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CHURCH HISTORY 
 
 SCOTLAND. 
 
THE 
 
 CHIJECH HISTORY 
 
 SCOTLAI^D 
 
 FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CHEISTIAN EEA 
 TO THE PRESENT CENTURY 
 
 KEY. JOHN CUNNINGHAM, 
 
 MINISTER OF CRIEFF 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 EDINBURGH 
 ADAM & CHARLES BLACK 
 
 MDCCCLIX. 
 

 / T' r> r"^ -"- ! ~.' S^vy 
 
 Uh!VLK3iTY, 
 
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 TRIKTEC BY NEll.l AMD OOHPAMI, EDIK8UH0II. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 OuE best Scottish Ecclesiastical Histories are coniined to 
 particular periods.. Indeed, so far as I know, there is not 
 one which will conduct the student from the epoch of 
 Christianity to the day in which he lives. This is the task 
 I have undertaken ; but in traversing this long tract of time 
 I have naturally lingered longest on those periods which 
 are either most interesting or most instructive. 
 
 Our ecclesiastical writers in general appear to have 
 thought that the Church in our country before the Refor- 
 mation was only the Church of Eome, and not the Church 
 of Scotland too ; and accordingly they have left its history 
 without investigation and without record. As well might 
 our political writers have passed over the history of the 
 kingdom prior to the Revolution. In the one case our 
 ancestors were living under a bad despotism, and in the 
 other under a debasing superstition, but still they were our 
 ancestors. Though the Church before the Reformation 
 was Roman in its architecture, still it was built upon 
 Scottish ground, and they were Scottish men and women 
 who worshipped in it. It is impossible to understand our 
 Church History subsequent to the Reformation without 
 knowing something of our Church History prior to it. It is 
 impossible to appreciate our present institutions, our present 
 habits of thought, our present likings and dislikings, with- 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 out reverting to our past Papistry. The Eeformation in 
 Scotland was certainly very complete — in no other country 
 in the world was it so complete ; but still it could not root 
 out every old idea, nor carry away every ancient landmark, 
 nor make us an entirely different people from what we were 
 before. The key to many things in our character and 
 history is to be sought for in ante-Eeformation times. 
 
 Though Scotland presents but a narrow field, yet the 
 ecclesiastical element has there had a fuller and freer deve- 
 lopment than in any other country. What Egypt is to the 
 man who would ransack ancient temples and tombs, Scot- 
 land is to the man who would study the manifestations of 
 ecclesiastical life. The Church of England never has had 
 much action as a Church, and accordingly it can scarcely be 
 said to have any history, except in so far as its history is 
 bound up in the biographies of the illustrious men who have 
 been reared within its pale. It has had no General Assem- 
 bly to concentrate the energy of every individual, and to 
 utter the sentiments of the whole. The Church of Scot- 
 land, on the other hand, from its republican constitution 
 and representative courts, has a well-marked and peculiarly 
 instructive history of its own, distinct from the biographies 
 of its individual ministers, distinct from the political history 
 of the State. But besides this, peculiar circumstances in 
 the history of the country gave to the ecclesiastical element 
 peculiar vigour. The weakness of the monarchy, till the 
 Union of the Crowns, allowed the free expansion of ideas 
 which have never been tolerated in countries where the 
 monarchy is strong ; and during the civil wars, when the 
 throne was laid low, they attained to a fuller expansion 
 still. For a season the Church was left to wield its own 
 powers, and to work out what it conceived to be its own 
 ends, free from all pressure fropi without. Accordingly, 
 during that period, ecclesiasticism is to be found in its 
 purest form. In truth, the Church of Scotland has had 
 
riiEFACE. vii 
 
 within Scotland a history similar to what the Church of 
 Kome has had within Christendom. We see the same laws 
 in operation, though on a smaller scale, and under modify- 
 ing circumstances. In the career of the one we can dis- 
 cern the blessings which flow from a pure creed and simple 
 worship, and in that of the other the blighting effects of a 
 baneful superstition ; but with both there has been the 
 same union and energy of action, the same assumption of 
 spiritual supremacy, the same defiance of law courts, par- 
 liaments, and kings. The history of either can be traced 
 with equal precision, sometimes blending with civil history, 
 but at other times diverging widely from it. I know only 
 three Churches whose histories stand thus prominently out 
 — the Jewish, the Eoman, and the Scottish. Geneva had 
 such a Church too, but it was only for a very little season. 
 
 In writing this History I have endeavoured above all 
 things to purge my heart of all leaven of polemical and 
 party hatred, and to follow faithfuUy both truth and cha- 
 rity. I have not concealed my own sentiments, for it 
 had been either hypocrisy or cowardice to have done 
 so ;• but I have endeavoured to state them without as- 
 perity, and to do justice to the motives, the opinions, and 
 the conduct of those who differ from me. Though I can- 
 not hope that I have arrived at perfect impartiality, I trust 
 I have never sacrificed truth to subserve a party purpose. I 
 have seen enough and read enough to know that worth and 
 wisdom are not confined to any Church or any sect, and 
 that infallibility does not belong to Presbytery any more 
 than to Popery. 
 
 The publications of the Bannatyne, Maitland, and Spal- 
 ding Clubs, and of the Wodrow Society, have rendered my 
 labours comparatively light. They have furnished many of 
 the materials which I have woven into my narrative, and 
 saved me the necessity of researches which no one man 
 could have possibly accomplished. I have entered into their 
 
VIU PBEFACE. 
 
 labours, and hope it is not too much for me to say, that 
 with their help I liave been able to set some passages in 
 our ecclesiastical history in a new light. 
 
 It only remains for me to return my heartfelt thanks to 
 the kind friends who have assisted me in my work. I 
 have especially to thank Mr Hepburn of Colquhalzie, Mr 
 M'Grigor of Kernock, Mr Ironside, solicitor, Crieff, and 
 Mr Keid, solicitor, Auchterarder. From all these gentle- 
 men I have received the loan of valuable books, and the 
 benefit of valuable suggestions. I have also to thank the 
 Eev. Mr Wilson of Forgandenny, Clerk of the Presbytery 
 of Perth, and the Eev. Mr Eobertson of Monzievaird, Clerk 
 of the Presbytery of Auchterarder, not only for allowing 
 me to search the records in their possession, but in many 
 other ways helping me in my investigations. Last of all, 
 I have to express my gratitude to Mr Laing of the Signet 
 Library, both for the courtesy with which he allowed me 
 to consult many works in the noble collection placed under 
 his care, and for guiding me into interesting paths of in- 
 quiry. 
 
 J. C. 
 
 Manse of Crieff, A^ovember 1859. 
 
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Derivation of the name Druid, 1. Druids worshipped a multiplicity of 
 gods, 2. They oifered Human Sacrifices, and had some notions of a Future 
 State, 3. The Ethics and Festivals of Druidism, 4. Druidical Temples, 6. 
 The Power, Divisions, Functions, and Science of the Druids, 7. Destruction 
 of the Druids, 9. Druidism not the only Religion of Scotland, 10. Ancient 
 Names and Tribes of the British Islands, 11. The Scots and Picts, 12. 
 Their "Wars with the Britons, 13. Their First Arrival in the Island, 14. 
 Scottish and Piotish Kingdoms, 16. Invasions of the Norsemen, 17. Reli- 
 gion of the Picts, 18. Scandinavian Mythology, 19. The Heaven of the 
 Scandinavians, 21. Their Temples, Altars, Sacrifices, and Festivals, 23. 
 Ossianic Mythology, 25. Vestiges of Druidism and Scandinavianism, 26. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Great Uncertainty in regard to the Early History of our Island, 28. Who 
 was the First Preacher of Christianity in Britain? 31. Story of King Lucius, 
 32. Story of King Donald, 33. Legend of St Andrew and St Rule, 34. 
 Mission of Palladius, 36. St Patrick, 37. Rise of the Pelagian Controversy, 
 38. Writings of St Augustine and St Jerome, 39. The First Evangelist of 
 Britain unknown, 42. Constant Intercourse between Rome and Britain, 43. 
 Missionary Spirit of the First Christians, 44. Christianity probably reached 
 Scotland from the South, 45. The Empress Helena, 46. State of Scotland 
 at this Time, 47. Barbarism of both Picts and Scots, 48. Difficulties in the 
 way of Christianity, 49. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 St Ninian, 50. His Labours among the Galwegians, 51. Foundation of Can- 
 dida Casa, the First Stone Building in the Country, 52. St Columba and his 
 Biographers, 53. Parentage and Education of St Columba, 54. His Arrival in 
 
 a 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 lona, and Labours among the Picts, 55. Reasons for selecting lona as the Seat 
 of his Monastery, 56. Monastery of lona : its Recluses, Rules, &c., 57. Death 
 and Character of Oolumha, 59. Troubles of the Monks of lona from the Incur- 
 sions of the Norsemen, 60. St Mungo the Contemporary of St Columba, 61. 
 His Parentage and Birth on the Sea-shore, 61. Visit of Columba to Kenti- 
 gern at the Molendinar Burn, 62. The Culdees : Derivation of the Name, 63. 
 Outline of General Church History for the First Six Centuries, 63. Rise of 
 Diocesan Episcopacy, 65. Rise of Monachism, 67. Abuses of Monaohism, 69. 
 Britain lost to the Roman World after the withdrawal of the Roman Legions, 
 70. The Culdees were Monks without Monkish Vices, 71. The Scottish 
 Bishops subject to the Presbyter-Abbot of lona, 73. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Arrival of the Monk Augustine in Kent, 76. He converts Ethelbert, King 
 of Kent, and establishes himself at Canterbury, 77. Massacre of the Non- 
 conforming British Priests, 77. Mission of Aidan to Northumbria, 78. He 
 settles on Lindisfarne, and begins his apostolic work, 79. He dies, and is 
 succeeded by Finan, 80. Northumberland, Mercia, and Essex Christianized 
 by Monks from lona, 81. Disputes in regard to Culdee Presbyters consecra- 
 ting Bishops, 81. Controversies about Easter, 84. Council of Streaneshalch, 
 88. Disputes about the Tonsure, 90. Retirement of the Culdees from Nor- 
 thumbria, 91. Opinions of the Culdees, 93, The Culdees free to marry, 94. 
 Quarrels of the British and Romish Clergy, 95. Extinction of the Culdees, 
 97. Queen Margaret : her Piety and Beneficence, 97. Her Disputations 
 with the Culdees, 98. Her Death, 99. Degeneracy of the Culdees, 100. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Labours of St Cuthbert and other Monks, 101. Wars of the Scots and 
 Picts, 101. Termination of the Pictish Kingdom, 102. Origin of Tithes — 
 Charlemagne — Alfred, 103. Malcolm CanmorC' — Margaret — and English 
 Settlers, 105. David I. erects many Bishoprics and Monasteries, and reforms 
 the Church, 106. The Barons follow his example, 106. Origin of Scotch 
 Bishoprics, Parishes, and Abbeys, 107. Bishopric of St Andrews, 107. Bishop- 
 ric of Glasgow, 108. Bishopric of Dunkeld, 111. Division of the Country 
 into Parishes, 113. Monks appropriate Revenues of Parish Priests, 115. 
 Orders of Monks, 116. Passion to Endow Monasteries, 117. Appropriation 
 of Parishes, 118. Spottiswood's "Religious Houses," 119. Abbey of Jedburgh, 
 119. Abbey of Paisley, 120. Carthusians at Perth, 122. Hospitallers and 
 Templars, 122. Nunneries and Nuns, 124. Wealth of the Roman Hierarchy, 
 125. The Clergy promote Agriculture, 126. They preserve Literature and 
 conduct Business, 128. The Chronicles, Registers, and Chartularies of the 
 Religious Houses, 129. The Monasteries Educational Institutions, 180. The 
 Monasteries served as Inns and Poorhouses, 131. Nature of the connection 
 between the Church and the State, 131. Ancient Scottish Liturgies, 132. 
 Breviary of Aberdeen, 134. Orgsvns, Choirs, and Music, 134. Erection of 
 Religious Houses; their Architects, Builders, &o., 136. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Religion and Politics closely intertwined, 140. The Archliisliop of York 
 claims the Primacy of Scotland, and the Archbishop of Canterbury disputes 
 it, 141. Turgot consecrated, and dies, 142. Eadmer made Archbishop of St 
 Andrews, but resigns it on account of Disputes about his Consecration, 143. 
 Thurstin claims Obedience of Glasgow, 143. Consecrates Robert to See of 
 St Andrews, 144. Bishops of the Orlmeya, 144. David's Ohxirch- Reform, 
 145. David's Character and Death, 146. Bishop Wimund : his Piratical 
 Exploits, 146. Malcolm and William the Lion, 147. Council at Northamp- 
 ton, 148. Speech of Gilbert Murray, 149. Disputes about the Bishopric of 
 St Andrews, 150. The Pope excommunicates William, 151. Pope Lucius 
 sends William the Golden Rose, 152. Clement declares Scotland dependent 
 only on Rome, 152. Church of Scotland copies Anglican Models, 153. The 
 Crusades, 156. Rights of Sanctuary, 156. Slavery, 157. Scotland placed 
 under an Interdict, 158. Bishop of Caithness roasted alive, 160. The 
 Scotch Clergy obtain Permission to hold Provincial Councils, 161. A Roman 
 Legate visits Scotland, and is withstood by the King, 161. Cardinal Otto- 
 bou De Fieschi attempts to raise a Procuration, 162. A Provincial Coun- 
 cil, 163. The Twentieth of Benefices granted for the Holy War, 163. Bene- 
 mundus de Vicci visits Scotland, 164. The Invasion of the Norwegians — 
 Arrival of the Mendicants, 165. Eminent Scotch Writers, 165. Michael 
 Soot, 166. John Holybush, Richard of St Victore, and Adam Scot, 167. 
 Thomas Learmout, 167. Duns Scotus, 168. Death of Alexander III. — Maid 
 of Noi-way, 170. Competition for the Crown, 171. The Pope urges his 
 Claim, 171. The Pope supports Edward of England, 172. The part taken 
 by the Clergy in the War of Independence, 173. Interference of the Pope, 
 174. The Pope publishes a Truce between Scotland and England, and ex- 
 communicates Bruce, 175. The Estates of Scotland publish a Manifesto, set- 
 'ting forth the Independence of the Kingdom, and Bruce's Right to the 
 Throne, 176. Death of Bruce, and Adventure of his Heart, 177. Reigns of 
 David II., Robert II., and Robert III., 178. .John De Fordun, Barbour, 
 Bassol, Blair, Dempster, and Varoye, 179. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Slow Growth of the Papacy, 180. Schism in the Church, 182. Council of 
 Constance, and Rise of Wickliff, 183. Martyrdom of Resby, 184. Founda- 
 tion of the University of St Andrews, 185. James I. : his Vigour, and Efforts 
 to prevent Simony, 188. Martyrdom of Craw, 188. Visit of Jilneas Silvius, 
 189. Murder of James I., and Troubles during the Minority of James II., 190. 
 Foundation of the University of Glasgow, 191. Its Privileges, Endowments, 
 Masters, and Students, 192. Character and Services of Bishop Kennedy, 197. 
 Patrick Grahame succeeds Kennedy at St Andrews, and gets the See erected 
 into an Archbishopric, 198. Increase of Simoniacal Practices, 200. James III. 
 is assassinated, and is succeeded by James IV., 201. Foundation of the 
 University of Aberdeen, 202. Hector Boethius its first Principal : his Cha- 
 racter, 204. Literary Attainments of the Clergy, and Anecdote of Bishop 
 Forman, 205. Glasgow erected into an Archbishopric, 207. Archbishop 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 Blackadder persecutes the Lollards, 208. Introduction of Printing, and its 
 Influence on the Eeformation, 209. Death of James IV. at Flodden, and his 
 Character, 210. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Leo X. ascends the Papal Throne : his Character, 213. Sale of Indulgences, 
 and the German Eeformation, 214. Contest for the See of St Andrews, 216. 
 " Cleansing the Causeway," 218. Administration and Character of the Duke 
 of Albany, and Queen Margaret, 219. Gawin Douglas, 220. Patrick Hamil- 
 ton : his Opinions and Martyi-dom, 220. Institution of the College of Justice, 
 223. Visit of Antonio Campeggio, as Papal Legate, to James V., 224. Difl'u- 
 sion of the Lutheran Opinions, 224. Flight of Alexander Seaton, 225. 
 Martyrdom of Forest, Gourlay, and Straiten, 225. Laws against Heresy and 
 the Importation of Lutheran Books, 226. Henry VIII. of England revolts 
 from Rome, 227. Dr Barlow sent on a Mission to Scotland, 228. James V. 
 Marries, first Magdalene of France, and afterwards Mary of Guise, 229. 
 Martyrdom of Forret, Simpson, Keillor, Beveridge, and Forrester, 229. Con- 
 versation between the Vicar of Dollar and the Bishop of Dunkeld, 230. 
 Martyrdom of Russel and Kennedy, 231. David Beaton made Archbishop 
 of St Andrews, 231. Sadler's Mission to Scotland, 232. Acts of Parliament 
 against Heretics, 235. Acts of Parliament for the Reform of the Church and 
 Churchmen, 236. Sadler's Second Visit to Scotland, 237. The Embarrass- 
 ment of James, 237. King James dies, 239. Cardinal Beaton claims the 
 Regency, 289. The Nobles appoint the Earl of Arran Regent, 240. Henry 
 VIII. projects a Marriage between Prince Edward and Queen Mary, 241. 
 The Parliament authorizes the reading of the Scriptures in the Vulgar 
 Tongue, 242. The Earl of Arran recants, and returns to the Roman Church, 
 244. War between England and Scotland, 245. The French and English 
 Factions, 245. Law against Heretics, and Martrydoms at Perth, 246. George 
 Wishart, 247. His Seizure, Trial, and Death, 249. Conspiracy to assassi- 
 nate Beaton, 250. The Conspirators surprise his Castle and murder him 
 252. Character of Beaton, 254. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The Papal Creed, 256. Religious Edifices in Papal Times, 258. Preach- 
 ing, 259. Sabbath : how spent, 260. Pilgrimages, 261. Religious Proces- 
 sions, 262. Mysteries, 263. Piety of Papal Times, 266. Prevalence of 
 Swearing, and Act to prevent it, 267. Morality of Papal Times, 268. Abuses 
 in the Patronage of the Church, 269. Licentiousness of the Clergy, 271. 
 Literary Attainments of the Clergy, 273. Revenues of the Clergy, 275. In- 
 fluences leading to the Reformation, 277. Power of Poetry, 278. Sir David 
 Lyndsay's Poems, 279. Profane Ballads transmuted into Spiritual Songs, 283. 
 Proportion of the Nation attached to the Protestant Doctrines, 287. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Hamilton made Archbishop of St Andrews, 289. Henry VIII. of England 
 
CONTENTS. " XUl 
 
 assists the Conspirators who hold the Castle, 290. John Knox joins the 
 Conspirators, 291. He is called to be a Protestant Preacher, 292. Different 
 Theories of Orders, 294. Knox proves the Pope to be Antichrist, 296. The 
 Conspirators surrender the Castle to the French Admiral, 297. Knox and 
 his Companions carried to France, and placed in the Galleys, 298. Somer- 
 set invades Scotland, and Battle of Pinkie fought, 298. Queen Mary is be- 
 trothed to the Dauphin, and sent to France, 299. Mary of Guise manages to 
 supplant Arran in the Eegency, 300. Adam Wallace suffers Martyrdom, 301. 
 Controversy about the Pater-noster, 302. Eomish Catechisms published, 303. 
 Romish Councils held, 303. Acts of Parliament levelled at the Reformers, 
 304. Edward VI. and Mary of England, 306. John Knox is liberated, and 
 settles in England, 307. He retires to Geneva, and becomes acquainted 
 with Calvin, 308. He returns to Scotland, 309. His Disputation with Mait- 
 land of Lethington, 309. Knox preaches and administers the Sacrament in 
 different parts of the country, 310. He is summoned to answer for his con- 
 duct, but the diet is abandoned, 311. He returns to Geneva, 811. The 
 Regent threatens the Preachers, and the Barons intimidate the Regent, 313. 
 The Reformers invite Knox to return, and then repent having done so, 314. 
 The First Covenant, 315. Protestant Congregations formed, and Protestant 
 Barons assume name of Lords of the Congregation, 316. Kesolutipns of the 
 Congregation, 318. Controversy about Book of Common Pra/erf 517. Mar- 
 tyrdom of Walter Mill, 319. Number of Protestant Martyrs, 320. Demands 
 of the Protestant Barons, 321. Concessions of the Regent and the Synod, 322. 
 Policy of the Queen Regent, 323. Marriage of Mary with the Dauphin, 324. 
 Projects of the House of Guise, 325. Interview between Glencairn and the 
 Regent, 326. The Regent summons the Preachers, and puts them to the ■ 
 Horn, 327. John Knox appears and preaches at Perth, and the Mob destroy 
 the Monasteries, 328. The Regent marches upon Perth, but consents to a 
 Treaty, 328. Knox preaches at Crail, Anstruther, and St Andrews, and the 
 Monuments of Idolatry are destroyed, 329. The Abbey of Scone and the 
 Abbey of Cambuskenneth are destroyed, 331. Traditionary Maxim of Knox, 
 332. Mutual Repi'oaches of Clergy and Reformers, 333. Francis and Mary, 
 now King and Queen of France, try to detach the Prior of St Andrews from 
 the Protestant Cause, but fail, 384. Invectives of Knox and other Preachers, 
 335. Negotiations with England set on foot, 335. Knox's Proposals, 336. 
 Policy of the English Government, 387. Views of the.Leaders of the Congre- 
 gation, 338. The Protestant Barons depose the Queen Regent, 340. Flight 
 of the Congregation from Edinburgh, 341. Treaty of Berwick, 342. The 
 English besiege Leith, 343. Death and Character of the Queen Regent, 344. 
 Treaty of Leith, 345. The Parliament meets, 346. The Protestant Con- 
 fession is adopted, 348. Acts against Popery, 349. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Contrast between the Scotch and English Reformations, 351. The First 
 Staff of the Protestant Church, 355. The First Book of Discipline, 356. The 
 Office-Bearers of the New Church, 357. The Worship and Discipline of the 
 New Church, 360. The Patrimony of the Old Church, and its appropriation 
 by the New, 364. Influence of Church Property on the Reformation, 368. 
 Knox denounces the Sacrilege of the Nobles, 369. The Privy Council refuse 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 to sanction the First Book of Discipline, 369. First General Assembly, 370. 
 Disputation between Romanists and Reformers, 371. Second Assembly, 372. 
 Demolition of Religious Houses, 378. Embassages to France and England, 
 374. Lesley and Lord James Stewart, 375. Mary returns to Scotland, 375. 
 The Mass at Holyrood, 376. First Interview between Mary and Knox, 377. 
 The Queen's PubUc Entry into Edinburgh, 380. The Holy Water of the 
 Coui-t, 381. Disputes between the Protestant Barons and Ulergy, 382. Scheme 
 to pay the Stipends of the Protestant Ministers out of the Thirds of Benefices, 
 383. Dissatisfaction of Knox and others, 385. Dissipation of Ecclesiastical 
 Property, 387. Beggary of the Inferior Clergy, 389. Business of the First 
 Assemblies, 390. Divided and excited state of the Nation, 393. Policy of 
 Queen Mary, 394. Second Interview of Knox and the Queen, 395. Third 
 Interview of Knox and the Queen, 396. The Parliament meets, and passes 
 an Act of Indemnity, 397. Knox's Sermon on the Queen's Marriage, 398. 
 Scene at the Palace, 899. Knox summoned before the Council, charged with 
 Treason, 401. Knox's Marriage, 402. Darnley arrives in Scotland, and 
 gains the heart of Mary, 403. Acts of the General Assembly, 404. Mar- 
 riage of Mary and Darnley, 405. Sermon of Knox, and remarks upon it, 
 405. Moray and others rebel, 408. Murder of Eizzio, 409. Murder of 
 Darnley, 410. Mary marries Bothwell, and Nobles rebel, 411. The General 
 Assembly sits, 411. Moray made Regent, 418. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Moray in his First Parliament passes Acts in favour of the Church, 414. 
 The General Assembly censures Delinquents, 417. Mary escapes from Loch- 
 leven, and Battle of Langside, 418. Murder of the Regent Moray, 418. His, 
 Character, 419. The Factions of the King and Queen, 420. John Knox at 
 St Andrews, 421. Execution of Archbishop Hamilton, 422. Churcli Pro- 
 perty — How to be disposed of? 422. Concordat of Leith, 425. The As- 
 sembly homologates it, 427. Probable Motives of the Ministers, 428. Views 
 of John Knox, 429. Death of John Knox, 431. Execution of Kirkcaldy of 
 Grange, and sudden death of Maitland of Lethington, 432. Andrew Mel- 
 viUe returns to Scotland, 433. John Durie raises the Question as to whether 
 Episcopacy was Scriptural, 484. Decisions of the Assembly on this subject, 
 435. DifSculties in carrying out these Decisions, 486. The Regent Morton 
 threatens Melville, 437. James VI. nominally assumes the Government, 
 437. Influence of Melville and Beza, 438. Second Book of Discipline, 439. 
 Sketch of its Contents, 440. Erection of Presbyteries, 446. D'Aubign6 ob- 
 tains the King's Favour, and is created Duke of Lennox, 447. He abjures 
 Popery, 447. Craig's Confession, 448. Rivalry of Lennox and Morton, 448. 
 Execution of Morton, 449. Montgomery accepts Archbishopric of St Andrews, 
 and is brought before the Church Courts, 450. James interferes on behalf of 
 Montgomery, 451. Montgomery yields, to escape Excommunication, 452. 
 Disputes about the Bishopric revived, 452. Melville braves the Earl of 
 Arran, 453. Disputes between the King and the Church Courts, 454. The 
 Power of the Keys, 455. The Raid of Ruthven, 456. Life and Death of 
 George Buchanan, 458. French Embassage, and its Reception in Edinburgh, 
 460. Durie and Melville summoned before the Council, 461. Melville flees 
 tn Berwick, 462. The Black Acts of 1584, 463. Unpopularity of the Bishops, 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 465. Reluctant Submission of the Ministers to the Acts of 1584, 467. Ee- 
 turn of Exiled Nobles and Ministers, and Flight of Arran, 468. Lord Max- 
 well openly celebrates Mass, 469. General Assembly of 1586, 470. The 
 King orders Prayers to be offered for his Mother, and the Ministers refuse, 
 471. Scene in St Gile's, 472. Act passed Annexing the Temporalities of 
 Bishoprics to the Crown, 473. The Spanish Armada, 474. The Marriage of 
 James VI., 474. The Assembly of 1590 — the Sermon of Melville and the 
 Speech of the King, 476. Death of Archbishop Adamson, 477. Act of Par- 
 liament in 1592 restoring Presbytery, 479. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The General Assembly : its Constitution, and the Sources of its Strength, 
 481. The Superintendents discontinued, 484. Clerical Costumes prescribed 
 by Act of Assembly, 485. Number of Churches unsupplied with Ministers, 
 486. The Book of Common Prayer, 487. Domestic Devotions, 488. Fasts 
 of the Reformed Church, 489. The Discipline of the Church, 490. State of 
 Society, 493. "Witchcraft, 498. Sabbath Observance, 494. Clerk-Plays, 495. 
 Robin Hood Plays, Queen of May, &c., 496. Pageants at the Entrance of 
 James VI. into Edinburgh, 497. The Printing Press : its Supervision by the 
 Church, 498. First Edition of the Bible published in Scotland, 499. Ill- 
 usage of the Papists, 500. Number of Papists still in the Country, 503. 
 Jealousies of the Papists and Protestants, 504. James VI. combats both 
 Presbyterians and Papists, 506. Liberties of the Ministers with the King, 
 507. Unity of Feeling among the Protestant Churches, 507. Bancroft's 
 Attack upon the Church of Scotland, 508. The Brownists : their Rise, Opin- 
 ions, and Reception in Scotland, 510. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Apprehension of Ker at the Cumbraes, 512. The Spanish Blanks found 
 in his possession, 518. James marches against the Popish Earls who had 
 subscribed the Blanks, 514. Resolutions of the General Assembly, 615. 
 Meeting of the Parliament, and Excommunication of the Popish Lords by the 
 Synod of Fife, 517. James's Perplexities, 518. The Popish Lords meet the 
 King, and crave a Trial, 519. Views of the Protestants, 520. Resolutions 
 of the Committee of Parliament in regard to the Poj)ish Earls and Popery, 
 522. Dissatisfaction in the Country, 523. BothweU's Treasons and Rebel- 
 lions, 524. Battle of Glenlivet, 525. James marches to Strathbogie and 
 Slaines, and compels Huntly and Errol to flee, 526. The King invited to 
 Kiss a Crucifix, 527. The Popish Lords leave the Country, 527. The Oc- 
 tavians and the Cubiculars, 628. General Assembly of 1696, 528. Huntly 
 and Errol return to Scotland in Disguise, 531. The King resolves to pardon 
 them, 531. Violent Remonstrances of Andrew MelviUe, 582. The Council 
 of the Church, 583. Ross, Black, and others defame the King in the Pulpit, 
 
 534. Black is summoned before the Council, and declines its Jurisdiction, 
 
 535. Black is found guilty, and put in ward, 536. Spiritual Independence, 
 537. Dissensions between the Court and the Church, 638. Riot in Edin- 
 burgh, 539. The King resolves to reintroduce Episcopacy, and circulates 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 Queries in regard to Church-Government, 541. Assembly at Perth : its Com- 
 pliances, 543. Assembly at Dundee appoints a Commission, 544. Restora- 
 tion of the Popish Lords, 545. The Parliament agrees to receive a number 
 of Ministers, as representing the Third Estate, 546. Assembly at Dundee 
 agrees to appoint Representatives to sit in Parliament, 547. The Ordina- 
 tion of Bruce, 549. Lawsuit between the King and Bruce, 549. James pub- 
 lishes the "Basilicon Doron," 550. The King's Disputes with the Clergy about 
 a Company of Comedians, 554. Assembly at Montrose : its Resolutions in 
 Regard to those who were to sit in Parlianient, 555. The Cowrie Conspi- 
 racy, 557. Scepticism of the Edinburgh Ministers in regard to it, 558. 
 Erection of the University of Edinburgh, 560. Assembly at Burntisland in 
 1601, 561, Accession of James VI. to the English Throne, 562, 
 
THE 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 At the time when the Great Founder of our Faith was 
 preaching the gospel of the kingdom in the cities of Galilee, 
 the inhabitants of this island were practising Druidical rites 
 under the shadow of their ancient oaks. 
 
 The elder Pliny derives the name Druid from the Greek 
 word "drus," which signifies an oak; but though there be in 
 the words a striking similarity of sound, it is absurd to sup- 
 pose that the ancient Britons were learned in the Grecian 
 tongue, and much more natural to think that Celtic priests 
 would be called by a name native to the Celtic speech. 
 Druiclh, signifying a sage, is a word still used in some of the 
 Celtic dialects, and it is evidently the name formerly applied 
 to the priests. Ctesar tells us, that in his day the Druidical 
 religion prevailed in Gaul and Britain ;* but he gives us only 
 some very scanty noticec regarding its nature ; and the 
 knowledge derived from his Commentaries is not greatly 
 supplemented by the information to be gleaned from other 
 sources. It appears, however, to have borne a strong re- 
 semblance to that taught by the Magi of Persia, the Brah- 
 mins of India, and the priests of Tyre. So great a likeness 
 is it said to have had to the Phoenician faith, that some 
 
 * Csesar. De Bello Gallico, lib. vi. Ho imagines it was invented in Britain 
 and translated thence into Gaul. 
 
2 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [ci-IAP. I. 
 
 antiquaries have imagined it must have been communicated 
 to our forefathers by those Phoenician merchants who are 
 known to have traded with our country for tin, long before 
 the era of Christianity. The idea is chimerical : for a soli- 
 tary galley touching perhaps once a year upon the coast, 
 with a crew more eager to make rich by lucrative barter 
 than to gain merit by disseminating truth, could never give 
 religion to lands stretching through fifteen degrees of lati- 
 tude. Besides, it is needless ; all religions, like all languages, 
 present affinities which point to a common source from 
 whicli they have originally sprung, and speak, moreover, of 
 those religious instincts which are common to every human 
 heart. 
 
 There are circumstances which lead us to believe that the 
 Druids had some idea that there was but one Supreme God ; 
 but, be this as it may, if the classical writers are to be 
 credited, they were in the habit of sacrificing to a multi- 
 plicity of Gods.* Their chief divinity they identified with 
 the sun, the most glorious object in nature, the fountain of 
 life and light, presenting to uninstruoted people the highest 
 emblem of the deity ; and which, therefore, has been wor- 
 shipped on the plains of Chaldea and in the golden temples 
 of Peru, among the ancient Canaanites, and the ancient 
 Britons. It seems to be but too true that they were in the 
 habit, occasionally at least, of sacrificing to their divinities 
 human victims ; but we should not wonder at this, for it has 
 been characteristic of almost every system of superstition. 
 Our pagan ancestors, in this respect, were not worse than 
 others ; and it were a piece of foolish vanity in us to believe 
 them to have been better. The maxim of the Mosaic law, 
 that without shedding of blood there could be no remission 
 of sin, was known far beyond the limits of Judea ; and it 
 appeai-s to have been an article in the Druidical creed, that 
 nothing but the life of a man could atone for the life of a 
 
 » They uniformly use the plural numher. Csesar says they worshipped 
 Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter, and Minerva ; hy which he means Gods, who, 
 in some of their attrihutes, resembled these Eoman divinities. (De Bello 
 Gallico, lib. vi.) Taranis, Heaus, Teutates, Belenus (Bel or Baal), and An- 
 date, are said to have been their chief deities. 
 
A.D. 30.] HUMAN SACRIFICES OF THE DRUIDS, 3 
 
 man.* The victims in these horrid rites were generally 
 chosen from criminals, or captives taken in war, as the 
 sacrifice of these was believed to be peculiarly pleasing to 
 the Gods, but when these were wanting, no scruple was felt 
 in destroying the innocent. On such occasions, the Arch- 
 Druid issued from the gloom of the sacred grove, arrayed in 
 fine linen, and followed by the priests of a subordinate rank. 
 The wretched victim, having his head wreathed with flowers, 
 was firmly bound to a tree ; and while the people danced 
 and made all manner of discordant sounds, the Arch-Druid 
 stepped forward, stabbed the sacrifice with his knife, and 
 then augured future events from the way in which the 
 muscles quivered or the blood flowed. It was common for a 
 private person aiflicted with any serious disease, or before 
 going to battle, to vow such a sacrifice. At other times 
 great public sacrifices were made ; upon which occasions the 
 priests formed huge images of wicker-work, and filling these 
 with living human beings, set them on fire, as an ofi"ering 
 to their cruel G-ods.f 
 
 The Druids appear to have had some glimmering concep- 
 tions of a future state : which they made use of to inspire 
 the people with a contempt of death. Csesar and Diodorus 
 say that they taught the doctrine of the transmigration of 
 souls; Lucan and Marcellinus speak of them as teaching that 
 the soul, after death, ascended to a higher orb, where it en- 
 joyed a more perfect repose. J Perhaps, they may liave com- 
 bined both ideas, and believed that the spirit, after leading a 
 wandering life for a time, and inhabiting sometimes a human, 
 sometimes a bestial abode, rose to their Flaith-innis,^ or isle 
 of the happy. It is recorded of them, with what truth we 
 do not vouch, that their faith in a future state was so firm, 
 that they gave loans of money to each other, to be repaid 
 when they reached the abodes of the blessed. " I should 
 call them fools" — says Valerius Maximus, who narrates this 
 circumstance — "were it not that Pythagoras, in his flowing 
 
 » Czesar, lib. vi. t IhiA. 
 
 X Ibid. Diodorus Sioulus, Bibl. 5. Lucan, Phars. i. Ammianus Marcel- 
 linus, XV. 
 I Flaitheanas is still the Gjelic word for heaven. 
 
 A 2 
 
4 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. I. 
 
 robes, believed the same as these men in trews."* We 
 greatly doubt if the Greek philosopher would have given 
 such a proof of the strength of his faith. 
 
 The ethics of the Druidical system appear to have been 
 purer than the generahty of pagan codes. The people were 
 taught " to reverence the Gods, to do nothing evil, and to 
 practise manly virtue. ''f As is the case with all barbarous 
 nations, they esteemed strength and courage in battle before 
 everything else. Kegarding themselves as the children of the 
 soil, it was their most sacred duty to defend it. One custom 
 they had which appears to us not only immoral but disgust- 
 ing — it was common for near relatives to have a community 
 of wives.J The head of a household had the power of life and 
 of death over all his dependants ; and, when bad crimes were 
 suspected, wives, children, and slaves might be put to the 
 torture to elicit the truth. All superstitions have forbid- 
 den some kind of food to their votaries, either from its pre- 
 tended sanctity or its supposed un cleanness. Such was the 
 religious respect the ancient Egyptians had for their cats, 
 that during an extreme famine they chose rather to eat one 
 another than to hurt them. The Hindus refuse to eat beef; 
 for to them the cow is peculiarly sacred. The Mussul- 
 man will rather die than touch swine-flesh ; for to him, as 
 to the Jew, that animal is unclean. In like manner our 
 ancestors refused to eat the hare, the hen, or the goose, 
 though they kept these animals for the sake of amusement 
 and pleasure. § 
 
 Druidism had its festivals ; and of these, two were regarded 
 with especial respect. The first was held on the beginning 
 of May, and was called Bailtein, or fire of Bel. The chief 
 ceremony on this high day consisted in kindling a huge bon- 
 fire on the summit of a hill, in honour of the summer's sun, 
 whose return was thus welcomed to our northern climate. 
 The other great festival was called Samliainn, or fire of 
 peace, and was held on Hallow-eve, which still retains that 
 
 *• Valerius Max., lib. u. f Diogenes Laertius, Proa3m. § 6. 
 
 J Csesar, lib. v. 
 
 ? Csesar, lib. v. Dio Cassius adds that they abstained from fish also ; but 
 this is hardly credible, especially of those who lived on the coast. 
 
A.D. 30.] DKUIDICAL FESTIVALS. 5 
 
 name among our Celtic population. On this occasion justice 
 was administered, quarrels adjusted, disputes solved; and 
 the sacred fire kindled, from which all the iires in the district, 
 previously put out, might be relighted.* It is probable that 
 in this ceremony we see a friendly farewell to the sun for 
 the year, and some of his kindly warmth brought down from 
 heaven by the priests and given to the people, to cheer and 
 comfort them during the colds and gloom of the winter. 
 Philosophers and historians have remarked how long a reli- 
 gious practice may linger among a people, even after the 
 religion itself has been totally destroyed. It is easy to trace 
 in the Eoman ritual of the present day the influence of the 
 mythology of the ancient world. Druidical ideas are scarcely 
 yet extinct in Presbyterian countries. The kindling of fires 
 at Beltane and at Hallow-eve has descended in some parts 
 of the country almost to our time ;t and many centuries 
 after the complete establishment of Christianity, so attached 
 were the Highlanders to this usage, that Gaelic councils had 
 to forbid it on pain of death. 
 
 Besides these solemnities, the Druids observed the full 
 moon, and also the sixth day of the moon. They regarded 
 as sacred, not merely the oak, but the misletoe which grew 
 upon it. When the season for its appearance approached, 
 persons were sent into the woods to procure the earliest in- 
 telligence regarding it, and preparations for feasting and sa- 
 
 *The old Romans liad a custom of this kind ; and so had the inhabitants 
 of Peru. 
 
 t " On the 1st day of May (o.s.), a festival called Beltan is annually held 
 here. It is chiefly celebrated by the cowherds, who assemble by scores in the 
 fields, to dress a dinner for themselves of boiled milk and eggs. These dishes 
 they eat with a sort of cakes baked for the occasion, and having small lumps 
 in the form of nipples, raised all over the surface. The cake might perhaps 
 be an offering to some deity in the days of Druidism. On the evening of the 
 31st October (o.s.), among many others, one remarkable enough ceremony is 
 observed. Heath, broom, and dressings of flax are tied upon a pole ; this 
 faggot is then kindled ; one takes it upon his shoulders, and running, bears it 
 round the village ; a crowd attend. When the first faggot is burnt out, a 
 second is bound to the pole and kindled in the same manner as before. 
 Numbers of these blazing faggots are often carried about together, and when 
 the night happens to be dark, they form a splendid Ulumination. This is 
 Halloween, and it is a night of great festivity." (Rev. Dr Bisset. Statistical 
 Account of Logierait, 1793.) 
 
6 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [ciIAP. I. 
 
 crifice were made iiuder the trees with much formality. The 
 holy herb was cut by the Arch-Druid with a golden biU ; and 
 it was universally regarded by the people as an antidote 
 against poison, and a remedy for every disease.* 
 
 The Druids performed all their acts of worship in the open 
 air, and generally within the religious shadows of their con- 
 secrated groves. Neither had they any images of their dei- 
 ties, saving those which they found in the heavenly bodies. 
 Perhaps, hke the Germans, they imagined that it derogated 
 from the greatness of the immortal Gods to confine them 
 within houses made with hands, or to liken them to any 
 human form.f But a more natural, though a less erudite 
 explanation of the fact may be found in the circumstance, 
 that the Britons had as yet no architects to rear temples, nor 
 sculptors to chisel statues. A kind of rude attempt at 
 temple-building was however made by the Druids, apparently 
 in those parts of the country where there were no natural 
 forests of oak. In many districts of the island we find 
 circles of huge stones set upon their ends, sometimes with 
 a large flat stone in the centre ; and these are generally re- 
 garded as Druidical temples. The truth is, whenever a 
 people rise a single degree above barbarism, they essay to 
 build temples to their Gods. The first efforts of architectural 
 art have always been at temple-building. J The only houses 
 on our island at that period were a clumsy contexture of 
 stakes and the branches of trees, so flimsy that not a vest- 
 age of them now remains. The Druidical circles are as supe- 
 rior to these as the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was supe- 
 rior to the Eoman villa. Their erection, though exhibiting 
 little art, must have required great force. The stones in 
 several cases stand twenty feet above the surface of the 
 soil, and must be at least half as many below it. They 
 have retained their stability for more than two thousand 
 years, while the finest temples of antiquity have fallen to 
 the ground ; and they bid fair to endure as long as the 
 
 * Pliny, Hist Nat., lib. xvi. 
 
 t Tacitus affirms this was the reason why the Germans had no temples or 
 images. 
 
 + Livingstone has recently furnished us with fresh proofs of this. See his 
 •■ Missionary Travels in Africa." 
 
A.D. 30.] DKUIDICAL STONES. 7 
 
 Egyptian pyramids. It is worthy of notice that the two 
 best specimens now remaining to us occur at the opposite 
 extremities of the kingdom — the one at Stonehenge, on 
 Salisbury Plain, and the other at Stennes, in the Orkney 
 Isles. Very frequently, near to these sacred circles, there 
 is a large mound of earth, supposed to be an ancient burial- 
 place : for men have exhibited a very general desire to de- 
 posit their dead near to the spot where they worshipped 
 their God.* 
 
 The Druids have evidently exercised a prodigious influ- 
 ence over the barbarous devotees of their worship. Csesar 
 tells us that among the Gauls there were only two classes of 
 any note, the Druids and the Knights ; and of these the 
 Druids appear to have been the more illustrious. Possessed 
 of a more extensive authority than the most noble, it is not 
 surprising, they were in general the sons of the first families. 
 Besides their natural jurisdiction in matters of religion, to 
 them it belonged to decide all controversies, both public and 
 private ; to adjudicate in all questions connected with births 
 and boundaries ; to acquit or condemn the accused ; to de- 
 cree rewards and punishments ; in short, they seem to have 
 had in their hands the framing, interpreting, and executing 
 the laws. If any one proved obstreperous, they interdicted 
 him from the sacrifices ; and their excommunications appear 
 to have been as formidable as those afterwards issued by the 
 priests of Eome. The anathematised person was shunned, 
 by all, lest they should catch the contagion of his guilt, and 
 was reckoned an outlaw, incapable of enjoying either honour 
 or redress. t Although this would now be regarded as a most 
 unwarrantable abuse of sacerdotal power ; there can be little 
 doubt but that then it was highly beneficial. In all proba- 
 bility the Druids were the wisest and most virtuous men in 
 the nation ; and, in a turbulent state of society, the terrors 
 of superstition are more effective than the rigours of law in 
 maintaining justice and order. 
 
 No body of men could possess such power without appro • 
 priating peculiar privileges to themselves. The Druids were 
 
 * Several instances are mentioned in Brown's History of the Highlands, 
 vol. i. p. 12. t C'a3sar, lib. vi. 
 
8 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. i. 
 
 exempted from taxes and military service ; and their per- 
 sons were regarded as sacred. There was one who had a 
 kind of presidency over the others, and who must have ex- 
 ercised then as important an influence in the kingdom as 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times. When this 
 Archdruid deceased, his successor was chosen by the votes 
 of the College of Druids ; and such was the consequence at- 
 tached to the office, that sometimes the election was decided 
 by an appeal to arms.* Of the ordinary Druids there appear 
 to have been three different classes; the priests, the prophets, 
 and the bards. The first waited upon the sacrifices ; the 
 second observed omens and augured events ; the last were 
 the historians and poets of the time. They monopolised all 
 the little learning of the period, and their wisdom was con- 
 tained in a great number of verses, which those who studied 
 in their schools got by memory. These they never commit- 
 ted to writing, although they are said to have been acquaint- 
 ed with the use of letters.J They were probably jealous 
 lest others should become acquainted with their sacred lore, 
 were it contained in books ; for all the ancient priesthoods 
 affected mystery, and thus increased their hold on the peo- 
 ple. They are understood, however, to have pretended to 
 some knowledge concerning the stars and their motions ; con- 
 cerning the earth and its magnitude ; concerning the nature 
 of things, and the power of the immortal Gods.J It were 
 curious to inquire, whether these studies were traditional, 
 and originally brought from the east ; or whether the human 
 mind has naturally, in so many cases, put forth its first 
 strength on such researches. 
 
 Our agriculturists, in turning over the soil, have in a few 
 
 * Csesar, lib. vi. Tlie chief residence of the archclruid of Gaul, accord- 
 ing to Csesar, was at Dreux, in Pais Chartrain — "in finibns Carnutum quae 
 regio totius Galliae media hahebatur.'' It is thought tlie Archdi'uid of Britain 
 resided in the island of Mona, now called Anglesey, where it is afSrmed the 
 ruins of his palace are to be seen ; hut this is plainly apocryphal. " The last 
 age," says. Bishop Stillingfleet, " hath discovered a famous urn of one Chyn- 
 donax, chief of the Druids ; concerning which whole books have been written 
 and several discourses published, without any great satisfaction to me ; biit it 
 is not to any purpose to tell why, since I yield the thing itself." (Antiquities 
 of the British Churches, p. 49.) 
 
 I Caesar, lib. vi. t Ibid. 
 
A.D. 61.] DESTRrCTlON OF THE DHUIDS. 9 
 
 cases discovered strange party-coloured glass beads. These 
 are now regarded as the famous adder-stones of the Druids ; 
 which, worn as an amulet, were considered as a preventive 
 of disease and the attacks of evil spirits. Incredulous of 
 the myth, that they were the produce of intertwining snakes, 
 to us their chief interest arises from regarding them as 
 specimens of Druidical art. They are coeval with those 
 finely polished arrow-heads of flint, frequently dug up, 
 which the wondering rustic regards as the missiles of the 
 fairies. 
 
 The Eomans, in general tolerant of the religions of the na- 
 tions which they conquered, resolved, for some unascertained 
 reason, to extirpate Druidism and to exterminate its priests. 
 Their motive is said to have been a wish to put an end to the 
 horrid cruelty of immolating human victims ; but the con- 
 querors of the world did not in general exhibit such human- 
 ity, and it is far more likely that the patriotism of the Druids, 
 and their power over the people in exciting them to revolt, 
 may have made it a part of Roman policy to destroy them. 
 The island of Anglesey, off the coast of Wales, and now 
 united to the mainland by that marvel of modern art, the great 
 tubular bridge, was the chief seat of the Druidical supersti- 
 tion ; and thither a great number of its votaries had fled, as to 
 the last asylum of their religion and liberties. The Eoman 
 armies followed: the Druids, too secure of victory, had kindled 
 fires in which they might burn their captives ; battle was join- 
 ed on the shore ; religious enthusiasm and undisciplined va- 
 lour were unavailing ; a great slaughter ensued ; the Druids 
 were cast into the fires themselves had ignited, and their sacred 
 groves were totally destroyed* (a.d. 61). From this fatal day 
 Druidism declined in the south of our island. Many of its 
 priests are said to have fled northwards, and some of these 
 are thought to have found a refuge in lona, the earliest name 
 of which was Innis-nan Druidhneach, the isle of the Druids.f 
 It is singular if this little rock has been the last home of one 
 religion, and the first chosen seat in our country of another 
 
 * Tacitus, Annal. xiv. 30. 
 
 t Origines ParocMales Scotite. lona. There is also pointed out, close to tlie 
 Sound of lona, a green eminence, still called the Druid's Burial-place — Claodli 
 
 o 
 
10 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. I. 
 
 and more blessed one. However this may be, we may be 
 quite sure Druidism did not die in a day. It had struck its 
 roots too deep into the soil, to be thus easily plucked up. 
 It is probable it lingered in Scotland till the fifth or sixth 
 century ; and it is certain that some of its peculiar rites and 
 beliefs continued to haunt the country for centuries more, 
 for vestiges of these are to be found at the present hour. 
 
 But though Druidism was the prevailing religion in Britain, 
 it v^as not the only one. There were other forms of super- 
 stition which have left behind them a few monumental 
 stones, and more enduring proofs of their existence in our 
 institutions, our language, and our habits of thought. Scot- 
 land gave shelter to more races than one, and accordingly to 
 more religions. There are few inquiries more uninviting 
 than that concerning the original tribes who peopled our 
 country. It is a hopeless labyrinth, in which many investi- 
 gators have been lost ; and to the intricate windings of which 
 no one has yet discovered the clue. Our antiquaries, more- 
 over, have been an irritable race, and have waged a contro- 
 versial war regarding the Picts and Scots, with a fury which 
 finds it counterpart only in the ferocity with which these 
 ancient tribes encountered one another. The candid mind 
 is distressed to see dogmatism regarding matters which must 
 ever be in doubt, and feels that no amount of learning or 
 ingenuity is any excuse for harsh and uncharitable speaking. 
 It is impossible, how^ever, altogether to avoid this dark and 
 thorny path, as religion and race were inalienably conjoined. 
 We shall tread it as quickly as we can. 
 
 The earliest mention of our island is to be found in a 
 treatise usually ascribed to Aristotle, and it is there called 
 Albion.* Instead of this being an appellation imposed by 
 the Greeks, on account of the whiteness of its chalk cliffs, as 
 is sometimes supposed, it is far more probably a Grecian 
 
 nan Drmrllineat;h, literaUy, the Druid's Stone. See also " Statistical Account of 
 Scotland," Kilfinichan and Kilvicaien, 1795. It is not improbable, however, 
 that Druidh may have been applied to the monks, as it was to the Pagan 
 priests, and that this may be the origin of these designations. 
 
 »This treatise is entitled " «j, xc^f^ou." The passage referred to is—" Be- 
 yond the pillars of Hercules is the ocean which surrounds the earth ; in it are 
 \\\o very large islands, called Brilannica ; these are Albion and lerue." Un- 
 
A.D. 80-210.] TRIBES OF CALEDONIA. 11 
 
 form of a name used by tlie natives. Our next authority is 
 Julius Csesar, who, crossing from Gaul, invaded our country 
 fifty-five years before the birth of our Saviour. The name 
 by which he uniformly calls it is Britannia. We may regard 
 both these appellations as applicable to the whole island, 
 for Scotland is not geographically distinct from England ; 
 and besides, neither Csesar nor Aristotle knew anything of 
 our country beyond its southern coasts. They must have 
 been ignorant equally of its political and geographical divi- 
 sions. Tacitus is the first writer from whom we learn any- 
 thing of Scotland as a distinct part of the island, and he 
 calls it Caledonia. In his life of Agricola, so interesting to 
 every Scotchman, he speaks of two tribes as its inhabitants — 
 the Caledonii and Horesti. This refers to about the year 
 80 after the birth of Christ. Dio Cassius mentions the 
 Caledonii and Mseatae, as the inhabitants of North Britain. 
 Ptolemy, who is supposed to have written his Geography 
 about A.D. 210, specifies no fewer than seventeen tribes as 
 inhabiting Caledonia ; and to these Kichard of Cirencester 
 adds five more. We thus see that, as time passes on, infor- 
 mation is slowly collected, and the knowledge of the classical 
 writers concerning our country becomes more and more 
 minute. The tribes of Ptolemy must have been quite as in- 
 significant in numbers and importance as the clans of more 
 modern times. 
 
 It is beyond all controversy that Scotia was the name 
 borne by Ireland and never by Scotland at this period ; and 
 this circumstance has led not merely to much confusion, but 
 to some of our writers appropriating many centuries of Irish 
 history. Scotland was first called by its present name in 
 the eleventh century ; till then, the honour or dishonour of 
 whatever is connected with that venerable name belongs 
 chiefly to the sister island. The cause of the transference 
 cannot now be discovered, though it is evidently connected 
 with the fact that a part of our country was colonized by 
 Ireland.* 
 
 fortunately, scholars doubt the genuineness of this work ; but still it is not 
 doubted that Albion was the most ancient name of our island. 
 
 * Pinkcrton supposes the Scoti to have been a Scythian tribe, who entered 
 
12 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. I. 
 
 We come now to a period when two new tribes, hitherto 
 unheard of, appear in the history of our country — the Picts 
 and the i^'cots. The Picts are iirst mentioned as a people of 
 North Britain, in a panegyrical oration delivered a.d. 296, 
 in the presence of the Emperor Oonstantius Chlorus, by 
 Eumenius, a professor of rhetoric at Augustodunum in G-aul. 
 The Scots are mentioned by no historian earlier than Am- 
 mianus Marcellinus, in the year 360. Hordes of these, cross- 
 ing the channel from the North of Ireland in their frail 
 boats of wicker-work covered with hides, are said to have 
 settled on the West coast of Scotland at various times 
 during the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. One of 
 these colonies is said by our antiquaries to have arrived 
 under the conduct of a certain chief called Eiada or Reuda, 
 whence they were called long after the Dalriads ; and 
 another under the command of Fergus, Angus, and Lome, 
 the last of whom has bequeathed his name to a district of 
 Argyleshire.* 
 
 These Picts and Scots now begin to play by far the most 
 conspicuous part in the barbarian history of our country ; — 
 the Caledonians are no more heard of. Uniting their arms, 
 they continually harassed the Southern Britons, rendered 
 effeminate by slavery and peace. All the armies of Eome 
 could not subdue them. In the year 367, the Emperor 
 Valentinian sent his general Theodosius (the father of the 
 future emperor) to Britain to repel the Northern invaders : 
 and he, driving them to their mountain fastnesses, erected a 
 line of forts between the Clyde and Forth, where Antoninus 
 Pius and Agricola had previously, and in vain, erected 
 
 Ireland before the Christian era, and having first conqnered, afterwards 
 mingled with its aboriginal Celtic population. It must, however, be under- 
 stood that Scotch colonies were early settled in the west of the country, to which 
 they afterwards gave their name, and that sometimes these colonists are meant 
 by the appellation of Scoti ; for instance, it is to these, unquestionably, that 
 Bede in general refers. To distinguish them from the Soots in Ireland, they 
 were sometimes called Scoti Britanniee, Scoti in Britannia, sometimes Albani, 
 and very frequently Dalreudini." (See Pinkerton's Inquiry into the Early 
 History of Scotland, part f. chap, iv.) 
 
 * A.D. 503 is given as the date of this last and most important settlement. 
 (See Pinkerton's Inquiry, &c., part iv. chap, v.) 
 
A.D. 409.] INCURSIONS OF THE SCOTS AND PICTS. 13 
 
 fortifications and built walls to mark out the limits of the 
 empire. The Eomans, threatened in their own capital, 
 withdrew their legions from Britain about the year 409 ; 
 whereupon, as Bede reports, the Southerners " suffered many 
 years under two very savage foreign nations, the Scots from 
 the West, and the Picts from the North." In these circum- 
 stances they implored the succour of their former masters ; 
 who, arriving about 421, repelled the barbarians, and caused 
 the natives to build a wall of turf on the line of the fortifi- 
 cations, which had stretched from Dumbarton to Abercorn, 
 but were now thrown down. 
 
 This sod wall proved but a weak defence against strata- 
 gem and valour. No sooner were the Eomans gone than 
 the mountaineers; as the same venerable authority informs 
 us, " coming by sea, broke into the borders, trampled and 
 overrun all places, and like men mowing ripe corn, bore 
 down all before them." Again the Romans, with praise- 
 worthy generosity, sent a legion to assist a people whom 
 they had rendered incapable of defending themselves. The 
 boundary was now removed far southward ; and a wall of 
 solid masonry erected between the Solway and the Tyne. 
 The conquerors of the world now bade their final farewell 
 to our island, exhorting the Britons " to handle their wea- 
 pons like men," and assuring them that " their enemies 
 would not prove too powerful for them imless they were 
 deterred by cowardice." But advice will not make timid 
 men brave. The redoubtable Scots and Picts soon made 
 their appearance at the foot of this wall, dragged down its 
 cowardly defenders with hooked weapons, and dashed them 
 to the ground. The Britons, abandoning their cities and 
 walls, took to flight, and being pursued, " were torn in pieces 
 by their enemies as lambs are torn by wild beasts." Once 
 more the wretched remains of the Britons applied to Eome 
 for help, but in vain. The letter which they are said to 
 have T\Titten to iEtius, in the reign of Theodosius the 
 younger, though unworthy of men with arms in their hands, 
 is a fine specimen of simple pathos. It ran thus : — " To 
 iEtius, thrice consul, the groans of the Britons. — The bar- 
 barians drive us to the sea ; the sea drives us back to the 
 
li CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. i. 
 
 barbarians : between them we are exposed to two sorts of 
 death ; we are either slain or drowned."* 
 
 But the grave question still remains, Who were these Scots 
 and Picts, and whence came they ? We have already seen 
 that the Scots came from Ireland, then called Scotia : and 
 further than that we cannot trace them. It is quite pos- 
 sible they may have been of Scythian extraction, as some of 
 our antiquarians teach, but it is very certain they must have 
 had a large mixture of Celtic blood in their veins. In re- 
 gard to the Picts, it is held by several eminent investigators 
 that they are no other than the ancient Caledonians with a 
 new name. This opinion is chiefly founded on the fact that 
 the orator Eumenius speaks of the " Caledonians and other 
 Picts"] and that they are never mentioned in company by 
 any ancient author as distinct tribes. Where the one is 
 specified the other is omitted. Notwithstanding the great 
 authority of Pinkerton, who has put forth all his strength to 
 prove this proposition, we are rather inclined to follow the 
 opinion of Bitson, who thinks tlxe Picts were a different 
 people from the Caledonians and entered our country at a 
 subsequent date. J We shall assign our reasons for this 
 ojjinion in a few words. 
 
 For more than two hundred years after North Britain had 
 become accessible to the Eomans, its inhabitants are called 
 Caledonians, and never Picts ; and we have not heard any 
 explanation of their ancient name being suddenly forgotten, 
 and a new one assumed. The year 296 has arrived before 
 such a name occurs among the tribes of Scotland. When 
 the Picts begin to be noticed, they are frequently alluded to 
 as a foreign nation, who had come across the sea to our 
 
 * Bede's Ecclesiastical History, chap, xii., xiii. 
 
 t " Non clico Caledonum, aliorumqiTe Pictorum, silvas et paludes," &c. " Va- 
 lesius," says Stillingfleet, " observes it ought to be read, Nou Dicaledonum 
 aliorumque Pictorum ; for Ammiauus Marcellinus saith— the Picts were 
 divided into Dicaledones and Vecturiones." (Antiquities, &c., chap. v. p. 150.) 
 
 + Ritson's Annals of the Caledonians, Picts and Scots, passim. This is 
 also substantially the opinion of Bishop Stillingfleet. He thinks both Cale- 
 donians and Picts were of the same Scandinavian extraction ; but that the 
 new name took its rise from colonies of Picts arriving in the island subsequent 
 to the Christian era. (Antiquities of the British Churches, p. 14ft.) 
 
A.D. 300-600 ] ARRIVAL OF THE SCOTS AND PICTS. 15 
 
 country. The monk Grildas, who lived toward the close o\' 
 the sixth century, says that when the Eomish legionaries 
 were withdrawn, the Britons were then " first infested " 
 with " two cruel transmarine nations." Bede, who wrote in 
 the beginning of the eighth century, speaks, in a passage 
 already quoted, of the same tribes, as being " two very savage 
 foreign nations," coming from the west and the north. In 
 opposition to these facts, we cannot put the loose language 
 of a Gallic orator, more ignorant, probably, of our ancestors, 
 than we are of the Tartar tribes to the north of India, and 
 aiming less at historical accuracy than at imperial adulation. 
 It is very natural to suppose that the Caledonians, never 
 very numerous, were greatly reduced by their stubborn war- 
 fare with the Romans. Tacitus affirms that ten thousand 
 were slaughtered at the battle of the Grampian Hill ; and 
 though this be an exaggeration, did even half that number 
 fall, it would be an irreparable loss to a small country, thinly 
 peopled by hunters and shepherds. It is highly probable 
 that large tracts of land were completely depopulated, and 
 that the remnant of the people betook themselves to their 
 mountains and morasses, as the last asylum left them. In 
 these circumstances, we suppose the warlike Picts must have 
 visited our coasts, and instead of being resisted, they were 
 probably welcomed. Settling in districts along the north 
 and east coasts, which they either won by the sword or 
 received from friendship — ^joined from time to time by fresh 
 swarms of their countrymen — and perhaps intermingling 
 with the natives — they soon made themselves known and 
 formidable to their neighbours in the south. Many circum- 
 stances lead us to believe that they were of Scandinavian 
 descent, and that in open canoes they were ferried across 
 the narrow sea which separates Denmark from the north of 
 Scotland.* At a period a little subsequent to this, the fleets 
 of the Scots began to appear off the coasts of Argyle, and 
 these also .easily acquired territory, and probably coalesced 
 with the Caledonians of the west, who were of the same 
 
 * Bede says they were of Scythian extraction. Stillingfleet gives as his 
 opinion that they were Scandinavians; and Pinkerton argues strongly fur 
 this. 
 
16 CHURCH HISTOKT OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. I. 
 
 Celtic stock as themselves. The Scots and Picts now rose 
 into renown ; for not only did they attract notice as stran- 
 gers, but they were always to be found in the brunt of the 
 battle, and instead of shunning the shock of southern 
 valour, they carried their arms into the very heart of Eng- 
 land. 
 
 In the sixth century, the age of St Columba, the kingdom 
 of the Scots appears to have included the districts of Lorn, 
 Argyle, Knapdale, Cowal, Cantire, Lochaber, a part of Bread- 
 albane, and perhaps the Western Isles. The Pictish terri- 
 tory included all the rest of the north of Scotland, from the 
 Friths of Forth and Clyde to the Orkney Isles — in which it 
 would appear there were two kingdoms, the northern and 
 the southern, divided from one another by the Gi-rampian 
 Hills.* The district to the south of the Forth and Clyde 
 seems to have been generally regarded as belonging to the 
 southern portion of the island, and was probably peopled by 
 Britons, with whom there were subsequently mingled Saxons, 
 Norwegians, and Danes. f We may safely regard the present 
 Highlanders as the lineal descendants of the ancient Cale- 
 donians, mingled with the Irish Scots. Shut in by their 
 mountain ranges and deep glens, their Celtic blood has been 
 preserved purer than in the other parts of the island. Their 
 Celtic speech, their Druidical remains, their form and 
 features, are the strong evidences of their descent. That 
 they are the children of the soil — the descendants of the 
 aborigines of Britain — is moreover proved by the singular 
 circumstance, that to this day they know no other name for 
 Scotsmen than Alhinnicli, nor any other name for Scotland 
 
 '•■■' Innes's Critical Essay on the Ancient Inhabitants of Scotland, p. 85. Also 
 Eitson's Annals, vol. i. p. 102. There is considerable doubt as to who, at this 
 period, were the proprietors of the Hebrides. 
 
 t It was long before the present boundary between England and Scotland 
 was fixed. There could be no such boundary at the time we speak of, because 
 the year 1000 was nearly come before we have a united kingdom of Scotland 
 and a united kingdom of England. The wall between the Forth and Clyde 
 was the ancient boundary between the northern and southern parts of the 
 island. Subsequent to this, the Scots and Picts appear to have possessed large 
 districts of the north of England. In the seventh century, it would appear 
 the Idngdom of jSTorthumbria included the Lothians, and probably the greater 
 part of the south of Scotland. 
 
A. D. 300-900.] INVASIONS OF THE NOHSEMEN. 1 7 
 
 than A Ihinn — the very appellation used by Aristotle three 
 hundred years before Christ.* 
 
 The stream of Scandinavian blood introduced into our 
 island by the Picts, was afterwards largely augmented by 
 the incursions of the Norsemen. As far back as the dawn 
 of history, and before it, when we have nothing but tradi- 
 tions to guide us, these sea-warriors would seem to have been 
 perpetually sweeping the seas, and landing on our coast, some- 
 times for conquest and sometimes for plunder. Our earliest 
 poetry, embodying the recollections of a still earlier time, is 
 full of bloody battles fought upon the beach, and of tall 
 pirates driven back into the wave. From the hills of Mor- 
 ven the ocean scout beholds the ships of Lochlin like forests 
 clothed with mist, when the trees bend before the squally 
 blast. A thousand heroes descend like streams from the 
 mountains ; each rushes roaring from his hill. As the wild 
 waves rage and foam against the rocks, so the warriors mingle 
 on the shore. A hundred ghosts shriek on the hollow wind. 
 The strangers of ocean flee. The feast of shells is heard in 
 Selma ; but the fallen are mourned by the sons of song."f 
 
 We have evidence that in the fourth century, and even 
 before it, the Saxon pirates infested the northern shores of 
 Britain. I In the century following they landed in England 
 and the south of Scotland in such numbers as to make them- 
 selves masters of the country. In the ninth century, and 
 probably much earlier, the Danes made incursions on our 
 coasts. At the same period, Norwegian pirates seized upon 
 the Orkney and Western Isles. In 910 the King of Norway 
 drove out these pirates from the Orkneys, and erected them 
 with a large district of country on the mainland into an 
 earldom, and the succession was continued till a. d. 1330, 
 
 * In distinguishing themselves from the Gael of Ireland, the Scotch Celts 
 denominate themselves Oael Albinn or Albinnich; while they call those of Ire- 
 land GaelEirinnich. The Highlander calls the Lowlander /Sas«e?!acA— evidently 
 pointing to the stock from which the bulk of the Lowland Scotch have 
 sprung. 
 
 t The reader will remark that this is a kind of imitation of Ossian, or rather 
 some stray sentences of the Celtic hard strung together. 
 
 X Carausius was appointed Count of the Saxon shores, and instead of trying 
 to extirpate the pirates he connived with them ; and so managed to get him- 
 self proclaimed emperor in Britain, where he reigned from a.t. 287 to 29J. 
 
 B 
 
] 8 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAl\ I. 
 
 when it fell by inheritance to Malise, Earl of Strathearn.* 
 It was not till the fifteenth century that the Orkneys were 
 restored to the crown of Scotland, when they came as the 
 dowry of Margaret of Norway, wife of James III. 
 
 The mythology of Scandinavia must have entered our 
 country with these Scandinavian tribes. Thurso in Caith- 
 ness received its name from the god Thor. The nomencla- 
 ture of our week we derived from the Saxons, and at least 
 three days are called in honour of Scandinavian divinities, f 
 The Picts, if sprung from Scandinavian mothers, must have 
 been of the Scandinavian faith. Indeed, eminent antiquaries 
 have held that the only religion of Caledonia was Scandi- 
 navian, and that the circles which we imagine to have been 
 Druidical temples were in reality Gothic courts of justice ; 
 and the central stone, the altar upon which the pagan 
 magistrate, who was generally also a priest, offered sacrifice 
 before holding his court.J All history and all tradition are 
 opposed to such an opinion ; but it is highly probable that 
 during several centuries the Gods of Scandinavia divided our 
 country with the Gods of the Druids ; and it is not unlikely 
 that in the minds of an ignorant and barbarous people the two 
 theologies may have been commingled. They had several 
 points of resemblance ; and it is to be remembered that all 
 pagan nations have been very tolerant of each other's Gods.§ ' 
 
 The history of our own country furnishes us with very 
 little information in regard to the religion of Pictland. 
 Our only knowledge is derived from the life of St Columba, 
 who converted the northern Picts to Christianity. His bio- 
 grapher informs us that they worshipped certain fountains, 
 and ascribed great virtues to them. If a person drank of 
 one of these, or washed in it, he returned leprous or blind of 
 an eye, or affected with some other infirmity. They had 
 their own Gods^ whom they thought stronger than the God 
 of the Christians ; their sorcerers, who could milk a bull ; 
 
 ® Pinkerton gives a list of these earls in his Inquiry. Appendix. 
 
 t Wednesday from Wodin or Odin ; Thursday from Thor ; and Friday from 
 Freya. 
 
 + Pinkerton, Inquiry, &c., passim. 
 
 § So many are the points of resemblance, that Borlase, in his Antiquities of 
 Cornwall, holds them to have been the same. 
 
CHAP. I.J 8CANDINAVIAN MYTHOLOGY. 19 
 
 and their priests, who coiild raise dark mists and contrary 
 winds.* This is almost the whole information to be gather- 
 ed from the meagre records of our own country ; we must 
 therefore turn to the Skaldic literature of Iceland, and the 
 ancient Eddas of the north. 
 
 The primitive theology of the Scandinavian tribes appears 
 to have embraced the doctrine of one Supreme Deity. " He 
 liveth from aU ages, He governeth all realms, and swayeth all 
 things great and small. He hath formed heaven and earth, 
 and the air, and all things thereunto belonging. And what 
 is more. He hath made man, and given him a soul which 
 shall live and never perish, though the body shall have 
 mouldered away, or have been burnt to ashes. And all that 
 are righteous shall dwell with Him in the place called Gimli 
 or Yingolf ; but the wicked shall go to Hel, and thence to 
 Niiihel, which is below in the ninth world."t It is very cer- 
 tain, however, that this sublime belief was confined to the 
 few ; and that inferior divinities monopolized the worship 
 of the many, who were quite ignorant of the One Supreme. 
 
 According to the prose Edda, there were twelve Gods, in 
 whom men were bound to believe, and to whom divine hon- 
 ours ought to be paid. The Goddesses were equally numer- 
 ous, and " not less divine and mighty." The first and eldest 
 of the Msii is Odin. " He governs all things, and although 
 the other deities are powerful, they all serve and obey him as 
 children do their father.'' Thor stands next, and is the 
 strongest of all the Gods ; he is the thunderer, the war-god. 
 He wields a mallet, with which he has split many a giant's 
 skull, for nothing can resist its force. Baldur and Njord 
 follow Thor in the list of divinities ; the former of whom 
 appears to have been the patron of wisdom and eloquence ; 
 and the latter the God of the sea — the Neptune of Eome. Of 
 the Goddesses, Frigga and Freya were the chief. Erigga 
 was the wife of Odin, and appears to have been no other 
 than an apotheosis of mother-earth. Freya was the Goddess 
 of generation, the Venus of the ancients ; and appears, like 
 
 ■^^ Adomnan's Life of St Columba, now puHislied by tlie Bannatyne Club, 
 t Prose Edda. Translated in Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 400-1 , 
 Bolm's Edition. 
 
 b2 
 
20 CHTJKCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. ' [chap. I. 
 
 lier southern sister, to have been possessed of resplendent 
 beauty. " She is very fond," says the Edda, " of love dit- 
 ties, and all lovers would do well to invoke her." But, con- 
 trary to the usual softness of her sex, though perfectly like 
 a Scandinavian woman, she followed armies to battle, and 
 claimed from Odin the half of the slain. 
 
 Loki occupies a prominent place in this mythology ; but 
 his position is ambiguous. Of a fine form and amazing 
 dexterity, he is generally in the company of the G-ods, but he 
 often brings them into trouble, and is feared and hated by 
 them. He is called the reproach of Gods and men, and ap- 
 pears to be the devil of the north. To rid themselves of this 
 pest the iEsir caught him, and bound him in a cave with 
 thongs of iron, where, as a serpent's venom drops on his 
 face, he howls with horror. Earthquakes are caused by his 
 throes. The evil progeny of this evil God are the serpent 
 Midgard, so huge that, like the snake in Hindu mythology, 
 it encircles the globe ; the wolf Fenrir, whose jaws, when 
 open, stretch from earth to heaven ; and Hela, or Death. 
 
 But the Norsemen peopled their invisible world with other 
 beings than the Gods. There were the Frost giants, and 
 the mountain giants, the dwarfs, the elves of light, and the 
 elves of darkness. Jotunheim is the abode of the giants, 
 who are described as an ill-doing race, and against them 
 Thor wages a remorseless war. The dwarfs were originally 
 maggots, but by the will of the Gods they assumed the human 
 shape. They dwell in rocks and caverns, and brew mischief. 
 The elves of light dwell in Elf-home ; but the elves of dark- 
 ness live under the earth. " The elves of light are fairer 
 than the sun, but tlie elves of darkness are blacker than 
 pitch." The pedigree of certain of these dii minores is thus 
 given in the ancient Voluspa : — " From Vidolf came all 
 witches ; from Vilmeith, all wizards ; from Svarthofdi, all 
 poison-seethers ; and all giants from Ymir."* 
 
 The Druids venerated the oak; the Scandinavians regarded 
 the ash as peculiarly the tree of the Gods. " It is under the 
 ash Tggdrasill where the Gods assemble every day in coun- 
 cil. It is the greatest and best of all trees : its branches 
 
 * Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 403. 
 
CHAP. 1.] VALHALLA. 21 
 
 Spread over the whole world, and eveu reach above the 
 heaven. Near the fountain which is under this ash stands 
 a very beauteous dwelling, out of which go three maidens, 
 named Urd, Vernandi, and Skuld — the Present, the Past, 
 and the Future. These maidens fix the life-time of all men, 
 and are called Norns."* 
 
 The Norsemen looked upon the rainbow as the path lead- 
 ing to heaven. " Hast thou not been told," says the prose 
 Edda, " that the G-ods made a bridge from earth to heaven, 
 and called it Bifrost ? It is of three hues, and is constructed 
 with more art than any other work." t 
 
 Courage was the virtue which the Norse creed was designed 
 to foster, and accordingly the joys of the future world were 
 reserved for the brave. Valhalla is the spacious mansion of 
 Odin, and thither go all who are slain in battle. It was 
 peculiarly suited to be the dwelling-place of cut-throats and 
 pirates ; and in reading the descriptions of it, one is tempted 
 to wish that some such paradise could be found for the thieves 
 and roisterers of modern times, seeing that every corner of 
 the earth is now refusing even to provide them with a prison. 
 Every morning the heroes ride out to the court, and there 
 hew each other in pieces ; but when meal-time approaches, 
 they remount their steeds, and return to dine in Valhalla, 
 all the hungrier for the deadly wounds they have given and 
 received. The entire carcass of a boar is served as the daily 
 dinner, and the flitches of this they wash down with deep 
 draughts of mead, which they quaff from huge drinking- 
 horns ; and so in eating and drinking, and with boisterous 
 merriment, they pass the night. — The voluptuous Mussul- 
 man has peopled his paradise with dark-eyed houris of reful- 
 gent beauty, four of whom are assigned to every believer 
 who falls in battle ; the Scandinavians, children of a colder 
 clime, have introduced females into Valhalla too, but it is 
 only " to hear in the drink, and take care of the drinking- 
 horns, and whatever belongs to the table." " The heaven 
 of each," says Moore, "is just what each desires;" and it 
 must be confessed that no more fitting entertainment than 
 
 * Prose Edda. From Urd comes our word weird ; and the weird sisters of 
 Sliakspeare are the Norns of Scandinavia. t I'^id. 
 
22 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. I. 
 
 that we have described could be found for a company of 
 freebooters. 
 
 The Scandinavian mythology wants the elegance of the 
 old classic myths, but it is vaster in all its proportions. It 
 is like a .great Gothic cathedral beside a Grecian temple. 
 Everything about it is colossal. The body of the giant Ymir 
 was so huge, that, dragged into the middle of Ginnungagap, 
 it formed the earth. " From Ymir's blood was made the 
 seas and waters ; from his flesh the land ; from his bones the 
 mountains ; and his teeth and jaws, together with some 
 
 broken bones, served to make the stones and pebbles 
 
 From his skull they formed the heavens, which they placed 
 over the earth, and set a dwarf at the corner of each of the 
 four quarters. These dwarfs are called North, South, East, 
 and West."* The ancient Hercules was a pigmy compared 
 with this Ymir. In like manner, the achievements of Mars 
 fell far short of the feats of Thor with his mallet. Finding 
 a giant sleeping on the ground, three several times did Thor 
 swing his mallet at his head with tremendous force, and, 
 though on the last occasion it sunk in his brain to the haft, 
 he was somewhat provoked to see the giant awake, and 
 scratching the place, simply ask who had disturbed his 
 slumbers. But what Thor fancied to be the giant's head 
 was a great mountain, into which three deep glens were 
 cleft by the hammer of the God. Challenged by the same 
 giant to drink with him, Thor applied his lips to a moderately 
 sized drinking-horn ; but with three tremendous draughts 
 he could make no more impression on the vessel, than that 
 it could now be carried without spilling its contents. Bafiled 
 and mortified, he gave up the contest ; but he afterwards 
 discovered that the end of the horn was fixed in the sea, and 
 that the draughts which he took had caused the ebb-tide 
 along all the shores of the world.f 
 
 In some of the myths connected with this strange race of 
 deities, there is a good deal of quiet drollery, significant of 
 that sly humour which is the peculiar inheritance of the 
 northern nations, and of which so large a portion has 
 descended to ourselves. Skadi is made to choose a husband 
 
 * Prose Edda. (Mallet's Antiquities, p. 404.) f Prose Edda. 
 
CHAP, r.] thkym's lay of the mallet. 23 
 
 from the Gods by an inspection of their feet, every other 
 part of their persons being concealed. The mallet of Thor 
 had been stolen by the giants, and lies buried eight miles 
 deep under the frozen rocks of Jotunheim. Thrym vows he 
 will not restore it till Freya consents to be his bride ; but 
 Freya is shocked at the idea of becoming the wife of the 
 king of the frost-giants, and positively refuses. In this 
 dilemma, Thor dresses himself in Freya's clothes, and sets 
 out for Jotunheim. Thrym received with rapture his bride, 
 whose beauty and bashfulness were concealed by a veil ; but 
 was somewhat amazed to see her eat for her supper eight 
 salmon and a fat ox, and wash down the whole with three 
 tuns of mead. Peeping beneath the veil, he was still more 
 surprised to see her eye-balls glisten like fires ; but being 
 assured that this was caused by the many restless nights 
 she had spent in the prospect of becoming his bride, he pro- 
 duced the mallet, and laid it in the maiden's lap. Thor 
 seized the weapon, threw oS the disguise, and slew Thrym 
 and all his followers.* 
 
 Such were the divinities of the Scandinavians, and such 
 the stories told of them. Their worship was very simple, 
 but their altars were frequently stained with human blood. 
 These altars were originally in the open air, and many of 
 them still exist ; but ultimately covered temples were built. 
 The most famous of these was that of Upsal in Sweden. It 
 was resplendent on all sides with gold. Near it was a grove, 
 of which every tree and every leaf was regarded as sacred. 
 It was full of the bodies of dead men and animals, who had 
 been devoted to Odin. It would appear that the blood of 
 the victims thus slain on the altar was received in a vase of 
 brass, and then sprinkled with a brush upon the bystanders. 
 The number three and its multiples were reckoned as dear 
 to the Gods ; and accordingly, on the ninth month, and espe- 
 cially in the ninth year, sacrifices of peculiar solemnity were 
 offered. Each year, moreover, had its three religious festi- 
 vals. The first was held at the winter solstice, and was 
 called Jul. This being the beg-inning of the Scandinavian 
 
 * Thrj-m's Lay, or the Recovery of the Mallet. (Mallet's Northern An- 
 tiquities.) 
 
24 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. I. 
 
 year, it was held in honour of Frey, the Sun-God, in order to 
 procure, from his benign influence, propitious seasons. The 
 second festival was in honour of the earth, and was fixed at 
 the first quarter of the second moon of the year. The third, 
 and greatest, was celebrated in honour of Odin, early in 
 spring, and was probably intended to incline the battle-god 
 to be favourable to them in their piratical expeditions during 
 the summer months.* 
 
 We may well believe that such a martial creed and such 
 a sanguinary worship would foster the marauding spirit of 
 the Norsemen, and would lead them to think plunder and 
 murder their proper trade. Unswerving valour was the only 
 virtue which their religion encouraged : death in battle was 
 the only doorway to heaven. It accordingly sent forth a 
 race of rovers, who cruelly devastated almost every country 
 of Europe, and drove the monks who lived along the coasts 
 to introduce into their litany the pitiful prayer — " From the 
 fury of the Norsemen, good Lord, deliver us." f The Picts 
 must have carried this creed into our country, and it partly 
 accounts for their relentless wars with the Britons, and after- 
 wards with the Scots. The Saxons brought over the same 
 G-ods in their long ships to England ; and in their conflicts 
 with the natives their valour and piety would be equally 
 inflamed by the belief that Hengist and Horsa were the 
 lineal descendants of Odin. The Norwegians and Danes, 
 who during so many centuries infested the northern seas, 
 and kept their firm gripe on all the islands off our coast, and 
 even on a considerable district of the mainland, must have 
 left there not merely the mark of blood, but of the supersti- 
 tion which caused them so profusely to shed it. It was the 
 year 1000 before these corsairs were baptized into the 
 Christian faith. 
 
 We have derived these notices of the Scandinavian divi-- 
 nities from the Eddas and Sagas of Iceland, in defect of any 
 ancient literature of our own which throws light upon 
 this subject. There is one home-source from which some 
 additional information might be got regarding the religion 
 
 * Mallet's Northern Antiquities. 
 
 t A furore Normanorum, libera nos, Domine. — Note to Mallet's Antiquities. 
 
CHAP. I.J ossiAi^. 25 
 
 of our pagan ancestors, could we believe it possessed the 
 antiquity to wbich it pretends ; we refer to the poems of 
 Ossian, which are said to be the product of the third century. 
 We cannot, however, bring ourselves to believe that such 
 long poems could have been retained by the memory, and 
 handed down without the help of letters, from one generation 
 to another for fifteen hundred years, in spite of the changes 
 which every language gradually undergoes. But without too 
 much credulity, we may perhaps believe that these Celtic 
 poems have come down to us from a remote antiquity ; that 
 they probably changed in the recitals of successive bards, 
 with the change of language and manners which time 
 brought about ; and that in their wild cadences we have at 
 least a faint echo of the spirit of pagan days. In the Ossi- 
 anic mythology ghosts are the principal players ; and they 
 are often introduced with high dramatic effect. In accord- 
 ance with the notions of a rude people, they are represented 
 not as purely immaterial, but as thin, shadowy forms : their 
 face is pale ; their voice is feeble ; their arm is weak ; they 
 bear the mark of the wound by which they fell. " Crugal sat 
 upon the beam ; he that lately fell by the hand of Swaran, 
 striving iu the battle of heroes. His face is like the beam 
 of the setting moon. His robes are of the clouds of the hill. 
 His eyes are like two decaying flames. Dark is the wound 
 of his breast. The stars dimly twinkled through his form ; 
 and his voice was like the sound of a distant stream. Dim 
 and in tears he stood, and stretched his pale hand over the 
 hero. Faintly he raised his feeble voice, like the gale of the 
 reedy Lego. My ghost, Connal ! is on my native hills ; 
 but my corse is on the sands of Ullin."* 
 
 Paganism has now been extinct in Great Britain for more 
 than twelve hundred years ; but it has left behind it traces of 
 its existence, which seem to be almost as indelible and endur- 
 ing as those fossil vestiges which recall the memory of for- 
 mer worlds, with their strange types of animals and plants. 
 Beltane, the title till recently applied to our Whitsunday, 
 was the name of a Druidical festival ; Yule, by which Christ- 
 mas is still frequently denominated in Scotland, is identical 
 
 » Ossian. Fiuga), a Poem. 
 
26 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAl'. I. 
 
 with Jul,* a Scandinavian feast held at Christmas time, with 
 joy and rejoicing, in honour of Frei.f Every time we speak 
 of Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, we commemorate a 
 Scandinavian God. It has sometimes been said that our 
 elves and fairies were imported from the east ; they are in 
 truth the creations of the north, and it will be many centu- 
 ries before they cease to haunt the minds of our children, 
 and to give merriment to all by their thousand gay and in- 
 nocent gambols. The ghosts of Ossian still hover on the 
 Highland hills, and walk in lonely churchyards ; and many 
 a Celt who could fearlessly rush up the heights of Alma, 
 would not for worlds spend a night alone in a haunted house, 
 or approach and examine a moonbeam flickering on the 
 mound of a grave. The bards and senachies who once were 
 to be found in every Highland hall were the descendants of 
 the Druids, all whose science and history were in verse; and 
 though poets are no longer entertained by kings and chiefs, 
 yet the last of our minstrels has not sung. Philosophical 
 historians have regarded the enormous power possessed by 
 the priesthood of Eome in Western Europe as in part an 
 inheritance derived from their Druidical ancestors, for rude 
 nations naturally transfer from one sacerdotal caste to 
 another the same veneration, influence, and respect. 
 
 It has been thought by some that every time we circulate 
 the wine at table from right to left, we have respect to the 
 Druids, who in all their movements most scrupulously fol- 
 lowed the course of the sun. When we drink healths we 
 show our Scandinavian descent. The Norsemen were ac- 
 customed to pledge their Grods in their cups, more especially 
 Odin, Thor, and Freya ; and when Christianity was at length 
 introduced, unable to abandon the custom, they substituted 
 in the place of these the names of Christ, the saints, and 
 more especially of the archangel Michael, whom they re- 
 
 * This becomes more apparent when we rememher that in the Germanic 
 and northern tongues the J is pronounced like our Y. 
 
 t " The iire that's blawn on Beltane e'en 
 May weel be black gin Yule ; 
 But blacker far awaits the heart 
 When first fond loTe grows cule." 
 
 Mothekweil's Jeanie Morrison. 
 
CHAP, i.] TKIAL BY ORDEAL. 27 
 
 garded as the greatest wamor of the hosts of heaven. At 
 these drinking-bouts they moreover pledged one another, 
 and drank to the spirits of their departed heroes. 
 
 Both the Scandinavian and Druidical priesthoods sanc- 
 tioned, in cases of doubtful guilt, the trial by ordeal, in which 
 it was understood there was a direct appeal to heaven to 
 clear the innocent. This practice continued long through- 
 out all Europe after the reception of Christianity. It gave 
 rise to the chivalrous tournament, and degenerated into the 
 duel, now happily abolished as the last vestige of a bar- 
 barous usage, founded on the impious presumption that 
 Providence will interfere in our quarrels to right the wrong. 
 
28 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. ii. 
 
 GHAPTEE II. 
 
 EusJSBius, ill the first chapter of his " Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory," frankly confesses that he was totally unable to find 
 even the bare vestiges of those who had travelled the way 
 before him ; " nnless, perhaps," he proceeds to say, " what is 
 only presented in the slight intimations which some in 
 different ways have transmitted to us in certain partial nar- 
 ratives of the times in which they lived ; who, raising their 
 voices before us, like torches at a distance, and as looking 
 down from some commanding height, call out and exhort us 
 where we should walk, and whither direct our course with 
 certainty and safety."* The person who undertakes to nar- 
 rate the early ecclesiastical history of our country must make 
 a similar acknowledgment. It is not that there is any lack 
 of materials wherewithal to build up a consecutive and most 
 interesting narrative. There are ancient chronicles and 
 monkish legends in great plenty; but it is \iery evident to the 
 searching eye of criticism, that in most of these falsehood is 
 largely mingled with truth ; and that when Memory failed to 
 record an event, Imagination was ever at hand to supply the 
 deficiency. In our estimate of these documents, it must, 
 moreover, be borne in mind, that few of them were written 
 till centuries after the period whose history they pretend to 
 relate, and though some of them probably proceeded upon 
 documents more ancient than themselves, and which are 
 now lost, it is certain that a large number of the circum- 
 stances they narrate must have come to them through the 
 *■ Ecclesiastical History of Eusoliius Pampliilus, book i. chap. i. 
 
CHAP. n.J EARLY CHRONICLEKS. 29 
 
 uncertain channel of tradition. Gildas, our earliest chroni- 
 cler, lived probably toward the end of the sixth century ; 
 -but who, or what he was, no one can certainly tell. .The 
 venerable Bede compiled his valuable work in the beginning 
 of the eighth century. To us, looking across the eighteen 
 hundred years which have elapsed since the birth of our 
 Saviour, three or four centuries at its very commencement 
 may seem to be a short space ; as when standing on a high hill, 
 and gazing over a wide landscape, many miles at its utmost 
 limit appear contracted into a span. But the former is a 
 mental, as the latter is an ocular deception, both arising from 
 the same law, that distance lessens the apparent magnitude 
 'of objects. Three hundred years at the beginning of our era 
 were quite as long as three hundred years now, and must 
 have had the same effects — removing ancient land-marks, 
 wearing out old ideas, and bearing down upon their muddy 
 waters the memories of a myriad events, and depositing them 
 in the depths of the great sea of oblivion. Without the aid 
 of contemporaneous history, and forced to depend entirely 
 upon unwritten tradition, how little could we know of the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and that little how dis- 
 torted. All experience warrants us to say, that no narrative 
 is worthy of belief which is not vouched by a consecutive 
 line of writers who lived at the time to which the records 
 refer. 
 
 It is true that many sidelights are let in upon the early 
 history of our country by the Latin writers who lived at the 
 time, but their notices refer almost exclusively to political 
 events. The Fathers of the Church, also, sometimes allude 
 to the introduction of Christianity into our island, but they 
 lived too far from the scene to be accurately informed, and 
 some of their passages have the evident marks of African 
 warmth or Oriental exaggeration. The monks, within whose 
 cloisters all the learning of Europe was for centuries locked 
 up, and from whom countless legends and saintly lives have 
 come down to us, were men of most lively fancy, who 
 esteemed pious fraud to be a virtue, and were equally ready 
 to forge a charter, or invent a miracle, if they could thereby 
 benefit their monastery, or glorify the Church. The truth 
 
30 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAr. ii. 
 
 is, we must traverse almost a thousand years before we get 
 beyond the region of fable, and reach the known land of 
 historic truth. 
 
 Although our antiquaries have spared no pains to recover 
 and authenticate every fragment of the past, the mythical 
 has been steadily gaining upon the historical in our country, 
 from the severe tests which every fact must now undergo 
 before we recognise it as a reality. Buchanan claims much 
 merit to himself for having discarded those legends which 
 carry our history up to Scota, the daughter of the Pharaoh 
 who was drowned in the Red Sea ; and thinks that he places 
 our dynasty on a secure basis when he begins it with a cer- 
 tain Fergus, who is said to have reigned in Scotland when" 
 Alexander the Great was besieging Babylon. Lord Hailes 
 begins his Annals fourteen hundred years after this, with 
 the reign of Malcolm III., remarking, that " previous to 
 that period our history is involved in obscurity and fable ;" 
 and thus reduces eighty-five of Buchanan's kings to little 
 better than shadows, dimly seen through the mist of years, 
 albeit the grim portraits of some of them still adorn the 
 walls of Holyrood. Tytler begins his admirable history two 
 centuries later, at the accession of Alexander III., knowing 
 that from that time he could baild his narrative on un- 
 questionable muniments. In like manner, the critical re- 
 searches of the learned Niebuhr have reduced the history of 
 Eome to less than a half of its former bulk. The same 
 severity of criticism applied to the chronicles of G-ildas, 
 Nennius, Bede, G-eoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmes- 
 bury, Hector Boethius, Fordun, and the legendary lives of the 
 legion of saints who crowd the calendar, would make whole 
 chapters shrink into a single page. But notwithstanding 
 this huge mass of superincumbent fable, we think it possible, 
 in many cases, to separate the true from the false ; as, 
 besides collateral circumstances, truth often possesses a kind 
 of internal evidence of its own. Many undoubted facts con- 
 nected with the history of the Scottish Church have been 
 floated down to us from a very remote antiquity, and to gather 
 these up, and carefully preserve them, is a labour of Christian 
 love ; for fnore precious to the antiquary ai'e these historic 
 
CHAP. 11.] FIRST PREACHER IN BRITAIN. 31 
 
 remains than tlie relics of departed martyrs and saints to the 
 pious Romanist. 
 
 Seven cities of antiquity are said to have contended for 
 the honour of having been the birthplace of Homer ; and no 
 fewer than five of the apostles compete for the merit of 
 having first preached the gospel in our island. These are 
 St James, Simon Zelotes, Philip, St Peter, and St Paul. 
 Besides these five apostles, Joseph of Arimathea, who 
 charged himself with the burial of our Saviour, has like- 
 wise been set up by the monkish historians as the first who 
 planted Christianity on our shores. Stillingfleet has put 
 forth his great learning in opposition to the claims of Joseph, 
 and in favour of those of St Paul.* In regard to the good 
 Joseph of Arimathea, we are gravely told that he set out 
 from Gaul with six hundred men and women as his com- 
 panions ; that a hundred and fifty of these having kept a 
 vow of continence, came sailing across the channel on a 
 chemise ; that the remainder having violated it, were detained 
 on the opposite shore till they repented, when they also were 
 ferried over in a ship which had been built by King Solomon. 
 We may very safely, with Bishop Stillingfleet, regard the 
 whole of this ridiculous story as an invention of the monks 
 of Glastonbury, to serve their interests by advancing the 
 reputation of their monastery, the church of which is fabled 
 to have been first founded by Joseph, and consecrated by 
 Christ in honour of his virgin mother, and in the cemetery 
 of which the Jewish counsellor is now said to sleep. 
 
 The claims of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, though not 
 so absurd, are not much better founded than those of the 
 secret disciple who went to Pilate and begged the body of 
 Jesus. Venantius Fortunatus, a French bishop, who lived 
 toward the close of the sixth century, is the first writer who 
 makes any explicit mention of the fact,t which is repeated 
 in the succeeding century by Sophroniscus, patriarch of 
 Jerusalem. Bishop Stillingfleet struggles to strengthen these 
 
 * Antiquities of the Britisli Churches, chap. i. 
 
 t " Transiit oceanum, vel qua facit insula portum, 
 
 Quasque Britannus habet terras, quasque ultima Thule.' 
 These lines are from a poem in praise of St Martin. 
 
32 CHURCH HISTOBY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. ii. 
 
 late testimonies by the repeated affirmations of the early 
 fathers, that the gospel was preached in Britain in the days 
 of the apostles ; and then, by arguing that Paul had leisure 
 and opportunity enough to visit Britain — that he had en- 
 couragement and invitation enough to do so — and that he 
 was more likely to travel hither than any other of the 
 apostolic band.* All this, it is evident, amounts to no more 
 than a proof that it is possible Paul may have preached the 
 gospel in Britain ; it does not amount to a demonstration of 
 its likelihood, much less of its certainty. 
 
 Leaving apostolic times, there is a story of a certain King 
 Lucius being the first British convert to the faith of Christ. 
 Bede thus briefly narrates the circumstance : — " In the year 
 of our Lord's incarnation 156, Marcus Antoninus Verus, the 
 fourteenth from Augustus, was made Emperor, with his 
 brother Aurelius Commodus. In their time, whilst Eleu- 
 therus, a holy man, presided over the Roman Church, Lucius, 
 King of the Britons, sent a letter to him, entreating that, by 
 his permission, he might be made a Christian. He soon 
 obtained his pious request, and the Britons retained the faith 
 which they had received uncorrupted and entire, in peace and 
 tranquillity, until the time of the Emperor Diocletianus."t 
 Nennius gives the same story thus: — ■" In the year of our 
 Lord 104, Lucius, King of Britain, with all the inferior kings 
 of Britain, were baptized upon an embassy sent by the Eoman 
 Emperors and Pope Evaristus."t There is another version 
 of this fable, which throws the conversion of Lucius back to 
 the apostolic period, and makes him to be baptized by a 
 certain Timothy, a Eoman convert of St Paul, and brother 
 of St Pudentiana, from whom St Peter got his chair, still so 
 religiously preserved in the Vatican. 
 
 This last story is too absurd to engage our attention ; and 
 
 ■•* Antiquities of the British Churches, chap. i. 
 
 t Ecclesiastical History, book i. chap. iv. 
 
 X The passage as here quoted is taken from Stillingfleet's Antiquities of 
 the British Churches. In Bohn's translation of Nennius, the passage stands 
 thus : — " After the birth of Christ one hundred and sixty-seven years, King 
 Lucius, with all the chiefs of the British people, received baptism, in conse- 
 quence of a legation sent by the Koman Emperors and Pope Evaristus." — 
 History of the Britons, ? 22. 
 
A.D. 150.] FABULOUS CONVERTS TO CHEISTIANITY. 33 
 
 a little examination of the narratives of Bede and Nennius, 
 shows them also to be attended with insurmountable diffi- 
 culties. It will be observed that they differ from one 
 another in their dates and names, and authentic history- 
 proves that neither can be correct. No such emperors as 
 those mentioned by Bede ever reigned together. He evi- 
 dently means Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Verus ; 
 but this is not all. Marcus Antoninus was not emperor, 
 nor was Eleutherus bishop of Eome in the year 166, as Bede 
 declares they were. Antoninus became emperor a.d. 161, 
 and Eleutherus bishop a.d. 176. In regard to Nennius, the 
 date which he assigns agrees well enough with the reign of 
 Antoninus, but Evaristus, whom he affirms to have been 
 pope in 164, had been in his grave for fifty-three years, hav- 
 ing died in 109. But the great difficulty remains, in regard 
 to who this royal convert was. Britain was at that period 
 a Eoman province, governed by Eoman generals and pro- 
 curators ; and if any independent kings existed, we must 
 seek for them in the Highlands of Scotland, or among the 
 mountains of Wales. It is just possible there may have been 
 some such petty prince as Lucius still allowed to exercise a 
 precarious authority in the south of the island ; but this is 
 widely different from the grand monarch of Nennius, with 
 his tributary kings, receiving a Christian embassy from the 
 pope and the emperors ; who, singularly enough, were at that 
 very time persecuting the Christians in other parts of the 
 empire. When we look to these inconsistencies in the nar- 
 rative, and remember that the first narrator of the event 
 lived five hundred years after it is said to have occurred, we 
 shall have no difficulty in rejecting it as a monkish myth. 
 
 If England had its Lucius, Scotland must have its Donald, 
 early converted to the Christian faith. Donald I. is the 
 twenty-seventh of Buchanan's royal line, and is said to have 
 lived in the beginning of the third century. Hector Boethius, 
 the most imaginative of all our chroniclers, informs us that 
 this king of a kingdom which did not then exist sent am- 
 bassadors to Victor bishop of Rome, to desire him to send 
 persons fit to instruct them in the Christian faith, which 
 pious request being complied with, the whole kingdom of 
 
34 CHURCH HISTORY OP SCOTLAND. [chap. ii. 
 
 Scotland, as Dempster declares, did then embrace Chris- 
 tianity.* This story is based upon an old couplet, quoted 
 by our historians, purporting that in the year 203 Scotia 
 began to receive the Catholic faith ;t and upon a statement 
 made by TertuUian, that in his day parts of Britain, inac- 
 cessible to the Eomans, had been subdued to Christ.f The 
 Hindus say the universe rests upon an elephant, and that 
 the elephant stands on the back of a tortoise, but what 
 supports the tortoise they do not pretend to teach ; so 
 Dempster rests upon Boethius, and Boethius upon the dis- 
 tich, but what supports the distich no one can tell. In re- 
 gard to Tertullian, his statement is plainly an exaggeration. 
 It is highly probable Christianity was known by a very few 
 in Scotland in his day ; but to say that the barbarous popu- 
 lation at that time living beyond the Eoman wall was sub- 
 dued to Christ, no one acquainted with our early history can 
 for a moment believe. 
 
 There is another legend in regard to the introduction of 
 Christianity into our country too characteristic to be omitted, 
 more especially as it is connected with St Andrew, the 
 patron saint of the nation. St Regulus, better known in our 
 country as St Rule, is said to have been a G-reek monk, who, 
 being warned in a dream that he should take the bones of 
 St Andrew, and depart with them to some unknown land in 
 the far west, resolved, after some hesitation, to obey the 
 Divine admonition. He accordingly gathered up what relics 
 he could of the apostle, viz., an arm-bone, three fingers, three 
 toes, and a tooth ; and, being accompanied by sixteen other 
 monks and three devout virgins, he set sail, not knowing 
 whether to steer his course. For two long years were this 
 pilgrim band tossed about by tempests, as they skirted the 
 sunny shores of the Mediterranean, passed the dreaded 
 
 * Hector Boeth., lib. v. p. 89. Dempster Apparat. ad Hist. Scot., lib. i. 
 cap. vi. Hist. Eccles., lib. xv. in Palladio. Both authors are cited by Stil- 
 lingfleet. 
 
 f " Christi transactis tribus annis atque dncentis. 
 Scotia Catholicam caspit inire fidem." 
 Quoted both by John Major and John Fordun. 
 
 J " Et Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita." 
 
 'Tertull. Cont. Judajos, chap. vii. 
 
A.D. 369.] LKGEND OF ST EULB. 35 
 
 pillars of Hercules, and rode in the Bay of Biscay ; but, at 
 last overtaken 'by a storm more violent than any they had yet 
 encountered, they were whirled northward, and finally ship- 
 wrecked on the promontory of St Andrews. With difficulty 
 they escaped from the waves, bearing with them the precious 
 relics of the apostle. But on the shore there were dangers 
 as well as on the sea. The whole country was covered with 
 a vast forest, which was infested by wild boars ; and the 
 Pictish inhabitants, painted pagans, were scarcely less to be 
 dreaded. But the king was awed by the holy lives of the 
 saintly company, and in a short time he and his subjects 
 submitted to the rite of baptism.* Hard by the ruins of the 
 once noble cathedral of St Andrews there still stands a lofty 
 tower of undoubted antiquity. It is called St Eegulus's 
 tower. Some have imagined it belongs to the fourth or fifth 
 century ; but with far greater probability it is ascribed to 
 the twelfth. The legend belongs to the year 369. 
 
 We cannot dismiss this legend without remarking, that 
 many eminent historians are inclined to assign to the British 
 churches an Eastern rather than a Eoman origin. Neander 
 is of this number. t They are led to do so by the supposed 
 fact, that for many ages the Scotch Church agreed much 
 more closely with the Greek than the Latin Church in many 
 of its rites ; and claimed for itself an Asiatic origin, always 
 appealing to Polycarp, St Mark, and St John, as the sources 
 of the traditions it enjoyed. It is possible there may be a 
 grain of truth in the story of St Eule. 
 
 We now approach a period upon which the faint light of 
 history begins to shine. " In the eighth year of the reign 
 of Theodosius," says Bede, " Palladius was sent by Celes- 
 
 * Reliquise Divi Andreaj, Martin. Thomse Dempsteri Historia Ecclesiastica 
 Gentis Scotomm, sive, de Scriptoribus Scotis. St Eegulus, &c. &o. 
 
 t " As the Britons had not received their Christianity from Rome, but directly 
 or indirectly from the East, they had not been used to reverence the Eoman 
 Church as their mother-church, nor to place themselves in any relation of de- 
 pendence upon it." — General History of the Christian Eeligion and Church, 
 vol. V. § 1, Bohn's Edition. No authority is higher than Neander's ; and yet 
 we have doubts of the Eastern origin of the British Church. It was more 
 likely that the Eoman missionary would follow in the steps of the Eoman 
 soldier ; and the dependence was not felt, just because it was the twelfth cen- 
 tury before the Eoman hierarchy managed to stretch its dominion so wide. 
 
 c2 
 
36 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. ii. 
 
 tinus, the Eoman pontiff, to the Scots that believed in Christ 
 to be their first bishop."* This statement is confirmed by the 
 " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle," by Nennius, and other authori- 
 ties, so that there is no room to doubt its substantial truth. 
 But the difiiculty is, as to who are the Scots referred to. 
 Notwithstanding that all our older historians, and some of 
 our modern ones, appropriate Palladius, we have little hesi- 
 tation in believing that his mission was to Ireland. In 431 
 there was only a small and almost unknown colony of Scots 
 in Argyle. Hibernia was their proper seat ; and it was 
 thither the Roman legate went. It must be confessed, how- 
 ever, that there are strong traditions which speak of his hav- 
 ing visited Scotland, and of having been buried at Fordoun 
 in the Mearns. In the churchyard of that parish there is 
 still pointed out the remains of a building, which is said to 
 have been a chapel dedicated to the apostle, and to which 
 pilgrimages were once made from every part of the country. 
 Not far away there is a well, still called Paldy's well ; and 
 fountains regarded as sacred may retain a particular desig- 
 nation for many centuries.f From these circumstances we 
 are inclined to think with Stillingfleet " that Nennius has 
 hit upon the true account of the matter, viz., that Palladius 
 was sent by Celestine to convert the Scots, but finding no 
 great success therein, he was driven on the coasts of Britain, 
 and there died ; and after his death St Patrick was sent on 
 the same errand. "J 
 
 Three countries contend for the honour of having given 
 birth to the great apostle of Ireland — Scotland, Wales, and 
 
 * "Ecclesiastical History," Book I. chap. xiii. The words of the Anglo- 
 Saxon Chronicle are : — " a.d. 430. This year Palladius the bishop was sent 
 to the Scots hy Pope Celestinus, that he might confirm their faith." An 
 amusing controversy has been waged as to whether " first" in Bede is to he 
 understood in respect of time or position. Some episcopal writers have main- 
 tained that primus episcopos does not mean the first bishop who ever entered 
 Scotland (or Ireland), but indicates that Palladius was sent to he primate. 
 
 t Statistical Account of Scotland. Fordoun, 1795. 
 
 J Antiquities of the British Churches, chap. ii. The words of Nennius are :— 
 " During his (Patrick's, in captivity) continuance there, Palladius, the first 
 bishop, was sent hy Pope Celestine to convert the Scots. But tempests and 
 signs from God prevented his landing, for no one can arrive in any country 
 except it be allowed from above ; altering, therefore, his course from Ireland, 
 he came to Britain, and died in the land of the Picts." Hist, of the Britons, 
 
A.D. 372.] ST PATRICK. 37 
 
 Picardy. His own words, in the "Book of Confessions," 
 ascribed to him, and corroborated by other accounts, are, "My 
 father was Calphurnius, a deacon, who was the son of Potitus, 
 a presbyter, of the village of Bonaven of Tabernia." Jocelin 
 of Furnes, who wrote his life about the end of the twelfth 
 century, and who seems to have been in possession of ancient 
 documents, says, " that the territory was called Taburnia, 
 from its being a Eoman station, and that it was by the town 
 of Nempthor, on the shores of the Irish sea." Many anti- 
 quaries agree that these descriptions apply to Kilpatrick on 
 the Clyde, which is not far from the termination of the Eo- 
 man wall.* Dempster, who appropriates to Scotland almost 
 every saint in the calendar, has collected a whole host of 
 authorities to prove that St Patrick was a Scotchman. t Other 
 antiquaries, however, think that by Bonaven of Tabernia is 
 meant Boulogne-sur-mer in Picardy ; and the question cannot 
 now be indisputably settled. The year 372 is given as the 
 date of his birth, and wherever born, he is said in early youth 
 to have been taken captive by an Irish prince, and kept for 
 years as a swine-herd. | Eecovering his liberty, he went to 
 the south of France, and studied theology under the famous 
 St Martin of Tours, who is reported to have been a near re- 
 lation of his mother. At the age of sixty he returned to Ire- 
 land, the house of his bondage, and preached the gospel there 
 with such success, that he is said to have written 365 alpha- 
 bets, founded 365 churches, and ordained 365 bishops, besides 
 3000 presbyters.§ We may safely conclude this to be an 
 
 *■ Origines Parochiales Scotiae. Vol. i., Kilpatrick. 
 
 t Dempsteri Historia Ecolesiastica. S. Patricius. 
 
 } This is stated, upon the authority of Dempster, who oopys from fablers older 
 than himself. It is probably a fable. Nennius mentions it. 
 
 § In the text we have given the story as it is found in Dr Mackenzie's Life of 
 St Patrick, who quotes Nennius as his authority. — Lives and Characters of the 
 Most Eminent Writers of the Scots Nation, by Geo. Mackenzie, M.D. In 
 Bohn's translation of Nennius, the passage stands thus : — " He wrote 365 
 canonical and other books relating to the faith. He founded as many churches, 
 and consecrated the same number of bishops, strengthening them with the 
 Holy Ghost. He ordained 3000 presbyters, and converted and baptized 12,000 
 persons in the province of Connaught." History of the Britons, § 54. We 
 leave the reader to decide whether the 365 abc's or canonical books are the 
 more likely. 
 
38 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. u. 
 
 exaggeration, but, notwithstanding the fabulous atmosphere 
 which encompasses his life, enough of reality remains to 
 warrant us to rank him as the first and greatest of the bene- 
 factors of Ireland. His memory must once have been deeply 
 venerated in Scotland from the number of places which are 
 called by his name. 
 
 It was in this age a controversy arose in the Church re- 
 garding Grace and Free Will, than which none is more me- 
 morable, both from the interesting questions it involved, and 
 the illustrious disputants it brought upon the field. This 
 controversy arose out of certain opinions published by Pela- 
 gius, a Briton by birth ;* and defended with great logical 
 acumen by his disciple OEslestius, by some thought to be an 
 Irish Scot, and by others an Italian. They held that the 
 sins of our first parents were imputed to themselves alone, 
 and did not descend to their posterity ; that every new-born 
 infant is in precisely the same condition as Adam was before 
 the fall, with this disadvantage, that its faculties are not 
 fully developed from the first, and that their after-develop- 
 ment must take place amid evil influences. They, moreover, 
 maintained that there was no necessary impossibility in a 
 man being without sin ; though they hesitated to afiirm that 
 any man had actually lived from infancy to old age without 
 contracting some degree of guilt. If all sin, they said, it is 
 not through the original corruption of our nature, but from 
 our proneness to imitation, and the resistless force of evil ex- 
 ample. The will is entirely free, and we may avoid evil if 
 we choose. " If we cannot avoid sin," argued the subtle 
 Coelestius, " then there is no evil in committing it ; and if a 
 man can avoid it, then he may be without sin. If it be ask- 
 ed, Whether a man should be without sin ? without doubt it 
 will be answered, he ought ; and if he ought to be without 
 it, he can be without it, for there is no obligation when there 
 is no power." 
 
 The atonement of Christ, it was further maintained, was 
 not made for any fixed number of men, but for all. Without 
 
 «■ Though the birthplace of Pelagius be disputed, the weight of authority 
 assigns him to "Wales. Morgan is said to have been his original name, which 
 he translated into the Greek Pelagius. 
 
A.D. 400-420.] THE PELAGIAN CONTKOVERSY. 39 
 
 any exception, all may repent, reform, and believe, and so be 
 saved ; and in order to this they do not necessarily require 
 the assistance of Divine grace ; though God always gives the 
 assistance of His Holy Spirit to those who believe in Christ, 
 and thus enables them to attain to higher degrees of Chris- 
 tian perfection than they otherwise would. Besides these 
 direct advantages flowing from the mission of Christ, we 
 have likewise the benefit of His purer teaching and His di- 
 vine example, which help to counteract the adverse influence 
 of the world. Thus original sin, special election, converting 
 grace, were all denied, and salvation made to depend on the 
 efforts of our own free and uncorrupted will. 
 
 The great Augustine came forth to oppose these specious 
 errors ; a man who, for vigorous and original thinking, oc- 
 cupies by far the first place among the Fathers of the Church. 
 The opinions which he promulgated approximate very 
 nearly to those which are now generally received as orthodox. 
 He taught that the guilt of our first parents has descended 
 to their children, who are subject to God's wrath till they 
 be regenerated bj'' baptism. Instead of being able of our- 
 selves perfectly to keep God's law, our natural inclination 
 to evil is so strong, that it is only through the assistance of 
 Divine grace that we can repent, believe, and be saved. 
 This grace, however, is not given to all ; but only to such 
 as the inscrutable God, of His own sovereign pleasure, chooses 
 out of the mass of mankind to be the special objects of his 
 mercy. To these He gives strength to come to Christ, and 
 afterwards to persevere to the end in the paths of holiness. 
 Pelagius maintained that man is innocent at the hour of his 
 birth ; Augustine declared him to be guilty and corrupt. 
 Pelagius made salvation to rest upon man's own unaided 
 efforts ; Augustine attributed all to the grace of God. Pela- 
 gius threw heaven open to every one who would enter ; 
 Augustine declared there was an elect number, and that 
 these only could pass through the gates into the city.* 
 
 » The opinions of Augustine are to be collected from his voluminous works. 
 Unfortunately most of the writings of Pelagius are lost, but we have his Com- 
 mentaries on the Epistles of Paul preserved among the writings of Jerome. 
 There are also extant a Cetter to Demetria, likewise to be found among the 
 
40 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. n. 
 
 In the north of Africa, the Bishop of Hippo was omnipo- 
 tent, and there a council was called which condemned Pela- 
 gianism, and excommunicated Cselestius, who was present, 
 and refused to recant. But Pelagius had friends and influ- 
 ence in the East, and accordingly, in an assembly of bishops 
 held at Jerusalem, he was dismissed without censure, and 
 soon afterwards fully acquitted of all errors by a council 
 which met at Diospolis. Zosimus, the Bishop of Rome, at 
 first protected the Pelagians, but he afterwards, forgetting 
 his official infallibility, altered his mind, and severely con- 
 demned them. Imperial edicts were now issued against all 
 who held the heretical opinions, and refusal to retract was 
 followed by a confiscation of goods. After this period we 
 hear no more of Pelagius or Cselestius, and it is thought by 
 some that, fleeing from the imperial edicts, they sought 
 refuge in their native country, and were there very success- 
 ful in propagating their belief.* 
 
 When the controversy was at its hottest, Augustine was 
 joined by an invaluable ally in St Jerome. This monk was 
 perhaps the most learned man of his day, but certainly the 
 worst-tempered and most vituperative ; and he seems to 
 have anticipated other learned men in his thorough con- 
 tempt for the Scotch. In the abuse which he lavished upon 
 Pelagius, it is thought we have a clue to the place of his 
 birth. It would appear Pelagius was a portly man, and St 
 Jerome seizes upon this to taunt him with being swollen 
 with Scotch porridge.f The same Father, in his preface to 
 his third book upon the prophet Jeremiah, again breaks out 
 against Pelagius, calls him a Highland terrier, and declares 
 that, being sprung from the nation of the Scots, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Britons, he ought, like Cerberus, to be 
 
 writinga of Jerome ; a Confession of Faith to Pope Innocent ; and the fra-g- 
 ment of a treatise of the Power of Nature and Free Will, preserved in the 
 works of Augustine. 
 
 «■ Dr. Mackenzie, in his life of Pelagius, thinks that both Pelagius and Cse- 
 lestius fled to Britain. Bede says that Pelagianism was brought to Britain by a 
 certain Agricola ; and that Germanus and Lupus, Galilean prelates, were sent to 
 root it out, and were wonderfully successful in doing so. (Book I. chap, xvii.) 
 
 t Neo recordator stolidissimus et Scotorum pultihus prsegravatus. (Prsef. 
 in lib. i., Com. in Hierem.) 
 
A,D. 400-420.] AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS. 41 
 
 thoroughly beaten with a spiritual club, and, with his master 
 Pluto, consigned to eternal silence.* Others of his adver- 
 saries spoke of him in the same abusive way. Orosius says, 
 he had broad shoulders, a thick neck, a fat face, was lame, 
 and blind of an eye. f Augustine alone had the magnanimity 
 to do him justice. " He was a good man, and an eminent 
 Christian," said the Bishop of Hippo. " I have loved him, 
 and I love him stin."J 
 
 Augustine spoke only the truth when he said Pelagius 
 was a virtuous and pious man. A laynmn, and probably a 
 monk, he had spent the greater part of his life in seclusion. 
 Away from the world he had not felt the power of its 
 temptations ; endowed by nature with an easy temperament, 
 he had scarcely'' known the turbulence of evil passions, and 
 hence had been led to deny our original depravity, and to 
 think perfect virtue attainable by man. St Austin was a 
 man of another mould, and had lived a very different life. 
 Possessed of violent passions, which in early youth he had 
 been unable to control, he had run a wild career of de- 
 bauchery and unbelief. It was not without an inward agony 
 that he had passed from death unto life. He felt it was only 
 the grace of God that could work such a change ; that it was 
 only the mercy of God that could save such a sinner. In 
 the heart and history of these two great men we may thus 
 find the seeds of their respective systems. But something- 
 must also be attributed to their marked diversity of intellect. 
 
 * " Hie tacet, alibi criminatur, mittit in univeream orbem Epistolas BiLli- 
 naa, prius auriferas, nunc maledicas, ipseque mutus latrat, yiex Alpinum 
 [Albinum] Canem, grandem et corpulentum, et qui calcibus magis sjevive 
 possit, quam dentibus. Ilabet enim progeniem Scoticse gentis, de Britanno- 
 rum vicinia ; qui juxta fabulas poetarum, instar Cerberi, spirituali percuti- 
 endus est clava, ut seterno cum suo Magistro Plutone, silentio conticescat." 
 Tlie persons indicated in this passage are doubtful. Cardinals Norris and 
 Baronius and Archbishop Usher have thought that Pelagius and his disciple 
 Caelestius are referred to ; other scholars hold that it is to Rufinus (the 
 master of Pelagius) and Pelagius himself that Jerome alludes. We have 
 adopted the latter opinion. 
 
 f " Latos humeros gestantem robustamque cervicem, prseferentem etiam in 
 fronte pinguedinem, mutilum et fi,oiii<plx>.(cm.'' (Oros. in Apol. de Arbitrii Liber, 
 contra Pelag.) 
 
 + " Vir, ut audio, sanctus nee parvo prsefectu Christianus, bonus ac prsedi- 
 candus vir." (St Aug. de Peccat. Mer.) 
 
42 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. n. 
 
 Pelagius was content with those arguments which seemed 
 most plausible and specious ; and, if they appeared to prove 
 his point, he did not sufficiently inquire whether they har- 
 monized with the Divine attributes, or with other provinces 
 of the Divine procedure. Augustine looked farther and 
 deeper, grasped the whole subject at once in his compre- 
 hensive mind, and so constructed a system in every part 
 consistent with itself; and with an irresistible logic proved 
 that in human affairs the Deity must be all in all. The con- 
 troversy is not yet settled. It was revived in many of its 
 essential points in the contending tenets of Arminius and 
 Calvin ; and probably it will divide the Christian Church till 
 the end of time. 
 
 We have now reached the iifth century without being 
 able to discover the footprints of the apostle who first 
 preached the gospel in Britain. Yet we have now induhi- 
 table evidence that it had been preached, and that many had 
 received it with all gladness. History has not recorded the 
 event. The small seed had been sown in secret, which was 
 to become the greatest of all trees, and overshadow with its 
 branches all the nations of the world. But though we can- 
 not distinctly trace the introduction of Christianity to our 
 shores, there is no need of resorting to mystery or miracle 
 to account for it. Within a century from the death of the 
 Nazarene, He could not but be heard of in Britain ; for the 
 strange tragedy which had been enacted on the outside of 
 the walls of Jerusalem had been too much talked of every- 
 where not to he heard of here. It was startling to see how 
 the old worn-out religions fell to the ground before the reli- 
 gion of Jesus, as Dagon had fallen and been broken to j)ieces 
 in the presence of the ark. The Romans talked of this as 
 they sauntered about the Forum, when they met at the baths, 
 and when, reclining at dinner, they observed the old fashion 
 of pouring out libations of wine to their Gods. Even those 
 who despised the new faith, and esteemed it an odious super- 
 stition, could not refrain from speaking of it, for it had he- 
 come a great fact. Thus the religion of Jesus flew — His 
 name went out through all the earth, and His words to the 
 end of the world. 
 
A.JD. 400-420.] ROMAN INFLUENCES. 43 
 
 At this period there was a constant intercourse between 
 Rome and Britain. Roman traders were continually touch- 
 ing on the co,ast, and penetrating into the interior. Roman 
 legionaries were in the island by thousands, from the rude 
 mihs up to the accomplished centurio and the all-powerful 
 imperator. Roman colonies had been formed in several 
 districts of the south. All these must have come into daily 
 contact with the natives, and we know that by that contact 
 these natives were rapidly civilized. Amongst all these 
 traders, legionaries, and colonists, was there not one Chris- 
 tian, who would seize upon some propitious opportunity to 
 tell an inquiring Briton of the great sacrifice which had 
 recently been offered for the sins of the whole world ? When 
 everything else was discussed, was this subject never once 
 mentioned ? When the naked barbarians were told how to 
 ■clothe their persons, and how to plough their fields ; when 
 they were generously presented with the seeds of many of 
 those plants which now enrich our gardens with the fruits 
 of Italy and the Euxine ; when Roman temples, villas, and 
 baths began to rise, and Roman luxury to be everywhere in- 
 troduced, was there no channel by which that new religion, 
 which had already filled Rome with its martyrs and confes- 
 sors, could find an introduction too ? 
 
 We have good reason to believe, that before the expiry of 
 the second century a considerable proportion of the Roman 
 population had become Christian. Many of the soldiery 
 were professors of the new faith. In a campaign against 
 the Marcomanni, when Marcus Antoninus was emperor, the 
 army was surrounded by the enemy, and reduced to the 
 most desperate condition for want of water. They were re- 
 lieved from their distress by a sudden storm of thunder and 
 rain, which struck terror into the barbarians, and gave re- 
 freshment to them. By many this was attributed to the 
 prayers of the numerous Christians in one of the legions, 
 which was ever afterwards known as the thunder iny legion* 
 We mention this, not to claim it as a miracle, but simply to 
 prove that many Christians were in the ranks, and that, of 
 those who were stationed in Britain, there may have been 
 * Mosheim, II. Cent., part i. chap. i. 
 
44 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. H. 
 
 some who, like good soldiers of the cross, began to subdue 
 the island to Christ. 
 
 In order to feel this fully, we must bear in mind the dif- 
 fusive character of Christianity, and the missionary spirit 
 which animated all its first converts. Judaism was narrow 
 and exclusive, and the descendant of Abraham rejoiced in 
 the thought that he and his countrymen alone had the hope 
 of salvation. Paganism was easy and tolerant, and the 
 polite Roman, while himself preferring the worship of Jupi- 
 ter Capitolinus, had no fault to find with the Egyptian at 
 the shrine of Serapis. It was tliought there was even a 
 propriety in every province having its own divinities ; and 
 as the army added country after country to the empire, the 
 senate made no scruple of admitting its gods to the Pan- 
 theon. But Christianity was a religion of a different type ; 
 it bore upon its brow the emphatic words — " Thou shalt 
 worship the Lord thy G-od, and him only shalt thou serve." 
 It had no toleration for other Gods than the true G-od. It 
 had no belief in any other way of salvation than the one 
 pointed out by Christ. But with this intolerance of other 
 faiths, it combined a liberality worthy of its divine Author, 
 who makes His sun to rise and His rains to descend upon 
 every created thing. It did not seek to confine its benefits 
 to a few ; it desired to extend them to all. It aimed at the 
 empire of the world. The commission had been given to 
 preach the gospel to every creature, and every new disciple 
 felt that a necessity was laid upon him to communicate 
 to others the joyful secret himself had received. The very 
 exclusiveness of the system gave to this diffusive spirit in 
 its converts an additional intensity, for it was believed that 
 men could not escape if they neglected this great salvation. 
 The narrowness of the channel increased the depth and im- 
 petuosity of the stream. Every Christian was in haste to 
 bring others to Christ, lest, through delay, they might be 
 eternally lost. Thus this new and divine religion united at 
 once the earnestness of Judaism with the wide catholicity 
 of the pagan creed. 
 
 From this we may well believe, that if in the crowd of 
 foreigners who visited Britain there was one Christian, he 
 
A.D. 400-420.J SLOW SPKEAD OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 
 
 would not be silent regarding the faith he had embraced. 
 Men did not then wait till they were invested with apos- 
 tolic authority or ministerial character before they would 
 open their lips about the love of Jesus —they went every- 
 where preaching the gospel. It is highly probable it was 
 some pious legionary or some converted trader who first 
 told our ancestors of the way to heaven. His name is not 
 written in history, but it is recorded in the Book of Life. 
 The work of conversion would at first be slow, just as we 
 see it is now in Africa, India, or China. In general it 
 requires centuries to turn a people from an old faith to a 
 new one ; and it is rare indeed that a nation is born in a 
 day. But the work being begun would go steadily on, for 
 Druidism. with its cruel rites, could not ultimately with- 
 stand the mild and merciful religion of Jesus. Every new 
 convert gained would be in reality a new apostle set apart 
 for the preaching of the Word ; and the massacre of the 
 Druids in Mona, like the burning of the temple at Jerusalem, 
 would remove a great obstacle to the triumph of the cross. 
 Thus strangely is the wrath of man overruled to subserve 
 the purposes of an eternal Providence. 
 
 It is more than probable that Christianity made its way to 
 Scotland from the South. With converts in one end of the 
 island, it could not but be heard of in the other. It has 
 been supposed by many that the persecution by Diocletian, 
 which raged throughout the whole empire in the end of the 
 third century, would lead many British Christians to take 
 refuge in the mountains beyond the Koman wall, and thus 
 introduce Christianity into our country. There is good 
 reason, however, to believe, that under the mild government 
 of Constantius, Britain suffered very little from this perse- 
 cution, and though the names of two or three martyrs are 
 preserved, we know that in general, while churches were 
 thrown down, life was respected and spared. There was 
 nothing to occasion a flight to the north. But a persecution 
 was not required to scatter throughout the island the seed of 
 the Word. The natural intercourse betwixt the north and 
 the south was enough to effect it. We may safely say that, 
 Avithin fifty years after Christianity was known in Middle- 
 
46 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. ii. 
 
 sex and Devon, it would be heard of at least in Clydesdale 
 and Perth. What more likely than that some converted 
 Briton, burning v^ith apostolic ardour, vp^ould carry to his 
 Celtic brethren in the north the message of mercy, and 
 make our glens for the first time to echo the high praises of 
 God. 
 
 There is an incident connected with this period in the 
 history of our country too interesting to be omitted, and 
 though it does not bear directly upon the introduction of 
 Christianity into our island, it is intimately connected with 
 its progress throughout the world. Towards the close of the 
 third century, the legions in Britain were commanded by 
 Constantius Chlorus, a Roman officer of approved ability. In 
 a native hostelry, the General happened to see the inn- 
 keeper's daughter, who made such a deep impression on his 
 heart that, forgetful of their disparity of rank and nation, he 
 resolved to make her his wife. This Constantius was sub- 
 sequently raised to the dignity of Ceesar, and though his 
 elevation was followed by the divorce of Helena, that he 
 might strengthen his position by an imperial alliance, yet 
 their son Constautine discovered such great qualities that, 
 when his father died at York, he was saluted as Augustus 
 by the acclaims of the army.* It was this Constantino who 
 afterwards acquired for himself the surname of the Great, 
 and who gave to Christianity its first legal recognition in 
 the empire. The British innkeeper's daughter, the Empress 
 Helena, besides possessing the honour of having given birth 
 to the great Christian Emperor, is greatly celebrated by all 
 pious Eomanists for her pilgrimage to Palestine, the dis- 
 covery of the wood of the true cross, and the erection of the 
 Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Some historians affirm that 
 it was she who instructed her son in Christianity, but others, 
 with more appearance of truth, maintain that it was the son 
 who converted the mother. 
 
 It is evident that, though Christianity was early known in 
 Caledonia, it was a long time before it made any visible 
 progress. In the sixth century the Northern Picts are still 
 
 * Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Koman Empire, cliap. xiv. 
 
A.D. 400-420.] CALEDONIAN WOOD. 47 
 
 spoken of as Gentile barbarians,* and probably it was a 
 hundred years more ere the bulk of the people were baptized 
 into Christ. Instead of wondering at this, we should rather 
 be surprised that it made any converts at all among a 
 people so rude as our ancestors, all whose habits and pro- 
 pensities were opposed to the peaceful and forgiving spirit 
 of the gospel. In order to understand the difficulties with 
 which it had to struggle, and the beneficial change it has 
 wrought, we must try and discover what we can of the state 
 of our country during the first centuries of the Christian 
 era. 
 
 The central district of the kingdom was covered with one 
 vast forest, called the Caledonian wood,t vestiges of which 
 still remain in those extensive peat-mosses we everywhere 
 meet with, and from which we occasionally dig huge trunks 
 of blackened oak, the remains of trees which stretched out 
 their branches to the sky when the Romans were entrenched 
 at Ardoch and Dungiass. This forest gave shelter to enor- 
 mous wild boars, J and formidable packs of wolves, which 
 were not extirpated till more than a thousand years after 
 the time we refer to. Those parts of the country which 
 were not covered with wood, were either bare mountains or 
 impassable fens, through which the naked aborigines swam 
 or waded, with the mud and water up to their waist, with 
 the same agility as the wild duck splutters through the reeds 
 of a marsh ; but the heavy-armed legionaries could cross 
 them only on mounds of earth, which were formed with in- 
 finite labour and expense.§ The population of such a 
 country must have been extremely sparse ; and we probably 
 exceed the truth when we estimate it at two hundred thou- 
 
 * Gentiles bartari. (Adomnani Vita Columbse.) 
 
 t " Ad occidentem Vararis habitabant Caledonii, proprie sic dicti, quorum 
 regionis partem tegebat immensa ilia Caledonia sylva." (Eicardi Corinensis, 
 " De situ Britanniae," lib. i. chap, vi.) 
 
 I Muckross was the ancient name of St Andrews, which means the ' boars' 
 promontory.' 
 
 § "Eam (Caledoniam) dum pertransiret, habuit plurimum negotii, quod 
 silvas cajderet, edita dirueret, paludes repleret aggere, et flumina pontibus jun- 
 geret." Dio, lib. Ixxvi. chap. xiii. The passage refers to the campaign of Seve- 
 rus. " His (Severus's) first and chief care ^\•as to erect bridges on the marisby 
 grounds, that so his soldiers might stand safe and fight as well as upon firm 
 
48 CHURCH HISTOHY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. ir. 
 
 sand, about half of the present population of Glasgow alone. 
 The soil, not yet subjected to the plough, could not sustain 
 more. 
 
 They had no other habitation than miserable huts formed 
 of wattles and the branches of trees, with an opening in the 
 centre of the roof to allow the smoke to escape. They had 
 no clothing but the skin of a wild beast thrown across their 
 shoulders ; but they painted their naked bodies, as savage 
 tribes frequently do, either from feelings of vanity, or to 
 make themselves look more terrible to their enemies in 
 battle. The Picts, improving upon this, punctured upon 
 their skins a variety of fantastic figures, as our sailors some- 
 times still puncture the picture of an anchor on their arm. 
 They lived by hunting and pasturing flocks of sheep and 
 cattle ; but war seems to have been their principal trade. 
 They led, in short, a savage life, and savage life has no 
 varieties ; in all countries and periods it is the same. One 
 of our antiquaries declares the Dalriad Scots to have been 
 savages in the extreme, with habits dijfering little from 
 those of the Hottentots ;* and St Jerome, whose love for our 
 nation we have already seen, affirms, that when a young- 
 man in Gaul, he had seen some Scots eating human flesh. t 
 With every wish to give credit to the monk of Bethlehem, we 
 cannot understand how this thing could be. It is difficult 
 to conceive what could have brought these cannibals to 
 Gaul ; and though there, and at large, surely human flesh 
 could not constitute their ordinary food, for we will not 
 believe that the Franks willingly allowed themselves, or 
 their wives, or their children, to be eaten. The only sup- 
 position we can form to account for the horrid vision Jerome 
 
 ground ; for many places in Britain are marshy, because of the overflowings of 
 the ocean. The barbarians themselves swim through these moors and marshes, 
 and run up to the bellies in them, not regarding the mud, with their naked 
 bodies, for they are ignorant of the use of garments to clothe them." Hero- 
 dian, as translated in the translation of Buchanan's History of Scotland, 
 Boot iii. 
 
 * Pinkerton. (See his Inquiry.) 
 
 t Quid loquar de cseteris nationibus, cum ipse adolescentulus in Gallia 
 Scotos, Britannicam gentem, humanis vesci carnibus viderim. Lib. ii., ad 
 Jovian, chap. vi. 
 
A.D. 400-420.] SCOTS NOT CANNIBALS. 49 
 
 declares he had seen is, that a company of north em savages 
 was exhibited in the amphitheatre, and that the monk went 
 to see them at feeding-time. It is too absurd ; our ances- 
 tors were barbarians, but they were not cannibals. 
 
 Such was the people among whom Christianity had now 
 to make its way. It could be no triumphal march, but a 
 slow and painful progress over opposing prejudice and pas- 
 sions. The contrast between the present and the past in 
 our country, to which Christianity has largely contributed, 
 is among the proudest of the many trophies it has won. 
 
50 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. HI. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 St NmiAN* is the first preacher of Christianity in Scot- 
 land whose name has come down to us. The time and place 
 of his hirth are doubtful ; but, like almost all the saints of 
 early times, he is declared to have been of royal blood ; f and 
 we know it was in the beginning of the fifth century that 
 he laboured among the Galwegians and southern Picts. He 
 is briefly mentioned by Bede " as a most reverend bishop 
 and holy man of the British nation, who had been regularly 
 instructed at Eome in the faith and mysteries of the truth."{ 
 His biography was written by Abbot iElred in the twelfth 
 century; but it is meagre of facts, and abounds with miracles, 
 and very little reliance can be placed upon it. It would 
 appear that in his youth he studied under the famous St 
 Martin of Tours, who is said to have been his uncle. Ee- 
 turning to Britain, he began his apostolic labours in the 
 southern districts of Scotland, and his pious zeal was rewarded 
 by a large measure of success. He went everywhere preach- 
 ing the Word, and the naked savages listened, wondered, and 
 were converted. "He hastened," says his biographer, " about 
 the work to which he had been sent by the Spirit, under the 
 
 * Frequently corrupted into Einian, Trinian, and Ringan. It is to this saint 
 Friar John addresses his matins : — 
 
 Awake, Eeinian ; ho, awake ; 
 
 Awake, Eeinian, ho : 
 Get up, you no more sleep must take ; 
 Get up, for we must go. 
 
 Rabelais, hy Sir Thos. TJequhaet. 
 t L. Ninianus, Pictorum episcopua, regio Britannorum sanguine, Eomam 
 Tenit Adolescens. (Dempsteri Historia Ecoleslastioa.) 
 J Ecclesiastical History, book iii., chap. iv. 
 
A.D. 400.] LABOURS OF ST. NINIAN. 51 
 
 command of Christ; and being received in his country, 
 there was a great concourse and running together of the 
 people, much joy in all, wonderful devotion ; the praise of 
 Christ everywhere resounds ; some took him for a prophet. 
 Presently the strenuous husbandman entered the field of his 
 Lord, began to root up those things which were badly jjlanted, 
 to disperse those badly collected, and to destroy those badly 
 built. The minds of the faithful being finally purged of 
 all error, he began to lay in them the foundations of sincere 
 faith, building upon the gold of wisdom, and the argument 
 of knowledge, and the stones of good works ; all which 
 things to be done by the faithful, he both taught by word 
 and showed by example, and with many and great miracles 
 confirmed."* So great was the success which followed his 
 preaching, according to the same monkish authority, that 
 thousands came crowding to his baptism, renouncing the 
 devil, and joining the army of the faithful. To supply their 
 lack of ordinances, the good Ninian accordingly ordained 
 priests, consecrated bishops, conferred ecclesiastical digni- 
 ties, and divided the whole land into parishes. One cannot 
 help marvelling that such language should be used of the 
 barbarian Picts, who at that very time were waging a relent- 
 less war against the defenceless Britons — butchering all, 
 sparing none. It was among such wild marauders Ninian 
 must have laboured, and one cannot but applaud his heroism; 
 but it is evident, that while he may have persuaded many 
 to submit to the Christian rite of baptism, he did not manage 
 to change their nature, or to inoculate them with the peaceful 
 spirit of the Gospel. That they understood the fine contro- 
 versy regarding Grace and Free Will ; that they repudiated 
 Pelagianism, and were most orthodox in their creed, as ^Ired 
 insinuateSjf this sceptical generation will probably refuse to 
 
 * Vita Niniani, autore Ethelreiio Eievalensi, — quoted and translated in Rit- 
 son's Annals of Strath-Clyde. 
 
 t It must be to the Pelagian heresy that Jilred refers when he speaks of 
 Ninian plucking up those things which were badly planted, &c. &c. ; but there 
 seems to be an anachronism in it, for it was a.d. 412 that Cielestius and the 
 Pelagian tenets were first condemned in the Council of Carthage, and Ninian 
 ' is supposed to have begun his labours before that time. It was impossible 
 they could be known in Scotland so early. 
 
 d2 
 
52 CHURCH HISTOKT OF SCOTLAND. [chap. hi. 
 
 believe. The Abbot of Eievall's biography is too rhetorical 
 to be accurate — too full of miracles to be implicitly believed. 
 He applies the language, sentiments, and facts of his own 
 time to those of St Ninian, as is obvious from this one cir- 
 cumstance, that he speaks of the saint erecting parishes, 
 whereas parochial divisions were unknown in Scotland till 
 many centuries after.* 
 
 Having fixed his principal residence in Galloway, the holy 
 man began to build a church of stone on the shores of the 
 Sol way. This is said to have been the first stone structure 
 erected in our country ; and if so, for this alone Ninian de- 
 serves our gratitude and respect. From its white and glis- 
 tening aspect, compared with the log and mud cabins hitherto 
 used, it was called in Latin Candida Casa, in Saxon JEiuit- 
 heme — a designation which has survived in Whithorn till 
 the present day.f While the church was yet building, 
 Ninian received intelligence that his friend and patron, St 
 Martin of Tours, had migrated to heaven, upon which he 
 piously resolved to dedicate his church to his honour. This 
 enables us to fix the date of its erection, for we know that 
 St Martin died about a.d. iOO.J 
 
 W^ cannot but believe Ninian to have been a good and 
 venerable man, who laboured hard in his Master's vifork 
 among barbarous tribes ; and though he cast the good seed 
 on rough and rocky ground, some of it found root in the cre- 
 vices, and sprung up, and in future years bore its fruit. His 
 name is for ever associated with the origin of our Scottish 
 piety. Canonized by Eome, and celebrated by monkish 
 fables, he is more to be envied in that his memory is em- 
 balmed in the hearts of the Christian children of those 
 pagan barbarians amongst whom he toiled and died, and in 
 that he will be kept in everlasting remembrance by the vil- 
 lages, churches, and wells called by his name. On the arms 
 of the See of Galloway there is a figure of St Ninian, as a 
 frocked and mitred bishop. We cannot so picture to our- 
 
 * Origjnes Parochiales Scotise. Introduction, 
 t Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book iii. cliap. iv. 
 
 X Pinkerton, following Snlpicius Seyerus and Usher, gives a.d. 398 as the ■ 
 date of Martin's death. 
 
A.D. 400-500 ] ST COLUMBA. 63 
 
 selves the holy man, but rather liken him to those poor but 
 ardent apostles who went forth from the shores of Tiberias 
 to preach the gospel to every creature. 
 
 We must now overleap another whole century, during 
 which everything connected with the Christianity of Scot- 
 land is buried in gloom. We have no traces of those who 
 succeeded Ninian in his missionary work, and kept alive 
 among the Picts to the south of the Grampians the faith 
 which they had received ; but we have every reason to be- 
 lieve that he had his successors, and that the altar-fire which 
 he kindled was never allowed to go out. Neither have we 
 authentic records of any others who, during this period, may 
 have laboured in other parts of the Scottish field. After St 
 Ninian, Oolumba is the next whose name has emerged from 
 the darkness of the age in which he lived, and the still 
 deeper darkness of the ages which succeeded. But with this 
 celebrated saint begins the most interesting period in our 
 ancient ecclesiastical annals. 
 
 St Oolumba, or Colum, is happy in having two biographers, 
 who were both his successors in the Monastery of lona, and 
 lived not very far from his own day. Cumin wrote sixty- 
 nine, and Adomnan eighty-three years after the death of 
 Oolumba, a period during which the memory might easily 
 preserve every important event connected with a celebrated 
 man, and which gives us room to imagine that both bio- 
 graphers may have conversed with old men who could tell 
 of having seen Oolumba in their youth. Yet this short 
 interval was enough to surround the life of the saint 
 with a mythical haze, so that his biographer Adomnan 
 professes, in his three books, to relate only the prophecies 
 uttered, the miracles wrought, and the divine visions 
 enjoyed by the holy abbot. We shall cease to wonder at 
 this when we remember that in those dark days the 
 power of working miracles was thought essential to the 
 character of a saint ; and probably some of these good 
 but superstitious men, by a very natural self-deception, 
 believed they really possessed the power, as our kings 
 and queens once flattered themselves that their touch 
 would cure the scrofula. It was in this very age that 
 
54 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. hi. 
 
 the Pope gravely wrote to Augustine in England not to glory 
 too much in his miracles.* 
 
 Columba was horn in Ireland in the year 521. His father 
 was Fedhlimid M'Fergus, and his mother Aethnea M'Nave.t 
 We are told that even from his boyish years he was addicted 
 to learning, and especially to the study of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures. He was first of all placed under the care of a pious 
 presbyter named Cruinechaii ; and he afterwards obtained a 
 fuller knowledge of Christianity from Finian, bishop of 
 Clonfert, and the famous St Ciaran, who, it appears, had 
 preached before this time to the Dalriad Scots in Argyle, 
 and who has bequeathed his name to the parish of Kilkerran. 
 About the year 545 he is said to have founded a noble 
 monastery, named Dearmach, from the oaks which grew in 
 its neighbourhood, and which is now identified with Durrogh 
 in King's County.J In 563 he left Ireland for the Hebrides, 
 some attributing his removal to political transactions in 
 which he had been involved, and others to a pious wish to 
 disseminate the light of the gospel in countries where it was 
 yet but little known. Setting sail in an open boat of wicker- 
 work covered with hides, and accompanied by twelve com- 
 panions, he reached the Island of lona on the evening of 
 Whitmonday, and landed at a point on the coast which tra- 
 dition has preserved, and where an artificial mound, faintly 
 resembling an inverted boat, is said to be fashioned after the 
 pattern of the currach in which the saint navigated the sea.§ 
 
 Conal MacComgail was at this time King of the Dalriad 
 Scots, and Brude of the Picts ; the former of whom gifted to 
 Columba the island upon which he had settled his colony of 
 pious men. II Here he founded his monastery, afterwards so 
 famous in the history of the Church. But Columba did not 
 confine himself to the solitary rock ; he frequently visited 
 the mainland, and appears to have acquired a considerable 
 
 * Bede, book i. cliap. xxxi. t Origines Parocliiales Scotite — lona. 
 
 X Ibid. 
 
 § Ibid. Statistical Account of Scotland — Kilfiniclien and Kilviceuan, 1795. 
 
 II Pinkerton (see his Inquiry) maintains that Columba got a gift of lona 
 from the Picts, then in possession of the Hebrides. But Eitson and the editor 
 of the Origines Parochiales say, the grant came from the Scotch king, and 
 the greatest weight of authority seems to be on their side. 
 
A.D. 5C3.] CONVERSION OF THE PIGTS. 55 
 
 ascendancy over its monarchs. It was among the Picts that 
 he chiefly prosecuted his apostolic work. Christianity ap- 
 pears to have hitherto made no progress amongst them ; 
 they are descrihed as " Gentile barbarians ;" they were ad- 
 dicted to sorcery and magic ; and to Columba belongs the 
 high honour of having converted them to the faith. Adom- 
 nan records a visit which the saint made to the king at his 
 royal palace near Inverness : some of the incidents in which 
 illustrate the superstitions of the Picts, the character of the 
 apostle now ber^t on their conversion, and the love of the 
 miraculous in his biographer. 
 
 The king, in his idolatrous pride, shut his gates against 
 Oolumba, but the holy man touched them with his finger, 
 and this acting, like the talismanic opera sesame in the Ara- 
 bian tale of Ali Baba, they flew open of themselves. On 
 another occasion, while the saint was celebrating the praises 
 of God, some magicians coming near endeavoured to hinder 
 him, lest the sound of the divine praise from his mouth 
 should be heard among the pagan people ; but Columba, 
 perceiving this, began to sing the forty-fourth psalm with 
 such energy, that his voice appeared like thunder, and fllled 
 the king and his people with intolerable fear. We are 
 further informed, that in that country there was a fountain, 
 the haunt of demons, in which all who washed were afflicted 
 with some dreadful disease, so that the people from supersti- 
 tious fear paid it divine reverence. To this fountain Columba 
 repaired, the magi following, expecting to see him smitten 
 with leprosy. But the Saint, having first invocated the name 
 of Christ, washed in its waters his hands and his feet, and 
 the demons departing, it was ever afterwards as famous 
 for curing diseases as it had previously been for inflicting 
 them.* 
 
 It is difficult at first to divine what could have led Columba 
 to fix his monastery in lona — a barren rock washed by a 
 tempestuous sea. We cannot believe that he was floated 
 thither by the random winds and waves, and that chance 
 decided the spot whence letters and religion were afterwards 
 to be carried over the whole country. Leaving the north of 
 * Adomnani Vita Columba?. 
 
56 CHURCH HISTOBY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. hi. 
 
 Ireland, and turning his prow a little to the east, he would 
 naturally have touched first upon the coast of Wigton or 
 the Mull of Cantyre. lona is due north from Ireland, and 
 is distant from it upwards of a hundred miles. At that 
 period there must have been a constant intercourse between 
 the Scots of Ireland and the Scots of Argyle, and the navi- 
 gation of the sea which separated them been well under- 
 stood. The truth is, that though we wonder now that such 
 a sequestered isle should be chosen for such a purpose, it was 
 in accordance with the notions and practice of the age. 
 Eeligion generally made her abode in some island off the 
 coast, whether to give greater safety to the defenceless 
 priests, or more perfect seclusion from the din of the world. 
 Druidism had its chief seat in Anglesey. Christianity found 
 its first resting-place in lona. Lindisferne was the earliest 
 centre of the Northumbrian Church ; and Lismore was the 
 ancient residence of the bishops of Argyle. 
 
 lona, from first to last, has borne no fewer than thirty 
 names.* Of these the most common are I, lona, and Icolm- 
 kill. I is the name generally used by the natives, and sig- 
 nifies simply an island. lona is " the island of waves," and it 
 was so called from the heavy swell of the Atlantic, which 
 rolls in upon its shores. Icolmkill is " the island of Colum 
 of the Cells."f It is about three miles long, by a mile and 
 a half broad. Its surface is in general low and uninterest- 
 ing, rising into a few irregular heights, and its coast is in- 
 dented by small rocky bays. It is separated from the Island 
 
 '' Origines Parochiales Scotiffi' — lona, — wliere the whole thirty are recorded ; 
 many of these, however, are just diiferent forms of the same word. 
 
 t I have taken these meanings of the names from the Statistical Account 
 of Kilfinichen and Kilviceuen, written by the minister, the Hev. Dugal 
 Campbell, in 1795. " The island," says Neander, "was named after himself, 
 St lona (the names Oolumba and lona being, probably, one the Latin, the 
 other the Hebrid translation of an originally Irish word)." This is ridiculous, 
 and we must not take Neander as an authority in regard to the name of a 
 Gaelic island. " lona is a corruption of li-shona (pronounced Ee-hona, the s 
 in Gaelic being silent before an aspirate), and signifies Holy Island." This 
 is the opinion of Dr Lindsay Alexander in his excellent little tract on lona, 
 chap. i. In Icolmkill, the terminal " kill " is the Gaelic " cille " (pronounced 
 Icill), signifying a cell or church. It is more frequently used as an initial 
 syllable, as in Kilbride, the Church of St Bride. 
 
A.D. 563-98.] lONA. 57 
 
 of Mull by a narrow strait of about a ruile in width, and 
 from the nearest point on the mainland by about thirty- 
 six miles of water. The almost incessant jumble of the 
 sea, caused by its currents and tides being broken by 
 numerous headlands, and lashed by squalls from the hills, 
 must have made its navigation dangerous in open currachs 
 in the days of Columba. In our day, the summer tourist, 
 taking a steamboat at Oban, can glide safely and swiftly 
 through the deep waters of the Sound of Mull; catch a 
 ghmpse of the ruined holds of the ancient Lords of the 
 Isles, beetling on the summit of lofty crags ; emerge on 
 the bosom of the wide Atlantic ; gaze with wonder on 
 the basaltic columns and resounding caves of Staffa ; and 
 finally feel himself " treading," with Dr Johnson, " that 
 illustrious island which was once the luminary of the Cale- 
 donian regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians 
 derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of re- 
 ligion."* 
 
 In this island Colum built his cell.f It must have been 
 a very rude structure, formed, as we know it was, of logs, 
 and thatched with reeds ; and we must not confound it with 
 those ruins which still give a religious aspect to the island, 
 and which belong to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 
 Columba now applied himself almost entirely to the govern- 
 ment of his little community, and the remainder of his life 
 was spent in the midst of it. The time of his companions 
 appears to have been divided between devotion, the copying 
 religious books, and the labours of the field ; and we read 
 with intense interest of the Saint, in his old age, going out 
 in his car to see them at work and give them his bless- 
 ing.J He is said to have rigorously excluded all women 
 from the island ; but as his followers were free to marry, 
 there was an island not far distant assigned fur a residence 
 to thei'r wives, and which is still called " the Isle of the 
 
 * Tour to the Hebrides. 
 
 t We have many names of towns beginning with the syllable " Kil," which 
 siguiiies that those were anciently the cells or churches of particular saints. 
 Kilmarnock is the cell of Marnock, Kilpatrick the cell of Patrick, and so of 
 Kilbride, Kilkerran, Kilninian, Kilblanp, &c. &o. 
 
 } Adomnani Vita Columbai. 
 
58 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. hi. 
 
 Women."* He is also said to have excluded all cows from 
 lona, acting on a maxim which has passed into a proverb, 
 that " where there's a cow there will be a woman ; and where 
 there's a woman there will be mischief ;" but the language 
 of his biographer Adomnan seems to contradict this.f His 
 monastery included a-church or oratory, with an altar and re- 
 cesses ; an hospitium, this being either a house for the enter- 
 tainment of strangers, or the common name for the separate 
 cells of the monks ; a dwelling-house for the saint himself; 
 a barn for laying up the produce of the fields ; and a "place," 
 probably surrounded by the buildings enumerated. The 
 recluses were called to their devotions by a bell.§ Here 
 for thirty-four years Columba lived and laboured, training 
 men for the missionary work ; unless when he occasionally 
 visited the mainland to found churches, or water those he 
 had already planted. So abundant were his labours in this 
 field that he acquired for himself the name of Columkille, 
 which signifies Colum of the Churches. On the last day of 
 his life, and when he was now seventy-seven years of age, 
 he was occupied copying the Psalter, and finished his earthly 
 labours with the words of the thirty-fourth psalm — " They 
 that seek the Lord will not want any good thing." When 
 the bell sounded the hour for midnight prayers, the good 
 old man, rigid in the observance of his own rules to the 
 very last, though suffering from some illness which made 
 him feel that his death was at hand, rose from his dormitory, 
 hurried to the church, and prostrated himself before the 
 altar ; but the effort was too much, and he sunk to the floor. 
 His faithful servant Diarmid, and others who had come to 
 the church to worship like himself, were soon beside him 
 and lifted him up, but he had only strength to raise his hand 
 in token that he blessed them before he died. His sorrow- 
 ing followers wrapped his body in clean linen, and com- 
 mitted it to the dust, there to rest, says his biographer, 
 " until in luminous and eternal brightness he should be 
 
 * Eilean nam ban — women's isle. See Dr Alexander's lona, chap. iv. ; also 
 Dr Jamieson's History of the Culdees. 
 
 t Origines Parochiales Scotife — lona. % Ibid. 
 
A.D. 598.] CHARACTEH OF COLUMBA. 59 
 
 raised again."* His remains do not, however, appear to have 
 been allowed to rest in the grave, for we have several records 
 of their having been carried at diiferent times to Ireland, 
 and back again to Scotland ;f and where they now repose 
 it is impossible to discover. 
 
 Columba must have been a very remarkable man. The 
 influence which he obtained over the barbarous kings of the 
 Scots and the Picts — the conversions he made, and the 
 churches he founded — the veneration in which he was held 
 by his followers and friends — and the virtual primacy he 
 possessed over the Christianity of the whole country, are 
 ample evidence of the fact. Like some of Homer's heroes, 
 he is celebrated for the powers of his voice, which is said to 
 have been audible at the distance of a mile. Next to 
 strength of arm, strength of lungs appears to have been held 
 in repute in those rude ages ; and the thundering commands 
 of the captain, the shouts of the warrior, and the declama- 
 tion of the preacher, had their strong influence in compelling 
 obedience and generating awe. But we would wrong the 
 memorj' of Columba did we imagine it was merely by dint of 
 vociferation that he obtained his ecclesiastical supremacy. 
 He was a man of letters ; spent a large portion of his own time 
 in transcribing the works of the ancients, and compelled his 
 recluses to employ themselves in the same way ; and there 
 is a general tradition that there was within the monastery 
 of lona a noble library, in which the learned once dreamt 
 there might be found the lost books of Livy.f The pro- 
 found love with which he was universally regarded proves 
 that he must have possessed many amiable qualities ; and 
 the story of the old mare that brought milk to the monastery, 
 coming and laying her head on his breast and weeping, a 
 
 * In luminosa et astcrnali resurreoturum claritudine. (Adomnani Vita 
 ColumlisB.) 
 
 t Origiiie3 Parochiales Scotije — lona. 
 
 J Gibbon, in a note to the Decline and Fall of the Eoman Empire, aUudes to 
 this. BoetMus says that Eneas Sylvias (afterwards Pope Pius II.), when in 
 Scotland, intended to have visited the library in search of the missing decades, 
 but was prevented. Notwithstanding the tradition, wo may be permitted to 
 doubt the extent of this library. 
 
60 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. nr. 
 
 few days before his death, presents to us iu a fabulous form 
 a touching picture of the fact.* 
 
 The death of Cokimba was not followed by the decay of 
 his religious community. For many years lona was the 
 light of the western world, and sent forth men, eminent 
 for their learning and piety, to found bishoprics, abbacies, 
 and universities, in every quarter of Europe. But the monks 
 did not enjoy that undisturbed safety and repose which we 
 might imagine they would on their solitary rock. It is re- 
 corded that in the year 744, a great number of the commu- 
 nity perished iu a violent storm. In 801 the monastery 
 was burnt to the ground by the Norse pirates. In 806 the 
 Vikingr again landed on the devoted island, and cruelly 
 slaughtered sixty-eight of its inhabitants. In 985 lona was 
 again visited by the Danes, who slew the abbot and fifteen 
 of his monks. Hitherto these wild Norsemen, who were 
 still worshippers of Odin, burnt churches and slaughtered 
 priests without mercy and without remorse. But they re- 
 ceived Christianity early in the eleventh century, and in 
 their next descent on the Hebrides we have evidence of its 
 power. In 1097 Magnus Berfset, King of Norway, when 
 on an expedition to the Sudreyar and Ireland, landed at I; 
 but instead of butchering its pious people, he granted them 
 his peace, and allowed them to retain their possessions. 
 The Norse Sagas inform us that he opened their little 
 chiirch and entered, but immediately came out again, and 
 locking it up, gave orders that none should dare to violate 
 its sanctityf . 
 
 In the twelfth century Kome was everywhere triumph- 
 ant in Scotland, and lona passed into the possession of 
 Oluniac monks. Its pure and primitive faith had departed ; 
 its renown for piety and learning was gone ; but the memory 
 of these survived, and it was now regarded with greater 
 superstitious reverence than ever. Long before this it had 
 been made the burial-place of royalty, numerous pilgrimages 
 were made to it, and now kings and chiefs began to enrich 
 it with donations of tithes and land.J The walls which are 
 now crumbling were tlien reared : and the voyager beholds 
 
 « Adnmnan. f Origiues Parochiales Scotifs— lona. 1 Ihid, 
 
A.D. oOO-GOO.J ST MUNGO. 61 
 
 tliese venerable ecclesiastical remains rising from a bare 
 moor and in the midst of a wide ocean, with feelings akin to 
 those with which he regards the temples at Thebes standing 
 half buried amid the sands of the desert. 
 
 Contemporary with Columba was St Mungo, the patron 
 saint of Glasgow. While there is no donbt of the existence 
 of such a person, unfortunately his life is involved in 
 fable. He is said to have been the son of Eugenius III., 
 King of the Scots, and of Thametis, a daughter of Lothus, 
 King of the Picts. This royal lady, finding herself with 
 child and unmarried, out of shame and dread of her father's 
 anger, stole privately away and put to sea, but was ship- 
 wrecked on the coast where the town of Culross now stands. 
 Here the infant Kentigern was born, and no sooner born 
 than abandoned by his mother. St Serf, whom tradition 
 points out as the apostle of the Orkneys, was living in the 
 neighbourhood, and by him the sea-born infant was baptized. 
 As the child grew up, he gave early indications of piety and 
 genius, and St Serf taking a particular liking to him, care- 
 fully initiated him in the mysteries of the faith, and being 
 in the habit of calling him " Mongah," which in the Norse 
 tongue signifies " dear friend," from this arose the appella- 
 tion of Mungo, by which the Saint is now generally known. 
 
 At the east end of the town of Culross, on the sea coast, 
 there are or were the remains of a church, called St Mungo's 
 Chapel, connected with which there is a tradition that it was 
 near this spot that Kentigern was born. Of Culross, St 
 Serf was the tutelary saint, and till very recently the first of 
 July was made a day of solemn rejoicings and processions 
 in his honour. But probably none of these facts will bend 
 our assent to the strange story of Kentigern's birth, and ex- 
 posure on the shore.* The monks are ever fond of connect- 
 ing their favourite saints with royalty, and will rather allow 
 them to be born in bastardy and of unnatural mothers, than 
 suffer them to want the kingly pedigree. 
 
 It has been disputed whether Kentigern was a bishop, or 
 merely a monk who fixed his cell in Glasgow. In the time 
 
 * statistical Account of Scotland — Culross, 1795. Dempster! Historia 
 Ecclesiastica — S. Kontigernus. 
 
62 CHUllCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. hi. 
 
 of David I., he would appear to have been regarded as a 
 confessor and martyr rather than a bishop, for in all the writs 
 of the chartulary of Glasgow he is never once styled a 
 bishop, but frequently a confessor.* The dispute may be 
 solved by remembering that bishops, in those simple times, 
 were very different from diocesan prelates now, and that in- 
 stead of presiding in chapters and writing charges to their 
 subordinate clergy, they rather wandered about the country 
 like itinerant preachers, or sometimes retired into cells, that 
 in solitude they might cultivate a sublimer piety than they 
 could attain to in the world. Such a bishop was St Mungo ; 
 and though the lofty cathedral which now crowns the me- 
 tropolis of the West was not yet built, when it was reared 
 six centuries after, so precious was the memory of his piety 
 and toils, that it was called by his name. 
 
 Columba is said to have visited Kentigern " at the place 
 called Mellindonor," at Glasgow. t The whole of that dis- 
 trict, at this period, except near the river, was a forest of 
 wood and bush -land ; and the legend which represents St 
 Mungo as " miraculously compelling the wolf of the woods 
 to join with the deer of the hills in labouring in the yoke of 
 his plough,"! ™*y preserve a memorial not merely that these 
 animals then abounded there, but that the Saint helped to 
 extirpate them, by felling the forests and introducing agri- 
 culture. Many of the first missionaries in our own country 
 undoubtedly did much to foster the peaceful labours of the 
 field, as our modern missionaries teach the islanders of the 
 Southern Seas to till, sow, and reap ; and thus Christianity 
 and civilization went hand in hand. There is no record of 
 St Mungo having any successors at the Molendinar Burn 
 till the twelfth century, when the Cathedral was founded, 
 with its bishop and canons, its numerous altars and officiating 
 priests. 
 
 It is in the age of Columba that we have the first mention 
 of a race of religious men long famous in the annals of the 
 Church. They were called Culdees. Some have derived this 
 
 *■ Keith's Catalogue of the Scottish bishops — See of Glasgow, 
 t Origines Paroohiales Scotise — lona. 
 I Origines Parochiales Scotise — Glasgow. 
 
A.D. 600.] THE CULDEES. 63 
 
 word from the Latin Cultores Dei — worshippers of G-od ; but 
 it is more natural to seek for a Celtic appellation in the Cel- 
 tic speech. Geal, in Gaelic, signifies a retreat ; Cealdeach is 
 applicable to a person fond of retirement ; and that C'uldee 
 is sprung from the same root with these words becomes more 
 evident when we look to its Latinized form, Keledexcs, which 
 probably preserves the ancient pronunciation. The Culdees, 
 then, as their name imports, were a kind of religious recluses, 
 who lived in retired places ; and this is probably the reason 
 why lona was. fixed upon by St Colum as the seat of his 
 monastery. We have traces of the existence of these Cul- 
 dees not merely among the Scots, but among the Britons 
 and Irish, and also among the northern Saxons, who were 
 first converted to Christianity by Scottish preachers.* In 
 order to understand their true character, we must glance at 
 the general history of the Church, and inquire what changes 
 it has undergone, and what new institutions it has fostered, 
 since it was first planted by the apostles six centuries 
 before. 
 
 These six centuries, which are almost a total blank in the 
 history of the Church in Scotland, teem with the most im- 
 portant events in the history of the Church at large. Dur- 
 ing them the apostles had lived, and laboured, and died. 
 Jerusalem had been sacked, the temple burnt up with fire, 
 and Judaism for ever destroyed. Gnosticism had sprung 
 up, which, mingling the notions of the later Platonists with 
 the doctrines of the gospel, introduced into the Church a 
 multitude of extravagances which it required many centu- 
 ries to eradicate. A long line of illustrious men had arisen 
 as apologists and defenders of the faith. Clemens, Ignatius, 
 and Polycarp had well illustrated the Christian life, and then 
 heroically died the martyr's death. Tertullian had devoted 
 his native energy, and Origen had put forth his prodigious 
 learning, to exonerate, explain, and diffuse Christianity. 
 The Church had passed through ten great persecutions, and 
 emerged from the furnace purer and more powerful than 
 ever, with her noble army of martyrs and confessors, who, 
 
 * Goodall's Preliminary Dissertation to Keith's Catalogue of the Scottish 
 Bishops. 
 
64 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. in. 
 
 under every form of torture and death, had exemplified the 
 strength of Christian constancy. These days of weeping 
 were succeeded by a time of rejoicing. Constantine obtained 
 the imperial purple, and, by a series of edicts, recognised 
 Christianity as the religion of the empire. Magnificent, 
 churches now began to rear themselves, and churchmen to 
 grow ambitious, powerful, and rich. But internal troubles 
 arose ; the eternal divinity of the Son was called in question ; 
 and it required all the quenchless vigour of Athanasius, and 
 all the imperial authority of the Council of Nice, to settle 
 the Homoousian doctrine. Arianism was not extinguished 
 when Pelagianism arose ; and in a battle of giants, the great 
 Austin maintained those opinions which are now embalmed 
 as orthodox in our creeds. 
 
 The Christian worship had not existed so long without 
 contracting many corruptions. The rite of baptism, at first 
 so simple, now required sponsors, chrysm, the sign of the 
 cross, and a number of other superstitioiis observances. The 
 bones of the martyrs began to be regarded with religious 
 veneration, and the catacombs were ransacked to find them. 
 As many of the Jews who were converted by the apostles 
 still fondly clung to the temple service, and insisted on the 
 efficacy of circumcision, so many of the converts from pagan- 
 ism were unable to shake off their pagan practices, or to re- 
 nounce altogether their former G-ods. It was thought neces- 
 sary to humour them, and to assimilate in some degree the 
 worship of Jesus to the worship of Jupiter. A multitude of 
 fasts and feasts were introduced, some of them almost pro- 
 fessedly in imitation of the pagan festivals, which had been 
 abolished only in name. The splendid ritual of heathenism 
 was borrowed, and Christian churches became the theatres 
 of a sensuous worship. Some of the pagan temples had been 
 converted into Christian churches ; and Bacchuses, with a 
 little change in the drapery, were worshipped as Virgins.* 
 The communion-table gave place to the altar, and wax tapers 
 shed their dim religious light through splendid edifices, 
 adorned with statues and pictures, and odorous with incense. 
 The consecrated bread was regarded as possessing extraordi- 
 
 * Dr Middleton's Letter from Eome. 
 
A.I.. 200-600,] RISE OF DIOCESAN EPISCOPACY. 65 
 
 nary virtues; transubstantiation, though not defined, was 
 virtually believed ; and the host was piously elevated as an 
 oblation by the priest in the celebration of the eucharist. 
 Beatified saints were raised to the place of the Dii Minores, 
 and solemnly invoked by the faithful. The cross, apart from 
 the great Yictim who died upon it, became the object of wor- 
 ship ; and the supposed presence of a piece of its true wood 
 stirred up the lowest depths of the religious nature. Very 
 different was such a worship from the simple, spiritual wor- 
 ship of the first Christians, when Christ Himself preached to 
 them from the mount, or met with His disciples in the upper 
 chamber at Jerusalem, to eat the passover and institute the 
 Supper. 
 
 It was within the same period that diocesan Episcopacy 
 and Monachism took their rise ; and we must premise some 
 examination of these institutions, as they are intimately con- 
 nected with the estimate we are to form of the character 
 and history of the Culdees. 
 
 It is now agreed by almost all ecclesiastical historians, that 
 in apostolic times the presbyter and bishop was one and the 
 same person. The two terms are indiscriminately applied 
 to the same persons in too many passages in the New Testa- 
 ment to admit of a doubt in regard to the matter. " Presby- 
 ter " appears to have been more peculiarly a term of respect, 
 as applied to the primitive pastors ; and " bishop," the name 
 indicative of their office as superintendents of the Christian 
 flock. The second century, however, had not expired before 
 we discover traces of a distinction between them. How it 
 at first arose we are left to conjecture ; but there are some cir- 
 cumstances which may guide us to causes not far from the 
 truth, and which afford indubitable evidence that the dis- 
 tinction, narrow at first, became broad and well defined only 
 after the lapse of ages. Originally every Christian congre- 
 gation was governed by a number of presbyterian bishops* 
 with equal rank and authority. In process of time, expedi- 
 ency would suggest the propriety of one of these acting as pre- 
 sident, to moderate the councils and execute the resolutions 
 
 * Gibbon calls them " episcopal presbyters.'' (Decline and Fall of the Koman 
 Empire, chap, xv.) 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
66 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. III. 
 
 of the wliole. An office wbicli at first was probably tempo- 
 rary, subsequently became permanent, and gradually appro- 
 priated to itself the title of bishop ; while the appellation of 
 presbyter was left to designate those other office-bearers who 
 had now sunk into a subordinate rank.* But even in the 
 third century, every congregation had its own bishop, and 
 very generally that congregation assembled in a private 
 house, so that its adherents could not be very numerous, nor 
 the power of its bishop very extensive. f 
 
 These congregations at first almost invariably belonged 
 to the cities and towns ; but when the tide set in more 
 strongly in favour of Christianity, and Christian communi- 
 ties were gathered in the villages, the town-bishops, unable 
 to superintend them themselves, appointed suffragans to 
 take the spiritual oversight in their stead, and these were 
 called chorepiscopi, or country-bishops. This was the first 
 great step to diocesan episcopacy ; for the country-bishops 
 were dependent on their grander brethren in the towns ; and 
 when they were abolished, and presbyters substituted in 
 their place, we have the subordination of the presbyters to 
 the bishop, which modern episcopacy implies. | The bishops 
 now appropriated to themselves some of the most solemn 
 functions of the ministerial ofiice. They alone could conse- 
 crate the baptismal chrysm ; they alone could confirm; they 
 alone could convey, by the imposition of their hands, the 
 mystic virtue necessary to constitute the apostolic priest. 
 All this, however, was not brought about without a struggle 
 and without time ; and the memory of the original parity of 
 the offices long remained in the churches. Even in the 
 beginning of the fifth century, Chrysostom and Jerome 
 could assert the primitive equality, or rather identity, of the 
 bishop and presbyter.§ 
 
 * This is substantially the account of the matter given by Mosheim, Gib- 
 bon, and Neander. 
 
 t Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History may be advantageously con- 
 sulted on this point. 
 
 X Mosheim. Century 1. Neander, vol. iii. sect. 2, Bohn's Edition. It was 
 the councils of Sardica and Laodicea that abolished the rural bishops. 
 
 § Chrysostom, horn, xi., on Timothy, at the beginning. Jerome, in his com- 
 mentary on the Epistle of Titus, and Ep. 101 ad Evangelum. Both quoted 
 
A.D. 200-600.] filSE OF MONACHIWM. 67 
 
 The same causes which raised the bishop above the pres- 
 byter, in process of time elevated the metropolitan bishop 
 above his compeers in the provinces ; and led the bishop of 
 Kome to aspire at the establishment of a monarchy in the 
 Church. The dominating greatness of the imperial city, and 
 the wealth which flowed in upon the Roman Church, when 
 it basked in the sunshine of imperial favour, gave ground 
 upon which to rear such a lofty ambition. During the 
 fourth and fifth centuries, the bishops of Eome were ear- 
 nestly straining at this ; encouraging the provincials, when 
 they imagined themselves wronged, to appeal the case for the 
 decision of the Eoman See, asserting, though at first in mode- 
 rate terms, their ecclesiastical supremacy as the successors of 
 Peter; and by a dexterous policy they so managed it, that in 
 the seventh century, when Christianity was just beginning to 
 make progress in Scotland, their victory was almost complete. 
 
 The rise and progress of monachism had an equally im- 
 portant influence on the destinies of the Church. The 
 ascetic spirit, of which monachism was but a development, 
 is peculiar to no age or religion. It was exemplified in the 
 Essenes of Palestine before the advent of our Saviour, and it 
 is to be seen in the devotees of Hinduism in our own day. 
 Under the Christian system Egypt became its fruitful birth- 
 place. Stimulated by the example and renown of Paul and 
 Anthony, many thousands of men and women flocked to the 
 deserts of Thebes and the islands of the Nile, that, away 
 from the world, they might soar to the higher regions of the 
 spiritual life. The monastic institution, though a plant 
 peculiarly suited to the climate of the East, was transplanted 
 to the West, where it speedily took root, and made most 
 vigorous growths. Monasteries were reared on the banks of 
 the Tiber ; caves found for hermits by the lake of Subiaco ;* 
 and Martin of Tours, who from a soldier became a hermit, 
 was followed to his grave by two thousand monkish mourners. 
 All the learning and eloquence of the day were exhausted 
 
 lij- Neander, vol. iii. sect. 2. Chrysostom belongs to the fourth rather than 
 tlio fifth century. 
 
 '" It was by this lake that Benedict had his first cell, and near him was the 
 gi'ott of another monk named Romanus. 
 
 E 2 
 
68 CHUBCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. in. 
 
 in eulogies on the anchorite life. Athanasius first intro- 
 duced Egyptian monks into Eome. Chrysostom opened his 
 golden mouth in their praise. Jerome gave to the institu- 
 tion the -weight of his own example ; and even Augustine 
 was so completely carried away with the spirit of the time, 
 that he wrote treatises in its defence and commendation. 
 
 It is impossible to doubt but that monachism in its iirst 
 origin contained much that was good. Many pure spirits 
 fled to the cloister really to escape the contagion of the 
 world. Many enthusiastic spirits fled thither, sincerely be- 
 lieving they might there cultivate a sublimer piety. The 
 extravagances of the East were little known or practised in 
 the West, and the rule of St Benedict, who lived in the sixth 
 century, and to which almost all the monasteries of Italy 
 and Gaul submitted, is dictated in a liberal spirit, consider- 
 ing the age in which he lived. 
 
 It is still extant, and though it prescribes many observances 
 which we may deem ridiculous, we cannot question the ex- 
 cellence of the end that was in view. " When the monk," 
 says Benedict, "has passed through all these stages of 
 humility, he will soon attain to that love of Grod which, 
 being perfect, casteth out fear, and through which he will 
 begin to practise, naturally and from custom, without anxiety 
 or pains, all those rules which he before observed not with- 
 out fear. He will no longer act from any fear of hell, but 
 from love to Christ, from the energy of right habits, and joy 
 in that which is good."* Under this liberal rule excessive 
 mortifications were avoided ; no limited quantity of food 
 prescribed ; and even a little wine, out of consideration to 
 human frailty, was allowed. The monks were not suffered 
 to be idle ; they were to devote their time to devotion, to 
 reading, to the education of youth, to the labours of the 
 field, or some useful handicraft. Accordingly, we will not 
 wonder that many eminent bishops emanated from these 
 Benedictine schools ; and that enthusiastic men left cloisters, 
 where sober sense was mingled with superstition, to carry 
 the torch of truth among idolatrous nations, and proved 
 most useful and successful missionaries. 
 
 * Quoted by Neander, vol. iii. sect, ii., Bolm's Kd. 
 
A.D. 200-600.] EARLY ABUSES OF MONACHISM. 61) 
 
 At first these monks were all laymen, and belonged to no 
 ecclesiastical denomination. They were simply people who 
 had bound themselves by a vow to renounce the world, to 
 live in poverty and chastity, and to devote their time to 
 prayer, penance, meditation, and industrial toils. The 
 monastic life was open to the laity of all conditions and of 
 both sexes ; and the sanctity of the cloister was frequently 
 abused by the slave fleeing thither to escape from his master, 
 and the legionary to avoid the rigours of discipline and the 
 dangers of the field. But it was impossible to debar the 
 monks for ever from ecclesiastical offices and emoluments. 
 In the very earliest times we frequently read of some holy 
 hermit reluctantly brought from his cell and placed in the 
 bishop's throne, amid the applauses of the people ; and 
 eventually, by the policy of the popes, the whole body was 
 constituted into a regular ecclesiastical order, which ever 
 afterwards successfully competed with the Seculars for the 
 honours of the Church and the veneration of the populace. 
 It is needless at present to trace the progress of monachism 
 farther. It was not long before the original nature of the 
 institution was forgotten, and vices of the most odious kind 
 crept into the cloister. 
 
 Such were some of the changes which early Christianity 
 underwent, and some of the institutions which sprung up in 
 the Church. It would, however, be a violation of all historic 
 probability to suppose that they simultaneously affected 
 every portion of Christendom. It would be absurd to liken 
 them to the enactments of a legislature, carried into execu- 
 tion in every part of the kingdom on a fixed day. They were 
 rather customs, which generally require ages to mature, and 
 ages more to spread. Taking their rise in particular centres, 
 they slowly extended themselves towards the extremities. 
 Emanating from Alexandria or Kome, it was only by degrees 
 they were known and adopted in the distant provinces. In 
 those countries between which there was a constant inter- 
 course, the contagion of the new example would be propor- 
 tionally rapid; in those which were cut off from the rest of the 
 world, it would be proportionally slow. The churches which 
 lay along the shores of the Mediterranean quickly felt every 
 
70 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. III. 
 
 important impulse, heard the news of every fresh heresy that 
 was broached, and had amongst them imitators of every inno- 
 vating practice that was introduced ; while the religious com- 
 munities that were buried in the woods of Germany, or lost in 
 the marshes of Albania, might be unconscious of the changes 
 that were going on in the great world for centuries after. 
 
 Before the first century was expired, Christianity was 
 preached along the- whole northern coast of Africa, and the 
 southern coast of Europe ; it required nearly two centuries 
 more to come to our country, and other three centuries still 
 before it was generally embraced. During the greater part 
 of this period, moreover, the Roman empire extended to our 
 island, and thus an intercourse was kept up between it and 
 the Continent, which almost entirely ceased when the legions 
 were withdrawn. " The dark cloud," says Gibbon, in his 
 own eloquent way, " which had been cleared by the Phoeni- 
 cian discoverers, and finally dispelled by the arms of Caesar, 
 again settled on the shores of the Atlantic, and a Eoman 
 province was again lost among the fabulous islands of the 
 ocean. One hundred and fifty years after the reign of 
 Honorius, the gravest historian of the times describes the 
 wonders of a remote isle, whose eastern and western parts 
 are divided by an antique wall, the boundary of life and 
 death, or, more properly, of truth and fiction. The east is a 
 fair country, inhabited by a civilised people ; the air is 
 healthy ; the waters are pure and plentiful ; and the earth 
 yields her regular and fruitful increase. In the west, 
 beyond the wall, the air is infectious and mortal ; the 
 ground is covered with serpents ; and this dreary solitude 
 is the region of departed spirits, who are transported from 
 the opposite shores in substantial boats, and by living rowers. 
 Some families of fishermen, the subjects of the Franks, are 
 excused from tribute, in consideration of the mysterious 
 ofiice performed by these Charons of the ocean. Each in 
 his turn is summoned at the hour of midnight, to hear the 
 voices, and even the names, of the ghosts ; he is sensible of 
 their weight, and he feels himself impelled by an unknown 
 hut irresistible power. After this dream of fancy, we read 
 with astonishment that the name of the island is Brittia; 
 
A.D. 000 ] CALEDONIA REMOTE FROM ROMAN IDEAS. 71 
 
 that it lies in the ocean against the mouth of the Rhine, 
 and less than thirty miles from the Continent."* 
 
 When our country was thus lost to the civilized world, 
 and its rude population shut out from all intercourse with the 
 centres of Christian influence, we shall not wonder that the 
 wave of innovation, which surged so rapidly along the Medi- 
 terranean, took centuries before it broke upon our shore. 
 The impassable gulph between the presbyter and the bishop 
 might, and in fact must have been, fixed in Italy for many 
 long years before it was known and believed in here. The 
 monasteries of Europe and the East might have become hot- 
 beds of superstition and vice, and yet a pure monachism, 
 once introduced into Scotland, might there be preserved. 
 While the marble churches of Constantinople and Eome 
 were perfumed with incense, and adorned with images, 
 incense and images might be alike unknown in the log 
 churches of Caledonia. Even when the Scottish clergy 
 learned the new ideas that were abroad, they might decline 
 to adopt them. It is ever diificult to carry new fashions 
 from one country to another, more especially when there is 
 little or no intercourse between them ; and all the weight of 
 legislation sometimes fails to abolish a custom to which the 
 people have become attached. 
 
 These remarks may elucidate the controversies which have 
 been waged in regard to Columba and the Culdees. A ques- 
 tion has been raised as to whether they were monks. They 
 undoubtedly were. The life and institutions of Columba 
 abundantly attest this, and Culdee is just monk in the Gaelic 
 tongue. But they might be monks, without having con- 
 tracted the vices of monachism. Having embraced the system 
 in its purity, they might preserve it pure in IcolumkiUe, 
 Abernethy, and Dunkeld, when it had become utterly cor- 
 rupt in the great monasteries of the Continent. 
 
 There is good reason to beUeve that it was so ; and that 
 in Scotland, far removed from Eoman influences, there was 
 a form of monachism, with little of its usual austerity and 
 few of its prevalent vices. The monastery at lona appears 
 to have been little different from a coUege, in which nien 
 * Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap, xxxix. 
 
72 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. III. 
 
 were trained for the missionary work ; and, as occasion re- 
 quired, they left its quiet cloisters for the active duties of 
 life. That Oolumha had entirely escaped those superstitious 
 notions which had arisen in Italy and the East long before his 
 day it were foolish to suppose, and his biographies will not 
 allow as to believe. The rules by which he governed his 
 community; the scrupulosity with which he repaired to the 
 church at aU hours of the day and night to perform his de- 
 votions ; his preference for celibacy, if not his entire prohi- 
 bition of marriage, are not in accordance with Protestant 
 ideas of what is scriptural and right. The love of the mira- 
 culous so conspicuous in his biographers, and undoubtedly 
 characteristic of all the Culdees of the time, show that this 
 fond deception had as deeply tainted the disciples of Columba 
 as the disciples of Benedict. 
 
 In what school he acquired his monastic notions it is im- 
 possible to determine ; but we know that of all ecclesiastical 
 institutions monachism spread the most rapidly, and that a 
 hundred years sufficed to carry it from the extreme east to 
 the extreme west of Christendom. Both St Ninian and St 
 Patrick are said to have been related to St Martin ; and as 
 we find it difficult to believe that the Bishop of Tours had 
 such an extensive Scotch connection by matrimony or blood, 
 we resort to the supposition that the relation arose from their 
 having borrowed his ideas of the Christian life. As the 
 monachism of the East was toned down to suit the different 
 men, manners, and climate of the West, so the monachism 
 of France would naturally undergo a still further modifica- 
 tion to suit the rude, half-Christianized population of Ireland 
 and the Hebrides. The exotic from Egypt took root in lona ; 
 but with a thin soil, and under a northern sky, it never 
 showed the same prurient luxuriance of fruit or of foliage as 
 in warmer and more southern lands. 
 
 The ecclesiastical polity of Columba and the Culdees has 
 also been a matter of dispute, and a passage in Bede has 
 brought the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches into col- 
 lision. " That island" (lona), says the venerable historian, 
 " has for its ruler an abbot, who is a presbyter, to whose di- 
 rection all the province, and even the bishops, contrary to 
 
A.D. 000. J BISHOPS SUBJECT TO A PRESBYTER. 73 
 
 the usual method, are subject, according to the example of 
 their first teacher, who was not a bishop, but a presbyter and 
 monk."* That bishops should be subject to a presbyter or 
 mass-priest, as the " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" styles Colum- 
 ba,t is abhorrent to every idea of episcopal propriety, and 
 accordingly the candid simplicity of Bede has caused much 
 confusion in the episcopal camp. Several attempts have 
 been made to explain the language of the historian in ac- 
 cordance with the canons of modern episcopacy. " The 
 superiority of the abbot," it has been argued by the Episco- 
 palian controversialists, "must have consisted in some of 
 his monastic attributes, as head of a parent establishment, 
 and it could have no reference to the spiritual functions of 
 a presbyter as opposed to those of a bishoj). Within the 
 walls of a college, the master or provost is superior, quoad 
 omnes res Academicas, to the highest pjelate in the land; and 
 in Christ Church, Dublin, as well as in Christ Church, Ox- 
 ford, the dean uniformly takes rank (more inusitato, as Bede 
 would word it) of the bishop of the diocese."J In opposi- 
 tion to this the Presbyterians reply, that the statement of 
 Bede is general and comprehensive, and that it is inadmis- 
 sible in us now to narrow it so as to make it apply only to 
 monastic arrangements ; that instead of interpreting the 
 language of Bede by modern episcopal ideas, it would be 
 better and fairer to harmonize these ideas with the state- 
 ment of the historian ; that it is plainly affirmed that the 
 whole province and all the bishops were subject to the direc- 
 tion of Columba and his successors, and that the broad fact 
 must be taken as we find it, without qualification and with- 
 out restriction ; that the analogy of a dean taking precedence 
 of a bishop within the walls of a college does not hold, un- 
 less we suppose that the presbyter abbots of lona governed 
 Scotland and its bishops, as we are expressly told they did, 
 
 * Ecclesiastical History, book. iii. chap iv. 
 
 t " A.D. 565. Columba, a mass-priest, came to the Picts and converted them 
 to the faith of Christ ; they are dwellers by the northern mountains. . . . 
 Now in lona there must ever be an abbot, and not a bishop ; and all the Scottish • 
 bishops ought to be subject to him, because Columba was an abbot and not a 
 bishop." (Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.) 
 
 X Supplementary Dissertation to Keith's Catalogue of the Scottish bishops. 
 
74 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. HI. 
 
 simply by taking precedence of them when the prelates 
 visited them within their monastery, which renders the state- 
 ment of Bede contradictory and ridiculous ; and, moreover, 
 instead of this being unusual, it is universally true that every 
 man is first in his own house. It is, moreover, argued that 
 the very way in which Bede mentions the fact, as a thing 
 unusual, proves that whereas in England, and throughout 
 almost all Christendom, in the days of the historian, it was 
 the practice of presbyters to submit themselves to their 
 bishops, in Scotland the bishops were subject to a presbyter. 
 The thing is specially noted as singular and strange ; and 
 the Episcopalians can make good their point only by prov- 
 ing, in opposition to the historian, that there was nothing- 
 singular and nothing strange in the practice of the Scots. 
 
 It was indeed unusual in the sixth and seventh centuries 
 for bishops to be under the jurisdiction of a presbyter ; and 
 yet we need not greatly wonder that such a thing should 
 have occurred in a province so far removed from ecclesiasti- 
 cal influence as Scotland then was. Though the bishop be- 
 gan to rise above the presbyter in the second century, many 
 generations lived and died before the diiference between 
 them was well defined, and even in the fifth century writers 
 referred to their original and essential identity. In all pro- 
 bability, Christianity was introduced into Ireland — whence 
 it was brought to Scotland — before the great gulph was fixed 
 between the two orders ; * and if such an ecclesiastical polity 
 was brought to our country, it might continue there un- 
 changed for centuries, uninfluenced by the great changes 
 which were going on from without. Even in our own day, 
 notwithstanding the ease and rapidity of transit, and that 
 men are everywhere passing to and fro, and increasing 
 knowledge, many districts of our Highlands are almost in- 
 accessible to the ideas and influences of the south. The 
 very poverty of our country would help to keep the bishop 
 on a par with the presbyter, for it is only in opulent king- 
 doms, and where the Church is supported by the State, that 
 Episcopacy has obtained its fullest development. 
 
 * Nennius says St Patrick ordained 365 bishops in Ireland. In the Churcli 
 of Ireland, at present, there are only 31 prelates. 
 
A.D. GOO ] PRIMACY OF lONA. 
 
 iO 
 
 We thiuk the fact, as narrated by Bede, though perhaps 
 unusual, was perfectly natural and likely in the circum- 
 stances, lona was a monastic seminary for training men 
 for the work of the ministry. As opportunity presented, 
 they left their retirement, and took the oversight of Chris- 
 tian flocks, thereby becoming virtually bishops. That such 
 men should deferentially look to the abbot under whom they 
 had been reared for advice and direction was very natural ; 
 and thus a kind of primacy would arise, and that more 
 readily from the respect assigned to monks in those days, 
 and the fact that the monastery of lona was the parent of 
 so many of the churches of Scotland. 
 
 We are not so heretical as to argue that the presbyter 
 was or could be essentially superior to the bishop, or that 
 the former had inherited any apostolic powers which were 
 denied to the latter. We merely affirm that the first 
 preachers of Christianity among the Scots, albeit they were 
 called, and that properly, bishops, acknowledged the pres- 
 byter-abbot of lona as their chief ; and Bede settles the con- 
 troversy by declaring that so it was, though unusual and 
 strange. We shall afterwards iind this same presumptuous 
 presbyter bearing a chief part in the consecration of bishops. 
 But the consideration of this we must defer till our narrative 
 has advanced a stage further. To it we must now turn. 
 
76 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 In the year 597 Augustine arrived in the island of Thanet, 
 off the coast of Kent, with a train of some forty monks. The 
 story of the incident which led to his mission, if not true, is 
 at least interesting. Gregory, before his elevation to the pon- 
 tificate, had observed some youths in the Eoman slave-mar- 
 ket, of a complexion fairer than common ; and inquiring of 
 what nation they came, was told they were Angles. " Not 
 Angles, but Angels," he replied, "if they were only Christian- 
 ized."* When raised to the chair of St Peter, he remembered 
 the nation of the captive youths, and sent Augustine to convert 
 them. For nearly a hundred years from the time we speak 
 of, the Anglo-Saxons, incessantly recruited by new swarms 
 of adventurers, had been gradually gaining upon the Britons ; 
 and now they had driven the miserable remnants of that 
 
 * Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book ii. cliap. i. The Pope appears to have 
 been an inveterate punster. The whole story as told by Bede is as follows : — 
 " ' Alas ! what pity,' said he, ' that the author of darkness is possessed of men 
 of such fair countenances ; and that being remarkable for such graceful aspects, 
 their minds should be void of inward grace.'' He therefore again asked what 
 was the name of that nation ? and was answered that they were called Angles. 
 ' Right,' said he, 'for they have an angelic face, and it becomes such to be co- 
 heirs with the angels in Heaven. What is the name,' proceeded he, ' of the 
 province from which they are brought ? ' It was replied, that the natives of 
 that province were called Deiri. ' Truly are they De ira' said he, ' withdrawn 
 from wrath and called to the mercy of Christ. How is the king of that pro- 
 vince called? ' They told him his name was JElla; and he, alluding to the 
 name said, ' Hallelvjah, the praise of God the Creator must be sung in those 
 parts.' " We have helped the pontificial wit by italics ; and we may remark 
 that the puns are nearly as pointed in the English translation as in the Latin 
 of Bede. 
 
A.D. 597.] AUGUSTIKE AT CANTERBURY. 77 
 
 people into the mountain fastnesses of Wales. With the 
 British people had well-nigh perished the British Church. 
 The Saxon invaders were heathens, worshippers of Wodin 
 and Thor ; and now for the second time must the people of 
 England be converted to the Christian faith. 
 
 Augustine managed to ingratiate himself with Ethelbert, 
 King of Kent, and obtained permission to establish himself 
 in the royal city of Canterbury. The work of conversion 
 prospered in his hands, and in due time the Roman bishop 
 constituted him primate of England, sent him the pall, and 
 with it certain Roman wares, coverings for the altars, orna- 
 ments for the churches, vestments for the priests, and relics 
 of the holy apostles and martyrs.* On inquiring a little 
 more narrowly into the religious state of the kingdom, the 
 new Archbishop discovered that the clergy of the British 
 Church who still survived did not keep Easter at the proper 
 time, administered baptism without the consecrated chrysm, 
 and in other respects violated the unity of the faith. He there- 
 fore held a conference with their bishops and doctors to per- 
 suade them to conformity, and when his arguments failed, he 
 wrought a miracle to convince them, and when his miracle had 
 no more influence than his arguments, he uttered some enig- 
 matical words, to the effect that if they would not hold com- 
 munion with their friends, they would bring down upon 
 themselves the vengeance of their enemies. Soon after this 
 threat, or prophecy, as we may choose to understand it, the 
 King of Northumbria marched upon Chester, made a great 
 slaughter of the Britons, and mercilessly massacred many 
 hundreds of monks who had come from Bangor to pray for 
 their countrymen. "About twelve hundred," says Bede, 
 " that came to pray are reported to have been killed, and 
 only fifty to have escaped by flight."t There rests upon the 
 memory of Augustine the dark suspicion that he may have 
 instigated the butchery. It was the first act passed against 
 non-conformists in England. 
 
 Meantime, a succession of learned and pious abbots ruled 
 in the monastery of lona ; and missionaries began to issue 
 
 ' Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book i. chap. xxix. 
 t Ecclesiastical History, book ii. chap. ii. 
 
78 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [(JHAi: :v. 
 
 from its cloisters, to carry the light of Christianity not 
 merely to Scotland, but to England and some of the countries 
 of the Continent. There is good reason to believe that a 
 close connection was kept up between lona and Ireland, and 
 that the religious colony still depended in a great measure 
 on the parent country for a supply of students and recluses. 
 The populations of Ireland and the north-west of Scotland 
 were in fact identical at this time, and were known by the 
 general appellation of Scots, so that it is often impossible to 
 determine to which of them historical facts are to be referred. 
 Columba was succeeded by Baithne, one of the twelve who 
 accompanied him from Ireland. After him followed Laisren, 
 Fergna, and Segenius.* While Segenius was abbot, Oswald, 
 King of Northumberland, who had been recently baptized 
 in Scotland, sent to the monastery a request that preachers 
 should be sent to instruct his subjects in the faith. The 
 story of this mission is told by Bade, and we shall therefore 
 follow his narrative : it belongs to the year 635. 
 
 The first Celtic apostle who went to Northumberland 
 was a man of an austere disposition, and making no pro- 
 gress in converting the people, he returned to his monas- 
 tery, and reported that the task was hopeless, as the Nor- 
 thumbrians were uncivilized men, and of a stubborn and 
 barbarous disposition. What was to be done was now 
 seriously debated, when an aged monk named Aidan rose 
 up and said, addressing himself to the brother who had 
 abandoned the missionary field, — " I am of opinion, brother, 
 that you were more severe to your unlearned hearers than 
 you ought to have been, and did not at first, conformably to 
 the apostolic rule, give them the milk of more easy doctrine, 
 till being by degrees nourished with the Word of God, they 
 should be capable of greater perfection, and be able to prac- 
 tise God's sublimer precepts." A speech so sensible at once 
 pointed out Aidan as the fittest person to deal with the bar- 
 barous Saxons, and though said to have been well-nigh eighty 
 years of age, he undertook the task with cheerfulness and ala- 
 crity. He was accordingly ordained a bishop by the presbyter 
 
 ■* Oriaines Parocliiales Scotia; — lona. 
 
A.D. 035.] LINDISFARNE. 79 
 
 monks of lona ; and set his face toward Nortlmmber- 
 land.* 
 
 Off the coast of Northumberland there is an island called 
 Lindisfarne, or Holy Isle. Bede notes that in his day it was 
 connected with the mainland at ebb tide ;t and so it is at 
 the present day, by a series of sand banks, although, when 
 the tide is full, it is separated from it by a couple of miles 
 of shallow water. It is about two miles long, and one 
 broad. Prom its eastern side the German ocean stretches 
 farther than the eye can reach ; and from the western shore 
 you gaze, over a narrow channel, upon the cultivated coasts 
 of England ; and can easily discern towards the north the 
 ancient town of Berwick; and away to the south, Bamborough 
 Castle, crowning a bold promontory, which juts into the 
 sea. On this island, which perhaps might remind him of 
 lona, Aidan determined to settle. 
 
 The aged monk at once began his apostolic work, and in 
 this he was powerfully assisted by the king. As Aidan was 
 not well skilled in the English tongue, his Majesty fre- 
 quently condescended to act as interpreter, being well ac- 
 quainted with the Scottish speech. The united piety of 
 the monarch and the monk were not, as we may well be- 
 lieve, without their reward, and conversions became numer- 
 ous. " From that time," says our venerable authority, 
 "many of the Scots came daily into Britain, and with 
 great devotion preached the Word to those provinces of 
 the English over which King Oswald reigned ; and those 
 among them that had received priests' orders administered 
 to them the grace of baptism. Churches were built in seve- 
 ral places ; the people joyfully flocked together to hear the 
 Word ; money and lands were given of the king's bounty to 
 build monasteries ; the English, great and small, were by 
 their Scottish masters instructed in the rules and obser- 
 vances of regular discipline ; for most of them that came to 
 preach were monks." J 
 
 * Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. v. f Ibid., book iii. chap. iii. 
 
 J Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. iii. This passage proves that 
 many of the monks that came into England had not priests' orders— in other 
 words, were not presbyters ; yet they preached. The presbyters administered 
 the sacraments. 
 
80 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IV. 
 
 Aidan is celebrated by tlie Saxon historian as a perfect 
 model of apostolic and episcopal purity. He was abste- 
 mious, continent, generous to the poor, humble to aU. 
 Austere in his own conduct, he was indulgent to others. He 
 was wont to traverse the town and country on foot, and invite 
 every passer-by to embrace the faith. All in his company, 
 whether " shaven monks or laymen," were kept diligently 
 employed in reading the Scriptures and learning psalms. 
 If he went to dine with the king, he took two clerks with 
 him, and having snatched a frugal repast, he made haste to 
 be gone with them, either to read or write. Many pious 
 men and women, led by his example, began to fast upon 
 Wednesday and Friday till the ninth hour. There was only 
 one spot on this otherwise spotless character — he did not 
 keep Easter on the canonical day. 
 
 After sixteen years of diligent labour, Aidan died, and 
 was buried in Lindisfarne. He was succeeded by Finan, 
 who had likewise been reared among the monks of lona. 
 In his lifetime, Peada, prince of the Mercians, sought in 
 marriage EMeda, daughter of Oswy, King of Northumber- 
 land. His reception of Christianity was made the condition 
 of the nuptials, and the prince willingly received the faith 
 and his bride together. He was baptized, with all his re- 
 tinue, by Finan, and four priests were despatched into his 
 kingdom to convert his subjects. Meeting with great suc- 
 cess, Diuma, one of the four, was ordained bishop of the 
 province.* But the missionary success of Finan did not 
 end here. The East Saxons had for a short time professed 
 Christianity, and then relapsed into idolatry. Their king 
 at this time was Sigebert, who came to visit Oswy in Nor- 
 thumberland, and while there was persuaded to receive the 
 rite of baptism. Eeturning home, he invited Christian 
 teachers into his kingdom, and two were accordingly sent 
 him. One of these, after a time, returning to Lindisfarne, 
 and relating to Finan how successful he had been, was 
 ordained bishop of the East Angles ; and, going back to his 
 province with more ample authority, he built churches, and 
 ordained presbyters and deacons to assist him in " the work 
 
 * Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. xxi. 
 
A.D. 635-660.] ENGLAifD CHRISTIANIZED BY lONA. 81 
 
 of faith and ministry of baptising."* Thus were the three 
 great Saxon kingdoms of Northumberland, Mercia, and 
 Essex, constituting by far the largest and most important 
 part of England, converted to Christianity by the preaching 
 of monks from lona.f The spiritual conquerors of the 
 country became its occupants, and for several successions 
 the Sees of York, Durham, Lichfield, and London, were 
 filled by Scotsmen.^ 
 
 The transactions of these missionary monks have given 
 rise to a controversy regarding their ecclesiastical polity ; 
 which has brought into the field the great learning of Usher, 
 Stillingfleet, and Loyd on the one side ; and the equally 
 extensive erudition of Selden, Baxter, and Sir James Dal- 
 rymple on the other. Presbyterianism and Episcopacy are 
 weighed in the balance, and each will have lona to be 
 thrown into its scale. Dr Jamieson, in his able " History of 
 the Culdees," has given his advocacy to the Presbyterian 
 side ; and Bishop Eussel, in his " Supplementary Dissertation 
 to Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops," has reviewed Dr 
 Jamieson, and contends that no argument against Episco- 
 pacy can be drawn from the practices of the Culdees. The 
 controversy is principally founded on the narration of Bede, 
 both parties referring to the language which he uses. Let 
 us briefly advert to it. 
 
 King Oswald having asked a bishop from the Scots to ad- 
 minister the word of faith to him and his nation, the inmates 
 
 * Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. xxii. 
 
 t " By the ministery of Aidan was the kingdoms of Northumberland reco- 
 vered from paganisme (whereunto belonged then, beside the shire of Northum- 
 berlande, and the lands beyond it unto Edenborrow, Frith, Cumberland also, 
 and Westmorland, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Bishopricke of Durham) ; 
 and by the means of Finan, not onely the kingdom of the East Saxons (which 
 contained Essex, Middlesex, and halfe of Hertfordshire) regained, but also 
 the large kingdom of Mercia converted first unto Christianity ; which com- 
 prehended under it, Glocestershire, Herefordshire, "Worcestershire, Warwick-' 
 shire, Liecestershire, Rutlandshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolneshire, Hunt- 
 ingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, 
 Derbyshire, Shropshire, Nottinghamshire, Chesshire, and the other halfe of 
 Hertfordshire." (Archbishop Usher : Religion professed by the Ancient Irish, 
 chap. X.) 
 
 I Of course it wiU not be understood by this that these Sees, precisely as 
 now constituted, then existed. 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
82 CHUKGH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. IV. 
 
 of lona, after hearing the discreet sentiments of Aidan, pre- 
 viously quoted, " concluded that he deserved to be made a 
 bishop, and ought to be sent to instruct the unbelieving and 
 unlearned, since he was found to be endued with singular 
 discretion, which is the mother, of other virtues, and ac- 
 cordingly having ordained, they sent him to their friend, 
 King Oswald, to preach."* This language, we think, evi- 
 dently implies, if it does not expressly affirm, that those 
 who judged Aidan worthy of the episcopate, both ordained 
 and sent him. If the statement of Bede is to be held autho- 
 ritative, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that it was 
 the Presbyter-abbot of lona and his fellow monks who con- 
 secrated the first Bishop of Lindisfarne. There is no men- 
 tion of a bishop being present, or taking part in the pro- 
 ceedings ; it was the old apostolic ordination, by the laying 
 on of the hands of the presbytery. Finan and Colman 
 were ordained in the same way and by the same men ; and 
 as they ordained many others to be bishops, presbyters, and 
 deacons, it is almost demonstrable that the present English 
 Episcopate may be traced back to a Presbyterian source. 
 
 In answer to this, it is argued that in those days many 
 monasteries had a resident bishop, and that we must "con- 
 clude it was so with lona, although no specific mention is 
 made of the fact. There were bishops in England, and 
 bishops in Scotland, and why not a bishop in lona ? If this 
 supposition is to be forbidden, it is asked — What could be_ 
 the design of these ordinations ? The presbyters of lona 
 would not be guilty of the impious mockery of ordaining a 
 brother to an order and office in the Church higher than 
 that they themselves possessed ; and if not, what did their 
 ordination mean ? "Were Aidan, Finan, and Colman, after 
 their ordination to the Episcopate, exactly in the same order 
 of clergy that they were previous to such ordination ? 
 Being presbyters before, were they but presbyters still Pf 
 
 Such reasoning as this may involve in perplexity the his- 
 toric fact stated by Bede, but cannot destroy it. There may 
 have been bishops in some of the Continental monasteries, 
 
 *■ Bede's Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. v. 
 
 t Supplementary Dissertation to Keith's Cittalogne of Scottish Bishops. 
 
A.D. 635-660.] PRESBYTERS CONSECRATE BISHOPS. 83 
 
 kept specially for the purpose of ordaining the monks ; but 
 there is no evidence that there was such an official iu the 
 cloisters of lona; on the contrary, the 'biographies of Co- 
 lumba by Adomnan and Cumin, and the whole narrative of 
 Bede, forbid the supposition. There undoubtedly were 
 bishops in Scotland, but they were such bishops as ac- 
 knowledged the jurisdiction of the Presbyter-abbot of lona. 
 Eeared under his care, and appointed by him to the episco- 
 pate of their respective congregations, they never dreamt 
 that they belonged to an order higher than their abbot, or 
 that they possessed powers of transmitting the apostolic 
 virtue and the sacerdotal character which were denied to him. 
 In regard to Aidan and Finan, it is more than probable 
 that they were lay-monks, previous to their being ordained 
 as missionary-bishops to Northumberland. If they were 
 presbyters already (for the appellation ot bishop appears to 
 have been given specially and properly to those who had the 
 superintendence of a flock), then we must look for the ex- 
 planation of the proceedings at lona to that instructive 
 passage in the Acts of the Apostles, in which we are told 
 that as the prophets and teachers in the Church of Antioch 
 " ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said. 
 Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I 
 have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, 
 and laid their hands on them, they sent them away."* We 
 must be content to remain in ignorance as to whether the 
 Scotch and Irish monks were aware of the distinction which 
 had sprung up in the Church between the presbyter and 
 bishop ; it is probable they were, but that they were ignor- 
 ant of the great and growing distance which now sepa- 
 rated them in the south and east ; or, if they did know the 
 fact that peculiar honours and functions were now reserved 
 for the one and denied to the other, it is plain they had de- 
 termined to ignore it. 
 
 Christianity had entered Saxon-England at its two ex- 
 tremities. AugTistine and his monks had landed in Kent, 
 and extended their teaching and influence over the south and 
 sou.th-west of the kingdom. Aidan and his monks had en- 
 
 * The Acts of the Apostles, chap. xiii. ver. 2, 3. 
 
 f2 
 
84 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IV. 
 
 tered Northumberland, and extended their teaching and in- 
 fluence over the northern, eastern, and midland provinces. 
 Rome and lona met on EngUsh ground and contended for the 
 mastery. There were not wanting subjects of dispute, - for 
 there were obvious differences between the Italian and Celtic 
 missionaries. But the true day for the celebration of Easter, 
 and the true form of the clerical tonsure, were the topics which 
 excited the fiercest controversies, and stirred up the strongest 
 passions, and ultimately led to the exodus from England of 
 the northern ecclesiastics. It is material, for the elucidation 
 of our history, to explain the different tenets of Eome and 
 lona, in regard to these weighty matters of the canonical law. 
 The Jews, by Divine commandment, kept the Passover on 
 the fourteenth day of the month Nisan or Abib, which was 
 the first of their year, and corresponded to a part of our 
 months of March and April. Our Saviour having eaten the 
 Passover with his disciples, instituted the Sacrament of the 
 Supper, and was on the same night betrayed, condemned, 
 and crucified. From a very early period the Christian 
 Church kept the festival of Easter in commemoration of 
 these great events ; but it was not long before a difference 
 arose in regard to the day upon which it should be observed. 
 All the Eastern churches observed it upon the day of the 
 crucifixion, the same day as that upon which the Jews kept 
 the Passover, and pled the Apostle John as their authority. 
 The Western churches, on the other hand, observed the day 
 of the resurrection, which took place on the first day of the 
 week, provided it did not fall on the fourteenth day of the 
 moon, and thus corresponded with the Jewish Passover, in 
 which case they deferred it till the following Sunday, and 
 alleged they were taught so to do by St Peter and St Paul. 
 In the second century the controversy ran so high that the 
 whole Church was moved by it. The Western churches 
 nick-named the Eastern Quartadecimani, from their observ- 
 ing the fourteenth day, and Victor, Bishop of Rome, having 
 written a somewhat imperious letter to the bishops of Asia, 
 and found them refractory, launched against them a sentence 
 of excommunication.* 
 
 « Mosheim. Ecclesiastical History. Cent. II. 
 
A.D. 635-660.] CONTROVERSIES ABOUT EASTER. 85 
 
 In the year 325 the oecumenical Council of Nice assembled, 
 and having condemned the doctrines of Arius, it addressed 
 itself to the controversy regarding Easter. Its decision 
 was, " that the feast should he celebrated upon the first 
 Sunday after the fourteenth day of the moon of the first 
 month, providing always that if this fourteenth day of the 
 moon should fall upon a Sunday, it should be the next Sun- 
 day, that is to say, seven days after ; declaring that this 
 first month was that upon which the fourteenth day of the 
 moon should fall upon the vernal equinox, or immediately 
 after."* This canon of the Council of Nice involved some 
 grave astronomical questions ; and before the orthodox day 
 of Easter could be determined, these four things especially 
 must be known : — -first, On what day the vernal equinox 
 falls ; secondly, On what day of the year falls the new 
 moon, the fourteenth day of which happens upon the vernal 
 equinox, or immediately after ; tMrdly, How to find out 
 this fourteenth day; and lastly. How to find out the day 
 upon which the Sunday falls that comes immediately after 
 the fourteenth day of the first month. 
 
 The Fathers of Nice, better theologians than astronomers, 
 were unable to solve the difficulties themselves had raised, 
 and therefore referred them to the Christians of Alexandria, 
 in which city a celebrated astronomical school at that time 
 existed. Their solutions, though not perfectly correct, were 
 worthy of their fame. They declared— ;/?rs#, That the day 
 of the vernal equinox answered to the 21st of March ; 
 secondly, That the 8th of March and the 5th of April, in- 
 clusive, constituted the hounds of the new paschal moons, or 
 of the first month ; betwixt which the fourteenth day of 
 such new moons should fall either upon the vernal equinox, 
 or immediately after ; thirdly, That fourteen days from 
 the new paschal moon gave the full moon, and that upon 
 the Sunday immediately after that the feast was to be cele- 
 brated ; and lastly. For finding out the day upon which the 
 Sunday falls that comes immediately after the fourteenth 
 
 * " Easter Sunday is always the first Sunday after the full moon, which hap- 
 pens the next after the twenty-nrst day of March; and if the full moon 
 happens upon a Sunday, Easter-day is the Sunday after." (Common Prayer- 
 Book of the Churrli of 'P'-'-iind.) 
 
86 CHUECH HISTOBY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. iv. 
 
 day of the first month, the ingenious Solar Cycle was in- 
 vented, by which is easily known throughout the whole 
 year the days on which the Dominical letters fall which in- 
 dicate the Sundays. 
 
 The Council of Nice had the good fortune to restore peace 
 to the Church in regard to the great Christian festival, and 
 from the year 325 the whole world observed Easter on the 
 same day. There were still, however, great difficulties in re- 
 gard to the annually-recurring day, and especially were the 
 Christians perplexed as to how they were to determine, by a 
 certain order, the days of the new moon in a course of years. 
 The Church ultimately adopted the cycle called the Golden 
 Number, or the lunar cycle of nineteen years. In the early 
 part of the sixth century, Dionysius Exiguus, a monk to 
 whom we are indebted for having taught us to reckon our 
 dates from the birth of our Saviour, formed a new calendar 
 which soon met with very general applause. About the 
 same time an eminent chronologist, named Victorius, com- 
 posed a new paschal cycle for 632 years, from the combina- 
 tion of the lunar and solar cycles already referred to. These 
 improvements being introduced into the Church, had the 
 effect of altering the day which had previously been under- 
 stood for the celebration of Easter, throwing it further 
 back.* 
 
 The new calendar was soon received by all the Churches 
 more immediately connected with Rome ; but Britain, iso- 
 lated in position, and frequently isolated in ideas, continued 
 to adhere to the old computations. It has been supposed 
 by some ecclesiastical writers that the British and Irish 
 Churches agreed with the Churches of Asia in regard to the 
 celebration of Easter, and this has been held as a proof of 
 their Oriental origin. This, however, is plainly a mistake. 
 Prior to the Council of Nice, the Asiatic Churches cele- 
 brated Pasch on the fourteenth day of the moon, week-day. 
 or Sunday ; the British and Irish Churches never did so, 
 but with the whole West kept the feast on the Sabbath im- 
 
 * In framing the account which I have here given of the Easter perplexi- 
 ties, I have heen chiefly indebted to Dr George Mackenzie, in his Life of St 
 Colnmhanua, Abbot of Bobio and Luxevil. (Lives and Characters of the 
 most Eminent Writers of the Scots Nation.) 
 
A. D. 635-660.] ROMISH AifD BRITISH COMPUTATIONS. 87 
 
 mediately following. Their disagreement with Kome simply 
 arose from the adherence to an old almanac, when a new 
 one had come into use. 
 
 The difference is easily explained. The Eomans kept 
 Easter betwixt the iifteenth and twenty-first day of the 
 moon, immediately after the 21st day of March or vernal 
 equinox, when the days and nights are equal. In reckon- 
 ing the age of the moon they followed the Alexandrian 
 cycle of nineteen years, or the Golden Number, as interpreted 
 and explained by Dionysius Exiguus. The ancient British 
 and Irish Churches, on the other hand, kept the Easter on 
 the Sunday that fell betwixt the fourteenth and twentieth 
 day of the moon ; and followed in their computation of it, 
 not the nineteen years cycle of Anatolius, but a cycle of 
 eighty-four years attributed to Sulpicius Verus.* 
 
 We have already seen the pains, taken by Augustine to 
 convince the British bishops of their error, and of their ill- 
 fated persistency in it. Laurentius, his successor in the See 
 of Canterbury, not only pursued the same course at home, but 
 wrote a letter to " his most dear brothers the lords-bishops 
 and abbots throughout all Scotland," stating, that he had 
 expected they would have been better informed about Easter 
 than the Britons, but that he had discovered his mistake, 
 and that a certain Scotch bishop called Dagan had carried 
 matters so high as to refuse to eat with him, or enter the 
 house where he was-t About thirty years after this, Popes 
 Honorius and John IV. both wrote to the Scots, earnestly 
 exhorting them " not to think their small number, placed in 
 the utmost borders of the earth, wiser than all the ancient 
 and modern churches of Christ throughout all the world ; 
 and not to celebrate a different Easter, contrary to the 
 Paschal calculation, and the synodical decrees of aU the 
 bishops upon earth." { 
 
 * Usher, Religion of the Ancient Irish, chap. ix. 
 
 t Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book ii. chap. iv. 
 
 X Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book ii. chap. xix. In both these letters we 
 must understand " Scots" to apply to the Scots of Ireland as well as to the 
 Scots in the west of Scotland — in fact, to all who spoke the same Erse language. 
 That they include the Scots settled in our country is proved by the circum- 
 stance that Segenus (Segenius), the Abbot of lona, is mentioned by name in 
 the pontifical letter. 
 
88 CHURCH HISTOET OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. IV. 
 
 Notwithstanding these efforts of Eome and her emissaries, 
 the good Bishop Aidari appears to have escaped all serious 
 annoyance from the Easter controversy, as Koman influence 
 was still hut little known in Northumhria ; only the historian 
 mourns that so good a man should have cherished so grievous 
 an error, hut charitably imputes it to his rustic simplicity.* 
 His successor Finan did not thus easily escape. The Queen 
 Eanfleda had been brought up in Kent, and had with her a 
 Kentish priest, who followed the new style in the celebration 
 of Easter ; and thus it happened, awkwardly enough, in the 
 palace, that when the king had ended the time of fasting, 
 and kept his Easter, the queen and her followers were still 
 fasting and celebrating Palm Sunday, f But Finan stood 
 firm, notwithstanding these courtly influence's, and died in 
 the faith in which he had been educated. 
 
 He was succeeded at Lindisfarne by Colman, who had 
 also been reared in lona. In his time the controversy, 
 which had gradually been growing, came to a head. Agil- 
 bert, Bishop of the "West Saxons, came on a visit to the 
 Prince of Northumberland, and advantage was taken of this 
 circumstance to hold a synod in the monastery of Streanes- 
 halch,{ and decide the vexatious matter by a public disputa- 
 tion. Thither, accordingly, came King Oswy and his son ; 
 Bishop Colman, with his Scottish clerks ; Bishop Agilbert, 
 with the priests Agatho and Wilfred; the queen's confessor, 
 who sympathized with the Eomanists ; and the Abbess Hilda 
 and her followers, who took the side of the Scots. Bishop Ced 
 acted as interpreter, and maintained an impartial neutrality. 
 
 The king opened the controversy with a prudent speech, 
 
 * " As Christians they knew that the resurrection of our Lord, which 
 happened on the first day after the Sahbath, was always to be celebrated on 
 the first day after the Sabbath ; but being rude barbarians, they had not 
 learned when that first day after the Sabbath, which is now called the Lord's- 
 day, should come." "These things I much love and admire in the aforesaid 
 bishop, because I do not doubt they were pleasing to God ; but I do not praise 
 or approve his not observing Easter at the proper time, either through ignor- 
 ance of the canonical time appointed, or, if he knew it, being prevailed on by 
 the authority of his nation not to follow the same." (Bede, Eocles. Hist., book 
 iii. chapters iv. and xvii.) 
 
 t Bede, Eccles. Hist., book iii. chap. Xiv. 
 
 I Now called Whitby, not far from York. The synod is known in history 
 as the Synodus Pharensis. 
 
-4.D. GG4.] COUNCIL OF STBEANESHALCH. 89 
 
 in whicli he cotmselled unity and peace, and then requested 
 Colman to state upon what grounds his time of observing 
 the festival rested. Colman said that he had received it 
 from his elders vi^ho had sent him thither ; that all his fore- 
 fathers, men beloved of God, had observed it as he did ; and 
 that they had derived their tradition from St John, the dis- 
 ciple beloved of the Lord. The priest Wilfred was deputed 
 by Agilbert to reply ; and he argued that the Eoman time 
 of celebrating the festival was sanctioned by the practice of 
 the whole world, and that it was presumptuous in the in- 
 habitants of two remote islands to oppose themselves to the 
 rest of the universe. He insinuated that the Apostle John 
 Judaized when he kept the fourteenth moon, as he did so 
 without respect to the day of the week upon which it fell, as 
 the Jews were accustomed to do ; the blessed Apostle Peter, 
 however, had taught them to keep the feast on the Sabbath, 
 in memory of their Lord's resurrection from the dead. But 
 though they might differ in this, both apostles, following the 
 precepts of the law, had taught that the feast was not to begin 
 till the rising of the moon on the fourteenth day of the first 
 month in the evening ; and therefore its Hmits, in reality, 
 lay between the fifteenth and twenty-first days of the month, 
 and not between the fourteenth and twentieth, as the Scots 
 and Britons ignorantly taught, in contradiction both of John 
 and of Peter, both of the law and the gospel. In answer to 
 this tart harangue, Colman cited the example of his most 
 reverend Father Columba, whose sanctity and orthodoxy 
 had been testified by heavenly signs and miracles, and who 
 was now, beyond all question, a saint in glory. Wilfred, in 
 reply, ventured to remind Colman, that on the day of judg- 
 ment many would come and say — " Have we not prophesied 
 in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils, and done 
 many wonderful works," to whom the reply of our Lord 
 would be — " I never knew ye." But charitably hoping that 
 it might be otherwise with Columba, and granting that he 
 was a holy man, and powerful in miracles, " can he," ex- 
 claimed the Saxon priest, " be compared with the most 
 blessed prince of the apostles, to whom our Lord said — 
 '■Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, 
 
90 CHTIfiCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. iv. 
 
 and the gates of hell will not prevail against it, and to thee 
 I will give the keys of the kingdom of heaven/" 
 
 When Wilfred had spoken thus, the king said, " Is it 
 true, Colman, that these words were spoken by our Lord to 
 Peter ?" He answered, " It is true, king." Then says he, 
 " Can you show any such power given to your Columba?" 
 Colman answered, "None." "Then," added the king, "do 
 you both agree that these words were principally directed to 
 Peter, and that the keys of heaven were given to him by our 
 Lord?" They both answered, "We do." Then the king 
 concluded, " And I also say to you that he is the doorkeeper, 
 whom I wiU not contradict, but will, as far as I know, and 
 am able, in all things obey his decrees, lest when I come to 
 the gates of the kingdom of heaven, there should be none to 
 open them, he being my adversary who is proved to have 
 the keys."* So ended the debate ; and one cannot but be 
 amused at its odd termination, and at the extreme simplicity 
 of the king ; but the whole thing is quite natural, and affords 
 us a very perfect picture of the modes of argument that were 
 current, and the ideas that prevailed at the time. 
 
 But this was not the only question which inflamed eccle- 
 siastics, and disturbed the peace and unity of the Church. 
 There was a controversy regarding the tonsure, which ran 
 as high as that regarding Easter, and the proper method of 
 shaving the crovrai of the head was invested with all the 
 solemnity of religion. The tonsure appears to have origi- 
 nated among the earliest Christian ascetics, and to have 
 been used by them as a distinctive token of their renuncia- 
 tion of the world. Towards the close of the fifth century, it 
 began to be regarded, both in the east and west, as a neces- 
 sary mark of the sacerdotal caste ; and now the barber's 
 razor was required to co-operate with the bishop's hand to 
 constitute the priest. Two modes of shaving the clerical 
 crown — the circular and semicircular — came into use ; but 
 who were the inventors of them. History, with blameworthy 
 carelessness, has neglected to record. The Eoman clergy 
 gave a preference to the circular shave, which was and is 
 performed by making bald a small round spot, on the very 
 
 ■* Bede, Eccles. Hist., book iii. chap. xxv. 
 
A.D. 604.] DISPUTES ABOUT THE TONSURE. 91 
 
 crown of the head, and leaving it encircled by hair. The 
 Scottish monks, on the other hand, adopted the semicircular 
 mode, and shaved the forepart of their head from ear to 
 ear, in the form of a crescent. 
 
 Augustine and his successors in the See of Canterbury 
 were much shocked at the barbarity of the Scottish clergy, 
 called their way of shaving the tonsure of Simon Magus, 
 and insisted that henceforward they should perform the 
 operation after the Eoman fashion. So far did matters pro- 
 ceed that the tonsure was made a test of orthodoxy, and a 
 man was or was not a heretic according as he made bare 
 the crown or the forepart of his head. Discourses were 
 preached, and arguments held, to extol the one method and 
 reprobate the other ; and even texts of Scripture were quoted 
 as decisive in favour of the circular mode. The horror with 
 which the Italian clergy affected to behold the crescent 
 crowns of the monks of lona is inadequately represented by 
 the feeling with which the gentleman, fresh from the capi- 
 tal, contemplates the uncouthly-shorn locks of the rustic. 
 But neither eloquence, arguments, nor derision had any 
 effect upon the presbyters of the north. They steadfastly 
 maintained that theirs was the better way, and that they 
 would continue to shave their heads as St John and Poly- 
 carp had done before them. 
 
 The adverse decision in the Easter controversy, and the 
 continual taunts to which he was exposed on account of the 
 shape of his tonsure, determined Oolman to leave Lindis- 
 farne, and return to lona.* He was accompanied by all 
 who were of the same mind as himself, and they devoutly 
 carried away with them part of the bones of the most reve- 
 rend Father Aidan. Thus Itahan priests and practices pre- 
 vailed in England, and drove out the Scots after an occupa- 
 tion of thirty years. Neander laments the unfortunate 
 decision of the disputation at Streaneshalch, and remarks, 
 " that the manner in which it was made could not fail to be 
 attended with the most important effects on the shaping of 
 ecclesiastical relations all over England ; for had the Scot- 
 tish tendency prevailed, England would have obtained a 
 
 ■'■ Bede, Eccles. Hist., book iii. chap, xxyi. 
 
92 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. iv. 
 
 more free Church constitution, and a reaction against the 
 Eomish hierarchical system would have ever continued to 
 go forth from this quarter." * But Northumherland did not 
 prove the limit of Eoman influence. Parts of our country 
 inaccessihle to Eoman soldiers were subdued by Eoman 
 priests, and in the course of another century all the Culdees 
 of Scotland shaved their heads in the orthodox fashion, and 
 observed Easter on the orthodox day. 
 
 It has been thought by some historians, that in the firm- 
 ness with which the Culdees defended their ovm tonsure 
 and their own Easter we see something of the Protestant 
 spirit, and that even in these foolish monkish disputes we 
 may trace the indications of a purer faith than generally 
 prevailed at the time. To this it has been replied, that the 
 Culdees shaved their crowns and kept their Easter as scru- 
 pulously as the Eomans, though in the one case they pre- 
 ferred the semicircular to the circular tonsure, and in the 
 other an old calendar to a new one ; and that the difference 
 arose solely from their being further removed from Eomish 
 influences, and therefore a century or two later of being 
 affected by them. It has been said that we may see an 
 illustration of the whole matter in the tenacity with which 
 the rural districts of Scotland keep to the Old Style in 
 counting their terms, so long after the cities and towns 
 have adopted the New ; and it has been somewhat unfairly 
 insinuated, that a Highland minister, in our own day, would 
 feel as reluctant to allow his hair to be trimmed after the 
 Parisian mode, as his Culdee predecessor, twelve hundred 
 years ago, was to allow his head to be shaved after the 
 fashion of the friseurs of Eome. Eepudiating the illustra- 
 tion, we may allow the argument, for it goes to prove that 
 in Scotland, at this time, there was a more primitive, and 
 therefore in all probability a purer faith, than in Italy or 
 Gaul. In the Church of Scotland in the sixth and seventh 
 centuries, we see the Church of Eome in the third and 
 fourth. By reason of its isolation, it was behind the age ; 
 but that very circumstance brought it nearer to the age of 
 the apostles. This one thing we may clearly learn from the 
 
 * Churcli History, vol. v. sect. i. 
 
A.D. 664.] CREED OF THE CULDEES. 93 
 
 controversy at Streaneshalch, that tlie monks of lona did 
 not acknowledge that they owed any allegiance to the Bishop 
 of Eome. They learned that lesson afterwards, but it was 
 not yet. 
 
 Some writers have attempted to prove that the Culdees 
 repudiated auricular confession, the worship of saints and 
 images, the doctrines of purgatory, and the real presence in 
 the sacrament of the Supper ; and have delighted to pour- 
 tray them as free from almost all the errors and superstitions 
 of the Roman Church, the holy children in the midst of 
 Babylon.* An impartial examination of their history shows 
 this to be a fond delusion ; and it is a pity it should be longer 
 indulged in, as neither Presbyterianism nor Protestantism can 
 gain anything by it. It is certain they were always behind 
 the Eoman clergy in the reception of new doctrines and 
 modes of worship ; and that the Eomish ritual never attain- 
 ed its full splendour amongst them ; but this is to be attri- 
 buted solely to the remoteness of their situation, the sim- 
 plicity of their manners, and the poverty of their country. -■ 
 But they gloried in their miracles ;t they paid respect to 
 relics ;J they had their monasteries, their abbots, and their 
 abbesses, and lived according to a monastic discipline ; they 
 performed penances, fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays,! 
 used a liturgy, and had something very like to auricular 
 confession, absolution, || and masses for the dead.^f But who 
 will doubt but that very many of them were good and holy 
 
 * Dr Jamieson and others. See Historical Account of the Ancient Cul- 
 dees, pp. 198-220. This history, however, is full of interesting and erudite 
 information. 
 
 t The biographies of Columba, Aidan, Finan, &o., are full of these. 
 
 J The bones of Columba found no rest, and for centuries were being per- 
 petually carried hither and thither, from Ireland to Scotland, and from Scot- 
 land to Ireland. (Origines — lona.) The bones of Aidan (or rather a share of 
 them) were carried away from Lindisfarne by Colman. (Bede.) 
 
 g Bede specially mentions that Aidan induced many to fast on these days. 
 
 II In Adomnan's Life of Columba, we find one Fiachna throwing himself 
 at the feet of the Saint, and confessing his sins. Upon which Columba said, 
 " Eise up, son, and be comforted ; thy sins which thou hast committed are for- 
 given.'' (Lib. i. cap. xvi.) Adomnan himself, the author of this biography, 
 according to Bede, was wont to confess to a priest, and perform severe penances. 
 (Book iv. chap, xxv.) 
 
 % When Columba heard of the death of Columbanus, " I must," said he, 
 " to-day, though I be unworthy, celebrate the holy mysteries of the eucharist, 
 
94 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. iv. 
 
 men, notwithstanding they were so far infected by the-super- 
 stitions of their time. 
 
 It is certain they never submitted to the decrees of the 
 Papacy in regard to celibacy. Many of the Culdees were 
 married men. St Patrick was the son of a deacon, and the 
 grandson of a priest. In a synod said to have been held by 
 the same saint, together with Auxilius and Isserninus, there 
 was a special decree, that the wives of the clergy should not 
 walk abroad with their heads uncovered.* But not only did 
 the Culdees marry ; they were frequently succeeded in office 
 by their sons. In the Registry of St Andrews, there is men- 
 tion of thirteen Culdees who held their places by inheritance, f 
 Giraldus Cambrensis informs uS, that even so late as his day, 
 it was common among the Culdees of Wales for " the sons 
 to get the churches after their fathers, by succession, and not 
 by election ; thus possessing and polluting the Church of 
 Grod."{ The same practice prevailed in Ireland; for we 
 find Pope Innocent III. writing to his legate there. Car- 
 dinal Salernitan, to use his endeavours to abolish the cus- 
 tom whereby children succeeded to their fathers and grand- 
 fathers in their ecclesiastical benefices. § In like manner, 
 we find Hildebert, Archbishop of Tours, stating that when he 
 was Bishop of Man, the canonries or prebendaries of the 
 church of Clermont were transmitted hereditarily, so that 
 there the canons were born canons, and that none of the 
 clergy were elected except the bishop and abbot. || The 
 transmitting of ecclesiastical ofiices by inheritance was well- 
 nigh as great an evil as the cutting off from the clergy all 
 
 for the reverence of that soul wMoh this night, carried beyond the starry 
 firmament betwixt the holy quires of angels, ascended into paradise." (Adom- 
 nan, lib. iii. cap. xvi.) The -whole subject is dispassionately and learnedly 
 discussed by Usher in his " Religion of the Ancient Irish." 
 
 * Usher, chap. v. 
 
 t Habebantur tamen in ecclesia Sancti Andreje, quanta et qualis ipsa tunc 
 erat, tredecim per successionem carnalem, quos keledeos appellant. 
 
 i Successive quoque, et post patres filii ecclesiaa obtinent, uon elective ; 
 hsereditarie possidentes et poUuentes ecclesiam Dei. (lUaudabilibus "Wallise, 
 cap. vi.) He lived in the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th 
 centuries. 
 
 § Usher, Religion of the Ancient Irish, chap. v. 
 
 II Epist. 55. See Goodall's Preliminary Dissertation to Keith's Catalogue 
 of Scottish Bishops. 
 
A.D. 664.] lONA NOT SUBJECT TO ROME. 95 
 
 hope of doing so, by compelling them to celibacy. Our 
 happiness in knowing that they escaped one error, will there- 
 fore be considerably abated by the discovery that they fell 
 into an opposite and almost equally pernicious one.* 
 
 Though the early Ouldees had caught the contagion 
 of many of those errors which are now denominated 
 Eoman, we would do wrong to suppose that they yielded 
 subjection to the Koman See. lona was their Eome. They 
 were not even in communion with the Papal Church ; 
 and the Latin and Celtic clergy regarded each other with 
 mutual suspicion and dislike. The British Church firmly re- 
 fused to receive Augustine as its archbishop. The Scottish 
 Church was not moved by the letter of Pope Honorius in re- 
 gard to the observance of Easter ; and when Colman lost the 
 day at Streaneshalch, rather than yield, he took the relics of 
 Aidan and retired to Zona. The Eomanists retaliated in 
 their own way, — they denied the validity of Scotch orders. 
 Accordingly when Wilfred was chosen Archbishop of York 
 in the room of Colman, he refused to receive ordination at 
 the hands of the Scots, as being out of communion with 
 Eome ; and prayed that he might be allowed to go beyond 
 the sea, and receive ordination from the hands of catholic 
 bishops, t His prayer was granted ; but as he loitered in 
 France, his enemies had their revenge, and induced the king 
 to have Chad appointed to the See of York in his absence. 
 But this being done, great difficulty was felt in regard to his 
 consecration, as only one bishop was to be found in all Eng- 
 land who could be recognised as having been canonically 
 ordained.f Consecrated, however, he was, though he after- 
 wards required to submit to be consecrated again, to make his 
 apostolical succession sure.§ Animated with this spirit, cer- 
 tain Saxon bishops, who had become the abettors of Eome, 
 met in conclave, and issued the following decree: — "Such as 
 have received ordination from the bishops of the Scots or 
 
 * Tlie truth is, the compulsory celibacy of the Eoman clergy was not gene- 
 ral at the time when the Culdees were in their prime. 
 
 t Usher, Beligion of the Ancient Irish, chap. x. He quotes as his autho- 
 rities Bede, 'William of Malmesbury, and Stephen's Life of "Wilfred. 
 
 } Bede, Ecclesiastical History, hook iii. chap, xxviii. 
 
 § Ibid., book iv. chap. ii. 
 
96 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. IV. 
 
 Britons, who in the matter of Easter and the tonsure are 
 
 not united to the Catholic Church, let them be again, by 
 
 imposition of hands, confirmed by a catholic bishop. In 
 
 like manner also, let the churches that have been conse- 
 
 • crated by those bishops be sprinkled with exorcised water, 
 
 ; and confirmed with some service." The decrees of this 
 
 ' council go on to declare that baptismal chrysm and the 
 
 eucharist were to be denied to all such schismatics till they 
 
 professed their adherence to the one Church ; and that, 
 
 on their doing so, though baptized before, they were to be 
 
 baptized again.* Such were the formidable consequences 
 
 which followed their stubborn adherence to a worn-out 
 
 almanac, and a Simoniacal tonsure. 
 
 Such contumely on the part of the Komanists had its natural 
 effect on the minds of the British clergy, and no doubt also on 
 the minds of their brethren in the north, though our infor- 
 mation is confined to the former. They repaid contumely 
 with contumely, hatred with hatred, and excommunication 
 with excommunication. Did a Catholic seek the society of 
 the Welsh Christians, he was first put upon a penance of 
 forty days.f Did he speak of his church and his faith, he 
 was told he was no better than a heathen. J Upon such 
 rehgious heart-burnings the bards could not be silent ; and a 
 lay of Taliessyn, honoured by the Welsh with the title of " Ben 
 Beirdh," or chief of the bards, has descended to our time : — 
 " Wo be to that priest yborne, 
 
 That will not cleanly weed his come, 
 
 And preach his charge among ; 
 
 Wo be to that shepheard (I say), 
 
 That will not watch his fold alway, 
 
 As to his office both belong : 
 
 Wo be to him that doth not keepe^ 
 
 From Eomish wolves his sheepe, 
 
 With staff and weapon strong."§ 
 
 * Usher, Eeligion of the Ancient Irish, chap. x. The Archbishop men- 
 tions that he had seen the decrees in MS. in the library of Sir Thomas 
 Knevet, in Northfolk. f Usher, Religion of the Ancient Irish, chap. x. 
 
 + Bede, Ecclesiastical History, book ii. chap. xx. " It is to this day," 
 says this historian, " the custom of the Britons not to pay any respect to the 
 faith and religion of the English, nor to correspond with them any more than 
 with Pagans." 
 
 § Usher gives the original Welsh of this lay, with the translation, from the 
 Chronicle of Wales, p. 254. 
 
A.D. 1000-1090,] ST MABGAKET. 97 
 
 During the ninth and tenth centuries, impenetrable dark- 
 ness hangs over the history of our country ; and these cen- 
 turies, we know, contain events of vast political importance, 
 as it was during the former that, after many bloody wars, 
 the Scottish and Pictish monarchies were merged in one. 
 When light begins to break upon us in the eleventh century, 
 we find the Culdees still existing, and still frequently at 
 war with the Eoman bishops, though now all but conformed 
 to the Koman Church. Their disputes more frequently re- 
 garded tithes, lands, and privileges, than points of theology.* 
 At St Andrews, Dunkeld, Dunblane, and Brechin, t there 
 had been convents of Culdees from a remote antiquity, and 
 when these places were constituted into bishoprics, the Cul- 
 dees formed the bishop's chapter, and had the election of 
 the bishops. But Roman influence was growing stronger 
 every day, and as married Culdees were thought to derogate 
 from the sanctity of a cathedral, they were gradually sup- 
 planted, and Canons-Eegular substituted in their room. They 
 lingered longest at Brechin ; but with the thirteenth cen- 
 tury they vanish. J 
 
 We get a glimpse of the religious character of this, the 
 last age of Culdee supremacy, in the life of Margaret, the 
 Saxon queen of Malcolm III., written by Turgot, her con- 
 fessor. This royal lady, who has been honoured with can- 
 onization, though very superstitious, and somewhat osten- 
 tatious in her acts of beneficence, nevertheless possessed 
 many eminent virtues, and must be ranked among the best 
 of our queens. She exercised unbounded infiuence over her 
 brave hut illiterate husband, who, though unable to read 
 her books of devotion, was accustomed fervently to kiss 
 them. Every morning she prepared food for nine orphan 
 children ; and on her bended knees she fed them. With 
 her own hands she ministered at table to crowds of indigent 
 persons who assembled to share in her bounty ; and nightly, 
 before retiring to rest, she gave a still more striking proof 
 
 * Goodall's Dissertation. 
 
 t There were also Ouldee Houses at Abernethy, Loclileven, Monimusk, &c. 
 { Goodall's Dissertation. Sir James Dalrymple says they disappeared in 
 the beginning of the fourteenth century. See his- learned Collections, &c. 
 VOL. I. G 
 
98 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAKD. [cHAP. IV 
 
 of her humility by washing the feet of six of them. She 
 was frequently in church, prostrate before the altar, and there 
 with sighs and tears, and protracted prayers, she offered her- 
 self a sacrifice to the Lord. When the season of Lent came 
 round, besides reciting particular Offices, she went over the 
 whole Psalter twice or thrice within twenty-four hours. 
 Before repairing to public mass, she prepared herself for the 
 solemnity, by hearing five or six private masses ; and when 
 the whole service was over, she fed twenty-four hungry on- 
 hangers, and thus illustrated her faith by her works. It was 
 not till these were satisfied that she retired to her own scanty 
 meal. But with all this parade of humility, there was an 
 equal display of pride. Her dress was gorgeous, her retinue 
 large, and her coarse fare must needs be served in dishes of 
 silver and gold, a thing unheard of in Scotland till her time. 
 Fortunate in having obtained a good education, St Mar- 
 garet was particularly fond of showing her learning and 
 knowledge of the Scriptures. " Often," says her confessor, 
 " have I with admiration heard her discourse on subtle 
 questions of theology, in presence of the most learned men 
 of the kingdom." She soon found abundant opportuni- 
 ties for exerting her eloquence and erudition in attempts to 
 reform certain errors which had crept into the Church. 
 About two hundred years before this period, the Eoman 
 Church had altered the time of observing Lent from the 
 day following Quadragesima Sunday to the Wednesday be- 
 fore it ; and, as usual, the Scottish clergy lagged behind. 
 Ignorant of this, the Queen imagined the Eoman Lent was 
 the most primitive, and that her clergy had been guilty of 
 introducing a novelty. " Three days," says .Turgot, " did 
 she employ the sword of the Spirit in combating their 
 errors." Such a disputant was sure to win. Whether from 
 ignorance of history, or respect for their Queen, the Scottish 
 ecclesiastics, though right, were convinced they were wrong, 
 and henceforward observed Lent according to the Catholic 
 institution. But there were actual abuses to remove, and 
 to these the royal reformer addressed herself Strange to 
 relate, the clergy of Scotland at this period had ceased to 
 celebrate the communion of the Lord's Supper, and pled 
 
A.D. 1093.] ST Margaret's death. 99 
 
 their unworthiness as an excuse for their indolence.* The 
 observance of Sunday was well-nigh forgotten, and there 
 was little to mark it from the other days of the week. The 
 scriptural limit of lawful wedlock had been obliterated from 
 the minds of the people, and it was no uncommon thing for 
 a man to marry his step-mother, or his brother's widow. 
 St Margaret did good service to religion and virtue by in- 
 ducing her ecclesiastics to resume the celebration of the 
 Sacrament of the Supper, to remember the sanctity of the 
 Sabbath, and to put a stop to all unhallowed alliances. 
 
 It is melancholy to think that the life of so good a queen 
 was shortened by the severity of her fasts. They gradually 
 undermined her constitution, and brought on severe stomach 
 pains, which were removed only by death. She had a 
 favourite crucifix, which is celebrated in history under the 
 name of the Black Eood. The cross was of gold, the figure 
 of ebony, and it was understood to enclose a piece of the 
 true cross. She was lying, wasted and dying, with the cru- 
 cifix before her, when her son Edgar arrived from the battle 
 of Alnwick. " How fares it with the king and my Edward?" 
 said the dying woman. The young man stood silent. " I 
 know all," cried she ; " I know all. By this holy cross, by 
 your filial affection, T adjure you, tell me the truth." " Your 
 husband and son are both slain," said the youth. Lifting 
 her hands and eyes to heaven, she devoutly said, " Praise and 
 blessing be to Thee, Almighty G-od, that Thou hast been 
 pleased to make me endure so bitter anguish in the hour of 
 my departure, thereby, as I trust, to purify me in some mea- 
 sure from the corruption of my sins ; and Thou, Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who through the will of the Father hast enlivened 
 the world by Thy death, oh, deliver me ! " While the words 
 were yet upon her lips, she softly expired.f 
 
 This narrative makes it very obvious that the Culdees 
 had sadly degenerated since the days when they carried the 
 blessings of Christianity among the Saxons of Northumbria, 
 
 * How like is this to revelations recently made in regard to some Highland 
 parishes in our own day, in which a large proportion of the people are said to 
 have heen nnhaptized, and a still greater refused the Sacrament of the Supper. 
 
 1 1 am indebted to Lord Hailes's Annals for the account I have here given 
 of St Margaret. 
 
 G 2 
 
100 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IV. 
 
 and compelled Bede, notwithstanding his Eoman predilec- 
 tions, to do homage to the purity of their lives and the 
 ardour of their zeal. They had sunk into a state of indolence 
 and ignorance, and vital piety had given way to a vague and 
 meaningless superstition. Cut off from the rest of the reli- 
 gious world, they had become like a pool of water left be- 
 hind by the tide, separated from the wholesome agitation of 
 the sea, and certain to stagnate. On the other hand, the 
 Eomish Church at this period was full of life and energy, 
 actively and earnestly aggressive. It had lost the simplicity 
 of the gospel, but it had preserved its proselytizing spirit. 
 It was ambitious to embrace the world, although its ambi- 
 tion was rather Ecclesiastical than Christian — more to make 
 men vassals of Eome than servants of Christ. It was elo- 
 quent in preaching good works, although it had obscured 
 the faith from which all good works should spring. Nor 
 had it preached in vain. Cathedrals were reared, monas- 
 teries founded, hospitals endowed. Every one was in haste 
 to do something or give something for the Church or the 
 poor. In St Margaret we have an embodiment of the spirit 
 of her age. What ostentatious humility, what almsgivings, 
 what fastings, what prayers ! What piety, had it only been 
 free from the taint of superstition ! The Culdees were list- 
 less and lazy, while she was unwearied in doing good. The 
 Culdees met her in disputation ; but, being ignorant, they 
 were foiled. Death could not contend with life. The In- 
 dian disappears before the advance of the white man. The 
 Celtic Culdee disappeared before the footsteps of the Saxon 
 priest. David, the son of Margaret — the sainted son of a 
 sainted mother — ascended the Scottish throne ; and the 
 altar-fires of lona, now smouldering in their ashes, went out 
 under the strong rays of regal and pontifical splendour. 
 
CHAP, v.] ST CUTHBERT. 101 
 
 .CHAPTER V. 
 
 It is to monks we are indebted for the introduction of 
 Christianity into our country, and its preservation during 
 several centuries of barbarity and ignorance. We have 
 already spoken of the apostolic laboui-s of Ninian, Kentigern, 
 and Columba. Another apostolic man was St Cuthbert, 
 who lived at Melrose, and carried the gospel to the shielings 
 on the Cheviot hills.* These and several others have im- 
 printed their names indelibly on the Scottish memory ; they 
 have towns and churches still called by their name ; and the 
 fairs, in those villages where they were once revered as patron 
 saints, are almost invariably yet held upon the days set apart 
 for their honour in the calendar.! But time and Chris- 
 tianity had as yet done little toward softening the ferocity 
 of the Scots and Picts. Having no longer the Britons to 
 fight with, they turned their arms against one another, and 
 the few stray notices we have of the eighth and ninth cen- 
 turies are all of blood and battle. In truth, it was impossible 
 
 * " He used," says Bede, " to frequent most those places, to preach most in 
 those villages, which lay far in the high and rugged mountains which others 
 feared to visit, and which by their poverty and barbarism repelled the approach 
 of teachers. These he cultivated and instructed so industriously, and so ear- 
 nestly bestowed himself on that pious labour, that he was often absent from 
 his monastery for weeks, or even an entire month, without returning ; and, 
 dwelling in the hiU countries, was continually calling the rude people to the 
 things of heaven, not less by preaching than by the example of his virtuous 
 life." (Bede, Eccles. Hist., book iv. chap, xxvii.) 
 
 t " The fairs of towns and country parishes," says the Editor of the first 
 volume of the Origines, " were so invariably held on the day of the patron 
 saint, that where the dedication is known, a reference to the saint's day in the 
 Breviary serves to ascertain the day of the fair." 
 
102 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. v. 
 
 that a few Culdee houses, scattered over Scotland, could make 
 any powerful impression upon its people. They may have 
 submitted to the rites of Christianity ; but it is evident they 
 were yet ignorant of its spirit, and, in all probability, with 
 a few exceptions, knew nothing whatever of the doctrines it 
 embraced. 
 
 In the ninth century the Pictish kingdom came to au 
 end, and many have imagined that the Pictish population 
 was utterly exterminatecj. Darkness black as night rests 
 upon this portion of our history ; and in the absence of all 
 information, we are left to conjecture. However, as it seems 
 improbable that the more powerful kingdom should have been 
 utterly destroyed by the weaker one, it has been conjectured 
 as more likely, that circumstances, with which we are un- 
 acquainted, led to the union of the monarchies, by the acces- 
 sion of the Scottish king to the Pictish throne — as a Scottish 
 king, in after ages, ascended the throne of England, and 
 formed the whole island into one empire. Be this as it may, 
 the Picts have vanished from history without leaving a soli- 
 tary monument of their piety, or a single saint inscribed on 
 the calendar. There is a certain Trumwin who is mentioned 
 by Bede, and whose name appears as a witness to a forged 
 charter of Egfrid, King of Northumberland, in the year 685, 
 with the designation of Bishop of the Picts ; but even Trum- 
 win, we may infer, was a Saxon, as the Lothians were at 
 that period subject to Northumbria, and as he was ordained 
 to his charge by the Archbishop of York.* It is thought 
 they were ignorant of the use of letters, and it is certain they 
 have bequeathed us no historical records ; so that had it not 
 been for others, we should have been unaware of their very 
 existence, though their blood flows in our veins. The Scots 
 were probably as savage as they ; but the monks who came 
 among them from Ireland brought with them letters and 
 religion. 
 
 Bede frequently refers to the " bishops" of the Scots ; but 
 it is certain these were no other than Culdees, who, issuing 
 from their cloisters, laboured like itinerant preachers among 
 
 * Bede, book iv. chapters xii. andxxvi. Eitson, Annals of the Picts, p. 208. 
 Trumwin 's residence was at Abercorn in the Lothians. 
 
A.D. 1100-1200.] ORIGIN OF TITHES. 103 
 
 the half-naked barbarians — themselves clothed in the skins 
 of wild beasts.* There were no diocesan prelates, and no 
 parochial clergy in Scotland, till the twelfth century.f But 
 the work of constituting dioceses and parishes having begun, 
 went rapidly on. Within a hundred years, the Bishoprics of 
 St Andrews, Dunkeld, Dunblane, Glasgow, Moray, Aberdeen, 
 Brechin, Boss, Caithness, Galloway, and Argyle, had all been 
 erected. It is worth inquiring what was the cause of this 
 sudden development of ecclesiastical vigour, if not of spiritual 
 life. 
 
 The Christian clergy for many centuries depended en- 
 tirely upon the free-will oiferings of those whom they had 
 converted to the faith. When Christianity became the 
 religion of the Empire, and when it began to be believed 
 that the heavenly happiness of the departed might be ex- 
 pedited or increased by the prayers of the priests, donations 
 and bequests of money and land became frequent, and from 
 this source churches were erected and benefices endowed. 
 When the clergy had obtained a still firmer hold upon the 
 people, they began to preach the divine right of tithes. 
 The same proportion of our substance which was exacted 
 for the maintenance of the Priests and Levites under the 
 law was surely still more justly due to those who ministered 
 at the altars of the New Testament. It was seldom at this 
 period that the clergy preached or reasoned in vain. Though 
 there is no mention of tithes in the codes of any of the 
 Roman Emperors, the payment of them came gradually into 
 
 * " The clothing even of the monks consisted of the skins of beasts, thougli 
 they had woollen and linen, which they knew how to obtain from abroad by 
 means of traffic." (Chalmers's Caledonia, vol. i.) 
 
 t This will probably be disputed ; but before it can be disproved, documents 
 belonging to the period, and testifying the reverse, must be produced. Even 
 Spotswood allows there were no dioceses till the eleventh century. (History, 
 book ii.) Eitson declares " that, exclusive of a very few monasteries, there 
 were not perhaps above three churches in Scotland at the commencement of 
 the ninth or tenth century ; nor was the division of parishes known till after 
 the eleventh or twelfth ; in a word, there was no secular clergy. Most of the 
 Scottish saints, chiefly bishops, in the Breviary of Aberdeen, or Keith's Cata- 
 logue, and still more in Dempster's Menologium, are absolutely false, feigned, 
 and forged, or stolen from other countries." (Annals of the Picts, note, p. 210.) 
 This is too strong ; but it comes nearer the truth than many statements of an 
 opposite kind. 
 
1-04 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. v. 
 
 use ; and in the eighth century, the Emperor Charlemagne 
 made them compulsory in his dominions, and piously de- 
 clared, in his laws, that the devils had muttered in the air 
 that the non-payment of the righteous exaction was the 
 cause of a famine which had scourged the country.* In- 
 dehted to the Eoman bishop for having placed the imperial 
 crown upon his head, he still further repaid the boon by the 
 rich offerings which he laid upon the shrine of St Peter ; 
 and his irresistible arms were ever at the service of the 
 Church, to enforce baptism upon reluctant pagans, or to free 
 Rome from troublesome Lombards. In his time the Church 
 grew to a greatness it never had before, 
 
 Alfred the Great appears to have imitated in England the 
 policy, of Charlemagne. When he came to the throne he 
 found religion almost totally extinguished by the constant 
 incursions of the heathen Danes. The monasteries had 
 been razed to the ground ; the monks dispersed ; in many 
 provinces the whole Church service had been discontinued ; 
 and the King laments that he had found but one priest 
 south of the Thames, and very few north of the Humber, 
 who could understand the Latin liturgy. Alfred set himself 
 to build up the Church which had fallen down. He invited 
 learned ecclesiastics to his kingdom, made his own daughter 
 the abbess of a nunnery, expressly enjoined the -payment of 
 tithes, and devoted much of his own time to works of piety. t 
 One reads with a smile, in his Life by Asser, how by a 
 " shrewd and useful invention" the great King had six 
 candles of wax manufactured for him, nicely calculated to 
 burn for twenty-four hours before the holy relics, and so 
 marked, that by the progress the flame had made he could 
 
 * Omnis homo ex sua proprietate legitimam deoimam ad ecclesiam conferat. 
 Experimento enim di dicimus, in anno, quo ilia valida fames irrepsit, ebuUire 
 vacuas unnonas a dsemonibus devoratas, et voces exprobationis auditas. Such 
 is the decree of the Council of Frankfort. Selden and Montesquieu both re- 
 gard Charlemagne as the legal author of tithes. (See Gibbon, Hist., chap, xlix.) 
 " The ciYil power was first interposed in support of the right in the reign of 
 Charlemagne, who, in 778, introduced them into his dominions in France and 
 Oermany, by the following law : — ' Ut unusquisque suam decimam donet, 
 atque per jussionem episcopi sui dispensetur.' " (Leges Longobard. per Lin- 
 denbrogius. Connel on Tithes, book i. chap, i.) 
 
 t Asser's life of Alfred. 
 
A.D. 1057 -1200.] NORMAN AND SAXON SETTLERS. 105 
 
 tell at any time the hour of the day or night ; and how 
 when the wind, penetrating his tent, sometimes hlew them 
 out hefore they had reached the socket, he invented a lan- 
 tern of thin transparent horn, in which they burned steadily 
 and undisturbed for their appointed time.* The piety and 
 virtues, the learning and liberality of Alfred, had an influ- 
 ence upon the whole kingdom ; religion became a fashion, 
 and churchmen mightily increased; so that two hundred 
 years afterward, when William the Conqueror made his sur- 
 vey of the kingdom, he found in it 45,017 ecclesiastics, with 
 not a little territory in their hands. t 
 
 This mania to enrich the Church, travelling northward, 
 soon began to infect Scotland. In the year 1057 Malcolm 
 Canmore was crowned King of Scotland at Scone. In 1066 
 the Normans landed on the coast of Sussex, and the battle 
 of Hastings was fought, which decided the fate of England, 
 and placed a new dynasty on the throne. Many of the 
 Saxons fled into Scotland to escape from their Norman 
 masters ; and among others, the royal Edgar, with his 
 mother and two sisters. Malcolm welcomed the refugees, 
 gave them fitting entertainment at court, and soon made 
 Margaret, the elder of the sisters, his Queen. The learning, 
 virtues, and piety of this lady we have already recorded. 
 From this period we find a stream of Saxon and Norman 
 settlers pouring into Scotland. They came not as conquerors, 
 and yet they came to possess the land. With amazing 
 rapidity, sometimes by royal grants, and sometimes by ad- 
 vantageous marriages, they acquired the most fertile districts 
 from the Tweed to the Pentland Firth ; and almost every 
 noble family in Scotland now traces from them its descent. 
 The strangers brought with them English civilisation, and 
 English attachment to an ecclesiastical hierarchy, and it is 
 to their influence and example we must attribute the estab- 
 lishment and endowment of the hierarchy in our country. 
 
 Notwithstanding the devout spirit which animated Mal- 
 colm and his queen, they appear to have made few dona- 
 tions to the Church. The endowment of a Benedictine 
 establishment at Dunfermline, and a small grant of land to 
 
 * Asser's Life of Alfred. t Balfour's Annals, vol. i. p. 2. 
 
106 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. v. 
 
 the Culdees of Fife, are the only instances of their liberality 
 which have been traced* The two elder sons of Malcolm, 
 Edgar and Alexander, both evinced their piety by founding 
 monasteries ; but his youngest son, David, who ultimately 
 succeeded to the throne, was by far the most liberal bene- 
 factor of the Scottish clergy, and bought at a great price 
 the honour of Eoman apotheosis. He founded the Bishop- 
 rics of Glasgow, Brechin, Dunkeld, Dunblane, Eoss, and 
 Caithness. A bishop had been located at Murtlich ; him he 
 translated to Aberdeen, and bestowed upon him ample 
 revenues. St Andrews had been raised to opulence by his 
 immediate predecessor, f If the remaining Scottish Sees 
 had any existence prior to his reign, it is certain no succes- 
 sion of bishops can be traced, nor till now had they any 
 grants of tithes and lands, so necessary to the proper con- 
 stitution of a bishopric.J The same pious liberality called 
 into existence a multitude of abbacies, priories, and nun- 
 neries, and monks of every order and in every garb swarmed 
 in the land. He founded no fewer than fourteen or fifteen 
 religious houses, and richly endowed every one of them. 
 " He was a sore saint to the crown," said James the First of 
 Scotland. 
 
 The proprietors of land followed the example of the 
 monarch, and their English culture predisposed them to do 
 so. Having acquired their feudal charters with the king's 
 + or seal attached, they began to settle and improve their 
 manors. Perhaps upon their ground they found an old reli- 
 gious house already existing, but if not, they built a church, 
 and tithed the manor for its support. It was thus that tithes, 
 and parishes, and a parochial clergy, were first called into 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
 t The Bishop of St Andrews probably had some possessions before this 
 period, but they must have been inconsiderable. Alexander I. made them 
 a grant of a large territory known by the name of the Boar's Chase. 
 
 J It is sometimes affirmed that, from a very remote antiquity, large posses- 
 sions belonged to the Church of Scotland, but that during a period of lethargy 
 among the clergy, and of war among the barons, they had fallen into the hands 
 of laymen, and that in the twelfth century they were merely recovered from 
 their unlawful possessors ; but no satisfactory proof of this has yet been pro- 
 duced ; nor do we think it possible to prove it, in the utter absence of docu- 
 mentary evidence. 
 
A.D. H15.] SEE OF ST ANDREWS. 107 
 
 existence. Our industrious antiquary, Sir James Dalrymple, 
 remarks that he has seen no mention made of the words " par- 
 son" or "vicar" in any charter before the time of David I.* 
 
 But the rise of our Bishoprics, the origin of our Parochial 
 System, and the establishment of our Monasteries are de- 
 serving of a more minute investigation. 
 
 There appear to have been bishops at St Andrews from 
 the close of the ninth century, but they had no circumscribed 
 diocese, and the order of their succession has got into inextric- 
 able disarray, for we have no fewer than seven catalogues 
 of them, each one differing from the rest.f It is with the 
 first Bishops of St Andrews as with the first Bishops of Rome 
 — they have been smitten with confusion, and no ingenuity 
 can now unravel the tangled skeue. Certainty begins to 
 dawn upon us in the reign of Alexander I., when Turgot, 
 the late confessor of Queen Margaret, was consecrated by 
 Thomas, Archbishop of York ; but he lived not long to enjoy 
 his honour, and it is said that vexation in regard to ecclesias- 
 tical affairs hastened his end. He died at Durham in the year 
 1115. Upon his death, Alexander wrote to the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, requesting him to loose from his monastic 
 vows Eadmer, one of his monks, that he might be placed 
 upon the episcopal throne of St Andrews. The request was 
 granted ; but a whirlwind was raised in the religious world 
 by disputes in regard to his consecration. Both York and 
 Canterbury claimed the right to consecrate, and Alexander 
 had resolved that neither should have it. Eadmer naturally 
 favoured the pretensions of Canterbury, and the very men- 
 tion of these made the Scottish monarch start with im- 
 patience from his chair. Eadmer was in perplexity, and 
 sought the advice of the Bishop of Glasgow, and two monks 
 of Canterbury. Their advice was — " If, as a son of peace, 
 you seek peace, you must seek it elsewhere than in Scot- 
 land." J Another friend in England volunteered his opinion, 
 and it was simply — " That he should keep a plentiful and 
 hospitable board." " The Scotch priest," said he, " is an ani- 
 
 * Collections, p. 230. Connel on Tithes, book i. chap. ii. 
 t Keith's Catalogue of Scottish Bishops. 
 I Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
108 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. v. 
 
 mal wild by nature, and, like other animals, can be tamed 
 only by a glut of food."* Eadmer returned his ring to 
 Alexander, laid his pastoral staff on the altar of St Andrews, 
 and left the kingdom. 
 
 Shortly after the flight of Eadmer, Eobert, an Englishman 
 by birth, was elected to the See of St Andrews, and conse- 
 crated in the year 1128. This bishop founded the Priory of 
 St Andrews, and obtained from the king a grant of the old 
 Culdee Priory of Lochleven, to be annexed to his new foun- 
 dation. The royal charter bears, that if the Culdees chose 
 to live at peace with the new-comers, and obey their rules, 
 they might remain ; but that if they ofl'ered any opposition, 
 they were to be ejected from the island-i" This was the fate 
 of the Culdees everywhere. They were too primitive for 
 this age of ecclesiastical progress, and they perished ; just 
 as the animals of one geological epoch naturally die out in 
 the one which succeeds, the proper conditions of existence 
 being wanting. From this period there is a regular succes- 
 sion of Bishops of St Andrews till the time of the Keforma- 
 tion ; the two last being Cardinal Beaton or Bethune, who 
 was murdered out of revenge for the execution of George 
 Wishart ; and John Hamilton, who was publicly hanged at 
 Stirling, as an abettor of Queen Mary, and a traitor to the 
 government of the Earl of Moray. 
 
 Some zealous lovers of antiquity have represented StMungo 
 as the founder of the Bishopric of Glasgow, and others 
 have disputed his very existence. We entertain no doubt 
 but that such a man lived at the " Molendinar Burn," and im- 
 pressed deeply on the district the memory of his worth, but 
 we are incredulous of his having founded a bishopric ; and 
 
 * Animal natura ferum, largitate dapsilitatis mansuefaciendum. (Whar- 
 ton's Anglia Sacra.) See Hailes's Annals. 
 
 t As this document is of considerable historical value, we annex a copy: — 
 David, Bex Scotorum, episcopis, abbatibus, comitibus, vicecomitibus, et omnibus 
 probis hominibus totius terrae suae salutem. Sciatis me concessisse et dedisse 
 canonicis Sti Andress, Insulam de Lochleven, ut ipsi ibi instituant ordinem 
 canonicalem, et Keledei, qui ibidem inventi fuerint, si regulanter vivere 
 voluerint in pace cum eis, et sub eis maneant. Et si quis illorum ad hoc re- 
 sistere voluerit, volo et prfficipio ut ab insula ejiciatur. Testibus, Roberto 
 Epiacopo Sti Andreas, Andrea Episcopo de Kateness, Waltero Cancellario, 
 Nicholao Clerico, Hugone de Morevilla, Waltero filio Alani, apud Berwic. 
 
A.D. 1116.] SEE OF GLASGOW. 109 
 
 it is certain that no trace of his successors can be discovered 
 till we reach the twelfth century, more than five hundred 
 years after his death.* If history is to be preferred to fable, 
 we must date the See of Glasgow from the year 1116. In 
 that year, David, Prince of Cumberland, and afterward King 
 of the Scots, directed an inquest to be made regarding this See, 
 which resulted in its being put in possession of many valu- 
 able manors scattered over the whole south of Scotland. It 
 has been thought that these broad acres must have been 
 donations to Kentigern and his immediate successors, which 
 had reverted to profane uses in the stormy centuries which 
 succeeded, and were now legally reclaimed ;t but it is diffi- 
 cult to believe that in a period when there were no charters, 
 and no written records of any kind, tradition could so pre- 
 serve the memory of ancient possession, that it could be 
 proved by witnesses after the lapse of many hundred years. 
 Without charters, and without history, could the ancient and 
 dispossessed holders of land in the twelfth century be proved 
 in a court of justice now? To us the transaction seems 
 rather to prove that land was then of comparatively little 
 value, and that the monarch had little difficulty in appro- 
 priating wide districts ,'when he wished, as is emphatically 
 proved by the numerous manors bestowed upon the Norman 
 and Saxon settlers at this very time. These must have been 
 gotten before they were given. 
 
 John, the first Bishop of Glasgow, was consecrated by the 
 hands of Pope Pascal III. He built a cathedral church ; 
 but that noble structure, which still rises so proudly above the 
 vast wilderness of roofs of the great mercantile city, was begun 
 by his successor Herbert, carried on by Jocelin, and completed 
 by Bishop Bondington, who died in 1258. It was conse- 
 crated by Bishop Jocelin and two assistant bishops in 1197. 
 It is related that Bishop Kobert Wishart had obtained tim- 
 ber from King Edward I. to erect a steeple, but somewhat 
 
 * In the history of York Cathedral under the year 1050, three bishops are 
 mentioned as haying been consecrated to the See of Glasgow by the Arch- 
 bishop of York ; but it is strongly suspected that these were interpolated to 
 support the claims of York to a supremacy over the Scottish Church. 
 
 t This is the opinion of the accomplished Editor of the Origines Parochiales 
 Scotiaj. See Introduction to vol. i. 
 
110 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. v. 
 
 unfairly employed it in constructing catapults to batter the 
 Castle of Kirkintilloch, at that time held by the English. 
 The stone steeple, as it now stands, was built in the fifteenth 
 century. Prior to the Eeformation, the cathedral contained 
 upwards of twenty altars, dedicated to different saints, and 
 endowed by various persons and for various purposes. 
 Ranged along its lofty aisles were chapels, with altars of the 
 Holy Cross and the Holy Elude, in honour of the Virgin, St 
 Kentigern, St Martin, St Catharine, St John the Baptist, St 
 Peter and St Paul, St Servan, St Thenaw, and many others. 
 On the 2d of August 1301, a stranger presented himself be- 
 fore the high altar, and offered an oblation of seven shillings. 
 On the next day he repeated his visit and his offering, and 
 r\ added seven shillings more at the shrine of St Mungo. It 
 was Edward of England, who thus evinced his generosity 
 and devotion.* A few years later, Bruce presented himself 
 at the same shrine, to be shrived of the blood of the Red 
 Comyn. 
 
 As time passed on, the original possessions of the cathe- 
 dral were greatly augmented by private donations and be- 
 quests. The most frequent donation was wax, for the manu- 
 facture of tapers, to be kept burning on the altars while 
 masses were being said for the dead. William Cumyn, Earl 
 of Buchan, gave a stone of wax yearly for the lights at a 
 mass to be said daily at the altar of the tomb of St Kenti- 
 gern. Bishop John, with greater liberality, bequeathed an 
 annual grant of six stones of wax, to be used in candles in 
 brazen sconces between the pillars all round, from the high 
 altar to the entrance of the choir, f Some pious persons be- 
 queathed roods of land in the neighbourhood, and others 
 rents of tenements in the town, for the good of their own 
 souls or of their departed friends ; and thus the cathedral 
 church grew rich and great. 
 
 About the year 1492, the See of Glasgow was erected into 
 an archbishopric by the Pope, with the Bishops of Gallo- 
 way, Argyle, and the Isles for its suffragans.J 
 
 * Register of Glasgow, p. 621, quoted in Origines. 
 
 t Eegister of Glasgow, quoted in Origines. 
 
 I Keitli's Catalogue. Spotswood's History, book ii. 
 
A.D. 1127.] SEE OF DUNKELD. Ill 
 
 The annals of the See do not present anything worthy of 
 particular commemoration in a general history. The bishops 
 drew their revenues, and periodically walked in stately pro- 
 cession along the Kottenrow, while the multitude devoutly 
 uncovered, and on bended knees adored the Host as it passed ; 
 the priests mumbled their masses at the altars which they 
 were appointed to serve ; and the shopkeepers grew rich 
 from " the great resort of parsons, vicars, and other clergy 
 to their town ;"* till James Beaton, the last bishop, observed 
 the cloud gathering which portended the thunder-storm 
 which was soon to burst over all the religious houses of 
 Scotland, and so prudently fled to France, with all the vn-its 
 belonging to his See.f 
 
 The history of the Bishops of Dxjnkeld has been written 
 by Alexander Mill, who was a canon of that See, afterwards 
 Abbot of Oambuskenneth, and, last of all, the first President 
 of the Court of Session ; and his work has been published 
 by the Bannatyne Club, which has rendered such illustrious 
 service to the antiquarian literature of our country. Mill 
 relates that Constantino III., King of the Picts, at the in- 
 stance of Adomnanus, instituted a monastery of Culdees at 
 Dunkeld about the year 729, being 227 years nine months 
 and six days after the building of the church of Abernethy. 
 These Culdees, he proceeds to relate, had wives, after the 
 manner of the Eastern Church ; and they continued to exist 
 till David I. began his church reformation. About the year 
 1127, the monastery was converted into a cathedral, the 
 Culdees were cast out, a bishop and canons instituted in 
 their room ; and the transmutation was no doubt facilitated 
 by the first mitre of the new See being conferred upon Gre- 
 
 ® Origines ParocWales— Glasgow.— " In a supplication to Parliament in 1587 
 by certain of the inhabitants, it is stated, that before the Eeformation of reli- 
 gion their city was ' intertynit and uphaldin' by the resort of the parsons, 
 vicars, and other clergy, but is now become ruinous, and for the most part 
 altogether ' decayit,' and ' that part of the said citie abune the gray frier wynd 
 is the only ornament and deooratioun thereof, be reason of the grite and sump- 
 tuous buildingis of grite antiquitie, varie proper and meit for ye resait of his 
 hieness at sic times as they sail repair therto.' " 
 
 t Keith's Catalogue. With great fidelity Beaton deposited these in the 
 Carthusian Monastery, or Scotch College at Paris. 
 
] 12 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. v. 
 
 gory, the old Culdee abbot. Policy would dictate the ojffer, 
 and ambition would embrace it. 
 
 It would appear that at first the Diocese of Dunkeld 
 stretched from Perthshire to the shores of the Atlantic. 
 About the year 1200 it was held by an Englishman named 
 John, who despatched his chaplain Evaldus to Eome, with 
 a request to the Pope that he would detach from it the dis- 
 tricts of Argyle, Lorn, Cantire, and Lochaber, and consti- 
 tute them into a separate diocese. It is said that the reason 
 he assigned was his inability to understand the Celtic 
 tongue ; but it is certain that that reason incapacitated him 
 as much from being bishop of Dunkeld as bishop of Argyle. 
 It is probable the true motive was the wide extent of the 
 territory, rendered difficult to traverse by its mountain 
 ranges and roving clans. The Pope commended the disin- 
 terestedness of the bishop, erected the new See, and conse- 
 crated Evaldus, who understood Gaelic, to the spiritual over- 
 sight of it. Thus the good John had his labours lessened, 
 and his friend promoted to honour.* 
 
 A succession of forty bishops filled the episcopal throne 
 at Dunkeld till the time of the Eeformation. The most 
 celebrated amongst them is Gavin Douglas, who lived in 
 the beginning of the sixteenth century, and showed his love 
 for poetry and letters by translating into the vernacular the 
 ^Eneid of Virgil. Some of the prelates were men of the 
 world, and lived at court ; but most of them probably passed 
 their quiet lives by the waters of the Tay, and amid those 
 Highland hills, the romantic beauty of which now attracts 
 thousands of tourists from every part of the world. Ignorant 
 of biblical literature as we know some of them were,t and 
 corrupted though that Church had become at whose altars 
 they ministered, we need not hesitate to believe that they 
 did something to foster in the minds of the Celtic population 
 the seeds of piety and virtue. 
 
 It were needless to trace the origin and progress of the 
 other bishoprics, as the brief sketch we have given of St 
 
 * Keith's Catalogue. Spotswood's History, book ii. 
 
 t As the Eeformation draws on, we shall meet with a bishop of this See 
 who gloried in not Imowinghis Bible. 
 
A.D. 1100-1300.] ORIGIN OF PARISHES. 113 
 
 Andrews, Glasgow, and Dunkeld, illustrates the origin and 
 progress of the whole, and is sufficient for the purpose of 
 history. 
 
 The division of the land into dioceses was quickly fol- 
 lowed by its division into parishes. The lord of the manor, 
 led by the example of the monarch and his own English 
 ideas, erected a church for the instruction of his vassals, 
 and tithed the soil for the maintenance of the priest. The 
 manor and the parish were thus in general identical. There 
 is abundant documentary evidence of the existence of 
 parochial divisions in the twelfth century, but none before 
 that period. In a charter granted by David I. to the 
 Monastery of Dunfermline, he confirms to the Church of the 
 Holy Trinity the whole parish of Fotherif. In 1144 the 
 Bishop of Glasgow confirmed to the monks of Kelso the 
 Church of Lesmahago, with its whole parish. In a deed of 
 agreement which was made at Stirling, in the presence of 
 King David and his son, between the Bishop of St Andrews 
 and the Abbot of Dunfermline, there is mention made of the 
 parochial church of Eccles, and the words parochia and 
 parochialis occur in other parts of the document.* 
 
 The learned Editor of the " Origines Parochiales Scotite" 
 has furnished us with a parish — Ednam in the Merse — in the 
 origin of which we see the causes we have indicated in 
 operation. King Edgar, who succeeded his father Malcolm 
 in 1098, bestowed upon an Englishman named Thor the 
 land of Ednaham, at this period a perfect wilderness. Thor, 
 with the king's help and his own money, cultivated and 
 settled the desert, and erected upon it a church. It was 
 dedicated to St Cuthbert, endowed by the king with a 
 ploughgate of land, and subsequently with the tithes of the 
 whole manor. Thus enriched, it became an object of desire 
 to the monks of Durham ; and monks at that period had but 
 to ask to receive. "Accordingly, Thor, for the weal of King 
 Edgar's soul, and the soul of King Edgar's parents and 
 brothers and sisters, and for the redemption of his own 
 beloved brother Lefwin, and for the weal of his own soul 
 
 * Connel on Tithes, book i. chap. ii. The church we have mentioned was 
 the church of Stirling, so called from the Latin ecclesia. 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
114 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. v. 
 
 and body, gave to the monks of Saint Cuthbert, of Durham, 
 the church of Ednaham, and the ploughgate of land with 
 which it was endowed by King Edgar."* 
 
 The parish being thus made coincident with the manor, 
 frequently followed its future fortunes. If a detached piece 
 of land was subsequently added to the original possession, 
 it sometimes became also a part of the parish, and this ac- 
 counts for the divided and fragmentary character of some of 
 our parishes at the present hour. On the other hand, when 
 a large manor was subsequently split into several smaller 
 ones, it sometimes was felt to be desirable that each should 
 have a separate church, and thus the division of land was 
 followed by a division of parishes. In this way the parishes 
 of Crawford John, Eoberton, and Symington branched off 
 from the original parish and manor of Wiston. In other 
 cases a thriving burgh sprung up in the midst of a parish, 
 and required a church, a burial-ground, and baptismal font 
 for itself. It was thus that the parish of Edinburgh was 
 taken out of the heart of St Cuthbert's, and Aberdeen from 
 the parish of St Machar.f Besides these, other causes con- 
 curred to the erection of new parishes, and the division of 
 old ones, and frequently led to conflicting claims and bitter 
 disputes about privileges and tithes, altarage dues, and fees 
 for the baptism of infants, and for the burial of the dead.J 
 
 In tracing the origin of our parishes, we have, in fact, also 
 traced the origin of tithes and patronage ; for when a parish 
 
 * A copy of this interesting Deed of Appropriation will be found in Connel's 
 Treatise on Tithes, book i. chap. iii. 
 
 t Introduction to the first volume of Origines Parochiales. 
 
 J The great extent of the ancient parishes, and the difficulty of passage to 
 the parish church, frequently led to their division. Thus the parish of Glen- 
 buchat was separated from the parish of Logie, because on one occasion, while 
 the people of the Glen were on their way to the parish church to keep Easter, 
 they were caught in a storm, and five or six persons perished. See Origines. 
 
 We have said nothing of Chapels in the text. Very frequently a nobleman 
 took a pride in having a chapel on his own grounds for the convenience of his 
 own household. These erections were numerous in Roman Catholic times. 
 
 Collegiate Churches were the growth of the fifteenth century. They had 
 no parishes attached to them. They were instituted for Secular Canons per- 
 forming divine service and singing masses for the souls of their founders and 
 their friends. They were governed by a Dean or Provost. Of such Collegiate 
 Churches there were thirty-three in Scotland. 
 
A.D. 1100-1300.J ORIGIN OF MONASTERIES. 115 
 
 church -was erected, the tithes of the soil were required for 
 the maintenance of the priest, and the lord of the manor 
 very naturally assumed the right of presenting to the bene- 
 fice. The system was the growth of circumstances rather 
 than the result of any legislative plan ; but than it none 
 better could have been devised to carry Christianity into every 
 hamlet and every home. By dividing the land, it subdued it. 
 The noble gave proof of his piety by endowing the Church 
 with the tithes of his manor, and the Church more than repaid 
 the benefit by its humanizing influence upon the serfs who 
 tilled his soil and followed his banner to battle. Even the 
 right of patronage, whatever it be now, was then an un- 
 mixed good, for it bound the clergy to the native aristocracy, 
 and so far freed them from the foreign domination of their 
 spiritual head, and the ignorant villains had not yet dreamt 
 of the indefeisible right of the Christian people to choose 
 their own bishops and priests. 
 
 Before the parochial system had time fully to develop 
 itself, and exhibit its capacity for reclaiming and instructing 
 a whole population, it was well-nigh destroyed by the intro- 
 duction of a new element. The parochial clergy, in a 
 multitude of instances, were jostled out of their places 
 by MONKS, or if allowed to continue at their work, they were 
 cozened out of their legitimate revenues, which were appro- 
 priated to the support of some Eehgious House, with a high 
 savour of sanctity. We have already alluded to the rise of 
 monachism, and its introduction into Scotland by Columba 
 and the Ouldees ; but that primitive form of it had passed 
 away, and now, with a new organization and restored vitality, 
 it came and reconquered the land. 
 
 The first monks were completely independent of one 
 another ; they belonged to no order, and were obedient to 
 no rule ; but each, in his own cell, inflicted upon himself 
 any amount of torture he pleased. But now they were all 
 marshalled into different societies, and made subject to a 
 particular discipline ; and from the fidelity and courage with 
 which, in serried array, they fought the battles of the papacy, 
 they have been appropriately called the militia of Eome. 
 As opposed to the secular clergy, they were called Kegulars, 
 
 n 2 
 
116 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP, v. 
 
 because they followed some rule. The Augustinians followed 
 the rule of St Augustine ; and the Benedictines the rule of 
 St Bennet. These were the two most ancient orders, and 
 the most famous. Under the former were comprehended the 
 regular canons of St Augustine, the canons of St Anthony, 
 the Prsemonstratenses, the Ked Friars, and the Black Friars 
 or Dominicans. Under the latter there were the Benedic- 
 tines of Marmontier, of Cluny, of Tyron ; the Bernardines 
 or Cistercians ; and the monks of Yallis-Oaulium. Besides 
 all these, there were the Franciscans, the Carthusians, the 
 Carmelites or White Friars, and others stiU of inferior name. 
 Some of these did not come into existence till the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries ; for every age threw off its own 
 swarm. The divisions we have given depended upon the 
 rule which the Religious obeyed, the leader they acknow- 
 ledged, or the place where they originated ; but there was 
 another division which crossed these — for all the orders we 
 have enumerated subsisted either on the endowments which 
 their houses had acquired, or by begging. They were there- 
 fore divided into Rented Beligious and Mendicant Friars* 
 The Black, White, and Grey Friars were all mendicants. 
 The rules under which the various orders lived were ex- 
 tremely various — some excessively rigid, and others com- 
 paratively mild ; but there were three vows common to 
 them all — obedience, chastity, and poverty. 
 
 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, an intense passion 
 to found and endow monasteries seized upon Scotland. 
 That of Dunfermline was founded by Malcolm Oanmore ; 
 Coldingham, by Edgar; Scone and St Columba on Inch- 
 colm, by Alexander I. David, with pious prodigality, erected 
 and endowed Jedburgh, Kelso, Melrose, Newbattle, Holy- 
 roodhouse, Kinloss, Cambuskenneth, Dryburgh, and, besides 
 these, a convent of Cistercian Nuns at Berwick-upon-Tweed. 
 The successors of these monarchs followed their devout ex- 
 ample, and the nobles strove to emulate their kings. Many 
 causes conspired to produce this. The monks and friars had 
 a high repute for superior holiness, and they attracted the 
 attention and won the veneration of a rude and superstitious 
 
 * Spottiswood's Religious Houses. 
 
A.D. 1100-1300.] PASSION TO ENDOW MONASTERIES. 117 
 
 age by the austerity of their lives, the fervour of their devo- 
 tions, the fame of their preaching, and the self-inflicted pain 
 of their penances. The rich and the great became their 
 worshippers, and built them those beautiful houses, the very 
 ruins of which still excite our admiration. Perhaps the noble, 
 as he saw the abbey raising itself against the sky, with its 
 ribbed doorways and richly-decorated windows, looked for- 
 ward to the possibility of himself becoming a brother of the 
 order, when age had cooled his martial ardour, and taught 
 him to prepare to die ; perhaps he was ambitious that a 
 member of his family might be appointed its abbot ; at all 
 events, he had chosen its sacred enclosures as the place of 
 sepulture for himself, his countess, and their children, and 
 he never doubted but that the endowments he lavished upon 
 it would secure the repose of their souls.* Lands, tithes, 
 rights of pasture, of fuel, of fishing, were heaped upon the 
 monks ; and when all else failed, the parish church, with its 
 revenues, was annexed to the monastery, to be held by it for 
 ever. In this case, a paltry pittance was reserved for the 
 impoverished parish priest who served the cure ; or one of 
 the monks performed the duty, and the monastery engulphed 
 all.f To such an extent was this system carried, that in the 
 
 * In the preface to the Origines we have examples of the operation of these 
 motives. " In the reign of William the Lion, Eobert de Kent gave a territory 
 in Innerwio to the monks of Melrose, adding this declaration, — And be it 
 known, I have made this gift to the church of Melrose, with myself, and the 
 monks have granted me their cemetery, and the service of a monk at my de- 
 cease ; and if I be free, and have the will and the power, the monks shall re- 
 ceive me in their convent." (Lib. de Melrose, p. 59.) " Gilbert, Earl of Strath- 
 earn, and his countess Matildis, who founded the monastery in 1200, de- 
 clared that they so loved the place that they had chosen it as the place of 
 burial for them and their successors, and had already buried there their first- 
 born, for the repose of whose soul chiefly it was that they so bountifully en- 
 dowed the monastery. At the same time they bestowed five parish churches 
 upon it." (Lib. de Ins. Missar, pp. 3, 5.) 
 
 t Thus, the parish of Largs was an independent rectory tUl 1318, when 
 Walter the High Steward granted it to the monks of Paisley, with all its 
 tithes, dues, and fruits, and with the land with which it was endowed time out of 
 mind. The Chapter of Glasgow afterwards ratified the gift, and in considera- 
 tion of the abbey having been burned in the English wars, and to assist in its 
 repair, allowed the convent to hold it for its own use, without presenting a 
 vicar, but performing the service of the church by priests removable at plea- 
 sure. See Origines — Largs and Cumbray. 
 
118 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. v. 
 
 reign of William the Lion, no fewer than thirty-three parish 
 churches were bestowed on the Abbey of Aberbrothock, then 
 newly erected, and dedicated to St Thomas a Becket, the 
 fashionable saint of the period, who for a season eclipsed 
 even the glories of Mary.* At the time of the Eeformation, 
 of the thousand parishes in Scotland, about seven hundred 
 had been appropriated to bishops and Eeligious Houses.t 
 
 The parochial clergy were crippled and humbled by the 
 withdrawal of their revenues to pamper the monks, and to 
 such a state of poverty and dependence were some of the 
 vicars reduced, that the popes had to interfere to save them 
 from the rapacity of the bishops and abbots; J and ultimately 
 James III. passed an act forbidding any further appropria- 
 tions, under the pains of high treason.§ But the evil was 
 already done ; the secular clergy were degraded and wretch- 
 edly poor ; the revenues of the Church had gone to fatten 
 idle friars, who, whatever their primitive virtues may have 
 been, were now the scandal of the Church ; and if it be true 
 they defended and supported the papacy for a time, it is 
 certain they made its downfall more dreadful in the end. 
 
 Mr Spottiswood, in his account of the Eeligious Houses 
 that were in Scotland at the time of the Eeformation, has 
 enumerated one hundred and twenty monasteries, besides 
 more than twenty convents for the reception of nuns ; and 
 though his list is the fullest that has yet been given to the 
 world, it is said there were at least other forty monastic 
 establishments, which he has omitted to mention. There 
 must therefore have been nearly two hundred such institu- 
 tions in our country. We have no Monasticon from which 
 
 * Origines, Introduction to vol. i. 
 
 t Connel on Tithes, book i. The exact number of parishes before the Re- 
 formation is unknown. Tiiere were probably about the same number as at 
 present, and the number was then, as now, variable. It is certain that very 
 many ancient parishes have been suppressed since the Eeformation. Thus, 
 ■within the bounds of the Presbytery of Auchterarder, there must have been 
 once nearly twice the number of parishes there are at present, the majority of 
 the modern parishes being a combination of two or three ancient ones. And 
 though a good many new parishes have been erected, we may conclude the 
 number, over the whole country, has rather decreased than increased. 
 
 I Connel, book i. chap. iii. 
 
 j James III., pari. vi. chap. xliy. 1471. 
 
A.D. 1100-1300.] ABBEY OF JEDBUBGH. 119 
 
 ■we can learn the number of their inmates, but we may safely 
 estimate them at between two and three thousand.* Dun- 
 fermline appears to have had from thirty to fifty monks ; 
 and Paisley, Elgin, Arbroath, Kelso, had probably as many. 
 In 1542 Mekose is said to have contained three hundred. 
 When the convent of the Grey Friars at Perth was demolished 
 in 1559, only eight friars belonged to it ; but it is probable 
 there had been a considerable number of deserters before 
 
 this.f 
 
 Of Mr Spottiswood's hst, forty-eight were occupied by 
 Augustinian monks, thirty-one by Benedictines, and forty- 
 one by the three orders of mendicants, viz., fifteen by the Do- 
 minicans or Black Friars, seventeen by the Franciscans or 
 Grey Friars, and nine by the Carmehtes or White Friars. 
 
 Of the Augustinian establishments. Scone, Lochleveu, 
 Monimusk, Pittenweem, Holyroodhouse, Cambuskenneth, 
 Jedburgh, Inchafi'ray, Abernethy, &c. &c. were occupied by 
 canons-regular. AVhitehorn and Dryburghwere in possession 
 of the Prsemonstratenses ; and Eed Friars were settled at 
 Aberdeen, .Dunbar, Dundee, and several other places. 
 
 Jedburgh, one of the noblest abbeys in Scotland, was held 
 by this order. It was founded by David I., who brought its 
 first occupants from the Abbey of St Quentin at Beauvais. 
 Once erected, it soon became amply endowed by the pious 
 generosity of a succession of benefactors. Among the dona- 
 tions made to it we find — the tithe of the king's hunting in 
 Teviotdale, a house in Eoxburgh, a house in Berwick, pasture 
 for the monks' cattle along with those of the king, timber 
 from the royal forests according to their wants, the multure 
 of the mill from all the men of Jedburgh, a salt-pan near 
 
 * In a note to Dalyell'a Dissertation on Ane Booke of Godly Songs, there 
 is mention made of an ancient memorial to the Qnem Regent (we suppose 
 Mary of Guise), in which there is an estimate of the religious foundations at 
 that time in the kingdom. There were, according to it, 13 bishops, 1 Lord 
 St John, 60 abbots and friars ; of Trinity Friars, Carmelites, Cordeliers, &c., 
 about 50 places ; provostries, about 50 ; 11 deans ; 11 archdeans ; 11 chanters. 
 The parsons are estimated at about 500 ; the vicars, 2000 ; religious men and 
 women, 1114 ; other priests, 1000 ; in all, about 4,600 persons liring on rents. 
 According to this estimate, the number of parish priests is surely too great, 
 the number of religious too small. 
 
 t See note to Dr JIGrie's Life of Knox, Period First. 
 
120 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. V. 
 
 Stirling, exemption from any exaction on their tuns of wine, 
 a fisliing in the Tweed, acres, ploughgates, and oxgangs of 
 land, with a villain to till them, and several parish churches, 
 with their tithes and other revenues.* The monks of Jed- 
 burgh might well rejoice in the abundance of their good 
 things. But, situated upon the very border, they were exposed 
 to the forays of the English, and the sanctity of their house 
 did not save them from being frequently pillaged. On one 
 occasion they were reduced to such destitution that Edward 
 I. in pity distributed them through the Keligious Houses of 
 their own order in England, till their own monastery should 
 be repaired ; and, in the sixteenth century, the town and 
 abbey were more than once stormed and plundered, and on 
 one of these occasions five hundred horses are said to have 
 been laden with the spoil. 
 
 The inmates of Jedburgh, and all other canons-regular, 
 wore a white robe, with a rochet of fine linen above their 
 gown, a surplice when in church, and an almuce suspended 
 on their left arm, and reaching to the ground. They fol- 
 lowed the rule of St Augustine, which bound them to devote 
 the first part of every day to labour, and the remainder to 
 reading and devotion.f 
 
 Of the Benedictine establishments, the most famous were 
 those at Coldingham, Dunfermline, Kelso, Kilwinning, Aber- 
 brothock, Paisley, Melrose, Newbattle, Culross, and Plus- 
 cardin. 
 
 The Abbey of Paisley was anciently one of the richest 
 Keligious Houses in Scotland, and is famous for the " Black 
 Book" kept by its monks, which still serves to throw light 
 upon these curious times. It was founded by Walter Eitz- 
 Allan, the High Steward, about the year 1160, for Cluniac 
 monks, whom he brought from Wenlock in Shropshire. 
 They were at first located at Eenfrew, but afterwards re- 
 moved to Paisley, and were soon richly endowed by the pious 
 liberality of successive High Stewards, and by some of the 
 great lords of Lennox and the Isles. In the thirteenth cen- 
 tury they were in possession of thirty parish churches, with 
 
 * Origines — Jedburgh. 
 
 t Spottiswood's Keligious Houses. 
 
A.D. 1100-1300.] ABBEY OF PAISLEY. 121 
 
 aU their revenues ; and about two-thirds of the whole soil of 
 the extensive parish of Paisley had passed into their hands, 
 with acres and ploughgates in almost every district in the 
 west of Scotland. The Stewards had moreover given them 
 the tithe of their hunting, and the skins of all the deer taken 
 in the adjoining forests, pasture for their cattle and their 
 swine, a mill at Paisley, a salmon-net in the Clyde at Een- 
 frew, a fishing at Lochwinnoch, the liberty of " quarrying 
 both building stones and lime stones for burning at Blackball 
 and elsewhere, of digging coal for the use of their monas- 
 tery, its granges, smithies, and brew-houses, of making char- 
 coal of dead wood, and of cutting turf for covering in the 
 charcoal, of green wood for their monastery and grange build- 
 ings, and for all operations of agriculture and fishing."* 
 
 In a charter confirming and defining these grants, we find 
 it carefully provided, that while the monks might pass 
 through the forest of Blackball, armed with swords, bows 
 and arrows, and leading with them greyhounds and other 
 dogs, they must unstring their bows, and hold their hounds 
 in leash while traversing the preserves, lest peradventure a 
 fat buck bounding through the glade might prove too great 
 a temptation. They were allowed, however, to hunt and 
 hawk on their own lands, and to fish in the Cart and all the 
 streams of the forest. The superiority of the town, which 
 now began to stretch its streets along the opposite side of 
 the river, belonged to the monastery, and the magistrates 
 were nominated by the abbot.t 
 
 The monastery was dedicated to St Milburga, St James, 
 and St Mirren. Por a considerable period after its institu- 
 tion, notwithstanding its munificent endowments, it held 
 only a secondary rank among monastic establishments, 
 being denied, by the head of the order, the government of 
 an abbot ; but at length, in 1245, this privilege was con- 
 ceded, and within a hundred years afterwards the superior 
 was made a mitred abbot and lord of parliament, with 
 episcopal jurisdiction over all churches subject to the 
 monastery.! The imposing and extensive buildings, the 
 ruins of which still give an air of ecclesiastical antiquity to 
 * Origines— Paisley. f Ibid. J Ibid. 
 
122 CHDBCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. v. 
 
 the manufacturing town of Paisley, are understood to belong- 
 to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. 
 
 There was an establishment of Carthusians at Perth, 
 founded by James I. ; but this brotherhood, in their white 
 gowns, scapulars, and capuchins, were never to be seen in 
 the streets of St Johnstone, for their gloomy rule compelled 
 them to eat in solitude, to observe a constant silence, and 
 never to leave their cloisters. But every town in Scot- 
 land swarmed with the begging friars, black, white, and 
 grey. The Dominicans exercised their peculiar privilege 
 of preaching everywhere without the permission of the 
 bishop, and confessing all noble ladies and their lords, to the 
 infinite chagrin of the curate, who had hoped to hear the 
 secrets of the Hall ; but, more especially, they had a keen 
 scent for heresy, for to their order belonged the imperishable 
 honour of having instituted the Inquisition, preached the 
 crusade against the Albigeois, and poisoned with the hostie 
 a refractory king. The barefooted Franciscans prowled 
 about in their long grey gowns, with a cowl on their neck, 
 and a rope about their waist, begging alms for the love of 
 Grod ; and the Carmelites, who pretended to be the succes- 
 sors of Elijah and Elisha, were distinguishable by their white 
 habits, and competed with the other two mendicant orders 
 for the veneration of the people. Unclean and odorous then 
 as they are now, while the pious might be edified by their 
 touch, the polite would not willingly remain long in close 
 proximity to their persons. 
 
 But it still remains for us to mention two celebrated 
 orders — the Knights of St John and of Solomon's Temple, 
 who, combining the military and monastic life, were wonder- 
 fully fitted to gain the admiration of an age at once martial 
 and superstitious. The Hospitallers or Knights of St John 
 took their rise from some merchants of Melphis, who, pre- 
 vious to the Crusades, had obtained from the Caliph of 
 Egypt permission to erect a church and hospital in Jerusa- 
 lem for the entertainment of Christian pilgrims. Conspicu- 
 ous for their bravery at the siege of the Holy City, when 
 Godfrey led his victorious Crusaders within its walls, he 
 bestowed upon them large possessions, and from a church 
 
A.D. 1100-1300.] THE HOSPITALLERS AND TEMPLARS. 123 
 
 ■which they had erected in honour of St John, and an hos- 
 pital for the reception of the sick, they derived the name 
 by which they were known. Formed into a regular 
 monastic-military order, they took a vow to defend pilgrims 
 against the infidel Saracens, and assumed as their peculiar 
 dress a black habit with a cross of gold, having eight points 
 enamelled white, in memory of the eight beatitudes. Their 
 ranks were soon filled with the most illustrious youth of 
 Europe ; and so scrupulous were they in regard to those 
 whom they admitted, that every entrant was obliged to 
 prove his nobility for four generations, and that he had been 
 born in lawful wedlock ; unless, perchance, he was the 
 bastard of a king, for royal blood alone could wipe out the 
 disgrace of illegitimacy. Introduced into Scotland by David 
 I., where there were no pilgrims to defend, and no infidels 
 to fight with, they yet found favour with the people, and 
 acquired numerous residences, the chief of which was at 
 Torphichen, where the Preceptor of the order resided. They 
 had hospitals both in Edinburgh and Leith. 
 
 The Templars, like the Hospitallers, were the offspring of 
 the Crusades. The constant dangers to which the kingdom 
 of Jerusalem was exposed by the incursions of the infidels 
 was the occasion of this institution. They followed the 
 rule of St Augustine, and the constitution of the Canons- 
 Kegular of Jerusalem, and vowed to defend the temple and 
 city, to entertain pilgrims, and guard them safely through 
 the Holy Land. They wore a white habit, embroidered with 
 a red cross ; and these martial monks soon became the terror 
 of the Moslem, and the firmest bulwark of the Christian 
 throne. Nine thousand manors scattered over Europe re- 
 warded their services and courage, and enabled them to 
 support a regular army for the defence of Palestine. They 
 obtained a footing in our country about the same time as 
 the Hospitallers, and soon there was scarcely a parish in 
 which they had not some possession. In Edinburgh and 
 Leith numerous houses belonged to them, and when these 
 were feued to seculars, the cross of the order was affixed to 
 the highest point of the gable to mark out its superiors. 
 The Temple near Southesk was their principal residence ; 
 
124 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. v. 
 
 but those numerous designations of land still in use, in 
 which the adjunct of temple occurs, are a pretty sure index 
 of the ancient possessors. The Knights of the Temple fell 
 as quickly as they rose. Their wealth begat insolence and 
 pride ; their monastic vows were forgotten amid the license 
 of the camp and the court ; and the world was scandalized 
 by the corruption, avarice, and imputed crimes of the 
 soldiers of the Cross, who retained nothing of their first 
 virtues but their fearless and fanatic bravery. The order 
 was suppressed in the fourteenth century ; many of the 
 knights were cruelly put to death for vices charged upon 
 them, but never proved ; and in Scotland and elsewhere, a 
 large part of their property was transferred to the Hospitallers. 
 It has been strongly suspected that their enormous wealth 
 hastened their ruin. 
 
 It was not to be expected that the female mind, ever sus- 
 ceptible of religious impressions, should withstand the ten- 
 dency to monasticism at that time so prevalent. At Edin- 
 burgh, Dalmulin, Berwick, St Bathans, Coldstream, Eccles, 
 Haddington, Aberdeen, Dunbar, and several other places, 
 there were nunneries ; and within these, ladies connected 
 with many of the noblest families in the land. The nuns of 
 Scotland revered, as the first of their order in our country, 
 a legendary St Brigida, who is fabled to have belonged to 
 Caithness, to have renounced an ample inheritance, lived in 
 seclusion, and finally to have died at Abernethy in the sixth 
 century. Church chroniclers relate, that before Coldingham 
 was erected into a priory for monks, it had been a sanctuary 
 for nuns, who acquired immortal renown by cutting off their 
 noses and lips to render themselves repulsive to some pira- 
 tical Danes who had landed on the coast. The sisterhood of 
 Lincluden were of a different mind, for they were expelled by 
 Archibald, Earl of Douglas, for violating their vows as the 
 brides of heaven, and the house was converted into a colle- 
 giate church.* 
 
 History contains no record of the influence which these 
 devoted virgins exercised upon the Church or the world ; 
 and we may well believe that, shut up in their cloisters, and 
 * Forbes's Treatise on Church Lands, Tithes, &c., p. 22. 
 
A.D. 1100-1500.] WEALTH OF THE ROMAN HIERARCHY. 125 
 
 confined to a dull routine of daily duty, they could exercise 
 but little. They -would chant their matins and vespers, 
 count their beads, employ themselves with needlework, and 
 in many cases vainly pine for that world which their parents 
 or their own childish caprice had forced them to abandon; 
 but the world could not witness their piety, nor penetrate 
 their thoughts. Yet men are strangely moved by the very 
 sight of walls, within which are enclosed women who have 
 devoted their virginity to God, and who are supposed to 
 serve Him without any admixture of those passions which 
 mingle so largely in other breasts ; and no doubt the very 
 existence of nunneries, and the religious mystery which 
 shrouded their inmates, must have had their power in 
 moulding the piety of the times, though it was unconsciously 
 exercised, and too secret in its operation to be traced. 
 
 Though the Eoman Hierarchy was long of obtaining a firm 
 footing in our country, when once established it soon reached 
 a height of power and opulence unsurpassed in any other 
 portion of Europe. The barbarity and ignorance of our an- 
 cestors inclined them to superstition, and their superstition 
 inclined them to prodigality. Before the Reformation one- 
 half of the whole national wealth had passed into the hands 
 of the clergy, which is proved by the fact, that they paid 
 one-half of every tax imposed upon land, and there is little 
 reason to believe that they would bear an unequal propor- 
 tion of the burden.* This enormous wealth must have been 
 almost all accumulated in the course of four centuries — from 
 the twelfth to the sixteenth ; and whatever use we make 
 of it, we should not shut our eyes to the contrast between 
 the religious liberality of the period which preceded, and 
 that which has followed the purification of the temple. The 
 entire riches of the Church were the result of private dona- 
 tions and bequests ; the free-will offerings of a piety, which, 
 
 * This is the estimate both of Dr Robertson and Dr M'Crie. Sir George 
 Maclcenzie estimates the tithes paid to the clergy at a fourth-part of the rents 
 of lands, and their lands at another fourth. Forbes remarks that the clergy 
 were most justly subjected to the payment of the half of the taxt-roll in all 
 pubUc compositions. Keith says that it is ascertained by the public records 
 that in the case of extraordinary taxations on land, one-third was paid out of 
 the lands of the clergy. See Connel on Tithes, book i. chap. iii. 
 
126 CHURCH HISTORY OP SCOTLAND. [chap. v. 
 
 though mistaken, must have been sincere. Almost surpass- 
 ing the lavish liberality of our kings, who thus alienated 
 nearly all their royal demesnes, were the gifts of the great 
 earls ; and in the thirteenth century we find with astonish- 
 ment an Earl of Strathearn dividing his wide property into 
 three portions, one of which he bequeathed to the See of 
 Dunblane ; a second to the Abbey of Inchaifray ; and the 
 third only he reserved for the inheritance of his family.* 
 
 So large a proportion of the national wealth locked up, in 
 our day, in the coffers of the clergy, who are properly ex- 
 cluded from putting out their coins to usury in mercantile 
 transactions, would be an unmitigated evil, and would most 
 seriously cripple the operations of trade. But it admits of 
 question as to whether it was an evil four hundred years ago, 
 or whether the soil could have been in better hands than in 
 those of the ministers of religion ? There were few traders 
 in those primitive times superior to pedlars, and their humble 
 traffic required little capital. Had so many rich manors not 
 passed into the possession of the Church, they must have 
 remained in the possession of the great barons ; and surely 
 it was well for the country that they were transferred from 
 the men of war to the men of peace. 
 
 The clergy everywhere introduced agriculture and the 
 arts. Oolumba had fields waving with corn and barns filled 
 with plenty in his dreary island of lona, when there were 
 few corn-fields or granaries in Scotland. St Mungo, accord- 
 ing to the legend, " yoked the wolf and the deer to his 
 plough," and the legend has its much meaning. Around 
 every monastery were extensive orchards, with trees grafted 
 by the hands of the monks, and laden with fruits nowhere 
 else to be found in the country. The industry and arts of 
 the monks were copied by their dependents, and the tra- 
 veller could at once discern, by the superior cultivation of 
 the fields, and the more contented look of the peasantry, the 
 districts that belonged to the Church. The clergy were 
 confessedly the best landlords ; they gave feus, and let out 
 their farms upon long and easy leases, and in this way they 
 
 * Spottiswood's History, book ii, Balfour's Annals, vol. i. 
 
A.ij. 1100-1500.] HUMAKIZING INFLUENCE OP THE CLEEGT. 127 
 
 encouraged the reclaiming of moors and marshes -which 
 might otherwise have lain waste to the present hour. 
 
 The immunity from war enjoyed by the Church and its 
 vassals greatly favoured the improvement both of the land 
 and of those who tilled it. The retainers of the fierce 
 barons, who divided with the clergy the property of the 
 soil, were constantly harassed by military duty ; they were 
 liable at any moment to be called upon to join in a raid 
 against the English or some hostile chief in the neighbour- 
 hood, to burn, plunder, and slay ; and amid such scenes, 
 they lost aU. relish for the arts of peace ; besides, they were 
 at all times subject to have retaliated upon themselves the 
 havoc they had wrought upon others ; and few men will 
 sow fields when there is a strong probability that others will 
 reap them. The tenants and retainers of the clergy were 
 happily free from all this, and were liable to be called to 
 arms only on urgent and general occasions ; and so great was 
 the respect for their possessions, that even in the case of 
 national hostilities, they were generally spared. The clergy, 
 with admirable prudence, encouraged this lenity, not only 
 by the powers of superstition, but by checking anything 
 like a marauding disposition on the part of their dependents ; 
 and the consequence was, that they enjoyed the blessings 
 of perpetual peace in the midst of turmoil and war ; they 
 had light in their dwellings when darkness was in the land 
 of Egypt. 
 
 But the clergy were not only the greatest agricultural im- 
 provers ; they were the most learned men of the time, and, 
 in fact, monopolized all the learning of the period. It was 
 in the still cloister that the lamp of knowledge was kept burn- 
 ing, and had it been exposed to the rude winds of heaven 
 in those stormy days, it would infallibly have been blown 
 out. Notwithstanding the many pictures we have of over- 
 grown and lazy monks, sleeping away their whole lives 
 amid the drowsy atmosphere of their conventual buildings, 
 or spending their days and nights in wassail, swilling Bour- 
 deaux, and rejoicing in venison, even in Lent — pictures 
 which are perfectly true to life ; yet it must be remem- 
 bered that this was not always, and never universally the 
 
128 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. V. 
 
 case. Many of our ancient clergy were thoughtful and 
 studious men, adepts in the scholastic theology then in 
 vogue, and well read in the canon and civil law, a knowledge 
 of which was the surest road to ecclesiastical and political 
 distinction. We must not be so ungrateful as to forget 
 that, before the invention of printing, it was monkish pens 
 that multiplied copies of the sacred Scriptures, and pre- 
 served to us those Greek and Koman classics which at 
 length revived in Europe a love for literature, and which 
 still delight and improve us in our hours of ease. It is the 
 unwritten saying of Chalmers, that the accumulated re- 
 venues of the rich Diocese of Durham were not mis-spent, 
 since they had encouraged and fostered the genius of Butler : 
 may it not be said, with still greater propriety, that our 
 monasteries were not endowed in vain, if they have pre- 
 served to us our Homers and Virgils, and above all, our 
 Bibles. 
 
 Without the assistance of the clergy, the business of the 
 State could not have been conducted. A knowledge of let- 
 ters was esteemed unbecoming on the part of the nobility ; 
 and Tytler declares, that during the long period from the 
 accession of Alexander III. to the death of David II., it is 
 impossible to produce a single instance of a Scottish baron 
 who could sign his own name.* As a matter of course, 
 almost the whole work of legislation fell into the hands of 
 the clergy, and the fighting was left to the lay lords. The 
 bishops and mitred abbots formed by far the most influen- 
 tial section of the parliament, and filled almost all the im- 
 portant offices of state. The Lord Chancellor was the first 
 subject in the realm ; and of fifty-four persons who held 
 this high office from the dawn of history to the death of 
 Beaton, forty-three were churchmen. The Lords of Session 
 were supreme judges in all civil affairs ; and by the original 
 constitution of the College of Justice, the president and one- 
 half of the senators must needs be ecclesiastics, t 
 
 A power so great was not unattended with honour. Most 
 of the dignified churchmen belonged to the first families in 
 
 * History, vol. ii. 
 
 t Eobertson's History of Scotland, vol. 1. Crawford's Officers of State. 
 
A.D. 1100-1500.J MONKS OUR EARLIEST ANNALISTS. 129 
 
 the land, and many of them were closely allied to royalty. 
 Not only bishops, but abbots, took precedence of the greatest 
 earls, and every beneficed clergyman was entitled to have 
 " Sir" appended to his name.* They managed to exempt 
 their persons from the jurisdiction of the civil tribunals, as 
 too sacred to be there dealt with ; and the reputed sanctity 
 of the sacerdotal character was enough at all times to screen 
 the delinquent priest from the hands of justice or the fury 
 of private revenge. To assault an ecclesiastic was a crime 
 for which nothing but death could atone. 
 
 It is to churchmen, moreover, we owe the earliest annals 
 of our country. At a period when we have not a single 
 chronicle of political events, we have numerous Lives of the 
 Saints, and all of these throw less or more light upon the 
 general history of the times. Adomnan, Bede, Jocelin, 
 -3]]lred, Turgot, have given us glimpses of the flow of events 
 and the state of society in their day — regarding which, but 
 for them, there had been impenetrable gloom. But every 
 great monastery in Scotland appears to have kept three dif- 
 ferent kinds of registers, and many of these have survived 
 the waste of time and the zeal of the Reformers, and they 
 now form the principal guide of the historian in traversing 
 these dark ages. The first was a general one, giving an ac- 
 count of the principal events, according to the years in 
 which they occurred — as the Book of Paisley, and the Chro- 
 nicle of Melrose. The second was an Obituary, in which 
 were recorded the deaths of the abbots and priors, the kings 
 and great nobles, and the chief benefactors of the monastery. 
 The third was their Chartulary, in which were carefully 
 transcribed the charters granted them by kings or pious 
 nobles who had endowed their house, the bulls of the popes, 
 a statement of their revenues, taxes, leases, and lawsuits, 
 and a multitude of other minute particulars, no more in- 
 tended to serve for history than the accurate accounts of an 
 exact housekeeper, but which do in reality, above all other 
 documents, illustrate the spirit and character of the times. 
 Of these are the Book of Dunfermline, the Register of Ar- 
 
 * There is a curious instance of this in the trial of Walter Miln the Martyr. 
 When he was addressed Sir Walter, he repudiated the title, declaring he would 
 no longer be one of the pope's knights. See Spottiswood's History, Fox, &c. 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
130 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. v. 
 
 broath, the Chartulary of Inchaffray, and many others, most 
 of which have recently been brought from the shelves of 
 our great libraries and tiae charter-chests of our nobles, and 
 given to the world by the labours and liberality of the Ban- 
 natyne and Maitland Clubs. 
 
 We must still further award to the monasteries the honour 
 of having been the first Educational Institutions in the coun- 
 try. The Monastery of Tona was as much a seminary for 
 learning as a school of piety ; and there can be little doubt 
 but that the other Culdee establishments took it for their 
 model, and that from them there issued men, not merely 
 practised in monkish austerities, but accomplished in the 
 scanty literature and science of the day. At a subsequent 
 period, when Roman ideas became dominant, it was custo- 
 mary for the Scottish clergy to resort to Oxford or Paris to 
 complete their education, as their native country was still 
 improvided with Universities ; and this led David, Bishop of 
 Moray, in the year 1325, to found the Scots College at Paris, 
 for the reception of his countrymen. But though Scotland 
 could not yet -boast of a University, it was not without 
 schools. So early as the twelfth century, there were schools 
 at Abernethy and Eoxburgh, at Perth and Stirling, and 
 soon after at G-lasgow, Ayr, Berwick, and Aberdeen, and 
 probably in many other places, though we have no record 
 of their existence ; and all these were necessarily under the 
 management of the clergy. The monks of Kelso had the 
 charge of the school at Boxburgh, and the monks of Dun- 
 fermline of those at Stirling and Perth. But besides, almost 
 every monastery must have been less or more a seminary of 
 education for the sons of the nobility and aspirants to the 
 priesthood. We know it was so at St Andrews, where the 
 youth ambitious of literary fame was instructed in the quod- 
 libets of Scotus ; and in the Chartulary of Kelso we find a 
 certain Matilda, widow of Eichard of Lincoln, Lord of 
 MoUe, making a grant of rents to the abbot and monks to 
 board and educate her son Willia.m with the best-bred boys 
 entrusted to their care.* 
 
 * 1 have derived my information about our early schools chiefly from 
 Tytler's History, vol. ii., the Origines, and a note in the Appendix to Dr 
 
A.D. 1100-1500.] HOSPITALITY, OF THE MONKS. 131 
 
 Last of all, it must not be forgotten that monasteries 
 served at once as inns and poor's-houses, when regular hostel- 
 ries were scarce, and poor-laws unknown. The hospitality 
 of the monks was proverbial. The traveller, overtaken bj^ 
 night, was sure to find a kindly welcome, a cheerful supper, 
 and a wholesome though hard bed, in the first convent he 
 came to. The brothers of the order counted the news he 
 brought from the wide world, and perhaps a small coin 
 bestowed at the shrine of a favourite saint, as a sufiicient 
 recompense. It is so in many Catholic countries at the 
 present hour. The beggar in his distress, afraid to approach 
 the baronial hall, came crouching to the convent-gate, and 
 it was not- often that assistance was refused. It is related, 
 that in the reign of David I. a sore famine prevailed in 
 Scotland. Four thousand half-famished wretches repaired 
 to the Abbey of Melrose, reared their huts in its neighbour- 
 hood, and waited for the beneficence of the brethren ; and 
 Waltheof, the Superior, ordered them all to be fed. There 
 is something touching in the lament of Father Hay on the 
 fall of the Monastery of Zona. ■" The monks," says he, 
 " were driven away, and the revenues turned to profane 
 uses ; whence the poor were defrauded of continual alms, 
 strangers of entertainment, the servants of God of their 
 necessary food and clothing, the souls of the pious faithful 
 of their sacrifices, the Church of as many prayers, and God 
 of the worship due to Him." * 
 
 From the rapid sketch we have here given of the rise of 
 our ecclesiastical institutions, it will be seen that the union 
 of Church and State in our country was the growth of cir- 
 cumstances, rather than the result of any specific legislation. 
 No Act of Parliament proclaimed it. Churchmen gradually 
 acquired lands and tithes by voluntary grants ; and the State 
 
 M'Crie's Life of Knox. Hailes mentions the case of the Lady of Molle ; — 
 " Matildis, quondam sponsa Ricardi de Lincolnia Domini de Molle, ita vide- 
 licet, quod dicti Abbas, et conventus exhibebant Willielmo, iilio meo in victu- 
 alibus, cum melioribus et dignioribus scolaribus qui reficiunt in domo pau- 
 perum." (Chart, de Gal., f. 71.) 
 
 * Scotia Sacra, p. 487, quoted in Origines. In Roman Catholic times there 
 were also many hospitals, endowed by the pious, superintended by the 
 clergy, and specially designed for the entertainment of strangers and the poor. 
 
 I 2 
 
132 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. v. 
 
 protected them in the enjoyment of these, as it would have 
 done any other class of its subjects. The holders of property 
 had a right to, sit in the Parliament ; and thus bishops and 
 abbots acquired their seats, and, on account of their sacred 
 functions, came to be regarded as a separate Estate. Eccle- 
 siastics alone could perform marriages and draw wills, the 
 necessity being a religious one in the one case, and a literary 
 one in the other ; and hence they naturally acquired a juris- 
 diction in all matrimonial and testamentary affairs. From 
 the time of James I., it was the pious practice of almost 
 every Parliament to begin its business by an Act ratifying 
 all the rights and privileges of the Church ; but, in truth, 
 every subject was entitled to the same justice which was thus, 
 in a complimentary manner, rendered to the Church. Everj' 
 religious body has this kind of establishment now, in as far • 
 as every religious body is protected by law in the enjoyment 
 of its property and privileges, and is amenable to law for the 
 use of these. 
 
 It is unnecessary to say much regarding the liturgical 
 rites of the Scottish Church, but it were wrong to overlook 
 them entirely. The Culdees had a liturgy peculiar to them- 
 selves, which they boasted to have derived from St Mark.* 
 There is still in the Advocates' noble library a MS. liturgy, 
 described, though without authority, as Liturgia Sancti 
 Oolumbani Abbatis, written in the Anglo-Saxon or Irish 
 character, and which probably dates as far back as the 
 eleventh century.! There is in the possession of the family 
 of Perth another MS. Missal or Sacramentary, written 
 in a similar character, and equally ancient. We may 
 regard these as belonging to the Culdee period. At 
 what time the Roman liturgy superseded the Culdean we 
 cannot exactly determine, but we may infer that the Roman 
 ritual came with the Roman hierarchy. It was the use of 
 Sarum that prevailed in Scotland, as it did in a large part 
 of England and Ireland. 
 
 * Usher's Eeligion of the Ancient Irish. 
 
 f My information upon these ancient liturgies is derived from the Preface 
 to the Aherdeen Breviary, written by that accomplished antiqiiary Mr David 
 Laing. Maitland Cluh edition. 
 
A.D. 1100-1500.] ANCIENT LITURGIES. 133 
 
 This usage derives its origin from St Osmund, who was 
 Bishop of Salisbury towards the close of the eleventh cen- 
 tury.* It differed in some particulars from the ritual of the 
 Church of Rome, but such differences were not thought to 
 interfere with the unity of religious Avorship. In fact, in 
 the Eomish communion, considerable liturgic latitude was 
 allowed ; and bishops were permitted, within certain bounds, 
 to prescribe liturgies to their own churches. In the fifteenth 
 century, it was believed that the use of Sarum was intro- 
 duced into Scotland by Edward I.f There was an~ absurd 
 tradition that he had destroyed all the old Scottish Service- 
 Books, and introduced the Anglican one. But we have good 
 evidence that the usages of the Salisbury Cathedral had 
 been introduced into our country long before, and in a more 
 peaceful way. We have already seen the Saxon St Mar- 
 garet fleeing to our country, marrying our king, setting 
 herself zealously to reform our Church. We have seen her 
 arguing with Culdee monks, and by a royal, though erro- 
 neous arithmetic, correcting their calendar. Her biographer 
 farther informs us that she found the mass celebrated with 
 barbarous rites, which she laboured to abolish, and managed 
 to introduce a new and a better form. J It was undoubtedly 
 
 * " He (Bishop Osmund) buylded there a new chyrohe, and hrocht tbyther 
 noble clerkes and cunnynge of clergye and of songe, soo that this byshop hym- 
 self shonned not to wryte and lymme (illuminate) and bynde bukis. Also he 
 maid the ordy]iall of the servyce of the holy chyrche, and named it the Con- 
 suetudynarie. Now well nygh all Englonde, "Wales, and Irelonde used that 
 oi'dinall." (Polychronicon, lib. vii. chap, iii., quoted in Preface to Aberdeen 
 Breviary.) 
 
 t The following is Blind Harry's account of the matter : — 
 " The bislioppis all inclynit to his croun, 
 
 Baith temporal and the religioun ; 
 
 The Romane bukis that thar wer in Scotland 
 
 He gai-t thame beir to Scone, quhair they thanic fand, 
 
 And, but redeme, they brynt thame all ilk ane, 
 
 Salisbury use, our elerkis than his tane." 
 J " Frieterea in aliquibus locis Scottorum quidam fuerant, qui contra totius 
 Ecclesise consuetudinem, nescio quo ritu barbaro missas celebrare, consue- 
 Terant, quod regina, zelo dei accensa ita destruere atqne annihilare studuit, 
 ut deinoeps qui tale quid presumerit, nemo in tota Scottorum gente appareret." 
 It has been argued from this passage that the Culdees celebrated the Lord's 
 Supper in the primitive form. The statement will not warrant such an as 
 sumption, but it warrants the belief that up to this time the Culdees were 
 ignorant of many of the superstitious ceremonies superadded by the Eomish 
 Church. 
 
134 CUUBCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. v. 
 
 the more ornate usage of some Anglican Church. But our 
 knowledge becomes more definite when we descend a single 
 century. Herbert was consecrated Bishop of Grlasgow in 
 1147 ; and we know that he settled the use of Sarum in his 
 cathedra], and that this was shortly afterwards confirmed 
 by a Papal bull.* It soon became universal : it was used 
 at St Andrews, Moray, Aberdeen, in every cathedral and 
 church in the kingdom. 
 
 We have still preserved in our public libraries many old 
 Service-Books, but none of these can now be identified as 
 having belonged to our churches. In truth, the Service- 
 Books in use in the churches must have almost all perished 
 at the Eeforniation, when it was esteemed a work of piety 
 to burn them. But, happily, the Breviary of Aberdeen still 
 remains to us, " which is the only existing use proper to 
 Scotland, and is therefore of importance to those who regard 
 with interest such an authentic record of the forms and 
 usages of the Scottish Church. "f This great work was pre- 
 pared and completed under the superintendence of the cele- 
 brated William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen ;J and it is 
 probable that some of the lessons appointed to be read in 
 the festivals of the Scottish saints were written by himself- 
 It challenges a still higher interest, from the fact that the 
 art of printing appears to have been first introduced into 
 our country to multiply copies of it for the use of the 
 churches.§ 
 
 ' Preface to the Aberdeen Breviary. 
 
 t Mr D. Laing. Preface to Aberdeen Breviary. 
 
 J It is now reprinted by the Maitland Club. 
 
 § Up till this time, the Service Books in use in the churches were in MS., or 
 printed in France, with the Scotch saints added to the calendar in writing. 
 But on the 15th September 1507, James IV. gave .a grant of privileges to 
 "Walter Chepman and Andrew Millar, two burgesses of Edinburgh, who had 
 undertaken to procure and bring home printing materials. In this charter of 
 privileges, we have this clause : — " It is devisit and thocht expedient by us 
 and our counsall, that, in tyme cumming, mess buikis, manualis, matyn buikis, 
 and portuis buikis, efter our awin Scottis use, and with legends of Scottis 
 Sanctis, as is now gadderit and eket by ane Eeverent father in God and our 
 traist counsalour William, bischope of Aberdene, utheris be uset and gene- 
 rally within our realme, als soone as the sammyn may be imprentit and pro- 
 vidit, and that na manner of sic buikis of Salusberry use be brocht to be 
 sauld within our realm in time cuming, and gif ony does the oontrair that 
 they sail tyne the sammyn." (Registrum Secreti Sigilli, vol. iii. fol. 29.) 
 
A.D. 1100-1500. J ANCIENT MUSIC. 135 
 
 Tytler is of opinioa that organs and choirs were used in our 
 cathedrals as early as the thirteenth century.* At that time 
 there lived a Scottish friar of the order of St Dominic named 
 Simon Taylor. At Eome and Paris, we are told, he applied 
 himself to the study of that part of the mathematics which 
 treats of sounds and harmony, and became a mighty profi- 
 cient. Keturning to Scotland, he found the music of the 
 churches rude and barbarous, and, burning with a musician's 
 zeal, he made a proposal to reform it ; and when the bishops 
 and clergy accepted his services, he set himself to the work 
 with such energy and success, that an ancient historian of 
 the Bishops of Dunblane declares, that in a few years he 
 brought matters to such perfection that Scotland might have 
 competed with Eome for musicians. This Simon Taylor 
 further showed his musical lore by publishing four treatises, 
 entitled De Cantu Ecclesiastico Corrigendo, De Tenore Mu- 
 sicali, Tetracliordorujn, and Pentachordorum.^ All which 
 is faithfully recorded by Newton, Dempster, and Mackenzie, 
 but nevertheless Simon is all but forgotten. 
 
 His improvements, however, do not seem to have been 
 universally acknowledged even by those who lived nearer 
 his time, for he was not well in his grave till we iind St 
 iElred, in his " Mirror of Charity," thus breaking forth 
 against the modernized music : — " Since all types and figures 
 are now ceased ^ why so many organs and cymbals in our 
 churches ? Why, I say, that terrible blowing of bellows, that 
 rather imitates the frightsomeness of thunder than the sweet 
 harmony of the voice ? For what end is this contraction 
 and dilutation of the voice ? One restrains his breath, another 
 breaks his breath, and a third unaccountably dilates his 
 voice, and sometimes, which I am ashamed to say, they fall 
 a quivering like the neighing of horses ; then they lay down 
 their manly vigour, and with their voices endeavour to 
 imitate the softness of women ; then, by an artificial circum- 
 volution, they have a variety of outrunnings ; sometimes you 
 shall see them with open mouths, and their breath restrained 
 as if they were expiring, and not singing, and, by a ridicu- 
 lous interruption of their breath, seem as if they were alto- 
 «■ History, vol. ii. f M'Kenzie's Lives of Scotch Writers. 
 
136 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. V. 
 
 gether silent ; at other times they appear like persons in the 
 agonies of death ; then, with a variety of gestures, they per- 
 sonate comedians, — their lips are contracted, their eyes roll, 
 their shoulders are moved upwards and downwards, their 
 fingers move and dance to every note ; and this ridiculous 
 behaviour is called religion, and where these things are most 
 frequently done, there God is said to be most honourably 
 worshipped."* Those in our own day, who object to organs 
 and choristers, could desire no more vehement advocate than 
 this Roman abbot. 
 
 The last echoes of the choral singing have long since died 
 away ; but the cathedrals and churches, whose long aisles 
 were once filled with them, still remain, some of them almost 
 entire, others in ruins, and from these we may infer the splen- 
 dour of our ancient ritual, and the vast resources at the dis- 
 posal of our ancient clergy. Inferior in size to the great 
 minsters of England, they yet rival them in their noble 
 romanesque and pointed architecture ; and though our 
 country has increased a hundredfold in wealth since the time 
 of the Eeformation, we have not since that period erected 
 one building that will vie with the cathedrals of Glasgow 
 or Elgin. But, perhaps, above all others, the great cathedral 
 of St Magnus at Kirkwall, lifting its massive buttresses and 
 walls, and its richly-mullioned windows, almost from the 
 waste of waters, proves the power and splendour of the 
 hierarchy which could have reared such a structure in such 
 a solitude. Its foundations were laid, and a large part of it 
 built, by a Norse earl, in the twelfth century, under the 
 influence of a superstition which could convert pirates into 
 the founders of churches ; but it was not the wealth of the 
 earl alone that gave to the Orkneys their High Church ; the 
 building was so liberally helped on by the oblations of a 
 devout age, that all Christendom was said to have paid 
 tribute for its erection. 
 
 The Culdee houses were generally built of timber ; Can- 
 dida Casa, and a church at Abernethy, were probably excep- 
 tions to the rule. We have already spoken of the ancient 
 Monastery of lona as being of wood ; and Bede expressly 
 
 * M'Kenzie's Lives, vol. i. 
 
A.D. 1100-1500.] ERECTION OF RELIGIOUS HOUSES. 137 
 
 tells US that the Church of Lindisfarne was constructed of 
 logs of oak and thatched with reeds, after the custom of the 
 Scots. All these humhle structures have perished. The 
 noble stone churches which still stand — too many of them in 
 ruins — were all reared between the twelfth and the fifteenth 
 centuries. It is almost certain that not one of our ecclesi- 
 astical buildings belong to a period prior to the first of these 
 dates ; but from this time, till near the dawn of the Eefor- 
 mation, church-building went on at such a pace as to have 
 called forth the splenetic remark, that the gospel could not 
 be heard for the sound of the hammer and trowel. Some of 
 our ecclesiastical structures were chiefiy reared by royal or 
 baronial munificence, but the great proportion were reared 
 by churchmen. Bishops set apart for the purpose large 
 sums out of their episcopal revenues ; every benefice in the 
 district was taxed ; subscriptions throughout the whole 
 country, sometimes throughout all Christendom, were set on 
 foot ; the sale of indulgences was resorted to ; and so the 
 worshipful Freemasons were employed and paid ; and the 
 ribbed column and the groined roof testified to the exquisite 
 skill with which they handled their mallet. 
 
 The history of the artificers who reared these edifices is 
 somewhat curious. In the thirteenth century the Pope 
 created a number of Italian, Flemish, and French artizans, 
 with some Greek refugees, into a corporation of Freemasons, 
 giving them high and exclusive privileges ; and these tra- 
 velling in companies from country to country, as there was 
 occasion for their skill, are said to have reared many of our 
 finest religious houses. The same mouldings, even to 
 minute details, have been observed in buildings far sepa- 
 rated from one another, proving that they were erected 
 either by the same artificers or from the same designs. 
 It is probable that these same men partly designed, as 
 well as executed, the plans of their buildings ; but it is also 
 certain that ecclesiastics were the chief architects of the 
 time, as they alone possessed such a knowledge of mathematics 
 and the mechanical arts as to fit them for the task. It has 
 been observed, however, as a circumstance full of meaning, 
 that no man knows the names of the architects of our 
 
138 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap, v, 
 
 cathedrals. " They left no record of themselves upon the 
 fabrics, as if they woiild have nothing there that could sug- 
 gest any other idea than the glory of that God to whom the 
 edifices were devoted for perpetual and solemn worship ; 
 nothing to mingle a meaner association with the profound 
 sense of His presence : or as if, in the joy of having built 
 Him a house, there was no want left unfulfilled, no room for 
 the question as to whether it is good for a man to live in 
 posthumous renown."* 
 
 But though the names of the architects of our cathedrals 
 have perished, we are able to glean from our ancient records 
 some hints regarding their builders. Bishop Jocelin it was 
 who laid the foundation of the High Church of Glasgow, 
 and two years before he died he had the satisfaction of see- 
 ing its unrivalled crypt finished and solemnly consecrated. 
 To Bishop Bondington we owe the magnificent choir. We 
 next find the Chapter purchasing timber on the banks of 
 Lochlomond "for the fabric of their steeple and treasury,'' 
 and bargaining that their workmen should have free entry 
 to the forest, and the right of felling, hewing, and dressing 
 the wood wherever they pleased. In the Breviary of the 
 Scottish Church we find a lesson appointed to be read com- 
 memorating the skill of the builder of another of her 
 minsters — St Gilbert of Moray, who reared the cathedral of 
 Dornoch. " He built itwith his own hands," says the Breviary ; 
 and it is recorded that the glass used for the windows was 
 manufactured at Ciderhall, under his own eye. About the 
 same period the cathedral of Elgin was- lifting up its lofty 
 towers on the opposite shores of the Moray Frith. Bishop 
 Andrew laid its foundation, and the records of the See give 
 us a glimpse of Master Gregory the mason, and Richard the 
 glazier, at their work. But in 1390 the Wolf of Badenoch 
 descended from the hills, and gave the noble building to the 
 flames ; and the bishop, in his complaint to the king, fondly 
 speaks of it as having been " the pride of the land, the 
 glory of the realm, the delight of wayfarers and strangers, a 
 praise and boast among foreign nations, lofty in its towers 
 without, splendid in its appointments within, its countless 
 ■-■ Gladstone, quoted in Quarterly Beview, June 1849. 
 
A.D. 1100-1500.] RELIGIOUS LIBERALITY. 139 
 
 jewels and rich vestments, and the multitude of its priests 
 serving God."* It afterwards, however, rose from its ruins, 
 and by the liberal contributions of the faithful attained to at 
 least its pristine magnificence. Thus were our great cathe- 
 drals founded and built. Designed by unknown architects, 
 reared by travelling companies of masons, paid for by 
 bishops out of the fruits of their benefices, and assisted by 
 the free-will offerings of the people, they still stand, monu- 
 ments of what may be done by piety in spite of poverty. 
 
 * See an interesting article in the Quarterly Keview for June 1849, on 
 Scottish Abbeys and Cathedrals. 
 
140 CHUKOH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAp. vi. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 OuE last chapter has been occupied more with the rise of 
 institutions than with the course of events. Itwill be our duty 
 now to trace these from the introduction of the Latin Hier- 
 archy to the dawn of the Eeformation. The field, though 
 wide, is by no means crowded with ecclesiastical occurrences 
 deserving of record. The higher clergy were very generally 
 occupied with affairs of state ; attending upon parliament, 
 taking a part in embassies, acting in councils of regency ; and 
 the parsons and vicars who ministered in our parishes have 
 left few memorials of their humble labours. In many cases 
 it is impossible to dissever religious from political events, so 
 closely were they interwoven, and kings as well as bishops 
 must be introduced upon our canvass. 
 
 Some good men have longed for the complete identifica- 
 tion of Church and State. Now, saving the fact that the 
 Roman clergy had elevated themselves into a distinct caste, 
 and claimed for themselves peculiar powers and privileges, 
 the devout desire was much more nearly realized then than it 
 is now. Religion and politics in our day are divided, as if 
 their union were unnatural and wrong. The clergyman is 
 bid to refrain from the least allusion to political topics, and 
 the slightest sympathy with political contentions, and the 
 member of parliament is thought to offend good taste, if not 
 to violate the rules of the House, if he introduces any pious 
 reflection or doctrinal discussion into his speech. There is 
 room for doubt, if men do not thus put asunder things which 
 G-od hath joined. In the mediaeval ages, it was difi^erent ; the 
 
A B. U09,J CXAIMS OF YORK AND CANTERBUKY. 141 
 
 Church and the State, if not completely one, with the same 
 laws and the same lawgivers, were yet much more closely 
 allied. Ecclesiastics were the principal politicians, and in 
 Parliament they framed statutes for the government of the 
 Church as well as of the kingdom. What is 'now called Eras- 
 tianism was then little understood, and a law for the benefit 
 of the Church was not thought to be the worse of having ema- 
 nated from the State. The Church, of course, did form a sepa- 
 rate community ; but its councils were rare, and their canons 
 comparatively few, and in this country, at least, it had very 
 little individual action. The king and the bishops were 
 generally at one, even in contests with the Pope ; and 
 happily Scotland never produced a Thomas a Becket. 
 
 The archbishops of York at a very early period asserted 
 their primacy over the Scottish bishops. This probably 
 arose from the circumstance of the Lothians having an- 
 ciently formed a part of the kingdom of Northumberland, and 
 from the other circumstance that, when Christianity was 
 carried from lona to Lindisfarne, it radiated thence north- 
 wards as well as southwards, and the powerful prelates of 
 York, forgetting whence they had originally received their 
 own consecration, began to arrogate jurisdiction over their 
 brethren in Scotland, who had as yet no primate amongst 
 themselves. When Alexander I., with the approbation of 
 his clergy, had chosen Turgot to the See of St Andrews, it 
 so happened that the Archbishop of York was in the posi- 
 tion of having been elected, but not yet consecrated, and. as 
 a rumour had reached Canterbury that, with the assistance 
 of the Bishops of Durham and the Orkneys, he was about to 
 consecrate Turgot, Anselm, then Primate of all England, 
 wrote an imperious letter to his brother of York, absolutely 
 prohibiting such consecration, and ordering him to compear 
 at Canterbury, and be consecrated himself York bowed its 
 head before Canterbury, but did not relinquish its preten- 
 sions. While the two English archbishops were thus at 
 war, the Scotch clergy maintained that neither of them had 
 the right to which they laid claim. The decision of the 
 triple controversy was evaded for the time, by the Kings of 
 England and Scotland agreeing that the former should en- 
 
142 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. vr. 
 
 join the Archbishop of York to consecrate Turgot, with a 
 special provision that the authority of neither church was 
 to be thereby compromised. Upon that understanding, 
 Turgot received consecration on the 30th of July 1109.* 
 
 Upon the death of Turgot, Alexander wrote a letter to 
 Ealph, the successor of Lanfrauc and Anselm in the See of 
 Canterbury, in which he artfully insinuated that in ancient 
 times the bishops of St Andrews were wont to be consecrated 
 either by the Pope himself or the Archbishop of Canterbury; 
 that it was merely by sufferance that the Archbishop of 
 York had ever exercised the right; and that this assumption 
 of power could no longer be permitted. It is evident that 
 the Scottish monarch wished to fight York with Canterbury, 
 and to leave it undecided, if, after all, the Pope alone did 
 did not possess the coveted jurisdiction. The stratagem was 
 skilful, and the time chosen opportune ; for Thurstin of York, 
 otherwise a formidable opponent, was at present half power- 
 less by his own want of consecration, and the battle might 
 have been quickly fought and won.f But delays took place, 
 years slipped past, and still St Andrews remained without a 
 bishop. 
 
 At length the Scottish monarch despatched a 
 letter to the English primate, in which he cen- 
 sured himself for having so long allowed the flock to wander in 
 the wilderness without a shepherd, and prayed him to set free 
 Eadmer, one of his monks, that he might be raised to the Epis- 
 copate of St Andrews. The request was complied with, and 
 Eadmer, loosed from his monastery, began his journey to the 
 North ; but he carried with him a letter from the archbishop to 
 the king, counselling that he should be sent back without loss 
 of time to receive consecration. On his arrival in Scotland 
 he was instantly elected to the vacant See by the clergy and 
 people, under the sanction of the king — language which 
 would seem to imply that the laity of St Andrews had a 
 voice in the election of its bishops. Next day Alexander 
 had an interview with the bishop-elect in regard to his con- 
 secration, and when Eadmer hinted at the pre-eminence of 
 Canterbury over all the British churches, the monarch rose 
 » Hailes's Annals, vol. i. t Ibid. 
 
A.D. 1120.J EADMER LEAVES SCOTLAND. 143 
 
 up, and broke off the conference with the strongest symptoms 
 of displeasure. A month passed away before the king would 
 again see the bishop ; but then a compromise was come to, 
 by which it was agreed that Eadmer should receive the ring 
 from Alexander, take the pastoral staff off the altar, as re- 
 ceiving it from the Lord ; and then, without more ado, as- 
 sume the charge of the diocese.* 
 
 In the meantime, Thurstin was in Normandy with the 
 English king, and, hearing of what was going on, he pre- 
 vailed upon Henry to write to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 prohibiting him from consecrating Eadmer ; and also to 
 Alexander, forbidding him to allow the consecration. All 
 this disturbed the new bishop ; he felt his influence in Scot- 
 land to be weak ; his favour with the king at an end ; some 
 reforms he had designed had miscarried ; and, above all, he 
 was uneasy in regard to his consecration. He therefore 
 craved permission to return to Canterbury and receive the 
 blessing of the archbishop. Alexander refused the request, 
 and reminded him that he had come to him altogether free. 
 Eadmer retorted that he would not abdicate the honour of 
 being a monk of Canterbury for all the kingdom of Scotland. 
 The aspect of affairs grew daily worse -, the clergy in a body 
 supported the king ; and so Eadmer returned the ring to 
 Alexander, laid his crosier upon the altar, whence he had 
 taken it, and returned to Canterbury, whose pretensions he 
 had maintained with such unbending firmness, that neither 
 ambition nor the love of independence could tempt him to 
 set them aside. f 
 
 During the reign of the same monarch, and in the year 
 1122, the ambitious Thurstin again made trial of his strength, 
 by requiring canonical obedience from the Bishop of Glasgow, 
 but it was peremptorily refused ; and when the Archbishop 
 of York affected to suspend him from his episcopal functions, 
 he appealed to Eome, and proceeded thither in person. The 
 Bishop of St Mungo's appears to have gained his case, for 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, voL i. Eadmer himself has given us an account' of these 
 transactions, and authenticated his statements by original documents. Lord 
 Hailes follows Eadmer, so that he may be regarded as a safe guide. 
 
 t Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
144 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. VI. 
 
 when he still farther indulged his wandering propensities and 
 went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and lingered for months 
 with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Pope very properly re- 
 called him, and enjoined him to return to his bishopric* 
 In 1123 Thurstin found still another opportunity to exert 
 his prerogative. An English monk, named Eobert, who had 
 been Prior of Scone, was elected to the See of St Andrews, 
 and the old question of consecration arose. Alexander died, 
 and David I. came to the throne before the dispute was ter- 
 minated. At length, in 1128, an arrangement was agreed 
 upon, which allowed the consecration of the bishop to be 
 proceeded with, but left the question of the liberties of the 
 Scottish Church undecided. Thurstin was allowed to lay 
 his episcopal hands upon Eobert ; and, at the same time, he 
 executed an instrument by which he made it known to all 
 men, present and future, that he had done so Avithout any 
 profession of obedience, solely for the love of God and King 
 David, and without compromising either the claims'of York 
 or the rights of St Andrews.f 
 
 There was yet another way in which the prelates of York 
 made a show of extending their jurisdiction over the North. 
 At this period they were in the habit of consecrating bishops 
 of the Orkneys, and one of these we find with Thurstin in the 
 English ranks at the battle of the Standard. As the Orkneys 
 were at this time held by the Norwegians, and the constant- 
 scene of piratical warfare, it is difficult to believe that these 
 Yorkshire bishops could ever set foot in their diocese ; and we 
 can account for the title they bore only by supposing that 
 the primates of England had hit upon an expedient similar 
 to that followed by Rome in our day, of appointing bishops 
 to Sees in partibus infidelium. In the records of the cathedral 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
 t Hailes's Annals, vol. i. The instrument referred to is published by Whar- 
 ton in his Anglia Sacra, and given by Hailes in a note : — " Thurstinus Arohi- 
 episcopus, Dei gratia, Eboracensis, notum sit omnibus, tam prsesentibus quam 
 futuris, absolute me consecrasse, sine profeasione et obedientia, pro Dei amore 
 et Eegis Scotije venerabilis David, Eobertum S. Andrese Episcopum, salva 
 querela Eboracensis Ecclesise, et justitia Ecclesise S. Andrese, et si Archiepis- 
 copus Eboracensis de querela sua loqui voluerit, Eex plenariam rectitudenem 
 remota malevolentia, ei exequetur, ubi juste debebit." 
 
A.D. 1124.J ST David's church reformation. 145 
 
 of York there are also three entries of bishops of Glasgow in 
 the eleventh century, who were never heard of on the hanks 
 of the Clyde. The proud prelates appear to have preferred 
 a train of imaginary suffragans to none at all. 
 
 The reign of David I., which commenced in 1124, is the 
 most important in the history of the Church before the 
 Reformation. He wrought a change in ecclesiastical affairs 
 almost as great as that which was subsequently accomplished 
 by Knox. He in effect built up that which Knox, when it 
 was in a state of decay, pulled down. He drave out the now 
 antiquated Culdees, and introduced prelates and priests ; 
 Knox cast out the prelates and priests, and brought in Pro- 
 testant preachers. The proceedings of the one, as well as of 
 the other, are frequently spoken of as a Church reform. It 
 is certain that David remodelled our whole ecclesiastical 
 polity. He originated the hierarchy, and gave it its splen- 
 dour. Nearly the half of our bishoprics, and the abbeys of 
 Kelso, Holyroodhouse, Melrose, Newbattle, Cambuskenneth, 
 Kinloss, Dryburgh, and Jedburgh, were founded by his 
 munificence. He brought several orders both of the Augus- 
 tinian and Benedictine monks into our country, transplant- 
 ing them from the great monasteries of France and England ; 
 and it was under his favour that the Templars and Knights 
 of St John took up their residence at Southesk and Torphi- 
 chen. Many may think that the Celtic monks were better 
 than their Latin successors, but it is certain they had de- 
 generated since the days of Columba, that the Church had 
 sunk into decrepitude, and that new life required to be in- 
 fused into it. 
 
 It is probable that David further wished to reform the 
 whole State by the instrumentality of the Church, and to 
 soften and refine the ferocity of the existing manners by a 
 more educated clergy, and a more splendid ritual. " By his 
 early converse with our countrymen," says William of 
 Malmesbury, speaking of David, " his manners were polished 
 from the rust of Scottish barbarity." It is not improbable 
 the Anglicized monarch invited Anglican ecclesiastics into 
 his kingdom, that they might confer upon his subjects the 
 benefits he himself had received from his intercourse with 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
146 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vi. 
 
 the south. A far- seeing policy might also discern in the 
 intelligence and wealth of the clergy a counterpoise to the 
 exorbitant power of the turbulent barons ; and whether 
 David perceived the result or not, it is certain that the 
 Church in almost every emergency stood fast by the throne, 
 and helped to preserve a proper balance in the State. But 
 whatever opinion we may form of St David's policy, it is 
 impossible to doubt of his piety ; and his piety was happily 
 of that healthy kind which made him neither faint-hearted 
 nor weak-handed. He was strong in battle, wise in counsel, 
 and merciful in the administration of justice to the poor. 
 All historians are agreed that no better king ever sat upon 
 our throne. His death was the appropriate termination of a 
 well-spent life ; for the monkish historian relates that, on a 
 Sabbath morning in May, just as the sun began to penetrate 
 the darkness of night, his spirit, escaping from all earthly 
 shadows, passed into the true light with such calmness that 
 he did not seem to be dead, and with such devotion, that he 
 was found with his hands clasped and stretched out toward 
 heaven.* 
 
 There is an incident connected with the reign of David 
 which illustrates the character of the age upon which he 
 shed his saintly virtues. An Englishman named Wi- 
 mund had risen from being a copyist to be a monk of 
 Furnes, and from being a monk of Furnes to be Bishop of 
 Man. He now pretended to be a son of an Earl of Moray, 
 who had been slain at Strickathrow in 1130 ; and, collecting 
 a large band of desperadoes, he began to make incursions 
 on our western coasts, and to give serious annoyance to the 
 government. Endeavouring, on one occasion, to levy con- 
 tributions from some episcopal territories, the Scotch prelate, 
 thinking it hard that one bishop should pay tribute to 
 another, collected his retainers, and gave him battle. Wi- 
 mund was defeated, but though defeated, was able to gather 
 
 * " Die Dominica, quae Christi ascensionem prEecedebat, id est, nono Kal. 
 Junii illucesoente, cum sol noctis tenebras radils suse liicia abigeret, ipse a 
 corporalibus tenebris emergens, ad verse lucis gaudia commigravit, cum tanta 
 tranquillitate, ut videretur non obisse ; tanta etiam devotione, ut inventus sit 
 utrasque manus junctas simul super pectus suum versus caelum erexisse." 
 (Aldred. ap. Fordun, lib. v. chap, lix.) 
 
A.D. 1! 54-1 165. j MALCOLM AND WILLIAM THE LION. 147 
 
 together anotlier band of adventurers like himself, and to 
 continue his marauding expeditions. Baffled in every 
 attempt to get hold of the piratical bishop, David at length 
 ceded to him a considerable territory, on condition that he 
 should keep the peace. But his insolence soon became in- 
 supportable to his own vassals, and they seized him, put out 
 his eyes, and delivered him as a prisoner to the king. He 
 was kept for a time a close captive in Eoxburgh Castle, but 
 afterwards permitted to spend the remainder of his days in 
 Biland Abbey in Yorkshire, where he amused the friars by 
 relating his early adventures, " and was wont merrily to 
 boast that he was never overcome in battle except by the 
 faith of a siUy bishop."* 
 
 David was succeeded on the Scottish throne by his grand- 
 son, Malcolm IV. ; and, during his reign, Eoger, Archbishop 
 of York, having obtained from Eome legatine powers over 
 all Scotland, summoned its clergy to meet him at Norham. 
 The Archdeacon of Glasgow, the Prior of Kelso, and some 
 other clergy obeyed the citation, but they did so only that 
 they might appeal to the Pope ; and proceeding to Eome, 
 they procured a bull of exemption from Alexander Ill.f 
 But this ancient battle of our Church for spiritual indepen- 
 dence was not yet come to an end. 
 
 On the death of Malcolm, his brother William, surnamed 
 the Lion, was crowned king in 1165, and immediately set his 
 heart upon the recovery of Northumberland from the English. 
 Forming a confederacy with the rebellious son of Henry II., 
 he marched into England, and laid waste the country with 
 fire and sword ; but his enterprise was brought to an abrupt 
 conclusion by his being surprised and captured by a body of 
 the enemy's horse. All Scotland was thrown into confusion 
 and dismay by the loss of its king, and negotiations were 
 instantly opened for his ransom. But Henry knew the 
 full value of his prize, and resolved to part with it for no 
 mean return. After three months consumed in vain attempts 
 to lessen his demands, the Scotch ambassadors, who had re- 
 paired to Normandy, purchased the liberty of their king by 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
 t Spottiswood'3 History, book ii. Hailes's Annals, toI. i. 
 
 k2 
 
148 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. VI. 
 
 surrendering tlie independence of the nation. The indepen- 
 dence of the Church had -well-nigh perished with that of the 
 kingdom, hut the dexterous diplomacy of the Bishops of 
 St Andrews and Dunkeld made the clauses affecting it so in- 
 definite and ambiguous, as to leave the discussion of the old 
 question open for the determination of happier times. It was 
 provided that the Scotch Church should yield to the Anglican 
 bishops such subjection as it ought of right and was wont 
 to yield — words capable of two very different renderings.* 
 It was not long before the Scottish clergy had an opportunity 
 of asserting the sense in which they understood them. 
 
 In the year 1176, Cardinal Huguccio Petrileonis, the 
 Pope's legate, held a council at Northampton. Both Henry 
 and WiUiam graced it by their royal presence. The Eng- 
 lish clergy resorted to it in great numbers. The Scottish 
 clergy came thither also, aware of the important questions 
 that were to be mooted, and resolved to maintain their 
 rights. Huguccio, in papal pride, sat upon a seat higher 
 than the rest, and the other ecclesiastics occupied positions 
 according to their rank. The important subject was 
 broached, and the Scottish clergy were required to fulfil the 
 treaty of Normandy, by yielding to the English Church that 
 obedience which they ought to yield and were wont to 
 yield. The cardinal, according to Boethius, made a prolix 
 speech, counselling submission, and expatiating upon the 
 advantages that would arise from the union of the Churches. 
 The Scottish clergy, however, neither daunted by the pre- 
 sence of the king, nor persuaded by the arguments of the 
 legate, nor deterred by the thought that they were on Eng- 
 lish ground, maintained that they never had yielded subjec- 
 tion to the Anglican Church, nor ought they to do so now.t 
 
 The bold eloquence, on this occasion, of a young canon 
 named Gilbert Murray, is celebrated by our ancient histo- 
 rians. " The Church of Scotland," said he, " ever since the 
 faith of Christ was embraced in that kingdom, has been a 
 free and independent Church, subject to none but the Bishop 
 of Rome, whose authority we refuse not to acknowledge. 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. Rymer's Fcedera, vol. i. p. 39. 
 t Spottiswood's History, liook ii. Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
A.D. 1170] SPEECH OF GILBERT MURRAY. 149 
 
 To admit any other for our metropolitan, especially the 
 Archbishop of York, we neither can nor will ; for notwith- 
 standing the present peace, which we wish may long con- 
 tinue, wars may break out betwixt the two kingdoms ; and 
 if it should faR out so, neither would he be able to discharge 
 any duty among us, nor could we safely and without suspi- 
 cion resort to him. For the controversies which you, my 
 Lord Cardinal, say may arise amongst ourselves, we have 
 learned and wise prelates who can determine them ; and if 
 they should be deficient in their duties, we have a good and 
 religious king, who is able to keep all things in order, so 
 that we have no need of any stranger being set over us. 
 And I cannot think that either his Holiness has forgotten, 
 or that you who are his legate can be ignorant of the ex- 
 emption granted unto Malcolm, our last king — since the 
 grant of which we have done nothing to make us unworthy 
 of the favour. Wherefore, in the name of all the Scottish 
 Church, we do humbly entreat the preservation of our liber- 
 ties, and that we be not brought under subjection to our 
 enemies." When the Scottish canon had ended his speech, 
 the Archbishop of York stepped up to him, and said, " That 
 arrow came not from your own quiver."* 
 
 As the discussion proceeded, the Archbishop of York 
 affirmed that the Sees of Glasgow and Galloway especially 
 were subject to his authority. Jocelin pleaded that Glasgow 
 was expressly exempted from any such obedience by papal 
 ai;thority. What the Bishop of Galloway replied is not 
 recorded ; but at this point in the debate the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury interfered, and declared that it was to Canter- 
 bury, and not to York, that the Scottish clergy must yield 
 canonical obedience. f The altercation which ensued be- 
 
 * Spottiswood's History. This speech, like all other iistoric speeches, from 
 the days of Thucydides and Livy down to the rise of reporters, must be re- 
 garded as the production of the historian, and not of the orator in whose mouth 
 it is put. But it probably expresses very correctly the sentiments of the Scot- 
 tish clergy ; and it is highly likely that Gilbert Murray took a prominent part 
 in the discussions, as shortly afterwards he was made Bishop of Caithness and 
 Chancellor of the kingdom. He is the Gilbert who built the cathedral of Dor- 
 noch, and was sainted after his death. 
 
 t Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
150 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VI. 
 
 tween the Primate of England and the Primate of All Eng- 
 land was the salvation of the Scottish Church ; for though 
 the Anglican clergy might have failed to establish any an- 
 cient usage in support of their claims, royal and legatine 
 authority would have more than supplied the defect of pre- 
 cedents. The king and the cardinal, bewildered, and pro- 
 bably disgusted by so many conflicting claims, broke up the 
 assembly, and the Scotch ecclesiastics returned home, still 
 free and unfettered. They had done their duty, and we 
 owe them our thanks. 
 
 But the Church of Scotland had hardly escaped 
 this danger, when it was involved in a more se- 
 rious quarrel with a more formidable opponent. In 1178 the 
 Archbishop of St Andrews died, and John Scotus, an arch- 
 deacon of the See, was elected by the chapter in his room. 
 The king appears to have been taken by surprise, for when he 
 heard of the election, he swore by the arm of St James that 
 John would never be Bishop of St Andrews. He was not a 
 man to vow and not perform. He seized upon the episcopal 
 revenues, compelled the other bishops to consecrate his own 
 chaplain, called Hugh, and forthwith put him in possession 
 of the bishopric. John appealed to Eome, and set out thi- 
 ther to look after his interests. The Pope appointed a legate 
 to proceed to Scotland, to hear and determine the case ; and 
 he, in an assembly of the Scottish clergy at Holyrood, pro- 
 nounced judgment for John, and solemnly consecrated him. 
 William had forborne thus far, but now he banished John 
 and all his abettors from the kingdom, and by preserving 
 Hugh in the benefice, set the Pope and his legate at defiance. 
 Thus thwarted and defied, the Roman pontiff issued a 
 mandate to the Scottish clergy, ordering them to yield 
 canonical obedience to John, and to bear in mind it was 
 their duty to obey God and the Church rather than man. 
 Not satisfied with this, he commanded the bishops forth- 
 with to excommunicate Hugh ; and entrusted Eoger, Arch- 
 bishop of York, with legatine powers over Scotland, with 
 instructions to excommunicate the king, and put the king- 
 dom under an interdict, if John were not put in possession 
 of St Andrews. John, who was a learned man, and who 
 
A.B. 1180.J THE POPE AND THE KING. 151 
 
 seems also to have been a good man, now interposed, and 
 declared that he would rather renounce his dignity for ever, 
 than that the masses said for the souls in purgatory should 
 be intermitted for one day. But the Pope loved power 
 better than the souls in purgatory, and so he commanded 
 the yielding bishop, by his canonical obedience, to be 
 firm.* 
 
 The Eoman pontiff at this period was Alexander III., one 
 of the ablest and most ambitious of the long line of able and 
 ambitious men who have sat in the chair of St Peter's. In 
 the Council of Lateran, he had solemnly deposed the Empe- 
 ror Frederic Barbarossa, absolved his subjects from their 
 oath of allegiance, and encouraged them to rise in rebellion. 
 The emperor retaliated by marching upon Eome, compel- 
 ling the proud pontiff to flee for his life, and setting Pascal 
 on the apostolic throne. The fortunes of Alexander, how- 
 ever, gradually recovered, and Frederic was glad in the end 
 to make terms of peace with him, and as some have affirmed, 
 to allow the triumphant priest to put his foot upon his neck. 
 It was the same troubler of kings that encouraged a Becket 
 to wage his spiritual warfare against Henry of England, and 
 though the primate paid the penalty of his presumption 
 with his blood, foully spilt before the high altar of Canter- 
 bury, he was everywhere worshipped as a martyr ; "William 
 of Scotland himself raised a monastery in his honour, while 
 Henry was compelled to go bare-footed to his tomb, and 
 submit to be scourged as a penance. When William 
 thought of these things he might well tremble and yield ; 
 but to yield was not the temper of the man. Frederic had 
 yielded ; Henry had yielded ; but William never. He 
 seems to have had a singular pleasure in adorning the tomb 
 of one prophet of High Church principles, and in strenu- 
 ously resisting the pretensions of another. 
 
 At length, in the year 1181, the Archbishop of York, as 
 papal legate, fulminated a sentence of excommunication 
 against the unbending monarch, and in conjunction with 
 the Bishop of Durham, who was joined with him in the ponti- 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. Spottiswood's History, book ii. 
 
152 
 
 CHURCH HISTOBY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. VI. 
 
 fical commission, laid the whole kingdom of Scotland under 
 an interdict.* 
 
 Happily for William, death rid him of his enemy. At 
 the critical moment Alexander died, and was succeeded in 
 the pontifical chair by Lucius III., and the King of Scot- 
 land lost no time in sending ambassadors to kiss his toe, 
 and request his benediction. The embassage was eminently 
 successful: the sentence of excommunication was reversed, 
 the interdict recalled, and in the bull issued by the new 
 pontiff, it is specially set forth, that to reverence kings is an 
 apostolic precept. After some difficulty and delay, the dis- 
 pute about St Andrews was ingeniously settled, by both 
 claimants resigning their pretensions into the hands of the 
 Pope, when the Pope anew appointed Hugh to St An- 
 drews, and John to Dunkeld, which happened at that time 
 to be vacant, Lucius, still further to assure William of his 
 friendship, sent him the golden rose and his blessing.f A 
 great victory had undoubtedly been won. 
 
 A few years later, Clement IIL, Servant of the 
 Servants of God, addressed a bull to his most 
 dear son William, illustrious King of the Scots, and his succes- 
 sors,! by which he set aside for ever the pretensions of Canter- 
 bury and York, and established the national independence of 
 our Church. By this bull, it is declared — " That the Church 
 of Scotland is a daughter of Eome by special grace, and 
 immediately subject to her; that the Pope alone, or his 
 legate a latere, should have power to pronounce sentence of 
 interdiction or excommunication ; that none should be capa- 
 ble of exercising the ofi&ce of legate, except a Scottish 
 subject or a member of the sacred College of Cardinals ; and 
 that no appeal concerning benefices should lie out of Scot- 
 land unless to the Court of Eome."§ 
 
 Thus Scotland, to escape from the domination of England, 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
 t Balfour's Annals. Hailes's Annals. Spottiswood's History. 
 
 J Spottiswood quotes under this date a bull of Pope Innocent III. ; but In- 
 nocent III. did not become Pope till 1199. In 1208, however, he issued a 
 bull confirming the privileges of the Church, and Spottiswood has evidently 
 onfounded the two. 
 
 f Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
AD. 1188.] INDEPENDENCE OF SCOTTISH CHURCH. 153 
 
 placed herself under the broad shield of Eome, and Eome, 
 by a masterly stroke of policy, received and protected the 
 suppliant. But though our country was thus cast more 
 completely into the bosom of the papacy, it was well that 
 the pretensions of York and Canterbury were upset, for had 
 . it been otherwise, the ecclesiastical victory might have 
 paved the way for a political one ; the sense of independence 
 being broken down in one sphere, might have yielded more 
 readily in another ; and, at all events, had the Churches 
 become one, the Eeformation would have taken the same 
 course in both countries, and whichever form of worship — 
 the Episcopal or Presbyterian — had prevailed, it M'ould not, in 
 all probability, have exhibited the same moderation as both 
 these have happily exhibited in the sister countries ; for 
 who will doubt that the one has helped to check the excesses 
 of the other ? 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that at the very time the Church of 
 Scotland was most strenuously asserting its independence, 
 and repudiating the pretensions of York and Canterbury, it 
 was quietly moulding its government and worship after the 
 Anglican model, and inviting to its bishoprics, its abbacies, 
 and its richest benefices, an Anglican clergy. Our cathedral 
 constitutions were in general copies of English ones already 
 existing. The chapters of Glasgow and Dunkeld are said 
 to have been taken from that of Salisbury ; and of Elgin, 
 Aberdeen, and Caithness, from that of Lincoln. As with 
 the cathedrals, so with the monasteries. Dunfermline was 
 an offshoot of Canterbury, Coldingham of Durham, Dryburgh 
 of Alnwick, Paisley of Wenloch, Melrose of Rievaux. The 
 catalogues of our early bishops and abbots show how 
 many of these were of Norman or Saxon, and how few of . 
 Celtic descent. Their names are generally enough to 
 testify to their blood. Some of them belonged to the Nor- 
 man and Saxon families who had recently settled in every 
 district of Scotland, but the great majority of them were 
 brought from the monasteries of England to fill the high 
 offices in our Church. 
 
 This tendency to conform the Church of Scotland to that 
 of England undoubtedly arose, in a great measure, from the 
 
154: GHUECH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VI. 
 
 influence of those English settlers, who were now rapidly 
 obtaining, together with extensive territory, an ascendency 
 in the councils of the kingdom. But we must also remember 
 that, in copying Anglican models, the Church of Scotland 
 only copied models which were now universally prevalent, 
 from the wide-spread dominion of Eomish ideas. The 
 Church of Scotland, in short, by conforming itself to Eng- 
 land, only conformed itself to Eome. But that our Church 
 should have exhibited, at the same time, a determined resist- 
 ance to English supremacy, and a fond desire for English 
 conformity, is not a little remarkable ; and the fact becomes 
 still more remarkable when we reflect that the battle of 
 our Church's independence was chiefly fought and won by 
 Anglo -Norman priests ; just as, in the age that followed, it 
 was Anglo-Norman knights who achieved on Bannockburn 
 the independence of the nation.* 
 
 The bull which secured the independence of our Church 
 was brought to Scotland by John, Cardinal de Monte Celio, 
 who also brought, as a gift from the Koman pontiff to our 
 king, a sword richly set with precious stones, and a purple hat 
 in form of a diadem. While this cardinal was in the king- 
 dom, a convention of the clergy was held at Perth, in which 
 all priests who had received ordination on Sunday were de- 
 posed, and a canon framed ordering Saturday from twelve 
 o'clock to be observed as a holiday, and that the people at the 
 sound of the bell should repair to church, and desist from 
 their several crafts till Monday morning.f Thus, in the 
 twelfth century, was a law passed, under the auspices of a 
 Eoman legate, establishing such an arrangement as many 
 good men are now labouring to restore, to recruit the worn- 
 out energies of our over-burdened population, and secure a 
 greater respect for the sanctity of the Sabbath.f 
 
 The Crusades had now been raging for nearly a hundred 
 
 * Bruce, Randolph, Douglas were all of Anglo-Norman descent. 
 
 t Spottiswood's History, book ii. 
 
 J It is a singular circumstance, also worthy of being noted, that, in the 
 reign of James I., an act was passed very similar to the Forbes Mackenzie 
 Act. " It is ordained that na man in burgh be foundin in tavernes of wine, 
 aill, or heir after the atraik of nine hours, and the bell that sail be rung in 
 the said burgh." (Pari. xiii. chap, cxliv.) 
 
A.D. 1190.] THE CRUSADES. 155 
 
 years. Swarm after swarm of nobles and knights, of priests 
 and peasants, had crossed the Bosphorus to combat with the 
 infidel Moslem for the city where our Saviour had died and 
 the sepulchre where he lay, till Europe seemed to be loosened 
 from its foundations, and hurled against Asia.* The victo- 
 rious arms of Saladin had, towards the close of the twelfth 
 century, recovered almost everything that had previously been 
 lost, and Jerusalem was once again in the hands of the infi- 
 dels. But Christendom could not yet relinquish a land asso- 
 ciated with so much that was hallowed in religion, and now 
 rendered doubly dear by the hundreds of thousands of Chris- 
 tian warriors who had perished by sword, famine, or plague 
 upon its plains. A third Crusade was organized. Philip 
 Augustus of France and Richard of England took the cross, 
 and lent their wisdom and valour, the dignity of their royal 
 names, and the resources of their great kingdoms, to the 
 chivalrous enterprise. In order to convert a dangerous 
 neighbour into a firm friend, and prompted also by his 
 generous nature, Eichard, before his departure for Palestine, 
 restored to William the Lion everything which had been 
 extorted from him while in captivity by Henry II. ; and, in 
 return, William agreed to pay to Richard ten thousand 
 merks sterling, thus furnishing sinews for the Holy War, — 
 and to send with him his own brother David, Earl of Hunt- 
 ingdon, with a band of Scottish knights, to share in the 
 dangers and glory of the expedition.! A few years later, 
 Scotland contributed two thousand merks to redeem Richard 
 from the captivity in which he was basely kept by the Em- 
 peror of Germany ; but it is more than probable that this 
 was an unpaid instalment of the ten thousand originally 
 stipulated. 
 
 William, before the close of his reign, appears to have 
 made an effort to reform the evils which had arisen in 
 Scotland and throughout all Europe, from Religious Houses 
 having the rights of sanctuary — where the greatest crimi- 
 nals were safe, and law lost its power. He sought the 
 
 * This was the figure of the Princess Anne, daughter of the Emperor 
 Alexius. (Gihbon, chap. Ivii.) 
 t Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
156 
 
 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VI. 
 
 advice of the Pope as to how he should deal with malefactors 
 who had sought au asylum in the churches. Innocent III., 
 m his rescript, made answer — " That if the person who re- 
 tires into a church be a freeman, he must not be forced from 
 thence, nor punished with the loss of life or limb, even for 
 the most atrocious offences ; but every other punishment 
 which the law authorizes may be inflicted upon him. PubHc 
 robbers, however, and they who spoil the country by night, 
 may be dragged out of churches, and this is no violation of 
 the rights of sanctuary. If the person who retires into a 
 monastery be a slave, he must be restored to his master 
 after that his master has promised upon oath not to inflict any 
 punishment upon him."* In an age when law is weak and 
 revenge strong, it is possible to recognise the prudence and 
 policy of having sanctuaries and cities of refuge, where the 
 manslayer or other criminal may find a safe asylum from the 
 avenger of blood, till guilt be proved and justice vindicated ; 
 but it is neither prudent nor politic to allow any place, how- 
 ever sacred, to shelter criminals, not only from private re- 
 sentment, but from public law. The rights of sanctuary, as 
 defined by Innocent III., must have seriously weakened the 
 hands of justice in Scotland. f 
 
 In tne papal rescript there is mention of slaves. It seems 
 incredible to many that there should have ever been slaves 
 in our country, and yet true it is that there were. There is 
 ample documentary evidence to prove that a considerable 
 proportion of our labouring population must have once been 
 in this sad condition.f They were generally, though not 
 always, attached to the soil, and bought and sold with it like 
 beasts of burden. Their children and their children's 
 children for ever were the property of their lord, and accord- 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. Deer. Greg. iii. 44-6. 
 
 t Among the statutes of Alexander II., in the Kegiam Magistatem, is one 
 anent — "Them wha fleis to halie kirk." It is provided that in the case of 
 those who declare themselves guilty but penitent, they must restore what 
 they have stolen, swear upon the gospels they will never steal again, and 
 then pass out of the realm tiU reconciled to the king. In the case of those 
 who declare themselves innocent, they will be protected till they are tried, and 
 then they must abide the law. 
 
 + In the Regiam Magistatem there is a complete code of laws in regard to 
 native bondsmen, chap, xi.-xiv. 
 
A.D. 1190.] SLAVERY IN SCOTLAND. 167 
 
 ingly their genealogies were carefully preserved, not from 
 ancestral pride, but to serve as title-deeds do in the case of 
 houses and lands. In the year 1178 William the Lion 
 makes a grant of Gillandrean Macsuthen and his children to 
 the monks of Dunfermline.* In 1258, Malise, Earl of 
 Strathearn, bestowed upon the monks of Inchaifray, in pure 
 and perpetual alms, Grilmory Gillendes, and this he does at 
 Kenmore, on the day of the annunciation of the Blessed 
 Virgin. The same pious earl, in the same year, bestowed 
 upon the same religious house John Starnes, the son of 
 Thomas and grandson of Thore, with his whole property 
 and children which he had begotten or might beget ; and 
 this he did for the salvation of his own soul, the souls of 
 his predecessors, and the souls of his successors for ever.t 
 In some ancient documents there is mention made of clerici 
 nativi, and these Tytler thinks must be serfs who had 
 become clerks, and still continued to be serfs ; but we know 
 that personal slavery was inconsistent with the sanctity 
 anciently ascribed to the clerical character, and are rather 
 inclined to believe that the clerici nativi were bondsmen be- 
 longing to the Church.f 
 
 Slavery existed in Scotland, and the Church of Scotland 
 gave it its sanction ; but it must be remembered that a 
 
 * Chartulaiy of Dunfermline, fol. 13. The grant is as follows : — Willielmua 
 Dei graoia Eex Scottor : omnibus probis hominibus tocius terre me clericls et 
 laicis, salutem. Sciant presentes et futuri me dedisse et concessisse, et hac carta 
 mea confirmasse Deo, et ecclesie sancte Trinitatis de Dunferm et Abbati et Mo- 
 naohis ibidem, Deo servientibus, in liberam et perpetuam elemosinam, Gillan- 
 dream Macsutben, et ejus liberos, et illos eis quietos clamasse, de me et here- 
 dibus meis, in perpetuum. Testibus, Waltero de Bid. Cancell ; Willielmo, filio 
 Alani Dapifero, &c. &c. In the same Cbartulary we iind mention of the manu- 
 mission of several slaves who had been gifted to the abbey by King David, upon 
 the annual payment of a two-year-old ox, or four shillings, fol. 109. From this 
 we may infer that the value of a Scotch slave was not great. 
 
 ■f" Chartulary of Inohaffray. 
 
 J Tytler's Hist., vol. ii. The view taken in the text is supported by the 
 13th chapter of the Regiam Magistatem, which is entitled, " Bondmen 
 should not be promoved to haUe orders." It starts with the proposition — 
 " Servile condition is not oapabill of the orders or honours of clerks." It is pro- 
 vided that if a slave, with the knowledge of his master, receives orders, he 
 thereby becomes free ; if without the knowledge of his master, he may be given 
 back to slavery ; but in that case he is stripped of his orders. 
 
158 
 
 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vi. 
 
 similar servitude existed at the time in almost every country 
 of Europe, and was probably nearly inseparable from the 
 state of society which then existed. It was undoubtedly 
 different from the slavery of South America,* and more 
 nearly resembled the serfdom of Eussia, which will naturally 
 die out with the advance of civilisation, as it has long ago 
 died out in every other kingdom of the European common- 
 wealth. It continued in Scotland till the fifteenth century, 
 but had gradually been losing ground, and then every name 
 and every circumstance indicative of its existence disap- 
 peared ; and for upwards of three hundred years no one can 
 touch our soil or breathe our atmosphere without being 
 free.f 
 
 In 1214 King WiUiam died at Stirling, and was buried in 
 the Abbey of Aberbrothock, which he himself had so mag- 
 nificently founded and endowed. He was succeeded on the 
 throne by Alexander II., who soon found himself involved 
 in a war with John, the reigning King of England. This 
 weak and passionate prince had first foolishly bearded the 
 Pope, and then stooped so low as to accept the crown of 
 England from his hands, and acknowledge himself the vassal 
 of Kome. To war with England was now to war with the 
 Holy Catholic Church, and this guilt was contracted by our 
 king. Such impiety could not pass with impunity ; and ac- 
 cordingly Gualo, the Pope's legate, came to Scotland, and 
 excommunicated Alexander with his whole nobility ; and, 
 to borrow the words of Balfour, " interdicted the kingdom 
 
 * In the Regiam Magistatem it is provided that a slave cannot purchase 
 his liberty with his own property, for his property is already his master's ; but 
 if his master defile his wife, or draw blood of him above his breath, or allow 
 him to remain unchallenged for seven years on another man's property, he is 
 free. 
 
 It is amusing to find the Eegiam Magistatem basing the institution of 
 slavery upon the same scriptural argument as the American slave-owners of 
 the present day. " Bondage and servitude take ane beginning frae the drunk- 
 enness and ebrietie of Noah (for he pronounced Cham to be servant of ser- 
 vants to his brother— Gen. ix. 24)." (Chap, xiv.) 
 
 f In some mining districts, till very lately, the miners were made over from 
 one proprietor to another, together with the mines. But no court of justice 
 would have held them to be slaves attached to the estate. This, however, was 
 a singular vestige of slavery after it had disappeared everywhere else. 
 
A.D. 1217-1218.] PAPAL INTERDICT. 159 
 
 from the use of any religious exercise, and solemnly, with 
 book and bell, cursed all of whatsoever degree or quality that 
 carried arms against King John."* 
 
 A papal interdict was the most awful ecclesiastical pun- 
 ishment that could be inflicted upon a guilty country ; and 
 was then generally regarded with the utmost consternation. 
 The doors of the churches were shut, the services suspended. 
 The images of the apostles and saints were taken from their 
 pedestals, and placed upon the ground. Marriage could be 
 performed only in the church-yard above the graves of the 
 dead. No other sacrament saving baptism could be admin- 
 istered. The dying must be without the consolations of 
 religion : for their souls no mass could be said ; by their cofl&n 
 no dirge could be sung — they must be buried like dogs. 
 The whole population must continue under the wrath of 
 God for a time, till the anger of the Pope should be assuaged. 
 There is reason, however, to believe that the interdict was not 
 felt in Scotland in its utmost severity. The White Monks 
 possessed the privilege of officiating at such times ; and this 
 they now diligently did, till they also were suspended by the 
 legate, under the highest spiritual censures, from performing 
 their merciful functions.t 
 
 From February 1217 till February 1218, our sanctuaries 
 and high places were a desolation ; but before the latter of 
 these dates, Alexander, abandoned by his French ally, was 
 glad to seek and find reconciliation with Kome. Now came 
 the removal of the interdict. The Prior of Durham and the 
 Dean of York came to Scotland as the deputies of the 
 legate, "making their progress," according to Balfour, 
 " from Berwick to Aberdeen, and absolved the kingdom from 
 Gualo's curse and interdiction ; and, in their return home 
 to England, being lodged in the Abbey of Lindores, the Prior 
 of Durham was burned to death in his chamber, which took 
 fire in the night by chance, his chamberlain being very 
 drunk, and he fast asleep."! It appears that these deputies 
 had also a commission to wring us much money as they 
 could from the parish priests, many of whom, as a further 
 
 ■* Annals, vol. i. f Spottiswood's Hist., book ii. { Annals, toI. i. 
 
160 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vi. 
 
 penance, were compelled to go barefooted to the door of the 
 
 church, and ask absolution in the most abject form. 
 
 I The extortions of Gualo roused the indignation of the 
 
 j Scottish clergy, and three bishops proceeded to Eome to 
 
 I complain. On professing repentance, they easily obtained 
 
 pardon ; and the avaricious legate was compelled to disgorge 
 
 one-half of his ill-gotten gains, which the Pope appropriated 
 
 to himself, thus dividing the spoil with the spoiler. A 
 
 cardinal who stood by remarked sneeringly, in reference to 
 
 the mock penitence and absolution of our bishops, " that it 
 
 was the duty of the pious to confess a crime even where no 
 
 fault had been committed."* 
 
 A few years after this, a Bishop of Caithness was burned 
 alive in his own house at Hawkirk by the people of his 
 diocese. A quaint annalist says, " that he was leading poor 
 people's corn too avariciously ;"t in other words, he was a 
 rigorous esacter of tithes. The " Chronicle of Melrose" says 
 that, like the good shepherd, he laid down his life for the 
 sheep, rather than allow them to remain in their pristine 
 ignorance as to the duty of giving a tenth to the Church.J 
 The Saga of Orkney gives a more minute account of the 
 murder, and of the causes which led to it. It would appear 
 that it was customary in Caithness to pay to the bishop a 
 spann of butter for every twenty cows, but Bishop Adam 
 exacted his spann for every fifteen, and then for every twelve, 
 and ultimately for every ten. The dairymen of the north 
 could not stand this, and seizing upon the greedy prelate, they 
 roasted him at his own kitchen fire.§ His death was amply 
 avenged. A massacre was made of the peasantry. The 
 Earl of Orkney, who it was thought might have stilled the 
 tumult, had a large part of his property confiscated, and 
 hardly escaped with his life, which he did not preserve very 
 long, for a few years afterwards he was assassinated and 
 burned in his own castle b}' his own servants, who it was 
 suspected had been instigated to this studied mode of revenge. 
 
 * Spottiswood, \)fiok ii. Hailes, Yol. i. 
 
 t Balfour's Annals, vol. i. 
 
 { Chronica de Mailroa, fol. 38, Ban. ed., p. 139. 
 
 § Ork. Saga, p. 421. Torfseus, lib. c. 40, quoted in Origines. 
 
A.D. 1225-1230.] SCOTTISH COUNCILS. 161 
 
 The murdered bishop was venerated in the Church as a 
 martyr to the divine right of tithes, and ranked with St 
 James, St Stephen, and St Laurence. 
 
 The Scottisti clergy about this time repre- 
 sented to Honorius IV. that, from the vrant of a 
 metropolitan, they could not hold a council ; that in conse- 
 quence of this, many crimes were committed without punish- 
 ment, and many abuses allowed to, grow up without the power 
 to correct them. The Pope listened to their statements, and 
 gave them permission to call a council of their own authority. 
 The permission was probably meant to be temporary, but the 
 Scottish clergy affected to understand it as perpetual, assem- 
 bled under its sanction, and afterwards met from time to time 
 as their exigencies required, without the consent or inter- 
 position of the Holy See.* It was soon seen what important 
 uses these provincial councils could subserve. For some 
 time Scotland had been haunted by Eoman legates, and the 
 dislike with which they were generally regarded was turned 
 into hatred and disgust by the extortions of Gualo. It was 
 now argued by the clergy, that there was no need of legates 
 to correct abuses or carry out reforms, when their own 
 councils could do it as well. 
 
 In 1230 Henry III. invited Alexander to York, where the 
 two monarchs kept Christmas together, and feasted right, 
 royally for fourteen days. Amidst the festivities, the Car- 
 dinal Deacon, who was legate in England, hinted to our 
 monarch his intention of visiting Scotland, to inquire into 
 ecclesiastical affairs. " I have never seen a legate in my | 
 dominions," replied Alexander, " and as long as I live I never \ 
 will." The king said something more about the rage and 
 ferocity of his subjects, which might endanger tlie life of a 
 visitor so obnoxious. The Italian took alarm, and abandoned 
 his journey for a time ; but some years after he came north- 
 wards, and was again withstood by the king, who would not 
 allow him to cross the border tUl he obtained from him a 
 written declaration that the present permission would not 
 be drawn into a precedent. t The cardinal came to Edin- 
 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. f Tytlor's History, toI. ii. 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
162 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vi. 
 
 burgh, held a council there, and levied some contributions 
 from the clergy, but he was studiously avoided by the king; 
 and apparently finding that little could be done, he returned 
 to England without proceeding farther to the north. " He 
 sojourned," says Matthew of Paris, " in the principal towns 
 on this side the sea,* and having collected a large sum of 
 money, secretly, and without leave asked, departed from 
 Scotland." The Pope had, condescended to publish a bull, 
 declaring that it would evince a want of maternal affection 
 to send a legate to England and not to Scotland ; but it is 
 plain that our ancestors never appreciated these proofs of 
 his love.+ 
 
 This spirited resistance to papal extortion and encroach- 
 ment exhibited by Alexander II. was continued by his suc- 
 cessor Alexander III. In 1266 Cardinal Ottobon de Eieschi, 
 afterwards Adrian V., while legate in England, attempted to 
 raise in Scotland, as a procuration, six merks from each 
 cathedral, and four merks from each parish church — an 
 enormous sum, as the annual value of the parsonages at this 
 period did not average more than ten merks, each merk 
 though it counts but 13s. 4d., being capable of purchasing a 
 chalder of meal. J The king prohibited the contribution. 
 
 * By the " sea " is meant tlie Frith of Forth. See Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
 t Bulla, Greg. IX. 
 
 ^ " The following examples," says Lord Hailes, " will give a notion toler- 
 able correct of the salaries of parish priests during the reign of Alexander III. 
 Ten merta of silver, six acres of arable gronnd, and one acre of meadow, were 
 provided to the vicar of "Worgs in Galloway. This grant was confirmed by 
 Gilbert, Bishop of GaUoway, who died in 1253. In 1268 a, pension of ten 
 merks sterling was granted to the vicar of Kilrenny in Fife ; of ten merks to 
 the vicar of Salton in the Lothians ; of ten pounds to the vicar of Childrer 
 Kirk ; . . . . twelve merks were provided to the vicar of Gulan. . . . Hence 
 we may presume to fix the actual medium at ten merks. The canons of the 
 Church of Scotland, a.d. 1242 and 1269, fix the minimum at ten merks." 
 (Annals, vol. i.) The price of grain varied as much anciently as now ; but in 
 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a merk appears to be nearly the average 
 price of a chalder. " In 1263 a chalder of oatmeal, fourteen bolls being 
 computed for the chalder, cost exactly one pound. In the same year, six 
 chalders of wheat were bought for nine pounds three shillings. In 1264 
 twenty chalders of barley sold for ten pounds ; in 1288 the price had faUen so 
 low, that we find forty chalders sold for six pounds thirteen shillings and 
 fourpenoe, being at the rate of forty" pence the chalder. In 1288 twelve 
 
A.D. 1268.] TAXES FOR THE CRUSADES. 1G3 
 
 and appealed to Eome ; and the clergy generously raised 
 amongst themselves two thousand merks to defray the ex- 
 penses of the suit. So large a sum, it is evident, could be 
 used only for bribery, but it was known that no empty- 
 handed suitor ever gained a case in the papal coiirt. 
 
 Foiled in his attempts at extortion, the legate, 
 two years afterwards, summoned the Scottish 
 clergy to attend a council in England ; four of them went, but 
 only to decline its jurisdiction, and observe its proceedings ; 
 and though canons were passed affecting our Church, they 
 were held as null and void. Still further to manifest the inde- 
 pendence of the Church, a provincial council was summoned 
 at Perth, where a Scotch bishop presided, and canons were 
 framed appointing, inter alia, a council to be held annually, 
 and that each of the bishops in rotation should be conservator 
 statutorum ; and these regulations remained in force till the 
 time of the Keformation.* 
 
 The Eoman pontiffs, at this period, were using their ut- 
 most endeavours to levy the tenths of benefices over all 
 Europe, to defray the expenses of the Holy War. In 1254 
 Pope Innocent lY. granted to Henry III. of England a 
 twentieth of the ecclesiastical revenues of Scotland for three 
 years, provided he should join the Crusade which was then 
 in agitation, and the grant was subsequently extended for 
 another year. Henry III. wisely stayed at home, and the 
 Scottish clergy escaped that ancient income-tax of five per 
 cent. But in 1268, Clement IV. renewed the grant, increas- 
 ing it to a tenth ; and the gallant son of Henry put a cross 
 on his shield, and repaired to Palestine. Still Scotland de- 
 clined to be taxed by an English potentate. Blessed with 
 a greater abundance of soldiers than of gold, an offer was 
 made to send a company of crusaders to uphold the national 
 piety and honour ; and, accordingly, a band of knights and 
 yoemen, under the command of the Earls of Carrick and 
 Athol, were despatched on the fatal expedition, few of whom 
 ever returned. Athol died before Tunis, fighting bravely 
 
 chalders of wheat brought twelve merles, or thirteen shillings and fourpence 
 the chalder." (Tytler's History, vol. ii.) 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
 L 2 
 
16^ CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vi. 
 
 under the banners of the chivalrous but unfortunate St 
 Lewis ; and Oarrick found a grave in Palestine. 
 
 In the year 1275 Benemundus de Vicci, better known 
 under the corrupted name of Bagimont, came to Scotland, 
 to collect, on behalf of the Pope, the tenth of all ecclesias- 
 tical benefices for the recovery of the Holy Land — the grant 
 to Henry having expired. It would appear, that long prior 
 to this time there existed a valuation-roll of all our Church 
 revenues, according to which the beneficed clergy were 
 taxed, when procurations must be paid to legates, when 
 suits must be appealed to Eome, when a proportion of the 
 national burdens must be borne. The clergy wished the 
 ancient valuation adhered to ; but Bagimont had instruc- 
 tions to raise the tenths according to the true values of the 
 benefices. As usual, there was an appeal, and Bagimont 
 returned to Eome for fresh instructions ; but the Pope was 
 inexorable, and insisted that every benefice should be taxed 
 according to its actual value at the time. Accordingly, a 
 new valuation and assessment roll required to be formed, 
 and this document was long known and hated in our coun- 
 try as Bagimont's Eoll. It was used at Eome as the rule of 
 payment for those who came to seek benefices there. It 
 still exists, but so mutilated, interpolated, and altered, as 
 to give no information upon the real value of land or Church- 
 livings prior to the reign of James V.* 
 
 * Skene places Bagimont in tlie reign of James III. ; Leslie in the reign of 
 James IV. The Editor of the Origines, following Lord Hailes, reproaches 
 them for these blunders ; hut he remarlis that Baimund's roU, in ita present 
 shape, " can be evidence for nothing earlier than the reign of James V. It 
 taxes collegiate churches, aU late foundations, among parish churches, though 
 they had no parochial district, and it omits all livings helow 40 merks.'' Bal- 
 four, in his Annals, appears to reconcile these inconsistencies and contradic- 
 tions. Under 1275 he notes : — " This zeire, the mounckes and clergey of the 
 Oestercian Order in Scotland, gave a suhsidey for aU ther order to Bagundus, 
 the Pope's Legat, of 60,000 merkes, towards the charge of Holy War." Under 
 1512 he again notes : — " This zeire, a generall Synod was held in the Abbey 
 of the Dominicans at Edinburghe, of all the bishopes, priors, and abbats of the 
 kingdome. Of this Synod, the Pope's Legat, Baioman, was president. In 
 this Synod, all ecclesiastical benefices, exceeding 40 lb. per annum, were taxed 
 in the payment of 10 lb. to the Pope, in name of pension ; and to the King 
 such a taxt as he should be constrained to imposse. Of all the ecclesiastical 
 benefices of Scotland, there was a roll at this time made, to this day called 
 Baiomont's roll." Balfour is supported in his first entry by Fordun (Scoti- 
 
A D. 1275.] ARRIVAL OF THE MENDICANT FRIARS. 1G5 
 
 By far tlie most important political events in the reign of 
 Alexander III. were the invasion of the Norwegians, their 
 defeat at Largs, and the subsequent cession of the Hebrides 
 to the crown of Scotland upon the payment of 4000 merks. 
 But this acquisition of islands, long disputed, had for the 
 time little influence upon ecclesiastical affairs ; for though 
 the patronage of the Bishopric of Sodor was ceded to Alex- 
 ander, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction was reserved to the 
 Archbishop of Drontheim in Norway ; and so Zona still con- 
 tinued under the spiritual supremacy of the north.* 
 
 It was during the reign of the two Alexanders that the 
 different orders of mendicant friars first began to appear in 
 Scotland. They were now at the very height of their popu- 
 larity ; and our monarchs, who gave them welcome, pro- 
 bably thought they would be more cheaply lodged and en- 
 tertained than the expensive orders of Cistercian and Cluniac 
 monks patronized by their predecessors. The chief agent 
 in bringing them to this country was William de Malvoisin, 
 Bishop of St Andrews, who was one of the most active and 
 enterprising prelates of the time ; and yet it appears he 
 must have loved good cheer, for from 1202 to 1233 he de- 
 prived the Abbey of Dunfermline of the presentation to two 
 churches, because its monks had neglected" to supply him 
 with wine enough for his collation after supper. f 
 
 We have now arrived at a period when Scottish eccle- 
 siastics begin to make a prominent figure in the current 
 literature of Europe. Dempster has written the biographies 
 of more than twelve hundred eminent Scotch writers, who 
 lived from the fourth century downwards. It may be safely 
 said that hundreds of these never existed, that hundreds 
 
 Chronicon, torn. ii. p. 122), and by several acts of Parliament (James III. p. 6, 
 c. 43 ; James IV. p. 3, c. 39) ; and he is supported in his second entry by 
 Bishop Leslie (De Rebus Gestis Scottorum, lib. viii.), and also by the circum- 
 stance that the roll, as now existing, taxes collegiate churches, and omits all 
 livings below 40 merks, thus exactly agreeing with the taxation as described 
 by Leslie. May we not conclude that there must have been two Bagimonts 
 and two roUs ? Or, if this be deemed improbable, must we not believe that 
 the ancient roU of Bagimont was revised, and brought down to the period in 
 the council held in the Dominican monastery in Edinburgh in 1512. The 
 old name was retained to what became a new roll . 
 * Tytler's Hist., vol. i., note. t Hailes's Annals, vol. i. 
 
166 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cilAP. VI. 
 
 more owed their birth to other countries than ours, and that 
 of the remnant, the fame and the works of the majority have 
 utterly perished. Our catalogue of authors, by this process 
 of unbelief and forgetfulness, will be greatly reduced ; but 
 it will contain men, and not phantoms. We might well be 
 proud to rank among our illustrious writers such men as 
 Columbanus, Alcuin, and Eabanus Maurus ; but other coun- 
 tries deny us the honour. Even Joannes Scotus Erigena, 
 the friend and companion of Charles the Bald, and one of 
 the most learned men of the ninth century, must be con- 
 signed to the limbo of uncertainty ; for though it is certain 
 he was a Scot, it is doubtful whether he was a Scot of Ire- 
 land, of Ayr, or of Strathearn.* 
 
 Michael Scot of Balwirie is still remembered in the tradi- 
 tions of our country, and is now embalmed in the Lay of 
 the Last Minstrel. By visiting the great universities of 
 England, France, Spain, and Italy, he made himself master 
 of the dialectics and natural philosophy of the age. He 
 wrote commentaries on Aristotle, and a book concerning the 
 physiognomy and procreation of men ; but a large part of 
 his time was devoted to alchymy and astrology. He was 
 astrologer for a while to the Emperor Frederic II. When 
 war drove him from his court, he found a welcome from the 
 first Edward of England ; and his old age appears to have 
 been spent in his native land. It has been his fate to be 
 remembered as a sorcerer rather than as a man of science. 
 Dante, in his " Divine Comedy," makes mention of him as 
 a magician. Dempster tells us that he had heard in his 
 youth that the magic books of Michael Scot were still some- 
 where in existence, but might not be opened on account of 
 the fiends that would thereby be let loose. Sir Walter Scott, 
 the great modern Wizard of the North, has adhered to the 
 tradition of the country, that his books were interred in his 
 grave. Yet let us not despise or condemn the Baron of 
 Balwirie, though an ignorant age regarded him as a sorcerer, 
 and undying poetry preserves the tradition. It was the 
 doom of science in those dark days to be looked upon as 
 necromancy; and the power over nature, which a shght 
 * Mackenzie's Lives, vol. i. 
 
A.D. 1200-1300.] DISTINGUISHED SCOTSMEN. 167 
 
 acquaintance with its laws conferred, gave rise to the sus- 
 picion of dealings with the deYil. Michael Scot flourished 
 in the thirteenth century, and appears to have been one of 
 the commissioners sent to bring the Maid of Norway to 
 Scotland upon the death of Alexander III.* 
 
 John Holybush, known in the world of letters by the more 
 sounding appellative of Joannes Sacrobosco, is said to owe 
 his birth to Nithsdale. While still a young man he became 
 a canon-regular of the order of St Augustine, and afterwards 
 was made Professor of Mathematics in the University of 
 Paris. He is acknowledged to have been the most learned 
 mathematician of his day, and to have done much to revive 
 in Europe a love for mathematical studies. His treatise on 
 the Sphere was judged by Peter Eamus, Clavius, and Me- 
 lancthon to be worthy of their study and illustrative com- 
 ments. He was buried in the Church of the Mathurines at 
 Paris, with his epitaph written'round about a sphere, in allu- 
 sion to his greatest work.f Eichard, abbot of St Victore, 
 who flourished toward the end of the twelfth century, also 
 owed his origin to Scotland. He devoted himself chiefly to 
 exegetical and doctrinal studies, and has left behind him 
 thirty-seven different treatises on theological subjects, which 
 are stiU to be found in the libraries of the learned in two 
 large folio volumes. Adam Scot, a canon-regular of the 
 order of Premontre, was another of our northern lights in 
 that remote age. With the wandering spirit which has al- 
 ways been characteristic of his countrymen, he went to 
 France, where he rose to a distinction which he would have 
 sought for in vain at home. He wrote a treatise on the 
 Tabernacle of Moses, and another on the Immaculate Con- 
 ception of the Blessed Virgin ; and excelled in the allego- 
 rical and mystical interpretation of Scripture, which was 
 greatly applauded then, but would be accounted as worse 
 than meaningless now.J 
 
 Thomas Learmont, generally known as Thomas the 
 Rhymer, has obtained a more imperishable place in Scottish 
 history than many who have a higher claim to it. He lived 
 
 * Note to the Lay of the Last Minstrel. Mackenzie's Lives. &c. &c. 
 t Mackenzie, Dempster, &c. * Ibid. 
 
168 CHURCH BISTORT OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. VI. 
 
 iu the thirteentli century, and Ercildoun, a village not far 
 from the Tweed, is famed as his birthplace and residence. 
 He sustained the double character of a poet and prophet — 
 characters once inseparable, but now disjoined through the 
 decay of the spirit of prophecy ; so that for nearly two 
 thousand years our poets have been but poets, with no inspi- 
 ration but that of genius. He is the author of " Sir Tristem," 
 and is said to have foretold the death of Alexander ITT., the 
 triumph of the Bruce, and the accession of the Stuarts to 
 the throne ; and there are still extant some obscure verses, 
 in which thetwo last of these events are dimly foreshadowed ; 
 but doubts have been started in regard to their authorship. 
 Some have affirmed that he derived his knowledge of the 
 future from an inspired nun in the convent at Haddington ; 
 but the popular belief was, that he derived it from a secret 
 intercourse with fairy-land, whether he had been carried 
 when a child. We shall probably stumble at both these 
 hypotheses, and reject altogether his pretensions as a pro- 
 phet ; and his rhymes which remain do not give us very 
 exalted ideas of his powers as a poet. 
 
 But by far the most celebrated Scotchman of the thir- 
 t teenth century was the celebrated schoolman, John Duns 
 , Scotus. Born at Dunse, in the Merse,* he entered at an 
 early age the order of Franciscan Friars. To complete his 
 studies he repaired to Oxford, where he rapidly rose to be 
 professor of theology, and such was the fame of his genius 
 and learning that thirty thousand students are said to have 
 resorted to his lectures ; but we are not informed how the 
 huge concourse was accommodated. From Oxford he went 
 to Paris, as a wider field for his talents. The scholastic 
 philosophy was now in the ascendant ; Aristotle was wor- 
 shipped as a God, and every theological subject was reduced 
 into a dialectic form, and discussed according to the rules of 
 the dialectic art. Abelard, the chief originator of the 
 system, had acquired immortal renown by the eloquence and 
 
 * Some antiquaries have aiBrmed that this great schoolman was born at 
 Dunstan in Northumberland ; but there is a great preponderance of evidence 
 in favour of Scotland. He is said to have been born in 1274, and to have died 
 in 1308. 
 
A.D. 1200-1300.] DISTINGUISHED SCOTSMEN. 169 
 
 acuteness of his lectures, while he had won the pity of the 
 world by his ill-fated passion for the beautiful Eloise. Peter 
 Lombard had composed his "Four Books of Sentences," which 
 had been speedily received as a text-book in almost every 
 university of Europe, and had gained for their author the 
 proud cognomen of Master of the Sentences. The " Doctors 
 of the sacred page '' were almost driven from the polemical 
 field, and the " Sententiarii " were everywhere triumphant. 
 The Dominicans and Franciscans had both given their ad- 
 herence to the prevailing philosophy ; had illustrated it in 
 their writings, and taught it in their schools ; and from 
 the 'former had arisen St Thomas Aquinas, the greatest 
 luminary of the scholastic age, and who of all men, since 
 St Augustine, has done most to mould the Roman theology ; 
 who gave to the Stagyrite the weight of his great authority, 
 and rendered his victory complete. The base alliance 
 thus consummated was fruitful in wrangiings, and nothing 
 more. 
 
 Duns Scotus was deeply infected with the prevailing epi- 
 demic, and among his other works we find Commentaries on 
 the Eight Books of Aristotle, and on the Four Books of 
 Sentences. He ventured, however, in many particulars to 
 differ from Aquinas, who, next to Aristotle, was the great 
 authority of the day. The Dominicans flew to the succour 
 of the one, the Franciscans stood fast by the side of the 
 other. The famous sects of the Thomists and Scotists arose, 
 whose controversies regarding Grace and Free Will are unde- 
 cided to this day. The genius of Aquinas had earned for 
 him the title of the Angelic Doctor ; the acuteness of Scotus 
 got for him the title of the Subtle Doctor ; it was the fashion 
 of the time to bestow such appellatives. But perhaps the 
 greatest achievement of our countryman was connected 
 with the Immaculate Conception of the Yirgin, a dogma 
 which he is reputed to have proved to the satisfaction of 
 the University of Paris by no fewer than two hundred argu- 
 ments. Though his labours were abundant, his years were 
 not many, for he is understood to have died at Cologne at 
 the early age of thirty-four. Over his tomb, in tlie Church 
 of the Minorites, it is said that there was once an epitaph. 
 
170 CHUBCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. VI. 
 
 purporting that Scotland gave him birth, England nurture, 
 France education, Germany a grave.* 
 
 We have been diverted from following the course of 
 events by this brief review of the writers produced by our 
 country in the thirteenth century, and who walk first in 
 that long procession of poets, philosophers, and divines, which 
 slowly defiles before the eye of the historian as he scans the 
 centuries which succeed. We now return to our narrative. 
 
 Alexander III. was killed by a fall from his horse near 
 Kinghorn on the 16th of March 1285-6. His death plunged 
 the whole nation into mourning. " The nobility, clergy, 
 and, above all, the gentry and commons," says Balfour, 
 " bedewed his cofiin for seventeen days' space with rivulets of 
 tears." He was a good king, and deserved to be lamented. 
 " In his time," to quote the affectionate tribute of Fordun, 
 " the Church flourished ; its ministers were treated with 
 reverence ; vice was openly discouraged ; cunning and 
 treachery were trampled under foot ; injury ceased ; and 
 the reign of virtue, truth, and justice was maintained 
 throughout the land." But, in truth, there was greater 
 reason to grieve for the living than for the dead, because of 
 the phials of wrath, confusion, and civil war which were 
 now about to be poured out upon the country. Alexander 
 had seen all his children die before him ; and now the heir 
 of his crown was an infant grandchild, daughter of Eric, 
 King of Norway. Several of the powerful barons began 
 already to aspire to the throne ; and, in truth, in these tur- 
 bulent times, a sickly child was scarcely its proper occupant. 
 Edward of England had already reduced Wales, and had 
 long been ambitious to annex Scotland to his crown ; and 
 he thought that now the pear was ripe. He proposed a 
 marriage between the Maid of Norway and his son, which 
 was agreed to ; but the fragile girl died at Orkney on her 
 voyage to Scotland, and so this scheme of ambition was 
 blasted. 
 
 No fewer than twelve competitors for the throne now 
 appeared ; and, unhappily, Edward was chosen to adjudicate 
 
 * Scotia me genuit, Anglia suscepit, 
 Gallia edocuit, Germania tenet. 
 
A.D. 128C-1300,] COMPETITORS FOE THE CROWN. 171 
 
 between them. Before proceeding to investigate their 
 claims and give his award, the English monarch demanded 
 that he should be recognised as Lord Paramount ; and the 
 demand, haughtily made, was meanly conceded by suitors 
 anxious to secure the favour of their judge. Eobert de 
 Bruce and John de Baliol had undoubtedly the strongest 
 claims-; and Edward, discovering that the latter was likely 
 to be the more compliant vassal, gave judgment in his fa- 
 vour. But even Baliol could not brook the indignities which 
 were heaped upon him. He fired, and prepared to resist ; 
 but resentment was useless and resistance in vain in the 
 divided state of the kingdom, and the feeble monarch was 
 tumbled from his throne. At this crisis in our country's 
 fate, William Wallace arose, and for a time almost single- 
 handed stemmed the tide of oppression. He defeated the 
 English at Stirling Bridge, and carried his victorious arms 
 into the north of England ; but the disaster at Falkirk, and 
 the jealousy of the great barons, compelled him to resign 
 his office of Governor of Scotland. Still he did not sheath 
 his renowned two-handed sword ; and Edward felt that so 
 long as Wallace lived Scotland was not subdued. 
 
 The English monarch was not allowed to urge his preten- 
 sions to the feudal superiority of Scotland without a rival. 
 Boniface VIII., in the year 1300, published a bull, in which 
 he declared that Scotland was a fief of the Holy See, — and 
 commanded Edward to remove his officers and ai-mies from 
 the patrimony of the Cburch. One of the arguments by 
 which His Holiness supported his pretensions was, that the 
 spiritual conquest of the country had been achieved by the 
 bones of St Andrew, the brother of St Peter.* One is half 
 tempted to think that the pretensions of tbe Pope were 
 merely meant as a mockery of those of the King — a quiet 
 sarcasm upon the weak arguments by which he supported 
 his too powerful arms ; but both were really in earnest. 
 It is not improbable, however, that Scottish influence, per- 
 haps Scottish gold, had prociued the interference of the 
 Supreme Pontiff ; and it may even have been suggested that 
 our bleeding country would be safest from the English lion 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. ii. Tytler's History, vol. i. 
 
172 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VI. 
 
 if taken under the ample folds of the papal mantle. Ed- 
 ward received the bull with oaths and rage ; but, collecting 
 himself, he gave a courteous reply to the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury who delivered it, and finally got his parliament 
 to send an elaborate answer to the Pope in defence of his 
 pretended rights. It is probable the document was accom- 
 panied with larger bribes than Scotland could afford ; for 
 His Holiness now suddenly turned round, and thus addressed 
 himself to the patriotic Bishop of Glasgow : — " I have heard 
 with astonishment that you, as a rock of offence and a stone 
 of stumbling, have been the prime instigator and promoter 
 of the fatal disputes which prevail between the Scottish 
 nation and Edward, King of England, my dearly beloved 
 son in Christ, to the displeasing of the Divine Majesty, to 
 the hazard of your own honour and salvation, and to the 
 inexpressible detriment of the kingdom of Scotland. If 
 these things are so, you have rendered yourself odious to 
 G-od and man. It befits you to repent, and, by your most 
 earnest endeavours after peace, to strive to obtain forgive- 
 ness."* This special lecture to Wishart was accompanied 
 by a bull, addressed to all the bishops of Scotland, in which 
 excommunication and interdict were hinted if they did not 
 mend their ways. 
 
 Reconciled to Eome, and backed by this bull, Edward 
 again marched into Scotland. " In recording the history of 
 this last miserable campaign," says Tytler, with more than 
 his usual eloquence, " the historian has to tell a tale of 
 sullen submission and pitiless ravage ; he has little to do 
 but to follow in dejection the chariot-wheels of the con- 
 queror, and to hear them crushing under their iron weight 
 all that was free and brave in a devoted country ."f But our 
 land, though persecuted, was not forsaken ; though cast down, 
 it was not destroyed ; and its deliverer was already riding in 
 hot haste from the court of Edward for the Scottish border. 
 
 Eobert Bruce, the grandson of Baliol's rival for the throne, 
 had hitherto preserved his large estates by maintaining his 
 allegiance to the English throne ; but finding himself sus- 
 pected, and no longer safe, he now fled to Scotland, sum- 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. ii, f Tytler's History, vol. i. 
 
A.D. 130G-1317.] WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. 173 
 
 moned together his dependents and friends, liad himself 
 solemnly crowned at Scone, and, after some of the most ro- 
 mantic adventures, and hair-hreadth escapes, and chivalrous 
 feats at arms recorded in history, he achieved, on the field 
 of Bannockburn, the independence of his country. 
 
 Keligion, though she naturally seeks for quieter scenes 
 than the camp and the battle-field, did not altogether stand 
 aloof in this great struggle for liberty. Among the first 
 friends of the Bruce were Lamberton, Bishop of St Andrews ; 
 Wishart, Bishop of Glasgow ; David, Bishop of Moray ; and 
 the Abbot of Scone. Bruce had become guilty of the most 
 daring impiety by slaying Comyn in the Church of the 
 Minorites at Dumfries ; but Wishart absolved him in his 
 cathedral at Glasgow. A papal excommunication was 
 thundered against him, which might have utterly ruined 
 him in that superstitious age, but the friendship and in- 
 fluence of Lamberton deprived it of more than half its 
 power. Both these prelates paid for their patriotism by a 
 long imprisonment, and it was only their surplice that saved 
 them from a halter. The Bishop of Moray, undeterred, 
 boldly preached in his diocese, that it was more meritorious 
 to fight under the banners of Bruce than to join in a crusade 
 against the Saracens. Led by such influence, the Scottish 
 clergy met in a provincial council, and issued a declaration 
 addressed to all the faithful, and bearing that the nation, 
 seeing the kingdom betrayed and enslaved, had assumed 
 Eobert Bruce for its king, and that the clergy had cheer- 
 fully done him homage as such.* On the field of Bannock- 
 burn, before the battle, the Abbot of Inchaffray passed 
 along the serried ranks of the Scots, bearing the bones of 
 St Fillan, granting absolution, and fortifying courage by the 
 powers of superstition. In gratitude to St Andrew, to 
 whose assistance the victory was devoutly ascribed, the king 
 gave to the canons of his cathedral a yearly sura of a hundred 
 merks ; Lamberton added the churches of Abercrombie and 
 Dairsie ; and Duncan, Earl of Fife, the church of Kilgour.f 
 While the Church thus exhibited its patriot- 
 ism, and the king his piety, the supremacy which 
 
 * Hailes's Annalss, toI. ii. f Balfour's Annals, vol. i. 
 
174 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vi. 
 
 a dominant priest had obtained among the nations was em- 
 ployed to prevent our armies from reaping the fnll fruits of 
 victory. After the battle of Bannockburn, Bruce was bent 
 upon following up his success by marching into England ; 
 and Edward was in no position to resist. It was resolved that 
 the invaders should be combated with spiritual weapons. 
 England was rich, and the Pope was compliant ; and a bull 
 was issued from Avignon, commanding a truce of two years 
 between the hostile countries, under pain of the highest 
 spiritual censures. Two cardinal legates were despatched 
 to publish the truce, and in case of resistance to excommu- 
 nicate the king. The cardinals prudently paused in Eng- 
 land, and sent forward two nuncios to intimate the message ; 
 but the unfortunate deputies, while crossing the borders, 
 were attacked by banditti, and being eased of some super- 
 fluous vestments and money, were allowed to pursue their 
 way. Bruce courteously received them at court, professed 
 his earnest desire to be at peace with his spiritual mother, 
 but firmly refused to open the sealed letters which they 
 brought, as they were not addressed to him under the title 
 of king. " There are several nobles in my dominions," said 
 he, " called Eobert de Bruce ; it may be they are intended for 
 some one of them."* 
 
 Baffled of their object by the firmness of the king, the 
 nuncios returned in all haste to the cardinals, who awaited 
 the result of the enterprise at Durham. A check had been 
 given to papal presumption ; but it was never the wont of 
 churchmen thus easily to quit the field. It was resolved 
 tlrat the truce should be published ; and Adam Newton, a 
 Eranciscan friar, was employed upon the perilous mission. 
 Setting out from Berwick, he found the king encamped in 
 a wood near to Old Cambus, busily employed in construct- 
 ing engines to batter the walls of the town he had just left. 
 He sought, but was refused admittance to the royal presence ; 
 and when it was found that his credentials were not ad- 
 dressed to Eobert as king, they were contemptuously re- 
 turned to him unopened. The friar, nevertheless, with the 
 devoted courage which has in general been characteristic of 
 * Hailes's Annals, vol. ii. Tytler's History, vol. i. 
 
A.D. 1320.] BRUCE EXCOMMUNICATED. 175 
 
 his order, proclaimed, in presence of a concourse of the ba- 
 rons, that it was the pontifical will there should be a truce 
 between the kingdoms ; but the words were no sooner spoken 
 than there were mutterings and looks which could not be 
 mistaken ; and the monk, feeling his courage to ooze oiit, 
 begged that he might now be allowed to proceed to visit the 
 prelates, to whom his instructions were addressed ; or, if not, 
 that. he might have a safe conduct to return to Berwick. 
 Both requests were refused, and a hint conveyed that he had 
 better leave the kingdom as quickly and as best he could. 
 He took the hint and hastened south, but he was waylaid 
 upon the road, robbed of his parchments, among which were 
 the bulls excommunicating the king ; and being further 
 stripped of the little clothing which a Franciscan has, was left 
 stark naked, and almost stark mad, to continue his journey. 
 Arriving at Berwick, the unhappy monk addressed a letter 
 to the legates bemoaning his misfortunes, and stating that 
 it ■ was rumoured that the Lord Kobert had planned the rob- 
 bery and was in possession of the parchments ; and, without 
 greatly wronging the memory of the pious monarch, we may 
 feel disposed to believe in the report.* 
 
 After obtaining possession of Berwick, and re- 
 pulsing an attempt to recapture it by the English 
 king in person, and sweeping, more than once, the northern 
 counties with his light-armed cavalry, Bruce consented to a 
 cessation of hostilities. He was anxious not merely for the 
 blessings of peace, but to be reconciled to the Holy See ; but 
 the Supreme Pontiff was in no humour to be reconciled to 
 him, and had forgotten altogether his office as a peacemaker. 
 A rabid and most rancorous bull was issued against the king 
 and his accomplices ; and the Archbishop of York, with the 
 Bishops of London and Carlisle, were commanded, with all the 
 usual solemnities of book, bell, and candle, to excommunicate 
 the guilty crew every Sabbath and festival-day throughout the 
 year. This could not be borne in silence ; and, accordingly, 
 a meeting of the Estates was held at Aberbrothock, and an 
 elaborate manifesto prepared and directed to the Pope ; set- 
 ting forth the ancient independence of the nation, and the 
 * Tytler's Hist., vol. i. 
 
167 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VI. 
 
 right of Eobert the Bruce to reign as its king. It ran in the 
 name of eight earls and thirty-one barons specially men- 
 tioned, and of " the other barons, freeholders, and whole com- 
 munity of Scotland."* The publication of this manifesto led 
 the Pontiff to sist the repeated publication of the bulls of 
 excommunication ; but it was not till three years afterwards, 
 during which the northern counties of England were again 
 cruelly wasted, that a complete reconciliation with Rome 
 was effected by Randolph proceeding to Rome and per- 
 suading the Pope to address a bull to the Bruce, with the title 
 of king. Edward complained of the bad faith of His Holiness 
 for consenting to do so, but was soon afterwards himself glad 
 to make peace with the Scottish monarch upon terms still 
 more hurtful to his pride. 
 
 In all these transactions the patriotism and loyalty of the 
 native clergy were sufficiently obvious, and it was only the 
 foreign element — the unfortunately -recognised supremacy 
 of the Bishop of Rome — that threatened to breed disturb- 
 ance between the Church and the State. The papal court, 
 ever venal, was at the service of England, and, of course, it 
 had its emissaries and devotees ; but the clergy, as a body, 
 clung to the interests of the royal Bruce, and were ready to 
 forget their vows to advance his cause. In truth, though 
 the faith and worship of our ancient Church were as cor- 
 rupted as those of any Church in Christendom, its priest- 
 hood was never blindly submissive to the Vatican. Our 
 country was distant from the centre of pontifical influence, 
 and much of that influence was lost as it radiated toward 
 the circumference. It formed one of the outer provinces of 
 the vast spiritual hierarchy, where the law in its rigour was 
 not felt. Scotland was more than once put under an in- 
 terdict, audits monarchs were frequently under the ban of 
 the Holy See ; but the king and the country alike seemed to 
 have been unscathed by the lightning's flash, for we read of 
 no rebellions, no assassinations, no outrages of any kind ; and 
 though history has recorded the facts, she has made no men- 
 tion of their effects, from which we may infer that they 
 were but slight and transient. 
 * A copy of this document will lie found in M'Kenzie's Life of Bartour. 
 
A.D. 1329.] DEATH OF BRUCE. 177 
 
 Our great king, notwithstanding his stout resistance to 
 Eome, was evidently a man of piety according to the piety 
 of the time ; and there is a circumstance in his life, or 
 rather connected with his death, which very well illustrates 
 the religious feelings of the period. The blood of the Ked 
 Comyn, slain before the altar at Dumfries, had left a stain 
 upon his conscience, and to wipe it out, he had solemnly 
 vowed that when the country was free, he would take the 
 cross and go to Palestine. He had never been able to per- 
 form his vow, and when he was upon his death-bed, being- 
 troubled thereat, he called Sir James Douglas to his side, 
 and exacted from him a solemn promise, that when he was 
 dead he would take out his heart and carry it to the Holy 
 Sepulchre, " where the Lord lay."* The promise being made 
 on the true faith of a knight, the monarch died in peace. 
 The good Sir James was true to his word, and with a 
 chosen band of knights set out for Palestine ; but his uncon- 
 querable love for adventure led him to Spain, that he might 
 assist in battle against the Moors, and being surrounded in 
 the too eager pursuit of the flying foe, he made his last charge 
 by throwing the casket containing the embalmed heart of 
 his beloved sovereign before him, and crying out, " On, thou 
 noble heart, and where the Bruce leads, the Douglas will fol- 
 low ! " The incident is one of the finest in the records of 
 chivalry, but it is evidently embellished by romance. 
 
 Eobert I. was succeeded by his son David II., a child of 
 eight years old at the time of his father's death. In the re- 
 joicings attending his birth, the court poets foretold that he 
 would rival his father's fame ; but virtue and valour are not 
 always hereditary, and we read with extreme pain, on the 
 prosaic but truthful page of history, of his mean and truck- 
 ling spirit, and of how he would have sold to England for 
 money the country which his father had redeemed with 
 blood. Eobert II., the first of the Stuarts who sat upon our 
 throne, succeeded to his uncle David ; and he in his turn 
 
 * Bruce had previously arranged that he should be buried at Melrose, to 
 which abbey he bequeathed large sums ; and it appears that it was not till he 
 lay a poor leper at Cardross, and nigh to death, that he formed the resolution 
 of sending his heart to Jerusalem. 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
178 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VI. 
 
 was succeeded by Ms son Eobert III. These reigns fill up 
 the fourteenth century. They contain political events of the 
 greatest importance, but no ecclesiastical occurrences de- 
 serving of record. Our Church had now fully asserted its 
 independence of England. The ecclesiastical battle was 
 fought and won earlier than the political one. It was now 
 completely conformed to Eome, and reconciled to Rome ; and 
 its bishops and priests quietly performed their sacred offices 
 in those noble edifices which piety had reared for them. It 
 is, unfortunately, only times of trouble that find a place in 
 history ; the calm scenes and useful labours of periods of 
 repose soon sink into oblivion. 
 
 The seeds of our glorious modern literature were already 
 beginning to germinate under the sunny influences of the 
 Italian sky. In our colder latitudes the development was 
 later and slower ; but even in the fourteenth century there 
 were evidences of a quickening power at work. We have 
 authors in that age — all of them ecclesiastics — of whom we 
 need not be ashamed. 
 
 John de Fordun is our earliest historian. He was born, 
 toward the latter end of the reign of Alexander III., at For- 
 dun in Kincardineshire. After he had finished his studies 
 in grammar and philosophy, he applied himself to theology, 
 and entered into holy orders. He formed the design of 
 writing the history of his country from the most remote 
 antiquity down to his own time, but he did not live to com- 
 plete the work. He finished only five books, but he has had 
 several continuators. He was not free from the love for 
 fable, universal in his age, and he traces our nation through 
 Greece and Egypt up to Nimrod the mighty hunter. But 
 when he leaves behind him the region of clouds, and sets his 
 foot upon the solid land, he is in general worthy of credit ; 
 and every subsequent historian has been largly indebted to 
 him. He is, at least, the highest authority we have, and 
 far more trustworthy than the imaginative Boece ; but none 
 of our early chronicles can be implicitly followed as a guide. 
 His " Scoti-Ohronicon" was anciently so highly esteemed, 
 that almost every monastic library could boast a copy of it ; 
 and the famous Register of the Carthusians at Perth, and 
 
A D. 1300-1400.] EMINENT WBITERS. 179 
 
 the Black Books of Scone and of Paisley, were little else 
 than transcripts and continuations of it. 
 
 Achilles had Homer to celebrate his praise in immortal 
 verse ; Bruce, a mightier hero, had a meaner hard, but still 
 one of those favoured few who are born with a harp in their 
 bosom. John Barbour is said to have been born in Aber- 
 deen about the year 1316. After receiving the rudiments of 
 his education at home, he pursued his philosophical and theo- 
 logical studies in the universities of Oxford and Paris. Re- 
 turning to his native country, he entered into priest's orders, 
 and was preferred by King David to the Archdeaconry of 
 his native city. His heroic poem on Eobert Bruce consists 
 of a hundred and one books, in which he minutely traces 
 his history, from his flight to Scotland down to the adventure 
 of his heart on the mountains of Andalusia. It is a remark- 
 able production for so early a period, giving us life-like pic- 
 tures of the great characters who wrought out the deliverance 
 of our country, and of the stirring scenes amid which they 
 lived ; and though not to be ranked with the great produc- 
 tions of poetic genius, it must ever be interesting to Scots- 
 men as one of the earliest specimens of their native tongue, 
 and the most faithful history of their favourite king. Both 
 Tytler and Hailes regard Barbour as an authority, and almost 
 implicitly follow him. 
 
 John Bassol, a Minorite friar, who wrote a large folio on the 
 " Books of the Sentences," which acquired for him the title 
 of " the most orderly doctor ;" John Blair, a Benedictine 
 monk, who is said to have been a schoolfellow of Sir William 
 Wallace, and who afterwards wrote his deeds ; William 
 Dempster, Professor of Philosophy at Paris ; and Thomas 
 Varoye, Provost of Bothwell, who wrote a poem in celebra- 
 tion of the battle of Otterburne, nearly complete the cata- 
 logue of illustrious Scotsmen in the fourteenth century. 
 Even these, how few have seen their writings — how few 
 have heard their names ! But the revival of letters had 
 already begun. Petrarch and Boccaccio had made the world 
 vocal with poetry not unworthj' of their Latin ancestry ; the 
 invention of printing was at hand ; and greater men arose 
 to play their parts upon a greater stage. 
 
 m2 
 
180 CHUBCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vn. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 " Rome was not built in a day.'' This is equally true of 
 papal as of pagan Rome. We shall sin against all history if 
 we conceive that the stupendous system of faith and worship 
 now embodied in the decrees and canons of the Council of 
 Trent was fully developed and perfect from the first. It 
 was the growth of fifteen hundred years. The members of 
 the hierarchy rose by slow decrees to their opulence and 
 power ; the rites and ceremonies which overlaid the spiritual 
 services of the sanctuary were gradually introduced ; and 
 almost every important dogma was the subject of free dis- 
 cussion for centuries before it was put into the creed, and 
 made a necessary article of belief. Pictures and statues 
 were very early brought into the Christian churches, but it 
 was not till the year 879 that the Council of Constantinople 
 decreed the worship of images, and silenced the iconoclasts ; 
 and more than another century was required to make the 
 doctrine universal in the west. From the patristic age the 
 virtues of celibacy were greatly lauded, and multitudes of 
 the clergy and laity, of men and of women, sacrificed the 
 first instincts of their nature to the prevalent ideas of 
 Christian perfection ; but it was not till the eleventh cen- 
 tury that Gregory VII. made celibacy compulsory upon 
 every member of the sacerdotal caste. In the writings of 
 several of the first apologists for Christianity there is lan- 
 guage which seems to imply a belief in the real presence in 
 the sacrament of the Supper ; but not till the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, when Innocent HI. sat in the papal chair, was the 
 
CHAP. Vll.] GROWTH OF THE PAPACY. 181 
 
 term transubstantiation known, or the doctrine authorita- 
 tively defined. It was the same pontiif who first rendered 
 auricular confession imperative, thus giving to the Church two 
 dogmas, the former of which is the greatest possible afi'ront 
 to the human understanding, and the latter the greatest 
 possible shock to private modesty and to public morals. 
 His successor, Honorius III., decreed the adoration of the 
 Host, and thus rendered complete the idea of Christ's pre- 
 sence in the Eucharist. Thus has this great Church sj'^stem 
 grown, and thus is it now growing ; for it is a mistake to 
 suppose that the creed of Kome is a sealed book, from which 
 nothing must be taken away, and to which nothing may be 
 added. In our own day, after five hundred years of vehe- 
 ment debate, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has 
 been placed upon the same level as the doctrines of the 
 Trinity and the Atonement. 
 
 It has frequently been remarked of the British constitu- 
 tion that its great strength and durability result from its 
 being the slow growth of many centuries. In France we 
 have seen constitutions born in a day and die in a day. In 
 England the overshadowing constitution under which we 
 live and are safe has been the work of nearly a thousand 
 years — the product of a cautious legislation, meeting emer- 
 gencies and correcting abuses just as they arose. Unlike 
 the gourd matured by a single sun and blasted in a single 
 night, it is more like the oak of our forests, which requires 
 an unknown number of centuries to arrive at its fullest de- 
 velopment ; but which, when it has taken hold of the soil, 
 no tempest can overturn. It is to the same circumstance 
 we must attribute the amazing stability of the papal system 
 and the papal power. The oldest empires are young in com- 
 parison with the spiritual empire of Eome. The most 
 ancient dynasties are of yesterday contrasted with the long 
 line of pontifi's who have sat in the chair of St Peter. Nor 
 are there yet the slightest symptoms of this dominion 
 coming to an end ; for though old provinces have revolted 
 and declared themselves free, new provinces have been 
 gained which more than compensate for the loss ; just as 
 Great Britain has more than made up for the loss of the 
 
182 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vii. 
 
 American States, by her vast and recently-acquired posses- 
 sions in Australia and India. 
 
 The Church grew in Scotland as it grew at Eome, as the 
 branch grows with the growth of the stem. Kite after rite 
 was introduced ; doctrine after doctrine was readily embraced ; 
 for with the expansion of the creed there was always ex- 
 hibited a corresponding expansion of the faculty of faith ; 
 swarm after swarm of idle friars came from the south, dark- 
 ening the sky and settling down upon the land ; stone after 
 stone was added to the structure, and as it rose toward 
 heaven, it appeared so broad and high, and firmly compacted, 
 that nothing could shake it. But already the cloud, no 
 larger than a man's hand, appeared in the sky, which be- 
 tokened the coming tempest. 
 
 The fifteenth century opened upon one of the worst 
 schisms that had ever rent the Latin Church. Boniface IX. 
 at Rome, and Benedict XIII. at Avignon, both laid claim to 
 the popedom, and exercised its functions. The death of the 
 former did not end the division, for his faction raised to the 
 pontificate Innocent VII. ; and he, after a reign of two 
 years, was succeeded by Gregory XII. A plan of reconcili- 
 ation was now formed between the contending pontiffs, who 
 reciprocally bound themselves by a solemn oath to resign 
 the papal dignity, if necessary for the peace and welfare of 
 the Church ; but their oaths were violated, and the schism 
 continued. In 1409 a Council was assembled at Pisa, which 
 declared both the Popes to be guilty of heresy, perjury, and 
 contumacy, and to be therefore ipso facto deposed and ex- 
 communicated. The Council next raised to the pontifical 
 chair Peter of Oandia, who assumed the name of Alexander 
 V. There were now in the Church three factions and three 
 Popes, who mutually cursed and excommunicated each 
 other. AlexanderY. dying at Bologna, sixteen cardinals, who 
 belonged to bis party, chose as his successor a Neapolitan, 
 of a most unprincipled and profiigate character, who took 
 the name of John XXIII. The pious beheld all this with 
 wonder and disgust, and knew not whom to recognise as 
 their spiritual father and supreme head. 
 
 In 1414 the famous Council of Constance met to heal the 
 
A.D. l-lli.] COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 183 
 
 divisions wliich distracted the Church. The Council began 
 its labours by declaring, that an oecumenical council was 
 superior to the Pope. This rule being established, John 
 XXIII. was unanimously deposed on account of many grave 
 crimes which were laid to his charge. As the Council was 
 evidently in earnest, Gregory XII. anticipated his fate by 
 makiag a voluntary resignation of the pontifical throne. 
 But Benedict XIII. was not a man to yield, and so he also 
 was deposed ; and the field being thus cleared, Otta de Co- 
 lonna was raised to the dignity of head of the Church, which 
 he ruled under the title of Martin V. Still Benedict refused 
 to acknowledge the proceedings of the Council, and continued 
 till the day of his death to claim the prerogatives and dis- 
 charge the duties of the pontificate. 
 
 This unseemly spectacle of so many rival popes contend- 
 ing for the chair of the apostolic fisherman, with all the am- 
 bition, avarice, want of faith, and other crimes which the 
 contest laid bare, scandalized many, and led them to doubt 
 the infallibihty of such men, and the purity of the Church 
 over which they presided. But even before this period, 
 Wickliff — so beautifully called the Morning Star of the 
 Keformation — had arisen, and by his bold preaching, and, 
 above all, by his translation of the Bible into English, ex- 
 posed the corruptions of Rome. Notwithstanding the bitter 
 enmity of the friars, whose profligacy he had frequently 
 denounced, he died in peace at his rectory of Lutterworth 
 in the year 1384. But a convocation of the Anglican clergy 
 at Oxford, in 1410, condemned his doctrines, and burnt his 
 books. The Council of Constance, after deposing so many 
 popes, proceeded to deal with heretics. Huss and Jerome 
 of Prague were consigned to the fire. Wickliff was happily 
 beyond their power ; but a list of propositions, culled from 
 his writings, was examined and condemned, and a brutal 
 decree passed, commanding his works, and his bones — now 
 mouldering in the grave — to be committed to the flames. 
 It was thirteen years before the decree was obeyed ; but 
 tlien his body was exhumed and burnt. " His ashes," says 
 old Fuller, " were thrown into the Swift, and the Swift con- 
 veyed them to the Avon, the Avon into the Severn, the 
 
184 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. VII. 
 
 Severn into the narrow seas, the narrow seas into the main 
 ocean ; and, like his ashes, so were his doctrines dispersed 
 over the wide world." 
 
 It is certain Wickliff had many followers. His virulent 
 enemy, Knighton, declares, that if you met two men upon 
 the road, one of them was sure to be a Wickliffite.* Within 
 thirty years of his death, his opinions had reached all the 
 way to Eohemia ; for Huss and Jerome of Prague had im- 
 bibed them, and it was for this chiefly they were condemned 
 to be burnt. But even before the Council of Constance had 
 met, the doctrines of Wicklitf had found their way into Scot- 
 land. John Kesby, an English priest, and described by our 
 early historians as being of the school of Wicklifl", had come 
 into our country ; and it was not long till he incurred the 
 suspicion of heresy. He was accordingly seized, in the year 
 1407, and carried before a council of the clergy, over which 
 presided Lawrence Lindores, a doctor in theology, and a 
 member of the Inquisition. His impeachment consisted of 
 forty different articles, but we are acquainted with only two 
 of them. He was accused of denying that the Pope was the 
 successor of St Peter ; or that a man of a wicked life could 
 be the vicar of Christ. The trial resulted in his being con- 
 demned to the flames ; and the cruel sentence was imme- 
 diately carried into execution at Perth. t He was the first 
 who went from Scotland to join the noble army of martyrs. 
 Scotland, at this period, was under the regency of Robert, 
 Duke of Albany. The third Robert was dead, and his son, 
 James I., was a captive in England. The whole aim of 
 Albany was to maintain his precarious power, which he 
 managed to do by pampering the nobles and ecclesiastics 
 and oppressing the people. Winton, in his " Chronicle," spe- 
 cially celebrates his hatred of the Lollards, and his zeal for 
 the purity of the Church. | "We need not believe, with 
 Tytler, that he instigated the butchery of Resby, for church- 
 men themselves have always been foremost in such perse- 
 cutions ; but he must have given it his sanction and approval. 
 
 * Knighton, De Eventibus. 
 
 t Spottiswood, book ii. Pinkerton, vol. i. Tytler, vol. iii. 
 
 J Winton's Chronicle, vol. ii. p. 419. 
 
A,D. 1410.] FOUNDATION OF UNIVEKSITY OF ST ANDREWS. 185 
 
 Henry Wardlaw was Bishop of St Andrews. We would 
 willmgly exculpate him if we could from all participation 
 in the horrid crime. He was a prelate of liberal sentiments, 
 of unbounded hospitality, distinguished for his anxiety to 
 reform the clergy and the laity, and to him belongs the 
 undying honour of having given to Scotland its first Uni- 
 versity. But it is impossible to believe that the fires of 
 religious persecution could be kindled without the approba- 
 tion of so influential a bishop. After all, need we wonder 
 that he gave his voice to burn a wandering Wickliffite, 
 when perhaps there were not ten men then living who did 
 not think it was highly meritorious to persecute heretics to 
 the death. The same sin lies at the door of still greater 
 and holier men. 
 
 Wardlaw had got his bishopric from Benedict XIII., at 
 Avignon ; and he no sooner obtained possession of his See 
 than he set his heart upon making it the seat of a University. 
 Scottish munificence had already founded the Scotch College 
 at Paris and Baliol College at Oxford ; but our country was 
 yet without any school for the higher branches of study, 
 and our clergy were obliged to go abroad to complete their 
 education. So early as 1410 the first professors of St An- 
 drews had begun their labours. John Shevez, Official of 
 St Andrews, William Steven, afterwards Bishop of Dun- 
 blane, and Sir John Lister, a canon of the Abbey, read 
 lectures in divinity ; Lawrence Lindores expounded the 
 common law; and Eichard Cornwall, the civil law; while 
 John Gow, William Foulis, and William Crosier, delivered 
 prelections on philosophy and logic* They are worthy to 
 be held in everlasting remembrance, as the first Senatus 
 Academicus of Scotland. The infant university was yet 
 without endowments, and without a pontifical charter. The 
 latter of these wants was speedily supplied. On the 3d 
 , February 1413, Alexander Ogilvy, who had been despatched 
 to Rome to obtain the Pope's bull of confirmation, arrived 
 at St Andrews, bringing with him the coveted document, 
 and was received with every demonstration of joy. On the 
 following day, the bull was read in the refectory, in the 
 * Spottiswood's History, book ii. Boethius, lib. xri. 
 
186 CHUECH HISTORY 01" SCOTLAND. [chap. vii. 
 
 presence of the bishop and a large concourse of ecclesiastics. 
 A procession, in which four hundred of the clergy joined, 
 moved up the long nave of the cathedral to the altar ; Te 
 Deum was sung ; high mass was celebrated ; and the day 
 was concluded with bonfires, the ringing of bells, and uni- 
 versal festivity* It was fitting that thanks should be given 
 to G-od, and that gladness should aboand among the people, 
 for science had now found a resting-place in our land. 
 
 In the year 1424 James I. was released from his captivity 
 in England, and solemnly crowned in the abbey church of 
 Scone. According to the ancient usage of the country, 
 Murdoch, Duke of Albany and Earl of Fife, placed the 
 crown upon his head ; and Wardlaw, Bishop of St Andrews, 
 anointed him with the holy oil. The country was in a state 
 of perfect lawlessness ; the barons were no better than power- 
 ful bandits ; and to the poor for many long years had be- 
 longed only lamentation and woe ; but there was now seated 
 upon the throne a man of a determined will, resolved to re- 
 dress such grievous wrongs. " Let G-od but grant me life," 
 said he, "and there shall not be a spot in my dominions where 
 the key shall not keep the castle, and the bracken-bush the 
 cow, though I myself should lead the life of a dog to accom- 
 plish it." 
 
 The eyes of so wakeful a monarch were not shut to the 
 abuses which had crept into the Church ; but he required 
 the help of churchmen to curb the exorbitant power of the 
 nobles ; and therefore he touched their sore places with a very 
 tender hand, while otherwise he showed his zeal for the es- 
 tablished religion. Buchanan celebrates his anxiety to raise 
 the educational standard of the clergy, which was gradually 
 sinking ; and states that he gave instructions to the gover- 
 nors of all schools, and of the university now happily found- 
 ed, to make known to him any scholars who had distin- 
 guished themselves, that he might bestow upon them some 
 ecclesiastical preferments, t 
 
 The sale of Scotch benefices at Eome had long been felt 
 as an intolerable evil. It not only impoverished the king- 
 's Pinkerton's History, vol. i. Tytler's History, vol. iii. 
 t History, book x. 
 
A.D. 1424.] SALE OF BENEFICES. 187 
 
 dom, but made the clergy look to a foreign potentate, 
 instead of tlieir own monarcli, for promotion. Still further 
 to extort money and render the higher ecclesiastics depend- 
 ent upon the pontifical will, Pope Urban IV. had ordained 
 that every bishop and abbot should repair to Eome for con- 
 secration ; and, accordingly, towards the close of the thir- 
 teenth century, we find five of our bishops-elect dancing at- 
 tendance at the Eoman court for several years, while their 
 bishoprics remained vacant at home. One of them died 
 there, two received consecration, and one was refused, most 
 probably because he could not afford bribes sufficiently large. 
 The fifth, through his agent, obtained a mandate to be con- 
 secrated in Scotland.* This grasping at power and wealth 
 on the part of the popes was felt over all Europe, and led to 
 the memorable war of investitures. In our own country the 
 pretensions of the supreme pontiffs were not always, nor even 
 generally, conceded. The bishops were generally elected by 
 the cathedral chapters ; the abbots by the monks ; the parish 
 priests by the native aristocracy, the bishops, or religious 
 houses in which the patronage was vested. The popes were 
 never denied the right of confirming the appointment, and 
 the large fees consequent thereon. Still many of the best 
 preferments were bestowed at Avignon or Eome, and it was 
 the custom of aspiring clerks to resort thither in great num- 
 bers, to try what love or money could accomplish. Ward- 
 law was at Avignon with Benedict when the See of St 
 Andrews became vacant, and managed to get the appoint- 
 ment. James I. resolved to put an end to this grievance ; 
 and, accordingly, had an act passed, declaring that no clerk 
 should purchase any pension out of any benefice, secular or 
 religious, " under all pain that he may tine against his Ma- 
 jesty."! ^y another act it was declared, that if any clerk 
 wished to go beyond seas he must first prove to his or- 
 dinary that there was good cause for his journey, and make 
 
 * Spottiswood, book ii. 
 
 t James I., pari. i. c. xiv. The guide in regard to parliamentary matters 
 generally used is — " The laws and acts of Parliament, &c., collected and ex- 
 tracted from the records of the kingdom, by Sir Thomas Murray of Glendook, 
 Knight and Baronet, Clerk to hia Majesty's Council, Register, and Kolls." 
 
188 CUUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. VII. 
 
 oath that he would not 'be guilty of haratrie* a word which 
 occurs in our ancient laws, and seems to be nearly synoni- 
 mous with simony, or the purchasing of benefices by money.f 
 Certain acts, which had already been passed, anent carrying 
 gold out of the realm, were also made applicable to church- 
 men proceeding to Eome with a suspicious amount of cash. 
 But while James thus attempted to check the avarice of 
 the popes, in his very first parliament he ratified all the 
 ancient privileges of the Church, and commanded all men 
 to honour it.J Unfortunately he proceeded still further. 
 The death of Eesby had not suppressed the opinions he 
 cherished. So many had embraced them as to have attracted 
 the attention and excited the alarm of the legislature. Ac- 
 cordingly, in a parliament held in 1425, it was enacted that 
 every bishop within his diocese should make inquisition for 
 all Lollards and heretics, in order that they might be 
 punished, and that wherever it was necessary the secular 
 arm should be called in to support the laws and authority of 
 the Church.§ Eight years elapsed after the passing of this 
 act before we hear of its being put into force. But in the 
 year 1433 it found a victim. 
 
 A Bohemian of the name of Paul Craw had 
 come from Prague to Scotland, for what reason is 
 not very well known. He was a physician, but he appears to 
 have been more zealous in propagating his religioiis opinions 
 than in practising medicine. Laurence Lin dores, who had con- 
 ducted the impeachment of Eesby, again signalized his zeal 
 for the Church by seizing Craw and arraigning him as a 
 heretic. The Bohemian appears to have denied the doctrine 
 
 ■- James I., pari. vii. c. cvii. 
 
 t Baratrie, from the Italian barattare to barter, was originally, by the Eo- 
 man law, applied to the perversion of justice, as by judges taking bribes, and 
 was punishable by banishment, and, in the case of capital crimes, by death, 
 and was afterwards applied to the crime of purchasing benefices. 
 
 J Most parliaments were opened by such an act. The first act of the first 
 parliament of James was as follows. — " In the first to the honour of God and 
 halie kirk. It is statute and ordained, that the halie kirk joyes and bruikis, 
 and the ministers of it, thar auld priviledges and freedomes. And that no 
 man let them to set thar lands or teinds under pain that may follow be 
 spiritual law or temporal." 
 
 § James I., pari. ii. chap, xxviii. 
 
A.D. 1435.] VISIT OF jENEAS SILVIUS. 189 
 
 of transubstantiation, the existence of purgatory, the efficacy 
 of absolution ; and to have maintained that the Bible, in the 
 native tongue, should be open to all. It would also seem 
 that in the celebration of the Supper, he and his followers 
 observed a form not greatly different from that presently in 
 use in our Presbyterian Churches. The Lord's prayer was re- 
 cited — the words of institution were read — and the elements 
 of bread and wine given to the communicants. Craw was fur- 
 ther accused of denying the resurrection of the dead, and en- 
 couraging gross immorality; but in all probability these were 
 the slanderous inventions of his enemies.* When put upon 
 his trial he exhibited great acuteness and knowledge of the 
 Scriptures ; but it was in vain, his doom was already written. 
 He was condemned and burnt at St Andrews. 
 
 Just a year before the tragic death of James I. 
 A.D. 1435. „ ,, / . , ■■,■,,■ . ., -^ 
 
 bcotland received an illustrious visitor, iiineas 
 
 Silvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., came to our country as papal 
 legate, and has left us some interesting notices of its condi- 
 tion at the time. " Concerning Scotland," says he, " these 
 things are worthy of repetition. It is an island joined to 
 England, stretching two hundred miles to the north, and 
 about fifty broad : a cold country, fertile of few sorts of 
 grain, and generally void of trees ; but there is a sulphureous 
 stone dug up, which is used for firing. The towns are un- 
 walled, the houses commonly built without lime, and in vil- 
 lages roofed with turf, while a cow's hide supplies the place 
 of a door. The commonalty are poor and uneducated, have 
 abundance of flesh and fish, but eat bread as a dainty. The 
 men are small in stature, but bold ; the women fair and 
 comely, and prone to the pleasures of love — kisses being 
 there esteemed of less consequence than pressing the hand 
 is in Italy. The wine is all imported ; the horses are mostly 
 small, ambling nags, only a few being preserved entire for 
 propagation, and neither curry-combs nor reins are used. 
 The oysters are larger than in England. From Scotland 
 are imported into Flanders hides, wool, salt-fish, and pearls. 
 Nothing gives the Scots more pleasure than to hear the 
 English dispraised. The country is divided into two parts, 
 * Fordun a Goodal, vol. ii. pp. 495-6. Tytler, vol. iii. 
 
190 CHUBCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vu. 
 
 — the cultivated lowlands, and the region where agriculture 
 is not used. The wild Scots have a diiferent language, and 
 soroe times eat the bark of trees." . . . . " Coals are given 
 to the poor at the church-doors by way of alms, the country 
 being denuded of wood."* The future Pope informs us, 
 that, on his return, when he reached the north of England, 
 disguised as a merchant, he could get neither bread nor 
 wine ; and during the night, a report being spread that the 
 Scottish borderers were approaching, the men fled, but the 
 women remained quietly at home. 
 
 In 1436 James was basely assassinated in the 
 
 convent of the Dominicans at Perth. He was 
 perhaps the most energetic monarch who ever occupied our 
 throne ; and many of the laws passed during his reign prove 
 his anxiety to promote trade and to ameliorate the condition 
 of the poor. But it is probable that, had he lived, hewould have 
 completely crushed the nobility, and in freeing the country 
 from their rapacity and turbuleiice, exposed it to the hazard 
 of a monarchical despotism. His death brought upon the 
 nation the evils of a long minority. His eldest son, James 
 II., was but six years old when he was crowned king. There 
 was now repeated the often-told tale of fierce contendings for 
 place and power. Crichton struggled with Livingstone, and 
 Livingstone with Crichton, for the supreme direction of 
 affairs ; and the unhappy royal child was carried about from 
 place to place, to be used as a puppet-^was captured and 
 recaptured — was now a prisoner at Edinburgh, now at Stir- 
 ling ; while the house of Douglas appeared to overtop the 
 very monarchy, like some huge tower overtopping the walls 
 of a beleaguered city, and threatening its destruction. But 
 this came to an end. Before James was arrived at manhood 
 be seized the reins of government himself, and held them 
 so firmly as soon to show that he had inherited some of the 
 energy and resolution of his father. 
 
 In perusing the annals of this reign, so full of 
 
 feuds, assassinations, and all the darkest passions 
 of our nature, it is pleasing to light upon a page which re- 
 
 * Pii II., Comment, rerum. mem. sui temporis. Quoted by Pinkerton, vol. 
 i. book V. 
 
A.D. 1450 ] FOUNDATION OF UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW. 191 
 
 cords the erection of a second university. It is a gleam of 
 sunshine in the midst of a tempest. On the 7th of January 
 1450, Pope Nicolas V. issued a bull for the erection oia,studium 
 generale, or University in Glasgow. It is to William Turn- 
 bull, the bishop of the diocese, that we are indebted for the 
 boon ; but the papal bull of erection proceeds upon the 
 desire of the king, and the fitness of the city for producing 
 the fruits of learning to the advantage of all Scotland and 
 the neighbouring nations, " by reason of the salubrity of its 
 climate, the plenty of victuals, and of everything necessary 
 for the use of man ; that there the Catholic faith may 
 abound, the simple be instructed, justice taught, reason 
 flourish, and the minds and understandings of men be en- 
 lightened and enlarged." In this foundation-charter it is 
 further ordained, that the doctors, masters, lecturers, and 
 students of the University of Glasgow should enjoy all the pri- 
 vileges, liberties, honours, exemptions, and freedoms granted 
 by the Apostolic See, or otherwise, to the University of the 
 city of Bologna ; that the bishops of the diocese in all time 
 should be the chancellors ; that all who desired a diploma 
 and liberty of teaching, or the degree of doctor or master, 
 should obtain the same only from the bishop, after a con- 
 vocation of the doctors and masters lecturing in the univer- 
 sity, and after a careful examination ; " and that those who 
 have been so examined and approved of, and have obtained 
 in such manner the license of teaching, and the aforesaid 
 honour, should have thenceforth a full and free power of 
 directing and instructing as well in that as in every other 
 university."* The papal bull was solemnly read at the 
 market-cross ; a plenary indulgence was promised to all who 
 should visit the cathedral during the current year ; and the 
 University of the West began its career, obscure at first, but 
 ever marking its track through time with a broader and 
 brighter splendour. 
 
 The royal protection was soon extended to the infant 
 
 seminary. On the 20th of April 1453, James II., by his 
 
 royal letters, " took under his firm peace, protection, and 
 
 safeguard, all and every the rector, deans of faculty, pro- 
 
 * Origiues Parochiales ScotisB— Glasgow. 
 
192 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vii. 
 
 curators of nations, regents, masters, and scholars, in the 
 aforesaid university, and exempted them, together with the 
 beadles, writers, stationers, parchment-makers, and students, 
 from all tributes, services, exactions, taxations, collections, 
 watchings, wardings, and all dues whatsoever imposed within 
 the kingdom, or to be imposed."* 
 
 In the same year Bishop Turnbull executed a deed, con- 
 firming and explaining the privileges granted by papal and 
 royal favour to his university, and granting others, which 
 show how much it was in the power of a bishop to grant. 
 The members of the university, according to the deed, were 
 to have full liberty to deal within the regality free from all 
 custom and control ; the rector might bring before the pro- 
 vost or bailies any one who transgressed the assize of bread, 
 ale, and the prices of eatables ; the same functionary was to 
 have jurisdiction in all civil and pecuniary causes, minor 
 offences, brawls, and controversies, which might arise 
 among the students themselves, or between the students and 
 the citizens, while in more important matters the bishop 
 was to be judge ; Tiospitia or inns, and a house in the city, 
 were to be assigned to the members of the university, at a 
 rent to be fixed by them, and an equal number of citizens, 
 chosen and sworn for the purpose, from which they should 
 not be removed so long as they made payment and behaved 
 themselves well ; beneficed persons belonging to the diocese, 
 acting as regents or students, or inclined to study, were to 
 have liberty to reside away from their benefices, and yet enjoy 
 their fruits, provided they were docile, had the license of the 
 bishop,and caused divine worship to be regularly performed in 
 their absence ; the provost and bailies were annually at their 
 election to swear that they would observe and cause others 
 to observe all these statutes, rights, and privileges, which 
 were to be understood as extending to every member of the 
 university, from the dignified rector down to the humble 
 macebearer who walked before him in processions, f Such 
 were the chartered rights of the university, most of which 
 
 * Origines — Glasgow. In fins document James calls the university — 
 " Alma Universitas Glasguensis, filia nostra rlilecta." 
 t Origines — Glasgow. 
 
A.D. 1459.] UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS. 193 
 
 are now obsolete and forgotten, and some dimly remem- 
 bered ; for eveti to this day, when the togati are riotously 
 inclined, they fortify their courage with the vague tradition 
 that the walls of the college wiU. afford them a secure 
 asylum from the officers of the law, and that the sword of 
 the Lord Provost must be sheathed in the presence of the 
 Principal. 
 
 But though possessed of such high privileges, the uni- 
 versity does not appear to have yet fallen heir to any property 
 or endowments, and must have resembled some of our ancient 
 nobility in the seventeenth century, who, with illustrious 
 titles and extensive hereditable jurisdictions, could scarcely 
 muster enough of money to purchase a coat, or furnish 
 themselves with a meal. " The university," says Professor 
 Jardine, " came into the world as naked as every individual." 
 
 It found its first domicile in the Eottenrow, where there 
 was a house known long afterwards as the " Aulde Peda- 
 goge ;" but on the 6th of June 1459, James Lord Hamilton 
 bequeathed to the regent and students a tenement " in the 
 street leading down from the cathedral to the market-cross, 
 near the place of the Dominican Friars," together with four 
 acres of land in the Dowhill, contiguous to the Molendinar 
 Burn, upon condition that every day they should, in a pre- 
 scribed form, pray for his own soul and the soul of Euphe- 
 mia his countess ; and that if an oratory should ever be 
 built within the college, the regent and students should 
 there also daily convene, and, on their bended knees, sing 
 an Ave to the Virgin, with a collect and memoria for him- 
 self and his wife.* Whether or not the regent and stu- 
 dents were thus careful to remember Lord James and his 
 lady in their prayers, the tenement was taken possession of, 
 and it served to shelter the learning of the west, till it was 
 thrown down, and the present buildings erected upon its 
 site. Three years later, David de Cadiou, Canon of Glas- 
 gow and Eector of the University, assigned an annual sum 
 of twelve merks, from certain lands and tenements in the 
 burgh, to endow a clerk in the faculty of the sacred canons, 
 who should be bound to read lectures in the public schools 
 
 <' Origines — Glasgow. 
 VOL. I. N 
 
194 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VII. 
 
 within the city in the morning, and celebrate mass at the 
 altar of the Visgin in the lower church of the cathedral, 
 for the donor, his parents, friends, and benefactors.* In 
 1466 another tenement, adjoining that already obtained, 
 was bequeathed to the university by Thomas Arthurlie. 
 These were the first benefactors of this celebrated school ; 
 and though in our Presbyterian age we are forbidden to say 
 masses for their souls, it is right we should hold their names 
 in grateful remembrance. Their example was not gener- 
 ally followed, and for a century and a half the University of 
 Grlasgow remained wretchedly poor. 
 
 In accordance with the papal bull, the university contained 
 four different faculties — theology, canon law, civil law, and 
 arts. We have no very explicit information in regard to 
 the first professorships that were instituted, or the first 
 lectures that were read. It appears, however, that so early 
 as the year 1452, Alexander Geddes, a monk of Melrose, and 
 a licentiate in theology, was admitted to read lectures on 
 the text of Aristotle. On the 29th of July 1460, we hear 
 of David Cadiou reading, in the chapter-house of the Predi- 
 cant Friars, the rubric in the third book of the canon law, 
 de vita et honestate clericorum, in presence of the clergy and 
 masters, and of William Levenax, reading, on the same day, 
 and in the same place, a title in the civil law. How long 
 these lectures continued we are not told, and after this 
 there is a blank in our information. By another memoran- 
 dum in the university record, we learn that on the 23d 
 March 1521, Eobert Lila, bachelor in theology, and Prior of 
 the Dominican Convent, read a lecture on the fourth book 
 of the Sentences, in the presence of the rector, dean of 
 faculty, and the rest of the masters. Such are the few 
 stray notices which we have of the teaching in the new 
 university. There is reason to believe that the lectures, 
 especially in the higher faculties, were only occasional, as 
 the lecturers had as yet no salary for their services, and were 
 dependent on the benefices which they held as ecclesiastics 
 in difi'erent parts of the kingdom. f 
 
 * Origines — Glasgow. 
 
 t Statistical Account of the University of fTlasgow, transmitted by Pro- 
 
A.D. 1459-15G0.] STUDENTS I?^ THE UNIVERSITY. 195 
 
 From its first institution the university enjoyed the pri- 
 vilege of conferring degrees. In order to the acquisition of 
 one of these, a certain period required to be devoted to study 
 within the university ; certain prelections heard ; Porphy- 
 rie's "Introduction to Aristotle" and "Petrus Hispanus" 
 mastered ; a searching examination endured ; and then the 
 chancellor or vice-chancellor bestowed the coveted acade- 
 mical honour, as by Divine authority, and in the name of 
 the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.* 
 
 Within the first two years of its existence, upwards of a 
 hundred persons were admitted members of the university, 
 but these were chiefly Churchmen, ambitious of the hon- 
 ours and privileges of a learned corporation, and not young 
 men commencing their studies. Among its earliest profes- 
 sors were John Major, David Melville, and John Adamson. 
 Among its first students were William Manderstone, succes- 
 sively Rector of the University of Paris and St Andrews, Car- 
 dinal Beaton, John Knox, and John Spottiswood. But still 
 earlier than these, and among the matriculated in 1451, was 
 a William Elphinston. This youth afterwards rose to great 
 distinction in the canon and civil law ; he became Bishop of 
 Aberdeen and Chancellor of the Kingdom, and showed his 
 enlightened liberality by founding and endowing a univer- 
 sity in his episcopal city. Thus is one lamp lighted at 
 another, t 
 
 At this period the students ate at a common table, as is 
 still the case in the great English universities. The re- 
 gents sat at table with them and maintained order. At nine 
 o'clock at night the gates of the college were shut, and the 
 regents visited the rooms of the students to see that they 
 were in bed ; and again, at five in the morning, they went 
 their rounds to see that they were astir. The universities 
 were in many respects copies from monastic models. Many 
 of the professors were monks, many of the students were 
 designed to be monks, and the monasteries had hitherto 
 
 feasor G. Jardine, in the name of the Principal and Professors of the University. 
 See Statistical Account of Scotland, 1799, vol. xxi. 
 
 * Statistical Account, &c. 
 
 t Statistical Account, &c. Jl'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. i. 
 
 x2 
 
196 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. Vll. 
 
 accomplished imperfectly, what the universities were now 
 intended to do in a more perfect way. 
 
 It would appear that the students in arts were dis- 
 tinguished, according to their rank, into the sons of noble- 
 men, of gentlemen, and of those of humbler pedigree — dis- 
 tinctions which are still preserved in the southern universi- 
 ties, but are now happily abolished in all the seats of learn- 
 ing in Scotland, where it is only superior genius or superior 
 industry that can raise one student above his fellows. 
 Among these youths, it was essential that discipline should 
 be maintained, and as suasion frequently fails, corporal 
 punishment might be inflicted ; and the statutes carefully 
 provide, that in certain cases it should be administered 
 caligis laxatis. But notwithstanding the rigour of its dis- 
 cipline, the university languished. It languished because 
 it was poor. We begin to hear complaints of masters not 
 attending upon their duties, of licentiates not proceeding 
 with their degrees, of statutes having fallen into disuse, and 
 of the jurisdiction of the university being despised. The 
 three higher faculties gradually died from inanition, and at 
 the Reformation the faculty of arts alone gave some feeble 
 symptoms of remaining vitality.* But we must now revert 
 to our narrative. 
 
 The Second James followed the example of his father in 
 resolving to hold the Church patronage of the kingdom in 
 his own hands, to the exclusion of the Holy See ; and in 
 this he was supported by the national clergy. During his 
 reign, a provincial council was held at Perth, in which it 
 was declared, that by the ancient law and custom of Scot- 
 land, the presentation to all vacant benefices, within a 
 vacant bishopric, belonged to the Crown. t In all other 
 matters the king and tlie clergy appear to have been bound 
 to one another by mutual interests and mutual support ; and 
 it is certain, that if the throne lost some of its strength by 
 the alienation of its ancient demesnes to the Church, it 
 was more than compensated by the assistance which the 
 Church gave it in hours of need. 
 
 Thechieffriendandcoimsellor of James II. was Kennedy, 
 * Statistical Account, &c. f Tytler's History, vol. iv. 
 
A.D. 1466] BISHOP KENNEDY. 197 
 
 who succeeded Wardlaw in the See of St Andrews. He was 
 at once the greatest and the best man of his age. His portrait 
 is one of the most prominent in the gloomy pictm-e of the 
 times, presenting a benign aspect amid many fierce and 
 frowning visages. He was so much occupied with affairs of 
 state, that one would think he must have neglected his 
 episcopal duties, and yet we know that no prelate was more 
 attentive to these. He is said to have visited every church 
 in his diocese four times in the year, and to have been par- 
 ticularly careful in compelling every parson and vicar to 
 reside within his parish, to preach the Word, administer the 
 sacraments, and visit the sick.* Eobert Lindsay of Pit- 
 scottie gives an anecdote of him, which is illustrative at once 
 of his patriotism and piety. The Earl of Douglas had 
 entered into a conspiracy against the throne with some of 
 the most powerful barons, and their adherents were already 
 in arms. In this emergency the king hurried to St Andrews 
 to take the advice of the bishop, whose fidelity and wisdom 
 had already been so often tried. The good prelate first of all 
 led his Majesty into his oratory, that together they might ask 
 guidance from the Almighty Disposer of all events ; and this 
 being done, he next conducted him to his study, and put 
 into his hand a bundle of arrows firmly bound together, and 
 asked him to break them if he could. The monarch with all 
 his strength was unable, upon which the bishop unbound 
 them, and taking them singly easily snapped them all 
 asunder. James understood the fable thus acted before him, 
 and taking his directions still further from Kennedy, 
 managed to dissolve the dangerous confederacy which had 
 been formed against him, and to reduce the overgrown power 
 of the Douglases, t 
 
 James was untimely killed at the siege of Eoxburgh 
 Castle, by the bursting of a cannon ; and again were heard 
 throughout the kingdom the doleful words, " Woe unto thee, 
 land, when thy king is a child." But Kennedy still 
 lived, and managed as no other man could have done to 
 keep down faction. In 1466 he died, and his death was 
 felt to be a national calamity, for he left no one behind him 
 * Lindsay's History, r- 69. f IWd, pp. 52, 53. 
 
198 CHUltCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. Vil. 
 
 capable of governiug the kingdom with such integrity and 
 discretion. " His death," says Buchanan, "was so lamented 
 by all good men, as if in him they had lost a public father." 
 
 It is to this prelate we owe the foundation of St Salva- 
 tor's College at St Andrews. He assigned also a large sum 
 of money to erect a tomb for himself, which still remains, a 
 monument of his wealth, and of a weakness from which, 
 with all his virtues, he was not exempt. " He founded," 
 says Lindsay, " a triumphant college at St Andrews, called 
 St Salvator's College, wherein he made his lair very 
 curiously and costly ; and also, he bigged a ship called the 
 Bishop's Berge ; and when all three were complete, he knew 
 not which of the three was costliest."* 
 
 Contemporary with Kennedy was Cameron, Bishop of 
 Glasgow, a man of a widely different character. He was a 
 ruthless tyrant, and oppressed, by intolerable exactions, the 
 poor tenants of his extensive diocese. Our historians have 
 invested his death with superstitious horrors;! without be- 
 lieving which, we may regard the general belief in them as 
 an index of the abhorrence with which his memory was re- 
 garded. It seems to have been thought that such a death 
 was the proper termination of such a life. 
 
 Kennedy was succeeded in the See of St Andrews by 
 Patrick Grahame, his near relative. The learning and 
 virtues of this ecclesiastic, not to speak of his almost royal 
 birth, made him worthy of the high post he was called to fill. 
 He had been elected by the canons, as was then usual, but 
 he required the Pope's bull of confirmation to make his title 
 complete. The Boyds, who now ruled the court and the 
 kingdom, wished to prevent this, but he stealthily left the 
 country and posted to Kome, where he found favour with 
 the Pope, and easily got his election confirmed. Afraid to 
 return home on account of the bitter animosity of the pre- 
 vailing faction, he resolved to remain at the papal court till 
 some change should occur among the parties in power. 
 Nevil, Archbishop of York, seized upon this opportunity to 
 revive his antiquated claim to the spiritual supremacy of 
 Scotland. The sound of this reaching the ears of Grahame, 
 
 ■■" Lijirlsay's History, r- 68. t Lindsay, Buchanan, Balfonr. 
 
A.D. 1472.] ST ANDREWS CONSTITUTED AN AKCHBISHOPKIC. 199 
 
 he exerted all his influence with Sistus IV., and the result 
 was, that he obtained a bull creating himself Archbishop of 
 St Andrews and Primate of Scotland. The Pope, to give a 
 still greater grace to the first archbishop whom Scotland had 
 seen, appointed him his legate, with full power to reform all 
 abuses in the Church, and correct the growing dissoluteness 
 of the clergy.* 
 
 Scotland had now gained the honour which 
 'for several centuries she had ardently desired, as 
 tlie primacy of York was most eifectually barred by the pri- 
 macy of St Andrews ; and the spiritual independence of the 
 kingdom was thus for ever secured. G-rahame rejoiced, and 
 naturally thought that all good men would rejoice with him. 
 As soon, therefore, as he heard that the Boyds had fallen from 
 their high pinnacle of power, and that the young king had 
 taken the government into his own hands, he hastened to 
 return home, sending the papal bulls before him, that they 
 might prepare his triumphal way. He had no sooner landed 
 than he discovered his mistake. Envy of his fortunes and 
 dread of his reforms had raised him up many enemies, who 
 poisoned the ear of the king with insinuations that he 
 had violated the law of the realm in leaving the kingdom, 
 and carrying on negotiations with the papal court without 
 the royal license. He was cited to answer for his conduct at 
 Edinburgh, on the 1st of November. When put upon his 
 trial, G-rahame appealed to his bulls, and pled the service he 
 had rendered to his country ; but his enemies appealed to 
 the Pope, and offered to prove the invalidity of the docu- 
 ments he presented. The king is said to have had his 
 judgment swayed by a present of eleven thousand merks ; 
 and so he ordered Grahame to retire to his bishopric, and 
 refrain from wearing the archiepiscopal pall till the cause 
 were determined.! 
 
 Conspicuous among the enemies of the new archbishop 
 was one "WiUiam Shevez, an able but unprincipled man, 
 who had acquired great favour at court from his supposed 
 acquaintance with the fashionable science of astrology. 
 
 * Spottiswood, book ii. Tytler, vol. iv. 
 
 I Buchanan, booli; xii. Srottiswood, book ii. 
 
200 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. chap. vll. 
 
 Through his intrigues the revenues of St Andrews were 
 seized and confiscated by the king. The bankers of Kome, 
 with whom Grahame had got deeply involved, hearing of the 
 trouble into which he had fallen, now becanae clamant, and 
 the impoverished primate was unable to satisfy their de- 
 mands. To complete his misfortunes, he was accused of 
 heresy and deposed. He broke down under such accumu- 
 lated trials ; his intellect gave way ; and in these painful 
 circumstances he was committed to the keeping of his 
 mortal eneiny Shevez, who kept him a close prisoner, first 
 at Inchcolm, and afterwards at Lochleven, where he died. 
 Shevez managed to get himself appointed to the arch- 
 bishopric in his place, founding his fortune on the ruin of 
 a far better and worthier man.* 
 
 Among the elements which conspired to the ruin of 
 Grahame, by uniting the king and the liiglier clergy against 
 him, was the shameless huckstering in benefices which 
 began at this period. The first two Jameses had prohibited 
 the clergy from purchasing benefices at the court of Rome ; 
 but it was reserved for the Third James to divert the stream 
 of wealth which had hitherto flowed into the Pope's trea- 
 sury, so that it might.be poured into his own. Under his 
 reign an act was passed, forbidding the procuring of bene- 
 fices at Eome, the collection of more money for the Papal 
 See than had been regulated by the ancient taxation of 
 Bagimont, and confirming the right of the clergy to the 
 election of their own dignitaries. t But in two years this 
 law was violated by its maker. The monks of Dunfermline, 
 according to ancient usage, had chosen for themselves air 
 abbot ; but the king, probably won by a bribe, recommended 
 another to the Pope for confirmation, and the Pope at once 
 confirmed the royal nominee. J This was but the beginning 
 of the system. Bishoprics, abbacies, priories, parishes, were 
 now openly sold by the king and his favourites ; and men 
 of worthless character, and even laymen, were thus intruded 
 into the ofiice of the ministry. Patrick Grahame was known 
 
 * Buclianan, Spottiswood, Balfour. 
 
 t James III., pari. i. chap. i¥. ; also, pari. vi. chap. xliv. 
 
 I Balfour's Annals, vol. i. Pinkerton, vol. i. 
 
AD. 1488 ] ABUSES IN THE CHUECH. 
 
 201 
 
 to be opposed to such practices ; and it was feared, that 
 when he was armed with primatial and legatine powers, 
 many Simonists would be thrown out, and the lucrative 
 trade in benefices checked. This hastened his fall. 
 
 It is obvious, that even already the king and his nobles 
 began to grudge the Church its possessions. After this 
 period no new abbeys were built, no new bishoprics endowed. 
 But what had been given could not be regained. The Church 
 was too strong for this ; and had the monarch put forth his 
 hand to touch her, she would have cursed him to his face. 
 But an expedient was devised, by which the Church retained 
 her wealth, and the king and the barons enjoyed it. When 
 a bishopric or priory became vacant, it was bestowed upon 
 some friend, or sold for money, or given as the reward of 
 services, which could not otherwise be so easily repaid. It 
 is melancholy to mark the number of bastards — the illegiti- 
 mate sons of nobles and kings — who became bishops and 
 abbots after this period ; and when there was no bastard — 
 which was seldom the case — there was always a younger 
 son, who, deprived by aristocratic pride of any share 
 in the family property, received a richer inheritance 
 in the patrimony of the Church. Such an exercise of 
 patronage was necessarily followed by the decay of piety 
 and devotedness among the clergy, especially among the 
 regulars. It is probably to this cause we are to trace the 
 rise of a new species of religious foundation, which belongs 
 to this age — collegiate churches or provostries. According 
 to the constitution of these, the secular canons or prebends 
 formed a body at the college church, and employed them- 
 selves in singing masses for the founders, and performing 
 other parts of divine service, while vicars served their 
 respective parishes. But still the sore evil spread. A mer- 
 cenary spirit had been introduced into the Church. Money- 
 changers had gained admittance to the temple ; "and there 
 was needed a reformer to overturn their tables, and drive 
 them out with a scourge of cords. 
 
 In 1488 James III., a monarch of some accomplishments, 
 but devoted to favourites of low birth, and too inactive to 
 repress aristocratic turbulence — was basely assassinated by 
 
2*^'"2 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [cifAP. VII. 
 
 a pretended priest at Milltown, in fleeing from the civil 
 strife of Sauchie. His son, James IV., a youth of sixteen, 
 and who cannot be exculpated from the unnatural crimes 
 of treason and rebellion against his father, succeeded him 
 on the throne. The young monarch afterwards repented 
 bitterly the share he had in his father's death ; and what- 
 ever may have been his faults, he was certainly a most ener- 
 getic and chivalrous prince, resembling in some respects 
 James I. 
 
 During his reign Scotland was enriched with a third uni- 
 versity. At the request of Bishop Elphinston, James IV. 
 applied for a papal bull for the erection of a studium generate 
 in Aberdeen. In his letter to the Pope, the king gives a 
 melancholy picture of the state of the north country. " The 
 inhabitants," he says, " are ignorant of letters, and almost 
 uncivilized ; there are no persons to be found fit to preach 
 the Word of God to the people, or to administer the sacra- 
 ments of the Church ; and, besides, the country is so inter- 
 sected with mountains and arms of the sea, so distant from 
 universities already erected, and the roads so dangerous, 
 that the youth have not access to the benefit of education 
 in those seminaries.'' " But," adds the king, " the city of 
 Old Aberdeen is situated at a moderate distance from the 
 highland country and northern islands, enjoys an excellent 
 temperature of air, abundance of provisions, and the con- 
 veniency of habitation, and of everything necessary for 
 human life." In compliance with the royal request. Pope 
 Alexander VI. issued a bull in 1494 for erecting in the city 
 of Aberdeen a studium generate et universitas studii generalis, 
 for theology, canon and civil law% medicine, the liberal arts, 
 and every other lawful faculty; ordaining that it should enjoy 
 all the rights and privileges of the Universities of Bologna 
 and Paris, and that the bishops of Aberdeen should in all 
 time be its chancellors. 
 
 In 1497 James IV. granted a charter of confirmation, 
 empowering Bishop Elphinston to erect a college within the 
 university, and to divide its revenues between the masters 
 and scholars as he should see fit, according to the powers 
 vested in him by the Pope. It was not till 1506 that this 
 
A.D, ln|97 ] UNIVEKSITY OF ABERDEEN. 203 
 
 college was erected. It was dedicated to the Holy Virgin. 
 It was to consist of thirty-six ordinary members, among the 
 chief of "whom were a doctor in each of the four faculties 
 of theology, canon law, civil law, and medicine ; the doctor 
 of theology to be styled principal, and to bear rule over all 
 the members of the college. Next to these came two 
 masters of arts, the first of whom was to be called regent, 
 and constituted sub-principal ; the other was to be called 
 grammarian, and his province was to consist in teaching the 
 elements of literature. These were the permanent members 
 of the college, and, with the exception of the mediciner, they 
 were all to be ecclesiastics.* A chair of medicine was per- 
 fectly new to Scotland. Henceforward the science of heal- 
 ing was to be taken out of the hands of barbers and old 
 wives, and entrusted to men of science. 
 
 Besides these permanent members, there were also a 
 tiumber of masters and bachelors of arts, who were to hold 
 their situations only for a certain number of years ; thirteen 
 poor scholars of respectable talents and proficiency in the 
 speculative sciences ; and, last of all, eight prebends and 
 six singing-boys for the service of the Church. For the ac- 
 commodation of his learned society, the patriotic bishop, 
 with the assistance of the king, erected the noble buildings 
 which still remain as a monument of his liberality and 
 taste. By donations during his life, and a legacy of ten 
 thousand pounds bequeathed at his death, he endowed liis 
 college with a truly princely munificence ; and thus the 
 doctors were able to " prelect every lecture-day, each in his 
 own faculty, and dressed in his own habit." f 
 
 The laws of this northern university give us no very 
 favourable idea of student-life in those early times. All, 
 great and small, in the college are ordained to live honestly ; 
 they are prohibited from keeping public concubines, from 
 carrying arms, from being night-walkers, panders, or vaga- 
 bond bufi'oons ; and are exhorted rather to devote themselves 
 
 "•" Report of Commissioners on Scottish Universities, p. 305. Statistical 
 Account of the University and King's College of Aberdeen, by the Members 
 of the University. See Statistical Account of Scotland, 1799, vol. xxi. 
 
 ■f Statistical Account, lU supra. 
 
204 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vn. 
 
 to good manners and liberal studies.* But a still greater 
 scandal was afterwards brought upon the ancient literature 
 and universities of our country, by an Act of Parliament 
 passed in 1599, which established a regular " ordour of 
 punishment" for sorners, masterful beggars, and vagabonds. 
 This act, after specifying jugglers, gypsies, fortune-tellers, 
 idlers, minstrels, counterfeiters of licenses, mariners pre- 
 tending they have been shipwrecked, proceeds to mention 
 " all vagabond scholars of the Universities of St Andrews, 
 Glasgow, and Aberdeen, not licensed by the rector and dean 
 I of faculty to ask almes." It is enacted and declared, that 
 these shall be taken, esteemed, and punished as strong- 
 beggars and vagabonds, t It is comforting to know that 
 the same reproach lies at the door of other and still more 
 celebrated universities. 
 
 The first Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, was 
 Hector Boethius, who was honoured with the correspondence 
 of Erasmus, and justly obtained a high reputation for his 
 classical attainments and lively fancy. As a historian, how- 
 ever, he had too great a love for the marvellous, and could 
 not refrain from inventing facts, and embellishing those he 
 did not require to invent with a garniture of his own. His 
 "Historice Scottorum" is contained in seventeen books, begin- 
 ning with Gathelus and Pharaoh, and ending with the 
 death of James I. He closes his labours very characteristi- 
 cally, by telling of a sow that brought forth a dog, and of a 
 cow that had a calf with the head of a horse. Yet, though 
 not often quoted as an authority, he will long be remembered 
 as one of the earliest of Scottish historians. His tomb, to- 
 gether with that of Bishop Elphinston, is in the chapel of 
 the college so famous for its exquisite carvings in wood. The 
 whole buildings are massive and imposing, and Billings has 
 declared that there is no structure in Scotland which 
 possesses more of a cloister-like repose. { 
 
 The fifteenth century witnessed the erection of three uni- 
 versities ; and for all of them are we indebted to the Church. 
 The building of cathedrals and abbeys had declined ; the 
 
 * Eeport of Commissioners. f James VI., pari. vi. chap. Ixxiv. 
 
 X Ecclesiastical and Baronial Antiquities of Scotland, vol. i. 
 
A.D. 1490.] THE DAWN OF KNOWLEDGE. 205 
 
 building of schools and colleges had commenced. It was a 
 healthful and a hopeful sign. It spoke of a future illumined 
 with learning. It augured a change in the Church, though 
 the Church understood it not. The dawn of knowledge was 
 the dawn of the Reformation. And while benevolent and 
 enlightened prelates furnished the youth of Scotland with 
 the means of obtaining at home a liberal education, the 
 monarch resolved that these means should not be furnished 
 in vain. In the fifth parliament of James IV., it was sta- 
 tute and ordained that all barons and freeholders of substance 
 should keep their eldest sons and heirs at school till they 
 were taught Latin, philosophy, and the laws, under a penalty 
 of twenty pounds. This short law speaks volumes.* A 
 great change must have come over men's minds before it 
 could have been imagined or passed : the learning which a 
 century before would have been accounted degrading is here 
 made compulsory. A new era had undoubtedly begun. If 
 Scotland should ever see a compulsory system of education 
 again, it will be by the revival of a law already on the sta- 
 tute-book. So the wheel turns round, " and there is nothing- 
 new under the sun." 
 
 It has frequently been maintained that the Scottish 
 ecclesiastics of this period were scandalously ignorant and 
 illiterate. It is certain they were unacquainted with sciences 
 not then known ; unread in books not then published ; and 
 that they were better versed in their missal than their Bible. 
 
 * The design of this act was to fit the sons of the gentry to act as local 
 magistrates. It is curious enough to deserve transcription : — " It is statute 
 and ordained throw all the realme, that all barronnes and freehalders that are 
 of substance put their eldest sonnes and aires to the schule, fra they be sis' or 
 nine zeires of age, and till remaine at the grammar-schules, quhill they be 
 competently founded, and have perfite Latin ; and thereafter to remaine three 
 zeires at the sehules of art and jure, swa that they have knowledge and under- 
 standing of the laws. Throw the quhilks justice may remaine universally 
 throw all the realme ; swa that they that are Sheriffes or Judges Ordinares, 
 under the Kingis Hienesse, may have knowledge to do justice, that the puir 
 people suld have na neede to seek our Soveraine Lordis Principal Auditour for 
 ilk small injurie. And quhat barronne or freeholder of substance that holdes 
 not his Sonne at the schule, as guid is, havand na lauchfull essoinzie, but 
 failzies herein, fra knawledge may be gotten thereof, he sail pay to the king 
 the summe of twentie pound. (James IV., pari. v. chap, liv.) 
 
206 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. vii. 
 
 But it will be difficult to prove that they were either 
 stupid or unlearned, when compared with the genera- 
 tion then existing, or tried by the standard then in use. 
 Every important deed was drawn by their pens ; every 
 important office of State was in their hands ; the schools 
 were taught by them ; the universities were founded by 
 them. All our authors were still ecclesiastics ; and though 
 few of the productions of this period have come down to us, 
 it must be remembered that much of what was then done 
 has perished ; and very probably, in three hundred years 
 hence, little more of the teeming authorship of the nine- 
 teenth century will be found still floating on the tide of 
 time. It is monstrously unfair to blame the ancient priest- 
 hood for not having raised Em-ope all at once from Gothic 
 barbarity. It is false to charge them with systematically 
 trying to keep the people in ignorance. How could they 
 teach a knowledge not yet known ; communicate ideas not 
 yet dreamt of ; confer a civilisation which nowhere existed ; 
 compel haughty barons to enter their schools, who would 
 thereby have considered themselves to be lowered to the level 
 of monks. Our civilisation and our science could not well 
 have risen sooner than they did. Nowhere else, and at no 
 time else, have they risen sooner. In truth, no cj[uarter of 
 the world and no epoch has witnessed such a civilisation 
 and such a science. The old clergy laid the foundations ol 
 it, though a new race reared the superstructure. Every new 
 step in advance was taken by them ; and they undoubtedly 
 ever walked first of the men of their generation in that slow 
 and painful progress which has led to the high and com- 
 manding eminence on which we now stand. 
 
 Andrew Forman, Bishop of Moray, in the reign of James 
 IV., has been cited as an instance of ignorance, and as a 
 specimen of his class.* Forman was probably a poor Latinist, 
 and his wit sometimes got the better of his piety ; but he 
 was one of the ablest diplomatists, if not one of the best 
 prelates, of his day. When the armies of the Eoman Pontifl' 
 and the French King were ready to come to blows, the 
 Bishop of Moray managed to make peace. He was rewarded 
 «■ Among others, by Dr M'Crie, in his admirable " Life of Knox," p, 12 (note). 
 
A.D, 1400.] BISHOP FOEMAN, THE POPE, AND CARDINALS. 207 
 
 for his services by the Pope with the mule upon which his 
 Holiness rode, and by being made Legate of Scotland : he 
 was rewarded by the king with the gift of a lucrative 
 bishopric* From this period he was constantly employed 
 on embassages between the Scotch and French Courts ; and 
 on one occasion he was despatched to negotiate some deli- 
 cate affairs with the King of England. 
 
 The story upon which the belief in his ignorance is founded 
 is this : When at Rome, he gave a banquet to the Pope and 
 his cardinals. Required to say a Latin grace, the unexpected 
 responses of the sacred company put him out, and he fairly 
 broke down. Instantly recovering himself, however, he 
 mumbled, in his own vernacular, " all the false carils to the 
 devil, in nomine patris, filii, et spiriftcs sancti;" to which 
 the Pope and the cardinals solemnly responded, Amen. 
 Forman afterwards took the liberty of explaining the import 
 of his Scoto-Latin petition, which, instead of giving offence, 
 caused the greatest merriment, f The scene does not 
 heighten one's ideas of papal and episcopal propriety: we 
 find ourselves in the company of jovial boon companions, 
 rather than of grave and reverend signers ; but, apart from 
 this, is it not just possible that even a Presbyterian minister 
 from the Synod of Moray might find his scholarship to fail 
 him if asked to say a Latin grace at one of the Moderator's 
 breakfasts in Edinburgh? and would it be fair to infer from 
 this that all the Presbyterian clergy were illiterate and ignor- 
 ant men. Illustrious scholars have broken down in repeat- 
 ing the Lord's prayer in their mother-tongue. If Forman 
 could not speak Latin (which is unlikely), he must have 
 spoken fluently both French and Italian, or he could not 
 have filled the posts which he did. 
 
 About 1490 Robert Blackadder, Bishop of 
 
 Glasgow, managed to procure a papal bull, 
 
 erecting his See into ah archbishopric, and placing Galloway, 
 
 Argyle, and the Isles under its authority. The Archbishop 
 
 of St Andrews could ill brook this diminution of a glory and 
 
 * Lindsay, History, pp. 106-7. 
 
 t Lindsay, History, p. 106. Thougli Lindsay gives this story, it looks iipo- 
 oryplial. 
 
208 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VII. 
 
 a power so recently received, and refused to acknowledge the 
 
 new archbisliop. A furious feud was the result. Glasgow, 
 
 however, maintained its position, though the precedence was 
 
 assigned to St Andrews.* 
 
 ,,„, Blackadder soon showed his zeal for the 
 
 A.D. 1494 
 
 Church which had raised him to such honour. 
 
 Opinions opposed to the established faith and worship were 
 beginning to be widely diffused. A class of religionists 
 called Lollards had sprung up, and were numerous, especi- 
 ally in the districts of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham ; 
 the Church was in danger, and the archbishop resolved if 
 possible to purge his diocese of heretics. Thirty suspected 
 persons were accordingly cited to appear before the king 
 and his council in the year 1494, among whom were Eeid 
 of Barskimming, Campbell of Cessnock, Campbell of New- 
 mills, Shaw of Polkemmet, Helen Chalmers, Lady PolkiUie, 
 and Isabel Chalmers, Lady Stairs. According to Knox 
 their indictment contained thirty-four different articles, 
 which he informs us are preserved in the Register of Glas- 
 gow. Among the chief of these were : — That images, relics, 
 and the Virgin, were not proper objects of worship ; that 
 the bread and wine in the sacrament were not transub- 
 stantiated into the body and blood of Christ ; that no priest 
 or pope could grant absolutions or indulgences ; that masses 
 could not profit the dead ; that miracles had ceased ; and 
 that priests might lawfully marry. They appear also to have 
 been accused of opinions which struck at the civil power ; 
 but there is no evidence that they acknowledged these, and 
 it is more than probable they were false. Blackadder con- 
 ducted the prosecution, and tried to entangle the accused, 
 but Barskimming answered the charges with such wit and 
 good humour that the accusation was turned into laughter. 
 James IV., though somewhat superstitious, was not inclined 
 to be a persecutor, and so the proceedings were quashed, f 
 
 In the beginning of the sixteenth century there was in- 
 troduced into our country an art, almost unnoticed by our 
 ancient chroniclers, but which has done more to revolutionize 
 
 * Spottiswood, book ii. Balfour, vol. i. 
 
 t Knox's History of the Keformation, book i. 
 
A.D. 1508.] INVENTION OF PRINTING. 209 
 
 society, and shape the destinies of the Church and the world, 
 than any other human discovery. In 1450 the first printed 
 book issued from the German press, and it is pleasing to 
 know that that book was a Bible. " We may see in imagi- 
 nation," says Mr Hallam, " this venerable and splendid volume 
 leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and implor- 
 ing, as it were, a blessing on the new art, by dedicating its 
 first fruits to the service of Heaven."* About 1474 the art 
 was introduced into England by Caxton. It required up- 
 wards of thirty years more to penetrate into Scotland. Walter 
 Ohepman, a servant in the king's household, has the merit 
 of having set the first printing-press at work in our country. 
 In 1508 he printed a small volume of pamphlets, and soon 
 after the " Breviary of Aberdeen." The king warmly pa- 
 tronized the printer, purchased his books, and gTanted him 
 a patent to exercise his craft, the original of which still 
 exists among our national records, f 
 
 We cannot agree with those who think that the reforma- 
 tion of rehgion was the necessary consequence of the inven- 
 tion of printing and the diffusion of knowledge. If so, why 
 was it not accomphshed in Austria and France ? Why are 
 those countries to the present hour, notwithstanding their 
 civilisation and science, in vassalage to Eome ? We would 
 we could believe that, with the increase of knowledge, there 
 must be a corresponding decrease of superstition, but all 
 experience is against it. Knowledge has steadily increased 
 during the last three centuries. Eomanism has not decreased. 
 The overturning of old systems of physics has not been fol- 
 lowed by the overturning of old systems of faith. The in- 
 troduction of new sciences and new arts has not been attended 
 by the introduction of a new creed and a new worship. Sec- 
 ular truth and religious error are found to be compatible, 
 and have existed peaceably together in the same mind. A 
 man may be fully up to the most recent theories in astro- 
 nomy, geology, and chemistry, and yet fondly cherish the 
 ancient dogmas of transubstantiation and purgatory, the 
 worship of images, and the invocation of saints. Pascal and 
 
 * Introduction to Hist, of Lit., vol. i. p- 211. 
 t Tytler's History, vol. v. 
 VOL. I. O 
 
210 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vii. 
 
 Fenelon were enlightened men, yet they both died in the 
 faith of the Church of Eome. 
 
 But though printing was not the parent of the Eeforma- 
 tion, it was one of its most powerful auxiliaries. It dif- 
 fused knowledge, and thus diminished the distance be- 
 tween the clergy and laity. It made the communication of 
 ideas easy, and thus sentiments, which must otherwise 
 have been limited to a few, were extended to the many. 
 When the Eeformation broke out in Germany, the books 
 of the Eeformers found their way into Scotland. When 
 the fulness of the time had come at home, the printing- 
 press was called into use, and treatises, squibs, plays, and 
 satirical songs issued thickly from it, like barbed arrows. 
 Though printing did not create the new ideas, it gave them 
 utterance. 
 
 On the 9th of September 1513 James IV. was killed 
 on the fatal field of Flodden. Alexander Stewart, his 
 natural son, fell fighting by his side. This youth had 
 studied in early life under Erasmus of Eotterdam. While 
 yet a boy he was preferred to the Archbishopric of St 
 Andrews ; but when he donned the cassock, he did not 
 think it necessary to doff the coat of mail. Nor did the 
 age deem it necessary — popes had appeared at the head 
 of armies. When the expedition had reached England, 
 besieged Norham, and taken Ford Castle, a perfect pa- 
 ralysis came over the Scotch army. Lindsay declares that 
 the king had been captivated by the beauty of the lady 
 of the castle, and that while he spent his time in dalliance 
 with her, the young prelate, his son, made love to her 
 daughter; and thus weeks were wasted, victuals became 
 scarce, the army melted away, and the golden opportunity 
 of victory was lost.* They both paid for their folly by their 
 lives, but their gallantry does not atone for their guilt, as 
 it did not restore to Scotland the many brave and noble 
 ones who died in their defence. 
 
 The life of James IV. affords a good illustration of the 
 religious life of the period ; and his temperament was one 
 
 * Lindsay, History, p. 113. 
 
A.D. 1513.] CHAEACTEK OF JAMES IV. 211 
 
 which we frequently meet with, swinging him to and fro 
 between scandalous sinnings and bitter repentings, over- 
 flowing joyousness and profound melancholy. The part he 
 took in the treason which ended in his father's death made 
 a wound on his conscience which would not heal ; and 
 though he could never resist a woman's charms, when the 
 first flush of love was over he was always ready to do 
 penance for his crimes. In 1494 Pope Alexander VI. sent 
 his legate to Scotland to comfort the king, who had become 
 disquieted on account of his father's death. By the power 
 given him by the Pope, the nuncio absolved the penitent, 
 having first imposed as a penance that he should wear an 
 iron chain about his waist all the days of his life, which 
 James is said faithfully to have done.* Still religious sad- 
 ness sometimes haunted him, and on these occasions he was 
 wont to shut himself up in a convent, and refuse to see any 
 one but his confessor. The monastery of the Observantines 
 at Stirling was his favourite retreat, where he frequently 
 retired, especially in Lent, and lived in every respect like a 
 brother of the order. 
 
 Seasons of gladness had also their peculiar expressions of 
 thankfulness. On the 21st of February 1506, his young 
 queen was brought to bed of a son, but after her delivery 
 became dangerously ill. She recovered, however, and her 
 fond, though sometimes delinquent husband set out upon 
 foot in pilgrimage to St Ninian's Cathedral Church, in per- 
 formance of a vow which he had made for her recovery. In 
 the month of July, when the fair Margaret was perfectly 
 restored, the royal couple set out together upon a second 
 pilgrimage to Whitehorn, that together they might offer up 
 their united thanks at the holy shrine. A third time in 
 the same year did the devout monarch set out upon a pil- 
 grimage, directing his steps on this occasion to the shrine 
 of St Duthus, in Koss-shire.f Such devotion could not but 
 be pleasing to the head of the Church, especially at a time 
 when heretics were beginning to abound ; and, accordingly, 
 he sent to our monarch a cap and sword, and the title of 
 
 Balfour's Annals, vol. i. t Ibid. 
 
 o2 
 
212 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAiq'D. [cHAP. vii. 
 
 " Protector of the Faith."* The king gratefully received 
 the papal gifts ; but, so far as religion was concerned, he 
 wisely allowed the sword to remain in its scabbard, and his 
 reign is not stained by the blood of a single martyr. 
 
 * Balfour's Annals, vol. i. This is understood to be the sword still pre- 
 seryed amongst the regalia in the Castle of Edinburgh. 
 
A D. 1513.J LEO X, 213 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 On the same year in which Flodden was fought, Leo X, 
 ascended the pontifical throne. Come of the magnificent 
 house of the Medici, he had at once the faults and the vir- 
 tues of his family. Gay, kind-hearted, and afi'able, every 
 one left his presence full of his praise. Fond of ease and 
 self-indulgence, averse to business and its drudgery, he fre- 
 quently neglected the responsibilities of government ; and 
 yet he possessed a prudence, and even sagacity, which on 
 several grave emergencies gave him a superiority over the 
 ablest diplomatists of Europe. Careless about religion, and 
 not quite unimpeachable in morals, he was yet vastly more 
 exemplary than several of the popes who had preceded him. 
 He was elegant in aU. his tastes, and a most liberal patron 
 of the arts and sciences. His ante-rooms were constantly 
 fiUed with sculptors, painters, poets, comedians, and artifi- 
 cers in silver and gold. The recovery of an antique statue, 
 the colouring of a modern Madonna, the performance of a 
 new drama, or comedy, or piece of music, any object of 
 vertu, any appliance of art, prodigiously interested the polite 
 and voluptuous pontiff. The Vatican was the scene of con- 
 tinual feasting : delicate viands, sparkling vnnes, handsome 
 women, witty men — talk about some mosaic recently dug 
 up from an old Eoman viUa, or of a lost book of Livy hap- 
 pily found in the shelves of an ancient monastery* — amuse- 
 
 * In a letter dated Novem'ber 1517, Leo requires from his Commissioners 
 of Indulgences 147 gold ducats, " to pay for a manuscript of the 33d Book of 
 Livy." (D'Autigne, vol. i.) 
 
214 CHURCH HISTORY OP SCOTLAND. [chap, viii 
 
 rients in which indecency appeared disguised in a thin but 
 always most graceful drapery, dreamily filled up the days 
 and nights of those who enjoyed the Pope's hospitality. 
 But all this could not be done for nought. If a sumptuous 
 board was to be daily spread, if artists were to be patronized, 
 and their productions purchased, if largesses were to be 
 given to the people, and costly spectacles exhibited for their 
 diversion, money must be obtained. Golden ducats alone 
 could do this. 
 
 Prior to this period, Eome had made a belief in purgatory 
 a part of its creed. In the burning abyss of that middle 
 estate must the dead expiate the sins which they had not 
 expiated on earth ; and the living were led by monkish ora- 
 tors to contemplate their departed relatives as writhing for 
 centuries in quenchless flames before their final admission 
 to heaven, and to look forward themselves to the same fiery 
 refining process. But their case was not hopeless. Indul- 
 gencies had been invented ; and the man who was in pos- 
 session of one of these might confidently calculate upon 
 exemption from purgatorial fires. For a few florins, a man 
 might escape centuries of torment. For a few florins more, 
 he might secure the deliverance of some one, now dead, once 
 dear to him as his own life. If a scoundrel had been guilty 
 of polygamy, six ducats would save him ; if he had com- 
 mitted murder, he must pay eight ; if he had contracted the 
 greatest of all sins, sacrilege, nine would shut the gates of hell, 
 and throw wide open the doors of paradise.* Such doctrines 
 must have been most comforting to the people ; and if com- 
 forting to the people, they were most profitable to the 
 Church. Besides the ordinary traf&c in indulgencies, seve- 
 ral pontiffs, when pressed for money, had published a gene- 
 ral sale, and instantly their coffers were filled. To what 
 better device could the prodigal Leo resort ? What better 
 pretext for the need of money could pontiff" have ? Michael 
 
 » " For particular sina Tetzel had a private scale. Polygamy cost six 
 ducats, sacrilege and perjury nine ducats, murder eight, witchcraft two. Sam- 
 son, who carried on in Switzerland the same traffic as Tetzel in Germany, had 
 rather a different scale. He charged for infanticide four livres tournois ; for a 
 parricide or fratricide, one ducat." (D'AubignS's History of the Eeformation, 
 vol. i. p. 268.) 
 
A.D. 1513.] THE GERMAN REFORMATION. 215 
 
 Angelo had conceived the mighty dome of St Peter's. The 
 greatest of Christian temples was begun ; but the work lan- 
 guished for want of means. The bones of the blessed apostles 
 Peter and Paul were exposed to the rains of heaven : what 
 more Christian enterprise than to help and hasten its com- 
 pletion ? A bull was accordingly published, proclaiming a 
 general indulgence, the product of which was to be appro- 
 priated to the building of St Peter's. The lucrative trade 
 was farmed out to a contractor. Tetzel appeared in Ger- 
 many, hawking his spiritual wares. " Draw near," cried he, 
 " and 1 will give you letters, duly sealed, by which even the 
 sins you shall hereafter desire to commit shall be all for- 
 given you. There is no sin so great that the indulgence 
 caimot remit it ; and even if any one should (which is 
 doubtless impossible) ravish the Holy Virgin Mother of 
 God, let him pay — let him only pay largely, and it shall be 
 forgiven him. But more than all this, indulgences save not 
 the living alone — they also save the dead. The very mo- 
 ment that the money clinks against the bottom of the chest, 
 the soul escapes from purgatory, and flies free to heaven."* 
 Luther could stand this no longer : he nailed his theses to 
 the church-door at Wittemberg, and the Eeformation was 
 begun. 
 
 The Reformation, thus begun in Saxony, spread rapidly 
 over all Germany, and soon began to affect the other coun- 
 tries of Europe. At first it was purely a religious reforma- 
 tion, but it contained within its bosom the germ of great 
 changes, both in the social and political world. The con- 
 tempt of authority, and the spirit of inquiry which it engen- 
 dered, gave a new impulse to thought. The duties it incul- 
 cated, and the doctrines it taught, awoke a thousand feelings 
 which had long lain dormant in the mind, and roused them 
 to action. Christianity was no longer a matter of form. It 
 was no longer confined to the priesthood : it extended alike 
 to the noble, the burgher, and the peasant. Hitherto shut 
 up in the cloister, or displayed as a pageant in the cathe- 
 dral, its holy influences were unfelt by the great mass of the 
 
 * D'Aubign6's Hist., vol. i. p. 263. The historian states in a note that Tet- 
 zel publicly maintained the second of these propositions in his antitheses. 
 
216 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. vm. 
 
 people ; but now it became a subject of serious thought aud 
 earnest discussion to all. A spirit of new life was breathed 
 over society. The religious feelings of our nature put on 
 their native strength, and eagerly enlisted either on the side 
 of the Eeformation or the Papacy. A great struggle was 
 begun. The din of battle everywhere resounded. The con- 
 fused noise came booming over the German Ocean, and was 
 distinctly heard on the shores of Scotland. 
 
 But we must revert to our insular history, and 
 trace the events which preceded the Eeformation 
 at home. The battle of Flodden subjected our country once 
 more to the distractions of a long minority. The king, thirteen 
 earls, an archbishop, two bishops, and many others of name 
 and note, lay dead on the fatal field. The infant monarch 
 was however solemnly crowned,* and the regency of the 
 kingdom committed to the queen-mother, the sister of Henry 
 VIII., a woman still in the flower of youth, possessed of 
 great beauty, spirit, and ability, but subject, like her brother, 
 to violent passions, and not more careful of decency in 
 matters affecting marriage and divorce. With indecorous 
 haste she threw off her royal weeds, and wedded the Earl of , 
 Angus, a handsome but impetuous young man, by which 
 she forfeited the regency, and the Duke of Albany, at that 
 time residing in France, was recalled to take the govern- 
 ment of the kingdom. The consequence was, a hitter and 
 very natural hostility sprung up between Queen Margaret 
 and the Duke, who had supplanted her in the government ; 
 and the nobility began to divide themselves into two factions 
 — the English and the French — and for the next fifty years 
 we find these factions thus formed contending for the chief 
 direction of affairs. 
 
 The archiepiscopal chair of St Andrews was next in 
 dignity to the royal throne, and it also was made vacant b}' 
 the slaughter of Flodden. Three powerful competitors 
 appeared in the field. The first of these was the celebrated 
 
 Buchanan, Lesley, Lindsay, and Balfour say the coronation took place at 
 Stirling ; but Pinkerton, on the evidence of an original letter (Dacre to the 
 Bishop of Durham, 29th October 1513), makes it take place at Scone, and him 
 Tytler follows. 
 
A.D. 1514 ] CONTEST FOR ST ANDREWS. 217 
 
 Gawin Douglas, son of Archibald Douglas, Bell-the-Cat, and 
 uncle of the Earl of Angus, who had married the queen. 
 He was presented by Margaret, and his literary merits made 
 him worthy of the honour, but it must be acknowledged he 
 was a factious and intriguing man. The second was John 
 Hepburn, Prior of St Andrews. He managed to get himself 
 elected by the chapter. The third was Andrew Forman, 
 Bishop of Moray, and legate a latere, who had procured a 
 papal bull nominating him to the vacant See. There were 
 thus, in this instance, the three modes of nomination which 
 then existed, and which frequently conflicted —that by the 
 pope, by the king, and by the canons of the cathedral 
 church. The adherents of Douglas seized upon the castle. 
 Hepburn collected his followers and attacked them, and 
 having carried the fortress by storm, he strongly garrisoned 
 it. Forman for a while could find no one sufficiently bold 
 to publish his bull. At length he bribed Lord Home, by 
 bestowing upon his brother the vacant priory of Colding- 
 ham. Accordingly Home proceeded to Edinburgh with 
 ten thousand men, and there proclaimed the bull in favour 
 of Forman. He next proceeded towards St Andrews, in 
 order to intimate what had been done, and to give the bishop 
 institution and full possession of his benefice. But Hepburn 
 again rallied his adherents, manned both the cathedral and 
 the castle, planted artillery around them, and made such a 
 formidable show of resistance, that Forman felt it would be 
 better to resort to other means than force to get possession 
 of his archbishopric* 
 
 The ecclesiastical feud was finally settled by the Duke of 
 Albany, who partitioned among the competitors enough of 
 beneficiary spoil to satisfy them all. Forman was allowed 
 to retain the archbishopric of St Andrews, and the abbacy 
 of Dunfermline, which he held in commendam by a gift 
 from the Pope. Hepburn was to receive from him, out of 
 the fruits of the monastery, an annual pension of a thousand 
 merks ; and his brother James was to get the appointment 
 to the bishopric of Moray. Forman further engaged to 
 hand over to Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, the abbacy 
 *■ Lindsay, p. 123. 
 
218 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. viii. 
 
 of Aberbrothock.* So ended this scramble for place and 
 power. 
 
 These tumults were quickly followed by an- 
 other, in which we find some of the same actors 
 engaged. A deadly animosity existed between the houses of 
 Angus and Arran. During the sitting of the Estates the ad- 
 herents of both had mustered inconsiderable numbers inEdin- 
 burgh, and an outbreak was apprehended. The Hamiltons had 
 met in the church of the Black Friars to concert their mea- 
 sures. Gawin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, ventured amongst 
 them as a peacemaker, and, addressing himself chiefly to 
 Beaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, remonstrated with him 
 against the hostilities which were too evidently intended. 
 Beaton struck his hand upon his breast, and declared he 
 could not help it ; but a coat of mail, concealed beneath 
 his linen rochet, gave forth a metallic and suspicious sound. 
 " Ah, my lord," said Douglas, " I perceive your conscience 
 clatters." The mediation of the Bishop of Dunkeld was 
 fruitless ; a hasty attack was made by the retainers of the 
 Hamiltons upon the borderers who owned Angus for their 
 chief, and who were now drawn up in the High Street from 
 the castle to St Giles. It was speedily and decisively re- 
 pulsed ; Lord Montgomery and Sir Patrick Hamilton were 
 among the slain ; the Earl of Arran was forced to flee the 
 city, and the Archbishop of Glasgow to take refuge behind 
 the high altar of the Dominican church, where he would 
 have been sacrilegiously slain had not Gawin Douglas 
 generously interfered. This armed encounter is known in 
 history by the name of " cleansing the causeway." f 
 
 The political history of this period is full of strange and 
 sudden transitions, and its character difficult to decipher, 
 notwithstanding the light thrown upon it by a great num- 
 ber of original documents still extant. Albany was more a 
 Frenchman than a Scot, and soon made himself enemies, 
 though historians are yet divided in regard to his adminis- 
 tration. The queen-mother thought him imperious and harsh, 
 and this her proud spirit could not brook. Deprived of the 
 
 * Lesley, lib. ix. Spottiswood, lib. ii. 
 
 t Pinkerton, vol. ii. p. 181. Tytler, ¥ol. v. 
 
A.D. 1520] POLITICAL TROUBLES. 219 
 
 care of her royal infant, slie fled to England, where she was 
 brought to bed of a daughter to Angus. Not long afterwards 
 Albany sailed for France, where his heart always was ; and 
 he was not well gone till Margaret returned. Completely 
 estranged from her husband, whose fidelity was questioned, 
 she could not now bide his presence, and already began to 
 speak of a divorce. Imagining herself, at the same time, 
 neglected by her brother, she began to turn her eyes towards 
 France, and by a letter in her own hand she invited Albany 
 to return and resume the government of the kingdom. He 
 came, landed in Lennox, and the queen hurried to Linlithgow 
 to meet and welcome him. Eumour now began to speak of 
 an intimacy too tender to be merely political, and Henry 
 gave credence to the report, and wrote his sister sharp letters 
 of reproof.* Amid the fluctuations of parties, she afterwards 
 affected a reconciliation with her husband, but it was only 
 to part from him in greater anger and disgust, and finally 
 to procure a divorce. At liberty to marry again, she took 
 to her royal couch a young man, the son of Lord Evandale, 
 and afterwards created Lord Methven. This indecent con- 
 duct lowered her influence ; Albany had bid Scotland fare- 
 well ; and now Angus for a time got into his hands the 
 chief management of affairs, although the king, now thirteen 
 years of age, had nominally assumed the government. The 
 troubles which these things implied were industriously aug- 
 mented by English gold and English spies, for Henry and 
 Wolsey had already begun the system which was afterwards 
 brought to perfection by Elizabeth and Burleigh. 
 
 Gawin Douglas was deeply involved in most of the transac- 
 tions to which we have referred. At first a keen ally of the 
 queen, when she quarrelled with her husband we find him 
 transformed into her bitterest enemy, proceeding to England 
 on secret missions, busying himself to defame her character, 
 and to viHfy the government of Albany, with whom she was 
 associated.t He was finally obliged to escape from his na- 
 tive country, and take up his residence in London, where he 
 died. His translation of the "^neid" into Scotch verse, and 
 his other poetical works, have kept alive his name, when 
 » Pinkerton, vol. ii. books xii., xiii. f Ibid. 
 
220 CHUBCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vrii. 
 
 his political intrigues are almost forgotten. All allow him 
 to have been a man of singular learning and fine wit, and 
 we must ever admire him as among the first who made our 
 wild, untutored mother-tongue to flow in the soft, measured 
 cadences of verse. 
 
 Another victim was now being prepared to be offered on 
 the altar of intolerance. Patrick Hamilton was the son of 
 Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavil, and Catherine Stewart, 
 an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Albany. The date 
 and place of his birth are unknown ; but when yet a child, 
 according to the custom of the time, he was made Abbot of 
 Feme. Destined for the Church, he required such an edu- 
 cation as would suit him for his profession ; and accordingly, 
 about the year 1517, he left Scotland, to pursue a course of 
 philosophy in the University of Paris ; and in 1520 he ac- 
 quired his degree of Master of Arts. In 1523 he returned 
 to his native country, and entered himself in St Andrews 
 University, where he continued to pursue his stiidies under 
 the celebrated John Mair, the master of Buchanan and of 
 Knox. Distinguished by a passion for music, he was ap- 
 pointed precentor of the choir of St Leonards, and is said to 
 have composed " what the musicians call a mass arranged 
 in parts for nine voices, in honour of the angels, intended 
 for that office in the missal which begins ' Benedicant Do- 
 minum Angeli Ejus.'"* But while at Paris he seems to 
 have imbibed some of the free sentiments of Erasmus and 
 Eeuchlin, and he must have heard at least of the theses of 
 Luther ; and he now fell under the suspicion of heresy, and 
 inquisition was made into his opinions. In these circum- 
 stances he again left Scotland, and repaired to G-ermany, 
 where the human mind was now in open mutiny against 
 papal authority. At Wittemberg he saw Luther, and pro- 
 bably made his acquaintance ; but it was at the University of 
 Marburg, where he remained for a time, that he was confirmed 
 in the doctrines of the Eeformation. Francis Lambert, who 
 taught there, took an affectionate interest in the young Scots- 
 man, and had a powerful influence in moulding his mind. 
 
 « Alesius : quoted in an interesting volume recently published — Memoirs 
 of Patrick Hamilton, by Rev. Peter Lorimer, 1857. 
 
AD. 1527-1528.] TRIAL OF PATRICK HAMILTON. 221 
 
 In 1527 he was in Scotland once more, not 
 ashamed of the opinions he had embraced. Arch- 
 bishop James Beaton had been transferred from Glasgow to 
 St Andrews, and had recently made peace with the party of 
 Angus, now at the head of affairs. He had the power, if he 
 had the will, to put Hamilton to death ; and Beaton was too 
 zealous a churchman to let Lutheranism escape with im- 
 punity, but it is more than probable that theological in- 
 tolerance was inflamed by the feud which existed between 
 the houses of Angus and Arran. Hamilton was brought to 
 St Andrews, and tried before a bench of bishops and other 
 ecclesiastical dignitaries. In the sentence pronounced 
 against him the judges declare, — " We have found the same 
 Mr Patrick Hamilton many ways inflamed with heresy, 
 disputing, holding, and maintaining divers heresies of Martin 
 Luther and his followers, repugnant to our faith, and which 
 are already condemned by general councils, and most famous 
 universities. And he, being under the same infamy, we, 
 decerning before him to be summoned and accused upon 
 the premises, he, of evil mind (as may be presumed) , passed 
 to other parts furth of the realm, suspected and noted of 
 heresy ; and, being lately returned, not being admitted, but 
 of his own head, without license or privilege, hath presumed 
 to preach wicked heresy." " All these premises being con- 
 sidered, we, having God and the integrity of our faith before 
 our eyes, do pronounce, determine, and declare the said Mr 
 Patrick Hamilton, for his affirming, confessing, and declar- 
 ing the aforesaid heresies, and pertinacity, to be an heretic, 
 and to have an evil opinion of the faith, and therefore to be 
 condemned and punished, likeas we condemn and define 
 him to be punished by this our sentence definitive, depriving 
 him, and sentencing him to be deprived, of all dignities, 
 honours, orders, offices, and benefices of the Church ; and 
 therefore do judge him to be delivered over unto the secular 
 power to be punished, and his goods confiscate."* 
 
 A.D. 1528. *^'^ *^® ^^®* *^^y °^ February 1528 a stake was 
 
 fixed in the ground in the centre of the large area 
 
 before the gate of St Salvator's College. Around it fagots of 
 
 * The sentence is found at length in the Appendix to Keith's Hi,storr. 
 
222 CHUBCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VIII. 
 
 wood were piled high. At noon the young and noble confessor 
 left his prison for the place of execution. He was accom- 
 panied by his servant and two or three faithful friends, and 
 carried in his hand a copy of the Evangel. Being come to 
 the place, he gave the volume he so much loved to a friend; 
 and, taking ofiF his gown, he gave it with some other apparel 
 to his servant, remarking, " This stuff will not help me in 
 the fire, yet will do thee some good. I have no more to 
 leave thee but the ensample of my death, which I pray thee 
 keep in mind. For albeit the same be bitter, and painful in 
 man's judgment, yet is it the entrance to everlasting life, 
 which none can inherit who deny Christ."* By the ignor- 
 ance and awkwardness of his executioners, his torments were 
 protracted for nearly six hours. It was six o'clock in the 
 evening before his body was reduced to ashes. " But during 
 all that time," says Alexander Alane, who had witnessed the 
 whole scene with profound emotion, " the martyr never gave 
 one sign of impatience or anger, nor ever called to Heaven 
 for vengeance upon his persecutors, so great was his faith, 
 so strong his confidence in God."t His last words that were 
 heard were, "How long. Lord, shall darkness cover this 
 kingdom ? How long wilt Thou suffer this tyranny of men ? 
 Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !" 
 
 So died Patrick Hamilton, the proto-martyr of the Lu- 
 theran Reformation. It was strange that the theses of Luther, 
 posted upon the door of the church at Wittembcrg in 1517, 
 should so soon have been burnt with fire into the gates of St 
 Salvator's College at St Andrews. No nobler or gentler 
 spirit ever passed through great tribulation into the king- 
 dom of God. His youth, his accomplishments, his many 
 virtues, excited universal pity ; and it was afterwards said, 
 that the smoke of the flames, in which he had been con- 
 sumed, infected all that they blew upon. Very recently 
 there was discovered in the accounts of the Lord Treasurer, 
 under the year 1543, the name of an Isobel Hamilton, one 
 of the ladies in attendance on the court of the Eegent 
 Arran, and described as " daughter of umquhil Patrick 
 
 * Spottiswood, lib. ii. 
 
 f Quoted in Lorimer's Memoirs of Hamilton, p. 165. 
 
A.D. 1532.] INSTITUTION OF THE COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. 223 
 
 Hamilton, Abbot of Feme." It was instantly suspected that 
 the martyr's virtue had not been immaculate ; but more re- 
 cently still it has been discovered, that immediately after 
 his return from Germany he had married a lady of noble 
 birth, and thus, like Luther, had openly and irretrievably 
 broken with Kome.* 
 
 Three months after the execution of Hamilton, James 
 contrived to escape from the Douglases, gathered the nobility 
 around him, and being now in his seventeenth year, and 
 possessed of wisdom and firmness above his age, he began 
 to govern himseK. His hatred of Angus and all his rela- 
 tives, who had kept him so long in virtual captivity, was 
 deep and incurable. He could never be brought to forgive 
 them. He confiscated their estates, and drave them from 
 the kingdom. We need not wonder 'that they were the ob- 
 jects of his aversion and dread. They undoubtedly sowed 
 the seeds of many of the evils which bore such bitter fruit 
 during his reign. Though carefully watching his move- 
 ments, in order to prevent his slipping out of their hands, 
 they had ruinously indulged him, neglected his education, 
 and encouraged his early inclination to gallantry, and thus 
 fostered the vices which afterwards contaminated his cha- 
 racter and hastened his end. The fear of his barons, thus 
 early inspired, made him throw himself more completely upon 
 the support of his clergy ; while alarm at the intrigues of 
 the English court, which had long kept the kingdom in per- 
 petual agitation, led him to suspect and avoid all the over- 
 tures of Henry. 
 
 We do not require to wander far out of our way 
 
 A.D. 1532. ,,.... ■' 
 
 to record the institution, m 1532, f of the College 
 
 of Justice, the .first great step in our country toward the 
 
 equitable administration of the law. The idea is said to have 
 
 * Lorimer's Memoirs, p. 124. 
 
 t It is remarkable that the date of so important an institution as the College 
 of Justice shoidd be the subject of dispute. The original black letter copy of 
 the Acts founding the College, published during the reign of Queen Mary, 
 gives 1532 as the date, whereas all the subsequent editions of the Acts make it 
 1537. Erekine discusses the question in his Institutes, and gives his opinion 
 in favour of 1532, and thinks the error must have arisen from the similarity 
 of the figures 2 and 7 in the writings of that period. 
 
224 OHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. vm. 
 
 been taken from the parliament of Paris. It was to consist 
 of fifteen members, eight of whom, including the president, 
 were to belong to the ecclesiastical order. Ten advocates 
 were appointed to conduct the pleadings before it ; the clerks 
 of the signet were ordered to be sworn, and everything down 
 to the appointment of macers minutely provided for. The 
 expenses of the court were ordered to be defrayed out of the 
 revenues of the clergy, who, deeming the honour done to 
 their order to be no compensation for the injury inflicted on 
 their property, remonstrated against the exaction, but in 
 vain. There can be no doubt but that the constitution of 
 the college is a testimony to the superior learning and 
 abilities of the ecclesiastics ; but it is probable that the pre- 
 dominance which the Church thus obtained in the adminis- 
 tration of justice would help to hinder the spread of the 
 reformed opinions. Buchanan specially notices, that much 
 severity was now used against the Lutherans.* 
 
 It was about the same time that Antonio Oampeggio 
 visited Scotland, as papal legate, to confirm James in his 
 attachment to the ancient faith. He brought him from the 
 Pope a consecrated cap and sword ; addressed him as " De- 
 fender of the Faith," a title which his uncle Henry of England 
 was held to have forfeited, and granted him a tithe of all 
 ecclesiastical benefices in the kingdom for three years — a 
 most acceptable present to a profuse prince, f 
 
 Meanwhile the doctrines of the Eeformation were making- 
 rapid progress in Scotland. The Lollards had not been ex- 
 tirpated, — some of them still remained, ancient witnesses of 
 the truth. Men were passing to and fro betwixt our island 
 and the Continent, and ever bringing fresh tidings of the 
 progress of Protestantism. Vessels were arriving at Aber- 
 deen, Montrose, Dundee, and Leith, and stealthily discharg- 
 ing packages of Tyndale's English New Testament, and the 
 pamphlets and sermons of the Keformers.J These stirred 
 up the people like a trumpet-blast ; they began to scent the 
 battle from afar. Poets were not afraid to lampoon the idle 
 
 * Hist., book xiv. t Tytler, vol. v. 
 
 J Among other proofs of this importation of books, we have an Act of the 
 Scotch Parliament declaring it penal. 
 
A.D. 1533.] CONTESSOKS AND MARTYRS. 225 
 
 monks and friars ; wits perpetrated jokes at the expense of 
 the voluptuous bishops ; and even the rustics, when they met 
 at the ale-house, told scandalous stories about the parish 
 priest — some concubine he kept, or some good-looking woman 
 he had iaveighled at confession.* But there were earnest- 
 minded men in the Church who perceived that a reformation 
 was needed ; there were honest hearts beneath the monkish 
 gown, which could not stifle their feelings. In Scotland, as 
 in Germany, the Eeformation began among the clergy them- 
 selves. Almost all our first martyrs and confessors were 
 monks or parish priests. 
 
 The flames in which the Abbot of Feme was consumed 
 had scarcely died out among his ashes, when Alexander 
 Seaton, a Dominican friar, and confessor to the king, began 
 to preach the necessity of keeping the commandments, and 
 of looking to Christ as the end and perfection of the law. 
 He was called to task for his sentiments, and glad to save 
 his life by fleeing to England. At Berwick he wrote a letter 
 to James pointing out the subordination of the ecclesiastical 
 to the civil power, and urging his Majesty, in respectful 
 terms, to put an end to the oppression of the clergy. But 
 the king did not interfere to save him, and so he was com- 
 pelled to remain in exile, f 
 
 It was not to be expected that a Church, backed by the 
 influence of the King, proud of a venerable antiquity, and 
 ignorant of the duty of toleration, would allow opinions 
 destructive of its power, its privileges, and its very existence, 
 to grow up in its bosom without a struggle to crush them. 
 We think it needless to relate minutely the story of every 
 martyrdom and of every martyr. It is everywhere and at 
 all times the same sad tale — virtue suffering, bigotry tri- 
 umphant, charity standing by and weeping. Henry Forest, 
 a young Benedictine monk, was burnt at St Andrews in 
 1533. In the year following, Norman Gourlay, a priest, 
 and David Straitou, a gentleman of respectable family, were 
 hanged and burned at the rood of Greenside, " according," 
 says Knox, " to the mercy of the papistical Church." J Num- 
 
 * Dunbar and Lyndsay's poems give ample proof of this, 
 t Knox's History, book i. + Ibid. 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
226 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. viir. 
 
 bers were arraigned, but tbeir faith failed, and they recanted. 
 Others, of whom the country was not worthy, fled, and trans- 
 ferred their allegiance and learned labours to other lands. 
 Among these were Alexander Alesius, who became Pro- 
 fessor of Divinity at Leipsic, and the friend of Melancthon ; 
 and John Machabaeus, who rose to high favour with Chris- 
 tiern. King of Denmark, and was honoured to be one of the 
 translators of the Bible into the Danish tongue. 
 
 In July 1538, the parliament met, and, 
 amongst other things, passed a law, which is 
 indicative at once of the progress the reformed doctrines were 
 making, and of the disposition of the powers that were. This 
 act, after referring to an act passed in the year 1525, against 
 the " damnable opinions of the great heretic Luther," pro- 
 ceeds — " Our said Sovereign Lord, for the zeal and love his 
 Highness bears to the Christian faith and the Holy Kirk, 
 ordains and statutes the said act anew. Likewise, it is 
 statute and ordained, that forasmuch as the damnable 
 opinions of heresy are spread in diverse countries by the 
 heretic Luther and his disciples, and this realm, and the 
 lieges thereof, has firmly persisted in the holy faith, since the 
 same was first received by them, and never as yet admitted 
 any opinions contrary to the Christian faith, but ever has 
 been clean of all such filth and vice ; therefore, that no 
 manner of person, stranger, that happens to arrive with 
 their ship within any part of this realm, bring with them 
 any books or works of the said Luther, his disciples or ser- 
 vants, disputes or rehearses his heresies or opinions, unless 
 it be to the confusion thereof, and that by clerks in the 
 schools, under the pain of escheating their ships and goods, 
 and putting of their persons in prison.'' It is farther provided 
 — " That none have, use, keep, or conceal any books of the 
 said heretics, or countenance their doctrine and opinions, 
 but that they deliver the same to their ordinaries within 
 forty days."* 
 
 Meanwhile Henry VIII. had revolted against Eome. 
 When the Eeformation first broke out, he had entered the 
 lists against Luther, and published a treatise on the seven 
 * Keith's History, book i. chap. i. Acts of the Scottish Parliament. 
 
A-D. 1538.] ENGLISH REFOEMATION. 227 
 
 sacraments, in answer to a book which had been published 
 by the reformer on the Babylonish captivity. The royal 
 production was presented to the Pope in full consistory; 
 His Holiness spoke of it as if it had been the result of inspi- 
 ration, and bestowed upon its author the title of Defender 
 of the Faith. But now the capricious monarch had grown 
 weary of Catherine of Arragon ; he pretended scruples of 
 conscience about having her to wife, because she had been 
 the wife of his deceased brother, and craved a divorce from 
 the Pope ; but the Pope, fearful of oifending the Emperor 
 Charles V., was not so compliant as he could wish. With- 
 out refusing the royal request, he staved it off upon various 
 pretences ; and Henry got impatient, for he had seen and 
 loved sweet Anne Boleyn. Cranmer proposed to solve the 
 difficulty, by getting the opinions of the most famous uni- 
 versities in regard to the legitimacy of his marriage, and, if 
 these should prove unfavourable to it, to have a divorce 
 pronounced by his own clergy. Henry swore that Cranmer 
 had the right sow by the ear. The thing was done ; the 
 opinions were unfavourable ; and the divorce was pronounced 
 by Cranmer himself, who had now been raised to the See of 
 Canterbury. Excommunicated by the Court of Eome, Henry 
 was declared by his own parliament the only supreme head 
 of the Church of England upon earth ; and the papal supre- 
 macy was for ever at an end. The monasteries were next 
 suppressed, and their enormous revenues appropriated by 
 the monarch, or bestowed upon his courtiers, and the people 
 flattered with the notion that henceforward they would 
 require to pay no more taxes. But though the English 
 monarch had thus, to gratify his own amorous propensities, 
 abolished the Roman jurisdiction within his realm, he had 
 no intention of reforming the Eomish ritual or the Eomish 
 creed. " The scheme," says Macaulay, " was merely to 
 transfer the full cup of sorceries from the Babylonian 
 enchantress to other hands, spilling as little as possible 
 by the way."* Accordingly, with the utmost impartiality, 
 Henry struck off men's heads for maintaining the Pope's 
 
 * Critical and Historical Essays, vol. i. Review of HaUam's Constitutional 
 History. 
 
 p2 
 
228 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. viii. 
 
 supremacy, or for denying the dogma of transubstantiation ; 
 for owning the jurisdiction of Kome, or for denying her 
 doctrines. Such was the beginning and the ending of 
 Henry's reformation of religion in England. 
 
 But the English monarch was most anxious to extend his 
 reformation, such as it was, to the sister kingdom ; and we 
 find him labouring, with all the zeal of a new proselyte, to 
 conyert his nephew of Scotland to his faith. With this 
 view he made a proposal of a marriage between James and 
 his daughter, the Princess Mary, holding out to him the 
 hope of succeeding to the English crown. He despatched 
 his chaplain, Dr Barlow, Bishop-elect of St Davids, to the 
 Scottish court, to remove false impressions ; to present to the 
 young monarch a book recently published, called " The 
 Doctrine of a Christian Man ;" and, if permission were 
 granted, to display his no-popery eloquence in the pulpit. 
 James submitted the treatise to his ecclesiastics, who pro- 
 nounced it full of heresy, and unfit for the royal eyes ; and 
 Barlow vnrote to Secretary Cromwell informing him that the 
 king was surrounded " by the Pope's pestilent creatures, and 
 very limbs of the devil."* Barlow was followed by Lord 
 WilKam Howard, who was instructed to propose a confer- 
 ence at York between his master and James ; but though 
 James at first consented to meet his uncle, he afterwards, 
 through the influence of his clergy, made pretexts for delay, 
 and the conference never took place. It would appear, how- 
 ever, that Henry's overtures had made some impression on our 
 king, for in May 1536 he advertises him " that he had sent 
 to Eome to get impetrations for reformation of some enor- 
 mities, and especially anent the ordering of great and many 
 possessions and temporal lands, given to the kirk by our 
 noble predecessors."t We need not wonder that the diplo- 
 matists both of London and Eome should thus anxiously be 
 visiting Scotland. Its relative position to England made its 
 movements of more than ordinary consequence. It was a 
 strategical point in the field, which it was of the greatest 
 importance for the Pope to retain and for Henry to carry. 
 
 * Pinkerton, book xiv. Keith's History, book i. Tytler, vol. v. 
 t Keith, book i. chap. ii. 
 
A.D. 1536-1539.] MAKRIAGE OF JAMES V. 229 
 
 James wished for a wife, and his thoughts were fixed upon 
 the daughters of France. Disdaining to entrust the court- 
 ship into the hands of cold and calculating diplomatists, he 
 set sail for Dieppe, and having landed, hastened to Paris — a 
 romantic knight-errant in search of a lady-love. He had no 
 sooner seen than he loved Magdalene, the only daughter of 
 Francis I., a beautiful girl of seventeen ; hut her fragile 
 figure and hectic complexion were already indicative of con- 
 sumption and prophetic of death. Mutual affection would 
 not listen to reason, and so their nuptials were celebrated 
 with extraordinary pomp in the Church of Notre Dame. 
 Eefused a passage through England, the royal pair were 
 compelled to return to Scotland by sea ; and when the 
 devoted girl landed at Leith, she knelt down upon the beach, 
 kissed the very sand, and solemnly thanked G-od for having 
 brought her husband and herself safely through the sea to 
 the land of her adoption.* But she came only to find a 
 grave. In two months she was dead — a flower too tender 
 for our northern skies. James mourned her in death as he 
 had loved her in life ; but, young and hopeful, he dried his 
 tears, and before the days of his mourning were accom- 
 plished, he had sought and obtained the hand of Mary of 
 Guise, the widow of the Duke of Longueville — a marriage 
 which had the most important influence upon the future 
 fortunes of the kingdom. 
 
 On the last day of February 1539 a huge fire 
 was blazing on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, and 
 five miserable men were seen in the midst of it — suffering, yet 
 rejoicing. They were Dean Thomas Forret, Vicar of Dollar, 
 and a canon regular of the monastery of St Colm's, Inch ; 
 Sir Duncan Simpson, a priest ; Keillor and Beveridge, black 
 friars ; and Forrester, a notary in Stirling. They had been 
 tried for heresy before a council held by Cardinal Beaton 
 and Wniiam Chisholme, Bishop of Dunblane, and this was 
 their end. Keillor, it would appear, had written one of 
 those religious plays or mysteries, common at the period, in 
 which Christ's passion was represented ; and this had been 
 acted before the king and court at Stirling, upon the morn- 
 * Lindsay of Pitscottie, p. 159. 
 
230 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. viii. 
 
 ing of a Good Friday. But it was obvious that under the 
 Scribes and Pharisees, who accomplished the condemnation 
 of Christ, Keillor had painted the Churchmen of his day who 
 were crucifying Christ afresh by persecuting his friends.* 
 The satire had been too stinging to be easily forgotten or 
 forgiven. The Vicar of Dollar had sometime before incurred 
 the suspicion of Lutheranism by refusing to exact the corpse 
 present — felt by the poor to be an intolerable grievance, and 
 by preaching regularly on the Sundays. He was accordingly 
 cited before Crichton, Bishop of Dunkeld, a prelate more 
 given to hospitality than the study of theology, but evidently 
 a kind-hearted and good-natured man. The conversation 
 which passed between them is exceedingly characteristic of 
 the times, and therefore we give it at length, as reported by 
 Fox, the martyrologist. 
 
 '' I love you well," said the bishop, " and therefore I must 
 give you my counsel how you shall rule and guide yourself 
 My dear Dean Thomas, I am told that you preach the epistle 
 or gospel every Sunday to your parishioners, and that you 
 take not the cow nor the uppermost cloth from your pa- 
 rishioners, which is very prejudicial to the Churchmen, and 
 therefore I would you took your cow and your uppermost 
 cloth, as other Churchmen do, or else it is too much to 
 preach every Sunday ; for in so doing you may make the 
 people think that we should preach likewise. But it is 
 enough for you, when you find any good epistle, or any good 
 gospel, that setteth forth the liberty of the Holy Church, to 
 preach that, and let the rest be." Forret answered, " My 
 lord, I think that none of my parishioners will complain 
 that I take not the cow nor the uppermost cloth, but will 
 gladly give me the same, together with any other thing 
 that they have, and I will give and communicate with 
 them any thing that I have ; and so, my lord, we agree 
 right well, and there is no discord amongst us. And where 
 your lordship saith, ' it is too much to preach every Sunday,' 
 indeed I think it is too little, and also would wish that your 
 lordship did the like." " Nay, nay, Dean Thomas," cried the 
 bishop ; "let that be, for we are not ordained to preach." 
 * Knox's History, book i. 
 
A.D. 1540.] CAfiDINAL BEATON. 231 
 
 Then said Forret, " Where your lordship biddeth me preach 
 when I find any good epistle or a good gospel, truly, my 
 lord, I have read the New Testament and the Old, and all 
 the epistles and gospels, and among them all I could never 
 find an evil epistle or an evil gospel ; but if your lordship 
 will show me the good epistle and the good gospel, then I 
 shall preach the good and omit the evil." The bishop re- 
 plied, " I thank God that I never knew what the Old and 
 New Testament was ; therefore, Dean Thomas, I will know 
 nothing but my portuise and pontifical. Go your way, and 
 let be all these fantasies ; for if you persevere in these 
 erroneous opinions, ye will repent when you may not mend 
 it."* 
 
 In the same year there were burnt as heretics in Glasgow 
 a grey friar named Russel, and a young man named Ken- 
 nedy, who is said to have had a genius for poetry, and who 
 had probably employed it in satirizing the clergy. It is re- 
 ported that Archbishop Dunbar would willingly have saved 
 them, but his coadjutors were inexorable.f 
 
 About the same time James Beaton, Archbishop of St 
 Andrews, died, and the primacy passed into the hands of his 
 nephew, David Beaton, already a cardinal, and Bishop of Mire- 
 poix in France. He was a man of great talents, and still 
 greater ambition, devoted heart and soul to the interests of 
 the Church, and himself an embodiment, in many respects, at 
 once of its virtues and its vices. He had already acquired a 
 great influence over the mind of the king, and, for the re- 
 mainder of his life, we may regard him as the main insti- 
 gator of every public measure both ecclesiastical and political. 
 He was scarcely installed till he convoked at St Andrews a 
 meeting of the great barons and dignified clergy, and ha- 
 rangued them upon " the Church in danger," and followed up 
 his oration by citing Sir John Borthwick to appear and answer 
 to the charge of heresy ; but Sir John had wisely fled to 
 England. He was declared guilty, and burned in ef&gy, first 
 at St Andrews, and afterwards in Edinburgh ;J but better 
 to be burned ten times in similitude than once in reality. 
 
 * Book of Martyrs, 'book viii. f Spottiswood. book ii. 
 
 I Knox's History, book i. Spottiswood, lib. ii. Keith. 
 
232 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. viii. 
 
 The year 1539 saw Charles V. and Francis I., who had so 
 long wasted Europe by their wars, at peace with one 
 another ; and Henry, alarmed lest a Catholic league might 
 he formed against him, and James invited to join it, de- 
 spatched Sir Ealph Sadler to the Scottish court, to try the 
 effects of diplomacy. We may well regard this as an im- 
 portant era in our history, for Sadler soon began to exert a 
 strong influence in Scottish affairs, and fortunately his 
 letters and despatches have been preserved, and throw much 
 light upon the state of parties and of public feeling at the 
 time. Sadler's instructions were to persuade the Scottish 
 monarch to break off from Rome, and seize upon the posses- 
 sions of the abbeys and other religious houses ; to discover 
 what he were likely to do in the event of a Catholic league 
 being formed against England; and to bring Cardinal 
 Beaton into suspicion with him by every means, but more 
 especially by showing certain equivocal letters which the 
 cardinal had addressed to his agent at Eome, and which 
 had accidentally fallen into Henry's hands. Sadler was 
 further instructed to renew the proposal of an interview 
 between the two monarchs at York ; and to flatter the hopes 
 of James succeeding to the English crown in the event of 
 Prince Edward's death.* 
 
 Sadler's account of his mission is peculiarly interesting, 
 from the gossipping way in which it communicates to us 
 grave matters of state, and the glimpses it gives us of life 
 at Holyrood three hundred years ago. He tells us that 
 when he sought his first interview he was conducted to the 
 chapel, where he saw the king at mass, kneeling under a 
 cloth of state, with the cardinal, bishops, and nobles kneel- 
 ing around him. The ambassador was led to a seat behind 
 the place where the monarch was thus devoutly engaged. 
 When the service was over, he was brought to the king, 
 and instantly entered upon his business. He said he was 
 sent by his royal master to assure his Majesty of his 
 amity, and to offer for his acceptance a present of six geld- 
 ings, which were on their way to Scotland by sea, and would 
 arrive in the course of another day. James pleasantly re- 
 * Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. Keith, book i. chap. ii. 
 
A.D. 1540.] SADLEE AT HOLYBOOD. 233 
 
 ceived the gift, and declared that if there was anything in 
 his kingdom which his uncle would like, it was quite at his 
 service. Sadler next stated that he had some secret in- 
 telligence to communicate, and wished a secret conference, 
 upon which the king fixed the next day before noon. 
 
 The next day came ; the English ambassador repaired to 
 the palace, and was again taken to the chapel, where he had 
 the benefit of a French sermon, to which the queen and her 
 ladies were listening. He was then conducted to the privy- 
 chamber, and the king took him to a window-recess, that 
 they might there talk over matters together. Sadler, with 
 many apologies, exacted a promise of secresy from James, 
 and then, with an air of mystery, began to tell him of a let- 
 ter which had fallen into his master's hands, and which 
 proved Beaton to be holding a treasonable correspondence 
 with E.ome. It was written by the cardinal to Mr Andrew 
 Oliphant, Yicar of Foulis, his agent at the papal court, and 
 was on its way thither under the charge of Crichton of 
 Brunston ; but the vessel which conveyed the letter and its 
 bearer was shipwrecked on the English coast. It contained 
 references to ecclesiastical aifairs which Henry deemed very 
 suspicious, and therefore had he, in his great solicitude for 
 his nephew's welfare, communicated it to him. Sadler says 
 that while he was narrating all this, and explaining the 
 contents of the letter, he narrowly watched the king, to see 
 what effect it would have upon him. The result of his ob- 
 servation was — " Sometimes the king looked steadfastly at 
 him, with a grave countenance, sometimes he bit his lip, 
 sometimes he bowed." When he was done, the king said, 
 " There are two laws, the spiritual and the temporal. The 
 administration of the one belongs to the Pope, and the ad- 
 ministration of the other to myself. I shall see to the one, 
 but must leave my clergy to manage the other." Sadler, 
 somewhat disconcerted, offered to show the letter ; but the 
 cardinal was all this while in the room, so the king whis- 
 pered he would rather look at it some other time.* 
 
 Sadler now broached another subject. It had not yet be- 
 come fashionable for princes to keep model farms, and rear 
 fat bullocks and prize rams. The ambassador therefore 
 
234 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. Till. 
 
 said that he was instructed to state to his Majesty, that his 
 uncle of England had heard with deep concern that he 
 " kept large flocks of sheep, and other such mean things," 
 and that it would be much more royal if he would enrich 
 himself with the plunder of the religious houses in the king- 
 dom. " Then," said Sadler, " you will be able to live like a 
 king, and not meddle with sheep." James declared that he 
 had no sheep, but that the tacksmen of the royal demesnes 
 might have. Alas, James ! you were either ignorant of 
 your own flocks and herds, or you were ashamed to acknow- 
 ledge the possession of " such mean things" to your august 
 relative. But your treasurer's accounts have made it known 
 to a still more august posterity, that at that very time you 
 had numerous flocks grazing in the forests of Ettrick, and 
 you need not have blushed to own it. 
 
 But James was poor, and Henry knew it, and had sug- 
 gested a way in which he might become passing rich. " I 
 thank my uncle for his advice," said James, " but in good 
 faith I cannot do so, for methinks it against reason and 
 God's laws to put down these abbeys and religious houses, 
 which have stood so long, and maintained God's service." 
 " And what need have I to take of them to increase my 
 livelihood?" continued the monarch. "There is not an 
 abbey in Scotland at this hour, but, if I asked anything, 
 would give it." Sadler urged that the monks were an idle, 
 unprofitable kind of people, and withal very unchaste. "God 
 forbid," said the king, "if a few be not good, for them all 
 the rest should be destroyed." Beat off on this point, the 
 ambassador next referred to the league which it was ru- 
 moured his Majesty had entered into with France ; but the 
 king laughed at this, and denied it utterly. Last of all, 
 Sadler touched upon the conference which his master wished 
 to have with his Majesty. James showed an evident disposi- 
 tion to waive this matter, and remarked, that if such a con- 
 ference took place, he would like the King of France to be 
 present afit. 
 
 The next day was Sabbath, and again the ambassador was 
 sent for. He came to exhibit the geldings, which had now 
 arrived ; but, as before, he was first of all brought into the 
 
A.D. 1540-1541.] Sadler's embassage fails. 235 
 
 chapel, where the whole court was assembled. The service 
 being done, the horses were mounted and put through their 
 paces, and the barbary and jennet particularly praised. 
 The master of the household now came and announced that 
 dinner was ready, upon which the king went and washed, 
 and then sat down, having told his lords to take the ambas- 
 sador with them. At table, besides the king, there were the 
 Cardinal, the Archbishop of Glasgow, the Earls of Huntly, 
 Errol, Cassillis, and Athole, the Bishop of Aberdeen, Lord 
 Erskine, and some others. After dinner, Sadler politely 
 thanked the king for having so kindly entertained so poor a 
 man as he was. The king now took an opportunity of tell- 
 ing Sadler that he knew all about the letter to which he 
 had referred : that Beaton had kept a duplicate of it, that 
 he had seen it, and that it had created no suspicions of the 
 cardinal's loyalty. Sadler, evidently amazed, suggested that 
 his Majesty had better look at the original, which he had in 
 his bosom. As the cardinal was in the room, and might be 
 observing their movements, the king told him to take it 
 out quietly, as if it were some other paper ; and then look- 
 ing at it, he declared that it agreed word for word with 
 the duplicate. It was hopeless to make anything of this, 
 and so the ambassador, leaving it off, began to dilate upon 
 the reformation which Henry had wrought at Christ Church, 
 Canterbury, and upon the bad lives of the monks and friars ; 
 but the king simply smiled, and said that if they did not 
 live well, he would amend them, and then showed a dispo- 
 sition to change the subject.* 
 
 All this, and much more, Sadler communicates to Henry 
 with great minuteness of detail ; but it was plain that the 
 great object of his embassage had failed. 
 
 In a parliament which was held in the month of March 
 1541, a series of acts were passed which clearly indicate the 
 determination of the king to root out heresy and maintain the 
 established order of things. By one of these it was declared 
 death to argue or impugn the Pope's authority. By another 
 it was declared unlawful for any, except " theologians ap- 
 proved by famous universities, or admitted thereto by those 
 * Sadler's State Papers and Letters, vol. i. 
 
236 CHUKCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [chaJ>. VIIi. 
 
 who have lawful power," to hold conventicles in order to 
 conmiTine or dispute of the Holy Scriptures, or for any one 
 to lodge, receive, or cherish any known heretic. By a third, 
 it was enacted that no heretic who had abjured his heresy, 
 and been received to penance and grace, should talk to 
 others of the holy faith, under pain of being considered as 
 relapsed. By a fourth, it was provided that if any one were 
 suspected of heresy, and, after being summoned, fled from 
 justice, he should be held as guilty, and proceeded against 
 accordingly ; and that if any one should receive him, assist 
 him, or petition for his pardon, he should be held as a 
 favourer of heresy. By a fifth, it was ordained that should 
 any one reveal a congregation or conventicle where error 
 was disseminated, he should, in the event of his being one 
 of the heretical congregation himself, be acquitted and ab- 
 solved ; and in the event of his not being so, he should be 
 rewarded with a portion of the confiscated goods of the ac- 
 cused.* Such were the tyrannical acts by which it was 
 attempted to prop up the papacy in our country when it was 
 tottering to its fall. 
 
 But it was felt at the same time that the Church might 
 be better preserved by abolishing abuses than by burning 
 people for talking of them. Accordingly, on the same day 
 with these other acts, an act was passed for reforming of 
 kirks and kirkmen. In this act it is set forth, that " because 
 the negligence of divine service, the great unhonesty in the 
 kirk, through not making of reparation to the honour of 
 God Almighty, and to the blessed sacrament of the altar, 
 the Virgin Mary, and all holy saints ; and also the unhonesty 
 and misrule of kirkmen, both in wit, knowledge, and manners, 
 is the matter and cause that the kirk and kirkmen are lightly 
 spoken of and contemned ; for remede hereof, the King's 
 Grace exhorts and prays openly all archbishops, bishops, or- 
 dinaries, and other prelates, and every kirkman in his own 
 degree, to reform themselves, and all kirkmen under them, 
 in habit and manners both to God and man," &c. &c. It is 
 worthy of remark that this act does not conclude with de- 
 nouncing death and confiscation of- goods against all delin- 
 * Keith, book i. chap. i. 
 
A.D. 1541. J ROYAL EMBAERASBMENTS. 237 
 
 quent cliurchineii, but simply, " if any person will not obey 
 nor obtemper to their superior, in that behalf the King's Grrace 
 shall find remede therefor at the Pope's Holiness, and such 
 like against the said prelates if they be negligent."* 
 
 These acts were hardly passed till Beaton, ever active, 
 started on an embassage to Rome. His avowed object was 
 to procure his appointment as papal legate to Scotland; but 
 it is supposed he had secret instructions to negotiate an 
 alliance with the Emperor and the King of France for the 
 invasion of England and extirpation of heresy. The con- 
 juncture was favourable, as Francis was now feasting and 
 feting his former foe, and both were equally zealous for the 
 Catholic Church ; but their old animosities were quickly 
 renewed — Milan became once more a bone of contention, 
 and the alliance, if ever contemplated, happily for Pro- 
 testantism was never formed. 
 
 Meanwhile Sadler proceeded a second time to Scotland, 
 bent on the same errand as before, and with letters in which 
 our monarch was admonished not to be as a biute or stock 
 in the hands of the clergy. " The practices of prelates and 
 clerks," say the instructions, "be wondrous, and their jug- 
 gling so crafty, that unless a man beware, and be as oculate 
 as Argus, he may be lightly led by the nose, and bear the 
 yoke, yea, and yet for blindness not to know what he doth."f 
 This lecture, which was to be read by Sadler to James, lets 
 us understand that Henry considered him as priest-ridden ; 
 and perhaps he was ; but still it was not very courteous to 
 say so in such homely phrase, notwithstanding the privilege 
 of an uncle to say rude things to an orphan nephew. 
 
 The position of James at this period was peculiar and 
 embarrassing. He was in need of money ; and there were 
 two ways in which he could get it, and each of these had 
 been urged upon him. He might confiscate the property of 
 the Church, or of the heretical gentry and nobles. Again 
 and again Henry urged upon him the former method ; 
 Beaton and his clergy suggested the latter. The king 
 pointed to his own example ; the cardinal drew out a list of 
 three hundred and sixty persons of property who were sus- 
 
 *■ Keith, book i. chap i. f Sadler's State Papers, &o., vol. i. 
 
238 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cUAP. vin. 
 
 pected of heresy, and whose possessions, if coniiscated, would 
 amply satisfy all the requirements of royalty. It was for 
 James to choose whether he would break with the nobility 
 or the clergy, — whether he would enrich himself with secu- 
 lar or ecclesiastical plunder. There was as much principle, 
 or want of principle, on the one side as the other. But, if 
 rob the king must, who should he rob ? The clergy had 
 hitherto been his firmest friends ; it was in their wisdom he 
 most trusted ; it was their talents he most employed ; it was 
 to their masses he looked for the salvation of his soul. If 
 they were rich, they were also liberal ; and they had already 
 voluntarily assessed themselves in large sums for his sup- 
 port. Mary, his queen, was Catholic ; Prance, his ancient 
 ally, was Catholic ; to spoil the Church he must break with 
 them. Yet James was not blind to the vices of the clergy ; 
 he gave his countenance to satires upon their idle and licen- 
 tious lives ; * he passed acts to reform them ; f and he is 
 said to have looked with a covetous eye upon their ample 
 possessions, and to have meditated the appropriation of some 
 of them. On the other hand, James had no great love for 
 his nobiUty; he had more than the Stewart's hereditary 
 dread of their turbulence and power ; and the faction of 
 Angus had disturbed and distressed him all his life long. 
 But to beggar nearly four hundred of them, because sus- 
 pected of heresy, was a scheme too wild, too daring, too 
 unprincipled for him. He is said to have driven from his 
 presence the first proposer of the plan with mutterings 
 about heading and hanging, but to have afterwards reverted 
 to the thought, and that the terrible proscription-roll was 
 found in his pocket after his death. J 
 
 We have not the same clear information in regard to 
 Sadler's second mission which we have in regard to his first ; 
 but it would appear that James had given a qualified pro- 
 mise that he would meet Henry at York during his intended 
 
 * Friar Keillor's " Mystery " and Sir David Lindsay's " Satyre of the Three 
 Estatis " were performed in his presence ; and Buchanan, at the king's special 
 desire, wrote a stinging satire on the Franciscan friars. 
 
 t Act, 14th March 1541, quoted above. 
 
 I Knox's History, book i. Sadler also mentions such a proscription-roll, 
 vol. i. 
 
A.D. 1542.] DEATH OF THE KING. 239 
 
 progress to the north. Henry came to York, and remained 
 there during six days ; but no James appeared. The clergy, 
 it was thought, had prevailed upon him to remain at home. 
 He however sent a courteous apology ; but Henry conceived 
 himself slighted and insulted, and returned to London vent- 
 ing threatenings and curses against the Scotch. War was 
 the result ; the borders became the scene of bloodshed and 
 pillage ; the old Duke of Norfolk marched into Scotland with 
 a large army, but retired at the approach of winter, and in 
 presence of the Scotch array. The king wished a pursuit, 
 but the barons refused to follow him, and he left the army 
 in deep disgust. The shameful rout of Solway Moss soon 
 followed. The high-spirited monarch could bear no more ; 
 he shut himself iip in Falkland Palace, and the violence of 
 his grief soon induced a slow fever. None could "pluck 
 from his heart the rooted sorrow." While rapidly sinking, 
 intelligence was brought that his queen, who was at Lin- 
 lithgow, had been delivered of a girl, afterwards the unfor- 
 tunate Queen Mary. " It came with a lass, and it will go 
 with a lass," said the broken-hearted monarch, and in seven 
 days afterwards quietly expired. 
 
 The mysterious death of the king, free from all apparent 
 disease, made many whisper he had been poisoned, or as 
 Knox phrases it, that " of old ' his part was in the pot,' and 
 that the suspicion thereof caused him to be inhibited the 
 queen's company." The truth is, it was customary in those 
 times to attribute every such death to false play, and chemical 
 analysis could not yet either prove or disprove the popular 
 rumours. Knox had no liking for Mary of Guise. " How- 
 soever the tidings liked her," says he, " she mended with as 
 great expedition of that daughter as ever she did of any son 
 she bore. The time of her purification was sooner than the 
 Levitical law appoints ; but she was no Jew, and therefore in 
 that she offended not."* 
 
 Cardinal Beaton lost no time in producing a document 
 purporting to be the will of the deceased monarch, appoint- 
 ing him regent of the kingdom during the queen's minority, 
 with a council, consisting of the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, 
 
 * Knox's History, book i. 
 
240 CHUEGH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. vni. 
 
 and Moray, to assist him in the government ; and procla- 
 mation was made, accordingly, at the market-cross of Edin- 
 burgh. Instantly there were rumours afloat of a dead or 
 dying man's hand being guided upon a blank paper, which 
 was afterwards filled up by the cardinal himself. The cir- 
 cumstance was affirmed in high quarters,* and very gene- 
 rally believed ; but it was never proved, nor as much as 
 judicially alleged against the cardinal, even when he was 
 lying in prison, and his enemies very anxious to find judicial 
 matter against him. In the absence of proof to the contrary, 
 all the probabilities are in favour of the genuineness of the 
 document. James was morbidly jealous of his barons ; after 
 the mutiny of Fala Muir, and the rout of Solway, he had 
 conceived toward them the most violent antipathy — it was 
 the cause of his death. It was not likely he would commit 
 the government of the kingdom to them. On the other 
 hand, he trusted and venerated the clergy ; he had all along 
 been ruled, perhaps overridden, by them ; on his death-bed, 
 when all the powers of superstition could be brought to bear 
 upoii him, their ascendency would naturally be increased, 
 and there was nothing more likely than that he should 
 execute an instrument appointing his favourite Beaton re- 
 gent of the kingdom. 
 
 But if the king had faith in the cardinal, the nobles had 
 not. They assembled, and ignoring all other pretensions, 
 they appointed the Earl of Arran, the next heir to the 
 crown after the infant Mary, to be regent.f There is no 
 weaker character in the history of these times. Successively 
 a puppet in the hands of the opposite factions, he is a man 
 whom we need not hate, but whom we may with propriety 
 despise. But, be this as it may, his elevation to the head of 
 the government was considered a great triumph to the re- 
 formed opinions, as he was known to favour them, and had 
 employed as his chaplains two Dominican friars, Thomas 
 Williams and John Eough, who had acquired a reputation 
 for their bold preaching against the errors and vices of the 
 Established Church. 
 
 * Sadler says that Arran assured him of this, (State Papers, vol. i. p. 138.) 
 t His office and title of Governor were conferred by the first parliament that 
 met. 
 
A.D. 1543.] DESIGNS OF HENKY VIII. 241 
 
 Meanwhile the intelligence of James's death reached the 
 court at London. Henry at once determined to renew his 
 favourite project of uniting the two crowns by a marriage 
 between the infant queen and his son Prince Edward. The 
 long-exiled Douglases set out on their journey to the north, 
 bound by feeling and interest to the English king. The 
 nobles who had been taken prisoners at the Solway, among 
 whom were the Earls of Glencairn and Cassillis, and the 
 Lords Maxwell, SomerviUe, Fleming, and Oliphant, were re- 
 leased from captivity, on solemnly swearing that they would 
 use their utmost efforts to obtain the consent of the Scotch 
 Parliament to the marriage, and the instant delivery into 
 Henry's hands of the royal child, and the principal fortresses 
 of the kingdom. The first proposal was politic and wise — the 
 truest patriot might have given his approval to it ; but the 
 other two were so ignominious that no independent people 
 could consent to them ; and it is too plain that the nobles 
 had basely agreed to purchase their own liberty by surrender- 
 ing the liberty of their country. 
 
 Beaton was too able and dangerous a man to be allowed 
 to be at large ; and the first act of Arran and his friends 
 was to get him into their power. He was known to corre- 
 spond with France : this was construed into treason ; the 
 cry of a French invasion was raised ; and the cardinal was 
 hurriedly seized and committed as a prisoner to Blackness 
 Castle. But the Church was still strong ; and a result fol- 
 lowed which probably was not anticipated. The churches 
 were everywhere closed ; no priest could be prevailed upon 
 to say a mass, to christen an infant, or to read the service 
 for the burial of the dead. It seemed as if the country had 
 been placed under an interdict. Notwithstanding the preva- 
 lence of the reformed opinions, there can be no doubt but 
 that this bold stroke of the papal party must have produced 
 a profound impression upon a people educated in the Komish 
 creed, and not yet emancipated from its power.* 
 
 On the 12th March 1543, the Three Estates assembled at 
 Edinburgh. They wisely agreed to the marriage* of Mary 
 to Prince Edward of England ; but like men who valued the 
 
 » Tytler, vol. v. 
 VOL. I. (J 
 
242 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [ciIAP. VIII. 
 
 ;' freedom they had inherited, they resolved that their young 
 I queen should not pass into England till she was ten years 
 'l of age, and that not one of their fortresses should be intrusted 
 ^ to Henry.* All the deliberations of the parliament on this 
 subject were characterized by prudence and patriotism ; and 
 I had it not been for the impetuosity of the English king, the 
 ; union of the crowns would have been anticipated by more 
 , than half a century. 
 
 ' On the 15th day of the month, being the third of the ses- 
 sion, this parliament took the first step toward the reforma- 
 tion of the Church, by authorizing the perusal of the sacred 
 Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. It was Lord Maxwell who 
 brought the matter before the Lords of the Articles, propos- 
 ing that " it should be statute and ordained that it shall be 
 lawful for all our sovereign lady's lieges to have the holy 
 writ, to wit, the New Testaraent and Old, in the vulgar 
 tongue, in English or Scotch, of a good and true translation, 
 and that they shall incur no crime for the having and read- 
 ing of the same," &c. Upon which the act proceeds — " The 
 Lords of Articles being advised with the said writing, find 
 the same reasonable ; and therefore think that the same 
 may be used among all the lieges of this realm, in our vul- 
 gar tongue, of a good, true, and just translation, because 
 there was no law shown nor produced to the contrary ; and 
 that none of our sovereign lady's lieges incur any crime for 
 having or reading of the same in form as said is ; nor shall 
 be accused therefore in time coming ; and that no person 
 dispute, argue, or hold opinions of the same, under the said 
 pains contained in the foresaid acts of parliament."f When 
 this bill was brought before the Estates, the Archbishop of 
 Glasgow protested, in his own name and of all the prelates 
 who might adhere to him, against its being passed into a 
 law " till a provincial council should be held of all the clergy 
 of the realm, to advise and conclude if the same were neces- 
 sary ."J Notwithstanding of the archbishop's protestation, 
 
 "■- Keith's History, book i. chap. iii. Tytler, vol. v. 
 
 t Acts of the Scottish Parliament, 15th March 1543. Keith's History, 
 book i. chap. iv. 
 
 J Keith's History, hook i. chap. iv. 
 
A.D. 1543.] THE PARLIAMENT AND THE BIBLE. 243 
 
 the bill was passed ; and instructions given to the Clerk of 
 Eegister to make proclamation of it at the market-cross. 
 
 It will be observed that this act affirms that there was no 
 law upon the statute-book against the reading of the Scrip- 
 tures in the vulgar tongue, and therefore it is simply 
 what would now be called a declaratory act. It did not 
 confer the privilege ; it merely declared that it already ex- 
 isted by the law of the land. It is certain, however, that 
 the clergy did not concede the lawfulness of every man per- 
 using the Scriptures for himself, and to have done so prior 
 to this period would have been construed into a crime. It 
 is fair, however, to remark, that Archbishop Dunbar founds 
 his protest not upon the wrongousness or illegality of the 
 measure, but upon its Erastianism. He deprecates legis- 
 lation in the parliament regarding matters which could be 
 properly dealt with only in the councils of the Church. Most 
 people, however, wiU be of opinion, that it would have been 
 long before a convocation of ecclesiastics would have passed 
 such a law, and will receive this measure of Church reform not 
 the less thankfully that it emanated from State legislation. 
 
 The act, with singular inconsistency, while it allows all 
 men to read the Bible, forbids them to form any opinion re- 
 garding it. It would have them read like machines — read 
 as machines can now write and print. It requires an im- 
 possibility. It has been construed, however, as referring 
 merely to opinions contrary to the authorized creed, and has 
 been thought a concession to the Established Church. But 
 much more probably it was the fully-expressed opinion of 
 the Anglican party in the parliament ; for in England men 
 were allowed to read the Bible, but if they there discovered 
 anything opposed to the royal faith, the discovery cost them 
 their head. The instant effect of the passing of the act is 
 described by Knox, with all the freshness of one who lived 
 at the time : — " Then," says he, " might have been seen the 
 Bible lying almost upon every gentleman's table. The New 
 Testament was borne about in many men's hands. We grant 
 that some, alas ! profaned that blessed Word ; for some that 
 perchance had never read ten sentences in it, had it most 
 common in their hand ; they would chop their familiars on the 
 
 q2 
 
 i 
 
244 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VIII. 
 
 cheek with it, and say, this hath lain under my bed-feet 
 these ten years. Others would glory, how oft have I been 
 in danger for this book ! How secretly have I stolen from 
 my wife at midnight to read upon it ! And this was done 
 of many to make court and curry favours thereby ; for all 
 men esteemed the governor to have been one of the most 
 fervent Protestants that was in Europe."* 
 
 The next scene in the drama is the Earl of Arran riding to 
 Callendar, meeting with Cardinal Beaton there, proceeding 
 with him to Stirling, going to the Church of the Franciscan 
 Convent, making confession, doing penance, getting absolu- 
 tion, received back into the bosom of the Holy Catholic 
 Church. How the cardinal had been liberated from his 
 prison no one could well explain. How the governor had 
 thus suddenly changed his opinions was a greater mystery 
 still. But people noted that shortly before this his illegiti- 
 mate brother, John Hamilton, Abbot of Paisley, had returned 
 from France, and they suspected that he had exercised that 
 mesmeric influence which strong minds always have over 
 weak ones. There was now no place found for John Eough 
 and Thomas Williams. Their declamations against licen- 
 tious monks, the idolatry of the mass, and the invocation of 
 saints, had lost their savour, and they were glad to flee for 
 their Jives. A coalition-government was formed, and the 
 vigour of its measures soon showed that it was Beaton and 
 not Arran who was its real head. 
 
 Meanwhile, a fleet of Scottish merchantmen had taken 
 refuge in an English harbour, and, depending on the treaty 
 of peace between the two nations, were in no hurry to depart. 
 With the grossest injustice, Henry ordered them to be seized 
 and their cargoes to be confiscated and sold.f The mercan- 
 tile classes of Scotland, now rising into importance, were 
 incensed to the uttermost ; they mobbed the house of Sadler, 
 and threatened his life. J The spark was soon fanned into a 
 flame, and the indignation was mutual. Disappointed at 
 the conditions which the Scottish Parliament had annexed 
 to the matrimonial alliance, Henry resolved to seek Mary 
 
 * Knox's Hist., book i. t Keith, book i. chap. iii. 
 
 I Robertson's History of Scotland, vol. i. book ii. 
 
A.D. 1545.] FRENCH AND ENGLISH FACTIONS. 245 
 
 for his son, with a sword in his hand — a bad way to woo a 
 woman. War blazed forth, and the two countries were 
 alternately ravaged. There was one new feature in these 
 desolating campaigns. TheEeligiousHouses, instead of being 
 spared as hitherto, were the first to be given to the flames. 
 The Protestants of England esteemed it peculiarly meri- 
 torious to butcher a monk, or to burn a monastery. In one 
 foray alone, conducted by the Earl of Hertford in 1545, no 
 fewer than seven monasteries and other Keligious Houses 
 were destroyed. Kelso, Dryburgh, Melrose, and Jedburgh 
 were laid in ruins.* 
 
 Francis I. gave a cordial and effective support to Cardinal 
 Beaton and his party ; the people were divided into the 
 French and English factions ; and the contest became little 
 better than a battle between France and England, fought 
 upon Scottish ground. Henry was bent upon uniting Scot- 
 land to England, by obtaining possession of her queen and 
 her fortresses. Francis saw it to be his interest if possible 
 to prevent this. The Protestants looked to Henry, the 
 Papists to Francis. Beyond all question, Popery in this 
 case was for the nonce allied with patriotism. The clergy 
 saw this, and made the best use of it. From pulpits, for- 
 merly silent, they uttered fierce invectives against the 
 truckling spirit that would sell country, birthright, liberty, 
 religion, to a brutal king, the murderer of his wives, the 
 desolator of their fairest provinces. They met at St An- 
 drews, raised money among themselves to carry on the war, 
 offered to melt down the church-plate, and to take the field 
 themselves, if need were, and fight for their hearths and 
 their altars.t While this loyal spirit pervaded the Papal 
 party, the Protestant nobles were pocketing pensions from 
 the English king, and pledging themselves to unite their 
 banners to his for the conquest of their fatherland. The 
 Earl of Glencairn gets L.250 yearly; his son. Lord Kil- 
 maurs, L.125. The Earl of Lennox gets a still more splen- 
 did bribe — the hand of the Lady Margaret Douglas, and 
 
 * Haynes' State Papers. Original paper quoted by Eobertson, Hist., vol. i. 
 book ii. 
 
 t Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 204. Tytler, vol. v. 
 
246 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. VUI. 
 
 considerable estates in England.* For this they sold their 
 country and themselves. 
 
 But we must revert to the triumphs and conflicts of Pro- 
 testantism, apart from state intrigues. The Earl of Arran, 
 immediately after his apostacy, caused it to be " propounded 
 in plane parliament," " how there is great murmurs that 
 heretics more and more rise and spread within the realm, 
 sowing damnable opinions, contrary to the faith and laws of 
 Holy Kirk ;" and gave exhortation to all prelates, each 
 within his own diocese, to inquire after such heretics, inti- 
 mating that he, as governor, would be ready at all times to 
 do his duty.t Thus armed with the whole political as well 
 as ecclesiastical power of the kingdom, the cardinal resolved 
 to strike terror into the Reformers by a signal example of 
 severity. The fair city of Perth, laved by the waters of the 
 Tay, had become noted for heresy. Thither Beaton made a 
 progress, taking Arran along with him. A number of per- 
 sons were cited before an ecclesiastical assize, and of these, 
 six — five men and a woman — were condemned to die. Eo- 
 bert Lamb was charged with interrupting the preaching of 
 a friar who was advocating the invocation of saints ; William 
 Anderson, James Eonald, and James Finlayson were in- 
 dicted for nailing two ram's horns to a St Francis's head, 
 attaching a cow's rump to his tail, and eating a goose upon 
 All-hallow evening ; James Hunter was charged with being 
 art and part with them ; and Helen Stark, the wife of James 
 Finlayson, was accused of refusing to pray to the Virgin 
 when in labour. J The men were hanged, and the poor wo- 
 man was drowned, being refused the small consolation, 
 which she earnestly desired, of dying in company with her 
 husband. 
 
 Before this terrible example was forgotten, the celebrated 
 martyr George Wishart was brought to the stake. Wishart 
 belonged to the family of Pittarrow, in the Mearns. We 
 first hear of him teaching a school at Montrose, and exhi- 
 
 * Keith's Hist., book i. chap. iii. A still more detailed acconnt of the pen- 
 sions received by the Scottish Protestant nobles will be found in Tytler's 
 History. 
 
 t Keith's History, book i. chap. iy. 
 
 I Spottiswood's History, book ii. Knox's Hist., book i. 
 
A.D. 1543.] GEORGE WISHAET. 247 
 
 biting his enlightened scholarship by instructing his pupils 
 in Greek. We next find him in England, preaching against 
 the invocation of the Virgin. For this he was seized and 
 condemned ; but he had not yet acquired the martyr's will- 
 ingness to die, and so he publicly recanted, and burned his 
 fagot in the church of St Nicolas at Bristol.* This occurred 
 in 1538, and in 1543 we find him at Cambridge, the interval 
 having probably been spent in Germany or France. We 
 have an interesting portraiture of him while there, given us 
 by Emery Tylney, one of his pupils. " He was a man of 
 tall stature, bald-headed, and on the same wore a round 
 French cap ; judged to be of melancholy complexion by his 
 physiognomy, black-haired, long-bearded, comely of person- 
 age, well-spoken after his country of Scotland, courteous, 
 lowly, lovely, glad to teach, desirous to learn, and was well 
 travelled ; having on him, for his habit or clothing, never 
 but a mantle or frieze gown to the shoes, a black millian 
 fustian doublet and plain black hose, coarse new canvass for 
 his shirts, and white falling bands and cuffs at his hands. 
 All the which apparel he gave to the poor, some weekly, 
 some monthly, some quarterly, as he liked, saving his French 
 cap, which he kept the whole year of my being with him."t 
 In July 1543 Wishart returned to Scotland 
 'in the company of the commissioners who had 
 gone to England to negotiate the marriage-treaty which was 
 to unite the kingdoms. J He instantly began to preach the 
 doctrines of the Eeformation. Montrose and Dundee lis- 
 tened to his eloquence. In the latter town the populace 
 were so excited by his invectives as to attack and destroy 
 the convents of the Franciscan and Dominican Friars. The 
 magistrates found themselves compelled to interfere, and 
 Wishart was interdicted from preaching. Upon this, he re- 
 tired to the western counties, where his friends were all- 
 powerful. Lennox, Cassillis, and Glencairn were there able 
 to defend him against all deadly, and secure him an entrance 
 into every parish church ; but to the honour of Wishart it 
 
 * Tytler, vol. v. 
 
 t Quoted in Fox's Book of Martyrs, book viii. sect. iv. 
 
 X Tytler, vol. v. 
 
24:8 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. vin. 
 
 must be told, that when any opposition was made to his 
 preaching in the church, he refused to allow force to be 
 used, and retired to the market-cross or the fields. He 
 preached at Barr, G-alston, Mauchline, and Ayr, generally 
 surrounded by armed men. Hearing that the plague had 
 broken out at Dundee, with great self-devotedness he hur- 
 ried thither, and was unwearied in preaching the gospel, 
 visiting the sick, and preparing the dying for death. While 
 thus employed, he received a message from the Earl of Gas- 
 sillis, that the gentlemen of the west wished him to meet 
 them at Edinburgh, for the purpose of having a public dis- 
 putation with the bishop. He at once obeyed the summons, 
 and proceeded southwards, but with the melancholy feeling 
 of the Apostle Paul when he went "bound in the spirit to 
 Jerusalem." He knew that Cardinal Beaton was bent upon 
 his destruction, and he was haunted by the dread of a cruel 
 death. But now he was prepared to meet it. * 
 
 On reaching Edinburgh, he foimd his friends had not 
 arrived, and it was thought expedient he should remain con- 
 cealed for a day or two. The truth is, men were afraid both 
 for him and themselves. But Wishart could not bear this 
 skulking from danger in so holy a cause, and preached at 
 Leith ; and afterwards, proceeding into East Lothian, he 
 was entertained by the Lairds of Brunston, Longniddry, and 
 Ormiston, who were all zealous reformers. While here, he 
 preached at Musselburgh, Inveresk, Tranent, and Hadding- 
 ton. On these occasions he was surrounded by the armed 
 retainers of his friends, and a two-handed sword was borne 
 before him. It was here that John Knox, now in his for- 
 tieth year, attached himself to his party, and immediately 
 obtained his confidential friendship. His office it was to 
 bear the two-handed sword. f At Haddington the congre- 
 gation was very small : it was plain that men's faith was 
 failing - through fear ; and, conscious of his approaching 
 doom, Wishart bid an affectionate farewell to his friends, 
 and proceeded to Ormiston House. Knox would have ac- 
 companied him, but this Wishart would not allow. " Nay, 
 
 * Knox'a History, book i. Tytler, vol. v. 
 
 t Tytler, vol. v. M'Crie's Life of Knox, Period II. 
 
A.D. 1546.] WISHARt's DEATH. 249 
 
 return to joui children," said he, " and God bless you. One 
 is sufficient for a sacrifice."* 
 
 Meantime Cardinal Beaton had come to Edinburgh, and 
 was there holding a synod for the correction of clerical 
 abuses. t Hearing that Wishart was in the neighbourhood 
 preaching Lutheranism, and sheltered by men whom he 
 knew to be his deadly enemies, he resolved upon his instant 
 apprehension. At midnight Ormiston House was surrounded 
 by a troop of cavalry, commanded by the Earl of Bothwell. 
 Wishart surrendered himself upon a solemn assurance from 
 Bothwell that he would not deliver him into the hands of 
 the cardinal, but would protect him from all harm. Both- 
 well's pledge was violated, and the victim of falsehood and 
 intolerance was hurried from Ormiston to Edinburgh, and 
 from Edinburgh to St Andrews. A convocation of the 
 dignified clergy was called ; Dunbar laid aside his ill-will to 
 Beaton, and came ; it was the old story of Herod's recon- 
 ciliation with Pilate before the victim was off'ered up.| But 
 still there was a difficulty in the way. By the canon law, 
 clergymen might not meddle in matters of blood. Beaton , 
 therefore, asked the governor to appoint a lay judge, who 
 might pronounce sentence of death upon "Wishart, in the 
 event of his being found guilty of heresy. But Arran re- 
 fused — the slave of the cardinal though he was, he would 
 not do this— he wrote strongly urging delay. But Beaton 
 was not a man to stick at trifies ; Wishart was arraigned 
 before a clerical tribunal ; his heresy was contained in 
 eighteen articles ; he was found guilty, and condemned to 
 die.§ 
 
 On the 1st of March 1646 a scaffold was erected 
 
 A.D. 1546. . 
 
 m the open space before the Castle of St An- 
 drews, and fagots of dried wood were piled around it. The 
 guns of the castle were brought to bear upon the spot, lest a 
 rescue should be attempted, as had been threatened in the 
 case of Hamilton. There George Wishart died. It is 
 affirmed by some of our historians that Beaton, Dunbar, and 
 other prelates beheld his sufferings from a balcony, and that 
 
 «• Knox's History, book i. f Kuox, book i. + Ibid. 
 
 5 Knox, book i. Buchanan, book xiv. 
 
250 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. VIII. 
 
 the martyr from tile midst of the flames, fixing his eyes upon 
 the cardinal, said, " He who, in such state, from that high 
 place, feedeth'his eyes with my torments, within a few days 
 shall be hanged out at the same window, to be seen with as 
 much ignominy as he now leaneth there in pride."* 
 
 The death of Wishart produced a powerful impression all 
 over Scotland. Some praised the cardinal for his seasonable 
 severity ; but a much greater number commiserated the fate 
 of one so modest, so eloquent, and so good. With these 
 expressions of sorrow there were mingled mutterings about 
 revenge ; men of birth were known to have declared at their 
 table that there must be life for life.t And so it was. 
 But there are circumstances which lead us to believe that 
 the threads of Wishart's and of Beaton's destiny were still 
 more closely intertwined. 
 
 The industry of Mr Tytler has brought to light documents 
 which prove beyond all doubt that for two years before this 
 a conspiracy had been formed to assassinate Cardinal Beaton. 
 On the 17th of April 1544, the Earl of Hertford transmits 
 to King Henry a letter from Crichton of Brunston, contain- 
 ing a proposal on the part of the Master of Eothes and 
 Kirkaldy of Grange, " to apprehend or slay the cardinal at 
 some time when he shall pass through the Fife-land." J This 
 letter was brought to Hertford, and by him transmitted to 
 Henry, by a Scotchman of the name of Wishart. The con- 
 spiracy slept for a year, when we find it again agitated by 
 the Earl of Cassillis, the friend and coadjutor of Brunston. 
 Besides other documentary proof, there is still in existence 
 a letter of the English privy council, dated May 30, 1545, 
 which refers to a letter from the Earl of Cassillis to Mr 
 Ealph Sadler, " containing an offer for the killing of the 
 cardinal, if his Majesty would have it done, and would pro- 
 mise when it were done a reward." There was nothing for 
 
 * This circumstance ia narrated by Buchanan, and it also occurs in tlie 
 modern editions of Knox's History ; but it is said not to be found in the first 
 edition, which has led some to doubt its genuineness. 
 
 t Knox's History, book i. 
 
 J The existence and authenticity of this letter were long questioned ; but 
 all doubts are now removed. The letter is in the possession of the Duke of 
 Hamilton. 
 
A.D. 1546.] CONSPIKACY TO MUEDER BEATON-. 251 
 
 which the English monarch was more anxious, as Beaton 
 was the great obstacle to the execution of his plans ; but he 
 did not like to give direct encouragement to the assassins, 
 or direct promises of reward, as it might compromise his 
 royal dig-nity, and all they could get was general encourage- 
 ment from his ambassador. Again the conspiracy slept ; for 
 the wages of iniquity had not been stipulated, the price of 
 blood had not been told down. But the plan was not given 
 up. In October the Laird of Brunston is once more in com- 
 munication with the English government ; '" hoping to God 
 that the cardinal's proposed journey to France will be cut 
 short," but insisting that " his Majesty must be plain with 
 them, both what his Majesty would have them to do, and 
 in like manner what they shall lippen to of his Majesty." 
 After this we are left in the dark ; the correspondence ap- 
 pears to cease, or at least is not preserved.* 
 
 But though the correspondence does not conduct us up to 
 the very day when the deed was done, it is quite sufficient 
 to prove that the Earl of Cassillis, the Master of Eothes, and 
 the Lairds of Brunston and Grange had entered into a foul 
 conspiracy to murder Beaton, and that this conspiracy was 
 fostered by the English monarch. If it be asked — Was George 
 Wishart connected with it ? it must be answered sorrow- 
 fully, there is a strong presumption that he was, though not 
 positive and conclusive proof. It is just possible that the 
 Wishart mentioned in the Earl of Hertford's letter may not 
 have been the martyr, but his close intimacy at that time 
 with every one of the conspirators leads one to suspect that 
 it was. Beaton himself knew that his life was in danger ; 
 and it is difficult to believe that Wishart was entirely igno- 
 rant of the character and intrigues of the men with whom 
 he was so intimately associated. We know that he lived in 
 constant dread of the cardinal, and frequently anticipated 
 his fate ; and when at last he was apprehended, it was at 
 Ormiston, from which one of Brunston's letters was dated, in 
 
 * The reader wiU find this strange mystery minutely traced in Tytler's 
 History, both in the text, and in an elaborate note appended to the fifth 
 volume. We may feel grieved at the dark discoveries he makes, but there is 
 no gainsaying the evidence he produces, and it is a weak thing to shut our 
 eyes against historic trath, because the sight of it pains us. 
 
252 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. vill 
 
 the company of Sandilands of Calder, from whose house a 
 second document had gone forth, and of Brunston, the chief of 
 the intriguers ; and they were all together, anxiously await- 
 ing the coming of the Earl of Cassillis and his friends from 
 the west. But in addition to this, we know that Wishart 
 frequently foretold the woes that were coming upon his 
 country, and even in the flames is said to have predicted the 
 cardinal's death ; and if so, his foreknowledge must have 
 been the result of his admission into the councils of the 
 conspirators and their English allies ; for the same reasons 
 which force us to deny miraculous powers to the Papal 
 Church, must lead us to refu.se them to our own. 
 
 But it will be asked — How is it possible to believe that one 
 so saintly as the martyr of Pittarrow could enter into so 
 murderous a plan ? The difficulty of belief arises from our 
 transferring the piety of the nineteenth to the sixteenth 
 century — the piety of men at ease, to men oppressed by 
 power, and by no means free of the ferocity of the feudal 
 times. We judge of the men that were then, by the men 
 that are now ; of the piety that was then, by the piety that 
 is now. Both were of a sterner kind, modelled more after 
 the examples of the Old Testament, than according to the 
 spirit of the New. The truth is, it was accounted right to 
 take vengeance on oppressors ; it was peculiarly the Lord's 
 work. To hew Agag in pieces, to smite the prophets of 
 Baal, to scatter the proud in the imaginations of their heart, 
 was a work to which the faithful were called, and which 
 they must not shrink from performing. This was shown by 
 the speech of Melville before passing his sword through the 
 body of the cardinal ; it is shown in the language vfith 
 which Knox records the event ;* and it is shown by the 
 Avhole history of the period. It were really more difficult to 
 believe that "Wishart could be free from these feelings, than 
 that he should be infected by them. 
 
 On the first of March, Wishart was burned. On the 
 
 evening of the 28th of May, Norman and John Leslie, 
 
 * Notwithstanding our admiration of Knox, we think it impossible to read 
 his indecent jests at the cardinal's death without extreme pain and disgust ; 
 and it is too evident from the whole narrative, that he approved of and ap- 
 plauded the murder. 
 
A.D. 154G.] CONSPIRATORS SEIZE CASTLE. 253 
 
 Kirkaldy of Grange, and James Melville of Carubee, with a 
 few friends and followers, entered St Andrews in different 
 parties, and took up their abode for the night at different 
 hostelries to avoid causing suspicion. The cardinal was 
 known to be in his castle, to which he had lately returned 
 from the marriage of his illegitimate daughter with the 
 eldest son of the Earl of Crawford. This fortalice was under- 
 stood to be of great strength, and at that very time ex- 
 tensive additions were being made to its means of defence. 
 Situated on the rock-bound coast, and washed on three of its 
 sides by the waves, it looked in one direction over the broad 
 bay merging into the German Ocean, and on the other side, 
 commanded the town, with its cathedral, priory, and col- 
 leges. Early in the morning the draw-bridge was lowered 
 to admit the workmen who were employed on the fortifica- 
 tions, and Norman Leslie and three friends entered with 
 them, and quietly inquired at the porter if the cardinal were 
 astir. Kirkaldy of Grange and James Melville, with a few 
 retainers, followed, without attracting notice ; but when 
 John Leslie and four attendants were seen approaching, the 
 porter took alarm, and would have raised the bridge, but 
 Leslie sprang forward, and in another instant the man was 
 stabbed and thrown into the ditch. The workmen and 
 servants were now led to the gate and dismissed, their 
 lives being threatened if they made the slightest noise ; and 
 in this way the castle was cleared of a hundred and fifty per- 
 sons by sixteen determined men. 
 
 Meanwhile the cardinal was sleeping, but being awoke by 
 the moving of men to and fro,he got up and inquired the cause. 
 On being informed that the castle had been surprised and 
 taken by the Leslies, he attempted to escape by a secret pos- 
 tern, but found it already secured ; he then retreated to his 
 room, and with the assistance of his chamberlain barricaded 
 the door ; but when a threat of fire was used, he opened it 
 and gave admission to the conspirators. John Leslie and a 
 man of the name of Peter Carmichael at once rushed upon 
 him and stabbed him with their swords. But James Mel- 
 ville, strangely characterized by Knox, when describing this 
 scene, as a man of nature most gentle and' most modest, in- 
 
254 CHUKCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. viii. 
 
 terposed and said — " Tliis work and judgment of God, 
 althougli it be secret, yet ought to be done witb greater 
 gravity ;" and then pointing to the unhappy cardinal with the 
 point of his sword, he said, " Eepent thee of thy former 
 wicked life, but especially of the shedding of the blood of 
 that notable instrument of G-od, Mr George Wishart, which 
 although the flame of fire consumed before men, yet cries it 
 for vengeance upon thee, and we from God are sent to re- 
 venge it. For here, before my God, I protest that neither 
 the hatred of thy person, the love of thy riches, nor the fear 
 of any trouble thou couldest have done to me in particular, 
 moved or moveth me to strike thee, but only because thou 
 hast been, and remainest an obstinate enemy against Christ 
 Jesus and his Gospel."* Having spoken thus, he struck 
 him with his stog-sword, and so he fell, the victim of a 
 mean and mercenary conspiracy, originating as much in 
 political as religious reasons, encouraged by a foreign poten- 
 tate, and ripened by revenge. 
 
 While this bloody tragedy was being enacted in the cardi- 
 nal's bedroom, the rumour had spread through St Andrews 
 that the castle had been seized. The town-bell was rung, 
 the magistrates and people hurried to the edge of the fosse 
 to inquire the truth, but would not believe the conspirators 
 when they declared to them from the walls that the cardi- 
 nal was dead. Devoted to Beaton, they became clamorous, 
 and to put an end to their cries, the murderers took the 
 bleeding corpse, and fastening it by one leg and an arm 
 to a sheet, they swung it over the wall, and then told the 
 people in mockery to see their god.f Shocked at this re- 
 volting spectacle of fallen greatness, the crowd quietly and 
 quickly dispersed. 
 
 Through the mists of three hundred years the form of 
 Beaton looms upon us — the greatest and the last of Eome's 
 champions in Scotland. He fell, and the Papacy fell with 
 him. To laud him as a religious man were idle, for he was 
 not even moral. Forbid by his Church the enjoyments of 
 
 * Knox's History, boot i. 
 
 t Letter of James Lindsay, a Scottish spy, to his employer Lord Wharton, 
 quoted in notes and illustrations to Tytler's History, vol. v. 
 
A.D. 154G.] CHARACTER OF BEATON. 255 
 
 wedlock, he lived in concubinage with Marion Ogilvy, who 
 was seen stealing from his room on the morning of his 
 murder ;* and in the marriage-contract of Margaret Beaton 
 with the Master of Crawford, he did not hesitate to desig- 
 nate her as his daughter.f But it were equally idle to deny 
 him the praise of being a great churchman and a great 
 statesman. As either, he reached to the highest position to 
 which a subject might aspire ; like Wolsey, he was a cardi- 
 nal-primate, and aU but a king ; and his government was 
 characterized by an energy, resolution, and sagacity, which 
 overcame every difficulty, and made reluctant barons suc- 
 cumb before a haughty ecclesiastic. He was indeed am- 
 bitious and unscrupulous in the attainment of the object of 
 his ambition ; but ambition is the sin of great minds. He 
 was a persecutor, and spilt the blood of the imiocent ; but he 
 did it in ignorance, believing that the safety of the Church, 
 of which he was the head, required severe measures to be 
 taken with the " heretics " who threatened its destruction. 
 Tried by the maxims of the New Testament, we cannot pro- 
 nounce him a good man ; tried by the maxims of the world, 
 we must pronounce him a great man. 
 
 * Knox, book i. f Keith, book i. 
 
256 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. ix. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Before proceeding to narrate the last struggle between 
 the new opinions and the old — ^between Protestantism rising 
 into vigour, and Popery, strong in its antiquity, its wealth, 
 and its legal establishment, but rapidly losing its hold on 
 the affections of the people, we wish to pause and take a 
 view of the Church of Scotland before its reformation — a 
 farewell look of the stately fabric before it fell. 
 
 The papal creed had attained to nearly its present develop- 
 ment, though it had not yet received the exact definition 
 which it soon afterwards did from the decrees and canons of 
 the Council of Trent. The Word of God was recognised as 
 the rule of faith and manners ; but this was held to include 
 not only the sacred Scriptures, but the traditions of Christ 
 and His apostles, as these were to be found in the writings 
 of the early fathers. The Jehovah of the Jews was recog- 
 nised as the Grod of the Christians, and the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, obscure to the former, was made clear to the latter ; 
 but the worship and honour due to the one God was given 
 to crosses and crucifixes, to paintings and statuary. As our 
 papal ancestors believed in the one God, so did they believe 
 in the one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ 
 Jesus ; but they regarded the virgin-mother, the apostles, 
 the martyrs, the saints, as intercessors too, and these, upon 
 their bended knees, they humbly invoked. They trusted to 
 the sacrifice made by our great High Priest upon the cross 
 of Calvary ; but instead of regarding it as the one sacrifice, 
 made once for all, they believed that every time the mass 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE EOMISH CEEED. 257 
 
 was celebrated a new sacrifice was offered for the sins of the 
 
 Uving and the dead. They believed in the forgiveness of 
 
 sins ; but instead of considering this as the free gift of divine 
 
 grace, appropriated by faith in Christ Jesus, they made it 
 
 result from the virtue of the sacraments as dispensed by the 
 
 Church. They beheved in the life everlasting ; but they 
 
 also believed that betwixt earth and heaven lay the yawning 
 
 abyss of purgatory, where sin unrepented of must be expiated, 
 
 and the soul tortured for centuries, unless relieved by the 
 
 masses and prayers of the priests. They believed in the 
 
 Holy Catholic Church ; but they restricted its members to 
 
 the Roman communion ; its priests were held to be the only 
 
 legitimate successors of the apostles ; and the sacraments, as 
 
 dispensed by their hands, and only theirs, were supposed to 
 
 operate like a charm in purifying the soul from sin. In 
 
 baptism, our nature was regenerated ; in the eucharist, the 
 
 bread and wine were transubstantiated into the actual body 
 
 and blood of Christ ; in penance, all crimes committed after 
 
 the laver of baptism were pardoned ; and in extreme unction, 
 
 the parting spirit was so purged from human defilement as 
 
 to be fit to enter at once into the presence of the Holy One 
 
 who inhabiteth eternity. 
 
 In this creed, the true and the false, the sublime and the 
 absurd were strangely interwoven, and it was undoubtedly 
 the one that preserved the other, as the solid columns of the 
 old cathedrals sustained the grotesque figures of imaginary 
 angels and demons, monsters and men, that grinned from 
 their corbels on the worshippers below. In so far as it places 
 an earthly priesthood in the room of the Great High Priest 
 who has passed into the heavens, and puts the pardon of 
 sin and the keys of paradise into their hands, it may be re- 
 garded as partly an invention of the Church to aggrandize 
 itself, and as partly an expression of human feeling; for 
 under all systems of faith man has shown an inveterate ten- 
 dency to be pious by proxy, and to get the stated ministers 
 of religion to pray for him, to believe for him, to make re- 
 conciliation for him. He will rather pay another to do this 
 for him than earnestly do it himself. 
 In order that the faithful might worship on consecrated 
 VOL. I. R 
 
258 OHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 ground, every parish had its church, and every bishop's seat 
 its cathedral. How noble some of these structures were 
 their remains do still testify ; but it were wrong to imagine 
 that all the ecclesiastical buildings in Scotland were on a 
 similarly magnificent scale. Most of the parish churches 
 have perished through the mere waste of time, but from 
 those that remain — some entire, and some in ruins — we may 
 infer that they were not in general more imposing than 
 those which now shelter the Protestant worship.* To these 
 the faithful were accustomed to resort, not to hear sermon, 
 as with us, but to be present at the office of the mass, or 
 some other Church-service, to say their prayers before the 
 figure of some favourite saint, or to make confession to the 
 priest. It would appear that then, as now, other motives 
 than those which religion approves took people to church ; 
 for Dunbar, in his poem of the " Two Married Women and 
 the Widow," makes his widow describe herself as repairing 
 to church in her weeds, spreading out her book, illumined 
 with gold, upon her knee, drawing her cloak forward on her 
 face, and from behind it stealing glances at the knights and 
 clerks who were at their devotions beside her. 
 
 Preaching had, in a great measure, fallen into desuetude 
 amongst the secular clergy. The parsons seldom preached; 
 the bishops never. Kennedy of St Andrews appears to have 
 been an exception, for it is recorded of him that he preached 
 four times a-year in every parish in his diocese, and com- 
 
 * Dunbar, in Ms vain longings for a benefice, declares that lie would be 
 content with a church thatched with heather : 
 
 *' Greit abbais grayth I niU to gather, 
 But ane kirk scant coverit with hadder; 
 For I of lytil wald he fane, 
 Quhilk to consider is ane pane," 
 
 Poem on the W&rl(Fs Insidbilitk. 
 
 " We have a fervid description," says the Quarterly Review, " of the beauty 
 of the chancel of Dollar in Clackmannanshire in 1336, but the chronicle does 
 not conceal that the building was only of hewn oak. "We know that at the 
 same date the chancel of Edrom in the Merse was thatched with straw. Nor 
 does there appear cause to believe that the great mass of the parish churches 
 were in much better state, either in that age or until long after the Reforma- 
 tion." (Quarterly Review, June 1849.) 
 
 The First Book of Discipline confirms this, by requiring that the kirks be 
 repaired with thacJc or sclait, chap. xv. 
 
CHAP. IX.] THE PREACHING FRIARS. 259 
 
 pelled his subordinate clergy to remain at their parish kirks, 
 to preach the Word of G-od to the people, and visit them 
 when they were sick ; and, more effectually to enforce this, 
 he was in the habit of catechizing the parishioners, on his 
 visitations, if they were duly instructed by the parson or 
 vicar, if the sacraments were regularly administered, the 
 poor sustained, and the youth brought up in godliness.* Ken- [ 
 nedy must have been a light shining in a dark place. There : 
 were not many that followed his example. But the neglect 
 of preaching by the seculars was in some respects compen- 
 sated for by the friars. They were in the constant habit of 
 preaching to the people. The popularity of the Dominicans 
 rested in a great measure upon their preaching. One of 
 their names pointed to their work — they were caUed fratres 
 predicantes. Accordingly we have frequent allusions to 
 preaching in ante-Eeformation times. Dunbar, the poet, who 
 was brought up as a friar, boasts of having preached in the 
 pulpit at Canterbury, t In 1508 we hear of a Scottish doctor 
 expounding the Epistles of St Paul at St Paul's Cross ; and 
 in 1513 Dr West, the English ambassador, writes: "When 
 the passion was preached, and the sermon done, the queen 
 sent for me."J Sir Ealph Sadler was first introduced to Mary 
 of Guise in the Chapel of Holyrood, where she was, with a 
 number of her ladies, hearing a sermon in French. This 
 was on a Friday, between nine and ten in the morning. On 
 the Sunday following, the ambassador resorted to the palace 
 to exhibit the geldings which Henry had sent for the ac- 
 ceptance of James. Again he was taken to the chapel, and 
 again he found the queen at a sermon.§ Before Wishart was 
 
 *" Lindsay's History, p. 69. 
 
 t Gif evir my fortune was to be a fieir, 
 
 The dait thairof is past full mony a yeir, 
 
 For unto every lusty toun and place 
 
 Of all Tngland, from Berwick to Calaice, 
 
 I haif into thy habit maid gud chair, 
 
 In freiris weid full fairly haif I fleichit, 
 
 In it haif I in pulpet gane and preichit, 
 
 In Demtown kirk, and eik in Canterbury, 
 
 In it I past at Dover our the ferry ; 
 
 Throw Picardy, and thair the peple teichit. 
 I Pinkerton, vol. ii. g Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i. pp. 22-40 
 
 r2 
 
260 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 impeached and tried, Winram, the Sub-prior of St Andrews, 
 preached a sermon upon heresy to the assembled clergy and 
 people;* and in 1552, eight years before the Eeformation, 
 an act of the Scottish Parliament imposed fines upon those 
 who should interrupt divine service and preaching of the 
 Word of God ; f an act which seems too plainly to intimate 
 that the Eeformers had already begun rudely to disturb the 
 established worship. 
 
 The discourses of these monkish orators, we may well 
 believe, were not such as would now be applauded: they 
 embodied not the Christianity that now is, but the Chris- 
 tianity that then was received in the churches. They were 
 generally composed of silly legends about fabulous saints, 
 the pains of purgatory, and the virttres of the mass. But 
 Knox makes one of his reforming preachers ridicule sermons 
 of a more homely and practical kind. " The priest," saith 
 he, " whose duty and office is to pray for the people, standeth 
 up on Sunday and crieth, Anne hath lost her spindle ; there 
 is a flail stolen behind the barn ; the goodwife on the other 
 side of the gate hath lost a horn spoon ; God's curses and 
 mine I give to them that knoweth of the goods and restoreth 
 them not."J Such an oration as this may well be regarded 
 as deficient in the dignity that becomes the piilpit ; but yet, 
 if it conduced to honour and honesty, it subserved one of 
 the great ends of preaching. 
 
 After the Church-service was ended, the Sabbath was not 
 regarded as peculiarly sacred. It was common to hold mar- 
 kets and fairs upon it ; and the rustic, after hearing mass at 
 the altar, retired to the ale-house to sell his meal, or haggle 
 about the price of a horse.§ In other cases, the parson fol- 
 lowed his parishioners to the church-yard, to witness their 
 skill in archery, II or join in their laughter at the frolics of 
 
 * Knox's History, book i. f Mary, pari. v. c. xvii. + Knox's History, book i. 
 
 I After the Reformation tbere were several acts of parliament forbidding 
 markets or fairs to be held on Sabbath ; and even before the Reformation 
 legislation was tried, but failed. 
 
 II James I., pari. i. chap, xviii., provides " That all men busk them to be 
 archers, from ten years of age and upwards, and that in each ten pounds of 
 land there be made bow marks, especially near to parish churches, wherein 
 upon holydays men come, and at least shoot thrice about." 
 
CiiAP. IX.] SABBATH OBSERVANCE. 261 
 
 Eobin Hood and Little John.* Shops, hostelries, and places 
 of amusement were open ; and it was nothing unusual for 
 the courts of law to sit upon a Sunday. f The way in which 
 the Sahbath was kept is very well illustrated by an incident 
 already referred to. It was on a Sunday morning Sir Kalph 
 Sadler was ordered to attend his Majesty James Y. with the 
 horses sent to him from the stud of his royal uncle of Eng- 
 land. When the ambassador arrived he found the courtly 
 circle in chapel, devoutly engaged ; but no sooner was the 
 service over than the horses were brought into the palace- 
 court, and mounted by a groom ; while his Majesty and his 
 nobles from a window admired their action. Festival-days 
 would seem to have been very generally set apart for fairs ; 
 and thus a prudent compromise was made between religion 
 and business. J 
 
 After the Reformation, Acts of Parliament were passed 
 forbidding markets to be held upon a Sunday, and discharg- 
 ing the people from gaming, playing, or resorting to taverns 
 during divine service ;§ but still it would seem that the 
 customs of the country partly continued, for long afterwards 
 we find Acts of Parliament and Acts of Assembly levelled 
 against them. In 1591 the General Assembly complains 
 of the profanation of the Sabbath by Eobin Hood plays. || 
 
 Pilgrimages to shrines of reputed sanctity were regarded 
 as peculiarly meritorious, and constituted an important part 
 of the piety of the times. Conspicuous among the places of 
 pious resort was Whitehorn, where Ninian had reared his 
 white church of stone by the waters of the Solway. But in 
 later times this celebrated shrine was eclipsed by the Chapel 
 of our Lady of Loretto at Musselburgh. Here were a famous 
 image of the Virgin, and a holy hermit who pretended to 
 
 *■ The game of Eobin Hood was generally celebrated on a Sabbath in May. 
 t Dalziel's Cursory Eemarks on " ane Book of Godly Sangs," p. 9. 
 
 I Fair is a corruption of feriffi, a festival-day. 
 
 j Jac. VI., pari, vi., chap. Ixx. So early, in fact, as the reign of James IV., it 
 was ordained that no markets or fairs should be held upon holidays, or within 
 kirks or kirk-yards. (James IV., pari. vi. c. Ixxxiii.) Legislation failed to put 
 down a habit which had become inveterate. 
 
 II Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 356. 
 
262 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 work miracles. It was to this shrine that James V. made 
 a pilgrimage from Stirling, in 1536, to secure a blessing 
 tipon his journey to France in search of a queen. But 
 crowds of young men and women from Edinburgh were 
 continually tripping their way to Musselburgh, more bent, 
 as satirists affirm, upon love than devotion* 
 
 Eeligious processions formed another conspicuo^ls feature 
 of the period, as they do in all papal countries in the present 
 day. Yearly, on the 1st of September, the image of St Grile 
 was borne through the streets of Edinburgh, with the sound 
 of tabret, trumpet, and clarion ; and the populace uncovered 
 their heads as it passed, and the more devout went down 
 upon their knees in the gutters. But as the reformed opin- 
 ions spread, it was a common trick to break into sanctuaries 
 and steal away the images ; and in this way St Gile was got 
 hold of, first drowned in the North Loch, and afterguards 
 burned. When his day came round, and his procession 
 must be made, an image was borrowed from the grey friars, 
 which the populace at once nicknamed Young St Gile. 
 This young saint was fastened with nails upon a species of 
 ambulance, called afertor, and so wheeled down the High 
 Street, amid friars, priests, canons, trumpeters, tapers, ban- 
 ners, and bagpipes — the queen regent herself walking at the 
 head of the procession. But as the procession returned home- 
 wards, a cry got up, " Down with the idol ; down with it ;" 
 and instantly the fertor was seized, and the image thrown 
 into the mire. " Then might have been seen," says Knox, 
 who narrates the incident with infinite satisfaction, " so sud- 
 den a fray as seldom hath been seen among that sort of men 
 within this realm ; for down go the crosses, off go the sur- 
 plices, round caps, cornets, with the crowns. The grey friars 
 gaped, the black friars blew, the priests panted and fled, 
 and happy was he that first got the house." t This was in 
 
 * " I have sene pass ane marvillous multitude — 
 Young men and women, flingand on tliair feit, 
 Under the forme of fenzeit sanotitude, 
 For till adore ana image in Laureit ; 
 Mony came with thair marrowis for to meit," &c. &c. 
 
 Lyndsay's Monarchic. 
 t Knox's Historj', book i. p. 275. 
 
OIIAP. ix.J MYSTERIES. 263 
 
 1558, and was probably the last time that the streets of the 
 metropolis were perambulated by St Gile. 
 
 The Eomish priesthood well knew that the multitude are 
 pleased with spectacles ; and probably they also knew that 
 a rude populace can be most easily instructed by represen- 
 tations which appeal to their senses. They were therefore 
 in the habit of occasionally exhibiting, partly for the amuse- 
 ment and partly for the edification of their flocks, a kind of 
 religious dramas, called Mysteries. In these, some of the 
 striking incidents of Scripture were delineated, and acted 
 in the manner of a play ; in which the players were priests, 
 and the dramatis personce the most holy and reverend names 
 connected with religion. They were sometimes performed 
 in a church, but more frequently in the open air ; and the 
 audience were kept attentive for eightor nine hours, and some- 
 times for two or three days together, by the alternation of pious 
 speeches and ribald conversations. Some of these Mysteries 
 have been preserved, and they afford us a curious glimpse of 
 the times. The Abbotsford Club have published a volume 
 from the Digby MSS.,* and from them we shall endeavour 
 to illustrate the nature of these singular prodactions. 
 
 There is one entitled " Candlemas Day," in which Herod, 
 Joseph, Mary, Simeon, Anna, angels, and soldiers are the 
 principal characters introduced. There is another called the 
 " Conversion of Saul," in which the Deity, Saul, Ananias, 
 Caiaphas, Belial, Mercury, priests, poets, and knights are 
 brought upon the stage. But the one which gives us the 
 best idea of the genuine Mystery bears the name and refers 
 to the history of Mary Magdalene. Lazarus, Martha, and 
 Mary, are the children of a King Syrus, who, at his death, 
 divides his possessions amongst them. Mary, who is pos- 
 sessed of such beauty and virtue as to endanger hell, inherits 
 a castle, which is forthwith besieged by the Seven Deadly 
 Sins. She sets out for Jerusalem with a servant who has 
 assumed the name of Luxury, but whose real name is 
 
 » Ancient Mysteries from the Digby MSS. "The first drama in Scotland 
 whereof we have any satisfactory evidence was a mystery called the Haly 
 Blude, which was acted at the Wind Mills at Aberdeen in 1445, as we know 
 from the city records." (Chalmers's Preface to Lyndsay's Poems.) - 
 
264 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAJnTD. [chap. IX. 
 
 Lecliery. They go to a tavern where the best wine is set 
 before them ; a gallant, called Curiosity, is introduced, and 
 Mary, after a dance with him, falls into his power. At her 
 ruin all the devils of hell rejoice. But a good angel comes 
 to her assistance. She meets the great prophet Jesus in the 
 house of Simon the leper, confesses her sins, and in her deep 
 penitence washes his feet with her tears, and wipes them 
 with her hair. Jesus tells her to go in peace, upon which, 
 according to the stage directions, the seven devils leave her, 
 and the bad angel " enters into hell with thunder." Imme- 
 diately Satan summoned his imps, and questioning the evil 
 spirit how he suffered Mary to break her bonds, he inflicts 
 upon him and the seven devils a sound beating for their 
 negligence. The death and raising of Lazarus, and the 
 death and resurrection of Christ, are next dramatized ; after 
 which, Mary is instructed by the angel Eaphael to proceed 
 to Marseilles, to convert the king of the country. " Here 
 enters a ship with a merry song," and while they are striking 
 the sail and letting go the anchor, an obscene conversation 
 takes place between the shipman and his boy ; but Mary 
 bargains with them to take her to Marseilles, and thither 
 they proceed. By signs and miracles the king is converted, 
 and enjoined to proceed to the Holy Land to be baptized by 
 Peter, which is accordingly done. Mary finally retires into 
 the wilderness ; where she is ministered unto by angels and 
 fed with manna, visited by an old priest, and finally received 
 up into heaven. To sum up all, a priest appears upon the 
 stage, and after making a speech, calls upon the clerks, "with 
 voices clear," to sing a "Te Deum," and so the curtain drops. 
 From the number of characters introduced, the varied 
 scenes in which they appear, and the minute stage directions 
 sometimes given, we would imagine that a very extensive 
 theatric wardrobe, and a very complete scenic apparatus, 
 would be required for the representation of such a piece. 
 The scene is now in Bethany, now in Jerusalem ; now in 
 Marseilles, now in a vessel tossed upon the sea ; at one time 
 in heaven, at another in hell ; and in fifty other places beside. 
 One of the directions is : " Here shall enter the prince of 
 devils in a stage, and hell underneath ;" and it would seem 
 
CHAP. IX.] THEATEICAL EUBEIC. 265 
 
 that hell was then usually represeDted by a monstrous 
 mouth with a movable jaw, which, when opened, showed 
 flames within. Into this devouring mouth the devils finally 
 sink to their " fellows black." Another stage direction is : 
 " Here shall two angels descend into the wilderness, and 
 other two shall bring an oble,* openly appearing aloft in the 
 clouds ; the two beneath shall bring Mary, and she shall 
 receive the bread, then go again into the wilderness." But 
 notwithstanding this reference to terrestrial and celestial 
 machinery, we may safely conclude that the whole apparatus 
 was scanty and rude, and that a vast deal was left to the 
 imagination of the audience. The first distinct information 
 which we have of the paraphernalia of our ancient stage is 
 from the records of the Town Council of Edinburgh in 
 1554, in which the treasurer is ordained to pay to Walter 
 Bynning five lib. for making of the playground, painting the 
 hand-scenes and the players' faces, and for preserving, so as 
 to be forthcoming to the town when required, eight play- 
 hats, a king's crown, a mitre, a fool's hood, a foxis, a pair of 
 angels' wings, two angels' hair, and a chaplet of triumph. 
 
 Such representations we would now regard as positively 
 blasphemous ; but they were not so regarded by our fore- 
 fathers. It is impossible to conceive that they were designed 
 to turn religion into ridicule, or to treat its sanctities with 
 levity or contempt. They were acted in all seriousness. 
 The sense of the decorous alters with the times. Painting- 
 put forth her first effort upon Scripture incidents ; and did 
 not hesitate to pourtray the Trinity upon her canvas. The 
 modern drama, in like manner, originated in the Church, 
 and its first scenes were borrowed from the Bible. 
 
 But these theatricals were sometimes taken out of the 
 hands of the clergy, and converted by the people into comic 
 parodies upon the rites of religion. When inclined for 
 frolic, it was not uncommon for the laity to elect some 
 " lord of the revels, who, under the name of the Abbot of 
 Unreason, the Boy Bishop, or the President of Fools, occu- 
 pied the churches, profaned the holy places by a mock imita- 
 
 ••••■ A Mnd of wafer-cake, sweetened with honey, and generally made of the 
 finest wheaten bread. 
 
266 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IX, 
 
 tion of the sacred rites, and sung indecent parodies on hymns 
 of the Church."* The clergy, singularly enough, tolera- 
 ted these profane exhibitions, probably because they knew 
 they occupied the attention, and afforded an outlet for the 
 coarse humour of the populace, and were not really intended 
 to cast dishonour on religion. We have an instance of this 
 Saturnalian licence in 1547, when a macer of the Primate 
 of St Andrews appeared at Borthwick with letters of excom- 
 munication against its lord, which the curate was required 
 to publish at the service of high mass in the parish church. 
 The inhabitants of the castle happened at the time to be 
 engaged in the sport of acting the Abbot of Unreason. 
 With this mock dignity at their head, they laid hold of the 
 unhappy macer, ducked him once and again in the mill-dam, 
 and then compelled him to eat his parchment letters, made 
 'palatable by being steeped in wine. These licensed frolics, 
 at first deemed harmless, were afterwards persevered in by 
 the people, as the Eeformation drew near, to turn the cere- 
 monies and of&cers of the Church into contempt, and this 
 has furnished Sir Walter Scott with some of the most graphic 
 chapters in his " Abbot." 
 
 It is difficult to ascertain the amount of personal piety 
 which existed among our papal ancestors, and thus learn 
 the inner life of the Church. " The kingdom of God cometh 
 not with observation." Unable in many cases to determine 
 the piety of our most intimate friends, it is hopeless to arrive 
 at any very definite conclusions in regard to the piety of the 
 masses three centuries ago. It must be admitted, though 
 with pain, that false objects of worship, as well as the true, 
 are capable of exciting devotional feeling, and that it is not 
 always in the purest churches that there is most of the out- 
 ward appearance of piety. The Hindu and the Moslem, 
 after their own fashion, are as devout as the Christian ; the 
 Romanist, when prostrate before a crucifix, may exhibit as 
 much earnestness as the Protestant when bowing before the* 
 Father of Spirits. If we judge by external tests, and it is 
 these only we can apply, we shall not judge harshly of the 
 piety of our forefathers. They waited diligently upon all 
 * Sir Walter Scott, Note to the Abbot, 
 
CHAP. IX. J ANCIENT OATHS. 267 
 
 the rites of the Church, and they showed their sincerity by 
 the great liberality with which they endowed its ministers. 
 They undoubtedly lived under a sense of religion, in hope 
 of its rewards and in fear of its punishments ; and in the 
 letters and other documents of the period which have come 
 down to us, there are more references to religious topics than 
 would be found in most of the epistolary correspondences of 
 the present day. It is impossible to refrain from lamenting 
 that so much devotional feeling should have been wasted on 
 worthless objects ; that virgins resplendent in tinsel and lace 
 should have received the homage due only to God ; but still 
 it is impossible to doubt but that much true piety continued 
 to exist, notwithstanding the circumstances unfavourable to 
 its growth, and that many prayers breathed in papal shrines 
 from humble hearts found an echo in heaven. 
 
 The Saxon tongTie has ever been fruitful in oaths. Protes- 
 tantism has not been able to eradicate the evil ; but it sprung 
 up in Eoman Catholic times ; and the swearer's vocabulary 
 was still more voluminous then than it is now. The follow- 
 ing are a specimen of the more common forms : — By the 
 Trinity, by God's passion, by God's wounds, by God's cross, 
 by God's mother, by God's bread, by Him that wore the 
 crown of thorns, by Him that herryit hell, by the rood, by 
 the Sacrament, by the mass, by my soul, by my thrift, by 
 our Lady, by Allhallows, by St James, by St Michael, by 
 St Gile, and so on, by all the saints in the calendar. Such 
 expressions as these were copiously introduced into every 
 conversation, and do not appear to have been regarded as 
 very improper, for they were perpetually used in the pre- 
 sence of the clergy without rebuke. Lindsay's play is full 
 of them, and it is from it that these examples have been 
 culled. 
 
 But with the dawn of the Eeformation, a change for the 
 better appears. On the 1st of February 1551, an Act of Par- 
 liament was passed against " them that swear abominable 
 oaths.'' This curious act sets forth " that notwithstanding 
 the oft and frequent preachings in detestation of the grievous 
 and abominable oaths — swearing, execrations, and blasphe- 
 mation of the name of God, swearing in vain by his precious 
 
268 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. IX. 
 
 blood, body, passion, and wounds, devil stick, cummer, gore, 
 roist or riefe tbem, and such like ugly oaths and execra-- 
 tions, against the command of God, yet the same is come 
 into such ungodly use amongst the people of this realm, 
 both of great and small estates, that daily and hourly may be 
 heard amongst them open blasphemation of God's name." * 
 To remedy this state of things a scale of fines is framed to 
 suit the circumstances of different defaulters. If a bishop 
 or lord were caught swearing, he was to be mulcted in 
 twelve pence ; a baron or beneficed man in four pence, and 
 so on. A poor man, who had nothing to pay, was to have 
 his feet put in the stocks, and women were to be rated ac- 
 cording to their blood or marriage. Thus did a parlia- 
 ment of Mary attempt to cure this unprofitable vice, before 
 her queenly cousin of England began to box the ears of her 
 ministers, and to swear those horrid oaths which we shudder 
 to read. 
 
 In the absence of all statistics on the subject, it is almost 
 as difficult to form a proper estimate of the morality as of 
 'the religion of a by-gone age. It were wrong to conclude 
 that our ancestors were immoral, because they were Eoman 
 in their faith and rude in their manners. A country, though 
 Catholic, may be virtuous ; and it is very questionable it 
 refinement, though it deprives vice of its grossness, robs it 
 of its power. There is an immorality of the country and an 
 immorality of the city. Unfortunately very little of our 
 ancient literature is descriptive of ancient manners. Dunbar, 
 in his " Two Married Women and the Widow," gives a 
 horrid picture of female libertinism, but the poem is plainly 
 a satire on the sex, and, like all other satires, is evidently 
 stretched beyond the truth. Lindsay, in his " Squire Mel- 
 drum," gives us some interesting pictures of home life, in 
 which there is mingled evil with good. In some cases the 
 morality of a country may be gathered from the spirit that 
 pervades its literature. The poems, novels, and plays of the 
 age of Charles II. simply mirror the existing manners ; no 
 other age could have produced them, no other generation 
 would have read them. If we look to this test we shall find 
 * Mary, pari, v., 1st February 1551. 
 
CHAP. IX.] LITERATURE OF THE TIME. 269 
 
 that the ante-Reformation literature of Scotland is often 
 grossly indecent, but it does not breathe a licentious spirit. 
 Lindsay's " Satire on the Three Estates " was acted at Lin- 
 lithgow in presence of the king and his newly-wedded 
 queen, the bishops, and a large concourse of lords and 
 ladies ; and yet it has language and scenes most abominably 
 immodest. But this argues rather a coarseness than a dis- 
 soluteness of manners. Persons in the lower walks of life 
 sometimes use phrases and make speeches which give a 
 shock to all our ideas of propriety ; but this is very far from 
 proving anything like impurity of feeling or incorrectness of 
 conduct on their part. Amongst our uneducated and re- 
 mote peasantry, we may find reproduced, with but slight 
 alterations, the generations that lived three centuries ago. 
 As there are hills among the Cordilleras where we may see 
 assembled together the vegetations of every climate under 
 heaven, from the sugar-cane at the base to the lichen on the 
 highest peaks, so we may discover as contemporaneous, if we 
 are allowed to range over sufficient space, the customs and 
 civilisations of all the epochs embraced by history. 
 
 The ministers of religion before the Reformation were not 
 the men to exercise the best influence upon the morals of 
 the people. In the exercise of the Church's patronage 
 gigantic evils had arisen, which urgently called for reform. 
 The whole system had become rotten. We have seen the 
 efforts made by successive monarchs to prevent the purchase 
 of benefices at Rome. They never succeeded: the abuse 
 continued till the very last ; and a foreigner annually disposed 
 of many of the best livings in Scotland, and by the pur- 
 chase-money which he received made a country naturally 
 poor poorer still.* The presentees of the king and nobles 
 received their appointments from motives equally mean and 
 
 * Lindsay speaks as if the practice were on the increase : — 
 "It is schort tyme sen ony benefice 
 Was sped in Rome except greit bischopries ; 
 Bot now for ane unworthie vickarage, 
 Ane priest -will rin to Rome in pilgrimage, 
 Ane carell wbilTr T^as never atthe scule, 
 Will rin to Home and kelp ane bischopis mule, 
 And syne cam liame, with mony colorit crack. 
 With ane burden of benefices on his back." 
 
 Satyre o/tlie Tliree Estaitis, 
 
270 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. IX. 
 
 t mercenary. The livings of the Church came to be regarded 
 
 •; just as a means of endowing a younger son, providing for a 
 
 ; bastard, enriching a favourite, or paying the arrears of wage 
 
 I due to a servant.* In 1513 the archbishopric of St Andrews 
 
 was held by a bastard son of James IV., and in 1547 the same 
 
 dignity was possessed by the bastard brother of the Earl of 
 
 Arran,Governor of the Kingdom. James V., in 1538, bestowed 
 
 five of the richest monasteries in Scotland on his natural 
 
 children, albeit they were little better than babies ; and even 
 
 before this, one of them had held several benefices. t When 
 
 such was the way in which promotion in the Church was 
 
 obtained, we need not wonder that the clergy degenerated, 
 
 if not in exterior accomplishments, at least in the virtues 
 
 which become those who minister at the altar. 
 
 Pluralities had likewise prodigiously increased.| The 
 great dignitaries of the Church set the example, and besides 
 their bishoprics, held abbacies, priories, and parishes, for the 
 sake of their revenues. Forman and Beaton were notorious 
 for this. Every one grasped as many livings as he could; 
 and if the teinds were got hold of, there was little thought 
 of the cure of souls. Another sacrilegious practice had 
 arisen — bestowing abbacies and priories in commendam.% 
 The commendator need not be a man of learning and piety ; 
 he need not be in holy orders at all ; he drew the revenues 
 without being able to discharge the duties of the office. If 
 the abbot was a commendator, the prior did the work ; if 
 
 * " And him that gaits ane parsonage, 
 Thinks it a present for a page." 
 
 Dtjnbak's Complaint. 
 t Balfour's Annals. Pinkerton, vol. ii. 
 
 t " I knaw nocht how the Kirk is gydit, 
 Bot benefices ar nocht leil devydit ; 
 Sum men hes seven, and I nocht ane, 
 Quilk to considder is ane pane." 
 
 DuNBAE — World's InstaUKtie. 
 See also his poem. The Fest of Benefyce. 
 
 § Lyndsay stigmatizes this abuse also in his satire ; but he lets the courtier 
 get the better of the reformer when he proposes there should be an exception 
 in favour of the blood-royal. The truth is, his patron James V. was noto- 
 riously guilty of the practice. 
 
 Of the twenty abbots and priors that sat in the parliament that effected the 
 Reformation, fourteen were commendators. (Keith, book i. chap, xii.) 
 
CHAP. IX. J LICENTIOUSNESS OF THE CLERGY. 271 
 
 the prior was a commendator, the sub-prior was at hand. 
 In a previous part of our history we have adverted to yet 
 another evil — the appropriation of parishes, patronage, 
 teinds, everything, by Eeligious Houses, who appointed a 
 vicar to serve the cure, or perhaps had the duties perfunc- 
 torily discharged by one of their own sodality. The parish 
 priest in this way lost much of his respectability, independ- 
 ence, and income, and the tenth sheaf and the tenth lamb 
 went to fatten the useless inmates of some distant monas- 
 tery. These things might be tolerated in times of mental 
 stagnation ; but it was certain that so soon as men began to 
 think, and inquire, and judge, and condemn, the system must 
 perish. The tree stands stately and erect in the summer's 
 calm, though there be rottenness at the heart ; but with the 
 first breath of the hurricane it goes crashing to the ground. 
 We cannot conceal, though we willingly would, the gross 
 licentiousness of all ranks of the clergy. Denied by the 
 stern ordinance of their Church the enjoyment of wedlock, 
 and unable to repress the instincts of their nature, they 
 sought relief either in systematic concubinage, or in the 
 seduction of the wives and daughters of their parishioners. 
 The temptation to crime was increased by the confessional, 
 where the celibate was required to hear from the warm lips 
 of a woman the inmost secrets of her heart and the strangest 
 passages of her life. Accordingly, the ancient canons of the 
 Scottish Church cautiously enjoined the confessor, when con- 
 fessing a female, not to look her too often in the face.* But 
 canons were powerless, and councils strove in vain, to repress 
 the growing immorality of the clergy. When the Bishop 
 of Aberdeen ordered the dean and chapter of his See to hold 
 a council to devise means for preventing the growth of 
 heresy, the council besought his lordship " to cause the 
 Churchmen reform their shameful lives, and remove their 
 open concubines ; and that he would have the goodness to 
 show an example, by abstaining from the company of the 
 gentlewoman with whom he was greatly slandered." f Chis- 
 
 * Canons of the Churcli of Scotland, cap. Ivii. 
 
 t A copy of this document will be found in the Appendix to Dr Cook's 
 History of the Reformation. 
 
272 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. ix. 
 
 holme, the last Roman Bishop of Dunblane, had both sons 
 and daughters, to whom he sacrilegiously alienated the pos- 
 sessions of his See. We have already seen Beaton marrying 
 his daughter to the Master of Crawford, and we know that 
 his son and namesake received a grant of the lands of Baky.* 
 His successor in the primacy, as Knox takes care to inform 
 us, fell into the same sin ; and so concluded the papal apos- 
 tolical succession at St Andrews. 
 
 When harlotry thus occupied the high places of the 
 Church, we need not be surprised to find it in the gloom of 
 cloisters, and amid the seclusion of rural parishes. The 
 poetry of the time represents the vice as all but universal. 
 Lyndsay lashes unmercifully parish priests, monks, friars, 
 nuns — the taint was on them all ; and making all allow- 
 ance for the excesses of satire, we must conclude that the 
 clergy were not exemplars of chastity to their flocks. Be- 
 fore the suppression of the monasteries in England, they 
 were visited by a royal commission, which made the most 
 revolting revelations of all conceivable and inconceivable 
 crimes ; and though some of their statements were after- 
 wards proved to be false, and probably the whole narrative 
 was exaggerated to subserve the purpose in view, it is diffi- 
 cult to resist the conviction that many Eeligious Houses had 
 become dens of iniquity. Henry pressed upon James, that 
 unless the monks of Scotland were more holy than those of 
 England, nowhere did there reign " more abominations than 
 were used in cloisters among monks, canons, nuns, and 
 friers ;" but all that James would admit was contained in 
 his answer to the ambassador : " God forbid that if a few be 
 not good, for them all the rest should be destroyed. Though 
 some be not, there be a great many good ; and the good may 
 be suffered, and the evil must be reformed, as ye shall hear 
 that I shall see it redressed in Scotland, by God's grace, if I 
 brook life." Such were the different views of monasticism en- 
 tertained by the two monarchs. The one imagined it might 
 be reformed, the other thought it only worthy to be destroyed. 
 
 * Pinkerton, vol. ii. p. 416. I imagine thia to be identical with Blebo, 
 near St Andrews, still held by the Bethunes or Beatona. 
 
CHAP. IX. J LITERAET ATTAINMENTS OF THE CLERGY. 273 
 
 "Every plant," said Sadler, solemnly, " which my Father hath 
 not planted shall be plucked lip."* 
 
 Very different estimates have been formed of the literary 
 attainments of the Scottish clergy prior to theEeformation. 
 Some have maintained they were grossly ignorant, others 
 that they were, compared with the age in which they lived, 
 well-educated and intelligent. The difference of opinion 
 has arisen from trying them by different standards, and 
 having regard to different departments of literature. It 
 must be conceded that in general they were ignorant of the 
 contents of the Bible, and probably many of them had never 
 once seen a copy of it. Luther was upwards of twenty, and 
 in the convent of Erfurth, before he knew anything of the 
 Scriptures ; there he found a copy fastened by a chain, and 
 began to study it. The Church had substituted the missal 
 and breviary in the place of the Scriptures, and hundreds of 
 the clergy knew only so much of the sacred oracles as were 
 contained in these compilations. But it would be wrong- 
 to infer from this that they were ignorant of all theologj'-. 
 Unacquainted with the theology of the psalter, the gospels, 
 and epistolary, they were versed in the theology of the 
 missal, the pontifical, and the Hours of the blessed Virgin. 
 Their text-books of divinity were different from ours, but 
 still their text-books they had. Their knowledge, like their 
 faith, was that of the time. 
 
 It must be remembered that printing had not been long 
 invented, and that books were still scarce, so that the 
 acquirements of the ecclesiastics must in general have been 
 confined within a narrow circle. The libraries of the mon- 
 asteries, the only ones then in existence, were accounted 
 rich if they contained a hundred volumes.f Nevertheless, 
 
 * Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i. p. 31. 
 
 t In the Priory of Lochleven there were but seventeen volumes. In the 
 library of Glasgow Cathedral in 1432, we find the following catalogue of 
 books : — 1 missale, 9 missalia ; 1 epistolare ; 1 catholicon ; 2 legenda sanc- 
 torum ; 1 biblia pulchra ; 7 breviaria ; 5 psalteria ; 7 antiphonaria ; 3 gradalia ; 
 5 processionaria ; 1 coUectarium ; 1 ordinarium ; 2 libri poutificales ; and a 
 few others. These, we are told, were distinguished by their colour, their size, 
 the number of their volumes, or the place where they were deposited, some 
 being chained to stalls or beside altars, and others preserved in chests or 
 presses. See Introduction to Breviary of Aberdeen, Maitland Club Ed. 
 
 VOL. I. S 
 
274 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 many of our ancient clergy were well read in the scholastic 
 and patristic divinity, and sorhe of them had extended their 
 acquaintance to the Latin classics. Every age produced 
 authors of whom we need not be ashamed ; and the Refor- 
 mation found Lesley, Official of Aberdeen, whose history of 
 Scottish affairs does honour to himself and his order. It 
 may be safely concluded that the clergy in general were 
 acquainted with the Latin tongue, and that many of them 
 were able to write it and speak it with ease. The whole 
 services of the Church were conducted in Latin, the whole 
 literature of the day was contained in Latin, and therefore 
 they must have known Latin if they knew anything. If 
 we go beyond professional acquirements, and inquire into 
 the general intelligence of the body, we shall find reason to 
 believe that they were still, as a whole, the best educated and 
 most intelligent portion of the community. It was this 
 that enabled them so long to keep their ground. To try 
 themi by the present standard of intelligence were unfair ; 
 we must try them by the standard which then existed,- we 
 must compare them with the age in which they lived.- A 
 school-boy in the nineteenth century may know more than 
 a doctor of divinity in the sixteenth, and yet that doctor 
 have been perfectly worthy of his degree. " To be plain 
 with you," says Sir Ralph Sadler, in a letter to a member of 
 the English Privy Council, " though they (the Scottish 
 nobles) be well-minded, and diverse others also that be of 
 the Council and about the king, yet I see none amongst 
 them that hath any such agility of wit, gravity, learning, or 
 experience to set forth the same, or to take in hand the 
 direction of things. So that the king, as far as I can per- 
 ceive, is of force driven to use the bishops and his clergy as 
 his only ministers for the direction of his realm. They be 
 the men of art and policy that I see here ; they be never out 
 of the king's ear."* 
 
 But even though this be the testimony of an enemy, we 
 
 must take it with some qualification, and regard it as chiefly 
 
 applicable to the higher clergy, whose abilities procured 
 
 them employment at court. There were prodigious dis- 
 
 * Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 47. 
 
CHAP. IX.] REVENUES OF THE CLERGY. 275 
 
 parities iu the Roman Church, from the lordly prelate who 
 rode to parliament on his ambling mule, to the starvling of 
 a priest who mumbled obits and masses for forty merks a 
 year. This disparity in rank produced a corresponding- 
 disparity in intelligence. The beneficed clergy, and tlie 
 heads of the Religious Houses, generally belonged to good 
 families, and frequently had the benefit of a foreign educa- 
 tion. The monks, on the other hand, were mostly taken 
 from the peasantry, and, as a general rule, had only such a 
 scanty acquaintance with letters as they could acquire at 
 the conventual school, Before the invention of printing the 
 most slender intellectual acquirements, the ability to con 
 a lesson or wield a pen, placed a wide gulph between the 
 clergy who could perform these literary feats and the laity 
 who could not. But the introduction of this marvellous art 
 bridged over the gulph, by spreading education among the 
 nobles, the barons, and the wealthier burgesses. To read 
 and write was no longer a marvel. The clergy did not push 
 on and maintain their distance ; and the sceptre which 
 superior knowledge had placed in their hand departed from 
 them. In a council which met under the presidency of 
 Archbishop Hamilton in 1549, the growth of heresy is im- 
 puted to the dissolute lives of the clergy, and their gross 
 ignorance in all arts and sciences,* 
 
 The clergy were chiefly supported by their lands and 
 tithes. They held their lands by the same titles as the lay 
 proprietors ; and though some envied them their large pos- 
 sessions, it was only as some now envy the broad territories 
 of our overgrown nobility. The wealth they had acquired 
 by private bequests did not entail any burden on the gene- 
 ral community ; while the Church's tenants were notoriously 
 the most lightly rented in the whole country. Sir Richard 
 Maitland, in one of his poems, pours forth a lament upon 
 the change which was felt when the lands passed into the 
 hands of the temporal lords.f One should imagine that the 
 * Hailes's Provincial Councils. 
 
 t " Sum with deir ferme are herreit hail, 
 
 That wount to pay but penny maill ; 
 
 Sum be tliar lordis are opprest, 
 
 Put fra th land that they possest ; 
 
 s 2 
 
276 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 lifting of the tithes must have been felt as a grievance, ex- 
 tending as they did to every conceivable kind of produce — 
 grain, wool, milk, cheese, eggs, venison, fish, the young of 
 animals, the multure of mills, the fruit of trees, the clearings 
 of woods, &c. &c.* But Lyndsay, who rakes together every 
 known grievance in his Satire, says little of this, so that we 
 may conclude the tenantry had come to regard it as a part 
 of their rent, and probably, so long as religious unanimity 
 prevailed, felt a devout gratification in contributing to the 
 maintenance of their ghostly fathers. 
 
 But there was another exaction which was universally 
 felt as a hardship, and we cannot wonder that it was so. It 
 was called the corse present. When death visited a family, 
 the violence of grief was scarcely allowed to subside, till the 
 parson came, and carried off the best cow and the upper- 
 most cloth. t When deprived of a husband, a widow woman 
 might thus be robbed of her only remaining means of sup- 
 port. Lyndsay, in his play, introduces a poor man who has 
 been bereaved successively of his father, his mother, and his 
 wife, and who complains that on each occasion the vicar had 
 taken a cow by the head and led her away ; and to com- 
 plete his misfortunes, the landlord had seized the grey mare, 
 which brought a foal every year and carried coals to Edin- 
 burgh, as his heryeild, or fine on the death of a vassal ; and 
 now he had neither cow nor mare, and was bent on feeing 
 counsel with his only remaining groat, and seeking remede 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Sum commoTins that has been weil statit 
 Under kirkmen, are now all wrakit, 
 Sen that the teind and the kirklands 
 Came in great tempiral mennis hands," &o. &c. 
 Complaint againis Oppression of the Commouns — Maitland's Poems. 
 Maitland is borne out by the First Book of Discipline. " With the griefe 
 of our hearts we heare, that some gentlemen are now as cruell over their 
 tenants as ever were the papists, requiring of them the teinds, and whatsoever 
 they afore paid to the Kirk, so that the papistical tyranny shall only be 
 changed into the tyranny of the lord and laird." (Chap. viii. sect, ii.) 
 
 * Connel on Tithes, vol. iii. pp. 17, 18 — where wiU be found a number of 
 extracts from the Canons of the Church of Scotland regarding tithes. 
 
 t The uppermost cloth seems to refer to the coverlet of the bed ; but what 
 the parson could do with his accumulation of coverlets is a mystery and a 
 marvel. The custom was not coniined to Scotland. 
 
CHAP. IX.] EEFORMATION INFLUENCES. 277 
 
 at law. He was told, however, that he was a mad fool to 
 think he would get redress against Churchmen, or that he 
 could escape an extortion, which, though not founded on 
 law, could plead a long consuetude. 
 
 There was yet another way in which money was raised — 
 hy the sale of indulgences and of relics.' The Pardoner per- 
 ambulated the country like a hawker, selHng his sealed in- 
 dulgences and his mouldy bones to those who were simple 
 enough to buy them. There were also clerke-maile, teind- 
 ale. Candlemas offerings, Pasche offerings, fees for baptism 
 and the burial of the dead, and the rich harvest which ac- 
 crued for saying masses for souls in purgatory. In addition 
 to all these sources of revenue, there was the mendicancy of 
 the mendicant friars, and the plenty in which they lived 
 proved that they did not appeal to the sympathies of the 
 people in vain. 
 
 Such, as near as we can gather, was the state of the Church, 
 when it became evident to many that a great rehgious revo- 
 lution was approaching. Many causes were concurring to 
 hasten it. Ever since the days of Wickliff, there were 
 men who, without separating from the membership of the 
 Church, saw and grieved over its abuses, and yearned for a 
 return to the simplicity of primitive Christianity. The seed 
 was in the soil, and waited only a favourable season to ger- 
 minate. The Reformation in Germany awakened ideas in 
 Scotland which pointed to reformation too. Communities 
 strongly sympathize with each other, especially in periods 
 of excitement. The throbbings of one heart pulsate through- 
 out the whole system. Every vessel that crossed the Ger- 
 man Sea brought the contagion of German heresy to our 
 shores, for every vessel brought Bibles, theses, sermons, the 
 " Praise of Folly" from the witty pen of Erasmus, or the 
 " Confession of Augsburg " from the mild pen of Melancthon. 
 The Eeformation in England had a still more decided in- 
 fluence upon Scotland.* Henry used every means, both fair 
 and foul, to induce the Scottish nation to copy the example 
 he had set. He tempted our needy king with the prospect of 
 
 * In Sage's Charter of Presbytery this influence is traced with greiit labour 
 and learning, and we now know more than Sage did. 
 
278 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. IX. 
 
 enjoying the plunder of the Church, and he kept our still 
 more needy nobles in his pay. While Angus, Cassillis, and 
 G-lencairn were in England, they had seen private gentlemen 
 become great lords, and great lords become greater still, 
 through their share of monastic spoil ; and it is impossible 
 to doubt, from their conduct, that their avarice prepared 
 their minds for the reception of the principles of the Eefor- 
 mation. In tracing a great politico-religious movement like 
 this, it is strange to remark how the base mingles with the 
 noble, and vice leagues herself with virtue, and how God 
 overrules all — making the very wrath, and selfishness, and 
 sins of men to praise Him. 
 
 Amongst the agencies employed to spread the Eeform 
 opinions, one of the most effective was poetry. The power 
 of poetry upon a primitive people has passed into a proverb ; 
 and modern poetry had no sooner sprung into existence 
 than she began to rail against the clergy and the Church. 
 Dante boldly placed a pope in hell, and represented Satan 
 as impatiently waiting the arrival of another. Chaucer let 
 loose all his powers of laughter against the monks and friars, 
 and his poetry was read and praised, while sermons not half 
 so damaging would have been burned. Dunbar, though 
 himself an ecclesiastic, did not refrain from satirizing eccle- 
 siastical abuses. In some of his minor poems he attacks 
 the prevalence of pluralities, and the character of those who 
 obtained Church preferments ; and though envy and disap- 
 pointment sharpened his shafts, it is evident they were 
 aimed at actual objects. In his "Friars of Berwick" we have 
 a ludicrous tale of a holy abbot who was too intimate with 
 a farmer's wife, the exquisite humour of which must have 
 been keenly relished by a generation disposed to enjoy a 
 joke at delinquent Churchmen. 
 
 But Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount, though inferior to 
 Dunbar as a poet, was the great scourge of the Koman 
 clergy. In almost every one of his poems he has either some 
 sly hit or some fierce assault upon them. His " Complaint 
 of the Papingo," " Kitty's Confession, " and his " Satire on 
 the Three Estates," were specially written to turn into 
 ridicule and bring into disgrace the whole order. Tlie 
 
CHAP. IX.] POETET. 279 
 
 king's papingo or parrot has fallen from the top branch of a 
 tree and is dying. Instantly she is surrounded by the pye — 
 a canon-regular, the raven — a black monk, and the gled — a 
 holy friar. They bewail her misfortune, press upon her the 
 need of confession, and suggest she should leave all her 
 goods to their care, that masses may be said for her soul 
 after she is gone. But the papingo has still enough of 
 strength left to read them a long lecture upon the decline 
 of the Church, and upon their greed, idleness, sensuality, 
 and other sins. They, however, persuade her in the end to 
 allow herself to be shrived, and to consign her body and 
 property to their charge, and then before she is well dead 
 they fall out among themselves about the division of the 
 sj)oil. "The Papingo "is the most finished and pointed of 
 Lyndsay's satires. In " Kitty's Confession" we have a dia- 
 logue between the curate and a country girl at the confes- 
 sional. She acknowledges herself to have violated more 
 than one of the commandments, and when asked about 
 heresy, she ingenuously confesses she did not know what it 
 meant. But when further pressed if she had ever seen any 
 English books, she acknowledged she had seen her master 
 reading some ; and there can be no doubt but that it was 
 Tyndale's Translation of the New Testament that was re- 
 ferred to. The curate finally tells her she must come to his 
 house in the evening in order to be absolved. " The Pa- 
 pingo" was written in 1530, and printed at London, by Byde, 
 in 1538. " Kitty's Confession " is supposed to have been 
 written in 1541, just previous to the passing of Lord 
 Maxwell's Act allowing the Bible to be read in the vulgar 
 tongue. 
 
 The " Satire on the Three Estates" is a kind of play, and 
 was evidently modelled after the Mysteries or Moralities 
 which were sometimes acted in the Papal Church. Eex 
 Humanitas is brought upon the stage, with Solace, Placebo, 
 and Wantonness for his attendants. They bring to him 
 Sensuality, whom they describe as a lady of wonderful 
 beautj'-. After this Deceit, Falset, and Flattery disguise 
 themselves in cowls and frocks, and in the character of friars 
 fresh from France, they manage to get themselves introduced 
 
280 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 to the King, under the names of Devotion, Sapience, and 
 Discretion. Verity is next brought upon tiae stage, bearing 
 a New Testament in her hand ; and she makes a speech ex- 
 horting all rulers in Church and State to enforce their laws 
 by a virtuous life. Her presence causes a commotion among 
 the friars, and they apply to Spirituality. Abbot advises she 
 should be accused of heresy and banished the reahn. Par- 
 son recommends that while the King is in the leading-strings 
 of Dame Sensuality, all Lutherans should be destroyed, 
 and especially Verity. It ends vrith her being laid hold of 
 and thrust into the stocks. Verity is no sooner disposed of 
 than Chastity appears, wandering to and fro, unable to find 
 a home. Diligence directs her to the prioress of a nunnery, 
 but the prioress turns her at the door, and recommends her 
 to seek shelter from some old monk or prelate. Disconsolate 
 she wanders forth again, and in tarn asks for a lodging from 
 Spirituality, Abbot, and Parson, but she is everywhere re- 
 pulsed. As a last resource she seeks the King, but his 
 attendants lay hold of her, and put her feet in the stocks 
 beside Verity. King Correction is now marched upon the 
 stage, and having made a speech, he is welcomed by Good 
 Counsel. The first thing they do is to set Verity and 
 Chastity free, and then proceeding together to the King, 
 they persuade him to dismiss Sensuality and his other evil 
 counsellors, and to take G-ood Counsel, Verity, and Chastity 
 into his service. A parliament is now summoned to ratify 
 abuses ; and so ends the first act. 
 
 In the second act. Pauper, after certain frolics, begins to 
 bemoan himself, having been robbed by Death of three rela- 
 tives, and by the Vicar of three cows, as the corse presents. 
 Next comes the Pardoner, vending his indulgences and 
 relics, and soon gathers a crowd about him. Pauper fool- 
 ishly parts with his last groat for a pardon ; but when he 
 finds that it is nothing substantial, but a mere verbal form, 
 he demands back his money, and when it is refused there is 
 a fight. In the next scene, the Three Estates appear walking 
 backwards toward the king, by which mode of locomotion it 
 was signified, as we are informed, that everything in Church 
 and State was going wrong. Coming into the presence of 
 
CHAP. IX.] SATIRE OF THE THREE ESTATES. 281 
 
 his Majesty, they turn their faces to him ; and Spirituality, 
 Temporality, and Merchant, in turn, deliver a loyal address. 
 Kex declares his resolution to make a thorough reformation 
 in the kingdom ; and Diligence is despatched to make pro- 
 clamation that every one who had any grievance should 
 come and make it known. John, the Commonweal, appears 
 naked and in distress, and presents his list of grievances. 
 He complains of the multitudes of idlers in the kingdom, 
 including the monks and friars, and concludes that they 
 who do not work should not eat. He complains of the corse 
 presents as oppressive to the poor ; and Pauper strikes in, 
 and narrates his own case in illustration of what had been 
 said. He complains of the gold and silver that were taken 
 out of the country to buy benefices at Eome, and that neither 
 parsons nor bishops employed themselves in preaching. 
 Spirituality and Abbot foam and rage, threaten to burn 
 both Commonweal and Pauper, and bring the whole matter 
 before the Pope ; but it is nevertheless resolved that correc- 
 tion should be made, and that henceforward none but cunning- 
 clerks who could preach to the people should be promoted 
 to benefices. Verity and Chastity next make their plaints. 
 A doctor of the new divinity gives a specimen of a sermon ; 
 fifteen acts, corrective of abuses, are passed ; Common Thief, 
 Deceit, and Falset are hanged; and after a discourse by Folly, 
 the play is brought to a close. 
 
 The " Satire of the Three Estates " was first acted at Cupar- 
 Fife, in 1635 ; it was afterwards acted in the playfield at Lin- 
 lithgow, by the express command of the king, on the day of 
 Epiphany 154:0 ; and it was a third time presented near Edin- 
 burgh, in 1554, in jjresence of the queen-regent, the nobility, 
 and a great concourse of people. The student now reads the 
 play quietly in his closet, and he finds in it enough of pungent 
 satire to reward his pains ; but he also meets with passages 
 which make him marvel how it was possible that such words 
 could be spoken, and such scenes represented, in the pre- 
 sence of the young Mary of Guise, her maids of honour, and 
 a mixed assemblage of princes, prelates, and nobles. It is 
 too evident there must have been at the period a coarseness 
 of sentiment, language, and manners among our highest 
 
282 
 
 CHURCH HISTOliY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. 
 
 classes whicli are now scarcely to be found amongst our 
 lowest. In truth, such a representation would not now be 
 tolerated by the lowest rabble in the lowest theatre. 
 
 But it is still more marvellous that a play, specially de- 
 signed to degrade the clergy, by heaping upon them all pos- 
 sible calumnies, should haye been tolerated at such a time, 
 and acted in the presence of a monarch understood to be 
 peculiarly favourable to the Established Church. The most 
 obvious explanation is, that it was written and acted at the 
 request of the king, in order to lead to the reformation of 
 the clergy, by setting their sins before their eyes, — and pro- 
 bably to prepare them for some legislative measures which 
 he contemplated. G-overnment measures are now frequently 
 heralded by a leader in the "Times" or the "Morning 
 Chronicle ;" and though James had no such organ at his 
 disposal, he had the poetic genius of the Lyon-King. 
 Lyndsay entered into the service of James on the day of his 
 nativity. He was his principal page, his sewer, cupbearer, 
 carver, treasurer, and chief cubicular, — an office which con- 
 sisted in keeping the bed-clothes comfortably about the 
 prince, and sleeping by his side. As James grew older, it 
 was Lyndsay's duty to amuse him by bearing him on his 
 back, making all kinds of antics, counterfeiting all kinds of 
 beasts, and singing all kinds of songs.* 
 
 In this way did the prince grow up under the eye of the 
 poet till he was twelve years of age, and we know that he 
 ever afterwards regarded him with affection. What more 
 likely than that he should request him to satirize the clergy. 
 James was not blind to their vices ; he was bent on their re- 
 form. He wished to purify the Church, though he wished 
 to preserve it. We know he employed the celebrated George 
 Buchanan to lampoon the Franciscans ; how much more 
 likely that he should ask Lyndsay to lampoon the whole 
 ecclesiastical body. We may be certain that the lyon-king 
 would not have written what he did without knowing that 
 it would find favour with his Majesty. He was too fond of 
 his places and pensions to do otherwise. The whole design 
 
 ' We have all this very pleasantly described in his Dreme, and also in 
 liis Complaynt. 
 
CHAP. IX.] METAMOSPHOSIS OF PROFANE SONGS. 283 
 
 becomes more apparent when we find Sir William Eure, in 
 a letter to the Lord Privy Seal of England, dated 26tli 
 January 1540, stating, that he had learned from a person 
 who was present at the play, that immediately after it was 
 concluded the king sent for the Archbishop of Glasgow and 
 some other bishops, and exhorted them to mend their ways, 
 or that he would send six of the proudest of them to his 
 uncle of England, and that as these were ordered so would 
 he order all the rest.* The whole thing, including this after- 
 piece, had evidently been preconcerted ; and it heightens our 
 ideas of the prudence and policy of the king to find him 
 thus anxious, by the powers of satire, to correct ecclesiastical 
 abuses, and gently prepare the way for a change. 
 
 John Wesley thought it was a pity that the devil should 
 have all the best tunes, and accordingly he had his Methodist 
 hymns set to some of those exquisite melodies which had 
 hitherto been wedded to words of profane meaning. Our 
 Scottish Eeformers must have cherished a similar sentiment 
 when they compiled their " Compendious Booke of Godly 
 and Spirituall Songs, collected out of sundrie partes of the 
 Scripture, with Sundrie of other Ballates changed out of 
 Prophaine Sangis for avoyding of sin and harlotrie."t The 
 Komish priesthood are said, by a little change in the drapery, 
 to have converted Pagan deities into Christian apostles. Our 
 forefathers exhibited an equal ingenuity when, by a little 
 change in the words, they converted these profane ballads 
 into spiritual songs. Who was the alchymist who thus 
 transmuted dirt into gold cannot now be discovered ; but 
 these singular productions are said to have been sung with 
 enthusiasm by our ancestors, and to have spread amongst 
 a people who could sing, but could not read. Reformation 
 ideas. Their spirit proves their epoch. They breathe a 
 fierce hostility against the Eomish idolatry, expose the vices 
 of the clergy, inveigh against the pope, the cardinal, and 
 the queen -regent, complain of cruel usage and violated 
 treaties, and in many ways point to the period immediately 
 preceding the Eeformation, The Eoman clergy were not 
 
 s This letter will be found in the Appendix to Pinkerton's History, 
 t These were republished in 1801 by John Graham Dalzoll, advocate. 
 
284 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. IX. 
 
 slow to retaliate, and in this case they retaliated in a legiti- 
 mate way. A ballad ridiculing the Protestant faith, and the 
 English for embracing it, was in wide circulation, and some 
 poetic parson was reputed to be its author.* The Scottish 
 nobles, who had sold themselves to Henry, were celebrated 
 in song as having been seduced by English angels, t Knox 
 himself informs us that a servant of the Bishop of Dunkeld 
 wrote a " despiteful railing ballad against the governor and 
 the preachers, for which he narrowly escaped hanging."! 
 
 These metamorphosed ballads, which, from all accounts, 
 had such an influence in fanning the devotional feelings of 
 our fathers, would now be regarded as nothing but parodies. 
 A few specimens will illustrate the religious taste of the 
 times. There is one entitled " The Conception of Christ," 
 which runs thus : — 
 
 Lat us rejoyce and sing, 
 And praise tliat mighty King, 
 WMlk sent his Son of a Virgin bright. 
 La, Lay, La. 
 
 And on Him tuke onr vyle nature. 
 Our deidlie wounds to cure, 
 Mankind to hold in right. 
 
 La, Lay, La. 
 
 There is another, which shows the antiquity and transfor- 
 mations of a song still known : — 
 
 Quho is at my windo' ? who ? who '? 
 Goe from my windo' ; goe, goe, 
 Quha calles there, so like ane stranger ? 
 Goe from my window, goe. 
 
 Lord I am heir, ane wratched mortall, 
 That for Thy meroie dois crie and call. 
 Unto Thee, my Lord celestiall. 
 See who is at my window, who, &c. &c. 
 
 * Letter from Sir Thomas Wharton to the Lord Privy Seal of England, 23d 
 December 1540, quoted in Dalzell's Cursory Remarks. 
 
 t " The Earl of Glencairn prayed me," says Sadler to Henry VIII., " to 
 write to your Majesty and to beseech the same for the passion of God, to en- 
 courage them so much as to give them trust, for they were already commonly 
 hated here, for your Majesty's sake, and throughout the realm called the English 
 lords ; and such ballads and songs made of them, how the English angels 
 (coins) had corrupted them, as have not been heard." (Sadler's State Papers, 
 vol. i. p. 167.) 
 
 J Knox's History, vol. i. 
 
CHAP. IX.] EEFORMATION BALLADS., 285 
 
 These were understood to be purely devotional, but there 
 were others which breathed a spirit of defiance to Rome. 
 
 The Paip, that pagane full of pryd, 
 
 Hee hes us blinded lang ; 
 
 For where the blind the blind doe gyde, 
 
 No wonder both goe wrang. 
 
 Of all iniquitie, 
 
 Like prince and king, hee led the ring. 
 
 Hay trix, trim goe trix, under the green-wode-tree. 
 
 The blind bishop he could not preich 
 
 For playing with the lassis ; 
 
 The sUly frier behuifit to sleech 
 
 For almous that he assis ; 
 
 The curate his creid he could not reid, 
 
 Shame fall the company. 
 
 Hay trix, trim go trix, &c. &c. 
 
 Of Scotland well the friers of FaiU, 
 The limmery lang has lastit, 
 The monks of Melrose made gude kaill. 
 On Fryday quhen they fastit, &c. &c. 
 
 The following is in a more playful spirit ; — 
 
 God send every priest ane wife. 
 And every nunne a man. 
 That they may live that haly life, 
 As first the kirk began. 
 
 Sanct Peter, quhom none can reprufe, 
 His life in mariage led ; 
 All gude priests quhom God did lufe, 
 Their maryit wyfea had, &c. &c. 
 
 Or, again — 
 
 Priestes, pray no more 
 To Sanct Anthone, to save your sow, 
 Nor to Sanct Bride to keipe your cow ; 
 That grieves God right sore. 
 
 Priestes, worship God, 
 And put away imagerie, 
 Your pardons and fraternitie 
 To hell, the way and rod. 
 
 Priestes, sell no messe, 
 But minister that sacrament 
 As Christ in the New Testament 
 Commandit you expresse, &c. &c. &c.* 
 
 * So great was the influence of these ballads that the clergy framed a canon , 
 ordaining every ordinary to search his diocese for books of rhymes or ballads 
 
286 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. IX. 
 
 Such were tlie rude, and to us ridiculous rhymes "which 
 our reforming fathers snng by their firesides, and -which 
 they preferred to the noble litanies of the Koman Church, 
 because they understood them. It were wrong to disparage 
 their piety, though we may laugh at their poetry. Deep feel- 
 ings mayfind vent in odd uttea'ances. But beside these hymns 
 there was already in existence a translation of many of the 
 psalms, and one of these Wishart sung with the household 
 of Ormiston before retiring to rest on the night on which he 
 was seized. In general they adhere pretty closely to the 
 sense of the original, but the versification is rough, and the 
 language uncouth, although in some instances we have sen- 
 timents expressed with peculiar felicity. 
 
 It is difficult to determine what proportion of the nation 
 had embraced Protestantism before it was established by 
 law. The first proselytes must have been among the priest- 
 hood and the upper classes. The great mass of the people 
 could not read, and must have been grossly ignorant ' of all 
 religion. The Church-service was mumbled in an unknown 
 tongue, and their few ideas about Christianity must have 
 been inherited from their parents, derived from pictures, or 
 picked up from the conversation of the parson, or the ser- 
 mons of the friars. It must be confessed that though the 
 Bible had been all along allowed to the people till a very 
 few years before the Eeformation, Bibles could not have 
 been got, and though they had been got, there would have 
 been few able to read them. Printing not only created 
 books, but it gradually created a reading population. We 
 need not wonder that the first and most urgent cry of the 
 people when light began to dawia upon them was for 
 preachers. They would have every bishop and parson 
 preach. It was thus only they could learn. Incapable of 
 reading, and without books to read, they could yet listen, and 
 from the living voice of the preacher acquire knowledge. 
 The Eeformers supplied the want, and by doing so overturned 
 the papacy. 
 
 scandalizing the clergy or the Church ; and in the fifth parliament of Mary an 
 act was passed against printers printing " hooks concerning the faith, hallads, 
 songs, blasphemations, rhymes, as well of Churchmen as temporal, and others, 
 tragedies," &c. &c. 
 
CHAP. I.\ J PROGRESS OF PROTESTANTISM. 287 
 
 It will at once be understood that the first proselytes to 
 Protestantism could not be from such an ignorant popula- 
 tion — a population that scarcely knew their right hand from 
 their left. Accordingly all the early converts whose names 
 have been recorded belonged either to the sacerdotal or the 
 aristocratic caste. Almost all the nobles who were taken 
 prisoners at the Solway Moss returned Protestants ; and in 
 an age when feudalism was still strong, the faith of the 
 lord would naturally become the faith of the retainer. But 
 though the Reformed opinions were gradually spreading, as 
 the acts of the parliament regarding heresy prove, still it is 
 probable that even so late as 1546 the bulk of the people 
 continued attached to the ancient faith. Protestantism had 
 allied itself with Henry and England, and Henry and 
 England were regarded with bitter hatred by almost every 
 Scotchman, excepting the few who had been seduced, as 
 the taunt went, by the English angels. At the time when • 
 Cardinal Beaton was assassinated, it is evident that all St 
 Andrews was devoted to him. Knox speaks of Edinburgh 
 about the same period as being drowned in superstition.* 
 
 But during the next fifteen years it is certain the Protes- 
 tant opinions made great and rapid progress among all 
 classes of people. During the same period there was also a 
 change in the popular feelings in regard to England. The 
 rout of the Solway and the slaughter of Pinkie were for- 
 gotten ; the presence of French garrisons in different parts 
 of the country had led to jealousies and disputes ; it was felt 
 hurtful to the national pride to see foreign troops employed 
 to preserve peace and punish disorders, and the populace 
 began to clamour as anxiously for their removal as they had 
 a few years before cried for their help. Protestantism and 
 England now rose to the ascendant. The great crowds who 
 attended the sermons of the Reformers, the mobs who at- 
 tacked and demolished the monuments of idolatry, incline 
 us to believe that when the Protestant confession was ac- 
 cepted by the parliament, it had already become the creed 
 of the majority of the nation. 
 
 We have thus viewed the Roman Church in our country 
 
 * History, vol. i. p. 154. 
 
288 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. IX. 
 
 before its fall, and we shall confess that we have viewed it 
 with feelings in which exultation has been softened by sad- 
 ness ; we have viewed it as we would a great though wicked 
 city, beleaguered by armies, with its bulwarks already under- 
 mined, and a whole park of artillery pointed against its 
 palaces, ready with the morrow's sun to vomit forth fire, 
 destruction, and death. 
 
A.D. 1546.] HAMILTON MADE PRIMATE. 289 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 The murder of Beaton made way for tlie promotion of 
 Hamilton, Abbot of Paisley, to the primacy. He was nomi- 
 nated to the archbishopric by his brother the governor, 
 elected by the canons, and readily confirmed by the POpe, 
 But it was not so easy for him to get possession of his archi- 
 episcopal castle. The conspirators who held it welcomed 
 within its walls all who were in danger of their lives from 
 their disaffection to the government or their favour for the 
 Reformation ; and it was soon sufficiently garrisoned by a 
 band of determined men, who bid defiance to all Scotland. 
 In the month of June, a summons was issued against the 
 assassins, to which the Earl of Huntly, the new chancellor, 
 appended the great seal. In the month following, , after 
 some ineffectual attempts at negotiation, the parliament, 
 upon their non-appearance, declared them guilty of treason, 
 and preparations were made for laying siege to their strong- 
 hold. But the governor was utterly destitute of military 
 vigour ; though artillery was in use, Scotchmen had not yet 
 learned how to employ it with skill and effect, and after 
 several months of idle effort, little or no progress was made 
 towards reducing the fortress. 
 
 The hopes of the besieged were centred in England ; and 
 as the sea was open to them, they despatched Kirkaldy of 
 Grange, John Lesley, and Balnaves to Henry VIII. , to solicit 
 his assistance. Notwithstanding that the kingdoms were 
 at peace, Henry at once promised his aid, and showed that 
 he was in earnest by forwarding both money and victuals 
 
 VOL. I. T 
 
2^0 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. X. 
 
 for the garrison. The principal assassins he rewarded witJi 
 pensions; the Master of Eothes got L.280, Kirkaldy of 
 Grange L.200, and others of less note got smaller sums.* 
 Thus supported, they held out till the end of December, 
 when an armistice was agreed upon, in which they con- 
 sented to surrender the castle on procuring a free pardon 
 and a papal absolution for the slaughter of the cardinal. 
 This last condition they insisted upon, not from any respect 
 they themselves had for Roman favours, but because Church- 
 men had maintained that no pardon could be binding for 
 so great a crime unless it were backed by an absolution 
 from the Pope. It soon became apparent that neither party 
 - were in earnest, and that they merely wished to gain 
 breathing time. Arran had already despatched an envoy to 
 France, entreating its monarch to use his influence with 
 Henry for the preservation of the existing peace between 
 the kingdoms, and to send him without delay some experi- 
 enced engineers to assist in the reduction of the castle. 
 The conspirators, on the other hand, despatched a messenger 
 to Henry, declaring they had no intention of abiding by the 
 treaty, and actually asking him to write to the Emperor 
 that he might persuade the Pope to refuse the absolution.! 
 Such are the crooked by-paths of what is sometimes called 
 policy. 
 
 Meanwhile the Castilians, as the keepers of the castle 
 were commonly called, held their fortalice, but they no longer 
 confined themselves within its walls. They visited the 
 town and the neighbourhood ; and all history declares that 
 they disgraced the sacred cause, of which they professed to 
 be the champions, by brutal immorality. John Eough, for- 
 
 * Burnet's History of the Eeformation, vol. ii. p. 8. Burnet mentions 
 these in the beginning of Edward's reign, in February 1547. He says that 
 the sums are entered in the council books as given to the conspirators for their 
 " amity,"' — an obscure phrase. Chalmers, in his preface to Lyndsay's poems, 
 says that he was in possession of a fine copy of the books of the Privy Council 
 during the reign of Edward VI., and that these show there was a half-year's 
 pension due to Norman Leslie at Michaelmas 1646, which carries the date of 
 its original grant back to a period anterior to the assassination of Beaton. 
 Chalmers farther says that the phrase is not for their amitie, but for their 
 anuiiee. 
 
 t Tytler, vol. vi., who quotes a MS. in the State-paper Office. 
 
A.D. 1547] KNOX JOINS THE CONSPIRATORS. 291 
 
 meiiy mentioned as chaplain to the Regent Arran before lie 
 apostatized, had already sought refuge in the castle, and had 
 indignantly denounced the outrages upon decency com- 
 mitted by the garrison ; but it was in vain. A man of 
 sterner stuff, and destined to play a more conspicuous part 
 in the history of the times, now appeared at St Andrews, and 
 threw in his lot with the conspirators. It was John Knox. 
 
 This remarkable man, whose name has so long been a 
 household word in Scotland, was born at Gifford in 1505. 
 His parents appear to have been wealthy enough to give 
 him a learned education, and there is every likelihood that 
 he was destined for the Church. Having passed through 
 the grammar school of Haddington, he was in 1522 matri- 
 culated in the University of Glasgow, where the celebrated 
 John Mair was then principal. He appears to have taken 
 priest's orders at an early age, but we are almost entirely 
 ignorant of his history till we find him in the company of 
 Wishart the martyr, immediately before his death. At that 
 time, and when he entered the Castle of St Andrews, he was 
 acting as tutor to the sons of the Lairds of Ormiston and 
 Langniddry, and had completed his fortieth year. 
 
 During the continuance of the truce, Eough had frequently 
 preached in the parish church of St Andrews, and having 
 uttered sentiments opposed to the Established faith. Dean 
 Annan entered the controversial lists with him. It would 
 appear that Eough was scarcely a match for the Dean, for 
 Knox states that, though orthodox, he was not learned, and 
 that accordingly he saw it needful to go to his rescue, and 
 with his pen beat the papist from his defences.* This 
 theological encounter, and Knox's well-known talents and 
 vigour, led the leading men in the castle to resolve among 
 themselves to call him to assume the office of a preacher of 
 the Protestant faith. Several of them spoke to him privately 
 of the matter, but he steadfastly resisted their solicitations, 
 " alleging that he would not run -where God had not called 
 him, meaning that he would do nothing without a lawful 
 vocation.'' t Failing in this way, they resolved to try 
 another. 
 
 * Knox's History, book i. -f Ibid. 
 
 t2 
 
292 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 One day Rougli ascended the pulpit and preached a ser- 
 mon upon the election of ministers, of which the chief argu- 
 ment was, that a congregation, however small, had power, 
 in time of need, to call any one in whom they discerned the 
 gifts of God to be their minister ; and that it was dangerous 
 in any one to refuse such a call. Having established these 
 principles, he suddenly turned to Knox, who was present, 
 and said : — " Brother, ye shall not be offended, although that 
 I speak unto you that which I have in charge, even from all 
 those that are here present, which is this : In the name of 
 G-od, and of his Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of those 
 who call you by my mouth, I charge you that you refuse 
 not this holy vocation ; but as ye tender the glory of God, the 
 increase of Christ's kingdom, the edification of your brethren, 
 and the comfort of me, whom ye understand well enough to 
 be oppressed by the multitude of labours, that ye take 
 upon you the public office and charge of preaching, even as 
 ye look to avoid God's heavy displeasure, and desire He shall 
 multiply his graces upon you." Then turning to the con- 
 gregation he asked — "Was not this your charge to me? 
 and do you not approve this vocation ?" They replied with 
 one voice — " It is, and we approve it." " Whereat the said 
 Mr John, abashed, burst forth in most abundant tears, and 
 withdrew himself to his chamber ; his countenance and be- 
 haviour from that,day till the day that he was compelled to 
 present himself in the public place of preaching sufficiently 
 declared the grief and trouble of his heart ; for no man saw 
 any sign of mirth in him, neither yet had he pleasure to ac- 
 company any man for many days together."* 
 
 Such was Knox's call and ordination to the work of the 
 ministry. These circumstances, narrated by Knox himself, 
 have led some historians to the conclusionf that up to this 
 time he was not in orders. He first refused to preach be- 
 cause he had no lawful vocation to do so — a plea which he 
 could not use had he been already ordained. He afterwards 
 agreed to undertake the work when Eough argued that 
 
 * Knox's History, book i, 
 
 t Dr Cook is constrained by these circumstances to come to this conclu- 
 sion. (History of Keformation, vol. i.) 
 
A.D. 1547.] KNOX's C^LL TO THE MINISTRY. 293 
 
 every congregation had an inherent right to call any qualified 
 person to assume the office of their instructor — an argument 
 which would have been wholly irrelevant if Knox had been 
 previously set apart by episcopal hands. 
 
 We should have regarded these arguments as conclusive 
 had we not had a key to the mystery in a controversial 
 tract published at the time of the Reformation, while Knox 
 was yet living, and every circumstance in his career fresh in 
 men's memories. Ninian Wingate was schoolmaster at 
 Linlithgow, and remaining attached to the Eoman faith, he 
 proved his devotion by challenging discussion on some of 
 the controverted points between the Eomanists and Re- 
 formers. In one of his tracts he attempts to pose John 
 Knox in regard to the lawfulness of his call to the ministry. 
 He argues from Romans and Hebrews that no man may 
 take this office to himself, unless he be called thereto either 
 by God or by men having authority to do so. If Knox pre- 
 tended he was called by God, Wingate asked where was the 
 proof of it — where were bis miracles? for nothing less 
 could prove a Divine vocation. If Knox declared he was 
 called by men, " then," says his opponent, "he must show 
 they had the authority to do what they did." " You must 
 show," urges Wingate, "in which of these two ways you 
 were ordained to the ministry, since you esteem that ordi- 
 nation null and wicked by which you were formerly called 
 Sir John."* Here is the solution of the difficulty. Knox was 
 in priest's orders, and therefore entitled to be addressed Sir 
 John, but he had renounced these orders, and believed that he 
 had no title to preach the Gospel till be received a call from 
 a reformed congregation. The "First Book of Discipline" cor- 
 roborates the fact, for there it is declared "that the Papistical 
 priests have neither power nor authority to minister the 
 sacraments of Jesus Ohrist."t If we add to these circum- 
 stances the positive testimony of Beza,J we need have no 
 
 «- Ninian Wingate, Tract ii., "Give John Knox be lauclifuU minister?" 
 See also his third tract. They are to be found in the appendix to Keith's 
 History. It need hardly be said in explanation, that the priests of the 
 Church of Rome had " Sir" appended to their names, just as clergymen now- 
 a-days have "Eevd." 
 
 t Book of Discipline, chap. xvi. sect. iii. | Beza— Icones. 
 
294 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. X. 
 
 hesitation in believing that Knox was a priest of the Komish 
 Gliurch. 
 
 It has sometimes been affirmed that the first preachers of 
 Protestantism in Scotland were laymen, and that from these 
 the present Presbyterian ministers are descended. The very 
 reverse was the case. Almost all onr early Reformers had 
 Eomish orders. The Bishops of G-alloway, Caithness, and 
 Orkney joined the Protestants. A multitude of abbots and 
 friars did the like. Spottiswood, the superintendent of 
 Lothian ; "Winram, the superintendent of Fife ; Willocks, 
 the superintendent of the West, had all been clergymen in 
 the Eomish communion. When Protestantism was com- 
 pletely established, and the want of Protestant preachers 
 sorely felt, it would appear that priests became proselytes by 
 the score, and only too many of them were admitted into 
 Protestant pulpits. They afterwards gave trouble, some of 
 them by immoral lives, and some of them by heretical teach- 
 ing. If Eomish orders, then, be worth anything, the Church 
 of Scotland has inherited them ; and still possesses them, if 
 not by Episcopal, at least by Presbyterian descent. 
 
 But though no mitred bishop had conveyed to one of our 
 Eeformers the Apostolical succession, though no one had 
 been even ordained by the laying on of the hands of the 
 Presbytery, no honest Presbyterian minister need question 
 the validity of his title as a minister of the New Testament. 
 There are only two sources from which clerical authority can 
 proceed — the transmitted commission of the first apostles, 
 or the will of the Christian community. Either of these 
 theories has had its advocates. It is an article of the 
 Eoman creed, and it has been a favourite dogma of many 
 Anglican divines, that no one can be a true minister of the 
 word and sacraments unless he can trace his spiritual pedi- 
 gree up to the apostles of our Lord. Christ, say they, gave 
 his disciples a commission to preach and baptize ; they con- 
 ferred the same power upon others ; and so the priestly 
 character and office have come down by direct descent to the 
 present day. Every clergyman in Western Europe must be 
 able to trace his genealogy to St Peter, the chief of the 
 apostles, and the first Bishop of Rome. Except by inherit- 
 
A.D. 15-17.] THEORIES OF ORDERS. 295 
 
 ance, there is no otlaer way in which the status of a minister 
 of the New Testament can be obtained. In opposition to 
 this it is maintained by all Presbyterian, and by some Epis- 
 copal doctors, that the power of calling to the ministry lies 
 essentially in the Christian Church itself. It is argued that 
 under the gospel economy every Christian is a priest ; that 
 there is no radical distinction between the clergy and the 
 laity ; and that ministers are merely men appointed to con- 
 duct the devotions of the sanctuary, and by their superior 
 scholarship and piety to instruct the ignorant, to reclaim the 
 erring, and to comfort the mourning. They are, in no sense, 
 mediators with God ; they have no special powers but such 
 as the Church, as a matter of convenience, confers ; and 
 occupy no higher platform than the humblest believer. But 
 though the vocation of ministers lies with the Church, it 
 may, for the sake of order, be entrusted to its office-bearers. 
 They may have committed to them by the whole community 
 the charge of seeking out men fitted for the sacred work, and 
 setting them apart to it. Still it is but a delegated power, 
 which bishops or presbyteries may exercise, not from any 
 virtue inherent in themselves, but from their position as the 
 representatives of the Church at large. Such are the two 
 antagonistic theories of orders; and though a compromise 
 between them has often been attempted, there is in truth no 
 possible middle way. 
 
 The controversy is similar to that which has been waged 
 in regard to the right by which kings reign. Here also there 
 have been two theories — the divine right of inheritance, and 
 the will, expressed or understood, of the people. There are 
 those who have written books to prove, that simply because 
 a man is his father's son he has a divine right to a throne ; 
 but this scoffing age is disposed to laugh at such assump- 
 tions, and believe that all royal power rests upon the popu- 
 lar will. The supreme magistrate may be quartennially elec- 
 tive, as in America ; or hereditary, so long as the reigning 
 family prove themselves worthy of their crown, as with us ; 
 but still the power in both cases lies with the people — it is 
 the popular voice which makes the one elective and the 
 other hereditary. Simple descent is in neither case recog- 
 
296 CUURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 nised as the title to reign. So in the Ohurcli, the clerical 
 office may descend hereditarily from cleric to cleric ; but 
 the will of the Church is the fountain of all ordination and 
 of all power ; and there may be times when there must be an 
 appeal from the rCj^resentatives of the Church to the Church 
 itself, as there have been times when the State has resumed 
 the power to break the order of succession, and appoint its 
 own magistrate. Such was the character of the time when 
 John Knox was called to the office of the ministry by the 
 Church at St Andrews : such was that of the time when 
 William of Orange was placed upon our throne. 
 
 It was not long till Knox brushed away his tears, and 
 came forth from his chamber like a strong man rejoicing to 
 grapple w"ith superstition and sin. His first step showed the 
 boldness of his genius. Mounting the pulpit of St Andrews, 
 he undertook to prove that the Pope of Kome was the Man 
 of Sin, the Antichrist, the Babylonish woman spoken of in 
 Scripture. The noise of this reached the archbishop, who 
 enjoined Winram, his sub-prior, to inquire into it. Accord- 
 ingly, nine propositions, supposed to embody heresy, were 
 collected from his sermons, and made the subject of contro- 
 versy. The discussion is preserved in the pages of Knox ; 
 and when he claims the victory to himself, we may give 
 him credence, remembering the goodness of his cause, and 
 his undoubted powers as a logician.* 
 
 The success which had attended the preaching of the Ee- 
 formers determined the clergy to imitate their example. It 
 was therefore agreed that every learned man in the abbey 
 and university should preach his Sabbath about in the 
 parish church, and that their sermons should be previously 
 composed, in order to give as little offence as was possible. 
 But Knox suspected the cause of this new-born zeal, and in 
 his ministrations during the week, he " prayed to God that 
 they should be as busy in preaching when there was more 
 want of it than there was then."f 
 
 But the din of the ecclesiastical warfare was 
 hushed by the sudden appearance in the bay of 
 
 ■■° Knox's Historj', booTf i. t Ibid. 
 
A.D. 1547.] THE CONSPIRATOKS SURRENDER THE CASTLE. 297 
 
 twenty-one* French galleys, commanded by Leo Strozzi, 
 Prior of Capua, a Knight of Khodes, of great military re- 
 nown. Two or three weeks previons to this, the papal abso- 
 lution had arrived from Kome ; but as it contained the 
 clause, " we pardon the unpardonable sin," the conspirators 
 objected to its terms, and made use of a quibble to escape 
 from their solemn agreement. A worse fate awaited them. 
 The galleys took up their position in front of the castle ; 
 heavy ordnance was landed, and planted not only in the 
 streets leading to the fortress, but on the walls of the abbey 
 and the steeple of St Salvator's College ; not a creature 
 could move in the interior courts without being exposed to 
 its fire ; the walls began to crumble, and it became very 
 evident that it was no longer Scottish engineers who were 
 working the g-uns. Meanwhile, John Knox within lifted 
 up his prophetic voice, warning the debauched garrison that 
 their hour was come ; and his prediction was soon realized. 
 Further defence was now utterly hopeless, and accordingly 
 the fortress was surrendered to the admiral of the French, 
 as the conspirators had contrived to persuade themselves 
 that there was no lawful authority in Scotland. 
 
 After being first rifled of its treasure, the noble old castle 
 was levelled with the ground — either from superstition, as 
 being stained with the blood of a cardinal, or from policy, 
 as being dangerous to the kingdom. 
 
 Historians diifer in regard to the terms of the surrender, 
 some affirming that the lives and liberty of the garrison were 
 guaranteed, and others that even their lives were made to 
 depend on the mercy of the French king. The latter is the 
 more probable and the better supported by authorities, t 
 But be this as it may, they were carried to France ; some of 
 them were placed in the galleys to tug at the oar, and others 
 
 * Some authorities say sixteen, others twenty-one — the difference is imma- 
 terial. 
 
 t We have Lesley on the one side, and Knox on the other. Tytler quotes 
 Anderson's MS. History as siding with Lesley. Buchanan is obscure, but he 
 appears to confirm the truthfulness of Lesley ; he says their safety was cove- 
 nanted for, in a imanner, or under a condition. It is plain the French admiral 
 was in a position to dictate what terms he pleased. 
 
298 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. X. 
 
 were consigned to the prisons of Eouen and its neighbour- 
 liood. Knox was compelled to labour for nineteen months 
 as a galley-slave, but he was ultimately liberated, and not 
 one of his associates suffered death. When we remember 
 that the crimes in which they were implicated were murder 
 and rebellion, we must allow that they were mercifully dealt 
 with. 
 
 It was in the end of July 1547 that the Castle of St 
 Andrews fell. In the January preceding Henry VIII. of 
 England had died, and two months afterwards he was fol- 
 lowed to the grave by his illustrious compeer Francis I. 
 But the English monarch had bequeathed to his successor 
 the resolution to subdue Scotland under the cloak of a mar- 
 riage with its infant queen ; and the Protector Somerset 
 was already on his march to the north. At this crisis, 
 Arran, easily alarmed, was completely stunned, as any man 
 might be, by discovering among the papers of Balnaves, in 
 the Castle of St Andrews, a document containing the signa- 
 ! tures of two hundred noblemen and gentlemen who had 
 i secretly sold themselves to England ; and some of whom 
 were actually at that moment scheming and bargaining to 
 join their arms to those of Somerset.* It must be told that 
 the conduct of too many of our nobles at this period exhibits 
 a complication of meanness and villany ; and albeit they pro- 
 fessed to favour the Reformation, we cannot think that the 
 end justified the means. 
 
 Notwithstanding these discouragements the military array 
 of the kingdom was quickly mustered. A large number of 
 priests and monks, believing that the Church was in danger, 
 joined the army, bearing a white banner, on which there 
 was embroidered a female with dishevelled hair, kneeling 
 before a crucifix, with the motto — " Afflictm Ecclesice ne 
 ohliviscaris." On the 8th of September the Three Estates 
 passed an act, which, proceeding upon the preamble that 
 " the whole body of the realm is passing forward at this time 
 to resist our old enemies of England," ordained that the next 
 of kin to all Churchmen who should die in battle would have 
 ■ a right to their vacant benefices.f On the 10th of the 
 
 * Trtler, vol. vi. t Acts of the Scotcli Parliament— Mary, pari. iii. 
 
A.D. 1547.] BATTLE OF PINKIE. 299 
 
 same month the battle of Pinkie was fought — one of the 
 most disastrous in the annals of Scotland. More than ten 
 thousand Scotchmen on that fatal day bit the dust ; and the 
 whole country lay bleeding at the mercy of the English. 
 
 Fortunately for Scotland's independence Somerset did not 
 follow up his victory with vigour ; while grief, shame, and 
 rage rendered any alliance with England at present impos- 
 sible, and threw the country more completely into the arms 
 of France. In June 1548 Monsieur D'Esse landed at Leith 
 with five thousand men, " old beaten soldiers," says Balfour, 
 " French, Italians, and Germans."* The governor joined 
 these with five thousand more, and the allied armies were 
 now more than able to keep their ground against the English. 
 The French king, in his message, had solicited Mary in mar- 
 riage for the Dauphin, and the Scottish Parliament readily 
 agreed to the match, and farther resolved, in the unsettled 
 state of the kingdom, to intrust her to his care. Four galleys 
 quietly left Leith, and slipping round the north of Scotland by 
 the Pentland Firth, arrived in the Clyde off Dumbarton. The 
 queen of Scotland, now a beautiful child in her sixth year, 
 instantly embarked, accompanied by Lords Livingstone and 
 Erskine, and her natural brother, James Stewart, Prior of St 
 Andrews, at this time a youth of seventeen. There were 
 also in her train four Maries, of like age with herself, chosen 
 from the families of Livingstone, Seaton, Beaton, and Flem- 
 ing, to be her playmates, and whose names are frequently 
 allied with that of their royal mistress in the ancient ballads 
 of the country. The little squadron reached Brest in safety, 
 and Mary Stewart opened her eyes upon the beautiful land 
 which she ever afterwards loved so well. 
 
 In March 1550 a peace was concluded at Boulogne be- 
 tween England and France, in which Scotland was compre- 
 hended ; but though war ceased, animosities remained, and 
 rendered more difficult than ever the union of the crowns. 
 Had it not been for the violence of Henry and Somerset, 
 Mary, with a kingdom for her dower, must have become the 
 wife of Edward ; but as time afterwards revealed, their hap- 
 piness could not have been long, and the Queen of Scotland 
 
 * Annals, vol. i. 
 
300 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 must have been a widow in England even sooner than in 
 France. 
 
 In the meantime the queen-mother had set her heart upon 
 the regency, and in order to mature her schemes she set 
 out for the court of France. Her brothers, the Cardinal of 
 Lorraine and the Duke of Guise, if not the originators of 
 the plot, at once perceived that its accomplishment would 
 further their own family aggrandizement, and secure the 
 ascendency of the French interests in Scotland, and there- 
 fore they gave it the full weight of their great authority. To 
 dispossess the Earl of Arran by violence would have been 
 madness, and therefore they resolved to try bribes — dazzling 
 bribes. Panter, Bishop of Eoss, and two others, were de- 
 spatched to the governor, to offer him the French dukedom 
 of Chastelherault, and to his eldest son the command of the 
 Scots Guard in Paris, if he demitted the regency ; and after 
 considerable hesitation his consent was obtained. This great 
 step toward dominion being made, the queen-dowager began 
 her journey homeward, passing through England, and visit- 
 ing on her way the court of Edward. The young king, amid 
 much kindness, referred to his disappointment in regard to 
 her daughter ; but the queen-mother rejoined, that the inva- 
 sion of Somerset was not the right way to woo and win a 
 woman, and that it was only on this account the match had 
 miscarried.* 
 
 Arran had promised to resign the regency, but he had 
 since repented him of his promise. Accustomed to the 
 power and splendours of royalty, he could not bring his 
 mind to descend to a private station. Mary of Guise quietly 
 " bided her time ;" employed every artifice to draw the 
 nobles to her party ; kept regal state at Stirling ; and at 
 last Arran, finding the tide running strongly against him, 
 consented to resign, on receiving an assurance of indemnity 
 for every measure of his government, and an act of parlia- 
 ment securing to him the succession to the throne in the 
 event of the queen dying childless. f On the 12th of April 
 1554, the solemn transference of power took place in a par- 
 liament assembled at Edinburgh ; and Mary of Guise attained 
 * Keith, book i. chap. v. f Keith, hook i. chap. v. 
 
A.D. 1547.] MARTYRDOM OF WALLACE. 301 
 
 to the full height of her ambition, by being declared regent 
 of the kingdom. 
 
 But we must retrace our steps for a few years, and follow 
 the current of ecclesiastical events. It was plain that the 
 tide was now steadily setting in toward a reformation. On 
 the 19th March 1547, the clergy presented a supplication to 
 the goYcrnor and council, complaining of the increase of 
 heresy, the contempt of the sacrament of the altar, the 
 return of persons who had been banished for their faith, 
 and the open preaching of opinions opposed to the Estab- 
 lished Church ; and praying that steps should be taken to 
 remedy the evil. In compliance with this supplication, the 
 council ordained that the clergy should report to the goYer- 
 nor all such as had relapsed or were suspected of heresy, in 
 order that the laws of the realm might be put into execu- 
 tion upon them.* It was not long after this 
 when Adam Wallace, who appears to have suc- 
 ceeded Knox as tutor at Ormiston,f was apprehended at 
 Winton, and brought to his trial in the Church of the Black 
 Friars in Edinburgh. Among his judges, besides the G-OYcr- 
 nor and Chancellor, we are surprised to find the Earls of 
 Argyle, Angus, and G-lencairn.| He was accused of usurp- 
 ing the office of a preacher ; of baptizing one of his own 
 children ; of denying purgatory ; of maintaining that prayers 
 to the saints and for the dead were superstitious ; of calling 
 the mass an idolatrous service ; and of affirming that the 
 bread and wine used in the sacrament continued bread and 
 wine, notwithstanding their consecration. The poor man 
 was found guilty, given over to the Justice-Deputy, and 
 burned the next day on the Castle-hill. 
 
 * Keith, book i. chap. vi. In June 1546, an act of Privy Council was 
 passed against the demolition or plundering of churches or Churchmen's 
 houses. The necessity for the act proves the existence of the crime. 
 
 t "He frequented," says Knox, "the company of the Lady Ormiston, for 
 the instruction of her children, during the trouble of her husband, who was 
 then banished." (History, book i.) 
 
 + Knox's History, book i. Knox states that Glencairn said to the Bishop 
 of Orkney and others that sat near Aim, that he protested against Wallace 
 being put to death. His conduct is very equivocal. This whispered protest 
 does not redeem his consistency. 
 
302 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. X. 
 
 It was iu the same year in which Wallace was burned 
 that an amusing controversy arose among the Churchmen 
 in regard to the Pater-noster^ — whether it should be said to 
 God only, or whether it might also be said to the saints. A 
 certain friar had stretched his ingenuity to show that every- 
 one of its petitions might, in a sense, be addressed to the 
 saints ; but when he came to " Give us this day our daily 
 bread," his gloss was so absurd as to throw his audience into 
 laughter. He was rewarded for his pains with the soubriquet 
 of Friar Pater-noster. But the dispute was not thus easily 
 to be settled ; it set the whole University of St Andrews in 
 a flame. The doctors assembled in solemn conclave to de- 
 cide the matter. The fine distinctions of the schoolmen 
 were called into requisition ; and some held that the Pater- 
 noster was said to Grodformaliter, and to saints materialiter ; 
 others, that it ought to be said to God principaliter, and to 
 saints minus 'principaliter; a third party would have it ulti- 
 mate and non ultimate; a fourth, prima7-io and secundaria ; 
 but the majority declared that it should be said to God 
 capiendo stride, and to saints capiendo large. Still, the 
 division of sentiment was so great and so strong that it was 
 resolved to refer the whole matter to the provincial synod, 
 which was cited to meet at Edinburgh on the January fol- 
 lowing. In the meantime, the valet of the sub-prior, in 
 putting his master to bed, took the liberty of asking what 
 was the nature of the question which had so irritated the 
 university and the Church. " We cannot agree, Tom," said 
 the sub-prior, " to whom the Pater-noster should be said." 
 "To whom should it be said but unto God?" said Tom. 
 " Then what shall we do with the saints ?" rejoined his 
 master. " Give them Aves and Credos enough," replied the 
 theological valet, " and that may suffice them."* 
 
 When the synod convened, the controversy was again 
 stirred ; and the vote being taken, it carried that the Pater- 
 noster might be said to the saints. The bishops, however, 
 and some ecclesiastics more prudent than their brethren, 
 interfered to prevent the decision being registered in this 
 unqualified shape, and directed the sub-prior, on his return 
 
 * Spottiswood's History, lib. ii. 
 
A.D. 1551. J EOMAN SYNODS. 303 
 
 to St Andrews, to teach that the Pater-noster ought to he 
 said to God, yet so that the saints ought also to be invocated* 
 In the same synod order was taken for publishing a cate- 
 chism in the vernacular, containing a summary of Christian 
 doctrine ; and the curates were enjoined to read a part of it 
 every Sabbath and holiday to the people, when there was no 
 sermon. Copies of this catechism are still extant. It con- 
 sists of 412 pages of a small quarto size, and was printed, as 
 the title-page bears, at St Andrews, in August 1552, by com- 
 mand and at the- expense of Archbishop Hamilton, whose 
 composition it is thought to be. It consists of an exposi- 
 tion of the Commandments, the Creed, the Sacraments, and 
 the Lord's Prayer. It would appear, from the canon autho- 
 rizing its publication, that it was designed, not for circula- 
 tion among the people, but to assist the curates in conduct- 
 ing the Church-services, and in communicating to their 
 Jiearers some knowledge of religion.! Some years later, 
 however, another catechism was published for the use of the 
 people, for the necessity of instructing them was becoming 
 more and more apparent. History condescends to relate 
 that it was sold for twopence, and therefore called in deri- 
 sion by the Eeformers the " Twopenny Faith." J 
 
 Provincial councils of the Scottish Church were at this 
 period frequent. It was felt, in fact, that to save the Church, ■ 
 something must be done. In 1549 Archbishop Hamilton, 
 six bishops, two vicars-general, ten abbots and priors, three 
 commendators, twenty-seven friars of different orders, be- 
 sides professors, doctors, and licentiates of theology, assem- 
 bled in council at Linlithgow, and afterwards adjourned to 
 Edinburgh. They sat long, they honestly confessed that ; 
 the growth of heresy was to be traced to the lewdness and 
 ignorance of the clergy, and they enacted no fewer than 
 fifty-seven canons to correct abuses. In 1551 a council 
 again met — that council to which we have already referred, 
 as settling the mighty dispute in regard to the Pater-noster, 
 
 * Spottiswood's History, lib. ii. Hailes's ProTincial Councils, p. 36-7. 
 
 t This catechism has set Keith and Hailes, Cook and M'Crie, by the ears. 
 See Keith, hook ii. chap. vi. ; Cook's History, toI. i. ; Hailes's Provincial 
 Councils ; M'Crie's Knox, Appendix. 
 
 X Knox's History, book i., compared with Spottiswood, lib. ii. 
 
304 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cnAP. x. 
 
 and sanctioning the use of a catechism to be read from the 
 pulpit for the instruction of the people. From the eighth 
 canon of this council, it appears that a very small proportion 
 of the population attended mass upon the Sabbaths, still 
 fewer on the festivals, and that of those who came to church, 
 some behaved irreverently, while others busied themselves 
 with merchandise in the porch. It was like the time of 
 which Pliny wrote, when in the great province of Bithynia 
 so few were found to purchase the victims and present them- 
 selves at the sacrifice. The old religion was losing its hold. 
 In 1552 another council was held at Linlithgow. It anathe- 
 matized heresy, declared the Council of Trent to be divinely 
 inspired, and framed canons for reforming the lives of the 
 clergy. But. as Lord Hailes remarks, " when a house is in 
 flames, it is vain to draw up regulations for the bridling of 
 joists or the sweeping of chimneys."* 
 
 In the acts of the parliament of 1551 we have some 
 indications of the course of events. There are two acts 
 against those who had sustained the process of cursing 
 or excommunication. They were but resuscitations of acts 
 formerly passed in the reign of James V. From the terms 
 of these, we learn that the Church had put its bann upon 
 great numbers who were suspected of heresy ; that some 
 of these had quietly continued under the curse, without 
 any attempt to remove it, and that others had defiantly 
 frequented the church, and even come to the altar, notwith- 
 standing the excommunication under which they lay. To 
 put an end to this state of things, the law interfered, and 
 threatened confiscation of goods against all who remained 
 under excommunication for more than a year, or who dese- 
 crated the sacraments or disturbed the faithful while the 
 curse of the Church was still upon them.f 
 
 But there is another act, still more ominous ; it is anent 
 them that disturb the kirk during the time of divine ser- 
 vice. The statute is directed against all " who contemp- 
 
 ® Hailes's Provincial Councils, pp. 29-37. To the council of 1551 we owe 
 the establishment of registers — of proclamations of banns, and baptisms. 
 
 t Mary, pari, iv., 29th May 1551 ; pari, v., 1st February 1552. James Y., 
 pari, iv., 7th Jnue 1535. 
 
A.D. 1551-1552.] ACTS AGAINST PROTESTANTS. 305 
 
 tuously make perturbation in the kirk in the time of divine 
 service and preaching of the Word of God, preventing the 
 same from being heard and seen by the devout people, and 
 will not desist therefrom for any monition that the Church- 
 men may use."* The passing of such an act sufficiently 
 proves the prevalence of the practice to which it refers, and 
 he must have a strangely one-sided notion of toleration who 
 does not think that it was properly put down by the strong 
 hand of the law. The act, after specifying different penal- 
 ties for different classes of offenders, from the prelate and 
 earl down to the " poor folks that have no goods," and who 
 are ordained to be imprisoned for fifteen days, and fed on 
 bread and water, concludes with directing deans of guild, 
 kirk-masters, and rulers, " gar leische bairnes that perturbis 
 the kirk, in manner foresaid." A singular commentary on 
 this finishing enactment is found in a passage at the very 
 commencement of Eow's " History of the Church." He nar- 
 rates that when a friar was preaching in Perth, on a Sabbath 
 in Lent, he was suddenly assailed by the hissing of all the 
 boys of the grammar-school, who were present. A com- 
 plaint being made to the magistrates, the rector searched 
 out the ringleaders of the tumult, and when he was about 
 to chastise a culprit, the urchin produced as his apology 
 Lyndsa/s " Satire on the Three Estates." Such a boy in 
 our day would be doubly whipped — whipped for possessing 
 a book so grossly indecent, and whipped for disturbing any 
 one, though he were a Mahometan or a Hindu, in the midst 
 of his devotions. 
 
 Another act was passed to restrain the liberty of the press, 
 already become turbulent and troublesome. It sets forth 
 that divers printers were daily printing books concerning 
 the faith, ballads, songs, blasphemies, and rhymes, both of 
 Churchmen and laymen ; and therefore ordains that no 
 printer " presume, attempt, or take in hand" to print any 
 book, without first obtaining the necessary licence.! Thus 
 early was the infant press put into irons. Shut out from 
 the pulpit, the Eeformers must have found it to be their 
 most powerful auxiliary, speaking as it did with a voice 
 
 « Mary, pavl. t., 1st Feb. 15-52. t Mary, pari, iv., 1st Feb. 1551. 
 
 VOL. T. V 
 
306 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. X. 
 
 which echoed from shore to shore. No marvel the fright- 
 ened ecclesiastics attempted to gag it. 
 
 While tracing the legislation with which the Church 
 fenced herself round before her fall, we may refer to yet 
 another act passed in the year 1555. It is aimed at " diverse 
 insolent and evil-given persons, who, not regarding the law 
 of G-od and the constitution of the holy Church, but in high 
 contempt thereof, and to the great slander of the Christian 
 people, eat flesh in Lent, and on other forbidden days."* All 
 such lovers of flesh and despisers of the Church were made 
 liable to the confiscation of their moveable goods, and if 
 they had no goods to be confiscated, they might be im- 
 prisoned for a year and a day, and trained during that period 
 to abstinence. It is easy to perceive that the Constitutions 
 of the clergy were beginning to break down under the popular 
 pressure. Men were laughing at Lent, and doubting the 
 virtue of fasting on a Friday. Here we have another indi- 
 cation of how the wind was blowing. 
 
 On the 6th of July 1553, Edward VI. untimely died, at 
 the early age of sixteen. He was a sickly, but an amiable 
 and intelligent boy, and had he lived a few years longer, 
 a more complete reformation would have been efi'ected in 
 England. He was succeeded on the throne by his sister 
 Mary, a bigoted Koman Catholic, who determined to restore 
 the ancient order of things, and whose persecutions have 
 gained for her with posterity the unenviable epithet of 
 " bloody." With such a woman on the throne of England, 
 and a member of the house of Guise wielding the sceptre 
 of Scotland, Protestantism had much to fear. But light 
 sprung out of darkness. It was the present policy of Mary 
 of Guise to conciliate the adherents of the Reformed faith ; 
 and when the fires of Smithfield were lighted, " they that 
 were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the 
 Word,"t as they had done once before when a persecution 
 arose at Jerusalem. Many refugees from England sought 
 shelter in Scotland. Among these was William Harlaw, ori- 
 ginally a tailor in the Canongate of Edinburgh, but whose 
 
 * Mary, pari, vi., 20th June 1555. 
 
 t Acts of tlie Apostles, chap. viii. ver. 4. 
 
A.D. in53-1555.J KNOX A GALLEY SLAVE. 307 
 
 zeal had led him to become a preacher of the Reformation. 
 While Edward lived he had laboured in England, but now 
 he returned to his native country, and though he had little 
 learning, he must have had talents and force of character, 
 for he commanded influence and respect. Another was John 
 Willock, a Franciscan friar, who had embraced Protes- 
 tantism, and become chaplain to the Duke of Suffolk. On 
 the accession of Mary he had fled to Friesland, where he 
 practised medicine, and became favourably known to the 
 duchess, by whom he was sent in 1554, and again in 1555, 
 on missions to the queen-regent. On the last occasion he 
 fixed his abode in Scotland, and became one of the most use- 
 ful and honoured of the Eeforming ministers. 
 
 But in the minds of the people the Eeformation in Scot- 
 land is concentred in but one man, and that man now once 
 more appeared upon the stage. When we last parted with 
 Knox he was a prisoner on board a French galley, bound with 
 a chain. Sometimes he lay on the quiet waters of the Loire, 
 and at other times he was tossed by the incessant jumble of 
 the German Ocean ; and once, while riding off the coast, 
 between the Friths of Forth and Tay, observing the move- 
 ments of the English fleet, he could distinctly see the shores 
 of his native land, and the tall steeple of St Andrews, asso- 
 ciated in his mind with so much that was sacred, and with 
 those stirring scenes in which he had been an actor. On 
 the conclusion of peace, and at the intercession of Edward 
 of England, he was set at liberty,* after a captivity of more 
 than a year and a half, emaciated in body, but unshaken 
 in mind. Coming to England he was chosen one of the 
 chaplains to Edward YI. Consulted about the Book of Com- 
 mon Prayer, which was undergoing a revision, he had suffi- 
 cient influence to procure an important change in the com- 
 munion office, " taking away the round clipped god, wherein 
 standeth all the holiness of the papists," and substituting 
 common bread. The Articles of Eeligion were also revised 
 by his pen previous to their ratiflcation by parliament. In 
 consideration of his services he was offered the living of 
 
 * Tytler has shown this in his — England under the Eeigns of Edward "\'I, 
 and Marv. 
 
 u2 
 
308 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap, x. 
 
 All-hallows in London, and afterwards a bisliopric ; but lie 
 declined them both, as the English Church had not yet 
 attained to his standard of purity. The accession of Mary 
 compelled him to flee for his life. Setting sail for the Con- 
 tinent, he landed at Dieppe on the 28th of January 1554.* 
 
 After some wanderings among the Helvetian churches, he 
 settled at Geneva. Here was John Calvin, now at the very 
 height of his reputation, and with him Knox soon formed 
 a strict intimacy. It is pleasing to think of these two 
 great Reformers of the age walking together in the garden 
 surrounding the house provided for Calvin by the State, 
 where was a commanding view of the Leman Lake, and a 
 magnificent background of Alpine peaks. Though animated 
 by the same spirit, and holding the same views, they were 
 very unlike. Knox was a rough, unbending, impetuous 
 man, but withal fond of fun, and full of humour. Calvin 
 was calm, severe, often irritable, but never impassioned; 
 rising in pure intellect above all his compeers, like Mont 
 Blanc among the mountains, touching the very heavens, yet 
 shrouded in eternal snows. There is no doubt but that 
 Calvin exercised a great influence upon the mind of Knox. 
 Knox was but beginning his work ; Calvin's work was done. 
 Knox was but rising into fame ; Calvin was giving laws to 
 a large section of Christendom. 
 
 Knox left Geneva to take the charge of a congregation of 
 English refugees at Frankfort, but he had scarcely entered 
 upon his duties when dissensions arose in regard to the use 
 of a liturgy. When things were in this state, Dr Cox, who 
 had been preceptor to Edward YI., arrived from England, 
 accompanied by some friends, and coming to chiirch during 
 service, began to give audible responses to the prayers. 
 Requested to desist, they declined to do so, and on the suc- 
 ceeding Sabbath one of them managed to get admission to 
 the pulpit and read the litany. Knox could not stand this, 
 and preached one of his characteristic sermons against the 
 innovators. Religious rancour increased instead of abating. 
 Knox was maliciously accused of treason against the Em- 
 peror and his daughter-in-law the Queen of England (inas- 
 
 '•■ M'Crie's Life of Knox. Period Third. 
 
A.D. 1555.] KNOX IN SCOTLAND. 309 
 
 much as he had called the one little inferior to Nero, and 
 the other more cruel than Jezebel) ; and to escape trouble 
 he was glad to quit Frankfort, and retire to his retreat on 
 the shores of Lake Leman. 
 
 But now a longing to visit home came upon the exile. 
 His mother-in-law had frequently written him to return ; the 
 Eeformation in Scotland was making progress, a leading man 
 was wanted, and so he said, I will arise and go to my father- 
 land, and work the work of God — I will do or die. He ar- 
 rived toward the end of the harvest 1555, and after solacing 
 himself for a few days at Berwick with his wife and his 
 wife's relatives, he repaired privately to Edinburgh. Here 
 he was entertained by a pious citizen of the name of Syme.* 
 In his house the friends of the Eeformation were accustomed 
 to meet, and talk over their prospects and plans with the 
 pale-faced, long-bearded man, whom they already acknow- 
 ledged as their chief. A question arose which must be dis- 
 cussed and determined, for it affected the conduct of many 
 of the Reformers. These, notwithstanding of their Protes- 
 tant principles, were accustomed still to go to the mass, and 
 outwardly to conform themselves to the established religion. 
 Knox lifted up his voice against this as a sinful compro- 
 mise. He denounced it as a wicked compliance with an 
 idolatrous practice. The matter began to be agitated from 
 man to man, and so Erskine of Dun, to set the subject at 
 rest, invited some leading men to supper, that in their pre- 
 sence the subject might be debated and decided. The chief 
 opponent of Knox was young Maitland of Lethington, 
 already distinguished for his acuteness and subtlety. Mait- 
 land defended the practice as expedient in the circumstances 
 in which they were placed, and quoted the instance of Paul 
 resorting to the temple to pay his vow in company with Jews 
 still unconverted. Knox answered that the temple service 
 was of divine origin, and that the mass was not ; but further 
 he boldly declared his doubt of the propriety of Paul having 
 done as he did. No good came of it, but rather evil.f 
 
 Maitland was candid enough to confess that Knox had the 
 liest of the argument, and so he had. In such times and 
 * Knox's History, book i. t Ibid. 
 
310 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. X. 
 
 circumstances very little is to be gained by compromises. 
 It was simply because Knox was an uncompromising man 
 that he eifected the Eeformation. The character and future 
 career of both disputants is wonderfully brought out in this 
 quiet disputation at the supper-table of Erskine of Dun. 
 We see on the one side the inflexible Eeformer, regardless 
 alike of fear and of favour, never content with half-measures, 
 crying, " Come out of her, and be ye separate." On the 
 other side sits the clear-headed, quick-eyed secretary, bend- 
 ing to expediency, making friends with all, making the most 
 of everything. The results of the controversy were import- 
 ant. The Eeformers henceforward refrained from going 
 to mass or taking any part in the Church-services, and it 
 would appear that so numerous were they, that the priests 
 at one perceived their desertion.* The separation from the 
 Established Church had already taken place. 
 
 Among the nobles who at this time attached themselves 
 to Knox, attending his sermons and helping him in his work, 
 were the Earl of Glencairn, Lord Lorn, and the Prior of St 
 Andrews, afterwards the celebrated Eegent Moray. With 
 these at his side, the Eeformer need fear no evil. During 
 the winter of 1555-6 he was indefatigable in preaching, 
 not only in the capital, but in the provinces. Eepairing to 
 Kyle and Cunningliam, where Glencairn was omnipotent, 
 lie preached the doctrines of the Eeformation, as Wishart 
 had done before him. Under the shield of Erskine of Dun 
 he preached in Angusshire. In the houses of several of his 
 friends he administered the sacrament of the Supper, in the 
 simple yet impressive manner in which it is now administered 
 in our Presbyterian churches, t Eumours of all this flew 
 through the country, and the clergy became alarmed. Here 
 was a bold man doing a bold thing, and he must be quieted. 
 Counsel was taken, an indictment prepared, and the heretical 
 preacher cited to appear at the Church of the Blackfriars in 
 Edinburgh, and answer for his conduct. Knox felt himself 
 
 * Knox's History, book i. 
 
 t Knox's History, book i. It is possible, but by no means certain, that he 
 tibed either the Genevan Book of Common Order, or the Lititrgy of Edward VI.. 
 on these occasions. 
 
A.D. 155(J.] KNOX FLEES THE COUNTKY. 311 
 
 strong euough to obey, and his friends began to muster in 
 the city, in order to be present at the trial, and see justice 
 done. On the Saturday preceding the day fixed for the trial 
 the summons was withdrawn, on the pretext that it was 
 found to be informal, but it was shrewdly suspected that the 
 stout face of the Keformer and his friends had intimidated 
 the bishops, and led them to sist procedure. 
 
 Knox was resolved to take advantage of his position, and 
 not retire from Edinburgh without striking a blow. On the 
 very day in which he should have stood at the bar as a 
 culprit, he ascended the pulpit and preached to the largest 
 audience he had ever addressed.* At a subsequent meeting, 
 held at night, the Earl Marischal was present, and was so 
 impressed by the Eeformer's eloquence that he joined with 
 Glencairn in urging him to write a letter to the queen-regent, 
 exhorting her not merely to protect the preachers, but to give 
 heed to their doctrine. The letter was written, and presented 
 by Glencairn. Mary of Guise read it, kept it in her posses- 
 sion for a day or two, and then handed it to the Archbishop 
 of Glasgow, with a smile and a jest, saying, " Please you, 
 my lord, to read a pasquil."t Knox was annoyed, but he 
 needed not ; he could scarcely have anticipated a different 
 result. 
 
 While the Eeformation was thus making steady progress, 
 Knox received an invitation from the English Church at 
 Geneva to become one of its pastors, and he at once re- 
 solved to accept of it. Argyle and others strongly urged 
 him to remain in Scotland, where he was so much required ; 
 but he remained firm, and would be gone.J His conduct at 
 this period is undoubtedly difficult to account for, and has 
 perplexed all his apologists. Why should he leave his 
 native country, where the Eeformation dawn was steadily 
 advancing to the perfect day, to take the charge of an ob- 
 scure congregation of refugees in a foreign city ? Perhaps 
 the genial climate of Geneva, and quiet walks by its blue 
 
 *■ Knox's History, book i. f IWd. 
 
 J He said to Argyle, when pressed, " That if God blessed these small begin- 
 nings, and if that they continued in godliness, whensoever they pleased to 
 i-f>iuraand him, tliey should fiind him obedient." (History, book i.) 
 
312 CHtiECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 lake with the high-browed Calvin, allured him. In the 
 midst of din and agitation, men often yearn for seclusion. 
 It is much more probable, however, that he took advantage 
 of the call from Geneva to escape from danger. The clergy 
 had deserted the diet in May, but it was not at all likely they 
 had entirely abandoned the idea of destroying one whose 
 destruction was essential to their own safety. Both M'Crie 
 and Tytler are of opinion that Knox fled to save his life. 
 M'Crie recognises the finger of Providence in this passage 
 of his history, preserving him for happier days. Tytler 
 charges him with something like cowardice, using the lan- 
 guage of the martyr, biit lacking the spirit.* Mr Tytler 
 forgets that in many cases " discretion is the better part of 
 valour," and that he is but a fool who is too solicitous for the 
 martyr's crown. If Knox was really in danger of his life, 
 he was right to flee ; if he was no longer able to beard the 
 bishops, he was wise to get out of their way. The safety of 
 his friends was not compromised by his departure. He was 
 the marked man, and before we brand him as a coward, we 
 must hold that retreat is in no case allowable. 
 
 Knox was no sooner gone than a summons was issued 
 against him. As the panel on this occasion did not appear 
 at the bar, the bishops occupied the bench. He was con- 
 victed of heresy, condemned, and burned in effigy at the 
 market-cross of Edinburgh. The whole affair was a foolish 
 bravado, which might as well have been spared. When the 
 report of it reached the Eeformer at Geneva, he wrote his 
 " Appellation from the cruel and unjust sentence of the 
 false bishops and clergy of Scotland." These different events 
 were crowded within a short space. Scarcely nine months 
 had elapsed since Knox's arrival from the Continent, and 
 only two since he was able to brave the Church instead of 
 standing as a criminal at its bar. 
 
 But though Knox's voice was no longer heard sternly de- 
 nouncing idolatry, Scotland was not left without witnesses 
 for the truth. John Douglas, a Carmelite friar, forsaking 
 his order, became chaplain to the Earl of Argyle, and 
 preached even at court against the prevailing superstitions. f 
 'r History, vol. vi. t Knox's History, book i. Keith, book i. chap. vi. 
 
A.D. 1556.] SCENE AT HOLYEOOD. 313 
 
 Paul Methven, originally a baker, exercised a powerful in- 
 fluence upon Dundee. Others of less note laboured in other 
 parts of the country. To put an end to this, the queen- 
 regent, at the instigation of the clergy, issued a proclama- 
 tion, citing them to appear and answer for their conduct. 
 They prepared to obey, and their friends began to crowd 
 toward Edinburgh. Dreading a tumult, the regeiit made 
 proclamation that all who had come to the city without the 
 express permission of the authorities should resort to the 
 borders, and remain there for fifteen days. As the gentle- 
 men of the west had just returned from border duty, they 
 were in no humour to obey, and tumultuously forced them- 
 selves into the presence of the regent at the palace. When 
 she would vindicate her proclamation, Chalmers of Gath- 
 girth stepped forward, and in no very courtly style said, 
 " We know, madam, that this is the device of the bishops 
 who stand by you ; we avow to G-od we shall make a day of 
 it. They oppress us and our tenants for feeding of their 
 idle bellies ; they trouble our preachers, and would murder 
 them and us ; shall we suffer this any longer ? No, madam, 
 it shall not be."* And therewith every man put on his 
 steel bonnet, and began to finger about the hilt of his 
 sword. The queen was intimidated, as she well might be, 
 and was glad to get rid of the threatening barons by 
 promising that their preachers would no more be dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 To this outburst of feudal independence there succeeded 
 a period of tranquillity, and the nobles who favoured the 
 Eeformation resolved to recall Knox from Geneva. Accord- 
 ingly they directe'd a letter to him, in which they spoke of 
 " their godly thirst for his presence, and declared them- 
 selves ready to jeopard their lives and goods for advancing 
 the glory of God." They informed him that the magistracy 
 was much in the same state as when he left the country, 
 but that no cruelty had been used against them, and that 
 the friars were every day held in less estimation by the 
 queen and the nobility. This letter was dated at Stirling 
 on the 10th of March 1557, and subscribed by Glencairn, 
 "' Knox's History, liook i. Keitli, book i. chap. yi. 
 
314 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cJiAP. X. 
 
 Erskine of Dun, Lorn, and James Stuart.* It was brought 
 to Geneva by James Syme and James Barron, both burgesses 
 of Edinburgh, and Knox having first laid the matter be- 
 fore his congregation and sought the advice of Calvin, re- 
 solved to comply vfith the invitation, and return home. In 
 the beginning of October he proceeded to Dieppe, but while 
 he waited there for a vessel to convey him to Scotland, he 
 received other letters which dashed all his hopes, by counsel- 
 ling him to remain where he was.t The Eeformers had 
 suddenly changed their minds ; they had come to the con- 
 clusion that it was better to enjoy the toleration which they 
 had, than to peril it by seeking more, and thus, through 
 faint-heartedness, had abandoned the project of a thorough 
 reformation. 
 
 Sitting down in his lodging at Dieppe, Knox wrote a 
 letter to the lords whose faith had failed, after inviting him 
 to come to their help. He referred to the sacrifices he had 
 already made — he had severed his connection with his fiock 
 at Geneva — he had seen the eyes of niany grave men weep 
 when he took his last good-night of them — he had left his 
 poor family destitute of all head, save God only. He ac- 
 knowledged his belief that troubles would arise, but it was 
 their duty to meet danger in so glorious a cause. He spoke 
 of their position as feudal barons, and of the claims which 
 their vassals had upon them ; and finally prayed that the 
 mighty spirit of the Lord Jesus would rule and guide their 
 counsels to His eternal giory.J This letter was dated the 
 27th October 1557. With it he despatched another ad- 
 dressed to the whole nobility of Scotland, and others to par- 
 ticular friends, as to the Lairds of Dun and Pittarrow. In 
 the meantime, he did not consider it prudent to venture into 
 Scotland. It was a period of suspense — the fate of the 
 Reformation depended on the issue. 
 
 The letters of Knox had an immediate and powerful effect 
 in stimulating the decaying zeal of the Eeforming nobles. 
 Like a fire stirred up just when ready to die out among its 
 own ashes, it now burned more brightly than ever. Meet- 
 ing at Edinburgh in the month of December, they drew up 
 « Knox's History, book i. f Ibid. | Ibid. 
 
A.D. 1557.] THE FIRST COVENANT. 315 
 
 a bond which knit them into one body, pledged them to a 
 definite line of conduct, and gave consistency and shape to 
 their plans. They had separated from the Eoman com- 
 munion ; they now formed themselves into an opposing 
 phalanx. This document is known in our Church history 
 as the first Covenant, and is so important that we give it 
 entire. 
 
 " We, perceiving how Satan, in his members, the anti- 
 christs of our time, cruelly do rage, seeking to overthrow 
 and destroy the gospel of Christ and His congregation, ought, 
 according to our bounden duty, to strive in our Master's 
 cause, even unto the death, being certain of the victory in 
 Him. The which our duty being well considered, we do 
 promise before the Majesty of Grod and His congregation, 
 that we, by His grace, shall, with all diligence, continually 
 apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives, to 
 maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed Word 
 of God and His congregation ; and shall labour, at our possi- 
 bility, to have faithful ministers, truly and purely to minis- 
 ter Christ's gospel and sacraments to His people. We shall 
 maintain them, nourish them, and defend them, the whole 
 congregation of Christ, and every member thereof, at our 
 whole powers and waging of our Uves, against Satan and all 
 wicked power that doth intend tyranny or trouble against 
 the foresaid congregation. Unto the which holy word and 
 congregation we do join us, and so do forsake and renounce 
 the congregation of Satan, with all the superstitious abomi- 
 nation and idolatry thereof; and, moreover, shall declare 
 ourselves manifestly enemies thereto, by this our faithful 
 promise before God, testified to His cong-regation by our sub- 
 scription to these presents, at Edinburgh, the 3rd day of 
 December 1557 years. God called to witness — A., Earl of 
 Argyle, Glencairn, Morton, Archibald, Lord of Lorn, John 
 Erskine of Dun," &c. 
 
 From the time that the Keformers had resolved to refrain 
 from being present at mass, they had been in the habit of 
 meeting among themselves for the purpose of worship. 
 They generally assembled in private houses, and one of the 
 number was chosen to read the Scriptures, to exhort them 
 
316 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 and give utterance to their prayers. Roman controversialists* 
 affirm that some lords and gentlemen administered the sacra- 
 ment of the Supper to their own household servants and 
 tenants; and the "PirstBook of Discipline" gives countenance 
 to the idea that such irregularities had occurred, f Elders 
 and deacons were chosen to superintend the affairs of these 
 infant communities. Edinburgh has the honour of having 
 given the example, and the names of her first iive elders are 
 still preserved.t The existence of these small Protestant 
 congregations, scattered over the country, probably led the 
 lords to employ the word so frec|uently in their bond, and 
 this again led to their being called the Lords of the Con- 
 gregation. It was a bold document to which they had thus 
 put their names. It was throwing dowm the gauntlet to all 
 the powers of the existing Church and State. It was a 
 solemn repetition of their putting on tlreir steel bonnets in 
 the presence of the queen. It is easy to see the spirit of 
 feudalism underlying the spirit of the Reformation. 
 
 General declarations are often intended merely for parade, 
 and having served their purpose they are allowed to lie idle, 
 but it was not so here. Immediately after the subscription 
 of the Covenant, the lords who signed it, and those who 
 concurred with them, passed the following resolutions : — 
 
 I. It is thought expedient, advised, and ordained, that in 
 all parishes of this realm the Common Prayer be read weekly 
 on Sunday and other festival days, ]puhlicly in the parish 
 churches, with the lessons of the Old and New Testaments, 
 conform to the order of the Book of Common Prayer. And 
 if the curates of the parishes be qualified, to cause them to 
 read the same ; and if they be not, or if they refuse, that the 
 most qualified in the parish use and read the same. 
 
 * Ninian "Wingate. His wxitings have been piiblished by the Maitland Club. 
 
 t " Where not long agoe men stood in such admiration of that idol the 
 masse, that none durst have presumed to have said the masse but the shaven 
 sort, the beast's marked men ; some dare now be so bold, as without all voca- 
 tion to minister, as they suppose, the true sacrament in open assemblies ; and 
 some idiots (yet more wickedly and impudently) dare counterfeit in their 
 house that which the true ministers do in open congregation, they presume, 
 we say, to do it in houses without reverence, without word preached, and 
 without minister." (First Book of Discipline, chap. xvi. sect, i.) 
 
 i M'Crie's Life of Knox. Period Fifth. 
 
A.D. 1558.] RESOLUTIONS OF THE CONGREGATION. 317 
 
 II. It is thought necessary that doctrine, preaching, and 
 interpretation of Scriptures be had and used privately in 
 quiet houses, -without great conventions of the people thereto, 
 till Grod move the prince to grant public preaching by faith- 
 ful and true ministers.* 
 
 Eesolutions like these were enough to make the clergy 
 flock to the regent with complaints ; for here was a small 
 knot of barons quietly setting aside the " Three Estates," 
 usurping their power, and making ordinances affecting the 
 whole realm. What title had they to order what was to be 
 done in all the parishes of Scotland ? Who invested them 
 with a commission to compel the curate to lay aside his 
 missal, and adopt the Common Prayer-Book in its stead? 
 A body of dissenters so acting in our day would either be 
 laughed at for their insolence, or punished for their treason. 
 We cannot justify these Lords of the Congregation -by any 
 law or by any precedent ; and yet we must thank them for 
 doing as they did, for we owe to them our religion and our 
 liberties. Perhaps it was a presumptuous sin in them assum- 
 ing to legislate for both Church and State, but their legisla- 
 tion was such as to save both. But whatever we may think 
 of the first resolution, the second undoubtedly breathes a 
 spirit of moderation. It shows that the Reforming nobles 
 wished to avoid a collision with the State ; and perhaps we 
 ought to interpret the first by the light of the second, and 
 regard it as referring to what they were determined to bring- 
 about by constitutional means, rather than to what they 
 designed to do by their own authority. At all events, they 
 could carry it out only in those districts where they had 
 feudal jurisdiction. If they really meant anything more, 
 they designed what they had not the ability to do. It is 
 scarcely credible they should mean that their resolution was 
 at once to have the force of a general law ; and notwith- 
 standing its phraseology, we may reasonably regard it as 
 expressing what, in their judgment, ought to he done, rather 
 than what was to he done. 
 
 At an after-period it was keenly debated what was meant 
 by the "Book of Common Prayer " mentioned in the first 
 
 ® Knox's History, book i. Keith, book i. chap. Ti. 
 
318 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. X. 
 
 resolution. Sage, in his "Fundamental Charter of Pres- 
 bytery," contended that it was the Prayer-Book of Ed- 
 ward VI. ;* and A.nderston argued that it was the Book of 
 Common Order used by the English Church of Geneva ;t 
 and either disputant had his train of followers. Sage 
 reasoned that, in 1557, there were not copies of the Gene- 
 van liturgy in Scotland to supply all its parish churches, 
 probably not one ; that it was silent in regard to other 
 holidays than Sunday ; and, finally, that it contained no 
 order for reading lessons from the Old and New Testament. 
 Anderston maintained that there were editions of the Book 
 of Common Order of earlier date than the period referred 
 to ; that it was highly probable Knox would bring copies of 
 these with him on his visit to Scotland in 1555 ; that to 
 invite Knox to Scotland in 1557, to use the English liturgy, 
 would be tantamount to an invitation to involve himself 
 again in his Erankfort troubles ; and that the subsequent 
 adoption of the Order of Geneva by the Eeformed Church 
 of Scotland was a presumptive proof of its previous use. 
 The controversy is still interesting, as it evolves many his- 
 torical facts ; but it is now settled by the discovery of a 
 letter from Cecil to Throkmorton, of 9th July 1559, known 
 to neither of the controversialists. " The Protestants," says 
 he, " are at Edinburgh. They offer no violence, but dis- 
 solve Eeligious Houses, directing the lands thereof to the 
 Crown, and to ministry in the Church. The parish churches 
 they deliver of altars and images, and have received the 
 service of the Church of England according to King Ed- 
 ward's book." J 
 
 The Archbishop of St Andrews, about this period, made 
 an effort to detach the Earl of Argyle from the Congrega- 
 tion. He sent to him Sir David Hamilton with a friendly 
 letter, and an elaborate memorandum, pointing out the dis- 
 
 * The Fundamental Charter of Presbytery, &c., examined and disproved. 
 By the' Author of the Cyprianic Age. Fp. 97-101. 
 
 t See A Countryman's Letter to a Curate, and other writings of Anderston. 
 
 t Forbes's State Papers, i. 155, quoted in the Notes to Dr M'Crie's Life of 
 Knox. There is afterwards quoted a letter of the same period from Kirkaldy 
 of Grange to Sir Henry Percy, which decides the controversy still more defini- 
 tively. The fact is now beyond all controversy. 
 
A.v. 1:558. MARTYRDOM OF MILL. 319 
 
 grace which heresy would bring upon his ancient and 
 honourable house ; counselling him to dismiss the Protes- 
 tant preacher he entertained as his chaplain ; and offering 
 to provide him with a confessor of orthodox faith. Argyle 
 was not to be moved. He answered the archbishop's memo- 
 randum minutely, but in a moderate spirit, adhering to the 
 opinions and cause he had espoused. It was not long after 
 this that he died ; but his son, a still more decided Keformer, 
 succeeded to his influence in the Western Highlands.* 
 
 Unfortunately the Archbishop of St Andrews now resorted 
 to sterner measures to stay the progress of the Eeformation, 
 and he put forth his hand, not upon a powerful baron, but 
 upon a helpless priest, venerable for his piety and his years. 
 Walter Mill had been the parish priest of Lunan, but during 
 the primacy of Cardinal Beaton he had incurred the sus- 
 picion of heresy, and sought safety in concealment. De- 
 ceived by the clemency of the queen-regent, he had now 
 ventured from his hiding-place, and was apprehended at 
 Dysart. When brought before the ecclesiastical tribunal at 
 St Andrews, the old man appeared hardly able to stand, 
 much less to defend himself ; but when charge after charge 
 was brought against him, he answered with such firmness 
 as to show that an undaunted spirit could rise superior to 
 all bodily infirmity. He was convicted of heresy ; but such 
 was the commiseration for his fate, that no temporal judge 
 could be got to pronounce upon him sentence of death, till 
 a dissolute retainer of the archbishop performed the odious 
 office. When led to the stake, his gray hairs and tottering- 
 steps excited universal sympathy. " As for myself," said 
 the patriarchal martyr from amidst the flames, " I am four- 
 score and two years old, and cannot live long by the course 
 of nature ; but a hundred better shall rise out of the ashes 
 of my bones, and I trust in God that I am the last that 
 shall suffer death in Scotland for this cause." f His prayer 
 was heard ; he was the last. 
 
 * Knox's History, book i. 
 
 t Knox's History, book. ii. Lindsay of Pit^cottie, History. Keith, book i. 
 chap vi. Spottiswood's History, lib. ii. 
 
320 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [ciiAP. x. 
 
 The names of twenty individuals* are recorded as having 
 j lost their lives in the long conflict between Popery and 
 Protestantism in our country ; a small number when we 
 consider that it was a life and death struggle between an 
 ancient system deeply rooted in many hearts, and a new- 
 born hostile faith, flushed with youthful vigour, and bent 
 not merely on toleration but conquest. A much greater 
 number might fall in an out-post skirmish or a midnight 
 sortie, which would be deemed too insignificant to be men- 
 tioned in history. But while history may fail to mourn 
 every hero who falls in battle, she will ever feel it her most 
 sacred duty to pause and shed a tear on the martyr's grave. 
 Men will never regard with equal veneration death de- 
 fiantly met -on the battle-field, and death calmly endured at 
 the stake. The hundreds of thousands who perished in the 
 European wars which followed the Eeformation are for- 
 gotten ; the memory of the martyrs is fondly cherished ; 
 and it is right they should be held in everlasting remem- 
 brance. It is the silent protest of all generations against 
 the horrid iniquity of putting a man to death, under the 
 shadow of justice, simply for the opinions he may have held. 
 It were folly to say that the smallness of the number of our 
 martyrs is honourable to a Church which has stereotyped 
 persecution in its creed ; but it is honourable to the modera- 
 tion of the men who, at that period of the confiict, held in . 
 their hands the government of the country ; it is honour- 
 able to the humane genius of the Scottish nation. 
 
 The death of Mill was followed by a strong reaction in 
 favour of Protestantism. The inhabitants of St Andrews 
 
 * This is the sum of the names given by Fos the martyrologist, and others. 
 M'Crie, in his Notes, tries to make it appear that many more were put to 
 death for their religion ; that hetween 1534 and 1539, about sixty persons 
 suffered death, banishment, or confiscation of goods, and many more not in- 
 cluded in that period. He refers to the Treasurer's Accounts, and Eegister of 
 Privy Seal, and other ancient records. We think it highly probable that many, 
 very many, suffered fines, the coniiscation of goods, and exile ; but we must 
 stiU doubt if more, a"t least many more, than those we have mentioned suffered 
 death. It is wrong to say that history has recorded the sufferings of the rich 
 and distinguished only — several of those whose names have been preserved 
 belonged to the poorer orders ; and piety in all ages has exhibited a peculiar 
 solicitude to treasure up the tears and blood of the martyrs, so that we cannot 
 believe any names have been lost. 
 
A.D. 1558.] DEMANDS OF THE PROTESTANTS. 321 
 
 placed a cairn of stones over his grave, and every district of 
 the country was canvassed for adherents to the Congrega- 
 tion, which now hegan to feel its numerical strength.* 
 While the blood of the people was up, it was resolved to 
 present a remonstrance and petition to the regent. In this 
 document the Protestant barons declared that such was the 
 tyranny of the ecclesiastical Estate, that there remained for 
 them " nothing but fagot, fire, and sword;" that they ought, 
 as a part of the power of the realm, to have defended their 
 brethren from cruel murder, and have given open testimony 
 of their faith with them ; that they now desired to do this, 
 lest their silence should afterwards be liable to misconstruc- 
 tion ; and they concluded by petitioning her Grace — I. That 
 it might be lawful for them to meet in public or in private 
 for common prayers in the vulgar tongue, to the end they 
 might grow in knowledge, and be induced in sincerity of 
 heart to commend unto God the holy universal Church, the 
 queen their sovereign, her honourable and gracious husband, 
 the succession to the throne, her grace the regent, the 
 nobility, and the whole estate of the realm. II. That it 
 should be lawful for any person of sufficient, knowledge to 
 interpret any hard places of Scripture that might be read in 
 their meetings. III. That baptism and the Lord's Supper 
 should be administered in the vernacular, and the latter in 
 both kinds. And, lastly. That the wicked and scandalous 
 lives of the clergy should be reformed, according to the 
 rules contained in the New Testament, the writings of the 
 ancient fathers, and the laws of Justinian, to which three 
 they were willing to leave the decision of the controversy 
 between them and the clergy.f 
 
 This petition was presented to the queen re- 
 gent by Sir James Sandilands, Preceptor of the 
 Knights of St John, a man of venerable years and unblem- 
 ished life, who had early attached himself to the principles 
 of the Eeformation. The queen received the petition with 
 her usual benignity, and granted permission for the evangel 
 to be preached and the sacraments administered in the vul- 
 
 * Keith's History, book i. chap. vi. 
 t Knox's History, book ii. Keith, book i. chap. viii. 
 VOL, I. X 
 
322 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 gar tongue ; only she requested that, in the meantime, they 
 should not preach publicly in Edinburgh or Leith ; and the 
 Eeformers, in turn, to show their gratitude and desire for 
 peace, interdicted Douglas from preaching in the latter 
 town, as he had intended to do.* Encouraged by the suc- 
 cess of their application to the regent, the Lords of the 
 Congregation resolved to bring the matter before an eccle- 
 siastical convention, which was sitting in Edinburgh in the 
 month of November 1558. After some violent altercation, 
 the council seemed willing to grant that the gospel might 
 be preached and the sacraments administered in the vulgar 
 tongue, provided the mass, purgatory, and prayers for the 
 dead were retained, f It was well for Scotland that the 
 Reformers did not accept of this compromise ; and yet it 
 was much for a convention of Eomish ecclesiastics to offer. 
 There must have been amongst them at the time a feeling 
 of weakness, and a desire to patch up a compromise before 
 all compromise became hopeless. 
 
 The period for the meeting of parliament was now rapidly 
 approaching. It had been cited to meet at Edinburgh 
 toward the end of November ; and the Lords of the Congre- 
 gation resolved to bring their grievances before it. Their 
 petition concluded with the following specific requests : — 
 
 I. That all acts of parliament empowering Churchmen to 
 proceed against heretics should be suspended until a general 
 council of the Church, lawfully convened, should decide the 
 present controversies in religion ; and that, in the mean- 
 time, Churchmen should only be allowed to act as accusers 
 before a temporal judge, and not to sit as judges themselves. 
 
 II. That, in all cases of this kind, an authentic copy of the 
 accusation and depositions should be allowed to the accused, 
 and every defence competent in law permitted to him. 
 
 III. That every party accused should be allowed to interpret 
 his own mind and meaning, and that such interpretation 
 should be held superior to the deposition of any witness 
 whatever. Lastly, That none of the Congregation should 
 be condemned for beresy, unless he should be convicted by 
 
 * Knox's History, book ii. 
 
 t Knox's History, book ii. Keith, book i. chap. viii. 
 
A.D. 1558 j POLICY OF THE QUEEN REGENT. 323 
 
 the Word of God to have erred from the faith -which tlie 
 Holy Scripture witnessed to be necessary to salvation.* 
 
 These demands were first submitted to the queen regent, 
 whose good offices the Reformers were anxious to secure. 
 " She spared not amiable looks," says Knox, " and good 
 words in abundance ; but always she kept our petition close 
 in her pocket." f The Reformers urged her to bring it be- 
 fore parliament; but she spoke of the unfitness of the time, 
 the strength of the ecclesiastical Estate, and manoeuvred so 
 cleverly that the parliament was dissolved without the peti- 
 tion being so much as presented. The petitioners, however, 
 made public protestation that it would be lawful for them 
 to worship God according to their consciences, without 
 incurring any danger of life or lands ; that should any 
 tumult arise on account of religious differences, the blame 
 of it should not be imputed to them ; and that their requests 
 had no other end but the reformation of the abuses which 
 had grown up in the Church.J 
 
 Up to this point, royal favour appeared to smile upon the 
 Reformers. Mary of Guise almost seemed to have forgotten 
 lier family traditions and her country's faith, that she might 
 foster the Reformation. The Protestants carried all their 
 sorrows to the foot of the throne, certain that they would be 
 received with benignant smiles, and dismissed with most 
 gracious assurances. The regent had a purpose to serve, which 
 made her court the Protestants ; but when it was served, 
 her countenance forthwith was changed. Her daughter 
 was grown up to womanhood ; the conditions of her marriage 
 with the Dauphin must be arranged ; and the friendly influ- 
 ence of the Protestant lords M'as required. In truth, such 
 are the strange caprices of state policy, that this Guisian 
 queen was compelled to look to the Protestants rather than 
 to the Papists for support. The Duke of Chastelherault 
 regarded her with jealousy ever since she had supplanted 
 him in the regency ; he regarded her with especial jealousy 
 when dealing with matrimonial aff'airs, as she might sup- 
 plant him in his hopes of succeeding to the throne ; and the 
 
 * Knox's History, book ii. Keith, book i. chap. Tiii. 
 t History, book ii. } Knox's History, book n. 
 
 X 2 
 
324 CHUKCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [ciIAP. X, 
 
 Duke of Ohastelherault, through his brother, the archbishop, 
 had a powerful sway over the whole ecclesiastical body. 
 She artfully played the Lords of the Congregation against 
 the adherents of Hamilton ; and thus Protestantism, for a 
 time at least, was on the royal and winning side of the game. 
 
 In a parliament held on the 14th of December L557, nine 
 commissioners were appointed to proceed to Paris, and be 
 present at the marriage of the queen — the Archbishop of 
 Glasgow, the Bishops of Eoss and Orkney, the Earls of 
 Hothes and Cassillis, Lords Seton and Fleming, the Prior of 
 St Andrews, and the Laird of Dun.* The instructions to 
 the commissioners were framed in a wise and patriotic spirit, 
 and the commissioners discharged their trust faithfully and 
 well. The open conduct of the French court was fair and 
 honourable ; but, veiled from the light of day, there had 
 been perpetrated a deed of base and deliberate villany. 
 The Scottish queen — a confiding girl of fifteen — was induced 
 to sign three separate documents, by which she made over 
 in free gift her kingdom of Scotland to the French king in 
 the event of her dying childless. But all this was unknown 
 at the time, and on the 24th of April 1558 the marriage was 
 solemnized with extraordinary pomp in the Church of Notre 
 Dame. When the days of feasting were ended, and the 
 commissioners were on their way home, no fewer than four 
 of them sickened and died at Dieppe. The thing was myste- 
 rious ; the Princes of G-uise were regarded as skilful poison- 
 seethers, and it was universally believed in Scotland that 
 they had prescribed for the commissioners, although it was 
 difficult to show what object they could have for their death. 
 On the 29th of November 1558 a parliament was called to 
 receive the surviving members of the fatal expedition , and 
 in this convention of Estates the queen regent managed 
 parties so well as to get them to consent to bestow upon the 
 Dauphin of France the matrimonial crown of Scotland. 
 What more could the house of Guise desire, and had not 
 their own diplomacy brought all these things to pass ? 
 
 But other events came crowding fast, and, with them, 
 other plans began to develop themselves. On the 17th of 
 
 '•■ Kcitli, boot i. chap. vii. 
 
A.D. 1558.] SCHEMES OF THE HOUSE OF GUISE. 325 
 
 November 1558, Mary of England died, and resuscitated 
 Popery died with her a second death. Her sister Elizabeth 
 succeeded her on the throne, and, with a wonaan's true in- 
 stinct of policy, placed herself at the head of the Protestants 
 of Europe. But Elizabeth had been declared illegitimate 
 by the parliament, and, Elizabeth out of the way, Mary of 
 Scotland was the next heir to the English throne. The 
 house of Gruise wished to take the tide that leads to fortune 
 at the flood. They persuaded their niece to assume the 
 title and arms of Queen of England and Ireland, and she 
 did so. And now if Scotland only could be quieted ; if the 
 Congregation could be coaxed to give up their foolish fond- 
 ness for preachers, or if they could be forced into compliance 
 by the tramp of armed men, it seemed impossible that 
 Elizabeth could resist the odds that might be brought against 
 her. With papal France on the south, and papal Scotland 
 on the north, and hundreds of thousands of Papists in its 
 own heart, might not the world behold with wonder Popery 
 once more restored to England, amid the blazing of bonfires 
 in which martyrs burned, and a daughter of Guise reigning 
 by the Thames and the Liffy, as well as by the Forth and 
 the Seine.* All this was thought possible, and therefore 
 the queen regent no longer smiled upon the Protestants, but 
 frowned, and threatened, and kept her French soldiers in 
 drill, that they might use the last argument if all others 
 should fail. 
 
 On the 2d of March 1559, a synod assembled to consider 
 the state of the Church. The members of the Congregation 
 resolved to petition it for a reform, and handed to the queen 
 regent for presentation to the ecclesiastical convention a 
 document, praying that the sacraments should be adminis- 
 tered in the language of the country ; the bishops elected by 
 the gentry of the diocese, and the parish priests by the 
 parishioners ; and, finally, that all incompetent and immoral 
 Churchmen should be excluded from their otfices. The 
 synod replied, that the Latin language could not be dis- 
 pensed with in the Church-services ; that the canon law must 
 
 * Dr Robertson has rleveloped thiis plan with nmch clearness and eloquencr- 
 in his History. 
 
326 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. X. 
 
 regulate the election of bisliops and pastors ; and that the 
 Council of Trent had already decided that all Churchmen, 
 whatever degree, must either discharge the duties of their 
 office, or be deprived of their benefices.* 
 
 It became known that the regent was resolved to enforce 
 the resolutions of the Synod, and was likely to call the Pro- 
 testant preachers to account. In these circumstances the 
 Earl of G-lencairn and Sir Hugh Campbell of Loudon 
 sought an interview with her G-race, to plead that their 
 ]3reachers might be protected so long as they preached 
 sound doctrine ; but the regent stormed and declared that, 
 maugre all they could do, their ministers should be banished, 
 though they preached as soundly as St Paul. The barons 
 took the liberty of reminding her of her promises. " The 
 promises of princes," said the queen, " are no further to 
 be urged than it suits their convenience to keep them." 
 " Then," said the earl, " if you renounce your promises, we 
 must renounce our allegiance." f The boldness of the feudal 
 baron startled the finessing woman, and, lowering her tone, 
 she promised to think of what could best be done to remedy 
 what was wrong. 
 
 Whatever meaning the regent attached to this general 
 declaration, she was soon led to give a practical interpreta- 
 tion of it. The town of Perth having given unequivocal 
 symptoms of its attachment to the Eeformation, she sent 
 for Lord Euthven, its jarovost, and charged him to put down 
 the spirit of change. " I have power," said Euthven, " over 
 the bodies of the citizens, but none over their consciences." 
 The queen told him he was too malapert to give her such 
 an answer, and dismissed him in anger.J As Easter was 
 approaching, she now despatched able men to Montrose, 
 Dundee, and Perth, to persuade the populace to keep the 
 festival with the usual solemnities ; but their persuasions 
 were powerless, and high mass was celebrated with few to 
 join in it.§ Failing in argument, she had recourse to vio- 
 
 * Lesley, De Eebus Gestis Scottoruru, lib. x. Keith, book i. chap. viii. 
 Hailes's Prov. Councils, p. 38. 
 t Knox's History, book ii. Keith, book i. chap. viii. J Ibid. 
 
 ? Knox's History, book ii. 
 
A.D. 1559.J PREACHERS PUT TO THE HORN. 327 
 
 lence, and summoned all the preachers in the kingdom to 
 compear at Stirling on the 10th of May.* They resolved to 
 obey, and the gentry resolved to accompany them, not 
 armed, but still determined to protect men whom they 
 deemed to be innocent. Angus and Mearns were especially 
 forward in this demonstration, and when the gentlemen 
 from these counties arrived at Perth, they sent Erskine of 
 Dun on to Stirling before them, to explain the cause of their 
 coming. The regent got alarmed — for she seems in every 
 adverse emergency to have had a woman's fears — and per- 
 suaded Dun to write to his friends to disperse, and that the 
 summons would be withdrawn. In consequence of this, the 
 preachers and their friends resolved to remain at Perth, and 
 proceed no farther south. The 10th of May came, no 
 preachers appeared, and the queen, forgetting her promise, 
 commanded them to be " put to the horn " — a Scottish law- 
 phrase, signifying declared rebels — and all men inhibited, 
 under pain of high treason, from holding any communication 
 with them. The Laird of Dun, disgusted at the royal per- 
 fidy, left Stirling, and posted back to his friends in Perth.f 
 At this critical moment John Knox appeared. In the 
 November of the preceding year he had received letters 
 earnestly urging him to return, and taking a second leave of 
 his friends at G-eneva he began his journey homewards. He 
 begged permission to pass through England, but he had 
 recently published his " First Blast of the Trumpet against 
 the monstrous Kegiment of Women ;" and though all the 
 world knew that it was Mary he attacked, Elizabeth felt 
 that the argument applied to herself, and she could never 
 forgive the writer of that tract. She refused him a pass- 
 port.J Forced to proceed by sea, he landed at Leith, and 
 after spending two days in Edinburgh, he hurried first to 
 Dundee and then to Perth, where the Protestantism of the 
 country was concentred, and arrived just when men's minds 
 were in the greatest ferment, on account of their preachers 
 
 * Lesley says that Knox, Willock, Douglas, and Methven only were sum- 
 moned. (De Rebus, &c., lib. x.) It is probable there were not many more 
 professed preachers in the whole country. 
 
 t Knox's History; book ii. Spottiswood, lib. iii. Keith, &c. 
 
 X Knox's Letter to Cecil. Dieppe, 10th April 1569. 
 
328 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 being put to the horn. Proceeding to the church, he raised 
 his awful voice against idolatry. The excitement of the 
 period gave additional vehemence to his oratory, and he 
 seemed like another Demosthenes, " wielding at will" the 
 mighty multitude who had assembled to hear him. The 
 sermon being done, the crowd quietly dispersed, and only a 
 few loiterers remained in the church, when a priest with 
 great imprudence uncovered a rich altar-piece, decorated 
 with images, and proceeded to celebrate mass. A lad stand- 
 ing by told him this was not to be borne, and the priest 
 in anger struck him. The lad seized upon a stone, which, 
 missing the priest, smashed to pieces one of the images. 
 It was the signal for the demolition of many a gorgeous 
 altar, and many a stately cathedral. The on-lookers took 
 part with the boy, and in a few minutes every chapel was 
 ransacked, every virgin, apostle, and saint broken to pieces, 
 and the wdrole costly furniture of the church scattered in 
 fragments on the floor. In a twinkling the whole city heard 
 of what had been done ; and the crowd, still under the 
 excitement of the sermon, began to assemble. The cry was 
 given — " to the monasteries," and in a short time the monas- 
 teries of the Black and Grey Friars were in ruins. The cry 
 I was next raised- — ■" to the Charter House," and soon of that 
 magnificent structure there were left only the bare walls.* 
 
 When the regent heard of these outrages she was violently 
 incensed, and is said to have vowed that she would raze the 
 sacrilegious city to the ground, and sow its foundations with 
 salt in sign of perpetual desolation. f In a few days she was 
 in its neighbourhood with a considerable military following. 
 The citizens shut the gates, and directed letters to the 
 queen regent, the nobility, and " to the generation of Anti- 
 christ, the pestilent prelates, and their shavelings within 
 Sootland."J These letters proved that they were perfectly 
 ripe for rebellion. The regent at first was unwilling to 
 treat ; but Glencairn, with upwards of two thousand fol- 
 lowers, had made his way by forced marches and mountain 
 roads to Perth, and threw a preponderating weight into the 
 
 * Lesley, lib. x. Knox, book ii. t Knox's History, book ii. 
 
 X Tliese letters are given at length in Knox's History, 
 
A.D. 1559.] TREATY OF PERTH. 329 
 
 Protestant scale. It was finally agreed that both armies 
 should be disbanded, and the town left open to the Queen ; 
 that none of the inhabitants should be molested on account 
 of their religion ; that no French soldiers should enter the 
 town ; and that all other controversies should be referred to 
 the next parliament.* In consequence of this treaty, the 
 Congregation left Perth the day after it was concluded, but 
 not till they had entered into a second bond or " Covenant " 
 for mutual support and defence, which was subscribed by 
 the Earls of Argyle and Glencairn, Lords Boyd and Ochiltree, 
 the Prior of St Andrews, generally called the Lord James, 
 and Campbell of Taringhame.t 
 
 The queen had no sooner got possession of Perth than she 
 violated the treaty she had subscribed. She removed the 
 Protestant magistrates from their offices, and substituted 
 Papists in their room ; she took steps toward the restoration 
 of the Eoman worship, and introduced a garrison, not indeed 
 of French soldiers, but of Scotchmen in the pay of France, 
 and who were therefore quite as odious to the citizens. The 
 Earl of Argyle and the Lord James, anxious to suppress 
 rebellion, had hitherto remained with the regent, but now 
 they were so shocked at her want of faith that they with- 
 drew, and repaired to St Andrews, where a great muster of 
 the Congregation was about to be held. Other influential 
 nobles followed in their steps. 
 
 Meanwhile Knox was not idle. Passing into Fife, he 
 preached first at Crail and afterwards at Anstruther, and in 
 both places his preaching was followed by the overturning 
 of altars and the breaking of images. Cupar had already 
 followed the example set by Perth ; and the poor priest was so 
 distressed that he committed suicide. It was on Friday and 
 Saturday that Knox preached in Crail and Anstruther, and 
 he had arranged to preach at St Andrews on the Sunday. 
 The archbishop, hearing this, got alarmed for his noble 
 cathedral church, and came to St Andrews on Saturday night, 
 accompanied with a hundred spears. A message was sent 
 to Knox, that if he should attempt preaching on the morrow 
 
 * Knox's History, hook ii. Keith, book i. chap. viii. 
 t Both Knox and Keith give this document in full. 
 
330 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. X. 
 
 a dozen culverins would be levelled at his liead. In these 
 circumstances, he was strongly advised to abandon his 
 design. But the fearless Eeformer had long looked forward 
 to preaching once more in the place where he had first been 
 called to the ministry of the Word ; the hope of it had solaced 
 him while toiling in the galleys ; and now, when his fondest 
 wishes were about to be realized, he would not draw back for 
 fear of man. The archbishop finding that Knox was de- 
 termined, and that the inhabitants of the town were friendly 
 to him, left on the Sunday morning, and repaired to Falk- 
 land, where the queen was. Knox preached in the cathedral 
 church, and ancient memories gave an impassioned tone to 
 his eloquence. Christ driving out the traffickers from the 
 temple was the subject of his discourse, and the magistrates 
 as well as the mob, understanding his arguments and heated 
 by his fire, proceeded immediately after sermon to destroy 
 the Dominican and Franciscan monasteries, and to rifle and 
 deface all the churches in the town.* 
 
 The queen, full of grief and indignation, determined to 
 march at once against the rioters. The armed members of 
 the Congregation were not numerous, and they might have 
 been taken by surprise ; but the moment danger was antici- 
 pated, partizans flocked in from every quarter ; " men," ac- 
 cording to Knox, " seemed to rain from the clouds ;" and 
 encamping on Cupar Moor, midway between Falkland and 
 St Andrews, they bid defiance to the queen's army. As 
 both parties were unwilling to come to blows, a truce was 
 agreed upon, and the queen promised in the course of a few 
 days to send commissioners to St Andrews to arrange a 
 pacification. But day after day passed ; no commissioners 
 came ; and it began to be suspected, as indeed it was mani- 
 fest, that the queen only wished to gain time. The Con- 
 gregation could not afford to be idle, as their array was 
 liable to melt away, and therefore, facing northwards, they 
 marched upon Perth, the garrison of which they soon com- 
 pelled to surrender, t 
 
 About three miles west from Perth, upon ground gently 
 
 * Kuox, book ii. t Knox, book ii. Lesify. Keith. 
 
A.D. 1559.J DESTRUCTION OF MONASTERIES. 331 
 
 sloping down to the Tay, stood the Abbey of Scone. It was 
 venerable in the eyes of almost every Scotchman, as the 
 place where the kings of Scotland had from time immemo- 
 rial been crowned; and though robbed by Edward of its 
 famous black stone, fabled to be the one upon which Jacob 
 had pillowed his head at Bethel, enough remained to throw 
 a peculiar interest around it. The Bishop of Moray was at 
 this time Commendator of Scone, and resided there. He 
 was a man of licentious manners, and had rendered himself 
 obnoxious to the men of Perth and Dundee ; but now, when 
 his abbey was threatened, he became obsequious even to 
 meanness, promised to send his followers to join those of the 
 Congregation, and to vote on their side in the approaching 
 parliament. All would not do: the "rascal multitude" 
 poured from the city toward the abbey ; and though Knox 
 and other leading men of the CongTegation hurried after 
 them, and attempted to stay their fury, they succeeded only 
 for a day. On the second day the torch was applied, and 
 soon the beautiful house in which our fathers had wor- 
 shipped and our monarchs had been crowned was burned up 
 with fire.* 
 
 Only a day after this, the mob at Stirling, incited by the 
 presence of the Duke of Argyle and Lord James Stewart, 
 attacked and destroyed the monasteries in the town ; and 
 then proceeding to the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, which 
 lifted up its lofty walls amid the windings of the Forth, and 
 was everywhere visible from the rich corn-fields of the carse, 
 they left it nearly as we now find it — an utter desolation. 
 Flushed with these victories over the monuments of idolatry 
 and architecture, the Congregation resolved to march upon 
 Edinburgh. On their way they purged Linlithgow of its 
 idols ; and reaching the capital, from which the regent re- 
 treated on their approach, they finished what the mob had 
 left undone in plundering Holyrood, destroying the con- 
 vents, and clearing the churches of their altars and 
 images. t 
 
 Tradition has ascribed to Knox the party-cry, " Down 
 
 * Knox's History, book ii. 
 
 t Keith, book i. chap. viii. Knox, book ii. Lesley, lib. a. 
 
332 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 "with the crows' nests, or the crows will build in them again."* 
 Whether true or not, it is like the man, and like his manner 
 of going to work. Indicating great insensibility to the 
 sesthetical, it shows a far-reaching policy. The wise cap- 
 tain, when he ferretted out the robber, destroyed his forta- 
 lice, that he might never harbour in it again. On the same 
 principle, the Eeformer, when he had ousted the monks, 
 destroyed their monasteries. We would we had restored 
 some of our ruined castles, to crown our crags, if we could 
 have them without bandits ; and we would we had still 
 every one of our abbeys, if we had them without Benedic- 
 tines or Augustinians, Franciscans, Carmelites, or Domini- 
 cans. But if the refuge and the rogue must go together, 
 we would rather want robbers and picturesque castles, monks 
 and Gothic monasteries. Was it possible to destroy the one 
 and preserve the other ? Perhaps it was ; but the usual 
 tactics of war is to destroy everything which shelters the 
 enemy; and the Reformation was a death- war against mona- 
 chism. Who would put possibilities against the maxims of 
 a universal policy? But might not every monument of 
 superstition have been destroyed, and the bare buildings 
 themselves have been preserved to lodge a purer religion ? 
 Perhaps they might ; but coiild the rabble which followed 
 in the trail of the Congregation be expected to do just what 
 was needful, and nothing more ? As well try to keep a 
 fierce soldiery in check when sacking a city. Every revolu- 
 tion must have its excesses. It is, indeed, impossible to 
 read without a pang of the demolition of the Charter-House 
 at Perth, and the burning of the Abbey at Scone ; but our 
 grief will subside when we reflect that a more glorious 
 temple, built of living stones, has risen upon their ruins. 
 But withal let no man be deceived : let him not indulge 
 in imaginary sorrows : let him not dream that every ruined 
 cathedral, abbey, and church which he sees, was reduced to 
 its present desolation by the Reformers. War, time, neglect, 
 and the barbarity of making fine-looking old buildings quar- 
 ries out of which to erect mean-looking modern ones, have 
 done far more than John Knox toward reducing our reli- 
 
 * Row's History of the Kirk of Scotland, p. 12. Spottiswood's Hist., lib. ii. 
 
A.D. 1559.] MUTUAL RECRIMINATIONS. 333 
 
 gious houses to the dilapidated state in which we aow find 
 too many of them.* 
 
 After the retreat of the queen-regent, and the occupation 
 of the capital by the Congregation, both parties gave vent 
 to mutual recriminations and reproaches. The regent issued 
 proclamations, and the Congregation answered them. The 
 regent accused the Congregation of rebellion and trea- 
 son ; the Congregation declared they wished nothing more 
 than the reformation of religion and the expulsion of the 
 French.f On the one side, it was industriously whispered 
 that the Prior of St Andrews, notwithstanding his bastard 
 blood, aspired to the throne ; on the other, it was rumoured 
 that the French had already parcelled out the country 
 amongst them, and that one already rejoiced in the title of 
 Monsieur d'Argyll, another of Monsieur de Prior, a third of 
 Monsieur de Euthven.J The known ambition and abilities 
 of the young Lord James gave a colour of probability to 
 what was said of him, and some even of the Congregation 
 believed it. Jealousies arose ; uncomfortable feelings about 
 the end of traitors were experienced, though not confessed ; 
 barons began to slip away home ; and the military muster to 
 dissolve like frost-work in the sun. The regent, knowing 
 this state of matters, marched upon Edinburgh, and the 
 Congregation were glad to accept of the following terms of 
 accommodation : " That, on the one" side, the Congregation 
 evacuate the capital, deliver up the dies of the mint, which 
 they had seized, submit themselves to the authority of the 
 king, queen, and regent, refrain from molesting ecclesiastics, 
 or hindering them in the lifting of their rents, and finally, 
 cease from casting down religious houses, or stripping them 
 of their furniture ; and on the other side, that the citizens 
 
 * This is distinctly admitted by Billings, in his Ecclesiastical and Baronial 
 Antiquities, and also in an able review of his work in the Quarterly, which is 
 not in general disposed to say anything favourable of the Scotch Reformers. 
 It is, in triith, too well known to be denied. Many houses in jSTewburgh were 
 built from the Abbey of Lindores, of which the stones may still be traced ; and 
 the Earl of Mar built a palace on the Castle-Hill of Stirling from the ruins 
 of Cambuskennetli. 
 
 t Proclamation by Regent, and Answer by the Congregation, July 1559, 
 published at length by Keith, book i. chap. ix. 
 
 } Knox's History, book ii. 
 
334 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. X. 
 
 of Edinburgh should be allowed to choose their own religion, 
 without being overawed by a garrison, and that the Pro- 
 testant preachers should everywhere have full liberty of 
 speech." These terms were subscribed on the 24th of July, 
 and were to hold good till the 10th of January following.* 
 
 Driven from Edinburgh, the Protestants souglit refuge in 
 Stirling, where a third bond or " Covenant" was subscribed, in 
 which the barons pledged themselves not to treat separately 
 with the regent-t It was meant as a counter- check to the 
 queen, who had been tampering with individuals, and at- 
 tempting to detach them from the cause. 
 
 In the meantime, Henry II. died, and Francis and Mary 
 were now King and Queen of France. They were scarcely 
 seated on the throne when they each wrote to the Prior of 
 St Andrews, reminding him of the favours he had received 
 at their hands, upbraiding him with ingratitude, want of 
 natural affection, and treason, but leaving him place for 
 repentance. The prior replied that he had done nothing 
 against God or their Majesties, and that all he desired was 
 a purgation of the Church. J But it could scarcely be hoped 
 that threatening epistles could turn the tide of revolution. 
 A large detachment of French auxiliaries arrived at Leith. 
 Following in their train came a more peaceful band — the 
 Bishop of Amiens as legate from the Pope, and three doc- 
 tors of the Sorbonne. The soldiers began to fortify Leith, 
 the bishop to purify the Church of St Giles from heretical 
 pollutions, and the doctors to confute the heretics. § But 
 notwithstanding the lustrations of the legate, and the reason- 
 ings of the Sorbonnists, the citizens refused to give up their 
 High Church ; and John Willock stoutly preached there. 
 
 Meanwhile the country was everywhere perambulated by 
 preachers, uttering fierce invectives against the regent and 
 the Pope. II The regent complained of the language they 
 
 * Keitli, book i. chap. is. Lesley, lib. x. 
 t It will be found at length in both Keith and Knox. 
 J Lesley, De Eebns, &c. , lib. x., -where a copy of the letters of Francis and Mary 
 is given, and an outline of the prior's reply. Keith's History, book i. chap. ix. 
 § Lesley, De Eebus, &c. 
 II Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 4.33. 
 
A.D. 1559.] NEGOTIATIONS WITH ENGLAND. 335 
 
 used. " They merely proclaim and cry," said Knox, " that 
 the same God who plagued Pharaoh, repulsed Sennacherib, 
 struck Herod with worms, and made the bellies of dogs the 
 grave and sepulchre of the spiteful Jezebel, will not spare 
 misled princes, who authorize the murderers of Christ's 
 members in this our time." " On this manner," said he, 
 " they speak of princes in general, and of your Majesty in 
 particular." But why should preachers meddle with State 
 poHcy at all ? said the regent. Again Knox had his answer : 
 "Elias did personally reprove Ahab and Jezebel of idol- 
 atry, of avarice, of murder : Esaias the prophet called the 
 magistrates of Jerusalem, in his time, companions to 
 thieves, princes of Sodom, bribe-takers, and murderers ; he 
 complained that their silver was turned into dross, that 
 their wine was mingled with water, and that justice was 
 bought and sold : Jeremiah said that the bones of King 
 Jehoiakim should wither with the sun: Christ Jesus called 
 Herod a fox : and Paul calleth a high priest a painted wall, 
 and prayeth unto God that he should smite him, because 
 that against justice he had commanded him to be smitten."* 
 This was plain language to be used by a preacher to a lady 
 and a queen. 
 
 But the Lords of the Congregation now began to feel the 
 need of exterior aid, and that, if England did not help them, 
 their enterprise must fail. 
 
 Towards the end of June and beginning of July, commu- 
 nications affecting matters in Scotland had passed between 
 Kirkcaldy of Grange, Sir Henry Percy, and Sir William 
 Cecil, Queen Elizabeth's clear-seeing secretary. On the 
 19th of July, the Lords of the Congregation wrote to Cecil, 
 referring to these, explaining their views, and soliciting his 
 assistance.t As Knox was likely to be employed in the 
 negotiations with the English government, he thought it 
 right to make an effort to propitiate Elizabeth, whom he 
 had grievously offended by his " Blast against the Monstrous 
 Eegiment of Women." On the 20th of July, he wrote Se- 
 cretary Cecil, enclosing a letter for the queen, in which he 
 
 * Knox's History, book ii. 
 
 t This letter will be found in Knox's History, book iii. 
 
336 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 Immbly deprecated her resentment, expressed his attach- 
 ment to her person and government, but still honestly 
 confessed his adherence to the general principles contained 
 in his book. Cecil answered his letters on the 28th, oddly 
 beginning his note with the text, " There is neither male 
 nor female, but we are all one in Christ," and then passing 
 on to other matters.* The truth is, Knox had committed 
 an unpardonable sin ; and Elizabeth could never bear him. 
 Cecil, in one of his letters to Sadler and Crofts, some 
 months afterwards, declares, " of all others, Knox's name, if 
 it be not Goodman's, is most odious here ; and therefore I 
 wish no mention of him hither." t On the same day on 
 which Cecil wrote to Knox, he wrote to the Lords of the 
 Congregation, hinting that, as they must be in want of 
 money, they should appropriate the revenues of the Church, 
 "putting good things to good uses." J 
 
 Though Knox was no favourite at the English court, he 
 could not well be wanted as a negotiator ; and on the 3d of 
 August we find him at Berwick, closeted with Sir James 
 Crofts, the governor, suggesting that Stirling Castle should 
 be seized and strongly garrisoned ; that Broughty Castle 
 should, in like manner, be occupied; that, in order to do 
 this, money to pay the troops must be furnished by Eng- 
 land, ships of war must be ready to give assistance in case 
 of need, and pensions allowed to some of the reforming 
 barons who were hard up for cash. § About the middle of 
 August, Sir Ealph Sadler, than whom there was no one 
 more intimately acquainted with Scotch affairs, arrived at 
 Berwick to watch the movements of the Congregation, and 
 treat with their emissaries. From this time, everything 
 
 * Copies of these three letters are given in Knox's History, hook iii. Tyt- 
 ler, however, has shown that the dates there given are wrong, and that those 
 here given are the correct ones. 
 
 t Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 532. Goodman was an Englishman, who 
 fled the country during the reign of Queen Mary, and, when at Geneva, pub- 
 lished a book entitled, "How Superior Powers ought to be obeyed of their 
 Subjects, and wherein they may lawfully be disobeyed and rejected," &c. In 
 this book he rails, like Knox, against the government of women ; therefore 
 Elizabeth's hate. 
 
 + MS. in State-Paper Office, quoted by Tytler, vol. vi. 
 
 'i MS. in State-Paper Oifice, quoted by Tytlor, vol. vi. 
 
A.D. 1559.] POLICY OF ELIZABETH. 337 
 
 tliat happened in Scotland was made known to Sadler, and 
 by Sadler communicated to Cecil. Eandolph had come into 
 Scotland to spy the land, and he writes ; Balnaves writes ; 
 and Knox writes. Knox assumed the name of Sinclair in 
 his correspondence ; and in a letter of date the 2 1st of Sep- 
 tember, he again tells Sadler that, unless some support were 
 given to certain of the lords, they must, through extreme 
 poverty, remain at home, and take no part in the warlike 
 movements that were contemplated. * The individuals re- 
 ferred to, as Sadler informs Cecil, were Glencairn, Dun, 
 Grange, and Ormiston.f It was money, in fact, that the 
 Lords of -the Congregation chiefly wanted — money to pay 
 their mercenaries, and money to support their own state as 
 feudal barons with a feudal following. Elizabeth was par- 
 simonious, and did not like to part with her money ; but, 
 overcome by the urgency of the case, she repeatedly sent 
 considerable sums to the Keformers, under the pledge that 
 the strictest secresy would be observed as to the source from 
 which they had come. J 
 
 But the most interesting inquiry remains — What were 
 the objects which the Congregation had in view, and what 
 was the policy of the English government in assisting them ? 
 These we are able minutely to trace. On the very day after the 
 July 1, 1559. Ciongregation entered Edinburgh, Sir William 
 Kirkaldy of Grange wrote to Sir Henry Percy — 
 " I received your letter this last of June, perceiving thereby 
 the doubt and suspicion you stand in for the coming forward 
 of the Congregation, whom, I assure you, you need not have 
 in suspicion, for they mean nothing but reformation of re- 
 ligion, which shortly, throughout the realm, they will bring 
 to pass ; for the Queen and Monsieur D'Osell, with all the 
 Frenchmen, for refuge, are retired to Dunbar. The foresaid 
 Congregation came this last of June, by three of the clock 
 to Edinburgh, where they will take order for the mainten- 
 ance of the true religion, and resisting of the King of 
 
 * Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 455. 
 
 t Sadler's State Papers, vol. i. p. 469. Sadler, in mentioning Glencairn 
 somewhat iJiteously says, " he is indeed a puir man." 
 { Sadler's State Papers, vol. i., passim. 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
338 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 France if he sends any force against them The 
 
 manner of their proceeding in reformation is this, — they 
 pnll down all manner of friaries and some abbeys, which 
 willingly receive not the Keformation. As to parish churches, 
 they cleanse them of images and all other monuments of 
 idolatry, and command that no masses be said in them ; in 
 place thereof, the book set forth by godly King Edward 
 is read in the same churches. They have never as yet 
 meddled with a pennyworth of that which pertains to the 
 Church, but presently they will take order throughout all 
 the parts where they dwell, that all the fruits of the abbeys 
 and other churches shall be kept and bestowed Tipon the 
 faithful ministers, until such time as a farther order be 
 taken. Some suppose the queen, seeing no other remedy, 
 will follow their desires, which is a general reformation 
 throughout the whole realm, conform to the pure Word of 
 Grod, and the Frenchmen to be sent away. If her Grace 
 will do so, they will obey her, and serve her, and annex the 
 whole revenues of the abbeys to the crown; if her Grace 
 will not be content with this, they are determined to hear of 
 no argument."* 
 
 Such were the views of the leaders of the Congregation 
 on the 1st of July. By the 19th of the same month they 
 have advanced a step farther. In a letter to Cecil, and in 
 answer to the question "What the Protestants within this 
 realm do mean?" They say, "True it is, that as yet we 
 have made no mention of any change in authority, neither 
 yet were we minded to do any such thing, till extrenie 
 necessity compelleth us thereto ; but seeing it is now more 
 than evident that France, and the queen regent here, with 
 her priests, pretend nothing but the suppressing of Christ's 
 gospel, the ruin of us, and the subversion of this poor realm, 
 committing our innocency to God, and unto the judgment 
 of all godly and wise men, we are determined to seek the 
 remedy, in which we heartily require your counsel and 
 assistance."t By the 19th of August this plan is assuming 
 
 * MS. Letter, State-Paper Office, qnoted by Tytler, vol. yi. 
 t Knox's History, toot iii. Knox dates the letter on the 27th ; we have 
 already referred to this as a mistake. 
 
A.D. 1559-] KESOLUTION TO SUPPLANT THE REGENT. 339 
 
 a definite shape, for on that day Argyle and the Lord 
 James, in name of their brethren, write to the English 
 secretary — "We cease not to provoke all men to favour 
 our cause, and of our nobility we have established a council ; 
 but suddenly to discharge this authority [evidently the 
 regent's], till that ye and we be fully accorded, it is not 
 thought expedient."* By the 8th of September the scheme 
 was ripe. " "Whatever pretence they make," writes Sadler 
 to Cecil, " the principal mark they shoot at is, as Balnaves 
 saith, to make an alteration of the state and authority, to 
 the extent that the same being established as they desire, 
 they may then enter into open treaty with her Majesty, as 
 the case may require. This, he saith, is very secret ; and if 
 the Duke will take it upon him, they mean to bestow it 
 there ; or, if he refuse, his son is as meet, or more meet for 
 the purpose." t 
 
 The Lords of the Congregation had now hit upon the 
 plan of all most agreeable to Elizabeth. Her policy was 
 not to reform religion, especially according to Knox's views, 
 but to lessen French influence in Scotland ; and there was 
 no more effectual way of doing this than by depriving Mary 
 of Guise of her regency. During the month of August, 
 Cecil's and Sadler's letters are full of mysterious references 
 to the arrival of the Earl of Arran. This young nobleman 
 had held the command of the Scots Guard at Paris, he 
 had become suspected of heresy, he had fled to Geneva, and 
 now he was passing through England on his way home. 
 He entered Scotland in disguise under the name of Beaufort, 
 accompanied by Eandolph, who rejoiced in the name of 
 Barnabie. This M. de Beaufort was evidently the regent 
 to be. His presence at Hamilton was soon seen in his in- 
 fluence over his vacillating father, whose conduct for some 
 time had been dubious, though he was generally understood 
 to lean to the regent ; but now, turning Protestant once 
 more, he threw in his lot with the Congregation. The plans 
 thus secretly formed soon began to develop themselves. 
 
 In 1559 the harvest in Scotland was unusually late, and 
 
 * MS., State-Paper Office, quoted by Tytler, yol. vi. 
 t Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i. p. 433. 
 
 Y 2 
 
340 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 before it was well gathered in the Congregation was in mo- 
 tion.* On the 18th of October they entered Edinburgh, and 
 the regent, upon their approach, left Holyrood, and retired 
 within the fortifications at Leith. Kumours had got afloat 
 that Ohastelherault had joined the Protestants to cheat Lord 
 James of the croAvn, and take it to himself. He purged 
 himself with sound of trumpet at the market-cross.f On 
 the 19th a message was sent to the regent, requiring her to 
 send all Frenchmen furth the realm. The regent refused 
 to accede to a demand, which, she said, was more like that 
 of a prince to his subjects, than of subjects to a prince.J On 
 the 21st the barons and^ their preachers assembled in the 
 Tolbooth. No less weighty a matter than the deprivation 
 of the regent was debated. The preachers were required to 
 give their opinion, and John Willock stood up. He argued 
 that, albeit magistrates were the ordinance of God, they 
 might upon good cause be removed, and that God had fre- 
 quently raised up men to cut off wicked monarchs, " as by 
 Asa he removed Maacha, his own mother, from honour and 
 authority; by Jehu he destroyed Joram, and the whole pos- 
 terity of Ahab.'' Knox followed, and concurred. § The plan 
 had been determined upon a month ago ; the preachers- had 
 been required ;to speak only that they might give to it the 
 sanction of religion, and a deed was drawn depriving the 
 regent of her office. The barons alleged that they took this 
 decisive step in virtue of their being born counsellors of the 
 realm, but how many of the oligarchy had part in it we 
 cannot discover, as, instead of appending their names indi- 
 vidually to the deed of deprivation, they, strangely enough, 
 made it to run in the name of — " Us, the nobility and com- 
 mons of the Protestants of the Church of Scotland." || 
 
 The siege of Leith was now begun. An attempt was 
 made to scale its walls and take it by storm, but. utterly 
 failed. On the 6th of November a convoy with provisions 
 
 -■■■ When urged to activity, they pled liarvest operations as the cause of 
 delay. (Sadler's State Papers, vol. i.) 
 t Keith's Hist., book i. chap. ix. Knox's Hist., boot ii. 
 + Keith's Hist., book i. chap. ix. § Knox's Hist., book ii. 
 
 1 The deed of deprivation is given by Knox at length. Hist., book ii. 
 
A.D. 1559.] FLIGHT FROM EDINBUEGH. 341 
 
 was seen approacMng the city, and the garrison sallied out 
 to cut it oiF. The Earl of Arran and the Lord James, with 
 a band of followers, made for the rescue, and charged the 
 French with such impetuosity that they got entangled in 
 the marshy ground between Holyrood and Eestalrig, and 
 made a narrow escape of being surrounded and cut to pieces. 
 A panic seized upon the city. Lord Erskine held the castle ; 
 his policy was doubtful, and men with pale faces whispered 
 that he might bring the guns of the fortress to hear upon 
 them. A flight was determined upon, and at midnight the 
 members of the Congregation were crowding out of the city- 
 gates, and taking the road to Stirling. Then it was seen 
 how many there are ever ready to change with the change 
 of circumstances, and ever to keep on the winning side. 
 Two days ago all Edinburgh seemed Protestant ; " but now," 
 says Knox, in dolour of heart, " the despiteful tongues of 
 the wicked railed upon us, calling us traitors and heretics ; 
 every one provoked the other to cast stones at us."* The 
 Congregation were hooted and pelted as they left the city. 
 
 Arrived at Stirling, the lords took council together as to 
 what was to be done. It was plain that their raw musters 
 could not cope with the disciplined soldiery of France, and 
 that unless Elizabeth sent men and munitions of war, as 
 well as money, to their aid, they must be crushed. Young 
 Maitland of Lethington had recently deserted the regent, 
 and joined their cause. He was despatched to the English 
 court. In the meantime, as the Eeforming barons could 
 easiest maintain themselves each in his own country, they 
 resolved to divide — Chastelherault, Glencairn, Boyd, and 
 Ochiltree, marched upon Glasgow ; Arran, Eothes, the Lord 
 James, and the Master of Lindsay, retired into Fife. Henry 
 Balnaves was attached as secretary to the western division ; 
 John Knox to the eastern. At Glasgow, Chastelherault was 
 not idle. He purged the churches of their idols, seized upon 
 the archiepiscopal palace, and published proclamations in 
 the name of the king and the queen ; but a detachment of 
 French from Edinburgh brought his procedure to an abrupt 
 conclusion. 
 
 * Knox's History, book ii. 
 
342 
 
 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAJSTD. [oHAP. X. 
 
 Elizabetli was most anxious to assist the insurgents, but 
 was at a loss how to do it, as the kingdoms were at peace. 
 In the month of October, Knox had proposed to Sir James 
 Crofts that a thousand men or more sliould be sent into 
 Scotland, and that so soon as they joined the Congregation 
 they should be declared rebels, as if they had left England 
 without the consent of the government. Crofts declared 
 that such a proceeding would not blind the world, and would 
 touch the honour of his prince.* Cecil was delighted with 
 the rebuke which the diplomatist had administered to the 
 preacher.f But as the emergency became greater, it was 
 felt that something must be done, under whatever pretence. 
 Cecil had already sent down to Scotland minute instruc- 
 tions as to the precise way in which all applications for 
 assistance should be made. The only subject to be in- 
 sisted upon was that the French, by conquering Scotland, 
 would endanger England and Ireland. In the instructions 
 given to Lethington for his conduct at the English court, 
 this programme of procedure was faithfully observed, so 
 that when Maitland spoke, Elizabeth could only hear the 
 echo of her own voice. :j: The result of all this crooked 
 diplomacy was, that a secret treaty was concluded at Ber- 
 wick between Elizabeth and the Lords of the Congregation, 
 in which she undertook to assist them in expelling the 
 French. 
 
 After the retreat of the Protestants from the capital, the 
 French marched into Fife. Proceeding along the coast, they 
 observed some large ships of war bearing up the Frith. At 
 first they imagined them to be from France with auxiliary 
 troops, and gave them a salute, but it soon became plain 
 that they were English vessels, whatever might be the de- 
 
 * Keith gives both these letters in his Appendix. Knox signs himself 
 John Sinclair. 
 
 t " Surely I like not Knox's audacity, which was well tamed in your 
 answer. His writings do no good here, and therefore I do rather suppress 
 them, and yet I mean not but that he should continue in sending them." 
 (Cecil to Sadler and Crofts. Sadler's State Papers, &c., vol. i. p. 535.) 
 
 J Compare letter of Cecil to Sadler and Crofts of 12th November, with in- 
 sti-uctions given to Lethington, 25th November 1559. (Sadler's State Papers, 
 &c., vol. i.) 
 
A.D. 1560.] SIEGE OF LEITH. 343 
 
 sign of their coming. Tlie admiral said he had been sent in 
 quest of some pirates, and wished to skulk for a time in the 
 Frith, that he might unexpectedly pounce upon them ; but 
 nobody believed him, and the French instantly began their 
 retreat. The English fleet was soon followed by an English 
 army, and in the month of April 1560, Leith found itself 
 besieged for the second time. Elizabeth and Cecil had fre- 
 quently upbraided the Scots for their dilatoriness and want 
 of success during the previous siege. They now found it 
 was not so easy as they had supposed to enter a town lying 
 to the sea, strongly fortified, and defended by veteran troops. 
 Batteries were opened, skirmishes fought, an escalade at- 
 tempted, but still Leith was not taken. But hope did not 
 fail ; the treaty of Berwick was renewed and confirmed ; and 
 the Lords of the Congregation put their names to a fourth 
 Covenant, in which they pledged themselves to pursue their 
 object to the last extremity, to be enemies to enemies, and 
 friends to friends.* 
 
 Upon the approach of the English army the queen regent 
 retired within the Castle of Edinburgh, into which Lord 
 Erskine willingly received her. Worn out with fatigue, 
 grief, and anxiety of mind, her health was rapidly declining. 
 Feeling death to be drawing nigh, she expressed a wish to 
 have an interview with some of the confederate lords, and 
 accordingly the Duke of Chastelherault, the Earls of Argyle, 
 Marischal, and Glencairn, and the Lord James Stuart, waited 
 upon her in her sick room. She declared to them how she 
 had loved Scotland — how she had lamented the troubles 
 that had arisen — how earnestly she desired peace. She 
 recommended them to send both the French and the English 
 troops out of the country, but at the same time to preserve 
 inviolate their ancient alliance with France, as her daughter, 
 their queen, was now united in marriage with its monarch. 
 She at last burst into tears, asked pardon of all whom she 
 had in any way offended, and declared that from her heart 
 she forgave those who had offended her. Composing herself 
 a little, she kissed the nobles one by one, and held out her 
 hand to be kissed by the attendants who happened to be in 
 * Knox's Hist., book iii. Keith, 1300]! i. chap. xi. 
 
344 CHDRCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 the room. The rough ' barons were deeply moTed, and, 
 sincere in their religious convictions, they proposed that 
 John Willock should be sent for to prepare her for death. 
 The Catholic queen agreed to receive the Protestant preacher, 
 and Willock • came. He spoke to her of the merits of 
 Christ, and the abominations of the mass. She declared 
 that her only hope was in Christ, but regarding the mass 
 she was silent. The next day she died.* 
 
 We cannot help loving Mary of Guise, albeit she was a 
 Papist. No Frenchwoman, before or since, ever became so 
 naturalized to Scotland as she. Brought from the most 
 dissolute court in Europe, her court was an example to every 
 household in the kingdom. She herself was accustomed to 
 visit the sick and the poor, and with womanly kindness 
 relieve them. Justice was never more strictly administered 
 than during her government. But she was fated to live in 
 troublous times, and when her subjects changed their religion 
 she could not change hers. A collision became inevitable be- 
 tween a governmeat still Catholic, a church still Catholic, and 
 a nobility turned Protestant. Instead of marvelling at this, 
 it were wiser to marvel that the collision was not more 
 violent than it was, and that so great a revolution was 
 effected with so little loss of blood. The only thing for 
 which we find it hard to forgive her was her frequent vio- 
 lations of solemn promises. The truth is, that when affairs 
 were threatening the woman got alarmed, and made promises 
 which she broke when the danger was past. A resolute 
 man would not have made the promises, and would not have 
 been taunted for breaking them. But her death-scene 
 covers all. She begged our forgiveness — shall we refuse to 
 give it ? Knox did not forgive her ; and we are ashamed to 
 write that a vindictive intolerance, now to be found only in 
 Spain, followed her to the grave. " Question being moved 
 about her burial," says he,f " the preachers boldly gainstood 
 to the use of any superstitious rites in that realm, which 
 God of His mercy had begun to purge. Her burial was 
 
 * Lesley. Knox. Spottiswood. Keith, &c., &c. 
 
 t Kuox's History, book iii. Tytler quotes this passage as occurring in 
 Calderwood's MS. History, but the statement is Knox's. 
 
A.D. 15C0.] TERMS OF PEACE. 345 
 
 deferred till further advisement ; her corpse was clapped in 
 a coffin of lead, and kept in the castle from the lOtli of June 
 till the 19th of Octoher, at which time it was carried by 
 some pioneers to a ship." In this vessel she was carried 
 over the troubled, restless sea to France, and buried in the 
 Benedictine Monastery of St Peter's, at Eheims, of which 
 her sister Kenee was the abbess ; and where she herself had 
 desired that her ashes might repose. 
 
 Before the death of the regent both France and England 
 had become earnestly desirous of peace ; and in the month 
 of May commissioners had been appointed to adjust its 
 terms. But there were grave difficulties in the way, as the 
 negotiations must include, in some way or other, not only . 
 England and France, but the Lords of the Congregation, 
 who had been in open rebellion against their natural sove- 
 reign. The firmness of Cecil got rid of the difficulty, and a 
 treaty was agreed upon, in which was embraced all that 
 France and England desired ; while at the same time the 
 safety of the Lords of the Congregation was guaranteed, 
 and the Reformation of religion in Scotland, though not 
 mentioned, virtually secured.* The chief articles of this 
 important treaty, so far as it referred to Scotland, were : — 
 That both the French and the English troops should be 
 withdrawn ; that an act of oblivion should be passed for all 
 offences committed between the 6th of March 1558 and the 
 1st of August 1560 ; that the barons and commonality of 
 the realm should bear no quarrels against each other for 
 anything done during that period ; that those who had pos- 
 sessions or benefices in France should have them restored ; 
 that all ecclesiastics who had received injuries during the 
 commotions should receive redress, and that they should not 
 now be hindered in lifting their rents ; that the government 
 should, in the meantime, be conducted by a council of 
 twelve, seven of whom should be chosen by the queen, and 
 five by the Estates ; and that in the month of August next 
 
 * Aa the queen had not given her commissioners any instmotions to treat 
 upon these two last points, she refused to ratify the treaty so far as it had 
 reference to them. Nevertheless the treaty -was acted upon, as if it were good 
 in every respect. 
 
346 CHORCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. X. 
 
 a parliament should be held, for which a commission should 
 be sent by the king and queen, and that this convention 
 should be as lawful in all respects as if it had been ordained 
 by the express command of their Majesties. 
 
 In this document the Eeformation appears to be ignored, 
 and the Papacy protected. This arose from the desire of 
 Elizabeth to have it understood that she began the war, not 
 from religious considerations, but simply from a determi- 
 nation to prevent the ascendancy of France in the island. 
 The treaty of Edinburgh must be read by the light of the 
 treaty of Berwick. But the article which permitted the 
 Scotch to hold a parliament, put it in their power to effect a 
 reformation in the Church, if it were found that a majority 
 of the representatives of the nation desired it. The change 
 from Prelacy to Presbyterianism was afterwards effected in 
 the same way, not by the mandate of a monarch, not by an 
 article in a treaty, but by a vote in parliament ; and of all 
 possible modes it was the most legitimate. On the 8th of 
 July the peace was proclaimed at the Market Cross of Edin- 
 hurgh, and public thanks were given to God in the church 
 of St Giles. 
 
 The thoughts and desires of the nation were now con- 
 centrated upon the approaching parliament. According to 
 the specific terms of the treaty, it met on the 10th of July, 
 and then adjourned to the 1st of August, to afford time for 
 receiving a commission from the sovereigns. On the 1st of 
 August, the Parliament House was unusually full, and a 
 scrutiny of the faces showed there were many there who 
 had never sat in a parliament before.* In ancient times 
 the whole landed proprietors who held their estates directly 
 by charter from the crown, as well as the titled nobility, 
 possessed the privilege of appearing in the legislature ; but 
 the difficulty and expense of travelling to the capital had 
 prevented their regular attendance, and for nearly a cen- 
 tury their right had fallen into abeyance, f Now, upwards 
 
 * Keitt, book i. chap, xii., gives the parliamentary roll. The new-comers 
 far ontnumbered all the others. 
 
 t There is an excellent dissertation on this subject in Pinterton's History, 
 vol. ii. 
 
A.D. 1560.] THE PARLIAMENT MEETS. 347 
 
 of a hundred of these appeared and claimed their seats, 
 and after some ineffectual opposition, their claim was 
 allowed. This secured an overwhelming majority in favour 
 of reform. 
 
 The next question debated was, whether or not they 
 might now proceed to business, seeing that no commission 
 had as yet been received from the queen. Some held that 
 the want of a commission was fatal to the parliament, others 
 that the terms of the treaty supplied the defect, and after a 
 discussion which lasted for a week, a vote was taken, and 
 it was carried that they should continue their sittings.* 
 Maitland of Lethington was chosen " harangTie-maker," and 
 next were chosen the Lords of the Articles. When the 
 election was over the clergy declared that, of those taken 
 from their body, several were mere laics and all were apos- 
 tates, f But remonstrance was useless; the banks of the 
 old mill-dam were bursting, and it was already evident in 
 what direction the flood would flow, and what institutions 
 would be swept away in its course. 
 
 These were but out-post skirmishes, and the great battle 
 was yet to be fought. A petition was presented in name 
 of " the barons, gentlemen, burgesses, and other true sub- 
 jects of this realm, professing the Lord Jesus within the 
 same," praying that idolatry should be abolished, the sacra- 
 ments administered in their original purity, the discipline 
 of the ancient Church restored, and the patrimony usurped 
 by the Pope applied to the maintenance of a true ministry, 
 the founding of schools and the support of the poor. This 
 document, whichKnox has preserved,Junfortunatelyabounds 
 in coarse and unbecoming language, for which we can 
 scarcely find an apology in the rudeness of the times. After 
 some debate, the barons and ministers who had presented 
 the petition were called and " commandment given unto 
 them to draw into plain and several heads, the sum of that 
 doctrine which they would maintain, and would desire the 
 present parliament to establish as wholesome, true, and 
 only necessary to be believed, and to be received within the 
 
 '■■ Keith's History, book i. chap. xii. Tytler's History, vol. vi. 
 t Spottiswood, lib. iii. t History, book iii. 
 
348 CflUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. x. 
 
 realm." * The task was undertaken, and in four days it was 
 accomplislied. 
 
 ■This Confession of Faith was contained in twenty-iiTe 
 articles, treating respectively — of G-od ; Of the Creation of 
 Man ; Of Original Sin ; Of the Eevelation of the Promises ; 
 Of the Continuance, Increase, and Preservation of the 
 Church ; Of the Incarnation of Christ Jesus ; Of why it 
 behoveth the Mediator to be Very God and Very Man ; Of 
 Election ; Of Christ's Death, Passion, and Burial ; Of the 
 Eesurrection ; Of the Ascension ; Of Faith in the Holy 
 Ghost ; Of the Cause of Good Works ; Of what Works are 
 reputed good before God ; Of the Perfection of the Law and 
 the Imperfection of Man ; Of the Church ; Of the Immor- 
 tality of the Soul ; Of the Notes by which the True Church 
 is Discerned from the False, and who shall be Judge of the 
 Doctrine ; Of the Authority of the Scriptures ; Of General 
 Councils, of their Power, Authority, and cause of their Con- 
 vention ; Of the Sacraments ; Of the Eight Administration 
 of the Sacraments ; Of Those to whom Sacraments Ap- 
 pertain ; Of the Civil Magistrate ; Of the Gifts freely given 
 to the Church. It is a clear and logical summary of Chris- 
 tian doctrine, much more concise than the Westminster 
 Confession, but agreeing with it in every essential respect. 
 
 It was first submitted to the Lords of the Articles, and 
 afterwards to the whole parliament, some of the ministers 
 attending to give any explanations that might be required, 
 or defend any of the doctrines that might be impugned. f 
 In order that so grave a matter might not be done hurriedly, 
 an adjournment took place to give time for reflection, and 
 when the parliament again met, the Confession was again 
 read over article by article. The vote was then taken which 
 was to decide the faith of all succeeding generations in Scot- 
 land. Man by man was asked his opinion. Of the temporal 
 peers present, the Earls of Athole, Caithness, and Cassillis, 
 and the Lords Somerville and Borthwick, alone said "No" 
 to the new creed, declaring they would believe as their 
 fathers believed.^ Of the spiritual Estate, of whom few were 
 
 * Knox's History, book iii. f Ibid. 
 
 i ITpon the authority of a letter from Randolph to Cecil, Tytler mentions 
 
A.D. 1560.] THE REFOEMATION ESTABLISHED BY LAW. 349 
 
 present, the Bishops of Dunkeld and Dunblane alone made 
 an eiFort at resistance; the others, seeing that opposition 
 would be useless, " spake nothing."* The great victory was 
 won. The enthusiasm of the assembly was at the highest, 
 and the venerable Lord Lindsay rose and declared that he 
 could say with Simeon, — " Now, Lord, let thy servant depart 
 in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." f 
 
 It was on the 17th of August that the Parliament adopted 
 the Confession of Knox as the confession of its faith. But 
 something more required to be done to make the work of 
 Reformation complete. On the 24th of the month the 
 Estates again assembled, and passed three actswhich finished 
 the long reign of the Papacy in our country. By the first 
 it was statute and ordained that all previous acts of parlia- 
 ment regarding the censures of the Church, or the worship- 
 ing of saints, shoald be annulled and deleted from the statute- 
 book. By the second, the'Pope's jurisdiction was abolished 
 within the realm. By the third, to say a mass or hear a 
 mass was made criminal ; the first offence to be punished 
 with confiscation of goods ; the second, with banishment ; 
 the third, with death. J 
 
 And now, had the film which obscures mortal vision been 
 purged from the eye-balls of our fathers, they would have 
 seen " an angel come down from heaven, having great 
 power; and the earth lightened with his glory. And he cried 
 mightily, with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is 
 
 only Cassillis and Caithness as dissenting. Knox says that Athole, Somerville, 
 and Borthwick opposed the new creed. "We may safely regard either list as 
 imperfect, and conclude that the two combined give the nearest approximation 
 to the truth. Neither Eandolph nor Knox would place among their opponents 
 nobles who were their friends. 
 
 * Knox says that none of the clergy made any opposition ; but Tytler pro- 
 duces a letter from Lethington to Cecil, in which the Bishops of Dunblane 
 and Dunkeld pray for delay to consider a matter so important. There is still 
 extant a letter from the Archbishop of St Andrews to the Archbishop of Glas- 
 gow, dated the 18th of August, in which he hints that he also opposed the 
 reception of the new Confession. See Keith. There is also a suspicion of in- 
 timidation having been used, and St Andrews speaks as if he had been threatened 
 with assassination. 
 
 t MS. Letter, State Paper Office, Eandolph to Cecil, 19th August 1560, 
 quoted by Tytler, vol. vi. 
 
 { Knox's History, book iii. Keitli's History, book i. chap. xii. 
 
350 CHURCH HISTOllY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. X. 
 
 falleD, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and 
 the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and 
 hateful bird. . . . Come out of her, my people, that ye be 
 not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her 
 plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God 
 hath remembered her iniquities. Eeward her even as she 
 rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her 
 works : in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double."* 
 She was rewarded as she had rewarded others ; the intol- 
 erance she had meted out to her children was now meted out 
 to herseK : so had an eternal Providence ordained. But, at 
 the same time, who does not wish that our reforming fore- 
 fathers had not marred the beauty of their glorious work by 
 penal statutes written in blood. 
 
 * Bevelations xviii. 1-6. 
 
A.D. 1560.] THE ENGLISH AND SCOTCH REFORMATIONS. 351 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A CONTRAST has frequently been drawn between the Ee"- 
 formation in England and the Reformation in Scotland. In 
 the one, we are told, it was effected by the king ; in the other, 
 by the people. In the one, it was the product of despotic 
 power ; in the other, it resulted from the persuasiveness of 
 preaching. In the one, the movement was more than half 
 political ; in the other, it was entirely religious. In the one, 
 the primary object was to abolish the jurisdiction of the 
 Pope ; in the other, the object from first to last was to purify 
 the sanctuary. This rubbing of the English Reformation 
 against the Scotch throws out some flashes of light, and 
 enables us to see the truth partially, but not wholly. The 
 Reformation in Scotland was certainly much more a popular 
 movement than it was in England ; but in its springs it was 
 not entirely popular, at least in the modern sense of the 
 phrase. We shall approach nearer the truth if we say that 
 it was baronial in Scotland, as it was monarchical in England. 
 In the south of the island, the monarch was omnipotent, 
 and he reformed the Church ; in the north, the barons were 
 always a match for the throne, even when a vigorous king 
 sat upon it, and much more than a match for it when it was 
 filled by a child ; and so they took the matter in hand, and 
 accomplished the Reformation. Had it not been for the 
 favour of the oligarchy, Knox would have preached in vain, 
 or rather he would never have preached at all. 
 
 We have already remarked that the ignorance of the 
 peasantry precluded the possibility of their originating the 
 
352 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 controversy. But from the first, Ave find the nobility and 
 gentry, who were now, in a measure, educated men, bidding- 
 welcome to the Protestant opinions. Even during the Hfe- 
 time of James V. such converts were numerous. Beaton is 
 said to have presented to the king a list of three hundred 
 and sixty landed proprietors who were suspected of heresy. 
 So long as the king lived they were kept in check ; but he 
 was no sooner gone than their power began to be seen. The 
 return of the prisoners taken at the Solway, and who, while 
 in England, had conversed with Cranmer at Lambeth, and 
 contracted a fondness for English pensions, Eeformation 
 principles, and monastic spoil, increased their numbers and 
 quickened their zeal. They had influence enough to set 
 aside Beaton's pretensions, and raise the Protestant Earl of 
 Arran to the regency. They had numbers enough to out- 
 vote the clergy, and get an act passed allowing the Scrip- 
 tures to be read in the vulgar tongue. When Wishart began 
 to preach he was protected by powerful barons. When he 
 died, a conspiracy of barons avenged him. Knox's hatred 
 of Eome was nursed in the same baronial halls which had 
 sheltered Wishart. He came from Ormiston and Long- 
 niddry to thunder against idolatry at St Andrews, which 
 was now held by a few Protestant barons against the might 
 of the country. When he returned from captiAdty, by barons 
 again was he befriended, and under the shadow of their power 
 he preached. When he was dwelling at Geneva, an exile 
 from his native country, the barons leagued themselves to- 
 gether, assumed the name of the Lords of the Congregation, 
 and began the armed struggle which resulted in the triumph 
 of the Reformation. 
 
 Feudalism was still strong in Scotland, and the faith of 
 the lord naturally became the faith of the vassal. It was in 
 those districts of the country where the barons had become 
 Protestant that the populace became Protestant too. Argyll 
 and Glencairn were all-powerful in the western counties, 
 and the western counties were the stronghold of the Reforma- 
 tion. The Earl of Eothes, Lord Lindsay, and the Lord James 
 Stewart had Fife at their devotion ; and Fife was for reform. 
 Lord Euthven was provost of Perth, and Erskine of Dun was 
 
A.D. 1560.] BARONIAL INFLUENCE. 353 
 
 provost of Montrose, and his influence extended to Dundee ; 
 and Perth, Montrose, and Dundee were conspicuous among 
 the towns for their thorough-going Protestantism. On the 
 other hand, where Huntly was lord, the Keformation made 
 little progress, so much so, that after the mass was abolished 
 by parliament, this potent earl boasted that he could set it 
 up again in three counties ; and strange to say, in some of 
 these very districts. Popery has lingered till the present day. 
 Glasgow, Paisley, and the country around them vacillated 
 with the vacillations of the dominant house of Hamilton. 
 Carrick was strongly Protestant in the days of "Wishart ; it 
 was not so much so in the days of Knox. The explanation 
 is — the old Earl of Cassillis was a staunch Keformer ; the new 
 earl was not. In his famous letter from Dieppe, Knox re- 
 minded the Scottish nobles of their duty as feudal chiefs — 
 they ought to care for the faith of their followers. In more 
 than one of their manifestoes, the Lords of the Congrega- 
 tion appealed to their feudal position as the vindication of 
 their conduct — their duty to their dependents and the State 
 constrained them. As feudal barons they brow-beat the 
 regent ; and as feudal barons they deposed her. 
 
 Knox was unquestionably a great instrument in effecting 
 the Reformation ; but we are inclined to regard the preacher 
 as an instrument in the hands of the barons, rather than the 
 barons as instruments in the hands of the preacher. Knox 
 had but to preach, surrounded by his powerful patrons, and 
 his words were like sledge hammers, beating down abbeys, 
 images, and altars. Priests, friars, nuns, were scattered 
 like chaff before the breath of his nostrils. He had but to 
 draw up a Confession of Faith, and the parliament with 
 acclamations received it. But when he differed from the 
 nobles, he became weak as another man. When he sug- 
 gested a truly wise application of the revenues of the Church, 
 he was treated with derision and contempt. He could pull 
 down the old house, but he could not, as he would, build up 
 the new one. The " Book of Discipline," as we shall shortly 
 see, was not received with the same enthusiasm as the 
 " Book of Doctrines." 
 
 The Eeformations in the sister countries have been con- 
 VOL. I. z 
 
354 CHURCH HISTOET OF SCOTLAND. [cilAP. xr". 
 
 trasted in another way. The one, it has been said, was consti- 
 tutional, legal, orderly, without mohbings, without violence ; 
 the other was the offspring of treason and rebellion, and 
 characterized throughout by rioting and popular outrage. 
 Here, again, we have the partial truth, not the whole truth. 
 It may have been constitutional for a despotic king and cor- 
 rupt parliament to make millions believe backwards and 
 forwards at their bidding ; but was it right ? It may have 
 been treasonable and rebellious for a numerous aristocracy 
 to rise against their sovereign, and insist upon being allowed 
 to worship their own God in their own way ; but was it 
 wrong ? It were a sorry world in which we live had there 
 been no treasons, no rebellions ; had the iron rod of the 
 oppressor never been broken ; had the neck been eternally 
 bowed to the yoke. It may be true that in England there 
 were no mobbings, and that the monasteries were there 
 spoiled under the decencies of law, and the ridiculous pre- 
 text of voluntary surrenders ; but spoiled they nevertheless 
 were, as effectually as in Scotland. It may be true that in 
 Scotland popular passions were let loose against Religious 
 Houses, venerable for their antiquity, and admired for their 
 architecture ; but surely it is much more easy to justify 
 the illegal outrages of a rabble, than the legalized spoliations 
 of a king and his parliament. In England, the monarch did 
 violence to the people ; in Scotland, the people did violence 
 to the monarch. 
 
 But foreign elements mingled in the Scottish Eeformation 
 struggle, and in the end decided it. Around Leith were 
 gathered the interests of Popery and Protestantism ; and 
 Leith was held by a French garrison, and besieged by an 
 English army. France was Scotland's ancient ally, England 
 was her nearest neighbour. Had England, the stronger 
 country, always acted with fairness toward Scotland, the 
 weaker one, it had been the plain policy of Scotland to have 
 cherished her friendship. But it had not been so, and Scot- 
 land, in her weakness, had sought and obtained the alliance of 
 France. The war of independence had caused wounds which 
 were not easily healed, and the defeat of Flodden and the 
 slaughter of Pinkie had opened them up again. Up to this 
 
A.D. 1560] MINISTEES AND SUPBRINTENDENTS. 355 
 
 time, England was both hated and feared. But Elizabeth 
 pursued a different policy, and easily subdued by intrigue a 
 country which all her predecessors had failed to subdue by 
 arms. English spies were in the court and the castle, and 
 a very little English gold went a long way with nobles of 
 great pretensions and slender means. The English alliance 
 grew in favour — the French alliance declined. The French 
 secured the queen, and she continued a Papist ; the English 
 prevailed with the people, and they all turned Protestant. 
 
 Even before Protestantism had received its parliamentary 
 establishment, it had, in a measure, taken possession of the 
 country. The treaty of Leith was no sooner signed, and 
 the French and English troops withdrawn, than the few 
 preachers of the Eeformation who could be found were 
 located in the different towns, to keep alive the zeal of the 
 populace. John Knox was appointed to Edinburgh, Chris- 
 topher Goodman to St Andrews, Adam Heriot to Aberdeen, 
 John Eow to Perth, Paul Methven to Jedburgh, William 
 Christison to Dundee, David Ferguson to Dunfermline, and 
 David Lindsay to Leith. Besides these ordinary ministers, , 
 the primitive Protestant Church of Scotland recognised a 
 class of office-bearers called superintendents, ajjpointed, says 
 Knox, to see " that all things in the Church were carried ' 
 with order, and well ;" and of these John Spottiswood was 
 appointed for Lothian, John Winram for Fife, John Willock 
 for Glasgow, Erskine of Dun for Angus and Mearns, and 
 John Carsewell for Argyle and the Isles.* These eight 
 ministers and five superintendents formed the iirst staff of 
 the Keformed Church in our country. 
 
 The parliament had received a new creed, and had passed 
 acts abolishing the mass and the jurisdiction of the Pope 
 within the realm. But still the work was but half done. 
 The old Church had been thrown down — a new one must 
 be reared out of its ruins. It was not enough that preachers 
 should perambulate the country, or be settled in towns ; pro- 
 vision must be made for their sustenance, rules must be laid 
 down for their conduct, legal authority must be given to their 
 acts. Well-nigh the half of the whole wealth of the king- 
 •^ Knox's Hist., book. iii. Spottiswood's Hist., lib. iii. 
 
 z 2 
 
356 , CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 dom had belonged to the Komish Church, and the Romish 
 Church was no more. What was to be done with it ? The 
 mass was prohibited, the invocation of saints was prohibited, 
 the whole service of the ancient worship was prohibited. 
 What was now to be substituted in their stead ? The juris- 
 diction of Rome was at an end. What other jurisdiction 
 was to succeed it? These questions must be solved; and ac- 
 cordingly, soon after the dissolution of parliament, a commis- 
 sion was given to Knox, Spottiswood, Winram, Willock, and 
 Row, to draw up a Book of Policy for the Protestant Church.* 
 The product of their labour remains, and is generally 
 known as the " First Book of DisciPLmE." No document 
 could possibly throw more light upon the opinions of the Re- 
 formers. It is, in fact, the plan of the temple they designed 
 to rear. If in anything our Church, as it now stands, differs 
 from the " Book of Discipline" — if it has not the breadth 
 of foundation, or height of pinnacle, or richness of ornament 
 there indicated, it is because the after execution has fallen 
 short of the original plan — it is because the builders who 
 raised the fabric had not the same views as the architects 
 who designed it. The " First Book of Discipline" is divided 
 into sixteen chapters, but we shall endeavour to explain the 
 ecclesiastical polity which it shadows forth under three 
 heads — The OfSce-bearers of the New Church, their election 
 and admission ; The Worship and Discipline of the New 
 Church ; The Patrimony of the Old Church, and its appro- 
 priation by the New. 
 
 I. Tlie Office-hearers of the New Church. 
 Of these there were four orders — the superintendent, the 
 minister, the elder, and the deacon. 
 
 * The First Book of Discipline is addressed to " The Great Councell of 
 Scotland now admitted to the Regiment, by the proTidence of God, and by 
 the Common consent of the Estates thereof," &o. It begins: — "From your 
 honours we received a charge, dated at Edinburgh the 29th of April, in th 
 yeare of our Lord 1560, requiring and commanding us, in the name of the 
 Eternall God, as we will answer in bis presence, to commit to writing, and in 
 a book deliver to your wisdomes, our judgments touching the Eeformation of 
 religion, which heretofore in this realm (as in others) hath been utterly cor- 
 rupted, upon the receipt whereof (so many of us as were in this toune) did con- 
 vene," &c. &c. The early date of Ajoril 1560 is surprising. 
 
A,D. 1560.] FIEST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 357 
 
 The " First Book of Discipline" divides the whole country 
 into ten dioceses, which were to he presided over hy ten super- 
 intendents. Their duty was to erect kirks, appoint pastors 
 in places hitherto unprovided, and give the occasional bene- 
 fit of a learned ministry in localities which con.ld not other- 
 wise enjoy that privilege at all. Their labours are minutely 
 chalked out. They must preach at least thrice every week : 
 they must not remain in the chief town of the diocese, where 
 their own church and residence were, longer than three or 
 four months at a time : when on a visitation, they must 
 tarry in no one place longer than twenty days : they must 
 not only preach, but examine the life, diligence, and beha- 
 viour of the ministers, the order of the churches, and the 
 manners of the people : they must see how the youth were 
 instructed and the poor provided for ; and, finally, take cog- 
 nizance of any crimes which called for the correction of the 
 Kirk. 
 
 These magnates of the early Church have been the sub- 
 ject of fierce debate between Episcopal and Presbyterian 
 vrriters. The Episcopial controversialist maintains that the 
 Eeformed Church of Scotland was Episcopal at the first, and 
 that its Presbyterianism was the growth of a subsequent age. 
 As we are sometimes told that presbyter is just priest written 
 large, so we are told that the superintendent was just the 
 bishop done into Latin, On the other hand, the Presbyterian 
 disputant affirms that the superintendent of the Scotch 
 Church was quite a different functionary from the bishop of 
 the Roman and Anglican Churches ; and, moreover, that the 
 ofiice was desigraed to be temporary, and not perpetual. In 
 a controversy like this, where we have authoritative docu- 
 ments upon which to proceed, there is no great difficulty in 
 arriving at the precise truth. It must be conceded to the 
 Episcopahan that the names coincide in meaning; that super- 
 intendent is nothing but the Latin form of the Greek 
 episcopos or bishop. It must further be conceded, that the 
 superintendent, like the bishop, had a diocese entrusted to 
 his care. It must still further be conceded, that the duties 
 imposed upon the superintendent in many respects agreed 
 with those anciently discharged by the bishop : he was to 
 
358 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 make a periodical visitation of the churches in his diocese, 
 and set everything in order. The nainisters and readers, 
 the elders and deacons, vs^ere amenahle to his jurisdiction. 
 But here concession must stop : here the similarity of the 
 hishop and the superintendent ceases. In other respects 
 there was a great gulph between them. The genuine hishop 
 required to rise through the diaconate and priesthood to his 
 episcopate ; the superintendent might at once he elevated 
 from the laity to his superintendency. John Erskine of Dun 
 was a country gentleman when he was admitted superinten- 
 dent of Angus and Mearns.* The hishop could be consecrated 
 only by bishops ; the superintendent was admitted to his 
 charge by presbyters. John Knox presided at the admission 
 both of Spottiswood andErskine. To the bishop belonged ex- 
 clusively the power of ordination — through him the apostolic 
 virtue was transmitted to the different office-bearers in the 
 Church ; to the superintendent belonged no such exclusive 
 privileges. The power of ordination belongedequally to every 
 minister in the Church. The bishop was raised above the 
 control of the presbyter ; a presbyter exercising jurisdiction 
 over a bishop — the lower over the higher, the governed over 
 the governor — was an inconceivable inconsistency, a suicidal 
 absurdity ; but the superintendent was made subject to the 
 censure and correction of the ministers and elders of the 
 province over which he presided, and no inconsistency or 
 absurdity was felt as belonging to the arrangement. Who, 
 then, will maintain that the Scotch superintendent was 
 identical with the Komish bishop ? Would any stickler for 
 a canonical episcopacy recognise such a superintendent as a 
 true bishop ? a bishop who had never been a deacon, never 
 a priest ; a bishop consecrated by a presbyter ; a bishop with 
 no exclusive powers of ordination, and made subject to the 
 clergy of his diocese ? 
 
 The language of the '• Book of Discipline" seems to imply 
 that the office of a superintendent was not designed to be 
 perpetual in the Church. It was a temporary expedient to 
 
 * This, however, leads us back to the time when Ambrose was taken from 
 the courts of law, even against his will, and at once set upon the Episcopal 
 throne of Milan . 
 
A.D. 15C0 ] Ol'FICE-BEAREES IN THE CHURCH. 359 
 
 meet the exigencies of a coTintry suddenly deprived of its 
 ancient priesthood, and not yet supplied with Protestant 
 preachers.* The superintendent, like the evangelist in the 
 primitive Church, travelled about from place to place, preach- 
 ing the gospel, and providing for the necessities of the 
 Christian community. In such a time, the creation of such 
 an office was most politic and wise, it could scarcely have 
 been dispensed with ; and he must be blindly wedded to 
 Presbyterian parity who would grudge these Presbyterian 
 bishops the superiority they enjoyed over their brethren. 
 That they did enjoy a superiority it were useless to deny. 
 
 Next to the superintendent came the minister, whose 
 ofi&ce,as defined in the " Book of Discipline," agrees exactly 
 with what it is now. But as men of sufScient learning to 
 supply all the parishes in the country with ministers could 
 not at once be found, men of inferior attainments, denomi- 
 nated readers, were to be temporarily employed in the desti- 
 tute districts. It was the duty of these to read the Common 
 Prayers and the Scriptures to the people, but they were 
 forbidden to administer the sacraments. They might also 
 follow their reading with some suitable exhortation, and if 
 they attained to fluency in this exercise, they might then, 
 with the approbation of tire superintendent, be raised to the 
 full status of ministers. Thus this system of readerships 
 not merely supplied a temporary want, but served as a 
 school in which men were trained for the ministerial work, 
 for no college curriculum had as yet been prescribed. Minis- 
 ters are specially forbidden to haunt the court, to be members 
 of the Council, or to board in taverns or ale-houses. 
 
 The elders were to be " men of best knowledge in God's 
 Word, and cleanest life, men faithful and of most honest con- 
 versation that could be found in the Church." Their duty was 
 " to assist the ministers in all public affairs of the kirk, to wit, 
 in determining and judging causes, in giving admonition to 
 
 *■ " We have thouglit good to signify to your honouis sucli reasons as moved 
 
 us to make diiTerence betwixt preachers at this time "We have thought 
 
 it a thing most expedient at this time, that from the whole number of godly 
 and learned men, now presently in this realm, be selected ten or twelve, to 
 whom charge and commandment should be given to plant and erect kirks," &c. 
 (First Book of Discipline, chap, vi.) 
 
360 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 the licentious liver, in having respect to the manners and con- 
 versation of all men within their charge." " They ought 
 also to take heed to the life, manners, diligence, and study 
 of their ministers. If he be worthy of admonition, they must 
 admonish him ; of correction, they must correct him ; and 
 if he be worthy of deposition, they, with the consent of the 
 kirk and superintendent, may depose him, so that his crime 
 deserve so." The deacons were " to receive the rents and 
 gather the alms of the kirk, to keep and distribute the same 
 as by the ministers and kirk shall be appointed ; they may 
 also assist in judgment with the ministers and elders ; and 
 may be admitted to read in assembly if they be required, and 
 be able thereto." The elders and deacons were to be elected 
 only for a year, lest they should presume too much ; and no 
 stipend was to be assigned them for their labours, which were 
 not deemed to be such as to withdraw them from their usual 
 employments. 
 
 Ordinary vocation is said to consist of three parts — elec- 
 tion, examination, and admission. The "Book of Discip- 
 line" suggests that the superintendents should be chosen 
 by the Secret Council, with the approbation of the gentle- 
 men and burgesses of their dioceses ; and that the minis- 
 ters should be chosen by their parishioners. Being duly 
 elected, the same course was to be pursued in regard to 
 both superintendents and ministers ; their hfe, their doc- 
 trines, and their capabilities of edifying the people were to 
 be tested ; a sermon was to be preached ; admonitions were 
 to be addressed to all the parties concerned ; prayer was to 
 be offered up ; and the presentee declared to be admitted to 
 his charge. The imposition of hands was forbidden: "for 
 albeit the apostles used imposition of hands, yet seeing the 
 miracle is ceased, the using of the ceremony we judge not 
 necessary." To preach the Word or administer the sacra- 
 ments without a proper call, is declared to be worthy of death. 
 
 II. The WorsJiip and Discipline of the New Church. 
 
 It is declared to be utterly necessary that the Word should 
 be preached, the sacraments administered, common prayers 
 publicly made, the young and the ignorant instructed, and 
 
A.D. 1560.] WORSHIP OF THE CHURCH. 361 
 
 offenders pimished ; it is declared to be profitable, but not 
 necessary, that psalms should be sung, that certain portions 
 of Scripture should be read when there was no sermon, and 
 that certain days should be observed on which the people 
 might assemble in the churches. It is recommended that, 
 in the great towns, there should be either sermon or common 
 prayers, with some reading of the Scriptures every day ; and 
 that, in the smaller towns, one day beside the Sabbath should 
 be set apart for this purpose. On the Sabbath the Word was 
 to be preached, the sacraments administered, the children 
 publicly catechized in the audience of the people, and the 
 whole day observed as sacred. All holidays are abolished. 
 AU vows of continence, and all assumption of religious 
 apparel, are declared to be sinful. All monuments and places 
 of idolatry are ordered to be destroyed. 
 
 Besides the meetings for the preaching of the Word and 
 the administration of the sacrament, the "Book of Discipline" 
 directs, that in everytown "where schools and repairof learned 
 men are," there should be a weekly meeting for prophesying 
 or interpreting the Scriptures. In these meetings every 
 man was to have liberty to speak, to offer interpretations 
 of hard passages, to suggest doubts, to solve difficulties ; but 
 not to launch out into anything like preaching. The minis- 
 ters in the neighbourhood were to attend these prophesyings, 
 and at the close of the meeting to communicate to those 
 who had spoken their opinion of the manner in which they 
 had handled the matter. In this way it is said " shall the 
 kirk have knowledge and judgment of the graces, gifts, and 
 utterances of every man within their body ; the simple and 
 such as have somewhat profited shall be encouraged daily 
 to study and to proceed in knowledge ; and the whole kirk 
 shall be edified." 
 
 In the Policy of the Church it is recommended that the 
 sacrament of the Supper should be administered four times 
 every year, the communicants sitting at a table, and par- 
 taking both of the bread and the wine, while the minister 
 recited to them some comfortable passages of holy vyrit 
 touching the death of Christ, and the benefits which flowed 
 from it. Before being admitted to the Lord's table, persons 
 
362 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 were to be examined if tliey could say the Lord's prayer, the 
 Creed, and the Ten Commandments. The sacrament of bap- 
 tism was to be administered in the Church at convenient times. 
 The use of oil, salt, wax, spittle, conjuration, and crossing is 
 abolished, and the pure element of water alone was to be 
 employed. Marriage was to be performed after the procla- 
 mation of banns upon a Sunday, and in the open face and 
 public audience of the Church. The burial of the dead was 
 to take place mthout any singing of mass, placebo, or dirge. 
 No ceremony whatever was to be used, no funeral sermon 
 was to be preached, but " the dead committed to the grave 
 with such gravity and sobriety as those that be present may 
 seem to fear the judgments of God, and to hate sin, which is 
 the cause of death." 
 
 In the " Book of Discipline" there is frequent reference to the 
 Common Prayers and the Order of Geneva. This liturgical 
 form, it would appear, had now begun to supersede the First 
 Book of Edward VI., which had hitherto been used by the 
 Scotch Reformers as a guide in their devotions. It had been 
 printed together with the metrical version of the Psalms, 
 and now received the stamp of authority from the "Book of 
 DiscipHne."* It was chiefly the composition of John Knox, 
 and was used by him at Geneva. It contained morning and 
 evening prayers, an order of baptism, an order for the ad- 
 ministration of the Lord's Supper, a form of marriage, a visi- 
 tation of the sick, and there were afterwards added to it a form 
 for the election of superintendents and ministers, and an order 
 for excommunication and public repentance. The officiating 
 minister was allowed by the rubric to deviate from the forms 
 of prayer prescribed, but still these were to be considered as 
 his guide, and we need not hesitate to admit that this liturgy 
 was generally used for many years in the Reformed Church 
 of Scotland. Some of the prayers, for transparency of diction 
 and beauty of piety, will compare with the much-lauded 
 compositions of the Anglican Prayer-Book. The Lord's 
 prayer is frequently introduced, and the whole compilation 
 is characterized by good sense and sobriety of religious feel- 
 
 ■» When reference is made to the Psalm Book at this period and for long 
 afterwards, the liturgy with the psalms attached is meant. 
 
A.D. 1560.] DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH. 363 
 
 ing. Tlie rubric instructs us tliat the Cliurch-service began 
 with a prayer, containing a confession of sin ; then a portion 
 of the Scriptures was read ; then a psalm was sung ; then an 
 extemporaneous prayer was offered up by the minister ; then 
 followed the sermon, a prayer, a psalm ; and finally the con- 
 gregation was dismissed with the benediction.* 
 
 The discipline of the early Church was stern — perhaps too 
 stern for frail human nature. Every kind of immorality 
 was taken cognizance of — drunkenness, profane swearing, 
 impurity, excess in eating, in drinking, or in dress, op- 
 pression of the poor, the use of a false weight or measure, 
 wanton words, licentious living, everything which fell short 
 of the perfect law. Heresy, idolatry, adultery, and several 
 other crimes were pronounced worthy of death, and it was 
 declared to be the duty of the civil magistrate to see the 
 sentence carried into execution. In the case of offenders 
 who continued obstinate and unrepentant notwithstanding 
 the admonitions of the Church, the sentence of excommuni- 
 cation was to be pronounced. This sentence was scarcely 
 less dreadful than the anathema of Eome. When it was 
 pronounced, none, saving his wife and family, might have 
 any dealings, be it in eating or drinking, in buying or selling, 
 yea in saluting or talking, with the excommunicated man. 
 He was to be as one accursed, and cut off from all society. 
 When the delinquent, however, was brought to repentance, 
 he was to be absolved of his sin, and received back into the 
 bosom of the Church. The " Book of Discipline" recommends 
 that " a solemn and special prayer should be drawn for the 
 purpose, that the thing might be more gravely done ;" and 
 
 * So early as 1567 the Prayer-Book was translated into Gajlic by Jolm 
 Carswell, Bishop of the Isles, and is said to have been the first Gaslic book 
 ever printed. It was entitled " Foirm na Nurrntddheadh," or Forma of 
 Prayer. The bishop knew that his book woiild be treated with ridicule by 
 the bards who still continued Papists, and who would regard printing as an 
 innovation. " "Well do I know," said he, in his Apologetic Introduction, 
 " that the Papists especially, and above all the old satirical priests, will vomit 
 malice against me, and that my work will procure me from them only scandal 
 and reproach." A curious and highly-interesting notice of this work will be 
 found in Leyden's " Scottish Descriptive Poems," &c. The only copy of 
 Carswell's translation known to exist is said to be in the possession of the 
 Duke of Argylc. 
 
364 CHURCH HISTOBY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. XI. 
 
 accordingly an order of excommunication and of public re- 
 pentance was afterwards added to the liturgy. It shows the 
 discipline of the Church to have been much more formal and 
 operose then than it is now ; perhaps more faithful, certainly 
 more searching. The form of absolution, however, would 
 now be pronounced papistical, as it is not declarative, but 
 authoritative. The minister authoritatively absolves the 
 penitent of his sin, and pronounces it to be loosed in heaven. 
 The " Book of Discipline" says nothing of the government of 
 the Church by kirk-sessions, presbyteries, synods, and General 
 Assemblies; but it is easy to trace in it the rudimental 
 forms of all these courts. The minister required to meet 
 with his elders and deacons ; out of this grew the kirk-ses- 
 sion. The ministers within six miles of the notable towns 
 required to meet at the prophesyings or weekly exercises, 
 and neighbour ministers required to meet with^each other for 
 several other purposes ; here was the embryo presbytery. 
 The superintendent required to meet with the clergy of his 
 diocese for ordering many things connected with the govern- 
 ment of the Church ; this was the genesis of the synod. 
 From the first year of its existence the whole Church met 
 in General Assembly. 
 
 III. The patrimony of the Old Church, and its appropria- 
 tion hy the New. 
 
 The "Book of Discipline" proposed to remit the corpse-pre- 
 sent, the uppermost cloth, clerke-mail, the pasche-ofFering, 
 tiend-ale, and all " handKngs upaland." All the other pos- 
 sessions, rents, and revenues of the ancient Church, whether 
 they belonged to bishoprics, religious houses, or parishes, 
 were to be appropriated by the new establishment, and lifted 
 as they fell due by the deacons. Being thus appropriated 
 and realized, they were to be applied to three great pur- 
 poses : — the maintenance of the ministry, the education of 
 youth, and the sustenance of the poor. For these purposes 
 had the hierarchy been endowed ; and these very purposes 
 did the Protestant clergy now propose to fulfil.* It was the 
 
 * The Eomanists themselves admowledged that these endowments had 
 been received for these three purposes. " Quhidder cumis it be zour exhorta- 
 
A.D. 1560.] PATRIMONY OF THE CHURCH. 365 
 
 smallest possible alienation of funds doted by piety for par- 
 ticular purposes, and such dotations ought ever to be re- 
 garded as peculiarly sacred. The scheme does honour to 
 Knox, and proves that, with all liis roughness, he was pos- 
 sessed of a great and liberal mind. He appears more truly 
 great in his attempts to build up the new Church, though 
 therein he failed, than in his efforts to throw down the old 
 one, though therein he succeeded. But let us examine the 
 plan a little more narrowly. 
 
 It is suggested that the superintendent should have a 
 stipend of about six chalders beer, nine chalders meal, three 
 chalders oats, and six hundred merks of money, to be in- 
 creased or decreased at the discretion of the prince and cou.n- 
 cil of the realm. It is suggested that the minister should 
 have at least forty bolls of meal, twenty-six bolls of malt, to 
 find his house in bread and drink, and an allowance of money 
 beside, to be fixed yearly by his congregation. The readers 
 were to have a salary of forty or fifty merks, according as 
 they might agree with the parishioners among whom they 
 laboured. It must be confessed that here there was no greed 
 or grasping on the part of the clergy ; the allowances they 
 asked for themselves were extremely moderate. The stipend 
 of the superintendent is not much greater than a city- 
 living at the present day, and the stipend of the minister, 
 though not so precisely defined, we may conclude was not 
 more liberal than that now enjoyed by the ministers of our 
 rural parishes. " The Book of Discipline," however, de- 
 manded that some provision should be made for the widows 
 and children of those who devoted themselves to the ministry, 
 upon salaries which did not enable them to accumulate 
 wealth. The sons of the clergy were to have the freedom of 
 the towns adjacent to the parishes in which their fathers had 
 lived and laboured. If they had an aptitude for learning 
 they were to be maintained at the schools, and have a bur- 
 sary in the college ; if they had no such aptitude, they were 
 to be put to some useful handicraft. The daughters were to 
 
 tion or nocht that mony desyris the kirk-landis anis dedicat to God, for sus- 
 tentation of godly ministeris, puir studentis, and feble and wait indigeutis," 
 &c. (Ninian Wingate, 62.) 
 
366 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 be virtuously brought up, and honestly dowered when they 
 came to maturity, at the discretion of the Kirk. 
 
 The second part of the scheme was the education of the 
 youth of the country, a duty which hitherto the Romish 
 priesthood had performed, though in an imperfect way. The 
 "Book of Discipline" proposes that to every church there 
 should be attached a school ; that in every large town, espe- 
 cially in the towns of the superintendents, there should be 
 erected a college or grammar school ; and that the Univer- 
 sities of St Andrews, G-lasgow, and Aberdeen, should be 
 liberally endowed. Here, then, we have a parochial system 
 of education chalked out, a system whose foundations were 
 laid amid such humble literature as the peasantry could re- 
 ceive, but whose pinnacles reached to the highest regions of 
 learning, a system starting from the village school and end- 
 ing with the university. It was the foreshadow of the 
 system which was afterwards realized in our country, but the 
 shadow was more perfect than the reality. It is worked out 
 in the " Book of Discipline " with great minuteness, and 
 while we may not approve of its every detail, in all its 
 leading outlines it discovers a genius for policy worthy of 
 the greatest statesman. 
 
 The third part of the scheme was the sustenance of the 
 poor. The Christian Church has ever considered the poor 
 to be the special objects of its care. In Romish times many 
 hospitals had been founded in our country for the reception 
 of the sick, the infirm, and the indigent ; and every monas- 
 tery, in fact, was a kind of alms-house. When the Reforma- 
 tion was on the eve of being accomplished, bishops bemoaned 
 the misfortunes that would befall the poor; but the Reformers 
 showed their knowledge of Christian duty, and their respect 
 for the intentions of the donors of the Church-property, when 
 they resolved to take the poor under their charge. Both 
 before and after the Reformation, Scotland seems to have 
 swarmed with beggars. Among these there were not only 
 the aged and sick, but strong, sturdy vagabonds, who haunted 
 the public roads and entered the farm-houses, and received 
 alms more from fear than from charity. The " Book of Dis- 
 cipline" proposed that the able-bodied should be compelled to 
 
A D. 1560.J CAICULATIONS. 367 
 
 work, but tliat the aged and infirm should he made to return 
 to their native parishes, and be there provided for. 
 
 The Church is said to have anciently possessed one-half 
 of the whole property of the kingdom.' The real property of 
 Scotland now amounts to upwards of ten millions annually ; 
 had the Church's proportion of this kept pace in value mth 
 the laity's, it would he five millions. Let us reduce our esti- 
 mate to two millions and a half, and then see how this might 
 have been used for the three great objects contemplated by 
 the Eeformers. The stipends of the thousand ministers of 
 the Church of Scotland amount to about L. 200,000. But the 
 scheme of the Eeformers being national must embrace all the 
 clergy in the kingdom, so that we have to support three 
 thousand ministers with stipends amounting to L. 600,000. 
 To this must be added a sum sufficient to build and uphold 
 churches, to build and uphold manses, to provide glebes, to 
 reward high services rendered to religion, so that altogether 
 L. 1,000,000 would be recjuired for this purpose. The pre- 
 sent assessment for the poor amounts to about L. 650,000 ; 
 but with such an enormous fund at our disposal we can afford 
 to be liberal, and may therefore set apart L. 750,000 for the 
 sustenance of our pauper population. An equal sum might 
 be expended on amdely-spreadand liberally-endowed system 
 of education. Thus, for L. 2, 500, 000 annually, might all our 
 ecclesiastical, educational, and pauperestablishments be main- 
 tained, and that on a much more munificent footing than at 
 present. We may safely conclude that the property of the 
 ancient Church, if it had been properly preserved, would have 
 amounted to more than this, and that tlius the scheme of the 
 authors of the "Book of Discipline" would have been abun- 
 dantly carried out, and the community saved from three of 
 the heaviest taxes which now press upon it. The gospel 
 would be preached, our children educated, our poor provided 
 for, without cost. No one would lose anything ; only some 
 of our great proprietors would never have possessed their 
 extensive domains. Some great lords would be but country 
 gentlemen with small estates, imtroubled with dreams about 
 nobility ; and others might rejoice in ancient titles, but lack 
 the broad acres which now give them support. Public of- 
 
368 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 ficers, and not private factors, would be lifting the rents of our 
 ancient monasteries ; and yet the present holders could not 
 be said to have lost what, according to our supposition, they 
 never possessed. The community would have reaped, as it 
 ought to have done, the benefit of the Church's accumula- 
 ted wealth. 
 
 The same agencies which deposited the endowments of the 
 Roman hierarchy are operating still ; and if sufficient time 
 be allowed, the accumulation will again become equally 
 great. Men are every now and then dying and leaving 
 money to build a church, to found an hospital, to endow a 
 school. The funds thus devoted must go on increasing — 
 they cannot decrease ; and we can contemplate the time when 
 our ecclesiastical, educational, and pauper establishments 
 will be sustained by this source alone, without need of assess- 
 ments. How sad if the few were again to sweep away the 
 wealth thus slowly accumulated for the benefit of the 
 many ! 
 
 From the first brush of the Eeformation, it was evident 
 that the Church's property would have an important influ- 
 ence upon the struggle. So early as 1543, the Eegent 
 Arran confessed to Sadler that so many great men were 
 Papists, that unless the sin of covetousness made them Ee- 
 formers, he saw no other way in which the Eeformation 
 could be effected.* When the battle commenced, the barons 
 instantly began to relieve the Churchmen of the trouble of 
 lifting their rents. When the victory was won, Knox per- 
 ceived the danger of the Church being not merely purged of 
 its idolatry, but stripped of its possessions, and turned out 
 naked upon the streets ; and therefore, while the parliament 
 of 1560 was yet sitting, he began a course of lectures upon 
 Haggai, and we can conceive the indignant tones in which 
 he demanded of the barons who filled the nave of St G-ile's — 
 " Is it a time for you, ye, to dwell in your ceiled houses, 
 and this house lie waste ? Go up to the mountain and bring 
 wood, and build the house ; and I will take pleasure in it, 
 and I will be glorified, saith the Lord. The silver is mine, 
 and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of 
 * Sadler, State Papers, &o., vol. i. Keith's History, book i. chap. iii. 
 
A.D, 1560.] KNOX AND THE BARONS. 369 
 
 this latter house shall be greater than of the former, and in this 
 place will I give peace." But if Knox could declaim, there 
 were barons who could sneer at his declamation. " We may 
 now forget ourselves," said Maitland, " and bear the barrow 
 to build the house of God."* 
 
 When the "Book of Discipline" was presented to the Privy 
 Council for its approval, the same spirit became still more 
 manifest. Maitland again had his sneer, and declared the 
 whole affair to be "a devout imagination." Knox now sud- 
 denly found himself in the midst of a den of thieves, and his 
 terrible wrath broke forth upon them. " Some," says he, 
 " were licentious, some had greedily griped the possessions of 
 the Church, and others thought that they would not lack 
 their part of Christ's coat ; yea, and that before that ever He 
 was crucified, as by the preachers they were oft rebuked. 
 The chief great man that had professed Christ Jesus, and 
 refused to subscribe the 'Book of Discipline,' was the Lord 
 Erskine ; and no wonder, for, besides that he had a very evil 
 woman to his wife, if the poor, the schools, and the ministry 
 of the Church had their own, his kitchen would lack two 
 parts, and more, of that which he unjustly now possesseth. 
 Assuredly some of us have wondered how men that profess 
 godliness could of so long continuance hear the threatenings 
 of God against thieves and against their houses, and know- 
 ing themselves guilty in such things as were openly rebuked, 
 and that they never had remorse of conscience, n'either 
 yet intended to restore anything of that which long they 
 had stolen and reft. There were none within the realm 
 more unmerciful to the poor ministers than were they 
 which had greatest rents of the churches ; but in that 
 we have perceived the old proverb to be true, ' Nothing 
 can suffice a -^vretch ;' and again, ' The belly hath no 
 ears. T 
 
 The Secret Council, as a body, could never be induced to 
 give its approval to the " First Book of Discipline." But on 
 the 17th of January 1561, thirty-three barons and proselytized 
 prelates put their names as individual subscribers to a docu- 
 ment, in which they gave it their sanction, and promised to 
 
 * Knox's History, book iii. t Ibid. 
 
 VOL. I. 'i A 
 
370 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. XI. 
 
 do their best to carry it into execution.* The subscription 
 was useless, and in many cases was insincere. Thus this 
 plan for the building of the second temple was discarded, 
 simply because it proposed to apply ecclesiastical property 
 to ecclesiastical uses. When Zerubbabel, the son of Sheal- 
 tiel, and Joshua, the son of Josedech, with the prophets 
 helping them, began to build the house of God at Jerusalem, 
 wicked men rose up to trouble them ; so it was in Scotland. 
 It might have been supposed that barons zealous for religion 
 would have themselves been religious, and that being re- 
 ligious they would have been unselfish, but it was not so. 
 A knowledge of men, and of the motives which concur in 
 promoting the best of causes, will lessen our surprise, and let 
 us see that the same thing has happened more than once in 
 the history of the world. But though the "First Book of 
 Discipline" did not receive the sanction of the parliament or 
 council, it was acted upon by the Church, so far as the 
 Church could act upon it. The ecclesiastical arrangements 
 were carried out, though the ecclesiastical revenues could 
 not be touched. It is said that the Archbishop of St 
 Andrews, when he saw the day lost, and the ruin of his 
 party irretrievable, sent a message to Knox, urging him, 
 while he changed the doctrines of the Church, to maintain 
 its ancient policy, as in that way only could he hope to pre- 
 serve its property ; but Knox was too thorough a Eeformer 
 to listen to the advice, f 
 
 On the 20th December 1560, the iirst G-eneeal Assembly 
 of the Eeformed Church of Scotland met at Edinburgh. It 
 consisted of but forty members, of whom but six were minis- 
 ters. They sat as "the ministers and commissioners of the 
 
 * The docnment referred to was as follows : — " "We, which have suhscrihed 
 these presents, having advised with the articles herein specified, as is ahove- 
 mentioned from the beginning of this boot, think the same good and conform 
 to God's "Word in all points ; conform to the notes and additions hereto added ; 
 and promise to set the same forward to the uttermost of our power : providing 
 that the bishops, abbots, friars, and other prelates and beneficed men which 
 else have adjoined themselves to ns, bruik the revenues of their benefices 
 during their lifetimes ; they sustaining and upholding the ministry and 
 ministers, as herein specified, for the preaching of the "Word, and the minis- 
 tering of the sacraments.'' See Knox's History, book iii. 
 
 t Spottiswood's History, lib. iii. 
 
A.D. 1560.] FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 371 
 
 particular kirks of Scotland, convened upon the things which 
 are to set forward God's glory, and the weal of His Kirk in 
 this realm."* The chief business of this Assembly was to 
 give its approval to a number of persons who were recom- 
 mended to it as readers, ministers, and superintendents. 
 Acts were also passed in regard to the laws of consanguinity; 
 in regard to the election of ministers, elders, and deacons ; 
 in regard to the confirmation of testaments ; and ordaining 
 that those who had borne office in the Popish Church, and 
 were of honest conversation, should be supported with the 
 alms of the Kirk, as other poor ; that the parliament should 
 be petitioned to admit none to public offices but such as 
 were of the Reformed religion, and to punish sharply all 
 sayers and hearers of mass. This Assembly seems to have 
 continued its sittings during seven days, when it adjourned 
 to meet on the i5th of January 1561. 
 
 Of the Assembly appointed to meet in January, if it ever 
 met, we have no record ; but on the 15th of that month, a 
 Convention of the Estates was held, in which grave matters 
 affecting the Church were debated. It was in this conven- 
 tion that the "Book of Discipline" was first examined, and 
 then quietly cast overboard. But the nobles, whUe refusing 
 to sanction the new ecclesiastical policy, wished to have 
 their faith confirmed by a disputation on the controverted 
 points between the Papists and Protestants. There were 
 therefore summoned into their presence, on the Eomish side, 
 John Lesley, Official of Aberdeen, and shortly afterwards 
 Bishop of Ross, Alexander Anderson, Professor of Theology 
 in Aberdeen, Patrick Myrtom, and James Strachan ; and on 
 the side of the Reformers, John Knox, John WiUock, and 
 Christopher Goodman. It was on the mass that the debate 
 principally hinged. We have an account of it from two 
 of the combatants, Knox and Lesley, and it is amusing to 
 contrast their opposite descriptions of this polemical passage- 
 at-arms. Knox declares that Anderson, who began the 
 combat, was quickly silenced ; and that when Lesley came 
 to his rescue, he could only say that he knew nothing but 
 the canon law, where the great reasons for everything were 
 
 * Book of the tlniversal Kirk, p. 1. Keith, book iii. chap. i. 
 
 2 a2 
 
372 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [ciIAP. xi. 
 
 nolumus and volumus ; words which Knox instantly fastened 
 upon him as a nick-name. Lesley, on the other hand, relates 
 that Anderson reasoned so learnedly, consistently, and 
 piously, that the Catholics were confirmed, and the heretics 
 confounded, and that, after that exhibition, no one dared to 
 challenge him or any other Komanist to an encounter re- 
 garding the mysteries of his faith. Lesley adds that the 
 nobles revenged themselves upon the triumphant Catholics 
 by compelling them to remain in the city, and give attend- 
 ance upon the sermons of the Protestant preachers, as if, 
 says he, with a bitter sneer, the pandering speeches of these 
 paltry rhetoricians could convince men whom all their argu- 
 ments had failed to move.* 
 
 In the month of May, the Second General Assembly of 
 which we have any record assembled in the Tolbooth at 
 Edinburgh. It resolved that a petition should be presented to 
 the Privy Council, praying that all monuments of idolatry 
 should be destroyed, and all persons guilty of it proceeded 
 against according to act of parhament ; that provision should 
 be made for the superintendents, ministers, and readers, 
 and punishments appointed for those who contemned their 
 authority ; that all despisers of the sacraments should be 
 punished ; that no letters of Session should be given for the 
 payment of teinds, without the special provision that enough 
 was retained for the maintenance of the ministry ; that no 
 judge should proceed upon any precept at the instance of 
 persons who had already obtained feus of vicarages, parson- 
 houses, or church-yards ; that no warrants of any kind should 
 be put in force till the stipends specified in the " Book of 
 Discipline" for the maintenance of the ministry should be 
 first consigned in the hands of the principal parishioners ; 
 and, finally, that punishment should be inflicted upon any who 
 might purchase, or publish within the realm, papal bulls.f 
 
 These articles of complaint and petition are highly sig- 
 nificant, and show the means already being taken to alien- 
 -ate the property of the Church. Knox says that the Lords 
 of. Privy Council granted the prayer of th'e petition ; but we 
 have little evidence that they acted upon any part of it, 
 
 * Knox's History, book iii. Lesley, lib. x. f Keith, book iii. chap. i. 
 
A.D. 1561.] DEMOLITION OF EELIGIOUS HOUSES. 373 
 
 except that whicli related to the demolition of the monas- 
 teries.* With regard to these, they went to work with 
 amazing alacrity. The execution of the work was in- 
 trusted to the Earls of Arran, Argyle, and Glencairn, in 
 the western counties ; and to the Lord James in the north ; 
 and, if we may helieve Spottiswoodj a pitiful devastation 
 ensued. 
 
 It is undoubtedly more difficult to defend this demolition 
 of Eeligious Houses than that which preceded it, notwith- 
 standing that the one was done under the pretext of law, 
 and the other in defiance of it. In the first case, the con- 
 test was raging, the issue was doubtful, men's passions were 
 up, and the mob was not to be restrained ; in the second, 
 the victory had been won, the flood of angry feeling had 
 somewhat abated, and it was not the rascal rabble, but the 
 lords of parliament who did the work. At the same time, 
 it must be allowed that fear lest Popery should regain its 
 lost ground was still strong, and that the public mind was 
 in a state of intense excitement. These monasteries, if 
 allowed to stand, might yet be re-occupied. It is also pretty 
 certain that the havoc made was not nearly so great as is 
 frequently supposed. We have still remaining the com- 
 mission issued for the purging of the Cathedral of Dunkeld, 
 in which the Lairds of Arntilly and Kinvaid are instructed 
 to pass to it incontinent, to take down the images, and, 
 bringing them out to the church-yard, to burn them publicly, 
 to cast down the altars, and remove every vestige of idolatry ; 
 but, at the same time, to be careful to do no damage to the 
 desks, windows, or doors, either in respect of the glass-work 
 or iron-work. t This, it must be acknowledged, was only a 
 reasonable and needful reformation, and we' shall understand 
 it still better if we take it in conjunction with the chapter 
 in the " First Book of Discipline," in which it is declared that 
 the churches ought to be repaired in a manner fitting the 
 majesty of God and the commodity of the people, and pro- 
 vided with doors, glass windows, thatch or slate, a bell, a 
 pulpit, a basin for baptizing, and tables for administering 
 
 » Ivnox's History, book iv. 
 
 t This document is given in the Notes to Dr M'Crie's Life of Knox. 
 
374 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 tlie Lord's SupiDer.* There was no antipathy to churches of 
 hoary antiquity and stately architecture ; it was only monas- 
 teries that were to be destroyed, and that part of the furni- 
 ture of the churches which the Protestants deeraed to be 
 idolatrous. And who knows not that, while the idols were 
 utterly abolished, many monasteries were spared. 
 
 Immediately after the dissolution of the parliament which 
 accepted the reformed Confession of Faith, Sir James Sandi- 
 lands, Preceptor of the Knights of St John, had been de- 
 spatched to France to obtain the queen's ratification of its 
 acts. He was received with cold courtesy ; his request was 
 refused ; and the Cardinal of Lorraine took an opportunity 
 of saying to him, that he was surprised to find the head of 
 an ecclesiastical military order so forgetful of his vows as to 
 come upon such an errand. The queen, moreover, com- 
 plained that a poor gentleman of secondary rank should have 
 come to her, while a splendid legation, consisting of the 
 Earls of Glencairn and Morton, and the Laird of Lethington, 
 had been sent to Elizabeth. She saw but too clearly that 
 she was supplanted in the affections of her subjects, and 
 that the Queen of England had more influence in Scot- 
 land than its rightful sovereign. E-umours of her displeasure 
 reached Scotland, and the worst was apprehended. French 
 troops might again be landed ; English assistance might not 
 again be obtained ; and despotic power might occupy the 
 throne, and force an odious religion upon a reluctant 
 ' people. These fears, however, were quickly dis- 
 ' ' sipated by the death of Francis II. It was at 
 once seen that this event would entirely change the cur- 
 rent of state afi'airs. Mary was now a widow. She no 
 longer swayed the French sceptre ; she no longer had at her 
 command the armies and resources of a kingdom more 
 powerful than her own. All this had passed to another ; 
 and it was already anticipated that she would soon return 
 to her native dominions. 
 
 Early in 1561 two distinguished personages were hurrying 
 from Scotland to France by different routes. The one took 
 shipping at Aberdeen, and proceeded by sea ; the other 
 
 * First Book of Discipline, chap. xv. 
 
A.D. 1561.] QUEEN MARY RETURNS TO SCOTLAND. 375 
 
 posted southwards through England, pausing at the Court of 
 St James's on his way. Both were Churchmen. The one was 
 John Lesley, Official of Aberdeen ; the other was James 
 Stewart, Prior of St Andrews. The former was hastening to 
 bespeak the favour of his queen for the Catholics ; the latter, 
 to entreat his sister to consult her own happiness, and the 
 stability of her government, by seeking the support of the 
 Protestants. Lesley beat his rival on the road by a day, and 
 had the first word with his sovereign. He was kindly re- 
 ceived, but does not seem to have obtained the confidence of 
 Mary. Her brother, though he was a bastard, she received 
 with all a sister's openness and affection ; and he rewarded 
 her confidence by retailing their interviews to the English 
 ambassador. Mary was willing to forgive her brother all 
 the past ; but she was most anxious he should make his 
 peace with Rome. The Guises used all their influence to 
 bring this about ; let him only return to his ecclesiastical 
 habit, and he might have a cardinal's hat, abbeys, priories, 
 anything his soul desired.* The Lord James remained firm 
 — he would not be a renegade — and for this let us honour 
 him. However, he was not firm for nought ; he had already 
 sought and obtained a pension from England, and at this 
 very time we find the English ambassador earnestly pressing 
 his claims upon the English queen. He soon obtained an 
 earldom ; people whispered he sought a crown. 
 
 After some hesitation and delay, the widowed Mary re- 
 solved to return to her ancestral kingdom. She applied to 
 Elizabeth for a safe passport, but it was refused with rage. 
 The Scottish queen was not to be deterred, though she had 
 reason to suspect that evil was meditated against her, and 
 embarking at Calais on the 14th of August, she soon lost 
 sight for ever of the joyous country where she had spent the 
 only period of her life destined to be happy. The English 
 cruisers were in the Channel eager to intercept her, but she 
 happily passed them in a fog, and arrived at Leith on a dark, 
 stormy morning, five days after she had set sail. Her 
 nobility and people received her with rude pomp, and con- 
 ducted her to her Palace of Holyroodhouse. In the evening 
 
 * Tytler's History, vol. vi. Keith, book ii. 
 
376 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 numerous boufires blazed a welcome, and " a company of 
 most bonest men, witb instruments of music, gave tbeir salu- 
 tations at ber cbamber window." * Mary was good-natured 
 enougb to declare tbat sbe was deligbted witb tbeir strains, 
 and bid tbem come and repeat them on the following night. 
 So far all was well. 
 
 But Sunday came, and on Sunday the queen, like a good 
 Catholic, must bear mass ; and to bear mass in Scotland was 
 a crime worthy of death. The Master of Lindsay, and some 
 of the Fife Reformers, congregated about the palace. The 
 poor man who carried in the candles for the altar trembled 
 in every joint when he looked at tbeir threatening aspects. 
 He beard tbem muttering, " the idolatrous priest shall die." 
 The chapel would certainly have been invaded, but the Lord 
 James had taken up his post at the door, and would allow 
 no one to enter. He declared, witb much solemnity, that he 
 had placed himself there tbat no Scotchman might pollute 
 his eyes witb the abominable thing. A strange humour 
 must have iiickered about bis mouth when be said it. The 
 service was performed, and no mischief done ; and the oifi- 
 . elating priest safely conducted back to his lodgings between 
 the Abbot of Coldingham and the Abbot of Holyroodhouse, 
 both Protestants, and both brothers of the queen.f But in 
 the afternoon the crowd became greater, and a riot was 
 apprehended. In these circumstances the Privy Council 
 met, and, as the result of tbeir deliberations, a proclamation 
 was published the next day at the market-cross, forbidding 
 any one, under pain of death, to make any alteration in the 
 state of religion as it existed upon ber Majesty's arrival in 
 ber dominions, or to assault upon any pretence any of her 
 Majesty's attendants, either within or without the palace.J 
 
 This proclamation had two sides — a Protestant and a 
 Popish. Many regarded it as a great triumph of Protestant- 
 ism, for it was its first regal recognition in the realm ; others 
 regarded it as a revival of Popery, for it protected the queen's 
 Frenchmen and priests in celebrating tbeir masses. When 
 the herald bad read the proclamation, the Earl of Arran, an 
 
 * Knox's History, book iv. f Ibid. 
 
 J Keith's History, book iii. chap.- ii. 
 
A.D. 1501.] INTERVIEW 01' MARY AND KNOX. 377 
 
 excitable young man, who had sought the hand of Ehzabeth 
 and been refused, who had aspired to the heart of Mary with 
 little hopes of success, and who subsequently went mad, 
 stepped forward and protested against any protection being 
 given to the queen's domestics in their idolatrous worship, 
 as the law of the Lord and the law of the land had alike 
 declared it to be deserving of death.* On the Sunday fol- 
 lowing Knox took up the same theme, and declared from the 
 pulpit that one mass was more fearful to him than if ten 
 thousand armed enemies were landed in any part of the 
 realm. The courtiers, however, only laughed at his alarm, 
 and jeeringly said that it was quite beside his text.| 
 
 Before Mary had left France she had heard of Knox, and 
 feared him, perhaps hated him.J Eumours of his sexmon 
 now reached the palace, and she resolved to send for and 
 try if nothing could be made of this wild and out-spoken 
 man. The long-bearded Eeformer came, and was admitted 
 to an audience with the queen — a girl of nineteen, already a 
 widow, but one of the m.ost beautiful women in Europe. 
 There they stood opposite to one another in the ancient halls 
 of Holyrood. There were none present to witness what 
 passed but the Lord James, and two gentlemen in waiting 
 who hung on at the far end of the room. The queen began 
 the interview by charging Knox with stirring up her sub- 
 jects against her mother and herself ; with writing a book 
 against the government of women ; and with doing all he 
 did by necromancy. In regard to the first charge, Knox 
 protested that he had done nothing more than rebuked 
 idolatry, and preached the Word of God in sincerity. In 
 regard to the second, he confessed that he had written the 
 treatise referred to, and that it contained his opinions. 
 "Then," said the queen, "you think that I have no just 
 authority." Knox parried this thrust by stating, that philo- 
 sophers were privileged to entertain speculative opinions 
 opposed to the existing order of things, as was Plato when 
 he published his " EepubHc." For himself, he declared that 
 
 * Keith's History, book iii. chap. ii. Knox's History, book iv. 
 
 t Knox's History, book iv. 
 
 I Letter in Appendix to Tytler's History, vol. vi. 
 
378 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 he was willing to live as a peaceable subject of her Majesty's 
 government, and that his book was provoked by the perse- 
 cutions of Mary of England. " But," cried Mary of Scot- 
 land, " you speak of women in general." The Eeformer 
 allowed that his argument was general, but urged that, see- 
 ing it had not caused her Majesty any trouble, and was not 
 likely to do so, it was impolitic to stir it at all. Then re- 
 ferring to the charge of necromancy, he appealed to all the 
 congregations to whom he had preached to refute the charge. 
 " But seeing," he concluded, " that the wicked of the world 
 said my Master, the Lord Jesus, was possessed with Beelze- 
 bub, I must patiently bear, albeit that I, wretched sinner, 
 am unjustly accused." The queen now shifted her ground, 
 and asked if he had not taught the people another rehgion 
 than that of their princes ; and " how," said she, " can that 
 doctrine be of God, seeing God commandeth subjects to obey 
 their princes." Knox had now clearly the truth on his side, 
 and he argued that, as religion came not from princes, but 
 from the eternal God, so to God only were men answerable 
 for it. He appealed to the IsraeUtes in Egypt, to Daniel 
 and his fellows in Babylon, to Christ and His apostles in the 
 Roman Empire. " Yes," said the royal disputant, " but 
 none of these men raised their sword against their princes." 
 " God," said the stout Eeformer, " had not given them the 
 power and the means." " Then, do you think," asked the 
 queen, " that subjects having the power may resist their 
 princes?" " If princes exceed their bounds," said the un- 
 flinching Knox, and proceeded to illustrate his argument 
 by the case of a parent seized with frenzy and bound by his 
 children. 
 
 At this bold and startling declaration the queen was 
 struck dumb. She remained silent, and looked so ill, that 
 her brother asked if anything ailed her. After a little she 
 recovered herself and said, " Well, then, I perceive that 
 my subjects will obey you and not me." " God forbid," 
 answered the Eeformer, " that I take upon me to command 
 any to obey me, or yet to set subjects at liberty to do what- 
 soever pleases them, but my travail is, that both princes 
 and subjects obey God." After this he proceeded to say, 
 
A.D. 1561.] MAEY AND KNOX. 379 
 
 that it became kings and queens to be nursing fathers and 
 nursing mothers to the Church. " Yes," quoth the queen, 
 "but ye are not the Church that I will nourish. I will defend 
 the Church of Eome, for I think it is the true Church of God." 
 "Your will, madam," said Knox, sternly, "is no reason, 
 neither doth your thought make that Eoman harlot the im- 
 maculate spouse of Jesus Christ." When the uncourtly 
 controversialist offered to prove that Eome was a harlot, 
 and that the princes of the earth had committed fornication 
 with her, the queen quietly said, " My conscience says not 
 so." " Conscience, madam," said Knox, " requires know- 
 ledge, and I fear that of right knowledge you have but little." 
 " But," said she, " I have both heard and read." " So had 
 the Jews that crucified Christ," retorted the preacher. 
 " You interpret the Scriptures in one manner, and the 
 Eoman clergy in another," said the royal Mary, still preserv- 
 ing her temper, and resolved not to be beat ; " whom shall I 
 believe, and who shall be judge ?" Knox replied that the 
 Scriptures were their own best interpreters, and that the 
 mass had no authority in Scripture at aU. " You are over 
 hard for me," said the queen, " but if they were here whom 
 I have heard, they would answer you." Knox declared how 
 it would rejoice him to meet in controversy with the ablest 
 Eomanists in Europe, but that he knew by experience that 
 they avoided all arguments but fire and sword. The interview 
 had been long, the afternoon was come, dinner was an- 
 nounced, and the queen rose to depart. The Eeformer ap- 
 pears to have been touched with a transient loyalty at leav- 
 ing, for he said, " I pray God, madam, that you may be as 
 blessed within the Commonwealth of Scotland as ever 
 Deborah was in the Commonwealth of Israel."* 
 
 Very different views have been taken of this interview be- 
 tween the gray-headed Eeformer and the girlish queen. 
 We think it must be allowed by all that very few royal 
 personages would have borne so much as Mary did ; and very 
 few men would have spoken so roughly in the presence of 
 royalty as Knox did. Would the bravest man in England 
 have dared so to speak in the presence of Elizabeth ? But, 
 
 * Knox's History, book iv. 
 
380 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 at the same time, we ttink it will now be generally conceded 
 that they were wholesome truths which the Reformer ut- 
 tered, however painful they may have been to hear. Knox 
 was not formed by nature to be a courtier, but perhaps for 
 that very reason he was better suited to be a religious Re- 
 former. He was another Baptist, more suited to preach 
 repentance in the wilderness than to live in king's houses, 
 " I commend better the success of his doings and preach- 
 ings," said Randolph to Cecil, " than the manner thereof."* 
 
 In the beginning of September the queen made her pubhc 
 entry into Edinburgh. The magistrates had determined to 
 receive her with unusual magnificence ; and we read in the 
 Registers of the town council of new bonnets, new coats, 
 and new hose — of coifs of black velvet and doublets of crim- 
 son satin ordered for their attendants, that they might join 
 in the triumphal procession with becoming civic dignity. 
 Pageants were also prepared in honour of the day, cunningly 
 devised to show their Protestantism as well as their loyalty. 
 The queen dined in the castle. When she came out, on her 
 return to the palace, the first sight that met her eyes was a 
 beautiful boy coming out of a round hole intended to represent 
 heaven. The cherub presented to her Majesty a Bible, a 
 psalter, and the keys of the city, and then recited some 
 verses in her praise. Knox, with indignation, beheld her 
 handing the Bible to Arthur Erskine, whom he denominates 
 the most pestilent^ Papist in the kingdom. Proceeding a 
 little further, she beheld Korah, Dathan, and Abiram swal- 
 lowed up alive for having offered strange fire in their censers 
 to the Lord. It was a significant representation of the fate 
 of idolaters. But a more significant representation stiU was 
 designed — a priest was to have been burned in the act of 
 elevating the Host, but the Earl of Huntly had influence 
 enough to prevent it.f Having run the gauntlet of these 
 edifying spectacles, the queen reached her palace. Shall 
 we believe that pleasure or vexation possessed her mind ? 
 
 Notwithstanding these demonstrations of Protestant ar- 
 
 * Bandolpli to Cecil, 24th October 1561. Given in "Keith, book ii. chap. ii. 
 t Randolph to Cecil, 7th September 1561. Given in Keith, book ii. chap. 
 ii. ; Knox's HLstory, book iv. 
 
A.D. 1561] COURTLY INFLUENCES. 381 
 
 dour, we have many indications that the queen was already 
 softening the asperity which many had felt toward her 
 because of her religion. The realm had long been without 
 a sovereign, and though a few wished it to be without a 
 sovereign still, the great majority of the nation were pleased 
 that Holyrood was again tenanted. The beauty, the grace, 
 the affable and winning manners of Mary, charmed all who 
 were admitted into her presence. Furious Protestants felt 
 their reforming zeal thawing rapidly under her smiles. As 
 the Lords of the Congregation presented themselves one 
 after another at court, they were at first inclined to fret and 
 fume because of the mass, but their indignation quickly 
 subsided. Lord Ochiltree had been long of making his ap- 
 pearance, but when at last he came, Campbell of Kinzean- 
 cleuch ventured to say to him : " My lord, now you are 
 come, and almost the last of all the rest ; and I perceive by 
 your anger that the fire edge is not off you yet; but I fear 
 that after that the holy water of the court is sprinkled upon 
 you, that you shall become as temperate as the rest ; for I 
 have been here now five days, and at the first I heard very 
 many say, ' Let us hang the priest ;' but after they had been 
 twice or thrice in the abbey, all that fervency past. I think 
 there is some enchantment by which men are bewitched."* 
 
 Within two months after her arrival, Mary felt herself 
 strong enough to take a step in defence of her fellow- 
 religionists. The magistrates of Edinburgh had published 
 a proclamation commanding all priests, monks, friars, nuns, 
 adulterers, fornicators, and other such filthy persons, to leave 
 the city within eighteen hours, under pain of being publicly 
 carted through the to'WTi and burned upon the cheek. The 
 queen instantly issued a counter-proclamation, commanding 
 the town council to meet and deprive the provost and bailies 
 of their ofiices as the punishment of their presumption, and 
 elect others in their room. The council succumbed, and did 
 as they were ordered. "And so," writes Knox, "murderers, 
 adulterers, thieves, whores, drunkards, idolaters, and all 
 malefactors, got protection under the queen's wings."t 
 
 * Knox's History, book iv. 
 
 t Keith's History, book ii. chap. ii. Knox's History, book iv. 
 
382 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 T^ ,,„, When things were in this state a General 
 
 -Use. 1561 
 
 Assembly of the Church was held. It was ob- 
 served that the Protestant barons who had been sprinkled 
 with the holy water of the court absented themselves. As 
 important measures were contemplated, a committee was 
 appointed to confer with them and effect a reconciliation. 
 The nobles complained that the ministers had done things 
 in secret without their knowledge. Angry words were ex- 
 changed, and Lethington went so far as to challenge the 
 right of the Assembly to meet without the sanction of the 
 queen. " Take from us the freedom of assemblies," said 
 Knox, " and take from us the gospel." The dispute was 
 settled upon the understanding that the queen might send 
 any one to the Assembly to hear what questions were dis- 
 cussed—the first step toward the appointment of a royal 
 commissioner. An effort was now made to get her Majesty 
 to ratify the "Book of Discipline.'" When the number of her 
 council who had signed it was quoted — " How many of those 
 who subscribed that book will be subject to it ?" said a 
 courtier. "All the godly," said a preacher. "Will the 
 duke ?" said Lethington. " If he will not," answered Lord 
 Ochiltree, " I would that he were scraped out, not only of 
 that book, but also out of our number and company." " Many 
 subscribe there," retorted Lethington, " in fide parentum, as 
 children are baptized." " Albeit you think that scoff proper," 
 said John Knox fiercely ; " yet as it is most untrue, so it is 
 improper : that book was read in public audience on divers 
 days, so that no man was required to subscribe what he 
 understood not." "Stand content," said the baron; "that 
 book "will not be obtained." " Let God," replied the preacher, 
 "require the lack and want which this poor commonwealth 
 shall have of the things therein contained from the hands 
 of such as stop the same."* 
 
 But it was evident that something must be done to keep 
 the Protestant preachers from positive starvation. Hitherto 
 they had depended almost entirely upon the benevolence of 
 their congregations ; many of them were in abject poverty ; 
 and they were clamorous against the government, as hungry 
 
 * Knox's History, book iv. 
 
A.D. 1561.] DIVISION OF THE SPOIL. 383 
 
 men always are. Meanwhile the rich benefices of the Church 
 were still held by the Eomish ecclesiastics, or enjoyed by 
 the nobles who had violently seized upon them. In these 
 circumstances, the Privy Council conceived the idea of 
 allowing the old clergy to retain two-thirds of their bene- 
 fices during their life-time, and of appropriating the remain- 
 ing third partly for the ministry and partly for the crown. 
 An order was therefore issued, requiring all the beneficed 
 clergy in the kingdom to produce their rent-rolls, that the 
 value of the ecclesiastical property might thus be ascer- 
 tained ; and the superintendents were at the same time re- 
 quired to make up lists of the ministers, exhorters, and 
 readers of the Protestant Church, that calculations might 
 be made as to how much would be required for their sup- 
 port.* 
 
 They were Protestant nobles who sat in council when 
 this scheme was devised, most of them the men who had 
 been the Lords of the Congregation. Their legislation when. 
 in power was certainly difi'erent from their sentiments when 
 in opposition. Their scheme appears marvellous for two 
 reasons — their own entire disinterestedness, and their great 
 generosity to the Eomish clergy. They are silent in regard 
 to their owh claims : they are careful of the rights of the 
 ousted ecclesiastics. It was certainly but just that these, 
 though now prevented from executing their functions, 
 should have a proportion of their ancient property, and it 
 would have been a sin and a shame to have thrown them as 
 beggars on the world ; but it was scarcely to be expected 
 that such an appreciation of " the just" should have been 
 found in such men and in such an age. It was seldom then 
 that the vanquished were spared. Courtly and Catholic influ- 
 ences had probably something to do with the arrangements ; 
 but it will shortly be seen that the nobles, by being gener- 
 ous to the priesthood, were enabled to be generous to them- 
 selves. The Archbishop of St Andrews, and the Bishops of 
 Moray, Ross, and Dunkeld, were present, and gave their 
 consent when the resolution was formed ; and when they 
 
 * Knox's History, Keith's History, &c. &e. 
 
384 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 were taking their leave, the Earl of Huntly jocosely said to 
 them, " Good-morrow, my lords of the two parts."* 
 
 Knox disliked the scheme from the first, and spoke vehe- 
 mently against it. " Well," said he, " if the end of this 
 order, pretended to be taken for the sustentation of the 
 ministry, be happy, my judgment fails me ; for first I see 
 two parts freely given to the devil, and the third must be 
 divided between God and the devil." He prophesied that it 
 would be seen that the devil would get three parts of the 
 third, and then, cried he, " you may judge what God's por- 
 tion will be." The courtiers, on the other hand, accused the 
 clergy of greed ; and the secretary Lethington, in his sneer- 
 ing way, said, that if the ministers got their will, "the queen 
 would not have enough to buy herself a pair of new 
 shoes ."t 
 
 When the rent-rolls of all the clergy had been produced, 
 as they were after considerable hesitation and delay, it was 
 found that the thirds of all the benefices in the kingdom 
 amounted to L.72,491. J This was a large sum, and might 
 have gone a long way in maintaining an established church. 
 The next step to be taken was to modify stipends to the 
 several superintendents, ministers, exhorters, and readers. 
 The Earls of Argyle and Morton, the Lord James, now Earl 
 of Moray, the Laird of Lethington, the Justice-Clerk, and 
 the Clerk-Register, were appointed for the purpose, and the 
 Laird of Pitarrow was appointed their comptroller. The 
 preachers could not have desired a better commission : they 
 were all Protestants. Nevertheless they proved parsimo- 
 nious, and out of the L.72,491 assigned only L.24,231§ to the 
 Reformed Church. The revenue of the Romish Church 
 must have amounted to upwards of L.250,000.|| "Who 
 
 "•■■ Knox's History, book iv. t Ibid. 
 
 J Several small benefices were at first omitted, and which, when afterwards 
 added, increased this by L.1389, 10s. 
 
 g Appendix to Keith's History. Besides this sum, there was also a small 
 allowance to Knox and the superintendents. Keith has, with very great in- 
 dustry, collected the revemies of our ancient bishoprics and religious houses. 
 
 II I make up this sum by multiplying L.72,491 + L.1389 by 3, and then 
 making some allowance for the under-valuation put upon their revenues by 
 the Eomish ecclesiastics. The valuation was notoriously too low. 
 
A.D. 1562.] STIPENDS OF THE I'ROTESTANT PKEACHEES. 385 
 
 would have thought," says Knox, " that when Joseph ruled 
 Egypt, his brethren should have travelled for victuals, and 
 have returned with empty sacks ?"* The modiiicators ap- 
 pear to have been resolved that the new race of ecclesiastics 
 should not wax wanton through too much affluence, and so 
 they assigned to them stipends ranging from 100 to 300 
 merks.f The ministers cried out against their stinted sti- 
 pends, which, small as they were, were but ill paid ; and in 
 many cases they must have been absolutely in want. " The 
 Laird of Pitarrow," says Knox, " was an earnest professor ; 
 but the great devil receive the comptroller." The. grumbling 
 of the clergy did little good. They were simply told they 
 must rest satisfied, that many lairds had not so much, and 
 
 * History, book iv. 
 
 t Considerable misapprehension exists in regard to the stipends of the first 
 Protestant ministers in our country, and many imagine them to have been 
 much lower than they really were. The money referred to is Scotch money. 
 L.l Scotch is equal only to Is. 8d. sterling ; and as the merk is two-thirds of 
 a pound, its proportionate value is only Is. l^d. Hence 100 merks amount 
 to L.5, 10s. 5d., 300 to L.16, lis. 3d. From this it might be concluded, and 
 has been concluded, that the stipends of the Scottish clergy vibrated between 
 these two sums. But it must be taken into account that the L.l Scotch at 
 that time was at least as valuable as the L.l sterling now, as it would buy as 
 much, if not more ; and therefore, again, taking the merk as two-thirds of a 
 pound, we shall state the case more truly if we say that the stipends varied 
 from L.70 to L.200. The average price of grain, as we learn from the Book 
 of Assignations and the Book of Assumptions, appears to have been about 20 
 merks per chalder; so that, converting the money into victual, we might say 
 that the stipends ranged from five to fifteen chalders. 
 
 If we compare these stipends with the value of many of the ancient bene- 
 fices, we shall find them higher rather than lower. In 1561 the rectory of 
 Kilmaronock was let for 100 merks (Book of Assumptions). The benefice of 
 Eddleston was rated at L.133, 6s. 8d. (Libellus Taxationum.) Newlands was 
 let for 200 merks (Book of Assumptions) . The parsonage of Buchanan was 
 valued at L.40. The vicarage of Bonhill was under L.7. The parsonage and 
 vicarage of Killearn were set together in 1561 for 160 merks. The rectory of 
 Carmunnock amounted to L.20, the vicarage to L.6, 13s. 4d. The rectory and 
 vicarage of Neilston were let ait the time of the Eeformation for L.66, 13s. 4d., 
 &c. These are taken at random, and form a sample of the whole. With these 
 the stipends of the Protestant clergy will stand a comparison, as we find them 
 stated in the " Piogister of Ministers and thair Stipend sen the year 1567." 
 The minister of Eatho has L.lOO, St Cuthbert's L.200, Perth L.200 and a 
 chalder of oats, Glasgow L.240, Kinfauns 100 merks, Kilgour 40 merks. The 
 reader at Comrie has 20 merks, at Cargill L.20, at Arngask L.16, &c. The 
 Register of Ministers and Eeaders in 1574, published in the Miscellany of the 
 Wodrow Society, shows similar results. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 B 
 
386 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. xi. 
 
 that the queen could not spare more. " Oh happy servants 
 of the devil," said our Eeformer, with keen irony, "and 
 miserable servants of Jesus Christ, if after this life there 
 were no heaven and no hell ; for to the servants of the 
 devil, these dumb dogs and horrid bishops, to one of these 
 idle bellies ten thousand was not enough ; but to the ser- 
 vants of Christ, that painfully preach the gospel, a hundred 
 will suffice." 
 
 When the stipends of the ministers were paid, there still 
 remained upwards of L.48-,000, w^hich, according to the 
 scheme of the Council, ought to have been annexed to the 
 Crown, to maintain its splendour. Eoyalty in Scotland for 
 long had possessed but small revenues, and it must be ac- 
 knowledged that it had some claims upon the ecclesiastical 
 property of the country, as it had come to poverty by the 
 ancient alienation of its demesnes to the Church. But 
 royalty was in reality little enriched. We find, indeed, in 
 the accounts, L.9000 expended upon the queen's body-guard, 
 L.303 in the purchase of their uniforms, and L.75 paid to 
 David Kizzio, valet of the chamber. The remanent thou- 
 sands were swallowed up otherwise. There were numerous 
 pensions to courtiers and their kin. There were numerous 
 remittances of the thirds. The Earl of Moray drew the 
 large revenues of the Priories of St Andrews and Pittenweem 
 without deduction. Many others did the like. The Earl 
 of Argyle, the Lord Erskine, and a host of others, divided 
 the spoil, and little was left to the queen herself There are 
 two entries in the accounts which we read with sympathy. 
 The one is L.1018 given to a multitude of houseless monks, 
 and the other is L.754, 3s. lid. given to a number of en- 
 franchised nuns.* Shall we blame the charity which helped 
 them in their distress ? 
 
 Before leaving this subject it will be well to trace the 
 fortunes of the property which still remained in the hands 
 of the beneficed clergy. We have already had some indi- 
 cations of the course it was to take. We have quoted acts 
 of Assembly and acts of Council, levelled at Churchmen feu- 
 ing their manses, lands, and tithes. Here was the device. 
 
 * Keith's History, Appendix. 
 
A.D. 1562.] APPROPEIATION OF THE CHURCH's PATfilMONT. 387 
 
 When the Eomish clergy saw that all chance of preserving 
 the Church was gone, they began to give feus and long 
 leases of their property to their relatives and friends amoiig 
 the nobility and gentry ; and these gladly accepted, if. in- 
 deed they had not arranged, the advantageous offers thus 
 made to them, hoping they would have sufficient influence 
 to get them afterwards confirmed, and made perpetual in 
 their families. To ease the consciences of the Koman donors, 
 perhaps also to ease the consciences of the Protestant re- 
 ceivers, and to give an appearance of validity to the trans- 
 actions, the confirmation of the Pope was asked ; and, in a 
 multitude of cases, the confirmation of the Pope was obtained. 
 A bribe silenced all scruples. When Churchmen were un- 
 willing thus to alienate the Church's patrimony, fraud or 
 force was sometimes employed to secure compliance. The 
 Earl of Cassillis had cast covetous eyes upon the Abbacy of 
 Glenluce, and was in treaty with the abbot for its feu ; but 
 before the bargain was concluded the abbot died. The Earl 
 was not to be baulked ; and therefore he bribed a monk to 
 forge the necessary documents ; and then he employed a 
 retainer to stab the monk, lest he should reveal the forgery ; 
 and, last of all, lie made his uncle hang the retainer, lest he 
 should let out the murder. The same nobleman had farther 
 desired the Abbacy of Crossraguel, and, shortly after the 
 Eeformation, had got a feu of it from the abbot. But this 
 abbot died, and another was appointed ; and as the earl's feu 
 had not received the royal confirmation, the new abbot held 
 it as null. The earl decoyed him to his Castle of Dunmure, 
 and roasted him over a slow fire, till, in the extremity of 
 his torture, he consented to sign papers ratifying the earl's 
 rights, with a hand ill able to hold the pen. The abbot 
 afterwards brought his complaint before the ■ Council ; but 
 Cassillis was too powerful to be punished ; and peace was 
 ultimately made by a small pension paid by the tormentor 
 to his victim, whom he had rendered decrepit for life.* 
 
 When a member of the hierarchy died, the office was not 
 allowed to remain vacant. A successor was generally ap- 
 
 * Historical and Genealogical Account of the Principal Families of the 
 name of Kennedy, from an original MS., Bannatyne Club. 
 
 2 B 2 
 
388 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 pointed, not indeed to discharge the functions, but to draw 
 the revenues of the place. The Church had long ago given 
 the hint of this by the appointment of commendators. 
 These new bishops and abbots were generally Protestants, 
 frequently laymen, sometimes boys. They were appointed 
 for a purpose ; and the terms of their appointment some- 
 times indicated what the purpose was. On the death of 
 Bishop Sinclair, a young lad, named Alexander Campbeh, 
 of the family of Ardkinlas, was presented to the Bishopric 
 of Brechin, and his presentation expressly gave him power 
 " to dispone and alienate the benefices, as well of the spi- 
 rituality as temporality of the bishoprick." The youth 
 availed himself of his power, and alienated a great part of 
 the lands and tithes of his See to his patron, the Earl of 
 Argyle, who had probably obtained the grant for him, and 
 was thus repaid for his services.* It is remarkable that 
 men should have preferred these flimsy pretexts of law to 
 open robbery. It was esteemed the more decent way to get 
 possession of the Church's property — it had the colour of 
 right. 
 
 But in other cases the Church's lands and revenues passed 
 into lay hands by a more direct road. A large proportion 
 of the dignified . clergy, especially of the abbots and priors, 
 joined the Eeformers ; and when the Eeformation was com- 
 pleted, some of these were rewarded by getting their abbacies 
 erected into temporal lordships. The holy fathers were now 
 free to marry ; and the property which they originally held 
 only for life became perpetual in their families, free from 
 the burden of discharging monastic duties, and feeding 
 monks who did nothing but eat.t In instances stiU more 
 numerous, abbacies were bestowed upon favourite courtiers 
 
 * Keith's History, book ii. 
 
 t It was seriously contemplated, at one time, to make the holders of abbacies 
 pay to the crown a sum equal to what would have been required for the sus- 
 tenance of the usual number of monks. " Before this tyme a litill, thair was 
 a plat devysit for the benefite of the prence, as was pretendit ; to wit, that as 
 in all abbacies thair was a number of monks that was sustenit upon thair awin 
 severall portions, that prejugeit not the abbot's rent; and that the abbot, 
 after the death of ilk monk, had appropriate the portion to his awin behuve, 
 
A.D. 15G2.] LORDS OF ERECTION. 389 
 
 or powerful barons ; the lands frequently carried a title of 
 nobility along with them ; the new possessor was a lord of 
 parlianaent, and enjoyed aU the honours, privileges, and 
 powers which his monkish ancestors had enjoyed before 
 him. Under these different dissolving processes, the pa- 
 trimony of the Church gradually melted away ; and the 
 Protestant clergy were too helpless to come in for any 
 considerable share when they divided the spoil with the 
 strong. 
 
 The majority of the superior clergy of the Eoman com- 
 munion lost but little by the Reformation. Many gained 
 prodigiously. They all had the two-thirds of their benefices 
 secured to them ; they increased these by their feus ; and 
 many had lands and tithes, which were theirs only for life, be- 
 stowed upon themselves and their heirs for ever. But it was 
 very different with the inferior clergy. As a general rule they 
 were reduced to absolute beggary. An act of the first As- 
 sembly provides that they should receive alms like other 
 poor, if their conversation was honest. The queen, with true 
 kind-heartedness, bestows nearly L.2000 out of her propor- 
 tion of the thirds upon destitute monks and nuns. In the 
 " Book of Assumptions" we find frequent references to small 
 sums retained for the helpless, houseless wretches, now they 
 were turned adrift. In the Cistercian Abbey of Melrose 
 eleven monks and three portioners have twenty merks, and 
 a small quantity of victual assigned to each of them. In 
 the Cistercian Nunnery of North Berwick, eleven nuns are 
 pensioned with L.20 each. In the Abbey of Newbattle, six 
 aged and decrepit monks, who had recanted, are liberally 
 pensioned with L.240. In the Monastery of Culross, of nine 
 monks, five embraced reform, and had an allowance granted 
 to them, but the other four would not listen to reason, and 
 so they were left to starve. Many of the clergy thus re- 
 
 whereas, be the first institution, still another sonld have bene surrogat to the 
 place ; tharefore it was devysit to call in all abbots and iithers prelates that 
 war presidents of convents to a compt, to cans thayme to bestow upon the 
 lung, for all tyme bygane, the portions of the monks departit before that day, 
 and siclyke for all tyme cuming." (Historie of King James Sext, p. 233, 
 Ban. Ed.) 
 
390 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. XI. 
 
 duced to want became proselytes for a morsel of bread, and 
 received employment in the Protestant Church.* 
 
 Meanwhile the Eeformation was making rapid progress 
 toward the occupation of the land. We can distinctly trace 
 its history in the records of the Assemblies. Yet it were a 
 waste of time, and an abuse of patience, to go over the pro- 
 ceedings of Assembly after Assembly ; and the purpose of 
 our history will better be served by giving a general view of 
 the business which came under the notice of these venerable 
 courts, and of the manner in which it was transacted. Every 
 Protestant nobleman would seem to have been invited to sit 
 in the first Assemblies, and many of tliese were generally 
 present, as the sederunts show. In 1 567 we find missives 
 directed to a large number of lords, barons, and other 
 brethren, requiring them to compear at an Assembly, which 
 is described in the body of the missive as a General As- 
 sembly of the whole professors of all estates and degrees 
 within the Kirk of Scotland, f In the very next year, how- 
 ever, we find it resolved, that none should have place or 
 power to vote in the Assembly except superintendents, com- 
 missioners aj^pointed for visiting kirks, ministers brought 
 with them, and presented as able to reason and judge, com- 
 missioners of burghs and shires, together with the commis- 
 sioners of universities. The Assembly at this period met 
 twice in the year, in June and December, and in December 
 it generally began its sittings upon the 25th, to show its 
 contempt for the Eomish festival of Christmas. At first no 
 Moderator was chosen, so primitive was the manner in 
 which business was done, but in the sixth General Assembly 
 John Willock was chosen to this honour, to prevent confu- 
 sion in the debates, f 
 
 Much time in all the first Assemblies was occupied in the 
 
 * The superintendent of Angus and Mearns was delated for having admitted 
 many immoral and ignorant Popish priests as readers. (Eeoords of AssemHy.) 
 
 t This was the Assembly held at the time when Mary was in the hands of 
 the lords who had risen against the government, and when they were yet un- 
 resolved what to do. A large attendance of noblemen was desired, that the 
 affairs of the kingdom, as well as of the Church, might be decided in the 
 Assembly. (Keith's Hist, book iii.) 
 
 f Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 17. 
 
A.D. 1562.J BUSINESS Oi' ASSEMBLIES. 391 
 
 appointment of ministers, exhorters, and readers; and it is 
 amazing how rapidly the vacant parishes were supplied. In 
 several cases we have modest men declaring themselves un- 
 fit for the office of the ministry, hut compelled to take it 
 under the pain of the censures of the Church. In other 
 cases we have presumptuous men removed from offices 
 which they had taken upon themselves. In every Assembly, 
 ministers, exhorters, and readers joined in complaints that 
 their stipends were small and irregularly paid, and in some 
 instances they excused themselves for not having done the 
 work which was imposed upon them from their inability to 
 bear the expense it would have entailed.* These complaints 
 were generally followed by resolutions to petition the Secret 
 Council, to prevent the further alienation of the Church's 
 lands. But one of the most characteristic features of these 
 Assemblies was delating the superintendents. These dig- 
 nified Presbyterian Churchmen were removed from the house 
 one after another, and the clergy of their diocese invited to 
 make complaints against them, and there appears to have 
 been no disinclination to do so. The superintendent of Fife 
 was blamed for being too much given to worldly affairs, slack 
 in preaching, rash in excommunicating, sharper than became 
 him in exacting payment of small tithes. The superinten- 
 dent of Angus was accused of having admitted too many 
 illiterate and immoral Popish priests to be readers in his 
 diocese, of having rashly admitted some young men to the 
 ministry without the forms prescribed in the " Book of Dis- 
 cipline ;" of having chosen gentlemen of vicious lives to be 
 elders ; of tolerating ministers who did not visit the sick, 
 nor instruct the youth ; and who on the Sabbaths came to 
 their churches long after the hour, and departed again the 
 moment the sermon was done.t The superintendent of the 
 West was charged with being slack in the extirpation of 
 idolatry ; but he pled that he was hindered in the good work 
 by the Duke and the Earl of Cassillis.J When the super- 
 
 * The universal complaint, we are told, was, that kirks lacked ministers, and 
 ministers lacked stipends. (Assembly vi. Keith, book iii. chap, iii.) 
 t Fiftli General Assembly. Keith, book iii. chap. iii. 
 J Seventh General Assembly. Keith, book iii. chiip. iii. 
 
392 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. xi. 
 
 intendents had one by one passed through this fiery ordeal, 
 the mmisters required to walk over the same course ; and as 
 it had been the duty of the ministers to rake up everything 
 they could against the superintendents, so now it was the 
 privilege of the superintendents to mete out to them the 
 same measure they had meted to others. 
 
 The other business of these Assemblies was very miscel- 
 laneous. The sacraments were ordered to be administered 
 according to the forms of the Book of Geneva.* Every 
 minister was ordered to furnish himself with a copy of the 
 Psalm-Book, which had just been printed with the Order of 
 Geneva attached to it.f The minister of Galston complained 
 that his wife had abandoned him and fled to England, where- 
 upon letters were directed to the Archbishops of Canterbury 
 and York, requesting edicts to be proclaimed or citations 
 executed against the fugitive lady.J Four women were 
 accused of witchcraft, and were handed over to the Privy 
 Council.§ John Knox asks leave to go to England to visit 
 his children, and is furnished with letters of commendation. || 
 The confession of the Helvetian churches is approved of, with 
 the exception of the appointment of festival days.f Com- 
 plaints are made against the Archbishop of St Andrews being 
 again invested with his ancient jurisdiction in testamentary 
 and other matters. A letter is written to the bishops and 
 clergy of England, instructing them to bear with those of 
 their brethren whose consciences would not allow them to 
 wear any religious apparel, seeing that surplices, cornet- 
 caps, and tippets, were but Eomish rags and badges of 
 idolatry.** 
 
 While the Assemblies were thus legislating, complaining, 
 petitioning, and writing pastoral epistles, the public mind 
 was in a state of tremulous excitement. There were still 
 abundant sources of irritation. The ancient Church was not 
 clean swept away. It stood like the bare and blackened 
 
 '' Fourth General Assembly. Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 13. Keith 
 places this act in the Fifth Assembly. 
 
 t Ninth Gen. Assembly. Keith. t Seventh Gen. Assembly. Keith. 
 
 ? Seventh Gen. Assembly. Keith. || Thirteenth Gen. Assembly. Keith. 
 H Twelfth Gen. Assembly. Keith. *« Thirteenth Gen. Assembly. Keith. 
 
A.D. 1502.] KUINS OF ROMAN CHURCH. 393 
 
 walls of a building -wliich had been gutted by fire. Romish E 
 
 ecclesiastics lived in the manses, cultivated the glebes, lifted 
 the tithes, sat in the senate, presided on the bench.* Pro- 
 testant preachers occupied the churches, expounded the 
 Scriptures, and dispensed the sacraments to the jjeople. 
 The rapidity with which the Catholic worship had been 
 overthrown was marvellous, but we must not imagine that 
 the overthrow was complete. The mass was still celebrated 
 in many parish churches, and where it could not be cele- 
 brated openly in the churches, it was performed privately in 
 gentlemen's houses. Large districts were still attached to 
 the ancient forms. When Protestant ministers made their 
 appearance at Paisley, Aberdeen, Curry, Duplin, Aberdalgie, 
 they found the doors of the churches barred against them.f 
 Quentin Kennedy, Abbot of Crossraguel, and Ninian Win- 
 gate, schoolmaster of Linlithgow, threw down the gauntlet, 
 and challenged Knox to discussion. J The people nowhere 
 could shake off their early prejudices, and, notwithstanding 
 their Protestantism, persisted in going on pilgrimage to 
 chapels and wells, and keeping wakes for the dead.§ When 
 
 * " For sa mucMe as it was heavilie lamentit be the maist part of tlie 
 ministers tliat they can have no dwelling-places at their kirks, because the 
 manses ar either deteinit be the parsons or vicars of the samen, or else sett in 
 feu or utherwayes to gentlemen." (General Assembly iv. sess. 5. Book of 
 the Universal Kirk, p. 13.) 
 
 t In the Ninth General Assembly the Church " requyres punishment of 
 sick as hes steikit the doores of the paroch kirks, and will not opin the samen 
 to preachers that have presentit themselves to preach the Word, sick as Paisley, 
 Aberdeen, Curry, Duplin, and Aberdalgie." (Keith.) 
 
 J Quentin Kennedy had first a disputation with Willock, and afterwards 
 with Knox. Keith has preserved some memorials of these. " Ane Compenius 
 Tractive," published by Kennedy in 1558, is reprinted in the "Wodrow Miscel- 
 lany, with Davidson's answer to it. Wingate's Controversial Tracts are to be 
 found in the Appendix to Keith. They have also been published, with a pre- 
 fatory notice, by the Maitland Club. He seems to have been an able and 
 learned man. Bishop Lesley informs us, that when he was printing his 
 Tractatis at Edinburgh, the magistrates came and rifled. the printing-press, 
 and fined and imprisoned John Scott, the printer. Wingate was glad to ilee 
 to the Continent, where he became abbot of a Scotch monastery at Rattis- 
 bone. The Maitland editor, however, afl&rms, that it was Wingate's Last 
 Blast of the Trumpet that was seized in the printing-office ; and that his 
 Book of Five Score and Three Questions was published after he went to the 
 Continent. 
 
 i We have Acts of Assembly against these practices. 
 
394 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. XI. 
 
 such strong counter-currents meet, a violent commotion is 
 the necessary result. Society in Scotland was in as troubled 
 a state as it well could be. The agitation was increased by 
 political events, to which we must now refer. 
 
 Since her first arrival in the kingdom, the young queen 
 had thrown herself entirely upon the friendship and support 
 of her Protestant subjects. Maitland of Lethington was 
 made her secretary. Her principal advisers were Reformers. 
 Her brother the Lord James was constantly at her side, and 
 in fact held in his hand the sceptre, while she was content 
 to wear the crown. He was created Earl of Mar, and after- 
 wards Earl of Moray, an honour which he had long coveted. 
 Her face was turned away from her fellow-religionists, 
 though she must in her heart have sympathized with them. 
 The potent Earl of Huntly, still a Catholic, was discoun- 
 tenanced, driven into rebellion, defeated, slain. His second 
 son died on the scaffold, and his immense estates were for- 
 feited. But as the queen still continued a Eomanist herself, 
 and insisted upon the private use of the mass, she was sus- 
 pected and disliked by the more vehement Eeformers. No- 
 thing but the unconditional surrender of her religion would 
 satisfy them. The queen, moreover, was fond of gaiety — 
 the dance and the song, to which she had been accustomed 
 in joyous France. The preachers were scandalized at this, 
 and would have youth and beauty assume the manners of 
 wrinkled old age. News had arrived that peace had been 
 restored to France ; and, conjoined with this, there were 
 rumours that the Guises were about to commence a perse- 
 cution of the Huguenots. About the same time a ball was 
 given at Holyrood, and the dancing was kept up with great 
 spirit till after midnight. Knox heard of this, and on the 
 following Sabbath he chose for his text, " Be wise now, 
 therefore, ye kings ; be instructed, ye judges of the earth," 
 and from these words declaimed against persecuting and 
 dancing princes. 
 
 Some of the queen's attendants reported this to her Ma- 
 jesty, and Knox was summoned into her presence. The 
 Reformer told the queen that it had been better she had 
 come and heard the sei'mon hexself than have listened to 
 
A.D. 1562.] KNOX REBUKES MART FOR DANCING. 395 
 
 distorted reports of it from others. " I doubt not/' said he, 
 "but that it came to the ears of Herod that our Master 
 Jesus Christ called him a fox ; but they told him not how 
 odious a thing it was before God to murder an innocent, as 
 he had lately done before, causing to behead John the Bap- 
 tist, to reward the dancing of a harlot's daughter." He then 
 proceeded to state what he had really said in his sermon. 
 He had declared " that violence and oppression occupied the 
 throne of God upon earth ; that murderers and bloodthirsty 
 men presented themselves before kings and princes, while 
 the poor saints were exiled ; that princes were more exer- 
 cised in fiddling and flinging, than in reading and hearing- 
 God's most blessed Word ; and that fiddlers and flatterers 
 were more precious in their eyes than men of wisdom and 
 gravity. As for dancing," he remarked, " though he found it 
 nowhere praised in God's Word, and though he thought it 
 fitter for the mad than the sane, yet he did not utterly con- 
 demn it if it did not interfere with more serious concerns, 
 and if it were not used to triumph over God's people." This 
 was bad enough, but it would appear that the reports were 
 worse. The queen said so, and told the stern censor, that 
 if at any time he had any fault to find with her, she would 
 much rather he would come and tell it to herself. This was 
 kindly said, and no doubt kindly meant ; but Knox rudely 
 answered that he had something else to do " than come and 
 wait at her chamber-door, and whisper in her Majesty's ear.'' 
 The queen turned her back upon him. As he left the palace, 
 men were watching the expression of his countenance, and 
 he overheard one whisper, "He is not afraid." "Why should 
 the pleasant face of a lady affray me ?" said the unmoved 
 man. " I have looked in the faces of many angry men, and 
 have not been afraid above measure."* 
 
 There were penal statutes against the mass, but they had 
 seldom been put into execution. Perhaps the queen denied 
 their validity, as she had never ratified the proceedings of 
 the parliament which passed them ; perhaps she felt it 
 would be indecent for her to punish others for what she did 
 herself But the more vehement Eeformers were resolved 
 .* Knox's History, book iv. 
 
396 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 that these sanguinary laws should not lie idle in the statute- 
 
 nir -.„„ book, and therefore the westland e-entlemen, in 
 May 1563. , . , ^ . i • ?i i i _£■ 
 
 their character of magistrates, laid hold oi some 
 
 of the perverse priests, and warned others, especially the 
 Abbot of Crossraguel and the parson of Sanquhar, that they 
 would do well to desist from saying mass. The queen was 
 then at Lochleven, enjoying herself amid its pleasant scenery, 
 and little dreaming it was soon to be her prison, when intel- 
 ligence of this reached her. Knowing the influence of Knox 
 with his party, she resolved to send for him, and try the in- 
 fluence of persuasion. Knox came, and was admitted to an 
 audience. The queen complained that her subjects had 
 taken the law into their own hand, and that it was hard 
 that men should be punished for worshipping their G-od ac- 
 cording to their conscience. " The sword of justice, madam, 
 is God's," said the Eeformer, " and is given to princes and 
 rulers for one end, which, if they transgress, sparing the 
 wicked and oppressing the innocent, they that in the fear of 
 God execute judgment where God hath commanded offend 
 not God ; neither yet sin they that bridle kings from strik- 
 ing innocent men in their rage. The examples are evident, 
 for Samuel spared not to slay Agag, the fat and delicate 
 King of Amalek, whom King Saul had saved ; neither 
 spared Elias Jezebel's false prophets and Baal's priests, 
 albeit King Ahab was present ; Phinehas was no magistrate, 
 and yet feared he not to strike Zimri and Cosbi in the very 
 act of filthy fornication. And so, madam, your Majesty may 
 see that others than chief magistrates may lawfully punish, 
 and have punished, the vices and crimes which God com- 
 mands to be punished ; for power by act of parliament is 
 given to all judges to search the mass-mongers, or hearers 
 of the same, and to punish them according to the law."* 
 Knox may have been right in holding that magistrates were 
 entitled to put existing laws into execution ; but he was 
 plainly wrong in the applicability of the Old Testament ex- 
 amples which he cited, or every bigot would be entitled 
 to commit murder when he pleased, and then quote the 
 examples of Samuel, Elijah, and Phinehas. The queen bore 
 
 * Knox's History, book iv. 
 
A.D. 1563.] THE PARLIAMENT MEETS. 397 
 
 with liim with wonderful patience, continued the conversa- 
 tion for two hours, and only broke it off when supper-time 
 had come. Knox left her presence, to go and repeat all that 
 had passed to the Earl of Moray. 
 
 Before sun-rise the next morning, Knox was again sum ■ 
 moned to wait upon her Majesty. She had gone out to en- 
 joy a day's hawking, and Knox came up with her in the 
 fields near Kinross. She received him with the greatest 
 kindness and condescension ; told him of a little love-affair 
 between Lord Euthven and herself; warned him against the 
 Bishop of Galloway, whom she knew to be a dangerous man ; 
 confided to him some domestic differences between the Earl 
 and Countess of Argyle, and begged his good offices to effect 
 a reconciliation ; and finally, before parting, said to him, 
 with reference to their interview on the previous evening, 
 that she would cause all offenders against the laws to be 
 summoned, and see justice done. She kept her word: so 
 soon as she returned to Edinburgh, the Archbishop of St 
 Andrews, the Prior of Whithorn, and several others, were 
 brought before the Council, and committed to custody. Was 
 not this enough to make Knox relent ? But he did not. 
 Mary was a Papist, and a Papist was an abomination in his 
 sight. 
 
 On the 4th of June 1563 the parliament as- 
 sembled. ThequeenrodeinstatetotheTolbootb, 
 and delivered the opening address, surrounded by a crowd 
 of ladies, whom French milliners had made more than usually 
 gay. " Such stinking pride of women," says Knox, " as was 
 seen at that parliament, was never seen before in Scotland." 
 But there were others felt differently, and while the queen 
 spoke, there were heard whispers among the audience — 
 "God save that sweet face; was there ever orator spake so 
 properly and so sweetly ?"* The more vehement of the Ee- 
 foi-mers wished to obtain in this parliament a ratification of 
 the treaty of Leith ; but Moray and Lethington, knowing 
 the queen's aversion to this, had resolved to content them- 
 selves with an act of indemnity. Knox and Moray had a 
 violent altercation on the subject, which ended in a quarrel, 
 * Knox's History, book iv. 
 
398 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 and for eighteen months the two chiefs of the Eeformation 
 scarcely exchanged words. The act of indemnity was 
 passed ; and to concihate the clergy, acts were also passed 
 to punish adulterers and witches with death ; to repair the 
 parish churches ; to prevent the letting of manses aud 
 glehes by the Komish occupants, and ultimately secure them 
 to the Protestant ministry. The preachers were clamorous 
 for a law against the superfluity of female attire, which they 
 affirmed was sure to bring God's vengeance not only upon 
 the foolish women themselves, but upon the w^hole kingdom ;* 
 but the love neither of religion nor economy could induce 
 the lords to intermeddle with the inflated petticoats and 
 starched ruffles of their ladies. 
 
 If the press be a fourth estate of the realm now, the pul- 
 pit arrogated this honour and authority to itself at the time 
 of the Eeformation. While the parliament was sitting, St 
 Gile's was crowded with courtiers and legislators. Undivided 
 by partitions, and unencumbered with galleries, it then 
 opened up its long nave and aisles to the echoing voice of 
 the preacher. John Knox believed himself in the place 
 " where G-od required him to speak the truth, and therefore 
 speak it he would, impugn it whoso listed." He drew a 
 picture of the dangers through w^hich the nation had passed ; 
 of the struggle the Eeformers had endured. " In your most 
 extreme danger," he exclaimed, " I have been with you ; St 
 Johnstone, Cupar-moor, and the charges of Edinburgh are 
 yet recent in my heart ; yea, that dark and dolorous night 
 wherein all you, my lords, with shame and fear left this 
 town, is yet in my mind ; and God forbid that ever I forget 
 it." He alluded to speeches which had been made by 
 some to the effect that the Protestant religion had never 
 been established by law, and declared that those who spoke 
 such things deserved to be hanged upon a gallows. He 
 adverted to the rumours which were in circulation in regard 
 to the marriage of the queen, and said, that if the nobles 
 consented to her marrying a Papist, they would banish Jesus 
 Christ from the realm, and bring God's judgments upon the 
 country and themselves, f All this was uttered as Knox 
 ' Knox's History, book iv. -j- Ibid. 
 
A.D. 1563.J THE QUEEN AND THE EEFORMEB. 399 
 
 could utter his fierce philippics, with a voice low and calm 
 at first, but soon rising into a perfect hurricane. 
 
 Rumours of all this soon reached the palace, and again 
 the preacher was summoned into the presence of the queen. 
 Knox found Mary in a violent fit of grief and rage. " I 
 have borne with yon," she exclaimed, "in all your rigorous 
 manner of speaking, both against myself and my uncles ; I 
 have even sought your favour by all possible means ; I 
 offered you presence and audience whenever you pleased to 
 admonish me; and yet I cannot be quit of you. I vow to 
 God I shall be revenged ;" and so saying, she burst into tears. 
 Knox was unmoved; he could even afterwards mock at her 
 grief. " Scarce could her page," says he, " get handkerchiefs 
 to hold her eyes dry ; for the tears and the howling, besides 
 womanly weeping, staid her speech." When the fit of cry- 
 ing had subsided, Knox remarked, " that when it should 
 please God to deliver her Majesty from the bondage of error 
 in which she had been nourished, she would not find the 
 liberty of his tongue to be offensive ; and that in the pulpit 
 it was his duty to speak plain, and flatter no flesh." " But 
 what," cried she, passionately, "have you to do with my 
 marriage ?" In answer to this Knox said, " that he must 
 preach repentance, which implied the noting of particular 
 sins ;" and " it so happens," said he, " that the most part of 
 the nobility are so devoted to your wishes, that neither God's 
 Word nor yet the commonwealth are rightly regarded ; and 
 therefore it becometh me to speak, that they may know their 
 duty." " But what have you to do with my marriage," she 
 again asked, "or what are you within the commonwealth?" 
 " A subject born within the same," said Knox, proudly; "and 
 albeit I be neither earl, lord, nor baron, yet hath God made 
 me a profitable and useful member." " My vocation craves," 
 he continued, " plainness of speech, and therefore, madam, 
 I say to yourself what I have spoken in public, that when- 
 ever the nobility shall consent to your marrying an unlawful 
 husband, they will do as much as in them lies to renounce 
 Christ, banish truth, betray the freedom of the realm, and 
 bring discomfort upon yourself." Upon this the queen 
 again gave way to a passionate fit of crying. Erskine of 
 
400 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap, xi 
 
 Dun had accompanied John Knox into the queen's presence, 
 and now did everything he could to soothe and comfort her ; 
 but " the said John," to quote his own description of the 
 scene, " stood still, without any alteration of countenance." 
 At length he said that he did not delight in the weeping of 
 any of G-od's creatures ; that it grieved him to hear his own 
 children cry when he whipped them; but that still he must 
 speak the truth. This species of sympathy only increased 
 the anger of the queen, and so the unilinching Ke former 
 was ordered to leave her presence, and wait her pleasure in 
 an adjoining room. 
 
 When Knox came into the outer apartment the courtiers 
 carefully avoided him — Lord Ochiltree alone came and spoke 
 to him. But he found himself in the midst of the ladies of 
 the court, gorgeously apparelled, and probably busy at their 
 tapestry. " Fair ladies," said he, with a smile on his face, 
 '' how pleasant were this life of yours if it should ever abide; 
 and then in the end that we might pass to heaven with this 
 gear. But fie upon that knave death, that will come 
 whether we will or not ; and when he hath laid on the 
 arrest, then foul worms will be busy with this flesh, be it 
 never so fair nor so tender ; and the filthy soul, I fear, shall 
 be so feeble, that it can neither carry with it gold, garnish- 
 ing, targating, pearl, nor precious stones."* With such 
 moralizings he entertained the maids of honour for a long 
 hour, till the Laird of Dun came and told him he might go 
 home. Perhaps as he made his way up the Canongate he 
 thought, "better that women weep than bearded men," and 
 so justified himself. 
 
 In the autumn of this year, the queen paid a visit to the 
 western counties. During her absence from the capital, her 
 household, as usual, attended mass in the chapel on the Sab- 
 bath-day. On that day the sacrament of the Supper was 
 administered in St Gile's ; and the solemn services had un- 
 happily awakened religious rancour rather than Christian 
 charity. A crowd of citizens gathered around the palace ; 
 some of them entered the chapel, and interrupted the ser- 
 vice. A riot was apprehended ; the magistrates were called 
 * Knox's History, book iv. 
 
A.D, 1564.] KNOX BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 401 
 
 upon to interfere ; and two of the ringleaders were seized 
 and committed for trial. Knox believed that the Protes- 
 tant religion would be compromised if these two men were 
 punished ; and so he wrote circular letters to the leading 
 Eeformers in different parts of the country, requesting their 
 presence in Edinburgh on the day of the trial. The Pro- 
 testant gathering was no doubt designed to overawe the 
 judges. It was a plan which had frequently succeeded 
 during the Eeformation struggle. It was a plan which 
 feudal barons well knew; and in feudal times magistrates 
 were often required to pronounce sentence in a court 
 crowded with the armed retainers of the accused. A copy 
 of Knox's circular came into the hands of the queen, and 
 was pronounced to be treasonable. He was summoned 
 before the council, to answer to the charge of having con- 
 vocated the queen's lieges. Mary herself sat at the head of 
 the council-table, hardly able to conceal her satisfaction at 
 having now got her arch-enemy within her power. Knox 
 stood at the foot of it, with his head uncovered. Lethington 
 exerted all his ingenuity to get a verdict of guilty. The 
 panel, when requested to answer for himself, drew a dis- 
 tinction between lawful and unlawful convocations ; some 
 of his friends in the Council, anxious to save him, caught it 
 up ; and he was almost unanimously acquitted, to the 
 queen's great chagrin. " That night," said the triumphant 
 Knox, " there was neither dancing nor fiddling in the court, 
 for our sovereign was disappointed of her purpose."* But 
 though he was acquitted of treason, the more moderate Re- 
 formers blamed his violence, and few attempted altogether 
 to justify his conduct. 
 
 During the year 1564-, the great subject of conversation 
 and anxiety in Scotland was the marriage of the queen. 
 Gossips talked of it over their bread and ale ; and diploma- 
 tists, ambassadors, and ministers of state discussed it in 
 cabinets. It was known that the King of Sweden, the 
 Infant of Spain, and the second son of the Emperor, had 
 offered her their royal hearts and hands. But Mary was 
 anxious to consult the wishes of Elizabeth ; and Elizabeth 
 
 * Knox's History, book iv. 
 VOL. I. 2 C 
 
^02 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xr. 
 
 was averse to her forming an alliance with a foreign poten- 
 tate. Besides, both Elizabeth and her own subjects were 
 utterly opposed to her marrying a Papist. The Queen of 
 England, not yet too old to love, suggested her own gallant, 
 the Earl of Leicester ; but her royal cousin justly suspected 
 her sincerity, and more justly still considered the match as 
 unbecoming her sovereign dignit3^ Mary had now been a 
 widow for nearly three years, and was most anxious to 
 marry again ; but Elizabeth's intrigues threw such continual 
 obstacles in her way, tliat she was outstripped in tlie matri- 
 monial race by a competitor whom we could scarcely have 
 expected to have found in such a contest. This was John 
 Knox. He also had passed three years in widowhood, and 
 was now verging upon the venerable age of sixty. He was 
 an austere man ; and to have seen him stern and unmoved 
 in the presence of the weeping Mary, one would have 
 thought him incapable of being influenced either by a 
 woman's hate or a woman's love. But he must have had 
 his softer moods ; for the rough old man wooed and won 
 Margaret Stewart, a daughter of Lord Ochiltree's, a young 
 lady just escaping from her teens. Many thought the thing 
 so extraordinary that they ascribed the girl's passion to 
 enchantment ; but it is certain that the parents, as well as 
 the bride, were delighted with the match.* For a time 
 people ceased to speculate about Mary's marriage to talk 
 of Knox's wedding. 
 
 But the veteran bridegroom took home his bride, the 
 
 ® M'Crie's Life of Knox, period vii. Dr M'Crie, in liis appendix, has a 
 curious note about Knox's courtship, taken from Nicol Burne's Disputation. 
 Pie is said to have iirst asted the eldest daiighter of the Duke of Chastel- 
 herault, and was refused ; and then he set his heart upon Lord Ochiltree's 
 daughter. " Rydand thair with ane gret court, on ane trim gelding, nocht 
 lyk ane prophet or ane auld decrepit priest, as he was, hot lyk as he had bene 
 ane of the blude royal, witli his bendes of taffetie feschnit with golden ringis 
 and precious stanes ; and as is plaiiilie reportit in the countrey, be sorcerie 
 and witchcraft did sua allure that puir gentil woman that scho could not leve 
 without him ; whilt apperis to be of greit probabilitie, scho being ane damsel 
 of nobil blude, and he ane auld decrepit creatur of maist bais degrie of onie 
 that could be found in the countrey." It is comical to hear Knox described 
 as a dandy ; it is equally so to find Ninian Wingate taunting him for his 
 " southron tongue." He appears to have been both Anglified and dandyfied. 
 
A.D. 1565.J DARNLEY COMES TO SCOTLAND. 403 
 
 tittle-tattle died away, and again the subject of discourse 
 was the future husband of the queen. In the month of 
 February 1565, Lord Daruley arrived in Scotland. He was 
 handsome, accomplished, a Protestant, the next heir to the 
 English throne after Mary herself ; and if the queen was to 
 marry a subject, whom better could she find ? Beside the 
 tall, slender person of the stripling, there were many political 
 reasons in favour of the match ; and it soon became known 
 that Mary had given to him her heart. The nobility in a 
 body gave their consent ; and it was imagined the Queen of 
 England would give her approbation too. But Elizabeth's 
 policy in this matter is a great deep. She despatched an 
 ambassador to Scotland to do everything in his power to 
 prevent it. Moray, too, began to show his aversion to the 
 marriage ; and when the sentiments of Elizabeth were 
 known, his aversion became still more decided. The feeling- 
 was infectious, and quickly spread. Moray did not like the 
 match, for it would take the sceptre out of his hands ; the 
 Duke of Chastelherault did not like the match, for it would 
 take the hope of the crown from off his head ; Elizabeth did 
 not like the match, nobody knows why ; and where these led, 
 many were sure to follow. Argyle, Glencairn, Eothes, 
 Ochiltree, threw in their lot with them ; and an armed re- 
 sistance was secretly organized, under the fostering care of 
 the English queen. 
 
 Things were in this state when the General Assembly 
 met on the 24th of June. Moray and Knox had been recon- 
 ciled. Knox was at the devotion of Moray, and the General 
 Assembly was at the devotion of Knox. Certain articles of 
 petition and complaint were prepared to be laid before the 
 queen. They were to the etfect — That the blasph£mous 
 mass, with all papistry and idolatry, should be suppressed 
 throughout the realm, not only in her subjects, but in her 
 Majesty's own person ; and every one compelled to resort, on 
 the Sabbaths at least, to prayers and the preaching of the 
 Word: That some sure provision should be made for the 
 sustentation of the ministry : That none should be permitted 
 to teach in schools, colleges, or universities, or even to act 
 as private tutors, till they were first examined and approved 
 
 2 c 2 
 
404 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xi. 
 
 of by the superintendents : That all lands anciently doted 
 to hospitals, all revenues belonging to the friars, and all 
 obits, altarages, and such dues pertaining to the priests, 
 should be appropriated to the maintenance of schools and 
 the support of the poor : That such horrible crimes as idola- 
 try, blasphemy. Sabbath-breaking, witchcraft, sorcery, adul- 
 tery, whoredom, murder, &c., should be severely punished: 
 That order should be taken to give relief to the poor labourers 
 of the ground from the unreasonable payment of tithes, taken 
 over their heads without their consent.* 
 
 The first of these articles asked the queen to renounce her 
 religion. That she should be compelled to do so had always 
 been the opinion of Knox, biit not of Moray. Now they 
 were at one. It could not have been expected that the 
 queen would yield to such a compulsory method of conver- 
 sion ; but she made a conciliatory reply, and declared that 
 all her Protestant subjects would enjoy the same liberty of 
 conscience which she claimed for herself, and that she was 
 willing to leave the ratification of the Reformed faith to the 
 Estates of the realm. This was not deemed to be enough ; 
 perhaps no declaration whatever would. But an object had 
 been gained. It was important that religious enthusiasm 
 should give its aid to political craft, and therefore the cry 
 was raised that the Church was in danger ; but the people 
 in general were shrewd enough to see that it was raised for 
 factious purposes ; and indeed there is reason to believe that 
 there was less cause for alarm at this juncture than at any 
 period since the queen's arrival in the realm. She had 
 recently gone so far as to attend a Protestant sermon ; she 
 had admitted three of the superintendents to an interview, 
 and declared her willingness to listen to discussion regarding 
 disputed points of faith ; she had expressed a desire to hear 
 Erskine preach, whom she appears to have regarded with 
 kindness since his attempt to comfort her under the rebukes 
 of Knox ; and at that very time she had requested the most 
 powerful of the Protestant nobles to meet her at Perth, 
 that some arrangements might be made regarding their re- 
 ligion, but they declined to meet her under various pretences. 
 
 » Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 28, 29. Keith. Knox, &o. 
 
A.D. 1567.] MARRIAGE OF DABNLET AND MART. 405 
 
 It was known that the queen, in the company of Lord 
 Darnley, was to pass from Perth to Callendar. The discon- 
 tented lords, with the approhation of the English resident, 
 resolved to waylay them ; but the queen got a hint of what 
 was intended, and was so early in her saddle that she gave 
 them the slip. 
 
 On Sabbath the 29th of July, Mary was married to Lord 
 Darnley in the Chapel of Holyrood. The ceremony was 
 performed according to the rites of the Catholic Church, 
 but immediately after it was over, Darnley, who professed 
 to be a Protestant, left the chapel, as he did not wish to be 
 present at the service of the mass. On Sabbath the 19th of 
 August, he repaired to St Gile's to hear John Knox preach/ 
 Knox chose his text from Isaiah — " Lord our God, other 
 lords beside thee have had dominion over us." He expatia- 
 ted on the government of wicked princes, who were sent to 
 plague nations for their sins, and " amongst other things 
 said, that God set in that station, for the offences and in- 
 gratitude of the people, boys and women," and then went on 
 to declare " that God had justly punished Ahab and his 
 posterity because he would not take order with the harlot 
 Jezebel."* A kind of throne had been erected in the church, 
 that the young king might sit in state and listen to the 
 sermon ; but he soon began to perceive that the jDreacher 
 was coarsely lecturing himself and the queen, and left the 
 church boiling with indignation. When he got home to 
 the palace, he could eat no dinner, and went out to hawk 
 in the afternoon, that he might soothe his choler in the open 
 air. 
 
 We have refrained up to this time from making any re- 
 marks upon these pulpit exhibitions of the dictatorial Knox. 
 The liberty of the pulpit is certainly a thing quite as sacred 
 as the liberty of the press. It were a grievous calamity, 
 even now, if the preachers of the gospel were restricted to 
 speak only the prevalent opinions of the court ; it had been 
 a greater calamity still had it been so in the days of the 
 Eeformation, when the press was yet in its infancy, and the 
 pulpit the only means of acting on the intelligence of the 
 * Knox's History, book iv. 
 
406 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 people. Had no rays of light come from this source to dissi- 
 pate the darkness, great had been that darkness. Had the 
 preachers become the mouthpiece of princes, had they 
 gilded fashionable vices, recommended obedience to tyran- 
 nical decrees, exalted kings into gods, the preaching of 
 those truths which should make men free would have been 
 converted into a means for their enslavement. A woe is on 
 the country where such a course is prescribed by authority, 
 and where no murmur of disapprobation against the ruling 
 powers may proceed from the preacher's lips; where despot- 
 ism cannot be denoimced as a sin ; where the people cannot 
 be told that God has made them free. But liberty is ever 
 •apt to degenerate into licentiousness, and the law of libel 
 has been devised, which now operates as a check upon the 
 licentiousness alike of the pulpit and the press. In no place, 
 however sacred, can a man be indulged with an unbridled 
 latitude of speech ; men's characters, feelings, interests, must 
 be protected from the assaults of envy, malice, and false- 
 liood. If a man will speak, he must be responsible for what 
 he says. Knox would have it, that for what he said in the 
 pulpit he was answerable only to G-od — a dangerous doctrine. 
 The truth is, Knox in the pulpit was stronger than Mary 
 in her palace, and all his harsh and uncharitable speeches 
 against her escaped with impunity. But when Knox is 
 placed at the bar of a posterity which is stronger than the 
 strongest, and cannot be overawed, he cannot be acquitted. 
 We do not condemn him for introducing politics into the 
 pulpit, for at such a crisis that was inevitable, but w^e con- 
 demn him for attacking with such coarse virulence persons 
 whose position should have commanded respect. It was too 
 bad that a queen who had as yet been convicted of no crime 
 but a conscientious attachment to the religion in which she had 
 been educated, should be publicly compared to every harlot, 
 murderer, and idolater mentioned in the Old Testament, and 
 that prayer should have been prostituted to the purposes of 
 abuse. Nor can we accept the apologetic plea that his in- 
 vectives seem coarse only to the squeamish delicacy of 
 modern times ; that his calumnious way of speaking was the 
 current language of the period. Knox was blamed by his 
 
A.B, 1565.] CHAEACTEE OF KNOZ. 407 
 
 compeers, remonstrated with, threatened, but in vain. Leth- 
 ington reasoned witli liim, Moray reasoned with him. His 
 best friends, as he himself confesses, were scandahzed and 
 estranged from him by his violence; and Kandolph the 
 English resident, notwithstanding his favour for the faction 
 to which Knox belonged, again and again alludes to his 
 unseasonable severity. Nor did the Eeformation require 
 such vituperative speeches. There is reason to believe 
 that it was injured by them. They gave deep cause of 
 offence to the court ; they cooled the affection of many 
 of the nobles ; and were probably one of the reasons which 
 deferred for so long a suitable provision for the Eeformed 
 ministry. 
 
 Knox was not perfect, as no man is. He was coarse, 
 fierce, dictatorial ; but he had great redeeming qualities — 
 qualities which are seldom found in such stormy, changeful 
 periods as that in which he lived. He was consistent, sin- 
 cere, unselfish. From first to last he pursued the same 
 straight, unswerving course, turning neither to the right 
 hand nor to the left ; firm amid continual vicissitudes; and if 
 he could have burned and disembowelled unhappy Papists, 
 he would" have done it with the fullest conviction that he 
 was doiDg God service. He hated Popery with a perfect 
 hatred; and regarding Mary, and her mother, as its chief 
 personations in the land, he followed them through life with 
 a rancour which was all the more deadly because it was 
 rooted in religion. He was perhaps fond of power and popu- 
 larity, but he gained them by no mean compliances. On a 
 c[uestion of principle he would quarrel with the highest, and 
 having quarrelled, he would not hesitate to vilify them to 
 their face. His hands were clean of bribes. He did not 
 grow rich by the spoils of the Eeformation. He was con- 
 tent to live and die the minister of St Gile's. Is not such an 
 one, rough and bearish though he be, more to be venerated 
 than the supple, time-serving Churchmen who were the 
 tools of the English Eeformation ? Does he not stand out 
 in pleasing relief from the grasping barons with whom he 
 was associated, who li'ated monks because they coveted their 
 corn-fields, and afterwards disgraced the religion they pro- 
 
408 CHUROH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. xi. 
 
 "lessed by their feuds, their conspiracies, and cold-blooded 
 assassinations. 
 
 Meanwhile the discontented nobles, depending upon the 
 assistance of England, had broken out into open rebellion. 
 A few days after her marriage, Mary placed herself at the 
 head of her troops, chased them from town to town, and 
 finally compelled them to seek shelter in England. They 
 had implored the promised aid from Elizabeth ; but Eliza- 
 beth had seen that their case was hopeless, and left them to 
 their fate. The faction was broken to pieces. The Earl of 
 Moray and the Abbot of Kilwinning, leaving their discom- 
 fited companions at Newcastle, repaired to the court of Lon- 
 don. But it was not the policy of Elizabetb to appear openly 
 to favour unsuccessful rebels. They were at first refused 
 admittance ; and wben tbey were admitted, they were com- 
 pelled to go down upon their knees before the imperious 
 queen, in tbe presence of the ambassadors of France and 
 Spain, and declare that they had not been incited to rebel- 
 lion by her Majesty ; and when they had submitted to this 
 indignity, and uttered this falsehood, tbey were told to get 
 out of her presence, as they were unworthy traitors.* It 
 was a solemn farce on the part of the queen to kefep up ap- 
 pearances, as we soon find her exerting herself to procure 
 their pardon. 
 
 It was at this period Mary was earnestly solicited to sub- 
 scribe the treaty of Bayonne. It had been concocted by 
 Catharine of Medici and the Duke of Alva, and had for its 
 great object the extermination of heresy, and tbe universal 
 establishment of tbe Catholic faith. Earnestly urged by her 
 uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, and distressed and disturbed 
 by her Protestant subjects, she put her hand to the bond. 
 It was the first great blunder and crime of her reign, but it 
 justified tbe suspicions of her enemies, and led to many of 
 her subsequent misfortunes. 
 
 It is a dark page of our history upon which 
 March 1566. T .T, *x, A,r T, 
 
 we now enter, in the month oi March a par- 
 liament was to be held, in which it was expected that Moray 
 and his associates would be outlawed, and their immense 
 
 « Sir James Melville's Memoirs, pp. 112, 113. 
 
A.D. 1566.J MCKDER OF BIZZIO. 409 
 
 possessions confiscated. Tlie parliament was opened, but 
 its proceedings were suddenly and fearfully stayed. A con- 
 spiracy had been organized by the king (who had proved a 
 foolish, jealous, and wayward boy), the Earl of Morton, Lord 
 Euthven, the Secretary Maitland, and the banished nobles, 
 to murder Rizzio, who was thought to have too much influ- 
 ence with the queen, to imprison the queen herself, confer 
 upon Darnley the crown-matrimonial, and restore to the 
 rebels their honours and estates. The English queen was 
 made aware of the conspiracy, and there is a strong suspi- j 
 cion that Knox and Craig, the two ministers of Edinburgh, / 
 were made privy to it too.* On a Saturday evening the 
 unhappy Italian was foully murdered, almost in the presence 
 of the queen. Mary was kept a prisoner in her room. 
 The banished lords were instantly in Edinburgh. Moray 
 was received with affection by his sister, who clung to him in 
 her hour of need, being yet ignorant of the part which he 
 had in the conspiracy. Eut Mary's influence over her hus- 
 band was not yet gone. He repented him of his rashness, 
 and fled with her. Their friends gathered around them, 
 they marched upon Edinburgh, and the assassins were 
 obliged to flee for their lives. Darnley now protested his 
 own innocence, but revealed his accomplices, and insisted 
 on their punishment. They, in revenge, produced the docu- 
 ments, which proved not only that he was a party to the con- 
 spiracy, but that he had openly asserted the dishonour of his 
 
 * This is debateaHe ground in history. The evidence adduced by Tytler 
 amounts to this : — Bedford writes to Cecil, telling him some of the particulars 
 of the conspiracy, and stating that Eaudolph would Tmte and furnish the 
 names of the conspirators. Randolph writes, and mentions some of the con- 
 spirators in the body of his letter ; and attached to his letter, as found in the 
 State-Paper Office, is a more complete list, in the handwriting of a clerk em- 
 ployed by Bedford, and containing, among other names, the names of Knox 
 and Craig. The suspicion arising from this circumstance is strengthened by 
 the fact, that after the failure of the conspiracy (in its ultimate ends), Knox 
 fled with the other conspirators, and did not return to Edinburgh till after the 
 seizure of Mary at Carherry Hill. The question is interesting in a historical 
 point of view, but not in a moral point of view, as aifecting Knox's character. 
 We know he approved of the murder after it was committed ; and to approve 
 of a murder after its commission, in a moral point of view, is the same as to 
 approve of it before its commission. He was, moreover, a keen advocate of 
 tyrannicide, as Buchanan and other leading men of the time were. 
 
410 CHURCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 wife. The root of bitterness was planted in the soul, which 
 nothing could pluck up. A wrong had been done to Mary 
 which she could not forgive. A solemn bond had been vio- 
 lated with men, who, destitute- of all other faith, esteemed 
 fidelity to one another a sacred virtue, and it must be 
 avenged. Less than a year revealed it all. 
 
 Mary, now a mother, did not attempt to conceal her 
 estrangement from Darnley ; and Darnley, deprived of the 
 royal favour, sunk into universal contempt. The Earl of 
 Bothwell, in the meantime, had made himself useful to the 
 queen, had seized every opportunity of insinuating himself 
 into her favour, and perhaps had already gained her heart. 
 A divorce from Darnley was talked of ; btit there were diffi- 
 culties in the way, and it was abandoned. The simple 
 remedy of desperadoes must be resorted -to. A new con- 
 spiracy was organized. A new bond for blood was drawn 
 up. It was signed by Bothwell, Huntly, Argyle, Lething- 
 ton, and Balfour. It was afterwards made known to the 
 Earl of Morton. It ramified still more widely : the Arch- 
 bishop of St Andrews and the Earl of Moray are said to 
 have received intimation of it. The king was to be got rid 
 of by murder. Was Mary ignorant that she was on the eve 
 of a second widowhood ? God alone knows all, but a fear- 
 ful suspicion rests upon her name. Early on the morning 
 of Monday, the 10th of February 1567, the house in the 
 suburbs of Edinburgh where the king slept was blown up 
 with gunpowder, and the loud report awakened the whole 
 city. A crowd was soon collected on the spot, and the king's 
 body was found in an adjoining field, nearly naked, and en- 
 tirely unscathed by fire. It was thought he had been caught 
 rushing from the house just before the explosion, and 
 strangled. Bothwell was instantly suspected of the murder : 
 voices in the night proclaimed it ; labels secretly posted up 
 in the streets proclaimed it ; but none dared openly to ac- 
 cuse him, saving the father of the murdered man. Mean- 
 while Mary was continually in Both well's society, and de- 
 layed to bring him to trial. "When a trial could no longer 
 be deferred, he appeared before a court constituted after his 
 own liking, surrounded by his own retainers, and overawed 
 
A.D. 15U7.] MARY MAEEIES BOTHWELL. 411 
 
 by the guns of the castle, which he commanded. Lennox, 
 his accuser, was forbidden to approach Edinburgh with more 
 than six followers ; and so unattended, he was afraid to 
 come. The indictment was read ; no accuser appeared ; no 
 witnesses were called ; and after this mockery of law and 
 justice, a verdict of "not guilty" was brought in by the 
 jury. 
 
 What followed is soon told. It is a story of sin and 
 shame, followed by wretchedness and ruin. Mary married 
 the man who was universally believed to be her husband's 
 murderer. Her downward progress in guilt had been aw- 
 fiiUy rapid — as a woman's always is. She had been living 
 amidst conspirators and assassins, and had learned their 
 ways. Why trace her corruption back to France, which she 
 had left when almost a child : had she not witnessed dark 
 scenes, had she not associated with bloody men in Holyrood 
 House ? But when the cup of iniquity is full, it runs over. 
 The nation coidd bear this burden of guilt no more. A 
 number of the nobles took arms. The people sympathized 
 with them. Eesistance was attempted ; but, deserted by 
 their troops at Carberry Hill, Bothwell was glad to flee, and 
 Mary to surrender herself into the hands of her subjects. 
 She was brought to Edinburgh, marched through the streets, 
 insulted by the mob, and finally sent as a prisoner to the 
 Castle of Lochleveu to await her fate. 
 
 While these things were doing, the General Assembly of 
 the Church was sitting. It was of the utmost importance 
 that the lords who had the queen in their power should be 
 joined by their brother peers, the great bulk of whom held 
 back ; and the influence of the Assembly was employed for 
 this purpose. The Assembly was prorogued till the 20th of 
 July. Missives were directed to nearly forty influential 
 barons, inviting them to attend ; and Knox, Douglas, Eow, 
 and Craig were commissioned to wait upon those to whom 
 the missives were sent, to urge by every argument their pre- 
 sence in Edinburgh at the time appointed.* The missives 
 calling this extraordinary Assembly mention only the neces- 
 sity of extirpating Popery, and providing for the Eeformed 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 55-57. Keith, book iii. 
 
412 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XI. 
 
 ministry ; but the narrative of Knox, as well as subsequent 
 events, makes it clear that the great object was to secure 
 the concurrence of as many nobles as possible to the politi- 
 cal revolution that was in progress. Yery few of the in- 
 vited lords appeared. They made the disturbed state of 
 the kingdom the reason of their absence. 
 
 The Assembly again met. The revolutionary lords, dis- 
 appointed of their brethren, and anxious to conciliate the 
 Church, which was omnipotent with the people, promised 
 everything that was asked of them. In the presence of the 
 Assembly they put their hands to a document, promising to 
 have the Parliament of August 1560, which established the 
 Reformation, ratified ; the ecclesiastical lands given back to 
 ecclesiastical uses ; the education of youth entrusted to the 
 clergy ; and idolatry everywhere put down. In the same 
 document they bound themselves to revenge the murder of 
 Darnley, to guard the young prince his son from all danger, 
 to see him educated in the Protestant faith, and to cause all 
 future sovereigns to swear to maintain the Eeformed religion 
 previous to their coronation.* 
 
 Meanwhile, in every coterie in the kingdom it was debated 
 what should be done with the queen. Some proposed she 
 should be divorced from Bothwell, and restored to the 
 throne ; some suggested she should take the veil, and spend 
 the remainder of her days in a French monastery. Some 
 gave it as their opinion that she should be deprived of the 
 government, and doomed to perpetual imprisonment ; some 
 argued that the short and simple plan was to put her to 
 death. What was said and what was done in the Assembly 
 of the Church in regard to these grave matters we have no 
 record ; we are only told that the debates were sanguinary. 
 But immediately after the Assembly dissolved. Lord Lind- 
 say proceeded to Lochleven, bearing three documents. 
 The first was a deed of demission by the queen in favour of 
 her infant son ; the second was a deed appointing the Earl 
 of Moray regent of the kingdom during the minority of 
 James ; the third was a deed empowering the Duke of 
 
 * Fourteenth General Assemtly, pp. 65-69. Book of the Universal Kirk. 
 Keith, book iii. 
 
A.D. 15G7.] MOKAT MADE REGENT. 413 
 
 Chastelherault, and the Earls of Lennox, Argyle, Athole, 
 Morton, Glencairn, and Mar, to govern the realm till the 
 return of Moray from abroad. It is not too much to sup- 
 pose that these documents were concocted and resolved 
 upon in the Assembly of the Church. With death before 
 her eyes in case of refusal, Mary signed the instruments. 
 
 Moray was in France during this amazing revolution, but 
 he now hurried home. He was not long in the country till 
 he visited his captive sister at Lochleven. Mary received 
 him in tears ; but instead of being affected by her misfor- 
 tunes, or remembering the many favours he had received at 
 her hands, he bitterly upbraided her for her crimes, and pre- 
 sented to her mind the possibility of an ignominious death. 
 Bewildered by grief and fear, she beseeched him as her 
 brother to accept the regency, and so save the country, her 
 infant, and herself. Moray affected to accept with reluct- 
 ance an office which he had long earnestly desired, for which 
 many affirmed he had all his lifetime plotted and schemed. 
 The full height of his ambition was all but attained. On 
 the 22d of August he was declared regent of the kingdom ; 
 and the bells of Edinburgh were ringing rejoicings, while 
 Mary was pining in her solitary prison in Lochleven. 
 
414 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XII. 
 
 CHAPTEK XII. 
 
 The Ee^ent Moray soon showed that, if he 
 A.D. 1507. , , ■ 1 , ,,.,.,.,. ' 
 
 had aspired to rule, ms abilities were equal to 
 
 his ambition. It was immediately felt that the government 
 of the country was no longer in the hands of a woman. 
 The fierce baron in his feudal keep, the bandit on the bor- 
 ders, the gillie in the mountain-pass, knew he might no 
 more rob and murder with impunity. But a large portion 
 of the nobility were discontented with the government; 
 they might at any time organize a formidable opposition to 
 it ; and therefore the regent hastened to secure the good- 
 will of the Protestant ministers, by whose influence chiefly 
 he had clamb to power. Pledges had been given in the 
 last Assembly, and these must be redeemed. On the 15th 
 of December, the parliament met. Its first business was to 
 accept the resignation of the queen, and give its sanction to 
 the coronation of James and the regency of Moray. This 
 done, a series of acts affecting the Church were passed. 
 The parliament of August 1560, which first established the 
 Eeformation, had never received the royal sanction; and 
 therefore it was deemed prudent to re-enact its enactments. 
 The jurisdiction of the Pope was abolished ; all laws in 
 favour of the Eoman Catholic religion were repealed ; the 
 Protestant Confession of Faith was ratified and engrossed 
 in the records ; and the saying or hearing of mass was 
 declared to be a crime punishable with confiscation of goods 
 for the first offence, banishment for the second, death for 
 the third. Legislation proceeded still farther, and declared 
 
A.D. 15G7.] ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION. 415 
 
 the Church now established to be the only true Church of 
 Christ, and those only to be members of it who should accept 
 of the Confession as now ratified, and partake of the sacra- 
 ments as now administered. Another act was passed pro- 
 hibiting any one from holding office, or from acting as a 
 procurator or notary in any court, till he should first profess 
 the Eeformed faith ; and another and still more important 
 one, providing that every future sovereign should, at his 
 coronation, swear before the Eternal God that he would 
 maintain the true religion of Christ Jesus, abolish all false 
 religions contrary to the same, and rule the people com- 
 mitted to his charge according to the will of God revealed 
 in His Word, and the lovable laws and constitutions received 
 in the realm. It was a wise piece of legislation. It may 
 have savoured of intolerance to insist on the Catholic 
 queen of a hitherto Catholic country changing her faith 
 because her subjects had changed theirs ; but there was no 
 intolerance in a Protestant country notifying to all future 
 expectants of the throne that they must be Protestants if 
 they would be its king. The time chosen, too, was oppor- 
 tune. James was a child, and might be educated in the 
 Protestant faith, and so saved the struggle of overcoming 
 early prejudices, or the hypocrisy of professing a religion 
 which he did not believe. 
 
 All was not yet done that was needful to be done. It 
 was needful that arrangements should be made as to the 
 admission of ministers, and stipends for them after they 
 were admitted. In regard to the former, it was " statute 
 and ordained by our sovereign lord, with advice of his 
 dearest regent and the Three Estates of this present parlia- 
 ment," that the examination and admission of ministers 
 should lie with the Church, and that the presentation should 
 lie with the ancient laic patrons ; but that if the patron failed 
 to present a properly-qualified person to the superintendent 
 within six months, the right of presentation should lapse 
 to the Church. In the event of the superintendent refusing 
 to induct the presentee of the patron, it was provided that 
 there might be an appeal to the provincial synod, and from 
 the provincial synod to the General Assembly, whose sen- 
 
416 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 tence was to "be final. In regard to the stipends of the 
 clergy, an act was passed, proceeding upon the preamhle 
 that the ministers had been long defrauded of their sti- 
 pends, so that they were come to great poverty, and yet 
 that they had continued in their vocation, but that they 
 should be constrained to leave it unless some remedy were 
 provided. It was therefore enacted that the stipends of the 
 clergy should first be paid out of the whole thirds of the 
 whole realm, and that not till this was done should the sur- 
 plus be applied to swell the royal revenue. From this act 
 it is plain that the poverty of the ministers had not arisen 
 altogether from the insufficiency of the stipends assigned to 
 them, but from these, such as they were, being irregularly 
 and imperfectly paid. Their claims were now to be held 
 paramount to all others. But the clergy had claimed the 
 whole patrimony of the Church ; the barons who sat in the 
 last Assembly had promised it ; the regent is said not to 
 have been opposed to it ; but it was too strong a measure to 
 propose and carry in the face of so much greed and selfish- 
 ness. Hope, however, was kept alive in the minds of the 
 ministers by a clause purporting that the present measure 
 was to be only a temporary one, to serve " ay and quhill the 
 Kirk come to the full possession of its proper patrimonie, 
 quhilk is the teindes." Vain hope ! every day was making 
 the thing more hopeless by new alienations.* 
 
 It is not a little curious to find the same parliament which 
 passed these strongly-Protestant measures ratifying all the 
 civil privileges anciently possessed by the Spiritual Estate 
 of the realm ; and by the Spiritual Estate is meant not the 
 Protestant ministers, but the Popish hierarchy. The act 
 regarding the Spiritual Estate is followed by two others rati- 
 fying the privileges of the barons and the burghs.f Strange 
 that the Popish dignitaries should still be recognised as the 
 
 * Acts of Pari. James I., pari. i. chapters i.-xii. Besides the acts men- 
 tioned in the text, there was one passed providing that all teachers of youth 
 in schools and universities must receive the license of the superintendents ; and 
 another providing that all patrons having provostries, prebendaries, altarages, 
 or chaplainries in their gift, might employ these to found bursaries in any of 
 the universities. 
 
 t James I., pari. i. chapters xxiv.-xxvi. 
 
A.D. 1567.] CHUECH CENSURES. 417 
 
 first of the Three Estates ; that, driven from the Church 
 and the altar, they should still be allowed to sit in the 
 Senate. In the very parliament in which these things were ' 
 done, four bishops and fourteen abbots sat, and spoke, and 
 voted. They were mostly Protestants ; but it was in virtue 
 of their positions in the Eoman hierarchy that they occu- 
 pied their places. 
 
 ^ „, „ The parliament was hardly dissolved when 
 
 Dec. 25, 1567. , ^ ■ , . , , t 
 
 the (ieneral Assembly met. It met bent on 
 
 enforcing discipline. The Earl of Argyle was taken to task 
 for separating from his wife ; and the Countess of Argyle 
 for being present at the Popish baptism of the prince. The 
 Earl declared the fault was not his, but for other offences 
 professed himself willing to submit to the discipline of the 
 Church. The lady confessed her fault, and was ordered to 
 make public repentance in the Chapel Royal at Stirling. 
 John Craig, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, was accused 
 of having pilblished the banns of marriage between the 
 queen and the Earl of Bothwell ; but he amply vindicated 
 his conduct by proving that in proclaiming the banns 
 be had openly condemned the marriage. Adam, called 
 Bishop of Orkney, Commissioner of Orkney, was delated for 
 not visiting the kirks of his country ; for acting as a judge 
 in the Court of Session ; for keeping company with Sir Francis 
 Bothwell, a Popish priest, bestowing upon him benefices, and 
 placing him as a minister; and, above all, for solemnizing 
 the marriage between the queen and the Earl of Bothwell. 
 The bishop pled that his health would not allow him to re- 
 main in Orkney ; that he was ignorant of Sir Francis being 
 a Papist ; but being unable to exculpate himself for marry- 
 ing the queen, he was suspended from his office, and not 
 restored till he professed his penitence publicly in the 
 Chapel of Holyrood. The Bishop of Galloway was accused 
 of not having visited the churches in his district for three 
 years ; of having left off planting churches ; of haunting the 
 court too much ; of acting as a judge and privy-counsellor; of 
 having resigned the Abbey of Inchaffray in favour of a child ; 
 and having set lands in feu to the prejudice of the kirk.* 
 * Book of tlie Universal Kirlc, Dec. 1567. Keith, book iii. chap. ii. 
 VOL. I. 2 D 
 
418 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 In the beginning of May 1568, the news spread through 
 the country like wildfire that the queen had escaped from 
 her prison in Lochleven. Escaped she certainly had, and in 
 a few days she found herself at Hamilton, surrounded by a 
 great majority of the nobility and gentry of the realm, eager 
 for lier restoration to the throne. But the Eegent Moray 
 proved himself equal to the occasion, and in a few days 
 more the ixnhappy Mary, from the top of Langside Hill, saw 
 her hopes blighted, and her army scattered like chaff; and, 
 turning her horse's head to the south, she sought shelter in 
 England — a fugitive from her ancestral kingdom — a sup- 
 pliant at the feet of Elizabeth. How it fared with her all 
 the world knows: — Accused of the murder of her husband by 
 her own brother ; detained for eighteen long years in cap- 
 tivity ; finally brought to the block ; she went from the 
 world leaving behind her a name not unsullied by suspicion, 
 but which still moves every heart to pity her misfortunes, 
 and almost to forget her crimes. 
 
 Moray did not long enjoy his regency. On the 23d day 
 of January 1570, in passing through the town of Linlithgow, 
 he was shot at from a window by Hamilton of Bothwell- 
 haugh. The street was narrow, the crowd of spectators ob- 
 structed the way, the assassin had time to take deliberate 
 aim, and the wound proved mortal. His body was conveyed 
 to Edinburgh, and followed to the grave by an immense 
 concourse of mourners. When the procession reached the 
 Church of St Gile's, the coffin was placed upon a bier in 
 front of the pulpit, and while it lay there, in the view of the 
 people, Knox preached a sermon from the text — -" Blessed 
 are the dead which die in the Lord." Lowered into his last 
 resting-place in St Anthony's aisle, his epitaph was written 
 by the classic pen of Buchanan, in which he is bewailed as 
 the best man of his age, and the common father of his 
 country. 
 
 Posterity has vindicated the encomium of Buchanan by be- 
 stowing upon Moray the enviable name of the Good Kegent. 
 Yet the impartial reader of history may find it difficult to 
 assign such unqualified praise. Moray's devotion to Eng- 
 land may be thought inconsistent with patriotism, his con- 
 
A.D. lo/O.j CHARACTER OF MORAY. 419 
 
 duct to his sister at variance with natural aifection, his 
 share in hloody conspiracies as opposed to true Christianity. 
 But be this as it may, he undoubtedly possessed great qua- 
 lities. He was born to govern, and, during his short re- 
 gency, he rendered a turbulent country peaceful and happy. 
 His private life was irreproachable. " His house," says the 
 affectionate Buchanan,* " like an holy temple, was free not 
 only from impiety, but even from wanton words. After \ 
 dinner and supper he always caused a chapter out of the ; 
 Holy Bible to be read ; and though he had still a learned man \ 
 to interpret it, yet if there were any eminent scholars there 
 (as frequently there were a great many, and such were still 
 respected by him) he would ask their opinions of it, which 
 he did not out of a vain ambition, but a desire to conform ' 
 himself to its rules." There can be no doubt but that his at- 
 tachment to Protestantism was sincere, persevered in, as it 
 was, from boyhood till the day of his death. The preachers 
 might well bewail him, for he courted their favour, and showed 
 himself on all occasions attentive to their interests. His ene- 
 mies accused him of aiming at the supreme power, and he was 
 scarcely in his grave till a document was put in circulation, 
 purporting to be an account of an interview accidentally 
 overheard between him and some of his friends, in which 
 Knox, Lord Lindsay, and others, advised him to make him- 
 self strong with men of war, and assume the regency for life.f 
 The cleverness of the squib deceived many, but it was a 
 forgery, and Knox, from the pulpit, declared it to be so. 
 But while opposing factions assailed and lampooned him, 
 the great bulk of the nation, as they had experienced his 
 virtues, lamented his loss. He is described as being of a 
 commanding presence, but possessed of a blunt, open manner, 
 which begot confidence. It was noted, however, that after 
 he acquired the regency he became more haughty, and kept 
 the nobles at a distance. It was probably policy more than 
 pride that prompted him to do so. 
 
 The death of Moray left the country without a governor, 
 and for some months it was cruelly torn by the contending 
 factions of the king and queen. The faction of the queen 
 * History of Scotland, book xix. t Bannatyne's Memorialps. 
 
4:20 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 numbered most names among tlie nobility ; but the faction 
 of the king had the support of the Church and the Enghsh 
 Government. In the month of July the Earl of Lennox was 
 raised to the regency on account of his near relationship to 
 the infant king, but the queen's faction refused to acknow- 
 ledge his authority, and as he was entirely destitute of the 
 vigour of Moray, the country continued to be distracted by 
 civil dissensions. These were industriously fomented by 
 Elizabeth, whose constant policy it was to secure peace to 
 herself by sowing troubles among her neighbours ; and alto- 
 gether this must have been one of the most miserable periods 
 in our national history. 
 
 Sir William Kirkaldy of Grange commanded the Castle of 
 Edinburgh, and threw in his lot with the queen's party. 
 The city lay at his mercy. It began to fill with the adher- 
 ents of Mary. Knox's health was failing, but his courage 
 was unshaken, and from the pulpit he denounced Grange as 
 a throat-cutter and murderer. His life was threatened in 
 consequence. When the Assembly met in March 1570, an 
 anonymous paper was thrown in at the door, charging him 
 with speaking of the queen as an idolater, adulteress, and 
 murderer — treating her as a reprobate, and refusing to pray 
 for her. Placards to the same effect were pasted on the door 
 of the church. Knox boldly answered them, and vindicated 
 his conduct without denying it.* But the place was getting 
 too hot for him, and, by the advice of his friends, he retired 
 to St Andrews. The Bishop of Galloway occupied his pulpit, 
 and preached in a manner more pleasing to the queen's 
 party, t 
 
 James Melville was at this time a student in St Leonard's 
 College, and from his pen we have one of the most interest- 
 ing sketches of the Eeformer in this the last period of his 
 life : — " Of all the benefits," says he, in his interesting, 
 graphic style, " which I had that year was the coming of 
 that most notable prophet and apostle of our nation, Mr 
 John Knox, to St Andrews, who, by the faction of the queen 
 occupying the castle and town of Edinburgh, was compelled 
 to remove therefrom with a number of the best, and chose 
 "'■■ Bannatyne's Memoriales. ■(■ Ibid. 
 
A.D. 1570.] KNOX AT aT ANDREWS. 421 
 
 to come to St Andrews. I heard him teach there the pro- 
 phecy of Daniel that summer and the winter following. I 
 had my pen and my little book, and took away such things 
 as I could comprehend. In the opening up of his text he 
 was moderate the space of half an hour, but when he entered 
 to application, he made me so to grew and tremble that I could 
 
 not hold a pen to write Mr Knox would sometimes 
 
 come into our college-yard, and call us scholars unto him 
 and bless us, and exhort us to know God and his work in our 
 country, and stand by the good cause, to use our time well, 
 and learn the good instructions, and follow the good example 
 of our masters." " I saw him every day of his doctrine," 
 Melville again testifies, " go hulie andfiar, with a furring of 
 martricks about his neck, a staff in the one hand, and good, 
 godly Eichard Bannatyne, his servant, holding up the other 
 oxtar, from the abbey to the parish church, and by the said 
 Eichard and another servant lifted up to the pulpit, where he 
 behoved to lean at his first entry, but ere he had done with 
 his sermon he was so active and vigorous, that he was like 
 to ding the pulpit in hlads, and fly out of it."* No picture 
 of the Eeformer could be more perfect than this — it stands 
 out before us like a stereoscopic view — we see him walk, we 
 hear him speak. And it is all the more interesting, as it 
 presents him to us old and worn out with his life-long work ; 
 his hard battle against mass-saying priests and sacrilegious 
 nobles. The portraits of great men in their old age are 
 always the most valued ; we like to see them as they last 
 appeared in our world, before they left it for their reward. 
 
 On the 7th of April 1571, John Hamilton, the last Eomau 
 Catholic Archbishop of St Andrews, was publicly hanged in 
 his episcopal robes upon a gibbet at Stirling.! After the 
 
 * James Melville's Diary, Ban. Ed. 
 
 t Upon his gallows the following couplet was fixed : — 
 
 " Cresce diu felix avbor, semperque vireto 
 Frondibus, ut nobis talia poma feras." 
 
 There were pot- ts, however, among the archbishop's friends too, and during 
 the night another couplet was posted upon the church-door and other con- 
 spicuous places in the town : — 
 
 " Infclix perias arbor, si forte virebis 
 Iinpi-imls utinam carminis author eas." 
 
422 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xu. 
 
 battle of Langside he had been declared a traitor by the 
 Earl of Moray, and after living for a time under the shelter 
 of his powerful friends, he had sought refuge in the Castle of 
 Dumbarton, which was held for the queen. When it was 
 surprised and taken, he was brought to trial, accused of 
 being privy to the murders of Darnley and Moray, con- 
 demned, hanged, quartered. He was a man able, inde- 
 fatigable, and faithful to his Church, through good and bad 
 report ; but, like most of his compeers, he appears to have 
 been utterly destitute of principle. The battle which was 
 then fought was a battle of principle, but the combatants on 
 neither side took to themselves the whole armour of honour 
 and honesty. In fighting for public principles, they appear 
 to have lost all principle themselves. So it often is. 
 
 It was now becoming more and more evident that some- 
 thing must be done to give the Church a polity. The 
 " First Book of Discipline" had never been sanctioned 
 by the Legislature ; the Church had a nationally-received 
 creed, but not a nationallj'-received government. The old 
 Spiritual Estate still existed as one of the Estates of the 
 realm. Its property had never been confiscated ; its voice 
 in the parliament had never been denied. But the bishops 
 and abbots were gradually dying out ; and to replace them 
 by Protestant laymen was felt to be a false and anomalous 
 proceeding. These bishops and abbots, thus dying without 
 successors, were the acknowledged superiors of a large part 
 of the land of the country, a considerable proportion of 
 which was let in feu and heritage ; and now the feuars and 
 heritable tenants could not g-et entry to their lands, for 
 there was none to give it. To rectify this an act was passed 
 in the parliament which met in August 1571, declaring that 
 all such ecclesiastical feuars and tenants should henceforth 
 hold their feus and possessions direct from the king.* It 
 was an important measure, and in some respects amounted 
 to a confiscation of a great part of the Church property of 
 the kingdom. 
 
 But much laud and tithes were still undisposed of, and 
 who was to get these ? The Protestant Church earnestly 
 
 * James VI., pari. ii. chap. 38. 
 
A.D. 1571.] DILAPIDATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 423 
 
 and importunately claimed tliem, but the men in power had 
 destined the most of them for themselves. There Avas a 
 perfect scramble for abbacies, priories, and bishoprics ; and 
 the lawless state of the country made the work rapid and 
 easy. Either faction required to purchase partisans, and 
 there was no price they could so conveniently offer as a 
 benefice. Mary bestowed upon Grange the Priory of St 
 xlndrews. " Brother William," wrote Eandolph to him, in 
 a bantering letter, " it was indeed most wonderful unto me, 
 when I heard that you should become a prior. That voca- 
 tion agreeth not with anything that ever I knew in you, 
 saving for your religious life led under the cardinal's hat, 
 when we were both students in Paris." * The Earl of Glen- 
 cairn had set his heart upon the Archbishopric of Glasgow, 
 and sulkily refused to take any part in a parliament because 
 it was refused him.f The defection of the Earl of Argyle 
 from the party of the queen to that of the king was ascribed 
 to an ecclesiastical bribe. " The greedy and insatiable 
 appetite of benefices," says the author of the " Diurnal of 
 Occurrents," " was the most cause thereof, for in his time 
 there was none brought under the king's obedience but for 
 reward either given or promised."J The Archbishop of St 
 Andrews was scarcely cut down from his gallows, when the 
 Earl of Morton got a gift of his archbishopric from the 
 Kegent Lennox. 
 
 But under what plea and by what tenure were these 
 bishoprics, abbacies, and priories to be held ? The nobles 
 who got them did not contemplate becoming ecclesiastics. 
 They scarcely dared to contemplate the sudden secularization 
 of so much ecclesiastical property. The nation was not pre- 
 pared for it. The Church would vehemently resist it ; and 
 the Church had already shown itself strong enough to pull 
 down and set up rulers. Besides, was it politic, was it wise, 
 to allow the Spiritual Estate — the first estate in the realm — to 
 come to nought ? Were none but barons and burgesses 
 henceforward to sit in parliament ? Was the old balance of 
 
 * Letter, Eandolph to the Laird of Grange, Ist May 1570. State-Paper 
 Office. Quoted by Tytler, Hist., vol. vii. 
 t Diui-nal of Occurrents, 13th October 1570. { Ibid. 1571. 
 
424 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XII. 
 
 the constitution to be destroyed? Would the throne be 
 safe, would the aristocracy be safe, in presence of the rising- 
 power of the burghs, without the aid of the clergy ? More- 
 over, how was the original framework of the College of 
 Justice to be maintained? where were its eight ecclesiastical 
 senators to come from, seeing the Church had debarred its 
 siiperintendents and ministers from acting as judges? Even 
 laying aside the constitution of the court, was not the eccle- 
 siastical body the one most fitted to supply able lawyers, 
 from the superior training of its members? Could no plan be 
 formed by which the Spiritual Estate might be preserved, the 
 Court of Session supplied with judges, and a portion at least 
 of the Church's revenues pocketed by the patrons ? These 
 thoughts must have passed through many minds at the 
 period we speak of. In a little we may be able to trace the 
 result. 
 
 On the 12th of January 1572, a Convention 
 of the Church assembled at Leith. By whom 
 it was convened is unknown. It was not a regular Assembly, 
 but it assumed to itself " the strength, force, and effect of a 
 General Assembly," and it was attended by " the superin- 
 tendents, barons, commissioners to plant kirks, commis- 
 sioners of provinces, towns, kirks, and ministers."* At its 
 third session, and on the fifteenth day of the month, it gave 
 full commission and power to the superintendent of Angnis 
 and Mearns ; the superintendent of Fife and Strathearn ; 
 Mr William Lundie of that Ilk ; Mr Andrew Hay, Commis- 
 sioner of Clydesdale ; Mr David Lindsay, Commissioner of 
 Kyle ; Mr Eobert Pont, Commissioner of Moray ; and Mr 
 John Craig, one of the ministers of Edinburgh ; or to any 
 four of them, to meet with a committee of the Privy Council, 
 and confer upon matters afi"ecting the Church. On the very 
 nextdaythe PrivyCouncil appointedtheEarlof Morton, chan- 
 cellor ; the Lord Euthven, treasurer ; the Bishop of Orkney, 
 the Commendator of Dunfermline, secretary ; Mr James 
 Macgill of Eankeillour, clerk of register ; Sir John Ballenden, 
 justice-clerk ; and Colin Campbell of Glenorchy, or any four 
 of them, to meet and confer with the Commissioners of the 
 ' Book of the Universal Kirk, January 1572. 
 
A.D. 1572 ] CONCORDAT OF LEITH. -±25 
 
 Churcli, upon the matters eBtrusted to them.* These two 
 committees embraced the leading men of the Church and 
 State, and would seem to represent very fairly every party 
 and every sentiment ; hut it is impossible to believe that 
 the Convention and Privy Council would have worked with 
 such perfect harmony, unless the whole proceedings had 
 been previously arranged. The one fitted so nicely into the 
 other that it could have resulted only from contrivance. 
 
 By the 1st of February the joint committees framed a 
 concordat, of which the following articles were the chief: — 
 
 1. That the names of archbishops and bishops, and the 
 bounds of dioceses, should remain as they were before the 
 Beformation, at the least till the majority of the king, or till 
 a different arrangement should be made by the parliament ; 
 and that to every cathedral church there should be attached 
 a chapter of learned men ; but that the bishops should have 
 no more power than was possessed by the superintendents, 
 and should like them be subject to the General Assemblies. 
 
 2. That abbots and friars should be continued as parts of 
 the Spiritual Estate of the realm ; that before they were ad- 
 mitted they should be examined by the Church, and care 
 taken that from the benefices within their bounds enough 
 was secured for the adequate maintenance of the ministers ; 
 but that being admitted, they might be promoted to act as 
 senators of the College of Justice. 
 
 3. That qualified ministers should be planted in every 
 part of the country ; that livings under the yearly value of 
 L.40 should be conferred upon readers, and those of greater 
 value upon ministers capable of dispensing the sacraments ; 
 that no pluralities should be allowed; every minister con- 
 strained to reside within his parish, and required at his 
 admission to sign the Confession of Faith, and take an oath 
 of allegiance to the king. 
 
 4. That all provostries, prebendaries, college churches, 
 and chaplainries should be bestowed by their respective 
 patrons upon bursars or students in grammar, arts, theology, 
 law, or medicine.! 
 
 Such was the famous concordat agreed upon by the 
 * Calder-wood's History. Spottiswood's History. f IMd. 
 
426 CHUKCH HISTUEY OF SCOTLAND. [cflAP. xil. 
 
 Churcli and State in Scotland in 1572. The regent instantly 
 approved of it; but it remained to be seen whether the 
 General Assembly would give its sanction to the proceed- 
 ings of its commissioners. The Earl of Morton did not 
 wait till the General Assembly would meet, but at once took 
 action upon the terms of the concordat. He had obtained a 
 gift of the Archbishopric of St Andrews ; he presented to it 
 John Douglas, Eector of the University. A chapter was 
 held, and Douglas gave proof of his ability to preach. The 
 day for his admission was fixed ; John Knox preached the 
 sermon, and knowing there had been a Simoniacal paction 
 between the patron and presentee, he denounced an ana- 
 thema upon both. John Winram read the forms, and asked 
 the questions used in the admission of superintendents ; 
 and thereafter the Bishop of Orkney, the Superintendent of 
 Lothian, and David Lindsay laid their hands upon Douglas, 
 and embraced him in sign of admission.* The Church of 
 Scotland had once more an archbishop. 
 
 The work being begun went briskly on. James Boyd 
 was appointed to the Archiepiscopal See of Glasgow, Andrew 
 Paton to Dunkeld, Andrew Grahamf to Dunblane, George 
 Douglas to Moray. The episcopal bench was now once 
 more nearly full; for Gordon was already Bishop of Gal- 
 loway, Bothwell of Orkney, Campbell of Brechin, Stuart of 
 Caithness, Hamilton of Argyle, Carswell of the Isles. It 
 was more than suspected that these men — at least those of 
 them who had recently received their investiture — had con- 
 sented to enjoy the episcopal titles, with but a small part of 
 the episcopal revenues. They were the creatures of the 
 lordly patrons. " There be three kinds of bishops," said 
 Adamson, with severe irony, J " My Lord Bishop, My Lord's 
 Bishop, and the Lord's Bishop. My Lord Bishop was in the 
 Papistry ; My Lord's Bishop is now, when my lord gets the 
 fat of the benefice, and the bishop makes his title sure; 
 
 * Calderwood's History, 1572. 
 
 t Graham was a layman when he was all at once made a bishop ; but so 
 was St Ambrose. 
 
 I Adamson is thought to have had his wit sharpened by disappointment. 
 He afterwards got promotion to an archbishopric, and then he changed his way 
 of speaking. 
 
A.D. 1572.] TULCHAN EPISCOPACY. 427 
 
 the Lord's Bishop is the true minister of the gospel."* The 
 people, too, must have their jest. It was once the custom in 
 Scotland to set up a stuifed calf's skin before cows when 
 being milked, under the belief that the milk was made 
 thereby to flow more freely into the pail of the dairymaid. 
 This stuffed calf was called a tulchan. The coarse humour 
 of the nation found vent in nick-naming the new race of 
 prelates "tulchan-bishops," as they were thought no better 
 than stuffed calves, set up to make the benefice yield its 
 revenues to their lord.f 
 
 The General Assembly met at St Andrews on the 6th of 
 March, but there is no record of its having done anything in 
 regard to the Convention at Leith. It again met, however, at 
 Perth on the 6th of August, and the following minute was 
 put upon the register : — "Forasmuch as in the Assembly held 
 at Leith in January last, there were certain commissioners 
 appointed to travel with the nobility and their commissioners 
 to reason and conclude upon diverse articles and heads, then 
 thought good to be conferred upon, according to which 
 commission they have proceeded to diverse diets and con- 
 ventions, and finally concluded for that time upon the said 
 heads and articles, as the same produced in this Assembly 
 purports ; in the Avhich, being considered and read, are found 
 certain names, such as archbishop, bishop, dean, archdean, 
 chamber, chapter, which names were thought slanderous 
 and ofi'ensive to the ears of many of the brethren, appearing 
 to sound of Papistry ; therefore the whole Assembly in one 
 voice, as well they that were in commission at Leith as 
 others, solemnly protest that they intend not by using such 
 names to ratify, consent, and agree to any kind of Papistry 
 or superstition, and wish rather the same names may 
 be changed to others that are not slanderous and offen- 
 sive, and, in like manner, protest that the said heads and 
 articles agreed upon be only received as an interim, 
 until farther and more perfect order be obtained at the 
 hands of the king's majesty's regent and nobility, for the 
 which they will press as occasion shall serve ; unto the 
 
 * James Melville's Diary. 
 
 t Calderwood's History. James Melville's Diary. 
 
4:28 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. xu. 
 
 which protestation the whole Assembly in one voice ad- 
 heres."* 
 
 The whole Church, in General Assembly convened, thus 
 gave its consent to the concordat of Leith ; but it was a 
 reluctant consent, and accompanied by a protest that the 
 arrangement was not exactly such as they would have 
 wished, and that even while submitting to it, they would 
 regard it as merely temporary, and use every effort to secure 
 a better. It is surprising, however, to find the Church which 
 had approved of the "First Book of Discipline," and banished 
 bishops from its policy for twelve years, giving even sucli 
 a conditional sanction as this to a concordat which reintro- 
 duced the whole machinery of the Papacy. It was plainly 
 a compromise — an expediency measure — agreed to in the 
 hope that good would result from it. 
 
 The Church had in vain attempted to get its favourite 
 policy ratified by parliament. It had in vain struggled to 
 get possession of its patrimony. It had in vain argued that 
 the bishoprics and abbacies should be dissolved, and their 
 revenues applied for the maintenance of the ministry, the 
 education of the youthhead, and the support of the poor. 
 The bishoprics and abbacies were maintained as if they 
 were indissoluble. Some of them were already gifted to 
 laymen, and the ministers of the Protestant Church were 
 poorly paid out of the thirds of benefices. The collection of 
 these even the regent had recently stopped,! and beggary 
 was at the door. What was to be done ? The only way of 
 obtaining the episcopal revenues was by reintroducing the 
 episcopal office. None but a bishop could hold a bishopric, 
 so had the law ordained. The law could not be safely abro- 
 gated ; the balance of the constitution could not be safely 
 destroyed ; the First Estate in the realm could not be 
 suffered to perish.f These arguments were no doubt pressed 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, August 1572. 
 
 t Tlie avaricious Morton had persuaded the clergy, that if they would allow 
 him to collect the thirds, he would arrange to have every minister's stipend 
 paid out of the teinds of the parish where he served. They soon discovered that 
 they were worse off than ever, and clamoured for a return to the system esta- 
 blished by Moray. (Calderwood's History. Book of the Universal Kirk, &c. &c.) 
 
 } Melville confessed that many of the nobles were against his policy, just 
 
A.D. 1572] KNOx's VIEWS OF EPISCOPACY. 429 
 
 again and again upon the ministers, by men whose influ- 
 ence would give weight to their logic. The ministers re- 
 garded archbishops, bishops, deans, and chapters as things 
 lawful, but not expedient — " they sounded of papistry;" but 
 now, under the pressure of a still stronger expediency, they 
 received them into the Church. That the Church did ho- 
 mologate the proceedings of the Convention at Leith, and 
 succumb to a species of episcopacy, it were idle to deny. In 
 the sederunts of the Assemblies henceforward, the bishops 
 are mentioned immediately before the superintendents ; by 
 the Assembly of August 1574, the regent was petitioned to 
 provide qualified persons to vacant bishoprics ; and in the 
 Assembly of March 1575, the Bishop of G-lasgow was raised 
 to the moderator's chair.* But it was not always, nor even 
 often, that bishops enjoyed this dignity ; on the contrary, we 
 frequently find them hauled before the court for slackness 
 in the discharge of their duties, and altogether they were 
 never greatly honoured in the Church. 
 
 Knox yielded to the same necessity under which the 
 Church had bowed. Preferring the Presbyterian polity 
 which he had seen at Geneva to the Prelatic under which 
 he had ministered in England, he had yet never held dio- 
 cesan episcopacy to be anti-Christian. Anxious above all 
 things to secure the Church's patrimony, he was ready to 
 submit to anything but a surrender of principle to encom- 
 pass his heart's desire. He submitted to the introduction 
 of episcopacy. Too frail to be present at the Assembly 
 of August 1572, he sent certain articles for its considera- 
 tion ; he recommended the Church to petition the regent 
 that all vacant bishoprics should be filled up by properly- 
 qualified persons within a year after they had become 
 vacant, " according to the order taken in Leith by the Com- 
 missioners of the Nobility and of the Kirk, in the month of 
 January last," and that a complaint should be made as to the 
 
 because it implied the destruction of the Spiritual Estate ; and we find King 
 .Tames frequently asking the Assembly what was to become of this Estate if 
 the bishops were abolished. He dreaded such a change in the constitution. 
 (Book of the Universal Kirk.) 
 
 » Book of the Universal Kirk, August 1574, March 1575. 
 
430 CHURCH HISTOBY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. xil. 
 
 giving of the Bishopric of Boss to the Lord Methven, a 
 mere layman. He farther recommended that " an act should 
 be made decerning and ordaining all bishops admitted to 
 the order of the Kirk now received, to give account of their 
 whole rents and intromissions therewith once a year, as the 
 Kirk shall appoint, for such causes as the Kirk may easily 
 consider the same to be most expedient and necessary."* 
 
 If Knox agreed to recognise episcopacy in order to secure 
 the episcopal revenues, he knew there was a danger of being 
 cheated by Simonists. There were whispers abroad of pac- 
 tions being made between patrons and presentees — the lords 
 who held the bishoprics, and their creatures who were to 
 get them. He sounded a note of alarm. He wrote to the 
 Assembly which met at Stirling in 1571: "Unfaithful and 
 traitors to the flock shall ye be before the Lord Jesus if that 
 with your consent, directly or indirectly, ye suffer unworthy 
 men to be thrust into the ministry of the Church, under 
 what pretence that ever it be. Eemember the Judge before 
 whom you must make account, and resist that tyranny as ye 
 would hell-lire. This battle, I grant, will be hard, but in 
 the second point it will be harder ; that is, that with the like 
 uprightness and strength in God, ye withstand the merciless 
 devourers of the patrimony of the Church. If men will spoil, 
 let them do it to their own peril and condemnation ; but 
 communicate you not with their sins, of what state soever 
 they be."t He preached, as we have already seen, before 
 the inauguration of Douglas, but he is said to have de- 
 nounced both the giver and receiver ; | and when he recom- 
 mends the Assembly to compel bishops to give to the 
 Church an account of their intromissions with the revenues 
 of their Sees, it was most probably to prevent them from 
 being paid away as the price of the presentatiou.§ In all this 
 there was honesty and wisdom. 
 
 It was a mongrel prelacy that was thus introduced into 
 
 * This letter is given in Calderwood's History ; it is also copied in the Ap- 
 pendix to Robertson's History. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, 1571. } Calderwood's Hist., 1572. 
 
 § Articles to Assembly of August 1573, above referred to, given in Calder- 
 wood and Bobertson's Histories. 
 
A.D. 1572.] KNOX'S DEATH. 431 
 
 Scotland — a cross betwixt Popery and Presbytery. It was 
 not of the true Eoman breed. It was not even of the An- 
 glican. It could not pretend to the apostolical descent. 
 The lordly archbishop must sit in the Assembly as an 
 humble member, while the humble minister presided as 
 moderator, and must be ready at all times to give an ac- 
 count of his conduct, it might be to have his episcopal pride 
 brought low by the rebukes of a presbyter. But the most 
 marvellous thing is that the abbot was to be resuscitated 
 as well as the bishop ; and though he might not be allowed 
 to minister in the churches, he might win his bread by 
 sitting on the judicial bench. Abbesses would probably 
 have been revived too had they formed a part of any 
 estate, or had it been possible to find any work for them to do. 
 But they could be turned to no account, and therefore were 
 allowed to perish. When Dame Christian Ballenden, Prioress 
 of the " Priorissie of the Senis, besyde the burrowmure of 
 Edinburgh," departed this life, the Earl of Morton, " under- 
 standing that in the Convention of the States of the realm 
 consideration was had that nunneries are not meet to be 
 conferred and given to women, according to the first founda- 
 tion in the tyme of ignorance. . . . appoints Captain 
 Ninian Cockburn his highness's chamberlain and factor to i 
 the said Priorissie of the Senis."* So the captain succeeded 
 to the prioress, and the order became extinct. 
 
 On the 24th of November 1572, John Knox, the Scottish 
 Reformer, rested from his labours. His spirit was vigorous 
 to the last, but his body was worn out with incessant toil. 
 He did not die too soon. His work was done ; the sore battle 
 was fought ; the land was purged of idols. Standing by his 
 open grave, the Earl of Morton, now regent, pronounced his 
 brief but true eulogium — " There lies one who neither feared 
 nor flattered flesh."t 
 
 The Eegent Lennox had been killed in a sudden en- 
 counter at Stirling. Mar had succeeded him, but death 
 soon deprived him of his honours, and now Morton, the 
 fourth regent within six years, was at the head of affairs ; 
 
 * Register of Privy Seal, quoted in a note to M'Crie's Life of Melville. 
 t James Melville's Diary. 
 
432 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 but still the country lay bleeding with civil wounds. The 
 Castle of Edinburgh, beetling on the top of its lofty crag, was 
 held by the Lairds of Grange and Lethington for the queen, 
 and the miserable city at its base was exposed equally to 
 the guns of the fortress and the fury of its assailants. At 
 length a battering-train from England compelled a sur- 
 render, and Kirkaldy and Maitland were at the mercy of 
 Morton. Kirkaldy was hung at the market-cross of Edin- 
 burgh. Maitland suddenly died before his doom was known ; 
 but it was said that he anticipated it by swallowing poison 
 in his prison. 
 
 Kirkaldy was probably the ablest soldier, and Maitland 
 the ablest statesman of his day. Either had played an im- 
 portant part in accomplishing the Eeformation. When 
 Kirkaldy was hanging on the gibbet, the Protestants thought 
 of a prediction of Knox, that this would be his end for tak- 
 ing part with the queen. The Papists remembered that he 
 had begun his career by the slaughter of a cardinal. Leth- 
 ington's life had been full of change. We iirst find him in 
 the company of the Reformers, but advocating an outward 
 compliance with the rites of Rome. We next find him in 
 the service of the queen regent, and only deserting to the 
 Congregation when, her cause was hopeless. In the parlia- 
 ment of 1560, which established the Eeformation, his abi- 
 lities and zeal raised him to the speakership. When Queen 
 Mary sought her native country, he attached himself heart 
 and soul to her interest, and slighted the parliament in 
 which he had played so conspicuous a part. He shared with 
 Moray the duties of government ; and, while thus employed, 
 Randolph, the English resident, describes " the Lord James 
 as dealing, according to his nature, rudely, homely, bluntly ; 
 the Laird of Lethington more delicately and finely, yet 
 nothing swerving from the other in mind and effect."* But 
 Maitland's brain was unfortunately fertile of plots. He was 
 in the conspiracy to murder Rizzio ; in the conspiracy to 
 murder the king. When the nobles rose to avenge the 
 murder of the king, Maitland, though himself one of the 
 chief of the assassins, joined them, and he was too able a 
 * Eandolph to Ceoi], 24th October 1561. Keith. 
 
A.D. I574.J Ai^DBEW MELVILLE. 433 
 
 man to be put away. When Moray received the regency, 
 for a time Lethington was his principal adviser, but his heart 
 appears to have been with the exiled Mary, and he began to 
 plot for her return. Apprehended, and about to be brought 
 to trial for his part in the Darnley conspiracy, Kirkaldy, by 
 a stratagem, had him conveyed to the castle, where, dxiring 
 a long siege, his statesman-like diplomacy seconded the 
 courage and skill of the military knight. Though the cha- 
 racter of neither is defensible, we cannot but pity their fate. 
 In the summer of 1574, Andrew Melville, a man destined 
 to play an important part in the history of the Church, re- 
 turned to his native country, after an absence of ten years. 
 These ten years he had spent at the most celebrated seats of 
 learning on the Continent. He had first of all proceeded to 
 Paris, and studied the Greek and Latin languages under 
 Andreas Tornebus, the Hebrew under Joannes Mercerus, 
 and philosophy under the celebrated Petrus Eamus. After 
 remaining two years at this university, he proceeded to 
 Poictiers to study law, and regented in the College of St 
 Marceon. Here he remained three years. Driven from 
 France by the civil wars, he turned his eyes toward Geneva, 
 at that period the chosen asylum of civil and religious 
 liberty. He travelled all the long way upon foot, as he had 
 previously done from Dieppe to Paris, and from Paris to 
 Poictiers. His scholarship almost immediately secured for 
 him the vacant Professorship of Humanity in the Academy, 
 and admittance to the literary society in the town. It was 
 a marvellous society that had congregated in this little 
 republican city, cradled among the everlasting hills, and 
 shut out from the rest of the world ; men who had fled from 
 every country of Europe, that they might breatbe a freer 
 atmosphere. Calvin was no more ; but Theodore Beza oc- 
 cupied his place, and almost rivalled his renown. Scaliger 
 came with the refugees who escaped through the passes of 
 the Jura, after the horror of St Bartholomew's Day. One 
 hundred and twenty French ministers are said to have been 
 all at one time in the town.* As they spoke one to another 
 of the wrongs they had suffered, the perils they had escaped, 
 
 * M'Crie'B Life of Melville, vol. i. 
 VOL. I. 2 E 
 
434; CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. XII. 
 
 the friends tliey had seen butchered before their eyes, can 
 "we wonder that there was generated beneath the broad 
 shadows of the Alps a deep hatred of despotism and Popery, 
 a fervent love of liberty and undefiled religion. In this 
 school Andrew Melville was nursed — witb these men he 
 held converse ; he was the personal friend of the most dis- 
 tinguished amongst them ; and when he returned to Scot- 
 land, he was already a well-known and celebrated man. 
 The Universities of St Andrews and Glasgow competed for 
 his services ; he chose the latter, and, as its Principal, soon 
 laid among the ruins of the ancient school the foundations 
 of its future fame.* 
 
 Episcopacy had now existed in Scotland for about three 
 years, but it had not got on well. The old tree taken up 
 by the roots and planted again did not seem to thrive ; its 
 fibres had been mangled and curtailed, and it did not take 
 with the soil, now too poor for its proper luxuriance of 
 growth. The Church had already appointed a committee 
 to draw up a new scheme of policy, but it was uncertain 
 what they might recommend, when John Durie, one of the 
 ministers of Edinburgh, sounded the first note of war against 
 Episcopacy. In the Assembly of August 1575, when the court 
 was about to proceed to the trial of the bishops, he protested 
 that this would not prejudge the objections which he and 
 others entertained to the name and office of a bishop.f At 
 a subsequent session of the same Assembly, the question was 
 proposed — Whether bishops, as they are now in Scotland, 
 have their function in the Word of God, and whether the 
 chapters appointed for creating them should be tolerated in 
 this Keformed Church ? Melville rose and delivered his 
 sentiments in a speech which produced a powerful impres- 
 sion upon the Assembly.J His accurate acquaintance with 
 the language of the New Testament ; his intimacy with 
 Beza, who was regarded as an oracle in Scotland ; his 
 Genevan experiences ; besides his native powers of debate, 
 must have made him be listened to with respect. The con- 
 
 * James Melville's Diary. M'Crie's Life of Melville, 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, August 1575. 
 
 * Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. Melville's Diary. 
 
A.D. 1575-1580.] ACTS AGAINST EPISCOPACY. 435 
 
 sequence was, that a committee of six persons was ap- 
 pointed, three to argue the one side, and three to maintain 
 the other, as was the practice at that time in Scotland ; and 
 to report the conclusion to which they might come to a 
 future diet of the Assemhly. John Craig, James Lawson, 
 and Andrew Melville, were to impugn Episcopacy ; George 
 Hay, John Eow, and David Lindsay to defend it.* 
 
 At the sixth session the committee gave in their report 
 in writing. It was to the effect that they did not think it 
 expedient at present to answer directly the first question ; 
 but that if any bishop should be chosen who had not such 
 qualities as the Word of God required, he should be tried 
 anew by the General Assembly, and deposed. They further 
 reported that it was their unanimous opinion, that the name 
 " bishop" rightly belonged to every minister who had the 
 charge of a flock ; but that out of these some might be chosen 
 to oversee such reasonable districts as might be assigned 
 them beside their own congregations; to appoint ministers, 
 elders, and deacons in destitute places ; and to administer 
 discipline, with the consent of the clergy and people. f The 
 Assembly approved of the report, and ordained that- farther 
 inquiry should be made in regard to that and other matters 
 affecting the policy and discipline of the Church. J When 
 the Assembly again met in April 1576, the subject was re- 
 sumed, and the same conclusions were arrived at; and in 
 the way of following them up, the bishops, who had not yet 
 received any charge, were required by the morrow to con- 
 descend upon the congregations which they would take 
 under their pastoral care.§ 
 
 In 1578 the Assembly proceeded a step farther. It de- 
 clared that bishops should henceforward be called simply by 
 their own names, and not by any titles of honour ; and de- 
 barred cathedral chapters from proceeding to any election 
 before its next meeting. The next Assembly made this 
 order perpetual. But it was not till 1580 that the last stone 
 
 * This appears to have been copied from the old scholastic method of 
 defending and impugning a given thesis. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, August 1575. J James Melville's Diary. 
 i Book of the Universal Kirk, April 1576. 
 
 2 E 2 
 
436 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 of the Episcopal fabric was thrown down. In that year 
 " the whole Assembly of the Kirk, in one voice, found and 
 declared the pretended office of a bishop to be unlawful, 
 having neither foundation nor warrant in the Word of God, 
 and ordained all such persons as brooked the said office to 
 demit the same, as an office to which they were not called 
 by God, and to cease from preaching the Word, or adminis- 
 tering the sacraments, till they should be admitted anew by 
 the General Assembly, under pain of excommunication." 
 To carry out this sweeping resolution, synodal assemblies 
 were appointed to be held in the different dioceses to receive 
 the submission of the bishops, and in case of contumacy, to 
 report them to the next Assembly, that they might be put 
 under the bann of the Church.* So energetic were their 
 measures that before the next Assembly all the bishops, ex- 
 cept five, had sent in their submissions. 
 
 The Church had not been able to carry these measures 
 without opposition. When the Archbishop of Glasgow was 
 requiredtotake upon him the charge of a congregation, he pled 
 that he had accepted his bishopric according to the terms of 
 the concordat of Leith ; that when he was admitted to it he 
 had taken an oath to the king, and that if he now consented 
 to any changes he might incur the guilt of perjury; that, 
 nevertheless, when residing in Glasgow he would preach 
 th-ere, and when residing in Ayr he would also preach there, 
 in any church which the brethren might agree upon ; but he 
 protested that this must not be understood as interfering 
 with his jurisdiction as bishop of the diocese. The Assem- 
 bly required to content itself with this.f Upon the death 
 of Douglas, Adamson abandoned the Presbyterian cause, 
 and received the presentation to the Archbishopric of St 
 Andrews from the regent. He was instantly brought before 
 the Assembly, but he managed to temporize. J The Assem- 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, 1578, 1580. t Book of the ITniversal Kirk. 
 
 i There is some doubt in regard to his conduct. James Melville says that 
 when he was asked in the Assembly if he would receive the bishopric, he an- 
 swered that he would receive no office judged unlawful in the Church ; and 
 that he would not take the bishopric without the advice of the Assembly. 
 (Diary, p. 44.) In the Book of the Universal Kirk it stands thus : — " The 
 said Mr Patrick Adamson being present, and required if he would submit 
 
A.D. 1578, 1570.] MOETON AND MELVILLE. 437 
 
 bly prohibited the chapter from proceeding to his admission ; 
 the regent ordered it to proceed ; and proceed it did. The 
 Assembly appointed a commission to summon Adamson 
 before them, and inquire into the case, but it is probable 
 they felt themselves without power to proceed farther, as 
 we do not hear any more of the matter. 
 
 As the Eegent Morton had been the chief deviser of the 
 tulchan Episcopacy, he was naturally annoyed at the attempts 
 of the Church to overturn it. He was frequently pressed to 
 be present at the Assemblies, but he steadily refused, and 
 attempted to intimidate its leaders by threatening to hang- 
 some of them, as an example to the rest.* Failing to gain 
 Melville by bribes, he bitterly upbraided him for disturbing 
 the peace of the country by his over-sea dreams and G-enevese 
 discipline. " There never will be quietness in this country," 
 said he, fiercely, " till half a dozen of you be hanged or 
 banished." "Tush!" said Melville; "threaten your cour- 
 tiers in that way ; it is all the same to me whether I rot in 
 the air or the ground. The earth is the Lord's: my father- 
 land is wherever well-doing is. I have been ready to give 
 my life, where it would not have been half so well spent, at 
 the pleasure of my God. I lived out of your country as well 
 as in it. Let Grod be glorified ; it is out of your power to 
 hang or exile his truth."! 
 
 On the 12th of March 1578, the Earl of Morton, finding 
 that his regency had become unpopular, and that it was 
 no longer safe to hold it, resigned it ; and the king, a boy 
 twelve years of age, nominally assumed the government. 
 For a little while, Morton had no influence at court ; but in 
 less than a year he was again in power, not as regent, but 
 as the adviser of the boy-king. His influence is apparent 
 in a letter which James directed to the Assembly in July 
 1579, counselling them to make no innovations in the 
 government of the Church during his minority; but the 
 Assembly gave no heed to the advice, and proceeded in 
 
 himself to the trial and examination of the Assemhly, and receive the ofSce of 
 bishop according to the injunctions of the Kirk? he answered he could not 
 do the same." (Assembly, October 1576, session 7.) 
 * Melville's Diary, pp. 40, 47, Ban. Ed. f Melville's Diary, pp. 52, 53 
 
4:38 CHUKCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. xir. 
 
 their course.* In 1580 the triumph of Presbytery was 
 almost complete : Episcopacy had been condemned ; the 
 bishops had bowed their heads before the victorious pres- 
 byters ; but they had bowed them only as the bulrush bows 
 its head under the wave, to lift it up again when it has 
 rolled past. 
 
 This ecclesiastical revolution, accomplished by the Church 
 courts in opposition to the wishes of the government, is, in 
 a great measure, to be attributed to the energy and ability 
 of Andrew Melville. He was more learned than his brethren, 
 and had the power which knowledge gives. It is probable 
 there were not ten ministers in the Assembly at this period 
 who could read the New Testament in the original tongue ;t 
 but Melville was well versed both in the Hebrew and Grecian 
 literature, and could prove that, in apostolic times, the bishop * 
 and presbyter was one and the same. He received material 
 aid, however, from Theodore Beza. The Earl of Glammis 
 had written to this theological dictator, requesting his opin- 
 ion upon some of the points which were then so fiercely 
 controverted in Scotland. Beza, in answer, published his 
 book "De Triplici Episcopatu" — the divine, human, and 
 Satanic. In this treatise he argues that, unless human 
 Episcopacy be pulled up clean by the roots, it will sprout, 
 and bring forth again, as it had done before, a Satanic Epis- 
 copacy. J The book was brought over to this country, 
 
 * Calderwood's History, 1579. 
 
 t " I wald haiff glaidlie bein at the Greik and Hebrew toungs, becauss I red 
 in our byble that it was translated out of Hebrew and Greik ; but tha Ian- 
 gages were noclit to be gottine in the land. Our Regent begoud and teatched 
 us the A,B,C of the Greik, and the simple declinationes, but went no farther. 
 Be that occasion he tauld me of my uncle, Mr Andro Melville, whom he knew 
 in the tyme of his course in the New Collage, to use the Greik logicks of Aris- 
 totle, the quhilk was a wonder to them that he was sa fyne a schoUar, and of 
 sic expectation." " Within the University of St Andros, all that was teatched 
 of Aristotle he lerned and studeit out of the Greik text, quhilk his maisters 
 understood nocht." (MelviUe's Diary, pp. 24, 31.) In March 1575, the As- 
 sembly resolved, for the first time, that Latin was a necessary qualiiication for 
 the ministry. (Book of Universal Kirk.) In further proof of my statement, 
 Row, in his notice of Patrick Simpson, at the end of his History, remarks, that 
 in those days it was a proverb, " Grsecum est, non legitur." (History, &c., 
 Coronis, p. 422.) 
 
 I Calderwood's History. 
 
A.D. 1580, 1581.] SECOND BOOK OF DISCIPLINE. 439 
 
 translated into English, and had some influence upon the 
 contest. 
 
 The Church, in 1580, reverted to the policy of 1560. It 
 went farther. Knox held Episcopacy to be lawful, but not 
 convenient, — an allowable form of government, but not the 
 purest or the best. Melville held Episcopacy to be unlaw- 
 ful — opposed to Scripture — allowable in no circumstances. 
 Even the superintendents began to be regarded with suspi- 
 cion ; the appellation of visitors was preferred, to prevent 
 ambiguity ; preparation was made for the abolition of the 
 order, and the establishment of a perfect parity among all 
 the ministers of the Church. The course which the Church 
 had pursued was a self-denying one. Almost every act of 
 Assembly was a self-denying ordinance. They were offered 
 bishoprics, and they refused them ; titles of honour, and 
 they refused them ; seats in the parliament as the highest 
 Estate, and seats on the bench as the supreme tribunal, and 
 they refused them. They would be nothing but ministers, 
 vrith little honour and less pay. 
 
 Eor several years a committee of the Church had been 
 employed in framing a new policy. Many meetings were 
 held, much labour was bestowed, and an ecclesiastical sys- 
 tem elaborated, now known as the " Second Book of Discip- 
 line." Conferences had also been held with the Privy Coun- 
 cil, with the regent, and with the king, to get the consent 
 of the State to the proposed government of the Church ; but 
 that consent had hitherto been withheld. In a conference 
 at Stirling, between a committee of the parliament and the 
 Commissioners of the Church, the treatise was gone over 
 article by article ; some were marked as agreed to, others as 
 referred to farther reasoning, others as passed over ; and 
 more than this the Assembly could not obtain.* But now, 
 when the Episcopal polity was destroyed, it was necessary 
 that another should be substituted in its place ; and there-, 
 fore the Assembly which met in April 1581 resolved that 
 " the Book of Policy agreed upon in diverse Assemblies be- 
 
 * Spottiawood'g History, lib. ¥i. Spottiswood says that lie was in possession 
 of the original copy used at the conference, and he gives the clauses marked 
 in his history as he fonnd them in the MS. 
 
440 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xn. 
 
 fore should be registered in the acts of the Kirk, and remain 
 therein, ad perpetuam rei memoriam, and that a copy thereof 
 should be taken by every presbytery."* 
 
 It is necessary to give a sketch of this celebrated treatise. 
 In the first chapter the Church is defined, and the civil and 
 ecclesiastical jurisdictions discriminated. The Church, it is 
 said, may mean all who profess the gospel ; or, all who are 
 truly godly ; or, those who exercise spiritual functions. The 
 ecclesiastical and civil power both flow from God, but can- 
 not in general be exercised by the same person. " The ma- 
 gistrate ought neither to preach, minister the sacraments, 
 nor execute the censures of the Church, nor yet prescribe 
 any rule how it should be done, but command the minister 
 to observe the rule prescribed in the Word, and punish trans- 
 gressors by civil means ; the minister, again, exercises not 
 the civil jurisdiction, but teaches the magistrate how it 
 should be exercised according to the Word." The second 
 chapter is occupied with the office-bearers of the Church. 
 "The whole policy of the Church" is said "to consist in 
 three things, chiefly in doctrine, discipline, and distribution." 
 " And according to this division arises a sort of threefold 
 officiars in the Church, viz.— -ministers or preachers, elders 
 or governors, and deacons or distributors." Ecclesiastical 
 functions are afterwards divided into ordinary and extraor- 
 dinary. " There are four ordinary oifices or functions in the 
 Church of God — the pastor, minister, or bishop ; the doc- 
 tor ; the presbyter or elder ; and the deacon. These, we are 
 told, ought to remain perpetually in the Church, as neces- 
 sary to its government. The third chapter prescribes the 
 manner in which persons were to be admitted to ecclesias- 
 tical functions. Calling, it is said, consists of two parts, 
 election and ordination. " Election is the choosing out of one 
 man or person to the office that is void, by the judgment of the 
 eldershipt and consent of the congregation." " Ordination 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, April 1581. 
 
 t It has been disputed what is meant by the eldership here — the kirk- 
 session or the presbytery. Principal Lee is perhaps the highest authority 
 upon such a matter, and in his evidence given before the Patronage Com- 
 mittee of the House of Commons, he says, " No person who reads the Second 
 Book of Discipline can have the slightest doubt that eldership, wherever it 
 
A.D. 1581.] OFFICE-BEAEEES IN THE CHTIRCH. 441 
 
 is the separation and sanctifying of the person appointed by 
 Grod and His Church, after that he is well tried and found 
 qualified." "The ceremonies of ordination are fasting, prayer, 
 and imposition of hands of the eldership." In the fourth 
 chapter, the office and duty of the pastor are defined. Pas- 
 tor, minister, bishop, are declared to be but different names 
 for the same office. To the pastor it belongs to preach the 
 Word, administer the sacraments, solemnize marriage, and 
 pronounce the denunciations and blessings of the Church. 
 The fifth chapter relates to doctors and schools. " The 
 office of the doctor is to open up the mind of the Spirit of 
 God in the Scriptures simply, without such application as 
 the minister uses." " Under the name and office of doctor 
 is also comprehended the order in schools, colleges, and uni- 
 versities." If the doctor be an elder, he is to assist in the 
 government of the Church ; but he is not to preach, or ad- 
 minister the sacraments. The sixth chapter is of elders and 
 their office. Elder in Scripture sometimes signifies all who 
 hold office in the Church ; but here, we are told, it is used in 
 a more restricted signification, to denominate those who are to 
 assist the pastors in the government of the flock. "As the 
 pastors and doctors should be diligent in teaching and sow- 
 ing the seed of the Word, so the elders should be careful in 
 
 occurs, means presbytery." (2961.) It is with great reluctance I dissent from 
 this opinion. In the second chapter, as we have seen, the elder or presbyter 
 is carefully discriminated from the pastor, minister, or bishop. From this we 
 might infer that the eldership was a meeting of elders rather than of minis- 
 ters. But we are not left to inference. The seventh chapter, which is upon 
 ecclesiastical assemblies, explains what the eldership is. It is a congregational 
 court. " The first kynde and sort of assemblies, although they be within par- 
 ticular congre(jfations," &c. ** When we speak of the elders of the particular 
 congregations, we mein not that every particular parish kirk can or may have 
 their awin particular elderships," &c. The kirk-session and the presbytery, in 
 fact, had not yet been clearly discriminated, as shall be explained hereafter ; 
 but the eldership was more allied to the former than the latter. There is one 
 passage of the Second Book of Discipline, in which eldership is taken in a 
 more general sense — to signify any ecclesiastical assembly : — " Elderships and 
 assemblies are commonly constitute of pastors, doctors, and sic as are com- 
 monly called elders." Then these are divided into four sorts. In another 
 passage it is said the General Assembly may be called the " Generall Eldership 
 of the haill Kirk." If we go from the Second Book of Discipline to the Book 
 of the Universal Kirk, there eldership undoubtedly refers to a court correspond- 
 ing to our presbytery. 
 
^^2 CHUKCH HISTOET OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xn. 
 
 seeking the fruits of the same among the people." " Their 
 principal office is to hold assemblies with the pastors and 
 doctors, who are also of their number, for establishing good 
 order and execution of discipline." 
 
 The seventh chapter is an important one, and refers to 
 the assemblies of the Church. " Assemblies are " said to be 
 "of four sorts, for either they are of a particular congrega- 
 tion, or of a province, or of a whole nation, or of all and 
 divers Christian nations." "The first sort and kind of 
 assemblies, although they be within particular congrega- 
 tions, yet they exercise the power, authority, and jurisdic- 
 tion of the Church with mutual consent, and therefore bear 
 some time the name of the Church." " "When we speak of 
 elderships of particular congregations, we mean not that 
 every particular church can and may have their particular 
 elderships, especially to landward ; but we think three or 
 four, more or fewer, particular churches may have a common 
 eldership to them all, to judge their ecclesiastical causes." 
 " Provincial assemblies we call lawful conventions of the 
 pastors, doctors, and other elders of any province, gathered 
 for the common affairs of the churches thereof." " The 
 national Assembly, which we call General, is a lawful con- 
 vention of the whole Church of the realm or nation where 
 it is gathered, and may be called the General Eldership of 
 the whole Church within the realm."* " There is besides 
 these another more General Assembly, which is of all na- 
 tions, and of all estates of persons within the Church, repre- 
 senting the universal Church of Christ, which may be pro- 
 perly called the General Assembly, or General Council of 
 the whole Church of God." 
 
 * The late Lord Justice-Clerk (Hope), in his Letter to the Lord Chancellor 
 upon the Auohterarder Case (p. 103), says, that the Second Book of Discipline 
 excludes the laity from the General Assembly. This is a mistake, founded 
 upon a passage which says, " Nane are subject to repaire to this Assembly to 
 vote hot ecclesiastical persons to sic a number as shall be thocht gude be the 
 same Assemblie." But elders were esteemed ecclesiastical persons, and indeed 
 are so still, though the Justice-Clerk uses the current language of the day 
 when he speaks of them as belonging to the laity. The truth is, it was com- 
 mon in the days of Melville for noblemen, though not elders, to sit in the 
 Assembly ; and the Second Book of Discipline is more liberal than the present 
 practice, for to the above clause there is added, " Not excluding uther persons 
 that will repaire to the same assemblie to propone, heir, and reason." 
 
A.D. 1581.] DUTY OF THE DEACONS, ETC. 443 
 
 In the eighth chapter the office of the deacons is dis- 
 cussed. To them helongs the collection and distribution of 
 the ecclesiastical property ; and in this they must he subject 
 to the presbytery, though they are not members of it. The 
 ninth chapter treats of the patrimony of the Church. To 
 appropriate any portion of this is declared to be detestable 
 sacrilege ; — it ought to be lifted by the deacons, and applied 
 to ecclesiastical uses. The tenth chapter points out the 
 duty of the magistrate in relation to the Church. He is to 
 defend it, provide for it, see its sentences carried into execu- 
 tion, but not to invade its inherent jurisdiction. In the 
 eleventh chapter there is a list of abuses, which the Church 
 desired to have reformed. Amongst these are abbacies, 
 cathedral chapters, bishoprics, pluralities, the employment 
 of ecclesiastical persons in civil affairs, the dilapidation of 
 the Church's property, &c. &c. In the twelfth chapter cer- 
 tain things are noted which the Church desired to see done. 
 It desired to see small parishes united, large parishes dis- 
 joined, one or more elders appointed in every congregation, 
 congregational, provincial, and national assemblies held, 
 patronage abolished in every case where there was a cure of 
 souls, and the patrimony of the Church applied to four 
 general purposes :^" One part to be assigned to the pastor, 
 for his entertainment and keeping hospitality; another to 
 the elders, deacons, and other officers of the Church, as 
 clerks of assemblies, takers up of Psalms, beadles, and 
 keepers of the Church so far as they are necessary, joining 
 therewith the doctors of schools, for help of the old founda- 
 tions, where need requires ; the third portion to be bestowed 
 upon the poor members of Christ ; and the fourth upon the 
 reparation of Churches, and other extraordinary charges 
 that are profitable to the Church and commonwealth." The 
 concluding chapter points out the good that would result 
 from the adoption of such a discipline : — The realm would 
 become a pattern of good order ; the streets would be cleansed 
 of beggars ; churches, bridges, and other public works would 
 be set agoing ; God would be glorified ; the Church edified ; 
 Christ and His kingdom advanced ; Satan and his kingdom 
 subverted ; and God would dwell in the midst of them. 
 
444 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. xn. 
 
 Such are the most prominent features of the " Second 
 Book of Discipline." The First Book exhibited a system of 
 polity sagaciously suited to the circumstances of the country 
 and the Church : it seemed to grow out of the times. The 
 Second aims at elaborating a system from the New Testa- 
 ment, without reference to circumstances. The one looked 
 to practice ; the other looked to the establishment of general 
 principles. They differ in several respects. The " First 
 Book of Discipline " had abolished the imposition of hands 
 in ordination ; the Second restored it. The " First Book of 
 Discipline " gave its sanction to superintendents and readers ; 
 the Second removed the superintendent, as he savoured of 
 the diocesan bishop, and the reader, as his, office had no 
 warrant in the Word of God, however much it might be 
 required by the times. In the " First Book of Discipline" 
 there is no mention whatever of the courts of the Church, 
 though we can trace in some of its arrangements the begin- 
 nings of them all ; in the Second there is an elaborate 
 chapter upon assemblies, but, singular enough, the presby- 
 tery, now reckoned the fundamental court of a Presbyterian 
 Church, is .not marked out as a court separate and distinct 
 from the kirk-session. Four ecclesiastical assemblies are 
 named — the congregational, the provincial, the national, and 
 oecumenical. Striking out the oecumenical, we have only a 
 threefold gradation, instead of a fourfold as at present. The 
 first of these, the eldership, or congregational assembly, ap- 
 proximates much more closely to a modern kirk-session than 
 a modern presbytery.* In to\AT.is, the pastor and elders of 
 one congregation were to form the eldership ; but in land- 
 ward parishes, three or four congregations were to join their 
 pastors and elders together to constitute one assembly. 
 Strange ! that the very reverse should now be the case- 
 that in landward parishes every congregation should have 
 its own kirk-session, and that in towns all the congregations 
 
 » It must be understood, however, that those elderships were embryo pres- 
 byteries. After a process of development they became what they are. Prin- 
 cipal Lee says that it was the opinion of Calderwood that kirk-sessions were 
 originally only presbyterial crommitteea. (Evidence before Patronage Com- 
 mittee.) It is certain that, in the Second Book of Discipline, kirk-sessions 
 and presbyteries have not their respective jurisdictions marked out. 
 
A.D. 1581.] OKIGIN OF PRESBYTERIES. 445 
 
 should send their office-bearers to form one general session. 
 Yet we know that at this very time presbyteries were spring- 
 ing into existence. In 1579 the Assembly was petitioned 
 to erect such courts ; and its answer was, that the weekly 
 exercise might be regarded as a presbytery* — a meeting- 
 appointed by the " First Book of Discipline " for the purpose 
 of bringing the ministers and people of a district together 
 to read and interpret the Scriptures. But, what is much 
 more remarkable, in the very Assembly in which the "Second 
 Book of Discipline " was ordered to be engrossed in the min- 
 utes, a regular platform of presbyteries was arranged — 
 presbyteries embracing not two or three congregations, but 
 twenty or thirty, the very prototypes of the presbyteries 
 which now exist, f 
 
 Time has made havoc upon the policy established by the 
 " Second Book of Discipline," as upon everything human. 
 The doctor and the deacon have disappeared from the office- 
 bearers of the Church ; the minister and the elder alone 
 remain. The kirk-session has been discriminated from the 
 presbytery ; and by kirk-sessions, presbyteries, synods, and 
 general assemblies, the government of the Church is now 
 carried on. But the " Second Book of Discipline " possesses 
 much that is enduring, and to this day remains the founda- 
 tion-stone of our ecclesiastical constitution ; while the "First 
 Book" resembles a collection of parchments and coins de- 
 posited beneath it, by which future generations may read 
 the story of the times in which the building was begun. 
 
 It is plain that the superintendents were fast falling into 
 disrepute. The name began to be disliked, and " visitor " 
 was substituted in its place. But even the visitor was now 
 destined to yield up his power to the presbytery. In the 
 Assembly of October 1580, it was considered " to sound to 
 tyrannic that sic kind of office sould stand in the person of 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, 1579. Calderwood. 
 
 t Ibid. 1581. Calderwood's History. In 1582, the presbytery was con- 
 sidered a novelty, as the following extract from the Historie of King James 
 the Sext will show : — " It pleasit the members of court to give eare to certayne 
 informations maid aganis a new erectit society of ministers, caUit a presbi- 
 terie, sa that thair moderators weir snmmonit to compeir before the king and 
 counsaU, to produce the bukis of thair proceidings, to be sene and considerit." 
 Anno 1582, p. 187. 
 
446 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XII. 
 
 ane man, quhilk sould flow from tlie presbyteries,"* and 
 therefore a committee was appointed to draw up a platform 
 of presbyteries and constitutions for them. In the very 
 next Assembly tlie Laird of Caprington appeared and pre- 
 sented a commission from the king to concur with the 
 Assembly in the planting of churches and presbyteries, 
 and a document containing a number of suggestions as to 
 the course to be pursued. In this document it is stated 
 that, leaving out the Diocese of Argyle and the Isles, from 
 which no returns had yet been obtained, there were in all 
 nine hundred and twenty-four parishes in Scotland. Of 
 these it was said many were mere pendicles, many very 
 small parishes, and of many more the churches were de- 
 molished, and therefore it was proposed to reduce the num- 
 ber to six hundred, and to divide these among fifty presby- 
 teries, with about twenty churches attached to each.f In its 
 eighth session, the Assembly had before it the report of its 
 committee on the subject, and resolved " that a beginning- 
 should be had of presbyteries instantly in the places after 
 named, to be exemplars to the rest that may be established 
 afterwards," viz., Edinburgh, Dundee, St Andrews, Perth, 
 Stirling, Glasgow, Ayr, Irving, Haddington, Linlithgow, 
 Dunbar, Chirnside, and Dunfermline. | The thing was done, 
 and Scotland now for the first time saw the full machinery 
 of its Presbyterian polity in motion. 
 
 We must now leave for a little the divines of the Assem- 
 bly, and mingle with the statesmen and gallants of the 
 court. In the year 1579, Esme Stewart, a cousin of the 
 young king, and generally called Mens. D'Aubigne, arrived 
 from France on a visit to his royal relative. He was a 
 young man of graceful exterior and many showy accom- 
 plishments, and he was not long at court till he became 
 a prodigious favourite of the king's. Wherever James was, 
 D'Aubigne was sure to be. They rode together, hunted to- 
 
 » Book of the Universal Kirk, October 1580. 
 
 t " Thir six hundred kirks to be divyded in fyftie Presbyteries, twenty to 
 every presbytrie, or thereabout." (Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 212.) 
 So stands the king's scheme, but I cannot understand the royal arithmetic, as 
 50 X 20 = 1000. Perhaps there is reference to the 924. 
 
 t Ibid. 1581, 
 
A.-D. 1580.J MONS. d'aubigne. 447 
 
 gether, hawked together ; and when the court was removed 
 to Holyrood, the apartments assigned to D'Aubigne were 
 next to those occupied by the king. It was the first noted 
 instance of a favouritism to which James was all his life long 
 in bondage. Under the smiles of the monarch D'Aubigne 
 grew rapidly into greatness ; he was first made Earl, and 
 subsequently Duke of Lennox ; he was raised to the office 
 of Lord High Chamberlain ; the rich Abbacy of Arbroath 
 was given him ; and the greatest nobles courted his favour. 
 About the same time, Captain James Stewart, a younger 
 son of Lord Ochiltree's, also came into influence at court. 
 He was well educated, and had seen a good deal of the world ; 
 but in his travels he had lost any little principle he ever 
 had, and was now known to be profligate in his manners 
 and reckless of results, if but his own interests were ad- 
 vanced. He was created Earl of Arran, under which name 
 we shall hear more of him anon. From the pedagogic birch 
 of Buchanan, and the stern admonitions of Morton, the 
 king, now a lad of fourteen, passed into the hands of these 
 gay companions and counsellors. 
 
 The ministers of the Church beheld all this with alarm. 
 D'Aubigne was a Papist. It was whispered that he had 
 come to this country as a secret emissary of the Pope. It 
 was known that before leaving France he had had consulta- 
 tions with the Bishops of G-lasgow and Koss ; and it was 
 told how the Duke of G-uise had accompanied him to Dieppe, 
 and remained on board ship with him soine hours before he 
 set sail. There were other rumours afloat of Jesuit priests 
 having stolen into the country; of plots to bring back a Popish 
 queen; of endeavours to break the alliance with England, and 
 revert to the ancient alliance with France ; and as the 
 danger was unseen, every one magnified it according to his 
 fears. D'Aubigne partly, and only partly, allayed the alarm, 
 by declaring his conversion to Protestantism. The young 
 king, already vain of his theological acquirements, had plied 
 him with arguments ; he had called in some Presbyterian 
 clergymen to his help, and the favourite could not withstand 
 the logic of the monarch and his ministers. He publicly 
 renounced and abjured the Eomish faith in the Church of 
 
448 CHURCH. HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 St Gile's at Edinburgh, in the Eoyal Chapel at Stirling, and 
 last of all, in a letter to the General Assembly.* Still the 
 popular mind was ill at ease in regard to Popery. It 
 ■was feared that it might yet be stealthily brought in. 
 To still suspicion rather than to test the orthodoxy of 
 the country, the king caused Craig to draw up a confession 
 of faith, or covenant condemnatory of all the most obnoxious 
 tenets of the Eomish religion. When drawn, it was signed 
 by the king and his household, and afterwards, in conse- 
 quence of an order of the Privy Council and an act of the 
 Assembly, by persons of all ranks throiighout the kingdom. 
 In opposition to the Confession of 1560, it was called the 
 Negative Confession, as it related rather to doctrines which 
 were not believed, than to those which were.t 
 
 It was not to be expected that the ex-regent Morton would 
 look on with indifference while the upstart Lennox enjoyed 
 all the favour of the king, and wielded all the power of the 
 country. He had lost the good opinions of the clergy and 
 the people by his greed, his Simony, and his tulchan Episco- 
 pacy; but he caballed with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was glad 
 to have the aid of so powerful and crafty a man, for she began 
 to dread the re-ascendency of French influence in Scotland. | 
 There was a bitter jealousy between the rivals, continual ru- 
 mours of plots and counter-plots, and it was evident that 
 Scotland could not hold them both. Lennox struck the first 
 blow, and secured the victory. One day, while the Council 
 was sitting. Captain Stewart begged permission to enter, 
 and going down upon his knee before the king, he accused 
 Morton of being privy to the murder of his father. Morton 
 was sitting at the council-board when the charge was made, 
 but he was at once placed under arrest, and it is highly 
 probable that the whole procedure had been previously 
 arranged with the king. Five months elapsed before he 
 was brought to trial, and then the proof would have failed, 
 had he not himself confessed that he had previous know- 
 
 » Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 196, 197. 
 
 t This Confession is generally hound up in the same volume with the West- 
 minster Confession, forming the first part of The National Covenant or Con- 
 fession of Faith. 
 
 t Tytler's History, vol. viii. 
 
A.D. 1581.] EXECUTION 01' MORTON. 449 
 
 ledge of the intended assassination, though he took no part 
 in its execution. 
 
 On this confession he was condemned to die. He had 
 reached to power by the commission of great crimes, and 
 had kept it by the exercise of great severity. He had never 
 hesitated to send his enemies to the scaffold;* but now, 
 when his own turn came, he showed that he could go thi- 
 ther too, and die, if not with the serenity of a martyr, at 
 'least with the firmness of a man. On the evening of Fri- 
 day, the 2d of June 1581, some poor men might be seen 
 digging a grave in the Tolbooth burying-ground, and depo- 
 siting in it a headless trunk. It was the great Earl of Mor- 
 ton, who had so long kept the country in terror, and who 
 had that day perished on the scaffold, who was thus so 
 meanly interred.! 
 
 The death of Morton left Lennox supreme. But it was 
 felt more than ever that his power was dangerous to the 
 State — dangerous to the Church. Events were already 
 ripening for a conflict. James appears to have early con- 
 tracted a partiality for the Episcopal polity. He was still a 
 boy; but he was a marvellously precocious boy, and per- 
 haps nearly as wise now as at any future period of his life, 
 for he was only a clever school-boy to the last. What was 
 the origin of his Episcopal tendencies it is difficult to dis- 
 cover. Notwithstanding his being reared amid revolution- 
 ary nobles, and tutored by a republican pedagogue, he had 
 contracted overweening ideas of hereditary and indefeasible 
 prerogative. Even a dull boy might see that Presbytery 
 was essentially democratic. Perhaps James had actually 
 seen that the bishops were courtly, smooth-spoken gentle- 
 men, while the ministers were rough, outspoken men. Be 
 this as it may, notwithstanding the resolutions of the As- 
 
 * As instances of this, two poets had lampooned him ; — he hanged them 
 both. Tlifi following notice occurs in the Diurnal of Occurrents, 1572 : — 
 " 21st April. — The same day there was a minister hanged in Leith, and borne 
 to the gibbet, because he was birsit in the boots. The principal cause was that 
 he said to the Earl of Morton that he defended an unjust cause, and that he 
 would repent when there was no time to repent. And when he was asked by 
 whom he was requested to say the same, he answered, ' By the Holy Spirit,' " 
 
 t Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 F 
 
450 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 sembly, he determined to maintain Episcopacy; and of 
 course the favourite agreed with the king — if it was not the 
 king who agreed with the favourite. While things were in 
 this state, the Archbishopric of Glasgow became vacant by 
 the death of Boyd ; and Lennox, who held in his hands the 
 patronage of the kingdom, had it at his disposal. He offered 
 it to Montgomery, the minister of Stirling, upon condition 
 that, so soon as he was admitted, he would dispone the 
 lands, lordships, and everything belonging to the bishopric 
 to him and his heirs, for the yearly payment of L.IOOO 
 Soots, with some horse-corn and poultry. Montgomery ac- 
 cepted the offer, and the conflict with the Church began.* 
 
 The matter was brought before the Assembly, which met 
 in October 1581. One would have imagined that the bishop- 
 elect would have been charged with accepting an office which 
 had been declared unlawful by the courts of the Church, or 
 for entering into a Simoniacal paction with the patron ; but 
 not so. Melville appeared as his accuser ; and though his 
 libel contained fifteen articles, therewasnottheslightestrefer- 
 ence to the real head and front of Montgomery's offending. 
 This was a tortuous policy, and such as we would not have 
 expected from so bold a man, It was worse, for it is a 
 grievous perversion of justice to accuse a man of one crime 
 and condemn him for another. The articles did not charge 
 immorality, and related principally to sentiments which 
 Montgomery was said to have uttered in the pulpit, and 
 which would not now be considered as deserving of very 
 serious censure. Though probation was ordered, it does not 
 seem to have been led, for commission was given to the 
 Presbytery of Stirling to summon him before them, try his 
 whole life and doctrine, and report to the provincial Synod 
 of Lothian. He was ordered, in the meantime, to continue 
 in his ministry at Stirling, and not to aspire to the Bishopric 
 of Glasgow, under pain of excommunication. f 
 
 * Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. Calderwood says L.500. The value of the 
 bishopric was L.4080, 13s. 4d. See the Appendix to Keith's History. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, October 1581. Calderwood's History, same 
 date. 
 
 The charges in the libel are curious; for instance : — " 1. That, publicly 
 preaching in the church of Stirling, he propounded a question touching the 
 
A.D. 1582.] CONTEST BETWEEN THE ASSEMBLY AND THE KING. 451 
 
 Montgomery ventured to defy the thunders of 
 the Church. In the month of March of the 
 following year he proceeded to Glasgow, attended by an 
 armed escort, and entered the cathedral. The minister had 
 already occupied the pulpit. The bishop-elect pulled him 
 by the sleeve, and said, "Come down, sirrah!" but the 
 minister kept his ground. There was like to be a tumult, 
 and Montgomery was constrained to retire. The Presbytery 
 of Stirling at once suspended him from the office of the 
 ministry ; but he disregarded their sentence. The Privy 
 Council now interfered, and summoned the Presbyteries of 
 Glasgow, Stirling, Dalkeith, Linlithgow, and Edinburgh, to 
 appear and answer for their conduct in regard to Mont- 
 gomery. They declined the jurisdiction of the Council. 
 The Church and the State had come into violent contact.* 
 In April the General Assembly met, and the whole matter 
 was brought before it. More specific and more serious charges 
 were now brought against Montgomery, such as lying- in 
 the face of the Church courts, and despising their sentences. 
 The king, anxious to save his bishop, had already sent a 
 message to the Assembly, requesting that they would not 
 trouble him in regard to his bishopric ; but the Assembly 
 pursued its course notwithstanding. James now proceeded 
 farther : a messenger-at-arms entered the House, and by 
 virtue of the King's letters, delivered by the Lords of Secret 
 Council, inhibited the Assembly from citing, excommuni- 
 cating, or otherwise troubling Montgomery in the matter of 
 the episcopate, under pain of rebellion. The Assembly 
 directed a letter to his Majesty, vindicating the course they 
 were pursuing; and having done so, they were about to pro- 
 ceed to the final sentence of ecclesiastical law, excommuni- 
 
 circumcision of women, and in the end concluded that they were circumcised 
 in the skin of their foreheads. 2. In Glasgow he openly taught that the dia- 
 eipline of the Kirk (j. e., its polity) is a thing indifferent, and may stand this 
 way or that. 3. He accused the ministers that they used fallacious argu- 
 ments and captions, and that they were curious brains. 4. So far as he could, 
 lie travelled to hring the original languages, Greek and Hebrew, into con- 
 tempt, abusing thereto the words of the Apostle, 1 Cor. xiv., and tauntingly 
 asked in what school were Peter and Paul graduated," &c. &c. 
 * Calderwood's History, 1582. 
 
 2f2 
 
452 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 cation — " to the effect that Montgomery's proud flesh be 
 cast into the hands of Satan; if he may be won again, if it be 
 possible, to God" — when he yielded, confessed his faults, and 
 promised to give up all thoughts of the bishopric. The As- 
 sembly received his submission, but at the same time in- 
 structed the Presbytery of Glasgow to keep a watch upon 
 his conduct.* 
 
 There was need for the caution. Probably incited by the 
 king and the court, Montgomery began to preach and to re- 
 vive his claims upon the archbishopric. The Presbytery of 
 Glasgow instantly met ; but this had been anticipated, and 
 the Council was equally prompt. While the ecclesiastical 
 court was yet sitting, the provost, bailies, and some citizens 
 entered, discharged them from proceeding, and cited them 
 to appear before the Privy Council. The presbytery refused ; 
 the magistrates " put violent hands upon the moderator, 
 smote him in the face, rent his beard, struck out one of his 
 teeth, and thereafter committed him to ward in the Tol- 
 booth."t The students interfered ; some fighting took place; 
 a serious tumult was apprehended; and by tuck of drum and 
 sound of bell, the citizens were collected to defend their 
 bailies. But the presbytery kept to their point, and decreet 
 was given out against Montgomery, and forwarded to the 
 Presbytery of Edinburgh. On Saturday, the 9th of June, 
 the Presbytery of Edinburgh met, and appointed John 
 Davidson, minister of Libberton, to pronounce the sentence 
 of excommunication against Montgomery, which Davidson 
 did on the following day.| 
 
 The meeting of Assembly was hastened. It convened on 
 the 27th of June. Melville preached the opening sermon, 
 and inveighed against the " hludie gullie of absolute autho- 
 r\tj, whereby many intended to pull the crown off Christ's 
 head, and to wring the sceptre out of His hands."§ The 
 Church resolved to lay its griefs at the foot of the throne. 
 A committee was accordingly appointed to proceed to Perth, 
 
 * Book of the "Universal Kirk, pp. 245-48. Calderwood's History, 1582. 
 T Calderwood's History, 1582. 
 
 + Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 256-58. Calderwood's History. 
 'i Calderwood's History. 
 
A.D. 1582.] MELVILLE AND ARRAN. 453 
 
 where the king then was. They procured an audience, and 
 produced their complaints, which related chiefly to the inter- 
 ference of the Council with the ecclesiastical courts in the 
 exercise of their jurisdiction. " Who dare suhscrihe these 
 treasonable articles ?" said the Earl of Arran, and the Earl 
 of Arran was not a man to be trifled with. " We dare," 
 said Andrew Melville, " and will subscribe, and render our 
 lives in the cause." Stepping forward to the table, he took 
 the pen from the clerk, and wrote his name ; the rest fol- 
 lowed.* The king and his counsellors might have learned 
 from this what was the temper of the men they had to deal 
 with. Lennox and Arran were so confounded that they 
 thought they had some armed force at their back. The 
 truth is they had the whole nation at their back. Tliey 
 were dismissed with a peaceful reply, but still it was not 
 one with which the Assembly was satisfied. 
 
 The din of the contest extended beyond the courts of the 
 Church. The pulpits rang with it. The excitement of the 
 period was increased by continual rumours of French in- 
 trigues, of Popish plots, and of seminary priests and Jesuits 
 having been smuggled into the country. James complained 
 to the Assembly that Balcanquhal, one of the ministers of 
 Edinburgh, had, in a sermon, accused his cousin the Duke 
 of Lennox of labouring to restore Popery, f The Assembly 
 asked the king to condescend upon a proof of his statement ; 
 and, as he declined to do so, it absolved Balcanquhal. Durie, 
 another of the Edinburgh ministers, was still more outspoken. 
 He declared from the pulpit that James had been moved by 
 his courtiers to send a private message to the King of France 
 and the Duke of Guise, to ask his mother's blessing, and was 
 scheming to place her beside him on the throne. At the 
 nick of time a certain Signer Paul came from the Duke of 
 Guise to present some horses to his Majesty. It was in- 
 stantly suspected that he had other business on hand, and 
 the story went that this very man had been one of the 
 butchers of St Bartholmew's day. The zealous Durie took 
 to horse and rode to Kinneil, where the king was. Meeting 
 
 • Melville's Diary. Calderwood's History, 
 t Book of tho UniTersal Kirk, 1582. 
 
454 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. Xll. 
 
 Paul in the garden, he drew his hat ever his eyes, saying, 
 he could not look upon the devil's ambassador. Getting 
 admission to the monarch, " Is it with the Guise," cried he, 
 "that your Grace will exchange presents, — with that cruel 
 murderer of the saints ?" Ee turning to Edinburgh, he made 
 the cathedral church to resound with his fiery eloquence. 
 He denounced Montgomery as an apostate and man-sworn 
 traitor to God and his Church. Passing on to the Guisean 
 embassage, he exclaimed, " If God did threaten the capti- 
 vity and spoil of Jerusalem because that their king Heze- 
 kiah did receive a letter and present from the king of 
 Babylon, shall we think to be free, committing the like, or 
 rather worse ?"* His sermon excited considerable stir, and 
 he was cited before the Council to answer for it. When he 
 arrived at Dalkeith Palace, where the king was residing 
 with Lennox, his Grace's cooks, zealous to avenge their 
 master upon his reviler, issued from the kitchen with spits 
 and knives, and had nearly elevated Durie to the honour of 
 a second St Lawrence, t He escaped this culinary martyr- 
 dom ; but he was ordered to leave the city, and the provost 
 and magistrates were instructed to see the sentence carried 
 into execution. 
 
 Durie asked the advice of the Assembly as to what he 
 should do. The magistrates asked the advice of the As- 
 sembly too, for they were members of Durie's congregation, 
 and were divided between their allegiance to the kirk and 
 their allegiance to the king. The Assembly pronounced 
 Durie's doctrine sound, and his life honest, and advised him 
 not to quit the city unless he were forced, but if he were 
 forced, to go peaceably. J The magistrates were reluctantly 
 compelled to insist upon his leaving. That, same night, 
 about nine o'clock, he was seen taking his way along the 
 High Street, accompanied by two notaries and a few of his 
 brethren. When they came to the Cross, one of the notaries 
 read a document, in which the exiled minister protested the 
 
 » Tytler's History, vol. viii. Calderwood's Hiatory. Tytler, in his Ap- 
 pendix, gives a sketch of this sermon from the pen of one of the auditors, 
 t James Melville's Diary. 
 I Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 262, 253. Calderwood's History. 
 
A.t). 1582.] BANISHMENT OF DURIE. 455 
 
 purity of his life and doctrine, and that, though he obeyed 
 the sentence of banishment, he would not desist from preach- 
 ing the Word. According to legal form, he then placed a 
 piece of money in the hands of the notaries, and took instru- 
 ments. " I, too," cried Davidson, who was with him, " must 
 take instruments, and this I protest is the most sorrowful 
 sight that eyes ever rested upon — a shepherd removed by his 
 own flock to pleasure flesh and blood, and because he has 
 spoken the truth. But plague and fearful judgments will 
 yet light on the inventors."* 
 
 The Church was nothing daunted by the exile of Durie. 
 If the king wielded the sword, it wielded the keys — still the 
 more formidable weapon of the two. The provost and bailies 
 of Glasgow had invaded a presbytery, and done violence to 
 its moderator ; they were summoned before the Assembly, 
 threatened with excommunication,, and glad to save them- 
 selves by making an abject submission. The Lord Advocate, 
 in the discharge of his duty, had penned some proclama- 
 tions, which were esteemed slanderous to the Church. He 
 was cited to appear at its bar, and he hardly escaped by 
 humbly protesting that he had only translated into Scotch 
 what had already been written by Lennox in French. f Mont- 
 gomery had already been excommunicated, but Lennox had 
 harboured him, and it was against the ecclesiastical code to 
 harbour an excommunicated man. The uncompromising- 
 presbyters threatened " to take order'' with the duke, the 
 Lord High Chamberlain of the kingdom, the cousin of the 
 king ; for their lightnings could strike the tops of tlie 
 highest hills. James Montgomerie, probably a relative of 
 the excommunicated bishop, had spoken to him, and to 
 speak to an excommunicated man was a high misdemeanour. 
 
 * Tytler's History, vol. viii. Calderwood'a History. Anciently, in Scotland, 
 taking instruments in the hands of a notary was very common. A curious 
 instance of this is given in Mill's History of the Bishops of Dunkeld. One of 
 these old prelates lying on his death-bed, having professed his faith, and re- 
 ceived the sacraments of the Church, afraid lest in delirium or extreme weak- 
 ness he might say things contradictory of his Christian profession, called in a 
 notary and took instruments, that whatever he might say after that was not 
 to be esteemed of any weight or authority. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, June and October 1582. 
 
456 CHUSCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. XIX. 
 
 He Was ordered to make public repentance in the parish 
 church of Glasgow.* The excommunicated man himself 
 ventured to appear in the streets of Edinburgh, but this 
 also was a crime. Lawson applied to the magistrates, and 
 he was compelled to sneak away. The Council tried to save 
 him, by making proclamation that he should be received as 
 a true Christian and faithful subject ; but the Church was 
 stronger than the Council. He returned to the town, and 
 presented himseK at the Tolbooth, but he was refused ad- 
 mittance within the bar, and told that no excommunicated 
 .man could appear as a pursuer. The magistrates and officers 
 were immediately upon his track, and again insisted upon his 
 leaving the town. While this was going on within, a crowd 
 had collected in the street, and were impatiently waiting for 
 him to come out — some with sticks, some with stones, some 
 with rotten eggs. To have surrendered him to the people 
 might have cost him his life, and so he was quietly smuggled 
 away by the Kirk Heugh ; but the mob got the scent, and 
 were soon in full cry after him, and he did not escape from 
 the citj by the Potterrow gate without receiving some smart 
 slaps upon the back. The king was at Perth when this 
 scene took place, and when he heard of it he could only 
 throw himself down upon the Inch, and give way to roars 
 of laughter, f His sense of the ludicrous got the better of 
 his sense of justice. 
 
 On the 23d of August 1582, the king suddenly found 
 himself a prisoner at Huntingtower, a castle in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Perth, belonging to the Earl of Gowrie. Scot- 
 land for centuries had been fated to have children to rule 
 over it, and its nobles had learned that the faction who 
 possessed the royal child were generally able to exercise 
 the royal power. The Earls of Cowrie, Mar, Glammis, and 
 some others, had beheld with impatience the upstarts Len- 
 nox and Arran sharing between them the smiles of the 
 monarch and the government of the country, and encouraged 
 by Elizabeth, that old fomentor of sedition, and probably 
 alarmed for the Protestant faith, they had signed a bond 
 
 * Book of the TTniversal Kirk, October 1682. 
 
 t Tytler's History, Vol. viii. Calderwood's History, 1582. 
 
A.D. 1582.] RAID OF KUTHVEN. 457 
 
 which pledged them to drive Lennox from the court. As 
 chance would have it, the king came to the neighbourhood 
 of Perth to hunt, just when the conspiracy was nearly ripe. 
 The opportunity was not to be lost ; he was decoyed to the 
 castle of the Ruthvens ; and when he wished to depart, 
 Glammis placed himself against the door, and informed him 
 him he was their captive. The Earl of Arran was shortly 
 afterwards seized and coniined in Duplin; the king was 
 removed to Stirling ; and Lennox got warning that he 
 would do well to leave the country without delay. 
 
 The ministers regarded the Raid of Ruthven as the de- 
 liverance of the Church from an evil bondage, and many of 
 them proclaimed their satisfaction from the pulpit. Others 
 of them entered into treaty with the Confederated Lords. 
 The exiled Durie was brought back to Edinburgh amidst 
 the shouts of the citizens and the singing of psalms, and 
 Lennox, who beheld the triumphal procession from a win- 
 dow, is said to have torn his beard with rage, and imme- 
 diately to have fled to Diimbarton, from which he afterwards 
 escaped to France.* The Confederates knew that their 
 cause would gain strength if it received the sanction of the 
 Church ; and therefore, when the Assembly met in October, 
 Lord Paisley appeared as their commissioner, declared that 
 their reasons for undertaking the enterprise were the dangers 
 which threatened the Church, the king, and the common- 
 wealth, and beseeched them to show their " good liking to 
 it," and to appoint each minister in his own pulpit to ex- 
 plain the nature of it to his people, and exhort them to 
 give it their concurrence. The Assembly at once resolved 
 that the dangers alluded to existed ; but before proceeding 
 farther, they sent a deputation to wait upon the king and 
 learn his mind upon the matter. The king was a captive, 
 and required to speak as his jailors dictated ; he confessed 
 the Church and commonwealth were in danger. When the 
 deputation returned, the whole Assembly with one voice 
 declared their approbation of the Raid, and ordained an act 
 to be made accordingly. f 
 
 '■ Tytler, vol. viii. Oalderwood, 1582. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, October 1582. 
 
458 CHURCH nrSTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XII. 
 
 On the 28th September 1582, while the excitement of 
 the Euthven enterprise was still fresh, George Buchanan, 
 the most illustrious of living Scotchmen, breathed his last. 
 Born in the parish of Killearn in 1506, he became early 
 conspicuous for his talents, and his uncle, James Heriot, 
 sent him to Paris to complete his education. But James 
 Heriot died, and the Scotch scholar was left in poverty. He 
 came back to Scotland ; he struggled with bad health ; he 
 went into the army ; he returned to his scholastic studies ; 
 and the summer of 1526 found him a second time in France. 
 After several years he was once more in his native country, 
 and acted for a time as tutor to James Stewart, afterwards 
 the celebrated regent, and was probably the first to imbue 
 his mind with a love for Lutheranism. Buchanan's religious 
 opinions at this time were necessarily secret, but James 
 V. knew he had no love for the monks, and employed him 
 to write a satire upon the Franciscans ; and the poem was 
 felt to be so cutting, that the poet was glad to escape with 
 his life. He sought an asylum in France, a country which 
 he loved, and which appears to have always paid a willing 
 homage to his genius. He taught in Bourdeaux for a time ; 
 he afterwards taught in Portugal ; but suspicions arose in 
 regard to his orthodoxy, and he was accused of heresy and 
 imprisoned in a monastery. Christendom will pardon the 
 Portuguese monks their persecution, when it is known that 
 it was to relieve the solitude of his monastic prison that 
 Buchanan translated the Psalms of David into Latin verse, 
 in which the piety of the King of Zion is embalmed in the 
 aromatic diction of the Augustan age. The "Pilgrim's 
 Progress", was not the first great work which emanated 
 from a jail. Set at liberty, he remained for a time in Portu- 
 gal, and received some flattering attentions from the king. 
 After this we find him in England, in France, in Italy, 
 illustrating the mediaeval description of our countrymen — 
 Scoti vagantes. About 1560 he returned to Scotland to 
 leave it no more. 
 
 Two years afterwards. Queen Mary came, having already 
 buried in France her hopes and her happiness. Buchanan 
 was employed to assist her in her classical studies ; for ladies 
 
A.D. 1582.] GEOEGE BUCHANAN. 459 
 
 of fashion in those days, having no Shakespeare, Scott, or 
 Macaulay to read, read the epics of Homer, the odes of 
 Horace, and the grand historic fictions of Livy. Buchanan 
 showed his admiration for his royal mistress by dedicating 
 to her the first complete edition of his "Psalms:" Mary 
 showed her appreciation of her scholarly tutor by making 
 him Commendator of Crossraguel. But Buchanan was a 
 Protestant in religion, and a republican in politics ; and 
 these principles naturally leagued him with the opponents 
 of Mary's government. The Earl of Moray presented him 
 to the Principality of St Leonard's College. The General 
 Assembly received lustre from his constant attendance, and 
 honoured itself as much as it honoured him by elevating 
 him, though a layman, to the Moderator's chair. When 
 Mary was driven from her throne, to Buchanan was en- 
 trusted the education of the infant king — a trust which he 
 discharged faithfully and well. He made James a scholar ; 
 he could not make him more. He raised a wondrous crop 
 of learning upon a thin, though sharp, soil. To his royal 
 pupil he dedicated his famous treatise, " De jure Regni apud 
 Scotos " — a treatise in which he brought back from heaven 
 the old altar-flame of civil and religious liberty, quenched 
 upon earth since the days of republican Greece and consular 
 Rome. 
 
 His last great work was the history of his country. A 
 keen partisan in an age torn with contending factions, it 
 was not to be expected that he should speak of his contem- 
 poraries with impartiality; but still his history will ever 
 stand a noble monument of his industry and scholarship. 
 He only lived long enough to complete it. A short time 
 before his death, Andrew and James Melville went to Edin- 
 burgh to visit him. They found him in his bedroom, sitting 
 in his chair, and " teaching his young man that servit him 
 in his chalmer to spell a-b, ab ; e-b, eb." " I see, Sir," said 
 Andrew Melville, " you are not idle." " Better this," replied 
 the veteran scholar, "than stealing sheep, or sitting idle, 
 which is as bad ;" — a lesson which his Celtic brethren on the 
 banks of Lochlomond reqiiired two centuries longer to learn. 
 Buchanan dismissed his pupil, and showed Melville his 
 
^60 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 " Epistle Dedicatory to the King." Melville ventured some 
 criticisms. " I can do no more," replied the feeble old man, 
 "for thinking of another matter." "What is that?" said 
 Melville. "To die!" said Buchanan.* The change for 
 which he was preparing came, and he died so poor that he 
 was buried at the public expense. His grave was made in 
 the G-reyfriars Church-yard, and a plain stone placed at the 
 head of it ; but no one can now point out the spot. 
 
 While the king was in the hands of the Gowrie conspira- 
 tors, an embassage arrived from France, at the head of which 
 were De Menainville and De la Motte Fenelon. The ministers 
 withstood their being received at court ; but the king, after 
 debating the matter with a deputation of them, determined 
 otherwise. The ambassadors demanded the use of the mass, 
 which was allowed them ; and this also excited popular dis- 
 content. Fenelon was a knight of the order of the Holy 
 Spirit, and wore a white cross embroidered on his shoulder. 
 This was denominated a badge of Antichrist ; and the am- 
 bassador of the Catholic King was followed wherever he 
 went by the hootings of the Edinburgh mob. f When he 
 was about to leave the country, James requested the magis- 
 trates of the metropolis to entertain him at a civic banquet ; 
 the ministers, scandalized that such an honour should be 
 paid to such a man, proclaimed a fast upon the same day. 
 While the bailies were pledging the envoys in their cups, 
 the preachers were thundering anathemas at their head in 
 the Church of St Gile's. On the same day the city presented 
 the twofold aspect of a house of mourning and a house of 
 feasting. J The thing was unseemly ; and the only apology 
 we can make for it is, that the thrill of horror which darted 
 through Europe with the intelligence of St Bartholomew's 
 massacre was not yet forgotten. 
 
 On the 25th of June 1583, James managed to escape from 
 his keepers, and threw himself into the Castle of St Andrews. 
 The power of the Confederate Lords was at an end. The 
 
 * James Melville's Diary. Buolianan's life has been written with much 
 judgment and taste by Dr Irving. 
 
 t Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. Historie of King James VI., Ban. Club Ed. 
 t Historie of King James Sext. Spottiswood, Calderwood, &o. 
 
A.D. 1583.] MELVILLE BEFORE THE COUNCIL. 461 
 
 king published a proclamation, declaring the Eaid of Euth- 
 ven to he treason, hut at the same time holding out the 
 promise of a pardon to all who should acknowledge their 
 crime. The barons made their submission, and were for- 
 given ; but the Church could not thus easily cancel its own 
 solemn deeds. The clergy, in fact, did not feel themselves 
 called upon to do so ; for they still thought that the evils of 
 the government had required such a remedy, and several of 
 them did not hesitate to say so in the pulpit. With Arran 
 in power, such speeches could scarcely pass with impunity. 
 Durie was cited before the Council, but retracted, and was 
 dismissed. Andrew Melville was cited for using still stronger 
 language, holding out to the king the fearful examples of 
 Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and James III., and he would 
 not retract.* He acknowledged what he said, but declined 
 the judgment of the Council, on the ground that what was 
 spoken in the pulpit ought first to be tried by the Presby- 
 tery, and that neither the king nor Council might, in the 
 first instance, meddle with it, though the speeches were 
 treasonable. Few men will now defend the declinature of 
 Melville : modern sense and modern legislation have decided 
 against it. But every panel should be allowed the liberty 
 of urging every possible plea which he chooses; and the 
 absurdity of the plea should not be held as aggravating the 
 crime ; but there is reason to think that, in this case, the 
 plea was held as an aggravation of the offence. There is also 
 reason, however, to suspect that Melville so far forgot himself 
 as to be contemptuous to the court before which he was ar- 
 raigned. " That you may see your weakness and rashness," 
 cried he to the king and his counsellors in the course of the 
 trial, "in taking upon you what you neither can nor ought 
 to do, these are my instructions ; see if any of you can judge 
 of them, or show that I have passed my injunctions ;" and 
 with that he unclasped a Hebrew Bible from his girdle, and 
 clanked it down upon the table. f The records of the Privy 
 Council bear that he declared "proudly, irreverently, and 
 contemptuously, that the laws of God and the practices 
 
 * M'Crie's Life of Melville. Melville's Diary. Calderwood's History, 
 t James Melville's Diary. 
 
462 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 obserTed within this country were perverted, and not ob- 
 served, in his case."* Would such language be permitted 
 in the present day ? Would such a panel not be impri- 
 soned for contempt of court, though for nothing else ? 
 MelviUe was ordered to enter himself a prisoner in Black- 
 ness Castle within ten hours ; but some of his friends 
 repeated to him the Angus proverb, " Loose and living ;" — 
 he took the hint, and iled to Berwick, f 
 
 Melville was followed in his flight by several 
 of his brethren, who had reason to dread the 
 displeasure of the king. They were not well gone till 
 Gowrie was brought to trial, for a new conspiracy in which 
 he was supposed to have been implicated, and condemned 
 to death. He was among the last of the turbulent barons 
 who had moved amidst the political storms of the last quarter 
 of a century. They had almost all died by violence. Moray 
 had perished from the bullet of an assassin ; Grange had 
 been hung ; Lethington had taken poison ; Morton had 
 yielded up life under the axe of the maiden ; and now 
 Kuthven was destined to share his fate. It is the general 
 doom of the first leaders in every great revolution. 
 
 James was bent upon destroying a form of Church govern- 
 ment which he imagined to be inconsistent with his own 
 kingly prerogatives. The General Assembly rested upon 
 too popular a basis ; they were too independent of his abso- 
 lute will ; they assumed a jurisdiction which he could not 
 allow. The ministers were too much given to discuss poli- 
 tical subjects in the pulpit — to speak evil of dignities — to 
 resist the powers that were ordained of God ; and therefore 
 their liberty must be restrained. James had servants only 
 too ready to assist him in his undertaking. Arran's power 
 was now greater than ever ; and he was the known enemy 
 of the Presbyteries. Adam son, the titular Archbishop of 
 St Andrews, was constantly at court, and laboured with all 
 
 * M'Crie's Life of Melville. Dr M'Crie blames Spottiswood for having 
 given an unwarrantable turn to these words in his History. I quote them, 
 as they have been copied by Dr M'Crie himself, from the Register of Secret 
 Council. See his Appendix. 
 
 t James Melville's Diary. 
 
A.D. 1584.] THE BLACK. ACTS. 463 
 
 Ins might to perfect the Episcopal polity of the Church. 
 On the 22d of May 1584, the parliament assembled. Much 
 business was on hand. Some of the greatest nobles in the 
 kingdom were declared guilty of treason, and their estates 
 forfeited to the Crown. But this was the least of it. A series 
 of acts were passed almost entirely subversive of the rights 
 hitherto enjoyed by the Church. By one, the ancient juris- 
 diction of the Three Estates was ratified, — and to speak evil 
 of any one of them was declared to be treason ; thus were 
 the bishops hedged about. By another, the king was de- 
 clared to be supreme in all causes and over all persons, and 
 to decline his judgment was pronounced to be treason ; thus 
 was the boldness of such men as MelviUe to be chastised. 
 By a third, all convocations except those specially licensed 
 by the king, were declared to be unlawful ; thus were the 
 courts of the Church to be shorn of their power. By a fourth, 
 the chief jurisdiction of the Church was lodged in the hands 
 of the Episcopal body ; for the bishops must now do what 
 the Assemblies and presbyteries had hitherto done. By still 
 another act, it was provided "that none should presume, 
 privately or publicly, in sermons, declamations, or familiar 
 conferences, to utter any false, untrue, or slanderous speeches, 
 to the reproach of his Majesty or council, or meddle with the 
 affairs of his Highness and Estate, under the pains contained 
 in the acts of parhament made against the makers and re- 
 porters of lies."* 
 
 The passing of these acts carried consternation among 
 the Presbyterian clergy. When the first rumours of what 
 was doing in the parliament reached the city, Lindsay 
 hastened to the palace to remonstrate, but he was seized at 
 the gate and sent off a prisoner to Blackness. When the 
 acts were read at the market-cross, Pont, the minister of 
 St Cuthbert's, and a Senator of the College of Justice, made 
 public protestation against them, and took instruments with 
 all the forms of law. Having done this, he fled together 
 with Balcanquhal to Berwick, which was the city of refuge 
 
 * Acta of the Scotch Parliament, James VI., May 1584. Spottiswood's 
 History. The same parliament condemned Buchanan's History and his 
 Treatise De Eegni jiire apud Scotos. 
 
•^64 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. Xll. 
 
 to the persecuted Presbyterians.* The whole of the acts 
 "were bad, but the one which lay at the basis of the rest 
 was the one which asserted that the king was supreme 
 in all causes, and over all persons — a proposition which 
 the Church of Scotland has ever contended against with 
 weapons both carnal and spiritual. That he is supreme over 
 all persons is allowed ; that he' is supreme in all causes is 
 denied. It is maintained, that in matters purely spiritual, 
 the ecclesiastical courts possess an independent jurisdic- 
 tion, and from them there is no appeal, save to Jesus, the 
 King and Head of His Church. The magistrate may not 
 interfere with the doctrine or discipline of Christ's house. 
 The maintenance of this principle forms a large part of our 
 Church's history, and has been the source of much of our 
 Church's sufferings. Eight in theory, it is difficult in many 
 instances to reduce to practice ; for civil and religious in- 
 terests are often so closely intertwined that it is impossible 
 to separate them ; and in such cases when disputes arise, 
 who is to decide ? — the courts of law, or the courts of the 
 Church ? The present generation has witnessed the fierce 
 debates and bitter heart-burnings which this question has 
 generated, and has beheld with grief the unfortunate result 
 in a great national Church rent in twain. 
 
 If King James had jurisdiction in all causes as well as 
 over all persons, he was entitled to set up bishops and bid 
 all men bow down before them ; he was entitled to inter- 
 dict Assemblies and presbyteries from meeting without his 
 express permission ; he was entitled to stop the mouths of 
 outspoken ministers. But the ministers maintained he had 
 no such jurisdiction ; that there is a spiritual kingdom in 
 which potentates lose their power, where Ctesar yields to 
 God. By preaching such doctrines as this, they in fact 
 taught the people that there was a limit to royal preroga- 
 tives ; that meetings might be held and matters discussed 
 with which monarchs might not meddle ; and thus they 
 paved the way for the principles of civil as well as religious 
 liberty. The acts of 1584 were unquestionably tyrannical, 
 subversive of an existing order of things, carried in the 
 ® Calderwood's History, 1584. Eow's History, &c. 
 
A.D. 1584.] UNPOPULAEITY OF THE BISHOPS. 465 
 
 face of the country aud the face of the Church. The par- 
 liament registered the resolves of the king ; for though 
 Scottish barons were turbulent, Scottish parliaments were 
 docile, and seldom thwarted the reigning power. But the 
 people sympathized with the ministers ; the acts became 
 known as the black acts ; and the struggle between the 
 court and the Church, which lasted with some intermissions 
 for more than a century, was begun. James's jealousy of 
 prerogative — the bane of his family — was the origin of the 
 evil, but unfortunately he found some apology for his legis- 
 lation in the defence of Melville, the political tracts of some 
 of the preachers, and the acts of the Assembly approving of 
 the Raid of Euthven.* 
 
 Popular irritation was greatly increased by the passing of 
 these acts, and the bishops could hardly appear in the 
 streets without being mobbed. They were looked upon as 
 the troublers of Zion ; they were regarded as diseased ex- 
 crescences on the body of the Church, which required to be 
 removed before perfect healthfulness could be restored. 
 After the flight of the Melvilles, Adamson attempted to teach 
 at St Andrews, but the students regarded him with the 
 strongest aversion. Parading round his Episcopal palace, 
 they bade him remember how fatal that See had been to 
 his predecessors, t He was glad to leave St Andrews and 
 go to Edinburgh, where his services were required, as the 
 pulpits were silent and the ministers in exile ; but even 
 there the Privy Council required to interfere to preserve him 
 from insult.| Montgom&ry, the Bishop of Glasgow, was per- 
 haps still more odious to the people. When residing in Ayr, 
 he was mobbed by a crowd of women and boys, who heaped 
 upon him the vilest abuse, calling him atheist, dog, schis- 
 matic, excommunicate beast, unworthy to live.§ 
 
 But James having got his general principles of Church 
 government established by act of parliament, resolved to 
 make the ministers bow their necks to them. It was not 
 
 * These things were pointedly referred to in the preambles of the acts, and 
 specially quoted by the king afterwards in his defence of them, 
 j- Tytler's History, vol. ix. M'Crie's Melville. 
 
 I M'Crie's Life of Melville, vol. i. § Tytler's History, vol. ix. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 G 
 
4:66 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. XII. 
 
 enough they should be written in the statute-book; the 
 ministers must put their hand to them. In August the 
 Estates again assembled, and an act was made that all 
 ministers, readers, and masters of colleges should compear 
 within forty days, and subscribe the acts concerning the 
 king's jurisdiction over all estates, temporal and spiritual, 
 and promise to submit themselves to the bishops, their ordi- 
 naries, under pain of being deprived of their stipends.* 
 About the same time Archbishop Adamson was invested by 
 the king with plenary powers to exercise his archiepiscopal 
 jurisdiction in accordance with the recent legislation.! 
 
 John Craig and some others were known to have de- 
 nounced the laws. They were summoned before the Council 
 to answer for their conduct, and asked how they dared to 
 find fault with acts of parliament. " We will find fault," 
 said Craig, " with anything repugnant to God's Word." 
 Upon this Arran started to his feet, and fiercely said, that 
 the ministers were too pert, and that he would shave their 
 heads, pair their nails, cut their toes, and make them an 
 example to all that rebelled against the king and his Council. 
 James, however, was less fierce and more politic than his 
 counsellor ; and, after some negotiation, he prevailed upon 
 Craig and other influential ministers to sign a deed of sub- 
 mission, adding the clause, " agreeably to the Word of God," 
 to satisfy their consciences.J 
 
 But neither the fierceness of Arran nor the kingcraft of 
 James could repress altogether the utterance of thought and 
 feeling. Some of the ministers had prayed for their exiled 
 brethren ; this was construed into treason. Others had re- 
 ceived letters from them ; this also was held to be a crime. The 
 fugitives directed a letter to their congregation, explaining 
 and bemoaning the causes of their exile. The magistrates 
 and citizens of Edinburgh, under royal influences, and pro- 
 bably assisted by an archiepiscopal pen, answered the letter, 
 and taunted the ministers with abandoning their flocks, as 
 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. iv. 
 
 t See Melville's Diary, 1584, where a copy of the docnment will be found. 
 See also Calderwood, vol. iv. p. 144. 
 t Calderwood's History, vol. iv. p. 198,199. 
 
j>.D. 1585.] SUBMISSION OF THE MINISTERS. 467 
 
 sheep "without a shepherd. The pen-and-ink battle was 
 fairly begun. Pamphlets and " scurril poems" appeared on 
 both sides. Adamson wrote a defence of the acts. James 
 Melville, from his retreat in England, wrote a dissuasive 
 from subscribing them. The wives of Durie, Lawson, and 
 Balcanquhal were women of spirit, and ventured to address a 
 letter to the primate, rebutting the charges he had brought 
 against their husbands, and using towards his Grace woman's 
 natural liberty of speech. The magistrates got orders to 
 dislodge them from their houses, and accordingly the poor 
 ladies were obliged to sell their furniture and deliver up the 
 keys. Other ladies of Edinburgh, who were known to have 
 spoken against the obnoxious acts, were banished north of 
 the Tay.* 
 
 By this severity the spirit of the ministers was broken, 
 and many of them began to give in their submission. John 
 Craig, the old colleague of Knox, not only submitted him- 
 self, he went further, and, in conjunction with Duncanson, 
 the king's chaplain, he wrote a letter urging his brethren to 
 do as he had done ; and not long after, in the pulpit, he 
 branded the refugees with the name of the " peregrine 
 ministers." t 
 
 The triumph of the king was nearly complete. He might 
 now have driven to his capital with the Church bound to 
 his chariot-wheels. We are furnished by Tytler with the 
 contents of a letter written at this period by David Hume, 
 one of the exiles, to James Carmichael, a recusant brother 
 of the Church, giving some details which must have carried 
 sorrow and despair to the hearts of the little remnant who 
 still refused to submit. It told that " all the ministers be- 
 twixt Stirling and Berwick, all Lothian, all the Merse, had 
 subscribed, with only ten exceptions, amongst whom the 
 most noted were — Patrick Simpson and Kobert Pont ; that 
 the Laird of Dun, the most venerable champion of the Kirk, 
 had so far receded from his primitive faith as to have be- 
 come a pest to the ministry in the north ; that John Durie, 
 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. iv., year 1584. See also Melville's Diary, same 
 date. 
 
 t Calderwood's History, vol. iv. 
 
 •2 g2 
 
468 
 
 CHUKCH HISTOKY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 who had so long resisted, had cracked his curple at last, and 
 closed his mouth ; that John Craig, so long the coadjutor of 
 Knox, and John Brande, his colleague, had submitted ; that 
 the pulpits of Edinburgh were nearly silent — so fearful had 
 been the defection — except," said he, " a very few who sigh 
 and sob under the Cross." The truth is, the bulk of the 
 clergy, under the influence of Craig, and the terror of losing 
 their stipends, had subscribed, but in many cases it must 
 have been with a grudge.* 
 
 Several of the most ancient Scottish nobles were at this 
 period living in England as exiles. They had fled the 
 country at different times, and for various causes, but their 
 common misfortunes drew them together. They kept hover- 
 ing about the borders, with the exiled ministers in their 
 train, impatiently waiting some event which might enable 
 them to return. Towards the close of 1585, an opportunity 
 not to be lost occurred. Lord Maxwell, one of the most 
 powerful of the border chiefs, had quarrelled with Arran ; 
 they formed a league with him, marched northwards, gather- 
 ing their dependents as they proceeded, and were soon be- 
 fore Stirling, where the king and Arran were. When Arran 
 saw that all was lost he fled, and the king, unprovided for a 
 siege, had no alternative but to open the gates and receive 
 the exiles, who upon bended knees implored his forgiveness, 
 and were received into favour. 
 
 The hopes of the Church now rose high. The king was 
 in the hands of their friends, and they expected no less than 
 a reversal of the obnoxious acts, and a legal sanction given 
 to their favourite policy. As the parliament was cited to 
 meet in December, the clergy came flocking to Dumfries, 
 toward the end of November, to hold an Assembly there, but 
 the gates were shut against them, and they had to meet in 
 the open fields. They adjourned to Linlithgow ; but their 
 meeting was in vain. The king called them loons, smaiks, 
 and seditious knaves ; and the lords told them they must 
 see to themselves first, and that then they would work 
 wonders for the Church. Their chagrin as usual found 
 vent in the pulpit. A young man named Watson ventured 
 
 * Tytler's History, vol. ix. 
 
A.D. 1585.] SCENES IN ST GILe's. 469 
 
 in his sermon to reprove the king to liis face. He was sent 
 to Blackness. Gibson, the minister of Pencaitland, preach- 
 ing in his room, said it had been supposed that it was Arran 
 who was the persecutor of the Church, but now it was seen 
 to be the monarch himself, and that the curse denounced 
 against Jeroboam would fall upon him — he would die child- 
 less, and be the last of his race. Gibson followed Watson 
 to prison. The zealous Balcanquhal was once more in Edin- 
 burgh, and once more in his pulpit. On a Sabbath in January 
 1686, the king was among his auditors. Balcanquhal thought 
 it a fitting opportunity to expatiate upon the unlawfulness 
 of bishops. The king rose from his seat and said he would 
 pledge his crown he could prove there ought to be bishops 
 set over the clergy. The preacher maintained he could prove 
 the contrary, and after some farther altercation, he was al- 
 lowed to proceed with his discourse.* 
 
 In the meantime a scene of a different kind was going on 
 in the neighbourhood of Dumfries. Lord Maxwell, who had 
 been the chief instrument in restoring the refugee nobles 
 and ministers, was a Papist ; and glorying in his services 
 and the greatness of his power, he fondly dreamt that he 
 might openly profess his faith with impunity. On Christmas 
 Eve 1585 he assembled a number of priests in the town of 
 Dumfries, with all the gentlemen and gentlewomen in the 
 district who were still attached, though in secret, to the re- 
 ligion of Eome. During the night a procession was formed, 
 and with carols and lighted tapers it moved on to the 
 College Church of Lincluden. There mass was celebrated, 
 sermons were preached, and the religious services were con- 
 cluded by two days of feasting in Lord Maxwell's house. 
 For twenty-five years the country had been unused to such 
 a strange sight, and rumours of the midnight procession, 
 the carols, the tapers, the mass, flew everywhere. The min- 
 isters were instantly on their watchtowers sounding an alarm ; 
 and Maxwell, potent though he was, paid for his presumption 
 by three months' imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle.f 
 
 The Provincial Synod of Fife had not met for two years ; 
 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. iv. Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. 
 t Historie of King James Sext, Ban. Ed. 
 
470 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAiJD. [oHAP. xn. 
 
 but now it assembled once more, and Andrew Melville was 
 again present to direct its proceedings. Archbishop Adamson 
 was its victim. He was charged with being the author of the 
 obnoxious acts of 1584, and solemnly excommunicated. On 
 the next day, a cousin of the archbishop, attended by some 
 of his servants, proceeded to the church, and excommuni- 
 cated Andrew and James Melville, and some of their coad- 
 jutors.* Thus in a Presbyterian country was the unholy 
 spectacle — which Eome had more than once witnessed — re- 
 vived, of rival popes anathematizing one another. 
 
 , ^„„ Every day was making it more evident that 
 
 A.D. 1586. 1 . in , , T 
 
 something must be done to place the policy 
 of the Church upon a more satisfactory footing. The minis- 
 ters had begged the king to reconsider the recent legislation, 
 and the king, by the pen of Archbishop Adamson, had de- 
 fended it.f A conference, moreover, had been held between 
 the Council and some of the leading ministers, and the terms 
 of a compromise agreed upon, which only required the sanc- 
 tion of the General Assembly. On the 10th of May the As- 
 sembly met in the Upper Tolbooth, at Edinburgh. James, 
 by his Commissioner, requested them to delay proceeding to 
 business till the afternoon, and to meet with him then in 
 the Chapel of Holyrood. The royal request was readily com- 
 plied with, and the Assembly met at the time and place ap- 
 pointed. As usual, several candidates were nominated for 
 the moderatorship. The king voted first, and his candidate 
 was carried. During eighteen sessions this Assembly sat ; 
 but the most important business regarded the Episcopal 
 order. It was resolved that by bishops should be meant 
 only such bishops as were described by Paul ; that such 
 bishops might be appointed by the General Assembly to 
 visit certain bounds assigned to them, but that in their 
 visitation they must be subject to the advice of the provin- 
 cial synod ; and that, in receiving presentations and giving 
 collation to benefices, they must act according to the direc- 
 tion of the presbytery within which the vacant benefice lay; 
 
 » Calderwood's History, 1586. Melville's Diary. 
 
 t Calderwood gives the documents on both sides, vol. iv. An answer to 
 Adamson was written by Melville. 
 
A.D. 1586.] PRAYERS FOR QUEEN MARY. 471 
 
 and, finally, tliat they must be answerable for their whole 
 conduct to the General Assemblies.* Thus, again, did the 
 Church give its consent to a modified form of Episcopacy. 
 But how carefully was it hemmed round, and Avith what 
 evident pain was it wrung from reluctant presbyters ! 
 
 Other important business was despatched affecting the 
 Church's policy. It was agreed that henceforward the Assem- 
 bly should meet once a-year, and to this the royal assent was 
 given. A platform of presbyteries was produced, and the re- 
 spective jurisdictions of kirk-sessions, presbyteries, and pro- 
 vincial synods were carefully chalked out. Archbishop Adam- 
 son made some submissions, and was absolved from the ex- 
 communication of the Synod of Fife. The excommunication 
 of Melville was referred to the Presbytery of St Andrews. 
 Thus peace was patched up by James's kingcraft ; but it is 
 evident there must have been secret grumbling, and neither 
 party could feel satisfied with the compromise. The king- 
 took an active part in all the deliberations of the Assembly, 
 sometimes being present himself, and sometimes by his 
 Commissioner, and expressing either his approbation or dis- 
 approbation of its various acts.t 
 
 Towards the end of the year, it became known in Scotland 
 that Elizabeth had determined to bring Mary to the block. 
 James was not a man to act with the spirit which the emer- 
 gency required ; but he instantly despatched an embassage 
 to London, and requested the ministers in the meantime to 
 remember his mother in their prayers, asking "that it might 
 please God to illuminate her with the light of His truth, and 
 save her from the apparent danger wherein she was cast." 
 The ministers of Edinburgh refused, pleading that to pray 
 for her preservation would imply a belief in her innocence, 
 and a condemnation of the conduct of Elizabeth. In these 
 circumstances his Majesty appointed Adamson to ofiBciate 
 in the High Church, that in his own presence public prayers 
 might be offered up for his mother — a pious wish which we 
 cannot but applaud. On entering the Church, however, he 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, May 1586. 
 t Ibid. Calderwood. 
 
^72 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 found that Cowper,* tlie ordinary minister, had already taken 
 possession of the pulpit. James rose in his seat, and ad- 
 dressed the minister. " Mr John," said he, " that place was 
 destined to-day for another ; but if you will remember the 
 charge that has been given, and remember my mother in your 
 prayers this day, you may go on." Cowper answered that he 
 would do just as the Spirit of God directed him —an answer 
 very significant of the times, The king commanded him to 
 come down. He looked as if he would resist, 'and the cap- 
 tain of the guard stepped forward to enforce the royal man- 
 date. He descended the pulpit-stairs, muttering that that 
 day would rise up in witness against the king on the great 
 day of the Lord. 
 
 A scene of wild confusion ensued ; the people shouted ; 
 many of them followed the outed minister to the door ; and 
 the king exclaimed, " What devil ails the people, that they 
 will not stay and hear a man preach ?"t When order was 
 restored, Adamson went to the pulpit, and preached on the 
 duty of praying for all men. He was confessed on all hands 
 to be an eloquent man. On this occasion he had a subject 
 of thrilling interest, for the jeopardy of the unfortunate 
 queen would give a pathos to his arguments ; and Spottis- 
 wood records the powerful impression he produced. But 
 neither embassage nor prayers prevailed. On the 8th of 
 February 1587, Mary was executed at Fotheringay ; " and 
 so," says Calderwood, " the controversy about the form of 
 praying for her ceased." It had been much better it had 
 never arisen. We cannot sympathize with- these recusants, 
 and will not defend them. But let us not marvel. In the 
 history of every church, as of every commonwealth, there 
 must be both blunders and crimes. Does Presbytery claim 
 for herself the infallibility which she denies to the Papacy ? 
 In the month of June the General Assembly 
 met. The king wished the Assembly to absolve 
 Montgomery, the Archbishop of Glasgow, and to censure 
 
 * Eow and Calderwood say he was the minister of the chnrch. Spottiswood 
 says he had not yet been received into the ministry at all. 
 
 t Kow's History, pp. 115, 116. Row says he was present and witnessed the 
 scene. "Spottiswood and Calderwood likewise give a description of it. 
 
A.D. 1587 ] ACT OF ANNEXATION. 473 
 
 Gribson and Cowper for their insolence in the pulpit. The 
 Assembly offered to relax the sternness of their discipline 
 toward the archbishop, if the king would relax in the seve- 
 rity of his demands in regard to the preachers ; but James 
 would not listen to this species of barter in ecclesiastical 
 discipline, and so the affair was dropped.* In the following 
 month the Three Estates assembled. At their first sitting, 
 commissioners from the Church appeared, and demanded 
 that the prelates who were present should be removed, as 
 they had no authority to sit as its representatives in the 
 meeting of the Estates. The Abbot of Kinloss defended 
 the right of the prelates, and bitterly remarked that the 
 ministers, having thrust them out of the Church, now 
 wished to thrust them out of the State too.f They were 
 allowed to remain, but it was only to see themselves stripped 
 of their ancient splendour and power. An act was passed, 
 annexing the temporalities of all the bishoprics to the 
 Crown.J 
 
 Various causes concurred to the passing of this act — a 
 fatal one to Episcopacy in Scotland. The royal revenues 
 were very scanty, and James was persuaded that in this way 
 they might be largely augmented without having recourse to 
 taxation, to which his wild subjects were not yet sufficiently 
 tamed to submit. The incumbents were made to believe 
 that their Episcopal palaces, and the tithes annexed to their 
 respective Sees, would support them in aiHuence ; and it is 
 probable that these amounted to more than the revenues 
 which they actually enjoyed. The ministers had always 
 resisted the secularization of ecclesiastical property; but 
 they hated the bishops more than they loved their benefices, 
 and they let the one go in order that the other might go 
 with them. Every acre of the Church's patrimony had now 
 passed into other hands, and the Church herself hencefor- 
 ward became a pensioner of the State, receiving a small dole 
 out of what was once all her own. The Crown was very 
 little enriched by the act of annexation. James's easy dis- 
 position led him to give away to others what he could not 
 
 * Calderwood's History, 1587. t Ibid. 
 
 I Acts of the Scotch Parliament, James YI. 
 
^ '^ CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 at once enjoy himself. His courtiers grew great upon the 
 spoils of the bishops ; and he had nothing left to himself but 
 regret at his double folly, in first plundering the Church and 
 then squandering the booty. 
 
 The year 1588 was one of intense excitement to all 
 Christendom, and Scotland felt the pulsations of the com- 
 mon heart. The mighty armada, which was to hurl Eliza- 
 beth from her throne, had put to sea. The Papists believed 
 that the time of their restoration was come. The Popish 
 nobles in England and Scotland were plotting to join their 
 arms to those of the Spaniard. Jesuit priests, already 
 known and dreaded all over the world for their craft, their 
 disregard of all principle, and their undying devotion to 
 Rome, were gliding about the country. The alarm was 
 universal. James, after a period of hesitation, acted with 
 vigour. The Protestant lords assembled their vassals ; the 
 parliament passed stringent laws against Papal emissaries ; 
 a solemn bond of allegiance and mutual defence was widely 
 signed ; the country was preserved in quietness ; and soon 
 the joyful tidings flew from place to place that the invincible 
 fleet had been smitten by the skill of the English admirals, 
 and afterwards scattered by the providence of the Almighty 
 Grod, who rides upon the whirlwind, and rules the raging of 
 the sea. Still the panic did not altogether subside ; for it 
 was known that several of the most potent earls in the 
 kingdom were ready for revolt. They actually took arms ; 
 but James placed himself at the head of his troops, and soon 
 compelled them to submit. 
 
 The young monarch was now bent upon matrimony. He 
 had despatched ambassadors to Denmark to affiance for him 
 the daughter of its king, and he impatiently awaited the 
 coming of his bride ; but contrary winds prevented her set- 
 ting sail, and James, at last losing all patience, gallantly 
 proceeded in quest of her. He found her at XJpsal, and was 
 united to her in wedlock by his own chaplain, David Lindsay 
 — the only Scotch Presbyterian minister who ever united a 
 royal pair. After a merry winter spent at the Danish court, 
 James brought home his bride, and was now as full of joy- 
 fulness and good-nature as a bridegroom should be. Pro- 
 
A.D. lo'ju.] THE king's mareiage. 475 
 
 ceeding to cliurcli, he caused public thanks be given to God 
 for his safe and happy return. Wishing to lose no time in 
 haying the queen solemnly crowned, he chose Eobert Bruce, 
 one of the ministers of Edinburgh, to perform the ceremony ; 
 but some of his brethren had well-nigh marred the matter, 
 by objecting to the anointing with oil, as a Jewish and 
 antichristian custom. James, however, was imperative ; 
 and throwing out a hint that, if they did not choose to do 
 as he wished, the bishops would, he silenced, if he did not 
 remove, their scruples.* Upon a Sabbath in May 1590, the 
 imposing ceremony took place in the Chapel of Holyrood- 
 house ; and Melville, assuming the laureate, read on the 
 occasion his noble poem, the " Stephaniskion." 
 
 During the king's absence in Denmark, the country had 
 been remarkably quiet. This was partly to be ascribed to 
 the eiforts of the clergy ; and James was sensible of this. 
 He had made Eobert Bruce, one of the ministers of Edin- 
 burgh, a member of the council appointed to govern the 
 kingdom during his absence ; he kept up a- constant corres- 
 pondence with him, called him good Mr Eobert, joked with 
 him about his new rib, and declared he was worth the quarter 
 of his kingdom. On the Sabbath following that of the 
 queen's coronation, he proceeded to the High Church, to 
 render public thanks for his return to his kingdom in pos- 
 session of a wife. When the sermon was done, the minister 
 called upon the king to confirm the promises he had made 
 to the Church. James stood up in his seat in the loft, and 
 made a harangue. He said he had come to church to thank 
 God for his prosperous return, the people for the good order 
 they had maintained, and the ministers for having stirred 
 them up to fast and pray for his safety. He promised to 
 prove a loving, faithful, and thankful king ; to amend his 
 former negligence ; to see justice done without fear or 
 favour; and make better provision for the Church. He 
 confessed that he had in the past done some things which 
 had better been undone ; but now that he was married, and 
 had seen more of the world, he would be more staid, and 
 meant immediately to address himself to business. f 
 
 * Calderwood's Hist., vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi. t Caldenvood'sHist., vol. v. 
 
476 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xii. 
 
 Upon the 4th of August, the General Assembly convened 
 in Edinburgh, and Andrew Melville preached the opening 
 discourse. It gives us a good idea of the man, and of the 
 fiery eloquence of the time. " Are we," cried the preacher, 
 warming on his subject, " the true Kirk ? Are we the law- 
 ful ministry ? Have we the authority and power of Christ's 
 sceptre ? Have we that fire that devoureth the adversary ? 
 that hammer that breaketh the rocks ? Have we that sharp 
 two-edged sword ? or is it sharp only against the poor and 
 meaner sort, and not potent in God for overthrowing of 
 holds, for working vengeance upon whole nations, chastis- 
 ing of people, binding of kings in chains, and the most 
 honourable princes in fetters of iron ? Is there exception 
 of persons or sins before the judgment-seat of Christ? or 
 shall His sword and censure strike upon the poor adulterer 
 and obstinate fornicator, and lie in the scabbard rusting 
 when it should strike upon the sacrilegious ? Nay, nay, 
 my dear brethren. First, I would have the king's Majesty 
 should be travelled with for his favour and concurrence, 
 who is nearly as much hurt in this matter as the Kirk is. 
 We have his will, we have his promise, — manifold reasons 
 and examples to lay before him. We and the greatest part 
 of our flocks have been, are, and must be, his best subjects, 
 his strength, his honour. A good minister (I speak not 
 arrogantly, but according to the truth) may do him more 
 good service in an hour than many of the sacrilegious cour- 
 tiers in a year."* 
 
 James was present at the eighth session of the Assembly 
 thus begun. The Moderator propounded to him all that the 
 Church desired. James made a speech, for to make a speech 
 was his delight. He promised much ; and in the end, we 
 are told, " he fell forth praising God that he was born in 
 such a time as the time of the light of the gospel — to such 
 a place as to be king in such a Kirk, the sincerest Kirk in 
 the world." " The Kirk of Geneva," he continued, " keepeth 
 Pasche and Yule : what have they for them ? they have no 
 institution. As for our neighbour Kirk in England, it is an 
 evil said mass in English, wanting nothing but the liftings. 
 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. t. 
 
A.D, 1590.] THE king's SPEECH. 477 
 
 I charge you, my good people, ministers, doctors, elders, 
 nobles, gentlemen, and barons, to stand to your purity, and 
 to exbort the people to do the same ; and I, forsooth, so long- 
 as I brook my life and crown, shall maintain the same 
 against all deadly."* When this royal oration was con- 
 cluded, we are told, " the Assembly so rejoiced that there 
 was nothing but loud praising of God, and praying for the 
 king for a quarter of an hour." If the Assembly had kno-wni 
 the whole future, it would have mingled trembling with its 
 mirth. Perhaps the king was honest when he spoke ; but 
 we know that if he was, he soon changed his mind, and 
 learned to speak very differently of a Church which had 
 jeoparded all to raise him to the throne, and keep him there. 
 He was fond of displaying his oratory, and, when speaking 
 before the Assembly, he must say something that was 
 pleasing : perhaps this was the meaning of it all. 
 
 In 1591 the troubled life of Archbishop Adamson came 
 to a close. He had been again excommunicated for marry- 
 ing, at the request of the king, the Popish Earl of Huntly to 
 a sister of the Duke of Lennox ; for the presbyters of those 
 days held that a pestilent Papist had no right to enjoy the 
 pleasures of wedlock. He had, moreover, lived beyond his 
 means, and being unable to pay some stipends which were 
 payable out of his Episcopal revenues, he was not only cen- 
 sured by the courts of the Church, but put to the horn by 
 his creditors. He is said to have been fond of magnificent 
 living ; but it is probable his Episcopal revenues, eaten up 
 by his patron, were never able to support liis Episcopal state ; 
 and the king ungenerously made matters worse in his old 
 age, by bestowing the bishopric upon the young Duke of 
 Lennox. Adamson came to absolute want, and was glad to 
 beg a bit of bread from his enemies. A recantation of his 
 opinions in regard to Episcopacy was paraded in the Assem- 
 bly ; but Bpottiswood throws doubt upon its genuineness, 
 and, at any rate, few will now be inclined to put much stress 
 upon it. There is pathos, and perhaps truth too, in the fol- 
 lowing story given by Row : — " ' I gloried over much in 
 three tilings,' said the dying man, ' and God has now justly 
 * Calclerwood's History, vol. v. 
 
478 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XII. 
 
 punished me in them all. I gloried in my riches and great 
 living, and now I am so poor that I have no means to enter- 
 tain myself ; I gloried in my eloquence, and now few can 
 understand what I say ; I gloried in the favour of my prince, 
 and now he loves any of the dogs of his kennel better than 
 me.'"* 
 
 In the year in which Adamson died, there was an unseemly 
 schism in the Presbytery of St Andrews, in regard to the 
 choice of a minister for Leuchars. Thomas Buchanan fa- 
 voured one candidate, Andrew Melville another. Buchanan 
 had a large majority on his side ; but Melville declared his 
 favourite was incomparably the best, and that votes should 
 be weighed, and not counted. Buchanan and his party ap- 
 pointed the object of their choice to the vacant parish ; Mel- 
 ville and his followers retired to a separate apartment, con- 
 stituted a separate presbytery, and ordained the man upon 
 whom their suffrages had fallen to the same spiritual charge. 
 It was with difficulty that an ecclesiastical commission 
 hushed up the matter, by removing both of the original 
 claimants, and instituting a third.f 
 
 As the volatile James was at present in great good humour 
 with the Church, it was resolved to take advantage of his 
 favourable disposition. On the 22d of May 1592, the Gene- 
 ral Assembly was convened at Edinburgh. Immediately 
 after the elevation of Bruce, the king's favourite, to the Mo- 
 derator's chair, it was resolved that suit should be made to 
 his Majesty for the following articles : — 1. That the acts of 
 parliament made in 1584 against the discipline, liberty, and 
 authority of the Kirk should be annulled, and its discipline, 
 as then practised, sanctioned by law. 2. That the act of 
 annexation should be abolished, and the patrimony of the 
 Church restored. 3. That abbots, priors, and other prelates 
 should not be allowed to sit in parliament as the representa- 
 tives of the Spiritual Estate. 4. That the country should be 
 purged of idolatry. 
 
 The parliament assembled in June. The petition of the 
 Church was taken into consideration, and an act passed 
 
 ''■ Row's History, p. 131, Wodrow Edition. 
 
 t Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v. 
 
A.D. 1592.J PRESBYTERY RESTORED. 479 
 
 ratifying the liberty of the Church, giving a legal jurisdic- 
 tion to its courts, declaring that the acts of 1584 were abro- 
 gated, in so far as they impinged upon ecclesiastical autho- 
 rity in matters of religion, heresy, excommunication, or 
 collation, and providing that presentations should hencefor- 
 ward be directed, not to the bishops, but to the presbyteries 
 within whose bounds the vacant benefices lay. This im- 
 portant act was tantamount to the entire subversion of the 
 Episcopal polity, and the re-establishment of the National 
 Church upon a Presbyterian basis. It is frequently spoken 
 of as the Magna Charta of the Church. It legalized the 
 most important parts of the " Second Book of Discipline." 
 For nearly twenty years Episcopacy and Presbytery had 
 been jumbled together ; but they were found to be irrecon- 
 cilable. For nearly twenty years the presbyter had done 
 battle with the bishop, and at this period in the contest 
 he stood victorious. 
 
"^^^ CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII. 
 
 Before allowing ourselves to be carried farther down in 
 our history by the fast-flowing current of events, we must 
 pause and discover what we can of the institutions, customs, 
 and condition of the Church at the period to which our narra- 
 tive relates. The traveller who would thoroughly explore a 
 river, from its source among the mountains to its outlet in the 
 sea, must not suffer his bark to glide unceasingly down the 
 stream ; he must occasionally moor it to the bank, that he 
 may examine the channel over which the current flows, and 
 the character of the vegetation which grows upon its brink. 
 As time and space condition all things, the manners and 
 ideas of a people condition their history. 
 
 A great change has occurred in the country since we last 
 attempted to sketch its moral and religious features. The 
 Papal Church was then supreme ; it stood like an ancient 
 oak, casting its umbrageous branches over all the land ; now 
 the axe has been laid to its root, and a vigorous shoot spring- 
 ing from its stock bids fair to emulate the magnitude of the 
 former trunk without its rottenness. The nation was then 
 just waking into life ; now it was almost dizzy with the 
 excitement of new ideas continually flashing upon the mind, 
 and with deep draughts from the cup of liberty. "When the 
 Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them 
 that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and 
 our tongue with singing." 
 
 The General Assembly was the most remarkable growth 
 of the Eoformation. It spontaneously sprung into exist- 
 
CHAP. XIIl.] POWER OF THE ASSEMBLY. 481 
 
 ence fully accoutred for its work. Strong from the very- 
 first, it was a Hercules in its cradle, far more powerful in 
 its infancy than it is in its old age. The very year of the 
 Reformation the Assemhly met, and at once proceeded to 
 lousiness, as if it had already inherited the land. It early 
 assumed a lofty bearing ; it remonstrated with regents ; it 
 defied parliaments ; it bearded kings ; it claimed a jurisdic- 
 tion independent of all civil control. Nor was it mere 
 assumption ; its strength warranted its ambition. It is not 
 too much to say that for many years the General Assembly 
 was a more influential body than the parliament. What, 
 then, was the secret of its strength ? Where did it lie ? 
 The question admits of an easy solution. 
 
 The General Assembly was built upon a broad basis. 
 Had it been a mere convention of ecclesiastics, it would 
 have had the weakness which such conventions have always 
 exhibited, especially in Protestant countries. But from the 
 very first the Church of Scotland laid aside the notion of 
 priestly exclusiveness. The laity were largely admitted 
 into all its courts, just because it did not recognise the dis- 
 tinction between the laity and clergy.* It never knew a 
 sacerdotal caste. Every man in the nation, professing the 
 Reformed faith, who held a high office or influential posi- 
 tion, was invited to attend. The regents, the king, the 
 members of the Privy Council, the higher nobility, the 
 barons, had a seat and a vote when they chose to exercise 
 them. The qualification of being an elder was not insisted 
 on.f In the first General Assembly there were but forty- 
 one members, and only six of these were ministers. In the 
 sederunt of every Assembly, the miscellaneous character of 
 its members is indicated. The sederunt of August 1572 
 runs thus : — " There were present the earls, lords, superin- 
 tendents, barons, commissioners to plant kirks, commis- 
 sioners of provinces, universities, and ministers."J Before 
 
 * This idea is well developed in the Duke of Argyle's admirable Essay on 
 the Ecclesiastical History of Scotland. 
 
 t The regulations of July 1568, in regard to those who should vote in the 
 Assembly, do not seem to have been applied to the nobiUty. 
 
 ^ Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 132, Peterldn's Edition. In the sederunt 
 of the Assembly of December 1563, we have the names of the leading nobles 
 VOL. 1. 2 H 
 
482 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XIII. 
 
 the Assembly of August 1573, bishops had been introduced 
 into the Church, and accordingly the sederunt then stands: 
 —r" There were present the earls, lords, barons, bishops, 
 superintendents, commissioners to plant kirks, commissioners 
 of provinces, towns, and kirks, with the ministers." In this 
 Assembly we find the somewhat curious resolution agreed 
 upon in the first session ; — " Because it is understood that 
 certain of the nobility of this realm and Secret Council are 
 to repair to this Assembly ; therefore the whole brethren 
 ordain, that the whole nobility and council, with commis- 
 sioners of provinces, towns, and kirks, having power to vote, 
 shall sit within the bar of the said over-Tolbooth, and all 
 others Vithoirt the same."* Thus by a council of the Church 
 were its own ministers thrust without the bar, to give ample 
 room enough to their lay coadjutors. 
 
 But there is nothing brings out the ideas of the Church 
 in regard to who should be the constituent members of its 
 highest court so well as a letter which the Assembly of 
 March 1574 directed to the Regent Morton. "It is known 
 unto your Grace," says the Assembly, " that since the time 
 God blessed this country with the light of His evangel, the 
 whole Church most gladly appointed, and the same by act 
 of parliament was authorized, that two godly Assemblies of 
 the whole general Church of this realm should be every 
 year, as well of all members thereof in all estates as of the 
 ministers ; the which Assemblies have been since the first 
 ordinance continually kept in such sort that the most noble 
 thereof, the highest estate, have joined themselves by their 
 own person in the Assemblies, concurring, voting, and 
 authorizing all things there proceeding with their brethren. 
 And now at the present the Church is assembled according 
 to the godly ordinance, and looks to have concurrence of 
 
 given. There were — the Duke of Chastelherault, the Earl of Argyle, the 
 Earl of Moray, the Earl of Morton, the Earl of Marischal, the Earl of Glenoairn, 
 Maitland of Lethington, the Secretary of State, Sir John Wishart of Pittarrow, 
 the Comptroller, Sir John Ballantine of Auchnool, the Justice-Clerk, the Lords 
 of Secret Council, superintendents, ministers, and commissioners of kirks and 
 provinces. These were the leading men of the kingdom. Anything they 
 agreed upon would have as much the force of law as an act of parliament. 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 137. 
 
CHAP, xin.] SECRET OF ITS STEENGTH. 483 
 
 their brethren in all estates, and wishes of God that your 
 Grace and Lords of Privy Council will authorize the Church 
 in the present Assembly, by your presence, or by others 
 having your commission, in your Grace and Lordship's 
 name, as members of the Church of God ; for as your Grace's 
 presence and the nobility's should be to us most comfort- 
 able, and so most earnestly wished of all, so your Grace's 
 absence is most dolorous and lamentable, whereof follows 
 the want of a great part of the members that cannot well be 
 absent from the treating of those things that pertain to the 
 Church and the policy thereof, in Assembly altogether, to 
 be handled by the advice of all, and to the which end 
 Assemblies are appointed, the authority thereof your Grace 
 knows to be such as the contempt of it tends to the dis- 
 honour of God ; and therefore, as you esteem yourselves to 
 be members of Christ, and of His Church, show the fruits 
 thereof; of the which it is not the least to join yourselves 
 to the Kirk, not only by hearing the Word and receiving the 
 sacraments, but also in convening with your brethren in the 
 holy Assemblies ; the which to do, we give you admonition 
 in the name of the Lord, extending this admonition to every 
 person of whatever estate that is present loith your Gh'ace" * 
 
 The General Assembly was essentially a representative 
 body, and possessed the strength which every such body 
 necessarily has. The Scotch parliament was a very imper- 
 fect representative of the Scotch people. But the Assembly 
 contained the representatives of every class. The nobles were 
 there in considerable numbers, and beside them sat the re- 
 presentatives of provinces, of towns, of universities, of con- 
 gregations. We may safely regard the voice of the Assembly 
 as the voice of the people. The Church of Scotland was a 
 spiritual "republic, and the General Assembly its supreme 
 court. Another source of the Assembly's power lay in the 
 frequency of its meetings. Twice every year it was sum- 
 moned together, sometimes more frequently.f If any emer- 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 139-40. 
 
 t King James early saw this, and attempted to restrain this frequency of 
 meeting. He would allow only one meeting in the year, and was even anxious 
 to manage that no meeting should bo held without his sanction. 
 
 2 H 2 
 
484 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xin. 
 
 gency arose, the members came hurrying together from every 
 part of the country, to deliberate and act as the occasion 
 required. If a parliament was convoked, the Assembly met 
 a few days before it, to make up a catalogue of its grieyances 
 and requests to be laid before the Estates.* Under the 
 guidance of able and energetic men — Knox, Erskine, David- 
 son, and Melville — its proceedings were always marked with 
 uncommon vigour, and necessarily commanded respect. Per- 
 haps yet another source of strength may be mentioned : the 
 Presbyterian Court inherited some of the superstitious respect 
 which was anciently paid to the coimcils of the Papal Church, 
 and its sentences of excommunication were regarded with 
 as much awe as the anathemas of Rome. 
 
 We have no record of the Assembly debates, but we know 
 that the ministers from the pulpit were in the habit of de- 
 claiming upon the topics which had been first discussed upon 
 the Assembly floor. In this way the sympathies of the people 
 were enlisted, and subjects, which otherwise would scarcely 
 have been known beyond the walls of the Assembly-house, 
 were proclaimed through the length and breadth of the 
 land. The pulpit supplied the people periodically with the 
 news of the churches. And shall we doubt that man and 
 woman received the truth in much docility from the mouth 
 \ of their minister ? On some occasions they were asked to 
 I testify their approval by holding up their hands. f In this 
 \ also we have a source of the Church's power.J 
 
 After thirty years of experiment and change, the minister 
 
 I alone remained as the recognised religious teacher of the 
 
 I people. The superintendents and commissioners were fast 
 
 dying out, and were not to have successors. The readers 
 
 and exhorters still continued in many parts of the country, 
 
 and we find them frequently rebuked for assuming to them- 
 
 * For instances of this see Book of Universal Kirk, pp. 145-155. 
 
 t Scott's Apologetic Narration, p. 66, VPodrow Ed. 
 
 I Before leaving the Assemhlies it may be stated, that the Moderators 
 at this period were generally chosen from a leet by the vote of the house ; 
 and that the first instance of an advocate appearing at the bar of the 
 Assembly was to plead the case of the Bishop of Dunkeld, who had dila- 
 pidated his benefice. The Assembly refused to hear him. This was in 
 1575. 
 
CHAP, xni.] CLERICAL GARMENTS. 485 
 
 selves the administration of the sacraments ;* but in 1580 
 the Assembly declared them to be no ordinary office in the 
 Church, and they gradually sunk into the subordinate posi- 
 tion of clerks or precentors, t The bishop had fiercely 
 struggled with the presbyter for pre-eminence, and was des- 
 tined to struggle again, but in 1592 the presbyter kept the 
 field. There is a singular notice in the records of the As- 
 sembly of April 1576, which, while it shows the anxiety of 
 the Church to maintain the respectability of its ministers, 
 throws a shade of suspicion as to the vocation of some of the 
 ministers themselves. It is as follows : — " Any minister or 
 reader that taps ale, beer, or wine, and keeps an open tavern, 
 should be exhorted by the commissioners to keep decorum. "| 
 At this period the English Church was agitated in regard 
 to ecclesiastical vestments. The Scotch Church sympathized 
 with the Puritans, and directed a letter to the AngHcan 
 bishops, in reprobation of tippets and cornet caps ;§ but no 
 such controversy appears ever to have been agitated in 
 Scotland itself. Every surplice and every stole seems to 
 have been burned up in the Reformation bonfires. But the 
 Assembly thought it right to prescribe the everyday gar- 
 ments of the ministers and their wives, and we have a 
 curious minute upon the subject : " Forasmuch," it is said, 
 as a comely and decent apparel is requisite in all, especially 
 in the ministers and such as bear function in the Church ; 
 first, we think all kind of broidering unseemly, all bagaries 
 of velvet on gowns, hose, or coats, and all superfluous and 
 vain cutting out, steiking with silks ; all kinds of costly sew- 
 ing or variant hues in sarks, and kind of light and variant 
 hues in clothing, as red, blue, yellow, and such like, which 
 declare the lightness of the mind ; aU wearing of rings, 
 bracelets, buttons of silver, gold, or other metal ; all kind of 
 superfluity of cloth in making of hose ; all using of plaids in 
 the church by readers or ministers, in time of their ministry 
 and using their office ; all kinds of gowning, coating, doub- 
 letting, or breeches of velvet, satin, tafifety, or such like ; all 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 191. 
 
 t rbid., pp. 158, 196. See also Second Book of Discipline. 
 
 X Ibid., p. 160. § IMd., pp. 49, 50. 
 
486 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiii. 
 
 costly gilding of whingers or knives, or such like ; all silken 
 hats, and hats of diverse and light colours ; but that their 
 whole habit shall be of grave colour, as black, russet, sad 
 gray, sad brown, or serges, worsted, camblet, groivgrame, lytes, 
 ivorsitt, or such like ; and, to be short, that the good Word 
 of God by them and their immoderateness be not slandered ; 
 and their wives to be subject to the same order."* 
 
 Thirty-six years after the Reformation there were still 
 upwards of four hundred churches unsupplied mth Protes- 
 tant preachers, t Ministers had multiplied fast, but not so 
 fast as to have filled more than one-half of the pulpits even 
 after this lengthened period. "We need not marvel at this, 
 for the body of learned men from whom alone the clergy 
 could be chosen must have still been extremely small, and 
 the stipends allowed by the State, instead of tempting men 
 to propose themselves for the work, were so scanty and so 
 ill paid as to have led many to abandon it.J The Eomish 
 clergy had been forced into an outward compliance, at least, 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly 1575, p. 149. 
 
 t Book of the UniTersal Kirk, Assembly 1596, p. 437. See also Calder- 
 wood. " There are in Scotland 900 kirks, of the quhilk there are 400 OTthout 
 ministers or readers." (Diary of Robert Birrel.) Tbe number of ministers 
 and readers appears to have decreased. From the Eegister of Ministers and 
 their Stipends in 1667, it would appear there were then about 1080 churches, 
 under the charge of 257 ministers, 151 exhorters, and 455 readers. Moreover, 
 the places of 12 ministers and 53 readers are marked vacant, making in all 
 928 persons, besides the five superintendents. According to the Begister of 
 1574, there were about 988 churches, supplied by 289 ministers and 715 
 readers, with the places of 20 ministers and 97 readers vacant ; making in all 
 1121 persons. The difference in the proportion of ministers and readers in 
 the two Eegisters arose from the Eegent Morton placing 3 or 4 churches 
 under the care of one minister, assisted by readers. In this way the difference 
 between a minister's stipend, about 200 merks, and a reader's stipend, about 
 20 merks, was saved by the parsimonious regent. (See the Analysis of the 
 Ancient Eegisters of Ministers by Mr Laing, the editor of the Wodrow Miscel- 
 Ifiny, vol. i. pp. 325-27.) 
 
 X Several Acts of Assembly were made to prevent ministers abandoning 
 their office. (Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 125, 126.) Melville, in his Diary, 
 speaks of some ballads that had been made against those who had deserted 
 their vocation, or, as it is expressed, put their hand to the plough, and drawn 
 
 back : — 
 
 " Who so do put hand to the pleuche, 
 And therfiu backward goes; 
 The Scripture maks it plean aneuch — 
 My kingdom is nocht for those," &c. 
 
 Biarj/, p. 15, Ban. Ed. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] BOOK OF COMMON PEAYEE. 487 
 
 with the Protestant faith and worship, and one would have 
 imagined that the ministry might have been largely recruited 
 from their ranks. But they seem to have exhibited a general 
 indisposition to undertake the duty of preachers. The Ge- 
 neral Assembly more than once complained that they ate up 
 two-thirds of the benefice, and did none of the work, and 
 was evidently inclined to compel them to exercise their 
 spiritual functions according to the Protestant forms.* 
 
 The " Book of Common Prayer " was still used in the 
 service of the Church, and sometimes as a help to private 
 devotion. John Knox had portions of it read to him while 
 he lay upon his death-bed. f In December 1564, the Assem- 
 bly ordered all ministers and readers to provide themselves 
 with a copy of the Psalm-Book, with the Order of Geneva 
 attached (which had just then issued from the press), to 
 assist them in the celebration of the sacraments; J and in 
 October 1579, the parliament ordained that every gentleman 
 worth three hundred merks yearly, and every substantial 
 seaman and burgess worth fifty pounds in goods or land, 
 should possess himself with a Bible and Psalm-Book, for 
 the better instruction of himself and his family.§ The 
 early Church appears to have been disposed to prescribe a 
 method of preaching as well as of prayer. In 1581 the 
 Assembly gave a commission to Mr Thomas Smeton to pre- 
 pare such a form ; || but even ten years before this there is 
 a reference in the records of the Privy Council to a "book 
 called the Homilies for Headers in Kirks." Tf Such helps 
 
 * Book of. the Universal Kirk, p. 86. " Tlie haill brethren conveint and 
 aasembled thooht meit that ane supplication he presentit to the supreame ma- 
 gistrate anent sic persons as lies receavit ther benefices in papistrie, payand 
 now allanarlie their thirds, thinkand themselves therethrough dischargit of 
 all further cure in the Kirk ; reqnireing at his Grace what order shall be tane 
 anent sic persones." (Assembly, February 1569. Ibid. p. 107.) The As- 
 sembly of 1573 was still more explicit : " Seeing the most part of the persons 
 who were canons, monks, or friars within this realm, have made profession of 
 the true religion, it is therefore thought meet that it be enjoined to them to 
 pass and serve as readers at the places where they shall be appointed." 
 (Calderwood's History, vol. iii. p. 297, "Wodrow Edition.) 
 
 t M'Crie's Life of Knox. J Keith's History. Calderwood's History. 
 
 ^ James VI., pari. vi. chap. Ixxii. || Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 219, 
 
 If Quoted in Appendix to Dr ll-Crie's Life of Melville. 
 
■^88 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XIII. 
 
 were at first imperatively required. The Church-services, 
 m the majority of cases, could not have been conducted 
 without them. 
 
 In the "Diary" of Melville and the "History" of Buchanan, 
 we get a glimpse of a devout household at their devotions 
 in the age which immediately followed the Eeformation. 
 It was the custom, after both dinner and supper, to offer up 
 a prayer, to read a chapter, to make comments upon it, and 
 to conclude by singing a psalm. This was the usage in the 
 house of the Eegent Moray;* it was the usage of John 
 Knox while he lived at St Andrews ;t it was the usage 
 of John Durie, one of the ministers of Edinburgh. The 
 Assembly attempted to force it upon James YI., but he 
 rebelled-! "In time of meals," says James Melville, who 
 was frequently an inmate of Durie's family, and married his 
 daughter, " was reasoning upon good purposes, namely, mat- 
 ters on hand ; thereafter, earnest and long prayer ; there- 
 after, a chapter read, and every man about gave his note and 
 observation upon it ; . . . thereafter was sung a psalm ; 
 after which was conference and deliberation upon the pur- 
 poses in hand ; and at night, before going to bed, earnest and 
 zealous prayer, according to the estate and success of mat- 
 ters. "§ Traces of this ancient practice have lingered in 
 some ministers' families to the present day. 
 
 The personal piety of the times appears to have been deep 
 and sincere, but somewhat tinctured with fanaticism and 
 superstition. Some of the more eminent ministers were in 
 the habit of spending seven or eight hours together in 
 prayer ; and the power of working miracles and uttering 
 prophecies was claimed by themselves, and joyfully con- 
 ceded by the people. In their higher ecstasies, they some- 
 times enjoyed visions of angels ; and in their more depressed 
 states of mind, the devil appeared to them under some 
 fantastic shape, and either engaged them in combat, or 
 
 ■■'■" Buchanan's History, book xix. 
 t James MeMUe's Diary, p. 21, Ban. Ed. 
 
 I Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly 1596, p. 433. See also Calder- 
 wood's History, vol. v. p. 140. 
 § Melville's Diary, pp. 60-1. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] FASTS. 489 
 
 tempted them to sin.* Such superstitions, however, were 
 not confined to the Scotch ministers ; the most eminent 
 divines of Germany and England were vexed ahout the 
 same period by such apparitions. 
 
 When the Protestant Church abolished the Eoman festi- 
 vals, it substituted days of fasting. By the direction of the 
 Assembly, Knox drew up a treatise on Fasting, for the guid- 
 ance of ministers, which still remains, and throws much 
 light upon the early Church. "The abstinence," it says, 
 "is commanded to be from Saturday at eight of the clock 
 at night, till Sunday after the exercise at afternoon, that is, 
 after five of the clock ; and then only bread and drink to be 
 used, and that with great sobriety, — that the body craving 
 necessary food, the soul may be provoked earnestly to crave 
 of God that which it most needeth, that is, mercy for our 
 former unthankfulness, and the assistance of His Holy Spirit 
 in time to come. 
 
 " Men that will observe this exercise may not any of the 
 two days use any kind of games, but exercise themselves 
 after the public assemblies in private meditation with their 
 God. 
 
 " Gorgeous apparel would be abstained from during the 
 whole time of our humiliation, which is from one Sunday in 
 the morning till the next Sunday at night ; albeit that the 
 straitness of abstinence is to be kept but two days only. 
 
 " Because this exercise is extraordinary, the time thereof 
 would be somewhat longer than it is used to be in the ac- 
 customed assemblies. And yet we would not have it so 
 tedious that it should be noisome to the people. And there- 
 fore we think that three hours, and not less, before noon, 
 and two hours at afternoon, shall be sufficient for the whole 
 public exercise ; the rest to be spent in private meditation 
 by every family apart." 
 
 A fast so long continued and so severe, implying entire \ 
 abstinence from food for a part of two days, and a great | 
 abridgment of the ordinary diet for eight ; five or six hours / 
 spent in church on the Sundays, and two or three during / 
 
 « Proofs of this will be found in the writings of Knox, and in the Lives of 
 Welsh, Bruce, Livingstone, &c. 
 
490 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. xiil. 
 
 every day of the week, would ill sort with the notions of 
 modern times. But such fasts appear to have been religiously 
 kept during tlie enthusiasm of the Eeforming period. It is 
 very remarkable that all the lessons prescribed for the 
 Church-service on these occasions are taken from the Old 
 Testament, and not one from the New. It is characteristic 
 of the age, and of the temper of the men who lived in it. 
 Their religion, in some of its aspects, was more Jewish than 
 Christian. They might have known that far higher lessons 
 of wisdom and piety, lessons fitted for the fast as well as the 
 festival, were to be gathered from the history of the Divine 
 Jesus than from the chronicles of Jewish Judges. 
 
 To a sensitive mind, the discipline of the Presbyterian 
 Church must have been far more terrific than the most pain- 
 ful penances of the Church of Eome. Every crime required 
 to be confessed in the face of the congregation ; and the 
 penitent, when making his confession, required to be clothed 
 in sackcloth. In the case of all heinous crimes, such as 
 adultery or murder, the penitent required to stand three 
 several Sundays in a public place before the church-door, 
 " bare-footed and bare-headed, clothed in a base and abject 
 apparel" — the murderer holding in his hand "the same 
 weapon which he used in the murder, or the like, bloody in 
 his hand."* Thus stationed, he was required to confess his 
 sin and penitence to all who entered the church, and beg 
 their forgiveness. Nor, while thus seeking admission to 
 the body of the faithful, might he join in their prayers ; the 
 utmost that was allowed him was to listen from afar to the 
 sermon, in which, very probably, his crime was denounced. f 
 It was not unusual for the Church Courts to hand over de- 
 linquents to the magistrate, to have the punishment of the 
 sword superadded to that of the keys.J Felons sometimes 
 underwent the discipline of the Church, and were then exe- 
 cuted. In 1570, two men were convicted of an abominable 
 crime, and this was the manner of their punishment. First, 
 they were kept in prison for eight days, and fed upon bread 
 
 '■■" Order of Excommunication, p. 130. 
 
 t Ibid. Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 118, 119, 125, &c. 
 
 X Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 189. &c. 
 
CHAP. xni.J DISCIPLINE OF THE CHTJaCH. 491 
 
 and water ; ttey were then stationed at the market-place, 
 with the inscription of their fault written on their forehead ; 
 after that they were placed in the church, to repent hefore 
 the people on three several Sundays ; they were next ducked 
 in a deep loch over the head three several times ; and, last 
 of all, they were bound to a stake, and burned to ashes.* 
 
 In some cases the discipline of the Church was extended 
 to matters which are now properly placed under the head of 
 political economy, and not of morals. Thus an elder of the 
 Church, named Gourlay, was compelled to make public re- 
 pentance for having exported some wheat. The regent 
 attempted to save him, stating that he had acted with his 
 license and authority, and that such economic arrangements 
 did not belong to the Church ; but it was in vain. On an- 
 other occasion a Senator of the College of Justice was de- 
 barred from the sacraments, for having remained in Edin- 
 burgh during the rebellion. f 
 
 The discipline of the Church was extended impartially to 
 all. Haughty lords and high-born ladies were compelled to 
 submit to it, and Acts of Assembly passed that none, what- 
 ever their rank, should be exempted from sackcloth.J Un- 
 happily, many of the earliest subjects of the Church's disci- 
 pline were its own ministers and readers. Within the first 
 ten years of its existence, the General Assembly, notwith- 
 standing the paucity of ministers, had rmder its notice seven 
 or eight clerical offenders, and one unhappy man — the 
 minister of Sprott— was hanged for the murder of his wife.§ 
 This may be accounted for, either by supposing that some 
 vicious men had got into office in the hurry of filling up 
 vacant parishes, or that the immorality of the ministers was 
 onlv a part of the general immorality of the times — hitherto 
 
 * Historie of King James Sext, p. 64, Ban. Ed. 
 
 t Calderwood's History, toI. iii. pp. 328, 343. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 139. Among tlie early subjects of the 
 Church's discipline, we find the Earl and Countess of Argyle, the Earl of 
 Arran (at that time the prime minister of the country) and his Countess, Lord 
 Angus, and others of the highest nobility. The Duke of Lennox and the Earl 
 of Montrose were threatened with excommunication for entertaining excom- 
 municated persons. Many others among the nobility were excommunicated 
 for Popery. 
 
 § Bannatyne's Memoriales, &c. 
 
492 CHURCH HISTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAl'. XIII. 
 
 tolerated in the bosom of the Church, but to be tolerated no 
 more. The most celebrated among these delinquents was 
 Paul Methven, one of the most popular of the Reforming- 
 preachers. He was caught in adultery. In the Eomish 
 Church his crime would have been winked at, but not in the 
 Protestant. He was deposed from the ministry, and excom- 
 municated. In piteous and abject terms he begged that he 
 might be restored, even though it should be " with the loss 
 of some member." Coming into the Assembly, " he pros- 
 trated himself on the floor with weeping and howling," and 
 the Assembly were moYcd to receive him again, but not till, 
 on two separate preaching-days, he presented himself at the 
 door of the Church of Edinburgh, bare-headed, bare-footed, 
 clothed in sackcloth, begging forgiveness : doing the same 
 in Jedburgh, repeating it at Dundee, in which places he 
 had previously ministered. It was agreed that after under- 
 going this painful penance, he should be invested with his 
 own apparel, and received into the Church, but still not 
 restored to the ministry till the ensuing Assembly. Poor, 
 sinning, penitent Paul underwent one-half of the punish- 
 ment ; but, overwhelmed wath shame, he could not endure 
 more, and fled to England.* 
 
 In the Assembly of October 1577 " compeared John An- 
 derson, in linen clothes, in presence of the whole Assembly, 
 and being prostrate upon his knees, confessed he had 
 oifended Eobert Boyd, a minister, in drawing of his blood, 
 whereof he repented with his heart, and asked God and His 
 Church for forgiveness, promising by the grace of G-od not 
 to fall into the like wickedness again."t Such a strange 
 apparition coming into the Assembly now would startle not 
 a little the reverend conclave. 
 
 The records of the Church Courts would lead us to believe 
 ' that the morals of the people were at this period exceedingly 
 i debased. We have constant references to all manner of 
 
 * Acts of the Assembly, 1564-6. Book of the Universal Kirk. Calder- 
 wood's History. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 169. In the Acts of Assembly we have 
 frequent references to attacks made upon the ministers in those troublous 
 times. See ibid., pp. 200, 356. 
 
CHAP, xin] STATE OF SOCIETY. 493 
 
 conceivable and inconceivable crimes, which the magistrates 
 are importuned to punish.* The poor are stigmatized as 
 having been especially degraded. " Universally throughout 
 the realm," says the Assembly record, "there is neither 
 religion nor discipline with the poor, but the most part live 
 in filthy adultery, incest, fornication ; their children are un- 
 baptized, and they themselves never resort to the church, 
 nor participate in the sacraments"t — a fearful picture ! but 
 it is probable that the zeal of these good men against sin 
 has given the picture a darker colouring than the reality. 
 Still the state of society must have been deplorably bad ; it 
 was an Augean stable the clergy had to cleanse. Much 
 poverty and much immorality generally go together. Eeduce 
 a man below a certain level, and he will soon lose all sense 
 of decency, and live like the brutes with whom he is in a 
 manner compelled to herd. The Scottish peasantry at this ; 
 time must have been miserably poor, and must have lived in ■' 
 a very miserable way. The whole land, we know, swarmed/ 
 with beggars ;J and gangs of bronze-coloured gipsies strolled 
 about the country, and are talked of as " defiling it with 
 their abominations. "§ 
 
 One of the reputed sins of this period was witchcraft. ' 
 Many persons, especially women, were supposed to have 
 renounced their baptism, and, by an obscene act of homage, 
 to have devoted themselves to the deviL|| They were said to 
 sail through the air, to assemble at midnight in churches, to 
 raise violent storms, to affect the subjects of their sorcery 
 vsdth slow, wasting diseases. The belief was universal ; and 
 it is perfectly certain that some wretched creatures really 
 fancied themselves in league with the wicked one, and 
 practised rites which they believed to have power with him. 
 While James was in Denmark, Satan was affirmed to have as- 
 sembled a number of his supposts, some of the masculine and 
 others of the feminine kind, in the Church of North Berwick, 
 in order to raise storms at sea to prevent the young queen 
 
 -«■ Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 29, 143, 332, &c. t Ibid., P- 333. 
 
 J Second Book of Discipline. Also acts of parliament passed at this 
 
 period. 
 
 g Row's History, p. 141. || DiBmonologie, by King James VI. 
 
494 CHuacH history of Scotland. [chap. xm. 
 
 from coming safely to Scotland.* Several of these were 
 afterwards seized and put to death. One of them was called 
 Agnes Sampson, generally known as the wise wife of Keith, 
 " a woman," says Spottiswood, " not of the base and ignorant 
 sort of witches, but matron-like, grave, and settled in her 
 answers." In her examination she declared " that she had 
 a familiar spirit, who, upon her call, did appear in a visible 
 form, and resolve her of any doubtful matter, especially con- 
 cerning the life or death of persons lying sick," and that her 
 words of conjuration were " hollo, master."! In other cases, 
 these dupes of their own diablerie placed an image in wax of 
 their unsuspecting victim before a slow fire, and the image 
 and the victim wasted away together. The Church shared 
 in the popular belief, and denounced witchcraft as a sin, the 
 parliament declared it to be a crime, and the king not only 
 busied himself to hunt out and burn the unhappy creatures, 
 but proved his orthodox zeal by writing a treatise on the 
 subject.! 
 
 For many years after the Reformation the Sabbath con- 
 tinued to be desecrated by markets, and all manner of work; 
 but the Church Courts laboured with a laudable earnestness 
 to effect a change. In the Assembly records we find fre- 
 quent complaints of salt-pans being at work, of mills being 
 at work, of the operations of husbandry going on, and 
 of fairs being held on the day of rest.§ Earnest efforts 
 were made to put a stop to such irregularities. The Pres- 
 bytery of Edinburgh proceeded still further. The Edinburgh 
 weekly market was held upon Monday, and the Presbytery 
 wished it abolished, on the ground that many who came to 
 it began their journey on the Sabbath. They failed in their 
 object, however. It was affirmed that the great majority of 
 those who frequented the market did not begin their journey 
 till the Monday morning, and that in regard to those who 
 came from a distance, it belonged to their own parish 
 
 * Historie of King James Sext, p. 241. f Spottiswood's Hist., lib. vi. 
 
 X Daemonologie by King James VI. Historie of King James Sext. Spot- 
 tiswood, lib. iv. Tytler, vol. ix. In 1597 no fewer than twenty-four witches 
 were burned at Aberdeen. See the Records of the Kirk-Session of Aberdeen, 
 published by the Spalding Club. 
 
 I Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 160, 228, 344, &c. 
 
CHAP, xill.] ROBIN HOOD PLAYS. 495 
 
 ministers to hinder tliem from travelling on the sacred 
 day.* 
 
 . In a previous part of our history we gave some account of 
 the religious dramas — the Mysteries and Moralities — which 
 were acted in the Romish Church. These did not cease with 
 the Eeformation, although we may believe that their pecu- 
 liar hue would vary with the times. The Virgin, the blessed 
 apostles, the beatified saints, would vanish from the stage ; 
 Old Testament judges and kings would now figure in their 
 stead. But it soon began to be thought unseemly to have 
 dramas founded on the Bible narrative, and, accordingly, the 
 General Assembly in 1575 determined that henceforward no 
 , clerk-plays, comedies or tragedies, based upon the canonical 
 Scriptures, should be acted either upon Sabbath or work-day, 
 and that profane plays should be examined before they were 
 exhibited, and in no case acted on the Sunday. In the very' 
 next year the Bailie of Dunfermline asked permission of the 
 Assembly to have a play performed on the Sunday afternoon, 
 but it was peremptorily refused. f It is curious to contem- 
 plate John Knox as delighting in theatricals, and as present 
 at a play in which one of the divertisements was the hang- 
 ing of the Laird of Grange ; but so it was, and that in his 
 old age, when he was rusticating at St Andrews. " This 
 year, in the month of July," says James Melville, " Mr 
 John Davidson, one of our regents, made a play at the mar- 
 riage of Mr John Colvin, which I saw played in Mr Knox's 
 presence ; wherein, according to Mr Knox's doctrine, the 
 Castle of Edinburgh was besieged, taken, and the captain, 
 with one or two with him, hanged in efiigy."f 
 
 But Eobin Hood plays were the particular delight of the 
 Scottish people. On a Sabbath of May, the people, led by 
 their magistrates, assembled in some green field in the 
 
 * Historie of King James Sext, p. 254. This attempt created a riot of the 
 Edinburgh craftsmen. King James was hugely delighted with the idea that 
 the soutars had intimidated the ministers more effectually than he could. 
 The editor of Calderwood gives us a specimen of the rhymes which were pub- 
 lished on the occasion, taken from the Cotton MSS. See note to vol. v. p. 177. 
 
 t For very curious notices upon this subject see Book of the Universal Kirk, 
 pp. 146, 159, 165, 174, 192. 
 
 + James Melville's Diary, p. 22. 
 
4:96 CHUROH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XIII. 
 
 neighbourhood of their village or town ; one of their num- 
 ber, by previous arrangement, personated the celebrated out- 
 law Eobin Hood, another his faithful squire Little John ; 
 and in boisterous fun and frolic the day was spent. In the 
 same merry month the young women and children were ac- 
 customed to meet, choose a Queen of May, and, dancing 
 around some greenwood tree, to make the air, far and near, 
 vocal with their sweet voices. So early as 1555 the parlia- 
 ments attempted to preventthese practices, and declared that 
 if any provost or bailie, councilor community, chose any such 
 personages as Eobin Hood, Little John, Abbot of Unreason, 
 or Queen of May, they should lose their freedom for five 
 years ; and that if any women, by singing about summer 
 trees, made perturbation to the queen's lieges, they should be 
 put upon the cuck-stool of the burgh or town.* But parlia- 
 ment was almost powerless to prevent a practice that had 
 become inveterate. The attempt to enforce the law in 
 Edinburgh in 1561 led to serious riots.f Even the elders 
 and deacons of the Church sometimes so far forgot them- 
 selves, as to give these amusements their patronage and 
 presence ;J and for more than thirty years after the Refor- 
 mation, we find the Assembly sometimes begging the civil 
 power to interfere and put an end to the evil, and sometimes 
 threatening its own spiritual censures against the disobedient. 
 The age was found of pageants. Every great occasion 
 called forth a display of them. We have a minute descrip- 
 tion of those which greeted James YI, on his iirst public 
 entrance into Edinburgh, which will give us a general idea 
 of them all. " At the West Port he was received by the 
 magistrates of the town under a pompous payle of purple 
 velvet. The Port presented unto him the Wisdom of Solo- 
 mon, as it is written in the third chapter of the First Book 
 
 * Mary, pari. yi. c. 61. 
 
 t Knox's History, book iv. There ia a reference to these Eobin Hood 
 plays in the Diurnal of Occurrents, May 1572. After noticing that at that 
 time there was a great dearth in Edinburgh, it is added — " Nevertheless, the 
 remainder abode patiently, and were of good comfort, and used all pleasures 
 which were wont to be used in said month in old time — viz. , Robin Hood and 
 Little John.'' 
 
 X Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 192. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] PAGEANT. 497 
 
 of Kings ; that is to say, King Solomon was represented 
 with the two women that contended for the young child. 
 This done, they presented the king with the sword for the 
 one hand, and the sceptre for the other. And as he made 
 further progress within the town, in the street that ascends 
 to the castle, there is an ancient port, at the which there 
 hung a curious globe, which opened artificially as the king 
 came past, wherein was a young boy who descended craftily, 
 presenting the keys of the town to his Majesty, which were 
 all made of fine massive silver, and these were presently re- 
 ceived by one of his honourable council at his own command. 
 During this space Dame Music and her scholars exercised 
 her art with great melody. Then, in his descent, as he came 
 opposite to the house of Justice, there showed themselves 
 unto him four gallant virtuous ladies, to wit. Peace, Justice, 
 Plenty, and Policy, and each of them had an oration to his 
 Majesty. Thereafter, as he came toward the chief collegiate 
 church, there dame Eeligion showed herself, desiring his pre- 
 sence, which he there obeyed by entering the church, where 
 the chief preacher for that time made a notable exhortation 
 unto him for the embracing Eeligion and all her cardinal 
 virtues, and all other virtues. Thereafter he came forth and 
 made progress to the market-cross, where he beheld Bacchus, 
 with his magnificent liberahty and plenty, distributing of 
 his liquor to all passengers and beholders, in such appear- 
 ance as was pleasant to see. A little beneath is the market- 
 place of salt, whereupon was painted the genealogy of the 
 Kings of Scotland, and a number of trumpets sounding 
 melodiously, and crying with a loud voice, Welfare to the 
 King. At the East Port was erected the conjunction of the 
 planets, as they were in their degrees and places the time of 
 his Majesty's happy nativity, and the same lively repre- 
 sented by the assistance of King Ptolemy. And withal the 
 whole streets were spread with flowers, and the front houses 
 of the streets, by which the king passed, were all hung vrith 
 mag-nificent tapestry, with painted history, and the effigies of 
 noble men and women." * 
 
 The printing-press had been helpful in effecting the Ee- 
 
 * Historie of King James Sext, pp. 178, 179. 
 VOL. I. 2 I 
 
498 CHTJECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiii. 
 
 formation, and soon after its establishment the Church 
 began to take an instrument so powerful for good or for 
 6vil under its care. So early as 1563, it was ordained by 
 the Assembly that no religious book should be piiblished 
 without being iirst revised by the superintendent of the 
 diocese.* In 1568 Thomas Bassandyne, at that time a 
 printer in Edinburgh, was accused of having printed a book 
 entitled the " Fall of the Eoman Kirk," in which the king 
 was named as the supreme head of the primitive Church. 
 He was farther charged with having published a psalm- 
 book, " in the end whereof was found printed a bawdy song 
 called 'Welcome Fortune,' " and all this he had done without 
 the license of the magistrate or the revisal of the Church. 
 He was ordered by the Assembly to call in the books he 
 had sold, to retain those that were unsold, and henceforward 
 to print nothing without the license of the magistrate, and 
 in the case of religious books, the revisal of a committee of 
 the Church. t There flourished in Edinburgh at the same 
 time another printer called Eobert Lekprevik. He had 
 obtained from the Privy Council the monopoly of printing 
 all books in Latin or English necessary " for the weill and 
 commoditie of the lieges of the realme, and also all sic things 
 as tend to ye glorie of God ;" but his trade does not seem to 
 have thriven, for in 1570 he appeared before the General 
 Assembly asking its aid in his undertakings, and the Church, 
 having respect to his poverty, the great expense he had 
 been at in buying printer's irons, and the zeal and love he 
 bore to the Church at all times, granted him a yearly pension 
 of fifty pounds.^ 
 
 In 1573 the Assembly voted forty pounds to Eichard 
 Bannatyne, the faithful servant of John Knox, to assist him 
 in preparing the MS. History of his old master for the press, 
 and appointed a committee of some learned men to give 
 him their help.§ In the following year it was reported to 
 the Assembly that a French printer of great celebrity, who 
 had been banished with his wife and family for the sake of 
 religion, was willing to settle in this country, and bring with 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 16. f Ibid. pp. 100, 101. 
 
 J Ibid. p. 119. i Ibid. p. 135. 
 
CHAP. XHI.J THE PRINTING-PEESS. 499' 
 
 him three thousand francs' worth of books, and print what- 
 ever work he should be commanded, if he were made sure 
 of a yearly pension of three hundred merks.* The Assembly 
 thought it right to bring this proposal before the regent, 
 but nothing appears to have been done. Six years after 
 this we find the Assembly bringing under the notice of the 
 king that the country stood greatly in need of a printer, and 
 that a stranger banished for his religion, called Vantrolier, 
 had offered to exercise his craft for the welfare of the country, 
 if his Majesty should give him a license and privilege, t 
 
 Neither the G-eneral Assembly nor the Privy Council had 
 the most remote conception of a free press. The Assembly 
 appointed a committee to revise all books before their pub- 
 lication, and to give them the benefit of their imprimatur 
 if they were approved. Adamson had rendered the Book of 
 Job into Latin verse ; Hay had written a book against the 
 Jesuits : they were required to submit them for inspection. 
 Popish books were pouring into the country ; pedlars from 
 Poland were hawking them about ; the Church called upon 
 the regent to interfere. Nor was the Privy Council more 
 enlightened. Davidson had published a dialogue between a 
 clerk and a courtier, satirizing the regent for creating plu- 
 ralities in order to enrich himself He was cited before the 
 Council, and finally obliged to abscond.J 
 
 It was in 1579 that the first edition of the English Bible 
 issued from the Scottish press. So early as 1575, the 
 Assembly entered into terms with Thomas Bassandyne, the 
 printer previously referred to, and Alexander Arbuthnot, 
 a merchant burgess of Edinburgh, for the production of'this 
 great work, stipulating among other things that L.4, 13s. 4d. 
 should be the price of a copy. It was merely a reprint of 
 the Genevan Bible with a few corrections. George Young 
 revised the proof-sheets ; Eobert Pont composed the calen- 
 dar ; the General Assembly made the dedication to the 
 king to run in its name ;§ and the parliament made the 
 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. iii. p. 336. 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 200, 201. 
 I Calderwood's History, vol. iii. pp. 301-36. 
 
 5 Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 187. Calderwood's History, 1579. DrM'Crie, 
 
 2 l2 
 
500 CHURCH HISTOET OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xnr. 
 
 purcliase of it compulsory upon all who were able to bear 
 
 the expense. 
 
 The same parliament which made Protestantism the reli- 
 gion of the realm pronounced Popery to be a crime. To 
 
 IDerform a mass, or be present at a mass, three times was 
 death. The Church frequently importuned the magistrate 
 to purge the land of idolatry, and it is all but certain that 
 hundreds and thousands, under the pressure of fear, suc- 
 cumbed to a religion which in their hearts they abhorred. 
 It does not appear that the laws were frequently put in 
 force in all their rigour ;* but it sometimes happened that 
 what the magistrate was unwilling to do, the mob took in 
 hand ; and it were idle to deny that unhappy Romanists 
 were generally regarded, and frequently treated, as unclean 
 beasts, to be hunted down and exterminated from the land. 
 About Easter 1565, a Eomish priest named Sir John Tarbat 
 was laid hold off as he rode rapidly through Edinburgh. It 
 was suspected he had been celebrating mass. He was taken 
 to the Tolbooth, invested with his sacerdotal" garments, 
 dragged to the market-cross, tied up there, with a chalice 
 bound in his hand, and kept in that position for an hour, 
 
 ; " during which time," says Knox, with great glee, " the boys 
 
 • served him with his Easter eggs."t The next day he was 
 tried for his life, and convicted, but mercy was extended to 
 him, and this was the manner of it. " He was set upon the 
 market-cross for the space of three or four hours, the hang- 
 man standing by, and keeping him ; the boys and others 
 were busy with eggs-casting." There was like to be a 
 tumult, as the Papists made an effort to save their pilloried 
 priest ; the magistrates were obliged to interfere, and carry 
 him off to the Tolbooth ; and it was afterwards rumoured, 
 
 in the Appendix to his Life of Melville, speaka of the arrangement being made 
 in March 1575, but I have not been able to find this in the records of the 
 Assembly. 
 
 * Bishop Leslie gives candid testimony to this fact. 
 
 t Knox's History, book v. In justice to Knox it must be stated, that it is 
 generally understood that this part of his History was written by some other 
 hand. There can be little doubt, however, but tliat the Eeformer would have 
 rejoiced at such a scene. 
 
CHAP, xili.] POPISH MAETTES. 601 
 
 though wrongously, that the poor man had died of the ill- 
 usage he had received. 
 
 In 1569 a similar scene took place at Stirling. While the 
 Eegent Moray was there, four priests belonging to Dunblane, 
 who had lingered too fondly by the ruined altars of their 
 ancient cathedral, were condemned to death, " for saying 
 mass contrary to the Acts of Parliament." The regent, in 
 the exercise of his clemency, saved their lives, " but caused 
 them to be bound to the market-cross, with their vestments 
 and chalices, in derision, where the people cast eggs and 
 other villany in their faces, by the space of an hour, and 
 thereafter their chalices and vestments were burned to 
 ashes."* But clemency like this was thrown away. The 
 tender mercy of the Protestants was abused. Popish priests 
 still persisted in saying mass, and so, on the 4th of May 
 1574, one of them was laid hold of in Glasgow and hanged. ^ 
 No monumental stone marks this man's grave ; his very 
 name has been suffered to perish ; but was he not a 
 martyr to his faith ? Strange inconsistency of human 
 nature, that the very men who had loaded with all oppro- 
 brious epithets the persecutors under the Papacy, should now 
 be such zealous persecutors themselves ! Long years re- 
 quired to come and go before the great principle of mutual 
 toleration was understood and acted upon. From the be- 
 ginning of the world men clearly saw that it was wrong for 
 others to persecute them ; it is scarcely two hundred years 
 since they began dimly to see that it was wrong for them 
 to persecute others. 
 
 In some districts of the country, the Catholics were still 
 so numerous, that it was not safe to meddle with the priests = 
 in celebrating mass. This was the case at Aberdeen, Dun- 
 keld, Paisley, Eglinton, and many other places. "We find it 
 therefore arranged, that a day should be appointed for all 
 the Protestants in the neighbourhood of these places to 
 assemble and proceed in a body to apprehend the violators 
 
 * Historie of James Sext, p. 40. 
 ' t Diurnal of Occurrents, 4th May 1574. The entry is, — " Tier was ane 
 priest hangit in Glasgow caUet for saying mess." 
 
502 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLA.ND. [cHAP. XIII. 
 
 of the law.* "We are not informed wliat was tlie result of 
 these tumultuous assemblages. 
 
 The Assembly had its own species of legislation, and its 
 J own means of coercion. An act was made, requiring every 
 { one to take the sacrament, an act which was to be put in 
 ■ force against all who were suspected of Popery, with the 
 '; awful sentence of excommunication in case of refusal.f 
 ' Thus the Holy Supper of our Lord, designed to be a bond of 
 brotherhood and a feast of love, was converted into a stone 
 of stumbling, and a rock of offence. The devoted Eoman 
 Catholics would regard the taking the sacrament from a 
 Protestant minister as the primitive Christians regarded the 
 throwing a grain of incense upon the altar of Jupiter. Many 
 would succumb to terror ; a few would resist ; and to be ex- 
 communicated — altogether apart from its spiritual effects — 
 was to be cut off from society, to lose all the rights of a man 
 and a subject, and to be shunned as a loathsome leper. 
 
 The horror diffused through every Protestant country by 
 the Massacre of St Bartholomew, the alarm kept alive by the 
 preparations of Spain for the invasion of the island, the 
 known strength of the Papal party both in England and 
 Scotland, the machinations of that new order, who, bearing 
 the blessed name of Him who was without guile, were 
 already notorious for every species of deceit, and already to 
 be found in every country of Europe, naturally led the 
 Estates to add new severities to the penal code. The Church 
 had frequently begged them to take order with Jesuits and 
 seminary priests, and they did so. J In 1587 an act was 
 passed, declaring that all Jesuits and seminary priests found 
 in the country should be taken and put to death, and that 
 every one harbouring them for three nights should be liable 
 to the confiscation of his goods. To bring into the country 
 Papistical books, to distribute these, to attempt by argument 
 or persuasion to make any one decline from the true religion, 
 was likewise declared to be a misdemeanour, punishable with 
 
 * Diurnal of Occurrents, 20th October 1572. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 147. Calderwood's History, vol. iii. p. 34p. 
 There were more acts than one of this kind backed by acts of parliament. 
 X Book of the Uniwrsal Kirk, pp. 329, 330, 331, &c. 
 
CHAP. xm.J STRENGTH OF THE PAPACY. 503 
 
 the loss of property.* About forty years before this, the 
 same parliament passed a similar law against Protestant 
 books being brought into the country, or Protestant argu- 
 ments being uttered ; how strangely were the tables turned ! 
 
 The Papacy was crushed in Scotland, but it was by no 
 means destroyed. Its adherents were still both numerous 
 and powerful. There is still in existence a remarkable state- 
 paper in the handwriting of Lord Burghley, and belonging 
 to the year 1589, in which we have an estimate of the com-' 
 parative strength of the Koman Catholic and Protestant 
 parties. From this document it would appear, that the 
 whole northern part of the country, including the counties 
 of Inverness, Caithness, Sutherland, Aberdeen, and Moray, 
 with the sheriffdoms of Buchan and Angus, and Wigton and 
 Nithsdale in the south, were still almost entirely Catholic, 
 commanded by Popish noblemen, and giving shelter to 
 Jesuit priests. On the Protestant side were ranked the 
 counties of Perth, Stirling, Fife, Lanark, Pv,enfrew, and 
 Dumbarton. Ayr and Linlithgow were regarded as dubious.t 
 
 At the same period the General Assembly presented to 
 the king a picture of the country equally dark. Many of 
 the noblest families in the land still adhered to the ancient 
 superstition, notwithstanding the terrors of excommunica- 
 tion. Jesuits were everywhere prowling about, seducing 
 the people. Priests were openly celebrating mass, and 
 abusing the ordinances of baptism and marriage. The ladies 
 especially were wedded to idolatry. Ladies Herries, Morton, 
 Mar, Minto, Tweeddale, Sutherland, Eyder, Farnyhurst, and 
 others, were aU. active in their support of Komanism. They 
 sheltered the proscribed priests, they practised superstitious 
 rites, they kept Pasche and Yule ; and some of them were 
 represented as having themselves horribly usurped the ad- 
 ministration of the Lord's Supper with bread and water. In 
 some districts the churches were falling into ruins ; in others, 
 there were churches, but no ministers ; in others, both 
 churches and ministers, but few people to attend them. In 
 Lennox, of twenty-four churches, only four had ministers ; 
 
 * James VI., pari. xi. chapters xxiv. xxt. xxTii. 
 t Tytler's History of Scotland, vol. ix. 
 
504 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xili. 
 
 and in some of the northern counties, the state of matters 
 was still worse. Confident in their numbers, the Papists in 
 some places ventured to be insolent. They defied the law, 
 assaulted Protestant ministers, to the effusion of their blood 
 and the danger of their lives, and had their Christ's wells, 
 pilgrimages, bonfires, and carols, as if the land were still in 
 the bondage of Eome.* 
 
 This divided state of the country must have generated 
 ' religious rancour, as certainly as decomposing matter gene- 
 rates noxious gases. There was oppression on the one hand) 
 the thirst for revenge on the other ; there was the pride of 
 new domination confronted by the memory of ancient empire. 
 The Romanists had lost their supremacy, but they were not 
 without hopes of regaining it ; the Protestants had got the 
 upper hand, but they were not without fear that they might 
 lose it. The Romanists were busy intriguing, the Protes- 
 tants in watching them. A ship arrives in port from France 
 or Spain, a stranger of distinguished appearance is seen to 
 land from it : the minister reports the case to the magis- 
 trates, and requests them to seize upon the ship, and keep it 
 till the mystery is cleared up. A suspicious-looking man 
 has been observed skulking about the country, visiting at 
 the houses of suspected Papists, dropping a call at the cots 
 of the peasants : the matter is reported to the Assembly, 
 by the Assembly it is reported to the Council, and if the 
 disguised Jesuit has not already decamped, he is in danger 
 of the judgment. 
 
 But there was danger not merely from the plots of the 
 Papists, but from the Protestants themselves relapsing into 
 error ; and to this the ministers were jealously alive. Scot- 
 land was ill provided with the means of education, worse 
 now than before the Reformation, for the monasteries had 
 been destroyed, and nothing substituted in their stead ; and 
 parents were therefore in the habit of sending their children 
 to France and other Continental countries to be educated. 
 Some of these returned Romanists. The Church took 
 alarm, and passed an act prohibiting parents from sending 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 330-32. Calderwood's History, vol. iv. 
 p. 664. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] VESTIGES OF POPERY. 505 
 
 their children out of the realm upon any such pretences.* 
 The Edinburgh clergy went further. The merchants of the 
 metropolis had carried on a lucrative traffic with Spain. The 
 ministers brought this before the magistrates as a crime to 
 be prohibited, and from the pulpit declared, " that no one 
 could make a voyage to Spain without danger of his soul, 
 and therefore they charged every one in the name of God 
 to abstain." The merchants persevered in their voyages ; 
 the ministers cited them before the session, and commanded 
 them to desist. The merchants complained to the king, who 
 told them to go on as they had done ; the ministers threatened 
 them with excommunication if they did. At this crisis the 
 town-council interfered, and by representing that many of 
 the Spaniards were indebted to the Scots, and some of the 
 Scots indebted to the Spaniards, and that these accounts 
 could never be cleared unless the traffic were continued for 
 a time at least, they managed to stay the storm.f . 
 
 The people who had joined the Protestant Church had 
 not been able all at once to throw off the habits in which 
 they had been educated. Multitudes still resorted to the 
 holy rood of Peebles, to consecrated wells, to localities 
 sanctified by superstition. Christmas and Easter were still 
 observed ; bonfires were kindled ; carols were sung. There 
 were Papal practices at bridals and births ; and wakes for 
 the dead. The Church laboured to suppress these invete-. 
 rate tendencies ; but more than one generation required to 
 die out before they succeeded. J We have vestiges of them 
 at the present day. The Protestant preachers went further, 
 and prudently discouraged everything which had the appear- 
 ance of Popery. The Bishop of Dunkeld had administered 
 the sacrament of the Supper upon a work-day : he was 
 admonished never to do so except on the Sabbath ;§ a 
 marked difference must be made between it and the mass. 
 The Duke of Athol had died, and there was a report of 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 184, 185. 
 
 t Historie of King James Sext, pp. 254, 255. Calderwood states that the 
 matter was brought before the Assembly. 
 
 J Book of the Universal Kirk. Calderwood's History — everywhere from 
 1560 to 1600. 
 
 2 Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 144. 
 
506 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xm. 
 
 superstitious rites being prepared for his buiial, — that there 
 was a white cross upon the mortcloth, and that the mourners 
 were to be clothed in long gowns, with stroupes, and to carry- 
 torches. The Assembly instantly despatched two of its 
 members to inquire into this ; and it was arranged that the 
 mortcloth should be covered with black velvet, and the 
 stroupes removed. It was denied that there had been any 
 intention of using torches. * 
 
 The Protestantism of the king was vehemently suspected 
 by some of the more zealous Presbyterians. There was no 
 more ground for their suspicions than there would be for 
 believing that the statesmen who carried the Eoman Ca- 
 tholic Emancipation Bill were themselves Eoman Catholics. 
 James knew how strong the Popish party was in Scotland ; 
 how strong it was in England ; and it was a part of his 
 kingcraft to propitiate and conciliate all. But though a 
 Protestant, it is plain he was never a hearty Presbyterian ; f 
 and he had a royal pride in exhibiting his theological gla- 
 diatorship against both Papists and Presbyters. He encoun- 
 tered Balcanquhal in the High Church upon the authority 
 of bishops ; he continued the argument in the palace. He 
 wrangled with Gibson about his liberty of speech in the 
 pulpit ; and did not disdain to defend, both by tongue and 
 pen, his Episcopal legislation. But he was equally zealous 
 against the doctrines of Trent. He converted Lennox. He 
 met James Gordon, a celebrated Jesuit of the family of 
 Huntly, in single combat, and drove him from his subter- 
 fuges, to the admiration of the lords and ladies assembled at 
 Holyrood to hear the wisdom of Solomon. The Jesuit 
 finally affected to agree with the king regarding both justi- 
 fication and predestination, and put the substance of what 
 had been said into writing. The polemical monarch, on 
 examining the document, remarked to Gordon, that, having 
 subscribed these things, he could no longer remain a fol- 
 lower a Loyola ; but the wily Jesuit answered that every 
 Catholic prince in Europe would put their hands to the 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 144. 
 
 t This is proved not only by his whole history, but by his sentiments in 
 the Basilicon Doron. 
 
CHAP, xni.] THE KING AND THE CLEE6T. 507 
 
 same articles.* There is reason to fear that the king, though 
 claiming the victory, had been out-manceuvred. 
 
 There is nothing more characteristic of the times than 
 the liberties which the ministers took with the king. Eti- 
 quette had not yet so hedged about royalty as to prevent 
 easy access into the presence-chamber, and the utmost 
 plainness of speech while there. Both in public and private, 
 the ministers largely availed themselves of their privilege. 
 They saw no special virtue in a royal argument, and never 
 dreamt they were bound to yield to it ; they saw no parti- 
 cular apology for a royal sin, but thought it their duty to 
 rebuke it on the spot. Craig, in the High Church of Edin- 
 burgh; so sharply rebuked the king to his face for a pro- 
 clamation he had issued affecting the Church, that he is 
 said to have wept, f When the deputation of ministers 
 waited upon James to remonstrate about the reception of 
 the French ambassadors, the king, as was his wont, gave 
 utterance to several oaths in the course of the conversation. 
 Davidson remained a little behind his colleag-ues, and ad- 
 monished the king that he ought not thus to swear, and 
 take the name of God in vain. James was good-natured 
 enough to take the advice well, and laughingly to thank 
 Davidson for it. J 
 
 For many years after the Eeformation, the utmost har- 
 mony and good-will seems to have prevailed among all the 
 Protestant Churches. The fact that they had separated 
 from Rome united them to one another : there was but one 
 Papal Church and one Protestant Church. The ministers of 
 one Reformed nation were freely admitted into the pulpits 
 of another; the nationality of Churches was still unknown. 
 Knox ministered in England, in G-eneva, in Scotland ; the 
 Church of which he was an apostle was not limited to his 
 native country, or to any country. It was wherever Pro- 
 testantism was. When there was persecution in England, 
 many of its preachers came into Scotland ; when there was 
 persecution in Scotland, they returned to England. Ge- 
 
 * Papers Illustrative of the Eeigns of Queen Mary and King James, Ban 
 Club Ed. 
 t Calderwood, vol. iii. p. 674. + Ibid. p. 697. 
 
508 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xili. 
 
 neva was ever the refuge of all. The General Assembly 
 formally gave its sanction to the Helvetian Confession, with 
 some trifling exceptions ; and wrote friendly letters " to their 
 brethren, the bishops, and pastors of England, who had 
 renounced the Eoman Antichrist, and professed with them 
 the Lord Jesus in sincerity."* 
 
 But when the Presbyterian constitution of Scotland be- 
 came more clearly defined, and when the Assembly cast out 
 bishops, and declared Episcopacy to be a sin, a chasm broad 
 and deep began to form between the two Churches. The 
 irritation of the Anglican dignitaries was increased by the 
 rise of Puritanism at their own door. The Puritans were 
 already numerous in the south ; they held opinions almost 
 identical with the northern Presbyters ; and the bishops 
 naturally transferred the dislike with which they regarded 
 the one to the other. Had there been nothing akin to Pres- 
 byterianism in England, the lordly prelates would have 
 looked at it across the border with condescending kindness. 
 Had there been no attempt to force Episcopacy upon Scot- 
 land, bishops would never have been spoken of as the bas- 
 tards of Popery. We can view other forms of Church 
 government than our own in the distance with perfect 
 complacency ; it is only when they are brought near us 
 that our equanimity is disturbed. 
 
 The first hostile blow was struck by England. The earliest 
 Reformers of the Anglican Church had held that there were 
 but two orders of ecclesiastical office-bearers mentioned in 
 the New Testament — bishops and deacons — the presbyter 
 and bishop having been originally the same, and the supe- 
 riority of the bishop an arrangement of after-growth. Dr 
 Bancroft, on the 9th of February 1588, preached a sermon 
 at St Paul's Cross before the parliament, in which he startled 
 all England by pleading for the divine right of Episcopacy, t 
 In this sermon the future archbishop railed against the 
 Puritans ; and turning from them, he next railed against 
 the Scotch Presbyterians. He abused their great Reformer, 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 49. 
 
 t Extracts of thia sermon are to be found in the Wodrow Miscellany, vol. i. 
 pp. 477-96. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] THE THBEE POLITIES. 509 
 
 as a man of contentious humour ; he ahused their Church 
 Courts, as laboratories of treason ; he lauded the king for 
 having put them down. This attack naturally provoked an- 
 tagonism. The Presbytery of Edinburgh appointed a com- 
 mittee to write to Elizabeth, complaining of the evil treat- 
 ment they had received, and to draw up a refutation of Ban- 
 croft's sermon. The letter and refutation were prepared, 
 but never sent ; and the only answer the English polemic 
 received was contained in a small pamphlet by Davidson, 
 and entitled " Bancroft's rashness in railing against the 
 Church of Scotland."* But though the battle was almost 
 entirely on one side, it was continued. Bancroft carefully 
 collected new calumnies against the northern Church, and 
 published two pamphlets, one of which was entitled " Dan- 
 gerous Positions, or Scottish Genevating and English Scot- 
 tizing for Discipline." The title indicated the tender part : 
 it was the Puritans who were troubhng him. Unhappily, 
 the jealousy which has too long prevailed between the sister 
 Churches of England and Scotland was begun. 
 
 Independency entered Scotland while the war betwixt 
 Episcopacy and Presbytery was being waged, and so the 
 three great rival schemes of Church government were 
 brought for the first time face to face upon the field. The 
 Independents were first called Brownists, and took their rise 
 about 1580. Eobert Brown, a preacher in the Diocese of 
 Norwich, perambulated the country, declaiming against 
 bishops, ceremonies, ecclesiastical courts, and the ordination 
 of ministers. Thirty-two times was he cast into prison, 
 sometimes into dungeons so dark that he could not see his 
 hand at noon-day ; but he persevered, and managed to draw 
 a little congregation around him. According to the prin- 
 ciples of this sect, every congregation formed a separate and 
 independent church. The whole power of admitting and 
 excluding members, of deciding controversies, and even of 
 •setting apart pastors and deacons to their work, rested with 
 the brotherhood. They unchurched all other churches. A 
 community holding principles like these was not to be suf- 
 
 * Extracts from these are also to be found in the Wodrow Miscellany, toI. 
 i. pp. 496-520. 
 
510 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAJSTD. [chap. xill. 
 
 fered to take root in England. The congregation was broken 
 up, and Brown, with a number of his followers, sought refuge 
 in Holland.* But there dissensions arose, and Brown, with 
 some of his sect, came into Scotland. 
 
 They took up their abode in the Canongate of Edinburgh, 
 and soon began to make their principles known. They un- 
 dertook to prove before the kirk-session that witnesses at 
 baptism was not a thing indifferent, but a sin ; but the kirk- 
 session was not convinced. Brown himself had next a con- 
 ference with some members of the Presbytery, and alleged 
 that the whole discipline of Scotland was wrong, that he 
 and his company would not submit to it, and that they ap- 
 pealed from the Church to the magistrate. Lawson and 
 Davidson were appointed to examine his writings ; and this 
 done, he was cited before the Presbytery to answer for his 
 heresies. He boldly avowed his books and opinions, and 
 the Church resolved to lay the matter before the king. But 
 James did not interfere, and it was even thought that the 
 Brownists were fostered by the court, that they might act 
 as a thorn in the side of the Church, t 
 
 Brown afterwards returned to England, renounced his 
 principles, became a rector in Northamptonshire, and threw 
 a scandal upon his austere youth by a dissolute old age. J 
 But when he died, his opinions did not die with him. He 
 had sovra. some seed, which, possessing a principle of vitality, 
 sprung up, and was destined, in the course of years, to over- 
 spread the land with its abundant vegetation. It was already 
 becoming plain that the indivisibility of the Eoman Church 
 was not to be a characteristic of Protestantism. The ele- 
 ments of strife — the symptoms of dissent — were beginning 
 to appear. 
 
 The period which we have traversed, extending from 1560 
 to 1592, was a period of excitement, but it was a healthy ex- 
 citement. The stagnant stillness of Eomanism was gone ; 
 the agitation of Protestantism, the agitation inseparable 
 from free thought, was begun. There was liberty ; let us not 
 
 * Neal's History of the Puritans, vol. i. 
 t Calderwood's History, vol. iv. p. 133. 
 J Neal's History, vol. i. 
 
CHAP. XIII.] PROTESTANT FREEDOM. 511 
 
 marvel though in a few cases it had degenerated into licen- 
 tiousness. And while we may not approve, let us not too 
 rudely blame the excesses of men who were breathing for 
 the first time the mountain air of freedom, and felt its exhil- 
 arating influences. Like the cripple restored to the use of 
 his limbs, they felt inclined to leap with a half-frantic joy. 
 Had they only been left to themselves, the staid and steady 
 step would soon have succeeded. 
 
512 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 In tlie estuary of the Clyde, just where that noble river 
 opens its naouth that it may pour its full volume of water 
 into the sea, are two small islands called the Cumbraes. 
 They had swarmed with Danes when Haco led his victorious 
 squadron from the Hebrides to dispute at Largs the sove- 
 reignty of the mainland. They had often given shelter to 
 pirates, who skulked securely in their creeks, and landed 
 upon the coast at their leisure. With no population, at the 
 period to which our history relates, but a few miserable fish- 
 ermen, and completely cut off from the rest of the country, 
 one should imagine no hiding-place could be more adapted 
 at once for concealment and escape. But the Church pos- 
 sessed a kind of omnipresence ; and no detective police was 
 ever more effective than were its ministers in capturing 
 Papists. George Ker, a doctor of laws, and a brother of the 
 Abbot of Newbattle, had been excommunicated for Popery 
 by the Presbytery of Haddington. He came secretly to the 
 west country. Andrew Knox, the minister of Paisley, got 
 information that he was in the Cumbraes, and that a vessel 
 was lying in the Fairley roads, only waiting a favourable 
 wind to set sail for Spain. Evil was suspected, and with a 
 company of Glasgow students, armed for the occasion, Knox 
 was instantly upon his track. Ker was seized ; the vessel 
 was searched ; and papers of a very suspicious character were 
 found in the trunks of the fugitive. The news of all this 
 soon spread through the country, and caused the greatest 
 excitement. Ker was carried a prisoner to Calder, and from 
 
A.D. 1592.] POPISH TREASON. 513 
 
 Calder to Edinburgh. It was on a Sabbath, toward the end 
 of December 1592, when he reached the capital. The min- 
 isters knew he was coming ; they shortened their sermons ; 
 and, by their exhortations, the populace, fully armed, on 
 horse and on foot, went forth to meet him, and conduct him 
 to his dungeon.* 
 
 The most of the documents found among the luggage of 
 Ker consisted of blank sheets of paper, subscribed by Huntly, 
 Angus, Errol, and Patrick Gordon of Auchindoun. It was 
 at first suspected that these blanks were written with some 
 invisible ink, which a future process would render visible ; 
 but it turned out afterwards that they were true blanks, to 
 be filled up by Ker, and delivered to the King of Spain. 
 When Ker was first submitted to examination, he denied 
 everything ; but, by the command of the king, he was put to 
 the torture, and, on the second stroke of the boots, he con- 
 fessed all. He was to negotiate the descent of a Spanish 
 force upon the coast, which was to be joined by the Popish 
 nobles, and the Catholic religion re-established, or, at least, 
 toleration secured for its adherents. Graham of Fintry, 
 another of the conspirators, was shortly afterwards seized, 
 and by his confession corroborated the statements of Ker.f 
 
 The ministry considered this a matter which specially 
 affected them ; they held a meeting in Edinburgh with a 
 number of barons and nobles zealous for the Protestant 
 cause ; they waited upon the king at Holyrood ; they offered 
 in the emergency, to provide him with a body-guard of 
 horse and foot ; and urged him to bring the traitors to instant 
 justice. The king was annoyed rather than otherwise at 
 this loyal promptitude on the part of his subjects ; he did 
 not think the danger so imminent as they did ; he had not 
 observed such readiness on other occasions quite as grave ; 
 he hinted all this to them in his address ; but still he thanked 
 them, and promised that he would see justice done. Meet- 
 ing was multiplied upon meeting ; and probably under the 
 pressure of these, James, upon the 15th of January, by the 
 
 * Historie of King James Sext, pp. 256-57. Calderwood's History, vol. v. 
 p. 192. 
 
 t Tytler's History, vol. ix. Calderwood, vol. v. 
 VOL. I. 2 K 
 
514. CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap! XIV. 
 
 advice of his Council and nobility, resolved that the laws 
 against Papists of every rank should be enforced; that 
 letters should be issued, charging the Earls of Huntly and 
 Errol, and Gordon of Auchindoun, to compear before his 
 Majesty and Privy Council at St Andrews on the 6th of 
 February, to answer to the things which should be laid to 
 their charge ; and the lieges were instructed to be ready to 
 attend his Majesty in arms, in case their services should be 
 required.* 
 
 There can be no doubt but that the king was determined 
 to punish the traitors, though he was not animated by the 
 fiery zeal of the Presbyterian clergy. The Earl of Angus 
 had been surprised in Edinburgh immediately after the 
 seizure of Ker, and was in prison. Ker and Graham were 
 in prison too. Graham was tried, condemned, and executed; 
 but prisons in those days were not over secure, and both 
 Angus and Ker contrived to escape.f The day fixed for the 
 trial of Huntly and Errol arrived ; they did not appear, but 
 confined themselves to their strongholds in the north ; and 
 the king made instant preparations to march against them. 
 The forfeiture of their estates was considered as certain, and 
 the Protestant courtiers were already in fancy dividing the 
 prey. James advanced without opposition to Aberdeen ; the 
 Popish nobles fled before him to the wilds of Caithness, and 
 their immense possessions were declared to be the property 
 of the Crown. But as the Countess of Huntly was allowed 
 to continue her residence in the principal castle of the family, 
 and as the estates of both earls were confided to the factorage 
 of their relatives, it was shrewdly conjectured that it was 
 but a " dissembled confiscation."J Angus was more severely 
 dealt with, but still his estates were not placed beyond reach 
 of recovery ; and no forfeiture could be considered as final 
 till it was ratified by the parliament. 
 
 The clemency of the king was generally blamed by the 
 Protestants, and the preachers, taking up the matter in the 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
 t Ker's jailor was afterwards hanged for his carelessness in allowing his 
 prisoner to escape. 
 
 J Tytler, vol. ix. p. 76. Calderwood, vol. v. 
 
AD. f593.] PROTESTANT PETITIONS. 515 
 
 piilpit, hinted that James was himself a Papist at heart ; some 
 declared that he had himself trafficked with the Prince of 
 Parma and the King of Spain ; and in the excitement of the 
 time, everything was believed* The truth is, the Presbyterian 
 ministers were determined not merely upon the punishment 
 of treason, but upon the extirpation of Popery, and nothing- 
 less would satisfy them. This is too clearly seen in the 
 fierce intolerance breathed by the General Assembly which 
 met at Dundee in the month of April. They laid the follow- 
 ing petitions before his Majesty : — 
 
 1. That all Papists should be punished according to the 
 laws of God and the realm. 
 
 2. That the act of parliament should strike upon all man- 
 ner of men, landed and unlanded, in office or otherwise, as 
 it was provided to strike upon beneficed persons. 
 
 3. That a declarator should be given against Jesuits, semi- 
 nary priests, and trafficking Papists, declaring them guilty 
 of treason and lese majesty, whereby the receiptors of such 
 persons might be punished according to law. 
 
 4. That all such persons as the Church should declare 
 publicly to be Papists, although tliey were not excommuni- 
 cated, should be debarred from brooking any office, having 
 access to his Majesty, or enjoying any benefit of the laws ; 
 and that all the civil pains which followed excommunication 
 should follow this declaration.! 
 
 No severer laws had ever been passed by Popery against 
 nascent Protestantism, than were now sought to be enacted 
 by Protestantism against enfeebled Popery. Had the Council 
 granted what the Church asked, an ecclesiastical court had 
 but to declare a man to be a Papist, and he became an out- 
 law. A Papist had but to let a priest come under his roof, 
 and he was liable to the confiscation of his goods. It is 
 true that almost all that the Church asked was already 
 written in the statute-book ; but James was wisely unwilling 
 to put the laws into execution. How could he ? Thirteen 
 of his greatest nobles, and a considerable part of the popula- 
 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 251. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 381, 382. Calderwood's History, vol. v. 
 p. 240. 
 
 •2 k2 
 
516 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap! XIV. 
 
 tion of the kingdom, especially in the north, were still 
 attached to the Roman faith. Had he done so, a massacre 
 must have ensued more terrible than the Massacre of St 
 Bartholomew's Day. 
 
 Let us pause and do homage to Persecution. Heathen 
 nations have worshipped horrid idols, monstrously furnished 
 with a hundred hands, each hand clutching a dagger, and 
 each dagger dripping with blood. Let us visit the temple 
 of Intolerance, the most cruel demon of them all, and see if 
 we cannot find something deserving of our regard. We see 
 strong earnestness in her otherwise hideous face. Let us 
 read what it means. The true persecutor is at least a be- 
 lieving and an earnest man. There has been more persecu- 
 tion under Christianity than under all other forms of faith, 
 just because there has been more earnestness. Our ancestral 
 presbyters were thoroughly in earnest. They would perse- 
 cute, not because they were cruel, but because no doubt flitted 
 across their minds but that they were right, and the Papists 
 wrong, and that Popery was a thing so bad and abominable, 
 that it ought not to be tolerated on the earth. Thus have 
 we uncovered our head before the monster idol as seen in 
 the distant past, but we thank God it is now utterly demo- 
 lished. 
 
 James was still jealous of the power of the Assemblies, 
 still jealous of the liberty of speech used in the pulpit. He 
 therefore requested the Assembly to send commissioners to 
 him, to arrange the time and place for the meeting of the 
 next Assembly ; and also to pass an act prohibiting ministers, 
 under pain of deprivation, to declaim against his Majesty or 
 Council in their sermons. The first request was agreed to, 
 but the second only in a very modified form. It was ordained 
 that no minister should utter from the pulpit any " irreverent 
 speeches against his Majesty or Council, or their proceedings ; 
 but that all their public admonitions should proceed upon 
 just and necessary causes, and suiScient warrant, in all fear, 
 love, and reverence."* The king was annoyed at the con- 
 ditions with which the Assembly had clogged its resolution, 
 for he had his suspicions as to what would be deemed " just 
 
 * Book of the UniTersal Kirk, p. 386. 
 
A.D. 1593.J THE PARLIAMENT AND THE SYNOD. . 517 
 
 and necessary causes," and what would be the spirit of " fear, 
 love, and reverence" in which he would be spoken of. Time 
 showed that there were grounds for his fear. 
 
 On the 16th of July the parliament met in the Tolbooth 
 of Edinburgh. It was hoped that the forfeiture of the 
 Popish Earls would now be ratified, and their treason pun- 
 ished with beggary, if not with death ; but the king was 
 unwilling that matters should be driven to extremity ; their 
 friends were numerous, and it would have been dangerous 
 to do so ; and he tried to appease the commissioners of the 
 Church who waited upon him to know what was to be done, 
 by assuring them that his advocate had declared that no- 
 thing could be done in the meantime for want of proof.* 
 Acts, however, were passed, prohibiting the holding of 
 markets upon Sabbath, exempting stipends from taxation, 
 declaring the contemners of the Church's sentences to be 
 rebels, and forbidding the saying of mass, or the reception of 
 excommunicated Papists, under the severest penalties, t 
 Still, however, the rigid Protestants were not satisfied. On 
 the Sabbath, Davidson denounced the parliament as a black 
 parliament, as iniquity had occupied the place of equity. | 
 
 The ecclesiastical courts were guided by different men, 
 and resolved upon different measures from the high court of 
 parKament. On the 25th of September the Synod of Fife 
 met at St Andrews. It was under the influence of the Mel- 
 viUes, and breathed their spirit. It was resolved that a 
 solemn fast should be held to bemoan the state of the king- 
 dom. It was resolved that the Earls of Angus, Huntly, and 
 Errol, Lord Hume, Sir Patrick Gordon, and Sir James 
 Chisholm, should be excommunicated, and that intimation of 
 this sentence should be made from every pulpit in the king- 
 dom, that none might presume to receive them within their 
 houses, or to have any dealings, friendship, or society with 
 them. The synod was somewhat at a loss to discover upon 
 what pretext they could pass this sentence upon the Popish 
 nobles, as none of them resided within the bounds ; but they 
 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 254. 
 
 t Jamea VI., pail, xiii., chapters clix. clx. clxii. clxiv, 
 
 f Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 255. 
 
518 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XIV. 
 
 ingeniously hit upon the circumstances, that three of them 
 had attended the University of St Andrews in their youth, 
 that the same three had married in the province, and on 
 that occasion had subscrihed the articles of religion, and 
 that all of them were in the habit of visiting their friends in 
 Fife.* This was voted enough to bring them within the 
 jurisdiction of the court. 
 
 It would have required a wiser head and a firmer hand 
 than James's to have held the reins of government at this 
 stormy period. James was gTcatly perplexed as to what he 
 should do, or where he should loot for help. He would 
 wilUngiy have been despotic if he could, but he had scarcely 
 the shadow of authority left him by turbulent barons and 
 intolerant ministers. He was menaced on the one hand 
 by the Popish plots of Huntly, Ang-us, and Errol ; and on the 
 other, by the treasonable attempts of Bothwell, who had 
 more than once attempted to seize upon his person and 
 obtain the administration of affairs, and who was known to 
 be encouraged by Elizabeth, and looked upon with no evil 
 eye by the ministers of the Church. The nobles all over 
 the country were at violent feud with one another, and the 
 royal authority was powerless to restrain the outbursts of 
 private revenge. There were bloody brawls in the streets; 
 of the capital under the very eye of the king, who on one 
 occasion was glad to flee into a close for shelter. 
 
 James was anxious for quietude ; he had a secret liking 
 for Huntly; he had some thoughts of restoring him to 
 favour. He was annoyed at the high-handed sentence of 
 the Synod of Fife ; remonstrated with Bruce against the 
 irregularity of the procedure ; and remarked that he had no 
 rest till he had given the Church its present government, 
 but that, seeing it was abused, he would find means to 
 reform it.f He sounded the disposition of Lord Hamilton; 
 he complained that he had not a single nobleman at his 
 devotion ; and that if he received Huntly, the ministers 
 would cry out that he was an apostate from religion. " You 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 261-63. Spottiswood, lib. vi. Melville's Diary, 
 t Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
A.E. 1593.] LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE. 519 
 
 may receive him," said Hamilton, " if he and his accom- 
 pKces are not enemies to religion, but not otherwise." " I 
 cannot tell what to make of that," said the king ; " but the 
 ministers hold them for enemies. For my own part, I think 
 they should enjoy liberty of conscience." " Then we are all 
 gone, sir," cried Hamilton, " we are all gone ; and though 
 no others withstand, I will."* He was Like the men of his 
 generation ; he did not understand that the safety of a 
 divided state consisted in giving freedom of conscience to 
 aU. its subjects, and that if this had been granted, conspi- 
 racies would have ceased. Would Huntly, Errol, Angus, 
 have plotted with the Spaniard and jeoparded all, had they 
 not been denied that which was dearer to them than life? 
 
 On the 12th of October, the king left Holyroodhouse for 
 Jedburgh, where the gentlemen of Merse and Teviotdale 
 were charged to meet him to repress some disturbances 
 which had taken place on the borders. When he was near 
 Fala, the Popish earls threw themselves in his way, went 
 down upon their knees before him, protested their inno- 
 cence, and earnestly craved to be tried for the crimes which 
 had been laid to their charge. James spoke gruffly to 
 them ; but after taking the advice of the nobles in his train, 
 he bid them enter themselves in the town of Perth by the 
 24th of the month, and remain there till arrangements were 
 made for their trial. The king was terrified lest this meeting- 
 should be misconstrued, and instantly despatched messen- 
 gers to explain to the English ambassador and the Edin- 
 burgh ministers what had really occurred. This precaution 
 did not serve its purpose ; many people persisted, whether 
 rightly or wrongly, in believing that the whole scene was a 
 farce, concocted by the monarch himself, preparatory to the 
 pardon of the rebels.f 
 
 At this very time a convention of ministers and barons 
 was sitting in Edinburgh. They instantly despatched com- 
 missioners to the king, to lay before him what were their 
 views as to the trial of the Popish lords. They craved — 
 
 1. That the trial should not be precipitated, but postponed 
 
 * Caldei'wood, toI. v. p. 268. 
 
 t Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v. p. 270. 
 
520 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 till such time as the professors of religion, who had resolved 
 to act as accusers, should be able to determine what was 
 expedient to be done. 
 
 2. That according to the laws and customs observed in 
 such crimes, the excommunicated and traitorous apostates 
 should be committed to sure custody, till the Estates should 
 advise upon the manner of their trial. 
 
 3. That the jury should be nominated, not by the accused, 
 but by their accusers, viz., the whole professors of the 
 gospel. 
 
 4. That as the accused were excommunicated and cut ofi" 
 from the society of Christ's body, they should not be ad- 
 mitted to stand in judgment or have any beneiit of the law 
 till they were reconciled to the Church. 
 
 5. That if his Majesty resolved to keep by the diet at 
 Perth, the professors of religion should be appointed to act 
 as his gTiard, to defend his person, and to pursue the traitors 
 to the uttermost. " Which," said the commissioners, " we 
 are minded to do, although it should be with the loss of all 
 our lives in one day, being fully resolved, if they continue 
 enemies to God and His truth, that the country shall not 
 brook them and us together."* 
 
 The commissioners, bearing these requests, got an audi- 
 ence of the king at Jedburgh, but their reception was not 
 very gracious. James stormed against the Synod of Fife 
 for having excommunicated the lords ; he stormed against 
 the ministers and barons for having convened themselves at 
 present without his express permission ; but before the in- 
 terview was concluded, his choler had somewhat abated, 
 and he answered their remarks by stating that, seeing a 
 trial had been craved, he could not in equity refuse it ; that 
 he would take care that it should be ordered according to 
 justice ; and that immediately after his return from the 
 south, he would hold a convention of the Estates at Lin- 
 lithgow, where everything connected with the matter would 
 be arranged.f 
 
 The poorest subject in the realm, if accused of crime, had 
 a right to claim the benefit of a trial. The Popish peers 
 * Spottiswood, lib. vi. f Melville's Diary, p. 208. 
 
A.D. 1593.] DIFFICULTIES ABOUT A TRIAL. 521 
 
 had been accused, but they declared they were innocent, and 
 that the subscriptions to the Spanish blanks were forgeries ; 
 were they to be denied the opportunity of proving their 
 statements if they could, and condemned without a hearing? 
 The humane maxim of law is, that a man must be held in- 
 nocent till he is proved guilty. But it was becoming obvious 
 that an impartial trial of the accused lords was an impossi- 
 bility. If they were tried in a Protestant district, and by a 
 Protestant jury, their conviction was certain. If they were 
 tried in a Catholic district, and by a Catholic jury, their 
 acquittal was certain. Perth lay midway between the dis- 
 tricts which were most decidedly Protestant and those which 
 were most thoroughly Popish, and therefore seemed the 
 fittest place that could be fixed upon for the assize. But 
 had the trial taken place at Perth, it is probable its beautiful 
 Inches would have become the battle-field of Popery and 
 Protestantism in Scotland, and the Tay have rolled red with 
 blood. The earls had already come to the Fair City ; their 
 armed retainers were flocking fast after them. The com- 
 missioners of the Church were not behind in warlike prepa- 
 rations. Everywhere they cited the barons and burghs to 
 convene at Edinburgh, to be ready against the trial. The 
 country seemed on the brink of a terrible contest, in which 
 old feuds would receive new vigour from religious bigotry ; 
 and men would cut each other's throats, believing they were 
 doing God service. In this threatening aspect of affairs, the 
 king issued a proclamation, prohibiting all armed convoca- 
 tions of the lieges. In consequence of this, the Popish earls 
 dismissed their forces, and remained in Perth with only a 
 few friends, and the adherents of the Church hurried to 
 Edinburgh, leaving their arms behind them. Some of those 
 who had set out upon their journey in armour left their 
 weapons by the way.* 
 
 On the last day of October the Estates assembled at Lin- 
 lithgow. A deputation from the Protestant convention was 
 again in waiting to urge severity. But the Chancellor 
 Maitland, after a temporary banishment from court, was 
 
 • Melville's Diary, p. 269. Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 274-80. Spottiswood, 
 lib. vi. 
 
522 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 again in power, and it was eyident that everything had 
 already been arranged. It was resolved there should be no 
 trial after the usual form ; but when the petitions of the 
 accused earls were read, a committee of nobles, barons, and 
 commissioners of . burghs was appointed to consider the 
 whole matter, and conclude on it as they should think most 
 expedient for the security of religion and the correction of 
 disorders. It was, moreover, especially provided, that of the 
 ministers, Lindsay, Bruce, Galloway, Carmichael, EoUock, 
 and Duucanson should be admitted to the meetings of the 
 committee, if they had anything to propose. The committee 
 thus appointed met at Edinburgh on the 12th of November, 
 and after several days of anxious consultation, agreed upon 
 the following resolutions : — 1. That God's true religion, 
 publicly preached, and by law established, should be the 
 only religion professed and practised by his Majesty's lieges 
 in time to come ; and that all who had not yet embraced the 
 said religion, or who had made defection from it, must, 
 before the 1st of February 1594, either conform themselves 
 to it, and give satisfaction to the Church, or depart furth 
 of the realm to such parts beyond sea as his Majesty 
 should appoint. 2. That the Earls of Angus, Huntly, and 
 Errol, Sir Patrick Gordon, and Sir James Chisholm should 
 be "free and unaccusable in time coming" of the crimes 
 laid to their charge in regard to the Spanish blanks, pro- 
 vided that they refrained from any such treasonable traffick- 
 ing in future, complied with the act of uniformity, banished 
 all Jesuits and excommunicated Papists from their presence, 
 avoided speaking against the established religion at their 
 tables, received a Presbyterian minister into their houses, to 
 resolve their doubts^ and prepare them for subscribing the 
 Confession of Faith.* 
 
 This sentence was at once too lenient and too severe. The 
 Popish nobles, if traitors, should not have been wholly 
 exempted from punishment, and placed upon the same 
 level with other Koman Catholics, who had never committed 
 any crime but that of conscientious adherence to their faith. 
 A clear line should have been drawn between the traitorous 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 284. Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
A.D. 1593.] THE SIN AND THE SENTENCE. 523 
 
 and the loyal Eomanist. But, otherwise, what shall we say 
 of a decree which presented to tens of thousands the sad 
 alternative of renouncing their religion or their country — a 
 life-long hypocrisy, or a life-long exile ? Was ever act of 
 conformity more sweeping — more merciless than this ? The 
 sword, or the Koran ; banishment, or Presbytery; the dilemma 
 is still the same cruel one. If the law was intended to 
 strike only against the traitors, surely a better punishment 
 might have been devised — strip them of the half of their 
 lands, only leave them the privilege of worshipping their 
 Grod. As the decree went forth, they were to be punished 
 for one crime, by being forced to perpetrate a second and 
 more terrible one. After all, what casuist will nicely mea- 
 sure their sin ? Before the Eeformation, the Protestants 
 were denied the liberty of conscience, and they trafficked 
 with England to obtain it. After the Eeformation, the 
 Papists were denied the liberty of conscience, and they 
 trafficked with Spain to obtain it. Which was the greater 
 crime ? If the imperial parliament, in the present session, 
 were to make it death for an Irishman to be present at a mass, 
 confiscation of goods to shelter a priest, perpetual exile 
 unless he signed the Westminster Confession, would he do 
 anything very morally or religiously wrong though he were 
 to rebel ? 
 
 Thus almost the whole world reasons now, but it reasoned 
 difl'erently at the time of our history. The ministers were 
 indignant at the Act of Obhvion. The pulpits resounded 
 with rebukes of the king and his counsellors. Andrew Mel- 
 ville offered to go to the gibbet himself if he failed to con- 
 vict Huntly and his accomplices, provided they were sent to 
 the gallows if he succeeded in his proof. The courtiers 
 smiled, and said he was more zealous than wise.* The 
 feelings that were abroad are described in a letter by Bowes, 
 the English ambassador, to Lord Burghley. " This edict 
 and act of oblivion," says he, " is thought to be very inju- 
 rious to the Church, and far against the laws of God and 
 this realm ; whereupon, the ministers have not only protested 
 to the king and convention that they will not agree to the 
 * Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 288.289. 
 
524: CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 same, but also in their sermons inveigh greatly against it ; 
 alleging, that albeit it hath a pretence to establish one true 
 religion in the realm, yet liberty is given to all men to pro- 
 fess what they list, so they depart out of the realm ; and 
 thereby they shall enjoy greater privileges and advantages 
 than any other good subjects can do."* Such was the feel- 
 ing of dissatisfaction on the one side ; on the other it was 
 equally strong. The Popish nobles were not inclined to 
 abandon either their country or their creed. Perhaps they 
 thought themselves powerful enough to enjoy both ; their 
 strength must have been increased by the act of conformity; 
 and their friends and followers began to gather around them. 
 While things were in this state, Bothwell broke over the 
 border at the head of a considerable force, marched upon 
 Leith, threatened the capital, defeated the royalists in a 
 skirmish near Niddry — rushing upon them with shouts of 
 " God and the .Kirk!" But having obtained this slight suc- 
 cess, he retreated upon Kelso, and there disbanding his fol- 
 lowers, retired into England, f The king was deeply incensed 
 by these repeated treasons, and insisted that he was en- 
 couraged by the ministers of the Church. It is certain there 
 was no clamour from the pulpit to bring him to justice. 
 But things took a marvellous turn. Bothwell's last des- 
 perate cast of the dice was to join his fortunes with those of 
 the excommunicated lords. He was then excommunicated 
 too. 
 
 On the 7th May 1594, the General Assembly convened at 
 Edinburgh. It ratified the sentence of excommunication 
 passed by the Synod of Fife upon the Popish earls ; it drew 
 up, for presentation to the king, a list of disorders and their 
 remedies ; it urged that the most vigorous measures should 
 be taken to exterminate Popery. Lord Hume, a Popish 
 lord, in high favour with the king, appeared, made a most 
 abject submission, declared himself a convert to the Church, 
 and was absolved from excommunication.J On the 30th of 
 
 * Tytler's History, vol. ix. 
 
 t Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v. p. 297. Historie of King James 
 S^t. 
 
 X Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 404-8, 
 
A.D. 1594] THE LAST REMEDY. 525 
 
 May the parliament met. Huntly and his associates had 
 not complied with the conditions of the act of ohlivion, and 
 now rigorous measures were resolved upon. James made 
 a harangue to his Estates, in which he declared that hither- 
 to he had used plaster and medicine, but that these having 
 failed to cure, he was to use fire, as the last remedy.* The 
 Spanish blanks, the depositions of Ker and Graham, the 
 acts of parliament bearing on the subject, were produced 
 and read ; the rebels were judged, though not unanimously, 
 to be guilty ; their armorial bearings were torn by a herald, 
 and thrown out of the window ; their estates declared to be 
 forfeited ; and commission given to the Earl of Argyle to 
 pursue them with fire and sword, t 
 
 Argyle was Huntly's ancient enemy, and accepted the 
 commission with alacrity. Two ministers were despatched 
 to urge him to undertake the work, " as a thing acceptable 
 to God, profitable for the commonwealth, and honourable to 
 himself ;" J but he scarcely required their exhortations. In 
 the beginning of October he was on his march toward the 
 country of the rebels, followed by a rabble of six thousand 
 highlanders, some armed with muskets, some with bows 
 and arrows, some with two-handed swords, and some with 
 no arms at all. He was confronted at Glenlivet by Huntly 
 and Errol, with a much smaller but better disciplined force ; 
 and after a sharp fight he was driven from the field. 
 
 Ill the meantime the king had pushed on to Dundee, 
 where Argyle himself brought the evil tidings of his disaster. 
 James, nothing dismayed, advanced upon Aberdeen, which 
 he occupied without opposition. He had requested Andrew 
 and James Melville, with some other ministers, to accom- 
 pany him in his progress, and be the witnesses of his seve- 
 rity ; and the stern Presbyters, regarding it as a crusade 
 against idolatry, cased themselves in corslets, and marched 
 with the host.§ The martial monarch was detained for 
 
 * Caklerwood, toI. v. p. 330. Tytler, vol. ix. 
 
 t Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v. 
 
 I Historie of King James Sext, p. 338. 
 
 g Mflville's Diary, p. 214. It was nothing unusual for Andrew Melville to 
 be in armour. " He merchet mikle of that day, withe a whait speare in his 
 hand," says James Melville of his uncle, speaking of a riot at St Andrews — 
 
526 
 
 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 some time in Aberdeen by bad weatber, and bis money 
 began to fail. He remembered bim tbat tbe Presbytery of 
 Edinburgh bad recently raised for him tbe funds to cele- 
 brate witb becoming magnificence tbe baptism of liis first- 
 born. He resolved to apply to tbe same spiritual court 
 again, wbicb appears to bave held tbe purse-strings of the 
 nation.* James Melville was despatched with a letter to 
 the presbytery, and another to the town-council. The royal 
 letter was backed by one from the ministers who were with 
 tbe army, and the money was forthcoming, f Thus relieved 
 of his pecuniary embarrassments, the king pushed on to 
 Stratbbogie, the principal residence of Huntly. A majority 
 of the war council wished this noble castle to be spared ; 
 but Andrew Melville urged tbat it should be destroyed, and 
 it was accordingly blown up with gunpowder, f Slaines, in 
 Buchan, the stronghold of Errol, was levelled with the 
 ground ; and a number of other fortalices shared the same 
 fate. Huntly saved himself by fleeing to the vrilds of Caith- 
 ness ; but some of his retainers were banged, and the gentry 
 who had assisted bim were mulcted in considerable sums. 
 
 The spirit of the Oathohc party in Scotland was now tho- 
 roughly broken. When the king returned to tbe south, 
 Huntly made one more effort to renew tbe contest ; but it 
 was a forlorn hope, and failed. A Jesuit named Morton, 
 bringing messages to him from the Pope, was detected, and 
 saved himself from the torture only by confessing every- 
 thing. Amongst other things found in his possession was a 
 beautifuUy-carved crucifix in ivory, which he said was a 
 present from Cardinal Cajetano to the queen. James took 
 it up, and asked the Jesuit what was its use. " To remind 
 me," said Morton, " when I gaze upon it, of my Lgrd's pas- 
 sion." " Look, my liege," he continued, " how livebly the 
 
 " as he wear a corslet therefter at the dinging down of Streahogy." (Diary, p. 
 210.) David Lyndsay, the minister of Leith, appears to have heen of a like 
 martial disposition. " He was for stoutness and zeal in the gnid cause miMe 
 renouned and talked of. For the gown was na sooner af, and the ByWe out 
 of hand fra the kirk, when on ged the corslet, and fangit was the haghot, and 
 to the fields." (Diary, p. 26.) 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. v. p. 340. 
 
 t Melville's Diary, pp. 214-lG. J Ibid. 
 
A.D. 1595.] THE KING AND THE CKUCIFIX. 527 
 
 Saviour is here seen hanging between the two thieves, 
 whilst below the Roman soldier is seen piercing His sacred 
 side with the lance. Ah, that I could prevail on my sove- 
 reign but once to kiss it before he lays it down!" " No," 
 said James ; " the Word of God is enough to remind, me of 
 the crucifixion ; ■ and besides, this carving of yours is so 
 small, that I could not kiss Christ without kissing both the 
 thieves and the executioner."* 
 
 Huntly and Errol, seeing that all was lost, resolved now 
 to seek safety in exile. Father Gordon implored them not 
 thus to abandon their country. For the last time a solemn 
 mass was celebrated in the Cathedral of Elgin ; and the de- 
 voted Jesuit, passing from the altar to the pulpit, exhorted 
 them to hazard all rather than allow the lamp of religion to 
 be utterly quenched in the land ; but it was in vain. On the 
 17th of March 1595, Errol embarked at Peterhead, and two 
 days afterwards Huntly, with a few faithful friends, embarked 
 at Aberdeen, and sailed for the Continent.f With them the 
 last hopes of Catholicism in Scotland departed. Auchin- 
 doun had been slain at Glenlivet ; Hume had made his 
 peace with the Church ; and shortly afterwards Sir James 
 Chisholm followed his example, and sought rest by making 
 a recantation, which in all probability his conscience belied, f 
 
 The Church had now triumphed gloriously ; the Papists 
 had been put down, and James was at the height of his 
 popularity, regaled by the plaudits, and no longer tormented 
 by the taunts of the Protestant ministers. But it was the 
 fate of this volatile king, when delivered from the buffeting 
 of one tormentor, to be given over to another. The country 
 was now scandalized by stories of domestic broils. James was 
 jealous of his queen. The queen was indignant at James for 
 entrusting the care of the infant prince to the Earl of Mar, 
 and not to her. She formed a party among the nobles, and 
 vexed her liege lord and husband. Things proceeded so far 
 
 * Tytler, vol. ix. Calderwood tells the story differently ; but Tytler's nar- 
 rative, wliioh is founded upon a letter of the period, has the most verisimili- 
 tude. 
 
 t Tytler, vol. ix. Calderwood, vol. v. 
 
 J Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 418. 
 
^28 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 that the ministers interfered, and helped to patch up a re- 
 conciliation. Patrick Galloway preached a sermon before the 
 court upon the duties of husbands and wives, and the royal 
 pair were once more as loving as ever.* 
 
 AD 1596 King James, like all his predecessors, was 
 
 miserably poor, and, if not prodigal, neither 
 was he thrifty. His finances were getting into utter confu- 
 sion, and therefore, in the beginning of 1596, he appointed 
 eight eminent men to act as the chancellors of his exchequer. 
 From their number they were called Octavians. In opposi- 
 tion to these, the gentlemen of his Majesty's household were 
 called Oubiculars. As it was the great object of the Octa- 
 vians to curtail the royal expenditure, and of the Oubiculars 
 to live as comfortably and splendidly as they could, a violent 
 jealousy soon arose between them. Several of the Octavians 
 were suspected of a leaning to Popery ; the Oubiculars there- 
 fore threw their weight into the scale of the Ohurch ; and 
 the intrigues of those two parties are to be traced in many 
 of the events which are now to be narrated. 
 
 The General Assembly met in Edinburgh on the 24th of 
 March. On the second day of its meeting King James pre- 
 sented himself, attended by a brilliant train of his greatest 
 nobles. As usual he made an oration. He evidently re- 
 garded the Assembly very much as the present Sovereign 
 regards the House of Oommons — the body that can give or 
 withhold supplies ; and for the same reason, that it contained 
 the representatives of the tax-payers. He alluded to the 
 necessity of making preparation against probable dangers, 
 and of maintaining a standing army, now that the feudal 
 militia was found to be useless in the presence of disciplined 
 troops. He urged that a contribution should be made over 
 the whole country, not to be lifted presently, but when need 
 should require, t Andrew Melville bluntly said that dangers 
 should be provided against out of the forfeited estates of the 
 exiled earls, instead of the rents being given, as they were, 
 to their wives. An overture had been made in regard to an 
 
 * Tytler, vol. ix. Calderwood, vol. v. 
 
 t Calderwood, vol. v. p. 396. In the previous year the king made a pro- 
 posal to the Presbytery of Edinburgh to levy troops for him, which they under- 
 took to do, and did. (Ibid. p. 341.) 
 
A.D. lo96,J CORRUPTIONS OF ALL ESTATES. 529 
 
 inquiry into the corruptions of all estates ; and his Majesty 
 received a hint that it was expected he also should submit 
 to it. The king evidently did not like the subject, but, after 
 a soothing speech from Davidson, he submitted to his fate, 
 and said that if any gross fault were found in him or his 
 house, he would not refuse to be judged by the Assembly, 
 providing it were done privily.* 
 
 A committee was appointed to draw up a list of the cor- 
 ruptions that prevailed, and in course presented their report. 
 The ecclesiastical Estate had set before them rather matters 
 which constituted offences, than offences which were alleged 
 actually to exist : — wanton behaviour, gorgeous apparel, pro- 
 fane company, gaming, dancing, playing at cards or dice, 
 swearing. Sabbath-breaking, fighting, lying, keeping hos- 
 telries, taking usury, bearing worldly offices in gentlemen's 
 houses, engaging in merchandise, buying up grain and keep- 
 ing it in dearth, non-residence, selling the sacraments. In 
 regard to his Majesty's household, it was reported that read- 
 ing the Scriptures at table, and grace before and after meat, 
 were frequently omitted ; that his Majesty was guilty of 
 banning and swearing ; that his courtiers copied his ex- 
 ample ; that few of the royal household came to the week- 
 day sermon ; that the queen did not repair to the Word and 
 sacraments, and was fond of night-walking and balls, as 
 were also her gentlewomen. The judges were charged with 
 neglecting justice, taking bribes, and being altogether unfit 
 for the office they held. The corruptions of the community 
 at large were reported to be a universal decay of zeal, con- 
 tempt of the Word, ministry, and sacraments, the masters of 
 families not reading the Scriptures or engaging in prayer 
 themselves, but leaving this to be abused by their cooks, 
 stewards, and jackmen ; blasphemy. Sabbath desecration, 
 superstitious pilgrimages, bonfires and carols, gross immo- 
 rality, and every other conceivable sin. The laud, moreover, 
 was declared to be overrun with pipers, fiddlers, songsters, 
 sorners, pleasants, and strong beggars living in harlotry.! 
 A deputation was sent to the king to set his sins before 
 
 » Calderwood, vol. v. p. 398. 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk. Assembly, 1596. 
 VOL. I. 2 L 
 
530 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAr. xiv. 
 
 his face ; and a day appointed when the ministers might 
 mourn over their own offences. On that day Davidson 
 preached, and " for the space of a quarter of an hour," we 
 are told, " there were such sighs and sobs, with shedding 
 of tears among the most part of all estates that were pre- 
 sent, every one provoking another by their example, and 
 the teacher himself by his example, that the Church re- 
 sounded, so that the place might worthily have been called 
 Bochim."* 
 
 Armies have risen from their knees to fight and conquer ; 
 the Assembly turned from fasting to bellicose arrangements, 
 which sounds strangely in our ears. The king was peti- 
 tioned to apply the forfeited estates of the rebel lords in 
 maintaining a standing force ; to authorize the minister and 
 kirk- session in every parish to choose captains, to hold military 
 musters, and train the people to arms ; and to import a suffi- 
 cient quantity of corslets, pikes, muskets, and other needful 
 arm our. f The king did not deem it prudent to give to the 
 Church the power of the sword, as well as of the key ; but 
 before the Assembly dissolved, he sent a message to it which 
 carried joy to every heart. It was his Majesty's intention, 
 the Commissioner said, to devise a "constant platt," by which 
 every church should have a minister, and every minister a 
 stipend. J The Assembly broke up, and the members went 
 home rejoicing. 
 
 Calderwood celebrates this Assembly with his loudest 
 praises. Presbytery had now reached its culminating point. 
 " The Kirk of Scotland," says he, " was now come to her 
 perfection, and the greatest purity that ever she attained 
 unto, both in doctrine and discipline, so that her beauty was 
 admirable to foreign churches. The Assemblies of the saints 
 were never so glorious nor profitable to every one of the 
 true members thereof as in the beginning of this year."§ 
 And at the close of the Assembly, looking forward to the 
 years that were to come, he mournfully notes, " Here end 
 all the sincere Assemblies of the Church of Scotland, enjoy- 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. v. p. 407. f Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 424. 
 
 J Ibid. pp. 430, 431. | Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 387, 388. 
 
A.D. 1598.] THE EXILED EAELS EETXJEN. 531 
 
 ing the liberty of the gospel under the free government of 
 Christ."* 
 
 During the summer months, Huntly and Errol both re- 
 entered the country in disguise, but not in company. About 
 the same time James sounded his favourite minister Eobert 
 Bruce, as to the policy of allowing them to return from 
 banishment, provided they should submit themselves to the 
 discipline of the Church. Bruce would not listen to the 
 proposal. The king asked him to take a day or two to think 
 of it. Bruce still adhered to his former opinion. " I see, 
 sir," said he to the king, " that your resolution is <"o take 
 Huntly in favour ; which, if you do, I will oppose ; and you 
 shall choose whether you will lose Huntly or me, for both 
 you cannot keep."f Bruce's favour with the king was gone 
 from that day. At a meeting of the Estates held at Falk- 
 land upon the 12tli of August, a petition was presented from 
 the earls, praying to be allowed to return, and Alexander 
 Setton, the President of the Court of Session, supported it in 
 a speech, arguing that, if they were driven to despair, they 
 might, like Coriolanus the Eoman, or Themistocles the 
 Athenian, join the enemies of the State, and endanger it.| 
 
 It was resolved, if possible, to get the concurrence of the 
 ministers, and some of them were written for. Andrew 
 Melville was unasked, but hearing the business that was on 
 hand, he joined his brethren, and presented himself before 
 the king and Estates. James well knew the man, and 
 asked what brought him there uninvited. " Sir," said Mel- 
 ville, " I have a special calling to come here by Christ Jesus 
 the King," and then proceeded to challenge the Estates with 
 high treason against Christ, the Kirk, and the country, on 
 the purpose they were about. James interrupted him in the 
 midst of this unseemly tirade, and commanded him to retire, 
 which he reluctantly did. After this violent scene, it was 
 agreed that if the Kirk and king were satisfied, it were best 
 to recall the lords. § 
 
 The Church was thrown into a paroxysm of mingled fear 
 and indignation by the intelligence of this resolution. A 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. t. p. 420. t Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
 I Calderwood, vol. v. p. 438. J Melville's Diary, p. 244. 
 
 2 l2 
 
532 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 number of the ministers assembled at Cupar, and appointed 
 a deputation to proceed to Falkland and remonstrate with 
 the king. The two Melvilles were of the number ; and we 
 have a graphic description of what passed from the pen of 
 James. He tells us that he was asked to open the matter, 
 as the king liked his mild and smooth way of speaking ; but 
 his Majesty was exceedingly testy, and said they had no 
 warrant to meet at Cupar at all. Upon this, the undaunted 
 Andrew broke in, called the king " God's silhe vassal," and, 
 taking hold of him by the sleeve, "bore him down, and 
 uttered his, commission as from the mighty God." " Sir," 
 said the stern presbyter, "we will humbly reverence your 
 Majesty in public ; but since we have this occasion to be 
 with your Majesty in private — and the truth is, you are 
 brought into extreme danger both of life and crown, and 
 with you the country and Church of Christ are like to go to 
 wreck, for not telling you the truth, and giving you faithful 
 counsel — we must disharge our duty therein, or else be 
 traitors both to Christ and you. And therefore, sir, as 
 divers times before, so now again I must tell you, there are 
 two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is Christ 
 Jesus the King, and His kingdom the Kirk, whose subject 
 King James YI. is, and of whose kingdom, not a king, nor a 
 lord, nor a head, but a member. And they whom Christ 
 has called and commanded to watch over His Church, and 
 govern His spiritual kingdom, have sufficient power of Him 
 and authority so to do, both together and severally, which no 
 Christian king should control or discharge, but fortify and 
 assist. And, sir, when you were in your swaddling-cloths, 
 Christ Jesus reigned freely in this land, in spite of all His 
 enemies ; and His officers and ministers convened for the 
 ruling and welfare of His Church, which was ever for your 
 welfare, defence, and preservation. . . . As to the wis- 
 dom of your counsel, which I call devilish and pernitious, it 
 is this, that you must be served by all sorts of men to come 
 to your purpose and grandeur, Jew and Gentile, Papist and 
 Protestant ; but because the ministers and Protestants in 
 Scotland are too strong, and control the king, they must be 
 weakened ; they must be weakened and brought low, by 
 
A.D. 1596.] MELVILLE BKOW-BEATS THE KING. 533 
 
 stirring up a party opposed to them ; and the king being 
 equal and indifferent, both shall be fain to iiy to him ; so 
 shall he be well served. But, sir, if God's wisdom be the 
 only true wisdom, this will prove mere mad folly, for His 
 curse can but light upon it."* The king was completely 
 brow-beaten by the violence of Melville, and was glad to 
 lay aside his testiness, and affect to look pleased. Such a 
 scene as this reminds us of the days when popes put their 
 feet upon the neck of emperors ; or when Martin of Tours, 
 at a public entertainment, after taking the wine-cup him- 
 self, pushed it past princes to a presbyter, remarking that 
 the humblest of the order was superior to kings. 
 
 On the 20th of October, the commissioners of the General 
 Assembly and deputies from several synods met at Edin- 
 burgh. They appointed a fast ; they nominated a number 
 of ministers from different parts of the country to take up 
 their residence in Edinburgh, and meet daily with its minis- 
 ters, and see ne quid ecclesia detrimenti caperet. They were 
 known as the Council of the Church, f On the 19 th of the 
 same month, the Countess of Huntly laid before the Synod 
 of Moray an offer of most humble submission on the part 
 of her husband : he would find security that he would do 
 nothing contrary to rehgion ; he would banish all Jesuits 
 and Papists from his society ; he would meet vrith any 
 ministers that might be sent to him, and listen to their 
 arguments, and, if convinced, he would embrace the Re- 
 formed religion ; he would maintain a minister in his house- 
 hold for his better instruction ; he would assist to carry out 
 the sentences of the Church. J One should imagine this 
 submission was enough, and that a ministry who were com- 
 missioned to preach repentance and forgiveness to the chief 
 of sinners were bound to welcome back the penitent. But 
 the dread of Popery had engendered a stern spirit, which 
 knew no compromise : Huntly and Errol might be taken 
 upon disciphne by the Church ; but still it was the duty of 
 the king to see justice done — they must die the death. 
 
 * Melville's Diary, pp. 245, 246. 
 
 t Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
 I Melville's Diary, p. 247. 
 
534 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 Happily, more merciful sentiments prevailed in the court ; 
 and it was arranged that the rebel lords should be allowed 
 to remain in the country till May of the following year, in the 
 hope that by that time they would be reconciled to the Church.* 
 Another source of irritation had unfortunately arisen be- 
 tween the king and the clergy, which had been gradually 
 increasing, and now reached the violence of a fever. Fol- 
 lowing the example of Knox, the ministry were in the habit 
 of freely discussing political topics in the pulpit, and of 
 using the utmost plainness of speech in regard to the king 
 and his courtiers. James had repeatedly complained of this 
 to the Church Courts, but with no effect. In 1594, a 
 preacher at Perth, named Eoss, had spoken of the king as a 
 traitor, a reprobate, and a dissembling hypocrite. He had 
 declared that the Popish rebels were encouraged by the 
 king, and that no good had ever come to the country by the 
 Guisian blood, f The matter was brought before the Synod 
 of Perth and the General Assembly ; but Eoss defended 
 what he had said ; it was admitted he had cause for it ; and 
 he was dismissed with an advice to be cautious in the 
 future.^ In October 1596, while the country was agitated 
 in regard to the return of the Popish earls, David Black, one 
 of the ministers of St Andrews, uttered a philippic against 
 the governments of both England and Scotland. He pro- 
 nounced the Queen of England to be an atheist — a woman 
 of no religion ; and that, as for the King of Scotland, none 
 knew better than he of the return of the rebel lords. " But 
 what could they look for?" cried the preacher; "was not 
 Satan the head of both court and council ? Were not all 
 kings devil's bairns ? Was not Satan in the court, in the 
 guiders of the court, in the head of the court ? Were not 
 the Lords of Session miscreants and bribers, the nobility cor- 
 morants, and the Queen of Scotland a woman whom for 
 fashion's sake they might pray for, but in whose time it was 
 vain to hope for good."§ 
 
 * Melville's Diary, p. 249. Galderwood, vol. v. 
 t Historie of King James Sext, pp. 315-24. 
 + Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 409, 410. 
 
 Spottiswood, lib. vi. See also C alderivood, vol. v., where- 
 
A.D. 1596] A DECLINATURE. 535 
 
 News of this attack upon his mistress reached the ears of 
 the English ambassador, and he complained to the king. 
 Black was summoned before the Council, and, under the ad- 
 vice of the commission then sitting in Edinburgh, he fol- 
 lowed the example of Melville, and declined the jurisdiction 
 of the court. All the ministers in Edinburgh put their 
 hands to the declinature, and then a copy of it was sent down 
 to the presbyteries all over the country, accompanied with a 
 letter, headed by the text, " if we suffer with him, we shall 
 also reign with him," and requesting every minister to 
 append his subscription to it.* 
 
 The Commissioners appointed to watch over the interests 
 of the Church had been sitting for some time, and had not 
 been idle. They had sent a deputation to the queen to com- 
 plain, amongst other things, that she trifled away her time 
 with her maids ; but the queen was conveniently engaged, 
 and they were requested to caU another day.f They had 
 sent a deputation to the king, to complain that his " common 
 talk" was against the ministers and their doctrines ; but the 
 king retorted that he had good cause for what he said.J 
 They had sent a deputation to the Octavians, to complain 
 that they were the root of the evil which the king . had 
 brought upon the Church, but the Octavians denied it.§ 
 This had been quietly borne, but James chafed exceedingly 
 when he heard of the circular-letter to the presbyteries, and 
 an act of the Secret Council was passed, charging the Com- 
 missioners to leave the town within twenty-four hours. The 
 Commissioners met, read and considered the proclamation 
 and charge, " laid them open before the Lord, to be the 
 righteous judge and revenger, as well of the slanderous Kes 
 and blasphemous calumnies thereof, as of the great iniquities 
 and wrong done to the Lord Jesus Christ, and liberty of His 
 Church, in usurping the judicatory and supreme authority of 
 commandment over the same, controlling his Commissioners, 
 and annulling and discharging the acts of the General 
 
 in the controversy regarding Black's declinattire, the most of these expressions 
 
 are to be found. 
 *_Calder-wood, vol. v. p. 460. t Ibid. vol. v. pp. 459, 460.' 
 
 t Ibid. p. 451. I Ibid. p. 461. 
 
536 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 Assembly, as though it were a judicatory inferior and sub- 
 altern to the Secret Council and Session, and therefore 
 ordained the ministers of Edinburgh, and such others as 
 were to occupy the pulpits, to deal mightily by the "Word, 
 the sceptre of the Lord Jesus, the King of Glory, against the 
 said proclamation and charge." * 
 
 The trial proceeded. His Majesty and Council found 
 themselves competent judges, as the crimes charged in the 
 libel were of a treasonable and seditious nature. But the 
 king knew how powerful was the body with whom he was at 
 war, and was most anxious to make peace. Deputations 
 were continually passing and repassing between the city and 
 the palace. James was willing to accept of a mere nominal 
 fine, if Black would only plead guilty ; but the ministers 
 maintained that this was tantamount to yielding up the 
 whole point at issue. It became plain that compromise was 
 impossible. The libel was found proven, and, on the 9th 
 of December, Black was charged by a macer to enter him- 
 self in ward beyond the north water, and to remain there 
 during his Majesty's pleasure. f 
 
 The conduct of the ministers at this period has sometimes 
 been defended, but in truth it is indefensible. Let us try 
 the question according to the enlightened sentiments which 
 are happily abroad in our day in regard to the liberty of the 
 pulpit and the press. The ministers maintained that they 
 were answerable for what they said in the pulpit only to the 
 Courts of the Church ; that no civil or criminal tribunal had 
 a right to touch them. Would any minister make such a 
 claim now ? would any court in the kingdom sustain it ? 
 The minister in the pulpit occupies, and ought to occupy, 
 the same level as the editor at his desk. If he speaks trea- 
 son, he will be tried for treason ; if he uses defamatory lan- 
 guage, he will be libelled for defamation ; and that before 
 the ordinary courts of the country for trying these offencesj 
 The sanctity of the place will not save him, and should not 
 save him. The fact that he is an ecclesiastic will not 
 rescue him from the claws of the jury and the judge. Were 
 a priest to spout sedition from the altar, would we allow an 
 » Calderwood, vol. v. p. 468. t Ibid. p. 498. 
 
A.D. ISyO.] PRIVILEGE OF THE PULPIT. 537 
 
 appeal to the bishop or the pope ? Why should the pres- 
 byter be deemed more a spiritual person than the priest ? 
 But it has been said that the ministers claimed only to be 
 tried before the Church Courts in the first instance. This is 
 only partially true. The words of Black's declinature are, 
 " at least in prima instantia ;"* and the argument by which 
 it is supported is a general one, denying totally the jurisdic- 
 tion of the civil courts in regard to preaching, which is de- 
 clared to be a spiritual matter. If it were denied in the first 
 instance, upon what pretext could it be allowed in the 
 second ? Would the Church approvingly behold the Council 
 condemn a man whom it had already absolved ? But what 
 had the Courts of the Church to do with sedition or treason 
 in any instance ; and it was with sedition and treason that 
 Black was charged ? Was sedition less sedition because it 
 was spoken in a sermon ? was treason less treason because 
 it was committed by a minister ? In regard to the language 
 itself, surely we have seen, in our own liberal days, heavy 
 actions of damages against men for writing or speaking 
 words not nearly so bad. 
 
 The idea of spiritual independence had been gradually 
 growing, till at this period it had attained to a morbid size. 
 Unknown by Knox, it was fully developed by MelviUe. 
 Unmentioned in the " First Book of Discipline," it is care- 
 fully defined in the Second. Men's sentiments had changed 
 with the change of times. When the Church was Eoman, 
 it was the duty of the magistrate to reform it. When the 
 Church was Protestant, it was impiety in the magistrate to 
 touch it. We soon hear the Assemblies referring to their 
 independent jurisdiction, and pushing their pretensions so 
 far that the king began to complain that there would be no 
 peace till the marches of the two jurisdictions Avere defined. 
 The assumption of the Church reached to its greatest height 
 in the time at which we have now arrived. Its growth was 
 favoured by the weakness of the government. The barons, 
 when it suited their humour, defied the king ; the ministers 
 learned to do the same thing. Had bishops spoken to 
 Elizabeth as presbyters spoke to James, she would have 
 ■* Calderwoodj vol. v. pp. 4-57, 458. 
 
538 CHUECH HISTOIIY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. xiv. 
 
 •unfrocked them on the spot, and their brethren would have 
 learned henceforward to speak differently. The high notions 
 of spiritual independence, which seemed almost native to 
 the north, would not have been tolerated for a moment in 
 the EngKsh court or the English Church. The atmosphere 
 there was too scorching for such a mountain plant to hve 
 in it. But it was different in Scotland. Melville, in the 
 General Assembly, backed by the people, was really more 
 powerful than James in his palace, with none to help him. 
 The rise of such pretensions in such circumstances was 
 natural — almost necessary. They would have grown up 
 under the shadow of Episcopacy, as well as under the shadow 
 of Presbytery. We know they did grow up under the broad 
 shadow of the Papacy. 
 
 The sentence passed upon Black did not put an end to 
 the excitement which the trial had originated. The minis- 
 ters proclaimed a fast, and in their sermons denounced the 
 king as a persecutor. The king, in return, banished the 
 ecclesiastical Commissioners from Edinburgh, and under the 
 influence of the Cubiculars, who were anxious to ruin the 
 Octavians by increasing the dissensions between the court 
 and the Church, he gave notice to twenty-four burgesses, 
 who were known to be devoted to the ministers, to depart 
 from the town within six hours.* The Cubiculars having 
 first inflamed the monarch against the ministers, now in- 
 flamed the ministers against the monarch, by intimating 
 falsely, in an anonymous letter, that Huntly had had an 
 interview with James at the palace. Balcanquhal learned 
 this on Friday morning, just before proceeding to the pulpit 
 for the week-day sermon. He alluded to it in his discourse, 
 and requested the nobles and barons who were present to 
 meet after the services were over in the Little Church, to 
 consult as to what should be done. The Little Church was 
 crowded to the door. Eobert Bruce addressed the multitude 
 in regard to the return of the Popish lords, the sentence 
 passed upon Black, and the banishment of the ministers and 
 burgesses. It was resolved to send a deputation to bring 
 these grievances before the king.f 
 
 * Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v. t Ibid. 
 
A.D. 1596.J RIOT IN EDINBURGH. 539 
 
 James happened to be quite at liand, sitting in ttie Upper 
 Tolbooth with some of his Council. The deputation getting 
 admission to the royal presence, said they were sent by the 
 noblemen and barons convened in the Little Church, to 
 bemoan the danger threatened to religion. " What dangers 
 see you ? " said the king. " Our best-affected people," said 
 Bruce, " are discharged the town ; the Lady Huntly, a pro- 
 fessed Papist, is entertained at court ; and it is suspected 
 her husband is not far off." " Who are they," said the king, 
 " who dare convene against my proclamation?" "We shall 
 dare more than that," said Lord Lyndsay, fiercely, " and will 
 not suffer religion to be overthrown." While this was going 
 on, a number of people had pressed into the room ; the king 
 got alarmed, and rising abruptly, he made for the door, and 
 shutting it behind him, he retreated to the lower house, 
 where the judges were sitting. The deputation thus un- 
 ceremoniously left, returned and reported what had passed. 
 Meanwhile the minister of Cramond had been reading to 
 the congregation the story of Haman and Mordecai. At this 
 nick of time a voice shouted at the church-door, " Save your- 
 selves ! " The people rose in mass as if they had discovered 
 the rafters of the church burning over their heads. Some ran 
 one way, some another. Some thinking the king was taken 
 in the Tolbooth, rushed to the Tolbooth. Others, thinking 
 that the ministers were slain in the church, rushed to the 
 church. Some cried "To arms!" Some shouted, "The 
 sword of the Lord and of Gideon !" Some took their position 
 at the door of the Tolbooth, and vociferated, " Bring out 
 the vsdcked Haman ; " " Let Seton, Hamilton, Elphinston, be 
 delivered to us.'' The provost, hearing of what had hap- 
 pened, rose from a sick-bed, and with the assistance of the 
 ministers managed to pacify the people. By the afternoon 
 the streets were completely cleared, and the king, accom- 
 panied by the provost and bailies, was able without fear to 
 walk down the Canongate to the palace.* 
 
 Early next morning the royal household set out for Lin- 
 lithgow, and a proclamation was issued ordering aU the 
 courts of law to sit no longer in Edinburgh, and to be ready 
 * CaMerwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
54:0 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP, XIV. 
 
 to remove to such other place as his Majesty might appoint. 
 This resolute s:bep damped the ardour of the citizens, but 
 not of the ministers. They met ; talked about excommuni- 
 cating the Lord President and the Lord Advocate ; ap- 
 pointed a fast to be held that very afternoon ; and Welsh, 
 the son-in-law of Knox, and revered by the people as a 
 prophet and worker of miracles, mounting the pulpit, de- 
 clared the king was possessed of a devil ; yea, that one 
 devil being cast out, seven worse were entered in. They 
 proceeded farther; they wrote a letter to Lord Hamilton, 
 begging him to come and place himself at their head. Lord 
 Hamilton hesitated for a moment ; but his caution got the 
 better of his ambition, and he refused the dangerous pre- 
 eminence. Meanwhile the riot was declared to be treason 
 by the Privy Council ; and a deputation of the citizens who 
 waited upon his Majesty, and made the most humble sub- 
 missions, were received with frowns, and simply told that 
 the Estates were about to meet and determine the punish- 
 ment they deserved. The ministers fled to England. There 
 were dreadful whisperings afloat ; some said the city was 
 to be razed to its foundations, and a monumental piUar 
 erected where it stood to warn aU future mobs of their folly 
 and their fate. This mob had in truth been as meaningless 
 as most mobs are ; but the king, not the boldest of men, 
 had been frightened, half out of his wits, and now when his 
 courage was returned, he had resolved to make the most of 
 it to repress the turbulence of the Church.* 
 
 On the 1st January 1597, he entered the city like a con- 
 queror. The streets were lined with troops. The magis- 
 trates met him, and upon their bended knees protested 
 their innocence, offered to do their best to discover the 
 ringleaders in the riot, and promised in future to consult 
 his Majesty in the appointment of their ministers. A ser- 
 mon was preached in the High Church, and after it was 
 done, his Majesty made an oration to the people, declaring 
 his devotion to the Eeformed faith, and his indignation at 
 the conduct of the Eeformed ministers. The Estates assem- 
 bled at Holyrood. The rioters were anew pronounced to be 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
A.D. 1597. J THE king's QUERIES. 54l 
 
 guilty of treason ; the king was vested with power to inter- 
 dict ministers from preaching, or Church Courts from meet- 
 ing, when he saw cause ; the houses of the Edinburgh clergy- 
 were taken from them, and bestowed upon the Crown ; and 
 the magistrates of the city held bound either to procure the 
 originators of the riot, or to enter their own persons in ward 
 by the 1st of February. By this show of firmness both the 
 Church and the city were completely overawed.* 
 
 It is certain that from this time James had conceived the ) 
 idea of reintroducing the Episcopal pohty into the Church, j 
 He had come to the conclusion that Presbytery was essen- 
 tially anarchical and foul-mouthed — a conclusion natural in 
 the circumstances, but which a larger experience of its 
 working has sufficiently refuted. He felt himself strong 
 enough to make the attempt. The Edinburgh riot had been 
 followed by a reaction. " Every conspiracy of the subjects 
 which fails," says Tacitus, " advances the sovereign."t The 
 king prepared his way by a popular measure ; he accepted 
 the resignation of the Octavians, who, notwithstanding their 
 financial reforms, were generally odious to the nation on 
 account of their supposed Popish predilections. He next 
 summoned a meeting of the General Assembly at Perth 
 against the last day of February. This done, he had fifty- 
 five queries regarding points of the Church's discipline 
 printed and put in wide circulation. They were slyly put ; 
 and, notwithstanding the king's protestations to the contrary, 
 were no doubt designed to throw doubt upon existing 
 practices and opinions, and to test the temper of the ministry. 
 They touched upon the propriety of pulpit rebukes, upon 
 excommunication and its effects, and upon the constitution 
 and jurisdiction of the several judicatories of the Church.J 
 The Synod of Fife met at St Andrews, and, true to its 
 ancient principles and its redoubted leaders, answered the 
 royal questions in a tone of ultra-Presbyterianism. Indi- 
 vidual ministers attempted to answer them too.§ But while 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiawood, lib. vi. 
 
 t Spottiswood quotes this saying of Tacitus in regard to these events. We 
 have seen it amply illustrated in Erance. 
 
 + They are given at length in Melville's Diary, pp. 257-64. 
 § Calderwood, vol. v. pp. 579-99. 
 
542 CHURCH HISTOET OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XIV. 
 
 this was going on in the south, Sir Patrick Murray, as royal 
 commissioner, was husy in the north, courting and coaxing 
 the clergy there, and winning votes for the approaching 
 Assembly. It was not without reason that Perth was fixed 
 upon as the place of meeting. The district north of the 
 Tay, long guided by the counsels of Erskine of Dun, had 
 never sympathized with the violence of Lothian and Fife. 
 The Assembly was brought near to it, that it might feel its 
 influence. In those days a poor minister could scarcely be 
 expected to take to horse and ride all the long way from 
 Angus to Edinburgh ; a comparatively small number would 
 undertake the journey from Edinburgh to Perth. The 
 geography of the place decided the character of the meeting. 
 
 On the last day of February, the ministers from the north 
 came pouring into Perth. Never before had so many of the 
 northern brethren been seen at an Assembly. Sir Patrick 
 Murray, called ironically, by James Melville, the Apostle of 
 the North, was busy amongst them. They were taken to 
 the house were the king was, they were introduced to his 
 Majesty, they were smiled upon, caressed, flattered by 
 royalty. Meanwhile the courtiers were moving about amid 
 the clerical throng, throwing in a remark about the pride 
 and arrogance of the ministers of the south in usurping to 
 themselves the whole government of the Church, and gently 
 insinuating that they were much better able to manage 
 matters right. It is not to be wondered at that simple 
 pastors from the remote districts of Caithness and Aberdeen 
 got giddy under these adulatory attentions. They began to 
 brag and look big ; to talk of the popes of Edinbiirgh ; and 
 of how they had almost driven away the king and ruined the 
 Church.* 
 
 On the 1st of March the Assembly met, and the king, by 
 his commissioners, inquired whether they could regard 
 themselves as a lawful General Assembly of the Church, 
 with sufficient power to determine such matters as might be 
 brought before them. This was keenly debated, as it in- 
 volved the royal prerogative of calling Assemblies, but in 
 the end it was carried that they were a lawful extraordinary 
 ^ Melville's Diary, pp. 264, 265. Calderwood, vol. v. 
 
A.D. 1597.] ASSEMBLY AT PERTH. 5i3 
 
 General Assembly. The commissioners from the Synod of 
 Fife protested against the finding, as the Assembly had not 
 been called with the consent of the Church, and as another 
 Assembly stood indited for another place and another day. 
 The king next laid before the meeting, for its consideration, 
 twelve propositions, embodying some of the most important 
 matters alluded to in his questions. The answers, as first 
 framed, did not satisfy his Majesty, but the Assembly was 
 compliant, and they were so altered as to gratify his wish. 
 In these answers it was declared lawful for his Majesty to 
 propose to the General Assembly any matter affecting the 
 external government of the Church which he might wish to 
 see discussed or reformed ; no minister was to reprove his 
 Majesty's laws till he had first sought a remedy through the 
 Church Courts ; no man's name was to be mentioned in 
 pulpit rebukes unless his sin was notorious, and notoriety 
 was defined to consist in the person being fugitive, convicted 
 by an assize, excommunicated, or contumacious ; no minister 
 was to use any application in his sermons but such as had 
 for its object the edifying of his own flock ; the presbyteries 
 were to take diligent account of the doctrine of every pastor 
 within their bounds ; every summons issued by Church 
 Courts was to mention the cause and the crime ; the minis- 
 ters were not to hold any meetings beyond the ordinary ses- 
 sions, presbyteries, and synods; and in all the principal 
 towns the ministers were to be chosen with the consent of 
 the congregation and the king. The Assembly having 
 given the weight of its authority to these important propo- 
 sitions, appointed a committee to deal with the Popish earls, 
 with a view to their being restored to the Church ; and then 
 finished its labours in a charitable mood of mind, by petition- 
 ing the king on behalf of the fugitive ministers, and the 
 capital city still groaning under the royal displeasure.* 
 
 The king was so pleased with his Assembly at Perth, that 
 he resolved to have another at Dundee in the month of May, 
 to perfect the revolution so auspiciously begun. The north- 
 land ministers again mustered strong. Some of the royal 
 
 * Book of the Univei-sal Kirk, Assembly 1597. Calderwood vol v pp 
 606-23. 
 
544 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap, xiy- 
 
 propositions which had not been determined at Perth were 
 now discussed, and it was resolved, that his Majesty's sanc- 
 tion should be considered essential to give full effect to the 
 acts of all future Assemblies ; that all ministers should be 
 set apart to their work by the imposition of hands ; that all 
 Church judicatories should keep records of their proceedings, 
 and that these should be subject to the supervision of the 
 superior courts ; that presbyteries should not meddle with 
 anything but what was plainly ecclesiastical ; that persons 
 having interest should be entitled to have extracts of pro- 
 cesses before the ecclesiastical Courts ; and that summary 
 excommunication should be suspended till regulations were 
 framed in regard to it. 
 
 At the ninth session the king appeared in person, and 
 made a short speech. He stated, that on account of the 
 shortness of the time during which the Assembly sat, many 
 important matters were necessarily left undecided ; that he 
 was most anxious to have churches everywhere planted, and 
 a right provision made for their ministers ; and therefore 
 he asked them to consider whether it would not be expedient 
 for them to give a commission to some of their brethren to 
 advise with him upon these and other matters affecting the 
 welfare of the Church. The king had struck the right 
 string ; a minister for every kirk, and a stipend for every 
 minister, had a peculiarly pleasing sound ; and a standing 
 commission was appointed, consisting of Alexander Douglas, 
 James Nicolson, George Gladstone, Thomas Buclianan, 
 Robert Pont, Robert Pollock, David Lindsay, Patrick Gal- 
 loway, John Duncanson, Patrick Sharp, John Porterfield, 
 James Melville, William Couper, and John Clapperton, with 
 very ample powers.* These were, perhaps, the greatest names 
 in the Church, if we except Andrew Melville, who, in learning 
 and ability, towered high above all his compeers, but whose 
 unflinching devotion to High Church principles excluded 
 him from this courtly commission. It formed a kind of 
 college of presbyter cardinals, out of which the future 
 bishops were to be chosen ; and as every man began to look 
 for promotion, he began to be subservient. Calderwood 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, p. 461. 
 
A.D. 13'J7-] KESTOKATION OF THE POPISR LORDS. 545. 
 
 stigmatizes the commission as the " king's led horse ;" and 
 in bitterness of spirit remarks, that " it was as a wedge 
 taken out of the Church to rend her with her own forces, 
 and the very needle which drew in the thread of bishops."* 
 
 But one of the great objects of this Assembly was to take 
 steps for the restoration of the Popish earls to the bosom of 
 the Church. It was reported that they had attended de- 
 voutly upon a prescribed course of preachings ; that, after 
 long conference with the brethren appointed to deal with 
 them, they had confessed the truth of the Protestant reli- 
 gion, and expressed their abhorrence of Popery ; that they 
 had acknowledged the Keformed Church of Scotland to be 
 the true Church, and were willing to submit themselves to 
 it, subscribe the " Confession of Faith," maintain a minister 
 in their families, and make provision for the churches on 
 their estates. Upon these declarations being read, power 
 was given to the commission to grant them absolution, and 
 receive them into the Church, t 
 
 This was done at Aberdeen in the following month, after 
 the following fashion: — Saturday, the 25th of June, was 
 observed as a solemn fast, on which the three earls made up 
 all deadly feuds. The next day being Sunday, the Cathe- 
 dral Church was crowded with a congregation anxious to 
 witness the edifying spectacle of penitence and reconcilia- 
 tion. Immediately before the sermon was commenced, the 
 three earls publicly subscribed the " Confession of Faith." 
 The sermon being done, they stood up, and made acknow- 
 ledgment of their apostacy — declared their deep penitence 
 on account of it, their conviction of the truthfulness of the 
 Eeformed faith, and their resolution to abide by it. Huntly, 
 proceeding with his confession, while his brother penitents 
 were silent, declared his unfeigned sorrow for the murder 
 of the Earl of Moray. After this humiliating scene, in 
 which hypocrisy must have largely mingled, they were for- 
 mally absolved from the sentence of excommunication, and 
 received as members of the Church. A table for the cele- 
 
 * Oalderwood, vol. v. p. 644. In this, as in many other things, Calderwood 
 LoiTows from .Tames Melville 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 4-52-57. 
 VOL. L 2 M 
 
546 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 bration of the sacrament of the Supper had been spread in 
 the centre of the church, at which the congregation now 
 took their seats ; and the earls, Popish no more, sitting 
 down with them, received from the hands of a Presbyterian 
 minister the sacred elements, in token of their membership 
 with the Church.* 
 
 In the month of December, a parliament was held at 
 Edinburgh. The commissioners of the General Assembly, 
 under the influence of royal inspiration, appeared at its bar, 
 and craved that a limited number of ministers, as repre- 
 senting the Church and Third Estate of the kingdom, might 
 be admitted to vote in Parliament. After some opposition 
 from the abbots, priors, and lords of session, who thought 
 their own seats in danger, it was agreed that so many of 
 the ministry as his Majesty should promote to the dignity 
 of bishop, abbot, or other prelate, should have a vote in 
 parliament, as ecclesiastical prelates had in times past, f 
 
 The consent of the Estates being thus ob- 
 tained, all that was now necessary was to obtain 
 the consent of the Church to this important measure. An 
 Assembly was indited to meet at Dundee on the first Tues- 
 day of March. Once more the north gave up its ministers 
 to carry the royal resolutions. But from an opposite direc- 
 tion, and with opposite views, came Andrew Melville. The 
 king was present ; and dreading that Melville's powers of 
 debate might carry confusion among the northern ranks, he 
 challenged his right to attend, on the ground that he was a 
 doctor, and not a pastor in the Church ; and that at a recent 
 visitation of the University of St Andrews, where Melville 
 taught, a law had been enacted prohibiting the professors 
 from attending sessions, presbyteries, and synods, and or- 
 daining that the regents and masters should appoint three 
 of their number, and only three, to represent them in the 
 General Assembly, f Thus Melville, known in the Church 
 as " the slinger out of bishops," was slung out of the Assem- 
 bly himself, and the bishops were brought in. During the 
 debate upon this point, a characteristic passage-at-arms took 
 
 * Tytler'g History, vol. ix. f James VI., pari. xv. chap, ccxxxi. 
 
 X Melville's Diary, p. 289. Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. v. 
 
A.D, 1598.] MINISTERS ADMITTED TO PARLIAMENT. 547 
 
 place between the king and John Davidson, the minister 
 of Prestonpans. Davidson, imagining that James was argu- 
 ing too authoritatively, got up and said — " Sir, you are to 
 remember that you sit not here as imperator, but as a 
 Christian ; acles ut intersis, non utprcesis." The king granted 
 the truth of what the minister had said, but was evidently 
 nettled at it ; upon which Davidson made peace by jocosely 
 remarking, " Sir, we are afraid to speak, unless you be equal 
 and indifferent."* 
 
 After the Assembly had sat about a week, the great sub- 
 ject for which it was convened was brought up for discussion. 
 Some affirmed it was thus long delayed to weary out the 
 hostile ministers. The king opened the matter in a speech. 
 He expatiated upon the anxious desire he felt to adorn and 
 benefit the Church, to remove controversies, establish discip- 
 line, and restore her patrimony; and in order to this, he 
 went on to say, it was needful that ministers should have a 
 vote in parliament, without which the Church could not be 
 vindicated from poverty and contempt. " I wish not," said 
 the king, " to bring in papistical or Anglican bishops, but 
 only to have the best and wisest of the ministry appointed 
 by the General Assembly to have place in council and par- 
 liament, to sit upon their own matters and see them done, 
 and not to stand always at the door, like poor supplicants, 
 despised and nothing regarded." The debate was keen. 
 Bruce, Davidson, and James Melville exerted themselves on 
 the one side ; Buchanan, Gladstone, and Pont on the other ; 
 and the polemical monarch sometimes interrupted the 
 speakers, and attempted to pose them by a question. It is 
 characteristic of the period that the hottest of the fight was 
 upon the nineteenth chapter of Second Chronicles.f When 
 the roll was called, it began with the Synod of Orkney and 
 Caithness. Gilbert Bodie, denounced by James Melville as 
 "a drunken Orkney ass," was asked first to vote. " He led the 
 ring, and a great number of the north followed, all for the 
 hodie, without regard to the spirit."^ It was carried by a 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. v. p. 683. 
 
 t Calderwood, vol. v. Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
 X Melvilles Diary, pp. 291, 292. 
 
 2 m2 
 
548 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [oHAP. XIV. 
 
 majority of ten, " that it is necessary and expedient for the 
 welfare of the Church, that the ministry, as the third Estate 
 of the reahn, in name of the Church, have a vote in parha- 
 ment ;" that the number should be the same as in the time of 
 Popery ; and that the election of these should belong partly 
 to his Majesty and partly to the Church.* 
 
 It was a saying of Philip of Macedon, that any castle 
 might be taken to which an ass laden with gold could find 
 an entrance. The Church of Scotland was taken by a much 
 cheaper commodity — a mixture of craft and kindness. The 
 removal of the Assemblies to the borders of the north, and 
 a few flattering speeches to the northern ministers, effected 
 the matter. Who would have fancied that the Chiirch, 
 which but eighteen months before defied the king and his 
 Council, declined their jurisdiction, and made them tremble 
 in their capital, would at the royal bidding have yielded up 
 its dearest and most cherished principles ? The truth is, the 
 bow was bent too far, and a rebound was inevitable. The 
 state of tension which existed in 1596 could not be main- 
 tained. The extravagant pretensions of Melville and Bruce 
 could not be allowed. Had they claimed less, it is probable 
 the Church had lost less. In surrendering its privilege of 
 meeting at all times, and for all ecclesiastical purposes, it 
 surrendered what ought to have been a sacred and inviolable 
 right — a right to be defended to the last extremity. In 
 consenting to fifty-one of its ministers having a place in 
 parliament as the Spiritual Estate, it in fact consented to 
 the reintroduction of prelacy. The terms of the act of 
 parliament implied this, the opponents of the measure 
 clearly saw this. David Ferguson, the oldest minister in 
 Scotland, compared the stratagem to that of the Grecians 
 for the overthrow of Troy — busking up a brave horse, and 
 by a crafty Sinon persuading the citizens to pluck down the 
 walls with their own hands, and receive that for their wel- 
 fare and honour which proved their wreck and destruction, 
 '^Equo ne credite, Teucri," said the venerable presbyter. 
 " Busk, busk him as bonnilie as ye can," said Davidson, 
 
 ■1' Book of the Universal Kirk, Assemblj' 1598. 
 
A.D. 1599.] ORDINATION OF BRUCE. 549 
 
 " and bring him in as fairlie as ye will, we see him weel 
 eneugh : we see the horns of his mitre."* 
 
 The " First Book of Discipline " had repudiated the im- 
 position of hands in ordination ; the Second Book had en- 
 joined it ; but still it would appear to have been frequently 
 neglected. Melville, while in Glasgow, held the parsonage 
 of Govan, and frequently preached ; but he was never or- 
 dained. Robert Bruce acted for eleven years as one of the 
 ministers of Edinburgh ; but he had never been set apart to 
 his work by the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. 
 But now the General Assembly had put its stamp upon the 
 royal proposition that none should be admitted to the minis- 
 try but by the imposition of hands ; and it was resolved 
 that this principle should be applied to the case of Bruce. 
 Bruce strenuously resisted, as such procedure would throw a 
 doubt upon the lawfulness of his previous ministry. There 
 were discussions among the ministers, conferences with the 
 king, an unseemly altercation before the people- in the 
 Church of St Gile ; but at last, under the threat of depriva- 
 tion, he submitted to the ceremony — it being expressly de- 
 clared, for his satisfaction, that the imposition of hands was 
 not used as a sign of his ordination to the ministry, but of 
 his ordination to a particular flock. 
 
 Bruce was now as violently disliked by the 
 king as he was once esteemed. In the palmy 
 days of his favour, he had received from James a pension of 
 twenty-four chalders of victual out of the Abbacy of Ar- 
 broath, which was secured to him for life. James was now 
 mean enough to attempt to deprive him of it, and the mat- 
 ter was brought before the Court of Session. "While the 
 case was proceeding, the king frequently came into the 
 Court, and violently remonstrated with the judges. He is 
 said to have sent for some of them to the palace, to talk 
 them over to his views. When it came to the vote, and 
 was like to go against the king, his rage became ungovern- 
 able, and he asked who durst be so bold as vote against him. 
 Four or five of the judges rose to their feet, and said, that 
 with all reverence for his Majesty, except he would dis- 
 
 * Melville's Diary, p. 2^0. 
 
550 CHUECH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 charge them by his absolute power, they both durst and 
 would do their office.* The Lord President Seton spoke as 
 became his dignified place. " My liege, it is my part to 
 speak first in this court, of which your Highness has made 
 me head. You are our king ; we your subjects, bound and 
 ready to obey you from the heart, and with all devotion to 
 serve you with our lives and substance ; but this is a matter 
 of law, in which we are sworn to do justice according to our 
 conscience and the statutes of the realm. Your Majesty 
 may indeed command us to the contrary, in which case I 
 and every honest man on the bench will either vote against 
 conscience, or resign and not vote at all." This was nobly 
 spoken. Interlocutor was given in favour of Bruce ; and 
 the mortified monarch flung out of court, " muttering re- 
 venge, and raging marvellously." f 
 
 James was ambitious of literary fame, and more especially 
 of being considered an authority on matters of king-craft. 
 In 1598 he published his " Law of Free Monarchies ;" and, 
 amidst all the distractions of his contest with the Church, 
 he found time to compose his " Basilicon Doron, or Instruc- 
 tions to his Dearest Son Henry, the Prince." He permitted 
 only seven copies of this work to be printed — the printer 
 being first sworn to secrecy — and these he distributed among 
 his trustiest servants, to be closely kept by them, and care- 
 fully preserved. Sir James Sempill, one of these trusty ser- 
 vants, showed his copy to Andrew Melville. Andrew Mel- 
 ville extracted some propositions from the work, and sent 
 them to his nephew James Melville. James Melville showed 
 them. to his colleague at Anstruther, John Dykes ; and John 
 Dykes covertly brought a copy before the Sjmod of Fife — a 
 roundabout and underhand course, which does not look 
 weU.t Among the propositions presented to the synod were 
 the following : — The ofiice of a king is a mixed ofiice betwixt 
 the civil and ecclesiastical estate : the king should be judge 
 if a minister wander from his text : no man is more to be 
 
 * Calderwood's History, vol. v. p. 733. 
 t Tytler's History, vol. ix. 
 
 t Melville's Diary, p. 294. Spottiswood, lib. vi. Calderwood, vol. 
 M'Crie's Life of Melville. 
 
A.D. 1599.] BASILICON DOEON. 551 
 
 hated of a king than a proud puritan: parity amongst minis- 
 ters cannot agree with a monarchy : without bishops the 
 three Estates in parliament cannot be re-established : the 
 ministers sought to establish a democracy in the land, and 
 to become tribuni plebis themselves : the ministers' quarrel 
 was ever against the king, for no other cause but because he 
 was a king.* The propositions thus stealthily laid upon the 
 table were anonymous ; the synod affected to be ignorant of 
 their author, and condemned them. All this was done 
 under the eyes of two royal commissioners who were present 
 in the court. At first they were completely baffled in their 
 endeavours to discover how the propositions had been ob- 
 tained, but when the truth began to spunk out, Dykes thought 
 it pruden* to abscond. 
 
 James now felt that he had no alternative but to publish 
 his work, and he did so. Amid some puerilities it contains 
 many wise and virtuous maxims, and is undoubtedly the 
 most creditable of the royal author's productions. James 
 was a believer in the divine right of kings, and the duty of 
 passive obedience on the part of the people ; but he does not 
 put these doctrines offensively forward. The passage at 
 which umbrage was taken occurs in the second book, where, 
 speaking of the Keformation, and the events which followed, 
 he alludes to the party in the Church who had kept him in 
 a continual whirl of alarm and agitation. " Take heed, 
 therefore, my son," he says, '' to such puritans, very pests in 
 the Church and Commonwealth, whom no deserts can oblige, 
 neither oaths or promises bind, breathing nothing but sedi- 
 tion and calumnies, aspersing without measure, railing with- 
 out reason, and making their own imaginations (without any 
 warrant of the word) the square of their consciences. I 
 protest before the great God, and, since I am here, upon my 
 Testament, it is no place for me to lie in, that you shall 
 never find with any highland or border thieves greater in- 
 gratitude, and more lies and vile perjuries, than with these 
 fanatic spirits. And suffer not the principles of them to 
 brook your land, if you like to sit at rest ; unless you would 
 
 « Melville's Diary, p. 295. Melville calls them " Anglopiscui>apiBtical 
 propositions." 
 
552 CHURCH BISTORT OF SCOTLAND. [chap. XIV. 
 
 keep tlaem for trying your patience, as Socrates did an evil 
 wife. And for preservation against their poison, entertain 
 and advance the godly, learned, and modest men of the 
 ministry, of whom (God be praised) there lacketh not a 
 sufficient number, and by their jjrovision to bishoprics and 
 benefices (annulling that vile act of annexation if you find 
 it not done to your hand), you shall not only banish their 
 conceited parity whereof I have spoken, and their other 
 imaginary grounds, which can neither stand with the order 
 of a Church nor the peace of a Commonwealth and well- 
 ruled monarchy ; but you shall also re-establish the old 
 institution of Three Estates in Parliament, which can no 
 otherwise be done. But in this, I hope, if God spare me 
 days, to make you a fair entry ; always where I lea«e, follow 
 you my steps. And to end my advice anent the Church 
 Estate, cherish no man more than a good pastor, hate no 
 man more than a proud puritan ; thinking it one of your 
 fairest styles to be called a loving nourish-father to the 
 Church, seeing all the churches within your dominions 
 planted with good pastors, the schools (the seminary of the 
 Church) maintained, the doctrine and discipline preserved in 
 purity, according to God's Word, a sufficient provision for 
 their sustentation, a comely order in their policy, pride 
 punished, humility advanced, and they so to reverence their 
 superiors and their flocks them, as the flourishing of your 
 Church in piety, peace, and learning, may be one of the 
 chief points of your earthly glory, being ever alike aware of 
 both the extremities ; as you repress the vain puritan, so do 
 not suffer proud Papal bishops, but as some for their qualities 
 well deserve to be preferred before others, so chain them 
 with such bonds as may preserve that Estate from creeping 
 to corruption."* 
 
 The king, like meaner authors, has a " Prefatory Epistle 
 to the Charitable Reader," which he begins with the text, 
 "there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed," and 
 then,alludingto the underhand production of the propositions, 
 he says that he was thus forced to publish the entire book, 
 " for resisting the malice of the children of envy, who, like 
 * Basilicon Doron, book ii. pp, 160, 161. 
 
A.D. 1599.] ROYAL EXPLANATIONS. 553 
 
 wasps, suck venom out of every wholesome herb." Knowing 
 that what he had said about Puritans was what had galled 
 most, he remarks by way of apology, " I am not ignorant 
 that the name of Puritan doth properly belong only to that 
 vile sect amongst the Anabaptists called the family of love ; 
 because they think themselves only pure, and in a manner 
 
 without sin Of this special sect I principally mean, 
 
 when I speak of puritans, divers of them, as Brown, Penry, 
 and others, having come into Scotland to sow their popply 
 amongst us ; and partly indeed I give this style to such 
 brain-sick and heady preachers, their disciples and followers, 
 as refusing to be called of that sect, yet participate too much 
 with their humours. . . . I protest upon mine honour I mean 
 it not generally of all preachers or others, that like better 
 the single form of policy in our Church, than the many cere- 
 monies in the Church of England ; that are persuaded their 
 bishops smell of a Papal supremacy ; that the surplice, the 
 cornered cap, anfl such like, are the outward badges of 
 Popish errors. No ; I am so far from being contentious in 
 these things (which, for my own part, I ever esteemed as 
 indifferent), as I do equally love and honour the learned and 
 great men of either of these opinions."* We are bound in 
 charity to believe what James thus so earnestly protests ; 
 but, apart from this, enough remained to give deep cause of 
 offence to many, and to reveal to all that it was the king's 
 settled purpose to reintroduce Episcopacy into the Church. 
 In England, if we may believe Spottiswood, the book was so 
 well received, as to have smoothed the royal author's path to 
 the throne ; in Scotland, if we may believe Bowes, the 
 English ambassador, it produced an opposite effect. A fast 
 was proclaimed ; for two whole days it was rigorously kept ; 
 and Bowes declares to Cecil that he had never witnessed a 
 more holy or powerful practice of religion. f 
 
 In the month of October the king and the Church were 
 brought into collision by a company of comedians, whom his 
 Majesty had invited from England to his northern capital. 
 
 * Epistle to the Reader prefixed to the Basilicon Doron, King James's 
 Works, p. 143. 
 
 t Spottiswood, lib. \i. Tytler, toI. ix. 
 
554 CHUfiCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 Fletcher was at the head of this strolling band oi players, 
 and some have fondly imagined that William Shakspeare 
 was one of the company. James was a lover of theatricals, 
 and several comedies were performed at the palace in his 
 presence. When the king was wearied vfith their fun, the 
 comedians purchased from him a warrant to the magistrates 
 of Edinburgh, to find them a house within the town for per- 
 forming their plays. All things being ready, " they gave 
 warning by trumpets and drums through the streets of the 
 city to all that pleased to come to the Blackfriar's Wynd, to 
 see the acting of their comedies." The clergy took alarm ; 
 the four sessions were convoked ; an act was made, and in- 
 timated from the pulpit, forbidding the people to resort to 
 these profane plays ; and the poor players found that their 
 occupation was gone. The king was highly incensed when 
 he heard of this, as he regarded the act of the sessions as 
 made to cross his royal warrant, and ' therefore he had the 
 ministers and elders forthwith summoned into his presence. 
 Their explanations were regarded as unsatisfactory, and on 
 the next day a proclamation was published by sound of 
 trumpet, charging them to meet and rescind the obnoxious 
 act. The sessions convened, the opinion of counsel was 
 taken, the ministers stood firm, but the elders outvoted 
 them, and the act was annulled. Thus the inhabitants of 
 Edinburgh had free liberty to resort to the Blackfriar's 
 Wynd and enjoy the modern drama, now that the Mysteries 
 and Moralities of the Church, and the frolics of Eobin Hood 
 and Little John, had fallen into disuse.* 
 
 The last year of the sixteenth century was 
 destined to see Scotch presbyters raised to the 
 dignity of Members of Parliament. The General Assembly 
 met at Montrose on the 18th of March. It was designed to 
 complete the revolutionary work which had been begun at 
 Perth and Dundee, and therefore the tmcompromising Pres- 
 byterians, and their more courtly brethren, looked forward 
 to it with equal anxiety. The north once more appeared in 
 great strength. The king himself came to Montrose to meet 
 with the ministers, and join in their discussions with all the 
 * Calderwood, vol. \. pp. 765-67. Tytler, vol. ix. 
 
A.D. 1600.] ASSEMBLY AT MONTROSE. 555 
 
 keenness of a thorough-bred polemic. His apartments were 
 constantly crowded with clergymen, who came either to 
 make their court or to be courted. From the time he rose 
 in the morning till he went to bed at night, he was so busy 
 with ministers that the courtiers complained they could get 
 no access to him. It had already been decided at Dundee 
 that ministers might vote in parliament as the representa- 
 tives ot the Church ; but many specialties required to be 
 arranged to give to this general proposition a soUd and sub- 
 stantive shape. At a meeting of Commissioners of Synods 
 held at Falkland, a number of resolutions had been discussed 
 and agreed upon ; and at a conference of ministers in Holy- 
 rood House, under the auspices of the king, the subject had 
 been long and earnestly debated in all its bearings. 
 
 The whole matter was now brought before the supreme 
 court of the Church to receive its sanction. The iirst subject 
 to be decided regarded the election and maintenance of those 
 who were to have vote in parliament; and, after some dis- 
 cussion, it was resolved — 
 
 1. That the Church should recommend to his Majesty a 
 list of six ministers for every vacant place, and that out of 
 these his Majesty should choose one to sit in parliament. 
 
 2. That this recommendation should be made by the 
 General Assembly, with the advice of the synods and pres- 
 byteries. 
 
 3. That after churches, colleges, and schools were suffi- 
 ciently provided for, the remainder of the benefice might be 
 disponed by the king to the minister who had been preferred 
 to it. 
 
 This being resolved upon, the Assembly proceeded to heap 
 caveats upon its parliamentary representatives. Never was 
 member for a burgh more loaded with pledges and promises 
 than were these members for the Church with what were 
 called caveats or cautions. They were to propose nothing in 
 name of the Church without its express warrant ; they were 
 to render to every General Assembly an account of the way 
 in which they had discharged their commission ; they were to 
 content themselves with so much of their benefice as was as- 
 signed them by his Majesty ; they were not to dilapidate their. 
 
556 CHURCH mSTOEY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XIV. 
 
 benefice ; they were to discharge every pastoral duty to their 
 respective congregations ; they were not to usurp any juris- 
 diction over their brethren ; they were to remain subject to 
 the censures of the Church Courts ; they were to swear to all 
 this at their admission ; and, in case of their deposition from 
 the ministry, their seat in parliament and their benefice were 
 i'pso facto to become vacant.* 
 
 It was warmly debated as to whether these parliament- 
 men should hold their seats for life, or only from year to 
 year. A middle course was at length agreed upon. Every 
 year they w;ere to give an account of their stewardship to 
 the Assembly, and lay down their commission at its feet, to 
 be continued or discontinued as the Assembly, with the con- 
 sent of his Majesty, might think most expedient for the 
 welfare of the Church. Another nice point which this As- 
 sembly had to solve was the name to be borne by its par- 
 liamentary representatives. The Estates had determined 
 that they could be received only as abbots and bishops, the 
 heirs of their Popish ancestors. To be an abbot, even in 
 name, was a thing abhorrent to every Presbyterian ; to be a 
 bishop almost as bad. It was resolved they should be called 
 Commissioners, and in case the Estates would not receive 
 them under that appellation, that a future Assembly would 
 reconsider it. " Thus," says Calderwood, mournfully, " the 
 Trojan horse — the Episcopacy — was brought in, busked and 
 covered with caveats, that the danger and deformity might 
 not be seen ; which was, notwithstanding, seen of many and 
 opposed unto. But force and falsehood prevailed."t 
 
 Nothing now remained to be done but to fill up the vacant 
 bishoprics. Aberdeen and Argyle were already filled by 
 ministers ; Dunkeld, Brechin, and Dunblane were held by 
 titulars, not ministers ; St Andrews and Glasgow were in 
 possession of the Duke of Lennox ; Galloway and the Isles 
 were so dilapidated, that nothing was left. Only Boss and 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly 1600. Calderwood, vol. vi. pp. 
 1-20. 
 
 t History, vol. vi. p. 20. The Trojan horse was a favourite figure. James 
 Melville gives us a snatch of poetry, in which the same similitude is worked 
 out. 
 
A.D. 1600.J THE GOWRIE CONSPIRACY. 557 
 
 Caithness remained to be disposed of. David Lyndsay ivas 
 presented to the first, and George Gladstone to the second.* 
 The autumn of this year is memorable for the Gowrie 
 Conspiracy, over -which there still hangs an air of impene- 
 trable mystery. Early on the mormng of Tuesday, the 1st 
 of August, his Majesty was in the park surrounding his 
 palace at Falkland, ready to jump into the saddle, to join in 
 a stag-hunt, when Alexander Ruthven, the brother of the 
 young Earl of Gowrie, came up to him, told him a strange 
 story of a man he had apprehended at Perth, of a suspicious 
 appearance, and with a great pot of foreign gold concealed 
 under his cloak, and pressed his Majesty to come and 
 examine him in person. During the chase the story haunted 
 the mind of the king, and when the stag was killed, he sud- 
 denly resolved to comply with the solicitations of Euthven, 
 proceed to Perth, and see the man about whom his imagi- 
 nation was so busily at work, and whose pot of gold he so 
 earnestly desired. Attended by only a few of his courtiers, 
 he galloped forward to St Johnstone. After dinner at 
 Gowrie House, young Euthven managed to get him separated 
 from his attendants, and conducted him up a narrow stair, 
 along a long passage, to a small room, where the king to his 
 horror beheld, not a Jesuit priest in a Spanish cloak, but a 
 man in complete armour, with a dagger at his belt. Euth- 
 ven now put on his cap, changed his tone, and threatened 
 the king with death, in revenge for his father's execution. 
 James caught courage from despair ; a scuffle ensued ; the 
 king, though the weaker man, managed to drag his antago- 
 nist to the window, and to shout " treason, help \" Happily, 
 some of his attendants were in the court below, and heard 
 his cries. Eushing up the main staircase they found the 
 doors barred, and began battering them, but it was some 
 time before they gave way. Ln the meantime. Sir John 
 Eamsay, who was well acquainted with the intricacies of 
 Gowrie House, slipped up a back-stair, and was instantly in 
 the small room where Euthven and the king were still 
 struggling. The man in armour had hitherto stood motion- 
 less, and now he mysteriously disappeared. The king cried 
 » Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
, 558 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XIV. 
 
 to Ramsay to strike with his dagger, and Kamsay did strike ; 
 and Ruthven, loosing his gripe and staggering out of the 
 room, was met by Sir Thomas Erskine and Sir Hugh 
 Harries, and killed on the spot. This was hardly done when 
 the Earl of Gowrie, with a sword in each hand, and followed 
 by some of his servants, came rushing along the passage, vow- 
 ing revenge, but in the hand-to-hand fight which ensued, 
 the sword of Eamsay passed through his heart, and he fell 
 dead to the ground.* 
 
 A letter from his Majesty made his good subjects, the 
 citizens of Edinburgh, aware of all this by ten o'clock the 
 next morning ; and requested the ministers to have the 
 Church bells rung, the people assembled, and thanks given 
 to God for his delivery. The ministers, somehow, were 
 sceptical about the whole matter, and declared that if they 
 went to the pulpit, whatever they might say, they would be 
 silent about treason. The remonstrances of the Privy 
 Council failed to move them, and there was nothing for it 
 but that David Lyndsay, the new Bishop of Eoss, should go 
 to the market cross, and make an harangue to the people. 
 When it was done, the whole multitude uncovered and 
 praised God ; the bells of the churches rung ; the cannons 
 of the castle thundered forth their joy ; and when darkness set 
 in the city was illuminated, and bonfires blazed on the top 
 of Arthur's Seat, on Fawside Hill, and other eminences, both 
 on the north and south sides of the Firth, f 
 
 Upon Monday, the 11th of August, James returned to his 
 capital, and the citizens, to testify their joy, turned out in 
 arms to receive him. The market cross was covered with 
 tapestry, and at it the royal procession paused. Patrick Gal- 
 loway preached a sermon, embodying a narrative of the con- 
 spiracy, to the crowd of courtiers and burghers who thronged 
 around him ; and the king made a speech, corroborating 
 what had been said by the preacher. The next day the un- 
 believing ministers were cited by a macer to appear before 
 
 * A discourse of the nnnaturall and vile conspiracie attempted against his 
 Majesty's person at Sanot Johnstown, upon the 5th day of August, being tues- 
 day, 1600. Copied in Calderwood, vol. vi. 
 
 t Calderwood, vol. vi. p. 46. 
 
A.D. leOO.] SCEPTICISM OF THE EDINBURGH MINISTERS. 559 
 
 the Secret Council. They came, and were questioned by 
 the king himself, but they were still sceptical ; and while 
 declaring their readiness to give thanks for the king's 
 escape in general terms, they stoutly declined to enter into 
 particulars. Had James consulted his interest and his 
 dignity, he would have left them alone in their unbelief ; 
 but he let his annoyance get the better of his discretion, and 
 banished Bruce, Balcanquhal, Balfour, Watson, and Hall, 
 from Edinburgh, and interdicted them from preaching any- 
 where in the Scotch dominions. The sentence was utterly 
 unjustifiable, but it had the effect of convincing Balcanquhal, 
 Balfour, Watson, and Hall ; who, after publicly confessing 
 their conversion to the truth, were restored to their churches. 
 Bruce remained obstinate, and was banished to France, but 
 in exile conviction began to dawn upon his mind too, and he 
 was on the eve of being reponed when new disagreements 
 led to his final removal from Ediiaburgh.* 
 
 It is now as certain as most historical facts, that the 
 Gowries had conspired — not to murder the king, but to get 
 him into their power, and thus to control the government ; 
 but James's notorious timidity, the death of the two princi- 
 pal conspirators, with the secret in their bosoms, the dis- 
 crepancies in the narratives that were afloat, the strangeness 
 of the whole story, made many besides the ministers dis- 
 believe, and even led some to fancy that it was a conspiracy 
 of the king against the Euthvens, and not of the Euthvens 
 against the king. 
 
 The man who could scarcely look upon a drawn sword 
 without shuddering, must have felt devoutly thankful when 
 dehvered from a dagger pointed at his heart; but he foolishly 
 expected all men, and all future ages, to be as thankful as 
 himself, when he changed the weekly preaching from Friday 
 till Tuesday in memory of the event, and ordained that in 
 all time coming the 5th of August should be held as a day 
 of solemn thanksgiving for his miraculous deliverance. This 
 was a near approach to an apotheosis. The Church of Scot- 
 land did not keep saints' days, but in its present obliging 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. vi. Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 
560 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [cHAP. XIV.'' 
 
 liumour, it agreed to keep the king's day.* But it was not 
 long till tlie calendar was changed. The Church of Eng- 
 land, with amazing tenacity, every 5th of November, has her 
 service for the gunpowder treason ;t the Church of Scotland, 
 when the 5th of August revolves, has no service for the 
 Growrie Conspiracy. 
 
 Before the sixteenth century expired, many of the minis- 
 ters of the Church, who had borne a conspicuous part in the 
 Reformation struggles, ceased from their warfare to enter 
 upon their reward. In 1598 Thomas Buchanan, provost of 
 Kirkheugh and minister of Cyrus, was killed by a fall from 
 his horse. In 1599 Principal RoUock of Edinburgh died, 
 still a young man, but already distinguished for his learn- 
 ing, moderation, and services to the Church. In 1600 stout 
 John Dury breathed his last, a man whom all parties appear 
 to have respected for his simple piety and straightforward 
 honesty ; and in the same year John Craig, long the col- 
 league of Knox, and whose life in youth was strangely 
 chequered by stirring incidents and hairbreadth escapes, 
 put off the armour of the Church militant, that he might be 
 arrayed in the long white robes of the Church triumphant. J 
 
 The name of Principal Pollock bids us pause and record 
 the foundation of the University of Edinburgh. No papal 
 bull gave privileges and immunities to this celebrated seat 
 of learning, as had been the case with St Andrews, Glasgow, 
 and Aberdeen. The reverence for the Pope had departed 
 before the metropolitan university had a being. Imme- 
 diately after the Reformation, however, the magistrates re- 
 solved to apply some of the ecclesiastical spoil which had 
 come into their hands toward the erection of a college, and 
 the kirk of St Mary-in-the-Fields was bought from its last 
 provost for a site. In 1580 the building was begun ; two 
 years afterwards, a charter of erection was obtained from 
 James VI., ratifying the previous grants of his mother ; and 
 
 * Book of the Universal Kirk, Assembly 1602, p. 526. Calderwood, vol. vi. 
 
 t Since this was written, the parliament of England has expunged the 
 Gunpowder- Plot Service from the Book of Common Prayer, with the still more 
 absurd services for the Blessed Martyr, King Charles, and the Restoration of 
 his profligate son. 
 
 :]: Spottiswood's History, lib. vi. 
 
A.D. 1601. J ASSEMBLY AT BUENTISLAND. 561 
 
 in 1583 students were received to be taught Humanity by 
 EoUock, at first the only professor of whom the College could 
 boast. When other professors were added, EoUock was 
 raised to the principality. The academy thus poorly begun 
 flourished mightily. Eegents were appointed, public dis- 
 putations were held, students were laureated; and when 
 King James came from England to revisit his native country 
 in 1617, he was so proud of the school which he had helped 
 to rear that he desired that it should be called by his 
 name.* 
 
 The Assembly met at Burntisland in May 
 1601. It exhibited the same zeal as all former 
 Assemblies against Popery ; but the most interesting part 
 of its proceedings related to the Bible and Psalm-Book. It 
 was brought before the notice of the Assembly, that in the 
 translation of the Scriptures then in use there were many 
 errors which might be corrected ; that in the metrical ver- 
 sion of the Psalms there were many lines that might be im- 
 proved ; and that in the liturgy there were several prayers 
 which ought to be changed, to meet the change of times. This 
 was a subject upon which the poetic and theological monarch 
 was sure to shine. He pointed out the errors in the vulgar 
 translation of the Bible ; he recited verse after verse of the 
 Psalms ; he expatiated upon their divergence from the ori- 
 ginal, and the faults of their metre ; and the Assembly lis- 
 tened with wonder and joy. It was finally agreed that the 
 brethren best acquainted with the original languages should 
 devote their energies to different parts of the sacred text, 
 and bring the result of their labours before a future Assem- 
 bly ; and that any brother might prepare and propose new 
 prayers, suited to the times, to be added to the liturgy, but 
 that no alteration should be made in those already contained 
 in it.f 
 
 James was now beginning to look anxiously forward to 
 his accession to the English throne. Elizabeth's health was 
 beginning to decline, and it was plain that the sceptre must 
 soon depart from her, notwithstanding the firmness with 
 
 * Stevenson's Chronicles of Edinburgli. 
 
 t Book of the Universal Kirk, pp. 497, 498. Spottiswood, lib. vi. 
 VOL. I. 2n 
 
562 CHURCH HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. [chap. xiv. 
 
 which she had held it for so long a period. It was the policy 
 of James to conciliate all classes of his subjects, present and 
 future ; and such middle courses, though sometimes the best 
 that can be followed, are never entirely successful. The 
 Protestants bitterly blamed him for the marks of favour 
 which he gave to the Komanists. The Countess of Huntly, 
 a Papist, was a great favourite at court ; Lady Livingston, 
 a Papist, had the charge of the Princess Elizabeth ; the 
 sister of the Laird of Bonnington,,a Papist too, was fre- 
 quently at Holyrood. These were sore evils in the eye of 
 the Church. It was even affirmed that in 1596 James had 
 written a courteous letter to the Pope, proposing the resi- 
 dence of a Scottish ambassador at the court of Rome. When 
 challenged for this apparent apostacy, he strongly denied it ; 
 and when the letter was afterwards produced, with the royal 
 signature attached. Lord Balmerino, the Scottish Secretary 
 of State, and a Catholic, stepped forward and declared that 
 he had surreptitiously got it signed, with a number of other 
 papers which the king did not read ; but many believed that 
 the secretary took the paternity of the document to save 
 the character of his royal master.* Notwithstanding these 
 concessions, the millions of Papists in the heart of England 
 were not entirely reconciled to the prospect of another Pro- 
 testant monarch, and more than one brain was busily plot- 
 ting a change in the line of succession. 
 
 On Thursday the 24th of March 1603, Queen Elizabeth 
 breathed her last, and late on Saturday night, James was 
 raised from his bed to be greeted as King of England, France, 
 and Ireland. Two days afterwards official news of his peace- 
 able accession to the English throne reached Edinburgh. 
 He instantly began to make preparations for his journey to 
 the south. On Sabbath the 3d of April, he repaired to St 
 Gile's for the last time to hear sermon. Hall was the 
 preacher for the day, and took occasion in his sermon to 
 remember the mercies of God towards his Majesty, not the 
 least of which, he remarked, was his peaceable accession 
 to the throne of England. When the sermon was done, 
 the king rose up and delivered his farewell speech. He 
 
 * Tytler, vol. ix. Calderwood, vol. vi. 
 
A.D. 1603.] UNION OF THE CROWNS. 563 
 
 complimented the preacher ; he remarked of himself that 
 he was the lineal heir of the crown of England as well as of 
 the crown of Scotland ; he declared his love for his Scotch 
 subjects would not be lessened though he was removed from 
 them. " There is no more difference," said the royal orator, 
 "between London and Edinburgh, than between Edinburgh 
 and Aberdeen ; for all our marches are dry, and there are 
 ferries between them. But my course must be to establish 
 peace, and religion, and wealth betwixt both countries ; 
 and as God has joined the right of both kingdoms in my 
 person, so you may be joined in wealth, in religion, in heart, 
 and affections. And as the one country has wealth, and the 
 other has multitude of men, so we may part the gifts, and 
 every one, as they can, help the other. And as G-od has 
 promoted me to a greater power than I had, so I must en- 
 deavour myself to flourish and establish religion, and take 
 away the corruptions of both countries. And, on the other 
 part, you must not doubt but as I have a body as able as 
 any king in Europe, whereby I am able to travel, so I shall 
 visit you every three years at the least, that I may with 
 mine own mouth take account of justice, and of them that 
 are under me, and that you yourselves may see and hear 
 me, and from the meanest to the greatest may have access 
 to my person, and may pour out your complaints in my 
 bosom."* In a few days more the king had crossed the 
 border, to be met by the loud acclamations and hearty wel- 
 come of the English people. 
 
 * Calderwood, vol. vi. p. 215. 
 
 END Of VOL. I.