Chapter V: Appendix: , 374 (4)

“Well then,” said the secretary, “let us come to the second head. Where find ye that the scripture calls any ‘the bond slaves of Satan?’ or, that the prophets spake so irreverently of kings and princes?”――“If the sharpness of the term offend you,” replied {116} the Reformer, “I have not invented that phrase of speaking, but have learned it out of God’s scriptures; for these words I find spoken unto Paul, ‘Behold, I send thee unto the Gentiles, to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.’ Mark thir words, my lord, and stur not at the speaking of the Holy Ghost.”

The secretary, who, during the greater part of the dispute, had leaned on the master of Maxwell’s breast, said that he was fatigued, and desired some other person to reason with Knox on the point which remained to be discussed, respecting the authority of magistrates and the duty of subjects. Chancellor Morton ordered George Hay to perform this part. Knox was aware, that the object of the court was, if possible, to divide the ministers, and that they would improve any appearance of diversity of opinion among them, to the prejudice of the common cause. He therefore told Hay, that he had no objections to reason with him, knowing him to be a man of learning and modesty; but he should be sorry to think that they opposed each other, like two scholars of Pythagoras, to show the quickness of their parts by supporting either side of a question; and as he, for his own part, protested that he durst no more support a proposition which he knew to be untrue, than he durst teach false doctrine in the pulpit, so he hoped that his brother would, on the present occasion, advance or maintain nothing but what he was persuaded of in his conscience. This caution had the desired effect, and Hay declared, before the {117} whole assembly, that his judgment exactly coincided with Knox’s on the subject proposed for discussion. “Marry,” said the disappointed secretary, “ye are the well worst of the two; for I remember our reasoning when the queen was in Carrick.”

Perceiving that none of the company was disposed to enter the lists with the Reformer, Maitland again returned to the charge, and engaged to defend the uncontrollable authority of rulers. “Well,” said he, “I am somewhat better provided in this last head, than I was in the other two. Mr Knox, yesterday we heard your judgment upon the 13th to the Romans; we heard the mind of the apostle well opened; we heard the causes why God has established powers upon earth; we heard the necessity that mankind has of the same; and we heard the duty of magistrates sufficiently declared. But in two things I was offended, and I think some more of my lords that then were present: The one was, ye made difference betwixt the ordinance of God, and the persons that are placed in authority; and ye affirmed, that men might resist the persons, and yet not offend God’s ordinance: The other was, that subjects were not bound to obey their princes if they commanded unlawful things, but that they might resist their princes, and were not ever bound to suffer.” Knox said that the secretary had given a correct statement of his sentiments. “How will you prove your division and difference,” said Maitland, “and that the person placed in authority may be resisted, and God’s ordinance not transgressed, seeing that the {118} apostle says, ‘He that resists the power, resists the ordinance of God?’” Knox replied, that the difference was evident from the words of the apostle, and that his affirmative was supported by approved examples. For the apostle asserts, that the powers ordained of God are for the preservation of quiet and peaceable men, and for the punishment of malefactors; whence it is plain, that God’s ordinance is wholly intended for the preservation of mankind, the punishment of vice, and the maintenance of virtue; but the persons placed in authority are often corrupt, unjust, and oppressive. Having referred to the conduct of the people of Israel in rescuing Jonathan from the hands of Saul, which is recorded with approbation, and to the conduct of Doeg, in putting to death the priests at the command of that monarch, which is recorded with disapprobation in scripture, he proceeded thus: “And now, my lord, in answer to the place of the apostle, I say, that ‘the power’ in that place is not to be understood of the unjust commandment of men, but of the just power wherewith God has armed his magistrates to punish sin and to maintain virtue. As if any man should enterprise to take from the hands of a lawful judge a murderer, an adulterer, or any other malefactor that by God’s law deserved the death, this same man resisted God’s ordinance, and procured to himself vengeance and damnation, because that he stayeth God’s sword to strike. But so it is not, if that men, in the fear of God, oppose themselves to the fury and blind rage of princes; for so they resist not God, but the devil, who abuses {119} the sword and authority of God.”――“I understand sufficiently,” said Maitland, “what you mean; and unto the one part I will not oppose myself, but I doubt of the other. For if the queen would command me to slay John Knox, because she is offended at him, I would not obey her; but if she would command others to do it, or yet by a colour of justice take his life from him, I cannot tell if I be bound to defend him against the queen, and against her officers.”――“Under protestation,” replied the Reformer, “that the auditory think not that I speak in favour of myself, I say, my lord, that if ye be persuaded of my innocence, and if God hath given you such power or credit as might deliver me, and yet ye suffer me to perish, that in so doing ye should be criminal, and guilty of my blood.”――“Prove that, and win the plea,” said Maitland. “Well, my lord,” answered Knox, “remember your promise, and I shall be short in my probation.” He then produced the example of Jeremiah, who, when accused by the priests and false prophets, said to the princes, “Know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves, and upon this city, and upon the inhabitants thereof.”――“The cases are not like,” said Maitland. “And I would learn,” said Knox, “wherein the dissimilitude stands.”――“First,” replied Maitland, “the king had not condemned him to death. And next, the false prophets, the priests, and the people, accused him without a cause, and therefore they could not but be guilty of his blood.”――“Neither of these fights with my argument,” said {120} Knox; “for, albeit neither the king was present, nor yet had condemned him, yet were the princes and chief counsellors there sitting in judgment, who represented the king’s person and authority. And if ye think that they should all have been criminal only because they all accused him, the plain text witnesses the contrary; for the princes defended him, and so, no doubt, did a great part of the people, and yet he boldly affirms that they should be all guilty of his blood, if that he should be put to death.”――“Then will ye,” said the secretary, “make subjects to control their princes and rulers?”――“And what harm,” asked the Reformer, “should the commonwealth receive, if the corrupt affections of ignorant rulers were moderated, and so bridled, by the wisdom and discretion of godly subjects, that they should do wrong or violence to no man?”

The secretary, finding himself hard pushed, said that they had wandered from the argument; and he professed that if the queen should become a persecutor, he would be as ready as any within the realm to adopt the doctrine of the Reformer. “But our question,” said he, “is, whether that we may, and ought, suppress the queen’s mass. Or, whether that her idolatry should be laid to our charge.”――“Idolatry ought not only to be suppressed,” said Knox, “but the idolater ought to die the death.”――“I know,” answered Maitland, “that the idolater ought to die the death; but by whom?”――“By the people,” rejoined the Reformer; “for the commandment was made to Israel, as ye may read, ‘Hear, O Israel, {121} saith the Lord, the statutes and commandments of the Lord thy God.’”――“But there is no commandment given to the people to punish their king, if he be an idolater.”――“I find no privilege granted unto kings,” said Knox, “more than unto the people, to offend God’s majesty.”――“I grant,” said the secretary; “but yet the people may not be judge unto their king, to punish him, albeit he be an idolater. The people may not execute God’s judgment, but must leave it unto himself, who will either punish it by death, by war, by imprisonment, or by some other kind of plagues.”――“I know,” replied Knox, “the last part of your reason to be true; but for the first I am assured ye have no other warrant except your own imagination, and the opinion of such as more fear to offend princes than God.”

“Why say you so?” said Maitland. “I have the judgments of the most famous men within Europe, and of such as ye yourself will confess both godly and learned.” Upon which he produced a bundle of papers, and read extracts from the writings of the principal reformed divines against resistance to rulers; adding, that he had bestowed more labour on the collection of these authorities than on the reading of commentaries for seven years. Knox replied, that it was a pity he had given himself so much labour, for none of the extracts which he had read bore upon the question under discussion; some of them being directed against the anabaptists, who denied that Christians should be subject to magistrates, or that it was lawful for them to hold the {122} office of magistracy; and the rest referring to the case of a small number of Christians scattered through heathen and infidel countries, which was the situation of the primitive church. In this last case, he said, he perfectly agreed with the writers whom Maitland had quoted; but when the majority of a nation were professors of the true religion, the case was very different. While the posterity of Abraham were few in number, and while they sojourned in different countries, they were merely required to avoid all participation in the idolatrous rites of the heathen; but as soon as they “prospered into a kingdom,” and obtained possession of Canaan, they were strictly charged to suppress idolatry, and to destroy all its monuments and incentives. The same duty was now incumbent on the professors of the true religion in Scotland, whose release from bondage, temporal and spiritual, was no less wonderful than the redemption of the Israelites from Egypt. Formerly, when not more than ten persons in a country were enlightened, and when these were called to seal their testimony to the truth by giving their bodies to the flames, it would have been foolishness to have demanded of the nobility the suppression of idolatry. But now, when knowledge had increased, and God had given such a signal victory to the truth, that it had been publicly embraced by the realm, if they suffered the land to be again defiled, both they and their queen should drink of the cup of divine indignation――she, because, amidst the great light of the gospel, she continued obstinately addicted to {123} idolatry, and they, because they tolerated, and even countenanced her in such conduct.

Maitland challenged his opponent to prove that the apostles or prophets ever taught that subjects might suppress the idolatry of their rulers. Knox appealed to the conduct of the prophet Elisha in anointing Jehu, and giving him a charge to punish the idolatry and bloodshed of the royal family of Ahab. “Jehu was a king before he put any thing in execution,” said the secretary.――“My lord, he was a mere subject, and no king, when the prophet’s servant came to him; yea, and albeit that his fellow captains, hearing of the message, blew the trumpet, and said ‘Jehu is king,’ yet I doubt not but Jezebel both thought and said he was a traitor, and so did many others in Israel and Samaria.”――“Besides this,” said Maitland, “the fact is extraordinary, and ought not to be imitated.”――“It had the ground of God’s ordinary judgment, which commands the idolater to die the death,” answered Knox. “We are not bound to imitate extraordinary examples,” rejoined Maitland, “unless we have like commandment and assurance.” Knox granted that this was true when the example was repugnant to the ordinary precept of the law, as in the case of the Israelites borrowing from the Egyptians without repayment. But when the example agreed with the law, he insisted that it was imitable; and of this kind was the instance to which he had appealed. But, said Maitland, “whatsoever they did, was done at God’s commandment.”――“That fortifies my argument,” retorted the Reformer; “for God, {124} by his commandment, has approved that subjects punish their princes for idolatry and wickedness by them committed.”――“We have not the like commandment,” said the secretary.――“That I deny; for the commandment, that the idolater shall die the death, is perpetual, as ye yourself have granted; ye doubted only who should be the executioner, and I have sufficiently proven that God has raised up the people, and by his prophet has anointed a king, to take vengeance upon the king and his posterity, which fact God since that time has never retracted.”――“Ye have produced but one example,” said Maitland.――“One sufficeth; but yet, God be praised, we lack not others, for the whole people conspired against Amaziah, king of Judah, after he had turned away from the Lord.”――“I doubt whether they did well, or not,” said Maitland.――“God gave sufficient approbation of their fact, for he blessed them with victory, peace, and prosperity, the space of fifty‑two years after.”――“But prosperity does not always prove that God approves the facts of men.”――“Yes, when the facts of men agree with the law of God, and are rewarded according to his promise, I say that the prosperity succeeding the fact is a most infallible assurance that God has approved that fact. And now, my lord, I have but one example to produce, and then I will put an end to my reasoning, because I weary longer to stand.” The lords desired him to take a chair; but he declined it, saying, “that melancholic reasons needed some mirth to be intermixed with them.” After a short dispute on the resistance of the {125} priests to Uzziah, the Reformer recapitulated the propositions which he thought had been established in the course of the debate. “Well,” said Maitland, “I think ye shall not have many learned men of your opinion.” Knox replied, that the truth ceased not to be the truth, because men misunderstood or opposed it, and yet he did not want the suffrages of learned men to his opinions. Upon which he presented a copy of the Apology of Magdeburgh, desiring the secretary to look at the names of the ministers who had approved of the defence of that city against the emperor, and subscribed the proposition, that to resist a tyrant is not to resist the ordinance of God. “Homines obscuri!”[129] said Maitland, slightingly, after perusing the list. “Dei tamen servi!”[130] replied the Reformer.

The secretary now insisted that the questions which they had discussed should be put to the vote, and that the determination of the meeting should fix a rule for uniformity of doctrine among the ministers. Knox protested against this motion, and reminded their lordships that the General Assembly had agreed to the present conference upon the express condition that nothing should be voted or decided at it. At last it was agreed, that the opinions of those who were present should be taken, but that they should not be considered as decisive. Winram, superintendent of Fife, and Douglas, rector of the university of St Andrew’s, were the principal persons among the ministers, {126} who agreed in sentiment with the courtiers. Knox’s colleague, in delivering his opinion, took occasion to give an account of a public dispute at which he had been present in Bologna, upon the question, Whether subjects have a right to control and reform their rulers, when they have been guilty of violating their oaths of office. Thomas de Finola, rector of the University, and Vincentius de Placentia, persons celebrated for their learning, maintained the affirmative on this question, and their opinion was adopted after long discussion. “Ye tell us what was done in Bologna,” exclaimed one of the courtiers; “we are in a kingdom, and they are but a commonwealth.”――“My lord,” replied Craig, “my judgment is, that every kingdom is a commonwealth, or at least should be, albeit that every commonwealth is not a kingdom; and therefore I think that in a kingdom no less diligence ought to be taken that laws be not violated than in a commonwealth, because the tyranny of princes who continually reign in a kingdom, is more hurtful to the subjects than the misgovernment of those that from year to year are changed in free commonwealths.” He added, that the dispute to which he had referred was conducted on general principles, applicable equally to monarchies and republics; and that one of the conclusions adopted was, that, although laws contrary to the law of God, and to the true principles of government, had been introduced, through the negligence of the people or the tyranny of princes, yet the same people, or their posterity, had a right to demand that all things {127} should be reformed according to the original institution of kings and commonwealths.[131]

The speech of Craig alarmed the courtiers as to the issue of the vote; and the clerk register took occasion to observe that, at a former conference, it had been agreed that Knox should write to Calvin to obtain his opinion on this question. Knox corrected this statement, by saying that the secretary had undertaken to consult that reformer, but although repeatedly reminded of his promise, had never fulfilled it. Maitland acknowledged this, and said that upon mature deliberation he durst not, considering his station, ask advice respecting any controversy between the queen and her subjects, without her majesty’s consent. It was now proposed that Knox should write to Calvin; but he refused to be employed in the business. Before he returned to the kingdom, he said, he had obtained the judgment of the most eminent foreign divines on that question, and he could not renew his application to them, without exposing himself to the charge of forgetfulness or inconsistency. The proper course was for them to write, complaining that he had taught such doctrines as he had now defended, and requesting Calvin to {128} communicate his judgment respecting them. This proposal was thought reasonable, but none would undertake the task; and the conference broke up without any determinate resolution being adopted.[132]

The reader must be struck with the difference between this dispute, and that which Knox formerly maintained with the abbot of Crossraguel. Although long, it was kept up by the disputants with great spirit; nor did they take refuge under those ambiguities of speech, or those sophistical forms of argument, of which persons trained to wrangle in the schools were ever ready to avail themselves, to perplex an adversary, or to conceal their own defeat. Few secretaries of state in modern times would, it is presumed, be able to acquit themselves so well as Maitland did, on questions which were decided chiefly by an appeal to the scriptures. But learned and acute as he was, Knox was fully a match for him, and, on the greater part of the topics introduced into the debate, evidently had the advantage, according to the principles held, and the concessions made, by his opponent. For both parties maintained, that idolatry ought to be punished by death; a sentiment which they were led to adopt in consequence of their holding the untenable opinion, that Christian nations are bound to enact the same penalties against all breaches of the moral law, which were enjoined by the judicial laws of Moses.[133] This being taken for granted, {129} the dispute between them resolved itself entirely into a question respecting the prerogatives of princes and the rights and duties of subjects. It may be questioned, too, whether Knox’s reasoning from extraordinary examples, qualified as it was by him, is sufficiently guarded and correct; for the instances in which punishment was inflicted in an extraordinary way on criminals, although the punishment itself was merited and agreeable to law, cannot be pleaded as precedents in ordinary cases. But even when we cannot approve of his reasonings, we are compelled to admire the openness with which he avowed, and the boldness with which he defended, sentiments so opposite to those which were generally received in that age.

In the month of August, Knox went, by appointment of the General Assembly, as visitor of the {130} churches, to Aberdeen and other parts of the north, where he remained six or seven weeks.[134] At the subsequent meeting of Assembly, he received a similar appointment to Fife and Perthshire.[135]

Our Reformer’s predictions at the last meeting of parliament were now fully realized. Another parliament was held in the end of 1564, but nothing was done for securing the protestant religion.[136] The queen’s marriage had long engaged the anxious attention of her ministers, and had been the subject of much negotiation with England and at foreign courts; but the various proposals which had been made with a view to it, and the political intrigues to which they gave rise, were all thwarted by the sudden and strong passion which Mary conceived for Henry, lord Darnley, the son of the earl of Lennox. As this young nobleman, so far as he had discovered any religious sentiments, was inclined to popery,[137] the match could not be very agreeable to the great body of the nation, who had already testified the strongest jealousy at the queen’s attachment to that religion. It was, therefore, natural for the nobility, in the prospect of this event, to provide additional securities {131} for the protestant church, and to insist that the royal sanction, hitherto withheld, should now be granted to its legal establishment. Upon this condition, they promised their consent to the marriage.[138] The queen agreed to summon a parliament to settle this important affair, but she found some pretext for proroguing its meeting;[139] and, having gained a number of the nobility by favours and promises, she proceeded, in July 1565, not only to solemnize the nuptials, but to proclaim her husband king, without the consent of the estates of the kingdom.

The dissatisfaction produced by these precipitate and illegal steps was heightened by the conduct of Darnley. Naturally vain, rash, and vindictive, his unexpected prosperity rendered him insolent and overbearing; and it required all the prudence of the queen to preserve him from falling into contempt, even before their marriage.[140] Although he could not have come to Scotland, and his father could not have been restored to his honours and possessions, considering the opposition made by the house of Hamilton, without the concurrence and interest of the earl of Murray; yet, he no sooner found himself seated in the affections of Mary, than he exerted his influence to deprive that nobleman of her favour, represented the honours which she had conferred on him as excessive, and leagued with those who were hostile to him and to the reformed religion. Lennox, Athole, and David Rizzio, a low‑bred Italian, who had insinuated himself {132} into the good graces of Mary, now ruled the court, to the exclusion of the most able counsellors.[141] Murray had been urged in private to sign an approbation of the intended marriage, but refused to do it until the nobility were consulted.[142] His refusal to gratify the queen, by forwarding a match on which she was passionately bent, obliterated the memory of all his past services, and drew upon him the furious resentment of Darnley. Having declined to attend a convention at Perth, from just apprehensions of personal danger, he was summoned to court by the queen. The summons was repeated three days after her marriage, and because he refused to intrust his person, on her safe conduct, to a court where the influence of his declared enemies prevailed, he was immediately proclaimed an outlaw.[143] In the meantime, the persons who had discovered the greatest hostility to him were openly encouraged. Bothwell was invited to return; lord George Gordon was set at liberty, and the earldom of Huntly restored to him; and the earl of Sutherland was recalled from banishment.[144] The lords who were dissatisfied with the late proceedings, assembled at Stirling, and, after agreeing to request the protection of Elizabeth, retired to their houses;[145] but the queen taking the field with all the forces which she could collect, they were at last compelled {133} to arm in their own defence.[146] Even after they were driven to this extremity, they neglected no means of conciliation. They professed their steadfast loyalty to the queen. They declared that their sole desire was, that the reformed religion should be secured against the dangers to which it was exposed, and that the administration of public affairs should be put into the hands of those whom the nation could trust. And they offered to submit their own cause to be tried by the laws of their country.[147] But the queen spurned all their offers of submission, refused to listen to any intercession in their favour, and advancing against them with an army, obliged them to take refuge in England.[148]

While her marriage with Darnley was in dependence, and she laboured to surmount the opposition made to it by the nobility, Mary had condescended to court the protestant ministers. Having sent for the superintendents of Lothian, Glasgow, and Fife, (for Knox could not now be admitted to her presence,) she amused them with fair words. She was not yet persuaded, she said, of the truth of their religion, but was willing to hear conference and reasoning on the subject; she was also content to attend the public sermons of some of them; and, “above all others, she would gladly hear the superintendent of Angus, for he was a mild and sweet‑natured man, with true honesty and uprightness, Sir John Erskine of Dun.”[149] {134} She even went so far as to be present at a sermon preached by one of the ministers in Callendar‑house, at the baptism of a child of lord Livingston.[150] But as soon as her marriage was accomplished, she told the commissioners of the church, in very plain and determined language, “her majesty neither will, nor may, leave the religion wherein she has been nourished and brought up.”[151] And there was no further proposal of attending either sermon or conference.

The friendship between the earl of Murray and the Reformer had been renewed in the beginning of 1565. Knox was placed in a very delicate predicament by the insurrection under Murray, and the other lords who opposed the queen’s marriage. His father‑in‑law was one of their number. They professed that the security of the protestant religion was the principal ground of their taking arms; and they came to Edinburgh to collect men to their standard. But whatever favour he might have for them, he kept himself clear from any engagement.[152] If he had taken part in this unsuccessful revolt, we need not doubt that her majesty would have embraced the opportunity of punishing him for it, when his principal friends had fled the kingdom.

We find, in fact, that she immediately proceeded against him on a different, but far more slender ground. The young king, who could be either papist {135} or protestant, as it suited him, went sometimes to mass with the queen, and sometimes attended the reformed sermons.[153] To silence the suspicions of his alienation from the protestant religion, circulated by the insurgent lords, he, on the 19th of August, made a solemn appearance in St Giles’s church, sitting on a throne which had been prepared for his reception. Knox preached that day, and happened to prolong the service beyond his usual time. In one part of the sermon, he quoted these words of scripture, “I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them,――children are their oppressors, and women rule over them;” and in another part of it, he mentioned that God punished Ahab, because he did not correct his idolatrous wife, Jezabel.[154] Though no particular application was made by the preacher, the king applied these passages to himself and the queen, and, returning to the palace in great wrath, refused to taste dinner. The papists, who had accompanied him to church, inflamed his resentment and that of the queen by their representations.

{136} That very afternoon Knox was taken from bed,[155] and carried before the privy council. Some respectable inhabitants of the city, understanding his citation, accompanied him to the palace. He was told that he had offended the king, and must desist from preaching as long as their majesties were in Edinburgh. He replied, that “he had spoken nothing but according to his text; and if the church should command him to speak or abstain, he would obey, so far as the word of God would permit him.”[156] Spotswood says, that he not only stood to what he had said in the pulpit, but added, “That as the king, for the queen’s pleasure, had gone to mass, and dishonoured the Lord God, so should He in his justice make her the instrument of his overthrow. This speech,” continues the archbishop’s manuscript, “esteemed {137} too bold at the time, came afterwards to be remembered, and was reckoned among other his prophetical sayings, which certainly were marvellous. The queen, enraged at this answer, burst forth into tears.”[157]

The report of the inhibition laid upon the Reformer created great agitation in the city. His colleague, who was appointed to supply his place during his suspension, threatened to desist entirely from preaching. The town council met, and appointed a deputation to wait on their majesties, and request the reversal of the sentence; and at a second meeting held on the same day, they came to a unanimous resolution that they would, “in no manner of way, consent or grant that his mouth be closed,” but that he should be desired, “at his pleasure, and as God should move his heart, to proceed forward to true doctrine as before, which doctrine they would approve and abide at to their life’s end.”[158]

It does not appear that he continued any time suspended from preaching. For the king and queen {138} left Edinburgh before next Sabbath[159] and the prohibition extended only to the time of their residence in the city. Upon their return, it is probable that they judged it advisable not to enforce an order which had already created much discontent, and might alienate the minds of the people still farther from the present administration. Accordingly, we find him exercising his ministry in Edinburgh with the same boldness as formerly. Complaints were made to the council of the manner in which he prayed for the exiled noblemen; but secretary Maitland, who had formerly found so much fault with his prayers, defended them on the present occasion, saying, that he had heard them, and they were such as nobody could blame.[160]

Christopher Goodman had officiated, with much approbation, as minister of St Andrew’s, since the year 1560; but he was prevailed on, by the solicitations of his friends in England, to return, about this time, to his native country.[161] The commissioners from St Andrew’s were instructed to petition the General Assembly, which met in December this year, that Knox should be translated from Edinburgh to their city. They claimed a right to him, as he had commenced his ministry among them; and they might think, that the dissensions in which he was involved with the court would induce him to prefer a more retired situation. But their petition was refused.[162]

This Assembly imposed on him several important {139} services. He was commissioned to visit the churches in the south of Scotland, and appointed to write “a comfortable letter,” to encourage the ministers, exhorters, and readers, throughout the kingdom, to persevere in the discharge of their functions, which many of them were threatening to abandon, on account of the non‑payment of their stipends; and to excite the people among whom they laboured to relieve their necessities.[163] He had formerly received an appointment to draw up The Form of Excommunication and of Public Repentance.[164] And he was now required to compose a Treatise of Fasting. The Assembly, having taken into consideration the troubles of the country, and the dangers which threatened the whole protestant interest, had appointed a general fast to be kept through the kingdom. The form and order to be observed on that occasion they left to be drawn out by Knox and his colleague; and as nothing had been hitherto published expressly on this subject, they were authorized to explain the duty, as well as to state the reasons which at that period called for this solemn exercise. This treatise does credit to the compilers, {140} both as to matter and form. It is written in a perspicuous and nervous style. In the grounds assigned for fasting, the critical state of all the reformed churches, the late decree of the council of Trent for the extirpation of the protestant name, the combination of the popish princes for carrying it into execution, and the persecutions suffered by their brethren in different countries, are all held forth as a warning to the protestants of Scotland, and urged as calls to repentance and prayer.

The following may serve as a specimen:――“Supposing, we say, that wee had none of these foresaid causes to moove us, yet is there one which if it moove us not to humiliation, wee show ourselves more than insensible. For now is Satan so enlarged against Jesus Christ, and so odious is the light of his gospel unto the Romaine antichrist, that to suppresse it in one province, realme, or nation, he thinketh it nothing, unlesse that in all Europe the godly, and such as abhorre the papisticall impietie, be therewith also utterlie destroyed, and so rased from the face of the earth, that no memory of them shal after remaine. If any thinke that suche crueltie cannot fall into the hearts of men, we send them to be resolved of those fathers of the last councel of Trent, who, in one of their sessions, have thus concluded: All Lutherans, Calvinists, and such as are of the new religion, shall utterly be rooted out. The beginning shall be in France, by conducting of the catholike king, Philip of Spaine, and by some of the nobilitie of France; which matter (they say) put in execution, the whole {141} power of both, together with the popes armie, and force of the duke of Savoy and Ferrar, shall assault Geneva, and shall not leave it till that they have put it to sacke, saving in it no living creature. And with the same mercie shall so many of France as have tasted of the new religion be served. From thence expedition shall be made against the Germanes, to reduce them to the obedience of the apostolike seate. And so shall they proceed to other realmes and nations, never ceasing till that all be rooted out that will not make homage to that Romane idoll. How fearefull a beginning this conclusion and determination had, France will remember moe ages then one. For how manie, above a hundreth thousand men, women, babes, virgines, matrones, and aged fathers suffered, some by sworde, some by water, some by fire, and other torments, the verie enemies themselves are compelled to acknowledge. And albeit that God of his mercie in part disappoynted their cruell enterprises, yet let us not thinke that their will is changed, or their malice asswaged. No; let us be assured, that they abide but opportunitie to finish the worke that cruellie against God, against his trueth, and the true professors of the same, they have begunne, the whisperings whereof are not secreete, neither yet the tokens obscure. For the traffike of that dragon now with the princes of the earth, his promises and flattering enticements, tende to none other ende, but to inflame them against Jesus Christ, and against the true professours of his gospel. For who can thinke that the pope, cardinals, and horned {142} bishops, will offer the greatest portion of their rents, for sustaining of a warre, whereof no commoditie should redound (as they suppose) to themselves?” Having quoted that part of the decree of the council which relates to the assessment imposed on the clergy, for carrying on this holy war, the compilers of the treatise add: “But let us hear their conclusion: France and Germanie (say they) being by these meanes so chastised, abased, and brought to the obedience of the holy Romane church, the fathers doubt not but time shall provide both counsell and commoditie, that the rest of the realmes about may be reduced to one flocke, and one apostolike governour and pastour.――But some shall say, they are yet far from the end of their purpose, and therefore wee neede not be so fearefull, nor so troubled. We answere, the danger may be nearer than we beleeve, yea, perchance a part of it hath bene nearer to our neckes than we have considered. But how so ever it be, seeing that God of his mercie hath brought foorth to light their cruell and bloodie counsell, in which we neede not to doubt but still they continue, it becummeth us not to be negligent or slouthful.”[165]

Strong as their apprehensions were, the danger was nearer to them than they imagined. The most zealous and powerful of the protestant nobles being exiled, the queen determined to carry into execution the design of which she had never lost sight; and while she amused the nation with proclamations {143} against altering the received religion, and tantalized the ministers with offers of more adequate support, was preparing for the speedy restoration of the Roman catholic worship. No means were left unattempted for gaining over the nobility to the ancient religion. The king openly professed himself a convert to it, and officiated in some of its most superstitious rites. The earls of Lennox, Cassilis, and Caithness, with lords Montgomery and Seton, followed his example.[166] The friars were employed to preach at Holyroodhouse, and, to gain the favour of the people, endeavoured to imitate the popular method of the protestant preachers.[167] In the beginning of February 1566, a messenger arrived from the cardinal of Lorrain, with a copy of the catholic league for extirpating the protestants, and instructions to obtain the queen’s subscription to it, and to urge the propriety of adopting the most rigorous measures against the exiled noblemen. Mary scrupled not to set her hand to the league.[168] Previous to this, it is said that she was inclined to yield to the intercessions {144} made in behalf of the exiles; but if ever she felt such a disposition, it is certain that, from the arrival of this embassy, the door of mercy was shut. Murray and his associates were immediately summoned to appear before the parliament which was to meet on the twelfth of March. The lords of the Articles were chosen according to the queen’s pleasure; the popish ecclesiastics were restored to their place in parliament; and the altars to be erected in St Giles’s church, for the celebration of the Roman catholic worship, were already prepared.[169]

But these measures, when ripe for execution, were blasted, in consequence of a secret engagement which the king had entered into with some of the protestant nobles. The first effect produced by this engagement was the well‑known assassination of Rizzio, the unworthy favourite of the queen, who was the principal instigator of the measures against the protestant religion and the banished lords, and had now incurred the jealousy of the king, as well as the contempt of the nobility and the hatred of the people. To have removed this minion from her majesty’s counsels and presence by legitimate means would have been meritorious; but the manner in which it was accomplished was equally inconsistent with law and humanity, and fixes a deep stigma on the characters of those who perpetrated the deed.[170]

{145} A complete change on the state of the court succeeded this event. The popish counsellors fled from the palace; the exiled lords returned out of England; and the parliament was prorogued, without accomplishing any of the objects for which it had been assembled. But Mary soon persuaded the weak and uxorious king to desert the noblemen whom he had made the instruments of his revenge, to retire with her to Dunbar, and to issue a proclamation, disowning his consent to the late attempt; by which he exposed himself to the contempt of the nation, without regaining her affection. Having collected an army, she returned to Edinburgh, threatening to inflict the most exemplary vengeance on all who had been accessory to the murder of her secretary, and the indignity shown to her person. She found herself, however, unable to resume her former plans; and, while the conspirators against Rizzio were forced to flee to England, the earl of Murray, and the other lords who {146} had opposed her marriage, were allowed to remain in the country, and soon after pardoned.

When the queen returned to Edinburgh, Knox left it, and retired to Kyle. There is no reason to think that he was privy to the conspiracy which proved fatal to Rizzio. But it is probable that he had expressed his satisfaction at an event which contributed to the safety of religion and the commonwealth, if not also his approbation of the object of the conspiracy.[171] At any rate, he was sufficiently obnoxious to the queen on other grounds; and as her resentment, on the present occasion, was exceedingly inflamed, it was deemed prudent for him to withdraw.[172]

Having, at last, “got quit” of one who had so long been troublesome to her, Mary was determined to prevent his return to the capital. The town‑council and inhabitants, who had formerly refused to acquiesce in his suspension from preaching for a short time, exerted themselves to obtain his restoration; and powerful intercession was made in his behalf by many of the nobility and gentry. But the queen was deaf to all entreaties. She was even unwilling that he should find a refuge within the kingdom, and wrote {147} to a nobleman in the west country, with whom he resided, to banish him from his house.[173] It does not appear that he returned to Edinburgh, or, at least, that he resumed his ministry in it, until the queen was deprived of the government.

Being banished from his flock, he judged this a favourable opportunity for paying a visit to England. Parental affection increased the desire which he had long felt to accomplish this journey. His two sons had been lately sent by him into that kingdom, to reside with some of their mother’s relations, and to obtain their education in the English seminaries. Having procured the safe conduct of Elizabeth, he applied to the General Assembly, which met in December 1566, for their permission to remove. This was readily granted by them, upon condition of his returning against the time of their next meeting in June. The Assembly likewise gave him a most ample and honourable testimonial, in which they describe him as “a true and faithfull minister, in doctrine pure and sincere, in life and conversation in our sight inculpable,” and one who “has so fruitfully used that talent granted to him by the Eternal, to the advancement of the glory of his godly name, to the propagation {148} of the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and edifying of them who heard his preaching, that of duty we must heartily praise His godly name, for that so great a benefit granted unto him for our utility and profit.”[174]

Knox was charged with a letter from the General Assembly to the bishops and ministers of England, interceding for lenity to such of their brethren as scrupled to use the sacerdotal dress enjoined by the laws. The controversy on that subject was at this time carried on with great heat among the English clergy. It is not improbable, that the Assembly interfered in this business at the desire of Knox, to whom the composition of the letter was committed.[175] He could not have forgotten the trouble which he had himself suffered on a similar ground, and he had a high regard for many of the scruplers. This interposition did not procure them any relief. Though the superior clergy had been more zealous to obtain it than they were, Elizabeth was inflexible, and would listen neither to the supplications of her bishops, nor to the advice of her counsellors. Knox’s good opinion of the English queen does not seem to have been improved by this visit.[176]

{149} He performed one important piece of public service before undertaking this journey to England. On the 23d of December, the queen granted a commission, under the privy seal, to the archbishop of St Andrews, restoring him to his ancient jurisdiction, which had been abolished in 1560, by act of parliament.[177] This step was taken, partly to prepare for the restoration of the popish religion, and partly to facilitate another dark design which was soon after disclosed. The protestants could not fail to be both alarmed and enraged at this daring measure. Moved by his own zeal no less than by the advice of his brethren, the Reformer addressed a circular letter to the principal protestants in the kingdom, requesting their immediate advice on the measures most proper to be adopted on this occasion, and enclosing a copy of a proposed supplication to the queen. This letter discovers all the ardour of the writer’s spirit, called forth by such an alarming occurrence. After mentioning the late acts for the provision of the ministry,[178] by which the queen attempted to blind them, he says, “How that any such assignation, or any promise made thereof, can stand in any stable assurance, when that Roman antichrist, by just laws once banished from this realm, shall be intrusted {150} above us, we can no ways understand. Yea, farther, we cannot see what assurance can any within this realm, that hath professed the Lord Jesus, have of life, or inheritance, if the head of that odious beast be cured among us. As from the beginning we have neither spared substance nor life, so mind we not to faint unto the end, to maintain the same, so long as we can find the concurrence of brethren; of whom (as God forbid) if we be destitute, yet we are determined never to be subject to the Roman antichrist, neither yet to his usurped tyranny; but when we can do no farther to suppress that odious beast, we mind to seal it with our blood to our posterity, that the bright knowledge of Jesus Christ hath banished that Man of Sin, and his venomous doctrine, from our hearts and consciences. Let this our letter and request bear witness before God, before his church, before the world, and before your own consciences.”[179] The supplication of the General Assembly to the lords of the privy council, on the same subject, also bears marks of the Reformer’s pen.[180]

During the time that Knox was in England, that tragedy, so well known in Scottish history, was acted, which led to a complete revolution in the government of the kingdom, and, contrary to the designs of the principal actors, threw the power wholly into the hands of the protestants. Mary’s affection for her husband, which had cooled soon after their marriage, {151} was, from the time of Rizzio’s assassination, converted into a fixed hatred, which she was at little pains to conceal. The birth of an heir to the crown produced no reconciliation between the royal parents; the king was not allowed to be present at the baptism of his own son, and was treated with such marked disrespect, even by the servants, that he abandoned the court, and shut himself up in his father’s house. In proportion as the queen’s mind was alienated from her husband, the unprincipled earl of Bothwell grew in her favour. He engrossed the whole management of public affairs, was loaded with honours, and treated by her majesty with every mark of personal regard and affection. In these circumstances, the neglected, unhappy king, was decoyed to Edinburgh, lodged in a solitary dwelling at the extremity of the city, and murdered on the morning of the 10th of February, 1567; the house in which he lay being blown up with gunpowder.

It would be unsuitable to the nature of the present work to enter into the controversy respecting the authors of this murder, which has been agitated with uncommon keenness from that day to the present time. The accusation of the earl of Murray as a party to the deed, is destitute of all proof, and utterly incredible. It was at first circulated with the evident design of turning away the public mind from the real perpetrators; it was insinuated, and afterwards directly brought forward, in the conferences at York and Westminster, as a retaliation upon him for the charge which he exhibited against the queen; {152} and it is now kept up only by the most blind and bigoted of her partisans. That Bothwell was the prime contriver and agent in the murder, cannot admit of a doubt with any impartial and judicious enquirer. And that Mary was privy to the design, and accessory to its execution by permission and approbation, there is, I think, all the evidence, moral and legal, which could reasonably be expected in a case of this kind. The whole of her behaviour towards the king, from the time that she brought him from Glasgow till she left him on the fatal night; the remissness which she discovered in enquiring into the murder; the shameful manner in which she suffered the farce of Bothwell’s trial to be conducted; the glaring act (which struck the whole of Europe, and even her own friends, with horror) of taking to her bed, with indecent haste, the man who was stigmatized as the murderer of her husband; and the manner in which she refused to defend herself, and broke off the conference to which she had agreed, as soon as the charge of accession to the murder was brought against her,――afford the strongest presumptions of her guilt; and, when taken in connexion with the direct evidence arising from letters and depositions, would have been sufficient long ago to shut the mouths of any but the defenders of Mary queen of Scots.[181]

{153} Knox was absent from Edinburgh at the time of the queen’s marriage with Bothwell; but his colleague ably supported the honour of his place and order on that occasion, when the whole nobility of Scotland preserved a passive and disgraceful silence. Being required by both the parties to publish the banns, Craig reluctantly complied, after taking the advice of his session; but, at the same time, he protested from the pulpit, on three several days, and took heaven and earth to witness, that he abhorred and detested the intended marriage as unlawful and scandalous, and solemnly charged the nobility to use their influence to prevent the queen from taking a step, which would inevitably cover her with infamy, and involve her in ruin. Being called before the council, and accused of having exceeded the bounds of his commission, he boldly replied, that the bounds of his commission were the word of God, good laws, and natural reason, to all of which the proposed marriage was contrary. And Bothwell being present, he charged him with the crime of adultery, the precipitancy with which the process of divorce had been carried through, and the suspicions entertained of collusion between him and his wife, of his having {154} murdered the king, and ravished the queen, all of which would be confirmed if they carried their purpose into execution.[182]

The events which followed in rapid succession upon this infamous marriage――the confederation of the nobility for revenging the king’s death, and preserving the person of the infant prince; the flight of Bothwell; the surrender and imprisonment of Mary; her resignation of the government; the coronation of her son; and the appointment of the earl of Murray as regent during his minority, are all well known to the readers of Scottish history.