Chapter XVII (1)

_History of Protestantism in Scotland,
and the Conflict of the Clergy with the Government._

THUS far the revolutionary movement awakened and stirred society to the core; but as yet the nation was much divided. On the one hand, the Earls of Morton, Glencairn, Athole, Mar, Lord Lindsay, Lord Hume, and others, with Moray as their leader, were supported by the reformed clergy. On the other hand, a section of the Protestant nobles who disapproved of the treatment of the Queen, still stood aloof and were assuming a decided attitude; while the Roman Catholic party were constantly active and looking for their opportunity. On all sides the elements of conflict were apparent.

On the 11th of August, 1567, the Earl of Moray, who had been recalled from France by his party, arrived in Edinburgh. After conferring with his friends, he consented to accept the regency, but before formally assuming the office, he wished to have an interview with the Queen. He was accompanied to Lochleven, by Morton, Athole, and Lord Lindsay; but the Queen naturally desired to see her brother alone, and her request was granted. What passed between them, is rather hard to ascertain. It has been reported that he reproached her for her conduct in the severest manner, that the Queen was extremely afflicted, and that after a long interview he left her to ponder over what he had said. Next morning the Queen and Moray again met. There was more sympathy between them; and at the Queen’s request Moray agreed to accept the regency.¹

¹ Sir James Melville’s _Memoirs_, pages 193‒194; Hosack’s
_Queen Mary_, Volume I., pages 373‒375.

On the 22nd of August, Moray formally assumed office in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and having taken the oath required by the constitution, was proclaimed Regent. The following day the Council issued an order calling in all the seals, that they might be broken and destroyed, and new ones made with a legend appropriate to James VI.¹ The new Regent exerted himself to the utmost to restore order and administer justice in the nation. He commanded the leading men of the Merse to appear before the Council on the last day of August to concert measures for the quiet administration of justice within the East March. The Hamiltons offered some opposition to his authority within their territories, but it was easily overcome. Moray’s next aim was to get possession of the castle of Edinburgh. The Governor, Sir James Balfour, was bought over by a bribe, and the castle was then committed to Sir William Kirkaldy the laird of Grange. The Regent also struggled hard for the castle of Dunbar, and it fell into his hands about the end of September. The castle of Dumbarton, however, still held out for the Queen. Orders were issued for the surrender of many other castles; and great efforts were made to establish peace and order throughout the kingdom.²

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 548‒551.

² _Ibid._, Volume I., pages 551‒576; Stevenson’s _Selections_,
pages 283, 291‒294.

Moray summoned a parliament which met at Edinburgh in December, 1567, “to treat on the affairs tending to the glory of God, the setting forth of the King’s authority, and for establishing good and necessary laws in the kingdom.” This parliament ratified the most important steps of the Reformation. The acts passed in 1560 which had never received the royal assent, were confirmed, and the Confession of Faith was inserted in the record of the parliamentary proceedings.¹ Henceforward the great revolution which had substituted Protestantism for Romanism in Scotland may be regarded as secured; though there were still many weighty and interesting matters relating to the polity and rights of the reformed Church, and the claims of her clergy, remaining to be settled, which afterwards led to a protracted struggle with the Crown.

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume III., pages
3‒45.

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh on the 25th of December, 1567. All the members present agreed to a proposition that a certain number of ministers should be appointed to meet at any time with such members of parliament or of the Privy Council as the Regent should name, as a committee to advise on the affairs of the Church.¹ The reformed Church gave the Regent a firm and undivided support; and his government required all their aid. It was said that he took great trouble to pounce upon the thieves and vagabonds who distressed the people, and held courts of justice throughout the country; but that he took no such care to settle the differences and whims of the nobility, and thus failed to draw them into obedience to the King. For all the Regent’s energy and the success of his government, the army still required to be kept in the field. On the 14th of February, 1568, the lead on the cathedral churches of Aberdeen and Elgin, part of which had already been stolen, was ordered to be stripped off and sold, and the proceeds applied to maintain the King’s troops.² The Queen’s party continued exceedingly active. A considerable section of the people were still dissatisfied, and the Regent was often warned that trouble was brewing.

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, page 113.

² Sir James Melville’s _Memoirs_, pages 198‒199; _Register of
the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 599, 608‒614.

In the beginning of May, 1568, the Queen escaped from her imprisonment in Lochleven, and proceeded to Hamilton. Her chief adherents were the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, Rothes, Cassillis; the Lords Harris, Livingston, Fleming, and Claud Hamilton.¹ In a few days she was at the head of a force of four or five thousand armed men. When the intelligence of Mary’s escape reached him, the Regent was at Glasgow holding justice courts. On the 3rd of May he ordered a muster of all the Crown vassals, for the preservation of the King’s authority and person, and for establishing justice and peace in the kingdom. He resolved at once to meet the danger, and marching out of Glasgow, took up a position at Langside. On the 13th of May the followers of the Queen gave him battle. His victory was complete, and Mary herself fled towards the Border;² and in an unhappy hour determined to throw herself upon the hospitality of the Queen of England.

¹ Keith, Volume II., pages 797‒799.

² _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 620‒622.

After the flight of the Queen, the Regent continued his efforts to restore order in the kingdom. This was no easy task. He had a host of enemies, and was always making more, for the peculiar position into which he had allowed himself to be put, necessarily multiplied his foes. When parliament was summoned to meet in July, 1568, the keenness of the struggle was intensified as soon as it became known that the enemies of the Regent’s government would be subjected to forfeiture. The Archbishop of St. Andrews was cited to appear before the Council, and having failed to appear, was declared a rebel and outlawed. The Earl of Crawford and others were also proclaimed rebels. Parliament met at the appointed time, but it was immediately adjourned to August, when proceedings of forfeiture were to be begun against the opponents of the government. From motives of policy, however, only a few were condemned, and hopes were held out to others, with the view of inducing them to submit.¹

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 624‒634,
638; _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume III.,
pages 47‒58.

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh on the 1st of July, 1568. John Willock was chosen moderator, and the members proceeded to the business before them. They presented a number of articles to the Regent and craved reform of abuses. Among other things they complained that their stipends were not fully paid; and requested that the College of Aberdeen should be reformed, the corrupted office-bearers removed and others appointed in their places, so that the youth might be instructed in letters and godliness. They desired the Regent to adopt measures for the suppression of vice, that the plague of God might thereby be withdrawn from the nation. The Regent listened with respect to their requests and returned a favourable answer. This Assembly resolved that all the Catholics, who after due admonition refused to join themselves to the Reformed Church, should be cast out of the society of Christ’s body and excommunicated. But the Assembly which met in February the following year, presented to the Regent a series of similar articles praying that remedies might be adopted; and in reference to the Regent’s former proposal touching vice and crime, they added――“If his grace send us to the Justice-Clerk, experience has sufficiently taught us what he has done in any such matters.”¹ They meant that he had done nothing at all.

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 123, 126‒129, 139, 140.

In the end of September, 1568, the Regent, accompanied by the Earl of Morton, Lord Lindsay, and other leading men of his party, passed to England to attend the conference at York touching Queen Mary. But it does not fall within the scope of my work to follow the story of that unhappy Queen after her flight to England; although it has been intensely interesting to some minds, it is not sufficiently important in its bearing upon the main subject to justify its introduction.¹

¹ This matter is treated in the histories of Tytler and Burton,
very fully in Hosack’s _Queen Mary_, and in many other works
which need not be enumerated.

When the Regent returned from England in the beginning of February 1569, he found his position in Scotland to be one of extreme difficulty. In the interval the Queen’s party had become more powerful and restless, and were employing every means in their power to harass his government and the unhappy people. Moray continued to act with energy, but some of his supporters deserted, and his enemies multiplied. Maitland of Lethington, who had fallen under the suspicion of the Regent, joined the Laird of Grange, the governor of the Castle of Edinburgh. Both of them threw in their lot with the cause of Mary, and thus the strongest and most important fortress in the kingdom passed into the hands of her party. It was mainly owing to this circumstance that the supporters of the Queen were able to hold out so long in Scotland. The other centres of her party were Huntly and the Gordons in the north, the Hamiltons and Argyle in the west, and some of the border clans. Thus hemmed in and hard pressed on every side, the Regent struggled on, and if his career had not been cut short, he would in all probability, with the assistance of the money of England, have overcome his enemies; but in the beginning of the year 1570, as the castle of Edinburgh was in the hands of the Queen’s adherents, he set out for Stirling; and on the 13th of January, when returning through Linlithgow, he was shot by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. The bullet passed through his body, and he died in a few hours. The assassin escaped on a fleet horse and rode to Hamilton Castle. Moray’s death was bewailed by the people and by the reformed clergy, who both regarded him as the arm of their safety.¹ To the party of the young King Moray’s death was a severe blow. He was an unscrupulous man, and his character will not bear close inspection; but he had great energy and some of the qualifications of a successful ruler; and with such means as he could command, he struggled bravely and worthily to maintain order and to administer justice.

¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume III., page 259;
Buchanan, Book XIX., chapters 51‒54; _Register of the Privy
Council_, Volume I., pages 644‒649, 654, _et seq._; Volume
II., pages 11, 20, 25, 37‒44, 51, _et seq._

For several years after the death of Moray, the factions of the King and Queen kept the country in an incessant turmoil. The adherents of the Queen still held the castle of Edinburgh; and in May, 1570, the English Government sent a small force to Edinburgh, but instead of restoring order, it intensified rather the general wretchedness. The passion and hatred of the opposing parties went on increasing, but at length the enthusiasm of the Queen’s followers spent itself. In July, 1570, the Earl of Lennox was elected Regent. His election was approved by the English Government, and he received the unswerving support of the reformed clergy.

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh on the 5th of July, and passed an act commanding all the ministers throughout the kingdom to pray publicly in their churches for the preservation of the King’s person and authority, and to proclaim to the people that he should be universally obeyed. The Assembly further unanimously agreed to appoint a commission of their brethren to attend any conventions of the nobility which might be held, and to assist and consent to everything that should be treated, which tended to promote the glory of God, the preaching and ministering of the true religion, the authority of the King, and the common good of the nation. The Assembly also, having regard to the troubled state of the kingdom, appointed a number of their brethren to be sent to all the earls, barons, and gentlemen who had fallen off from the King’s authority, and by every lawful means to endeavour to win them back and to reconcile them to the government of his majesty.¹

¹ Bannatyne’s _Journal_, pages 23‒28; _Book of the Universal
Kirk_, pages 177‒178, 182; Tytler’s _History of Scotland_,
Volume VII., pages 327‒329.

In the midst of the strife in Edinburgh, about the middle of October, 1570, Knox sustained a shock of apoplexy, which impaired his speech; but he recovered so far as to be able to preach on Sundays. In one of his sermons in the month of December, he made some personal remarks on the proceedings of the Laird of the Grange, the governor of the castle, which led to a bitter quarrel between him and his old friend. Knox defended himself and insisted on his freedom of speech in the pulpit, but anonymous libels were circulated against him. He was accused of not praying for the Queen, and for maligning her name and her adherents. His brethren and friends prevailed upon him to leave Edinburgh for his own safety, and he went to St. Andrews early in May, 1571. The bishop of Galloway, Alexander Gordon, then filled his pulpit in Edinburgh, and preached in a strain more acceptable to the Queen’s party. It was reported that he prayed for the Queen on the ground of her extreme wickedness, thus――“All sinners ought to be prayed for: If we should not pray for sinners, for whom should we pray, seeing that God came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. St. David was a sinner, and so was she: St. David was an adulterer, and so was she: St. David committed murder in slaying Uriah for his wife, and so did she: but what is this to the matter; the more wicked that she be, her subjects should pray for her, to bring her to the spirit of repentance.”¹

¹ Bannatyne’s _Journal_, pages 54, 70‒88, 107‒120, 139‒141,
144; Dr. M‘Crie’s _Life of Knox_, pages 250‒256; 1855.

The Castle of Dumbarton was taken from the Queen’s party in the beginning of April, 1571; and Hamilton, the archbishop of St. Andrews, was among the prisoners who surrendered. The Regent Lennox brought him to Stirling, where he was tried, condemned, and hanged on the 9th April. He was the last Roman Catholic Bishop ♦of St. Andrews. He had never ceased to assert his rights, and was therefore obnoxious to the reformed clergy and the King’s party. He was an active and able man in public life; and Lennox was glad of the opportunity to put him out of the way, but his execution was an act of cruelty and gross injustice.¹

♦ duplicate word “of” removed

¹ ♠Buchanan, Book XX., chapter 34; Dr. Grub’s _Ecclesiastical
History of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 168‒169.

♠ “Buchannan” replaced with “Buchanan”

Both parties issued proclamations and counter-manifestoes, and there was much skirmishing about Edinburgh, which produced little result. The Regent summoned a parliament to meet at Stirling in August, 1571. The General Assembly met in the same town on the 6th of August. Knox, being unable to attend the meeting, sent a letter to his brethren. In this he referred to the graceless libels which had been circulated against him, and called on the Assembly to judge the matter as they would answer to God. As his natural strength was daily decaying, and he was looking for a sudden departure to that land where the weary find rest, he earnestly exhorted his brethren to be faithful to the flock over whom God had placed them, and to resist all tyranny to the last. The battle, he said, would be hard, “but they must withstand the merciless devourers of the patrimony of the Church.... God give you wisdom and stout courage in so just a cause, and me a happy end.”¹ This Assembly repeated the injunctions that prayer should be offered up for the King, and that the people should submit to his authority. Complaints were made, touching the oppression of the ministers and the people in the counties of Aberdeen and Banff, by the Earl of Huntly and his servants, and of their neglect to pay the stipends of the ministers.²

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 604‒606; _Book of the
Universal Kirk_, pages 198‒199; Lord Lindsay’s _Lives of the
Lindsays_, Volume I., pages 260‒291.

² _Book of the Universal Kirk_, page 201.

Parliament assembled at Stirling on the 25th of August. About the same time the Queen’s party held their parliament in Edinburgh. In the Queen’s parliament sentences of forfeiture were passed against the Earl of Morton, and other chiefs of the King’s party; while in the King’s parliament an act was passed which ratified all former acts in favour of the liberty and freedom of the reformed Church. Acts were also passed in favour of Morton and Lord Lindsay, as a reward for their resistance to the open enemies of the King, and in favour of those who had taken the castle of Dumbarton from the enemy. While the King’s party were thus helping themselves and mutually congratulating each other, a company of the Queen’s adherents, under the command of the Earl of Huntly and Lord Hamilton, marched from Edinburgh upon Stirling, and on the 4th of September, surprised them, and slew the Regent Lennox. Ten days after the death of Lennox, the Earl of Mar was elected Regent; but the Earl of Morton had by this time become the real leader of the King’s party.¹

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_ Volume III., pages 58,
61, 65‒78; Bannatyne’s _Journal_, pages 247, 255‒258, 260;
Calderwood, Volume III., pages 136, 138‒141. Calderwood says
that the rebels in their parliament at Edinburgh forfeited
upwards of two hundred persons.

The regency of Mar was of short duration. He died on the 28th of October, 1572. The Earl of Morton was then elected Regent; since the death of Moray he had been the ruling spirit of his party. Morton had been more or less deeply implicated in all the plots and political murders of the past twenty years. He was an ambitious, greedy, crafty, and unscrupulous man; but brave and determined like all his ancestors of the Douglas tribe. He courted the friendship of the English government; and in the spring of 1573, concluded an arrangement by which fifteen hundred English troops and a train of artillery entered Scotland, and assisted in the reduction of the castle of Edinburgh. The Queen’s party throughout the country were broken up, and most of the leaders submitted to the Regent. Her adherents in the castle held out bravely, but were at last reduced to despair, and surrendered in the end of May, 1573. The common soldiers were dismissed. Lethington, who had served so many masters, and attempted to play so many parts, died about the 7th of June, a week after the castle fell. The laird of Grange, William Kirkaldy, the governor of the Castle, was tried, condemned, and hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh.¹ Mary’s party in Scotland never after raised their heads.

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume III., page 77,
_et seq._; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 281‒285; _Register
of the Privy Council_, Volume II., pages 213‒219, 236, 237.

Maitland of Lethington’s recent biographer, has with much ingenuity and great literary power, attempted to prove that he was one of the very greatest statesmen of the period. “In fine, Maitland’s was one of the governing minds of the time in which he lived. The number of such men at any particular period is as a rule extremely limited――much more so than is commonly supposed. I am inclined to hold that, at the period of which I am writing, there were not above three or four men of distinctly original and creative force in the whole island, from John o’ Groats to the Land’s End. In England they had Cecil; in Scotland, John Knox and William Maitland. Cecil’s ‘brothers in Christ’――the envoys and emissaries of the English Government――were men of a specifically inferior order, who derived their inspiration from their master, and who, when deprived of his guidance, of the habitual support of his cautious but fertile brain, showed themselves, almost without exception, extraordinarily helpless.... There are eminent writers who would be prepared to place the Earl of Moray beside Knox and Maitland and Cecil. It appears to me that Moray belongs to another class altogether,――the class of men whose mutual processes are slow, involved, and dependent. It was a common saying, when he came to be Regent, that Moray was the hand and Morton the head; and during the earlier and brighter years of Mary’s reign, it might have been said quite as truly――with even greater truth indeed――that if Moray was the head, Maitland was the heart.

“I have said that a statesman in Lethington’s position must be judged less by his actions than by his aims. What were his aims? We shall see that they involved the determination of political and religious questions of the first importance:――How to diminish the power of an anarchical nobility, how to promote the union of the nations, how to secure the succession to a Scottish prince (to the throne of England), how to establish a religious peace on tolerable conditions――these were the problems to which, as a Scottish Protestant and a Scottish patriot, Maitland addressed himself.... His field was comparatively narrow; but the issues of the conflict in which he was engaged were momentous and far reaching.”

The aims of Lethington as stated above by Skelton, invites comment:――1. There is no evidence that Lethington ever made any real effort to reduce the power of the nobles; but there is evidence that he used the influence of his official position, and also exerted his talents and wit, to enhance the power and the wealth of the nobles in connection with the landed property of the old Church. In the face of such evidence, it is surprising that his elegant panegyrist should have ventured to advance this, as one of the leading aims of the great statesman of the period. 2. It may be true that Maitland aimed to promote the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland; yet it is evident that some of his efforts in this direction were short-sighted, impracticable, and inconsistent. 3. Touching his aim to establish a religious peace in Scotland on tolerable conditions, it may be fairly questioned whether he was capable of appreciating and realising the real conditions of the problem. Most of Lethington’s efforts in this department were imperfectly conceived, or unrealisable in the circumstances, and consequently proved utter failures. It seems a rather curious historic phenomenon that one of the three greatest governing minds of the Reformation period in Britain, has somehow left so few traces on the nation of the result of his faculties. The fact is, that Lethington was a clever, glib, and scheming politician, but in no sense a great and wise statesman; and his recent biographer has glorified the Laird of Lethington by investing him with many virtues, which are quite inconsistent with his public career.¹

¹ _Maitland of Lethington_, By J. Skelton, Volume I., pages
333‒336.

The polity of the Reformed Church so far as yet developed, tended to leave a blank in the chief council of the nation. As the bishops, abbots, and other orders of the Roman clergy died out, the spiritual estate ceased to be represented in parliament. Knox was not decidedly opposed to a gradation of rank among the ministers of the Church; the democratic polity of presbyterianism was not matured in the First Book of Discipline, nor in any work emanating from the Reformed Church of Scotland in the reformer’s lifetime. At this stage, however, the most interesting point centred around the territorial possessions and the wealth of the ancient hierarchy. The nobles, the old orders of clergy, and the reformed preachers, were all scrambling according to the measure of their power and opportunity for what each imagined to be their share of the endowments which the piety of bygone generations had consecrated to religion. For all the preaching against idolatry and the monuments thereof, there was one idol not as yet extinguished――the golden calf. The aristocracy had recourse to various expedients to reach the revenues of the great benefices, and it must be admitted that in the end they succeeded.

For the settlement of this matter, an extraordinary meeting of the barons, superintendents, and ministers, was held at Leith in January, 1572. They assumed the powers of a General Assembly, and resolved to hand over the business to a committee of six, viz.:――John Erskine, John Winram, David Lindsay, John Craig, Andrew Hay, and Robert Pont, authorising any four of them to meet with those appointed by the Privy Council, the Earl of Morton, Lord Ruthven, the Abbot of Dunfermline, Mr. James M‘Gill, Sir John Bellenden, and Colin Campbell of Glenorchy, and to ratify whatever they might determine agreeable to their instructions. The joint committee met on the 16th of the same month, and agreed upon a form of polity for the Church, known as the Leith Concordat. It was agreed that the names and titles of archbishops and bishops, and the bounds of the dioceses, should not be altered, at least until the King’s majority or the parliament consented to another arrangement. The document went on to state, that persons promoted to bishoprics should as far as possible have the requisite scriptural qualifications; that they should be elected by a chapter or assembly of learned ministers; that archbishops and bishops should have no greater jurisdiction than the superintendents already had, and that they should be subject to the church and the General Assembly in spiritual matters, as they were to the Crown in temporal; that in the admission of persons to spiritual functions in the Church, they should at least take the advice of six of the best learned of the chapter; that all the archbishoprics and bishoprics then vacant or which hereafter became so, should within a year and a day after the vacancy be filled up with qualified persons not under thirty years of age; and that the dean, or failing him, the next in dignity among the chapter, should be vicar-general during the vacancy. Concerning the abbacies, priories, and nunneries, it was concluded that no disposition of these benefices should be made, nor any grants out of the funds of the same till it was ascertained what portion of the rents consisted in churches and tithes, and what portion of temporal lands, and until provision was made for the ministers properly belonging thereto. Touching the person holding the title and receiving the fruits of the benefice, it was agreed that he should fill the place of one of the ecclesiastical Estate in parliament, and have the style of abbot, prior, or commendator; that all such should be learned and qualified for their office, and that to secure this end, on the recommendation of the King, they should be tried and admitted by the bishops. It was further agreed that when the present members of the convents were all departed this life, the ministers of the churches belonging to the abbey or priory should then act as the chapter of the commendator in the administration of the property and rents of the establishment, and that if these commendators should be found worthy, they might be promoted to act as senators for the spiritual estate in the Court of Session.

There were proposals also for dealing with the rights of lay patrons, with benefices in the patronage of the Crown, and for the disposal of the smaller benefices throughout the kingdom. The latter were to be conferred only on duly qualified ministers, and churches were to be planted throughout the realm, residence secured, and pluralities prevented. The revenues of provostries, prebendaries, and chaplainries in college churches, if founded upon lands or annual rents, it was proposed to apply to the maintenance of bursars at the grammar schools and universities; and a form was drawn up for the election and appointment of bishops.¹

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 203‒205, 207‒232. It
is very justly observed by Dr. Grub, that the scheme agreed
on at Leith bore a remarkable resemblance to the external
polity of the church as it existed before the Reformation
in Scotland. _Ecclesiastic History of Scotland_, Volume II.,
page 179. Regarding the confused and anomalous points of the
system as then proposed from the Episcopalian standpoint,
see Russel’s _History of the Church in Scotland_, Volume I.
page 300, and for a strictly Presbyterian view of the matter,
compare Dr. M‘Crie’s _Life of Melville_, Volume I., pages
145‒151.

The proposals of the Committee, were immediately confirmed by the Regent and the Council, and an attempt was forthwith made by the government to carry out the scheme they embodied. On the 6th of February, 1572, the chapter of St. Andrews met and elected John Douglas to be archbishop of that ancient see. Douglas was also rector of the university and provost of St. Mary’s College, and besides, he was a man advanced in years. Knox merely protested against the accumulation of offices in the person of one man. Some of the other sees were filled up, but the new bishops were simply the tools of their patrons. They had consented to assume the title with only a very small portion of the episcopal revenues, the greater part being retained in the hands of their masters――the nobles.¹ To secure the richest portion of the benefices to the court, the nobles, and their friends and dependents, was the motive in which the whole scheme originated; and if the Reformed Church had yielded it would have destroyed its usefulness, and ended in a despotism of a degrading character. But a strong party of the clergy were thoroughly opposed to the scheme, and although the struggle between them and the Crown was protracted and severe, the liberties of the Church and the freedom of the nation eventually triumphed.

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, page 241; Calderwood, Volume
III., pages 205‒207; Bannatyne’s _Journal_, pages 269‒285,
286, 323, 324.

When the Articles came before the General Assembly, which met at Perth in August, 1572, that body unanimously agreed that such names as archbishop, dean, archdeacon, chancellor, and chapter sounded scandalous to the ears of many of the brethren, and recalled the ring of popery, and protested that while recognising the names, it did not mean to ratify, consent, or agree to any kind of superstition, but wished rather that the titles should be changed for others less offensive. The Assembly protested also that the articles and heads of the Leith Concordat were only to be received as interim, till a more perfect order could be obtained at the hands of the King, the Regent, and the nobility, for which they were to press whenever an opportunity occurred.

Knox addressed a letter to the Assembly containing a number of suggestions. He exhorted them to contend earnestly for the truth and for the liberty to express it, to endeavour to recover the patrimony of the Church, to petition the Regent to have all the vacant bishoprics filled up according to the order agreed on at Leith, but especially to complain that the bishopric of Ross was given to Lord Methven. He urged also that the Assembly should pass an act, ordering all the bishops admitted under the new articles to give an account of the whole rents of their sees and their intromissions therewith once every year; and that the present Assembly should determine the jurisdiction of the Church, as that part of the polity had long been postponed.¹

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 244, 246, 247‒250; Knox’s
_Works_, Volume VI., pages 619‒622.

For some time Knox had been in feeble health, but his spirit continued vigorous to the last. When the strife between the two contending parties was at its height, he had retired to St. Andrews, as we have seen, but by the end of August, 1572, he had returned once more to Edinburgh and resumed his preaching in St. Giles. When the intelligence of the massacre of the Protestants in Paris on the 25th of August arrived, he was deeply moved. A proclamation was immediately issued in the Regent’s name, calling on the Protestants to meet at Edinburgh on the 20th of October. Every congregation in the kingdom was directed to send one or more commissioners to consult and deliberate upon such matters and overtures as might be proposed, tending to protect and mutually to defend the professors of the Gospel within the kingdom, “from the furious rage and lawless cruelty of the bloodstained and treasonable Catholics, the executors of the decrees of that devilish and terrible Council of Trent.”¹ On the appointed day a number of the ministers and barons assembled. Among other things, they proposed that a national fast should be held, to begin on the 23rd of November and continue to the end of the month, that thereby the wrath of God might be mitigated. They desired that all the Catholics without exception should be summoned before the Council and the commissioners of the Church, to give confession of their faith, and that all who did not conform to the reformed religion, should be punished according to the acts of parliament. For resisting the Catholics in and without the country, they proposed that a league should be made with England and other reformed kingdoms, for their mutual defence, and the maintenance of the true religion against all its enemies; as it was only by banding themselves together that they could hope to thwart and frustrate the endless machinations which were constantly forming against them. “At this time the ministers then in Edinburgh did most vehemently inveigh against this most beastly and more than treasonable fact; whereat the French ambassador, called La Crocke, was not a little displeased, because that his master the King of France should be called a traitor, and a murderer of his own subjects, under promise and trust; but especially against John Knox, who had pronounced in his sermon, and had declared the same to the ambassador to tell his master, that the sentence is pronounced in Scotland, against that murderer the King of France, that God’s vengeance shall never depart from him nor his house, but that his name shall remain an execration unto the posterity to come, and that none that shall come of his loins, shall enjoy that kingdom in peace and quietness, unless repentance prevent God’s judgments.”²

¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume II., pages 168‒169.

² _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 252‒254; Calderwood,
Volume III., pages 227‒230; Bannatyne’s _Journal_, pages
401‒402.

On Sunday the 9th of November, 1572, Knox officiated at the induction of James Lawson as his colleague and successor. His voice was weak, and he never again appeared in public. On the 11th of the month he was seized with a severe cough, but continued cheerful. Richard Bannatyne, his faithful servant, attended him. He was surrounded by his family, and visited by many warm friends. He died in peace and full of hope on the 24th of November, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. On the 26th of the month his body was laid in the grave in the churchyard of St. Giles.¹

¹ Bannatyne’s _Journal_, pages 262‒254; Knox’s _Works_, Volume
VI., pages 634‒560. In these full details of the last days
of the Reformer’s life are given.

The character of Knox is manifested in his work, although the manner of performing it is a fair subject for criticism. But there is a prior point which must be noticed. In that and in all ages of recorded history, when a revolution is preparing and even after it is carried through, those who oppose it with all their power and still strive to resist its outcome, and those who struggle with all their energy to hasten and accomplish it, cannot both be animated by identical ideas, principles, and sentiments. The two contending parties must be influenced and swayed in varying degrees according to the strength or the feebleness of their sentiments, the firmness of their belief, the clearness of their ideas, and the grasp which they have of their principles; or their course of action may be partly controlled by the object and ends towards which they look, as these may be conceived from different points of view: as when one party regards the commemoration of the saints as an essential article of religion while the other does not, and so on through many other articles of belief. If then the God of the one party is exactly the God of the other, they at least desire to take different ways of approaching Him. It is the distinctive and characteristic glory of Roman Catholicism to proclaim that it has never changed its creed nor its principles; both are constantly assumed to be infallible. But Protestantism admits of change, and recognises the laws of development and progress, of corruption and decay, in religious systems as in everything else; and endeavours by a process of gradual elimination to advance towards the conception of a supreme moral ideal to which all theology should eventually subordinate itself.

Those who looked upon the Reformation as an evil, and on Protestantism as a heresy which deserved to be condemned and stamped out, could see in Knox only an embodiment of wickedness. For this reason their libels on his character may be justly disregarded. It is a fashionable thing to talk in modern phrases about toleration, and then proceed to stigmatise the Reformers of the sixteenth century for their bigotry, dogmatism, narrowness, and ignorance; but this is neither just nor in accordance with true historical ideas. In the great religious revolutions of the world toleration has had little place; and for ages the expression of difference of religious opinion has been punished as a crime. There is only one way of fairly appreciating the character of all great religious Reformers. To form a true estimate of their character, a thorough knowledge of the state of society in which they lived, and of all the associated circumstances, is a preliminary requisite. It is in the degree which the Reformer’s ideas and sentiments rise above those of his own age that his character must be measured, not by the standard of a later age. That Knox’s ideas were higher and purer than those current among the ruling class of Scotland is a fact, which any one who desires may verify for himself. That he was animated by a firm belief in a righteous and just God who rules the universe, cannot be doubted. His moral ideas were in some respects in advance of those of his age, but some of them were crude, erroneous, and even savage, and as a thinker he takes no rank. Owing, however, to his natural sagacity and shrewd common sense, and to his deep feeling of the realities and the responsibilities of human life, some of his practical views were singularly clear, far-reaching, and well developed.

In common with all great men and religious reformers, Knox exercised a wonderful sway over his followers, and inspired them with confidence in the hour of danger and of battle. He always avowed his opinions openly, and acted on them with a bold and fearless independence; yet in matters of doctrine he was not rigidly dogmatic. The Reformation Confession of Scotland is remarkable for the acknowledgment of its own fallibility.¹ It was only what he emphatically believed to be the inspired word of God, and necessary for the Church and the good of the nation, that he insisted on being adopted by others. To blame him for not embracing a tolerant policy is simply to forget the state of society and the circumstances of the times; and if he had followed such a course, the Reformation in Scotland would never have been accomplished, while he himself would certainly have been crushed. He was greedy of power and impatient of the least opposition. But he believed that he had a message from God, and that it was his imperative duty to proclaim and enforce it, and in this he toiled with untiring industry and energy. There are some of the lighter shades and graces of life which he seems to have been incapable of appreciating, and he certainly showed a disposition to limit the amusements and the enjoyments of others; but this arose from his deep sense of the realities of human life and the gravity of its manifold duties. Among his friends, and in the family circle, he could on occasion unbend and disport himself in an exceedingly social and agreeable manner; he had indeed a humourous and peculiar comic side which comes out in many forms in his writings.

¹ See under page 104.

John Knox, in conjunction with his contemporaries, brought blessings to the people of Scotland which they have never forgotten. Although he was extremely strong in assertion and firm in his own convictions, it should be remembered that he was still stronger in denial and negation. He swept off at once the accumulated mass of legends, traditions, and ceremonies which had enslaved the mind and obscured the glory, purity, and truth of Christianity.

Much of the energy of the leading men among the clergy was still devoted to the improvement of the polity of the Church, and to the planting and the organisation of congregations throughout the country. As yet the practical establishment of the reformed worship was in many places only imperfectly accomplished. The disorder which accompanied the revolution itself, and the internal struggle of the contending factions of the King and the Queen which followed it, had all contributed to leave the Church in a state of disorganisation. The new clergy, with all the power and means at their command, were ardently and incessantly labouring to remedy these evils; but they were met at every turn with the inexorable fact, that it is a much easier matter to destroy the forms and institutions of a religious system than to construct others to replace them. The history of mankind has shown that the genius of destruction is more common than the genius of appropriate construction; hence the curious spectacle presented in the history of Scotland, the constantly recurring tendency and the efforts of the party at the head of the government to return to the forms and modes of the old system of church polity. As the practical solution of the problem involved great secular as well as religious issues, it was hotly contested between the Crown and the clergy for many generations. There was an element of democracy inherent in the very heart of the Reformation; but the Reformers in Scotland went beyond their contemporaries in the admission of democratic principles. Knox maintained that the King and the ruling political powers were responsible to the people, and that if they abused the trust committed to them, the people might lawfully depose them and appoint others in their place. Similar principles were taught by Buchanan. Thus it was that the Reformation in Scotland assumed an intensely political importance, but always in connection with religion and the polity of the Church.

The rarity of original construction among the leaders of the revolutionary movement is very remarkable. Even by Calvin, the greatest master of dogmatic form that the Reformation produced, religion, secular government, and morality were all mixed up and regarded as integral parts of one and the same system. In fact, it could hardly have been otherwise, for philosophy had no separate and independent existence. A Church distinct from and independent of the State was a conception quite alien to the modes of thinking which prevailed among the Reformers. On the other side, a government distinct and independent of the Church was an idea scarcely entertained by the statesmen of the sixteenth century. They all seemed to be more or less possessed with the notions common to theocracies, that the Church and the State as being both under the direction of God, should be associated together. The idea of a theocracy is grand and inspiring in contemplation, but in practical operation it turns out that the Church and the State both claim a supremacy; and they often come to hold very different views as to what is, or is not, the will of God. For the intelligent apprehension of the history of Scotland during the next one hundred years, it is necessary to have a clear conception of this theocratic principle. The struggle of the Crown to establish Episcopacy, and the opposition of the Presbyterian clergy; the Covenants, the Solemn League and Covenant, with many of their attendant tragedies, had their origin in the theocratic notions which were gathered out of the Old Testament, and attempted on both sides to be applied to forms of society and circumstances which were beyond their scope.

After the fall of the castle of Edinburgh, the Regent Morton succeeded in restoring comparative quietness in the kingdom. He was known to be inclined towards the hierarchy of bishops; not from principle but from ambition and greed. The management of the thirds of benefices he took out of the hands of the collectors appointed by the Church, and then united a number of parishes under one minister, who was assisted by readers to whom a trifling stipend was paid. When the Church complained of these abuses, he accused the ministers of seditious and treasonable speeches, refrained from attending their assemblies, and began to question their right to meet and pass acts without his express permission.¹ But crafty and astute as Morton was, he miscalculated his power, and utterly failed to comprehend the intense earnestness and honesty of purpose by which the reformed clergy was animated.

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 292‒293, 296‒305;
Calderwood, Volume III., pages 304‒306.

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh in March, 1574, and concluded that the bishops should be subject to the discipline of the Assembly, the same as the superintendents in all points. Among the evils which this Assembly enumerated and desired the assistance of the government to remedy, were specified some books issued by the Jesuits and others which contained manifest blasphemies against God and His revealed truth, and were daily brought into the country by Poles and others to the offence of the Church. The Assembly passed an act against simony in the Church, and unanimously declared――“That all such persons as either buy or sell benefices, or use any other kind of bargaining thereon, either directly or indirectly, should be deprived of all function in the Church; and the discipline of the Church to be laid upon them with the utmost rigour and severity; and the buyers and sellers, or otherwise coupers of the benefices to lose the same for evermore.”¹ This act was much required. It is reported and recorded in many forms that Morton and the nobles carried the traffic in benefices to an enormous length.²

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 294, 306, 310‒311.

² _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume II., pages 445,
585‒587; 184‒185, _et seq._

It was daily becoming more manifest that the clergy would throw off what remained of the forms of Episcopacy. The existing state of the Church was extremely confused and unsatisfactory. A convention of the Estates in the beginning of March, 1575, voted that inconveniences had arisen, and were likely to increase, from the want of a proper government in the Church; and a committee was appointed to draw up a form of polity agreeable to the Word of God, and adapted to the state of the kingdom.¹ The General Assembly met on the 7th of March the same year, and appointed a committee of their number to meet with the Regent’s commissioners, and to reason and confer on the jurisdiction and polity of the Church. The draft of whatever scheme was proposed the committee were directed to lay before the Assembly. Andrew Melville was a member of this committee, which was reappointed from time to time, and at last produced the Second Book of Discipline.²

¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume III., pages
89, 90.

² _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 326‒332; Dr. M‘Crie’s
_Life of Melville_, Volume I., pages 158, 159; 1819.

The Assembly met again at Edinburgh in August, 1575, and according to custom the trial of the bishops and superintendents was begun, when John Dury, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, rose and protested that the trial of the bishops should not prejudge what he and others had to propose against the name and office of a bishop. At a subsequent sederunt Andrew Melville addressed the Assembly in support of Dury’s proposition; his speech was attentively listened to, and it produced a marked impression. The question was next proposed, Whether the bishops as then placed in the Church of Scotland had their function in the Word of God or not; and whether the chapters appointed for electing them should be tolerated in a Reformed Church? For the better discussion of the questions, the Assembly appointed John Craig, minister of Aberdeen, James Lawson, minister at Edinburgh, and Andrew Melville, principal of the University of Glasgow, on the one side; and George Hay, commissioner of Caithness, John Row, minister of Perth, and David Lindsay, minister of Leith, on the affirmative side of the subject. In two days the committee reported that they did not think it expedient at present to answer the first part of the question directly; but they were of opinion that if any bishop was chosen without the qualifications which the Word of God required, he should be tried by the Assembly anew and so deposed. Touching the office of a bishop or superintendent, they reported that the name of bishop is common to all who are appointed to have the charge of a particular flock in preaching the word and administering the sacraments, and exercising discipline with the consent of the elders; and that this is the chief function of bishops according to the Word of God. But out of this number some might be chosen to visit and oversee, besides their own congregation, within such reasonable bounds as the General Assembly might appoint to them; and in these districts to admit ministers, with the consent of the other ministers, and the approval of the congregations concerned: and also to admit elders and deacons when necessary, with the consent of the people; and to suspend ministers for reasonable causes, with the consent of their brethren of the province. A full discussion of the report was deferred to the next Assembly.¹ There were six bishops present in the Assembly, none of whom seems to have offered any defence of Episcopacy.

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 331, 340, 342‒343;
Spottiswood, Volume II., 200‒201.

When the Assembly again met at Edinburgh in April, 1576, the question of the bishops was discussed anew. After a long debate the propositions laid by the committee before the last Assembly were affirmed; and the bishops who had not as yet received the charge of a particular congregation were ordered to make choice of one. There was much reasoning touching the districts of the various bishops, superintendents, and commissioners. It was agreed that the existing districts were too large for them to overtake, and it was arranged to allot only such a district to each as he could duly oversee, and with this aim a new distribution of districts was proposed. The persons who visited such districts whether called bishops, superintendents, or by other names, were interrogated at every General Assembly, and required to render an account of their proceedings.¹

¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 352‒356, 358‒359.