Chapter II: Appendix: , 374 (1)

SUPPLEMENT, 429

INDEX, 465

{1}
THE LIFE
OF
JOHN KNOX.

PERIOD VII.

FROM AUGUST 1560, WHEN HE WAS SETTLED AS MINISTER OF EDINBURGH,
AT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REFORMATION, TO DECEMBER 1563,
WHEN HE WAS ACQUITTED FROM A CHARGE OF TREASON.

IN appointing the protestant ministers to particular stations, a measure which engaged the attention of the privy council immediately after the conclusion of the civil war, the temporary arrangements that had been formerly made were in general confirmed, and our Reformer resumed his charge as minister of Edinburgh.[1] For several months he had officiated as minister of St Andrews;[2] but in the end of April 1560, {2} he left that place, and returned to the capital,[3] where he preached during the siege of Leith, and the negotiations which issued in a peace.

Although the parliament had abolished the papal jurisdiction and worship, and ratified the protestant doctrine, as laid down in the Confession of Faith, the reformed church was not yet completely organized in Scotland. Hitherto the Book of Common Order, used by the English church at Geneva, had been generally followed as the rule of public worship and discipline. But this having been compiled for a single congregation, and for one that consisted chiefly of men of education, was found inadequate for the use of an extensive church, composed of a multitude of confederated congregations. Our reformers were anxious to provide the means of religious instruction to the whole people in the kingdom; but they were very far from approving of the promiscuous admission of persons of all descriptions to the peculiar privileges of the church of Christ. From the beginning, they were sensible of the great importance of ecclesiastical discipline, to the prosperity of religion, the maintenance of order, and the preservation of sound doctrine and morals. In the petition presented to parliament in August, the establishment of this was specially requested.[4] And Knox, who had observed the great advantages which attended the observance of a strict discipline at Geneva, {3} and the manifold evils which resulted from the want of it in England, insisted very particularly on this topic, in the discourses which he delivered from the book of Haggai during the sitting of parliament.[5] The difficulties which the reformed ministers had to surmount, before they could accomplish this important object, began to present themselves at this early stage of their progress. When it is considered, that Calvin was subjected to a sentence of banishment from the senate of Geneva, and exposed to a popular tumult, before he could prevail on the citizens to submit to ecclesiastical discipline,[6] we need not be surprised at the opposition which our reformers met with in their endeavours to introduce it into Scotland. Knox’s warm exhortations on this head were at first disregarded; he had the mortification to find his plan of {4} church‑polity derided as a “devout imagination,” by some of the professors of the reformed doctrine;[7]――and the parliament dissolved without coming to any decision on this important point.

As the ministers, however, continued to urge the subject, and the reasonableness of their demands could not be denied, the privy council, soon after the dissolution of the parliament, gave a commission to Knox, and four other ministers, who had formerly been employed along with him in composing the Confession, to draw up a plan of ecclesiastical government.[8] They immediately set about this task, with a diligence and care proportioned to their convictions of its importance. They “took not their example,” says Row, “from any kirk in the world, no, not from Geneva;” but drew their plan from the sacred scriptures. Having arranged the subject under different heads, they divided these among them; and, after they had finished their several parts, they met together and examined them with great attention, spending much time in reading and meditation on the subject, and in earnest prayers for divine direction. When they had drawn up the whole in form, they laid it before the General Assembly, by whom it was approved, after they had caused some of its articles to be abridged.[9] It was also submitted to the privy {5} council; but, although many of the members highly approved of the plan, it was warmly opposed by others. This opposition did not arise from any difference of sentiment between them and the ministers respecting ecclesiastical government, but partly from aversion to the strict discipline which it appointed to be exercised against vice, and partly from reluctance to comply with its requisition for the appropriation of the revenues of the popish church to the support of the new religious and literary establishments. Though not formally ratified by the council, it was, however, subscribed by the greater part of the members;[10] and as the sources of prejudice against it were well known, it was submitted to by the nation, and carried into effect in most of its ecclesiastical {6} regulations.[11] It is known in history by the name of the Book of Policy, or First Book of Discipline.

Considering the activity of Knox in constructing and recommending this platform, and the importance of the subject in itself, it cannot be foreign to our object to take a view of the form and order of the protestant church of Scotland, as delineated in the Book of Discipline, and in other authentic documents of that period.

The ordinary and permanent office‑bearers of the church were of four kinds: the minister, or pastor, to whom the preaching of the gospel and administration of the sacraments belonged; the doctor, or teacher, whose province it was to interpret scripture and confute errors (including those who taught theology in schools and universities); the ruling elder, who assisted the minister in exercising ecclesiastical discipline and government; and the deacon, who had the special oversight of the revenues of the church and the poor. But, besides these, it was found necessary, at this time, to employ some persons in extraordinary and temporary charges. As there was not a sufficient number of ministers to supply the different parts of the country, that the people might not be left altogether destitute of public worship and instruction, certain pious persons, who had received a common education, were appointed to read the scriptures and the common prayers. These were called _readers_. In large parishes, {7} persons of this description were also employed to relieve the ministers from a part of the public service. If they advanced in knowledge, they were encouraged to add a few plain exhortations to the reading of the scriptures. In this case they were called _exhorters_; but they were examined and admitted, before entering upon this employment.

The same cause gave rise to another temporary expedient. Instead of fixing all the ministers in particular charges, it was judged proper, after supplying the principal towns, to assign to the rest the superintendence of a large district, over which they were appointed regularly to travel, for the purpose of preaching, of planting churches, and inspecting the conduct of ministers, exhorters, and readers. These were called _superintendents_. The number originally proposed was ten; but, owing to the scarcity of proper persons, or rather to the want of necessary funds, there were never more than five appointed.[12] The deficiency was supplied by commissioners, or visitors, appointed from time to time by the General Assembly.

{8} None was allowed to preach, or to administer the sacraments, till he was regularly called to this employment. Persons were invested with the pastoral office in the way of being freely elected by the people,[13] examined by the ministers, and publicly admitted in the presence of the congregation. On the day of admission, the minister who presided, after preaching a sermon suited to the occasion, put a number of questions to the candidate, to satisfy the church as to his soundness in the faith, his willingness to undertake the charge, the purity of his motives, and his resolution to discharge the duties of the office with diligence and fidelity. Satisfactory answers having been given to these questions, and the people having signified their adherence to their former choice, the person was admitted and set apart by prayer, without the imposition of hands;[14] and the service was concluded with an exhortation, the singing of a psalm, and the pronouncing of the blessing. Superintendents were admitted in the same way as other ministers.[15] The affairs of each congregation were managed by the minister, elders, and deacons, who constituted the kirk‑session, which met regularly once a‑week, and oftener if business required. There was a meeting called the weekly exercise, or prophesying, held in every considerable town, consisting of the ministers, {9} exhorters, and learned men in the vicinity, for expounding the scriptures. This was afterwards converted into the presbytery, or classical assembly. The superintendent met with the ministers and delegated elders of his district, twice a‑year, in the provincial synod, which took cognizance of ecclesiastical affairs within its bounds. And the General Assembly, which was composed of ministers and elders commissioned from the different parts of the kingdom, met twice, sometimes thrice, in a year, and attended to the interests of the national church.

Public worship was conducted according to the Book of Common Order, with a few variations adapted to the state of Scotland. On Sabbath‑days, the people assembled twice for public worship; and, to promote the instruction of the ignorant, catechising was substituted for preaching in the afternoon. In towns, a sermon was regularly preached on one day of the week besides Sabbath; and on almost every day, the people had an opportunity of hearing public prayers and the reading of the scriptures. Baptism was never dispensed unless it was accompanied with preaching or catechising. The Lord’s supper was administered four times a‑year in towns, and there were ordinarily two “ministrations,” one at an early hour of the morning, and another later in the day. The sign of the cross in baptizing, and kneeling at the Lord’s table, were condemned and laid aside; and anniversary holidays were wholly abolished.[16] We {10} shall afterwards have occasion to advert to the discipline under which offenders were brought.

The compilers of the First Book of Discipline paid particular attention to the state of education. They required that a school should be erected in every parish, for the instruction of youth in the principles of religion, grammar, and the Latin tongue. They proposed that a college should be erected in every “notable town,” in which logic and rhetoric should be taught, along with the learned languages. They seem to have had it in their eye to revive the system adopted by some of the ancient republics, in which the youth were considered as the property of the public rather than of their parents, by obliging the nobility and gentry to educate their children, and by providing, at the public expense, for the education of the children of the poor who discovered talents for learning. Their regulations for the three national universities discover an enlightened regard to the interests of literature, and may suggest hints which deserve attention in the present age.[17] If these were not reduced to practice, the blame cannot be imputed to the reformed ministers, but to the nobility and gentry whose avarice defeated the execution of their plans.

To carry these important measures into effect, permanent funds were requisite; and for these it was natural to look to the patrimony of the church. The hierarchy had been abolished, and the popish clergy excluded from all religious services, by the alterations {11} which the parliament had introduced; and, whatever provision it was proper to allot for the dismissed incumbents during life, it was unreasonable that they should continue to enjoy those emoluments which were attached to offices for which they had been found totally unfit. No successors could be appointed to them; and there was not any individual, or class of men in the nation, who could justly claim a title to the rents of their benefices. The compilers of the Book of Discipline, therefore, proposed that the patrimony of the church should be appropriated, in the first instance, to the support of the new ecclesiastical establishment. Under this head they included the ministry, the schools, and the poor. For the ministers they required that such “honest provision” should be made, as would give “neither occasion of solicitude, neither yet of insolencie and wantonnesse.” In ordinary cases, they thought that forty bolls of meal, and twenty‑six bolls of malt, with a reasonable sum of money, to purchase other necessary articles of provision for his family, was an adequate stipend for a minister. To enable superintendents to defray the extraordinary expenses of travelling in the discharge of their duty, six chalders of bear, nine chalders of meal, three chalders of oats, and six hundred merks in money, were thought necessary as an annual stipend. The salaries of professors were fixed from one to two hundred pounds; and the mode of supporting the poor was left undetermined, until means should be used to suppress “stubborne and idle beggars,” and to ascertain the number of the really {12} necessitous in each parish. The stipends of ministers were to be collected by the deacons from the tithes; but all illegal exactions were to be previously abolished, and measures taken to relieve the labourers of the ground from the oppressive manner in which the tithes had been gathered by the clergy, or by those to whom they had farmed them. The revenues of bishoprics, and of cathedral and collegiate churches, with the rents arising from the endowments of monasteries and other religious foundations, were to be divided, and appropriated to the support of the universities, or of the churches within their bounds.

Nothing could be more unpalatable than doctrine of this kind to a considerable number of the protestant nobility and gentry. They had for some time fixed a covetous eye on the rich revenues of the popish clergy. Some of them had seized upon church‑lands, or retained the tithes in their own hands. Others had taken long leases of them from the clergy for small sums of money, and were anxious to have these private bargains legalized. Hence their aversion to have the Book of Discipline ratified;[18] hence the poverty and the complaints of the ministers, {13} and the languishing state of the universities. The Swiss Reformer, by his eloquence and his firmness, enabled his countrymen to gain a conquest over their avarice, which was more honourable to them than any of their other victories, when he prevailed on them to appropriate the whole revenues of the popish establishment to the support of the protestant church and seminaries of literature.[19] But it was not so easy a matter to manage the turbulent and powerful barons of Scotland, as it was to sway the minds of the burgomasters of Zurich. When we consider, however, the extent of the establishments proposed by our reformers, including the support of the ministry, of parochial schools, of city colleges, and of national universities, we cannot regard the demand which they made on the funds devoted to the church as extravagant or unreasonable. They showed themselves disinterested by the moderate share which they asked for themselves; and the worst that we can say of their plan is, that it was worthy of a more enlightened and liberal age, in which it might have met with rulers more capable of appreciating its utility, and better disposed to carry it into execution.[20]

It is peculiarly pleasing to observe the restoration of religion and of letters going hand in hand, in our {14} native country. Everywhere, indeed, the Reformation had the most powerful influence, direct and remote, on the general promotion of literature. It aroused the human mind from the lethargy in which it had slumbered for ages, released it from the fetters of implicit faith and blind obedience to human authority, and stimulated it to the exertion of its powers in the search of truth. It induced the learned to study with care the original languages in which the sacred books were written; and it diffused knowledge among the illiterate, by laying open the scriptures, and calling upon all to examine them for themselves. The unintelligible jargon which had long infested the schools began to be discarded. Controversies were now decided by appeals to scripture and to common sense; and the disputes which were eagerly maintained led to the improvement of the art of reasoning, and a more rational method of communicating knowledge. Superstition and credulity being undermined, the spirit of enquiry was soon directed to the discovery of the true laws of nature, as well as the genuine doctrines of revelation.

In the south of Europe, the revival of letters preceded the reformation of religion, and materially facilitated its progress. In the north, this order was reversed; and Scotland, in particular, must date the origin of her literary acquirements from the first introduction of the protestant opinions. As the one gained ground, the other was brought forward. We have already seen that the Greek language began to be studied almost as soon as the light of Reformation {15} dawned upon this country; and I have now to state, that the first school for teaching the Hebrew language in Scotland was opened immediately after the establishment of the protestant church. Hebrew was one of the branches of education appointed by the Book of Discipline to be taught in the reformed seminaries, and Providence had furnished a person who was well qualified for that task, which those who filled the chairs in our universities were totally unfit to undertake.

The person to whom I refer was John Row. After finishing his education at St Andrews, and practising for some time as an advocate before the consistorial court there, he left the country about the year 1550, with the view of prosecuting his studies to greater advantage on the continent. Within a short time he received the degree of Doctor of Laws from two Italian universities. He did not, however, confine himself to one branch of study; but, improving the opportunity which he enjoyed, made himself master of the Greek and Hebrew languages. His reputation as a lawyer being high, the Scottish clergy employed him as agent to manage some of their causes before the court of Rome. This introduced him to the friendship of Guido Ascanio Sforza, cardinal of Sancta Flora, and to the acquaintance of two sovereign pontiffs, Julius III. and Paul IV. Had he remained in Italy, it is highly probable that he would soon have attained to honourable preferment in the church; but having lost his health, he determined, in 1558, to return to his native country. The reigning {16} pope had heard, with deep concern, of the progress which the new opinions were making in Scotland, and, as he had great confidence in Row’s talents, appointed him his nuncio, with instructions to use his utmost exertions to oppose them. When he came home, he endeavoured for some time to discharge his commission; but despairing of success, and foreseeing the confusions in which the country was about to be involved, he resolved on returning to Italy. From this resolution he was diverted by the prior of St Andrews, who admired his learning, and conceived good hopes of his conversion, from the candour which he displayed in the management of religious controversy. His constancy was soon after shaken by the discovery of the imposture which the clergy attempted to practise at Musselburgh;[21] and, having held several conferences with Knox, he became a complete convert to the protestant faith. Upon the establishment of the reformation, he was admitted minister of Perth, and, at the recommendation of his brethren, began to give lessons in the Hebrew language to young men who were placed under his tuition.[22]

The interests of literature in Scotland were not a little promoted at this time by the return of Buchanan to his native country. That accomplished scholar, since his flight in 1538, had visited the most celebrated seminaries on the continent, greatly improved his stock of learning, and given ample proof {17} of those talents which, in the opinion of posterity as well as of his contemporaries, have placed him indisputably at the head of modern Latin poets. The reception which he obtained from his countrymen evinced that they were not incapable of estimating his merits; and the satisfaction with which he spent the remainder of his life among them, after he had enjoyed the society of the most learned men in Europe, is a sufficient proof that they had already made no inconsiderable advances in the acquisition of polite literature.[23]

We are apt to form false and exaggerated notions of the rudeness of our ancestors. Scotland was, indeed, at that period, as she is still at the present day, behind many of the southern countries in the cultivation of some of the fine arts, and she was a stranger to that refinement of manners which has oftener been a concealment to vice than an ornament to virtue. But that her inhabitants were “men unacquainted with the pleasures of conversation, ignorant of arts and civility, and corrupted beyond their usual rusticity by a dismal fanaticism, which rendered them incapable of all humanity or improvement,”[24] is an assertion which argues either inexcusable ignorance or deplorable prejudice. Will this character apply to such men as Buchanan, Knox, Row, Willock, Balnaves, Erskine, Maitland, Glencairn, and James Stewart, not to name many others; men who excelled in their respective ranks and professions, who had {18} received a liberal education, travelled into foreign countries, conversed with the best company, and, in addition to their acquaintance with ancient learning, could speak the most polite languages of modern Europe? Perhaps some of our literati, who entertain such a diminutive idea of the taste and learning of those times, might have been taken by surprise, had they been set down at the table of one of our Scottish reformers, surrounded with a circle of his children and pupils, where the conversation was all carried on in French, and the chapter of the bible, at family worship, was read by the boys in French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Perhaps they might have blushed, if the book had been put into their hands, and they had been required to perform a part of the exercises. Such, however, was the common practice in the house of John Row.[25] Nor was the improvement of our native tongue neglected at that time. David Ferguson, minister of Dunfermline, was celebrated for his attention to this branch of composition. He had not enjoyed the advantage of a university education, but, possessing a good taste and lively fancy, was very successful in refining and enriching the Scottish language, by his discourses and writings.[26]

The first meeting of the General Assembly of the church of Scotland was held at Edinburgh on the 20th of December, 1560. It consisted of forty members, only six of whom were ministers.[27] Knox was one of these; and he continued to sit in most of the meetings {19} of that judicatory until the time of his death. Its deliberations were conducted at first with great simplicity and unanimity. It is a singular circumstance that there were seven different meetings of Assembly without a moderator or president. But as the number of members increased, and business became more complicated, a moderator was appointed to be chosen at every meeting; and he was invested with authority to maintain order. The first person who occupied that place was John Willock, superintendent of Glasgow and the West. Regulations were also enacted concerning the constituent members of the court, the causes which ought to come before them, and the mode of procedure.[28]

In the close of this year, our Reformer suffered a heavy domestic loss, by the death of his valuable wife, who, after sharing the hardships of exile along with her husband, was removed from him just when he had obtained a comfortable settlement for his family.[29] He was left with the charge of two young children, in addition to his other cares. His mother‑in‑law was still with him; but though he took pleasure in her religious conversation, the dejection of mind to which she was subject, and which all his efforts could never completely cure, rather increased than lightened his burden.[30] His acute feelings were severely wounded by this stroke; but he endeavoured to moderate his grief by the consolations which he {20} administered to others, and by application to public duty. He had the satisfaction of receiving, on this occasion, a letter from his much respected friend Calvin, in which expressions of great esteem for his deceased partner were mingled with condolence for his loss.[31]

I may take this opportunity of mentioning, that Knox, with the consent of his brethren, consulted the Genevan reformer upon several difficult questions which occurred respecting the settlement of the Scottish Reformation, and that a number of letters passed between them on this subject.[32]

Anxieties on a public account were felt by Knox along with domestic distress. The Reformation had hitherto advanced with a success equal to his most sanguine expectations; and, at this time, no opposition was publicly made to the new establishment. But matters were still in a very critical state. There were a party in the nation, by no means inconsiderable in numbers and power, who remained addicted to popery; and, though they had given way to the torrent, they anxiously waited for an opportunity to {21} embroil the country in another civil war, for the restoration of the ancient religion. Queen Mary, and her husband, the king of France, had refused to ratify the late treaty, and dismissed the deputy sent by the parliament, with marks of the highest displeasure at the innovations which they had presumed to introduce. A new army was preparing in France for the invasion of Scotland against the spring; emissaries were sent, in the mean time, to encourage and unite the Roman catholics; and it was doubtful if the queen of England would subject herself to new expense and odium, by protecting them from a second attack.[33]

The danger was not unperceived by our Reformer, who laboured to impress the minds of his countrymen with its magnitude, and to excite them speedily to complete the settlement of religion throughout the kingdom, which, he was persuaded, would prove the principal bulwark against the assaults of their adversaries. His admonitions were now listened to with attention by many who had formerly treated them with indifference.[34] The threatened storm, however, blew over, in consequence of the death of the French king; but this necessarily led to a measure which involved the Scottish protestants in a new struggle, and exposed the reformed church to dangers less obvious and striking, but, on that account, not less to be dreaded, than open violence and hostility. This was the invitation given by the protestant nobility to {22} their young queen, who, on the 19th of August, 1561, arrived in Scotland, and assumed the reins of government into her own hands.

The education which Mary had received in France, whatever embellishments it added to her beauty, was the very worst which can be conceived for fitting her to rule her native country in the present juncture. Of a temper naturally violent, the devotion which she had been accustomed to see paid to her personal charms, rendered her extremely impatient of contradiction.[35] Habituated to the splendour and gallantry of the most luxurious and dissolute court in Europe, she could not submit to those restraints which the severer manners of her subjects imposed; and while they took offence at the freedom of her behaviour, she could not conceal the antipathy and disgust which she felt at theirs.[36] Full of high notions of royal prerogative, she regarded the late proceedings in Scotland as a course of rebellion against her legitimate authority. Nursed from her infancy in a blind attachment to the Roman catholic faith, every means had been employed, before she left France, to strengthen this prejudice, and to inspire her with aversion to the {23} religion which had been embraced by her people. She was taught that it would be the great glory of her reign to reduce her kingdom to the obedience of the Roman see, and to co‑operate with the popish princes on the continent in extirpating heresy. If she forsook the religion in which she had been educated, she would forfeit their powerful friendship; if she persevered in it, she might depend upon their assistance to enable her to chastise her rebellious subjects, and to prosecute her claims to the English crown against a heretical usurper.

With these fixed prepossessions, Mary came into Scotland; and she adhered to them with singular pertinacity to the end of her life. To examine the subjects of controversy between the papists and protestants, with the view of ascertaining on which side the truth lay,――to hear the reformed preachers, or permit them to lay before her the grounds of their faith, even in the presence of the clergy whom she had brought along with her,――to do any thing, in short, which might lead to a doubt in her mind respecting the religion in which she had been brought up, were compliances against which she had formed an unalterable determination. As the protestants were in possession of power, it was necessary for her to temporize; but she resolved to withhold her ratification of the late proceedings, and to embrace the first favourable opportunity to overturn them, and re‑establish the ancient system.[37]

{24} The reception which she met with on landing in Scotland was flattering; but an occurrence that took place soon after, damped the joy which had been expressed, and prognosticated future jealousies and confusion. The deputies sent to France with the invitation from the nobles, could not promise her more than the private exercise of her religion; but her uncles, by whom she was accompanied, wishing to take advantage of the spirit of loyalty which had been displayed since their arrival, insisted that she should cause the Roman catholic rites to be performed with all publicity. Influenced by their opinion, and willing to give her subjects an early proof of her firm determination to adhere to the ancient faith, Mary directed preparations to be made for the celebration of a solemn mass in the chapel of Holyroodhouse, on the first Sabbath after her arrival. This service had not been performed in Scotland since the conclusion of the civil war, and was prohibited by an act of the late parliament. So great was the horror with which the protestants viewed its restoration, and the alarm which they felt at finding it countenanced by their queen, that the first rumour of the design excited expressions of strong discontent, which would have burst into an open tumult, had not some of the leading men among the protestants interfered, and exerted their authority in repressing the zeal of the multitude. From regard to public tranquillity, and reluctance to offend the queen at her first return to her native kingdom, Knox used his influence in private conversation to allay the fervour of the more zealous reformers, who were ready {25} to prevent the service by force. But he was not less alarmed at the precedent than his brethren were; and, having exposed the evils of idolatry on the following Sabbath, he concluded his sermon by saying, that “one mass was more fearfull unto him, than if ten thousand armed enemies wer landed in ony parte of the realme, of purpose to suppress the whole religioun.”[38]

At this day, we are apt to be struck with surprise at the conduct of our ancestors, to treat their fears as visionary, or at least as highly exaggerated, and summarily to pronounce them guilty of the same intolerance of which they complained in their adversaries. Persecution for conscience’ sake is so odious, and the least approach to it so dangerous, that we deem it impossible to express too great detestation of any measure which tends to countenance or seems to encourage it. But let us be just as well as liberal. A little reflection upon the circumstances in which our reforming fathers were placed may serve to abate our astonishment, and to qualify our censures. They were actuated by a strong abhorrence of popish idolatry, a feeling which is fully justified by the spirit and precepts of Christianity; and the prospect of the land being again defiled by the revival of its impure rites produced on their minds a sensation, with which, from our ignorance and lukewarmness, as much as our ideas of religious liberty, we are incapable of sympathizing. But they were also {26} influenced by a proper regard to their own preservation; and the fears which they entertained were not fanciful, nor the precautions which they adopted unnecessary.

The warmest friends of toleration and liberty of conscience (some of whom will not readily be charged with protestant prejudices) have granted, that persecution of the most sanguinary kind was inseparable from the system and spirit of popery which was at that time dominant in Europe; and they cannot deny the inference, that the profession and propagation of it were, on this account, justly subjected to penal restraints, as far, at least, as was requisite to prevent it from obtaining the ascendency, and from reacting the bloody scenes which it had already exhibited.[39] The protestants of Scotland had these scenes before their eyes, and fresh in their recollection; and infatuated and criminal indeed would they have been, if, listening to the siren song of toleration, by which their adversaries, with no less impudence than artifice, now attempted to lull them asleep, they had suffered themselves to be thrown off their guard, and neglected to provide against the most distant approaches of the danger by which they were threatened. Could they be ignorant of the perfidious, barbarous, and unrelenting cruelty with which protestants were treated in every Roman catholic kingdom? In France, where so many of their brethren had been put to death, under the influence of the {27} house of Guise; in the Netherlands, where such multitudes had been tortured, beheaded, hanged, drowned, or buried alive; in England, where the flames of persecution were but lately extinguished; and in Spain and Italy, where they still continued to blaze? Could they have forgotten what had taken place in their own country, or the perils from which they had themselves so recently and so narrowly escaped? “God forbid!” exclaimed the lords of the privy council, in the presence of Queen Mary, at a time when they were not disposed to offend her,――“God forbid! that the lives of the faithful stood in the power of the papists; for just experience has taught us what cruelty is in their hearts.”[40]

Nor was this an event so incredible, or so unlikely to happen, as many seem to imagine. The rage for conquest, on the continent, was now converted into a rage for proselytism; and steps had already been taken towards forming that league among the popish princes, which had for its object the universal extermination of protestants. The Scottish queen was passionately addicted to the intoxicating cup of which so many of “the kings of the earth had drunk.” There were numbers in the nation who were similarly disposed. The liberty taken by the queen would soon be demanded for all who declared themselves catholics. Many of those who had hitherto ranged under the protestant standard were lukewarm in the cause; the zeal of others had already suffered a sensible {28} abatement since the arrival of their sovereign;[41] and it was to be feared, that the favours of the court, and the blandishments of an artful and accomplished princess, would make proselytes of some, and lull others into security, while designs were carried on pregnant with ruin to the religion and liberties of the nation. In one word, the public toleration of the popish worship was only a step to its re‑establishment, and this would be the signal for kindling afresh the fires of persecution. It was in this manner that some of the wisest men in the kingdom reasoned at that time;[42] and, had it not been for the uncommon spirit which then existed among the reformers, there is every reason to think that their predictions would have been realized.

To those who accuse the Scottish protestants of displaying the same spirit of intolerance by which the Roman catholics were distinguished, I would recommend the following statement of a French author, who had formed a more just notion of these transactions than many of our own writers. “Mary (says he,) was brought up in France, accustomed to see protestants burnt to death, and instructed in the maxims of her uncles, the Guises, who maintained {29} that it was necessary to exterminate, without mercy, the pretended reformed. With these dispositions she arrived in Scotland, which was wholly reformed, with the exception of a few lords. The kingdom received her, acknowledged her as their queen, and obeyed her in all things according to the laws of the country. I maintain, that, in the state of men’s spirits at that time, if a Huguenot queen had come to take possession of a Roman catholic kingdom, with the slender retinue with which Mary went to Scotland, the first thing they would have done would have been to arrest her; and if she had persevered in her religion, they would have procured her degradation by the pope, thrown her into the Inquisition, and burnt her as a heretic. There is not an honest man who can deny this.”[43]

After all, it is surely unnecessary to apologize for the restrictions which our ancestors were desirous of imposing on queen Mary, to those who approve of the present constitution of Britain, according to which every papist is excluded from succeeding to the throne, and the reigning monarch, by setting up mass in his chapel, would virtually forfeit his crown. Is popery {30} more dangerous now than it was two hundred and fifty years ago?

Besides his fears for the common cause, Knox had at this time grounds of apprehension as to his personal safety. The queen was peculiarly incensed against him on account of the active part which he had taken in the late revolution; the popish clergy who left the kingdom had represented him as the ringleader of her factious subjects; and she had publicly declared, before she left France, that she was determined he should be punished. His book against female government was most probably the ostensible charge on which he was to be prosecuted; and, accordingly, we find him making application, through the English resident at Edinburgh, to secure the favour of Elizabeth; reasonably suspecting that she might be induced to abet the proceedings against him on this ground.[44] But whatever perils he apprehended, {31} from the personal presence of the queen, either to the public or to himself, he used not the smallest influence to prevent her being invited home. On the contrary, he concurred with his brethren in this measure, and also in using means to defeat a scheme which the duke of Chastelherault, under the direction of the archbishop of St Andrew, had formed to exclude her from the government.[45] But when the prior of St Andrews was sent to France with the invitation, he urged that her desisting from the celebration of mass should be one of the conditions of her return; and when he found him and the rest of the council disposed to grant her this liberty within her own chapel, he predicted that “her liberty would be their thraldom.”[46]

In the beginning of September,[47] only a few days after her arrival in Scotland, the queen sent for Knox to the palace, and held a long conversation with him, in the presence of her brother, the prior of St Andrews. Whether she did this of her own accord, or at the suggestion of some of her counsellors, is uncertain; but she seems to have expected to awe him into submission by her authority, if not to confound him by her arguments. The bold freedom with which he replied to all her charges, and vindicated his own conduct, convinced her that the one expectation was not more vain than the other; and the impression {32} which she wished to make on him was left on her own mind.

She accused him of raising her subjects against her mother and herself; of writing a book against her just authority, which, she said, she would cause the most learned in Europe to refute; of being the cause of sedition and bloodshed, when he was in England; and of accomplishing his purposes by magical arts.

To these heavy charges Knox replied, that, if to teach the truth of God in sincerity, to rebuke idolatry, and exhort a people to worship God according to his word, were to excite subjects to rise against their princes, then he stood convicted of that crime; for it had pleased God to employ him, among many others, to disclose unto that realm the vanity of the papistical religion, with the deceit, pride, and tyranny of the Roman antichrist. But if the true knowledge of God and his right worship were the most powerful inducements to subjects cordially to obey their princes, (as they certainly were,) then was he innocent. Her grace, he was persuaded, had at present as unfeigned obedience from the protestants of Scotland, as ever her father, or any of her ancestors, had from those called bishops. With respect to what had been reported to her majesty concerning the fruits of his preaching in England, he was glad that his enemies laid nothing to his charge but what the world knew to be false. If they could prove, that in any of the places where he had resided there was either sedition or mutiny, he would confess himself to be a malefactor. But so far from this being the case, he was not {33} ashamed to say, that in Berwick, where bloodshed had formerly been common among the military, God so blessed his weak labours, that there was as great quietness, during the time he resided in that town, as there was at present in Edinburgh. The slander of practising magic, (an art which he had always condemned,) he could more easily bear, when he recollected that his master, Jesus Christ, had been defamed as one in league with Beelzebub. As to the book which seemed to have offended her majesty so highly, he owned that he wrote it, and he was willing that all the learned should judge of it. He understood that an Englishman had written against it, but he had not read his work. If that author had sufficiently confuted his arguments, and established the contrary opinion, he would confess his error; but to that hour he continued to think himself able to maintain the propositions affirmed in that book against any ten in Europe.

“You think, then, I have no just authority?” said the queen. “Please your majesty,” replied he, “learned men in all ages have had their judgments free, and most commonly disagreeing from the common judgment of the world; such also have they published both with pen and tongue; notwithstanding, they themselves have lived in the common society with others, and have borne patiently with the errors and imperfections which they could not amend. Plato, the philosopher, wrote his book on the commonwealth, in which he condemned many things that then were maintained in the world, and required {34} many things to have been reformed; and yet, notwithstanding, he lived under such policies as then were universally received, without farther troubling of any state. Even so, madam, am I content to do, in uprightness of heart, and with a testimony of a good conscience.” He added, that his sentiments on that subject should be confined to his own breast; and that, if she refrained from persecution, her authority would not be hurt, either by him or his book, “which was written most especially against that wicked Jesabell of England.”

“But ye speak of women in general,” said the queen. “Most true it is, madam; yet it appeareth to me, that wisdom should persuade your grace never to raise trouble for that which to this day has not troubled your majesty, neither in person nor in authority: for of late years many things, which before were held stable, have been called in doubt; yea they have been plainly impugned. But yet, madam, I am assured that neither protestant nor papist shall be able to prove, that any such question was at any time moved either in public or in secret. Now, madam, if I had intended to have troubled your estate, because ye are a woman, I would have chosen a time more convenient for that purpose than I can do now, when your presence is within the realm.”

Changing the subject, she charged him with having taught the people to receive a religion different from that which was allowed by their princes; and she asked, if this was not contrary to the divine command, {35} that subjects should obey their rulers. He replied, that true religion derived its origin and authority not from princes, but from God; that princes were often most ignorant on this point; and that subjects were not bound to frame their religious sentiments and practice according to the arbitrary will of their rulers, else the Hebrews ought to have conformed to the religion of Pharaoh, Daniel and his associates to that of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, and the primitive Christians to that of the Roman emperors. “Yea,” replied the queen, qualifying her assertion; “but none of these men raised the sword against their princes.”――“Yet you cannot deny,” said he, “that they resisted; for those who obey not the commandment given them do in some sort resist.”――“But they resisted not with the sword,” rejoined the queen, pressing home the argument. “God, madam, had not given unto them the power and the means.”――“Think you,” said the queen, “that subjects, having the power, may resist their princes?”――“If princes exceed their bounds, madam, no doubt they may be resisted, even by power. For no greater honour, or greater obedience, is to be given to kings and princes, than God has commanded to be given to father and mother. But the father may be struck with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children. Now, madam, if the children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison, till the frenzy be over, think you, madam, that the children do any wrong? Even so, madam, is it with princes that would murder {36} the children of God that are subject unto them. Their blind zeal is nothing but a mad frenzy; therefore, to take the sword from them, to bind their hands, and to cast them into prison, till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no disobedience against princes, but just obedience, because it agreeth with the will of God.”

Mary, who had hitherto maintained her courage in reasoning, was completely overpowered by this bold answer; her countenance changed, and she remained in a silent stupor. Her brother spoke to her, and enquired the cause of her uneasiness; but she made no reply. Recovering herself at length, she said, “Well, then, I perceive that my subjects shall obey you, and not me, and will do what they please, and not what I command; and so must I be subject to them, and not they to me.”――“God forbid!” replied the Reformer, “that ever I take upon me to command any to obey me, or to set subjects at liberty to do whatever pleases them. But my travel is, that both princes and subjects may obey God. And think not, madam, that wrong is done you, when you are required to be subject unto God; for it is he who subjects people under princes, and causes obedience to be given unto them. He craves of kings that they be as foster‑fathers to his church, and commands queens to be nurses to his people. And this subjection, madam, unto God and his church, is the greatest dignity that flesh can get upon the face of the earth; for it shall raise them to everlasting glory.”

{37} “But you are not the church that I will nourish,” said the queen; “I will defend the church of Rome; for it is, I think, the true church of God.”――“Your _will_, madam, is no reason, neither doth your _thought_ make the Roman harlot to be the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ. Wonder not, madam, that I call Rome an harlot, for that church is altogether polluted with all kinds of spiritual fornication, both in doctrine and manners.” He added, that he was ready to prove that the Roman church had declined farther from the purity of religion taught by the apostles, than the Jewish church had degenerated from the ordinances which God gave them by Moses and Aaron, at the time when they denied and crucified the Son of God. “My conscience is not so,” said the queen.――“Conscience, madam, requires knowledge; and I fear that right knowledge you have none.”――“But I have both heard and read.”――“So, madam, did the Jews who crucified Christ Jesus read the law and the prophets, and heard the same interpreted after their manner. Have you heard any teach but such as the pope and cardinals have allowed? and you may be assured, that such will speak nothing to offend their own estate.”

“You interpret the scriptures in one way,” said the queen evasively, “and they in another; whom shall I believe, and who shall be judge?”――“You shall believe God, who plainly speaketh in his word,” replied the Reformer; “and farther than the word teacheth you, you shall believe neither the one nor the other. The word of God is plain in itself; and {38} if there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost, who is never contrary to himself, explains the same more clearly in other places, so that there can remain no doubt, but unto such as are obstinately ignorant.” As an example, he selected one of the articles in controversy between the church of Rome and the protestants, and was proceeding to show, that the popish doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass was destitute of all foundation in scripture; but the queen, who was determined to avoid all discussion of the articles of her creed, interrupted him, by saying, that she was unable to contend with him in argument, but if she had those present whom she had heard, they would answer him. “Madam,” replied the Reformer, fervently, “would to God that the learnedest papist in Europe, and he whom you would best believe, were present with your grace to sustain the argument, and that you would wait patiently to hear the matter reasoned to the end! For then, I doubt not, madam, but you would hear the vanity of the papistical religion, and how little ground it hath in the word of God.”――“Well,” said she, “you may perchance get that sooner than you believe.”――“Assuredly, if ever I get that in my life, I get it sooner than I believe; for the ignorant papist cannot patiently reason, and the learned and crafty papist will never come, in your audience, madam, to have the ground of their religion searched out. When you shall let me see the contrary, I shall grant myself to have been deceived in that point.”

The hour of dinner afforded an occasion for breaking {39} off this singular conversation. At taking leave of her majesty, the Reformer said, “I pray God, madam, that you may be as blessed within the commonwealth of Scotland, as ever Deborah was in the commonwealth of Israel.”[48]

I have been the more minute in the narrative of this curious conference, because it affords the most satisfactory refutation of the charge, that Knox treated Mary with rudeness and disrespect. For the same reason I shall lay before the reader a circumstantial account of the subsequent interviews between them, from which we shall perceive that, though the Reformer addressed her with a plainness to which crowned heads are seldom accustomed, he never lost sight of that respect which was due to the person of his sovereign, nor of that decorum which became his own character.

The interview between the queen and the Reformer excited great speculation, and different conjectures were formed as to its probable consequences. The catholics, whose hopes now depended solely on the queen, were alarmed, lest Knox’s rhetoric should have shaken her constancy. The protestants cherished the expectation that she would be induced to attend the protestant sermons, and that her religious prejudices would gradually abate.[49] Knox indulged no such flattering expectations. He had made it his study, during the late conference, to discover the real character of the queen; and when some of his confidential {40} friends asked his opinion of her, he told them that he was very much mistaken if she was not proud, crafty, obstinately wedded to the popish church, and averse to all means of instruction.[50] Writing to Cecil, he says, “The queen neyther is, neyther shal be of our opinion; and, in very dead, her whole proceedings do declair that the cardinalle’s lessons ar so deaplie printed in her heart, that the substance and the qualitie are like to perishe together. I wold be glad to be deceaved, but I fear I shal not. In communication with her, I espyed such craft as I have not found in such aige. Since, hath the court been dead to me and I to it.”[51]