Chapter LXXI: Section 7 (28)

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. … Elders and
deacons were chosen to superintend the affairs of these infant
communities. Edinburgh has the honour of having given the
example, and the names of her first five elders are still
preserved. 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 was throwing down the gauntlet to all the powers of the
existing Church and State."

_J. Cunningham,
Church History of Scotland,
volume 1, chapter 10._

ALSO IN:
_John Knox,
History of the Reformation in Scotland
(Works, volume 1), book 1._

_D. Calderwood,
History of the Kirk of Scotland, 1557
(volume 1)._

_T. M'Crie,
Life of John Knox,
periods 5-6._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1558.
Marriage of Mary Stuart to the Dauphin of France.
Contemplated union of Crowns.

See FRANCE: A. D. 1547-1559.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1558-1560.
Rebellion and triumph of the Lords of the Congregation.
The Geneva Confession adopted.

"In 1558 the burning of an old preacher, Walter Mill, at St.
Andrew's, aroused the Lords of the Congregation, as the
signers of the Covenant now called themselves. They presented
their demands to the regent [the queen-dowager, Mary of
Guise], and some time was spent in useless discussion. But the
hands of the Reformers were strengthened by Elizabeth's
accession in England, and on May 2, 1559, the leading spirit
of the Scottish Reformation, John Knox, returned to Scotland.
… Knox's influence was soon felt in the course of affairs. In
May, 1559, the regent, stirred to action by the Cardinal of
Lorraine, summoned the reformed clergy to Stirling. They came,
but surrounded by so many followers, that the regent was
afraid, and promised that, if they would disperse, she would
proceed no further. They agreed; but scarcely were they gone
before Mary caused the preachers to be tried and condemned in
their absence.
{2856}
Knox's anger broke out in a fierce sermon against idolatry,
preached at Perth. The people of the town rose and destroyed
the images in the churches, and tore down all architectural
ornaments which contained sculpture. The example of Perth was
followed elsewhere, and the churches of Scotland were soon
robbed of their old beauty. From this time we must date the
decay of the fine ecclesiastical buildings of Scotland, whose
ruins still bear witness to their former splendour. … The
Lords of the Congregation were now in open rebellion against
the regent, and war was on the point of breaking out. It was,
however, averted for a time by the mediation of a few moderate
men, amongst whom was Lord James Stewart, an illegitimate son
of the late king, known in later history as the Earl of
Murray. Both parties agreed to lay down their arms, and submit
their disputes to a meeting of the Estates of the Realm, while
the regent promised not to molest the people of Perth, or
garrison the town with French soldiers. She kept the letter
only of her promise; for she hired native troops with French
money, and proceeded to punish the people of Perth. This
perfidy gave strength to the Congregation. They again took up
arms, seized Edinburgh, summoned a parliament, and deposed the
regent (October, 1559). This was a bold step; but without help
from England it could not be maintained. As the regent was
strong in French troops, the Congregation must ally with
England. Elizabeth wished to help them; but her course was by
no means clear. To ally with rebels fighting against their
lawful sovereign was a bad example for one in Elizabeth's
position to set. … At last, in January, 1560, a treaty was
made at Berwick, between Elizabeth and the Duke of
Chatelherault [better known as the Earl of Arran, who had
resigned the regency of Scotland in favor of Mary of Guise,
and received from the French king the duchy of Chatelherault],
the second person in the Scottish realm. Elizabeth undertook
to aid the Scottish lords in expelling the French, but would
only aid them so long as they acknowledged their queen. And
now a strange change had come over Scotland. The Scots were
fighting side by side with the English against their old
allies the French. Already their religious feelings had
overcome their old national animosities; or, rather, religion
itself had become a powerful element in their national spirit.
… But meanwhile affairs in France took a direction favourable
to the Reformers. … The French troops were needed at home, and
could no longer be spared for Scotland. The withdrawal of the
French made peace necessary in Scotland, and by the treaty of
Edinburgh (July, 1560), it was provided that henceforth no
foreigners should be employed in Scotland without the consent
of the Estates of the Realm. Elizabeth's policy was rewarded
by a condition that Mary and Francis II. should acknowledge
her queen of England, lay aside their own pretensions, and no
longer wear the British arms. Before the treaty was signed the
queen-regent died (June 20), and with her the power of France
and the Guises in Scotland was gone for the present. The
Congregation was now triumphant, and the work of Reformation
was quickly carried on. A meeting of the Estates approved of
the Geneva Confession of Faith, abjured the authority of the
Pope, and forbade the administration, or presence at the
administration, of the mass, on pain of death for the third
offence (August 25, 1560). … The plans of the Guises were no
longer to be carried on in Scotland and Eng]and by armed
interference, but by the political craft and cunning of their
niece, Mary of Scotland [now widowed by the death, December 4,
1560, of her husband, the young French king, Francis II.], who
had been trained under their influence."

_M. Creighton,
The Age of Elizabeth,
book 2, chapter 1._

ALSO IN:
_J. A. Froude,
History of England,
volume 7, chapters 2-3._

_J. Knox,
History of the Reformation in Scotland,
book 2 (Works, volume 1)._

_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapters 37-38 (volume 4)._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1561-1568.
The reign of Mary.
Differing views of her conduct and character.

In August, 1561, Queen Mary returned from her long residence
in France, to undertake the government of a country of which
she was the acknowledged sovereign, but of which she knew
almost nothing. "She was now a widow, so the Scots were freed
from the fear they had felt of seeing their country sink into
a province of France. The people, who had an almost
superstitious reverence for kingship, which was very
inconsistent with their contempt for kingly authority,
welcomed her with open arms. … They had yet to find out that
she had come back to them French in all but birth, gifted with
wit, intellect, and beauty, but subtle beyond their power of
searching, and quite as zealous for the old form of religion
as they were for the new one. The Queen, too, who came thus as
a stranger among her own people, had to deal with a state of
things unknown in former reigns. Hitherto the Church had taken
the side of the Crown against the nobles; now both [the
Reformed Church and the Lords of the Congregation] were united
against the Crown, whose only hope lay in the quarrels between
these ill-matched allies. The chief cause of discord between
them was the property of the Church. The Reformed ministers
fancied that they had succeeded, not only to the Pope's right
of dictation in all matters, public and private, but to the
lands of the Church as well. To neither of these claims would
the Lords agree. They were as little inclined to submit to the
tyranny of presbyters as to the tyranny of the Pope. They
withstood the ministers who wished to forbid the Queen and her
attendants hearing mass in her private chapel, and they
refused to accept as law the First, Book of Discipline, a code
of rules drawn up by the ministers for the guidance of the new
Church. As to the land, much of it had already passed into the
hands of laymen, who, with the lands, generally bore the title
of the Church dignitary who had formerly held them. The Privy
Council took one-third of what remained to pay the stipends of
the ministers, while the rest was supposed to remain in the
hands of the Churchmen in possession, and, as they died out,
it was to fall in to the Crown. Lord James Stewart, Prior of
St. Andrews, whom the Queen created Earl of Murray, was the
hope of the Protestants, but in the north the Romanists were
still numerous and strong. Their head was the Earl of Huntly,
chief of the Gordons, who reigned supreme over most of the
north." One of the first proceedings of the Queen was to join
the Earl of Murray in hostilities which pursued the Earl of
Huntly and his son to their death.
{2857}
And yet they were the main pillars of the Church which she was
determined to restore! "The most interesting question now for
all parties was, whom the Queen would marry. Many foreign
princes were talked of, and Elizabeth suggested her own
favourite, the Earl of Leicester, but Mary settled the matter
herself by falling in love with her own cousin, Henry Stewart,
Lord Darnley." Murray opposed the marriage with bitterness,
and took up arms against it, but failed of support and fled to
England. The wretched consequences of Mary's union with the
handsome but worthless Darnley are among the tragedies of
history which all the world is acquainted with. She tired of
him, and inflamed his jealousy, with that of all her court, by
making a favorite of her Italian secretary, David Rizzio.
Rizzio was brutally murdered, in her presence, March 9, 1566,
by a band of conspirators, to whom Darnley had pledged his
protection. The Queen dissembled her resentment until she had
power to make it effective, flying from Edinburgh to Dunbar,
meantime. When, within a month, she returned to the capital,
it was with a strong force, brought to her support by James
Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. The murderers of Rizzio were
outlawed, and Darnley, while recovering from an attack of
smallpox, was killed (February 9, 1567) by the blowing up of a
house, outside of Edinburgh, in which the Queen had placed
him. "It was commonly believed that Bothwell was guilty of the
murder, and it was suspected that he had done it to please the
Queen and with her consent. This suspicion was strengthened by
her conduct. She made no effort to find out the murderer and
to bring him to punishment, and on the day of the funeral she
gave Bothwell the feudal superiority over the town of Leith."
In May, three months after Darnley's death, she married the
Earl of Bothwell,—who had freed himself from an earlier tie by
hasty divorce. This shameless conduct caused a rising of the
barons, who occupied Edinburgh in force. Bothwell attempted to
oppose them with an army; but there was no battle. The Queen
surrendered herself, at Carberry, June 15, 1567; Bothwell
escaped, first to Orkney, and then to Denmark, where he died
about ten years later. "Just a month after her third marriage
the Queen was brought back to Edinburgh, to be greeted by the
railings of the mob, who now openly accused her as a
murderess. … From Edinburgh she was taken to a lonely castle
built on a small island in the centre of Loch Leven. A few
days later a casket containing eight letters was produced.
These letters, it was said, Bothwell had left behind him in
his flight, and they seemed to have been written by Mary to
him while Darnley was ill in Glasgow. If she really wrote
them, they proved very plainly that she had planned the murder
with Bothwell. They are called the 'casket letters,' from the
box or casket in which they were found. The confederate barons
acted as if they were really hers. The Lord Lindsay and Robert
Melville were sent to her at Loch Leven, and she there signed
the demission of the government to her son, and desired that
Murray should be the first regent." The infant king, James
VI., was crowned at Stirling; and Murray, recalled from
France, became regent. Within a year Mary escaped from her
prison, reasserted her right of sovereignty, and was supported
by a considerable party. Defeated in a battle fought at
Langside, May 13, 1568, she then fled to England, and received
from Elizabeth the hospitality of a prison. She was confined
in various castles and manor-houses, ending her life, after
many removes, at Fotheringay, where she was executed February
8, 1587.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1587.

_M. Macarthur,
History of Scotland,
chapter 6._

"In spite of all the prurient suggestions of writers who have
fastened on the story of Mary's life as on a savoury morsel,
there is no reason whatever for thinking that she was a woman
of licentious disposition, and there is strong evidence to the
contrary. There was never anything to her discredit in France.
… The charge of adultery with Rizzio is dismissed as unworthy
of belief even by Mr. Froude, the severest of her judges.
Bothwell indeed she loved, and, like many another woman who
does not deserve to be called licentious, she sacrificed her
reputation to the man she loved. But the most conclusive proof
that she was no slave to appetite is afforded by her nineteen
years' residence in England, which began when she was only
twenty-five. During almost the whole of that time she was
mixing freely in the society of the other sex, with the
fullest opportunity for misconduct had she been so inclined.
It is not to be supposed that she was fettered by any scruples
of religion or morality. Yet no charge of unchastity is made
against her. … That Darnley was murdered by Bothwell is not
disputed. That Mary was cognisant of the plot and lured him to
the shambles, has been doubted by few investigators at once
competent and unbiased. She lent herself to this part not
without compunction. Bothwell had the advantage over her that
the loved has over the lover; and he used it mercilessly for
his headlong ambition, hardly taking the trouble to pretend
that he cared for the unhappy woman who was sacrificing
everything for him. He in fact cared more for his lawful wife,
whom he was preparing to divorce, and to whom he had been
married only six months. … What brought sudden and
irretrievable ruin on Mary was not the murder of Darnley, but
the infatuation which made her the passive instrument of
Bothwell's presumptuous ambition."

_E. S. Beesly,
Queen Elizabeth,
chapter 4._

"Constitutionally, Mary was not a person likely to come under
the sway of a violent and absorbing passion. Her whole nature
was masculine in its moderation, its firmness, its
magnanimity. She was tolerant, uncapricious, capable of
carrying out a purpose steadily, yet with tact and policy. She
was never hysterical, never fanciful. With her, love was not
an engrossing occupation; on the contrary, to Mary, as to most
men, it was but the child and plaything of unfrequent leisure.
Her lovers went mad about her, but she never went mad about
her lovers. She sent Chatelar to the scaffold. She saw Sir
John Gordon beheaded. She admitted Rizzio to a close intimacy.
Rizzio was her intellectual mate, the depository of her state
secrets, her politic guide and confidant: but the very
notoriety of her intercourse with him showed how innocent and
unsexual it was in its nature,—the frank companionship of
friendly statesmen.
{2858}
Had she been Rizzio's mistress, nay, even had love in the
abstract been a more important matter to her than it was, she
would have been more cautious and discreet; however important
the public business which they were transacting might have
been, she would hardly have kept the Italian secretary in her
boudoir half the night. Her marriage with Darnley was not
exclusively a love-match: it was a marriage to which her
judgment, as well as her heart, consented. Her love-letters
abound in pretty trifles: her business letters are clear,
strong, rapid, brilliantly direct. By the fantastic irony of
fate this masculine unsentimental career has been translated
into an effeminate love-story,—the truth being, as I have had
to say again and again, that no woman ever lived to whom love
was less of a necessity. This was the strength of Mary's
character as a queen—as a woman, its defect. A love-sick girl,
when her castle in the air was shattered, might have come to
hate Darnley with a feverish feminine hatred; but the sedate
and politic intelligence of the Queen could only have been
incidentally affected by such considerations. She knew that,
even at the worst, Darnley was a useful ally, and the motives
which induced her to marry him must have restrained her from
putting him forcibly away. Yet when the deed was done, it is
not surprising that she should have acquiesced in the action
of the nobility. Bothwell, again, was in her estimation a
loyal retainer, a trusted adviser of the Crown; but he was
nothing more. Yet it need not surprise us that after her
forcible detention at Dunbar, she should have resolved to
submit with a good grace to the inevitable. Saving Argyle and
Huntley, Bothwell was the most powerful of her peers. He was
essentially a strong man; fit, it seemed, to rule that
turbulent nobility. He had been recommended to her acceptance
by the unanimous voice of the aristocracy, Protestant and
Catholic. … On a woman of ardent sentimentality these
considerations would have had little effect: they were exactly
the considerations which would appeal to Mary's masculine
common-sense. Yet, though she made what seemed to her the best
of a bad business, she was very wretched."

_J. Skelton,
Essays in History and Biography,
pages 40-41._

"To establish the genuineness of the Casket Letters is
necessarily to establish that Mary was a co-conspirator with
Bothwell in the murder of her husband. … The expressions in
the letters are not consistent with an innocent purpose, or
with the theory that she brought Darnley to Edinburgh in order
to facilitate the obtaining of a divorce. Apart even from
other corroborative evidence, the evidence of the letters, if
their genuineness be admitted, is sufficient to establish her
guilt. Inasmuch, however, as her entire innocence is not
consistent with other evidence, it can scarcely be affirmed
that the problem of the genuineness of the letters has an
absolutely vital bearing on the character of Mary. Mr.
Skelton, who does not admit the genuineness of the letters,
and who may be reckoned one of the most distinguished and
ingenious defenders of Mary in this country, has taken no
pains to conceal his contempt for what he terms the 'theory of
the ecclesiastics'—that Mary, during the whole progress of the
plot against Darnley's life, was 'innocent as a child,
immaculate as a saint.' He is unable to adopt a more friendly
attitude towards her than that of an apologizer, and is
compelled to attempt the assumption of a middle position—that
she was neither wholly innocent nor wholly guilty; that,
ignorant of the details and method of the plot, she only
vaguely guessed that it was in progress, and failed merely in
firmly and promptly forbidding its execution. But in a case of
murder a middle position—a position of even partial
indifference—is, except in very peculiar circumstances,
well-nigh impossible; in the case of a wife's attitude to the
murder of her husband, the limit of impossibility is still
more nearly approached; but when the wife possesses such
exceptional courage, fertility of resource, and strength of
will as were possessed by Mary, the impossibility may be
regarded as absolute. Besides, as a matter of fact, Mary was
not indifferent in the matter. She had long regarded her
husband's conduct with antipathy and indignation; she did not
conceal her eager desire to be delivered from the yoke of
marriage to him; and she had abundant reasons, many of which
were justifiable, for this desire. … The fatal weakness … of
all such arguments as are used to establish either Mary's
absolute or partial innocence of the murder is, that they do
not harmonize with the leading traits of her disposition. She
was possessed of altogether exceptional decision and force of
will; she was remarkably wary and acute; and she was a match
for almost any of her contemporaries in the art of diplomacy.
She was not one to be concussed into a course of action to
which she had any strong aversion."

_T. F. Henderson,
The Casket Letters and Mary Queen of Scots,
chapter 1._

"The beauties of her person, and graces of her air, combined
to make her the most amiable of women; and the charms of her
address and conversation aided the impression which her lovely
figure made on the hearts of all beholders. Ambitious and
active in her temper, yet inclined to cheerfulness and
society; of a lofty spirit, constant and even vehement in her
purpose, yet polite, and gentle, and affable in her demeanour;
she seemed to partake only so much of the male virtues as to
render her estimable, without relinquishing those soft graces
which compose the proper ornament of her sex. In order to form
a just idea of her character, we must set aside one part of
her conduct, while she abandoned herself to the guidance of a
profligate man; and must consider these faults, whether we
admit them to be imprudences or crimes, as the result of an
inexplicable, though not uncommon, inconstancy in the human
mind, of the frailty of our nature, of the violence of
passion, and of the influence which situations, and sometimes
momentary incidents, have on persons whose principles are not
thoroughly confirmed by experience and reflection. Enraged by
the ungrateful conduct of her husband, seduced by the
treacherous counsels of one in whom she reposed confidence,
transported by the violence of her own temper, which never lay
sufficiently under the guidance of discretion, she was
betrayed into actions which may with some difficulty be
accounted for, but which admit of no apology, nor even of
alleviation. An enumeration of her qualities might carry the
appearance of a panegyric: an account of her conduct must in
some parts wear the aspect of severe satire and invective. Her
numerous misfortunes, the solitude of her long and tedious
captivity, and the persecutions to which she had been exposed
on account of her religion, had wrought her up to a degree of
bigotry during her later years; and such were the prevalent
spirit and principles of the age, that it is the less wonder
if her zeal, her resentment, and her interest uniting, induced
her to give consent to a design which conspirators, actuated
only by the first of these motives, had formed against the
life of Elizabeth."

_D. Hume,
History of England,
chapter 42 (volume 4)._

{2859}

"More books have been written about Mary Stuart than exist as
to all the Queens in the world; yet, so greatly do those
biographies vary in their representations of her character,
that at first it seems scarcely credible how any person could
be so differently described. The triumph of a creed or party
has unhappily been more considered than the development of
facts, or those principles of moral justice which ought to
animate the pen of the Historian; and, after all the literary
gladiatorship that has been practised in this arena for some
three hundred years, the guilt or innocence of Mary Queen of
Scots is still under consideration, for party feeling and
sectarian hate have not yet exhausted their malice. … If the
opinions of Mary Stuart's own sex were allowed to decide the
question at issue, a verdict of not guilty would have been
pronounced by an overwhelming majority of all readers,
irrespective of creed or party. Is, then, the moral standard
erected by women for one another, lower than that which is
required of them by men? Are they less acute in their
perceptions of right and wrong, or more disposed to tolerate
frailties? The contrary has generally been proved. With the
exception of Queen Elizabeth, Catharine de Medicis, Lady
Shrewsbury, and Margaret Erskine (Lady Douglas), of infamous
memory, Mary Stuart had no female enemies worthy of notice. It
is a remarkable fact that English gold could not purchase
witnesses from the female portion of the household of the
Queen of Scots. None of the ladies of the Court, whether
Protestant or Catholic, imputed crime at any time to their
mistress. In the days of her Royal splendour in France Queen
Mary was attended by ladies of ancient family and unsullied
honour, and, like true women, they clung to her in the darkest
hour of her later adversity, through good and evil report they
shared the gloom and sorrow of her prison life."

_S. H. Burke,
Historical Portraits of the Tudor Dynasty
and the Reformation Period,
volume 4, chapter 7._

"Mary Stuart was in many respects the creature of her age, of
her creed, and of her station; but the noblest and most
noteworthy qualities of her nature were independent of rank,
opinion, or time. Even the detractors who defend her conduct
on the plea that she was a dastard and a dupe are compelled in
the same breath to retract this implied reproach, and to
admit, with illogical acclamation and incongruous applause,
that the world never saw more splendid courage at the service
of more brilliant intelligence; that a braver if not 'a rarer
spirit never did steer humanity.' A kinder or more faithful
friend, a deadlier or more dangerous enemy, it would be
impossible to dread or to desire. Passion alone could shake
the double fortress of her impregnable heart and ever active
brain. The passion of love, after very sufficient experience,
she apparently and naturally outlived; the passion of hatred
and revenge was as inextinguishable in her inmost nature as
the emotion of loyalty and gratitude. Of repentance it would
seem that she knew as little as of fear; having been trained
from her infancy in a religion where the Decalogue was
supplanted by the Creed. Adept as she was in the most
exquisite delicacy of dissimulation, the most salient note of
her original disposition was daring rather than subtlety.
Beside or behind the voluptuous or intellectual attractions of
beauty and culture, she had about her the fresher charm of a
fearless and frank simplicity, a genuine and enduring pleasure
in small and harmless things no less than in such as were
neither. … For her own freedom of will and of way, of passion
and of action, she cared much; for her creed she cared
something; for her country she cared less than nothing. She
would have flung Scotland with England into the hellfire of
Spanish Catholicism rather than forego the faintest chance of
personal revenge. … In the private and personal qualities
which attract and attach a friend to his friend and a follower
to his leader, no man or woman was ever more constant and more
eminent than Mary Queen of Scots."

_A. C. Swinburne,
Mary Queen of Scots
(Miscellanies, pages 357-359)._

ALSO IN:
_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapters 41-47 (volume 4)._

_M. Laing,
History of Scotland,
volumes 1-2._

_F. A. Mignet,
History of Mary, Queen of Scots._

_A. Strickland,
Life of Mary, Queen of Scots._

_J. Skelton,
Maitland of Lethington._

_W. Robertson,
History of Scotland,
Appendix._

_C. M. Yonge,
Cameos of English History,
series 4, chapter 32,
and series 5, chapters 1, 2, 5 and 6._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1567.
Accession of James VI.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1568-1572.
Distracted state of the kingdom.
The Reformed Church and John Knox.

During the whole minority of the young king, James VI.,
Scotland was torn by warring factions. Murray, assassinated in
1570, was succeeded in the regency by the Earl of Lennox, who
was killed in a fight the next year. The Earl of Mar followed
him, and Morton held the office next. "The civil commotions
that ensued on Murray's assassination were not wholly adverse
to the reformed cause, as they gave it an overwhelming
influence with the king's party, which it supported. On the
other hand they excused every kind of irregularity. There was
a scramble for forfeited estates and the patrimony of the
kirk, from which latter source the leaders of both parties
rewarded their partisans. … The church … viewed with alarm the
various processes by which the ecclesiastical revenues were
being secularised. Nor can it be doubted that means, by which
the evil might be stayed, were the subject of conference
between committees of the Privy Council and General Assembly.
The plan which was actually adopted incorporated in the
reformed church the spiritual estate, and reintroduced the
bishops by their proper titles, subject to stringent
conditions of qualification. …

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1572.

Knox, whose life had been attempted in March 1570-1, had been
constrained to retire from Edinburgh and was at St. Andrews
when the new platform was arranged. On the strength of certain
notices that are not at all conclusive, it has been
strenuously denied that he was a party to it even by consent.
… There are facts, however, to the contrary. … On the evidence
available Knox cannot be claimed as the advocate of a divine
right, either of presbytery or episcopacy. … With fast-failing
strength he returned to Edinburgh towards the end of August."
On the 24th of November, 1572, he died.

_M. C. Taylor,
John Knox
(St. Giles' Lectures, 3d series)._

{2860}

"It seems to me hard measure that this Scottish man [John
Knox], now after three-hundred years, should have to plead
like a culprit before the world; intrinsically for having
been, in such way as it was then possible to be, the bravest
of all Scotchmen! Had he been a poor Half-and-half, he could
have crouched into the corner, like so many others; Scotland
had not been delivered; and Knox had been without blame. He is
the one Scotchman to whom, of all others, his country and the
world owe a debt. He has to plead that Scotland would forgive
him for having been worth to it any million 'unblamable'
Scotchmen that need no forgiveness. He bared his breast to the
battle; had to row in French galleys, wander forlorn in exile,
in clouds and storms; was censured, shot-at through his
windows; had a right sore fighting life; if this world were
his place of recompense, he had made but a bad venture of it.
I cannot apologise for Knox. To him it is very indifferent,
these two-hundred-and-fifty years or more, what men say of
him."

_T. Carlyle,
Heroes and Hero-worship,
lecture 4._

"Altogether, if we estimate him [Knox], as we are alone
entitled to do, in his historical position and circumstances,
Knox appears a very great and heroic man—no violent demagogue,
or even stern dogmatist—although violence and sternness and
dogmatism were all parts of his character. These coarser
elements mingled with but did not obscure the fresh, living,
and keenly sympathetic humanity beneath. Far inferior to
Luther in tenderness and breadth and lovableness, he is
greatly superior to Calvin in the same qualities. You feel
that he had a strong and loving heart under all his harshness,
and that you can get near to it, and could have spent a cheery
social evening with him in his house at the head of the Canon
gate, over that good old wine that he had stored in his
cellar, and which he was glad and proud to dispense to his
friends. It might not have been a very pleasant thing to
differ with him even in such circumstances; but, upon the
whole, it would have been a pleasanter and safer audacity than
to have disputed some favourite tenet with Calvin. There was
in Knox far more of mere human feeling and of shrewd worldly
sense, always tolerant of differences; and you could have
fallen back upon these, and felt yourself comparatively safe
in the utterance of some daring sentiment. And in this point
of view it deserves to be noticed that Knox alone of the
reformers, along with Luther, is free from all stain of
violent persecution. Intolerant he was towards the mass,
towards Mary, and towards the old Catholic clergy; yet he was
no persecutor. He was never cruel in act, cruel as his
language sometimes is, and severe as were some of his
judgments. Modern enlightenment and scientific indifference we
have no right to look for in him. His superstitions about the
weather and witches were common to him with all men of his
time. … As a mere thinker, save perhaps on political subjects,
he takes no rank; and his political views, wise and
enlightened as they were, seem rather the growth of his manly
instinctive sense than reasoned from any fundamental
principles. Earnest, intense, and powerful in every practical
direction, he was not in the least characteristically
reflective or speculative. Everywhere the hero, he is nowhere
the philosopher or sage.—He was, in short, a man for his work
and time—knowing what was good for his country there and then,
when the old Catholic bonds had rotted to the very heart. A
man of God, yet with sinful weaknesses like us all. There is
something in him we can no longer love,—a harshness and
severity by no means beautiful or attractive; but there is
little in him that we cannot in the retrospect heartily
respect, and even admiringly cherish."

_J. Tulloch,
Leaders of the Reformation: Knox._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1570-1573.
Civil War.

"All the miseries of civil war desolated the kingdom.
Fellow-citizens, friends, brothers, took different sides, and
ranged themselves under the standards of the contending
factions. In every county, and almost in every town and
village, 'king's men' and 'queen's men' were names of
distinction. Political hatred dissolved all natural ties, and
extinguished the reciprocal good-will and confidence which
hold mankind together in society. Religious zeal mingled
itself with these civil distinctions, and contributed not a
little to heighten and to inflame them. The factions which
divided the kingdom were, in appearance, only two; but in both
these there were persons with views and principles so
different from each other that they ought to be distinguished.
With some, considerations of religion were predominant, and
they either adhered to the queen because they hoped by her
means to reestablish popery, or they defended the king's
authority as the best support of the protestant faith. Among
these the opposition was violent and irreconcilable. … As
Morton, who commanded the regent's forces [1572, during the
regency of Mar], lay at Leith, and Kirkaldy still held out the
town and castle of Edinburgh [for the party of the queen],
scarce a day passed without a skirmish. … Both parties hanged
the prisoners which they took, of whatever rank or quality,
without mercy and without trial. Great numbers suffered in
this shocking manner; the unhappy victims were led by fifties
at a time to execution; and it was not till both sides had
smarted severely that they discontinued this barbarous
practice." In 1573, Morton, being now regent, made peace with
one faction of the queen's party, and succeeded, with the help
of a siege train and force which Queen Elizabeth sent him from
England, in overcoming the other faction which held Edinburgh
and its castle. Kirkaldy was compelled to surrender after a
siege of thirty-three days, receiving promises of protection
from the English commander, in spite of which he was hanged.

_W. Robertson,
History of Scotland,
book 6 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapters 53-56 (volume 5)._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1572.
Episcopacy restored.
The Concordat of Leith.
The Tulchan Bishops.

"On the 12th of January, 1572, a Convention of 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 superintendents, barons, commissioners to
plant kirks, commissioners of provinces, towns, kirks, and
ministers.' …
{2861}
By the 1st of February the joint committees
framed a concordat, of which the following articles were the
chief;

1. That the names of archbishops and bishops, and the bounds
of dioceses, should remain as they were before the
Reformation, at the 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
more power than was possessed by the superintendents, and
should like them be subject to the General Assemblies.

2. That abbots and friars should be continued as parts of the
Spiritual Estate of the realm. …

Such was the famous concordat agreed upon by the Church and
State in Scotland in 1572. … The Church had in vain …
struggled to get possession of its patrimony. It 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 gifted to
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.
… 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. … Knox yielded
to the same necessity under which the Church had bowed. … 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."

_J. Cunningham,
Church History of Scotland,
volume 1, chapter 12._

"The new dignitaries got from the populace the name of the
Tulchan bishops. A tulchan, an old Scots word of unknown
origin, was applied to a stuffed calf-skin which was brought
into the presence of a recently-calved cow. It was an
agricultural doctrine of that age, and of later times, that
the presence of this changeling induced the bereaved mother
easily to part with her milk. To draw what remained of the
bishops' revenue, it was expedient that there should be
bishops; but the revenues were not for them, but for the lay
lords, who milked the ecclesiastical cow."

_J. H. Burton,
History of Scotland,
chapter 54 (volume 5)._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1581.
The Second Covenant, called also The First National Covenant.

"The national covenant of Scotland was simply an abjuration of
popery, and a solemn engagement, ratified by a solemn oath, to
support the protestant religion. Its immediate occasion was a
dread, too well founded—a dread from which Scotland was never
entirely freed till the revolution—of the re-introduction of
popery. It was well known that Lennox was an emissary of the
house of Guise, and had been sent over to prevail on the young
king to embrace the Roman Catholic faith. … A conspiracy so
dangerous at all times to a country divided in religious
sentiment, demanded a counter-combination equally strict and
solemn, and led to the formation of the national covenant of
Scotland. This was drawn up at the king's request, by his
chaplain, John Craig. It consisted of an abjuration, in the
most solemn and explicit terms, of the various articles of the
popish system, and an engagement to adhere to and defend the
reformed doctrine and discipline of the reformed church of
Scotland. The covenanters further pledged themselves, under
the same oath, 'to defend his majesty's person and authority
with our goods, bodies, and lives, in the defence of Christ's
evangel, liberties of our country, ministration of justice,
and punishment of iniquity, against all enemies within the
realm or without.' This bond, at first called 'the king's
confession,' was sworn and subscribed by the king and his
household, for example to others, on the 28th of January 1581;
and afterwards, in consequence of an order in council, and an
act of the general assembly, it was cheerfully subscribed by
all ranks of persons through the kingdom; the ministers
zealously promoting the subscription in their respective
parishes."

_T. M'Crie,
Sketches of Scottish Church History,
volume 1, chapter 4._

ALSO IN:
_D. Calderwood,
History of the Kirk of Scotland,
volume 3, 1581._

_J. Row,
History of the Kirk of Scotland, 1581._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1582.
The Raid of Ruthven.

"The two favourites [Lennox and Arran], by their ascendant
over the king, possessed uncontrolled power in the kingdom,
and exercised it with the utmost wantonness." The provocation
which they gave brought about, at length, a combination of
nobles, formed for the purpose of removing the young king from
their influence. Invited to Ruthven Castle in August, 1582, by
its master, Lord Ruthven, lately created Earl of Gowrie, James
found there a large assemblage of the conspirators and was
detained against his will. He was afterwards removed to
Stirling, and later to the palace of Holyrood, but still under
restraint. This continued until the following June, when the
king effected his escape and Arran recovered his power. Lennox
had died meantime in France. All those concerned in what was
known as the Raid of Ruthven were proclaimed guilty of high
treason and fled the country. The clergy gave great offense to
the king by approving and sustaining the Raid of Ruthven. He
never forgave the Church for its attitude on this occasion.

_W. Robertson,
History of Scotland,
book 6 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN:
_C. M. Yonge,
Cameos from English History,
series 5, chapter 20._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1584.
The Black Acts.

"James was bent upon destroying a form of Church government
which he imagined to be inconsistent with his own kingly
prerogatives. The General Assembly rested upon too popular a
basis; they were too independent of his absolute will; they
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. … On the 22d of May, 1584, the
Parliament assembled. … 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 pronounced
to be treason; thus was the boldness of such men as Melville
to be chastised.
{2862}
By a third, all convocations except those specially licensed
by the king were declared to be unlawful; 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 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.' … 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 sympathized 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."

_J. Cunningham,
Church History of Scotland,
volume 1, chapter 12._

ALSO IN:
_D. Calderwood,
History of the Kirk of Scotland,
volume 4, 1584._

_Scottish Divines
(St. Giles' Lectures, series 3),
lecture 2._

_J. Melville,
Autobiography and Diary, 1584._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1587.
The execution of Mary Stuart in England.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1585-1587.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1587.
Appropriation of Church lands and ruin of the Episcopacy.

The parliament of 1587 passed an act which "annexed to the
crown such lands of the church as had not been inalienably
bestowed upon the nobles or landed gentry; these were still
considerable, and were held either by the titular bishops who
possessed the benefices, or were granted to laymen by rights
merely temporary. The only fund reserved for the clergy who
were to serve the cure was the principal mansion house, with a
few acres of glebe land. The fund from which their stipends
were to be paid was limited to the tithes. … The crown … was
little benefited by an enactment which, detaching the church
lands from all connection with ecclesiastical persons, totally
ruined the order of bishops, for the restoration of whom, with
some dignity and authority, king James, and his successor
afterwards, expressed considerable anxiety."

_Sir W. Scott,
History of Scotland,
chapter 37 (volume 2)._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1600.
The Gowrie Plot.

"On the morning of the 5th of August, 1600, as James was
setting out hunting from Falkland Palace, he was met by
Alexander Ruthven, the younger brother of the Earl of Gowrie
[both being sons of the Gowrie of the ' Raid of Ruthven'], who
told him with a great air of mystery that he had discovered a
man burying a pot of money in a field, and that he thought the
affair so suspicious that he had taken him prisoner, and
begged the King to come to Gowrie House in Perth to see him.
James went, taking with him Mar, Lennox, and about twenty
other gentlemen. After dinner Alexander took the King aside,
and, when his attendants missed him, they were told that he
had gone back to Falkland. They were preparing to follow him
there when some of them heard cries from a turret. They
recognized the King's voice, and they presently saw his head
thrust out of a window, calling for help. They had much ado to
make their way to him, but they found him at last in a small
room struggling with Alexander, while a man dressed in armour
was looking on. Alexander Ruthven and Gowrie were both killed
in the scuffle which followed. A tumult rose in the town, for
the Earl had been Provost and was very popular with the
towns-folk, and the King and his followers had to make their
escape by the river. The doom of traitors was passed on the
dead men, and their name was proscribed, but as no accomplice
could be discovered, it was hard to say what was the extent or
object of their plot. The whole affair was very mysterious,
the only witnesses being the King himself and Henderson the
man in armour. Some of the ministers thought it so suspicions
that they refused to return thanks for the King's safety, as
they thought the whole affair an invention of his own." Eight
years later, however, some letters were discovered which
seemed to prove that there had really been a plot to seize the
King's person.

_M. Macarthur,
History of Scotland,
chapter 6._

ALSO IN:
_Sir W. Scott,
History of Scotland,
chapter 40 (volume 2)._

_P. F. Tytler,
History of Scotland,
volume 4, chapter 11._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1603.
Accession of James VI. to the English throne.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1603.

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1618.
The Five Articles of Perth.

After his accession to the English throne, James became more
deeply enamoured of Episcopacy, and of its ecclesiastical and
ceremonial incidents, than before, and more determined to
force them on the Scottish church. He worked to that end with
arbitrary insolence and violence, and with every kind of
dishonest intrigue, until he had accomplished his purpose
completely. Not only were his bishops seated, with fair
endowments and large powers restored, but he had them ordained
in England, to ensure their apostolic legitimacy. When this
had been done, he resolved to impose a liturgy upon the
Church, with certain ordinances of his own framing. The five
articles in which the latter were embodied became for two
years the subject of a most bitter and heated struggle between
the court and its bishops on one side, with most of the
general clergy on the other. At length, in August, 1618, an
Assembly made up at Perth proved subservient enough to submit
to the royal brow-beating and to adopt the five articles.
These Five Articles of Perth, as they are known, enjoined
kneeling at the communion, observance of five holidays, and
episcopal confirmation; and they authorized the private
dispensation both of baptism and of the Lord's Supper. The
powers of the court of high commission were actively brought
into play to enforce them.

_J. Cunningham,
Church History of Scotland,
volume 2, chapter 1._

SCOTLAND: A. D. 1637.
Laud's Liturgy and Jenny Geddes' Stool.

"Now we are summoned to a sadder subject; from the sufferings
of a private person [John Williams, bishop of Lincoln, pursued
and persecuted by Laud] to the miseries and almost mutual]
ruin of two kingdoms, England and Scotland. I confess, my
hands have always been unwilling to write of that cold
country, for fear my fingers should be frostbitten therewith;
but necessity to make our story entire puts me upon the
employment. Miseries, caused from the sending of the Book of
Service or new Liturgy thither, which may sadly be termed a
'Rubric' indeed, dyed with the blood of so many of both
nations, slain on that occasion.
{2863}
It seems the design began in the reign of king James; who
desired and endeavoured an uniformity of public prayers
through the kingdom of Scotland. … In the reign of king
Charles, the project being resumed (but whether the same book
or no, God knoweth), it was concluded not to send into
Scotland the same Liturgy of England 'totidem verbis,' lest
this should be misconstrued a badge of dependence of that
church on ours. It was resolved also, that the two Liturgies
should not differ in substance, lest the Roman party should
upbraid us with weighty and material differences. A similitude
therefore not identity being resolved of, it was drawn up with
some, as they termed them, insensible alterations, but such as
were quickly found and felt by the Scotch to their great
distaste. … The names of sundry saints, omitted in the
English, are inserted into the Scotch Calendar (but only in
black letters), on their several days. … Some of these were
kings, all of them natives of that country. … But these Scotch
saints were so far from making the English Liturgy acceptable,
that the English Liturgy rather made the saints odious unto
them. … No sooner had the dean of Edinburgh begun to read the
book in the church of St. Giles, Sunday, July 23rd, in the
presence of the Privy Council, both the archbishops, divers
bishops, and magistrates of the city, but presently such a
tumult was raised that, through clapping of hands, cursing,
and crying, one could neither hear nor be heard. The bishop of
Edinburgh endeavoured in vain to appease the tumult; when a
stool, aimed to be thrown at him [according to popular
tradition by an old herb-woman named Jenny Geddes], had
killed, if not diverted by one present; so that the same book
had occasioned his death and prescribed the form of his
burial; and this hubbub was hardly suppressed by the lord
provost and bailiffs of Edinburgh. This first tumult was
caused by such, whom I find called 'the scum of the city,'
considerable for nothing but their number. But, few days
after, the cream of the nation (some of the highest and best
quality therein) engaged in the same cause, crying out, 'God
defend all those who will defend God's cause! and God confound
the service-book and all the maintainers of it!'"

_T. Fuller,
Church History of Britain,
book 11, section 2 (volume 3)._

"One of the most distinct and familiar of historical
traditions attributes the honour of flinging the first stool,
and so beginning the great civil war, to a certain Jenny or
Janet Geddes. But a search among contemporary writers for the
identification of such an actor on the scene, will have the
same inconclusive result that often attends the search after
some criminal hero with a mythical celebrity when he is wanted
by the police. … Wodrow, on the authority of Robert Stewart—a
son of the Lord Advocate of the Revolution—utter]y dethrones
Mrs. Geddes: 'He tells me that it's the constantly-believed
tradition that it was Mrs. Mean, wife to John Mean, merchant
in Edinburgh, that cast the first stool when the service was
read in the New Kirk, Edinburgh, 1637; and that many of the
lasses that carried on the fray were prentices in disguise,
for they threw stools to a great length.'"