Chapter II: The Movement of Reform Begins

(1522 TO APRIL 1527.)

The Reformation seems to have begun in Scotland with the profession of those principles, Catholic but antipapal, which had been maintained a century earlier at the Council of Constance. There were doctors present there who set out from the thought that from the age of the Apostles there always had been, and that there always will be, a church one and universal, capable of remedying by its own action all abuses in its forms of worship, dissensions among its members, the hypocrisy of its priests, and the despotic assumptions of the first of its pontiffs. John Mayor had been recently called to Glasgow University. Among his audience there John Knox distinguished himself by his passion for study; and not far from him was another young Scotchman, of a less serious turn, Buchanan. ‘The church universal,’--so were they taught by the disciple of d’Ailly and of Gerson--‘when assembled in council, is above the pope, and may rebuke, judge, and even depose him. The Roman excommunications have no force at all if they are not conformed to justice. The ambition, the avarice, the worldly luxury of the Roman court and of the bishops are to be sharply censured.’ On another occasion, the professor, passing from theology to politics, avowed doctrines far in advance of his age. He taught that a people, in its entirety, is above the monarch; that the power of the king is derived from the people, and that if a prince acts in opposition to the interests of his subjects, the latter have the right to dethrone him. Mayor went further still, even to the blameworthy extreme of asserting that in certain cases the king might be put to death.[20] These political principles, professed by one who occupied a Roman Catholic chair, thoroughly scholastic and superstitious, must have influenced the convictions of Buchanan, who afterwards, in his dialogue _De Jure Regni apud Scotos_, professed opinions which were energetically controverted, even by Protestants. ‘In the beginning,’ said he, ‘we created legitimate kings, and we established laws binding equally on them and on ourselves.’[21] These political heresies of the sixteenth century are the truths of our days. The principles of Mayor were certainly not received without exception by Knox, but they had probably something to do with the firmness with which he maintained the rights of the Word of God in the presence of Mary Stuart. For the moment, Knox, disgusted with the barren theology of his master--a stanch scholastic on many points--forsook the wilderness of the schools and applied himself to the quest of the living fountains of the Word of God. In 1523 Mayor removed from Glasgow to St. Andrews.

[Sidenote: PATRICK HAMILTON AT ST. ANDREWS.]

It was to St. Andrews that Patrick Hamilton betook himself on his return from the Continent, after a visit to the bereaved family of Kincavil. He was admitted on June 9 of the same year into the University of the metropolitan city, and on October 3 of the following year he was received member of the faculty of letters. St. Andrews had powerful attractions for him. No other university in the kingdom had on its staff so many enlightened men; and the college of St. Leonard’s, which he entered, was the one whose teaching had the most liberal tendencies. The studies which he had pursued, the knowledge which he had acquired, and the rank which he held, gave him distinction among his fellow-disciples. Buchanan, a severe judge, looked on him as a ‘young man of great intellect and of astonishing learning.’[22] Hamilton held the hypocrisy of the monks in such abomination that he never would adopt either their dress or their way of life; and although he was abbot of Ferne he never took up his residence in his monastery. Skilled in the musical art, he composed a chant in parts, which was performed in the cathedral, and delighted the hearers. He did more: he dreamed, as all reformers do at the outset of their career, of the transformation of the Catholic Church; he resolved to seek the imposition of hands, ‘in order,’ says Fryth, ‘that he might preach the pure Word of God.’ Hamilton did not, to be sure, preach at that time with the boldness and the power of a Luther or a Farel. He loved the weak; he felt himself weak; and being full of lowly-mindedness, he was content to impart faithfully the truth which he had received.

About a year after the combat in which Sir Patrick was killed, the duke of Albany returned, with the intention of bringing about an intimate alliance between Scotland and France. Margaret Tudor, who wished for an alliance with England, and who found herself deprived of power by the arrival of Albany, wrote on September 13, 1523, to her brother Henry VIII.: ‘The person and the kingdom of my son are exposed to very great danger; come to our aid, come in all haste, or it is all over with my son!’[23] It might perhaps have been all over with the Reformation too--a far more important matter. But Albany, although he was at the head of a fine army, fled on two occasions before the English, and being despised by everybody, quitted Scotland forever at the close of May 1524.[24]

[Sidenote: WRITINGS OF LUTHER PROSCRIBED.]

He had only just set sail when the cause of the Reformation, threatened by his presence, received a powerful reinforcement. In 1524, and at the beginning of 1525, some books of Luther and of other Reformers were brought into Scotland by merchant-ships, and getting dispersed over the country, produced there the same effect as they had in France and in Italy. Gawin Dunbar, the old bishop of Aberdeen, was the first to become aware of this. He discovered one day a volume of Luther in his own town. He was in consternation when he saw that the fiery darts hurled by the hand of the heretic were crossing the sea. As like discoveries were made in Linlithgow, St. Andrews, and other places, the affair was brought before Parliament. ‘Damnable heresies are spread abroad in various countries,’ said the partisans of Rome. ‘This kingdom of Scotland, its sovereigns and their subjects, have always stood fast in the holy faith since they received it in the primitive age; attempts are being made at this moment to turn them away from it. Let us take all needful steps to repulse the attack.’ Consequently, on July 17, 1525, parliament enacted that no person arriving in any part of the kingdom should introduce any book of Luther or of his disciples, or should publish the opinions of that German except for the purpose of refuting them, ‘Scotland having always bene clene of all filth and vice.’[25]

This act was immediately published throughout the country, and particularly at all ports, in order that no one might be able to pretend ignorance of it. About four days after the closing of parliament the sheriffs received orders from the king’s council to set on foot without delay the necessary inquiries for the discovery of persons who might possess any books of Luther, or who should profess his errors. ‘You will confiscate their books,’ the order ran, ‘and transmit them to us.’ The Reformation, which till that time had been almost unknown in those regions, became suddenly a public fact, proclaimed by the highest body in the realm, and was on the point of preoccupying all minds. The enemies of the truth were preparing its triumph.

However, the question was whether the young king would lean towards the side of Rome or the side of the Gospel. James V., in whose name the decree against the Reformation had been issued, had in reality nothing at all to do with it. Amiable and generous, but a weakling and lover of pleasure, he was so backward in his learning that for want of knowing English he could not read the letters of his uncle Henry VIII.[26] He was a child under tutelage; he spoke to no one except in the presence of some member of the council, and Angus took care to foster in him the taste for pleasure in order to turn away his attention from public affairs. That taste was moreover quite natural to the young prince. His life was devoted to games, to arms, to the chase; he made request to Henry VIII. to send him swords and bucklers, the armor made in London being far more beautiful than that of Edinburgh. He sacrificed business to pleasure all the more readily because those who were about him were living in a state of entire disunion. The three chief personages of the realm, archbishop Beatoun, head of the priests, Angus, leader of the nobles, and the queen-mother who intrigued with both parties, were at open war.[27] Margaret desired both to get a divorce from Angus and to avenge herself on the archbishop who thwarted her in her projects.[28] In the midst of all these ambitious ones the young king was like a prey over which the vultures fight.

In May 1525, James having reached his fourteenth year, had been declared of age, in conformity with the law of Scotland. It had been a mere matter of form. Angus, supported by the most powerful of the nobles and by the parliament, verified the fears of the queen; he gave all places to the Douglases, and taking the Great Seal from archbishop Beatoun, kept it himself. The queen-mother indignantly entreated her very dear brother to secure the intervention of the pope on behalf of her son.[29] All was useless: the authority of the bold and ambitious Angus remained unimpaired.

[Sidenote: JAMES V. AND THE PRIESTS.]

The young prince, then, wearied with the yoke, threw himself, after the tradition of his fathers, into the arms of the priests, and in order to escape the aristocracy submitted himself to the clergy. This was a grievous prognostic for Reform. At the end of the summer of 1526, the queen, archbishop Beatoun, and other members of the priestly and royal party, assembled at Stirling Castle, and a plan was there considered and determined on which was to take away the chief power from the nobles and give it to the bishops. John Stuart, earl of Lennox, a friend of James V., set out from that fortress on September 4, at the head of from ten to twelve thousand men, and marched on Edinburgh. But Angus was already informed of what was in preparation, and Arran, who had made his peace with him, was ready. The same day, in the morning, the trumpet sounded in the capital, and the chief of the Douglases set forth at the head of his army, dragging after him the young monarch. The latter was in hope that the hour of his deliverance was come: he advanced slowly in the rear of the army, in spite of the brutal threats of Sir G. Douglas, his guardian. Presently the report of cannons was heard: the king stopped. George Douglas, fancying that he would attempt to escape, cried out, ‘Don’t think of running away, for if our enemies had hold of you on one side and we on the other, we would pull you in two rather than let you go.’ The King never forgot that word. Angus won the day. Lennox had been killed by the savage James Hamilton, and the father of the latter, when he heard it, had thrown his scarlet cloak over the body of Lennox, exclaiming: ‘Here lies a man, the boldest, the mightiest, and the wisest that Scotland ever possessed!’ At the tidings of this great disaster all was confusion in Stirling Castle. The queen fled in disguise and concealed herself: archbishop Beatoun put off his pontifical robes, took the dress of a shepherd, and went into retirement among the herdsmen of the Fifeshire hills, where for nearly three months he kept a flock, no one the while suspecting that he was the lord chancellor of the realm. Thus the anticipated triumph of the primate and the priests, which would have been fatal to the Reformation, was changed into a total rout, and greater religious freedom was given to Scotland.[30]

But this was not enough. The reform of the Church by the Church itself would not suffice; nor would reform by the writings of the reformers; there was need of a mightier principle,--the Word of God. This Word does not merely communicate a bare knowledge; it works a transformation in the will and in the life of man, and as soon as such a change is accomplished in two or three individuals in any place whatsoever, there exists a church. The increased liberty enjoyed in Scotland after the flight of the primate favored the introduction of this mighty Word, to which it was reserved to effect the complete enfranchisement of the nation.

[Sidenote: TYNDALE’S NEW TESTAMENTS IMPORTED.]

Early in the summer, merchants of Leith, Dundee, St. Andrews, Montrose, and Aberdeen, sent out their ships laden with the productions of Scotland to the ports of the Netherlands, Middelburg, Antwerp, and other towns, there to procure commodities for which there was a demand among the Scotch. At that time there was no prohibition against the introduction of the New Testament into Scotland: only the books of Luther and other reformers were proscribed. These good Scottish seamen took advantage of this; and one day Hacket, who had received orders from Henry VIII. to burn all the Testaments translated by Tyndale (and this ‘for the preservation of the Christian faith’), learnt at Berg-op-Zoom, where he then was, that the Scottish traders had put on board many copies of the Gospels as they were on the point of setting sail for Edinburgh and St. Andrews. He started with all speed for the ports which had been named to him: ‘I will seize those books,’ said he, ‘even though they be already on board the ships, and I will make a good fire of them.’[31] He got there: but alas! no more Scottish vessels; they had sailed one day before his arrival. ‘Fortune,’ said he, ‘did not allow me to get there in time; ah, well, have patience.’ And he gave good instructions on the matter to M. de Bever, admiral of Flanders, and to Mr. Moffit, conservator of the Scottish nation in that country.[32]

It was during the time that archbishop Beatoun, arch-foe of the Reformation, was feeding his sheep on the Fifeshire hills in September, October, and November 1526, that the New Testaments arrived and were distributed in the towns and neighboring districts. Scotland and England received the Holy Scriptures from the same country and almost at the same time. The citizens of Edinburgh and the canons of St. Andrews were reading that astonishing book as well as the citizens of London and the canons of Oxford. There were monks who declared that it was a bad book ‘recently invented by Martin Luther,’ but the reading of it was not forbidden. At St. Andrews especially these sacred writings soon shed the evangelical light over the souls of men.[33]

[Sidenote: PATRICK HAMILTON’S PREACHING.]

There was in that town a young man who was already acquainted with the great facts of salvation announced in this book, and who was well qualified to circulate and explain it. Patrick Hamilton, gifted with keen intelligence and a Christian heart, knew how to set forth in a concise and natural manner the truths of which he was convinced. He knew that there is in the Scriptures a wisdom superior to the human understanding, and that in order to comprehend them there is need of the illumination of the Holy Spirit. He believed that with the written it is necessary to combine oral teaching; and that as Testaments were come from the Netherlands, Scotland needed the spoken word which should call restless and degenerate souls to seek in them the living water which springs up unto life eternal. God was then preparing His witnesses in Scotland, and the first was Patrick Hamilton. He laid open the New Testament; he set forth the facts and the doctrines contained in it; he defended the evangelical principles. His father, the foremost of Scottish knights, had not broken so many lances in the tournament as Patrick now broke in his college, at the university, with the canons, and with all who set themselves against the truth.[34] At the beginning of Lent 1527, he publicly preached in the cathedral and elsewhere the doctrines (heresies, said his sentence) taught by Martin Luther.[35] We have no further particulars of his preaching; but these are sufficient to show us that at this period the people who gathered together in the ancient churches of Scotland heard this faithful minister announce that ‘it is not the law, that terrible tyrant, as Luther said, that is to reign in the conscience, but the Son of God, the king of justice and of peace, who, like a fruitful rain, descends from heaven and fertilizes the most barren soil.’[36]

Circumstances were by no means favorable to the Reformation. Archbishop Beatoun had soon thrown off his shepherd’s dress and left the flocks which he was feeding in the solitary pastures of Bogrian in Fifeshire. The simple, rude, and isolated life of the keeper of sheep was a sufficiently severe chastisement for an ambitious, intriguing, and worldly spirit: day and night, therefore, he was looking for some means of deliverance. Although he was then sleeping on the ground, he had plenty of gold and great estates: this wealth, the omnipotence of which he knew well, would suffice, said he to himself, to ransom him from the abject service to which a political reverse had reduced him. Since the victory of Linlithgow, Angus had exercised the royal power without opposition. It was needful then that Beatoun should gain over that terrible conqueror. The queen-mother, who had also fled at first, having ventured two months later to approach Edinburgh, her son had received her and conducted her to Holyrood palace. This encouraged the archbishop. His nephew, David Beatoun, abbot of Arbroath, was as clever and as ambitious as his uncle, but he hated still more passionately all who refused to submit to the Roman Church. The archbishop entreated him to negotiate his return; the party of the nobles was hard to win; but the abbot, having gained over the provost of Edinburgh, Sir Archibald Douglas, uncle of Angus, the bargain was struck. The archbishop was to pay two thousand Scottish marks to Angus, one thousand to George Douglas, the king’s gaoler, one thousand to cruel James Hamilton, the assassin of Lennox, and to make a present of the abbey of Kilwinning to the earl of Arran. Beatoun, charmed, threw away his crook, started for Edinburgh, and resumed his episcopal functions at St. Andrews.

[Sidenote: HAMILTON DECLARED A HERETIC.]

It was some time after the return of Beatoun that the king’s cousin began to preach at St. Andrews the glad tidings of free salvation through faith in Christ. Such doctrines could not be taught without giving rise to agitation. The clergy took alarm, some priests and monks went to the castle and prayed the archbishop to chastise the young preacher. Beatoun ordered an inquiry: it was carried out very precisely. The persons with whom Hamilton had engaged in discussion were heard, and some of his hearers gave evidence as to the matter of his discourses. He was declared a heretic. Beatoun was not cruel; he would perhaps have been content with seeking to bring back by fatherly exhortations the young and interesting Hamilton into the paths of the Church. But the primate had by his side some fanatical spirits, especially his nephew David, and they redoubled their urgency to such a degree that the archbishop ordered Hamilton to appear before him to give an account of his faith.[37]

The inquiry could not be made without this noble Christian hearing of it. He perceived the fate that awaited him; his friends perceived it too. If he should appear before the archbishop, it was all up with him. Everyone was moved with compassion; some of his enemies even, touched by his youth, the loveliness of his character, and his illustrious birth, wished to see him escape death. There was no time to lose, for the order of the archiepiscopal court was already signed; several conjured him to fly. What should he do? All his desire was to show to others the peace that filled his own soul; but at the same time he knew how much was still wanting to him. Who could better enlighten and strengthen him than the reformers of Germany? Who more able to put him in a position to return afterwards to preach Christ with power? He resolved to go. Two of his friends, Hamilton of Linlithgow and Gilbert Wynram of Edinburgh, determined to accompany him. Preparations for their departure were made with the greatest possible secrecy. Hamilton took with him one servant, and the three young Scotchmen, finding their way furtively to the coast, embarked on board a merchant-ship. It was in the latter half of the month of April 1527. This unlooked-for escape greatly provoked those who had set their minds on taking the life of the evangelist. ‘He, of evil mind, as may be presumed, passed forth of the realm,’[38] said the archbishop’s familiars. No: his intention was to be instructed, to increase in spiritual life from day to day. He landed at the beginning of May in one of the ports of the Netherlands.