communion service "a disguised Mass." The Synod (Calvinistic) of +Poictiers decided that our Liturgy contains "impieties," and that Satan +was the real author of the work! There are saints' days, "with epistles, +lessons, or gospels, as under the papacy." They have heard that the +Prayer Book has been condemned by Geneva. {260a} + +The English sufferers from our Satanic Prayer Book appealed to Geneva, +and were answered by Beza (October 24, 1567). He observed, "Who are we +to give any judgment of these things, which, as it seems to us, can be +healed only by prayers and patience." Geneva has not heard both sides, +and does not pretend to judge. The English brethren complain that +ministers are appointed "without any lawful consent of the Presbytery," +the English Church not being Presbyterian, and not intending to be. Beza +hopes that it will become Presbyterian. He most dreads that any should +"execute their ministry contrary to the will of her Majesty and the +Bishops," which is exactly what the seceders did. Beza then speaks out +about the question of costume, which ought not to be forced on the +ministers. But he does not think that the vestments justify schism. In +other points the brethren should, in the long run, "give way to manifest +violence," and "live as private men." "Other defilements" (kneeling, +&c.) Beza hopes that the Queen and Bishops will remove. Men must +"patiently bear with one another, and heartily obey the Queen's Majesty +and all their Bishops." {260b} + +As far as this epistle goes, Beza and his colleagues certainly do not +advise the Puritan seceders to secede. + +Bullinger and Gualterus in particular were outworn by the pertinacious +English Puritans who visited them. One Sampson had, when in exile, made +the life of Peter Martyr a burden to him by his "clamours," doubts, and +restless dissatisfaction. "England," wrote Bullinger to Beza (March 15, +1567), "has many characters of this sort, who cannot be at rest, who can +never be satisfied, and who have always something or other to complain +about." Bullinger and Gualterus "were unwilling to contend with these +men like fencing-masters," tired of their argufying; unable to "withdraw +our entire confidence from the Bishops." "If any others think of coming +hither, let them know that they will come to no purpose." {261a} + +Knox may have been less unsympathetic, but his advice agreed with the +advice of the Genevans. Some of the seceders were imprisoned; Cecil and +the Queen's commissioners encouraged others "to go and preach the Gospel +in Scotland," sending with them, as it seems, letters commendatory to the +ruling men there. They went, but they were not long away. "They liked +not that northern climate, but in May returned again," and fell to their +old practices. One of them reported that, at Dunbar, "he saw men going +to the church, on Good Friday, barefooted and bare-kneed, and creeping to +the cross!" "If this be so," said Grindal, "the Church of Scotland will +not be pure enough for our men." {261b} + +These English brethren, when in Scotland, consulted Knox on the dispute +which they made a ground of schism. One brother, who was uncertain in +his mind, visited Knox in Scotland at this time. The result appears in a +letter to Knox from a seceder, written just after Queen Mary escaped from +Lochleven in May 1568. The dubiously seceding brother "told the Bishop" +(Grindal) "that you are flat against and condemn all our doings . . . +whereupon the Church" (the seceders) "did excommunicate him"! He had +reviled "the Church," and they at once caught "the excommunicatory +fever." Meanwhile the earnestly seceding brother thought that he had won +Knox to _his_ side. But a letter from our Reformer proved his error, and +the letter, as the brother writes, "is not in all points liked." They +would not "go back again to the wafer-cake and kneelings" (the Knoxian +Black Rubric had been deleted from Elizabeth's prayer book), "and to +other knackles of Popery." + +In fact they obeyed Knox's epistle to England of January 1559. "Mingle- +mangle ministry, Popish order, and Popish apparel," they will not bear. +Knox's arguments in favour of their conforming, for the time at all +events, are quoted and refuted: "And also concerning Paul his purifying +at Jerusalem." The analogy of Paul's conformity had been rejected by +Knox, at the supper party with Lethington in 1556. He had "doubted +whether either James's commandment or Paul's obedience proceeded from the +Holy Ghost." {262a} Yet now Knox had used the very same argument from +Paul's conformity which, in 1556, he had scouted! The Mass was not in +question in 1568; still, if Paul was wrong (and he did get into peril +from a mob!), how could Knox now bid the English brethren follow his +example? {262b} (See pp. 65-67 supra.) + +To be sure Mary was probably at large, when Knox wrote, with 4000 spears +at her back. The Reformer may have rightly thought it an ill moment to +irritate Elizabeth, or he may have grown milder than he was in 1559, and +come into harmony with Bullinger. In February of the year of this +correspondence he had written, "God comfort that dispersed little flock," +apparently the Puritans of his old Genevan congregation, now in England, +and in trouble, "amongst whom I would be content to end my days. . . . " +{263a} + +In January 1570, Knox, "with his one foot in the grave," as he says, did +not despair of seeing his desire upon his enemy. Moray was asking +Elizabeth to hand over to him Queen Mary, giving hostages for the safety +of her life. Moray sent his messenger to Cecil, on January 2, 1570, and +Knox added a brief note. "If ye strike not at the root," he said, "the +branches that appear to be broken will bud again. . . . More days than +one would not suffice to express what I think." {263b} What he thought +is obvious; "stone dead hath no fellow." But Mary's day of doom had not +yet come; Moray was not to receive her as a prisoner, for the Regent was +shot dead, in Linlithgow, on January 23, by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, to +the unconcealed delight of his sister, for whom his death was opportune. + +The assassin, Bothwellhaugh, in May 1568, had been pardoned for his +partisanship of Mary, at Knox's intercession. "Thy image, O Lord, did so +clearly shine on that personage" (Moray)--he said in his public prayer at +the Regent's funeral {263c}--"that the devil, and the people to whom he +is Prince, could not abide it." We know too much of Moray to acquiesce, +without reserve, in this eulogium. + +Knox was sorely disturbed, at this time, by the publication of a jeu +d'esprit, in which the author professed to have been hidden in a bed, in +the cabinet of a room, while the late Regent held a council of his +friends. {264a} The tone and manner of Lindsay, Wood, Knox and others +were admirably imitated; in their various ways, and with appropriate +arguments, some of them urged Moray to take the crown for his life. By +no people but the Scots, perhaps, could this jape have been taken +seriously, but, with a gravity that would have delighted Charles Lamb, +Knox denounced the skit from the pulpit as a fabrication by the Father of +Lies. The author, the human penman, he said (according to Calderwood), +was fated to die friendless in a strange land. The galling shaft came +out of the Lethington quiver; it may have been composed by several of the +family, but Thomas Maitland, who later died in Italy, was regarded as the +author, {264b} perhaps because he did die alone in a strange country. + +At this time the Castle of Edinburgh was held in the Queen's interest by +Kirkcaldy of Grange, who seems to have been won over by the guile of +Lethington. That politician needed a shelter from the danger of the +Lennox feud, and the charge of having been guilty of Darnley's murder. To +take the place was beyond the power of the Protestant party, and it did +not fall under the guns of their English allies during the life of the +Reformer. + +He had a tedious quarrel with Kirkcaldy in December 1570-January 1571. A +retainer of Kirkcaldy's had helped to kill a man whom his master only +wanted to be beaten. The retainer was put into the Tolbooth; Kirkcaldy +set him free, and Knox preached against Kirkcaldy. Hearing that Knox had +styled him a murderer, Kirkcaldy bade Craig read from the pulpit a note +in which he denied the charge. He prayed God to decide whether he or +Knox "has been most desirous of innocent blood." Craig would not read +the note: Kirkcaldy appealed in a letter to the kirk-session. He +explained the origin of the trouble: the slain man had beaten his +brother; he bade his agents beat the insulter, who drew his sword, and +got a stab. On this Knox preached against him, he was told, as a cut- +throat. + +Next Sunday Knox reminded his hearers that he had not called Kirkcaldy a +murderer (though in the case of the Cardinal, he was), but had said that +the lawless proceedings shocked him more than if they had been done by +common cut-throats. Knox then wrote a letter to the kirk-session, saying +that Kirkcaldy's defence proved him "to be a murderer at heart," for St. +John says that "whoso loveth not his brother is a man-slayer"; and +Kirkcaldy did not love the man who was killed. All this was apart from +the question: had Knox called Kirkcaldy a common cut-throat? Kirkcaldy +then asked that Knox's explanation of what he said in the pulpit might be +given in writing, as his words had been misreported, and Knox, "creeping +upon his club," went personally to the kirk-session, and requested the +Superintendent to admonish Kirkcaldy of his offences. Next Sunday he +preached about his eternal Ahab, and Kirkcaldy was offended by the +historical parallel. When he next was in church Knox went at him again; +it was believed that Kirkcaldy would avenge himself, but the western +brethren wrote to remind him of their "great care" for Knox's person. So +the quarrel, which made sermons lively, died out. {266} + +There was little goodwill to Knox in the Queen's party, and as the +conflict was plainly to be decided by the sword, Robert Melville, from +the Castle, advised that the prophet should leave the town, in May 1571. +The "Castilian" chiefs wished him no harm, they would even shelter him in +their hold, but they could not be responsible for his "safety from the +multitude and rascal," in the town, for the craftsmen preferred the party +of Kirkcaldy. Knox had a curious interview in the Castle with +Lethington, now stricken by a mortal malady. The two old foes met +courteously, and parted even in merriment; Lethington did not mock, and +Knox did not threaten. They were never again to see each other's faces, +though the dying Knox was still to threaten, and the dying Lethington was +still to mock. + +July found Knox and his family at St. Andrews, in the New Hospice, a pre- +Reformation ecclesiastical building, west of the Cathedral, and adjoining +the gardens of St. Leonard's College. At this time James Melville, +brother of the more celebrated scholar and divine, Andrew Melville, was a +golf-playing young student of St. Leonard's College. He tells us how +Knox would walk about the College gardens, exhorting the St. Leonard's +lads to be staunch Protestants; for St. Salvator's and St. Mary's were +not devoted to the Reformer and his party. The smitten preacher (he had +suffered a touch of apoplexy) walked slowly, a fur tippet round his neck +in summer, leaning on his staff, and on the shoulder of his secretary, +Bannatyne. He returned, at St. Andrews, in his sermons, to the Book of +Daniel with which, nearly a quarter of a century ago, he began his pulpit +career. In preaching he was moderate--for half-an-hour; and then, +warming to his work, he made young Melville shudder and tremble, till he +could not hold his pen to write. No doubt the prophet was denouncing +"that last Beast," the Pope, and his allies in Scotland, as he had done +these many years ago. Ere he had finished his sermon "he was like to +ding the pulpit to blads and fly out of it." He attended a play, written +by Davidson, later a famous preacher, on the siege and fall of the +Castle, exhibiting the hanging of his old ally, Kirkcaldy, "according to +Mr. Knox's doctrine," says Melville. This cheerful entertainment was +presented at the marriage of John Colville, destined to be a traitor, a +double spy, and a renegade from the Kirk to "the Synagogue of Satan." +{267a} + +Knox now collected historical materials from Alexander Hay, Clerk of the +Privy Council, and heard of the publication of Buchanan's scurrilous +"Detection" of Queen Mary, in December 1571. {267b} + +Knox had denounced the Hamiltons as murderers, so one of that name +accused our Reformer of having signed a band for the murder of +Darnley--not the murder at Kirk o' Field, but a sketch for an attempt at +Perth! He had an interview with Knox, not of the most satisfactory, and +there was a quarrel with another Hamilton, who later became a Catholic +and published scurrilous falsehoods about Knox, in Latin. In fact our +Reformer had quarrels enough on his hands at St. Andrews, and to one +adversary he writes about what he would do, if he had his old strength of +body. + +Not in the Regency, but mainly under the influence of Morton, bishops +were reintroduced, at a meeting of the Kirk held at Leith, in January +1572. The idea was that each bishop should hand over most of his +revenues to Morton, or some other person in power. Knox, of course, +objected; he preached at St. Andrews before Morton inducted a primate of +his clan, but he refused to "inaugurate" the new prelate. The +Superintendent of Fife did what was to be done, and a bishop (he of +Caithness) was among the men who imposed their hands on the head of the +new Archbishop of St. Andrews. Thus the imposition of hands, which Knox +had abolished in the Book of Discipline, crept back again, and remains in +Presbyterian usage. {268a} + +Had Knox been in vigour he might have summoned the brethren in arms to +resist; but he was weak of body, and Morton was an ill man to deal with. +Knox did draw up articles intended to minimise the mischief of these +bastard and simoniacal bishoprics and abused patronages (August 1572). +{268b} On May 26, 1572, he describes himself as "lying in St. Andrews, +half dead." {268c} He was able, however, to preach at a witch, who was +probably none the better for his distinguished attentions. + +On August 17, during a truce between the hostile parties, Knox left St. +Andrews for Edinburgh, "not without dolour and displeasure of the few +godly that were in the town, but to the great joy and pleasure of the +rest;" for, "half dead" as he was, Knox had preached a political sermon +every Sunday, and he was in the pulpit at St. Giles's on the last Sunday +of August. {269a} As his colleague, Craig, had disgusted the brethren by +his moderation and pacific temper, a minister named Lawson was appointed +as Knox's coadjutor. + +Late in August came the news of the St. Bartholomew massacre (August 24). +Knox rose to the occasion, and, preaching in the presence of du Croc, the +French ambassador, bade him tell his King that he was a murderer, and +that God's vengeance should never depart from him or his house. {269b} +The prophecy was amply fulfilled. Du Croc remonstrated, "but the Lords +answered they could not stop the mouths of ministers to speak against +themselves." + +There was a convention of Protestants in Edinburgh on October 20, but +lords did not attend, and few lairds were present. The preachers and +other brethren in the Assembly proposed that all Catholics in the realm +should be compelled to recant publicly, to lose their whole property and +be banished if they were recalcitrant, and, if they remained in the +country, that all subjects should be permitted, lawfully, to put them to +death. ("To invade them, and every one of them, to the death.") {269c} +This was the ideal, embodied in law, of the brethren in 1560. Happily +they were not permitted to disgrace Scotland by a Bartholomew massacre of +her own. + +Mr. Hume Brown thinks that these detestable proposals "if not actually +penned by Knox, must have been directly inspired by him." He does not, +however, mention the demand for massacre, except as "pains and penalties +for those who _preached_ the old religion." {269d} "Without exception of +persons, great or small," _all_ were to be obliged to recant, or to be +ruined and exiled, or to be massacred. Dr. M'Crie does not hint at the +existence of these articles, "to be given to the Regent and Council." +They included a very proper demand for the reformation of vice at home. +Certainly Knox did not pen or dictate the Articles, for none of his +favourite adjectives occurs in the document. + +At this time Elizabeth, Leicester, and Cecil desired to hand over Queen +Mary to Mar, the Regent, "to proceed with her by way of justice," a +performance not to be deferred, "either for Parliament or a great +Session." Very Petty Sessions indeed, if any, were to suffice for the +trial of the Queen. {270} There are to be no "temporising solemnities," +all are to be "stout and resolute _in execution_," Leicester thus writes +to an unknown correspondent on October 10. Killigrew, who was to arrange +the business with Mar, was in Scotland by September 19. On October 6, +Killigrew writes that Knox is very feeble but still preaching, and that +he says, if he is not a bishop, it is by no fault of Cecil's. "I trust +to satisfy Morton," says Killigrew, "and as for John Knox, that thing, as +you may see by my letter to Mr. Secretary, is done and doing daily; the +people in general well bent to England, abhorring the fact in France, and +fearing their tyranny." + +"That thing" is _not_ the plan for murdering Mary without trial; if +Killigrew meant that he had obtained Knox's assent to _that_, he would +not write "that thing is doing daily." Even Morton, more scrupulous than +Elizabeth and Cecil, said that "there must be some kind of process" +(trial, proces), attended secretly by the nobles and the ministers. The +trial would be in Mary's absence, or would be brief indeed, for the +prisoner was not to live three hours after crossing the Border! Others, +unnamed, insisted on a trial; the Queen had never been found guilty. +Killigrew speaks of "two ministers" as eager for the action, but nothing +proves that Knox was one of them. While Morton and Mar were haggling for +the price of Mary's blood, Mar died, on October 28, and the whole plot +fell through. {271} Anxious as Knox had declared himself to be to +"strike at the root," he could not, surely, be less scrupulous about a +trial than Morton, though the decision of the Court was foredoomed. +Sandys, the Bishop of London, advised that Mary's head should be chopped +off! + +On November 9, 1572, Knox inducted Mr. Lawson into his place as minister +at St. Giles's. On the 13th he could not read the Bible aloud, he paid +his servants, and gave his man a present, the last, in addition to his +wages. On the 15th two friends came to see Knox at noon, dinner time. He +made an effort, and for the last time sat at meat with them, ordering a +fresh hogshead of wine to be drawn. "He willed Archibald Stewart to send +for the wine so long as it lasted, for he would never tarry until it were +drunken." On the 16th the Kirk came to him, by his desire; and he +protested that he had never hated any man personally, but only their +errors, nor had he made merchandise of the Word. He sent a message to +Kirkcaldy bidding him repent, or the threatenings should fall on him and +the Castle. His exertions increased his illness. There had been a final +quarrel with the dying Lethington, who complained that Knox, in sermons +and otherwise, charged him with saying there is "neither heaven nor +hell," an atheistic position of which (see his eloquent prayer before +Corrichie fight, wherein Huntly died {272a}) he was incapable. On the +16th he told "the Kirk" that Lethington's conduct proved that he really +did disbelieve in God, and a future of rewards and punishments. That was +not the question. The question was--Did Knox, publicly and privately, as +Lethington complained, attribute to him words which he denied having +spoken, asking that the witnesses should be produced. We wish that Knox +had either produced good evidences, or explained why he could not produce +them, or had apologised, or had denied that he spoke in the terms +reported to Lethington. + +James Melville says that the Rev. Mr. Lindsay, of Leith, told him that +Knox bade him carry a message to Kirkcaldy in the Castle. After +compliments, it ran: "He shall be disgracefully dragged from his nest to +punishment, and hung on a gallows before the face of the sun, unless he +speedily amend his life, and flee to the mercy of God." Knox added: +"That man's soul is dear to me, and I would not have it perish, if I +could save it." Kirkcaldy consulted Maitland, and returned with a reply +which contained Lethington's last scoff at the prophet. However, Morton, +when he had the chance, did hang Kirkcaldy, as in the play acted before +Knox at St. Andrews, "according to Mr. Knox's doctrine." "The preachers +clamoured for blood to cleanse blood." {272b} + +As to a secret conference with Morton on the 17th, the Earl, before his +execution, confessed that the dying man asked him, "if he knew anything +of the King's (Darnley's) murder?" "I answered, indeed, I knew nothing +of it"--perhaps a pardonable falsehood in the circumstances. Morton said +that the people who had suffered from Kirkcaldy and the preachers daily +demanded the soldier's death. + +Other sayings of the Reformer are reported. He repressed a lady who, he +thought, wished to flatter him: "Lady, lady, the black ox has never +trodden yet upon your foot!" "I have been in heaven and have possession, +and I have tasted of these heavenly joys where presently I am," he said, +after long meditation, beholding, as in Bunyan's allegory, the hills of +Beulah. He said the Creed, which soon vanished from Scottish services; +and in saying "Our Father," broke off to murmur, "Who can pronounce so +holy words?" On November 24 he rose and dressed, but soon returned to +bed. His wife read to him the text, "where I cast my first anchor," St. +John's Gospel, chapter xvii. About half-past ten he said, "Now it is +come!" and being asked for a sign of his steadfast faith, he lifted up +one hand, "and so slept away without any pain." {273} + +Knox was buried on November 26 in the churchyard south of St. Giles. A +flat stone, inscribed J. K., beside the equestrian statue of Charles II., +is reported to mark his earthly resting-place. He died as he had lived, +a poor man; a little money was owed to him; all his debts were paid. His +widow, two years later, married Andrew Ker of Faldonside, so notorious +for levelling a pistol at the Queen on the occasion of Riccio's murder. +Ker appears to have been intimate with the Reformer. Bannatyne speaks of +a story of Lady Atholl's witchcraft, told by a Mr. Lundie to Knox, at +dinner, "at Falsyde." This was a way of spelling Faldonside, {274} the +name of Ker's place, hard by the Tweed, within a mile of Abbotsford. +Probably Ker and his wife sleep in the family burying-ground, the disused +kirkyard of Lindean, near a little burn that murmurs under the broad +burdock leaves on its way to join the Ettrick. + + + + +APPENDIX A: ALLEGED PERFIDY OF MARY OF GUISE + + +The Regent has usually been accused of precipitating, or causing the +Revolution of 1559, by breaking a pledge given to the Protestants +assembled at Perth (May 10-11, 1559). Knox's "History" and a letter of +his are the sources of this charge, and it is difficult to determine the +amount of truth which it may contain. + +Our earliest evidence on the matter is found in a letter to the English +Privy Council, from Sir James Croft, commanding at Berwick. The letter, +of May 19, is eight days later than the riots at Perth. It is not always +accurately informed; Croft corrects one or two statements in later +despatches, but the points corrected are not those with which we are here +concerned. {275a} Neither in this nor in other English advices do I note +any charge of ill faith brought against the Regent on this occasion. +Croft says that, on Knox's arrival, many nobles and a multitude of others +repaired to Dundee to hear him and others preach. The Regent then +summoned these preachers before her to Stirling, {275b} but as they had a +"train" of 5000 or 6000, she "dismissed the appearance," putting the +preachers to the horn, and commanding the nobility to appear before her +in Edinburgh. The "companies" then retired and wrecked monasteries at +Perth. The Lords and they had _previously_ sent Erskine of Dun to the +Regent, offering to appear before her with only their household servants, +to hear the preachers dispute with the clergy, if she would permit. The +Regent, "taking displeasure with" Erskine of Dun, bade him begone out of +her sight. He rode off (to Perth), and she had him put to the horn (as a +fact, he was only fined in his recognisances as bail for one of the +preachers). The riots followed his arrival in Perth. + +Such is our earliest account; there is no mention of a promise broken by +the Regent. + +Knox himself wrote two separate and not always reconcilable accounts of +the first revolutionary explosion; one in a letter of June 23 to Mrs. +Locke, the other in a part of Book II. of his "History," composed at some +date before October 23, 1559. That portion of his "History" is an +apologia for the proceedings of his party, and was apparently intended +for contemporary publication. {276a} + +This part of the "History," therefore, as the work of an advocate, needs +to be checked, when possible, by other authorities. We first examine +Knox's letter of June 23, 1559, to Mrs. Locke. He says that he arrived +in Edinburgh on May 2, and, after resting for a day, went (on May 4) to +the brethren assembled at Dundee. They all marched to Perth, meaning +thence to accompany the preachers to their day of law at Stirling, May +10. But, lest the proceeding should seem rebellious, they sent a baron +(Erskine of Dun, in fact) to the Regent, "with declaration of our minds." +The Regent _and Council_ in reply, bade the multitude "stay, and not come +to Stirling . . . and so should no extremity be used, but the summons +should be continued" (deferred) "till further advisement. Which, being +gladly granted of us, some of the brethren returned to their dwelling- +places. But the Queen _and her Council_, nothing mindful of her and +their promise, incontinent did call" (summon) "the preachers, and for +lack of their appearance, did exile and put them and their assistants to +the horn. . . . " {276b} + +It would be interesting to know who the Regent's Council were on this +occasion. The Reformer errs when he tells Mrs. Locke that the Regent +outlawed "the assisters" of the preachers. Dr. M'Crie publishes an +extract from the "Justiciary Records" of May 10, in which Methuen, +Christison, Harlaw, and Willock, and no others, are put to the horn, or +outlawed, in absence, for breach of the Regent's proclamations, and for +causing "tumults and seditions." No one else is put to the horn, but the +sureties for the preachers' appearance are fined. {276c} + +In his "History," Knox says that the Regent, when Erskine of Dun arrived +at Stirling as an emissary of the brethren, "began to craft with him, +soliciting him to stay the multitude, and the preachers also, with +promise that she would take some better order." Erskine wrote to the +brethren, "to stay and not to come forward, showing what promise and +_hope_ he had of the Queen's Grace's favours." Some urged that they +should go forward till the summons was actually "discharged," otherwise +the preachers and their companions would be put to the horn. Others said +that the Regent's promises were "not to be suspected . . . and so did the +whole multitude with their preachers stay. . . . The Queen, perceiving +that the preachers did not appear, began to utter her malice, and +notwithstanding any request made on the contrary, gave command to put +them to the horn. . . ." Erskine then prudently withdrew, rode to Perth, +and "did conceal nothing of the Queen's craft and falsehood." {277a} + +In this version the Regent bears all the blame, nothing is said of the +Council. "The whole multitude stay"--at Perth, or it may perhaps be +meant that they do not come forward towards Stirling. The Regent's +promise is merely that she would "take some better order." She does not +here promise to _postpone_ the summons, and refuses "any request made" to +abstain from putting them to the horn. The account, therefore, is +somewhat more vague than that in the letter to Mrs. Locke. Prof. Hume +Brown puts it that the Regent "in her understanding with Erskine of Dun +_had publicly cancelled_ the summons of the preachers for the 10th of +May," which rather overstates the case perhaps. That she should +"publicly cancel" or "discharge" the summons was what a part of the +brethren desired, and did not get. {277b} + +We now turn to a fragmentary and anonymous "Historie of the Estate of +Scotland," concerning which Prof. Hume Brown says, "Whoever the author +may have been, he writes as a contemporary, or from information supplied +by a contemporary . . . what inspires confidence in him is that certain +of his facts not recorded by other contemporary Scottish historians are +corroborated by the despatches of d'Oysel and others in Teulet." {277c} + +I elsewhere {277d} give reasons for thinking that this "Historie" is +perhaps the chronicle of Bruce of Earl's Hall, a contemporary gentleman +of Fife. I also try to show that he writes, on one occasion, as an eye- +witness. + +This author, who is a strong partisan of the Reformers, says nothing of +the broken promise of the Regent and Council. He mentions the intention +to march to Stirling, and then writes: "And although the Queen Regent was +most earnestly requested and persuaded to continue"--that is to defer the +summons--"nevertheless she remained wilful and obstinate, so that the +counsel of God must needs take effect. Shortly, the day being come, +because they appeared not, their sureties were outlawed, and the +preachers ordered to be put to the horn. The Laird of Dun, who was sent +from Perth by the brethren, perceiving her obstinacy, they" (who?) +"turned from Stirling, and coming to Perth, declared to the brethren the +obstinacy they found in the Queen. . . . " + +This sturdy Protestant's version, which does not accuse the Regent of +breaking troth, is corroborated by a Catholic contemporary, Lesley, +Bishop of Ross. He says that Erskine of Dun was sent to beg the Regent +not to impose a penalty on the preachers in their absence. But as soon +as Dun returned and Knox learned from him that the Regent would not grant +their request, he preached the sermon which provoked the devastation of +the monasteries. {278a} Buchanan and Spottiswoode follow Knox, but they +both use Knox's book, and are not independent witnesses. + +The biographers of Knox do not quote "The Historie of the Estate of +Scotland," where it touches on the beginning of the Revolution, without +disparaging the Regent's honour. We have another dubious witness, Sir +James Melville, who arrived on a mission from France to the Regent on +June 13; he left Paris about June 1. This is the date of a letter {278b} +in which Henri II. offers the Regent every assistance in the warmest +terms. Melville writes, however, that in his verbal orders, delivered by +the Constable in the royal presence, the Constable said, "I have +intelligence that the Queen Regent has not kept all things promised to +them." But Melville goes on to say that the Constable quoted d'Elboeuf's +failure to reach Scotland with his fleet, as a reason for not sending the +troops which were promised by Henri. As d'Elboeuf's failure occurred +long after the date of the alleged conversation, the evidence of Melville +is here incorrect. He wrote his "Memoirs" much later, in old age, but +Henri may have written to the Regent in one sense, and given Melville +orders in another. {279a} + +We find that Knox's charge against the Regent is not made in our earliest +information, Croft's letter of May 19: is not made by the Protestant +(and, we think, contemporary) author of the "Historie," and, of course, +is not hinted at by Lesley, a Catholic. We have seen throughout that +Knox vilifies Mary of Guise in cases where she is blameless. On the +other hand, Knox is our only witness who was at Perth at the time of the +events, and it cannot be doubted that what he told Mrs. Locke was what he +believed, whether correctly or erroneously. He could believe anything +against Mary of Guise. Archbishop Spottiswoode says, "The author of the +story" ("History") "ascribed to John Knox in his whole discourse showeth +a bitter and hateful spite against the Regent, forging dishonest things +which were never so much as suspected by any, setting down his own +conjectures as certain truths, yea, the least syllable that did escape +her in passion, he maketh it an argument of her cruel and inhuman +disposition . . . " {279b} In the MS. used by Bishop Keith, {279c} +Spottiswoode added, after praising the Regent, "these things I have heard +my father often affirm"; he had the like testimony "from an honourable +and religious lady, who had the honour to wait near her person." +Spottiswoode was, therefore, persuaded that the "History" "was none of +Mr. Knox his writings." In spite of this opinion, Spottiswoode, writing +about 1620-35, accepts most of the hard things that Knox says of the +Regent's conduct in 1559, and indeed exaggerates one or two of them; that +is, as relates to her political behaviour, for example, in the affair of +the broken promise of May 10. It may be urged that here Spottiswoode had +the support of the reminiscences of his father, a Superintendent in the +Knoxian church. + + + + +APPENDIX B: FORGERY PROCURED BY MARY OF GUISE + + +In the writer's opinion several of Knox's accusations of perfidy against +the Regent, in 1559, are not proved, and the attempts to prove them are +of a nature which need not be qualified. But it is necessary to state +the following facts as tending to show that the Regent was capable of +procuring a forgery against the Duke of Chatelherault. A letter +attributed to him exists in the French Archives, {280a} dated Glasgow, +January 25, 1560, in which the Duke curries favour with Francis II., and +encloses his blank bond, un blanc scelle, offering to send his children +to France. {280b} _On January_ 28, the Regent writes from Scotland to de +Noailles, then the French Ambassador to England, bidding him to mention +this submission to Elizabeth, and even show the Duke's letter and blank +bond, that Elizabeth may see how little he is to be trusted. Now how +could the Regent, on January 28, have a letter sent by the Duke to France +on January 25? She must have intercepted it in Scotland. {280c} Next, +on March 15, 1560, the Duke, writing to Norfolk, denies the letter +attributed to him by the French. {280d} He said that any one of a +hundred Hamiltons would fight M. de Seurre (the French Ambassador who, in +February, succeeded de Noailles) on this quarrel. {280e} + +There exists a document, in the cipher of Throckmorton, English +Ambassador in France, purporting to be a copy of a letter from the Regent +to the Duc and Cardinal de Guise, dated Edinburgh, March 27, 1560. {280f} +The Regent, at that date, was in Leith, not in Edinburgh Castle, where +she went on April 1. In that letter she is made to say that de Seurre +has "very evil misunderstood" the affair of the letter attributed to +Chatelherault. She had procured "blanks" of his "by one of her servants +here" (at Leith) "to the late Bishop of Ross"; the Duke's alleged letter +and submission of January 25 had been "filled up" on a "blank," the Duke +knowing nothing of the matter. + +This letter of the Regent, then, must also, if authentic, have been +somehow intercepted or procured by Throckmorton, in France. It is +certain that Throckmorton sometimes, by bribery, did obtain copies of +secret French papers, but I have not found him reporting to Cecil or +Queen Elizabeth this letter of the Regent's. The reader must estimate +for himself the value of that document. I have stated the case as fairly +as I can, and though the evidence against the Regent, as it stands, would +scarcely satisfy a jury, I believe that, corrupted by the evil example of +the Congregation, the Regent, in January 1560, did procure a forgery +intended to bring suspicion on Chatelherault. But how could she be +surprised that de Seurre did not understand the real state of the case? +The Regent may have explained the true nature of the affair to de +Noailles, but it may have been unknown to de Seurre, who succeeded that +ambassador. Yet, how could she ask any ambassador to produce a confessed +forgery as genuine? + + + + +Footnotes + + +{0a} Inventories of Mary, Queen of Scots, p. cxxii., note 7. + +{0b} Hume Brown, John Knox, ii. 320-324. + +{2a} Probably Mrs. Knox died in her son's youth, and his father married +again. Catholic writers of the period are unanimous in declaring that +Knox had a stepmother. + +{2b} Knox, Laing's edition, iv. 78. + +{4} See Young's letter, first published by Professor Hume Brown, John +Knox, vol. ii. Appendix, 320-324. + +{5} Laing, in his Knox, vi. xxi. xxii. + +{6} Knox, i. 36-40. The facts are pointed out by Professor Cowan in The +Athenaeum, December 3, 1904, and had been recognised by Dr. Hay Fleming. + +{7} Beza, writing in 1580, says that study of St. Jerome and St. +Augustine suggested his doubts. Icones Virorum Doctrina Simul ac Pietate +Illustrium. + +{9} Pollen, Papal Negotiations with Mary Stuart, 428-430, 522, 524, 528. + +{10} Knox, vi. 172, 173. + +{12} Letter of Young to Beza. Hume Brown, John Knox, ii. 322-24. + +{15a} Cf. Life of George Wishart, by the Rev. Charles Rodger, 7-12 +(1876). + +{15b} Maxwell, Old Dundee, 83, 84. + +{17} M'Crie's Knox, 24 (1855). + +{18a} "Letter to the Faithful," cf. M'Crie, Life of John Knox, 292. + +{18b} Knox, vi. 229. + +{19} M'Crie, 292. + +{20} Dr. Hay Fleming has impugned this opinion, but I am convinced by +the internal evidence of tone and style in the tract; indeed, an earlier +student has anticipated my idea. The tract is described by Dr. M'Crie in +his Life of Knox, 326-327 (1855). + +{22} Most of the gentry of Fife were in the murder or approved of it, +and the castle seems to have contained quite a pleasant country-house +party. They were cheered by the smiles of beauty, and in the treasurer's +accounts we learn that Janet Monypenny of Pitmilly (an estate still in +the possession of her family), was "summoned for remaining in the castle, +and assisting" the murderers. Dr. M'Crie cites Janet in his list of +"Scottish Martyrs and Prosecutions for Heresy" (Life of Knox, 315). This +martyr was a cousin, once removed, of the murdered ecclesiastic. + +{23a} Knox, Laing's edition, i. 180. + +{23b} Knox, i. 182. "The siege continued to near the end of January." +"The truce was of treacherous purpose," i. 183. + +{24} Knox, i. 203-205. + +{25a} Thorpe's Calendar, i. 60; Register Privy Council, i. 57, 58; +Tytler, vi. 8 (1837). + +{25b} State Papers, Scotland, Thorpe, i. 61. + +{25c} Bain, Calendar of Scottish Papers, 1547-69, i. I; Tytler, iii. 51 +(1864). + +{26a} Bain i. 2; Knox, i. 182, 183. + +{26b} For the offering of the papal remission to the garrison of the +castle before April 2, 1547, see Stewart of Cardonald's letter of that +date to Wharton, in Bain's Calendar of Scottish Papers, 1547-69, i. 4-5. + +{27a} John Knox, i. 80. + +{27b} State Papers, Domestic. Addenda, Edward VI., p. 327. Lord Eure +says there were twenty galleys. + +{27c} Odet De Selve, Correspondence Politique, pp. 170-178. + +{28} Knox, i. 201. + +{30a} Leonti Strozzio, incolumitatem modo pacti, se dediderunt, writes +Buchanan. Professor Hume Brown says that Buchanan evidently confirms +Knox; but incolumitas means security for bare life, and nothing more. +Lesley says that the terms _asked_ were life and fortune, salvi cum +fortunis, but the terms _granted_ were but safety in life and limb, and, +it seems, freedom to depart, ut soli homines integri discederent. If +Lesley, a Catholic historian, is right, and if by discederent he means +"go freely away," the French broke the terms of surrender. + +{30b} Knox, i. 206, 228. + +{33a} Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of England, 261. + +{33b} Ibid., 158. + +{33c} Ibid., 156, 157. + +{35} Compare the preface, under the Restoration, to our existing prayer +book. + +{36a} Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of England, 98-136. + +{36b} Knox, iii. 122. + +{37a} Knox, iii. 297. + +{37b} Ibid., iii. 122. + +{38a} Knox, iii. 280-282. + +{38b} Lorimer, i. 162-176. + +{39} But, for the date, cf. Hume Brown, John Knox, i. 148; and M'Crie, +65, note 5; Knox, iii. 156. + +{40a} Knox, iii. 120. + +{40b} Laing, Knox, vi. pp. lxxx., lxxxi. + +{40c} Pollen, The Month, September 1897. + +{43} Knox, iii. 366. + +{45} Lorimer, John Knox and the Church of England, 259. + +{47a} Original Letters, Parker Society, 745-747; Knox, iii. 221-226. + +{47b} M'Crie, 65 (1855); Knox, iii. 235. + +{48} Knox, iii. 184. + +{49a} Knox, iii. 309. + +{49b} Ibid., iii. 328, 329. + +{49c} Ibid., iii. 194. + +{54} cf. Hume Brown, ii. 299, for the terms. + +{56} John Knox, i. 174, 175; Corp. Ref., xliii. 337-344. + +{58} For the Frankfort affair, see Laing's Knox, iv. 1-40, with Knox's +own narrative, 41-49; the letters to and from Calvin, 51-68. Calvin, in +his letter to the Puritans at Frankfort, writes: "In the Anglican +Liturgy, _as you describe it_, I see many trifles that may be put up +with," Prof. Hume Brown's rendering of tolerabiles ineptias. The author +of the "Troubles at Frankfort" (1575) leaves out "as you describe it," +and renders "In the Liturgie of Englande I see that there were manye +tollerable foolishe thinges." But Calvin, though he boasts him "easy and +flexible in mediis rebus, such as external rites," is decidedly in favour +of the Puritans. + +{60} Knox i. 244. + +{62a} Knox, i. 245, note I. + +{62b} Ibid., iv. 245. + +{66} I conceive these to have been the arguments of the party of +compromise, judging from the biblical texts which they adduced. + +{67} Knox, i. 247-249. + +{71a} Knox, i. 92. + +{71b} Ibid., iv. 75-84. + +{73} Knox; iv. 238-240. + +{74} We shall see that reformers like Lord James and Glencairn seem, at +this moment, to have sided with Mary of Guise. + +{76a} Knox, i. 267-270. + +{76b} Corpus Reformatorum, xlvi. 426. + +{77a} More probably by Calvin's opinion. + +{77b} Knox, iv. 248-253; i. 267-273. + +{78} Stevenson, Selected MSS., pp. 69, 70 (1827); Bain, i. 585; Randolph +to Cecil, January 2, 1561. + +{80a} Knox, iv. 255-276. + +{80b} Ibid., i. 273, 274. + +{81a} Knox, i. 275, 276. + +{81b} Ibid., i. 273, 274. + +{83} Knox, iv. 501, 502. + +{84} Knox, iv. 358. Zurich Letters, 34-36. + +{85} Knox, iv. 486, 488. + +{87a} Wodrow Miscellany, vol. i. + +{87b} Here the "Historie of the Estate" is corroborated by the +Treasurer's Accounts, recording payment to Rothesay Herald. He is +summoning George Lovell, David Ferguson (a preacher, later minister of +Dunfermline), and others unnamed to appear at Edinburgh on July 28, to +answer for "wrongous using and wresting of the Scriptures, disputing upon +erroneous opinions, and eating flesh in Lent," and at other times +forbidden by Acts of Parliament (M'Crie, 359, note G). Nothing is here +said about riotous iconoclasm, but Lovell had been at the hanging of an +image of St. Francis as early as 1543, and in many such godly exercises, +or was accused of these acts of zeal. + +{87c} "Historie of the Estate of Scotland," Wodrow Miscellany, i. 53-55. + +{88a} Knox, i. 301. + +{88b} Knox appears (he is very vague) to date Calder's petition _after_ +Willock's second visit, which the "Historie of the Estate of Scotland" +places in October 1558. Dr. M'Crie accepts that date, but finds that +Knox places Calder's petition before the burning of Myln, in April 1559. +Dr. M'Crie suggests that perhaps Calder petitioned twice, but deems Knox +in the right. As the Reformer contradicts himself, unless there were two +Calder petitions (i. 301, i. 307), he must have made an oversight. + +{88c} Hume Brown, John Knox, ii. Appendix, 301-303. + +{88d} Knox, i. 301-306 + +{89a} Knox, i. 294, 301-312. On p. 294 Knox dates the Parliament in +October. + +{89b} Knox, i. 309-312. + +{90a} Knox, i. 312-314. + +{90b} See Laing's edition, i. 320, 321. + +{91} Wodrow Miscellany, i. 55. + +{92a} M'Crie, Knox, 359, 360. + +{92b} Knox, i. 306, 307. + +{93a} Knox, i. 307. + +{93b} "Historie," Wodrow Miscellany, i. 55, 56. + +{93c} Knox, i. 312-314. + +{94a} "Historie," Wodrow Miscellany, 56. + +{94b} Melville, 76, 77 (1827). + +But Professor Hume Brown appears to be misled in saying that Bettencourt, +or Bethencourt, did not reach Scotland till June (John Knox, i. 344i note +i), citing Forbes, i. 141. Bethencourt "passed Berwick on April 13" +(For. Cal. Eliz., 1558-59, 214) to negotiate the Scottish part in the +peace, signed at Upsettlington (May 31). Bethencourt would be with the +Regent by April 15, and he may have confirmed her in summoning the +preachers who defied her proclamations, though, with or without his +advice, she could do no less. + +{95a} Pitscottie, ii. 523. + +{95b} State Papers, Borders, vol. i. No. 421 MS. + +{96a} Affaires Etrangeres, Angleterre, vol. xv. MS. + +{96b} Forbes, 97; Throckmorton to Cecil, May 18. + +{96c} For. Cal. Eliz., 1558-59, 272. + +{97} Melville, 80. + +{98a} Statuta, &c. Robertson, vol. i. clv-clxii. + +{98b} Book of Discipline. Knox, ii. 253, 254. + +{99a} M'Crie, 360. + +{99b} The Regent's account of the whole affair, as given by Francis and +Mary to the Pope, is vague and mistily apologetic. (Published in French +by Prof. Hume Brown, ii. 300-302.) The Regent wrote from Dunbar, July +1559, that she had in vain implored the Pope to aid her in reforming the +lives of the clergy (as in 1556-57). Their negligence had favoured, +though she did not know it (and she says nothing about it in 1556-57), +the secret growth of heresy. Next, a public preacher arose in one town +(probably Paul Methuen in Dundee) introducing the Genevan Church. The +Regent next caused the bishops to assemble the clergy, bidding them +reform their lives, and then repress heresy. She also called an assembly +of the Estates, when most of the Lords, hors du conseil et a part, +demanded "a partial establishment of the new religion." This was +refused, and the Provincial Council (of March 1559) was called for reform +of the clergy. Nothing resulted but scandal and popular agitation. +Public preachers arose in the towns. The Regent assembled her forces, +and the Lords and Congregation began their career of violence. + +{100} As to Knox's account of this reforming Provincial Council (Knox, +i. 291, 292), Lord Hailes calls it "exceedingly partial and erroneous . . +. no zeal can justify a man for misrepresenting an adversary." Bold +language for a judge to use in 1769! Cf. Robertson, Statuta, i. clxii, +note I. + +{101} Knox, v. 15-17. + +{102a} Knox, v. 207, 208. + +{102b} Ibid., v. 229. + +{102c} Ibid., v. 420, 421. + +{102d} Ibid., v. 495-523. [This footnote is provided in the original +book but isn't referenced in the text. DP.] + +{104} John Knox and the Church of England, 215-218. + +{105} Knox, ii. 460, 461. We return to this point. + +{107} Bale, Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Brit. Catalogus Poster., p. +219 (1559). Knox, i. 258-261. + +{108a} Dieppe, April 10-April 22, 1559. Knox, vi. 15-21. + +{108b} Desmarquets, Mem. Chronol. Jour. l'Hist, de Dieppe, i. 210. + +{109a} Corp. Ref., xlv. (Calv., xvii.) 541. + +{109b} Naissance de l'Heresie a Dieppe, Rouen, 1877, ed. Lesens. + +{111} Knox, i. 321-323. + +{112} Knox, vi. 23. + +{113a} Corpus Reformatorum, xlvi. 609, xlvii. 409-411, August 13, 1561. + +{113b} The learned Dr. M'Crie does not refer to this letter to Mrs. +Locke, but observes: "None of the gentry or sober part of the +congregation were concerned in this unpremeditated tumult; it was wholly +confined to the lowest of the inhabitants" (M'Crie's Life of Knox, 127, +1855). Yet an authority dear to Dr. M'Crie, "The Historie of the Estate +of Scotland," gives the glory, not to the lowest of the inhabitants, but +to "the brethren." Professor Hume Brown blames "the Perth mob," and says +nothing of the action of the "brethren," as described to Mrs. Locke by +Knox. John Knox, ii. 8. + +{117} Theses of Erastus. Rev. Robert Lee. Edinburgh, 1844. + +{120} Knox, i. 341,342; vi. 24. Did the brethren promise nothing but +the evacuation of Perth? + +{121a} "Historie," Wodrow Miscellany, i. 58. + +{121b} Knox, i. 343, 344. The Congregation are said to have left Perth +on May 29. They assert their presence there on May 31, in their Band. + +{122} Edinburgh Burgh Records. + +{123a} But see Knox, i. 347-349. Is a week (June 4 to June 11) +accidentally omitted? + +{123b} Writing on June 23, Knox dates the "Reformation" "June 14." His +dates, at this point, though recorded within three weeks, are to me +inexplicable. Knox, vi. 25. + +{124} Keith, i. 265, note. + +{125a} Lesley, ii. 443, Scottish Text Society. + +{125b} For. Cal. Eliz., 1558-59, 367. + +{126a} Knox, vi. 26. + +{126b} Ibid., i. 355. + +{126c} Wodrow Miscellany, i. 60. + +{127a} Knox, vi. 26. + +{127b} See Scottish Historical Review, January 1905, 121-122, 128-130. + +{131} Bain, i. 215. + +{133a} For. Cal. Eliz., 1558-59, 278. Erroneously dated "May 24" (?). + +{133b} Bain, i. 216-218; For. Cal. Eliz., ut supra, 335, 336. + +{133c} Archives Etrangeres, Angleterre, vol. xv. MS. + +{133d} For. Cal. Eliz., 336; Knox, i. 359, 360. + +{134} Knox, i. 360-362. + +{135a} Knox dates the entry of the Reformers into Edinburgh on June 29. +But he wrote to Mrs. Locke from Edinburgh on June 25, probably a +misprint. The date June 29 is given in the "Historie." Knox dates a +letter to Cecil, "Edinburgh, June 28." The Diurnal of Occurrents dates +the sack of monasteries in Edinburgh June 28. + +{135b} Wodrow Miscellany, i. 62; Knox, i. 366, 367, 370. + +{135c} Knox, i. 363; cf. Keith, i. 213, 214; Spottiswoode, i. 280, 281. + +{136a} Knox, i. 363-365; For. Cal. Eliz., 337. + +{136b} Teulet, i. 338-340. + +{137a} Bain, i. 218; For. Cal. Eliz., 1558-59, 339. 340. + +{137b} Knox, vi. 45. + +{138} In Dr. Hay Fleming's The Scottish Reformation (p. 57), he dates +the Regent's proclamation July 1. He omits the charge that, as proof of +their disloyalty, "they daily receive Englishmen with messages, and send +the like into England" (Knox, i. p. 364). "The narrative of the +proclamation, Knox says, is untrue," Dr. Hay Fleming remarks; but as to +the dealing with England, the Reformer confessed to it in his "History," +Book III., when he could do so with safety. + +{139a} Knox, i. 365. + +{139b} Spottiswoode, i. 282. + +{139c} Teulet, i. 331. The Regent's instructions to Du Fresnoy. + +{141} Teulet, i. 334, 335, citing Archives Etrangeres, Angleterre, xiv. +(xv.?), f. 221 (see the English translation), For. Cal. Eliz., 1558-59, +406, 407; Keith, i. 220, 221; Spottiswoode, i. 285, 286. + +{142a} Extracts from Edinburgh Town Council Records, July 29, 1559; +Keith, i. 487-489. + +{142b} Cf. Hume Brown, John Knox, ii. 30. + +{143a} Knox, i. 376-379. The italicised articles are not in the other +versions of the terms as finally settled; cf. "Historie," Wodrow +Miscellany, i. 55-57. + +{143b} Ibid., i. 379. + +{144a} Knox, i. 380. + +{144b} Sloane MSS., British Museum, 4144, 177b, 4737f, 100b. For. Cal. +Eliz. 1558-59, 411. + +{145a} Knox, i. 381. + +{145b} My italics. + +{146} (Kyrkcaldy to Croft.) + +"Theis salbe to certiffy you vpon monday the xxiii of Jully the quene and +the lordis of the congregation are agreit on this maner as followeth. The +armies beying boythe in Syghte betuix Eddingburght and Lietht or partye +adversaire send mediatoris desyring that we sall agree and cease frome +sheddinge of blude yf we wer men quhilkis wold fulfill in deid that thing +quhilk we proffessit, that is the preachyng of godis worde and furth +settyng of his glorye. Me lordis of the congregation movet by thare +offres wer content to here commonyng. So fynallye after long talke, It +is appointted on this maner. That the Religion here begoon sall proceid +and contenew in all places wt owt impedement of the quenes authoretie, +thare minesters sall neyther be trubillit nor stopped and in all places +whare ydolletre is put downe sall not be cett vp agane. And whill the +parlement be haldin to consele vpon all materes wch is fixit the x day of +Januarye nixt, every man sall leive to his conscience not compellit be +authoretye to do any thyng in religion yt his conscience repugnes to. And +to this said parlement ther sall no man of or congregation be molested or +trobillit in thair bodeis landis goodis possessions what someevir. +Further wt all dilligent spede ther frenche men here present salbe send +awaye. And sall no other cum in this Realme w owt consent of the hole +nobilite. The towne of Eddingburght salbe keipit fre by the inhabitantes +thairof and no maner of garnission laid or keip thair In, neyther of +frenche nor scottis. For our part we sall remove of Eddingburght to or +awne houssis, yt the quene may come to hir awne palyce, wch we tuke of +before and hathe left it voyde to hir G. We have delyvered the prentyng +yrunes of the coyne agayne wch we tuke becaus of the corruption of monye +agaynst our laws and commonwealthe. Off truthe we believe nevir worde to +be keipit of thir promises of her syde. And therfore hath tane me lord +duke the erll of Huntlye and the rest of the nobillitye beying vpon hir +syde bound to the performance hereof wt this condition yf sche brekkes +any point heirof they sall renunce hir obeysance and joyne them selfis wt +vs. In this meane-tyme we contenew or men of warr to gydder wt in or +boundis of Fyfe, Angus, Stretherin and Westland, in aduenture the +appointtment be broken, and dowtes not to mak vs daily stronger for by +the furthe settying of religion and haittred of the frenche men we gett +the hartis of the hole commonalties. Nowe to conclude yf it had not bene +for some nobillmens causis who hes promised to be owres we hade not +appointted wt the quene at this tyme. From hens forwardis send to the +lard of Ormiston who will se all saifly conveyed to me. Thvs I commit +you to god from Eddingburght the xxiiii of Jully + +yoris at power + +(W. KYRKCALDY)." {147} + +{147} MS. Record Office; cf. For. Cal. Eliz., 1558 59, 408, 409. + +{148a} Knox, i. 379, 380. + +{148b} Ibid., i. 381. + +{149a} Knox, vi. 53. + +{149b} Ibid., i. 397-412. The Proclamation, and two Replies. + +{149c} My italics. + +{150} Knox, i. xxvi.; vi. 87. + +{151a} Knox, i. 392, 393. + +{151b} Ibid., i. 382. + +{152a} Knox, ii. 15-38. + +{152b} Ibid., vi. 56-59. + +{153} S. P. Scotland, Elizabeth, MS. vol. i. No. 80; cf. Bain, i. 236, +237. Croft to Cecil, Berwick, August 3, 1559. + +{154a} For. Cal. Eliz., 470. + +{154b} I assume that he was the preacher at Edinburgh in d'Oysel's +letter of June 30-July 2, 1559. Teulet, i. 325. + +{155} Sadleir to Cecil, September 8, 1559. For. Cal. Eliz., 543, 1558- +1559. The fortification, says Professor Hume Brown, "was a distinct +breach of the late agreement" (of July 24), "and they weir not slow to +remind her" (the Regent) "of her bad faith." The agreement of July 24 +says nothing about fortifying. The ingenious brethren argued that to +fortify Leith entailed "oppression of our poor brethren, indwellers of +the same." Now the agreement forbade "oppression of any of the +Congregation." But the people of Leith had "rendered themselves" to the +Regent on July 24, and the breach of treaty, if any, was "constructive." +(John Knox, ii. 47; Knox, i. 413, 424-433.) + +{158a} The evidence as to these proceedings of the brethren is preserved +in the French archives, and consists of testimonies given on oath in +answer to inquiries made by Francis and Mary in November 1559. + +{158b} We have dated Lethington's desertion of the Regent about October +25, because Knox says it was a "few days before our first defeat" on the +last day in October. M. Teulet dates in the beginning of October a Latin +manifesto by the Congregation to all the princes of Christendom. This +document is a long arraignment of the Regent's policy; her very +concessions as to religion are declared to be tricks, meant to bring the +Protestant lords under the letter of the law. The paper may be thought +to show the hand of Lethington, not of Knox. But, in point of fact, I +incline to think that the real author of this manifesto was Cecil. He +sketches it in a letter sent from the English Privy Council in November +15, 1559. This draft was to be used by the rebels in an appeal to +Elizabeth. + +{159} Knox, vi, 89, 90; M'Crie, 143. + +{160a} Bothwell states the amount at 3000 ecus de soleil. French +Archives MS. + +{160b} Knox, i. 472. + +{161a} Sadleir to Cecil, Nov. 15, 1559. For. Cal. Eliz., 1559-60, 115. + +{161b} Labanoff, vii. 283. + +{163} Knox, vi. 105-107. + +{164} See Appendix B. + +{165a} Corp. Ref., xlv. 645 (3118, note I). + +{165b} Calvinus Sturmio, Corp. Ref., xlvi. 38, 39, March 23, 1560. +Sturmius Calvino, ibid., 53-56, April 15. + +{166a} Bain, i. 389, 390; For. Cal. Eliz., 1559-60, 604. + +{166b} Knox, ii. 68; cf. the Regent's letter. Bain, i. 389. + +{167a} The date may be part of an interpolation. + +{167b} This account is from the French Archives MS., Angleterre, vol. +xv. + +{168} Knox, ii. 72. + +{169} It is an inexplicable fact that, less than a month before +Glencairn and Lord James signed the first godly Band (December 3, 1557), +these two, with Kirkcaldy of Grange, "were acting with the Queen-Dowager +against Huntly, Chatelherault, and Argyll," who in December signed with +them the godly Band. The case is thus stated by Mr. Tytler, perhaps too +vigorously. It appears that, after the refusal of the Lords to cross +Tweed and attack England, in the autumn of 1557, the Regent, with the +concurrence of Glencairn, Lord James, and Kirkcaldy of Grange, proposed +to recall from exile in England the Earl of Lennox, father of Darnley. +He, like the chief of the Hamiltons, had a claim to the crown of +Scotland, failing heirs born of Mary Stuart. Lennox, therefore, would be +a counterpoise to Hamilton and his ally in mutiny, Argyll. Thus Lord +James and Glencairn, in November 1557; support the Regent against the +Hamiltons and Argyll, but in December Glencairn, reconciled to Argyll, +signs with him the godly Band. We descry the old Stewart versus Hamilton +feud in these proceedings. + +{170} Knox, ii. 87, note. + +{172} Knox, ii. 89-127. + +{174a} Randolph to Cecil, September 7; Bain, i. 477, 478. + +{174b} Knox, vi. 83, 84. + +{174c} Knox, vi. lxxxii. + +{175} M'Crie, Life of John Knox, 162 (1855). + +{177a} Keith, iii. 4-7. + +{177b} Bain, i. 461. + +{177c} Cf. Edinburgh Burgh Records. + +{182} Knox, ii. 193. + +{186} Queen Mary's Letter to Guise, p. xlii., Scottish History Society, +1904. + +{191a} Lesley, ii. 454 (1895). + +{191b} See Lord James to Throckmorton, London, May 20, a passage quoted +by Mr. Murray Rose, Scot. Hist. Review, No. 6, 154. Additional MSS. +Brit. Mus., 358, 30, f. 117, 121. Lord James to Throckmorton, May 20- +June 3, 1561. + +{191c} Bain, i. 540, 541. + +{191d} Lord James to Dudley, October 7, 1561, Bain, i. 557. + +{192} Pollen, Papal Negotiations, 62. + +{193a} Knox, ii, 266. + +{193b} Bain, ii. 543. + +{194} Bain, ii. 547. + +{195} Knox, ii. 276, 277. + +{196} Knox, vi. 131. + +{197} Knox, ii. 279, 280. + +{199} Tracts by David Fergusson, Bannatyne Club, 1860. + +{200a} Bain, i. 551, 552. + +{200b} Lord James to Lord Robert Dudley, October 7, 1561. Bain, i. 557, +558. Lethington's account of his reasonings with Elizabeth is not very +hopeful. Pollen, "Queen Mary's Letter to Guise," Scot. Hist. Soc., 38- +45. + +{201a} Bain, i. 565. + +{201b} Knox, vi. 131, 132; ii. 289. + +{201c} The proclamation against "all monks, friars, priests, nuns, +adulterers, fornicators, and all such filthy persons," was of October 2. +On October 5 the Queen bade the council and community of the town to meet +in the Tolbooth, depose the Provost and Bailies, and elect others. On +October 8 the order was carried out, and protests were put in. A note +from Lethington was received, containing three names, out of which the +Queen commanded that one must be Provost. The Council "thought good to +pass to her Grace," show that they had already made their election, and +await her pleasure. "Jezebel's letter and wicked will is obeyed as law," +says Knox.--Extracts from Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, 126, 127. + +{202} Knox, vi. 133-135. Corp. Refor., xlvii. 74. + +{203a} Corp. Refor., xlvii. 114, 115. + +{203b} Bain, i. 582, 583. + +{203c} Ibid., i. 491. Randolph to Cecil. + +{205} Bain, i. 565, 566. + +{206a} Froude, iii. 265-270 (1866). + +{206b} Knox, vi. 83. + +{207a} Knox, vi. 11-14. + +{207b} Bain, i. 569. Randolph to Cecil, November 11. + +{207c} Ibid., i. 568-570. + +{208a} There was a small guard, but no powerful guard existed till after +Riccio's murder. + +{208b} Bain, i. 575. Randolph to Cecil, December 7. + +{208c} Ibid., i. 571. + +{209} It is plain from Randolph (Bain, i. 575) that the precise feared +that Mary, if secured by the English alliance, would be severe with "true +professors of Christ." + +{210} Keith, iii. 384, 385. + +{211a} Knox, ii. 300-313. Pollen, "Mary's Letter to the Duc de Guise," +xli.-xlvii. + +{211b} Bain, i. 568, 569. + +{211c} Ibid., i. 585. Randolph to Cecil, January 2, 1562. + +{212a} There is an air of secrecy in these transactions. In the +Register of the Privy Seal, vol. xxxi. fol. 45 (MS.), is a "Precept for a +Charter under the Great Seal," a charter to Lord James for the Earldom of +Moray. The date is January 31, 1560-61. On February 7, 1560-61, Lord +James receives the Earldom of Mar, having to pay a pair of gilded spurs +on the feast of St. John (Register of Privy Seal, vol. xxx. fol. 2). Lord +James now bore the title of Earl of Mar, not, as yet--not till Huntly was +put at--of Moray. + +{212b} Dr. Hay Fleming quotes Randolph thus: "The Papists mistrust +greatly the meeting; the Protestants as greatly desire it. The preachers +are more vehement than discreet or learned." (Mary Queen of Scots, p. +292, note 35, citing For. Cal. Eliz., iv. 523.) The Calendar is at fault +and gives the impression that the ministers vehemently preached in favour +of the meeting of the Queen. This was not so, Randolph goes on, "which I +heartily lament." He uses the whole phrase, more than is here given, not +only on January 30, but on February 12. Now Randolph desired the +meeting, so the preachers must have "thundered" against it! They feared +that Mary would become a member of the Church of England, "of which they +both say and preach that it is little better than when it was at the +worst" (Bain, i. 603). + +{212c} Keith, ii. 139. + +{213} The Teviotdale Ormistouns of that ilk. + +{214a} In Pitcairn's Criminal Trials is Arran's report of Bothwell's +very words, vol. i., part 2, pp. 462-465. + +{214b} Bain, i. 613, 614. + +{215a} Bain, i. 618, 619. + +{215b} Knox, ii. 330. + +{215c} Ibid., ii. 330, 331. + +{215d} Cf. Baird, The Rise of the Huguenots, ii. 21 et seq. + +{216a} Bain, i. 627. Randolph to Cecil, May 29. + +{216b} Cf. Froude, vi. 547-565. + +{216c} "Book of Discipline," Knox, ii. 228. + +{216d} M'Crie, 187. + +{217a} Knox, ii. 330-335. + +{217b} Bain, i. 673. + +{217c} Randolph mentions the joy of the Court over some Guisian +successes against the Huguenots, then up in arms, while Mary was on her +expedition against Huntly, in October 1562. On December 30 he says that +there is little dancing, less because of Knox's sermons than on account +of bad news from France. Bain, i. 658, 674. + +Dr. Hay Fleming dates the wicked dance in December 1562, but of course +that date was not the moment when "persecution was begun again in +France," nor would Mary be skipping in December for joy over letters of +the previous March. Mary Queen of Scots, 275. + +{218} Knox, vi. 140, 141. + +{219a} Keith, iii. 50, 51. + +{219b} Bain, i. 630. + +{219c} Lesley, ii. 468. + +{219d} Knox, vi. 193. + +{220a} Knox, ii. 337-345. + +{220b} Hay Fleming, Mary Queen of Scots, 301. + +{221a} Knox, ii. 347. + +{221b} Act Parl. Scot., ii. 572. + +{221c} Bain, i. 665. + +{221d} Bain, i. 668. + +{222a} Chalmers, in his Life of Queen Mary, vol. i. 78-96 (1818), takes +the view of the Huntly affair which we adopt, but, observing the quietly +obtained title of Moray under the Privy Seal (January 30, 1561-62) and +the publicly assumed title of Mar, granted on February 7, 1561-62, +Chalmers (mistaking Huntly for a loyal man) denounces the treachery of +Lord James and the "credulity" of the Queen. To myself it appears that +brother and sister were equally deep in the scheme for exalting Moray and +destroying Huntly. + +{222b} Cf. Pollen, Papal Negotiations, 163, 164. + +{222c} Knox, ii. 346. + +{222d} Ibid., ii. 358. + +{223a} Bain, i. 675. + +{223b} Froude, ii. 144 (1863). + +{224a} Registrum de Panmure, i.-xxxii., cited by Maxwell; Old Dundee, +162. Book of the Universal Kirk, 26. + +{225a} Knox, ii. 364-367; ii. 531, 532; Keith, iii. 140, 141. + +{225b} Spanish Calendar, i. 314. + +{225c} Bain, i. 684-686. + +{225d} Knox, ii. 367-369. + +{226a} Knox, ii, 370. + +{226b} Bain, i. 686. + +{226c} Ibid., i. 687. + +{226d} Knox, li. 361; Bain, i. 693. Lethington's argument against +Lennox's claim, March 28, 1563. + +{227a} Knox, ii. 371. + +{227b} Bain, ii. 7. + +{228a} Knox, ii. 370-377. + +{228b} Ibid., ii. 377-379. + +{228c} Bain, ii. 9, 10. + +{229a} Knox, ii. 381. + +{229b} Ibid., ii. 387-389. + +{231a} Bain, ii. 24. + +{231b} Ibid., ii. 25. + +{231c} Spanish Calendar, i. 338. + +{231d} Bain, ii. 19, 20. + +{232a} Bain, ii. 26; Knox, ii. 393, 394. + +{232b} Hume Brown, Scotland under Queen Mary, p. 99. + +{232c} Pitcairn, Criminal Trials, i. 434. + +{232d} Dr. M'Crie accepts, like Keith, a story of Spottiswoode's not +elsewhere found (M'Crie, 204), but innocently remarks that, as to the +brawl in chapel, Spottiswoode could not know the facts so well as Knox! +(p. 210). Certainly twenty-two attendants on the Mass were "impanelled" +for trial for their religious misdemeanour. Knox, ii. 394, note I. + +{233a} Knox, ii. 397. + +{233b} Randolph to Cecil; Bain, ii. 28, 29. + +{233c} Knox, ii. 399-401. + +{234a} Keith, ii. 210. The version in Bain, ii. 30, is differently +worded. + +{234b} Knox, ii. 403. + +{235} Knox, ii. 399-415. + +{236} Pitcairn, Criminal Trials, i. 434, 435. + +{237a} Randolph, December 31; Bain, ii. 33; Knox, ii. 415. + +{237b} Randolph, February 19, 1564; Bain, i. 113, 125. + +{237c} Knox, ii. 415, note 3. + +{238} Knox, ii. 417-419. + +{239} Bain, i. 680; ii. 54. + +{240} Knox, ii. 291, 292. + +{241a} Lethington spoke merely of "controversies" (Knox, ii. 460). I +give the confessed meaning of the controversy. + +{241b} Compare Knox, ii. 291, as to the discussion at Makgill's house in +November 1561. + +{241c} Knox, ii. 460, 461. + +{242a} Original Letters, Parker Society, Bullinger to Calvin, March 26, +1554, pp. 744-747. + +{242b} Knox, ii. 441, 442. + +{243a} The very programme of the General Assembly for the treatment of +Catholics, in November 1572. See p. 269 infra. + +{243b} Knox, v. 462-464. + +{244a} Knox, ii. 441. + +{244b} Ibid., ii. 442, 443. + +{246} Randolph to Cecil, February 27, 1565; Bain, ii. 128. + +{247a} Knox, ii. 497. + +{247b} Ibid., vi. 224, 225. + +{248a} Knox, vi. 273; ii. 499. + +{248b} Ibid., ii. 514. + +{248c} Ibid., vi. 402. + +{249a} Book of the Universal Kirk, 34. + +{249b} Knox, vi. 416. + +{249c} Bain, ii. 254, 255. + +{249d} Stevenson, Selections, 153-159. + +{250a} Papal Negotiations, xxxviii.-xliii. + +{250b} Keith, ii. 412-413. + +{250c} Knox, ii. 524. + +{251a} Knox, i. 235. + +{251b} Hume Brown, John Knox, ii. 231. + +{252a} Randolph to Cecil, March 21, 1566. Bain, ii. 269, 270. Diurnal, +March 17, 1566. Knox's prayer, Knox, vi. 483, 484. + +{252b} Bain, ii. 269, 270. + +{252c} See Calvin's letter of January 24 or April 1, 1564, Corpus +Reformatorum, xlviii. 244-249. + +{253a} Life of Knox, 235, note 3; cf. Knox, ii. 533. + +{253b} Burnet, History of the Reformation, iii. 360. + +{253c} Knox, ii. 544-560. + +{254a} Knox, vi. 545-547. + +{254b} State Papers, Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. xiii., No. 20, MS. + +{256a} Book of the Universal Kirk, 61-67. + +{256b} Stevenson, Illustrations of the Reign of Queen Mary, 208. + +{256c} Knox, ii. 563. + +{257a} Stevenson, 221. + +{257b} Ibid., 240, July 21. + +{257c} Chalmers's "Life of Mary," ii. 487. + +{258a} Knox, vi. 558-561. + +{258b} If born in 1513-15, he was only about fifty-three to fifty-five. + +{259a} Knox, vi. 567. + +{259b} Knox and the Church of England, 230. + +{259c} Strype's Grindal, 168-179 (1821). + +{260a} Corp. Ref., xlvii. 417, 418. + +{260b} Strype's Grindal, 507-516. + +{261a} Zurich Letters. 1558-1602, pp. 152-155. + +{261b} Strype's Grindal, 180. Also the letter of Grindal in Ellis, iii. +iii. 304 + +{262a} Knox, ii. 247-249. + +{262b} Knox and the Church of England, 298-301. + +{263a} Knox, vi. 559. + +{263b} Ibid., vi. 568. + +{263c} M'Crie, 248. + +{264a} Bannatyne's Memorials, 5-13 (1836). + +{264b} Calderwood, ii. 515-525. + +{266} Bannatyne's Transactions, 70-82. Bannatyne was Knox's secretary, +and fragments dictated by the Reformer appear in his pages. + +{267a} Melville's "Diary," 20-26. + +{267b} Knox, vi. 606-612. + +{268a} Bannatyne, 223, 224 (1836). + +{268b} Knox, vi. 620-622. + +{268c} Ibid., 236 + +{269a} Bannatyne, 268. + +{269b} Ibid., 273. + +{269c} Ibid., 278. + +{269d} John Knox, ii. 282, 283. + +{270} Cf. Leicester's letter of October 10, 1574, in Tytler, vii. chap, +iv., and Appendix. + +{271} Tytler, vii. chap. iv.; Appendix xi, with letters. + +{272a} Knox, ii. 356; Bannatyne, 281, 282. + +{272b} Morton to Killigrew, August 5, 1573. + +{273} Bannatyne, 283-290. + +{274} There was another Falsyde. + +{275a} See the letter in Maxwell's Old Dundee, 399-401. + +{275b} Bain's Calendar is misleading here (vol. i. 202). Why Mr. Bain +summarised wrongly in 1898, what Father Stevenson had done correctly in +1863 (For. Cal. Eliz,, p. 263) is a mystery. + +{276a} See the "Prefatio," Knox, i. 297, 298. In this preface Knox +represents the brethren as still being "unjustly persecuted by France and +their faction." The book ends with the distresses of the Protestants in +November 1559, with the words, "Look upon us, O Lord, in the multitude of +Thy mercies; for we are brought even to the deep of the dungeon."--Knox, +i. 473. + +{276b} Knox, vi. 22, 23. + +{276c} M'Crie's Knox, 360. + +{277a} Knox, i. 317-319. + +{277b} Hume Brown, John Knox, ii. 6. + +{277c} John Knox, ii. 4. + +{277d} Scot. Hist. Review, January 1905. + +{278a} Lesley, ii. 40, Scottish Text Society, 1895. + +{278b} In the French Archives MS., Angleterre, vol. xv. + +{279a} Melville, 79 (1827). + +{279b} Spottiswoode, i. 320. + +{279c} Keith, i. 493, 494 (1835). + +{280a} Angl. Reg., xvi., fol. 346. + +{280b} Teulet, i. 407. + +{280c} Ibid., i. 410. + +{280d} For. Cal. Eliz., 1559-60, p. 453. + +{280e} Ibid., p. 469. + +{280f} Ibid., p. 480. + + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN KNOX AND THE REFORMATION*** + + +******* This file should be named 14016.txt or 14016.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/0/1/14016 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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