t>*5e> ^^,, iiV>.-^-. TfiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiM i:: xxrrnxrxr : i ixxixn ixxixn^ \S/02^ Stem f ^e feifirar^ of (pxofcBBox n37ifftdm ^tnx^ (Breen (J^equeaf^c^ 61^ ^im to t^e £i6tari? of Pr^«**4^ A A^/%4/k 9l IVA>vPA>>r* A A P .^% A'^^A*** A«*«A BR 783 .M63 1882 Moffat, James Clement, 1811 1890. The church in Scotland iif/iiireil K- iiriiiUd tnr llw t^re^litfU-i-ifm Hoard nf I'uhUrniln,, I- /i Thio- IteniiluufH H- SniL. I'hiUiiUi THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND A HISTORY OF ITS ANTECEDENTS, ITS CONFLICTS AND ITS ADVOCATES FROM THE EARLIEST RECORDED TIMES TO THE FIRST ASSEMBLY OF THE REFORMED CHURCH BY TH^ Rev. JAMES C.%OFFAT, D.D. Professor of Church History, Princeton Theological Seminary PHILADELPHIA PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION 1334 CHESTNUT STREET COPYRIGHT, 1882, BY THE TRUSTEES OF THE PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Westcott & Thompon, Skreolypers and Eleclrotyjiprs, Philada. PREFACE History of the early Irish and Scottish churches lay, until recently, in a state of chaos. A primitive period of intelligent sim- plicity had left a few honest records of itself. But a long succeeding time of greater preten- sion had covered those records up with more showy fable. Romish writers of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, conceiving of no ecclesias- tical system but their own, in recounting events of a preceding and different state of things misrepresented them, perhaps unintentionally. Blunders of ignorance mingled with the bias of prejudice to pervert truth, and truthful state- ments of fact were thrust into the background by the more exciting wonders of legendary lore. In many cases the original narratives, after serving as the basis of some fabulous life of a saint, were suffered to perish. Those that survived were subsequently perverted in the application made of them to suit a fictitious sys- tem of history, constructed by John of Fordun in the fourteenth century, further developed by 4 PREFACE. Hector Boece in the fifteenth, and adhered to by subsequent historians until very recent years. The period over which this obscurity Hes deepest is from the first planting of Christianity in the British Isles to the eleventh century ; the churches upon which it rests are the old British, the Irish and the Scottish churches, and deepest of all upon the last. Recent historical research and criticism have been hardly less wonderfully successful in this field than in that of Oriental archaeology. Al- though Thomas Jones made a beginning in it more than one hundred and fifty years ago, and was followed by Lord Hailes and others at long intervals, the really effective work belongs to men of the present generation. It began in a careful comparison and discriminative treatment of all the ancient books on the sub- ject, resulting in critical editions of the more important under the light of that comparison. In both lines, the prior credit is due to certain scholars of the Irish Archaeological and Celtic Society, among whom conspicuously appear John O'Donovan, LL.D., James Kenthorne Todd, D. D., and William Reeves, D. D. Con- temporaneously, in Scotland, Dr. Forbes, bishop of Brechin, Joseph Robertson and William F. Skene and others entered the same field. Mr. Skene's early works were of the utmost PREFACE. 5 value to the whole enterprise In his editions of the four ancient Books of Wales, of the Chron- icles of the Picts and Scots and other early memorials of Scottish history, and of Fordun's chronicle of the Scottish nation. Such works were accompanied or followed by carefully- written monographs on certain epochs, legal questions and great historical personages, in the list of which Todd's Saint Patrick and Reeves's edition of Adamnan's Life of Columba stand eminent as masterpieces of historical criticism. A fourth effort was to combine all the discov- eries of research in a consecutive narrative, with every statement supported by critically-defined evidences. So should the whole history be lifted beyond question out of the region of legend. With this view, Dr. Thomas IM'Lauch- lan in 1865 published his Early Scottish Church. He was perhaps too early, for the progress of research went on. John Hill Burton, in the first volume of his general history of Scotland, issued in 1867, found important alterations ne- cessary for his second edition of 1872. And now William F. Skene, in his last work, which he calls Celtic Scotland, a Histoiy of Ancie7it Alban, covers the whole of that bewildering period of North Bridsh existence with a thoroughly search- ing narrative, which if not satisfactory on all points certainly distances all competition yet in the field. O PREFACE, The last volume of his three octavos appeared at the close of 1880. It is presumed that many people would glad- ly become acquainted with the facts thus elicited who have not leisure to follow the careful and often-retracing footsteps of criticism. To that class of readers is the present volume addressed, in the hope that it may contribute to a popular understanding of the real character of an inter- esting but hitherto greatly misunderstood por- tion of the Christian Church. CONTENTS, BOOK FIRST. ANCIENT PERIOD. CHAPTER I. PAGB The Religion of Heathen Scotland 17 CHAPTER II. Introduction of the Gospel 23 CHAPTER in. Christianity Established , 33 CHAPTER IV. NiNIAN 39 CHAPTER V. Palladius 42 CHAPTER VI. Patricius 47 CHAPTER VII. Patrick's Teaching 54 CHAPTER VIII. Church of Strathclyde 69 CHAPTER IX. COLUMBA 74 7 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. PAGB LiNDISFARNE 88 CHAPTER XI. Decline of Iona 96 CHAPTER XH. Constructing the Kingdom of Scotland 108 CHAPTER XIH. Macbeth . 119 CHAPTER XIV. Malcolm Canmore 124 BOOK SECOND. PERIOD OF PAPAL RULE. CHAPTER I. St. Margaret the Queen 137 CHAPTER II. The Sons of St. Margaret 144 CPIAPTER III. Introduction of the Romish Church Government ... 150 CHAPTER IV. Introduction of Romish Monasticism 160 CHAPTER V. Papal Scotland. — National Consolidation 174 CHAPTER VI. Scotland submits to be a Romish Province 184 CONTEXTS. 9 CHAPTER VII. PAGE Extinction of the Scoto-Saxon Dynasty 193 CHAPTER Vni. Scotland's Relations to the Papacy during the War . . 206 CHAPTER IX. Papal Relations of Scotland under Restored Independence. 225 CHAPTER X. Progress ok Education. — Rise of the Scottish Universities. 237 CHAPTER XL Closing Summary 253 BOOK THIRD. CAUSES WHICH LED TO THE REFORMATION. CHAPTER I. Decline of Clerical Piety 263 CHAPTER II. Clerical Morality 272 CHAPTER III. Truth and Error 287 CHAPTER IV. John Major 296 CHAPTER V. Patrick Hamilton 303 CHAPTER VI. Cardinal Bfaton 312 ;0 CONTENTS. BOOK FOURTH. THE REFORMATION CONFLICT. CHAPTER I. PAGE George Wishart and Cardinal Beaton 341 CHAPTER II. Alliance with France . . . 367 CHAPTER III. The Lords of the Congregation 383 'CHAPTER IV. Mary of Lorraine and the People 400 CHAPTER V. John Knox 420 CHAPTER VI. The French Invasion 429 CHAPTER VII. The Victory 439 MAPS. PAGE BRITAIN UNDER THE ROMANS ..... Facing Title. NORTH BRITAIN IN THE TIME OF COLUMBA . Facing 75 NORTH BRITAIN IN THiE TENTH CENTURY. . « 119 ROMISH BISHOPRICS " 155 11 12 LIST OF KINGS AND POPES. w O 1 1 < II teg O 1 rt (X, i Gelasius I Calixtus I Honorius : Innocent I Celestine I Lucius II. Eugenius ] Anastasius Adrian IV Alexander Lucius III Urban III Gregorj' V Clement II CO Ov -J- ??^???^ 00 CO 00 00 Q < H O U m O o a 00 Oh 3 =: -^^ S <2 rt rt-3 rt u rt S^ rt C C c J^ So O 3 oO-u fiflfi W 8^8^?^ g^ LIST OF KINGS AND POPES. I3 •5 •^ ^ 53 « c o q" .iJ c c s 31 Honorius III. Gregory IX. Celestine IV. Innocent IV. Alexander IV Urban IV. Clement IV. Gregory X. Innocent V. Nicolas III. Martin IV. Honorius IV. > 8 >> 3l l-l 00 f» M P) C4 t~. t~.00 00 22 22 t H M i I- g % % % 14 LIST OF KINGS AND POPES. ii •*> ^ c u n oo J. ^ r^ o\ M < H ■?^ § S ..«o ^^ lc)5 1— < I— 1 .^ ji ^i X* >>< 1 ?: 8 1 111 II cS a 00 TO ON -*-vd ^^ . ^ P;% 2"^ < M cj H M 03 H P. 2 w O ^ h-4 M (^ o H c/^ J < 1 1 i c ifl >« > :3 « 3H^ ^ 'S 1 III "5 rt 3 N ;z;u^ Ah C« „• t^inod Tt- „• m TMniA VO t^ "^ >5 ^^ o S"< li o 2 w i-i . ^ T3 D-aXI-- ^ VO t^ t^OO 00 00 Pi A BOOK FIRST ANCIENT PERIOD. The Church in Scotland. CHAPTER I. THE RELIGION OF HEATHEN SCOTLAND. NORTH BRITAIN, in her most ancient recorded -times, was a forest, and her re- Hglon a rehgion of the woods. Her people, Hke those of South Britain and the neiorhborinor Isles, were of Celtic stock, and, although called by Roman writers Caledonians, were comprehend- ed under the common classification of Britons. Like the primitive Hebrews, Hindoos, Greeks, and perhaps all nations of earth's early history, they worshiped in the open air, the temple being only a space designated by some religious cere- mony. Among the Britons it was a dark grove, and never reached a more formal structure than that of a grove enclosing a circle of stones sur- rounding the sacred area, sometimes with an avenue of approach bounded In like manner, and within the circle a broad flat stone, called the '' cromlech," supported, like a table, by three or more stones set on edge. In some parts of Scotland these structures have been removed 2 17 1 8 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. to make way for the plough. Still, especially in the Central Highlands, a great number of them have been allowed to remain.^ Their priests, called Druids, probably from two Celtic words signifying " spokesmen for God," observed a Nature-worship, after the style of the Vedic In India and pre-HomerIc in Greece, but which also had some features pe- culiar to itself. They rejected the worship of Images, and taught the doctrine of one supreme God, but not to the exclusion of other divine beinors regarded with an Inferior deo^ree of ven- eratlon. They believed in man's responsibility to God, In the immortality of his soul, in his liability to sin, and in rewards and punishments ever chanorlnor in future states of transmlorratlon. Of God the chief emblem was the Sun, the giver of light and warmth and the supporter of life. To him, and to fire as a secondary sign, were the most solemn ceremonies of worship paid. Annual festivals were observed in his honor. The Beltane, meaning perhaps " the fire of Bel," was lighted upon high places on the first day of May and on Midsummer Eve, accompa- nied by sacrifice." A similar solemnity was observed on the last of October or first of November. A mark of Oriental origin was also retained 1 Gazetteer of Scotland, Introd., p. 52. 2 Statistical Account of Scotland, iii. 105, v. 84, and xi. 620. THE RELIGION OF HEATHEN SCOTLAND. 1 9 In the religious feeling with which the serpent was reearded. The Druids are said to have attached great religious virtue to the serpent's ^ZZ' Veneration was also paid to certain trees, especially the oak — to mountains, springs and rivers. Spiritual beings were conceived of as animating matter and as disembodied In the air. To certain plants a mystic and sacred character was ascribed, as to the mistletoe when found growing upon the oak, which was believed to be an antidote for poisons and a cure for all diseases. It was cut with ceremonies of mys- terious solemnity. "A Druid clothed in white mounted the tree, and with a knife of gold cut the mistletoe, which was received by another standing on the ground in his white robe." In their worship, as In most other ancient religions, the principal elements were sacrifice and prayer. But sacrifice, as practiced by Druids, must have been appalling. Their favorite victims were hu- man beings. Criminals, after imprisonment for years, were offered as sacrifices by being im- paled and burned in great fires. They also *' immolated prisoners taken in war." On cer- tain great occasions, making a gigantic image of wickerwork, they would fill it with men and animals, and burn it with all its contents in one terrible holocaust. Sometimes, Inflicting the fatal wounds in such a manner as not to produce in- stant death, the priests deliberately took thei>^ 20 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. auguries from the contortions of the dying ag- ony of the victim. Druidical discipHne was severe, and was main- tained by punishments of various degrees. One of the most remarkable was what may be called excommunication from their sacrificial observ- ances, implying also prohibition from all civil rights and privileges — equal, in short, to expul- sion from the nation. Druids were also the learned class of the people, and used an alphabetical system of writinor consistinor of seventeen letters — most o o likely the primitive Greek alphabet derived from Phoenicia. Their legal and religious instruc- tions and liturgies, however, were not read, but recited, and were in verse. Only in common business was writing employed ; their sacred literature was to be treasured in the human mind, not written. Such was the amount of it that a novitiate of twenty years was ordinarily spent in getting full command of it by memory. For, besides religion, it treated of law, of med- icine and of astronomy, or rather, perhaps, of astrology. Superstitious in their religion and cruel in some of its observances, the Druids were yet careful practical correctors of morals and gave much attention to moral and natural philosophy. Within their own order they were of three classes, as bards or poets, prophets and com- TIJE RELIGION OF HEATHEN SCOTLAND. 21 mon Druids. DIodorus makes only two classes by including the prophets under the head of bards. A president of the whole was elected by suffrage of the rest, and invested with su- preme authority. Druid women also were of three classes, some being married and living with their families ; others married, but devoting themselves to long periods of religious seclusion ; and a third class being under vows of perpetual celibacy. Caesar, about the middle of the first century before Christ, described this sacerdotal order of the forest as being then held in profound reverence among the Celtic people of Britain and of Central Gaul, and stated that the Druids of Britain excelled in the learning upon which their power reposed. Welsh tradition affirms that they brought it from the far East, whence they had come with the Kumri (or Cymri), that branch of the Celtic race to which the Welsh belong. Their religion was not accepted by all the nations of Gaul, only by those of the centre and west, who received their instruction from Britain. In the British Isles the most authoritative of their seats of learnine was Anglesey, on the coast of Wales. From that island they were extirpated by Suetonius Pau- linus in the sixty-first year of the Christian era. Those who escaped the slaughter fled, it is thouoht, to the Isle of Man. and thence. C5 22 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. following the fortunes of the independent Celts, found refuge among the adherents of their faith in Ireland and Scotland. The progress of Roman arms and imperial edicts continued to diminish the territory of Druidical rule, and Christianity, following after, impaired its moral power. In the next three hundred years it declined even under its own laws and among its own free tribes, until it became little more than a public superstition. Its later feebleness prepared the w^ay for the accession of Christianity. Many Druidical practices and beliefs, however, continued long afterward to retain their hold upon the Celtic people. Some were converted into the num- ber of Christian observances, with a real or fancied Christian meaning. From neither Irish nor Scottish Celtic populations are they en- tirely eradicated to this day. Caesar, Bel. Gall.,\\. 13-18; Pliny, A^^^. Hisf.,x\\. 95; xxiv, 62; XXX. 4; Gazetteer of Scotland, Introd., 52; Pictorial History of Eng- land, b. i. chap. ii. ; G. Higgins, Celtic Druids. CHAPTER II. INTRODUCTION OF THE GOSPEL. THERE is no record of the means whereby Christianity was planted in Britain, for the traditions and disguised guesses recounted by early annalists cannot command belief. Bede^ mentions briefly a stor)' about a British king named Lucius applying to Pope Eleutherus to be made a Christian, and that he obtained his pious request. Nennius" and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle^ mention it still more briefly, each in one short sentence. Geoffrey of Monmouth,* after his own fashion, spins a pretty little romance out of it. Gildas,'^ who is older than the oldest of them, makes no allusion to the stor)', and, from the way in which he speaks of Christianity as slowly dawning upon Britain, most likely had never heard of it, notwith- standing Geoffrey's complimentary reference to his treatment of the subject. The story of Donald, king of the Scots, making a similar application to Pope Victor I. is a baseless fic- ^ Hist. Ecc, b. i. ch. 4. 2 Hist., cli. 22. -^ Under A. D. 167. ^British Hist., b. iv. chs. 19, 20; v. i. ^ Hist., chs. 8, 9. ^ Innes, Civil and Eccles. History of Scotland, p. 14. 24 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. The earliest reliable mention of the gospel In Britain belongs to the beginning of the third century, and is by Tertullian. The reference, however, is merely incidental, giving no definite mformation as to dates or agencies, and is con- tained within a somewhat boastful statement of the extent to which Christianity had been ac- cepted. Yet it testifies, beyond all doubt, to the fact that the gospel had gained some foot- hold in the island before the date at which it was written. The passage occurs in Tertul- lian's answer to the Jews, where he zealously defends the position that Christ has come, and is as follows : '' As, for instance, by this time the various races of the Gaetulians, and manifold confines of the Moors, all the limits of the Spains, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ, and of the Sarmatians, and Dacians, and Germans, and Scythians, and of many remote nations, and of provinces and islands, many to us unknown, and which we can scarce enumerate. In all which places the name of Christ who is already come reigns, as of Him before whom the gates of all cities have been opened."^ In the next sentence it is added : " In all these places dwell the ' people ' of the name of Christ." A few sentences farther on he writes: "Christ's name ^ Answer to the Jems, ch. vii. IXTRODUCTION OF THE GOSPEL. 25 is extended everywhere, believed everywhere, worshiped by all the above-enumerated na- tions." A similarly incidental remark of Origen/ written in or soon after the year 246, implies the same. " When did Britain, previous to the coming of Christ, agree to worship the one God ? When the Moors ? Wlien the whole world ? Now, however, through the Church, all men call upon the God of Israel." By both writers it is presumed to be an undisputed fact that people in Britain had at least as early as the beginning of the third century adopted the religion of Christ. Both wrote of what existed in their own time. Com- munication between Rome and the provinces was then free and frequent. Over excellent Roman roads and upon abundant Roman ship- ping military forces and supplies were passing continually and news was transmitted without impediment. No distinction existed then between England and Scotland, the whole island being called by the common name Britain. The people lived in separate tribes- and governments, and were known by different local names ; but Roman dominion had created a division of the whole into two orreat sections which has existed ever o since, though not always in the same propor- ^ On Ezckiely Homily iv., xiv. 59. 26 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. tions any more than for the same causes. In the latter years of the first century the bound- ary-hne had been drawn between the Clyde and Forth. All north of that line remained independent and British. South of it were conquered provinces. Some of these were precariously held, but after the victories of Agricola it could not be said that any British nation south of the Clyde and Forth had been unvisited by the Romans. The remark of Ter- tullian, therefore, asserts that Christianity had, in his time, been carried north of that line. Tertullian is prone to color highly, but there is no ground for charging him with falsehood ; and when he says that there were, when he wrote, parts of Britain subdued to Christ which were not subject to Roman arms, we cannot take him to mean less than that Chris- tians were to be found among the independent Britons north of the Roman line. By what means Christianity had been carried into Britain is nowhere directly stated by any reliable authority ; but certain' probabilities are obvious. More than a hundred and fifty years before these words of Tertullian were written Roman armies had been maintained in the land. Dispersed over it in camps, many of which have left their names to the towns that grew up around them and under their protection, many of the men necessarily came into acquaintance INTRODUCTION OF THE GOSPEL. 2/ with the natives. In the second century earnest Christians were soldiers in the Roman legions. Britons were also enlisted in the army, and marched to other provinces or to the capital. Whilst some of those who returned doubtless brought evil with them, others may have learned Christ and brought back with them the message of the gospel. From the nature of the Christian impulse w^e may safely infer that those who had learned of Christ did not remain silent am.idst a heathen people visibly suffering the penalties of a cruel religion. Much may have been done by humble pious soldiers, whose names were never known to history, because they labored not by public efforts, but quietly, each in con- versation with his own little circle of acquaint- ances. Nor is it likely that, among the Christian men who in various departments of business must have visited and resided for years in Brit- ain, not one devoted himself of more set pur- pose to the work of the missionary. It was a period of great activity in missionary enterprise, when speaking for Christ was not confined to the clergy. The British churches in after years bore marks in doctrine and worship, as well as in the ministry, of having been planted in an age not far from that of the apostles. It was the part of Scotland lying south of the Clyde and the Forth which participated in that benefit, thoueh not to the exclusion of some 28 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. conversions farther north on the eastern coast. Agricola achieved his victories in that part of the island between the years 8i and 85 a. d. He also constructed a line of defences between the Forth and the Clyde/ In 121 the emperor Hadrian visited Britain, and built another wall farther south, across the island from Carlisle to Tynemouth. By order of Antoninus, in 138 the fortified line of Aericola was strenofthened with a connecting wall ; and in the beginning of the third century Septimius Severus enlarged and strengthened that of Hadrian. His suc- cessor, Caracalla, in the year 211 surrendered all the territory north of that rampart. Dur- ing the one hundred and twenty-seven years from Agricola to Caracalla the south of Scot- land between the two walls was subject to Roman rule. After that act of Caracalla we hear nothlno- o more of Britain until the appearance of Ca- rausius in the reign of Diocletian. But that successful naval leader, whom the senior em- perors — the Augusti in the Diocletian system — thought best to recognize as an associate in government,^ is himself the only theme of the history which touches the country in his days. In 293, Carausius was murdered by Alectus, and Alectus, at the end of three years, ^ Tacitus, Life of Agricola, ch. 23. - Gibbon, i. 320-322, Paris ed. INTRODUCTION OF THE GOSPEL. 29 was defeated by Constantius Chlorus, to whom the administration in Britain had been trans- ferred by the same imperial authorit}^ Con- stantius died at York in 306, and the Roman army of Britain elected his son Constantine to the honors of Augustus. The persecution which began in the latter part of the reign of Diocletian, and continued long in the East, extended also to the Western provinces, but for a briefer time/ A few Brit- ish names are recorded in the list of victims. The martyrdom of St. Alban is referred to the year 305. But the story of it is entirely tradi- tional, not appearing until a hundred years after the date when the event is said to have occurred. It is placed in the reign of the mild and Chris- tian-loving Constantius, and so burdened with miracles that a nimbus of doubt surrounds it. The interval from Caracalla to Carausius, about seventy years, seems to have been en- tirely free from northern Invasion, and that part of Scotland once subject to Rome re- mained in peace. The planting of Christianity there within the preceding one hundred and twenty-seven years would best account for this long uninterrupted tranquillity. Meanwhile, the Scots, a people from Ireland, were securing settlement, by war or treaty, among the southern Hebrides and on the ad- ^ Bede, Ecc. Hist., i. 7, 8; Geoffrey of Monmouth, v. 5. 30 THE CrirRCH LV SCOTLAND. joining mainland. The first clear historical mention of them is made by Ammianus Mar- cellinus as pertaining to the year 360. But that author gives his reader to understand that it was not the first time they had joined the Picts in ravaging the province. No history records the origin of the Scots, and only probabilities testify to their ethnic re- lationship. Their long residence in the north and east of Ireland would account for their use of the Erse language without implying Celtic descent. In some respects their character was strikingly different from the Celtic. Not an impulsive people, they were cautious, patient, ready to seize an advantage when it occurred, and far-seeing to provide for such occurrences. In being brave in defending what they had ac- quired they were only like their neighbors. From their subsequent relations to the Picts, it is probable that they came into the Hebrides as allies of that people, or, with the same motive, made invasions upon the Romanized Britons. Some of them were perhaps Christian, but in mass they were heathen. The name " Pict," as applied to the Caledo- nians, appears first in the address of Eumenius to the emperor Constantius Chlorus upon his victory over Alectus, a. d. 296. Eumenius dis- tinctly applies it to the inhabitants of North Britain before the time of Julius Caesar. IXTRODUCTION OF THE GOSPEL. 3 1 Under Roman rule In Its best days Britain consisted of three sections : First, the com- pletely Romanized provinces to the south of the wall of Hadrian, divided into four prov- inces ; second, the midland or debatable terri- tory between the wall of Hadrian and that of Agrlcola ; and third, all that lay north of the wall of Agrlcola, which was held by the inde- pendent Caledonians, with some of the allied Scots. The people of the midland were re- duced to subjection, but the northern Caledo- nians, though worsted In battle often, never submitted, and frequently retaliated invasion upon the Romans ; and the midland was the principal seat of war between them. In the time of Tertulllan the part of Britain not subjugated by the Romans was that of the Caledonians. And if there were Christians amonof them when he wrote his treatise against the Jews, their conversion could not have been later than the end of the second century, per- haps earlier. The style of Christian teaching which reached them in the days of Polycarp, of Justin Martyr or of Irenaeus may have been very little altered from that of the apostles. While the people of the provinces were af- fected by religious changes in the capital. Christians among the Caledonians were cut off" from such influences by the constant atti- tude of hostility in which their nation stood to 32 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. the Romans, and by the broad belt of debata- ble land between them. Whatever may have been the extent to which the gospel was ac- cepted among the people between the two walls — and it does not seem to have been universal, certainly, beyond their northern bounds — it was only the dissent of a few from the established heathenism. Beyond any reasonable doubt, Christianity came first into the south of Scotland, as in England, through Roman occupation of the country, in the ordinary intercourse of busi- ness, by the capture of prisoners in war and otherwise. Nor can we exclude the probabil- ity of conversions through positive missionary efforts. CHAPTER III. CHRISTIANITY ESTABLISHED. THE army which carried Constantine in victory to Rome, and first elevated the mihtary banner of the cross, began its march from Britain. How much of a British ele- ment it contained we cannot say. But it indicates the convictions prevailing in the province that Constantius, who treated Chris- tians with favor, was greatly beloved by the people. If Constantine was not then himself a believer in Christ, he evinced his belief that the Christians were the stronger party by at- taching himself to their side ; and the army under his command consisted, beyond all doubt, largely of Christian men. Eight years later, at the Council of Aries, there were three bishops from the British provinces south of the Tyne — that is, south' of the wall of Hadrian — but none from the north. As long as connec- tion with Rome existed its ecclesiastical progress was communicated to the provinces. But Chris- tians of the farther north, cut off as foreign by the receding of Roman dominion and by frequently 3 .33 34 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. recurring wars, had few opportunities of obtain- ing relays of religious instruction from the im- perial city, and had to remain fixed in what was originally taught them. Whatever new prac- tices grew up among them were not dictated from that quarter. Another hundred years of imperial rule was that of emperors professing and protecting Christianity. Roman Britain was now fully recognized as a Christian country.^ But it was obscure. The great interests of the Em- pire had been attracted to the East by the planting of the new capital on the Bosphorus, and ecclesiastical discussions centred there or in the schools of Antioch and Alexandria. The Western churches were less conspicuous in the controversies of the fourth century, and the British Isles were the farthest extremity of the West. Moreover, the people, like the subject races in Gaul and Spain, were poor, exhausted by the drain of supporting foreign rulers and armies which annually carried their exactions out of the country. Little is known of the British churches for the hundred years after the reign of Constan- tine. Indirectly, it appears that through the Arian controversy they remained orthodox. 'Tn 363, Athanasius could reckon the Britons among those who were loyal to the catholic 1 Bright, Early English Ch. Hist., p. lo. CHRISTIANITY ESTABLISHED. 35 faith," although three of their bishops took part in the Council of Ariminum, and accept- ed the half-Arian formulary there propounded. In that they did not truly represent their Church at home, and "appear to have returned to the Nicene position." Jerome subsequently de- clared : " Britain worships the same Christ, observes the same rule of truth, with other Christian countries." These remarks touch only the Roman prov- inces in Britain. And they, from the time of Constantine, were governed by the constitu- tion which he impressed upon the whole empire. They belonged to the jurisdiction of the prefect of Gaul. " And his deputy, who bore the title of vicar of Britain, resided at York. Under him were presidents of each of the four great divisions" or provinces "of the island." From the accession of Constantine, in 306, for half a century, the internal tranquillity of the island was little disturbed, except occasion- ally by the exactions of an unprincipled impe- rial officer. But in the year 360 Picts united with the Scots — who now, for the first time,^ appear on the records of Britain — broke over the wall of Severus, and, continuing their rava- ges for the next seven years, ultimately reached the extreme south and threatened the city of London. By order of the emperor Valentinian - 1 Skene, i. 97, 137. 36 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. I., the great general Theodoslus transported an army from the Continent, with which he de- feated the invaders, and drove them back over the wall of Severus and farther north, until he had re-established the rampart of Agricola. By the year 370 the country between the two walls was once more a Roman province, now called Valentia or Valentiniana, in compliment to the emperor. But that was of brief duration. After the imperial forces were withdrawn their persistent enemies from the north again recovered possession of the debatable land. When the Roman army returned the invaders were driven back. But the wall of Severus was subsequently the northern boundary of the imperial dominion. And as soon as the Roman army was out of the way, even that was crossed and invasion repeated to the south. But as Rome became involved in seri- ous conflicts near her own gates the protection of her distant territories had to be surrendered. Early in the fifth century her rulers in Britain collected all their treasures — " some they hid in the earth," " and some they carried with them into Gaul" — and in 418 abandoned Britain for ever. From the time of Agricola they had ruled in the island three hundred and thirty-five years, but their residence was south of the rampart of Severus. The province north of that was never CHRISTIANITY ESTABLISHED. 3/ a safe possession. And yet it was sufficiently subjected, and for a long enough time, to receive substantial elements of civilization, and certain- ly to some extent the gospel. By the imperial constitution of Constantine the Christian Church was woven into the web of general government as the state religion. In its own sphere, like the civil and military depart- ments in theirs, it extended over the whole field of Roman dominion. Corresponding to the civil prefects, the great bishops of the capital cities — Rome, Constantinople, Antioch and Alexan- dria, with Jerusalem — were elevated to the high- est ecclesiastical authority next to the emperor. But by that constitution they could have no power over Christians beyond the bounds of the Empire. In the general Council at Con- stantinople in 381 that fact was recognized, and action taken accordingly, in a canon ordering that churches planted among barbarians should continue the practice they had been taught by their founders — that is, the missionaries under w^hom they were converted. That was the po- sition of the British Christians north of the Tyne and Solway during the greater part of the Roman dominion in the island. And as Ro- man power waned in the south, so were they the more frequently subjected to new incur- sions of Scots from Ireland, who formed set- tlements on the west and joined the Picts in 38 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. raids upon the Roman provinces. Strength was thereby added to the heathen element, while the Christian was diminished and de- pressed. On the eastern side of the island the invasions of Saxons had already begun. CHAPTER IV. N INI AN. THE first positive facts of Scottish church history now emerge into Hght. On the extreme south of Galloway, which looks over the Irish Sea, the coast of Scotland is divided into three capes by the bays of Luce and of Wigton, with the Solway firth. The middle cape terminates at Barrow Head in an embankment of sea-worn rocks about two hun- dred feet high. North-east and north-west from that point the rugged barrier girds the coast for thirty miles. The general level of the country lies at a corresponding elevation above the sea, and, without possessing mountains, rises irregu- larly into a multitude of isolated hills. Up the eastern side, about three miles from the blunted apex of the cape, there is a break and depres- sion in the rocky wall, forming a natural harbor of small extent, made safe by a little island lying nearly across its entrance. On that point of land, and by that little harbor of Whithorn, in or about the year 390, landed Ninian, the first Christian missionary to Scotland known by name. 39 40 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. And yet Ninlan did not come to an entirely heathen country. More than a hundred years before, Christians had been settled in that prov- ince. But lack of religious instruction and the devastations of heathen invaders had no doubt deranged their order, whatever it was, and great- ly diminished their number. Ninian was a na- tive of Christian Britain, probably of North Wales, where the churches were in a flourish- ing condition, according to the venerated prac- tices established by their founders. At Rome he had sought a more complete education than his own country could afford. His residence in that city must have been in the pontificate of Damasus I. or of Syricius, or in part of both. The constitution of Constantine was then in full force, and the hierarchical system in union with the State, although still new, had already shaped itself into the likeness of the civil gov- ernment. On his return through France, Nin- ian visited Martin, bishop of Tours, from whom he could not fail to hear more and other lessons on the merits of sacerdotal and monastic orders. He arrived at Whithorn, there can be little doubt, with ideas of Christianity formed, to some degree, upon what was to be found in Rome under Syri- cius. But nothing is credibly recorded of him at variance with the simple practice of earlier Christians. He built a house for residence and worship and for the education of youth, and N INI AN. 41 preached the gospel there, as well as elsewhere in the country of the southern Picts.^ Many of that people had heard the message of grace before, but ere Ninian's work closed all of those living to the south of the mountains of Dumbartonshire, and perhaps farther north on the eastward, had, in the language of Bede, " forsaken the errors of idolatry and embraced the truth." ^ The death of Ninian is assigned to the year 432. His successors and the results of his la- bors are lost to the eye of history for many generations. His mission-station subsequently came into possession of the Saxons, and, like Lindisfarne, was reconstructed after the Romish model. Bede mentions it again at the end of his history, and says that it had then, in 731, been lately constituted an episcopal see, and had Pecthelm for its first bishop.^ ^ Skene, ii. 419. ^ JJistoria Ecdesiastica, b. iii. 3. " Ibid., b. v. 23. CHAPTER V. PALLADIUS. SHORTLY before the date assigned to Nln- ian's death Palladius arrived as an emissary of Rome — sent not to convert heathen, but to conform existing churches to the Romish model. John of Fordun writes : " The Scots in Scotland had long before been believers in Christ, but had as teachers of the faith and administrators of the sacraments only presbyters and monks, following the rite of the primitive Church."^ But in the middle of the fifth century the resi- dence of the Scots was in Ireland. And by Irish accounts Palladius was sent by Pope Celestine to collect and organize into church order the few scattered Christians among them. In 429 the Pelagian heresy was taking effect upon some of the clergy in South Britain. At the instance of Palladius, who was then a dea- con, the pope sent Germanus, bishop of Aux- erre, to bring them back to the Catholic faith. His attention being thus turned to that quarter of the world, in the second year afterward he 1 Todd's St. Patrick, p. 282. 42 PALLADIUS. 43 ordained Palladius a bishop and sent him to the Scots. Prosper of Aquitaine, a contemporaneous writer, by whom these facts are stated, re- cords in his chronicle, under the consulship of Bassus and Antiochus (a. d. 431), that Pal- ladius was ordained by Pope Celestine, and sent to the Scojts believing in Christ to be their first bishop. In another work, referring to these two missions of Celestine, he adds that the pope in ordaining a bishop for the Scots, while endeavoring to retain the Roman island Catholic, also made a barbarous one Christian. By the " barbarous " island the writer cannot, in that connection, mean any other than Ire- land ; the Latin word barbarus designated it as never having been reduced to Roman govern- ment. The Scots of Ireland were still heathen. All the pretended evidence to the contrary has disappeared before the light of sober criticism. There is no testimony to indicate more than a probability that a few believers may have been found amid the mass of a heathen public. To unite these into a Church was the mission of Palladius. He was not sent to convert heathen, but as a bishop to Christians. It proved, how- ever, upon his arrival in Ireland, that Christians were not numerous enough in the country to make his enterprise practicable. Encountering much hardship, he became disheartened, and 44 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. leaving Ireland crossed over to Britain. By a storm at sea, or, quite as likely, by intelligent choice, he was directed to the eastern coast north of the wall of Antonine, where there was a Christian community still without a bishop. Fordun in Kincardineshire became the centre of his operations. There he re- mained, according to the common account, only a short time, but all the rest of his life, for he there died, as the ancient Book of Armagh says, in the territory of the Britons,^ 432. The missionary enterprise of Ninian began when Roman arms were finally withdrawn from the debatable province between the walls, but not from the country south of it. The success of his long and popular ministry was probably due in part to his being himself a Briton, in sympathy with the national feelings of the people and their earlier religious instruction, where they had received any, earlier than that communicated by himself. Palladius came af- ter the Romans had entirely withdrawn from the whole island. His failure to enforce the Romish ecclesiastical rule as it then stood may have owed something to the fact that he was a foreigner. Romans never were favorites on the north side of Antonine's wall. The people may have been apprehensive that In complying ' A later writer for " Britons" puts " Picts," Todd, 288. PALLADIUS. 45 with the wishes of the emissary from Rome they might be submitting to the Roman em- pire, and thereby yield to an artifice the inde- pendence they had so bravely defended with arms. A persistent enemy no longer able to use force might be suspected of craft. The efforts of Palladius were addressed to the clergy, whom he sought to instruct in '' the Christian law." But there is no account of any conversion to the law, except that of Servanus (St. Serf), who must have been already a Chris- tian. He is said to have accepted consecration as a bishop at the hands of Palladius.^ He also baptized and instructed Ternan, a youth of no- ble birth, who afterward became a presbyter, and later a bishop. But the story of Ternan is entangled in impossible anachronisms. Both Servanus and Ternan were reputed miracle- workers, and most of what passes for biogra- phy of them consists of silly and incredible fables. In short, the undertaking of Palladius seems to have been a failure which later Rom- ish writers attempted to disguise. Moreover, in the Book of A7'inagh an ancient annotator on the life of St. Patrick states that Palladius was also called Patricius, and distin- guishes between them as the first and the sec- ond Patrick. Many contradictions found in the biographies of the apostle of Ireland have ' Todd, St. Patrick, p. 302, Note I. 46 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. been thereby reasonably accounted for, as due to importations from the life of Palla- dius.^ After the final withdrawal of the Romans, barbarian invasions deranging all the coun- tries between Britain and Italy, pirates in- festing the seas and plundering the coasts, the British churches were completely severed from that of Rome — a separation which in North Britain lasted over two hundred years. During all that time the churches in that quar- ter, conducting their inner affairs in their own way, and allowing great freedom in mission en- terprise, contracted customs and established an ecclesiastical system of their own. Meanwhile, those upon the Continent were still more active in building up a structure of a different style — in some things better, in some worse, but in all more powerful. When they next met the difference between them was found to be irreconcilable. ^ Todd, 289; also, 305-345. CHAPTER VI. PA TRIG I US. WHILE the missionary work of Ninian was going on in Galloway and among the southern Picts, incursions of heathen Picts into the province continued, and heathen Scots from Ireland still harried the western coast. The Scots at that date seem to have been in quest not so much of territory as of plunder and slaves. In one of their raids a youth of six- teen years of age, named Succat and also Patricius, was carried off to Ireland, and sold or assigned to an under-chieftain of the O'Neil, in the county Antrim, who put him to the task of tending cattle. By his own account, Patrick was a native of Britain. And that he meant the island of Brit- ain, and not Brittany, admits of no doubt. He does not say in what town or other locality he was born, but the country of which he was a native he names, and also the place where he was taken captive by Irish pirates. The latter was a village called Bonavem Taberniae, near which his father had a little farm.^ Bonavem ^ Confession, c. i. 47 48 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. Taberniae has not been successfully identified with any recent name. An ancient Irish hymn, attributed to Fiacc, a younger contem- porary of his, states that " Patrick was born at Nemthur;" and the scholiast upon the hymn explains Nemthur as a " city in North Britain, namely Alcluada," now Dumbarton, on the firth of Clyde. ^ The country of his nativity Patrick mentions Incidentally, but plainly. He calls it Britannice, using the plu- ral, as the Romans did In reference to the provinces Into which they had divided Brit- ain. Thus, having recounted his escape from captivity in Ireland, he says that he was again in Britanniis with his parents, who received him as a son, and besought him never again to leave them.^ In another place, writing of his wish to go from Ireland to Britain, he again uses the name in the plural, in Britan- nias, and calls that country his patria — that is, his native land — where he would meet with his parents (or relatives) ; and adds that he would be glad to go even as far as to the Galllas — that Is, to Gaul, also designated in the plural — where he could visit brethren and see the face of the saints of the Lord — that Is, Christian brethren.^ But Armorica, or Brittany, was a part of Gaul. And Gaul was at some 1 Todd's St. Patrick, 355. 2 Confession, Migne, x. ; Patrol., vol. 53. ^ Ibid., xix. PA TRICIUS. 49 distance farther away from Ireland than Pat- rick's native land. It is a tradition consistently retained in Scot- land that the place of Patrick's birth was on the Clyde, a few miles above Dumbarton, on the north-western frontier of the Roman province of Valentia, and within what afterward became the native kingdom of Strathclyde/ He was the son of a Christian family in a Christian community, who must have derived their Chris- tian instruction from a date earlier than Ninian. His father was a deacon, by name Calpurnius, who had also held the civil office of decurio,^ and his grandfather, Potitift, had been a pres- byter. Their names, as well as that of Patricius himself, being Latin, seem to imply (not cer- tainly that they were of Roman birth, but) that their connection had been with the Roman oc- cupants of their neighborhood, and that their Christianity must have reached them through the same channel. Patrick writes of himself and his young com- panions as not faithful to the religious educa- tion they had enjoyed. The hardships of bondage revived and intensified his early religious impressions. After six years he escaped, and carried with ^ Todd, 353-358. See argument for Patrick's Gallic birth in Lanni- gan's Eccles. Hist, of Ireland, i. 103, etc. ' Epistle against Coroticus. 4 50 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. him the purpose to prepare himself for re- turning and preaching the gospel to the bar- barous people of Ireland. His process of preparation is not very clearly recounted, but it seems to have occupied a number of years ; after which, in compliance with repeated ad- monitions of the Lord, he entered upon the execution of his design — at what date is not closely ascertainable. That commonly given is 432, but some authors argue for an earlier^ and some for a later year — not plausibly later than 442.^ With a few assistants Patrick landed at the south-west extremity of Lough Strangford, in the county Down. By divine blessing upon the energy and prudence with which he prose- cuted his mission the gospel was soon carried over that and the adjoining counties. In his ministry of thirty (some say forty or more) years there were few places in Ireland where it had not been preached and churches organized. Heathenism was not eradicated, but Christianity was planted in every tribe.^ Christianity, as preached by Patrick, observed the simple rites once common to all the churches, Roman as well as the rest, but longest retained in the old, out-of-the-way British churches with- 1 Killen quotes the " Old Catholic Church " for the date 405 : Eccles. Hist, of Ireland, i. 13, Note 4. 2 Todd's St. Patrick, 391 and fol. ^ jbid., 499. PA TRICIUS. 5 I in which Patrick had received his education. He went to Ireland, not to propagate a sacerdotal sys- tem, but from love to Christ and to the souls of men. Of a commission from Rome or from any human authority he makes no mention, but says that it was Christ the Lord who, in a vision, com- manded him to go, and the admonition of the Holy Spirit which retained him in the work when once begun. He entered upon his work as a presbyter. Concerning his episcopal rank, where and by whom it was conferred, he does not say. And the pretension that he set up a primacy in Armagh has been shown to be unfounded.^ Those whom he ordained to the ministry he calls clerics, without saying of what rank. Writers of succeeding times classified them according to their own ideas, making five thousand of them presbyters and three hun- dred and fifty bishops. Of course, in so small a country as Ireland, and at that time so thinly populated, their number declares what kind of bishops they were not. Under the late Estab- lished Church thirty-four dioceses of moderate size included the whole island. The present Catholic distribution covers it with twenty-nine. And yet, in a sense not intended by prelatic writers, Patrick's clerics were no doubt many of them bishops ; that Is, among other ministe- rial duties they discharged those of the pastor- ^ Todd, Introd.; also 475. 52 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. ate and general oversight In the tribe to which their fraternity belonged. On the shores of Lough Strangford rise cer- tain low grassy hills called '' downs." On one of these, at a later time, was erected the stately cathedral consecrated to the name of Patrick. About two miles from that stood his first preaching-place, given by Dichu, his first con- vert. It was an old barn constrained to accom- modate worshipers, but soon replaced by a more ecclesiastical structure, though it still bears the name Sabhal, shortened to Saul, meaning in the Celtic tongue barn or granary.^ At Armagh, upon the "hill of willows," and on ground given by Daire, chief of that district, he erected the edifice in which he most fre- quently ministered.^ And, after all his mani- fold labors for Ireland through her length and breadth, upon those two points where they be- gan were their latest efforts expended. He died at Saul, and was burled at Downpatrick, as is generally believed, near the spot where now stands the cathedral of Down ; in what year is not certain. The event has been put at various dates from 455 to 495. Many argu- ments are urged in favor of 465, March 17.^ Such a man was of course, in the records of the Middle Ages, credited with prophetic and 1 Todd, 407, 409. 2 Ibid., 472 and fol. 3 Lannigan, i. 355-363; Killen, i. 13. PATKICIUS. 53 miracle-working powers. Everything done by him is done in some preternatural w^ay ; and such a mist of absurd fiction is thrown around him that his very existence has been called in question. Careful criticism has winnowed out some grains of truth, but in the mass his medi- aeval biographies cannot be accepted as history. Fortunately, Patrick in his old age felt con- strained to defend himself " from the charge of presumption in having undertaken such a work as the conversion of the Irish, rude and un- learned as he was." In that Confession, as it is called, the motives which actuated him to his missionary enterprise, and some points of his life concerned with it, are recounted in a plain, modest and indubitable way. An open letter also written by him in reference to the barbar- ous conduct of Coroticus, a Welsh chieftain, contains a few more statements which may be safely trusted. His honors of saintship were conferred at a long subsequent time, when pa- palism, in effort for universal dominion, deemed it expedient to adopt and claim credit for all earlier Christian achievements, disgruisincr them with its own colors and decorations. CHAPTER VII. PATRICK'S TEACHING. THE external form of Christianity, as carried by Patrick to Ireland, differed from that which prevailed on the Continent at the same date. Confusion was subsequently introduced into the history by attempts of later Romish writers to cover up that difference, or make It appear as little as possible. Because If West- ern Christianity came from Rome, as they all believed it did, they thought there could be no difference. Patrick was not a heretic nor a schismatic. And yet from his own writings, as well as- from some events in the state of the later Scottish Church, which the chroniclers could not omit, it Is plain that there were differences. That fact, however, did not amount to the argument which they appre- hended against the Roman origin of the Brit- ish churches. For the Christianity of Rome In the fifth century differed on several points from itself in the second. That the practices in the Church of Strathclyde were not, in the sixth century, the same in all respects as those of" Rome, nor of the national churches else- 54 PATRICK'S TEACHING. 55 where on the Continent, is not now denied ; nor that the churches in Ireland within the same period agreed with that of Strathclyde on points whereon they differed from others. Why did they so agree together, and so differ from Rome ? The answer is, That elsewhere there had been progress in definition and statement of doctrine, In construction of formal orthodoxy, in definition of heresies, in multiplication of rites in worship and sacramental ceremonies, in clerical practices. In distinctions of clerical ranks, and in the development of a great sacerdotal system In union with the Roman imperial government. In Britain the country lying between the walls had never been Ro- manized, as were the provinces to the south of it. Its communication with the Christian Continent never was as free. A great part of the time, and repeatedly, it was the battle-ground between Romanized and independent Britons. It was cut off from such intercourse the more completely as the Roman force declined, for so the more darlnor was the heathen force which overran It. According to the best that histori- cal criticism can ascertain, Patrick was a native of the extreme north-western frontier of that debatable land. It was therefore to be ex- pected that the Irish and Strathclyde churches should agree with each other, as well as that 56 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. they should differ, In some respects, from those on the Continent. In the Interval of time between the second Christian century and the fifth changes had taken place In the great Church of the Ro- man empire. Heresies had arisen, new terms had been adopted In statement of the com- mon faith, and controversy had given to certain phrases a conventional meaning which they had not before. But there Is no evidence that the Easter controversy, the rebaptism controversy, the Arlan or Seml-Arlan or Apolllnarlan con- troversy, had ever reached the secluded com- munity In which Patrick learned Christ. To such a degree was Patrick's work dis- connected from the ecclesiastical system of the Continent that his very name seems to have been unknown there. For several genera- tions after his death scarcely an allusion Is made to him by men of the Roman Church. " Not a single writer prior to the eighth cen- tury mentions It." ^ But for his undoubtedly genuine autobiography, the reality of his life might have been totally lost In the depths of mythical cloud with which mediaeval writers have actually obscured It. To the same doc- ument also are we Indebted for any positive information about the type of doctrine he taught. ^ Skene, ii. i6. PATRICK'S TEACHING. 57 At the beginning of his narrative the aged missionary gives a brief statement of his theology, upon which he says that he cannot be silent: **For after we have been corrected and brought to know God, we should exalt and confess his wonderful works before every nation which Is un- der the whole heaven — that there Is no other God, nor ever was, nor shall hereafter be, beside God the Father, unbegotten, without beginning, from whom is all beginning, upholding all things, as we have said ; and his Son Jesus Christ, whom we acknowledge to have been always with the Father, In an Ineffable manner begotten before all beginning ; and by him were made things visible and invisible ; and being made man, and having overcome death, he was received into heaven with the Father. And he (the Father) hath given unto him all power, above every name, of thinors In heaven and thinors In earth, and things under the earth, that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ Is Lord and God, whom we believe, and look for his coming, who is soon to be the Judge of the living and the dead, who will render unto every man ac- cording to his works ; and has shed in us abun- dandy the gift of the Holy Spirit and the pledge of immortality ; who makes the believing and obedient to become the sons of God the Fa- ther and joint heirs with Christ, whom we con- 58 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. fess and adore, one God in Trinity of the holy name. For he himself has said, by the prophet, ' Call upon me in the day of thy tribulation, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt magnify me.' And again he says, *It is honorable to reveal and to confess the works of God.' " ^ This seems to be an original confession of faith. Except in containing the same funda- mental doctrines of God and Christ, it bears no marks of relation to the Nicene or Constantino- politan Creeds drawn up by the doctors of the Empire, nor to the so-called Apostles' Creed. It differs from them in laying stress on the " ineffably begotten before all beginning," but none on the begotten of the Virgin Mary, not even mentioning the virgin mother, while all the three Catholic creeds press the latter Into conspicuous place. It also differs from the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creeds in say- ing nothing about Christ being of the same sub- stance or of similar substance with the Father, and lays no emphasis on the distinction between begotten and made. In short, it evinces no knowledge of either Arian or Semi-Arian con- troversy. Nor is there anything in it which implies acquaintance with the Pelagian belief. It has more resemblance to the summaries of doctrine to be found in the early Fathers, espe- cially to that of Irensus ; and yet it is not a ^ Confess., c. 2. PATRICK'S TEACHING. 59 copy of any of them. This Is remarkable for such a production in the latter half of the fifth century, and could not have occurred had its author been educated in France or Italy, where among ecclesiastics those controversies had long enlisted the fiercest partisan zeal and determined certain forms of expression on both sides, heret- ical and orthodox. Of the imperial system of church govern- ment sanctioned under Constantine, with its authoritatively graduated ranks of clergy, Pat- rick and his helpers seem to have had little knowledge. In his statement his helpers were all clerics, without any distinction of rank. He is himself, in his old age, a bishop — how consti- tuted or by whom he does not say, but believes that he had received from God what he was. Bishop is a word which has belonged to Chris- tian history from the days of the apostles. Nor can there be any completely organized Church without a bishop. The word is a scriptural word, but it has gone through a variety of meanings in the progress of church history. I. In the first instance, when an apostle con- stituted a church in any city he ordained pres- byters in it, and immediately it was competent to manage its own affairs, because the presby- ters, in their pastoral duties, were the bishops of that church, and were sometimes so called.^ ' Acts XX. 17--18 ; Philip, ii. I ; I Tim. iii. I ; Tit. i. 7. 6o THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. 2. It became necessary in the meetings of those presbyter-bishops that some one should preside*. They might have taken that service turn about in routine, but it was quite as natural for them to elect one of their number as perma- nent president. And that method was soon adopted in all the churches. Pastoral super- vision came thereby more immediately into his hands, and of the two titles the one significant of pastoral duty as overseer was naturally ap- propriated to him, while his colleagues retained the title presbyter.^ 3. Further on, the presiding brother among the presbyters of a congregation came to be recognized as occupying a higher rank than the rest. And thus the principle was estab- lished of having only one bishop in one church. 4. In a large city, when the church increased to such numbers that they could not all meet in any one of the houses at their disposal, separate congregations were set off, and a presbyter appointed to minister in each. But from the beginning it was a principle of Christian broth- erhood that all the Christians in one city should constitute but one church. Accordingly, all the congregations in one city, though worshiping separately, were only branches of one church, and one bishop presided over them all. Thus two principles were firmly established — namely, ^ Jerome, Ep., 82 : Com. on Titus, I, 7. PATRICK'S TEACHING. 6 1 one bishop In one church, and one church In one city. From these seeds the growth of prelacy was Inevitable. 5. A fifth degree was occasioned by the mis- sion churches planted outside of the cities. In any one of those the missionary sent out to minister in it, when constituted permanent, became its bishop, being pastor In the church of a sepa- rate town or village. At the same time he was held to be subordinate to the bishop of the church from which his mission proceeded. And in the neighborhood of some great cities such mission churches were many. The bishop of the great city became thereby a bishop over bishops — a metropolitan. Other country churches, for the most part, in the course of time fell in with the method pre- vailing at the great centres of population. 6. Thus, before the time of Constantine the Church had erown into a structure of o-overn- ment whereby she easily conformed to his great system for the civil power, and readily fur- nished a still higher rank of bishops to preside each over the ecclesiastical affairs of an impe- rial exarchate, thereby providing a double rank of archbishops presiding respectively over dio- ceses and subordinate provinces of the Empire. 7. The four greatest divisions of the Roman dominion, called prefectures, gave greater dig- nity to the bishops of the capital cities — Rome, 62 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. Constantinople, Antloch, and, as there was no capital for the most western prefecture, Alex- andria took her place among the high ranks of the Church. Accordingly, the bishops of those capital cities, with the title patriarch, stood at the head of ecclesiastics. In course of time Jerusalem was revived and added to the patri- archates. 8. Meanwhile, a higher honor among the patriarchs was conceded to Rome and Con- stantinople — a metropolitan patriarchate. From that summit of ecclesiastical authority the ramifications of clerical office adapted them- selves to all the territorial divisions and subdi- visions of the Roman dominion, down to the smallest parochia (parish) ; and the power of the trunk permeated the branches to their farthest extremities. So far had the hierarchical development proceeded on the Continent when the work of Patrick in Ireland began. It was a devel- opment ruled in its outgoing by the territorial distribution of the Empire. But the Empire had never extended to Ireland or to Britain north of the wall of Antonine. An entirely different structure of government was needed for the missions of Patrick, as being addressed to a different state of social and civil order. The population of Ireland consisted of an aggregate of great families, each family, in all PATRICK'S TEACHING. 63 its branches, recognizing the relationship as a bond of organic union. All the rights of the father in the family were held to be inherited by his heir as head of the clan. His authority was absolute. Clansmen had only to depend and to obey. There were rules to be observed, but constitutional privileges of the governed there were none. The tribes possessed lands, but the tribal, and not the territorial, distribu- tion was the basis of their organization. ''Clan- ship," says Dr. Todd,^ '' is the key to Irish his- tory." Patrick proceeded with prudence and adapted his church to the constitution of society. He always addressed himself first to the chieftain. To have attempted the conversion of the clans- men without consent of their prince would have been to excite rebellion not likely to succeed. But when the chief accepted baptism, the ex- ample went far with his dependants. Patrick framed the structure of his churches to corre- spond with that of the clans. His clerics he associated In groups, each group for a clan, the members of it living together in common — a little Christian tribe within the tribe, set- ting an example of Christian society, and dis- tributing among themselves the religious duties for the tribe, usually by the order and under protection of the chlef.^ 1 St. Patrick, 226, 227. 2 Ibid., 503. 64 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. The Imperial style of prelacy was perfectly in accord with the style of society and government under the Roman empire ; and its growth was natural from a few determining principles. But from the structure of society in Ireland it was utterly alien. There, every clan was in itself a separate power. No plan of union compre- hended them all. Each clan was liable to be at war with some of its neighbors. Headship of all was to be brought about, if ever, by force of arms. Internally, each clan respected only the authority of its chief. How, in that condition of affairs, was the island to be parceled out ter- ritorially on one common principle into peaceful dioceses and parishes ? The churches had to be distributed after the fashion of the tribes. A group of bishops with their respective churches in one neighborhood was quite as accordant with the monastic residence of the clergy as under the Empire the rule of one church in one city and one bishop in one church. When, long afterward (five or six hundred years), Ireland came under papal rule, writers whose ideas had been formed upon the papal system thought that in Irish church history they must find all the prelatic ranks from the beginning, and, not finding them, called what they did find by their names. So, Ireland is forthwith supplied with diocesans and a sub- ordinate parochial priesthood, and Patrick him- PATRICK'S TEACHING. 65 self is constituted a great metropolitan, and Armagh the seat of a primacy over all. Neither was there in the minds of those writers any conception of ecclesiastical growth. Everything must be from the first all that they knew it to be in their own time. Patrick, they say, ordained three hundred and fifty bishops or more, five thousand presbyters, and consti- tuted seven hundred churches. That may be true or not. He says nothing of the kind. It was not true as they meant it, measuring out, according to their own notions, the proportion of bishops and presbyters for seven hundred separate churches.^ Out of Patrick's missionary stations, partak- ing of the monastic character, grew up, after his death, a system of monasteries connected with the tribes and modified by an influence proceeding from Wales. Founded by some person of eminent piety, and endowed by him or by some Christian family, each mon- astery fitted itself to the regulations of the tribe to which it belonged. Its abbot ^ was not elected by its members, but followed his predecessors in right of the family of the foun- der. If that failed to furnish a suitable person, the succession passed over to the family which had furnished the endowment. If the family of the founder was also that of the donor, the in- 1 Todd, 28. 2 Yxom the Semitic abba, abbas, father. 5 66 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. heritance of election remained with its members, who were under obhgation to provide a person duly qualified for the duties. The abbot might be either a clergyman or a layman, but in either case he was the highest governmental authority in the church of his tribe. The episcopate was merely a rank among the collegiate brethren, and not only void of jurisdiction, but necessa- rily subject to the abbacy in as far as respected the collegiate rules. A bishop's duties of con- firmation, administration of the Eucharist with rites of the greatest pomp, and ordination to clerical office, the abbot did not usurp, but he held the discharge of them under his direc- tion.^ This was equally true of the rule of an abbess over her nunnery. Brigid of Kildare employed a bishop, whom she held as subject to her laws, in his place, as were her nuns in theirs. The members of the association were called brethren, and the number under one abbot (fa- ther), generally amounting to one hundred and fifty or more, were the family. They constitu- ted a regular Christian community in each tribe, to which the members of the tribe w^ere drawn by the attractions of kindred and greater security. No one of these fraternities ruled over the rest. They stood to one another in the relation of a federal union, and no central head was » Tod. Is St. Pafnck, 5, etc. PATRICK'S TEACHING. 6/ acknowledged save Christ. The monastery had certain claims upon its tribes for support, while the tribe had claims upon it for clerical duties and for instruction by recital of the word of God to all who would listen to it. Every such clerical fraternity was also a sem- inary of learning, and besides its family main- tained a body of youth in the course of instruc- tion. It was still a missionary system, designed to set an example of Christian life in a state of self-denial and the practice of Christian virtues and affections, and to furnish protection for per- secuted converts. Its accommodations were humble, consisting mostly of huts made of wattles and earth or boards ; but it was " de- fended by a wall of veneration, and belief prevailed that the peace of the religious soci- ety could not be violated with impunity." Care of scriptural instruction was an inherit- ance from early Christian times faithfully retained by the great missionary to Ireland, and by the clergy who succeeded him. As stated by Co- lumbanus, a monk of the second period, their Church insisted upon knowledge of the Scrip- tures, and accepted as a standard of doctrine nothing beyond the teaching of the evangelists and apostles. Concerning a daring controversy of his time, he said that, '' excepting those state- ments which either the law or the prophets or the Gospels or the apostles have made known 68 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. to US, solemn silence ought to be observed with respect to the Trinity. For it is God's testi- mony alone that is to be credited concerning God — that is, concerning himself." CHAPTER VIII. CHURCH OF STRATHCLYDE. WHILE Patrick was pursuing his mission in Ireland new settlements of heathen were forming in South Britain. Saxons already had their colonies planted along the whole eastern coast from Kent to Northumberland, extending successively to the districts on the Tweed and Forth, while Norsemen had begun their inva- sions on the farther north-east. What is now Scotland was greatly distracted by invasion. Scots from Ireland on the west, and Saxons on the east, expelled or subjugated the earlier inhabitants. The Romanized and Christian Britons of the south-eastern coast were driv- en to the central mountains and their congre- gations broken up. The people north of the great firths were still chiefly heathen. Gallo- way, embracing what is now Kirkcudbrightshire, Wigtonshire and the southern part of Ayr- shire, was inhabited by an ancient British race. Christian perhaps to some extent in Roman times, together with a recent Pictish immigration, converted under the preaching of Ninian. A laree colonv of Scots from yo THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. Ireland had settled In the West Highlands and made themselves masters of what is now Argyllshire. Thus, by the middle of the sixth century North Britain was divided among six or sev- en different groups of population — heathen Norsemen on the north-east ; heathen Saxons on the south-east ; Picts, partly Christian, on the intermediate east coast ; Britons, partly Christian and partly heathen, in the south centre ; Christian Britons and Picts in Gallo- way ; Picts with Scots, partly Christian, in the south-west Highlands and Hebrides; and Picts, purely heathen, in the Highlands of the north- west and north centre. The history of Scotland as a nation had not yet begun. It was to take shape and consist- ency from the slow process of unions, subju- gations, annexations and amalgamations of different races, and their conversion to Chris- tianity. At that date the principal seat of Christian profession was the south centre, from the firth of Clyde to the Solway, and Galloway. Of the former the inhabitants were chiefly of Kymric descent, and recog- nized their religious as well as ethnic rela- tions with the people of North-west England and of Wales. But they were weakened by division under several petty kings, and the Church within their bounds suffered oTeatl\' CHURCH OF STRATHCLYDE. yt from neglect and long-continued warfare with the heathen on both north and east, while their clergy were disorganized. It was the period of intensest conflict between Britons and Saxons — the time of King Arthur's le- gendary wars, described by Geoffrey of Mon- mouth as the most successful resistance ever made by Christian Britons to the aggressions of their heathen foes.^ Arthur's twelve great successful battles seem to have been real, and fought in defence of the Kymric south of Scot- land against Picts on the north and Saxons on the east.^ These contests gave to the hills and valleys of the Clyde and Tweed — countries subsequently fertile in themes of romantic fiction and poetry — a foundation for heroic history. The death of Arthur is referred to A. D. 537, soon after which period a revival of Christianity began among the people whom he had defended.^ The birth of Kentigern, an event no less deeply covered with the mirage of mediaeval fable,'* must be referred to the same period. Kentigern, also called Mungo (the Beloved), received his education in connection with that ancient Church north of the Tay once visited by Palladius, although his ordination by Ser- ' Geoffrey's British Hist.^ b. ix., x. 2 Veitch, History and Poetry nf the Scottish Border^ chap. ii. " Ibid., p. 68. * M'Lauchlan, 107-115. 72 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. vanus, who had been ordained by Palladius, ni- volves an interval of time which is incredible. Called by the king and clergy of Lanark, with the Christian people, then reduced to a small number, he consented to be their bishop. A bishop was invited from Ireland to ordain him/ Thus he entered upon his pastorate five or six years after the death of King Arthur. With long-sustained zeal he carried forward the revival of Christianity within the little kingdom, in opposition to encroaching idolatry. A num- ber of youths, accepting their education from Kentigern, followed his example and aided in the execution of his plans. They did not es- cape persecution from enemies at home. A strong party in favor of the old Druidical worship divided the nation,^ and during the rule of a king of their persuasion, Kentigern had to take refuge in Wales. There he re- mained similarly employed until after the ac- cession of a Christian king in Lanark, Rhy- derch Hael, and Rhyderch's victory over the princes, leaders of the heathen party, in the batde of Ardderyd in the year 573. By that victory the Kymric tribes^ from the firth of Clyde to Derwentwater were united in one kingdom under the name of Strathclyde, with ' Skene, ii. 184. '^ Veitch, lOl ; Todd's .SV. Pafruk, H, etc. ; M'Lauchlan, 115-I18. •'' Veitch, loi ; M'Laiichlau, 12^-125. CHURCH OF STRATHCLYDE. 73 its fortress-capital Dumbriton, now Dumbarton, in the religious interest of Christianity. Kentiofern was welcomed back to his former charge. At first he took up his residence at Hoddam, in Dumfriesshire, no doubt to en- counter approaching heathenism on that fron- tier of Saxon occupancy. From thence he went into Galloway, and, as Jocelin says, cleansed from the foulness of idolatry and contagion of heresy that home of the Picts. Afterward returning to Glasgow, he continued to pursue his evangelical enterprise without in- terruption until his death. The principal dates in his life — his birth in 518, his ordination in 543 and his death in 603 — are only approxi- mate.^ His extant biographies — the fragment and the life by Jocelin — were not written until the twelfth century, more than five hundred years after his time, and are full of absurd miracles in the conventional mediaeval style. But, setting these aside, there is no good rea- son to doubt that Mungo was the main support of the Christian cause in the south of Scotland at a time when it was declining there under the fierce assaults of heathen enemies. His long- sustained reputation for knowledge and piety procured him influence in missionary excur- sions beyond the bounds of Stratlich'de. ' Skene, ii. 198. CHAPTER IX. COLUMBA. ITT^HILE heathenism in North Britain was VV still resisting the work of Kentigern, the princes of Ireland were defenders of the Chris- tian faith, and some of them its ministers. It was one of the latter who proved the messen- ger of an effectual gospel to the unconverted Picts, whom no missionary's voice had yet ad- dressed. Columba, of royal descent in the family of O'Niel, was born in December, 521, at Gartan, in the county of Donegal.^ ''As he grew up he exhibited various quahties, as well of body as of mind, fitted to excite the admiration of his countrymen. He was of lofty stature; he had a clear and commandino- voice and a noble bearing. He could express himself with ease and gracefulness ; he had a quick perception and a sound judgment. He was an ardent student, and had great powers of application. His temper was hot, and he sometimes gave way to gusts of passion ; but with all he was just and generous, and his indignation was ^ Reeves's Adanninn. 74 ■:far,l\-i'd ti- IjruiU-il lurllu I'ri'xlni IrrKiri ISn.iid iil l':il'h u, Liniiliiir/H A S<,n . J'lJtiiriri COLUMBA. 75 never so much excited as by the perversity of the wicked." His honorable birth and " personal endowments soon placed him in the position of a leader, and more than once he was able to control the political movements of the Irish princes." ^ Though he early resolved to attach himself to the service of the Church, his youth was greatly divided between it and the political and military conflicts of parties. As Columba approached middle age he broke away from all secular interests to devote himself solely to the work of the gospel.'^ From the lof- ty headlands of his native county, far over the intervening ocean, could be seen the grayish- blue mountains of the southern Hebrides — Islay, Jura, Colonsay and others. On some of those Columba knew that there were colonists from Ireland, converted before leavino- home, but <_> ' now without religious instructors. Others were descended from people who had left Ireland before Christianity reached it. And far out of sight beyond, under the cold dark blue sky of the north, on islands and main- land, lay tribe after tribe of Picts in a state of utter heathenism. Columba resolved to set apart the remainder of his days to preaching the gospel in those spiritually destitute regions. At the age of forty-two he found himself in con- dition to carry his design into effect. As a pres- ' K'llen, Ecrlei HisL of Irdand, i. 30, 31. ^ M'Lauchlar., 150-151. 'J^ THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. byter of the Irish Church (a higher clerical rank he never bore), and accompanied by- twelve assistants, in the year 563 he set sail in his currach, and after landing at several inter- mediate points fixed his residence upon lona. That little island, about three miles and a half in length and one and a half in width,^ tying off the south-western extremity of Mull, from which it is separated by a sound one mile and a half wide, and on every other side lashed by the free sweep of the Atlantic Ocean, was for Co- lumba conveniently situated within the terri- tories acquired by his countrymen, where they already had a church, and yet not far from the borders of the Picts, whose conversion he had in view.^ At that point also he was protected by the chief of a Scottish colony, who gave him the island and was prepared to welcome his Chris- tian instructions. There, he and his assistants erecting for themselves such houses as they needed of the humble materials of wattles and earth, Columba set up one of those mission- ary schools which formed a feature of the old Irish and Scottish churches. Monastic insti- tutions they were in a certain sense — namely, in that their inmates lived together in common, with a degree of ascetic self-denial and in obe- dience to their own superior; but not monastic in the sense in which that term is most likely to 1 Skene, ii. 89. 2 n^ia., ii. 34, S6-88. COLUMBA. 77 be taken at the present day, inasmuch as they were under neither episcopal nor papal au- thority, and acknowledged no human superior outside of their own body, and in that the con- stituent members of their fraternity were clergy- men, having a view to missionary and pastoral work. Their separation of themselves from the world was not to secure merely their own sal- vation and power with God, but to present be- fore the heathen an example of Christian life as pure as possible, separate from the ways of sinful men, and to prepare missionaries and pastors, provide a central home for them, and oversee them and the affairs of the churches which they planted. It would misrepresent their character to call them monasteries without discrimination. Their monks were in reality all the clergy their Church had. Vows of obedience were exacted, but only to the president of their own college. Under his direction they were held, the lay members to their work for the community, and the clerical in readiness for missionary or pastoral duty as he and the fraternity saw fit ; or as students they pursued the course of preparation for the min- istry. They always made the monastic college their home. The plan, in short, was that of a well-regulated missionary station, and church extension consisted in multiplying such mission- ary stations. 78 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. As they were planted among a people living in clans, they addressed themselves to the clan system. Instead of dividing the country into sections for distribution of Christian work, the missionaries accepted the natural grouping of the people. The clan was one great family, including its branch families, and for the most part inhabiting adjoining districts. The mission- ary college was a little family of clergymen with their students adapting itself to the clan organ- ization to carry religious instruction through all its ramifications. Accordingly, there was no call for a territorial distribution of parishes and dio- ceses or presbyteries. The missionaries used the order they found. And even when carried beyond the clans their method still had regard to the people rather than to the divisions of the land. Roman monasticism, with which that of Ire- land and that of lona are liable to be confound- ed, had only begun its career under the hand of Benedict. But even the older style of monas- tery had always been subject to the bishop of the diocese in which it was situated, or to the council, or to the bishop of Rome. Without the approval of one or the other it had no right to exist. Latterly, all that control fell into the hands of the pope.^ In the Scottish Church there were no territorial bishops, no provincial, diocesan or general councils, and the pope was ^ Gieseler, i, 510. COLUMBA. 79 nothing more than a venerated name. The clerical fraternities were themselves the heads of ecclesiastical authority. Such an institution was now set up in lona, from which to direct the operations of mission- ary enterprise, and in which to prepare men to be pastors for the future congregations. It was after the example of the Irish, but differed from them in that it was not planted for the benefit of a kindred tribe, and in that it was supported by the industry of its own members. It had no place for a territorial episcopacy or a presby- terian republic. It was itself the Church. Its brethren were the clergy, associated with a presbyter as their principal. In another aspect it was a missionary station cultivated into a theological college, on a manual-labor plan. Columba was not sent by the Church of Ireland, though he, and lona after him, al- ways cherished filial relations to it. For the mission upoji which he entered he had accept- ed his orders from the Lord, whose gospel he preached. And he acknowledged no standard of doctrine save that of the evangelists and apostles. The foundation of his instructions and of his preaching, his great instrument in the conversion of the heathen, was the word of God. He and his assistants did their Lord's work under their own responsibility, as they understood their Lord's commission. 8o THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. In his house on lona, Columba ruled and instructed his clergy and assigned them to their places of duty — with authority, but not without consultation. As he was not a bish- op, but a presbyter, so all succeeding Scottish abbots of lona were presbyters, and yet in the government of the Church took precedence of bishops. Bishops, in that connection, were rec- ognized as of a superior rank in the ministry, but assigned to an insignificant position in the work of the Church. One of them could ordain a bishop or administer the Eucharist without an assistant, and his superior rank was held in honor. But presbyters could ordain presbyters, and a pres- byter could also administer the Eucharist with- out an assistant if he chose.^ The bishops were under the monastic rule, and as such were, in respect of jurisdiction, subject to the presbyter- abbot as the head of the monastery.^ In short, bishops were only occasional visitors in lona ; the system was one which had no place for them, and, although admitting their rank, never knew properly what to do with them.^ As little had it any place for a church session, a presbytery or a synodal government. Its ruling power was the missionary college. The government of the early Scottish and Pictish churches was neither papal, episcopal nor presbyterian, as those systems now stand, 1 Skene, ii. 94. ^ M'Lauchlan, 169, 170. COLUMBA. 8 1 but monastic, or rather collegiate, in which the- ological schools were the rulers. They educa- ted the clergy, assigned them to their missionary or pastoral places, and were the authorities con- sulted when difficulties arose. In their college the clergy had their home, their place for study and their books. Out from it they went in their respective directions with instruction and pas- toral service for the clan in which they minis- tered, and thither they returned for rest and further preparation. All the religious houses of the Scottish Church were constituted after the example of lona, to which they all volun- tarily conceded a primacy of honor. Ascetics were to be found, who withdrew to desert places, lonely islets in the ocean, and lived in utter solitude ; but in so doing they were outside of the church system, and not to be counted as belonorino- to a monastic order. They were mere voluntary anchorets.^ Columba beoran his evano;elical work with preaching to the men of his near neighborhood, and for a revival of religion among the long- destitute Christians of the Scottish colony — lonor destitute of the means of erace. At the end of about two years from his leav- ing Ireland, and when his college, upon which all his other plans depended, had been put in working condition, the zealous missionary found ^ M'Lauchlan, 176-180. 82 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. the way prepared for his enterprise of address- ing the gospel to the northern Picts. His first step was to visit the court of their king to obtain his consent. The journey was long, for King Brude was then residing in the neighborhood of Inverness, one hundred and fifty miles away, and much of that distance had to be traversed on foot.^ At first, the king was not disposed to listen to his application, and forbade him admis- sion. The miracles whereby Columba overcame that opposition are the conspicuous events in Ad- amnan's narrative.^ They seem to have been un- called for; the royal resistance was neither cruel nor obstinate, and the Pictish people were, for the most part, ready to give a hearing to the gospel.^ The Pictish king Brude, when converted, be- came zealous in the cause, and gave its mission- ary his hearty support. Columba had already the friendship of the Scottish colony in his neigh- borhood, and used his influence to secure them in possession of their territories, and obtain for them recognition of their independence from the head-king of Ireland. With these advantages he extended the operations of his Church as far as those friendly princes ruled, by planting new religious houses in both kingdoms of Scots and ^ M'Lauchlan, 155, 156, ■ 2 Adamnan's Life of St. Colu?>iba, Reeves's ed., lib. ii., c. 35, 36, 3 M'Lauchlan, 157-159. COLUMBA. 83 Picts, in the islands as well as on the mainland, and in Ireland. By the end of twelve years his enterprise was almost complete, as far as pro- fession was concerned. The western and cen- tral Highlands were brought under Christian instruction, and the whole nation of the Picts was formally added to the Church.^ Subsequently, evangelical work was carried more in detail through the heart of the main- land to the east, and relations were established with Kentigern and the Church of Strathclyde. When prosecuting his work in that direction down the river Tay, perhaps in the year 584, Columba took occasion to visit Kentigern in his residence at Glasgow. He was received with warm affection. The two devoted Chris- tian workers spent several days together, "con- versinof on the thing^s of God and what con- cerned the salvation of souls." ^ The area covered by the missions of Columba and his companions, added to that of Strathclyde and Galloway, where the inheritance of the older British churches had just been revived, consti- tuted all that is now Scotland, except the Saxon and Scandinavian settlements on the eastern coast. Columba died on lona in 597.^ His burial- place continued long afterward to be the most ^ Skene, ii. 127. 2 jbid., ii. 194-196. ^ Reeves's Adamnan, lib. iii., c. 23. 84 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. venerated cemetery in Scotland, the chosen rest- ing-place of chiefs and kings. His little isle be- came an illustrious seat of Christian learning, from which went out ministers of the gospel, with evangelical and educating influences, over all Scotland, island and mainland, and far be- yond its bounds. Columba was a man of superior education among the men of his time in his own coun- try, and the Irish Scots were then the lights of civilization for the British Isles. He wrote both verse and prose in Latin and in Irish, and his Latin style was marked by accuracy and ease. His ecclesiastical system was also educational. After the example of the Irish monasteries, his mission-stations, planted at many different places for convenience of Christian work, were also colleges for the education of youth and the culture of religious literature.^ The work of the school consisted in the study of the Latin language, of religious Latin literature, and es- pecially of the Latin Bible, with the doctrines of revelation as then classified and defined, the practice of religious duties, observances of devotion, and the training necessary to the proper exercise of ministerial functions. The standard of doctrine was the Bible. Much time was devoted to copying it or portions of it, and in the study of it help was ob- ^ Skene, ii. 75, 127, etc. COLUMBA. 85 tained from such commentaries and summa- ries of its contents as their learned men had prepared. Some of the brethren gave part of their time to original composition and to keep- ing a record of passing events. But the great theme of their studies at home and their preach- ing among the people was the gospel of salva- tion. Of the parts of their public worship, and what order they observed in it, little can be ascertained. Amonor the books mentioned as studied in lona there is no word of a missal. Perhaps their mis- sionaries demanded a freedom in adapdng means to unforeseen circumstances more than would be compatible with a prescribed formulary.^ But doubtless there was an established order for all ordinary occasions. The elements of which the daily service consisted were recitation of psalms, and sometimes perhaps passages of other Script- ure ; and prayer, of such frequent occurrence with them on other occasions, could not be ab- sent from their social worship. On the Lord's Day the principal part of the service was the Eucharist. When several presbyters were pres- ent, one was selected to officiate, who mieht invite a brother-presbyter to break bread with him. If a bishop ministered, "he broke the bread alone."'" But that was in the social ser- vice of the fraternity. Before the people to ^ MLauchlan, 188. * Skene, ii. 102. 86 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. whom their mission was addressed, beyond all doubt the chief part of worship was preaching the gospel. They made no use of pictures or images as helps In devotion ; they did not appeal to the Intercession of saints nor adore the Virgin Mary. Yet it would be a mistake to conceive of those brethren of lona as entirely free from the super- stitious notions accumulating in their time. Cel- ibacy they might have defended as a state more expedient for them In the enterprise they had undertaken, but they certainly deemed It holler than that of God's own Institution. Their ton- sure, or peculiar cut of the hair, shaven close over the fore part of the head, had nothing but superstition to recommend It. Their use of the cross as a holy sign amounted to an incanta- tion. Living in colleges or monastic cells they looked upon as especially favorable to devotion and service acceptable to God. Some of their practices were peculiar to themselves and the Irish Church to which they belonged, such as their monastic tonsure, and their observance of Easter after the example, as they under- stood it, of the apostle John. But the greatest errors of the Catholic Church, so fast accumula- ting in the sixth century, had not yet corrupted their faith. After the conversion of the northern PIcts, and the revival of Christianity among the COL UMBA. 87 Scottish colonists from Ireland, the Columbite missionaries followed the course marked out by their founder, and extended their enterprise to the interior of the mainland south, until their religious influence united with that of Strath- clyde and touched the borders of the Teutonic settlers on the eastern coast, who were still heathen. CHAPTER X. LINDISFARNE. IN the year 635, Oswald, heir of the Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, having been con- verted to Christianity during a residence of several years among the Scots, succeeded to the throne of his fathers. Earnestly desiring to have his subjects instructed in the gospel, he applied to the Scottish Church for a missionary. One of the brethren from lona was sent to him, but proved to be of temper too severe, and, meeting with no success, returned in discour- agement. His place was better filled by Aidan, another priest from the same school, and a man of singular meekness, piety and moderation, who was received with high respect by both king and people. His progress was rapid and of sound effect. Oswald gave him a residence not unlike that which he had left in the Highlands. Eight miles south of Berwick, at the foot of the seaward hills of Northumberland, and sep- arated from them by a belt of water about two miles broad, but at one place almost entirely withdrawn at low tide, lies the island of Lindis- 88 LINDISFAKNE. 89 fame. It Is only seven miles in circumference, and contains a smaller proportion of arable land than lona. One-third of it, to the north, is only a group of sandbanks. On the south-east a lofty rock rises precipitously from the plain, crowned with a castle looking southward, while on the south-w^est a high rocky embankment runs east and west close to the water's edge. Between these two elevations lies a convenient little harbor for small craft. From the rocky embankment extends a stretch of rising ground along the Avestern side of the island until it joins the sandhills of the northern extremity. On that rising ground did Aidan build his modest home, close under the shelter of the embankment. The finer structures that followed took their places successively farther to the north, and there now moulder their ruins, save those of Aidan's house, which, afterward rebuilt by Finan of wood and thatched with reeds, is entirely gone. On that same rising ground, a short distance from the ruins to the north, stands the village of the present day. There other Scottish clergy came to the assistance of Aidan, and younger men were educated for the ministry. Lindisfarne became another seat of Christian learning, an lona for Northumbria, and out from it proceed- ed missionaries who traveled in all directions through the provinces over which Oswald ruled, preaching the gospel. But those prov- 90 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. inces of Northumbria then extended along the eastern border of the Strathclyde kingdom as far to the northward as the firth of Fo^th. Aidan, founder of the mission college on Lin- disfarne, died in 651, after having planted and conducted the affairs of the Church in North- umbria for sixteen years. Finan, another monk from lona, took his place and proved a worthy successor. South of Northumbria lay another Teutonic kingdom — that of Mercia, sometimes called of the Middle Angles, and east of Mercia that of the East Angles, corresponding nearly to the present Norfolk and Suffolk, and farther south that of the East Saxons. To all these the same Christian enterprise extended. In 653, Peada, heir to the crown of Mercia, was united by marriage with the royal family of Northumbria, and upon hearing the gospel preached declared himself a believer in it. Missionaries, at his request, were sent from Lindisfarne to instruct his people; and so readily was their doctrine received that be- fore the year elapsed Finan could afford to withdraw one of their number for the pur- pose of sending him among the East Angles. Finan himself went to preach among the same people, and baptized their king, Sigibert, to- gether with his immediate followers. And the planting of Christian congregations went LINDISFA RNE. 9 1 on, going southward into the land of the East Saxons. lona was now at the height of her influence. Christian zeal had carried the gospel over Scot- land to the conversion of its heathen and the revival of religion among nominal Christians, and into the Teutonic settlements of Eng- land from the Forth to the Thames. Care had also been taken to set up or to continue colleges for ministerial education. To those at Whithorn,^ Culross and Abernethy, that of Kentiorern at Glasg^ow and of Ternan at Aber- deen, and many of less dintinction elsewhere, were now added Coldingham and Melrose among the Saxons on the Tweed, and for the farther south the greater institution on Lindisfarne. But another missionary enterprise was at the same time advancing from the south. In the year when Columba died (597) a party of Ben- edictine monks, with Augustin and Lawrence at their head, landed on the coast of Kent. They came directly from Rome, sent by Pope Gregory I. Ethelbert, king of Kent, influenced, it is said, by his queen, a Christian princess of the royal house of the Franks, received them favorably, and after a short interval professed his belief in their creed. His example was followed by his people, ten thousand of whom were bap- ^ Bede, V. 23. 92. THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. tized on the following Christmas. Canterbury was constituted an archbishopric, and Augustin its first incumbent. The plans of the Romish monks wrought prosperously. Proceeding northward, it was not long until they encountered the mission- aries of Lindisfarne. On several points their teaching and observances were found to differ. In the controversy which arose, Lindisfarne, sus- tained from lona, was ill matched with Canter- bury, backed by all the weight of Rome. The Romish monks, proceeding northward and by way of the centre of England, and among the Christian Britons of the west, strove as much to bring the British churches into conformity with their own practice as to convert the hea- then. On the eastern side of the country, while Aidan was in the midst of his work in North- umbria, they had succeeded in planting a mis- sionary as far north as York ; but so little was he encouraged by success that he soon with- drew, and the ground was forthwith occupied by men from Lindisfarne. Reinforcements were sent out from Canterbury, by whom the Scottish missionaries were charged with error on the subject of their tonsure and in their way of observing the Easter festival. Durincr the administration of Coleman as principal of Lindisfarne, King Oswy of North- umbria called a conference of clergy, consti- LIXDISFARNE. 93 tilted of representatives from both sides, to settle the dispute. It took place In 664, In a convent near Whitby, and was attended by King Oswy and his son Alfrld, the former favoring the Scottish and the latter the Romish side. The chief speakers were Wilfrid, a Saxon priest, and Coleman. For the Scottish practice Cole- man pled the example of Columba and his predecessors, traced back to the apostle John. Wilfrid endeavored to show that the Scottish way of observing Easter did not entirely coin- cide with that of John, belitded the name of Co- lumba, and urged for the authority of the pope that he was the successor of the apostle Peter, to whom Christ had said, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against It ; and to thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven." At that point King Oswy turned earnestly to Coleman with the question, " Is it true that these words were spoken to Peter by our Lord?" "It Is true, O king," Coleman replied. " Can you show any such power given to Columba?" asked the king. Coleman an- swered, " None." Then, addressinor both the debaters, the king inquired, " Do you both agree that these words were principally di- rected to Peter, and that the keys of heaven 94 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. were given to him by our Lord?" They both answered, "We do." Without waiting for any further explanation or discussion, he forthwith gave his judgment : " I also say unto you that he is the doorkeeper, whom I will not contradict, but will, as far as I know and am able, in all things obey his de- crees, lest when I come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven there should be none to open them, he being my adversary who is proved to have the keys." In that decision most of those present coin- cided. Only the keeping of Easter and the tonsure were discussed on that occasion. But the Scottish Church differed from the Romish on more vital points than these, as appeared in a broader conflict at a later time. Coleman, defeated but not convinced, retired from Northumbria, and spent the rest of his days among his own people. Tuda, another Scottish priest, more compliant with the south- ern discipline, succeeded him in office for a brief term, but died of the pestilence in the same year. The conformity of those who came after Tuda proved to be all that Canterbury could desire. The island school of Northumbria, with its missions, passed entirely out of the Scottish Church and took its place as a Romish mon- L IND IS FA RNE. g 5 astery.^ The most effective agent in bringing about that change, and in persuading the breth- ren to become Romish monks, was Cuthbert, who received his reward in the most miraculous honors of sainthood. ^ Bede, //. £., iii. 25,-26. CHAPTER XI. DECLINE OF lONA, AFTER the conference at Whitby calam- ities fell fast upon lona. First came the loss of her missions in England, with their principal college on Lindisfarne, which within the next ten years were all gathered into the net of the Roman fisherman. The Scottish minis- ters, who could not submit to that transfer, with- drew into their own country. The Saxons of Northumbria extended their rule into Galloway, where early in the next century they created a bishopric with its seat at Whithorn, and sub- jected it to the metropolitan of York.^ The ambition of their king, Egfrid, prompted him to push their fortune in war along the north- eastern coast. In 685 he invaded the territory of the Picts beyond the Tay, but encountered a ruinous defeat, which compelled the withdrawal of his boundary to the south of the Tweed. That great gain to the Picts decided the weight of political power in their favor over both Scots and Britons. Their victorious king, Nectan, assumed his position accordingly. Observing 1 Bede, H. E., b. v. 23. 9C DECLINE OE lONA. 97 that the Saxon churches had all separated from lona, he entered into particular inquiries on the subject, and in 710 sent into Northumbria, to Ceolfrid, abbot of Jarrow, desiring instructions touching the proper tonsure for the clergy and the proper observance of Easter, and asking for architects to build a church in his kingdom after the Roman manner, which he would ded- icate to St. Peter. He also promised that he and his people would follow the custom of the Roman Church as far as they could obtain know- ledge of it in their remote quarter of the world and imperfect acquaintance with the Roman lan- guage. Ceolfrid complied with the request, and sent full instructions on the points of inquiry by the hands of the architects who were to build the church. The king accepted them, and forthwith decreed the Roman observance of Easter and the tonsure called that of St. Peter for the clergy.^ A few years later (718) the Columbans, who refused to submit, were ban- ished, and their institutions thrown open to Saxon monks, or others w^io felt free to con- form to the new law. Repeated attacks were made upon lona her- self from the same quarter. Adamnan, one of her own fraternity, and abbot from 679 to 704, having traveled in England and visited the same Ceolfrid of Jarrow, was by him persuaded to ac- 1 Bede, //. E., b. v., c. 21. 98 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. cept the Romish ways. Upon his return he tried to introckice them at home, but succeeded In only creating a schism, which ended in the victory of the Scottish party. Tw^elve years after Adamnan's death, Egbert, a Saxon priest, went to lona and resided amone the brethren thirteen years — long enough to convert them, as far as the proper time for Easter and the place and shape of the tonsure were concerned, and having done so died In peace.^ Controversies about a monkish way of shav- ing a part of the head and the precise day of observing Easter may be considered of import- ance by some persons, by others of none ; but in this case thev demonstrate one thine worth no- tice — namely, that the Scottish Church of those days, with lona at her head, held no relations to Rome and recoenized no bindine force in the pope's authority ; and when some of her people conformed to Romish practices, It was through persuasion of their Saxon neighbors or obedi- ence to an arbitrary king, and not because their Church acknowledged a papal right to their alleg-Iance. The PIcts could not, as a whole, have been satisfied with the violent measures of Nectan. Their Church fell into disorder. It was left al- most destitute of a ministry. To supply it with Saxons was impracticable. Whatever the 1 Bede, H. E., b. v., c. 22. DECLLVE OF lOXA. 99 king's charity might be, it was not reasonable to expect that his people should willingly accept their religious counsels and consolations from the ranks of their bitterest hereditary enemies. Some of the vacated or partly vacated Colum- ban houses were seized by laymen, and under the pretence of providing a ministry turned to the account of their own temporal interests. Nectan withdrew from the strife of business to spend his last days in exercises of religion. In that embarrassed condition of the Pictish Church a new class of clergy made their ap- pearance, with an organization similar to that of the Columban, and filling their place in con- ducting the more spiritual parts of worship. From the time of the immediate successors of St. Patrick the practice of solitary asceticism prevailing on the Continent extended also to Ireland. Men of earnest but gloomy piety sought lonely places in some wilderness or far-off islet in the ocean, where in solitude they devoted their days to religious exercises and meditation. Not belonging to any monas- tic order nor bound by obligatory rule, they lived each according to his own plan. On the Continent such independent ascetics were in great numbers scattered about in desert places, but some also in the neighborhood of cities. Most of them, no doubt, earnest, godly devotees, they all enjoyed the reputa- 100 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. tlon of extraordinary piety, and were often, as a class, termed Deicolce, that is, God- wor- shipers, meaning that they were men who minded no other business than the worship of God. To the Irish recluses the same name was applied, but in the reverse order of its component parts — Ceilede, servants of God. The vast increase of such solitaries, and their irrresponsible character, created anxiety in the Catholic Church, and several councils in the seventh century took action with a view to bring them under some common restraint and to diminish their numbers. Among those of Irish and Scottish connec- tion — for there were many such belonging to the Columban Church — a similar feeling began to actuate some of themselves. They had come to the belief that it would be profitable for two or three of them to occupy cells in each other's neighborhood. Accordingly, numbers of such little neighborhoods of hermits grew up in Ire- land. Without surrendering their solitary habits and freedom, their vicinity to one another must have exerted over them an influence of regula- tion, and principles of community came to be agreed upon. It was an association of this kind which ap- peared in the land of the Picts soon after the expulsion of the Columban ministry, and SO7 DECLINE OF lONA. lOI berly taking their place, which they continued to fill acceptably, and with high reputation for some of the best features of a pastoral minis- try. Among the Picts they were called Keledei, which in course of time changed to Culdee, of the same meaning with the Irish and continen- tal terms. Like the Scottish brethren, they were coeno- bites, but not regular monks. They were secu- lar clergy, and their institutions were colleges, not monasteries — more like cloisters of secular canons in the Catholic Church. Yet their free- dom was greater than that of secular canons. They were under no vow of celibacy, and some of them were married. So nearly did their fraternities resemble those of the Co- lumban type that, although not quite the same, it is not surprising that the two should have been identified by writers both mediaeval and recent, Roman Catholic and Protestant. Having their origin also in the same Irish Church, the Columbans and Culdees held to the same theological doctrines.^ In their way of living they were "accustomed to fastings and sacred vigils at certain seasons, intent on psalms and prayers and meditation on the divine word, and content with sparing diet and dress," they suffered no time of the day to pass without its proper employment. 1 Skene, ii. ch. vi. ; M'Lauclilan, ch. xix. 102 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. Although by the victories of Nectan, and afterward of Angus, who succeeded to the Pictish throne in 731, the superiority in force of the Picts over both Scots and Britons was proved, and Saxon dominion was pushed back to the south of the Tweed, the Saxon people w^ere not driven out, nor did Saxon invasion cease. The country between the Forth and Tweed continued to be the seat of war. Tra- dition narrates that in a campaign within those bounds Kino^ Anorus had a vision of St. Andrew or heard his voice in" the air, promising him vic- tory " if he will dedicate the tenth of his posses- sions to God and St. Andrew." Putting faith in the saint, he proved victorious. On his way home he was *' met by Regulus, a monk from Constantinople, with relics of St. Andrew." ^ And the king, thus providentially constrained, recognized his obligations, and founded a new religious house at Mucross in Fifeshire, which he dedicated to St. Andrew as the patron saint of his kingdom.'^ Early in the ninth century the people of North Britain first beheld the swift-sailing ships of the Vikings. In their long wars with Charlemagne the northern Germans had been compelled to settle on the lands assio^ned them or to retreat beyond the reach of the emperor's conquests. Those who chose the latter found themselves ^ Skene, i. 296, 297. - Ibid , ii. 272. DECLINE OF 10 NA. IO3 confined to wildernesses, mountains and marshes, where a brief summer and a scanty and un- kindly soil left little to be hoped from culture. Daring enterprise looked out upon the sea. The land could supply them with timber, iron and pitch and the safe refuge of harbors. For everything else they trusted to the sea. Fish were to be orathered from its w^aters, an inex- haustible supply, and its surface could carry them to partake in the harvests and collected products of lands more highly favored. They had been driven by violence from their own possessions ; might they not indemnify them- selves from the surplus of others? Sweeping over the ocean from the fiords of Norway, their ships flitted along the coasts of Scotland and England and swarmed among the islands and the sea-lochs of the western Highlands. Push- ing into some inviting scene on land, their war- riors would leap ashore, rush upon whatever they found available for plunder, hurry it on board, and disappear as swiftly as they came. Churches and other religious houses, usually containing w^ealthy deposits, the gifts of grate- ful piety, were a favorite quarry for those hunt- ers of the sea. lona had become a much-frequented shrine of pilgrimage, enriched by donations, favored by kings — some of whom were proud to enroll themselves among the brethren — and sought as I04 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. the place of sepulture for those whom their friends or the Scottish nation desired to honor. The little isle had ceased to enjoy the safety of poverty and insignificance. It was the most conspicuous mark for piracy. As early as 802 its religious houses were visited by the sea- kings, plundered and burned. Four years later the invasion was renewed, the island ravaged and many of the brethren slain. The richness of the booty attracted other adventurers of the same class, and the re- peatedly repaired buildings were subjected to repeated desolation. In 814 a new Columbite church was com- pleted at Kells,^ in the county of Meath in Ireland, which became a refuge for residents of lona when harassed in their own exposed situation. In Scotland also, for greater secu- rity, as well as for other reasons, much of the weight of Columbite churchism was about the same time transferred by Constantine, king of the Picts, to Dunkeld,^ although even that in- land town was not entirely safe from piratical ravages. The island sanctuary was subse- quently revived, and continued long to be a highly venerated seat of Christian learning, but its primacy came to an end, divided be- tween Ireland and the Scottish mainland. In the early part of the ninth century the ^ Skene, i. 305. DECLINE OF lONA. 10$ Pictish kings had put their people at the head of the nations in Scotland. But a great calam- ity followed soon after. Disastrously defeated, in 839, by a piratical invasion of the Danes, they were unable to sustain themselves in war with their Scottish neighbors. Upon the death of the last heir of their dynasty, in 844, Ken- neth, king of the Scots, succeeded to the Pict- ish throne.^ The Scottish seat of destiny was removed from the palace of Dunstaffnage to the Pictish capital at Scone, and the two crowns were permanently united.^ At first the new kingdom was that of the Picts and Scots, but in course of time the name "Pict" fell out of use, and that of *' Scot " covered the whole; and that very naturally in days when the king was the chief bond of nationality. The united kingdom received the name Alban or Scotia. Meanwhile, the old British kingdom of Strath- clyde, with its head of authority at Glasgow, still retained its separate independence, although, together with Galloway, greatly weakened by incursions from their northern neighbors and from the Saxons of Northumbria. Between the Forth and Tweed, the eastern part of the country, called Saxonia, was still a debatable land, and those who contended for it on both sides were equally harassed by Northmen from the sea. ' Skene, i. 308-310. ^ Buchanan, lib. vi. LXIX. Rex, near the end. Io6 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. It was in the reign of the Pictish king Con- stantine, who died in 820/ that the new college at Dunkeld was founded/ being the third among that people, Abernethy being the first and St. Andrews the second. Afterward, when Scone became the capital of the united kingdom, and Dunstaffnage w^as deserted, lona was left at a distance from all protection. As a place of royal sepulture it also became inconvenient. Lying, as it did, in the way of the Vikings as they swept through the Western Isles to the coasts of Ireland, nothing but poverty could save the lives of its inhabitants. In conse- quence of the union of the Scots with the Picts the connections between the royal fam- ilies of the Scots and those of Ireland became relaxed. Prom neither side could lona be main- tained in its former rank. The Scottish king Kenneth, on coming to the throne of the Picts, resolved to restore the Co- lumban Church to its power among that people, from whom it had been expelled in the forego- ing century. To that end he selected Dunkeld, perhaps as the most central seat for ecclesi- astical supremacy over the Columbans in his dominions, and, there erecting a new church building, or perhaps renewing that of Con- stantine, removed to it a part of the relics of Columba.- ' Skene, i. 305. ^ ibid., li. 307. DECLINE OF lONA. IO7 At first the Scandinavian invaders were heathen, but as time went on intercourse w'lXh. the Christians among whom they Hved brought about the conversion of their set- tlers, who became Christian according to the instructions proceeding from lona. Later im- migrations from Norway brought Christians af- ter the type of Romanism planted in their native land by the successors of Anschar/ But that in the Hebrides was a small element of popula- tion, and created no discord in the religion of the country. They now ceased to be plunder- ing Vikings. Shetland and the Orkneys were completely under Norwegian rule, and contin- ued so to be until the fifteenth century.^ Scottish clergy of the Columbite school had carried the gospel to those northern islands, but, exposed to the full storm of Norwegian warfare, they seem to have been early exter- minated. Tales are told also of their missions to the Faroe Islands, to Iceland and to Green- land, and even of their enterprise, or desperate flight from persecution, beyond the ocean to the coast of North America.^ Such traditions bear testimony at least to a prevailing belief in the greatness of their missionary courage and de- votion. 1 Maclear, The Northmen. 2 ibid. ; Skene, i. 375-379. ' Brit, and For. Evangel. Rev. for July, 188 1, iii. CHAPTER XII. CONSTRUCTING THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND. OVER Europe in general the tenth century was a period of great depression. Ignor- ance prevailed. There was no popular educa- tion. Even among families of wealth and high rank only the members designed for the priest- hood were instructed in letters. For the rest it was deemed enough to learn how to manage a horse and wield their weapons. Ecclesiastics, content with their superiority of intelligence and the submission of the multitude, indulged their indolence. Spiritual enterprise lay torpid. The energies of the great Catholic Church were ex- pended chiefly upon the enlargement of her endowments and increase of her subjects and power. The proper work of the gospel lan- guished, and ecclesiasticism became secular. The Scottish severed from the Catholic Church, and thereby saved from partaking in her evils, suffered from other evils native to itself. Among the many peoples who divided the territory of North Britain, the Picts had hith- erto been strongest. By the arrival of the Northmen their superiority was divided with 108 CONSTRUCTING THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND. IO9 a dangerous competitor. The friendly colony of Dalriad Scots had grown into a kingdom. Although a warlike people, their progress had not been alarming to their neighbors, but rather connected with the diffusion of Chris- tianity, lona was within their bounds, and their seat of royalty was not far off at Dun- staffnage in Lorn. In respect to religion the Scots had long submitted to a grievance from their Pictish neighbors, whom their mission- aries had converted. Kings of the Picts, be- coming acquainted with Romish practices from Saxon monks, had imposed them on the Scot- tish Church in their dominions, driving the Scottish clergy into banishment and alienating the institutions they had founded. Union of the two nations in one kingdom under a Scottish dynasty formed a new power which might hope to resist the Northmen. But it needed compacting by a sense of satis- faction on both sides. Among the measures necessary to that end, agreement on the sub- ject of religion was most of all necessary. Of that the early kings of the united kingdom seem to have been well aware. By Kenneth, the first of that line, freedom was at once secured for the Scottish clergy in his Pictish provinces, and, as far as practicable, restora- tion of the religious houses from which they had been expelled. And on the other side, no THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. the place of lona as a religious centre was given to Dunkeld in the land of the Picts, and where already stood a Pictish church. As another element of compromise, the ab- bot of Dunkeld w^as made also bishop over the .territories of the Picts which had come under Kenneth's rule. Thus the same per- son, *'as abbot of Dunkeld, occupied toward the Columban monasteries in Scotland the same position as had belonged to lona," while as bishop " he was the recognized head of the Pictish Church."^ In the next reig-n these offices were separated, the episcopal office being transferred to Abernethy, but still in the land of the Picts, and only one bishop for the whole kingdom.^ Girig, the fifth king in that list, although apparently of foreign birth, is honored on the ancient record of the Picts and Scots as he who first eave freedom to the Scottish Church, which until that time had been in bondage un- der the law and usage of the Picts. ^ Perhaps he added to what Kenneth had done the relief of church property from the bondage of sec- ular exactions which it had suffered under Pict- ish rule.^ Seven Scottish kin^s reio^ned within the tenth centurv over the united kingdom, now called Alban. Of these the first and most eminent 1 Skene, ii. 308. COXSl^RUCTING THE KIXGDOM OI' SCOTLAND. Ill was Constantlne, second of that name in the Scottish Hne. In the beginning of his reign Norwegian invasion upon the centre of his king- dom was finally repelled, and Danish pirates in East Lothian were constrained to retire far- ther south from the territory over which he ruled. In both of those hard conflicts the standard was the pastoral staff of Columba/ Constantine was less successful in his wars with the kingdom of Wessex. On that side he had to contend against the illustrious Saxon monarch Athelstan, who met his movements southward by a retaliating raid upon the heart of his dominions, and finally, in 937, termi- nated his campaigns by the disastrous battle of Brunanburh. After his early success in war with the Nor- wegians and Danes, Constantine gave much care and labor to the consolidation of his king- dom and to the obliterating of national distinc- tions among his subjects, endeavoring to put all upon a fair legal and religious equality. In the sixth year of his reign he convoked a great assembly on the Moothill, near the "royal city of Scone," in which he and Kellach, a bishop, assumed a solemn obligation to observe the laws and discipline of the faith and the rights of the churches and of the gospel, and that they should be maintained on a footing of 1 Skene, i. 347. 348- 112 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. equality with the Scots.^ By this declaration the PIctlsh and Scottish churches were to be united, and one bishop set over them, whose residence was to be in St. Andrews. Kellach was himself the first of that line of bishops. His jurisdiction was the whole united kingdom of the Scots and Picts, then called Alban, after- ward Scotia. That kingdom, under Constan- tlne, included all the mainland from Loch Broom and Dornoch Firth on the north to the Forth and Clyde and the extremity of Kintyre on the south. Caithness and Sutherland, with all the island groups — Orkney, Shetland and Heb- rides — were in possession of the Norwegians. South of the Clyde and Forth, the east was occupied by Saxons, the extreme south-west by Celts of Galloway, and the centre, from the firth of Clyde and the Atlantic Ocean to the Solway, constituted the kingdom of Strath- clyde, otherwise called that of the North Cum- brian Britons. The Isle of Man was held by the Danes, who had also possessions In Ire- land. After a busy and agitated reign Con- stantine 11. withdrew from the cares of state, and spent the last nine years of his life In the duties of religion among the clerical fraternity of St. Andrews. Malcolm I., the successor of Constantine, at- tempted to extend the borders of his kingdom ^ Skene, i. 340 ; ii. 323, 324; M'Lauchlan, 308, 309. CONSTRUCTING THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND. II3 on the north, to Include all the mainland In that direction. But he failed to carry them north of Moray, nor even in that province was his rule firmly established. Meanwhile, further additions were made on the south. The Danish kings of Ireland were makine effort to annex Northum- bria to their conquests. Landing on the coast of Cumbria (the present Cumberland and West- moreland), they overran it and made it their path to a greater object of their ambition. For the Northumbrians had chosen "Olaf of Ireland for their king." But Edmund, brother of Athelstan, and his successor on the English throne, defeated their plans, and In 944 removed all resistance to himself from Northumberland. The next year, to break off Its communications with Ireland, he reduced Cumberland, and gave it to Malcolm, king of the Scots, on condition of co-operating with him both by land and sea.^ Upon Ed- mund's death, Edred Atheling brought all Northumberland under English rule (954). And thus the border of England was carried to the Tweed, while the dominions of the Scot- tish king extended on the south into Cumber- land and Westmoreland. The same year Malcolm lost his life in a further attempt on Moray. In the succeeding reign of Indulph (954-962) the Scots obtained possession of Edinburgh,^ a strong base for 1 Skene, i. 361-363. 2 Ibid., i. 365. 114 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. movement upon the Saxon settlements to the south-east. And after the less important reigns of Duff and Cuilean, the next king, Kenneth II., actually turned his enterprise in that direc- tion. His ambition was to reduce the inter- vening territory and annex Northumberland to Scotland, while the English king insisted upon his claim to the eastern coast as far as the Forth. Battles were fought, but the perma- nent chano-e on either side was small. On the north, Norwegian dominion had returned to the southern borders of Moray, under the valorous leadership of Sigurd the Stout, who held his hereditary earldom of Caithness in spite of all the force of the Scots, and annually made his expedition to the Hebrides and to Ireland, and added to the territory of his fathers the provinces of Moray and Ross, with a large extent of country down the western coast into Argyll. Kenneth, thus limited by strong enemies on both north and south, was constrained to con- fine the efforts of his long reign to the consoli- dation of the internal power of what he already possessed. His successor, Constantine IV.,^ was slain in a battle with an opposing party of his j own subjects before the end of his second year. Kenneth III. met the same fate after a reign of six years, but meanwhile had maintained the ' SlcMie, 374-3S0. COiXSl'RrCTLYG THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND. II5 boundaries of his kinordom as it came into his hands, and transmitted it unimpaired to his suc- cessor, Malcohn II. And Malcolm, by his great victory of Carham over the Northumbrians in 1 01 8, carried the boundaries of his kingdom from the Forth to the Tweed ; and, with the previous extension of Cumbria southward, his grandson Duncan, king of Cumbria, from the same date reigned on the west as far south as the Derwent and over more than half of West- moreland/ The royal line of Strathclyde — which must now be called Cumbria — had hitherto pro- ceeded from an ancient family claiming Ro- man descent. In 908 that dynasty came to an end, and Donald, brother of Constantine II. of Alban, was elected king.^ In the third generation a grandson of the Scottish king succeeded as heir to the same throne,^ and on the death of his grandfather inherited that of the Scots. Thus in 1034 the kingdoms were united under the Scottish dynasty. In those days of spiritual inactivity the polit- ical and social standing of the Scottish Church was high. Churchmen were on an equality with the noblest of the land. An abbot of Dunkeld marries the daughter of a king, and their son takes his place in the royal succession ; and the abbacy of a Columbite monastery, or even a 1 Skene, i. 394, 398, 399. 2 ibid., 346. ^ ibid., 392. Il6 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. place among the brotherhood, Is held to be not unworthy the dignity of a retired monarch. lona continued her ecclesiastical existence — still the link between the Irish and the Scottish Church — but under deep depression, and only as aided by other Institutions of the connection. Sometimes an Irish abbot, as of Raphoe or of Armagh, would be constituted also abbot of lona as chief of the Columblte fraternity. But for a long time it is doubtful whether any of them made his abode on the island.^ Later in the century it appears that there was a resi- dent abbot at the same time with the chief In Ireland. In 986 the Danes put to death the successor of Columba at Dublin, and in an ex- pedition to the Hebrides slew the abbot of lona with fifteen of his clergy." Norwegians and Danes had now obtained complete command of the sea between Ireland and North Britain, and the formerly intimate relations between the churches of the two countries ceased. With the rise of Dunkeld and Abernethy and St. Andrews on one side, and the obstruction of communication with Ireland on the other, lona was shorn of her power, but even under the heaviest adversity had not ceased to be the most venerated shrine in the land of the Scots. There w^as now a Scodand, comprehending the greater part of North Britain. It had 1 M'Lauchlan, 310-312. 2 Skene, ii. 333. COySTKi'CTIXG THE KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND. II/ grown from the little Scottish kingdom of Argyll, by union with the best of PIctland, then by victory securing the land of the Sax- ons on the lower Tweed, and by dynastic rela- tionship annexing the whole of Cumbria. Still, much was lacking of completeness. Galloway stood out as a separate state, and Caithness and Sutherland and a large tract of the western coast and all the islands were in the hands of the Northmen. The northern invaders were still for the most part heathen, but In the land from which they came the work of the Gallic missionary Anschar was making progress — greater than It had made durinor his lifetime — althougfh slow In reachine o o t> Norway; and those who had secured settle- ments on the islands and coasts of Scotland were gradually brought into conformity with the Christianity prevailing around them. In course of time a change took place whereby the Northmen setded in the islands began to claim an interest in the ecclesiastical Institutions which their forefathers had plundered. This took place chletiy in the Shetland and Orkney islands after the eleventh century; but already, in the tenth, one of the Danish kings of Dublin went on a pilgrimage to lona, Avhere he died "after penance and a good life." ^ Later immigration from Scandinavia came Il8 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. with profession of Christianity after the style carried there by Romish priests ; and while Malcolm II. was still upon the Scottish throne Canute, a Christian Dane, was reigning in England. As respects religion, the component parts of the new kingdom of Scotland were, in the main, of one mind. Christian doctrine, as be- lieved by the Scots, had been accepted by the Picts, and coincided with that of the Cum- brian Britons. Some practices and elements of government had been copied from England by Pictish kings and enforced upon their cler- gy. But the early princes of the united king- dom sought to restore agreement. In the reign of Constantine II. the Church of the Picts was united on an equal footing with that of the Scots, only one new element being added — namely, that of a bishop over the whole. That bishop seems to have represented not an ecclesiastical demand, but a royal idea. It was the monarchical principle appended to the Church rather than filling any place created by its wants. For the monastic system of the Scottish Church continued to be the system of the united Church. The bishop's place could therefore be only a higher honor than any other clergyman in the kingdom had a legal right to claim. NORTH BRITAIN | IMTHE TENTH CENTURY H "MORE VIA .-Si. Xr - i9'< ,■ '^-^M;<' •■:„(„-,i,-ctt Spi-iuird r„r ihf i;esh,,l.;i,a. Hoard „r l%,l,li,:;:;„n lit I'lieo. l.,„..har,tl H- S,>n . Ptiilu CHAPTER XIII. MACBETH. THE long-protracted warfare of Scots and Sax- ons for sole dominion between the Forth and Tweed was decided by the campaign of Malcolm II. and the batde of Carham in favor of the Scots. Cumbria, dynastically connected with Scotland, was already a sub-kingdom of that growing pow- er. Her king, a kinsman of Malcolm, was with him in the batde, and was there slain or died soon after. His successor, Duncan, grandson of Malcolm, sixteen years later (1034) inherit- ed also the crown of Scodand. In this newly-constituted union of kingdoms Cumbria, though oldest in profession of Chris-* tianity, and when the rest were heathen dis- dnguished among Christians for simplicity of ordinances and government, had fallen under great depression. Diminished in strength by the removal of mukitudes of her people Into Wales, she tacitly submitted to a dominion which was creeping step by step over all. Duncan's rieht to the throne of Scotland was through his mother, a daughter of jNIalcolm II., for that king had no male heirs ; but Malcolm no 120 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. had secured it for himself by the issue of war, in which he had defeated and slain his prede- cessor, Kenneth IV. ; and now there was still a claimant from that side, who stood as nearly related to Kenneth as Duncan stood to Mal- colm. The son of Kenneth was dead, but a daughter of that son was living, who had been married to the mormaer of Moray, and after his death carried her claims, with the guardianship of her son, to her second husband, Macbeth, son of a former mormaer of Moray. If Dun- can was the son of a daughter of the late king, Gruach, wife of Macbeth, was the daughter of a son of the preceding king. As respects nearness of relationship they were on precisely the same footing. And if a woman might not in those days Avear the crown herself, she might presume to transmit the right to her husband as truly as to her son. Such most probably was Gruach's view of the case. Nor could she fail to regard Malcolm II. as an usurper, and the occasion at least of her grandfather's death. He certainly had grasped for himself all the profit to be secured from it. Lady Macbeth, as Shakespeare calls her, viewed herself as the heir of a royal inheritance of which her family had been unjusdy and by violence deprived. Her descent, moreover, was from the older branch of the royal family of Alpin. But Duncan's father, Crinan, abbot of Dunkeld, MACBETH. 121 also represented the mormaership in the an- cient house of Athole, whose weight proved the greater in a threefold rivalry. For, to com- plete the story, another piece of genealogy is needed : Finlay, the father of Macbeth, had been, some thirty years before, mormaer of Moray. He was defeated in battle by Sigurd, the Norwegian jarl of Caithness and Suther- land. King Malcolm II. was pleased with the event, and gave one of his daughters to Sigurd in marriage. After Sigurd's death his son Thorfinn was confirmed by Malcolm in pos- session of the two northern counties. Thor- finn, when his cousin Duncan came to the throne, did not feel disposed to submit his in- dependent territory as a province of the Scot- tish kinordom, and no doubt thought that as a o o grandson of the late king and the son of a distinguished soldier he had as good a right to the sovereignty as the son of the abbot. For one cause or the other, or both, he refused the submission or tribute which his cousin de- manded. Duncan assumed to depose him, and appointed Moddan in his place, sending an army to enforce the substitution. The army was worsted, and Moddan betook himself to Duncan. A new expedition was organized, which issued in disaster and the death of Moddan. In these circumstances Thorfinn moved a 122 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. force across the boundary of his own domains. Duncan hastened in person to encounter the insurrection. But again his forces were de- feated, and the rival kinsman pressed on his victorious march to the south. At this juncture Macbeth, who was probably commander of the royal army then, conceived the project of securing his own claim. The son of Sigurd was his hereditary enemy, but if the king were out of the way might agree with him in dividing the whole territory of North Britain — Scottish and Scandinavian both — between them. Duncan was murdered some- where in the neighborhood of Elgin on the 14th of August, 1040. Soon afterward the division of the country took place, the north being as- signed to the Norwegian earl, and the centre to the mormaer of Moray w^ith the honors of king of Scotland. The abbot of Dunkeld did not quietly sub- mit to the fate of his son. Five years later he fell in a battle fought apparently for the res- toration of his house. ^ But the murdered king was destined to transmit the contested inheritance. Duncan had married a sister of Siward, the Danish earl of Northumberland, and with that uncle his family found protection after his death. His children were then young, but at the end ^ Skene, i. 404, 405, 407. MACBETH. 123 of fourteen years Malcolm, the oldest, was car- ried into Scodand by Siward at the head of a great army of Saxons. The issue of war put him on the throne of Cumbria and Lothian. Macbeth retired northward, and sustained him- self two years longer, no doubt by aid of Thor- finn. In 1057, Thorfinn died. Malcolm renew- ed the war with native forces, and pursued Mac- beth into the Highlands, where he defeated and slew him on the 15th of August, 1057. Macbeth reigned seventeen years, and is not, by the old records, charged with injustice in ad- ministration of the government. The country is said to have enjoyed prosperity under his rule. To the Church he was eminently liberal, conferring extensive lands upon " the Culdees of Lochleven, from motives of piety and for the benefit of their prayers."^ He was the first of Scottish monarchs to offer directly his ser- vices to the bishop of Rome. There is some reason to believe that both he and Thorfinn visited Rome, and obtained absolution from their sins ; and there is no doubt that Macbeth expended money liberally among the Roman poor. Nor are these facts incredible of the murderer of Duncan. In neither earlier nor later times has the Church been igrnorant of conscience-money. ^ Skene, i. 406. CHAPTER XIV. MALCOLM CANMORE. MALCOLM III. — called Canmore, or Great Head — son of the murdered Duncan, suc- ceeded Macbeth as king of Scotland. Early in his reign, which began in 1057, he married the widow of the recently deceased Thorhnn, earl of Sutherland and Caithness. The defeat of Macbeth, and seven months afterward of his stepson Lulach, had reduced the protracted re- sistance of Moray, and thus the northern part of the mainland was formally connected with the Crown. Malcolm III. stands in a clearer historical light than any of his predecessors. Changes took place in his time which went to put the kingdom into nearer relations with the general current of European history. The Norman Conquest of England in 1066 was of hardly less importance to the government and peo- ple of Scotland than to those of England, and of more importance to the Scottish Church. It imposed the feudal system upon England, and gave occasion to its partial adoption in Scot- land, where it afterward divided the kingdom 12-1 MALCOLM CANMORE. 12$ with the old national patriarchy. A great change was also made in the material of population in both countries. A Norman ele- ment was added to that of England, and a large Saxon, and eventually a Norman one also, to that of the south of Scotland. In the former country it was an addition of conquerors, who were constituted the nobility and rulers ; in the latter, an addition of refugees, most of whom came as commoners and servants. From the severities inflicted by the Conquer- or multitudes of English people, some of high birth, fled to the northern kingdom. Among those fugitives came the Saxon heir of England, Edgar the ^theling — that is, the crown prince — with his mother and two sisters. They were kindly received by King Malcolm, who also aided Edgar in attempts to retrieve some part of his fortunes. But a campaign made into Northumberland, and carried as far as York, re- sulted in onlv addinor to the number of refugees, vast multitudes of whom followed the returnino- army. They were distributed throughout the south of Scotland. Rare was the family in which English slaves were not to be found, many of them sold by themselves to secure the means of subsistence. Malcolm's first wife died young. He subse- quently married Margaret, sister of the fugitive Saxon prince. Her brother he also protected 126 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. and provided for bountifully, more so than the weakling^ deserved. He never succeeded in pushing his raids into England farther than York, nor in lessening the power of the Con- queror, but he limited the northward advance of conquest. The territory embraced by Northum- berland, Durham, Cumberland and Westmore- land by his aid successfully resisted the establish- ment of Norman rule. Malcolm did not secure the annexation of it to his own kino;dom, but during the time of William I. he prevented the Normans from adding it to theirs. It was ravaged by invasions from both sides. Pro- voked by that resistance, William in 1072 broke throuorh the debatable land and brought the Scottish king to terms of peace, and forced him to give his son Duncan a hostage for their observance.^ Edgar also, at Malcolm's advice, made his peace with William, who entertained him at his court and gave him lands in Nor- mandy. Thus was the conflict settled for the time. But in 1 09 1, William the Conqueror died, and his successor, William Rufus, expelled Edgar from his estates. The ^thelinor had recourse to his royal brother-in-law,^ who once more led an army into England to assert his cause. In the course of successive campaigns Mal- colm again ravaged Northumberland; William 1 Skene, i. 424. « Ibid., 428. MALCOLM CANMORE. 12/ seized the lands south of the Solway belonging to the king of Scotland as part of the ancient British kingdom of Strathclyde, and at a con- ference of the two kings at Gloucester treated the Scottish king with indignity. Resenting the insult, Malcolm withdrew, and brought another army into Northumberland. The campaign ended in his death and that of his son Edward, it is said by the treachery of Morel of Bamborough, who, under pre- tence of surrender, lured him into his power, Nov. 13, 1093. Queen Margaret died upon receiving the tidings. The reio^n of Malcolm Canmore is one of the most important epochs in Scottish history, covering thirty-five years, within which the kingdom was extended from the lower Tweed and the Cheviot mountains and the Solway on the south to Caithness on the north, and over all the Hebrides.^ And that chanore in the Church was commenced which eventuated in its displacement before the Romish. In the latter movement the principal actor was Queen Margaret, a woman of high intellectual endow- ments and earnest piety, with a degree of eccle- siastical learning uncommon among her sex in that day. Her thinking, moulded by the Rom- ish Church, enabled her to defend it before the majority of men who admitted its traditional 1 Skene, i. 431-433- 128 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. interpretation of Scripture. It had been her wish to enter a nunnery and spend her whole life in devotion ; and hardly was she persuaded to forego that purpose by the offer of a throne, and, of what must have weio^hed more in the estimation of such a woman, the love of a brave, true-hearted and generous man. Be- coming queen of Scotland, she took under her special care the interests of religion. The Saxon princess, from the nature of her edu- cation, could not fail to condemn many things in the Scottish Church, however they might have been estimated on their own merits. Christianity was still taught in Scotland, north of the Clyde and Forth, by the Church of which Columba had planted the seeds in lona, for the Culdees in Pictland had substan- tially maintained the succession. But it had not escaped the hands of the innovator, the ravages of war, nor the effects of natural de- cay which will befall any Church unquickened by revivals of spirituality. Changes adopted from the Saxons had only marred the devel- opment of its native constitution. x\s far as they pertained to organization, they were in- congruous elements in the clan system, embar- rassing it without securing any proper province for themselves. Territorial distribution of dio- ceses and parishes was quite foreign to it. Its priesthood had always been collegiate. Epis- MALCOLM CANMORE. 1 29 eopacy had no virtual place in it, and could never be more than functional. In course of time it dwindled into a mere representative bishop for the kingdom, and that, being really unnecessary, was finally abandoned. The bish- op of St. Andrews, who died in 1093, was the last of that line. The attempt to engraft Ro- manism upon the Columban Church had proved an utter failure. Frequent internal wars and the devastation of a great part of the country by heathen in- vaders had destroyed many of the properties of the Church and crippled others, breaking down or displacing the clans to which they pertained. In many cases " the lands with the ruined buildings fell into the hands of lay- men, and became hereditary in their families, until at last nothing was left but the mere name of abbacy applied to the lands, and of abbot borne by the secular lord for the time."^ From such causes the Scottish Church of the eleventh century was greatly reduced in efficiency, and from some parts of the country removed entirely. The Culdees were the cler- gy, a society of secular priests, who, occupying the churches and their properties not otherwise appropriated, discharged all public religious du- ties, maintaining divine service and providing spiritual advisers for the people. Dr. Reeves ^ Skene, ii. 365. I30 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. says of the Kelede of Armagh that they contin- ued to be the officiating clergy of the churches there, '' and by degrees grouped themselves around the great church, where they became the standing ministers of the cathedral. They were presided over by a prior, and numbered about twelve individuals."^ Of the same na- ture was their place in the Scottish churches. And well was it with those which enjoyed the ministrations of Culdees. Where the Colum- ban clergy had been expelled in war, and their places usurped by laymen, ministration of the gospel must have ceased. On some points of doctrine, on the manner of administering the Eucharist and observing the Lenten fast, in the ranks of the ministry on the source of ecclesiastical authority and the monastic orders, the Scottish Church still differed from that of Rome. Scripture was held to be the sole authority in faith ; the Cath- olic claimed an hereditary authority of her own — traditional in a line of apostolic bishops. The time of observing Easter had, from the eig^hth century, been conformed to the Roman ; but the Roman mass had not been introduced, and the Scottish Lent was a continuous fast. In their ministry and their government the churches differed still more widely. ^ Dr. Reeves On the Ancient Churches of Arviagh, p. 21 ; Skene, ii. 359- MALCOLM CANMORE. I3I The Scottish Church in its constitution stood entirely apart from the State. Its ministers were supported by the free gifts of the wor- shipers and by their own industry. Nor did they claim to derive their sanction from any earthly sovereign, ecclesiastical or civil. The king might be their friend or protector or ben- efactor; he was not their head. The bishop of Rome was allowed to be the greatest among bishops, but Scotland was no province of his, and from some of his practices they dissented. The intermeddling of Saxon monks and Pict- ish kings had produced great confusion, but had not substantially altered the organization. In the eleventh century the Scottish Church still retained its distinctive features as inher- ited from the missionary society of lona. The Culdees had taken the place of the Columban clergy, or the Columban clergy had gradually merged into Culdee societies. Their occupa- tions among themselves were still chiefly de- votion and study of the Bible and other mat- ters pertaining to ministerial duties, in accord- ance with which the " practice of clerical wor- ship" seems to have been "deemed their special function."^ From their common res- idence they attended to the instruction and other spiritual wants of the community in which they were planted. ^ Reeves, Ancient Churches of Armagh, p. 21. r32 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. Their societies were not monastic in any sense accepted as true at that date. The brethren were not bound by vows of ceHbacy ; they might hold property, and their institution had no relation to the papacy by sanction or otherwise. It would better serve the purpose of clearness, and avoid the risk of confound- ing two classes of things quite different, to call them colleges (collegia), for, whatever else they were, ecclesiastical colleges they certainly were, and nothing else were they so much. The Scottish Church was founded upon insti^uc- tion. Theological colleges were its only seats of power. Bishops as well as presbyters were recognized, but presbyters alone were the work- ing clergy. And yet it was not a Presbyterian Church. It had no parochial distribution of clergy and congregations, nor organic class- ification of them into presbyteries. The clan system, though greatly disorganized, was still the type of government. Not strong at best, as compared with the Catholic, rather like the ganglionic system of nerves in the human frame as distinguished from the spinal, it was ill suit- ed to present an effective resistance to a com- pacted force like that which was soon to be arrayed against it. That ancient Church, we must not forget, had come from Ireland, and the Irish Church was the first of a mission from the old British MALCOLM CANMORE. 133 Church, which at one time extended from the Clyde southward all the way through the Ro- man provinces, and still in the eleventh century held its ground in Cumbria and down the west of South Britain through Westmoreland, Lan- cashire, Wales and Cornwall. All these affil- iated churches were still free, retaining their earlier doctrines and their ecclesiastical inde- pendence. Though not in all respects identi- cal, they were of one common type and entire- ly harmonious in their relations with each other. The Saxons, who then possessed the east and centre of England, having been converted by missionaries sent from Pope Gregory I., were entirely Roman Catholic, and their religion, to- gether with their settlements, prevailed also in the district immediately to the north of the Tweed. Such were the ecclesiastical relations of the British Isles when the Celtic king of Scotland married a Saxon princess. BOOK SECOND. PERIOD OF PAPAL RULE INTRODUCTION OF ROMANISM. CHAPTER I. 57: MARGARET THE QUEEN. THE religious condition of her husband's kingdom became to Queen Margaret a matter of great concern. In her eyes the doc- trines taught and the practices observed were heretical. It was her wish to abolish them and in their place to establish those of Rome. The king complied. At her instance councils of the Scottish clergy were called, In one at least of which she appeared in person and main- tained her positions in an oral address. " Her biographer tells us that ' at the principal coun- cil thus held she, with a few of her own eccle- siastics, contended for three days with the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, against the supporters of those strange cus- toms ; while her husband, who was equally well acquainted with the Anglic language and with his native Gaelic, acted as interpreter.' " ^ In the annual commemoration of the Lord's ^ Skene, ii. 346, from Turgot. 137 138 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. passion the various parts had been gradually shaped in a long course of time. The process of growth was not the same in all churches. Differences existed touching the order of the Easter observances, the date for beginning them and the length of the preceding fast, which varied greatly from time to time, until finally fixed to the sacred number of forty days. During the latter centuries of that pro- longed growth and controversy the Scottish Church, cut off from communication with those on the Continent, adhered to the style of ob- servance which prevailed in the British churches before the Romans withdrew. And the British churches then were still marked by features of the third century. Within the long interval until the eleventh century the Roman Church had settled many questions and adopted many practices unknown, or imperfectly known, or disapproved of, by the theologians of the far West. Among other things, the controversy of Easter had been determined by adoption of the Romish rule. And in the main the Scot- tish Church had conformed, but not perfectly. Now, so long had that rule been observed as to give the general impression among Roman Catholics that it had existed from the beginning. The multitude had lost the memory of contro- versy on the subject. Fully under that convic- tion, the pious queen set to work to bring the ST. MARGARET THE QUEEN. 1 39 Scottish Church into hne with the Roman Cath- oHc as a matter indispensable to salvation. For the fast of precisely forty days she ar- gued Christ's example and the practice of the Catholic Church. The Scottish clergy did not reject either, but said that they complied cor- rectly with Scripture. But the queen found fault that they counted in the Sundays, and the Catholic Church never fasted on Sunday. If the Scots would subtract the six Sundays, as they ought, they would find that the Lenten term did not amount to forty days. So the queen was right by Roman Catholic rule. But if the Lord's forty days' fast were the law, the Scots were right, for his was a continuous fast, without excepting Sabbaths. Against their refraining from communion upon the specially solemn occasion of Easter Day, lest they should eat and drink judgment to themselves, the queen reasoned scripturally, but assumed also the erroneous eround that the communicant was prepared, having been washed from the stains of his sins by the preceding long fast and its duties. A third point was the mass, which the Scots were charged with celebrating in a barbarous manner. No description is given of what is thus called " barbarous." But nothing unscrip- tural is necessarily understood in it. For the same term is applied by Roman Catholics of 140 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. the present day to the manner of observing the Lord's Supper In all Protestant churches. The Latin word barbariis classically signifies only that a thing is neither Greek nor Latin. The sacrament was ordered to be celebrated after the Romish rite, with acceptance of the ele- ments as changed into the real body and blood of the Lord. It seems to have been customary in the Cel- tic churches of early times, in Ireland as well as Scotland, to keep Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, as a day of rest from labor, and Sunday, com- memorative of the Lord's resurrection, as one of rejoicing, with exercises of public worship. In that case they obeyed the fourth command- ment literally upon the seventh day of the week — the day on which the Lord lay in the grave — and did not understand the precept about rest- ing from labor to apply to the day of rejoicing over his resurrection. On the latter, people did not feel under obligation to refrain from any of their ordinary occupations consistent with their attending upon public worship. The queen in- sisted upon the single and strict observance of the Lord's Day. People and clergy alike sub- mitted, but without entirely giving up their rev- erence for Saturday, which subsequently sank into a half-holy day preparatory for Sunday. A practice which to some extent prevailed without rebuke of the Church, supporting itself ST. MARGARET THE QUEEN. I4I upon Hebrew example, whereby it was not un- usual for a man to marry a deceased brother's widow or a widowed stepmother, was also, at the instance of the queen, censured and for- bidden. Among the changes introduced by the pious queen, it is remarkable that priestly celibacy was not included, nor the rule of poverty enforced upon the inmates of the Church colleges. That they were not has been conjecturally imputed to the priestly descent of her husband or the ecclesiastical position of her son, still a minor. It may have been so. But from what is told of Margaret's character it is not probable that her censure would have been withheld from the breach of a solemn vow. More likely, she knew that those vows were not concerned in the case, and that the government was not yet prepared for such a revolution as the attempt to institute them would create. Her husband sustained the queen on those points, and added the weight of his royal sanc- tion to the consent obtained from the councils. How far the acquiescence of the clergy became practical, and how far the changes were accept- ed into the real faith of the people, we cannot say. But it is w^orth remarking that the Saxon party of the court w^as intensely hated by the Celtic population, as appeared immediately upon Malcolm's death in the wars to exclude Mar- 142 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. garet's sons from the throne ; that the Saxon queen, with all her excellence, was not popular among the Scots ; that in the high places of the subsequently-introduced hierarchy Scottish ec- clesiastics had little share ; and that long after- ward, when the Scottish people once more took the regulation of their Church into their own hands, they rejected all the changes made by Margaret and her sons, except those touching marriage and the Lord's Day. When her proposed reforms were accepted many Scottish institutions experienced great favor at the hands of the queen. Several ecclesiastical buildings, by her influence with the king, were erected or repaired. lona, after the Hebrides had been restored to Scotland, enjoyed her patronage. Some of the houses, repeatedly subjected to plunder and latterly suffering from neglect, were re- stored and provided for. The king and queen, and the bishop of St. Andrews in the same spirit, also enlarged the endowments of " the hermit Keledei on the island of Lochleven, living there in the school of all virtues devout- ly and honorably." Solitary anchorets were ob- jects of her highest veneration. And as they would accept no donation at her hands, she hon- ored them by complying with their religious wishes and admonitions. Crucifixes and other objects used in Romish worship were introduced ST. MARGARET THE QUEEN. 1 43 into the churches by her example, and in some cases, as in those of Dunfermhne and St. An- drews, by her donation/ Every encouragement was given to the practice of pilgrimage to holy shrines. Houses were erected and servants paid to wait in them for the accommodation of pilgrims to St. Andrews. Oueen Margaret was the first amono- the sovereigns of Scotland to interfere with spir- itual matters in dictating faith and forms of worship. Rome, in whose interest her work was done, recognized the service and rewarded it with the honors of canonization. A learned ecclesiastic of that connection composed a glow- ing biographical eulogy of the royal saint, in which her good works are made to appear, as Alban Butler says, " more wonderful than her miracles," with which she was also adorned. She died upon receiving the tidings of her husband's death, and was buried at Dunferm- line, where the king's body, when brought home, was also laid. 1 Skene, ii. 345--353- CHAPTER II. THE SONS OF ST. MARGARET. THE long and prosperous reign of Malcolm Canmore closed in gloom. In the same year the Western Isles were again ceded to Norway. The Scots, who had long beheld with jealousy the increasing influence of Saxons at the court of their king, and the enforcing of Saxon opinions upon themselves, with good reason apprehending the risk of losing all authority in their native land, immediately upon the death of Queen Margaret rose in arms to set Donald Bane, the brother of Mal- colm, on the throne, as being one of their own race, in opposition to any of the sons of the Saxon queen. The rising was successful. The Saxons were expelled, and Donald Bane set up as king, and with such haste that the deceased queen was carried from Edinburgh Castle to her burial through armed bands by stealth, under cover of early dawn and of a dense morning mist. Donald reigned six months, when Duncan, the oldest son of Malcolm by his first wife, asserted 144 THE SONS OF ST. MARGARET. I45 his claim, which was regarded with more favor by the people of Lothian and Cumbria. Dun- can had been a hostage at the English court from his childhood, but now, with permission of King William II., and professing the fealty de- manded, he marched to the north at the head of a force collected among Saxons and Nor- mans, dethroned his uncle and took his place. But English dependency in any degree was revolting to the Scots. At the end of six months their leaders banded together against Duncan and slew him, and again set up his uncle. A compromise was made with a view to unite the two parties, whereby Donald ac- cepted as his colleague Edmund, one of the sons of Queen Margaret, w^ho had taken part in the plot against Duncan. Alban or Scotia — that is, Scotland proper — at that time was the country between the Forth and Spey. Lothian, with its Saxon population, and Cumbria, the old kingdom of Strathclyde, were recently-annexed dependencies. In Lothian the dominion of a son of their much-admired queen was gladly accepted, while Donald was the choice of his Celtic countrymen. To neither party perhaps was that divided rule entirely satisfactory. After about three years Edgar yEtheling, with an English force, carried his nephew Edgar, another son of Mal- colm and Margaret, into Scotland. In a hard- 10 146 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. fought battle he defeated Donald, took Edmund prisoner, and, having made Edgar king, return- ed to England. Edmund was doomed to per- petual imprisonment, and Donald, after two years, falling into Edgar's hands, was blinded and consigned to the same fate. The kingdom of Malcolm Canmore was again united as to the mainland. Norway held do- minion in the isles. Edgar's reign extended from 1097 to 1107. It was uninterrupted by wars or party broils. When Magnus Barefoot, king of Norway, ap- peared a second time in the western seas, Ed- gar renewed to him the cession of the islands which his father had made. In his third year (i 100) his sister Matilda was married to Henry I., king of England — an event of more import- ance to both countries than many expensive and bloody wars. By the Saxon population Matilda was regarded as one of themselves, a daughter of their own royal line. Her edu- cation had been almost entirely English. Her marriage went far to reconcile them to their new masters. Once more their race had an interest on the throne ; the daughter of their princess Margaret was now queen of England. The Norman king strengthened his own hand by a step which went to unite the conquered with the conquerors, and to create some check thereby upon his arrogant Norman barons ; THE SONS OF ST. MARGARET. 1 4/ and, added to other causes, It contributed, for one generation at least, to more friendly rela- tions with Scodand. Through Matilda, by the marriage of her daughter with Geoffrey of Anjou, the powerful dynasty of the Plantage- nets obtained their right to the English crown. Upon Edgar's death his brother Alexander succeeded him, while David, a younger brother, was constituted, by Edgar's request, ruler of Cumbria, with the tide of earl/ In the begin- ning of Alexander's reign another uprising of the Celtic party took place. But their army was pursued into the north, and finally defeat- ed and dispersed beyond the Spey." When Alexander died in 1 1 24, David became king of both the north and south of Scotland, retain- ing the earldom of Northampton, which he had received with his wife, and other estates in England.^ Within the period covered by these three reigns, from 1097 to 11 53, the religious revolution begun by Queen Margaret was completed, and the kingdom subjected to a feudal government.* David, while a youth, had followed his sister Matilda into England, upon her marriage with King Henry. Her deep religious feeling seems to have had much to do* in the formation of his character. During many years' residence at ^ Skene, i. 446. 2 jbid., 452. » Ibid., 444-458- * Ibid., 433-457- 14^ THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. the English court he was trained, *' with the young Norman barons, in all the feudal usages, so as to become, by education and association with the young English nobility, imbued with feudal ideas and surrounded by Norman influ- ences." To the Celtic race that was far from agree- able. But another element of population had begun to enter Scotland, which, without the re- ligious devotion of the Saxon, proved of more regulative effect in the government. The Nor- man friends of his youth were not forgotten by David when he came to power in his native land. Many of them were introduced to places of rank and emolument in his earldom and afterward in his kingdom. By marriage and otherwise he was himself a wealthy English nobleman. Through these means many Nor- man families were added to the higher ranks in Scotland, bringing with them their ideas of feu- dal distinctions, rights and privileges. Thus did the Somervilles, Lindsays, Bruces, Comyns, Avenels, Ballols and odiers receive their ear- liest settlements In the northern kingdom. It was as friends or guests of the king that they came. In some quarters they were endowed with large estates, as 'Robert Avenel in Esk- dale and Robert Bruce in Annandale, and oth- ers elsewhere. When David had been six years on the THE SONS OF ST. MARGARET. 1 49 throne an attempt to repel the foreign intru- sion was made from the north, headed by An- gus, a descendant of Lady Macbeth, as repre- sentative of the ancient mormaers of Moray, together with Malcolm, a natural son of the late kine Alexander. In the reduction of that rebellion the whole territory of Moray was taken into possession of the king. But the discontent was not allayed, nor did it cease to break forth in successive insurrections for a hundred years. CHAPTER III. INTRODUCTION OF THE ROMISH CHURCH GOVERN- MENT QUEEN MARGARETS changes in Ihe Scottish Church pertained to doctrine and observances ; all the rest of the revolu- tion was the work of her sons, Edgar, Alex- ander and David. In the year 1093 ^^ sole bishop of Scotia died. The kingdom was left without a bishop fourteen years, until the death of King Edgar — a defect in the eye of the monarchy, but not intrinsically in the national church system. It was not the intention of the monarchy now to continue that system. In the Scottish Church all right to demand the attention and compliance of men was, from the first, treasured in the Holy Scriptures, in the duties of making their teaching known to the people, and in keeping their ordinances be- fore the public mind. That Church was now, without discussion and by royal will alone, to be set aside for one which claimed a right to command obedience and belief by virtue of divine authority resident in her priesthood. 150 THE ROMISH CHURCH GOVERNMENT. I5I Establishment of the CathoHc system was commenced by Alexander, and, as far as re- spects the mainland, carried forward almost to completeness by his brother and successor, Da- vid. The method generally pursued w^as that of reviving old bishoprics, British, Scottish, Pict- ish, not upon the old clan method, nor upon any compromise with it, nor as having any relation to it, but upon the simple parochial and dio- cesan plan. All the territory of the kingdom was to be divided into dioceses, and those sub- divided into parishes. Each diocese w^as to have one bishop — no longer a mere function- ary, but an actual ruler — and every parish Its own priest. The tithes from the parishes w^ere to sustain all. Various predispositions of the old Church, into the details of which w^e cannot enter, facil- itated these new divisions. Old Scottish ab- bacies could be changed into bishoprics by substituting a bishop for the abbot. Other members of the fraternity, where willing or desirable, could form the chapter of the dio- cese, or they could minister In parishes sepa- rately, as they had done hitherto collectively, for the clan or for a group of neighboring churches. Where such a transformation was not accept- able the old ministry was entirely superseded. Consultation with the existing clergy was no part of the plan. No synod was called, 152 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND. although it was an age In which synods were common. The ecclesiastical transfer of a whole nation was not trusted to ecclesiastical author- ity, but conducted by the civil arm alone. The three Celtic kingdoms were now united in one, together with a Saxon district. With the last there was no difficulty in the way of Romanism. Of the Celtic kingdoms, one was that of Strathclyde, now called Cumbria; an- other was that of the Picts ; and the third, that of the Scots, latterly the ruling race. Each of these had at some time acknowledged one bishop. But the see of Cumbria at Glasgow and that of Abernethy had long ago been dis- continued. The latter, when the Scots became masters in the north, had to part with its hon- ors to Dunkeld, and Dunkeld, in the further progress of the same people, had to yield to St. Andrews. The Scottish bishopric at St. Andrews had been vacant since the death of Malcolm Canmore. At the accession of Edgar there was no bishop in any of those united kingdoms. As that rank of the ministry, though recognized among them, was not ne- cessary to the completeness of their ecclesias- tical order, it was easily allowed to fall into dis- use when no special effort was put forth to keep it in place. Edgar did not attempt to supply the lack — " did not attempt to introduce a paro- chial church north of the Forth," but limited THE ROMISH CHURCH GOVERNMENT. I 53 his ecclesiastical enterprise to the Saxon de- pendency between the Forth and Tweed. ^ In that quarter he refounded the monastery of Coldingham and established some churches on the parochial plan. But when his brothers — Alexander as king to the north of the great firths, and David as earl in the south — succeed- ed him, their mother's policy of assimilating the Church in their native land to that of Rome was at once resumed. Alexander in the first year of his reign (i 107) filled the vacancy in St. Andrews by appoint- ing Turgot, prior of Durham, his mother's con- fessor and biographer, to the bishopric, and cre- ated two new sees, one for Moray and the other for Dunkeld. Moray was an earldom scarcely yet assured to the Scottish crown from its old hostility, continued in the family of Mac- beth. The new ecclesiastical establishment, when in time it took effect, went to strengthen the ties of allegiance. Dunkeld was the seat of an old church rebuilt by Kenneth MacAl- pine, founder of the Scottish dominion over the Picts. It was a Columbite institution, and for a time the head of Scottish ecclesiasticism in the land of the Picts. With the rise of St. Andrews it lost that place of honor. Still, it occupied a rank of some distinction in having given the reigning dynasty to the kingdom. ^ Skene, ii. 368. 154 THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND, It was now transformed Into a Romish bishop- ric by substituting a bishop for the Cohimblte superior. The ample territories still In Its pos- session were such as to endow the new foun- dation with consistent dignity and complete- ness. Upon St. Andrews, however, the higher honor was conferred, and to Its bishop were " the fate and fortunes of the Culdee establishments " throughout the kingdom committed.^ Most clearly, from the beginning of that reign, was it the royal intention to abolish the Scottish Church to make place for the Romish. Meanwhile, during the whole of Alexander's reign in the north, David was pursuing the same policy In the southern dependencies "over which he ruled as earl." About 1115 he restored the diocese of Glasgow, and directed an Inquiry to be made " by the elders and wise men of Cum- bria into the lands and churches which formerly belonged to the see." Upon the information thus obtained he reconstructed the bishopric, in 1 1 20 or 1 121, to include all the territory of Cumbria then belonging to Scodand and as far as the Tweed. Lothian was chiefly Saxon, both by blood and religion, and was assigned to St. Andrews. Galloway, though belonging to Scot- land, was under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of York. ^ Skene, ii. 372. rs^% ^Mr \ : i-n\-c(t fi- l/riiiicd ,y(,„t