Volume I Part 52 (2/2)
[575] This treatise on Justification, of which Knox, we are informed, had expressed an earnest desire, _as almost nothing more_, that it should be diligently sought after, and preserved from peris.h.i.+ng, was discovered in MS. at Ormiston, subsequently to the death both of Knox and the Author. Yet David Buchanan, instead of these words, makes Knox to say, ”which is extant to this day.” It was first published under the following t.i.tle:--
”The Confession of Faith, conteining how the troubled man should seeke refuge at his G.o.d, thereto led by Faith: with the Declaration of the article of Justification at length, &c. Compiled by M. Henry Balnaves of Halhill, and one of the Lords of Session and Counsell of Scotland, being a prisoner within the old Pallaice of Roane: In the year of our Lord 1548. Imprinted at Edinburgh, by Thomas Vautrollier. 1584.” Small 8vo.
[576] In Vautr. edit. the words, ”the Messe was said in the gallay, or ellis heard upoun the sch.o.a.r, in,” are omitted by the printer, at the foot of page 181. The words are likewise omitted in MSS. L2 and 1.
[577] The City of Nantes: see note 514.
[578] MS. G reads correctly, ”such an _idolle_;” but Vautr. edit. has, ”such a _jewell_ is accursed;” and this blunder is retained in MSS. A, E, I, (”javel,”) L2, and W.--Although no name is given in regard to the incident alluded to, this ”merry fact” evidently happened to Knox himself.
[579] Official of Lothian: see notes 496 and 603.
[580] In MS. G, ”a kape.”
[581] Probably in June 1548.
[582] Mont St. Michel is a Benedictine Abbey, with a village strongly fortified, on a rocky island, surrounded with quicksands, and only accessible at low water. It is sixteen miles S.W. of Avranches, in Normandy. Its situation is highly picturesque; and many chivalrous a.s.sociations are connected with the place; which, during the fifteenth century, had often been besieged, but unsuccessfully, by the English.
From its strong and isolated position, it had probably been chosen for that purpose, and it still continues to be used for a State prison.
[583] In MS. G, ”eyes.”
[584] See note 202.
[585] The King's Even, is evidently meant for the Eve of Epiphany, and the King of the Bean: see footnote to page 51. David Buchanan, aware of this allusion, from his long residence in France, has this marginal ill.u.s.tration: ”_Le jour de Roys au soir, quand ils crient 'Le Roy boit.'_” The mention of this _fete_ may show, that Kirkaldy and his companions had made their escape on the 5th of January, and in the year 1549-50.
[586] Sir John Masone, Amba.s.sador for England at the French Court, on the 14th June 1550, says, ”Touching the Scots at St. Andrews, he (the Constable of France) told me that the Lord Grange and his brother are flown he wist not whither, and two others were already set at liberty; and that the rest, at the King (Edward VI.) my master's contentation, should out of hand be put at large.”--(Tytler's Edward VI., &c., vol. i.
p. 295.)
[587] In Vautr. edit. ”they purposed.”
[588] The names of these brethren are very much overlooked by the different Peerage writers of Scotland, in their pedigrees of the Rothes family. The first marriage of George Earl of Rothes with Margaret Crichton, daughter of William Lord Crichton, was declared before 1524 to be uncanonical. But by this lady, ”his affidate spouse,” he had four sons: the eldest was George, who died unmarried; the others were Norman, William, and Robert. The reader may be referred to the Appendix of Nisbet's Heraldry, vol. ii. p. 141, to explain the grounds upon which the two latter, as heirs-male, were pa.s.sed over in the succession, at their father's death, in 1558, when Andrew Lesley, the eldest son by subsequent marriage, and who had married a niece of the Governor the Earl of Arran, became Earl of Rothes. Of these two brethren, William is styled in Macfarlane's Genealogical Collections, ”Laird of Cairnie, and, (it is added,) as some say, he died without succession.” Bishop Lesley, in noticing the death of Norman Lesley in France, in 1554, says, ”The King of France, for recompence of his service, received _his eldest brodir William_ in favour, and maid him gentill man of his chalmer.”--(History, p. 249.) Knox's words in the text imply that he was alive in 1566. The other brother Robert, is perhaps the same who was admitted an Advocate in the Court of Session, in May 1537. He settled in Morays.h.i.+re, in the parish of Spynie, and became founder of the Fendra.s.sie family. He married Janet Elphingstone, a daughter of Robert Lord Elphingstone, and left three sons and two daughters. An inscription, in Latin verse, in the Cathedral Church of Elgin, while it commemorates their virtues and attachment, records that he and his wife were interred in the same grave.--(Monteith's Theatre of Mortality, p.
222, Edinb., 1713, 8vo.)
[589] Le Conquet, a small town of Britanny, with a good harbour, opposite the island of Ushant, sixteen miles west of Brest.
[590] He was probably the same person with Alexander Clark of Balbirnie, who became Lord Provost of Edinburgh from 1579 to 1583 inclusive.
[591] In this paragraph Knox sums up briefly his own history between February 1548-9, when he was delivered from the French galley, and his first return to Scotland, in the end of harvest 1555.
[592] Edward died on the 6th July 1553.
[593] The word ”English” is omitted in Vautr. edit.
[594] Knox has abstained from entering upon any statement of the disputes which took place in the English congregation at Francfort, in 1554, in consequence of the introduction, by Dr. c.o.xe and others, of the Book of Common Prayer, and the use of various ceremonies. A short paper by Knox himself, connected with the charge brought against him before the Magistrates of Francfort, has been preserved by Calderwood, (Hist., vol. i. p. 120,) and will naturally fall to be included in Vol. III. of the present work. But a detailed account of the transactions at that time was drawn up and published anonymously, three years after Knox's death, by one of the Nonconformists. It is ent.i.tled, ”A Brieff Discours off the Troubles begunne at Franckford in Germany, Anno Domini 1554.
Abowte the booke off Common Prayer and Ceremonies, and continued by the Englishe men theyre, to thame off Q. Maries Reigne,” and was originally published (at Geneva) in 1575, 4to. There is an accurate reprint of it at London, by John Petheram, 1846, 8vo, in which it is suggested, by the Rev. Thomas M'Crie, with great probability, the author may have been Dr.
William Whittingham.
[595] There were two editions of Knox's Admonition printed in 1554, within a few months of each other, under a fict.i.tious imprint, and both of them abroad, as will be fully described in Vol. III.
[596] In printing these names, Vautr. edit. is very incorrect; instead of John Sibbald, John Gray, William Guthrie, &c., it has ”John _Sibbard_, John Gray, _within gathered_, and Stevin Bell.” Yet this unintelligible nonsense is literally copied in MSS. L 2 and 1. MSS. A, W, and E, have ”Sibbard,” but give Guthry's name correctly. In the summons of treason against the conspirators, John Sibbald is called ”brother of the Laird of Cukiston;” and Auchinleck is styled Sir John Auchinleck, chaplain. For mention of Guthrey, in connexion with an indignity offered to the Cardinal's body, the reader may be referred to Pitscottie. In the Treasurer's Accounts, we find 10s. was paid to a messenger, sent on the 3d of December 1547, with ”Letters to serche and seik the gudes of Maister Jhonne Gray, persoun of Sanct Nycholace Kirk, beside Cowper, quhilkis pertenis to our Souerane Lady be resoun of eschete, throu the said Maister Jhonnis being fugitive fra the lawes for art and part of the slauchter of the Cardinall.”--Gray's name, however, is not included in the list of persons forfeited by the Parliament on the 14th August 1546.
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