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CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND.
THE
C H U R C H H IS TO RY
SCOT LAND

FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHRISTIAEN
ERA TO THE PRESENT TIME
BY
JOHN CUN N ING HAM, D.D.
AUTHOR OF “THE QUAKERs: AN INTERNATIONAL History,” “A NEw THEORY
OF KNOWING AND KNowN,” ET.c., ETC.
~~~~
SEcoMD EDITION
A AV 7' W. O. W. O Z U M ES
V O L. I.
ED IN B U R G H : J A M E S T H IN
I 8 82
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
THE First Edition has now been exhausted for several years.
In this Second Edition I have carefully gone over the whole
narrative, and by the light of recent research have been able
to alter and amend many things. I have, moreover, continued
the narrative with a fulness proportioned to the rest of the
history down to 1843—the date of the Free Church Secession.
Beyond that date, and down to the present day, I have given
merely an outline of ecclesiastical events, carefully avoiding
living divines, as happily not yet historical personages.
J. C.
MANSE OF CRIEFF, 9th May 1882.
PREF ACE TO FIRST EDITION.
'•
OUR best Scottish Ecclesiastical Histories are confined to
particular periods. Indeed, so far as I know, there is not one
which will conduct the student from the epoch of Christianity
to the day in which he lives. This is the task I have
undertaken ; but in traversing this long tract of time I have
naturally lingered longest on those periods which are either
most interesting or most instructive.
Our ecclesiastical writers in general appear to have thought
that the Church in our country before the Reformation was
only the Church of Rome, and not the Church of Scotland
too ; and accordingly they have left its history without inves-
tigation and without record. As well might our political
writers have passed over the history of the kingdom prior to
the Revolution. In the one case our ancestors were living
under a bad despotism, and in the other under a debasing
superstition, but still they were our ancestors. Though the
Church before the Reformation was Roman in its architecture,
still it was built upon Scottish ground, and they were Scottish
men and women who worshipped in it. It is impossible to
understand our Church History subsequent to the Reforma-
tion without knowing something of our Church History
prior to it. It is impossible to appreciate our present insti-
tutions, our present habits of thought, our present likings
and dislikings, without reverting to our past Papistry. The
Reformation in Scotland was certainly very complete — in
no other country in the world was it so complete; but still
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. vii
it could not root out every old idea, nor carry away every
ancient landmark, nor make us an entirely different people
from what we were before. The key to many things in our
character and history is to be sought for in ante-Reformation
times.
Though Scotland presents but a narrow field, yet the
ecclesiastical element has there had a fuller and freer develop-
ment than in any other country. What Egypt is to the man
who would ransack ancient temples and tombs, Scotland is to
the man who would study the manifestations of ecclesiastical
life. The Church of England never has had much action as a
Church, and accordingly it can scarcely be said to have any
history, except in so far as its history is bound up in the
biographies of the illustrious men who have been reared within
its pale. It has had no General Assembly to concentrate the
energy of every individual, and to utter the sentiments of the
whole. The Church of Scotland, on the other hand, from its
republican constitution and representative courts, has a well-
marked and peculiarly instructive history of its own, distinct
from the biographies of its individual ministers, distinct from
the political history of the State. But besides this, peculiar
circumstances in the history of the country gave to the ecclesi-
astical element peculiar vigour. The weakness of the monarchy
till the Union of the Crowns, allowed the free expansion of
ideas which have never been tolerated in countries where the
monarchy is strong; and during the civil wars, when the
throne was laid low, they attained to a fuller expansion still.
For a season the Church was left to wield its own powers, and
to work out what it conceived to be its own ends, free from
all pressure from without. Accordingly, during that period,
ecclesiasticism is to be found in its purest form. In truth, the
Church of Scotland has had within Scotland a history similar
to what the Church of Rome has had within Christendom.
We see the same laws in operation, though on a smaller scale,
and under modifying circumstances. Tn the career of the one
we can discern the blessings which flow from a pure Creed and
simple worship, and in that of the other the blighting effects
viii PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
of a baneful superstition ; but with both there has been the
same union and energy of action, the same assumption of
spiritual supremacy, the same defiance of law courts, parlia-
ments, and kings. The history of either can be traced with
equal precision, sometimes blending with civil history, but at
other times diverging widely from it. I know only three
Churches whose histories stand thus prominently out—the
Jewish, the Roman, and the Scottish. Geneva had such a
Church too, but it was only for a very little season.
In writing this History I have endeavoured above all things
to purge my heart of all leaven of polemical and party hatred,
and to follow faithfully both truth and charity. I have not
concealed my own sentiments, for it had been either hypocrisy
or cowardice to have done so; but I have endeavoured to
state them without asperity, and to do justice to the motives,
the opinions, and the conduct of those who differ from me.
Though I cannot hope that I have arrived at perfect im-
partiality, I trust I have never sacrificed truth to subserve a
party purpose. I have seen enough and read enough to know
that worth and wisdom are not confined to any Church or any
sect, and that infallibility does not belong to Presbytery any
more than to Popery. J. C.
CO N T E N T S OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
Druidism prevalent in Britain at Christian Era, I. Druid a Celtic
word, I. Druidical Deities, 2. The Druids offered Human Sacrifices,
and had some notions of a Future State, 2. The Ethics and Festivals of
Druidism, 3. Druidical Circles, 5. The Divisions, Functions, and
Science of the Druids, 6. Destruction of the Druids, 7. The Scots and
Picts, 8. Scandinavians and Teutons, 9. Scandinavian Mythology, II.
The Norseman's Heaven, 13. Vestiges of Druidism and Scandinavian-
1Sm, I 5.
CHAPTER II.
Early Chroniclers, 17. King Donald, 19. Kirk Madrine, 19. Legend
of St Andrew and St Rule, 20. Rise of the Pelagian Controversy, 21.
Writings of St Augustine and St Jerome, 21. The First Evangelist of
Britain unknown, 22. Constant Intercourse between Rome and Britain,
23. Missionary Spirit of the First Christians, 24. Christianity probably
reached Scotland from the South, 25. State of Scotland at this time, 26.
Barbarism of both Picts and Scots, 27. Difficulties in the way of Chris-
tianity, 27.
CHAPTER III.
St Ninian, 27. His Labours among the Galwegians and Southern
Picts, 28. Foundation of Candida Casa, the First Stone Building in the
Country, 28. Palladius, 29. St Patrick, 30. St Columba and his Bio-
graphers, 31. Parentage and Education of St Columba, 32. His Arrival
in Iona, 32. Labours among the Picts, 33. Reasons for selecting Iona
as the Seat of his Monastery, 34. Monastery of Iona : its Recluses,
Rules, &c., 35. Death and Character of Columba, 36, 37. Troubles of
the Monks of Iona from the Incursions of the Norsemen, 37. St Mungo
the Contemporary of St Columba, 38. Visit of Columba to Kentigern at
the Molendinar Burn, 39. St Cuthbert, 39. Outline of General Church
History for the First Six Centuries, 40, 41. Rise of Diocesan Episco-
pacy, 42, 43. Rise of Monachism, 44, 45. Britain lost to the Roman
World after the withdrawal of the Roman Legions, 46. Scottish Mona-
i. g?. The Scottish Bishops subject to the Presbyter-Abbot of
Ona, 48.
X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IV.
Arrival of the Monk Augustine in Kent, 49. He converts Ethelbert,
King of Kent, and establishes himself at Canterbury, 50. Mission of
Aidan to Northumbria, 51. He settles on Lindisfarne, and begins his
apostolic work, 52. He dies, and is succeeded by Finan, 53. Northum
berland, Mercia, and Essex Christianised by Monks from Iona, 53. Dis-
putes in regard to Scotch Presbyters consecrating Bishops, 54, 55.
Controversies about Easter, 56. Council of Whitby, 57. Disputes about
the Tonsure, 58. Retirement of the Culdees from Northumbria, 59.
Opinions of the Celtic Monks, 60, 61. Quarrels of the British and
Romish Clergy, 62. The Culdees, 63. Culdee Remains, 65. Queen
Margaret : her Piety and Beneficence, 67. Her Disputations with the
Culdees, 68. Her Death, 69. Degeneracy of the Culdees, 69.
CHAPTER V.
Wars of the Scots and Picts, 70. Termination of the Pictish Kingdom,
7o. Origin of Tithes—Charlemagne—Alfred, 71, 72. Malcolm Can-
more — Margaret — and English Settlers, 73. David I. erects many
Bishoprics and Monasteries, and reforms the Church, 73, 74. The Barons
follow his example, 74. Origin of Scotch Bishoprics, Parishes, and
Abbeys, 74. Bishoprics of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Dunkeld, 74, 75.
Division of the Country into Parishes, 75. Orders of Monks, 77. Passion
to Endow Monasteries, 78. Appropriation of Parishes, 79. Spottis-
wood’s “Religious Houses,” 79, 80. Carthusians at Perth, 81. Hos-
pitallers and Templars, 81, 82. Nunneries and Nuns, 83. Wealth of
the Roman Hierarchy, 83, 84. The Clergy promote Agriculture, 84, 85.
They preserve Literature and conduct Business, 86. The Chronicles,
Registers, and Chartularies of the Religious Houses, 87. The Monas-
teries Educational Institutions, 88. The Monasteries served as Inns and
Poorhouses, 89. Nature of the connection between the Church and the
State, 89. Ancient Scottish Liturgies, 90, 91. Breviary of Aberdeen,
9I. Organs, Choirs, and Music, 92, 93. Religious Houses: their Archi-
tects, Builders, &c., 94-96.
CHAPTER VI.
Religion and Politics closely intertwined, 96. The Archbishop of York
claims the Primacy of Scotland, and the Archbishop of Canterbury dis-
putes it, 97. Turgot consecrated, and dies, 97, 98. Eadmer made Arch-
bishop of St Andrews, but resigns it on account of Disputes about his
Consecration, 99. Thurstin claims Obedience of Glasgow, 99. Con-
secrates Robert to See of St Andrews, IOO. Bishops of the Orkneys, IOO.
David's Church-Reform, IoI. David’s Character and Death, IOI. Malcolm
IV. and William the Lion, IO2. Council at Northampton, IO3. Speech
of Gilbert Murray, Iog. Disputes about the Bishopric of St Andrews,
IoA. The Pope excommunicates William, IO5. Pope Lucius sends
William the Golden Rose, IO5. Clement declares Scotland dependent
only on Rome, IO6. Church of Scotland copies Anglican Models, IO/.
CONTENTS. k xi
The Crusades, IoS. Rights of Sanctuary, Io9. Slavery, IIo. Scotland
placed under an Interdict, III. Bishop of Caithness roasted alive, 112.
The Scotch Clergy obtain Permission to hold Provincial Councils, 113.
A Roman Legate visits Scotland, and is withstood by the King, II.4.
Cardinal Ottobon De Fieschi attempts to raise a Procuration, II5. The
Twentieth of Benefices granted for the Holy War, 115. Benemundus de
Vicci visits Scotland, 116. The Invasion of the Norwegians, 116.
Arrival of the Mendicants, 117. Eminent Scotch Writers, 117. Michael
Scot, I 17. John Holybush, Richard of St Victore, and Adam Scot, I 18.
Thomas Learmont, I 19. Duns Scotus, I 19. Death of Alexander III.,
I2O. Competition for the Crown, 121. The part taken by the Clergy in
the War of Independence, 123. The Pope publishes a Truce between
Scotland and England, and excommunicates Bruce, 124. The Estates of
Scotland publish a Manifesto, setting forth the Independence of the King-
dom, and Bruce's Right to the Throne, 125. Death of Bruce, and Adventure
of his Heart, 126. Reigns of David II., Robert II., and Robert III.,
I27. John De Fordun, Barbour, Bassol, Blair, Dempster, and Varoye, 128.
CHAPTER VII.
Slow Growth of the Papacy, 129. Schism in the Church, I31. Council
of Constance, and Rise of Wickliff, 131, 132. Martyrdom of Resby, 133.
Foundation of the University of St Andrews, 133. James I. : his Vigour,
and Reforms, 134-136. Martyrdom of Craw, I 36. Visit of AEneas
Silvius, I37. Murder of James I., and Troubles during the Minority of
James II., I 38. Foundation of the University of Glasgow, 139. Character
and Services of Bishop Kennedy, I42. Patrick Grahame succeeds Kennedy
at St Andrews, and gets the See erected into an Archbishopric, 144. Said
to have been Mad, I45. Simoniacal Practices, I46. James III. is assassi-
nated, and is succeeded by James IV., 147. Foundation of the Univer-
sity of Aberdeen, 147. Hector Boethius its first Principal : his Character,
I49. First Native Literature, 150. Literary Attainments of the Clergy,
and Anecdote of Bishop Forman, 151. Glasgow erected into an Arch-
bishopric, I53. Archbishop Blackadder persecutes the Lollards, I53.
Introduction of Printing, and its Influence on the Reformation, I54.
Death of James IV. at Flodden, and his Character, 155.
CHAPTER VIII.
Leo X. ascends the Papal Throne: his Character, 156. Sale of In-
dulgences, and the German Reformation, 157, 158. Contest for the See
of St Andrews, I 59. “Cleansing the Causeway,” I61. Administration
and Character of the Duke of Albany, and Queen Margaret, 161. Gawin
Douglas, 162. Patrick Hamilton : his Opinions and Martyrdom, 162-165.
Institution of the College of Justice, I65. Visit of Antonio Campeggio,
as Papal Legate, to James V., 166. Diffusion of the Lutheran Opinions,
I66. Alexander Seaton, 167. Martyrdom of Forest, Gourlay, and
Straiton, 167. Laws against Heresy and the Importation of Lutheran
Books, I68. Henry VIII. of England revolts against Rome, 168. Dr
Barlow sent on a Mission to Scotland, 169. James V. Marries, first
xii CONTENTS.
Magdalene of France, and afterwards Mary of Guise, 170. Martyrdom
of Forret, Simpson, Keillor, Beveridge, and Forrester, 171. The Vicar
of Dollar and the Bishop of Dunkeld, 171. Martyrdom of Russel and
Kennedy, 172. David Beaton made Archbishop of St Andrews, 172.
Sadler's Mission to Scotland, 173. Acts of Parliament against Heretics,
I76. Acts of Parliament for the Reform of the Church and Churchmen,
I77. The Embarrassmeut of James, 178. King James dies, 179. Cardi-
nal Beaton claims the Regency, 180. The Nobles appoint the Earl of
Arran Regent, 181. Henry VIII. projects a Marriage between Prince
Edward and Queen Mary, 181. The Parliament authorizes the reading
of the Scriptures in the Vulgar Tongue, 183. War between England and
Scotland, 185. The French and English Factions, 186. Law against
Heretics, and Martyrdoms at Perth, 186. George Wishart, 186. His
Seizure, Trial, and Death, 189. Conspiracy to assassinate Beaton, 189.
The Conspirators surprise his Castle and murder him, 190. Character of
Beaton, I9 I. The Conspiracy Traced, 191-194.
CHAPTER IX.
The Romish Creed, 194. Religious Edifices in Papal Times, 196.
Preaching, 197. Sunday: how spent, 198. Pilgrimages, 199. Re-
ligious Processions, 200. Mysteries, 200. Piety of Papal Times, 20I.
Ancient Oaths, and Act to prevent Swearing, 203. Morality of Papal
Times, 203. Abuses in the Patronage of the Church, 204. Licentious-
ness of the Clergy, 207. Literary Attainments of the Clergy, 208.
Revenues of the Clergy, 2IO. Influences leading to the Reformation, 2II.
Power of Poetry, 2II. Sir David Lyndsay’s Poems, 213. Profane
Ballads transmuted into Spiritual Songs, 215. Proportion of the Nation
attached to the Protestant Doctrines, 218.
CHAPTER X.
Hamilton made Archbishop of St Andrews, 219. Henry VIII. of Eng-
land assists the Castilians, 220. Knox joins them, 22O. He is called to
be a Protestant Preacher, 222. Theories of Orders, 224. The Con-
spirators surrender the Castle to the French Admiral, 226. Knox and
his Companions made Galley Slaves, 227. Somerset invades Scotland,
and Battle of Pinkie fought, 228. Queen Mary is betrothed to the
Dauphin, and sent to France, 228. Mary of Guise manages to supplant
Arran in the Regency, 229. Provincial Council held, 23O. Adam Wal-
lace suffers Martyrdom, 231. Controversy about the Pater-noster, 231.
Another Council held, 232. Catechism published, 233. Acts of Parlia-
ment levelled at the Reformers, 234. Edward VI. and Mary of England
235. Knox is liberated, and settles in England, 236. He retires to
Geneva, and becomes acquainted with Calvin, 237. He returns to Scot-
land, 238. Knox preaches and administers the Sacrament in different parts
of the country, 239. He is summoned to answer for his conduct, but the
diet is abandoned, 240. He returns to Geneva, 240. The Reformers
invite Knox to return, and then repent having done so, 242. The First
Covenant, 243. Protestant Congregations formed, and Protestant Barons
CONTENTS. xiii
assume name of Lords of the Congregation, 244. Resolutions of the Con-
gregation, 245. Martyrdom of Walter Mill, 247. Demands of the
Protestant Barons, 248. Policy of the Queen Regent, 250. Marriage of
Mary with the Dauphin, 251. The last Roman Council, 252. The
Regent summons the Preachers and outlaws them, 255. Knox preaches
at Perth, and the Mob destroy the Monasteries, 256. The Regent
marches upon Perth, but consents to a Treaty, 257. Knox preaches at
Crail, Anstruther, and St Andrews, 258. The Abbey of Scone and the
Abbey of Cambuskenneth are destroyed, 259. Traditionary Maxim of
Knox, 260. Francis and Mary, now King and Queen of France, try to
detach the Prior of St Andrews from the Protestant Cause, but fail, 262.
Invectives of Knox and other Preachers, 263. Negotiations with England
set on foot, 263. Knox's Proposals, 264. Views of the Leaders of the
Congregation, 265. The Protestant Barons depose the Queen Regent,
267. Treaty of Berwick, 270. The English besiege Leith, 270. Death
and Character of the Queen Regent, 271. Treaty of Edinburgh, 273.
The Parliament meets, 273. The Protestant Confession is adopted, 275.
Acts against Popery, 276.
CHAPTER XI.
Contrast between the Scotch and English Reformations, 277. The First
Staff of the Protestant Church, 280. The First Book of Discipline, 281.
The Office-Bearers of the New Church, 282. The Worship and Discipline
of the New Church, 285. The Patrimony of the Old Church, and its ap-
propriation by the New, 288. Influence of Church Property on the
Reformation, 291. Knox denounces the Sacrilege of the Nobles, 292.
The Privy Council refuse to sanction the First Book of Discipline, 292.
First General Assembly, 293. Disputation between Romanists and Re-
formers, 294. Second Assembly, 294. Demolition of Religious Houses,
295. Embassages to France and death of Francis II., 296. Lesley and
Lord James Stewart, 297. Mary returns to Scotland, 298. The Mass at
Holyrood, 298. First Interview between Mary and Knox, 299. The
Holy Water of the Court, 303. Disputes between the Protestant Barons
and Clergy, 3O4. Scheme to pay the Protestant Ministers out of the
Thirds of Benefices, 305. Dissipation of Ecclesiastical Property, 307.
Business of the First Assemblies, 3 II. Divided and excited state of the
Nation, 313. Policy of Queen Mary, 314. Second Interview of Knox
and the Queen, 315. Third Interview of Knox and the Queen, 317.
The Parliament passes an Act of Indemnity, 318. Knox's Sermon on the
Queen's Marriage, 319. Scene at the Palace, 319. Knox summoned
before the Council, charged with Treason, 321. Knox marries his second
wife, 322. Darnley arrives in Scotland, and gains the heart of Mary, 323.
Acts of the General Assembly, 324. Marriage of Mary and Darnley, 324.
Knox's Sermon, 325. Moray and others rebel, 327. Murder of Rizzio,
328. Murder of Darnley, 329. Mary marries Bothwell, and Nobles
rebel, 329. The General Assembly meets, 330. Moray made Regent,
332.
CHAPTER XII.
Moray passes Acts in favour of the Church, 333. Mary escapes from
Lochleven, and Battle of Langside, 335. Murder of the Regent Moray, 336.
xiv CONTENTS.
His Character, 336. The Factions of the King and Queen, 337. Knox
at St Andrews, 338. Archbishop Hamilton hanged, 339. Church Pro-
perty—How to be disposed of P 339. Concordat of Leith, 341. The
Assembly sanctions it, 343. Motives of the Ministers, 344. Views of
Knox, 345. Death and Character of Knox, 347. Execution of Kirk-
caldy, and sudden death of Maitland, 349. Andrew Melville returns to
Scotland, 350. Was Episcopacy Scriptural? 351. Decisions of the AS-
sembly, 352. The Regent Morton threatens Melville, 353, James VI.
nominally assumes the Government, 354. Influence of Melville and Beza,
354. Second Book of JDiscipline, 356. Erection of Presbyteries, 360.
D’Aubigné obtains the King's Favour, and is created Duke of Lennox,
361. He abjures Popery, 362. Craig's Confession, 362. Execution of
Morton, 363. Montgomery accepts Archbishopric of Glasgow, and is
brought before the Church Courts, 364. Montgomery yields, to escape
Excommunication, 365. Disputes revived, and Montgomery Excommuni-
cated, 366. Melville braves the Earl of Arran, 366. Durie Banished, 368.
The Power of the Keys, 368. The Raid of Ruthven, 370. George
Buchanan, 371. French Embassage, 373. Durie and Melville before the
Council, 374. The Black Acts of 1584, 375. Reluctant Submission of
the Ministers to the Acts, 379. Return of Exiled Nobles and Ministers,
and Flight of Arran, 380. Lord Maxwell celebrates Mass, 381. General
Assembly of 1586, 382. The King orders Prayers to be offered for his
Mother, 383. Act passed Annexing the Temporalities of Benefices to
the Crown, 384. The Spanish Armada, 385. The Marriage of James
VI., 385. The Assembly of 1590, and the Speech of the King, 387.
Death of Archbishop Adamson, 388. Act of Parliament restoring Pres-
bytery, 388.
CHAPTER XIII.
The General Assembly; its Constitution, and the Sources of its Strength,
389. The Superintendents discontinued, 393. Clerical Costumes pre-
scribed by Act of Assembly, 393. Number of Churches without Minis-
ters, 394. The Book of Common Prayer, 395. Domestic Devotions, 396.
Fasts, 397. Discipline of the Church, 398. State of Society, 399.
Witchcraft, 399. Sunday Observance, 401. Clerk-Plays, 40I. The
Robin Hood Plays, Queen of May, &c., 402. Pageants, 403. The
Printing Press: its Supervision by the Church, 404. First Edition of the
Bible published in Scotland, 405. Ill-usage of the Papists, 406. Jealousies
of the Papists and Protestants, 408. . James VI. combats, both Presby-
terians and Papists, 4 II. Liberties of the Ministers with the King, 412.
Bancroft's Attack upon the Church of Scotland, 413. The Brownists :
their Rise, Opinions, and Reception in Scotland, 4I4.
CHAPTER XIV.
Apprehension of Ker at the Cumbraes, 416. The Spanish Blanks found
in his possession, 416. James marches against the Popish Earls who had
subscribed the Blanks, 417. Resolutions of the General Assembly, 417.
Meeting of the Parliament, and Excommunication of the Popish Lords by
the Synod of Fife, 420. The King's Perplexities, 421. The Popish Lords
CONTENTS. XV
crave a Trial, 421. Demands of the Protestants, 421. Resolutions of the
Committee of Parliament, .423. Dissatisfaction in the Country, 424.
Bothwell’s Treasons and Rebellions, 425. Battle of Glenlivet, 426. James
marches to Strathbogie and Slaines, and compels Huntly and Errol to flee,
427. The King invited to Kiss a Crucifix, 427. The Popish Lords leave
the Country, 428. The Octavians and the Cubiculars, 429. General
Assembly of 1596, 429. Huntly and Errol return to Scotland in Disguise,
43I. The King resolves to pardon them, 432. Violent Remonstrances
of Andrew Melville, 432. Ross, Black, and others defame the King in the
Pulpit, 434. Black is Summoned before the Council, and declines its
Jurisdiction, 435. Black is found guilty, and put in ward, 436. Spiritual
Independence, 437. Riot in Edinburgh, 438. The King resolves to re-
introduce Episcopacy, and circulates Queries in regard to Church-Govern-
ment, 440. Assembly at Perth ; its Compliances, 441. Assembly at
Dundee appoints a Commission, 443. Restoration of the Popish Lords,
444. The Parliament agrees to receive a number of Ministers, as repre-
senting the Third Estate, 444. Assembly at Dundee agrees to appoint
Representatives to sit in Parliament, 446. The Ordination of Bruce, 447.
Lawsuit between the King and Bruce, 448. James publishes the “Basili-
con Doron,” 448. The King's Disputes with the Clergy about a Company
of Comedians, 451. Assembly at Montrose : its Resolutions in Regard to
those who were to sit in Parliament, 452. The Gowrie Conspiracy. 453.
Erection of the University of Edinburgh, 456. Assembly at Burntisland in
I6OI, 456. Accession of James VI. to the English Throne, 457.
CHAPTER XV.
Conference of English Divines at Hampton Court, 458. The King
prorogues the Assembly indicted to meet at Aberdeen in July 1604, 461.
He dissolves the Assembly indicted to meet at Aberdeen in July 1605;
but some of the Ministers constitute the Meeting, fix upon a day for a future
Assembly, and then adjourn, 462. They are called before the Council,
and having declined its jurisdiction, are tried for treason, and found guilty,
463. The Parliament meets and restores the Episcopal Estate, 464. The
Ring invites some of the Scotch Bishops and Presbyterian Ministers to
Court, 466. He puts them through a course of Episcopal Divinity, 466-8.
Andrew Melville writes an Epigram on the Anglican Worship, 468. He
is tried by the English Council, found guilty, and sent to the Tower, 469.
Future Career and Character of the two Melvilles, 479. Assembly held
at Linlithgow, 471. Popular Dissatisfaction. With its Measures, 472.
Assembly of 1608, 473. The Popish Lords relapse, 473. Two Courts of
High Commission erected, 475. Act of Parliament authorising the King
to prescribe Churchmen’s Apparel, 475. Assembly of 16IO, and its Acts
setting up Episcopacy, 476. Scotch Bishops proceed to London to receive
Consecration, 479. The Parliament ratifies the Acts of the Assembly of
I6Io, 480. Vestiges of Popery, 481. Martyrdom of Ogilvy, a Jesuit, 481.
Assembly of 1616, 482. James revisits Scotland, 483. The Parliament
meets, 484. The Protest of the Presbyterian Ministers, 485. The Pub-
lication of the “Book of Sports,” 486. Assembly of 1617, 487. Assembly
at Perth in August 1618, 488. The Five Articles of Perth, 490. Non-
conformists, 491. The Synod of Dort, 492. Mrs Welsh and the King,
493. Death and Character of James VI., 494.
xvi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XVI.
Accession of Charles I., 494. The beginning of his English Troubles,
495. He visits Scotland and is Crowned, 496. Introduction of the
Anglican Ritual, 497. Meeting of the Estates, 498. Opposition to some
Acts, 499. Lord Balmerino condemned, 500. Digression in regard to
Teinds and Stipends, 500. Digression in regard to Parish Schools, 506.
Spottiswood made Lord Chancellor, 5 II. Charles resolves to introduce a
New Liturgy, 5 II. Notices of the Old Liturgy, 512. The Canons and
Constitutions Ecclesiastical, 513. Laud's Liturgy, 514. Tumult in the
Church of St Gile, 516. The Prosecution of Alexander Henderson, 519.
The King rebukes the Council for suspending the use of the Liturgy, 519.
Riots in Edinburgh, 520. Constitution of the Tables, 523. The King
publishes a Proclamation, 524. The Presbyterians resolve to bind them-
selves together in a Religious Covenant, 526. Subscription of the Cove-
nant at the Greyfriars Church in Edinburgh, 527. Different Opinions
about the Covenant, 529.
THE
CHURCH HISTORY ()F SCOTLAND.
CHAPTE R. I.
AT the time when the Great Founder of our Faith was
preaching his Gospel in the cities of Galilee, the inhabitants
of this island were practising Druidical rites under the shadow
of their ancient oaks.
The elder Pliny derives the name Druid from the Greek
word “drus,” which signifies an Oak ; but though there be in
the words a striking similarity of Sound, it is much more
natural to think that Celtic priests would be called by a name
native to the Celtic speech. Druidh, signifying a sage, is a
word still used in some of the Celtic dialects, and it is evi-
dently the name formerly applied to the priests. Caesar tells
us, that in his day the Druidical religion prevailed in Gaul
and Britain ; ; but he gives us only some very scanty notices
regarding its nature; and the knowledge derived from his
Commentaries is not greatly supplemented by the information
to be gleaned from other sources. It appears, however, to
have borne some resemblance to that taught by the Magi of
Persia, the Brahmins of India, and the priests of Tyre. So
great a likeness is it said to have had to the Phoenician faith,
that some antiquaries have imagined it must have been com-
municated to our forefathers by those Phoenician merchants
who are known to have traded with our country for tin, long
before the era of Christianity. The idea is chimerical: for a
Solitary galley touching perhaps once a year upon the coast,
with a crew more eager to make rich by lucrative barter than
to gain merit by disseminating truth, could never give religion
to lands stretching through fifteen degrees of latitude. Besides,
it is needless; religions, like languages, present affinities
* Caesar. De Bello Gallico, lib. vi. He imagines it originated in
Britain and was translated thence into Gaul. -
WOL. I. A
2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. I.
which point to a common source from which they have
originally sprung, and speak, moreover, of those religious in-
stincts which are common to every human heart.
There are circumstances which lead us to believe that the
Druids had some idea that there was but one Supreme God;
but, be this as it may, if the classical writers are to be credited,
they were in the habit of sacrificing to a multitude of Gods.
Their chief divinity they identified with the sun, the most
glorious object in nature, the fountain of life and light,
presenting to uninstructed people the highest emblem of the
deity; and which, therefore, has been worshipped on the
plains of Chaldea and in the golden temples of Peru, among
the ancient Canaanites, and the ancient Britons. It seems to be
but too true that they were in the habit, occasionally at least, of
sacrificing to their divinities human victims; but we should not
wonder at this, for it has been characteristic of almost every
system of superstition. Our Pagan ancestors, in this respect,
were not worse than others; and it were a piece of foolish vanity
in us to believe them to have been better. The maxim of the
Mosaic law, that without shedding of blood there could be no
remission of sin, was known far beyond the limits of Judea ;
and it appears to have been an article in the Druidical creed,
that nothing but the life of a man could atone for the life of a
man." The victims in these horrid rites were generally chosen
from criminals, or captives taken in war, as the sacrifice of
these was believed to be peculiarly pleasing to the Gods. It
was common for a private person afflicted with any serious
disease, or before going to battle, to vow such a sacrifice. At
other times great public sacrifices were made; upon which
occasions the priests formed huge images of wicker-work, and
filling these with living human beings, set them on fire, as an
offering to their cruel Gods.”
The Druids appear to have had some glimmering concep-
tions of a future state: which they made use of to inspire the
people with a contempt of death. Caesar and Diodorus say
that they taught the doctrine of the transmigration of souls;
Lucan and Marcellinus speak of them as teaching that the
soul, after death, ascended to a higher orb, where it enjoyed a
more perfect repose.” Perhaps, they may have combined
both ideas, and believed that the spirit, after leading a wan-
I Caesar, lib. vi. * Ibid.
3 Ibid. Diodorus Siculus, Bibl. 5. Lucan, Phars. i.
Ammianus Mar-
cellinus, xv.
A.D. 1-60.] I) RUIDICAL MORALS AND FEASTS. 3
dering life for a time, and inhabiting sometimes a human,
Sometimes a bestial abode, rose to their Faith-innis," or isle of
the happy. It is recorded of them, with what truth we do
not vouch, that their faith in a future state was so firm, that
they gave loans of money to each other, to be repaid when
they reached the abodes of the blessed. “I should call them
fools”—says Valerius Maximus, who narrates this circumstance
—“were it not that Pythagoras, in his flowing robes, believed
the same as these men in trews.” We greatly doubt if the
Greek philosopher would have given such a proof of the
strength of his faith.
The ethics of the Druidical system appear to have been
purer than the generality of pagan codes. The people were
taught “to reverence the Gods, to do nothing evil, and to
practise manly virtue.” ” As is the case with all barbarous
nations, they esteemed strength and courage in battle before
everything else. One custom they had which appears to us
not only immoral but disgusting—it was common for near
relatives to have a community of wives.* All superstitions have
forbidden some kind of food to their votaries, either from its
pretended sanctity or its supposed uncleanness. The ancient
Briton refused to eat the hare, the hen, or the goose; the mo-
dern Briton, less scrupulous and more wise, devours them all.”
Druidism had its festivals; and of these, two were regarded
with especial respect. The first was held at the beginning
of May, and was called Bailfeim, or fire of Bel. The chief
Ceremony of this high day consisted in kindling a huge bon-
fire on the summit of a hill, in honour of the summer's sun,
whose return was thus welcomed to our northern climate.
The other great festival was called Samhainn, or fire of peace,
and was held on Hallow-eve, which still retains that name
among our Celtic population. On this occasion justice was
administered, quarrels adjusted, disputes solved; and the
Sacred fire kindled by the violent friction of two pieces of
Wood, from which all the fires in the district, previously put
out, might be relighted." It is probable that in this ceremony
we see a friendly farewell to the sun for the year, and some of
* Flaitheamas is still the Gaelic word for heaven.
* Valerius Max., lib. c. * Diogenes Laertius, Proam. § 6.
* Caesai, lily. v.
* Caesar, lib. v. Dio Cassius adds that they abstained from fish also :
but this is hardly credible, especially of those who lived on the coast. e
* The old Romans had a custom of this kind; and so had the inhabi-
tants of Peru.
4 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. I.
his kindly warmth brought down from heaven by the priests
and given to the people, to cheer and comfort them during
the cold and gloom of the winter. Philosophers and historians
have remarked how long a religious practice may linger among
a people, even after the religion itself has been totally de-
stroyed. It is easy to trace in the Roman ritual of the present
day the influence of the mythology of the ancient world.
Druidical ideas are scarcely yet extinct in Presbyterian coun-
tries. The kindling of fires at Beltane and at Hallow-eve has
descended in some parts of the country almost to our time;"
and many centuries after the complete establishment of Chris-
tianity, so attached were the Highlanders to this usage, that
Gaelic councils had to forbid it on pain of death.
Besides these solemnities, the Druids observed the full
moon, and also the sixth day of the moon. They regarded as
Sacred, not merely the oak, but the mistletoe when it grew upon
it, which it rarely does, as it prefers the apple tree. Its blos-
som is full about the summer solstice, and its berries glisten
white at the winter solstice. At these sacred seasons prepara-
tions for feasting and sacrifice were made under the trees, the
holy herb was cut by the Arch-Druid with a golden bill; and
it was universally regarded by the people as an antidote against
poison, and a remedy for every disease.”
The Druids performed all their acts of worship in the open
air, and generally within the religious shadows of their Con-
secrated groves. Neither had they any images of their deities,
saving those which they found in the heavenly bodies. Per-
haps, like the Germans, they imagined that it derogated from
the greatness of the immortal Gods to confine them within
houses made with hands, or to liken them to any human
form.” But a more natural, though a less erudite explanation
of the fact may be found in the circumstance, that the Britons
had as yet no architects to rear temples, nor sculptors to chisel
statues. In many districts of the island, however, we find
circles of huge stones set upon their ends, sometimes with a
large flat stone in the centre; and these till lately were gene-
rally regarded as Druidical temples. But some of our anti-
quaries now maintain that they were simply burial places, as
urns and calcined bones have been frequently found under the
* Rev. Dr Bisset. Statistical Account of Logierait, 1793.
* Pliny, Hist. AVat., lib. xvi.
* Tacitus affirms this was the reason why the Germans had no temples
Cr images.
A.D. 1-60.] DRUIDICAL CIRCLES. 5
stones, and as there is no ancient authority for connecting
them with Druidism." But there is nothing improbable in
Supposing that they were at once temples and cemeteries, for
men have exhibited a very general desire to bury their dead
where they worship their God. Besides, we know that stand-
ing stones were objects of worship, not only in Scotland but
elsewhere. Whether temples or tombs they are interesting as
the earliest effort of architectural art in the island. The only
houses at that period were a clumsy contexture of stakes and
the branches of trees, so flimsy that not a vestige of them now
remains. The Druidical circles are as superior to these as the
temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was superior to the Roman
villa. Their erection, though exhibiting little art, must have
required great force. The stones in several cases stand
twenty feet above the surface of the soil, and must be at least
half as many below it. They have retained their stability for
more than two thousand years, while the finest temples of
antiquity have fallen to the ground; and they bid fair to
endure as long as the Egyptian pyramids. It is worthy of
notice that the two best specimens now remaining to us occur
at the opposite extremities of the kingdom—the one at Stone-
henge, on Salisbury Plain, and the other at Stennes, in the
Orkney Isles.
The Druids evidently exercised a prodigious influence over
the barbarous devotees of their worship. Caesar tells us that
among the Gauls there were only two classes of any note, the
Druids and the Knights; and of these the Druids appear to
have been the more illustrious. Possessed of a more extensive
authority than the most noble, it is not surprising, they were
in general the sons of the first families. Beside their natural
jurisdiction in matters of religion, they seem to have had in .
their hands the framing, interpreting, and executing the laws.
If any one proved refractory, they interdicted him from the
sacrifices; and their excommunications appear to have been as
formidable as those afterwards issued by the priests of Rome.
The anathematised person was shunned by all, lest they should
catch the contagion of his guilt, and was reckoned an outlaw,
incapable of enjoying either honour or redress.” Although
this would now be regarded as a most unwarrantable abuse of
sacerdotal power, there can be little doubt but that then it
was highly beneficial. In all probability the Druids were the
* Stuart, Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii. Preface.
* Caesar, lib. vi.
6 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. I.
wisest and most virtuous men in the nation; and, in a tur-
bulent state of society, the terrors of superstition are more
effective than the rigours of law in maintaining justice and
order.
No body of men could possess such power without appro-
priating peculiar privileges to themselves. The Druids were
exempted from taxes and military service, and their persons
were regarded as sacred." There appears to have been three
different classes of them—the priests, the prophets, and the
bards. The first waited upon the sacrifices, the second ob-
served omens and augured events, the last were the historians
and poets of the time. They monopolised all the little learn-
ing of the period, and their wisdom was contained in a great
number of verses, which those who studied in their schools got
by memory. These they never committed to writing, although
they are said to have been acquainted with the use of letters.”
They were probably jealous lest others should become ac-
quainted with their sacred lore, were it contained in books;
for all the ancient priesthoods affected mystery, and thus in-
creased their hold on the people. They are understood, how-
ever, to have pretended to some knowledge concerning the
Stars and their motions; concerning the earth and its magni-
tude; Concerning the nature of things, and the power of the
immortal Gods.” It were curious to inquire whether these
studies were traditional and originally brought from the east,
Or whether the human mind has naturally, in so many cases,
put forth its first strength on such researches.
Such was Druidism as described by the Roman writers; but
it is certain that while such a theology and such a hierarchy as
this may have existed in the Romanised provinces of Gaul and
Britain, the religion of the Britons of Strathclyde and the Scots
of Hibernia was of a much humbler kind, and consisted chiefly
in a belief in the existence of invisible powers, whose malice
might be averted by incantations and charms. They wor-
Shipped wells and stones they had set up, perhaps as rude
representations of their Gods, and at these they made their
bargains and their vows.4
The Romans, in general tolerant of the religions of the
* Caesar, lib. vi. * Ibid. 3 Ibid.
* The rude wooden image recently dug out of the peat at Balachulish
appears to throw doubt on the statement of the Latin writers that they had
no images. Only they may have learned from the Romans this first lesson
in statuary.
A.D. 60.] THE LAST OF THE DRUIDS. 7
nations which they conquered, resolved, for some unascer-
tained reason, to extirpate Druidism, and to exterminate its
priests. Their motive is said to have been a wish to put an
end to the horrid Cruelty of immolating human victims; but
the conquerors of the world did not in general exhibit such
humanity, and it is far more likely that the patriotism of the
Druids, and their power over the people in exciting them to
revolt, may have made it a part of Roman policy to destroy
them. The island of Anglesey, off the coast of Wales, and
now united to the mainland by bridges, which are among the
marvels of modern art, was the chief seat of the Druidical
superstition; and thither a great number of its votaries had
fled, as to the last asylum of their religion and liberties. The
Roman armies followed ; battle was joined on the shore; reli-
gious enthusiasm and undisciplined valour were unavailing;
and a great slaughter ensued." From this fatal day Druidism
declined in the south of the island. Many of its priests are
said to have fled northwards, and some of these are thought to
have found a refuge in Iona, the earliest name of which was
Znnis-man ZXruid/ineach, the isle of the Druids.” It is singular
if this little rock has been the last home of one religion, and
the first chosen seat in our country of another and more
blessed one. However this may be, we may be quite sure
Druidism did not die in a day. It had struck its roots too
deep into the soil to be thus easily plucked up. It is pro-
bable it lingered in Scotland till the sixth or seventh century;
and it is certain that some of its peculiar rites and beliefs con-
tinued to haunt the country for centuries more, for vestiges of
these are to be found at the present hour.”
But though Druidism was probably the prevailing religion
* Tacitus, Annal. xiv. 30.
*Origines Parochiales Scotiae. Iona. There is also pointed out, close
to the Sound of Iona, a green eminence, still called the Druids' Burial
Place—Claodh nan Druidhneach, literally the Druid's Stone. See also
“Statistical Account of Scotland,” ſºftnichan and Ā7/ziceuen, 1795. It
is not improbable, however, that Druidh may have been applied to the
monks, as it was to the Pagan priests, and that this may be the origin of
these designations.
* Dr Burton (Hist. c. vi.) and Dr Stuart (Sculptured Stones) deny that
Druids or Druidism ever existed in Scotland. I cannot carry my scepti-
cism so far. People of the same Celtic stock occupied the northern and
Southern parts of the island, and the name of Druid came from the Celtic
speech. ... It is not likely that the religion of ille Brilous of Kent was
entirely different from that of the Britons of Strathclyde. The existence
of the same sacred circles, whether temples or tombs, at the two extremities
of the island, prove the identity of the usages of the people.
8 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. I.
in Britain when the Christian era began, it was not the only
One. There were other forms of superstition there already, or
introduced afterwards which have left behind them a few
monumental stones, and more enduring proofs of their exist-
ence in our institutions, our language, and our habits of
thought. Scotland gave shelter to more races than one, and
accordingly to more religions.
Tacitus calls the northern part of Britain Caledonia, and its
inhabitants Caledonians. In the third century we first hear of
the Picts, and a century later of the Scots—the Caledonians
are no more heard of—and these two peoples begin to play
the most important part in the barbarian history of the country.
They were continually harassing the southern Britons, and all
the armies of Rome could not subdue them. Who were these
Scots and Picts, and whence came they P. The Scots came
from Ireland, their native seat, and settled along the western
coast. From the fourth century onwards their fleets of frail,
wicker-work boats were constantly landing colonies on the
coast of Argyll, where they appear to have easily acquired
territory, and coalesced with the aborigines, who were pro-
bably of the same Celtic stock as themselves. We may safely re-
gard the present Highlanders as the lineal descendants of these
Irish Scots with a blending of aboriginal blood. Shut in by
their mountain ranges and deep glens, their blood has been
preserved purer than in any other part of the island, except
Wales. Their Celtic speech, their traditions, their form and
features are the evidences of their descent. The genesis of
the Picts is much more doubtful. They mysteriously appear
on the stage, and as mysteriously vanish after a history of six
hundred years. They are now thought by most archaeologists
to be no other than the ancient Caledonians with a new name
—a name, as some say, invented by the Romans to indicate
that they were fond of war-paint long after their Romanised
brethren in the south had abandoned it, but it rather seems a
Latinised form of the native Ffichti. Recent investigations
seem to indicate, but by no means decisively, that they also
were of a Celtic stock." But if so, they must have had, even at
a pre-Christian date, such an admixture of Teutonic blood as
already to distinguish them. Tacitus tells us that the Cale-
donians, unlike their southern neighbours, were men of large
limbs and fair hair; we learn from Adamnan that the Celtic
St Columba required an interpreter when he visited the Picts;
1 See Skene's Celtic Scotland, vol. i.
A.D. 300-500.] SCOTS AND SCANDINAVIANS. 9
Bede speaks of the Picts as having a language of their own ;
and the population of the east and north-east of Scotland,
where the Picts chiefly were, is clearly at this day not of Celtic
but of Scandinavian lineage. From a period beyond history,
the Norsemen in their open canoes would bravely cross the
narrow sea which separates Scotland from Norway and Den- .
mark and take possession of the land lying along the shores,
and as love is stronger than hate, gradually intermarry with
the natives, as the Saxons and Angles afterwards did farther
South.
In the sixth century, the age of St Columba, the kingdom
of the Scots appears to have included the districts of Lorn,
Argyll, Knapdale, Cowal, Cantire, Lochaber, a part of Bread-
albane, and perhaps the Western Isles. The Pictish territory
included all the rest of the north of Scotland, from the Firths
of Forth and Clyde to the Orkney Isles—in which it would
appear there were two kingdoms, the northern and the
southern, divided from one another by the Grampian Hills.
In the south-west of the country stretching from the Clyde as
far south as the Derwent in Cumberland, was the kingdom of
Strathclyde, where the aboriginal Britons still held their
ground, in close contiguity with their hunted compatriots
in Wales. Galloway was peopled by Picts cut off from
their kindred and shut up in this water-girt corner of the
Country.
The stream of Scandinavian blood early introduced into
the island was afterwards almost continuously augmented by
the incursions of the Norsemen. As far back as the dawn of
history, and before it, when we have nothing but traditions to
guide us, these sea-warriors would seem to have been per-
petually sweeping the seas, and landing on the coast, some-
times for conquest and sometimes for plunder. Our earliest
poetry, embodying the recollections of a still earlier time, is
full of bloody battles fought upon the beach, and of tall pirates
driven back into the wave. We have evidence that in the
fourth century, and even before it, the Saxon pirates infested
the northern shores of Britain. In the century following
they landed in England and the south of Scotland in such
numbers as to make themselves masters of the country. The
Northumbrian kingdom of the Angles extended from the
Humber to the Forth. In the ninth century, as we know,
and probably much earlier, the Danes made incursions on Our
coasts. At the same period, Norwegian pirates siezed upon
{
I O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. I.
the Orkney and Western Isles, and the Norsemen kept their
footing in Orkney for centuries.
The mythology of Scandinavia must have entered our
Country with these Scandinavian tribes. Thurso in Caithness
received its name from the god Thor. The nomenclature
of our week we derived from the Saxons, and at least four
days are called in honour of Scandinavian divinities." The
Colonists along the northern and eastern shores, if sprung from
Scandinavian mothers, must have been of the Scandinavian
faith. Indeed, eminent antiquaries have held that the only
religion of Caledonia was Scandinavian. We think it more
probable that during several centuries the Gods of Scandi-
navia divided the country with the Gods of the Druids; and
it is not unlikely that in the minds of an ignorant and bar-
barous people the two theologies may have been commingled.
They had several points of resemblance ; and it is to be
remembered that all pagan nations have been very tolerant of
each other's Gods.” Home records furnish us with very little
information in regard to the religion of Pictland if it differed
from the Druidical. Our only knowledge is derived from the
life of St Columba, who converted the northern Picts to
Christianity. His biographer informs us that they worshipped
certain fountains, and ascribed healing virtues to them. There
were other wells of which if a person drank, or washed in them,
he became leprous or blind. They had their own Gods,
whom they thought stronger than the God of the Christians;
their priests, who could milk a bull, and raise dark mists and
contrary winds.” Their religion, in fact, appears to have been,
like that of all savage tribes, little better than a kind of
fetichism, a belief in sorcery, and the existence of certain
invisible and dreaded powers who could do evil; but it must
be told the Christian faith when brought into collision with
this low superstition is also exhibited simply as a Superior
Sorcery. St Columba met and beat the Pictish priests on
their own field, as Moses defeated the magicians of Egypt.
* Wednesday from Woden or Odin ; Thursday from Thor; Friday
from Freya, and Tuesday (Scottice, Tyesday) from Ty, a minor divinity
popular with the Angles; Saturday probably comes from Saetir, an almost
unknown Teutonic deity.
* So many are the points of resemblance, that Borlase, in his Antiquities
of Cornwall, holds them to have been the same.
* Vita Sancti Columbae. Auctore Adamnano. An edition of this
interesting work was published by the Bannatyne Club ; but the edition
of Dr Reeves is made still more valuable by its preface and notes.
A.D. 300-500.] SCANDINAVIAN THEOLOGY. II
When we turn from the scanty religious records of Pictland to
the Skaldic literature of Iceland, and the ancient Eddas of the
north to learn something of the religion which probably pre-
vailed at least in the north and east of the mainland, and in the
swarm of islands which were held by the Norsemen, we find a
much more fully developed theology, but probably it is, after
all, only the popular superstition ennobled by poetry.
The primitive theology of the Scandinavian tribes appears
to have embraced the doctrine of one Supreme Deity. “He
liveth from all ages, He governeth all realms, and swayeth all
things great and small. He hath formed heaven and earth,
and the air, and all things thereunto belonging. And what is
more, He hath made man, and given him a soul which shall
live and never perish, though the body shall have mouldered
away, or have been burnt to ashes. And all that are righte-
ous shall dwell with Him in the place called Gimli or Vin-
golf; but the wicked shall go to Hel, and thence to Niflhel,
which is below in the ninth world.” It is certain, however,
that this sublime belief was confined to the few ; and that in-
ferior divinities monopolised the worship of the many, who
were quite ignorant of the One Supreme.
According to the prose Edda, there were twelve Gods, in
whom men were bound to believe, and to whom divine hon-
Ours Ought to be paid. The Goddesses were equally numer-
ous, and “not less divine and mighty.” The first and eldest
of the AEsir is Woden. “He governs all things, and although
the other deities are powerful, they all serve and obey him as
children do their father.” Thor stands next, and is the
strongest of all the Gods; he is the thunderer, the war-god.
He wields a mallet, with which he has split many a giant's
skull, for nothing can resist its force. Baldur, the good and
beautiful, and Njord follow Thor in the list of divinities; the
former of whom appears to have been the patron of wisdom
and eloquence; and the latter the God of the sea—the Nep-
tune of Rome. Of the Goddesses, Frigga and Freya were
the chief. Frigga was the wife of Woden, and appears to
have been no other than an apotheosis of mother-earth.
Freya was the Goddess of generation, the Venus of the
ancients; and appears, like her southern sister, to have been
possessed of resplendent beauty. “She is very fond,” says
the Edda, “ of love ditties, and all lovers would do well to
* Prose Edda. Translated in Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 4OO-I,
Bohn’s edition.
T 2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. T.
invoke her.” But, contrary to the usual softness of her sex,
though perfectly like a Scandinavian woman, she followed
armies to battle, and claimed from Woden the half of the
slain.
Loki occupies a prominent place in this mythology; but
his position is ambiguous. Of a fine form and amazing dex-
terity, he is generally in the company of the Gods, but he
often brings them into trouble, and is feared and hated by
them. He is called the reproach of Gods and men, and was
in fact the devil of the north.
But the Norsemen peopled their invisible world with other
beings than the Gods. There were the Frost giants, and the
mountain giants, the dwarfs, the elves of light, and the elves
of darkness; these giants being no other than the personified
natural agencies which piled up around them mountains of
ice and snow. Jötunheim is their abode ; they are described
as an ill-doing race, and against them. Thor wages a remorse-
less war. The dwarfs were originally maggots, but, by the will
Of the Gods and the law of evolution, they assumed the human
shape. They dwell in rocks and caverns, and brew mischief.
The elves of light dwell in Elf-home; but the elves of darkness
live under the earth. “The elves of light are fairer than the
Sun, but the elves of darkness are blacker than pitch.”
The Druids venerated the oak ; the Scandinavians regarded
the ash as peculiarly the tree of the Gods. “It is under the
ash Yggdrasill where the Gods assemble every day in council.
It is the greatest and best of all trees: its branches spread
over the whole world, and even reach above the heaven.
Near the fountain which is under this ash stands a very beau-
teous dwelling, out of which go three maidens, named Urd,
Vernandi, and Skuld-–the Present, the Past, and the Future.
These maidens fix the lifetime of all men, and are called
Norns.” 1
Courage was the virtue which the Norse creed was designed
to foster, and accordingly the joys of the future world were
reserved for the brave. Valhalla is the spacious mansion of
Woden, and thither go all who are slain in battle. It was
peculiarly suited to be the dwelling-place of cut-throats and
pirates. Every morning the heroes ride out to the court, and
there hew each other in pieces; but when meal-time ap.
proaches, they remount their steeds, and return to dine in
* Prose Edda. From Urd comes our word zweird ; and the zweird sisters
of Shakespere are the Norns of Scandinavia.
A. D. 300-500.] THE NORSEMAN’s HEAVEN. I 3
Valhalla, all the hungrier for the deadly wounds they have
given and received. The entire carcass of a boar is served as
the daily dinner, and the flitches of this they wash down with
deep draughts of mead, which they quaff from huge drinking-
horns; and so in eating and drinking, and with boisterous
merriment, they pass the night.—The voluptuous Mussulman
has peopled his paradise with dark-eyed houris of refulgent
beauty, four of whom are assigned to every believer who falls
in battle ; the Scandinavians, children of a colder clime, have
introduced females into Valhalla too, but it is only “to bear
in the drink, and take care of the drinking horns, and what-
ever belongs to the table.” “The heaven of each,” says
Moore, “is just what each desires;” and it must be confessed
that no more fitting entertainment than that we have described
could be found for a company of freebooters. -
The altars of these rough Norsemen were originally in the
open air, and were frequently stained with human blood; but
they had afterwards roofed temples, consisting of a nave and
shrine, corresponding to the chancel of the Christian Church,
where were the images of the Gods, ranged in a half circle. In
the midst of them was the altar with the sacred fire, the
blood-bowl and the ring, on which oaths were sworn. Sacrifices
of every living thing were offered, not only of sheep and oxen,
but of horses and swine. The chief was the priest. The
offerings being made, the flesh of the victims was boiled in
kettles in the nave, or less holy part of the temple, and feasting
began then and there—broth and beef and horns of beer.
The priest was the toast-master, To Woden to Njord ' to
Frey ! to Thor to the memory of their departed kinsmen A
jovial religion, but what else could we expect | 1
Each year had its three religious festivals. The first was
held at the winter solstice, and was called Jul. This being
the beginning of the Scandinavian year, it was held in honour
of Frey, the Sun-God, in order to procure, from his benign
influence, propitious seasons. The second festival was in
honour of the earth, and was fixed at the first quarter of the
Second moon of the year. The third, and greatest, was cele-
brated in honour of Woden, early in spring, and was probably
intended to incline the battle-god to be favourable to them in
their piratical expeditions during the summer months.”
We may well believe that such a martial creed and such a
* Dasent’s Burnt Njal. Introduction.
* Mallet's Northern Antiquities.
I4. CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. T.
sanguinary worship would foster the marauding spirit of the
Norsemen, and would lead them to think plunder and murder
their proper trade. Unswerving valour was the only virtue
which their religion encouraged : death in battle was the only
doorway to heaven. It accordingly sent forth a race of rovers,
who cruelly devastated almost every country of Europe, and
drove the monks who lived along the coasts to introduce into
their litany the pitiful prayer—“From the fury of the Norse-
men, good Lord, deliver us.” The Picts may have carried
this creed into our country, and it partly accounts for their
relentless wars with the Britons, and afterwards with the Scots.
The Saxons brought over the same Gods in their long ships to
England; and in their conflicts with the natives their valour
and piety would be equally inflamed by the belief that Hengist
and Horsa were the lineal descendants of Woden. The Nor-
wegians and Danes, who during so many centuries infested the
northern seas, and kept their firm grip on all the islands off
our coast, and even on a considerable district of the mainland,
must have left there not merely the mark of blood, but of the
superstition which caused them so profusely to shed it. It
was the year Iooo before these corsairs were baptized into the
Christian faith.
The Scandinavian mythology wants the elegance of the old
classic myths, but it is vaster in all its proportions. It is
like a great Gothic cathedral beside a Grecian temple.
Everything about it is colossal. The body of the giant
Ymir was so huge that it formed the world. Thor with
one stroke of his hammer Cleaves a deep glen in the
earth; and, challenged to drink, takes such a draught as
to cause the ebb tide along all the shores of the world. The
serpent Midgard was so long that, like the Snake in Hindu
mythology, it encircled the globe ; and the open jaws of the
wolf Fenrir stretched from earth to heaven. In such a
mythology there were no pretensions to much spirituality, but
neither was there any voluptuous sensuality. It was plainly
the religion of a robust people and a rigorous clime. It was
the reflex of the people's own thoughts and employments. They
deified and worshipped what they admired. Man ever makes
his Gods in his own image ; he trembles before the enlarged
shadow of himself. - - º
Paganism has now been extinct in Great Britain for more
1 A furore Normanorum, libera nos, Domine.—Note to Malle’s Anti-
quities.
A.D. 300-500.] VESTIGES. I 5
than twelve hundred years; but it has left behind it traces of
its existence, which seem to be almost as indelible and endur-
ing as those fossil vestiges which recall the memory of former
worlds, with their strange types of animals and plants. Bel-
tane, the title till recently applied to our Whitsunday, was the
name of a Druidical festival; Yule, by which Christmas is still
frequently denominated in Scotland, is identical with Jul," a
Scandinavian feast held at Christmas time, with joy and
rejoicing, in honour of Frei. Every time we speak of Tues-
day, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, we commemorate a
Scandinavian God. It has sometimes been said that our elves
and fairies were imported from the east; they are in truth the
creations of the north, and it will be many centuries before
they cease to haunt the minds of our children, and to give
merriment to all by their gay and innocent gambols. The
ghosts of Ossian still hover on the Highland hills, and walk in
lonely churchyards; and many a Celt who could fearlessly
rush up the heights of Alma, would not for worlds spend a
night alone in a haunted house, or approach and examine a
moonbeam flickering on the mound of a grave. The bards
and senachies who once were to be found in every Highland
hall were the descendants of the Druids, all whose science and
history were in verse; and though poets are no longer enter-
tained by kings and chiefs, yet the last of our minstrels has
not sung. Philosophical historians have regarded the enor-
mous power possessed by the priesthood of Rome in Western
Furope as in part an inheritance derived from their Druidical
ancestors, for rude nations naturally transfer from one sacer-
dotal caste to another the same veneration, influence, and
respect.
It has been thought by some that every time we circulate
the wine at table from right to left, we have respect to the
Druids, who in all their movements most scrupulously followed
the course of the sun. When we drink healths we show our
Scandinavian descent. The Norsemen, as we have seen, were
accustomed to pledge their Gods in their cups, more especially
Woden, Thor, and Freya; and when Christianity was at length
* This becomes more apparent when we remember that in the Germanic
and Northern tongues the J is pronounced like our Y.
‘‘The fire that’s blawn on Beltane e'en
May weel be black gin Yule;
I3ut blacker far awaits the heart
When first fond love grows cule.”
MOTHERWELL's Jeanie Morrison.
I6 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. II.
introduced, unable to abandon the custom, they substituted in
the place of these the names of Christ, the saints, and more
especially of the archangel Michael, whom they regarded as
the greatest warrior of the hosts of heaven. At these drinking-
bouts they moreover pledged one another, and drank to the
spirits of their departed heroes.
Both the Scandinavian and Druidical priesthoods sanctioned,
in cases of doubtful guilt, the trial by ordeal, in which it was
understood there was a direct appeal to heaven to clear the
innocent. This practice continued long throughout all Europe
after the reception of Christianity. It gave rise to the chival-
rous tournament, and degenerated into the duel, now happily
abolished as the last vestige of a barbarous usage, founded on
the impious presumption that Providence will interfere in our
quarrels to right the wrong.
Religions follow the universal law—they do not perish, they
change. Druidism and Scandinavianism gradually merged into
Christianity, but traces of the old faiths remained imbedded in
the new. The first missionaries recognised and acted on a
knowledge of this. The heathen temples were purged of their
images, and consecrated as Christian churches. The standing
stones were carved with Christian symbols. The pagan festi-
vals were converted into Christian holidays, and probably in
many cases the rude people hardly knew that they had turned
from one religion to another. It is certain that under the
name of Christians they practised for a thousand years pagan
rites without knowing what they did.
C H A P T E R II.
EUSEBIUs, in the first chapter of his “Ecclesiastical History,”
frankly confesses that he was totally unable to find even the
bare vestiges of those who had travelled the way before him ;
“unless, perhaps,” he proceeds to say, “what is only presented
in the slight intimations which some in different ways have
transmitted to us in certain partial narratives of the times in
which they lived ; who, raising their voices before us, like
torches at a distance, and as looking down from Some Com-
manding height, call out and exhort us where we should walk,
and whither direct our course with certainty and safety.” The
1 Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, book i. chap. i.
A.D. 600-800.] EARLY CHRONICLERS. 17
person who undertakes to narrate the early ecclesiastical his-
tory of Scotland must make a similar acknowledgment. It is
not that there is any lack of materials wherewithal to build up
a consecutive and most interesting narrative. There are
ancient chronicles and monkish legends in great plenty; but it
is very evident to the searching eye of criticism, that in most
of these falsehood is largely mingled with truth; and that when
Memory failed to record an event, Imagination was ever at
hand to supply the deficiency. In our estimate of these docu-
ments, it must, moreover, be borne in mind that few of them
were written till centuries after the period whose history they
pretend to relate, and though some of them probably proceeded
upon documents more ancient than themselves, and which are
now lost, it is certain that a large number of the circumstances
they narrate must have come to them through the uncertain
channel of tradition. Gildas, our earliest chronicler, lived pro-
bably toward the end-of-the sixth century; but who or what
he was, no one can certainly tell. The venerable Bede com-
piled his valuable work in the beginning of the eighth century.
To us, looking across the eighteen hundred years which have
elapsed since the birth of our Saviour, three or four centuries
at its very commencement may seem to be a short space; as
when standing on a high hill, and gazing over a wide landscape,
many miles at its utmost limit appear contracted into a span.
But the former is a mental, as the latter is an ocular deception,
both arising from the same law, that distance lessens the ap-
parent magnitude of objects. Three hundred years at the
beginning of our era were quite as long as three hundred years
now, and must have had the same effects—removing ancient
land-marks, wearing out old ideas, and bearing down upon
their muddy waters the memories of a myriad events, and de-
positing them in the depths of the great sea of oblivion. With-
out the aid of contemporaneous history, and forced to depend
entirely upon unwritten tradition, how little could we know of
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and that little how dis-
torted. All experience warrants us to say that no narrative is
worthy of belief which is not vouched by a consecutive line of
writers who lived at the time to which the records refer.
It is true that many sidelights are let in upon the early his-
tory of our country by the Latin writers who lived at the time,
but their notices refer almost exclusively to political events.
The Fathers of the Church, also, sometimes allude to the
introduction of Christianity into our island, but they lived too
VOL. I. B
\
I8 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. |CHAP. II.
far from the scene to be accurately informed, and some of
their passages have the evident marks of African warmth or
Oriental exaggeration. The monks, within whose cloisters all
the learning of Europe was for centuries locked up, and from
whom countless legends and saintly lives have come down to
us, were men of most lively fancy, who esteemed pious fraud
to be a virtue, and were equally ready to forge a charter, or
invent a miracle, if they could thereby benefit their monastery,
or glorify the Church. The truth is, we must traverse almost
a thousand years before we get beyond the region of fable, and
reach the known land of historic truth.
Although our antiquaries have spared no pains to recover
and authenticate every fragment of the past, the mythical has
been steadily gaining upon the historical, from the severe tests
which every fact must now undergo before we recognise it as
a reality. Buchanan claims much merit to himself for having
discarded those legends which carry our history up to Scota,
the daughter of the Pharaoh who was drowned in the Red
Sea ; and thinks that he places our dynasty on a secure basis
when he begins it with a certain Fergus, who is said to have ".
reigned in Scotland when Alexander the Great was besieging V
Babylon. Lord Hailes begins his Annals fourteen hundred
years after this, with the reign of Malcolm III., remarking,
that “previous to that period our history is involved in obscu-
rity and fable;” and thus reduces eighty-five of Buchanan's
kings to little better than shadows, dimly seen through the
mist of years, albeit the grim portraits of some of them still
adorn the walls of Holyrood. Tytler begins his admirable
history two centuries later, at the accession of Alexander III.,
knowing that from that time he could build his narrative on
unquestionable muniments. In like manner, the critical
researches of the learned Niebuhr have reduced the history
of Rome to less than a half of its former bulk. The same
severity of criticism applied to the chronicles of Gildas, Nen-
nius, Bede, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury,
Hector Boethius, Fordun, and the legendary lives of the legion
of Saints who crowd the calendar, would make whole chapters
shrink into a single page. But notwithstanding this huge
mass of superincumbent fable, we think it possible, in many
cases, to separate the true from the false; as, besides collateral
circumstances, truth often possesses a kind of internal evi-
dence of its own. Many undoubted facts connected with the
history of the Scottish Church have been floated down to us
A.D. 300-400.] WITNESS IN STONE. I9
from a very remote antiquity, and to gather these up, and
Carefully preserve them, has always been a labour of Christian
love.
Seven cities of antiquity are said to have contended for the
honour of having been the birthplace of Homer; and no
fewer than five of the apostles compete for the merit of having
first preached the gospel in Britain. These are St James,
Simon Zelotes, Philip, St Peter, and St Paul. Besides these
five apostles, Joseph of Arimathea, who charged himself with
the burial of our Saviour, has likewise been set up by the
monkish historians as the first who planted Christianity on
Our shores. Leaving Apostolic times, there is a story of a
certain Lucius, King of Britain, who, in the second century,
sent an embassy to the Pope, desiring to be converted and
baptised. Not to be far behind, Scotland boasts of a King
Donald who, in the third century, with his whole kingdom,
embraced Christianity. But both stories are so full of incon-
sistencies and anachronisms, that we need have no difficulty
in rejecting them as monkish myths. It is highly probable,
however, that the religion of the Nazarene had already pene-
trated into Britain, and had even been heard of in the forests
of Caledonia. Tertullian declares that in his day parts of
Britain, inaccessible to the Romans, had been subdued
to Christ, and three British bishops are said to have at-
tended the first Council of Arles in the year 314, and other
three the Council of Rimini in 359. It is thought by some
there is a witness in stone of the existence of Christianity in
Scotland in the fourth century. “Nowhere in Great Britain,”
says Dean Stanley, “is there a Christian record so ancient as
the grey weather-beaten column which now serves as the gate-
post of the deserted churchyard of Kirk Madrine, on the bleak
hill in the centre of the Rinns of Galloway, and bearing on its
battered surface, in letters of the fourth century, the statement
that it had marked the grave of three saints of Gallic name—
Florentius, Viventius, and Mavorius.” The rudeness of the
monument and its desolate site are in fine keeping with the
future history of the country’s faith.
There is a legend in regard to the introduction of Christi-
* Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland, p. 85. See also
Bullou's IIislory, vol. i. chap. iv., and Sluail's Guulptured Stones, vol. ii.
The inscription below an encircled + on the one pillar is, Hic jacent sci
et praecipui sacerdotes id est, Viventius, Mavorius—and on the other
pillar is the name Florentius.
2 O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. II.
anity into Scotland too characteristic to be omitted, more
especially as it is connected with St Andrew, the patron Saint
of the nation. St Regulus, better known in our country as
St Rule, is said to have been a Greek monk, who, being
warned in a dream that he should take the bones of St
Andrew, and depart with them to some unknown land in the
far west, resolved, after some hesitation, to obey the Divine
admonition. He accordingly gathered up what relics he could
of the apostle, viz., an arm-bone, three fingers, three toes, and
a tooth; and, being accompanied by sixteen other monks and
three devout virgins, he set sail, not knowing whither to steer
his course. For two long years were this pilgrim band tossed
about by tempests, as they skirted the sunny shores of the
Mediterranean, passed the dreaded pillars of Hercules, and
rode in the Bay of Biscay; but, at last overtaken by a storm
more violent than any they had yet encountered, they were
whirled northward, and finally shipwrecked on the promontory
of St Andrews. With difficulty they escaped from the waves,
bearing with them the precious relics of the apostle. But on
the shore there were dangers as well as on the sea. The
whole country was covered with a vast forest, which was in-
fested by wild boars; and the Pictish inhabitants, painted
pagans, were scarcely less to be dreaded. But the king was
awed by the holy lives of the saintly, company, and in a short
time he and his subjects submitted to the rite of baptism.
Hard by the ruins of the once noble cathedral of St Andrews
there still stands a lofty tower of undoubted antiquity. It is
called St Regulus's tower. Some have imagined it belongs to
the fourth or fifth century; but with far greater probability it
is ascribed to the twelfth, and believed to be part of the basilica
known to have been erected by one of the earliest bishops of
the See. The legend belongs to the year 369.
We cannot dismiss this legend without remarking, that
many eminent historians are inclined to assign to the British
churches an Eastern rather than a Roman origin. Neander is
of this number." They are led to do so by the supposed fact,
that for many ages the Scotch Church agreed much more
* General History of the Christian Religion and Church, vol. v. § 1,
Bohn's Edition. No authority is higher than Neander's ; and yet we have
doubts of the Eastern origin of the British Church. It was more likely
that the Roman missionary would follow in the steps of the Roman
soldier ; and the dependence was not felt, just because it was the twelfth
century before the Roman hierarchy managed to stretch its dominion so
wide.
A.D. 400-20.] ST. JEROME AND PELAGIUS. 2 I
closely with the Greek, than the Latin Church in many of its
rites; and claimed for itself an Asiatic origin, always appealing
to St Polycarp, St Mark, and St John, as the sources of the
traditions it enjoyed. It is possible there may be a grain of
truth in the story of St Rule.
It was in this age a controversy arose in the Church regard-
ing Grace and Free Will, than which none is more memorable,
both from the interesting questions it involved, and the illus-
trious disputants it brought upon the field. This controversy
arose out of certain opinions published by Pelagius, and de-
fended with great logical acumen by his disciple Caelestius, one
or both of whom are said to have been of British or Scottish
birth. When the controversy was at its hottest St Augus-
tine, the great opponent of Pelagius, was joined by an invalu-
able ally in St Jerome. This monk was perhaps the most
learned man of his day, but certainly the worst-tempered and
most vituperative; and he seems to have anticipated other
learned men in his thorough contempt for the Scotch. In the
abuse which he lavished upon Pelagius, it is thought we have
a clue to the place of his birth. It would appear Pelagius was
a portly man, and St Jerome seizes upon this to taunt him
with being swollen with Scotch porridge. 1 The same Father,
in his preface to his third book upon the prophet Jeremiah,
again breaks out against Pelagius, calls him a Highland terrier,
and declares that, being sprung from the nation of the Scots,
in the neighbourhood of the Britons, he ought, like Cerberus,
to be well beaten with a spiritual club, and, with his master
Pluto, consigned to eternal silence.” Others of his adversaries
spoke of him in the same abusive way. Orosius says he had
broad shoulders, a thick neck, a fat face, was lame, and blind
of an eye. * Augustine alone had the magnanimity to do him
~ *.Nec recordator stolidissimus et Scotorum pultibus praegravatus. (Praef.
in lib. i., Com. in Hierem.)
* “Hic tacet, alibi criminatur, mittit in universam orbem Epistolas Bibli-
mas, prius auriferas, nunc maledicas, ipseque mutus latrat, per Alpinum
1Albinum] Canem, grandem et corpulentum, et qui calcibus magis saevire
possit, quam dentibus. Habet "enim progeniem Scoticae gentis, de
Britannorum vicinia; qui juxta fabulas poetarum, instar Cerberi, spirituali
percutiendus est clava, ut aeterno cum suo Magistro Plutone, silentio con-
ticescat.” The persons indicated in this passage are doubtful. Cardinals
Norris and Baronius and Archbishop Usher have thought that Pelagius
and his disciple Caelestius are referred to ; other scholars hold that it is to
Rufinus (the master of Pelagius) and Pelagius himself that Jerome alludes.
* “Latos humeros gestanţem robustamque cervicem, praeferentem etiam
in fronte pinguedinem, mutilum et uov6ºbôa\gov.” (Oros. in Apol. de
Arbitrii Liber: contra Pelag.)
22 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. II.
justice. “He was a good man, and an eminent Christian,”
said the Bishop of Hippo. “I have loved him, and I love
him still. 1 -
Augustine spoke only the truth when he said Pelagius was a
virtuous and pious man. A layman, and probably a monk, he
had spent the greater part of his life in seclusion. Away from
the world he had not felt the power of its temptations ;
endowed by nature with an easy temperament, he had scarcely
known the turbulence of evil passions, and hence had been led
to deny our depravity, and to think perfect virtue attainable by
man. St Austin was a man of another mould, and had lived a
very different life. Possessed of violent passions, which in
early youth he had been unable to control, he had run a wild
career of debauchery and unbelief. It was not without an in-
ward agony that he had passed from death unto life. He felt
it was only the grace of God that could work such a change ;
that it was only the mercy of God that could save such a
sinner. In the heart and history of these two great men we
may thus find the seeds of their respective systems. But,
something must also be attributed to their marked diversity of
intellect. The controversy is not yet settled. It was revived;
in many of its essential points in the contending tenets of
Arminius and Calvin; and probably it will divide the Christian;
Church till the end of time.
We have now reached the fifth century without being able to
discover the footprints of the apostle who first preached the
gospel in Britain. Yet we have now indubitable evidence that
it had been preached, and that many had received it with all
gladness. History has not recorded the event. The small
seed had been sown in secret, which was to become the
greatest of all trees, and overshadow with its branches all the
nations of the world. But though we cannot distinctly trace
the introduction of Christianity to our shores, there is no need
of resorting to mystery or miracle to account for it. Within a
century from the death of the Nazarene, He could not but be
heard of in Britain ; for the good tidings of the new religion
had been too much talked of everywhere not to be heard of
here. It was startling to see how the old worn-out religions
fell to the ground before the religion of Jesus, as Dagon had
fallen and been broken to pieces in the presence of the ark.
The Romans talked of this as they sauntered about the Forum,
1 “Vir, ut audio, Sanctus nec parvo praefectu Christianus, bonus ac
praedicandus vir.” (St Aug. de Peccat. Mer.)
A. D. 30-420.] ROM ANS IN BRITAIN. 23
when they met at the baths, and when, reclining at dinner,
they observed the old fashion of pouring out libations of wine
to their Gods. Even those who despised the new faith, and
esteemed it an odious superstition, could not refrain from
speaking of it, for it had become a great fact. Thus the
religion of Jesus flew—His name went out through all the
earth, and His words to the end of the world.
At this period there was a constant intercourse between
Rome and Britain. Roman traders were continually touch-
ing on the coast, and penetrating into the interior. Roman
legionaries were in the islands by thousands, from the rude
ſmiles up to the accomplished centurio and the all-powerful im-
Žerator. Roman colonies had been formed in several districts
of the South. All these must have come into daily contact
with the natives, and we know that by that contact these
natives were rapidly civilized. Amongst all these traders
legionaries, and colonists, was there not one Christian, who
would seize upon some propitious opportunity to tell an in-
quiring Briton of the great prophet who had recently appeared
in Judea P When everything else was discussed, was this sub-
ject never once mentioned? When the naked barbarians were
told how to clothe their persons, and how to plough their fields;
when they were generously presented with the seeds of many of
those plants which now enrich our gardens with the fruits of
Italy and the Euxine; when Roman temples, villas, and baths
began to rise, and Roman luxury to be everywhere introduced,
was there no channel by which that new religion, which had
already filled Rome with its martyrs and confessors, could find
an introduction too P
We have reason to believe, that before the expiry of the
second century a considerable proportion of the Roman popu-
lation had become Christian. Many of the soldiery were pro-
fessors of the new faith. In a campaign against the Marco-
manni, when Marcus Antoninus was emperor, the army was
Surrounded by the enemy, and reduced to the most desperate
condition for want of water. They were relieved from their
distress by a sudden storm of thunder and rain, which struck
terror into the barbarians, and gave refreshment to them. By
many this was attributed to the prayers of the numerous
Christians in one of the legions, which was ever afterwards
known as the thundering legion. We mention this, not to
claim it as a miracle, but simply to prove that many Chris-
* Mosheim, II. Cent., part i. chap. i.
24 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. II.
tians were in the ranks, and that, of those who were stationed
in Britain, there may have been some who, like good soldiers
of the cross, began to subdue the island to Christ.
In order to feel this fully, we must bear in mind the dif-
fusive character of Christianity, and the missionary spirit which
animated all its first converts. Judaism was narrow and ex-
clusive, and the descendant of Abraham rejoiced in the
thought that he and his countrymen alone had the hope of
Salvation. Paganism was easy and tolerant, and the polite
Roman, while himself preferring the worship of Jupiter
Capitolinus, had no fault to find with the Egyptian at the
shrine of Ra. It was thought there was even a propriety in
every province having its own divinities ; and as the army
added country after country to the empire, the senate made no
scruple of admitting its Gods to the Pantheon. But Chris-
tianity was a religion of a different type ; it still bore upon its
brow the old Hebrew commandment—“Thou shalt worship
the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.” It had no
toleration for other Gods than the true God. It had no
belief in any other way of salvation than the one way. But
with this intolerance of other faiths, it combined a liberality
worthy of its divine Author, who makes His sun to rise and
His rains to descend upon every created thing. It did not
seek to confine its benefits to a few ; it desired to extend them
to all. It aimed at the empire of the world. The commission
had been given to preach the gospel to every creature, and
every new disciple felt that a necessity was laid upon him to
communicate to others the joyful secret himself had received.
The very exclusiveness of the system gave to this diffusive
spirit in its converts an additional intensity, for it was believed
that men could not escape if they neglected this great salva-
tion. The narrowness of the channel increased the depth and
impetuosity of the stream. Every Christian was in haste to
bring others to Christ, lest, through delay, they might be eter-
nally lost. Thus this new and divine religion united at once
the earnestness of Judaism with the wide catholicity of the
pagan Creed.
From this we may well believe, that if in the crowd of
foreigners who visited Britain there was one Christian, he
would not be silent regarding the faith he had embraced.
Men did not then wait till they were invested with apostolic
authority or ministerial character before they would open their
lips about the love of Jesus—they went everywhere preaching
A.D. 30-420.] CHRISTIANITY DIFFUSIVE. 25
the gospel. It is highly probable it was some pious legionary
or some converted trader who first told our ancestors of the
way to heaven. His name is not written in history but his
influence is living and operating still. The work of conver-
sion would at first be slow, just as we see it is now in Africa,
India, or China. In general it requires centuries to turn a
people from an old faith to a new one ; and it is rare indeed
that a nation is born in a day. But the work being begun
would go steadily on, for Druidism, with its cruel rites, could
not ultimately withstand the mild and merciful religion of
Jesus. Every new convert gained would be in reality a new
apostle set apart for the preaching of the Word; and the
massacre of the Druids in Mona, like the burning of the
temple at Jerusalem, would remove a great obstacle to
the triumph of the cross. Thus strangely is the wrath
of man overruled to subserve the purposes of an eternal
Providence.
It is more than probable that Christianity made its way to
Scotland from the south. With converts in one end of the
island, it could not but be heard of in the other. It has been
Supposed by many that the persecution by Diocletian, which
raged throughout the whole empire in the end of the third Cen-
tury, would lead many British Christians to take refuge in the
mountains beyond the Roman wall, and thus introduce Chris-
tianity into our country. There is good reason, however, to
believe that under the mild government of Constantius, Bri-
tain suffered very little from this persecution, and though the
names of two or three martyrs are preserved, we know that in
general, while churches were thrown down, life was respected
and spared. There was nothing to occasion a flight to the
north. But a persecution was not required to scatter through-
out the island the seed of the Word. The natural intercourse
betwixt the north and the south was enough to effect it. We
may safely say that, within fifty years after Christianity was
known in Middlesex and Devon, it would be heard of at least
in Clydesdale and Perth. What more likely than that some
Converted Briton, burning with apostolic ardour, would carry
to his Celtic brethren in the north the message of mercy, and
º our glens for the first time to echo the high praises of
OCl.
It is evident that, though Christianity was early known in
Caledonia, it was a long time before it made any visible pro-
gress. In the sixth century the Northern Picts are still spoken
26 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. II.
of as heathens,' and probably it was a hundred years more ere
the bulk of the people were baptized into Christ. Instead of
wondering at this, we should rather be surprised that it made
any converts at all among a people SO rude as our ancestors,
all whose habits and propensities were opposed to the peace-
ful and forgiving spirit of the gospel. In order to understand
the difficulties with which it had to struggle, and the beneficial
change it has wrought, we must try and discover what we can
of the state of our country during the first centuries of the
Christian era.
The central district of the kingdom was covered with one
vast forest, called the Caledonian wood,” vestiges of which
still remain in those extensive peat-mosses we still meet with,
and from which we occasionally dig huge trunks of blackened
oak, the remains of trees which stretched out their branches to
the sky when the Romans were entrenched at Ardoch and
Dunglass. This forest gave shelter to enormous wild boars,”
and formidable packs of wolves, which were not extirpated till
more than a thousand years after the time we refer to. Those
parts of the country which were not covered with wood were
either bare mountains or impassable fens, through which the
naked aborigines swam or waded, with the mud and water up
to their waist, with the same agility as the wild duck splutters
through the reeds of a marsh ; but the heavy-armed legionaries
could cross them only on mounds of earth, which were formed
with infinite labour and expense. The population of such a
country must have been extremely sparse; and we probably
exceed the truth when we estimate it at two hundred thou-
sand, less than half of the present population of Glasgow
alone. The soil, not yet subjected to the plough, could not
sustain more. -
They had no other habitation than miserable huts formed of
wattles and the branches of trees. They had no clothing but
the skin of a wild beast thrown across their shoulders; but
they painted their naked bodies, as savage tribes frequently do,
either from feelings of vanity, or to make themselves look more
terrible to their enemies in battle. Gildas declares they were
more anxious to shroud their villanoſis faces in bushy hair than
* Gentiles barbari. (Adamnani Vita Columbae.)
* “Ad occidentem Vararis habitabant Caledonii, propriesic dicti, quorum
regionis partem tegebat immensa illa Caledonia sylva.” (Ricardi Cori-
mensis, “De situ Britanniae,” lib. i. cap. vi.)
* Muckross was the ancient name of St Andrews, which means the
“boars’ promontory.”
A.D. 400.] ST. N.INIAN. 27
to cover other parts of their bodies with decent clothing."
They lived by hunting and pasturing flocks of sheep and
cattle ; but war seems to have been their principal trade.
They led, in short, a savage life, and savage life has no varie-
ties; in all countries and periods it is the same. One of our
antiquaries declares the Dalriad Scots to have been savages in
the extreme, with habits differing little from those of the Hot-
tentots;” and St Jerome, whose love for our nation we have
already seen, affirms, that when a young man in Gaul, he had
seen some Scots regaling themselves with human flesh ;” and
that it was known they had a fine appreciation of the most
delicate morsels. He does not explain how he managed to
witness such a spectacle.
Such was the people among whom Christianity had now to
make its way. It could be no triumphal march, but a slow
and painful progress over opposing prejudice and passions.
The contrast between the present and the past, to which
Christianity has largely contributed, is among the proudest of
the many trophies it has won.
C H A P T E R III.
ST NINIAN4 is the first preacher of Christianity in Scotland
whose name has come down to us. The time and place of
his birth are doubtful; but, like almost all the saints of early
times, he is declared to have been of royal blood; and we
know it was in the beginning of the fifth century that he
laboured among the Galwegians and southern Picts. He is
briefly mentioned by Bede “as a most reverend bishop and
holy man of the British nation, who had been regularly
instructed at Rome in the faith and mysteries of the truth.”
* Hist., sect. 19. * Pinkerton. (See his Inquiry.)
* Quid loquar de caeteris nationibus, cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia
Scotos, Britannicam gentem, humanis vesci carnibus viderim 2 Lib. ii., ad
Jovian : cap. vi.
* Frequently corrupted into Rinian, Trinian, and Ringan. It is to this
Saint Friar John addresses his matins:—
Awake, O Reinian ; ho, awake;
Awake, O Reinian, ho :
Get up, you no more sleep must take ;
Get up, for we must go.
Aabelais, by Sir THOS. URQUHART.
* Ecclesiastical History, book iii., chap. iv.
28 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAN ID. [CHAP. III.
His biography was written by Abbot Ailred in the twelfth
Century; but it is meagre of facts, and abounds with miracles,
and very little reliance can be placed upon it. He is said to
have gone to Rome in his youth and studied there, and the
Pope learning that in the western parts of Briton there were
Some people who had not yet received the faith, and others who
had heard it from heretics, sent him back to his native country
to convert the heathen and confound the heretics. On his
way home he visited St Martin of Tours, then at the height of
his renown. When he returned, we are told “there was great
joy among all, and wonderful devotion, and the praise of
Christ sounded out on all sides.” Straightway “ he began to
root up what had been ill planted ; to cast down what had
been ill built; and to lay the foundations of a true faith.”
Having fixed his residence in Galloway, the holy man set about
building a church of stone on the shores of the Solway, assisted
by masons he had brought from France. This is said to have
been the first stone structure erected in the country, and if so,
for this alone, Ninian deserves the eternal gratitude of his
Countrymen. From its white and glistening aspect, seen over
the bay of Wigton, it was called in Latin Candida Casa, in
Saxon, Æwitherne, a designation which has survived in Whit;
horn till the present day. While the church was yet building,
Ninian received intelligence that his friend and patron, St
Martin, had migrated to heaven, upon which he piously
resolved to dedicate his church to his honour.” This enables
us to fix the date of its erection, for we know that St Martin
/| us
4—iº about A.D. 4oo.
Having set everything right among the Galwegians, he
resolved upon a mission to convert the southern Picts, who
are described as still worshipping deaf and dumb idols. It
was probably into Stirling and Perthshire that he penetrated,
and he had only to come to conquer. “To the font of the
saving laver run rich and poor, young and old, men and
maidens, mothers and children, and, renouncing Satan with
all his works and pomps, they are joined to the body of the
believers by faith, by confession, by the sacraments.” Rather
startling language to be used of the barbarian Picts, who at
that very time were waging a relentless war against the Britons,
butchering all, sparing none. “The barbarians,” said they
pitifully, “drive us to the sea, the sea drives us back to the
barbarians.” It was among such wild marauders Ninian
* Vita Niniani Auctore Ailredo Revallensi, c. ii.
* Ibid. c. iii. * Ibid. c. vi.



A. D. 400-30.] PALLADIUS. 29
laboured, and one cannot but applaud his heroism ; but it is
evident that while he may have persuaded many to submit to
the rite of baptism—sometimes not difficult with Savages—he
did not manage to change their nature, or to inoculate them
with the peaceful spirit of the gospel. But the unhesitating
biographer proceeds to say that “he ordained presbyters,
consecrated bishops, distributed ecclesiastical dignities, and
divided the whole land into parishes.” It is difficult to
believe that the rude Galwegians were infected with Pelagian-
ism early in the fifth century, as is plainly insinuated ; still
more difficult to believe that a whole hierarchy existed at that
period among the Picts. It is evident the Abbot of Rievaulx
has transferred the sentiments and facts of his own age to
those of Ninian, as is plain from this one circumstance, that
parishes were not created in Scotland till the eleventh or
twelfth century.
But enough remains for the glory of St Ninian. Enough
surely to have been the pioneer of Christianity in Scotland—
to have been the first to preach the gospel to the Picts—the
first to teach the Galwegians to build their houses of stone.
We cannot but believe he was a good and heroic man, who
laboured hard in his Master's work among barbarous tribes;
and though he cast the good seed on rough and rocky ground,
some of it found root in the crevices, and sprung up, and in
future years bore its fruit. His name is for ever associated
with the origin of Scottish piety. Canonized by Rome, and
celebrated by monkish fables, he is more to be envied in that
his memory is embalmed in the hearts of the Christian
children of those pagan barbarians amongst whom he toiled
and died, and in that he will be kept in everlasting remem-
brance by the villages, churches, and wells called by his name.
We now meet with another historic name ; but its light is of
a phosphoric kind, shewing itself, but nothing beyond. “In
the eighth year of the reign of Theodosius,” says Bede,
“Palladius was sent by Celestinus, the Roman pontiff, to the
Scots that believed in Christ to be their first bishop.” ” This
* Vita Niniani Auctore Ailredo Revallensi, c. vi.
* “Ecclesiastical History,” Book I. chap. xiii. The words of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle are:– “A.D. 430. This year Palladius the bishop
was gent to the Scots by Pope Celesfinus, that he might confirm their
faith.” An amusing controversy has been waged as to whether “first?” in
Bede is to be understood in respect of time or position. Some episcopal
writers have maintained that primus episcopos does not mean the first
bishop who ever entered Scotland (or Ireland), but indicates that Palladius
was sent to be primate.
3O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
statement is confirmed by the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,” by
Nennius, and other authorities, so that there is no room to
doubt its substantial truth. But the difficulty is, as to who
are the Scots referred to. Notwithstanding that all our older
historians, and some of our modern Ones, appropriate Palladius,
we have little hesitation in believing that his mission was to
Ireland. In 431 there was only a small and almost unknown
colony of Scots in Argyll. Hibernia was their proper seat ;
and it was thither the Roman legate went. It must be con-
fessed, however, that there are strong traditions which speak
of his having visited Scotland, and of having been buried at
Fordoun in the Mearns. In the churchyard of that parish
there are still pointed out the remains of a building, which is
said to have been a chapel dedicated to the apostle, and to
which pilgrimages were once made from every part of the
country. Not far away there is a well, still called Paldy's well;
and fountains regarded as sacred may retain a particular desig-
nation for many centuries." From these circumstances we
are inclined to think with Stillingfleet “that Nennius has hit
upon the true account of the matter, viz., that Palladius was
sent by Celestine to convert the Scots, but finding no great
success therein, he was driven on the Coasts of Britain, and
there died ; and after his death St Patrick was sent on the
same errand.”
Scotland, Wales, and Picardy all claim St Patrick for a son.
It seems certain that the great Irish apostle was no Irishman.
Kilpatrick on the Clyde is thought by many antiquaries º
have been the place where he first saw the light, and it is /
certainly curious that “Succat,” a name bestowed on the saint,
is also the name of a property in the district. The year 372
is given as the date of his birth, and wherever born, he is said
in early youth to have been kidnapped and carried off by an
Irish chief, and kept for years as a swine-herd. Recovering
his liberty, he went to the south of France, and studied
theology under the famous St Martin of Tours. At the age of
sixty he returned to Ireland, the house of his bondage, and
1 Statistical Account of Scotland. Fordoun, I795.
* Antiquities of the British Churches, chap. ii. The words of Nennius
are:–“During his (Patrick's, in captivity) continuance there, Palladius,
the first bishop, was sent by Pope Celestine to convert the Scots. But
tempests and signs from God prevented his landing, for no one can arrive
in any country except it be allowed from above ; altering, therefore, his
course from Ireland, he came to Britain, and died in the land of the Picts.”
Hist, of the Britons.
A.D. 563. ] ST. COLUMIBA. 31
preached the gospel there with such success, that he is said to
have written 365 alphabets, founded 365 churches, and or-
dained 365 bishops, besides 3ooo presbyters." We may safely
conclude this to be an exaggeration, but, notwithstanding the
fabulous atmosphere which encompasses his life, enough of
reality remains to warrant us to rank him as the first and
greatest of the benefactors of Ireland. His memory must once
have been deeply venerated in Scotland from the number of
places which are called by his name.
We must now overleap another whole century, during
which everything connected with the Christianity of Scotland
is buried in gloom. We have no traces of those who suc-
ceeded Ninian and Palladius in their missionary work, and
kept alive among the Picts and the Britons the faith which
they had received; but we have every reason to believe that
they had their successors, and that the altar-fire which they
kindled was never allowed to go out. Tradition has handed
down the names of St Serf and St Ternan, but nothing
authentic is known regarding them. Neither have we authen-
tic records of any others who, during this period, may have
laboured in other parts of the Scottish field. After St Ninian,
Columba is the next whose name has emerged from the dark-
ness of the age in which he lived, and the still deeper darkness
of the ages which succeeded. But with this celebrated saint
begins the most interesting period in our ancient ecclesiastical
annals.
St.Columba, or Colum, is happy in having two biographers,
who were both his successors in the Monastery of Iona, and
lived not very far from his own day. Cumin wrote sixty-nine,
and Adamnan eighty-three years after the death of Columba, a
period during which the memory might easily preserve every
important event connected with a celebrated man, and which
gives us room to imagine that both biographers may have con-
versed with old men who could tell of having seen Columba
* In the text we have given the story as it is found in Dr Mackenzie’s
Life of St Patrick, who quotes Nennius as his authority.—Lives and
Characters of the Most Eminent Writers of the Scots Nation, by Geo.
Mackenzie, M.D. In Bohn's translation of Nennius, the passage stands
thus:—“He wrote 365 canonical and other books relating to the ſaith.
He founded as many churches, and consecrated the same number of
bishops, strengthening them with the Holy Ghost. He ordained 3000
presbyters, and converted and baptized 12,000 persons in the province of
Connaught.” History of the Britons, & 54. We leave the reader to
decide whether the 365 ABC’s or canonical books are the more likely.
32 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
in their youth. Yet this short interval was enough to surround
the life of the saint with a mythical haze, so that his bio-
grapher Adamnan professes to relate only the prophecies
uttered, the miracles wrought, and the divine visions enjoyed
by the holy abbot. We shall cease to wonder at this when we
remember that in those dark days the power of working
miracles was thought essential to the character of a saint ;
and probably some of these good but Superstitious men, by a
very natural self-deception, believed they really possessed the
power, as our kings and queens once flattered themselves that
their touch would cure the scrofula. It was in this very age
that the Pope gravely wrote to Augustine in England not to
glory too much in his miracles." g -
Columba was born at Gartan, among the wilds of Donegal,
in the north-west of Ireland, in the year 521. His father was
Fedhlimid M*Fergus, and his mother Aethnea M*Nave, both
of whom were of princely descent. We are told that even
from his boyish years he was addicted to the study of the
Holy Scriptures. He was first of all placed under the care of
a pious presbyter named Cruinechan ; and he afterwards
obtained a fuller knowledge of Christianity from Finian,
bishop of Clonfert, and the famous St Ciaran, who, it appears,
had preached before this time to the Dalriad Scots in Argyll,
and who has bequeathed his name to the parish of Kilkerran.
About the year 550 he is said to have founded the ancient
monastery of Durrow. But notwithstanding this pious act he
was implicated in some of the bloody feuds of his day, and
excommunicated by an Irish Council. Thus cast out as an
outlaw and accursed, he left Ireland in 563, being then 42
years of age, and probably resolved to wash out the stain of
blood by a life devoted to monastic and missionary work.
Setting sail in an open boat of wicker-work covered with hides,
and accompanied by twelve companions, he reached the
Island of Iona on the evening of Whitmonday, and landed in
a little pebbly bay called Port-na-Churaich, at a spot which
tradition has preserved, and where an artificial mound, faintly
resembling an inverted boat, is said to be fashioned after the
pattern of the currach in which the saint navigated the sea.”
Conal MacComgail was at this time King of the Dalriad
Scots, and Brude of the Picts; the former of whom gifted to
Columba the island upon which he had settled his colony of
| Bede, book i. chap. xxxi.
*Statistical Account of Scotland–-Kilfinichen and Kilviceuan, 1795.
A.D. 563-98.] BRUDE AND BROICHAN. 33
pious men. Here he founded his monastery, afterwards so
famous in the history of the Church. But Columba did not
confine himself to the solitary rock ; he frequently visited the
mainland, and appears to have acquired a considerable
ascendancy over its monarchs. The Irish Scots being al-
ready Christians, it was among the Picts that he chiefly pro-
secuted his apostolic work. Christianity appears to have
hitherto made no progress amongst them ; they are described
as “heathen barbarians ;” and to Columba belongs the high
honour of having converted them to the faith. Adamnan
records a visit which the saint made to King Brude at his royal
fortress near Inverness, to which he probably travelled along
the romantic chain of lochs and streams by which the tourist
still passes from Iona and Staffa to the banks of the Ness.
Some of the incidents in the missionary enterprise illustrate
the superstitions of the Picts, the character of the apostle now
bent on their conversion, and the love of the miraculous in
his biographer.
The king, in his idolatrous pride, and instigated thereto by
his high priest Broichan, shut his gates against Columba, but
the holy man touched them with his finger, making the sign
of the cross, and this acting, like the talismanic open sesame in
the Arabian tale of Ali Baba, they flew open of themselves.
On another occasion, while the saint was celebrating the
praises of God, some Druids coming near endeavoured to
hinder him, lest the sound of the divine praise from his mouth
should be heard among the pagan people ; but Columba, per-
ceiving this, began to sing the forty-fourth psalm with such
energy, that his voice appeared like thunder, and filled the
king and his people with intolerable fear. We are further
informed, that in that district there was a fountain, the haunt
of demons, in which all who washed were afflicted with some
dreadful disease, so that the people from superstitious fear paid
it divine reverence.” To this fountain Columba repaired, and
the Druids expected to see him smitten with leprosy. But the
Saint, having first invocated the name of Christ, washed in its
waters his hands and his feet, and the demons being thus
* Pinkerton (see his Inquiry) maintains that Columba got a gift of Iona
from the Picts, then in possession of the Hebrides. But Ritson and the
editor of the Origines Parochiales say, the grant came from the Scotch
king, and the greatest weight of authority scens to be on their side. -
*It is possible the reference here may be to the mineral waters of Strath-
peffer. It is to be noted that, as usually happens, Adamnan degrades the
deities of the Picts into demons.
VOL. I. C
34 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
driven out, it was ever afterwards as famous for curing diseases
as it had previously been for inflicting them." By such
miracles King Brude was converted to the new faith.
It is difficult at first to divine what could have led Columba
to fix his monastery in Iona—a barren rock washed by a
tempestuous sea. We cannot believe that he was floated
thither by the random winds and waves, and that chance de-
cided the spot whence letters and religion were afterwards to
be carried over the whole country. Leaving the north of
Ireland, and turning his prow a little to the east, he would
naturally have touched first upon the coast of Wigton or the
Mull of Cantyre. Iona is due north from Ireland, and is
distant from it upwards of a hundred miles. At that period
there must have been constant intercourse between the Scots
of Ireland and the Scots of Argyll, and the navigation of the
sea which separated them been well understood. The truth
is, that though we wonder now that such a sequestered isle
should be chosen for such a purpose, it was in accordance
with the notions and practice of the age. Religion generally
made her abode in some island off the coast, whether to give
greater safety to the defenceless priests, or more perfect seclu-
sion from the din of the world. Druidism had its chief seat
in Anglesey. Christianity found its first resting-place in
Iona. Lindisfarne was the earliest centre of the Northumbrian
Church ; and Lismore was the ancient residence of the bishops
of Argyll.
Iona, from first to last, has borne no fewer than thirty
names.” Of these the most common are I, Iona, and Icolm-
kill. I is the name generally used by the natives, and signifies
simply an island. Iona is probably a form of Ii-shona (pro-
nounced I-hona) and signifies Holy Island. Icolmkill is “the 2-
island of Colum of the Cells.” It is about three miles long, *
a mile and a half broad. Its surface is in general low and
uninteresting, rising into a few irregular heights, and its coast
is indented by small rocky bays with wonderfully translucent
water. * It is separated from the Island of Mull by a narrow
strait of about a mile in width, and from the nearest point on
the mainland by about thirty-six miles of water. The almost
* Adamnani Vita Columbae. The word in the original is magi, but
magi is just the Latin equivalent of the Celtic Druidhs.
* Origines Parochiales Scotiae – Iona, – where the whole thirty are
recorded ; many of these, however, are just different forms of the same
word.
* Iona, by the Duke of Argyll, is an interesting monograph of the island.
A.D. 563-98.] . ION A. 35
incessant jumble of the sea, caused by its currents and tides
being broken by numerous headlands, and lashed by squalls
from the hills, must have made its navigation dangerous in
open currachs in the days of Columba. In our day, the
summer tourist, taking a steamboat at Oban, can glide safely
and swiftly through the deep waters of the Sound of Mull;
catch a glimpse of the ruined holds of the ancient Lords of
the Isles, beetling on the summit of lofty crags ; emerge on
the bosom of the wide Atlantic; gaze with wonder on the
basaltic columns and resounding caves of Staffa ; and finally
feel himself “treading,” with Dr Johnson, “that illustrious
island which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions,
whence Savage clans and roving barbarians derived the benefits
of knowledge and the blessings of religion.” +
In this island Colum built his cell.” It must have been a
very rude structure, formed, as we know it was, of logs, and
thatched with reeds; and we must not confound it with those
ruins which still give a religious aspect to the island, and which
belong to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Columba now
applied himself almost entirely to the government of his little
community, and the remainder of his life was mainly spent in
the midst of it. The time of his companions appears to have
been divided between devotion, the copying religious books,
and the labours of the field; and we read with intense interest
of the Saint, in his old age, going out in his car to see them
at work and give them his blessing. His log-monastery was
built, round a court and included a church or Oratory, with an
altar and recess; a hospitium, this being either a house for the
entertainment of strangers, or the common name for the
separate cells of the monks; a dwelling-house for the saint
himself; and a barn for laying up the produce of the fields.
The whole was surrounded by a rude rampart or fence. The
recluses were called to their devotions by a bell—no doubt
similar to those oblong Celtic bells still to be seen in anti-
Quarian museums. Here for thirty-four years Columba livéd
and laboured, training men for missionary work; unless when
he Occasionally visited the mainland to found churches, or
water those he had already planted. So abundant were his
labours in this field that he acquired for himself the name of
*Tour to the Hebrides. &
* We have many names of towns beginning with the syllable “Kil,”
which signifies that these were anciently the cells or churches of par-
ticular saints. Kilmarnock is the cell of Marnock, Kilpatrick the cell of
Patrick, and so of Kilbride, Kilkerran, Kilninian, Kilblane, &c., &c.
36 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
Columkille, which signifies Colum of the Churches. On the
last day of his life, and when he was now seventy-seven years
of age, he was occupied copying the Psalter, and finished his
earthly labours with the words of the thirty-fourth psalm
—“They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.”
When the bell sounded the hour for midnight prayers, the
good old man, rigid in the observance of his own rules to the
last, though suffering from an illness which made him feel that
his death was at hand, rose from his dormitory, hurried to the
church, and prostrated himself before the altar; but the effort
was too much, and he sunk to the floor. His faithful servant
Diarmid, and others who had come to the church to worship
like himself, were soon beside him and lifted him up, but he
had only strength to raise his hand in token that he blessed
them before he died. His sorrowing followers wrapped his
body in clean linen, and committed it to the dust, there to
rest, says his biographer, “until in luminous and eternal
brightness he should be raised again.” + His remains were
allowed to rest near his monastery for a century, so that Iona
may fairly claim his dust—the first of the much princely and
priestly dust afterwards deposited in that most ancient of
cemeteries—but his bones, or what was thought to be his
bones, were afterwards carried to Ireland, and back again to
Scotland; and where they now repose it is impossible to
discover.
Columba must have been a very remarkable man. The
influence which he obtained over the barbarous kings of the
Scots and the Picts—the conversions he made, and the
churches he founded—the veneration in which he was hel
by his followers and friends—and the virtual primacy he pos
sessed over the Christianity of the whole country, are ample
evidence of the fact. He is described by his admiring
biographer as “of angelic appearance.” Like some of Homer's
heroes, he is celebrated for the powers of his voice, which is
said to have been audible at the distance of nearly a mile.
The sonorous psalm-singing of the saint would come echoing
down the lonely glens like the noise of a distant waterfall.
Next to strength of arm, strength of lungs appears to have
been held in repute in those rude ages; and the thundering
commands of the captain, the shouts of the warrior, and the
declamation of the preacher, had their strong influence in
* In luminosa et aeternali resurrecturum claritudine. Adamnani Vita
Columbae.
A.D. 598.] CHARACTER OF COLUMB.A. 37
Compelling obedience and generating awe. But we would
wrong the memory of Columba did we imagine it was merely
by dint of vociferation that he obtained his ecclesiastical
Supremacy. He was a man of letters; a hymn-writer; he
spent a large portion of his own time in transcribing the works
of the ancients, and compelled his recluses to employ them-
selves in the same way; and there is a general tradition that
there was within the monastery of Iona a noble library, in
which the learned once dreamt there might be found the lost
books of Livy." The profound love with which he was
universally regarded proves that he must have possessed many
amiable qualities; and the story of the old mare that brought
milk to the monastery, coming and laying her head on his
breast and weeping, a few days before his death, presents to
us in a fabulous form a touching picture of the fact. But it
would appear that the imperious and passionate temper which
had involved him in feuds and battles in his younger years
never entirely forsook him. We read of him giving chase to a
robber, who escaped his wrath by rapidly pushing off in his
boat from the beach, but the saint followed him till the water
was up to his knees, cursing all the while, and his curses were
SO effective that the boat was upset in a squall.”
The death of Columba was not followed by the decay of his
religious community. For many years Iona was the light of
the western world, and sent forth men, eminent for their learn-
ing and piety, to found bishoprics, abbacies, and universities,
in every quarter of Europe. Beautifully illuminated MSS., the
work of their hands, can still be identified by their Celtic
interlacings in many monastic and college libraries. But the
monks did not enjoy that undisturbed safety and repose which
we might imagine they would on their solitary rock. It is
recorded that in the year 744, a number of the community
perished in a violent storm. In 8or the monastery was burnt
to the ground by the Norse pirates. In 806 the Vikingr again
landed on the devoted island, and cruelly slaughtered sixty-
eight of its inhabitants. In 985 Iona was visited by the
Danes, who slew the abbot and fifteen of his monks. Hitherto
these wild Norsemen, who were still worshippers of Woden,
* Gibbon, in a note to the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
alludes to this. Boethius says that Æneas Sylvius (afterwards Pope Pius
II.), when in Scotland, intended to have visited the library in search of
the missing decades, but was prevented. Notwithstanding the tradition,
we may be permitted to doubt the extent of this library.
* Vit. Col. Adamnami.
38 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
|
burnt churches aud slaughtered priests without mercy and
without remorse. But they received Christianity early in the
eleventh century, and in their next descent on the Hebrides
we have evidence of its power. The Norse Sagas inform us
that King Magnus entered their church—probably St Oran's
Chapel in its original form—but immediately came out again,
filled with religious awe, and gave orders that none should dare
to violate its sanctity.
In the twelfth century Rome was everywhere triumphant in
Scotland, and Iona passed into the possession of Cluniac
monks. Its pure and primitive faith had departed ; its renown
for piety and learning was gone; but the memory of these sur-
vived, and it was now regarded with greater superstitious
reverence than ever. Long before this it had been made the
burial-place of royalty, numerous pilgrimages were made to it,
and now kings and chiefs began to enrich it with donations of
tithes and land. The walls which are now crumbling were
then reared: and the voyager beholds these venerable ecclesi-
astical remains rising from a bare rock and in the midst of a
wide ocean, with feelings akin to those with which he regards
the temples at Thebes standing half buried amid the sands of
the desert.
Contemporary with Columba was St Mungo, the patron
saint of Glasgow. While there is no doubt of the existence of
such a person, unfortunately his life is involved in fable. He
is said to have been the son of a British chief called Ewen,
and of Thaney, a daughter of Leudon, a King of the Picts.
This royal lady, becoming pregnant when she ought not, was
exposed on the Sea in an open boat by her angry father, and
carried by the wind and waves to the coast where the town of
Culross now stands. Here the infant Kentigern was born.
St Serf, whom tradition points out as the apostle of the
Orkneys, was living in the neighbourhood, and by him the
little bastard was baptized. As the child grew up, he gave
early indications of piety and genius, and St Serf taking a par-
ticular liking to him, carefully initiated him in the mysteries of
the faith, and being in the habit of calling him “Mongah,”
which in the Norse tongue signifies “dear friend,” from this
arose the appellation of Mungo, by which the Saint is now
generally known."
Such is the legendary origin of St Mungo, and quite as
1 Vita Kentigerni Auctore Jocelino, also Vita Kentigerni imperfecta
Auctore ignoto. See Forbes' S. Ninian and S. Kentigern.
A.D. 570-664.] ST KENTIGERN AND ST CUTHBERT. 39
legendary are the monkish narratives of his episcopal labours
and penances; as his standing in the river every morning,
however cold, till he recited the whole psalter, and then
emerging as pure as a milk-white dove, and sunning himself
On the neighbouring hill. But under all this rubbish there
must have been real worth, so that when the lofty cathedral
which now crowns the metropolis of the West was reared six
centuries after, so precious was the memory of his piety and
toils that it was called by his name.
Columba is said to have visited Kentigern “at the place
Called Mellindonor,” then a translucent stream, but now a
filthy city sewer. The monkish biographer tells how they
exchanged pastoral staffs when they parted." The only inci-
dent which marred their perfect happiness was that some of
the Highland caterans in the company of St Columba thus
early developed their propensity to sheep-stealing, by catching
and killing a ram of the southron saint; but the theft was for-
given by the amiable Mungo, and the ram's head turned into
Stone in memory of the event.” The whole of the district round
Glasgow at this period, except near the river, was a forest of
wood and bush-land; and the legend which represents St
Mungo as “compelling the wolf of the woods to join with the
deer of the hills in labouring in the yoke of his plough,” may
preserve a memorial not merely that these animals then
abounded there, but that the Saint helped to extirpate them,
by felling the forests and introducing agriculture. Many of
the first missionaries in our own country undoubtedly did much
to foster the peaceful labours of the field, as our modern
missionaries teach the islanders of the Southern Seas to till,
SOW, and reap ; and thus Christianity and civilization went
hand in hand. There is no record of St Mungo having any
Successors at the Molendinar Burn till the twelfth century,
when the Cathedral was founded, with its bishop and canons,
its numerous altars and officiating priests. But no doubt he
had his successors, though there was no historian to chronicle
their life and labours.
After another century St Cuthbert can be discerned, with a
Saintly halo around him, amid the darkness of the Strathclyde
and Northumbrian kingdoms. Originally a shepherd boy in
Lauderdale, visited by dreams and visions of angels, we after-
wards find him as a monk at Dull in Strathtay, next at Ripon,
next at Melrose, and finally at Lindisfarne, where, about 664
* Vita Kentigerni, c. xxxix-xl. 2 Ibid.
4O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
__--~~
~T
A.D., he became abbot. His principal field of labour was
among the shielings on the Cheviot Hills and the upland
moors of Northumberland. No toil wearied him, no danger
appalled him." And as the reward of his labours he is now
honoured as the patron saint of Durham Cathedral, and of
many other churches both in England and Scotland. These
are the lights which glimmer in the Cimmerian darkness of
this period, and the dawn was yet a long way off. But it was
coming, and there were faint indications of its approach. The
influence of Iona was beginning to be felt both in the north
and south. Already there were churches at Abernethy, Deer,
and elsewhere, which so grew in reputation that they began to
rival the parent monastery; and missionaries from the wave-
washed island in the Atlantic had gone to Northumberland
and laid there the foundations of a new Christianity in
England. But in order to understand the true character
of St Columba and his successors at Iona, and in the other
monasteries they founded, we must now glance at the general
history of the Church, and inquire what changes it has under-
gone, and what institutions it has fostered since it was planted
by the apostles six centuries before.
_These six centuries, which are almost a total blank in the
history of the Church in Scotland, teem with the most
important events in the history of the Church at large.
During them the apostles had lived, and laboured, and
died. Jerusalem had been sacked, the temple burnt up
with fire, and Judaism for ever destroyed. Gnosticism had
sprung up, which, mingling the notions of the later Platonists
with the doctrines of the gospel, introduced into the Church
a multitude of extravagances which it required many centuries
to eradicate. A long line of illustrious men had arisen as
apologists and defenders of the faith. Clemens, Ignatius,
and Polycarp had well illustrated the Christian life, and then
heroically died the martyr's death. Tertullian had devoted
his native energy, and Origen had put forth his prodigious
learning, to exonerate, explain, and diffuse Christianity. The
Church had passed through ten great persecutions, and
emerged from the furnace purer and more powerful than
ever, with her noble army of martyrs and confessors, who,
under every form of torture and death, had exemplified the
strength of Christian constancy. These days of weeping
were succeeded by a time of rejoicing. Constantine obtained
1 Bede. Vita. St Cuth. Hist. Eccles.
A.D. 100-600.] RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS. 4 I
the imperial purple, and, by a series of edicts, recognised
Christianity as the religion of the empire. Magnificent
churches now began to rear themselves, and Churchmen to
grow ambitious, powerful, and rich. But internal troubles
arose ; the eternal divinity of the Son was called in question;
and it required all the quenchless vigour of Athanasius, and
all the imperial authority of the Council of Nice, to settle the
Homoousian doctrine. Arianism was not extinguished when
Pelagianism arose ; and in a battle of giants, the great Austin
maintained those opinions which are now embalmed as ortho-
dox in our creeds.
The Christian worship had not existed so long without
contracting many corruptions. The rite of baptism, at first
so simple, now required sponsors, chrism, the sign of the
cross, and a number of other superstitious observances. The
bones of the martyrs began to be regarded with religious
veneration, and the catacombs were ransacked to find them.
As many of the Jews who were converted by the apostles still
fondly clung to the temple service, and insisted on the efficacy
of circumcision, so many of the converts from paganism were
unable to shake off their pagan practices, or to renounce alto-
gether their former Gods. It was thought necessary to humour
them, and to assimilate in some degree the worship of Jesus to
the worship of Jupiter. A multitude of fasts and feasts were
introduced, some of them almost professedly in imitation of
the pagan festivals, which had been abolished only in name.
The splendid ritual of heathenism was borrowed, and Christian
churches became the theatres of a sensuous worship. Some
of the pagan temples had been converted into Christian
churches; and Bacchuses, with a little change in the drapery,
were worshipped as Virgins." The communion-table gave
place to the altar, and wax tapers shed their dim religious
light through splendid edifices, adorned with statues and
pictures, and odorous with incense. The consecrated bread
was regarded as possessing extraordinary virtues; transubstan-
tiation, though not defined, was virtually believed; and the
host was piously elevated as an oblation by the priest in the
celebration of the eucharist. Beatified Saints were raised to
the place of the Dii Minores, and solemnly invoked by the
faithful. The cross, apart from the great Victim who died
upon it, became the object of worship; and the supposed
presence of a piece of its true wood stirred up the lowest
depths of the religious nature.
1 Dr Middleton's Letter from Rome.
42 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
It was within the same period that diocesan Episcopacy
and Monachism took their rise; and we must premise some
examination of these institutions, as they are intimately con-
nected with the estimate we are to form of the character and
history of the Columbites. •
It is now agreed by almost all ecclesiastical historians, that
in apostolic times the presbyter and bishop was one and the
Same person. The two terms are indiscriminately applied
to the same persons in too many passages in the New Testa-
ment to admit of a doubt in regard to the matter. “Presby-
ter” appears to have been more peculiarly a term of respect,
as applied to the primitive pastors; and “bishop,” the name
indicative of their office as superintendents of the Christian
flock. The second century, however, had not run half its
Course before we discover traces of a distinction between
them. How it at first arose we are left to conjecture; 1 but
there are some circumstances which may guide us to causes
not far from the truth, and which afford indubitable evidence
that the distinction, narrow at first, became broad and well
defined only after the lapse of ages. Originally every Chris-
tian congregation was governed by a number of presbyterian
bishops,” with equal rank and authority. In process of time,
expediency would suggest the propriety of one of these acting
as president, to moderate the councils and execute the resolu-
tions of the whole. An office which at first was probably
temporary, subsequently became permanent, and gradually
appropriated to itself the title of bishop ; while the appellation
of presbyter was left to designate those other office-bearers
who had now sunk into a subordinate rank.” But even in the
third century, every congregation had its own bishop, and very
generally that congregation assembled in a private house, so
that its adherents could not be very numerous, nor the power
of its bishop very extensive.*
These congregations at first almost invariably belonged to
the cities and towns; but when the tide set in more strongly
in favour of Christianity, and Christian communities were
* Jerome says it arose from quarrels among the presbyters prompted
by the devil. (Titus i.)
* Gibbon calls them “episcopal presbyters.” (Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire, chap. xv.) -
*This is substantially the account of the matter given by Mosheim, Gib-
bon, Neander, Giesler, Baur, and every writer of any authority.
*Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History may be advantageously
consulted on this point.
A.D. 100-600.] RISE OF EPISCOPACY. 43
gathered in the villages, the town-bishops, unable to superin-
tend them themselves, appointed suffragans to take the spiritual
oversight in their stead, and these were called chorepiscopi, or
country-bishops. This was the first great step to diocesan
episcopacy; for the country-bishops were dependent on their
grander brethren in the towns; and when they were abolished
and presbyters substituted in their place, we have the sub-
Ordination of the presbyters to the bishop, which modern
episcopacy implies." The bishops now appropriated to them-
selves some of the most solemn functions of the ministerial
office. They alone could consecrate the baptismal chrism ;
they alone could confirm ; they alone could convey, by the
imposition of their hands, the mystic virtue necessary to con-
stitute the apostolic priest. All this, however, was not brought
about without a struggle and without time; and the memory of
the original parity of the offices long remained in the churches.
Even in the beginning of the fifth century, Chrysostom and
Jerome could assert the primitive equality, or rather identity,
of the bishop and presbyter.” - -
The same causes which raised the bishop above the pres-
byter, in process of time elevated the metropolitan bishop
above his compeers in the provinces; and led the bishop of
Rome to aspire at the establishment of a monarchy in the
Church. The dominating greatness of the imperial city, and
the wealth which flowed in upon the Roman Church, when
it basked in the sunshine of imperial favour, gave ground
upon which to rear such a lofty ambition. During the
fourth and fifth centuries, the bishops of Rome were ear-
nestly straining at this; encouraging the provincials, when
they imagined themselves wronged, to appeal the case for the
decision of the Roman See, asserting, though at first in mode-
rate terms, their ecclesiastical supremacy as the successors of
Peter; and by a dexterous policy they so managed it, that in
the seventh century, when Christianity was just beginning to
make progress in Scotland, their victory was almost complete.
The rise and progress of monachism had an equally im-
portant influence on the destinies of the Church. The
ascetic spirit, of which monachism was but a development,
is peculiar to no age or religion. It was exemplified in the
* Mosheim. Century I. Neander, vol. iii. sect. 2, Bohn's Edition. It
was the councils of Sardica and Laodicea that abolished the rural bishops.
* Chrysostom, hom. xi., on Timothy, at the beginning. Jerome, in his
commentary on the Epistle of Titus, and Ep. IoI ad Evangelium.
44 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
Essenes of Palestine before the advent of our Saviour, and it
is to be seen in the devotees of Hinduism in our own day.
Under the Christian system Egypt became its fruitful birth-
place. Stimulated by the example and renown of Paul and
Anthony, many thousands of men and women flocked to the
deserts of Thebes and the islands of the Nile, that, away
from the world, they might soar to the higher regions of the
spiritual life. The monastic institution, though a plant
peculiarly suited to the climate of the East, was transplanted
to the West, where it speedily took root, and made most
vigorous growths. Monasteries were reared on the banks of
the Tiber; caves found for hermits by the lake of Subiaco ;
and Martin of Tours, who from a soldier became a hermit,
was followed to his grave by two thousand monkish mourners.
All the learning and eloquence of the day were exhausted
in eulogies on the anchorite life. Athanasius first intro-
duced Egyptian monks into Rome. Chrysostom opened his
golden mouth in their praise. Jerome gave to the institu-
tion the weight of his own example; and even Augustine
was so completely carried away with the spirit of the time,
that he wrote treatises in its defence and commendation.
It is impossible to doubt but that monachism in its first
origin contained much that was good. Many pure spirits
fled to the cloister really to escape the contagion of the
world. Many enthusiastic spirits fled thither, sincerely be-
lieving they might there cultivate a sublimer piety. The
extravagances of the East were little known or practised in
the West, and the rule of St Benedict, who lived in the sixth
century, and to which almost all the monasteries of Italy
and Gaul submitted, is dictated in a liberal spirit, consider-
ing the age in which he lived. Under this rule excessive
mortifications were avoided ; no limited quantity of food
was prescribed ; and even a little wine, out of consideration to
human frailty, was allowed. The monks were not suffered
to be idle; they were to devote their time to devotion, to
reading, to the education of youth, to the labours of the
field, or some useful handicraft. Accordingly, we will not
wonder that many eminent bishops emanated from these
Benedictine schools; and that enthusiastic men left cloisters,
where sober sense was mingled with Superstition, to carry
the torch of truth among idolatrous nations, and proved
most useful and successful missionaries.
* It was by this lake that Benedict had his first cell, and near him was
the grotto of another monk named Romanus.
A.D. 100-600.] MONACHISM, 45
At first these monks were all laymen, and belonged to no
ecclesiastical denomination. They were simply people who
had bound themselves by a vow to renounce the world, to live
in poverty and chastity, and to devote their time to prayer,
penance, meditation, and industrial toils. The monastic life
was open to the laity of all conditions and of both sexes; and
the sanctity of the cloister was frequently abused by the slave
fleeing thither to escape from his master, and the legionary to
avoid the rigours of discipline and the dangers of the field.
But it was impossible to debar the monks for ever from ecclesi-
astical offices and emoluments. In the very earliest times we
frequently read of some holy hermit reluctantly brought from
his cell and placed on the bishop's throne, amid the applauses
of the people ; and eventually, by the policy of the popes, the
whole body was constituted into a regular ecclesiastical order,
which ever afterwards successfully competed with the Seculars
for the honours of the Church and the veneration of the
populace. It is needless at present to trace the progress of
monachism farther. It was not long before the original nature
of the institution was forgotten, and vices of the most odious
kind crept into the cloister.
Such were some of the changes which early Christianity
underwent, and some of the institutions which sprung up in
the Church. It would, however, be a violation of all historic
probability to suppose that they simultaneously affected every
portion of Christendom. It would be absurd to liken them to
the enactments of a legislature, carried into execution in every
part of the kingdom on a fixed day. They were rather
Customs, which generally require ages to mature, and ages
more to spread. Taking their rise in particular Centres, they
slowly extended themselves towards the extremities." Emanat-
ing from Alexandria * or Rome, it was only by degrees they
were known and adopted in the distant provinces. In those
countries between which there was a constant intercourse, the
contagion of the new example would be proportionally rapid ;
in those which were cut off from the rest of the world, it would
* This is substantially the view which has been taken by Bishop Light-
foot;-“They show that this creation (that of the Episcopate) was not so
much an isolated act as a progressive development, not advancing every-
where at a uniform rate, but exhibiting at one and the same time different
stages of growth in different churches.” Fpis. fo Philippians. Essay
on Ministry, p. 225.
* It is, however, curious that relics of Presbyterianism lingered in
Alexandria till the fourth century. Hieron, Ep. 146, Ad. Evan.
46 . CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
be proportionally slow. The churches which lay along the
shores of the Mediterranean quickly felt every important
impulse, heard the news of every fresh heresy that was
broached, and had amongst them imitators of every innovat-
ing practice that was introduced; while the religious communi-
ties that were buried in the woods of Germany, or lost in the
marshes of Caledonia, might be unconscious of the changes
that were going on in the great world for centuries after.
Before the first century was expired, Christianity was
preached along the whole northern coast of Africa, and the
southern coast of Europe; it required nearly two centuries
more to come to our country, and other three centuries still
before it was generally embraced. During the greater part of
this period, the Roman empire extended to our island, and
thus an intercourse was kept up between it and the Continent,
but that intercourse almost entirely ceased when the legions
were withdrawn. “The dark cloud,” says Gibbon, in his own
eloquent way, “which had been cleared by the Phoenician dis-
coverers, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar, again
settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Roman province
was again lost among the fabulous islands of the ocean.” "
When our country was thus lost to the civilized world, and
its rude population shut out from all intercourse with the cen-
tres of Christian influence, we shall not wonder that the wave
of innovation, which surged so rapidly along the Mediterranean,
took centuries before it broke upon our shore. The impas-
Sable gulph between the presbyter and the bishop might, and
in fact must have been, fixed in Italy for many long years
before it was known and believed in here. The monasteries
of Europe and the East might have become hot-beds of super-
stition and vice, and yet a pure monachism, once introduced
into Scotland, might there be preserved. While the marble
churches of Constantinople and Rome were perfumed with in-
cense, and adorned with images, incense and images might be
alike unknown in the log churches of Caledonia. Even when
the Scottish clergy learned the new ideas that were abroad,
they might decline to adopt them. It is ever difficult to carry
new fashions from one Country to another, more especially
when there is little or no intercourse between them ; and all
the weight of legislation sometimes fails to abolish a custom
to which the people have become attached.
These remarks may elucidate the controversies which have
1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. xxxix.
A.D. 100-600.] SCOTCH MONACHISM. 47
been waged in regard to Columba and the Columbites. A
question has been raised as to whether they were monks.
They undoubtely were. The life and institutions of Columba
and his successors abundantly attest this. But they might
be monks without having contracted the vices of mona-
achism. Having embraced the system in its purity, they
might preserve it pure in Icolumkille, Abernethy, and Dun-
keld, when it had become utterly corrupt in the great monas-
teries of the Continent.
There is good reason to believe that it was so ; and that in
Scotland, far removed from Roman influences, there was a
form of monachism, with little of its usual austerity and few
of its prevalent vices. The monastery at Iona appears to
have been little different from a college, in which men were
trained for missionary work; and as occasion required,
they left its quiet cloisters for the active duties of life. That
Columba had entirely escaped those superstitious notions
which had arisen in Italy and the East long before his day it
were foolish to suppose, and his biographies will not allow us
to believe. The rules by which he governed his community;
the scrupulosity with which he repaired to the church at all
hours of the day and night to perform his devotions; his pre-
ference for celibacy, if not his entire prohibition of marriage, are
not in accordance with Protestant ideas of what is scriptural
and right. The love of the miraculous so conspicuous in his
biographers, shows that this fond deception had as deeply
tainted the disciples of Columba as the disciples of Benedict.
In what school he acquired his monastic notions it is impos-
sible to determine; but we know that of all ecclesiastical insti-
tutions monachism spread the most rapidly, and that a hun-
dred years sufficed to carry it from the extreme east to the
extreme west of Christendom. Both St Ninian and St Patrick
are said to have been related to St Martin; and as we find it
difficult to believe that the Bishop of Tours had such an exten-
sive Scotch connection by matrimony or blood, we resort to
the supposition that the relation arose from their having bor-
rowed his ideas of the Christian life. As the monachism of
the East was ſomed down to suit the different men, manners,
and climate of the West, so the monachism of France would
naturally undergo a still further modification to suit the rude,
half-Christianised population of Ireland and the IIcbrides.
The exotic from Egypt took root in Iona; but with a thin
soil, and under a northern sky, it never showed the same
48 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. III.
prurient luxuriance of fruit or of foliage as in warmer and
more southern lands.
The ecclesiastical polity of Columba and the Columbites
has also been a matter of dispute, and a passage in Bede has
brought the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches into colli-
sion. “That island’ (Iona), says the venerable historian,
“has for its ruler an abbot, who is a presbyter, to whose direc-
tion all the province, and even the bishops, contrary to the
usual method, are subject, according to the example of their
first teacher, who was not a bishop, but a presbyter and
monk.” + That bishops should be subject to a presbyter or
mass-priest, as the “Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” styles Columba,”
is abhorrent to every idea of episcopal propriety, and accord-
ingly the candid simplicity of Bede has caused much confusion
in the episcopal camp.
It was indeed unusual in the sixth and seventh centuries
for bishops to be under the jurisdiction of a presbyter; and yet
we need not greatly wonder that such a thing should have
occurred in a province so far removed from ecclesiastical in-
fluence as Scotland then was. Though the bishop began to
rise above the presbyter in the second century, many genera-
tions lived and died before the difference between them was
well defined, and even in the fifth century writers referred to
their original and essential identity. In all probability, Chris-
tianity was introduced into Ireland—whence it was brought to
Scotland—before the great gulph was fixed between the two
orders;” and if such an ecclesiastical polity was brought to the
country, it might continue there unchanged for centuries, un-
influenced by the great changes which were going on from
without. Even in our own day, notwithstanding the ease and
rapidity of transit, and that men are everywhere passing to and
fro, and increasing knowledge, some districts of the Highlands
are almost inaccessible to the ideas and influences of the
1 Ecclesiastical History, book iii., chap. iv.
* “A.D. 565. Columba, a mass-priest, came to the Picts and converted
them to the faith of Christ ; they are dwellers by the northern moun-
tains. . . . . Now, in Iona, there must ever be an abbot, and not
a bishop ; and all the Scottish bishops ought to be subject to him,
because Columba was an abbot and not a bishop.” (Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle.) * -
3 Nennius says St Patrick ordained 365 bishops in Ireland. These
must simply have been ministers or Christian workers. In the Episcopal
Church of Ireland, at present, there are only I2 prelates.
A.D. 597.] AUGUSTINE AND HIS MONKS. 49
south. The very poverty of the country would help to keep
the bishop on a par with the presbyter, for it is only in opulent
kingdoms, and where the Church is supported by the State,
that Episcopacy has obtained its fullest development.
The fact, as narrated by Bede, though perhaps unusual, was
perfectly natural and likely in the circumstances. Iona was a
monastic seminary for training men for the work of the minis-
try. As opportunity presented, they left their retirement, and
took the oversight of Christian flocks, thereby becoming vir-
tually bishops. That such men should differentially look to
the abbot, under whom they had been reared, for advice and
direction was very natural; and thus a kind of primacy would
arise, and that more readily from the respect assigned to
monks in those days, and the fact that the monastery of Iona
was the parent of so many of the churches of Scotland.”
C H A P T E R IV.
IN the year 597 Augustine arrived in the island of Thanet, off
the coast of Kent, with a train of some forty monks. The
story of the incident which led to his mission, if not true, is at
least interesting. Gregory, before his elevation to the pontifi-
cate, had observed some youths in the Roman slave-market, of
a complexion fairer than common ; and inquiring of what
nation they came, was told they were Angles. “Not Angles,
but Angels,” he replied, “if they were only Christianized.””
Dr Grub candidly and fully admits that the early ecclesiastical govern-
ment of Scotland was abbatial and presbyterian, and not episcopal.
Vol. i. p. 134-43.
* Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book ii. chap. i. The Pope appears to
have been an inveterate punster. The whole story as told by Bede is as
follows:—“‘Alas! what pity,” said he, “that the author of darkness is
possessed of men of such fair countenances; and that being remarkable
for such graceful aspects, their minds should be void of inward grace.’ He
therefore again asked what was the name of that nation ? and was
answered that they were called Angles. “Right,” said he, “for they have
an angelic face, and it becomes such to be co-heirs with the angels in
Heaven. What is the name,” proceeded he, ‘of the province from which
they are brought?’ It was replied, that the natives of that province were
called Deiri. ‘Truly are they De ira,” said he, “withdrawn from wrath
and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that province
called P’ They told him his name was Ælla ; and he, alluding to the
name, said, ‘Aallelujah, the praise of God the Creator illust be sung
in those parts.’” We have helped the pontificial wit by italics; and
we may remark that the puns are nearly as pointed in the English trans-
lation as in the Latin of Bede.
VOL. I. D
5o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
When raised to the chair of St Peter, he remembered the
nation of the captive youths, and sent Augustine to convert
them. For nearly a hundred years from the time we speak of,
the Anglo-Saxons, incessantly recruited by new swarms of ad-
venturers, had been gradually gaining upon the Britons; and
now they had driven the miserable remnants of that people
into the mountain fastnesses of Wales. With the British
people had well-nigh perished the British Church. The
Saxon invaders were heathens, worshippers of Woden and Thor;
and now for the second time must the people of England be
Converted to the Christian faith.
Augustine managed to ingratiate himself with Ethelbert,
King of Kent, and obtained permission to establish himself
in the royal city of Canterbury. The work of conversion
prospered in his hands, and in due time the Roman bishop
constituted him primate of England, sent him the pall, and
with it certain Roman wares, coverings for the altars, orna-
ments for the churches, vestments for the priests, and relics of
the holy apostles and martyrs." On inquiring a little more
narrowly into the religious state of the kingdom, the new Arch-
bishop discovered that the clergy of the British Church who
still survived did not keep Easter at the proper time, adminis-
tered baptism without the consecrated chrism, and in other
respects violated the unity of the faith. He therefore held a
conference with their bishops and doctors to persuade them to
conformity, and when his arguments failed, he wrought a
miracle to convince them, and when his miracle had no
more influence than his arguments, he uttered some enig-
matical words, to the effect that if they would not hold com-
munion with their friends, they would bring down upon
themselves the vengeance of their enemies. Soon after this
threat, or prophecy, as we may choose to understand it, the
King of Northumbria marched upon Chester, made a great
slaughter of the Britons, and mercilessly massacred many
hundreds of monks who had come from Bangor to pray for
their countrymen. “About twelve hundred,” says Bede,
“that came to pray are reported to have been killed, and
only fifty to have escaped by flight.” ” It was the first act
passed against non-conformists in England.
Meantime, a succession of learned and pious abbots ruled
in the monastery of Iona ; and missionaries began to issue
* Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book i. chap. xxix.
* Ibid., book ii. chap. ii. -
A.D. 635.] CELTIC APOSTLES. 5 I
from its cloisters, to carry the light of Christianity not merely
to Scotland, but to England and some of the countries of the
Continent. There is good reason to believe that a close con-
nection was kept up between Iona and Ireland, and that the
religious colony still depended in a great measure on the
parent Country for a supply of students and recluses. The
populations of Ireland and the north-west of Scotland were
in fact identical at this time, and were known by the general
appellation of Scots, so that it is often impossible to determine
to which of them historical facts are to be referred. Columba
was succeeded by Baithne, one of the twelve who accompanied
him from Ireland. After him followed Laisren, Fergna, and
Segenius. While Segenius was abbot, Oswald, King of North-
umberland, who had been recently baptized in Scotland, sent
to the monastery a request that preachers should be sent to
instruct his subjects in the faith. The story of this mission is
told by Bede, and we shall therefore follow his narrative: it
belongs to the year 635.
The first Celtic apostle who went to Northumberland was a
man of an austere disposition, and making no progress in con-
verting the people, he returned to his monastery, and reported
that the task was hopeless, as the Northumbrians were uncivil-
ized men, and of a stubborn and barbarous disposition. What
was to be done was now seriously debated, when an aged
monk named Aidan rose up and said, addressing himself to
the brother who had abandoned the missionary field,—“I am
of opinion, brother, that you were more severe to your un-
learned hearers than you ought to have been, and did not at
first, conformably to the apostolic rule, give them the milk of
more easy doctrine, till being by degrees nourished with the
Word of God, they should be capable of greater perfection,
and be able to practise God's sublimer precepts.” A speech
so sensible at once pointed out Aidan as the fittest person to
deal with the barbarous Saxons, and though said to have been
well-nigh eighty years of age, he undertook the task with
cheerfulness and alacrity. He was accordingly ordained a
bishop by the presbyter monks of Iona, and set his face toward
Northumberland.l
Off the coast of Northumberland there is an island called
Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle. It is about two miles long, and one
broad. From its eastern side the German ocean stretclies
farther than the eye can reach ; and from the western shore
* Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book iii, chap. v.
52 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
you gaze, over a narrow channel, upon the cultivated coasts
of England; and can easily discern towards the north the
ancient town of Berwick; and away to the south, Bamborough
Castle, crowning a bold promontory, which juts into the sea.
On this island, which perhaps might remind him of Iona,
Aidan determined to settle.
The aged monk at once began his apostolic work, and in
this he was powerfully assisted by the king. As Aidan was
not well skilled in the English tongue, his Majesty frequently
Condescended to act as interpreter, being well acquainted with
the Scottish speech. The united piety of the monarch and
the monk were not, as we may well believe, without their
reward, and conversions became numerous. “From that time,”
says our venerable authority, “many of the Scots came daily
into Britain, and with great devotion preached the Word to
those provinces of the English over which King Oswald
reigned ; and those among them that had received priests’
Orders administered to them the grace of baptism. Churches
were built in several places; the people joyfully flocked
together to hear the Word; money and lands were given of
the king's bounty to build monasteries; the English, great and
Small, were by their Scottish masters instructed in the rules
and observances of regular discipline ; for most of them that
came to preach were monks.” -
Aidan is celebrated by the Saxon historian as a perfect
model of apostolic and episcopal purity. He was abstemious,
Continent, generous to the poor, humble to all. Austere in his
Own Conduct, he was indulgent to others. He was wont to
traverse the town and country on foot, and invite every passer-
by to embrace the faith. All in his company, whether “shaven
monks or laymen,” were kept diligently employed in reading
the Scriptures and learning psalms. If he went to dine with
the king, he took two clerks with him, and having snatched a
frugal repast, he made haste to be gone with them, either to
read or write. Many pious men and women, led by his
example, began to fast upon Wednesday and Friday till the
ninth hour. There was only one spot on this otherwise spot-
less character—he did not keep Easter on the canonical day.
After sixteen years of diligent labour, Aidan died, and was
* Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. iii. This passage proves
that many of the monks that came into England had not priests’ orders—
in other words, were not presbyters; yet they preached. The presbyters
administered the sacraments.
A. D. 635-60.] CONVERSION OF ANGLELAND. 53
buried in Lindisfarne. He was succeeded by Finan, who had
likewise been reared among the monks of Iona. In his life-
time, Peada, prince of the Mercians, sought in marriage
Elfleda, daughter of Oswy, King of Northumberland. His
reception of Christianity was made the condition of the
nuptials, and the prince willingly received the faith and his
bride together. He was baptized, with all his retinue, by
Finan, and four priests were despatched into his kingdom to
convert his subjects. Meeting with great success, Diuma, one
of the four, was ordained bishop of the province." But the
missionary success of Finan did not end here. The East
Saxons had for a short time professed Christianity, and then
relapsed into idolatry. Their king at this time was Sigebert,
who came to visit Oswy in Northumberland, and while there
was persuaded to receive the rite of baptism. Returning
home, he invited Christian teachers into his kingdom, and two
were accordingly sent him. One of these, after a time, return-
ing to Lindisfarne, and relating to Finan how successful he
had been, was ordained bishop of the East Angles; and,
going back to his province with more ample authority, he
built churches, and ordained presbyters and deacons to assist
him in “the work of faith and ministry of baptising.” Thus
were the three great Saxon kingdoms of Northumberland,
Mercia, and Essex, constituting by far the largest and most
important part of England, converted to Christianity by the
preaching of monks from Iona.” The spiritual conquerors of
the country became its occupants, and for several successions
the Sees of York, Durham, Lichfield, and London, were filled
by Scotsmen.4
The transactions of these missionary monks have given rise
* Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. xxi.
* Ibid., book iii. chap. xxii.
* “By the ministery of Aidan was the kingdome of Northumberland
recovered from paganisme (whereunto belonged then, beside the shire of
Northumberlande, and the lands beyond it unto Edenborrow, Frith,
Cumberland also, and Westmorland, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the
Bishopricke of Durham); and by the means of Finan, not onely the king-
dom of the East Saxons (which contained Essex, Middlesex, and halfe of
Hertfordshire) regained, but also the large kingdom of Mercia converted
first unto Christianity; which comprehended under it, Gloucestershire,
Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Rutland-
shire, Northamptonshire, Lincolneshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire,
Buckiugliausliile, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Shropshire,
Nottinghamshire, Chesshire, and the other halfe of Hertfordshire.”
(Archbishop Usher : Religion professed by the Ancient Irish, chap. x.)
“Of course it will not be understood by this that these Sees, precisely
as now constituted, then existed.
54 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
to a controversy regarding their ecclesiastical polity. The
controversy is principally founded on the narrative of Bede,
both parties referring to the language which he uses. Let us
briefly advert to it.
King Oswald having asked a bishop from the Scots to ad-
minister the word of faith to him and his nation, the inmates
of Iona, after hearing the discreet sentiments of Aidan, pre-
viously quoted, “ concluded that he deserved to be made a
bishop, and ought to be sent to instruct the unbelieving and
unlearned, since he was found to be endued with singular
discretion, which is the mother of other virtues, and accord-
ingly having ordained, they sent him to their friend, King
Oswald, to preach.”" This language, we think, evidently
implies, if it does not expressly affirm, that those who judged
Aidan worthy of the episcopate, both ordained and sent him.
If the statement of Bede is to be held authoritative, it is im-
possible to resist the conclusion that it was the Presbyter-
abbot of Iona and his fellow monks who consecrated the first
Bishop of Landisfarne. There is no mention of a bishop
being present, or taking part in the proceedings; it was the
old apostolic Ordination, by the laying on of the hands of the
presbytery. Finan and Colman were ordained in the same
way and by the same men ; and as they ordained many others
to be bishops, presbyters, and deacons, it is almost demon-
strable that the present English Episcopate may be traced
back to a Presbyterian source.
But it has been said there were bishops in Ireland and also
in Scotland at the time we speak of, and that therefore there
might have been one kept at Iona for the purpose of per-
petuating pure episcopacy, though both Adamnan and Cumin
are silent on the subject. There undoubtedly were bishops
in Scotland, but they were such bishops as acknowledged the
jurisdiction of the Presbyter-abbot of Iona. Reared under
his care, and appointed by him to the episcopate of their
respective Congregations, they never dreamt that they be-
longed to an order higher than their abbot, or that they
possessed powers of transmitting the apostolic virtue and the
sacerdotal character which were denied to him. ” In regard
* Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. v.
*The two passages in Adamnan's Life of Columba, which are relied upon
to prove the recognition of special episcopal grace by Columba, appear to
me to prove the contrary, for the Saint cursed the episcopal ordination of
Aid as “a son of perdition,” and in the other case Columba simply asked
the stranger bishop to dispense the communion, as any presbyter might at
the present day. (See Adamnan, b. i., c. 27 and c. 35.)
A.D. 635-60.] PRESBYTERIAN OR DINATION. 55
to Aidan and Finan, it is more than probable that they were
lay-monks, previous to their being ordained as missionary-
bishops to Northumberland. If they were presbyters already
(for the appellation of bishop appears to have been given
specially and properly to those who had the sufferintendence of
a flock), then we must look for the explanation of the pro-
ceedings at Iona to that instructive passage in the Acts of the
Apostles, in which we are told that as the prophets and
teachers in the Church of Antioch “ministered to the Lord
and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and
Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when
they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them,
they sent them away.”* We must be content to remain in
ignorance as to whether the Scotch and Irish monks were
aware of the distinction which had sprung up in the Church
between the presbyter and bishop ; it is probable they were,
but that they were ignorant of the great and growing distance
which now separated them in the south and east; or, if they
did know the fact that peculiar honours and functions were
now reserved for the one and denied to the other, it is plain
they had determined to ignore it.
Christianity had entered Saxon-England at its two extremi-
ties. Augustine and his monks had landed in Kent, and
extended their teaching and influence over the south and
South-west of the kingdom. Aidan and his monks had en-
tered Northumberland, and pushed their teaching and influ-
ence over the northern, eastern, and midland provinces.
Rome and Iona met on English ground and contended for
the mastery. There were not wanting subjects of dispute, for
there were obvious differences between the Italian and Celtic
missionaries. But the true day for the celebration of Easter,
and the true form of the clerical tonsure, were the topics which
excited the fiercest controversies, and stirred up the strongest
passions, and ultimately led to the exodus from England of the
northern ecclesiastics.
It has been supposed by some ecclesiastical writers that the
British and Irish Churches agreed with the Churches of Asia in
regard to the celebration of Easter, and this has been held as
a proof of their Oriental origin. This, however, is plainly a
mistake. Prior to the Council of Nice, the Asiatic Churches
celebrated Tasch oil the fourteenth day of the moon, week-day
or Sunday ; the British and Irish Churches never did so, but
* The Acts of the Apostles, chap. xiii. ver. 2, 3.
56 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
with the whole west kept the feast on the Sunday immediately
following. Their disagreement with Rome simply arose from
the adherence to an old almanac, when a new one had come
into use.
The difference is easily explained. The Romans kept
Easter betwixt the fifteenth aud twenty-first day of the moon,
immediately after the 21st day of March or vernal equinox,
when the days and nights are equal. In reckoning the age of
the moon they followed the Alexandrian cycle of nineteen
years, or the Golden Number, as interpreted and explained by
Dionysius Exiguus. The ancient British and Irish Churches,
on the other hand, kept Faster on the Sunday that fell
betwixt the fourteenth and twentieth day of the moon; and
followed in their computation of it, not the nineteen years
cycle of Anatolius, but a cycle of eighty-four years attributed
to Sulpicius Verus."
We have already seen the pains taken by Augustine to con-
vince the British bishops of their error, and of their ill-fated
persistency in it. Laurentius, his successor in the See of
Canterbury, not only pursued the same course at home, but
wrote a letter to “ his most dear brothers the lords-bishops
and abbots throughout all Scotland,” stating, that he had
expected they would have been better informed about Easter
than the Britons, but that he had discovered his mistake, and
that a certain Scotch bishop called Dagan had carried matters
so high as to refuse to eat with him, or enter the house where
he was.” About thirty years after this, Popes Honorius and
John IV. both wrote to the Scots, earnestly exhorting them
“not to think their small number, placed in the utmost
borders of the earth, wiser than all the ancient and modern
churches of Christ throughout all the world; and not to cele-
brate a different Easter, contrary to the Paschal calculation,
and the synodical decrees of all the bishops upon earth.”?
Notwithstanding these efforts of Rome and her emissaries,
the good bishop Aidan appears to have escaped all serious
annoyance from the Easter controversy, as Roman influence
* Usher, Religion of the Ancient Irish, chap. ix.
* Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book ii. chap. iv.
* Ibid., book ii. chap. xix. In both these letters we must understand
‘‘Scots” to apply to the Scots of Ireland as well as to the Scots in the
west of Scotland—in fact, to all who spoke the same Erse language.
That they include the Scots settled in Argyll is proved by the circum-
stance that Segenus (Segenius), the Abbot of Iona, is mentioned by name
in the pontifical letter.
A. D. 664.] SYNOD OF WHITBY. 57
was still but little known in Northumbria; only the historian
mourns that so good a man should have cherished so grievous
an error, but charitably imputes it to his rustic simplicity."
His successor Finan did not thus easily escape. The Queen
Eanfleda had been brought up in Kent, and had with her a
Kentish priest, who followed the new style in the celebration
of Easter; and thus it happened, awkwardly enough, in the
palace, that when the king had ended the time of fasting, and
kept his Easter, the queen and her followers were still fasting
and Celebrating Palm Sunday.” But Finan stood firm, not-
withstanding these courtly influences, and died in the faith in
which he had been educated.
He was succeeded at Lindisfarne by Colman, who had also
been reared in Iona. In his time the controversy, which had
gradually been growing, came to a head. Agilbert, bishop of
the West Saxons, came on a visit to the Prince of Northum-
berland, and advantage was taken of this to hold a synod in
the monastery of Streoneshalch, which overlooked the German
Sea from the cliffs of Whitby.” Thither, accordingly, came
King Oswy and his son ; Bishop Colman, with his Scottish
clerks; Bishop Agilbert, with the priests Agatho and Wilfred ;
the queen's confessor, who sympathized with the Romanists;
and the Abbess Hilda, one of the most remarkable religious
women of the time, who took the side of the Scots. Bishop
Ced acted as interpreter, and maintained an impartial neu-
trality.
The king opened the controversy with a prudent speech, in
which he counselled unity and peace. Colman then declared
that the tradition of his elders, which he followed, had de-
scended from St John, the disciple beloved of the Lord. Wilfred
insinuated that if St John taught any such doctrine he Juda-
ized, and that St Peter had taught them differently. Colman
pointed to St Columba, whose piety had been attested by his
* “As Christians they knew that the resurrection of our Lord, which
happened on the first day after the Sabbath, was always to be celebrated
on the first day after the Sabbath ; but being rude barbarians, they had
not learned when that first day after the Sabbath, which is now called the
Lord's Day, should come.” “These things I much love and admire in
the aforesaid bishop, because I do not doubt they were pleasing to God;
but I do not praise or approve his not observing Easter at the proper
time, either through ignorance of the canonical time appointed, or, if he
knew it, being prevailed on by the authority of his nation not to follow
the same.” (Bede, Eccles. Hist., book iii. chapters iv. and xvii.)
* Bede, Eccles. Hist., book iii., chap. xxv.
* This synod is known in history as the Synodus Pharensis.
58 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
miracles. Wilfred scornfully replied that the Lord would say
to many who boasted of having prophesied and having cast
Out devils and done wonderful works, I never knew you. But
charitably hoping it might not be so, continued Wilfred, Is
Columba to be compared to the most blessed prince of the
apostles to whom our Lord entrusted the keys of the kingdom
of heaven P. This decided the controversy. Is it true, cried the
king, that St Peter keeps the keys P. This both the disputants
were obliged to confess, while no such high office could be
claimed for Columba. Then, said the king, I must obey his
decree, lest when I come to the gates there should be none to
Open.
But this was not the only question which inflamed eccle-
siastics, and disturbed the peace and unity of the Church.
There was a controversy regarding the tonsure, which ran as
high as that regarding Easter, and the proper method of
shaving the crown of the head was invested with all the
Solemnity of religion. The tonsure appears to have originated
among the earliest Christian ascetics, and to have been used
by them as a distinctive token of their renunciation of the
world. Towards the close of the fifth century, it began to be
regarded, both in the east and west, as a necessary mark of
the Sacerdotal caste; and now the barber's razor was required
to co-operate with the bishop's hand to constitute the priest.
Two modes of shaving the clerical crown—the circular and
Semicircular—came into use ; but who were the inventors of
them, History, with blameworthy carelessness, has neglected
to record. The Roman clergy gave a preference to the
circular shave, which was and is performed by making bald a
Small round spot on the very crown of the head, and leaving
it encircled by hair. The Scottish monks, on the other hand,
adopted the semicircular mode, and shaved the forepart of
their head from ear to ear, in the form of a crescent.
Augustine and his successors in the See of Canterbury were
much shocked at the barbarism of the Scottish clergy, Called
their way of shaving the tonsure of Simon Magus, and insisted
that henceforward they should perform the operation after the
Roman fashion. So far did matters proceed that the tonsure
was made a test of orthodoxy, and a man was or was not a
heretic according as he made bare the crown or the forepart
of his head. Discourses were preached, and arguments held,
to extol the one method and reprobate the other; and even
texts of Scripture were quoted as decisive in favour of the
A.D. 664.] THE TONSURE. 59.
circular mode. The horror with which the Italian clergy
affected to behold the crescent crowns of the monks of Iona
is inadequately represented by the feeling with which the
gentleman, fresh from the capital, contemplates the uncouthly-
shorn locks of the rustic. But neither eloquence, arguments,
nor derision had any effect upon the presbyters of the north.
They steadfastly maintained that theirs was the better way,
and that they would continue to shave their heads as St John
and St Polycarp had done before them.
The adverse decision in the Easter controversy, and the
Continual taunts to which he was exposed on account of the
shape of his tonsure, determined Colman to leave Lindisfarne,
and return to Iona." He was accompanied by all who were
of the same mind as himself, and they devoutly carried away
with them part of the bones of the most reverend Father
Aidan. Thus Italian priests and practices prevailed in Eng-
land, and drove out the Scots after an occupation of thirty
years. Neander laments the unfortunate decision of the
disputation at Streoneshalch, and remarks, “that the manner
in which it was made could not fail to be attended with the
most important effects on the shaping of ecclesiastical rela-
tions all over England; for had the Scottish tendency pre-
vailed, England would have obtained a more free Church
constitution, and a reaction against the Romish hierarchical
System would have ever continued to go forth from this
quarter.” Mr Green, on the other hand, thinks that if the
influence of Iona had triumphed, England would have been
isolated from the civilisation, the letters, and the laws of Con-
tinental Christendom.” The victory of Whitby being achieved,
Northumberland did not prove the limit of Roman influence.
Parts of our country inaccessible to Roman soldiers were sub-
dued by Roman priests, and in the course of another century
all the monks of Scotland shaved their heads in the orthodox
fashion, and observed Easter on the orthodox day. Nectan,
King of the Picts, was the first to yield, and he was followed
Soon afterwards by the community of Iona.”
. It has been thought by some historians, that in the firmness
With which the Celtic monks defended their own tonsure and
their own Easter we see something of the Protestant spirit,
* Bede, Eccles. Hist., book iii. chap. xxvi.
* Church History, vol. v. sect. i.
*History of the English People, book i. p. 57.
* Bede, book iv.
6o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
and that even in these foolish monkish disputes we may trace
the indications of a purer faith than generally prevailed at the
time. To this it has been replied, that the Celts shaved their
crowns and kept their Easter as scrupulously as the Romans,
though in the one case they preferred the semicircular to the
circular tonsure, and in the other an old calendar to a new
one ; and that the difference arose solely from their being
further removed from Romish influences, and therefore a
century or two later of being affected by them. It has been
said that we may see an illustration of the whole matter in the
tenacity with which the rural districts of Scotland keep to the
Old Style in counting their terms, so long after the cities and
towns have adopted the New ; and it has been somewhat un-
fairly insinuated, that a Highland minister, in our own day,
would feel as reluctant to allow his hair to be trimmed after
the Parisian mode, as his Columbite predecessor, twelve
hundred years ago, was to allow his head to be shaved after
the fashion of the friseurs of Rome. Repudiating the illustra-
tion, we may allow the argument, for it goes to prove that in
Scotland, at this time, there was a more primitive, and there-
fore in all probability a purer faith, than in Italy or Gaul.
In the Church of Scotland in the sixth and seventh centuries,
we see the Church of Rome in the third and fourth. By
reason of its isolation, it was behind the age ; but that very
circumstance brought it nearer to the age of the apostles. This
one thing we may clearly learn from the controversy at Streo-
neshalch, that the monks of Iona did not acknowledge that
they owed any allegiance to the Bishop of Rome. They
learned that lesson afterwards, but it was not yet.
Some writers have attempted to prove that the Columbites
repudiated auricular confession, the worship of Saints and
images, the doctrine of purgatory, and the real presence in the
Sacrament of the Supper ; and have delighted to portray
them as free from almost all the errors and superstitions of the
Roman Church, the holy children in the midst of Babylon."
An impartial examination of their history shows this to be a
fond delusion. It is certain they were always behind the
Roman clergy in the reception of new doctrines and modes of
worship ; and that the Romish ritual never attained its full
splendour amongst them ; but this is to be attributed solely to
* Dr Jamieson and others. See Historical Account of the Ancient Cul-
dees, pp. 198-220. This history, however, is full of interesting and eru-
dite information.
A.D. 664.] LATIN AND CELTIC JEALOUSIES. 6 I
the remoteness of their situation, the simplicity of their man-
ners, and the poverty of their country. But they gloried in
their miracles; 1 they paid respect to relics;” they had their
monasteries, their abbots, and their abbesses, and lived accord-
ing to a monastic discipline ; they performed penances, fasted
on Wednesdays and Fridays,” ascribed virtue to the sign of the
cross, used a liturgy, believed in the intercession of Saints,” had
something very like to auricular confession, absolution,” and
masses for the dead." But who will doubt but that very
many of them were good and holy men, notwithstanding they
were so far infected by the superstitions of their time.
Though the early Celtic monks had caught the contagion of
many of those errors which are now denominated Roman, we
would do wrong to suppose that they yielded subjection to the
Roman See. Iona was their Rome. They were not even in
communion with the Papal Church; and the Latin and Celtic
clergy regarded each other with mutual suspicion and dislike.
No churches were as yet dedicated to St Peter; they bore the
names of Columba, Drostan, and other native Saints. The
British Church firmly refused to receive Augustine as its arch-
bishop. The Scottish Church was not moved by the letter of
Pope Honorius in regard to the observance of Easter; and
when Colman lost the day at Whitby, rather than yield, he
took the relics of Aidan and retired to lona. The Romanists
retaliated in their own way,+they denied the validity of
* The biographies of Columba, Aidan, Finan, &c., are full of these.
* The bones of Columba found no rest, and for centuries were being per-
petually carried hither and thither, from Ireland to Scotland, and from
Scotland to Ireland. The bones of Aidan (or rather a share of them) were
carried away from Lindisfarne by Colman. (Bede.)
d * Bede specially mentions that Aidan induced many to fast on these
3.V.S.
X Columba, when near his death, promised to intercede for his brother
when he got to heaven. (Adam. Vit. Col.)
* In Adamnan's Life of Columba, we find one Fiachna throwing himself
at the feet of the Saint and confessing his sins. Upon which Columba said,
“Rise up, son, and be comforted ; thy sins which thou hast committed are
forgiven.” (Lib. i. cap. xvi.) Adamnan himself, the author of this bio-
graphy, according to Bede, was wont to confess to a priest, and perform
severe penances. (Lib. iv. cap. xxv.) -
* When Columba heard of the death of Columbanus, “I must,” said he,
‘‘to-day, though I be unworthy, celebrate the holy mysteries of the
eucharist, for the reverence of that soul which this night, carried beyond
the starry firmament betwixt the holy quires of angels, ascended info Para-
dise.” (Adamnan, lib. iii. cap. xvi.) The whole subject is dispassion-
ately and learnedly discussed by Usher in his “Religion of the Ancient
Irish.”
62 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
Scotch orders. Accordingly when Wilfred was chosen Arch-
bishop of York in the room of Colman, he refused to receive
ordination at the hands of the Scots, as being out of com-
munion with Rome; and prayed that he might be allowed to
go beyond the sea, and receive Ordination from the hands of
catholic bishops.” His prayer was granted; but as he loitered
in France, his enemies had their revenge, and induced the
king to have Chad appointed to the See of York in his absence.
But this being done, great difficulty was felt in regard to his
consecration, as only one bishop was to be found in all
England who could be recognised as having been canonically
ordained.” Consecrated, however, he was, though he after-
wards required to submit to be consecrated again, to make his
apostolical succession sure.” Animated with this spirit, cer-
tain Saxon bishops, who had become the abettors of Rome,
met in conclave, and issued the following decree —“Such as
have received ordination from the bishops of the Scots or
Britons, who in the matter of Easter and the tonsure are not
united to the Catholic Church, let them be again, by imposi-
tion of hands, confirmed by a Catholic bishop. In like man-
ner also, let the churches that have been consecrated by those
bishops be sprinkled with exorcised water, and confirmed with
some service.” The decrees of this council go on to declare
that baptismal chrism and the eucharist were to be denied to
all such schismatics till they professed their adherence to the
one Church ; and that, on their doing so, though baptized
before, they were to be baptized again.” Such were the for-
midable consequences which followed their stubborn adher-
ence to a worn-out almanac, and a Simoniacal tonsure.
Such contumely on the part of the Romanists had its natural
effect on the minds of the British clergy, and no doubt also
on the minds of their brethren in the north, though our infor-
mation is confined to the former. They repaid contumely
with contumely, hatred with hatred, and excommunication
with excommunication. Did a Catholic seek the society of
the Welsh Christians, he was first put upon a penance of forty
days.” Did he speak of his church and his faith, he was told
* Usher, Religion of the Ancient Irish, chap. x. He quotes as his
authorities Bede, William of Malmesbury, and Stephen's Life of Wilfred.
2 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. xxviii.
* Ibid., book iv. chap. ii.
* Concil., Tom. vi. col. 1877.
* Usher, Religion of the Ancient Irish, chap. x.
A.D. 700-1000.] THE CULDEES. 63
he was no befter than a heathen." Upon such religious heart-
burnings the bards could not be silent; and a lay of Talies-
syn, honoured by the Welsh with the title of “Ben Beirdh,”
or chief of the bards, has descended to our time, in which a
woe is pronounced upon the priest who does not guard his
flock from Roman wolves.”
The feeble ray of light let in upon the ecclesiastical condi-
tion of Scotland by the writings of Cumin, Adamnan, and
Bede, perished before the expiry of the eighth century, and
for the next three hundred years we are left in hopeless dark-
ness. These centuries we know contained events of vast
political importance, as it was during them the Scottish and
Pictish monarchies were merged in one ; and they must have
witnessed ecclesiastical changes equally great, as such length-
ened periods of time always do. When the light begins again
to break, we meet for the first time, in the records of the
period, the name “Culdee * applied to a body of the Scottish
clergy. The first mention of them is in the Chartulary of St
Andrews, in which it is recorded that Brude, the last king of
the Picts, according to ancient tradition, had given the island
of Lochleven to God, St Serf, and the Culdee hermits there.
After this, notices of these Culdees are not uncommon ; and,
notwithstanding the dark ages which have intervened between
the landing on Iona and the founding of the priory of St
Andrews, we need have no hesitation in identifying these
Culdees as the direct descendants of the ancient Columbites.”
Culdee simply signifies a monk.” The record in the Chartu-
lary points back to a time when the Pictish kingdom was still
* Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book ii. chap. xx. “It is to this day,”
says this historian, ‘‘the custom of the Britons not to pay any respect to
the faith and religion of the English, nor to correspond with them any
more than with Pagans.”
* Usher gives the original Welsh of this lay, with the translation, from
the Chronicle of Wales, p. 254.
* Dr Grub in his Ecclesiastical History of Scotland concedes this (vol. i.
p. 230); Dr Burton seems reluctant to allow it, but does not expressly
deny it, nor attempt to explain who the Culdees were if not the descend-
ants of the Columbites. -
* Ceal in Gaelic signifies a retreat; Cealdeach is applicable to a person
fond of retirement; and that Culdee is sprung from the same root with
these words becomes more evident when we look to its Latinised form.
A'eledeus, which probably preserves the ancient pronunciation. Dr Burton,
following D, Reeves, thinks it is derived from the Celtic Céle-dé,
servant of God, the first half of the phrase still existing in the modern
.." The old pedantic derivation of Cultores Dei is now aban-
(IOIlêCI.
64 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
in existence. Moreover, there were Culdees in other countries
besides Scotland—they were to be found in England, in Wales,
in Ireland, from which St Columba had come, and we have
the name there much earlier than in Scotland. They may
have changed since the days of Columba-no doubt they had
—but they still preserved the collegiate life which he founded,
though they had long lost the missionary zeal which he in-
spired. It is certain they had struck their roots deep into the
soil; they had religious houses at Dunkeld, Abernethy,
Brechin, Monifieth, St Andrews, Dull, Deer, and the other
Centres of the ancient population ; and they were possessed of
immense tracts of land. Their abbots were frequently lay-
men, and in this fact ave either a remain of the old idea
that the monk need not be a priest, or an example of what
afterwards repeated itself at the time of the Reformation, and
even before it—a powerful laic seizing upon the Church’s in-
heritance, and holding it under an ecclesiastical name. These
lay abbots ranked with the greatest nobles, and in the case of
Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld, were connected with royalty.
The Culdees never submitted to the decrees of the Papacy
in regard to celibacy. Many of them were married men. St
Patrick was the son of a deacon, and the grandson of a priest.
In a synod said to have been held by the same Saint, together
with Auxilius and Isserninus, there was a special decree that
the wives of the clergy should not walk abroad with their heads
uncovered. Mylne relates that the Culdees of Dunkeld had
wives, after the manner of the eastern church, but that they
abstained from them when they ministered in their courses.”
It is thought that in the Gaelic names of Macpherson, Mac-
Vicar, and MacNab, we have evidence of descent, it is to be
hoped legitimate, from some ancient parson, vicar, or abbot.
Indeed, the ancient royal line had Culdee blood, for the
“gracious ” Duncan was the son of Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld,
who had a daughter of Malcolm II. for his wife. But not only
did the Culdees marry; they were frequently succeeded in
office by their sons. In the Registry of St Andrews there is
mention of thirteen Culdees who held their places by inherit-
ance.” Giraldus Cambrensis informs us that, even so late as
his day, it was common among the Culdees of Wales for “the
* Usher, chap. v.
* Vitae Dunkeldensis Ecclesiae Episcoporum, p. 4.
* Habebantur tamen in ecclesia Sancti Andreae, quanta et qualis ipsa tune
erat, tredecim per successionem carnalem, quos keledeos appellant.
A.D. 600-1200.] CULDEE REMAINS. 65
sons to get the churches after their fathers by succession, and not
by election, thus possessing and polluting the Church of God.”"
The same practice prevailed in Ireland, for we find Pope In-
nocent III. writing to his legate there, Cardinal Salernitan, to
use his endeavours to abolish the custom whereby children
succeeded to their fathers and grandfathers in their ecclesiasti-
Cal benefices.” In like manner we find Hildebert, Archbishop
of Tours, stating that when he was Bishop of Man, the canon-
ries or prebends of the church of Clermont were transmitted
hereditarily, so that there the canons were born canons, and
that none of the clergy were elected except the bishop and
abbot.” The transmitting of ecclesiastical offices by inherit-
ance was well nigh as great an evil as the cutting off from the
clergy all hope of doing so, by compelling them to celibacy.
Our happiness in knowing that they escaped one error, will
therefore be considerably abated by the discovery that they fell
into an opposite and almost equally pernicious one.”
We have the architectural remains of these Celtic monks
in the round towers of Abernethy and Brechin, and in a few
heaps of stones, found chiefly in the most desolate of the
Hebrides. Almost formless when looked at by themselves,
they are pronounced by antiquaries to be of the same type as
a few more perfect ecclesiastical ruins which exist in several
districts of Ireland. There is always a group of buildings—a
rectangular Oratory or church, with a door at the west end and
a window at the east, and a group of bee-hive-shaped cells
built of unhewn, uncemented stones, and which evidently
were the homes of the ecclesiastics. The whole is surrounded
by a rude rampart.
But the Books of Deer, of Lindisfarne, and Kells º are much
* Successive quoque, et post patres filii ecclesias obtinent, non elective;
haereditarie possidentes et polluentes ecclesiam Dei. (Illaudabilibus
Walliae, cap. vi.) He lived in the end of the 12th and the beginning of
the I3th centuries.
* Usher, Religion of the Ancient Irish, chap. 5.
* Epist. 55. See Goodall’s Preliminary Dissertation to Keith's Catalogue
of Scottish Bishops.
* The truth is, the compulsory celibacy of the Roman clergy was not
general at the time when the Columbites were in their prime.
* The Book of Deer (of which an illustrated edition is published by
the sº has a special interest, as it contains, written on its
margin and blank leaves, Gaelic memoranda of grants to the luonastcry,
apparently in the twelfth century. From this it has been inferred that the
language of Buchan was, at that time, Gaelic; but the memoranda prove
only that there were Gaelic monks in the monastery. Two centuries
VOL. I. F.
66 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
more interesting monuments of that time, and their beauti-
fully interlaced decorations, showing high art, are in strange
Contrast with the rude structures which sheltered the artists.
We must not forget, however, that the carvings on the clubs
and other implements of Savages are artistic in the highest
degree. But be this as it may, these Culdees, in the first flush
of their zeal, went forth as missionaries to almost every
Country of Europe—to France, Switzerland, Germany, Italy.
They travelled in companies, and were marked by their un-
kempt hair, their coarse cloaks, their leathern wallets, their
long walking sticks, like a band of primitive apostles. St
Bernard mentions them, and their handwriting is still to be
seen at St Gall and many other colleges and monasteries' of
Europe.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, we find the Culdees
struggling in the stream which ultimately carried them away.
The Church Reform of St Margaret and her sons had begun,
and the modern order of things came into contact with the
antiquated. They were often at war with the Roman bishops,
though now all but conformed to the Roman Church. The
disputes, however, more frequently regarded tithes, lands, and
privileges, than points of theology. At St Andrews, Dunkeld,
Dunblane, and Brechin, there had been convents of Culdees
from a remote antiquity, and when these places were consti-
tuted into bishoprics, the Culdees formed the bishop's chapter,
and had the election of the bishops. But Roman influence
was growing stronger every day, and as married Culdees were
thought to derogate from the sanctity of a cathedral, they were
gradually supplanted, and Canons-Regular substituted in their
room. They lingered longest at Brechin ; but with the four-
teenth century they vanish.”
We get a glimpse of the religious character of this, the last
age of Culdee supremacy, in the life of Margaret, the Saxon
queen of Malcolm III., written by Turgot, her confessor.
This royal lady, who has been honoured with canonization,
though very superstitious, and somewhat ostentatious in her
afterwards, Barbour in Aberdeen wrote in Anglo-Saxon. Not to mention
other circumstances, it was impossible there could be a change like this in
two hundred years.
* Anderson's Rhind Lectures, 1879, Montalembert’s “Monks of the
West.”
2 Dr Ebrard, in his Handbuch der Christlichen Kirchen-und-Dogmen
Geschichte, gives a glowing theory of the Culdees, which facts scarcely
bear out.
A. D. 1070-90.] QUEEN MARGARET. 67
acts of beneficence, nevertheless possessed many eminent vir-
tues, and must be ranked among the best of queens. She
exercised unbounded influence over her brave but illiterate
husband, who, though unable to read her books of devotion,
was accustomed fervently to kiss them. Every morning
she prepared food for nine orphan children ; and on her
bended knees she fed them. With her own hands she minis-
tered at table to crowds of indigent persons who assembled
to share in her bounty; and nightly, before retiring to rest,
she gave a still more striking proof of her humility by washing
the feet of six of them. She was frequently in church, pros-
trate before the altar, and there with sighs and tears, and pro-
tracted prayers, she offered herself a sacrifice to the Lord. '
When the season of Lent came round, besides reciting par-
ticular Offices, she went over the whole Psalter twice or thrice
within twenty-four hours. Before repairing to public mass,
she prepared herself for the solemnity, by hearing five or six
private masses; and when the whole service was over, she fed
twenty-four hungry on-hangers, and thus illustrated her faith
by her works. It was not till these were satisfied that she
retired to her own scanty meal. But with all this parade of
humility, there was an equal display of pride. Her dress was
gorgeous, her retinue large, and her coarse fare must needs be
Served in dishes of silver and gold, a thing unheard of in Scot-
land till her time. -
Fortunate in having obtained a good education, St Margaret
was particularly fond of showing her learning and knowledge
of the Scriptures. “Often,” says her confessor, “ have I
with admiration heard her discourse on subtle questions of
theology, in presence of the most learned men of the king-
dom.” She soon found abundant opportunities for exerting
her eloquence and erudition in attempts to reform certain
errors which had crept into the Church. About two hundred
years before this period, the Roman Church had altered the
time of observing Lent from the day following Quadragesima
Sunday to the Wednesday before it ; and, as usual, the Scot-
tish clergy lagged behind. Ignorant of this, the Queen ima-
gined the Roman Lent was the most primitive, and that her
clergy had been guilty of introducing a novelty. “Three
days,” says Turgot, “did she employ the sword of the Spirit
in combating their errors.” Bul as slie did not speak the
language of the Culdees, her husband was obliged to act
as her interpreter. Such a disputant was sure to win.
68 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IV.
Whether from ignorance of history, or respect for their Queen,
the Scottish ecclesiastics, though right, were convinced they
were wrong, and henceforward observed Lent according to
the Catholic institution. Triumphant in this, and probably
urged on by her English confessor, the royal reformer
addressed herself to other abuses. The clergy of Scotland at
this period had ceased to celebrate the Holy Communion at
Easter, and pleaded their unworthiness as an excuse for their
neglect." They are accused also of celebrating the mass
with barbarous rites, but it has been conjectured that
rites which appeared barbarous to Turgot may have been
primitive, apostolic, and Presbyterian, though not Roman.”
The Sunday, we are also told, was hardly observed ; labour
went on as on the other days of the week; and in this respect
also it has been thought the Scotch Church contained in its
matrix the petrified Christianity of earlier times. A few
Scotchmen moreover did then, what a few Englishmen are
beginning to do now — they married their deceased wife's
sister, and some, with less delicacy and decency, married their
step-mothers. The Anglican Margaret corrected these real or
supposed abuses, and introduced the canons and usages of the
Roman Church.
It is melancholy to think that the life of so good a queen
was shortened by the severity of her fasts. They gradually
undermined her constitution, and brought on severe stomach
pains, which were removed only by death. She had a favour-
ite crucifix, which is celebrated in history under the name of
the Black Rood. The cross was of gold, the figure of ebony,
and it was understood to enclose a piece of the true cross.
She was lying, wasted and dying, with the crucifix before her,
when her son Edgar arrived from the battle of Alnwick.
“How fares it with the king and my Edward P” said the
dying woman. The young man stood silent. “I know all,”
cried she ; “I know all. By this holy cross, by your filial
affection, I adjure you, tell me the truth.” “Your husband
and son are both slain,” said the youth. Lifting her hands
and eyes to heaven, she devoutly said, “Praise and blessing
* How like is this to revelations recently made in regard to some High-
land parishes in our own day, in which a large proportion of the people
are said to be unbaptized, and a still greater refused the Sacrament of the
Supper, and for precisely the same reason.
2. In the Historia Beati Reguli it is said, “Keledei namdue in
angulo quodam ecclesiae, quae modica nimiserat, suum officium more suo
celebrabant.” See also note, p. 91.
A.D. 1100-1300.] EXTINCTION OF THE CULDEES. 69
be to Thee, Almighty God, that Thou hast been pleased to
make me endure so bitter anguish in the hour of my depar-
ture, thereby, as I trust, to purify me in some measure from
the corruption of my sins ; and Thou, Lord Jesus Christ, who
through the will of the Father hast enlivened the world by
Thy death, oh, deliver me !” While the words were yet upon
her lips she softly expired."
This narrative makes it obvious that the Culdees had
degenerated since the days when they carried the blessings of
Christianity among the Saxons of Northumbria, and com-
pelled Bede, notwithstanding his Roman predilections, to do
homage to the purity of their lives and the ardour of their
zeal. They had sunk into a state of indolence and ignorance,
and vital piety had given way to a meaningless superstition.
Cut off from the rest of the religious world, they had become
like a pool of water, left behind by the tide, separated from
the wholesome agitation of the sea, and certain to stagnate.
On the other hand, the Romish Church at this period was
full of life and energy, actively and earnestly aggressive. It
had lost the simplicity of the gospel, but it had preserved its
proselytizing spirit. It was ambitious to embrace the world,
although its ambition was rather Ecclesiastical than Christian
—more to make men vassals of Rome than servants of Christ.
It was eloquent in preaching good works. Nor had it
preached in vain. Cathedrals were reared, monasteries
founded, hospitals endowed. Every one was in haste to do
Something or give something for the Church or the poor.
In St Margaret we have an embodiment of the spirit of her
age. What ostentatious humility, what almsgivings, what fast-
ings, what prayers | What piety, had it only been free from
the taint of superstition . The Culdees were listless and lazy,
while she was unwearied in doing good. The Culdees met
her in disputation ; but, being ignorant, they were foiled.
Death could not contend with life. The Indian disappears
before the advance of the white man. The Celtic Culdee
disappeared before the footsteps of the Saxon priest. David,
the son of Margaret—the saintly son of a sainted mother—
ascended the Scottish throne; and the altar-fires of Iona, now
smouldering in their ashes, went out under the strong rays of
regal and pontifical splcndour.
* Turgot's Vita Margaritae. See also Lord Hailes’ Annals.
7o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, [CHAP. V.
C H A P T E R V.
IT is to monks we are indebted for the introduction of Chris-
tianity into our country, and its preservation during several
centuries of barbarity and ignorance. We have already spoken
of the apostolic labours of Ninian, Kentigern, Columba, and
Cuthbert. These and several others have imprinted their
existence indelibly on the Scottish memory; they have towns
and churches still called by their names; and the fairs, in those
villages where they were once revered as patron Saints, are
almost invariably yet held upon the days set apart for their
honour in the calendar.” But time and Christianity had as
yet done little towards softening the ferocity of the Scots and
Picts. Having no longer the Britons to fight with, they
turned their arms against one another, and the few stray
notices we have of the eighth and ninth centuries are all of
blood and battle. In truth, it was impossible that a few
Culdee houses, scattered over Scotland, could make any power-
ful impression upon its people. They may have submitted to
the rites of Christianity; but it is evident they were yet
ignorant of its spirit, and, in all probability, with a few excep-
tions, knew nothing whatever of the doctrines it embraced.
One of the last dim notices, however, which we have of a
Pictish king is honourable to his humanity. It is recorded
that Brude, the son of Derili, gave his sanction to the “law of
St Adamnan,” which exempted women and children from the
butcheries and brutalities of war.” -
Jn the ninth century the Pictish kingdom came to an end.
The stray and dubious notices gleaned from ancient chronicles
give us no certain information how this came about, but there
is some ground for believing that a Scot king succeeded to the
Pictish throne by his female ancestry, and welded the two
peoples into one—as a Scottish king, in after ages, ascended
the throne of England, and formed the whole island into one
empire. Be this as it may, the Picts have vanished from his.
tory. It is thought they were ignorant of the use of letters,
and it is certain they have bequeathed us no historical records;
* “The fairs of towns and country parishes,” says the editor of the first
volume of the Origines, “were so invariably held on the day of the patron
saint, that where the dedication is known, a reference to the saint's day in
the Breviary serves to ascertain the day of the fair.”
* Robertson's Concilia. Eccles. Scot., Pref. xv.
A.D. 1000-1200.] DIVINE RIGHT OF TITHES. - - 7 I
so that had it not been for others, we should have been un-
aware of their very existence, though their blood flows in our
veins. The Scots were probably as savage as they ; but the
monks who came among them from Ireland brought with them
letters and religion.
It is recorded in the Registers of St Andrews, and in other
ancient chronicles, that toward the close of the ninth century
King Girg first emancipated the Scottish Church from Pictish
servitude. This would seem to suggest that thus early the
Scottish clergy had been brought under some species of Eras-
tian bondage, and that they found a deliverer in Girg: but it
is now thought the servitude referred to was only the exaction
of certain secular services and exactions, as we find exemption
from these carefully noted in some of the most ancient church
charters." -
Bede frequently refers to the “bishops” of the Scots; but
these were no other than Culdees, who, issuing from their cells,
laboured like itinerant preachers among the half-naked bar-
barians. There were no diocesan prelates, and no parochial
clergy in Scotland, till the twelfth century. But the work of
constituting dioceses and parishes having begun, went rapidly
on. Within a hundred years, the Bishoprics of St Andrews,
Dunkeld, Dunblane, Glasgow, Moray, Aberdeen, Brechin,
Ross, Caithness, Galloway, and Argyll, had all been erected.
It is worth inquiring what was the cause of this sudden
development of ecclesiastical vigour, if not of spiritual life.
The Christian clergy for many centuries depended entirely
upon the free-will offerings of those whom they had converted
to the faith. When Christianity became the religion of the
empire, and when it began to be believed that the heavenly
happiness of the departed might be expedited or increased by
the prayers of the priests, donations and bequests of money
and land became frequent, and from this source churches were
erected and benefices endowed. When the clergy had ob-
tained a still firmer hold upon the people, they began to
preach the divine right of tithes. The same proportion of our
substance which was exacted for the maintenance of the priests
and Levites under the law was surely still more justly due to
those who ministered at the altars of the New Testament. It
was seldom at this period that the clergy preached or reasoned
in vain. Though there is no mention of tithes in the codes of
any of the Roman emperors, the payment of them came gra-
* Chron. de Mail, p. 224. Wynton, Chron. Scot. Book of Deer.
72 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
dually into use ; and in the eighth century, the Emperor
Charlemagne made them compulsory in his dominions, and
piously declared, in his laws, that the devils had muttered in
the air that the non-payment of the righteous exaction was the
cause of a famine which had scourged the country.” Indebted
to the Roman bishop for having placed the imperial crown
upon his head, he still further repaid the boon by the rich
offerings which he laid upon the shrine of St Peter; and his
irresistible arms were ever at the service of the Church, to
enforce baptism upon reluctant pagans, or to free Rome from
troublesome Lombards. In his time the Church grew to a
greatness it never had before.
Alfred the Great appears to have imitated in England the
policy of Charlemagne. When he came to the throne he found
religion almost totally extinguished by the constant incursions
of the heathen Danes. The monasteries had been razed to
the ground; the monks dispersed ; in many provinces the
whole Church service had been discontinued ; 'and the king
laments that he had found but one priest south of the Thames,
and very few north of the Humber, who could understand the
Latin liturgy. Alfred set himself to build up the Church
which had fallen down. He invited learned ecclesiastics to
his kingdom, made his own daughter the abbess of a nunnery,
expressly enjoined the payment of tithes, and devoted much
of his own time to works of piety.” The virtues, learning, and
liberality of Alfred had an influence upon the whole king-
dom; religion became a fashion, and churchmen mightily in-
creased; so that two hundred years afterward, when William
the Conqueror made his survey of the kingdom, he found
in it 45,017 ecclesiastics, with not a little territory in their
hands. -
This mania to enrich the Church, travelling northward,
soon began to infect Scotland. In the year IoS7 Malcolm
* Omnis homo ex Sua proprietate legitimam decimam ad ecclesiam con-
ferat. Experimento enim di dicinus, in anno, quo illa valida fames irrep-
sit, ebullire vacuas unnonas a daemonibus devoratas, et voces exproba-
tionis auditas. Such is the decree of the Council of Frankfort. Selden
and Montesquieu both regard Charlemagne as the legal author of tithes.
(See Gibbon, Hist., chap. xlix.) “The civil power was first interposed
in support of the right in the reign of Charlemagne, who, in 778, intro-
duced them into his dominions in France and Germany, by the following
law —‘Ut unusquisque suam decimam donet, atque per jussionem epis-
copi Sui dispensetur.’” (Leges Longobard. per Lindenbrogius. Connel
on Tithes, book i. chap. i.)
* Asser's Life of Alfred.
A.D. 1060-1200.] SAXON AND NORMAN SETTLERS. 73
Canmore was crowned King of Scotland at Scone. In Ioé6
the Normans landed on the coast of Sussex, and the battle of
Hastings was fought, which decided the fate of England, and
placed a new dynasty on the throne. Many of the Saxons
fled into Scotland to escape from their Norman masters; and
among others, the royal Edgar, with his mother and two sisters.
Malcolm welcomed the refugees, gave them fitting entertain-
ment at court, and soon made Margaret, the elder of the
sisters, his Queen. The learning, virtues, and piety of this
lady we have already recorded. From this period we find a
stream of Saxon and Norman settlers pouring into Scotland.
They came not as conquerors, and yet they came to possess
the land. With amazing rapidity, sometimes by royal grants,
and sometimes by advantageous marriages, they acquired the
most fertile districts from the Tweed to the Pentland Firth ;
and almost every noble family in Scotland now traces from them
its descent. The strangers brought with them English civilisa-
tion, and English attachment to an ecclesiastical hierarchy,
and it is to their influence and example we must attribute
the establishment and endowment of the hierarchy in the
country.
Notwithstanding the devout spirit which animated Malcolm
and his queen, they appear to have made few donations to the
Church. The endowment of a Benedictine establishment at
Dunfermline, and a small grant of land to the Culdees of Fife,
are the only, instances of their liberality which have been
traced. The two elder sons of Malcolm, Edgar and Alexan-
der, both evinced their piety by founding monasteries; but his
youngest son, David, who ultimately succeeded to the throne,
was by far the most liberal benefactor of the Scottish clergy,
and bought at a great price the honour of Roman apotheosis.
He founded the Bishoprics of Glasgow, Brechin, Dunkeld,
Dunblane, Ross, and Caithness. A, bishop had been located
at Murtlich; him he translated to Aberdeen, and bestowed upon
him ample revenues. St Andrews had been raised to opulence
by his immediate predecessor.” If the remaining Scottish
Sees had any existence prior to his reign, it is certain no suc-
cession of bishops can be traced, nor till now had they any
grants of tithes and lands, so necessary to the proper consti-
tution of a bishopric. The same pious liberality called into
* The Bishops of St Andrews probably had some possessions before this
period, but they must have been inconsiderable. Alexander I. made them
a grant of a large territory known by the name of the Boar's Chase.
74 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
existence a multitude of abbacies, priories, and nunneries,
and monks of every order and in every garb Swarmed in the
land. He founded no fewer than fourteen or fifteen religious
houses, and richly endowed every one of them. “ He was a
sore saint to the crown,” said James the First of Scotland.
The proprietors of land followed the example of the
monarch, and their English culture predisposed them to do so.
Having acquired their feudal charters with the king's + or
seal attached, they began to settle and improve their manors.
Perhaps upon their ground they found an old religious house
already existing, but if not they built a church and tithed the
manor for its support. It was thus that tithes, and parishes,
and a parochial clergy, were first called into existence. The
words “parson’’ or “vicar’ do not occur in any charter be-
fore the time of David I.1
But the rise of our BISHOPRICS, the origin of our PAROCHIAL
SYSTEM, and the establishment of our MONASTERIES are deserv-
ing of a more minute investigation.
As we have already seen, the original ecclesiastical system
of Scotland was Abbatial, and not Episcopal—tribal rather
than diocesan. But churches sprung up apart from the mother
monastery, and the clergy who took charge of these were the
earliest bishops. We have traces of such bishops of St An-
drews from the close of the ninth century, but they had no
circumscribed diocese—they were simply bishops of the
Scots. It was more than two hundred years later before the
diocesan system of England was introduced by Alexander I.
He appointed to the SEE OF ST ANDREws Turgot, his mother's
Anglican Confessor, and probably the prompter of all her
Anglican reforms. The transaction was brought out into clear
historic relief by the rival claims of York and Canterbury to
consecrate, and the resistance of these by the Scotch monarch
and clergy. The church had not yet learned to limit its pre-
tensions to the boundaries of nations. Bishop Robert, the
third of his line, erected the Church of St Regulus, and soon
afterwards the noble Cathedral of St Andrews was begun, and
slowly built up during a century and a half, and finally conse-
crated in the presence of Robert the Bruce in the beginning of
the fourteenth century. The SEE OF GLASGow dates from the
year II 16. In that year David, Prince of Cumberland, and
afterwards King of the Scots, directed an inquest to be made
regarding the See, which resulted in its being put in possession
Collections, p. 230. Connel on Tithes, book i., chap. ii.
A.D. 1100-1300.] DIOCESES AND PARISHES. 75
of many valuable manors scattered over the whole South of
Scotland. In the same century the Cathedral Church which
still stands, the noblest architectural structure in the mercan-
tile metropolis of the west, was begun. It was consecrated in
I 197, and completed by Bishop Bondington, who died in 1258.
At DUNKELD, as Mylne, the historian of the See, relates, Con-
stantine III., King of the Picts, instituted a Culdee House
about the year 729 ; which was converted into a cathedral
church in the twelfth century, when David I. was pushing on
his ecclesiastical reformation. The transmutation was facilitated
by the first mitre being conferred upon the old Culdee abbot.
Policy would dictate the offer, and ambition would embrace
it. Thus was the new church system, erected on the ruins of
the old; ancient Culdee houses frequently forming the basis
of the new cathedral churches. It is needless to trace the
. Origin of all the bishoprics, as those we have given will
illustrate the origin of all. e
The division of the land into dioceses was quickly followed
by its division into PARISHEs. The lord of the manor, led
by the example of the monarch and his own English ideas,
erected a church for the instruction of his vassals, and tithed
the soil for the maintenance of the priest. The manor
and the parish were thus in general identical. The parish
being thus made coincident with the manor, frequently
followed its future fortunes. If a detached piece of land
was subsequently added to the original possession, it some-
times became also a part of the parish, and this accounts for
the divided and fragmentary character of some parishes at
the present hour. On the other hand, when a large manor
was subsequently split into several smaller ones, it sometimes
was felt to be desirable that each should have a separate
church, and thus the division of land was followed by a
division of parishes. In this way the parishes of Crawford
John, Roberton, and Symington branched off from the
original parish and manor of Wiston. In other cases a
thriving burgh sprung up in the midst of a parish, and required
a church, a burial-ground, and baptismal font for itself. It
was thus that the parish of Edinburgh was taken out of the
heart of St Cuthbert's, and Aberdeen from the parish of St
Machar,” Besides these, other causes concurred to the erec-
tion of new parishes, and the division of old ones, and fre-
* Introduction to the first volume of Origines Parochiales.
76 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLANT). [CHAP. V.
quently led to conflicting claims and bitter disputes about
privileges and tithes, altarage dues, and fees for the baptism
of infants, and for the burial of the dead..! --
In tracing the origin of our parishes, we have, in fact, also
traced the origin of tithes and patronage; for when a parish
church was erected, the tithes of the soil were required for
the maintenance of the priest, and the lord of the manor
very naturally assumed the right of presenting to the bene-
fice. The system was the growth of circumstances rather
than the result of any legislative plan ; but than it none better
could have been devised to carry Christianity into every
hamlet and every home. By dividing the land, it subdued it.
The noble gave proof of his piety by endowing the Church
with the tithes of his manor, and the Church more than repaid
the benefit by its humanising influence upon the serfs who
tilled his soil and followed his banner to battle. Even the
right of patronage was then an unmixed good, for it bound
the clergy to the native aristocracy, and so far freed them
from the foreign domination of their spiritual head, and
the ignorant villains had not yet dreamt of the indefeasible
right of the Christian people to choose their own bishops and
priests.
Before the parochial system had time fully to develop
itself, and exhibit its capacity for reclaiming and instructing
a whole population, it was well-nigh destroyed by the intro-
duction of a new element. The parochial clergy, in a
multitude of instances, were jostled out of their places by
MONKS, or if allowed to continue at their work, they were
Cozened out of their legitimate revenues, which were appro-
priated to the support of some Religious House, with a high
* The great extent of the ancient parishes, and the difficulty of passage
to the parish church, frequently led to their division. Thus the parish of
Glenbuchat was separated from the pārish of Logie, because on one
occasion, while the people of the Glen were on their way to the parish
church to keep Easter, they were caught in a storm, and five or six persons
perished.
We have said nothing of Chapels in the text. Very frequently a
nobleman took a pride in having a chapel on his own grounds for the con-
venience of his own household. These erections were numerous in Roman
Catholic times.
Collegiate Churches were the growth of the fifteenth century. They
had no parishes attached to them. They were instituted for Secular
Canons performing divine service and singing masses for the souls of their
ſounders and their friends. They were governed by a Dean or Provost.
Of such Collegiate Churches there were thirty-three in Scotland,
A.D. 1100-1300.] MONKS. 77
savour of sanctity. We have already alluded to the rise of
monachism, and its introduction into Scotland by Columba
and the Culdees; but that primitive form of it had passed
away, and now, with a new organisation and restored vitality,
it came and reconquered the land.
The first monks were completely independent of one
another ; they belonged to no order, and were obedient to
no rule; but each, in his own cell, inflicted upon himself
any amount of torture he pleased. But now they were all
marshalled into different societies, and made subject to a
particular discipline; and from the fidelity and courage with
which, in serried array, they fought the battles of the papacy,
they have been appropriately called the militia of Rome.
As opposed to the secular clergy they were called Regulars,
because they followed some rule. The Augustinians ſollowed
the rule of St Augustine; and the Benedictines the rule of
St Bennet. These were the two most ancient orders, and
the most famous. Under the former were comprehended the
regular canons of St Augustine, the canons of St Anthony,
the Praemonstratenses, the Red Friars, and the Black Friars
or Dominicans. Under the latter there were the Benedic-
tines of Marmoutier, of Cluny, of Tyron ; the Bernardines
or Cistercians; and the monks of Vallis-Caulium. Besides
all these, there were the Franciscans, the Carthusians, the
Carmelites or White Friars, and others still of inferior name.
Some of these did not come into existence till the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries; for every age threw off its own
swarm. The divisions we have given depended upon the
rule which the Religious obeyed, the leader they acknow-
ledged, or the place where they originated; but there was
another division which crossed these—for all the orders we
have enumerated subsisted either on the endowments which
their houses had acquired, or by begging. They were there-
fore divided into A'enſed Æeligious and Mendicant Afriars.1
The Black, White, and Grey Friars were all mendicants.
The rules under which the various orders lived were ex-
tremely various—some excessively rigid, and others com-
paratively mild ; but there were three vows common to them
all—obedience, chastity, and poverty.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an intense passion
to found and endow illuſiastelies seized upon Scotland.
That of Dunfermline was founded by Malcolm Canmore ;
* Spottiswood’s Religious Houses, also Walcott’s Ancient Church of
Scotland.
78 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
Coldingham, by Fagar ; Scone and St Columba on Inch-
colm, by Alexander I. David, with pious prodigality, erected
and endowed Jedburgh, Kelso, Melrose, Newbattle, Holy-
roodhouse, Kinloss, Cambuskenneth, Dryburgh, and, besides
these, a convent of Cistercian Nuns at Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Many of these, however, were merely the transformation of
ancient Culdee houses. Thus the revenues of the Culdee
Monastery of Lochleven were bestowed on the Priory of St
Andrews, and the Culdees were informed by the King in his
Charter that if they chose to remain and obey the rules of
the new-comers, they might, but that if not, they would be
expelled from the island. The successors of these monarchs
followed their devout example, and the nobles strove to
emulate their kings. Many causes conspired to produce this.
The monks and friars had a high repute for superior holiness,
and they attracted the attention and won the veneration of a
rude and superstitious age by the austerity of their lives, the
fervour of their devotions, the fame of their preaching, and
the self-inflicted pain of their penances. The rich and,
the great became their worshippers, and built them those
beautiful houses, the very ruins of which still excite our ad-
miration. Perhaps the noble, as he saw the abbey raising
itself against the sky, with its ribbed doorways and richly-
decorated windows, looked forward to the possibility of him-
self becoming a brother of the order, when age had cooled his
martial ardour, and taught him to prepare to die; perhaps he
was ambitious that a member of his family might be appointed
its abbot ; at all events, he had chosen its sacred enclosures
as the place of sepulture for himself, his countess, and their
children, and he never doubted but that the endowments he
lavished upon it would secure the repose of their souls."
* In the preface to the Origines we have examples of the operation of
these motives. “In the reign of William the Lion, Robert de Kent gave
a territory in Innerwic to the Monks of Melrose, adding this declaration,
And be it known, I have made this gift to the church of Melrose, with
myself, and the monks have granted me their cemetery, and the service
of a monk at my decease ; and if I be free, and have the will and the
power, the monks shall receive me in their convent.” (Lib. de Melrose,
p. 59.) “Gilbert, Earl of Strathearn, and his countess Matildis, who
founded the monastery in I2OO, declared that they so loved the place that
they had chosen it as the place of burial for them and their successors,
and had already buried there their first-born, for the repose of whose soul
chiefly it was that they so bountifully endowed the monastery. At the
same time they bestowed five parish churches upon it.” (Lib. de Ins.
Missar, pp. 3, 5.)
A.D. 1200-1400.] APPROPRIATION OF PARISHES. 79
Lands, tithes, rights of pasture, of fuel, of fishing, were heaped
upon the monks; and when all else failed, the parish church,
with its revenues, was annexed to the monastery, to be held by
it for ever. In this case, a paltry pittance was reserved for
the impoverished parish priest who served the cure; or one
of the monks performed the duty, and the monastery engulphed
all. To such an extent was this system carried, that in the
reign of William the Lion, no fewer than thirty-three parish
churches were bestowed on the Abbey of Aberbrothock, then
newly erected, and dedicated to St Thomas à Becket, the
fashionable saint of the period, who for a season eclipsed
even the glories of Mary." At the time of the Reformation,
of the thousand parishes in Scotland, about seven hundred
had been appropriated to bishops and Religious Houses.”
The parochial clergy were Crippled and humbled by the with-
drawal of their revenues to pamper the monks, and to such a
state of poverty and dependence were some of the vicars re-
duced, that the popes had to interfere to save them from the
rapacity of the bishops and abbots; * and ultimately James
III. passed an act forbidding any further appropriations, under
the pains of high treason.” But the evil was already done; the
secular clergy were degraded and wretchedly poor; the
revenues of the Church had gone to fatten idle friars, who,
whatever their primitive virtues may have been, were now the
scandal of the Church ; and if it be true they defended and
supported the papacy for a time, it is certain they made its
downfall more dreadful in the end.
Mr Spottiswoode, in his account of the Religious Houses
that were in Scotland at the time of the Reformation, has
enumerated one hundred and twenty monasteries, besides
more than twenty convents for the reception of nuns; and
though his list is the fullest that has yet been given to the
world, it is said there were at least other forty monastic
establishments, which he has omitted to mention. There
must therefore have been nearly two hundred such institutions
* Origines, Introduction to vol. i.
* Connel on Tithes, book i. The exact number of parishes before the
Reformation is unknown. It is certain that very many ancient parishes
have been suppressed since the Reformation. Thus, within the bounds of
the Presbytery of Auchterarder, there must have been once nearly twice
the number of parishes thcre are at present, the majority of the modern
parishes being a combination of two or three ancient ones.
* Connel, book i., chap. iii.
*James III., parl. vi., chap. xliv, I471.
8o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
in our country. We have no Monasticon from which we can
learn the number of their inmates, but we may safely estimate
them at between two and three thousand." Dunfermline ap-
pears to have had from thirty to fifty monks; and Paisley,
Elgin, Arbroath, Kelso, had probably as many. In 1542
Melrose is said to have contained three hundred, but this is
manifestly a great exaggeration. When the convent of the
Grey Friars at Perth was demolished in 1559, only eight friars
belonged to it ; but it is probable there had been a con-
siderable number of deserters before this.”
Of Mr Spottiswood's list, forty-eight were occupied by
Augustinian monks, thirty-one by Benedictines, and forty-one
by the three orders of mendicants, viz., fifteen by the Domini-
cans or Black Friars, seventeen by the Franciscans or Grey
Friars, and nine by the Carmelites or White Friars.
Of the Augustinian establishments, Scone, Lochleven,
Monimusk, Pittenweem, Holyroodhouse, Cambuskenneth,
Jedburgh, Inchaffray, Abernethy, &c., &c., were occupied by
canons-regular. Whitehorn and Dryburgh were in possession
of the Praemonstratenses; and Red Friars were settled at
Aberdeen, Dunbar, Dundee, and several other places.
Of the Benedictime establishments, the most famous were
those at Coldingham, Dunfermline, Kelso, Kilwinning, Aber-
brothock, Paisley, Melrose, Newbattle, Culross, and Plus-
cardin. All these monasteries were possessed of large reve-
nues. They had great tracts of land, rights of pasture, of
fishing, of hunting, of multure, besides the teinds of many
parishes. Merely as landed proprietors the abbots must have
exercised a prodigious influence. Many of them wore the
mitre, had seats in Parliament, and exercised episcopal juris-
diction over all the churches subject to the monastery.
There was an establishment of Carthusians at Perth,
founded by James I. ; but this brotherhood, in their white
gowns, scapulars, and Capuchins, were never to be seen in the
1 In a note to Dalyell’s Dissertation on Ane Booke of Godly Songs, there
is mention made of an ancient memorial to the Queen Regent (we suppose
Mary of Guise), in which there is an estimate of the religious foundations
at that time in the kingdom. There were, according to it, 13 bishops, 1
Lord St John, 60 abbots and friars; of Trinity Friars, Carmelites, Cor-
deliers, &c., about 50 places; provostries, about 50 ; II deans; II arch-
deans; II chanters. The parsons are estimated at about 500 ; the vicars,
2Ooo ; religious men and women, I I I4 ; other priests, IOOO ; in all, about
4600 persons living on rents.
* See note to Dr M'Crie's Life of Knox, Period First.
A.D. 1100-1500.] HospitaLLERS AND TEMPLARs. 8 I
streets of St Johnstone, for their gloomy rule compelled them
to eat in solitude, to observe a constant silence, and never
to leave their cloisters. But every town in Scotland swarmed
with the begging friars, black, white, and grey. The Domini-
cans exercised their peculiar privilege of preaching everywhere
without the permission of the bishop, and confessing all
noble ladies and their lords, to the infinite chagrin of the
Curate, who had hoped to hear the secrets of the hall ; but,
more especially, they had a keen scent for heresy, for to their
Order belonged the imperishable honour of having instituted
the Inquisition, preached the crusade against the Albigeois,
and poisoned with the hostie a refractory king. The bare-
footed Franciscans prowled about in their long grey gowns,
with a cowl on their neck, and a rope about their waist,
begging alms for the love of God; and the Carmelites, who
pretended to be the successors of Elijah and Elisha, were dis-
tinguishable by their white habits, and competed with the
Other two mendicant orders for the veneration of the people.
Unclean and odorous then as they are now, while the pious
might be edified by their touch, the polite would not willingly
remain long in close proximity to their persons. -
But it still remains for us to mention two celebrated orders
—the Knights of St John and of Solomon's Temple, who,
combining the military and monastic life, were wonderfully
fitted to gain the admiration of an age at Once martial and
superstitious. The Hospitallers or Knights of St John took
their rise from some merchants of Melphis, who, previous to
the Crusades, had obtained from the Caliph of Egypt permis-
sion to erect a church and hospital in Jerusalem for the enter-
tainment of Christian pilgrims. Conspicuous for their bravery
at the siege of the Holy City, when Godfrey led his victorious
Crusaders within its walls, he bestowed upon them large pos-
sessions, and from a church which they had erected in honour
of St John, and an hospital for the reception of the sick, they
derived the name by which they were known. Formed into a
regular monastic-military order, they took a vow to defend
pilgrims against the infidel Saracens, and assumed as their
peculiar dress a black habit with a cross of gold, having eight
points enamelled white, in memory of the eight beatitudes.
Their ranks were soon filled with the most illustrious youth of
Europe; and so scrupulous were they in regard to those whom
they admitted, that every entrant was obliged to prove his
nobility for four generations, and that he had been born in
F
82 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
lawful wedlock; unless, perchance, he was the bastard of a
king, for royal blood alone could wipe out the disgrace of
illegitimacy. Introduced into Scotland by David I., where
there were no pilgrims to defend, and no infidels to fight with,
they yet found favour with the people, and acquired numerous
residences, the chief of which was at Torphichen, where the
Preceptor of the order resided. They had hospitals both in
Edinburgh and Leith.
The Templars, like the Hospitallers, were the offspring of
the Crusades. The constant danger to which the kingdom of
Jerusalem was exposed by the incursions of the infidels was
the occasion of their institution. They followed the rule of
St Augustine, and the constitution of the Canons-Regular of
Jerusalem, and vowed to defend the temple and city, to
entertain pilgrims, and guard them safely through the Holy
Land. They wore a white habit, embroidered with a red
Cross ; and these martial monks soon became the terror of the
Moslem, and the firmest bulwark of the Christian throne.
Nine thousand manors scattered over Europe rewarded their
services and courage, and enabled them to support a regular
army for the defence of Palestine. They obtained a footing
in Scotland about the same time as the Hospitallers, and soon
there was scarcely a parish in which they had not some pos-
session. In Edinburgh and Leith numerous houses belonged
to them, and when these were feued to seculars, the cross of
the order was affixed to the highest point of the gable to mark
out its superiors. The temple near Southesk was their prin-
cipal residence; but those numerous designations of land still
in use, in which the adjunct of temple occurs, are a pretty Sure
index of the ancient possessors. The Knights of the Temple
fell as quickly as they rose. Their wealth begatinsolence and
pride; their monastic vows were forgotten amid the license of
the camp and the court; and the world was scandalised by
the corruption, avarice, and imputed crimes of the soldiers of
the Cross, who retained nothing of their first virtues but their
fearless and fanatic bravery. The order was suppressed in
the fourteenth century; many of the knights were cruelly put
to death for vices charged upon them, but never proved ; and
in Scotland and elsewhere, a large part of their property was
transferred to the Hospitallers. It has been suspected that
their wealth hastened their ruin.
It was not to be expected that the female mind, ever sus-
ceptible of religious impressions, should withstand the tend-
A.D. 1100-1500.] NUINNERIES. 83
ency to monasticism at that time so prevalent. At Edinburgh,
Dalmulin, Berwick, St Bathans, Coldstream, Eccles, Hadding-
ton, Aberdeen, Dunbar, and several other places, there were
nunneries; and within these, ladies connected with many of
the noblest families in the land. The nuns of Scotland
revered, as the first of their order in our country, a legendary
St Brigida, who is fabled to have belonged to Caithness, to
have renounced an ample inheritance, lived in seclusion, and
finally to have died at Abernethy in the sixth century. Church
chroniclers relate, that before Coldingham was erected into a
priory for monks, it had been a sanctuary for nuns, who
acquired immortal renown by cutting off their noses and lips
to render themselves repulsive to some piratical Danes who
had landed on the coast. The sisterhood of Lincluden were
of a different mind, for they were expelled by Archibald,
Earl of Douglas, for violating their vows as the brides of
heaven, and the house was converted into a collegiate church."
History contains no record of the influence which these
devoted virgins exercised upon the Church or the world; and
we may believe that, shut up in their cloisters, and confined
to a dull routine of daily duty, they could exercise but little.
They would chant their matins and vespers, count their beads,
employ themselves with needlework, and in many cases vainly
pine for that world which their parents or their own childish
caprice had forced them to abandon ; but the world could not
witness their piety, nor penetrate their thoughts. Yet men
are strangely moved by the very sight of walls, within which
are enclosed women who have devoted their virginity to God,
and who are supposed to serve Him without any admixture
of those passions which mingle so largely in other breasts ;
and no doubt the very existence of nunneries, and the reli-
gious mystery which shrouded their inmates, must have had
their power in moulding the piety of the times, though it was
unconsciously exercised, and too secret in its operation to be
traced.
Though the Roman hierarchy was long of obtaining a firm
footing in our country, when once established it soon reached
a height of power and opulence unsurpassed in any other por-
tion of Europe. The barbarity and ignorance of our ancestors
inclined them to superstition, and their superstition inclined
them to prodigality. Before the Reformation one-half of the
whole national wealth had passed into the hands of the clergy,
* Forbes's Treatise of Church Lands and Tithes, p. 22.
84 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAN D. [CHAP. V.
which is proved by the fact, that they paid one-half of every
tax imposed upon land, and there is little reason to believe
that they would bear an unequal proportion of the burden."
This enormous wealth must have been almost all accumulated
in the course of four centuries—from the twelfth to the six-
teenth ; and whatever use we make of it, we should not shut
our eyes to the contrast between the religious liberality of thes
period which preceded, and that which has followed the Refor-
mation. The entire riches of the Church were the result of pri-
vate donations and bequests; the free-will offerings of a piety,
which, though mistaken, must have been sincere. Almost
surpassing the lavish liberality of the kings, who thus alienated
nearly all their royal demesnes, were the gifts of the great earls;
and in the thirteenth century we find with astonishment an
Earl of Strathearn dividing his wide property into three por-
tions, one of which he bequeathed to the See of Dunblane ; a
second to the Abbey of Inchaffray; and the third only he
reserved for the inheritance of his family.”
So large a proportion of the national wealth locked up, in
our day, in the coffers of the clergy, who are excluded from
putting out their coin to usury in mercantile transactions,
would be an unmitigated evil, and would most seriously Cripple
the operations of trade. But it admits of question as to
whether it was an evil four hundred years ago, or whether the
soil could have been in better hands than in those of the
ministers of religion ? There were few traders in those primi-
tive times superior to pedlars, and their humble traffic required
little capital. Had so many rich manors not passed into the
possession of the Church, they must have remained in the
possession of the great barons; and surely it was well for the
country that they were transferred from the men of war to the
men of peace.
The clergy everywhere introduced agriculture and the arts.
Columba had fields waving with corn, and barns filled with
plenty in his dreary island of Iona, when there were few corn-
* This is the estimate both of Dr Robertson and Dr M'Crie. Sir
George Mackenzie estimates the tithes paid to the clergy at a fourth part
of the rents of lands, and their lands at another fourth. Forbes remarks
that the clergy were most justly subjected to the payment of the half of the
taxt-roll in all public compositions. Keith says that it is ascertained by
the public records that in the case of extraordinary taxations on land, one-
third was paid out of the lands of the clergy. See Connel on Tithes,
book i, chap. iii.
* Fordun, Scotichron, lib. viii. c. 73.
A.D. 1100-1500.] HUMANISING INFLUENCES. 85
fields or granaries in Scotland. St Mungo, according to the
legend, “yoked the wolf and the deer to his plough,” and the
legend has its much meaning. Around every monastery were
extensive orchards, with trees grafted by the hands of the
monks, and laden with fruits nowhere else to be found in the
Country. The industry and arts of the monks were copied by
their dependents, and the traveller could at once discern, by
the Superior cultivation of the fields, and the more contented
look of the peasantry, the districts that belonged to the
Church. The clergy were confessedly the best landlords; they
gave feus, and let out their farms upon long and easy leases,
and in this way they encouraged the reclaiming of moors and
marshes which might otherwise have lain waste to the present
hour.
The immunity from war enjoyed by the Church and its vas-
Sals greatly favoured the improvement both of the land and of
those who tilled it. The retainers of the fierce barons, who
divided with the clergy the property of the soil, were con-
stantly harassed by military duty; they were liable at any mo-
ment to be called upon to join in a raid against the English
Or Some hostile chief in the neighbourhood, to burn, plunder,
and slay; and amid such scenes, they lost all relish for the
arts of peace; besides, they were at all times subject to
have retaliated upon themselves the havoc they had wrought
upon others ; and few men will sow fields when there is a
strong probability that others will reap them. The tenants
and retainers of the clergy were happily free from all this, and
were liable to be called to arms only on urgent and general
Occasions; and so great was the respect for their possessions,
that even in the case of national hostilities, they were generally
spared. The clergy, with admirable prudence, encouraged
this lenity, not only by the powers of superstition, but by
checking anything like a marauding disposition on the part of
their dependents; and the consequence was, that they enjoyed
the blessings of perpetual peace in the midst of turmoil and
war; they had light in their dwellings when darkness was in
the land of Egypt.
But the clergy were not only the greatest agricultural im-
provers; they were the most learned men of the time, and, in
fact, monopolized all the learning of the period. It was in the
still cloister that the lamp of knowledge was kept burning, and
had it been exposed to the rude winds of heaven in those stormy
days, it would infallibly have been blown out. Notwithstand-
86 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
ing the many pictures we have of overgrown and lazy monks,
sleeping away their whole lives amid the drowsy atmosphere
of their conventual buildings, or spending their days and
nights in wassail, swilling Bourdeaux, and rejoicing in venison,
even in Lent—pictures which are perfectly true to life; yet it
must be remembered that this was not always, and never uni-
versally the case. Many of the ancient clergy were thoughtful
and studious men, adepts in the scholastic theology then in
vogue, and well read in the canon and civil law, a knowledge
of which was the surest road to ecclesiastical and political
distinction. We must not be so ungrateful as to forget that,
before the invention of printing, it was monkish pens that
multiplied copies of the sacred Scriptures, and preserved to us
those Greek and Roman classics which at length revived in
Europe a love for literature, and which still delight and im-
prove us in our hours of ease. It is the unwritten saying of
Chalmers, that the accumulated revenues of the rich diocese
of Durham were not misspent, since they had encouraged and
fostered the genius of Butler: may it not be said, with still
greater propriety, that our monasteries were not endowed in
vain, if they have preserved to us our Homers and Virgils, and
above all, our Bibles?
Without the assistance of the clergy, the business of the
State could not have been conducted. A knowledge of let-
ters was esteemed unbecoming on the part of the nobility; and
Tytler declares, that during the long period from the accession
of Alexander III. to the death of David II., it is impossible to
produce a single instance of a Scottish baron who could sign
his own name." As a matter of course, almost the whole work
of legislation fell into the hands of the clergy, and the fighting
was left to the lay lords. The bishops and mitred abbots
formed by far the most influential section of the parliament,
and filled almost all the important offices of State. The Lord
Chancellor was the first subject in the realm ; and of fifty-
four persons who held this high office from the dawn of
history to the death of Beaton, forty-three were churchmen.
The Lords of Session were supreme judges in all civil affairs;
and by the original constitution of the College of Justice, the
president and one-half of the senators must needs be eccle-
siastics.”
A power so great was not unattended with honour. Most
* History, vol. ii.
* Robertson's History of Scotland, vol. i. Crawford’s Officers of State.
A.D. 1100-1500.] CHURCH CHRONICLES. 87
of the dignified churchmen belonged to the first families in
the land, and many of them were closely allied to royalty.
Not only bishops, but abbots, took precedence of the greatest
earls, and every clergyman was entitled to have “Sir” ap-
pended to his name, if he had not the higher academic title of
“Master.” They managed to exempt their persons from the
jurisdiction of the civil tribunals, as too sacred to be there
dealt with ; and the reputed sanctity of the sacerdotal charac-
ter was enough at all times to screen the delinquent priest
from the hands of justice or the fury of private revenge. To
assault an ecclesiastic was a crime for which nothing but death
Could atone.
It is to churchmen, moreover, we owe the earliest annals
of our country. At a period when we have not a single
chronicle of political events, we have numerous Lives of the
Saints, and all of these throw less or more light upon the
general history of the times. Adamnan, Bede, Jocelin,
Ailred, Turgot, have given us glimpses of the flow of events
and the state of society in their day—regarding which, but
for them, there had been impenetrable gloom. But every
great monastery in Scotland appears to have kept three dif-
ferent kinds of registers, and many of these have survived
the waste of time and the zeal of the Reformers, and they
now form the principal guide of the historian in traversing
these dark ages. The first was a general one, giving an
account of the principal events, according to the years in
which they occurred—as the Book of Paisley, and the
Chronicle of Melrose. The second was an Obituary, in
which were recorded the deaths of the abbots and priors, the
kings and great nobles, and the chief benefactors of the
monastery. The third was their Chartulary, in which were
carefully transcribed the charters granted them by kings
or pious nobles who had endowed their house, the bulls of
the popes, a statement of their revenues, taxes, leases, and
lawsuits, and a multitude of other minute particulars, no
more intended to serve for history than the accurate accounts
of an exact housekeeper, but which do in reality, above all
other documents, illustrate the spirit and character of the
times. Of these are the Book of Dunfermline, the Register
* There is a curious instance of this in the trial of Walter Mill the
martyr. When he was addressed Sir Walter, he repudiated the title, de-
claring he would no longer be one of the pope's knights. See Spottiswood's
History, Fox, &c.
88 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
of Arbroath, the Chartulary of Inchaffray, and many others,
most of which have recently been brought from the shelves of
our great libraries and the charter-chests of our nobles, and
given to the world by the labours and liberality of the Banna-
tyne and Maitland Clubs. -
We must still further award to the monasteries the honour
of having been the first Educational Institutions in the
country. The Monastery of Iona was as much a seminary
for learning as a school of piety; and there can be little
doubt but that the other Culdee establishments took it for
their model, and that from them there issued men, not merely
practised in monkish austerities, but accomplished in the
scanty literature and science of the day. At a subsequent
period, when Roman ideas became dominant, it was custom-
ary for the Scottish clergy to resort to Oxford or Paris to
complete their education, as their native country was still
unprovided with Universities; and this led David, Bishop of
Moray, in the year 1325, to found the Scots College at Paris,
for the reception of his countrymen. But though Scotland
could not yet boast of a University, it was not without
schools. So early as the twelfth century, there were schools
at Abernethy and Roxburgh, at Perth and Stirling, and soon
after at Glasgow, Ayr, Berwick, and Aberdeen, and probably
in many other places, though we have no record of their
existence ; and all these were necessarily under the manage-
ment of the clergy. The monks of Kelso had the charge
of the school at Roxburgh, and the monks of Dunfermline
of those at Stirling and Perth. But besides, almost every
monastery must have been less or more a seminary of educa-
tion for the sons of the nobility and aspirants to the priest-
hood. We know it was so at St Andrews, where the youth
ambitious of literary fame was instructed in the quodlibets
of Scotus ; and in the Chartulary of Kelso we find a certain
Matilda, widow of Richard of Lincoln, Lord of Molle, making
a grant of rents to the abbot and monks to board and edu-
cate her son William with the best-bred boys entrusted to
their care."
Last of all, it must not be forgotten that monasteries
served at once as inns and poor's-houses, when regular hos-
telries were scarce, and poor-laws unknown. The hospitality
1 Chart. de Cal., f 71. I have derived my information about our early
schools chiefly from Tytler's History, vol. ii., the Origines, and a note in
the Appendix to Dr M'Crie's Life of Knox.
A.D. 1100-1500.] MONASTIC HOSPITALITY. 89
of the monks was proverbial. The traveller, overtaken by
night, was sure to find a kindly welcome, a cheerful supper,
and a wholesome though hard bed, in the first convent he
came to. The brothers of the order counted the news he
brought from the wide world, and perhaps a small coin
bestowed at the shrine of a favourite saint, as a sufficient
recompense. It is so in many Catholic countries at the pre-
sent hour. But the wants of the poor as well as of the
wayfarer were attended to. The beggar in his distress,
afraid to approach the baronial hall, came crouching to the
Convent-gate, and it was not often that assistance was refused.
It is related, that in the reign of David I. a sore famine pre-
vailed in Scotland. Four thousand half-famished wretches
repaired to the Abbey of Melrose, reared their huts in its
meighbourhood, and waited for the beneficence of the bre-
thren ; and Waltheof, the Superior, ordered them all to be
fed. There is something touching in the lament of Father
Hay on the fall of the Monastery of Iona. “The monks,”
says he, “were driven away, and the revenues turned to pro-
fane uses; whence the poor were defrauded of continual alms,
Strangers of entertainment, the servants of God of their neces-
sary food and clothing, the souls of the pious faithful of their
Sacrifices, the church of as many prayers, and God of the wor-
ship due to Him.” 1 -
From the rapid sketch we have here given of the rise of
our ecclesiastical institutions, it will be seen that the union of
Church and State in our country was the growth of circum-
stances, rather than the result of any specific legislation. No
Act of Parliament proclaimed it. Churchmen gradually
acquired lands and tithes by voluntary grants; and the State
protected them in the enjoyment of these, as it would have
done any other class of its subjects. The holders of property
had a right to sit in the Parliament ; and thus bishops and
abbots acquired their seats, and, on account of their sacred
functions, came to be regarded as a separate Estate. Eccle-
siastics alone could perform marriages and draw wills, the
necessity being a religious one in the one case, and a literary
one in the other; and hence they naturally acquired a juris-
diction in all matrimonial and testamentary affairs. From
the time of James I., it was the pious practice of almost
* Scotia Sacra, p. 487. In Roman Catholic times there were also many
hospitals, endowed by the pious, superintended by the clergy, and
Specially designed for the entertainment of strangers and the poor.
90 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
every Parliament to begin its business by an Act ratifying
all the rights and privileges of the Church ; but, in truth,
every subject was entitled to the same justice which was thus,
in a complimentary manner, rendered to the Church. Every
religious body has this kind of establishment now, in as far as
every religious body is protected by law in the enjoyment of
its property and privileges, and is amenable to law for the use
of these.
It is unnecessary to say much regarding the liturgical rites
of the Scottish Church, but it were wrong to overlook them
entirely. The Culdees had a liturgy peculiar to themselves,
which they boasted to have derived from St Mark." There
is still in the Advocates' noble library a MS. liturgy,
described, though without authority, as Liturgia Sancti
Columbani Abbatis, written in the Anglo-Saxon or Irish
character, and which probably dates as far back as the
eleventh century.” There is in the possession of the family
of Perth another MS. Missal or Sacramentary, written in a
similar character, and equally ancient. We may regard
these as belonging to the Culdee period. At what time
the Roman liturgy superseded the Culdean we cannot
exactly determine, but we may infer that the Roman ritual
came with the Roman hierarchy. It was the use of Sarum
that prevailed in Scotland, as it did in a large part of England
and Ireland. - -
This usage derives its origin from St Osmund, who was
Bishop of Salisbury towards the close of the eleventh cen-
tury.” It differed in some particulars from the ritual of the
Church of Rome, but such differences were not thought to
interfere with the unity of religious worship. In fact, in the
Romish communion, considerable liturgic latitude was allowed;
and bishops were permitted, within certain bounds, to pre-
scribe liturgies to their own Churches. In the fifteenth cen-
* Usher's Religion of the Ancient Irish.
2 My information upon these ancient liturgies is derived from the Pre-
face to the Aberdeen Breviary, written by Dr Laing. Bannatyne Club
edition.
* “He (Bishop Osmund) buylded there a new chyrche, and brocht
thyther noble clerkes and cunnynge of clergye and of songe, soo that this
byshop hymself shonned not to wryte and lymme (illuminate) and bynde
bukis. Also he maid the ordynall of the servyce of the holy chyrche, and
named it the Consuetudynarie. Now well nygh all Englonde, Wales, and
Irelonde used that ordinall.” (Polychronicon, lib. vii, chap. iii., quoted
‘in Preface to Aberdeen Breviary.)
A.D. 1100-1500.] ANCIENT LITURGIES. 9 :
tury, it was believed that the use of Sarum was introduced into
Scotland by Edward I.” There was an absurd tradition that
he had destroyed all the old Scottish Service-Books, and intro-
duced the Anglican one. But we have good evidence that
the usages of the Salisbury Cathedral had been introduced
into the country long before, and in a more peaceful way.
We have already seen the Saxon St Margaret fleeing to Scot-
land, marrying its king, setting herself zealously to reform its
Church. We have seen her arguing with Culdee monks, and
by a royal, though erroneous arithmetic, correcting their calen-
dar. Her biographer farther informs us that she found the
mass celebrated with barbarous rites, which she laboured
to abolish, and managed to introduce a new and a better
form.” It was undoubtedly the more ornate usage of some
Anglican Church. But our knowledge becomes more defi-
nite when we descend a single century. Herbert was con-
secrated Bishop of Glasgow in 1147; and we know that he
settled the use of Sarum in his cathedral, and that this was
shortly afterwards confirmed by a Papal bull.” It soon became
universal : it was used at St Andrews, Moray, Aberdeen, in
every cathedral and church in the kingdom.
We have still preserved in our public libraries many old
Service-Books, but none of these can now be identified as
having belonged to the Church. In truth, the Service-Books
in use in the churches must have almost all perished at the
Reformation, when it was esteemed a work of piety to burn
them. But, happily, the Breviary of Aberdeen still remains to
us, “which is the only existing use proper to Scotland, and is
therefore of importance to those who regard with interest such
an authentic record of the forms and usages of the Scottish
Church.” This great work was prepared and completed under
* The following is Blind Harry's account of the matter:-
“The Bishoppis all inclynit to his croun,
Baith temporal and the religioun ;
The Romane bukis that thar wer in Scotland
He gart thame beir to Scone, quhair they thame fand,
And, but redeme, they brynt thame all ilk ane,
Salisbury use, our clerkls than his tane.”
3 “Praeterea in aliquibus locis Scottorum quidam fuerant, qui contra
totºus Ecclesiae consuetudinem, nescio quo ritu barbaro missas celebrare,
consueverant, quod regina, zelo Dei accensa ita destruere atque annihilare
studuit, ut deinceps qui tale quid presumerit, nemo in tota Scottorum gente
appareret.” It has been argued from this passage that the Culdees cele-
brated the Lord's Supper in the primitive form. If it do not prove that,
it warrants the belief that up to this time the Culdees were ignorant of
many of the ceremonies superadded by the Romish Church.
* Preface to the Aberdeen Breviary. 4 Ibid.
92 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
the superintendence of the celebrated William Elphinstone,
Bishop of Aberdeen ;1 and it is probable that some of the
lessons appointed to be read on the festivals of the Scottish
Saints were written by himself. It challenges a still higher in-
terest, from the fact that the art of printing appears to have
been first introduced into Scotland to multiply copies of it for
the use of the churches.”
Tytler is of opinion that organs and choirs were used in
Scotch cathedrals as early as the thirteenth century.” At that
time there lived a Scottish friar of the order of St Dominic,
named Simon Taylor. At Rome and Paris, we are told, he
applied himself to the study of that part of the mathematics
which treats of sounds and harmony, and became a mighty
proficient. Returning to Scotland, he found the music of the
churches rude and barbarous, and burning with a musician's
zeal, he made a proposal to reform it; and when the bishops
and clergy accepted his services, he set himself to the work
with such energy and success, that an ancient historian of the
Bishops of Dunblane declares, that in a few years he brought
matters to such perfection that Scotland might have competed
with Rome for musicians. This Simon Taylor further showed
his musical lore by publishing four treatises, entitled De Canfu
Æcclesiastico Corrigendo, De Tenore Musicali, Tetrachordorum,
and Penfachordorum.4
His improvements, however, do not seem to have been
universally acknowledged even by those who lived nearer his
time, for he was not well in his grave till we find St Ælred, in
his “Mirror of Charity,” thus breaking forth against the
* It is now reprinted by both the Maitland and the Bannatyne Clubs.
* Up till this time, the Service-Books in use in the churches were in
MS., or printed in France, with the Scotch saints added to the calendar in
writing. But on the 15th September 1507, James IV. gave a grant of
privileges to Walter Chepman and Andrew Millar, two burgesses of Edin-
burgh, who had undertaken to procure and bring home printing materials.
In this charter of privileges we have this clause :-‘‘It is devisit and thocht
expedient by us and our counsall, that, in tyme cumming, mess buikis,
manualis, matyn buikis, and portuis buildis, efter our awin Scottis use, and
with legends of Scottis sanctis, as is now gadderit and eket by ane Reverent
father in God and our traist counsalour William, bischope of Aberdene,
utheris be uset and generally within our realme, als soone as the Sammyn
may be imprentit and providit, and that na manner of sic buildis of Salus-
berry use be brocht to be sauld within our realm in time cuming, and gif
ony does the contrair that they sall tyne the sammyn.” (Registrum
Secreti Sigilli, vol. iii. fol. 29.)
* History, vol. ii. 4 M*Kenzie’s Lives of Scotch Writers.
A.D. 1100-1500.] MUSIC. 93
modernized music:-“Since all types and figures are now
ceased, why so many organs and Cymbals in our churches P
Why, I say, that terrible blowing of bellows, that rather imi-
tates the frightsomeness of thunder than the sweet harmony of
the voice P For what end is this contraction and dilatation of
the voice P One restrains his breath, another breaks his
breath, and a third unaccountably dilates his voice, and some-
times, which I am ashamed to say, they fall a quivering like
the neighing of horses ; then they lay down their manly vigour,
and with their voices endeavour to imitate the softness of
women; then, by an artificial circumvolution, they have a
variety of outrunnings; sometimes you shall see them with
open mouths, and their breath restrained as if they were ex-
piring, and not singing, and, by a ridiculous interruption of
their hreath, seem as if they were allugelliei silent; at other
times they appear like persons in the agonies of death; then,
with a variety of gestures, they personate comedians,—their
lips are contracted, their eyes roll, their shoulders are moved
upwards and downwards, their fingers move and dance to every
note ; and this ridiculous behaviour is called religion, and
where these things are most frequently done, there God is said
to be most honourably worshipped.” Those in our own day,
who object to organs and choristers, could desire no more
vehement advocate than this Roman abbot.
The last echoes of the choral singing have long since died
away; but the cathedrals and churches, whose long aisles were
once filled with them, still remain, some of them almost entire,
others in ruins, and from these we may infer the splendour of
the ancient ritual, and the vast resources at the disposal of the
ancient clergy. Inferior in size to the great minsters of
England, they yet rival them in their noble romanesque and
pointed architecture ; and though the country has increased a
hundredfold in wealth since the time of the Reformation, we
have not since that period erected one building that will vie
with the cathedral of Glasgow or Elgin. But, perhaps, above
all others, the great cathedral of St Magnus at Kirkwall, lifting
its massive buttresses and walls, and its richly-mullioned
windows, almost from the waste of waters, proves the power
and splendour of the hierarchy which could have reared such
a structure in such a solitude. Its foundations were laid, and
a large part of it built, by a Norse earl, in the twelfth century,
under the influence of a superstition which could convert
' M*Kenzie’s Lives, vol. i.
94 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. V.
pirates into the founders of churches ; but it was not the
wealth of the earl alone that gave to the Orkneys their High
Church ; the building was so liberally helped on by the obla-
tions of a devout age, that all Christendom was said to have
paid tribute for its erection.
The Culdee houses were originally built of timber; Candida
Casa, and the church of Abernethy, were probably exceptions
to the rule. We have already spoken of the ancient Monas-
tery of Iona as being of wood; and Bede expressly tells us
that the Church of Lindisfarne was constructed of logs of oak
and thatched with reeds, after the custom of the Scots. All
these humble structures have perished. The noble stone
churches which still stand—too many of them in ruins—were
all reared between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries. It
is almost certain that not one of these ecclesiastical buildings
belongs to a period prior to the first of these dates; but from
this time, till near the dawn of the Reformation, church-build-
ing went on at such a pace as to have called forth the splenetic
remark, that the Gospel could not be heard for the sound of
the hammer and trowel. Some of these ecclesiastical struc-
tures were chiefly reared by royal or baronial munificence, but
the great proportion were reared by churchmen. Bishops set
apart for the purpose large sums out of their episcopal re-
venues; every benefice in the district was taxed ; subscrip-
tions throughout the whole country, sometimes throughout all
Christendom, were set on foot ; the sale of indulgences was
resorted to ; and so the worshipful Freemasons were employed
and paid ; and the ribbed column and groined roof still testify
to the exquisite skill with which they handled their mallet.
The history of the artificers who reared these edifices is
somewhat curious. In the thirteenth century the Pope
created a number of Italian, Flemish, and French artizans,
with some Greek refugees, into a corporation of Freemasons,
giving them high and exclusive privileges ; and these travel-
ling in companies from Country to country, as there was
occasion for their skill, are said to have reared many of the
finest religious houses. The same mouldings, even to minute
details, have been observed in buildings far separated from one
another, proving that they were erected either by the same
artificers or from the same designs. It is probable that these
same men partly designed, as well as executed, the plans of
their buildings; but it is also certain that ecclesiastics were
the chief architects of the time, as they alone possessed such a
A.D. 1100-1500.] CATHEDRALS, 95
knowledge of mathematics and the mechanical arts as to fit
them for the task. It has been observed, however, as a cir-
cumstance full of meaning, that no man knows the names of
the architects of the cathedrals. “They left no record of
themselves upon the fabrics, as if they would have nothing
there that could suggest any other idea than the glory of that
God to whom the edifices were devoted for perpetual and
solemn worship ; nothing to mingle a meaner association with
the profound sense of His presence: or as if, in the joy of
having built Him a house, there was no want left unfulfilled,
no room for the question as to whether it is good for a man to
live in posthumous renown.” -
But though the names of the architects of our cathedrals
have perished, we are ahle to glean from our ancient records
some hints regarding their builders. Bishop Jocelin it was
who laid the foundation of the High Church of Glasgow, and
two years before he died he had the satisfaction of seeing its
unrivalled crypt finished and solemnly consecrated. To
Bishop Bondington we owe the magnificent choir. We next
find the Chapter purchasing timber on the banks of Loch-
lomond “for the fabric of their steeple and treasury,” and
bargaining that their workmen should have free entry to the
forest, and the right of felling, hewing, and dressing the wood
wherever they pleased. In the Breviary of the Scottish
Church we find a lesson appointed to be read commemorating
the skill of the builder of another of her minsters—St Gilbert
of Moray, who reared the cathedral of Dornoch. “He built
it with his own hands,” says the Breviary; and it is recorded
that the glass used for the windows was manufactured at
Ciderhall under his own eye. About the same period the
Cathedral of Elgin was lifting up its lofty towers on the oppo-
site shores of the Moray Frith. Bishop Andrew laid its
foundation, and the records of the See give us a glimpse of
Master Gregory the mason, and Richard the glazier, at their
work. But in 1390 the Wolf of Badenoch descended from the
hills, and gave the noble building to the flames; and the
bishop, in his complaint to the king, fondly speaks of it as
having been “the pride of the land, the glory of the realm,
the delight of wayfarers and strangers, a praise and boast
among foreign nations, lofty in its towers without, splendid in
its appointments within, its countless jewels and rich vest-
* Gladstone, quoted in Quarterly Review, June 1849.
96 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
ments, and the multitude of its priests serving God.” It
afterwards, however, rose from its ruins, and by the liberal
contributions of the faithful attained to at least its pristine
magnificence. Thus were Our great cathedrals founded and
built. Designed by unknown architects, reared by travelling
companies of masons, paid for by bishops out of the fruits of
their benefices, and assisted by the free-will offerings of the
people, they still stand, monuments of what may be done by
piety in spite of poverty.
CHAPTER VI.
OUR last chapter has been occupied more with the rise of
institutions than with the course of events. It will be our duty
now to trace these from the introduction of the Latin Hier-
archy to the dawn of the Reformation. The field, though
wide, is by no means crowded with ecclesiastical occurrences
deserving of record. The higher clergy were very generally
occupied with affairs of State; attending upon parliament,
taking a part in embassies, acting in Councils of regency; and
the parsons and vicars who ministered in our parishes have
left few memorials of their humble labours. In many cases it
is impossible to dissever religious from political events, so
closely were they interwoven, and kings as well as bishops must
be introduced upon our canvass.
Some good men have longed for the complete identification
of Church and State. Now, saving the fact that the Roman
clergy had elevated themselves into a distinct caste, and claimed
for themselves peculiar powers and privileges, the devout
desire was much more nearly realised then than it is now.
Religion and politics in our day are divided, as if their union
were unnatural and wrong. The clergyman is bid to refrain
from the least allusion to political topics, and the slightest
sympathy with political contentions, and the member of par-
liament is thought to offend good taste, if not to violate the
rules of the House, if he introduces any pious reflection or
doctrinal discussion into his speech. There is room for doubt,
if men do not thus put asunder things which God hath joined.
In the mediaeval ages, it was different; the Church and the State,
* See an interesting article in the Quarterly Review for June 1849, on
Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals.
A.D. 1109.] YORK AND CANTERBURY. 97
if not completely one, with the same laws and the same law-
givers, were yet much more closely allied. Ecclesiastics were
the principal politicians, and in Parliament they framed
statutes for the government of the Church as well as of the
kingdom. What is now called Erastianism was then little un-
derstood, and a law for the benefit of the Church was not
thought to be the worse of having emanated from the State.
The Church, of course, did form a separate community; but its
councils were rare, and their canons comparatively few, and in
this country, at least, it had very little individual action. The
king and the bishops were generally at one, even in contests
with the Pope; and happily Scotland never produced a
Thomas à Becket.
The archbishops of York at a very early period asserted
their primacy over the Scottish bishops. This probably
arose from the circumstance of the Lothians having anciently
formed a part of the kingdom of Northumberland, and from
the other circumstance that, when Christianity was carried from
Iona to Lindisfarne, it radiated thence northwards as well as
southwards, and the powerful prelates of York, forgetting
whence they had originally received their own consecration,
began to arrogate jurisdiction over their brethren in Scotland,
who had as yet no primate amongst themselves. When Alex-
ander I., with the approbation of his clergy, had chosen
Turgot, the confessor and biographer of his sainted mother,
to the See of St Andrews, it so happened that the Archbishop
of York was in the position of having been elected, but not
yet consecrated, and as a rumour had reached Canterbury
that, with the assistance of the Bishops of Durham and the
Orkneys, he was about to consecrate Turgot, Anselm, then
Primate of All England, wrote an imperious letter to his
brother of York, absolutely prohibiting such consecration,
and ordering him to compear at Canterbury, and be conse-
crated himself. York bowed its head before Canterbury, but
did not relinquish its pretensions. While the two English
archbishops were thus at war, the Scotch clergy maintained
that neither of them had the right to what they laid claim.
The decision of the triple controversy was evaded for the
time, by the Kings of England and Scotland agreeing that the
former should enjoin the Archbishop of York to consecrate
Turgot, with a special provision that the authority of neither
church was to be thereby compromised. Upon that understand-
ing, Turgot received consecration on the 3oth of July 1 Io9."
* Hailes's Annals, vol. i.
G
98 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
Upon the death of Turgot, Alexander wrote a letter to
Ralph, the successor of Lanfranc and Anselm in the See of
Canterbury, in which he artfully insinuated that in ancient
times the bishops of St Andrews were wont to be consecrated
either by the Pope himself or the Archbishop of Canterbury;
that it was merely by sufferance that the Archbishop of York
had ever exercised the right ; and that this assumption of
power could no longer be permitted. It is evident that the
Scottish monarch wished to fight York with Canterbury, and
to leave it undecided, if, after all, the Pope alone did not pos-
sess the coveted jurisdiction. The stratagem was skilful, and
the time chosen opportune ; for Thurstin of York, otherwise a
formidable opponent, was at present half powerless by his own
want of consecration, and the battle might have been quickly
fought and won." But delays took place, years slipped past,
and still St Andrews remained without a bishop.
At length the Scottish monarch despatched a
letter to the English primate, in which he cen-
sured himself for having so long allowed the flock to wander
in the wilderness without a shepherd, and prayed him to set free
Eadmer, one of his monks, that he might be raised to the
Episcopate of St Andrews. The request was complied with,
and Eadmer, loosed from his monastery, began his journey to
the north; but he carried with him a letter from the Arch-
bishop to the king, counselling that he should be sent back
without loss of time to receive consecration. On his arrival
in Scotland he was instantly elected to the vacant See by the
clergy and people, under the sanction of the king—language
which would seem to imply that the laity of St Andrews had a
voice in the election of its bishops. Next day Alexander had
an interview with the bishop-elect in regard to his consecration,
and when Eadmer hinted at the pre-eminence of Canterbury
over all the British churches, the monarch rose up, and broke
off the conference with the strongest symptoms of displeasure.
A month passed away before the king would again see the
bishop ; but then a compromise was come to, by which it was
agreed that Eadmer should receive the ring from Alexander,
take the pastoral staff off the altar, as receiving it from the Lord;
and then, without more ado, assume the charge of the diocese.”
1 Hailes's Annals, vol. i.
* Ibid. Eadmer himself has given us an account of these trans-
actions, and authenticated his statements by original documents. Lord
Hailes follows Eadmer, so that he may be regarded as a safe guide.
A. D., II 2C).
A.D. 1120.] EADMER. 99
In the meantime, Thurstin was in Normandy with the Eng-
lish king, and, hearing of what was going on, he prevailed
upon Henry to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury, pro-
hibiting him from consecrating Eadmer; and also to Alexander,
forbidding him to allow the consecration. All this disturbed
the new bishop ; he felt his influence in Scotland to be weak;
his favour with the king at an end ; some reforms he had de-
signed had miscarried ; and, above all, he was uneasy in regard
to his consecration. He therefore craved permission to return
to Canterbury and receive the blessing of the archbishop.
Alexander refused the request, and reminded him that he had
come to him altogether free. Eadmer retorted that he would
not abdicate the honour of being a monk of Canterbury for
all the kingdom of Scotland. The aspect of affairs grew daily
worse, and the clergy in a body supported the king. In these
circumstances, the perplexed prelate asked his friends what
he should do, and they gave it as their opinion that he must
either submit or leave the kingdom. His High Church prin-
ciples prevented him from taking the former course, and so he
returned the ring to Alexander, laid his crosier upon the altar,
whence he had taken it, and returned to Canterbury, whose
pretensions he had maintained with such unbending firmness,
that neither ambition nor the love of independence could tempt
him to set them aside."
During the reign of the same monarch, and in the year II 22,
the ambitious Thurstin again made trial of his strength, by
requiring canonical obedience from the Bishop of Glasgow, but
it was peremptorily refused ; and when the Archbishop of
York affected to suspend him from his episcopal functions, he
appealed to Rome, and proceeded thither in person. The
Bishop of St Mungo's appears to have gained his case, for
when he still farther indulged his wandering propensities and
went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and lingered for months
with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Pope very properly re-
Called him, and enjoined him to return to his bishopric.” In
II 23 Thurstin found still another opportunity to exert his pre-
rogative. An English monk, named Robert, who had been
Prior of Scone, was elected to the See of St Andrews, and the
old question of consecration arose. Alexander died, and
David I. came to the throne before the dispute was terminated.
At length, in I 128, an arrangement was agreed upon, which
allowed the consecration of the bishop to be proceeded with,
* Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 2 Ibid.
IOO CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
but left the question of the liberties of the Scottish Church un-
decided. Thurstin was allowed to lay his episcopal hands
upon Robert ; and, at the same time, he executed an instru-
ment by which he made it known to all men, present and
future, that he had done so without any profession of obedi-
ence, solely for the love of God and King David, and without
compromising either the claims of York or the rights of St
Andrews."
The prelates of York, though resisted at St Andrews and
Glasgow, made a show of extending their jurisdiction still
farther to the north. At this period they were in the habit
of consecrating bishops of the Orkneys, and one of these we
find with Thurstin in the English ranks at the battle of the
Standard. As the Orkneys were at this time held by the
Norwegians, and the constant scene of piratical warfare, it is
difficult to believe that these Yorkshire bishops could ever set
foot in their diocese ; and we can account for the title they
bore only by supposing that the primates of England had hit
upon an expedient similar to that followed by Rome in our
day, of appointing bishops to Sees in Żartibus inſidelium. In
the records of the cathedral of York there are also three
entries of bishops of Glasgow in the eleventh century, who
were never heard of on the banks of the Clyde. The proud
prelates appear to have preferred a train of imaginary suff-
ragans to none at all.
The reign of David I., which commenced in 1124, is the
most important in the history of the Church before the Refor-
mation. He wrought a change in ecclesiastical affairs almost
as great as that which was subsequently accomplished by
Knox. He in effect built up that which Knox, when it was
in a state of decay, pulled down. He drave out the now anti-
quated Culdees, and introduced prelates and priests; Knox
cast out the prelates and priests, and brought in Protestant
preachers. The proceedings of the one, as well as of the
other, are frequently spoken of as a Church reform. It is
certain that David remodelled our whole ecclesiastical polity.
He originated the hierarchy, and gave it its splendour. Nearly
the half of our bishoprics, and the abbeys of Kelso, Holyrood-
house, Melrose, Newbattle, Cambuskenneth, Kinloss, Dryburgh,
and Jedburgh, were founded by his munificence. He brought
several orders both of the Augustinian and Benedictine monks
into the country, transplanting them from the great monas-
* Warton's Anglia Sacra.
A.D. 1124.] DAVID'S CHURCH REFORMATION. IOI
teries of France and England; and it was under his favour
that the Templars and Knights of St John took up their
residence at Southesk and Torphichen. Many may think
that the Celtic monks were better than their Latin successors,
but it is certain they had degenerated since the days of
Columba, that the church had sunk into decrepitude, and that
new life required to be infused into it.
It is probable that David further wished to reform the whole
State by the instrumentality of the Church, and to soften and
refine the ferocity of the existing manners by a more educated
clergy, and a more splendid ritual. “By his early converse
with our countrymen,” says William of Malmesbury, speaking
of David, “his manners were polished from the rust of Scot-
tish barbarity.” It is not improbable the Anglicized monarch
invited Anglican ecclesiastics into his kingdom, that they might
Confer upon his subjects the benefits he himself had received
from his intercourse with the south. A far-seeing policy might
also discern in the intelligence and wealth of the clergy a
counterpoise to the exorbitant power of the turbulent barons;
and whether David perceived the result or not, it is certain
that the Church in almost every emergency stood fast by the
throne, and helped to preserve a proper balance in the State.
But whatever opinion we may form of David's policy, it is
impossible to doubt of his piety; and his piety was happily of
that healthy kind which made him neither faint-hearted nor
weak-handed. He was strong in battle, wise in counsel, and
merciful in the administration of justice to the poor. All
historians are agreed that no better king ever sat upon the
throne. His death was the appropriate termination of a well-
spent life; for the monkish historian relates that, on a Sunday
morning in May, just as the Sun began to penetrate the dark-
ness of night, his spirit, escaping from all earthly shadows,
passed into the true light with such calmness that he did not
seem to be dead, and with such devotion, that he was found
with his hands clasped and stretched out toward heaven.]
David was succeeded on the Scottish throne by his grand-
son, Malcolm IV. ; and, during his reign, Roger, Archbishop
of York, having obtained from Rome legatine powers over all
Scotland, summoned its clergy to meet him at Norham. The
Archdeacon of Glasgow, the Prior of Kelso, and some other
clergy obeyed the citation, but they did so only that they might
appeal to the Pope ; and proceeding to Rome, they procured
* Aldred, ap. Fordun, lib. v. cap, lix.
I O2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
a bull of exemption from Alexander III." But this ancient
battle of our Church for spiritual independence was not yet
come to an end.
On the death of Malcolm, his brother William, surnamed
the Lion, was crowned king in 1165, and immediately set his
heart upon the recovery of Northumberland from the English.
Forming a confederacy with the rebellious son of Henry II.,
he marched into England, and laid waste the country with fire
and sword; but his enterprise was brought to an abrupt Con-
clusion by his being surprised and captured by a body of the
enemy's horse. All Scotland was thrown into confusion and
dismay by the loss of its king, and negotiations were instantly
opened for his ransom. But Henry knew the full value of his
prize, and resolved to part with it for no mean return. After
three months consumed in vain attempts to lessen his demands,
the Scotch ambassadors, who had repaired to Normandy, pur-
chased the liberty of their king by Surrendering the independ-
ence of the nation. The independence of the Church had
well-nigh perished with that of the kingdom, but the dexterous
diplomacy of the Bishops of St Andrews and Dunkeld made
the clauses affecting it so indefinite and ambiguous, as to leave
the discussion of the old question open for the determination
of happier times. It was provided that the Scotch Church
should yield to the Anglican bishops such subjection as it
ought of right and was wont to yield—words capable of two
very different renderings.” It was not long before the Scottish
clergy had an opportunity of asserting the sense in which they
understood them.
In the year 1176, Cardinal Huguccio Petrileonis, the Pope's
legate, held a council at Northampton. Both Henry and
William graced it by their royal presence. The English clergy
resorted to it in great numbers. The Scottish clergy came
thither also, aware of the important questions that were to be
mooted, and resolved to maintain their rights. Huguccio, in
papal pride, sat upon a seat higher than the rest, and the other
ecclesiastics occupied positions according to their rank. The
important subject was broached, and the Scottish clergy were
required to fulfil the treaty of Normandy, by yielding to the
English Church that obedience which they ought to yield and
were wont to yield. The cardinal, according to Boethius,
made a prolix speech, counselling submission, and expatiating
* Spottiswood’s History, book ii. Hailes's Annals, vol. i.
* Rymer’s Foedera, vol. i. p. 30, 31.
A.D. 1176-78.] COUNCIL OF NORTHAMPTON. I O3
upon the advantages that would arise from the union of the
Churches. The Scottish clergy, however, neither daunted by
the presence of the king, nor persuaded by the arguments of
the legate, nor deterred by the thought that they were on
English ground, maintained that they never had yielded sub-
jection to the Anglican Church, nor ought they to do so now."
The bold eloquence, on this occasion, of a young canon
named Gilbert Murray, is celebrated by our ancient historians.
“The Church of Scotland,” said he, “ever since the faith of
Christ was embraced in that kingdom, has been a free and
independent Church, subject to none but the Bishop of Rome,
whose authority we refuse not to acknowledge. To admit any
other for our metropolitan, especially the Archbishop of York,
we neither can nor will.” When the Scottish canon had ended
his speech, the Archbishop of York stepped up to him, and
said, “That arrow came not from your own quiver.””
As the discussion proceeded, the Archbishop of York
affirmed that the Sees of Glasgow and Galloway especially
were subject to his authority. Jocelin pleaded that Glasgow
was expressly exempted from any such obedience by papal
authority.” What the Bishop of Galloway replied is not
recorded ; but at this point in the debate the Archbishop of
Canterbury interfered, and declared that it was to Canterbury,
and not to York, that the Scottish clergy must yield canonical
obedience. The altercation which ensued between the
Primate of England and the Primate of All England was the
salvation of the Scottish Church ; for though the Anglican
clergy might have failed to establish any ancient usage in
support of their claims, royal and legatine authority would
have more than supplied the defect of precedents. The king
and the cardinal bewildered, and probably disgusted by so
many conflicting claims, broke up the assembly, and the
Scotch ecclesiastics returned home free and unfettered.
But the Church of Scotland had hardly escaped
this danger, when it was involved in a more
serious quarrel with a more formidable opponent. In 1178
the Archbishop of St Andrews died, and John Scot, an
archdeacon of the See, was elected by the chapter in his
A.D. II 78.
* Fordun’s Scotichron., lib. viii. c. 25.
* This young canon is the Gilbert who built the cathedral of Dornoch,
and was Sainted after his death.
* Registrum Epis. Glasg. i. 35. Robertson's Concilia Eccles. Scot.,
Pref. xxxvi.
IO4. CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
room. The king appears to have been taken by surprise, for
when he heard of the election, he swore by the arm of St
James that John would never be Bishop of St Andrews. He
was not a man to vow and not perform. He seized upon the
episcopal revenues, compelled the other bishops to consecrate
his own chaplain, called Hugh, and forthwith put him in
possession of the bishopric. John appealed to Rome, and
set out thither to look after his interests. The Pope appointed
a legate to proceed to Scotland, to hear and determine the
case ; and he, in an assembly of the Scottish clergy at Holy-
rood, pronounced judgment for John, and Solemnly conse-
crated him. William had forborne thus far, but now he
banished John and all his abettors from the kingdom, and by
preserving Hugh in the benefice, set the Pope and his legate
at defiance.
Thus thwarted and defied, the Roman pontiff issued a
mandate to the Scottish clergy, ordering them to yield
canonical obedience to John, and to bear in mind it was
their duty to obey God and the Church rather than man.
Not satisfied with this, he commanded the bishops forthwith
to excommunicate Hugh ; and entrusted Roger, Archbishop
of York, with legatine powers over Scotland, with instructions
to excommunicate the king, and put the kingdom under an
interdict, if John were not put in possession of St Andrews.
John, who was a learned man, and who seems also to have
been a good man, now interposed, and declared that he
would rather renounce his dignity for ever, than that the
masses said for the souls in purgatory should be intermitted
for one day. But the Pope loved power better than the souls
in purgatory, and so he commanded the yielding bishop, by
his canonical obedience, to be firm."
The Roman pontiff at this period was Alexander III., one
of the ablest and most ambitious of the long line of able and
ambitious men who have sat in the chair of St Peter. In the
Council of Lateran, he had solemnly deposed the Emperor
Frederic Barbarossa, absolved his subjects from their oath of
allegiance, and encouraged them to rise in rebellion. The
emperor retaliated by marching upon Rome, compelling the
proud pontiff to flee for his life, and setting Pascal on the
apostolic throne. The fortunes of Alexander, however,
gradually recovered, and Frederic was glad in the end to
make terms of peace with him, and as some have affirmed, to
* Hailes's Annals, vol. i. Spottiswood's History, book ii.
A.D. 1181-88.] ROME AND SCOTLAND RECONCILED. Io 5
allow the triumphant priest to put his foot upon his neck.
It was the same troubler of kings that encouraged a Becket
to wage his spiritual warfare against Henry of England, and
though the primate paid the penalty of his presumption with
his blood, foully spilt before the high altar of Canterbury,
he was everywhere worshipped as a martyr, William of
Scotland himself raised a monastery in his honour, while
Henry was compelled to go bare-footed to his tomb, and sub-
mit to be scourged as a penance. When William thought of
these things he might well tremble and yield ; but to yield
was not the temper of the man. Frederic had yielded ;
Henry had yielded ; but William never. He seems to have
had a singular pleasure in adorning the tomb of one prophet
of High Church principles, and in strenuously resisting the
pretensions of another.
At length, in the year I 181, the Archbishop of York, as
papal legate, fulminated a sentence of excommunication
against the unbending monarch, and in conjunction with the
Bishop of Durham, who was joined with him in the pontifical
commission, laid the whole kingdom of Scotland under an
interdict.l.
Happily for William, death rid him of his enemy. At the
critical moment Alexander died, and was succeeded in the
pontifical chair by Lucius III., and the King of Scotland
lost no time in sending ambassadors to kiss his toe, and
request his benediction. The embassage was eminently suc-
cessful : the sentence of excommunication was reversed, the
interdict recalled, and in the bull issued by the new pontiff,
it is specially set forth, that to reverence kings is an apos-
tolic precept. After some difficulty and delay, the dispute
about St Andrews was ingeniously settled, by both claimants
resigning their pretensions into the hands of the Pope, when
the Pope anew appointed Hugh to St Andrews, and John to
Dunkeld, which happened at that time to be vacant. Lucius,
still further to assure William of his friendship, sent him the
golden rose and his blessing.” A great victory had undoubt-
edly been won.
A few years later, Clement III., Servant of the
Servants of God, addressed a bull to his most
dear son William, illustrious King of the Scots, and his suc-
A.D. 1188.
* Hailes's Annals, vol. i. Robertson's Concilia, Pref. xxxviii.
* Hailes's Annals. Spottiswood’s History.
Ioë CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. |CHAP. VI.
cessors," by which he set aside for ever the pretensions of
Canterbury and York, and established the national independ-
ence of the Scottish Church. By this bull it is declared—
“That the Church of Scotland is a daughter of Rome by
special grace, and immediately subject to her ; that the Pope
alone, or his legate a laſere, should have power to pronounce
sentence of interdiction or excommunication ; that none
should be capable of exercising the office of legate except a
Scottish subject or a member of the sacred College of Cardi-
nals; and that no appeal concerning benefices should lie out
of Scotland unless to the Court of Rome.””
Thus Scotland, to escape from the domination of England,
placed herself under the broad shield of Rome, and Rome,
by a masterly stroke of policy, received and protected the
suppliant. But though our country was thus cast more
Completely into the bosom of the papacy, it was well that
the pretensions of York and Canterbury were upset, for had
it been otherwise, the ecclesiastical victory might have
paved the way for a political one ; the sense of independence
being broken down in one sphere, might have yielded more
readily in another ; and, at all events, had the Churches
become one, the Reformation would have taken the same
course in both countries, and whichever form of worship—
the Episcopal or Presbyterian—had prevailed, it would not,
in all probability, have exhibited the same moderation as both
these have happily exhibited in the sister countries; for who
will doubt that the one has helped to check the excesses of
the Other P
It is worthy of notice, that at the very time the Church of
Scotland was most strenuously asserting its independence,
and repudiating the pretensions of York and Canterbury, it
was quietly moulding its government and worship after the
Anglican model, and inviting to its bishoprics, its abbacies,
and its richest benefices, an Anglican clergy. Its cathedral
Constitutions were in general copies of English ones already
existing. The chapters of Glasgow and Dunkeld are said
to have been taken from that of Salisbury; and of Elgin,
Aberdeen, and Caithness, from that of Lincoln. As with the
* Spottiswood quotes under this date a bull of Pope Innocent III. ; but
Innocent III. did not become Pope till I 199. In I2O8, however, he
issued a bull confirming the privileges of the Church, and Spottiswood has
evidently confounded the two.
* Robertson’s Concilia, Pref. xxxix.
A.D. 1100-1200.] ANGLICANISM. Io'7
cathedrals, so with the monasteries. Dunfermline was an
offshoot of Canterbury, Coldingham of Durham, Dryburgh of
Alnwick, Paisley of Wenloch, Melrose of Rievaulx. The
catalogues of early bishops and abbots show how many of
these were of Norman or Saxon, and how few of Celtic
descent. Their names are generally enough to testify to
their blood. Some of them belonged to the Norman and
Saxon families who had recently settled in every district of
Scotland, but the great majority of them were brought from
the monasteries of England to fill the high offices in the
Church.
This tendency to conform the Church of Scotland to that
of England undoubtedly arose, in a great measure, from the
influence of those English settlers, who were now rapidly.
obtaining, together with extensive territory, an ascendency:
in the councils of the kingdom. But we must also remember
that, in copying Anglican models, the Church of Scotland
only copied models which were now universally prevalent,
from the wide-spread dominion of Romish ideas. The Church
of Scotland, in short, by conforming itself to England, only
conformed itself to Rome. But that the Church should have
exhibited, at the same time, a determined resistance to
English supremacy, and a fond desire for English conformity,
is not a little remarkable ; and the fact becomes still more
remarkable when we reflect that the battle of the Church's
independence was chiefly fought and won by Anglo-Norman
priests; just as, in the age that followed, it was Anglo-Norman
knights who achieved on Bannockburn the independence of
the nation." -
The bull which secured the independence of the Church
was brought to Scotland by John, Cardinal de Monte Celio,
who also brought, as a gift from the Roman pontiff to the
king, a sword richly set with precious stones, and a purple hat
in form of a diadem. While this cardinal was in the king-
dom, a convention of the clergy was held at Perth, in which
all priests who had received ordination on Sunday were de-
posed, and a canon framed ordering Saturday from twelve
o'clock to be observed as a holiday, and that the people at the
Sound of the bell should repair to church, and desist from
their several crafts till Monday morning.” Thus, in the
twelfth century, was a law passed, under the auspices of a
* Bruce, Randolph, Douglas, were all of Anglo-Norman descent.
* Spottiswood's History, book ii.
IoS CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
Roman legate, establishing the Saturday half holiday, which
the crafts in the present day have managed to recover for
themselves."
The Crusades had now been raging for nearly a hundred
years. Swarm after swarm of nobles and knights, of priests
and peasants, had crossed the Bosphorus to combat with the
infidel Moslem for the city where our Saviour had died and
the sepulchre where he had lain, till Europe seemed to be
loosened from its foundations, and hurled against Asia.” The
victorious arms of Saladin had, towards the close of the twelfth
century, recovered almost everything that had previously been
lost, and Jerusalem was once again in the hands of the infi-
dels. But Christendom could not yet relinquish a land asso-
ciated with so much that was hallowed in religion, and now
rendered doubly dear by the hundreds of thousands of Chris-
tian warriors who had perished by sword, famine, or plague
upon its plains. A third Crusade was organized. Philip
Augustus of France and Richard of England took the Cross,
and lent their wisdom and valour, the dignity of their royal
names, and the resources of their great kingdoms, to the
chivalrous enterprise. In order to convert a dangerous
neighbour into a firm friend, and prompted also by his
generous nature, Richard, before his departure for Palestine,
restored to William the Lion everything which had been
extorted from him while in captivity by Henry II. ; and, in
return, William agreed to pay to Richard ten thousand
merks sterling—thus furnishing sinews for the Holy War—
and to send with him his own brother David, Earl of Hunt-
ingdon, with a band of Scottish knights, to share in the
dangers and glory of the expedition.” A few years later,
Scotland contributed two thousand merks to redeem Richard
from the captivity in which he was basely kept by the Em-
peror of Germany; but it is more than probable that this
was an unpaid instalment of the ten thousand originally
stipulated. $.
William, before the close of his reign, appears to have made
* It is a singular circumstance, also worthy of being noted, that, in the
reign of James I., an act was passed very similar to the Forbes Mac-
kenzie Act. “It is ordained that na man in burgh be foundin in tavernes
of wine, aill, or beir after the straik of nine hours, and the bell that sall
be rung in the said burgh.” (Parl. xiii., chap. cxliv.)
* This was the figure of the Princess Anne, daughter of the Emperor
Alexius. (Gibbon, chap. lviii.)
* Hailes's Annals, vol. i.
A.D. 1190.] RIGHTS OF SANCTUARY. Io9
an effort to reform the evils which had arisen in Scotland and
throughout all Europe, from religious houses having the rights
of sanctuary—where the greatest criminals were safe, and law
lost its power. He sought the advice of the Pope as to how
he should deal with malefactors who had sought an asylum in
the churches. Innocent III., in his rescript, made answer—
“That if the person who retires into a church be a freeman,
he must not be forced from thence, nor punished with the loss
of life or limb, even for the most atrocious offences ; but
every other punishment which the law authorises may be
inflicted upon him. Public robbers, however, and they who
spoil the country by night, may be dragged out of churches,
and this is no violation of the rights of Sanctuary. If the per-
son who retires into a monastery be a slave, he must be
restored to his master aſler that his master has promised upon
Oath not to inflict any punishment upon him.” ". In an age
when law is weak and revenge strong, it is possible to recog-
nise the prudence and policy of having Sanctuaries and cities
of refuge, where the manslayer or other criminal may find a
safe asylum from the avenger of blood, till guilt be proved and
justice vindicated; but it is neither prudent nor politic to
allow any place, however sacred, to shelter criminals, not only
from private resentment, but from public law. The rights of
Sanctuary, as defined by Innocent III., must have seriously
weakened the hands of justice in Scotland.”
In the papal rescript there is mention of slaves. It seems
incredible to many that there should have ever been slaves
in our country, and yet true it is that there were. There is
ample documentary evidence to prove that a considerable pro-
portion of the labouring population must have once been in
this sad condition.” They were generally, though not always,
attached to the soil, and bought and sold with it like beasts
of burden. Their children and their children's children for
ever were the property of their lord, and accordingly their
* Hailes's Annals, vol. i. Decr. Greg. iii. 44-6.
* Among the statutes of Alexander II., in the Regiam Majestatem, is
one anent—“Them wha fleis to halie kirk.” It is provided that in the
case of those who declare themselves guilty but penitent, they must restore
what they have stolen, swear upon the gospels they will never steal again,
and then pass out of the realm till reconciled to the king. In the case of
those who declare themselves innocent, they will he protected till they are
tried, and then they must abide the law.
* In the Regiam Majestatem there is a complete code of laws in regard
to native bondsmen, book ii. chap. xi.-xiv.
I IO CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
genealogies were carefully preserved, not from ancestral pride,
but to serve as title-deeds do in the case of houses and lands.
In the year 1178 William the Lion makes a grant of Gillan-
drean MacSuthen and his children to the monks of Dunferm-
line. In 1258, Malise, Earl of Strathearn, bestowed upon the
monks of Inchaffray, in pure and perpetual alms, Gilmory
Gillendes, and this he does at Kenmore, on the day of the
annunciation of the Blessed Virgin. The same pious earl, in
the same year, bestowed upon the same religious house John
Starnes, the son of Thomas and grandson of Thore, with his
whole property and children which he had begotten or might
beget; and this he did for the salvation of his own soul, the
souls of his predecessors, and the souls of his successors for
ever.” In some ancient documents there is mention made of
clerici nativi, and these Tytler thinks must be serfs who had
become clerks, and still continued to be serfs ; but we know
that personal slavery was inconsistent with the sanctity
anciently ascribed to the clerical character, and are rather
inclined to believe that the clerici mafizz were bondsmen be-
longing to the Church.”
Slavery existed in Scotland, and the Church of Scotland gave
it its sanction ; but it must be remembered that a similar ser-
vitude existed at the time in almost every country of Europe,
and was probably nearly inseparable from the state of Society
which then existed. It was undoubtedly different from the
negro slavery which till recently existed in the Southern States
of America,” and more nearly resembled the serfdom which
* Chartulary of Dunfermline, fol. 13.
* Chartulary of Inchaffray.
* Tytler's Hist., vol. ii. The view taken in the text is supported by
the 13th chapter of the Regiam Majestatem, which is entitled, “Bond-
men should not be promoved to halie orders.” It starts with the proposi-
tion—“Servile condition is not capabill of the orders or honours of
clerks.” It is provided that if a slave, with the knowledge of his master,
receives orders, he thereby becomes free; if without the knowledge of his
master, he may be given back to slavery ; but in that case he is stripped of
his orders.
* In the Regiam Majestatem it is provided that a slave cannot purchase
his liberty with his own property, for his property is already his master’s ;
but if his master defile his wife, or draw blood of him above his breath,
or allow him to remain unchallenged for seven years on another man’s pro-
perty, he is free.
It is amusing to find the Regiam Majestatem basing the institution of
slavery upon the same scriptural argument as the American slave-owners
were accustomed to use. “Bondage and servitude take ane beginning
frae the drunkenness and ebrietie of Noah (for he pronounced Cham to be
servant of servants to his brethren—Gen. ix. 24).” (Chap. xiv.)
A.D. 1214-18.] A PAPAL INTERDICT. I I I
has now been happily abolished in Russia, where it had lin-
gered longer than in any other European country. It con-
tinued in Scotland till the fifteenth century, but had gradually
been losing ground, and then it disappeared ; but curious
enough, driven from the surface of the soil, it took refuge in
the mines, and lingered there in a modified form till last
century."
In 1214 King William died at Stirling, and was buried in
the Abbey of Aberbrothock, which he himself had so mag-
nificently founded and endowed. He was succeeded on the
throne by Alexander II., who soon found himself involved in
a war with John, the reigning King of England. This weak
and passionate prince had first foolishly bearded the Pope,
and then stooped so low as to accept the crown of England
from his hands, and acknowledge himself the vassal of Rome.
To war with England was now to war with the Holy Catholic
Church, and this guilt was contracted by the king. Such im-
piety could not pass with impunity; and accordingly Gualo,
the Pope's legate, came to Scotland, and excommunicated
Alexander with his whole nobility; and to borrow the words
of Balfour, “interdicted the kingdom from the use of any
religious exercise, and solemnly, with book and bell, cursed
all of whatsoever degree or quality that carried arms against
King John.””
A papal interdict was the most awful ecclesiastical punish-
ment that could be inflicted upon a guilty country ; and was
then generally regarded with the utmost consternation. The
doors of the churches were shut, the services suspended. The
images of the apostles and Saints were taken from their pedes-
tals, and placed upon the ground. Marriage could be per-
formed only in the church-yard above the graves of the dead.
No other sacrament saving baptism could be administered.
The dying must be without the consolations of religion : for
their souls no mass could be said ; by their coffin no dirge
could be sung—they must be buried like dogs. The whole
population must continue under the wrath of God for a time,
till the anger of the Pope should be assuaged. There is reason,
however, to believe that the interdict was not felt in Scotland
* In some mining districts, till very lately, the miners were made over
from one proprietor to another, together with the mines. It was the game
with salters. They were ascriptae glebae—and could not be sold elsewhere.
(Erskine’s Institutes, bk. i. tit. vii. 61, and note.)
* Annals, vol. i.
II 2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
in its utmost severity. The White Monks possessed the
privilege of officiating at such times; and this they now
diligently did, till they also were suspended by the legate,
under the highest spiritual censures, from performing their
merciful functions."
From February 1217 till February 1218, our sanctuaries and
high places were a desolation; but before the latter of these
dates, Alexander, abandoned by his French ally, was glad to
seek and find reconciliation with Rome. Now came the re-
moval of the interdict. The Prior of Durham and the Dean
of York came to Scotland as the deputies of the legate,
“making their progress,” according to Balfour, “from Berwick
to Aberdeen, and absolved the kingdom from Gualo's curse
and interdiction ; and in their return home to England, being
lodged in the Abbey of Lindores, the Prior of Durham was
burned to death in his chamber, which took fire in the night
by chance, his chamberlain being very drunk, and he fast
asleep.” It appears that these deputies had also a commis-
sion to wring as much money as they could from the parish
priests, many of whom, as a further penance, were compelled to
go barefooted to the door of the church, and ask absolution in
the most abject form.
The extortions of Gualo roused the indignation of the
Scottish clergy, and three bishops proceeded to Rome to com-
plain. On professing repentance, they easily obtained pardon;
and the avaricious legate was compelled to disgorge one-half
of his ill-gotten gains, which the Pope appropriated to himself,
thus dividing the spoil with the spoiler. A cardinal who stood
by remarked sneeringly, in reference to the mock penitence
and absolution of the bishops, “that it was the duty of the
pious to confess a crime even where no fault had been com-
mitted.”8
A few years after this, a bishop of Caithness was horribly
mutilated and burned alive in his own house at Hawkirk by
the people of his diocese. A quaint annalist says, “that
he was leading poor people's corn too avariciously;” 4 in other
words, he was a rigorous exacter of tithes. The “Chronicle
of Melrose” says that, like the good shepherd, he laid down his
life for the sheep, rather than allow them to remain in their
pristine ignorance as to the duty of giving a tenth to the
* Spottiswood’s Hist., book ii. * Annals, vol. i.
3 Spottiswood, book ii. Hailes, vol. i.
* Balfour’s Annals, vol. i.
A.D. 1225.] PROVINCIAL COUNCILS. II.3
church." The Saga of Orkney gives a more minute account
of the murder, and of the causes which led to it. It would
appear that it was customary in Caithness to pay to the bishop
a spann of butter for every twenty cows, but Bishop Adam
exacted his spann for every fifteen, and then for every twelve,
and ultimately for every ten. The dairymen of the north could
not stand this, and seizing upon the greedy prelate, they roasted
him at his own kitchen fire.” His death was amply avenged.
A massacre was made of the peasantry. The Earl of Orkney,
who it was thought might have stilled the tumult, had a large
part of his property confiscated, and hardly escaped with his
life, which he did not preserve very long, for a few years after-
wards he was assassinated and burned in his own castle by his
own servants, who it was suspected had been instigated to this
studied mode of revenge. The murdered bishop was venerated
in the Church as a martyr to the divine right of tithes, and
ranked with St James, St Stephen, and St Laurence.
The Scottish clergy about this time represented
to Honorius IV. that, from the want of a metro-
politan, they could not hold a council; that in consequence of
this, many crimes were committed without punishment, and
many abuses allowed to grow up without the power to correct
them. The Pope listened to their statements, and gave them
permission to call provincial councils by the direct authority
of the Apostolic See. The bishops met in virtue of this
authority and appointed one of their number to be Conserva-
tor of their Statutes, and this official acquired considerable
power in the Church. The king, on his part, appointed two
doctors of civil law to attend these councils, and see that
nothing was done in them to the prejudice of the State. We
do not know how often they met, as we have no regular re-
cord of their proceedings; we only know that within fifty
years of the bull which gave them being they framed some
fifty or sixty canons, which were in force down to the Refor-
mation; but some of these we recognize as the product of
old legatine councils, and others are borrowed from the coun-
cils of other countries and general canon law.”
In 1230 Henry III. invited Alexander to York, where the
two monarchs kept Christmas together, and feasted right
royally for fourteen days. Amidst the festivities, the Cardinal
A. D. I225.
* Chronicon de Mailros, fol. 38, Ban. ed., p. 139.
* Ork. Saga, p. 421. Torfaeus, lib. c. 40, quoted in Origines.
* Robertson's Concilia, Pref. 1.-lv.
H
II 4 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
Deacon, who was legate in England, hinted to our monarch
his intention of visiting Scotland, to inquire into ecclesiastical
affairs. “I have never seen a legate in my dominions,” replied
Alexander, “and as long as I live I never will.” The king
said something more about the ferocity of his subjects, which
might endanger the life of a visitor so obnoxious. The Italian
took alarm, and abandoned his journey for a time ; but some
years after he came northwards, and was again withstood by
the king, who would not allow him to cross the border till he
obtained from him a written declaration that the present per-
mission would not be drawn into a precedent." The cardinal
came to Edinburgh, held a council there, and levied some con-
tributions from the clergy, but he was studiously avoided by
the king ; and apparently finding that little could be done, he
returned to England without proceeding farther to the north.
The Pope had condescended to publish a bull, declaring that
it would evince a want of maternal affection to send a legate
to England and not to Scotland; but it is plain that our an-
cestors never appreciated these proofs of his love.
Under the sanction of the papal bull, a Provincial Council
was held at Perth in 1242, in which grievous complaint was
made that nobles and knights were withholding their tithes, and
otherwise sinning against the privileges of the Church ; for
even then all men were not equally loyal. But the pious
monarch, attended by some of his great barons, came to the
council and warned all men, of whatever degree, against
violating the immunities of the Church or doing wrong to
churchmen ; and the royal warning had a salutary effect for
all the years of his reign.”
The spirited resistance to papal extortion and encroachment
exhibited by Alexander II. was continued by his successor
Alexander III. In 1266 Cardinal Ottobon de Fieschi, after-
wards Adrian V., while legate in England, attempted to raise
in Scotland, as a procuration, six merks from each cathedral,
and four merks from each parish church—an enormous sum,
as the annual value of the parsonages at this period did not
average more than ten merks, each merk, though it counts but
13s. 4d., being capable of purchasing a chalder of meal.” The
* Matthew Paris, Hist. Angl., p. 377.
* Fordun, Scotichron, lib. ix. cap. 59.
* “The following examples,” says Lord Hailes, “will give a notion toler-
able correct of the salaries of parish priests during the reign of Alexander
III. Ten merks of silver, six acres of arable ground, and one acre of
A.D. 1268.] THE CRUSADES. II 5
king prohibited the contribution, and appealed to Rome; and
the clergy generously raised amongst themselves two thousand
merks to defray the expenses of the suit. So large a sum, it
is evident, could be used only for bribery, but it was known
that no empty-handed suitor ever gained a case in the papal
COllrt.
Foiled in his attempts at extortion, the legate,
two years afterwards, summoned the Scottish
clergy to attend a council in England ; four of them went, but
only to decline its jurisdiction, and observe its proceedings ;
and though canons were passed affecting our Church, they
were held as null and void."
The Roman pontiffs, at this period, were using their utmost
endeavours to levy the tenths of benefices over all Europe, to
defray the expenses of the Holy War. In 1254 Pope Innocent
IV. granted to Henry III. of England, a twentieth of the
ecclesiastical revenues of Scotland for three years, provided he
should join the Crusade which was then in agitation, and the
grant was subsequently extended for another year. Henry III.
wisely stayed at home, and the Scottish clergy escaped that
ancient income-tax of five per cent. But in 1268, Clement IV.
renewed the grant, increasing it to a tenth ; and the gallant
Son of Henry put a cross on his shield, and repaired to Pales-
tine. Still Scotland declined to be taxed by an English poten-
tate. Blessed with a greater abundance of soldiers than of
gold, an offer was made to send a company of crusaders to
uphold the national piety and honour; and, accordingly, a
A.D. 1268.
meadow, were provided to the vicar of Worgs in Galloway. This grant
was confirmed by Gilbert, Bishop of Galloway, who died in 1253. In
1268 a pension of ten merks sterling was granted to the vicar of Kilrenny
in Fife; of ten merks to the vicar of Salton in the Lothians; of ten pounds
to the vicar of Childrer Kirk ; . . . . twelve merks were provided to the
vicar of Gulan. . . . . Hence we may presume to fix the actual medium
at ten merks. The canons of the Church of Scotland, A.D. 1242 and 1269,
fix the minimum at ten merks.” (Annals, vol. i.). The price of grain
varied as much anciently as now ; but in the twelfth and thirteenth cen-
turies, a merk appears to be nearly the average price of a chalder. “In
I 263 a chalder of oatmeal, fourteen bolls being computed for the chalder,
cost exactly one pound. In the same year, six chalders of wheat were
bought for nine pounds three shillings. In 1264 twenty chalders of barley
sold for ten pounds; in 1288 the price had fallen so low, that we find forty
chalders sold for six pounds thirteen shillings and fourpence, being at the
rate of forty pence the chalder. In 1288 twelve chalders of wheat brought
twelve merks, or thirteen shillings and fourpence the chalder.” (Tytler's
History, vol. ii.)
* Robertson's Concilia, lxiii.
II 6 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
band of knights and yeomen, under the command of the Earls
of Carrick and Athol, were despatched on the fatal expedition,
few of whom ever returned. Athol died before Tunis, fighting
bravely under the banners of the chivalrous but unfortunate St
Lewis; and Carrick found a grave in Palestine. His widow
married again, and became the mother of the heroic Bruce.
In the year 1275 Benemundus de Vicci, better known under
the corrupted name of Bagimont, came to Scotland, to collect,
on behalf of the Pope, the tenth of all ecclesiastical benefices
for the recovery of the Holy Land—the grant to Henry having
expired. It would appear, that long prior to this time there
existed a valuation-roll of all our Church revenues, according to
which the beneficed clergy were taxed, when procurations must
be paid to legates, when suits must be appealed to Rome, when
a proportion of the national burdens must be borne. The
clergy wished the ancient valuation adhered to ; but Bagimont
had instructions to raise the tenths according to the true values
of the benefices. As usual, there was an appeal, and Bagi-
mont returned to Rome for fresh instructions; but the Pope
was inexorable, and insisted that every benefice should be
taxed according to its actual value at the time. Accordingly,
a new valuation and assessment roll required to be formed,
and this document was long known and hated in our country
as Bagimont's Roll, till in process of time the actual valuation
rose far above it, and then it was as much prized as it had been .
previously disliked. It was used at Rome as the rule of pay-
ment for those who came to seek benefices there. It still
exists, but so mutilated, interpolated, and altered, as to give no
information upon the real value of land or Church-livings prior
to the reign of James V.
By far the most important political events in the reign of
Alexander III. were the invasion of the Norwegians, their
defeat at Largs, and the subsequent cession of the Hebrides
to the Crown of Scotland upon the payment of 4000 merks.
But this acquisition of islands, long disputed, had for the time
little influence upon ecclesiastical affairs; for though the
patronage of the Bishopric of Sodor was ceded to Alexander,
the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was reserved to the Archbishop
of Drontheim in Norway; and so Iona still continued under
the spiritual supremacy of the north."
It was during the reign of the two Alexanders that the
* Tytler's Hist., vol. i., note.
A.D. 1200-1300.] MICHAEL SCOT. II 7
different orders of mendicant friars first began to appear in
Scotland. They were now at the very height of their popu-
larity; and our monarchs, who gave them welcome, probably
thought they would be more cheaply lodged and entertained
than the expensive Orders of Cistercian and Cluniac monks
patronized by their predecessors. The chief agent in bringing
them to this country was William de Malvoisin, Bishop of St
Andrews, who was one of the most active and enterprising
prelates of the time; and yet it appears he must have loved
good cheer, for from 1202 to 1233 he deprived the Abbey of
Dunfermline of the presentation to two churches, because its
monks had neglected to supply him with wine enough for his
collation after supper.” *
We have now arrived at a period when Scottish ecclesiastics
begin to make a prominent figure in the current literature of
Europe. Dempster has written the biographies of more than
twelve hundred eminent Scotch writers who lived from the
fourth century downwards. It may be safely said that hun-
dreds of these never existed, that hundreds more owed their
birth to other countries than ours, and that of the remnant,
the fame and the works of the majority have utterly perished.
Our catalogue of authors, by this process of unbelief and for-
getfulness, will be greatly reduced ; but it will contain men,
and not phantoms. We might well be proud to rank among
Our illustrious writers such men as Columbanus, Alcuin, and
Rabanus Maurus; but other countries deny us the honour.
Even Joannes Scotus Erigena, the friend and companion of
Charles the Bald, and one of the most learned men of the
ninth century, must be consigned to the limbo of uncertainty;
for though it is certain he was a Scot, it is doubtful whether
he was a Scot of Ireland, of Ayr, or of Strathearn.”
Michael Scot of Balwirie is still remembered in the tradi-
tions of the country, and is now embalmed in the Lay of the
Last Minstrel. By visiting the great universities of England,
France, Spain, and Italy, he made himself master of the
dialectics and natural philosophy of the age. He was made
a Doctor of Theology, and acquired for himself the name of
Michael the Mathematician. He wrote commentaries on
Aristotle, and a book concerning the physiognomy and procrea-
tion of men; but a large part of his time was devoted to
alchemy aud astrology. He was astrologer for a while to the
Emperor Frederic II. When war drove him from his court,
1 Hailes's Annals, vol. i. * Mackenzie’s Lives, vol. i.
II 8 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
he found a welcome from the first Edward of England ; and
his old age appears to have been spent in his native land. It
has been his fate to be remembered as a sorcerer rather than
as a man of science. Dante, in his “ Divine Comedy,” makes
mention of him as a magician. Dempster tells us that he had
heard in his youth that the magic books of Michael Scot were
still somewhere in existence, but might not be opened on
account of the fiends that would thereby be let loose. Sir
Walter Scott, the great Modern Wizard of the North, has
adhered to the tradition of the country, that his books were
interred in his grave. Yet let us not despise or condemn the
Baron of Balwirie, though an ignorant age regarded him as a
sorcerer, and undying poetry preserves the tradition. It was
the doom of science in those dark days to be looked upon as
necromancy; and the power over nature, which a slight
acquaintance with its laws conferred, gave rise to the suspicion
of dealings with the devil. Michael Scot flourished in the
thirteenth century, and appears to have been one of the Com-
missioners sent to bring the Maid of Norway to Scotland upon
the death of Alexander III.1
John Holybush, known in the world of letters by the more
sounding appellative of Joannes Sacrobosco, is said to owe his
birth to Nithsdale. While still a young man he became a
canon-regular of the order of St Augustine, and afterwards was
made Professor of Mathematics in the University of Paris.
He is acknowledged to have been the most learned mathema-
tician of his day, and to have done much to revive in Europe
a love for mathematical studies. His treatise on the Sphere
was judged by Peter Ramus, Clavius, and Melancthon to be
worthy of their study and illustrative comments. He was
buried in the Church of the Mathurines at Paris, with his
epitaph written round about a sphere, in allusion to his
greatest work.” Richard, Abbot of St Victore, who flourished
toward the end of the twelfth century, also owed his origin to
Scotland. He devoted himself chiefly to exegetical and doc-
trinal studies, and has left behind him thirty-seven different
treatises on theological subjects, which are still to be found in
the libraries of the learned in two large folio volumes. Adam
Scot, a canon-regular of the order of Premontre, was another
of our northern lights in that remote age. With the wandering
1 Note to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Mackenzie's Lives, &c., &c.
* Mackenzie, Dempster, &c.
A.D. 1200-1300.] JoHN DUNS Scotus. I IQ
spirit which has always been characteristic of his countrymen,
he went to France, where he rose to a distinction which he
would have sought for in vain at home. He wrote a treatise
on the Tabernacle of Moses, and another on the Immaculate
Conception of the Blessed Virgin ; and excelled in the allego-
rical and mystical interpretation of Scripture, which was greatly
applauded then, but would be accounted as worse than mean-
ingless now." - -
Thomas Learmont, generally known as Thomas the Rhymer,
has obtained a more imperishable place in Scottish history than
many who have a higher claim to it. He lived in the thirteenth
century, and Ercildoun, a village not far from the Tweed, is
famed as his birthplace and residence. He sustained the
double character of a poet and prophet—characters once
inseparable, but now disjoined throngh the decay of the Spirit
of prophecy; so that for nearly two thousand years our poets
have been but poets, with no inspiration but that of genius.
He is the author of “Sir Tristem,” and is said to have fore-
told the death of Alexander III., the triumph of the Bruce,
and the accession of the Stuarts to the throne ; and there are
still extant some obscure verses, in which the two last of these
events are dimly foreshadowed; but doubts have been started
in regard to their authorship. Some have affirmed that he
derived his knowledge of the future from an inspired nun in
the convent at Haddington ; but the popular belief was, that
he derived it from a secret intercourse with fairyland, whither
he had been carried when a child. We shall probably stumble
at both these hypotheses, and reject altogether his pretensions
as a prophet ; and his rhymes which remain do not give us
very exalted ideas of his powers as a poet.
But by far the most celebrated Scotchman of the thirteenth
century was the celebrated schoolman, John Duns Scotus.
Born at Duns, in the Merse,” he entered at an early age the
order of Franciscan Friars. To complete his studies he re-
paired to Oxford, where he rapidly rose to be professor of
theology, and such was the fame of his genius and learning,
that thirty thousand students are said to have resorted to his
lectures ; but we are not informed how the huge concourse
* Mackenzie, Dempster, &c.
* Some antiquaries have affirmed that this great schoolman was born at
T}unstall in Northumberland; but there is a great preponderance of evi-
dence in favour of Scotland. He is said to have been born in I274, and
to have died in 1308.
I 2 O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
was accommodated. From Oxford he went to Paris, as a wider
field for his talents. The scholastic philosophy was now in
the ascendant; Aristotle was worshipped as a God, and every
theological subject was reduced into a dialectic form, and dis-
Cussed according to the rules of the dialectic art. Duns
Scotus was deeply infected with the prevailing epidemic, and
among his other works we find Commentaries on the Eight
Books of Aristotle, and on the Four Books of Sentences. He
ventured, however, in many particulars to differ from Aquinas,
who, next to Aristotle, was the great authority of the day.
The Dominicans flew to the succour of the one, the Francis-
Cans stood fast by the side of the other. The famous sects of
the Thomists and Scotists arose, whose controversies regarding
Grace and Free Will are undecided to this day. The genius
of Aquinas had earned for him the title of the Angelic Doctor;
the acuteness of Scotus got for him the title of the Subtle
Poctor; it was the fashion of the time to bestow such appella-
tives. But perhaps the greatest achievement of our countryman
was connected with the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin,
a dogma which he is reputed to have proved to the satisfac-
tion of the University of Paris by no fewer than two hundred
arguments. Though his labours were abundant, his years
were not many, for he is understood to have died at Cologne
at the early age of thirty-four. Over his tomb, in the Church
of the Minorites, it is said that there was once an epitaph,
purporting that Scotland gave him birth, England nurture,
France education, Germany a grave."
We have been diverted from following the course of events
by this brief review of the writers produced by our country in
the thirteenth century, and who walk first in that long proces-
Sion of poets, philosophers, and divines, which slowly defiles
before the eye of the historian as he scans the centuries which
succeed. We now return to our narrative.
Alexander III. was killed by a fall from his horse near
Kinghorn on the 16th of March 1285-6. His death plunged
the whole nation into mourning. “The nobility, clergy, and,
above all, the gentry and commons,” says Balfour, “bedeved
his coffin for seventeen days’ space with rivulets of tears.” He
was a good king, and deserved to be lamented. “In his
time,” to quote the affectionate tribute of Fordun, “the Church
flourished ; its ministers were treated with reverence; vice
* Scotia me genuit, Anglia suscepit,
Gallia edocuit, Germania tenet.
A.D. 1286.] COMPETITION FOR THRONE. I 2 I
was openly discouraged ; cunning and treachery were trampled
under foot; injury ceased ; and the reign of virtue, truth, and
justice was maintained throughout the land.” But, indeed,
there was greater reason to grieve for the living than for the
dead, because of the phials of wrath, confusion, and civil war
which were now about to be poured out upon the country.
Alexander had seen all his children die before him ; and now
the heir of his crown was an infant grandchild, daughter of
Eric, King of Norway. Several of the powerful barons began
already to aspire to the throne; and, in truth, in those turbu-
lent times, a sickly child was scarcely its proper occupant.
Edward of England had already reduced Wales, and had long
been ambitious to annex Scotland to his crown; and he
thought that now the pear was ripe. He proposed a marriage
between the Maid of Norway and his son, which was agreed
to ; but the fragile girl died at Orkney on her voyage to Scot-
land, and so this scheme of ambition was blasted.
No fewer than twelve competitors for the throne now ap-
peared ; and, unhappily, Edward was chosen to adjudicate
between them. Before proceeding to investigate their claims
and give his award, the English monarch demanded that he
should be recognised as Lord Paramount; and the demand,
haughtily made, was meanly conceded by suitors anxious to
Secure the favour of their judge. Robert de Bruce and John
de Baliol had undoubtedly the strongest claims; and Edward,
discovering that the latter was likely to be the more compliant
vassal, gave judgment in his favour. But even Baliol could
not brook the indignities which were heaped upon him. He
fired, and prepared to resist ; but resentment was useless and
resistance in vain in the divided state of the kingdom, and the
feeble monarch was tumbled from his throne. At this crisis
in the country's fate, William Wallace arose, and for a time
almost single-handed stemmed the tide of oppression. He
defeated the English at Stirling Bridge, and carried his vic-
torious arms into the north of England; but the disaster at
Falkirk, and the jealousy of the great barons, compelled him
to resign his office of Governor of Scotland. Still he did not
sheath his renowned two-handed sword; and Edward felt that
So long as Wallace lived Scotland was not subdued.
The English monarch was not allowed to urge his preten-
sions, to the feudal superiority of Scotland without a rival.
Boniface VIII., in the year 1300, published a bull, in which
he declared that Scotland was a fief of the Holy See,_and
I 2.2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
commanded Edward to remove his officers and armies from
the patrimony of the Church. One of the arguments by which
His Holiness supported his pretensions was, that the spiritual
conquest of the country had been achieved by the bones of
St Andrew, the brother of St Peter." One is tempted to think
that the pretensions of the Pope were merely meant as a
mockery of those of the King—a quiet sarcasm upon the
weak arguments by which he supported his too powerful arms ;
but both were really in earnest. It is not improbable, how-
ever, that Scottish influence, perhaps Scottish gold, had
procured the interference of the Supreme Pontiff; and it may
even have been suggested that our bleeding country would be
safest from the English lion if taken under the ample folds of
the papal mantle. Edward received the bull with oaths and
rage; but, collecting himself, he gave a courteous reply to the
Archbishop of Canterbury who delivered it, and finally got his
parliament to send an elaborate answer to the Pope in defence
of his pretended rights. It is probable the document was
accompanied with larger bribes than Scotland could afford ;
for His Holiness now suddenly turned round, and in a papal
bull censured the patriotism of the Scottish bishops, who were
anxious to maintain the independence of their country.”
Beconciled to Rome, and backed by this bull, Edward
again marched into Scotland. “In recording the history of
this last miserable campaign,” says Tytler, with more than his
usual eloquence, “the historian has to tell a tale of sullen
submission and pitiless ravage ; he has little to do but to follow
in dejection the chariot-wheels of the conqueror, and to hear
them crushing under their iron weight all that was free and
brave in a devoted country.” But the cause of that country
was not yet utterly lost; and its deliverer was already riding
in hot haste from the court of Edward for the Scottish
border.
Robert Bruce, the grandson of Baliol's rival for the throne,
had hitherto preserved his large estates by maintaining his
allegiance to the English throne; but finding himself sus-
pected, and no longer safe, he now fled to Scotland, sum-
moned together his dependents and friends, had himself
solemnly Crowned at Scone, and, after some of the most ro-
mantic adventures, and hair-breadth escapes, and chivalrous
feats at arms recorded in history, he achieved, on the field
of Bannockburn, the independence of his country.
* Hailes's Annals, vol. ii. Tytler's History, vol. i.
* Hailes's Annals, vol. ii. * Tytler's History, vol. ii.
A.D. 1317.] THE CLERGY SUPPORT BRUCE. I23
Religion, though she naturally seeks for quieter scenes than
the camp and the battle-field, did not altogether stand aloof
in this great struggle for liberty. Among the first friends of
the Bruce were Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews ; Wishart,
Bishop of Glasgow; David, Bishop of Moray; and the Abbot
of Scone. Bruce had become guilty of the most daring impiety
by slaying Comyn in the Church of the Minorites at Dumfries;
but Wishart absolved him in his cathedral at Glasgow. A
papal excommunication was thundered against him, which
might have utterly ruined him in that superstitious age, but the
friendship and influence of Lamberton deprived it of more than
half its power. Both these prelates paid for their patriotism by
a long imprisonment, and it was only their surplice that saved
them from a halter. The Bishop of Moray, undeterred, boldly
preached in his diocese, that it was more meritorious to fight
under the banners of Bruce than to join in a crusade against
the Saracens. Led by such influence, the Scottish clergy met
in a provincial council, and issued a declaration addressed to
all the faithful, and bearing that the nation, seeing the king-
dom betrayed and enslaved, had assumed Robert Bruce for its
king, and that the clergy had cheerfully done him homage as
such." On the field of Bannockburn, before the battle, the
Abbot of Inchaffray passed along the serried ranks of the Scots,
bearing the bones of St Fillan, granting absolution, and fortify-
ing courage by the powers of Superstition. In gratitude to St
Andrew, to whose assistance the victory was devoutly ascribed.
the king gave to the canons of his cathedral a yearly sum of a
hundred merks; Lamberton added the churches of Abercrom-
bie and Dairsie ; and Duncan, Earl of Fife, the church of
Kilgour.”
While the Church thus exhibited its patriot-
ism, and the king his piety, the Supremacy
which a dominant priest had obtained among the nations was
employed to prevent the Scottish armies from reaping the full
fruits of victory. After the battle of Bannockburn, Bruce was
bent upon following up his success by marching into England;
and Edward was in no position to resist. It was resolved that
the invaders should be combated with spiritual weapons.
England was rich, and the Pope was compliant ; and a bull
was issued from Avignon, commanding a truce of two years
between the hostile countries, under pain of the highest
A. D. I.317.
* Hailes's Annals, vol. ii. * Balfour's Annals, vol. i.
*
I 24 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
spiritual censures. Two cardinal legates were despatched to
publish the truce, and in case of resistance to excommunicate
the king. The cardinals prudently paused in England, and
sent forward two nuncios to intimate the message; but the un-
fortunate deputies, while Crossing the borders, were attacked
by banditti, and being eased of some superfluous vestments and
money, were allowed to pursue their way. Bruce courteously
received them at Court, professed his earnest desire to be at
peace with his spiritual mother, but firmly refused to open the
sealed letters which they brought, as they were not addressed
to him under the title of king. “There are several nobles in
my dominions,” said he, “called Robert de Bruce; it may be
they are intended for some one of them.” +
Baffled of their object by the firmness of the king, the nun-
cios returned in all haste to the cardinals, who awaited the
result of the enterprise at Durham. A check had been given
to papal presumption; but it was never the wont of church-
men thus easily to quit the field. It was resolved that the
truce should be published ; and Adam Newton, a Franciscan
friar, was employed upon the perilous mission. Setting out
from Berwick, he found the king encamped in a wood near to
Old Cambus, busily employed in constructing engines to batter
the walls of the town he had just left. He sought, but was re-
fused admittance to the royal presence; and when it was found
that his credentials were not addressed to Robert as king, they
were contemptuously returned to him unopened. The friar,
nevertheless, with the devoted courage which has in general
been characteristic of his order, proclaimed, in presence of a
concourse of the barons, that it was the pontifical will there
should be a truce between the kingdoms; but the words were
no sooner spoken than there were mutterings and looks which
could not be mistaken ; and the monk, feeling his courage to
Ooze out, begged that he might now be allowed to proceed to
visit the prelates, to whom his instructions were addressed; or,
if not, that he might have a safe conduct to return to Berwick.
Both requests were refused, and a hint conveyed that he had
better leave the kingdom as quickly and as best he could. He
took the hint and hastened south, but he was waylaid upon
the road, robbed of his parchments, among which were the
bulls excommunicating the king; and being further stripped
of the little clothing which a Franciscan has, was left stark
* Rymer, Foedera, vol. iii. pp. 661-2.
A.D. 1320.] BTLL AND MANIFESTO. I 25
naked, and almost stark mad, to continue his journey.
Arriving at Berwick, the unhappy monk addressed a letter to
the legates bemoaning his misfortunes, and stating that it was
rumoured that the Lord Robert had planned the robbery and
was in possession of the parchments; and, without greatly
wronging the memory of the pious monarch, we may feel dis-
posed to believe in the report."
After obtaining possession of Berwick, and re-
pulsing an attempt to recapture it by the English
king in person, and sweeping, more than once, the northern
counties with his light-armed Cavalry, Bruce consented to a
cessation of hostilities. He was anxious not merely for the
blessings of peace, but to be reconciled to the Holy See ; but
the Supreme Pontiff was in no humour to be reconciled to
him, and had forgotten altogether his office as a peacemaker.
A rabid and most rancorous bull was issued against the king
and his accomplices ; and the Archbishop of York, with the
Bishops of London and Carlisle, were commanded, with all the
usual solemnities of book, bell, and candle, to excommunicate
the guilty crew every Sunday and festival-day throughout the
year. This could not be borne in silence ; and, accordingly,
a meeting of the Estates was held at Aberbrothock, and an
elaborate manifesto prepared and addressed to the Pope; set-
ting forth the ancient independence of the nation, and the
right of Robert the Bruce to reign as its king. It ran in the
name of eight earls and thirty-one barons especially men-
tioned, and of “the other barons, freeholders, and whole com-
munity of Scotland.” The publication of this spirited
manifesto led the Pontiff to sist the repeated publication of
the bulls of excommunication ; but it was not till three years
afterwards, during which the northern counties of England
were again cruelly wasted, that a complete reconciliation with
Rome was effected by Randolph proceeding to Rome and
persuading the Pope to address a bull to the Bruce, with the
title of king. Edward complained of the bad faith of His
Holiness for consenting to do so, but was soon afterwards him-
self glad to make peace with the Scottish monarch upon terms
still more hurtful to his pride.
In all these transactions the patriotism and loyalty of the
A.D. I.32O.
* Rymer, Foedera, vol. iii. pp. 683-4.
* A duplicate of this memorable document is preserved in the General
Register House at Edinburgh. A facsimile is given in the first volume
of the Scots Acts.
126 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VI.
native clergy were sufficiently obvious, and it was only the
foreign element—the unfortunately-recognised Supremacy of
the Bishop of Rome—that threatened to breed disturbance
between the Church and the State. The papal court, ever
venal, was at the service of England, and, of course, it had
its emissaries and devotees ; but the clergy, as a body, clung
to the interests of the royal Bruce, and were ready to forget
their vows to advance his cause. In truth, though the faith
and worship of the Scottish Church were as corrupted as those
of any Church in Christendom, its priesthood was never blindly
submissive to the Vatican. The country was distant from the
centre of pontifical influence, and much of that influence was
lost as it radiated towards the circumference. It formed one
of the outer provinces of the vast spiritual hierarchy, where the
law in its rigour was not felt. Scotland was more than once
put under an interdict, and its monarchs were frequently under
the ban of the Holy See ; but the king and the country alike
seemed to have been unscathed by the lightning's flash, for we
read of no rebellions, no assassinations, no outrages of any
kind ; and though history has recorded the facts, she has made
no mention of their effects, from which we may infer that they
were but slight and transient.
Our great king, notwithstanding his stout resistance to
Rome, was a religious man according to the religion of the
time; and there is a circumstance in his life, or rather con-
nected with his death, which very well illustrates the religious
feelings of the period. The blood of the Red Comyn, slain
before the altar at Dumfries, had left a stain upon his con-
science, and to wipe it out, he had solemnly vowed that
when the country was free, he would take the cross and go
to Palestine. He had never been able to perform his vow,
and when he was upon his death-bed, being troubled thereat,
he called Sir James Douglas to his side, and exacted from
him a solemn promise, that when he was dead he would take
out his heart and carry it to the Holy Sepulchre, “where the
Lord lay.” The promise being made on the true faith of a
knight, the monarch died in peace. The good Sir James was
true to his word, and with a chosen band of knights set out for
Palestine ; but his unconquerable love for adventure led him
1 Bruce had previously arranged that he should be buried at Melrose, to
which abbey he bequeathed large sums ; and it appears that it was not
till he lay a poor leper at Cardross, and nigh to death, that he formed
the resolution of sending his heart to Jerusalem.
A.D. 1300-1400.] JOHN DE FORDUN. 127
to Spain, that he might assist in battle against the Moors, and
being surrounded in the too eager pursuit of the flying foe, he
made his last charge by throwing the casket containing the
embalmed heart of his beloved sovereign before him, and cry-
ing out, “On, thou noble heart, and where the Bruce leads, the
Douglas will follow !” The incident is one of the finest
in the records of chivalry, but it is evidently embellished
By romance.
Robert I. was succeeded by his son David II., a child of
eight years old at the time of his father's death. In the re-
joicings attending his birth, the court poets foretold that he
would rival his father's fame ; but virtue and valour are not
always hereditary, and we read with extreme pain, on the
prosaic but truthful page of history, of his mean and truckling
spirit, and of how he would have sold to England for money
the country which his father had redeemed with blood. Robert
II., the first of the Stuarts who sat upon our throne, succeeded
to his uncle David; and he in his turn was succeeded by his
son Robert III. These reigns fill up the fourteenth century.
They contain political events of the greatest importance, but
no ecclesiastical occurrences deserving of record. The Church
had now fully asserted its independence of England. The
ecclesiastical battle was fought and won earlier than the poli-
tical One. It was now completely conformed to Rome, and
reconciled to Rome; and its bishops and priests quietly per-
formed their sacred offices in those noble edifices which piety
had reared for them. It is, unfortunately, only times of trouble
that find a place in history; the calm scenes and useful labours
of periods of repose soon sink into oblivion.
The seeds of our glorious modern literature were already
beginning to germinate under the sunny influences of the
Italian sky. In our colder latitudes the development was later
and slower ; but even in the fourteenth century there were
evidences of a quickening power at work. We have authors
in that age—all of them ecclesiastics—of whom we need not
be ashamed.
John de Fordun is the earliest Scottish historian. He was
born, toward the latter end of the reign of Alexander III., at
Fordun in Kincardineshire. After he had finished his studies
In grammar and philosophy, he applied himself to theology,
and cntered into holy orders. He formed the design of
Writing the history of his country from the most remote anti-
quity down to his own time, but he did not live to complete
I 28 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLANID. [CHAP. VI.
the work. He finished only five books, but he has had several
continuators. He was not free from the love for fable, uni-
versal in his age, and he traces our nation through Greece and
Egypt up to Nimrod the mighty hunter. But when he leaves
behind him the region of clouds, and sets his foot upon the
solid land, he is in general worthy of credit ; and every sub-
sequent historian has been largely indebted to him. He is,
at least, the highest authority we have, and far more trust-
worthy than the imaginative Boece ; but none of our early
chronicles can be implicitly followed as a guide. His “Scoti-
Chronicon" was anciently so hightly esteemed, that almost
every monastic library could boast a copy of it; and the famous
Register of the Carthusians at Perth, and the Black Books of
Scone and Paisley, were little else than transcripts and con-
tinuations of it.
Achilles had Homer to celebrate his praise in immortal
verse ; Bruce, a mightier hero, had a meaner bard, but still
one of those favoured few who are born with a harp in their
bosom. John Barbour is said to have been born in Aber-
deen about the year 1316. After receiving the rudiments
of his education at home, he pursued his philosophical and
theological studies in the universities of Oxford and Paris.
Returning to his native country, he entered into priest's
orders, and was preferred by King David to the Arch-
deaconry of his native city. His heroic poem on Robert
Bruce consists of a hundred and one books, in which he
minutely traces his history, from his flight to Scotland down
to the adventure of his heart on the mountains of Andalusia.
It is a remarkable production for so early a period, giving us
life-like pictures of the great characters who wrought out the
deliverance of the country, and of the stirring scenes amid
which they lived; and though not to be ranked with the
great productions of poetic genius, it must ever be interest-
ing to Scotsmen as one of the earliest specimens of their
native tongue, and the most faithful history of their favourite
king.
John Bassol, a Minorite friar, who wrote a large folio on
the “Books of the Sentences,” which acquired for him the
title of “the most orderly doctor;” John Blair, a Benedictine
monk, who is said to have been a schoolfellow of Sir William
Wallace, and who afterwards wrote his deeds; William
Dempster, Professor of Philosophy at Paris; and Thomas
Varoye, Provost of Bothwell, who wrote a poem in celebration
A.D. 1400.] GROWTH OF THE PAPACY. I 29
of the battle of Otterburne, nearly complete the catalogue of
illustrious Scotsmen in the fourteenth century. Even these,
how few have seen their writings—how few have heard their
names | But the revival of letters had already begun.
Petrarch and Boccaccio had made the world vocal with
poetry not unworthy of their Latin ancestry; the invention of
printing was at hand ; and greater men arose to play their
parts upon a greater stage.
CHAPTER VII.
“ROME was not built in a day.” This is equally true of
papal as of pagan Rome. We shall sin against all history if
we conceive that the stupendous system of faith and worship
now embodied in the decrees and canons of the Council of
Trent was fully developed and perfect from the first. It was
the growth of fifteen hundred years. The members of the
hierarchy rose by slow decrees to their opulence and power ;
the rites and ceremonies which overlaid the spiritual services
of the sanctuary were gradually introduced ; and almost every
important dogma was the subject of free discussion for cen-
turies before it was put into the creed, and made a necessary
article of belief. Pictures and statues were very early brought
into the Christian churches, but it was not till the year 879
that the Council of Constantinople decreed the worship of
images, and silenced the iconoclasts ; and more than another
century was required to make the doctrine universal in the
west. From the patristic age the virtues of celibacy were
greatly lauded, and multitudes of the clergy and laity, of men
and of women, sacrificed the first instincts of their nature to
the prevalent ideas of Christian perfection ; but it was not till
the eleventh century that Gregory VII. made celibacy com-
pulsory upon every member of the Sacerdotal caste. In the
writings of several of the first apologists for Christianity there
is language which seems to imply a belief in the real presence
in the sacrament of the Supper : but not till the thirteenth
century, when Innocent III. sat in the papal chair, was the
term transubstantiation known, or the doctrine authoritatively
defined. It was the same pontiff who first rendered auricular
Confession imperative, thus giving to the Church two dogmas,
I
I 3o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
the former of which is the greatest possible affront to the
human understanding, and the latter the greatest possible
shock to private modesty and to public morals. His succes-
sor, Honorius III., decreed the adoration of the Host, and
thus rendered complete the idea of Christ's presence in the
Eucharist. Thus has this great Church system grown, and
thus is it now growing ; for it is a mistake to suppose that
the creed of Rome is a sealed book, from which nothing must
be taken away, and to which nothing may be added. In our
own day, after five hundred years of vehement debate, the
doctrines of the Immaculate Conception and the Infallibilty
of the Pope have been placed upon the same level as the
doctrines of the Existence and Unity of God.
It has frequently been remarked of the British constitution
that its great strength and durability result from its being the
slow growth of many centuries. In France we have seen con-
stitutions born in a day and die in a day. In England the
overshadowing constitution under which we live and are safe
has been the work of nearly a thousand years—the product
of a cautious legislation, meeting emergencies and correcting
abuses just as they arose. Unlike the gourd matured by a
single sun and blasted in a single night, it is more like the
oak of our forests, which requires an unknown number of cen-
turies to arrive at its fullest development ; but which, when it
has taken hold of the soil, no tempest can overturn. It is to
the same circumstance we must attribute the amazing stability
of the papal system and the papal power. The oldest empires
are young in comparison with the spiritual empire of Rome.
The most ancient dynasties are of yesterday contrasted with
the long line of pontiffs who have sat in the chair of St Peter.
Nor are there yet the slightest symptoms of this dominion
coming to an end ; for though old provinces have revolted
and declared themselves free, new provinces have been gained
which more than compensate for the loss ; just as Great
Britain has more than made up for the loss of the American
States, by her vast and recently-acquired possessions in Aus-
tralia and India.
The Church grew in Scotland as it grew at Rome, as the
branch grows with the growth of the stem. Rite after rite was
introduced ; doctrine after doctrine was readily embraced ;
for with the expansion of the creed there was always exhi-
bited a corresponding expansion of the faculty of faith ;
swarm after swarm of idle friars came from the south, dark-
A.D. 1414.] COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. I 3 I
ening the sky and settling down upon the land; stone after
stone was added to the structure, and as it rose toward heaven,
it appeared so broad and high, and firmly compacted, that
nothing could shake it. But already the cloud, no larger than
a man's hand, appeared in the sky, which betokened the
Coming tempest.
The fifteenth century opened upon one of the worst
schisms that had ever rent the Latin Church. Boniface IX.
at Rome, and Benedict XIII. at Avignon, both laid claim to
the popedom, and exercised its functions. The death of the
former did not end the division, for his faction raised to the
pontificate Innocent VII. ; and he, after a reign of two years,
was succeeded by Gregory XII. A plan of reconciliation
was now formed between the contending pontiffs, who reci-
procally bound themselves by a solemn oath to resign the
papal dignity, if necessary for the peace and welfare of the
Church ; but their oaths were violated, and the schism con-
tinued. In 1409 a Council was assembled at Pisa, which
declared both the Popes to be guilty of heresy, perjury, and
contumacy, and to be therefore iſ so facto deposed and excom-
municated. The Council next raised to the pontifical chair
Peter of Candia, who assumed the name of Alexander V.
There were now in the Church three factions and three Popes,
who mutually cursed and excommunicated each other. Alex-
ander V. dying at Bologna, sixteen cardinals, who belonged
to his party, chose as his successor a Neapolitan, of a most
unprincipled and profligate character, who took the name of
John XXIII. The pious beheld all this with wonder and dis-
gust, and knew not whom to recognise as their spiritual father
and supreme head.
In 1414 the famous Council of Constance met to heal the
divisions which distracted the Church. The Council began
its labours by declaring, that an Oecumenical council was supe-
rior to the Pope. This rule being established, John XXIII.
was unanimously deposed on account of many grave crimes
which were laid to his charge. As the Council was evidently
in earnest, Gregory XII. anticipated his fate by making a
voluntary resignation of the pontifical throne. But Benedict
XIII. was not a man to yield, and so he also was deposed ;
and the field being thus cleared, Otta de Colonna was raised
to the dignity of head of the Church, which he ruled under
the title of Martin V. Still Benedict refused to acknowledge
the proceedings of the Council, and continued till the day of
I32 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
his death to claim the prerogatives and discharge the duties of
the pontificate.
This unseemly spectacle of so many rival popes contending
for the chair of the apostolic fisherman, with all the ambition,
avarice, want of faith, and other crimes which the contest laid
bare, scandalized many, and led them to doubt the infallibility
of such men, and the purity of the Church over which they
presided. But even before this period, Wickliff—so beauti-
fully called the Morning Star of the Reformation—had arisen,
and by his bold preaching, and, above all, by his translation
of the Bible into English, exposed the corruptions of Rome.
Notwithstanding the bitter enmity of the friars, whose profli-
gacy he had frequently denounced, he died in peace at his
rectory of Lutterworth in the year 1384. But a convocation
of the Anglican clergy at Oxford, in 14 Io, condemned his
doctrines, and burnt his books. The Council of Constance,
after deposing so many popes, proceeded to deal with here-
tics. Huss and Jerome of Prague were consigned to the
fire. Wicliff was happily beyond their power; but a list of
propositions, culled from his writings, was examined and
Condemned, and a brutal decree passed, commanding his
works, and his bones—now mouldering in the grave—to be
committed to the flames. It was thirteen years before the
decree was obeyed; but then his body was exhumed and
burnt. “His ashes,” says old Fuller, “were thrown into the
Swift, and the Swift conveyed them to the Avon, the Avon
into the Severn, the Severn into the narrow seas, the narrow
Seas into the main ocean ; and, like his ashes, so were his
doctrines dispersed over the wide world.”
It is certain Wickliff had many followers. It was said that
if you met two men upon the road, one of them was sure to
be a Wickliffite. Within thirty years of his death, his opinions
had reached all the way to Bohemia; for Huss and Jerome
had imbibed them, and it was for this chiefly they were con-
demned to be burnt. But even before the Council of Con-
stance had met, the doctrines of Wickliff had found their way
into Scotland. John Resby, an English priest, and described
by our early historians as being of the school of Wickliff, had
come into our country; and it was not long till he incurred
the suspicion of heresy. He was accordingly seized, in the
year 1407, and carried before a Council of the clergy, over
which presided Lawrence Lindores, a doctor in theology, and
* Knighton, De Eventibus.
A.D. 1407-1413.] UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS. I 33
a member of the Inquisition. His impeachment consisted of
forty different articles, but we are acquainted with only two of
them. He was accused of denying that the Pope was the
successor of St Peter ; or that a man of a wicked life could be
the vicar of Christ. The trial resulted in his being condemned
to the flames; and the cruel sentence was immediately carried
into execution at Perth.” He was the first who went from
Scotland to join the noble army of martyrs.
Scotland, at this period, was under the regency of Robert,
Duke of Albany. The third Robert was dead, and his son,
James I., was a captive in England. The whole aim of Albany
was to maintain his precarious power, which he managed to
do by pampering the nobles and ecclesiastics and oppressing
the people. Winton, in his “Chronicle,” specially celebrates
his hatred of the Lollards, and his zeal for the purity of the
Church.”
Henry Wardlaw was Bishop of St Andrews. We would
willingly exculpate him if we could from all participation in
the horrid crime. He was a prelate of liberal sentiments, of
unbounded hospitality, distinguished for his anxiety to reform
the clergy and the laity, and to him belongs the undying
honour of having given to Scotland its first University. But
it is impossible to believe that the fires of religious persecution
could be kindled without the approbation of so influential a
bishop. After all, need we wonder that he gave his voice to
burn a wandering Wickliffite, when perhaps there were not ten
men then living who did not think it was highly meritorious to
persecute heretics to the death. The same sin lies at the door
of still greater and holier men.
Wardlaw had got his bishopric from Benedict XIII., at
Avignon; and he no sooner obtained possession of his See
than he set his heart upon making it the seat of a University.
Scottish munificence had already founded the Scotch College
at Paris and Baliol College at Oxford; but Scotland itself was
yet without any school for the higher branches of study, and
its clergy were obliged to go abroad to complete their educa-
tion. So early as 14Io the first Professors of St Andrews had
begun their labours. John Shevez, Official of St Andrews,
William Steven, afterwards Bishop of Dunblane, and Sir John
Lister, a canon of the Abbey, read lectures in divinity; Law-
rence Lindores expounded the common law ; and Richard
* Fordun’s Scotichron., lib. xv. c. 20.
* Winton's Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 419.
I 34 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLANID. [CHAP. VII.
Cornwall, the civil law; while John Gow, William Foulis, and
William Crosier, delivered prelections on philosophy and
logic." They are worthy to be held in everlasting remem-
brance, as the first Senatus Academicus of Scotland. The
infant university was yet without endowments, and without a
pontifical charter. The latter of these wants was speedily
supplied. On the 3d February 1413, Alexander Ogilvy, who
had been despatched to Rome to obtain the Pope's bull of
confirmation, arrived at St Andrews, bringing with him the
coveted document, and was received with every demonstration
of joy. On the following day, the bull was read in the refec-
tory, in the presence of the bishop and a large concourse of
ecclesiastics. A procession, in which four hundred of the
clergy joined, moved up the long nave of the cathedral to the
altar; Te Deum was sung ; high mass was celebrated; and
the day was concluded with bonfires, the ringing of bells, and
universal festivity.” It was fitting that thanks should be given
to God, and that gladness should abound among the people,
for science had how found a resting-place in the land.
In the year 1424 James I. was released from his captivity
in England, and solemnly crowned in the abbey church of
Scone. According to the ancient usage of the Country,
Murdoch, Duke of Albany and Earl of Fife, placed the crown
upon his head; and Wardlaw, Bishop of St Andrews, anointed
him with the holy oil. The country was in a state of perfect
lawlessness; the barons were no better than powerful bandits;
and to the poor for many long years had belonged only lamen-
tation and woe ; but there was now seated upon the throne a
man of a determined will, resolved to redress such grievous
wrongs. “Let God but grant me life,” said he, “and there
shall not be a spot in my dominions where the key shall not
keep the castle, and the bracken-bush the cow, though I
myself should lead the life of a dog to accomplish it.”
The eyes of so wakeful a monarch were not shut to the
abuses which had crept into the Church; but he required the
help of churchmen to curb the exorbitant power of the nobles;
and therefore he touched their sore places with a very tender
hand, while otherwise he showed his zeal for the established
religion. Buchanan celebrates his anxiety to raise the educa-
tional standard of the clergy, which was gradually sinking ;
and states that he gave instructions to the governors of all
* Spottiswood's History, book ii. Boethius, lib. xvi.
* Pinkerton's History, vol. i. Tytler's History, vol. iii.
A.D. 1424.] SALE OF BENEFICES. I35
schools, and of the university now happily founded, to make
known to him any scholars who had distinguished themselves,
that he might bestow upon them ecclesiastical preferments."
The sale of Scotch benefices at Rome had long been felt as
an intolerable evil. It not only impoverished the kingdom,
but made the clergy look to a foreign potentate, instead of
their own monarch, for promotion. Still further to extort
money and render the higher ecclesiastics dependent upon the
pontifical will, Pope Urban IV. had ordained that every bishop
and abbot should repair to Rome for consecration; and,
accordingly, towards the close of the thirteenth century, we
find five of our bishops-elect dancing attendance at the Roman
Court for several years, while their bishoprics remained vacant
at home. One of them died there, two received consecration,
and one was refused, most probably because he could not
afford bribes sufficiently large. The fifth, through his agent,
obtained a mandate to be consecrated in Scotland.” This
grasping at power and wealth on the part of the popes was
felt over all Europe, and led to the memorable war of investi-
tures. In Scotland the pretensions of the Supreme pontiffs
were not always, nor even generally, conceded. The bishops
were generally elected by the cathedral chapters; the abbots
by the monks; the parish priests by the native aristocracy,
the bishops, or religious houses in which the patronage was
vested. The popes were never denied the right of confirming
the appointment, and the large fees consequent thereon. Still
many of the best preferments were bestowed at Avignon or
Rome, and it was the custom of aspiring clerks to resort thither
in great numbers, to try what love or money could accomplish.
Wardlaw was at Avignon with Benedict when the See of St
Andrews became vacant, and managed to get the appointment.
James I. resolved to put an end to this grievance; and, accord-
ingly, had an act passed, declaring that no clerk should pur-
chase any pension out of any benefice, Secular or religious,
“under all pain that he may time against his Majesty.” 8 By
another act it was declared, that if any clerk wished to go
beyond seas he must first prove to his Ordinary that there was
good cause for his journey, and make Oath that he would not
be guilty of baratrie,” a word which occurs in our ancient laws,
and seems to be nearly synonimous with simony, or the pur-
chasing of benefices by money. Certain acts, which had
* History, book x. * Spottiswood, book ii.
*James I., parl. i. c. xiv. *James I., parl. vii. c. cwii.
136. CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
already been passed, anent carrying gold out of the realm,
were also made applicable to churchmen proceeding to Rome
with a suspicious amount of Cash. - *
But while James thus attempted to check the avarice of the
popes, in his very first parliament he ratified all the ancient
privileges of the Church, and commanded all men to honour
it. He brought himself, however, into violent collision with the
Roman See by parliamentary legislation which was thought to
interfere with the spiritual jurisdiction of the Church, and
saved himself from excommunication only by proposing a Com-
promise. He was evidently bent on the reformation of the
Church as well as the State. He ordered the bishop of St
Andrews to take measures for recovering the possessions
of which his See had been robbed by his predecessors: he
ordered the Benedictines and Augustinians to restore their
ancient discipline, and save themselves from ruin.” Unfor-
tunately he proceeded still further. The death of Resby had
not suppressed the opinions he cherished. So many had em-
braced them as to have attracted the attention and excited the
alarm of the legislature. Accordingly, in a parliament held in
1425, it was enacted that every bishop within his diocese
should make inquisition for all Lollards and heretics, in order
that they might be punished, and that wherever it was neces-
sary the secular arm should be called in to support the laws
and authority of the Church.” Eight years elapsed after the
passing of this act before we hear of its being put into force.
But in the year 1433 it found a victim. -
A. D. I.433. A Bohemian of the name of Paul Craw had
come from Prague to Scotland, for what reason
is not very well known. He was a physician, but he appears
to have been more zealous in propagating his religious opin-
ions than in practising medicine. Lawrence. Lindores, who
had conducted the impeachment of Resby, again signalized
his zeal for the Church by seizing Craw and arraigning him as
a heretic. The Bohemian appears to have denied the doc-
* Most parliaments were opened by such an act. The first act of the
first parliament of James was as follows:–“ In the first to the honour of
God and halie kirk, It is statute and ordained, that the halie kirk joyes
and bruikis, and the ministers of it, thar auld priviledges and freedomes,
And that no man let them to set thar lands or teinds under pain that may
follow be spiritual law or temporal.”
* Robertson’s Concilia, Pref. lxxxviii.-xc,
* James I., parl. ii. chap. xxviii.
A.D. 1435.] AEN EAS SILVIUS IN SCOTLAND. I 37
trine of transubstantiation, the existence of purgatory, the
efficacy of absolution ; and to have maintained that the Bible,
in the native tongue, should be open to all. It would also
seem that in the celebration of the Supper, he and his followers
observed a form not greatly different from that presently in
use in Presbyterian Churches. The Lord's prayer was recited
—the words of institution were read—and the elements of
bread and wine given to the communicants. Craw was fur-
ther accused of denying the resurrection of the dead, and
encouraging gross immorality; but in all probability these
were the slanderous inventions of his enemies." When put
upon his trial he exhibited great acuteness and knowledge of
the Scriptures; but it was in vain. He was condemned and
burnt at St Andrews. -
A. D. I435 Just a year before the tragic death of James I.
** **** Scotland received an illustrious visitor. AEneas
Silvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., came to our country as papal
legate, and has left us some interesting notices of its condition
at the time. “Concerning Scotland,” says he, “these things
are worthy of repetition. It is an island joined to England,
stretching two hundred miles to the north, and about fifty
broad; a cold country, fertile of few sorts of grain, and gene-
rally void of trees; but there is a sulphureous stone dug up,
which is used for firing. The towns are unwalled, the houses
commonly built without lime, and in villages roofed with turf,
while a cow's hide supplies the place of a door. The com-
monalty are poor and uneducated, have abundance of flesh and
fish, but eat bread as a dainty. The men are small in stature,
but bold; the women fair and comely, and prone to the
pleasures of love—kisses being there esteemed of less conse-
quence than pressing the hand is in Italy. The wine is all
imported; the horses are mostly small, ambling nags, only a few
being preserved entire for propagation, and neither curry-combs
nor reins are used. The Oysters are larger than in England.
From Scotland are imported into Flanders hides, wool, salt-
fish, and pearls. Nothing gives the Scots more pleasure than
to hear the English dispraised. The country is divided into
two parts, the cultivated lowlands, and the region where
agriculture is not used. The wild Scots have a different lan-
guage, and sometimes eat the bark of trees.” . . e is is
“Coals are given to the poor at the church-doors by way of
1 Fordun Scotichron., lib. xvi. c. 20. Tytler, vol. iii.
I 38 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
alms, the country being denuded of wood.”" The future Pope
informs us, that, on his return, when he reached the north of
England, disguised as a merchant, he could get neither bread
nor wine; and during the night, a report being spread that the
Scottish borderers were approaching, the men fled, but the
women remained quietly at home, undismayed by the prospect
of the probable result.
In 1436, James was basely assassinated in
the convent of the Dominicans at Perth. He
was perhaps the most energetic monarch who ever occupied
our throne; and many of the laws passed during his reign
prove his anxiety to promote trade and to ameliorate the con-
dition of the poor. But it is probable that, had he lived, he
would have completely crushed the nobility, and in freeing
the Country from their rapacity and turbulence, exposed it to
the hazard of a monarchical despotism. His death brought
upon the nation the evils of a long minority. His eldest son,
James II., was but six years old when he was crowned king.
There was now repeated the often-told tale of fierce contend-
ings for place and power. Crichton struggled with Living-
stone, and Livingstone with Crichton, for the supreme direc-
tion of affairs; and the unhappy royal child was carried about
from place to place, to be used as a puppet—was captured and
recaptured—was now a prisoner at Edinburgh, now at Stirling;
while the house of Douglas appeared to overtop the very
monarchy, like some huge tower overtopping the walls of a
beleaguered city, and threatening its destruction. But this
came to an end. Before James was arrived at manhood he
seized the reins of government, and held them so firmly as
Soon to show that he had inherited some of the energy and
resolution of his father.
Up to this time when a bishop died his personal estate went
to the crown, probably on the theory that he could have no
heirs proper to whom to leave it. The Church had frequently
remonstrated against this but without success. But now in a
parliament held in 1449 the bishops went down upon their
knees before the king, and the ancient custom was revoked,
and the prelates allowed to leave their money to whom they
pleased.” At this period there were always some nephews
or nieces whom the good bishops loved with an affection
entirely paternal—what more natural than that they should
wish to leave them their wealth P
Pii II., Comment. rerum. mem. sui temporis.
* Act Parl. Scot., James II.
A. D. I436.
A.D. 1450.] UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. I 39
In perusing the annals of this reign, so full
of felids, assassinations, and all the darkest
passions of our nature, it is pleasing to light upon a page which
records the erection of a second university. It is a gleam of
Sunshine in the midst of a tempest. On the 7th of January
I45o, Pope Nicolas V. issued a bull for the erection of a stu-
dium generale, or University in Glasgow. It is to William
Turnbull, the bishop of the diocese, that we are indebted for
the boon; but the papal bull of erection proceeds upon the
desire of the king, and the fitness of the city for producing
the fruits of learning to the advantage of all Scotland and
the neighbouring nations, “by reason of the salubrity of its
climate, the plenty of victuals, and of everything necessary
for the use of man; that there the Catholic faith may abound,
the simple be instructed, justice taught, reason flourish, and
the minds and understandings of men be enlightened and
enlarged.” In this foundation-charter it is further ordained,
that the doctors, masters, lecturers, and students of the Uni-
versity of Glasgow should enjoy all the privileges granted by
the Apostolic See to the University of the city of Bologna."
The papal bull was solemnly read at the market-cross ; a
plenary indulgence was promised to all who should visit the
cathedral during the current year; and the University of the
West began its career, obscure at first, but ever marking its
track through time with a broader and brighter splendour.
The royal protection was soon extended to the infant semi-
nary. On the 20th of April 1453, James II., by his royal
letters, “took under his firm peace, protection, and safeguard,
all and every the rector, deans of faculty, procurators of nations,
regents, masters, and scholars, in the aforesaid university, and
exempted them, together with the beadles, writers, stationers,
parchment-makers, and students, from all tributes, services,
exactions, taxations, collections, watchings, wardings, and all
dues whatsoever imposed within the kingdom, or to be im-
posed.” In the same year Bishop Turnbull executed a deed,
confirming and explaining the privileges granted by papal and
royal favour to his university, and granting others, which show
how much it was in the power of a bishop to grant. But
though possessed of such high privileges, the university does
not appear to have yet fallen heir to any property or endow-
* Origines Parochiales Scotiae—Glasgow.
* Origines—Glasgow. In this document James calls the university-
4 & g e 'e # - º * 22
Alma Universitas Glasguensis, filia nostra dilecta.
A. D. I.45O.
I4O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLANID. [CHAP. VII.
ments, and must have resembled some of our ancient nobility
in the seventeenth century, who, with illustrious titles and ex-
tensive hereditable jurisdictions, could scarcely muster enough
of money to purchase a coat, or furnish themselves with a
meal. “The university,” says Professor Jardine, “came into
the world as naked as every individual.”
It found its first domicile in the Rottenrow, where there was
a house known long afterwards as the “Aulde Pedagoge ; ” but
on the 6th of June 1459, James Lord Hamilton bequeathed to
the regent and students a tenement “in the street leading
down from the cathedral to the market-cross, near the place of
the Dominican Friars,” together with four acres of land in the
Dowhill, contiguous to the Molendinar Burn, upon condition
that every day they should, in a prescribed form, pray for his
own soul and the soul of Euphemia, his countess; and that if
an oratory should ever be built within the college, the regent
and students should there also daily convene, and, on their
bended knees, sing an Ave to the Virgin, with a collect and
memoria for himself and his wife.” Whether or not the regent
and students were thus careful to remember Lord James and
his lady in their prayers, the tenement was taken possession
of, and it served to shelter the learning of the west, till it was
thrown down, and the buildings were erected upon its site,
which accommodated the University till a few years ago, when
it moved westwards from the squalor of the High Street to the
palatial structure which the munificence of the city merchants
provided for it on Gilmore Hill. Three years later than Lord
Hamilton's gift, David de Cadiou, Canon of Glasgow and Rector
of the University, assigned an annual sum of twelve merks, from
certain lands and tenements in the burgh, to endow a clerk in
the faculty of the sacred canons, who should be bound to read
lectures in the public schools within the city in the morning,
and celebrate mass at the altar of the Virgin in the lower
church of the cathedral, for the donor, his parents, friends, and
benefactors.” In 1466 another tenement, adjoining that already
obtained, was bequeathed to the university by Thomas Arthurlie.
These were the first benefactors of this celebrated school; and
though we may no longer say masses for their souls, it is right we
should hold their names in grateful remembrance. Their ex-
ample was not generally followed, and for a century and a half
the University of Glasgow remained wretchedly poor.
In accordance with the papal bull, the university contained
| Origines—Glasgow. * Ibid.
A.D. 1450.] PROFESSORS AND STUDENTS. I4 I
four different faculties—theology, Canon law, civil law, and
arts. We have no very explicit information in regard to the
first professorships that were instituted, or the first lectures
that were read. From its first institution the university en-
joyed the privilege of conferring degrees. In order to the
acquisition of one of these, a certain period required to be
devoted to study within the university; certain prelections
heard ; Porphyrie's “Introduction to Aristotle,” and “ Petrus
Hispanus” mastered ; a searching examination endured; and
then the chancellor or vice-chancellor bestowed the coveted
academical honour, as by Divine authority, and in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."
Within the first two years of its existence, upwards of a
hundred persons were admitted members of the university, but
these were chiefly Churchmen, ambitious of the honours and
privileges of a learned Corporation, and not young men com-
mencing their studies. Among its earliest professors were
John Major, David Melville, and John Adamson. Among its
first students were William Manderstone, successively Rector
of the University of Paris and St Andrews, Cardinal Beaton,
John Knox, and John Spottiswood. But still earlier than
these, and among the matriculated in 1451, was a William
Elphinston. This youth afterwards rose to great distinction in
the canon and civil law ; he became Bishop of Aberdeen and
Chancellor of the Kingdom, and showed his enlightened
liberality by founding and endowing a university in his epis-
copal city. Thus is one lamp lighted at another.”
At this period the students ate at a common table, as is
still the case in the great English universities. The regents sat
at table with them and maintained order. At nine o'clock at
night the gates of the College were shut, and the regents visited
the rooms of the students to see that they were in bed ; and
again, at five in the morning, they went their rounds to see that
they were astir. The universities were in many respects copies
from monastic models. Many of the professors were monks,
many of the students were designed to be monks, and the
monasteries had hitherto accomplished imperfectly, what the
universities were now intended to do in a more perfect way.
It would appear that the students in arts were distinguished,
* Slalistical Auuuuut uſ the University of Clasgow, transmitted by Pro
fessor G. Jardine, in the name of the Principal and Professors of the
University.—See Statistical Account of Scotland, 1799, vol. xxi.
* Statistical Account, &c. M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. i.
I 42 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
according to their rank, into the sons of noblemen, of gentle-
men, and of those of humbler pedigree—distinctions which
are now happily abolished in all the seats of learning in Scot-
land, where it is only superior genius or superior industry that
can raise one student above his fellows. Among these youths,
it was essential that discipline should be maintained, and as
suasion frequently fails, Corporal punishment might be in-
flicted ; and the statutes Carefully provide, that in certain cases
it should be administered ca/igis Zazafis. But notwithstand-
ing the rigour of its discipline, the university languished. It
languished because it was poor. We hear complaints of
masters not attending upon their duties, of licentiates not
proceeding with their degrees, of statutes having fallen into
disuse, and of the jurisdiction of the university being despised.
The three higher faculties gradually died from inanition, and
at the Reformation the faculty of arts alone gave some feeble
symptoms of remaining vitality.” But we must now revert to
our narrative.
The Second James followed the example of his father in
resolving to hold the Church patronage of the kingdom in his
own hands, to the exclusion of the Holy See ; and in this he
was supported by the national clergy. During his reign, a
provincial council was held at Perth, in which it was declared,
that by the ancient law and custom of Scotland, the presenta-
tion to all vacant benefices, within a vacant bishopric, be-
longed to the Crown.” In all other matters the king and the
clergy appear to have been bound to one another by mutual
interests and mutual support; and it is certain, that if the
throne lost some of its strength by the alienation of its ancient
demesnes to the Church, it was more than compensated by the
assistance which the Church gave it in hours of need.
The chief friend and counsellor of James II. was Kennedy,
who succeeded Wardlaw in the See of St Andrews. He was
at once the greatest and the best man of his age. His portrait
is one of the most prominent in the gloomy picture of the
times, presenting a benign aspect amid many fierce and
frowning visages. He was so much occupied with affairs of
State, that one would think he must have neglected his epis-
copal duties, and yet we know that no prelate was more
attentive to these. He is said to have visited every church in
his diocese four times in the year, and to have been par-
ticularly careful in compelling every parson and vicar to reside
1 Statistical Account, &c. * Tytler’s History, vol. iv.
A.D. 1466.] BISHOP KENNEDY. I43
within his parish, to preach the Word, administer the sacra-
ments, and visit the sick." Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie gives
an anecdote of him, which is illustrative at once of his
patriotism and piety. The Earl of Douglas had entered into
a conspiracy against the throne with some of the most power-
ful barons, and their adherents were already in arms. In this
emergency the king hurried to St Andrews to take the advice
of the bishop, whose fidelity and wisdom had already been so
often tried. The good prelate first of all led his Majesty into
his oratory, that together they might ask guidance from the
Almighty Disposer of all events; and this being done, he next
conducted him to his study, and put into his hand a bundle
of arrows firmly bound together, and asked him to break them
if he could. The monarch with all his strength was unable,
upon which the bishop unbound them, and taking them singly
easily snapped them all asunder. “Sir,” said he, addressing
the king, “you must even do in this manner with your
barons.” James understood the hint, and taking his direc-
tions still further from Kennedy, managed to dissolve the
dangerous confederacy which had been formed against him,
and to reduce the overgrown power of the Douglases.”
James was untimely killed at the siege of Roxburgh Castle,
by the bursting of a cannon ; and again were heard through-
out the kingdom the doleful words, “Woe unto thee, O land,
when thy king is a child.” But Kennedy still lived, and
managed as no other man could have done to keep down
faction. In 1466 he died, and his death was felt to be a
national calamity, for he left no one behind him capable of
governing the kingdom with such integrity and discretion.
“His death,” says Buchanan, “was so lamented by all good
men, as if in him they had lost a public father.”
It is to this prelate we owe the foundation of St Salvator's
College at St Andrews. He assigned also a large sum of
money to erect a tomb for himself, which still remains, a
monument of his wealth, and of a weakness from which, with
all his virtues, he was not exempt. “He founded,” says
Lindsay, “a triumphant college at St Andrews, called St
Salvator's College, wherein he made his lair very curiously
and costly ; and also, he bigged a ship called the Bishop's
Berge ; and when all three were complete, he knew not which
of the three was costliest.”
* Lindsay’s History, p. 69. * Ibid., pp. 52, 53.
* Ibid., p. 68.
I44 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
Kennedy was succeeded in the See of St Andrews by
Patrick Graham, his near relative. The learning and virtues
of this ecclesiastic, not to speak of his royal birth, for he
was nephew of James I. and grandson of Robert III., made
him worthy of the high post he was called to fill. He had
been elected by the canons, as was then usual, but he required
the Pope's bull of confirmation to make his title complete.
The Boyds, who now ruled the court and the kingdom, wished
to prevent this, but he stealthily left the country and posted to
Rome, where he found favour with the Pope, and got his
election confirmed. Afraid to return home on account of the
bitter animosity of the prevailing faction, he resolved to remain
at the papal court till some change should occur among the
parties in power. While there he managed to gain such influ-
ence with Sixtus IV., that he obtained a bull erecting St An-
drews into an Archiepiscopal and Metropolitan See. The
Pope, to give a still greater grace to the first archbishop whom
Scotland had seen, appointed him apostolic nuncio, with full
power to reform all abuses in the Church, and levy soldiers
and subsidies for a crusade. Neville, Archbishop of York,
remonstrated violently against this elevation of Graham as an
infringement of his jurisdiction, but it was in vain."
Scotland had now gained the honour which
for several centuries she had ardently desired, as
the primacy of York was most effectually barred by the pri-
macy of St Andrews ; and the spiritual independence of the
kingdom was thus for ever secured. Graham rejoiced, and
naturally thought that all good men would rejoice with him.
As soon, therefore, as he heard that the Boyds had fallen from
their high pinnacle of power, and that the young king had
taken the government into his own hands, he hastened to
return home, sending the papal bulls before him, that they
might prepare his triumphal way. He had no sooner landed
than he discovered his mistake. Envy of his fortunes and
dread of his reforms had raised him up many enemies, who
poisoned the ear of the king with insinuations that he had
violated the law of the realm in leaving the kingdom, and
carrying on negotiations with the papal court without the royal
license. He was cited to answer for his conduct at Edinburgh,
on the 1st of November. When put upon his trial, Graham
appealed to his bulls, and pleaded the service he had rendered
to his country ; but his enemies appealed to the Pope, and
* Robertson’s Concilia, Pref., cxii.
A. D. I.472.
A.D. 1472.] A MAD ARCHIBISHOP. 145
offered to prove the invalidity of the documents he presented.’
The king is said to have had his judgment swayed by a pre-
sent of eleven thousand merks; and so he ordered Graham to
retire to his bishopric, and refrain from wearing the archiepis-
copal pall till the cause were determined."
Conspicuous among the enemies of the new archbishop was
one William Shevez, an able but unprincipled man, who had
acquired great favour at Court from his supposed acquaintance
with the fashionable science of astrology. Through his in-
trigues the revenues of St Andrews were seized and confiscated
by the king. The bankers of Rome, with whom Graham had
got deeply involved, hearing of the trouble into which he had
fallen, now became clamant, and the impoverished primate
was unable to satisfy their demands. In these circumstances,
a nuncio was despatched to Scotland to inquire into the case.
It was affirmed that the archbishop spoke blasphemously
against the Holy See, that he revoked its indulgences and
spurned its censures, that he believed himself the Pope, ap-
pointed legates to different parts of the world, would celebrate
mass three times in a day, and finally began to broach some
horrible, but unreported heresies,” As the Only explanation
of these aberrations, it was said he was mad ; but it is evident’
there was method in his madness, and even some gleams of
sense, and it is just possible insanity may have been alleged to
save the Church from the scandal of its metropolitan being
a heretic. However this may be, he was degraded from his
office, and committed to the keeping of his mortal enemy
Shevez, who kept him a close prisoner, first at Inchcolm, and
afterwards at Lochleven, where he died. Shevez managed to
get himself appointed to the archbishopric in his place, found-
ing his fortune on the ruin of a far better and worthier man.
Among the elements which conspired to the ruin of Graham,
by uniting the king and the higher clergy against him, was the
shameless huckstering in benefices which began at this period.
The first two Jameses had prohibited the clergy from purchas-
ing benefices at the court of Rome; but it was reserved for
the third James to divert the stream of wealth which had
hitherto flowed into the Pope's treasury, so that it might be
poured into his own. Under his reign an act was passed for-
bidding the procuring of benefices at Rome, the collection of
* Buchanan, book xii. Spottiswood, book ii. * * * g. *
* Theiner's Vetera Monumenta, p. 480. Robertson's Concilia, Pref.
cxvi. -
K
I46 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. ſcHAP. VII.
more money for the Papal See than had been regulated by the
ancient taxation of Bagimont, and confirming the right of the
clergy to the election of their own dignitaries.” But in two
years this law was violated by its maker. The monks of Dun-
fermline, according to ancient usuage, had chosen for them-
selves an abbot ; but the king, probably won by a bribe,
recommended another to the Pope for confirmation, and the
Pope at once confirmed the royal nominee.” This was but
the beginning of the system. Bishoprics, abbacies, priories,
parishes, were now openly sold by the king and his favourites;
and men of worthless character, and even laymen, were thus
intruded into the office of the ministry. Patrick Graham was
known to be opposed to such practices; and it was feared
that when he was armed with primatial and legatine powers
many Simonists would be thrown out, and the lucrative trade
in benefices checked. This hastened his fall.
It is obvious that even already the king and his nobles began
to grudge the Church its possessions. After this period no
new abbeys were built, no new bishoprics endowed. But what
had been given could not be regained. The Church was too
strong for this; and had the monarch put forth his hand to
touch her, she would have cursed him to his face. But an
expedient was devised by which the Church retained her
wealth, and the king and the barons enjoyed it. When a
bishopric or priory became vacant, it was bestowed upon some
friend, or sold for money, or given as the reward of Services,
which could not otherwise be so easily repaid. It is melan-
choly to mark the number of bastards—the illegitimate sons
of nobles and kings—who became bishops and abbots after this
period ; and when there was no bastard—which was seldom
the case—there was always a younger son, who, deprived by
aristocratic pride of any share in the family property, received
a richer inheritance in the patrimony of the Church. Such an
exercise of patronage was necessarily followed by the decay of
piety and devotedness among the clergy, especially among the
regulars. It is probably to this cause we are to trace the rise
of a new species of religious foundation, which belongs to this
age—collegiate churches or provostries. According to the
constitution of these, the secular canons formed a body at the
college church, and employed themselves in singing masses for
the founders, and performing other parts of divine service,
* James III., parl. i. chap. iv.; also, parl. vi. chap. xliv.
* Balfour's Annals, vol. i. Pinkerton, vol. i.
A.D. 1488-97.] UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN. I47
while vicars served their respective parishes. But still the
sore evil spread. A mercenary spirit had been introduced
into the Church. Money-changers had gained admittance to
the temple ; and there was needed a reformer to overturn their
tables, and drive them out with a scourge of cords.
In 1488 James III., a monarch of some accomplishments,
but devoted to favourites of low birth, and too inactive to
repress aristocratic turbulence—was assassinated by a pre-
tended priest at Milltown, in fleeing from the civil strife of
Sauchie. His son, James IV., a youth of sixteen, who cannot
be acquitted of the unnatural crimes of treason and rebellion
against his father, succeeded him on the throne. The young
monarch afterwards repented bitterly the share he had in his
father's death ; and whatever may have been his faults, he was
certainly a most energetic and chivalrous prince, resembling in
some respects James I.
During his reign Scotland was enriched with a third univer-
sity. At the request of Bishop Elphinston, James IV. applied
for a papal bull for the erection of a studium generale in Aber-
deen. In his letter to the Pope, the king gives a melancholy
picture of the state of the north country. “The inhabitants,”
he says, “are ignorant of letters, and almost uncivilised ; there
are no persons to be found fit to preach the Word of God to the
people, or to administer the sacraments of the Church ; and,
besides, the country is so intersected with mountains and arms
of the sea, so distant from universities already erected, and
the roads so dangerous, that the youth have not access to the
benefit of education in those seminaries.” “But,” adds the
king, “ the city of Old Aberdeen is situated at a moderate
distance from the highland country and nothern islands, enjoys
an excellent temperature of air, abundance of provisions, and
the conveniency of habitation, and of everything necessary for
human life.” In compliance with the royal request, Pope
Alexander VI. issued a bull in 1494 for erecting in the city of
Aberdeen a studium generale ef universitas studii generalis for
theology, canon and civil law, medicine, the liberal arts, and
every other lawful faculty; ordaining that it should enjoy all
the rights and privileges of the Universities of Bologna and
Paris, and that the bishops of Aberdeen should in all time be
its chancellors. -
In 1497 James IV. granted a charter of confirmation, em-
powering Bishop Elphinston to erect a college within the
university, and to divide its revenues between the masters and
I48 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
Scholars as he should see fit, according to the powers vested
in him by the Pope. It was not till 1506 that this college was
erected. It was dedicated to the Holy Virgin. It was to Con-
sist of thirty-six ordinary members, among the chief of whom
were a doctor in each of the four faculties of theology,
Canon law, civil law, and medicine; the doctor of theology
to be styled principal, and to bear rule over all the mem-
bers of the college. Next to these came two masters of
arts, the first of whom was to be called regent, and Con-
stituted sub-principal ; the other was to be call grammarian,
and his province was to consist in teaching the elements
of literature. These were the permanent members of the
college, and, with the exception of the mediciner, they were
all to be ecclesiastics." A chair of medicine was perfectly
new to Scotland. Henceforward the science of healing was
to be taken out of the hands of barbers and old wives, and
entrusted to men of science.
Besides these permanent members, there were also a num-
ber of masters and bachelors of arts, who were to hold their
situations only for a certain number of years; thirteen poor
scholars of respectable talents and proficiency in the specu-
lative sciences; and, last of all, eight prebendaries and six
singing-boys for the service of the Church. For the accom-
modation of his learned society, the patriotic bishop, with the
assistance of the king, erected the noble buildings which still
remain as a monument of his liberality and taste. By dona-
tions during his life, and a legacy of ten thousand pounds be-
queathed at his death, he endowed his college with a truly
princely munificence; and thus the doctors were able to “pre-
lect every lecture-day, each in his own faculty, and dressed in
his own habit.”?
The laws of this northern university give us no very favour-
able idea of student life in those early times. All, great and
small, in the college are ordained to live honestly ; they are
prohibited from keeping public concubines, from carrying
arms, from being night-walkers, panders, or vagabond buffoons;
and are exhorted rather to devote themselves to good manners
and liberal studies.” But a still greater scandal was brought
* Report of Commissioners on Scottish Universities, p. 305. Statistical
Account of the University and King's College of Aberdeen, by the Mem-
bers of the University. See Statistical Account of Scotland, 1799, vol. xxi.
* Statistical Account, ut supra.
* Report of Commissioners.
A.D. 1497.] HECTOR BOETHIUS. 149
upon the ancient literature and universities of the country, by
an Act of Parliament passed in 1599, which established a
regular “ordour of punishment” for sorners, masterful beggars,
and vagabonds. This act, after specifying jugglers, gypsies,
fortune-tellers, idlers, minstrels, counterfeiters of licenses, mari-
ners pretending they have been shipwrecked, proceeds to
mention “all vagabond scholars of the Universities of St
Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, not licensed by the rector
and dean of faculty to ask almes.” It is enacted and declared,
that these shall be taken, esteemed, and punished as strong
beggars and vagabonds." It is comforting to know that the
same reproach lies at the door of other and still more cele-
brated universities.
The first principal of King's College, Aberdeen, was Hector
Boethius, who was honoured with the correspondence of
Erasmus, and justly obtained a high reputation for his classi-
Cal attainments and lively fancy. As a historian, however, he
had too great a love for the marvellous, and could not refrain
from inventing facts, and imbellishing those he did not re-
quire to invent with a garniture of his own. His “Aſistoriae
Scottorum ” is contained in seventeen books, beginning with
Gathelus and Pharaoh, and ending with the death of James I.
He closes his labours very characteristically, by telling of a sow
that brought forth a dog, and of a cow that had a calf with the
head of a horse. Yet, though not often quoted as an authority,
he will long be remembered as one of the earliest of Scottish
historians. His tomb, together with that of Bishop Elphin-
ston, is in the chapel of the college so famous for its exquisite
carvings in wood. The whole buildings are massive and im-
posing, and Billings has declared that there is no structure in
Scotland which possesses more of a cloister-like repose.”
The fifteenth century witnessed the erection of three univer-
sities; and for all of them are we indebted to the Church.
The building of cathedrals and abbeys had declined ; the build-
ing of schools and colleges had commenced. It was a health-
ful and a hopeful sign. It spoke of a future illumined with
learning. It augured a change in the Church, though the
Church understood it not. The dawn of knowledge was the
dawn of the Reformation. And while benevolent and enlight-
ened prelates furnished the youth of Scotland with the means
of obtaining at home a liberal education, the monarch resolved
*James VI., parl. vi. chap. lxxiv. • *
* Ecclesiastical and Baronial Antiquities of Scotland, vol. i.
I5o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAN ID. [CHAP. VII.
that these means should not be furnished in vain. In the
fifth parliament of James IV. it was statute and ordained that
all barons and freeholders of substance should keep their eldest
sons and heirs at school till they were taught Latin, philosophy,
and the laws, under a penalty of twenty pounds. This short
law speaks volumes." A great change must have come over
men’s minds before it could have been imagined or passed :
the learning which a century before would have been accounted
degrading is here made Compulsory. A new era had un-
doubtedly begun. The present compulsory system of educa-
tion is, to some extent, only the revival of a law already on the
statute-book.
A native literature was now beginning to push out its first
buds. Andrew de Winton, prior of St Serf's monastery in Loch-
leven, published, about 1420, his rhyming Cronykil of Scotland,
and though his poetic genius is inferior to that of Barbour (the
earliest of our native bards), he has helped to form our language,
besides giving an animated narrative of many important events.
Forty years later Blind Harry wrote his Adventures of Sir William
Wallace, a version of which, in modern Scotch, has been long
popular with the Scotch peasantry, and is said to have first
kindled the poetic genius of Burns. But even before this James
I. had written the King's Quhair and Christes Kirk on the
Grene. Thus native thought first appeared in a native garb.
It has frequently been maintained that the Scottish ecclesi-
astics of this period were scandalously ignorant and illiterate.
It is certain they were unacquainted with sciences not then
known ; unread in books not then published ; and that they
were better versed in their missal than their Bible. But it will
1 The design of this Act was to fit the sons of the gentry to act as local
magistrates. It is curious enough to deserve transc 'ption –“ It is statute
and ordained throw all the realme, that all barronn, and freehalders that
are of substance put their eldest sonnes and aires to trie Schule, fra they be
six or nine zeires of age, and till remaine at the grammar-Schules, quhill
they be competently founded, and have perfite Latin; and thereafter to
remaine three zeires at the schules of art and jure, swa that they have
knowledge and understanding of the laws. Throw the quhilks justice may
remaine universally throw all the realme ; swa that they that are Sheriffes
or Judges Ordinares, under the Kingis Hienesse, may have knowledge to
do justice, that the puir people suld have na neede to seek our Soveraine
Lordis Principal Auditour for ilk small injurie. And quhat barronne or
freeholder of substance that holdes not his sonne at the schule, as guid is,
havand na lauchfull essoinzie, but failzies herein, fra knawledge may be
gotten thereof, he sall pay to the king the summe of twentie pound. (James
IV., parl. v. chap. liv.).
A.D. 1490.] FORMAN, BISHOP OF MORAY. I5 I
be difficult to prove that they were either stupid or unlearned,
when compared with the generation then existing, or tried by
the standard then in use. Every important deed was drawn
by their pens; every important office of State was in their
hands; the schools were taught by them ; the universities
were founded by them. All the authors were still ecclesiastics;
and though few of the productions of this period have come
down to us, it must be remembered that much of what was
then done has perished ; and very probably, in three hundred
years hence little more of the teeming authorship of the nine-
teenth century will be found still floating on the tide of time.
It is monstrously unfair to blame the ancient priesthood for
not having raised Europe all at once from Gothic barbarity.
It is false to charge them with systematically trying to keep the
people in ignorance. How could they teach a knowledge not
yet known ; communicate ideas not yet dreamt of; confer a
civilisation which nowhere existed ; compel haughty barons to
enter their schools, who would thereby have considered them-
selves to be lowered to the level of monks P. The old clergy laid
the foundations of our civilisation and sciences, though another
race reared the superstructure. Every new step in advance
was taken by them ; and they undoubtedly ever walked first of
the men of their generation in that slow and painful progress
which has led to the high and commanding eminence on which
we now stand.
Andrew Forman, Bishop of Moray, in the reign of James IV.,
has been cited as an instance of ignorance, and as a specimen
of his class.” . Forman was probably a poor Latinist, and his
wit sometimes got the better of his piety ; but he was one of
the ablest diplomatist, if not one of the best prelates, of his
day. When the armies of the Roman Pontiff and the French
King were ready to come to blows, the Bishop of Moray
managed to make peace. He was rewarded for his services by
the Pope with the mule upon which his holiness rode, and by
being made Legate of Scotland : he was rewarded by the king
for this and other services connected with an invasion of
England, by being made Archbishop of Bourges.” From this
period he was constantly employed on embassages between the
Scotch and French Courts ; and on more occasions than one
he was despatched to negotiate with the King of England.
* Among others, by Dr M'Crie, in his “Life of Knox,” p. 12 (note).
* Lindsay, History, pp. 106-7. Burton's History, chap. 30. . .
I 52 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
. . The story upon which the belief in his ignorance is founded
is this : When at Rome, he gave a banquet to the Pope and
his cardinals. Required to say a Latin grace, the unexpected
responses of the sacred company put him out, and he fairly
broke down. Instantly recovering himself, however, he
mumbled, in his own vernacular, “all the false carils to the
devil, in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti; ” to which the
Pope and the cardinals solemnly responded, “Amen.” Forman
afterwards took the liberty of explaining the import of his
Scoto-Latin petition, which, instead of giving offence, caused
the greatest merriment." The scene does not heighten one's
ideas of papal and episcopal propriety : we find ourselves in
the company of jovial boon companions, rather than of grave
and reverend signors; but, apart from this, is it not just pos-
sible that even a Presbyterian minister of the present day
might find his scholarship to fail him if asked to say a Latin
grace; and would it be fair to infer from this that all the
Presbyterian clergy were illiterate and ignorant men P If
Forman could not speak Latin (which is unlikely), he must
have spoken fluently both French and Italian, or he could not
have filled the posts which he did.
Shevez was now Archbishop of St Andrews,
and Janies began to find that he had a rival in
his realm, for the primate seemed to have a pleasure in
thwarting the king, and exhibiting his spiritual independence.
But James had seen how, in England, the pretensions of Can-
terbury were kept in check by those of York, and therefore he
resolved to balance St Andrews by Glasgow. He impor-
tuned the Pope to send to the Bishop of Glasgow the archi-
episcopal pallium. “No small wrong and danger,” he writes
in one of his letters, “might arise to me and my successors
from having only one spiritual primate throughout my whole
kingdom. Honours ought to be distributed, and as the sove-
reign pontiffs have divided the power, jurisdiction, and dignity
ecclesiastical in the realm of England to its advantage, it
would have been to the honour and dignity of my realm had
you, with the counsel of the Sacred College, raised the Church of
Glasgow to enjoy all the privileges and dignities of that of
York, the Church of St Andrews being of similar creation to
that of Canterbury.” Speaking with just pride of the Church
of St Mungo, the monarch said, “I have written many letters
* Lindsay, History, p. 106. Though Lindsay gives this story, it looks
apocryphal. - -
A. D. I.490.
A.D. 1494.] ARCHBISHOP OF GLASGOW. I 53
to you and the Sacred Collège for the raising of the famous
Church of Glasgow, which surpasses the other cathedralchurches
of my realm by its structure, its learned men, its foundation, its
ornaments, and other very noble prerogatives, to metropolitan,
primatial, and born legatine rank, like the Church of York in
England.” He begs the Pope not to listen to the representa-
tions of the Archbishop of St Andrews, but to grant the peti-
tion of a prince so devoted to him, as otherwise he would
consider himself despised. The importunities of the king at
length prevailed, and in 1490 Innocent VIII. issued a bull
erecting Glasgowinto an archbishopric, and placing the dioceses
of Glasgow, Galloway, Dunblane, and Lismore under its
jurisdiction.” The Archbishop of St Andrews could ill brook
this diminution of a glory and a power so recently received,
and refused to acknowledge the new archbishop. A furious
feud was the result, which was handed down from archbishop
to archbishop, and Knox describes with infinite humour and
glee a quarrel for precedence between the followers of the two
archbishops at Glasgow.”
A Blackadder, the new archbishop, soon showed
* * his zeal for the Church which had raised him to
such honour. Opinions opposed to the established faith and
worship were beginning to be widely diffused. A class of
religionists called Lollards had sprung up, and were numerous,
especially in the districts of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham ;
and the archbishop resolved if possible to purge his diocese of
heretics. Thirty suspected persons were accordingly cited to
appear before the king and his council in the year 1494,
among whom were Reid of Barskimming, Campbell of
Cessnock, Campbell of Newmills, Shaw of Polkemmet, Helen
Chalmers, Lady Polkillie, and Isabel Chalmers, Lady Stairs.
Their indictment contained thirty-four different articles.
Among the chief of these were :—That images, relics, and the
virgin, were not proper objects of worship ; that the bread and
wine in the sacrament were not transubstantiated into the
body and blood of Christ; that no priest or pope could grant
absolutions or indulgences; that masses could not profit the
dead ; that miracles had ceased ; and that priests might law-
fully marry. They appear also to have been accused of
opinions which struck at the civil power; but there is no evi-
dence that they acknowledged these, and it is more than
* Brown's Calendar of State Papers in Venice, pp. 204-10.
* History, book i.
I54 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VII.
probable they were false. Blackadder conducted the pro-
secution, and tried to entangle the accused, but Barskim-
ming answered the charges with such wit and good humour
that the accusation was turned into laughter. James IV.,
though somewhat superstitious, was not inclined to be a per-
secutor, and so the proceedings were quashed.”
In the beginning of the sixteenth century there was intro-
duced into our country an art, almost unnoticed by our ancient
chroniclers, but which has done more to revolutionise society,
and shape the destinies of the Church and the world, than
any other human discovery. In 1450 the first printed book
issued from the German press, and it is pleasing to know that
that book was a Bible. “We may see in imagination,” says
Mr Hallam, “this venerable and splendid volume leading up
the crowded myriads of its followers, and imploring, as it were,
a blessing on the new art, by dedicating its first fruits to the
service of heaven.” About 1474 the art was introduced into
England by Caxton. It required upwards of thirty years more
to penetrate into Scotland. Walter Chepman, a servant in
the king's household, has the merit of having set the first
printing-press at work in our country. In 1508 he printed a
small volume of pamphlets, and soon after, the “Breviary of
Aberdeen.” The king warmly patronised the printer, pur-
chased his books, and granted him a patent to exercise his
craft, the original of which still exists among the national
records.”
We cannot agree with those who think that the reforma-
tion of religion was the necessary consequence of the inven-
tion of printing and the diff ision of knowledge. But though
printing was not the parent of the Reformation, it was one of
its most powerful auxiliaries. It diffused knowledge, and thus
diminished the distance between the clergy and laity. It made
the communication of ideas easy, and thus sentiments, which
must otherwise have been limited to a few, were extended to
the many. When the Reformation broke out in Germany,
the books of the Reformers found their way into Scotland.
When the fulness of the time had come at home, the printing-
press was called into use, and treatises, Squibs, plays, and
satirical songs issued thickly from it, like barbed arrows.
* Knox's History of the Reformation, book i.
* Introduction to Hist, of Lit., vol. i. p. 211.
* Tytler's History, vol. v. -
A D. 1513.] FLODDEN. I55
Though printing did not create the new ideas, it gave them
utterance. *
On the 9th of September 1513 James IV. was killed on the
fatal field of Flodden. Alexander Stewart, his natural son,
fell fighting by his side. This youth had studied in early life
under Erasmus of Rotterdam. While yet a boy he was pre-
ferred to the Archbishopric of St Andrews; but when he
donned the cassock, he did not think it necessary to doff the
Coat of mail. Nor did the age deem it necessary—popes had
appeared at the head of armies. When the expedition had
reached England, besieged Norham, and taken Ford Castle,
a perfect paralysis came over the Scotch army. Lindsay
declares that the king had been captivated by the beauty of
the lady of the castle, and that while he spent his time in
dalliance with her, the young prelate, his son, made love to
her daughter; and thus weeks were wasted, victuals became
scarce, the army melted away, and the golden opportunity of
victory was lost. They both paid for their folly by their
lives, but their gallantry does not atone for their guilt, as it
did not restore to Scotland the many brave and noble ones
who died in their defence. -
The life of James IV. affords a good illustration of the
religious life of the period ; and his temperament was one
which we frequently meet with, Swinging him to and fro
between scandalous sinnings and bitter repentings, overflowing
joyousness and profound melancholy. The part he took in
the treason which ended in his father's death made a wound
on his conscience which would not heal; and though he
could never resist a woman's charms, when the first flush of
love was over, he was always ready to do penance for his
Crimes. In 1494 Pope Alexander VI. sent his legate to Scot-
land to comfort the king, who had become disquieted on
account of his father's death. By the power given him by the
Pope, the nuncio absolved the penitent, having first imposed
as a penance that he should wear an iron chain about his waist
all the days of his life, which James is said faithfully to have
done.” Still religious sadness sometimes haunted him, and on
these occasions he was wont to shut himself up in a convent,
and refuse to see anyone but his confessor. The monastery
of the Observantines at Stirling was his favourite retreat,
whither he frequently retired, especially in Lent, and lived in
every respect like a brother of the order.
* Lindsay, History, p. 1. 3. * Balfour's Annals, vol. i.
I56 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
Seasons of gladness had also their peculiar expressions of
thankfulness. On the 21st of February 1506, his young queen
was brought to bed of a son, but after her delivery became
dangerously ill. She recovered, however, and her fond,
though sometimes delinquent husband set out upon foot in
pilgrimage to St Ninian's Cathedral Church, in performance of
a vow which he had made for her recovery. In the month of
July, when the fair Margaret was perfectly restored, the royal
couple set out together upon a second pilgrimage to White-
horn, that together they might offer up their united thanks at
the holy shrine. A third time in the same year did the devout
monarch set out upon a pilgrimage, directing his steps on this
occasion to the shrine of St Duthac, in Ross-shire.” Such
devotion could not but be pleasing to the head of the Church,
especially at a time when heretics were beginning to abound;
and, accordingly, he sent to the pious monarch a cap and
sword, and the title of “Protector of the Faith.” The king
gratefully received the papal gifts ; but, so far as religion was
concerned, he wisely allowed the sword to remain in its scab-
bard, and his reign is not stained by the blood of a single
martyr.
C H A P T E R V III.
IN the same year in which Flodden was fought, Leo X.
ascended the pontifical throne. Come of the magnificent
house of the Medici, he had at once the faults and the virtues
of his family. Gay, kind-hearted, and affable, every one left
his presence full of his praise. Fond of ease and self-indulg-
ence, averse to business and its drudgery, he frequently
neglected the responsibilities of government ; and yet he pos-
sessed a prudence, and even sagacity, which on several grave
emergencies gave him a superiority over the ablest diplomatists
of Europe. Careless about religion, and not quite unimpeach-
able in morals, he was yet vastly more exemplary than several
of the popes who had preceded him. He was elegant in all
his tastes, and a most liberal patron of the arts and sciences.
His ante-rooms were constantly filled with sculptors, painters,
* Balfour's Annals, vol. i.
* Balfour's Annals, vol. i. This is understood to be the sword still
preserved amongst the regalia in the Castle of Edinburgh.
A.D. 1513.] * LEO X. I57
poets, comedians, and artificers in silver and gold. The
recovery of an antique statue, the colouring of a modern
Madonna, the performance of a new drama, or comedy, or
piece of music, any object of vertu, any appliance of art, pro-
digiously interested the polite and voluptuous pontiff. The
Vatican was the scene of continual feasting: delicate viands,
sparkling wines, handsome women, witty men—talk about
some mosaic recently dug up from an old Roman villa, or of
a lost book of Livy happily found in the shelves of an ancient
monastery 4–amusements in which indecency appeared dis-
guised in a thin but always most graceful drapery, dreamily
filled up the days and nights of those who enjoyed the Pope's
hospitality. But all this could not be done for nought. If a
Sumptuous board was to be daily spread, if artists were to be
patronized, and their productions purchased, if largesses were
to be given to the people, and costly spectacles exhibited for
their diversion, money must be obtained. Golden ducats
alone could do this.
Prior to this period, Rome had made a belief in purgatory
a part of its creed. In the burning abyss of that middle estate
must the dead expiate the sins which they had not expiated
On earth ; and the living were led by monkish orators to con-
template their departed relatives as writhing for centuries in
quenchless flames before their final admission to heaven, and
to look forward themselves to the same fiery refining process.
But their case was not hopeless. Indulgences had been in-
vented ; and the man who was in possession of one of these
might confidently calculate upon exemption from purgatorial
fires. For a few florins, a man might escape centuries of
torment. For a few florins more, he might secure the deliver-
ance of some one, now dead, once dear to him as his own life.
If a scoundrel had been guilty of polygamy, six ducats would
save him ; if he had committed murder, he must pay eight ;
if he had contracted the greatest of all sins, sacrilege, nine
would shut the gates of hell, and throw wide open the doors
of paradise.” Such doctrines must have been most comfort-
* In a letter dated November 1517, Leo requires from his Commissioners
; Hºlgences I47 gold ducats, to pay for a manuscript of the 33d Book
O IVW.
2 F 3. special sins Tetzel had a special scale. Polygamy cost six ducats,
sacrilege nine, murdcr cight, witchcraft two. Samson, who carried on
the same traffic in Switzerland as Tetzel in Germany, had a different
Scale. He charged for infanticide four livres tournois; for a parricide or
fratricide, one ducat. & , ,
158 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
ing to the people; and if comforting to the people, they were
most profitable to the Church. Besides the ordinary traffic in
indulgences, several pontiffs, when pressed for money, had
published a general sale, and instantly their coffers were filled.
To what better device could the prodigal Leo resort? What
better pretext for the need of money could pontiff have P
Michael Angelo had conceived the mighty dome of St Peter's.
The greatest of Christian temples was begun ; but the work
languished for want of means. The bones of the blessed
apostles Peter and Paul were exposed to the rains of heaven:
what more Christian enterprise than to help and hasten its
completion ? A bull was accordingly published, proclaiming a
general indulgence, the product of which was to be appro-
priated to the building of St Peter's. The lucrative trade was
farmed out to a contractor. Tetzel appeared in Germany,
hawking his spiritual wares. “Draw near,” cried he, “and I
will give you letters, duly sealed, by which even the sins you
shall hereafter desire to commit shall be all forgiven you.
There is no sin so great that the indulgence cannot remit it;
and even if any one should (which is doubtless impossible)
ravish the Holy Virgin Mother of God, let him pay—let him
only pay largely, and it shall be forgiven him. But more than
all this, indulgences save not the living alone—they also save
the dead. The very moment that the money clinks against
the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purgatory and
flies free to heaven.” Luther could stand this no longer: he
nailed his theses to the church-door at Wittemberg, and the
Reformation was begun.
The Reformation, thus begun in Saxony, spread rapidly over
all Germany, and soon began to affect the other countries of
Europe. At first it was purely a religious reformation, but it
contained within its bosom the germ of great changes, both in
the social and political world. The contempt of authority, and
the spirit of inquiry which it engendered, gave a new impulse
to thought. The duties it inculcated, and the doctrines it
taught, awoke a thousand feelings which had long lain dormant
in the mind, and roused them to action. Christianity was no
longer a matter of form. It was no longer confined to the
priesthood: it extended alike to the noble, the burgher, and
the peasant. Hitherto shut up in the cloister, or displayed as
D'Aubigné's Hist., vol. i. p. 263. The historian states in a note that
Tetzel publicly maintained the second of these propositions in his anti-
theses. -
A.D. 1513.] CONTEST FOR ST ANDREWS. I59
a pageant in the cathedral, its holy influences were unfelt by the
great mass of the people ; but now it became a subject of
serious thought and earnest discussion to all. A spirit of new
life was breathed over Society. The religious feelings of our
nature put on their native strength, and eagerly enlisted either
on the side of the Reformation or the Papacy. A great
struggle was begun. The din of battle everywhere resounded.
The confused noise came booming over the German Ocean,
and was distinctly heard on the shores of Scotland.
But we must revert to our insular history, and
trace the events which preceded the Refor-
mation at home. The battle of Flodden subjected our country
Once more to the distractions of a long minority. The king,
thirteen earls, an archbishop, two bishops, and many others of
name and note, lay dead on the fatal field. The infant
monarch was however solemnly crowned," and the regency of
the kingdom committed to the queen-mother, the sister of
Henry VIII., a woman still in the flower of youth, possessed
of great beauty, spirit, and ability, but subject, like her brother,
to violent passions, and not more careful of decency in matters
affecting marriage and divorce. With indecorous haste she
threw off her royal weeds, and wedded the Earl of Angus, a
handsome but impetuous young man, by which she forfeited
the regency, and the Duke of Albany, at that time residing in
France, was recalled to take the government of the kingdom.
The Consequence was, a bitter and very natural hostility sprung
up between Queen Margaret and the Duke, who had sup-
planted her in the government; and the nobility began to
divide themselves into two factions—the English and the
French—and for the next fifty years we find these factions thus
formed contending for the chief direction of affairs.
The archiepiscopal chair of St Andrews was next in dignity
to the royal throne, and it also was made vacant by the
slaughter of Flodden. Three powerful competitors appeared
in the field. The first of these was the celebrated Gawin
Douglas, son of Archibald Douglas, Bell-the-Cat, uncle of the
Earl of Angus, who had married the queen, and known to some
as the translator of the AEneid of Virgil into the Scotch verna-
cular. IIe was presented by Margaret, and his literary merits
A. D. I5 I3.
* Buchanan, Lesley, Lindsay, and Balfour say the coronation took place
at Stirling ; but Pinkerton, on the evidence of an original letter (Dacre to
the Bishop of Durham, 29th October 1513), makes it take place at Scone,
and him Tytler follows.
I6o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
made him worthy of the honour, but despite his poetry he was
a factious and intriguing man. The second was John Hepburn,
Prior of St Andrews. He managed to get himself elected by
the chapter. The third was Andrew Forman, Bishop of
Moray, and legate a latere, who had procured a papal bull
nominating him to the vacant See. There were thus, in this
instance, the three modes of nomination which then existed,
and which frequently conflicted—that by the pope, by the
king, and by the canons of the cathedral church. The
adherents of Douglas seized upon the Castle. Hepburn col-
lected his followers and attacked them, and having carried the
fortress by storm, he strongly garrisoned it. Foiled at this
point, Douglas retired from the contest. Forman for a while
could find no one sufficiently bold to publish his bull. At
length he bribed Lord Home, by bestowing upon his brother
the vacant priory of Coldingham. Accordingly Home pro-
ceeded to Edinburgh with ten thousand men, and there pro-
claimed the bull in favour of Forman. He next marched
towards St Andrews, in order to intimate what had been done,
and to give the bishop institution and full possession of his
benefice. But Hepburn again rallied his adherents, manned
both the cathedral and the Castle, planted artillery around
them, and made such a formidable show of resistance, that
Forman felt it would be better to resort to other means than
force to get possession of his archbishopric." The ecclesiastical
feud was finally settled by the Duke of Albany on his arrival
in the country. He confirmed Forman in the archbishopric,
and bestowed upon his rival enough of beneficiary spoil to
allay his disappointment and chagrin.
These tumults were quickly followed by
another, in which we find some of the same actors
engaged. A deadly animosity existed between the houses of
Angus and Arran. During the sitting of the Estates the
adherents of both had mustered in considerable numbers in
Edinburgh, and an outbreak was apprehended. The Hamil-
tons had met in the church of the Black Friars to concert their
measures. Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, ventured
amongst them as a peacemaker, and, addressing himself chiefly
to Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, remonstrated with him
against the hostilities which were too evidently intended.
Beaton struck his hand upon his breast, and declared he could
not help it; but a coat of mail, concealed beneath his linen
* Lindsay, p. 123.
A. D. I 520.
A.D. 1520.] ALBANY AND THE QUEEN-MOTHER. I 61
rochet, gave forth a metallic and suspicious sound. “Ah, my
lord,” said Douglas, “I perceive your conscience clatters.”
The mediation of the Bishop of Dunkeld was fruitless; a hasty
attack was made by the retainers of the Hamiltons upon the
borderers who owned Angus for their chief, and who were now
drawn up in the High Street from the castle to St Giles. It
was speedily and decisively repulsed; Lord Montgomery and
Sir Patrick Hamilton were among the slain ; the Earl of Arran
was forced to flee the city, and the Archbishop of Glasgow to
take refuge behind the high altar of the Dominican church,
where he would have been sacrilegiously slain had not Gawin
Douglas generously interfered. This armed encounter is known
in history by the name of “cleansing the causeway.”
The political history of this period is full of strange and
sudden transitions. Albany was more a Frenchman than a
Scot, and soon made himself enemies, though historians are
yet divided in regard to his administration. The queen-
mother thought him imperious, and this her proud spirit could
not brook. Deprived of the care of her royal infant, she fled
to England, where she was brought to bed of a daughter to
Angus. Not long afterwards Albany sailed for Trance, where
his heart always was ; and he was not well gone till Margaret
returned. Completely estranged from her husband, whose
fidelity was questioned, she could not now bide his presence,
and already began to speak of a divorce. Imagining herself,
at the same time, neglected by her brother, she turned her
eyes towards France, and by a letter in her own hand invited
Albany to return and resume the government of the kingdom.
He came, landed in Lennox, and the queen hurried to Lin-
lithgow to meet and welcome him. Rumour now began to
speak of an intimacy too tender to be merely political, and
Henry believed the report, and wrote his sister sharp letters of
reproof.” Amid the fluctuations of parties; she afterwards
affected a reconciliation with her husband, but it was only to
part from him in greater anger and disgust, and finally to pro-
Cure a divorce. At liberty to marry again, she took to her
royal Couch a young man, the son of Lord Avondale, and
afterwards created Lord Methven. This indecent conduct
lowered her influence; Albany had bid Scotland farewell; and
Angus for a time got into his hands the chief management of
affairs, although the king, now thirteen years of age, had
* Pinkerton, vol. ii. p. 181. Tytler, vol. v. -
* Pinkerton, vol. ii. books xii., xiii.
L
I62 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
nominally assumed the government. The troubles which these
things implied were industriously augmented by English gold
and English spies, for Henry and Wolsey had already begun
the system which was afterwards brought to perfection by
Elizabeth and Burleigh.
Gawin Douglas was deeply involved in most of the transac-
tions to which we have referred. At first a keen ally of the
queen, when she quarrelled with her husband he became her
bitterest enemy. Proceeding to England, he sunk into a
political intriguer, propagated slanders against his royal relative
and Albany, and even advised the invasion of his country to
remove them from power. As one might expect, Scotland
became too hot for him ; the romantic valley of the Tay and
the hills of Dunkeld did not afford him a safe asylum, and he
was obliged to take up his residence in London, where he
died. His translation of the “AEneid” into Scotch verse, and
his other poetical works, have kept alive his name, when
his intrigues are almost forgotten. All allow him to have
been a man of singular learning and fine wit, and we must
ever admire him as among the first who made our wild un-
tutored mother-tongue to flow in the soft, measured cadences
of verse.
During these political troubles Lutheran opinions were
slowly finding their way into the country, and among other
Converts was one who held high office in the Church. PATRICK
HAMILTON was the son of Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavil,
and Catherine Stewart, a daughter of the Duke of Albany.
The date and place of his birth are unknown ; but when yet a
boy, according to the custom of the time, he was made Abbot
of Ferne. Destined for the Church, he required such an edu-
cation as would suit him for his profession; and accordingly,
about the year 1517, he left Scotland, to pursue a course of
philosophy in the University of Paris; and in 1520 he
acquired his degree of Master of Arts. In 1523 he returned
to his native country, and entered himself in St Andrews Uni-
versity, where he continued to pursue his studies under the
celebrated John Mair, the master of Buchanan and of Knox.
Distinguished by a passion for music, he was appointed pre-
centor of the choir of St Leonards, and is said to have com-
posed “what the musicians call a mass arranged in parts for
nine voices, in honour of the angels, intended for that office in
the missal which begins ‘Benedicant ZXominum Angeli Effus.’” +
* Alesius : quoted in Memoirs of Patrick Hamilton, by Rev. Peter
Lorimer. -
A.D. 1527-8.] MARTYRIDOM OF HAMILTON. I63
But while at Paris he seems to have imbibed the free senti-
ments of Erasmus and Reuchlin, and he must have heard at
least of the theses of Luther. He consequently fell under
the suspicion of heresy, and inquisition was made into his
opinions. Thus threatened he again left Scotland, and went
to Germany, where the human mind was now in open mutiny
against papal authority. Prevented from going to Wittemberg
by the plague, he turned aside to the little university town of
Marburg, where he remained for a time, and was confirmed in
the doctrines of the Reformation. Francis Lambert, who
taught there, took an affectionate interest in the young Scots-
man, and had a powerful influence in moulding his mind.
In 1527 he was in Scotland once more, not
ashamed of the opinions he had embraced.
Archbishop James Beaton had been transferred from Glasgow
to St Andrews, and had recently made peace with the party
of Angus, now at the head of affairs. He had the power, if
he had the will, to put Hamilton to death ; and Beaton was
too zealous a churchman to let Lutheranism escape with im-
punity, but it is more than probable that theological intoler-
ance was inflamed by the feud which existed between the
houses of Angus and Arran. Hamilton was brought to St
Andrews, and tried before a bench of bishops and other eccle-
siastical dignitaries. In the sentence pronounced against him
the judges declare, “We have found the same Mr Patrick
Hamilton many ways infected with heresy, disputing, holding,
and maintaining divers heresies of Martin Luther and his fol
lowers, repugnant to our faith, and which are already con-
demned by general councils, and most famous universities.
And he, being under the same infamy, . . . passed to
other parts furth of the realm, suspected and noted of heresy ;
and, being lately returned, not being admitted, but of his own
head, without license or privilege, hath presumed to preach
wicked heresy.” “All these premises being considered, we,
having God and the integrity of our faith before our eyes, do
pronounce, determine, and declare the said Mr Patrick Hamil-
ton, for his affirming, confessing, and declaring the aforesaid
heresies, and his pertinacity, to be an heretic, and to have an
evil opinion of the faith, and therefore to be condemned and
punished, likeas we condemn and define him to be punished
by this our sentence definitive, depriving him, and sentencing
him to be deprived, of all dignities, honours, orders, offices,
and benefices of the Church; and therefore do judge him to
A.D. I 527.
I64 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
be delivered over unto the secular power to be punished, and
his goods confiscate.” "
On the last day of February 1528 a stake
was fixed in the ground in the centre of the
large area before the gate of St Salvator's College. Around
it fagots of wood were piled high. At noon the young and
noble confessor left his prison for the place of execution. He
was accompanied by his servant and two or three faithful
friends, and carried in his hand a copy of the Evangel. Being
come to the place, he gave the volume he so much loved to
a friend; and, taking off his gown, he gave it with some other
apparel to his servant, remarking, “This stuff will not help me
in the fire, yet will do thee some good. I have no more to
leave thee but the ensample of my death, which I pray thee
keep in mind. For albeit the same be bitter, and painful in
man's judgment, yet is it the entrance to everlasting life,
which none can inherit who deny Christ.”” By the ignorance
and awkwardness of his executioners, his torments were pro-
tracted for nearly six hours. It was six o'clock in the evening
before his body was reduced to ashes. “But during all that
time,” says Alexander Alane, who had witnessed the whole
scene with profound emotion, “the martyr never gave one
sign of impatience or anger, nor ever called to Heaven for ven-
geance upon his persecutors, so great was his faith, so strong
his confidence in God.” ” His last words that were heard were,
“How long, Lord, shall darkness cover this kingdom P. How
long wilt Thou suffer this tyranny of men P Lord Jesus,
receive my spirit !” -
So died Patrick Hamilton, the proto-martyr of the Luthera
Reformation. It was strange that the theses of Luther, posted
upon the door of the church at Wittemberg in 1517, should
so soon have been burnt with fire into the gates of St Salva-
tor's College at St Andrews. No nobler or gentler spirit ever
passed through great tribulation into the kingdom of God.
His youth, his accomplishments, his many virtues, excited uni-
versal pity; and it was afterwards said, that the smoke of the
flames, in which he had been consumed, infected all that they
blew upon. Very recently there was discovered in the
accounts of the Lord Treasurer, under the year 1543, the
name of an Isobel Hamilton, one of the ladies in attendance
A. D. I528.
* The sentence is found at length in the Appendix to Keith’s History.
*Spottiswood, lib. ii.
* Quoted in Lorimer's Memoirs of Hamilton, p. 155.
A.D. 1532.] THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. I65
on the court of the Regent Arran, and described as “daughter
of umquhil Patrick Hamilton, Abbot of Ferne.” It was in-
stantly suspected that the martyr's virtue had not been imma-
culate ; but Alesius tells us, in a tract till lately unknown, that
immediately after his return from Germany he had married a
lady of noble birth, and thus, like Luther, had openly and
irretrievably broken with Rome." It has indeed been ques-
tioned if he ever was a priest, for it does not appear he was
more than Commendator Abbot of Ferne. If he was a priest
and married, his marriage must have been clandestine, as other-
wise it would certainly have been made a chief charge against
him.”
Three months after the execution of Hamilton, James con-
trived to escape from the Douglases, gathered the nobility
around him, and being now in his seventeenth year, and
possessed of wisdom and firmness above his age, took the
government upon his own shoulders. His hatred of Angus
and all his relatives, who had kept him so long in virtual
captivity, was deep and incurable. He could never be
brought to forgive them. He confiscated their estates, and
drave them from the kingdom. We need not wonder that
they were the objects of his aversion and dread. They
undoubtedly sowed the seeds of many of the evils which bore
such bitter fruit during his reign. Though carefully watch-
ing his movements, in order to prevent his slipping out of
their hands, they had ruinously indulged him, neglected his
education, and encouraged his early inclination to gallantry,
and thus fostered the vices which afterwards contaminated his
character and hastened his end. The fear of his barons, thus
early inspired, made him throw himself more completely upon
the support of his clergy; while alarm at the intrigues of the
English court, which had long kept the kingdom in perpetual
agitation, led him to suspect and avoid all the overtures of
Henry.
We do not require to wander far out of our
way to record the institution, in 1532, of the
College of Justice, the first great step in our Country toward
A. D. I532.
* Lorimer's Memoirs, p. 124. Also Appendix to Laing's edition of
Knox's works.
* The statement in his sentence, “not being admitted, but of his own
head, without license or privilege, hath presumed to preach wicked
heresy,” seems to prove he was not in priest's orders. Then, there is no
mention of his being degraded before he was burned, as would have been
the case had he been a priest. . . .
I 66 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
the equitable administration of the law. The idea is said to
have been taken from the parliament of Paris. It was to
consist of fifteen members, eight of whom, including the
president, were to belong to the ecclesiastical order. Ten
advocates were appointed to conduct the pleadings before it ;
the clerks of the signet were ordered to be sworn, and every-
thing down to the appointment of macers was minutely pro-
vided for. The expenses of the court were to be defrayed
out of the revenues of the clergy, who, deeming the honour
done to their order to be no compensation for the injury
inflicted on their property, remonstrated against the exaction,
but in vain. There can be no doubt but that the constitution
of the college is a testimony to the Superior learning and abili-
ties of the ecclesiastics.
It was about the same time that Antonio Campeggio
visited Scotland, as papal legate, to confirm James in his
attachment to the ancient faith. He brought him from the
Pope a consecrated cap and Sword ; addressed him as
“Defender of the Faith,” a title which his uncle Henry of
England was held to have forfeited, and granted him a tithe
of all ecclesiastical benefices in the kingdom for three years—
a most acceptable present to a profuse prince.”
Meanwhile the doctrines of the Reformation were making
rapid progress in Scotland. The Lollards had not been
extirpated,—some of them still remained, ancient witnesses of
the truth. Men were passing to and fro betwixt our island
and the Continent, and ever bringing fresh tidings of the pro-
gress of Protestantism. Vessels were arriving at Aberdeen,
Montrose, Dundee, and Leith, and stealthily discharging
packages of Tyndale's English New Testament, and the
pamphlets and sermons of the Reformers.” These stirred up
the people like a trumpet-blast ; they began to scent the
battle from afar. Poets were not afraid to lampoon the idle
monks and friars ; wits perpetrated jokes at the expense of
the voluptuous bishops; and even the rustics, when they met
at the ale-house, told scandalous stories about the parish priest
—some concubine he kept, or some good-looking woman he
had inveigled at confession.” But there were earnest-minded
men in the Church who perceived that a reformation was
1 Tytler, vol. v.
* Among other proofs of this importation of books, we have an Act of the
Scotch Parliament declaring it penal.
* Dunbar and Lyndsay's poems give ample proof of this.
A.D. 1533-38.] MARTYRS AND CONFESSORS. 167
needed ; there were honest hearts beneath the monkish gown,
which could not stifle their feelings. In Scotland, as in
Germany, the Reformation began among the clergy themselves.
Almost all our first martyrs and Confessors were monks or
parish priests.
The flames in which the Abbot of Ferne was consumed
had scarcely died out among his ashes, when Alexander
Seaton, a Dominican friar, and confessor to the king, began
to preach the necessity of keeping the commandments, and
of looking to Christ as the end and perfection of the law. He
was called to task for his sentiments, and glad to save his life
by fleeing to England. At Berwick he wrote a letter to
James pointing out the subordination of the ecclesiastical to
the civil power, and urging his Majesty, in respectful terms,
to put an end to the oppression of the clergy. But the king
did not interfere to save him, and so he was compelled to
remain in exile."
It was not to be expected that a Church, backed by the
influence of the King, proud of a venerable antiquity, and
ignorant of the duty of toleration, would allow opinions
destructive of its power, its privileges, and its very existence,
to grow up in its bosom without a struggle to crush them.
We think it needless to relate minutely the story of every
martyrdom and of every martyr. It is everywhere and at all
times the same sad tale. Henry Forest, a young Benedictine
monk, was burnt at St Andrews in 1533. In the year follow-
ing, Norman Gourlay, a priest, and David Straiton, a gentle.
man of respectable family, were hanged and burned at the
rood of Greenside, “according,” says Knox, “to the mercy
of the papistical Church.”* Numbers were arraigned, but
their faith failed, and they recanted. Others of whom the
country was not worthy, fled, and transferred their allegiance
and learned labours to other lands. Among these were Alex-
ander Alesius, who became Professor of Divinity at Leipsic,
and the friend of Melancthon ; and John Machabaeus, who
rose to high favour with Christiern, King of Denmark, and
was honoured to be one of the translators of the Bible into
the Danish tongue. w
In July 1538, the parliament met, and, amongst
other things, passed a law, which is indicative at
once of the progress the reformed doctrines were making, and
of the disposition of the government toward them. This act,
* Knox's History, book i. . . 2 Ibid.
A.D. I538,
168 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTIANID. [CHAP. VIII.
after referring to an act passed in the year 1525, against the
“ damnable opinions of the great heretic Luther,” proceeds—
“Our said Sovereign Lord, for the zeal and love his High-
ness bears to the Christian faith and the Holy Kirk, ordains
and statutes the said act anew. Likewise, it is statute and
ordained, that forasmuch as the damnable opinions of heresy
are spread in diverse countries by the heretic Luther and his
disciples, and this realm, and the lieges thereof, has firmly
persisted in the holy faith, since the same was first received
by them, and never as yet admitted any opinions contrary to
the Christian faith, but ever has been clean of all such filth
and vice ; therefore, that no manner of person, stranger, that
happens to arrive with their ship within any part of this realm,
bring with them any books or works of the said Luther, his
disciples or servants, disputes or rehearses his heresies or
opinions, unless it be to the confusion thereof, and that by
clerks in the schools, under the pain of escheating their ships
and goods, and putting of their persons in prison.” It is
farther provided—“That none have, use, keep, or conceal any
books of the said heretics, or countenance their doctrine and
opinions, but that they deliver the same to their ordinaries
within forty days.” "
Meanwhile Henry VIII. had revolted against Rome. When
the Reformation first broke out he had entered the lists against
Luther, and published a treatise on the seven sacraments, in
answer to a book which had been published by the reformer
on the Babylonish captivity. The royal production was pre-
sented to the Pope in full consistory; His Holiness spoke of
it as the result of inspiration, and bestowed upon its author the
title of Defender of the Faith. But passion will sometimes
interfere with faith; and in despotic governments the caprices
of an individual may overturn the religion of a whole people.
The Defender of the Faith had grown weary of Catherine of
Arragon ; he pretended scruples of conscience about having
her to wife, because she had been the wife of his deceased
brother, and craved a divorce from the Pope; but the Pope,
fearful of offending her nephew the Emperor Charles V., was
not so compliant as he might have been to so Orthodox a king.
Without refusing the royal request, he staved it off upon
various pretences; and Henry got impatient, for he had seen
and loved Anne Boleyn. In these circumstances Cranmer
proposed to solve the difficulty, by getting the opinions of the
1 Keith’s History, book i. chap. i. Acts of the Scottish Parliament.
A.D. 1535.] THE ENGLISH REFORMATION. 169
most famous universities in regard to the legitimacy of his
marriage, and, if these should prove unfavourable to it, to have
a divorce pronounced by his own clergy. Henry swore that
Cranmer had the right sow by the ear. The thing was done;
the opinions were unfavourable; and the divorce was pro-
nounced by Cranmer himself, who had now been raised to the
See of Canterbury. Excommunicated by the Court of Rome,
Henry was declared by his own parliament the only supreme
head of the Church of England upon earth ; and the papal
supremacy was for ever at an end. The Rubicon being thus
crossed, monasteries were suppressed, and their enormous
revenues appropriated by the monarch, or bestowed upon his
courtiers, and the people flattered with the notion that hence-
forward they would require to pay no more taxes. But though
the English monarch had thus abolished the Roman jurisdic-
tion within his realm, he had no intention of reforming the
Romish ritual or the Romish creed. “The scheme,” says
Macaulay, “was merely to transfer the full cup of sorceries
from the Babylonian enchantress to other hands, spilling as
little as possible by the way.” ". Accordingly, with the utmost
impartiality, Henry struck off men's heads for maintaining the
Pope's supremacy, or for denying the dogma of transubstantia-
tion ; for owning the jurisdiction of Rome, or for denying her
doctrines. Such was the beginning and the ending of Henry's
reformation of religion in England.
But the English monarch was most anxious to extend his
reformation, such as it was, to the sister kingdom; and we find
him labouring, with all the zeal of a new proselyte, to convert
his nephew of Scotland to his faith. With this view he made
a proposal of a marriage between James and his daughter, the
Princess Mary, holding out to him the hope of succeeding to
the English crown. He despatched his chaplain, Dr Barlow,
Bishop-elect of St Davids, to the Scottish court to remove false
impressions; to present to the young monarch a book recently
published, called “The Doctrine of a Christian Man ; ” and,
if permission were granted, to display his no-popery eloquence
in the pulpit. James submitted the treatise to his ecclesiastics,
who pronounced it full of heresy, and unfit for the royal eyes;
and Barlow wrote to Secretary Cromwell informing him that
the king was surrounded “by the Pope's pestilent creatures
and very limbs of the devil.”?
* Critical and Historical Essays, vol. i. p. 131.
* Pinkerton, book xiv. Keith's History, book i. Tytler, vol. v.
17o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
Barlow was followed by Lord William Howard, who was in-
structed to propose a conference at York between his master
and James; but though James at first consented to meet his
uncle, he afterwards, through the influence of his clergy, made
pretexts for delay, and the conference never took place. It
would appear, however, that Henry's overtures had made some
impression on the king, for in May 1536 he advertises him
“ that he had sent to Rome to get impetrations for reformation
of some enormities, and especially anent the ordering of great
and many possessions and temporal lands, given to the kirk by
our noble predecessors.” We need not wonder that the
diplomatists both of London and Rome should thus anxiously
be visiting Scotland. Its relative position to England made its
movements of more than ordinary consequence. It was a
strategical point in the field, which it was of the greatest im-
portance for the Pope to retain and for Henry to carry.
James wished for a wife, and his thoughts were fixed upon
the daughters of France. Disdaining to entrust the courtship
into the hands of diplomatists, he set sail for Dieppe, and
having landed, hastened to Paris—a romantic knight-errant in
search of a lady-love. He had no sooner seen than he loved
Magdalene, the only daughter of Francis I., a beautiful girl of
seventeen ; but her fragile figure and hectic complexion were
already indicative of consumption and prophetic of death.
Mutual affection would not listen to reason, and so their
nuptials were celebrated with extraordinary pomp in the
Church of Notre Dame. Refused a passage through England
the royal pair were compelled to return to Scotland by sea ;
and when the devoted girl landed at Leith she knelt down upon
the beach, kissed the very sand, and solemnly thanked God for
having brought her husband and herself safely through the Sea
to the land of her adoption.” But she came only to find a
grave. In two months she was dead—a flower too tender for
northern skies. James mourned her in death as he had loved
her in life; but, young and hopeful, he dried his tears, and
before the days of his mourning were accomplished, he had
sought and obtained the hand of Mary of Guise, the widow of
the Duke of Longueville—a marriage which had the most
important influence upon the future fortunes of the kingdom.
A. D. I 539. On the last day of February 1539 a huge fire
e -ºº-ºº º was blazing on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh,
and five miserable men were seen in the midst of it—suffering,
* Keith, book i. chap. ii. * Lindsay of Pitscottie, p. I 59.
A.D. 1539.] THE BISHOP AND THE DEAN. 17 I
yet rejoicing. They were Dean Thomas Forret, Vicar of
Dollar, and a canon regular of the monastery of St Colm's,
Inch ; Sir Duncan Simpson, a priest; Keillor and Beveridge,
black friars; and Forrester, a notary in Stirling. They had
been tried for heresy before a council held by Cardinal Beaton
and William Chisholme, Bishop of Dunblane, and this was
their end. Keillor, it would appear, had written one of those
religious plays or mysteries, common at the period, in which
Christ's passion was represented ; and this had been acted
before the king and court at Stirling, upon the morning of a
Good Friday. But it was obvious that under the Scribes and
Pharisees, who accomplished the condemnation of Christ,
Keillor had painted the Churchmen of his day who were
crucifying Christ afresh by persecuting his friends.” The
satire had been too stinging to be easily forgotten or forgiven.
The Vicar of Dollar had some time before incurred the sus-
picion of Lutheranism by refusing to exact the corpse present
—felt by the poor to be an intolerable grievance, and by
preaching regularly on the Sundays. He was accordingly cited
before Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, a prelate more given to
hospitality than the study of theology, but evidently a kind-
hearted and good-natured man. The conversation which
passed between them is characteristic of the times, and there-
fore we give it at length, as reported by Fox, the martyr-
ologist.
“I love you well,” said the bishop, “and therefore I must
give you my counsel how you shall rule and guide yourself.
My dear Dean Thomas, I am told that you preach the epistle
or gospel every Sunday to your parishioners, and that you
take not the cow nor the uppermost cloth from your pa-
rishioners, which is very prejudicial to the Churchmen, and
therefore I would you took your cow and your uppermost
cloth, as other Churchmen do, or else it is too much to preach
every Sunday; for in so doing you may make the people think
that we should preach likewise. But it is enough for you, when
you find any good epistle, or any good gospel, that setteth
forth the liberty of the Holy Church, to preach that, and let
the rest be.” Forret answered, “My lord, I think that none
of my parishioners will complain that I take not the cow nor
the uppermost cloth, but will gladly give me the same, to-
gether with any other thing that they have, and I will give and
communicate with them any thing that I have ; and SO, my
* Knox's History, book i.
172 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
lord, we agree right well, and there is no discord amongst us.
And where your lordship saith, “it is too much to preach
every Sunday, indeed I think it is too little, and also would
wish that your lordship did the like.” “Nay, nay, Dean
Thomas,” cried the bishop ; “let that be, for we are not
ordained to preach.” Then said Forret, “Where your lord-
ship biddeth me preach when I find any good epistle or a good
gospel, truly, my lord, I have read the New Testament and
the Old, and all the epistles and gospels, and among them all
I could never find an evil epistle or an evil gospel; but if
your lordship will show me the good epistle and the good
gospel, then I shall preach the good and omit the evil.” The
bishop replied, “I thank God that I never knew what the Old
and New Testament was ; therefore, Dean Thomas, I will
know nothing but my portuise and pontifical. Go your way,
and let be all these fantasies; for if you persevere in these
erroneous opinions, ye will repent when you may not mend
it.” I
In the same year there were burnt as heretics in Glasgow a
grey friar named Russel, and a young man named Kennedy,
who is said to have had a genius for poetry, and who had
probably employed it in lampooning the clergy. It is re-
ported that Archbishop Dunbar would willingly have saved
them, but his coadjutors were inexorable.”
The panic caused by these burnings made many flee to
England for safety.” George Buchanan had been acting as
tutor to the Lord James Stewart, one of the king's illegitimate
children, and had recently received a gown of Paris black lined
with satin as mourning for the young queen; but he had
satirised the Franciscans, and was imprisoned in the Sea
Tower of St Andrews. Happily, for the sake of literature, he
escaped by his bedroom window and fled to France,4 pro-
bably with the connivance of the king.
About the same time James Beaton, Archbishop of St
Andrews, died, and the primacy passed into the hands of his
nephew, David Beaton, already a cardinal, and Bishop of Mire-
poix in France. He was a man of great talents, and still
greater ambition, devoted heart and soul to the interests of
the Church, and himself an embodiment, in many respects, at
once of its virtues and its vices. He had already acquired a
1 Martyrology, book viii. * Spottiswood, book ii.
* Letter of Duke of Norfolk, State Papers, vol. v. p. 155.
* Buchanan's History, lib. xiv. Knox's History, book i.
A.D. 1539.] SADLER AT THE SCOTTISH COURT. I 73
great influence over the mind of the king, and, for the re-
mainder of his life, we may regard him as the main instigator
of every public measure both ecclesiastical and political. He
was scarcely installed till he convoked at St Andrews a meet-
ing of the great barons and dignified clergy, and harangued
them upon “the Church in danger,” and followed up his
oration by citing Sir John Borthwick to appear and answer to
the charge of heresy; but Sir John had wisely fled to Eng-
land. He was declared guilty, and burned in effigy, first at
St Andrews, and afterwards in Edinburgh ;' but better to be
burned ten times in similitude than once in reality.
The year 1539 saw Charles V. and Francis I., who had so
long wasted Europe by their wars, at peace with one another;
and Henry, alarmed lest a Catholic league might be formed
against him, and James invited to join it, despatched Sir
Ralph Sadler to the Scottish court, to try the effects of
diplomacy. We may well regard this as an important era in
our history, for Sadler soon began to exert a strong influence
in Scottish affairs, and fortunately his letters and despatches
have been preserved, and throw much light upon the state of
parties and of public feeling at the time. Sadler's instructions
were to persuade the Scottish monarch to break off from
Rome, and seize upon the possessions of the abbeys and other
religious houses ; to discover what he were likely to do in the
event of a Catholic league being formed against England; and
to bring Cardinal Beaton into suspicion with him by every
means, but more especially by showing certain equivocal
letters which the cardinal had addressed to his agent at Rome,
and which had accidentally fallen into Henry's hands. Sadler
was further instructed to renew the proposal of an interview
between the two monarchs at York; and to flatter the hopes
of James succeeding to the English Crown in the event of
Prince Edward’s death.” - -
Sadler's account of his mission is peculiarly interesting, from
the gossiping way in which it communicates to us" grave
matters of state, and the glimpses it gives us of life at Holy-
rood three hundred years ago. He tells us that when he
sought his first interview he was conducted to the chapel,
where he saw the king at mass, kneeling under a cloth of state,
with the cardinal, bishops, and nobles kneeling around him.
The ambassador was led to a seat behind the place where the
* Knox's History, book i. Spottiswood, lib. ii. Keith.
* Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. Keith, book i. chap. ii.
I 74 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
monarch was thus devoutly engaged. When the service was
over, he was brought to the king, and instantly entered upon
his business. He said he was sent by his royal master to
assure his Majesty of his friendly feelings, and to offer for his
acceptance a present of six geldings, which were on their way
to Scotland by sea, and would arrive in the course of another,
day. James pleasantly received the gift, and declared that if
there was anything in his kingdom which his uncle would like,
it was quite at his service. Sadler next stated that he had
some secret intelligence to communicate, and wished a secret
conference, upon which the king fixed the next day before
In OOI).
The next day came ; the English ambassador repaired to
the palace, and was again taken to the chapel, where he had
the benefit of a French sermon, to which the queen and her
ladies were listening. He was then conducted to the privy-
chamber, and the king took him to a window-recess, that they
might there talk over matters together. Sadler, with many
apologies, exacted a promise of secrecy from James, and then,
with an air of mystery, began to tell him of a letter which had
fallen into his master's hands, and which proved Beaton to be
holding a treasonable correspondence with Rome. It was
written by the Cardinal to Mr Andrew Oliphant, Vicar of
Foulis, his agent at the papal court, and was on its way thither
under the charge of Crichton of Brunston ; but the vessel
which convoycó thc lettcr and its bcarcr was shipwreckcd on
the English coast. It contained references to ecclesiastical
affairs which Henry deemed very suspicious, and therefore
had he, in his great solicitude for his nephew's welfare, com-
municated it to him. Sadler says that while he was narrating
all this, and explaining the contents of the letter, he narrowly
watched the king, to see what effect it would have upon him.
The result of his observation was—“Sometimes the king looked
steadfastly at him with a grave countenance, sometimes he
bit his lip, sometimes he bowed.” When he was done, the
king said, “There are two laws, the spiritual and the temporal.
The administration of the one belongs to the Pope, and the
administration of the other to myself. I shall see to the one,
but must leave my clergy to manage the other.” Sadler,
somewhat disconcerted, offered to show the letter; but the
cardinal was all this while in the room, so the king whispered
he would rather look at it some other time.
Sadler now broached another subject. It had not yet be-
A.D. 1540.] THE WAY TO BE RICH. I 75
come fashionable for princes to keep model farms, and rear
fat bullocks and prize rams. The ambassador therefore said
that he was instructed to state to his Majesty, that his uncle
of England had heard with deep concern that he “kept large
flocks of sheep, and other such mean things,” and that it
would be much more royal if he would enrich himself with the
plunder of the religious houses in the kingdom. “ Then,”
said Sadler, “you will be able to live like a king, and not
meddle with sheep.” James declared that he had no sheep,
but that the tacksmen of the royal demesnes might have.
Alas, James you were either ignorant of your own flocks and
herds, or you were ashamed to acknowledge the possession
of “such mean things” to your august relative. But your
treasurer's accounts have made it known to a still more august
posterity, that at that very time you had numerous flocks
grazing in the forests of Ettrick, and you need not have
blushed to own it.
But James was poor, and Henry knew it, and had suggested
a way in which he might become passing rich. “I thank my
uncle for his advice,” said James, “but in good faith I cannot
do so, for methinks it against reason and God's laws to put
down these abbeys and religious houses, which have stood so
long, and maintained God's service.” “And what need have
I to take of them to increase my livelihood P” continued the
monarch. “There is not an abbey in Scotland at this hour,
but, if I asked anything, would give it.” Sadler urged that
the monks were an idle, unprofitable kind of people, and
withal very unchaste. The king replied, “that a few might be
bad, but it were a pity that for the sake of these all should be
destroyed.” Beat off on this point, the ambassador next
referred to the league which it was rumoured his Majesty had
entered into with France ; but the king laughed at this, and
denied it utterly. Last of all, Sadler touched upon the con-
ference which his master wished to have with his Majesty.
James showed an evident disposition to waive this matter, and
remarked, that if such a conference took place, he would like
the King of France to be present at it.
The next day was Sunday, and again the ambassador was
sent for. He came to exhibit the geldings, which had now
arrived; but, as before, he was first of all brought into the
chapel, where the whole court was assembled. The service
being done, the horses were mounted and put through their
paces, and the barbary and jennet particularly praised. The
176 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
master of the household now came and announced that dinner
was ready, upon which the king went and washed, and then
sat down, having told his lords to take the ambassador with
them. At table, besides the king, there were the Cardinal, the
Archbishop of Glasgow, the Earls of Huntly, Errol, Cassillis,
and Athole, the Bishop of Aberdeen, Lord Erskine, and some
others. After dinner, Sadler politely thanked the king for
having so kindly entertained so poor a man as he was. The
king now took an opportunity of telling him that he knew all
about the letter to which he had referred : that Beaton had
kept a duplicate of it, that he had seen it, and that it had
created no suspicions of the cardinal's loyalty. Sadler, evi-
dently amazed, suggested that his Majesty had better look at
the original, which he had in his bosom. As the cardinal was
in the room, and might be observing their movements, the
king told him to take it out quietly, as if it were some other
paper; and then looking at it, he declared that it agreed word
for word with the duplicate. It was hopeless to make any-
thing of this, and so the ambassador, leaving it off, began to
dilate upon the reformation which Henry had wrought at
Christ Church, Canterbury, and upon the bad lives of the
monks and friars ; but the king simply Smiled, and said that
if they did not live well, he would amend them, and then
showed a disposition to change the subject."
All this, and much more, Sadler communicates to Henry
with great minuteness of detail; but it was plain that the great
object of his embassage had failed.
In a parliament which was held in the month of March
1541, a series of acts were passed which clearly indicate the
determination of the king to root out heresy and maintain the
established order of things. By one of these it was declared
death to argue or impugn the Pope's authority. By another
it was declared unlawful for any, except “theologians ap-
proved by famous universities, or admitted thereto by those
who have lawful power,” to hold conventicles in order to
dispute of the Holy Scriptures, or for any one to lodge any
known heretic. By a third, it was enacted that no heretic
who had abjured his heresy, and been received to penance
and grace, should talk to others of the holy faith, under pain
of being considered as relapsed. By a fourth, it was provided
that if any one were suspected of heresy, and, after being
summoned, fled from justice, he should be held as guilty, and
proceeded against accordingly ; and that if any one should
* Sadler's State Papers and Letters, vol. i.
A.D. 1541.] PENAL ACTS. 177
receive him, assist him, or petition for his pardon, he should
be held as a favourer of heresy. By a fifth, it was ordained
that should any one reveal a congregation or conventicle
where error was disseminated, he should, in the event of his
being one of the heretical congregation himself, be acquitted
and absolved; and in the event of his not being so, he should
be rewarded with a portion of the confiscated goods of the
accused." Such were the tyrannical acts by which it was at-
tempted to prop up the papacy in our country when it was
tottering to its fall.
But it was felt at the same time that the Church might be
better preserved by abolishing abuses than by burning people
for talking of them. Accordingly, on the same day with these
other acts, an act was passed for reforming of kirks and kirk-
men. In this act it is set forth, that “because the negligence
of divine service, the great unhonesty in the kirk, through not
making of reparation to the honour of God Almighty, and to
the blessed sacrament of the altar, the Virgin Mary, and all
holy saints; and also the unhonesty and misrule of kirkmen,
both in wit, knowledge, and manners, is the matter and cause
that the kirk and kirkmen are lightly spoken of and contemned;
for remede hereof, the King's Grace exhorts and prays openly
all archbishops, bishops, ordinaries, and other prelates, and
every kirkman in his own degree, to reform themselves, and all
kirkmen under them, in habit and manners both to God and
man,” etc., etc. It is worthy of remark that this act does not
conclude with denouncing death and confiscation of goods
against all delinquent churchmen, but simply, “if any person
will not obey nor obtemper to their superior, in that behalf the
King's Grace shall find remede therefor at the Pope's Holiness,
and such like against the said prelates if they be negligent.””
These acts were hardly passed till Beaton, ever active,
started on an embassage to Rome. His avowed object was to
procure his appointment as papal legate to Scotland; but it is
supposed he had secret instructions to negotiate an alliance
with the Einperor and the King of France for the invasion of
Ingland and extirpation of heresy. The conjuncture was
favourable, as Francis was now feasting and fêting his former
foe, and both were equally zealous for the Catholic Church ;
but their old animosities were quickly renewed—Milan became
Once 11101e a bone of contention, and the alliance, if ever Con-
templated, happily for Protestantism was never formed.
* Keith, book i. chap. i. 2 Ibid.
M
178 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
Meanwhile Sadler proceeded a second time to Scotland,
bent on the same errand as before, and with letters in which
our monarch was admonished not to be as a brute or stock in
the hands of the clergy. “The practices of prelates and
clerks,” say the instructions, “be wondrous, and their jug-
gling so crafty, that unless a man beware, and be as oculate
as Argus, he may be lightly led by the nose, and bear the yoke,
yea, and yet for blindness not to know what he doth.” This
lecture, which was to be read by Sadler to James, lets us
understand that Henry considered him as priest-ridden; and
perhaps he was ; but still it was not very courteous to say SO
in such homely phrase, notwithstanding the privilege of an
uncle to say rude things to an orphan nephew.
The position of James at this period was peculiar and em-
barrassing. He was in need of money; and there were two
ways in which he could get it, and each of these had been
urged upon him. He might confiscate the property of the
Church, or of the heretical gentry and nobles. Again and
again Henry urged upon him the former method; Beaton and
his clergy suggested the latter. The king pointed to his own
example ; the cardinal drew out a list of three hundred and
sixty persons of property who were suspected of heresy, and
whose possessions, if confiscated, would amply satisfy all the
requirements of royalty. It was for James to choose whether
he would break with the nobility or the clergy, whether he
would enrich himself with secular or ecclesiastical plunder.
There was as much principle, or want of principle, on the One
side as the other. But, if rob the king must, whom should he
rob P. The clergy had hitherto been his firmest friends; it was
in their wisdom he most trusted; it was their talents he most
employed ; it was to their masses he looked for the salvation
of his soul. If they were rich, they were also liberal ; and
they had already voluntarily assessed themselves in large sums
for his support. Mary, his queen, was Catholic; France, his
ancient ally, was Catholic; to spoil the Church he must break
with them. Yet James was not blind to the vices of the
clergy; he gave his countenance to satires upon their idle and
licentious lives;” he passed acts to reform them ;” and he is
* Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i.
* Friar Keillor’s “Mystery” and Sir David Lindsay’s “Satyre of the
Three Estatis” were performed in his presence; and Buchanan, at the
king's special desire, wrote the stinging satire on the Franciscan friars,
known as Franciscanus.
* Act, 14th March 1541, quoted above.
A.D. 1542.] DEATH OF JAMES W. I 79
said to have looked with a covetous eye upon their ample
possessions, and to have meditated the appropriation of Some
of them. On the other hand, James had no great love for his
nobility; he had more than the Stewarts' hereditary dread of
their turbulence and power ; and the faction of Angus had
disturbed and distressed him all his life long. But to beggar
nearly ſour hundred of them, because suspected of heresy, was
a scheme too wild, too daring, too unprincipled for him. He
is said to have driven from his presence the first proposer of
the plan with mutterings about heading and hanging, but to
have afterwards reverted to the thought, and that the terrible
proscription-roll was found in his pocket after his death."
We have not the same clear information in regard to Sadler's
second mission which we have in regard to his first ; but it
would appear that James had given a qualified promise that
he would meet Henry at York during his intended progress
to the north. Henry came to York, and remained there
during six days; but James did not appear. The clergy, it
was thought, had prevailed upon him to remain at home; and
perhaps they advised wisely, for there were suspicions of a
trap being laid to catch the Scotch king. James sent a courteous
apology; but IIenry conceived himself slighted and insulted,
and returned to London venting threatenings and curses
against the Scotch. War was the result; the borders became
the scene of bloodshed and pillage; the old Duke of Norfolk
marched into Scotland with a large army, but retired at the
approach of winter, and in presence of the Scotch array. The
king wished a pursuit, but the barons refused to follow him,
and he left the army in deep disgust. The shameful rout of
Solway Moss soon followed. The high-spirited monarch could
bear no more ; he shut himself up in Falkland Palace, and the
violence of his grief soon induced a slow fever. None could
“pluck from his heart the rooted sorrow.” While rapidly
sinking, intelligence was brought that his queen, who was at
Linlithgow, had been delivered of a girl, afterwards the unfor-
tunate Queen Mary. “It came with a lass, and it will go
with a lass,” said the broken-hearted monarch, and in seven
days afterwards expired.
The mysterious death of the king, free from all apparent
disease, made many whisper he had been poisoned, or as
Knox phrases it, that “ of old ‘his part was in the pot,” and
* Knox's History, book i. Sadler also mentions such a proscription-
roll, vol. i.
I8o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
that the suspicion thereof caused him to be inhibited the
queen's company.” The truth is, it was customary in those
times to attribute every such death to false play, and chemical
analysis could not yet either prove or disprove the popular
rumours. Knox had no liking for Mary of Guise. “Howsoever
the tidings liked her,” said he, “she mended with as great
expedition of that daughter as ever she did of any son she
bore. The time of her purification was sooner than the Levi-
tical law appoints; but she was no Jew, and therefore in that
she offended not.” I
Cardinal Beaton lost no time in producing a document pur-
porting to be the will of the deceased monarch, appointing
him regent of the kingdom during the queen's minority, with
a council, consisting of the Earls of Argyll, Huntly, and Moray,
to assist him in the government; and proclamation was made,
accordingly, at the market-cross of Edinburgh. Instantly
there were rumours afloat of a dead or dying man's hand
being guided upon a blank paper, which was afterwards filled
up by the cardinal himself. The circumstance was affirmed
in high quarters,” and very generally believed ; but it was
never proved, nor as much as judicially alleged against the
cardinal, even when he was lying in prison, and his enemies
very anxious to find judicial matter against him. In the
absence of proof to the contrary, all the probabilities are in
favour of the genuineness of the document. James was mor-
bidly jealous of his barons ; after the mutiny of Fala Muir,
and the rout of Solway, he had conceived toward them the
most violent antipathy—it was the cause of his death. It was
not likely he would commit the government of the kingdom to
them. On the other hand, he trusted and venerated the
clergy; he had all along been ruled, perhaps overridden, by
them ; on his death-bed, when all the powers of superstition
could be brought to bear upon him, their ascendency would
naturally be increased, and there was nothing more likely than
that he should execute an instrument appointing his favourite
Beaton regent of the kingdom.
But if the king had faith in the cardinal, the nobles had
not. They assembled, and ignoring all other pretensions,
appointed the Earl of Arran, the next heir to the crown after
* Knox's History, book i.
* Sadler says that Arran assured him of this. (State Papers, vol. i. p.
138.) -
A.D. 1543.] MARRIAGE PROJECT. ... • I 81
the infant Mary, to be regent." He was a good-natured,
somewhat feeble, and very changeable man. Successively a
puppet in the hands of the opposite factions, he was trusted
by neither. But, be this as it may, his elevation to the head
of the government was considered a great triumph to the
reformcd opinions, as he was known to favour them, and had
employed as his chaplains two Dominican friars, Thomas
Williams and John Rough, who had acquired a reputation for
their bold preaching against the errors and vices of the Estab-
lished Church.
Meanwhile the intelligence of James's death reached the
court at London. Henry at once determined to renew his
favourite project of uniting the two crowns by a marriage be-
tween the infant queen and his son Prince Edward. The
long-exiled Douglases set out on their journey to the north,
bound by feeling and interest to the English king. The
nobles who had been taken prisoners at the Solway, among
whom were the Earls of Glencairn and Cassillis, and the
Lords Maxwell, Somerville, Fleming, and Oliphant, were re-
leased from captivity, on solemnly swearing that they would
use their utmost efforts to obtain the consent of the Scotch
Parliament to the marriage, and the instant delivery into
Henry's hands of the royal child, and the principal fortresses
of the kingdom. The first proposal was politic and wise—the
truest patriot might have given his approval to it; but the
other two were so ignominious that no independent people
could consent to them ; and it is too plain that the nobles
had basely agreed to purchase their own liberty by surrender-
ing the liberty of their country.
Beaton was too able and dangerous a man to be allowed to
be at large; and the first act of Arran and his friends was to
get him into their power. He was known to correspond with
France: this was construed into treason ; the cry of a French
invasion was raised ; and the cardinal was hurriedly seized and
committed as a prisoner to Blackness Castle. But the Church
was still strong; and a result followed which probably was not
anticipated. The churches were everywhere closed ; no priest
could be prevailed upon to say a mass, to christen an infant, or
to read the service for the burial of the dead. It seemed as if
the country had been placed under an interdict. Notwitli-
standing the prevalence of the reformed opinions, there can be
1 His office and title of Governor were conferred by the first parliament
that met. -
I82 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
no doubt but that this bold stroke of the papal party must
have produced a profound impression upon a people educated
in the Romish creed, and not yet emancipated from its power."
On the 12th March 1543, the Three Estates assembled at
Edinburgh. They wisely agreed to the marriage of Mary to
Prince Edward of England ; but like men who valued the
freedom they had inherited, they resolved that their young
queen should not pass into England till she was ten years of
age, and that not one of their fortresses should be entrusted
to Henry.” All the deliberations of the parliament on this sub-
ject were characterised by prudence and patriotism ; and had
it not been for the impetuosity of the English king, the union
of the crowns would have been anticipated by more than half
a century.
On the 15th day of the month, being the third of the ses-
sion, this parliament took the first step toward the reforma-
tion of the church, by authorising the perusal of the sacred
Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. It was Lord Maxwell who
brought the matter before the Lords of the Articles, proposing
that “it should be statute and ordained that it shall be lawful
for all our sovereign lady's lieges to have the holy writ, to wit,
the New Testament and Old, in the vulgar tongue, in English
or Scotch, of a good and true translation, and that they shall
incur no crime for the having and reading of the same,” &c.
Upon which the act proceeds—“The Lords of Articles being
advised with the said writing, find the same reasonable; and
therefore think that the same may be used among all the lieges
of this realm, in our vulgar tongue, of a good, true, and just
translation, because there was no law shown nor produced to the
contrary; and that none of our sovereign lady's lieges incur any
crime for having or reading of the same in form as said is ; nor
shall be accused therefore in time coming; and that no person
dispute, argue, or hold opinions of the same, under the said
pains contained in the foresaid acts of parliament.” ” When this
bill was brought before the Estates, the Archbishop of Glasgow
protested, in his own name and of all the prelates who might
adhere to him, against its being passed into a law “till a pro-
vincial council should be held of all the clergy of the realm, to
1 Tytler, vol. v.
* Keith’s History, book i. chap iii. Tytler, vol. v.
* Acts of the Scottish Parliament, I 5th March 1543. Keith's History,
book i. chap. iv.
A.D. 1543.] : THE BIBLE IN THE VULGAR TONGUE. 183
advise and conclude if the same were necessary.”* Notwith-
standing the archbishop's protest, the bill was passed ; and in-
structions given to the Clerk of Register to make proclamation
of it at the market-cross.
It will be observed that this act affirms that there was no
law upon the statute-book against the reading of the Scriptures
in the vulgar tongue, and therefore it is simply what would
now be called a declaratory act. It did not confer the privi.
lege ; it merely declared that it already existed by the law of
the land. It is certain, however, that the clergy did not con-
cede the lawfulness of every man perusing the Scriptures for
himself, and to have done so prior to this period would have
been construed into a Crime. It is fair, however, to remark,
that Archbishop Dunbar founds his protest not upon the
wrongousness or illegality of the measure, but upon its
Erastianism. He deprecates legislation in the parliament re-
garding matters which could be properly dealt with only in the
councils of the Church. Most people, however, will be of
opinion, that it would have been long before a convocation of
ecclesiastics would have passed such a law, and will receive
this measure of Church reform not the less thankfully that it
emanated from State legislation.
The act, with singular inconsistency, while it allows all men
to read the Bible, forbids them to form any opinion regarding
it. It has been construed, however, as referring merely to
opinions contrary to the authorised Creed, and it has been said
that even still, while all may read the Bible, they must read it
according to the Church's Confession. Probably it was the
fully-expressed opinion of the Anglican party in the parlia-
ment ; for in England men were allowed to read the Bible,
but if they there discovered anything opposed to the royal
faith, the discovery cost them their head. The instant effect
of the passing of the act is described by Knox, with all the
freshness of one who lived at the time —“Then,” says he,
“might have been seen the Bible lying almost upon every gen-
tleman's table. The New Testament was borne about in many
men's hands. We grant that some, alas ! profaned that blessed
Word ; for some that perchance had never read ten sentences
in it, had it most common in their hand ; they would chop
their familiars on the cheek with it, and say, this hath lain
under my bed feet these ten years. Others would glory, O
* Keith’s History, book i. chap. iv.
184 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
how oft have I been in danger for this book How secretly
have I stolen from my wife at midnight to read upon it ! And
this was done of many to make court and curry favours thereby ;
for all men esteemed the governor to have been one of the
most fervent Protestants that was in Europe.” I
The passing of this act was a great victory won by the Re-
formers, but the next scene in the changeful drama is the Earl
of Arran riding to Callander, meeting with Cardinal Beaton
there, proceeding with him to Stirling, going to the Church of
the Franciscan Convent, making confession, doing penance,
getting absolution, received back into the bosom of the Holy
Catholic Church. How the cardinal had been liberated from
his prison no one could well explain. How the governor had
thus suddenly changed his opinions was a greater mystery
still. But people noted that shortly before this his illegitimate
brother, John Hamilton, Abbot of Paisley, had returned from
France, and they suspected that he had exercised that mes-
meric influence which strong minds always have over weak ones.
There was now no place found for John Rough and Thomas
Williams. Their declamations against licentious monks, the
idolatry of the mass, and the invocation of saints, had lost
their savour, and they were glad to flee for their lives. A
coalition-government was formed, and the vigour of its mea-
sures soon showed that it was Beaton and not Arran who was
its real head.
Meanwhile, a fleet of Scottish merchantmen had taken re-
fuge in an English harbour, and, depending on the treaty of
peace between the two nations, were in no hurry to depart.
With the grossest injustice, Henry ordered them to be seized,
and their cargoes to be confiscated and sold.” The mercan-
tile classes of Scotland, now rising into importance, were in-
censed to the uttermost ; they mobbed the house of Sadler,
and threatened his life.” The spark was soon fanned into a
flame, and the indignation was mutual. Disappointed at the
conditions which the Scottish Parliament had annexed to the
matrimonial alliance, Henry resolved to seek Mary for his son,
with a sword in his hand—a bad way to woo a woman. War
blazed forth, and the two countries were alternately ravaged.
There was one new feature in these desolating campaigns.
The Religious Houses, instead of being spared as hitherto,
were the first to be given to the flames. The Protestants of
1. Knox’s Hist., book i. * Keith, book i. chap. iii.
* Robertson's History of Scotland, vol. i. book ii.
A.D. 1545.] FRENCH AND ENGLISH FACTIONS. I85
England esteemed it peculiarly meritorious to butcher a monk,
or to burn a monastery. In One foray alone, conducted by
the Earl of Hertford in 1545, no fewer than seven monasteries
and other Religious Houses were destroyed. Kelso, Dry-
burgh, Melrose, and Jedburgh were laid in ruins."
Francis I. gave a cordial and effective support to Cardinal
Beaton and his party; the people were divided into the French
and Fnglish factions; and the contest became little better
than a battle between France and England, fought upon
Scottish ground. Henry was bent upon uniting Scotland to
England, by obtaining possession of her queen and her for-
tresses. Francis Saw it to be his interest, if possible, to pre-
vent this. The Protestants looked to Henry, the Papists to
Francis. Beyond all question, Popery in this case was for
the nonce allied with patriotism. The clergy saw this, and
made the best use of it. From pulpits, formerly silent, they
uttered fierce invectives against the truckling spirit that would
sell country, birthright, liberty, religion, to a brutal king, the
murderer of his wives, the desolator of their fairest provinces.
They met at St Andrews, raised money among themselves to
carry on the war, offered to meltdown the church plate, and to
take the field themselves, if need were, and fight for their hearths
and their altars.” While this loyal spirit pervaded the Papal
party, the Protestant nobles were pocketing pensions from the
English king, and pledging themselves to unite their banners
to his for the conquest of their fatherland. The Earl of Glen-
cairn gets 24, 250 yearly ; his son, Lord Kilmaurs, 24, 125. The
Earl of Lennox gets a still more splendid bribe—the hand of
the Lady Margaret Douglas, and considerable estates in Eng-
land.” For this they sold their country and themselves.
But we must revert to the triumphs and conflicts of Pro-
testantism apart from State intrigues. The Earl of Arran,
immediately after his apostasy, caused it to be “propounded
in plane parliament,” “how there is great murmurs that heretics
more and more rise and spread within the realm, sowing
damnable opinions, contrary to the faith and laws of Holy
Kirk; ” and gave exhortation to all prelates, each within his
* Haynes' State Papers. Original paper quoted by Robertson, Hist.,
vol. i. book ii.
* Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 204. Tytler, vol. v.
* Keith’s Hist., book i. chap. iii. A still more detailed account of the
pensions received by the Scottish Protestant nobles will be found in Tytler's
History.
I86 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
own diocese, to inquire after such heretics, intimating that
he, as governor, would be ready at all times to do his duty."
Thus armed with the whole political as well as ecclesiastical
power of the kingdom, the cardinal resolved to strike terror
into the Reformers by a signal example of severity. The fair city
of Perth, laved by the waters of the Tay, had become noted
for heresy. Thither Beaton made a progress, taking Arran
along with him. A number of persons were cited before an
ecclesiastical assize, and of these, six—five men and a woman
—were condemned to die. Robert Lamb was charged with
interrupting the preaching of a friar who was advocating the
invocation of saints; William Anderson, James Ronald, and
James Finlayson were indicted for nailing two ram's horns to
a St Francis's head, attaching a cow's rump to his tail, and
eating a goose upon All-hallow evening; James Hunter was
charged with being art and part with them ; and Helen Stark,
the wife of James Finlayson, was accused of refusing to pray
to the Virgin when in labour.” The men were hanged, and
the poor woman was drowned, being refused the small con-
solation, which she earnestly desired, of dying in Company with
her husband.
Before this terrible example was forgotten, the celebrated
martyr GEORGE WISHART was brought to the stake. Wishart
belonged to the family of Pittarrow, in the Mearns. We first
hear of him teaching a school at Montrose, and exhibiting his
enlightened scholarship by instructing his pupils in Greek.
We next find him at Bristol, where he was accused of heresy,
and more especially of denying the atonement, and for this he
was condemned ; but he had not yet acquired the martyr's
willingness to die, and so he publicly recanted, and burned his
fagot in the church of St Nicolas.” This occurred in 1539,
and in 1543 we find him at Cambridge, the interval having
been spent in Germany and Switzerland. We have an inter-
esting portraiture of him while there, given us by Emery
Tylney, one of his pupils. “He was a man of tall stature,
bald-headed, and on the same wore a round French cap ;
judged to be of melancholy complexion by his physiognomy,
black-haired, long-bearded, Comely of personage, well-spoken
after his country of Scotland, courteous, lowly, lovely, glad to
1 Keith’s History, book i. chap. iv.
* Spottiswood's History, book ii. Knox's Hist., book i.
* Tytler, vol. v. Mayor's Calendar—“That Christ nother hath nor
could merit for him ne yet for us.
A.D. 1543-46.] GEORGE WISHART. 187
teach, desirous to learn, and was well travelled ; having on
him, for his habit or clothing, never but a mantle or frieze
gown to the shoes, a black millian fustian doublet and plain
black hose, coarse new canvass for his shirts, and white falling
bands and cuffs at his hands. All the which apparel he gave
to the poor, somc weckly, some monthly, some quarterly, as
he liked, saving his French cap, which he kept the whole year
of my being with him.” "
A.D. I543 In July 1543 Wishart returned to Scotland in
tº sº.” & the company of the commissioners who had
gone to England to negotiate the marriage-treaty which was to
unite the kingdoms.” He instantly began to preach the doc-
trines of the Reformation. Montrose and Dundee listened to
his eloquence. In the latter town the populace were so ex-
cited by his invectives as to attack and destroy the convents
of the Franciscan and Dominican Friars. The magistrates
found themselves compelled to interfere, and Wishart was
interdicted from preaching. Upon this, he retired to the
western counties, where his friends were all-powerful. Lennox,
Cassillis, and Glencairn were there able to defend him against
all deadly, and secure him an entrance into every parish church ;
but to the honour of Wishart it must be told, that when any
opposition was made to his preaching in the church, he re-
fused to allow force to be used, and retired to the market-
cross or the fields. He preached at Barr, Galston, Mauchline,
and Ayr, generally surrounded by armed men. Hearing that
the plague had broken out at Dundee, with great self-devoted-
ness he hurried thither, and was unwearied in preaching the
gospel, visiting the sick, and preparing the dying for death.
While thus employed, he received a message from the Earl of
Cassillis, that the gentlemen of the west wished him to meet
them at Edinburgh, for the purpose of having a public dispu-
tation with the bishop. He at once obeyed the summons,
and proceeded southwards, but with the melancholy feeling
of St Paul when he went “bound in the spirit to Jerusalem.”
He knew that Cardinal Beaton was bent upon his destruction,
and he was haunted by the dread of a cruel death. But now
he was prepared to meet it.”
On reaching Edinburgh, he found his friends had not
arrived, and it was thought expedient he should remain con-
cealed for a day or two. The truth is, men were afraid both
* Quoted in Fox's Martyrology, book viii. sect. iv.
* Tytler, vol. v. * Knox's History, book i. Tytler, vol. v.
188 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
for him and themselves. But Wishart could not bear this
skulking from danger in so holy a cause, and preached at
Leith ; and afterwards, proceeding into East Lothian, he was
entertained by the Lairds of Brunston, Longniddry, and
Ormiston, who were all zealous reformers. While here, he
preached at Musselburgh, Inveresk, Tranent, and Haddington.
On these occasions he was surrounded by the armed retainers
of his friends, and a two-handed sword was borne before
him. It was here that JoHN KNOx, now in his fortieth year,
attached himself to his party, and immediately obtained his
confidential friendship. His office it was to bear the two-
handed sword." At Haddington the congregation was very
Small; it was plain that men's faith was failing through fear ;
and, conscious of his approaching doom, Wishart bid an
affectionate farewell to his friends, and proceeded to Ormiston
House. Knox would have accompanied him, but this Wishart
would not allow. “Nay, return to your children,” said he,
“and God bless you. One is sufficient for a sacrifice.”
Meantime Cardinal Beaton had come to Edinburgh, and
was there holding a synod for the correction of clerical abuses.”
Hearing that Wishart was in the neighbourhood preaching
Lutheranism, and sheltered by men whom he knew to be his
deadly enemies, he resolved upon his instant apprehension.
At midnight Ormiston House was surrounded by a troop of
cavalry, commanded by the Earl of Bothwell. Wishart sur-
rendered himself upon a solemn assurance from Bothwell that
he would not deliver him into the hands of the cardinal, but
would protect him from all harm. The pledge was violated,
and the captive hurried from Ormiston to Edinburgh, and from
Edinburgh to St Andrews. A convocation of the dignified
clergy was called ; Dunbar laid aside his ill-will to Beaton,
and came ; it was the old story of Herod's reconciliation with
Pilate before the victim was offered up.4 Wishart's heresy was
set forth in eighteen articles; he was found guilty, and delivered
to the secular power.
On the 1st of March 1546 a scaffold was
erected in the open space before the Castle of
St Andrews, and faggots of dried wood were piled around it.
The guns of the castle were brought to bear upon the spot,
lest a rescue should be attempted, as had been threatened in
the case of Hamilton. There George Wishart died. It is
* Tytler, vol. v. M'Crie's Life of Knox, Period II.
* Knox's History, book i. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid.
A. D. I546.
A.D. 1546.] MIURDER OF BEATON. I89
affirmed by some of our historians that Beaton, Dunbar, and
other prelates beheld his sufferings from a balcony, and that
the martyr from the midst of the flames, fixing his eyes upon
the cardinal, said, “He who, in such state, from that high
place, feedeth his eyes with my torments, within a few days
shall be hanged out at the same window, to be seen with as
much ignominy as he now leaneth there in pride.”
The death of Wishart produced a powerful impression all
over Scotland. Some praised the cardinal for his seasonable
severity; but a much greater number commiserated the fate of
one so modest, so eloquent, and so good. With these expres-
sions of sorrow there were mingled mutterings about revenge;
men of birth were known to have declared at their table that
there must be life for life.” And so it was.
On the first of March Wishart was burned. On the even-
ing of the 28th of May, Norman and John Leslie, Kirkaldy of
Grange, and James Melville of Carnbee, with a few friends
and followers, entered St Andrews in different parties, and
took up their abode for the night at different hostelries to
avoid causing suspicion. The cardinal was known to be in
his castle, to which he had lately returned from the marriage
of his illegitimate daughter with the eldest son of the Earl of
Crawford. This fortalice was understood to be of great
strength, and at that very time extensive additions were being
made to its means of defence. Situated on the rock-bound
coast, and washed on three of its sides by the waves, it looked
in one direction over the broad bay merging into the German
Ocean, and on the other side commanded the town, with its
Cathedral, priory, and colleges. Early in the morning the
drawbridge was lowered to admit the workmen who were
employed on the fortifications, and Norman Leslie and three
friends entered with them, and quietly inquired at the porter
if the cardinal were astir. Kirkaldy of Grange and James
Melville, with a few retainers, followed, without attracting
notice; but when John Leslie and four attendants were seen
approaching, the porter took alarm, and would have raised the
bridge, but Leslie sprang forward, and in another instant the
man was stabbed and thrown into the ditch. The workmen
and servants were now led to the gate and dismissed, their
* This circumstance is ſial lated by Buchanau, and Lindsay of PitScottie,
and it also occurs in the modern editions of Knox's History; but it is not
found in the first edition, which has led some to doubt its genuineness.
* Knox's History, book i. -
I 90 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
lives being threatened if they made the slightest noise ; and in
this way the castle was cleared of a hundred and fifty persons
by sixteen determined men.
Meanwhile the cardinal was sleeping, but being awoke by
the moving of men to and fro, he got up and inquired the
cause. On being informed that the castle had been surprised
and taken by the Leslies, he attempted to escape by a secret
postern, but found it already secured ; he then retreated to his
room, and with the assistance of his chamberlain barricaded
the door; but when a threat of fire was used, he opened it,
and gave admission to the conspirators. John Leslie and a
man named Peter Carmichael at once rushed upon him and
stabbed him with their swords. But James Melville, strangely
characterised by Knox, when describing this scene, as a man
of nature most gentle and most modest, interposed and said—
“This work and judgment of God, although it be secret, yet
ought to be done with greater gravity;” and then turning
toward the unhappy cardinal the point of his sword, he said,
“Repent thee of thy former wicked life, but especially of the
shedding of the blood of that notable instrument of God, Mr
George Wishart, which although the flame of fire consumed
before men, yet cries it for vengeance upon thee, and we from
God are sent to revenge it. For here, before my God, I pro-
test that neither the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches,
nor the fear of any trouble thou couldest have done to me in
particular, moved or moveth me to strike thee, but only
because thou hast been, and remainest an obstinate enemy
against Christ Jesus and His Gospel.” Having spoken thus,
he struck him with his stog-sword; and so the cardinal fell,
the victim of a mean and mercenary conspiracy, originating as
much in political as religious reasons, encouraged by a foreign
potentate, and ripened by revenge.
While this bloody tragedy was being enacted in the car-
dinal’s bedroom, the rumour had spread through St Andrews
that the castle had been seized. The town-bell was rung, the
magistrates and people hurried to the edge of the fosse to
inquire the truth, but would not believe the conspirators when
they declared to them from the walls that the cardinal was
dead. Devoted to Beaton, they became clamorous, and to put
an end to their cries, the murderers took the bleeding corpse,
and fastening it by One leg and an arm to a sheet, they swung
it over the wall, and then told the people in mockery to see
* Knox's History, book i.
A.D. 1546.] CHARACTER OF BEATON. 19 I
their god. Shocked at this revolting spectacle of fallen great-
ness, the crowd quietly and quickly dispersed.
Through the mists of three hundred years the form of Beaton
looms upon us—the greatest and the last of Rome's champions
in Scotland. He fell, and the Papacy fell with him. To laud
him as a religious man were idle, for he was not cven moral.
Forbid by his Church the enjoyments of wedlock, he lived in
concubinage with Marion Ogilvy, who was seen stealing from
his room on the morning of his murder ; * and in the marriage-
contract of Margaret Beaton with the Master of Crawford, he
did not hesitate to designate her as his daughter.” But it were
equally idle to deny him the praise of being a great church-
man and a great statesman. As either, he reached to the
highest position to which a subject might aspire; like Wolsey,
he was a cardinal-primate, and all but a king ; and his govern-
ment was characterised by an energy, resolution, and sagacity,
which overcame every difficulty, and made reluctant barons
succumb before a haughty ecclesiastic. He was indeed
ambitious and unscrupulous in the attainment of the objects
of his ambition; but ambition is the sin of great minds. He
was a persecutor, and spilt the blood of the innocent; but he
did it in ignorance, believing that the safety of the Church, of
which he was the head, required severe measures to be taken
with the “heretics” who threatened its destruction. Tried by
the maxims of the New Testament, we cannot pronounce him
a good man ; tried by the maxims of the world, we must pro-
nounce him a great man.
Thus within three months the cardinal had followed the
Lutheran preacher; and widely divided in life, they were
now united in a violent death. But there are circumstances
which lead us to believe that the threads of Wishart's and of
Beaton's destiny were still more closely intertwined.
As murder will not hide, documents have been brought to
light, after centuries, which prove beyond all doubt that for
two years before this a conspiracy had been formed to assassi-
nate Cardinal Beaton. On the 17th of April 1544, the Earl
of Hertford transmits to King Henry a letter from Crichton of
Brunston, containing a proposal on the part of the Master of
Rothes and Kirkaldy of Grange, “to apprehend or slay the
cardinal at some time when he shall pass through the Fife-
* Letter of James Lindsay, a Scottish spy, to his employer Lord Wharton,
quoted in notes and illustrations to Tytler's History, vol. v.
* Knox, book i. * Keith, book i.
I 92 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. VIII.
land.”" This letter was brought to Hertford, and by him trans-
mitted to Henry, by a Scotchman of the name of Wishart.
The conspiracy slept for a year, when we find it again agitated
by the Earl of Cassillis, the friend and Coadjutor of Brunston.
Besides other documentary proof, there is still in existence a
letter from the English privy council to the Earl of Hertford,
dated May 30, 1545, which refers to a letter from the Earl of
Cassillis to Mr Ralph Sadler, “containing an offer for the kill-
ing of the cardinal, if his Majesty would have it done, and
would promise when it were done a reward.” There was
nothing for which the English monarch was more anxious, as
Beaton was the great obstacle to the execution of his plans;
but he did not like to give direct encouragement to the assas-
sins, or direct promises of reward, as it might compromise his
royal dignity, and all they could get was general encourage-
ment from his ambassador, and an assurance that his Majesty
“misliked not the offer.” Again the conspiracy slept; for the
wages of iniquity had not been stipulated, the price of blood
had not been told down. But the plan was not given up. In
October the Laird of Brunston is once more in communication
with the English government ; “hoping to God that the car-
dinal's proposed journey to France will be cut short,” but in-
sisting that “his Majesty must be plain with them, both what
his Majesty would have them to do, and in like manner what
they shall lippen to of his Majesty.” Sadler in return assures
him that it would be an acceptable service to God and the
king to take the cardinal out of the way, and that though he
could not compromise his Majesty, he could safely promise
any reward that was reasonable, and would undertake to pay
it himself on the execution of the act “from Christian zeal;”
and finally hints that, if he were in his place, he knew what
he would do “to please God and do good to his country.”
After this we are left in the dark ; the correspondence appears
to cease, or at least is not preserved.”
* The existence and authenticity of this letter were long questioned ; but
all doubts are now removed. State Papers (Henry VIII.), v. 377.
Hamilton Papers, 96.
* The reader will find this strange mystery minutely traced in Tytler's
History, both in the text and in an elaborate note appended to the fifth
volume. He may also trace it in the State Papers of the period, now
published in abbreviated form in the Calendars. We may feel grieved at
the dark discoveries, but there is no gainsaying the evidence, and it is
a weak thing to shut our eyes against historic truth, because the sight of
it pains us.
A.D. 1546.] THE CONSPIRACY. I 93
But though the correspondence does not conduct us up to
the very day when the deed was done, it is quite sufficient to
prove that the Earl of Cassillis, the Master of Rothes, and the
Lairds of Brunston and Grange had entered into a foul Con-
spiracy to murder Beaton, and that this conspiracy was en-
couraged by the English monarch and the English Privy
Council, who were ready to pay the assassins. If it be asked–
Was George Wishart connected with it? it must be answered,
there is a strong presumption that he was, though not positive
and conclusive proof. It is just possible that the Wishart
mentioned in the Earl of Hertford's letter may not have been
the martyr, but his close intimacy at that time with every one
of the Conspirators leads one to suspect that he was. Beaton
himself knew that his life was in danger; and it is difficult to
believe that Wishart was entirely ignorant of the character and
intrigues of the men with whom he was so intimately associ-
ated. We know that he lived in constant dread of the cardi-
nal, and frequently anticipated his fate; and when at last he
was apprehended, it was at Ormiston, from which one of
Brunston's letter was dated, in the company of Sandilands of
Calder, from whose house a second document had gone forth,
and of Brunston, the chief of the intriguers; and they were all
together, anxiously awaiting the coming of the Earl of Cassillis
and his friends from the west. But in addition to this, we
know that Wishart frequently, foretold the woes that were
coming upon his country, and even in the flames is said to
have predicted the cardinal's death ; and if so, his foreknow-
ledge must have been the result of his admission to the Coun-
cils of the conspirators and their English allies ; for the same
reasons which force us to deny miraculous powers to the Papal
Church, must lead us to refuse them to our own.
But it will be asked—How is it possible to believe that one
so saintly as the martyr of Pittarrow could enter into so mur-
derous a plan P. The difficulty of belief arises from our trans-
ferring the piety of the nineteenth to the sixteenth century—
the piety of men at ease, to men oppressed by power, and by
no means free of the ferocity of the feudal times. In the
language of Sadler, the bloody deed was done “to please God”
and “for Christian zeal,” as well as for “a small sum of
money.” The religion of the Reformation period in Scotland
was of a sterner kind than that prevailing now, IIIodelled more
after the examples of the Old Testament than according to the
spirit of the New. It was accounted right to take vengeance
VOL. I. N -
I94 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
on oppressors; it was peculiarly the Lord's work. To hew
Agag in pieces, to Smite the prophets of Baal, to scatter the
proud in the imaginations of their heart, was a work to which
the faithful were called, and which they must not shrink from
performing. This was shown by the speech of Melville before
passing his sword through the body of the cardinal ; it is shown
in the language with which Knox records the event ;1 and it
is shown by the whole history of the period. It were really
more difficult to believe that Wishart could be free from these
feelings, than that he should be infected by them.
!C H A P T E R I X.
BEFORE proceeding to narrate the last struggle between the
new opinions and the old—between Protestantism rising
into vigour, and Popery, strong in its antiquity, its wealth, and
its legal establishment, but rapidly losing its hold on the affec-
tions of the people, we wish to pause and take a view of the
Church of Scotland before its reformation—a farewell look of
the stately fabric before it fell. -
The papal creed had attained to nearly its present develop-
ment, though it had not yet received the exact definition
which it soon afterwards did from the decrees and canons of
the Council of Trent. The Word of God was recognised as
the rule of faith and manners; but this was held to include not
only the canonical Scriptures, but the traditions of Christ and
His apostles, as these were to be found in the writings of the
early fathers. The Jehovah of the Jews was recognised as the
God of the Christians, and the doctrine of the Trinity, obscure
to the former, was made clear to the latter; but the worship
and honour due to the one God was given to crosses and
Crucifixes, to paintings and statuary. As Our papal ancestors
believed in the one God, so did they believe in the one
Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus; but
they regarded the virgin-mother, the apostles, the martyrs, the
Saints, as intercessors too, and these, upon their bended knees,
they humbly invoked. They trusted to the sacrifice made by
* Notwithstanding our admiration of Knox, we think it impossible to
read his indecent jests at the cardinal's death without extreme pain and
disgust; and it is too evident from the whole narrative, that he approved
of and applauded the murder. -
CHAP. IX.] ROMISH CREED. I95
the great High Priest; but instead of regarding it as the one
sacrifice made once for all, they believed that every time the
mass was celebrated a new sacrifice was offered for the sins of
the living and the dead. They believed in the forgiveness of
sins; but instead of considering this as the free gift of divine
grace, they made it result from the virtue of the sacraments as
dispensed by the Church. They believed in the life everlast-
ing ; but they also believed that betwixt earth and heaven lay
the yawning abyss of purgatory, where sin unrepented of must
be expiated, and the soul tortured for centuries, unless relieved
by the masses and prayers of the priests. They believed in
the Holy Catholic Church ; but they restricted its members to
the Roman communion ; its priests were held to be the Only
legitimate successors of the apostles; and the Sacraments, as
dispensed by their hands, and only theirs, were supposed to
operate like a charm in purifying the soul from sin. In
baptism, our nature was regenerated ; in the eucharist, the
bread and wine were transubstantiated into the actual body
and blood of Christ ; in penance, all crimes committed after
the laver of baptism were pardoned; and in extreme unction,
the parting spirit was so purged from human defilement as to
be fit to enter into the presence of the Holy One who inhabit-
eth eternity.
In this creed, the true and the false, the sublime and the
absurd were strangely interwoven, and it was undoubtedly the
one that preserved the other, as the solid columns of the old
cathedrals sustained the grotesque figures of imaginary angels
and demons, monsters and men, that grinned from their cor-
bels on the worshippers below. In so far as it places an
earthly priesthood in the room of the Great High Priest, and
puts the pardon of sin and the keys of paradise into their
hands, it may be regarded as partly an invention of the Church
to aggrandize itself, and as partly an expression of human
feeling; for under all systems of faith man has shown an inve-
terate tendency to be pious by proxy, and to get the stated
ministers of religion to pray for him, to believe for him, to
make reconciliation for him. He will rather pay another to
do this for him than earnestly do it himself.
In order that the faithful might worship on consecrated
ground, every parish had its church, and every bishop's seat
its cathedral. How noble some of these structures were their
remains do still testify; but it were wrong to imagine that all
the ecclesiastical buildings in Scotland were on a similarly
I96 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
magnificent scale. Most of the parish churches have perished
through the mere waste of time, but from those that remain—
Some entire, and some in ruins—we may infer that they were
not in general more imposing than those which now shelter
the Protestant worship." To these the faithful were accus-
tomed to resort, not to hear sermon, as with us, but to be pre-
sent at the office of the mass, or some other Church-service,
to say their prayers before the figure of some favourite saint,
or to make confession to the priest. It would appear that
then, as now, other motives than those which religion approves
took people to church; for Dunbar, in his poem of the “Two
Married Women and the Widow,” makes his widow describe
herself as repairing to church in her weeds, spreading out
her book, illumined with gold, upon her knee, drawing her
cloak forward on her face, and from behind it stealing
glances at the knights and clerks who were at their devotions
beside her.
Preaching had, in a great measure, fallen into disuse amongst
the secular clergy. The parsons seldom preached; the bishops
never. Kennedy of St Andrews appears to have been an
exception, for it is recorded of him that he preached four
times a-year in every parish in his diocese, and compelled his
subordinate clergy to remain at their parish kirks, to preach
the Word of God to the people, and to visit them when they
were sick; and, more effectually to enforce this, he was in the
habit of catechizing the parishioners, on his visitations, if they
were duly instructed by the parson or vicar, if the Sacraments
were regularly administered, the poor sustained, and the
* Dunbar, in his vain longings for a benefice, declares that he would be
content with a church thatched with heather :
“Greit abbais grayth Inill to gather,
But ane kirk scant coverit with hadder;
For I of lytil wald be fane,
Quhilk to consider is ane pane.”
Aoem on the World's Instabilitie.
“We have a fervid description,” says the Quarterly Review, “of the
beauty of the chancel of Dollar in Clackmannanshire in 1336, but the
chronicle does not conceal that the building was only of hewn oak. We
know that at the same date the chancel of Edrom in the Merse was
thatched with straw. Nor does there appear cause to believe that the
great mass of the parish churches were in much better state, either in
that age or until long after the Reformation.” (Quarterly Review, June
1849.) -
The First Book of Discipline confirms this, by requiring that the kirks
be repaired with thack or sclait, chap. xv.
CHAP. IX.] . . . PREACHING FRIARS. 197
youth brought up in godliness." Kennedy must have been a
light shining in a dark place. There were not many that fol-
lowed his example. But the neglect of preaching by the
seculars was in some respects compensated for by the friars.
They were in the constant habit of preaching to the people.
The popularity of the Dominicans rested in a great measure
upon their preaching. One of their names pointed to their
work—they were called fratres predicaníes. Accordingly we
have frequent allusions to preaching in ante-Reformation
times. Dunbar, the poet, who was brought up as a friar,
boasts of having preached in the pulpit at Canterbury, and
everywhere throughout England and France.” In 1508 we
hear of a Scottish doctor expounding the Epistles of St Paul
at St Paul's Cross; and in 1513 Dr West, the English ambas-
sador, writes: “When the passion was preached, and the ser-
mon done, the queen sent for me.” ” Sir Ralph Sadler was
first introduced to Mary of Guise in the Chapel of Holyrood,
where she was, with a number of her ladies, hearing a sermon in
French. This was on a Friday, between nine and ten in the
morning. On the Sunday following, the ambassador resorted
to the palace to exhibit the geldings which Henry had sent for
the acceptance of James. Again he was taken to the chapel,
and again he found the queen at a sermon.* Before Wishart
was impeached and tried, Winram, the sub-prior of St
Andrews, preached a sermon upon heresy to the assembled
clergy and people;” and in 1552, eight years before the Re-
formation, an act of the Scottish Parliament imposed fines
upon those who should interrupt divine service and preaching
of the Word of God; 0 an act which seems too plainly to inti-
mate that the Reformers had already begun rudely to disturb
the established worship.
The discourses of these monkish orators, we may well be-
lieve, were not such as would now be applauded: they
embodied not the Christianity that now is, but the Christianity
that then was received in the churches. They were generally
* Lyndsay’s History, p. 69.
* In freiris weid full fairly haif I fleichit,
In it haif I in pulpet gane and preichit,
In Demtown kirk, and eik in Canterbury,
In it I past at Dover our the ferry;
Throw Picardy, and thair the peple teichit.
* Pinkerton, vol. ii.
* Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i. pp. 22-40.
* Knox's History, book i. * Mary, parl. v. c. xvii.
198 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
filled with the legends of fabulous saints, the pains of purga-
tory, and the virtues of the mass. Knox makes one of his
reforming preachers ridicule sermons in which cursing was too
freely used. “The priest,” saith he, “whose duty and office
is to pray for the people, standeth up on Sunday and crieth,
Ane hath lost her spurtle ; there is a flail stolen from them
beyond the burn ; the goodwife on the other side of the gate
has lost a horn Spoon; God's malison and mine I give to them
that knoweth of this gear and restoreth it not.” Such preach-
ing as this, however homely, if the cursing were left out,
might be not only pardoned but encouraged if it conduced to
honesty.
After the Church-service was ended, the Sunday was not
regarded as peculiarly sacred. It was common to hold mar-
kets and fairs upon it ; and the rustic, after hearing mass at
the altar, retired to the ale-house to sell his meal, or haggle
about the price of a horse.” Marketing was sometimes carried
on in the porch of the church, and even before the service was
done.” In other cases, the parson followed his parishioners to
the churchyard, to witness their skill in archery,” or join in
their laughter at the frolics of Robin Hood and Little John.”
Shops, hostelries, and places of amusement were open ; and it
was nothing unusual for the Courts of law to sit upon a Sun-
day.” The way in which the Sunday was kept is very well
illustrated by an incident already referred to. It was on a
Sunday morning Sir Ralph Sadler was ordered to attend his
Majesty James V. with the horses sent to him from the stud
of his royal uncle of England. When the ambassador arrived
he found the courtly circle in chapel, devoutly engaged; but
no sooner was the service over than the horses were brought
into the palace-court, and mounted by a groom ; while his
Majesty and his nobles from a window admired their action.
I Knox's History, book i.
2 After the Reformation there were several acts of parliament forbidding
markets or fairs to be held on Sabbath; and even before the Reformation
legislation was tried, but failed.
3. A synod shortly before the Reformation forbade this.
*James I., parl, i. chap. xviii., provides “That all men busk them to
be archers, from ten years of age and upwards, and that in each ten
pounds of land there be made bow marks, especially near to parish
churches, wherein upon holydays men come, and at least shoot thrice
about.”
s The game of Robin Hood was generally celebrated on a Sunday in
May.
Piazel's Cursory Remarks on “ane Book of Godly Sangs,” p. 9.
CHAP. IX.] PILGRIMAGES. I99
Festival-days would seem to have been very generally set apart
for fairs; and thus a prudent compromise was made between
religion and business."
After the Reformation, Acts of Parliament were passed
forbidding markets to be held upon a Sunday, and discharg-
ing the people from gaming, playing, or resorting to taverns
during divine service ;” but still it would seem that the
customs of the country partly continued, for long afterwards
we find Acts of Parliament and Acts of Assembly levelled
against them. In 1591 the General Assembly complains of
the profanation of the Sabbath by Robin Hood plays.”
Pilgrimages to shrines of reputed sanctity were regarded as
peculiarly meritorious, and constituted an important part of
the piety of the times. Conspicuous among the places of
pious resort was Whitehorn, where Ninian had reared his
white church of stone by the waters of the Solway. But in
later times this celebrated shrine was eclipsed by the Chapel
of our Lady of Loretto at Musselburgh. Here were a famous
image of the Virgin, and a holy hermit who pretended to
work miracles. It was to this shrine that James V. made a
pilgrimage from Stirling, in 1536, to secure a blessing upon
his journey to France in search of a queen. But crowds of
young men and women from Edinburgh were continually trip-
ping their way to Musselburgh, more bent, as satirists affirm,
upon love than devotion.*
Religious processions formed another conspicuous feature
of the period, as they do in all papal countries in the present
day. Yearly, on the 1st of September, the image of St Gile
was borne through the streets of Edinburgh, with the sound
of tabret, trumpet, and clarion ; and the populace uncovered
their heads as it passed, and the more devout went down
upon their knees in the gutters. But as the reformed opinions
spread, it was a common trick to break into sanctuaries and
* Fair is a corruption offeriae, a festival-day.
* Jac. VI., parſ. vi. chap. lxx. So early, in fact, as the reign of
James IV., it was ordained that no markets or fairs should be held upon
holidays, or within kirks or kirk-yards. (James IV., parl. vi. c. lxxxiii.)
Legislation failed to put down a habit which had become inveterate.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 356.
* “I have sene pass ane marvillous multitude—
Young men and women, flingand on thair feit,
Under the forme of fenzelt sanctitude,
For till adore ane image in Laureit ;
Mony came with thair marrowis for to meit,” &c., &c. . .
LyNDSAY's Monarchie.
200 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTIANID. [CHAP. IX.
steal away the images; and in this way St Gile was got hold
of, first drowned in the North Loch, and afterwards burned.
When his day came round, and his procession must be made,
an image was borrowed from the Grey Friars, which the
populace at once nicknamed Young St Gile. This young
saint was fastened with nails upon a species of ambulance,
called a fertor, and so wheeled down the High Street, amid
friars, priests, Canons, trumpeters, tapers, banners, and bag-
pipes—the queen regent herself walking at the head of the
procession. But as the procession returned homewards, a
cry got up, “Down with the idol; down with it; ” and
instantly the fertor was seized, and the image thrown into the
mire. “Then might have been seen,” says Knox, who
narrates the incident with infinite satisfaction, “so sudden a
fray as seldom hath been seen among that sort of men within
this realm ; for down go the crosses, off go the surplices, round
caps corner with the crowns. The grey friars gaped, the black
friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first
got the house.” This was in 1558, and was probably the last time
that the streets of the metropolis were perambulated by St Gile.
The Romish priesthood well knew that the multitude are
pleased with spectacles; and probably they also knew that
a rude populace can be most easily instructed by representa-
tions which appeal to their senses. They were therefore in
the habit of occasionally exhibiting, partly for the amusement
and partly for the edification of their flocks, a kind of religious
dramas, called Mysteries. In these some of the striking inci-
dents of Scripture were delineated, and acted in the manner
of a play ; in which the players were priests, and the
dramatis persona the most holy and reverend names con-
nected with religion. They were sometimes performed in a
church, but more frequently in the open air ; and the audi-
ence were kept attentive for eight or nine hours, and some-
times for two or three days together, by the alternation of
pious speeches, ribald conversations, and indecent Scenes.
Most of them would now be regarded as positively blas-
phemous ; but they were not so regarded by our forefathers,
and zealous Protestants have confessed to the profound
impression produced on their mind by the passion-plays still
performed at Ober Ammergau, in Bavaria, where the old
custom still survives, but purified from the puerilities and
irreverence of the ante-Reformation mysteries. It is impossible
* Knox's History, book i.
CHAP. IX.] PASSION-PLAYS AND MYSTERIES. 2 O I
to conceive that they were designed to turn religion into ridi-
cule, or to treat its sanctities with levity or contempt. They
were acted in all seriousness. The sense of the decorous
alters with the times. Painting put forth her first effort upon
Scripture incidents; and did not hesitate to pourtray the
Trinity upon her canvas. The modern drama, in like manner,
originated in the Church, and its first scenes were borrowed
from the Bible. -
But these theatricals were sometimes taken out of the hands
of the clergy, and converted by the people into comic parodies
upon the rites of religion. When inclined for frolic, it was not
uncommon for the laity to elect some “lord of the revels,
who, under the name of the Abbot of Unreason, the Boy
Bishop, or the President of Fools, occupied the churches, pro-
faned the holy places by a mock imitation of the sacred rites,
and sung indecent parodies on hymns of the Church.” 1 The
clergy, singularly enough, tolerated these profane exhibitions,
probably because they knew they occupied the attention, and
afforded an outlet for the coarse humour of the populace, and
were not really intended to cast dishonour on religion. We
have an instance of this Saturnalian licence in 1547, when a
macer of the Primate of St Andrews appeared at Borthwick
with letters of excommunication against its lord, which the
curate was required to publish at the service of high mass in
the parish church. The inhabitants of the castle happened at
the time to be engaged in the sport of acting the Abbot of
Unreason. With this mock dignity at their head, they laid
hold of the unhappy macer, ducked him once and again in
the mill-dam, and then compelled him to eat his parchment
letters, made palatable by being steeped in wine. These
licensed frolics, at first deemed harmless, were afterwards per-
severed in by the people, as the Reformation drew near, to
turn the ceremonies and officers of the Church into contempt,
and this has furnished Sir Walter Scott with some of the most
graphic chapters in his “Abbot.”
It is difficult to ascertain the amount of personal piety which
existed among our papal ancestors, and thus learn the inner
life of the Church. “The kingdom of God cometh not with
observation.” Unable in many cases to determine the piety
of our most intimate friends, it is hopeless to arrive af any very
definite conclusions in regard to the piety of the masses three
Centuries ago. It must be admitted, though with pain, that
1 Sir Walter Scott. Note to the Abbot.
2 O2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
false objects of worship, as well as the true, are capable of ex-
citing devotional feeling and that it is not always in the purest
churches that there is most of the outward appearance of
piety. The Hindu and the Moslem, after their own fashion,
are as devout as the Christian ; the Romanist, when prostrate
before a crucifix, may exhibit as much earnestness as the
Protestant when bowing before the Father of Spirits. If we
judge by external tests, and it is these only we can apply, we
shall not judge harshly of the piety of our forefathers. They
waited diligently upon all the rites of the Church, and they
showed their sincerity by the great liberality with which they
endowed its ministers. They undoubtedly lived under a sense
of religion, in hope of its rewards and in fear of its punish-
ments; and in the letters and other documents of the period
which have come down to us, there are more references to
religious topics than would be found in most of the epistolary
correspondence of the present day. It is impossible to refrain
from lamenting that so much devotional feeling should have
been wasted on worthless objects; that virgins resplendent in
tinsel and lace should have received the homage due only to
Deity; but still it is impossible to doubt but that much true
piety continued to exist, notwithstanding the circumstances
unfavourable to its growth, and that many prayers breathed in
papal shrines from humble hearts found an echo in heaven.
The Saxon tongue has ever been fruitful in oaths. Pro
testantism has not been able to eradicate the evil; but it
sprung up in Roman Catholic times; and the swearer's
vocabulary was still more voluminous then than it is now.
The following are a specimen of the more common forms:–
By the Trinity, by God's passion, by God's wounds, by God's
cross, by God’s mother, by God's bread, by Him that wore
the crown of thorns, by Him that herry# hell, by the rood,
by the sacrament, by the mass, by my soul, by my thrift, by
our Lady, by Allhallows, by St James, by St Michael, by St
Gile, and so on by all the saints in the calendar. Such ex-
pressions as these were copiously introduced into every con-
versation, and do not appear to have been regarded as very
improper, for they were perpetually used in the presence of
the clergy without rebuke. Lyndsay’s play is full of them, and
it is from it that these examples have been culled.
But with the dawn of the Reformation, a change for the
better appears. On the 1st of February 1551, an Act of Par-
liament was passed against “them that swear abominable
CHAP. IX.] ANCIENT OATHS. 2O3
oaths.” This curious act sets forth “that notwithstanding the
oft and frequent preachings in detestation of the grievous and
abominable oaths—swearing, execrations, and blasphemation
of the name of God, Swearing in vain by his precious blood,
body, passion, and wounds, devil stick, cummer, gore, roist or
riefe them, and such like ugly oaths and execrations, against
the command of God, yet the same is come into such ungodly
use amongst the people of this realm, both of great and small
estates, that daily and hourly may be heard amongst them
open blasphemation of God's name.”" To remedy this state
of things a scale of fines is framed to suit the circumstances of
different defaulters. If a bishop or lord were caught swearing,
he was to be mulcted in twelve pence; a baron or beneficed
man in four pence, and so on. A poor man, who had nothing
to pay, was to have his feet put in the stocks, and women
were to be rated according to their blood or marriage. Thus
did a parliament of Mary attempt to cure this unprofitable
vice, before her queenly cousin of England began to box the
ears of her ministers, and to Swear those horrid oaths which
we shudder to read.
In the absence of all statistics on the subject, it is almost as
difficult to form a proper estimate of the morality as of the re-
ligion of a by-gone age. It were wrong to conclude that our
ancestors were immoral, because they were Roman in their
faith and rude in their manners. A country, though Catholic,
may be virtuous; and it is very questionable if refinement,
though it deprives vice of its grossness, robs it of its power.
There is an immorality of the country and an immorality of
the city. Unfortunately very little of our ancient literature is
descriptive of ancient manners. Dunbar, in his “Two Married
Women and the Widow,” gives a horrid picture of female
libertinism, but the poem is plainly a satire on the sex, and,
like all other satires, is evidently stretched beyond the truth.
Iyndsay, in his “Squire Meldrum,” gives us some interesting
pictures of home life, in which there is mingled evil with good.
In some cases the morality of a country may be gathered from
the spirit that pervades its literature. The poems, novels, and
plays of the age of Charles II. simply mirror the existing
manners; no other age could have produced them, no other
generation would have read them. If we look to this test we
shall find that the ante-Reformation literature of Scotland is
often grossly indecent, but it does not breathe a licentious
* Mary, parl. v., 1st February 1551.
2O4 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
spirit. Lyndsay’s “Satire of the Three Estates” was acted at
Linlithgow in presence of the king and his newly-wedded queen,
the bishops, and a large concourse of lords and ladies; and
yet it has language and scenes most abominably immodest.
But this argues rather a coarseness than a dissoluteness of
manners. Persons in the lower walks of life sometimes use
phrases which give a shock to all our ideas of propriety; but
this is very far from proving anything like impurity of feeling
or incorrectness of conduct on their part. Amongst our un-
educated and remote peasantry, we may find reproduced, with
but slight alterations, the generations that lived three centuries
ago. As there are hills among the Cordilleras where we may
see assembled together the vegetations of every climate under
heaven, from the sugar-cane at the base to the lichen on the
highest peaks, so we may discover as contemporaneous, if we
are allowed to range over sufficient space, the customs and
civilisations of all the epochs embraced by history.
The ministers of religion before the Reformation were not
the men to exercise the best influence upon the morals of the
people. In the exercise of the Church's patronage gigantic
evils had arisen, which urgently called for reform. The whole
system had become rotten. We have seen the efforts made by
successive monarchs to prevent the purchase of benefices at
Rome. They never succeeded ; the abuse continued till the
very last ; and a foreigner annually disposed of many of the
best livings in Scotland, and by the purchase-money which he
received made a country naturally poor poorer still.” The
presentees of the king and nobles received their appointments
from motives equally mean and mercenary. The livings of
the Church came to be regarded just as a means of endowing
a younger son, providing for a bastard, enriching a favourite,
or paying the arrears of wages due to a servant.” In 1513 the
archbishopric of St Andrews was held by a bastard son of
* Lyndsay speaks as if the practice were on the increase :—
“It is schort tyme sen ony benefice
Was sped in Rome except greit bischopries;
Bot now for ane unworthie vickarage,
Ane priest will rin to Rome in pilgrimage,
Ane carell whilk was never at the scule,
Will rin to Rome and keip ane bischopis mule,
And syne cam hame, with mony colorit crack,
With ane burden of benefices on his back.”
Satyre of the Three Estaitis.
* “And him that gaits ane parsonage,
Thinks it a present for a page.”
DUN BAR's Complaint.
CHAP. IX.] SIMONIACAL ABUSES. 2O5
James IV., and in 1547 the same dignity was possessed by the
bastard brother of the Earl of Arran, Governor of the King-
dom. James V., in 1538, bestowed five of the richest
monasteries in Scotland on his natural children, albeit they
were little better than babies ; and even before this, one of
them had held several benefices.” When such was the way in
which promotion in the Church was obtained, we need not
wonder that the clergy degenerated, if not in exterior accom-
plishments, at least in the virtues which become those who
minister at the altar.
Pluralities had likewise prodigiously increased.” The great
dignitaries of the Church set the example, and beside their
bishoprics, held abbacies, priories, and parishes, for the sake
of their revenues. Forman and Beaton were notorious for this.
Every one grasped as many livings as he could ; and if the
teinds were got hold of there was little thought of the cure of
Souls. Another Sacrilegious practice had arisen—bestowing
abbacies and priories in commendam.” The commendator need
not be a man of learning and piety ; he need not be in holy
orders at all; he drew the revenues without being able to dis-
charge the duties of the office. If the abbot was a com-
mendator, the prior did the work; if the prior was a com-
mendator, the sub-prior was at hand. In a previous part of
our history we have adverted to yet another evil—the appro-
priation of parishes, patronage, teinds, everything, by Religious
Houses, who appointed a vicar to serve the cure, or perhaps
had the duties perfunctorily discharged by one of their own
Sodality. The parish priest in this way lost much of his
respectability, independence, and income, and the tenth sheaf
and the tenth lamb went to fatten the useless inmates of some
distant monastery. These things might be tolerated in times
of mental stagnation; but it was certain that so soon as men
* Balfour's Annals. Pinkerton, vol. ii.
* “I knaw nocht how the Kirk is gydit,
Bot benefices ar nocht leil devydit ;
Sum men hes seven, and I nocht ane,
Quilk to considder is ane pane.”
DUNBAR — World's Instabilitie.
See also his poem, 7%e Fest of Beneſyce.
* Lyndsay stigmatizes this abuse also in his satire; but he lets the
courtier get the better of the reformer when he proposes there should be
an exception in favour of the blood-royal. The truth is, his patron James
V. was notoriously guilty of the practice.
Of the twenty abbots and priors that sat in the parliament that effected
the Reformation, fourteen were commendators. (Keith, book i. chap. xii.)
2O6 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
began to think, the system must perish. The tree stands
stately and erect in the summer's calm, though there be rotten-
ness at the heart; but with the first breath of the hurricane it
goes crashing to the ground. -
We cannot conceal, though we willingly would, the gross
licentiousness of all ranks of the clergy. Denied by the stern
ordinance of their Church the enjoyment of wedlock, and
unable to repress the instincts of their nature, they sought
relief either in systematic concubinage, or in the seduction of
the wives and daughters of their parishioners. The temptation
to crime was increased by the confessional, where the celebate
was required to hear from the warm lips of a woman the in-
most secrets of her heart and the strangest passages of her
life. Accordingly, the ancient canons of the Scottish Church
cautiously enjoined the confessor, when confessing a female,
not to look her too often in the face. But canons were
powerless, and councils strove in vain, to repress the growing
immorality of the clergy. When the Bishop of Aberdeen
ordered the dean and chapter of his See to hold a council to
devise means for preventing the growth of heresy, the council
besought his lordship “to cause the Churchmen reform their
shameful lives, and remove their open concubines; and that
he would have the goodness to show an example, by abstaining
from the company of the gentlewoman with whom he was
greatly slandered.” Chisholme, the last Roman Bishop of
Dunblane, had both sons and daughters, to whom he sacri-
legiously alienated the possessions of his See. We have
already seen Beaton marrying his daughter to the Master of
Crawford, and we know that his son and namesake received a
grant of the lands of Baky.” His successor in the primacy, as
Knox takes care to inform us, fell into the same sin; and so
concluded the papal apostolical succession at St Andrews.
When harlotry thus occupied the high places of the Church,
we need not be surprised to find it in the gloom of cloisters,
and amid the seclusion of rural parishes. The poetry of the
time represents the vice as all but universal. Lyndsay lashes
unmercifully parish priests, monks, friars, nuns—the taint was
on them all; and making all allowance for the excesses of
satire, we must conclude that the clergy were not exemplars
of chastity to their flocks. It may, however, be conceded that
* A copy of this document will be found in the Appendix to Dr Cook's
History of the Reformation.
* Pinkerton, vol. ii. p. 416.
CHAP. IX.] CELIBACY. 2O7
many of those clerics who lived in concubinage regarded
themselves as simply evading the unnatural restrictions of
their Church, and as living in true, though unlawful, wedlock.
The connections they formed show that the illicit alliance was
not regarded as altogether disgraceful. Archbishop Cranmer
had such a secret liaison, “affirming it was better for him to
have his own wife than to do like other priests, having the
wives of others.” Bad though this was, there were fouler sores
generated by the celibacy of the clergy. Before the suppres-
sion of the monasteries in England, they were visited by a
royal commission, which made the most revolting revelations
of all conceivable and inconceivable crimes; and though some
of their statements were afterwards proved to be false, and
probably the whole narrative was exaggerated to subserve the
purpose in view, it is difficult to resist the conviction that
many Religious Houses had become dens of iniquity. Henry
pressed upon James, that unless the monks of Scotland were
more holy than those of England, nowhere did there reign
“more abominations than were used in cloisters among monks,
canons, nuns, and friers;” but all that James would admit was
contained in his answer to the ambassador : “God forbid that
if a few be not good, for them all the rest should be destroyed.
Though some be not, there be a great many good ; and the
good may be suffered, and the evil must be reformed, as ye
shall hear that I shall see it redressed in Scotland, by God’s
grace, if I brook life.” Such were the different views of
monasticism entertained by the two monarchs. The one
imagined it might be reformed, the other thought it only
worthy to be destroyed. “Every plant,” said Sadler, solemnly,
“which my Father hath not planted shall be plucked up.””
Very different estimates have been formed of the literary
attainments of the Scottish clergy prior to the Reformation.
Some have maintained they were grossly ignorant, others that
they were, compared with the age in which they lived, well-
educated and intelligent. The difference of opinion has arisen
from trying them by different standards, and having regard to
different departments of literature. It must be conceded that
in general they were ignorant of the contents of the Bible, and
probably many of them had never once seen a copy of it.
Luther was upwards of twenty, and in the convent of Erfurth,
before he kncw anything of the Scriptures; there he found a
* Froude's History, chap. xxxiii.
* Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i. p. 31.
208 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
copy fastened by a chain, and began to study it. The Church
had substituted the missal and breviary in the place of the
Scriptures, and hundreds of the clergy knew only so much of
the sacred oracles as were contained in these compilations.
But it would be wrong to infer from this that they were ignor-
ant of all theology. Unacquainted with the theology of the
psalter, the gospels, and epistolary, they were versed in the
theology of the missal, the pontifical, and the Hours of the
-blessed Virgin. Their text-books of divinity were different
from ours, but their text-books they had. Their knowledge,
like their faith, was that of the time. -
It must be remembered that printing had not been long
invented, and that books were still scarce, so that the acquire-
ments of the ecclesiastics must in general have been confined
within a narrow circle. The libraries of the monasteries,
the only ones then in existence, were accounted rich if they
contained a hundred volumes." Nevertheless, many of our
ancient clergy were well read in the scholastic and patristic
divinity, and some of them had extended their acquaintance to
the Latin classics. Every age produced authors of whom we
need not be ashamed ; and the Reformation found Lesley
Official of Aberdeen, whose history of Scottish affairs does
honour to himself and his order. The same period produced
the classical Buchanan, and the Admirable Crichton, who
astonished half the courts and universities of Europe by his
learning and his logic. It may be safely concluded that the
clergy in general were acquainted with the Latin tongue, and
that many of them were able to write it and speak it with ease.
The whole services of the Church were conducted in Latin,
the whole literature of the day was contained in Latin, and
therefore they must have known Latin if they knew anything.
If we go beyond professional acquirements, and inquire into
the general intelligence of the body, we shall find reason to
believe that they were still, as a whole, the best educated and
* In the Priory of Lochleven there were but seventeen volumes. In the
library of Glasgow Cathedral in 1432, we find the following catalogue of
books:– I missale, 9 missalia ; I epistolare ; I catholicon ; 2 legenda
sanctorum ; I biblia pulchra; 7 breviaria; 5 psalteria; 7 antiphonaria;
3 gradalia ; 5 processionaria ; I collectarium ; I ordinarium ; 2 libri pon-
tificales; and a few others. These, we are told, were distinguished by
their colour, their size, the number of their volumes, or the place where
they were deposited, some being chained to stalls or beside altars, and
others preserved in chests or presses. See Introduction to Breviary of
Aberdeen, Maitland Club Ed.
CHAP. IX.] LITERARY ATTAINMENTS OF THE CLERGY. 209
most intelligent portion of the community. It was this that
enabled them so long to keep their ground. To try them by
the present standard of intelligence were unfair; we must try
them by the standard which then existed, we must compare
them with the age in which they lived. A school-boy in the
nineteenth century may know more than a doctor of divinity
in the sixteenth, and yet that doctor have been perfectly worthy
of his degree. “To be plain with you,” says Sir Ralph Sadler,
in a letter to a member of the English Privy Council, “though
they (the Scottish nobles) be well-minded, and diverse others
also that be of the Council and about the king, yet I see none
amongst them that hath any such agility of wit, gravity, learn-
ing, or experience to set forth the same, or to take in hand the
direction of things. So that the king, as far as I can perceive,
is of force driven to use the bishops and his clergy as his only
ministers for the direction of his realm. They be the men of art
and policy that I see here; they be never out of the king's ear.”
But even though this be the testimony of an enemy, we
must take it with some qualification, and regard it as chiefly
applicable to the higher clergy, whose abilities procured them
employment at court. There were prodigious disparities in
the Roman Church, from the lordly prelate who rode to parlia-
ment on his ambling mule, to the starvling of a priest who
mumbled obits and masses for forty merks a year. This dis-
parity in rank produced a corresponding disparity in intelli-
gence. The beneficed clergy, and the heads of the Religious
Houses, generally belonged to good families, and frequently
had the benefit of a foreign education. The monks, on the
other hand, were mostly taken from the peasantry, and, as a
general rule, had only such a scanty acquaintance with letters
as they could acquire at the conventual school. Some of
them could not read with fluency and ease.” Before the
invention of printing the most slender intellectual acquire-
ments, the ability to con a lesson or wield a pen, placed a wide
gulph between the clergy who could perform these literary
feats and the laity who could not. But the introduction of this
* Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 47.
* In proof of this there are not only the two satirical lines—
“Ane carell whilk was never at the scule.” (Lyndsay, quoted p. 204), and
“The curate his creid he could not reid.” (quoted p. 217),
but the Canon of the Cuuuuil (quoted p. 253) enjoining the clergy to
practise reading, and ordaining that those who could not do so and were
under fifty should go to school and learn. The abuse of patronage
created the evil.
VOL. I. O
2 IO CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
marvellous art bridged over the gulph, by spreading education
among the nobles, the barons, and the wealthier burgesses.
To read and write was no longer a marvel. The clergy did
not push on and maintain their distance; and the sceptre
which superior knowledge had placed in their hand departed
from them. In a council which met under the presidency of
Archbishop Hamilton in 1549, the growth of heresy is imputed
to the dissolute lives of the clergy, and their gross ignorance
in all arts and sciences.”
The clergy were chiefly supported by their lands and tithes.
They held their lands by the same titles as the lay proprietors ;
and though some envied them their large possessions it was
only as some now envy the broad territories of the overgrown
nobility. The wealth they had acquired by private bequests
did not entail any burden on the general community ; while
the Church’s tenants were notoriously the most lightly rented
in the whole country. Sir Richard Maitland, in one of his
poems, pours forth a lament upon the change which was felt
when the lands passed into the hands of the temporal lords.”
One should imagine that the lifting of the tithes must have
been felt as a grievance, extending as they did to every con-
ceivable kind of produce —grain, wool, milk, cheese, eggs,
venison, fish, the young of animals, the multure of mills, the
fruit of trees, the clearings of wood, &c., &c.” But Lyndsay,
who rakes together every known grievance in his Satire, says little
of this, so that we may conclude the tenantry had come to regard
it as a part of their rent, and probably, so long as religious
* Hailes's Provincial Councils. Robertson’s Concilia, Pref. cxlix.
* “Sum with deir ferme are herreit hail,
That wount to pay but penny maill;
Sum be thar lordis are opprest,
Put fra the land that they possest ‘.
*
Sum commouns that has been weil stakit
Under kirkmen, are now all wrakit,
Sen that the teind and the kirklands
Came in great tempiral mennis hands,” &c., &c.
Complaint againis Oppression of the Commouns—MAITLAND’s Poems.
Maitland is borne out by the First Book of Discipline. “With the
griefe of our hearts we heare, that some gentlemen are now as cruell over
their tenants as ever were the papists, requiring of them the teinds, and
whatsoever they afore paid to the Kirk, so that the papistical tyranny shall
only be changed into the tyranny of the lord and laird.” (Chap. viii.,
sect. ii.)
* Connel on Tithes, vol. iii. pp. 17, 18—where will be found a number
of extracts from the Canons of the Church of Scotland regarding tithes.
CHAP. IX.] THE CORSE PRESENT. 2 I I
unanimity prevailed, felt a devout gratification in contributing
to the Illaintenance of their ghostly fathers.
But there was another exaction which was universally felt as
a hardship, and we cannot wonder that it was so. It was
called the corse present. When death visited a family, the
violence of grief was scarcely allowed to subside, till the
parson came, and carried off the best cow and the “uppermost
cloth.” When deprived of her husband, a widow might
thus be robbed of her only remaining means of support.
Lyndsay, in his play, introduces a poor man who has been
bereaved successively of his father, his mother, and his wife,
and who complains that on each occasion the vicar had driven
away a Cow ; and to complete his misfortunes, the landlord
had seized the grey mare, which brought a foal every year
and Carried coals to Edinburgh, as his heryei/d, or fine on
the death of a vassal; and now he had neither cow nor
mare, and was bent on feeing counsel with his only remaining
groat, and seeking remede at law. He was told, however, that
he was a mad fool to think he would get redress against
churchmen, or that he could escape an extortion, which,
though not founded on law, could plead a long consuetude.
There was yet another way in which money was raised—by
the sale of indulgences and of relics. The Pardoner perambu-
lated the Country like a hawker, selling his sealed indulgences
and his mouldy bones to those who were simple enough to buy
them. There were also clerke-maile, teindale, Candlemas offer-
ings, Pasche offerings, fees for baptism and the burial of the
dead, and the rich harvest which accrued for saying masses for
Souls in purgatory. In addition to all these sources of revenue,
there was the mendicancy of the mendicant friars, and the
plenty in which they lived proved that they did not beg in vain.
Such, as near as we can gather, was the state of the Church
when it became evident to many that a great religious revolu-
tion was approaching. Many causes were concurring to hasten
it. Ever since the days of Wickliff, there were men who,
without separating from the membership of the Church, saw
and grieved over its abuses, and yearned for a return to the
simplicity of primitive Christianity. The seed was in the soil,
and waited only a favourable season to germinate. The Refor-
mation in Germany awakened ideas in Scotland which pointed
* The uppermost cloth seems to refer to the coverlet of the bed; but
what the parson could do with his accumulation of coverlets is a mystery
and a marvel. The custom was not confined to Scotland. -
2 I 2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
to reformation too. Communities strongly sympathise with
each other, especially in periods of excitement. The throbbings
of one heart pulsate throughout the whole system. Every
vessel that crossed the German Sea brought the contagion of
German heresy to our shores, for every vessel brought Bibles,
theses, sermons, the “Praise of Folly ” from the witty pen of
Erasmus, or the “Confession of Augsburg” from the mild pen
of Melancthon. The Reformation in England had a still more
decided influence upon Scotland.” Henry used every means,
both fair and foul, to induce the Scottish nation to copy the ex-
ample he had set. He tempted our needy king with the pros-
pect of enjoying the plunder of the Church, and he kept our still
more needy nobles in his pay. While Angus, Cassillis, and Glen-
cairn were in England, they had seen private gentlemen become
great lords, and great lords become greater still, through their
share of monastic spoil ; and it is impossible to doubt, from
their conduct, that their avarice prepared their minds for the
reception of the principles of the Reformation. In tracing a
great politico-religious movement like this, it is strange to
remark how the base mingles with the noble, and vice leagues
herself with virtue, and how God overrules all—making the
very wrath, and selfishness, and sins of men to praise him.
Amongst the agencies employed to spread the Reform
opinions, one of the most effective was poetry. The power of
poetry upon a primitive people has passed into a proverb ; and
modern poetry had no Sooner sprung into existence than she
began to rail against the clergy and the Church. Dante
boldly placed a pope in hell, and represented Satan as im-
patiently waiting the arrival of another. Chaucer let loose all
his powers of laughter against the monks and friars, and his
poetry was read and praised, while sermons not half so
damaging would have been burned. Dunbar, though himself an
ecclesiastic, did not refrain from satirising ecclesiastical abuses.
In some of his minor poems he attacks the prevalence of
pluralities, and the character of those who obtained Church
preferments ; and though envy and disappointment sharpened
his shafts, it is evident they were aimed at actual objects.
In his “Friars of Berwick’ we have a ludicrous tale of a holy
abbot who was too intimate with a farmer's wife, the exquisite
humour of which must have been keenly relished by a genera-
tion disposed to enjoy a joke at delinquent churchmen.
* In Sage's Charter of Presbytery this influence is traced with great
labour and learning, and we now know more than Sage did.
CHAP. IX.] LYNDSAY's POEMs. 2 I 3
But Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, though inferior to
Dunbar as a poet, was the great Scourge of the Roman clergy.
In almost every one of his poems he has either some sly hit
or some fierce assault upon them. His “Complaint of the
Papingo,” “Kitty's Confession,” and his “Satire on the Three
Estates,” were specially written to turn into ridicule and bring
into disgrace the whole Order. The king's papingo or parrot
has fallen from the top branch of a tree and is dying. Instantly
she is surrounded by the pye—a canon regular, the raven—a
black monk, and the gled—a holy friar. They bewail her
misfortune, press upon her the need of confession, and suggest
she should leave all her goods to their care, that masses may
be said for her Soul after she is gone. But the papingo has
still enough of strength left to read them a long lecture upon
the decline of the Church, and upon their greed, idleness,
sensuality, and other sins. They, however, persuade her in
the end to allow herself to be shrived, and to consign her body
and property to their charge, and then before she is well dead
they fall out among themselves about the division of the spoil.
In “Kitty’s Confession ” we have a dialogue between the
curate and a Country girl at the confessional. She acknow-
ledges herself to have violated more than one of the command-
ments, and when asked about heresy, she ingenuously confesses
she did not know what it meant. But when further pressed
if she had ever seen any English books, she acknowledged
she had seen her master reading some ; and there can be no
doubt but that it was Tyndale's Translation of the new Testa-
ment that was referred to. The curate finally tells her she
must come to his house in the evening in order to be absolved.
“Kitty’s Confession ” is supposed to have been written in
1541, just previous to the passing of Lord Maxwell's Act
allowing the Bible to be read in the vulgar tongue. The
“Satire on the Three Estates” is a kind of play, and was
evidently modelled after the Mysteries or Moralities which
were acted in the Papal Church. The vices of all the Estates,
and more especially of the spiritual, are mercilessly exposed and
ridiculed ; but King Correction in the end promises a thorough
reformation, and after a discourse by one of the new doctors of
divinity, Common Thief, Deceit, and Falsehood are hanged.
This celebrated satirical comedy was first acted at Clipar-
Fife, in 1535; afterwards in the playfield at Linlithgow, by the
express command of the king, on the day of Epiphany I54o ;
and a third time near Edinburgh, in 1554, in presence of the
2 I 4 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
queen-regent, the nobility, and a great Concourse of people.
The student now reads the play quietly in his closet, and he
finds in it enough of pungent satire to reward his pains; but he
also meets with passages which make him marvel how it was
possible that such words could be spoken, and such scenes repre-
sented, in the presence of the young Mary of Guise, her maids
of honour, and a mixed assemblage of princes, prelates, and
nobles. It is too evident there must have been at the period
a coarseness of sentiment, language, and manners among Our
highest classes which are now scarcely to be found amongst
our lowest. In truth, such a representation would not now be
tolerated by the lowest rabble in the lowest theatre.
But it is still more marvellous that a play, specially designed
to degrade the clergy, by heaping upon them all possible
calumnies, should have been tolerated at such a time, and
acted in the presence of a monarch understood to be favourable
to the Established Church. The most obvious explanation is,
that it was written and acted at the request of the king, in
order to lead to the reformation of the clergy, by setting their
sins before their eyes, and probably to prepare them for some
legislative measures which he contemplated. Government
measures are now sometimes heralded by a leader in the
“Times” or an article in the “Edinburgh Review ;” and
though James had no such organ at his disposal, he had the
poetic genius of the Lyon-King. Lyndsay entered into the
service of James on the day of his nativity. He was his prin-
cipal page, his sewer, cupbearer, Carver, treasurer, and chief
cubicular, an office which consisted in keeping the bed-
clothes comfortably about the prince, and sleeping by his side.
As James grew older, it was Lyndsay’s duty to amuse him by
bearing him on his back, making all kinds of antics, counter-
feiting all kinds of beasts, and singing all kinds of songs." In
this way did the prince grow up under the eye of the poet till
he was twelve years of age, and we know that he ever after-
wards regarded him with affection. What more likely than that
he should request him to satirize the clergy. James was not
blind to their vices; he was bent on their reform. He wished to
purify the Church, though he wished to preserve it. We know
he employed his tutor, Buchanan, to lampoon the Franciscans;
how much more likely that he should ask Lyndsay to lampoon
the whole ecclesiastical body. We may be certain that the
* We have all this very pleasantly described in his Dreme, and also in
his Complaynt.
CHAP. IX.] METAMORPHOSIS OF PROFANE SONGS. 2 I 5
lyon-king would not have written what he did without knowing
that it would find favour with his Majesty. He was too fond
of his places and pensions to do otherwise. The whole design
becomes more apparent when we find that immediately after
the play the king sent for some of the higher clergy and thus
addressed them —“Wherefore did my predecessors give so
many lands and rents to the kirk? Was it to maintain hawks,
dogs, and whores to you idle priests? The King of England
burns, the King of Denmark beheads you ; but I shall stick
you with this whinger. Mend your ways, or I will send six of
the proudest of you to England.” The whole thing, includ-
ing this afterpiece, had evidently been preconcerted ; and it
heightens our ideas of the prudence and policy of the king to
find him thus anxious, by the powers of satire, to correct
ecclesiastical abuses, and gently prepare the way for a change.
John Wesley thought it was a pity that the devil should have
all the best tunes, and accordingly he had his Methodist hymns
set to some of those exquisite melodies which had hitherto
been wedded to words of profane meaning. The Scottish
Reformers must have cherished a similar sentiment when they
compiled their “Compendious Booke of Godly and Spirituall
Songs, collected out of sundrie partes of the Scripture, with
Sundrie of other Ballates changed out of Prophaine Sangis for
avoyding of sin and harlotrie.” The Romish priesthood are
said, by a little change in the drapery, to have converted Pagan
deities into Christian apostles. Our forefathers exhibited an
equal ingenuity when, by a little change in the words, they
converted these profane ballads into spiritual songs. Who was
the alchymist who thus transmuted dirt into gold cannot now
be discovered ; but these singular productions are said to have
been sung with enthusiasm by our ancestors, and to have
spread amongst a people who could sing, but could not read,
Reformation ideas. Their spirit proves their epoch. They
breath a fierce hostility against the Romish idolatry, expose
the vices of the clergy, inveigh against the pope, the cardinal,
and the queen-regent, complain of cruel usage and violated
treaties, and in many ways point to the period immediately
preceding the Reformation. The Roman clergy were not slow
to retaliate, and in this case they retaliated in a legitimate way.
* Sir James Melville's Memoirs, pp. 63, 64. Sir William Fure in a letter
to the Lord Privy Seal of England tells the same story, though slightly
different. Knox also relates it.
* These were republished in 1801 by John Graham Dalzell, advocate.
2 I 6 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAN D. [CHAP. IX.
A ballad ridiculing the Protestant faith, and the English for
embracing it, was in wide circulation, and some poetic parson
was reputed to be its author." The Scottish nobles, who had
sold themselves to Henry, were celebrated in song as having
been seduced by English angels.” Knox himself informs us
that a servant of the Bishop of Dunkeld wrote a “despiteful
railing ballad against the governor and the preachers, for which
he narrowly escaped hanging.”
These metamorphosed ballads, which, from all accounts,
had such an influence in fanning the devotional feelings of our
fathers, would now be regarded as nothing but parodies.” But
though these rhymes were rude and appear to us ridiculous,
our reforming ancestors sung them with enthusiasm by
their firesides, and preferred them to the noble litanies of
the Roman Church, because they understood them. It were
wrong to disparage their piety, though we may laugh at their
poetry. Deep feelings may find vent in odd utterances. But
beside these hymns there was already in existence a translation
of many of the psalms, and one of these Wishart sung with the
1 Letter from Sir Thomas Wharton to the Lord Privy Seal of England,
23d December 1540, quoted in Dalzell's Cursory Remarks.
2 “The Earl of Glencairn prayed me,” says Sadler to Henry VIII., “to
write to your Majesty and to beseech the same for the passion of God, to
encourage them so much as to give them trust, for they were already
commonly hated here, for your Majesty's sake, and throughout the realm
called the English lords ; and such ballads and songs made of them, how
the English angels (coins) had corrupted them, as have not been heard.”
(Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 167.)
3 Knox's History, book i.
* A few specimens will illustrate the religious taste of the times. There
is one which shows the antiquity and transformations of a song still
known :-
Quho is at my windo'? who? who 7
Goe from my windo'; goe, goe,
Quha calles there, so like ane stranger?
Goe from my window, goe.
Lord I am heir, ane wratched mortall,
That for Thy mercie dois crie and call.
Unto Thee, my Lord celestiall,
See who is at my window, who, &c., &c.
This was understood to be purely devotional, but there were others which
breathed a spirit of defiance to Rome.
The Paip, that pagane full of pryd,
Hee hes us blinded lang;
For where the blind the blind doe gyde,
No wonder both goe wrang.
Of all iniquitie,
Like prince and king, hee led the ring.
Hay trix, trim goe trix, under the green-wode-tree.
CHAP. IX.] REFORMATION BALLADS. 2 I 7
household of Ormiston before retiring to rest on the night on
which he was seized. In general they adhere pretty closely to
the sense of the original, but the versification is rough, and
the language uncouth, although in some instances we have
sentiments expressed with peculiar felicity.
It is difficult to determine what proportion of the nation
had embraced Protestantism before it was established by law.
The first proselytes must have been among the priesthood and
the upper classes. The great mass of the people could not
read, and must have been grossly ignorant of all religion. The
Church-service was mumbled in an unknown tongue, and their
few ideas about Christianity must have been inherited from
their parents, derived from pictures, or picked up from the
conversation of the parson, or the sermons of the friars. It
must be confessed that though the Bible had been all along
allowed to the people, Bibles could not have been got, and
though they had been got, there would have been few able to
read them. Printing not only created books, but it gradually
created a reading population. We need not wonder that the
first and most urgent cry of the people when light began to
dawn upon them was ſor preachers. They would have every
bishop and parson preach. It was thus only they could learn.
The blind bishop he could not preich
For playing with the lassis;
The silly frier behuifit to sleech
For almous that he assis;
The curate his creid he could not reid,
Shame fall the company.
Hay trix, trim goe trix, &c., &c.
Of Scotland well the friers of Faill,
The limmery lang has lastit,
The monks of Melrose made gude kaill,
On Fryday quhen they fastit, &c., &c.
The following is in a more playful spirit :-
God send every priest ame wife,
And every nunne a man,
That they may live that haly life,
As first the kirk began.
Sanct Peter, quhom none can reprufe,
His life in mariage led ;
All gude priests quhom God did lufe,
Thairmaryit wyfes had, &c., &c.
So great was the influence of these ballads that the clergy framed a canon,
ordaining every ordinary to search his diocese for books of rhymes or
ballads scandalizing the clergy or the Church ; and in the fifth parliament
of Mary an act was passed against printers printing “books concerning the
faith, ballads, songs, blasphemations, rhymes, as well of Churchmen as
temporal, and others, tragedies,” &c., &c.
2 I 8 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. IX.
Incapable of reading, and without books to read, they could
yet listen, and from the living voice of the preacher acquire
knowledge. The Reformers supplied the want, and by doing
so overturned the papacy.
It will at once be understood that the first proselytes to
Protestantism could not be from such an ignorant population
—a population that scarcely knew their right hand from their
left. Accordingly all the early converts whose names have
been recorded belonged either to the sacerdotal or the aristo-
cratic caste. Almost all the nobles who were taken prisoners
at the Solway Moss returned Protestants; and in an age when
feudalism was still strong, the faith of the lord would naturally
become the faith of the retainer. But though the Reformed
opinions were gradually spreading, as the acts of the parliament
regarding heresy prove, still it is probable that even so late as
1545 the bulk of the people continued attached to the ancient
faith. Protestantism had allied itself with Henry and Eng-
land, and Henry and England were regarded with bitter hatred
by almost every Scotchman, excepting the few who had been
seduced, as the taunt went, by the English angels. At the
time when Cardinal Beaton was assassinated, it is evident that
all St Andrews was devoted to him. Knox speaks of Edin-
burgh about the same period as being drowned in supersti-
tion.] -
But during the next fifteen years it is certain the Protes-
tant opinions made great and rapid progress among all classes
of people. During the same period there was also a change in
the popular feelings in regard to England. The rout of the
Solway and the slaughter of Pinkie were forgotten ; the pre-
sence of French garrisons in different parts of the country had
led to jealousies and disputes; it was felt hurtful to the
national pride to see foreign troops employed to preserve peace
and punish disorders, and the populace began to clamour as
anxiously for their removal as they had a few years before
Cried for their help. Protestantism and England now rose to
the ascendant. The great crowds who attended the sermons
of the Reformers, the mobs who attacked and demolished the
monuments of idolatry, incline us to believe that when the
Protestant confession was accepted by the parliament, it had
already become the Creed of the majority of the nation.
We have thus viewed the Roman Church in our country
before its fall, and we shall confess that we have viewed it with
* History, book i.
A.D. 1546.] HAMILTON SUCCEEDS BEATON. 2 I 9
feelings in which exultation has been softened by sadness; we
have viewed it as we would a great though wicked city, be-
leaguered by armies, with its bulwarks already undermined, and
a whole park of artillery pointed against its palaces, ready with
the morrow's Sun to vomit forth fire, destruction, and death.
C H A P T E R X.
THE murder of Beaton made way for the promotion of Hamil-
ton, Bishop of Dunkeld and Abbot of Paisley, to the primacy.
He was nominated to the archbishopric by his brother the
governor, elected by the canons, and readily confirmed by the
Pope. But it was not so easy for him to get possession of his
archiepiscopal Castle. The conspirators who held it welcomed
within its walls all who were in danger of their lives from their
disaffection to the government or their favour for the Reforma-
tion; and it was soon sufficiently garrisoned by a band of de-
termined men, who bid defiance to all Scotland. In the month
of June, a summons was issued against the assassins, to which
the Earl of Huntly, the new chancellor, appended the great
Seal. In the month following, after some ineffectual attempts
at negotiation, the parliament, upon their non-appearance, de-
Clared them guilty of treason, and preparations were made for
laying siege to their stronghold." But the governor was utterly
destitute of military vigour; though artillery was in use,
Scotchmen had not yet learned how to employ it with skill
and effect, and after several months of idle effort, little or no
progress was made towards reducing the fortress.
The hopes of the besieged were centred in England; and
as the sea was open to them, they despatched Kirkaldy of
Grange, John Leslie, and Balnaves to Henry VIII., to solicit
his assistance. Notwithstanding that the kingdoms were at
peace, Henry at once promised his aid, and showed that he
was in earnest by forwarding both money and victuals for the
garrison. The principal assassins he rewarded with pensions;
the Master of Rothes got 24, 250, Kirkaldy of Grange 24, 200,
and others of less note got smaller sums.” Thus supported,
* Acts of the Scots Parliament, 1546. The Kirkmen were to be
assessed for the expense of the operations.
* Privy Council Records, February 6th (1547). Froude's History, vol.
V. p. 3I.
22 O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
they held out till the end of December, when an armistice was
agreed upon, in which they consented to surrender the Castle
on procuring a free pardon and a papal absolution for the
slaughter of the cardinal. This last condition they insisted
upon, not from any respect they themselves had for Roman
favours, but because Churchmen had maintained that no par-
don could be binding for so great a crime unless it were backed
by an absolution from the Pope. It soon became apparent
that neither party were in earnest, and that they merely wished
to gain breathing time. Arran had already despatched an
envoy to France, entreating its monarch to use his influence
with Henry for the preservation of the existing peace between
the kingdoms, and to send him without delay some experienced
engineers to assist in the reduction of the castle. The con-
spirators, on the other hand, despatched a messenger to Henry,
declaring they had no intention of abiding by the treaty, and
actually asking him to write to the Emperor that he might per-
suade the Pope to refuse the absolution."
Meanwhile the Castilians, as the keepers of the castle were
commonly called, held their fortalice, but they no longer con-
fined themselves within its walls. They visited the town and
the neighbourhood ; and all history declares that they dis-
graced the sacred cause, of which they professed to be the
champions, by brutal immorality. John Rough, formerly
mentioned as chaplain to the Regent Arran before he aposta-
tized, had already sought refuge in the castle, and had in-
dignantly denounced the outrages upon decency committed by
the garrison ; but it was in vain. A man of sterner stuff, and
destined to play a more conspicuous part in the history of the
times, now appeared at St Andrews, and threw in his lot with
the conspirators. It was John Knox.
This remarkable man, whose name has so long been a house-
hold word in Scotland, was born near the Nungate of Had-
dington in 1505. His parents appear to have been wealthy
enough to give him a learned education, and to have early
destined him for the Church, which was then the only field for
ability and ambition. Having passed through the grammar
school of Haddington, he was in 1522 matriculated in the
University of Glasgow, where the celebrated John Mair was
then regent. He appears to have taken priest's orders at an
early age, and to have acted as a notary, as many of the clergy
1 Tytler, vol. vi., who quotes a MS. in the State-paper Office.
A.D. 1547.] KNOX JOINS THE CONSPIRATORS. 22 I
then did ; 1 but we are almost entirely ignorant of his history
till we find him in the Company of Wishart the martyr, imme-
diately before his martyrdom. At that time, and when he
entered the Castle of St Andrews, he was acting as tutor to the
sons of the Lairds of Ormiston and Iongniddry, and had rom-
pleted his fortieth year. Was it these lairds, with their strong
English proclivities, who gave to Knox's mind its future bent,
and made their quiet tutor the greatest man of his day ? Or
was it because he was known to hold similar sentiments to
their own that he was admitted to their families, and entrusted
with the education of their boys P. It was a strong step for the
obscure ecclesiastic to take—to join the murderers of the
cardinal, the desperadoes who held his castle against the go-
vernment of the country; but he acted with the approval of
his patrons, and carried his pupils along with him. He says
he sought the Castle to escape persecution, and probably there
was good cause for the Lairds of Ormiston and Longniddry
wishing to have their boys in a place of temporary safety, as the
former of these, at least, was probably connected with the con-
spiracy to assassinate the Cardinal.
During the continuance of the truce, Rough had frequently
preached in the parish church of St Andrews, and having
uttered sentiments opposed to the Established faith, Dean
Annan entered the controversial lists with him. It would ap-
pear that Rough was scarcely a match for the Dean, for Knox
states that, though Orthodox, he was not learned, and that
accordingly he saw it needful to go to his rescue, and with his
pen beat the papist from his defences.” This theological en-
counter, and Knox's well-known talents and vigour, led the
leading men in the castle to resolve among themselves to call
him to assume the office of a preacher of the Protestant faith.
Several of them spoke to him privately of the matter, but he
steadfastly resisted their solicitations, “alleging that he would
not run where God had not called him, meaning that he would
do nothing without a lawful vocation.” ” Failing in this way,
they resolved to try another.
One day Rough ascended the pulpit and preached a sermon
upon the election of ministers, of which the chief argument
was, that a Congregation, however Small, had power, in time
* In the charter chest of Tord Haddington there is a document written
out and signed by Knox in 1543. He designs himself “Minister of the
Sacred Altar, and Notary by Apostolic Authority.”
* Knox's History, book i. 3 Ibid.
2 22 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
of need, to call any one in whom they discerned the gifts of
God to be their minister ; and that it was dangerous in any
one to refuse such a call. Having established these principles,
he suddenly turned to Knox, who was present, and said —
“Brother, ye shall not be offended, although that I speak
unto you that which I have in charge, even from all those
that are here present, which is this : In the name of God,
and of his Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of those who
call you by my mouth, I charge you that you refuse not this
holy vocation ; but as ye tender the glory of God, the increase
of Christ's kingdom, the edification of your brethren, and
the comfort of me, whom ye understand well enough to be
oppressed by the multitude of labours, that ye take upon you
the public office and charge of preaching, even as ye look to
avoid God's heavy displeasure, and desire He shall multiply
his graces upon you.” Then turning to the Congregation he
asked—“Was not this your charge to me P and do you not
approve this vocation ?” They replied with one voice—“It
is, and we approve it.” “Whereat the said Mr John,
abashed, burst forth in most abundant tears, and withdrew
himself to his chamber ; his countenance and behaviour from
that day till the day that he was compelled to present himself
in the public place of preaching sufficiently declared the grief
and trouble of his heart; for no man saw any sign of mirth in
him, neither yet had he pleasure to accompany any man for
many days together.””
Siich was Knox's call and ordination to the work of the
ministry. These circumstances, narrated by Knox himself,
have led some historians to the conclusion * that up to this
time he was not in orders. He first refused to preach
because he had no lawful vocation to do so—a plea which he
could not use had he been already ordained. He afterwards
agreed to undertake the work when Rough argued that every
Congregation had an inherent right to call any qualified person
to assume the office of their instructor—an argument which
would have been wholly irrelevant if Knox had been previously
set apart by episcopal hands. -
We should have regarded these arguments as conclusive
had we not had positive knowledge to the contrary, and a
key to the apparent contradiction in a controversial tract pub-
* Knox's History, book i.
* Dr Cook is constrained by these circumstances to come to this conclu-
sion. (History of Reformation, vol. i.)
A.D. 1547.] WAS KNOX. A PRIEST P 223
lished at the time of the Reformation, while Knox was yet
living, and every circumstance in his career fresh in men's
memories. Ninian Wingate was schoolmaster at Linlithgow,
and remaining attached to the Roman faith, he proved his
devotion by challenging discussion on some of the contro-
verted points between the Romanists and Reformers. In
one of his tracts he attempts to pose John Knox in regard
to the lawfulness of his call to the ministry. He argues from
Romans and Hebrews that no man may take this office to
himself, unless he be called thereto either by God or by men
having authority to do so. If Knox pretended he was called
by God, Wingate asked where was the proof of it —where
were his miracles P for nothing less could prove a Divine
vocation. If Knox declared he was called by men, “then,”
says his opponent, “he must show they had the authority to
do what they did.” “You must show,” urges Wingate, “in
which of these two ways you were ordained to the ministry,
since you esteem that ordination null and wicked by which
you were formerly called Sir John.” Here is the solution
of the difficulty. Knox was in priest's orders, and therefore
entitled to be addressed Sir John, but he had renounced
these orders, and believed that he had no title to preach the
Gospel till he received a call from a reformed congregation.
The “First Book of Discipline” corroborates the fact, for
there it is declared “that the Papistical priests have neither
power nor authority to minister the Sacraments of Jesus
Christ.”? If we add to these circumstances the positive
testimony of Beza,” we need have no hesitation in believing
that Knox was a priest of the Romish Church : but that he
did not think its orders constituted him a minister of the
reformed faith.
It has sometimes been affirmed that the first preachers of
Protestantism in Scotland were laymen, and that from these
the present Presbyterian ministers are descended. The very
reverse was the case. Almost all the early Reformers had
Romish orders. The Bishops of Galloway, Caithness, and
* Ninian Wingate, Tract ii., “Gif John Knox be lauchfull minister?”
See also his third tract. They are to be found in the appendix to Keith's
History. It need hardly be said in explanation, that the priests of the
Church of Rome had “Sir” appended to their names, just as clergymcT.
now-a-days have “Revd.” Burton supposes Knox might have been de-
posed, but the language of Wingate forbids that supposition.
* Book of Discipline, chap. xvi. sect. iii. * Beza—Icones.
2 24 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. x.
Orkney joined the Protestants. A multitude of abbots and
friars did the like. Spottiswood, the superintendent of
Lothian ; Winram, the superintendent of Fife ; Willocks, the
superintendent of the West, had all been clergymen in the
Romish communion. When Protestantism was completely
established, and the want of Protestant preachers sorely felt,
it would appear that priests became proselytes by the score,
and only too many of them were admitted into Protestant
pulpits. They afterwards gave trouble, some of them by
immoral lives, and some of them by heretical teaching.
If Romish orders, then, be worth anything, the Church of
Scotland has inherited them ; and still possesses them by
Episcopal-Presbyterian descent. But so little stress did the
Reformers put upon episcopal descent, that they decreed in
the Assembly of 1562, that bishops, like other ministers, could
hold office in the Church only after being elected by the
people and found qualified by the superintendent. Oh,
Lucifer, son of the morning, how art thou fallen in these sad
reforming times |
But though no mitred bishop had conveyed to one of our
Reformers the Apostolical succession, though no one had been
even ordained by the laying on of the hands of the Presby-
tery, no honest Presbyterian minister need question the
validity of his title as a minister of the New Testament.
There are only two sources from which clerical authority can
proceed—the transmitted Commission of the first apostles, or
the will of the Christian community. Either of these theories
has had its advocates. It is an article of the Roman creed,
and it has been a favourite dogma of many Anglican divines,
that no one can be a true minister of the word and sacra-
ments unless lie can tracc his spiritual pedigree up to the
apostles of our Lord. Christ, say they, gave his disciples a
commission to preach and baptize ; they conferred the same
power upon others ; and so the priestly character and office
have come down by direct descent to the present day.
Every clergyman in Western Europe must be able to trace
his genealogy to St Peter, the chief of the apostles, and the
first Bishop of Rome. Except by inheritance, there is no
other way in which the status of a minister of the New Testa-
ment can be obtained. In opposition to this it is maintained
by all Presbyterian, and by some Episcopal doctors, that
the power of calling to the ministry lies essentially in the
Christian Church itself. It is argued that under the gospel
A.D. 1547.] ORDERS. 225
economy there is no radical distinction between the clergy
and the laity ; and that ministers arc merely men appointed
to act as rulers and teachers in the Church. They are, in no
sense, mediators with God ; they have no special powers but
such as the Church, as a matter of convenience, confers ; and
occupy no higher platform than the humblest believer.
But though the vocation of ministers lies with the Church, it
may, for the sake of Order; be entrusted to its office-bearers.
They may have committed to them by the whole community
the charge of seeking out men fitted for the sacred work, and
setting them apart to it. Still it is but a delegated power,
which bishops or presbyteries may exercise, not from any
virtue inherent in themselves, but from their position as the
representatives of the Church at large. Such are the two
antagonistic theories of Orders; and though a compromise
between them has often been attempted, there, is in truth no
possible middle way.
The controversy is similar to that which has been waged in
regard to the right by which kings reign. Here also there
have been two theories—the divine right of inheritance, and
the will, expressed or understood, of the people. There are
those who think, that simply because a man is his father's son
he has a divine right to a throne; but this scoffing age is dis-
posed to laugh at such assumptions, and believe that all royal
power rests upon the popular will. According to this theory,
whatever the form of government there are times when the
Ordinary rules of succession must be broken and the popular
will assert itself. Such was the time when John Knox was
called to the office of the ministry by the Church at St
Andrews: such was the time when William of Orange was
placed upon the throne.
It was not long till Knox brushed away his tears, and came
forth from his chamber like a strong man rejoicing to grapple
with superstition and sin. His first step showed the boldness
of his genius. Mounting the pulpit of St Andrews, he under-
took to prove that the Pope of Rome was the Man of Sin, the
Antichrist, the Babylonish woman spoken of in Scripture. The
noise of this reached the archbishop, who enjoined Winram,
his sub-prior, to inquire into it. Accordingly, nine proposi-
tions, supposed to embody heresy, were collected from his
sermons, and made the subject of controversy. The discus-
sion is preserved in the pages of Knox; and when he claims
the victory to himself, we may believe him, remembering the
WOL. I. P
226 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAN D. [CHAP. x.
goodness of his cause, and his undoubted powers as a
logician."
The success which had attended the preaching of the
Reformers determined the clergy to imitate their example. It
was therefore agreed that every learned man in the abbey and
university should preach his Sunday about in the parish
church, and that their sermons should be previously composed,
in order to give as little offence as was possible. But Knox
suspected the cause of this new-born zeal, and in his ministra-
tions during the week, he “prayed to God that they should
be as busy in preaching when there was more want of it than
there was then.””
A. D. I 547 But the din of the ecclesiastical warfare was
* - / e hushed by the sudden appearance in the bay of
twenty-one * French galleys, commanded by Leo Strozzi, Prior
of Capua, a Knight of Rhodes of great military renown. Two
or three weeks previous to this, the papal absolution had
arrived from Rome; but as it contained the clause, “we
pardon the unpardonable sin,” the conspirators objected to its
terms, and made use of a quibble to escape from their agree-
ment. A worse fate awaited them. The galleys took up their
position in front of the castle; heavy ordnance was landed, and
planted not only in the streets leading to the fortress, but on
the walls of the abbey and the steeple of St Salvator's College ;
not a creature could move in thc interior courts without being
exposed to its fire ; the walls began to crumble, and it became
evident that it was no longer Scottish engineers who were
working the guns. Meanwhile, John Knox within lifted up
his prophetic voice, warning the debauched garrison that their
hour was come, and that the thick walls in which they put
their trust would be but egg shells; and his prediction was
soon realized. Further defence soon became hopeless, and
accordingly the fortress was surrendered to the admiral of the
French, as the conspirators had contrived to persuade them-
selves that there was no lawful authority in Scotland.
After being first rifled of its treasure, the noble old castle
was levelled with the ground—either from superstition, as
being stained with the blood of a cardinal, or from policy, as
being dangerous to the kingdom.
Historians differ in regard to the terms of the surrender,
* Knox's History, book i. 2 Ibid.
* Some authorities say sixteen, others twenty-one—the difference is im-
material,
A.D. 1547.] SOMERSET's INVASION. 227
some affirming that the lives and liberty of the garrison were
guarantced, and others that even their lives were made to
depend on the mercy of the French king. The latter is the
more probable and the better supported by authorities." But
be this as it may, they were carried to France; some of them
were placed in the galleys to tug at the oar, and others were
consigned to the prisons of Rouen and its neighbourhood.
Knox was compelled to labour for nineteen months as a
galley-slave, but he was ultimately liberated, and not one of
his associates suffered death. When we remember that the
crimes in which they were implicated were murder and re-
bellion, we must allow that they were mercifully dealt with.
It was in the end of July 1547 that the Castle of St Andrews
fell. In the January preceding Henry VIII. of England had
died, and two months afterwards he was followed to the
grave by his illustrious compeer Francis I. But the English
monarch had bequeathed to his successor the resolution to
subdue Scotland under the cloak of a marriage with its infant
queen ; and the Protector Somerset was already on his march
to the north. At this crisis, Arran, easily alarmed, was Com-
pletely stunned, as any man might be, by discovering among
the papers of Balnaves, in the Castle of St Andrews, a docu-
Inent containing the signatures of two hundred noblemen and
gentlemen who had secretly sold themselves to England, and
undertaken to assist Somerset in his marriage project, perhaps
ignorant that under this guise he was reviving the designs of
Edward I., and bent on the entire subjugation of the kingdom.”
Notwithstanding these discouragements the military array
of the kingdom was quickly mustered. A large number of
priests and monks, knowing that the Church was in danger,
joined the army, bearing a white banner, on which there was
embroidered a female with dishevelled hair, kneeling before a
Crucifix, with the motto—“Afflictæ Ecclesia ºne off/iziscaris.”
On the other hand, on the 8th of September the Three
Estates passed an act, which, proceeding upon the preamble
that “the whole body of the realm is passing forward at this
time to resist our old enemies of Fngland,” ordained that the
next of kin to all Churchmen who should die in battle would
* We have Lesley on the one side, and Knox on the other. Tytler
quotes Anderson’s MS. History as siding with Lesley. Buchanan is ob-
scure, but he appears to confirm the truthfulness of Lesley; he gays their
Safety was covenanted for, in a manner, or under a condition. It is plain.
the French admiral was in a position to dictate what terms he pleased.
* Tytler, vol. vi. Froude, vol. v. pp. 32-46.
228 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. . [CHAP. X.
have a right to their vacant benefices." On the Ioth of the
same month the battle of Pinkie was fought—one of the most
disastrous in the annals of Scotland. More than ten thousand
Scotchmen on that fatal day bit the dust; and the whole
country lay bleeding at the mercy of the English.
Fortunately for Scotland's independence Somerset was
unable from want of resources to follow up his victory with
vigour; while grief, shame, and rage rendered any alliance
with England at present impossible, and threw the country
more completely into the arms of France. The Protector
having tried the sword, now, when it was too late, tried per-
Suasion. In an address to the Scottish nation, he declared
that England desired union and not conquest, and remarked
almost in a prophetic strain, that if the Scots and English
were made one by amity, “having the sea for a wall, mutual
love for a garrison, and God for a defence,” they might defy
the world.” But the Scots could only think of the slaughter of
Pinkie Cleugh and thirst for revenge. In June 1548 Monsieur
D’Esse landed at Leith with five thousand men, “old beaten.
soldiers,” says Balfour, “French, Italians, and Germans.” &
John Knox, as a condemned convict, worked an oar in one
of the galleys which brought them over the sea. The governor
joined these with five thousand more, and the allied armies
were now more than able to keep their ground against the
English. The French king, in his message, had solicited Mary
in marriage for the Dauphin, and the Scottish Parliament
readily agreed to the match, and farther resolved, in the
unsettled state of the kingdom, to intrust her to his care.
Four galleys quietly left Leith, and slipping round the north of
Scotland by the Pentland Firth, arrived in the Clyde off Dum-
barton. The Queen of Scotland, now a beautiful child in her
sixth year, instantly embarked, accompanied by Lords Living-
stone and Erskine, and her natural brother, James Stewart,
Prior of St Andrews, at this time a youth of seventeen. There
were also in her train four Maries, of like age with herself,
chosen from the families of Livingstone, Seaton, Beaton, and
Fleming, to be her playmates, and whose names are frequently
allied with that of their royal mistress in the ancient ballads of
the country. The little squadron reached Brest in safety, and
Mary Stewart opened her eyes upon the beautiful land which
she ever afterwards loved so well. The decision of the Parlia-
ment can hardly be blamed, but it had the effect of making the
* Acts of the Scotch Parliament—Mary, parl. iii.
* Holinshed’s Chronicle. * Annals, vol. i.
A.D. 1550.] QUEEN DOWAGER BECOMES REGENT. 229
Queen of Scots already half a Frenchwoman by blood, a
thorough Frenchwoman in heart.
In March 155o a peace was concluded at Boulogne between
England and France, in which Scotland was comprehended ;
but though war ceased, animosities remained, and rendered
more difficult than ever the union of the crowns. Had it not
been for the violence of Henry and Somerset, Mary, with a
kingdom for her dower, must have become the wife of Edward;
but as time afterwards revealed, their happiness could not have
been long, and the Queen of Scotland must have been a widow
in England even sooner than in France.
In the meantime the queen-mother had set her heart upon
the regency, and in order to mature her schemes she set out
for the court of France. Her brothers, the Cardinal of Lor-
raine and the Duke of Guise, if not the Originators of the plot,
at once perceived that its accomplishment would further their
own family aggrandisement, and secure the ascendency of the
French interests in Scotland, and therefore they gave it the
full weight of their great authority. To dispossess the Earl of
Arran by violence would have been madness, and therefore
they resolved to try bribes—dazzling bribes. Panter, Bishop
of Ross, and two others, were despatched to the governor, to
offer him the French dukedom of Chastelherault, and to his
eldest son the command of the Scots Guard in Paris, if he
demitted the regency; and after considerable hesitation his
consent was obtained. This great step toward dominion
being made, the queen-dowager began her journey homeward,
passing through England, and visiting on her way the Court of
Edward. The young king, amid much kindness, referred to
his disappointment in regard to her daughter; but the queen-
mother rejoined, that the invasion of Somerset was not the
right way to woo and win a woman, and that it was only on
this account the match had miscarried.”
Arran had promised to resign the regency, but he had since
repulled liul of his promise. Accustomed to the power and
splendours of royalty, he could not bring his mind to descend
to a private station. Mary of Guise quietly “bided her time;”
employed every artifice to draw the nobles to her party; kept
regal state at Stirling ; and at last Arran, finding the tide
running strongly against him, consented to resign, on receiving
an assurance of indemnity for every measure of his govern-
ment, and an act of parliament securing to him the succession
* Keith, book i. chap. v.
23o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
to the throne in the event of the queen dying childless." On
the 12th of April 1554, the solemn transference of power took
place in a parliament assembled at Edinburgh; and Mary of
Guise attained to the full height of her ambition, by being de-
clared regent of the kingdom.
But we must retrace our steps for a few years, and follow the
current of ecclesiastical events. It was plain that the tide was
now steadily setting in toward a reformation. On the 19th
March 1547, the clergy presented a supplication to the
governor and council, complaining of the increase of heresy,
the contempt of the sacrament of the altar, the return of per-
sons who had been banished for their faith, and the open
preaching of opinions opposed to the Established Church ; and
praying that steps should be taken to remedy the evil. In
compliance with this supplication, the council ordained that
the clergy should report to the governor all such as had
relapsed or were suspected of heresy, in order that the laws of
the realm might be put into execution upon them.”
In 1549 a council was held in the Blackfriar's Church, Edin-
burgh, under the presidency of Archbishop Hamilton. The
pressure of the times caused a great gathering—six bishops,
two vicars-general, fourteen abbots, priors or commendators,
besides doctors, provosts, archdeacons, deans, and others—in
all some sixty persons. Among them was the prior of St
Andrews—then only eighteen years of age—destined to be the
leader of the Reformation and the regent of the kingdom.
There were there also Robert Reid, Quintin Kennedy, John
Winram, and John Mair—all men of note. It passed no fewer
than sixty-eight canons, which let in the light of day on a sad
state of things. The very first of them makes it plain that large
numbers both of the higher and inferior clergy were celibate
only in name; they had concubines and families living openly
with them in their episcopal palaces and manses, and they were
in the habit of making provision for these out of the Church's
lands and revenues. The council forbade this in the words of
the Council of Basle, perhaps to turn away the sharp edge of
the condemnation from themselves, and to show they were no
worse than others. Canons were also framed to promote the
better education and more decent behaviour of the clergy, pro-
1 Keith, book i. chap. v.
* Keith, book i. chap. vi. Robertson's Concilia, pref. cxlvi. In June
1546, an act of Privy Council was passed against the demolition or plunder-
ing of churches or Churchmen's houses. The necessity for the act proves
the existence of the crime.
A.D. 1550.] MARTYRIDOM OF WALLACE. 23 I
viding among other things that they should cleanly shave
their faces and crowns, wear ecclesiastical garments, and put
off their hats when engaged in divine service. Pluralities were
to be limited, preaching enforced. It was to be usually expo-
sitory and catechetical; and, in some cases, argumentative and
denunciatory against the new doctrines. No doubt a reform-
ing synod, but it could not move faster than Rome and Trent
At the same time diligent inquisition was to be made for all
heretics, and for their railing ballads and books."
- It was not long after the dispersion of this
council when Adam Wallace, who appears to
have succeeded Knox as tutor at Ormiston,” was apprehended
at Winton, and brought to his trial in the Church of the Black-
friars in Edinburgh. Among his judges, besides the Governor
and Chancellor, we are surprised to find the Earls of Argyll,
Angus, and Glencairn.” He was accused of usurping the office
of a preacher; of baptising one of his own children; of deny-
ing purgatory; of maintaining that prayers to the Saints and
for the dead were superstitious : of Calling the mass an idola-
trous service; and of affirming that the bread and wine used
in the sacrament continued bread and wine, notwithstanding
their consecration. The poor man was found guilty, given over to
the Justice-Deputy, and burned the next day on the Castle-hill.
It was in the same year in which Wallace was burned that
an amusing controversy arose among the Churchmen in regard
to the Pater-noster—whether it should be said to God only,
or whether it might also be said to the Saints. A certain friar
had stretched his ingenuity to show that everyone of its
petitions might, in a sense, be addressed to the saints; but
when he came to “Give us this day our daily bread,” his gloss
was so absurd as to throw his audience into laughter. He was
rewarded for his pains with the soubriquet of Friar Pater-
noster. But the dispute was not thus easily to be settled ; it
set the whole University of St Andrews in a flame. The
doctors assembled in solemn conclave to decide the matter.
The fine distinctions of the schoolmen were called into requi-
sition ; and some held that the Pater-noster was said to God
* Robertson's Concilia, vol. ii. pp. 81-127.
* “He frequented,” says Knox, “the company of the Lady Ormiston,
for the instruction of her children, during the trouble of her husband, who
was then banished.” (History, book i.)
* Knox's History, book i. Knox states that Glencairn said to the Bishop
of Orkney and others that sat near him, that he protested against Wallace
being put to death. This whispered protest does not redeem his con-
sistency.
A. D. I55O.
232 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
forma/iter, and to saints materialiſer; others, that it ought to
be said to God principaliter, and to Saints minus principaliter;
a third party would have it ultimate and non-ultimate; a fourth,
primario and secundario; but the majority declared that it
should be said to God capºendo stricte, and to saints capizzado
large. Still, the division of sentiment was so great and so strong
that it was resolved to refer the whole matter to the provincial
synod, which was cited to meet at Edinburgh in January
I552. In the meantime, the valet of the sub-prior, in putting
his master to bed, took the liberty of asking what was the
nature of the question which had so irritated the university and
the Church. “We cannot agree, Tom,” said the sub-prior,
“to whom the Pater-noster should be said.” “To whom
should it be said but unto God?” said Tom, “Then what
shall we do with the saints P” rejoined his master. “Give
them Aves and Credos enough,” replied the theological valet,
“ and that may suffice them.” "
When the synod convened, the controversy was again
stirred : and the vote being taken, it carried that the Pater-
noster might be said to the saints. The bishops, however, and
some ecclesiastics more prudent than their brethren, interfered
to prevent the decision being registered in this unqualified
shape, and directed the sub-prior, on his return to St Andrews,
to teach that the Pater-noster ought to be said to God, yet so
//at the saints ought also ſo be inzocated.”
In January 1552 (1551 O.S.) this Synod met. In pro-
found 1gnorance of what was passing around them, the
ecclesiastics congratulated themselves that heresy was nearly
stamped out, but confessing the want of education on the
part of the clergy, and impelled by the universal clamour for
instruction in the Scotch tongue, order was taken for publish-
ing a Catechism in the vernacular, containing a summary of
Christian doctrine ; and the clergy were enjoined to read a
part of it every Sunday and holiday to the people, when there
was no sermon. It was accordingly printed, as the Colophon
bears, at St Andrews, in August 1552, by command and at the
expense of Archbishop Hamilton, whose composition it is
thought by some to be, while others attribute it to John Win-
ram. It is a Catechetical Treatise rather than a Catechism,
1 Spottiswood's History, lib. ii.
* Spottiswood's History, lib. ii. Hailes's Provincial Councils, pp. 36-7.
There is no such canon in the Synod of 1551-52, but in the Synod of 1549
there was a canon regarding the Pater Noster, which after a few words ends
in a blank. Robertson's Concilia, vol. ii. p. 121.
A.D. 1552.] CHURCH SYN OD. 233
in the modern sense of the term." It consists of an exposition
of the Commandments, the Creed, the Sacraments, and the Lord's
Prayer. It would appear, from the canon authorising its publica-
tion, that it was designed, not for circulation among the people,
but to assist the clergy in conducting the church services, and
in communicating to their hearers some knowledge of religion.
They were accordingly ordered to exercise themselves daily in
the reading of it, lest by stammering or breaking down alto-
gether, they should make sport for their hearers; and they
were to be equally on their guard against reading it languidly
or with yawning, but rather with such vigour of voice, facial
expression and gestures, as should make the deepest impres-
sion on the people.” From the eighth canon of this council
it appears that a very small proportion of the population
attended mass upon the Sundays, still fewer on the festivals,
and that of those who came to church, some behaved irreve-
rently, while others busied themselves with making bargains
in the porch. It was like the time of which Pliny wrote, when
in the great province of Bithynia so few were found to purchase
the victims and present themselves at the sacrifices. The old
religion was losing its hold, and all the superficial reforms of
the synod could not restore its lost power. As Lord Hailes
remarks, “when a house is in flames, it is vain to draw up
regulations for the bridling of joists or the sweeping of chim-
neys.”8 Was the church to be saved by the priests shaving
their chins, cheeks, and crowns? Or reading a catechism,
arrayed in surplice and stole, but with difficulty spelling out
the words as they went along, amid the jibes and jeers of the
people?
* The title of this significant publication is “The Catechisme: that is
to say, ane Comone and Catholick instruction of the Christine people in
materis of our Catholick faith and religioun, quilk na gud Christin man or
woman suld misknaw : set forth be ye maist reverend father in God,
Johne, Archbishop of Sanct Androis, Legatnait and Primat of ye Kirk of
Scotland, in his provincial counsal, halden at Edinburgh the xxvi day of
Januarie I 551, with the advice and counsall of the Bischoppis and other
prelatis, with doctoris of theologie and canon law of the said realme of
Scotland present for the tyme.” On the back of the title-page there is an
admonition by the Archbishop to the “Vicars and Curattis of his Dio-
cyce,” “to have yis Catechisme usit and reid to their parishionours
insteid of preching, quhil God of his gudnes provide ane sufficient
noumer of Catholyk and abil prechouris quilk sall be within few yeiris, as
we traist in God.”
* Robertson's Concilia, vol. ii. p. 138.
* Hailes's Provincial Councils, pp. 29-37. To the council of 1551 we
owe the establishment of registers of proclamations of banns, and baptisms.
234 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
In the acts of the parliament of 1551 we have some indica-
tions of the course of events. There are two acts against
those who had sustained the process of cursing or excommu-
nication. They were but resuscitations of acts formerly
passed in the reign of James V. From the terms of these we
learn that the Church had put its bann upon great numbers
who were suspected of heresy; that some of these had quietly
continued under the curse, without any attempt to remove it,
and that others had defiantly frequented the church, and even
come to the altar, notwithstanding the excommunication under
which they lay. To put an end to this state of things, the law
interfered, and threatened confiscation of goods against all
who remained under excommunication for more than a year,
or who desecrated the sacraments or disturbed the faithful
while the curse of the Church was still upon them.”
But there is another act, still more ominous ; it is anent
them that disturb the kirk during the time of divine service.
The statute is directed against all “who contemptuously make
perturbation in the kirk in the time of divine service and
preaching of the Word of God, preventing the same from
being heard and seen by the devout people, and will not desist
therefrom for any monition that the churchmen may use.””
The passing of such an act sufficiently proves the prevalence
of the practice to which it refers, and he must have a strangely
one-sided notion of toleration who does not think that it was
properly put down by the strong hand of the law. The act,
after specifying different penalties for different classes of
offenders, from the prelate and earl down to the “poor folks
that have no goods,” and who are ordained to be imprisoned
for fifteen days, and fed on bread and water, concludes with
directing deans of guild, kirk-masters, and rulers, “gar leische
bairnes that perturbis the kirk in manner foresaid.” A singular
commentary on this finishing enactment is found in a passage
at the very commencement of Row's “History of the Church.”
He narrates that when a friar was preaching in Perth, on a
Sunday in Lent, he was suddenly assailed by the hissing of all
the boys of the grammar-school who were present. A Com-
plaint being made to the magistrates, the rector searched out
the ring-leaders of the tumult, and when he was about to chas-
tise a culprit, the urchin produced as his apology Lyndsay's
“Satire of the Three Estates.” Such a boy in our day would
* Mary, parl. iv., 29th May 1551 ; parl. v., 1st February 1552. James
V., parl. iv., 7th June 1535.
* Mary, parl. v., Ist Feb. I552.
A.D. 1551-55.] ACTS AGAINST THE REFORMERS. 235
be doubly whipped—whipped for possessing a book so grossly
indecent, and whipped for disturbing any one, though he were
a Mahometan or a Hindu, in the midst of his devotions.
Another act was passed to restrain the liberty of the press,
already become turbulent and troublesome. It sets forth that
divers printers were daily printing books concerning the faith,
ballads, songs, blasphemies, and rhymes, both of churchmen
and laymen ; and therefore ordains that no printer “presume,
attempt, or take in hand ’ to print any book, without first
obtaining the necessary licence.” Thus early was the infant
press put into irons. Shut out from the pulpit, the Reformers
must have found it to be their most powerful auxiliary, speak-
ing as it did with a voice which echoed from shore to shore.
No marvel the frightened ecclesiastics attempted to gag it.
While tracing the legislation with which the Church fenced
herself round before her fall, we may refer to yet another act
passed in the year 1555. It is aimed at “ diverse insolent
and evil-given persons, who, not regarding the law of God and
the constitution of the holy Church, but in high contempt
thereof, and to the great slander of the Christian people, eat
flesh in Lent, and on other forbidden days.” All such lovers
of flesh and despisers of the Church were made liable to the
Confiscation of their moveable goods, and if they had no goods
to be confiscated, they might be imprisoned for a year and a
day, and trained during that period to abstinence. It is easy
to perceive that the constitutions of the clergy were beginning
to break down under the popular pressure. Men were laugh-
ing at Lent; and doubting the virtue of fasting on a Friday.
On the 6th of July 1553, Edward VI. of England untimely
died, at the early age of sixteen. He was a sickly, but an
amiable and intelligent boy, and had he lived a few years
longer, a more complete reformation would have been effected
in England. He was succeeded on the throne by his sister
Mary, a bigoted Roman Catholic, who, determined to restore
the ancient order of things, and whose persecutions have
gained for her with posterity the unenviable epithet of
“bloody.” With such a woman on the throne of England,
and a member of the house of Guise wielding the sceptre of
Scotland, Protestantism had much to fear. But light sprang
out of darkness. It was the present policy of Mary of Guise
to Conciliate the adherents of the Reformed faith ; and when
the fires of Smithfield were lighted, “they that were scattered
* Mary, parl. iv., 1st Feb. 1551.
* Mary, parl. vi., 20th June 1555.
236 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
abroad went everywhere preaching the Word,” as they had
done once before when a persecution arose at Jerusalem.
Many refugees from England sought shelter in Scotland.
Among these was William Harlaw, originally a tailor in the
Canongate of Edinburgh, but whose zeal had led him to become
a preacher of the Reformation. While Edward lived he had
laboured in England, but now he returned to his native
country, and though he had little learning, he must have had
talents and force of character, for he commanded influence
and respect. Another was John Willock, a Franciscan friar,
who had embraced Protestantism, and become chaplain to the
Duke of Suffolk. On the accession of Mary he had fled to
Friesland, where he practised medicine, and became favour-
ably known to the duchess, by whom he was sent in 1554,
and again in I555, on missions to the queen-regent. On the
last occasion he fixed his abode in Scotland, and became
one of the most useful and honoured of the Reforming
ministers.
But in the minds of the people the Reformation in Scotland
is centred in but one man, and that man now once more
appeared upon the stage. When we last parted with Knox he
was a convict on board a French galley, bound with a chain to
a bench in the hold, toiling at an oar side by side with
thieves and murderers. Sometimes he lay on the quiet waters
of the Loire, and at other times he was tossed by the incessant
Jumble of the German Ocean ; and once, while riding off the
coast, between the Friths of Forth and Tay, observing the
movements of the English fleet, he could distinctly see the
shores of his native land, and the tall steeple of St Andrews,
associated in his mind with so much that was sacred, and with
those stirring scenes in which he had been an actor. On the
conclusion of peace, and at the intercession of Edward of
Frgland, he was set at liberty, after a captivity of more than
a year and a half, emaciated in body, but unshaken in mind.”
With his native country barred against him, he landed in
England, and acted as a minister in the English Church, first
at Berwick, and afterwards at Newcastle, and when thus
* Acts of the Apostles, chap. viii. ver, 4.
* “I have at your request,” said the French king to Mason, “set at
liberty the Scots which else, by yon sun, should have rotted in their
prisons, so cruel was their murder. By my troth I cannot tell how to
answer the world for lack of justice.” Mason to the council, July 20th
(1550), MS. France, bundle 9, State Paper Office. Froude, vol. v. p.
3O6.
A.D. 1554] . KNOX AND CALVIN. 237
employed he wooed his wife, Marjory Bowes. He was after-
wards chosen one of the chaplains to Edward VI., and being
consulted about the Book of Common Prayer, which was
undergoing a revision, he had sufficient influence to procure
an important change in the communion office, “taking away
the round clipped god, wherein standeth all the holiness of
the papists,” and substituting common bread. The Articles of
Religion were also revised by his pen previous to their rati-
fication by parliament. Thus he played an important part in
the English Reformation. In consideration of his services he
was offered the living of All-Hallows in London, and after-
wards the bishopric of Rochester;' but he declined them both,
as the English Church had not yet attained to his standard of
purity. The accession of Mary compelled him to flee for his
life, with less than ten groats in his pocket. Setting sail for
the Continent, he landed at Dieppe on the 28th January 1554.
After some wanderings among the Helvetian churches, he
settled at Geneva. Here was John Calvin, now at the very
height of his reputation, and with him Knox soon formed a
strict intimacy. It is pleasing to think of these two great
Reformers walking together in the garden surrounding the
house provided for Calvin by the State, where was a command-
ing view of the Leman Lake, and a magnificent background
of Alpine peaks. Though animated by the same spirit, and
holding the same views, they were very unlike. Knox was a
rough, unbending, impetuous man, but withal fond of fun, and
full of humour. Calvin was calm, severe, often irritable, but
never impassioned ; rising in pure intellect above all his Com-
peers, like Mont Blanc among the mountains touching the
very heavens, yet shrouded in eternal snows. There is no
doubt but that Calvin exercised a great influence upon the
mind of Knox. Knox, though the older of the two, was but
beginning his work; Calvin's work was done. Knox was but
rising into fame ; Calvin was giving laws to a large section of
Christendom.
Knox left Geneva to take the charge of a congregation of
English refugees at Frankfort, but he had scarcely entered
* “Northumberland offered it that he might be “as a whetstone to quicken
the Archbishop of Canterbury, whereof he had need '; and also to put an
end to Knox's administrations in the north where he had habitually dis-
obeyed the Act of Uniformity, and cared not to conceal his objections to
the Prayer Book. Knox would not accept, and in a sermon he afterwards
preached before the Court, spoke out his mind very plainly about Court
and Church.” Froude, vol v. p. 475.
238 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
upon his duties when dissensions arose in regard to the use of
a liturgy. When things were in this state, Dr Cox, who had
been preceptor to Edward VI., arrived from England, and
coming to church during service, he and some friends
began to give audible responses to the prayers. Requested
to desist, they declined to do so, and on the succeeding Sun-
day one of them managed to get admission to the pulpit and
read the litany. Knox could not stand this, and preached one
of his characteristic sermons against the innovators. Religious
rancour increased instead of abating. Knox was maliciously
accused of treason against the Emperor and his daughter-in-
law the Queen of England (inasmuch as he had called the one
little inferior to Nero, and the other more cruel than Jezebel);
and to escape trouble he was glad to quit Frankfort, and retire
to his retreat on the shores of Lake Leman.
But now a longing to visit home came upon the exile. His
mother-in-law had frequently written him to return ; the Re-
formation in Scotland was making progress, a leading man was
wanted, and so he set his face homewards. He arrived toward
the end of the harvest 1555, and after solacing himself for a
few days at Berwick with his wife and his wife's relatives, he
repaired privately to Edinburgh. Here he was entertained by
a pious citizen of the name of Syme." In his house the friends
of the Reformation were accustomed to meet, and talk over
their prospects and plans with the pale-faced, long-bearded
man, whom they already acknowledged as their chief. A ques-
tion arose which must be discussed and determined, for it
affected the conduct of many of the Reformers. These, not-
withstanding their Protestant principles, were accustomed still
to go to the mass, and outwardly to conform themselves to the
established religion. Knox lifted up his voice against this as
a sinful compromise. He denounced it as a wicked com-
pliance with an idolatrous practice. The matter began to be
agitated from man to man, and Erskine of Dun, to set the sub-
ject at rest, invited some leading men to supper, that in their
presence the subject might be debated and decided. The
chief opponent of Knox was young Maitland of Lethington,
already distinguished for his acuteness and subtlety. Mait-
land defended the practice as expedient in the circumstances
in which they were placed, and quoted the instance of Paul
resorting to the temple to pay his vow in company with Jews
still unconverted. Knox answered that the temple service was
of divine origin, and that the mass was not ; but further, he
* Knox's History, book i.
A.D. 1555-6.] KNOX AND MAITLAND. 239
boldly declared his doubt of the propriety of Paul having
done as he did. No good came of it, but rather evil." •
Maitland was candid enough to confess that Knox had the
best of the argument, and so he had. In such times and Cir-
cumstances very little is to be gained by compromises. The
character and future career of both disputants is wonderfully
brought out in this quiet disputation at the supper-table of
Erskine of Dun. We see on the one side the inflexible Re-
former, regardless alike of fear and of favour, never content
with half-measures, crying, “Come out of her, and be ye sepa-
rate.” On the other side sits the clear-headed, quick-eyed
secretary, bending to expediency, keeping friends with all,
making the most of everything. The results of the contro-
versy were important. The Reformers henceforward refrained
from going to mass or taking any part in the Church-services,
and it would appear that so numerous were they that the priests.
at once perceived their desertion.” The separation from the
Established Church had already taken place.
Among the nobles who at this time attached themselves to
Knox, attending his sermons and helping him in his work,
were the Earl of Glencairn, Lord Lorn, and the Prior of St
Andrews, afterwards the celebrated Regent Moray. With
these at his side, the Reformer need fear no evil. During the
winter of 1555-6 he was indefatigable in preaching, not only in
the capital, but in the provinces. Repairing to Kyle and
Cunningham, where Glencairn was omnipotent, he preached
the doctrines of the Reformation, as Wishart had done before
him. Under the shield of Erskine of Dun he preached in
Angusshire. At Finlaystone-house, at Easter, and in several
Other baronial houses afterwards, he administered the Sacra-
ment of the Supper, in the simple yet impressive manner in
which it is now administered in the Scotch Church.” Rumours
of all this flew through the country, and the clergy became
alarmed. Here was a bold man doing a bold thing, and he
must be quieted. Counsel was taken, an indictment prepared,
* Knox's History, book i. 2 Ibid.
* Knox's History, book i. It is possible, but by no means certain, that
he used either the Genevan Book of Common Order, or the Liturgy of
Edward VI., on these occasions. Ninian Wingate, in his second Tract,
says upbraidingly – ‘Quhy cover ze zour table with a quhyte clayth at
zour communioun ?, Quhy cause ze utheris than the minister partlie to dis-
tributzour breid and wyne 2 Quhy mak ze zour communioun afoir dennar P
Quhy use ze at zour communion now four, now three coupis and mony
breids?” At Findlaystone House a pair of silver candlesticks inverted
Were used as cups at the first communion.
24O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, [CHAP, X.
and the heretical preacher cited to appear at the Church of
the Blackfriars in Edinburgh, and answer for his conduct.
Knox felt himself strong enough to obey, and his friends began
to muster in the city, in order to be present at the trial, and
See justice done. On the Saturday preceding the day fixed
for the trial the summons was withdrawn, on the pretext that
it was found to be informal, but it was shrewdly suspected that
the stout face of the reformer and his friends had intimidated
the bishops, and led them to sist procedure.
Knox was resolved to take advantage of his position, and
not retire from Edinburgh without striking a blow. On the
very day on which he should have stood at the bar as a culprit,
he ascended the pulpit and preached to the largest audience
he had ever addressed." At a subsequent meeting, held at
night, the Earl Marischal was present, and was so impressed
by the Reformer's eloquence that he joined with Glencairn in
urging him to write a letter to the queen-regent, exhorting her
not merely to protect the preachers, but to give heed to their
doctrine. The letter was written, and presented by Glencairn.
Mary of Guise read it, kept it in her possession for a day or
two, and then handed it to the Archbishop of Glasgow, with a
Smile and a jest, saying, “Please you, my lord, to read a pas-
quil.” The matter shortly became too serious for jesting.
While the Reformation was thus making steady progress,
Knox received an urgent letter from the English Church at
Geneva Commanding him as their chosen pastor to come to
them, and he resolved to go. Argyll and others strongly urged
him to remain in Scotland, where he was so much required;
but he would be gone, and despatched his wife and mother-in-
law before him, as if he did not mean soon to return.” His
conduct in this instance is difficult to account for, and has per-
plexed all his apologists. Why should he leave his native
country, where the Reformation dawn was steadily advancing
to the perfect day, to take the charge of an obscure Congrega-
tion of refugees in a foreign city P Perhaps the genial climate
of Geneva, and quiet walks by its blue lake with the high-
browed Calvin, allured him. In the midst of din and agita-
tion, men often yearn for seclusion. It is much more probable,
however, that he took advantage of the call from Geneva to
escape from danger. The clergy had deserted the diet in
* Knox’s History, book, i. 2 Ibid.
* He said to Argyll when pressed, “that if God blessed these small be-
ginnings, and if that they continued in godliness, whensoever they pleased
to command him, they should find him obedient.” (History, book i.)
A.D. 1556.] * KNOX BluRNED IN EFFIGY. 24 I
May, but it was not at all likely they had entirely abandoned
the idea of destroying one whose destruction was essential to
their own safety. Both M'Crie and Tytler are of opinion that
Knox fled to save his life. M'Crie recognises the finger of
Providence in this passage of his history, preserving him for
happier days. Tytler charges him with something like
cowardice, using the language of the martyr, but lacking the
spirit." He forgets that in many cases “discretion is the better
part of valour,” and that he is but a fool who is too solicitous
for the martyr's Crown. If Knox was really in danger of his
life, he was right to flee ; if he was no longer able to beard the
bishops, he was wise to get out of their way. The safety of
his friends was not compromised by his departure, He was
the marked man, and before we brand him as a coward we
must hold that retreat is in no case allowable.
Knox was no sooner gone than a summons, was issued
against him. As the criminal on this occasion did not appear
at the bar, the bishops occupied the bench. He was con-
victed of heresy, condemned, and burned in effigy at the
market-cross of Edinburgh. The whole affair was a foolish
bravado, which might as well have been spared. When the
report of it reached the Reformer at Geneva, he wrote his
“Appellation from the cruel and unjust sentence of the false
bishops and clergy of Scotland.” These different events were
crowded within a short space. Scarcely nine months had
elapsed since Knox's arrival from the continent, and only two
since he was able to brave the Church instead of standing as a
criminal at its bar. There had been a recoil.
But though Knox's voice was no longer heard sternly
denouncing idolatry, Scotland was not left without witnesses
for the truth. John Douglas, a Carmelite friar, forsaking his
order, became chaplain to the Earl of Argyll, and preached
even at court against the prevailing superstitions.” Paul
Methven, originally a baker, exercised a powerful influence
upon Dundee. Others of less note laboured in other parts of
the country. To put an end to this, the queen-regent, at the
instigation of the clergy, issued a proclamation, citing them to
appear and answer for their conduct. They prepared to Obey,
and their friends began to crowd toward Edinburgh. Dread-
ing a tumult, the regent made proclamation that all who had
come to the city without the express permission of the authori-
* History, vol. vi.
* Knox's History, book i. Keith, book i, chap. vi.
VOL. I. Q
242 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
ties should resort to the borders, and remain there for fifteen
days. As the gentlemen of the west had just returned from
border duty, they were in no humour to obey, and tumultu-
ously forced themselves into the presence of the regent at the
palace. When she would vindicate her proclamation, Chalmers
of Gadgirth stepped forward, and in no very courtly style
said, “We know, madam, that this is the device of the
bishops who stand by you; we avow to God we shall make a
day of it. They oppress us and our tenants for feeding of
their idle bellies; they trouble our preachers, and would mur-
der them and us ; shall we suffer this any longer? No,
madam, it shall not be.”" And therewith every man put on
his steel bonnet, and began to finger about the hilt of his
sword. The queen was intimidated, as she well might be, and
was glad to get rid of the threatening barons by promising that
their preachers would no more be disturbed.
To this outburst of feudal independence there succeeded a
period of tranquillity, and the nobles who favoured the Refor-
mation resolved to recall Knox from Geneva. Accordingly
they directed a letter to him, in which they spoke of “their
godly thirst for his presence, and declared themselves ready to
jeopard their lives and goods for advancing the glory of God.”
They informed him that the magistracy was much in the same
state as when he left the country, but that no cruelty had been
used against them, and that the friars were every day held in
less estimation by the queen and the nobility. This letter was
dated at Stirling on the Ioth of March 1557, and subscribed
by Glencairn, Erskine of Dun, Lorn, and James Stuart.” It
was brought to Geneva by James Syme and James Barron,
both burgesses of Edinburgh, and Knox having first laid the
matter before his congregation and sought the advice of
Calvin, resolved to comply with the invitation, and return
home. In the beginning of October he proceeded to Dieppe,
but while he waited there for a vessel to convey him to Scot-
land, he received other letters which dashed all his hopes, by
counselling him to remain where he was.” The Reformers
had suddenly changed their minds; they had come to the
conclusion that it was better to enjoy the toleration which
they had, than to peril it by seeking more, and thus, through
faint-heartedness, had abandoned the project of a thorough
reformation.
* Knox's History, book i. Keith, book i. chap. vi.
* Knox's History, book i. 3 Ibid.
A.D. 1557.] THE FIRST COVENANT. 243
Sitting down in his lodging at Dieppe, Knox wrote a letter
to the lords whose faith had failed, after inviting him to come
to their help. He referred to the sacrifices he had already
made—he had severed his connection with his flock at Geneva
—he had seen the eyes of many grave men weep when he
took his last good-night of them—he had left his poor family
destitute of all head, save God only. He acknowledged his
belief that troubles would arise, but it was their duty to meet
danger in so glorious a cause. He spoke of their position as
feudal barons, and of the claims which their vassals had upon
them ; and finally prayed that the mighty spirit of the Lord
Jesus would rule and guide their counsels to His eternal glory."
This letter was dated the 27th October 1557. With it he
despatched another addressed to the whole nobility of Scot-
land, and others to particular friends, as to the lairds of Dun
and Pittarrow. In the meantime, he did not consider it pru-
dent to venture into Scotland. It was a period of suspense—
the fate of the Reformation depended on the issue.
The letters of Knox had an immediate and powerful effect
in stimulating the decaying zeal of the Reforming nobles.
Like a fire stirred up just when ready to die out among its
own ashes, it now burned more brightly than ever. Meet-
ing at Edinburgh in the month of December, they drew up
a bond which knit them into one body, pledged them to a
definite line of conduct, and gave consistency and shape to
their plans. They had separated from the Roman com-
munion ; they now formed themselves into an opposing
phalanx. This document is known in Scottish Church history
as the first Covenant, and is so important that we give it
entire.
“We, perceiving how Satan, in his members, the antichrists
of our time, cruelly do rage, seeking to overthrow and destroy
the gospel of Christ and His congregation, Ought, according
to our bounden duty, to strive in Our Master’s cause, even
unto the death, being certain of the victory in Him. The
which our duty being well considered, we do promise before
the Majesty of God and His congregation, that we, by His
grace, shall, with all diligence, continually apply our whole
power, substance, and our very lives, to maintain, set forward,
and establish the most blessed Word of God and His congre-
gation; and shall labour, at our possibility, to have faithful
ministers, truly and purely to minister Christ's gospel and
* Knox's History, book i.
244 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
Sacraments to His people. We shall maintain them, nourish
them, and defend them, the whole congregation of Christ, and
every member thereof, at our whole powers and waging of Our
lives, against Satan and all wicked power that doth intend
tyranny Or trouble against the foresaid congregation. Unto
the which holy word and Congregation we do join us, and so
do forsake and renounce the Congregation of Satan, with all
the Superstitious abomination and idolatry thereof; and, more-
Over, shall declare ourselves manifestly enemies thereto, by
this our faithful promise before God, testified to His congre-
gation by our subscription to these presents, at Edinburgh, the
3rd day of December 1557 years. God called to witness—A.,
Earl of Argyle, Glencairn, Morton, Archibald, Lord of Lorn,
John Erskine of Dun,” &c. -
From the time that the Reformers had resolved to refrain
from being present at mass, they had been in the habit of
meeting among themselves for the purpose of worship. They
generally assembled in private houses, and one of the number
was chosen to read the Scriptures, to exhort them, and give
utterance to their prayers. Roman controversialists' affirm
that some lords and gentlemen administered the sacrament of
the Supper to their own household servants and tenants; and
the “First Book of Discipline” gives countenance to the idea
that such irregularities had occurred.” Elders and deacons
were chosen to superintend the affairs of these infant com-
munities. Edinburgh has the honour of having given the
example, and the names of her first five elders are still pre-
served.” The existence of these small Protestant congregations,
Scattered over the country, probably led the lords to employ
the word so frequently in their bond, and this again led to
their being called the Lords of the Congregation. It was a
bold document to which they had thus put their names. It
* Ninian Wingate. His writings have been published by the Maitland
Club.
* “Where not long agoe men stood in such admiration of that idol
the masse, that none durst have presumed to have said the masse but
the shaven sort, the beast's marked men ; some dare now be so bold, as
without all vocation to minister, as they suppose, the true sacrament in
open assemblies; and some idiots (yet more wickedly and impudently)
dare counterfeit in their house that which the true ministers do in open
congregation, they presume, we say, to do it in houses without rever-
ence, without word preached, and without minister.” (First Book of
Discipline, chap. xvi. Sect. i.)
* M'Crie's Life of Knox. Period Fifth.
A.D. 1558.] REFORMING RESOLUTIONS. - 245
was throwing down the gauntlet to all the powers of the exist-
ing Church and State. It was a solemn repetition of their put-
ting on their steel bonnets in the presence of the queen. It is
easy to see the spirit of feudalism underlying the spirit of the
Reformation.
General declarations are often intended merely for parade,
and having served their purpose they are allowed to lie idle,
but it was not so here. Immediately after the subscription of
the Covenant, the lords who signed it, and those who concur-
red with them, passed the following resolutions :—
I. It is thought expedient, advised, and Ordained, that in all
parishes of this realm the Common Prayer be read weekly on
Sunday and other festival days, publicly in the parish churches,
with the lessons of the Old and New Testaments, conform to
the order of the Book of Common Prayer. And if the curates
of the parishes be qualified, that they read the same ; and if
they be not, or if they refuse, that the most qualified in the
parish use and read the same.
II. It is thought necessary that doctrine, preaching, and in-
terpretation of Scriptures be had and used privately in quiet
houses, without great conventions of the people thereto till God
move the prince to grant public preaching by faithful and true
ministers." -
Resolutions like these were enough to make the clergy
flock to the regent with complaints; for here was a small knot
of barons quietly setting aside the “Three Estates,” usurping
their power, and making ordinances affecting the whole realm.
What title had they to order what was to be done in all the
parishes of Scotland P Who invested them with a commission
to compel the curate to lay aside his missal, and adopt the
Common Prayer-Book in its stead P A body of dissenters so
acting in our day would either be laughed at for their insol-
ence, or punished for their treason. We cannot justify these
Lords of the Congregation by any law or by any precedent ;
and yet we must thank them for doing as they did, for we owe
to them our religion and our liberties. Perhaps it was a pre-
sumptuous sin in them assuming to legislate for both Church
and State, but their legislation was such as to saye both. But
whatever we may think of the first resolution, the second un-
doubtedly breathes a spirit of moderation. It shows that the
Reforming nobles wished to avoid a collison with the State ;
and perhaps we ought to interpret the first by the light of the
* Knox's History, book i. Keith, book i. chap. vi.
246 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
second, and regard it as referring to what they were determined
to bring about by constitutional means, rather than to what
they designed to do by their own authority. At all events,
they could carry it out only in those districts where they had
feudal jurisdiction. Their mode of procedure is referred to in
a letter from Cecil to Throkmorton, of 9th July 1559, from
which we also learn that the Prayer-Book referred to was that
of Edward VI. “The Protestants,” says he, “are at Edin-
burgh. They offer no violence, but dissolve Religious Houses,
directing the lands thereof to the Crown, and to ministry in
the Church. The parish churches they deliver of altars and
images, and have received the service of the Church of Eng-
land according to King Edward's book.””
The Archbishop of St Andrews, about this period, made an
effort to detach the Earl of Argyll from the Congregation. He
sent to him Sir David Hamilton with a friendly letter, and an
elaborate memorandum, pointing out the disgrace which heresy
would bring upon his ancient and honourable house; counsel-
ling him to dismiss the Protestant preacher he entertained as
his chaplain ; and offering to provide him with a confessor of
Orthodox faith. Argyll was not to be moved. He answered
the archbishop's memorandum minutely, but in a moderate
spirit, adhering to the opinions and cause he had espoused.
It was not long after this that he died ; but his son, a still
more decided Reformer, succeeded to his influence in the
Western Highlands.”
Unfortunately the Archbishop of St Andrews now resorted
to sterner measures to stay the progress of the Reformation,
and he put forth his hand, not upon a powerful baron, but
upon a helpless priest, venerable for his piety and his years.
Walter Mill had been the parish priest of Lunan, but during
the primacy of Cardinal Beaton he had incurred the sus-
picion of heresy, and sought safety in concealment. Deceived
by the clemency of the queen-regent, he had now ventured
from his hiding-place, and was apprehended at Dysart.
When brought before the ecclesiastical tribunal at St Andrews,
the old man appeared hardly able to stand, much less to
1 Forbes's State Papers, i. I55, quoted in the Notes to Dr M'Crie's
Life of Knox. There is afterwards quoted a letter of the same period
from Kirkcaldy of Grange to Sir Henry Percy, which decides the con-
troversy which was waged by Sage and Anderson regarding the book
used, still more definitively. The fact is now beyond all controversy.
* Knox's History, book i.
A.D. 1558.] MARTYRDOM OF MILL. 247
defend himself; but when charge after charge was brought
against him, he answered with such firmness as to show that
an undaunted spirit could rise Superior to all bodily infirmity.
He was convicted of heresy; but such was the Commiseration
for his fate, that no temporal judge could be got to pronounce
upon him sentence of death, till a dissolute retainer of the
archbishop performed the odious office. When led to the
stake, his gray hairs and tottering steps excited universal
sympathy. “As for myself,” said the patriarchal martyr
from amidst the flames, “I am fourscore and two years
old, and cannot live long by the Course of nature ; but a
hundred better shall rise out of the ashes of my bones, and
I trust in God that I am the last that shall suffer death in
Scotland for this cause.” His prayer was heard ; he was
the last.
The names of twenty individuals” are recorded as having
lost their lives in the long conflict between Popery and Pro-
testantism in our country; a small number when we consider
that it was a life and death struggle between an ancient
system deeply rooted in many hearts, and a new-born hostile
faith, flushed with youthful vigour, and bent not merely on
toleration but conquest. A much greater number might
fall in an out-post skirmish or a midnight sortie, which
would be deemed too insignificant to be mentioned in
history. But while history may fail to mourn every hero
who falls in battle, she will ever feel it her most sacred
duty to pause and shed a tear on the martyr's grave. Men
will never regard with equal veneration death defiantly met
on the battle-field, and death calmly endured at the stake.
* Knox's History, book ii. Lindsay of Pitscottie, History. Keith,
book i. chap. vi. Spottiswood's History, lib. ii.
* This is the sum of the names given by Fox the martyrologist, and
others. M'Crie, in his Notes, tries to make it appear that many more
were put to death for their religion ; that between I 534 and 1539 about
sixty persons suffered death, banishment, or confiscation of goods, and
many more not included in that period. He refers to the Treasurer's
Accounts, and Register of Privy Seal, and other ancient records. We
think it highly probable that many suffered fines, the confiscation of
goods, and exile; but we must still doubt if more, at least many more,
than those we have mentioned suffered death. It is wrong to say that
history has recorded the sufferings of the rich and distinguished only—
several of those whose names have been preserved belonged to the
poorer orders; and piety in all ages has exhibited a peculiar solicitude
to treasure up the tears and blood of the martyrs, so that we cannot
believe many names have been lost.
248 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
The hundreds of thousands who perished in the European
wars which followed the Reformation are forgotten ; the
memory of the martyrs is fondly cherished ; and it is right
they should be held in everlasting remembrance. It is the
silent protest of all generations against the horrid iniquity of
putting a man to death, under the shadow of justice, simply
for the opinions he may have held. And yet that a man
should be punished, even to burning, for error in intellectual
belief, is an opinion which still lingers in the world. It were
folly to say that the smallness of the number of our martyrs is
honourable to a Church which has stereotyped persecution in
its creed ; but it is honourable to the moderation of the men
who, at that period of the conflict, held in their hands the
government of the country; it is honourable to the humane
genius of the Scottish nation. -
The death of Mill was followed by a strong reaction in
favour of Protestantism. The inhabitants of St Andrews
placed a cairn of stones over his grave, and every district of
the country was canvassed for adherents to the Congrega-
tion, which now began to feel its numerical strength.” While
the blood of the people was up, it was resolved to present a
remonstrance and petition to the regent. In this document
the Protestant barons declared that such was the tyranny of
the ecclesiastical Estate, that there remained for them
“nothing but fagot, fire, and sword ;” that they ought, as a
part of the power of the realm, to have defended their
brethren from cruel murder, and have given open testimony
of their faith with them ; that they now desired to do this,
lest their silence should afterwards be liable to misconstruc-
tion ; and they concluded by petitioning her Grace—I. That
it might be lawful for them to meet in public or in private
for common prayers in the vulgar tongue, to the end they
might grow in knowledge, and be induced in sincerity of
heart to commend unto God the holy universal Church, the
queen their sovereign, her honourable and gracious husband,
the succession to the throne, her grace the regent, the
nobility, and the whole estate of the realm. II. That it
should be lawful for any person of sufficient knowledge to
interpret any hard places of Scripture that might be read in
their meetings. III. That baptism and the Lord's Supper
should be administered in the vernacular, and the latter in
both kinds. And, lastly, That the wicked and scandalous lives
* Keith's History, book i. chap. vi.
A.D. 1558.] DEMANDS OF THE PROTESTANTS. 249
of the clergy should be reformed, according to the rules con-
tained in the New Testament, the writings of the ancient
fathers, and the laws of Justinian, to which three they were
willing to leave the decision of the controversy between them
and the clergy."
This petition was presented to the queen-
regent by Sir James Sandilands, Preceptor of the
Knights of St John, a man of venerable years and un-
blemished life, who had early attached himself to the prin-
ciples of the Reformation. The queen received the petition
with her usual benignity, and granted permission for the
evangel to be preached and the sacraments administered in
the vulgar tongue; only she requested that, in the meantime,
they should not preach publicly in Edinburgh or Leith ; and
the Reformers, in turn, to show their gratitude and desire for
peace, interdicted Douglas from preaching in the latter town,
as he had intended to do.” Encouraged by the success of
their application to the regent, the Lords of the Congregation
resolved to bring the matter before a meeting of ecclesiastics,
which was sitting in Edinburgh in the month of November
1558. After some violent altercation, they seemed willing to
grant that the gospel might be preached and the sacraments
administered in the vulgar tongue, provided the mass, purga-
tory, and prayers for the dead were retained.” It was well
for Scotland that the Reformers did not accept of this com-
promise ; and yet it was much for Romish ecclesiastics to
offer. There must have been amongst them at the time a feel-
ing of weakness, and a desire to patch up a compromise before
all compromise became hopeless.
The period for the meeting of parliament was now rapidly
approaching. It had been cited to meet at Edinburgh toward
the end of November ; and the Lords of the Congregation
resolved to bring their grievances before it. Their petition
concluded with the following specific requests —I. That all
acts of parliament empowering Churchmen to proceed against
heretics should be suspended until a general council of the
Church, lawfully convened, should decide the present contro-
versies in religion ; and that, in the meantime, Churchmen
A.D. I558.
* Knox's History, book ii. Keith, book i. chap. viii.
* Knox's History, book ii.
* Lesley, Keith, and others, speak of a Council being held at this
date; but there is no record of it, and it was probably only an informal
meeting of churchmen.
25o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
should only be allowed to act as accusers before a temporal
judge, and not to sit as judges themselves. II. That, in all
Cases of this kind, an authentic copy of the accusation and
depositions should be allowed to the accused, and every
defence competent in law permitted to him. III. That every
party accused should be allowed to interpret his own mind
and meaning, and that such interpretation should be held
superior to the deposition of any witness whatever. Lastly,
That none of the Congregation should be condemned for
heresy, unless he should be convicted by the Word of God to
have erred from the faith which the Holy Scripture witnessed
to be necessary to salvation."
These demands were first submitted to the queen-regent,
whose good offices the Reformers were anxious to secure.
“She spared not amiable looks,” says Knox, “and good
words in abundance; but always she kept our petition close
in her pocket.”” The Reformers urged her to bring it before
parliament; but she spoke of the unfitness of the time, the
strength of the ecclesiastical Estate, and manoeuvred so
Cleverly that the parliament was dissolved without the peti-
tion being so much as presented. The petitioners, however,
publicly protested that it would be lawful for them to
worship God according to their consciences, without incurring
any danger of life and lands; that should any tumult arise on
account of religious differences, the blame of it should not
be imputed to them ; and that their requests had no other end
but the reformation of the abuses which had grown up in the
Church. 8 -
Up to this point, royal favour appeared to smile upon the
Reformers. Mary of Guise almost seemed to have forgotten
her family traditions and her country's faith, that she might
foster the Reformation. The Protestants carried all their
Sorrows to the foot of the throne, certain that they would be
received with benignant smiles, and dismissed with most
gracious assurances. The regent had a purpose to serve, which
made her court the Protestants ; but when it was served, her
Countenance forthwith was changed. Her daughter was
grown up to womanhood; the conditions of her marriage
with the Dauphin must be arranged ; and the friendly influ-
ence of the Protestant lords was required. In truth, such
are the strange Caprices of state policy, that this Guisian
* Knox's History, book ii. Keith, book i. chap. viii.
* History, book ii. * Knox's History, book ii.
A.D. 1558.] POLICY OF THE QUEEN-REGENT. 25 I
queen was compelled to look to the Protestants rather than
to the Papists for support. The Duke of Chastelherault
regarded her with jealousy ever since she had supplanted
him in the regency; he regarded her with especial jealousy
when dealing with matrimonial affairs, as she might supplant
him in his hopes of succeeding to the throne; and the Duke
of Chastelherault, through his brother, the archbishop, had a
powerful sway over the whole ecclesiastical body. She artfully
played the Lords of the Congregation against the adherents of
Hamilton; and thus Protestantism, for a time at least, was on
the royal and winning side of the game.
In a parliament held on the 14th of December 1557, nine
commissioners had been appointed to proceed to Paris, and
be present at the marriage of the queen—the Archbishop of
Glasgow, the Bishops of Ross and Orkney, the Earls of
Rothes and Cassillis, Lords Seton and Fleming, the Prior of
St Andrews, and the Laird of Dun." The instructions to the
commissioners were framed in a wise and patriotic spirit, and
the commissioners discharged their trust faithfully and well.
The open conduct of the French court was fair and honour-
able; but, veiled from the light of day, there had been per-
petrated a deed of base and deliberate villany. The Scottish
queen—a confiding girl of fifteen—was induced to sign three
separate documents, by which she made over in free gift her
kingdom of Scotland to the French king in the event of her
dying childless. But all this was unknown at the time, and
on the 24th of April 1558 the marriage was solemnised with
extraordinary pomp in the Church of Notre Dame. When
the days of feasting were ended, and the commissioners were
on their way home, no fewer than four of them sickened and
died at Dieppe. The thing was mysterious ; the Princes of
Guise were regarded as skilful poison-seethers, and it was
universally believed in Scotland that they had prescribed for
the commissioners, although it was difficult to show what
object they could have for their death. On the 29th of
November 1558 a parliament was called to receive the surviv-
ing members of the fatal expedition, and in this convention of
Estates the queen regent managed parties so well as to get
them to consent to bestow upon the Dauphin of France the
matrimonial crown of Scotland. What more could the holise
of Guise desire, and had not their own diplomacy brought
all these things to pass P
* Keith, book i. chap. vii.
252 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
But other events came crowding fast, and, with them, other
plans began to develop themselves. On the 17th of Novem-
ber 1558, Mary of England died, and resuscitated Popery died
with her a second death. Her sister Elizabeth succeeded her
on the throne, and, with a woman’s true instinct of policy,
placed herself at the head of the Protestants of Europe. But
Elizabeth had been declared illegitimate by the parliament,
and, Elizabeth out of the way, Mary of Scotland was the next
heir to the English throne. The house of Guise wished to
take the tide that leads to fortune at the flood. They per-
suaded their niece to assume the title and arms of Queen of
England and Ireland, and she did so. And now if Scotland
could only be quieted ; if the Congregation could be coaxed
to give up their foolish fondness for preachers, or if they could
be forced into compliance by the tramp of armed men, it
seemed impossible that Elizabeth could resist the odds that
might be brought against her. With papal France on the
south, and papal Scotland on the north, and hundreds of
thousands of Papists in its own heart, might not the world
behold with wonder Popery once more restored to England,
amid the blazing of bonfires in which martyrs burned, and a
daughter of Guise reigning by the Thames and the Liffy, as
well as by the Forth and the Seine. All this was thought
possible, and therefore the queen-regent no longer smiled
upon the Protestants, but frowned, and threatened, and kept
her French soldiers in drill, that they might use the last argu-
ment if all othcrg should fail.
On the 2d of March 1559, a provincial synod assembled at
Edinburgh to consider the state of the Church. There was
laid before it a document which had been presented to the
queen-regent on the part of some of the nobility, who apparently
wished the reformation of the Church rather than its destruc-
tion. It stated that the canons of previous councils had pro-
duced little or no fruit, and that the Spiritual Estate, which
ought to be a mirror and lantern to the rest, “is deteriorate nor
emends be ony sic persuasion as hes hedertells usit.” It prayed
therefore that the canons of former Councils should be enforced
against the clergy who were living Scandalous lives; that there
should be preaching of God's word in every parish Church on
the Sundays and holidays; that none should be admitted to the
ministry unless qualified, and able at least to read the Catechism
distinctly and plainly ; that the prayers should be in the vulgar
tongue; that at the celebration of the sacraments, their nature
A.D. 1559.] THE LAST OF THE COUNCILS. 253
should be explained to the people in English ; that mortuary
dues and Easter offerings should be made optional, and Con-
sistorial processes shortened. The petitioners declared, at the
same time, that no one should be allowed to speak irreverently
of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ, that no one
should be suffered to take it upon himself to administer it, and
finally, that no manner of person should destroy Church,
Chapel, or religious place, or their ornaments, or innovate on
the lovable ceremonies of Holy Kirk. A truly moderate and
sensible petition. -
The Synod, with this document before them, and seeing
that affairs were becoming serious, passed no fewer than thirty-
four canons. They appointed a commission to enforce the
canons against the immoralities of the clergy ; all churchmen,
moreover, must be decently dressed and shaved; the canonical
hours must be said daily, and the mass at least every Sunday
and feast-day ; Monasteries were to be inspected, Churches
repaired; bishops must preach at least four times a year in
their dioceses, parish priests must preach oftener than four times
a year if they were able to preach at all; if they were not able,
they must go to the public schools (in gymnasiis publicis), and
learn to do it, but if above fifty years of age they might pro-
vide a substitute; the nature of the Sacraments was to be
explained to the people; mortuary dues were not to be
exacted from the very poor; and the sacraments, as ad-
ministered by the reformers, were not to be recognised.
There was silence about the prayers in the language of the
people. But as the cry for instruction was every day becoming
more clamorous, a short exposition of the mass was ordered to
be published." History condescends to relate that it was sold
for two-pence, and therefore called in derision, “The Two-
Penny Faith.””
Such were the canons of the last of the councils. They
will remain to all time as a memorial of the state of the Scotch
Church just before its reformation. Notwithstanding the
decrees of previous Synods, in very many of the manses and
episcopal palaces there were still unwedded wives and numerous
families, and now these must be turned to the door, or, at
least, smuggled away out of sight; so had the Synod ordained;
* Robertson's Concilia, vol. ii. pp. 15I-75.
* Knox, book i., and Spottiswood, book iii. A Black Letter copy of
this tract still exists. It is only four pages. It is republished in the
Miscellany of the Ballantyne Club, vol. iii. p. 313.
254 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
and inquisitors were appointed to see the thing done, with
power' to fine and even deprive of the benefice. It was the
publicity of the thing ! Naked and not ashamed ! What
were the wretched shavelings to do? They must either break
with Rome, or part with those who were dearest to them on
earth. The enforced decrees of clerical celibacy had brought
this to pass. Bishop Lesley, the Romish historian, affirms
that many, especially among the younger clergy, preferred the
former course and joined the Protestants, that they might keep
their harlots under the name of wives –an unworthy taunt,
coming from such a quarter. But this was not all—the parish
parsons must read the catechism and preach ; or, if they could
not do so, they must go to school and learn. Poor old priests,
up to fifty years of age, sent to School to learn to read and
perorate, and all to please those horrid Calvinists, who were
turning the world upside down They might shave a little
cleaner, and put on their rochets, if that would save the
church, but to go to school again Yet the Synod had decreed
it, and was now determined to enforce it—for were not in-
quisitors appointed P. It was clear a crisis had come. The
Synod was willing to go as far as it could, and if possible meet
the Reformers half way, though it was obliged to evade the
serious proposition as to the offices of the church being read
in the vulgar tongue, as the Council of Trent had not yet
decided the matter. But these half-measures came too late:
the hurricane was already rising, which, in less than another year,
was to strew the beach with the wreckage of the Roman Church.
It was feared that the regent, to strengthen the resolutions
of the Synod, might call the Protestant preachers to account.
In these circumstances, the Earl of Glencairn and Sir Hugh
Campbell of Loudon sought an interview with her Grace, to
plead that their preachers might be protected so long as they
preached sound doctrine; but the regent declared that,
maugre all they could do, their ministers should be banished,
though they preached as soundly as St Paul. The barons
took the liberty of reminding her of her promises. “The
promises of princes,” said the queen, “are no further to
be urged than it suits their convenience to keep them.”
“Then,” said the earl, “if you renounce your promises, we
* Non quidem ut conscientiae suae Satisfacerent sed ut libidinem expleturi,
scorta, uxorum titulo, impune deinceps foverent. Lesley De Rebus, &c.,
pp. 546-7.
A.D. 1559.] PREACHERS OUTLAWED. 255
must renounce our allegiance.”" The boldness of the feudal
baron startled the finessing woman, and, lowering her tone,
she promised to think of what could best be done to remedy
what was wrong. -
Whatever meaning the regent attached to this general
declaration, she was soon led to give a practical interpreta-
tion of it. The town of Perth having given unequivocal
symptoms of its attachment to the Reformation, she sent
for Lord Ruthven, its provost, and charged him to put down
the spirit of change. “I have power,” said Ruthven, “over
the bodies of the citizens, but none over their consciences.”
The queen told him he was too malapert to give her such
an answer, and dismissed him in anger.” As Easter was
approaching, she despatched able men to Montrose, Dundee,
and Perth, to persuade the populace to keep the festival with
the usual solemnities; but their persuasions were powerless,
and high mass was celebrated with few to join in it.” Failing
in argument, she had recourse to violence, and summoned all
the preachers in the kingdom to compear at Stirling on the
Ioth of May.* They resolved to obey, and the gentry re-
solved to accompany them, not armed, but still determined to
protect men whom they deemed to be innocent. Angus and
Mearns were especially forward in this demonstration, and
when the gentlemen from these counties arrived at Perth, they
sent Erskine of Dun on to Stirling before them, to explain the
cause of their coming. The regent got alarmed—for she
seems in every menacing emergency to have had a woman’s
fears—and persuaded Dun to write to his friends to disperse,
and that the summons would be withdrawn. In consequence
of this, the preachers and their friends resolved to remain at
Perth, and proceed no farther south. The Ioth of May came,
no preachers appeared, and the queen, forgetting her promise,
commanded them to be “put to the horn ?–a Scottish law-
phrase, signifying “they should be declared rebels by the sound
of the horn"—and all men prohibited, under pain of high
treason, from holding any communication with them. The
Laird of Dun, disgusted at the royal perfidy, left Stirling, and
posted back to his friends in Perth.”
* Knox's History, book ii. Keith, book i. chap. viii. 2 Ibid.
* Knox's History, book ii.
* Lesley says that Knox, Willock, Douglas, and Methven, only were
summoned. (De Rebus, &c., lib. x.) It is probable there were not
many more professed preachers in the whole country.
* Knox's History, book ii. Spottiswood, lib. iii. Keith, &c.
256 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
At this critical moment John Knox appeared. In the
November of the preceding year he had received letters
earnestly urging him to return, and taking a second leave of
his friends at Geneva he began his journey homewards. He
begged permission to pass through England, but he had
recently published his “First Blast of the Trumpet against
the monstrous Regiment of Women ;” and though all the
world knew it was Mary he attacked, Elizabeth felt that the
argument applied to herself, and she could never forgive the
writer of that tract. She refused him a passport.” Forced to
proceed by sea, he landed at Leith, and after spending two
days in Edinburgh, he hurried first to Dundee and then to
Perth, where the Protestantism of the country was concen-
tred, and arrived just when men's minds were in the greatest
ferment, on account of their preachers being put to the horn.
Proceeding to the church, he thundered against idolatry.
The excitement of the period gave additional vehemence to
his oratory, and he seemed like another Demosthenes, “wield-
ing at will” the mighty multitude who had assembled to hear
him. The sermon being done, the Crowd dispersed, and only
a few loiterers remained in the church, when a priest with
inconceivable imprudence uncovered a rich altar-piece, de-
corated with images, and proceeded to celebrate mass. A lad
standing by told him this was not to be borne, and the priest in
anger struck him. The lad seized a stone, and threw it, but it
missed the priest and smashed to pieces one of the images.
It was the signal for the demolition of many a gorgeous altar
and stately monastery. The on-lookers took part with the
boy, a religious fury took hold of the people who came flock-
ing back to the building, and in a few minutes every chapel
was ransacked, every virgin, apostle, and Saint broken to
pieces, and the whole costly furniture of the church scattered
in fragments on the floor. In a twinkling the whole city
heard of what had been done ; and a mob, still under the
excitement of the sermon, began to assemble. The Cry was
given — “To the monasteries 1 ° and in a short time the
monasteries of the Black and Grey Friars were in ruins. The
cry was next raised—“To the Charter House !” and soon
of that magnificent structure there were left only the bare
walls.”?
When the regent heard of these outrages she was violently
* Knox's Letter to Cecil, Dieppe, Ioth April 1559.
* Lesley, lib. x. Knox, book ii.
A. D. 1559.] TREATY OF PERTH. 257
incensed, and is said to have vowed that she would raze the
sacrilegious city to the ground, and sow its foundations with
salt in sign of perpetual desolation. In a few days she was in
its neighbourhood with a considerable military following. The
citizens shut the gates, and directed letters to the queen-
regent, the nobility, and “to the generation of Antichrist, the
pestilent prelates, and their shavelings within Scotland.””
These letters proved that they were perfectly ripe for rebel-
lion. The regent at first was unwilling to treat; but Glen-
cairn, with upwards of two thousand followers, had made his
way by forced marches and mountain roads to Perth, and
threw a preponderating weight into the Protestant scale. It
was finally agreed that both armies should be disbanded, and
the town left open to the queen ; that none of the inhabitants
should be molested on account of their religion; that no
French soldiers should enter the town ; and that all other con-
troversies should be referred to the next parliament.” In con-
sequence of this treaty, the Congregation left Perth the day
after it was concluded, but not till they had entered into a
second bond or “Covenant ’’ for mutual support and defence,
which was subscribed by the Earls of Argyll and Glencairn,
Lords Boyd and Ochiltree, the Prior of St Andrews, generally
called the Lord James, and Campbell of Taringhame.*
The queen had no sooner got possession of Perth than she
violated the treaty she had subscribed. She removed the Pro-
testant magistrates from their Offices, and substituted Papists
in their room : she took steps toward the restoration of the
Roman worship, and introduced a garrison, not indeed of
French soldiers, but of Scotchmen in the pay of France, and
who were therefore quite as odious to the citizens. The Earl
of Argyll and the Lord James, anxious to suppress rebellion,
had hitherto remained with the regent, but now they were so
shocked at her want of faith that they withdrew, and repaired
to St Andrews, where a great muster of the Congregation was
about to be held. Other influential nobles followed their
example.
Meanwhile Knox was not idle. Passing into Fife, he
preached first at Crail and afterwards at Anstruther, and in
both places his preaching was followed by the overturning of
1. Knox's History, book ii.
* These letters are given at length in Knox's History.
* Knox's History, book ii. Keith, book i. chap. viii,
* Both Knox and Keith give this document in full.
R
258 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
altars and the breaking of images. Cupar had already fol-
lowed the example set by Perth; and the poor priest was so
distressed that he committed suicide. It was on Friday and
Saturday that Knox preached in Crail and Anstruther, and he
had arranged to preach at St Andrews on the Sunday. The
archbishop, hearing this, got alarmed for his noble cathedral
church, and came to St Andrews on Saturday night, accom-
panied with a hundred spears. A message was sent to Knox,
that if he should attempt preaching on the morrow a dozen
hackbuts would be levelled at his head, or, as it was phrased,
“would light upon his nose.” In these circumstances, he was
strongly advised to abandon his design. But the fearless
Reformer had long looked forward to preaching once more in
the place where he had first been called to the ministry of the
Word ; the hope of it had solaced him while toiling in the
galleys; he had foretold it when the tower of St Regulus had
gleamed on his view far over the wave; and now, when his
fondest wishes were about to be realised, he would not draw
back for fear of man. The archbishop finding that Knox was
determined, and that the inhabitants of the town were friendly
to him, left on the Sunday morning, and repaired to Falkland,
where the queen was. Knox preached in the cathedral church,
and ancient memories gave an impassioned tone to his elo-
qucnce. Christ driving out the traffickers from the temple was
the subject of his discourse, and the magistrates as well as the
mob, understanding his arguillents and hcated by his fire,
proceeded immediately after sermon to destroy the Dominican
and Franciscan monasteries, and to rifle and deface all the
churches in the town.]
The queen, full of grief and indignation, determined to
march at once against the rioters. The armed members of
the Congregation were not numerous, and they might have
been taken by surprise; but the moment danger was antici-
pated, partizans flocked in from every quarter ; “men,”
according to Knox, “seemed to rain from the clouds; ” and
encamping on Cupar Moor, midway between Falkland and
St Andrews, they bid defiance to the queen's army. As both
parties were unwilling to come to blows, a truce was agreed
upon, and the queen promised in the course of a few days to
send Commissioners to St Andrews to arrange an armistice.
But day after day passed ; no commissioners came ; and it
began to be suspected, as indeed it was manifest, that the
* Knox, book ii.
A.D. 1559.] ABBEY OF SCONE. 259
queen only wished to gain time. The Congregation could not
afford to be idle, as their array was liable to melt away, and
therefore, facing northwards, they marched upon Perth, the
garrison of which they compelled to surrender."
About three miles west from Perth, upon ground gently
sloping down to the Tay, stood the Abbey of Scone. It was
venerable in the eyes of every Scotchman, as the place where
the kings of Scotland had from time immemorial been crowned;
and though robbed by Edward of its famous black stone,
fabled to be the one upon which Jacob had pillowed his head
at Bethel, enough remained to throw a peculiar interest around
it. The Bishop of Moray was at this time Commendator of
Scone, and resided there. He was a man of licentious manners,
and had rendered himself obnoxious to the men of Perth and
Dundee ; but now, when his abbey was threatened, he became
obsequious even to meanness, promised to send his followers
to join those of the Congregation, and to vote on their side in
the approaching parliament. All would not do: the “rascal
multitude” poured from the city toward the abbey; and
though Knox and other leading men of the Congregation
hurried after them, and attempted to stay their fury, they suc-
ceeded only for a day. On the second day the torch was
applied, and soon the beautiful house in which our fathers had
worshipped and our monarchs had been crowned was burned
up with fire.” .
Only a day after this, the mob at Stirling, incited by the
presence of the Earl of Argyll and Lord James Stewart,
attacked and destroyed the monasteries in the town ; and
then proceeding to the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, which
lifted up its lofty walls amid the windings of the Forth, and
was everywhere visible from the rich corn-fields of the Carse,
they left it nearly as we now find it—an utter desolation.
Flushed with these victories over the monuments of idolatry
and architecture, the Congregation resolved to march upon
Edinburgh. On their way they purged Linlithgow of its idols;
and reaching the capital, from which the regent retreated on
their approach, they finished what the mob had left undone
in plundering Holyrood, destroying the convents, and clearing
the churches of their altars and images.” The example was
infectious, and spread fast and far. The Abbeys of Paisley,
... Knox, book ii. , Lesley. Keith. * Knox's History, book ii.
* Keith, book i. chap. viii. Knox, book ii. Lesley, lib. x.
26o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
Kilwinning, and Dunfermline were attacked, and all their
“popish stuff.” burned."
Tradition has ascribed to Knox the party-cry, “Down with
the crows' nests, or the crows will build in them again.”
Whether true or not, it is like the man, and like his manner
of going to work. Indicating great insensibility to the
aesthetical, it shows a far-reaching policy. The wise captain,
when he ferretted out the robber, destroyed his fortalice, that
he might never harbour in it again. On the same principle,
the Reformer, when he had ousted the monks, destroyed their
monasteries. We would we had restored some of our ruined
Castles, to crown our crags, if we could have them without
bandits; and we would we had still every one of our abbeys,
if we had them without Benedictines or Augustinians, Fran-
ciscans, Carmelites, or Dominicans. But if the refuge and
the rogue must go together, we would rather want robbers and
picturesque castles, monks, and Gothic monasteries. Was it
possible to destroy the one and preserve the other? Perhaps
it was ; but the usual tactics of war is to destroy everything
which shelters the enemy; and the Reformation was a death-
war against monachism. Who would put possibilities against
the maxims of a universal policy? But might not every monu-
ment of Superstition have been destroyed, and the bare build-
ings themselves been preserved to lodge a purer religion?
Perhaps they might; but could the rabble which followed
in the trail of the Congregation be expected to do just what
was needful, and nothing more? As well try to keep a fierce
Soldiery in check when sacking a city. Every revolution must
have its excesses. It is, indeed, impossible to read without a
pang of the demolition of the Charter-House at Perth, and the
burning of the Abbey at Scone; but our grief will subside
when we reflect that a more glorious temple, built of living
stones, has risen upon their ruins. But withal let no man
indulge in imaginary sorrows, or dream that every ruined
Cathedral, abbey, and church which he sees, was reduced
1 Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 468. See also Letters of Bishop Jewel
to Peter Martyr—“All the monasteries are everywhere levelled with the
ground, the theatrical dresses, the sacrilegious chalices, the idols and
the altars are consigned to the flames, not a vestige of the ancient
superstition and idolatry left.” London, August Ist, 1559. Zurich
Letters. Parker Society.
* Row's History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 12. Spottiswood’s History,
lib. ii.
A.D. 1559.] MUTUAL RECRIMINATIONS. 26 I
to its present desolation by the Reformers. War, time,
neglect, and the barbarity of making grand old buildings
quarries out of which to erect mean modern Ones, have done
far more than John Knox toward reducing our religious houses
to the state of ruin in which we now find too many of them.
And England must bear more than half the shame, for the
border abbeys, the noblest of all, were destroyed by the Eng-
glish army under Hertford.
After the retreat of the queen-regent, and the occupation
of the capital by the Congregation, both parties gave vent to
mutual recriminations and reproaches. The regent issued
proclamations, and the Congregation answered them. The
regent accused the Congregation of rebellion and treason; the
Congregation declared they wished nothing more than the
reformation of religion and the expulsion of the French.” On
the one side, it was industriously whispered that the Prior of
St Andrews, notwithstanding his bastard blood, aspired to the
throne; on the other, it was rumoured that the French had
already parcelled out the country amongst them, and that one
already rejoiced in the title of Monsieur d’Argyll, another of
Monsieur de Prior, a third of Monsieur de Ruthven.” The
known ambition and abilities of the young Lord James gave
a colour of probability to what was said of him, and some
even of the Congregation believed it. Jealousies arose; un-
comfortable feelings about the end of traitors were experi-
enced, though not confessed; barons began to slip away
home; and the military muster to dissolve like frost-work in
the Sun. The regent, knowing this state of matters, marched
upon Edinburgh, and the Congregation were glad to accept of
the following terms of accommodation : “That, on the one
side, the Congregation evacuate the capital, deliver up the dies
of the mint, which they had seized, submit themselves to the
authority of the king, queen, and regent, refrain from molest-
ing ecclesiastics or hindering them in the lifting of their rents,
and finally, cease from casting down religious houses, or strip-
ping them of their furniture; and on the other side, that the
citizens of Edinburgh should be allowed to choose their own
religion, without being overawed by a garrison, and that the
Protestant preachers should everywhere have full liberty of
* Truulaluation by Regent, and Answer by the Congregation, July 1559,
published at length by Keith, book i. chap. ix.
* Knox’s History, book ii.
262 . CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
speech.” These terms were subscribed on the 24th of July,
and were to hold good till the Ioth of January following.”
Driven from Edinburgh, the Protestants sought refuge in
Stirling, where a third bond or “Covenant” was subscribed, in
which the barons pledged themselves not to treat separately
with the regent.” It was meant as a counter-check to the
queen, who had been tampering with individuals, and attempt-
ing to detach them from the cause.
In the meantime, Henry II. died, slain in joisting with
Count Montgomery, and Francis and Mary were now King
and Queen of France. They were scarcely seated on the
throne when they each wrote to the Prior of St Andrews, re-
minding him of the favours he had received at their hands,
upbraiding him with ingratitude, want of natural affection, and
treason, but leaving him place for repentance. The prior
replied that he had done nothing against God or their
Majesties, and that all he desired was a reformation of the
Church.” But it could scarcely be hoped that threaten-
ing epistles could turn the tide of revolution. A large
detachment of French auxiliaries arrived at Leith. Following
in their train came a more peaceful band—the Bishop of
Amiens as legate from the Pope, and three doctors of the Sor-
bonne. The soldiers began to fortify Leith, the bishop to
purify the Church of St Giles from heretical pollutions, and
the doctors to confute the heretics.” But notwithstanding the
lustrations of the legate, and the reasonings of the Sorbonnists,
the citizens refused to give up their High Church; and John
Meanwhile the country was traversed by preachers, uttering
fierce invectives against the regent and the Pope.” The regent
complained of the language they used. “They merely pro-
claim and cry,” said Knox, “that the same God who plagued
Pharaoh, repulsed Sennacherib, struck Herod with worms, and
made the bellies of dogs the grave and sepulchre of the spite-
ful Jezebel, will not spare misled princes, who authorise the
murderers of Christ's members in this our time.” “On this
manner,” said he, “they speak of princes in general, and of
* Keith, book i. chap. ix. Lesley, lib. x.
* It will be found at length in both Keith and Knox.
* Lesley, De Rebus, &c., lib. x., where a copy of the letters of Francis
and Mary is given, and an outline of the prior's reply. Keith's History,
book i. chap. ix.
* Lesley, De Rebus, &c.
* Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 433.
A.D. 1559.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 263
your Majesty in particular.” But why should preachers
meddle with State policy at all? said the regent. Again
Knox had his answer: “Elias did personally reprove Ahab
and Jezebel of idolatry, of avarice, of murder: Esaias the
prophet called the magistrates of Jerusalem, in his time, com-
panions to thieves, princes of Sodom, bribe-takers, and mur-
derers; he complained that their silver was turned into dross,
that their wine was mingled with water, and that justice was
bought and sold : Jeremiah said that the bones of King
Jehoiakim should wither with the sun : Christ Jesus called
Herod a fox : and Paul calleth a high-priest a painted wall,
and prayeth unto God that he should smite him, because that
against justice he had commanded him to be smitten.” This
was plain and not very pleasant language to be used by a
preacher to a lady and a queen.
But the Lords of the Congregation now began to feel the
need of exterior aid, and that, if England did not help them,
their enterprise must fail. At the same time Elizabeth began
to see that if she did not act energetically, Scotland might be
filled with Frenchmen, who would march into England and
topple her from her throne.
Towards the end of June and beginning of July, communi-
cations affecting matters in Scotland had passed between
Kirkaldy of Grange, Sir Henry Percy, and Sir William Cecil,
Queen Elizabeth's clear-seeing Secretary. On the 19th of
July, the Lords of the Congregation wrote to Cecil, referring
to these, explaining their views, and soliciting his assistance.”
As Knox was indispensable to the negotiations with the
English government, he thought it right to make an effort to
propitiate Elizabeth, whom he had grievously offended by his
“Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” On the
20th of July, he wrote Secretary Cecil, enclosing a letter for
the queen, in which he deprecated her resentment, expressed
his attachment to her person and government, but still honestly
confessed his adherence to the general principles contained in
his book, and warned her not to brag of her birth, or build
her authority on changing laws, but on the eternal providence
of Him who, contrary to nature and above her desserts, had
exalted her head. Cecil answered his letters on the 28th,
oddly beginning his note with the text, “There is neither.
male nor female, but we are all one in Christ,” and then
* Knox's History, book ii. .
* This letter will be found in Knox's History, book iii.
264 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
passing on to other matters." The truth is, Knox had com-
mitted an unpardonable sin, and Elizabeth could never bear
him. Cecil, in one of his letters to Sadler and Crofts, some
months afterwards, declares, “ of all others, Knox's name, if
it be not Goodman's, is most odious here; and therefore I
wish no mention of him hither.”” On the same day on which
Cecil wrote to Knox, he wrote to the Lords of the Congrega-
tion, hinting that, as they must be in want of money, they
should appropriate the revenues of the Church, “putting
good things to good uses.” ” -
Though Knox was no favourite at the English court, he
could not well be wanted as a negotiator; and on the 3d of
August we find him at Berwick, closeted with Sir James
Crofts, the governor, suggesting that Stirling Castle should be
seized and strongly garrisoned; that Broughty Castle should,
in like manner, be occupied; that, in order to do this, money
to pay the troops must be furnished by England, ships of war
must be ready to give assistance in case of need, and pensions
allowed to some of the reforming barons who were hard up
for cash.* About the middle of August Sir Ralph Sadler,
than whom there was no one more intimately acquainted with
Scotch affairs, arrived at Berwick to watch the movements of
the Congregation, and treat with their emissaries. From this
time, everything that happened in Scotland was made known
to Sadler, and by Sadler communicated to Cecil. Randolph
had come into Scotland to spy the land, and he writes; Bal-
naves writes; and Knox writes. Knox assumed the name of
Sinclair—his mother's name—in his correspondence ; and in
a letter of date the 21st of September, he again tells Sadler
that, unless some support were given to certain of the lords,
they must, through extreme poverty, remain at home, and take
* Copies of these three letters are given in Knox's History, book iii.
Tytler, however, has shown that the dates there given are wrong, and
that those here given are the correct ones. -
* Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 532. Goodman was an Englishman,
who fled the country during the reign of Queen Mary, and, when at
Geneva, published a book entitled, “How Superior Powers ought to be
obeyed of their Subjects, and wherein they may lawfully be disobeyed
and rejected,” &c. In this book he rails, like Knox, against the govern-
ment of women ; therefore Elizabeth’s hate.
* MS. in State-Paper Office. -
* MS. in State-Paper Office. In the Calendars of State Papers there
is a summary of many documents throwing interesting light upon these
transactions.
A.D. 1559.] PLANS AND PROJECTS. . 265
no part in the warlike movements that were contemplated.”
The individuals referred to, as Sadler informs Cecil, were
Glencairn, Dun, Grange, and Ormiston.” It was money, in
fact, that the Lords of the Congregation chiefly wanted—
money to pay their mercenaries, and money to support their
own state as feudal barons with a feudal following. Elizabeth
was parsimonious, and did not like to part with her money;
but, overcome by the urgency of the case, she repeatedly sent
considerable sums to the Reformers, under the pledge that the
strictest secrecy would be observed as to the source from which
they had come.” .
But the most interesting inquiry remains—What were the
objects which the Congregation had in view, and what was the
policy of the English government in assisting them P These
we are able minutely to trace. On the very day after the
Congregation entered Edinburgh, Sir William
July I, I559. Rirkaldy of Grange wrote to Sir Henry Percy—
“I received your letter this last of June, perceiving thereby
the doubt and suspicion you stand in for the coming forward
of the Congregation, whom, I assure you, you need not have
in suspicion, for they mean nothing but reformation of religion,
which shortly, throughout the realm, they will bring to pass;
for the Queen and Monsieur D'Osell, with all the Frenchmen,
for refuge, are retired to Dunbar. The foresaid Congregation
came this last of June, by three of the clock, to Edinburgh,
where they will take order for the maintenance of the true
religion, and resisting of the King of France if he sends any
force against them. . . . . The manner of their proceeding in
reformation is this, they pull down all manner of friaries and
some abbeys, which willingly receive not the Reformation.
As to parish churches, they cleanse them of images and all
other monuments of idolatry, and command that no masses be
said in them ; in place thereof the book set forth by godly
King Edward is read in the same churches. They have never
as yet meddled with a pennyworth of that which pertains to
the Church, but presently they will take order throughout all
the parts where they dwell, that all the fruits of the abbeys
and other churches shall be kept and bestowed upon the
faithful ministers, until such time as a farther order be taken.
* Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 455.
* Sadler’s State Papers, vol. i. p. 469. Sadler, in mentioning Glencairn,
somewhat piteously says, “he is indeed a puir man.”
* Sadler's State Papers, vol. i., passim.
266 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X,
Some suppose the queen, seeing no other remedy, will follow
their desires, which is a general reformation throughout the
whole realm, conform to the pure Word of God, and the
Frenchmen to be sent away. If her Grace will do so, they
will obey her and serve her, and annex the whole revenues of
the abbeys to the crown; if her Grace will not be content
with this, they are determined to hear of no argument.”
Such were the views of the leaders of the Congregation on
the 1st of July. By the 19th of the same month they have
advanced a step farther. In a letter to Cecil, and in answer
to the question, “What the Protestants within this realm do
mean?” They say, “True it is, that as yet we have made no
mention of any change in authority, neither yet were we
minded to do any such thing, till extreme necessity compelleth
us thereto ; but seeing it is now more than evident that France,
and the queen-regent here, with her priests, pretend nothing
but the suppressing of Christ's gospel, the ruin of us, and the
subversion of this poor realm, committing our innocency to
God, and unto the judgment of all godly and wise men, we
are determined to seek the remedy, in which we heartily re-
quire your counsel and assistance.” By the 19th of August
this plan is assuming a definite shape, for on that day Argyll
and the Lord James, in name of their brethren, write to the
English secretary—“We cease not to provoke all men to
favour our cause, and of our nobility we have established a
council; but suddenly to discharge this authority [evidently
the regent's], till that ye and we be fully accorded, it is not
thought expedient.” By the 8th of September the scheme
was ripe. “Whatever pretence they make,” writes Sadler to
Cecil, “the principal mark they shoot at is, as Balnaves saith,
to make an alteration of the state and authority, to the extent
that the same being established as they desire, they may then
enter into open treaty with her Majesty, as the case may re-
quire. This, he saith, is very secret ; and if the Duke will
take it upon him, they mean to bestow it there ; or, if he
refuse, his son is as meet, or more meet for the purpose.”4
The Lords of the Congregation had now hit upon the plan
of all most agreeable to Elizabeth, Her policy was not to
1 MS. Letter, State-Paper Office.
* Knox's History, book iii. Knox dates the letter on the 27th ; we
have already referred to this as a mistake. .
* MS., State-Paper Office.
* Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i. p. 433.
A.D. 1559.] THE COMING MAN. 267
reform religion, especially according to Knox's views, but to
lessen French influence in Scotland ; and there was no more
effectual way of doing this than by depriving Mary of Guise
of her regency. During the month of August, Cecil's and
Sadler's letters are full of mysterious references to the arrival
of the Earl of Arran. This young nobleman had held the com-
mand of the Scots Guard at Paris, but becoming suspected of
heresy, he had fled to Geneva, and now he was passing through
England on his way home. He entered Scotland in disguise
under the name of Beaufort, accompanied by Randolph, who
rejoiced in the name of Barnabie. This M. de Beaufort was
the regent to be. It was even hoped he would soon be the
husband of Elizabeth, and that thus the kingdoms would be
united under a Protestant house, and the Catholic Mary cast
overboard. His presence at Hamilton was soon seen in his
influence over his vacillating father, whose conduct for some
time had been dubious, though he was generally understood to
lean to the regent; but now, turning Protestant once more, he
threw in his lot with the Congregation. The plans thus secretly
formed soon began to develop themselves.
In 1559 the harvest in Scotland was unusually late, and
before it was well gathered in the Congregation was in
motion." On the 18th of October they entered Edinburgh,
and the regent, upon their approach, left Holyrood, and
retired within the fortifications at Leith. Rumours had got
afloat that Chastelherault had joined the Protestants to cheat
Lord James of the crown, and take it to himself. He purged
himself with sound of trumpet at the market-cross.” On the
19th a message was sent to the regent, requiring her to send
all Frenchmen furth the realm. The regent refused to accede
to a demand, which, she said, was more like that of a r ince
to his subjects, than of subjects to a prince.” On the 21st
the barons and their preachers assembled in the Tolbooth.
No less weighty a matter than the deposition of the regent
was debated. The preachers were required to give their
opinion, and John Willock stood up. He argued that, albeit
magistrates were the ordinance of God, they might upon good
cause be removed, and that God had frequently raised up
men to cut off wicked monarchs, “as by Asa he removed
* When urged to activity, they plcadcd harvest operatious as the cause
of delay. (Sadler's State Papers, vol. i.)
* Keith's Hist, book i. chap. ix. Knox's Hist., book ii.
* Keith's Hist., book i. chap. ix.
268 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
Maacha, his own mother, from honour and authority; by
Jehu he destroyed Joram, and the whole posterity of Ahab.”
Knox followed and concurred." The plan had been deter-
mined upon a month ago; the preachers had been required
to speak only that they might give to it the sanction of reli-
gion, and a deed was drawn depriving the regent of her
office. The barons alleged that they took this decisive step
in virtue of their being born-counsellors of the realm, but how
many of the oligarchy had part in it we cannot discover, as,
instead of appending their names individually to the deed of
deprivation, they, strangely enough, made it to run in the
name of “Us, the nobility and commons of the Protestants
of the Church of Scotland.” ” -
The siege of Leith was now begun. An attempt was made
to scale its walls and take it by storm, but utterly failed. On
the 6th of November a convoy with provisions was seen
approaching the city, and the garrison sallied out to cut it off.
The Earl of Arran and the Lord James, with a band of fol-
lowers, made for the rescue, and charged the French with
such impetuosity that they got entangled in the marshy
ground between Holyrood and Restalrig, and made a narrow
escape of being surrounded and cut to pieces. A panic
seized upon the city. Lord Erskine held the castle ; his
policy was doubtful, and men with pale faces whispered
that he might bring the guns of the fortress to bear upon
them. A flight was determined upon, and at midnight the
members of the Congregation were crowding out of the city-
gates and taking the road to Stirling. Then it was seen how
many there are ready to change with the change of circum-
stances, and ever to keep on the winning side. Two days ago
all Edinburgh seemed Protestant ; “but now,” says Knox, in
dolour of heart, “the despiteful tongues of the wicked railed
upon us, calling us traitors and heretics; every one provoked
the other to cast stones at us.” The Congregation were hooted
and pelted as they left the city.
Arrived at Stirling, the lords took counsel together as to
what was to be done. It was plain that their raw musters
could not cope with the disciplined soldiery of France, and
that unless Elizabeth sent men and munitions of war, as well
as money, to their aid, they must be crushed. Young Mait-
* Knox's Hist., book ii.
* The deed of deprivation is given by Knox at length. Hist., book ii.
* Knox's History, book ii.
A.D. 1559.] T)IPLOMACY. 269
land of Lethington had recently deserted the regent, and
joined their cause. He was despatched to the English court.
In the meantime, as the Reforming barons could easiest main-
tain themselves each in his own country, they resolved to
divide — Chastelherault, Glencairn, Boyd, and Ochiltree,
marched upon Glasgow ; Arran, Rothes, the Lord James,
and the Master of Lindsay, retired into Fife. Henry Balnaves
was attached as secretary to the western division; John Knox
to the eastern. At Glasgow, Chastelherault was not idle. He
purged the churches of their idols, seized upon the archiepis-
copal palace, and published proclamations in the name of the
king and the queen ; but a detachment of French from Edin-
burgh brought his procedure to an abrupt conclusion.
Elizabeth was most anxious to assist the insurgents, but was
at a loss how to do it, as the kingdoms were at peace. In the
month of October, Knox had proposed to Sir James Crofts
that a thousand men or more should be sent into Scotland,
and that so soon as they joined the Congregation they should
be declared rebels, as if they had left England without the
consent of the government. Crofts declared that such a pro-
ceeding would not blind the world, and would touch the hon-
our of his prince." Cecil was delighted with the rebuke which
the diplomatist had administered to the preacher.” But as
the emergency became greater, it was felt that something must
be done, under whatever pretence. Cecil had already sent
down to Scotland minute instructions as to the precise way in
which all applications for assistance should be made. The
only subject to be insisted upon was that the French, by con-
quering Scotland, would endanger England and Ireland. In
the instructions given to Lethington for his conduct at the
English Court, this programme of procedure was faithfully
observed, so that when Maitland spoke, Elizabeth could only
hear the echo of her own voice.” The result of all this
crooked diplomacy was, that a secret treaty was concluded at
* Keith gives both these letters in his Appendix. Knox signs himself
John Sinclair.
* “Surely I like not Knox's audacity, which was well tamed in your
answer. His writings do no good here, and therefore I do rather sup-
press them, and yet I mean not but that he should continue in sending
...) (Cecil to Sadler and Crofts. Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i.
p. 535.
* Compare letter of Cecil to Sadler and Crofts of 12th November, with
instructions given to Lethington, 25th November 1559. (Sadler's State
Papers, &c., vol. i.)
27,o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
Berwick between Elizabeth and the Lords of the Congrega-
tion, in which she undertook to assist them in expelling the
French.
After the retreat of the Protestants from the capital, the
French marched into Fife. Proceeding along the coast, they
observed some large ships of war bearing up the Frith. At
first they imagined them to be from France with auxiliary
troops, and gave them a Salute, but it soon became plain that
they were English vessels, whatever might be the design of
their coming. The admiral said he had been sent in quest of
some pirates, and wished to skulk for a time in the Frith that
he might unexpectedly pounce upon them ; but nobody
believed him, and the French instantly began their retreat.
The English fleet was soon followed by an English army, and
in the month of April 1560, Leith found itself besieged for the
second time. Elizabeth and Cecil had frequently upbraided
the Scots for their dilatoriness and want of success during the
previous siege. They now found it was not so easy as they
had supposed to enter a town lying to the sea, strongly fortified,
and defended by veteran troops. Batteries were opened,
skirmishes fought, an escalade attempted, but still Leith was
not taken. But hope did not fail; the treaty of Berwick was
renewed and confirmed ; and the Lords of the Congregation
put their names to a fourth Covenant, in which they pledged
themselves to pursue their object to the last extremity, to be
enemies to enemies, and friends to friends."
Upon the approach of the English army the queen-regent
retired within the Castle of Edinburgh, into which Lord
Erskine willingly received her. Worn out with grief, swollen
and breathless from dropsy, she knew she was dying. Feeling
her end to be near, she expressed a wish to have an interview
with some of the confederate lords, and accordingly the Duke
of Chastelherault, the Earls of Argyll, Marischal, and Glen-
cairn, and the Lord James Stuart, waited upon her in her sick
room. She declared to them how she had loved Scotland—
how she had lamented the troubles that had arisen—how
earnestly she desired peace. She recommended them to send
both the French and the English troops out of the country,
but at the same time to preserve inviolate their ancient alliance
with France, as her daughter, their queen, was now united in
marriage with its monarch. She at last burst into tears, asked
pardon of all whom she had in any way offended, and declared
* Knox's Hist., book iii. Keith, book i. chap. xi.
A.D. 1560.] DEATH OF THE QUEEN-REGENT. 27 I
that from her heart she forgave those who had offended her.
Composing herself a little, she kissed the nobles one by one,
and held out her hand to be kissed by the attendants who
happened to be in the room. The rough barons were deeply
moved, and, sincere in their religious convictions, they pro-
posed that John Willock should be sent for to prepare her for
death. The Catholic queen agreed to receive the Protestant
preacher, and Willock came. He spoke to her of the merits
of Christ, and the abominations of the mass. She declared
that her only hope was in Christ, but regarding the mass she
was silent. The next day she died.” .
We cannot help loving Mary of Lorraine, albeit she was a
Papist and a Guise. No Frenchwoman, before or since, ever
became so naturalised to Scotland as she, though she never
understood the rough temper of its people. Brought from the
most dissolute court in Europe, her Court was an example to
every household in the kingdom. Admired for her beauty and
wit in the brilliant circle of Francis I., she had adapted herself
to her altered circumstances, both as wife and widow, and
made her husband's country her own. She herself was accus-
tomed to visit the sick and the poor, and with womanly
kindness relieve them. Justice was never more strictly ad-
ministered than during her government. But she was fated
to live in troublous times, and when her subjects changed
their religion she could not change hers. A collision became
inevitable between a government still Catholic, a church still
Catholic, and a nobility turned Protestant. Instead of marvel-
ling at this, it were wiser to marvel that the collision was not
more violent than it was, and that so great a revolution was
effected with so little loss of blood. It was not to be expected
that she should be able to free herself of French influences,
more especially considering that her daughter the Queen of
Scotland was Dauphiness of France. The only thing for
which we find it hard to forgive her was her frequent viola-
tions of solemn promises. The truth is, that when affairs were
threatening the woman got alarmed, and made promises which
she broke when the danger was past. A resolute man would
not have made the promises, and would not have been taunted
for breaking them. But her death-scene covers all. She
begged our forgiveness—shall we refuse to give it? Knox did
not forgive her; and we are ashamed to writc that a vindictive
intolerance followed her to the grave. “Question being
* Lesley. Knox. Spottiswood. Keith, &c., &c.
272 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
moved about her burial,” says he,” “the preachers boldly
gainstood that any superstitious rites should be used in that
realm, which God of His mercy had begun to purge. Her .
burial was deferred till further advisement; and so she was
laid in a coffin of lead, and kept in the castle from the Ioth of
June till the 19th of October, when she was carried by some
pioneers to a ship.” In this vessel she was carried over the
troubled, restless sea to France, and buried in the Benedictine
Monastery of St Peter's, at Rheims, of which her sister Renée
was the abbess ; and where she herself had desired that her
ashes might repose.
Thus lived, died, and was buried, Mary of Lorraine, Dowa-
ger Duchess of Longueville, and Queen Regent of Scotland.
It is known that Henry of England wanted her to wife, as he
had heard much of her large and comely person ; and refused
to be satisfied even when he heard of her betrothal to his
nephew in Scotland.” How would it have fared with her had
she gone to England P Would she have shared the fate of the
other wives, or would her personal charms and Guisean ways
have turned the heart of the king and stayed the Refor-
mation ? *
Before the death of the regent both France and England
had become earnestly desirous of peace ; and in the month of
|May commissioners had been appointed to adjust its terms.
But there were grave difficulties in the way, as the negotia.
tions must include, in some way or other, not only England
and France, but the Lords of the Congregation, who had been
in open rebellion against their natural sovereign. The firm-
ness of Cecil got rid of the difficulty, and a treaty was agreed
upon, in which was embraced all that France and England
desired ; while at the same time the safety of the Lords of the
Congregation was guaranteed, and the Reformation of re-
ligion in Scotland, though not mentioned, virtually secured.”
The chief articles of this important treaty, so far as it referred
to Scotland, were:—That both the French and the English
* Knox's History, book iii. Randolph wrote to Killigrew that the corpse
was treated with the greatest respect, and that it should receive all sol-
emnities excepting such as savoured of superstition. June 20th, 1560.
State Papers.
* Carte's Hist., vol. iii. p. 152. Tytler's Hist., chap. ix. -
* As the queen had not given her commissioners any instructions to
treat upon these two last points, she refused to ratify the treaty so far
as it had reference to them. Nevertheless the treaty was acted upon,
as if it were good in every respect.
A.D. 1560.] TREATY OF LEITH. 273
troops should be withdrawn; that an act of oblivion should be
passed for all offences committed between the 6th of March
I558 and the 1st of August 1560 ; that the barons and com-
monality of the realm should bear no quarrels against each
other for anything done during that period ; that those who
had possessions or benefices in France should have them
restored ; that all ecclesiastics who had received injuries
during the commotions should receive redress, and that they
should not now be hindered in lifting their rents; that the
government should, in the meantime, be conducted by a
council of twelve, seven of whom should be chosen by the
queen, and five by the Estates ; and that in the month of
August next a parliament should be held, for which a commis-
sion should be sent by the king and queen, and that this Con-
vention should be as lawful in all respects as if it had been
Ordained by the express command of their Majesties.
In this document the Reformation appears to be ignored,
and the Papacy protected. This arose from the desire of
Elizabeth to have it understood that she began the war, not
from religious considerations, but simply from a determination
to prevent the ascendancy of France in the island. The treaty
of Leith must be read by the light of the treaty of Ber-
wick. But the article which permitted the Scotch to hold a
parliament, put it in their power to effect a reformation in the
Church, if it were found that a majority of the representatives
of the nation desired it. The change from Prelacy to Presby-
terianism was afterwards effected in the same way, not by the
mandate of a monarch, not by an article in a treaty, but by a
vote in parliament; and of all possible modes it was the most
legitimate. On the 8th of July the peace was proclaimed at
the Market Cross of Edinburgh, and public thanks were given
to God in the church of St Giles.
The thoughts and desires of the nation were now concen-
trated upon the approaching parliament. According to the
specific terms of the treaty, it met on the Ioth of July, and
then adjourned to the 1st of August, to afford time for receiv-
ing a commission from the sovereigns. On the 1st of August
the Parliament House was unusually full, and a scrutiny of the
faces showed there were many there who had never sat in a
parliament before.1 In ancient times the whole landed pro-
prietors who held their estates directly by charter from the
* Keith, book i. chap. xii., gives the parliamentary roll. The new-
comers far outnumbered all the others. -
S
274 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
crown, as well as the titled nobility, possessed the privilege of
appearing in the legislature ; but the difficulty and expense of
travelling to the capital had prevented their regular attend-
ance, and for nearly a century their right had fallen into
abeyance. Now, upwards of a hundred of these appeared
and claimed their seats, and after some ineffectual opposition,
their claim was allowed. This secured an overwhelming
majority in favour of reform.
The next question debated was, whether or not they might
now proceed to business, seeing that no commission had as
yet been received from the queen. Some held that the want
of a commission was fatal to the parliament, others that the
terms of the treaty supplied the defect, and after a discussion
which lasted for a week, a vote was taken, and it was carried
that they should continue their sittings.” Maitland of Lething-
fon was chosen “harangue-maker,” and next were chosen the
Lords of the Articles, whose business it was to prepare the
measures to be brought before the Estates. When the election
was over the clergy declared that, of those taken from their body,
several were mere laics and all were apostates.” But remon-
strance was useless; the banks of the old mill-dam were bursting,
and it was already evident in what direction the flood would
flow, and what institutions would be swept away in its course.
These were but out-post skirmishes, and the great battle was
yet to be fought. A petition was presented in name of “the
barons, gentlemen, burgesses, and other true subjects of this
realm, professing the Lord Jesus within the same,” praying that
idolatry should be abolished, the Sacraments administered in
their original purity, the discipline of the ancient Church
restored, and the patrimony usurped by the Pope applied to
the maintenance of a true ministry, the founding of schools,
and the support of the poor. This document, which Knox
has preserved,” unfortunately abounds in coarse and unbecom-
ing language, for which we can scarcely find an apology in the
rudeness of the times. After some debate, the barons and
ministers who had presented the petition were called and
“commandment given unto them to draw into plain and several
heads, the sum of that doctrine which they would maintain,
and would desire the present parliament to establish as whole-
1 There is an excellent dissertation on this subject in Pinkerton's
History, vol. ii.
* Keith's History, book i. chap. xii. Tytler's History, vol. vi.
*Spottiswood, lib. iii. * History, book iii.
A.D. 1560.] THE REFORMED CONFESSION. 275
some, true, and only necessary to be believed, and to be
received within the realin.” The task was undertaken, and in
four days it was accomplished.
This Confession of Faith was contained in twenty-five
articles, treating respectively—of God ; Of the Creation of
Man; Of Original Sin ; Of the Revelation of the Promises ; Of
the Continuance, Increase, and Preservation of the Church ;
Of the Incarnation of Christ Jesus; Of why it behoveth the
Mediator to be Very God and Very Man; Of Election; Of
Christ's Death, Passion, and Burial; Of the Resurrection; Of
the Ascension; Of Faith in the Holy Ghost; Of the Cause of
Good Works; Of what Works are reputed good before God;
Of the Perfection of the Law and the Imperfection of Man ;
Of the Church; Of the Immortality of the Soul; Of the Notes
by which the True Church is Discerned from the False, and
who shall be Judge of the Doctrine; Of the Authority of
the Scriptures; Of General Councils, of their Power, Author-
ity, and cause of their Convention ; Of the Sacraments; Of
the Right Administration of the Sacraments; Of those to whom
Sacraments Appertain ; Of the Civil Magistrate; Of the Gifts
freely given to the Church. It is a clear and logical summary
of Calvinistic doctrine, more concise and less definite than the
Westminster Confession, but agreeing with it in every essential
respect.
It was first submitted to the Lords of the Articles, and
afterwards to the whole parliament, some of the ministers
attending to give any explanations that might be required, or
defend any of the doctrines that might be impugned.” In
order that so grave a matter might not be done hurriedly, an
adjournment took place to give time for reflection, and when
the parliament again met, the Confession was again read over
article by article. The vote was then taken which was to
decide the faith of many succeeding generations in Scotland.
Man by man was asked his opinion. Of the temporal peers
present, the Earls of Athole, Caithness, and Cassillis, and the
Lords Somerville and Borthwick, alone said “No” to the new
creed, declaring they would believe as their fathers believed.”
* Knox's History, book iii. 2 Ibid.
* Upon the authority of a letter from Randolph to Cecil, Tytler mentions
only Cassillis and Caithness as dissenting. Knox says that Athole, Somer-
ville, and Borthwick opposed the new creed. We may safely regard
either list as imperfect, and conclude that the two combined give the
nearest approximation to the truth. Neither Randolph nor Knox would
place among their opponents nobles who were their friends.
276 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. X.
Of the Spiritual Estate, of whom few were present, the Bishops
of St Andrews, Dunkeld, and Dunblane alone made an effort
at resistance; the others, seeing that opposition would be use-
less, “spake nothing.” The great victory was won. The
enthusiasm of the assembly was at the highest, and the vener-
able Lord Lindsay rose and declared that he could say with
Simeon—“Now, Lord, let thy servant depart in peace, for
mine eyes have seen thy salvation.””
It was on the 17th of August that the Parliament adopted
the Confession of Knox as the confession of its faith. But
something more required to be done to make the work of
Reformation complete. On the 24th of the month the Estates
again assembled, and passed three acts which finished the long
reign of Romanism in the country. By the first it was statute
and ordained that all previous acts of parliament regarding the
censures of the Church, or the worshipping of Saints, should
be annulled and deleted from the statute-book. By the second,
the Pope's jurisdiction was abolished within the realm. By
the third, to say a mass or hear a mass was made criminal;
the first offence to be punished with confiscation of goods ;
the second with banishment ; the third with death.”
The intolerance which the Romish Church had meted Out
to others was now meted out to herself; so had an eternal
Providence ordained. But, at the same time, who does not
wish that our reforming forefathers had not marred the beauty
of their glorious work by penal statutes written in blood?
* Knox says that none of the clergy made any opposition ; but Tytler
produces a letter from Lethington to Cecil, in which the Bishops of Dun-
blane and Dunkeld pray for delay to consider a matter so important.
There is still extant a letter from the Archbishop of St Andrews to the
Archbishop of Glasgow, dated the 18th of August, in which he hints
that he also opposed the reception of the new Confession. See Keith.
There is also a suspicion of intimidation having been used, and the arch-
bishop speaks as if he had been threatened with assassination. There
is also a letter from Throckmorton, in which he gives an account of the
parliament, and mentions the Archbishop of St Andrews as opposing,
though not very decisively, the New Faith.
* MS. Letter, State-Paper Office, Randolph to Cecil, 19th August 1560,
quoted by Tytler, vol. vi.
* Knox's History, book iii. Keith’s History, book i. chap. xii.
A.D. 1560.] THE ENGLISH AND SCOTCH REFORMATIONS. 277
CHAPTER x I.
A CONTRAST has frequently been drawn between the Reforma-
tion in England, and the Reformation in Scotland. In the
One country we are told, it was effected by the king ; in the
other, by the people. In the one, it was the product of
despotic power; in the other, it resulted from the persuasive-
ness of preaching. In the one, the movement was more than
half political ; in the other, it was entirely religious. In the
one, the primary object was to abolish the jurisdiction of the
Pope; in the other, the object from first to last was to purify
the Sanctuary. This is only partially true. The Reformation
in Scotland was certainly much more a popular movement
than it was in England ; but in its springs it was not entirely
popular, at least in the modern sense of the phrase. We
shall approach nearer the truth if we say that it was baronia!
in Scotland as it was monarchical in England. In the south of
the island, the monarch was omnipotent, and he reformed the
Church ; in the north, the barons were always a match for
the throne, even when a vigorous king sat upon it, and much
f
so they took the matter in hand, and accomplished the Refor- |
mation. Had it not been for the favour of the oligarchy,
Knox would have preached in vain, or rather he would never;
have preached at all. -
We have already remarked that the ignorance of the peas:
antry precluded the possibility of their originating the Con
troversy. But from the first, we find the nobility and gentry,
who were now, in a measure, educated men, bidding welcome
to the Protestant opinions. Even during the lifetime of James
V. Such converts were numerous. Beaton is said to have
presented to the king a list of three hundred and sixty landed
proprietors who were suspected of heresy. So long as the
king lived they were kept in check; but he was no sooner
gone, than their power began to be seen. The return of the
prisoners taken at the Solway, and who, while in England,
had conversed with Cranmer at Lambeth, and contracted a
fondness for English pensions, Reformation principles, and
monastic spoil, increased their numbers and quickened their
zeal. They had influence enough to set aside Beaton's pre-
tensions, and raise the Protestant Earl of Arran to the regency.
f
}
f
more than a match for it when it was filled by a child; and
278 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
They had numbers enough to outvote the clergy, and get an
act passed allowing the Scriptures to be read in the vulgar
tongue. When Wishart began to preach he was protected by
powerful barons. When he died, a conspiracy of barons
avenged him. Knox's hatred of Rome was nursed in the
same baronial halls which had shelted Wishart. He came
from Ormiston and Longniddry to thunder against idolatry at
St Andrews, which was now held by a few Protestant barons
against the might of the country. When he returned from cap-
tivity, by barons again was he befriended, and under the shadow
of their power he preached. When he was dwelling at Geneva,
an exile from his native country, the barons leagued them-
selves together, assumed the name of the Lords of the Con-
gregation, and began the armed struggle which resulted in the
triumph of the Reformation. -
Feudalism was still strong in Scotland, and the faith of
the lord naturally became the faith of the vassal. It was in
those districts of the country where the barons had become
Protestant that the populace became Protestant too. Argyll
and Glencairn were all-powerful in the western counties, and
the western counties were the stronghold of the Reforma-
tion. The Earl of Rothes, Lord Lindsay, and the Lord
James Stewart had Fife at their devotion ; and Fife was for
reform. Lord Ruthven was provost of Perth, and Erskine
of Dun was provost of Montrose, and his influence extended
to Dundee ; and Perth, Montrose, and Dundee were con-
spicuous among the towns for their thorough-going Pro-
testantism. On the other hand, where Huntly was lord, the
Reformation made little progress, so much so, that after the
mass was abolished by parliament, this potent earl boasted
that he could set it up again in three counties; and strange
to say, in some of these very districts, Popery has lingered
till the present day. Glasgow, Paisley, and the country
around them vacillated with the vacillations of the dominant
house of Hamilton. Carrick was strongly Protestant in the
days of Wishart ; it was not so much so in the days of Knox.
The explanation is—the old Earl of Cassillis was a staunch
Reformer ; the new earl was not. In his famous letter
from Dieppe, Knox reminded the Scottish nobles of their
duty as feudal chiefs—they ought to care for the faith of
their followers. In more than one of their manifestoes, the
Lords of the Congregation appealed to their feudal position
as the vindication of their conduct—their duty to their
A.D. 1560.] THE BARONS. 279
dependents and the State constrained them. As feudal
barons they brow-beat the regent; and as feudal barons they
deposed her.
Knox was unquestionably a great instrument in effecting
the Reformation ; but we are inclined to regard the preacher
as an instrument in the hands of the barons, rather than the
barons as instruments in the hands of the preacher. Knox
had but to preach, surrounded by his powerful patrons, and
his words were like sledge hammers, beating down abbeys,
images, and altars. Priests, friars, nuns, were scattered like
chaff before the breath of his nostrils. He had but to draw
up a Confession of Faith, and the parliament with acclama-
tions received it. But when he differed from the nobles, he
became weak as another man. When he suggested a truly
wise application of the revenues of the Church, he was treated
with derision and contempt. He could pull down the old
house, but he could not, as he would, build up the new one.
The “Book of Discipline,” as we shall shortly see, was not
received with the same enthusiasm as the “Book of Doc-
trines.” The needy nobles, the possessors of barren moors
and mountains, had been hungering and thirsting for the well-
cultivated lands of the churchmen, and now they were not to
be baulked of their prey.
The Reformations in the sister countries have been con-
trasted in another way. The one, it has been said, was con-
stitutional, legal, orderly, without mobbings, without violence;
the other was the offspring of treason and rebellion, and
characterised throughout by rioting and popular outrage.
Here, again, we have the partial truth, not the whole truth.
It may have been constitutional for a despotic king and cor-
rupt parliament to make millions believe backwards and
forwards at their bidding ; but was it right P. It may have
been treasonable and rebellious for a numerous aristocracy
to rise against their sovereign, and insist upon being allowed
to worship their own God in their own way; but was it
wrong P It were a sorry world in which we live had there
been no treasons, no rebellions; had the iron rod of the
oppressor never been broken ; had the neck been eternally
bowed to the yoke. It may be true that in England there
were no mobbings, and that the monasteries were there
spoiled under the decencies of law, and the ridiculous pre-
text of voluntary surrenders; but spoiled they nevertheless
were, as effectually as in Scotland. It may be true that in
28o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
Scotland popular passions were let loose against Religious
Houses, venerable for their antiquity, and admired for their
architecture; but surely it is much more easy to justify the
illegal outrages of a rabble, than the legalised spoliations of
a king and his parliament. In England, the monarch did
violence to the people; in Scotland, the people did violence
to the monarch.
But foreign elements mingled in the Scottish Reformation
struggle, and in the end decided it. Around Leith were
gathered the interests of Popery and Protestantism ; and
Ileith was held by a French garrison, and besieged by an
English army. France was Scotland’s ancient ally, England
was her nearest neighbour. Had England, the stronger
country, always acted with fairness toward Scotland, the
weaker one, it had been the plain policy of Scotland to have
cherished her friendship. But it had not been so, and Scot-
land, in her weakness, had sought and obtained the alliance
of France. The war of independence had caused wounds
which were not easily healed, and the defeat of Flodden and
the slaughter of Pinkie had opened them up again. Up to
this time, England was both hated and feared. But Eliza-
beth pursued a different policy, and easily subdued by
intrigue a country which all her predecessors had failed to
subdue by arms. English spies were in the court and the
castle, and a very little English gold went a long way
with nobles of great pretensions and slender means. The
English alliance grew in favour—the French alliance de-
clined. The French secured the queen, and she continued
a Papist ; the English prevailed with the people, and they all
turned Protestant.
Even before Protestantism had received its parliamentary
establishment, it had, in a measure, taken possession of the
country. The treaty of Leith was no sooner signed, and the
French and English troops withdrawn, than the few preachers
of the Reformation who could be found were located in the
different towns, to keep alive the zeal of the populace. John
Knox was appointed to Edinburgh, Christopher Goodman to
St Andrews, Adam Heriot to Aberdeen, John Row to Perth,
Paul Methven to Jedburgh, William Christison to Dundee,
David Ferguson to Dunfermline, and David Lindsay to Leith.
Besides these Ordinary ministers, the primitive Protestant
Church of Scotland recognised a class of office-bearers called
superintendents, appointed, says Knox, to see “that all things in
A.D. 1560.] FIRST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 281
the Church were carried with order, and well;” and of these John
Spottiswood was appointed for Lothian, John Winram for Fife,
John Willock for Glasgow, Erskine of Dun for Angus and
Mearns, and John Carswell for Argyll and the Isles." These
eight ministers and five superintendents formed the first staff
of the Reformed Church.
The parliament had received a new creed, and had passed
acts abolishing the mass and the jurisdiction of the Pope
within the realm. But still the work was but half done. The
old Church had been thrown down—a new one must be
reared out of its ruins. It was not enough that preachers
should perambulate the country, or be settled in towns; pro-
vision must be made for their maintenance, rules must be laid
down for their conduct, legal authority must be given to their
acts. Well-nigh the half of the whole wealth of the kingdom
had belonged to the Romish Church, and the Romish Church
was no more. What was to be done with it? The mass was
prohibited, the invocation of Saints was prohibited, the whole
service of the ancient worship was prohibited. What was now
to be substituted in their stead P. The jurisdiction of Rome
was at an end. What other jurisdiction was to succeed it P
These questions must be solved; and accordingly, soon after
the dissolution of parliament, a Commission was given to
Knox, Spottiswood, Winram, Willock, and Row, to draw up a
Book of Policy for the Protestant Church.”
The product of their labour remains, and is generally known
as the “ FIRST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE.” No document could
possibly throw more light upon the opinions of the Reformers.
It is, in fact, the plan of the temple they designed to rear. If
in anything our Church, as it now stands, differs from the
“Book of Discipline”—if it has not the breadth of founda-
tion, or height of pinnacle, or richness of ornament there
indicated, it is because the after execution has fallen short of
the original plan—it is because, the builders who raised the
fabric had not the same views as the architects who designed
it. The “First Book of Discipline " is divided into sixteen
chapters, but we shall endeavour to explain the ecclesiastical
polity which it shadows forth under three heads—The Office-
bearers of the New Church, their election and admission ;
* Knox's Hist., book iii. Spolliswood's IIist., lib. iii.
* The First Book of Discipline is addressed to “The Great Councell
of Scotland now admitted to the Regiment, by the providence of God,
and by the Common consent of the Estates thereof,” &c. . -
282 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
The Worship and Discipline of the New Church; The Patri-
mony of the Old Church, and its appropriation by the New.
I. The Office-bearers of the Meze, Church.
Of these there were four orders—the superintendent, the
minister, the elder, and the deacon.
The “First Book of Discipline * divides the whole country
into ten dioceses, which were to be presided over by ten super-
intendents. Their duty was to erect kirks, appoint pastors
in places hitherto unprovided, and give the occasional benefit
of a learned ministry in localities which could not otherwise
enjoy that privilege at all. Their labours are minutely de-
tailed. They must preach at least thrice every week; they
must not remain in the chief town of the diocese, where their
own church and residence were, longer than three or four
months at a time : when on a visitation, they must tarry in no
Onc place longer than twenty days; they must not only
preach, but examine the life, diligence, and behaviour of the
ministers, the order of the churches, and the manners of the
people: they must see how the youth were instructed and the
poor provided for ; and, finally, take cognizance of any Crimes
which called for the correction of the Kirk.
These magnates of the early Church have been the subject
of fierce debatc between Episcopal and Presbyterian writers.
The Episcopal controversialist maintains that the Reformed
Church of Scotland was Episcopal at the first, and that its
Presbyterianisin was the growth of a subsequent age. As we
are sometimes told that presbyter is just priest written large,
So we are told that the superintendent was just the bishop
done into Latin. On the other hand, the Presbyterian dis-
putant affirms that the superintendent of the Scotch Church
was quite a different functionary from the bishop of the
Roman and Anglican Churches; and, moreover, that the
office was designed to be temporary, and not perpetual. In a
controversy like this, where we have authoritative documents
upon which to proceed, there is no great difficulty in arriving
at the precise truth. It must be conceded to the Episcopalian
that the names coincide in meaning ; that superintendent is
nothing but the Latin form of the Greek episcopos. It must
further be conceded, that the superintendent, like the bishop,
had a diocese entrusted to his care, and that the duties
imposed upon the one in many respects agreed with those
discharged by the other: he was to make a periodical visita-
A.D. 1560.] SUPERINTENDENTS. 283
tion of the churches in his diocese, and set everything in
order. The ministers and readers, the elders and deacons,
were amenable to his jurisdiction. But here concession must
stop : here the similarity of the bishop and the superintendent
ceases. In other respects there was a great gulph between
them. The genuine bishop required to rise through the
diaconate and priesthood to his episcopate; the superin-
tendent might at once be elevated from the laity to his
superintendency. John Erskine of Dun was a country
gentleman when he was admitted superintendent of Angus
and Mearns." The bishop could be consecrated only by
bishops; the superintendent was admitted to his charge by
presbyters. John Knox presided at the admission both of
Spottiswood and Erskine. To the bishop belonged exclu-
sively the power of ordination—through him the apostolic
virtue was transmitted to the different office-bearers in the
Church ; to the superintendent belonged no such exclusive
privileges. The power of ordination belonged equally to
every minister in the Church. The bishop was raised above
the control of the presbyter; but the superintendent was
made subject to the censure and correction of the ministers
and elders of the province over which he presided, and no
inconsistency or absurdity was felt as belonging to the arrange-
ment. Would any stickler for a canonical episcopacy recog-
nise such a superintendent as a true bishop P a bishop who
had never been a deacon, never a priest; a bishop consecrated
by a presbyter; a bishop with no exclusive powers of ordina-
tion, and made subject to the clergy of his diocese ?
The language of the “Book of Discipline" seems to imply
that the office of a superintendent was not designed to be
perpetual in the Church. It was a temporary expedient to
meet the exigencies of a country suddenly deprived of its
ancient priesthood, and not yet supplied with Protestant
preachers.” In such a time, the creation of such an office was
most politic and wise, it could scarcely have been dispensed
* This, however, leads us back to the time when Ambrose was taken
from the courts of law, even against his will, and at once set upon the
Episcopal throne of Milan.
* “We have thought good to signify to your honours such reasons as
moved us to make difference betwixt preachers at this time. . . . . We
have thought it a thing inosl expedieul at this dime, that from the whole
number of godly and learned men, now presently in this realm, be selected
ten or twelve, to whom charge and commandment should be given to
plant and erect kirks,” &c. (First Book of Discipline, chap. vi.)
284 . CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
with ; and he must be blindly wedded to Presbyterian parity
who would grudge these Presbyterian bishops the superiority
they enjoyed over their brethren. That they did enjoy a
superiority it were useless to deny.
Next to the superintendent came the minister, whose office,
as defined in the “Book of Discipline,” agrees exactly with
what it is now. But as men of sufficient learning to supply all
the parishes in the country with ministers could not at once
be found, men of inferior attainments, denominated readers,
were to be temporarily employed in the destitute districts. It
was the duty of these to read the Common Prayers and the
Scriptures to the people, but they were forbidden to adminis-
ter the sacraments. They might also follow up their reading
with some suitable exhortation, and if they attained to fluency
in this exercise, they might then, with the approbation of the
superintendent, be raised to the full status of ministers. Thus
this system of readerships not merely supplied a temporary
want, but served as a school in which men were trained for the
ministerial work, for no college curriculum had as yet been
prescribed. Ministers are specially forbidden to haunt the
Court, to be members of the Council, or to board in taverns or
ale-houses.
The elders were to be “men of best knowledge in God's
Word, and cleanest liſe, men faithful and of most honest con-
versation that could be found in the Church.” Their duty
was “to assist the ministers in all public affairs of the kirk, to
wit, in determining and judging causes, in giving admonition
to the licentious liver, in having respect to the manners and
conversation of all men within their charge.” “They ought also
to take heed to the life, manners, diligence, and study of their
ministers. If he be worthy of admonition, they must admon-
ish him ; of correction, they must correct him ; and if he be
worthy of deposition, they, with the consent of the kirk and
superintendent, may depose him, so that his crime deserve so.”
The deacons were “to receive the rents and gather the alms of
the kirk, to keep and distribute the same as by the ministers
and kirk shall be appointed ; they may also assist in judgment
with the ministers and elders; and may be admitted to read in
assembly if they be required, and be able thereto.” The elders
and deacons were to be elected only for a year, lest they
should presume too much ; and no stipend was to be assigned
them for their labours, which were not deemed to be such as
to withdraw them from their usual employments.
A.D. 1560.] WORSHIP. - - 285
Ordinary vocation is said to consist of three parts--election,
examination, and admission. The “Book of Discipline” sug-
gests that the superintendents should be chosen by the Secret
Council, with the approbation of the gentlemen and burgesses
of their dioceses; and that the ministers should be chosen by
their parishioners. Being duly elected, the same course was
to be pursued in regard to both superintendents and ministers;
their life, their doctrines, and their capabilities of edifying the
people were to be tested; a sermon was to be preached ;
admonitions were to be addressed to all the parties concerned;
prayer was to be offered up ; and the presentee declared to be
admitted to his charge. The imposition of hands was forbid-
den : “for albeit the apostles used imposition of hands, yet see-
ing the miracle is ceased, the using of the ceremony we judge
not necessary.” To preach the Word or administer the sacra-
ments without a proper call, is declared to be worthy of death.
II. The Worship and Discipline of the AVew Church.
It is declared to be necessary that the Word should be
preached, the sacraments administered, common prayers
publicly made, the young and the ignorant instructed, and
offenders punished; it is declared to be profitable, but not
necessary, that psalms should be sung, that certain portions of
Scripture should be read when there was no sermon, and that
certain days should be observed on which the people might
assemble in the churches. It is recommended that, in the
great towns, there should be either sermon or common prayers,
with some reading of the Scriptures every day; and that in the
smaller towns, one day beside the Sunday should be set apart
for this purpose. On the Sunday the Word was to be preached,
the Sacraments administered, the children publicly catechized
in the audience of the people, and the whole day observed as
sacred. All holidays are abolished. All vows of continence,
and all assumption of religious apparel, are declared to be sin-
ful. All monuments and places of idolatry are ordered to be
destroyed. -
Besides the meetings for the preaching of the Word and the
administration of the sacraments, the “Book of Discipline”
directs, that in every town “where schools and repair of learned
men are,” there should be a weekly meeting for prophesying
or intel preling the Scriptures. In these meetings every man
was to have liberty to speak, to offer interpretations of hard
passages, to Suggest doubts, to solve difficulties; but not to
286 - CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
launch out into anything like preaching. The ministers in the
neighbourhood were to attend these prophesyings, and at the
close of the meeting to communicate to those who had spoken
their opinion of the manner in which they had handled the
matter. In this way it is said “shall the kirk have knowledge
and judgment of the graces, gifts, and utterances of every man
within their body ; the simple and such as have somewhat
profited shall be encouraged daily to study and to proceed in
knowledge; and the whole kirk shall be edified.”
In the Policy of the Church it is recommended that the
sacrament of the Supper should be administered four times
every year, the communicants sitting at a table, and partaking
both of the bread and the wine, while the minister recited to
them some comfortable passages of holy writ touching the
death of Christ, and the benefits which flowed from it. Before
being admitted to the Lord's table, persons were to be ex-
amined if they could say the Lord’s prayer, the Creed, and the
Ten Commandments. The sacrament of baptism was to be
administered in the church at convenient times. The use of
oil, salt, wax, spittle, conjuration, and crossing is abolished,
and the pure element of water alone was to be employed.
Marriage was to be performed after the proclamation of banns
upon a Sunday, and in the open face and public audience of
the Church. The burial of the dead was to take place without
any singing of mass, placebo, or dirge. No ceremony what-
ever was to be used, no funeral sermon was to be preached,
but “the dead committed to the grave with such gravity and
sobriety as those that be present may seem to fear the judg-
ments of God, and to hate sin, which is the cause of death.”
In the “Book of Discipline” there is frequent reference to
the Common Prayers and the Order of Geneva. This liturgi-
cal form, it would appear, had now begun to supersede the
First Book of Edward VI., which had hitherto been used by
the Scotch Reformers as a guide in their devotions. It had
been printed together with the metrical version of the Psalms,
and now received the stamp of authority from the “Book of
Discipline.” It was chiefly the composition of John Knox,
and was used by him at Geneva. It contained morning and
evening prayers, an order of baptism, an order for the adminis-
tration of the Lord's Supper, a form of marriage, a visitation of
the sick, and there were afterwards added to it a form for the
1 When reference is made to the Psalm Book at this period and for
long afterwards, the liturgy with the psalms attached is meant.
A.D. 1560.] DISCIPLINE. 287
election of superintendents and ministers, and an order for
excommunication and public repentance. The officiating
minister was allowed by the rubric to deviate from the forms
of prayer prescribed, but still these were to be considered as
his guide, and we need not hesitate to admit that this liturgy
was generally used for many years in the Reformed Church of
Scotland. Some of the prayers, for transparency of diction
and beauty of piety, will compare with the much-lauded com-
positions of the Anglican Prayer-Book ; but in general they
are prolix and involved, and appear never to have taken much
hold upon the hearts of the people. The Lord's prayer is
frequently introduced, and the whole compilation is charac-
terized by good sense and sobriety of religious feeling. The
rubric instructs us that the Church-service began with a prayer,
containing a confession of sin; then a portion of the Scriptures
was read; then a psalm was sung; then an extemporaneous
prayer was offered up by the minister ; then followed the
sermon, a prayer, a psalm ; and finally the Congregation was
dismissed with the benediction.”
The discipline of the early Church was stern—perhaps too
stern for frail human nature. Every kind of immorality was
taken cognisance of drunkenness, profane swearing, impurity,
excess in eating, in drinking, or in dress, oppression of the
poor, the use of a false weight or measure, wanton words,
licentious living, everything which fell short of the perfect law.
Heresy, idolatry, adultery, and several other crimes were pro-
nounced worthy of death, and it was declared to be the duty
of the civil magistrate to see the sentence carried into execu-
tion. In the case of offenders who continued obstinate and
unrepentant notwithstanding the admonitions of the Church,
the sentence of excommunication was to be pronounced. This
sentence was scarcely less dreadful than the anathema of Rome.
When it was pronounced, none, saving his wife and family,
* So early as 1567 the Prayer-Book was translated into Gaelic by John
Carswell, Bishop of the Isles, and is said to have been the first Caclic
book ever printed. It was entitled “Foirm na Nurrnuidheadh,” or Forms
of Prayer. The bishop knew that this book would be treated with ridicule
by the bards who still continued Papists, and who would regard printing
as an innovation. “Well do I know,” said he, in his Apologetic In-
troduction, “that the Papists especially, and above all the old satirical
priests, will vomit malice against me, and that my work will procure me
from them only scandal and reproach.” A curious and highly-interest-
ing notice of this work will be found in Leyden’s “Scottish Descriptive
Poems,” &c. The only copy of Carswell's translation known to exist is
said to be in the possession of the Duke of Argyll.
288 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
might have any dealings, in eating or drinking, in buying or
selling, in saluting or talking, with the excommunicated man.
He was to be as one accursed, and cut off from all society.
When the delinquent, however, was brought to repentance, he
was to be absolved of his sin, and received back into the bosom
of the Church. The “Book of Discipline” recommends that
“a solemn and special prayer should be drawn for the purpose,
that the thing might be more gravely done;” and accordingly
an order of excommunication and of public repentance was
afterwards added to the liturgy. It shows the discipline of the
Church to have been much more formal and operose then than it
is now; perhaps more faithful, certainly more severe. The form
of absolution, however, would now be pronounced papistical,
as it is not declarative, but authoritative. The minister autho-
ritatively absolves the penitent of his sin, and pronounces it to
be loosed in heaven. The “Book of Discipline’’ says nothing
of the government of the Church by kirk-sessions, presbyteries,
synods, and General Assemblies ; but it is easy to trace in it
the rudimental forms of all these courts. The minister required
to meet with his elders and deacons ; out of this grew the
kirk-session. The ministers within six miles of the notable
towns required to meet at the prophesyings or weekly exercises,
and neighbour ministers required to meet with each other for
several other purposes; here was the embryo presbytery. The
superintendent required to meet with the clergy of his diocese
for ordering many things connected with the government of the
Church ; this was the genesis of the synod. From the first
year of its existence the whole Church met in General Assembly.
III. The patrimony of the Old Church, and its appropriation
by the AVew.
The “Book of Discipline” proposed to remit all mortuary
dues and Easter offerings. All the other possessions, rents,
and revenues of the ancient Church, whether they belonged to
bishoprics, religious houses, or parishes, were to be appro-
priated by the new establishment, and lifted as they fell due by
the deacons. Being thus appropriated and realised, they were
to be applied to three great purposes—the maintenance of the
ministry, the education of youth, and the support of the poor.
For these purposes had the hierarchy been endowed; and these
very purposes did the Protestant clergy now propose to fulfil."
1 The Romanists themselves acknowledged that these endowments had
been received for these three purposes. “Quhidder cumis it be zour ex-
A.D. 1560.] THE CHURCH's PATRIMONY. 289
It was the smallest possible alienation of funds doted by piety
for particular purposes, and such dotations ought ever to be
regarded as peculiarly sacred. The scheme does honour to
Knox, and proves that, with all his roughness, he was pos-
sessed of a great and liberal mind. He appears more truly
great in his attempts to build up the new Church, though
therein he failed, than in his efforts to throw down the old one,
though therein he succeeded. But let us examine the plan a
little more narrowly.
It is suggested that the superintendent should have a stipend
of about six chalders beer, nine chalders meal, three chalders
oats, and six hundred merks of money, to be increased or
decreased at the discretion of the prince and council of the
realm. It is suggested that the minister should have at least
forty bolls of meal, twenty-six bolls of malt, to find his house
in bread and drink, and an allowance of money beside, to be
fixed yearly by his congregation. The readers were to have a
Salary of forty or fifty merks, according as they might agree
with the parishioners among whom they laboured. It must be
Confessed that here there was no greed or grasping on the part
of the clergy; the allowances they asked for themselves were
extremely moderate. The stipend of the superintendent is
not greater than a city living at the present day, and the
stipend of the minister, though not so precisely defined, we may
conclude was not more liberal than that now enjoyed by the
ministers of rural parishes. “The Book of Discipline,” how-
ever, demanded that some provision should be made for the
widows and children of those who devoted themselves to the
ministry, upon salaries which did not enable them to accumu-
late wealth. The sons of the clergy were to have the freedom
of the towns adjacent to the parishes in which their fathers had
lived and laboured. If they had an aptitude for learning they
were to be maintained at the schools, and have a bursary in
the college ; if they had no such aptitude, they were to be put
to some useful trade. The daughters were to be virtuously
brought up, and honestly dowered when they came to maturity,
at the discretion of the Kirk.
The second part of the scheme was the education of the
youth of the country, a duty which hitherto the Romish priest-
hood had performed, though in an imperfect way. The “Book
hortation or nocht that mony desyris the kirk-landis anis dedicat to God,
for sustentation of godly ministeris, puir studentis, and feble and waik
indigentis,” &c. (Ninian Wingate, 62.) -
T
290 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
of Discipline” proposes that to every church there should be
attached a school; that in every large town, especially in the
towns of the superintendents, there should be erected a college
or grammar school; and that the Universities of St Andrews,
Glasgow, and Aberdeen should be liberally endowed. Here,
then, we have a parochial system of education chalked out, a
system whose foundations were laid amid such humble liter-
ature as the peasantry could receive, but whose pinnacles
reached to the highest regions of learning, a system starting
from the village school and ending with the university. It was
the foreshadow of the system which was afterwards realised in
our country, but the shadow was more perfect than the reality.
It is worked out in the “Book of Discipline” with great
minuteness, and while we may not approve of its every detail,
in all its leading outlines it discovers a genius for policy worthy
of the greatest statesman.
The third part of the scheme was the sustenance of the
poor. The Christian Church has ever considered the poor to
be the special objects of its care. In Romish times many
hospitals had been founded for the reception of the sick, the
infirm, and the indigent; and every monastery, in fact, was a kind
of alms-house. When the Reformation was on the eve of being
accomplished, bishops bemoaned the misfortunes that would
befall the poor ; but the Reformers showed their knowledge of
Christian duty, and their respect for the intention of the donors
of the Church-property, when they resolved to take the poor
under their chargc. Both before and after the Reformation,
Scotland seems to have swarmed with beggars. Among these
there were not only the aged and sick, but strong, sturdy vaga-
bonds, who haunted the public roads and entered the farm-
houses, and received alms more from fear than from charity.
The “Book of Discipline” proposed that the able-bodied should
be compelled to work, but that the aged and infirm should be
made to return to their native parishes, and be there provided
for. -
The Church is said to have anciently possessed one-half of
the whole property of the kingdom. Even a moiety of this,
had it been carefully preserved and improved, would have
abundantly maintained the ecclesiastical, educational, and
pauper establishments of the kingdom, and the community been
saved from three of the heaviest taxes which now press upon it.
The gospel would be preached, every child educated, the poor
provided for, without cost. No one would lose anything ;
A.D. 1560.] - SPOLIATION. 29 I
only some proprietors would never have possessed their exten-
sive domains. Some great lords would be but country gentle-
men with small estates ; and others might rejoice in ancient
titles, but lack the broad acres which now give them support.
Public officers, and not private factors, would be liſting the
rents of the monasteries ; and yet the present holders could
not be said to have lost what, according to our supposition,
they never possessed. The community would have reaped,
as it ought to have done, the benefit of the Church's accumu-
lated wealth.
The same agencies which deposited the endowments of the
Roman hierarchy are operating still ; and if sufficient time
be allowed, the accumulation will again become equally great.
Men are every now and then dying and leaving money to
build a church, to found an hospital, to endow a school. The
funds thus devoted must go on increasing—they cannot
decrease; and we can contemplate the time when our ecclesi-
astical, educational, and pauper establishments will be sus-
tained by this source alone, without need of assessments.
How sad if the few were again to sweep away the wealth thus
slowly accumulated for the benefit of the many
From the first brush of the Reformation, it was evident
that the Church's property would have an important influence
upon the struggle. The hungry nobles were coveting the well-
fed churchmen. So early as 1543, the Regent Arran confessed
to Sadler that so many great men were Papists, that unless the
sin of covetousness made them Reformers, he saw no other
way in which the Reformation could be effected.” When the
battle commenced, the barons instantly began to relieve the
churchmen of the trouble of lifting their rents. When the
victory was won, Knox perceived the danger of the Church
being not merely purged of its idolatry, but stripped of its
possessions, and turned out naked upon the streets; and
therefore, while the parliament of 1560 was yet sitting, he
began a course of lectures upon Haggai, and we can conceive
the indignant tones in which he demanded of the barons who
filled the nave of St Gile's—“Is it a time for you, O ye, to
dwell in your ceiled houses, and this house lie waste P Go up
to the mountain and bring wood, and build the house; and I
will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord.
The silver is mine, and the gold is minc, saith the Lord of
hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of
* Sadler, State Papers, &c., vol. i. Keith's Hist., book i. chap. iii.
292 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
the former, and in this place will I give peace.” But if Knox
could declaim, there were barons who could sneer at his
declamation. “We may now forget ourselves,” said Mait-
land, “ and bear the barrow to build the house of God.”"
When the “Book of Discipline” was presented to the Privy
Council for its approval, the same spirit became still more
manifest. Maitland again had his sneer, and declared the
whole affair to be “a devout imagination.” Knox now Sud-
denly found himself in the midst of a den of thieves, and he
broke out with scorching sarcasm. “Some,” says he, “were
licentious, some had greedily gripped the possessions of the
Church, and others thought that they would not lack their
part of Christ's coat ; yea, and that before that ever He was
hanged, as by the preachers they were oft rebuked. The
chief great man that had professed Christ Jesus, and refused
to subscribe the “Book of Discipline,’ was the Lord Erskine ;
and no wonder, for, besides that he has a very Jezebel to
his wife, if the poor, the schools, and the ministry of the
Church had their own, his kitchen would lack two parts and
more of that which he unjustly now possesseth. Assuredly
some of us have wondered how men that profess godliness
could of so long continuance hear the threatenings of God
against thieves and against their houses, and knowing them-
selves guilty in such things as were openly rebuked, and that
they never had remorse of conscience, neither yet intended to
restore anything of that which long they had stolen and reft.
There were none within the realm more unmerciful to the poor
ministers than were they which had greatest rents of the
churches; but in that we have perceived the old proverb to
be true, “Nothing can suffice a wretch ; ' and again, ‘The
belly hath no ears.”
The Secret Council, as a body, could never be induced to
give its approval to the “First Book of Discipline.” But on
the 17th of January 1561, thirty-three barons and proselytized
prelates put their names as individual subscribers to a docu-
ment, in which they gave it their sanction, and promised to
do their best to carry it into execution.” The subscription
was useless, and in many cases was insincere. Thus this plan
for the building of the second temple was discarded, simply
because it proposed to apply ecclesiastical property to ecclesi-
astical uses. It might have been supposed that barons so
zealous for religion would have themselves been religious,
I Knox's History, book iii. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.
A.D. 1560.] FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 293
and that being religious they would have been honest, but it
was not so. In the Case of many, a desire to clutch the Church’s
lands and tithes had much more to do with making them re-
formers than any love for Calvinism. A knowledge of men,
and of the motives which concur in promoting the best of
causes, will lessen our surprise, and let us see that the same
thing has happened more than once in the history of the world.
But though the “First Book of Discipline” did not receive the
Sanction of the parliament or council, it was acted upon by
the Church, so far as the Church could act upon it. The
ecclesiastical arrangements were carried out, though the
ecclesiastical revenues could not be touched. It is said that
the Archbishop of St Andrews, when he saw the day lost, and
the ruin of his party irretrievable, sent a message to Knox,
urging him, while he changed the doctrines of the Church, to
maintain its ancient policy, as in that way only could he hope
to preserve its property; but Knox was too thorough a Re-
former to listen to the advice."
On the 20th December 1560, the first GENERAL ASSEMBLY
of the Reformed Church of Scotland met in Magdalen
Chapel, in the Cowgate of Edinburgh. It consisted of but
forty-one members, of whom only six were ministers. They
sat as “the ministers and commissioners of the particular
kirks of Scotland, convened upon the things which are to set
forward God's glory, and the weal of His Kirk in this realm.”
The chief business of this Assembly was to give its approval
to a number of persons who were recommended to it as
readers, ministers, and superintendents. Acts were also
passed in regard to the laws of consanguinity, the election of
ministers, elders, and deacons, the confirmation of testa-
ments; and ordaining that those who had borne office in the
Popish Church, and were of honest conversation, should be
supported with the alms of the Kirk, as other poor; that the
parliament should be petitioned to admit none to public
offices but such as were of the Reformed religion, and to
punish sharply all sayers and hearers of mass. This Assembly
seems to have continued its sittings during seven days, when
it adjourned to meet on the 15th of January 1561.
Of the Assembly appointed to meet in January, if it ever
met, we have no record ; but on the 15th of that month, a
Convention of the Estates was held, in which grave matters
*Spottiswood's History, lib. iii.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 1, Keith, book iii. chap, i.
2.94 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
affecting the Church were debated. It was in this convention
that the “Book of Discipline” was first examined, and then
cast overboard. But the nobles, while refusing to Sanction
the new ecclesiastical policy, wished to have their faith Con-
firmed by a disputation on the controverted points between
the Papists and Protestants. There were therefore sum-
moned into their presence, on the Romish side, John Lesley,
Official of Aberdeen, and shortly afterwards Bishop of Ross,
Alexander Anderson, Professor of Theology in Aberdeen,
Patrick Myrtom, and James Strachan ; and on the side of
the Reformers, John Knox, John Willock, and Christopher
Goodman. It was on the mass that the debate principally
hinged. We have an account of it from two of the com-
batants, Knox and Lesley, and it is amusing to contrast their
opposite descriptions of this polemical passage-at-arms. Knox
declares that Anderson, who began the combat, was quickly
silenced ; and that when Lesley came to his rescue, he could
only say that he knew nothing but the canon law, where the
great reasons for everything were no/umus and volumzes;
words which Knox instantly fastened upon him as a nick-
name. Lesley, on the other hand, relates that Anderson
reasoned so learnedly, consistently, and piously, that the
Catholics were confirmed, and the heretics confounded, and
that, after that exhibition, no one dared to challenge him
or any other Romanist to an encounter regarding the
mystcries of his faith. Lesley adds that the nobles revenged
themselves upon the triumphant Catholics by compelling
them to remain in the city, and give attendance upon the
Sermons of the Protestant preachers, as if, says he, with a
bitter sneer, the pandering speeches of these paltry rhetori-
cians could convince men whom all their arguments had
failed to move."
In the month of May, the second General Assembly of
which we have any record assembled in the Tolbooth at
Edinburgh. It resolved that a petition should be presented
to the Privy Council, praying that all monuments of idolatry
should be destroyed, and all persons guilty of it proceeded
against according to act of parliament; that provision should
be made for the superintendents, ministers, and readers, and
punishments appointed for those who contemned their autho-
rity; that all despisers of the sacraments should be punished;
that no letters of session should be given for the payment of
* Knox's History, book iii. Lesley, lib. x.
A. D. 1561.] DEMOLITION OF RELIGIOUS HOUSES. 295
teinds, without the special provision that enough was retained
for the maintenance of the ministry ; that no judge should
proceed upon any precept at the instance of persons who had
already obtained feus of vicarages, parson-houses, or church-
yards ; that no warrants of any kind should be put in force
till the stipends specified in the “Book of Discipline” for the
maintenance of the ministry should be first consigned in the
hands of the principal parishioners ; and, finally, that punish-
ment should be inflicted upon any who might purchase, or
publish within the realm, papal bulls."
These articles of complaint and petition are highly signifi-
cant, and show the means already being taken to alienate the
property of the Church. Knox says that the Lords of Privy
Council granted the prayer of the petition ; but we have little
evidence that they acted upon any part of it, except that which
related to the demolition of the monasteries.” With regard to
these, they went to work with amazing alacrity. The execu-
tion of the work was intrusted to the Earls of Arran, Argyll,
and Glencairn, in the western counties ; and to the Lord
James in the north ; and, if we may believe Spottiswood, a
pitiful devastation ensued.
It is undoubtedly more difficult to defend this demolition
of Religious Houses than that which preceded it, notwith-
standing that the one was done under the pretext of law, and
the other in defiance of it. In the first case, the contest was
raging, the issue was doubtful, men's passions were up, and
the mob was not to be restrained ; in the second, the victory
had been won, the flood of angry feeling had somewhat abated,
and it was not the rascal rabble, but the lords of parliament
who did the work. At the same time, it must be allowed that
fear lest Popery should regain its lost ground was still strong,
and that the public mind was in a state of intense excitement.
These monasteries, if allowed to stand, might yet be re-
occupied. It is also certain that the havoc made was not
nearly so great as is frequently supposed. We have still
remaining the commission issued for the purging of the
Cathedral of Dunkeld, in which the Lairds of Arntilly and
Kinvaid are instructed to pass to it incontinent, to take down
the images, and bringing them out to the church-yard, to burn
them publicly, to cast down the altars, and remove every
vestige of idolatry; but, at the same time, to be careful to do
no damage to the desks, windows, or doors, either in respect
* Keith, book iii. chap. i. * Knox's History, book iv.
296 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
of the glass-work or iron-work." This, it must be acknow-
ledged, was only a reasonable and needful reformation, and
we shall understand it still better if we take it in conjunction
with the chapter in the “First Book of Discipline,” in which
it is declared that the churches ought to be repaired in a
manner fitting the majesty of God and the commodity of the
people, and provided with doors, glass windows, thatch or
slate, a bell, a pulpit, a basin for baptizing, and tables for
administering the Lord's Supper.” There was no antipathy to
churches of hoary antiquity and stately architecture ; it was
only monasteries that were to be destroyed, and that part of
the furniture of the churches which the Protestants deemed to
be idolatrous.
Immediately after the dissolution of the parliament which
accepted the reformed Confession of Faith, Sir Jamcs Sandi-
lands, Preceptor of the Knights of St John, had been
despatched to France to obtain the queen's ratification of its
acts. He was received with cold courtesy ; his request was
refused ; and the Cardinal of Lorraine took an opportunity of
saying to him, that he was surprised to find the head of an
ecclesiastical military order so forgetful of his vows as to come
upon such an errand. The queen, moreover, complained
that a poor gentleman of secondary rank should have come to
her, while a splendid legation, consisting of the Earls of Glen-
Cairn and Morton, and the Laird of Lethington, had been
sent to Elizabeth. She saw but too clearly that she was sup-
planted in the affections of her subjects, and that the Queen
of England had more influence in Scotland than its rightful
Sovereign. Rumours of her displeasure reached Scotland,
and the worst was apprehended. French troops might again
be landed ; English assistance might not again be obtained ;
and despotic power might occupy the throne, and force an
odious religion upon a reluctant people. These fears, how-
ever, were quickly dissipated by the death of
Francis II. It was at once seen that this
event would entirely change the current of State affairs. Mary
was now a widow. She no longer swayed the French sceptre,
or had at her command the armies and resources of a king-
dom more powerful than her own. All this had passed to
another ; and it was already anticipated that she would soon
return to her native dominions.
* This document is given in the Notes to Dr M'Crie's Life of Knox.
* First Book of Discipline, chap. xv.
Dec. 4, 1560.
A.D. 1561.] THE QUEEN's RETURN. 297
Early in 1561 two distinguished personages were hurrying
from Scotland to France by different routes. The one took
shipping at Aberdeen, and proceeded by sea ; the other
posted southwards through England, pausing at the Court of
St James's on his way. Both were Churchmen. The one
was John Lesley, Official of Aberdeen ; the other was James
Stewart, Prior of St Andrews. The former was hastening to
bespeak the favour of his queen for the Catholics ; the latter,
to entreat his sister to consult her own happiness, and the
stability of her government, by seeking the support of the
Protestants. Lesley beat his rival on the road by a day, and
had the first word with his sovereign. He was kindly re-
ceived, and advised her to land at Aberdeen and put herself
at the head of the Catholics of the north, but he does not
seem to have obtained her confidence. Her brother, though
he was a bastard, she received with all a sister's openness
and affection; and he rewarded her confidence by retail-
ing their interviews to the English ambassador. Mary was
willing to forgive her brother all the past ; but she was most
anxious he should make his peace with Rome. The Guises
used all their influence to bring this about ; let him only
return to his ecclesiastical habit, and he might have a cardi-
nal's hat, abbeys, priories, anything his soul desired." The
Lord James remained firm—he would not be a renegade—
and for this we must honour him. However, he was not firm
for nought ; he had already sought and obtained a pension
from England, and at this very time we find the English
ambassador earnestly pressing his claims upon the English
queen. He soon obtained an earldom ; people whispered he
sought a Crown.
After some hesitation and delay, the widowed Mary resolved
to return to her ancestral kingdom. She applied to Elizabeth
for a safe passport, but it was refused with rage, for she had
cleverly evaded confirming the Treaty of Edinburgh, in which
Elizabeth was acknowledged as Queen of England—a thing
about which she was particularly tender and touchy. The
Scottish queen was not to be deterred, though she had reason
to suspect that evil was meditated against her, and embarking
at Calais on the 14th of August, she gazed at the receding
shores while she could, but soon lost sight for ever of the joy-
ous country where she had spent the only period of her life
destined to be happy. The English cruisers were in the
* Tytler's History, vol. vi. Keith, book ii.
298 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
Channel eager to intercept her, but she happily passed them
in a fog, and arrived at Leith on a dark, stormy morning, five
days after she had set sail. Her nobility and people received
her with rude pomp, and conducted her to her Palace of
Holyroodhouse. In the evening numerous bonfires blazed a
welcome, and “a company of most honest men, with instru-
ments of music, gave their salutations at her chamber window.”
Mary was good-natured enough to declare that she was
delighted with their strains, and bid them come and repeat
them on the following night; but the celebrated chronicler,
Brantome, who was one of her company, declares the music
was abominable, and performed upon wretched fiddles and
rebecs.
But Sunday came, and on Sunday the queen, like a good
Catholic, must hear mass ; and to hear mass in Scotland was
a crime worthy of death. The Master of Lindsay, and some
of the Fife Reformers, had gathered about the palace. The
poor man who carried in the candles for the altar trembled in
every joint when he looked at their threatening aspects. He
heard them muttering, “the idolatrous priest shall die.” The
chapel would certainly have been invaded, but the Lord James
had taken up his post at the door, and would allow no one to
enter. He declared, with much solemnity, that he had placed
himself there that no Scotchman might pollute his eyes with
the abominable thing. A strange humour must have flickered
about his mouth when he said it. The service was performed,
and no mischief done ; and the officiating priest safely con-
ducted back to his lodgings between the Abbot of Colding-
ham and the Abbot of Holyroodhouse, both Protestants, and
both illegitimate brothers of the queen.” But in the afternoon
the crowd became greater, and a riot was apprehended. In
these circumstances the Privy Council met, and, as the result
of their deliberations, a proclamation was published the next
day at the market-cross, forbidding any one, under pain of
death, to make "any alteration in the state of religion as it ex-
isted upon her Majesty’s arrival in her dominions, or to
assault upon any pretence any of her Majesty's attendants,
either within or without the palace.”
This proclamation had two sides—a Protestant and a
Popish. Many regarded it as a great triumph of Protestant-
ism, for it was its first regal recognition in the realm; others
I Knox's History, book iv. - 2 Ibid.
* Keith's History, book iii. chap. ii.
A.D. 1561.] MARY AND KINOX. 299
regarded it as a revival of Popery, for it protected the queen's
Frenchmen and priests in celebrating their masses. When
the herald had read the proclamation, the Earl of Arran, an
excitable young man, who had sought the hand of Elizabeth and
been refused, who had aspired to the heart of Mary with little
hope of success, and who subsequently went mad, stepped for-
ward and protested against any protection being given to the
queen's domestics in their idolatrous worship, as the law of the
Lord and the law of the land had alike declared it to be
deserving of death." On the Sunday following Knox took up
the same theme, and declared from the pulpit that one mass
was more fearful to him than if ten thousand armed enemies
were landed in any part of the realm. The Courtiers, however,
only laughed at his alarm, and jeeringly said that it was quite
beside his text.” In deep dolour Knox wrote to Calvin pour-
ing into his bosom his griefs and his fears, and asking his
advice (but it is probable the letter never reached its
destination).”
Before Mary had left France she had heard of Knox, and
feared him, perhaps hated him.* Rumours of his sermon now
reached the palace, and she resolved to send for and try if
nothing could be made of this wild and outspoken man. The
long-bearded Reformer came, and was admitted to an audience
with the queen—a girl of nineteen, already a widow, but one
of the most beautiful women in Europe. There they stood
opposite to one another in the ancient halls of Holyrood.
There were none present to witness what passed but the Lord
James, and two gentlemen in waiting who remained at the far
end of the room. The queen began the interview by charging
Knox with stirring up her subjects against her mother and
herself; with writing a book against the government of women ;
and with doing all he did by necromancy. In regard to the
first charge, Knox protested that he had done nothing more
than rebuked idolatry, and preached the Word of God in
sincerity. In regard to the second, he confessed that he
had written the treatise referred to, and that it contained his
opinions. “Then,” said the queen, “you think that I have
1 Keith's History, book iii. chap. ii. Knox's History, book iv.
* Knox's History, book iv. Thomas Randolph in a letter to Sir Nicolas
Throckmorton refers to the Mass, the Proclamation, and the Sermon.
(Eliz. vol. vi. No. 6 IA).
* Teulet, book ii. p. 12. Burton, chap. xli.
* Letter in Appendix to Tytler's History, vol. vi.
3oo CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
no just authority.” Knox parried this thrust by stating, that
philosophers were privileged to entertain speculative opinions
opposed to the existing order of things, as was Plato when he
published his “Republic.” For himself, he declared that he
was willing to live as a peaceable subject of her Majesty's
government, and that his book was provoked by the persecu-
tions of Mary of England. “But,” cried Mary of Scotland,
“you speak of women in general.” The Reformer allowed that
his argument was general, but urged that, seeing it had not
Caused her Majesty any trouble, and was not likely to do so,
it was impolitic to stir it at all. Then referring to the charge
of necromancy, he appealed to all the congregations to whom
he had preached to refute the charge. “But seeing,” he con-
cluded, “that the wicked of the world said my Master, the
Lord Jesus, was possessed with Beelzebub, I must patiently
bear, albeit that I, wretched sinner, am unjustly accused.”
The queen now shifted her ground, and asked if he had not
taught the people another religion than that of their princes;
and “how,” said she, “can that doctrine be of God, seeing God
commandeth subjects to obey their princes.” Knox had now
clearly the truth on his side, and he argued that, as religion
came not from princes, but from the eternal God, so to God
only were men answerable for it. He appealed to the Israel-
ites in Egypt, to Daniel and his fellows in Babylon, to Christ
and His apostles in the Roman Empire. “Yes,” said the
royal disputant, “but none of these men raised their sword
against their princes.” “God,” said the stout Reformer, “had
not given them the power and the means.” “Then, do you
think,” asked the queen, “that subjects having the power may
resist their princes P” “If princes exceed their bounds,” said
the unflinching Knox, and proceeded to illustrate his argument
by the case of a parent seized with frenzy and bound by his
children. -
At this bold and startling declaration the queen was struck
dumb. She remained silent, and looked so ill, that her brother
asked her if anything ailed her. After a little she recovered
herself and said, “Well, then, I perceive that my subjects will
obey you and not me.” “God forbid,” answered the Re-
former, “that I take upon me to command any to obey me,
or yet to set subjects at liberty to do whatsoever pleases them,
but my travail is, that both princes and subjects obey God.”
After this he proceeded to say, that it became kings and
queens to be nursing fathers and nursing mothers to the
A.D. 1561.] THE INTERVIEW. 3OI
Church. “Yes,” quoth the queen, “but ye are not the Church
that I will nourish. I will defend the Church of Rome, for I
think it is the true Church of God.” “Your will, madam,”
Said Knox sternly, “is no reason, neither doth your thought
make that Roman harlot the immaculate spouse of Jesus
Christ.” When the uncourtly controversialist offered to prove
that Rome was a harlot, and that the princes of the earth had
Committed fornication with her, the queen quietly said, “My
Conscience says not so.” “Conscience, madam,” said Knox,
“requires knowledge, and I fear that of right knowledge you
have but little.” “But,” said she, “I have both heard and
read.” “So had the Jews that crucified Christ,” retorted the
preacher. “You interpret the Scriptures in one manner, and
the Roman clergy in another,” said the royal Mary, still pre-
Serving her temper, and resolved not to be beat : “whom shall
I believe, and who shall be judge P” Knox replied that the
Scriptures were their own best interpreters, and that the mass
had no authority in Scripture at all. “You are over hard for
me,” said the queen,” but if they were here whom I have heard,
they would answer you.” Knox declared how it would rejoice
him to meet in controversy with the ablest Romanists in
Europe, but that he knew by experience that they avoided all
arguments but fire and sword. The interview had been long,
the afternoon was come, dinner was announced, and the queen
rose to depart. The Reformer appears to have been touched
with a transient loyalty at leaving, for he said, “I pray God,
madam, that you may be as blessed within the Commonwealth
of Scotland as ever Deborah was in the Commonwealth of
Israel.” I
Very different views have been taken of this interview be-
tween the gray-headed Reformer and the girlish queen. We
think it must be allowed by all that very few royal personages
would have borne so much as Mary did; and very few men
would have spoken so roughly in the presence of royalty as
Knox did. Would the bravest man in England have dared
So to speak in the presence of Elizabeth P But, at the same
time, we think it will be generally conceded that they were
wholesome truths which the Reformer uttered, however pain-
ful they may have been to hear. They contain the germs of
our present political liberty resting on a limited monarchy.
Knox was not formed by nature to be a courtier, but perhaps
for that very reason he was better suited to be a religious
* Knox's History, book iv.
3O2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
Reformer. He was another Baptist, more Suited to preach
repentance in the wilderness than to live in kings' houses.
“I commend better the success of his doings and preachings,”
said Randolph to Cecil, “than the manner thereof.” I
In the beginning of September the queen made her public
entry into Edinburgh. The magistrates had determined to
receive her with unusual magnificence ; and we read in the
Registers of the town council of new bonnets, new coats,
and new hose—of coifs of black velvet and doublets of
crimson satin ordered for their attendants, that they might
join in the triumphal procession with becoming civic
dignity. Pageants were also prepared in honour of the day,
cunningly devised to show their Protestantism as well as
their loyalty. The queen dined in the castle. When she
came out, on her return to the palace, the first sight that
met her eyes was a beautiful boy coming out of a round hole
intended to represent heaven. The cherub presented to
her Majesty a Bible, a psalter, and the keys of the city,
and then recited some verses in her praise. Knox, with
indignation, beheld her handing the Bible to Arthur Erskine,
whom he denominates the most pestilent Papist in the king-
dom. Proceeding a little further, she beheld Korah, Dathan,
and Abiram swallowed up alive for having offered strange
fire in their censers to the Lord. It was a significant re-
presentation of the fate of idolaters. But a more significant
representation still was designed—a priest was to have been
burned in the act of elevating the Host, but the Earl of
Huntly had influence enough to prevent it.” Having run the
gauntlet of these edifying spectacles, the queen reached her
palace. Shall we believe that pleasure or vexation possessed
her mind?
Notwithstanding these demonstrations of Protestant ardour,
we have many indications that the queen was already soften-
ing the asperity which many had felt toward her because of
her religion. The realm had long been without a sovereign,
and though a few wished it to be without a sovereign still,
the great majority of the nation were pleased that Holyrood
was again tenanted. The beauty, the grace, the affable and
winning manners of Mary, charmed all who were admitted
1 Randolph to Cecil, 24th October 1561. Given in Keith, book ii.
chap. ii. -
*dolph to Cecil, 7th September 1561. Given in Keith, book ii.
chap. ii.; Knox's History, book iv. -
A.D. 1561.] - COURT HOLY WATER. 393
into her preschce. Furious Protestants felt their reforming
zeal thawing rapidly under her smiles. As the Lords of the
Congregation presented themselves one after another at
court, they were at first inclined to fret because of the mass,
but their indignation quickly subsided, and they became
inclined to concede toleration to their queen. Lord Ochiltree
had been long of making his appearance, but when at last he
came, Campbell of Kinzeancleuch ventured to say to him :
“My lord, now you are come, and almost the last of all the
rest; and I perceive by your anger that the fire edge is not
off you yet; but I fear that after the holy water of the court
is sprinkled upon you, that you shall become as temperate as
the rest; for I have been here now five days, and at the first
I heard very many say, ‘Let us hang the priest ; but after
they had been twice or thrice in the abbey, all that fervency
past. I think there is some enchantment by which men are
bewitched.” +
Within two months after her arrival, Mary felt herself
strong enough to take a step in defence of her fellow-
religionists. The magistrates of Edinburgh had published
a proclamation commanding all priests, monks, friars, nuns,
adulterers, fornicators, and other such filthy persons, to
leave the city within eighteen hours, under pain of being
publicly carted through the town and burned upon the cheek.
The queen instantly issued a counter-proclamation, com-
manding the town council to meet and deprive the provost
and bailies of their offices as the punishment of their pre-
sumption, and elect others in their room. The council
succumbed, and did as they were Ordered. “And so,”
writes Knox, “murderers, adulterers, thieves, whores, drun-
kards, idolaters, and all malefactors, got protection under the
queen's wings.””
When things were in this state a General
Assembly of the Church was held. It was
observed that the Protcstant barons who had been sprinkled
with the holy water of the court absented themselves. As
important measures were contemplated, a committee was
appointed to confer with them and effect a reconciliation.
The nobles complained that the ministers had done things
in secret without their knowledge. Angry words were ex-
changed, and Lethington went so far as to challenge the
* Knox's History, book iv.
* Keith's History, book ii. chap. ii. Knox's History, book iv.
Dec. 1561.
3O4. CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
right of the Assembly to meet without the sanction of the
queen. “Take from us the freedom of assemblies,” said
Knox, “and take from us the gospel.” The dispute was
settled upon the understanding that the queen, might send
any one to the Assembly to hear what questions were dis-
cussed—the first step toward the appointment of a royal
commissioner. An effort was now made to get her Majesty
to ratify the “Book of Discipline.” When the number of her
council who had signed it was quoted—“How many of those
who subscribed that book will be subject to it?” said a
courtier P “All the godly,” said a preacher. “Will the
duke P” said Lethington. “If he will not,” answered Lord
Ochiltree, “I would that he were scraped out, not only of
that book, but also out of our number and company.” “Many
subscribe thcre,” retorted Lethington, “ in ſide parentum, as
children are baptised.” “Albeit you think that scoff proper,”
said John Knox fiercely ; “yet as it is most untrue, so it is
improper: that book was read in public audience on divers
days, so that no man was required to subscribe what he
understood not.” “Stand content,” said the baron ; “that
book will not be obtained.” “Let God,” replied the preacher,
“require the lack and want which this poor commonwealth
shall have of the things therein contained from the hands of
such as stop the same.” ". It was the disposal of the ecclesias-
tical temporalities, provided for in the “Book of Discipline,”
which mainly stood in the way of its ratification. Hº.
But it was evident that something must be done to keep
the Protestant preachers from positive starvation. Hitherto
they had depended almost entirely upon the benevolence of
their congregations; many of them were in abject poverty;
and they were clamorous against the government, as hungry
men always are. Meanwhile the rich benefices of the Church
were still held by the Romish ecclesiastics, or enjoyed by
the nobles who had violently seized upon them. In these
circumstances, the Privy Council conceived the idea of
allowing the old clergy to retain two-thirds of their bene-
fices during their life-time, and of appropriating the remain-
ing third partly for the ministry and partly for the crown.
An order was therefore issued, requiring all the beneficed
clergy in the kingdom to produce their rent-rolls, that the
value of the ecclesiastical property might thus be ascer-
tained ; and the superintendents were at the same time re-
* Knox's History, book iv.
A.D. 1561.] THE THIRDS. 3o 5
quired to make up lists of the ministers, exhorters, and
readers of the Protestant Church, that calculations might
be made as to how much would be required for their support.”
They were Protestant nobles who sat in council when this
scheme was devised, most of them the men who had been the
Lords of the Congregation. Their legislation when in power
was certainly different from their sentiments when in opposi-
tion. Their scheme appears marvellous for two reasons—
their own entire disinterestedness, and their great generosity
to the Romish clergy. They are silent in regard to their own
claims: they are careful of the rights of the ousted ecclesi-
astics. It was certainly but just that these, though now
prevented from executing their functions, should have a pro-
portion of their ancient property, and it would have been a
sin and a shame to have thrown them as beggars on the
world; but it was scarcely to be expected that such an appre-
ciation of “the just” should have been found in such men and
in such an age. It was seldom then that the vanquished were
spared. Courtly and Catholic influences had probably some-
thing to do with the arrangements; but it will shortly be seen
that the nobles, by being generous to the priesthood, were
enabled to be generous to themselves. The Archbishop of
St Andrews, and the Bishops of Moray, Ross, and Dunkeld,
were present, and gave their consent when the resolution was
formed ; and when they were taking their leave, the Earl of
Huntly jocosely said to them, “Good-morrow, my lords of the
two parts.”
Knox disliked the scheme from the first, and spoke vehe-
mently against it. “Well,” said he, “if the end of this order,
pretended to be taken for the sustentation of the ministry, be
happy, my judgment fails me; for first I see two parts freely
given to the devil, and the third must be divided between God
and the devil.” He prophesied that it would be seen that the
devil would get three parts of the third, and then, cried he,
“you may judge what God’s portion will be.” The courtiers,
on the other hand, accused the clergy of greed; and the sec-
retary Lethington, in his sneering way, said, that if the minis-
ters got their will, “the queen would not have enough to buy
herself a pair of new shoes.”8
When the rent-rolls of all the clergy had been produced, as
they were after considerable hesitation and delay, it was found
* Knox's History, Keith’s History, &c., &c.
* Knox's History, book iv. 3 Ibid.
TJ
3oé CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
that the thirds of all the benefices in the kingdom amounted
to 24,72,491. This was a large sum, and might have gone a
long way in maintaining an established church. The next
step to be taken was to modify stipends to the several Super-
intendents, ministers, exhorters, and readers. The Earls of
Argyll and Morton, the Lord James, now Earl of Moray, the
Laird of Lethington, the Justice-Clerk, and the Clerk-Register,
were appointed for the purpose, and the Laird of Pitarrow was
appointed their comptroller. The preachers could not have
desired a better commission : they were all Protestants.
Nevertheless they proved parsimonious, and out of the
2672,491 assigned only 24, 24,231 ° to the Reformed Church.
The Revenue of the Romish Church must have amounted to
upwards of 4,250,000.” “Who would have thought,” says
Knox, “that when Joscph ruled Egypt, his brethren should
have travelled for victuals, and have returned with empty
Sacks?”4 The modificators appear to have been resolved
that the new race of ecclesiastics should not wax wanton
through too much affluence, and so they assigned to them
stipends ranging from Ioo to 3oo merks.” The ministers
cried out against their stinted stipends, which, small as they
were, were but ill paid ; and in many cases they must have
been absolutely in want. “The Laird of Pitarrow,” says Knox,
“was an earnest professor; but the great devil receive the
* Several small benefices were at first omitted, and which, when after-
wards added, increased this by A. I389, IOS.
* Appendix to Keith's History. Besides this sum, there was also a
small allowance to Knox and the Superintendents. Keith has, with great
industry, collected the revenues of our ancient bishoprics and religious
houses. “N
* I make up this sum by multiplying £72,491 +4, 1389 by 3, and then
making some allowance for the under-valuation put upon their revenues by
the Romish ecclesiastics. The valuation was notoriously too low.
* History, book iv.
* Considerable misapprehension exists in regard to the stipends of the
first Protestant ministers in our country, and many imagine them to have
been much lower than they really were. The money referred to is Scotch
money. 4I Scotch is equal only to Is. 8d. Sterling ; and as the merk is
two-thirds of a pound, its proportionate value is only Is... I'd. Hence IOO
merks amount to £5, IIs. Išd., 300 to £16, 13s. 4d. Sterling. From this it
might be concluded, and has been concluded, that the stipends of the Scot-
tish clergy vibrated between these two sums. But it must be taken into
account that the AI Scotch at that time was at least as valuable as the
A. I sterling now, as it would buy as much, if not more ; and therefore,
again, taking the merk as two-thirds of a pound, we shall state the case
more truly if we say that the stipends varied from 470 to 4,200. The
A.D. 1562.] DIVISION OF THE SPOIL. 3O7
Comptroller.” The grumbling of the clergy did little good.
They were simply told they must rest satisfied, that many
lairds had not so much, and that the queen could not spare
more. “Oh happy servants of the devil,” said our Reformer,
with keen irony, “and miserable servants of Jesus Christ, if
after this life there were no heaven and no hell; for to the
servants of the devil, these dumb dogs and horrid bishops, to
one of these idle bellies ten thousand was not enough ; but to
the servants of Christ, that painfully preach the gospel, a
hundred will suffice.” -
When the stipends of the ministers were paid, there still
remained upwards of 24, 48,000, which, according to the scheme
of the Council, ought to have been annexed to the Crown, to
maintain its splendour. Royalty in Scotland for long had
possessed but small revenues, and it must be acknowledged
that it had some claims upon the ecclesiastical property of the
Country, as it had come to poverty by the ancient alienation
of its demesnes to the Church. But royalty was in reality
little enriched. We find, indeed, in the accounts, £9000
expended upon the queen's body-guard, 24.303 in the purchase
of their uniforms, and 24.75 paid to David Rizzio, valet of the
Chamber. The remanent thousands were swallowed up other-
wise. There were numerous pensions to courtiers and their
kin. There were numerous remittances of the thirds. The
average price of grain, as we learn from the Book of Assignations and the
Book of Assumptions, appears to have been about 20 merks per chalder;
so that, converting the money into victual, we might say that the stipends
ranged from five to fifteen chalders.
If we compare these stipends with the value of many of the ancient bene-
fices, we shall find them higher rather than lower. In 1561 the rectory
of Kilmaronock was let for IOo merks (Book of Assumptions). The bene-
fice of Eddleston was rated at 4, 133, 6s. 8d. (Libellus Taxationum).
Newlands was let for 200 merks (Book of Assumptions). The parsonage
of Buchanan was valued at £40. The vicarage of Bonhill was under £7.
The parsonage and vicarage of Killearn were set together in 1561 for 160
merks. The rectory of Carmunnock amounted to £2O, the vicarage to
A6, 13s. 4d. The rectory and vicarage of Neilston were let at the time of
the Reformation for £66, 13s. 4d., &c. These are taken at random, and
form a sample of the whole. With these the stipends of the Protestant
clergy will stand a comparison, as we find them stated in the “Register
of Ministers and their Stipendsen the year 1567.” The minister of Ratho
has £IOo, St Cuthbert's 4200, Perth £200 and a chalder of oats, Glas-
gow £240, Kinfauns ICO merks, Kilgour 40 mgrks. The leader at Coinrie
has 20 merks, at Cargill 420, at Arngask 4, 16, &c. The Register of
Ministers and Readers in 1574, published in the Miscellany of the Wodrow
Society, shows similar results.
308 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLANID. [CHAP. XI,
Earl of Moray drew the large revenues of the Priories of St
Andrews and Pittenweem without deduction. Many others
did the like. The Earl of Argyll, the Lord Erskine, and a
host of others, divided the spoil, and little was left to the
queen herself. There are two entries in the accounts which
we read with sympathy. The One is 24, IoI8 given to a multi-
tude of houseless monks, and the other is 4,754, 3s. I Id.
given to a number of enfranchised nuns." Shall we blame
the charity which helped them in their distress?
Before leaving this subject it will be well to trace the
fortunes of the property which still remained in the hands of
the beneficed clergy. We have already had some indications
of the course it was to take. We have quoted Acts of
Assembly and Acts of Council, levelled at Churchmen feuing
their manses, lands, and tithes. Here was the device. When
the Romish clergy saw that all chance of preserving the
Church was gone, they began to give feus and long leases of
their property to their relatives and friends among the nobility
and gentry; and these gladly accepted, if indeed they had not
arranged, the advantageous offers thus made to them, hoping
they would have sufficient influence to get them afterwards
confirmed, and made perpetual in their families. To ease the
Consciences of the Roman donors, perhaps also to ease the
consciences of the Protestant receivers, and to give an appear-
ance of validity to the transactions, the confirmation of the
Pope was asked ; and, in a multitude of cases, the confirma-
tion of the Pope was obtained. A bribe silenced all scruples.
When Churchmen were unwilling thus to alienate the Church's
patrimony, fraud or force was sometimes employed to secure
compliance. The Earl of Cassillis had cast covctous eyes
upon the Abbacy of Glenluce, and was in treaty with the
abbot for its feu ; but before the bargain was concluded the
abbot died. The Earl was not to be baulked; and therefore
he bribed a monk to forge the necessary documents; and
then he employed a retainer to stab the monk, lest he should
reveal the forgery; and, last of all, he made his uncle hang
the retainer, lest he should let out the murder. The same
nobleman had farther desired the Abbacy of Crossraguel, and,
shortly after the Reformation, had got a feu of it from the
abbot. But this abbot died, and another was appointed ; and
as the earl’s feu had not received the royal confirmation, the
new abbot held it as null. The earl decoyed him to his
* Keith's History, Appendix.
A.D. 1560-70.] LORDS OF ERECTION. 309
Castle of Dunmure, and roasted him over a slow fire, till, in
the extremity of his torture, he consented to sign papers rati-
fying the earl’s rights, with a hand ill able to hold the pen.
The abbot afterwards brought his complaint before the
Council; but Cassillis was too powerful to be punished; and
peace was ultimately made by a small pension paid by the
tormentor to his victim, whom he had rendered decrepit for life."
When a member of the hierarchy died, the office was not
allowed to remain vacant. A successor was generally ap-
pointed, not indeed to discharge the functions, but to draw the
revenues of the place. The Church had long ago given the
hint of this by the appointment of commendators. These new
bishops and abbots were generally Protestants, frequently lay-
men, sometimes boys. They were appointed for a purpose;
and the terms of their appointment sometimes indicated what
the purpose was. On the death of Bishop Sinclair, a young
lad, named Alexander Campbell, of the family of Ardkinlas,
was presented to the Bishopric of Brechin, and his presenta-
tion expressly gave him power “to dispone and alienate the
benefices, as well of the spirituality as temporality of the
bishoprick.” The youth availed himself of his power, and
alienated a great part of the lands and tithes of his See to his
patron, the Earl of Argyll, who had probably obtained the
grant for him, and was thus repaid for his services.” It is
remarkable that men should have preferred these flimsy pre-
texts of law to open robbery. It was esteemed the more
decent way to get possession of the Church's property—it had
the colour of right.
But in other cases the Church's lands and revenues passed
into lay hands by a more direct road. A large proportion of
the dignified clergy, especially of the abbots and priors, joined
the Reformers; and when the Reformation was completed,
some of these were rewarded by getting their abbacies erected
into temporal lordships. The holy fathers were now free to
marry; and the property which they originally held only for
life became perpetual in their families, free from the burden of
discharging monastic duties, and feeding monks who did
nothing but eat.” In instances still more numerous, abbacies
* Historical and Genealogical Account of the Principal Families of the
name of Kennedy, from an Original MS., Bannatync Club.
* Keith’s History, book ii.
* It was seriously contemplated, at one time, to make the holders of
abbacies pay to the crown a sum equal to what would have been re-
3IO CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
were bestowed upon favourite courtiers or powerful barons;
the lands frequently carried a title of nobility along with them;
the new possessor was a lord of parliament, and enjoyed all
the honours, privileges, and powers which his monkish ances-
tors had enjoyed before him. Under these different dis-
solving processes, the patrimony of the Church gradually
melted away; and the Protestant clergy were too helpless to
come in for any considerable share when they divided the spoil
with the strong.
The majority of the superior clergy of the Roman communion
lost but little by the Reformation. Many gained prodigiously.
They all had the two-thirds of their benefices secured to them ;
they increased these by their feus; and many had lands and
tithes, which were theirs only for life, bestowed upon them-
selves and thcir heirs for ever. But it was very different with
the inferior clergy. As a general rule they were reduced to
absolute beggary. An act of the first Assembly provides that
they should receive alms like other poor, if their conversation
was honest. The queen, with true kind-heartedness, bestows
nearly 24, 2000 out of her proportion of the thirds upon desti-
tute monks and nuns. In the “Book of Assumptions” we
find frequent references to small sums retained for the helpless,
houseless wretches, now they were turned adrift. In the Cis.
tercian Abbey of Melrose, eleven monks and three portioners
have twenty merks, and a small quantity of victual assigned
to each of them. In the Cistercian Nunnery of North Berwick,
eleven nuns are pensioned with 24, 20 each. In the Abbey of
Newbattle, six aged and decrepit monks, who had recanted,
are liberally pensioned with 24, 240. In the monastery of Cul-
ross, of nine monks, five embraced reform, and had an allow-
ance granted to them, but the other four would not listen to
reason, and so they were left to starve. Many of the clergy
quired for the sustenance of the usual number of monks. “Before this
tyme a litill, thair was a plat devysit for the benefite of the prence, as was
pretendit; to wit, that as in all abbacies thair was a number of monks that
was sustenit upon thair awin severall portions, that prejugeit not the
abbot’s rent ; and that the abbot, after the death of ilk monk, had appro-
priate the portion to his awin behuve, whereas, be the first institution,
still another sould have bene surrogat to the place ; tharefore it was devy-
sit to call in all abbots and uthers prelates that war presidents of con-
vents to a compt, to caus thayme to bestow upon the king, for all tyme
bygane, the portions of the monks departit before that day, and siclyke
for all tyme cuming.” (Historie of King James Sext, p. 233, Ban. Ed.)
A.D. 1560-70.] ASSEMBLY BUSINESS. 3 II
thus reduced to want became proselytes for a morsel of bread,
and received employment in the Protestant Church."
Meanwhile the Reformation was making rapid progress
toward the occupation of the land. We can distinctly trace
its history in the records of the Assemblies. Yet it were a
waste of time, and an abuse of patience, to go over the pro-
ceedings of Assembly after Assembly; and the purpose of our
history will better be served by giving a general view of the
business which came under the notice of these venerable
courts, and of the manner in which it was transacted. Every
Protestant nobleman would seem to have been invited to sit
in the first Assemblies, and many of these were generally pre-
sent, as the Sederunts show. In 1567 we find missives directed
to a large number of lords, barons, and other brethren, requir-
ing them to compear at an Assembly, which is described in
the body of the missive as a General Assembly of the whole
professors of all estates and degrees within the Kirk of Scot-
land.” In the very next year, however, we find it resolved,
that none should have place or power to vote in the Assembly
except Superintendents, commissioners appointed for visiting
kirks, ministers brought with them, and presented as able to rea-
Son and judge, commissioners of burghs and shires, together with
the commissioners of universities. The Assembly at this period
met twice in the year, in June and December, and in Decem-
ber it generally began its sittings upon the 25th, to show its
Contempt for the Romish festival of Christmas. At first no
Moderator was chosen, so primitive was the manner in which
business was done, but in the sixth General Assembly John
Willock was chosen to this honour, to prevent confusion in the
debates.3 - - -
Much time in all the first Assemblies was occupied in the
appointment of ministers, exhorters, and readers; and it is
amazing how rapidly the vacant parishes were supplied. In
Several cases we have modest men declaring themselves unfit
for the office of the ministry, but compelled to take it under
* The Superintendent of Angus and Mearns was accused of having ad-
mitted many immoral and ignorant Popish priests as readers. (Records of
Assembly.)
* This was the Assembly held at the time when Mary was in the hands
of the lords who had risen against the government, and when they were
yet unresolved what to do. A largc attendance of noblemen was desired,
that the affairs of the kingdom, as well as of the Church, might be decided
in the Assembly. (Keith’s Hist. book iii.)
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 17.
3 I2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
the pain of the censures of the Church. In other cases we
have presumptuous men removed from offices which they had
taken upon themselves. In every Assembly, ministers,
exhorters, and readers joined in complaints that their stipends
were small and irregularly paid, and in some instances they
excused themselves for not having done the work which was
imposed upon them from their inability to bear the expense it
would have entailed." These complaints were generally fol-
lowed by resolutions to petition the Secret Council, to prevent
the further alienation of the Church's lands. But one of the
most characteristic features of these Assemblies was delating
the superintendents. These dignified Presbyterian Churchmen
were removed from the house one after another, and the clergy
of their diocese invited to make complaints against them, and
there appears to have been no disinclination to do so. The
Superintendent of Fife was blamed for being too much given
to worldly affairs, slack in preaching, rash in excommunicating,
sharper than became him in exacting payment of small tithes.
The Superintendent of Angus was accused of having admitted
too many illiterate and immoral Popish priests to be readers
in his diocese, of having rashly admitted some young men to
the ministry without the forms prescribed in the “Book of
Discipline;” of having chosen gentlemen of vicious lives to
be elders; of tolerating ministers who did not visit the sick,
nor instruct the youth ; and who on the Sundays came to their
churches long after the hour, and departed again the moment
the sermon was done.” The superintendent of the West was
charged with being slack in the extirpation of idolatry; but he
pleaded that he was hindered in the good work by the Duke
and the Earl of Cassillis.” When the superintendents had
one by one passed through this fiery ordeal, the ministers
required to walk over the same course; and as it had been
the duty of the ministers to rake up everything they could
against the superintendents, so now it was the privilege of the
Superintendents to mete out to them the same measure they
had meted to others.
The other business of these Assemblies was very miscel-
laneous. The sacraments were ordered to be administered
* The universal complaint, we are told, was, that kirks lacked minis-
ters, and ministers lacked stipends. (Assembly vi. Keith, book iii.
chap. iii.)
* Fifth General Assembly. Keith, book iii. chap. iii.
* Seventh General Assembly. Keith, book iii. chap. iii.
A.D. 1560-70.] RUINS OF ROMISH CHURCH. 3 I3
according to the forms of the Book of Geneva." Every
minister was ordered to furnish himself with a copy of the
Psalm-Book, which had just been printed with the Order of
Geneva attached to it.” The minister of Galston complained
that his wife had abandoned him and fled to England, where-
upon letters were directed to the Archbishops of Canterbury
and York, requesting edicts to be proclaimed or citations
executed against the fugitive lady.” Four women were
accused of witchcraft, and were handed over to the Privy
Council.4 John Knox asks leave to go to England to visit
his children, and is furnished with letters of commendation.”
The confession of the Helvetian churches is approved of, with
the exception of the appointment of festival days." Com-
plaints are made against the Archbishop of St Andrews being
again invested with his ancient jurisdiction in testamentary
and other matters. A letter is written to the bishops and
clergy of England, begging them in the bowels of Jesus
Christ to bear with those of their brethren whose consciences
would not allow them to wear any religious apparel, seeing
that surplices, cornets, capes, and tippets were but vain
trifles.7 *
While the Assemblies were thus legislating, complaining,
petitioning, and writing pastoral epistles, the public mind
was in a state of tremulous excitement. There were still
abundant sources of irritation. The ancient Church was not
clean swept away. It stood like the bare and blackened walls
of a building which had been gutted by fire. Romish ecclesi-
astics lived in the manses, cultivated the glebes, lifted the
tithes, sat in the senate, presided on the bench.” Protestant
preachers occupied the churches, expounded the Scriptures,
and dispensed the sacraments to the people. The rapidity
with which the Catholic worship had been overthrown was
marvellous, but we must not imagine that the overthrow was
Complete. The mass was still celebrated in many parish
churches, and where it could not be celebrated openly in the
* Fourth General Assembly. Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 13. Keith
places this act in the Fifth Assembly.
* Ninth Gen. Assembly. Keith. * Seventh Gen. Assembly. Keith.
* Seventh Gen. Assembly. Keith. " Thirteenth Gen. Assembly. Keith.
* Twelfth Gen. Assembly. Keith. 7 Thirteenth Gen. Assembly. Keith.
* “For sa muckle as it was heavilie lamentit be the maist part of the
ministers that they can have no dwelling-places at their kirks because the
manses ar either deteinit be the parsons or vicars of the samen, or else sett
in feu or utherwayes to gentlemen.” (General Assembly, iv. sess. 5. Book
of the Universal Kirk, p. 13.)
3I4 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
churches, it was performed privately in gentlemen's houses.
Large districts were still attached to the ancient forms. When
Protestant ministers made their appearance at Paisley, Aber-
deen, Curry, Duplin, Aberdalgie, they found the doors of the
churches barred against them." Quentin Kennedy, Abbot of
Crossraguel, and Ninian Wingate, schoolmaster of Linlithgow,
threw down the gauntlet, and challenged Knox to discussion.”
The people nowhere could shake off their early prejudices,
and, notwithstanding their Protestantism, persisted in going on
pilgrimage to chapels and wells, and keeping wakes for the
dead.” When such strong counter-currents meet, a violent
commotion is the necessary result. Society in Scotland was
in as troubled a state as it well could be. The agitation was
increased by political events, to which we must now refer.
Since her first arrival in the kingdom, the young queen had
thrown herself entirely upon the friendship and support of her
Protestant subjects. Maitland of Lethington was made her
secretary. Her principal advisers were Reformers. Her
brother the Lord James was constantly at her side, and in fact
held in his hand the sceptre, while she was content to wear
the crown. He was created Earl of Mar, and afterwards
Earl of Moray, an honour which he had long coveted. Her
face was turned away from her fellow-religionists, though she
must in her heart have sympathised with them. The potent
Earl of Huntly, still a Catholic, was treated coldly, driven
into rebellion, defeated, and slain. His second son died on
the scaffold, and his immense estates were forfeited. But as
the queen still continued a Romanist herself, and insisted
upon the private use of the mass, she was suspected and dis-
liked by the more vehement Reformers. Nothing but the
unconditional surrender of her religion would satisfy them.
The queen, moreover, was fond of gaiety—the dance and the
* In the Ninth General Assembly the Church “requyres punishment of
sick as hes steikit the doores of the paroch kirks, and will not opin the
Samen to preachers that have presentit themselves to preach the Word,
sick as Paisley, Aberdeen, Curry, Duplin, and Aberdalgie.” See also
Lee's Paisley Abbey.
* “Ane Compendius Tractive,” published by Kennedy in 1558, is re-
printed in the Wodrow Miscellany, with Davidson's answer to it.
Wingate's Controversial Tracts are to be found in the Appendix to Keith.
They have also been published, with a prefatory notice, by the Maitland
Club. Wingate was glad to flee to the Continent, where he became
abbot of a Scotch monastery at Ratisbone.
* We have Acts of Assembly against these practices.
A.D. 1562.] DANCING AT HOLY ROOTD. 3I 5
song, to which she had been accustomed in joyous France.
The preachers were scandalised at this, and it must be con-
fessed that many of the dances of that day were grossly in-
decent, and in some respects as lewdly suggestive as the
modern Parisian quadrilles. But a dance might be indicative
of political triumph as well as of libidinous desire. News had
arrived that peace had been restored to France; and, con-
joined with this, there were rumours that the Guises were
about to commence a persecution of the Huguenots. About
the same time a ball was given at Holyrood, and the dancing
was kept up with great spirit till after midnight. Knox heard
of this, and on the following Sunday he chose for his text,
“Be wise now, therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges
of the earth,” and from these words declaimed against perse-
cuting and dancing princes."
Some of the queen's attendants reported this to her Majesty,
and Knox was summoned into her presence. The Reformer
told the queen that it had been better she had come and
heard the sermon herself than have listened to distorted reports
of it from others. “I doubt not,” said he, “but that it came
to the ears of Herod that our Master Jesus Christ called him
a fox; but they told him not how odious a thing it was before
God to murder an innocent, as he had lately done before,
causing to behead John the Baptist, to reward the dancing of
a harlot's daughter.” He then proceeded to state what he had
really said in his sermon. He had declared “that violence
and oppression occupied the throne of God upon earth; that
murderers and bloodthirsty men presented themselves before
kings and princes, while the poor saints were exiled ; that
princes were more exercised in fiddling and flinging, than in
reading and hearing God’s most blessed Word; and that
fiddlers and flatterers were more precious in their eyes than
men of wisdom and gravity. As for dancing,” he remarked,
“ though he found it nowhere praised in God’s Word, and
though he thought it fitter for the mad than the sane, yet he
did not utterly condemn it if it did not interfere with more
serious concerns, and if it were not used to triumph over
God’s people.” This was bad enough, but it would appear
that the reports were worse. The queen said so, and told
the stern censor, that if at any time he had any fault to find
with her, she would much rather he would come and tell it to
* Randolph wrote to Kyllygrew regarding the court ladies that they
were merry, lopping, dancing, lusty, and fair. (Eliz., vol. vii. No. 93 a).
3I6 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
herself. This was kindly said, and no doubt kindly meant;
but Knox rudely answered that he had something else to do
“ than come and wait at her chamber door, and whisper in
her Majesty's ear.” The queen turned her back upon him. As
he left the palace, men were watching the expression of his
countenance, and he overheard one whisper, “He is not
afraid.” “Why should the pleasant face of a lady affray me?”
said the unmoved man. “I have looked in the faces of many
angry men, and have not been afraid above measure.”” -
It is from Knox himself we get the account of these scenes
at the palace, and it is probable he makes himself ruder in
writing than he actually was in the royal presence. Of his
outspokenness there can bc no doubt. But illere was need
for it, and all the more because Mary was a beautiful woman.
If he spoke sharply, he did not give way to mere randoin in-
vective : he knew what he was saying. He had penetrated as
deeply into the political designs of the day as any man living,
and had probably sources of information through the French
Huguenots. The State papers, which were then seen by only
a few eyes, but which are now published to the world, make it
plain that this woman, able as she was beautiful, was bent
upon the restoration of the Catholic religion, and that she
was plotting not only with her cousins of Guise, but with a
more dangerous and formidable man, Philip of Spain, the
greatest bigot and bloodiest persecutor of the time.
There were penal statutes against the mass, but they had
seldom been put into execution. Perhaps the queen denied
their validity, as she had never ratified the proceedings of the
parliament which passed them ; perhaps she felt it would be
indecent for her to punish others for what she did herself.
But the more vehement Reformers were resolved that these
sanguinary laws should not lie idie in the statute-book, and
therefore the westland gentlemen, in their char-
acter of magistrates, laid hold of some of the
perverse priests, and warned others, especially the Abbot of
Crossraguel and the parson of Sanquhar, that they would do
well to desist from saying mass. The queen was then at
Lochleven, enjoying herself amid its pleasant scenery, and
little dreaming it was soon to be her prison, when intelligence
of this reached her. Knowing the influence of Knox with his
party, she resolved to send for him, and try the influence of
persuasion. Knox came, and was admitted to an audience.
* Knox's History, book iv.
May 1563.
A.D. 1563.] THE SWORD OF JUSTICE. 3 I 7
The queen complained that her subjects had taken the law
into their own hand, and that it was hard that men should be
punished for worshipping their God according to their con-
science. “The sword of justice, madam, is God's,” said the
Reformer, “and is given to princes and rulers for one end,
which, if they transgress, sparing the wicked and oppressing
the innocent, they that in the fear of God execute judgment
where God hath commanded offend not God; neither yet sin
they that bridle kings from striking innocent men in their
rage. The examples are evident, for Samuel spared not to
slay Agag, the fat and delicate King of Amalek, whom King
Saul had saved; neither spared Elias Jezebel's false prophets
and Baal's priests, albeit King Ahab was present ; Phinehas
was no magistrate, and yet feared he not to strike Zimri and
Cosbi in the very act of filthy fornication. And so, madam,
you Majesty may see that others than chief magistrates may
lawfully punish, and have punished the vices and crimes
which God commands to be punished ; for power by act of
parliament is given to all judges to search the mass-mongers,
or hearers of the same, and to punish them according to the
law.” Knox may have been right in holding that magistrates
were entitled to put existing laws into execution ; but he was
plainly wrong in the applicability of the Old Testament ex-
amples which he cited, or every bigot would be entitled to
commit murder when he pleased, and then quote the examples
of Samuel, Elijah, and Phinehas. The queen bore with
him with wonderful patience, continued the conversation for
two hours, and only broke it off when supper-time had come.
Knox left her presence to go and repeat all that had passed to
the Earl of Moray. -
Before sunrise the next morning, Knox was again summoned
to wait upon her Majesty. She had gone out to enjoy a
day's hawking, and Knox came up with her in the fields near
Kinross. She received him with the greatest kindness and
Condescension; told him of a little love affair between Lord
Ruthven and herself; warned him against the Bishop of Gal-
loway, whom she knew to be a dangerous man ; confided to
him some domestic differences between the Earl and Countess
of Argyll, and begged his good offices to effect a reconcilia-
tion ; and finally, before parting, said to him, with reference
to their interview on the previous evening, that she would
Cause all offenders against the laws to be summoned, and see
justice done. She kept her word : so soon as she returned to
* Knox's History, book iv.
3 18 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
Edinburgh, the Archbishop of St Andrews, the Prior of Whit-
horn, and several others, were brought before the Council,
and committed to custody. Was not this enough to make
Knox relent? But he did not. Mary was a Papist, and a
Papist was an abomination in his sight.
On the 4th of June 1563 the parliament as-
June 4, 1593: sembled. The queen rode in state to the Tol-
booth, and delivered the opening address, surrounded by a
Crowd of ladies, whom French milliners had made more than
usually gay. “Such stinking pride of women,” says Knox,
“as was seen at that parliament, was never seen before in
Scotland.” But there were others felt differently, and while
the queen spoke, there were heard whispers among the audi-
ence—“God save that sweet face; was there ever Orator
spake so properly and so sweetly P”* The more vehement of
the Reformers wished to obtain in this parliament a ratifica-
tion of the treaty of Leith; but Moray and Lethington, know-
ing the queen's aversion to this, had resolved to content
themselves with an act of indemnity. Knox and Moray had
a violent altercation on the subject, which ended in a quarrel,
and for eighteen months the two chiefs of the Reformation
Scarcely exchanged words. The act of indemnity was
passed ; and to conciliate the clergy, acts were also passed
to punish adulterers and witches with death ; to repair the
parish churches; to prevent the letting of manses and glebes
by the Romish occupants, and ultimately secure them to the
Protestant ministry. The preachers were clamorous for a
law against the superfluity of female attire, which they affirmed
was sure to bring God’s vengeance not only upon the foolish
women themselves, but upon the whole kingdom ; * but the
love neither of religion nor economy could induce the lords
to intermeddle with the ruffs and farthingales of their ladies.
If the press be a fourth estate of the realm now, the pulpit
arrogated this honour and authority to itself at the time of the
Reformation. While the parliament was sitting, St Gile's was
crowded with courtiers and legislators. Undivided by parti-
tions, and unencumbered with galleries, it then opened up its
long nave and aisles to the echoing voice of the preacher.
John Knox, mounting the pulpit, believed himself in the
place “where God required him to speak the truth, and there-
fore speak it he would, impugn it whoso listed.” He drew a
picture of the dangers through which the nation had passed ;
of the struggle the Reformers had endured. “In your most
* Iºnox's History, book iv. * Ibid.
A.D. 1563.] KNOX ON MARY'S MARRIAGE. 3 IQ
extreme danger,” he exclaimed, “I have been with you; St
Johnstone, Cupar-moor, and the charges of Edinburgh are yet
recent in my heart; yea, that dark and dolorous night
wherein all you, my Lords, with shame and fear left this
town, is yet in my mind ; and God forbid that ever I forget
it.” He alluded to speeches which had been made by some
to the effect that the Protestant religion had never been estab-
lished by law, and declared that those who spoke such things
deserved to be hanged upon a gallows. He adverted to the
rumours which were in circulation in regard to the marriage of
the queen with the Infant of Spain, and said that if the nobles
consented to her marrying a Papist, they would banish Jesus
Christ from the realm, and bring God’s judgments upon the
country and themselves." All this was uttered as Knox could
utter his fierce philippics, with a voice low and calm at first,
but soon rising into a perfect hurricane.
Rumours of this soon reached the palace, and again the
preacher was summoned into the presence of the queen.
Knox found Mary in a violent fit of grief and rage. “I have
borne with you,” she exclaimed, “in all your rigorous manner
of speaking, both against myself and my uncles; I have even
sought your favour by all possible means; I offered you pre-
sence and audience whenever you pleased to admonish me ;
and yet I cannot be quit of you. I vow to God I shall be re-
venged ; ” and so saying she burst into tears. Knox was
unmoved ; he could even afterwards mock at her grief.
“Scarce could her page,” says he, “get handkerchiefs to hold
her eyes dry; for the tears and the howling, besides womanly
weeping, staid her speech.” When the fit of crying had sub-
sided, Knox remarked, “that when it should please God to
deliver her Majesty from the bondage of error in which she
had been nourished, she would not find the liberty of his
tongue to be offensive; and that in the pulpit it was his duty
to speak plain, and flatter no flesh.” “But what,” cried she
passionately, “have you to do with my marriage?” for her
heart was set upon the Spanish match, and it was all but
arranged. In answer to this Knox Said, “that he must preach
repentance, which implied the noting of particular sins;” and
“it so happens,” said he, “that the most part of the nobility
are so devoted to your wishes, that neither God's Word nor
yet the commonwealth arc rightly regarded ; and therefore it
* Knox's History, book iv. There was the same agitation in England
ten years earlier in regard to the marriage of Mary with Philip of Spain.
(See Froude, vol. vi.)
32O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
becometh me to speak, that they may know their duty.” “But
what have you to do with my marriage,” she again asked, “ or
what are you within the commonwealth?” “A subject born
within the same,” said Knox, proudly; “and albeit I be
neither earl, lord, nor baron, yet hath God made me a profit-
able and useful member.” “My vocation craves,” he con-
tinued, “plainness of speech, and therefore, madam, I say to
yourself what I have spoken in public, that whenever the
nobility shall consent to your marrying an unlawful husband,
they will do as much as in them lies to renounce Christ, banish
truth, betray the freedom of the realm, and bring discomfort
upon yourself.” Upon this the queen again gave way to a
passionate fit of crying. Erskine of Dun had accompanied
John Knox into the queen's presence, and now did everything
he could to soothe and comfort her; but “the said John,” to
quote his own description of the scene, “stood still, williout
any alteration of countenance.” At length he said that he did
not delight in the weeping of any of God’s creatures ; that it
grieved him to hear his own children cry when he whipped
them ; but that still he must speak the truth. This species of
sympathy only increased the anger of the queen, and so the
unflinching Reformer was ordered to leave her presence, and
wait her pleasure in an adjoining room.
When Knox came into the outer apartment the courtiers
carefully avoided him—Lord Ochiltree alone came and spoke
to him. But he found himself in the midst of the ladies of the
court, gorgeously apparelled, and probably busy at their
tapestry. “Fair ladies,” said he, with a smile on his face,
“how pleasant were this life of yours if it should ever abide ;
and then in the end that we might pass to heaven with this gay
gear. But fie upon that knave death, that will come whether
we will or not ; and when he hath laid on the arrest, then foul
worms will be busy with this flesh, be it never so fair and so
tender; and the silly soul, I fear, shall be so feeble, that it
can neither carry with it gold, garnishing, targating, pearl, nor
precious stones.” With such moralisings, which remind us of
Hamlet, he entertained the maids of honour for a long hour,
till the Laird of Dun came and told him he might go home.
Perhaps as he made his way up the Canongate he thought,
“better that women weep than bearded men,” and so justified
himself. -
In the autumn of this year, the queen paid a visit to the
western counties. During her absence from the capital, her
* Knox's History, book iv.
A.D. 1564.] KNOX BEFORE THE COUNCIL, 32 I
household, as usual, attended mass in the chapel on the Sunday.
On that day the sacrament of the Supper was administered in
St Gile's ; and the Solemn services had unhappily awakened
religious rancour rather than Christian charity. A crowd of
citizens gathered around the palace; some of them entered the
chapel, and interrupted the service. A riot was apprehended;
the magistrates were called upon to interfere; and two of the
ringleaders were seized and committed for trial. Knox
believed that the Protestant religion would be compromised if
these two men were punished; and so he wrote circular letters to
the leading Reformers in different parts of the country, request-
ing their presence in Edinburgh on the day of the trial. The
Protestant gathering was no doubt designed to overawe the
judges. It was a plan which had frequently succeeded during
the Reformation struggle. It was a plan which feudal barons
well knew; and in feudal times magistrates were often required
to pronounce sentence in a court crowded with the armed
retainers of the accused. A copy of Knox's circular came
into the hands of the queen, and was pronounced to be
treasonable. He was summoned before the council, to answer
to the charge of having convocated the queen's lieges. Mary
herself sat at the head of the council-table, hardly able to con-
ceal her satisfaction at having now got her arch-enemy within
her power. Knox stood at the foot of it, with his head
uncovered. Lethington exerted all his ingenuity to get a
verdict of guilty. The accused, when requested to answer for
himself, drew a distinction between lawful and unlawful con-
vocations; some of his friends in the council, anxious to save
him, caught it up ; and he was almost unanimously acquitted,
to the queen's great chagrin. “That night,” said the triumphant
Knox, “there was neither dancing nor fiddling in the court,
for Our Sovereign was disappointed of her purpose.”". But
though he was acquitted of treason, the more moderate
Reformers blamed his violence, and few attempted altogether
to justify his conduct. -
During the year 1564, the great subject of conversation and
anxiety in Scotland was the marriage of the queen. Gossips
talked of it over their bread and ale; and diplomatists, ambas-
sadors, and ministers of state discussed it in cabinets. It was
known that the King of Sweden, the Infant of Spain, and the
second son of the Empcror, had offered her their royal hearts
and hands. But Mary, who had ever an eye on the English
* Knox's History, book iv.
X
322 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTL AND. [CHAP. XI.
throne, was anxious to consult the wishes of Elizabeth ; and
Elizabeth was averse to her forming an alliance with a foreign
potentate. It was known that if she could have had her own
way she would have preferred the Prince of Spain to any other
match ; but both Elizabeth and her own subjects were utterly
opposed to her marrying a Papist. The Queen of England,
not yet too old to love, suggested her own gallant, the Earl of
Leicester ; but her royal Cousin justly suspected her sincerity,
and more justly still considered the match as unbecoming her
sovereign dignity. Mary had now been a widow for nearly
three years, and was most anxious to marry again; but Eliza-
beth's intrigues threw such continual obstacles in her way, that
she was outstripped in the matrimonial race by a competitor
whom we could scarcely have expected to have found in such
a contest. This was John Knox. He also had passed three
years in widowhood, and was now verging upon the venerable
age of sixty. He was an austere man; and to have seen him
stern and unmoved in the presence of the weeping Mary, one
would have thought him incapable of being influenced either
by a woman's hate or a woman's love. But he must have had
his softer moods; for the rough old man wooed and won
Margaret Stewart, a daughter of Lord Ochiltree's, a young lady
just escaping from her teens. Many thought the thing so ex-
traordinary that they ascribed the girl’s passion to witchcraft ;
but it is certain that the parents, as well as the bride, were
delighted with the match." For a time people ceased to
speculate about Mary's marriage to talk of Knox's wedding.
But the veteran bridegroom took home his bride, the tittle-
tattle died away, and again the subject of discourse was the
future husband of the queen. In the month of February 1565,
* M'Crie's Life of Knox, period vii. Dr M'Crie, in his appendix, has a
curious note about Knox's courtship, taken from Nicol Burne's Disputa-
tion. He is said to have first asked the eldest daughter of the Duke of
Chastelherault, and was refused ; and then he set his heart npon Lord
Ochiltree's daughter. “Rydand thair with ane gret court, on ane trim
gelding, nocht lyk ane prophet or ane auld decrepit priest, as he was, bot
lyk as he had bene ane of the blude royal, with his bendes of taffetie
feschnit with golden ringis and precious stanes; and as is plainlie reportit
in the countrey, be sorcerie and witchcraft did sua allure that puir gentil
woman that Scho could not leve without him ; whilk apperis to be of greit
probabilitie, Scho being ane damsel of nobil blude, and he ane auld decre-
pit creatur of maist bais degrie of onie that could be found in the countrey.”
It is comical to hear Knox, described as a dandy; it is equally so to find
Ninian Wingate taunting him for his “southron tongue.” He appears to
have been both Anglified and dandyfied.
A.D. 1564.] LORD DARNLEY. 323
Lord Darnley arrived in Scotland. He was handsome, the
next heir to the English throne after Mary herself; his foolish-
ness and vice were as yet latent; and if the queen was to marry
a subject, whom better could she find? Beside the tall, slender
person of the stripling, there were many political reasons in
favour of the match; and it soon became known that Mary
had given to him her heart. The nobility in a body gave their
consent; and it was hoped the Queen of England would give
her approbation too. But Elizabeth's policy led her in an
opposite course ; and moreover she seems to have had a
malicious pleasure in teasing her fairer cousin in her matri-
monial projects. She despatched an ambassador to Scotland
to do everything in his power to prevent it. Moray, too,
began to show his aversion to the marriage; and when the
sentiments of Elizabeth were known, his aversion became still
more decided. The feeling was infectious, and quickly
spread. Moray did not like the match, for it would take
the sceptre out of his hands; the Duke of Chastelherault
did not like the match, for it would take the hope of the crown
from off his head; Elizabeth did not like the match, from
female jealousy and state craft; and where these led many were
sure to follow. Argyll, Glencairn, Rothes, Ochiltree, threw in
their lot with them ; and an armed resistance was secretly
Organised, under the fostering care of the English queen.
Things were in this state when the General Assembly met
On the 24th of June. Moray and Knox had been reconciled.
Knox was at the devotion of Moray, and the General Assembly
was at the devotion of Knox. Certain articles of petition and
complaint were prepared to be laid before the queen. They
were to the effect—That the blasphemous mass, with all
papistry and idolatry, should be suppressed throughout the
realm, not only in her subjects, but in her Majesty’s own per-
Son ; and every one compelled to resort, on the Sundays at
least, to prayers and the preaching of the Word: That some
Sure provision should be made for the maintenance of the
ministry: That none should be permitted to teach in schools,
colleges, or universities, or even to act as private tutors, till
they were first examined and approved of by the superintend-
ents: That all lands anciently doted to hospitals, all revenues
belonging to the friars, and all obits, altarages, and such dues
pertaining to the priests, should be appropriated to the main
tenance of schools and the support of the poor : That such
horrible crimes as idolatry, blasphemy, Sabbath-breaking,
witchcraft, sorcery, adultery, whoredom, murder, &c., should
324 CHURCH, HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
be severely punished : That order should be taken to give
relief to the poor labourers of the ground from the unreason-
able payment of tithes, taken over their heads without their
consent."
The first of these articles asked the queen to renounce her re-
ligion. That she should be compelled to do so had always been
the opinion of Knox, but not of Moray. Now they were at one.
It could not have been expected that the queen would yield
to such a compulsory method of conversion; but she made a
conciliatory reply, and declared that all her Protestant subjects
would enjoy the same liberty of conscience which she claimed
for herself, and that she was willing to leave the ratification of
the Reformed faith to the Estates of the realm. This was not
deemed to be enough ; perhaps no declaration whatever would.
But an object had been gained. It was important that reli-
gious enthusiasm should give its aid to political craft, and there-
fore the cry was raised that the Church was in danger ; but the
people in general were shrewd enough to see that it was raised
for factious purposes; and indeed there is reason to believe
that there was less cause for alarm at this juncture than at any
period since the queen's arrival in the realm. She had recently
gone so far as to attend a Protestant sermon ; she had admitted
three of the superintendents to an interview, and declared her
willingness to listen to discussion regarding disputed points of
faith ; she had expressed a desire to hear Erskine preach,
whom she appears to have regarded with kindness since his
attempt to comfort her under the rebukes of Knox; and at
that very time she had requested the most powerful of the
Protestant nobles to meet her at Perth, that some arrange-
ments might be made regarding their religion, but they de-
clined to meet her under various pretences.
It was known that the queen, in the company of Lord Darn-
ley, was to pass from Perth to Callander. The discontented
lords, with the approbation of the English resident, resolved
to waylay them ; but the queen got a hint of what was in-
tended, and was so early in her saddle that she gave them the
slip. *
On the morning of Sunday the 29th of July, Mary, attired in
black velvet, was married to Lord Darnley in the Chapel of
Holyrood. The ceremony was performed according to the
rites of the Catholic Church, but immediately after it was over
Darnley, who, though a Catholic, wished to trim his sails for
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 28, 29.
A.D. 1564.] LIBERTY OF THE PULPIT. 325
Protestant favour, left the chapel, not to be present at the ser-
vice of the mass. On Sunday the 19th of August, he repaired
to St Gile's to hear John Knox preach. Knox chose his text
from Isaiah—“O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have
had dominion over us.” He expatiated on the government of
wicked princes, who were sent to plague nations for their sins,
and “amongst other things said, that God set in that station,
for the offences and ingratitude of the people, boys and
women,” and then went on to declare “that God had justly
punished Ahab and his posterity because he would not take
order with the harlot Jezebel.” A kind of throne had been
erected in the church, that the young king might sit in state
and listen to the sermon; but he soon began to perceive that
the preacher was coarsely lecturing himself and the queen, and
left the church boiling with indignation. When he got home
to the palace, he could eat no dinner, and went out to hawk
in the afternoon, that he might soothe his choler in the open
all.
We have refrained up to this time from saying much regard-
ing these pulpit exhibitions of Knox. The liberty of the
pulpit is certainly a thing quite as sacred as the liberty of the
press. It were a grievous calamity, even now, if the preachers of
the gospel were restricted to speak only the prevalent opinions
of the court; it had been a greater calamity still had it been
so in the days of the Reformation, when the press was yet in
its infancy, and the pulpit the only means of acting on the in-
telligence of the people. Had the preachers become the
mouthpiece of princes, had they gilded fashionable vices,
recommended obedience to tyrannical decrees, exalted kings
into gods, the preaching of those truths which should make
men free would have been converted into a means for their
enslavement. A woe is on the country where despotism cannot
be denounced as a sin; where the people cannot be told that
God has made them free. But liberty is ever apt to degenerate
into licentiousness, and the law of libel has been devised, which
now operates as a check upon the licentiousness alike of the
pulpit and the press. In no place, however sacred, can a
man be indulged with an unbridled latitude of speech ; men's
characters, feelings, interests, must be protected from the
assaults of envy, malice, and falsehood. If a man will speak,
he must be responsible for what he says. Knox would have
* Knox's History, book iv.
326 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
it, that for what he said in the pulpit he was answerable only
to God—a dangerous doctrine.
The truth is, Knox in the pulpit was stronger than Mary in
her palace, and all his harsh and uncharitable speeches against
her escaped with impunity. But when Knox is placed at the
bar of a posterity which is stronger than the strongest, and
cannot be overawed, he cannot be acquitted. We do not con-
demn him for introducing politics into the pulpit, for at such
a crisis that was inevitable ; we do not condemn him for
unveiling foreign conspiracies, for that was patriotic ; but we
condemn him for attacking with such coarse virulence persons
whose position should have commanded respect. It was too
bad that a queen who had as yet been convicted of no crime
but a conscientious attachment to the religion in which she
had been educated, should be publicly compared to every
harlot, murderer, and idolater mentioned in the Old Testa-
ment, and that even prayer should have been prostituted to
the purposes of abuse. Nor can we accept the apologetic plea
that his invectives seem coarse only to the squeamish delicacy
of modern times; that his calumnious way of speaking was the
current language of the period. Knox was blamed by his
compeers, remonstrated with, threatened, but in vain. Leth-
ington reasoned with him, Moray reasoned with him. His
best friends, as he himself confesses, were scandalized and
estranged from him by his violence; and Randolph the
English resident, notwithstanding his favour for the faction to
which Knox belonged, again and again alludes to his unseason-
able severity. Nor did the Reformation require such vituper-
ative speeches. In some respects it was injured by them.
They gave deep cause of offence to the court; they cooled the
affection of many of the nobles; and were probably one of the
reasons which deferred for so long a suitable provision for the
Reformed ministry. -
Enox was not perfect, as no man is. He was coarse, fierce,
dictatorial; but he had great redeeming qualities—qualities
which are seldom found in such stormy, changeful periods as
that in which he lived. He was consistent, sincere, unselfish,
far-seeing. From first to last he pursued the same straight,
unswerving course, turning neither to the right hand nor to
the left ; firm amid continual vicissitudes; and if he could
have burned and disembowelled unhappy Papists, he would
have done it with the fullest conviction that he was doing
God service. He hated Popery with a perfect hatred ; and
A.D. 1566.] REBELLION AND MURDER. 327
regarding Mary and her mother as its chief personations in the
land, he followed them through life with a rancour which was
all the more deadly because it was rooted in religion. The
suspicions he had of their designs have been proved to be
well founded. He was perhaps fond of power and popularity,
but he gained them by no mean compliances. On a question
of principle he would quarrel with the highest. His hands
were clean of bribes. He did not grow rich by the spoils of
the Reformation. He was content to live and die the minister
of St Gile's. Is not such an One, rough and bearish though
he be, more to be venerated than the supple, time-serving
Churchmen who were the tools of the English Reformation P
Does he not stand out in pleasing relief from the grasping
barons with whom he was associated, who hated monks
because they coveted their corn-fields, and afterwards dis-
graced the religion they professed by their feuds, their con-
spiracies, and cold-blooded assassinations?
Meanwhile the discontented nobles, depending upon the
assistance of England, had broken out into open rebellion.
A few days after her marriage, Mary placed herself at the
head of her troops, chased them from town to town, and
finally compelled them to seek shelter in England. They had
implored the promised aid from Elizabeth ; but Elizabeth had
seen that their case was hopeless, and left them to their fate.
The faction was broken to pieces. The Earl of Moray and
the Abbot of Kilwinning, leaving their discomfited com-
panions at Newcastle, repaired to the court of London. But it
was not the policy of Elizabeth to appear openly to favour
unsuccessful rebels. They were at first refused admittance ;
and when they were admitted, they were compelled to go
down upon their knees before the imperious queen, in the
presence of the ambassadors of France and Spain, and declare
that they had not been incited to rebellion by her Majesty;
and when they had submitted to this indignity, and uttered
this falsehood, they were told to get out of her presence, as
they were unworthy traitors." It was a solemn farce on the
part of the queen to keep up appearances, as we Soon find her
exerting herself to procure their pardon.
It is a dark page of our history upon which
March 1566. we now enter. In the month of March a par-
liament was to be held, in which it was expected that Moray
and his associates would be outlawed, and their immense pos-
* Sir James Melville's Memoirs, pp. II2, I 13.
328 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
sessions confiscated. The parliament was opened, but its
proceedings were suddenly and fearfully stayed. A conspiracy
had been organised by the king (who had proved a silly,
jealous, libertine lad), the Earl of Morton, Lord Ruthven, the
Secretary Maitland, and the banished nobles, to murder
Rizzio, who was thought to have too much influence with the
queen, to imprison the queen herself, Confer upon Darnley the
crown-matrimonial, and restore to the rebels their honours and
estates. The English queen was made aware of the Con-
spiracy, and there is a strong suspicion that Knox and Craig,
the two ministers of Edinburgh, were made privy to it too."
On a Saturday evening the unhappy Italian was foully mur-
dered, almost in the presence of the queen. Mary was kept a
prisoner in her room. The banished lords were instantly in
Edinburgh. Moray was received with affection by his sister,
who clung to him in her hour of need, being yet ignorant of
the part which he had in the conspiracy. But Mary's influence
over her feeble husband was not yet gone. He repented him
of his rashness, and fled with her. Their friends gathered
around them, they marched upon Edinburgh, and the assassins
were obliged to flee for their lives. Darnley now protested his
own innocence, but revealed his accomplices, and insisted on
their punishment. They, in revenge, produced the documents,
which proved not only that he was a party to the conspiracy,
but that he had openly asserted the dishonour of his wife.
A wrong had been done to Mary which she could not forgive.
A solemn bond had been violated with men, who, destitute of
all other faith, esteemed fidelity to one another a Sacred virtue,
and it must be avenged. Less than a year revealed it all.
Mary, now a mother, did not attempt to conceal her estrange-
ment from Darnley; and Darnley, deprived of the royal favour,
sunk into universal contempt. The Earl of Bothwell, in the
meantime, had made himself useful to the queen, had seized
every opportunity of insinuating himself into her favour, and
perhaps had already gained her heart. A divorce from Darn-
ley was talked of ; but there were difficulties in the way, and
* This is debateable ground in history. The question is interesting in
a historical point of view, but not in a moral point of view, as affecting
Knox's character. We know he approved of the murder after it was com-
mitted; and to approve of a murder after its commission is in a moral
point of view the same as to approve of it before its commission. He was,
moreover, a keen advocate of tyrannicide, as Buchanan and other leading
men of the time were.
A.D. 1567.] MURDER OF DARNIEY. 329
it was abandoned. The simple remedy of desperadoes must
be resorted to. A new conspiracy was organised. A new bond
for blood was drawn up. It was signed by Bothwell, Huntly,
Argyll, Lethington, and Balfour. It was afterwards made
known to the Earl of Morton. The plot ramified still more
widely: the Archbishop of St Andrews and the Earl of Moray
are said to have received intimation of it. The king was to be
got rid of by murder. Was Mary ignorant that she was on the
eve of a second widowhood? God alone knows all, but a fear-
ful suspicion rests upon her name, and the casket-letters all
but prove her guilt. Early on the morning of Monday, the
Ioth of February 1567, the house in the suburbs of Edinburgh
where the king slept was blown up with gunpowder, and the
loud report awakened the whole city. A crowd was soon col-
lected on the spot, and the king's body was found in an
adjoining field, nearly naked, and entirely unscathed by fire.
It was thought he had been caught rushing from the house
just before the explosion, and strangled. Bothwell was in-
stantly suspected of the murder: voices in the night pro-
claimed it; labels secretly posted up in the streets proclaimed
it; but none dared openly to accuse him, saving the father of
the murdered man. Meanwhile Mary was continually in
Bothwell's society, and delayed to bring him to trial. When
a trial could no longer be deferred, he appeared before a court
constituted after his own liking, surrounded by his own re-
tainers, and overawed by the guns of the castle which he com-
manded. Lennox, his accuser, was forbidden to approach
Edinburgh with more than six followers; and so unattended,
he was afraid to come. The indictment was read; no accuser
appeared; no witnesses were called ; and after this mockery
of law and justice, a verdict of “not guilty” was brought in
by the jury.
What followed is soon told. It is a story of sin and shame,
followed by wretchedness and ruin. Mary married the man
who was universally believed to be her husband's murderer.
She appears to have been mad in love with him, though one
of the most dissolute men of the time. Some even fancy that
her passion for him had for the time quenched her zeal for
Rome. She sanctioned provisions for the support of the
Protestant preachers, cancelled all permissions to use the
offices of her own religion, cut down church vestments of
cloth of gold to make a robe for her lover, and consented to
be married according to the Reformed rites. While her
33O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XI.
infatuation lasted, she was willing to sacrifice everything for
him, but it was an abandonment of herself to what she knew
was bad." Her downward progress in guilt had been awfully
rapid—as a woman's always is. She had been living amidst
Conspirators and assassins, and had learned their ways. Why
trace her corruption back to France, which she had left when
almost a child: had she not witnessed dark scenes, had she
not associated with bloody men in Holyrood House P But
when the cup of iniquity is full, it runs over. The nation
could bear this burden of guilt no more. A number of the
nobles took arms. The people sympathised with them.
Resistance was attempted ; but, deserted by their troops at
Carberry Hill, Bothwell was glad to flee, and Mary to surren-
der herself into the hands of her subjects. She was brought
to Edinburgh, marched through the streets, insulted by the
mob, and finally sent as a prisoner to the Castle of Lochleven
to await her fate.
While these things were doing, the General Assembly of
the Church was sitting. It was of the utmost importance
that the lords who had the queen in their power should be
joined by their brother peers, the great bulk of whom held
back ; and the influence of the Assembly was employed for
this purpose. The Assembly was prorogued till the 20th of
July. Missives were directed to nearly forty influential
barons, inviting them to attend ; and Knox, Douglas, Row,
and Craig were commissioned to wait upon those to whom
the missives were sent, to urge by every argument their pre-
sence in Edinburgh at the time appointed.” The missives
calling this extraordinary Assembly mention only the neces-
sity of extirpating Popery, and providing for the Reformed
ministry; but the narrative of Knox, as well as subsequent
events, makes it clear that the great object was to secure the
concurrence of as many nobles as possible to the political re-
volution that was in progress. Very few of the invited lords
appeared. They made the disturbed state of the kingdom
a reason for their absence.
The Assembly again met. The revolutionary lords, dis-
appointed of their brethren, and anxious to conciliate the
Church, which was omnipotent with the people, promised
everything that was asked of them. In the presence of the
Assembly they put their hands to a document, promising to
* Robertson's Concilia, vol. i., Pref. clxxii., clxxiii.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 55-57. Keith, book iii.
A.D. 1567.] - MARY IN LOCHLEVEN. 33 I
have the Parliament of August 1560, which established the
Reformation, ratified; the ecclesiastical lands given back to
ecclesiastical uses; the education of youth entrusted to the
clergy ; and idolatry everywhere put down. In the same
document they bound themselves to revenge the murder of
Darnley, to guard the young prince his son from all danger,
to see him educated in the Protestant faith, and to cause all
future sovereigns to swear to maintain the Reformed religion
previous to their coronation."
Meanwhile, in every coterie in the kingdom it was debated
what should be done with the queen. Some proposed she
should be divorced from Bothwell, and restored to the
throne; some suggested she should take the veil, and spend
the remainder of her days in a French monastery. Some
gave it as their opinion that she should be deprived of the
government, and doomed to perpetual imprisonment ; some
argued that the short and simple plan was to put her to
death. Of what was said and done in the Assembly of the
Church in regard to these grave matters, we have no record;
we are only told that the debates were sanguinary. But we
know that Knox, who had been out of the country since
the murder of Rizzio and was now returned, was clamorous
for the death of the queen, and Throkmorton wrote to
Elizabeth that the Assembly demanded that the murder of
the king should be punished according to the laws of God
and man.” Immediately after the Assembly dissolved, Lord
Lindsay proceeded to Lochleven, bearing three documents.
The first was a deed of demission by the queen in favour of
her infant son; the second was a deed appointing the Earl
of Moray regent of the kingdom during the minority of
James; the third was a deed empowering the Duke of
Chastelherault, and the Earls of Lennox, Argyll, Athole,
Morton, Glencairn, and Mar, to govern the realm till the
return of Moray from abroad. It is not too much to suppose
that these documents were concocted and resolved upon in
the Assembly of the Church. With death before her eyes in
case of refusal, Mary signed the instruments.
Moray was in France during this amazing revolution, but
he now hurried home. He was not long in the country till
* Fourteenth General Assembly, pp. 65-69. (Book of the Universal
Kirk.) Keith, book iii. º
2 ºokmotion to Elizabeth, 25th July. Froude's History, vol. ix.
p. I 38.
332 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
he visited his captive sister at Lochleven. Mary received
him with kisses and tears; but instead of being affected by
her misfortunes, or remembering the many favours he had
received at her hands, he bitterly upbraided her for her
crimes, and presented to her mind the possibility of an
ignominious death. Bewildered by grief and fear, she be-
sought him as her brother to accept the regency, and so
Save the country, her infant, and herself. Moray affected
to accept with reluctance an office which he had long
earnestly desired, for which many affirmed he had all his
life-time plotted and schemed. The full height of his am-
bition was all but attained. On the 22d of August he was
declared regent of the kingdom ; and the bells of Edinburgh
were ringing rejoicings, while Mary was pining in her solitary
prison in Tochleven
C H A P T E R X II.
THE Regent Moray soon showed that, if he
had aspired to rule, his abilities were equal to
his ambition. It was immediately felt that the government
of the country was no longer in the hands of a woman.
The fierce baron in his feudal keep, the bandit on the bor-
ders, the gillie in the mountain-pass, knew he might no
more rob and murder with impunity. But a large portion
of the nobility were discontented with the government;
they might at any time organise a formidable opposition to
it ; and therefore the regent hastened to secure the good-
will of the Protestant ministers, by whose influence chiefly
he had clamb to power. Pledges had been given in the
last Assembly, and these must be redeemed. On the I5th
of December, the parliament met. Its first business was to
accept the resignation of the queen, and give its Sanction to
the coronation of James and the regency of Moray. This
done, a series of acts affecting the Church were passed.
The parliament of August 1560, which first established the
Reformation, had never received the royal Sanction; and
therefore it was deemed prudent to re-enact its enactments.
The jurisdiction of the Pope was abolished; all laws in
favour of the Roman Catholic religion were repealed ; the
A.D. I567.
A.D. 1567.] REFORMATION RATIFIED. - 333
Protestant Confession of Faith was ratified and engrossed
in the records; and the saying or hearing of mass was
declared to be a crime punishable with confiscation of goods
for the first offence, banishment for the Second, death for
the third. Sticklers for constitutional forms regard this as
the true establishment of the Protestant Church ; as the
previous acts had never been ratified by the head of the
State. Legislation proceeded still farther, and declared the
Church now established to be the only true Church of
Christ, and those only to be members of it who should accept
of the Confession as now ratified, and partake of the sacra-
ments as now administered. Another act was passed pro-
hibiting any one from holding office, or from acting as a
procurator or notary in any court, till he should first profess
the Reformed faith ; and another and still more important
one, providing that every future sovereign should, at his
coronation, swear before the Eternal God that he would
maintain the true religion of Christ Jesus, abolish all false
religions contrary to the same, and rule the people com-
mitted to his charge according to the will of God revealed in
His Word, and the lovable laws and constitutions received
in the realm. It was a wise piece of legislation. It may
have savoured of intolerance to insist on the Catholic
queen of a hitherto Catholic country changing her faith
because her subjects had changed theirs; but there was no
intolerance in a Protestant country notifying to all future
expectants of the throne that they must be Protestants if
they would be its king. The time chosen, too, was oppor-
tune. James was a child, and might be educated in the
Protestant faith, and so saved the struggle of overcoming
early prejudices, or the hypocrisy of professing a religion
which he did not believe.
All was not yet done that was needful to be done. It was
needful that arrangements should be made as to the admission
of ministers, and stipends for them after they were admitted.
In regard to the former, it was “statute and Ordained by our
sovereign lord, with advice of his dearest regent and the
Three Estates of this present parliament,” that the examina-
tion and admission of ministers should lie with the Church,
and that the presentation should lie with the ancient lay
patrons ; but that if the patron ſailed to present a properly-
qualified person to the superintendent within six months, the
right of presentation should lapse to the Church. In the
334 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLANT). [CHAP. XII.
event of the superintendent refusing to induct the presentee
of the patron, it was provided that there might be an appeal
to the provincial synod, and from the provincial synod to the
General Assembly, whose sentence was to be final. In regard
to the stipends of the clergy, an act was passed, proceeding
upon the preamble that the ministers had been long defrauded
of their stipends, so that they were come to great poverty, and
yet that they had continued in their vocation, but that they
should be constrained to leave it unless some remedy were
provided. It was therefore enacted that the stipends of the
clergy should first be paid out of the whole thirds of the
whole realm, and that not till this was done should the
surplus be applied to Swell the royal revenue. From this act
it is plain that the poverty of the ministers had not arisen
altogether from the insufficiency of the stipends assigned to
them, but from these, such as they were, being irregularly
and imperfectly paid. Their claims were now to be held
paramount to all others. But the clergy had claimed the
whole patrimony of the Church ; the barons who sat in the
last Assembly had promised it ; the regent is said not to have
been opposed to it; but it was too strong a measure to pro-
pose and carry in the face of so much greed and selfishness,
Hope, however, was kept alive in the minds of the ministers
by a clause purporting that the present measure was to be
only a temporary one, to serve “ay and quhill the Kirk come
to the full possession of its proper patrimonie, quhilk is the
teindes.” Vain hope I every day was making the thing more
hopeless by new alienations."
It is not a little curious to find the same parliament which
passed these strongly-Protestant measures ratifying all the
civil privileges anciently possessed by the Spiritual Estate of
the realm ; and by the Spiritual Estate is meant not the Pro-
testant ministers, but the Popish hierarchy. The act regard-
ing the Spiritual Estate is followed by two others ratifying the
privileges of the barons and the burghs.” Strange that the
Popish dignitaries should still be recognised as the first of the
Three Estates ; that, driven from the Church and the altar,
they should still be allowed to sit in the Senate. In the very
parliament in which these things were done, four bishops and
fourteen abbots sat, and spoke, and voted. They were mostly
1 Acts of Parl. James I., parl. i. chapters i.-xii.
* James I., parl. i. chapters xxiv.-xxvi.
A.D. 1567-8.] MARY ESCAPES. 335
Protestants; but it was in virtue of their positions in the Roman
hierarchy that they occupied their places.
The parliament was hardly dissolved when
* * *5°7 the General Assembly met. It met bent on
enforcing discipline. The Earl of Argyll was taken to task
for separating from his wife ; and the Countess of Argyll for
being present at the Popish baptism of the prince. The Earl
declared the fault was not his, but for other offences professed
himself willing to submit to the discipline of the Church.
The lady confessed her fault, and was ordered to make public
repentance in the Chapel Royal at Stirling. John Craig, one
of the ministers of Edinburgh, was accused of having pub-
lished the banns of marriage between the queen and the
Earl of Bothwell; but he amply vindicated his conduct by
proving that in proclaiming the banns he had openly con-
demned the marriage. Adam, called Bishop of Orkney, was
charged with not visiting the kirks of his province ; acting as
a judge in the Court of Session; keeping Company with Sir
Francis Bothwell, a Popish priest, bestowing upon him
benefices, and placing him as a minister; and, above all,
solemnizing the marriage between the queen and the Earl of
Bothwell. The bishop pleaded that his health would not
allow him to remain in Orkney; that he was ignorant of Sir
Francis being a Papist ; but being unable to exculpate him-
self for marrying the queen, he was suspended from his
office, and not restored till he professed his penitence
publicly in the Chapel of Holyrood. The Bishop of Gallo-
way was accused of not having visited the churches in his
district for three years; of having ceased to plant churches;
of haunting the court too much ; of acting as a judge and
privy-counsellor ; of having resigned the Abbey of Inchaffray
in favour of a child; and having set lands in feu to the pre-
judice of the kirk." -
In the beginning of May 1568, the news spread through
the country like wildfire that the queen had escaped from
her prison in Lochleven. Escaped she certainly had, and
in a few days she found herself at Hamilton, surrounded by a
great majority of the nobility and gentry of the realm, eager
for her restoration to the throne. But the Regent Moray
proved himself equal to the occasion, and in a ſew days
more the unhappy Mary, from the top of Langside Hill, saw
her hopes blighted, and her army scattered like chaff; and,
* Book of the Universal Kirk, Dec. 1567. Keith, book iii., chap. ii.
336 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIl.
turning her horse's head to the south, she sought shelter in
England—a fugitive from her ancestral kingdom—a suppliant
at the feet of Elizabeth. How it fared with her all the
world knows:–Accused of the murder of her husband by her
own brother ; detained for eighteen long years in captivity;
finally brought to the block; she went from the world leaving
behind her a name not unsullied by suspicion, but which still
moves every heart to pity her misfortunes, and almost to forget
her crimes.
Moray did not long enjoy his regency. On the 23d day
of January 1570, in passing through the town of Linlithgow,
he was shot at from a window by Hamilton of Bothwell-
haugh. The street was narrow, the crowd of spectators
obstructed the way, the assassin had time to take deliberate
aim, and the wound proved mortal. His body was conveyed
to Edinburgh, and followed to thc grave by an immense
concourse of mourners. When the procession reached the
Church of St Gile's, the coffin was placed upon a bier in
front of the pulpit, and while it lay there, in the view of the
people, Knox preached a sermon from the text—“Blessed
are the dead which die in the Lord.” Lowered into his last
resting-place in St Anthony’s aisle, his epitaph was written
by the classic pen of Buchanan, in which he is bewailed as
the best man of his age, and the Common father of his
country.
Posterity has vindicated the encomium of Buchanan by
bestowing upon Moray the enviable name of the Good
Regent. Yet the impartial reader of history may find it diffi-
cult to assign such unqualified praise. Moray's devotion to
England may be thought inconsistent with patriotism, his
conduct to his sister at variance with natural affection, his
share in bloody conspiracies as opposed to true Christianity.
But be this as it may, he undoubtedly possessed great
qualities. He was born to govern, and, during his short
regency, he rendered a turbulent country peaceful and happy.
His private life was irreproachable. “His house,” says the
affectionate Buchanan,” “like an holy temple, was free not
only from impiety, but even from wanton words. After
dinner and supper he always caused a chapter out of the
Holy Bible to be read; and though he had still a learned
man to interpret it, yet if there were any eminent scholars
there (as frequently there were a great many, and such were
1 History of Scotland, book xix.
A.D. 1570.] REGENT MORAY. 337
still respected by him) he would ask their opinions of it,
which he did not out of a vain ambition, but a desire to con-
form himself to its rules.” There can be no doubt but that
his attachment to Protestantism was sincere, persevered in,
as it was, from boyhood till the day of his death. The
preachers might well bewail him, for he courted their favour,
and showed himself on all occasions attentive to their interests.
His enemies accused him of aiming at the supreme power,
and he was scarcely in his grave till a document was put in
circulation, purporting to be an account of an interview acci-
dentally overheard between him and some of his friends, in
which Knox, Lord Lindsay, and others, advised him to
make himself strong with men of war, and assume the regency
for life." The cleverness of the squib deceived many, but it
was a forgery, and Knox, from the pulpit, declared it to be
so. But while opposing factions assailed and lampooned
him, the great bulk of the nation, as they had experienced his
virtues, lamented his loss. He is described as being of a com-
manding presence, but possessed of a blunt open manner,
which begot confidence. It was noted, however, that after he
acquired the regency he became more haughty, and kept the
nobles at a distance. It was probably policy more than pride
that prompted him to do so.
The death of Moray left the country without a governor,
and for some months it was cruelly torn by the contending
factions of the king and queen. The faction of the queen
numbered most names among the nobility ; but the faction of
the king had the support of the Church and the English
Government. In the month of July the Earl of Lennox was
raised to the regency on account of his near relationship to the
infant king, but the queen's faction refused to acknowledge his
authority, and as he was entirely destitute of the vigour of
Moray, the country continued to be distracted by civil dissen-
sions. These were industriously fonmented by Elizabeth, whose
constant policy it was to secure peace to herself by sowing
troubles among her neighbours.
Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange commanded the Castle of
Edinburgh, and threw in his lot with the queen's party. The
city lay at his mercy. It began to fill with the adherents of
Mary. Knox's health was failing, but his courage was un-
shaken, and from the pulpit he denounced Grange as a throat-
Cutter and murderer. His life was threatened in consequence.
* Bannatyne's Memoriales.
Y
338 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
When the Assembly met in March 1570, an anonymous paper
was thrown in at the door, charging him with speaking of the
queen as an idolater, adulteress, and murderer—treating her
as a reprobate, and refusing to pray for her. Placards to the
same effect were pasted on the door of the church. Knox
boldly answered them, and vindicated his conduct without
denying it." On another occasion, a musket ball came crack-
ling in at the window of his house at the Netherbow Port, where
the thoughtful bailies had made “ane warme studye of dailles
to the minister, John Knox, above the hall of the same, with
lyght and windocks thereunto and all other necessaries.” The
place was getting too hot for him, and, by the advice of his
friends, he retired to St Andrews. The Bishop of Galloway
Occupied his pulpit, and preached in a manner illore pleasing
to the queen's party.”
James Melville was at this time a student in St Leonard's
College, and from his pen we have one of the most interest-
ing sketches of the Reformer in this the last period of his life :
—“Of all the benefits,” says he, in his interesting, graphic
style, “which I had that year was the coming of that most not.
able prophet and apostle of our nation, Mr John Knox, to St
Andrews, who, by the faction of the queen occupying the castle
and town of Edinburgh, was compelled to remove therefrom
with a number of the best, and chose to come to St Andrews.
I heard him teach there the prophecy of Daniel that summer
and the winter following. I had my pen and my little book,
and took away such things as I could comprehend. In the
opening up of his text he was moderate the space of half
an hour, but when he entered to application, he made me so
to grew and tremble that I could not hold a pen to write. . . .
Mr Knox would sometimes come into our college-yard, and
Call us scholars unto him and bless us, and exhort us to know
God and his work in our country, and stand by the good cause,
to use our time well, and learn the good instructions, and fol-
low the good example of our masters.” “I saw him every day
of his doctrine,” Melville again testifies, “go ſhulie and far,
with a furring of martricks about his neck, a staff in the one
hand, and good, godly Richard Bannatyne, his servant, hold-
ing up the other owtar, from the abbey to the parish church,
and by the said Richard and another servant lifted up to the
*Bannatyne's Memoriales.
* Act of Council. Laing's Pref. to Knox's Works, vol. vi.
*Bannatyne's Memoriales.
A.D. 1571.] ARCHIBISHOP HAMILTON HANGED. 339
pulpit, where he behoved to lean at his first entry, but ere he
had done with his sermon he was so active and vigorous, that
he was like to ding the pulpit in blads, and fly out of it.” ". No
picture of the Reformer could be more perfect than this—it
stands out before us like a stereoscopic view—we see him walk,
we hear him speak. And it is all the more interesting, as it
presents him to us old and worn out with his life-long work ;
his hard battle against mass-saying priests and sacrilegious
nobles.
On the 7th of April 1571, John Hamilton, the last Roman
Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews, was publicly hanged in
his episcopal robes upon a gibbet at Stirling. After the battle
of Langside he had been declared a traitor by the Earl of
Moray, and after living for a time under the shelter of his
powerful friends, he had sought refuge in the Castle of Dum-
barton, which was held for the queen. When it was surprised
and taken, he was brought to trial, accused of being privy to
the murders of Darnley and Moray, condemned, hanged,
quartered. He was a man able, indefatigable, and faithful to
his Church, through good and bad report; but like most of
his compeers, he appears to have been utterly destitute of
principle.
It was now becoming more and more evident that something
must be done to give the Church a polity. The “First Book
of Discipline” had never been sanctioned by the Legislature ;
the Church had a nationally-received creed, but not a nation-
ally-received government. The old Spiritual Estate still existed
as one of the Estates of the realm. Its property had never
been confiscated ; its voice in the parliament had never been
denied. But the bishops and abbots were gradually dying out ;
and to replace them by Protestant laymen was felt to be a false
and anomalous proceeding. These bishops and abbots, thus
dying without successors, were the acknowledged superiors of
a large part of the land of the country, a considerable propor-
tion of which was let in feu and heritage ; and now the feuars
and heritable tenants could not get entry to their lands, for
there was none to give it. To rectify this an act was passed
in the parliament which met in August 1571, declaring that all
such ecclesiastical feuars and tenants should henceforth hold
their feus and possessions direct from the king.” It was an im-
* James Melville's Diary, Ban. Ed.
*James VI., parl. ii. chap. xxxviii.
34o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
portant measure, and in some respects amounted to a confisca-
tion of a great part of the Church property of the kingdom.
But much land and tithes were still undisposed of, and who
was to get these? The Protestant Church earnestly and im-
portunately claimed them, but the men in power had destined
the most of them for themselves. There was a perfect scramble
for abbacies, priories, and bishoprics; and the lawless state of
the country made the work rapid and easy. Either faction
required to purchase partisans, and there was no price they
could so conveniently offer as a benefice. Mary bestowed
upon Grange the Priory of St Andrews. “Brother William,”
wrote Randolph to him, in a bantering letter, “it was indeed
most wonderful unto me, when I heard that you should become
a prior. That vocation agreeth not with anything that ever I
knew in you, saving for your religious life led under the
cardinal's hat, when we were both students in Paris.” 1 The
Earl of Glencairn had set his heart upon the Archbishopric of
Glasgow, and sulkily refused to take any part in a parliament
because it was refused him.” The defection of the Earl of
Argyll from the party of the queen to that of the king was
ascribed to an ecclesiastical bribe. “The greedy and in-
satiable appetite of benefices,” says the author of the “Diurnal
of Occurrents,” “was the most cause thereof, for in his time
there was none brought under the king's obedience but for
reward either given or promised.” 8 The Archbishop of St
Andrews was scarcely cut down from his gallows, when the
Earl of Morton got a gift of his archbishopric from the
Rcgcnt Lcnnox.
But under what plea and by what tenure were these bishop-
rics, abbacies, and priories to be held P. The nobles who got
them did not contemplate becoming ecclesiastics. They
scarcely dared to contemplate the sudden secularization of SO
much ecclesiastical property. The nation was not prepared
for it. The Church would vehemently resist it; and the
Church had already shown itself strong enough to pull down
and set up rulers. Besides, was it politic, was it wise, to allow
the Spiritual Estate—the first estate in the realm—to come to
nought?' Were none but barons and burgesses henceforward
to sit in parliament P Was the old balance of the constitution
to be destroyed? Would the throne be safe, would the aris-
* Letter, Randolph to the Laird of Grange, 1st May 1570. State-Paper
Office. Quoted by Tytler, Hist., vol. vii.
* Diurnal of Occurrents, 13th October 1570. * Ibid. 1571.
A.D. 1572.] CONCORDAT OF LEITH. 34 I.
tocracy be safe, in presence of the rising power of the burghs,
without the aid of the clergy? Moreover, how was the original
framework of the College of Justice to be maintained P where
were its eight ecclesiastical senators to come from, seeing the
Church had debarred its superintendents and ministers from
acting as judges? Even laying aside the constitution of the
court, was not the ecclesiastical body the one most fitted to
supply able lawyers, from the Superior training of its members?
Could no plan be formed by which the Spiritual Estate might
be preserved, the Court of Session supplied with judges, and
a portion at least of the Church's revenues pocketed by the
patrons P These thoughts must have passed through many
minds at the period we speak of. In a little we may be able
to trace the result. -
A.D. I572. On the 12th of January 1572, a Convention of
& Jºº & the Church assembled at Leith. By whom it
was convened is unknown. It was not a regular Assembly,
but it assumed to itself “the strength, force, and effect of a
General Assembly,” and it was attended by “the superinten-
dents, barons, commissioners to plant kirks, commissioners of
provinces, towns, kirks, and ministers.” At its third session,
and on the fifteenth day of the month, it appointed a com-
mittee to meet with a committee of the Privy Council, and
confer upon matters affecting the Church. On the very next
day the Privy Council appointed a corresponding committee
to meet and confer with the Commissioners of the Church, upon
the matters entrusted to them.” These two committees em-
braced the leading men of the Church and State, and repre-
sented very fairly every party and every sentiment ; but it is
impossible to believe that the Convention and Privy Council
would have worked with such perfect harmony, unless the
whole proceedings had been previously arranged.
By the 1st of February the joint committees framed a
concordat, of which the following articles were the chief:-
I. That the names of archbishops and bishops, and the
bounds of dioceses, should remain as they were before the
Reformation, at least till the majority of the king, or till a
different arrangement should be made by the parliament; and
that to every cathedral church there should be attached a
chapter of learned men ; but that the bishops should have no
* Book of the Universal Kirk, January 1572.
* Calderwood's History. Spottiswood's History.
342. CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
more power than was possessed by the superintendents, and
should like them be subject to the General Assemblies.
2. That abbots and priors should be continued as parts of
the Spiritual Estate of the realm ; that before they were
admitted they should be examined by the Church, and care
taken that from the benefices within their bounds enough was
secured for the adequate maintenance of the ministers ; but
that being admitted, they might be promoted to act as senators
of the College of Justice.
3. That qualified ministers should be placed in every part
of the country; that livings under the yearly value of 4,40
should be conferred upon readers, and those of greater value
upon ministers capable of dispensing the sacraments; that no
pluralities should be allowed, every minister constrained to
reside within his parish, and required at his admission to sign
the Confession of Faith, and take an oath of allegiance to the
king.
4. That all provostries, prebends, collegiate churches, and
chaplainries should be bestowed by their respective patrons
upon bursars or students in grammar, arts, theology, law, or
medicine."
Such was the famous concordat agreed upon by the Church
and State in Scotland in 1572. The regent instantly approved
of it; but it remained to be seen whether the General Assem-
bly would give its sanction to the proceedings of its commis-
sioners. The Earl of Morton did not wait till the General
Assembly would meet, but at once took action upon the terms
of the concordat. He had obtained a gift of the Archbishopric
of St Andrews; he presented to it John Douglas, Rector of
the University. A chapter was held, and Douglas gave proof
of his ability to preach. The day for his admission was fixed,
and John Knox preached the sermon, but believing there had
been a Simoniacal paction between the patron and presentee,
he denounced an anathema upon both. John Winram read
the forms, and asked the questions used in the admission of
superintendents; and thereafter the Bishop of Orkney, the
Superintendent of Lothian, and David Lindsay laid their hands
upon Douglas, and embraced him in sign of admission.” The
Church of Scotland had once more an archbishop.
The work being begun went briskly on. James Boyd was
appointed to the Archiepiscopal See of Glasgow, Andrew Paton
* Calderwood's History. Spottiswood's History.
* Calderwood's History, I572.
A.D. 1572.] - TULCHAN BISHOPS. 343
to Dunkeld, Andrew Graham 1 to Dunblane, George Douglas
to Moray. The episcopal bench was now once more nearly
full; for Gordon was already Bishop of Galloway, Bothwell of
Orkney, Campbell of Brechin, Stuart of Caithness, Hamilton
of Argyle, Carswell of the Isles. It was more than suspected
that these men—at least those of them who had recently
received their investiture—had consented to enjoy the episco-
pal titles, with but a small part of the episcopal revenues.
They were the creatures of the lordly patrons. “There be
three kinds of bishops,” said Adamson, with severe irony,”
“My Lord Bishop, My Lord's Bishop, and the Lord's Bishop.
My Lord Bishop was in the Papistry; My Lord's Bishop is
now, when my lord gets the fat of the benefice, and the bishop
makes his title sure ; the Lord's Bishop is the true minister of
the gospel.” “ The people, too, must have their jest. It was once
the custom in Scotland to set up a stuffed calf's skin before
cows when being milked, under the belief that the milk was
made thereby to flow more freely into the pail of the dairy-
maid. This stuffed calf was called a fulchan. The coarse
humour of the nation found vent in nick-naming the new race
of prelates “tulchan-bishops,” as they were thought no better
than stuffed calves, set up to make the benefice yield its
revenues to their lord.*
The General Assembly met at St Andrews on the 6th of
March, but there is no record of its having done anything in
regard to the Convention at Leith. It again met, however, at
Perth on the 6th of August, and the following minute was put
upon the register with reference to the concordat :—“In it
are found certain names, such as archbishop, bishop, dean,
archdean, chamber, chapter, which names were thought
slanderous and offensive to the ears of many of the brethren,
appearing to sound of Papistry; therefore the whole Assembly
in one voice, as well they that were in commission at Leith as
others, solemnly protest that they intend not by using such
names to ratify, consent, and agree to any kind of Papistry or
Superstition, and wish rather the same names may be changed
* Graham was a layman when he was all at Once made a bishop ; but so
was St Ambrose.
* Adamson is thought to have had his wit sharpened by disappointment.
He afterwards got promotion to an archbishopric, and then he changed his
way of speaking.
* Jailies Melville's Dialy.
* Calderwood's History. James Melville's Diary.
344 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
to others that are not slanderous and offensive, and, in like
manner, protest that the said heads and articles agreed upon
be only received as an interim, until farther and more perfect
order be obtained at the hands of the king's majesty's regent
and nobility, for the which they will press as occasion shall
serve ; unto the which protestation the whole Assembly in one
voice adheres.” 1
The whole Church, in General Assembly convened, thus
gave its consent to the concordat of Leith ; but it was a reluc-
tant Consent, and accompanied by a protest that the arrange-
ment was not exactly such as they would have wished, and
that even while submitting to it, they would regard it as merely
temporary, and use every effort to secure a better. It is sur-
prising, however, to find the Church which had approved of
the “First Book of Discipline,” and banished bishops from its
policy for twelve years, giving even such a conditional sanc-
tion as this to a concordat which reintroduced the whole
machinery of the Papacy. It was plainly a compromise—an
expediency measure—agreed to in the hope that good would
result from it. Things were still in a chaotic state, and pure
Presbyterianism was an after-growth.
The Church had in vain attempted to get its favourite
policy ratified by parliament. It had in vain struggled to get
possession of its patrimony. In had in vain argued that the
bishoprics and abbacies should be dissolved, and their revenues
applied for the maintenance of the ministry, the education of
the youthhead, and the support of the poor. The bishoprics
and abbacies were maintained as if they were indissoluble.
Some of them were already bestowed upon laymen, and the
ministers of the Protestant Church were poorly paid out of
the thirds of benefices. The collection of these even the
regent had recently stopped,” and beggary was at the door.
What was to be done? The only way of obtaining the
episcopal revenues was by reintroducing the episcopal office.
None but a bishop could hold a bishopric, so had the
law ordained. The law could not be safely abrogated; the
balance of the constitution could not be safely destroyed;
* Book of the Universal Kirk, August 1572. -
* The avaricious Morton had persuaded the clergy, that if they would
allow him to collect the thirds, he would arrange to have every minister's
stipend paid out of the teinds of the parish where he served. They soon
discovered that they were worse off than ever, and clamoured for a return
to the system established by Moray. (Calderwood's History. Book of .
the Universal Kirk, &c., &c.)
A.D. 1572.] NECESSITY OF THE CASE. 345
the First Estate in the realm could not be suffered to perish."
These arguments were no doubt pressed again and again upon
the ministers, by men whose influence would give weight to
their logic. The ministers regarded archbishops, bishops,
deans, and chapters as things lawful, but not expedient—
“they sounded of papistry;” but now, under the pressure of a
still stronger expediency, they received them into the Church.
That the Church did sanction the proceedings of the Conven-
tion at Leith, and succumb to a species of episcopacy, it were
idle to deny. In the sederunts of the Assemblies hencefor-
ward, the bishops are mentioned immediately before the
Superintendents ; by the Assembly of August 1574, the regent
was petitioned to provide qualified persons to vacant bishop-
rics; and in the Assembly of March 1575, the Bishop of Glas-
gow was raised to the moderator's chair.” But it was not
always, nor even often, that bishops enjoyed this dignity; on
the contrary, we frequently find them hauled before the court
for negligence in the discharge of their duties, and altogether
they were never greatly honoured in the Church. .
Knox yielded to the same necessity under which the Church
had bowed. Preferring the Presbyterian polity which he had
seen at Geneva to the Prelatic under which he had ministered
in England, he had yet never held diocesan episcopacy to
be anti-Christian. Anxious above all things to secure the
Church's patrimony, he was ready to submit to anything but a
Surrender of principle to encompass his heart's desire. He
submitted to the introduction of episcopacy. Too frail to be
present at the Assembly of August 1572, he sent certain
articles for its consideration ; he recommended the Church to
petition the regent that all vacant bishoprics should be filled
up by properly-qualified persons within a year after they had
become vacant, “according to the order taken in Leith by
the Commissioners of the Nobility and of the Kirk, in the
month of January last,” and that a complaint should be
made as to the giving of the Bishopric of Ross to the
Lord Methven, a mere layman. He farther recommended
that “an act should be made decerning and ordaining all
* Melville confessed that many of the nobles were against his policy,
just because it implied the destruction of the Spiritual Estate; and we find
King James frequently asking the Assembly what was to become of this
Estate if the bighops were abolished. He dreaded such a change in the
constitution. (Book of the Universal Kirk.)
* Book of the Universal Kirk.
346 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
bishops admitted to the order of the Kirk now received
to give account of their whole rents and intromissions there-
with once a year, as the Kirk shall appoint, for such causes as
the Kirk may easily consider the same to be most expedient
and necessary.”!
If Knox agreed to recognise episcopacy in order to secure
the episcopal revenues, he knew there was a danger of being
cheated by Simonists. There were whispers abroad of pac-
tions being made between patrons and presentees—the lords
who held the bishoprics, and their creatures who were to
get them. He sounded a note of alarm. He wrote to the
Assembly which met at Stirling in 1571 : “Unfaithful and
traitors to the flock shall ye be before the Lord Jesus if that
with your consent, directly or indirectly, ye suffer unworthy
men to be thrust into the ministry of the Church, under
what pretence that ever it be. Remember the Judge before
whom you must make account, and resist that tyranny as ye
would hell-fire. This battle, I grant, will be hard, but in
the second point it will be harder ; that is, that with the like
uprightness and strength in God, ye withstand the merciless
devourers of the patrimony of the Church. If men will spoil,
let them do it to their own peril and condemnation; but
communicate you not with their sins, of what state soever
they be.” He preached, as we have already seen, before
the inauguration of Douglas, but he is said to have denounced
both the giver and receiver;” and when he recommends.
the Assembly to compel bishops to give to the Church an
account of their intromissions with the revenues of their Sees,
it was most probably to prevent them from being paid away as
the price of the presentation.* In all this there was honesty
and wisdom. -
It was a mongrel prelacy that was thus introduced into
Scotland—a cross betwixt Popery and Presbytery. It was not
of the true Roman breed. It was not even of the Anglican.
It could not pretend to the apostolical descent. The lordly
archbishop must sit in the Assemby as an humble member,
while the humble minister presided as moderator, and must
be ready at all times to give an account of his conduct, it
1 This letter is given in Calderwood's History; it is also copied in the
Appendix to Robertson's History.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, 1571.
8 Calderwood's Hist., I572.
* Articles to Assembly of August 1573, above referred to, given in Cal-
derwood and Robertson's Histories.
A.D. 1572.] - DEATH OF KNOX. 347
might be to have his episcopal pride brought low by the
rebukes of a presbyter. But the most marvellous thing is that
the abbot was to be resuscitated as well as the bishop ; and
though he might not be allowed to minister in the churches,
he might win his bread by sitting on the judicial bench.
Abbesses would probably have been revived too had they
formed a part of any estate, or had it been possible to find
any work for them to do. But they could be turned to no
account, and therefore were allowed to perish. When Dame
Christian Ballenden, Prioress of the “Priorissie of the Senis,
besyde the burrowmure of Edinburgh,” departed this life, the
Earl of Morton, “understanding that in the Convention of
the States of the realm consideration was had that nunneries
are not meet to be conferred and given to women, according
to the first foundation in the tyme of ignorance . . . .
appoints Captain Ninian Cockburn his highness's chamberlain
and factor to the said Priorissie of the Senis.” So the captain
succeeded to the prioress, and the order became extinct.
On the 24th of November 1572, John Knox, the Scottish
Reformer, rested from his labours. His spirit was vigorous
to the last, but his body was worn out with worry and toil.
He did not die too soon. His work was done ; the sore battle
was fought ; the land was purged of idols. Standing by his
open grave, the Earl of Morton, now regent, pronounced his
brief but true eulogium—“There lies one who neither feared
nor flattered flesh.”
His character is not difficult to understand, it flashes
strongly out in almost every act of his life. A man of
strong convictions, of fearless courage, and a sanguine tem-
perament, he had no toleration for the opinions of others
if they were different from his own. Though he must have
had his own struggle before he threw off the religion of his
childhood, he had no sympathy with those who could not
change their faith, and curse everything they had formerly
revered. In some respects he was more a politician than a
theologian, and worked quite as much for the liberty of his
country as for the Reformation of his Church. The greatest
statesmen of the day on both sides of the border recognised
his ability, and the Protestant, selfish Elizabeth hated and
* Register of Privy Seal, quoted in a note to M'Crie's Life of Melville.
* James Melville's Diary. Calderwood's version is—“Here lieth a
man who in his life never feared the face of a man ; who hath been often
threatened with dag and dagger, but yet hath ended his days in peace and
honour.”
348 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
feared him almost as much as the Popish finessing Mary.
Though never ambitious of being more than an Edinburgh
minister—perhaps because he knew that in no other position
could he be more powerful—he was the associate and adviser
of the greatest nobles in the kingdom. The influence of his
eloquence is well hit off in a letter from Randolph to Cecil.
“The voice of that one man,” said he, “is able to put more
life in us in one hour than five hundred trumpets blustering
in Our ears.” He appears to have been of small and fragile
make. “I know not,” says Calderwood, “if ever God placed
in a frail and weak little body a more godly and greater spirit.”
He is described as fond of trinkets and dress. It is certain
he writes, and he is said to have spoken, the English rather
than the Scotch of his time, but it is difficult to believe it was
from any aſſeulalion of the southron fongue. His “History of
the Reformation ” is one of the most graphic racy books in any
language, and without reading it it is impossible to understand
either the man or the scenes amid which he lived. Its broad
humour, its rollicking fun, its relish for the ludicrous, mingle
strangely with its fierce dogmatism and bitter hatred, and show
of how many opposite elements the Reformer was made.
Though a virulent enemy of Popery, he was really a broad
Churchman; he preached his evangel as readily in England
as in Scotland, and his sons went to Cambridge to be educated
as ministers of the English Church. It is pleasant to find at
the end of a life during which the harder features of his
character were most displayed a touch of true genial humour.
When lying on his death-bed, and drawing near to his end, he
was visited by two friends, whom he bid stay to dinner, and
insisted upon tapping a hogshead of wine in his cellar, and
while they were drinking their glass, he pressed them to send
for some more, as he did not expect to live till it was done.”
The Regent Lennox had been killed in a sudden encounter
at Stirling. Mar had succeeded him, but death soon deprived
* Hist., vol. iii. p. 238. -
* We are fortunate in having what may be regarded as an authentic
likeness of the Reformer in the Icones of Beza, engraved in wood, from
a portrait by Vaensoun, sent to Geneva by King James. We have, per-
haps, a still better representation of the man in the engraving by Hondius,
evidently from the same original, though somewhat changed. There is
the powerful head well placed on the shoulders, the thoughtful eye ready
to kindle into flame, the firm set mouth, the flowing beard. Carlyle,
indeed, denounces the Beza portrait as no better than a boiled figure-
head, and not the image of a man who could do and dare what Knox had
A.D. 1573.] KIRKALDY AND MAITLAND. 349
him of his honours, and now Morton, the fourth regent within
six years, was at the head of affairs; but still the country lay
bleeding with civil wounds. The Castle of Edinburgh, beet-
ling on the top of its lofty crag, was held by the Lairds of
Grange and Lethington for the queen; and the miserable city
at its base was exposed equally to the guns of the fortress and
the fury of its assailants. At length a battering-train from
England compelled a surrender, and Kirkaldy and Maitland
were at the mercy of Morton. Kirkaldy was hanged at the
market-cross of Edinburgh. Maitland suddenly died before
his doom was known; but it was said that he anticipated it
by Swallowing poison in his prison. -
Kirkaldy was probably the ablest soldier, and Maitland the
ablest statesman of his day. Either had played an important
part in accomplishing the Reformation. When Kirkaldy was
hanging on the gibbet, the Protestants thought of a prediction
of Knox, that this would be his end for taking part with the
queen; the Papists remembered that he had begun his career
by the slaughter of a cardinal. Maitland was much the greater
man of the two, and had played a greater part. His life had
been full of change. We first find him in the company of the
Reformers, but advocating an outward compliance with the
rites of Rome. We next find him in the service of the queen
regent, and only deserting to the Congregation when her
cause was hopeless. In the parliament of 1560, which estab-
lished the Reformation, his abilities and zeal raised him to
the speakership. When Queen Mary sought her native country,
he attached himself heart and soul to her interest, and slighted
the parliament in which he had played so conspicuous a part.
He shared with Moray the duties of government; and, while
thus employed, Randolph, the English resident, describes
“the Lord James as dealing, according to his nature, rudely,
homely, bluntly; the Laird of Lethington more delicately and
finely, yet nothing swerving from the other in mind and
effect.” His great ambition at that time was the union of the
dared and done, and prefers the altogether unauthentic Somerville por-
trait ; but Wilkie has shown how the face and figure, in repose in Vaen-
soun's portrait, could be thrown into action, and kindled into fire, in
his great picture of Knox preaching before the Lords of the Congrega-
tion. See an interesting paper on Scottish Historical Portraits in the Pro-
ceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, vol. xi. part i.; also Carlyle's Essay
on the Portraits of Knox. Dr Laing gave Wilkie the loan of Hondius'
portrait to be used in his historical picture.
* Randolph to Cecil, 24th October, 1561. Keith.
35o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
kingdoms. But Maitland's brain was unfortunately fertile of
plots. He was in the conspiracy to murder Rizzio ; in the
conspiracy to murder the king. When the nobles rose to
avenge the murder of the king, Maitland, though himself one
of the chief of the assassins, joined them, and he was too able a
man to be put away. When Moray received the regency, for
a time Lethington was his principal adviser, but his heart
appears to have been with the exiled Mary, and he began to
plot for her return. Apprehended, and about to be brought
to trial for his part in the Darnley conspiracy, Kirkaldy, by a
stratagem, had him conveyed to the castle, where, during a
long siege, his statesman-like diplomacy seconded the courage
and skill of the military knight. Though the character of
neither is defensible, we cannot but admire their abilities, and
pity their ſale.
In the summer of 1574, ANDREW MELVILLE, a man destined
to play an important part in the history of the Church, .
returned to his native Country, after an absence of ten years.
These ten years he had spent at the most celebrated seats of
learning on the Continent. He had studied both at Paris and
at Poictiers. Driven from France by the civil wars, he turned
his eyes toward Geneva, at that period the chosen asylum of
civil and religious liberty. He travelled all the long way upon
foot, as he had previously done from Dieppe to Paris, and
from Paris to Poictiers. His scholarship almost immediately
secured for him the vacant Professorship of Humanity in the
Academy, and admittance to the literary society in the town.
It was a marvellous society that had congregatcd in this little
republican city, Cradled among the everlasting hills, and shut
out from the rest of the world; men who had fled from every
country of Europe, that they might breathe a freer atmosphere.
Calvin was no more ; but Theodore Beza occupied his place,
and almost rivalled his renown. Scaliger came with the
refugees who escaped through the passes of the Jura, after
the horror of St Bartholomew's Day. One hundred and
twenty French ministers are said to have been all at one time
in the town." As they spoke one to another of the wrongs
they had suffered, the perils they had escaped, the friends
they had seen butchered before their eyes, can we wonder
that there was generated beneath the broad shadows of the
Alps a deep hatred of despotism and Popery, and a fervent
love of liberty. In this school Andrew Melville was nursed—
* M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. i. .
A. D. 1575..] MELVILLE ATTACKS EPISCOPACY. 35 I
with these men he held converse; he was the personal friend
of the most distinguished amongst them ; and when he re-
turned to Scotland, he was already a well-known and cele-
brated man. The Universities of St Andrews and Glasgow
competed for his services; he chose the latter, and, as its
Principal, soon laid among the ruins of the ancient school the
foundations of its future fame." 4.
Episcopacy had now existed in Scotland for about three
years, but it had not got on well. The old tree taken up by
the roots and planted again did not seem to thrive; its fibres
had been mangled and curtailed, and it did not take with the
soil, now too poor for its proper luxuriance of growth. The
Church had already appointed a committee to draw up a new
scheme of policy, but it was uncertain what they might
recommend, when John Durie, one of the ministers of Edin-
burgh, sounded the first note of war against Episcopacy. In
the Assembly of August 1575, when the court was about to
proceed to the trial of the bishops, he protested that this
would not prejudge the objections which he and others enter-
tained to the name and office of a bishop.” At a subsequent
session of the same Assembly, the question was proposed—
Whether bishops, as they are now in Scotland, have their
function in the Word of God, and whether the chapters
appointed for creating them should be tolerated in this
Reformed Church P Melville rose and delivered his senti-
ments in a speech which produced a powerful impression
upon the Assembly.” His accurate acquaintance with the
language of the New Testament; his intimacy with Beza, who
was regarded as an Oracle in Scotland; his Genevan experi-
ences; besides his native powers of debate, must have made
him be listened to with respect. The Consequence was, that
a committee of six persons was appointed, three to argue the
one side, and three to maintain the other, as was the practice
at that time in Scotland; and to report the conclusion to
which they might come to a future diet of the Assembly.
John Craig, James Lawson, and Andrew Melville, were to
impugn Episcopacy; George Hay, John Row, and David
Lindsay to defend it.* -
* Jailies Melville's Diary. M'Crie's Life of Melville.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, August 1575.
* Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. Melville's Diary.
* This appears to have been copied from the old scholastic method of
defending and impugning a given thesis.
352 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
At the sixth session the committee gave in their report in
writing. They declared that it was their unanimous opinion,
that the name “bishop "rightly belonged to every minister who
had the charge of a flock; but that out of these some might be
chosen to oversee such reasonable districts as might be
assigned them beside their own congregations, to appoint
ministers, elders, and deacons in destitute places, and to
administer discipline, with the consent of the clergy and
people.” The Assembly approved of the report, and ordained
that farther inquiry should be made in regard to that and other
matters affecting the policy and discipline of the Church.”
When the Assembly again met in April 1576, the subject was
resumed, and the same conclusions were arrived at ; and in the
way of following them up, the bishops, who had not yet received
any charge, were required by ille IIIorrow to condescend upon
the congregations which they would take under their pastoral
care.8
In 1578 the Assembly proceeded a step farther. It declared
that bishops should henceforward be called simply by their own
names, and not by any titles of honour; and debarred cathe-
dral chapters from proceeding to any election before its next
meeting. The next Assembly made this order perpetual. But
it was not till 158o that the last stone of the Episcopal fabric
was thrown down. In that year “the whole Assembly of the
Kirk, in one voice, found and declared the pretended office of
a bishop to be unlawful, having neither foundation nor warrant
in the Word of God, and ordained all such persons as brooked
the said office to demit the same, as an office to which they
were not called by God, and to cease from preaching the
Word, or administering the sacraments, till they should be
admitted anew by the General Assembly, under pain of ex-
communication.” To carry out this sweeping resolution,
synodal assemblies were appointed to be held in the different
dioceses to receive the submission of the bishops, and in case
of contumacy, to report them to the next Assembly, that they
might be put under the bann of the Church.* So energetic
were their measures that before the next Assembly all the
bishops, except five, had sent in their submissions.
The Church had not been able to carry these measures with-
* Book of the Universal Kirk, August 1575.
* James Melville's Diary. .
* Book of the Universal Kirk, April 1576.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, 1578, 158o.
A.D. 1578-9.] MORTON AND MELVILLE. 353
out opposition. When the Archbishop of Glasgow was re-
quired to take upon him the charge of a congregation, he
pleaded that he had accepted his bishopric according to the
terms of the concordat of Leith ; that when he was admitted
to it he had taken an oath to the king, and that if he now con-
sented to any changes he might incur the guilt of perjury;
that, nevertheless, when residing in Glasgow he would preach
there, and when residing in Ayr he would also preach there,
in any church which the brethren might agree upon ; but he
protested that this must not be understood as interfering with
his jurisdiction as bishop of the diocese. The Assembly was
obliged to content itself with this." Upon the death of
Douglas, Adamson abandoned the Presbyterian cause, and
received the presentation to the Archbishopric of St Andrews
from the regent. He was instantly brought before the
Assembly, but he managed to temporise. The Assembly pro-
hibited the chapter from proceeding to his admission ; the
regent ordered it to proceed; and proceed it did. The
Assembly appointed a commission to summon Adamson before
them, and inquire into the case, but it is probable they felt
themselves without power to proceed farther, as we do not hear
any more of the matter. - -
As the Regent Morton had been the chief deviser of the
tulchan Episcopacy, he was naturally annoyed at the attempts
of the Church to overturn it. He was frequently pressed to
be present at the Assemblies, but he steadily refused, and
attempted to intimidate its leaders by threatening to hang
some of them, as an example to the rest.” Failing to gain
Melville by bribes, he bitterly upbraided him for disturbing
the peace of the country by his over-sea dreams and Genevese
discipline. “There never will be quietness in this country,”
said he fiercely, “till half a dozen of you be hanged or
banished.” “Tush ' " said Melville, who had now become
Principal of St Mary's College, St Andrews; “threaten your
Courtiers in that way; it is all the same to me whether I rot in
the air or the ground. The earth is the Lord's: my fatherland
is wherever well-doing is. I have been ready to give my life,
where it would not have been half so well spent, at the
pleasure of my God. I lived out of your country ten years as
well as in it. Let God be glorified ; it is out of your power
to hang or exile His truth.”
* Book of the Universal Kirk.
* Melville's Diary, pp. 46, 47, Ban. Ed.
* Melville's Diary, pp. 52, 53.
Z
354 . CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
On the 12th of March 1578, the Earl of Morton, finding
that his regency had become unpopular, and that it was no
longer safe to hold it, resigned it; and the king, a boy twelve
years of age, nominally assumed the government. For a little
while, Morton had no influence at court; but in less than a
year he was again in power, not as regent, but as the adviser
of the boy-king. His influence is apparent in a letter which
James directed to the Assembly in July 1579, counselling them
to make no innovations in the government of the Church dur-
ing his minority; but the Assembly paid no attention to the
advice, and proceeded in their course.” In 158o the triumph
of Presbytery was almost complete: Episcopacy had been con-
demned; the bishops had bowed their heads before the
victorious presbyters; but they had bowed them only as the
hillriish bows its head under the wave, to lift it up again when
it has rolled past. --
This ecclesiastical revolution, accomplished by the Church
courts in opposition to the wishes of the government, is, in a
great measure, to be attributed to the energy and ability of
Andrew Melville. He was more learned than his brethren,
and had the power which knowledge gives. It is probable
there were not ten ministers in the Assembly at this period who
could read the New Testament in the original tongue;” but
Melville was well versed both in Hebrew and Grecian liter-
ature, and could prove that, in apostolic times, the bishop and
presbyter was one and the same. He received material aid,
however, from Theodore Beza. The Earl of Glammis had
written to this theological dictator, requesting his opinion upon
some of the points which were then so fiercely controverted in
1 Calderwood’s History, 1579.
* “I wald haiff glaidlie bein at the Greik and Hebrew tourgs, becauss
I red in our byble that it was translated out of Hebrew and Greik ; but
the langages were nocht to be gottine in the land. Our Regent begoud
and teatched us the A, B, C of the Greik, and the simple declinationes, but
went no farther. Be that occasion he tauld me of my uncle, Mr Andro
Melville, whom he knew in the tyme of his course in the New Collage, to
use the Greik logicks of Aristotle, the quhilk was a wonder to them that
he was sa fyne a schollar, and of sic expectation.” “Within the Univer-
sity of St Andros, all that was teatched of Aristotle he lerned and studeit
out of the Greik text, quhilk his maisters understood nocht.” (Melville's
Diary, pp. 24, 31.) In March 1575, the Assembly resolved, for the first
time, that Latin was a necessary qualification for the ministry. (Book of
Universal Kirk.) Row, in his notice of Patrick Simpson, at the end of
his History, remarks, that in those days it was a proverb, ‘‘ Graecum est,
mon legitur.” (History, &c., Coronis, p. 422.)
A. D. 1580.] EPISCOPACY ovKRTURNED. 355
Scotland. Beza, in answer, published his book “De Triplici
Episcopatu’—the divine, human, and Satanic. In this treatise
he argues that, unless human Episcopacy be pulled up clean by
the roots, it will sprout, and bring forth again, as it had done
before, a Satanic Episcopacy." The book was brought over
to this country, translated into English, and had some inſluence
upon the contest. .
The Church, in 1580, reverted to the policy of 1560. It
went farther. Knox held Episcopacy to be lawful, but not
convenient, an allowable form of government, but not the
purest or the best. Melville held Episcopacy to be unlawful
—opposed to Scripture—allowable in no circumstances. Even
the superintendents began to be regarded with suspicion; and
preparation was made for the abolition of the order, and the
establishment of a perfect parity among all the ministers of the
Church. The course which the Church had pursued was a
self-denying one. Almost every act of Assembly was a self-
denying ordinance. They were offered bishoprics, and they
refused them ; titles of honour, and they refused them ; seats
in the parliament as the highest Estate, and seats on the
bench as the supreme tribunal, and they refused them. They
would be nothing but ministers, with little honour and less pay.
For several years a committee of the Church had been
employed in framing a new policy. Many meetings were held,
much labour was bestowed, and an ecclesiastical system
elaborated, now known as the “Second Book of Discipline.”
Conferences had also been held with the Privy Council, with
the regent, and with the king, to get the consent of the State
to the proposed government of the Church ; but that consent
had hitherto been withheld. In a conference at Stirling, be-
tween a committee of the parliament and the Commissioners
of the Church, the treatise was gone over article by article ;
some were marked as agreed to, others as referred to farther
reasoning, others as passed over; and more than this the
Assembly could not obtain.” But now, when the Episcopal
polity was destroyed, it was necessary that another should be
substituted in its place; and therefore the Assembly which
met in April 1581 resolved that “the Book of Policy agreed
upon in diverse Assemblies before should be registered in the
acts of the Kirk, and remain therein, ad Zerºetuam red memo-
* Calderwood’s History.
* Spottiswood’s History, lib. vi.
356 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
riam, and that a copy thereof should be taken by every pres-
bytery.” I
It is necessary to give a sketch of this celebrated treatise.
In the first chapter the Church is defined, and the civil and
ecclesiastical jurisdictions discriminated. The Church, it is
said, may mean all who profess the gospel ; or, all who are
truly godly ; or, those who exercise spiritual functions. The
ecclesiastical and civil power both flow from God, but cannot
in general be exercised by the same person. “The magis-
trate ought neither to preach, minister the sacraments, nor
execute the censures of the Church, nor yet prescribe any rule
how it should be done, but command the minister to observe
the rule prescribed in the Word, and punish transgressors by
civil means; the minister, again, exercises not the civil juris-
diction, but teaches the Illagistrate how it should be exercised
according to the Word.” The second chapter is occupied
with the office-bearers of the Church. Ecclesiastical functions
are divided into ordinary and extraordinary. “There are four
ordinary offices or functions in the Church of God—the pastor,
minister, or bishop ; the doctor; the presbyter or elder; and
the deacon. These, we are told, ought to remain perpetually
in the Church, as necessary to its government. The third
chapter prescribes the manner in which persons were to be ad-
mitted to ecclesiastical functions. Calling, it is said, consists
of two parts, election and ordination. “Election is the choos-
ing out of one man or person to the office that is void, by the
judgment of the eldership and consent of the Congregation.”
“Ordination is the separation and sanctifying of the person
appointed by God and His Church, after that he is well tried
and found qualified.” “The ceremonies of ordination are
fasting, prayer, and imposition of hands of the eldership.” In
the fourth chapter, the office and duty of the pastor are
defined. Pastor, minister, bishop, are declared to be but
different names for the same office. To the pastor it belongs
to preach the Word, administer the sacraments, solemnize
marriage, and pronounce the denunciations and blessings of
the Church. The fifth chapter relates to doctors and schools.
“The office of the doctor is to open up the mind of the Spirit
of God in the Scriptures simply, without such application as
the minister uses.” “Under the name and office of doctor is
also comprehended the order in schools, colleges, and uni-
versities.” If the doctor be an elder, he is to assist in the
* Book of the Universal Kirk, April 1581.
A.D. 1581.] SECOND BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 357
government of the Church ; but he is not to preach or ad-
minister the sacraments. The sixth chapter is of elders and
their office. Elder in Scripture sometimes signifies all who
hold office in the Church ; but here we are told it is used in
a more restricted signification, to denominate those who are
to assist the pastors in the government of the flock. “As the
pastors and doctors should be diligent in teaching and sowing
the seed of the Word, so the elders should be careful in
seeking the fruits of the same among the people.” “Their
principal office is to hold assemblies with the pastors and
doctors, who are also of their number, for establishing good
order and execution of discipline.”
The seventh chapter is an important one, and refers to the
assemblies of the Church. “Assemblies are * said to be “ of
four sorts, for either they are of a particular congregation, or
of a province, or of a whole nation, or of all and divers
Christian nations.” “The first sort and kind of assemblies,
although they be within particular congregations, yet they
exercise the power, authority, and jurisdiction of the Church
with mutual consent.” “When we speak of elderships of par-
ticular congregations, we mean not that every particular
church can and may have their particular elderships, especially
to landward; but we think three or four, more or fewer, par-
ticular churches may have a common eldership to them all, to
judge their ecclesiastical causes.” “Provincial assemblies we
call lawful conventions of the pastors, doctors, and other
elders of any province, gathered for the common affairs of the
churches thereof.” “The national Assembly, which we call
General, is a lawful convention of the whole Church of the
realm or nation where it is gathered, and may be called the
General Eldership of the whole Church within the realm.”
“There is besides these another more General Assembly,
which is of all nations, and of all estates of persons within the
Church, representing the universal Church of Christ, which
may be properly called the General Assembly, or General
Council of the whole Church of God.”
In the eighth chapter the office of the deacons is discussed.
To them belongs the collection and distribution of the ecclesi-
astical property; and in this they must be subject to the
presbytery, though they are not members of it. The ninth
chapter treats of the patrimony of the Churcli. To appro-
priate any portion of this is declared to be detestable Sacrilege ;
—it ought to be lifted by the deacons, and applied to ecclesi-
358 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
astical uses. The tenth chapter points out the duty of the
magistrate in relation to the Church. He is to defend it,
provide for it, see its sentences carried into execution, but not
to invade its inherent jurisdiction. In the eleventh chapter
there is a list of abuses, which the Church desired to have
reformed. Amongst these are abbacies, cathedral chapters,
bishoprics, pluralities, the employment of ecclesiastical per-
sons in civil affairs, the dilapidation of the Church’s property,
&c., &c. In the twelfth chapter certain things are noted
which the Church desired to see done. It desired to see small
parishes united, large parishes disjoined, one or more elders
appointed in every congregation, Congregational, provincial,
and national assemblies held, patronage abolished in every
case where there was a cure of Souls, and the patrimony of
the Church applied to four general purposes:–“ One part to
be assigned to the pastor, for his entertainment and keeping
hospitality; another to the elders, deacons, and other officers
of the Church, as clerks of assemblies, takers up of Psalms,
beadles, and keepers of the Church so far as they are neces-
sary, joining therewith the doctors of Schools, for help of the
old foundations, where need requires; the third portion to be
bestowed upon the poor members of Christ; and the fourth
upon the reparation of Churches, and other extraordinary
charges that are profitable to the Church and commonwealth.”
The concluding chapter points out the good that would result
from the adoption of such a discipline:—The realm would
become a pattern of good order; the streets would be cleansed
of beggars; churches, bridges, and other public works would
be set agoing ; God would be glorified ; the Church edified ;
Christ and His kingdom advanced; Satan and his kingdom
subverted ; and God would dwell in the midst of them.
Such are the most prominent features of the “Second Book
of Discipline.” The First Book exhibited a system of polity
sagaciously suited to the circumstances of the Country and the
Church : it seemed to grow out of the times. The Second
aims at elaborating a system from the New Testament, without
reference to circumstances. The one looked to practice ; the
other looked to the establishment of general principles. They
differ in several respects. The “First Book of Discipline”
had abolished the imposition of hands in ordination ; the
Second restored it. The “First Book of Discipline” gave its
sanction to superintendents and readers; the Second removed
the superintendent, as he savoured of the diocesan bishop, and
A.D. 1581.] ECCLESIASTICAL ASSEMBLIES. 359
the reader, as his office had no warrant in the Word of God,
however much it might be required by the times. In the
“First Book of Discipline" there is no mention whatever of
the courts of the Church, though we can trace in some of its
arrangements the beginnings of them all ; in the Second there
is an elaborate chapter upon assemblies, but, singular enough,
the presbytery, now reckoned the fundamental court of a Pres-
byterian Church, is not marked out as a court separate and
distinct from the kirk-session. Four ecclesiastical assemblies
are named—the Congregational, the provincial, the national,
and Oecumenical. Striking out the Oecumenical, we have only
a threefold gradation, instead of a fourfold as at present. The
first of these, the eldership, or congregational assembly, ap-
proximates much more closely to a modern kirk-session than
a modern presbytery. In towns, the pastor and elders of one
Congregation were to form the eldership ; but in landward
parishes, three or four congregations were to join their pastors
and elders together to constitute one assembly. Strangel that
the very reverse should now be the case—that in landward
parishes every congregation should have its own kirk-session,
and that in some towns all the congregations should send their
office-bearers to form one general session. Yet we know that
at this very time presbyteries were springing into existence.
In 1579 the Assembly was petitioned to erect such courts;
and its answer was, that the weekly exercise might be re-
garded as a presbytery –a meeting appointed by the “First
Book of Discipline” for the purpose of bringing the ministers
and people of a district together to read and interpret the
Scriptures. But, what is much more remarkable, in the very
Assembly in which the “Second Book of Discipline” was
ordered to be engrossed in the minutes, a regular platform of
presbyteries was arranged—presbyteries embracing not two or
three congregations, but twenty or thirty, the very prototypes
of the presbyteries which now exist.”
Time has made havoc upon the policy established by the
“Second Book of Discipline,” as upon everything human.
The doctor and the deacon have all but disappeared from the
* Book of the Universal Kirk, 1579.
* Ibid., 1581. In 1582, the presbytery was considered a novelty, as
the following extract from the Historie of King James the Sext will show :
—“It pleasit the members of court to give eaſe to certayne informations
maid aganis a new erectit society of ministers, callit a presbíterie, Sa that
thair moderators weir summonit to compeir before the king and counsall,
to produce the bukis of thair proceidings, to be sene and considerit.”
Anno 1582, p. 187.
360 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
office-bearers of the Church ; the minister and the elder alone
remain. The kirk-session has been discriminated from the
presbytery; and by kirk-sessions, presbyteries, synods, and
general assemblies, the government of the Church is now
carried on. But the “Second Book of Discipline” possesses
much that is enduring, and to this day remains the foundation-
stone of our ecclesiastical constitution; while the “First Book”
resembles a collection of parchments deposited beneath it, by
which future generations may read the story of the times in
which the building was begun, and the noble designs of its
first founders. -
It is plain that the superintendents were fast falling into dis-
repute. The name began to be disliked, and “visitor” was
substituted in its place. But even the visitor was now
destined to yield up his power to the presbytery. In the
Assembly of October 1580, it was considered “to sound to
tyrannie that sic kind of office sould stand in the person of
ane man, quhilk sould flow from the presbyteries,” + and
therefore a committee was appointed to draw up a platform of
presbyteries and constitutions for them. In the very next
Assembly the Laird of Caprington appeared and presented a
commission from the king to concur with the Assembly in the
planting of churches and presbyteries, and a document Con-
taining a number of suggestions as to the course to be pur-
sued. In this document it is stated that, leaving out the
Diocese of Argyll and the Isles, from which no returns had
yet been obtained, there were in all nine hundred and twenty-
four parishes in Scotland. Of these it was said many were
mere pendicles, many very small parishes, and of many more
the churches were demolished, and therefore it was proposed
to reduce the number to six hundred, and to divide these
among fifty presbyteries, with about twenty churches attached
to each.” In its eighth session, the Assembly had before it
the report of its committee on the subject, and resolved “that
a beginning should be had of presbyteries instantly in the
places after named, to be exemplars to the rest that may be
established afterwards,” viz., Edinburgh, Dundee, St Andrews,
Perth, Stirling, Glasgow, Ayr, Irving, Haddington, Linlithgow,
Dunbar, Chirnside, and Dunfermline.” The thing was done,
* Book of the Universal Kirk, October 1580.
* “Thir six hundred kirks to be divyded in ſyſtie Presbyteries, twenty
to every presbytrie, or thereabout.” (Book of the Universal Kirk, p.
212.) So stands the king's scheme, but I cannot understand the royal
arithmetic, as 50 × 20 = IOOO. Rowsays twelve to each, which makes all
right. * Ibid., 1581.
A.D. 1579-81.] THE KING's FAVOURITES. 36 I
and Scotland now for the first time saw the full machinery of
its Presbyterian polity in motion.
We must now leave for a little the divines of the Assembly,
and mingle with the statesmen and gallants of the court. In
the year 1579, Esmé Stewart, a cousin of the young king, and
generally called Mons. D'Aubigné, arrived from France on a
visit to his royal relative. He was a young man of graceful
exterior and many showy accomplishments, and he was not
long at court till he became a prodigious favourite of the
king's. Wherever James was, D'Aubigné was sure to be. They
rode together, hunted together, hawked together; and when
the court was removed to Holyrood, the apartments assigned
to D'Aubigné were next to those occupied by the king. It
was the first noted instance of a favouritism to which James
was all his life long in bondage. Under the smiles of the
monarch D'Aubigné grew rapidly into greatness; he was first
made Earl, and subsequently Duke of Lennox; he was raised
to the office of Lord High Chamberlain; the rich Abbacy of
Arbroath was given him ; and the greatest nobles courted his
favour. About the same time, Captain James Stewart, a
younger son of Lord Ochiltree's, also began to acquire in-
fluence at court. He was well educated, and had seen a good
deal of the world; but in his travels he had lost any little
principle he ever had, and was now known to be profligate in
his manners and reckless of results, if but his own interests
were advanced. He was created Earl of Arran, under which
name we shall hear more of him anon. From the pedagogic
birch of Buchanan, and the stern admonitions of Morton, the
king, now a lad of fourteen, passed into the hands of these gay
Companions and counsellors. -
The ministers of the Church beheld all this with alarm.
D'Aubigné was a Papist. It was whispered that he had come
to this country as a secret emissary of the Pope. It was
known that before leaving France he had had consultations
with the Bishops of Glasgow and Ross; and it was told how
the Duke of Guise had accompanied him to Dieppe, and
remained on board ship with him some hours before he
Set sail. There were other rumours afloat of Jesuit priests
having stolen into the country; of plots to bring back a
Popish queen; of endeavours to break the alliance with Eng-
land, and revert to the ancient alliance with France ; and as
the danger was unseen, every one magnified it according to
his fears. D'Aubigné partly, and only partly, allayed the
362 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
alarm, by declaring his conversion to Protestantism. The
young king, already vain of his theological acquirements, had
plied him with arguments; he had called in some Presby-
terian clergymen to his help, and the fayourite could not
withstand the logic of the monarch and his ministers. He
publicly renounced and abjured the Romish faith in the
Church of St Gile's at Edinburgh, in the Royal Chapel at
Stirling, and last of all, in a letter to the General Assembly."
Still the popular mind was ill at ease in regard to Popery.
To still suspicion, rather than to test the orthodoxy of the
Country, the king caused Craig to draw up a confession of
faith, or covenant condemnatory of all the most obnoxious
tenets of the Romish religion. When drawn, it was signed
by the king and his household, and afterwards, in consequence
of an order of the Privy Council and an act of the Assembly,
by persons of all ranks throughout the kingdom. In opposi-
tion to the Confession of 1560, it was called the Negative
Confession, as it related rather to doctrines which were not
believed, than to those which were.”
It was not to be expected that the ex-regent Morton would
look on with indifference while the upstart Lennox enjoyed
all the favour of the king, and wielded all the power of the
Country. He had lost the good opinions of the clergy and
the people by his greed, his Simony, and his tulchan Fpisco-
pacy; but he caballed with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was glad
to have the aid of so powerful and crafty a man, for she
began to dread the re-ascendancy of French influence in
Scotland.” There was a bitter jealousy between the rivals,
Continual rumours of plots and counter-plots, and it was
evident that Scotland could not hold them both. Lennox
struck the first blow, and secured the victory. One day,
while the Council was sitting, Captain Stewart begged per-
mission to enter, and going down upon his knee before the
king, he accused Morton of being privy to the murder of his
father. Morton was sitting at the council-board when the
charge was made, but he was at once placed under arrest, and
it is highly probable that the whole procedure had been pre-
viously arranged with the king. Five months elapsed before
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 196, 197.
* This Confession, forming the first part of The National Covenant or
Confession of Faith, is generally bound up in the same volume with the
Westminster Confession.
* Tytler's History, vol. viii.
A.D. 1581.] EXECUTION OF MORTON. 363
he was brought to trial, and then the proof would have failed,
had he not himself confessed that he had previous knowledge
of the intended assassination, though he took no part in its
execution.
On this confession he was condemned to die. He had
reached to power by the commission of great crimes, and
had kept it by the exercise of great severity. He had never
hesitated to send his enemies to the scaffold;1 but now,
when his own turn came, he showed that he could go thither
too, and die, if not with the serenity of a martyr, at least with
the firmness of a man. On the evening of Friday, the 2d of
June 1581, some men might be seen digging a grave in the
Tolbooth burying ground, and depositing in it a headless
trunk. It was the great Earl of Morton, who had so long
kept the country in terror, and had that day perished under
the knife of the maiden, who was thus so meanly interred.”
His ghastly head was exposed on the gable of the church.
The death of Morton left Lennox supreme. But it was
felt more than ever that his power was dangerous to the
State—dangerous to the Church. Events were already ripen-
ing for a conflict. James appears to have early contracted a
partiality for the Episcopal polity. He was still a boy; but
he was a marvellously precocious boy, and perhaps nearly as
wise now as at any future period of his life, for he was only a
clever School-boy to the last. What was the origin of his
Episcopal tendencies it is difficult to discover. Notwith-
standing his being reared amid revolutionary nobles, and
tutored by a republican pedagogue, he had contracted over-
Weening ideas of hereditary and indefeasible prerogative.
Even a dull boy might see that Presbytery was essentially
democratic. Perhaps James had actually seen that the bishops
were Courtly, smooth-spoken gentlemen, while the ministers
Were rough, outspoken men. Be this as it may, notwith-
Standing the resolutions of the Assembly, he determined to
maintain Episcopacy; and of course the favourite agreed with
* As instances of this, two poets had lampooned him ;-he hanged
them both. The following notice occurs in the Diurnal of Occurrents,
I572 :—“21st April.—The same day there was a minister hanged in
I eith, and horne to the gibbet, because he was birsit in the boots. The
principal cause was that he said to the Earl of Morton that he defended
all unjust cause, and that he would repent when there was no time to
repent. And when he was asked by whom he was requested to say the
same, he answered, “By the Holy Spirit.’”
* Spottiswood's History, lib. vi.
364 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
the king—if it was not the king who agreed with the favourite.
While things were in this state, the Archbishopric of Glasgow
became vacant by the death of Boyd; and Lennox, who held
in his hands the patronage of the kingdom, had it at his
disposal. He offered it to Montgomery, the minister of
Stirling, upon condition that, so soon as he was admitted,
he would dispone the lands, lordships, and everything belong-
ing to the bishopric to him and his heirs, for the yearly pay-
ment of 24, Iooo Scots, with some horse-corn and poultry.
Montgomery accepted the offer, and the conflict with the
Church began."
The matter was brought before the Assembly, which met
in October 1581. One would have imagined that the bishop-
elect would have been charged with accepting an office which
had been declared unlawful by the courts of the Church, or
for entering into a Simoniacal paction with the patron ; but
not so. Melville appeared as his accuser; and though his
libel contained fifteen articles, there was not the slightest re-
ference to the real head and front of Montgomery's offending.
This was a tortuous policy, and such as we would not have
expected from so bold a man. It was worse, for it is a
perversion of justice to accuse a man of one crime and con-
demn him for another. The articles did not charge im-
morality, and related principally to sentiments which Mont-
gomery was said to have uttered in the pulpit, and which
would not now be considered as deserving of very serious
Censure. Though proof was ordered, it does not seem to
have been led, for commission was given to the Presbytery
of Stirling to summon him before them, try his whole life and
doctrine, and report to the provincial Synod of Lothian. He
was ordered, in the meantime, to continue in his ministry at
Stirling, and not to aspire to the Bishopric of Glasgow, under
pain of excommunication.”
* Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. Calderwood says 4,500. The value
of the bishopric was 4,4080, 13s. 4d. See the Appendix to Keith's
History.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, October 1581. Calderwood’s History,
same date.
The charges in the libel are curious ; for instance :-‘‘ I. That,
publicly preaching in the church of Stirling, he propounded a question
touching the circumcision of women, and in the end concluded that they
were circumcised in the skin of their foreheads. 2. In Glasgow, he
openly taught that the discipline of the Kirk (i.e., its polity) is a thing
indifferent, and may stand this way or that. 3. He accused the ministers
that they used fallacious arguments and captions, and that they were
A.D. 1582.] CHURCH AND STATE IN COLLISION. 365
Montgomery ventured to defy the thunders of
*** the Church. In the month of March of the fol.
lowing year he proceeded to Glasgow, attended by an armed
escort, and entered the cathedral. The minister had already
occupied the pulpit. The bishop-elect pulled him by the
sleeve, and said, “Come down, sirrah l’” but the minister
kept his ground. There was like to be a tumult, and Mont-
gomery was constrained to retire. The Presbytery of Stirling
at once suspended him from the office of the ministry ; but
he disregarded their sentence. The Privy Council now inter-
fered, and summoned the Presbyteries of Glasgow, Stirling,
Dalkeith, Linlithgow, and Edinburgh, to appear and answer
for their conduct in regard to Montgomery. They declined
the jurisdiction of the Council. The Church and the State
had come into violent collision.” In April the General
Assembly met, and the whole matter was brought before it.
More specific and more serious charges were now brought
against Montgomery, such as lying in the face of the Church
Courts, and despising their sentences. The king, anxious
to save his bishop, had already sent a message to the
Assembly, requesting that they would not trouble him in
regard to his bishopric ; but the Assembly pursued its course
notwithstanding. James now proceeded farther : a mes-
senger-at-arms entered the House, and by virtue of the King's
letters, delivered by the Lords of Secret Council, inhibited
the Assembly from citing, excommunicating, or otherwise
troubling Montgomery in the matter of the episcopate, under
pain of rebellion. The Assembly directed a letter to his
Majesty, vindicating the course they were pursuing ; and
having done so, they were about to proceed to the final
sentence of ecclesiastical law, excommunication—“to the
effect that Montgomery's proud flesh be cast into the hands of
Satan ; if he may be won again, if it be possible, to God”—
when he yielded, confessed his faults, and promised to give
up all thoughts of the bishopric. The Assembly received his
Submission, but at the same time instructed the Presbytery of
Glasgow to keep a watch upon his conduct.”
curious brains. 4. So far as he could, he travelled to bring the original
languages, Greek and Hebrew, into contempt, abusing thereto the words
of the Apostle, I Cor. xiv., and tauntingly asked in what school were
Peter and Paul graduated,” &c., &c.
* Calderwood's History, 1582.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 245-48. Calderwood's History, 1582.
366 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
There was need for the caution. Probably incited by the
king and the court, Montgomery began to preach and to
revive his claims upon the archbishopric. The Presbytery of
Glasgow instantly met; but this had been anticipated, and
the Council was equally prompt. While the ecclesiastical
court was yet sitting, the provost, bailies, and some citizens
entered, prohibited them from proceeding, and cited them
to appear before the Privy Council. The presbytery refused ;
the magistrates “put violent hands upon the moderator,
smote him in the face, rent his beard, struck out one of his
teeth, and thereafter committed him to ward in the Tol-
booth.” The students interfered ; some fighting took place ;
a serious tumult was apprehended ; and by tuck of drum
and sound of bell, the citizens were collected to defend their
bailies. But the presbytery kept to their point, and sentence
was pronounced against Montgomery, and forwarded to the
Presbytery of Edinburgh. On Saturday, the 9th of June, the
Presbytery of Edinburgh met, and appointed John Davidson,
minister of Libberton, to pronounce the sentence of excom-
munication against Montgomery, which Davidson did on the
following day.” -
The meeting of Assembly was hastened. It convened on
the 27th of June. Melville preached the opening sermon,
and inveighed against the “bludie gullie” of absolute autho-
rity, whereby many intended to pull the crown off Christ's
head, and to wring the sceptre out of His hands.” “ The
Church resolved to lay its griefs at the foot of the throne.
A committee was accordingly appointed to proceed to Perth,
where the king then was. They procured an audience, and
produced their complaints, which related chiefly to the inter-
ference of the Council, with the ecclesiastical courts in the
exercise of their jurisdiction. “Who dare subscribe these
treasonable articles P” said the Earl of Arran, and the Earl
of Arran was not a man to be trifled with. “WE DARE,” said
Andrew Melville, “and will subscribe, and render our lives
in the cause.” Stepping forward to the table, he took the
pen from the clerk, and wrote his name; the rest followed.”
The king and his counsellors might have learned from this
what was the temper of the men they had to deal with.
* Calderwood's History, 1582.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 256-58. Calderwood's History.
& Bloody knife. * Calderwood’s History.
* Melville's Diary. Calderwood's History.
A.D. 1582.] WE DARE I 367
Lennox and Arran were so confounded that they thought
they had some armed force at their back. The truth, is they
had the whole nation at their back. They were dismissed
with a peaceful reply, but still it was not one with which the
Assembly was satisfied.
The din of the contest extended beyond the courts of the
Church. The pulpits rang with it. The excitement of
the period was increased by continual rumours of French
intrigues, of Popish plots, and of seminary priests and
Jesuits having been smuggled into the country. James com-
plained to the Assembly that Balcanguhal one of the
ministers of Edinburgh, had, in a sermon, accused his cousin
the Duke of Lennox of labouring to restore Popery." The
Assembly asked the king to condescend upon a proof of his
statement ; and, as he declined to do so, it absolved Bal-
canduhal. Durie, another of the Edinburgh ministers, was
still more outspoken. He declared from the pulpit that
James had been moved by his courtiers to send a private
message to the King of France and the Duke of Guise, to ask
his mother's blessing, and was scheming to place her beside
him on the throne. At the nick of time a certain Signor Paul
came from the Duke of Guise to present some horses to his
Majesty. It was instantly suspected that he had other busi-
ness on hand, and the story went that this very man had
been one of the butchers of St Bartholomew's day. The
zealous Durie took to horse and rode to Kinneil, where the
king was. Meeting Paul in the garden, he drew his hat over
his eyes, saying, he could not look upon the devil's ambas-
sador. Getting admission to the monarch, “Is it with the
Guise,” cried he, “that your Grace will exchange presents,
with that cruel murderer of the saints P” Returning to Edin-
burgh, he made the High Church to resound with his fiery
eloquence. He denounced Montgomery as an apostate and
man-sworn traitor to God and his Church. Passing on to
the Guisean embassage, he exclaimed, “If God did threaten
the captivity and spoil of Jerusalem because that their king
Hezekiah did receive a letter and present from the king of
Babylon, shall we think to be free, committing the like, or
rather worse P”” His sermon excited considerable stir, and
* Book of the Universal Kirk, 1582. -
* Tytler's History, vol. viii. Calderwood's History. Tytler, in his
Appendix, gives a sketch of this sermon from the pen of one of the
auditors.
368 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
he was cited before the Council to answer for it. When he
arrived at Dalkeith Palace, where the king was residing with
Lennox, his Grace's Cooks, zealous to avenge their master upon
his reviler, issued from the kitchen with spits and knives, and had
nearly elevated Durie to the honour of a second St Lawrence.1
He escaped this culinary martyrdom ; but he was ordered to
leave the city, and the provost and magistrates were instructed
to see the sentence carried into execution.
Durie asked the advice of the Assembly as to what he
should do. The magistrates asked the advice of the
Assembly too, for they were members of Durie's congrega-
tion, and were divided between their allegiance to the kirk
and their allegiance to the king. The Assembly pronounced
Durie's doctrine Sound, and his life honest, and advised him
not to quit the city unless he were forced, but if he were
forced, to go peaceably.” The magistrates were reluctantly
compelled to insist upon his leaving. That same night,
about nine o'clock, he was seen taking his way along the
High Street, accompanied by two notaries and a few of his
brethren. When they came to the cross, one of the notaries
read a document, in which the exiled minister protested the
purity of his life and doctrine, and that, though he obeyed the
sentence of banishment, he would not desist from preaching
the Word. According to legal form, he then placed a piece
of money in the hands of the notaries, and took instruments.
“I, too,” cried Davidson, who was with him, “must take
instruments, and this I protest is the most sorrowful sight
that eyes ever rested upon—a shepherd removed by his own
flock to pleasure flesh and blood, and because he has spoken
the truth. But plague and fearful judgments will yet light on
the inventors.” 8
The Church was nothing daunted by the exile of Durie.
If the king wielded the sword, it wielded the keys—still the
1 James Melville's Diary.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 252, 253. Calderwood's History.
* Tytler's History, vol. viii. Calderwood's History. Anciently, in
Scotland, taking instruments in the hands of a notary was very common.
A curious instance of this is given in Mill's History of the Bishops of Dun-
keld. One of these old prelates lying on his death-bed, having professed
his faith, and received the Sacraments of the Church, afraid lest in deli-
rium or extreme weakness, he might say things contradictory of his
Christian profession, called in a notary and took instruments, that what-
ever he might say after that was not to be esteemed of any weight or
authority.
A. D. 1582.] EXCOMMUNICATION. 369
more formidable weapon of the two. The provost and bailies
of Glasgow had assaulted a presbytery, and done violence to its
moderator ; they were summoned before the Assembly, threat-
ened with excommunication, and glad to save themselves by
making an abject submission. The Lord Advocate, in the
discharge of his duty, had penned some proclamations, which
Were esteemed slanderous to the Church. He was cited to
appear at its bar, and he hardly escaped by humbly protesting
that he had only translated into Scotch what had already been
written by Lennox in French." Montgomery had already
been excommunicated, but Lennox had harboured him, and it
was against the ecclesiastical code to harbour an excommuni-
Cated man. The uncompromising presbyters threatened “to
take order” with the duke, the Lord High Chamberlain of
the kingdom, the cousin of the king; for their lightnings
Could strike the tops of the highest hills. James Montgomerie,
probably a relative of the excommunicated bishop, had spoken
to him, and to speak to an excommunicated man was a high
misdemeanour. He was ordered to make public repentance
in the parish church of Glasgow.” The excommunicated man
himself ventured to appear in the streets of Edinburgh, and
this also was a crime. Lawson applied to the magistrates,
and he was compelled to sneak away. The Council tried to
Save him, by making proclamation that he should be received
as a true Christian and faithful subject; but the Church was
Stronger than the Council. He returned to the town, and
presented himself at the Tolbooth, but he was refused admit-
tance within the bar, and told that no excommunicated man
could appear as a pursuer. The magistrates and officers were
immediately upon his track, and again insisted upon his leav-
ing the town. While this was going on within, a crowd had
Collected in the street, and were impatiently waiting for him to
come out—some with sticks, some with stones, some with
rotten eggs. To have surrendered him to the people might
have cost him his life, and so he was quietly smuggled away
by the Kirk Heugh ; but the mob got the scent, and were
Soon in full cry after him, and he did not escape from the city
by the Potterrow gate without receiving some smart slaps upon
the back. The king was at Perth when this scene took place,
and when he heard of it he could only throw himself down
* Book of the Universal Kirk, June and October 1582.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, October 1582.
WOL. I. 2 A
37O - CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
upon the Inch, and give way to roars of laughter.” His sense
of the ludicrous got the better of his sense of justice.
On the 23d of August 1582, the king suddenly found him-
self a prisoner at Huntingtower, a castle in the neighbourhood
of Perth, belonging to the Earl of Gowrie. Scotland for
centuries had been fated to have children to rule over it, and
its nobles had learned that the faction who possessed the royal
child were generally able to exercise the royal power. The
Earls of Gowrie, Mar, Glammis, and some others, had beheld
with impatience the upstarts Lennox and Arran sharing
between them the smiles of the monarch and the government
of the country, and encouraged by Elizabeth, that old
formenter of sedition, and probably alarmed for the Protestant
faith, they had signed a bond which pledged them to drive
Lennox from the court. As chance would have it, the king
Came to the neighbourhood of Perth to hunt, just when the
Conspiracy was nearly ripe. The opportunity was not to be
lost; he was decoyed to the castle of the Ruthvens; and
when he wished to depart, Glammis placed himself against
the door, and informed him he was their captive. The Earl
of Arran was shortly afterwards seized and confined in Duplin;
the king was removed to Stirling; and Lennox got warning
that he would do well to leave the country without delay.
The ministers regarded the Raid of Ruthven as the deliver-
ance of the Church from an evil bondage, and many of them
proclaimed their satisfaction from the pulpit. Others of them
entered into treaty with the Confederated Lords. The exiled
Durie was brought back to Edinburgh amidst the shouts of
the citizens and the singing of psalms, and Lennox, who
beheld the triumphal procession from a window, is said to
have torn his beard with rage, and immediately to have fled to
Dumbarton, from which he afterwards escaped to France.”
The Confederates knew that their cause would gain strength
if it received the sanction of the Church; and therefore, when
the Assembly met in October, Lord Paisley appeared as their
Commissioner, declared that their reasons for undertaking the
enterprise were the dangers which threatened the Church, the
king, and the commonwealth, and beseeched them to show
their “good liking to it,” and to appoint each minister in his
own pulpit to explain the nature of it to his people, and ex-
* Tytler's History, vol. viii. Calderwood's History, 1582.
* Melville's Diary. Calderwood, 1582. Burton, ch. lviii. The Psalm
sung was the well known I24th.
A. D. 1582.] GEORGE BUCHANAN. . 37 I
hort them to give it their concurrence. The Assembly at
Once resolved that the dangers alluded to existed; but before
proceeding farther, they sent a deputation to wait upon the
king and learn his mind upon the matter. The king was a
captive, and required to speak as his jailors dictated ; he con-
fessed the Church and commonwealth were in danger. When
the deputation returned, the whole Assembly with one voice
declared their approbation of the Raid, and ordained an act
to be made accordingly.1
On the 28th September 1582, while the excitement of the
Ruthven enterprise was still fresh, George Buchanan, the most
illustrious of living Scotchmen, breathed his last. Born in the
parish of Killearn in 1506, he became early conspicuous for
his talents, and his uncle, James Heriot, sent him to Paris to
complete his education. But James Heriot died, and the
Scotch scholar was left in poverty. He came back to Scot-
land ; he struggled with bad health; he went into the army;
he returned to his scholastic studies; and the summer of
I526 found him a second time in France. After several
years he was once more in his native country, and acted for
a time as tutor to James Stewart, afterwards the celebrated
regent, and was probably the first to imbue his mind with a
love for Lutheranism. Buchanan's religious opinions at this
time were necessarily secret, but James V. knew he had no
love for the monks, and employed him to write a satire upon
the Franciscans; and the poem was felt to be so cutting, that
the poet was glad to escape with his life. Probably the king
felt that he could not openly protect him. He sought an
asylum in France, a country which he loved, and which
appears to have always paid a willing homage to his genius.
He taught in Bordeaux for a time; he afterwards taught in
Portugal; but suspicions arose in regard to his orthodoxy,
and he was accused of heresy and imprisoned in a monastery.
Christendom will pardon the Portuguese monks their perse-
cution, when it is known that it was to relieve the solitude of
his monastic prison that Buchanan translated the Psalter into
Latin verse, in which the piety of the Hebrew bards is em-
balmed in the aromatic diction of the Augustan age. Set at
liberty, he remained for a time in Portugal, and received some
flattering attentions from the king. After this we find him in
England, in France, in Italy, illustrating the mediaeval descrip-
tion of our countrymen—Scot; vagantes. About 1560 he
returned to Scotland to leave it no more.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, October 1 582.
37.2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
Two years afterwards, Queen Mary came, having already
buried in France her hopes and her happiness. Buchanan
was employed to assist her in her classical studies; for ladies
of fashion in those days, having no Shakespeare, Scott, or
Macaulay to read, read the epics of Homer, the odes of
Horace, and the grand historic fictions of Livy. Buchanan
showed his admiration for his royal mistress by dedicating to
her the first complete edition of his “Psalms:” Mary showed
her appreciation of her scholarly tutor by making him Com-
mendator of Crossraguel. But Buchanan was a Protestant in
religion, and a republican in politics; and these principles
naturally leagued him with the opponents of Mary's govern-
ment. The Earl of Moray presented him to the Principality
of St Leonard's College. The General Assembly received
lustre from his constant attendance, and honoured itself as
much as it honoured him by elevating him, though a layman,
to the Moderator's chair. When Mary was driven from her
throne, to Buchanan was entrusted the education of the infant
king—a trust which he discharged faithfully and well. He
made James a scholar; he could not make him more. He
raised a wondrous crop of learning upon a thin, though sharp,
soil. To his royal pupil he dedicated his famous treatise,
“De jure Regni apud Scotos”—a treatise in which he brought
back from heaven the old altar-flame of civil and religious
liberty, quenched upon earth since the days of republican
Greece and consular Rome.
His last great work was the history of his country. A keen
partisan in an age torn with contending factions, it was not to
be expected that he should speak of his contemporaries with
impartiality; but still his history will ever stand a noble monu-
ment of his industry and scholarship. He only lived long
enough to complete it. A short time before his death, Andrew
and James Melville went to Edinburgh to visit him. They
found him in his bedroom, sitting in his chair, and “teaching
his young man that servit him in his chalmer to spell a-b, ab ;
e-b, eb.” “I see, sir,” said Andrew Melville, “you are not
idle.” “Better this,” replied the veteran scholar, “than steal-
ing sheep, or sitting idle, which is as bad ;”—a lesson which
his Celtic brethren on the banks of Lochlomond required two
centuries longer to learn. Buchanan dismissed his pupil, and
showed Melville his “Epistle Dedicatory to the King.”
Melville ventured some criticisms. “I can do no more,”
replied the feeble old man, “for thinking of another matter.”
A.D. 1583.] FRIENCH EMBASSAGE. 373
“What is that?” said Melville. “To die l’” said Buchanan. I
The change for which he was preparing came, and he died so
poor that he was buried at the public expense. His grave
was made in the Greyfriars Church-yard, and a plain stone
placed at the head of it; but no one can now point out the
Spot.
While the king was in the hands of the Gowrie conspirators,
an embassage arrived from France, at the head of which were
De Menainville and De la Motte Fenelon. The ministers
withstood their being received at court; but the king, after
debating the matter with a deputation of them, determined
otherwise. The ambassadors demanded the use of the mass,
which was allowed them ; and this also excited popular dis-
content. Fenelon was a knight of the order of the Holy Spirit,
and wore a white cross embroidered on his shoulder. This
was denominated a badge of Antichrist ; and the ambassador
of the Catholic King was followed wherever he went by the
hootings of the Edinburgh mob.” When he was about to
leave the country, James requested the magistrates of the
metropolis to entertain him at a civic banquet; the ministers,
Scandalized that such an honour should be paid to such a man,
proclaimed a fast upon the same day. While the bailies were
pledging the envoys in their cups, the preachers were thun-
dering anathemas at their head in the Church of St Gile's. On
the same day the city presented the twofold aspect of a house
of mourning and a house of feasting.” Upon the whole, the
preachers and people were right, for the thrill of horror which
darted through Europe with the intelligence of St Bartholo-
mew's massacre was not yet forgotten, nor was it right that it
should. - -
On the 25th of June 1583, James managed to escape from
his keepers, and threw himself into the Castle of St Andrews.
The power of the Confederate Lords was at an end. The
king published a proclamation, declaring the Raid of Ruthven
to be treason, but at the same time holding out the promise of
a pardon to all who should acknowledge their crime. The
barons made their submission, and were forgiven; but the
Church could not thus easily cancel its own solemn deeds.
1 James Melville's Diary. Buchanan’s life has been written with much
judgment and taste by Dr Irving.
*Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. Historie of King James VI., Ban,
Club Ed.
* Historie of King James Sext. Spottiswood. Calderwood, &c.
374 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
The clergy, in fact, did not feel themselves called upon to do
So ; for they still thought that the evils of the government had
required such a remedy, and several of them did not hesitate
to say so in the pulpit. With Arran in power, such speeches
could scarcely pass with impunity. Durie was cited before
the Council, but retracted, and was dismissed. Andrew Mel-
ville was cited for using still stronger language, holding out to
the king the fearful examples of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar,
and James III., and he would not retract." He acknowledged
what he said, but declined the judgment of the Council, on
the ground that what was spoken in the pulpit ought first to
be tried by the Presbytery, and that neither the king nor
Council might, in the first instance meddle with it, though the
speeches were treasonable. Few men will now defend the
declinature of Melville : modern sense and modern legislation
have decided against it. But every accused man should be
allowed the liberty of urging every possible plea which he
chooses ; and the absurdity of the plea should not be held as
aggravating the crime. There is reason to think that, in this
Case, the plea was held as an aggravation of the offence. But
there is also reason to suspect that Melville so far forgot him-
self as to be contemptuous to the court before which he was
arraigned. “That you may see your weakness and rashness,”
cried he to the king and his counsellors in the course of the
trial, “in taking upon you what you neither can nor ought to
do, these are my instructions; see if any of you can judge of
them, or show that I have passed my injunctions ;” and with
that he unclasped a Hebrew Bible from his girdle, and clanked
it down upon the table.” The records of the Privy Council
bear that he declared “proudly, irreverently, and contemptu-
ously, that the laws of God and the practices observed within
this country were perverted, and not observed, in his case.” ”
Would such language be permitted in the present day P
Would such a proud speaker not be imprisoned for contempt
of court, though for nothing else? Melville was ordered to
enter himself a prisoner in Blackness Castle within ten hours;
but some of his friends repeated to him the Angus proverb,
“Loose and living; ”—he took the hint, and fled to Berwick.4
Melville was followed in his flight by several
of his brethren, who had reason to dread the
* M'Crie's Life of Melville. Melville's Diary. Calderwood's History.
* James Melville's Diary. -
* M'Crie's Life of Melville. *James Melville's Diary.
A.D. I584.
A.D. 1584.] THE BLACK ACTS. 375
displeasure of the king. They were not well gone till Gowrie
was brought to trial, for a new conspiracy in which he was
supposed to have been implicated, and Condemned to death.
He was among the last of the turbulent barons who had moved
amidst the political storms of the last quarter of a century.
They had almost all died by violence. Moray had perished
from the bullet of an assassin ; Grange had been hanged;
Lethington had taken poison; Morton had yielded up life
under the axe of the maiden ; and now Ruthven was destined
to share his fate. -
James was bent upon destroying a form of Church govern-
ment which he imagined to be inconsistent with his own
kingly prerogatives. The General Assembly rested upon too
popular a basis ; it was too independent of his absolute
will; it assumed a jurisdiction which he could not allow.
The ministers were too much given to discuss political subjects
in the pulpit—to speak evil of dignities—to resist the powers
that were ordained of God; and therefore their liberty must
be restrained. James had servants only too ready to assist
him in his undertaking. Arran's power was now greater than
ever; and he was the known enemy of the Presbyteries.
Adamson, the titular Archbishop of St Andrews, was constantly
at court, and laboured with all his might to perfect the Epis-
copal polity of the Church. On the 22d of May 1584, the
parliament assembled. Much business was on hand. Some
of the greatest nobles in the kingdom were declared guilty of
treason, and their estates forfeited to the Crown. But this
was the least of it. A series of acts were passed almost
entirely subversive of the rights hitherto enjoyed by the
Church. By one, the ancient jurisdiction of the Three Estates
was ratified, and to speak evil of any one of them was
declared to be treason ; thus were the bishops hedged about.
By another, the king was declared to be supreme in all causes
and over all persons, and to decline his judgment was pro-
nounced to be treason; thus was the boldness of such men as
Melville to be chastised. By a third, all convocations except
those specially licensed by the king, were declared to be un-
lawful; thus were the courts of the Church to be shorn of their
power. By a fourth, the chief jurisdiction of the Church was
lodged in the hands of the Episcopal body; for the bishops
must now do what the Assemblies and presbyteries had hitherto
done. By still another act, it was provided “that none should
presume, privately or publicly, in sermons, declamations, or
376 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
familiar conferences, to utter any false, untrue, or slanderous
speeches, to the reproach of his Majesty or council, or meddle
with the affairs of his Highness and Estate, under the pains
contained in the acts of parliament made against the makers
and reporters of lies.” 1
The passing of these acts carried consternation among the
Presbyterian clergy. When the first rumours of what was
doing in the parliament reached the city, Ilindsay hastened to
the palace to remonstrate, but he was seized at the gate and
sent off a prisoner to Blackness. When the acts were read at
the market-cross, Pont, the minister of St Cuthbert's, and 3.
Senator of the College of Justice, publicly protested against
them, and took instruments with all the forms of law. Having
done this, he fled together with Balcanduhal to Berwick, which
was the city of refuge to the persecuted Presbyterians.” The
whole of the acts were bad, but the one which lay at the basis
of the rest was the one which asserted that the king was
Supreme in all causes, and over all persons—a proposition
which the Church of Scotland has ever contended against with
weapons both carnal and spiritual. That he is supreme over
all persons is allowed; that he is supreme in all causes is
denied. It is maintained, that in matters purely spiritual, the
ecclesiastical courts possess an independent jurisdiction, and
from them there is no appeal. The maintenance of this
principle forms a large part of the Church's history, and has
been the source of much of the Church's sufferings. The pre-
sent generation has witnessed the fierce debates and bitter
heart-burnings which this question has generated, and has
beheld with grief the unfortunate result in a great national
Church rent in twain. -
If King James had jurisdiction in all causes as well as over
all persons, he was entitled to set up bishops and bid all men
bow down before them ; he was entitled to interdict Assem-
blies and presbyteries from meeting without his express per-
mission; he was entitled to stop the mouths of outspoken
ministers. But the ministers maintained he had no such
jurisdiction ; that there is a spiritual kingdom in which poten-
tates lose their power, where Caesar yields to God. By
preaching such doctrines as this, they in fact taught the people
* Acts of the Scotch Parliament, James VI., May 1584. Spottiswood’s
History. The same parliament condemned Buchanan’s History and his
Treatise De jure Regni apud Scotos.
* Calderwood’s History, 1584. Row's History, &c.
A.D. 1584.] DNPOPULARITY OF THE BISHOPS. 377
that there was a limit to royal prerogatives; that meetings
might be held and matters discussed with which monarchs
might not meddle; and thus they paved the way for the prin-
ciples of civil as well as religious liberty. The acts of I584
were unquestionably tyrannical, subversive of an existing order
of things, carried in the face of the country and the Church.
The parliament registered the resolves of the king; for though
Scottish barons were turbulent, Scottish parliaments were
docile, and seldom thwarted the reigning power. But the
people sympathised with the ministers; the acts became known
as the black acts; and the struggle between the court and the
Church, which lasted with some intermissions for more than a
Century, was begun. James's jealousy of prerogative—the
bane of his family—was the origin of the evil, but unfortu-
nately he found some apology for his legislation in the defence
of Melville, the political tracts of some of the preachers, and
the acts of the Assembly approving of the Raid of Ruthven.”
Popular irritation was greatly increased by the passing of
these acts, and the bishops could hardly appear in the streets
without being mobbed. They were looked upon as the
troublers of Zion ; as diseased excrescences on the body of
the Church, which must be removed before perfect healthful-
ness could be restored. After the flight of the Melvilles,
Adamson attempted to teach at St Andrews, but the students
regarded him with the strongest aversion. Parading round
his Episcopal palace, they bade him remember how fatal that
See had been to his predecessors.” He was glad to leave St
Andrews and go to Edinburgh, where his services were
required, as the pulpits were silent and the ministers in exile;
but even there the Privy Council were obliged to interfere to
preserve him from insult.* Montgomery, the Archbishop of
Glasgow, was perhaps still more odious to the people. When
residing in Ayr, he was mobbed by a crowd of women and
boys, who heaped upon him the vilest abuse, calling him
atheist, dog, schismatic, excommunicate beast, unworthy to
live.*
But James having got his general principles of Church
government established by act of parliament, resolved to
make the ministers how their necks to them. It was not
* These things were pointedly referred to in the preambles of the acts,
and specially quoted by the king afterwards in his defence of them.
* Tytler's History, vol. ix. M'Crie's Melville.
8 M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. i. 4 Tytler's History, vol. ix.
378 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
enough they should be written in the statute-book; the
ministers must put their hand to them. In August the
Estates again assembled, and an act was made that all
ministers, readers, and masters of colleges should appear
within forty days, and subscribe the acts concerning the king's
jurisdiction over all estates, temporal and spiritual, and
promise to submit themselves to the bishops, their ordinaries,
under pain of being deprived of their stipends." About
the same time Archbishop Adamson was invested by the king
with plenary powers to exercise his archiepiscopal jurisdiction
in accordance with the recent legislation.”
John Craig and some others were known to have denounced
the laws. They were summoned before the Council to answer
for their conduct, and asked how they dared to find fault with
acts of parliament. “We will find fault,” said Craig, “with
anything repugnant to God's Word.” Upon this Arran started
to his feet, and fiercely said, that the ministers were too pert,
and that he would shave their heads, pair their nails, cut their
toes, and make them an example to all that rebelled against
the king and his Council. James, however, was less fierce.
and more politic than his counsellor; and, after some negoti-
ation, he prevailed upon Craig and other influential ministers
to sign a deed of submission, adding the clause, “agreeably to
the Word of God,” to satisfy their consciences.” -
But neither the fierceness of Arran nor the kingcraft of
James could repress altogether the utterance of thought and
feeling. Some of the ministers had prayed for their exiled
brethren ; this was construed into treason. Others had re-
ceived letters from them ; this also was held to be a crime.
The fugitives directed a letter to their congregation, explain-
ing and bemoaning the causes of their exile. The magistrates
and citizens of Edinburgh, under royal influences, and pro-
bably assisted by an archiepiscopal pen, answered the letter,
and taunted the ministers with abandoning their flocks, as
sheep without a shepherd. The pen-and-ink battle was fairly
begun. Pamphlets and “scurril poems” appeared on both
sides. Adamson wrote a defence of the acts. James Mel-
ville, from his retreat in England, wrote a dissuasive from
Subscribing them. The wives of Durie, Lawson, and Balcan-
* Calderwood's History, vol. iv. -
* See Melville's Diary, I 584, where a copy of the document will be
found. See also Calderwood, vol. iv. p. 144.
* Calderwood's History, vol. iv. pp. 198, 199.
A.D. 1585.] SU BMISSION OF THE MINISTERS. 379
quhal were women of spirit, and ventured to address a letter
to the primate, rebutting the charges he had brought against
their husbands, and using towards his Grace woman's natural
liberty of speech. The magistrates got orders to dislodge
them from their houses, and accordingly the poor ladies were
obliged to sell their furniture and deliver up the keys. Other
ladies of Edinburgh, who were known to have used their
tongues too freely against the obnoxious acts, were banished
north of the Tay."
By this severity the spirit of the ministers was broken, and
many of them began to give in their submission. John Craig,
the old colleague of Knox, not only submitted, he went
further, and, in conjunction with Duncanson, the king's chap-
lain, he wrote a letter urging his brethren to do as he had
done ; and not long after, in the pulpit, he branded the
refugees with the name of the “peregrine ministers.”
The triumph of the king was nearly complete. He might
now have driven to his capital with the Church bound to his
chariot-wheels. We have a letter written at this period by
David Hume, one of the exiles, to James Carmichael, a recu-
Sant brother of the Church, giving some details which must
have carried sorrow and despair to the hearts of the little
remnant who still refused to submit. It told that “all the
ministers betwixt Stirling and Berwick, all Lothian, all the
Merse, had subscribed, with only ten exceptions, amongst
whom the most noted were—Patrick Simpson and Robert
Pont; that the Laird of Dun, the most venerable champion
of the Kirk, had so far receded from his primitive faith as to
have become a pest to the ministry in the north ; that John
Durie, who had so long resisted, had cracked his cuſple at last,
and closed his mouth ; that John Craig, so long the Coadjutor
of Knox, and John Brande, his colleague, had submitted ;
that the pulpits of Edinburgh were nearly silent—so fearful
had been the defection—except,” said he, “a very few who
sigh and sob under the Cross.” The truth is, the bulk of the
clergy, under the influence of Craig, and the terror of losing
their stipends, had subscribed, but in many cases it was with
a grudge.” -
Several of the most ancient Scottish nobles were at this
period living in England as exiles. They had fled the
* Calderwood's History, vol. iv., year 1584. See also Melville's Tiary,
same date.
* Calderwood's History, vol. iv. * Tytler's History, vol. ix.
38o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
Country at different times, and for various causes, but their
Common misfortunes drew them together. They kept hover-
ing about the borders, with the exiled ministers in their train,
impatiently waiting some event which might enable them to
return. Toward the close of 1585, an opportunity not to be
lost occurred. Lord Maxwell, one of the most powerful of
the border chiefs, had quarrelled with Arran ; they formed a
league with him, marched northwards, gathering their depend-
ents as they proceeded, and were soon before Stirling, where
the king and Arran were. When Arran saw that all was lost
he fled, and the king, unprovided for a siege, had no alterna-
tive but to open the gates and receive the exiles, who upon
bended knees implored his forgiveness, and were received into
favour.
The hopes of the Church now rose high. The king was in
the hands of their friends, and they expected no less than a
reversal of the obnoxious acts and a legal sanction to their
favourite policy. As the parliament was cited to meet in
December, the clergy came flocking to Dumfries, toward the
end of November, to hold an Assembly there, but the gates
were shut against them, and they had to meet in the open
fields. They adjourned to Linlithgow; but their meeting was
in vain. The king called them loons, Smaiks, and seditious
knaves; and the lords told them they must attend to them-
selves first, and that then they would do something for the
Church. Their chagrin as usual found vent in the pulpit. A
young man named Watson ventured in his sermon to reprove
the king to his face. He was sent to Blackness. Gibson, the
minister of Pencaitland, preaching in his room, said it had
been supposed that it was Arran who was the persecutor of
the Church, but now it was seen to be the monarch himself,
and that if he continued his wicked courses the curse de-
nounced against Jeroboam would fall upon him—he would be
rooted out and be the last of his race." Gibson followed
Watson to prison. The zealous Balcanduhal was once more
in Edinburgh, and once more in his pulpit. On a Sunday in
January 1586, the king was among his auditors. Balcanduhal
thought it a fitting opportunity to expatiate upon the unlawful-
ness of bishops. The king rose from his seat and said he
would pledge his crown he could prove there ought to be
bishops set over the clergy. The preacher maintained he
* Calderwood's History, vol. iv. p. 487.
A.D. 1586.] CHRISTMAS EVE. 381
could prove the contrary, and after some further altercation,
he was allowed to proceed with his discourse."
In the meantime a scene of a different kind was going on in
the neighbourhood of Dumfries. Lord Maxwell, who had
been the chief instrument in restoring the refugee nobles and
ministers, was a Papist; and glorying in his services and the
greatness of his power, he fondly dreamt that he might openly
profess his faith with impunity. On Christmas Eve 1585 he
assembled a number of priests in the town of Dumfries, with
all the gentlemen and gentlewomen in the district who were
still attached, though in secret, to the religion of Rome.
During the night a procession was formed, and with Carols
and lighted tapers it moved on to the College Church of Lin-
cluden. There mass was celebrated, sermons were preached,
and the religious services were concluded by two days of
feasting in Lord Maxwell's house. For twenty-five years the
country had not seen such a sight, and rumours of the mid-
night procession, the carols, the tapers, the mass, flew every-
where. The ministers were instantly on their watchtowers
sounding an alarm ; and Maxwell, potent though he was, paid
for his presumption by three months' imprisonment in Edin-
burgh Castle.”
The Provincial Synod of Fife had not met for two years;
but now it assembled once more, and Andrew Melville was
again present to direct its proceedings. Archbishop Adamson
was its victim. He was charged with being the author of the
obnoxious acts of 1584, and solemnly excommunicated. On
the next day, a cousin of the archbishop, attended by some of
his servants, proceeded to the church, and excommunicated
Andrew and James Melville, and some of their coadjutors.”
Thus in a Presbyterian country was the unholy spectacle—
which Rome had more than once witnessed—revived, of rival
popes anathematizing one another.
Every day was making it more evident that
something must be done to place the policy
of the Church upon a more satisfactory footing. The minis-
ters had begged the king to reconsider the recent legislation,
and the king, by the pen of Archbishop Adamson, had de-
fended it.* A conference, moreover, had been held between
* Calderwood's History, vol. iv. Spottiswood’s History, lib. vi.
* Historie of King James Sext, Ban. Ed.
* Calderwood's History, 1586. Melville's Diary.
* Calderwood gives the documents on both sides, vol. iv. An answer
to Adamson was written by Melville.
A.D. I586.
382 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
the Council and some of the leading ministers, and the terms
of a compromise agreed upon, which only required the sanc-
tion of the General Assembly. On the Ioth of May the
Assembly met in the Upper Tolbooth, at Edinburgh. James,
by his Commissioner, requested them to delay proceeding to
business till the afternoon, and to meet with him then in the
Chapel of Holyrood. The royal request was readily complied
with, and the Assembly met at the time and place appointed.
As usual, several candidates were nominated for the modera-
torship. The king voted first, and his candidate was carried.
During eighteen sessions this Assembly sat ; but the most
important business regarded the Episcopal order. It was
resolved that by bishops should be meant only such bishops
as were described by Paul; that such bishops might be
appointed by the General Assembly to visit certain bounds
assigned to them, but that in their visitation they must be
subject to the advice of the provincial synod ; and that,
in receiving presentations and giving collation to benefices,
they must act according to the direction of the presbytery
within which the vacant benefice lay; and, finally, that they
must be answerable for their whole conduct to the General
Assemblies.” Thus, again, did the Church give its consent to
a modified form of Episcopacy. But how carefully was it
hemmed round, and with what evident pain was it wrung
from reluctant presbyters
Other important business was despatched affecting the
Church's policy. It was agreed that henceforward the Assem-
bly should meet once a-year, and to this the royal assent was
given. A platform of presbyteries was produced, and the
respective jurisdictions of kirk-sessions, presbyteries, and pro-
vincial synods were carefully chalked out. Archbishop Adam-
son made some submissions, and was absolved from the
excommunication of the Synod of Fife. The excommunica-
tion of Melville was referred to the Presbytery of St Andrews.
Thus peace was patched up by James's kingcraft. The king
took an active part in all the deliberations of the Assembly,
sometimes being present himself, and sometimes by his Com-
missioner, and expressing either his approbation or disappro-
bation of its various acts.”
Towards the end of the year, it became known in Scotland
that Elizabeth had determined to bring Mary to the block.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, May 1586.
* Ibid. Calderwood.
A D, 1587.] PRAYERS FOR THE QUEEN. 383
James was not a man to act with the spirit which the emer-
gency required; but he instantly despatched an embassage
to London, and requested the ministers in the meantime to
remember his mother in their prayers, asking “that it might
please God to illuminate her with the light of His truth, and
Save her from the apparent danger wherein she was cast.”
The ministers of Edinburgh refused, pleading that to pray
for her preservation would imply a belief in her innocence,
and a condemnation of the conduct of Elizabeth. In these
circumstances his Majesty appointed Adamson to officiate
in the High Church, that in his own presence public prayers
might be offered up for his mother—a pious wish which we
Cannot but applaud. On entering the Church, however, he
found that Cowper," the ordinary minister, had already taken
possession of the pulpit. James rose in his seat, and addressed
the minister. “Mr John,” said he, “that place was destined
to-day for another; but if you will remember the charge that
has been given, and remember my mother in your prayers
this day, you may go on.” Cowper answered that he would.
do just as the Spirit of God directed him—an answer very
significant of the times. The king commanded him to come
down. He looked as if he would resist, and the captain of
the guard stepped forward to enforce the royal mandate. He
descended the pulpit-stairs, muttering that that day would
rise up in witness against the king on the great day of the
Lord.
A scene of wild confusion ensued; the people groaned and
shouted; most of them followed the outed minister to the
door; and the king exclaimed, “What devil ails the people,
that they will not stay and hear a man preach?” When
order was restored, Adamson went to the pulpit, and preached
on the duty of praying for all men. He was confessed on
all hands to be an eloquent man. On this occasion he had
a subject of thrilling interest, for the jeopardy of the un-
fortunate queen would give a pathos to his arguments; and
Spottiswood records the powerful impression he produced.
But neither embassage nor prayers prevailed. On the 8th of
February 1587, Mary was executed at Fotheringay : and, as
* Row and Calderwood say he was the minister of the church. Spottis-
wood says he had not yet been received into the ministry at all. º
* Row's History, pp. 115, 116. Row says he was present and wit-
nessed the scene. Spottiswood and Calderwood likewise give a descrip-
tion of it.
384 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
usually happens, her death has thrown a halo of glory around
her more than questionable name, and she has become one
of the heroines of history.
In the month of June the General Assembly
met. The king wished the Assembly to absolve
Montgomery, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and to censure
Gibson and Cowper for their insolence in the pulpit. The
Assembly offered to relax the sternness of their discipline
toward the archbishop, if the king would relax in the severity
of his demands in regard to the preachers; but James would
not listen to this species of barter in ecclesiastical discipline,
and so the affair was dropped." In the following month the
Three Estates assembled. At their first sitting, commissioners
from the Church appeared, and demanded that the prelates
who were present should be removed, as they had no authority
to sit as its representatives in the meeting of the Estates.
The Abbot of Kinloss defended the right of the prelates, and
bitterly remarked that the ministers, having thrust them out
of the Church, now wished to thrust them out of the State
too.” They were allowed to remain, but it was only to see
themselves stripped of their ancient splendour and power.
An act was passed, annexing the temporalities of all benefices
to the Crown.” According to this act the teinds remained
sacred, but all the Church lands were secularized.
Various causes concurred to the passing of this act—a fatal
one to Episcopacy in Scotland. The royal revenues were
very scanty, and James was persuaded that in this way they
might be largely augmented without having recourse to
taxation, to which his subjects were not yet sufficiently tamed
to submit. The bishops were made to believe that the tithes
annexed to their respective Sees would support them in
affluence; and it is probable that these amounted to more
than the revenues which they actually enjoyed. The ministers
had always resisted the secularization of ecclesiastical property;
but they hated the bishops more than they loved their lands,
and they let the one go in order that the other might go with
them. Every acre of the Church's patrimony had now passed
into other hands, and though the teinds were still unsecu-
larized, the Church henceforward became a pensioner of the
State, receiving a small dole out of what was once all her
own. The Crown was very little enriched by the act of
A.D. I587.
1 Calderwood’s History, 1587. * Ibid.
* Acts of the Scotch Parliament, James VI.
A.D. 1588.] ACT OF ANNEXATION. 385
annexation. James's easy disposition led him to give away
to others what he could not at once enjoy himself. His
courtiers grew great upon the spoils of the bishops and
abbots; and he had nothing left to himself but regret at his
double folly, in first plundering the Church and then squan-
dering the booty.
The year 1588 was one of intense excitement to all Chris-
tendom, and Scotland felt the pulsations of the common
heart. The mighty armada, which was to hurl Elizabeth
from her throne, had put to sea. The Papists believed that
the time of their restoration was come. The Popish nobles
in England and Scotland were plotting to join their arms to
those of the Spaniard. Jesuit priests, already known and
dreaded all over the world for their craft, their disregard of
all principle, and their undying devotion to Rome, were
gliding about the country. The alarm was universal. James,
after a period of hesitation, acted with vigour. The Protestant
lords assembled their vassals; the parliament passed stringent
laws against Papal emissaries; a solemn bond of allegiance
and mutual defence was widely signed; the country was
preserved in quietness; and soon the joyful tidings flew from
place to place that the invincible fleet had been smitten by
the skill of the English admirals, and afterwards scattered by
a succession of violent storms. Still the panic did not
altogether subside; for it was known that several of the most
potent earls in the kingdom were ready for revolt. They
actually took arms; but James placed himself at the head of
his troops, and soon compelled them to submit.
The young monarch was now bent upon matrimony. He
had despatched ambassadors to Denmark to affiance for him
the daughter of its king, and he impatiently awaited the
coming of his bride; but contrary winds prevented her setting
sail, and James, at last losing all patience, gallantly proceeded
in quest of her, committing himself, Leander like, to the
waves, as Asheby wrote to Queen Elizabeth." He found her
at Upsal, and was united to her in wedlock by his own
chaplain, David Lindsay—the only Scotch Presbyterian
minister who ever united a royal pair.” After a merry winter
spent at the Danish court, James brought home his bride,
* Calendar of State Papers (Scotland), 1589.
* The language uscd in the marriage ceremony was French. Adam,
Bishop of Orkney, married Mary and Bothwell. He had joined the
Protestants, but can scarcely be called a Presbyterian minister. He was
Commissioner of Orkney,
VOL. I. 2 B
386 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
and was now as full of joyfulness and good-nature as a bride-
groom should be. Proceeding to church, he caused public
thanks be given to God for his safe and happy return. Wish-
ing to lose no time in having the queen solemnly crowned, he
chose Robert Bruce, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, to
perform the ceremony; but some of his brethren had well-
nigh marred the matter, by objecting to the anointing with
oil, as a Jewish and antichristian custom. James, however,
Was imperative ; and throwing out a hint that, if they did not
choose to do as he wished, the bishops would, he silenced, if
he did not remove, their scruples." Upon a Sunday in May
I59o, the imposing ceremony took place in the Chapel of
Holyroodhouse; and Melville, assuming the laureate, read
On the Occasion his noble poem, the “Stephaniskion.”
During the king's absence in Denmark, the country had
been remarkably quiet. This was partly to be ascribed to the
efforts of the clergy; and James was sensible of this. He had
made Robert Bruce a member of the council appointed to
govern the kingdom during his absence; he kept up a Con-
stant Correspondence with him, called him good Mr Robert,
joked with him about his new rib, and declared he was worth
the quarter of his kingdom. On the Sunday following that of
the queen's coronation, he proceeded to the High Church, to
render public thanks for his return to his kingdom in pos-
session of a wife. When the sermon was done, the minister
Called upon the king to confirm the promises he had made to
the Church. James stood up in his seat in the loft, and made
a harangue. He said he had come to church to thank God for
his prosperous return, the people for the good order they had
maintained, and the ministers for having stirred them up to
fast and pray for his safety. He promised to prove a loving,
faithful, and thankful king; to amend his former negligence;
to see justice done without fear or favour; and make better
provision for the Church. He confessed that he had in the
past done some things which had better been undone ; but
now that he was married, and had seen more of the world, he
would be more staid, and meant immediately to address him-
self to business.”
Upon the 4th of August, the General Assembly convened in
Edinburgh, and James Melville, as Moderator, preached the
opening discourse, in which he declaimed against the sins of
* Calderwood's Hist., vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi.
* Calderwood’s Hist., vol. v.
A.D. 1590.] THE KING's SPEECH. 387
the times. James was present at the eighth session of the
Assembly thus begun. The Moderator propounded to him all
that the Church desired. James made a speech, for to make
a speech was his delight. He promised much ; and in the end,
we are told, “he fell forth praising God that he was born in
such a time as the time of the light of the gospel—to such a
place as to be king in such a Kirk, the sincerest Kirk in the
world.” “The Kirk of Geneva,” he continued, “keepeth
Pasche and Yule: what have they for them? they have no in-
stitution. As for our neighbour Kirk in England, it is an evil
said mass in English, wanting nothing but the liftings. I
charge you, my good people, ministers, doctors, elders, nobles,
gentlemen, and barons, to stand to your purity, and to exhort
the people to do the same; and I, forsooth, so long as I brook
my life and Crown, shall maintain the same against all deadly.” "
When this royal oration was concluded, we are told “the
Assembly so rejoiced that there was nothing but loud praising
of God, and praying for the king for a quarter of an hour.”
If the Assembly had known the whole future, it would have
mingled trembling with its mirth. The king was no doubt
sincere at the time, but whatever he felt, it is certain his
proceedings must have been highly displeasing to the auto-
cratic Queen Elizabeth. Within a month of the Assembly,
and as if in anticipation of it, she wrote to James warning him
against a new sect which had arisen in both their realms, who
would have no king but a presbytery, urging him to stop the
mouths of those who made orations about the persecuted Puri
tans, and hoping that, however he might bear such audacity
himself, he would not suffer her to receive such indignities at
the hands of such caterpillars.”
In 1591 the troubled life of Archbishop Adamson came to a
close. He had been again excommunicated for marrying, at
the request of the king, the Popish Earl of Huntly to a sister
of the Duke of Lennox; for the presbyters of those days held
that a pestilent Papist had no right to enjoy the pleasures of
wedlock. He had, moreover, lived beyond his means, and
being unable to pay some stipends which were payable out of
his Episcopal revenues, he was not only censured by the
courts of the Church, but outlawed by his creditors. He is
said to have been fond of magnificent living; but it is pro-
bable his Episcopal revcnucs, catch up by his patron, werc
never able to support his Episcopal state; and the king un-
* Calderwood's Hist., vol. v.
* Calendar of State Papers (Scotland), 6th July 1590.
388 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XII.
generously made matters worse in his old age, by bestowing
the bishopric upon the young Duke of Lennox. Adamson came
to absolute want, and was glad to beg a bit of bread from his
enemies. A recantation of his opinions in regard to Episco-
pacy was paraded in the Assembly; but few will now be in-
clined to put much stress upon it. There is pathos, and
perhaps truth too, in the following story given by Row:—“‘I
gloried over much in three things,’ said the dying man, “and
God has now justly punished me in them all. I gloried in my
riches and great living, and now I am so poor that I have no
means to entertain myself; I gloried in my eloquence, and
now few can understand what I say ; I gloried in the favour of
my prince, and now he loves any of the dogs of his kennel
better than me.’” I
As the volatile James was at present in great good humour
with the Church, it was resolved to take advantage of his
favourable disposition. On the 21st of May 1592, the General
Assembly was convened at Edinburgh. Immediately after the
elevation of Bruce, the king's favourite, to the Moderator's
chair, it was resolved that suit should be made to his Majesty
for the following articles —I. That the acts of parliament
made in 1584 against the discipline, liberty, and authority of
the Kirk should be annulled, and its discipline, as then
practised, sanctioned by law. 2. That the act of annexation
should be abolished, and the patrimony of the Church restored.
3. That abbots, priors, and other prelates should be debarred
from sitting in parliament as the representatives of the Spiritual
Estate. 4. That the country should be purged of idolatry.
The parliament assembled on the 29th of May. The peti-
tion of the Church was taken into consideration, and an act
passed ratifying the liberty of the Church, giving a legal juris-
diction to its courts, abrogating the acts of 1584, in so far as
they impinged upon ecclesiastical authority in matters of reli.
gion, and providing that presentations should henceforward be
directed, not to the bishops, but to the presbyteries within
whose bounds the vacant benefices lay. This important act
was tantamount to the entire subversion of the Episcopal
polity, and the re-establishment of the National Church upon
a Presbyterian basis. It is frequently spoken of as the Magna
Charta of the Church. It, in fact, legalized the most impor-
tant parts of the “Second Book of Discipline,” for which the
Church had so long contended. For nearly twenty years
* Row's History, p. 131, Wodrow Edition.
CHAP. XIII.] REVIEW. 389
Episcopacy and Presbytery had been jumbled together; but
they were found to be irreconcilable. For nearly twenty years
the presbyter had done battle with the bishop, and at this
period in the contest he stood victorious. The act of annexa-
tion, however, was not repealed, and all hope of the Church
recovering its lost lands was gone.
C H A P T E R XIII.
BEFORE allowing ourselves to be carried farther down in our
history by the fast-flowing current of events, we must pause and
discover what we can of the institutions, customs, and con-
dition of the Church at the period to which our narrative
relates. The traveller who would thoroughly explore a river,
from its source among the mountains to its outlet in the sea,
must not suffer his bark to glide unceasingly down the stream ;
he must occasionally moor it to the bank, that he may examine
the channel over which the current flows, and the character
of the vegetation which grows upon its brink. As time and
space condition all things, the manners and ideas of a people
condition their history.
A great change has occurred in the country since we last
attempted to sketch its moral and religious features. The
Papal Church was then supreme ; it stood like an ancient oak,
casting its umbrageous branches over all the land; now the
axe has been laid to its root, and a vigorous shoot springing
from its stock bids fair to emulate the magnitude of the former
trunk without its rottenness. The nation was then just waking
into life; now it was almost dizzy with the excitement of new
ideas continually flashing upon the mind, and with deep
draughts from the cup of liberty. “When the Lord turned
again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with
singing.”
The General Assembly was the most remarkable growth of
the Reformation. It spontaneously sprung into existence fully
accoutred for its work. Strong from the very first, it was a
Hercules in its cradle, far more powerful in its infancy than it
is in its old age. The very year of the Reformation the
Assembly met, and at once proceeded to business, as if it had
already inherited the land. It early assumed a lofty bearing ;
390 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
it remonstrated with regents; it defied parliaments; it bearded
kings; it claimed a jurisdiction independent of all civil con-
trol. Nor was it mere assumption; its strength warranted its
ambition. It is not too much to say that for many years the
General Assembly was a more influential body than the parlia-
ment. What, then, was the secret of its strength P Where did
it lie? The question admits of an easy solution.
The General Assembly was built upon a broad basis. Had
it been a mere convention of ecclesiastics, it would have had
the weakness which such conventions have always exhibited,
especially in Protestant countries. But from the very first the
Church of Scotland laid aside the notion of priestly exclusive-
ness. The laity were largely admitted into all its courts, just
because it did not recognise the distinction between the laity
and clergy.” It never knew a sacerdotal caste. Every man
in the nation, professing the Reformed faith, who held a high
office or influential position, was invited to attend. The
regents, the king, the members of the Privy Council, the
higher nobility, the barons, had a seat and a vote when they
chose to exercise them. The qualification of being an elder
was not insisted on.” In the first General Assembly there were
but forty-one members, and only six of these were ministers.
In the sederunt of every Assembly, the miscellaneous character
of its members is indicated. The sederunt of August 1572
runs thus:–“ There were present the earls, lords, superintend-
ents, barons, commissioners to plant kirks, commissioners of
provinces, universities, and ministers.” & Before the Assembly
of August 1573, bishops had been introduced into the Church,
and accordingly the sederunt then stands –“ There were pre-
sent the earls, lords, barons, bishops, superintendents, commis-
sioners to plant kirks, commissioners of provinces, towns, and
* This idea is well developed in the Duke of Argyll's admirable Essay
on the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland.
* The regulations of July 1568, in regard to those who should vote in
the Assembly, do not seem to have been applied to the nobility.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 132, Peterkin's Edition. In the
sederunt of the Assembly of December 1563, we have the names of the
leading nobles given. There were—the Duke of Chastelherault, the Earl
of Argyll, the Earl of Moray, the Earl of Morton, the Earl Marischal, the
Earl of Glencairn, Maitland of Lethington, the Secretary of State, Sir
John Wishart of Pittarrow, the Comptroller, Sir John Ballantyne of Auch-
nool, the Justice-Clerk, the Lords of Secret Council, superintendents,
ministers, and commissioners of kirks and provinces. These were the lead-
ing men of the kingdom. Anything they agreed upon would have as much
the force of law as an act of parliament.
CHAP. XIII.] MEMBERS OF ASSEMBLY. 39 I
kirks, with the ministers.” In this Assembly, we find the
somewhat curious resolution agreed upon in the first session:
—“Because it is understood that certain of the nobility of this
realm and Secret Council are to repair to this Assembly;
therefore the whole brethren ordain, that the whole nobility
and council, with commissioners of provinces, towns, and
kirks, having power to vote, shall sit within the bar of the said
over-Tolbooth, and all others without the same.” 1 Thus by a
council of the Church were its own ministers thrust without
the bar, to give ample room enough to their lay coadjutors.
But there is nothing brings out the ideas of the Church in
regard to who should be the constituent members of its highest
court so well as a letter which the Assembly of March 1574
directed to the Regent Morton. “It is known unto your
Grace,” says the Assembly, “that since the time God blessed
this country with the light of His evangel, the whole Church
most gladly appointed, and the same by act of parliament was
authorised, that two godly Assemblies of the whole general
Church of this realm should be every year, as well of all mem-
bers thereof in all estates as of the ministers ; the which
Assemblies have been since the first ordinance continually
kept in such sort that the most noble thereof, the highest
estate, have joined themselves by their own person in the
Assemblies, concurring, voting, and authorising all things there
proceeding with their brethren. And now at the present the
Church is assembled according to the godly ordinance, and
looks to have concurrence of their brethren in all estates, and
wishes of God that your Grace and Lords of Privy Council will
authorize the Church in the present Assembly, by your pre-
sence, or by others having your commission, in your Grace and
Lordship's name, as members of the Church of God; for as
your Grace's presence and the nobility’s should be to us most
comfortable, and so most earnestly wished of all, so your
Grace's absence is most dolorous and lamentable . . . and
So we give you admonition in the name of the Lord, extending
£his admonition to every person of whatever estate that is present
Zvižh your Grace.”?
The General Assembly was essentially a representative body,
and possessed the strength which every such body necessarily
has. The Scotch parliament was a very imperfect representa-
tive of the Scotch people. But the Assembly contained the
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 137. * Ibid., pp. I39-40.
392 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
representatives of every class. The nobles were there in con-
siderable numbers, and beside them sat the representatives of
provinces, of towns, of universities, of congregations. We may
therefore regard the voice of the Assembly as the voice of the
people. The Church of Scotland was in fact a spiritual re-
public, and the General Assembly its supreme court. Another
source of the Assembly’s power lay in the frequency of its
meetings. Twice every year it was summoned together, some-
times more frequently.” If any emergency arose, the members
came hurrying together from every part of the country, to de-
liberate and act as the occasion required. If a parliament was
convoked, the Assembly met a few days before it, to make up
a catalogue of its grievances and requests to be laid before the
Fstates.” Under the guidance of able and energetic men—
Knox, Erskine, Davidson, and Melville—its proceedings were
always marked with uncommon vigour, and necessarily Com-
manded respect. Perhaps yet another source of strength may
be mentioned: the Presbyterian Court inherited some of the
Superstitious respect which was anciently paid to the councils
of the Papal Church, and its sentences of excommunication
were regarded with as much awe as the anathemas of Rome.
We have no record of the Assembly debates, but we know
that the ministers from the pulpit were in the habit of declaim-
ing upon the topics which had been first discussed upon the
Assembly floor. In this way the sympathies of the people
were enlisted, and subjects, which otherwise would scarcely
have been known beyond the walls of the Assembly-house,
were proclaimed through the length and breadth of the land.
The pulpit supplied the people periodically with the news of the
churches. And shall we doubt that man and woman received
the truth in much docility from the mouth of their minister?
On some occasions they were asked to testify their approval
by holding up their hands.” In this also we have a source of
the Church's power.4
* King James early saw this, and attempted to restrain the frequency of
meeting. He would allow only one meeting in the year, and was even
anxious to manage that no meeting should be held without his sanction.
* For instances of this see Book of Universal Kirk, pp. 145-155.
* Scott's Apologetic Narration, p. 66, Wodrow Ed.
* Before leaving the Assemblies it may be stated, that the Moderators
at this period were generally chosen from a leet by the vote of the house;
and that the first instance of an advocate appearing at the bar of the
Assembly was to plead the case of the Bishop of Dunkeld, who had dila-
pidated his benefice. The Assembly refused to hear him. This was in
I575.
CHAP. XIII.] CLERICAL CLOTHING. 393
After thirty years of experiment and change, the minister
alone remained as the recognised religious teacher of the
people. The superintendents and commissioners were fast
dying out, and were not to have successors. The readers
and exhorters still continued in many parts of the country,
and we find them frequently rebuked for assuming to them-
selves the administration of the sacraments; but in 158o the
Assembly declared them to be no ordinary office in the
Church, and they gradually sunk into the subordinate position
of clerks or precentors.” The bishop had fiercely struggled
with the presbyter for pre-eminence, and was destined to
struggle again, but in 1592 the presbyter kept the field.
There is a singular notice in the records of the Assembly of
April 1576, which, while it shows the anxiety of the Church to
maintain the respectability of its ministers, throws a shade of
suspicion as to the vocation of some of them. It is as follows:
—Any minister or reader that taps ale, beer, or wine, and
keeps an open tavern, should be exhorted by the commis-
sioners to keep decorum.” w
At this period the English Church was agitated in regard to
ecclesiastical vestments. The Scotch Church sympathized
with the Puritans, and directed a letter to the Anglican
bishops, begging them to make allowance for tender con-
sciences in such trivial and indifferent matters as tippets,
Cornets, and capes;4 but no such controversy appears ever to
have been agitated in Scotland itself. Every surplice and
every stole seems to have been burned up in the Reformation
bonfires. But the Assembly thought it right to prescribe the
everyday garments of the ministers and their wives, and we
have a curious minute upon the subject; “Forasmuch,” it is
said, “as a comely and decent apparel is requisite in all,
especially in the ministers and such as bear function in the
Church ; first, we think all kind of broidering unseemly, all
Öagaries of velvet on gowns, hose, or coats, and all Superfluous
and vain cutting out, steißing with silks ; all kinds of costly
sewing or variant hues in sarés, and kind of light and variant
hues in clothing, as red, blue, yellow, and such like, which
declare the lightness of the mind; all wearing of rings,
bracelets, buttons of silver, gold, or other metal; all kind
of superfluity of cloth in making of hose ; all using of plaids
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 191.
* Ibid., pp. 158, 196. See also Second Book of Discipline.
* Ibid., p. 166. * Ibid., pp. 49, 50.
394 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
in the church by readers or ministers, in time of their ministry
and using their office; all kinds of gowning, coating, doublet-
fing, or breeches of velvet, satin, taffety, or such like; all costly
gilding of whingers or knives, or such like; all silken hats, and
hats of diverse and light colours; but that their whole habit
shall be of grave colour, as black, russet, sad gray, sad brown,
or serges, worsted, camblet, grozºgrame, Zytes, worsità, or such
like ; and, to be short, that the good Word of God by them
and their immoderateness be not slandered ; and their wives
to be subject to the same order.” .
Thirty-six years after the Reformation there were still
upwards of four hundred churches unsupplied with Protestant
preachers.” Ministers had multiplied fast, but not so fast as
to have filled more than one-half of the pulpits even after this
lengthened period. We need not marvel at this, for the body
of learned men from whom alone the clergy could be chosen
must have still been extremely small, and the stipends allowed
by the State, instead of tempting men to prepare themselves
for the work, were so scanty and so ill paid as to have led
many to abandon it.” The Romish clergy had been forced
into an outward compliance, at least, with the Protestant faith
and worship, and one would have imagined that the ministry
might have been largely recruited from their ranks. But they
* Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly I575, p. I49.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly I 596, p. 437. See also Calder-
wood. “There are in Scotland 900 kirks, of the quhilk there are 400
without ministers or readers.” (Diary of Robert Birrel.) The number of
ministers and readers appears to have decreased. From the Register of
Ministers and their Stipends in 1567, it would appear there were then
about IoSo churches, under the charge of 257 ministers, I5 I exhorters,
and 455 readers. Moreover, the places of I2 ministers and 53 readers are
marked vacant, making in all 928 persons, besides the five Superintendents.
According to the Register of 1574, there were about 988 churches, sup-
plied by 289 ministers and 715 readers, with the places of 20 ministers
and 97 readers vacant ; making in all II.2.1 persons. The difference in
the proportion of ministers and readers in the two Registers arose from
the Regent Morton placing three or four churches under the care of one
minister, assisted by readers. In this way the difference between a minis-
ter's stipend, about 200 merks, and a reader's stipend, about 20 merks,
was saved by the parsimonious regent. (See the Analysis of the Ancient
Registers of Ministers by Dr Laing, the Editor of the Wodrow Miscellany,
vol. i. pp. 325-27.) -
3 Several Acts of Assembly were made to prevent ministers abandoning
their office. (Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 125, 126.) Melville, in
his Diary, speaks of some ballads that had been made against those who
had deserted their vocation, or, as it is expressed, put their hand to the
plough, and drawn back. (P. I5, Ban. Ed.)
CHAP. XIII.] COMMON PRAYER. 395
seem to have exhibited a general indisposition to undertake
the duty of preachers. The General Assembly more than
once complained that they ate up two-thirds of the benefice,
and did none of the work, and was evidently inclined to Com-
pel them to exercise their spiritual functions according to the
Protestant forms."
The “Book of Common Prayer” was still used in the
service of the Church, and sometimes as a help to private
devotion. John Knox had portions of it read to him while he
lay upon his death-bed.” In December 1564, the Assembly
ordered all ministers and readers to provide themselves with a
copy of the Psalm-Book, with the Order of Geneva attached
(which had just then issued from the press), to assist them in the
Acelebration of the sacraments ;% and in October 1579, the par-
liament ordained that every gentleman worth three hundred
merks yearly, and every substantial seaman and burgess worth
fifty pounds in goods or land, should possess himself with a
Bible and Psalm-Book, for the better instruction of himself
and his family.” The early Church appears to have been dis-
posed to prescribe a method of preaching as well as of prayer.
In 1581 the Assembly gave a commission to Mr Thomas
Smeton to prepare such a form ;” and even ten years before
this there is a reference in the records of the Privy Council to
a “book called the Homilies for Readers in Kirks.” Such
helps were at first imperatively required. The Church-
services, in the majority of cases, could not have been Con-
ducted without them.
In the “Diary" of Melville and the “History” of Buchanan,
we get a glimpse of a devout household at their devotions in
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 86. “The haill brethren conveint
and assembled thocht meit that ane supplication be presentit to the
supreame magistrate anent sic persons as hes receavit ther benefices in
papistrie, payand now allanarlie their thirds, thinkand themselves there-
through dischargit of all further cure in the Kirk; requireing at his Grace
what order shall be tane anent sic persones.” (Assembly, February 1569.
Ibid. p. IO7.) The Assembly of 1573 was still more explicit: “Seeing
the most part of the persons who were canons, monks, or friars within
this realm, have made profession of the true religion, it is therefore
thought meet that it be enjoined to them to pass and serve as readers at
the places where they shall be appointed.” (Calderwood’s History, vol. iii.
p. 297, Wodrow Edition.)
* M'Crie's Life of Knox. 3 Keith’s History. Calderwood's History.
*James VI., parl. vi., chap. lxxii.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 219.
* Quoted in Appendix to Dr M'Crie's Life of Melville.
396 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII-
the age which immediately followed the Reformation. It was
the custom, after both dinner and supper, to offer up a prayer,
to read a chapter, to make comments upon it, and to conclude
by singing a psalm. This was the usage in the house of the
Regent Moray;" it was the usage of John Knox while he
lived at St Andrews ; * it was the usage of John Durie, one of
the ministers of Edinburgh. The Assembly attempted to force
it upon James VI., and James, with the advice of his Council,
made some show of submission, but he did not religiously
adhere to it.” “In time of meals,” says James Melville, who
was frequently an inmate of Durie's family, and married his
daughter, “was reasoning upon good purposes, namely, matters
on hand ; thereafter, earnest and long prayer; thereafter, a
chapter read, and every man about gave his note and obser-
vation upon it; . . . thereafter was sung a psalm ; after
which was conference and deliberation upon the purposes in
hand; and at night, before going to bed, earnest and zealous
prayer, according to the estate and success of matters.” +
Traces of this ancient practice have lingered in some ministers'
families to the present day.
The personal piety of the times appears to have been deep
and sincere, but somewhat tinctured with fanaticism and
superstition. Some of the more eminent ministers were in
the habit of spending seven or eight hours together in prayer;
and the power of working miracles and uttering prophecies.
was claimed by themselves, and joyfully conceded by the
people. In their higher ecstasies, they sometimes enjoyed
visions of angels; and in their more depressed states of mind,
the devil appeared to them under some fantastic shape, and
either engaged them in combat, or tempted them to sin.”
Such superstitions, however, were not confined to the Scotch
ministers; the most eminent divines of Germany and England
were vexed about the same period by such apparitions. +
When the Protestant Church abolished the Roman festivals,
it substituted days of fasting. By the direction of the Assem-
bly, Knox drew up a treatise on Fasting, for the guidance of
ministers, which still remains, and throws much light upon the
* Buchanan’s History, book xix.
* James Melville's Diary, p. 21, Ban. Ed.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly I596, p. 433. Calderwood's
History, vol. v. p. 140. Register of Privy Council, vol. iii. pp. 264-5.
* Melville's Diary, pp. 60-I.
* Proofs of this will be found in the writings of Knox, and in the Lives,
of Welsh, Bruce, Livingstone, &c.
CHAP. XIII.] FASTS. 397
early Church. “The abstinence,” it says, “is commanded to
be from Saturday at eight of the clock at night, till Sunday
after the exercise at afternoon, that is, after five of the clock;
and then only bread and drink to be used, and that with great
sobriety, that the body craving necessary food, the soul may
be provoked earnestly to crave of God that which it most
needeth, that is, mercy for our former unthankfulness, and the
assistance of His Holy Spirit in time to come.
“Gorgeous apparel would be abstained from during the
whole time of our humiliation, which is from one Sunday in
the morning till the next Sunday at night ; albeit that the
straitness of abstinence is to be kept but two days only.
“Because this exercise is extraordinary, the time thereof
would be somewhatlonger than it is used to be in the accustomed
assemblies. And yet we would not have it so tedious that it
should be noisome to the people. And therefore we think
that three hours, and not less, before noon, and two hours at
afternoon, shall be sufficient for the whole public exercise;
the rest to be spent in private meditation by every family apart.”
A fast so long continued and so severe, implying entire
abstinence from food for a part of two days, and a great
abridgment of the ordinary diet for eight; five or six hours
spent in church on the Sundays, and two or three during every
day of the week, would ill sort with the notions of modern
times. But such fasts appear to have been religiously kept
during the enthusiasm of the Reforming period. It is very
remarkable that all the lessons prescribed for the Church-
service on these occasions are taken from the Old Testament,
and not one from the New. It is characteristic of the age, and
of the temper of the men who lived in it. Their religion, in
Some of its aspects, was more Jewish than Christian.
To a sensitive mind, the discipline of the Presbyterian
Church must have been far more terrific than the most painful
penances of the Church of Rome. Fvery crime required to be
Confessed in the face of the congregation ; and the penitent,
when making his confession, was clothed in sackcloth. In the
Case of all heinous crimes, such as adultery or murder, the
penitent was obliged to stand three several Sundays in a public
place before the church-door, “bare-footed and bare-headed,
clothed in a base and abject apparel,”—the murderer holding
in his hand “the same weapon which he used in the murder,
or the like, bloody in his hand.” Thus stationed, he was
* Order of Excommunication, p. 130.
398 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
required to confess his sin and penitence to all who entered
the church, and beg their forgiveness. Nor, while thus seek-
ing admission to the body of the faithful, might he join in
their prayers; the utmost that was allowed him was to listen
from afar to the sermon, in which, very probably, his crime was
denounced." It was not unusual for the Church Courts to
hand over delinquents to the magistrate, to have the punish-
ment of the sword superadded to that of the keys.” Felons
sometimes underwent the discipline of the Church, and were
then executed. In 1570, two men were convicted of an
abominable crime, and this was the manner of their punish-
ment. First, they were kept in prison for eight days, and fed
upon bread and water ; they were then stationed at the
market-place, with the inscription of their fault written on
their forehead; after that they were placed in the church, to
repent before the people on three several Sundays; they were
next ducked in a deep loch over the head three several
times; and, last of all, they were bound to a stake, and
burned to ashes.” -
In some cases the discipline of the Church was extended
to matters which are now properly placed under the head of
political economy, and not of morals. Thus an elder of the
Church, named Gourlay, was compelled to make public
repentance for having exported some wheat. The regent
attempted to save him, stating that he had acted with his
license and authority, and that such economic arrangements
did not belong to the Church ; but it was in vain. On
another occasion a Senator of the College of Justice was
debarred from the sacraments, for having remained in Edin-
burgh during the rebellion.*
The discipline of the Church was extended impartially to
all. Haughty lords and high-born ladies were compelled to
submit to it, and Acts of Assembly passed that none, what-
ever their rank, should be exempted from sackcloth.” Un-
* Order of Excommunication, p. 130. Book of the Universal Kirk, pp.
I 18, I 19, 125, &c. -
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 189, &c.
* Historie of King James Sext, p. 64, Ban. Ed.
* Calderwood's History, vol. iii. pp. 328, 343.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 139. Among the early subjects of
the Church's discipline, we find the Earl and Countess of Argyll, the Earl
of Arran (at that time the prime minister of the country) and his Countess,
Lord Angus, and others of the highest nobility. The Duke of Lennox
and the Earl of Montrose were threatened with excommunication for
entertaining excommunicated persons. Many others among the nobility
were excommunicated for Popery.
CHAP. XIII.] DISCIPLINE. 399
happily, many of the earliest subjects of the Church's discipline
were its own ministers and readers. Within the first ten years
of its existence, the General Assembly, notwithstanding the
paucity of ministers, had under its notice seven or eight
clerical offenders, and one unhappy man—the minister of
Sprott—was hanged for the murder of his wife." This may
be accounted for, either by supposing that some vicious men
had got into office in the hurry of filling up vacant parishes,
or that the immorality of the ministers was only a part of the
general immorality of the times—hitherto tolerated in the
bosom of the Church, but to be tolerated no more. The
most celebrated among these delinquents was Paul Methven,
one of the most popular of the Reforming preachers. He
was caught in adultery. In the Romish Church his crime
would have been winked at, but not in the Protestant. He
was deposed from the ministry, and excommunicated. In
piteous and abject terms he begged that he might be restored,
even though it should be “with the loss of some member.”
Coming into the Assembly, “he prostrated himself on the
floor with weeping and howling,” and the Assembly were
moved to receive him again, but not till, on two separate
preaching-days, he presented himself at the door of the
Church of Edinburgh, bare-headed, bare-footed, clothed in
sackcloth, begging forgiveness: doing the same at Jedburgh,
repeating it at Dundee, in which places he had previously
ministered. It was agreed that after undergoing this painful
penance, he should be invested with his own apparel, and
received into the Church, but still not restored to the ministry
till the ensuing Assembly. Poor, sinning, penitent Paul
underwent one-half of the punishment; but, overwhelmed
with shame, he could not endure more, and fled to England.”
The records of the Church Courts would lead us to believe
that the morals of the people were at this period exceedingly
debased. We have constant references to all manner of con-
ceivable and inconceivable crimes, which the magistrates are
importuned to punish.” The poor are stigmatized as having
been especially degraded. “Universally throughout the
realm,” says the Assembly record, “there is neither religion
nor discipline with the poor, but the most part live in filthy
*Bannatyne's Memoriales, &c.
* Acts of the Assembly, 1564-6. Book of the Universal Kurk. Calder-
wood’s History.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 29, 143, 332, &c.
4OO CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
adultery, incest, fornication; their children are unbaptized,
and they themselves never resort to the church, nor participate
in the sacraments”—a fearful picture but it is probable that
the zeal of these good men against sin has given the picture
a darker colouring than the reality. Still the state of society
must have been deplorably bad; it was an Augean stable the
clergy had to cleanse. The Scottish peasantry at this time
were miserably poor, and poverty, by rendering the decencies
of life impossible, became the parent of vice. The whole
land swarmed with beggars ;” and gangs of bronze-coloured
gipsies strolled about the country, and are talked of as
“defiling it with their abominations.”
One of the reputed sins of this period was witchcraft.
Many persons, especially women, were supposed to have
renounced their baptism, and, by an obscene act of homage,
to have devoted themselves to the devil.” They were said to
sail through the air, to assemble at midnight in churches, to
raise violent storms, to affect the subjects of their sorcery
with slow, wasting diseases. The belief was universal; and
it is perfectly certain that some wretched creatures really
fancied themselves in league with the wicked one, and
practised rites which they believed to have power with him.
While James was in Denmark, Satan was affirmed to have
assembled a number of his supposts, some of the masculine
and others of the feminine kind, in the Church of North
Berwick, in order to raise storms at sea to prevent the young
queen from coming safely to Scotland.” Several of these were
afterwards seized and put to death. One of them, called
Agnes Sampson, was generally known as the wise wife of
Keith, “a woman,” says Spottiswood, “not of the base and
ignorant sort of witches, but matron-like, grave, and settled in
her answers.” In her examination she declared “ that she
had a familiar spirit, who, upon her call, did appear in a
visible form, and resolve her of any doubtful matter, especially
concerning the life or death of persons lying sick,” and that
her words of conjuration were “hollo, master.”” In other
cases, these dupes of their own diablerie placed an image in
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 333.
* Second Book of Discipline. Also acts of parliament passed at this
period. * Row's History, p. 141.
* Daemonologie, by King James VI.
* Historie of King James Sext, p. 24.I.
° Spottiswood’s Hist., lib. vi.
CHAP. XIII.] SUNDAY AMUSEMENTS. 4OI
wax of their unsuspecting victim before a slow fire, and the
image and the victim wasted away together. The Church
shared in the popular belief, and denounced witchcraft as a
sin, the parliament declared it to be a crime, and the king not
Only busied himself to hunt out and burn the unhappy crea-
tures, but proved his Orthodox zeal by writing a treatise on the
subject."
For many years after the Reformation the Sunday continued
to be desecrated by markets, and all manner of work; but
the Church Courts laboured with a laudable earnestness
to effect a change. In the Assembly records we find fre-
quent complaints of salt-pans being at work, of mills being
at work, of the operations of husbandry going on, and of fairs
being held on the day of rest.” Earnest efforts were made to
put a stop to such irregularities. The Presbytery of Edin-
burgh proceeded still further. The Edinburgh weekly market
was held upon Monday, and the Presbytery wished it abolished,
on the ground that many who came to it began their journey
On Sunday. The attempt created a riot; and King James was
hugely delighted with the idea that the soutars had intimidated
the ministers more than he could.” -
In a previous part of our history we gave some account of
the religious dramas—the Mysteries and Moralities—which
were acted in the Romish Church. These did not cease with
the Reformation, although we may believe that their peculiar
hue would vary with the times. The Virgin, the blessed
apostles, the beatified saints, would vanish from the stage;
Old Testament judges and kings would now figure in their
stead. But it soon began to be thought unseemly to have
dramas founded on the Bible narrative, and, accordingly, the
General Assembly in 1575 determined that henceforward no
clerk-plays, comedies, or tragedies, based upon the canonical
Scriptures, should be acted either upon Sunday or work-day,
and that profane plays should be examined before they were
exhibited, and in no case acted on the Sunday. In the very
next year the Bailie of Dunfermline asked permission of the
* Daemonologie by King James VI. Historie of King James Sext.
Spottiswood, lib. iv. Tytler, vol. ix. In 1597 no fewer than twenty-four
witches were burned at Aberdeen. See the Records of the Kirk-Session
of Aberdeen, published by the Spalding Club.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 160, 228, 344, &c.
* Historie of King James Sext, p. 254. The editor of Calderwood
gives us a specimen of the rhymes which were published on the occasion,
taken from the Cotton MSS. See note to vol. v. p. 177.
WOL. I. 2 C
4O2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
Assembly to have a play performed on a Sunday afternoon,
but it was peremptorily refused.” It is curious to contem-
plate John Knox as delighting in theatricals, and as present
at a play in which one of the divertisements was the hang-
ing of the Laird of Grange ; but so it was, and that in his old
age, when he was rusticating at St Andrews. “This year, in
the month of July,” says James Melville, “Mr John Davidson,
one of our regents, made a play at the marriage of Mr John
Colvin, which I saw played in Mr Knox's presence : wherein,
according to Mr Knox's doctrine, the Castle of Edinburgh was
besieged, taken, and the captain, with one or two with him,
hanged in effigy.””
But Robin Hood plays were the particular delight of the
Scottish people. On a Sunday in May, the people, led by
their magistrates, assembled in some green field in the neigh-
bourhood of their village or town ; one of their number, by
previous arrangement, personated the celebrated outlaw
Robin Hood, another his faithful squire Little John ; and in
boisterous fun and frolic the day was spent. In the same
merry month the young women and children were accustomed
to meet, Choose a Queen of May, and, dancing around some
greenwood tree, to make the air, far and near, vocal with their
Sweet voices. So early as I 555 the parliaments attempted to
prevent these practices, and declared that if any provost or
bailie, Council or community, chose any such personages as
Robin Hood, Little John, Abbot of Unreason, or Queen of
May, they should lose their freedom for five years; and that if
any woman, by singing about summer trees, made perturba-
tion to the queen's lieges, they should be put upon the cuck-
stool of the burgh or town.” But parliament was almost power-
less to prevent a practice that had become inveterate. The
attempt to enforce the law in Edinburgh in 1561 led to serious
riots.” Even the elders and deacons of the Church sometimes
So far forgot themselves as to give these amusements their
* For very curious notices upon this subject see Book of the Universal
Kirk, pp. I46, I59, 165, I 74, 192.
*James Melville's Diary, p. 22.
* Mary, parl. vi. c. 61.
* Knox's History, book iv. There is a reference to these Robin Hood
plays in the Diurnal of Occurrents, May 1572. After noticing that at that
time there was a great dearth in Edinburgh, it is added—“Nevertheless,
the remainder abode patiently, and were of good comfort, and used all
pleasures which were wont to be used in said month in old time—viz.,
Robin Hood and Little John.”
CHAP. XIII.] PAGEANTS. 4O3
patronage and presence ; 4 and for more than thirty years
after the Reformation, we find the Assembly sometimes
begging the civil power to interfere and put an end to the evil,
and sometimes threatening its own spiritual Censures against
the disobedient.
The age was fond of pageants. Every great occasion called
forth a display of them. We have a minute description of
those which greeted James VI. on his first public entrance
into Edinburgh, which will give us a general idea of them all.
“At the West Port he was received by the magistrates of the
town under a pompous pay/e of purple velvet. The Port pre-
sented unto him the Wisdom of Solomon, as it is written in
the third chapter of the First Book of Kings; that is to say,
King Solomon was represented with the two women that con-
tended for the young child. This done, they presented the
king with the sword for the one hand, and the sceptre for the
other. And as he made further progress within the town, in
the street that ascends to the castle, there is an ancient port,
at the which there hung a curious globe, which opened arti-
ficially as the king came past, wherein was a young boy who
descended craftily, presenting the keys of the town to his
Majesty, which were all made of fine massive silver, and these
were presently received by one of his honourable council at his
own command. During this space Dame Music and her
scholars exercised her art with great melody. Then, in his
descent, as he came opposite to the house of Justice, there
showed themselves unto him four gallant virtuous ladies, to wit,
Peace, Justice, Plenty, and Policy, and each of them had an
Oration to his Majesty. Thereafter, as he came toward the
chief collegiate church, there Dame Religion showed herself,
desiring his presence, which he there obeyed by entering the
church, where the chief preacher for that time made a notable
exhortation unto him for the embracing Religion and all her
Cardinal virtues, and all other virtues. Thereafter he came
forth and made progress to the market-cross where he beheld
Bacchus, with his magnificent liberality and plenty, distribut-
ing of his liquor to all passengers and beholders, in such ap-
pearance as was pleasant to see. A little beneath is the
market-place of salt, whereupon was painted the genealogy of
the Kings of Scotland, and a number of trumpets sounding
melodiously, and crying with a loud voice, Welfare to the King.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 192.
4O4. - CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
At the East Port was erected the conjunction of the planets,
as they were in their degrees and places the time of his
Majesty's happy nativity, and the same lively represented by
the assistance of King Ptolemy. And withal the whole streets
were spread with flowers, and the front houses of the streets,
by which the king passed, were all hung with magnificent
tapestry, with painted history, and the effigies of noble men
and women.” +
The printing-press had been helpful in effecting the Refor-
mation, and soon after its establishment the Church began to
take an instrument so powerful for good or for evil under its
care. So early as 1563, it was ordained by the Assembly that
no religious book should be published without being first re-
vised by the superintendent of the diocese.” In 1568 Thomas
Bassandyne, at that time a printer in Edinburgh, was accused
of having printed a book entitled the “Fall of the Roman
Kirk,” in which the king was named as the supreme head of
the primitive Church. He was farther charged with having
published a psalm-book, “in the end whereof was found
printed a bawdy song called ‘Welcome Fortune,’” and all this
he had done without the license of the magistrate or the re-
visal of the Church. He was ordered by the Assembly to call
in the books he had sold, to retain those that were unsold, and
henceforward to print nothing without the license of the magis-
trate, and in the case of religious books, the revisal of a Com-
mittee of the Church.” There flourished in Edinburgh at the
same time another printer called Robert Lekprevik. He had
obtained from the Privy Council the monopoly of printing all
books in Latin or English necessary “for the weill and Com-
moditie of the lieges of the realme, and also all sic things as
tend to ye glorie of God; ” but his trade does not seem to have
thriven, for in 1570 he appeared before the General Assembly
asking its aid in his undertakings, and the Church, having re-
spect to his poverty, the great expense he had been at in buy-
ing printer's irons, and the zeal and love he bore to the
Church at all times, granted him a yearly pension of fifty
pounds.4
In 1573 the Assembly voted forty pounds to Richard
Bannatyne, the faithful servant of John Knox, to assist him in
preparing the MS. History of his old master for the press, and
1 Historie of King James Sext, pp. 178, 179.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 16. * Ibid. pp. IOO, IOI.
* Ibid. p. 119.
CHAP. XIII.] THE PRINTING PRESS, 405
appointed a committee of some learned men to give him
their help." In the following year it was reported to the
Assembly that a French printer of great celebrity, who had
been banished with his wife and family for the sake of re-
ligion, was willing to settle in this country, and bring with
him three thousand francs’ worth of books, and print whatever
work he should be commanded, if he were made sure of a
yearly pension of three hundred merks.” The Assembly
thought it right to bring this proposal before the regent, but
nothing appears to have been done. Six years after this we
find the Assembly bringing under the notice of the king that
the country stood greatly in need of a printer, and that a stranger
banished for his religion, called Vantrolier, had offered to exer-
cise his craft for the welfare of the country, if his Majesty
should give him a license and privilege.”
Neither the General Assembly nor the Privy Council had the
most remote conception of a free press. The Assembly ap-
pointed a committee to revise all books before their publica-
tion, and to give them the benefit of their imprimatur if they
were approved. Adamson had rendered the Book of Job into
Latin verse ; Hay had written a book against the Jesuits: they
were required to submit them for inspection. Popish books
were pouring into the Country; pedlars from Poland were
hawking them about ; the Church called upon the regent
to interfere. Nor was the Privy Council more enlightened.
Davidson had published a dialogue between a clerk and a cour-
tier, satirizing the regent for Creating pluralities in order to
enrich himself. He was cited before the Council, and finally
obliged to abscond.*
It was in 1579 that the first edition of the English Bible
issued from the Scottish press. So early as 1575, the Assembly
entered into terms with Thomas Bassandyne, the printer pre-
viously referred to, and Alexander Arbuthnot, a merchant bur-
gess of Edinburgh, for the production of this great work,
stipulating among other things that 244, 13s. 4d. Should be
the price of a copy. It was merely a reprint of the Genevan
Bible with a few corrections. George Young revised the proof-
sheets; Robert Pont composed the calendar; the General
Assembly made the dedication to the king to run in its name;”
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 135
* Calderwood's History, vol. iii. p. 336.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 200, 201.
* Calderwood's History, vol. iii. pp. 301-36.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 187. Calderwood's History, I579.
406 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
and the parliament made the purchase of it compulsory upon
all who were able to bear the expense.
The same parliament which made Protestantism the religion
of the realm pronounced Popery to be a crime. To perform
a mass or be present at a mass three times was death. The
Church frequently importuned the magistrate to purge the land
of idolatry, and it is all but certain that hundreds and thou-
sands, under the pressure of fear, succumbed to a religion
which in their hearts they abhorred. It does not appear that
the laws were frequently put in force in all their rigour;' but
it sometimes happened that what the magistrate was unwilling
to do, the mob took in hand; and it were idle to deny that
unhappy Romanists were generally regarded, and frequently
treated, as unclean beasts, to be hunted down and exter-
minated from the land. About Easter 1565, a Romish priest
named Sir John Tarbat was laid hold of as he rode rapidly
through Edinburgh. It was suspected he had been celebrat-
ing mass. He was taken to the Tolbooth, invested with his
Sacerdotal garments, dragged to the market-cross, tied up there,
with a chalice bound in his hand, and kept in that position for
an hour, “during which time,” says Knox, with great glee,
“the boys served him with his Easter eggs.” The next day
he was tried for his life, and convicted, but mercy was ex-
tended to him, and this was the manner of it. “He was set
upon the market-cross for the space of three or four hours, the
hangman standing by, and keeping him ; the boys and others
were busy with eggs-casting.” There was like to be a tumult,
as the Papists made an effort to save their pilloried priest; the
magistrates were obliged to interfere, and carry him off to the
Tolbooth; and it was afterwards rumoured, though wrongously,
that the poor man had died of the ill-usage he had re-
ceived. -
In 1569 a similar scene took place at Stirling. While the
Regent Moray was there, four priests belonging to Dunblane,
who had lingered too fondly by the ruined altars of their
ancient Cathedral, were condemned to death, “for saying mass
Dr M'Crie, in the Appendix to his Life of Melville, speaks of the arrange-
ment being made in March 1575, but I have not been able to find this in
the records of the Assembly.
* Bishop Lesley gives candid testimony to this fact.
* Knox's History, book v. In justice to Knox it must be stated, that it
is generally understood that this part of his History was written by some
other hand. There can be little doubt, however, but that the Reformer
would have rejoiced at such a scene.
CHAP. XIII.] CONFESSORS AND MARTYRS. 4O7
contrary to the Acts of Parliament.” The regent, in the exer-
cise of his clemency, saved their lives, “but caused them to be
bound to the market-cross, with their vestments and chalices,
in derision, where the people cast eggs and other villany in
their faces, by the space of an hour, and thereafter their
chalices and vestments were burned to ashes.” 1 But clem-
ency like this was thrown away. The tender mercy of the
Protestants was abused. Popish priests still persisted in say-
ing mass, and so, on the 4th of May 1574, one of them was
laid hold of in Glasgow and hanged.” No monumental stone
marks this man’s grave; his very name has been suffered to
perish ; but was he not a martyr to his faith P Strange incon-
sistency of human nature, that the very men who had loaded
with all opprobrious epithets the persecutors under the Papacy,
should now be such zealous persecutors themselves | Long
years required to come and go before the great principle of
mutual toleration was understood and acted upon. From the
beginning of the world men clearly saw that it was wrong for
others to persecute them ; it is scarcely two hundred years
since they began dimly to see that it was wrong for them to
persecute others.
In some districts of the country, the Catholics were still so
numerous, that it was not safe to meddle with the priests in
celebrating mass. This was the case at Aberdeen, Dunkeld,
Paisley, Eglinton, and many other places. We find it there-
fore arranged, that a day should be appointed for all the
Protestants in the neighbourhood of these places to assemble
and proceed in a body to apprehend the violators of the law.”
We are not informed what was the result of these tumultuous
assemblages.
The Assembly had its own species of legislation, and its own
means of coercion. An act was made, requiring every one to
take the Sacrament, an act which was to be put in force against
all who were suspected of Popery, with the awful sentence of
excommunication in case of refusal.4 Thus the Holy Supper
of Our Lord, designed to be a bond of brotherhood and a feast
of love, was converted into a stone of stumbling, and a rock of
* Historie of James Sext, p. 40.
* Diurnal of Occurrents, 4th May 1574. The entry is, “There was
ane priest hangit in Glasgow callit for saying mess.”
* Diurnal of Qccurrents, 2nth October 1572.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 147. Calderwood's History, vol. iii. p.
346. There were more acts than one of this kind backed by acts of parlia-
ment.
408 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
offence. The devoted Roman Catholics would regard the
taking the sacrament from a Protestant minister as the
primitive Christians regarded the throwing a grain of incense
upon the altar of Jupiter. Many would succumb to terror; a
few would resist ; and to be excommunicated—altogether apart
from its spiritual effects—was to be cut off from society, to lose
all the rights of a man and a subject, and to be shunned as
a loathsome leper. -
The horror diffused through every Protestant country by
the Massacre of St Bartholomew, and the butcheries of
Alva in Holland, the alarm kept alive by the preparations
of Spain for the invasion of the island, the known strength
of the Papal party both in England and Scotland, the machina-
tions of that new order, who bearing the blessed name
of Him who was without guile, were already notorious for
every species of deceit, and already to be found in every
country of Europe, naturally led the Estates to add new
severities to the penal code. The Church had frequently begged
them to take order with Jesuits and seminary priests, and they
did so." In 1587 an act was passed, declaring that all Jesuits
and seminary priests found in the country should be taken and
put to death, and that every one harbouring them for three
nights should be liable to the confiscation of his goods. To
bring into the country Papistical books, to distribute these, to
attempt by argument or persuasion to make any one decline
from the true religion, was likewise declared to be a misde-
meanour, punishable with the loss of property.” About forty
years before this, the same parliament passed a similar law
against Protestant books being brought into the country, or
Protestant arguments being uttered; the tables were turned
The Papacy was crushed in Scotland, but it was by no means
destroyed. Its adherents were still both numerous and power-
ful. There is still in existence a remarkable state-paper in
the handwriting of Lord Burghley, and belonging to the year
1589, in which we have an estimate of the comparative strength
of the Roman Catholic and Protestant parties. From this
document it would appear, that the whole northern part of
the country, including the counties of Inverness, Caithness,
Sutherland, Aberdeen, and Moray, with the sheriffdoms of
Buchan and Angus, and Wigton and Nithsdale in the south,
were still almost entirely Catholic, commanded by Popish
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 329, 330, 331, &c.
* James VI., parl. xi. chapters xxiv. xxv. xxvii.
CHAP. XIII.] STRENGTH OF THE PAPACY. 4O9.
noblemen, and giving shelter to Jesuit priests. On the Pro-
testant side were ranked the counties of Perth, Stirling, Fife,
Lanark, Renfrew, and Dumbarton. Ayr and Linlithgow were
regarded as dubious.”
At the same period the General Assembly presented to the
king a picture of the country equally dark. Many of the
noblest families in the land still adhered to the ancient super-
stition, notwithstanding the terrors of excommunication.
Jesuits were everywhere prowling about, seducing the people.
Priests were openly celebrating mass, and abusing the ordin-
ances of baptism and marriage. The ladies especially were
wedded to idolatry. Ladies Herries, Morton, Mar, Minto,
Tweeddale, Sutherland, Ryder, Farnyhurst, and others, were
all active in their support of Romanism. They sheltered the
proscribed priests, they practised superstitious rites, they kept
Pasche and Yule ; and some of them were represented as
having themselves horribly usurped the administration of the
Lord's Supper with bread and water. In some districts the
churches were falling into ruins; in others, there were churches,
but no ministers; in others, both churches and ministers,
but few people to attend them. In Lennox, of twenty-four
churches, only four had ministers; and in some of the northern
counties, the state of matters was still worse. Confident in
their numbers, the Papists in some places ventured to be
insolent. They defied the law, assaulted Protestant ministers,
to the effusion of their blood and the danger of their lives,
and had their Christ's wells, pilgrimages, bonfires, and Carols,
as if the land were still in the bondage of Rome.”
This divided state of the country must have generated
religious rancour, as certainly as decomposing matter gene-
rates noxious gases. There was oppression on the one hand,
the thirst for revenge on the other; there was the pride of
new domination confronted by the memory of ancient empire.
The Romanists had lost their supremacy, but they were not
without hopes of regaining it; the Protestants had got the
upper hand, but they were not without fear that they might
lose it. The Romanists were busy intriguing, the Protestants
in watching them. A ship arrives in port from France or
Spain, a stranger of distinguished appearance is seen to land
from it: the minister reports the case to the magistrates, and
* Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ix.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 330-32. Calderwood's History, vol.
iv. p. 664. -
4 IO CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
requests them to seize upon the ship, and keep it till the
mystery is cleared up. A suspicious-looking man has been
observed skulking about the country, visiting at the houses of
Suspected Papists, dropping a call at the cots of the peasants:
the matter is reported to the Assembly, by the Assembly it is
reported to the Council, and if the disguised Jesuit has not
already decamped, he is in danger of the judgment.
But there was danger not merely from the plots of the
Papists, but from the Protestants themselves relapsing into
error; and to this the ministers were jealously alive. Scotland
was ill provided with the means of education, worse now than
before the Reformation, for the monasteries had been destroyed,
and nothing substituted in their stead ; and parents were
therefore in the habit of sending their children to France and
other Continental countries to be educated. Some of these
returned Romanists. The Church took alarm, and passed an
act prohibiting parents from sending their children out of the
realm upon any such pretences." The Edinburgh clergy went
further. The merchants of the metropolis had carried on a
lucrative traffic with Spain. The ministers brought this before
the magistrates as a crime to be prohibited, and from the
pulpit declared, “that no one could make a voyage to Spain
without danger of his soul, and therefore they charged every
one in the name of God to abstain.” The merchants per-
severed in their voyages ; the ministers cited them before the
Session, and commanded them to desist. The merchants
complained to the king, who told them to go on as they had
done; the ministers threatened them with excommunication
if they did. At this crisis the town-council interfered, and by
representing that many of the Spaniards were indebted to the
Scots, and some of the Scots indebted to the Spaniards, and
that these accounts could never be cleared unless the traffic
were continued for a time at least, they managed to stay the
storm.”
The people who had joined the Protestant Church had
not been able all at once to throw off the habits in which
they had been educated. Multitudes still resorted to the holy
rood of Peebles, to consecrated wells, to localities sanctified
by superstition. Christmas and Easter were still observed ;
bonfires were kindled; carols were sung. There were Papal
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 184, 185.
* Historie of King James Sext, pp. 254, 255. Calderwood states that
the matter was brought before the Assembly.
CHAP. XIII.] ROMAN USAGES. 4 II
practices at bridals and births; and wakes for the dead. The
Church laboured to suppress these inveterate tendencies ; but
more than one generation required to die out before they suc-
ceeded.] We have vestiges of them at the present day. The
past continually intrudes itself into the present. The Pro-
testant preachers went further, and prudently discouraged
everything which had the appearance of Popery. The Bishop
of Dunkeld had administered the sacrament of the Supper
upon a work-day : he was admonished never to do so except
on the Sunday;” a marked difference must be made between
it and the mass. The Duke of Athol had died, and there
was a report of superstitious rites being prepared for his burial,
—that there was a white cross upon the mortcloth, and that
the mourners were to be clothed in long gowns, with stroupes,
and to carry torches. The Assembly instantly despatched
two of its members to inquire into this; and it was arranged
that the mortcloth should be covered with black velvet, and
the stroupes removed. It was denied that there had been any
intention of using torches.”
The Protestantism of the king was vehemently suspected by
some of the more zealous Presbyterians. There was no more
ground for their suspicions than there would be for believing
that the statesmen who carried the Roman Catholic Emanci-
pation Bill were themselves Roman Catholics. James knew
how strong the Popish party was in Scotland; how strong it
was in England; and it was a part of his kingcraft to propitiate
and conciliate all. But though a Protestant, he was never a
hearty Presbyterian ; 4 and he had a royal pride in exhibiting
his theological gladiatorship against both Papists and Presby-
ters. He encountered Balcanduhal in the High Church
upon the authority of bishops; he continued the argument
in the palace. He wrangled with Gibson about his liberty of
speech in the pulpit; and did not disdain to defend, both by
tongue and pen, his Episcopal legislation. But he was equally
zealous against the doctrines of Trent. He converted Lennox.
He met James Gordon, a celebrated Jesuit of the family of
Huntly, in single combat, and drove him from his subterfuges,
to the admiration of the lords and ladies assembled at Holy-
* Book of the Universal Kirk. Calderwood's History—everywhere
from 1560 to 1600.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 144. 3 Ibid.
*This is proved not only by his whole history, but by his sentiments in
the Basilicon Doron.
4. I2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
rood to hear the wisdom of Solomon. The Jesuit finally
affected to agree with the king regarding both justification and
predestination, and put the substance of what had been said
into writing. The polemical monarch, on examining the
document, remarked to Gordon, that, having subscribed these
things, he could no longer remain a follower of Loyola ; but
the wily Jesuit answered that every Catholic prince in Europe
would put their hands to the same articles." There is reason
to fear that the king, though claiming the victory, had been
out-manoeuvred.
There is nothing more characteristic of the times than
the liberties which the ministers took with the king. Etiquette
had not yet so hedged about royalty as to prevent easy access
into the presence-chamber, and the utmost plainness of speech.
while there. Both in public and private, the ministers largely
availed themselves of their privilege. They saw no special
virtue in a royal argument, and never dreamt they were bound
to yield to it; they saw no particular apology for a royal sin,
but thought it their duty to rebuke it on the spot. Craig, in
the High Church of Edinburgh, so sharply rebuked the king
to his face for a proclamation he had issued affecting the
Church, that he is said to have wept.” When the deputation
of ministers waited upon James to remonstrate about the
reception of the French ambassadors, the king, as was his
wont, gave utterance to several Oaths in the Course of the con-
versation. Davidson remained a little behind his colleagues,
and admonished the king that he ought not thus to swear, and
take the name of God in vain. James was good-natured enough
to take the advice well, and laughingly to thank Davidson
for it.8
For many years after the Reformation, the utmost harmony
and good-will seems to have prevailed among all the Protes-
tant Churches. The fact that they had separated from Rome
united them to one another : there was but one Papal Church
and one Protestant Church. The ministers of one Reformed
nation were freely admitted into the pulpits of another ; the
nationality of Churches was still unknown. Knox ministered
in England, in Geneva, in Scotland; the Church of which he
was an apostle was not limited to his native Country, or to any
country. It was wherever Protestantism was. When there
* Papers illustrative of the reigns of Queen Mary and King James, Ban.
Club. Ed. -
* Calderwood, vol. iii. p. 674. * Ibid. p. 697.
CHAP. XIII.] SPLIT IN THE CHURCHES. 4 IS
was persecution in England, many of its preachers came into
Scotland; when there was persecution in Scotland, they re-
turned to England. Geneva was ever the refuge of all. The
General Assembly formally gave its sanction to the Helvetian
Confession, with some trifling exceptions; and wrote friendly
letters “to their brethren, the bishops, and pastors of England,
who had renounced the Roman Antichrist, and professed with
them the Lord Jesus in sincerity.”
But when the Presbyterian constitution of Scotland became
more clearly defined, and when the Assembly cast out bishops,
and declared Episcopacy to be a sin, a chasm broad and deep
began to form between the two Churches. The irritation of
the Anglican dignitaries was increased by the rise of Puritan-
ism at their own door. The Puritans were already numerous
in the south ; they held opinions almost identical with the
northern Presbyters; and the bishops naturally transferred the
dislike with which they regarded the one to the other. Had
there been nothing akin to Presbyterianism in England
the lordly prelates would have looked at it across the
border with condescending kindness. Had there been
no attempt to force Episcopacy upon Scotland, bishops
would never have been spoken of as the bastards of
Popery. We can view other forms of Church government than
our own in the distance with perfect complacency; it is only
when they are brought near us that our equanimity is disturbed.
The first hostile blow was struck by England. The earliest
Reformers of the Anglican Church had held that there were
but two orders of ecclesiastical office-bearers mentioned in the
New Testament—bishops and deacons—the presbyter and
bishop having been originally the same, and the Superiority of
the bishop an arrangement of after-growth. Dr Bancroft, on
the 9th of February 1588, preached a sermon at St Paul's
Cross before the parliament, in which he startled all England
by pleading for the divine right of Episcopacy.” In this ser-
mon the future archbishop railed against the Puritans, and
turning from them he next railed against the Scotch Presby-
terians. He abused their great Reformer, as a man of conten-
tious humour; he abused their church Courts, as laboratories
of treason; he lauded the king for having put them down.
This attack naturally provoked antagonism. The Presbytery
of Edinburgh appointed a committee to write to Elizabeth, Com-
1 Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 49.
* Extracts of this sermon are to be found in the Wodrow Miscellnay
vol. i. pp. 477-96.
4 I4. CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIII.
plaining of the evil treatment they had received, and to draw
up a refutation of Bancroft's sermon. The letter and refuta-
tion were prepared, but never sent; and the only answer the
English polemic received was contained in a small pamphlet by
Davidson, and entitled “Bancroft's rashness in railing against
the Church of Scotland.”" The author presented a copy to
the king, but the king was greatly troubled at it, and would
have done anything to suppress it.” But though the battle was
almost entirely on one side, it was continued. Bancroft care-
fully collected new calumnies against the northern Church, and
published two pamphlets, one of which was entitled “Danger-
ous Positions, or Scottish Genevating and English Scottising for
Discipline.” The title indicated the tender part: it was the
Puritans who were troubling him. Unhappily, the jealousy
which has too long prevailed between the sister Churches of
England and Scotland was begun.
Independency entered Scotland while the war betwixt Fpis-
copacy and Presbytery was being waged, and so the three great
rival schemes of Church government were brought for the first
time face to face upon the field. The Independents were first
called Brownists, and took their rise about 1580. Robert
Brown, a preacher in the Diocese of Norwich, perambulated
the country, declaiming against bishops, ceremonies, ecclesi-
astical courts, and the ordination of ministers. Thirty-two
times was he cast into prison, sometimes into dungeons so dark
that he could not see his hand at noon-day ; but he persevered,
and managed to draw a little Congregation around him.
According to the principles of this sect, every Congregation
formed a separate and independent church. The whole power
of admitting and excluding members, of deciding controver-
sies, and even of setting apart pastors and deacons to their
work, rested with the brotherhood. They unchurched all other
churches. A community holding principles like these was not
to be suffered to take root in England. The congregation was
broken up, and Brown, with a number of his followers, sought
refuge in Holland.” But there dissensions arose, and Brown,
with some of his sect, came into Scotland.
They took up their abode in the Canongate of Edinburgh,
and soon began to make their principles known. They under-
took to prove before the kirk-session that witnesses at baptism
* Extracts from these are also to be found in the Wodrow Miscellany,
vol. i. pp. 496-52O.
* Calendar of State Papers, Bowes to Burghley, 2d October 1590.
* Neal’s History of the Puritans, vol. i.
A.D. 1592.] THE BROWNISTS. 4 I5
was not a thing indifferent, but a sin; but the kirk-session was
not convinced. Brown himself had next a conference with
some members of the Presbytery, and alleged that the whole
discipline of Scotland was wrong, that he and his company
would not submit to it, and that they appealed from the
Church to the magistrate. Lawson and Davidson were ap-
pointed to examine his writings; and this done, he was cited
before the Presbytery to answer for his heresies. He boldly
avowed his books and opinions, and the Church resolved to
lay the matter before the king. But James did not interfere,
and it was even thought that the Brownists were fostered by
the court that they might act as a thorn in the side of the
Church.1
Brown afterwards returned to England, renounced his prin-
ciples, became a rector in Northamptonshire, and threw a
Scandal upon his austere youth by a dissolute old age.” But
when he died, his opinions did not die with him. He had
Sown some seed, which, possessing a principle of vitality,
sprung up, and was destined, in the course of years, to over-
spread the land with its abundant vegetation. It was already
becoming plain that the indivisibility of the Roman Church
was not to be a characteristic of Protestantism. The elements
of strife—the symptoms of dissent—were beginning to appear.
The period which we have traversed, extending from 1560
to I592, was a period of excitement, but it was a healthy ex-
citement. The stagnant stillness of Romanism was gone; the
agitation of Protestantism, the agitation inseparable from free
thought, was begun. There was liberty; let us not marvel
though in a few cases it had degenerated into licentiousness.
And while we may not approve, let us not too rudely blame
the excesses of men who were breathing for the first time the
mountain air of freedom, and felt its exhilarating influences.
Like the Cripple restored to the use of his limbs, they felt in-
clined to leap with a half-frantic joy. Had they only been
left to themselves, the staid and steady step would soon have
succeeded.
*-*
C H A P T E R X I V.
IN the estuary of the Clyde, just where that noble river opens
its mouth that it may pour its full volume of water into the
Sea, are two small islands called the Cumbraes. They had
* Calderwood's History, vol. iv. p. 133. * Neal’s History, vol. i.
416 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
swarmed with Danes when Haco led his victorious squadron
from the Hebrides to dispute at Largs the sovereignty of the
mainland. They had often given shelter to pirates, who
skulked securely in their creeks, and landed upon the coast at
their leisure. With no population, at the period to which our
history relates, but a few miserable fishermen, and completely
cut off from the rest of the country, one should imagine no
hiding-place could be more adapted at once for concealment
and escape. But the Church possessed a kind of omnipre-
sence; and no detective police was ever more effective than
were its ministers in capturing Papists. George Ker, a doctor
of laws, and a brother of the Abbot of Newbattle, had been
excommunicated for Popery by the Presbytery of Haddington.
He came secretly to the west country. Andrew Knox, the
minister of Paisley, got information that he was in the Cum-
braes, and that a vessel was lying in the Fairley roads, only
waiting a favourable wind to set sail for Spain. Evil was sus-
pected, and with a company of Glasgow students, armed for
the occasion, Knox was instantly upon his track. Ker was
seized ; the vessel was searched; and papers of a very sus-
picious character were found in the trunks of the fugitive. The
news of all this soon spread through the country, and caused
the greatest excitement. Ker was carried a prisoner to Calder,
and from Calder to Edinburgh. It was on a Sunday, toward
the end of December 1592, when he reached the capital. The
ministers knew he was coming; they shortened their sermons;
and, by their exhortations, the populace, fully armed, on horse
and on foot, went forth to meet him, and conduct him to his
dungeon."
Among the documents found in the luggage of Ker were
several blank sheets of paper, subscribed by Huntly, Angus,
Errol, and Patrick Gordon of Auchindoun. It was at first
suspected that these blanks were written with some invisible
ink, which a future process would render visible; but it turned
out afterwards that they were true blanks, to be filled up by
Ker, and delivered to the King of Spain. When Ker was first
submitted to examination, he denied everything; but, by the
command of the king, he was put to the torture, and, on the
second stroke of the boots, he confessed all. He was to
negotiate the descent of a Spanish force upon the coast, which
was to be joined by the Popish nobles, and the Catholic reli-
* Historie of King James Sext, pp. 256-57. Calderwood’s History, vol.
V. p. I92.
A.D. 1593.] POPISH TREASON. 4 I 7
gion re-established, or, at least, toleration secured for its
adherents. Graham of Fintry, another of the conspirators,
was shortly afterwards seized, and by his confession corrobo-
rated the statements of Ker.” -
The ministry considered this a matter which specially
affected them ; they held a meeting in Edinburgh with a
number of barons and nobles zealous for the Protestant cause ;
they waited upon the king at Holyrood; they offered in the
emergency, to provide him with a body-guard of horse and
foot; and urged him to bring the traitors to instant justice.
The king was annoyed rather than otherwise at this loyal promp-
titude on the part of his subjects; he did not think the danger
so imminent as they did; he had not observed such readiness
On other occasions quite as grave; he hinted all this to them
in his address ; but still he thanked them, and promised that
he would see justice done. The popular agitation increased
instead of abating, and probably under the pressure of this,
James, upon the 15th of January, by the advice of his Council
and nobility, resolved that the laws against Papists of every
rank should be enforced ; that letters should be issued,
charging the Earls of Huntly and Errol, and Gordon of Auchin-
doun, to compear before his Majesty and Privy Council at St
Andrews on the 5th of February, to answer to the things which
should be laid to their charge ; and the lieges were instructed
to be ready to attend his Majesty in arms, in case their services
should be required.”
There can be no doubt but that the king was determined to
punish the traitors, though he was not animated by the fiery
zeal of the Presbyterian clergy. The Earl of Angus had been
surprised in Edinburgh immediately after the seizure of Ker,
and was in prison. Ker and Graham were in prison too.
Graham was tried, condemned, and executed ; but prisons in
those days were not over secure, and both Angus and Ker Con-
trived to escape.” The day fixed for the trial of Huntly and
Errol arrived ; they did not appear, but confined themselves
to their strongholds in the north ; and the king made instant
preparations to march against them. The forfeiture of their
estates was considered as certain, and the Protestant courtiers
were already in fancy dividing the prey. James advanced
* Tytler's History, vol. ix. Calderwood, vol. v.
* Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi.
* Ker's jailor was afterwards hanged for his carelessness in allowing his
prisoner to escape.
VOL. I. - 2 D
418 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
without opposition to Aberdeen; the Popish nobles fled before
him to the wilds of Caithness, and their immense possessions
were declared to be the property of the Crown. But as the
Countess of Huntly was allowed to continue her residence in
the principal castle of the family, and as the estates of both
earls were confided to the factorage of their relatives, it was
shrewdly conjectured that it was but a “ dissembled confisca-
tion.” + Angus was more severely dealt with, but still his
estates were not placed beyond reach of recovery ; and no
forfeiture could be considered as final till it was ratified by the
parliament.
The clemency of the king was generally blamed by the
Protestants, and the preachers, taking up the matter in the
pulpit, hinted that James was himself a Papist at heart; some
declared that he had himself trafficked with the Prince of
Parma and the King of Spain; and in the excitement of the
time everything was believed.” The truth is, the Presbyterian
ministers were determined not merely upon the punishment of
treason, but upon the extirpation of Popery, and nothing less
would satisfy them. This is too clearly seen in the fierce
intolerance breathed by the General Assembly which met at
Dundee in the month of April. They laid the following peti-
tions before his Majesty:-
I. That all Papists should be punished according to the laws
of God and the realm.
2. That the act of parliament should strike upon all manner
of men, landed and unlanded, in office or otherwise, as it was
provided to strike upon beneficed persons.
3. That a declaration should be given against Jesuits, semi-
nary priests, and trafficking Papists, declaring them guilty of
treason and lese majesty, whereby those who harboured such
persons might be punished according to law.
4. That all such persons as the Church should declare publicly
to be Papists, although they were not excommunicated, should
be debarred from brooking any office, having access to his
Majesty, or enjoying any benefit of the laws ; and that all the
civil pains which followed excommunication should follow this
declaration.”
No severer laws had ever been passed by Popery against
* Tytler, vol. ix. p. 76. Calderwood, vol. v.
* Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 25 I.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 381, 382. Calderwood’s History,
vol. v. p. 240.
A.D. 1593.] THE CHURCH's DEMANDs. 4 IQ
nascent Protestantism, than were now sought to be enacted by
Protestantism against enfeebled Popery. Had the Council
granted what the Church asked, an ecclesiastical Court had but
to declare a man to be a Papist, and he became an outlaw. A
Papist had but to let a priest come under his roof, and he was
liable to the confiscation of his goods. It is true that almost
all that the Church asked was already written in the statute-
book; but James was wisely unwilling to put the laws into
execution. How could he? Thirteen of his greatest nobles,
and a considerable part of the population of the kingdom,
especially in the north, were still attached to the Roman faith.
Had he done so, a massacre must have ensued more terrible
than the Massacre of St Bartholomew's Day.
James was still jealous of the power of the Assemblies, and
of the liberty of speech used in the pulpit. He therefore re-
quested the Assembly to send commissioners to him, to
arrange the time and place for the meeting of the next
Assembly; and also to pass an act prohibiting ministers, under
pain of deprivation, to declaim against his Majesty or Council
in their sermons. The first request was agreed to, but the
second only in a very modified form. It was ordained that no
minister should utter from the pulpit any “irreverent speeches
against his Majesty or Council, or their proceedings; but that
all their public admonitions should proceed upon just and
necessary causes, and sufficient warrant, in all fear, love, and
reverence.”" The king was annoyed at the conditions with
which the Assembly had clogged its resolution, for he had his
Suspicions as to what would be deemed “just and necessary
causes,” and what would be the spirit of “fear, love, and re-
verence ’’ in which he would be spoken of Time showed that
there were grounds for his fear.
On the 16th of July the parliament met in the Tolbooth of
Edinburgh. It was hoped that the forfeiture of the Popish
earls would now be ratified, and their treason punished with
beggary, if not with death ; but the king was unwilling that
matters should be driven to extremity; their friends were
numerous, and it would have been dangerous to do so; and he
tried to appease the commissioners of the Church who waited
upon him to know what was to be done, by assuring them that
his advocate had declared that nothing could be done in the
meantime for want of proof.” Acts, however, were passed,
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 386.
* Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 254.
42 O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
prohibiting the holding of markets upon Sunday, exempting
stipends from taxation, declaring the contemners of the
Church's sentences to be rebels, and forbidding the saying of
mass, or the harbouring of excommunicated Papists, under the
Severest penalties. Still the rigid Protestants were not satis-
fied. On the Sunday, Davidson denounced the parliament as
a black parliament, as iniquity had occupied the place of
equity.”
The ecclesiastical courts were guided by different men, and
resolved upon different measures from the high court of parlia-
ment. On the 25th of September the Synod of Fife met at St
Andrews. It was under the influence of the Melvilles, and
breathed their spirit. It was resolved that a solemn fast should
be held to bemoan the state of the kingdom. It was resolved
that the Earls of Angus, Huntly, and Errol, Lord Hume, Sir
Patrick Gordon, and Sir James Chisholm, should be excom-
municated, and that intimation of this sentence should be
made from every pulpit in the kingdom, that none might pre-
Sume to receive them within their houses, or to have any deal-
ings, friendship, or society with them. The synod was some-
what at a loss to discover upon what pretext they could pass
this sentence upon the Popish nobles, as none of them resided
within the bounds; but they ingeniously hit upon the circum-
stances, that three of them had attended the University of St
Andrews in their youth, that the same three had married in
the province, and on that occasion had subscribed the articles
of religion, and that all of them were in the habit of visiting
their friends in Fife.” This was voted enough to bring them
within the jurisdiction of the court.
James was anxious for quiet ; he had a secret liking for
Huntly; he had some thoughts of restoring him to favour.
He was annoyed at the high-handed sentence of the Synod of
Fife; remonstrated with Bruce against the irregularity of the
procedure ; and remarked that he had no rest till he had given
the Church its present government, but that, seeing it was
abused, he would find means to reform it.” He sounded the
disposition of Lord Hamilton; he complained that he had not
a single nobleman at his devotion ; and that if he received
Huntly, the ministers would cry out that he was an apostate
*James VI., parl. xiii., chapters clix, clx. clxii. clxiv.
* Calderwood’s History, vol. v. p. 255.
* Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 261-63. Spottiswood, lib. vi. Melville's
Diary. *Spottiswood, lib. vi.
A.D. 1593.] THE KING's PERPLEXITIES. 42 I
from religion. “You may receive him,” said Hamilton, “if
he and his accomplices are not enemies to religion, but not
otherwise.” “I cannot tell what to make of that,” said the
king; “but the ministers hold them for enemies. For my
own part, I think they should enjoy liberty of conscience.”
“Then we are all gone, sir,” cried Hamilton, “we are all
gone; and though no others withstand, I will.” He was like
the men of his generation; he did not understand that the
safety of a divided state consisted in giving freedom of con-
science to all its subjects, and that if this had been granted,
conspiracies would have ceased. Would Huntly, Errol,
Angus, have plotted with the Spaniard and jeoparded all, had
they not been denied that which was dearer to them than
life P
On the 12th of October, the king left Holyroodhouse for
Jedburgh, where the gentlemen of Merse and Teviotdale were
charged to meet him to repress some disturbances which had
taken place on the borders. When he was near Fala, the
Popish earls threw themselves in his way, went down upon
their knees before him, protested their innocence, and earnestly
craved to be tried for the crimes which had been laid to their
charge. James spoke gruffly to them ; but after taking the
advice of the nobles in his train, he bid them enter themselves
in the town of Perth by the 24th of the month, and remain
there till arrangements were made for their trial. The king
was terrified lest this meeting should be misconstrued, and
instantly despatched messengers to explain to the English
ambassador and the Edinburgh ministers what had really
occurred. This precaution did not serve its purpose; many
people persisted, whether rightly or wrongly, in believing that
the whole scene was a farce, concocted by the monarch him-
self, preparatory to the pardon of the rebels.”
At this very time a convention of ministers and barons was
sitting in Edinburgh. They instantly despatched commis-
sioners to the king, to lay before him what were their views as
to the trial of the Popish lords. They craved that the trial
should be postponed, and the traitors meanwhile kept in
custody; that the jury should be nominated by their accusers,
the professors of the gospel; that being excommunicated men
they should have no benefit of law till they were reconciled to
the Church, and that his Majesty should be accompanied to
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 268.
*Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v. p. 270.
422 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. |CHAP. XIV.
Perth by a Protestant body-guard, who would see justice
done.1 .
The commissioners, bearing these requests, got an audience
of the king at Jedburgh, but their reception was not very
gracious. James stormed against the Synod of Fife for
having excommunicated the Lords; he stormed against the
ministers and barons for having held a meeting without his
express permission; but before the interview was concluded,
his choler had somewhat abated, and he answered their
remarks by stating that, seeing a trial had been Craved, he
could not in equity refuse it; that he would take care that it
should be ordered according to justice; and that immediately
after his return from the south, he would hold a convention of
the estates at Linlithgow, where everything connected with the
matter would be arranged.”
The poorest subject in the realm, if accused of crime, had
a right to claim the benefit of a trial. The Popish peers had
been accused, but they declared they were innocent, and that
the subscriptions to the Spanish blanks were forgeries ; were
they to be denied the opportunity of proving their statements
if they could, and condemned without a hearing? The
humane maxim of law is, that a man must be held innocent
till he is proved guilty. But it was becoming obvious that an
impartial trial of the accused lords was an impossibility. If
they were tried in a Protestant district, and by a Protestant
jury, their conviction was certain. If they were tried in a
Catholic district, and by a Catholic jury, their acquittal was
Certain. Perth lay midway between the districts which were
most decidedly Protestant and those which were most
thoroughly Popish, and therefore seemed the fittest place
that could be fixed upon for the assize. But had the trial
taken place at Perth, it is probable its beautiful Inches would
have become the battle-field of Popery and Protestantism.
in Scotland, and the Tay have rolled red with blood. The
earls had already come to the Fair City; their armed retainers
were flocking fast after them. The commissioners of the
Church were not behind in warlike preparations. Everywhere
they cited the barons and burghs to convene at Edinburgh, to
be ready against the trial. The country seemed on the brink
of a terrible contest, in which old feuds would receive new
vigour from religious bigotry; and men would cut each other's
throats, believing they were doing God service. In this
* Spottiswood, lib. vi. * Melville's Di ry, p. 208.
A.D. 1593.] | THE COMPROMISE. 423.
threatening aspect of affairs, the king issued a proclamation,
prohibiting all armed convocations of the lieges. In conse-
quence of this, the Popish earls dismissed their forces, and
remained in Perth with only a few friends, and the adherents
of the Church hurried to Edinburgh, leaving their arms
behind them. Some of those who had set out upon their
journey in armour left their weapons by the way."
On the last day of October the Estates assembled at Lin-
lithgow. A deputation from the Protestant convention was
again in waiting to urge severity. But the Chancellor Mait-
land, after a temporary banishment from Court, was again in
power, and it was evident that everything had already been
arranged. It was resolved there should be no trial after the
usual form ; but when the petitions of the accused earls were
read, a committee of nobles, barons, and commissioners of
burghs was appointed to consider the whole matter, and con-
clude on it as they should think most expedient for the
security of religion and the correction of disorders. It was,
moreover, especially provided, that of the ministers, Lindsay,
Bruce, Galloway, Carmichael, Rollock, and Duncanson should
be admitted to the meetings of the committee, if they had any-
thing to propose. The committee thus appointed met at
Edinburgh on the 12th of November, and after several days
of anxious consultation, agreed upon the following resolutions:
—I. That God’s true religion, publicly preached, and by law
established, should be the only religion professed and prac-
tised by his Majesty’s lieges in time to come ; and that all
who had not yet embraced the said religion, or who had made
defection from it, must, before the Ist of February I 594, either
conform themselves to it, and give satisfaction to the Church,
or depart furth of the realm to such parts beyond sea as his
Majesty should appoint. 2. That the Earls of Angus, Huntly,
and Errol, Sir Patrick Gordon, and Sir James Chisholm should
be “free and unaccusable in time coming” of the crimes laid
to their charge in regard to the Spanish blanks, provided that
they refrained from any such treasonable trafficking in future,
complied with the act of uniformity, banished all Jesuits and
excommunicated Papists from their presence, avoided speaking
against the established religion at their tables, received a Pres-
byterian minister into their houses, to resolve their doubts and
prepare them ſor subscribing the Confession of Faill.”
Melville's Diary, p. 269. Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 274-80. Spottis-
wood, lib. vi. -
* Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 284. Spottiswood, lib. vi.
424 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
This sentence was at once too lenient and too severe. The
Popish nobles, if traitors, should not have been wholly ex-
empted from punishment, and placed upon the same level
with other Roman Catholics, who had never committed any
crime but that of conscientious adherence to their faith. A
clear line should have been drawn between the traitorous and
the loyal Romanist. But, otherwise, what shall we say of a
decree which presented to tens of thousands the sad alterna-
tive of renouncing their religion or their country—a life-long
hypocrisy, or a life-long exile? Was ever act of conformity
more sweeping—more merciless that this? The sword, or the
Koran ; exile, or Presbytery; the dilemma is still the same
cruel one. After all, what casuist will nicely measure the sin
even of the traitors? Before the Reformation, the Protestants
were denied the liberty of conscience, and they trafficked with
England to obtain it. After the Reformation, the Papists were
denied the liberty of conscience, and they trafficked with Spain
to obtain it. If the imperial parliament now were to make it
death for an Irishman to be present at a mass, confiscation of
goods to shelter a priest, perpetual exile unless he signed the
Westminster Confession, would he do anything very morally
or religiously wrong though he were to rebel?
Thus almost the whole world reasons now, but it reasoned
differently at the time of our history. The ministers were
indignant at the Act of Oblivion. The pulpits resounded with
rebukes of the king and his counsellors. Andrew Melville
offered to go to the gibbet himself if he failed to convict
Huntly and his accomplices, provided they were sent to the
gallows if he succeeded in his proof. The courtiers smiled,
and said he was more zealous than wise." Queen Elizabeth,
however, sympathised with the clergy, and herself wrote a
scornful, cutting letter to the king in answer to his explana-
tions. “She could only pray for him and leave him to himself.
She did not know whether shame or sorrow had the upper
hand when she learned how he had let those escape against
whom he had such evident proof. Lord what wonder grew
in her that he should correct them with benefits, and simply
banished them to those they loved. She more than smiled to
read their childish, foolish, witless excuses turning their treasons’
bills to artificers’ reckonings, one billet lacking only, item, so
much for the cord they best merited.” But the general feeling
* Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 288, 289.
* Queen Elizabeth to King James, Calendar of State Papers (Eliz. Scot.),
22d Dec. I 592.
A.D. 1593.] PUBLIC FEELING, 425
of the country is best described in a letter by Bowes, the English
ambassador, to Lord Burghley. “This edict and act of oblivion,”
says he, “is thought to be very injurious to the Church, and
far against the laws of God and this realm ; whereupon the
ministers have not only protested to the king and convention
that they will not agree to the same, but also in their sermons
inveigh greatly against it; alleging that albeit it hath a pre-
tence to establish one true religion in the realm, yet liberty is
given to all men to profess what they list, so they depart out
of the realm : and thereby they shall enjoy greater privileges
and advantages than any other good subjects can do.” Such
was the feeling of dissatisfaction on the One side ; on the other
it was equally strong. The Popish nobles were not inclined
to abandon either their country or their creed. Perhaps they
thought themselves powerful enough to enjoy both ; their
strength must have been increased by the act of conformity ;
and their friends and followers began to gather around them.
While things were in this state, the Earl of Bothwell, who
had more than once before made treasonable attempts to get
possession of the king's person, and who was known to be
encouraged by Elizabeth, broke over the border at the head of
a considerable force, marched upon Leith, threatened the
capital, defeated the royalists in a skirmish near Niddry—rush-
ing upon them with shouts of “God and the Kirk l’ But
having obtained this slight success, he retreated upon Kelso,
and there disbanding his followers, retired into England.”
The king was deeply incensed by these repeated treasons, and
insisted that he was encouraged by the ministers of the Church.
It is certain there was no clamour from the pulpit to bring him
to justice. But things took a marvellous turn. Bothwell's
last desperate cast of the dice was to join his fortunes with
those of the excommunicated lords. He was then excom-
municated too.
On the 7th May 1594, the General Assembly met at Edin-
burgh. It ratified the sentence of excommunication passed by
the Synod of Fife upon the Popish earls; it drew up, for
presentation to the king, a list of disorders and their remedies;
it urged that the most vigorous measures should be taken to
exterminate Popery. Lord Hume, a Popish lord, in high favour
with the king, appeared, made a most abject submission, declared
* Tytler's History, vol. ix. Also Calendar of State Papers.
*Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v. p. 297. Historie of King
James Sext.
426 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
himself a convert to the Church, and was absolved from ex-
Communication." On the 3oth of May the parliament met.
Huntly and his associates had not complied with the condi-
tions of the act of oblivion, and now rigorous measures were
resolved upon. James made a harangue to his Estates, in
which he declared that hitherto he had used plaster and medi-
cine, but that these having failed to cure, he was to use fire
as the last remedy.” The Spanish blanks, the depositions of
Ker and Graham, the acts of parliament bearing on the Sub-
ject, were produced and read; the rebels were judged, though
not unanimously, to be guilty; their armorial bearings were
torn by a herald, and thrown out of the window ; their estates
declared to be forfeited ; and commission given to the Earl of
Argyll to pursue them with fire and sword.”
Argyll was Huntly’s ancient enemy, and accepted the Com-
mission with alacrity. Two ministers were despatched to
urge him to undertake the work, “as a thing acceptable to
God, profitable for the commonwealth, and honourable to
himself; ”* but he scarcely required their exhortations. In
the beginning of October he was on his march toward the
country of the rebels, followed by a rabble of six thousand
Highlanders, some armed with muskets, some with bows and
arrows, some with two-handed swords, and some with no arms
at all. He was confronted at Glenlivet by Huntly and Errol,
with a much smaller but better disciplined force ; and after a
sharp fight he was driven from the field.
In the meantime the king had pushed on to Dundee, where
Argyll himself brought the evil tidings of his disaster. James,
nothing dismayed, advanced upon Aberdeen, which he occu-
pied without opposition. He had requested Andrew and
James Melville, with some other ministers, to accompany him
in his progress, and be the witnesses of his severity; and the
stern Presbyters, regarding it as a crusade against idolatry,
cased themselves in corslets, and marched with the host.”
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 404-8.
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 330.
* Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v.
* Historie of King James Sext, p. 338.
* Melville's Diary, p. 214. It was nothing unusual for Andrew Melville
to be in armour. “He merchet mikle of that day, withe a whait speare in
his hand,” says James Melville of his uncle, speaking of a riot at St
Andrews—“ as he wear a corslet therefter at the dinging down of Strea-
bogy.” (Diary, p. 210.) David Lindsay, the minister of Leith, appears
to have been of a like martial disposition. “He was for stoutness and
A.D. 1594.] THE KING AND THE CRUCIFIX. 427
The martial monarch was detained for some time in Aberdeen
by bad weather, and his money began to fail. He remembered
that the Presbytery of Edinburgh had recently raised for him
the funds to entertain the ambassadors who were to be pre-
sent at the baptism of his first-born. He resolved to apply to
the same spiritual court again, which appears to have held the
purse-strings of the nation." James Melville was despatched
with a letter to the presbytery, and another to the town-council.
The royal letter was backed by one from the ministers who
were with the army, and the money was forthcoming.” Thus
relieved of his pecuniary embarrassments, the king pushed on
to Strathbogie, the principal residence of Huntly. A majority
of the war council wished this noble castle to be spared ; but
Andrew Melville urged that it should be destroyed, and it was
accordingly blown up with gunpowder.” Slaines, in Buchan,
the stronghold of Errol, was levelled with the ground; and a
number of other fortalices shared the same fate. Huntly
-saved himself by fleeing to the wilds of Caithness; but some of
his retainers were hanged, and the gentry who had assisted him
were mulcted in considerable sums.
The spirit of the Catholic party in Scotland was now
thoroughly broken. When the king returned to the south,
Huntly made one more effort to renew the contest; but it was
a forlorn hope, and failed. A Jesuit named Morton, bringing
messages to him from the Pope, was detected, and saved him-
self from the torture only by confessing everything. Amongst
other things found in his possession was a beautifully-carved
Crucifix in ivory, which he said was a present from Cardinal
Cajetano to the queen. James took it up, and asked the
Jesuit what was its use. “To remind me,” said Morton,
“when I gaze upon it, of my Lord’s passion.” “Look, my
liege,” he continued, “how livelily the Saviour is here seen
hanging between the two thieves, whilst below the Roman
Soldier is seen piercing His sacred side with the lance. Ah,
that I could prevail on my sovereign but once to kiss it before
he lays it down ” “No,” said James; “the Word of God is
enough to remind me of the crucifixion; and besides, this
zeal in the guid cause mikle renouned and talked of. For the gown was
na. Sooner af, and the Byble out of hand fra the kirk, when on ged the
corslet, and fangit was the hagbot, and to the fields.” (Diary, p. 26.)
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 340.
* Melville's Diary, pp. 214-16.
3 Ibid.
428 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
carving of yours is so small, that I could not kiss Christ with-
Out kissing both the thieves and the executioner.””
Huntly and Errol, seeing that all was lost, resolved now
to seek safety in exile. Father Gordon implored them not
thus to abandon their country. For the last time a solemn
mass was celebrated in the Cathedral of Elgin ; and the de-
voted Jesuit, passing from the altar to the pulpit, exhorted
them to hazard all rather than allow the lamp of religion to
be utterly quenched in the land; but it was in vain. On the
17th of March 1595, Errol embarked at Peterhead, and two
days afterwards Huntly, with a few faithful friends, em-
barked at Aberdeen, and sailed for the Continent.” With
them the last hopes of Catholicism in Scotland departed.
Auchindoun had been slain at Glenlivet; Hume had made
his peace with the Church; and shortly afterwards Sir
James Chisholm followed his example, and sought rest by
making a recantation, which in all probability his conscience
belied.3 -
The Church had now triumphed gloriously; the Papists
had been put down, and James was at the height of his popu-
larity, regaled by the plaudits, and no longer tormented by
the taunts of the Protestant ministers. But it was the fate of
this volatile king, when delivered from the buffeting of one
tormentor, to be given over to another. The country was now
Scandalized by stories of domestic broils. James was jealous
of his queen. The queen was indignant at James for entrust-
ing the care of the infant prince to the Earl of Mar, and not
to her. She formed a party among the nobles, and vexed her
liege lord and husband. Things proceeded so far that the
ministers interfered, and helped to patch up a reconciliation.
Patrick Galloway preached a sermon before the court upon
the duties of husbands and wives, and the royal pair were once
more as loving as ever.4
King James, like all his predecessors, was
miserably poor, and, if not prodigal, neither
was he thrifty. His finances was getting into utter confusion,
and therefore, in the beginning of 1596, he appointed eight
1 Tytler, vol. ix. Calderwood tells the story differently ; but Tytler's
narrative, which is founded upon a letter of the period, has the most
verisimilitude.
2 Tytler, vol. ix. Calderwood. vol. v.
3 Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 418.
4 Calderwood, vol. v. Nicolson to Bowes, Cal. of State Papers, 15th
August I 595.
A. D. I596.
A.D. 1596.] CORRUPTIONS OF ALL ESTATES. 429
eminent men to act as the chancellors of his exchequer.
From their number they were called Octavians. In opposi-
tion to these, the gentlemen of his Majesty's household were
called Cubiculars. As it was the great object of the Octavians
to curtail the royal expenditure, and of the Cubiculars to live
as comfortably and splendidly as they could, a violent jealousy
soon arose between them. Several of the Octavians were sus-
pected of a leaning to Popery; the Cubiculars therefore threw
their weight into the scale of the Church ; and the intrigues of
those two parties are to be traced in many of the events which
are now to be narrated.
The General Assembly met in Edinburgh on the 24th of
March. On the second day of its meeting King James pre-
sented himself, attended by a brilliant train of his greatest
nobles. As usual he made an oration. He evidently re-
garded the Assembly very much as the present Sovereign
regards the House of Commons—the body that can give or
withhold supplies; and for the same reason, that it contained
the representatives of the tax-payers. He alluded to the
necessity of making preparation against probable dangers, and
of maintaining a standing army, now that the feudal militia
was found to be useless in the presence of disciplined troops.
He urged that a contribution should be made over the whole
country, not to be lifted presently, but when need should
require.' Andrew Melville bluntly said that the forfeited
estates of the exiled earls should be applied to this pur-
pose, instead of the rents being given, as they were, to their
wives.
A characteristic part of this Assembly’s business remains to
be told. A proposal had been made in regard to an inquiry
into the corruptions of all estates ; and his Majesty received a
hint that it was expected he also should submit to it. The
king evidently did not like the subject, but, after a soothing
speech from Davidson, he submitted to his fate, and said that
if any gross fault were found in him or his house, he would
not refuse to be judged by the Assembly, providing it were
done privily.” A committee was accordingly appointed to
draw up a list of the corruptions that prevailed, aud in course
presented their report. The ecclesiastical Estate had set
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 396. In the previous year the lºing made a
proposal to the Presbytery of Edinburgh to levy troops for him, which they
undertook to do, and did. (Ibid. p. 341.)
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 398.
43O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
before them rather matters which constituted offences, than
offences which were alleged actually to exist: wanton behaviour,
gorgeous apparel, profane company, gaming, dancing, playing
at cards or dice, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, fighting, lying,
keeping hostelries, taking usury, bearing worldly offices in
gentlemen's houses, engaging in merchandise, buying up
grain and keeping it in dearth, non-residence, selling the
sacraments. In regard to his Majesty's household, it was
reported that reading the Scriptures at table, and grace before
and after meat, were frequently omitted; that his Majesty was
guilty of banning and swearing; that his courtiers copied his
example ; that few of the royal household came to the week-
day sermon ; that the queen did not repair to the Word and
sacraments, and was fond of night-wakes and balls, as were
also her gentlewomen. The judges were charged with
neglecting justice, taking bribes, and being altogether unfit
for the office they held. The corruptions of the community
at large were reported to be a universal decay of zeal, con-
tempt of the Word, ministry, and sacraments, the masters
of families not reading the Scriptures or engaging in prayer
themselves, but leaving this to be abused by their cooks,
stewards, and jackmen; blasphemy, Sabbath desecration,
superstitious pilgrimages, bonfires and Carols, gross immo-
rality, and every other conceivable sin. The land, moreover,
was declared to be overrun with pipers, fiddlers, songsters,
sorners, peasants, and strong beggars living in harlotry." A
deputation was sent to the king to set his sins before his face;
and a day appointed when the ministers might mourn over
their own offences. On that day Davidson preached, and
“for the space of a quarter of an hour,” we are told, “there
were such sighs and sobs, with shedding of tears among the
most part of all estates that were present, every one provoking
another by their example, and the teacher himself by his
example, that the Church resounded, so that the place might
worthily have been called Bochim.”
Armies have risen from their knees to fight and conquer;
the Assembly turned from fasting to bellicose arrangements,
which sound strangely in Our ears. The king was petitioned
to apply the forfeited estates of the rebel lords in maintaining
a standing force; to authorise the minister and kirk-session in
every parish to choose captains, to hold military musters, and
1 Book of the Universal Kirk. Assembly, 1596.
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 407.
A.D. 1596.] THE CHURCH MILITANT. 43 I
train the people to arms; and to import a sufficient quantity
of corslets, pikes, muskets, and other needful armour.” The
king did not deem it prudent to give to the Church the power
of the sword, as well as of the key ; but before the Assembly
dissolved, he sent a message to it which carried joy to every
heart. It was his Majesty's intention, the Commissioner said,
to devise a “constant platt,” by which every church should
have a minister, and every minister a stipend.” The Assem-
bly broke up, and the members went home rejoicing.
Calderwood celebrates this Assembly with his loudest praises.
Presbytery had now reached its culminating point. “The Kirk
of Scotland,” says he, “was now come to her perfection, and
the greatest purity that ever she attained unto, both in doctrine
and discipline, so that her beauty was admirable to foreign
churches. The Assemblies of the saints were never so glorious
nor profitable to every one of the true members thereof as in
the beginning of this year.” And at the close of the Assem-
bly, looking forward to the years that were to come, he mourn-
fully notes, “Here end all the sincere Assemblies of the Church
of Scotland, enjoying the liberty of the gospel under the free
government of Christ.” -
During the summer months, Huntly and Errol both re-
entered the country in disguise, but not in company. About
the same time James sounded his favourite minister Robert
Bruce, as to the policy of allowing them to return from
banishment, provided they should submit themselves to the
discipline of the Church. Bruce would not listen to the pro-
posal. The king asked him to take a day or two to think of
it. Bruce still adhered to his former opinion. “I see, sir,”
said he to the king, “ that your resolution is to take Huntly in
favour; which, if you do, I will oppose ; and you shall choose
whether you will lose Huntly or me, for both you cannot
keep.” Bruce's favour with the king was gone from that day.
At a meeting of the Estates held at Falkland upon the 12th
of August, a petition was presented from the earls, praying to
be allowed to return, and Alexander Seton, the President of
the Court of Session, supported it in a speech, arguing that,
if they were driven to despair, they might, like Coriolanus the
Roman, or Themistocles the Athenian, join the enemies of
the State, and endanger it."
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 424.
* Ibid. pp. 430, 431. * Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 387, 388.
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 420. * Spottiswood, lib. vi.
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 438.
4.32 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
It was resolved, if possible, to get the concurrence of the
ministers, and some of them were invited to Falkland.
Andrew Melville was unasked, but hearing the business that
was on hand, he joined his brethren, and presented himself
before the king and Estates. James well knew the man, and
asked what brought him there uninvited. “Sir,” said Melville,
“I have a special calling to come here by Christ Jesus the
King,” and then proceeded to charge the Estates with high
treason against Christ, the Kirk, and the Country. James
interrupted him in the midst of this tirade, and commanded
him to retire, which he reluctantly did. After this violent
scene, it was agreed that if the Kirk and king were satisfied, it
were best to recall the lords."
The Church was thrown into a paroxysm of mingled fear
and indignation by the intelligence of this resolution. A
number of the ministers assembled at Cupar, and appointed a
deputation to proceed to Falkland and remonstrate with the
king. The two Melvilles were of the number; and we have a
graphic description of what passed from the pen of James. He
tells us that he was asked to open the matter, as the king liked
his mild and smooth way of speaking; but his Majesty was
exceedingly testy, and said they had no warrant to meet at
Cupar at all. Upon this, the undaunted Andrew broke in,
called the king “God’s sillie vassal,” and taking hold of him
by the sleeve, “bore him down, and uttered his commission
as from the mighty God.” “Sir,” said the stern presbyter,
“we will humbly reverence your Majesty in public; but since
we have this occasion to be with your Majesty in private—
and the truth is, you are brought into extreme danger both of
life and crown, and with you the country and Church of
Christ are like to go to wreck, for not telling you the truth,
and giving you faithful counsel—we must discharge our duty
therein, or else be traitors both to Christ and you. And
therefore, sir, as divers times before, so now again I must tell
you, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland.
There is Christ Jesus the King, and His kingdom the Kirk,
whose subject King James VI. is, and of whose kingdom, not
a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member. And they
whom Christ has called and Commanded to watch over His
Church, and govern His spiritual kingdom, have sufficient
power of Him and authority so to do, both together and
severally, which no Christian king should control or discharge,
* Melville's Diary, p. 244.
A.D. 1596.] MELVIII,E BROW-BEATS THE KING. 433
but fortify and assist. And, sir, when you were in your
Swaddling-cloths, Christ Jesus reigned freely in this land, in
spite of all His enemies; and His officers and ministers were
convened for the ruling and welfare of His Church, which was
ever for your welfare, defence, and preservation. . . . As
to the wisdom of your counsel, which I call devilish and per-
nicious, it is this, that you must be served by all sorts of men
to Come to your purpose and grandeur, Jew and Gentile,
Papist and Protestant ; but because the ministers and Pro-
testants in Scotland are too strong, and control the king, they
must be weakened ; they must be weakened and brought low,
by stirring up a party opposed to them ; and the king being
equal and indifferent, both shall be fain to fly to him ; so shall
he be well served. But, sir, if God’s wisdom be the only true
wisdom, this will prove mere mad folly, for His curse can but
light upon it.”" The king was completely brow-beaten by the
violence of Melville, and was glad to lay aside his testiness,
and affect to look pleased. Such a scene as this reminds us of
the days when popes put their feet upon the neck of
emperors; or when Martin of Tours, at a public entertain-
ment, after taking the wine-cup himself, pushed it past princes
to a presbyter, remarking that the humblest of the order was
Superior to kings.
On the 20th of October, the commissioners of the General
Assembly and deputies from several synods met at Edinburgh.
They appointed a fast; they nominated a number of ministers
from different parts of the country to take up their residence in
Edinburgh, and meet daily with its ministers, and see ne guid
ecclesia detriment; caperet. They were known as the Council
of the Church.” On the 19th of the same month, the
Countess of Huntly laid before the Synod of Moray an offer
Of most humble submission on the part of her husband : he
would find security that he would do nothing contrary to reli-
gion; he would banish all Jesuits and Papists from his society ;
he would meet with any ministers that might be sent to him,
and listen to their arguments, and, if convinced, he would em-
brace the Reformed religion; he would maintain a minister in
his household for his better instruction ; he would assist to
Carry out the sentences of the Church.” One should imagine
this submission was enough, and that a ministry who were
* Melville’s Diary, pp. 245, 246.
* Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi.
* Melville's Diary, p. 247. -
VOL. I. 2 E
434 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
commissioned to preach repentance and forgiveness to the chief
of sinners were bound to welcome back the penitent. But the
dread of Popery had engendered a stern spirit, which knew no
compromise: Huntly and Errol might be taken upon discipline
by the Church; but still it was the duty of the king to see
justice done—they must die the death. Happily, more merci-
ful sentiments prevailed in the court; and it was arranged that
the rebel lords should be allowed to remain in the country till
May of the following year, in the hope that by that time they
would be reconciled to the Church."
Another source of irritation had unfortunately arisen between
the king and the clergy, which had been gradually increasing,
and now reached the violence of a fever. Following the
example of Knox, the ministers were in the habit of freely dis-
cussing political topics in the pulpit, and of using the utmost
plainness of speech in regard to the king and his courtiers.
James had repeatedly complained of this to the Church Courts,
but with no effect. In 1594, a preacher at Perth, named
Ross, had spoken of the king as a traitor, a reprobate, and a
dissembling hypocrite. He had declared that the Popish
rebels were encouraged by the king, and that no good had ever
come to the country by the Guisian blood.” The matter was
brought before the Synod of Perth and the General Assembly ;
but Ross defended what he had said; it was admitted he had
cause for it; and he was dismissed with an advice to be
cautious in the future.” In October 1596, while the country
was agitated in regard to the return of the Popish earls, David
Black, one of the ministers of St Andrews, uttered a philippic
against the governments of both England and Scotland. He
pronounced the Queen of Fngland to be an atheist—a woman
of no religion; and that, as for the King of Scotland, none
knew better than he of the return of the rebel lords. “But
what could they look for P” cried the preacher; “was not
Satan the head of both court and council P Were not all
kings devil's bairns P Was not Satan in the court, in the
guiders of the court, in the head of the court P. Were not the
Lords of Session miscreants and bribers, the nobility Cormo-
rants, and the Queen of Scotland a woman whom for fashion's
sake they might pray for, but in whose time it was vain to hope
for good.” 4
* Melville’s Diary, p. 249. Calderwood, vol. v.
* Historie of King James Sext, pp. 31.5-24.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 409, 4 IO.
* Tytler, vol. ix. Spottiswood, lib. vi. See also Calderwood, vol. v.,
A.D. 1596.] A DECLINATURE OF JURISDICTION. 435
News of this attack upon his mistress reached the ears of
the English ambassador, and he complained to the king.
Black was summoned before the Council, and, under the
advice of the commission then sitting in Edinburgh, he fol-
lowed the example of Melville, and declined its jurisdiction. It
was a spiritual matter, and could be dealt with only in an
ecclesiastical court. All the ministers in Edinburgh put their
hands to the declinature, and then a copy of it was sent down
to the presbyteries all over the country, accompanied with a
letter, headed by the text, “if we suffer with him, we shall also
reign with him,” and requesting every minister to append his
subscription to it.!
The Commissioners appointed to watch over the interests
of the Church had been sitting for some time, and had not
been idle. They had sent a deputation to the queen to Com-
plain, amongst other things, that she trifled away her time
with her maids; but the queen was conveniently engaged,
and they were requested to call another day.” They had
sent a deputation to the king, to complain that his “ common
talk” was against the ministers and their doctrines; but the
king retorted that he had good cause for what he said.”
They had sent a deputation to the Octavians to complain
that they were the root of the evil which the king had
brought upon the Church, but the Octavians denied it.4
This had been quietly borne, but James chafed exceedingly
when he heard of the circular-letter to the presbyteries, and
an act of the Secret Council was passed charging the Com-
missioners to leave the town within twenty-four hours. The
Commissioners met, read and considered the proclamation and
charge, “laid them open before the Lord, to be the righteous
judge and revenger, as well of the slanderous lies and blas-
phemous calumnies thereof, as of the great iniquities and
wrong done to the Lord Jesus Christ, and liberty of his
Church, in usurping the judicature and discharging the acts of
the General Assembly, as though it were a judicatory inferior
and subaltern to the Secret Council and Session, and therefore
Ordained the ministers of Edinburgh, and such others as were
to occupy the pulpits, to deal mightily by the word, the sceptre
where in the controversy regarding Black's declinature, the most of these
expressions are to be found.
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 460. * Ibid. vol. v. pp. 459, 460.
* Ibid. p. 451 * Ibid. p. 461.
436 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
of the Lord Jesus, the King of Glory, against the said pro-
clamation and charge.” "
The trial proceeded. His Majesty and Council found them-
selves competent judges, as the crimes charged in the libel
were of a treasonable and seditious nature. But the king
knew how powerful was the body with whom he was at
war, and was most anxious to make peace. Deputations
were continually passing and repassing between the city and
the palace. James was willing to accept of a mere nominal
fine, if Black would only plead guilty; but the ministers
maintained that this was tantamount to yielding up the whole
point at issue. It became plain that compromise was impos-
sible. The libel was found proved, and, on the 9th of Decem-
ber, Black was charged by a macer to enter himself in ward
beyond the north water, and to remain their during his
Majesty's pleasure,” for the highlands of Inverness and Ross
were then the place of banishment, especially for clerical
delinquents. .
The conduct of the ministers at this period has sometimes
been defended, but in truth it is indefensible. Let us try
the question according to the enlightened sentiments which
are happily abroad in our day in regard to the liberty of the
pulpit and the press. The ministers maintained that they
were answerable for what they said in the pulpit only to the
Courts of the Church; that no civil or criminal tribunal had
a right to touch them. Would any minister make such a
claim now P would any court in the kingdom sustain it?
The minister in the pulpit occupies, and ought to occupy, the
same level as the editor at his desk. If he speaks treason,
he will be tried for treason ; if he uses defamatory language,
he will be libelled for defamation ; and that before the ordi-
nary courts of the country for trying these offences. The
sanctity of the place will not save him, and should not save
him. The fact that he is an ecclesiastic will not rescue him
from the claws of the jury and the judge. Were a priest to
spout sedition from the altar, would we allow an appeal to the
bishop or the pope P Why should the presbyter be deemed
more a spiritual person than the priest? But it has been said
that the ministers claimed only to be tried before the Church
Courts in the first instance. This is only partially true. The
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 468.
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 498. The whole story was told by Bowes to
Burghley, and every document connected with it forwarded to the English
Court. Cal. of State Papers, Nov. and Dec. I596.
A.D. 1596.] PRIVILEGE OF THE PULPIT. 437
words of Black's declinature are, “at least in prima instam-
fia; ** and the argument by which it is supported is a general
One, denying totally the jurisdiction of the civil courts in regard
to preaching, which is declared to be a spiritual matter. If it
were denied in the first instance, upon what pretext could it be
allowed in the second? Would the Church approvingly be-
hold the Council condemn a man whom it had already
absolved P But what had the Courts of the Church to do
with sedition or treason in any instance; and it was with sedi-
tion and treason that Black was charged? Was sedition less
sedition because it was spoken in a sermon? was treason less
treason because it was committed by a minister?
The idea of spiritual independence had been gradually grow-
ing, till at this period it had attained to a morbid size.
Unknown by Knox, it was fully developed by Melville.
Unmentioned in the “First Book of Discipline,” it is carefully
defined in the Second. Men's sentiments had changed with
the change of times. When the Church was Roman, it was
the duty of the magistrate to reform it. When the Church
was Protestant, it was impiety in the magistrate to touch it.
The assumption of the Church reached to its greatest height
in the time at which we have now arrived. Its growth was
favoured by the weakness of the government. The barons,
when it suited their humour, defied the king; the ministers
learned to do the same thing. Had bishops spoken to Eliza-
beth as presbyters spoke to James, she would have unfrocked
them on the spot, and their brethren would have learned
henceforward to speak differently. But it was different in
Scotland. Melville, in the General Assembly, backed by the
people, was really more powerful than James in his palace,
with none to help him. The rise of such pretensions in such
circumstances was natural—almost necessary. They would
have grown up under the shadow of Episcopacy, as well as
under the shadow of Presbytery. We know they did grow up
under the broad shadow of the Papacy.
The sentence passed upon Black did not put an end to the
excitement which the trial had originated. The ministers pro-
claimed a fast, and in their sermons denounced the king as a
persecutor. The king, in return, banished the ecclesiastical
Commissioners from Edinburgh, and under the influence of
the Cubiculars, who were anxious to ruin the Octavians by
increasing the dissensions between the court and the Church,
he gave notice to twenty-four burgesses, who were known to
* Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 457, 458.
438 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
be devoted to the ministers, to depart from the town within
six hours. The Cubiculars having first inflamed the
monarch against the ministers, now inflamed the ministers
against the monarch, by intimating falsely, in an anonymous
letter, that Huntly had had an interview with James at the
palace. Balcanguhal learned this on Friday morning, just
before proceeding to the pulpit for the week-day sermon. He
alluded to it in his discourse, and requested the nobles and
barons who were present to meet after the services were over
in the Little Church, to consult as to what should be done.
The Little Church was crowded to the door. Robert Bruce
addressed the multitude in regard to the return of the Popish
lords, the sentence passed upon Black, and the banishment of
the ministers and burgesses. It was resolved to send a depu-
tation to bring these grievances before the king.”
James happened to be quite at hand, sitting in the Upper
Tolbooth with some of his Council. The deputation getting
admission to the royal presence, said they were sent by the
noblemen and barons convened in the Little Church, to
bemoan the danger threatened to religion. “What dangers
see you ?” said the king. “Our best-affected people,” said
Bruce, “are banished the town; the Lady Huntly, a professed
Papist, is entertained at court ; and it is suspected her hus-
band is not far off.” “Who are they,” said the king, “who
dare convene against my proclamation P” “We shall dare
more than that,” said Lord Lindsay fiercely, “and will not
suffer religion to be overthrown.” While this was going on, a
number of people had pressed into the room ; the king got
alarmed, and rising abruptly, he made for the door, and shut-
ting it behind him, he retreated to the lower house, where the
judges were sitting. The deputation thus unceremoniously
left, returned and reported what had passed. Meanwhile the
minister of Cramond had been reading to the congregation
the story of Haman and Mordecai. At this nick of time a
voice shouted at the church-door, “Save yourselves | * The
people rose in mass as if they had discovered the rafters of the
church burning over their heads. Some ran one way, some
another. Some thinking the king was taken in the Tolbooth,
rushed to the Tolbooth. Others, thinking that the ministers
were slain in the church, rushed to the church. Some cried
“To arms l’” Some shouted, “The sword of the Lord and of
*Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v.
* Ibid. Bowes to Cecil, 17th Dec., Cal. of State Papers.
A.D. 1596.] RIOT IN EDINBURGH. 439
Gideon ” Some took their position at the door of the Tol-
booth, and vociferated, “Bring out the wicked Haman; ”
“Let Seton, Hamilton, Elphinston, be delivered to us.” The
provost, hearing of what had happened, rose from a sick-bed,
and with the assistance of the ministers managed to pacify the
people. By the afternoon the streets were completely cleared,
and the king, accompanied by the provost and bailies, was able
without fear to walk down the Canongate to the palace."
Early next morning the royal household set out for Linlith-
gow, and a proclamation was issued forbidding the courts of
law to sit longer in Edinburgh, and to be ready to remove to
such other place as his Majesty might appoint. This resolute
step damped the ardour of the citizens, but not of the minis-
ters. They met; talked about excommunicating the Lord
President and the Lord Advocate; appointed a fast to be
held that very afternoon; and Welsh, the son-in-law of Knox,
and revered by the people as a prophet and worker of
miracles, mounting the pulpit, declared the king was pos-
sessed of a devil; yea, that one devil being cast out, seven
worse were entered in. They proceeded further ; Bruce
wrote a letter to Lord Hamilton, begging him to come
and place himself at their head. Lord Hamilton hesitated
for a moment; but his caution got the better of his ambition,
and he refused the dangerous pre-eminence. He even played
false, and showed the letter to the king.” Meanwhile the riot
was declared to be treason by the Privy Council; and a
deputation of the citizens who waited upon his Majesty, and
made the most humble submissions, were received with frowns,
and simply told that the Estates were about to meet and de-
termine the punishment they deserved. The ministers fled to
England. There were dreadful whisperings afloat; some said
the City was to be razed to its foundations, and a monumental
pillar erected where it stood to warn all future mobs of their
folly and their fate. This mob had in truth been as meaning-
less as most mobs are ; but the king, not the boldest of men,
had been frightened out of his wits, and now when his courage
was returned, he had resolved to make the most of it to repress
the turbulence of the Church.3
On the Ist January 1597, he entered the city like a Con-
* Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi. Bowes to Burghley, 21st
Dec., Cal. Uſ State Tapels.
* Bruce to Hamilton, 18th Dec.; d.o. to do., accusing him of foul play,
and leaving him to his conscience, 27th Dec., Cal. of State Papers.
* Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi.
44O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
queror. The streets were lined with troops. The magistrates
met him, and upon their bended knees protested their inno-
Cence, offered to do their best to discover the ringleaders in
the riot, and promised in future to consult his Majesty in the
appointment of their ministers. A sermon was preached in
the High Church, and after it was done, his Majesty made an
oration to the people, declaring his devotion to the Reformed
faith, and his indignation at the conduct of the Reformed
ministers. The Estates assembled at Holyrood. The rioters
were anew pronounced to be guilty of treason; the king was
vested with power to interdict ministers from preaching, or
Church Courts from meeting, when he saw cause; the houses
of the Edinburgh clergy were taken from them, and bestowed
upon the crown; and the magistrates of the city held bound
either to produce the originators of the riot, or to enter their
own persons in ward by the 1st of February. By this show of
firmness both the Church and the city were completely over-
awed.l
It is certain that from this time James had conceived the
idea of reintroducing the Episcopal polity into the Church.
He had come to the conclusion that Presbytery was essentially
anarchical and foul-mouthed—a conclusion natural in the cir-
cumstances, but which a larger experience of its working has
sufficiently refuted. He felt himself strong enough to make
the attempt. The Edinburgh riot had been followed by a
reaction. “Every conspiracy of the subjects which fails,”
says Tacitus, “advances the sovereign.” The king prepared
his way by a popular measure; he accepted the resignation of
the Octavians, who, notwithstanding their financial reforms,
were generally odious to the nation on account of their Sup-
posed Popish predilections. He next summoned a meeting
of the General Assembly at Perth against the last day of
February. This done, he had fifty-five queries regarding.
points of the Church's discipline printed and put in wide
circulation. They were cunningly put ; Lord Burghley had
given his help in drawing them, and, notwithstanding the
king's protestations to the contrary, were no doubt designed
to throw discredit upon existing practices and opinions, and
to test the temper of the ministry. They touched upon the
propriety of pulpit rebukes, upon excommunication and its
* Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi. Bowes to Burghley, 4th
January.
* Spottiswood quotes this saying of Tacitus in regard to these events.
A.D. 1597.] ASSEMBLY AT PERTH. 44 I
effects, and upon the constitution and jurisdiction of the
several judicatories of the Church.”
The Synod of Fife met at St Andrews, and, true to its
ancient principles and its redoubted leaders, answered the
royal questions in a tone of ultra-Presbyterianism. Individual
ministers attempted to answer them too.” But while this was
going on in the south, Sir Patrick Murray, as royal commis-
sioner, was busy in the north, courting and coaxing the clergy
there, and winning votes for the approaching Assembly. It
was not without reason that Perth was fixed upon as the place
of meeting. The district north of the Tay, long guided by the
Counsels of Erskine of Dun, had never sympathised with the
violence of Lothian and Fife. The Assembly was brought
near to it, that it might feel its influence. In those days a
poor minister could scarcely be expected to take to horse and
ride all the long way from Angus to Edinburgh; a compara-
tively small number would undertake the journey from Edin-
burgh to Perth. The geography of the place decided the
character of the meeting. -
On the last day of February, the ministers from the north
Came pouring into Perth. Never before had so many of the
northern brethren been seen at an Assembly. Sir Patrick
Murray, called ironically, by James Melville, the Apostle of
the North, was busy amongst them. They were taken to the
house where the king was, they were introduced to his
Majesty, they were smiled upon, caressed, and flattered by
royalty. Meanwhile the courtiers were moving about amid
the clerical throng, throwing in a remark about the pride and
arrogance of the ministers of the south in usurping to them-
selves the whole government of the Church, and gently
insinuating that they were much better able to manage
matters. It is not to be wondered at that simple pastors
from the remote districts of Caithness and Aberdeen got giddy
under these adulatory attentions. They began to brag of
what they could do; to talk of the popes of Edinburgh, and
of how they had almost driven away the king and ruined the
Church. 8 -
On the 1st of March the Assembly met, and the king, by his
commissioners, inquired whether they could regard themselves
* They are given at length in Melville's Diary, pp. 257-64. Paper by
lord Burghley, Cal. of State Papers, Jan. 20, 1597.
* Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 579-99.
* Melville's Diary, pp. 264,265. Calderwood, vol. v.
442 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
as a lawful General Assembly of the Church, with sufficient
power to determine such matters as might be brought before
them. This was keenly debated, as it involved the royal pre-
rogative of calling Assemblies, but in the end it was carried
that they were a lawful extraordinary General Assembly. The
commissioners from the Synod of Fife protested against the
finding, as the Assembly had not been called with the consent
of the Church, and as another Assembly stood indited for
another place and another day. The king next laid before
the meeting, for its consideration, twelve propositions, em-
bodying some of the most important matters alluded to in his
questions. The answers, as first framed, did not satisfy his.
Nſajesty, but the Assembly was compliant, and they were so
altered as to gratify his wish. In these answers it was
declared lawful for his Majesty to propose to the General
Assembly any matter affecting the external government of the
Church which he might wish to see discussed or reformed; no
minister was to reprove his Majesty's laws till he had first
sought a remedy through the Church Courts; no man's name
was to be mentioned in pulpit rebukes unless his sin was
notorious, and notoriety was defined to consist in the person
being fugitive, convicted by an assize, excommunicated, or
contumacious ; every summons issued by Church Courts was.
to mention the cause and the crime; the ministers were not
to hold any meetings beyond the ordinary sessions, presby-
teries, and synods; and in all the principal towns the ministers
were to be chosen with the consent of the congregation and
the king. The Assembly having given the weight of its.
authority to these important propositions, appointed a Com-
mittee to deal with the Popish earls, with a view to their
being restored to the Church; and then finished its labours.
in a charitable mood of mind, by petitioning the king on
behalf of the fugitive ministers, and the capital city still
groaning under the royal displeasure."
The king was so pleased with his Assembly at Perth, that
he resolved to have another at Dundee in the month of May,
to perfect the revolution so auspiciously begun. The North-
land ministers again mustered strong. Some of the royal
propositions which had not been determined at Perth were
now discussed, and it was resolved that his Majesty's sanction
should be considered essential to give full effect to the acts of
* Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly 1597. Calderwood, vol. v.
pp. 606-23.
A. D. 1597.] ASSEMBLY AT DUNDEE. 443.
all future Assemblies ; that all ministers should be set apart
to their work by the imposition of hands; that all Church
Courts should keep records of their proceedings, and that
these should be subject to the supervision of the superior
courts; that presbyteries should not meddle with anything
but what was plainly ecclesiastical ; that persons having in-
terest should be entitled to have extracts of processes before
the ecclesiastical Courts ; and that summary excommunication
should be suspended till regulations were framed in regard to it.
At the ninth session the king appeared in person, and made
a short speech. He stated that on account of the shortness
of the time during which the Assembly sat, many important
matters were necessarily left undecided ; that he was most
anxious to have churches everywhere planted, and a right
provision made for their ministers ; and therefore he asked
them to consider whether it would not be expedient for them
to give a commission to some of their brethren to advise with
him upon these and other matters affecting the welfare of the
Church. The king had struck the right string; a minister for
every kirk, and a stipend for every minister, had a peculiarly
pleasing sound ; and a standing Commission was appointed,
consisting of Alexander Douglas, James Nicolson, George
Gladstone, Thomas Buchanan, Robert Pont, Robert Pollock,
David Lindsay, Patrick Galloway, John Duncanson, Patrick
Sharp, John Porterfield, James Melville, William Couper, and
John Clapperton, with very ample powers." These were, per-
haps, the greatest names in the Church, if we except Andrew
Melville, who, in learning and ability, towered high above all
his compeers, but whose unflinching devotion to High Church
principles excluded him from this courtly commission. It
formed a kind of college of presbyter-cardinals, out of which
the future bishops were to be chosen; and as every man began
to look for promotion, he began to be subservient. Calder-
wood stigmatizes the commission as the “king's led horse; ”
and in bitterness of spirit remarks, that “it was as a wedge
taken out of the Church to rend her with her own forces, and
the very needle which drew in the thread of bishops.”
But one of the great objects of this Assembly was to take
steps for the restoration of the Popish earls to the bosom of
the Church. It was reported that they had attended devoutly
* Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 461.
* Calderwood, vol v. p. 644. In this, as in many other things, Calder-
wood borrows from James Melville. -
444 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
upon a prescribed course of preachings; that, after long con-
ference with the brethren appointed to deal with them, they
had confessed the truth of the Protestant religion, and ex-
pressed their abhorrence of Popery; that they had acknow-
ledged the Reformed Church of Scotland to be the true
Church, and were willing to submit themselves to it, subscribe
the “Confession of Faith,” maintain a minister in their
families, and make provision for the churches on their estates.
Upon these declarations being read, power was given to the
commission to grant them absolution, and receive them into
the Church.l -
This was done at Aberdeen in the following month, and
after the following fashion :-Saturday, the 25th of June, was
observed as a solemn fast, on which the three earls made up
all deadly feuds. The next day being Sunday, the Cathedral
Church was crowded with a congregation anxious to witness
the edifying spectacle of penitence and reconciliation. Im-
mediately before the sermon was commenced, the three earls
publicly subscribed the “Confession of Faith.” The sermon
being done, they stood up, and made acknowledgment of their
apostasy—declared their deep penitence on account of it,
their conviction of the truthfulness of the Reformed faith, and
their resolution to abide by it. Huntly, proceeding with his
confession, while his brother penitents were silent, declared
his unfeigned sorrow for the murder of the Earl of Moray.
After this humiliating scene, in which hypocrisy must have
largely mingled, they were formally absolved from the sentence
of excommunication, and received as members of the Church.
A table for the celebration of the sacrament of the Supper had
been spread in the centre of the church, at which the congre-
gation now took their seats; and the earls, Popish no more,
sitting down with them, received from the hands of a Presby-
terian minister the sacred elements, in token of their member-
ship with the Church.”
‘In the month of December, a parliament was held at
Edinburgh. The Commissioners appointed at the Assembly
in Dundee, under the influence of royal inspiration, appeared
at its bar, and craved that a limited number of ministers, as
representing the Church and Third Estate of the kingdom,
might be admitted to vote in parliament. After some decent
show of opposition, it was agreed that so many of the ministry
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 452-57.
* Burton, chap. lx. Tytler, vol. ix.
A.D. 1598.] MINISTERS MADE M.P.'s. 445
as his Majesty should promote to the dignity of bishop, abbot,
or other prelate, should have a vote in parliament, as ecclesi-
astical prelates had in times past, but not otherwise."
The consent of the Estates being thus ob-
tained, all that was now necessary was to obtain
the consent of the Church to this revolutionary measure. An
Assembly was indited to meet at Dundee on the first Tuesday
of March. Once more the north gave up its ministers to carry
the royal resolutions. But from an opposite direction, and
with opposite views, came Andrew Melville. The king was
present; and dreading that Melville's powers of debate might
carry confusion among the northern ranks, he challenged his
right to attend, on the ground that he was a doctor, and not
a pastor in the Church ; and that at a recent visitation of
the University of St Andrews, where Melville taught, a law
had been enacted prohibiting the professors from attending
sessions, presbyteries, and synods, and Ordaining that the
regents and masters should appoint three of their number, and
only three, to represent them in the General Assembly.” Thus
Melville, known in the Church as “the slinger out of bishops,”
was slung out of the Assembly himself, and the bishops were
brought in. During the debate upon this point, a characteristic
passage-at-arms took place between the king and John David-
son, the minister of Prestonpans. Davidson, imagining that
James was arguing too authoritatively, got up and said—“Sir,
you are to remember that you sit not here as imperator, but as
a Christian ; ades ut inters is non ut frasis.” The king granted
the truth of what the minister had said, but was evidently
nettled at it ; upon which Davidson made peace by jocosely
remarking, “Sir, we are afraid to speak, unless you be equal
and indifferent.”
After the Assembly had sat about a week, the great subject
for which it was convened was brought up for discussion.
Some affirmed it was thus long delayed to weary out the hostile
ministers. The king opened the matter in a speech. He ex-
patiated upon the anxious desire he felt to adorn and benefit
the Church, to remove controversies, establish discipline, and
restore her patrimony; and in order to this, he went on to say,
it was needful that ministers should have a vote in parliament,
without which the Church could not be vindicated from
A.D. I598.
*James VI., parl. xv. chap. ccxxxi. +
* Melville's Diary, p. 289. Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v.
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 683.
446 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
poverty and contempt. “I wish not,” said the king, “to bring
in papistical or Anglican bishops, but only to have the best and
wisest of the ministry appointed by the General Assembly to
have place in council and parliament, to sit upon their own
matters and see them done, and not to stand always at the
door, like poor supplicants, despised and nothing regarded.”
The bribe was great. The debate was keen. Bruce, David-
son, and James Melville exerted themselves on the one side ;
IBuchanan, Gladstone, and Pont on the other; and the pole-
mical monarch sometimes interrupted the speakers, and
attempted to pose them by a question. It is characteristic of
the period that the hottest of the fight was upon the nineteenth
chapter of Second Chronicles." When the roll was called, it
began with the Synod of Orkney and Caithness. Gilbert
Bodie, denounced by James Melville as “a drunken Orkney
ass,” was asked first to vote. “He led the ring, and a great
number of the north followed, all for the bodie, without regard
to the spirit.”.” It was carried by a majority of ten, “that it is
necessary and expedient for the welfare of the Church, that
the ministry, as the third Estate of the realm, in name of the
Church, have a vote in parliament ;” that the number should
be the same as in the time of Popery; and that the election
of these should belong partly to his Majesty and partly to the
Church.”
It was a saying of Philip of Macedon, that any castle might
be taken to which an ass laden with gold could find an
entrance. The Church of Scotland was taken by a much
cheaper commodity—a mixture of craft and kindness. The
removal of the Assemblies to the borders of the north, and a
few flattering speeches to the northern ministers, effected the
matter. Who would have fancied that the Church, which but
eighteen months before defied the king and his Council, de-
clined their jurisdiction, and made them tremble in their
capital, would at the royal bidding have yielded up its dearest
and most cherished principles? The truth is, the bow was
bent too far, and a rebound was inevitable. The state of
tension which existed in 1596 could not be maintained. The
extravagant pretensions of Melville and Bruce could not be
allowed. Had they claimed less, it is probable the Church
had lost less. In surrendering its privilege of meeting at all
* Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi.
* Melville's Diary, pp. 291, 292.
* Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly 1598.
A.D. 1598-99.] IMPOSITION OF HANDS. 447
times, and for all ecclesiastical purposes, it surrendered what
ought to have been a sacred and inviolable right—a right to
be defended to the last extremity. In consenting to fifty-one
of its ministers having a place in parliament as the Spiritual
Estate, it in fact consented to the reintroduction of prelacy.
The terms of the act of parliament implied this, the opponents
of the measure clearly saw this. David Ferguson, the oldest
minister in Scotland, compared the stratagem to that of the
Grecians for the overthrow of Troy—busking up a brave
horse, and by a crafty Sinon persuading the citizens to pluck
down the walls with their own hands, and receive that for their
welfare and honour which proved their wreck and destruction.
“Aguo me credite, Teucri,” said the venerable presbyter.
“Busk, busk him as bonnilie as ye can,” said Davidson, “and
bring him in as fairlie as ye will, we see him weel enough ; we
see the horns of his mitre.”* No doubt ambition on the part
of the ministers had something to do with the matter. It was
no mean thing to be a bishop or abbot, have a seat in parlia-
ment, and perhaps a place in the Councils of the king.
The “First Book of Discipline” had repudiated the imposi-
tion of hands in ordination; the Second Book had enjoined
it; but still it would appear to have been frequently neglected.
Melville, while in Glasgow, held the parsonage of Govan, and
frequently preached; but he was never ordained. Robert
Bruce acted for eleven years as one of the ministers of Edin-
burgh; but he had never been set apart to his work by the
laying on of the hands of the presbytery. But now the
General Assembly had put its stamp upon the royal proposi-
tion that none should be admitted to the ministry but by the
imposition of hands; and it was resolved that this principle
should be applied to the case of Bruce. Bruce strenuously re-
sisted, as such procedure would throw a doubt upon the law-
fulness of his previous ministry. There were discussions
among the ministers, conferences with the king, an unseemly
altercation before the people in the Church of St Gile; but at
last, under the threat of deprivation, he submitted to the cere-
mony—it being expressly declared, for his satisfaction, that
the imposition of hands was not used as a sign of his ordina-
tion to the ministry, but of his ordination to a particular flock.
A. T. I 599. 1.; Bruce was now as violently disliked by the
* - ºr ºn king as he was once Cstccmcd. In the palmy
days of his favour, he had received from James a pension of
* Melville's Diary, p. 289.
448 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
twenty-four chalders of victual out of the Abbacy of Arbroath,
which was secured to him for life. James was now mean
enough to attempt to deprive him of it, and the matter was
brought before the Court of Session. While the case was pro-
ceeding, the king frequently came into the Court, and
violently remonstrated with the judges. He is said to have
sent for some of them to the palace, to talk them over to his
views. When it came to the vote, and was like to go against
the king, his rage became ungovernable, and he asked who durst
be so bold as vote against him. Four or five of the judges rose
to their feet, and said, that with all reverence for his Majesty,
except he would discharge them by his absolute power, they
both durst and would do their office." The Lord President
Seton spoke as became his dignified place. “My liege, it is
my part to speak first in this court, of which your Highness
has made me head. You are our king; we your subjects,
bound and ready to obey you from the heart, and with all
devotion to serve you with our lives and substance ; but this is
a matter of law, in which we are sworn to do justice according
to our conscience and the statutes of the realm. Your Majesty
may indeed command us to the contrary, in which case I and
every honest man on the bench will either vote against con-
science, or resign and not vote at all.” This was nobly
spoken. Judgment was given in favour of Bruce; and the
mortified monarch flung out of court, “muttering revenge, and
raging marvellously.””
James was ambitious of literary fame, and more especially
of being considered an authority on matters of king-craft. In
1598 he published his “Law of Free Monarchies;” and amidst
all the distractions of his contest with the Church, he found
time to compose his “Basilicon Doron, or Instructions to his
Dearest Son Henry, the Prince.” He permitted only seven
copies of this work to be printed—the printer being first sworn
to secrecy—and these he distributed among his trustiest ser-
vants, to be closely kept by them, and carefully preserved.
Sir James Sempill, one of these trusty servants, showed his
copy to Andrew Melville. Andrew Melville extracted some
propositions from the work, and sent them to his nephew
James Melville. James Melville showed them to his colleague
at Anstruther, John Dykes ; and John Dykes covertly brought
a copy before the Synod of Fife—a roundabout and underhand
* Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 733.
* Tytler's History, vol. ix.
A.D. 1599.] BASILICON DORON. 449
course." Among the propositions presented to the synod were
the following:—The office of a king is a mixed office betwixt
the civil and ecclesiastical estate : the king should be judge if
a minister wander from his text: no man is more to be hated
of a king than a proud puritan : parity amongst ministers cannot
agree with a monarchy: without bishops the three Estates in
parliament cannot be re-established: the ministers sought to
establish a democracy in the land, and to become tribuni plebis
themselves: the ministers’ quarrel was ever against the king,
for no other cause but because he was a king.” The proposi-
tions thus stealthily laid upon the table were anonymous ; the
synod affected to be ignorant of their author, and condemned
them. All this was done under the eyes of two royal Com-
missioners who were present in the court. At first they were
completely baffled in their endeavours to discover how the pro-
positions had been obtained, but when the truth began to Ooze
out, Dykes thought it prudent to abscond.
James now felt that he had no alternative but to publish his
work, and he did so. Amid some puerilities it contains many
wise and virtuous maxims, and is undoubtedly the most credit-
able of the royal author's productions. James was a believer
in the divine right of kings, and the duty of passive obedience
on the part of the people; but he does not put these doctrines
offensively forward. The passage at which umbrage was
taken occurs in the second book, where, speaking of the Re-
formation, and the events which followed, he alludes to the
party in the Church who had kept him in a continual whirl of
alarm and agitation. “Take heed, therefore, my son,” he
says, “to such puritans, very pests in the Church and Com-
monwealth, whom no deserts can oblige, neither oaths or pro-
mises bind, breathing nothing but sedition and calumnies,
aspersing without measure, railing without reason, and making
their own imaginations (without any warrant of the Word) the
Square of their consciences. I protest before the great God,
and, since I am here, upon my Testament, it is no place for
me to lie in, that you shall never find with any highland or
border thieves greater ingratitude, and more lies and vile per-
juries, than with these fanatic spirits. And suffer not the
principles of them to brook your land, if you like to sit at rest;
I Melville's Diary, p. 294. Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v.
M'Crie's Life of Mclville.
* Melville's Diary, p. 295. Melville calls them “Anglopiscopapistical
propositions.” -
WOI,. I. - 2 F
450 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
unless you would keep them for trying your patience, as
Socrates did an evil wife. And for preservation against their
poison, entertain and advance the godly, learned, and modest
men of the ministry, of whom (God be praised) there lacketh
not a sufficient number, and by their provision to bishoprics
and benefices (annulling that vile act of annexation if you find
it not done to your hand), you shall not only banish their
conceited parity whereof I have spoken, and their other
imaginary grounds which can neither stand with the order of
a Church nor the peace of a Commonwealth and well-ruled
monarchy; but you shall also re-establish the old institution
of Three Estates in Parliament, which can no otherwise be
done. But in this, I hope, if God spare me days, to make you
a fair entry; always where I leave, follow you my steps. And
to end my advice anent the Church Estate, cherish no man
more than a good pastor, hate no man more than a proud
puritan ; thinking it one of your fairest styles to be called a
loving nourish-father to the Church.” "
The king, like meaner authors, has a “Prefactory Epistle to
the Charitable Reader,” which he begins with the text
“there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed,” and
then, alluding to the underhand production of the propositions,
he says that he was thus forced to publish the entire book,
“for resisting the malice of the children of envy, who like
wasps, suck venom out of every wholesome herb.” Knowing
that what he had said about puritans was what had galled most,
he declares, by way of apology, “that he meant by puritans
the Anabaptists and Brownists, and not the ministers who pre-
ferred the simple worship of their own Church to the more
ornate ritual of the south.”? We are bound in charity to be-
lieve what James so earnestly protests; but, apart from this,
enough remained to give deep cause of offence to many, and
to reveal to all that it was the king's settled purpose to rein-
troduce Episcopacy into the Church. In England, if we may
believe Spottiswood, the book was so well received, as to have
smoothed the royal author's path to the throne ; in Scotland,
if we may believe Bowes, the English ambassador, it produced
an opposite effect. A fast was proclaimed ; for two whole
days it was rigorously kept; and Bowes declares to Cecil that
he had never witnessed a more holy or powerful practice in
religion.” º -
* Basilicon Doron, book ii. pp. 160, 161.
* Epistle to the Reader prefixed to the Basilicon Doron, King James's
Works, p. 143. * Spottiswood, lib. vi. Tytler, vol. ix.
A.D. 1599-1600.] THE CHURCH AND THE PLAY-HOUSE. 45 I
In the month of October the king and the Church were
brought into collision by a company of comedians, whom his
Majesty had invited from England to his northern capital.
Fletcher was at the head of this strolling band of players, and
Some have fondly imagined that William Shakspeare was one
of the Company." James was a lover of theatricals, and several
comedies were performed at the palace in his presence. When
the king was wearied with their fun, the comedians purchased
from him a warrant to the magistrates of Edinburgh, to find
them a house within the town for performing their plays. All
things being ready, “they gave warning by trumpets and drums
through the streets of the city to all that pleased to come to
the Blackfriars' Wynd, to see the acting of their comedies.”
The clergy took alarm ; the four sessions were convoked ; an
act was made, and intimated from the pulpit, forbidding the
people to resort to these profane plays; and the poor players
found that their occupation was gone. The king was highly
incensed when he heard of this, as he regarded the act of the
sessions as made to cross his royal warrant, and therefore he
had the ministers and elders forthwith summoned into his pre-
Sence. Their explanations were regarded as unsatisfactory,
and on the next day a proclamation was published by sound
of trumpet, charging them to meet and rescind the obnoxious
act. The sessions convened, the opinion of counsel was taken,
the ministers stood firm, but the elders outvoted them, and the
act was annulled. Thus the inhabitants of Edinburgh had free
liberty to resort to the Blackfriars' Wynd and enjoy the modern
drama, now that the Mysteries and Moralities of the Church,
and the frolics of Robin Hood and Little John, had fallen into
disuse.”
A. D. I6oo The first year of the seventeenth century was
sº destined to see Scotch presbyters raised to the
dignity of Members of Parliament. The General Assembly
met at Montrose on the 18th of March. It was designed to
Complete the revolutionary work which had been begun at
Perth and Dundee, and therefore the uncompromising Presby-
terians, and their more courtly brethren, looked forward to it
with equal anxiety. The north once more appeared in great
strength. The king himself came to Montrose to meet with
the ministers, and join in their discussions with all the keen-
. See Statistical Account, vol. xviii. p. 523.
* Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 765-67. Tytler, vol. ix. Nicolson to Cecil,
Nov. 12. Proclamation by King, &c. Cal. of State Papers.
452 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
ness of a thorough-bred polemic. His apartments were con-
stantly crowded with clergymen, who came either to make
their court or to be courted. From the time he rose in the
morning till he went to bed at night, he was so busy with
ministers that the courtiers complained they could not get
access to him. It had already been decided at Dundee that
ministers might vote in parliament as the representatives of the
Church ; but many specialties required to be arranged to give
to this general proposition a substantive shape. At a meeting
of Commissioners of Synods held at Falkland, a number of
resolutions had been discussed and agreed upon ; and at a
conference of ministers in Holyrood House, under the auspices
of the king, the subject had been long and earnestly debated
in all its bearings.
The whole matter was now brought before the supreme
court of the Church to receive its sanction. The first subject
to be decided regarded the election and maintenance of those
who were to have vote in parliament; and, after some dis-
cussion, it was resolved—that the Church should recommend
to his Majesty a list of six ministers for every vacant place,
and that out of these his Majesty should choose one to sit in
parliament; and that after churches, colleges, and Schools
were sufficiently provided for, the remainder of any Episcopal
benefices might be given by the king to the ministers who had
been raised to parliamentary honours.
This being resolved upon, the Assembly proceeded to heap
caveals upon its parliamentary representatives. Never was
member for a burgh more loaded with pledges and promises
than were these members for the Church with what were
called caveats or cautions. They were to propose nothing in
name of the Church without its express warrant; they were
to render to every General Assembly an account of the way in
which they had discharged their commission; they were to
content themselves with so much of their benefice as was as-
signed them by his Majesty; they were not to dilapidate their
benefice; they were to discharge every pastoral duty to their
respective congregations; they were not to usurp any juris-
diction over their brethren ; they were to remain subject to
the censures of the Church Courts; they were to swear to all
this at their admission ; and, in case of their deposition from
the ministry, their seat in parliament and their benefice were
Žso facto to become vacant.”
* Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly 1600. Calderwood, vol. vi.
pp. I-2O.
A.D. 1600.] THE NIEW BISHOPS. 453,
It was warmly debated as to whether these parliament-men
should hold their seats for life, or only from year to year. A
middle course was at length agreed upon. Every year they
were to give an account of their stewardship to the Assembly,
and lay down their commission at its feet, to be continued or
discontinued as the Assembly, with the consent of his Majesty,
might think most expedient for the welfare of the Church.
Another nice point which this Assembly had to solve was the
name to be borne by its parliamentary representatives. The
Estates had determined that they could be received only as
abbots and bishops, the heirs of their Popish ancestors. To
be an abbot, even in name, was a thing abhorrent to every
Presbyterian ; to be a bishop almost as bad. It was resolved
they should be called Commissioners, and in case the Estates
would not receive them under that appellation, that a future
Assembly would reconsider it. “Thus,” says Calderwood,
mournfully, “the Trojan horse—the Episcopacy—was brought
in, busked and covered with caveats, that the danger and
deformity might not be seen ; which was, notwithstanding,
Seen of many and opposed unto. But force and falsehood
prevailed.” I
Nothing now remained to be done but to fill up the vacant
bishoprics. Aberdeen and Argyll were already filled by
ministers; Dunkeld, Brechin, and Dunblane were held by
titulars, not ministers; St Andrews and Glasgow were in
possession of the Duke of Lennox; Galloway and the Isles
were so dilapidated, that nothing was left. Only Ross and
Caithness remained to be disposed of David Lyndsay was
presented to the first, and George Gladstone to the second.”
The autumn of this year is memorable for the Gowrie Con-
spiracy, over which there still hangs an air of impenetrable
mystery. The king was cajoled to Gowrie House, at Perth,
by Alexander Ruthven, brother of the Earl of Gowrie, where,
instead of seeing a Spanish Jesuit in a black cloak, as he had
expected, he beheld a man in armour with a dagger in his
belt. The man stood dumb and then shuffled out of the
room, but Ruthven threatened the king with death for his
father's execution. James got to the window and bawled,
“treason I help !” and some of his attendants forced their way
| History, vol. vi. p. 20. The Trojan horse was a favourite figure
James Melville gives us a snatch of poetry, in which the same similitude
is worked out.
*Spottiswood, lib. vi.
454 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
to the room, killed both Gowrie and his brother, and rescued
the king, who was unhurt, but terribly frightened. A letter
from his Majesty made his good subjects, the citizens of Edin-
burgh, aware of all this by ten o'clock the next morning ; and
requested the ministers to have the Church bells rung, the
people assembled, and thanks given to God for his delivery.
The ministers, somehow, were sceptical about the whole
matter, and declared that if they went to the pulpit, whatever
they might say, they would be silent about treason. The re-
monstrances of the Privy Council failed to move them, and
there was nothing for it but that David Lyndsay, the new
Bishop of Ross, should go to the market cross, and make a
harangue to the people. When it was done, the whole multi-
tude uncovered and praised God; the bells of the churches
rung; the cannons of the castle thundered forth their joy; and
when darkness set in the city was illuminated, and bonfires
blazed on the top of Arthur's Seat, on Fawside Hill, and other
eminences, both on the north and south of the Firth.”
Upon Monday, the 11th of August, James returned to his
capital, and the citizens, to testify their joy, turned out in arms
to receive him. The market cross was covered with tapestry,
and at it the royal procession paused. Patrick Galloway
preached a sermon, embodying a narrative of the conspiracy,
to the crowd of courtiers and burghers who thronged around
him ; and the king made a speech, corroborating what had
been said by the preacher. The next day the unbelieving
ministers were cited by a macer to appear before the Secret
Council. They came, and were questioned by the king him-
self, but they were still sceptical ; and while declaring their
readiness to give thanks for the king's escape in general terms,
they stoutly declined to enter into particulars. Had James
consulted his interest and his dignity, he would have left them
alone in their unbelief; but he let his annoyance get the
better of his discretion, and banished Bruce, Balcanduhal,
Balfour, Watson, and Hall, from Edinburgh, and interdicted
them from preaching anywhere in his dominions. The sen-
tence was utterly unjustifiable, but it had the effect of con-
vincing Balcanduhal, Balfour, Watson, and Hall ; who, after
publicly confessing their conversion to the truth, were restored
to their churches. Bruce remained obstinate, and was ban-
ished to France, but in exile conviction began to dawn upon
* Calderwood, vol. vi. p. 46.
A.D. 1600.] THE GOWRIE CONSPIRACY, 45.5
his mind too, and he was on the eve of being restored when
new disagreements led to his final banishment from Edin-
burgh."
It is now as certain as most historical facts that the Earl of
Gowrie and his brother had conspired—not to murder the
king, but to get him into their power, and thus to control the
government; but James's notorious timidity, the death of
the two principal conspirators, with the secret in their bosoms,
the discrepancies in the narratives that were afloat, the strange-
ness of the whole story, made many besides the ministers dis-
believe, and even led some to fancy that it was a conspiracy of
the king against the Ruthvens, and not of the Ruthvens
against the king.”
The man who could scarcely look upon a drawn sword
without shuddering, must have felt devoutly thankful when
delivered from a dagger pointed at his heart; but he foolishly
expected all men, and all future ages, to be as thankful as
himself, when he changed the weekly preaching from Friday
to Tuesday in memory of the event, and ordained that in
all time coming the 5th of August should be held as a day of
solemn thanksgiving for his miraculous deliverance. This
was a near approach to an apotheosis. The Church of Scot-
land did not keep saints' days, but in its present obliging
humour, it agreed to keep the king's day.” But it was not
long till the calendar was changed.
Before the sixteenth century expired, many of the ministers
of the Church, who had borne a conspicuous part in the
Reformation struggles, ceased from their warfare to enter upon
their reward. In 1598 Thomas Buchanan, provost of Kirk-
heugh and minister of Cyprus, was killed by a fall from his
horse. In 1599 Principal Rollock of Edinburgh died, still a
young man, but already distinguished for his learning, modera-
tion, and services to the Church. In 16oo stout John Dury
breathed his last, a man whom all parties appear to have re-
spected for his simple piety and straightforward honesty; and
in the same year John Craig, long the colleague of Knox, and
whose life in youth was strangely chequered by stirring inci-
dents and hairbreadth escapes, rested from his labours.”
* Calderwood, vol. vi. Spottiswood, lib. vi. -
* The curious in this matter are referred to Burton’s History, chaps. lxi.
and lxiii., aud to Titcairn's Criminal Trials.
| Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly 1602, p. 526. Calderwood,
‘VOl. VI.
“Spottiswood's History, lib. vi.
456 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XIV.
The name of Principal Rollock bids us pause and record
the foundation of the University of Edinburgh. No papal
bull gave privileges and immunities to this celebrated seat
of learning, as had been the case with St Andrews, Glasgow,
and Aberdeen. The reverence for the Pope had departed
before the metropolitan university had a being. Immediately
after the Reformation, however, the magistrates resolved to
apply some of the ecclesiastical spoil which had come into
their hands toward the erection of a college, and the kirk of
St-Mary-in-the-Fields was bought from its last provost for a
site. In 158o the building was begun; two years afterwards,
a charter of erection was obtained from James VI., ratifying
the previous grants of his mother ; and in 1583 students were
enrolled to be taught Humanity by Rollock, at first the only
professor of whom the College could boast. When other
professors were added, Rollock was raised to the principality.
The academy thus poorly begun flourished mightily. Regents
were appointed, public disputations were held, students were
laureated ; and when King James came from England to
revisit his native country in 1617, he was so proud of the
school which he had helped to rear that he desired that it
should be called by his name.”
The Assembly met at Burntisland in May
16or. It exhibited the same zeal as all former
Assemblies against Popery; but the most interesting part of
its proceedings related to the Bible and Psalm-book. It was
brought before the notice of the Assembly, that in the trans-
lation of the Scriptures then in use there were many errors
which might be corrected ; that in the metrical version of the
Psalms there were many lines that might be improved; and
that in the liturgy there were several prayers which ought to
be changed, to meet the change of times. This was a subject
upon which the poetic and theological monarch was sure to
shine. He pointed out the errors in the vulgar translation of
the Bible ; he recited verse after verse of the Psalms ; he
expatiated upon their divergence from the original, and the
faults of their metre ; and the Assembly listened with wonder
and joy. It was finally agreed that the brethren best ac-
quainted with the original languages should devote their
energies to different parts of the sacred text, and bring the
result of their labours before a future Assembly; and that any
brother might prepare and propose new prayers, suited to the
* Stevenson's Chronicles of Edinburgh.
A.D. I6OI.
A.D. 1603.] DEATH of QUEEN ELIZABETH. 457
times, to be added to the liturgy, but that no alteration should
be made in those already Contained in it."
James was now beginning to look anxiously forward to his
accession to the English throne. Elizabeth's health was be-
ginning to decline, and it was plain that the sceptre must soon
depart from her, notwithstanding the firmness with which she
had held it for so long a period. It was the policy of James
to conciliate all classes of his subjects, present and future ;
and such middle Courses, though sometimes the best that can
be followed, are never entirely successful. The Protestants
bitterly blamed him for the marks of favour which he gave to
the Romanists. The Countess of Huntly, a Papist, was a
great favourite at Court; Lady Livingston, a Papist, had the
charge of the Princess Elizabeth; the sister of the Laird of Bon-
nington, a Papist too, was frequently at Holyrood. These were
sore evils in the eye of the Church. It was even affirmed that
in 1596 James had written a courteous letter to the Pope, pro-
posing the residence of a Scottish ambassador at the court of
Rome. When challenged for this apparent apostasy, he
strongly denied it ; and when the letter was afterwards pro-
duced, with the royal signature attached, Lord Balmerino, the
Scottish Secretary of State, and a Catholic, stepped forward and
declared that he had surreptitiously got it signed, with a num-
ber of other papers which the king did not read ; but many
believed that the secretary took the paternity of the document
to save the character of his royal master.” Notwithstanding
these concessions, the millions of Papists in the heart of Eng-
land were not entirely reconciled to the prospect of another
Protestant monarch, and more than one brain was busily plot-
ting a change in the line of succession.
On Thursday the 24th of March 1603, Queen Elizabeth
breathed her last, and late on Saturday night James was raised
from his bed to be greeted as King of England, France, and
Ireland. Two-days afterwards official news of his peaceable
accession to the English throne reached Edinburgh. He
instantly began to make preparations for his journey to the
south. On Sunday the 3d of April, he repaired to St Gile's
for the last time to hear sermon. Hall was the preacher for
the day, and took occasion in his sermon to remember the
mercies of God towards his Majesty, not the least of which, he
remarked, was his peaceable accession to the throne of Eng-
* Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 497, 498. Spottiswood, lib. vi.
* Tytler, vol. ix. Calderwood, vol. vi.
458 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV. .
land. When the sermon was done, the king rose up and
delivered his farewell speech. He complimented the preacher;
he remarked of himself that he was the lineal heir of the Crown
of England as well as of the crown of Scotland; he declared
his love for his Scotch subjects would not be lessened though
he was removed from them. “There is no more difference,”
said the royal orator, “between London and Edinburgh, than
between Edinburgh and Aberdeen; for all our marches are dry,
and there are ferries between them. But my course must be
to establish peace, and religion, and wealth betwixt both
Countries; and as God has joined the right of both kingdoms
in my person, so you may be joined in wealth, in religion, in
heart, and affections. And as the one country has wealth, and
the other has multitude of men, so we may part the gifts, and
every one, as they can, help the other. And as God has pro-
moted me to a greater power than I had, so I must endeavour
myself to flourish and establish religion, and take away the
Corruptions of both countries. And, on the other part, you
must not doubt but as I have a body as able as any king in
Europe, whereby I am able to travel, so I shall visit you every
three years at the least, that I may with mine own mouth take
account of justice, and of them that are under me, and that
you yourselves may see and hear me, and from the meanest to
the greatest may have access to my person, and may pour out
your complaints in my bosom.” In a few days more the
king had crossed the border, to be met by the loud acclama-
tions and hearty welcome of the Fnglish people.
C H A P T E R X. V.
WHEN James was making his triumphal progress to London,
the Puritans, expecting to find favour with a Puritan king, met
him on the way, and presented to him their millenary petition,
so called because it was said to be signed by a thousand
ministers. In consequence of this, and probably also to ex-
hibit his own theological attainments, the monarch determined
to hold a conference at Hampton Court, of the two parties who
divided the English Church. Nine bishops, seven deans,
and an archdeacon, were nominated to represent the High
Church party; four ministers to state the views of the Puritans.
* Calderwood, vol. v. p. 215.
A.D. 1604.] HAMPTON COURT CONFERENCE. 459
They met on the 14th January 1604. The conference con-
tinued three days. The first was with the bishops and deans
alone, when the king made a speech, saying, “that he was now
come into the promised land: that he sat among grave and
reverend men, and was not a king, as formerly, without state,
nor in a place where beardless boys would brave him to his
face.” The second day's conference was held on the 16th of
January, when the four Puritan ministers were called in on the
one side, and two bishops and six or eight deans on the other.
Patrick Galloway, the minister of Perth, was also permitted to
be present. Dr Reynolds of Cambridge, in name of his
Puritanic brethren, humbly craved that some alterations might
be made in the doctrines, government, and services of the
Church. James no longer thought the Kirk of Scotland the
purest Kirk in Christendom. He declared the surplice to be a
Comely garment, and the sign of the cross as old as Constan-
tine ; “and as to the power of the Church,” said he, “in things
indifferent, I will not argue that point with you, but answer as
kings in parliament, “ le Roi s'avisera.’ This is like Mr John
Black, a beardless boy, who told me at the last conference in
Scotland, that he would hold conformity with me in doctrine,
but that every man, as to ceremonies, was to be left to his own
liberty; but I will have none of that : I will have one doctrine
One discipline, one religion in substance and ceremony; never
Speak more to that point, how far you are bound to obey.”
Dr Reynolds proceeded to complain of excommunication by
lay chancellors; and to desire that the clergy might have
liberty to hold periodical meetings; but at this all the king's
bitter reminiscences of Scotch presbyteries, synods, and General
Assemblies, rose up before him, and he sharply told the
Puritan ministers, that he saw they were aiming at a Scotch
Presbytery, “which,” said his Majesty, “agrees with monarchy
as well as God and the devil; then Jack and Tom, Will and
Dick, shall meet, and at their pleasure censure both me and
my Council. Therefore, pray stay one seven years before you
demand that of me, and if then you find me pursy and fat,
and my windpipe stuffed, I will perhaps hearken to you ; for
let that government be up, and I am sure I shall be kept in
breath ; but till you find I grow lazy, pray let that alone. I
remember how they used the poor lady my mother in Scot-
land, and mc in my minority.” Then turning to thc bishops,
he put his hand to his hat and said, “My lords, I may thank
you that these Puritans plead for my supremacy, for if once
460 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. xv.
you are out and they in place, I know what would become
of my supremacy, for no bishop, no Áing.”"
The third day was chiefly occupied with the bishops and
deans, and the king spoke so much in harmony with their
feelings, that the old archbishop cried out, “undoubtedly your
Majesty speaks by the special assistance of God's Spirit.”
The Puritans were only called in for a little to hear the few
trifling alterations which had been agreed upon. The bishops
and deans exulted at this issue of the conference, and pro-
nounced James to be the Solomon of his age, and to unite in
his one person the priest and the king. James himself was
exalted above measure at the part he had played. He wrote
to Scotland that he had soundly peppered the Puritans, and
that they had fled before him. “It were no reason,” said his
Majesty, aiming at a pun, “that those who refuse the airy sign
of the cross after baptism, should have their purses stuffed with
any more solid and substantial crosses. They fled me so from
argument to argument, without ever answering me directly,
that I was forced to tell them, that if any of them when boys
had disputed thus in the college, the moderator would have
fetched them up, and applied the rod to their buttocks.”
Thus wrote the king of such men as Dr Reynolds, one of the
lights of the age. But the Puritan party throughout the
country felt that they had been mocked, and complained
loudly that justice had not been done to them. The Presby-
terians in Scotland sympathised with them, and when Patrick
Galloway's narrative of the conference was read in the Pres-
bytery of Edinburgh, James Melville moved that prayer should
be offered up for their comfort and relief, and that care should
be taken lest Scotland should catch the contagion of English
superstition.” s
One good result came of the conference. Acting on a hint
thrown out by Dr Reynolds, the king resolved to have a new
translation of the Bible; and by the united labours of forty-seven
of the most learned men in England, the present authorised
version was compiled, and gradually came into use. It is now
used wherever the English language is spoken, alike by
churchman and dissenter. A few years later and this had been
impossible; sectarian jealousy would have prevented it, and
every sect would have had its own Bible as it has its own hymn
book and catechism.
* Neal's History, vol. i. pp. 414-17.
* Neal’s History, vol. i. pp. 417-19. Calderwood's History, vol. vi.
A.D. 1605.] FORBIDDEN ASSEMBLIES. 461
The General Assembly had been indited to meet at Aberdeen
on the last Tuesday of July, but the king prorogued it till
the following year. Notwithstanding the prorogation, the
Presbytery of St Andrews, ever faithful to its principles and its
leaders, determined to keep the diet on the appointed day;
and, accordingly, James Melville, William Erskine, and William
Murray appeared as its commissioners in the Church of St
Nicholas at Aberdeen, true to the time; and, finding no other
commissioners there, they publicly protested, and took instru-
ments in the hands of their notaries that they had appeared,
and that if the Church suffered skaith through the not keeping
of the Assembly, it was not to be imputed to them or their
presbytery." The bad feeling excited by this stretch of the
royal prerogative, in defiance of the many laws which guaran-
teed an annual Assembly, was increased by the circumstance,
that James was at that moment using every endeavour to effect
a union between the kingdoms. The Church was patriotic
and far-seeing enough devoutly to desire this ; but it dreaded
that the Anglican episcopate and ritual might be extended to
Scotland, and that the General Assembly was prorogued to
prevent its remonstrances.
As the month of July 1605—when the General Assembly
was to meet—approached, the old Presbyterian spirit began to
revive, and it was rumoured throughout the country that an
effort would be made to undo the legislation of the last eight
years.” The court took alarm, and in the month of June, when
many of the presbyteries had already elected their representa-
tives, a circular-letter was sent them, signed by Sir Alexander
Straiton, the Royal Commissioner, and Patrick Galloway, the
Moderator of last Assembly, requesting them to stay their re-
presentatives from keeping the diet.” This letter had the effect
of keeping the great majority of the Church's commissioners
at home. Dread of the consequence of disobedience, anxiety
for peace, dislike of being mixed up in a quarrel, operated
then, as they always do, except in times of violent excitement.
On the 2d of July only nineteen ministers appeared at Aber-
deen. Straiton of Lauriston came too, and presented to them
a letter from the Lords of the Secret Council. As this letter was
addressed—“To our trusty friends, the brethren of the ministry
Convened at their Assembly at Aberdeen,” it was agreed that it
Calderwood's History, vol. vi. pp. 264-68.
*Spottiswood's History, lib. vii.
* Forbes's Records, p. 384, Wodrow Ed. Calderwood's History, vol. vi.
462 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
could not be read till a Moderator was appointed. Straiton
declined being present at the election, but, before leaving, he
suggested Forbes of Alford, and in compliance with his wishes,
Forbes was chosen. The letter was then read, and it charged
them instantly to dissolve, and that without fixing any day for
their next meeting till they had first consulted his Majesty."
The ministers proved their moderation by resolving to adjourn
without despatching a single piece of business, but to adjourn
without fixing the time of their next meeting was to surrender
a principle which was a part of their religion—a principle which
had been secured to them by law, and upon which they be-
lieved depended the continued existence of their Church.
They therefore framed a respectful letter to the Secret Council,
explaining their conduct, and then adjourned, to meet again
on the last Tuesday of September. When this resolution was
come to, the Royal Commissioner, foiled of his principal pur-
pose, protested that he did not acknowledge their meeting for
a lawful Assembly; upon which the Moderator made counter-
protestation that it was and behoved to be a lawful Assembly,
in respect of their warrant to meet, the laws of the land, and
the continual custom of the Kirk. Straiton now took a more
violent step, and charged the ministers, by a messenger, forth-
with to depart, under pain of horning. The Assembly pro-
tested that they were ready instantly to obey the tenor of the
charge, and so quietly dispersed.”
The Laird of Lauriston appears to have been aware that the
fact of the Assembly having been Constituted and adjourned to
a future day would give deep cause of offence to the king and his
bishops, and therefore, on his return to Edinburgh, he declared
to the Council that, by proclamation at the market-cross, on
the evening preceding the day on which the Assembly was to
convene, he had forbidden it to meet, a statement which the
ministers vehemently denied, and which his own Conduct ap-
pears to refute. In consequence of this statement, John
Forbes, who had acted as Moderator of the dissolved Assembly,
John Welsh, a son-in-law of Knox, and several other ministers,
were cited before the Council, either for having been present
at the Assembly, or for having approved of its proceedings,
and sent prisoners to Blackness. The mass of the people
were indignant at this unjustifiable severity. The preachers
preached against it, and the populace talked against it. The
* Forbes's Records, p. 388. Calderwood, vol. vi.
* Forbes's Records, pp. 392-94. Calderwood, vol. vi.
A.D. 1605-6.] TREASON. 463
Council thought to check this by issuing two proclamations—
the one discharging presbyteries from appointing commis-
sioners to the adjourned Assembly, and the other prohibiting
all Church Courts and ministers, in public or in private, from
approving of the proceedings of the ministers at Aberdeen.
But it is difficult to stifle free thought. James Melville wrote
an able apology for the imprisoned ministers. The imprisoned
ministers themselves directed a respectful letter to the king,
vindicating their conduct. Public indignation rose higher,
and James felt it necessary to publish a proclamation, setting
forth, that although it was desirable that as much uniformity
as possible should exist between the united kingdoms, he did
not intend to make any sudden innovations on the civil or
ecclesiastical institutions of Scotland, and appointing a General
Assembly to be held at Dundee on the last Tuesday of July.”
On the 24th of October, fourteen ministers were brought
before the Secret Council; and when called to answer for
their conduct, they gave in a written declinature of the juris-
diction of the court. The Council repelled the declinature,
declared the Assembly to have been unlawful, and those who
had met in it to be subject to punishment. A fortnight after
this, on the 5th of November, the English parliament was to
have met ; but that day was rendered for ever memorable by
the discovery of the gunpowder treason ; the first news of
which carried agitation and alarm throughout the kingdom.
While James and his courtiers were Congratulating themselves
on their escape from the plots of the Papists, Forbes and his
Presbyterian brethren were languishing in prison. The king
had unpleasant recollections about declinatures in the days of
his weakness; and now when he was strong he resolved to
have his revenge. He sent down directions to have Forbes,
Welsh, Duncan, Sharp, Dury, and Strachan tried for treason.”
On the Ioth of January 1606, they were brought up for
trial before the Justice-Depute, assisted by several of the
nobility, the indictment being laid upon the Act 1584, touch-
ing his Majesty's jurisdiction over all Estates. After a legal
argument, it was decided by the judges, that to decline the
judgment of the Council was treason—the Earl of Marr, Lord
Holyroodhouse, and John Preston, dissenting.” A jury was
now empanelled; and it was carefully explained to them by
! Calderwood's History, vol. vi. Spottiswood's History, lib. vii.
* Spottiswood's History, lib. vii. Calderwood, vol. vi.
* Calderwood's History, vol. vi. p. 379.
464 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
the king's advocate, that the only question which they had to
decide was, whether or not the indicted ministers had declined
the jurisdiction of the Council, and that their own signatures
to the declinature placed the fact beyond all controversy.
The jury had been packed by the Crown; they were threat-
ened and brow-beat by the Justice-Clerk and the advocate ;
the fact of the ministers having declined the jurisdiction of
the Council was certain ; and yet so strong was the sense of
the injustice that was about to be perpetrated, that six out of
the fifteen jurymen refused, after six hours' consultation, to
bring in a verdict of guilty."
On the 9th of July, the parliament assembled at Perth. It
was customary at this period for the nobles to ride in state to
their place of meeting, clothed in their scarlet robes of office.
Ten bishops were in the cavalcade on the first day of this par-
liament, taking their place betwixt the earls and lords. First
came the two archbishops, Gladstone and Spottiswood ; and by
the stirrup of Gladstone walked an Angusshire minister, of tall
stature, with his cap in hand. Next to them rode the Bishops
of Dunkeld and Galloway ; next, the Bishops of Ross and
Dunblane ; next, the Bishops of Moray and Caithness; and
last of all, the Bishops of Orkney and the Isles. Blackburn,
the Bishop of Aberdeen, thought such pomp unbecoming the
simplicity of a minister, and walked to parliament on foot.”
The chief business of the parliament was to set up the state
of bishops, with all its ancient rents and privileges, and to
erect a number of prelacies into temporal lordships. A
paction had been made between the bishops and the lords:
the bishops were to give their consent to the erection of the
prelacies into temporal lordships; and the lords were to lend
their help to resuscitate the ancient bishoprics.” An act was
first passed declaring the king to be supreme over all persons
and causes ; and after it followed an act for the restitution of
the Estate of bishops. The statute proceeds upon the
preamble, that, though his Majesty was no longer present
* Forbes's Records, Wod. Ed. Calderwood's History, vol. vi. Cook's
History of the Church, vol. ii. There is still extant a letter, written by
Sir Thomas Hamilton, the advocate, to the king, on the day on which the
sentence was passed, in which he mentions the difficulties with which he
had to struggle, and the infamous methods he was obliged to employ to
procure the condemnation of the ministers, and expressing a devout wish
he should have no more such work to do.
* Calderwood’s History, vol. vi. pp. 492, 493.
* Calderwood’s History, vol. vi.
A.D. 1606.j EPISCOPAL POMP AND PARADE. 465
with his Scottish subjects, absence had not bred in his royal
mind oblivion of their good, and that, anxious to maintain
justice and religion as the pillars of the kingdom, and to
preserve the ancient policy of the Three Estates, which had
been unwittingly all but destroyed by the Act of Annexation,
he now, with the consent of the Estates, retracted, rescinded,
reduced, Cassed, abrogated, and annulled said act — and
reponed, restored, and reintegrated the Estate of bishops
to their ancient and accustomed honour, dignities, prero-
gatives, privileges, livings, lands, teinds, rents, thirds, and
estate. It was specially declared, however, that this act
was to extend only to bishoprics, and was not to affect those
other benefices which his Majesty, in his princely liberality,
had bestowed upon his faithful servants, and which were now
anew confirmed to them. Another act was passed to prevent
the dilapidation of bishoprics in future." The parliament did
not close with the same Episcopal pomp as that with which it
was opened; for the bishops were no sooner restored to their
ancient estate than they quarrelled about their proper place in
the procession, maintaining they were entitled to take pre-
cedence of earls, and to ride after the marquises; and rather
than yield the point, they resolved not to join in the proces-
Sion at all, but to proceed to the parliament on foot.”
They had afterwards to fight a more serious battle than this
One about precedence, for the ecclesiastical revenues which
this parliament gave them. The lay possessors would not
loosen their grip ; processes at law were slow and uncertain ;
there were districts of the country where decreets of the
Courts were set at defiance, and the lean prelates could only
complain to the king of their hard fate—compelled to keep an
Episcopal state without the means of doing it.”
The six ministers who had been convicted of treason were
still in prison awaiting their doom ; it might be death. But
James, though despotic, was not cruel, and he resolved to
make an effort to reclaim the irreclaimable Presbyterians of
the north. Full of the triumphant memories of his victory
Over the Puritans, he resolved to send for some of the best-
* Acts of the Scottish Parliament, James VI., parl. xviii. chapters ii. iii.
* Calderwood's History, vol. vi. p. 493. There is still extant a letter
from the Archbishop of St Andrews to the king, dated 20th July 1607, in
which his Grace asks his Majesty to give instructions as to the precedence
of the archbishops and bishops.
* Original Letters relating to Ecclesiastical Affairs. (Ban. Club). See
also Burton's History, chap. lxv. !
VOL. I. 2 G
466 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
known Scottish ministers to court, that amidst the glare
of royal and Episcopal splendour they might be brought to
reason. So early as the month of March, a royal missive had
been directed to eight ministers, including the two Melvilles,
requesting their presence at London in September; and at
the same time five of the Scotch bishops were ordered to be
in attendance, as the representatives of the opposite party in
the Church.
* On their arrival in London, the Scotch minis-
sº* ters were waited upon by the Dean of Salisbury,
and on the 20th of the month conducted to
Hampton Court, where they immediately got presence, and
were permitted to kiss the king's hand. The king had just
dined—he had not swallowed the last mouthful—and was in
high good-humour. He joked with Mr Balfour about his
long beard, asked about the progress of the plague in Edin-
burgh, and dismissed the ministers with Smiles. The dean,
who was still their attendant, took them to dinner, and before
parting with them, requested them to be present on the fol-
lowing day in the king's chapel to hear sermon. They came,
and were conducted into a pew by themselves, close by the
pulpit. The king, queen, and nobles were there, and Barlow,
Bishop of Lincoln, was the preacher. He chose his text
from Acts xx. 28, “Take heed to yourselves, and to all the
flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers,”
and toiled to prove the supremacy of bishops above presby-
ters, and the inconvenience of parity. On the 22d of the
month they were again sent for to speak to his Majesty after
dinner. On their arrival they were courteously received by
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and soon afterwards the king
entered the presence chamber, followed by a train of Scotch
nobles and bishops. James made a long speech, chiefly bear-
ing upon the Assembly at Aberdeen, and his desire to have a
legal and peaceable Assembly to set all things in order.
According to arrangement, James Melville answered in a
respectful manner, but avoiding any explicit declaration of
opinion on the controverted points."
On the day following they were again brought to chapel,
and heard Dr Buckridge, the Bishop of Rochester, preach
from Romans xiii. 1, “Let every soul be subject to the
higher powers,” from which he attempted to show that the
* Calderwood's History, vol. vi. p. 567. Spottiswood, lib. vii.
A.D. 1606.] LESSONS FOR THE SCOTCH MINISTERS. 467
king was supreme in ecclesiastical as well as in civil causes,
and made odious comparisons between the Pope and Presby-
tery, as being equally opposed to princes. After dinner they
were again brought into the royal presence. The king asked
whether or not they justified the conventicle at Aberdeen, as
he was pleased to call it. The Scotch bishops one by one
condemned it; but when it came to Andrew Melville, he
reasoned that it had sufficient authority in the Word of God
and the laws of the realm. The other ministers followed in
the same strain. Reference being made to the trial of the six
ministers for treason, Melville turned upon the advocate, who
was present, and accused him of favouring Papists and perse-
cuting the ministers of Christ. “And still, my lord,” said he,
“you show yourself possessed of the same spirit; for not con-
tent with having pleaded against them in Scotland, you still
continue à xo~nyopog roy cºax poly.” At this phrase the king
turned to the Archbishop of Canterbury and exclaimed,
“What's that he said? I think he calls him Antichrist. Nay,
by God, it is the devil's name in the Revelation of their well-
beloved John "1
On Sunday, the 28th of September, they were again brought
to the king's chapel to hear Dr Andrews, Bishop of Chichester,
discourse from the Book of Numbers, upon the silver trumpets
which were blown by the Jews at their solemn convocations;
from which the ingenious divine undertook to prove that it
belonged to emperors and kings to convene and discharge
ecclesiastical assemblies. Next day was St Michael's Day,
and again the Scotch ministers were conducted to their
accustomed pew in the chapel. No sermon was preached on
this high day; but on the altar were laid two closed books,
two empty chalices, two candlesticks with unlighted candles ;
and the king and queen, devoutly approaching it, presented
their offerings. On the day following they were yet again re-
quired to be present, to hear Dr King, Dean of Christ's
Church, discourse from the 8th chapter of Solomon's Song,
and demonstrating from the vineyard which Solomon had at
Baalhamon, and which he let out to keepers, that lay elders
had no place or office in the church.” Here ended the lessons
* Calderwood's History, vol. vi. p. 577. The story is sometimes told a
little differently. According to one version the Earl of Northampton
asked the king what Melville had called the Lord Advocate. “He called
him the meißle devil,” replied the king. -
*Spottiswood's History, lib. vii. Calderwood's History, vol. vi.
468 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. xv.
for the Scotch ministers. When James resolved to put them
through this course of controversial divinity, he must have
fancied they would have been overawed by the authority, and
silenced by the arguments of the English dignataries. It was
perhaps well meant, but it was very farcical ; and it is a marvel
that Melville, considering his imperious temper, bore it with
patience.
More than once after this the ministers were called before
the members of the Scotch Privy Council, who were present
in London, and harassed with questions as to the Aberdeen
Assembly, and as to whether or not they sympathised with
and prayed for the six ministers who had been convicted of
treason. They strongly protested against this treatment
as illegal and unjust, and Craved to be allowed to return to
their native country; but this was denied them. It was
becoming too plain that the king, having failed to convert
them, was now seeking an occasion against them. They who
seek opportunities generally find them. On St Michael's Day,
after returning from the chapel, Andrew Melville had amused
himself by writing a Latin epigram upon what he had seen:-
“Cur stant clausi Anglis libri duo regia in ara,
Lumina caeca duo, pollubra sicca duo P
Num sensum cultumque Dei tenet Anglia clausum,
Lumine caeca Suo, SOrde Sepulta Sua P
Romano an ritu dum regalem instruit aram,
Purpuream pingit relligiosa lupam.”
A copy of these verses had in some surreptitious manner
found their way into the hands of the king, who, affecting to
be highly indignant at the slur which had been thrown upon
the English worship, resolved to make their author suffer for
it. Melville was accordingly cited before the English Council
at Whitehall, and at once confessed that he was the author of
the epigram, but declared that he had intended to show it to
no one unless it were to his Majesty himself, and that he had
written it in deep grief at seeing such superstitious mummery
in a Reformed Church, and under a reformed king, brought
1 Row's History, p. 234. Calderwood, vol. vi. Row thus Englishises
the Latin epigram :—
“On kinglie chappell altar stands, blind candlesticks, closed books,
Dry silver basons, two of each, wherefore, says he who looks
The minde and worship of the Lord, doth Ingland so keep closse;
Blind in hir sight, and buried in hir filthiness and drosse?
And while with Roman rites sho doth her kinglie altar dresse,
Religiously a purpur'd whoore to trim sho doth professe.”
A.D. 1606.] MELVILLE AND BANCROFT. 469
up under the pure light of the gospel. James himself was not
present, but Dr Bancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who
sat near the head of the table, argued that such a libel on the
worship of the Established Church was a high misdemeanour,
and even amounted to treason. This Melville could not bear
from a man whom he hated, and perhaps despised. He in-
terrupted the archbishop. “My lords,” said he, “Andrew
Melville was never a traitor; but there was one Richard Ban-
Croft who, during the life of the late queen, wrote a treatise
against his lſajesty's title to the crown; and here is the book,”
said he, pulling the offending treatise from his bosom. As he
spoke thus, he had gradually approached the place where
Bancroft Sat, and now taking hold of the lawn sleeves of his
rochet, he shook them, and called them Romish rags. “If
you are the author,” he continued, fiercely addressing the
primate, “of the book called “English Scottizing,' I regard
you as the capital enemy of all the reformed churches in
Europe, and as such I will profess myself an enemy to you
and your proceedings to the effusion of the last drop of my
blood.” Bishop Barlow attempted to interfere to save the
archbishop, but Melville suddenly turning upon him reproached
him for his unfair narrative of the Hampton Court Confer-
ence, and for representing the king as saying that “though
he was in the Church of Scotland, he was not of it.” The
undaunted presbyter was at last silenced and removed, and
when called in again, he was admonished by the Lord Chan-
cellor to add modesty and discretion to his learning and
years, and told that he had been found guilty of scanda/um
Żmagnatum, and was to be committed to the custody of the
Dean of St Paul's, till the king's pleasure regarding him was
known.]
In a few sentences we can now trace the career of the
Melvilles to its close. Andrew Melville was again called
before the Council, and after being anew examined regarding
his scandalum magmatum, he was committed to the Tower.
There he languished for three years, when he was allowed to
accept an invitation to become Professor of Divinity at Sedan,
where there was a Huguenot University, and there he spent
the remainder of his days in broken health and spirits. His
nephew James was ordered to take up his residence in New-
Castle-on-Tyne, from which he was afterwards allowed to re-
*Spottiswood’s History, lib. vii. Calderwood, vol. vi. M'Crie's Life
of Melville, vol. ii.
47 O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
move to Berwick, where he died. The other ministers who
had accepted the king's invitation to court were allowed to
return to their native country, but only under oppressive
restrictions. -
Close by the side of John Knox, in the list of Scottish
worthies, stands Andrew Melville. He has left the deep im-
press of his mind upon the Scottish Church. He was
a man of scholarly accomplishments, great energy, and
intrepid courage. Knox made the Church of Scotland Pro-
testant : Melvi dé if Presbyterian;–Naturally dogmatic
and overbearing, he was little considerate of the opinions and
feelings of others; but it was a striking apology he made for
himself when he said, “If my anger go downward, set your
foot on it, and put it out ; but if it go upward, suffer it to rise
to its place.”" The imperious advocate of High Church prin-
ciples, he may be fairly regarded as the Hildebrand of Presby-
tery. He had acquired his opinions in Geneva, where he had
lived and taught, and where Calvin, differing from the other
Reformers, had maintained the autonomy of the Church, and
left behind him this old Roman doctrine as a special legacy to
the Scottish Clergy. His temper made him an apt disciple
in such a school, for he never could brook a master, and prince
and parliament must give way to the presbytery of which he
was a member. But all the outlines of his character were
flowing and free, and altogether he stands out in bold relief as
one of the greatest figures in Scottish ecclesiastical history.
James Melville was a man of a different mould—mild, amiable,
formed to be led rather than to lead. He was completely under
the influence of his uncle, whom he held in such veneration
that, notwithstanding his own gentle nature, he followed him
even in his most violent courses. His “Diary’ presents us
with some most graphic pictures of the men of his time, and
in his pages there is no more prominent or pleasing portrait
than his own. In almost every word, the good, kindly, Con-
Scientious man stands revealed.
But we must return to Scotland, and see what is passing
there. After a long imprisonment, the fate of the six ministers
who had been convicted of treason was made known—they
were to be banished the Country. At two o'clock on a stormy
November morning, they were brought to the pier at Leith in
Order to embark. A large Concourse of people had already
* M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. ii.
A. D. 1606.] ASSEMBLY AT LINLITHGOW. 47 I
assembled on the sands to bid them farewell. Welsh, for the
last time on Scottish soil, lifted up his voice in prayer, and few
men could pray as he did ; the whole multitude then joined in
singing the 23d Psalm, and when the hopeful words of the last
verse had died away, the exiles, for conscience sake, tore them-
selves from their weeping friends, and were soon steering their
course down the Forth on their way to France. The other
ministers who had been present at the obnoxious Assembly,
but had not been indicted for treason, were banished to the
most remote districts of the country, to Lewis, Cantyre, or
Caithness, that their zeal might be lost amid these savage
solitudes.|
The king and bishops now thought that the field was clear
for a General Assembly. Eight of the ablest ministers were
detained in England, and fourteen others were either in France
or the Highlands. In the beginning of December the presby-
teries of the Church received a royal missive to appoint certain
of their number to meet with certain noblemen at Linlithgow
On the Ioth of the month, to take steps for suppressing
Popery and removing all disagreements from the Church.
These missives did not designate this meeting a General
Assembly, took no notice of the General Assembly which had
been indicted for July, and instead of allowing the presby-
teries as usual to elect their own commissioners, specially
nominated them ; and there was a general bewilderment as to
what this meeting might mean.” -
However, on the appointed day, thirty-three noblemen and
about a hundred and thirty ministers met at Linlithgow, and
the Earl of Montrose appeared as the king's principal Com-
missioner. The chief business of the meeting was brought up
by his Majesty's letter, in which he recommended that every
presbytery should have a perpetual moderator, as a means of
promoting order. The ministers were at first staggered at the
proposal; but royal influence was strong, the old spirit was
becoming weak, and after a committee had deliberated and
reported upon the subject, it was almost unanimously agreed
to. It was stipulated that these perpetual moderators should
enjoy no greater jurisdiction than had been possessed by their
predecessors, and should be subject to the censure of the pro-
vincial synods; but these restrictions proved weak as tow. It
was further provided that these moderators should act as agents
* Calderwood’s History, vol. vi. pp. 590, 591. Row's History, p. 240.
* Calderwood's History, vol. vi. pp. 601-604.
472 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
for suppressing Popery—a popular measure ; and for this ser-
vice a hundred pounds Scots was assigned to each of them by
his Majesty. The Convention stretched its authority still
wider, and took in hand to nominate moderators to the pres-
byteries, making the bishops moderators of the presbyteries
which met at their episcopal seats."
The Assembly had been subservient ; but the Church at
large did not tamely submit to this insidious encroachment
upon its constitution. Loud murmurs were heard from every
part of the country. It was not merely said that the meeting
at Linlithgow was not a General Assembly of the Church, but
that the minute of its proceedings had been sent up to court
and altered there. In these circumstances a royal proclama-
tion was issued charging the presbyteries to accept the per-
manent moderators who had been appointed to them, and the
royalist nobles everywhere exerted themselves to force the
Church Courts to yield. But many of the Church Courts
were in no compliant humour. The Synod of Perth, the
Synod of Fife, and the Presbyteries of Lothian and the Merse,
distinguished themselves by their efforts to shake off the
moderators, who had been fastened on their shoulders like the
old man of the sea; and it was not till they found their
struggles both desperate and dangerous that they sullenly
succumbed to necessity. Several of the ministers who had
been nominated moderators refused to accept an office SO
odious to their brethren and the people,” and even those who
were most subservient to the king were forced to warn him that
a storm was gathering.” James was compelled to acknowledge
the difficulties he had encountered, and the conscientious zeal
of the ministers for the maintenance of parity.”
It was not till the last Tuesday of July 1608
that the Assembly was again convened. The
Earl of Dunbar acted as the king's Commissioner, and about
forty other noblemen were present and took part in the pro-
ceedings. When their right was questioned by a minister, the
moderator remarked that without them their laws could not be
1 Letter, Earl of Montrose to King, 13th December 1606. Original
Letters, &c., 1603-25, Ban. Club Ed. Calderwood's History, vol. vi. pp.
604-27. Row's History, pp. 24I, 242.
2 Calderwood's History, vol. vi. Row's History. Scott's Narrative.
3 Letter dated 28th October 1607, and signed Galloway, Hall, Hewat ;
to be found in a Collection of Original Letters relating to Ecclesiastical
Affairs, between 1603 and 1625, published for the Bannatyne Club.
4 Spottiswood's History, lib. vii. p. 503.
A.D. 1608.
A.D. 1608.] THE POPISH LORDS RELAPSE. 473
carried into execution. “We,” said he, “can preach and
pray; they can fight.” This Assembly, though tolerant of
Prelacy, exhibited all the old intolerance of Popery. The
Marquis of Huntly and the Earls of Angus and Errol had
relapsed into error; they had not given attendance at the
church; they had refused to communicate; though reasoned
and remonstrated with, they were obstinate; and so it was re-
solved that they should again be put under the ban of the
Church. Huntly, by a messenger, protested that conscience
alone stood in the way of his reconciliation to the Church, and
Craved farther time, in hope that he might see reason to change;
but his apologies were pronounced to be frivolous, and the
sentence of excommunication was for the second time solemnly
pronounced against him. His Majesty's Commissioner pro-
mised, that after forty days the civil sword would strike with-
out mercy. The Presbytery of Glasgow was instructed to
proceed against the Earl of Angus, the Presbytery of Perth
against the Earl of Errol, and the Presbytery of Irvine against
Lord Semphill, who had also been reported to the Assembly
as an obstinate Papist."
The Assembly still farther showed its zeal against Popery
by resolutions against Jesuits and seminary priests, against
pilgrimages to chapels and wells, regarding the searching of
merchant vessels for Popish books, the removal of Popish
functionaries from office, and compelling the sons of the
nobility who travelled abroad to have in their company a
pedagogue well grounded in the faith. A lament was made
that many churches were still destitute of ministers. In one
district there were thirty-one ; in Annandale, twenty-eight; in
Nithsdale, seventeen ; and so over the greater part of the
Country. A petition was presented for the exiled ministers;
and the Commissioner promised to intercede for all save
those who had been banished for treason. Finally, the eccle-
siastical commissioners were re-appointed, and the Assembly
was closed by prayer and the singing of psalms.”
. It was universally felt that the bishops had gained strength
in this Assembly. Their position had not been openly assailed;
their power as commissioners and permanent moderators had
been continued; and the process of development seemed to be
* Calderwood's History, vol. vi. pp. 751-74. Row's History, pp. 249-52.
Spottiswood, lib. vii.
* Ibid.
474 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
going on unchecked, which must necessarily end in a full
blown Episcopate. For some time they had been entrusted
with the sole power of modifying the stipends of the ministers,
and here was one great source of their growing influence in the
Church. They could raise a friendly minister to comparative
plenty ; they could leave a hostile one to pine in poverty.
Most men, however conscientious, will have a regard to this,
especially if they have a wife and family dependent upon them
for subsistence. But notwithstanding the increasing power of
the bishops, it is certain that there was a deep undercurrent of
dissatisfaction in the country; and at this period there were
sown the seeds of that bitter feeling toward Episcopacy which
has never since been thoroughly eradicated from the Scottish
mind.
But notwithstanding the changes which were in progress,
the machinery of Presbyterianism was still in full working
order. Synods and presbyteries were superintending the
local interests of the Church, and kirk-sessions were ruling
Congregations. Discipline was administered with little relaxa-
tion of its ancient severity. It seems, in truth, to have been
designed, not so much to bring the erring to repentance, as to
put them to shame. Some of the female penitents had
ventured to come to church with those plaids which Scottish
women have long been accustomed to wear over their heads,
in order that, drawing them partly over their face, they might
in some measure conceal their confusion. By solemn decrees
of kirk-sessions such acts of concealment were forbidden; and
frail women were enjoined to leave their plaids at home, and,
taking their place on the stool of repentance, to keep their face
full toward the congregation.”
A.D. I609. On the 24th of June 1609, the parliament as-
sembled at Edinburgh, and after passing new
penal statutes against the unhappy Papists, it proceeded to legis-
late for the bishops. It conferred upon them the jurisdiction of
commissariats, and administration of justice in all spiritual
and ecclesiastical causes, as anciently enjoyed by their pre-
decessors in Roman Catholic times. In virtue of this act,
they were empowered to decide in all testamentary matters, in
all matters affecting marriage and divorce, and generally in
every matter which could be brought under the comprehensive
words “spiritual and ecclesiastical ;” and the Court of Session
1 Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen, pp. 63, II6, Spalding Club. The
notices referred to belong to the years 1608 and 1651.
A.D. 1609.] COURTS OF HIGH COMMISSION. 475.
was authorised to grant letters of horning to enforce the exe-
cution of their sentences."
A few months afterwards, the king gave Completeness to
this measure by erecting two courts of High Commission—
one in each archbishopric. Henry VIII. of England had been
the first to institute such a court, for the execution of his
tyrannical caprices. Elizabeth had continued it, and made it
the minister of her cruelty against the Puritans. James early
perceived its capabilities for dealing with the Puritans of the
north, and had two twigs from the parent stock transplanted
to Scotland, where they took root and flourished vigorously.
Each court consisted of the archbishop, his suffragan bishops,
and a number of the nobility.” The archbishop and four
coadjutors, lay or clerical, constituted a quorum ; they could
call any one before them whom they were pleased to think
Scandalous in life or erroneous in religion ; they could impose
any fine; they could imprison for any period; they could
depose any minister; they could pronounce sentence of ex-
communication against any subject of the realm, and see it
followed by its proper effects. In all this they were bound by no
law but their own discretion. They were subject to no appeal
—their sentence was final. Such courts, possessing such
unlimited jurisdiction over the goods, and liberties, and con-
sciences of men, rested upon no act of parliament—they were
called into existence by a royal proclamation.” They were
creatures of the prerogative. They associated with the name
of bishop everything that was odious in despotism, and slowly
accumulated against the house of Stewart the lamentation and
woes which befell it in the ages to come.
A royal proclamation was deemed enough to constitute
these Courts of High Commission; but an act of parliament
was thought necessary to determine the proper colour and cut
of a judge's and a clergyman's coat . A statute was framed,
proceeding on the ludicrous preamble, that it had been found
by daily experience that the greatness of his Majesty's empire,
the magnificence of his court, the fame of his wisdom, the
civility of his subjects, were alluring princes and strangers from
every part of the world, and that it was fitting that bishops and
ministers, judges and magistrates, should appear before these
*James VI., parl. xx. chap. vi.
* The two courts were subsequently merged in one. p º
* A copy of the royal commission is given in Calderwood, vol. vii. pp.
57, 58.
476 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
in becoming apparel. It was therefore referred to his Majesty's
Serene wisdom to devise appropriate garments and robes of
office for these different functionaries, 1 Valiant colonels have
Condescended to act as clothiers to their regiments; this
famous monarch was constituted by act of parliament tailor to
the Court of Session and the Church Spottiswood informs
us that shortly afterwards the modes were sent down from
London; * and Calderwood describes them.” The Senators
of the College of Justice were to have purple gowns; the
advocates, clerks, and scribes, black gowns. The ministers
were to wear black clothes, and in the pulpit black gowns;
the bishops and doctors of divinity, black stockings to
the knee, black gowns, and a black crape about their neck.
On the 15th of February 16 Io, the Lords of Session and
bishops put on their new robes of office, and walked in pro-
cession from the Chancellor's house to the Tolbooth, the
beheld of all beholders.4
There is now little to record but the successive
steps by which Episcopacy was forced upon the
nation. On the 1st of April 1610, the king directed missives
from Whitehall, appointing a General Assembly to be held at
Glasgow on the 8th of June. In these missives he says
enough to convince us that the Scotch ministers were still as
bullocks unaccustomed to the yoke; he was no way “assured
of their peaceful inclinations.” He therefore informed the
presbyteries that the Archbishop of St Andrews would signify
to them the members he wished sent to his Assembly;” which
the archbishop accordingly did, expressing a hope to some of
the presbyteries that they would not be refractory." On the
appointed day, thirteen bishops, thirteen noblemen, forty
barons, and upwards of a hundred ministers met ; and the
Earl of Dunbar appeared as the Royal Commissioner. The
first day was kept as a fast, which, says the historian of Pres-
bytery, was like the fast that was called when Naboth's vine-
yard was taken from him.” One of the characteristics of this
Assembly, and of all the Assemblies of the period, was, that
A. D. I6IO.
* James VI., parl. xx. chap. viii. * History, lib. vii.
* History, vol. vii. p. 54.
* Calderwood’s History, vol. vii. p. 55.
* The royal missive is copied in Calderwood's History, vol. vii. pp. 92,
93.
* Archbishop of St Andrews to the Presbytery of Chirnside. (Calder-
wood, vol. vii. pp. 91, 92.) -
* Calderwood’s History, vol. vii. p. 94.
A.D. 1610.] ACTS OF ASSEMBLY. 477
no controverted question was openly discussed, but settled at
a private conference, and the result presented to the Assembly
to be registered. In this way the following propositions were
agreed upon —
I. That the calling of General Assemblies belonged to his
Majesty; and, consequently, that the meeting at Aberdeen
in 1605 was null and void; but that an Assembly should be
held every year.
2. That synods should be held in every diocese twice in the
year, in which the archbishop or bishop of the diocese should
preside.
3. That no sentence of excommunication or absolution
should be pronounced without the approbation of the bishop
of the diocese. .
4. That all presentations in time coming should be directed
to the archbishop or bishop of the diocese where the vacant
benefice lay ; and that he, if he found the presentee qualified,
should take the assistance of the ministers of the district, and
perfect the act of ordination.
5. That in the deposition of ministers, the bishop should
associate with himself the ministers of the bounds within which
the delinquent officiated, and, after trial of the fact, pronounce
Sentence.
6. That every minister at his admission should swear obedi-
ence to his Majesty and his Ordinary.
7. That the bishops should visit their dioceses themselves,
unless the bounds were too great; in which case they might
appoint a substitute.
8. That exercise of doctrine should be continued weekly
among the ministers at the time of their accustomed meetings,
and that the bishop or his deputy should be moderator.
9. That the bishops should be subject in all things to the
censure of the General Assembly, and being found culpable,
might, with his Majesty's Consent, be deprived.
Io. That no one should be elected as a bishop under forty
years of age, and who had not actually taught as a minister for
ten years.
Lastly, That no minister, in the pulpit or the public exer-
cise, should argue against or disobey the acts of this Assem-
bly, under the pain of deprivation ; and, particularly, that no
Onc should discuss in the pulpit the parity or imparity of
ministers.”
*Spottiswood's History, lib. vii, Calderwood, vol. vii. pp. 99-103,
Spottiswood curtails the resolutions. Calderwood gives them in full.
478 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP, XV.
It is certain that considerable sums of money were distri-
buted among the members of this Assembly, which had thus
remorselessly overturned the Presbyterian polity of the Church.
Calderwood affirms that it was given in payment of votes,
though under the name of defraying travelling expenses;"
Spottiswood declares that it was given only as the payment of
the stipulated salaries of the permanent moderators.” How-
ever this may be, the last resolution abundantly shows that the
Assembly had ventured to fly in the face of the Church and of
the nation. But notwithstanding the terrors of deposition,
many ministers ventured to speak out ; and this led the Privy
Council to issue a proclamation forbidding any one to impugn,
deprave, contradict, condemn, or utter his disallowance or
dislike of any point or article of the most grave and wise Con-
clusions of that Assembly. But neither king nor Council
could altogether repress the free utterance of indignant thought.
When the main battle had given way, when the General
Assembly allowed itself to be led captive, the Church still
carried on a guerilla warfare against despotism and Episcopacy
in its inferior courts.
The Marquis of Huntly and the Earls of Angus and Errol
were lying in different prisons on account of their apostasy to
Rome. They presented a petition to this Assembly, offering
to subscribe the Confession of Faith, and do anything that was
required of them. After a conference with three bishops, and
a probation of six months, the Marquis was set at liberty, and
allowed to return to Strathbogie. The Earl of Angus, upon
reconsidering the matter, resolved to abandon his country
rather than his creed, and found in France that liberty of reli-
gious worship which was denied him in Scotland. At a meet-
ing of the Council in the Castle of Edinburgh, the Earl of
Errol had professed his conformity with the dominant faith,
and everything was ready for his reconciliation to the Church ;
but on that very night he was so smitten with remorse that he
was tempted to commit suicide, and sending for the Archbishop
of Glasgow in the morning, he stated his unwillingness to sub-
scribe to doctrines which he did not believe.” We may surely
regret that such a tender conscience was made subject to such
violence.
Scotland had now bishops in outward form at least ; but .
according to the Church notions which were in vogue, they
1 History, vol. vii. p. 97. * History, lib. vii. p. 513.
*Spottiswood’s History, lib. vii. p. 513.
A.D. 1610.] THE APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION. 479
were no better than images of clay, and required the Prome-
thean fire to give them episcopal life. Soon after the dissolu-
tion of the Assembly, Spottiswood, Archbishop of Glasgow,
Lamb, Bishop of Brechin, and Hamilton, Bishop of Galloway,
set out for London. On their reception at Court, the king
explained to them that he had at his great charge recovered
the bishoprics from the hands of those who had possessed .
them, and bestowed them upon men who, he hoped, would
prove worthy of their places; but, as he could not make them
bishops, as there were none in Scotland who could, and as
they could not take that honour to themselves, he had sent for
them to England, that they might be solemnly consecrated,
and upon their return home bestow the spiritual gift upon
others. Spottiswood ventured to suggest that this might give
rise to the old jealousy of the Church of England's Supremacy
in Scotland; but James stated that he had provided against
that, by arranging that Consecration should be given to
them neither by York nor Canterbury, but by the Bishops of
London, Ely, and Bath. The Scots bishops thanked his
Majesty for his care of their Church, and declared their will-
ingness to submit; and, accordingly, the consecration was
appointed to take place in the Chapel of London House on
the 21st of October."
In the meantime, the Bishop of Ely expressed his opinion
that the Scotsmen must be made priests before they were con-
secrated bishops, as they were destitute of Episcopal ordina-
tion. This opinion, if carried out, would have required the
re-ordination of every minister in Scotland, and, on the same
principle, their being baptised anew ; and it was scarcely
deemed safe to ask them to bow their heads so low. Bancroft,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, therefore argued that there was
no necessity for re-ordination; that seeing where no bishops
could be had, ordination by presbyters must be deemed lawful,
as otherwise it might be doubted if there were any lawful
vocation in most of the Reformed Churches. Abbot, the
Bishop of London, got rid of the difficulty in another way.
He held that there was no necessity for passing the inferior
orders of deacon and priest, but that the episcopal character
might be conveyed at Once, as appeared from the example of
St Ambrose, Nectarius, Eucherius, and others, who from mere
laymen were advanced at once info fine episcopal chair. Ely
yielded to the majority; and, accordingly, on the appointed
* Spottiswood's History, lib, vii. p. 514.
48o CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
day, Spottiswood, Lamb, and Hamilton were consecrated, and
afterwards conveyed to Scotland the mystic virtues of the
apostolical succession, which they transferred to their brethren
by the laying on of their episcopal hands." The missing link
was found.
Bishops had been recognised by the General
Assembly, and they had now been made par-
takers of the episcopal character; but still they had no legal
standing in the Country, as the act of 1592—the Magna
Charta of Presbytery—stood unrepealed on the statute-book.
This defect was now to be supplied. The parliament assem-
bled in Edinburgh on the 16th of October 1612, and ratified
all the acts which had been passed at the Assembly of 1610,
with some alterations which tended to elevate the bishops still
higher above their brethren in the ministry.” The Assembly
and the parliament, in fact, at this period, were like the two
parts of a well-balanced machine, and worked beautifully the
one into the other.
The contest was now over, and Episcopacy was victorious.
The vehement debates in the Assembly, the bold defiances
to the king, the free utterance of thought in the pulpit, was
hushed, and there was a dead lull after the storm, broken
only by the grumbling of some discontended synod or presby-
tery. But the fear of Popery had not yet died away. The
adherents of Rome were still numerous and active ; propa-
gandists traversed the country in disguise ; and many of the
nominal Protestants were still unable entirely to divorce
themselves from Roman feelings, opinions, and practices.
The citizens of Glasgow were still under the impression that
a crucifix painted in their house gave luck; limners were
found to ply the unlawful trade, and the presbytery busied
itself in hunting them out.” The truth is, the popular mind
was by no means purged of Popery. The people in many dis-
tricts still clung to old religious customs, which had become
intertwined with their social and domestic habits. On Mid-
summer Eve they persisted in kindling bonfires, and the fines
of the magistrates did not deter them.4 At Yule, and on New
i Spottiswood, lib. vii. Neal's History, vol. i. Calderwood, &c.
* James VI., parl. xxi. chap. i.
* Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow, 8th July 1612, and 20th April
1614. Appendix to Papers Illustrative of Queen Mary and King James,
Bannatyne Club Ed.
* Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen, p. 61, anno 1608, published by
the Spalding Club.
A.D. I612.
A.D. 1614.] A MARTYR TO SPIRITUAL INDEPENDENCE. 48I
Year's Day, frolicsome women clothed themselves in male
attire, and as guisers visited the houses of their neighbours
and friends." Persons professing Protestantism still under-
took pilgrimages, and thought they derived benefit from wash-
ing themselves in sacred wells. The Sunday was still in many
places desecrated by markets, by fishing, by the operations of
husbandry. But stricter notions were gradually growing up.
Fines were levied upon persons who absented themselves from
church. Eavesdroppers were employed to go about the streets,
and pick up all whom they chanced to overhear swearing; and
such defaulters, being brought before the magistrates, were
punished by palmies.” - -
A. D. I6I Toward the end of the year 1614, a Jesuit
* *** named Ogilvy was apprehended at Glasgow.
There were found in his custody three little books, with
directions for receiving Confessions, a warrant to grant dis-
pensations to those who possessed Church-livings, a few
reliques, and a tuft of St Ignatius's hair, which he held in the
utmost veneration. When put upon his trial, he declared
that he had come into Scotland to save souls, but refused to
give any information which might criminate others. The
judicial procedure of most countries at that period was dis-
graced by barbarous customs; and this poor man was kept
from sleeping for several successive nights together, that
this slow and exquisite torture might lead him to speak out;
and in the half-delirious state which was thus induced, he
began to let his secrets escape ; but his nerves were no sooner
restored by rest, than he denied everything he had said. All
this was reported to the king, and torture was suggested ; but
James humanely forbade it, and directed that if it should be
found that Ogilvy was merely a Jesuit, and had said mass, he
should be banished; but that if he held the supremacy of the
Pope over kings, the law should be allowed to take its course.
James was more jealous for himself than his God. Ogilvy
returned guarded answers to the sifting questions which were
sent down from London to be put to him ; but as he declared
his belief that the Pope had jurisdiction over his Majesty, and
over all Christian kings, in spiritual affairs, for that he was
hanged in the IIigh Street of Glasgow.” Thus the metro-
* Ecclesiastical Records of Aberdeen, p. 50, anno 1606. In some dis-
tricts, “guisers” still go about visiting houses on the last night of the year-
* Ibid.
* Spottiswood's History, lib. vii. Calderwood, vol. vii. pp. 193-96.
VOL. I. 2 H
482 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. |CHAP. XV.
polis of the west has martyrs for spiritual supremacy which
she wots not of. Protestant zeal went still further, and
reached the unhappy Jesuit's friends. A citizen was brought
before the presbytery for having harboured him, and was glad
to make his peace by appearing for three successive Sundays
at the door of the High Church, clothed in linen, with bare
head, giving tokens of repentance, and craving the prayers of
the people."
Two years subsequent to this the Marquis
of Huntly was again convicted of having apos-
tatized, and, what is more, of having prevented his tenants
from going to church. On a warrant from the Court of High
Commission, he was committed to the Castle of Edinburgh,
but in a few days was liberated by a warrant from the chan-
cellor. The bishops loudly complained of this infringement
upon their jurisdiction ; but Huntly was already on his way to
London, and found means to get access to the king, by whom
it was arranged, with the consent of the Bishop of Caithness,
who happened to be at Court, that he should be absolved by
the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Primate of All England
intimated what had been done to the Primate of Scotland, but
it was felt to be an encroachment upon the Scottish Church ;
and it was therefore agreed that the Marquis should present a
supplication to the General Assembly and be absolved anew,
which was accordingly done.”
At Aberdeen, on the 13th of August, the Assembly met.
The primate, without any election, took possession of the
moderator's chair. “A number of lords and barons,” says
Calderwood, “decored the Assembly with silks and satins,
but without any commission to vote.” As usual, a number
of acts were passed against the Papists. To have an Agnus
ZXei, a rosary, a cross, or a crucifix, about the person, in the
house, or inscribed on any book, was declared to be tantamount
to apostasy. To make a pilgrimage to a chapel or well ex-
posed the pilgrim to the terrors of the High Commission.
No man might act as an apothecary, or practise physic, with-
out being first examined as to his orthodoxy, as it had been
found that Jesuits were carrying on their proselytizing prac-
tices under the cloak of these professions. This Assembly,
A. D. I616.
* Records of the Presbytery of Glasgow, March 1615. Papers Illustra-
tive of Queen Mary and King James, Bannatyne Club Ed.
* Spottiswood’s History, lib. vii. Calderwood, vol. vii.
* History, vol. vii. p. 223.
A.D. 1616-17.] JAMES REVISITS SCOTLAND. 483
moreover, projected a new Confession of Faith, a new Cate-
chism, a new Liturgy, a Book of Canons, and Ordained every
minister to keep a record of the baptisms, marriages, and
deaths in his parish ; and all this it did at the special bidding
of the king, who seems, however, in the matter of registra-
tion, to have been far before his age."
When James went to England to take possession of his
new crown, he promised to visit his native country every three
years. Thirteen years had elapsed, and still he had not
come ; but now he sent a letter to the Council to assure them
of his coming, which he declared “proceeded of a longing to
see the place of his breeding—a salmon-like instinct.” About
the same time a proclamation was issued by the Privy Council
commanding that cattle should everywhere be fed, that there
might be enough of beef in the country when the king came.”
But preparations of another and more ominous kind were
begun in the Chapel at Holyrood House. A company of
English carpenters were sent to refit it after the pattern which
they had seen in the south. Organs were disembarked at
Leith ; gilded statues of the evangelists and apostles came
next to be set up in the stalls; and the populace began to
Say, that in a church with organs and images a mass might be
expected. The bishops thought it right to advertise his
Majesty of the state of public feeling,” but his Majesty was
wroth, and told them that they could not distinguish between
pictures intended for ornament and images erected for worship.
You can endure, said the king, lions, dragons, and devils to be
figured in your churches, but you will not allow the patriarchs
and apostles. Notwithstanding this scold, the king said the
statues would not be set up, as there was not now time
for it. 5
On Friday, the 16th of May 1617, James re-entered his
ancient capital, and was received as Scotland has ever received
* Calderwood’s History, vol. vii. pp. 229-31. Original Letters relating
to Ecclesiastical Affairs, 1609-25. “Instructions to our Right Trusty and
Well-Beloved Cousin and Councillor, the Earl of Montrose.” (Published
by the Ban. Club).
*Spottiswood, lib. vii. p. 529. * Calderwood’s History, vol. vii.
* The Bishop of Galloway was Dean of the Chapel Royal, and penned
this letter, getting the signatures of St Andrews, Aberdeen, Brechin, &c.
* Letter, the King to the Ministers of Edinburgh, 23d March 1617.
(Published, among Original Letters relating to Ecclesiastical Affairs, by
the Bannatyne Club.) Spottiswood relates the circumstance in his His-
tory, and this letter proves his accuracy. The letter is very characteristic
of James.
484 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV,
her kings, even when they hardly deserved her welcome. He
repaid their loyalty by insulting their religion. On the very
day after his arrival, the Anglican Service was begun in the
Chapel Royal. There were bishops in surplices, choristers
singing, an organ pealing forth its notes. Upon the 8th of
June the Privy Councillors, bishops, and nobles who were in
Edinburgh, were Commanded to repair to Holyrood, where
the communion was to be celebrated after the English form.
Many went, and, to humour the king, violated the order of
their church, and received the sacrament kneeling. A few
hung back, and these were specially noted by the proselytizing
monarch, and Ordered to prepare themselves for the solemnity
against the ensuing Sunday."
On the 28th of June the parliament assembled. His Ma-
jesty, as of yore, made a speech in praise of his own good
intentions; the chancellor also made a speech, and then the
Lords of the Articles were chosen, not without some alterca-
tion, and not entirely to the king's satisfaction.” The legisla-
tion to which the Estates first addressed themselves affected
the Church. They passed an act regarding the election of
bishops ; another regarding the restitution of cathedral chap-
ters; and a third, and most salutary one, regarding the planta-
tion of churches, and the provision of stipends for their
ministers.” But it began to be mooted abroad that the king
had submitted to the Lords of the Articles a proposition,
which, if passed into a law, would be tantamount to the aboli-
tion of General Assemblies. The proposition was, “That
whatsoever his Majesty should determine touching the external
government of the Church, with the advice of the archbishops,
* Calderwood's History, vol. viii. pp. 246, 247. The same forms were
observed in the Chapel Royal after the king's return to the south. In
1618 the Bishop of Galloway wrote to James:– “As your Highness
commands, so have I done. On the passion and resurrection days, I
ministered the communion, kneeling, to my Lord Chancellor, Secretary,
Register, Advocate, and Treasurer-Depute, and the Laird of Ruthven.
My Lord of Mar had communicated on the day before. I required
others when the lords had risen, and attended them at leisure, but no
more presented themselves to the table. Many told me after that they
were minded to communicate, but they stood every one on the coming
of others.” The bishop goes on to suggest that at Pentecost the
lords should be made to bring their servants with them, and also that all
who lived in the palace should be brought to swell the number of com-
municants. Such shifts, how pitiful 1 (Original Letters, I603-25, Ban.
Ed).
"cuderwº History, vol. vii. p. 25O.
*James VI., parl. xxii. chapters i. ii. iii.
A.D. 1617.] A HIGH-HANDED KING, 485
bishops, and a competent number of the clergy, should have
the strength of a law.” The king did not conceal that this
was designed to supersede General Assemblies. “To have
matters ruled as they have been,” said he, “in your General
Assemblies, I will never agree ; for the bishops must rule the
ministers, and the king both, in things indifferent, and not
repugnant to the Word of God.” The Lords gave their con-
sent to the proposition.”
A large number of ministers were at this time in Edinburgh,
drawn together from every part of the country. They met,
and drew up a most respectful, but earnest, protest against the
proposed measure, as subversive of a polity which they believed
to be founded on the Word of God. Even the Bishop of
Galloway appended his signature to it; and Hewat, one of the
ministers of Edinburgh and Abbot of Crossraguel, undertook
to present it. Proceeding to the palace, he there met with
Spottiswood, now Archbishop of St Andrews; and in an alter-
cation which took place between them, the copy which he had
was torn. The king, learning what was passing, came out of
his bedroom undressed ; and Hewat, going down upon his
knees, declared that, if the document were offensive to his
Majesty, he would not present it in parliament.” The king
was angry at the insolence of any set of men protesting against
his sovereign wishes; but he was also frightened, though he
did not confess his fear; and when the proposition came to be
read over in the parliament to be passed into a law, he ordered
the clerk to pass it over, remarking by way of consoling him-
self, that he could do as much in virtue of his own prerogative,
without asking the advice of any one.” He did not, however,
forget the protesters. Hewat, and Simson, the minister of
Dalkeith, whom he considered as ringleaders, were deprived of
their offices, and cast into prison ; and David Calderwood, the
celebrated historian of the Church of Scotland, who had
joined in the protest, and deferentially defended it in presence
of the king and the High Commission, was stripped of his
ministry, and banished the country.*
During his Majesty's progress to the south, he affected to
discover that Puritan precision in the observance of the
Sabbath was one of the causes why Papists refused to be con-
* Spottiswood's History, lib. vii. p. 531.
*Spottiswood's History, lib. vii. pp. 531-33. Calderwood, vol. vii.
* Ibid.
* Calderwood's History, vol. vii.
486 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP.
verted. He therefore published his famous “Declaration to
encourage Recreations and Sports on the Lord's Day.” In
this singular document it is declared to be his Majesty's
pleasure that, after divine service, his good people should not
be hindered from any such lawful recreations as dancing,
archery, leaping, or vaulting, nor from having May-games,
Whitsun-ales, morris-dances, and setting up May-poles; and
that women should have liberty to carry rushes to the church
to decorate it, according to their old custom. His Majesty,
however, prohibited such unlawful sports on Sunday as bear-
baiting, bull-baiting, interludes, and bowling ; and declared
that none should have the benefit of the act save those who
had attended divine service in their parish church in the fore-
noon. This royal declaration was read in all the parish
churches of Lancashire, which abounded with Papists ; and it
is said that it was to have been read in all the churches of the
kingdom, had not Archbishop Abbot wisely opposed it. The
news of it soon reached Scotland, and excited considerable
apprehension lest the monarch, in his royal beneficence, might
be inclined to extend such considerate indulgences to his
northern subjects."
The Church of Scotland was now nearly conformed to the
Jhurch of England in government, but not in worship; and
the king had set his heart upon conformity in all things. The
General Assembly of 1616 had resolved that the acts of former
Assemblies should be collected, to assist the Church judica-
tories in the administration of discipline, only these were no
longer to be called Acts of Assembly, but Canons of the
Church.” His Majesty had proposed that to these canons
there should be added certain others of his own framing,
touching the confirmation of children, the administration of
baptism and the Lord's Supper in private, the reception of the
communion kneeling, and the observance of holidays; but the
* Neal’s History of the Puritans, vol. i. Calderwood, &c.
* On the part of the king and his bishops, at this period, there was a
pedantic aping of Roman and Anglican terms. The General Assembly
was now a National Council ; its acts were canons; Presbyterians were
Puritans; parents in baptism were godfathers and godmothers, &c. (See
Original Letters, &c., 1603-25, Ban. Ed.) On the part of some Aber-
donians, there would appear to have been a desire to overdo Episcopacy.
An order of the kirk-session was passed against children being brought to
baptism with more than two godfathers, proceeding upon the narrative
that even some £zeir men had brought ten or twelve. (Ecclesiastical
Records of Aberdeen, p. 109, Spalding Club Ed.)
A.D. 1617.] THE ROYAL WRATH. 487
bishops had urged upon him that it would be dangerous to in-
troduce such innovations upon their own authority, as they
had never been even mooted in the ecclesiastical courts.
During his visit to Scotland, James reverted to the subject
in a meeting of the bishops and leading ministers at St
Andrews. In a speech which he made to them, he extolled
his care for the Church : he alluded to the wrongs which he
had received at their hands: he expatiated upon his prero-
gative. “It is a power innated and a special prerogative,”
Said the philosophic monarch, “which we that are Christian
kings have, to order and dispose of external things in the
policy of the Church, as we, by advice of our bishops, shall
find most fitting ; and for your approving or disapproving, de-
ceive not yourselves, I will never regard it, unless you bring
me a reason that I cannot answer.” The bishops and clergy
were overawed by these flashes of the prerogative, and, going
down upon their knees, begged that they might be allowed a
Conference among themselves. When they returned they
Craved permission to hold a General Assembly, pledging them-
selves that everything the king desired would then be done.
An Assembly was accordingly appointed to be held at St
Andrews, upon the 25th of November. How different this
interview and those between the king and his clergy previous
to his accession to the English throne ! But all things were
changed, The king was then weak; and now he was strong;
the nobles were then independent, for they had little to lose
and nothing to gain, but now they were crouching, for they
were begging favours at the English court; the ministers were
then bold, for they were not looking to bishoprics, and they
knew that their voice was the voice of the people—now there
was nothing for it but to go down upon their knees.
The 25th of November came, and the Assembly met ; but
notwithstanding the pledged honour of the bishops, it proved
unmanageable. Some ministers pressed for delay that they
might explain the proposed changes to the people; others,
when they heard what was moving, quietly slipped away home,
and nothing definite was done.” When his Majesty learned
the result he was highly indignant; he wrote to the arch-
bishops telling them he was now come to an age when he
would not be content to be fed with broth, as one of their
cloth was wont to say to him ; he commanded them to keep
* Spottiswood's History, lib. vii.
* Ibid.
488 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
Christmas, which was now approaching; and added in a post-
script, that as the Scottish Church had so far contemned his
clemency, they would know what it was to draw the anger of
a king upon them." This letter to the archbishops was
accompanied by another to the Council, prohibiting the pay-
ment of stipends to any of the rebellious ministers till they
had shown their willingness to conform—a mean, most un-
justifiable, and most arbitrary expedient to extort compliance
from poverty.
Notwithstanding this failure, it was resolved that another
trial should be made, and accordingly an Assembly was
indicted to meet at Perth on the 25th of August 1618. The
Archbishop of St Andrews made sure of his purpose this time by
canvassing the members previous to the meeting, and making
the modification of their stipends tell upon their votes, so that
beforehand he knew what would be the suffrage of almost
every man. Lord Binning, Lord Scone, and Lord Carnegie
appeared as his Majesty's Commissioners. A considerable
number of the nobility presented themselves furnished with
missives by his Majesty, authorising them to vote. The
archbishop assumed the chair as his right. In the Little
Church, where the Assembly met, there were set a long
table, and at the head of it a short cross one. At this
cross table his Majesty's Commissioners and the Moderator
took their seats upon chairs provided for them. At the sides
of the long table were set forms for the noblemen, barons,
burgesses, bishops, and doctors. The ministers were left
to stand behind and look on, while the business was settled
by the dignified conclave around the table.”
The king's letter was twice read over, and we are at a loss
whether to marvel most at its insolence or its absurdity. It
declares it was his Majesty's intention never to have called an
Assembly more, and that it was only out of his great con-
descension he had deigned to call this one ; he alluded to the
desire of some to have all ecclesiastical matters arranged at
ecclesiastical meetings, but he declared that he had the power,
if he had the will, to determine all such subjects himself, with-
out consulting them at all ; he acknowledged that he did not
like to remember the treatment he had received from the
1 Letter, the King to Archbishop Spottiswood, 6th December, 1617,
ublished among Original Letters relating to Ecclesiastical Affairs, 1603-25,
}. Club. Spottiswood refers to this letter in his History.
2 Calderwood’s History, vol. vii.
A.D. 1618.] ASSEMBLY AT PERTH. 489
Scottish ministers in his youth, but piously remarked that the
love of God and His truth had always upheld him, and that so
they would to the end of his life; he reprimanded them for
their obstinacy, and upbraided them for their ingratitude in
not acknowledging the blessing of having such a loving and
such a religious king to reign over them." The Archbishop
followed up this letter with a speech, in which he protested
that the Five Articles to be proposed to them were none of
his ; that they were wholly of the king's devising; but still he
strongly urged the Assembly to give them its concurrence.
Dr Young, the Dean of Winchester, who had brought down
the royal letter, next made a speech, in which he spoke of his
Majesty's wrath as already kindled, and as ready to burst forth
and Consume everything, unless it were quenched by the sub-
mission of this Assembly.”
The Presbyterian party had mustered so strong that the
Royal Commissioners were at first extremely doubtful of the
result. The town was crowded with men from Fife of the
Melville stamp.” An effort was made to have every subject
discussed in open Assembly; but the contrary was carried,
and the Five Articles were referred to a committee of the
House, where every one of them was keenly debated ; but in
the end, every one of them was recommended. Upon Wed-
nesday, the 27th of August, the report of the committee was
brought up for approval, and the debate was renewed, but
conscience was brow-beat by authority, and country ministers
were Snubbed by insolent courtiers. Scot of Cupar and Car-
michael led the opposition; but the representative of royalty
put Carmichael down, and “in the end My Lord of St
Andrews,” so wrote Binning to the king, “cutting short their
affected shifts, whereby they intended either to disappoint the
matter or refer it to another meeting, ordained this proposition
Only to be voted, Whether the Assembly would obey your
Majesty in admitting the Articles or refuse them?” Some
members ventured to suggest that the Articles should be voted
separately; but the archbishop told them that the king must
have them all, or none. At length the vote was taken, after
every One had been informed that his conduct would be
A copy of the royal epistle will be found in Calderwood, vol. vii.
*Spottiswood, lib. vii. Calderwood, vol. vii.
* Lord Binning wrote to the king, (lat on coming to town he found that
So many presbyteries, especially those of Fife and the Lothians, had sent
such precise and wilful Puritans, that he was extremely doubtful of the
issue. (Letter, 27th August 1618.)
490 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XV.
specially reported to the king. Eighty-six, says Lord Binning,
allowed the Articles; forty-nine refused ; three did not vote.
His Majesty's Commissioners — says David Calderwood,
analysing the vote—all the noblemen except Ochiltree ; all the
barons except Waughton, who went home; all the doctors ex-
cept Dr Strang ; all the burgesses and a number of the
ministers, voted in the affirmative. One nobleman, one
doctor, and forty-five ministers voted in the negative. “Albeit
the contention was vehement,” wrote Lord Binning to his
royal master, “both in the conference and public Assembly;
yet after the Articles were voted, there appeared great con-
tentment in many good men's faces.”* Without believing
this, we may believe that there would at least be a feeling of
relief, after the state of violent tension in which men's minds
had for some time been kept.
The following Five Articles now formed part of the eccle-
siastical law of the land:—I. That the sacrament of the body
and blood of Christ should be received kneeling. 2. That it
might be administered in private to the sick. 3. That baptism
might be administered at home when the infant could not con-
veniently be brought to the Church. 4. That all children of
eight years of age should be brought to the bishop on his
visitation, to be questioned as to their knowledge, and to re-
ceive his blessing. 5. That the days commemorative of
Christ's birth, passion, resurrection, and ascension, and of the
Holy Ghost's descent, should be devoutly observed.
The king had carried his point. He had set himself up as
a dictator in the Church, and the Church had yielded to his
dictation. But the old Presbyterian spirit was not entirely
extinct. The ministers were ordered to read the Five Articles
of Perth from their pulpits, but many of them refused. An
Act of the Privy Council was passed confirming the procedure
of the Assembly, and enjoining compliance upon both mini-
sters and people; and proclamation of this was made at the
* Letter, Lord Binning to King James, St Johnstones, 27th August (at
night) 1618–(the very night of the day on which the Five Articles were
carried). Original Letters, &c., Ban. Ed. There is also still extant a
letter from Spottiswood to John Murray of Lochmaben, dated 2d Septem-
ber 1618, in which he says, “Many of the noblemen and gentlemen his.
Majesty sent letters to, for assisting the service, came not, excusing them-
selves by sickness and ill disposition; but I think their minds were more
sick than their bodies, and are so still.” The archbishop goes on to say
that absentees should be noted, and such as came specially thanked by the
king, and that to this end he had given a memorandum to the Dean of
Winchester.
A.D. 1618-19.] ARTICLES OF PERTH. 49 I
market-cross of Edinburgh ; but already it began to be seen,
that in cases like this, it is easier to make laws than to execute
them." When Christmas came round, many of the shopkeepers
of Edinburgh kept their booths open, and were seen pacing in
front of them, instead of repairing to church ; for this they
were summoned before the Court of High Commission.”
When Easter approached it was the same. Some of the ministers
resolved to comply with the court, and dispense the sacrament
to kneeling communicants; others determined to resist.
Crowds of people abandoned the churches where the new
forms were introduced, and resorted to those where the old
Presbyterian ritual was preserved. Hundreds and thousands
flocked out of the gates of Edinburgh, where the four mini-
sters had succumbed on their way to the rural parishes, where
they would receive the sacrament in the old way which they
loved.” The provost of Edinburgh, a gentleman who had re-
ceived the honour of knighthood on his Majesty's visit to his
northern metropolis, absented himself from the church, to
avoid taking the Sacrament in a fashion which was odious to
him. A Senator of the College of Justice was cited before the
Commission for the same misdemeanour. Many of the elders
and deacons refused to officiate. Of those of the laity who
did come to church, some went down upon their knees as they
received the consecrated elements; others refused, and not a
few were seen to be in tears.4 Confusion and sadness of
* On the 28th of November, Lord Binning wrote to the king, that he
had learned some of the ministers intended to disobey the Five Articles.
On the 30th, the Archbishop of Glasgow addressed a letter to the Presby-
tery of Ayr, ordering them to preach on Christmas Day on some such
subject as the nativity or incarnation, and hoping that none of them would
be troublesome. Binning afterwards informed his Majesty, that the
Ministers of Edinburgh had requested the Archbishop of St Andrews to
come and occupy their pulpit on Christmas Day, but that he was not very
willing to come, (Original Letters, &c., 1603-25, Ban. Club Ed.)
* Calderwood's History, vol. vii.
*Ibid. vol. vii. p. 359. The king, in a letter to his Scotch Privy Coun-
cil, refers to the numbers who had fled from the town to the country
churches. He alludes also to some pamphlets which had been published,
and asks his Council to see these things punished. (Original Letters, &c.,
I603-25, Ban. Ed.)
* Calderwood's History, vol. vii. On the 16th March 1619, Lord Bin-
ning wrote to the king, giving his Majesty an account of the observance of
Easter in Edinburgh. He states that letters had been written to all the
Privy Comncillors, Tords of Session, and magistrates, desiring them to
come and walk in procession from the chancellor's lodging to the church,
Some excused themselves by sickness, &c., but many came. The nobles,
councillors, and sessioners came first to the Table, and, all upon their knees,
492 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. ſcHAP. XV.
spirit had been infused into the cup of communion which the
Scottish Christians were required to drink. They ate their
passover with bitter herbs.
Nor did this occur only in one place, or on one occasion.
The antipathy to the Anglican rites was almost universal
among the people, and time did not diminish it. The terrors
of the High Commission were employed to enforce submission,
Since argument had failed to carry persuasion; and during the
whole subsequent reign of James, we are continually hearing
of some recusant minister being dragged to its bar, deposed
from his office, and cast into prison. The persecution began
with Dickson, the minister of the west parish of Edinburgh ;
and many of his brethren afterwards exhibited the same stead-
fastness, and bore the same punishments. The public feeling
found utterance in pamphlets and poems, which the govern-
ment tried in vain to suppress. They were surreptitiously
printed and dispersed among the people, who greedily read
them.
In July 1621, a parliament was called together, chiefly for
the purpose of ratifying the Five Articles, which still wanted
the sanction of law. A number of ministers assembled in
Edinburgh to draw up a petition to be laid before it, but they
were charged to leave the town ; and every precaution was
taken to prevent them from lodging a protest which they had
prepared. The Articles were carried, but not without a
struggle. Seventy-seven voted for them, fifty against them.
A majority of the burghs were found in the opposition ; the
Sheriffdoms were divided, and it was only by the votes of the
bishops and higher nobility that the obnoxious acts were
carried."
The year 1618 witnessed not only the Assembly at Perth,
which sanctioned the Five Articles, but the celebrated Synod
of Dort, which condemned Arminianism, and declared Cal-
vinism to be the doctrine of the Dutch Churches. In this
ecclesiastical council there were present, not only Dutch and
Walloon divines, but the representatives of almost every Re-
received the elements from the ministers—Ramsay and Galloway—who
gave them to each with their own hands. Their example, says Binning,
was generally followed by the congregation, so that neither man nor
woman, during the space of four hours, offered to receive the Sacrament
sitting, except one base fellow. It is plain Lord Binning, puts the best
face on the matter ; he, however, mentions that many had gone to the
country, especially women. (Original Letters, Ban. Club Ed.)
* Calderwood’s History, vol. vii.
A.D. 1622.] MRS WELSH AND THE KING. 4.93
formed Church in Europe. Walter Balcanduhal was present
as the representative of the Scotch Church ; and of him it is
recorded, that his apparel was decent, and that in all respects
he gave much satisfaction." The tenets of Arminius were re-
probated in five different propositions, and, from this circum-
stance, it was reported among the Common people of Scotland
that the Hollanders had condemned the Five Articles of
Perth.” The report was ridiculous as it was false ; but even
such a report is frequently an index of the state of feeling.
King James was at first pleased with the decisions of the synod,
but soon afterwards we find him bestowing his favours upon
Arminian divines. The Scottish bishops were inoculated with
the same opinions, which still further widened the gulph be-
tween them and the ministers who had, from the first planting
of the Protestant Church, been strongly attached to the teach-
ing of Augustine and Calvin.
In the few remaining years which fill up the reign of King
James, there is little to record. The king and the Court of
Commission persisted in enforcing obedience to the tyrannical
decrees; and the ministers and people Sullenly submitted, or
continued to resist.
There is a story belonging to the year 1622, which deserves
to be recorded, as interesting in itself, and as very descriptive
of some of the chief actors in the period over which we have
passed. Welsh had now been in banishment for upwards of
sixteen years, during which time he had resided in France.
His health began to fail, and in 1622 he ventured to come
to London. His wife, the daughter of John Knox, managed
to get access to court, to petition that her husband might be
allowed to return to Scotland, and seek convalescence from
his native air. His Majesty, upon her introduction, asked
who was her father. “Mr Knox,” she replied. “ Knox and
Welsh l’exclaimed the king; “the devil never made such a
match as that.” “It is very likely, sir,” said she, “for we
never speired (asked) his advice.” The king next asked her
how many children of her father's were living, and if they were
lads or lasses. She said three, and that they were all lasses.
“God be thanked,” cried the king, lifting up both his hands,
“for if they had been three lads, I had never bruiked my
three kingdoms in peace.” Mrs Welsh now took the oppor-
tunity of urging her petition that his Majesty would give her
* Neal’s History of the Puritans, vol. i. pp. 479, 480.
*Spottiswood’s History, lib. vii.
.494 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
husband his native air. “Give him the devil l’” said the king
coarsely. “Give that to your hungry courtiers,” said the pious
lady, rebuking his profanity. After some further conversation,
the king told her that if she would persuade her husband to
submit to the bishops, he would allow him to return to Scot-
land. The heroic matron, the daughter of Knox, lifted up
her apron, and holding it out toward the king, replied, “Please
your Majesty, I'd rather kep (receive, keep from falling) his
head there.” Her petition was refused, and Welsh soon
afterwards died an exile in London. -
Three years afterwards, James also died. In Scotland he
was not greatly lamented, Save by the bishops who had sprung
up in the sunshine of his favour, and the few hungry nobles
who haunted his court, grew rich upon English spoil, and
brought upon their native country the reproach of beggary.
He abandoned presbytery to overturn its government and
persecute its ministers; he embraced prelacy to purge it from
puritanism ; and lost the esteem of one nation without gaining
the respect of another. His foolish ideas of the divine right of
kings, and of the extent of his prerogative, laid the founda-
tion of those disasters which brought his son to the scaffold,
and drove his race from the throne. English adulation, opu-
lence, and power developed his vices, and choked up his
virtues. His youth was more virtuous than his old age ; and
profligacy in the old is peculiarly repulsive. He grew fond of
eating, drinking, and indolence ; and licentious favourites
ruled all. He was clever and learned for a king ; he was cer-
tainly witty; but he had little vigour or comprehensiveness of
mind, and no true dignity of character. A foreign ambassador
pronounced him “the wisest fool in Christendom.” Henry
of Navarre is said to have remarked—“He was undoubtedly
the Solomon of his age, as he was the son of David who
played upon the harp.” . It was on the 27th of May 1625 that
he died, being then in his 59th year of his age.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHARLEs I. ascended the throne of Great Britain and Ire-
land amid the general acclamations of a people ever inclined
to think hopefully of their hereditary kings. He was born at
* M ‘Crie's Life of Knox.
A.D. 1625.] CHARLES I. * 495
Dunfermline in the year 16oo, was baptised by a Presbyterian
minister, and entrusted to the care of Presbyterian tutors;
but he was still a child when his father succeeded to the Eng-
lish crown, and placed him under men who taught him to
abominate Presbytery as akin to democracy, and to cherish
Episcopacy as the firmest ally of arbitrary power. Immedi-
ately upon his accession, he married Henrietta Maria,
daughter of Henry IV., and sister of Louis XIII, kings of
France—a lady of much beauty and vivacity, and destined to
acquire a complete ascendancy over her husband ; but the
marriage was regarded by many with alarm, as it was stipulated
that the queen, with all the children of the marriage, and all
her domestics, should be secured in the free exercise of the
Roman Catholic religion ; that she should have a bishop,
invested with all necessary authority in things relating to
religion, with twenty-eight priests or monks, and a chapel in
every place where she should happen to reside ; and that she
should have the education of her children till they were thirteen
years of age."
Charles was virtuous in his life, punctual in the discharge of
his religious duties, possessed of good abilities, many accom-
plishments, a deep earnestness of character, and a dignity of
demeanour becoming a king; but he soon showed that he had
imbibed high notions of the royal prerogative—that he was
fond of circumstance and ceremony in religious worship—
that he hated puritanism—and did not feel himself bound to
keep faith with his subjects. Foolishly involved in a war,
first with Spain, and afterwards with France, his Commons
refused him such supplies as he required till he would redress
their grievances, and give some secure resting-place to that
spirit of liberty which was now abroad. Parliament after
parliament was called, only to be dissolved ; and the mortified
king, baulked of his subsidies, was obliged to resort to
forced loans from his subjects to meet the exigencies of the
State. The elements of strife were already in existence ;
bishops were preaching about the divine right of kings and the
duty of passive obedience; members of parliament were
speaking about the liberties of the subject and the oppressions
of the court; and it was becoming evident that a struggle
between the old and the new ideas was at hand.
Soon after Charles had ascended the throne, and before his
character was fully developed, the Scottish ministers despatched
* Rapin, vol. ix. pp. 586-601, 8vo ed., 1732. Court and Times of Charles I.
496 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
one of their number to court, with a petition to the effect, that
they might be relieved from the observance of the Articles of
Perth; but on the return of their messenger, they discovered
that no relief need be looked for, and that the young king was
resolved to pursue his father's policy.” His revocation of all
Crown grants of ecclesiastical property made before he was
eight months king showed that he contemplated ecclesiastical
changes. Charles, however, was too much occupied with
English affairs to be able to give much attention to Scotland,
and the Church for several years enjoyed comparative quiet.
No General Assembly had met since that disastrous one at
Perth; but General Assemblies had not yet been legally abro-
gated. The bishops continued to exercise their Episcopal
power, but they appear to have done it with moderation.
Presbyteries were still held. The Anglican method of ad-
ministering the sacrament was followed by some, and by
others it was not. Thus on Easter Day 1627, when the Com-
munion was given in the High Church of Edinburgh, not more
than six or seven persons kneeled, and even some of the
ministers refrained from doing so.” In February 1629, the
ministers of Edinburgh again resolved to give the sacrament to
the people, as they had not received it in the preceding year;
“but it was given,” says the historian, “with such confusion
that it was pitiful to behold; some of the ministers kneeling,
some sitting, some standing, and such confusion among the
people also; the minister giving the elements out of his hands
to each one, and the reader reading, or the people singing at
the same time.” ” It was the same with the other Articles of
Perth, which appear to have been like an apple of discord
thrown into the midst of the Church. Thus, on Christmas
Day, John Maxwell, who was aspiring to a bishopric, was
preaching in Edinburgh, and thundering forth invectives and
curses against such as would not keep the festivals of the
Church ; David Forrester was preaching in Leith on the same
day, and maintaining the very opposite. “It was sad,” says
John Row, “to hear pulpit against pulpit ; but we should bless
the Lord that there were still some to stand in the gap, and
speak for the truth and the cause of God.” +
In the year 1633 Charles visited his ancient kingdom of
Scotland, to be crowned with the crown of his ancestors. On
Saturday, the 15th of June, he entered Edinburgh in triumphal
1 Bishop Guthrie's Memoirs, p. 7.
* Row's History, p. 343. * Ibid, p. 348. * Ibid, p. 350.
A.D. ió33.] KING CHARLES AND BISHOP LAUD. 497
procession. In his train was Dr Laud, at that time Bishop of
London, and soon afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury—a
man violent, vain, Superstitious, and whose restless and inno-
vating spirit had long ago been recognised by King James."
He had now become the adviser of his more infatuated son.
On Sunday he preached before the king and court in the
Chapel of Holyrood House; he expatiated upon the benefits
of conformity; he extolled the venerable ceremonies of the
Anglican Church; and the nobles, knowing that the bishop
only spoke the sentiments of the king, applauded what he said.”
Tuesday, the 18th of the month, was fixed for the coronation.
By the direction of Laud, an altar was erected in the Abbey
Church, parallel to the mass altar, unlighted candles were
placed upon it, and otherwise the building was magnificently
adorned. The Bishop of Brechin preached the sermon, and
the Archbishop of St Andrews placed the crown upon the
king's head with the usual forms. Close by the side of the
Archbishop of St Andrews the Archbishop of Glasgow had
taken his place, as was his right; but Laud, observing that he
did not wear the embroidered robe, which the High Church
fashion required, thrust him aside, and put the Bishop of Ross
in his stead.” In this little episode we have a prophetic reve-
lation of the future primate's character and history.
On Sunday, the 23rd of June, the king went to the High
Church of Edinburgh to hear sermon. When he had taken
his place in the loft, the reader, according to the usage then
prevalent, began to read the lessons for the day, and sing the
psalms preparatory to the sermon, but Maxwell, one of the
ministers of Edinburgh, and recently made Bishop of Ross,
requested him to leave his desk, and then substituted in his
stead two English chaplains, clothed in Surplices, who per-
formed the English service. The service being ended, the
Bishop of Moray, also clothed in a surplice, ascended the
pulpit and preached.* The Scottish people bore these insults
upon their established worship in no pleasant humour. The
storm was slowly gathering, but it was not yet ready to burst.
The next day being St John the Baptist's Day, his Majesty
went in state to his chapel royal, and made a solemn offertory.
* Memorial of Archbishop Williams, by Bishop Hacket. (See Burton's
History, chap. lxvi.)
* Clarendon's IIistory of the Rebellion, vol. i. p. 64.
* Neal’s History of the Puritans, vol. i. p. 562. Rushworth's Collections,
part ii. p. 182.
* Row's History, p. 363.
VOL. I. 2 I
498 . CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
The next scene was a characteristic one. About a hundred
persons, afflicted with the king's evil, approached, one after
another, to his Majesty, and received his healing touch, and
at the same time had a piece of gold, coined for the purpose,
and suspended by a white riband, put round their necks by
the royal hands in commemoration of their cure." So the
time passed, amid religious pageants, costly banquets, excur-
sions to the provinces, and bestowal of titles of honour. These
last were given with no niggard hand, and yet many expectants
were disappointed. During his stay in the country, his
Majesty created one marquis, ten earls, two viscounts, eight
lords, and dubbed fifty-four knights;” thus plenteously did the
fountain of honour overflow. Edinburgh he erected into a
bishopric; appointed St Gile's to be its cathedral church ; and
gave pain to the lovers of Presbyterian preaching, by ordering
the partitions which divided the church to be taken down, that
the building might wear a cathedral-like aspect, and be fit for
the cathedral service.”
But we have still to record the most important event con-
nected with his Majesty's visit to the north—the meeting of
parliament. It was on the 19th of June that the Estates
assembled. On the first day the Lords of the Articles were
chosen, and continued their labours for more than a week,
and certainly they could not have been idle, for they gave
their sanction to one hundred and seventy-six acts of a private
nature, and to thirty-one relating to public affairs.4 On the
28th, the parliament met to give its stamp of approbation to
the labours of its committee. When the acts were read over
there were two which were seen to be destructive of the last
traces of presbytery, and which met with a determined opposi-
tion.”
The first of these was a combination of two acts passed in
the reign of King James, the one extending his prerogative
to all causes, spiritual as well as political, and the other giving
him power to prescribe the apparel of Churchmen; the second
was the virtual ratification of the Episcopal government and
worship, as it then existed in Scotland. Contrary to what we
would imagine, the reluctance was greatest to continue to
1 Balfour's Annals, vol. ii. p. 201. Large Declaration, p. II.
* Balfour, vol. ii. p. 202.
* Row's History, p. 369. Stevenson’s History, vol. i. p. 121.
* Murray's Collection of the Acts of the Scottish Parliament.
* Charles I., parl. i. chapters iii. iv.
A.D. 1633.] THE VOTE QUESTIONED. 499
Charles the power which had been given to James to deter-
mine the clerical Costumes. Lord Rothes, who led the oppo-
sition, said he could consent to the first part of the act, but
not to the second. He was told it must be passed as a whole,
or not at all. People declared that the device was like to
that of the Roman emperors, who placed a statue of some
heathen divinity near to the statue of themselves, that the
early Christians, in paying obeisance to the one, might be
entrapped into an act of homage to the other.” The truth is,
there was a well-grounded alarm that Laud wished to intro-
duce the surplice, and all those other sacerdotal vestments
which, in the minds of the Scottish people, were inseparably
joined with the Popish worship. When the vote was taken,
the king supplied himself with a roll of the members and a
pen, and marked the suffrage of every individual, which had
its effect upon the timid and time-serving, but was felt to be
unworthy of a king presiding in his parliament. The clerk-
register declared the acts to be carried. Rothes stood up and
declared the vote to be otherwise. The king interfered, and
said, that to corrupt the parliamentary records was high
treason, and that therefore Lord Rothes must either be silent,
or make good his charge at the peril of his life. The earl
prudently declined to run such a hazard, and the matter is
involved in mystery to this day.” - -
A number of ministers, when they heard that such acts
were being prepared by the Lords of the Articles, drew up a
statement of their grievances, to be laid before the parliament,
but it was never allowed to see the light.” After the obnoxious
measures were passed, some of the barons who had voted in
the opposition prepared a most respectfully-worded supplica-
tion to be presented to his Majesty, explaining their conduct.*
The Earl of Rothes showed a copy of the proposed supplica-
tion to the king at Dalkeith to see if it would be agreeable to
him, but the king having glanced at it, returned it to the earl,
saying, sharply, “No more of this, my lord, I command you.”
There was no more of it—the petition was suppressed. But
* Kirkton’s History, p. 29.
* Row's History, p. 367. Large Declaration, published in the king's
name, but known to be the production of Dr Balcanduhal, Dean of
Durham, p. 12.
* Row, p. 357.
* Stevenson gives a copy of this document, vol. i. pp. 104-II. Row
also gives it, pp. 376-8I.
* Guthrie's Memoirs, p. 9.
5oo CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
about a year afterwards, when everybody had forgotten all
about it, Lord Balmerino happened to show a copy of it,
which he had lying beside him, to a Dundee writer, who was
visiting at his house. The writer, unknown to Balmerino,
took a copy of it, and showed it to Hay of Naughton; Hay
of Naughton showed it to the Archbishop of St Andrews; the
archbishop sent it to the king ; and, for possessing such a
document, Balmerino was summoned before a criminal court,
indicted on an old statute against leasing; found guilty by a
majority of one ; condemned to death ; and saved from the
scaffold only by the clemency of the king, who probably felt
that his execution would be no better than a murder." The
whole proceedings made a deep impression upon the public
mind. It was another drop added to the cup of bitterness
which was so soon to overflow.
But while we may blame the parliament of 1633 for bolster-
ing up Episcopacy and arbitrary power, we should never forget
that we owe to it the settlement of the vexatious tithe-question
on the footing according to which all stipends are now paid,
and the legal establishment of the parochial school system,
which has conferred such inestimable blessings on the country.
We shall be pardoned for making a short digression on these
tWO matterS.
Soon after the Reformation, the Protestant Church claimed
as her proper inheritance the whole lands and tithes of the
Roman clergy, to be applied to the maintenance of preachers,
the education of the young, and the support of the poor.
This equitable claim was never conceded by a nobility anxious
to appropriate to themselves the wealth of the hierarchy; but
in 1561 it was arranged that the Papal incumbents should be
allowed to retain two-thirds of their benefices for life, and that
the remaining third should be appropriated partly for the
support of the Protestant preachers, and partly to meet the
necessities of an impoverished court. The commissioners
appointed to allocate the stipends of the new ministers proved
niggardly, and the small pittances which they assigned were
so irregularly paid, that the Church, though wielding great
power, was sunk in abject poverty. To rectify this grievance,
often and loudly complained of by the General Assembly, the
Regent Moray in his first parliament gave to the Church the
power of appointing its own collectors of the thirds, made its
claim prior to all others, and declared this was to endure only
* Guthrie's Memoirs, pp. 9, Io. Row, pp. 381-85.
A.D. 1633.] TEINDS AND STIPENDS. 5o I
till the Church should come to its proper patrimony—the
teinds. The finances of the ministers were considerably
improved by this measure; but the Regent Morton, when he
came into power, managed to persuade the Assembly to
resign the collection of the thirds into his hands, with the
promise that he would assign to every minister a sufficient
stipend out of the tithes of his own parish—a thing most
ardently desired; but the ministers soon found that they had
been deceived, that their stipends were not improved, and
that one minister was frequently obliged to take the charge of
four, five, or six parishes, assisted by readers paid at the rate
of fifty or sixty merks. The avarice of Morton had done this,
and it lost him the good-will of the Church, which might have
served him in his hour of need. -
Things remained long in this state : hundreds of parishes
were unprovided with ministers, and hundreds of ministers
were but poorly paid. The Assemblies were continually
grumbling; the king was frequently promising ; scheme of
adjustment after scheme was proposed, but proposed only to
be abandoned. Meantime, the recovery of the Church's patri-
mony was becoming every day more hopeless. The great
majority of the parishes had been gifted in Roman Catholic
times to the bishoprics and abbeys. As the Roman abbots
died out, lay commendators were generally appointed in their
stead, and many of these prevailed upon the king to convert
their titles into heritable rights. After a time, when men's
minds had got so accustomed to plunder that they could do it
without a cloak, the decent form of appointing commendators
was given up, and the king, in virtue of his royal right, and
with reprehensible prodigality, gave large grants of the Church's
revenues to his nobles. These lucky men were styled Lords
of Erection. They generally received their grants under the
burden of the thirds which had been appropriated to the
ministers; but this specific burden was sometimes discharged
On the vague condition that competent stipends should be pro-
vided out of the teinds for the ministers of the parishes out of
which they were drawn, and sometimes on no condition at
all." We have seen how several of the bishoprics were held
by courtiers, who drew their revenues, and employed a sti-
pendiary tulchan to do the work.
In 1587 James VI., in order to replenish an impoverished
exchequer, resolved to annex the lands of all ecclesiastical
* Connel on Tithes, vol. i. p. 182.
5O2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
benefices to the Crown. This act extended only to the lands,
and not to the tithes of the Church : it, moreover, reached
only to the soil still in possession of the Church, and not to
that which had already been gifted to laymen; but as none of
the bishoprics had yet been erected into temporal lordships,
and as many of the abbacies granted during the king's minority
were only given during pleasure, the statute was felt to be very
comprehensive in its sweep. The king afterwards regretted
the passing of this act, as it opposed a barrier to the restora-
tion of bishops, by depriving them of that wealth which be-
comes them so well. Bishops, however, were restored, and the
Parliament House as well as the Church opened its doors for
them; but notwithstanding the efforts and sacrifices of the
king, and the recission of the act of annexation, they were far
from enjoying the ancient opulence of their order.
During all the struggle between Episcopacy and Presbytery,
the ministers continued to be paid out of the thirds of bene-
fices, and their stipends rose or fell according to the disposi-
tions of the modificators. It was 1617 before any important
change was effected. In that year a commission was issued
by parliament for settling ministers’ stipends, founded on a
principle which had been proposed to the General Assembly
in 1596. The act proceeds on the narrative, “That there be
divers kirks within this kingdom not planted with ministers,
on account of which ignorance and atheism abound among the
people ; and that many of those that are planted have no
sufficient provision or maintenance appointed to them, whereby
the ministry are kept in poverty and contempt, and cannot
fruitfully travel in their charges.” A mixed commission of
prelates, nobles, barons, and burgesses was therefore named,
with power “out of the teinds of every parish, to appoint and
assign at their discretion a perpetual local stipend to the minis-
ters present and to come.” By this act the stipend of every
minister was ordained to be paid, not out of a general fund as
before, but out of the tithes of the parish where he laboured ;
the minimum stipend to be assigned was fixed at 5 chalders of
victual, or 500 merks, and the maximum at 8 chalders, or 8oo
merks." This act was felt to be a step toward putting the
stipends of the clergy on a proper footing.
* We have here a proof of how rapidly money had depreciated in Scot-
land. In 1560 the value of 5 chalders of victual was only about IOo
merks; in 1617 it is 500. It is a symptom of the rapid improvement
which had begun and was going on. At present the average value of 5
chalders of victual is upwards of I5OO merks.
A.D. 1633.] DEED OF REVOCATION. 5O3
Things continued in this state till Charles I. came to the
throne in 1625. He found that, by the thoughtless prodigality
of his father, almost the entire Church property of Scotland
had been gifted away, and resolved to execute a revocation of
all such grants, which he did in the very first year of his reign.
Almost every noble family in Scotland had some share in the
spoil; many of them had held it beyond the years of prescrip-
tion; some of them if stripped of it would be left almost
naked in the world, and therefore the king's design of wrench-
ing it from them caused universal agitation and alarm, combined
with a determination to resist. Bishop Burnet tells of how at
a meeting with the king's commissioners regarding surrenders,
a blind Lord Belhaven asked to be placed beside the Earl of
Dumfries, whom he held with the one hand, while he secretly
clutched a poinard in the other, that he might make sure of
one man if the surrenders were pressed. To counterbalance
this spirit, Charles attempted to interest the gentry and clergy
in his project, by holding out to the former the right of pur-
chasing and leading their own teinds ; and to the latter, the
prospect of more liberal stipends.
The king subsequently narrowed the wide range of his
revocation, and then ordered a summons of reduction to be
raised, as he conceived that the grants could be reduced upon
legal grounds. Alarmed at this proceeding, a deputation of
the titulars was sent to London, and had a Conference with his
Majesty. In consequence of the agreement then come to, the
king, on the 7th of January 1627, issued a Commission to the
Lord Chancellor, the Lord High Treasurer, the two arch-
bishops, eight bishops, twenty-two nobles, three law lords,
seventeen barons, and ten burgesses, to treat with all who pre-
tended a right to erected benefices for a surrender of these
to the Crown, on such terms as the Commissioners should
suggest. This commission continued its sittings and its
labours during the whole summer of that year; and amongst
other things, decided that all superiorities of erection should
be resigned into his Majesty's hands, his Majesty being left to
determine what composition should be paid for the rent of the
Superiorities; and it was further agreed that this, and the
questions which had arisen in regard to the valuation and sale
of teinds, should be finally adjusted and determined by de-
Creets-arbitral, pronounced by the king, and proccoding upon
submissions by all the parties concerned. Accordingly, in the
course of the year 1628, submissions were given in by the
504 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
Lords of Erection and the landholders, by the bishops and
clergy, by the royal burghs having interest, and, last of all, by
Certain tacksmen and others having right to teinds.
Everything was now ripe for a decision, and accordingly, on
the 2d of September 1629, his Majesty pronounced four
decreets-arbitral, corresponding to the number of submissions.
With regard to the superiorities of Church lands, it was ordained
that Iooo merks Scots should be paid by the Crown for each
Chalder of victual feu-duty, and for each Too merks of money
feu-duty. With regard to teinds, the decreet declares, “that
it is necessary and expedient for the public welfare and peace
of this our ancient kingdom, and for the better providing of
kirks and ministers' stipends and for the establishing of schools
and other pious uses, that each heritor have and enjoy his own
teinds; ” and in order to this, it is provided that all teinds
should be valued and sold to those heritors who should choose
to purchase them. The fifth of the rental of the land was de-
clared to be the value of the teind;' and the price of teinds .
thus valued was fixed at nine years’ purchase—a price which
would be remarkably low now, but which probably was not so
then.” It was farther provided, that in calculating the price
of teinds, heritors were to pay for no more than what should
remain after the ministers' stipends were deducted ; and also
that a certain portion of the rent or price, to be fixed by
commissioners, should be set apart for the king in name of
annuity.
In order to understand this arrangement, it must be remem-
bered that teinds were originally levied out of the yearly pro-
duce of the farm. The parson, or his tacksman, went to the
corn-field in harvest time, and carried off every tenth sheaf as
his own. After the Reformation the lay titulars were found to
be more rigorous in the exaction of tithes than their ecclesias-
tical predecessors, and their exaction was not so patiently borne.
No victual could be taken from the field till it was first teinded ;
and a careless or ill-disposed titular or tacksman might let the
crop rot in the stook before he appeared to claim his right, a
grievance which was sorely felt, and only partially removed by
statutes limiting the time for the removal of the teind. The
1 When the teinds were drawn from the land separately, they were to
be valued by a proof of the teind as drawn; but the fifth of the rental
may be said to have been the general rule. (Connel, vol. i. p. 226.)
2 The Commissioners on Teinds in their report gave instances of land
being sold at that period at nine years’ purchase. Still it is a question
often debated how far the sum fixed was a fair value for the teinds.
A.D. 1633.] VALUATION OF TEINDS. 505
land-owners were now to be enabled to rid themselves of this
annoyance, by buying their own teinds, subject to the payment
of such a stipend as should be granted to the minister.
The parliament of 1633 gave its sanction to these proceed-
ings, and they became law. Sub-commissioners were soon at
work in every presbytery over the country, and a considerable
proportion of the teinds valued ; but, strange to say, it was
long before many of the proprietors availed themselves of the
right to purchase. The minister of religion required no
longer to haunt the harvest-field, and perhaps quarrel with
the farmer about his teinding ; nor to peep into the sheepcots,
lest he should be cheated of his proportion of the lambs and
the wool: the fifth part of the rental of the land was declared
to be the value of the teind, and so much of this was assigned
to the minister as the commissioners of teinds thought good.
The arrangement was in many respects a wise one, but now
circumstances have so outgrown it that it leads to gross in-
justices. In many cases the fifth part of the value of land
then is not the fiftieth part now. Moreover, as a rule, the
great landowners got their lands valued at any price they chose
to put on them, whereas the “bonnet lairds,” unable to afford
the expense, took no steps to have a valuation put on their
small holdings; and the result now is, that the bonnet laird
frequently pays stipend according to the present valuation of
his land, while his great neighbour pays according to the
valuation of two hundred and sixty years ago. In this way,
ten acres sometimes pay more than a thousand ; the poor
man is plundered, while the rich man escapes; and a burden
which, if equally distributed, would be light as a feather, falls
upon some with a crushing load.
By these measures the king no doubt wished to benefit the
clergy, and he in fact anticipated the commutation of tithes
which took place in England and Ireland two centuries later.
But the arrangement, though meant to be beneficial for the
Church, was not hailed with universal satisfaction. Many of
the nobles surrendered their teinds with a grudge. It is said
to have so embittered the minds of some as to have led them
to take part in the troubles which followed, and that the deed
of revocation was the root of the rebellion." It is very pro-
bable that this is partly true, and we need not wonder at it.
* The king expressly affirms this in his Large Declaration, pp. 6-10 ;
and Sir John Connel has an interesting note at p. 216 of his Treatise,
referring to the same subject.
506 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. xvi.
It would be the same now if those nobles who still hold
ecclesiastical plunder were asked to surrender; it would make
loyal men disloyal, peaceful men turbulent, it would almost
make sane men mad. We should rather blame the profuse-
ness which gifted the property, than the tenacity which was
unwilling to render it back again. That such passions should
mingle in the strife we need not wonder ; for the purest gold
has ever an admixture of alloy, and the holiest of causes has
frequently its sinful partisans.
We venture to make another digression in regard to the
Origin of our school system, as it was the parliament of 1633
which first propped it up and strengthened it by statute. In
Roman Catholic times, the means of education in Scotland
were very scanty. The Universities of St Andrews, Glasgow,
and Aberdeen had been established, grammar schools existed
in some of the principal towns, and the convents were less or
more nurseries of learning, but no provision had as yet been
made for educating the bulk of the people. James IV. com-
pelled all barons and freeholders to send their eldest sons to
School, to be instructed in law, Latin, and the arts; ' but it is
Certain that even such humble acquirements as reading and
writing were rare among the masses. There is a shade of
Suspicion that some of the clergy could not correctly read,
and much less write, though, as a body, they were undoubtedly
the best educated class of the community.” The Reformers
showed their anxiety to extend education, by making that one
of the great objects to which they proposed the property of
the Church should be consecrated. In the “First Book of
Discipline * it was proposed that every church should have a
School attached to it; that every notable town should have a
College ; and that the existing universities should be liberally
endowed. The greed of the nobles prevented the scheme
from being carried into effect, and with them rests the sin and
* James IV., parl. v. chap. liv.
* In the Records of the Kirk-session of St Andrews, which are coeval
with the tReformation, we have the recantation of a great number of
monks and others. Of the signatures attached to these recantations
Some are specially marked propria manza, which gives rise to the sus-
picion that the other names were written by deputy. See Maitland
Miscellany, vol. ii. One of the proclamations of the Lords of the Con-
gregation regarding the use of the Prayer-Book of Edward VI., uses
language which makes us marvel if it were possible there might be clerics
who could not even read : they speak of those not qualified to read the
common prayers. The canons of the Council of I559, already quoted,
confirm the suspicion.
A.D. 1633.] ANCIENT CRAMMAR SCHOOLS. 507
the shame of keeping Scotland for many years longer in gross
ignorance.
The grammar schools, which had been founded in papal
days, still remained, and gave a good education to the upper
classes; the universities struggled on amid many difficulties;
but the readers seem to have been the only educators of the
rural districts. These humble but useful men read the ap-
pointed lessons and prayers in the church upon the Sunday ;
during the week, they instructed the children of the peasantry
in the Catechism and the Bible ; and thus picked up such a
livelihood as they could. They are the first parents of our
parish schoolmasters. In the “Diary” of James Melville, we
have some most interesting notices of the school of Montrose,
in which he was a scholar six years after the Reformation.
“There,” says he, “was a guid nomber of gentle and honest
men’s berns," of the countrey about, weill treaned” upe, bathe
in letters, godliness, and exerceise of honest geams.” There
we lerned to reid the Catechisme, Prayers, and Scripture ; to
rehers the Catechisme and Prayers żar casur; also nottes of
Scripture, efter the reiding therof.” . . . “We lerned
there the ‘rudiments of the Latin grammair,’ with the
vocables in Latin and Frenche ; also divers speitches in
Frenche, with the reiding and right pronunciation of that
toung. We proceidit fordar to the “Etymologie’ of Lilius and
his ‘Syntax,’ as also a little of the “Syntax” of Linacer; there-
with was joyned Hunters ‘Nomenclatura, the ‘Minora Collo-
quia” of Erasmus, and sum of the ‘Eclogs’ of Virgill and
‘Epistles’ of Horace; also Cicero, his ‘Epistles ad Terentiam.’”
It would thus appear that boys had their “rudiments” to learn,
and their “Virgils” and “Ciceros” to read, then as now ; no
advance whatever has been made in grammar School educa-
tion in these three hundred years. But it is refreshing to know
that they had their play too. “Ther also,” continues Melville,
“we haid the aire guid, and fields reasonable fear;4 and be our
maister war teached to handle the bow for archerie, the glub
for goff, the batons for fencing ; also to rin, to loop, to Swoum,
to warsell,” to prove pratteiks, everie ane haiffing" his matche
and andagoniste bathe in our lessons and play. A happie and
a golden tyme !” says the good man, as the dream of his
school-boy days rose up before him."
* Bairns, children. * Well trained. * Games.
4 Fair. * To run, leap, swim, wrestle. * Having.
7 Melville's Diary, p. 14.
508 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
It would appear that music had been much cultivated up to
this period, though now it was beginning to fall into neglect;
but still there were many “sang schoolis” scattered over the
country. That the first reformers were anxious to encourage
sacred music is evident from the fact that the first editions of
the Scottish Liturgy have the Psalm-tunes then sung attached
to the Psalms, and curiously reversed, on the opposite pages,
so that two persons standing opposite to each other might
sing from the same book. In the year 1579, King James had
an act passed for instructing the youth in the art of singing
and music, “quhilk is like to fall in great decay, without timous
remeid be provided.” “Our sovereign lord, therefore, with
advice of his Three Estates of this present parliament, requests
the provosts, bailies, councils, and communities of the most
special burghs of the realm, and the patrons and provosts of
the colleges where “sang schools' are founded, to erect and set
up a sang school, with a master sufficient and able for the in-
struction of the youth in the said science of music, as they
will answer to his Highness upon the peril of their foun-
dations.” + About the same date, we have, in the “Burgh
Records of Glasgow,” an entry for the rent of a room used as
a “sang school;”” and in other documents of that time, we
have several scattered notices of a similar kind.
James Melville was something of a musician, and tells us
that he acquired his knowledge of it at St Andrews from a
man who had been trained up among the monks in the
abbey; that he learned from him the gammot, plain Song
and treble of the Psalms; that he loved singing and playing
on instruments passing well; that he delighted to be present
at the performances in the college; that some of his fellow-
students played “fell weell” on the virginals, and others on
the lute and githorn; and that the regent had a spinet in his
room, to which he sometimes resorted, and played an accom-
paniment.” It was the Church that had fostered this pleasing
art; and the daily cathedral service, the solemn chanting of
the monks in their conventual buildings, and the way in which
the Roman ritual had so beautifully blended music with almost
every act of religious worship, diffused a love of it among the
| James VI., parl. vi. chap. xcviii.
* Burgh Records of Glasgow, published in the Appendix to Papers
Illustrative of Queen Mary and King James, Maitland Club. “I 578. --
For male of ane chalmer to be ane sang Schole.”
* Diary, p. 23.
A.D. 1633.] PARISH SCHOOLS. 509
people. It is probable that some of those touchingly simple
Scottish airs, of unknown antiquity, which give such perfect
utterance to the finest feelings of the Scottish heart, may first
have been sung by young men and maidens who learned from
monks the concord of Sweet sounds. After the Reformation
music decayed, though it had still its votaries, as it will have
in all ages. ‘.
When we reach the beginning of the seventeenth century,
we find that the Presbyterian clergy had done much for the
establishment of Schools, considering that they were without
the means of endowing them. Thus, it appears from the
report of a visitation of a number of parishes in the Diocese
of St Andrews, in the years 161 I and 1613, that considerably
more than one-half of these were blessed with schools.
The parliament had confided to the Church the superin-
tendence of schools, though it had denied it the means of
endowing them ; and, in the records of the Church Courts,
there is evidence that the duty was not neglected. At the
visitation of parishes by the presbyteries and provincial Synods,
the state of education was inquired into ; the qualifications of
the teachers were tried; and where there was no school, steps
were sometimes taken for establishing one. The presbytery
did not hesitate to tax every plough of land for the support of
the schoolmaster. The kirk-session of Anstruther-Wester
went farther, and made an order for every child in the town
to attend school: if the rich refused, they were to be called
before the session ; if the poor refused, they were to be denied
any charity. It was still further considerately provided, that
the children of the poor were to be educated at the expense
of the town, and that three hours every day were to be allowed
them to go about and beg for their food—a circumstance
which reminds us of the schoolboy days of Martin Luther."
At length in 1616 the Privy Council put forth its authority
to confer upon the country the blessing of education, and by
an act declared, “That in every parish in this kingdom, where
convenient means may be had for entertaining a school, a
school shall be established, and a fit person appointed to
teach the same, upon the expense of the parishioners, accord-
ing to the quality and quantity of the parish ; ” that this was
to be done at the sight and by the advice of the bishops; and,
accordingly, “that they and every one of them deal and travel
with the parishioners of the particular parishes within their
* Appendix to Dr M'Crie's Life of Melville.
5 Io CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
particular dioceses, to condescend and agree upon some
certain, solid, and sure course how and by what means the
said school might be entertained.”
The act of the Council does not seem to have been rigo-
rously followed up by the bishops; for ten years afterwards
a proclamation was made, ordering all ministers, with the
assistance of two or three of their most intelligent parish-
ioners, to report as to the state of their parishes;" and from
the returns which have been preserved, and are now pub.
lished by the Maitland Club, the condition of education
appears in a worse light than in the documents to which we
have already referred. The great majority of the parishes are
reported as having no school. In many cases “the most
intelligent parishioners” chosen to assist the minister in making
his report were unable to sign their names ; and of one parish
the significant report is—“There is ane greit necissatie for ane
skule, for not ane of the paroche can reid nor wryt except the
minister.”” Such is the dark picture of the state of education
in Scotland little more than two hundred years ago; but the
parliament of 1633 ratified the Act of Council of 1616; the
clergy followed it up ; Schools began to be built and endowed,
and the people to grow in intelligence; but it was not till after
the Revolution of 1688 that the proprietors of every parish
were compelled to furnish the means of education to every
child. -
Having thus wandered twice from the straight path of our
history, we must now return to it. -
The excitement caused by the visit of the king, and the
meeting of the parliament, had long ago subsided; Lord
Balmerino had been tried, condemned, reprieved, and the
public sympathy had accordingly abated. There was still
the deep grudge in the minds of many of the nobles at being
compelled to surrender their teinds, and a degree of irrita-
tion kept up among the Presbyterian ministers by the pro-
ceedings of the Court of Commission, but the country was
marvellously quiet. During the year 1634, several of the
bishops were made Judges in the Court of Exchequer, and
Privy Councillors; at the same time many of the inferior
clergy received commissions to act with the gentry as justices
of the peace; and, upon the death of the Earl of Kinnoull,
1 This is noticed by Row in his History, p. 343.
* Reports of the State of certain Parishes in Scotland, 1627, Maitland
Club.
A.D. 1635.] SCOTTISH LITURGY. 5 II
in the beginning of 1635, the Archbishop of St Andrews was
raised to the high office of Chancellor of the Kingdom *—a
dignity which had very generally been held by ecclesiastics in
Roman Catholic times, but which, since the Reformation, had
been always held and eagerly coveted by the greatest nobles.
These haughty peers had, for the last seventy years, been
accustomed to look down upon the ministers of religion as a
race of men very inferior to themselves, and now they could
ill brook to see them placed by their side, or even over their
head. In the meantime, however, they were obliged to bear the
affront with what patience they could. -
We now approach the most exciting period of Scotch
history. Long ago, James VI., in his burning desire to have
uniformity of worship throughout the kingdom, had resolved
to introduce into Scotland the Anglican Liturgy, or one like
unto it. At his royal request, the Assembly of 1617 had
agreed that a liturgy should be prepared ; but he afterwards
found that he had quite enough to do in compelling obedience
to the Articles of Perth, and the liturgy was allowed to drop.
Charles, however, inherited his father's resolve to have religious
uniformity, and when he came to Scotland, the question of the
liturgy was revived. It was understood that Laud had accom-
panied him for the special purpose of helping him in the work.
When the matter was talked over with the bishops and Angli-
cising clergy, some urged the introduction of the Anglican
liturgic forms while the king was in the country, but Charles
does not seem to have thought that the fulness of the time was
come, and so the Church was allowed to enjoy its own ritual
a little longer. One of the reasons for delay was this. It was
stated that Scotland was sensitively afraid of sinking into a
mere English province ; that the imposition of the English
liturgy would give strength to this feeling; and that it would
be more flattering to the national vanity to have a liturgy of
native growth. In compliance with these views, a commission
was given to the Scotch bishops to prepare a liturgy as near as
might be to the Anglican one.”
It has too often been supposed that Scotland at this period
had no liturgy of her own, and that the Scottish clergy and
people were opposed to all liturgical forms whatever. This is
a mistake. Scotland had never been without a “Book of
Common Prayer.” Even before the Reformation was estab-
* Row, Balfour, Guthrie. -
* Clarendon’s History, vol. i. pp. 65, 66.
5 I2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. xv.I.
lished by law, the “Service Book” of Edward VI. was used in
many of the parishes where Reformation principles prevailed.
After Protestantism became the creed of the nation, the
“Book of Common Order,” prepared by Knox for the English
congregation at Geneva, came into use, was sanctioned by
several Assemblies, and continued the authorised form of
worship up to the time we speak of. In 1601 the Assembly
of Burntisland showed its veneration for the prayers by refus-
ing to allow them to be altered. In 1605 Robert Bruce, the
exile from Edinburgh for his high Presbyterianism, was accus-
tomed to read them every other night to the little flock which
had gathered around him at Inverness." The Assembly
of 1616 appointed a committee to revise the Prayer Book and
bring it into harmony with royal and Episcopal views.” In
162o Scrymgeour, when summoned before the Court of High
Commission for not observing the Articles of Perth, pleaded
that there was “no warrantable form directed or approven by
the Kirk, besides that which is extant in print, before the
Psalm Book (Knox's liturgy), according to which,” said he “as
I have always done, so now I minister the sacrament.” ” On
the very day on which the riot took place on account of the
introduction of the new liturgy, the lessons from the old
liturgy had already been read in the Church of St Gile's ;4 and
Bishop Sage affirms that there were many old people alive
even in his day, who remembered to have seen it used after the
civil wars, both by Prelatists and Presbyterians.” It was not
till the Westminster Assembly met, and the “Directory for
Public Worship ’’ was adopted, that the Church of Scotland
discarded a liturgy, and even then it was never formally repu-
diated or repealed ; it was quietly allowed to drop into disuse."
But as many clergymen do not follow the “Directory for
Public Worship ’’ now, it is probable that many did not follow
the Genevese forms in the beginning of the seventeenth
century. The rubric gave ministers the liberty of deviating
* Calderwood’s History, vol. vi. pp. 291, 292.
* There is a MS. Liturgy in the British Museum, which Mr Burton sup-
poses to be identical with the one which emanated from that committee.
History, vol. vi.
3 Calderwood’s History, vol. vii. p. 421.
4 Row's History, p. 408.
* Sage's Charter of Presbytery, p. 352.
6 Wodrow, in his Correspondence, mentions that Calderwood recom-
mended that the Assembly should not discard the liturgy, but allow it to
fall into disuse. There is no act of Assembly repudiating it.
A.D. 1636.] BOOK OF CANONS. 5 I 3
from the set forms; and as extemporaneous prayer was becom-
ing more and more prized, it is likely that the rubrical license
was largely taken advantage of. It is impossible to determine
how far the “Common Order ’’ was attended to, and how far
it was set aside ; but it is probable it was used by all the
readers and a majority of the ministers, while by others it was
either entirely repudiated, or at most very slightingly observed.
In the year 1636, the “Canons and Constitutions Ecclesi-
astical for the Government of the Church of Scotland ”
appeared." They were published by authority, and an instru-
ment was issued under the Great Seal, in which it was declared
that his Majesty ratified the said Canons and Constitutions,
and commanded all invested with ecclesiastical authority to see
them observed. In a short time copies of the book were in
the hands of most of the ministers, and loud murmurs began
to be heard, that rules so subversive of their discipline, so re-
pugnant to their belief, should be imposed upon them by the
king alone, without the interposition of any ecclesiastical court.
It was, indeed, pretended that the Canons were but an epitome
of the acts of the Assembly;” but this was a mockery: it can
scarcely be called a delusion and a snare, for no person could
be deceived by it, so unlike were the one to the other. It was
the decalogue with the negative struck out ; the creed with a
negative put in. A font for baptism was to be provided, and
placed near the door of the church, as in Papal times; a table
for the administration of the eucharist was to be placed in the
upper end of the chancel, and covered with an embroidered
cloth, except when the sacrament was to be dispensed ; the
consecrated elements were to be carefully handled, and what
remained was to be eaten by the poor before leaving the
church; all private religious meetings were forbidden, as un-
lawful conventicles; assemblies, synods, presbyteries, kirk-
Sessions, and elders were ignored, and the parish alms were to
* “Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical ; gathered and put in forme
for the Government of the Church of Scotland. Ratified and approved by
his Majesty's Royall Warrand, and ordained to be observed by the Clergie,
and all others whom they may concern. Published by authoritie. Aber-
dene. Imprinted by Edward Raban, dwelling upon the Market Place at
the Arms of the Citie. 1636. With Royall Priviledge.”
* The way had been paved for this high stretch of royal prerogative by
an Act of the Assembly of 1616 to form a collection of “Ecclesiastical
Canons, drawn ſoilli oſtlie Books of the former Assemblies, and where.
the same is defective, to supply it by Canons of Councils and Ecclesi-
astical Conventions in former times.” Scott's Apologetic Narration, p.
243.
VOL. I. 2 K
5 I4 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
be distributed by six respectable men; ordinations were to
take place only at the four sacred seasons, the two solstices
and the two equinoxes; the preaching deacon was to be intro-
duced, an office hitherto unknown in the Church; no presby-
ter was to reveal anything told him in confession, unless it
endangered his life ; no presbyter was to be security for any
one in pecuniary matters; no court was to be held, or excom-
munication pronounced, or absolution given, without the con-
sent of the bishop ; every ecclesiastical person dying without
children was to leave his estate to pious uses; those who had
children were to leave something, to show their affection to the
Church ; every parish was to provide for itself a Bible of King
James' version and a prayer book; and every clergyman must
use this Service Book, and refrain from extemporaneous prayer,
as he would avoid deprivation.
The “Book of Canons” was followed by the “Book of
Common Prayer.” This famous liturgy, now generally known
as “Laud's Liturgy,” is supposed to have been prepared by
Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, and Wedderburn, Bishop of Dun-
blane, and then submitted to the Archbishop of Canterbury
for revisal. It is a copy of the English Book of Common
Prayer, with a few alterations, which increase its similitude to
the Roman missal. Some of these were introduced by the
Scotch bishops, but the most offensive ones were the handi-
work of Laud." All things being thus ready, proclamation
was made at the market-cross of every burgh, charging all
men, under pain of horning, to conform themselves to the new
form of worship, commanding all bishops and presbyters to
see that this was observed, and that every parish procured for
its use at least two copies of the Prayer-Book.”
The whole country was instantly in a ferment. The people
had bowed their necks and sacrificed their feelings more than
once to the royal prerogative, but they would do it no more.
They declared that the king had no right to impose a liturgy
* Stevenson, vol. i. p. 154. Kirkton says that he saw the original, with
the corrections in the handwriting of Laud, and that they were all toward
Popery, bringing the Prayer-Book as near to the Missal as English could
be to Latin. (History, p. 30). Mr Burton discusses at great length,
and with much learning, the respective parts which these prelates had in
the book. Laud, when in trouble, protested that he wished the Scots
simply to accept the English Prayer-Book, but that national jealousy pre-
vented this, and hence the changes. (See Burton's History, vol. vi.)
* Balfour's Annals, vol. ii. pp. 224, 225. Stevenson’s History, vol. i.
pp. 173, 174. A copy of the charge prefaced the book.
A.D. 1637.] BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 5 I5
upon the nation without the consent of the parliament, with-
out the consent of the Assembly of the Church. They de-
clared that the Service-Book was Popish—that it taught bap-
tismal regeneration, transubstantiation, the oblation of the
consecrated elements, and was little better than a mass-
book. 1
It is probable that a large proportion of the clergy would
have accepted the Service-Book. Episcopacy had now existed
for more than thirty years. Almost all the existing incum-
bents had grown up under its shadow—they had received
their ordination from Episcopal hands ; they had vowed
obedience to Episcopal authority, and must have been inocu-
lated, less or more, with Episcopal notions. But the laity
almost as one man cried out against the book.” All ranks
were agreed in this. Letters from noblemen of the highest
standing poured in upon the Lords of the Privy Council,
warning them to beware of what they did ; and the murmurs
of the yeomen and burghers were loud enough to be heard and
understood.
It had been proposed that the Service-Book
should begin to be used at Easter 1637; but
such was the state of the nation that the Privy Council took
alarm, and wished for delay. The bench of bishops was
divided. The older bishops, with Spottiswood at their head
—a man wary, wise in his generation, and mindful of the
Perth Assembly—were for putting off the evil day; the younger
bishops, anxious to ingratiate themselves with Laud, and igno-
rant of the temper of the people, saw nothing to dread, and
were for instant obedience. Easter passed, and in only two
or three churches was the liturgy read. The Bishops of Ross,
Dunblane, and Brechin led the van. Some ministers had
thoughts of beginning to read the liturgy with closed doors.”
A.D. 1637.
* That these were the chief arguments used against the Prayer-Book is
abundantly plain from the tenor of the numerous petitions and complaints
against it, and also from Row's long argument on the subject. (History,
pp. 398-406.) The chief complaints were that it was Popish, and that it
was unwarrantably brought in. - -
*Stevenson (vol. i. p. 169) expressly allows this ; and the same thing is
made more apparent by the fact that only one of the Edinburgh ministers
at first refused to read the liturgy. This was Ramsay. He was after-
wards joined by Rollock, neither of whom read the order respecting the use
of the Prayer-Book. (See Stevenson, vol. i. p. 181.) The extreme
anxiety of the king to exclude as much as possible lay influence from the
Assembly of 1638 is another proof of the same fact.
* Lord Rothes’ Relation, pp. 3, 4.
5 I 6 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
The summer wore on, and still nothing was done. At length
the fears of Spottiswood were overcome by some motive not
very well understood : some say it was a selfish one ; others
say it was pure infatuation," for the pulse of the nation now
indicated a state of excitement bordering upon madness; yet
he not only give way, but obtained a positive order from court
to begin the use of the liturgy without delay.
On Sunday, the 16th of July, the ministers of Edinburgh
were required to read the order respecting the introduction of
the Prayer-Book on the succeeding Sunday. Some refused to
do it; some would not do it themselves, but left it to their
readers to do. Some read it in such a way as to show it was
an unwelcome task; some not only read it, but took the oppor-
tunity of extolling the liturgy, which in future was to be the
guide of their devotions.” The people in general heard the
intimation with respectful silence ; there was not the slightest
disturbance in any of the churches. -
Sunday, the 23d of July, came. At the morning service, in
the Middle Church of St Gile's, the prayers from the Book of
Common Order were read as usual by the reader. At the
forenoon service a larger congregation than usual assembled,
but it had not the quiet aspect of an assembly met for religious
worship ; there was a restless excitement in every eye. The
Archbishop of St Andrews was present to grace the occasion ;
and it was known that Lindsay, the Bishop of Edinburgh, was
to preach. About ten o’clock the dean, arrayed in a white
surplice, entered the reading-desk, and began to read the ser-
vice for the day from the new Prayer-Book. Instantly a con-
fused murmur crept over the congregation ; gradually the
sound became more articulate ; the people got to their feet,
and the whole church was a scene of uproar and confusion.
The voices of the women were loudest. Some cried, “Woe
woe l’’ others, “Sorrow ! sorrow ! for this doleful day that
they are bringing in Popery amongst us !” The bishop went
to the pulpit to appease the people, but it was in vain ; he
could not be heard. The uproar became worse, and an old
woman threw the stool upon which she sat at the head of the
dean. Another cried, “Will ye say mass at my lug P” The
magistrates now interfered, and with some difficulty managed
to clear the church of the rioters, and the service was con-
tinued with closed doors. But the crowd still remained out-
* Stevenson, vol. i. pp. 179, 18O. Guthrie, p. 18.
* Row's History, p. 408.
A.D. 1637.] TUMULT IN ST GILE'S. 5 I 7
side. They knocked at the doors, they threw stones in at the
windows, they shouted “Popery, Popery !” and called the
bishops by every opprobrious name. When the bishop came
out of the church, he was hooted and hustled by the rabble,
and only rescued from their hands by the servants of the Earl
of Wemyss. In the afternoon the service was again attempted,
but on this occasion the magistrates had stationed themselves
at the doors, and allowed none to enter but such as were
likely to be quiet. But the crowd were still prowling about
the street in a humour for mischief; and when the bishop
came out of the church and got into the coach of the Earl of
Roxburgh to be driven to the abbey, he was followed by the
mob in full cry. The Tron Church was then building, and
supplied abundant material for pelting the obnoxious prelate,
who escaped only by the speed of the earl’s horses, and the
drawn swords of his footmen."
A similar scene, though not quite so violent, had occurred
at the Greyfriars, where the Bishop Elect of Argyll officiated.
It is certain that these riots were confined to the lowest
orders of the populace, and, singularly enough, chiefly to the
women. The magistrates of Edinburgh declared this, after
making inquiry, and almost all historians say the same thing.
It is also certain, however, that the upper and middle
classes sympathised with them, and were at that very moment
forming their plans for obtaining the same object, though by
more constitutional means ; but there is no reason to think
that they had hounded on the mob to do as they did.” It
was not necessary. Such outbursts of popular fury generally
originate with the rabble, who cannot understand the pro-
priety of petitioning, and instinctively resort to violence.
The lowest classes in the State approximate nearest to that
condition of society where might is the only vindicator of
right. The court and Episcopal party of course cried out
* I have drawn this description from the accounts given in the Large De-
claration, pp. 23-26; Guthrie's Memoirs, p. 20 ; Row's History, pp. 408,
409; Baillie's Letters and Journal, p. 18; Crawford's Lives, p. 181 ;
Clarendon’s History, pp. 87, 88; Gordon's History, &c. The collect for
the day (the seventh Sunday after Trinity) is, “Lord of all power and
might, who art the author and giver of all good things, graft in our hearts
the love of Thy name, increase in us true religion, nourish us with all
goodness, and of Thy great mercy keep us in the same, through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Allieu.”
* Guthrie alone (p. 23) affirms that Alexander Henderson, David Dick-
son, Lord Balmerino, and the Lord Advocate, concocted the whole affair
with some Edinburgh matrons.
518 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. xvi.
against the sacrilege which had been committed—the dese-
cration of God’s house and God’s service ; and even some of
the more moderate Presbyterians regretted that things had
taken such a turn ; but Dr Cook’s apology is a good One—
the people were really “contributing,” says he, “to purify
those temples which apparently they profaned.”"
The bishops instantly sent to London an account of what
had happened. Lord Clarendon contemptuously declares
that, up to the time when this despatch arrived, “there was
so little curiosity either in the court or the country to
know anything of Scotland, or what was done there, that
when the whole nation was solicitous to know what passed
weekly in Germany and Poland, and all other parts of
Europe, no man ever inquired what was doing in Scotland,
nor had that kingdom a place or mention in one page of any
gazette.”? This obscure corner of the empire was now
destined to rise into notice, and to make the courtiers of St
James's know that there was a nation existing north of the
Tweed. Upon the 3oth of July, Charles wrote to the Privy
Council, instructing them to use their best endeavours to dis-
Cover the rioters, and to give their help to the clergy in estab-
lishing the use of the liturgy.”
The Privy Council had at first resolved to persevere in the
use of the Prayer-Book, and in this they were seconded by
the magistrates of Edinburgh ; and by tuck of drum the
people were enjoined to quietness.” But they would not be
quiet, and the whole country continued in such an excited
state, that the Council resolved to discontinue the use of the
obnoxious liturgy till the king's pleasure was known ; and
that the people might not be deprived altogether of religious
ordinances, it was agreed that sermons should be preached
and prayers offered at the usual times, but that neither the
old nor the new Service-Books should be employed.” The
week-day meetings, however, were discontinued, at which the
reader was accustomed to read the appointed prayers, so that
Baillie declares Edinburgh looked like a town placed under
an ecclesiastical interdict.” The king disliked the old Prayer-
Book, the people disliked the new, and the consequence of
1 History, vol. ii. * History of the Rebellion, p. 88.
* Privy Council Record, 4th August 1637. Peterkin's Records of the
Church of Scotland, p. 52.
* Privy Council Record, 28th July 1637. Peterkin, pp. 51, 52.
* Privy Council Record, 29th July 1637. Peterkin, p. 52.
* Letters and Journals. -
A.D. 1637.] ALEXANDER HENT).ERSON. 5 IQ
the quarrel has been to deprive Scotland of a Prayer-Book
altogether. -
On the 13th of July, proceedings had been commenced
against ALEXANDER HENDERSON, minister of Leuchars, and
several other clergymen, for not having given obedience to
the Privy Council's proclamation in regard to the liturgy.
On the 20th of August they presented bills of suspension, on
the ground that the recent innovations were illegal, being
sanctioned neither by the parliament nor the General
Assembly. It was difficult for the Council to answer such
an argument, without making statements subversive of the
constitution of the kingdom ; and therefore, avoiding the
general question, they simply found that their proclamation
extended only to the purchase of the Prayer-Book, and no
farther.” It was compulsory, they said, to buy the book,
but not to use it. At the same time they wrote to the king
that matters had now come to such a pass, that they were
unwilling to do anything without his express commands;”
and delayed any farther answer to the petitions which had
been presented to them till the 20th of September, by which
time it was hoped that the king's pleasure would be known.
Cowardice was not among the faults of the king, and there-
fore he did not hesitate as to the course he should pursue.
With the advice of Laud, he wrote a sharp letter to the
Scottish Council, rebuking them for having suspended for a
day the use of the service, and commanding them instantly to
resume it.” This royal resolution became known before the
Council met, and the four or five ministers who had hitherto
borne the brunt of the battle were instantly joined by twenty-
four nobles, a multitude of the gentry, sixty-six commission-
ers from towns and parishes, and nearly one hundred of the
clergy, who, on the 20th of September, marched in a body
to the council-house, to present the petitions against the
liturgy which had been poured in from every part of the
kingdom.* The Council was in a strait betwixt the impera-
tive commands of the king and the threatening aspect of the
people ; but popular clamour prevailed against despotic
power, and they determined still to let the liturgy alone.
They delayed giving any answer to the petitions they had
* Balfour’s Annals, vol. ii. pp. 227-29. Peterkin, p. 53. , , ” Ibid.
* Letter, King to the Privy Council, Ioth Sept. 1637. Balfour, vol. ii.
pp. 232, 233. . Peterkin, p. 54.
* Peterkin, Introduction, p. 7.
52O CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. . [CHAP. XVI.
received till the 20th of October, and commissioned the Duke
of Lennox, who was about to start for England, to lay the true
state of matters before the king."
In the meantime the country was actively canvassed, and
petitions were getting ready from almost every town and
district ; and towards the 17th of October, when it was
expected the king's answer would be known, crowds of people
from the provinces came pouring into the metropolis. The
important day came, and almost the first thing the expectant
multitude heard was a proclamation at the market-cross, dis-
solving the Council in so far as it was called for ecclesiastical
affairs; ordering all strangers to return to their homes within
twenty-four hours, under pain of horning; removing the courts
of justice from the capital ; and condemning a book which
had got into circulation, and was said to be poisoning the
minds of the people in regard to the ceremonies of the Angli-
can Church.”
The populace were violently incensed by these proclama-
tions, and proceeded to the commission of outrages which
makes Baillie declare that they appeared to be possessed of
a bloody devil.” A mob, in which the women were con-
spicuous, beset the Bishop of Galloway on the street, and
would have probably torn him limb from limb had he not
been rescued by some of his friends, and carried into the
Council-house. But the rioters were not disposed to regard
the Council-house as a sanctuary. They remained without,
and with hootings and howlings demanded that Sydserf and
other obnoxious lords should be delivered to them. The
Council finding themselves thus besieged by an enraged
mob, and feeling, no doubt, as if surrounded by a pack of
wolves, scenting at every crevice and seeking for an entrance,
despatched a messenger to the magistrates, begging them to
come to their help. The messenger found the magistrates
in the same evil plight as the Council, and in no condition
to render assistance. A section of the mob had taken up
their station before their place of meeting ; some of them
had forced their way into the lobbies and rooms, and threat-
ened that unless the provost and bailies joined the city in
Opposing the Service-Book, they would burn the house about
* Balfour, vol. ii. pp. 233-35. Peterkin, pp. 54, 55. g
* Guthrie's Memoirs, p. 24. The proclamations are given in the Large
Declaration, pp. 33, 34; also in Peterkin, p. 55.
* Letters and Journals, vol. i. p. Io.
A.D. 1637.] MOBBING AND RIOTING. 52 I
their ears. When this was reported to the Privy Council, the
Lord Treasurer and the Earl of Wigton, accompanied by
their followers, courageously forced their way through the
crowd to the town-house. They found the bailies in great
perplexity, but after consultation it was resolved that Traquair
and Wigton should return to the council-house, and that the
magistrates should do what they could to disperse the crowd ;
and as the first step to this, they made it known that they had
acceded to the requests of the people, and would join them
in their petitions.
It was thought that this concession had so appeased the
mob that the Lord Treasurer and his companions might now
return in safety, but they no sooner appeared in the street than
they were assailed by horrible cries. The magistrates came
out, and told the people they had granted all that they
asked, but to no purpose ; the lords assured them that they
would urge their request upon the king, but this was only
mocked at ; a rush was made, and the Lord Treasurer was
thrown upon the ground, his hat, cloak, and white staff of office
were pulled from him, and in all probability he would have
been trodden to death had not some of his friends got him in-
stantly to his feet, and then by the sway and pressure of the
crowd he was half carried to the council-house door, where he
and his friends immediately got entrance. They found
Bishop Sydserf and the other councillors still in a state of siege,
and trembling for the result. By and by the magistrates joined
them, and declared that with all their efforts they had been
unable to pacify the mob. There was nothing for it but to
send for those nobles who had taken an active part against the
Service-Book, and at their entreaties the crowd dispersed, and
the councillors got home, most thankful that they had escaped
with their lives."
Next day a proclamation was made by the Privy Council,
forbidding the citizens to assemble in the streets;” but the
citizens cared little for a Council whom they had threatened
and insulted with impunity on the preceding day. The town,
however, was quiet, but the agitation went on, and a petition
was presented to the Lord Chancellor, in name of the men,
women, children, and servants of Edinburgh, and another to
the Lords of Secret Council, by the noblemen, barons, minis-
ters, burgesses, and commons of the kingdom, protesting
* Large Declaration, pp. 35-38. Guthrie, pp. 24, 25. Baillie, &c.
* Large Declaration, p. 38.
522 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
against the Service-Book, and demonstrating how wide-spread
was the determination to resist his Majesty's meddling in eccle-
siastical affairs. It is clear from all this that the basis of
Opposition to the king's scheme of ecclesiastical uniformity had
greatly widened. So long as the changes were merely from a
presbyterian to an episcopal polity, the opposition was mainly
clerical ; they did not touch the people. But now when the
changes were in the forms of worship, every one was interested,
and assumed an attitude of dogged defiance. They would not
worship according to the king's commandment. The storm
had been slowly gathering since 1618; but the Articles of Perth
had never been rigidly enforced, and the storm was stayed, but
now when a Popish liturgy was to be forced upon a presby-
terian people, it burst with the fury of a hurricane. We may
see nothing very wrong in most of the Articles of Perth, or in
most parts of the Laudian liturgy, but all the same we must
applaud a people who resented these illegal interferences with
its national religion.
The plans of the malcontents expanded with their power, as
a man's avarice grows with his wealth. Their first thoughts
were confined to the liturgy, but now they began to meditate
the demolition of the Episcopate. Before separating, they re-
solved to meet again at Edinburgh on the 15th of November,
bringing with them petitions and complaints against the
bishops. On the appointed day the city began to fill with
eager Reformers, from every part of the country. The conflu-
ence was greater than ever. The Earls of Rothes, Cassillis,
Eglinton, Home, Lothian, and Wemyss, and the Lords Lind-
say, Yester, Balmerino, Cranstone, and some others, had
already declared themselves on the popular side ; but now,
mingling with the crowd for the first time, was seen the young
Earl of Montrose,” who afterwards changed his side, and
achieved for himself a chivalrous renown by leading the forlorn
hope of the fallen throne.
The multitudes who thronged Edinburgh made the Council
dread lest the outrages of the 18th of October should be re-
newed, and therefore they sent to the nobles who had come to
town a remonstrance against their meetings, as illegal and dis-
orderly. The nobles maintained their right to meet and
petition, but declared the willingness of their party to act by
* It is not quite clear whether these petitions were presented on the 17th
or 18th of October. Copies of them are given in the Large Declaration,
pp. 4I-4. See also Peterkin, p. 56. * Guthrie's Memoirs, p. 27.
A.D. 1637.] THE TABLES. 523
commissioners, and so prevent the possibility of disturbance
from crowds of people being brought together." The Council
gave its sanction to the proposal, and thus unwittingly lent its
aid to the establishment of a power in the State which very
speedily superseded its own. Four permanent committees
were accordingly appointed : the first consisted of all the
nobles who had joined the cause ; the second, of a gentleman
for every county; the third, of a minister for every presbytery;
and the fourth, of a burgher for every town. These commit-
tees sat at four different tables in the parliament-house, and
were therefore called THE TABLES. Four representatives from
each formed a central committee, which sat constantly in the
capital, while the others only met upon grave emergencies.”
These Tables were at first designed only to take charge of
the petitions of the masses, and urge them upon the govern-
ment; but they soon felt themselves so strong, from their
representing and centralizing the feeling of the country, that
they began not merely to form plans for the government of
their party, but to issue mandates, which were universally re-
spected and obeyed, while the proclamations of the king and
his Council were treated with contempt. They soon assumed
all the powers which were possessed by the clubs of Paris
during the French Revolution. The government of the
country virtually came into their hands.
Charles now began to open his eyes to the revolutionary
spirit which his liturgy had evoked, but still he saw things very
dimly, and appears to have had no idea that beneath a thin sur-
face of respect, society was boiling like a volcano under his
feet. He thought it enough to despatch the Earl of Rox-
burgh to negotiate, and, it was whispered, to bribe the leading
malcontents; and afterwards to publish a proclamation, in
which he declared to his faithful subjects, that it was only the
tumultuous and barbarous insolences committed in Edinburgh,
in contempt of his royal authority, which had hitherto pre-
vented his royal resolution of considering their petitions, but
that he was pleased out of his goodness to protest that he
abhorred all superstition of Popery, and meant to do nothing
Contrary to the laudable laws of his native kingdom.” A
* Reference is made to this in the speech delivered by Lord Loudon
before the Privy Council, on the 21st of December. See Balfour, vol. ii.
i), 24Q.
t"; $ºvenson's History, vol. i. p. 230.
* Proclamation made at Linlithgow, 7th December 1637. Large De-
claration, p. 46.
524 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. CHAP. XVI,
proclamation like this, which meant nothing, was not the thing
to pacify a people ripe for rebellion. If it was meant as a
sedative, it rather served as an irritant. On the 21st of Decem-
ber, the Privy Council met at Dalkeith, and the deputies of
the Tables appeared before it, and showed how rapidly their
views were widening, by demanding that the bishops should
be removed from their seats as parties in the case. They had
been previously complained of, and accused as the authors of
the liturgy, the causes of all the troubles which had afflicted
the country; and on that ground a formal declinature of their
judgment was now given in. The declinature was a bold one,
and shows how high the pretensions of the party had risen,
and what were the feelings which were abroad in the country;
but it is very evident that, though an attempt was made to
support it by a legal argument, no plea in law could deprive
the bishops of their seats at the Council-board, on this simple
ground, that the Council did not then sit as a court of justice.
The bishops were not upon their trial before it." The Coun-
cil, having its hands tied by orders from court, remitted the
whole matter for the determination of the king.
At the king's own request the Earl of Traquair, the Lord
Treasurer, went up to London as the representative of the
Scottish Council. His Majesty was profoundly ignorant of
the precipice upon which he stood. To give up the liturgy,
the Court of High Commission, the whole Episcopate, was
not to be thought of His prerogative must not be so abased.
The Archbishop of St Andrews wrote him that if he con-
demned the present doings of the petitioners, and discharged
all such procedure for the future under pain of treason, their
combinations would melt like frost-work in the sun, or be
driven like mist before the wind.” Laud and Strafford appear
to have given similar advice.” The advice was taken, and
Traguair returned to Scotland about the middle of February
1638 with his instructions. -
The Council and Sessions were at this time held in Stirling,
as Edinburgh was still in disgrace on account of the riots.
After remaining some days in the metropolis, early on Monday
* Speeches of Lord Loudon and Mr James Cunningham before the
Privy Council, 21st December 1637. See Balfour, Stevenson, and Peter-
kin. In the protest made against the royal proclamation on the 19th
of February following, this declinature is referred to the 19th of De-
cember, but it is certain the speeches in defence of it were made on the 21st.
* Stevenson, vol. ii. p. 267.
* Strafford’s Letters, vol. ii. Harris's Life of Charles I.
A.D. 1638.] PROCLAMATION AND PROTEST. 525
morning, the 19th of February, the High Treasurer set out for
the north. The Lords of the Tables, by fair means or foul,
got a hint of his journey and its object, and within an hour
afterwards Lords Lindsay and Home were in their saddles,
riding to Stirling as fast as their horses could carry them.
They outrode the Treasurer, and entered the town before
him. At ten o'clock the heralds, with the royal arms on their
back, accompanied by the Treasurer and Privy Seal, appeared
at the market-cross, to read the proclamation. It extolled the
“Book of Common Prayer” as the surest defence against
superstition; it declared the petitioners to be deserving of
high censure, but that they might hope for forgiveness, as
their conduct had arisen from preposterous zeal rather than
disloyalty; it discharged all future meetings under the highest
pains ; and commanded all save the inhabitants and Lords of
the Council and Session, to leave the town without delay.
When the heralds were done, and the flourish of trumpets
was blown, Lords Lindsay and Home stepped forward, took
instruments in the hands of a notary, and protested that they
should still have a right to approach the king by petition ;
that they would not recognise the prelates as judges in any
court, civil or ecclesiastical; that they should not incur any
loss in life or lands for not observing such books, canons,
rites, judicatories, and proclamations as were contrary to the
Acts of Parliament and the Acts of the Assembly; that if any
disturbance should arise, it should not be imputed to them ;
and, finally, that their requests proceeded from conscience,
and had no other end but the preservation of the Reformed
religion, and the laws and liberties of his Majesty's most
ancient kingdom. The same scene occurred at Linlithgow,
Edinburgh, and, in fact, wherever the proclamation was made.
At the market-cross of Edinburgh, seventeen peers and a great
concourse of ministers and citizens had assembled; the pro-
clamation was read amid laughter and jeers; and the crowd
compelled the pursuivants to remain and hear the protest."
Men now began to feel that the crisis was come : they could
not recede, it was not likely the king would ; and therefore
they began to forecast the future. A crash was almost inevit-
able. The only safety of the nation was in union, a union
cemented not only by the love of liberty, but the sanctities of
religion. Some of the leading men proposed that every
adherent of the good cause should be bound together as one
* Large Declaration, pp. 47-52.
526 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. XVI.
man by a solemn covenant. A covenant was no new thing in
Scotland. The barons had been accustomed to league them-
selves together for mutual defence by subscribing “bands.”
Bands of man-rent had been known for centuries. When the
Lords of the Congregation drew the sword for the Reforma-
tion, they joined themselves together in a covenant, which
was frequently renewed. But it was the Confession and Cove-
nant of 1581 which was now to be revived. At that period a
Popish panic had taken hold of the country; it was said that
the king's favourites were Papists; that the king himself was
at least half a Papist; that Papist emissaries traversed the
country; that a Papist army might soon be expected upon
the coast; and to still this feeling James VI. had a confession
prepared by Craig, the old colleague of Knox, in which all
the chief errors of Romanism were solemnly abjured. It was
signed by the king himself, by his household, by the members
of the Privy Council, by men of all ranks throughout the
country; and the country again breathed freer, and felt its
liberties and religion were secure.
It was proposed in 1638 to league Presbyterian Scotland by
such a solemn Confession and Covenant. The kingdom was
prepared for it by a day of fasting, on which the pulpits gave
forth no uncertain sound. The preparation of the document
was entrusted to Alexander Henderson and Johnstone of
Warriston. Lords Rothes, Loudon, and Balmerino were ap-
pointed to revise it. When ready, it was found to consist of
three parts. The first was a faithful transcript of the Con-
fession of 1581 ; the second was a summary of the acts of
parliament condemning Popery, and ratifying the liberties of
the Scottish Church, and was said to have been compiled by
Warriston; the third was the true covenant, in which the
subscribers swore, by the great name of the Lord their God,
that they would continue in the profession of their religion;
that they would defend it against all errors and Corruptions ;
that they would stand by his Majesty in support of the re-
ligion, liberties, and laws of the kingdom, and also by one
another against all their enemies; and this was said to have
been written by Henderson." i.
When the first draft of the Covenant was submitted to the
committees, there was not unanimity. Some objected that
they could not pronounce the Articles of Perth to be unlaw-
* This Confession and Covenant is now generally bound in the same
volume with the Westminster Confession, where every reader may see it.
A.D. 1638.] SIGNING THE COVENANT. 527
ful; others that they could not get rid of their ordination vows
without perjury; others that they could not league themselves
together for mutual defence without treason. But, after long
discussion, alterations were made in some cases, Scruples of
conscience were silenced in others, and harmony was all but
restored. Everything was now ready for the subscriptions of
the people, and it was determined that Edinburgh should be
first tried."
On the 28th day of February an immense concourse of
people had gathered in the Greyfriars Church, and thousands
who could not get access to the church crowded the church-
yard. The peaceful abodes of the dead, where there was no
passion, nor knowledge, nor device, contrasted strangely with
the excited feelings of the living who trod upon them ; and
the fine old conventual building grimly lifted up its hoary
walls and mullioned windows above the surging heads of the
Presbyterian multitude, with its reminiscences of Roman wor-
ship and monastic ties. Thus death and life, the old and the
new, meet and harmonise. About two o'clock, Loudon and
Rothes of the nobility, Henderson and Dickson of the minis-
ters, and Johnstone, their legal adviser, arrived with the Cove-
nant, ready for signature. Henderson opened the proceedings
by prayer; Loudon next stood up and addressed the meeting ;
and then all were invited to come forward and sign. The aged
Earl of Sutherland was the first to append his name. He was
followed by Sir Andrew Murray, the minister of Abdy, in Fife.
Then high-born and low-born together crowded forward to
add their signatures. When all in the church had signed the
solemn document, it was taken out to the church-yard and
laid upon a flat gravestone. The enthusiasm of the crowd rose
to its greatest height. Men and women were alike ambitious
to subscribe their names. Some wrote after their signatures,
“till death;” others could not restrain their feelings, and
wept. This went on for hours, till every part of the parchment
was covered, and the subscribers had only room to write their
initials ; and dark night alone put an end to the scene.” Hen-
derson afterwards described it as “the day of the Lord's
power, wherein they had seen His people most willingly offer
themselves in multitudes, like the dew of the morning.” “It
may well be said of this day,” says another old writer, “Great
* See Baillie's Letters and Journals.
2 This copy of the Covenant, with the signatures attached, is still pre-
Sel-VeCl.
* First Answer to the Reply of the Aberdeen Doctors.
528 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. xvi.
was the day of Jezreel. It was a day wherein the arm of the
Lord was revealed—a day wherein the princes of the people
were assembled to swear fealty and allegiance to that great
King whose name is the Lord of Hosts.”
Copies of the Covenant were next day carried through the
city, and signed by almost every one who was solicited.
Other copies were sent down to the presbyteries for subscrip-
tion; the contagious enthusiasm of the capital spread over
the whole country; and almost everywhere the people, by
appended names and uplifted hands, took the Covenant oath.
“I was present,” says Livingstone, “at Lanark, and at several
other parishes, when on a Sabbath, after the forenoon's sermon,
the Covenant was read and Sworn, and may truly say, that in
all my lifetime, except one day at the Kirk of Shotts, I never
saw such motions from the Spirit of God, all the people gene-
rally and most willingly concurring. I have seen more than
a thousand persons all at once lifting up their hands, and the
tears falling down from their eyes; so that through the whole
land, except the professed Papists, and some few who for
base ends adhered to the prelates, the people universally
entered into the Covenant with God.” The whole Scotch
population seems to have been melted into one mass by the
burning religious zeal that was abroad, as they were knit into
one brotherhood by their Covenant with God. It is difficult,
in times, of perfect quietude, to understand the high excite-
ment of such a period. It can only be compared to the
outburst of feeling which accompanied the first preaching of
Christianity, the first preaching of the Reformation, or those
religious revivals which have sometimes broken out in a par-
ticular district, and sometimes mysteriously swept over a whole
country.
Yet there was not perfect unanimity in the nation. Some
of the Glasgow ministers and professors, and among them
the famous Zachary Boyd, refused to take the Covenant.
The town of St Andrews, under the influence of the Arch-
bishop, kept back from joining in the general movement.
The doctors of the Universities of Aberdeen both spoke and
wrote against it; and few in the city could be induced to
subscribe, notwithstanding the persuasions of a deputation,
who hurried to the north to reduce their obstinacy. They
1 Wilson's Defence of the Reformation Principles of the Church of
Scotland, quoted by Stevenson, vol. ii. p. 298.
* Life, p. 22, quoted by Stevenson, vol. ii. p. 296.
A.D. 1638.] WAS THE COVENANT LEGAL P 529
declared it was an unlawful combination against lawful
authority. Pamphlets were published upon both sides of
the question ; and the controversy was maintained with equal
acrimony and equal ability.” But this jarring note was
scarcely heard amid the full concord of voices which came
from every part of the empire ; and the Archbishop of
St Andrews is reported, when he heard of the scene
in the Greyfriars church-yard, to have said —“They have
thrown down in a day what we have been building up for
thirty years.”
The National Covenant has been a bone of contex\tion
among Scottish historians. Some have lauded it as the
spring of piety and patriotism ; others have denounced it as
the offspring of fanaticism and rebelliºn. Some have spoken
of it as an imperishable monument the admiration of the
world) of the religious feelings of our ancestors; others have
told how it scandalized the Churches of the Reformation on
the Continent.” It is certain that the Lord Advocate of the
time declared that there was nothing illegal in it—nothing
inconsistent with proper loyalty to a Constitutional sovereign,
and eminent lawyers of modern days have held the same ; and
yet, if we interpret it as the Covenanters themselves did,
when they afterwards took up arms against their king for their
mutual defence, it is difficult to undelstand how law should
Sanction such a league. But to quote law in such cases is
mere pedantry. There are times when law must be set aside
—when man resumes his natural rights. The king had violated
the laws of the land : why should not the people P The king
had attempted, in defiance of the constitution, to force an
obnoxious liturgy upon the nation : why should not the nation
band itself together and defy him to do it? Is the monarch
made for the nation, or the nation for the monarch P Is the
will of the one or the will of the many to be Supreme P Should
the people, for fear of violating some statute, and giving
pain to some men in high places, sit still and allow their
* The Answers of some Brethren of the Ministrie to the Replyes of
the Ministers and Professors of Divinitie in Aberdene, concerning the
late Covenant. Printed in the year of God 1638, &c.
* The king, in his Large Declaration, affirms this ; and Baillie, in one
of his letters, complains that the Continental Churches had not sympa.
thised with them in their struggles.
VOIL, I. 2 L



53C CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [CHAP. xvi.
religion and liberties to be trampled on P Had the Cove-
nant not been subscribed, it is certain the liturgy would
have been introduced, the canons enforced, and the heel of
arbitrary power placed on the neck of the country. This is
its justification.
END OF WOL. I.
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