Volume II Part 9 (1/2)

Had it come earlier, or had the clergy even then been able and willing to explain it to their people, Knox and his companions might have found themselves confronted with a much more difficult task.

Mary of Guise had shown great abilities during the contest with Henry VIII. and the Protector. Though the Earl of Arran was nominally regent it was she who guided his counsels and inspired his policy. The French government, distrustful of the regent who was also the next claimant for the Scottish throne, induced him to resign his office, for which he received in return the empty t.i.tle of Duke of Chatelherault, and Mary of Guise undertook the government of Scotland for her infant daughter. About the ability of the new regent or her devotion to the Catholic Church there could be no difference of opinion, but unfortunately she was more anxious to strengthen the French hold upon Scotland than to take the necessary measures for the peace of the kingdom and the suppression of heresy. She filled her fortresses with French subjects, showing thereby that in her opinion Scotchmen could not be trusted. As a result she gave great offence to the native lords, aroused Scottish patriotism against France as it had been aroused against England by the aggressive policy of Henry VIII., and prepared the way for the dissolution of the alliance between patriotism and Catholicism, an alliance that had hitherto been the main barrier against the success of the reforming English party.

The Scots began to fear that with their young queen united in marriage to the King of France Scotland stood in danger of becoming a French province, and though the Scottish Parliament took care to safeguard the independence of the country in the marriage settlement drawn up in 1558, the leading men had grave suspicions that the agreement would have little effect. Besides, Mary of Guise had no longer anything to fear from English Protestantism, which was rendered powerless after the accession of Queen Mary. England was now united to Spain, the mortal enemy of France, and French political interests would best be served by maintaining an att.i.tude of friendly neutrality towards English Protestants, who were likely to prove more dangerous to Spanish designs than to France. Such a policy of neutrality might result, too, it was thought, in securing the throne of England for the young Scottish queen, whose claims as the nearest legitimate heir could not be questioned. For these reasons the regent was not unwilling to allow Protestant refugees to take up their residence in Scotland, and to permit the followers of the new religion to continue their campaign so long as they did not disturb the public peace. In her correspondence with the Pope she paid little attention to the religious danger that was threatening the kingdom, and seemed to be more anxious to obtain permission to tax the clergy than to secure an energetic reform of the abuses that she painted in such dark colours.[11] The Scottish lords, many of whom were offended by the preponderance of French soldiers and French officials, were only too willing to a.s.sist the new preachers, and what was worse, to stir up their clansmen against the old religion by holding up the bishops and clergy as the friends of France and the enemies of Scottish independence. National patriotism was now utilised to help forward the cause of Protestantism, by the very men who a few years before had agreed to betray their country for English gold, and had striven with all their might to make Henry VIII. the protector of Scotland.

Some Protestant refugees from England were soon at work in different centres of the country, and encouraged by the regent's policy of neutrality, the man, who was destined to be the apostle of the Reformation, returned to his native land (1555). John Knox,[12] who had shown his devotion to the Gospel by applauding the murder of Cardinal Beaton as a ”G.o.dly act,” and who had founded the first reformed congregation among the murderers gathered in the castle of St. Andrew's, having been released from the French galleys, became a pensioner of Edward VI., and took up his residence in some of the northern towns of England. In a short time he was appointed royal chaplain, and might have had the Bishopric of Rochester had he not expressed the view that such an office was incompatible with devotion to the true evangelical religion. On the accession of Queen Mary he fled from England to Geneva, from which he returned to Scotland in 1555. His violent and overbearing manner, his extravagant denunciations of his opponents, his misrepresentations of their actions and policy, and his readiness both as a speaker and as a writer, qualified him perfectly for the leaders.h.i.+p of a revolutionary party, were it not that at certain critical moments his anxiety to avoid personal danger was calculated to shake the confidence of his followers. He was welcomed by many of the discontented n.o.bles, amongst others by Lord Erskine afterwards Earl of Mar, Lord Lorne and his father the Earl of Argyll, Maitland Lord of Lethington, the Earl of Glencairn, and Lord James Stuart prior of St. Andrew's, who as Earl of Moray was soon to betray his sister, Mary Queen of Scots.

Encouraged by the protection of such powerful patrons he preached freely and with great success in several districts of Scotland. The clansmen were so united to their lords that they were prepared to follow their example even in matters of religion. The bishops and the regent, to whom these proceedings must have been known, were strangely oblivious to their duties, and when at last they mustered up sufficient courage to summon Knox to appear at Edinburgh (1556), they were so alarmed by the strength of his following that they abandoned the trial. Knox, encouraged by their cowardice, preached openly in the capital, and even went so far as to address a letter to the regent calling upon her to open her mind for the reception of the truth.[13]

By this public challenge, however, he overshot the mark, and not being gifted with any particular desire to suffer martyrdom for the faith, he left Scotland suddenly and retired to the Continent (1556). For years he was the leading spirit in many of the fierce and unseemly disputes between the English Protestant exiles in Geneva and Frankfurt. Although summoned more than once by his followers to return, he contented himself with sending them written exhortations to stand firm in the faith, or by publis.h.i.+ng violent pamphlets such as /The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women/, in which he undertook to prove that the rule of women is repugnant to nature, contrary to G.o.d's ordinances, and subversive of good order, equity, and justice. Though this doc.u.ment was aimed princ.i.p.ally against Catharine de' Medici, Queen Mary of England, and Mary of Guise regent of Scotland, it rankled in the mind of Queen Elizabeth after her accession, and did not serve to raise the apostle of Scotland in her estimation.

The Protestant lords, undeterred by the absence of Knox, decided to go forward with their programme. In December 1557 the Earl of Argyll, his son Lord Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, Erskine of Dun, and others, met at Edinburgh and signed a bond or covenant, by which they bound themselves solemnly to establish the ”Blessed Word of G.o.d,” to encourage preachers, to defend the new doctrines even with their lives, and to maintain the Congregation of Christ in opposition to the Congregation of Satan. They pledged themselves to introduce the Book of Common Prayer, to insist on the reading of portions of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue on Sundays and holidays, and to appoint preachers wherever the Catholic clergy were unable or unwilling to undertake this work.[14] In many districts, where the lords of the Congregation held sway, measures were taken at once to enforce these resolutions. Confronted with this revolutionary step, the regent and the bishops should have had recourse to strong action, but the former was so interested in the approaching marriage of her daughter to the Dauphin of France (1558) that she did not wish to offend the lords, while the primate, as one of the Hamiltons, disliked the regent because she had supplanted his brother, and contented himself with gentle admonitions. The lords, confident in their strength, met in November 1558, and presented a pet.i.tion to the regent, in which they demanded that the members of the Congregation should be allowed to meet in the churches, and to follow their own ritual in the vulgar tongue, that Communion should be administered under both kinds, that private individuals should be at liberty to explain difficult pa.s.sages of the Sacred Scriptures, and that the clergy should be reformed. The regent after consultation with the primate consented to these requests, at least in regard to private religious a.s.semblies, but refused to yield to another pet.i.tion demanding the abolition of all laws against heresy.[15]

The religious controversies became more and more embittered during the year 1559. The lords of the Congregation denounced the abuses of the clergy, demanded permission to use the vulgar tongue in all public religious services as well as in the administration of the sacraments, and insisted on the admission of the lower n.o.bles and of the people to a voice in the appointment of bishops and of pastors. To put an end to the abuses that were proving such a useful weapon in the hands of the adversaries of the Church, and at the same time to give public and formal expression to the faith of the Scottish nation, a national synod[16] met at Edinburgh (April 1559). It denounced once again the awful scandal of concubinage among the clergy, laid down useful regulations regarding preaching and the appointment of bishops, condemned plurality of benefices, nonresidence, and demands on the part of the clergy for excessive fees. To raise the standard of education among the clergy it ordained that those presented to benefices should be examined, and that each monastery should maintain some of its members at the universities. In its profession of faith the synod emphasised the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Transubstantiation, the propitiatory character of the sacrifice of the Ma.s.s, the sufficiency of Communion in one kind, the existence of a real priesthood, and purgatory, prayers for the dead, invocation of the saints, fasting, and holidays. In response to the demands of the Congregation the synod pointed out that it had not the power to change the rites and ceremonies that had been handed down for centuries, that as the Church was the definitely appointed guardian and interpreter of the Scriptures private individuals were not permitted to expound them at their will, and that in the appointment of bishops and pastors the rules laid down in canon law were quite sufficient to prevent abuses if only they were followed.

About the same time Quintin Kennedy, Benedictine Abbot of Crossraguel, conferred an immense service on religion by his written apology[17]

for the Catholic Church. Starting with the Bible and its relation to ecclesiastical authority, he undertook to show that from the very nature of the case such a book required the presence of a divinely appointed official interpreter, that the reading of the Scriptures was not necessary for salvation though in many cases it might be useful, and that the authority of the Church should not be overthrown even though the existence of scandals among churchmen could not be denied.

Turning to his adversaries, he demanded what was the source of all the abuses and scandals which they charged against the Church? Was it not, he asked, the unwarrantable interference of the n.o.bles in the nominations to ecclesiastical benefices, an interference that was responsible for having even children who were too young to hold an apple in their hands appointed to the charge of populous parishes, in order that the relatives of these children might grow rich on the revenues, and was it not the very men who were guilty of such conduct who were loudest in their denunciation of the Church? On the n.o.bles he laid the blame for oppressing the Church, for introducing unworthy ecclesiastics into offices of trust, for depriving the poor of instruction and education, and for promoting thereby heresy and revolution.

As the year (1559) advanced the state of affairs in Scotland became daily more alarming. Preachers were everywhere at work under the protection of the lords. The regent and the French authorities, who had shown a fatal apathy in their dealings with Scottish heretics, began to wake up to the political danger involved in such a movement.

A French agent, M. Bethencourt,[18] arrived in Scotland in April 1559, and, whether it was due to his advice or not, the regent forbade the preachers to continue their disturbances. On their refusal to submit she summoned them to appear at Stirling for trial (10th May).

Encouraged by the return of Knox who had landed at Leith early in the same month, and by the armed forces placed at their disposal by some of their princ.i.p.al patrons, they refused to attend and were outlawed.

A number of the reforming lords immediately took possession of Perth, and destroyed several Catholic churches in the city. When news of this rising reached the regent she a.s.sembled her forces and marched against Perth, but as neither side was anxious for civil war at the time, a truce was agreed upon, and the forces of the regent were allowed to occupy the town. From Perth the reforming lords retreated to St.

Andrew's, where they burned and destroyed the altars, pictures, statues, and even the sacred vessels used for religious wors.h.i.+p. The abbey church of Scone, in which a long line of Scottish kings had been crowned, was destroyed; Perth and Stirling were seized, and before the end of June 1559 Edinburgh was in the hands of the lords of the Congregation. The regent issued an appeal in the name of the king and queen of Scotland calling upon all loyal subjects to defend the government against the revolutionary Congregation, but her unfortunate preference for French soldiers and officials gave the Protestant lords the advantage of enabling them to pose as patriots engaged in the defence of their country against foreigners. They were forced, however, to capitulate and to surrender Edinburgh to the regent (26th July).

Early in this same month (1559) Henry II. of France died, and was succeeded by Francis II., the husband of Mary Queen of Scots.

Elizabeth and her advisers were alarmed at the prospect that opened before them. Mary Queen of Scots, as the nearest legitimate heir to the English throne, was a dangerous neighbour, especially at a time when England was thrown into confusion by a new religious revolution, and when English Catholics might rally to her standard with the blessing of the Pope and of the Kings of France and Spain. Even though the Queen of Scotland did not resort to extremes, the very existence of a Catholic kingdom in Scotland, united by bonds of friends.h.i.+p and interest to France, const.i.tuted a grave danger for England; whereas if Scotland could be induced to accept the Protestant religion and to throw in its lot with its southern neighbour, the enemies of England on the Continent might rage in vain. The rebellion of the lords of the Congregation was, therefore, very welcome to Elizabeth and to Cecil.

It gave them an opportunity of interfering in Scottish affairs, not, indeed, in the untactful manner in which Henry VIII. had interfered, but as the apparent defenders of Scottish independence against a French protectorate. On this occasion Scottish patriotism was to be made subservient to English political aims and at the same time to Protestant interests.

The lords of the Congregation, realising that without a.s.sistance they could never hope to overcome the regent, turned to England for support. Their pet.i.tions were welcomed by Cecil and the leading counsellors of Elizabeth, but the queen herself distrusted Knox, and disliked allying herself with open rebels. To give the movement an appearance of const.i.tutionalism the young Earl of Arran, who had been brought to France and who had secretly embraced Calvinism, was induced to make his escape into England. As a near claimant to the Scottish throne he was welcomed at the English court, and was led to believe that if he acted prudently he might become the husband of Elizabeth, and the king of a united England and Scotland. He was dispatched into Scotland, where he succeeded in detaching his father, the Duke of Chatelherault, and several other n.o.bles from the side of the regent.

Relying on the protection of England, from which a plentiful supply of money was dispatched to the rebels, and on the new accessions to their ranks, the lords of the Congregation announced the suspension of the regent from her office (Oct. 1559) though they hesitated to take the further step of proclaiming the Earl of Arran or Lord James Stuart sovereign of Scotland. The regent replied to this act of rebellion by marching on Edinburgh, forcing the rebels to retreat to Stirling (Nov.), while the Earl of Bothwell seized large sums of money that were being forwarded to the rebel camp from England. The English advisers began to realise that money and secret a.s.sistance were not enough to secure the triumph of the Congregation in Scotland, and that the time had come when more decisive measures must be taken.

In December 1559 and January 1560, an armed force was dispatched to the north, and Admiral Winter was commanded to blockade the Forth against a French fleet. A little later a formal agreement was concluded between the Duke of Norfolk representing Elizabeth, and Lord James Stuart the commissioner for the Congregation. At first it was proposed to act in common for ”the maintenance of the Christian religion,” but as these words might have given rise to serious complications on the Continent, it was decided that an alliance should be concluded for the defence of the ancient rights and liberties of Scotland. An English army of eight thousand men marched into Scotland, and the English fleet blockaded the fortress of Leith which was the key to the capital. Owing to the Huguenot risings in France the a.s.sistance that had been promised could not be sent, but nevertheless the invaders were thrown back in their first a.s.sault. In June 1560, however, Mary of Guise, worn out by the anxieties and cares of her difficult office, pa.s.sed away, and three weeks later the garrison was obliged to surrender. English and French plenipotentiaries met to arrange the terms of peace. It was agreed that the French soldiers, with the exception of about one hundred and twenty men, should be drafted from Scotland, that no foreigners should be promoted to any office in the kingdom, that until the arrival of the king and queen the country should be governed by a council of twelve, seven of whom were to be selected by Mary and Francis and five by the Parliament, that the entire question of religion should be submitted to a Scottish Parliament convoked to meet on the 1st August (1560), and that, in the meantime, a kind of religious truce should be observed by both sides.

It was agreed, furthermore, that the spiritual peers should hold their seats in Parliament as before, and that they should not be disturbed in their ecclesiastical possessions.

The successful invasion of Scotland by the English troops had turned the scales in favour of the lords of the Congregation. They were now masters in Scotland, but, had the bishops and clergy been zealous men worthy of their sacred office, the cause of the old Church in Scotland would not have been even then hopeless. While Knox and his friends were straining every nerve to consolidate their work by the appointment of preachers and superintendents for the rising congregation, many of the Catholic bishops and abbots, several of whom were allied by blood and friends.h.i.+p with the lay lords, either contented themselves with doing nothing, or went over to the enemies of the Church for the sake of securing for themselves and their descendants the ecclesiastical property that they administered. The Archbishop of St. Andrew's and Primate of Scotland was the brother of the Earl of Arran. Though a convinced Catholic himself, he was not the man either to make a struggle or to inspire confidence at such a crisis. Archbishop Beaton of Glasgow had fled already from the kingdom; the Bishop of Argyll, another illegitimate scion of the house of Hamilton, was a Protestant or was soon to become one; Adam Bothwell,[19] whom the Pope had appointed the previous year to the See of Orkney on the pet.i.tion of the king and queen of Scotland, could not be trusted, as his subsequent conduct showed; Alexander Gordon, who claimed to be Bishop of Galloway, though he was never consecrated, had gone over openly to the enemies of the Church, as had also the provincial of the Dominicans, the sub-prior of the chapter of St.

Andrew's, and John Rowe a former agent of the Scottish bishops at the Roman Court. With men such as these to guard the interests of Catholicism in Scotland there could be little doubt about the result.

In August 1560 the Parliament met at Edinburgh. In addition to the lay lords and representatives of the lesser n.o.bles and of the cities, there were present a number of bishops and abbots. Amongst these latter it is interesting and instructive to note the presence of Lord James Stuart, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d brother of the queen and one of the leaders of the Congregation, as prior of St. Andrew's, of Lord James Hamilton son of the Earl of Arran and a follower of Knox as abbot of Arbroath, of John Stuart abbot of Coldingham, of the son of the Duke of Argyll as bishop-elect of Brechin, together with a number of other laymen, who, though holding high office in the Church, were determined to promote the new movement for the sake of the property that they hoped to obtain. The discussion opened under the presidency of Maitland, Lord of Lethington, the Scottish Cecil, a double dealer who was even more dangerous than an open enemy. A pet.i.tion was presented immediately on the part of Knox and his friends that doctrines such as Transubstantiation, the sacrificial character of the Ma.s.s, Purgatory, prayers for the dead, meritorious works, etc., which had been forced upon the people by the clergy should be rejected. A confession of faith was drafted and submitted to the a.s.sembly. The Primate and the Catholic bishops present protested against the discussion of such a doc.u.ment on the ground that according to the terms of the Treaty of 1560 the religious question should have been submitted previously to the king and queen, and also because the treaty had never been confirmed owing to the fact that the French commissioners had exceeded their instructions. It was no doubt for this reason that a large number of the ecclesiastical and lay lords who were strongly Catholic had refused to attend the Parliament. Indeed the supporters of the old religion, relying on the help of the queen, seemed to think that any religious settlement made by Parliament was of no importance. Their refusal to discuss the confession of faith was taken, however, as a sign of their inability to refute it, and the confession was pa.s.sed with but few dissentients. Later on (24th August) three other acts were formulated with the object of uprooting Catholicism in Scotland.

The jurisdiction of the Pope was abolished, and the bishops were forbidden to act under his instructions; all previous Acts of Parliament contrary to G.o.d's word or to the confession of faith as now approved were declared null and void; and all persons were forbidden to celebrate or to hear Ma.s.s under pain of confiscation of their goods for the first offence, banishment for the second, and death for the third.[20]

/The Book of Discipline/ which contained an exposition of the ecclesiastical policy of the Scottish Reformers was compiled by Knox and his companions. It dealt with the preaching of the Scriptures, the two sacraments Baptism and the Eucharist, the suppression of religious houses of all kinds, the election and appointment of ministers, elders and deacons, and with the means to be provided for their support and for the maintenance of education. Though the separate congregations were left more or less free regarding the kind of religious service that should be followed, the Book of Common Prayer formerly accepted in Scotland was abolished to make way for the Calvinistic Book of Common Order. In the general a.s.semblies of the reformed Church (December 1560-May 1561) decrees were issued for the destruction of the religious houses and of all signs of idolatry, and individuals were appointed to see that these decrees were put into immediate execution.[21]

Both parties in Scotland turned instinctively to their queen. Mary had been married in 1558, and in 1559 her husband succeeded to the throne of France under the t.i.tle of Francis II. A minister was dispatched to inform her of the proceedings in Parliament, but she refused to confirm the terms of the treaty with England, or to sanction the changes that had been decreed. The death of her husband Francis II.

(1560) threw her into great grief and forced her to consider the question of returning at once to her kingdom. She believed that many of those who opposed her previously, lest Scotland should become a French province, might now abandon their league with Elizabeth, and welcome home their own lawful sovereign. Nor was there anything at this time to indicate that Mary had any intention of playing the part of a champion of Catholicism,[22] or of running the risk of forfeiting her throne in Scotland or her claims to the English crown by undertaking a campaign against the new religion. Her years of residence at the French court, where religious interests were only too often sacrificed to political designs, could not fail to have produced their natural effect. In February 1561 she sent commissioners to a.s.sure the lords of her forgiveness for what they had done, and to empower the Duke of Chatelherault and others to convoke a Parliament in her name. At a meeting of the n.o.bles held in January 1561 her natural brother, Lord James Stuart, was deputed by the lords to offer Mary their allegiance, while the Catholic party including the Earls of Huntly, Atholl, Crawford, Sutherland, and some bishops, dispatched a messenger to warn her against the Congregation, and to place at her disposal a strong force in case she decided to land in the north. But Mary, distrusting the motives of Huntly and his friends, treated their offers of a.s.sistance with neglect, and welcomed as her saviour and friend the man who even then was not unwilling to act as a spy on his sister and his queen at the bidding of Elizabeth. Mary's selection of him as her trusted adviser boded ill for the future of her reign.

At last with a heavy heart Mary determined to leave the country of her adoption. As she was unwilling to confirm the treaty with England in its entirety and to renounce her claims to the English throne, Elizabeth refused to grant pa.s.sports through England, but under the shelter of a thick mist Mary succeeded in eluding all danger of capture and landed safely at Leith (Aug. 1561). From the people generally she received an enthusiastic welcome, but, when on the following Sunday she insisted that Ma.s.s should be celebrated in the private chapel of Holyrood, it required all the efforts of her brother to prevent a riot. Knox and his brethren denounced such idolatrous conduct as intolerable, and bewailed the misfortunes that G.o.d must inevitably pour out upon the country in punishment for so grievous a crime. A few days later Mary issued a proclamation announcing that no change would be made in the religious settlement without the consent of Parliament, but that in the meantime no attempt should be made to interfere with her household. A new privy council was appointed, in which the two princ.i.p.al members were Lord James Stuart and Maitland, Lord of Lethington, both equally untrustworthy. None of the Catholic bishops was offered a seat at the council board, and the Catholic lords were represented only by the Earls of Huntly and Argyll. A general a.s.sembly of the Reformers was held at Edinburgh (1561), which succeeded in securing a share of the ecclesiastical endowments, and another in 1562, which appointed John Craig as the a.s.sistant of Knox in Edinburgh. For so far Mary could do little for her co-religionists in Scotland, nor indeed does it appear that any serious effort was made in that direction. Still her own example was not without its effect. Several of the waverers especially in Edinburgh seem to have returned to the Church. Pius IV., who was anxious to learn the true state of affairs, commissioned the Jesuit Nicholas de Gouda (Gouda.n.u.s) to visit Scotland for the purpose of encouraging the queen and of inviting the bishops to a.s.sist at the Council of Trent. He arrived in Scotland (June 1561). After waiting six weeks in the house of a Catholic n.o.bleman he secured a secret interview with the queen at Holyrood. With most of the bishops he was not even so successful.

Though he reported that they were for the greater part Catholics and men of good intentions, some of them like Sinclair of Ross refused to see him, from others he got no reply to his letters, and it was only with the greatest difficulty he contrived to have a short conversation with Bishop Crichton at Dunkeld.[23] There is no doubt that the bishops were surrounded by powerful and watchful enemies, but it seems strange that they should have effaced themselves so completely, at a time when Knox and his opponents by means of general a.s.semblies and other such bodies were impressing the country with their strength and activity. Even though the bishops were silent the old religion was not without some able and energetic defenders in the person of Leslie, soon to be the Bishop of Ross, Quintin Kennedy whose services have been referred to already, and Ninian Winzet, who caused Knox considerable embarra.s.sment by his tracts, letters, and public disputations.