BR 350 .H3 L6 1857 Lorimer, Peter, 1812 18 /y_ Patrick Hamilton, the first preacher and martyr of the r \ PRECURSORS OF KNOX: ni;, OF PATRICK HAMILTON, THE FIRST PKEACHEil AND MARTYR OF THE SCOTTISH KEFOHMATIGN ALEXANDER ALANE, or ALESIUS, ITS FIRST ACADEMIC THEOLOGIAN; AND ^ SIR DAVID LINDSAY, of THE MOUNT, ITS FIRST POET. COLLECTED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES. I. PATRICK HAMILTON. r.Y THE RET. PETER LORIMER, r-ROFESSOR OF HEBREW AND EXEGETIC THEOLOGY, ENGLISH PRESBYTERIAN COLLEGE, LONDON. EDINBUKGH : THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.; WILLIAMS AND NORGATE. MDCCCLVII. PATRICK HAMILTON, THE FIRST PREACHER AND MARTYR OF THE SCOTTISH REFORIilATION. %ix ffxniaxud ^bgrapljg, COLLECTED FEOM OKIGINAL SOURCES; INCLUDING A VIE\V OF HAMILTON'S INFLUENCE UPON THE EEFORMATION DOWN TO THE TI3IE OF GEORGE WISHAET. WITH AN APPENDIX OF ORIGINAL LETTERS A^'D OTHEil PAPERS. THE EET. PETEE'^LORIMER, PKOFESSOR UF HEBREW AND EXEGETIC THEOLOGY, ENGLISH PKESEYTERLiN COLLEGE, LONDON. EDINBURGH : THOMAS CONSTABLE AND CO. LONDON: HA:yiILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.; ^YILLL\MS AND NORGATE. MDCCCLVII. HIS HONOUEEL) COLLEAGUE, THOMAS M'CRIE, D.D., LL.D., THE AUTHOR DEDICATES MOST HEAETILY THE FOLLOWIXG WORK, AS A SLIGHT MEITORIAL OF THE IMPORTANT EVEKT OF HIS RECENT ACCESSION TO THE COLLEGE OF fjlB '^rrsliijtBrian i^^nrrlj in €nglantr, FROM WHICH THE AUTHOR ANTICIPATES THE BEST RESULTS TO THE CAUSE OF EVANGELICAL TRUTH AND UNION, AS WELL AS A GREAT ENHANCE3IENT OF HIS OWN COMFORT AND HAPPINESS IN THE DISCHARGE OF ACADEMIC DUTY. Sevit qiiidem Cxoxius verbi divini semen in Scotia quam latissime, sed solo jam autea c£ede nonnullorum martyrum subacto ; inter quos primum locum tenet Patkicius Hamilto. Beza. Icones. PREFACE. x^EAKLT three years ago, when the author of the following work was collecting materials for a life of Alexander Alesius, the earliest and one of the most distinguished of the Scottish exiles who were driven out from their country for their attachment to the principles of the Reformation, he came unexpectedly upon the traces of a work in which Alesius had inserted some account of Patrick Hamilton. Following up these traces, he found that Eabus, a German author of the sixteenth century, had introduced a translation of that account into his History of the Martyrs ; on perusing which, he discovered that Alesius had noticed several important particulars of Hamilton's character and life, and of his own connexion with him, which were perfectly new to history, as well as extremely interesting and valu- able. The author then became anxious to see the original work, which was referred to as a Latin Commentary on the First Book of the Psalms ; but no copy of it could be found in the library of the British Museum, the Bodleian, Sion College, or any of the other great libraries of this country to which he had access. It was not till he had travelled in quest of it as far as the old library of "Wolfen- biittel in the Grand Duchy of Brunswick, that he got his first sight of a copy. VllI PKEFACE. The amount ol new light thrown by the statements of Alesius upon the biography of Hamilton was so very considerable, and these statements had so much value as coming from one who was the Martyr's own disciple and convert, and the eye-witness of his trial and martyrdom, that the author resolved to attempt to construct, by their help and with the aid of such additional facts as further re- search might bring to light, ^a complete Life of the First Preacher and Martyr of the Scottish Eeformation. Such a biography has remained till this day a desideratum. Scarcely anything, in fact, has been added to our knowledge of the first and most interesting of all our Scottish Protestant Martyrs, since the account of him inserted by Pox in his-^cts and Monuments.' Even Knox, the only original historian of the Scottish Eeformation, was able to add very little to that account; while Spottiswood and Calderwood could only repeat the statements of the Martyr- ologist and the Eeformer. It is indeed singular that such facts in the life of such a man, as the universities where he studied, and the influences under which his character and convictions were formed, and the length of time during which he had opportunity to disseminate his doctrines, and even his birth-place, his marriage, and several of the circumstances of his last days and martyrdom, should have remained so long unknown. But it is more singular still that a learned work, which supplied original and authentic in- formation upon the most of these points, and written, too, by a man who was himself an honour both to his teacher and his country, should have remained for three hundred years unnoticed and un- known by Scottish authors, and should only at this time of day be accidentally brought to light. In executing his design, the author found it necessary, in order to exhibit the various influences under which Hamilton's character and convictions were formed, to bring into view many facts belonging to tlie religious history of the times in which he lived, and to the annals of the numerous universities in which he studied. He con- TRErACE. IX ceived that much of the interest of such a life lies in tracing the manifold discipline of institutions and events by which the work- man is shaped and trained for his work, as well as in the exhibition of his work itself; and requiring to draw somewhat largely for that purpose both upon academic and general history, he has thought the designation of ' An Historical Biography' the most appropriate to describe the mixed contents of the volume. He has been able, how- ever, in some instances to derive that history from fresh sources ; and he refers, in e\-idence of this, to the original documents con- tained in the Appendix, which have never been printed before, and which will be found to possess considerable value in relation parti- cularly to Scottish ecclesiastical affairs. The season of active personal service pennitted to Patrick Hamilton, as a preacher and reformer, was extremely brief, but his influence was propagated by his disciples and converts through many subsequent years. It is easy, in truth, to recognise his image and superscription in the doctrinal type which continued to mark the Scottish Eeformation from its commencement in his preaching down to the date of George Wishart's return to Scotland in 1544 — an interval of no less than seventeen years. That period the author has ventured to designate the Hamilton-period of the Eeformation ; and he has endeavoured to trace his influence throughout its whole length, and to indicate several distinct lines of radiation in which the light was diffused from the luminous centre of his brief but highly impressive ministry. His influence thus propagated was felt either directly or indirectly by a great number of individuals, whose names have been preserved to us by historians. In regard to some of these the author has not been able to add anything to the stock of our previous knowledge, but in a good many other cases — including the names of Sir James Hamilton of Kincavel, John McDowell, Eobert Eichardson, John M 'Alpine, and, more than any other, Alexander Alesius — he has been more fortunate. It formed no part of his plan, however, to carry his notices of such of these early X PREFACE. Scottish. Protestant T^orthies as were driven into exile much beyond the respective dates of their expatriation. He reserves the full narrative of the incidents which befel them in England, Germany, and the Is"etherlands, for the life of Alexander Alesius, who was personally acquainted with most of them, and whose biography touched the later lives of some of his fellow- exiles at several points. He was, in truth, the main figure of the persecuted group, both in England and in Germany. The author has many obligations to acknowledge, some of which will be found referred to in different places throughout the work. But the assistance which he has received from Professor St. Hilaire, of the Sorbonne, who searched for him the registers of the University of Paris; from the E-ev. William Graham, of Bonn, who made a similar search in those of the University of Cologne; and from W. H. Henderson, Esq., of Linlithgow, who furnished him with valuable extracts from the records of that ancient burgh — such assistance, involving much expenditure of time and trouble, calls for the expression of his warmest acknowledgments. IS'or can he deny himself the gratification of mentioning how much he* owes to the kindness and liberality of David Laing, Esq., the learned editor of Knox. But for the sight of several tracts of Alesius, of extreme rarity, which were promptly' lent to the author by Mr. Laing, the present volume, and the series of which it is designed to be the com- mencement, would probably never have been undertaken. Nor can the author leave without public acknowledgment the very liberal and handsome way in which access was allowed him to several of the great libraries of Germany, and to the original registers of more than one of its universities. To Professor Tholuck, of Halle, and Professor Hencke, of Marburg, he owes and now renders his cordial thanks for the personal assistance which they lent him in his researches in these university seats ; and he can never forget the hearty sympathy and the liberal facilities accorded to him by Dr. Schoneraann, the venerable librarian of Wolfenbiittel. He has PREFACE. XI great pleasure in adding that he has had experience of a no l6ss liberal administration of the public libraries and collections nearer home. Free access has been allowed him to the stores both of the English and Scottish universities; to the Advocates' and Signet libraries, and the Eegister Office, Edinburgh ; to the Cottonian Manu- scripts and other collections in the British Museum ; to the libraries of Lambeth and Sion College; and to those great repositories of public records and papers, including the State Paper Office, which are placed under the enlightened guardianship of Her Majesty's Government. St. John's Wood, London, December 20, 1856. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PATRICK HAMILTON'S EAELY LIFE. ^^'^^^ Parentage— Time and Place of Birth— Boyhood— Character of his Father, Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavel— Distinguished Rela- tives — Earl of Arran — Duke of Albany — Gavyn Douglas — Henry Lord Sinclair of Newburgh— Battle of Flodden— Struggle for Vacant Sees and Abbacies — Appointment to Abbacy of Feme , . o CHAPTER II. PATRICK HAMILTON AT PARIS AND LOUVAINE. Patrick Hamilton not Educated at St. Andrews, but at Paris— Scots' College in the University of Paris — College of Montacute — State of the University, 1517-21— Influence of Erasmus and Budffius — Letter of Ludovicus Vives to Erasmus — Hamilton an Erasmian — Luther's Writings in Paris in 1519 — Agitation — Sentence of the Sorbonne— Melancthon's Defence of Luther, and Attack upon John Major — Hamilton's Residence at Louvaine, and Probable Intercourse with Erasmus . . . . • • '2*^ CHAPTER III. PATRICK HAMILTON IN ST. ANDREWS* Death of Sir Patrick Hamilton — Incorporation at St. Andrews — i'osition of the City, and State of the University— George Lock- XIV CONTEXTS. Page hart— John ]\Iajor— The Provost and Masters of St. Salvator's- The Principal and Kegents of St. Leonard's — Eevival of Native and Classical Literature in Scotland — Hamilton's Intimacy in the Priory — His Attainments in Choral Music — Studies in Theology — An Irish Dean at St. Andrews — Hamilton's Views of Monachism — His Ordination as a Priest . . . . ... 49 CHAPTER IV. PATRICK ilAMILTON A PROFESSED LUTHERAN. Act of the Scottish Parliament against Lutheran Books — Lutherans in Aberdeen — Urgent Need of a Reformation in the Scottish Church — Example at St. Andrews — Eorman — Beaton — Douglas — Patrick Hepburn — General Corruption of the Ecclesiastical Body — Tyndale's New Testament Imported — Hamilton Declares for the Reformation — Summoned by Beaton — Flight to Germany 07 CHAPTER V. PATRICK HAMILTON AT WITTEMBERG AND MARBURG. Hamilton's Companions in Travel — He repaii-s to Wittemberg and Marburg — Progress of the Reformation in Germany — Diet of Spires in 1526 — What he saw in Wittemberg — Opening of the First Evangelical University of Marburg — Erhard Sclmepf — Hermann von dem Busche — Francis Lambert — William Tyn- dale and John Frith — Hamilton's Theses — Germany, France, and England all contribute to prepare him for his Mission — His Return to Scotland CHAPTER VI. PATRICK HABIILTON'S PREACHING. Special Adaptation of Hamilton to his Work as a Scottish Reformer — Hamilton's First Congregation at Kincavel — Ancient Parish Church of Biuny — State of Religion in Linlithgow — Hamilton's Doctrine — Antitliesis of the Law and the Gospel — Antitliesis of Faith and Incredulity — Distinction of Faith, Hope, and Charity — Salvation by Works and by Grace — Faith the Root of the Good Tree — Hamilton a Radical Reformer — Failm-e of other attempts to revive the Piety of the Church . . . . . . . . 103 CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PATRICK HAMILTON'S MAPvELVGE, AND TEACHING AT ST. ANDREW; « His Marriage — His Posthumous Daughter — Vindication of his Memory from an apparent Stain — Alai'm of Archbishop Beaton, and his dissembling Pohcy — Hamilton Invited to a Conference at St. Andrews — Teaches and Disputes in the University — Specimens of his Disputations — Private Conversations — Friar Alexander Campbell — Canon Alexander Alane — Importance of these Public and Private Labours . . . . . . i2-:< CHAPTER VIII. PATRICK HAMILTON'S TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM. Summoned to appear before Beaton — Advised by his Friends to flee from St. Andrews, but declines to do so — Sir James Hamilton collects an Armed Force to rescue the Reformer — Intrigues of the Clergy with the King and Angus — Hamilton appears before the Primate — His Articles — Judgment of the Theologians — Attempt at Rescue by the Laird of Airdrie — Apprehension — Trial in the Cathedi-al of St. Andrews — Friar Campbell, his Accuser, silenced — Sentence — Reason for Haste in its Execution — ^Martyrdom — Sensation produced by the Event at Louvaiue, Marburg, and Malmoe — Character of Patrick Hamilton — Affection cherished for his Memorv . . .. .. .. .. .. lof CHAPTER IX. PATRICK HAMILTON'S INFLUENCE UPON THE SCOTTISH CLERGY. The Hamilton Pei-iod of the Scottish Reformation — The Scottish Augustinians — The Rule of St. Augustin — The Priory of St. Andrews — Alexander Alane— His Sermon to the Clergy, Impri- sonment, and Flight — Gavyn Logie — John Wynram and other Canons — Abbey of Cambuskenneth — Abbey of luch-Colme — Dean Thomas Forret — The Scottish Dominicans — John Adam- son and Conventual Reform — Convent of St. Andrews and Prior Campbell — Alexander Seyton — James Hewat — John M'Alpine — John M'Dowel — John Kiellor — John Beveridge— John Rough — Thomas GuiUiame — John Willock — The Benedictines — The Franciscans — The Cordeliers — The Carthusians — The Cister- cians — The Secular Clergy . . . . . . . . ' 0- XTl CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. PATRICK HAMILTON'S INFLUENCE UPON THE NOBILITY, GENTRY, AND BURGESSES OF SCOTLAND. Page The Reformation in Scotland an Aristocratic before it became a Demo- cratic Movement — The Young Nobles at St. Andrews — Sir James Scrymgeour of Dudhope — Henry Balnaves — John Andrew Dun- can and the old Lollards — Sir David Lindsay of the Mount — Reformers among the Nobility and Gentry in Angus and Mearns, Perthshu'e, Fife, Ayrshire, the Lothians, and the South of Scot- land — Reformers among the Lay La\\n,ers — Among the Bur- gesses — Act of the Scottish Parliament, 1543 — Close of the Hamilton Period . . .. .. .. .. .. 107 Notes and Illustrations — A to Y . . . . . . . . 223 Appendix of Original Letters and other Papers — I. to VII. 545 PATRICK HAMILTON CHAPTER I. HIS EARLY LIFE. PARENTAGE — TIME AND PLACE OF BIRTH — BOYHOOD — CHARACTER OF HIS FATHER, SIR PATRICK HAMILTON OF KINCAVEL— DISTIXGUISHED RELATIVES — EARL OF ARRAN — DUKE OF ALBANY — GAVYN DOUGLAS — HENRY LORD SINCLAIR OF NEWBURGH — BATTLE OF FLODDEN — STRUGGLE FOR VACANT SEES AND ABBACIES— APPOINTMENT TO ABBACY OF FEKNE. Xobilibus licet usque ata\-is et sanguine regum, Splendeat et clai'is dotibus ante alios, Nou tamen aetherium tangunt mortalia pectus. John Johnston. From noble sires he sprang and blood of kings, And splendid shone in gifis beyond his peers, Yet mortal gloi-ies his heaven-climbing soul Touch not. PATRICK HAMILTON. CHAPTER I. HIS EAELT LIFE. Pateick Hamilton, the first preacher and martyr of the Scottish Keformation, was a younger son of Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincayel and Stanehoiise, and of Catherine Stewart, daughter of Alexander, Duke of Albany, second son of King James II. Sir Patrick was an illegitimate son of James, the first Lord Hamilton, by a daughter of Witherspoon of Brighouse. He is mentioned along with two other natural sons, John and David, in a charter granted to Lord Hamilton in the year 1474 — the same year that the latter was rewarded for his eminent services to James 11. by receiving from James III. the hand of his sister, the Princess Mary, Countess of Arran. In 1479 Lord Hamilton died, leaving the honours and great estates of his house, now so closely connected with the royal family, to his only legitimate son, James, the second Lord Hamilton, and first Earl of Arran. The birth of Sir Patrick and his brothers John and David, though thus far less illustrious than that of their half-brother, James, and though marred with the stain of illegitimacy, was of sufficient dis- tinction to secure for each of them substantial possessions and high consideration in the kingdom. John Hamilton was styled of Brume- hill, and became ancestor of the first Lords of Belhaven. David Hamilton was educated for the church, and became Bishop of Argyle, and Commendator of the abbeys of Glenluce and Dryburgh. Sir 4 PARENTAGE AND DESCENT. Patrick had a charter in 1498 of the lands of Stanehouse, in the county of Lanark, and another in the same year of ' the king's lands of Kincavel,' in the county of Linlithgow. The latter grant he owed to the favour of his sovereign, James lY., who conferred upon him at the same time the honourable oiRces of Sheriff of Linlithgow- shire and Captain of the castle of Blackness.^' On the 20th January, 1512-13, he obtained a letter of legitimation under the Great Seal; and in a charter of the same year, settling the succession of the Hamilton estates, he was nominated by the Earl of Arran next in succession (failing lawful issue of the Earl) after Sir James Hamilton of Eynnart, the Earl's natural son.f It may seem surprising that Sir Patrick should have been able to gain the hand of Catherine Stewart, who was born a princess of the royal blood ; but the match appears less unequal when it is known that the marriage of her parents had been dissolved some time after her birth. Her father, Alexander, Duke of Albany, obtained a divorce from her mother, Catherine Sinclair, daughter of William, third Earl of Orkney, in the Consistory Court of St. Giles'. Edin- burgh, on the 9th of March, 1477, on the ground of propinquity of blood ; and the strict legal effect of that divorce, both civilly and ecclesiastically, was to render the offspring of the "marriage illegiti- mate. But the propinquity alleged in the sentence was only in the fourth degree, ' and illegitimation caused hj the dissolution of such marriages, in conlbrmity with the complicated rules of the canon law, was not considered to entail disgrace on the children, nor did it always interrupt the succession either in regard to titles or pro- perty. ';]: In the present case, however, the titles were too illus- trious and the property too great to be allowed to devolve upon the offspring of a marriage which, however valid when tried by the law of God, had been set aside for sinister ends by the corrupt tribunals of men. The Duke Alexander afterwards contracted a second mar- riage in France with a daughter of the Earl of Boulogne ; and John, * For notices of the Barony of Kincavel, and other possessions of Sir Patrick Hamilton, see Note A. r Douglas's Peerage of Scotland (Wood's edition), v. i. p. 697. Anderson's MeiTioirs of the House of Hamilton, pp. 31C, 317. I The Works of John Knox, collected and edited by David Laing, v. i. Appendix iii. p. 501. TIIIE AIS'D PLACE OF BIETH. O Duke of Albany, the issue of that union, was solemnly declared, by a parliament which met in Edinburgh under his own auspices as Eegent of Scotland, in 1516, to be the only legitimate son and suc- cessor of his father, and as such to be heir-presumptive to the Scot- tish crown. ^ It is singular that none of the Scottish historians of the sixteenth century record either the time or the place of the reformer's birth. It is Francis Lambert of Avignon who tells us that he was about twenty- three years of age in the summer of 1527 ; from which we gather that he must have been born in the year 1504 ;j and it is to another French authority, an ancient parchment of the University of Paris, that we owe the memory, only now recovered, of the inter- esting fact, that he professed himself a native of the ancient city of Glasgow. ' Patricius Hamelto Glassguensis ^N'obilis,' is the desig- nation by which he appears in a volume of ' Acta Eectoria ' of the sixteenth century, one of the few records of the university which escaped the fury of the first great Eevolution.^ Nothing is known of his early life, and we are left entirely to conjecture in regard to the manner in which the education of his boyhood was conducted. There were grammar schools established, even at that early period, both in Glasgow iand Linlithgow; the former under the superintendence of the clergy of the cathedral, and the latter under the management of the magistrates and council of the burgh ; and at either of these establishments he would have an opportunity of acquiring the rudiments of Latin learning and other knowledge, whether he may be supposed to have resided during his boyhood in Glasgow or at KincaveL§ But probably his high rank would forbid his being sent along with the children of humble burghers to these seminaries. It was usual for the sons of noble- * Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, v. ii. p. 283. t Exegeseos Francisci Lamberti Avenionensis in Sanctam Di\i Joannis Apocalypsim libri vii. 1528. + It is possible, however, that Glassguensis may only denote that he was born within the diocese of Glasgow. If so, he was probably born at Stane- house, near Hamilton, where Sir Patrick had a barony. For an account of the circumstances connected with the discovery of this interesting fact, see NoteB. § A notice of the Grammar School of Linlithgow occurs in the Burgh re- cords as early as 5th November, 1529. See Appendix V. b BOYHOOD EDTJCATIOl^. men in those times to be educated under the eye of the more learned clergy in the monasteries or in the cloisters of cathedrals ; and Patrick Hamilton had several relatives who were in high office in the church. It has been already stated that his paternal uncle, David Hamil- ton, was a Bishop and Commendator of two Abbeys. He had another uncle by the mother's side, Alexander Stewart, who was Commendator of the abbeys of Whithorn and Inchaffray; and he Was also related by his mother, though distantly, to Gavyn Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, one of the best scholars, as well as the most dis- tinguished poet of his age. With such connections he could be at no loss for as good an elementary education as the country could then afford ; and we are left at liberty to imagine the young scholar imbib- ing his first lessons of sacred and secular learning either under the eye of the poet-bishop among the silent mountains of Dunkeld, or in the solitary cloisters of Inchaffray, in Stratherne, or in the remote valley of Glenluce — the valley of light. But, though ignorant of the names of his schools and schoolmasters, we are well enough informed of many characteristics of the family circle in which he moved, and of the times in which his early life was cast, and of the principal individuals with whom he must have come frequently into contact, to be able to form a pretty distinct concep- tion of the influences under which he spent the first thirteen years of his life, and of the effects which these were calculated to have upon the development and formation of his genius and character. Of his mother, unfortunately, we know less than of some others of his relatives, whose influence upon him must have been as nothing compared with hers. All we know of her is her close alliance by her father's side with the E-oyal house — her connection by her mother's side with the Sinclairs of Orkney and Eoslin, one of the most lettered and accomplished families in the kingdom — and the interesting fact that her distinguished son cherished to the latest day of his life the most tender attachment to her, and amidst the flames of the stake commended her with his last breath to the sympathy and care of his friends and kindred ; — a most touching testimony to the affectionate solicitude with which she had watched over his early years, and how indelibly she had stamped her image and memory upon his heart. i^ SIR PATRICK HAMILTOX. 7 Of the character and life of his father, Sir Patrick, a good many notices of much interest have been preserved. In an age and during a reign when Scottish chivalry was in its zenith. Sir Patrick enjoyed the high reputation of being the first of Scottish knights ; and he "/^ had the good fortune to find no fewer than three chroniclers — of as many different nations — to record and preserve the memory of his exploits. One of the three was Eobert Lindsay of Pitscottie, who gives an entertaining account of the chivalrous amusements of the court of James lY., and of one occasion in particular on which Sir Patrick, while yet a young man, highly distinguished himself: — ' Soon after this,' he says, ' there came a Dutch (German) knight into Scotland, called Sir John Clokehewis, and desired fight- ing and justing in Scotland with the lords and barons. But none was so apt and ready to fight with him as Sir Patrick Hamilton, brother to the Earl of Arran, being then a young man strong of body and able of all things, but yet, for lack of exercise, he was not so well practised as need were, though he lacked no hardiment, strength, nor courage in his proceedings. But at last when the Dutchman and he were assembled together, both on great horse within the lists, under the Castle-wall of Edinburgh — after the sound of the trumpet they rushed rudely together and brake their spears on ilk side on other, and afterward got new spears and ren- countered freshly again. But Sir Patrick's horse entered (swerved) Avith him, and would noways encounter his marrow (rival), that it was force to the said Sir Patrick Hamilton to light on foot and give this Dutchman battle ; and therefore when he was lighted, he cried for a two-handed sword, and bade the Dutchman light from his horse and end out the matter, saying to him, ^' A horse is but a weak warrant (to trust in) when men have most ado." Then when both the knights were lighted on foot they joined peartly (stoutly) together with awful countenances, and every one strake maliciously at other, and fought long together with uncertain victory, while (till) at the last Sir Patrick Hamilton rushed manfully upon the Dutchman and strake him upon his knees. In the meantime the Dutchman being at the earth, the king cast his hat out over the Castle-wall, and caused the judges and men-of-arms rid and sunder them; and the heralds and trumpets blew, and cried the victory 8 SIR PATEICK HAMTLTOX. was Sir Patrick Hamilton's. This Sir Patrick Hamilton was brother-german to the Earl of Arran, and sister- and-brother's bairn to the king's majesty, and was a right noble and valiant man all his days.' ^ I^ot long after this exploit, upon occasion of the marriage of James lY. to the Princess Margaret of England, daughter of Henry YIL, the knightly prowess and accomplishments of Sir Patrick fell under the notice of another chronicler, John Young, Somerset herald. Y'oung had come into Scotland in the train of the English princess, and recorded all the incidents and circumstances of an event so full of promise to two kingdoms, with the most laudable minuteness and accuracy. In the herald's quaint narrative Sir Patrick appears before us in a highly appropriate character — as th(^ chivalrous champion of right, and the gallant avenger of injured youth and beauty. Describing the many cui'ious spectacles which were arranged for the entertainment of James and his bride on their way from iS'ewbattle Abbey to Holyrood, he tells us that — * Half-a-mile nigh to that, within a meadow, was a pavilion, whereof came out a knight on horseback, armed at all pieces, having his lady paramour that bare his horn. And by ayantur (peradven- ture) there came another also armed that came to him and robbed from him his said lady, and at the absenting blew the said horn, whereby the said knight understood him, and turned after him and said to him, '' Wherefore hast thou thus done ?" He answered him, '' What will you say thereto ?" " I say that I will pryve (prove) upon thee that thou hast done outrage to me." The tother demanded of him if he was armed. Hfe said, '-l^ea." "Well, then," said the other, ''Preve thee a man and do thy devoir." In such manner they departed and went to take their spears, and renne (ran a course), without sticking of the same. After the course they re- turned with their swords in their hands and made a very fair tournay, and the caller (challenger) caused the sword for to fall of the defender, i^otwithstanding the caller caused to give him again his sword, and began again the tournay of more fair manner ; and they did weU their devoir till that the King came himself, the Queen behind him, and caused them for to be departed. After this the * Histoi-y of Scotland, by Kobert Lindesay of Pitscottie, p. 103. Euin. 17'28. SIE PATRICK HAMILTON. 9 King called them before him and demanded them the cause of their difference. The caller said, " Syre, he hath taken from me my lady paramour, whereof I was in surety of her by faith (who had plighted to me her troth)." The defender answered, " Sire, I shall defend me against him upon this case." Then said the King to the said defender, " Bring your friends and ye shall be appointed a day for to agree you." Whereof they thanked him, and so every man de- parted them for to draw toward the said town. The names of those were Sir Patrick Hamilton, brother of Lord Hamilton, and Patrick Sinclair, Esquire ; and there was come great multitude of people for to see this.*-^ It further appears from the Herald's chronicle, that the Hamiltons bore a prominent and brilliant part in all the festivities of that auspicious and important occasion. J^ever had so much magnifi- cence and luxury been displayed before at the Scottish court ; and so sensible was the young King of the honour which Lord Hamilton and his house had done to their Prince and country, by the splen- dour of their appointments and the chivalry of their exploits, that he bestowed upon the family soon after the Earldom of Arran with all its ample domains, as the reward of their generous loyalty and patriotism, f IS'or was it only at the Scottish court that Sir Patrick signalised his skill and courage as a soldier and man-at-arms. He was more than once employed by his sovereign on embassies to foreign princes, and his name became renowned at the courts of England and France. In 1508 he was detained for some months, along with his brother, the Earl of Arran, in a kind of honourable durance at the court of Henry VII., who had taken ofi'ence at his son-in-law, their sovereign, for despatching them through England to France * LelancVs Collectanea, v. iv. p. 288. London, 1770. — ' The Fyancells of Margaret, eldest daughter of King Henry VII., to James, King of Scotland, &c., written by John Younge, Somerset herald, who attended the said Princess on her journey.' Mr, Tytler, in noticing the curious incident given above, says that Sir Patrick Hamilton was the knight who assaulted the other and carried off the lady. It seems more correct to understand Young to say that it was Sir Patrick who suffered the wrong and challenged the other to combat — that he was the ' caller,' not the ' defender.' t For some additional notices of Lord Hamilton and Sir Patrick occumug in Somerset Herald's chronicle, see Note C. 10 SIR PATEICK HAMILTON. without the ceremony of a passport. The brothers were treated for a time with great distinction ; had a grand reception at Rich- mond, where a crowd of English nobles and foreign ambassadors assembled to do them honour ; and were invited some weeks later, when the court had removed to Greenwich, to displaj^ their chivalry, and justify in the lists their knightly renown. Sir Patrick's rival on this occasion was a brave Irish knight, who had arrived in England in the train of Gerard, the young Lord of Kildare ; and Benedict Andre of Toulouse, the chronicler to whom we are indebted for these curious particulars, records, in his manuscript annals of the reign of Henry YII., that Sir Patrick, 'the renowned Scottish soldier, a man skilled in all the discipline of arms,' carried off the honours of the lists from his rival, ' not only in one but in all kinds of combat.' '" Such was the character and standing of our reformer's noble father. He was ' a very perfect gentle knight,' ' Meek in chalmer like ana laanh, Bot in the field ane champion ;' as Sir David Lindsay describes his favourite hero William Meldrum of Binns and Cleish, another distinguished Scottish knight of the same period. Eor many years after his marriage, and while his children were yet young, Sir Patrick was seldom unemployed in some service that concerned the interest and honour either of his own house or of his king and country. Ko sight would be so fami- liar to his children at Kincavel as their valiant father's armour hang- ing bright and ever ready for use, against the wall. No tales would be so often told them as his own manifold adventures by flood and field, and the deeds of chivalry which he had seen in his time in many lands. I^^or would any lessons be so often inculcated by the stalwart sire upon his two sons, James and Patrick, as the virtues of true knighthood and nobility — to be brave, to be generous, to be true — to be pure in honour, high in spirit, courteous in manners — to fear God and know no other fear. * Historia Henrici YII., a Beuedicto Andrea Tholosate. Cotton. MSS. Julius A. III. For some extracts from this curious chronicle, and from AylofFe's Calendars, in respect to the Earl of Arran and Sir Patrick, see Note D. EARL OF AERAN. 1 1 Heroism is often hereditary in families ; high courage and honour frequently descend, like other virtues and their opposite vices, from father to son ; and what was only high natural virtue in the father may become Christian excellence in the son, when directed by the grace of God to Christian objects and interests, and baptised and consecrated by the spirit of the Gospel. The firm and severe virtue of John Luther, the miner of Mansfeldt, reappeared in his son Martin in the form of a spiritual heroism which assailed and defied all the power of Home. The milder worth of George Schwarzerd, the armourer of Bretten, was reproduced in his son Philip Melancthon in the attractive forms of Christian gentleness and moderation. "^ It is no irrelevance, then, in a life of Patrick Hamilton — the first of Scotland's Eeformation-heroes — to have brought into view a few scenes from the life of his knightly sire. The valiant parent begat a valiant son, and formed him by his teaching and example to mag- nanimity and honour. It needed only the grace of God to sanctify and exalt to the service of Christ the heroism which was inborn in a hero's son — to turn the scion of Scotland's bravest and most accomplished knight into her first champion and confessor of the truth of God. It is worth while also to glance at the influences which must have operated upon the young reformer in the wider circle of his family connexions. These connexions, as we have already seen, were numerous and distinguished, and linked the family of Kincavel with many of the most ancient nobility of the realm, and even, by no remote ties, with the royal house itself. The Earl of Arran was not only one of the most powerful and active noblemen of the kingdom, but more than most of his peers in those rude times was a man of polished mind and accomplished manners. The English envoy. Dr. Magnus, who was much at the Scottish court during the minority of James V., informed Cardinal Wolsey that ' the Earl of Arran was not only strong of men and of good substance in goods, but lived in order and policy, as was said, above all other there, most like to the * Melancthon alludes to this peace-loving characteristic of his family in the following terms : — ' Laudatur Cephalus, Lysise pater, cum diu rempublicam administrasset ad annum setatis octogesimum usque, quod nunquam in foro litigarit. Possum de meo patre et de meo fratre et de me idem praBdicare.' — Corp. Reformat, vi, p. 710. 12 DUKE OF ALBIKY LOKD SINCLAIE. English manner.' * The Earl and Sir Patrick appear to have been much attached to each other, and to have been closely associated in all their enterprises and exploits ; and as the houses of Kincavel and Stanehouse were only a few miles distant respectively from the Castles of Kinneil and Hamilton — the Earl's two principal seats — the intercourse of the two families was doubtless close and frequent, and must have had its influence in forming the manners of Sir Patrick's children to more of 'the English manner' than they would otherwise have acquired. f Among his connexions by the mother's side, the most exalted in rank was her half-brother John Stewart, Duke of Albany, who was chosen to be governor of the kingdom during the minority of James Y. Albany was born and brought up in Prance, and was dis- tinguished for the refinement and courtesy of his manners and address. When he first arrived at Dumbarton on the 18th of May, 1815, to take possession of the regency, we are told that ' his exotic ele- gance of manners, his condescension, afi'ability, and courtly demean- our won all hearts.' J And he was on the best terms with the Hamiltons ; for the Earl of Arran warmly espoused his cause in the troubles which ensued, and supported his regency for some years with all his interest, in opposition to the faction of the Queen Dowager and her husband the young Earl of Angus. Patrick Hamilton could also, as we have seen, claim kindred with the Sin- clairs of Eoslin and Newburgh, and the Douglases of the great house of Angus, in both of which families the love of literature and ancient learning had found distinguished cultivators and patrons. It was at the suggestion of Henry Lord Sinclair of Newburgh, that his cousin Gavyn Douglas undertook his celebrated translation of the JEneid into Scottish verse ; and it was not Lord Sinclair's fault that the poet did not follow up his version of Virgil with another of * State Papers, Part IV. Correspondence relative to Scotland and the Borders, vol. iv. p. 289. + Kinneil, near Borrowstoneness, was one of the most ancient possessions of the house of Hamilton — a grant from King Piobert the Bruce to Sir Gilbert Hamilton 'for his trew service and greit manheid,' — 'and having generally heen their residence when politics demanded that they should not be far from the capital, is very frequently mentioned in Scottish history.' — Chambers's Gazetteer of Scotland. Statistical Account of Scotland. o IJTFLUENCE OF PUBLIC EVENTS. 13 Horner.'^ Both of these accomplished scholars may well be sup- posed to have taken an interest in the education of their promising young kinsman of Kincavel ; and it is not at all improbable that y Hamilton may have imbibed some of his early love of learning from their conversation and writings. f Brought up in the midst of, and continually surrounded by, a circle of relatives so distinguished in rank and refinement, and adorned by so many manly virtues and scholarly accomplishments, it is no wonder that we should be told by our historians that the first Reformer of Scotland was distinguished for his high breeding ^ ^ and courtesy, for a strong sense of honour which made him scorn, at the bidding of fear, to desert the post of danger and duty, for a noble impatience and indignation at falsehood and hypocrisy, and for an intense love to all humane and liberal studies. :|: All this is no more than might have been expected from his birth and up- bringing. With the best blood of Scotland in his veins, and with the most heroic and accomplished men in the kingdom to form the mind and manners of his early age, it was only natural that he should grow up to be what he afterwards became, when the endowments of Divine grace had been added to the gifts of nature and the accomplishments of education — not only the most zeal- ous but the most courteous of evangelists — a confessor of the truth, as mild and modest and gentle in his bearing and manners, as he was firm and impregnable in his spirit and principles — a martyr as learned and cultured as he was fervent and self- devoted — a master of all the new learning of the age, as well as instinct with all its revived religious zeal and ardour. But a young man of genius and susceptibility receives the impress of other schools and schoolmasters than those of the seminary and the family circle. The public events and transactions of his time become X a school to give form and bias to his mind ; and the public men who * Dr. Irving's Lives of the Scottish Poets. The Life of Gavyn Douglas. t For some further notices of these connexions of the family of Kincavel, see Note E. X Spottiswood takes notice of ' his courteous behaviour to all sorts of people;' and Buchanan clj^aracterises him as 'juvenis ingenio summo et eruditione singulari,' and also as heing natura vehementior ; so that 'hominis ambitiosi pravam gloriae captationem /erre non potuiV 14 FLODDEN-FIELD. figure most prominently in these events and transactions become his most influential schoolmasters. In Hamilton's instance, it is well worth remarking that the years when his mind must have begun to be alive to the interest of public affairs, were years signalised by national events of the greatest importance, which could not fail to call forth his patriotic feelings, and to stamp upon his mind inde- lible impressions. He was in his tenth year when the battle of k riodden was fought on the 9th of September, 1513 — a national cala- mity which must have brought a shadow of patriotic grief and anxiety even over the light heart of boyhood. The danger, too, which the Hamilton s narrowly escaped on that occasion must have agitated with strong emotions every member of their powerful house. For shortly before the Scottish King resolved upon his fatal expedi- tion to England, he had vowed in high resentment the ruin of the Earl of Arran, who, as admiral of the fleet which James had de- spatched to the assistance of France against England — the most powerful naval armament which had ever sailed from the Scot- tish shores — had cruelly disappointed his hopes by mismanage- ment and delay. The Earl was still absent in France with his numerous kinsmen and retainers — including, doubtless. Sir Patrick — when the field of Flodden was lost. Thus the King's untimely death was the means of rescuing Arran and his house from disgrace and ruin. The Hamiltons were the only great family in Scotland in which patriotic grief on that tragical occasion was not embittered by personal losses and bereavements, or which could find any solace under the stroke of a great public calamity in the thought of their own fortunate escape. Alternate grief and gratulation must have prevailed in the halls of Kinneil and Kincavel. The prominent part taken by his uncle and father in the political transactions which followed was fitted still further to quicken and keep alive the interest of young Patrick Hamilton in public affairs. Eeturning instantly from France on hearing the news of the cata- strophe at Flodden, the Earl of Arran was present at the Parliament which was hastily assembled to concert measures for the defence of the kingdom, and to take order for the carrying on of the govern- ment. It was Arran who first suggested, just before leaving France, that John, Duke of Albany, his cousin, should be appointed to the regency. Sir Patrick Hamilton was one of the envoys deputed to STATE OF THE CHTJECH. 15 carry the tidings of his appointment to the Duke, and to accompany him to Scotland ;•'' and the regent rewarded the Hamiltons for their support by admitting their chief to a high place in his counsels, and by appointing him governor of Edinburgh Castle, one of the keys of the kingdom. Hamilton was early destined by his parents to the church. With an ecclesiastical life in prospect, his attention would naturally be turned with peculiar interest to church transactions and events ; and it is a remarkable coincidence, and not without significance in relation to his future vocation as a religious reformer, that the cor- ruptions of the church began to be most flagrant at the very time when he must have begun to make observations upon ecclesiastical affairs. The disaster of Flodden had an injurious influence upon the national church in two ways. The slaughter of the Archbishop of St. Andrews and several other dignitaries, followed soon after by the death of the aged Bishop Elphinstone, created an unusually large number of vacancies in the highest dignities of the church. The sees of St. Andrews and Aberdeen ; the rich abbacies of Arbroath, Dunfermline, and Dryburgh ; and the opulent Preceptory of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem at Torphichen — all thrown open at once to the struggles of competitors, called forth a more than ordinary disj^lay of ecclesiastical covetousness and ambition. The loss of many aged nobles and experienced statesmen on the same fatal fleld had the efi'ect, besides, of throwing a great preponderance of influence in the government into the hands of the superior clergy. The young noblemen who stood forward to occupy the room of their .fallen sires were without experience in public aff'airs, and unavoidably deferred to the practised abilities of the prelates. The most danger- ous facilities were thus presented to the clergy for grasping at poli- tical office and power, for taking the lead in the contests of faction, and for prostituting the influence of their sacred office to the ends of mere worldly ambition. The bishops were soon deeply engaged in the struggles of political strife ; their palaces often became, during the long minority of James Y., the head-quarters of contending factions ; archbishops and bishops rose and fell in the state with the rise and * Drummond's History of the Lives and Eeigns of the Five Jameses. Edin. 1711. p. 81. 16 COMPETITION FOE THE PEIMACT. fall of the parties to which they had sold their strength and credit ; the church was profaned and secularised ; it became a kingdom in the world as worldly as the world itself, and it advanced at full career to that last stage of corruption and decay which preceded and prepared its final downfall. The competition which took place for the vacant sees and abbeys, and especially for the primacy of St. Andrews, was one which drew into its vortex all the powers of the church and the state, and in which the interests and the feelings of almost every noble family in the kingdom became more or less directly involved. Even the courts of England, of France, and of Rome, were all engaged in the struggle, and lent their influence and weight to the rival candidates. The best account of the aff'air which has come down to us is that of Spottiswood : — ' Three strong competitors fell at strife for the place — Gawane Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld ; John Hepburn, Prior of St. Andrews ; and Andrew Eorman, Bishop of Murray. Gawane Douglas was nobly born (for he was brother to the Earl of Angus), and greatly esteemed for his virtue and learning. He, upon the Queen's pre- sentation (who at that time goYerned all public afl'airs), possessed himself with the castle of St. Andrews. Hepburn, a factious man, and of great power, procured the canons to elect him, and under this colour expelled Douglas's servants, fortifying the house with a garrison of soldiers. Eorman was provided by the gift of Pope Leo X., and made Legatus a latere (for by his many employments in Erance and at the court of Eome he had gained to himself much credit).^' But the power of Hepburn was such as for a while no man could be found to publish Eorman' s bulls. Alexander Lord Home (who, some write, was Eorman's uncle) was at last moved, by the dimission of Coldingham, in favour of his brother David, to take his part, and, coming to Edinburgh, proclaimed the Pope's gift and Eorman's legation with great solemnity. This act divided the Homes and the Hepburns, who after that time were never in sound friendship. Douglas, not willing to be seen more in that contention, did quit his interest, leaving the quarrel to the other two, who did * We have substituted Leo X. for JuUus TI. in Spottiswood's account. Julius died on the 20th or 21st of February, 1513. DIVISION OP CHTJECH-SPOILS. 17 pursue it both — Hepburn, posting to Eome, laboured to have his election confirmed, but prevailed not ; Porman, because of his lega- tion, was followed of the churchmen for the most part, and acknow- ledged by all the vassals of the see ; yet the jarring still continued, till the Duke of Albany's coming into the country, who, at his accep- tation of the regency, brought them to a submission, and pacified all these strifes — distributing the benefices in this manner: to For- man he left the Archbishoprick of St. Andrews and Abbacy of Dun- fermline, which was given him by the Pope w commendam. The Abbacy of Aberbrothock, which Forman likewise possessed, he gave to James Eeaton, Archbishop of Glasgow, and Chancellor for the time. The prior, John Hepburn, was contented with a pension of three thousand crowns, which Forman was ordained to pay him during life ; and upon his brother. Master James Hepburn, was the Bishoprick of Murray bestowed. Alexander Gordon, cousin to the Earl of Huntly, was made Bishop of Aberdeen ; James Ogilvy, a brother of the house of Ogilvy, Abbot of Dryburgh ; and George Dundas, of the house of Dundas, Commendator of the Preceptory of Torphichen. This partition did satisfy them all, and so they were fully reconciled.' ^'^ But what had become of the spirituality of the Church — what had become of even her canons and constitutions — when such a shameful transaction as this could take place on the open platform of the metropolitan see ? Canonical election, royal nomination, even papal designation, cannot prevail to appoint the Church's highest bishop. The filling of the vacancy must be decided by the force of arms and by the potency of gold. The highest families in the realm — the Douglases, the Homes, and the Hepburns ; the Gordons, the Ogilvys, and the Dundases — rush into conflict with one another to grasp the spoils of the Church. The Church's patrimony suffers all the igno- miny of a simoniacal partition in order to satisfy their covetousness and ambition ; and a reconciliation of all parties is effected only when all parties are gorged with ecclesiastical booty. But there are some considerable omissions in Spottiswood's nar- rative which require to be supplied, and some important errors which need to be corrected, in order to bring out the whole extent of the * Spottiswood's History of the Church and State of Scotland, p. 61. Lond. 1677. C 1 8 THE TACANT SEE OF ABEEDEE]?r. ecclesiastical evils reyealed by the transaction. The historian does not explain how the names of Beaton and Huntly appeared in the final distribution of the spoils ; he says nothing of the part taken in the strife by the courts of England and Prance ; and he falls into error in stating that Gavyn Douglas quitted his interest when opposed by Hepburn, and withdrew from the strife. Several original letters, written by Douglas's own hand, are still extant, which enable us to supply these omissions and to rectify these mistakes.* The truth is, that Beaton took the field as a candidate for the primacy, so that there were four 'strong competitors,' and not three only. Without support either from the Queen Dowager or the Chap- ter of St. Andrews, he must have relied for success upon his influence as Chancellor of the kingdom, upon the support of the powerful nobles of his extensive diocese, and especially upon the Earl of Arran's credit, which was considerable at that time, at the court of Erance. His candidature is distinctly referred to in a letter of Gavj^n Douglas, written in January, 1515, from which it appears that Henry YIII. had written twice to the Pope, in the interest of Douglas, to counter- work the solicitations of Beaton — a zeal in his behalf which Douglas hints would have been better directed against the arts of Eorman, who was a much more formidable rival, and whom the poet, evidently not a little excited by the passions of the contest, characterises as ' that deceitful ' — ' yon evil-minded ' — ' yon wicked Bishop of Murray.' The explanation of Huntly 's part in the final settlement of the affair serves to bring out to view very distinctly the sad extent to which the highest offices of the Church were at the mercy of family influ- ence and political intrigue. The Earl had overawed the Chapter of Aberdeen into the nomination of a Gordon by his armed presence at the capitular election ; and as he had shortly before espoused the side of the Queen Dowager and the Douglases, whose power was viewed with suspicion by the Eegent, his adherence to their interests would have been confirmed and rivetted if Albany had thwarted him by pressing his own nomination of Ogilvy to the see. It was good policy for the Eegent to give way on such an occasion, when more was to be gained than lost by the concession, in the hope of converting a political enemy into a friend. f * For these letters see Appendix I. + Spottiswood (Lond. 1677), p. lOG. Registrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis (Maitland Club), Preface, p. 51. THE INTEIGUES OF GAYYN DOUGLAS. 19 With these two additional facts before us, that Beaton had en- gaged the support of the western nobles, and that Huntly and the other northern nobility had espoused the cause of the Queen and the Douglases, while Hepburn could rely upon the great families of Fife and the adjoining counties, we can easily account for the assertion made in an extant letter of the time, that almost the whole realm was opposed to the pretensions of Porman ; and for the cir- cumstance stated in another letter, that when Forman arrived from the continent in Scotland, the Eegent found it necessary to confine him for a season within the precinct of his own monastery at Pit- ten weem. "With respect to the course taken by Gavyn Douglas, he was so far from quitting his interest in the competition — as has generally been represented — that his own letters show that he continued to press and pursue it with no ordinary degree of vigour and address. As late as the beginning of 1515, when the contest had lasted for nearly sixteen months, he still continued to style himself, and to be styled by others, the Postulate of Arbroath, one of the vacant dignities in dispute ; he was still at that date in correspondence with his agents in London and Rome in pursuit of his claims ; and he was still employing all his influence with the Queen Dowager Margaret and her brother Henry YIII. to obtain from the Pope a reversal of Forman's bulls. He even hoped to induce Henry to prevail upon the King of France, with whom he was now at peace, not only to solicit the Pope to rescind all that Louis had before solicited him to grant, but also to deliver up the person of Forman, who was still in France, 'by polity or otherways,' to be dealt with 'as he deserved.' If Forman were once in Henry's hands, Douglas was confident that 'all these three realms would be brought to great rest, for he is and has been the instrument of mekyll harm, and I dread shall be yet of mair, if he be not snyhhit.^ ' Tent to him,' adds the excited Postulate, ' tent to him, and yon Duke (meaning the Duke of Albany), if the King there (Henry) love the welfare of his sister and most tender nephews, and also the quiet of his own realm. '"^^ Douglas's allusion in this last sentence to the interests of the English monarch's own realm, evinces his dexterity in giving a colour of public interest to the views of his own personal ambition. * Letter of Gavyn Douglas to Adam Williamson, Appendix I. 20 THE INTEEFERENCE OP HENEY Yin. He was well aware, no doubt, that Henry's chief motive for inter- fering in this great ecclesiastical contest was to secure appointments to the vacant Scottish sees that would be most conducive, or least prejudicial, to English interests. The fact is that it was Heniy who made the very first move in this game of contending interests and jurisdictions. We have not seen the fact mentioned by any of our historians — that he had no sooner heard, within the walls of Tour- nay, which he had just taken from the French, of the success of the Earl of Surrey at Elodden, and of the death of the King of Scots and his son, the young Archbishop of St. Andrews, than he wrote to the Pope to communicate the tidings of the victory, and to beg- that none of the vacant Scottish sees might be filled up till he had laid before him his views of the appointments that would best accord with the interests of England. Nor did he even stop at that amount of interference with the highest affairs of an independent kingdom. As if his foot were already on the neck of a conquered nation, he demanded that the archiepiscopal see of St. Andrews should be re- duced to a simple bishopric, and restored to its former alleged dependency as a suffragan see of the Archbishopric of York. He demanded also that the Priory of Coldingham should be reduced in like manner to its former connection with the Priory of Durham. It was but lately, he urged, that the erection of the see and the priory into independent Scottish dignities had been obtained, he might say extorted from the Holy See by the solicitation of the Scottish kings; and it had been done, he affirmed, with no small prejudice — indeed, to say truth, with a manifest injustice — to the rights of the Church of England. "With this authentic evidence before us of the selfish and grasping views with which Henry of England threw himself into this contest, it was no honour to Gavyn Douglas that his nomination should have found so much support from the English monarch. It is too plain that he owed his interest in Henry's favour to his devotion to English interests, and that his country lost nothing by the frustration of all his efforts to mount into the vacant chair of the Primacy."^ The true reason why the learned Postulate was excluded from all share in the final settlement of this long contention was, that he * For correspondence between Henry VIII. and Leo X., in relation to the ecclesiastical affairs of Scotland in 1514-15, see Appendix II. GAVYN DOUGLAS IN PRISON. 21 •^as at that very time a prisoner in the hands of the Eegent, having incurred his resentment by obtaining a brief from Eome in the summer of 1515, through the influence of Queen Margaret and Henry, appointing him to the vacant see of Dunkeld. This proceeding on the part of the Queen was felt with good reason by the Eegent to be an encroachment on his rights as the representative of the prerogatives of the Crown, one of the most valued of which was the right of nomination to vacant sees ; while Henry's interference he justly resented as an affront to the independence of the kingdom. Albany acted with a vigour becoming his office. He detained in custody for eight days an English notary, who had been sent into Scotland by Lord Dacre with the Pope's briefs, addressed to the Queen and Gavyn Douglas, and who had been seized near Moffat by Sir Alexander Jardine ; and he gave orders that Douglas should be apprehended and imprisoned in the Castle of Edinburgh. It is no wonder that in these circumstances Douglas was debarred from all participation in the spoils of the Primacy. The disappointed Postulate had a narrow escape of banishment from the kingdom, was moved about from prison to prison for a good many months, and it was not till the following year that he was allowed, in consequence of a reconci- liation of political factions, to take possession of his see of Dunkeld.* With what feelings this protracted struggle was viewed by the house of Hamilton we are at no loss to conjecture. The Earl of Arran had become the open enemy of the Douglases. After the Queen Dowager's ill-advised marriage with the young Earl of Angus, Arran put himself at the head of a powerful opposition to all her views and proceedings; and on one occasion, at the beginning of 1515, he carried his hostility so far as to lay an ambush of 600 men, provided with artillery, at a spot near Glasgow, for the purpose of seizing Angus on his way from that city, and putting him to death. Angus narrowly escaped falling into his hands. In such circumstances, the pretensions of Gavyn Douglas to the Primacy could find little favour with the Hamiltons.f All their interest and power were no doubt employed against him. Even at Kincavel, Sir Patrick's chivalrous devotion to the party of his brother and chief would forbid his taking side with his wife's accomplished * Letter of Lord Dacre to the I'rivy Council, Appendix III. t Letter of Sir James Inglis to Adam ^YilliamsoD, Appendix III. 22 FORCED SETTLEMENT AT DUNKELD. cousin ; and young Patrick would not be without his share in the excited feelings with which his family must have watched the pro- gress of the struggle, and canvassed the terms of the compromise in which it closed. Flagrant as were the scandals connected with the whole of this ecclesiastical strife, and the revelations which it disclosed of the utter collapse of all order and discipline in the appointment to the highest offices of the Church, the settlement of Gavyn Douglas at Dunkeld, in 1516, proved the occasion of bringing into view some additional disorders, which were scarcely less offensive to decency and religious feeling. He had to force an entrance into his see by the terror of aiTQs. The chapter had been compelled to elect a brother of the Earl of Athol, and the Stewart Highlanders were in posses- sion of the cathedral and episcopal palace. When Douglas presented himself and produced his twofold warrant of entry from the Pope and the Eegent of the kingdom, the rude soldiers of the mountains preferred their duty to their chief to the claims of all other authority in church and state. Cannon frowned upon the unfortunate bishop from the battlements of his own palace, and the steeple of his cathedral was converted into a stronghold of his enemies. There was no alternative left but to overcome force with force. The Douglases summoned to their aid the horsemen of Pife and Angus. The Stewarts retired into the mountains before this display of superior forces. The poet-bishop was instituted at the sword's point; and the cordial reception which he experienced at the hands of his affrighted canons eviuced how little liberty they had enjoyed in conducting the capitular election, and how glad they were to be rid of the bishop who had been sent them from the Castle of Blair- Athol. Such were the forced^ settlements which sometimes took place in Scotland in those scandalous times, — settlements in which the force was not all on one side, as in later times, but was employed equally on both sides, and with alternate success. At Dunkeld the question who should be bishop was a question purely between Highland broadswords and Lowland spears. It was simply brute force that was used to put both the bishops in, and to keep both the bishops out."^' * Ty tier's Lives of Scottish Worthies, a^oI. iii. p. 180 ; Lond. 1833. Irving's Lives of the Scottish Poets — Life of Gavyn Douglas. PICTURE OF THE STATE OF THE COUNTRY. '^3 It was the same with all the vacant abbacies and priories during those years of eq^ual confusion and disorder in church and state. Everywhere the neighbouring barons, putting might for right, took possession of them, and filled them with their armed retainers. They had not even the moderation to wait for vacancies; they made vacancies as well as filled them up. ' The Scots,' wrote Magnus to Wolsey, in March, 1515, from .Kirkoswald, 'are in continual trouble and business amongst themselves — daily fighting, killing, and robbing. As for abbots and priors, they pass (to their places) by none ordinary process, but by the might, strength, and power of their friends and kinsmen temporal, in all their elections, and they depose them in divers places after the same manner.' ^' Magnus was perfectly well informed of what was taking place on the other side of the border. James Inglis, chaplain and secretary to Queen Margaret, draws the same picture in still more graphic colours. * The Master of Kilmaurs,' says he, in a letter to Lord Dacre, dated 20th January of the same year, ' with help of the Earl of Lennox, has entered in Eilwynning a^ain, and put out the Lord Montgomery with slaughter and hurt on baith the sides. Cambus- kenneth was tane by Sir Ninian Seton, but my Lord Erskine and the secretary (Patrick Panther, Abbot of Cambuskenneth) have put him out again. Every man takes up abbacies that may please — they tarry not till benefices be vacant, they take them ere they fall, for they tine (lose) the virtue if they touch ground.' f These ecclesiastical disorders made a great noise throughout the country. They were of such a gross and palpable kind as to call forth remark among the lowest and least intelligent of the people. They would have done so among a people far less inquisitive and active-minded than the common people of Scotland are represented to have been even in those dark times. The observations of Inglis upon this point are extremely curious and valuable: *Ye know the use of this country — every man speaks what he will without blame ; there is nae slander punished ; the man hath more words than the master, and will not be content unless he ken his master's counsel. The servants are checkmates with the masters. The vilest boy must know his master's counsel. They are so fuU of talk and * Original letter in State Paper OHice. See Ai:)pendix III. t Original letter in Cottonian MSS. Caligula, B. L 24. See Appendix III. 24 HAMILTOI^ MADE ABBOT OF FEEXE. SO inquisitive of tidings that they imagine things which were never thought. There is nae order among us. !N'ane of God's precepts are keepit except the first, and that full ill.' *^' If the humblest of the common people were so wide-awake to what was taking place on the public stage, a young man of Patrick Hamilton's rank and culture and prospects could not have been an unconcerned spectator of scenes and transactions such as we have described, and which all fell out during the three years which preceded his leaving the country to prosecute his studies in foreign universities. As a youth of noble and ingenuous mind, looking forward to the ecclesiastical vocation, such disorders in the national church could not fail to excite in his mind a strong sentiment of concern and sorrow. We have no reason, indeed, to surmise that he had paid any attention as yet to the doctrinal teaching of the Church. The word Eeformation had not yet been pronounced in Scotland, nor even in Germany; for the year 1517, when Luther's thunder began to mutter in the ecclesiastical firmament, was the very year when Hamilton in all probability left the country for the continent. But the shameless trafficking which he had seen carried on in the temple of God, and the numerous instances which had just occurred, of a flagrant disregard of common order and decency in the management of ecclesiastical afi'airs, could not fail to make a deep impression upon a thoughtful and open mind like his. What he had just seen would at least be remembered when his mind passed under a new class of influences on a foreign soil, and would predispose him to listen with candour to the intrepid voice which was soon to ring through all Europe, demanding in God's name a reform of the Church. It was probably about the time of his leaving Scotland that the influence of his family procured for him from the Eegent the appoint- ment of Titular Abbot of the Abbey of Feme, in Ross-shire. That dignity was vacated in 1517 by the demise of Andrew Stewart, Eishop of Caithness;-}- and the revenues of the abbacy would fur- nish an ample viaticum to the young scholar, ,who was now to take his way to foreign lands and universities in search of knowledge. * See original letter, AppenTiix III. t Laing's Knox, vol. i. Appendix III. Pp. 501, 502. CHAPTER II. PATRICK HAMILTON IN PARIS AND LOUVAINE. PATRICK HAMILTON NOT EDUCATED AT ST. ANDREWS, BUT AT PARIS — SCOTS* COLLEfltE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS— COLLEGE OF MONTACUTE — STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY, 1517-21 INFLUENCE OF ERASMUS AND BUD.EUS — LETTER OF LUDOVICUS VIVES TO ERASMUS— HAMIL- TON AN ERASMIAN— LUTHER'S WRITINGS IN PARIS IN 1519 — AGITATION — SENTENCE OP THE SOKBONNE — MELANCTHON'S DEFENCE OF LUTHER, AND ATTACK UPON JOHN MAJOR HAMILTON'S RESIDENCE AT LOUVAINE, AND PROBABLE INTERCOURSE WITH ERASMUS. At tubeata Gallia, Salve ! bonarum blanda nutrix artium, Orbem receptans hospitem, atque orbi tuas Opes vicissim non avara impertiens; Sermone comis, patria gentium omnium Communis. George Buchanan. Hail ! happy France Bland nurse of science — hostess of the world — As bountiful as rich, to all mankind Thy learned stores imparting ; affable In polished speech to all — their common country, thou ! CHAPTER II. PATRICK HAMILTON IIS" PAEIS AND LOTJVAINE. It has always hitherto been supposed that Patrick Hamilton received his university education at St. Andrews. The documen- tary evidence relied upon to support this supposition consists of two entries in the registers of that university, — the one dated June 9, 1523, which bears that Magister Patrick Hamilton was on that day incorporated, i.e., admitted a member of the university after taking the academic oath; the other of date, October 3, 1524, which records that Magister Patrick Hamilton, abbot of Feme, in the diocese of Eoss, was received on that day into the Faculty of Arts. These notices, however, are quite insuf&cient to prove that he took his master's degree in St. Andrews. When attentively considered they prove that he was already a graduate when he became con- nected for the first time with that university. The erroneous assumption referred to necessarily gave rise to a difficulty in accounting for the bias which his mind very early received in the direction of Lutheranism. 'As early,' says Dr. M'Crie, ' as the year 1526, and previous to the breach of Henry YIII. with the Eomish See, a gleam of light was, ly some wihnoiun means, imparted to his mind amidst the darkness which brooded around him.' ^' But this difficulty is at once removed and a flood of suggestive light thrown upon the history of his mental prepara- tion for his future work, by the fact, which has only now been ascertained, that he took his master's degree in Paris in the year * Works of the Rev. Thomas M'Crie. Life of Knox, p. 14. new edition. 28 PATRICK HAMILTON A GRADUATE OF TAEIS. 1520, and must have left Scotland to enter upon his philosophical course in that university as early as 1517, if not a year earlier. The evidence of this interesting fact is of the amplest kind. In 1527 Hamilton entered his name in the album of the University of Marburg, as a Master of Arts of Paris ; and among the clehris of the records of the University of Paris the volume of Acta Rectoria before referred to, beginning vs^ith the year 1520, bears that Hamil- ton was admitted among the Ilagistri Jurati in that very year, under the rectorate of Nicolas Maillard, who was nominated to that office on the 8th day of August."^'* But even if these documentary proofs of the point had not been forthcoming, the fact that he studied at Paris is sufficiently attested by the authority of Alexander Alesius, who was personally acquainted with Hamilton, and was indeed his convert and first biographer, and who tells us distinctly that Hamil- ton prosecuted his studies both in Paris and Louvaine. It was the fortunate discovery of this earliest account of the reformer — which has been buried for three centuries in the heart of a neglected Latin commentary on the Psalms — which afterwards led to the further discovery of the above documentary proofs at Marburg and Paris.f To Paris, then, we must follow the young reformer in 1517, and ^ endeavour to bring up before us, and to estimate the effect of, the powerful influences which were there brought to bear upon his opening mind. To pass from Scotland to Prance in those days was like passing out of the middle ages into the regime of modern times. Buchanan more than once confessed and complained that it was but seldom the muses visited a soil and a clime and an age so rude and uncultured as those of his native land ; but France he hailed as the genial nurse of all the liberal arts — rich in learning and culture — gecerously dispensing her riches to the world — throwing open her hospitable gates to all mankind, and owned by them all as their common country. It would have been interesting and of some importance to have * See Note B. t The title of the Commentary is the following : — ' Primus Liber Psal- morum juxta Hebrasorum et divi Hieronymi supputationem. Expositus ab Alexandro Alesio D. in celebri Academia Lipsensi, 1554. Impressum Lipsiae in ffidibus Georgii Hantzsch, cum gratia et privilegio ad sexennium.' SCOTS COLLEGE COLLEGE OF MONTACUTE. 29 known in which of the numerous colleges of the University of Paris Hamilton was matriculated, and who were the masters that directed his studies. But here all documentary records fail us ; nor is their absence compensated by any other information yet discovered. On these points we are left entirely to our own conjectures. One col- lege there was which could not fail to have a peculiar interest to him, and would probably attract his choice — the venerable founda- tion of David Murray, bishop of Moray, as old as the days of Eobert the Bruce — founded when Eandolph, Earl of Murray, was in Paris as ambassador from Bruce to renew the ancient league between Scotland and France — known to Scotsmen by the name of the Scots' College, and among Frenchmen as the College de Grisy.^' Here were educated John Major, doctor of the Sorbonne, Eobert Wauchope, Archbishop of Armagh, George Buchanan, and many other eminent Scotsmen of that and preceding ages. Or quite as probably the superior literary fame of the College of Montacute, where many of his countrymen had become distinguished for liberal attainments, would determine his preference. It was in that college that Hector Boyce, first Principal of King's College, Aberdeen, had studied and professed the arts, and had made the acquaintance and friendship of Erasmus. It was there also, as Boyce informs us,f that Patrick Panther, the accomplished Latin Secretary of James lY., had resided ; and Walter Ogilvy, * a man of abounding and beautiful eloquence ;' and George Dundas, equally skilled in Latin and Greek learning, and afterwards Preceptor of the Scottish Knights of St. John of Jerusalem ; and John Major, after he had finished his course of study at the Scots' College, and commenced Master and Eegent in Philosophy. "We may feel tolerably confident that it was in one or other of these two colleges that Hamilton took up his residence, as in either he would be able to secure the advantage of the learned society of his own countrymen. In 1517 and 1518 Major was still residing as a teacher of philosophy and theology in the College of Montacute, and was engaged in drawing up his His- tory of Scotland, and in the publication of other works ; and in the * M'Kenzie's Lives of Scots Writers, vol. ii, preface, p. 6. + Boethii Aberdonensium Episcoporum Yita3 ; — under the Life of William Elphiustone. 30 STATE OF THE TJXIVERSITT OF PABIS. Scots' College, Eobert Wauchope, of Niddrie, was preparing himself during these years for his master's degree, which he took in 1519.* We are fortunately at no loss to form a judgment of the intellec- tual and theological state of the university during the period of Hamilton's residence. The events and transactions of the academic annals during those years have been distinctly recorded by Bul?eus, and the inner spirit and life of what was still the greatest school of philosophy and theology in Europe can be satisfactorily gathered from the letters of Erasmus and his learned correspondents. Eras- mus and many of his friends had studied or professed letters and the arts at that seat of the muses, and, long after leaving it, continued to take the liveliest interest in its welfare, and to keep up corre- spondence with its most learned and liberal members. The University of Paris was still destitute of any provision for the cultivation of the three learned languages. These were indeed growingly studied by its members, but this was done privately and spontaneously, under the stimulus of that revived taste for philology and ancient literature which was one of the most prominent features of the age. Such studies formed no part of the prescribed curri > culum, and were still disliked and discountenanced by many persons of great authority in the university — by none more than by ]^atalis Bedda, who was at the head of the College of Montacute.f In this respect the University of Louvaine had taken the lead of all the great schools of Europe. In 1517 the Collegium Busleidiamcm was founded there under the influence of Erasmus, by the liberality of Hieronymus Eusleidius, which was the first example of an academic institution established for the teaching of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.}: It was not till 1529 thatErancis I. imitated this example, by found- ing at Paris his celebrated Collegium Trilingue. As early, indeed, * D. Joannis Majoris Yita — prefixed to ' Historia Majoris Britanni?e tam Angliffi quam Scotiae. Edinburgi, 1740.' For a list of books published by Major at Paris at or near that time, see Note F. f For proof that Bedda, one of the most violent of the Obscurants,' was Head of the College of Montacute, which produced so many Erasmians, see Note F. I Letter of Erasmus to John Lascaris, in which he requests him to recom- mend a professor for the Greek chair of the college ; dated Louvaine, 1518. Epistolarum D. Erasmi Eoterodami, libri xxxi. Londini, 1642. Lib. iij. epist. 12. p. 180. THE COLLEGIUM TEILTNGTIE NOT YET FOUKDED. 31 as 1517, the year when Hamilton went to Paris, this design had '^ been broached; and it was still in agitation in 1518; for, in a letter from Antwerp, dated the 9th of August of that year, addressed to M. Guil. Hueus, Dean of the Cathedral of Paris, we find Erasmus writing thus : ' I hear, not without the highest satisfaction, that the University of Paris is well inclined to add the study of the three languages to those ancient studies in which she has unquestionably long held and still holds the first place, and to go back to those most pure fountains of truth, the sacred books ; and that she has no sympathy with some men who think that such learning is hostile to true theology. Such men stand in their own light, for in truth there is no kind of learning which is more serviceable to all honest studies. This proposal I attribute in part to the candour of the French genius; partly to the wisdom of that excellent prelate, Stephen Poncherius, a man raised up by God to restore good learning and true piety ; but above all I ascribe it to the excellent King Francis himself.' ^' Still nothing was done to carry out the design for ten years; and so late as 1527 we find Erasmus writing to his learned correspondent, Budaeus, in the following terms : * I hear that the most Christian king is very favourable to the introduction of im- provements in the course of academic study, and I have no doubt the matter will have a most happy issue if you will put your spurs in the sides of the willing horse. Believe me, there is nothing which more obscures the glory of that university than the practice of hurrying on youth, when they have scarcely had a mouthful of grammatical learning, to those sophistical studies by which they are armed for the scholastic palaestra. These studies have indeed their own use in training the judgment, but the knowledge of lan- guages is plainly indispensable. Many are able to exercise a sound judgment without any skill in dialectics ; but without a knowledge of language no one can so much as understand what he hears or reads. Some will cry out against the innovation at first, but the outcry will soon cease. The whole of our youth are already ripe for the change, and even the seniors who make a noise about it in public are secretly well inclined to this addition to the course of study. This is manifest from the tracts of Hochstraten, which im- * Epistolarum D. Erasmi Eoterodami, libri xxxi. Lib. xi, epist. 22. p. 570. 32 INFLUENCE OF EKASMTJS AND BUD^US. prove in style every day. The writings of Sutor and Bedda attest the same thing. Clithoveus himself becomes somewhat more polished than formerly ; nor is even Latomus altogether regardless of purity of diction. Longolius has left behind him such a reputation for a polished style, that among the Italians he passes for a very Cicero- nian.'* So far, then, as the authorised curriculum of study was concerned, Patrick Hamilton went through much the same course of intellec- tual discipline at Paris as he would have done if he had stayed at home, and pursued his academic studies at Glasgow or St. Andrews. Put the inner life and spirit of the Prench university were very different from what he would have found in the older schools of his native country; and it was this difference which made his residence in Paris the turning-point of his life. Though Erasmus had long ago left it, his spii'it and tastes were rapidly gaining ground among its regents and students, and becoming more and more decidedly the genius of the place. The love of philological studies and of ancient literature in preference to the arid and re- pulsive discipline of what were called the Arts — a dislike of scholastic subtleties and disputation, and a growing contempt for proficiency in such pursuits — admiration of the new race of scholars and men of letters who had sprung up in all the countries of Western Europe — and devotion, in particular, to the twin-stars, the Castor and Pollux of literature and learning, Budaeus and Erasmus ; — these new tastes and sentiments, accompanied with a growing aversion and indigna- tion against the narrow-minded and malignant obscurants who per- secuted in Prance, in Planders, in Germany, and in England, the Erasmuses, Eeuchlins, and Colets of the age, were every day gather- ing new force and influence in Paris, and taking possession of all young and ingenuous minds. The obscurants were indeed to be found there in considerable numbers, as in all the other ancient * Epistolarum D. Erasmi Eoterodami, libri xxxi. Lib. xxi. epist. 50, p. 1120. Bedda, Sutor, and Clithoveus were all doctors of the Sorbonne. Erasmus speaks of Bedda and Sutor in one of his letters, hb. xix. epist. 27, as ' Theologi simpliciter furiosi.' Latomus was a divine of the Faculty of Lou- vaine. Longolius wrote against Luther ; he died prematurely, and Erasmus tells us that France, Flanders, and Holland all claimed the honour of his birth ; but he asserts that he was no Frenchman, nor Fleming, but a Hollander. Epistolai'um Hb. xxvii. epist. 38. LETTER OF VIYES TO EEASMUS. 33 peats of learning — men too old to learn, too arrogant to condescend to new teachers, and too deeply pledged to the maintenance of old ideas and forms to concede a hair's-breadth to what they looked upon as conceited and dangerous innovations. But these were not in general the men whom the young student came in contact with on his arrival at the university. The 'freshmen' fell into the hands of the regents or tutors of colleges, who were, for the most part, warm sympathisers with the literary enthusiasm of 'Young Europe.' Under such teachers the young scholar soon learned to laugh at the venerable lovers of darkness and stagnation who were still the nominal heads. The real heads and rectors of the university were Budseus and Erasmus — the acknowledged masters of the in- tellectual world. ^* We have a conclusive proof of all this, and a very graphic picture of the state of things in the university, in a letter written in 1521 by Ludovicus Vives to Erasmus. f That learned Spaniard had been a resident in the university in former years, and had still many friends in it. Having availed himself of an opportunity of revisiting Paris in the year just mentioned, he sent Erasmus an account of what he had seen, and especially of the great changes which had come over the spirit of the place. His letter is extremely lively and amusing. Shortly before his visit, Yives had published an epistle addressed to Eortis, one of the Paris dialecticians, in which he had overwhelmed with ridicule the whole order ; and he expected to find the sophists in very bad humour with him. 'But matters turned out,' says he, 'much better than I expected. My fears proved to be mere fancies. IS'o sooner had I sent my servant round to my friends to make them aware of my arrival than they flocked in * To Budfeus, "who Hved in liberal circumstances at Paris, Buchanan paid a high and elegant tribute in the following lines : — Sunt universi splendor orbis Gralliae, Et Galliarum splendor est Lutetia, Splendor Camoenae sunt sacrse Lutetise ; Budajus ornat unus, innocenti Splendore vitse, literis, solertia, Orbem, Camoenas, Galliam, Lutetiani. Epigrammatum lib. ii. + Epistolarum D. Erasmi Eoterodami, libri xxsi. Lib. xvii. epist. 10. p. 752. D 34 THE * GENIUS LOCI QUITE CHANGED. crowds to salute me and congratulate me on my coming. The next day and all the time I was in Paris they brought to me many of the dialecticians of greatest name in the university. The conversation soon turned upon their favourite studies and my own, and I did all I could to keep out of sight my ^'Epistle to Fortis," and to disguise the fact that I was the author. But, as bad luck would have it, Fortis himself was present, and could not long keep his tongue off the subject. When it was referred to they all laughed heartily, and assured me that they not only took it in good part, but felt really obliged to me for being at the pains to expose such ridiculous follies. The spirit of Paris is very different now from what it was when I was studying philosophy there, though some, of course, are still obliged to accommodate themselves to old notions, and have not courage to throw off the mask. One of my own countrymen there, a relation of the Kiug of Portugal, on tasting the bitterness of the old sophistry, conceived such a disgust at it that he has entirely devoted himself — I might almost say, drowned himself, head and ears over, in the new learning. Nor is it only princes and noblemen who leave sordid studies to sordid minds, but the leading theologians of the university as well. You would scarcely believe how candid they have become, and what a much better interpretation they put upon everything than they used to do. They confess their ignor- ance, they lament it, they feel no envy at those who know more than .they do, and they encourage others to learn what they have never learned themselves. I was often at their tables, and our intercourse was extremely agreeable. On such occasions we had not spoken three words before the conversation turned upon you. My dear Erasmus, I w^ould tell you all if you would give me leave to write a letter full of your own praises. But I dare not say to your- self how highly they lauded your labours in the restoration of Jerome, and in giving back to the New Testament its own integrity — a work, they remarked, of more use to Christian piety than any- thing that has been cried up in the schools for a thousand years back. Nor must I say how much they admire your " Paraphrase," and what delight they have in the "Adagia," the "Copia," and your other writings on secular subjects. Even the '^Moria" is a great favourite with them all, and gives offence to none. I could give you the names of more than ten theologians who promise you all Erasmus's eeplt to tives, 35 tlie service and assistance in their power. There is nothing which they will not do for you. Their houses are open to you. " Let him come and live among us, and our means, our families, our friends, are all at his service." They beg and implore you to go on as you are doing, and never to mind the cacklings of the ignoramuses. These men will do everything they can to rid the theological disputa- tions of quibbles and trifling. Indeed, matters have already come so far that, in the Sorbonne itself, if any one stands forward with an argument made up of the old cobwebs, the audience instantly knit their brows, interrupt him with loud clamours, and drive him out of the schools. It is the same at the philosophical disputations. Any one who presents himself there with a cargo of the old subtle- ties, which used to be such wonderful favourites with our callow scholastics, is driven off now-a-days with a storm of shouts, and hisses, and clappings. You will be delighted, I know, to hear all this, for the love you bear to sound studies, as much so as I was to see it. Many things were calling me away from Paris, but for a long time my friends, old and new, would not let me go, and they over- whelmed me with so many dinners that my digestion was at last much out of order. At length a letter which arrived from Cardinal Oroius, my patron, unexpectedly delivered me; and so I bade them, with all their breakfasts, luncheons, dinners, and suppers, and all their dainties and confections, great and small, a hearty farewell.' This lively epistle found Erasmus at Louvaine, in rather low spirits and out of humour, and he teUs Vives in reply that it had cheered him up amazingly. * Your visit to Paris,' says he, 'was a truly happy one, and you have described it so graphically that I almost imagined I was there along with you. Really you must have been born under a lucky star, to be a deserter from your old comrades the sophists, and yet to have got on so well in your skir- mishes with them ; and at Paris, too, of all places in the world — the very kingdom and citadel of dialectics, where one would have thought you were in danger of being stoned or stung to death with hornets. I do indeed rejoice in the progress of sound studies at Paris, not only on public grounds but for personal reasons ; for I am an old student of the place, and spent some years there not at all unpleasantly. But what may we not hope for hereafter when the Sorbonne, leaving off verbal subtleties, embraces a solid and true 36 Hamilton's philosophical views. theology ? I rejoice that the muses, long exiles from our public gymnasia, are now recalled, I would have them received back, how- ever, on the condition that they are only to put an end to barbarism and trifling, not to destroy other branches of discipline which are indispensable, not to hinder but to help the acq^uisition of other necessary knowledge. Tor polite letters are not the only thing needful to be attended to. The Italians go too far in that direction and in too much of a Pagan style. When they have crammed into some verses the names of Jove, Bacchus, Neptune, Cynthius, Cylle- nius, they imagine themselves absolute scholars. Then only do we give to polite letters their proper place and honour when we mingle them as a condiment with other studies of greater gravity and im- portance.' •'' Erasmus then goes on to express his surprise that the scholastics of Louvaine should be so much behind those of Paris, Cambridge, Oxford, Complutum, and other universities, in love for the revived learning of the age ; from Avhich it would appear that though Lou- vaine had taken precedence of Paris in founding a college for the learned languages, the spirit of the university of that city was really less Erasraian than that of Paris. In Elanders it was the college established by the liberal views of one wealthy citizen that gradu- ally created the spirit of liberal study. In Paris it was the enlight- ened spirit continually growing stronger in the educated mind of the country which at last called into existence the Collegium Trilingue of Francis the First. With such a graphic picture before us as these learned letters exhibit of the spirit and condition of the University of Paris at the time when Patrick Hamilton became a student and graduate within its walls, we could have easily conjectured the effect which would be produced upon his intellectual views and tastes, even if we had not been distinctly informed of his characteristics in these respects. But Knox records, in his " History of the Beformation iu Scotland," that Hamilton " was well learned in philosophy; he abhorred sophistry, and would that the text of Aristotle should have been better under- stood and more used in the schools than it was ; for sophistry had corrupted all in divinity as in humanity."! That is to say, he pre- * Epistolarnm, &c., lib. x-\ii., epist. 11. f Works of John Knox, edited by David Laiug, Esq. Edin. Yol. i. p. 15. Hamilton's love op tlato. 37 ferred the Greek text of Aristotle himself to all his scholastic com- mentators, and wished the originals of his treatises to be made use of in the schools instead of barbarous and corrupt Latin translations — a wish which indicates pretty plainly that the Greek tongue was a favourite with him, and that he had attained to some proficiency in it. It was partly owing to their own ignorance of Greek that the scholastics were in general so hostile to the use of the Greek originals. The only men who advocated the use of them were those who could make use of them themselves. Alexander Alesius bears the same testimony to Hamilton's intellectual attainments and views. ' He was a man,' says he, ' of excellent learning and a most acute mind. He was for banishing all sophistry from the schools, and recalling philosophy to its sources — that is, to the original writings of Aristotle and Plato.' The addition of Plato's name in this ac- count is significant and interesting. It is well known how much the love of Plato's 'divine philosophy' had revived in Italy and Western Europe in that and the preceding age, and how strongly the old universities had opposed this new taste, in order to maintain the old monopoly of Aristotle. The University of Paris in parti- cular had solemnly condemned the writings of John Picus Mirandu- lanus, the chief reviver in Italy of long-lost Platonism. The reference, therefore, to Hamilton's opinion in favour of a return to Plato, as well as to the pure text of Aristotle, makes it evident that his intellectual views were of the most liberal and comprehensive character, and that the lofty and beautiful intuitionsr of the Master of the Academy had charms for him, as well as the strong and clear understanding and logic of the Stagyrite. As has recently been re- marked of him, in the latest notice that has appeared of his name in the literature of the continent : ' JN'ature had given him a feeling of the lofty and the noble. She had made him susceptible of enjoying the refined pleasures of culture and science, and to be sensible of the charm which lies in the writings of the ancients.' '^^' AYhile it remained unknown that Hamilton had been a student of philosophy at Paris, it was as difficult to account for the enlarged and enlightened char- acter of his philosophical views, as for his early adoption of the reformed theology. We have now the explanation before us. He * Herzog's Eeal-Encyldopadie fiii Protestantische Tbeologie und Kirche, 856. Article on Hamilton, by Dr. George Weber. 38 LFTHEEAJ^ AGITATION IN PAUIS. was an Erasmian as well as a Lutheran, and he imbibed his Eras- mianisin in the University of Paris. But it was not only the spirit of Erasmus that Hamilton came into communion with on the banks of the Seine. During his resi- dence there an impulse was propagated to the university from a soul immensely more potent and world-subduing than the polished and timid scholar of Eotterdam. In 1519 the strong hand of Luther knocked violently at its gates, and the sound reverberated through all its studious halls and cloisters. ' In that year,' writes Bulseus,* ' a great many copies were brought to Paris of the Leipzig disputa- tion between Luther and Eck ; twenty of which Magister John Nicolas, quaestor of the Gallic nation, purchased on the 20th of January, by appointment of the nation, for the use of those who were deputed by the university to examine the book, and of any others who might wish to report their opinion thereon to the university.' * In 1520,' he continues, 'the universities of Cologne and Lou- vaine condemned many of Luther's books to the flames, and the same thing was done with many of them in Germany. In an in- stant Luther blazed with resentment, and inveighed against those universities with the severest reproaches and calumnies. '' What confidence," he exclaimed, " can be felt in the judgment of tribunals whose sentences have seldom been right, which have often, nay, almost always, been in the wrong ? It is a rule of law that he who has once been convicted of wickedness shall be always presumed to be wicked. jS^owhere, never, and in no case whatever ought con- fidence to be put in these Magistri Nostri, or any of them, for it is certain that their judgments hitherto have not only been inconstant and precipitate, but erroneous too, and heretical and blind. Look at the unjust condemnations which they passed upon William Occam, undoubtedly the prince of scholastic doctors, and the most ingenious of them all ; and upon John Picus Mirandulanus too, and Laurentius Valla, and John Eeuchlin. Nobody ought to trust them, and nobody will, save such as an angry God has judicially given over to the delusions of error." ' That same year, 1520, Erederick Duke of Saxony, the patron of * Buliei Historia Univevsitatis Parisiensis. 1G73. Tom. vi., suh anno a.d. 1519. THE SORBONNF. UELANCTHON-. 39 Luther, -wrote to the Faculty of Theology to ask their opinion of Luther's doctrines. Magister Natalis Bedda laid the letter before the university on the 2nd of March, and the conclusion come to, as recorded in the acts of the Gallic nation, was — ' that no answer can be given to the Duke of Saxony nor to any other person upon this subject, until all the four faculties have deliberated respect- ing it.' The doctors of the Sorbonne spent more than a year in the exa- mination of Luther's writings. JN'ot only all Paris but all Europe waited anxiously for their decision. For a time the issue seemed doubtful, for Lutheran votes were not wanting even in the Sorbonne. But at length the champions of the old darkness prevailed over the friends of the new light, and the university solemnly decreed, on the 15 th of April, 1521, in the presence of students from every country in Christendom, that Luther was a heretic, and that his w^orks should be publicly thrown into the flames. But it was easier to make an auto-da-fe of the reformer's books, and to scatter their ashes to the winds, than to suppress the agitation which these acts produced in the public mind. The Parisian 'Act' of what Erasmus calls Luther's tragedy did not take end when the Sorbonne intended it should. In a few months after the publication of the sentence of the theologians, there arrived in Paris ' A Defence of Martin Luther against the Euribund Decree of the Parisian Theologasters,' from the pen of young Philip Melancthon of Wittemberg."^ Melancthon's name was already known throughout Europe as one of the first scholars of the age. Men were eager to hear his young but already potent voice. His attack upon the Sorbonne, as pungent as it was polished, and as contemptuous as it was elegant, made an immense sensation. When one of the youngest authors of the day, and a professor in one of the youngest schools of Europe, came forward to utter his scorn for the learned fathers of the Sorboone itself, men were either astounded at his presump- tion or in transports of admiration at his spirit and gallantry. The printers and booksellers of Paris poui^ed forth edition after edition * Philippi Melanthonis Opera qute Supersunt Omnia. Edidit Carolus Gottlieb Bretschneider. Halis Saxonum, IS^M. Vol. i. p. 398. Adversus Fariosum Parisiensium Theologastrorum Decretum ; Philip. JVIel. pro Lutliero Apologia. 40 THE EOOKSELLEES IMPEISOXED. of the audacious pamphlet. On the 3rd of October, 1521, the agitation had spread from the university to the senate of Paris. Full of orthodox zeal, or of politic concern for the public peace, the senate communicated to the university their surprise that its rulers should be so remiss as to allow suspected and heretical books to be openly published and sold ; and in particular, that a tract of Philip Melancthon, in defence of Martin Luther, should be hawked everywhere about the streets, and the university doing nothing to put a stop to it. The senate proffered their assistance to repress the insolence of the booksellers, and the university, backed by their authority, commenced proceedings against them. In the Fasti Rectorii it is recorded that several booksellers and printers were put in prison for printing and selling certain books against the determi- nation of the Paculty of Theology against Martin Luther ; and all the pamphlets entitled * Against the Puribund Decree of the Theologasters of Paris,' were committed to the flames. These notices of what occurred in Paris in connection with Luther's cause at the period of Hamilton's residence in the univer- sity, are sufficient to show how strongly his attention must have been drawn to the Reformation movement in its very earliest stage. He must have found himself suiTounded during those years with a violent fenuent of opinion and feeling on the subject of religion and the church. ^Ror are we to imagine that he would find the weight of opinion and feeling around him to be all or almost all on the conservative side. There were many men in the university who had far more sympathy with Luther than with the Beddas and the Sutors of the Sorbonne. "We might conjecture as much from the words of Vives and Erasmus already quoted ; but we find still stronger language than theirs made use of by one of the regents of the uni- versity, in regard to the improved spirit and tone which appeared in many of the Parisian theologians. In 1518 Mcolaus Eeraldus, an eminent scholar, in a letter to Erasmus,^' assured him of the theological sympathy of all the best men in the university ; — ' All the most learned men here, Budaeus, Ruellius, Puzaeus, Delviuus, and the exceJlent Bishop of Paris himself — the Maecenas of our age — are anxiously looking for the new edition of your Greek Testament. * Epistolanim D. Erasmi, &c., Hber xi. epist. 13, p. 563. SYMPATHY WITH LUTHER. 41 Kever was the work of any author so impatiently expected. In fact, I perceive that what I have long ardently wished to see is about to come to pass, — I mean that our theologians, too long and too much devoted to thorny and sophistical trifles, will desert the fac- tions of the Scotists, the Occamists, and the Thomists too, and turn their attention in great numbers to the ancient and true theology ; that is, if you will only go on as you are doing, and assert the dignity of the learning which employs itsell in the study of those heavenly mysteries.' In a second letter, dated the following July, Beraldus tells Erasmus that his new edition was now in the hands of very many of the learned, including among them divines of the greatest celebrity. ' These men now love you as much, I had almost said as extravagantly, as before they hated you without cause. Your work has made you many friends. Even the most refractory and hope- less of your enemies have been almost overcome by the arguments which you have employed in your defence.' These are interesting notices of the state of the theological mind of Paris, a few months before Luther's Disputation at Leipzig came into the hands of the Sorbonne. The improvement which had taken place was due to Erasmus, and it prepared the way for further pro- gress. The thinking of Erasmus on the subjects of theology and the Church was of that transitional kind which may afford an uneasy sort of standing-ground for the mind which excogitates it, but which only serves to put other minds into motion from their old positions, without finding for them new and settled convictions. The great majority of the minds which Erasmus influenced went a great deal farther than Erasmus himself. His disciples were not so timid and calculating as their master. Being in general young men, unattached and unpledged to old parties, they had far less to lose than he had by carrying out his principles to their proper logical issues. Eras- mus, in innumerable instances, was only a stepping-stone to Luther. Erasmus, in fact, had helped Luther himself into Lutheranism, and was not displeased at first with the bold energy of his scholar. Many of the doctors and monks of Home would never be convinced by all his protestations that he was not a Lutheran ; and he lived to complain that he was worse handled by the Sorbonne than Luther himself had been. But he dreaded noise and tumult and personal danger far more than he loved truth and right. ' I will be no author 42 EEASMIANS DEVELOPED INTO LirTHEEA.NS. of confusion and tragedies,' cried the pale-faced scholar, as he kept learnedly forging the weapons which others were to wield in exciting these very tragedies. ' It is no aim of mine,' wrote he to Beraldus, in reply to the letters just referred to, * to explode Thomas or Scotus from the public schools. Such a task is beyond my strength ; and even if it were not, I am not sure that it is a thing to be wished, till we see some better sort of doctrine ready to take their place. As for what others are attempting in that line, let them look to it — / will never be the author of such a revolution. It is enough for me if theology be only handled with more good sense than it has been hitherto, and if men will only go to the evangelical sources for what the most of us have been accustomed to draw from pools not over pure.' *' And Erasmus was as good as his word. He was mean enough to desert and abuse the Eeformation, after being the first reformer. Eut many who called him their first master took Luther for their second, and went boldly forward with the ardent German, to the great mortification of the phlegmatic Hollander. There were many examples of this progress among the Erasmians of Paris as well as everywhere else, and such examj)les could not be without their effect upon a mind so open and progressive as that of Patrick Hamilton. He was already, we have seen, an Erasmian in literature and philosophy, and as such he would naturally incline to the side of Luther, especially as Erasmus himself was generally understood at first to be favourable to Luther's cause. So long as the enemies of Erasmus were also Luther's enemies, it was inevitable that the friends of Erasmus should pronounce themselves Luther's friends. There was one incident in the controversy at Paris which must have struck upon Hamilton's mind with peculiar force, and have filled him with a sensation of surprise and perhaps chagrin. This was the unceremonious freedom used by Melancthon with the high fame '^ and standing of Hamilton's erudite countryman, John Major. Major was one of the greatest celebrities of the Sorbonne, and a man of whom Scotland had reason — as celebrity then went in the world — to be proud. But Melancthon singled him out from all the Sorbon- nists as an object of ridicule to the whole of Europe. ' I have seen,' * Epistolarum lib. xi. epist. ]5. JOHN MAJOR RIDICULED BY MELANCTHON. 43 he exclaimed, ' the commentaries on Peter Lombard of John Major, a man, I am told, who is now the prince of the Paris divines. Good heavens ! What wagon-loads of trifling ! What pages he fills with disputes whether there can be any horsemanship without a horse — whether the sea was salt when God made it — not to speak of the many impieties he has written about the freedom of the will, not only in the teeth of Scripture, but of all the scholastics besides ! If he is a specimen of the Parisians, no wonder they are all the enemies of Luther.' ^ It was a remarkable instance of that providential ordering of events in the lives of God's servants, by which they are trained and adapted for their after work, that Patrick Hamilton should have been brought to Paris at the very crisis of time when that great school was first roused to alarm by the advent of Luther, and when every doctor, regent, and student was compelled to give heed to the bold words of the German Hercules who had started up to do battle with the church of the popes. Paris was then, and had long been, the first theological school in Christendom. The Sorbonne was the citadel of the old doctrines ; the other universities were but out- works. It was in the Sorbonne that both the inertia and the acti- vity of resistance to the new theology existed in the highest degree. It was when posted at that point, therefore, that Hamilton could best observe the shocks of the great theological war — the attack and the defence — the assaults of Luther and the Lutherans as they rushed forward with loud shouts to demolish the old munitions ; and the vigorous sallies of the beleaguered Church to repel the aggressors. It was impossible that the young reformer could have been anywhere better stationed, to learn all that was strongest and weakest both in the new and the old theology. How long he remained in Paris after taking his master's degree, towards the close of 1520, we have no means of knowing. Eut we have the authority of Alesius, as already mentioned, for the fact that he studied at Louvaine as well as Paris ; and as he graduated at the latter, not the former, it is most natural to suppose that he went to Louvaine after being at Paris, not before. It is also an ascertained * " Bone Deus ! quae plaustra nugarum ! Quot paginis disputat utrum ad eqiiitandurn requiratur equus, &c. . . . Cum tales sint Parisii, non est quod mireriSj lector, cur pai'uui propitii sint Luthero." 44 HAMILTON AT LOTJVAINE. fact, that it was not till the summer of 1523, nearly three years after his graduation, that he appeared at St. Andrews. It is ex- ceedingly probable, therefore, that the bulk of these intervening years would be spent between Paris and Louvaine. He was still only a stripling of sixteen when he became a Master ; he was deeply imbued with the love of those liberal studies of which Paris and Louvaine were the chief centres ; he could not be otherwise than warmly interested in the further progress of Luther's movement, which could much better be observed from these great foci of intel- ligence than from the remote shores of Scotland; and provided with ample revenues, he was under no necessity of hastening his return. And whether he prolonged bis stay in the Prench capital for some considerable time after his graduation, or went immediately to Louvaine, was much the same in effect for the ends of his theo- logical progress. The two universities were in close and constant communication with each other ; all the acts and writings of the one were immediately known at the other ; and he might be easily cog- nisant of every act of the German drama that was passing at Paris, or Cologne, or "Wittemberg, or Worms, while breathing the fine air of Louvaine, which Erasmus prized so much ; or con- versing there, as we may even be allowed to imagine, with Erasmus himself. His object, it is pretty evident, in visiting Louvaine, must have been to avail himself of the advantages of its Trilingual College. Its theological school could have no attraction for him. It was the bitter enemy and tormentor of Erasmus, and could find little favour with a young and enthusiastic Erasmian. Perhaps, how- ever, he went partly with the view of being introduced to Erasmus himself, and enjoying the advantage of his conversation. It is certain that Erasmus was living in Louvaine and its neighbour- hood during 1521, and that he did not finally leave it for Basle till the fall of that year. It had been his literary headquarters for some years. It was there he kept his library, and produced several of his greatest and most useful works. There was an interesting link of connection, too, subsisting between the illustrious scholar and his young disciple, which must have given a zest of personal interest to their meeting at Louvaine, if they really met. Patrick Hamilton was a kinsman of Erasmus's former pupil, Alexander Stewai't, son PEOBABLE INTEECOUESE WITH EEASMUS. 45 of James lY., the young Archbishop of St. Andrews; and Erasmus still wore upon his finger a signet-ring, engraved with an image of ' Terminus/ which Stewart had given him, along with other proofs of his attachment, on leaving him at Sienna to return to Scotland .'^' It would have been interesting if we could have known with cer- tainty what is now only a probability, that Erasmus, who had already contributed not a little to revive a taste for polite learning in Scotland, contributed also, by his conversation as well as his writings, to form the character and the qualifications of Scotland's first reformer. * Epistolarum, &c., lib. xxxi., epist. 49. Erasmus has allusions to Stewart in several others of his letters. The author had hoped to be able to procure from Louvaine some notices of Hamilton's residence in that University; but he is informed, on good Belgian authority, that 'les bous Jesuits sont avares des documents dont nous pouvons faire usage.' CHAPTER III. PATRICK HAMILTON IN ST. ANDREWS. DEATH OF SIR PATRICK HAMILTON — INCORPORATION AT ST. ANDREWS— POSITION OIT THE CITY, AND STATE OF THE UNIVERSITY— GEORGE LOCKHART— JOHN MAJOR— THE PROVOST AND MASTERS OF ST. SALVATOR'S— THE PRINCIPAL AND REGENTS OF ST. LEONARD'S REVIVAL OF NATIVE AND CLASSICAL LITERATURE IN SCOTLAND— HAMILTON'S INTIMACY IN THE PRIORY— HIS ATTAINMENTS IN CHORAL MUSIC— STUDIES IN THEOLOGY— AN IRISH DEAN AT ST. ANDREWS— HAMILTON'S VIEWS OP MONACHISM— HIS ORDINATION AS A PRIEST. Literis et eruditione percelebris sancti Andrese schola universalis Prodiere hoc ex g}mnasio iusigui doctrina viri complures. qui eruditioue et morum probitate Scotorum ecclesise haud pan-um attulere splendorem. — Boeihii Aberdonensium Episcoporiivi Vitce. CHAPTER III. PATEICK HAMILTON IN" ST. ANDREWS. "When Patrick Hamilton returned at length to Scotland he went back to a fatherless home, and found his noble mother a widow. The gallant Sir Patrick had fallen a victim to the factious struggles of the Hamiltons and the Douglases. He perished on the 30th April, 1520, in the conflict on the High Street of Edinburgh, which is known in Scottish history by the name of ' Cleanse the Cause- way ;' and the circumstances of his death were characteristic of the brave and high-spirited baron. Like a true knight of chivalry, he was as anxious to avoid bloodshed, when it could be avoided with honour, as he was 'ready, aye ready,' for inevitable battle; and when Gavyn Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld, alarmed by the arrival of armed bands of his kinsmen at the gates of Edinburgh, hastened to the castle to implore the Earl of Arran, the great rival of his house, to prevent the efi'usion of blood, Sir Patrick nobly seconded the entreaties of the prelate. But such peaceful counsels did not suit the violent and bloodthirsty temper of Sir James Hamilton of Eynnart, the Earl's son, who was standing by. Perceiving that his father was disposed to yield to Sir Patrick's solicitations, he flung at the gallant knight the intolerable insult that ' he had no will to fight in his friends' action nor quarrel, though it were never so just.' 'At this,' continues Lindsay of Pitscottie, ' Sir Patrick was grieved, and burnt in anger as the fire, and answered the said Sir James in this manner : '' Bastard Smaik, thou liest falsely. I shall fight this day where thou darest not to be seen ;" and with this he rushed rudely out of their lodgings, and passed to the High Street E 50 INCORPOEATION AT ST. ANDREWS. in a furious rage. "When tlie Earl of Angus saw the Hamiltons coming, and Sir Patrick in such a fury, he knew well there was nothing but fighting, and he cried on his men to save Sir Patrick if they might ; but he came so far before the lave that he was hastily slain, and with him the Master of Montgomeiy, with many other gentlemen and yeomen, to the number of threescore twelve persons.' Thus died Patrick Hamilton's valiant father.* On the 9th of June, 1523, as before noticed, Patrick Hamilton was incorporated in the University of St. Andrews, by which he became a member of the university, without being admitted to any of its faculties ; and it was a curious circumstance that the famous Scottish theologian whose name he had seen so freely handled on the continent, and found to be equally venerable and ridiculous in the eyes of the opposite factions of the old and the new learning, was incorporated at St. Andrews on the very same day. John Major had been brought over from Paris in 1518 by Archbishop James Beaton, to assume the office of Principal in the University of Glas- gow, and had taught philosophy and theology there for the last five years. Beaton had a high opinion of his learning and labours, and induced him, soon after his own promotion to the Primacy, to follow him to St. Andrews. He was incorporated under the high- sounding titles of the Venerable Magister Foster Magister John Major, Doctor of Theology of Paris, and Treasurer of the Chapel Eoyal of Stirling. It was not till the 3rd of October, 1524, that Hamilton was ad- mitted, ad eundem, in the Faculty of Arts. We may safely infer, from his seeking this admission, that after making himself acquainted with the state of the university and the character of its members, he had adopted the resolution of continuing in residence for som time to come, and of taldng some share in the business of the Faculty. To a man of his liberal tastes and pursuits St. Andrews had un- doubtedly more attractions than any other city of the kingdom. It had no single resident, indeed, who had so much of the humanitarian spirit and culture of the age as Hector Boyce of Aberdeen ; but with three colleges, and six churches, of which one was the metropolitan * The Histoiy of Scotland, &c., by Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie. Edin- burgh, 1728. p. 121. EDUCATED SOCIETY OP ST. ANDREWS. 51 churcli of the realm, and three flourishing monasteries, one of which was the most dignified, wealthy, and learned religious house in the kingdom, St. Andrews could boast in those days, and for half a century afterwards, of possessing a larger circle of educated society than any other city of Scotland.*' It had, besides, all the importance and interest of the ecclesiastical centre and capital of the kingdom. Its castle was the chief residence of the Primate. It was the resort of the dignified clergy of the whole realm. It was frequently the meeting place of the provincial councils of the church. It was the headquarters of ecclesiastical law and jurisdiction. Whether Hamil- ton's object, therefore, was to add to his learning, or to make himself intimately acquainted with the condition and working of the national church ; to improve his qualifications for the office of preaching, or to prepare himself for the practical work of an eccle- siastical reformer, St. Andrews was undoubtedly the best position which he could have taken up ; nor would any of its advantages be thrown away upon a mind so well able, by previous culture and observation, to turn them to account. It will be interesting, then, to call up before the eye as distinct and full a picture as possible of the new scene to which our young reformer was now transplanted, and of the society in which, for the next three years of his life, he was principally to move. The University of St. Andrews was at that period in a highly flourishing condition. Notwithstanding the erection of the two rival institutions of Glasgow and Aberdeen, the one in the middle and the other at the end of the preceding century, it still maintained decidedly the first place in point of numbers, wealth, and prosperity. In 1510 the number of incorporations or matriculations amounted to 43, and in 1525 it rose as high as 76. The annual average of resi- dent members of all kinds would probably range between 150 and 200.f The number and wealth of its foundations were also on the * In these six churclies are included the churches of the Black and Grey Friars, and the church of St. Salvator's College. t Registers of the University. These the author had repeated access to through the kindness of Mr. M'Bean, the university librarian. He had also the advantage of a leisurely consultation of some transcripts from them, which were liberally lent him by the Very Rev. Principal Lee, of the Univer- sity of Edinburgh. 52 FLOTJEISHING STATE OF THE UNIVEESITT. increase. Up till 1512 the university had included only two foun- dations — the Psedagogium, the original institution founded in 1411 by Bishop Wardlaw, and St. Salvator's College, founded by Bishop Kennedy in 1450. But in 1512 John Hepburn, Prior of the Monas- tery of St. Andrews, obtained the consent of the conventual chapter to the erection of St. Leonard's College within the precinct of the monastery — for the support of one principal master ; four chaplains, two of whom should be regents or tutors ; and twenty scholars, six of whom should be students of theology, and the remainder, of phi- losophy or the arts. Suitable academic buildings were speedily erected ; valuable grants of land and tenements were assigned for the endowment of the college ; and the institution was in active operation as early as 1515, when a number of able young men, who afterwards rose to eminence, were enrolled among its students. In the same year, 1512, the young Archbishop Stewart, natural son of James lY., took steps to give a strictly collegiate character and more ample endowments to the Psedagogium, with the view of putting it on a footing of equality with the old and new foundations of St. Salvator and St. Leonard. But his liberal design was un- happily interrupted by the catastrophe of Flodden in 1513, where he fell in arms at the side of his too chivalrous father ; and it was not resumed till the year 1537, when Archbishop James Beaton took measures which, being followed up by his successors, issued at length, in 1554, in the transmutation of the Paedagogium into St. Mary's College.^' It is extremely probable that if Archbishop Stewart had not been so prematurely cut off he would have introduced into the Psedago- gium, in its remodelled form, an improved course of study, by the appointment of regents imbued with the liberal spirit and culture of the age. He had been educated in the most famous universities of Prance and Italy, and had for some time pursued his studies, as was formerly noticed, under the direction of Erasmus, who speaks in high terms of his talents and attainments. It can- not be doubted, therefore, that he had imbibed a strong taste for classical studies, and that it was his intention to exert himself to diffuse the same taste among the Scottish youth. The loss which * M'Crie's Life of Melville, Note RR; Lyon's History of St. Andrews. AECHBISHOP STEWART S LIBERAL TIEWS. 53 the cause of learning sustained by his untimely death was great ; and all the greater that it soon became evident that there was no one in St. Andrews who was disposed to take up the idea of bringing the studies of the university into harmony with the new tendencies and tastes of the time. It is a remarkable fact that the statutes of St. Leonard's College, though drawn up so late as the year 1512, discover no traces whatever of the humanitarian spirit. Although, erected two generations later than St. Salvator's, the educational provisions of the new college exhibit hardly any improvement upon those of the older institution.*' In this respect the college founded at Aberdeen by Bishop Elphinstone had set an example of liberality to the establishments of St. Andrews. Hector Boyce, its first prin- cipal, had transplanted to the banks of the Don and the Dee the classical tastes and learning which he had cultivated in the society and under the inspiration of Erasmus, in the University of Paris.f But this honourable example was very tardily followed. St. Andrews had no professor of the Latin language and literature till the completion of St. Mary's College in 1554; and so late as 1559, when Andrew Melville entered the university, he was the only member of it who was able to read the text-books of Aristotle in the Greek original, an accomplishment which was regarded with surprise and admiration even by his teachers. J The intellectual advantages, then, which could be obtained by a residence in St. Andrews at that period, must have been far inferior to those which were possessed in the same age by the students of many of the continental universities. The only branches of knowledge then taught in its schools were the arts or philosophy, canon law, and divinity ; and in arts the writings of Aristotle, in a Latin transla- tion, were the only text-book ; while the lectures given were no more than comments on his several treatises of logic, rhetoric, ethics, and physics. § * See Statutes of St. Leonard's College in Lyon's History of St. Andrews, vol. ii., Appendix. t Boetbii Vitae Aberdon. Episcop. Vitse — Life of Bishop Elphinstone. Buchanan speaks of Boyce as " Non solum artiuui liberalium cognitione supra quam ilia ferehant tempora insignem, sed et humanitate et comitate singulari prseditum." — Rerum Scotise Hist., p. 44. I Autobiography of James Melville (Vv^odrow Society), p. 30. § M'Crie's Life of Melville, 1855, p. 6. 54 GEORGE LOCKHAET— JOHN MAJOR. 1 ;N'or was there much in the personal qualities and attainments of the academic rulers and teachers to compensate for this stagnation in the university system. After Gavyn Douglas ceased in 1516, when he became Bishop of Dunkeld, to take any part in the business of the university, and at the time when Hamilton was in residence, there were only two men in the academic body who had appeared before the world as authors, or who enjoyed anything more than local consideration and repute. These were George Lockhart, professor of theology in the Paedagogium — rector of the university in 1521, 1522, and 1523; and John Major. Lockhart had written several works in dialectics,^' and Major had produced many both in dialectics and theology. But there was nothing in such authorship as theirs, replete as it was with thorny subtleties and Sorbonnic barbarism, to attract and give a stimulus to young minds ; especially at a period when, as must have been well known in the university, the world had become weary of such barren trifling, and had reopened with eager thirst the long-closed fountains of ancient Avisdom. Major's senti- ments, it is true, upon some important points of political science and ecclesiastical jurisprudence, were greatly in advance of the thinking of his age. He denied the divine and indefeasible right of kings, maintaining that ' the free people' were the fountain of authority and power ; and he taught the ecclesiastical doctrine of Gerson and the Gallican Church, that the power of the Pope is inferior to that ^ s of a general council. He had an open eye, too, to some of the worse corruptions of the Church's administration, and was not always silent respecting the more heinous vices and disorders of the clergy. | But Major was no reformer either in the doctrine or discipline of the Church. He never gave any serious offence to his ecclesias- tical superiors ; and he never withheld the sanction of his name from their worst proceedings against ' the way which they called heresy.' He threw the whole weight of his teaching and influence into the scale of the old Church, and his name repeatedly appears on the tribunals which doomed the reformers to exile and death. * Memorial for the Bible Societies in Scotland. Edinburgh, 1824:. Anony- mous, but reputed to be the work of the Very Kev. Principal Lee. See Note Gr for the titles of some of Lockhart's works. + See Note H for some illustrations of Major's ecclesiastical views. ST. SALVATOJi's AND ST. LEONARK's. 55 Lockhart and Major were the two lights of the Paedagogium. At St. Salvator's, Hugh Spens, the provost, and Martin Ealfour, Thomas Ramsay, and Peter Chaplain, the most prominent of the regents, were all men devoted to the old regime, and totally- inaccessible to modern ideas. Only a few years later, three out of these four put their names to Hamilton's sentence of condem- nation. The masters of the college were few, and held their dignities for life ; and as the whole education of the place was in their hands, St. Salvator's in those days could not easily give admission to the free thoughts which found shelter and nourishment in less iron- bound institutions. It was only in the new College of St. Leonard's, and among the 3'ounger canons of the Priory, that Patrick Hamilton would find himself somewhat at home. In the same year that he was incor- porated in the university, Gavyn Logic became Principal of St. "'" Leonard's — a man of open mind and progressive thought, who showed in after life that he was capable both of receiving and suffering for the truth of God. The canons of the Priory were numerous ; and the society of the house was continually receiving accessions of young and fresh minds from the alumni of the college. This opened a door for the entrance of new ideas ; and among the younger canons there were already several names — John Wynram, John Duncanson, and Alexander Alane* — which afterwards became connected earlier or later with the cause of the Reformation. The description which Royce has left us of the intellectual and religious character of the Priory at that period is extremely pleasing. He tells us that its members were devoted to the interests of religion and learning, and spent their time usefully and honourably in study, and in the discharge of the offices of education and devotion. "Whatever new ideas were stirring at the time, and whatever new books were then in people's hands in any part of Scotland, there was at least one society in St. Andrews where they would be able to find access, and would not be driven away from the door with angry y frowns. St. Leonard's, at least, was to some extent in sympathy with whatever new life was to be found in the kingdom, and became a vital organ for its development and training. And such new life there was. ♦ Better known by bis later cognomen — Alesius. 56 EEYIVAL OF NATIVE AND CLASSICAL LITEEATUEE. There were new ideas and new books to be found even in Scotland, the most remote kingdom of Europe, in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. It was a time of intellectual and literary revival there as well as everywhere else. The national mind had recently been stirred by many new productions of native genius. A galaxy -^ of new poets had shone forth in the literary heavens, including Henryson, Douglas, Kennedy, Dunbar, and other native * makars,' all writing in their homely but expressive mother tongue, and all rewarded with the plaudits of their delighted countrymen. The Eoman muses, too, had at length begun to captivate and subdue a country which boasted that it had never bowed to the might of the Roman legions. The authors of the Augustan age were beginning to scatter the seeds of classical culture and refinement among the Scottish youth. We have before referred to the humane studies and labours of Boyce at Aberdeen. There the new intellectual life of the nation had abeady become powerful enough to shape for itself a new system of academic study. Boyce was honoured with the correspondence of Erasmus as a scholar of congenial pursuits ; and we find Erasmus expressing, in one of his letters, the pleasure which it had given him to hear that the kingdom of Scotland, in addition to all its other honours, was every day becoming more polished and refined by the study of the liberal arts. This letter was written in 1529 in reply to a communication in which Boyce had begged Erasmus, in his own name and in the name of all his coadjutors at Aberdeen, to send him a catalogue of his writings ; a proof how eagerly the elegant literature of the continent was then sought after by Scottish scholars. "^ One of Boyce' s colleagues was John Yaus, the first regular professor of the Latin language and literature in Scotland, and the first Scotsman who composed a Latin grammar — ' a man,' says the learned Italian, Eerrerius, * eminently adorned with literature, and who has rendered great services to the Scottish youth. 'f The residence of Eerrerius himself in the country, * See Note I for letter of Erasmus to Boyce. t The words of Ferrerius are, ' Adde his Joannem Vaus virum cum literis turn moribus omatissimum et de juventule Scotica bene mentum.' They occur in the dedication to his patron, the Abbot of Kinloss, of his Academica Dis- sertaiio, Auditum Visui prsestare. — See Dr. Irving's Lives of Scottish Writers, vol. i. p. 5. EMINENT SCOTTISH SCHOLARS. 57 under the patronage of Eobert Eeid, abbot of Kinloss, afterwards Bishop of Orkney, is an additional proof of the value in which classical learning and its cultivators were beginning to be held ; and of the favour, in particular, with which such studies were regarded by some of the dignified clergy. The Church, in truth, was both the chief promoter and the chief opponent of liberal studies in that age. Several of the highest clergy patronized and were themselves proficients in such pursuits ; while, in general, the monks and friars and the whole body of the inferior clergy, with a truer instinct of danger to the interests of Rome, dreaded and hated the new learning and all its abettors. Gavyn Douglas had a knowledge and appre- ciation of the classical authors rarely equalled in those days, and adorned the literature of his country with productions, which were equally honourable to his ability as a scholar, and his genius as a poet.^' Patrick Panther, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, had been a fellow-student of Boyce, and was master of a Latin style of remarkable purity and elegance, which enabled him, in his office of Secretary of State to James IV. and the Regent Albany, to frame the communications of the Scottish crown with foreign princes in language as polished as that of the most refined courts of Europe. f John Bellenden, Archdeacon of Moray, was another accomplished churchman. He was a graduate of Paris, and executed, by order of James Y., not only a version of a portion of Livy, but a translation also of Boyce's Latin history of Scotland. Boyce's original and Bellenden's translation possess between them the peculiar interest of being the first specimens that have descended to our times of Scottish Latinity purged of mediaeval barbarisms, and of Scottish prose indited in the purest vernacular. J Florence Wilson, or Yolu- senus, was another elegant Caledonian scholar of that age. He studied first at Aberdeen under Boyce, and subsequently at Paris ; and his Latin dialogue, ' De Animi Tranquillitate,' earned for him, * Irving's Lives of the Scottish Poets, vol. i. Life of Douglas. + See notice of Panther — Patricius Panitaiius — prefixed by Ruddiman to the Epistolae Eegum Scotonim. Edin. 1722: — 'Cui cum, maxima ex parte, gratiam suam venustatemque acceptum referat hoc primum epistolarum volumen, temperare nobis nequivimus quin de ejus natalibus et vitae institute ahquid subjiceremus.' X Irving's Lives of Scottish Writers, i. 12-22. 58 LIBERAL CONNECTIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY. from his illustrious countryman Buchanan, the honourable name of * one most dear to the Muses.' * These notices Jiiay suf&ce to show what considerable progress the revival of learning had already made in Scotland in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, and with what characteristic ardour the national mind had thrown itself into the new paths of knowledge which had recently been opened up by the labours of continental scholars. And the pulsations of this new life could not fail to be felt in some degree at St. Andi'ews. Several of the most distinguished patrons and cultivators of the new learning had either been officially connected with, or were occasional visitors of, the university. We have already referred to the eminent instance of Archbishop Stewart. Gavyn Douglas, while Provost of St. Giles', was repeatedly chosen one of the academic rulers ;f and Boyce appears to have more than once visited the university, and to have been on intimate terms with its most distinguished members. By such conductors the electric spark of literary enthusiasm was doubtless conveyed into the very heart of the ancient academy. However little effect the new intellectual element had yet produced upon the external framework of the university system, we cannot but suppose that some of the aspiring youth of the schools had much more sympathy with the new learn- ing than with the old. Erasmus, we need not doubt, was the idol of young graduates and under-graduates at St. Andrews, as well as at Aberdeen ; and catalogues and editions of his works would be in re- quest at St. Leonard's at least, as well as among the professed Eras- mians of King's College. We can scarcely be mistaken in thinking that there must have been a much more vigorous life-throbbing in the veins of the university at that time, than one would have sus- pected who looked only on the surface. The crust of old forms * Among the ' Justa' of Buchanan's Epigrammata we have the following, addressed ' Florentio Voluseno Scoto :' — 'Hie Musis, Volusene jaces carissime, ripam Ad Rhodani, terra quam procul a patx'ia ! Hoc meruit virtus tua — tellus quae foret altrix Virtutum, ut cineres conderet ilia tuos.' t University Registers. For some curious e\idence of the liberality of Douglas's views with respect to the scholastic method of teaching theology, see Note F. He was apparently a disciple of Erasmus, not only in his classical tastes, but also in his theological views. Hamilton's prefeeence for st. Leonard's. 69 and methods, it is true, was still hard and tenacious ; it was not easy to get old teachers, who were hackneyed in the use of worn-out forms of thought and instruction, to consent to modern innovations. But under that old crust there was a new intellectual force gathering strength every day, which was to explode by-and-bye the traditions of ages into atoms, and to clear the ground for fresh forms of academic life and order. Such being the state of matters in St. Andrew's at the time when Hamilton took np his residence there as a graduate of the University of Paris, we can easily conjecture to which of the colleges he would most quickly attach himself, and what would be the nature of the influence which he would bring to bear upon the society which he preferred. He must have been much more at St. Leonards than at St. Salvator's or the Paedagogium ; and in St. Leonard's, young as he was, he was in a position to be much more a giver of benefit than a receiver. It was an immense advantage to him that he had been in Paris and Louvaine, and had drunk so copiously at the springs of a new and better learning. He must have been regarded with much the same feeling of admiration, if not envy, as young Andrew Melville excited by his Greek learning thirty-five years later ; and it was probably from the recollection of the impression made by him at that time in St. Andrews that Buchanan, who was then a student in the Paedagogium under Major, described him long afterwards as a youth of singular learning, as well as of the highest talent.* No doubt his learning, in the eyes of most men then at St. Andrews, was singular enough ; and we may be sure that he made use of the influence which it gave him to stimulate the studies of others in the same liberal direction which he had pursued himself. But we are not left to mere conjectures, however probable, in re- gard to Hamilton's partiality for the society of the canons of the Priory, and the regents of St. Leonard's. We have a very interesting notice from the pen of one of their own number, which makes it certain that the young reformer was on habits of peculiar intimacy with them. 'Hamilton composed,' says Alesius, * what the musi- cians call a mass, arranged in parts for nine voices, in honour of the * Buchanani Eerum Scoticaxum Historia, p. 269. Edin., 1715. 60 HAMILTON S CHORAL MUSIC. angels, intended for that office in the missal which begins with '' Benedicant Dominum omnes angeli ejus." This piece he procured to be sung in the Cathedral of St. Andrew's, and he acted himself as precentor of the choir.' The canons of the priory were also the canons of the cathedral ; and it could only have been through his intercourse with them, and after many private rehearsals in the cloisters of his new mass, that Hamilton succeeded in introducing the piece into the cathedral service. It is known from other sources that the canons of the Cathedral of St. Andrews cultivated choral music with great care, and had a high reputation for proficiency in it. But the Gregorian chant — the planus cmitus — was what they excelled in ; this cantus figuralis, as Alesius terms it, a more artificial and complicated music, was probably new to them.* Hamilton had be- come acquainted with it in the cathedrals of the continent, and his musical proficiency must have been considerable to enable him to become a choral composer. The incident is an interesting one, not only as throwing some new light upon his personal tastes and accom- plishments, but still more as indicating his religious position at the time when it took place. It is clear that, whatever might be his misgivings and inward struggles with regard to the doctrines of the Church, he had not yet ceased to conform to its public ritual ; and he must still have been in possession of the full confidence of the cathedral chapter when they were willing to accept from him enrichments of their choral service, and to assist him in bringing them into public use. "We may very safely assume that one of Patrick Hamilton's prin- cipal aims during his residence in St. Andrews was to prosecute the study of theology, with particular reference to the controversies which had been raised by Luther, and of which he had heard so much, and probably read not a little at Paris and Louvaine. "With * ' It was required of those who were admitted to St. Leonard's College, that they should be sufficiently instructed in the Gregorian song. Singing formed one of the regular exercises of the students. Indi^•iduals who had belonged to the Priory were employed in composing the music used in churches after the Reformation.' {M'-Crie's Melville, Note BR.) Major complains — De Gestis Scotorum, p. 20 — that the Scottish bishops ordained men to be priests who were ignorant of church music, who ought at least, he says, to be acquainted with the Gregorian chant. He gives this as one of the points in which the Scottish Cliurch administration was inferior to the Anglican. major's lecttjees. 6 1 access to the prelections of John Major at the Paedagogium, he had facilities for gaining a closer acquaintance with the scholastic theology than he could previously have acquired; and with the Greek Testament of Erasmus laid out with its ample page before him, he could diligently compare the dogmas of the Sorbonne with the original and authentic oracles of Divine truth. The lectures of Major would seem to have been at that time an object of attraction not only to the Scottish youth, but also to students from the neighbouring kingdoms. In 1522, while yet in Glas- gow, he had drawn into his lecture-room the future reformer of Scotland, John Knox ; and in 1525 George Buchanan and his brother Patrick were both entered in the Paedagogium of St. Andrews, in order that they might enjoy the benefit of his instructions — a bene- fit, however, which the poet afterwards learned to speak of without much appreciation or gratitude. ' It was sophistry,' he exclaimed, ' not dialectics.' There was at least one instance, too, of a student of some rank being attracted from Ireland at that period to prose- cute his studies in the Scottish universities ; and the name of Major was more probably the magnet which drew him over, than any other. His name and style were Dean Maurice O'Connaly, 'monk professed in the abbey of our Lady de Eupe, of the Order of Cister- cians, within the diocese of Cassel.' He is so designated in a letter of James Y. to Henry YIII., written in the year 1526, in which the Scottish King informs 'his dearest uncle and brother,' that * this devout orator had made residence at the schools within his realm divers years bypast, and was well commended and reputed of good fame and honest conversation. H ow tendes to come within your realm. . . Herefore, dearest uncle, we commend the said Dean Maurice unto you, praying you to stand his good prince, and favour him in promotion to sic benefices or dignities as ye think convenient, within the parts of his native land of Ireland, as we shall gladly do at your request to ony of your orators or ser- vandis, in semblable case, when ony happens.' "^ It is a circum- stance of some curiosity that an Irish dean, a man of sufficient * Papers hitherto kept in the Chapter House, Westminster. Many of these papers are now being removed to the State Paper Office ; and it is impossible at present to give any distinct reference to the several collections in which they are arranged, as the old arrangements of them have been broken up. 62 Hamilton's yiews of monachisit. rank and consideration to be specially commended by one king to another, should have sought to qualify himself for promotion in his native Church of Ireland, by repairing in that age to the remote schools of Glasgow and St. Andrew's. With respect to the effect produced on Hamilton's theological views by his deliberate study of the Lutheran controversy, we are in possession of two interesting facts which prove that his mind was for a considerable time after his return to Scotland in a state of transition from the old to the new doctrines. We have already seen that he came home an Erasmian; and it took the study and reflection of several years, it would seem, to develope him into a decided and pronounced adherent of Luther. One of the facts referred to is recorded by Alesius. ' Such was his hatred,' says he, ' to monkish hypocrisy, that he never assumed the monastic habit.' That is to say, he never lived like a monk. He was abbot of Perne, but he never went into residence with the monks of his own abbey. And yet it does not appear that he ever relinquished his titular abbacy. It was no ■ unusual thing for men who were no monks — who were secular clergy or even laymen — to be appointed commendators of religious houses. One of Hamilton's own uncles was in that posi- tion. Alexander Stewart, commendator of Scone and Inchaffray, was ' within no holy orders, but ane man habyll to marry' f- and his nephew was content to remain on the same singular footing — an abbot but not a monk. This indicates that his views were then in a transition state on the question of monachism. He appears to have been of opinion at that time, as many of his contemporaries were, that though the monasteries stood much in need of reform, they might still be made serviceable to the cause of religion and learning, and need not be wholly destroyed. Another fact still more significant of the gradual way in which he arrived at his ultimate convictions, comes to us on the authority of John Frith, the English reformer. We shall find in a subse- quent chapter that there is good reason to believe that Frith was personally acquainted with Hamilton — a circumstance which adds materially to the weight of his authority in regard to a fact which * So Gavyn Douglas said of him in his statement to Henry VIII., in 1521. against Stewart's half-brother, the Duke of Albany. TEA:!*rSITION STATE OF HIS THEOLOGICAL YIEWS. 63 is not mentioned by any other writer, and whicli is not unattended with some considerable difficulties. * To testify the truth,' Frith observes in his short preface to * Patrick's Places,' ' he sought all means, and took upon him priesthood (even as Paul circumcised Timothy to win the weak Jews) that he might be admitted to preach the word of God.' ^ This statement amounts to a proof, that at the time when Hamilton took orders in the Pvoman Church, his mind was sufficiently enlightened in Divine truth to be sensible that the proper food of souls was the pure word of God, as distin- guished from ' the doctrines and commandments of men ;' and that he was already sufficiently under the power of the evangelical spirit to be supremely desirous of the privilege of proclaiming and dispensing that word in the office of the priesthood. But the statement implies quite as clearly, on the other hand, that when Hamilton took orders he could have had no idea of hreahing with the Church of Eome, and no conception that the vows of canonical obedience which ordination included, were inconsistent with any convictions of scriptural truth which he had as yet attained to. His high and pure mind would have shrunk from ecclesiastical vows which he could not honourably undertake. At the moment when ' he took priesthood,' with a view ' to testify the truth,' he could not as yet have learned enough of that truth to be aware that loyalty to the ' glorious Gospel of the blessed God ' is entirely irreconcilable with allegiance to the See of Rome. He must have been much in the same stage of evangelical development in which the numerous stu- dents of Wittemberg found themselves in the earlier years of Luther's theological progress — enlightened enough to know and feel that a reformation of the Church's teaching and practice was in many points indispensable, but quite unconscious that such convictions were inconsistent with the act of entering into the ministry of the Roman Church. It was not, in fact, till the Church of Rome had distinctly and authoritatively told the reformers this truth, that they found themselves compelled to see the matter in the same light. It was not till the Council of Trent definitively repudiated the re- formed churches, and pronounced its anathema upon Protestant and Evangelical truth, that the priesthood of Rome and the ministry of * Knox's History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 19. 64 OEDINATIOJ!^ TO THE PKIESTHOOD. the Gospel were formally divorced from each other, and became finally irreconcilable. It may seem a serious objection to the accuracy of Frith' s state- ment, that even so late as the beginning of the year 1527, which is the latest date that can possibly be assigned to Hamilton's ordina- tion as a priest, he was only in his twenty-third year, whereas the canonical age for priest's orders was twenty-five. But this difficulty is only apparent. Even in the Tridentine ' Decretum de Eeformatione,'"^ which was intended to reform a great many laxities and abuses which had crept into the administration of the Church in ordination and other matters, a good deal was left to the discretion of the bishops. Their judgment of what was ^ necessary or advantageous to the Church's interests,' was allowed to dispense with many points of the strict letter of canonical law. If such a discretion was allowed by the Council of Trent, we may be sure it was often exercised at an earlier period. It may be added, that though Patrick Hamilton was only a youth of twenty- four when he died, he must have had an aspect and a bearing which suggested to those who saw him an age considerably more ad- vanced ; inasmuch as even Alexander Alesius, who knew him well, received the impression that he was verging towards his thirtieth year when he suff'ered martyrdom. The Archbishop of St. Andrews could have had no difficulty in convincing himself that it would be of advantage to the Church, that a young man of so much gravity and learning, so able, and of such noble rank, should be ordained to the priesthood without delay. * See Appendix I. ad Concilium Tridentinum, Decretum de Eeforaiatione, Sessio xxiii. The limiting clauses often occur — ' nisi aliud episcopo videatur,' — ' nisi necessitas aut ecclesise utilitas, judicio episcopi, aliud exposcat.' CHAPTER lY. PATEICK HAMILTON A PROFESSED LUTHERAN. ACT OP THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT AGAINST LUTHERAN BOOKS — LUTHERANS IN ABER- DEEN — URGENT NEED OF A REFORMATION IN THE SCOTTISH CHURCHJ — EXAMPLES AT ST. ANDREWS— FORMAX — BEATON — DOUGLAS — PATRICK HEPBURV— GENERAL COR- RUPTION OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL BODY — TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT IMPORTED — HAMILTON DECLARES FOR THE REFORMATION —SUMMONE D BY BEATON— FLIGHT TO GERMANY. Dira superstitio grassata tyrannide in omnes, Omniaque involvens Cimmeiiis teuebris. John Johnston-. A tyrant superstition, dire, all hearts subdued, And sliroud.etl all the land in thick Cimmerian ffloom. CHAPTER lY. PATEICK HAMILTON A PEOFESSED LUTHEEAN. It was in the month of July, 1525, while Patrick Hamilton was quietly pursuing his theological studies at St. Andrews, and gra- dually advancing to the clearness and strength of conviction indis- pensable to a religious reformer, that the first public alarm of the arrival of Lutheranism in Scotland was sounded through the king- dom, and roused every thoughtful man to attention and reflection. Singularly enough, too, the alarm was rung out to the realm by the very class of men who were most interested in keeping the mind of the country inert and undisturbed — the bishops. In a parliament held in Edinburgh in that year and month — it was the year after James V., while still a boy of thirteen years of age, nominally as- sumed the management of affairs — the clergy procured the passing of the following significant act : — ' It is statute and ordained, that forasmuch as the damnable opinions of heresy are spread in divers countries by the heretic Luther and his disciples, and this realm and lieges have 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 have been clean of all such filth and vice. Therefore, that no manner of person, stranger, that happens to amve with the ships within any part of this realm, bring with them any books or works of the said Luther's, his dis- ciples or servants — dispute or rehearse his heresies or opinions, unless it be to the confusion thereof, under the pain of escheating of their sliips and goods, and putting of their persons in prison. v' 68 ACT OF PAELIAMENT AGAIXST LUTHEKAN BOOKS. And that this act be published and proclaimed throughout this realm at all ports and burghs of the same, so that they may allege no ignorance thereof.'^* Probably up till this time the name of Luther had been known only to the learned men of the country, to the students at the uni- versities, and to a few traders in the eastern ports who made a voyage once a year to the coasts of the I^etherlands and France. Eut by the passing of this act, and by causing it to be proclaimed in all the ports and burghs of the realm, the clergy sent the fame of the German Reformer and his cause throughout the length and breadth of the land. The act, however, seemed stringent enough to guard against the evil whose threatened approach it proclaimed, and the clergy did not suffer it to remain a dead letter. The stripling king was: en- tirely in their hands. Foremost in zeal and vigilance was Gavyn Dunbar, the old Bishop of Aberdeen. As early as the 7th of August of this same year, 1525, Dunbar obtained from the king and council at Edinburgh the following order and warrant to the sheriffs of the city and county of Aberdeen : — ' James, by the grace of God, king of Scots, to our sheriffs, &c., freeting, — Forasmuch as it is humbly made known and shown to us Dy a reverend father in God, and our trusty councillor, Gavyn, Bishop oi Aberdeen, that whereas sundry strangers and others within his diocese of Aberdeen have books of that heretic Luther, and favour his errors and false opinions, in contravention to our Act of Parlia- ment lately made in our last parliament. Our will is, therefore, and we charge you straitly, and command you, immediately after seeing these our letters, you make public the said act at all places needful, and take inquisition if any persons be found within the said diocese of Aberdeen that have such books or favour such errors of the said Luther ; and that you confiscate their goods and bring in the same to our use and profit, after the form of the said act, as ye shall answer thereupon ; the which to do we commit to you conjunctly and severally our full power by these our letters,' &c. Let it be observed, that whereas in the act of parliament only strangers, i.e. foreigners, are mentioned as possessing Lutheran * Acts of the ParHament of Scotland, sub anno 15'25. THE REFOEMATION SPREADING. 69 Dooks and favouring the new opinions, the king's mandate to the sheriffs of Aberdeen refers to ^others'' as well as foreigners who were contravening that act. The evil, then, which the authorities dreaded was already spreading ; it was beginning to get a footing among the king's own lieges. It is significant, too, that the progress of Lutheranism should have been most marked and dangerous at Aberdeen — the principal seat of the new Erasmian learning. In a short time, indeed, the number of native Lutherans became so con- spicuous and alarming, that in 1527 the Lords of the Council intro- duced into the act the following additional clause : — ' And that all others the king's lieges, assisters to such opinions, be punished in a similar way, and the efi'ect of the said act to strike upon them.' The Council had also by that time begun to fear that the liberty previously allowed, of ' disputing and rehearsing the new opinions for the confusion thereof,' might be too freely interpreted, as no doubt it had already been ; and they added a restriction to the clause, jealously limiting this freedom of disputation to clerks in the schools allenarlie, i.e. alone.'*' The Reformation had at length reached the shores of Scotland ; and truly it had not come a single day too soon. It was urgently needed; and in order to see clearly and feel deeply its urgent necessity, a young churchman resident at St. Andrews — as Patrick Hamilton then was — had no need to look farther than the most recent history, and the present ecclesiastical condition of St. An- drews itself. We waive, as unsuitable to this place, any general and exhaustive view of the state of the T^ational Church ; but a few facts and examples of a local kind may appropriately be mentioned, which lay close under the eye of our young reformer, and could not fail to make upon his mind a strong and painful impression. St. Andrews was at that time and had long been the Vatican of Scotland. It was ' a city set on an hill which could not be hid.' All eyes throughout the realm were turned to it as in some sort a holy city — the spot where Christianity first planted her foot upon the Scottish soil — the favoured see where stood the mother Church of the whole kingdom. What then had been and still were the examples of church -administration, church- discipline, and church- * These additions to the Act are seen interpolated on the margin m the fac-simile of tlie original record, engraved in the ' Acta Parliamenti,' &o- 70 URGENT NEED OF A EEFOTtMATION-. morality which it had recently exhibited, and was still exhibiting to the kingdom : Need we remind the reader of the scandalous contest formerly described which took i^lace on occasion of the see becoming vacant in 1513 ?— a contest which revealed the fatal extent to which the Church, while professing to be a spiritual and un- worldly kingdom, had become tbe seat of the most earthly passions and practices of the kingdoms of the world. When the temple of God was polluted with such a crowd of traffickers and money- changers as was disclosed on that occasion, who could doubt that it was time that the Lord should come to his temple, and with a scourge of small cords drive them all out, with the rebuke — ' Make not my Father's house a house of merchandise' ? ' A bishop,' said the devoted and self-denying apostle of the Gen- tiles, ' must not be covetous, must not be greedy of filthy lucre.' But the last Archbishop of St. Andrews had been one of the greediest pluralists of the age. Forman's revenues from bishoprics and abbacies, from patronages and embassies, had been enormous. He was rich enough to be able to bribe with effect even the voracious court of Eome. It was Forman's gold, as was suspected, which had prevailed upon Pope Leo to nominate him to the Primacy, and which kept the Pontiff faithful to his nominee, in spite of all the solicita- tions of Henry to cancel the nomination. But probably that bribe would not have been paid had it not promised to turn out a pro- fitable investment. Forman was even loudly accused by his con- temporaries of having basely sold the interests of his king and country, in his frequent negotiations with foreign courts. This was what his rival, Gavyn Douglas, hinted at, when he declared that he had been ' the instrument of mekyll harm, and would be yet of mair.' But he was as profuse in spending his riches as he was eager and unscrupulous in acquiring them ; and nothing but the popula- rity which he courted during his Primacy, by the munificence of his gifts to men of all parties, could have enabled him to bear up against the odium which was excited by his immense and ill-gotten wealth. -'- ' A bishop,' continued the apostle, ' must be patient, no brawler — no striker.' But there was hardly one political brawl during the long minority of James Y., scarcely even a faction fight in the field * Buchanaui Eerum Scoticarum Historia, p. 258. ARCHBISHOP BEATOiSr. 7l or in the streets, in which the Archbishop of St. Andrews, and other bishops, had not borne a prominent part. In the Edinburgh tragedy of ' Cleanse the Causeway,' before referred to, James Beaton, then Archbishop of Glasgow, assembled the angry Hamiltons in his own palace, at the foot of Blackfriars' Wynd, to concert hostile measures, and declined the office of peacemaker between Arran and Angus, when his brother of Dunkeld entreated him to undertake it. He wore a corslet of mail under his episcopal rochet, and the steel rang again to the blow when he incautiously smote upon his breast to give emphasis to his assurance that on his conscience he could do nothing to stay the strife, or prevent the effusion of blood. A gal- lant knight spoke on that day words of peace which an archbishop refused to speak. "When promoted to the see of St. Andi-ews, Beaton was as factious and violent as he had been in the chair of St. Mungo. He was foremost amongst the enemies of the house of Douglas, and made greater efforts than any man in Scotland to break down the formidable ascendency of the Earl of Angus. Throwing away the crosier for the sword, in forgetfulness of the Lord's rebuke to St. Peter, he experienced more than once the prophetic truth of the Lord's warning : ' They that use the sword shall fall by the sword.' On one occasion he was thrown into prison in the castle of Edin- burgh by his successful rivals ; and on another was obliged to skulk for his life in the disguise of a common herdsman among the ' knowes' of Life. On the occasion of his imprisonment, Margaret, the Queen Dowager, wrote to her brother Henry of him, complaining that * she could never have his good will, although she had done more for him than any other ; but ever he did her what displeasure he might, and she was sure ever would do, if ever it were in his power.'^' The causes of his imprisonment in 1524, by the young king and the estates of the realm, are set forth in a remarkable memorandum still extantjf bearing that ' A supplication should be made to the Pope's Holiness, making mention how James, Archbishop of St. Andrews, has committed crimes of treason and lese-majesty against the king of Scots and his realm ; and, as is surely informed and understood, the said archbishop, for accomplishing and fulfilling of his perverse treasonable mind and device, intended and solicited * Printsd State Papers, vol. iv. p. 115. t Ibid. iv. p. 115. 72 MEMORIAL AGAINST BEATON. insurrection and "break" within the whole realm of Scotland, and to have made and given occasion of battle against the king and his authority — so that he, with others his accomplices, conspirators against the king and the commonwealth of his realm, might have domination and authority above and against the king and his true barons and lieges. And if the said archbishop had failed in com- pleting his said perverse, cruel, and damnable opinion, he purposed to depart forth of the realm with certain other conspirators, to the effect that he might, by his policy and means, solicit some great party in opposition to the king, his realm and the commonwealth thereof, to the apparent destruction of the same. Eor the which causes t1ie king and estates of the realm have caused action to be taken, and to hold the said archbishop in a castle securely, unto such time as the Pope's Holiness may be advertised thereof. Here- for a legate was to be desired from the Pope's Holiness, to be sent into Scotland with a special commission, to proceed against the archbishop for the said crimes and others of lese-majesty committed by him ; and, in so far as he shall be accused and convicted, to punish him, conform to his demerits, after the tenor of the common law ; and with power in the said commission to proceed against all other kirkmen, as well religious and secular, within the said realm, insofar as they may be accused of crimes of lese-majesty, or others committed by any of them against the king and his realm, and con- trary to the statutes of haly kirk and common law, and approved consuetude ; and reformation to be made thereof as is meet. Item — to desire a declarator of the Pope's Holiness, that through taking and holding of the said bishop, the king, his council, and part-takers in this case, incurred no manner of censures of haly kirk, and that it should be no cause of cursing nor interdict ; and likewise, that in all time coming it shall be lawful to the king to take and hold bishops and other churchmen, delated of crimes of lese-majesty, until such time as the Pope's Holiness may be advertised thereof, or they be presented to the judge spiritual, competent as is meet, without any danger of cursing, interdict, or other censures of haly kirk in any manner of way.' A document of singular interest — as show- ing the strong impression which had been made upon the minds of the Scottish nobles who drew it up, of the need of clerical refor- mation, by the proceedings of the archbishop and his other ecclesi- GAVYNDTJNBVE GATTN DOUGLAS. 73 astical accomplices. It was perhaps the first public document in which the word * Eeformation ' was made use of, in relation to the doings of Scottish churchmen, by the laity of the kingdom. Beaton's * treasons and crimes of lese-majesty' are no doubt highly coloured in the Memorandum, as it was the production of the enemies whom he had provoked by his political antagonism. Still, after making every allowance for the spite of faction, it remains an authentic evidence how totally he had sunk the archbishop in the chancellor, and sacrificed the reverence due to his sacred office, in order to com- pass the ends of political ambition."^' But Beaton by no means stood alone among the bishops in these unbishop-like practices. Gavyn Dunbar of Aberdeen had a large share both in his counsels and his disgraces if and Gavyn Douglas of Dunkeld was as thorough a partisan in support of the Earl of Angus as Beaton was on the other side. The Earl was his nephew ; the Earl's wife, Queen Margaret, was his patroness ; Queen Margaret's brother, Henry YIIL, was his patron too ; and it is painful to be ob- liged to relate of one of the greatest geniuses that Scotland ever produced, that the Bishop of Dunkeld became so factious a politician that he proved false to his country. He was not ashamed to write letters into England in 1515 to invite Henry across the borders with an invading army. He would rather have seen Scotland grasped by an English usurper than the house of Douglas overshadowed by an opposite Scottish faction. On one occasion he was even more zealous in his treason than Angus himself. The latter, in a tempo- rary fit of patriotism or of despair, had made terms with Albany rather than open a door to the invasion of an English army ; but the bishop had no sooner heard of his nephew's submission than he wrote to Cardinal Wolsey, from his ' Inn at Carlisle,' calling Angus ' yon young witless fool;' praying God to punish him for his demerits; and promising to God and the cardinal's * noble grace,' as a true Christian priest, ' never to take part again with the Duke of Albany,' nor ' the * The notarial protest which Beaton took on occasion of his imprisonment is still extant among the papers preserved in the Rolls House, Chancer}' Lane ; and it appears from it that Sir James Hamilton of Fynnart was the agent of the Queen's party in seizing and imprisoning him. f Eegistrum Episcopatus Aberdonensls (Maitland Club). Preface by Mr. Cosmo Innes, p. liii. 74 BISHOP OF GALLOWAY. unworthy Earl/ and 'never to pass into Scotland save at his grace's pleasure, so long as the Duke of Albany is therein, or has the rule thereof.'"^' Douglas never returned again to his country and his flock. He died soon afterwards in London of the plague. He had no opportunity, as we could have wished him to have, of wiping out these sad blots by a subsequent course of conduct more befitting a patriot and a Christian bishop. A curious instance is related of one of the bishops being only cured of his political and court-haunting ways by an accident which brought his house in Edinburgh about his ears. ' There was sa great a wind ane daj,^ says Leslie, ' that the same blew down many houses within the town of Edinburgh, and cast down the Bishop of Galloway's house upon him, when he was saying his divine service ; 3'et his life was safe by the special grace of God ; for the which he thanked God, and made a solemn vow he should never be longer a courtier; and so left the same and past home to his own see in Galloway, where he remained the rest of his days awaiting upon his own cure and office, according to his vocation.'! TVhen the bishops were in the habit of forsaking their flocks and the proper duties of their episcopal office, to engage so deeply in the contests of faction and the schemes of political ambition, it was of course impossible that they could be examples of that other feature of the Christian bishop depicted by the apostle — ' A bishop must be apt to teach' — able to teach the truth of God, and devoted to the work of teaching it. The bishops of Scotland taught little or none. They were in general neither able nor willing to discharge that part of their duty. They seldom or never appeared in the pulpits even of their cathedrals, and much less in those of the parish churches of their dioceses. They did all their preaching by proxy, by the help of the predicant orders. It was a great novelty in Scotland in that age to hear any one preach who was not either a Black or a Grey Eriar. The prelates were often told by the Reformers in after years that they were the ' dumb dogs ' spoken of by Isaiah, ' who could not bark.' Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, went once into the pulpit of the church of Ayr to preach against the doctrines of * See Letters of Gavyn Douglas to Wolse}', preserved in the Cottonian Library and State Paper Office. Appendix IV. t Bishop Leslie's History of Scotland (Bannatyne Club), p. 130. GEORGE CEICHTOX — PATEICK HEPEUEX. 75 George Wishart to a congregation consisting of 'his own jackmen and '' some old bosses of the town." But the sum of all his sermon was, "They say that we should preach — why not? Better late thrive than never thrive. Hold us still for your bishop and we shall provide better for the next time." This was the beginning and the end of the bishop's sermon, who with haste departed the town, but returned not again to fulfil his promise.' So says John Knox, with a dash of his characteristic humour.-*' ' I affirm,' said old Walter Mill, the martyr, ' that those whom ye call bishops do no bishop's works, nor use the office of bishops, as Paul biddeth, writing to Timothy ; but live after their own sensual pleasure, and take no care of the flock, nor yet regard they the word of God, but desire to be honoured and called '' my lords." 'f The ignorance and incapacity of some of the prelates were in truth almost incredible. George Crichton, who was Bishop of Dunkeld after Gavyn Douglas, thanked God on one occasion that he knew neither the Old Testament nor the 'New. He boasted that he knew nothing but his breviary and his pontifical. Hence it became a common saying in Scotland, ' Ye are like the bishop of Dunkeld, that knew neither the new law nor the old. ' 'A bishop,' adds St. Paul, ' must be blameless, the husband of one wife, of good behaviour, and having his children in subjection with all gravity.' The apostle never imagined that a time would come when prelates calling themselves his successors would have children to rule over without having even one wife, and who were so far from ruling well their own houses that their palaces were often converted into stews of vice, instead of being the homes and retreats of religion and virtue. At the very time when Patrick Hamilton was a resi- dent in St. Andrews there was a flagrant example of this kind ex- hibited there. The archiepiscopal see laboured under yet worse evils than the unprincipled covetousness of a Forman and the restless factiousness of a Beaton. The young prior of the monastery, Patrick Hepburn, nephew of John Hepburn, whom he succeeded in 1522, and secretary of state from 1524 to 1527, was notorious for his pro- fligacy. His criminal intrigues, even with married women, were * Historj- of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 127. t Ibid. vol. i., Appendijs., p. 553. 76 licextious^:ess of the cleegt. numerous and well known. They were carried on in some cases within the priory itself, in contempt of all decency and discipline. To abate the scandal, the archbishop required him on one occasion to remove one of his mistresses whom he had lodged within the walls. But the haughty and powerful offender defied Beaton's authority, and even assembled a body of armed men to compel him to desist from his interference. But for the interposition of the Earl of Eothes and David Beaton, Abbot of Arbroath, the two parties would have come to a bloody encounter. Extreme and incredible as this last incident may appear, we have it on the authority of Alex- ander Alesius, who was a canon of the priory at the time it took place, ^' and the audacious profligacy which it implies is only too amply attested by the public records of the kingdom. These contain numerous letters of legitimations in behalf of Hepburn's children. f The prior was even accused in the pulpit by Friar John Arth of having boasted to ' his gentlemen ' that he had gone beyond them all in the number of his intrigues and adulteries. J How utterly had the discipline of the Church been prostrated, and how pernicious was the example which she held up to the nation, when a monster of vice like this could be suffered to stand at the very head of her monastic institutions, and could obtain promotion to one of her bishoprics — as he did only a few years later to the see of Moray — with such a stigma of infamy on his brow. Xor was Hepburn the only transgressor in this form among the dignified clergy. Several of the bishops of that age, including the names of Dunbar of Aberdeen and Douglas of Dunkeld, failed to keep their sacred vestments pure from the prevailing licentiousness. § And even when the falling church was in its last stage of weakness, and on the very verge of its catastrophe — in the year 1559 — Bishop Gordon of Aberdeen still clung to his immoral habits, to the scandal of his whole diocese, and was compelled to hear the remonstrances of his own chapter on the subject, who ventured to whisper in his ear their ' humble and hearty prayer that, for the honour of God, * Alexandri Alesii Scotti Eesponsio ad Cochlsei Calumnias. 1534. t See entries in the Kegister of the Great Seal, in Knox's History of the Eeformation, vol. i. p. 41 ; note by the Editor. X Knox's History, i, p. 40. § Knox's History, vol. i. p. 43. Ty tier's Scottish Worthies, vol. iii. p. 187. CAUSES or THE KXTREME COKrvUPTION OF THE CHURCH. 77 relief of his own conscience, weill of his lordship's diocese, and avoiding of great slander, his lordship would be so good as to show good and edificative example, specially in removing and discharging himself of the company of the gentlewoman by whom he is greatly slandered. Without the whilk be done,' they added with great naivete, ' divers sayis they cannot accept counsel and correction of him whilk will nocht correct himself.' This memorial to the bishop was one of a series of steps taken by the chapter to introduce a salu- tary reform into the diocese, the first of which was * that my lord of Aberdeen should cause the kirkmen within his diocese reform them- selves in all their scandalous manner of living, and to remove their open concubines, as well great as small, under such pains as is con- tained in the law and acts provincial. And the chapter of Aberdeen shall do such like among themselves in all sharpest manner, conform to the law, as well in themselves as their servants, or any other persons dwelling under their jurisdiction.'-'' If such was the state of matters at St. Andrews and in the other high places of the Church, it is not difficult to conjecture what must have been the moral disorders and the dissolution of discipline which prevailed among the dignified clergy in general and in the ecclesi- astical body at large. In truth, there was no other country in Europe \ where the abuses of the Church had reached such a height as in the ) Scottish kingdom. For this bad pre-eminence many causes might be alleged, including, no doubt, the remoteness of the countrj^ from the great centres of European opinion and influence ; the general rudeness and lawlessness of the population, aggravated by constant wars with England and ceaseless broils among their own civil fac- tions; the injudicious zeal of several of the Scottish monarchs who had lavished immense wealth upon the Church ; and the weakness of the royal prerogative, which, by making it an object of the greatest importance to the crown to secure the support of the clergy against the nobles, had often the eff'ect of restraining the sovereign from putting a due check upon the luxury and ambition of his ecclesi- astics, and from interfering in questions of church administration and discipKne where his interference would have been salutary. Nor was it the crown only that was tempted to connive at the corruptions * Eegistrum Episcopatus Aberdonensis (Maitland Club), Preface, p. Ixi v. The Memorial of the Chapter was signed by ten members. 78 THE PATRIMONY OF THE CHURCH COVETED BY THE NOBLES. of the Church : the nobility of the kingdom had still more direct and powerful inducements not only to connive at but to increase them. The wealth and power of the Church had become virtually a part of the heritage of the nobles. There had been a time in the ancient annals of the Church of Scotland when the bishops chosen from the monasteries vied with each other in holiness and learning, not for honour and place, and exercised their functions without envy and emulation, wherever they had an opportunity to be useful, and without the restriction, even, of limited dioceses. But that was in the old days of Kenneth M^Alj^ine, when ecclesiastical offices had not yet become a source of worldly gain.-"' Everything was changed since then. The chief offices of the Church had become places of enormous profit and power, and the great families of the kingdom coveted and seized upon them as eagerly as they divided among themselves the principal offices of the state. In this way the Church, as much as the state, became only another name, in the estimation of the nobility and higher classes, for worldly wealth and greatness. The barriers of ancient discipline were thrown down. The distinc- tion drawn by primitive piety between the Church and the world was obliterated. The nobles and chiefs of the world had only to put on a different costume to become the consecrated princes and aris- tocracy of the Church. The Church's wealth became their inheritance from generation to generation, on a few easy conditions — that they should wear the Church's canonical garb, should pay some decent respect to her public rites and ordinances, and should manifest some very natural zeal to preserve and defend the ecclesiastical system which yielded them so rich a harvest of honours and emoluments. The spirit which animated the prelates of the Church, and the objects for which they lived, differed in little or nothing, in many cases, from those of the secular nobility. Their moral qualities and many of their pleasures and pursuits were the same. 'No one can read the history of the kingdom in those times without perceiving that the churchmen were as eager intriguers for place, and power, and riches, as the titled laity. The chief churchmen, in truth, were only a portion of the nobility and gentry acting under another name, and pushing their individual and family interests by means of the * Buchanani Eerum Scoticarum Historia, p. 93. SIR DAVID Lindsay's complaint. 79 weapons of vantage derived from the sacred character of the Church. Severe as these strictures are, they seem to be fully justified by the facts which have been produced in the preceding pages ; and they are amply borne out, we may add, by contemporary writers, and in particular by the pictures which Sir David Lindsay drew with photographic minuteness and accuracy of the state of the Church in his time. One of these sun-pictures may be appropriately presented here. It occurs in his ' Complaint directit to the King's Grace,' a poem which turns chiefly on the troubles of James the Fifth's minority, alluding to the conspicuous part taken in which by the Archbishop of St. Andrews, Sir David says : — ' The proudest prelates of the kh'k Were fane to hide them in the mirk ; That time sae failyeit was their sight, Sensyne they may not thole the light Of Christ's true Gospel to he seen, Sa blindit is their corporal ene With warldly lustis sensuall, Taking in realmis the governall, Baith gyding court and sessioun, Contrair to their professioun. Whereof I think they suld have schame Of spiritual priests to tak the name, For Esaias into his wark Calls thame like dogs that cannot hark, That callit are priests and cannot preach, Nor Christ's law to the people teach. Gif for to preach bene their professioun. Why suld they mell with court and sessioun? Except it war in spiritual things ; Refening unto lordes and kinges Temporal causes to be decydit. Gif they their spiritual office gydit, Ilk man micht say they did their parts ; Bot gif they can play at the cartes, And mollit moj'lie* on ane mule, Thocht they had never seen the scule, Yet at this day, as weill as than, Bene made of sic, ane spiritual man.' * Amble softly. 80 IMPORTATION OF TTNDALe's YEKSION". When such were the bishops and archbishops who ruled the Church, what could the humbler clergy be expected in general to be ? When the inferior Churchmen saw nothing, or almost nothing, above them but superior wealth and dignity, without the accom- paniments of higher wisdom and goodness, they could only envy their superiors — they could not respect them ; they could only be drawn into the support of their worldly-minded intrigues and the imitation of their vices; they could not be stimulated by such examples to the pursuit of the proper ends of their ministry. A prelacy so degenerate as that of the Scottish Church could have no other effect than to spread the contagion of worldly -mindedness and vice through the whole body both of the clergy and the people. But the Reformation had come at last. Luther was at length at the gates of the National Church. ' King Correction,' as Lindsay expressed it — ' who maks reformations, Out-throw all Christian nations, Where he finds great debates,' had now arrived iu Scotland after passing through many other lands. Luther's books and opinions — those arrows of the mighty — had already found their way into not a few Scottish hearts and homes ; and so many sparks had already fallen upon the combustible floor of the Church, that its rulers had not concealed their apprehensions of a wide-spreading conflagration. Kor was it only Luther's writings which had found entrance into this distant stronghold of Roman power and superstition. It has lately come to light that Tyndale's New Testament was in course of being rapidly conveyed at that time into the Scottish ports. As early as 1525 and 1526, traders from Leith, Dundee, and Montrose purchased supplies of the English version in the marts of Flanders and the Xetherlands — carefully concealed the treasure in bales of unsuspicious goods — and succeeded in introducing it into several of the Scottish ports. It is curious that our first knowledge of this important fact should have been derived from a letter of an agent of Cardinal Wolsey, who had been instructed to prevent or put a stop to the importation of the dangerous book. The same letter tells us, that while some of the copies were imported into Leith and Edinburgh, the most part of them were conveyed into the town of THE LIVING TREACFIKR. 81 St. Andrews.^ The traders must have had reason to expect a good market for the book in that city ; and if so, the Reformation must akeady have made some considerable way under the very walls of the Primate's castle and church. How remarkable that those walls should be the very first to be threatened by an artillery more formi- dable still than that of Luther — by the Word of God, which is as ' a fire, and as a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces.' Buchanan tells us that when he left St. Andrews in 1527 and returned to Paris, ' he fell into the flame of Lutheranism then spreading far and wide.' It is plain that, if he had remained only a little longer in his native country, the flame would have reached him in St. Andrews itself. All that was wanting now was the voice of the living preacher. The Eeformation of the Church of Scotland could only be worked out by the agency of living Scotsmen. The printed books of German and English reformers might be helpful to the work, but they could not be adequate for it, alone. The country could only be roused and gained to the cause of evangelical truth and purity by the preaching and the sufferings of her own sons. And such men were not long of appearing. God was even then prepar- ing them. He was soon to produce them one after another upon the public stage. The first to be thus prepared and produced was Patrick Hamilton. The repeated proclamations which had just gone forth from the government to warn the country against Lutheranism must have acted like a challenge to every man in the kingdom, to take his side either for Luther's doctrine or against it. Hamilton had hitherto hesitated to pronounce decidedly, but the events of 1525 would naturally tend to bring his hesitation to a point. The crisis which had now come would work powerfully upon him both to ripen his thoughts and to reveal them. The agitation and discussion which could not fail to be excited at St. Andrews by the proceedings of the bishops and council, would bring out to the light the convictions which had long been secretly gathering strength in his mind. * The letters of Hacket, Wolsey's agent, have appeared in the State Papers of the reign of Henry VIII., lately published at the expense of Government. They were first brought into view in the present connection by the late Eev. C. Anderson, in his ' Annals of the English Bible.' 82 HAMILTON DECLARES FOll LUTHERANISIT. In vie"w of the flagrant disorders of the National Church, he could never have had a doubt that a reformation of some kind was neces- 'sary, and that the demand for it was a just and godly demand. On this point Erasmus tells us that all sober men liviDg were of one mind. But Erasmus differed from Luther on the nature of the refor- mation which was required, and Hamilton, as a student of Louvaine, had probably been for some time disposed to agree with Erasmus. Luther began with the doctrine of the Church on the subject of indulgences, and went on overthrowing one false doctrine after another, and substituting for Eoman errors evangelical truths ; and he looked to this new theology as the only true and radical remedy of the evils of the Church. Erasmus, on the other hand, was no advocate for change in the Church's doctrine. He thought a dis- ciplinary reformation was all that was needed ; and he was so far from accepting the theology of Luther and Melancthon, that he at last summoned up courage to write in strong terms against it. He hoped to make the tree good without any change of the root. Eut Luther and Melancthon were radical reformers. Make the root good, was their maxim, and you shall have good fruit, not otherwise. Eeform the doctrines and you shall have a reform in the morals of the Church. Thoughtful men had to make their choice between the branch reformation of Erasmus and the root reformation of Luther. And the choice to which Hamilton was now conclusively brought was to accept the theological and spiritual reform of Luther, in preference to the moral and disciplinary reform of his former master, Erasmus. There were no principles of Luther's teaching, as we shall find in a subsequent chapter, which Hamilton grasped more firmly, and set in a clearer light, than those on which the distinction between \^ Luther and Erasmus mainly turned. It w^as probably in the course of the year 1526 that Hamilton first i/ began to declare openly his new convictions ; and it was not long before the report of his heretical opinions was carried to the ears of the Archbishop. Early in 1527, Beaton 'made faithful inquisition during Lent ' into the grounds of the rumour, and found that he was already ' infamed with heresy, disputing, holding and maintaining divers heresies of Martin Luther and his followers, repugnant to the faith ;' whereupon he proceeded to ' decern him ' to be formally sum- moned and accused. Such was Beaton's own language in the fol- SUMMONED BY BEATON. 83 lowing year, when, relying upon the ' inquisition ' which he had made in 1527 as well as in 1528, he pronounced him to be clearly convicted of heresy, and worthy of death. ^'' These prompt proceedings of the Archbishop revealed the strong alarm produced among the clergy by the preaching and disputations of Hamilton, and the imminent peril in which the young Keformer's liberty and life were already placed. He had scarcely begun to speak the truth of God when his mouth was to be stopped, and his ^ testimony stifled in the flames of martyrdom. Without a moment's delay all the power of the Church is summoned into action to crush the young preacher. In an instant he is confronted with the appal- ling alternative of dying for his doctrine or publicly recanting it. He had prepared himself to preach the Gospel ; he had just begun to preach it ; and already he is told that he must stand prepared for y' an immense deal more — that he must either cease to preach it, or die. It is anything but surprising that he did not yet feel himself strong enough in his new faith to abide such a trial. He determined to ^ leave Scotland for a time, and to repair to the evangelical schools of Germany. Beaton afterwards accused him of having fled from the kingdom in order to avoid apprehension and trial ; and it need not be denied that such was the fact. No man can be blamed for declining the pains of martyrdom till he is ready to bear them with a martyr's fortitude, provided that in the mean time he does nothing to betray or to compromise the cause of truth. The Master's own counsel to His disciples, in anticipation of persecution, was, that when men persecuted them in one city they should flee unto another. Patrick Hamilton was as yet only a novice in the true faith; and there was danger of his making shipwreck if he ven- tured out too rashly upon the open sea, in the face of the gathering storm. It was wiser and better to fly from so severe a trial of his constancy, than to meet it only half-prepared. It was wiser and better to seek first the invigoration of his faith and the improvement of his evangelical knowledge, and to hold himself thereafter pre- pared for all the will of God. Early in the spring of 1527 he took his departure for Germany — a temporary flight, that was speedily to be succeeded by an heroic return. For a moment the inflowing wave of life ebbed down from the beach, but only to gather strength * See Sentence pronounced by Beaton, in Chapter VIII. 84 ESCAPE TO GERMANY. and volume for a more abounding reflux. The tide had begun to rise; it was steadily makiDg; but for a time apparent ebb must aiuernate with the tidal flow, before the waves could rise to high- water mark, and cover all the strand with a flood of living waters. I CHAPTER y. PATRICK HAMILTON AT WITTEMBERG AND MARBURG. HAMILTON'S COMPANIONS IN TRAVEL — HE REPAIRS TO WITTEMBERG AND MARBURG — PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION IN GERMANY— DIET OF SPIRES IN 1526— WHAT HE SAW IN WITTEM- BERG — OPENING OF THE FIRST EVANGELICAL UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG— ERHAKD SCHNEPF — HERMANN VON DEM BU SCHE— FRANCIS LAMBERT — WILLIAM TYNDALE AND JOHN FRITH — HAMILTON'S THESES — GERMANY, FRANCE, AND ENGLAND ALL CONTRIBUTE TO PREPARE HIM FOR HIS MISSION— HIS RETURN TO SCOTLAND, E coelo alluxit primam Gennanialucem Qua Laiius, et vitreis qua fluit Albis aquis — Tntulithinc lucem nostrse Dux prsEvius orae. felix ten-a ! hoc si foret usa duce. John Johnston First shone on him tlie light from heaven, where Lahu And ghassy Elbe their German waters roll; From thence, first in the march of truth, the light He inbrought to our shores. Oh happy laud ! If she had followed, where he led the way. CHAPTER Y. PATRICK HAMILTOX AT WITTEMBEKG AND MAKBUEG. It was natural for a young and zealous Lutheran to wish to see and hear his great master Luther. It was natural that, having drunk a few first draughts of truth from the stream, he should long to drink more abundantly at the fountain, on the very spot, now become memorable for all time, where God had first restored to mankind the living springs. Hamilton was accompanied to Germany by three of his country- men — one in the capacity of an attendant, and the other two, John Hamilton of Linlithgow, and Gilbert Wynram of Edinburgh, as jDersonal friends and companions in travel.* Very few of the incidents of his journey have been recorded; but all our historians agree in the account of Knox, that ' he passed to the schools in Ger- many, for then the fame of Wittemberg was greatly divulged in all countries ; where, by God's providence, he becam.e familiar with those lights and notable servants of Christ Jesus at that time, Martin Luther, Philip Mclancthon, and Francis Lambert.' He does not appear, however, to have resided at Wittemberg in the capacity of * These names have been ascertained from the Album of the Univei'sity of Marburg, which the author inspected in 1854. See Note L. The name of ' Gilbertus Wynram, Nat. Laudonise,' occurs among the Incorporati at St. Andrews in 1516 — no doubt the same individual. He was probably a relative of John Wynram (already mentioned as a canon of the Priory of St. Andrews), who is also entered in tlie university registers as belonging to ' the Laudonian nation.' See Notes to Wodrow's Lile of John Wynram (contributed by Piin- cipal Lee) in Wodrow's Lives. (INIaitland Club.) 88 STATE OF THE EEFOKMATION li^ GEEMAIS'Y. a matriculated member of the imiversity, as his name does not occur in the academic registers;* and the short stay which this indicates may be the reason why no allusion to him is to be found in any of the letters of Luther and Melancthon. His departure was in all probability hastened by a pest which broke out in Wittemberg in that year, and which rendered it necessary to remove the professors and students for a time to Jena. This removal, however, did not take place till late in the autumn, and Luther, Melancthon, and Bugenhagen remained at their posts at Wittemberg throughout the summer. It was no doubt from them he learned the interesting news that Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, was to open in a few weeks a new evangelical university in Marburg, and that he had placed Francis Lambert of Avignon at the head of the theological faculty. He resolved to be a spectator of so interesting an event ; and, furnished with letters of introduction from Lambert's eminent friends and former teachers at Wittemberg, he set off with his com- panions for the banks of the Lahn, with the design of making the new university his residence for several months. The time when Hamilton visited evangelical Germany was one peculiarly favourable to the rapid development of his new religious and ecclesiastical views. The Eeformation had now reached a stage sufficiently advanced to be seen in the changes Avhich it had wrought in the condition of whole churches and states. It had now pene- trated the masses of society in several of the principalities of the empire, and had assumed the conspicuous and impressive form of a new popular religion. This was thoroughly understood and felt in the Diet of Spires, which assembled in 1526, the year before Hamil- ton's arrival in Germany. At that diet the Eeformation was alread}" strong enough to demand and to obtain for its adherents liberty of worship, free scope to manifest their convictions in an evangelical ritual and in new ecclesiastical constitutions. The result obtained at the diet took the following form : ' That a universal, or at least a national free council should be convoked within a year, and that till then each state should behave in its own territory in such a manner as to be able to render an account to God and the emperor.' * Re- * Several Scottish names occur in these interesting and important registers, to which the author had access at Halle, where they have been deposited since the removal thither of the University of Wittemberg. See Note K. THE EEFORMATION IN WITTEMBEEG. 89 ligious liberty boldlj^ takes its stand in front of Eomisli despotism. A lay spirit prevails over the sacerdotal spirit. In this single step there is a complete victory. The cause of the reform is won.' * At the very moment when Hamilton entered the territories of the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, to learn more per- fectly what the Eeformation was, he found a new creation of evan- gelical worship, discipline, and order, emerging into life. What had been only a new spirit before had begun to clothe itself with a new body ; and an inquirer could now study the Reformation rapidly with the eye, as well as hear of it with the ear. At AYittemberg the young abbot found the monasteries deserted, and Luther, once a monk, living happily in a few rooms of the empty Augustinian cloister, with his new-married wife, a converted and fugitive nun, Catherina von Bora.f He saw the churches of the city purged of the old superstitions. He heard the Gospel hymns of Luther sung in loud and fervent chorus by crowded congregations. He saw the excellent pastor, John Bugenhagen, or Pomeranus, standing in the pulpit of the ancient parish church, and preaching the word of life to the zealous burghers. He listened with admi- ration to the eloquence of Luther, poured forth upon a select con- gregation of courtiers, state functionaries, and academics, from the pulpit of the church of the Elector's castle, the Church of All Saints. In both churches he saw the sacrament of the Lord's body and blood administered to communicants, in both kinds. | Luther's N'ew Testa- ment was in every house and in every hand in Wittemberg.§ The little city was crowded to inconvenience with the multitude of stu- dents who flocked from all parts of Europe to sit at the feet of Luther and Melancthon. Hamilton must have felt no little surprise to find that a city so celebrated and so eagerly resorted to was so mean and insignificant ; for its houses at that time were not only not numerous, * D'Aubigne's Hist, of the Eeformation, vol. iv. p. 12. Edinburgh, 1846. f Luther's marriage took place June 27, 1525. I The Lord's Supper was first substituted for the Mass in the parish church of Wittemberg by Carlstadt while Luther was in the Wartburg. Luther did not approve of the irregular way in which the Mass was abolished ; ' but since it is down,' said he, 'in God's name there let it lie.' — B'Auhigne's Hist, of Re for. vol. iii. p. 68. § Tbe New Testament was translated by Luther in the Wartburg in 1521, and published at Wittemberg on the 21st of September, 1522. y 90 OPElfiyG OF THE UNITEKSITT OF iliEBUEG. but built of mud and thatched with straw. One of the poorest cities of Europe was richer in pure religion and useful learning than its greatest capitals; for Luther was the soul of its pulpit, and Helancthon was the presiding genius of its university. The event which Patrick Hamilton set off from Wittemberg to witness at Marburg was no less significant of the Reformation's triumphant progress. The Reformation was on the point of giving birth to the first evangelical university. For hundreds of years no great school had been founded in Europe without the sanction and benediction of the Popes of Rome ; but the bold Landgrave of Hesse had resolved to plant a university on the banks of the Lahn, close under the walls of his ancient castle, without consulting any other authority than his own conscience, and without asking any other blessing than that of the Eather of lights. Already in the spring of 1527 his plans were ripe. Distinguished professors in all the faculties had been engaged. Joannes Eerrarius Montanus, professor of civil law, had been nominated rector, and Joannes Eeige, chief judge of the principality, had been appointed chancellor. On the 30th of May the inauguration of the university was solemnised. The chancellor presided and spoke the inaugural oration ; and the rector, laying open the new album, proceeded to enrol the * cives ' of the academic body. ' They were an hundred and four in num- ber,' says one of the biographers of the Landgrave, ' among whom, besides the professors, there were several pastors and public func- tionaries, several nobles, and a few foreigners ; among the rest, Patrick Hamilton, the Scottish evangelical martyr.' The three -j names of Hamilton and his two friends are still to be seen side by side in the original album. "^^ The excitement natural to so great an occasion, and the impres- . sive new proof which it afforded of the growing strength of the Refor- mation, must have given a fresh impulse to the mind of our young Reformer. He must have felt the Reform at that moment to be a great power. In less than ten years it had not only put a new ^ spirit and life into universities before existing, but had waxed strong * Eommel's ' Philipp der Grossmutliige.' The Dominicans of Marburg sur- rendered their convent, called ' The College of the Lahn,' for the use of the university, and classes are still taught in the venerable edifice. See Note L for some extracts from the university registers. SCHOLARS AND DIVINES AT MAEBUEG. 91 enough to bring into existence a university entirely new. What might not be expected from its long future, when its brief past had already wrought so much amazing change ? Marburg could now boast of an assemblage of distinguished scholars and divines, such as had never before been seen in its sloping old- fashioned streets. Among these Hamilton could not fail to regard with peculiar interest the theologian Erhard Schnepf, and the humanitarian Hermann Yon dem Busche. Schnepf was now pastor of Marburg, and one of the professors of the theological faculty. He had been won to the Gospel by the teaching of Luther himself. ^ He was a student at Heidelberg when Luther publicly disputed there in the year 1518, and went over immediately to the Eeformer's side along with his two friends and fellow- students, Martin Bucer and John Brentz. Yon dem Busche, or Buschius, was professor of poetry and oratory ; that is to say, he prelected on the works of the ancient poets and orators. He was one of the most renowned of the Eeuchlinists or Humanitarians of Germany. He was a nobleman of Westphalia, and had long devoted himself, in spite of the ridicule of his order, to the classical education of the German youth. He had taught with applause in several of the universities ; had been pursued everywhere with the hatred of the Obscurants ; and had pursued the Obscurants in return with the keenest shafts of satire and raillery. He had been one of the principal contributors to the ' Epistolae Obscurorum Yirorum,' the great national satire of Ger- many. •'' He was now a disciple and supporter of the school of Luther. The admired and dreaded poet had become a serious and chastened student of the Word of God, without having ceased to be one of the most brilliant living professors of ancient literature. I^o doubt he drew upon himself all eyes at Marburg, and was regarded as the brightest star in the constellation of the new university. f * See this proved with ample argument and abounding learning in Sir William Hamilton's ' Discussions on Philosophy and Literature,' pp. 226-232. \ He prelected at Marburg on Livy, Cgesar, and other ancient classical historians, and on several of the Roman poets. To these he added also pre- lections on several books of Augustin. In 1529 he published at Marburg a theological treatise—' De Singulari Auctoritate Veteris et Novi Instrumenti Sacrorum Ecclesiasticorumque Testimoniorum libri. See Meiners Lebens- beschreibungen beriihmter Manner aus den Zeiten der Wiederherstellung der Wissenschaften. Zurich, 1796, vol. ii. p. 387. 92 FEAXCIS LAMBERT. But of all the llarburg professors Hamilton drew with most sym- ^ pathy and attachment to Francis Lambert. This distinguished divine was a Frenchman, and had for some time lived in a monastery at Avignon ; but he early embraced the Reformation, and being obliged to fly from his country had studied for some time in the schools of Wittemberg. He was afterwards a preacher in Strasburg, from whence he was called in 1526 by the Landgrave of Hesse to take the lead in introducing the Reformation into his hereditary states. The energetic Philip admired the energetic Francis. Lambert was no friend of half-measures. The first of the ' Paradoxes' — so called — in which he drew out his programme of the Hessian Reformation, is sufficient to reveal the vigour of his spirit and principles. * All that is ^^formed ought to be reformed. The Word of God alone teaches us what ought to be so, and all reform effected otherwise is vain.' In the synod of Homburg, which met on the 21st of October, 1526, Lambert's programme was adopted with acclamation, and in a few months the new order of things was set up throughout the whole principality. A recent biographer of Lambert remarks that * as a teacher of theology he occupied himself much more with the kernel of Chris- tianity than with its shell. He did not depreciate the importance of theological learning ; there was only one thing which he considered more important in the teaching of divinity, and that was, that a clear insight should be given into the chief things of Christianity — its spirit and life.'*" This earnest practical spirit — the spirit of the re- . former brought into the chair of the theologian — must have had a powerful charm for the ardent youth who sat at Lambert's feet, and whom nothing but a like earnestness of practical piety could have induced to devote themselves to the service of a persecuted and menaced cause. Hamilton felt the attraction of a teacher at once so clear in his perceptions, so fervent in his spirit, and so decided in his tone. He not only attended his prelections for several months^ but sought also the advantage of his private conversation. The feeling of attachment speedily became mutual. Lambert conceived for his young disciple the warmest esteem and affection. * His learning,' he tells us, ' was of no common kind for his years, and * Franz Lambert von Avignon, von Johaun Wilhelm Baum. 1840. WILLIAM TTXDALE. 93 his judgment in divine truth was eminently clear and solid. His object in visiting the university was to confirm himself more abun- dantly in the truth ; and I can truly say that I have seldom met with any one who conversed on the Word of God with greater spirituality and earnestness of feeling. He was often in conversa- tion with me upon these subjects.'* But the instructions and society of Lambert and his colleagues were not the only advantages which Hamilton enjoyed during his residence in Marburg. William Tyndale, the admirable translator of the English Bible, and John Frith, his young friend and coadjutor, had come to reside on the same spot that very year. They had last been at Worms, where, in 1525, Tyndale had printed the first two editions of his J^ew Testament — the same which were imported into Scotland, as we have stated above, in that and the following years. To elude the pursuit of Wolsey's agents, the translator was under the necessity of frequently changing his place of sojourn; and he had recently sought an asylum in the Hessian territory, with a view to the protection of the zealous Landgrave. Frith had lately joined him from England, and the two friends were now busily employed in the translation of the Old Testament, and the composition of several original works. Tyndale' s excellent treatise, ' The Parable of the Wicked Mammon,' which afterwards did much for the Eefor- mation in England, was finished in May, 1527, the month of the opening of the new university ; and ' The Obedience of a Christian Man' must have been growing under Tyndale' s hand during Hamil-. ton's residence on the spot, as it appeared in December of the same year from the press of Hans Luft, of Marburg. Tyndale had made the acquaintance of Hermann Yon dem Busche at Worms in the preceding year. Busche wrote to Spalatin soon after, telling him that Tyndale * knew Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Spanish, and French, and spoke them all as well as if they were his motlier tongue.' These high accomplishments, as well as his labours and suff'erings in the cause of the Eeformation, with such a friend as Yon dem Busche to herald them, must have made Tyndale an honoured guest in Marburg. Hamilton, in particular, must have * Lambert's Exegesis in Joannis Apocalypsim — Dedication to the Land- grave. See Note S. 94 JOHN FRITH. eagerly sought his society, and could not fail to feel the liveliest interest in his translational labours, which promised to be as great a blessing to Scotland as to Tyndale's own country. He must speedily also have discovered that the translator was as ripe a theologian as he was an accomplished linguist. With ' The Parable of the Wicked Mammon/ fresh from the press, before him, he would at once per- ceive that Tyndale was inferior to none of the German theologians in the distinctness and depth of his evangelical views, and in the power of opening up and illuminating the meaning of the word of God.^^ Tyndale's ' son in the Gospel,' John Frith, speaks of Hamilton, in his preface to ' Patrick's Places,' in the manner of one who had known and admired him personally. Meeting so singularly from opposite ends of Britain in the very heart of Germany, and being much of the same age and standing, they would naturally draw to each other with a strong mutual sympathy. Both Lambert and Tyndale were considerably Hamilton's seniors ; he must have venerated them as fathers ; but to Prith he would be attracted with the feeling of an equal and a brother. The two young reformers were men of kindred spirit and pursuits, both of them sufferers and exiles for the truth, both distinguished scholars and lovers of the new learning, and both devoted to the noble but perilous mission of enlightening the dark- ness of their native kingdoms. Pox's beautiful description of John Prith would be equally appropriate to the Scottish reformer : ' So learned and excellent a young man, who had so profited in all kind of learning and knowledge that there was scarcely his equal among all his companions, and who, besides, withal had such a godliness of life joined with his doctrine, that it was hard to judge in which of them he was more commendable, being greatly praiseworthy in them both.'t It was very singular — it could not be an accident, but a provi- ^ dence — that three natives of Britain, all destined to be martj-rs to the truth of God, AYilliam Tyndale, John Prith, and Patrick Hamil- * For these interesting notices of Tyndale and Frith's residence in Marburg n 1527, and of Von dem Busche's acquaintance with Tyndale, I am indebted to the late Rev. C. Anderson's 'Annals of the English Bible,' vol. i. pp. 139, 167. For date of John Frith's flight from England to Germany, see Note M. + Acts and Monuments, vol. v. p. 3. (Townsend's edition, 1840.) THE LAXGTJAGE OF MAETTCS. 95 ton, should all have met and lived for a season together on that dis- tant spot in a foreign land. But it is thus that God sometimes pre- pares the martyrs of his truth for the warfare of their mission. He brings them face to face with each other, and heart to heart. As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth one fervent spirit kindle up another. They receive and give inspiration ; they join, and by joining inten- sify their holy ardours ; till at last their heroic devotion to God and truth becomes too strong to shrink at the sight of torture and death, and even seizes with avidity the fiery crown. Tyndale was already speaking the language of a martyr, though it was not till several 5-ears later that he suffered martyrdom. ' Some man will ask, per- ad venture,' says he, in the preface to the " Wicked Mammon," ' why I take the labour to make this work, inasmuch as they will burn it, seeing they burned the Gospel?' — (meaning his translation of the New Testament) — 'I answer : In bm^ning the New Testament they did none other thing than that I looked for ; no more shall they do if they burn me also, if it be God's will it shall be so. Neverthe- less, in translating the New Testament, I did my duty ; and so do I now, and will do as much more as God hath ordained me to do.' — * Tribulation for righteousness is not a blessing only, but also a gift that God giveth to none save his special friends. The Apostles rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer rebuke for Christ's sake.' — ' Forasmuch, then, as we must needs be baptised in tribu- lations, and through the E-ed Sea and a great and a fearful wilderness and a land of cruel giants, into our natural country ; yea, and inas- much as it is a plain earnest that there is no other way into the kingdom of life than through persecution and suffering of pain and of very death, after the ensample of Christ, therefore, let us arm our souls with the comfort of the Scriptures : how that God is ever ready at hand in time of need to help us ; and how that such tyrants and persecutors are but God's scourge and his rod to chastise us.' — ' There is no power against God, neither any wisdom against God's wisdom. He is stronger and wiser than all his enemies. What holp it Pha- raoh to drown the men-children ? So little (I fear not) shall it at the last help the Pope and his bishops to burn our men-children, which manfully confess that Jesus Christ is the Lord, and that there is no other name given unto men to be saved by, as Peter testifieth.' — ' Let the little flock be bold, therefore : for if God be on our side 96 ' Patrick's places.' what matter maketh it who be against us, be they bishops, cardinals, popes, or whatsoever names they will r'"^ It was while living in the midst of all these influences, so well fitted to vivify and invigorate his new religious life, that Patrick Hamilton drew up the only composition that has reached us from his pen. It originated in a suggestion of Lambert. ' He was the first man,' says Lambert, * after the erection of the university, who put forth a series of theses to be publicly defended. These theses were conceived in the most evangelical spirit, and were maintained with the greatest learning. It was by my advice that he published them.' The suggestion was a proof of Lambert's confidence in Hamilton's ability and judgment ; and this confidence was amply justified by his disciple's performance. The theses, which were originally written in Latin, were soon after translated and published by John Frith, ' for the profit of his own nation,' and were preserved to posterity by the insertion of this translation in Fox's 'Acts and llonuments.' ' The little treatise,' says the translator, ' which if ye list ye may call ''Patrick's Places," teacheth exactly of certain common-places, which known, ye have the pith of all divinity.' The work is an interesting monument of the gifts and attainments of ' that excellent and well -learned young man,' as Frith characterises its author. The ripeness of theological judgment which it displays was extraordinary in an author so young, and who had only recently emerged from the darkness of Poman error. The subjects which it handles, viz., the distinction of law and gospel, faith and works, justification and holiness, are among the most fundamental of the evangelical system, and the topics upon which the controversies of the Peformation mainly turned. The treatise is a proof that Patrick Hamilton's natural talents were of no common order, that his appli- cation to the study of the Scriptures had been intense, and that he was in an eminent degree enlightened and quickened by the Spirit of God. He had also no doubt perused with attention several recent works of the German and English reformers, which had handled the same topics with a high degree of perspicuity and force. These were, among others, Luther's remarkable sermon on * The Freedom of a Christian Man,' published in 1520; Melancthon's ' Common- * Preface to ' The Obedience of a Christian Man,' published in 1527. HISTOEICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE * PLACES.' 97 Places/ the first systematic exhibition of the reformed theology, which appeared in 1521, and of which it has been said that, next to the Bible, it has possibly contributed most to the establishment of the evangelical doctrine ;^ Melancthon's 'Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans,' with an introduction containing an eminently lucid statement of the true doctrine of law and gospel, sin and justification, grace and faith, a work which was first given to the world in 1522. Tyndale's * Parable of the Wicked Mammon ' was also, in all pro- bability, as already hinted, in Hamilton's hands ; and no one who has read that admirable work can be ignorant how well fitted it was to bring evangelical truth upon all these great subjects close home to the convictions both of the understanding and the conscience. In- deed, there are some points of resemblance between 'Patrick's Places' and Tyndale's 'Parable' so striking as almost to amount to a probable proof that Hamilton had made use of that work in drawing up his own; unless, indeed, the close similarity is to be accounted for by supposing that both the English and the Scottish reformer drew from Luther, in the sermon just mentioned, in which the Saxon divine is found using much the same language in some places as both the British reformers. f ' Patrick's Places,' brief as they are, have an historical importance as well as a biographic interest. They were the earliest doctrinal production of the Scottish Reformation ; and they determine with primary authority the theological type and the religious spirit which marked that Reformation in its earliest stage. We have no adequate account of the preaching and disputations by which Hamilton sub- sequently disseminated his doctrine among his countrymen. But the ' Places ' served the use of a doctrinal manifesto, given forth by him to the world immediately before he entered on his martyr- mission, and enable us to understand both what he preached and how he preached it. Knox fully appreciated the value of the manifesto, in its relation both to the biography of his precursor, and to the history of the great religious revolution of which ho was himself both chief hero and historian, for he has inserted it at full length in his own pages. The English Martyrologist paid a * D'Aubigne's History of the Reformation, vol, iii. p. 83. Edinburgh, 1846. + See Note N for a comparison of passages from Luther, Tynclale, and Hamilton. H 98 Hamilton's obligations to geemany, etc. similar tribute to its historical importance and theological worth, not only preserving it entire among his other ' Monuments/ as ' a godly and profitable treatise, not unprofitable,' in his mind, ' to be seen and read of all men, for the pure and comfortable doctrine contained in the same,' but also appending to it ' certain notes or declarations ' of his own, intended to bring out some portion of its pregnant and deep meaning ; alleging as his reason for so doing, that ' the little treatise, albeit in quantity it be short, yet in efi'ect it comprehendeth matter able to fill large volumes, declaring to us the true doctrine of the law, of the Gospel, of faith, and of works, with the nature and properties and also the difi'erence of the same' — a difference and distinction, as he beautifully remarks, 'which ought diligently to be learned and retained of all Christians, especially in conflict of conscience between the law and the Gospel, faith and works, grace and merits, promise and condition, God's free election and man's free will; so that the light of the free grace of God in our salvation may appear to all consciences, to the immortal glory of God's holy name. Amen.'* It is interesting to remark how many eminent men of difi'erent nations contributed to the theological instruction and the religious development of the fir«t preacher and martyr of the Scottish Eeformation. To prepare this great boon for Scotland, the fore- most divines of Germany, France, and England, all lent a helping hand. It was, indeed, the Divine Teacher himself, whose ' good- ness and gentleness ' the young theologian lauds in his theses, ' and who giveth all we need for nought,' who was supremely leading him into all truth. The student had evidently a large unction from that Holy One. But the heavenly Teacher still employed the same instrumental economy as when, in apostolic times, Aquila expounded the way of God more perfectly to Apollos, and the Apostle Paul was used to inspire a firmer and more heroic spirit into Barnabas and the Apostle Peter. It was the gifts and graces of Luther and Melancthon, of Lambert and Tyndale, that the Lord of prophets and apostles, evangelists and teachers, made use of to bring to ripeness the evangelical faith and the martyr devotion of Patrick Hamilton. Many centuries before, the Scottish monasteries had sent * Acts and Monuments, vol. iv. pp. 572-74. EAPID PEEPARATION OF HAMILTON FOE HIS MISSION. 99 missionaries of the cross to sow the seeds of Christian truth among the forests of Germany and Switzerland, and in several of the less fayoured provinces of France and England. The day had now come when these countries were to repay the debt, by sending back to Scotland a series of great preachers and confessors, whom they had all assisted to train and to mature. Of these Patrick Hamilton was the first, and John Erskine of Dun, George "Wishart, and John Knox all followed in his train. At the close of the first semester of the university- course, Hamil- ton felt that the moment had arrived when the duty he owed to God and his country obliged him to return home. His two friends, John Hamilton and Gilbert Wynram, saw the danger of such a course, and probably did their utmost to dissuade him from it. They preferred to remain some time longer in the safe asylum of Germany. But their devoted companion had now reached such a pitch of strength in the faith and of self-sacrificing zeal, that no prospect of danger could turn him aside from his high purpose of becoming an evange- list to his country. He longed to expound to his countrymen all the riches of that faith and hope and love which had now taken full possession of his own soul. He had called aloud to his fellow-stu- dents at Marburg, at the close of his theses, ' We have a good and gentle Lord. He doeth all for nought. Let us follow His footsteps, whom all the world ought to praise and magnify.' The words were the utterance of his whole heart ; and he was now to act them as well as utter them. He was now to follow the prints of his Master's feet along the path which few in any age are willing to tread — the path of self-forgetting, self-renouncing, self- immolating love. How remarkable that, in the space of little more than six months, his knowledge of Christ, his faith, and his missionary ardour, should all have received so immense an enhancement ! Six months ago he was a fugitive, escaping from his country, because he felt himself unequal to the work and the endurance of a Gospel martyr. But now he is in haste to face the dangers which he was then in haste to shun. So rapid and so signal a change is surprising ; but it admits of easy explanation. The six months he spent in Germany were spent among the most illustrious teachers and heroes of the reformed faith. His teachers were all evangelical doctors of the 100 TiETITEN TO SCOTLAND. highest eminence, and they were all evangelical heroes as well as doctors. They were all men who had suffered and sacrificed much for the cause of Christ. It was impossible for a soul like his to be so long in communion with souls like theirs without catching their spirit, and being overmastered by their inspiration. So long as he was able to study the Eeformation only in the books of its authors, he was more enlightened than quickened by that reflected light. But when he saw and heard and communed face to face with the great authors themselves, he felt them to be hurning as well as shining lights ; and his own spirit, a spirit of quick and large re- ceptivity, was speedily kindled into an heroic flame. Men who only read Luther might become Lutherans in doctrine and conviction ; but men of the right temperament who saw and conversed with Luther, and lived for a time in the element which he diffused around him, became Lutherans in spirit as well as opinion. The sight of his impregnable courage and constancy gave new strength to their hearts ; and they could not long behold and admire such a shining example of the heroism of faith, without becoming ashamed of their own weakheartedness, and being converted into evangelical heroes themselves. Late in the autumn of 1527 Patrick Hamilton returned with a single attendant to his native country. CHAPTER YI. SPECIAL ADAPTATION OF HAMILTON TO HIS WORK AS A SCOTTISH REFORMEB— HAMILTON'S FIRST CONGREGATION AT KINCAVEL— ANCIENT PARISH CHURCH OF BINNY— STATE OF RELIGION IN LINLITHGOW — HAMILTON'S DOCTRINE — ANTITHESIS OF THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL — ANTITHESIS OF FAITH AND INCREDULITY — DISTINCTION OF FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY — SALVATION BY WORKS AND BY GRACE — FAITH THE ROOT OF THE GOOD TREE — HAMILTON A RADICAL REFORMER — FAILURE OF OTHER ATTEMPTS TO REVIVE THE PIETY OF THE CHURCH. This realm shall be illuminated with the light of Christ's evangel as clearly as ever was any realm sinee the days of the apostles. The house of God shall be builded in it ; yea it shall not lack (whatsoever the enemy imagine to the contrary) the very cope-stone. George Wishart. CHAPTER VI. PATRICK Hamilton's preaching. It was a remarkable instance of that perfect adaptation which is always observed in the instruments which God employs to carry out the great designs of His providence and grace, that the first evan- gelical preacher sent to a kingdom so intensely feudal as Scotland still was in the sixteenth century, should have been a scion of her ancient nobility and even a kinsman of her royal house. The whole tone and spirit of the national life was still strongly aristocratic. In all public affairs high rank and title continued to have more exclusive power and privilege in Scotland than in any other of the European kingdoms. The mass of the people, accustomed for centuries to almost servile submission to their feudal superiors, were still content to think very much as their masters thought, and to follow wherever their liege lords led the way. In such a state of society it was a great advantage to the cause of Divine truth that its first preachers and confessors should be men of high social standing and considera- tion. The feeling of the country would be, that such men had a right to put themselves forward, and were entitled to be heard. The people would probably have treated with neglect and contumely a man of no birth or social standing who had come forward to de- mand a reform of the Church. They would have said that the reform he called for might indeed be wanted, but it was no business of his to meddle in such high afi*aii's. But God had now sent them a Eeformer whose claim to speak and to have a hearing must be acknowledged by all — a man of noble blood — a scion of the illus- trious house which was heir presumptive to the throne. ' ]^ot many 104 Hamilton's fiest congregation. mighty, not many noble are called' to such service. But in all ages there have been some — a few — and Patrick Hamilton was one of the number. Not did he stand alone in the history of the Scottish Reforma- tion in this respect. It is quite remarkable how many of the Eeformers of Scotland were men of good family and standing. Alexander Seyton was a son of Sir Alexander Seyton of Touch and Tullybody ; George Wishart was ' a gentleman of the house of Pitarrow ; ' John Erskine was of the ancient and honourable family of Dun ; Sir John Borthwick was a son of the third Lord Borth- wick ; John M 'Alpine, or Machabaeus, belonged to ' a very ancient and noble family' of the royal clan of M 'Alpine ; and John M 'Briar was ' a gentleman of Galloway.' John Knox himself was born of ' an ancient and respectable family ;' and he numbered among his early protectors and abettors many laymen who were members of the best and most powerful houses in the kingdom. The finger of Providence was manifest in the selection of such men to carry for- ward the Reformation-movement, in a country in which superior wisdom and worth stood particularly in need of the adventitious support of birth and station. On his arrival from Germany Patrick Hamilton repaired to the family mansion at Kincavel ; and it was there that he found his first congregation. His elder brother Sir James was now in possession of the family estates and honours ; was married to Isobel Sempill, a daughter no doubt of the noble house of that ancient name ; and had a young family rising around him. His mother still survived, as we learn from an affectionate allusion which he made to her a few months later ; and he had a sister named Katherine, a lady of spirit and talent. These near relatives and the servants of the family made up the preacher's first audience ; and he did not expound to them in vain the Gospel which he loved. His labours among his relations were blessed with signal success. Both his brother and sister welcomed the truth, and were honoured several years later to suffer much for its sake.* * None of our historians have mentioned Hamilton's sojourn at Kincavel at this time. But Alesius informs us that he was living with his relatives before he went to St. Andrews, as related in next chapter ; and if his brother's family had then been living at Stanehouse, in Lanarkshire, and not at Kiu- ANCIENT PARISH CHUIICH OF BINNT. 105 But he did not confine himself to the circle at Kincavel. He began to preach the long-lost Gospel in all the country round. * The bright beams of the true light/ says Knox, ' which, by God's grace, was planted in his heart, began most abundantly to burst forth as well in public as in secret.' ' Wheresoever he came,' says Spottis- wood, ' he spared not to lay open the corruptions of the Roman Church, and to show the errors crept into the Christian religion ; whereunto many gave ear, and a great following he had both for his learning and courteous behaviour to all sorts of people.'*' It is exceedingly probable that the ancient parish church of Binny was the first church in Scotland in which the Reformer lifted up his voice. The parish of Binny was not then united as now to the adjoining parish of Linlithgow ; and the Baron of Kincavel was one of its principal proprietors. The beautiful ' Craig,' which so finely diversifies the surface of the parish, would seem to have been a part of the Kincavel estate ; and its lofty clifi" and bosky slopes — a monument of nature's own rearing — probably mark the spot where Patrick Hamilton commenced his evangelic mission.f Among other places in the neighbourhood of Kincavel, it may be very safely inferred, from the statements of Knox and Spottiswood, that Hamilton preached in the adjoining burgh of Linlithgow. The town was less than two miles from his home, and it had claims upon him of peculiar interest. It had possibly been the place of his own early education ; it was the seat of the hereditary jurisdiction of his family ; and its burghers were kindly affectioned to his house. Its population was the largest and most influential to which he could have access as a preacher, in that part of the kingdom ; it numbered among its occasional residents the members of the royal family, and many of the highest nobility of the realm ; the inmates of the palace were worshippers in the parish church of St. Michael ; and all ranks cave], he would have been under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Glasgow, not of St. Andrews, and we should have heard of his being proceeded against in the former city, not in the latter. * Knox's History, vol. i. p. 15. Spottiswood's History, London, 1677, p. 62. t In a charter, of date 3rd September, 1507, Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kin- cavel conveyed to William Hamilton, his kinsman, ' five ox-gangs of land, of which four lie to the south of the house of Kincavel, in the Craig quarter, along with the ' west field' and the ' bog head,' lying to the south of the ' rock of Kincavel.' 106 STATE OF THE CHUECH IN LINLITHGOW. of the community, from the highest to the lowest, stood urgently in need of a purer dispensation of religious truth. Indeed, Linlithgow would appear to have been addicted with a more than ordinary degree of zeal, to the superstitious worship of the Church of Eome. The beautiful church of St. Michael, though of no great size, had as many as sixteen altars erected in its aisles and side-chapels ; and to these the burghers came not only with their rosaries and prayers, but with the substantial oblations of numerous annual rents. These altars were endowed with no fewer than 228 such rents, all charge- able upon tenements in the town, except a few which were derived from houses in Edinburgh. All the houses of the burgh could not have much, if at all, exceeded that number of rent-charges. Two of the altars were dedicated to the Virgin, and received between them as many as fifty-nine of these endowments. The altars of St. John the Baptist and St. Mnian had each twenty. St. Andrew, St. Katherine the Virgin, St. Bridget, and St. Anne were also re- garded with considerable favour ; and St. Peter, St. Elisius, and St. Michael were not forgotten. One altar was styled the altar of Corpus Christi — another was the altar of the Lamp and Light of the Sacra- ment — another was styled of the Holy Cross — and a fourth was the altar of All Saints. This large number of foundations was no doubt owing to two causes. Linlithgow was a favourite royal residence, and as such was the frequent resort of the nobility and prelates ; and a large portion of the property of the burgh and county was in the hands of churchmen.* It appears from authentic records still extant that the burghers of Linlithgow had not only to sustain the numerous priests who minis- tered at these superstitious altars, but were obliged also to bind them down, by solemn instruments and by many sureties, to observe the plainest rules of honesty and decorum. A curious document of this kind has been preserved in the charter chest of Linlithgow, and is now for the first time brought forward as a witness to the * For these curious particulars I am indebted to the researches of a local antiquary, W. H. Henderson, Esq., writer, Linlithgow, who communicated them to me in the most liberal manner, along with a copy of the singular original document mentioned in the next paragraph, and several extracts from the burgh records. The reader will find these communications in their complete form in Appendix Y. 107 melancholy corruption of the Scottish Church. It is a deed of obli- gation of the year 14') 5, on the part of Patrick Brone, or Brown, chaplain of the altar of Corpus Christi in the church of St. Michael, and bears the seals of six * borrowis ' or sureties, his relatives and friends. In this deed Brown binds and obliges himself to the bailies and community of Linlithgow, not merely to do divine service at the altar of Corpus Christi, and in the choir of the church, and to learn diligently to read and sing in ' augmentation of God's service, and for pleasance of the said bailies and community ;' but also ' not to sell, wadset (pledge), nor analie (alienate) any part of the graith' (furniture) of the said altar, such as books, chalice, chasuble, albs, towels, &c., ' for no pinch or necessity that may happen at any time to arise;' and also *to govern his person in honesty, and to be of honest conversation in meat and drink, lying and rising, and to use no unreasonable excess,' and to hare no * continual concubine.' And ' gif he should happen to do the contrair he shall, at the ordi- nance of the said bailies and community, desist and amend under pain of deprivation.' Such was the very moderate amount of virtue expected or re- quired from the altar- chaplains of Linlithgow ; and such was the singular method adopted by its honest burgesses to enforce it. In the absence of all efficient ecclesiastical discipline, the only way they could think of to secure the decency of their priests was to take half-a-dozen sureties for the good behaviour of each of them, and to bind them by a legal instrument to submit, in case of transgression, to the deprivation of their offerings and rents. To a community so steeped in superstition, and accustomed to such a low standard of character in the ministers of religion, the appearance of a preacher like Patrick Hamilton must have been a phenomenon of the most striking kind. We can easily imagine the lively surprise and curiosity which would be felt by every man and woman in Linlithgow when the rumour first spread that the sheriff's brother had come home a Lutheran, had turned preacher, and was setting forth a doctrine which had never been heard in ' the country- side' before. If there were 'many who gave ear to him' at that time, and if he had ' a great following,' no spot in the kingdom is so likely to have found him such crowded audiences and such a host of followers as the ancient burgh of Linlithgow. And probable traces of 108 ECCLESIASTICAL EEFOEM. his influence are not altogether wanting in the contemporary records of the town. As early as the year 1529 — the year after his death — there appears to have been a spirit of ecclesiastical reform called forth .among the members of the burgh council and assize. On the 5th jS^ovember of that year ' the siss' or assize ordained ' that the bailies should call their altar-chaplains before them, and charge them to do their service at mess, matins, and evensorg, after the form of their foundations and bonds ; and if they will not obey, to call them before their overman with a sharp summons.' And it is curious to find act- ing on this assize, in addition to a Sandilands, so many Hamiltons — * William Hamilton in Kyncavel, Alexander Hamilton in the Grange, George Hamilton in the Medhope, and Allan Hamilton.' Again, on the 22nd day of the same month, ' it was statute and ordained by the bailies, council, and community of Linlithgow, in presence of our comburgess, James Hamilton of Fynnart, knight, and James Hamilton of Kincavel, sheriff of Linlithgow, that in time to come there be no altarage, nor parish clerkship, nor common clerkship, which is in the gift of the bailies, council, and community of Lin- lithgow, given until such time as they become vacant in the towTi's hands, by the decease of the chaplains or clerks of the said service ; and that the bailies should dispose of them by advice of the council and community in plane court, and that the bui^gesses be warned thereto.'* These curious notices furnish evidence of a desire of ecclesiastical reform having been awakened among the Linlithgow burghers at that period ; and the prominence of the Hamiltons, as the advisers and promoters of such measures, points, we think, to the preaching of the young Reformer as the influence from which this spirit of religious improvement derived its rise. Nor was this new spirit of reforming earnestness a mere transient fit. It continued to distin- guish the municipal rulers of the burgh for many years ; and many subsequent records are extant, which bear testimony to their laudable zeal to promote at least an external reformation of the worship and discipline of that limited portion of the national church, over which as magistrates they had any control. We miss, it is true, the evan- gelical element in their measures. They had caught somewhat of * Burgh records of Linlithgow, to which the author was kindly allowed access hy Eob. E. Glen, Esq., Town-clerk ; besides being supplied, with his concurrence, with other extracts referred to in a previous note. DOCTRINES PEEACHED BY HAMILTOI^. 109 the Reformer's earnest spirit, without having had time to become imbued with his evangelical principles. To introduce doctrinal or ritual changes was indeed beyond their sphere of action, even if they were convinced of their necessity ; but they could at least provide that all things within their ecclesiastical jurisdiction should be done decently and in order ; and in this department they were an example to all the bishops and synods of the realm. They subjected the numerous chaplains of St. Michael's to a vigilant oversight ; and they introduced stringent regulations to enforce punctuality and decency in all the offices of public devotion. With regard to the doctrines which Patrick Hamilton preached, we are fortunately in possession of the most authentic and reliable information. "We have them recorded by his own pen. ' Patrick's Places ' embrace the substance of his theological views, and reveal, besides, not a little of the religious spirit and feeling with which he held and proclaimed them. It is a very safe assumption that in his sermons to the people he would in substance promulgate the same doctrines, which he had only a few weeks before maintained in academic disputation at Marburg. His * Places,' we cannot doubt, supply us with the heads of his pulpit discourses, and have preserved for the perusal of posterity the main principles and views which gave substance to his preaching and inspiration to his zeal. In that little tract we come into communion with the very soul and spirit of his brief but fruitful ministry. He began his exposition of Christian truth with setting forth the doctrine of the law, from which he advanced to the statement of the Gospel, and then drew with a vigorous hand the antithesis between the one and the other. This was the order of statement which was characteristic of the Reformation divines, as it had been, fifteen centu- ries before, the theological and homiletic order of St. Paul himself. There was no subject on which the doctrine and preaching of the Church of Rome had more misled and blinded the people than the respective places and uses of the Law and the Gospel. As good John Pox, the martyrologist, remarks in the comments which he appended to his reprint of the ' Places,' under the head of * Errors and absur- dities of the Papists touching the doctrine of the law and the Gos- pel ' — * They erroneously conceive opinion of salvation in the law, which only is to be sought in the faith of Christ, and in no other.' 110 ANTITHESIS OF LAW AXD GOSPEL. They erroneously do seek God's favour by works of the law, not knowing that the law, in this our corrupt nature, worketh only the anger of God. They err also in this, that whereas the office of the law is diverse from and contrary to the Gospel, they, without any difference, confound the one with the other, making the Gospel to be a law and Christ to be a Moses. In the doctrines of salvation, remission, and justification, either they admix the law equally with the Gospel, or else, clean secluding the Gospel, they teach and preach the law so that little mention is made of the faith of Christ, or none at all.' Such was the teaching which Hamilton's hearers had been accustomed to listen to, on those rare occasions when they were treated with any preaching at all. But, returning to the theology of the apostles, the new Preacher expounded the antithe- sis of law and Gospel in the following manner : — ' The law showeth us our sin, the Gospel showeth us remedy for it. The law showeth us our condemnation, the Gospel showeth us our redemption. The law is the word of ire, the Gospel is the word of grace. The law is the word of despair, the Gospel is the word of comfort. The law is the word of unrest, the Gospel is the word of peace.' All these clear statements he proved one by one from the Scrip- tures, and then reiterated in substance, in the lively form of a dis- putation between the law and the Gospel, each addressing itself to the sinner in a manner appropriate to each, and thus revealing * the difference or contrariety between them both.' ' The law saith to the sinner. Pay thy debt ; the Gospel saith, Christ hath paid it. The law saith. Thou art a sinner, despair, thou shalt be damned ; the Gospel saith, Thy sins are forgiven thee, be of good com- fort, thou shalt be saved. The law saith, JSfake amends for thy sins ; the Gospel saith, Christ hath made it for thee. The law saith. The Pather of heaven is angry with thee ; the Gospel saith, Christ hath pacified Him with His blood. NATUEE AND FUXCTIOJfS OF FAITH. Ill The law saith, Where is thy righteousness, goodness, and satis- faction ? the Gospel saith, Christ is thy righteousness, goodness, and satisfaction. The law saith, Thou art bound and obliged to me, to the devil, and to hell ; the Gospel saith, Christ hath delivered thee from them all.' !N'o less scriptural and clear were the Eeformer's expositions of the nature and functions of Faith, as going forth upon its several great objects — God and his word, Christ and His redemption : — ' Faith is a certainty or assuredness, a sure confidence of things which are hoped for, and certainty of things which are not seen. He that hath faith wotteth well that God will fulfil His word. Faith is to believe God, like as Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness. To believe God is to believe His word, and to account it true that he saith. He that believeth not God's word believeth not God Himself. He that believeth not God's word counteth Him false and a liar, and believeth not that He may and will fulfil His word ; and so he denieth both the might of God and God Himself. The faith of Christ is to believe in Him, that is, to believe His word, and believe that He will help thee in all thy need, and deliver thee from all evil. Thou wilt ask me. What word ? I answer. The Gospel. He that believeth not the Gospel believeth not God ; he that believeth the Gospel shall be safe. He that hath faith is just and good. All that is done in faith pleaseth God. He that lacketh faith cannot please God ; he that hath faith and be- lieveth in God cannot displease Him. Faith is the gift of God, it is not in our own power.' Hamilton spoke to a people to whom the faith which he thus highly commended was strange and unknown. Faith, as they had hitherto understood it, was only the belief of the dogmas which rested on the authority of the Church. They had been taught to look upon faith, in the sense of confiding trust in the love of their heavenly Father, and in the all- sufficing grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, as a dangerous presumption ; and to be altogether faithless in this sense must have appeared to them a much more Christian state than to be believing. We may imagine, then, the sensation of surprise which must have been produced in their minds by 112 ANTITHESIS OF FAITH AND UNBELIEF. such a powerful comparison between * Faith and Incredulity ' as the following : — ' Faith is the root of all good, incredulity (or unbelief) is the root of all evil. Faith maketh God and man good friends, incredulity maketh them foes. Faith bringeth God and man together, incredulity sundereth them. All that faith doth pleaseth God, all that incredulity doth dis- pleaseth God. Faith only maketh a man good and righteous, incredulity only maketh him unjust and evil. Faith maketh a man a member of Christ, incredulity maketh him a member of the devil. Faith maketh a man the inheritor of heaven, incredulity maketh him inheritor of hell. Faith maketh a man the servant of God, incredulity maketh him the servant of the devil. Faith showeth us God to be a sweet Father, incredulity showeth him a terrible Judge. Faith holdeth stiff by the word of God, incredulity wavereth here and there. Faith counteth and holdeth God to be true, incredulity holdeth Him false and a liar. Faith knoweth God, incredulity knoweth Him not. Faith loveth both God and his neighbour, incredulity loveth neither of them. Faith only saveth us, incredulity only condemneth us. Faith extoUeth God and His deeds, incredulity extolleth herself and her own deeds.' With equal truth and ability did the young preacher discriminate and set forth the differences of the three cardinal Christian graces of faith, hope, and charity : — ' Faith cometh of the word of God ; hope cometh by faith ; and charity springeth of them both. FAITH, HOPE, AND CHAEITT. 113 Faith believeth the word ; hope trusteth after that which is pro- mised by the word ; charitj^ doeth good unto her neighbour, through the love that she hath to God, and gladness that is within herself. Faith looketh to God and His word ; hope looketh unto his gift and reward ; charity looketh on her neighbour's profit. Faith receiveth God ; hope receiveth his reward ; charity loveth her neighbours with a glad heart, without any respect of re- ward.' None of these statements of Christian truth, of course, can have any novelty or freshness to evangelical Christians in the present day. They are all trite and familiar as household words. But this very triteness is the highest commendation imaginable of their author's maturity of knowledge and discernment in the things of God. His aphorisms are trite simply because the truths he put forth in the first evangelical sermons ever preached in Scotland are the very same truths, and almost in the very same words, which we accept and use at the present day, as the essential verities of evangelical religion. Was it not a signal proof of Hamil- ton's theological and religious ripeness, that, at so early a stage both of his own age and of the history of the Eeformation, he should have been able to put forth views of Gospel doctrine so just, and exact, and adequate, that at an interval of more than three hundred years, the evangelical Christians of his country can find little or nothing to add to them, and might well be content to accept his expositions as a statement and definition of their religious faith, on the points to which they refer ? But it was not only in the department of clear theological expo- sition that Patrick Hamilton evinced such uncommon ability; he was equally powerful in close appeals to the hearts and understandings of men, and evinced no ordinary capacity of that rhetorical kind which makes a man a popular and eff'ective preacher. It was in the following strain of appeal that he dealt with the Roman dogma, which is also the dogma of every unrenewed heart, of salvation by works : — ' Whosoever believeth or thinketh to be saved by his works, denieth that Christ is his Saviour, that Christ died for him, and 114 SALTATION XOT BY WOEKS BUT OF GRACE. that all things pertain to Christ. Tor how is He thy Sa^ionr if thou mightest save thyself hy thy works, or whereto should He die for thee if any works might have saved thee ? What is this, to say Christ died for thee ? Yerily, that thou shouldest have died eter- nally, and Christ, to deliver thee from death, died for thee, and changed thy eternal death into His own death ; for thou madest the fault and He suffered the punishment ; and that for the love He had to thee before thou wast born, when thou hadst done neither good nor evil. ISTow, seeing He hath paid thy debt, thou needest not, neither canst thou, pay it, but shouldest be damned if His blood were not. But since He was punished for thee, thou shalt not be punished. Finally, He hath delivered thee from thy condemnation and from all evil, and desireth naught of thee but that thou wilt acknowledge what He hath done for thee, and bear it in mind, and that thou wouldest help others for His sake both in word and deed, even as He hath holpen thee for naught and without reward. Oh how ready would we be to help others if we knew His goodness and gentleness toward us. He is a good and a gentle Lord, for He doth all for naught. Let us, I beseech you, therefore, follow His footsteps whom all the world ought to praise and worship. Amen. ' He that thinketh to be saved by his works calleth himself Christ ; for he calleth himself the Saviour, which pertaineth to Christ only. What is a Saviour but he that saveth ? and he saith, I saved myself; which is as much as to say, "I am Christ," for Christ only is the Saviour of the world. ' We should do no good works for the intent to get the inheritance of heaven or remission of sin. Por whosoever belie veth to get the inheritance of heaven or remission of sin through works, he believeth not to get the same for Christ's sake ; and they that believe not that their sins are forgiven them, and that they shall be saved, for Christ's sake, they believe not the Gospel ; for the Gospel saith. You shall be saved for Christ's sake, your sins are forgiven for Christ's sake. ' He that believeth not the Gospel believeth not God ; so it fol- loweth that those who believe to be saved hj their works, or to get remission of sins by their own deeds, believe not God, but account him a liar, and so utterly deny Him to be God. ' Thou wilt say, Shall we then do no good deeds ? I say not so ; but I say we should do no good works to the intent to get the in- FAITH AND WOKKS. 115 Leritance of heaven or remission of sin. For if we believe to get the inheritance of heaven through good works, then we believe not to get it through the promise of God ; or if we believe to get remis- sion of our sins by our deeds, then we believe not that they are forgiven us, and so we count God a liar ; for God saith, " Thou shalt have the inheritance of heaven for My Son's sake ; thy sins are forgiven thee for My Son's sake ;" and you say it is not so, but I will win it through my works. Thus you see I condemn not good deeds, but I condemn the false trust in any works ; for all the works wherein a man putteth any confidence are therewith poisoned and become evil. Wherefore thou must do good works, but be- ware thou do them not, to deserve any good through them' ; for if thou do, thou receivest the good not as the gifts of God, but as debt to thee, and makest thyself fellow with God, because thou wilt take nothing of him for nought. And what needeth He anything of thee, who giveth all things and is nought the poorer ? Therefore do nothing to Him, but take of Him, for He is a gentle Lord, and with a gladder will giveth us all that we need than we can take it of Him. If, then, we want aught, let us blame ourselves. Press not, therefore, to the inheritance of heaven through presumption of thy good works ; for if thou do, thou countest thyself holy and equal to God, because thou wilt take nothing of Rim for nought, and so shalt thou fall as Lucifer fell for his pride.' - The preaching of the Reformers was a resuscitation of the preach- ing of St. Paul. Christ and faith in Christ were the constant themes of their awakening and world-renewing ministry. They were deeply convinced that nothing but Christ is the power of God unto salvation, and that nothing but faith brings Christ close home to the souls of men. They went to the root of the matter. They saw clearly that in all moral and religious life, in all life of the heart, it is faith or trust that lies at the very bottom. ' Paith,' exclaimed Hamilton, ' faith maketh the good tree, and incredulity the evil tree. Such a tree, such fruit; such a man, such works. Good works make not a good man, nor evil works an evil man ; but a good man bringeth forth good works, and an evil man evil works. Good fruit maketh not the tree good, nor evil fruit the tree evil ; but a good tree beareth good fruit, and an evil tree evil fruit. A good man cannot do evil works, nor an evil man good works ; for a 116 SCOTTISH EVANGELISM. good tree cannot bear evil fruit, nor an evil tree good fruit. A man is good ere he do good works, and evil ere he do evil works ; for the tree is good ere it bear good fruit, and evil ere it bear evil fruit. If thou do evil, it is a sui^e argument that thou art evil and wantest faith ; if thou do good, it is an argument that thou art good and hast faith ; for a good tree beareth good fruit, and an evil evil fruit. Yet good fruit makes not the tree good, nor evil fruit the tree evil ; so that man is good ere he do good deeds, and evil ere he do evil deeds. All things that are done in faith please God and are good works ; and all that are done without faith displease God and are evil works.' These were all profound truths, and they were all as new to the people of Scotland when Patrick Hamilton uttered them as they were profound. They are new no longer, but they are none the less vital because they are old and hackneyed. They are old in the sense of being ancient, not modern — as ancient not only as the Eefor- matiou, but as Christianity itself ; but not old in the sense of being antiquated or worn out. They are as necessary to the souls of men now as ever they were, and they are as well able as ever to ' nourish them' unto spiritual and eternal life. They are old, but in no sense which excludes their being ever young and ever new. They are the word of the Lord ; and ' the word of the Lord endureth for ever.' The AYord of the Eternal, like the Eternal himself, can properly indeed have neither age nor youth. Its light and life and power are inexhaustible, and everlasting. The first evangelical preacher of the Church of Scotland spoke truths which all her evangelical preachers since have been unable either to transcend, or to dispense with. The evangelism of Scotland at the present day is still marked by the same type of doctrine as the preaching of her first evangelist. Thousands of sermons preached every week in her cities and rural parishes are, in substance, little more than repetitions and expansions of his preg- nant and pithy aphorisms. And long may the martyr's voice multiply its echoes in her pulpits and halls of theology ! Scotland will never cease to be the temple of true Christianity and spiritual religion, as long as she remains faithful to the testimony bequeathed to her by her first evangelical preacher. Patrick Hamilton was the first Scottish divine of his age who went to the root of the evils under which his native Church and BRANCH-EEFOEMEKS OF THE AGE. 117 country were suffering. The age was not destitute of men thought- ful enough to be convinced that some new measures were needed to revive the piety and restore the discipline of the Church, and devoted enough to consecrate to that object their efforts and their possessions. Eut their views both of the causes of the evils which they lamented, and of the requisites of the needed remedy, were superficial and inadequate, and their well-meant endeavours and generous sacrifices all came to nothing. The favourite scheme of the age for rekindling the flame of devotion, and bringing back the discipline and purity of better times, was the foundation of collegiate churches, in which the service of God should be celebrated daily by colleges of priests, in matins, mass, and even-song, and all the holy days and festivals of the Church should be observed with due solemnity. The numerous and well-endowed clergy of these establishments, including provosts, canons, prebendaries, vicars pensionary, &c., were appointed by the founders to live together under collegiate rules and restrictions ; and stringent securities were provided to ensure the preservation of disci- pline. One of these collegiate churches was founded at Crail in 1517 by William Myretoun, perpetual vicar of Lathrisk, and was enriched by him with additional endowments in 1526.* Another was founded in Glasgow in 1528 by James Houston, sub-dean of the cathedral, and rector of the university, and was named the College of Our Lady the Blessed Virgin and St. Ann ;t and in 1545 a third was endowed by Malcolm, Lord Fleming, at Biggar.J In all these cases much interest and sympathy were awakened among the friends of the old church. Myretoun was joined in the work of endowment by the Lady Janet Hepburn, Prioress of Haddington. Houston was aided by the co-operation of the monastery of Kilwinning, which gave up for the use of the College of Our Lady the fruits of the church of Dairy, and of the nunnery of North Berwick, which resigned to it the patronage and fruits of the church of Maybole. Lord Fleming received important assistance from the Abbeys of Kelso and Holyrood, * Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. ii. Appendix to the Pteign of James V., p. 398. Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. ix. — Parish of Crail. t Liber Collegii Nostrae Dominse B. V. Marias et S. Annae (Maitland Club). Edited, with a valuable preface and notes, by Joseph Kobertson, Esq. + Liber Cartarum Sanctse Crucis deEdwinesburg (Bannatyne Club), pp. 295^ 296, Appendix II. Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. vi.— Pai-ish of Biggai*. 118 COLLEGIATE CHURCHES OF CRAIL AND GLASGOW. which surrendered to his collegiate church the patronage and fruits of the parish churches of Thankerton and Dunrod. The monks of Kelso considered that * all of them in these evil times, in the increase of Lutheranism, were obliged to contribute to so good a work ;' and the canons of Holyrood were moved to contribute their aid by the same consideration of ' these wretched Lutheran times,' as well as by the general duty incumbent upon all the faithful, of extolling, approving, and to the best of their power assisting all honest endea- vours to promote the worship and honour of Almighty God. But all these laudable efforts to bring about a better state of things in the Church proved fruitless and unavailing. The fires kindled on these new altars were soon extinguished, and their ashes scattered. The root of true religion had died in the ground, and it was impos- sible, by dint of any such superficial husbandry, by any mere top- dressing of the soil, to obtain a new outgrowth of spiritual life. In a few years all these new colleges of ' devout orators ' fell to pieces, and the edifices where they served became the temples of a simpler and purer worship. It was in the collegiate church of Crail that Knox first thundered against the idolatry of the mass, on his final return to Scotland in May 1559; and where the work of demolish- ing the altars, crucifixes, and images of superstition was begun by the people. And the College of Our Lady and St. Ann, in Glasgow, after falling into ruins in the same century which saw it reared, gave place in the next age to the parish church of the Tron, which was erected upon the same site — a church which has become endeared to the evangelism of Scotland as the scene of some of its brightest examples of living piety and consecrated genius. It is instructive as well as interesting to read the accounts which men like William Myretoun and James Houston gave of the motives which induced them to found and endow their college churches, as these motives reveal the spirit and genius of the religion which their foundations sprang from, and were designed to strengthen. The founder of the College of Crail states as his reasons for undertaking that work, his long-cherished design of doing something for the augmentation of divine worship ; the experience which he had had of heavenly aid obtained for him in this life by the prayers of the devout ; and his trust to be brought in the next world to the societj^ of the angels of heaven, and, by their benevolent intercessions, to MOTIVES OF SFCH FOUNDATIONS. 119 obtain from the merciful Redeemer not only the forgiveness of his sins, but also a mitigation and termination of the pains of purgatory.-"' We find a similar mixture of pure and impure elements in the piety of the Subdean of Glasgow. He was firmly persuaded, he tells his archbishop, Gavyn Dunbar, that in the solemnities of the mass the Son of God was*^oifered to the Almighty Father as a holocaust of sweet savour, than which nothing more acceptable or more honour- able could possibly be off'ered. The sincerity of the Catholic faith likewise assured him of the power of the mass to succour the weak- ness of human nature, ever ready to fall into sin ; to deliver the souls of defunct believers from the pains of purgatory, and to advance the souls of the blessed to the plenitude of glory. He was also moved by the warning in the book of Exodus : ' that they were wise and understanding, and would consider their latter end !' and he often revolved in his mind the words of the Apocalypse : ' I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.' 'Hence,' he continues, 'was my charity inflamed; and hence sprang up within me a pious desire to set forward the worship and honour of God, which desire I have carried out to the extent of my ability in this foundation.' f Such was the strange mixture of good and bad, of pure and impure, in the confessions of the best churchmen of Hamilton's age ! — of the men who were most earnest to improve the state of the Church, and who gave the largest contributions of their substance to accomplish that end. ' But who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean ? Not one.' The religious life of the Church was poisoned at its very source. The Christianity of her best men was corrupted with the grossest errors and superstitions ; and it was impossible that such men, with all their earnestness, and by the most liberal foundations, could accomplish any real revival of Christian life. The only seed of such life in individuals or societies, is the incorruptible seed of the Word of God; and that the Myretouns and Houstons of the Scottish Church could not plant in the hearts of others, for it was not planted in their own. * See Houston's Charter of Endowment in 1526, inserted in Royal Charter, confirming the same. Acts of the 'Scottish Parliaments, ut supra. t Liber Collegii Nostrae Domini, &c., ut supra. 120 HAMILTON A EOOT-BEFOEMER. But it was otherwise with Patrick Hamilton. He had the true seed in himself, and he had it to scatter abundantly in the hearts of his countrymen. He aimed at a reformation of the Church which began at the root, not at the branches. He preached faith to his fellow-countrymen as the living root of hope and charity. He was the apostle of a religion going down to all that is deepest in the soul of man, and rooting its disciples in all that is deepest, too, in the mystery of Christ and of God. It was by making the root of his country's religion and life good that he expected to make the tree good and its fruit good. And his hope did not deceive him. The preacher himself, indeed, was soon silenced and cut off ; but his doctrine lived after him, and wrought with a leaven-like virtue in the nation's heart, till it leavened the whole lump. ' In- stead of the thorn came up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier came up the myrtle-tree.' The National Church was thoroughly reformed, more thoroughly than any other church in Christendom ; and the Scottish nation was born again to a new national life. Foreign churches and nations cried out, ' The Lord hath done great things for them;' and Scotland's own grateful children for many genera- tions have re-echoed the cry, ' The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad.' It was ' to the Lord for a name :' let us hope that it was also ' for a sign that shall not be cut off.' CHAPTER YII. PATRICK HAMILTON'S MAEEIAGE, AND TEACHING AT ST. ANDREWS. HIS MARRIAGE— HIS POSTHUMOUS DAUGHTER— VINDICATION OF HIS MEMORY FROM AN APPA- RENT STAIN — ALARM OF ARCHBISHOP BEATON, AND HIS DISSEMBLING POLICY — HAMILTON INVITED TO A CONFERENCE AT ST. ANDREWS — TEACHES AND DISPUTES IN THE UNIVERSITY — SPECIMENS OF HIS DISPUTATIONS — PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS — FRIAR ALEXANDER CAMP- BELL — CANON ALEXANDER ALANE — IMPORTANCE OF THESE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LABOURS. '" Quod facis facito." Te shall know that I will not recant the tnith ; for I am corn — I am not chaflf ; I will not be blown away with the wind, nor burst with the flail, but will abide both.' Waltee Mill. CHAPTER VII. PATRICK Hamilton's marriage, and lEACHixa at st. ais^drews. Patrick Hamilton remained at Kincavel till about the middle of January, 1527-28, and it was during the few months that elapsed between his return from Germany and that date, that an event took place, for the knowledge of which we are indebted exclusively to the information of Alexander Alesius. None of our historians have recorded the significant and interesting fact, that the young Abbot of Perne became a married man. But Alesius tells us that ' shortly before his death he married a young lady of noble rank ;' and he assigns the same reason for this step as for the Reformer's never assuming, though an abbot, the monastic habit, viz., his hatred of the hyjyocris}/ of the Roman Church. He seems to have felt on the occasion very much as Luther did in similar circumstances. He wished to show, by deed as well as by word, how entirely he had cast off the usurped and oppressive authority of Rome. He wished to proclaim in the boldest manner his resolution to be no longer subject to the tyranny of ecclesiastical laws which made void the supreme legislation of God himself. It is much to be regretted that the name of the lady whom he made his wife has not been re- corded ; for she must have been a lady as noble in spirit and charac- ter as she was in rank. Doubtless she had become the preacher's convert before she became his partner. iJ^othing but the warmest sympathy with his religious views could have induced her to wed 124 Hamilton's posthitmotjs daughter. one, whose life was every moment in danger from the most powerful adversaries. The Reformer's marriage is a fact not only interesting in itself, but important as vindicating his memory from a stain which has been recently thrown upon it, by the discovery of the additional fact that he was the parent of a daughter. The name of Isobel Hamilton, described as * daughter of umquhill Patrick Hamilton, Abbot of Feme,' has been found, under the year 1543, in the accounts of the Lord Treasurer ; from which record it appears that she was at that time one of the ladies in attendance on the court of the Uegent Arran.* This discovery naturally led to the inference, as nothing had been said by historians of her fathers marriage, that he had left behind him an illegitimate child — a blot ' on his hitherto pure and immaculate character,' which the learned editor of Knox's History could not refer to without reluctance, though constrained, by historical justice, to reveal to the world what his own accurate researches had disclosed. But God has promised to bring forth the good man's ' judgment as the light, and his righteousness as the noon-day ;' and the present is a striking instance of the truth of His word. The regretted stain had scarcely been thrown upon the martyr's memory, when a witness of unchallengeable credit is unexpectedly brought forward to wipe it off again. Meanwhile the Eeformer's adversaries were already on the alert. The fame of his preaching travelled fast ; and it had not far to travel to reach the ear of Archbishop Beaton. In the month of JS'ovember, 1527, the Primate was residing in the monastery of Dunfermline, f and the movements of Hamiltou on the opposite side of the Firth would instantly be reported to him. Beaton was alarmed to hear of his return to the kingdom, and of the boldness with which he had resumed his interrupted preaching. And indeed he had good rea- son to feel alarm. This young and noble Hamilton was the most dangerous preacher of heresy that could have appeared in the country ; * For entries in the Treasurer's accounts see Note 0. Mr. Laing was the first to call attention to these entries, in Appendix III. to vol. i. of Knox's History. t This appears from a deed preserved in the chartulary of Cambuskenneth, which was granted by Beaton ' in loco nostras residenciae infra monasterium de Dunfermling, die x mens. Novembris, a.d. MDXXVII.' BEATON S ALARM AND CAUTIOUS POLICY. 125 and he was more dangerous now than ever, after six months' in- tercourse with the German heresiarchs themselves. He could not fail to produce an impression upon the people, most perilous to the Church. A Lutheran missionary, with royal blood in his veins, and all the power of the Hamiltons at his back, was a more for- midable heretic in Scotland than Luther himself would have been. The moment was critical ; no time must be lost. Still the Primate and his councillors must proceed with caution. The preacher's family was too powerful to be attacked in his person, in a bold, unwary, and defiant manner. The Douglases and the Hamiltons had recently seemed to lay aside their feuds, and the Hamiltons were now, it appeared, content to allow the blood of the slaughtered Sir Patrick to remain unavenged.^* But would they leave also unavenged the blood of Sir Patrick's learned and eloquent son ? The bishops must find means to rest their quarrel with him on evidence of heresy so plain and palpable, that even his own kinsmen will not be able to challenge their proceedings. They must take care to make it clear, that it is not merely some external abuses and corruptions of the Church that he takes upon him to censure, but that he attacks the Church's most fundamental doctrines, and her most essential rites. They must take time, moreover, to make sure of the disposition of the young king and of his keepers— the Douglases. Beaton had been lately reconciled to the Earl of Angus, j but the reconciliation was still too recent and precarious to allow of his proceeding to extremities, against a member of one of the best families in the realm — a family too now in league with the Dou- glases — without first making sure, that the virtual ruler of the king- dom, if he will not openly sanction the deed, will at least not openly oppose or avenge it. In these difficult and delicate circumstances, the Primate and his councillors did not dare to be too direct and vigorous in their measures. They were obliged to aff'ect great moderation of tone and procedure. They did not attempt to seize the Reformer by main force at Kin- cavel, where he had the sherifi" of a county and the captain of one of the king's castles to stand stoutly for his defence; but they so ' travailed with the said Mr. Patrick,' as Knox expresses it, * as to * Tytler's History of Scotland— James V. f Ibid. — James V. 126 INVITATION TO A CONFEEENCE. get him to St. Andrews.' Beaton sent him a message desiring to have a conference with him at St. Andrews, on such points of the Church's condition and administration as might appear to stand in need of some reformation. The young preacher was not deceived by the dissimulation of his enemies, nor betrayed into confidence by their professions of candour and good intention. He perceived clearly their drift, and not only foresaw but foretold the speedy issue of their proceedings. ' While he was yet with his relations,' says Alesius, ' he predicted that he had not long to live.' '^' Still he had no hesitation in resolving to go to St. Andrews. To decline the proposed conference, he well knew, would only provoke an injunction of a more peremptory kind. He would probably gain more time and opportunity for declaring the truth in the most influential quarters, by accepting the treacherous invitation than by rejecting it. It would be a great advantage to the cause of the Gospel that it should have a hearing at St. An- drews ; or if he should go to that city only to die for the truth, and not to preach it, he would at least confirm the faith of its disciples by the testimony of his blood. Like the great evangelist of the Gentiles, he knew well that bonds and imprisonment awaited him in the city of the chief priests and pharisees ; but he felt bound in the spirit to go to it notwithstanding — not counting his life dear unto him, that he might finish his course with joy, and the ministry which he had received, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God. Like the great Master himself, whose footsteps he had resolved in His strength to follow, and with whose spirit of calm and gentle yet resolute self-devotion, the last scenes of his life evince him to have been deeply imbued, he steadfastly set his face to go up to Jerusalem, although he saw plainly before him the judgment -hall and the cross. f We are left to imagine the ejffect produced by the primate's sinister message upon the family at Xincavel. IN'o doubt they used every persuasion they could think of, to prevail upon the Eeformer to decline the hollow invitation. 'No doubt a wife's, a mother's, and * ' Prsedixit etiam se brevi moriturum, cum adhuc apud suos esset.' — • Alesius. f ' Dicebat se ad hoc ingressum esse urberu ut pios in vera doctrina con- firmaret sua morte.' — Alesius. DISSIMULATION OF TEE PRIMATE. 127 a sister's tears would all plead with him to change his resolution ; but still he remained firm. Toothing could induce him to swerve from his strong purpose. His family were obliged to content them- selves with the arrangement, that at least he should not proceed to St. Andrews alone, but that a party of his kinsmen and friends, including, we have reason to believe. Sir James Hamilton himself, should accompany him, as a protection from the malice of his enemies. He arrived in St. Andrews about the middle of January, and took up his abode in a lodging provided for him by the Archbishop. The conference with Beaton and his councillors took place, and was con- tinued for several days. The details of these long interviews have not been preserved, but their general drift and effect have been recorded. The Primate and his coadjutors still continued to affect much con- ciliation and candour. They seemed in many points to approve Hamilton's views, and to admit the existence of evils in the Church which called for reform ;* and when the conferences were ended, he was allowed to move freely through the city and university, and to declare his sentiments without hindrance, both in public and private. By this subtle and dissembling policy his enemies compassed several important ends. They gained time for their intrigues with the political chiefs of the country, to secure their tacit acquiescence in the tragical issue which they were all the while preparing ; and they gave Hamilton opportunity and inducement, to declare his opinions without reserve in a city crowded with their own abettors, where every word he uttered could be noted down, and every new expres- sion of his enmity to the Church could be instantly converted into a weapon to destroy him. They appear to have calculated, that so zealous a Reformer would not be slow to avail himself of the liberty of speech which they had allowed him; and they knew that it would be more honourable in the eyes of men, to condemn him in the end for what he had taught openly before all, than for what he had said privately in a conference to which they had themselves invited him, and the incidents of which were unknown to all save themselves. The bishops and doctors did not miscalculate the use which * Knox's Histor}', vol. i. p. 15. 128 HAMILTO^^'s TEACHING IN THE SCHOOLS. Hamilton would make of the liberty whicli their crafty policy still allowed him. He turned this unexpected opportunity of usefulness to the best account. Alesius tells us that ' he taught and disputed openly in the university on all the points on which he conceived a reformation to be necessary in the Church's doctrines, and in her ad- ministration of the sacraments and other rites.' We are not told that he was admitted to the pulpits of the churches ; but at least it is certain that he had access to the schools ; and happily he was as well able to teach the truth in the method of academic disputation, as in the forms of popular preaching. He had been thoroughly trained in Paris to the use of dialectic weapons ; and we are fortunately in pos- session of some authentic specimens of his skill in such encounters. These occur in the Theses which he published at Mai'burg ; and they may be brought into view quite appropriately here, as it cannot be doubted that they are the same, both in substance and form, as the evangelical arguments which he urged from day to day in the schools of St. Andrews. His method of communicating Divine truth in the university is described by Alesius as consisting both of teaching and disputation ; and this account corresponds exactly with the specimens of his academic manner which we are now to produce, in which he first lays down a general proposition affirming some evangelical truth, then proves it by quotations from the Word of God, and finally corroborates this proof by throwing the argument into a syllogistic shape. Peoposition. He that loveth his neighbour as himself keepeth all the command- ments of God. Prolation. This proposition is proved thus : Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, even so do to them, for this is the law and the prophets. * He that loveth his neighbour fulfilleth the law.' Thou shalt not commit adultery ; thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not bear false witness ; thou shalt not desire, &c. And if there be any other commandment all are comprehended in this saying : ' Love thy neighbour as thyself.' All the law is fulfilled in one word : * Love thy neighbour as thyself.' evangelical syllogisms. 129 Aegument. Major : Bar- He that loveth God keepeth all the commandments of God. 3£inor : ba- He that loveth God loveth his neighbour. Conclusion : ra. £rc/o. He that loveth his neighbour keepeth all the commandments of God. Peoposition". He that hath faith loveth God. Probation. ' My Father loveth you because you love me, and believe that I come of God.' — John xvi. Argument. Major : Bar- He that keepeth the commandments of God hath the love of God. Minor : ba- He that hath faith keepeth the commandments of God. Conclusion : ra. JEr^o. He that hath faith loveth God. Proposition-. Enthymema. It is not in our power to keep any one of the com- mandments of God. Argument. Major : Bar- It is impossible to keep any of the commandments of God without grace. Minor : ro- It is not in our power to have grace. Conclusion : co. M'ffo. It is not in our power to keep any of the commandments of God. 'And even so may you reason concerning the Holy Ghost and faith ; forasmuch as neither without them we are able to keep any of the commandments of God, nor yet be they in our power to have. IS^'on est volentis neque currentis, &c. — Eom. ix. It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth," &c.' Sometimes he adds to the Scripture probation and the syllogistic argument a reply to objections raised against the conclusion thus reached. K 130 AEGDMENTS BY INDUCTION. Ohjection. But thou wilt say, ' Wherefore doth God bid us do what is impossible for us ?' Answer. I answer, to make thee know that thou art but evil, and that there is no remedy to save thee in thine own hand, and thou mayest seek remedy at some other, for the law doth nothing else but command thee. Sometimes he varies the form of argumentation from the syllogism to the induction. "We have two interesting examples of this in the way he establishes the two counterpart propositions, that he that lacketh faith cannot please God ; and that he that hath faith and believeth God cannot displease Him. Proposition. He that lacketh faith cannot please God. Prohation. ' Without faith it is impossible to please God.' — Heb. xi. ' All that cometh not of faith is sin.' — Eom. xiv. For without faith can no man please God. Induction. He that lacketh faith trusteth not God ; he that trusteth not God trusteth not His word ; he that trusteth not His word holdeth Him false and a liar ; he that holdeth Him false and a liar believeth not that He may do that He promiseth, and so denieth he that He is God. M'(/o — ^ a primo ad idtimuni' — He that lacketh faith cannot please God. If it were possible for any man to do all the good deeds that ever were done by men or angels, yet, being in this case, it is im- possible for him to please God. Proposition. He that hath faith and believeth God cannot displease Him. Induction. He that hath faith believeth God ; he that believeth God believeth His word ; he that believeth His word wotteth well that He is true and faithful, and may not lie, knowing that he both may and will fulfil His word. Evf^o — a primo ad uUimum — He that hath faith cannot displease EEASONING OUT OF THE SCRirXUEES. 13] God, neither can any man do a greater honoui' to God than to count Him true. Objectiojt. Thou wilt then say that theft, murder, adultery, and all vices, please God. An s WEE. Nay, verily, for they cannot be done in faith, for ' a good tree beareth good fruit.' To our minds and habits of thought such formal argumentations seem artificial and tedious ; but it should be remembered that they were far from appearing in that light to the academics and theo- logians to whom Hamilton addressed them. His arguments, in point of form, were conceived and expressed perfectly in the taste of his age — a taste which continued in the ascendant till much later times; while, in point of substance and matter, his evangelical syllo- gisms were certainly a vast improvement upon anything that had ever been heard before in the University of St. Andrews. The propositions which he laid down and proved in due form were all assertions not of man's wisdom and philosophy, but of the truth of God ; and the proofs which he produced to confirm them were all either direct testimonies of Scripture, or reasonings upon these testimonies characterised by the simple logic of common sense, without subtlety, and without sophistry. For the first time in their lives, the students of theology in that university heard questions in divinity reasoned upon and solved, without a single reference to the scholastic doctors, or even to the fathers of the first centuries of the Church. Thomas Aquinas, and Peter Lombard, St. Athanasius, and St. Augustine, went for nothing, and the Word of God and common sense were all in all. * Reasoning witli them out of the Scriptures' — the description given of the disputations of St. Paul in the Synagogue of Thessalonica, and in the school of Tyrannus — was equally descriptive of Hamilton's disputations in the schools of St. Andrews. How diff'erent from the style of theological disputation which was wont to be exhibited on the same spot at other times ! As an example, we may quote the amusiug account which Calderwood has given us of a dispute which took place in the university so late as the year 1551, on the 132 SCHOLASTIC SOPHISTEIKS. strange question, Whether the Paternoster onght to be said to the saints or to God alone : — Eichard Marshall, Doctor of Divinity, and Prior of the Black Friars at jS'ewcastle, had declared in one of the pulpits, that the Lord'sPrayer ' should be done only to God, and not to the saints, neither to any other creature.' But the doctors of the university, together with the Grey Priars, who had long ago taught the people to pray the Pater- noster to the saints, had great indignation that their old doctrine should be impugned, and stirred up a Grey Friar, called Friar Toittis, to preach again to the people that they should and might pray the Paternoster to saints ; at which the Christians were so hotly offended, and the papists, on the other side, so proud and wilful, that neces- sary it was, in order to eschew greater inconveniences, that the clergy at least should be assembled to dispute and conclude the whole matter, that the lay people might be put out of doubt. "Which being done, and the university agreed, whosoever had been present might have heard much subtle sophistry ; for some of the Popish doctors affirmed that it should be said to God formaUter, and to saints materialiter ; others, ultimate et no?i ultimate; others said it should be said to God i^rincipaliter, and to saints minus iwinciimliter ; others that it should be said to God 'primarie, and to saints secun- darie ; others that it should be said to God capiendo stride, and to saints capiendo large. Which vain distinctions being considered and heard by the people, they that were simple remained in greater doubtfulness than they were before — so that a well-aged man, and a servant to the sub-^Drior of St. Andrews, called the sub-prior's Tome, being demanded to whom he said his Paternoster, he answered, ' To God only.' Then they asked what should be said to the saints. He answered, ' Give them aves and creeds enow, in the devil's name, for that may suffice them well enough, albeit they do spoil God of his right.' Others, making their vaunts of the doctors, said, 'that because Christ never came to the isle of Britain, and so understood not the English tongue, therefore it was that the doctors concluded it should be said in Latin.' ^' Compared with such 'sophistical ca- villations' as these, the syllogisms of Hamilton had a true intellec- tual and theological value ; and though, to our tastes and habits of * CalJerwood's History (Wodrow Society), vol. i. p. 275. PRIVATE CONFEEENCES. 133 speecli, they have lost their savour, they have none the less an im- portant historic interest, as the first academic argumentations that were ever used by a Scottish theologian in the service of Gospel truth, and as the first that made converts in the Scottish univer- sities to the cause of the Eeformation. But it was not only in the schools that Patrick Hamilton em- ployed himself in the useful expositions and disputations which we have described ; he was equally diligent in communicatiEg the truths of the Gospel in private, in his own apartments, where he received and conversed freely with all who visited him. Among his visitors were many monks, who came professing their desire to enjoy the benefit of his conversation, but in reality with the base design of reporting his words to the Primate. Hamilton was warned of their treachery, but he neither declined their visits nor put a guard on his language, on that account. He was convinced that his time was short, and he felt that it was his duty to make the most of it to proclaim the truth of God to all comers. The chief of these dissemblers and informers was Alexander Campbell, prior of the Dominican monastery of St. Andrews, ' a young man of good wit and learning, ' on whom Beaton appears to have mainly relied for the success of the inquisition which he was now privily making into the Reformer's doctrines. The prior was all the better qualified to play this base part, that he was himself not unfavourable to some measure of reform. Such an amount of sympathy with the views of the Reformer would serve as a passport to his confidence, and a key to unlock the secrets of his whole heart.* Hamilton, however, received at his lodgings other visitors of a more honourable character. Among these was Alexander Alane whom he had previously known among the canons of the Priory, and who now renewed his acquaintance with him, with the honest convictions and intentions of a sincere disciple of the scholastic theology. Alane did not doubt that he would be able to con- vince Hamilton of his religious errors, and to win him back to the faith of the true Church. He had given much attention to the study * * Campbell acknowledged,' says Spottiswood, p. 62, ' that many things in the Church did need to be reformed, and applauded his judgment in most of the points.' 134 ALEXANDER ALANE. of divinity, and it was but recently that he had publicly refuted the arch-heretic Luther himself, not only to his own satisfaction, but to the satisfaction of all the theologians of St. Andrews. The issue, however, of his interviews with Hamilton, proved very different from what he had expected. The young Lutheran divine proved more than a match for the learned canon.* Hamilton not only silenced Alane in the argument, but sent him home to the Priory confessing himself defeated. The simple Word of God proved more powerful than all the artillery of the schools. Alane found it less easy to conquer this accomplished Lutheran in a face-to-face argu- ment, than it had been to defeat the absent Luther. He returned to his study in the Priory not only disconcerted by his failure, but shaken in his old faith, and much more disposed to go over to the side of his courteous opponent, than to renew the dispute. From that moment a feeling of warm interest in the Keformer sprang up in Alane' s heart, and he was soon afterwards a deeply affected spec- tator of his trial and martyrdom. There must have been something eminently conciliatory and attractive in Hamilton's disposition and manners, to enable him to convert a defeated opponent into his friend and well-wisher. The advantage gained in this instance by his intellect and learning was great; ^for Alane was no contemptible antagonist; but it was as nothing, compared with the conquest which he won by his Christian gentleness and courtesy. The man whom he sent away an overmatched antagonist, lived to become his fervent admirer and his attached disciple, the bearer of his name and influence to foreign kingdoms and churches, and the first his- torian of his teaching, trial, and martyrdom. It is from Alane himself, writing under the more learned name of Alesius, that we learn the important fact, that the Reformer was left at liberty to diffuse the truth in St. Andrews, by means of these public disputations and private interviews, for nearly a whole month. f Knox gives no indication of the length of time which * ' Cum eo collocutus sum, sperans me effecturum ut errorem cognos ceret. Eram turn doctrinfe Seutentiariorum addictus. Verum prseter expec- tationem meam evenit, ut ex ipsius colloquio meum errorem cognoscerem.' — Alesius. + ' Docuit et disputavit palam in academia plus minus mensem priusquam caperetur.' — Alesius. SOWING-TIME. 135 elapsed after his coming to the city before his imprisonment ; and Spottiswood states that the interval was only * some few days.' But Alane, who was in personal communication, as we have just seen, with the Reformer, could not be mistaken upon such a point. And the fact is as important as it is new. It was of great consequence to the interest of the Reformation in this its earliest stage, that Hamilton should have enjoyed so considerable an op- portunity of scattering the seeds of Divine truth, in a soil which was the likeliest of all to yield an ample harvest. At St. An- drews he was at head- quarters, and was brought into communi- cation with a larger variety of influential individuals and classes of men, than he could have met with in any other city of the kingdom. Holding disputations there in defence of the truth, he became the teacher of many of the present and future teachers of the country, and difi'used an influence that was felt not only among the regents and students of the university, but among the clergy of the churches, the lawyers of the ecclesiastical courts, and the numerous fraterni- ties cf three of the chief monasteries of the kingdom. Graduates and Tinder-graduates, doctors and proctors, deans and canons, secu- lars and regulars, Augustinians, Dominicans, and Franciscans — all alike were reached by his voice, and became for several weeks the hearers of his teaching. That busy month of unfettered labour was a precious sowing-time ; and we shall see in the sequel that it was followed by an abundant harvest. CHAPTER VIII. PATRICK HAMILTON'S TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM. SUMMONED TO APPEAR BEFORE BEATON — ADVISED BY HIS FRIENDS TO FLEE FROM ST. ANDREWS, BUT DECLINES TO DO SO— SIR JAMES HAMILTON COLLECTS AN ARMED FORCE TO RESCUE THE REFORMER— INTRIGUES OF THE CLERGY WITH THE KING AND ANGUS — HAMILTON APPEARS BEFORE THE PRIMATE — HIS ARTICLES — JUDGMENT OF THE THEOLOGIANS — AT- TEMPT AT RESCUE BY THE LAIRD OF AIRDRIE APPREHENSION TRIAL IN THE CATHE- DRAL OF ST. ANDREWS — FRIAR CAMPBELL, HIS ACCUSER, SILENCED — SENTENCE — REASON FOR HASTE IN ITS EXECUTION — MARTYRDOM — SENSATION PRODUCED BY THE EVENT AT LOUVAINE, MARBURG, AND MALMOE — CHARACTER OF PATRICK HAMILTON — AFFECTION CHERISHED FOR HIS MEMORY. Non nostra impietas, aut acta crimina vits, Armarunt hostes in mea fata truces. Sola fides Christi, sacris signata libellis, Quae vitse causa est, est mihi causa necis. Epitaph on Walter Mill. No impious deeds of mine, nor crimes denounced, Have armed my cruel foes with deadly rage ; The faith of Christ— sealed by the Word Divine- Sole cause of death is, as of life, to me. CHAPTER VIII. PATRICK Hamilton's trial and maettedom. At length the moment arrived when Beaton and his advisers felt that they might safely take a step in advance. A summons issued to Hamilton requiring him to appear before the Primate on a certain day, to answer to the charge of holding and teaching divers heresies. At last, then, the mask is thrown off, and the men who disingenuously invited him to a conference are now to sit upon the judgment-seat and doom him to death. "^ Hamilton's friends saw what was imminent, and entreated him, while yet at liberty, to save his life by flight from St. Andrews. It was even given out as the Archbishop's private, personal wish, that the Reformer should adopt that course. Strange as this fact may appear, it rests upon the unexceptionable authority of Alex- ander Alane;f and it agrees perfectly with the character given of Beaton by Spottiswood, ' that he was neither violently set, nor much solicitous, as it was thought, how matters went in the Church. ';]: He had probably been urged on in this case much beyond his natural speed by his more energetic and violent nephew, David Beaton, abbot of Arbroath ; and personally he might not be disinclined to spare the life of a youth with whose family he was connected by the bonds of affinity. The Earl of Arran was married to the Primate's niece, Janet Beaton of Creich ; and if Arran, as is ex- tremely probable, at the solicitation of the family of Kincavel, * For notes on the order of events connected with the subject of this chapter, see Note P. + Note Q. } History of the Church and State of Scotland, p. 62. 140 HAMILTON DECLINES TO SATE HIMSELF BY FLIGHT. employed his influence with Beaton on behalf of his young kinsman, it would be quite in keeping with the subtle policy of the Arch- bishop's character to suppose, that he adopted the expedient of causing such an intimation of his personal wishes to be indirectly conveyed to the Eeformer, as the best way of seeming to comply with the Earl's intercession, without giving any serious offence to his more zealous and resolute coadjutors. But Hamilton was as little moved by the report of the Archbishop's private wishes as he was by the more sincere and earnest entreaties of his relatives and friends. He calmly but firmly declined to escape from St. Andrews. ' He had come thither,' he said, 'to confirm the minds of the godly by his death as a martyr to the truth ; and to tui^n his back now would be to lay a stumbling-block in their path, and to cause some of them to fall.' There is some ground for believing, as we shall see in the sequel, that the Reformer's brother, Sir James, hrd remained with him in St. Andrews up till this time ; and that, on finding him resolved not to desert by his own act the post of duty and danger, and foreseeing the violent issue of the proceedings which had now commenced, he returned to Kincavel for the purpose of collecting a body of armed men, and delivering him by main force out of the hands of his persecutors. On one point at least, our information is certain.-'' Whether Sir James at the time was in St. Andrews or not, he was no sooner made aware of the determination of the clergy to proceed to extremities against his brother, than he availed himself of his resources as a baron, a sheriff, and captain of one of the king's castles, to assemble a strong force; and nothing but a continued storm in the Firth prevented him from reaching St. Andrews in time to make an attempt at rescue. He was no doubt well aware, when he took such a strong step, that the clergy were not likely to be thwarted in their violent designs, either by the king or his keepers, the Douglases. He was aware that both the young king and the Earl of Angus were at that very moment intent, from oppo- site motives, upon securing the support of the powerful Archbishop ; for Beaton was equally able to assist the king in e-ffecting his escape from the trammels of Angus, and to aid Angus in retaining his * Alesius, Note Q. THE KING GOES ON A PILGKIMAGE. 141 ascendancy in the government of the kingdom, by prolonging his watchful keepership of the king. When both were eagerly anxious to gain his support, neither party could afford to interfere with his measures; and the sheriff of Linlithgow would appear to have thought himself justified, in these circumstances, in resolving to pre- vent, by force of arms, and without any warrant from the govern- ment, a flagrant deed of cruelty and wrong. JSTor were these mere surmises of Sir James. He had evidence of the best kind before him to satisfy him, that no redress was to be ex- pected from Angus and the king. Solicitation had, in fact, been made to both, and the king, prompted no doubt by the all-powerful Earl, had coldly advised the Reformer to make his peace with the Church.^ At the moment, besides, when Sir James took his resolution to arm his retainers, the young king had set off on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Duthac, in Eoss-shire — a singular journey to make in the very depth of winter, but which the clergy had ' travailled with him to undertake (for he was ' altogether addict,' as Knox tells us, ' to their commandment,') to the end that no intercession should be made for the life of the innocent servant of God.' It was, no doubt, when the bishops had succeeded, with the aid of Angus, in arranging this dexterous contrivance, that they took the first step in the judicial process which was to issue in the death of the Reformer, f This guilty complicity between the government and the bishops is still further confirmed by a fact which Lindsay of Pitscottie re- cords, that at the following ' Pasch,' only a few weeks after, ' Bishop * Leslie ' De Eebus Gestis,' cfcc, p. 427. t Doubt has recently been thrown upon the correctness of the statement made both by Knox and Spottiswood, that the king was induced by the clergy to undertake this pilgrimage to St. Duthac. But the reader is referred to Appendix YI. for two letters; one from James V. to Henry VIII., and the other from Angus to Wolsey, dated the 27th and 30th jNIarch, 1528, that is, only four weeks after the death of Hamilton ; from which it is certain that the king had then just returned from ' the north country, in the extreme parts of his realm.' The English king and the Cardinal had despatched a messenger with letters to the Scottish court from Greenwich, on the J 3th day of Febru- ary ; but on the arrival of the messenger in Edinburgh, James had set out on his journey to the north ; thus making it certain that he must have been in that remote part of the kingdom at the time of Hamilton's death, on the last day of that same month. 142 PRESENTS HIMSELF BEFOEE BEATON. Beaton called the Douglases and the king to St. Andrews, and there made them great cheer and merriness, and gave them great gifts of gold and silver, with fair hacknej-s, and other gifts of tacks and steedings that they would desire of him.'^' Pitscottie adds, that the motive of all these splendid gifts was ' to pacify their wrath there- with and obtain their favour ;' but he would probably have been nearer the truth if he had said, that the Primate's policy was to make the monarch and his chief minister sensible how well the Church was able to reward them for their connivance and support in ecclesiastical affairs. Let them only allow her to have her own way with heretics and reformers, and she will amply repay them with gold and broad acres. From the moment the Reformer received the summons to appear before the Primate and his council, he appears to have redoubled his exertions as an evangelist, and to have concentrated his discourses and disputations upon the most important points in which the Church had departed from the Divine standard of Christian truth. He had hitherto allowed himself a wider range, discussing many topics of a minor degree of importance, and some points of the Church's teaching on which he was not prepared to pronounce with entire decision. But during the short interval that elapsed between his summons and apprehension, he confined himself to the assertion of fundamental truths, and to the refutation of undoubted and im- portant errors. I The Reformer was so far from being daunted by the prospect of the judicial examination which awaited him, that he anticipated the time which the Primate had fixed in the summons. * Being not only forward in knowledge,' says Pox, ' but also ardent in spirit, not tarrying for the hour appointed, he prevented the time, and came very early in the morning before he was looked for.' j; Having thus * Pitscottie's History, p. 140. t See statement contained in the sentence pronounced by Beaton. See also Note P. + Lambert says that Hamilton was summoned to appear on the 1st of March, but presented himself on the last day of February. He confounds, however, two incidents wbich were quite distinct — his a];pearing before the Bishop and liis council for examination, and his appearing before the tribunal of heresy. It could only have been at the preliminary examination that Hamilton was free to ^prevent the time.' HIS ARTICLES. 143 unexpectedly presented himself, he was interrogated by Beaton and his council respecting the following articles : — 1. That the corruption of sin remains in children after their baptism. 2. That no man by the power of his free will can do any good. 3. That no man is without sin so long as he liveth. 4. That every true Christian may know himself to be in the state of grace. 5. That a man is not justified by works, but by faith only. 6. That good works make not a good man, but that a good man doeth good works, and that an ill man doth ill works ; yet the same ill works truly repented make not an ill man. 7. That faith, hope, and charity are so linked together, that he who hath one of them hath all, and he that lacketh one lacketh all. 8. That God is the cause of sin in this sense, that He withdraweth his grace from man, and grace withdrawn, he cannot but sin. 9. That it is a devilish doctrine to teach, that by any actual pen- ance remission of sin is purchased. 10. That auricular confession is not necessary to salvation. 11. That there is no purgatory. 12. That the holy patriarchs were in heaven before Christ's pas- sion. 13. That the Pope is antichrist, and that every priest hath as much power as the Pope. 'Being desired,' says Spottiswood, 'to express his mind touching these articles, he said, ** That he held the first seven to be undoubt- edly true," whereunto he offered to set his hand. " The rest," he said, '' were disputable points, but such as he could not condemn, unless he saw better reasons than yet he had heard." After some conference kept with him on each article, the whole were remitted to the judgment of the theologues ;' and with a show of moderation, which contrasted strangely with the violence of their real designs, the Primate and his advisers allowed him in the mean time to con- tinue at liberty ; as if it had been possible for them to doubt what the decision of the theologians would be in regard to such articles, 1 44 ATTEMPT AT EESCUE. and what the issue must be of a judicial process which they had themselves commenced, and in which they were themselves to be the judges. The Council of Theologians to whom Hamilton's articles were re- ferred included a large proportion of the most learned divines and canonists of St. Andrews. ' There met to this effect/ says Spottis- wood, who had before him, as he wrote, the manuscript process as drawn up under the hands of the theologians themselves, ' Master ^ Hugh Spence, provost of St. Salvator's College ; Master James Waddall, parson of Flisk and rector of the University; Master James Simson, official of St. Andrews; Master Thomas Eamsay, professor of the Holy Scriptures; Master John Grison, theologue, and provincial of the Black Friars ; John Tillidaff, warden of the Grey Friars; Master Martin Balfour and Master John Spence, law- yers ; Sir Alexander Young, Bachelor of Divinity ; Sir John Annand, canon of St. Andrews; Friar Alexander Campbell, prior of the Black Friars ; and Master Robert Bannerman, regent of the Paeda- gogium. These men, within a day or two, presented their censure of the articles, judging them all heretical, and contrary to the faith of the Church.' Whereupon the Primate appointed this judgment to be presented at a solemn meeting of the clergy, to be held in the Cathedral, on the last day of February, 1527-28, and imme- diately took steps to assemble on that day an imposing array of the highest dignitaries of the Church. During this brief interval, however, tidings came to Beaton's ears which obliged him to have recourse to other than ecclesiastical and judicial weapons, in defence of the assailed authority of the Church. Word was brought to St. Andrews that Sir James Hamilton was arming his retainers at Kincavel, and was on the point of march- ing through Fife to rescue his brother out of the hands of his enemies. Nor was it only Sir James who was about to come to the rescue. Intelligence was brought of armed preparations being in progress much nearer liand. John Andrew Duncan, laird of Airdrie, had long been an enemy to the corruptions of the Church, and for some time had enjoyed the personal acquaintance and esteem of the young Reformer. His indignation had been roused by the proceed- ings of the bishops, and he was arming his tenants and servants to attempt the forcible deliverance of his friend. Beaton saw the neces- HIS APPREHENSION. 145 sity of repelling force by force. '^' He was the most powerful man in the whole country between the Forth and the Taj?-, and at his summons several thousand horsemen galloped from all the neighbouring lands to the aid of the Church. It soon became evident that the laird of Airdrie's troop of horse was too slender for the daring enterprise which he meditated. His men were easily surrounded and disarmed by the more numerous squadrons of the Primate's defenders ; and his generous but imprudent attempt would have proved fatal to him, if his own brother-in-law had not managed to be at the head of the troop which took him prisoner. f The Eeformer himself had no liking and no wish for these well- meant appeals to physical force in his defence. He called to mind the words and example of his Lord on a similar occasion : ' Put up thy sword into its sheath.' He had more confidence in the power of a single martyrdom to vanquish the enemies of the truth of God, than in all that could be done for it by armed bands and sharp swords. The only effect which resulted from these attempts of his friends, was to abridge in some degree the precious season allowed him for active exertion in the cause he loved. The Primate con- cluded that it was no longer safe to allow him to remain at large, and issued an order for his immediate apprehension. After nightfall the captain of the castle of St. Andrews drew a band of armed men around the house where Hamilton was lodged, and, presenting himself at the entrance, demanded admission. The Eeformer, accompanied to the door by the group of faithful friends who were still in attendance upon him, calmly inquired of the officer what was his errand, and on receiving his reply, declared his readi- ness at once to surrender himself to his custody. Only he begged that his friends standing by might not be molested ; and addressing them, he commanded them to offer no resistance on his account. They neither altogether obeyed nor altogether disregarded his wishes. They did not use their swords in his defence, but they refused to deliver him up till they had exacted an assurance from the captain that he should be restored again without injury into their hands. J * Alesius, Note Q. + M'Crie's Life of Andrew Melville, Note D. + These incidents of Hamilton's apprehension are derived from the account of Alesius, Note Q. L 146 HIS ACCUSER, FRTAE CAMPBELL. Everything was now ready for the last acts of the tragedy. The last day of February arrived, and an immense concourse of people flocked to the cathedral at an early hour. The Primate passed from the castle with a numerous train of bishops, abbots, priors, and doctors, and took his seat on the chief bench of the tribunal of heresy. The Abbot of Arbroath was there to take care that his victim should not escape at the last moment, and that no force of argument em- ployed in his defence should be able to turn aside the vengeance of the Church. And Patrick Hepburn, the Prior of St. Andrews, took his seat on the bench, as if to show how much zeal against heresy may be manifested by a man who has none for the commonest maxims of religion and virtue. Patrick Hamilton was conducted from his prison in the castle to the church, under a strong guard of horsemen, and was placed in a pulpit where he could be seen and heard by the whole assembly. Then the process began. Pirst, the doctors of theology handed up to the bench their Judgment on the articles, subscribed with all their hands. Then Priar Campbell stood forward to read over the articles with a loud voice, and to charge them one by one upon the prisoner. Alexander Alane was in the crowd of spectators, ^nd has graphically described several features of the scene. ' I was myself,' says he, ' an eye-witness of the tragedy, and heard him answering for his life to the charges of heresy which were laid against him. These were read aloud by a Dominican friar ; and he was so far from disowning the doctrines which were alleged against him as heresies, that he defended and established them by clear testimonies of Scripture, and refuted the reasonings of his accuser. He took care also to guard his doctrine against the calumny that the faith of which he spoke might be no better than the faith of devils and hypocrites, and not that reliance of the heart which draws along with it repentance, hope, and charity. He was careful to explain that faith, hope, and charity are so knit together that he who has any one of them has all, and he who is destitute of one is destitute of all.' The Dominican used arguments to prove that the articles were heretical, but Hamilton detected his sophistries, and exposed the nullity of his proofs. At length Campbell was silenced, and was obliged to turn to the tribunal for fresh instructions. The Bishops enjoined him to desist from reasoning — to call the Reformer heretic to his face — HIS -DNWRITTEX ARTICLES. 147 and to justify the opprobrium by overwhelming him with new accu- sations.* Campbell disliked the task ; his conscience misgave him ; he remembered the admissions which he had made to Hamilton in private. But he had consented to be an actor, and he must go on with his part. ' Heretick ! ' he exclaimed, turning again to the Reformer. ' Nay, brother,' replied Hamilton mildly, interrupting him before he could proceed further ; ' you do not think me heretick in your heart; in your conscience you know that I am no heretick.' * Heretick ! ' reiterated Campbell, stifling the emotion which such an appeal must have called up in his heart ; ' heretick ! thou saidst it was lawful to all men to read the Word of God, and specially the I^ew Testament.' ' I wot not,' replied Hamilton, ' if I said so; but I say now, it is reason and lawful to all men that have souls to read the Word of God, and that they are able to understand the same, and in particular, the latter will and testament of Christ Jesus, whereby they may acknowledge their sins and repent of the same, and amend their lives by faith and repentance, and come to the mercy of God by Christ Jesus.' ' Now, heretick, I see that thou affirmest the words of thy accusation.' * I affirm nothing but the word which I have spoken in the presence of this auditory.' ' Now, farther,' continued Campbell ; * thou sayest it is not lawful to worship imagery.' * I say no more,' replied the Eeformer, * than what God spake to Moses in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, in the second commandment, ''Thou shalt not make any graven image; thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them." And also David, in his Psalms, eurseth them that are the makers of images, and the maintainers and worshippers of the same.' Then answered the accuser, ' Heretick, knowest thou not that imagery is the books of the laic and common people, to put them in remembrance of the holy saints that wrought for their salvation?' ' Brother !' rejoined Hamilton, ' it ought to be preaching of the true Word of God that should put the people in remembrance of the blood of Christ and their salvation.' ' Heretick ! thou sayest it is but lost labour to pray to or call upon saints, and in particular on the blessed Virgin Mary, or John, James, Peter, or Paul, as mediators to God for us.' Mr. Patrick answered, ' I say with Paul, *' There is no mediator * See Note P. 148 HIS NOBLE CONFESSION-. betwixt God and man, but Christ Jesus his Son ;" and whatsoever they be who call or pray to any saint departed, they spoil Christ Jesus of his office.' ' Heretick ! thou sayest it is all in vain our labours made for them that are departed, when we sing soul-masses, psalms, and dirigies, which are the relaxation of the souls that are departed, who are continued in the pains of purgatory.' ' Brother ! I have never read in the Scripture of God of such a place as purga- tory ; nor yet believe I that there is anything that may purge the souls of men but the blood of Christ Jesus, which ransom standeth in no earthly thing, nor in soul-mass nor dirigie, nor in gold nor Bilver, but only by repentance of sins, and faith in the blood of Christ Jesus.'* Such was Patrick Hamilton's noble confession in the face of that solemn tribunal and immense assembly. He disguised nothing that was in his heart. He spoke out the whole truth of God as he knew it, though well aware what his great * plainness of speech ' would cost him ; and he spoke the truth in love, calling even his oppro- brious and perfidious accuser, Brother. The object of his unrighteous judges was now completely gained. They had succeeded in making out what would be considered by the vast majority of the assembly, a strong case against the accused ; and they had done so by means of his own frank avowals. These last points of heresy, indeed — those which had been elicited by Campbell's oral charges — were not the same as the written articles which had been condemned by the doctors and were inserted in the sentence about to be pronounced ; but they were heresies of a kind to be palpable and odious to every zealot of the Roman Church. Every devotee in that assembly of devotees was now satisfied, that he saw before him at the Church's bar a decided antagonist to his own religious faith and practice. The accused had spoken against prayers to the saints, and they were all saint- worshippers. He had even spoken against prayers to the blessed Virgin, and they were all adorers of Mary. He had condemned the use of images, which they were all daily kneeling to ; and he had denied the existence of purgatory, which they all believed in as firmly as in heaven and hell. The Prior of the Dominicans did not need to add another word of * Pitscottie's History of Scotland, pp. 133, 134. THE SENTENCE. 149 accusation ; and he knew it. Turning round to the tribunal he said, * My Lord Archbishop, you hear he denies the institutions of holy Kirk, and the authority of our holy father the Pope. I need not to accuse him any more.' The Primate, with the unanimous consent of his assessors, then solemnly pronounced the following sentence : — Christi Nomine invocato — ' We, James, by the mercy of God, Archbishop of St. Andrews, Primate of Scotland, with the counsel, decree, and authority of the most reverend fathers in God, and lords, abbots, doctors of theology, professors of the Holy Scriptures, and masters of the university assisting us for the time, sitting in judg- ment within our metropolitan church of St. Andrews, in the cause of heretical pravity against Magister Patrick Hamilton, abbot or pen- sionary of Feme, being summoned to appear before us to answer to certain articles affirmed, taught, and preached by him ; and so ap- pearing before us and accused, the merits of the cause being ripely weighed, discussed, and understood by faithful inquisition made in Lent last past ; ^* we have found the same Magister Patrick many ways infamed 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 him before to be summoned and accused upon the premises, he of evil mind (as may be presumed) passed to other parts forth of the realm, suspected and noted of heresy ; and being lately returned, not being admitted, but of his own head, without licence or privilege, hath presumed to preach wicked heresy. We have found also that he hath affirmed, published, and taught divers opinions of Luther and wicked heresies after that he was summoned to appear before us and our council, — That man hath no free will; that man is in sin as long as he liveth ; that children incontinent after their baptism are sinners ; all Christians that be worthy to be called Christians do know that they are in grace ; no man is justi- fied by works, but by faith only ; good works make not a good man, but a good man doth make good works ; that faith, hope, and * The Lent here mentioned must have been that of the preceding year, 1527, as Lent of 1528 did not begin till near the end of February. 1 50 HAiriLTOX LED BACK TO PKISOX. charity are so knit, that he that hath the one hath the rest, and he that wauteth the one of them wanteth the rest, &c., with divers other heresies and detestable opinions ; and hath persisted so obstinate in the same, that by no counsel or persuasion he may be drawn there- from to the way of our right faith. ^ All these premises being considered, we, having God and the integrity of our faith before our eyes, and following the counsel and advice of the professors of the Holy Scriptures, men of law, and others assisting us for the time, do pronounce, determine, and declare the said Magister Patrick Hamilton, for his affirming, con- fessing, and maintaining the foresaid heresies, and his pertinacity (they being condemned already by the Church, general councils, and most famous universities) to be an heretic, and to have an evil opinion of the faith, and therefore to be condemned and punished ; like as we condemn and define him to be punished, by this our sen- tence definitive, depriving him, and sentencing him to be deprived of all dignities, honours, orders, ofiices, and benefices of the Church ; and therefore do judge and pronounce him to be delivered over to the secular power to be punished, and his goods to be confiscate. ' This our sentence definitive was given and read at our Metro- politan Church of St. Andrews, the last day of the month of February, anno 1527 ;'^' being present the Most Reverend Fathers in Christ and Lords, Gawand, bishop of Glasgow; George, bishop of Dunkel- den ; John, bishop of Brechin ; William, bishop of Dunblane Patrick, prior of St. Andrews ; David, abbot of Aberbrothock George, abbot of Dunfermline ; Alexander, abbot of Cambuskenneth Henry, abbot of Lindores ; John, prior of Pittenweem ; the dean and sub-dean of Glasgow ; Mathew Spens ; Thomas Ramsay; Allane Meldrum, &c. In the presence of the clergy and people.' Such was the sentence : ' and to give it the greater authority, who- soever were of any estimation in the university were made to sub- scribe the same ; amongst whom was the Earl of Cassillis, a child of thirteen years old !' The tribunal instantly rose, and Hamilton was conducted back to his prison under a strong guard. As the captain of the castle leit the cathedral wdth his prisoner, he called aloud for Sir James Hamil- * Anno 1528, according to our present reckoning. HASTE IN EXECUTING THE SENTENCE. 151 ton to come and receive his brother out of his hands. He knew perfectly well that Sir James was not then in St. Andrews. But he remembered the pledge he had given to the prisoner's friends ; and it was in this evasive manner that the bishops had instructed him to redeem it.*' It was appointed that the execution of the sentence should take place that very day. The Archbishop had made sure that the warrant of the secular power would not be withheld. It was immediately obtained ; but from what minister of the law is not known. The usual formalities of degradation from the orders of the priesthood were dispensed with ; and in a few hours after Hamilton had heard his doom in the cathedral, executioners were preparing the stake at which he was to die, in front of the gate of St. Salva- tor's College. To account for this cruel and indecent haste, it has been surmised by our historians that the clergy were apprehensive of the execution being stayed by the interposition of the king. Eut the king at that moment was at the shrine of St. Duthac ; and Angus, his prime minister, was not the man to employ his power to his own disad- vantage. If he had all the strength he had none of the feelings or natural affections of a king. It is more probable that the bishops were in dread of Sir James Hamilton's attempt to effect a rescue. Alane informs us that the guard which conducted the Eeformer between the cathedral and castle was several thousand strong. Such an imposing display of force could only be owing to an apprehension of attack ; and the same apprehension is sufficient to account for the hastening of the execution. At noon Patrick Hamilton was seated at table in an apartment of the castle, a^raiting calmly the signal for setting out to the closing scene. The martyr was ready for the stake, as well as the stake for the martyr. The spirit of power and of love had fallen abundantly * We see here the reason which exists for thinking that Sir James Hamilton had accompanied the Eeformer to St. Andrews. If he had not been there with his brother at any time during the last month, the clergy would scarcely have ventured to pretend that they were under the impression that he was there now. But if he had been in the city recently, they had some colour for affecting to have the impression that he was there still. 152 EEFIJSES TO EECANT. upon him, and the most perfect composure, resolution, and self-devo- tion filled his soul. When the hour of noon struck he sent for llie captain and inquired whether all was ready. The captain, more humane than his masters, was unable to tell him plain 1)^ the fatal truth ; he could only hint that the last hour had even come. Hamilton immediately rose from his seat, and, putting his hand into the captain's, walked forth with a quick step towards the place of execution.* He carried in his right hand a copy of the evangelist?, and was accompanied by his servant and a few intimate friends. "When he came in sight of the spot, he uncovered his head, and, lifting up his eyes to heaven, addressed himself in silent prayer to Him who alone could give him a martyr's strength and victory. On reaching the stake, he handed to one of his friends the precious volume which had long been his companion, and the rod of his strength ; and taking off his cap and gown and other upper gar- ments, he gave them to his attendant, with the words, * These will not profit in the fire ; they will profit thee. After this, of me thou canst receive no commodity, except the example of my death, which I pray thee bear in mind. For albeit it be bitter to the flesh, and fearful before man, yet is it the entrance to eternal life, which none shall possess that denies Christ Jesus before this wicked generation.' The officials of the Archbishop had stationed themselves near the stake, and made a last attempt to overcome his constancy. They offered him his life if he would recant the confession which he had made in the cathedral. * As to my confession,' he replied, ' I will not deny it for the awe of your fire, for my confession and belief is in Christ Jesus. Therefore I will not deny it ; and I will rather be content tliat my body burn in this fire for confession of my faith in Christ, than my soul should burn in the fire of hell for denying the same. But as to the sentence pronounced against me this day by the bishops and doctors, I here, in presence of you all, appeal con- trary the said sentence and judgment given against me, and take me to the mercy of God.'f The executioners then stepped forward to do their office. They bound the martyr to the stake by an iron chain, which was passed * Alesius, Note Q. + This and several other interesting incidents of the martyrdom are recorded by Pitscottie. SOLEMN ACT OF SELF- OBLATION-. 153 round his middle, and they prepared to set fire to the pile of wood and coals. ' The servant of God,' says Pitscottie, ' entered in con- templation and prayer to Almighty God to be merciful to the people who persecuted him, for there were many of them blinded in igno- rance, that they knew not what they did. He also besought Christ Jesus to be Mediator for him to the Father, and that He would strengthen him with His Holy Spirit, that he might steadfastly abide the cruel pains and flames of fire prepared for him by that cruel people. Addressing himself likewise to the Father, he prayed that the pains of that torment might not be the occasion to make him swerve from any point of his faith in Christ Jesus, but to strengthen and augment him in his spirit and knowledge of the promise of God, and to receive his soul in His hands for Christ Jesus' sake, '*in whose name I make this oblation and offering — that is to say, my body in the fire, and my soul in the hands of Almighty God." Fire was now laid to the pile, and exploded some powder which was placed among the faggots. The martyr's left hand and left cheek were scorched by the explosion ; but though thrice kindled the flames took no steadj^ hold of the pile. 'Have you no dry wood?' de- manded the suff'erer. ' Have you no more gunpowder ?'*' It was some time before fresh billets and powder could be fetched from the castle, and his sufl'erings during the interval were extremely acute. Notwithstanding, ' he uttered divers comfortable speeches to the by- standers,' and addressed himself calmly to more than one of the friars, who molested him with their cries, bidding him convert, pray to our Lady, and say, ' Salve Eegina.' To one of them he said with a smile, • You are late with your advice, when you see me on the point of being consumed in the flames. If I had chosen to recant I need not have been here. But I pray you come forward and testify the truth of your religion by putting your little finger into this fire, in which I am burning with my whole body.'f To another of the friars he was constrained to speak in a severer and more indignant tone. It was Friar Campbell, his betrayer and accuser. That bad man was foremost among the tormentors of his last moments. Once * This and several other highly interesting circumstances of the afifect- ing scene, not hitherto mentioned by any of the historians, are derived I'rom Alesius. Note Q. + Alesius, Note Q. 154 HIS MAETYEDOM COMPLETED. and again the sufferer besought him to depart and no more to trouble him, but in vain. At last he struck upon his conscience with these words of righteous severity : * Wicked man ! thou knowest it is the truth of God for which I now suffer. So much thou didst confess unto me in private, and thereupon I appeal thee to answer before the judgment-seat of Christ.' Patrick Hamilion bore in many points a resemblance to the be- loved disciple John. But John was a son of thunder as well as the apostle of love. Sometimes, when truth required it, the words which fell from him were liker bolts from the clouds than honey from the comb. The Eeformer had much of his * spirit of love,' but he had much also of his * spirit of power.' Mean\\ hile the executioners had returned from the castle, and the flames were rekindled. ' A baker, also, called Myrton, ran and brought his arms full of straw and cast it into the fire ; whereupon there came a blast of wind from the east, forth of the sea, and raised the flame of fire so vehemently that it blew upon the friar who had accused him, and threw him upon the ground, burning all the fore- part of his cowl.' The terror and confusiou of the conscience-stricken Dominican contrasted strangely with the calmness of the martyr. Surrounded and devoured by fierce flames, he had still recollected- ness enough to remember, in his torment, his widowed mother, and to commend her with his dying breath to the care and sympathy of his friends. When nearly burnt through his middle by the fiery chain, a voice in the crowd of spectators called aloud to him, that if he still had faith in the doctrine for which he died he should give a last sign of his constancy. Whereupon he raised three fingers of his half-consumed hand, and held them steadily in that position till he ceased to live.* His last audible words were, ' How long, Lord, shall darkness overwhelm this kingdom ? How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of men ? Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !' It was six o'clock in the evening before his body was quite re- duced to ashes. The execution had lasted for nearly six hours ; ' but during all that time,' says Alexander Alane, who had witnessed with profound emotion the whole scene, ' the martyr never gave one sign of impatience or anger, nor ever called to Heaven for vengeance * Alesius, Note Q. FATHER AXD SON COMPARED. 155 upon his persecutors : so great was his faith, so strong his confidence in God.' Thus tragically hut gloriously died, on the 29th day of February, 1528, Patrick Hamilton — a noble martyr in a noble cause. At a time when the power of the Roman Church in Scotland was yet entire and overwhelming, he found it impossible to serve the cause of the recovered Gospel by the labours of a long life ; but he joyfully embraced the honour of serving it by the heroic constancy and devotion of his death ; and probably, by dying for it in the very flower of his age, he served its interests more effectually, as his country was then cir- cumstanced, than if he had been permitted to go on with his ministry for many years. Such a martyrdom was precisely what Scotland needed t^ stir it to its depths, and rouse it to attention and reflection. Such a death had more awakening power in it than the labours of a long life. If his spoken words had been brief and few, they had at least been pithy and pregnant words ; they had been ' the words of the wise, which are as goads, and as nails fastened in a sure place,' and his fiery martyrdom clenched and riveted them in the nation's heart for ever. He conquered by dying. He spoiled prin- cipalities and powers by giving his body into their power. He lighted a candle that day in Scotland which could never afterwards be put out. ' While he lived,' said the elegant poet who sang of the crowns of the Scottish martyrs, ' his light was a fire,' so fervent was his zeal for God and his country. * When he died, the fire of his pile was a light to lighten a benighted land.'* The violent death of the son naturally reminds us of the violent death of the father eight years before. The death of Sir Patrick on the streets of Edinburgh was the death of a hero of chivalry. The death of his son at St. Andrews was the death of a hero of religion — in the noble battle of God's truth — in the high service of the reli- gious emancipation of his country. In both sire and son we dis- cover the same high and noble sense of honour and duty, as they severally understood what honour and duty required at their hands * ' vivus lucis qui fulserat igne Par erat, ut moriens lumina ab igne daret.' See ' Excerpta e Poematibus Johannis Jonstoni, quibus tituli Ilfpi "Erecpavajv, sive de Coronis Martyrum in Scotia, necnon Peculium Ecclesise Scoticuiiae' — contained in Supplement to M'Grie's Life of Knox. 156 SENSATION PEODFCED BY THE EVENT. — in both, the same intrepid virtue in the presence of danger — the same forwardness 'before the lave' in the path of noble daring and self-devotion. But along with these grand resemblances there were also exhibited some striking contrasts. The father died a victim to the faction and ambition of his powerful house ; the son gave himself a sacrifice to his country and the church of God. The father poured forth his blood in the noble but tragic rage of insulted honour, and to vindicate his good name as a soldier and a Hamilton ; the son yielded his life with the calm and gentle, but resolute fortitude of a martyr, praying with his latest breath for his murderers : ' Father ! forgive them.' The brave Sir Patrick died the last, or all but the last, of the Scottish knights of the middle age — the age of chivalry. His son had nothing in him of the middle age save the noble and generous blood which it transmitted to him. He was the first illustrious Scotsman of modern times. The sensation produced by Patrick Hamilton's death throughout the kingdom was profound, and was all in favour of the cause which the clergy had hoped to crush by so terrible a blow. It startled the minds of men into attention. It stimulated their curiosity to inquire into the merits of a cause for which a young nobleman, of such high rank and expectation, so gifted and accomplished, so good and gentle, had been content to die. It preoccupied many in favour of a refor- mation which had not only such men for its disciples and martyrs, but which was so strong in argument that its adversaries could only persecute, but not refute it. The bishops and doctors ima- gined that they had destroyed the Reformation in its cradle, but it proved itself an infant Hercules, and strangled the serpents which attempted to destroy it. ' When these cruel wolves,' says Knox, ' had, as they supposed, clean devoured the prey, they find them- selves in worse case than they were before ; for then within St. Andrews, yea, almost within the whole realm, there was none found who began not to inquire, Wherefore was Master Patrick Hamilton burnt ? And when his articles were rehearsed, question was holden if such articles were necessary to be believed under the pain of damnation. And so within short space many began to call in doubt that which before they held for a certain verity.'* • History of the Eeformation, vol. i. p. 36. SENSATION AT MAEBURG AND MALMOE. 157 The vibration of feeling produced by the tragedy was felt even in foreign lands. When informed of the event by Alexander Galloway, canon of Aberdeen, the doctors of Louvaine were filled with a cruel joy, and wrote to Beaton to thank him for his services to the common faith, and to congratulate, almost with envy, the University of St- Andrews upon the honours which it had earned by such an edifying display of catholic zeal. The manner of the proceeding, they declared, with a savage delight, had been no less pleasant than the transaction itself was commendable; everything had been done so prudently, and the order of the law in all points so well observed. And with no less complacency did they anticipate that the example so worthily set by the ' excellent virtue ' of the Archbishop would find many imitators in other lands. ' Believe not,' say they to the persecutors — ' believe not that this example shall have place only among you, for there shall be those among externe nations which shall imitate the same.'* At Marburg the grief of the Reformers was only equalled by their admiration. 'He came to your university,' exclaimed Lambert, addressing the Landgrave not many months after, ' out of Scotland, that remote corner of the world ; and he returned to his country again to become its first and now illustrious apostle. He was all on fire with zeal to confess the name of Christ, and he has ofi'ered himself to God as a holy, living sacrifice. He brought into the church of God not only all the splendour of his station and gifts, but his life itself. Such is the flower of surpassing sweetness, yea, the ripe fruit, which your university has produced in its very commencement. You have not been disappointed of your wishes. You founded this school with the desire that from it might go forth intrepid confessors of Christ, and steadfast assertors of His truth. See, you have one such already, an example in many ways illustrious. Others, if the Lord will, will follow soon.'f At Malmoe, in Sweden, where the Beformation was just begin- ning to strike its roots, and where there was settled, apparently, a small colony of Scottish traders, who had imbibed its doctrines, the feeling produced by the event was so strong, that several years later •• For this ' letter congratulatory,' see Note R. f For the whole passage, in Lambert's own words, see Note S. 158 PATEiCK Hamilton's charactkk. it broke out in an epistle addressed to ' the Nobil Lordis and Baronis of Scotland/ by John Gaw, who was probably engaged as a chaplain to his countrymen in that city. In this interesting letter, which forms part of one of the very earliest productions of the Scottish Eeformers, the zealous writer inveighs against ' the blind guides and pastors who seek but the milk and wool of the sheep, and yet think no shame to call themselves vicars of Christ, and successors of the apostles. They preach dreams and fables and traditions of men, and not the evangel; and if any among them would preach it, and not their traditions, they are holden for heretics, as ye know by experience of Patrick Hamilton, whom they put cruelly to the death ; but now he lives with Christ, whom he confessed before the princes of this world ; but the voice of his blood cries yet with the blood of Abel to the heavens.'* Of all our Scottish martyrs the character of Patrick Hamilton has universally been felt to be the most interesting and attractive ; a feeling which will not be diminished, we are confident, by the new facts which have now been added to his biography. On the contrary, every new line and touch which has been put into the old familiar portrait, only serves to enhance the effect of its singular beauty and grace. His spiritual character needs no eulogy. It is worthy of the earliest and best age of the Church. It is seldom that history has exhibited to us a man so thoroughly Christianized, so consistently Christ-like both in life and death, so full and faith- ful an image of Him who is Himself the outshining and express image of God. His simple maxim as a disciple was ' to follow the footsteps of his Lord ; ' and it is admirable to see how fully he fol- lowed Him, not only to bonds and to death, not only in the sense of bearing a cross like the crucified One, but also in the whole tone and spirit in which he bore it ; not only living and dying for the truth, but living and dying for it in love.f The qualities which chiefly drew and overcame his heart in the character of his Lord were his gentleness and goodness. ' We have a good and gentle Lord,' was his touching testimony ; * let us follow His steps.' But it is still more touching to see how beautifully and * See Note T. ■j" aXrjdevijjr ev ayuTrr] — Epli. iv. 15. HIS INTELLECTUAL GIFTS. 159 tenderly he exhibited this gentleness of goodness in his own spirit and bearing. "We can admire and appreciate a strong and heroic character even when it is rough, and rugged, and ungainly, when all its words are blows, and all its actions thunderbolts of power. But we have double reason to admire and appreciate when we see heroism and gentleness, strength and beauty, constancy and courtesy combined. It is not often that qualities so different, so almost oppo- site, are found together in one mind. They were joined in a high degree of perfection in the character of Patrick Hamilton. If in spiritual and moral qualities he occupied a place in the first rank, in intellectual powers he was entitled to take a position in- ferior only to the first. "VVe cannot claim for him the gift of crea- tive genius. He created nothing ; he led the way, in point of original thinking, in nothing. He was a Lutheran, not a Luther ; a disciple, not a master. But he was one of the quickest and most capable of disciples. If he had not the power of originating thought, he had uncommon power of mastering and appropriating the ideas which were originated by others, of grasping the teaching of his masters in its deepest principles, of penetrating all its inner rela- tions, and of reproducing the whole in an independent way of his own. Under his vigorous hand all the parts of a complex mass of ideas and principles fell rapidly into their appropriate places, and arranged themselves into a compact and well-ordered system of truth. He was a master of intellectual antithesis ; he discerned rapidly and clearly the mutual repulsions as well as the mutual attractions of principles, and, firmly fixed and poised at the opposite poles, the whole sphere of his theological views moved with a steady and stately revolution. His ' Places ' bear ample testimony to these qualities of his intellect. Their ripeness of theological and religious perception is marvellous ; and taken in connection with his extreme youth, and the shortness of the period during which he had been a disciple of the Ptcformation, that remarkable work could only have been the fruit of a mind of extraordinary capacity — in that primary sense of capacity which denotes a power to receive and to hold, as distinguished from a power to originate and create. It may need high powers to take in and master all that a great genius teaches ; although such powers are confessedly inferior to those which enable the teacher to originate what his disciples can only receive. 1 60 HIS MEMOET FONDLY CHERISHED. The memory of Patrick Hamilton flourished like an amaranth in thie hearts of those who had known him as a friend and teacher, to the latest day of their lives. Kearly twenty years after his death, Alexander Alane, in the midst of an address, sent from Germany into Scotland — in which he appealed in behalf of the Eeforma- tion to all ranks of the kingdom — broke forth into a pathetic apo- strophe to his departed master, in ^^'hich he avowed his inability to do justice to his character and merits, and lamented his death as bitterly as if his heart had been bleeding from a newly-inflicted wound — ' And was it indeed possible, Patricius, that the audacity and tyranny of impious men should prevail so far as to strike down thee ? How can I enough deplore our loss in being left, nay, justly forsaken of thee ? How can I enough deplore the wickedness and cruelty of thy enemies, nay of Christ's ?' It was more than a quarter of a century after his martyrdom, when Alane penned that account of his life and death which has contributed so materially to the pre- ceding narrative. He was the first writer to rear such a monument to his memoiy ; and it is a curious instance of the truth that the monuments raised by the pen are more enduring than those of the architect or the sculptor, that at a distance of more than three hun- dred years, the writings of Patrick Hamilton's first biographer should be forthcoming from the dust of remote libraries, to add new facts to our knowledge of his life and death, and to weave fresh leaves into the unwithering chaplet that surrounds his name. CHAPTER IX. PATRICK HAMILTOTnI^S INFLUENCE UPON THE SCOTTISH CLERGY. THE HAMILTON PERIOD OF THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION — THE SCOTTISH AUGCSTINIANS— THE RULE OF ST. AUGUSTIN — THE PRIORY OF ST. ANDREWS— ALEXANDER ALANE — HIS SERMON TO THE CLERGY, IMPRISONMENT, AND FLIGHT — GAVYN LOGIE —JOHN WYNRAM AND OTHER CANONS — ABBEY OF CAMBUSKENNETH — ABBEY OF INCH-COLME — DEAN THOMAS FOKRET — THE SCOTTISH DOMINICANS— JOHN ADAMSON AND CONVENTUAL REFORM — CONVENT OF ST. ANDREWS AND PRIOR CAMPBELL — ALEXANDER SEYTON— JAMES HEWAT — JOHN M'ALPINE JOHN M'DOWEL — JOHN KIELLOR — JOHN BEVERIDGE — JOHN ROUGH — THOMAS GUILLIAME — JOHN WILLOCK — THE BENEDICTINES — THE FRANCISCANS — THE CORDELIERS — THE CARTHUSIANS — THE CISTERCIANS — THE SECULAR CLERGY. And yet erer still did some lycht burst out in the myddis of darkness, for the trewth of Christ resus entered even in the cloasters, as weall of frieris as of monks and channounis. Knox's Histoey. CHAPTER IX. PATRICK Hamilton's influence upon the Scottish cleegt. There are only three names that can be considered entitled to occupy the foremost rank of Scottish reformers, and we claim for Patrick Hamilton the distinction of being one of the three — of stand- ing side by side with George Wishart and John Knox. It was from these three eminent preachers and confessors that the Eeformation, viewed as a spiritual and religious movement, was chiefly propa- gated. There was an interval of seventeen years between the return of Hamilton from Germany in 1527, and that of Wishart from England in 1544; and we may perhaps be allowed to designate that interval the Hamilton period of the Scottish Eeformation. Eor in point of popular power and effect as a preacher and teacher, Hamilton had no equal nor any proper successor till the appearance of Wishart ; and the type of his theology continued to characterise the doctrines of the Eeforming party down to the same period. The principles and views put forth in the able ' Answers ' of Sir John Borthwick, to the charges of heresy laid against him by Cardinal Beaton in 1540, are in no degree more advanced, on doctrinal points, than those which had been expounded by Hamilton himself. There was no change in that respect till the advent of Wishart. Wishart was a theologian and reformer in the sense of the Helvetic Confession. He had visited the reformed churches of Switzerland, and agreed so thoroughly with theii* Eirst Confession, that he executed a translation ^/ 164 PROMINENCE or THE AUGTJSTINIANS. of it for the benefit of his countrymen ; * and the accounts which have come down to us of his preaching, disclose how earnestly and fully he taught the Swiss doctrine of the sacraments. But it does not appear that Hamilton had promulgated any doctrine on that head, either Lutheran or Helvetic, save in the negative form of a rejection of the Eoman dogmas of the mass and baptismal efficacy. And as the same remarkable silence is preserved in the answers of Borthwick, we may regard this as good evidence that Hamilton's theological teaching had continued to give type to the doctrine of the Scottish Eeformers down to 1540. On a careful examination of the traces of Hamilton's influence during the period now defined, it will be found that it principally afi'ected three sections of his countrymen — the Augustinian canons, / the Dominican friars, and the nobility and upper ranks of several parts of the kingdom. At a later period the E-eformation became much more widely and indiscriminately difi'used through all classes of the community ; but it is a striking peculiarity of its earliest stage that the great majority of its converts belonged to one or other of these three sections. Few of the secular clergy are named as having embraced the evangelical doctrines during that period ; and few or none of the Franciscans, the Cistercians, the Benedictines, or the Carmelites ; and few or none of the regents or professors in the universities, save such as belonged to the Augustinian order. Every one must have noticed the very prominent position which was taken in the general history of the Eeformation by the order of St. Augustin. Luther himself, it is well known, was an Augus- tinian monk ; and Staupitz, the first man from whom Luther learned any rudiment of evangelical truth, was vicar-general of the order in Saxony and Thuringia. It was the same in Flanders, in France, and in Spain. The Augustinians of Antwerp were the first Lu- therans of the Low Countries, and gave up to the cause of the Ee- formation, in the great square of Brussels, its two first martyrs — • Henry Voes and John Esch. John Castellane, one of the earliest and most eminent of the French Protestants, was ' a religious man of the Friars Eremites, of the order of St. Austin.' Dr. Cazalla, * Wishai't's Translation of the Former Confession of the Helvetian Churches is printed in the Miscellany of the Wodrow Society, edited by David Laing, Esq., vol. i. THE ETJLE OF ST. AUGUSTIX. 165 the celebrated Spanish Lutheran, who perished at Yalladolid in the auto-da-fe of 1559, and who is described as ' a standard-bearer of the Gospellers,' was an Augustinian friar >- It was the same also in England. Dr. Robert Barnes, one of the first Englishmen who ventured to tell Wolsey the truth, and who afterwards suffered martyrdom in Smithfield, was prior of the Augustinian monastery of Cambridge, where he gave shelter to the preaching of Latimer and Bilney, when these reformers were driven from the university pulpit of St. Mary's. It proved the same in Scotland too. It was the Scottish Augustinians who first gave disciples to the Reforma- tion, and who first suffered in its cause. Patrick ECamilton was himself the abbot of an Augustinian house ; and Alexander Alane, his first and most eminent convert, was, as we have seen, a canon- regular of the Augustinian j)riory of St. Andrews. The Rule of this order was, in truth, eminently favourable to the entrance of the principles of the Reformation among its adherents. Though destitute of any valid claim to be considered the production of Augustin himself, it was in no respect unworthy of the name of that celebrated father. It prescribed a spiritual and moral disci- pline, well fitted to form its disciples to sound and enlightened views of Christian character and duty. It consisted almost entirely of practical principles derived from the New Testament, and was sin- gularly free of any admixture of superstition, or of merely tradi- tional and conventional morality. The life-order which it prescribed went back to the earliest and purest age of the Church for its models of Christian excellence, and was little more than a reiteration of the ethical maxims of the apostles themselves. A curious 'Exegesis' of the Rule was given to the world in 1530, by Robert Richardson, a canon of the Augustinian abbey of Cambuskenneth, who boasts that there was no other Rule in existence which could be compared to it. * It was not formed,' he warmly urges, ' like most others, upon the institutes of those holy fathers who lived as Coenobites, but upon the example of the life of the apostles themselves — an example which was instituted by the infallible wisdom of God. And by how much that sacred senate of the apostles was more excellent than the college of the sainted fathers, by so much is the life of the former * Fox's Acts and Mouuuients, vol. iv. pp. 362, 45i. 1C6 ALEXANDER ALANE. more excellent than the institutes of the latter.' He lauds also the superiority of the Eule to all others in respect to spirituality. ' While all others are occupied with mere bodily observances — with fastings, vigils, and mortifications — the Rule of our most holy parent is taken up entirely with the spiritual duties of love to God and man, unity of heart, concord in doing good, offices of devotion, and such like ; and certainly, as much as the soul is more noble than the body, so much is a spiritual law more excellent than a carnal one, and spiritual exercises to be preferred to mere corporeal discipline.' He commends, likewise, with good reason, the moderation of its precepts. ' They are neither too burdensome,' he urges, ' nor too easy ; they avoid extremes ; they are equally opposed to austerity and to indulgence. They hit that happy middle path in which all virtue is justly con- sidered to be found.' ^'' As was naturally to be expected from Hamilton's intimacy with the members of the Priory of St. Andrews, that house took the lead of all the religious houses of the kingdom, in espousing the cause for which he had laboured and died ; and, as might have been antici- pated from the deep impression which his teaching had made upon Alexander Alane, while he was yet alive, Alane was the first of all his brethren to speak out his mind, regarding the violence and cruelty which had been displayed in the martyr's death. The Primate and the Prior expected to find their deed applauded by every man in St. Andrews ; and they resented the disappointment, when they found that Alane, and several other canons of the Priory, could not be in- duced to approve of their proceedings. It was probably with the view of entrapping Alane, who was the most decided of the malcontents, into an open declaration of his views, that the Primate appointed him to the dangerous duty of preaching before a provincial synod of the clergy, which assembled in St. Andrews in 1529. Alane was well aware that he was the object of their suspicion and dislike, and was careful to say nothing iu his discourse, which could give reasonable or just ofi'ence to any * Exegesis in Canonem Divi Augustini per Fratrem Eobertum Eichardinum Celebris Ecclesiai Cambuskenalis Canonicum. Lutetise, 1530. — A very rare and curious book, to which the author had access in the Advocates' liibrary, Edinburgh. Considerable extracts from it will be found in the Preface to Liber Collegii Nostras Dominoe, &c., referred to in a former note. ALANE S FLIGHT. 167 man. He contented himself with pointing out the duty of the clergy of all ranks, to take faithful heed to the flock of Christ committed to their charge, and with urging upon his brethren the obligation of adding to their teaching the illustration of a good example, and avoiding the corruptions of licentiousness and vice. The sermon was applauded by all good men, but it was heard with displeasure by the Archbishop, who smelt a taint of Lutheranism in the canon's officious zeal for morality ; and it gave mortal ofl^'ence to the Prior, who looked upon the whole as a personal attack upon himself, and could not believe that the preacher could have any other object in preaching against the profligacy of the clergy, than to hold up to condemnation his own profligacies. Having the canon in his power, flepburn speedily made him feel all the weight of his resentment. Alane was thrown into a dismal and foetid dungeon, where he lan- guished in the midst of filth and loathsome vermin for many months. The young king interposed to deliver him, but without permanent eff'ect. The Provost of St. Andrews insisted, in the king's name, upon seeing the prisoner, for the rumour went that he was dead ; but the enraged Prior only produced his victim for a few hours to the light, and again immerged him in his horrid prison. It became evident at last to Alane's friends among the canons, that nothing short of his death would satisfy the vengeance of Hepburn ; and by their aid he was enabled to effect his escape. He fled under night to the ship- ping at Dundee, and got immediately on board a vessel which was on the point of sailing for a foreign port. He embarked just in time to avoid being retaken by a troop of horsemen whom the Prior had despatched in pursuit, and who galloped dovm to the shore of the Tay, at the very moment when the friendly ship had spread her sails to the favouring wind. We have given only a bare outline of a narrative of deep interest which Alane has written very minutely with his own pen, and which yet remains to be incorporated with the history of the Eeformation of his native country. It was some time in 1530 that he fled from the kingdom ; and he never afterwards returned to it. When his countrymen next heard of him he had changed his name to Alexander Alesius, i.e. Alexander the Wanderer ;*' and when he next demanded * For proof that his real name ^as x4.1ane, not Aless or Ales, and that Alesius means the Wanderer, see Note U. 168 JOHX LOGIE A.ND JOHN WTNEAIT. a hearing among thera, it was in the shape of a disciiDle and friend of Luther and Melancthon, pleading with the young king of Scots, in two eloquent Latin epistles, indited and printed in Wittemberg itself, in behalf of liberty to his Scottish countrymen, to read and to teach the Word of God in their mother tongue. "^ Though the Prior was now rid of Alane, it soon became evident that he was not to be so soon rid of Lutheranism. The leaven of Hamilton's influence still continued to work both in the Priory and in St. Leonard's College. Gavyn Logic himself, one of the senior canons, and principal regent of the college, a man of high standing in the university, erelong went over to the new opinions, and con- tinued for some years to diffuse them among his students, till he was at last driven into exile in 1534. John Wynram, another of the canons, and soon afterwards subprior, concealed his sentiments with more caution than Logic, but was well understood to be favourable to the same views; and John Fife, John Duncanson, and James "Wilkie, all admitted enough of the new theology to their convictions to prove a seed which afterwards developed itself, sooner or later, into the open profession of Reformation principles. There was naturally a close communication kept up between all the religious houses which belonged to the same order; and this intercourse was eminently favourable to the spread of the Reforma- tion when once a footing had been secured for it in one of the associated fraternities, especially if the society first gained in any of its members happened to be one of superior influence and import- ance. The Priory of St. Andrews was such a society. It was the wealthiest and most dignified monastery of the kingdom ; and it was in communication with, and gave tone to, no fewer than twenty-eight houses of Augustinian canons scattered in all parts of * Tlie titles of these epistles, which are of extreme rarity, are the following : — Alexandri Alesii Epistola contra Decretum quoddam Episcoporum in Scotia quod prohibet legere No\d Testamenti Ubros lingua vernacula. 1533, — Alex- andii Alesii Scotti Responsio ad Cochlrei Calumuias. 1534. — It is from these two epistles to James V. that we have derived the particulars of Alane's perse- cution and flight. Some extracts from them of considerable length will be found in Anderson's 'Annals of the English Bible,' to which work the author is indebted for his first knowledge of their existence. He has since been favoured with a leisurely inspection of the originals from the collection of David Laing, Esq. THE ABBEY OF CAMBrSKENNETH. 169 tbe country.^-' Its connection with the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, near Stirling, was particularly intimate. In 1544 Alexander Myln, Abbot of Cambuskenneth, was administrator also of the Priory of St. Andrews, in name of its young commendator, James Stewart, afterwards the Eegent Murray. Members, it would seem, were occasionally transferred from the one establishment to the other. Eobert Eichardson, before referred to as author of the ' Exegesis of the Eule of St. Augustine,' was a student of St. Leonard's in his youth, and in 1 520 had become a canon regular of the Priory, and sacrist of the Holy Cross. But in 1530, when his ' Exegesis' appeared, he was a canon of the Abbey of Cambuskenneth, and de- dicated his work to Alexander Myln, whom he addresses with great reverence and affection as ' his own most Venerable Eather and Abbot.'t Gavyn Logic had a brother or other near kinsman, Eobert Logic, who was a canon of Cambuskenneth, and had charge of the novices of the abbey, to teach them ' the grammar. ' This relationship formed an additional link of connection and communication be- tween the two houses, and no doubt served as a conductor by which the new influence which had begun to work so powerfully at St. Andrews might be conveyed across the country to the Abbey of Stirling. In fact, there are several authentic particulars which go to prove that that Abbey became one of the earliest seats and most influential centres of evangelical truth and life. Eobert Eichardson himself became a professed Lutheran preacher only a few years after the publication of his ' Exegesis.' He had a brother or other kins- man, John Eichardson, who was a canon of the abbey, and who was driven into exile in 1538 or 1539, for the same cause. Thomas Cocklaw, parish priest of Tullibody — one of the churches belonging to the abbey and served by its canons — was summoned before the Bishop of Dunblane for having secretly married a widow in the same village, named Margaret Jameson, and was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. But by the help of a relative, who broke down the walls of his prison ' with crowbars and other instruments,' he was able to effect his escape, and afterwards became a Protestant minister * Account by Jolin Spottiswood, Esq., of all tbe religious houses in Scot- land at the time of the Reformation. Appended to Keith's Scottish Bishops, t Knox's History, vol. i., Appendix vi., p. 530. 170 THE ABBEY A CENTRE OF LIGHT. in England. Cocklaw was intimately connected with a circle of Eeformers in Stirling, including John Kiellor and John Eeveridge, Black Friars; Duncan Simson, priest; and Robert Forrester, a gentleman burgess of Stirling — who were all soon after Cocklaw' s flight brought to the stake on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, not only as ' chief heretics and teachers of heresies, but also because they had been present at Cocklaw' s marriage, and had eaten flesh in Lent at the same.' And there was a like intimacy between Robert Logic and the excellent Dean and Canon of St. Colme's Inch, Thomas Forret, Yicar of Dollar, who was cruelly put to death along with the martyrs of Stirling. Logie used much the company of the Yicar of Dollar, and great search was made for him in the vicar's house when he took to flight. ' When he perceived he was to be apprehended he conveyed himself secretly to Tullibody, where he found some treasure which Thomas Cocklaw had laid under a horse- stall, as the said Thomas had directed him. He was hardly pur- sued by the way, and drew into a sheepfold till his pursuers passed by. He went to Dundee, where he took the seas. Some years afterwards he was seen teaching in London, but nothing further is known of him.'* From these facts, taken in connection with what is further re- corded by Knox, that in 1559 'the malice of the Queen Regent' extended to Cambuskenneth, for there ' she dischairgit the portionis (stopped the stipends) of as many of the canons as had forsaken papistrie,' it appears that this ancient and opulent abbey had be- come a centre of light to all the country round. Its influence was very great in that part of the kingdom. It had numerous churches and chapels dependent upon it, including St. Ninians, Larbert, Kippen, Kirkintilloch, Alloa, Clackmannan, and several others ; and having the patronage of most of them as well as the fruits, it filled them with parish priests from its own college of canons. f It was an honourable peculiarity of the canons regular of St. Austin that they took the charge of parish churches, and per- formed ecclesiastical functions, without distinction of place ; whereas the regular clergy of other non-predicant orders seldom discharged spiritual duties beyond the walls of their own monasteries. And * Calderwood (Wodrow Society), vol. i. pp. 123, 124:. t MS. Chartulary of Cambuskenneth. — Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. ABBOT ALEXA-M)EE MYLN. 171 hence the clergy of St. Austin, who had once been the most active agents of papal influence, were qualified to become, as many of them in fact became, highly efficient instruments in propagating the prin- ciples of the Reformation and extending its triumphs. It was remarkable that the Abbey of Cambuskenneth should have become imbued to so considerable an extent with the doctrines of the Eeformation, considering the character and principles of its dis- tinguished abbot. Alexander Myln was a churchman of the strict- est Roman orthodoxy, and took an active part in the severe proceed- ings which were adopted through a long course of years to suppress the Reformation. He had sat on the tribunal which condemned Patrick Hamilton to death, and he was one of the judges who doomed the numerous exiles and martyrs of 1534. But Myln, though not a doctrinal, was an educational Reformer. He was exemplary in his own life and deportment, as attested by Richardson, and took great pains, in imitation of the example set by his predecessor, Patrick Panther, to improve the talents and scholarship of his canons. Richardson speaks in strong terms of the benefits which he had derived from him ; and it was no doubt by Myln's liberality that he was sent to study in the University of Paris, where he was residing at the time when he published his work. But it was in all proba- bility these very reforms, introduced into the abbey by two succes- sive abbots, that prepared in it a soil for the seed of Reformation truth. Generally speaking, it was the better sort of monks in every country, not the worse — those whose minds had been enlightened, and whose mental and moral tastes had been improved by superior culture — who welcomed the Reformation. It was perfectly natural that the two Augustinian houses of St. Andrews and Cambuskenneth, the two most lettered in the kingdom, which had long been united by the tie of common intellectual studies, should also be drawn to each other by common religious sympathies, and that the religious Reformation begun in the one should speedily be communicated to the society of the other. But the most curious fact of all connected with this subject is, that Robert Richardson, whom the abbot had selected from his canons to send to the schools of Paris, and who, so late as 1530, gave a proof both of his zeal as an Augustinian, and of his veneration for Myln, by the publication of his ' Exegesis,' and the dedication of it to the abbot, should turn up in London only a 172 ABBEY OF ST. C0L31e's INCH. few years after, as a religious disciple and protege of the celebrated Thomas Crumwell, Prime Minister to Henry YIII,, the worst enemy of monks and monasteries that the world had ever seen ; and that he should have been one of the first Lutheran preachers employed to declaim in the dioceses of England against the supremacy of the Pope, and in support of the new spiritual prerogatives claimed by the English crown. "^^ About halfway between Cambuskenneth and St. Andrews, on an islet in the Firth of Forth, called St. Colme's Inch, stood an ancient Augustinian monastery, which had been erected by the piety of the good King Alexander. It had but a small number of canons, and was inferior to many other religious houses in wealth and in- fluence. Yet this modest establishment produced one of the most beautiful examples of evangelical faith and excellence which the Reformation age can boast — a model parish priest and pastor, and a martjT equal in constancj' and mild humility to any in the whole range of the history of the Church. This was Thomas Forret, canon and dean of the Abbey of St. Colme's Inch, and vicar of Dollar. His story belongs to the Hamilton period, and has been beautifully told by Fox and Calderwood. We give it in their words, after a single preliminary remark — that while it appears from the following narra- tive that Forret did not owe his first knowledge of the Gospel to Patrick Hamilton or any other man, his position at Dollar, in the neighbourhood of Cambuskenneth, and in the direct line of commu- nication between it and St. Andrews, must have afi'orded him facilities for improving his religious attainments by intercourse with other kindred minds, and must have thus brought him within the sphere of the evangelical influence which had been propagated from the first Scottish Reformer. "We have already had evidence before us of his frequent intercourse with Robert Logie, who was no doubt a disciple of Hamilton through Gavyn Logie. ' Dean Thomas Forret, vicar of Dollar, was a gentleman of the * This singular fact rests upon the authonty of three letters of Pdchardson, preserved among the Crumwell correspondence in the State Paper Office. These letters, which are very curious, have not hitherto attracted the notice of our ecclesiastical historians. In one of them Richardson speaks of his patron as having heen next to God the cause of his being brought to ' the knowledge of the veritie.' DFAIS^ THOMAS FOKRET. 1Y3 house of the Laird of Porret, in Fife. His father was master- stabler to King James the Fourth. After he had gotten some beginning in the rudiments, he went to Cologne and learned his grammar, and by the help of a rich lady was sustained there at the schools. After he returned he was made a canon in St. Colme's Inch, and was then a fervent Papist. There fell out a debate betwixt the abbot and the canons about their portion due to them for their maintenance. They got the book of their foundation that they might understand the better what allowance was due to them every day. The abbot took the book from them and gave a volume of Augustin's to read and study instead of it. *' Oh happy and blessed was that book !" said he many a time after, whereby he came to the knowledge of the truth. He converted the younger canons, but '' the old bottles," he said, " would not receive the new wine." Thereafter he was made vicar of Dollar. He taught his flock the Ten Command- ments, and showed them the way of their salvation to be only by the blood of Jesus Christ. He penned a little catechism which he caused a poor child answer him, when any faithful brother came to him — to allure the heart of the hearer to embrace the truth; which, indeed, converted many in the country about. When the par- doners would come to his kirk to offer pardon for money, he would say, " Parishioners, I am bound to speak the truth to you ; this is but to deceive you ; there is no pardon for our sins that can come r to us from Pope or any other, but only by the blood of Christ." When the abbot of St. Colme's Inch would say to him, " Will ye say as they say, and keep your mind to yourself, and save yourself ?" " I thank your lordship," said the vicar; '' ye are a friend to my . _ body, but not to my soul. Before I deny a word which I have spoken, ye shall see this body of mine blow away first with the wind in ashes." ' He rose at six of the morning and studied till twelve, and after dinner till supper, in summer. In winter he burnt candle till bed- time. When he visited any sick person in the parish that was poor, he would carry bread and cheese in his gown- sleeve to the sick person, and give him silver out of his purse, and feed his soul with _ the bread of life. He was very diligent in reading the Epistle to the Eomans, in the Latin tongue, whereby he might be able to dis- pute against the adversaries. He would get three chapters by heart 1 74 THE DEAX AND HIS BISHOP. in one day, and at evening gave the book to his servant, Andrew Kirkie, to mark when he went wrong in the rehearsing ; and then he held up his hands to the heavens, and thanked God that he was not idle that day. He preached every Sunday to his parishioners the epistle or gospel, as it fell for the time, which then was a great novelty in Scotland to see any man preach, except a Black Friar or a Grey Friar. Therefore the friars envied him and accused him to the Bishop of Dunkeld, in whose diocese he remained, as an heretic, and one that showed the mysteries of the Scriptures to the vulgar people in English, to make the clergy detestable in the sight of the people. The bishop, moved by the instigation of the friars, called the said Dean Thomas, and said to him, " My joy. Dean Thomas, I love you Weill, and therefore I must give you my counsel how you shall rule and guide yourself." To whom Thomas said, '^ I thank your lordship heartily." Then the bishop began his counsel on this manner : " My joy. Dean Thomas, I am informed that ye preach the epistle or gospel every Sunday to your parishioners, and that ye take not the cow nor the upmost cloth from your parishioners, which thing is very prejudicial to the Churchmen.*' And therefore, my joy, Dean Thomas, I would you took your cow and upmost cloth, as other Churchmen do ; or else it is too much to preach every Sunday, for in so doing you may make the peoj^le 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." Thomas answered, *' My lord, I think none of my parishioners will comj)lain that I take not the cow nor the uppermost cloth, but will gladly give me the same, together with any other thing they have, and I will give and communicate with them anything that I have ; and so, my lord, we agree right weill, and there is no discord among us. And when your lordship saith it is too much to preach every Sun- day ; indeed, I think it is too little, and also would wish that your lordship did the like." " Nay, nay, Dean Thomas," said my lord, " let that be, for we are not ordained to preach." Then said Thomas, '^ Where your lordship biddeth me preach when I find any good epistle or a good gospel, truly, my lord, I have read the iS'ew * These were exacted by the priests on occasion of the death of a parishioner. The 'upmost cloth ' was the coverlet of the bed on which the deceased had died. foeret's maetykdom. 175 Testament and the Old, and all the epistles and gospels, and among them all I could never find any evil epistle or evil gospel ; but if your lordship will show me the good epistle and the good gospel, and the evil epistle and the evil gospel, then I will preach the good and omit the evil." Then spake my lord stoutly and said, " I thank God that I never knew what the Old and the New Testament was. Therefore, Dean Thomas, I will know nothing but my porteuse and my pontifical. Go your way," said my lord, " and let be all these phantasies, for if ye persevere in these erroneous opinions, ye will repent it when ye may not mend it." Thomas said, " I trust my cause be just in the presence of God, and therefore I pass not much what do follow thereupon." So my lord and he departed at that time.' ' He was divers times summoned before the bishops of St. An- drews (James Beaton) and Dunkelden to give account of his doctrine ; but he gave such reasons and answers that he escaped till the cruel Cardinal David Beaton got the upper hand. He was condemned to the death without any place of recantation, because, as was alleged, he was a heresiarch, or chief heretic, and teacher of heresies. "When he was brought to the place of execution, on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh, the last day of February, 1539, Friar Hardbuckel bid- deth him follow him — " Say, I believe in God," sayeth the friar. " I believe in God," sayeth he. " And in our Lady," sayeth the friar. '' I believe as our Lady believeth," said he. '' Say," said the friar, " I believe in God and our Lady." " Cease," said he, " tempt me not ; I know what I should say as weill as ye ; thanks be to God." So he left him and tempted the rest [the martyrs of Stirling before referred to] after the like manner. In the mean time, while he was saying to the people, " I never ministered the sacraments but I said, ' As the bread entereth into your mouth, so shall Christ dwell by lively faith into your hearts,'" — ''Away! away !" said one standing beside, with his jack on him ; ''we will have no preaching here." Another taketh the New Testament out of his bosom, holdeth it up before the people, and crieth, " Heresie ! heresie !" Then the people cried, " Burn him ! burn him !" When one of the number was wirried (strangled) and burnt before him, he said, when it was told him, " Yea, he was a wily fellow ; he knew there were many hungry folks coming after him, and he went 176 CHAUCEIi's * POOEE PAESON.' before to cause make ready the supper." They that were first bound to the stake godly and marvellously did comfort them that came behind. He cried with a loud voice, first in Latin and then in English, '' God be merciful to me a sinner.'' After that, first in Latin, then in English, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !" After that, as his manner was to end with some psalms in his prayer, he began at the fifty-first psalm in Latin — " Miserere mei Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam," &c. ; and so continued till they pulled the stool from under his feet, and so winied and after burnt him. Thus ended this faithful servant of God, envied by the clergy for his good life, diligent preaching of the Word, and sparing the cow and uppermost cloth.' "^ It is indeed a beautiful picture, a realization, in plain prose and in actual life, of Chaucer's exquisite ideal of * the Poore Parson' : — ' But rich he was of holy thought and work ; He was also a learned man — a clerk, That Christe's Gospel truely would preach, His parish ens devoutly would he teach. Benign he was and wondrous diligent, And in adversity full patient ; And such he was yproved often sithes (times). . Full loth were him to cursen for his tithes, But rather would he given, out of doubt, Unto his poor parishioners about, Of his offring and eke of his substance ; He could in little thing have suffisance. Wide was his parish, and houses far asunder, But he ne left nought for ne rain nor thunder. In sickness and in mischief to visit The farthest in his parish much and lit (rich and poor), Upon his feet, and in his hand a staiF. This noble ensample to his sheep he yaf (gave), That first he wrought, and afterward he taught.' Eminent, however, and numerous as were the converts gained to the Eeformation, during the Hamilton period, among the Augustinian clergy, they were scarcely if at all superior either in numbers or dis- tinction to those who were obtained, during the same years, from the * Calderwood, vol. i. pp. 124 — 129. EEFOK^Vr AMONG THE SCOTTISH DOMINICANS. 177 order of St. Dominic. Between Hamilton's death and Wishart's return to Scotland in 1544, no fewer than nine names of Bhick Friars have been recorded who went over to the side of evangelical truth and endured for it either exile or death, and almost all of them men of superior talents and standing in the order. The contrast between the Dominicans and the Franciscans in this respect was very remarkable. TsTot more than one or two of the latter em- braced the truth, j^ot only so, but the Grey Friars signalised them- selves beyond all other classes of churchmen by their persecuting zeal against the Eeformers. Knox speaks of their numerou's convents as the ^ dens of those murderers.' Buchanan directed against them the shafts of his keenest satire, as the Fratres Fra- terrimi—i.e., as we understand him, the most friar-like of friars m whom all the peculiarities of friarhood were most fully de- veloped-the worst and most vicious of all friars. The names of the Dominicans are almost always found among the persecuted, but the names of the Franciscans almost always among their persecutors So remarkable a contrast must have had a cause, and must admit of an explanation. The cause and the explanation, we believe, are to be found in the fact, that in the early part of the sixteenth century the Scottish Dominicans had passed through a process of intellectual and moral reform, while the Franciscans had sunk deeper and deeper m the corruptions and superstitions which had long disgraced their order in Scotland, and in every country of Europe. This Dominican reform has not received due attention from our ecclesiastical historians; and we are left to gather up such scattered traces of it as have been left in the literature and archives of the pre- retormation period. Its author and chief promoter was John Adam or Adamson, Prior of the Dominican Monastery of Aberdeen, and for many years Provincial of the order; of whom, as one of the eminent men who had received their education in King's College, Hector Boyce has given us the following interesting account :^^— ^ 'John Adam, Professor of Theology, and a man of distinguished piety and learning, was the fir4 man who took a degree in divinity in Aberdeen. He is now at the head of the Friars Predicant of Scotland-provincial of the order, as they term it. For his piety * Boethii Aberdonensium Episcoporum Vita, under the Life of William Elphmstone. 178 JOHN Adam's piotjs exkrtions. and zeal he deserves to be ranked among the foremost men, and the brigVitest examples, of his institute. Finding his order fallen into a condition in which it had become an object of indifference and almost contempt to the country, he undertook the arduous work of reforming and restoring it, and by great and incredible labours he succeeded in his design — braving the perils of the sea, sparing no bodily exertion and fatigue, and disregarding the malice, the threats, and the injuries of envious rivals. The results which he has accom- plished are before our eyes. There are now numerous members of that order in the kingdom, who are men of distinguished piety, and who are labouring among us as preachers and professors of sacred learning.'" All this is undoubtedly to be ascribed to the pious exer- tions of John Adam, aided by the influence of William Elphinstone, whose assistance was of great weight, both at home and abroad, in supporting his design.' The renovated Order continued to enjoy the favour of the good Bishop of Aberdeen as long as he lived, and it shared largely in his testamentary bounty when he died. Elphinstone's death took place in Edinburgh in 1514. Three weeks after, John Hepburn, as Yicar- General of the See of St. Andrews then vacant, issued his warrant to Thomas Myrton, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, the bishop's executor, to pay four hundred merks, in gold and silver, to John Adanison, to be applied to the purposes of his order ; and on the 7th July follow- ing, Adamson received payment of that sum, and took an obligation that in all time coming two solemn anniversaries, in honour of their benefactor, should be celebrated yearly in the cou^-ent churches of Edinburgh and St. Andrews.f The rebuilding and restoration of their convent in St. Andrews was a favourite object of the Dominicans at that time. The house was founded in 1274 by AVilliam Wishart, Bishop of St. Andrews, but had latterly fallen into a state of great dilapidation in its buildings * Among tliese preachers and professors of thee logy, Bojce makes special mention, as King's College men, of Alexander Lam-ence, who, from being an eminent jmist, had become a predicant friar; Da\id Menzies, a powerful preacher, and of equal gravity and erudition ; and John Gryson, Eobert Islay, and Alexander Hall — theologians all of distinguished piety and science. So we interpret the last two names given by Boyce — Insulanus and Aulicus. t Eegistrum Episcopaius Aberdonensis (Maitlaud Club), vol. ii. p. olO. DOMINICAN CONTEXT OF ST. ANDEEWS. 17 J and revenues, insomuch that usually it had only a single resident Iriar. But it was important that the resuscitated order should be well represented in the ecclesiastical metropolis ; and vigorous measures were now adopted for that end. In 1516, on the Feast of St. Matthew, a Chapter was held in the Monastery of Stirling, when it was resolved to apply the whole Elphinstone legacy to the object in view, ' out of zeal for the advancement of our order in regularity of life and in the study of learning, and that in future they might have in St. Andrews a convent of brethren living in strict discipline, and applying themselves with diligence to the cultivation of sacred letters.'* Eut it was necessary to improve the annual revenues of the establishment and to fill it with inmates, as well as to rebuild its ruinous walls. For these purposes the convents of Cupar and St. Monan's were both suppressed, under the sanction of the Pope and the King ; and with the exception of two brethren (and the rents necessary for their support), who were still to reside at St. Monan's ,to say the accustomed devotions at the tomb of the saint, the whole of the friars and revenues of those houses were transferred to St. Andrevrs. Of these new revenues a part was to be applied to the support of students at the university. Still further accessions of revenue were obtained in 1517 and 1519 from the lands of Douglas of Lochleven and Spens of Lathalland ; and erelong the restored monastery arose from its ruins in new architectural splendour and internal equipment — a memorial, as well as a result of the Domini- can reform carried through by John Adamson.f Alexander Camp- bell, who was one of the friars removed to St. Andrews from Cupar, was probably the first prior of the renovated establishment ;:]: and the prominent part which he was appointed to take in the trial and execution of Hamilton was probably as much owing to the high credit of his convent as a school of theological learning, as to his personal ability and zeal. The study of scholastic divinity had been revived within its walls ; and it was meet that its prior should step forward among the foremost to vindicate the doctrines of the Church, and to silence their impugners. * Eegistrum Ei)iscopatus Aberdonensis (Maitland Club), vol. ii. + For Charters coufirmatory of all these transactions, see Eegistrum Mag. Si". — Eegister House, Edinburgh. 1 See Note X. 180 IMPOETANCE OF THK DOMIIS^ICAN EEFORM:. AVe have been at pains to bring together these scattered notices of this work of Dominican reform, because it proved erelong a valuable auxiliary to the reformation of the Church, and issued in the acces- sion of many men of first-rate ability and efficiency to the evangelical cause. To these men it was like the baptism of John preparing the way for the advent of Christ. By elevating their moral and intellectual standard, it served to make them more sensible than they would otherwise have been, of the gross corruptions of the Church, and of the need of a thorough restoration of primitive purity. But in this intellectual and disciplinary reform the Domi- nicans stood almost alone. All the other orders, with the excep- tion of a few houses of the Augustinians, remained as they were ; and among the bishops and secular clergy no change took effect except for the worse. The improved discipline of Adamson was commended by all, but was imitated by none. jSTo wonder, then, that when pious and heroic men rose up and demanded in God's name the reformation of the Church, the best and truest of the Black Friars sympathised with the demand, joined in it, and went over to the ranks of the Reformers. We do not find, indeed, among these Dominican converts any of the names which we have seen signalised by Boyce, nor any of the eminent members of the order who had been coadjutors of Adamson. Those respectable men had grown too old to receive new ideas, and were too dignified in office to trust themselves to innovations of which they could not foresee the issue. But there were younger men in the order — men of excellent talents and culture — who were not so inaccessible, or so timid, and who, already excellent preachers and theologians in the sense of the old Church, were destined to become still more efficient ministers of Christ in the sense of the Keformation. Prior Campbell himself was an instance of the sympathy which was felt by these young Dominicans in many of the views and principles of the Beformers. Buchanan tells us, that almost all the doctrines, wdiich. were then thought to be paradoxes, Campbell confessed to be true, and acknowledged many of the complaints W' hicli Hamilton made of the state of the Church to be just. The young prior, indeed, loved life better than he loved truth. He proved a traitor to his convictions when he basely stooped to do the work of an informer and accuser. But the terrible event which FEIAR ALEXANDER SEYTON. 181 followed revealed how violently he had suppressed his convictions in adopting that course. The dying martyr's appeal to his con- science, and his solemn citation of him to appear before the tribunal of God to answer for his perfidy, fell upon him like a stroke of Divine vengeance. ' From that day,' says Buchanan, ' his mind « Avas deranged with affright, and not long after, he died insane.' How deep and strong must his real convictions have been, when they reacted upon him, after his deeds of guilty duplicity, with such tremendous energy I The whole case of their unhappy young prior, his many concessions to the Eeformer, the force he had put upon his conscience in the process of the trial, and the dreadful penalty he had paid for his sin, must have made a deep impression upon his brethren in the convent of St. Andrews. Incidents so striking must have conspired, along with the teaching and martyrdom of Hamilton himself, to beget a strong prepossession among the fraternity in favour of the new doctrines. But an impression made there was an impression made at the head-quarters of the whole order ; and from the convent of St. Andrews it might be speedily communicated to all the Domini- can houses of the kingdom. In point of fact it was not long before the effects of the impulse which had been given began to appear not only at St. Andrew's but in various other quarters. The first of the Friars Predicant of St. Dominic who stood forth as a preacher on the side of Gospel truth was Alexander Seyton, son of Sir Alexander Seyton of Touch and Tullybody, and confessor to the young King James V. He had received an education suitable to his birth. His name appears among the Determinants of St. Andrews in 1516,- and in 1518 he was one of the intrants or electors of the rector of the university. He was a man ' of quick ingyne and tall stature,' and from his commanding talents, high standing, and official connection with the king, was able to approve himself equally powerful as a friend and a foe. We may safely infer that he was a member of the convent of St. Andrews, from the fact that he was appointed to preach in the prin- cipal church of that city ' for the space of a whole Lentern.' The year has not been recorded, but there are good grounds for thinking that it was in 1532. His sermons were extremely remarkable, and very different from what the people had been accustomed 182 SEYTOX AND THE AECHBISHOP. to hear at such seasons. ' During the whole of that Lent,' says Knox, ' he taught the commandments of God only, ever beating in the ears of his auditors ^' that the law of God had of many years not been truly taught, for men's traditions had obscured the purity of it." These were his accustomed propositions: 1, Christ Jesus is the end and perfection of the law; 2, There is no sin where God's law is not violated; 3, To satisfy for sin lies not in man's power, but the re- mission thereof comes by unfeigned repentance, and by faith appre- hending God the Father merciful in Christ Jesus his Son. While oftentimes he puts his auditors in mind of these and the like heads, and makes no mention of purgatory, pardons, pilgrimage, prayer to saints, nor such trifles, the dumb doctors and the rest of that forsworn rabble began to suspect him, and yet said they nothing publicly till Lent was ended, and he passed to Dundee. And then, in his ab- sence, one hired for that purpose openly condemned the whole doctrine that before he had taught, which, coming to the ears of the said Friar Alexander, then being in Dundee, without delay he returned to St. Andrews, caused immediately to jow (ring) the bell, and to give signification that he would preach, as that he did in deed. In the which sermon he affirmed (and that more plainly than at any other time) whatsoever in all his whole sermons he had taught before the whole Lentrain preceding — adding that, within Scotland there was no true bishop if that bishop should be known by such notes and virtues as St. Paul requires in bishops. This delation flew with wings to the bishop's ears, who without further delay sent for the said Friar Alexander, and began grievously to complain and sharply to accuse that he had so slanderously spoken of the dignity of the bishops as to say that it behoved a bishop to be a preacher, or else he was but a dumb dog, and fed not the flock, but his own belly. The man being witty and minded of that which was his most assured defence, said, " My lord, the reporters of such things are manifest liars." Whereat the bishop rejoiced, and said, *' Your answer pleases me well. I never could think of you that ye would be so foolish as to affirm such things. Where are those knaves that brought me this tale r" Who compearing and affirming the same that they did before, he still replied that they were liars. Eut while the witnesses were multiplied and men were brought to attention, he turned him to the bishop and said, " My lord, ye may SETTON S LETTEE TO THE KING. 183 see and consider what ears these asses have, who cannot discern betwixt Paul, Isaiah, Zacharie and Malachi, and Friar Alexander Seyton. In very deed, my lord, I said that Paul says, ' It behoveth a bishop to be a teacher.' Isaiah saith, ' That they that feed not the flock are dumb dogs.' And Zacharie sayeth, ' They are idle pastors.' I of my own head affirmed nothing, but declared what the Spirit of God had before pronounced ; at whom, my lord, if ye be not offended, jastly ye cannot be offended at me. And so yet again, my lord, I say that they are manifest liars that reported unto you that / said that ye and others that preach not are no bishops, but belly-gods." ' Eeaton was highly offended ' at the bold liberty of that learned man, and at the scoff and bitter mock ' of these pungent words. But he concealed his resentment for the present, ' for not only feared he the learning and bold spirit of the man,' but also the favour which he had both with the people and the king. But ' foreseeing the danger which might come to their estate if such familiarity should continue betwixt the prince and a man so learned and so repugnant to their affections, he laboured with his complices by all means to make the said Priar Alexander odious unto the king's grace,' and easily found means by the Grey Friars to traduce the innocent as an heretic. The king listened but too willingly to the accusations of his confessor's enemies, for Seyton had spoken almost as plainly in the confessional to the pleasure-loving prince as he had declaimed in the pulpit against the pleasure-loving bishops. Instead of protecting him from his enemies he confirmed the truth of their accusations, remarking that he knew more than they did themselves in that matter, and that he understood well enough, from what had passed between himself and Seyton in the confessional, that he ' smelt of the new doctrine.' It soon became evident, from the altered countenance of the king, that Seyton had no justice to expect either from him or the bishops. If he might have had a fair trial and an impartial hearing of his cause he would have awaited the issue. But despairing of this at a time when the king was entirely in the hands of the bishops, he determined to provide for his safety by leaving the kingdom. He fled first to Berwick, from which he addressed a letter to the king, to acquaint him VNath the reason of his flight, to offer to return im- mediately upon receiving his princely assurance that he should have 184 FETAR JAMES HEWAT AND THE WKDDEEBURXS. a fair trial under his own eye, and to warn him of the evils which nnist result to himself and his kingdom from surrendering himself into the hands of the bishops, instead of ruling the realm with the counsel of his temporal lords. The letter remains a noble memorial of Sey ton's manly loyalty, both to his king and to the cause of truth and justice. Every word of it is spoken like a patriot and a Christ- ian. ' It was delivered to the king's own hands, and read of many;' 'but what,' says Knox, ' could admonitions greatly avail where the pride and corruption of prelates commanded what they pleased, and the flattery of courtiers fostered the insolent prince in all impiety r' Receiving no answer to his letter, Sey ton went forward from Berwick to London, still wearing his habit as a Dominican friar ; and nothing is known of his life for many subsequent years, except that he was taken into the family of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, brother- in-law to Henry YIII., in the capacity of bis domestic chaplain — that by his influence he was made free denizen of his adopted country, and that he occasionally preached in London, where he drew together large congregations of the citizens by the power of his pulpit orator)' and the fervour of his expositions of Divine truth. The religious movement which had thus commenced among the Dominicans of St. Andrews was speedily propagated to other mon- asteries of the same order. In Dundee, Triar James Hewat stood forward as a preacher of evangelical truth, and rendered important service to its cause by confirming, in their attachment to the prin- ciples of true religion, the whole family of the Wedderburns of Dundee. Three gifted brothers of that family had attended in their youth the prelections of Gavyn Logic, and had imbibed from him their earliest knowledge and love of Gospel truth. It was the work of Hewat to carry forward what Logie had begun, and the three Wedderburns were enabled by their talents and learning, and espe- cially by the excellent gift of poesy with which they were all endowed, to render very important services to the reformation of their country. One of the brothers excelled in dramatic compositions, and the others in the production of ' gude and godly ballads,' and translations of the Psalms of David and the Hymns of Luther. It is believed with much probability that the psalms and hymns in which the earliest Scottish Eoformers sang the praises of God were translated into Scottish metre by these authors ; and in any history FiiiAR jonx m'alpine. 185 Avhicli may yet be written of the poet reformers of Scotland, the "Wedderburns would justly lay claim to a prominent and honourable place. He vat had previously belonged to the Black Triars' Monastery of Perth, where he held for some time the office of sub-prior ; nor was he the only convert to the Reformation obtained from that celebrated religious house. In 1534 the Prior of the Monastery himself went over to the side of the Reform. John M 'Alpine was born of an ancient and respectable family of the famous clan Alpine, and received his academic education, as several others of his country- men did in that age, at the University of Cologne.* It is certain at least that he studied theology there, and that before leaving it he proceeded to the degree of Formed Bachelor of Theology. At Cologne he eujoyed ample opportunities of becoming acquainted with the doctrines and movements of Luther, and of studying the spirit of the Hochstrattens and Pfeffercorns, who stood forward as the cham- pions of the old darkness and bigotry, in that stronghold of Rome. Retarning to Scotland, M'Alpine entered the Dominican Monastery of Perth. It was an ancient and wealthy foundation — had been frequently the residence of the Scottish kings; and parliaments, as well as provincial councils, had occasionally met within its walls. It was inferior in architectural splendour to the Abbey of the Charterhouse in the same city, and its friars lived in less luxury and superfluity than their neighbours the Grey Eriars. Still, when their gates were broken open, and their stores and treasures rifled by the ' rascall multitude ' in 1559, there was 'more abundance found in their possession than was thought becoming for men professing poverty.' In 1532 John M'Alpine was elected Prior of the monastery, from which we may safely infer that up to that time he had given no marked indications of favour to the Lutheran cause. But in 1534, when the fires of persecution were lighted up into new fury, he had attained to the distinction of being a known and dreaded Lutheran. * This appears from the registers of the Uuiversitj^ of Witteniberg, where M'Alpine was made Docior of Theology in February, 1542, Dr. Martin Luiher himself presiding on the occasion. He is described in the ' Liber Decanorum Facultatis Tbeologicse' as ' Venerabilis vir D. Johannes Maccabeus Scotus Bacularius Theologiae Formatus Coloniensis.' This interesting register has been edited by Fuersiemaua, Leipzig, 1838. 186 m^alpine's keputatiox on the continext. He was summoned to appear before the Tribunal of Heresy, and was compelled to provide for his safety by fleeing to England, where he remained till 1540. He found a good friend in Nicolas Shaxton, the first Protestant Bishop of Salisbury, by whom he was presented in 1538 to a canonry and prebendal stall in his cathedral^* In after years he rose to high distinction as a reformer and theologian on the continent, and especially in Denmark, where, by the recommendation of the reformers of Wittemberg, he was made professor of theology in the University of Copenhagen. A friendship which sprang up between him and Alesius in England, and which was firmly cemented by common dangers and sufi*erings, and by a remarkable congeniality of tastes and pursuits, continued to bind together these two distinguished exiles for the remainder of M'Alpine's life. They were in Wittemberg together in 1540, shared with each other the distinction of Luther and Melancthon's friendship, and were both promoted, by their recommendation, to high office as doctors of the evangelical church. Shortly before M 'Alpine was called into Den- mark, Alesius had been invited to fill a theological chair in Eranc- fort-on-the-Oder, and had become the first academic teacher of the reformed doctrines in the territories of the house of Brandenburg. In after years John M 'Alpine's name came back to Scotland, which he does not appear to have ever revisited, under the curious disguise of ' that famous man Dr. Machabaeus.' His countrymen, forgetting or not knowing that he had ever been John M'Alpine, concluded too hastily, from his learned cognomen, that his family name must have been M'Bee ; and under that designation he is mentioned in several of our histories, and continues to be referred to down to the present day. But his real name was the Highland patronymic ; the other, Machabaeus, or Maccabaeus, he received at Wittemberg from his learned friend and instructor, Philip Melancthon.f In the year 1530, the Monastery of the Black Eriars of Glasgow had for its sub-prior the Eriar John M'DoweL He was a man of talent and studious habits, and was incorporated on the 26th of * This fact has heen ascertained from the i^egisters of the diocese of Salis- bury, to which the author was Idudly allowed access by the diocesan registrar. t Stephanus, in his 'Historica Danica,' distinctly states that it was Melanc- thon who gave him the new name. See other authorities quoted by Dr. M'Crie, Life of Kucx, vol. i., Note I. JOHN m'DOWEL and THE BISHOr OF SALISBUEY, 187 February in that year as a member of the University of Glasgow.^' We see no reason to doubt that this John M'Dowel is the same in- dividual who is characterised by Knox and subsequent historians as ' a man of singular prudence, besides his learning and godliness/ and Tvho is recorded to have fled out of Scotland to England about the same time as M'Alpine and Gavyn Logie, and for the same cause. In England he became known, either personally or by fame, to John Bale, who mentions him in his ' Catalogue of Illustrious British Authors' as a cotemporary ; and the curious circumstance is further recorded of him, that after his flight from England in 1540, and his settlement in Germany, he was elected burgomaster of one of the German cities. But the fact, scarcely less curious, which we are now to mention, is new to his biography. During his stay in England he experienced, like his countryman, M'Alpine, the hospi- tality of the Bishop of Salisbury, was made one of his chaplains, and was the first preacher who appeared in the cathedral of that diocese to assail the pretended supremacy of the Pope, and to support the ecclesiastical supremacy of Henry. This was in 1537. The fact is not mentioned by any of the historians of the English Beformation ; but it is certain from three autograph letters of M 'Dowel, written from Salisbury, which have been preserved among the public records. These letters contain some curious particulars of M 'Dowel's mission to that city, and the violent handling to which he was subjected there by the zealous and angry partisans of the Pope. They were written to the Bishop and to Crumwell from the city prison, into which the heretical friar had been thrown. But it would be inap- propriate to refer further to their contents in this place. They would supply some interesting contributions to a chapter of the history of the Scottish Beformation, which still remains to be written — the history of the Scottish Protestant exiles in England and Germany.! The Dominican Monastery of Stirling had the signal distinction of contributing no fewer than three martyrs to the cause of the Refor- mation. Two of these have been already referred to in connection with the evangelical canons of the neighbouring Abbey of Cambus- * Liber Collegii Nostrse Dominge, &c. — Preface by the Editor. + These letters form part of the Crumwell correspondence preserved in the State- Paper Office. 188 JOHN KIELLOR AND JOHN BEVEETDGE. kenneth. John Kiellor was a poet and dramatist in the rude sense of the old ' Miracles and Moralities.' On a Good-Friday morning, in presence of the king and a multitude of the people, ' he set forth,' in the church of the monastery, ' the history of Christ's passion,' in which he appeared in the double character of preacher and player, and in which it was made plain, even to the simplest of the spec- tators, that, by the priests and Pharisees of Jerusalem who crucified the Lord, Kiellor meant to hold up to public hatred the persecuting prelates of his own day. Of John Beveridge nothing more is known than that he shared Kiellor' s convictions, took part with him in his endeavours to enlighten the minds of the people, and was finally joined with him in the fiery honours of martyrdom. John Eough, friar of the same monastery, was destined to earn in the end the same painful glory, but to pass through an intermediate career of singular vicissitudes, of broadly-contrasted situations, and of far- extending usefulness. Already his life had included some singular jDassages. Born about the year 1508, he was incorporated, in 1521, in St. Leonard's College, St. Andrews; and in his seventeenth year, * because some of his kinsfolks would have kept him from his right of inheritance to certain lands,' to displease his friends he professed himself into the order of Black Friars of Stirling. Here he remained for the space of sixteen years, and the Hamilton period of the lie- formation had nearly closed when he appeared upon the public stage as a preacher of evangelical truth. Being a man of ability and energy, though of no great learning, he was sent on two diiferent occasions to Home on negotiations connected with his monastery or his order, and he long afterwards told Bishop Bonner very franki}^ his opinion of what he had seen in the Holy City. ' He affirmed that he had been twice at Rome, and there had seen plainly with his eyes what he had many times heard of before — namely, that the Pope Avas the very antichrist, for there he saw him carried on men's shoulders, and the false-named sacrament borne before him, yet more reverence given to him than to that which they counted to be their God.' These visits to Eome predisposed him to give heed to the teaching of Rome's enemies; and before the year 1543, when the Earl of Arran obtained the regency by the influence of the reforming party. Rough had qualified himself to occupj^, with credit and great usefulness, the honour-able post of chaplain or court preacher to the JOHN KOTTGH S MAHTTEDOM. Protestant regent. He had for his colleague in that responsible office another converted Elack Friar, Thomas Guilliame or Williams, a native of Athelstaneford, in East Lothian, who had risen to high office in the order, and who had the remarkable distinction of being ' the first man from whom John Knox received any taste of the truth.' After Arran's apostacy Guilliame withdrew to England, where he became a preacher in one of the churches of Bristol ; and Kough laboured for a time in the sheriJQfdom of Ayr, that 'receptacle of God's servants of old,' as Knox terms it, where he was extremel)'- useful in rousing the old spirit of Lollardism, which, though dormant, was by no means extinct. After the murder of Cardinal Beaton he was obliged to take refuge from the dangers that threatened his life, in the Castle of St. Andrews, where he acted for several months as chaplain to the besieged garrison ; and, as is well known, he had here the singular distinction of being the man who first brought forth John Knox from his privacy as a tutor of youth, ' to take upon him the public office and charge of preaching,' calling and charging him as solemnly as it was unexpectedly from the pulpit, ' in the name of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, and of all those that were there present,' including Henry Balnaves and Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, ' to refuse not that holy vocation.' This is not the proper place to pursue the career of John Eough further. Many vicissitudes still awaited him : exile in England, exile in Holland ; labours in the pulpit, and labours with his hands to earn his daily bread ; high favour in the days of Somerset and lid- ward, and hot persecution in the days of ' Bloody Mary.' But such a man, of so bold a spirit and of a mould so truly heroic, could not be less in the end than a martyr of Christ. He had much of the ' vehemence against all impiety' which distinguished the old pro- phets ; and a man who had been sent into the world with no little share of ' the spirit and power of Elias ' could most appropriately leave the world again in Elijah's chariot of fire with horses of fire. He was consumed in the fiaracs of Smifhfield on the 22nd day of December, 1557, exclaiming with his last breath to the faithful little band of disciples who, on losing their leader and captain, were in danger of thinking that they had lost all, 'It is no time for the camp to turn back for the loss of one man in the battle. Up with 190 JOHX WILLOCK. men's hearts — sursiim corda ! Blow clown the daubed walls of heresies. Let one take the banner and another the trumpet, and ye shall have Elias's defence and Elisha's company to fight for you. The cause is the Lord's !'"' In the person of John Eough, the religious life which received its first impulse from Patrick Hamilton linked itself on to the mission and work of John Knox, summoned him forth to his M^ork, and assisted at his inauguration. Another evangelised Dominican, a distinguished preacher of the Hamilton period, grasped the hand of the great Reformer near the close of his struggle, stood side by side with him in the high places of the field, and shared with him the joy of the final triumph. "W^'e refer to John "VYillock. He was a native of Ayrshire, and was probably born about the same time as Patrick Hamilton. IS'othing is known of his early life or of his place of education, but a contemporary historian informs us that he entered the Monastery of the Black Friars in the town of Ayr. In what year he embraced the reformed doctrines is not known, but his conversion and exile must have taken place during the Hamilton period, as he is found preaching in London, and brought under examination as a heretic, in 1541. He probably fled out of Scotland either in the persecution of 1533-34, or in that of 1538-39. Like his countryman, Alexander Seyton, he was a popular preacher in the city of London, and went among the citizens by the name of ' the Scottish Priar' of St. Katherine Colman's, where he was wont to preach. He was ' a man of learning and gravity,' and was deemed worthy to succeed Seyton as chaplain to the Duke of Suff'olk. When, after several ' assays, what God would work by him in his native countrj^,' he finally returned to it in October 1558, he formally undertook the ofiice of the ministry, and bore an honourable part in all the perils and vicissitudes of the struggle which soon ensued between the light and the darkness. Knox greatly esteemed him — he calls him * that notable man John WiUock' — and so did all the friends of Knox. For a whole year, in the very crisis of the battle, when it was judged unsafe for the chief captain of the war to remain in Edinburgh, Willock was the man chosen to fill his vacant place in the metropolis. He was the * Fox's Acts and Monuments. rOKREST, LYXE, ASD RrSSEL. 191 only representative of the Hamilton period who was present to share in the congratulations and thanksgivings of the final Reformation victory. Many of the first converts had received * the crown of life;' many more of them were still in exile ; but John Willock linked together in his person the beginning and the end of the great work. One disciple at least of the Hamilton period survived to bear eminent ofiice in the church of John Knox ; and the fugitive Black Friar of Ayr lived to return to Ayr as *' The Superintendent of the "West.' He was a great man in Ayrshire. Before he received the st^de of Super- intendent, the Reformers of Kyle and Cunningham were wont to speak of him as ' the Primate of their religion in the Scottish realm.' He was not only considered far too dignified a personage to enter into a controversy with Kennedy, the Abbot of Crossragwell, nor only was 'nane qualified to reason with him but my lord of St. Andrews;' he would even seem to have been for some time a rival in greatness, at least in the west of Scotland, to John Knox himself.^* Having dwelt at such length upon the fruits of Hamilton's min- istry among the Augustinians and Dominicans, a few lines must suffice to indicate its eff'ects among the other sections of the clergy. Henry Forrest was a 5'oung Benedictine, and, for affirming that Patrick Hamilton had died a martyr, was condemned, not long after that event, to become a martyr himself. David Lyne was a Fran- ciscan, who threw ofi" ^his hypocritical habit' about the year 1538, and was driven into exile. At "Wittemberg he won the heart of Melancthon by his piety and learning ; and an interesting letter is still extant, dated August 1556, in which the Preceptor of Germany recommends him to the good offices of another Scottish exile, John Faith, who had risen to be professor of theology in the University of Francfort-on-the-Oder. Jerome Russel was a Cordelier, ' a young man of quick spirit and good letters,' who was apprehended in Dum- fries and laid in sore irons by Lord Maxwell in 1538, and was soon afterwards condemned to the flames by the Archbishop of Glasgow. His 'comfortable sentences' gave strength to his fellow-sufi'erer, Kennedy of Ayr, to walk to the stake with a step of calm resolution ; and companions in tribulation and in the kingdom and patience of * Letter of Qnentin Kennedy to the Archbisliop of Glasgow — Wodrow Miscellany, vol. i. p. 2(37. 192 AEBPvOATIl AND MELKOSE. Jesus Christ, ' they constantly triumphed over death and Satan, even in the midst of the flaming fire.' The Carthusians had only one monastery in Scotland, the Charterhouse of Perth, and we read of only one convert gained among them to the cause of the Eeformation, Andrew Charters of Dundee, ' a man oF quick ingyne and goodly personage.' He fled to England in 1538, and from thence to Ger- many, where he cast ofi'his cowl. He was a year in Wittemberg, and was afterwards in Zealand and in Italy. In a letter which he sent from Zealand to his brother, the provost of Dundee, he inveighed with great vehemence against bishops, jriests, abbots, monks, and friars. ' If Christ himself were in Scotland,' he declared, * he should be made more ignominious by our spiritual fathers than he was of old b}^ the Jews. Their ■will standeth for a reason. They dare not commit the controversy to disputation except one of themselves be judge. '^' It is remarkable that we do not read of a single monk of the Cistercian, Cluniac, or Tyronensian orders going over to the Eefor- mation during the whole of the period now under review. The abbeys of these orders in the country were numerous, and of great wealth and magnificence. Arbroath, a Tyronensian, and Melrose, a Cistercian house, were inferior in splendour to few monasteries in Europe. Put their inmates had sunk into hopeless indolence and torpor, or were only roused to exertion by the goadings of fear and ambition. The monks of Melrose had become associated in the popular mind only with ideas of sensuality and sloth — ' The monks of Melros made gude kaill On Friday when they fastit;'f' while in the character and career of David Beaton, Abbot of Ar- broath, the age saw with a mixture of fear and abhorrence the com- bined extremes of fiendish energy and dissolute self-indulgence — at once the epicurean and the inquisitor — the pampered voluptuary, the insatiable grasper of power, and the bloodthirsty hater of good men and goodness, all in one. The disciples gained by the Reformation among the seoular clergy during the Hamilton period were not numerous, but they were all * Caklerwood, vol. i. p. 114. t Scottish Poems of the Sixteenth Century, vol. ii. p. 193. THE SECULAR CLEEGY. 193 earnest and devoted men, and some of them men of genius and exten- sive usefulness. Among the latter were two of the Wedderburns, for- merly noticed — the brothers John and Eobert, who were both secular priests in Dundee. The rest, without having any genius to devote to the great cause, did a vast deal more for it than any services of the tongue or the pen, by immolating themselves on its altar as living sacrifices. Maister I^orman Gourlay, ' a man of reasonable eru- dition,' was consumed at the same pile with David Stratoun of Lauriston, in 1534; and Sir Duncan Simson, priest of Stirling, perished on the Castle Hill in 1539, along with two Dominicans, an Augustinian, and a gentleman burgess, 'as if in omen,' as Beza re- marks, 'that a time would yet come in Scotland when Christ would attach to himself all orders and ranks and conditions of the nation.'* * Beza's Icones, in the short account of Adanius Vallacus — Adam Wallace. CHAPTER X. PATRICK HAMILTON'S INFLUENCE UPON THE NOBILITY^ GENTRY^ AND BURGESSES OF SCOTLAND. THE EEFORMATION IN SCOTLAND AN AEISTOCEATIC BEFORE IT BECAME A DEMOCRATIC MOYE- MENT— THE YOUNG NOBLES AT ST. ANDREWS — SIR JAMES SCRYMGEOUR OF DUDHOPE — HENRY BALNAVES — JOHN ANDREW DUNCAN AND THE OLD LOLLARDS— SIR DAVID LINDSAY OF THE MOUNT — REFORMERS AMONG THE NOBILITY AND GENTRY IN ANGUS AND MEARNS, PERTHSHIRE, FIFE, AYRSHIRE, THE LOTHIANS, AND THE SOUTH OF SCOTLAND — REFORMERS AMONG THE LAY LA'S\'YERS — AMONG THE BURGESSES — ACT OF THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT , 1543— CLOSE OF THE HAMILTON PERIOD. Tbey brunt and lienit Christen men, And flemit them lull sair; They said, They did but erre That spake of the commandments ten Or read the Word of Jebus Chribt. Kobill lords of greit renowue, That favours aye the truth, On your saullis have rueth, And put the Antichristis downe Whilk wald suppress the Word of Christ. Scottiah Poems of tlie Sijcteentk Century. CHAPTEH X. PATRICK BAMILTOX'S INFLUENCE UPON THE NOBILITY, GENTEY, AND BUEGESSES OF SCOTLAND. The remark lias often been made, that while the Eeformation in England was effected by a movement originating among the heads of the nation, and operating from above downward, the origin and direction of the Scottish Eeformation were exactly the reverse ; as the latter took its rise among the bulk and body of the people, and forced its way upward among the rulers. And it may be allowed that the remark has as much truth in it as such sweeping generalizations of historical facts generally have. Bat it requires some important limitations in regard both to England and Scotland. The recent volume of Dr. Merle D'Aubigne on the English Eeformation abun- dantly shows that the Work had begun and made way as a divine and spiritual movement, several years before Henry and his bishops stretched forth a finger to help it — nay, while Henry and his bishops were still its vigilant and energetic enemies. And in regard to Scotland, the facts which we are about to bring into view will evince that, while the Eeformation had an upward, it had also a downw^ard movement. It was certainly not the work of the crown and the bishops, but neither was it the work of the multitude — the demo- cracy. It was an aristocratic before it became a democratic move- ment. Its first preachers and confessors — Patrick Hamilton, Seyton, Alane, M 'Alpine, Eorret — were all men who belonged to noble, or knightly, or eminent municipal families ; and it found its earliest ad- herents among the same high cbnsses from which it drew its earliest preachers. Before the close of the Hamilton period it reckoned 198 SYMPATHY OF THE TOITN^G NOBLES. its disciples among tlie nobles and gentry and opulent citizens by fifties, even by hundreds; and from them its influence spread down- ward among the masses of the common people, as well as upward to the court, the great officers of state, and the parliament. There were several circumstances of a very propitious kind, revealing very distinctly the finger of Providence, which were extremely favourable to the dissemination of Hamilton's principles among the upper classes of the community. The first of these was the presence at St. Andrews, at the time of his teaching and martyrdom, of several of the young nobility of the kingdom. St. Leonard's College was the favourite resort of that influential class, and Gavyn Logic was their best- liked instructor. Alexander Alane tells us that these young nobles espoused his cause in his quarrel with Prior Hepburn. They interceded with the young king on his behalf; and by doing so they gave a pretty plain proof of their sympathy with his views and feelings with respect to Hamilton's martyrdom, and the need of ecclesiastical reform. It was a strong step to take in the face of the powerful Prior and Primate. They were no doubt well aware that nothing could be more offensive to the princes of the Church, than to attempt to checkmate their abused authority by the power of the king — the only power in the kingdom which they condescended to regard as a rival to their own. If ecclesiastical power had been the idol of their worship, they would not have pre- pared for it so vexatious and humiliating an interference, We are at liberty, therefore, to infer that something of Hamilton's and Alane's spirit had already taken possession of these young members of the nobility; and that even as early as the years 1529 and 1530, they had received into their hearts the seeds of new religious con- victions and life. It was another happy circumstance for the spread of Hamilton's principles among the upper classes of the kingdom, that very soon after his death Sir James Scrymgeour of Dudhope, Constable of Dundee, and hereditary Standard-bearer of the kingdom, stood for- ward to oppose the high-handed oppressions of the prelates, and to befriend and defend the adherents of the lleformation. We learn this interesting fact from Alane's narrative of his flight from St. Andrews. When the horsemen who had been sent in pursuit of him returned to the Prior and reported his escape, ' the Prior suspected/ SIR JAMES SCRTMGEOUE OF DTJDHOPE. 199 says he, * a citizen of Dundee to be the man who had provided me with a ship, and summoned him to appear before him to answer to the charge. The citizen appeared at St. Andrews, accompanied by the provost of Dundee, one of the knights of the kingdom, and was able to assure the Prior that he had given no such assistance to the fugitive. But the provost told Hepburn plainly that for his part he would gladly have assisted Alexander to find a ship, if he had known of his flight, and would have given him money too for his journey with the greatest pleasure. " If he had been my brother," he added, "I should long ago have delivered him from the miseries and dangers which he has been suffering at your hands." ' This bold provost was Sir James Scrymgeour of Dudhope. The incident gives us an in- teresting glimpse into the state of feeling and opinion in the neigh- bourhood of St. Andrews, at a period so closely succeeding the time of Hamilton's teaching and martyrdom. Dundee had already among her traders and merchants, citizens who were honoured by the sus- picion of aiding and abetting fugitive heretics ; and her provost and constable, a man of hereditary courage and spirit, was already so fearless a defender of oppressed Lutherans, that he frankly told a mitred prior to his face how glad he would have been to baulk his persecuting zeal, and to disappoint his cruel designs. The Constable of Dundee was an important accession to the cause of the Eeformation. The Scrymgeours of Angus, whose chief he was, were a numerous, wealthy, and powerful family, and were connected by marriage with several other great houses of the king- dom. In a royal charter of 1527, granted to Sir James, mention is made of ' the principal messuage, tower, and fortalice of his barony of Dudhope,' of ' his patronages of chaplainries within the burgh and town of Dundee belonging to him by inheritance,' and of many lands, his possessions, in the neighbouring counties of Fife and Perth.* From other charters it appears that the family were connected with the Melvilles of Dysart and of Baldowey in the Mearns, with the house of Sandilands of Calder, and with the Crichtons of Lothian and Sanquhar — all families who became associated with the pro- gress of the Reformation. It is remarkable, indeed, to what a large extent almost all the noble and knightly families of Scotland who * See notes from this Chartei-, Note Y. 200 ACCESSION OF HENRY BALNAVES. accepted the Reformation in its earlier stages, were connected with each other by intermarriage. The Kirkaldies and the Melvilles in Fife ; the Leslies, the Ruthvens, and the Errols in Fife and Perth- shire; the Melvilles, Scrymgeours, and Erskines in Angus; the Forresters, Sandilandses, Cockburns, and Crichtons in Stirlingshire and Lothian ; all these different groups of families were bonnd to- gether by affinity among themselves and with each other, and had been so in most cases before the Reformation began — a fact worth recording, as it serves in some degree to explain the rapidity with which the spirit of that great religious movement was conducted from one to another of these ancient houses, and obtained, in their influence and resources, a powerful support against its early ene- mies. "^^ To the interests of the Reformation in Dundee in parti- cular, the support so early given to it by Sir James Scrymgeour was of the greatest consequence, and goes far to account for the prominent place which her citizens soon took in the great cause. We have already referred to the preaching of James Hewat and two of the Wedderburns in the churches of the burgh. It is no wonder such preachers found access to its pulpits, and protection in their ministry, when a man like Sir James was at once the patron of its churches and its PrOvost and Constable. A third auspicious circumstance was the early accession to Hamil- ton's doctrines of Henry Balnaves. Among the higher orders of Scottish society at the period of which we speak, there was one very select class whom it was of great importance to gain to the side of the Reformation. These were the lawyers, the lay lawyers of the king- dom. That small class of learned and able men was fast rising into great influence and weight in the affairs both of Church and State. Till recently the jurists of the country had been all churchmen ; but lay practitioners of the law were now beginning to divide with the more learned of the clergy the honours of the bar, and even of the bench. The Court of Session, established in 1532 by James Y. included men of both classes ; and ten years from that date had not passed away before several of these learned lay jurists were filling * These affinities appear from charters given under the Great Seal of Scot- land, preserved in the Register Honse, Edinburgh. The author consulted the convenient Abstract of Royal Charters, drawn up for the use of the Writers to the Signet, and deposited in their library in Edinburgh. HIS PROFESSIONAL EMINENCE. 201 the highest offices of state as well as of law. Such a position in their profession, and snch offices of high trust in the public service, gave them commanding influence with the court, with the nobility, and, indeed, with all classes of the realm. They constituted a new power in the social system, and it was of great consequence that that power should be early secured to the cause of truth and reform. And this was happily effected to a considerable extent, chiefly through the influence of Henry Balnaves, who was himself gained to the cause not long after the death of Hamilton. Henry Balnaves was a native of Kirkaldy, and was born about the year 1502. His family was probably in a respectable position ; and he was sent for his education to the University of Cologne. ' There he profited,' we are told, ' not only in literature and the laws, but also in religion ;' by which we are no doubt to understand that he became conversant with the doctrines of the Keformed as well as of the Roman theology. His residence in Cologne at the time when the Reformation broke out in Germany, and when Luther's cause had many supporters in the Rhine-land, and even among the clergy of the German Vatican itself, was eminently favourable to his becoming familiar with the new doctrines. He took his master's degree before leaving the university, and, return- ing to Scotland, fixed his residence at St. Andrews with the view of practising as a lawyer in the Consistorial Court of that see. He was incorporated as a master in the College of St. Salvator on the 7th of December, 1526, while Hamilton was still residing in the university ; and in all probability he was afterwards a listener to his disputations, a resorter to his society, and a spectator of his trial and martyrdom. His professional promotion was rapid and distin- guished. In 1537 he ranked as one of the eight leading advocates of the Court of Session ; and on the 31st of July, 1538, he was raised to the bench as Lord Ordinary, and took the designation of Halhill, a property in I'ife which he had recently purchased. In the same year he sat in Parliament as Commissioner for Kirkaldy ; and on the accession of Arran to the Regency in 1543, he was appointed ' Secre- tary of State and Keeper of all the Seals of our Lady the Queen.' * * Knox's Works, editedby David Laing, Esq., vol. iii. Appendix, containing Balnaves' Treatise on Justification, to >vhich is prefixed an account of Bal- naves from the pen of the learned Editor. 202 THE LAIED OF ATKDEIE AHiD THE LOLLAEDS. At the date of this last appointment he was already, as Knox describes him, ' an old professor ' of the truth — a Eeformer of long standing ; and the influence of a man of such uncommon learning and ability, installed in such high office, could not fail to be eminently useful to the infant cause. The best proof of his having wielded such influence is to be found in the fact, that he was, for many years before 1543, an object of jealousy and dislike to the clergy. Towards the close of 1539 he was marked out for vengeance. His colleague, Thomas Scott, Justice- Clerk, who was devoted to the bishops, delated him to the king ; and the stroke was only arrested by the sudden mortal sickness of his delator. Balnaves was solicited by messengers from the dying Justiciar, who was now in the agonies of religious despaii', to forgive the wrong which he had meditated against him. Another circumstance singularly favourable to the spread of Hamilton's influence was, that at the time when he resided and taught and suftered in St. Andrews, there was a zealous and ener- getic representative of the old Wickliffites of the kingdom living in the immediate vicinity, and as eager to profit by the Reformer's conversation and teaching as the Reformer was ready to communi- cate to him all his views and feelings. This was John Andrew Duncan, laird of Airdrie. "We have before referred to the generous but rash design which he formed, to deliver the Reformer by force irom the hands of his persecutors. Rut the present is the proper place to give a fuller account of his history and principles : — * John Andrew Duncan,' says Dr. M'Crie,'-" ' a son of the Laird of Airdrie, in Fife, was induced by youthful ardour to leave the University of St. Andrews in 1513, along with some of his fellow- students, and to join the standard of James lY. at the head of a few of his father's tenants. He was taken prisoner at the battle of riodden. Being a young man of gallant appearance he was treated with indulgence by the Earl of Surrey ; and when carried into Yorkshire, was suffered to reside at large in the town of Beverley with Mr. Alexander Burnet, a near relation of his mother. Burnet, who was a zealous Wickliffite, found his young kinsman disposed to * Life of Melville, Note D. Dr. M'Crie's account is taken from the Bio- grapliia Britannica. THE LOLLAEDS OP KYLE. 203 listen to his religious principles. A spirit of inquiry, with a passion for exposing to contempt the abuse of reason and religion, had al- ready distinguished young Duncan at St. Andrews. His conversa- tion with Mr. Burnet raised to a degree of enthusiasm the aversion he had before conceived against some of the absurdities of the Church of Rome. Upon the termination of the short contest with England he returned to his native country, but, having joined the party that opposed the regency of the Duke of Albany, he was soon obliged to return to Beverley. His friend reproved him for abetting factions in which neither the religion nor liberties of his country had any concern ; and having exacted fi^om him a promise that he would reserve his activity for a better cause, gave him his daughter in marriage. When Albany took his final departure into France, Duncan returned to Scotland, and passed about ten years in the enjoyment of domestic tranquillity at Airdrie, and in literary inter- course with the members of the neighbouring University of St. Andrews. The opinions and spirit of the Beformers were now more openly avowed, and the house of Airdrie became occasionally the resort of the chief maintainors of the new doctrines. This led him into a particular intimacy with Patrick Hamilton.' This zealous Wicklifiite, now developed into a Lutheran, would naturally become a link of connection and communication between the young Beformer and the old Lollard advocates of religious re- form. These had once been numerous among the families of Fife and Perthshire, where Paul Craw, the Bohemian Hussite, and James Resby, the English Wickliffite, had preached and suff'ered martyr- dom ; and their principles still lingered in these parts of the king- dom. But the hereditary Lollards were most numerous in the districts of Kyle and Cunningham. As late as the reign of James IV. many of the Lollards of the West had been in trouble for their principles. Thirty members of some of the best families of A^-rshire had been summoned in that reign to the tribunal of Blackadder, Archbishop of Glasgow, and had only escaped the penalties of heresy through the interposition of the king. Nor was the old Lollardy of the "West dead ; it was only dormant ; and at the summons of a new reformer and a fresh martyrdom, it woke up again to new activity. The death of Patrick Hamilton reminded the descendants of those 204 SIE DATID LTKDSAY OF THE MOUIfT. old worthies, of the ecclesiastical victims of a former age, whom their fathers had sympathised with as apostles of God's truth, and had long remembered with honour in their households, as holy martyrs- Comparing Hamilton's articles with those which had been exhibited at Glasgow against their own fathers and mothers, they found them to be substantially and sometimes almost verbally the same. They saw at once that it was just the old battle over again. The spirit of their godly ancestors revived in them. They took down again from the wall the old soiled banner; and stood forth, with a Chris- tian manhood worthy of their fathers, to maintain God's truth and the Church's liberties against Popish corruption and aggression. There still remains to be mentioned another local coincidence con- nected with Hamilton's teaching and martyrdom at St. Andrews, which proved of very great importance to the subsequent progress of the Eeformation. At that very time Sir David Lindsay, who was destined to become the great Poet-Eetbrmer of Scotland, was residing only a few miles oif on his patrimonial estate of The Mount. He had lost in 1524 his position at court as gentleman-usher to the young king ; not from any change in his prince's favour, who continued to be strongly attached to him, but through a factious movement of the Queen-mother and a party of the nobles. During the subsequent ascendancy of the Douglases from 1525 to 1528, it was dangerous, he tells us, even ' to peep out of his neuk ' at the Mount : — ' He durst not be seen In open court for baith his een.' He was busy during these years with his favourite studies of history and poetry, and was sunk in gloomy reflections on the miserable condition of the kingdom both in Church and State, when the alarm of the advent of Lutheranism and the voice of Hamilton's martyr- testimony rang loud through the land. When all the lairds of Pife were summoned by the Archbishop to stand to the defence of the Church, the Laird of the Mount would pro- bably not be absent from the muster, though his zeal in such service would not be very great. It is extremely probable that it was from Sir David Lindsay that Pitscottie, his kinsman, re- LINDSAY S IKFirEXCE OX THF HEFORMATION. 205 ceiTed his interesting account of Hamilton's trial and death.* It is certain that in the course of the ver}' same year, 1528, Lindsay presented to King James — now self-emancipated from the Douglases — the first of his published poems, ' The Dreme ' ; and that in that work he came forward with tlie strongest proofs of his enmity to the prelates, of his hatred to their corruptions, and of his commencing attachment to the doctrines of the Heformation. It is equally certain that he followed up this first assault upon the hierarchy by a rapid series of additional attacks, each surpassing its predecessor in severity and force. The ' Complaint ' followed close upon the ' Dreme.' The ' Testament and Complaint of the King's Papingo ' — a most admirable satire — succeeded in 1530 the 'Complaint'; and as early as 1535, Lindsay produced upon the boards in the play-field of Cupar, his formidable satiric drama of the ' Three Estates,' which was performed a second time in 1540 before the king and court and some of the bishops themselves, in the Palace of Linlithgow. The services which the poet rendered to the Preformation by these productions, especially by the last, were im- mense ; and though it is an extreme exaggeration to claim for him, as some have done, a higher merit than is due to John Knox him- self, Knox is certainly the only man to whom Lindsay can be con- sidered inferior in popular power, and in the efiects which he produced on the minds of all classes of his countrymen. In the first instance, however, this influence was exerted upon the higher, not the lower classes. Lindsay's earliest pieces were addressed to the king and the court ; and it may be doubted whether they were printed and circulated among the people at large, till many years afterwards. It was not till he appeared as an actor as well as a poet that he reached the ear of the great body of his countrymen. Till then his satires upon the state of the Church found readers and hearers only in the upper circles. Their eff'ect was to increase greatly the numbers of the reforming aristocracy. We can well imagine what a favourite the Bard of the Mount must have been among the young noblemen and gentlemen who had heard * Pitscottie mentions Sir David as one of his principal sources of informa- tion in the compilation of his History. 206 JOHN EESKINE AND DAVID STRATOUN. Hamilton preach and seen him die, a few years before, at St. Andrews.* All the circumstances now enumerated were extremely propitious to the early progress of the movement commenced by Hamilton. The prescience and wisdom of Divine Providence were signally conspicuous in bringing the Reformer to teach and to die on the very spot and at the very time which were most advantageous, in so many respects, for the rapid spread of his doctrine among all the most influential classes of the Scottish laity — among the nobles, the gentry, the lawyers, and the wealthier burgesses of the land. And the effects of this providential arrangement soon began to appear among all these sections of the community. As early as 1534 we read of John Erskine of Dun as ' a man marvellously illuminated for those times;' and of his neighbour Alexander Stratoun of Lauriston, and his kinsman David Stratoun, as devout students of the Word of God. The Laird of Lauriston possessed a copy of the ^ew Testament in English, and would read occasionally from its precious pages to his young kinsman. This youth had of late become almost miraculously changed. Erom being a despiser of all reading, especially of a religious kind, nothing now delighted him so much as to hear the Scriptures read aloud ; and from being a man of stubborn and contentious mould, he was now * earnest in exhorting all men to concord, and quietness, and the contempt of the world.' One day when he was listening to the Laird reading ' in ane certain quiet place in the fields,' he heard the sentence of Jesus Christ : — ' He that denies me before men or is ashamed of me in the midst of this wicked generation, him will I deny in the presence of my Eather and before his angels.' The words went to his heart. He suddenly became like one ravished with emotion, fell down upon his knees, and, lifting his hands and his face to heaven, exclaimed, ' Lord, I have been wicked, and justly mayest thou withdraw from me thy grace ; but. Lord, for thy mercies' sake, let me never deny thee nor thy truth for fear of death or bodily pain.' It was strength for a trial of his faith already imminent, which he prayed for so fervently. He had already been summoned to answer to a charge of heresy laid * The Poetical Works of Sir Da\icl Lindsay of the Mount, by George Chalmers. Lond. 1806. SIR JAMES HAMILTO^^ OF KINCATEL. 207 against him by Patrick Hepburn, now Bishop of Murray ; and the issue of the process declared that his prayer had not been in vain. He appeared before the tribunal at Holyrood in 1534. Great efforts were made by the judges, including the king himself, to induce him to recant. But Stratoun stood to his defence, steadily alleged that he had been guilty of no crime, and heroically refused to ' burn his bill.' When sentence was pronounced upon him, he asked grace of the king; but the bishops proudly answered that the king's hands were bound, in the case of such as were condemned by the law of the Church. He was led forth to execution along with Norman Gourlay, a secular priest ; and at the Eood of Greenside, between Edinburgh and Leith, David Stratoun earned the glory of being the first man of his order — not a Churchman — who offered himself as a sacrifice for the religious emancipation and reformation of his country. The lesser glory of becoming an exile from ' country, kindred, and father's house,' in the same cause, was obtained at the same time by Sir James Hamilton of Kincavel, the Eeformer's brother. He was summoned to appear before the same tribunal. He appealed to the king, his kinsman, for protection ; but the king advised him to flee, telling him that if he appeared before the judges he could not assist him, as the bishops had persuaded him that ' the case of heresy did no wise appertain' to the prerogative of his crown. He was con- demned in absence, excommunicated, and banished, and all his lands and goods confiscated to the crown; and his sentence bore that he incurred this severity as a relapsed, pertinacious, and im- penitent heretic, inasmuch as, two years before, he had abjured his heresies, and on his profession of penitence had been restored to the bosom of the Church. '^' Sir James fled to England. Erom Ber- wick he opened a communication with Crumwell, the secretary of Henry YIIL, entreating his protection, and his good offices with the English king in his behalf. He hoped, by Henry's intercession with his sovereign, to obtain the cancelment of his forfeiture, and * An authentic certified copy of the Sentence is preserved among the Crum- well papers in the State-Paper Office ; among which also is to be found a holograph letter of Sir James to Crumwell, which he had sent along with the sentence, when transmitting it to him from Berwick. For this curious letter, which contains a few interesting particulars of a personal and domestic kind, see Appendix YII. 208 KATHERINE HAMILTON. liberty to return to his family and estates. Henry interceded more than once, but without effect.^' Sir James was doomed to endure the misery of exile for many years, and, stripped of all his revenues, he was reduced in London to the greatest distress. It was not till 1543 that he was able to return to his native country. Katherine Hamilton, his sister, appeared before the tribunal in the church of Holyrood, and pleaded her own cause with great spirit and courage. ' Being questioned on the point of justification by works, she answered simply that she believed no person could be saved by their works. Master John Spence, the lawyer, held a long discourse with her about that purpose, telling her that there were divers sorts of works — works of congruity, and works of condignity; in the application whereof he consumed a long time. The woman growing thereupon into a chafe, cried out, " Work here, work there, what kind of working is all this ? I know perfectly that no works can save me but the works of Christ my Saviour." The king was sitting on the bench and laughed heartily at her answer ; yet, taking the gentlewoman aside, he moved her to recant her oj)inions.' She granted to his princely entreaties what she had stoutly refused to the lawyer's arguments and sophistical distinctions, and professing her submission to the authority of the Church, she was allowed to escape. Two years later she appears in the capacity of a Lady of the household to the Dowager Queen Margaret, who, in 1536, ap- plies to her brother Henry VIII. for a passport to enable her ' fami- liar servitor ' to pass through England to France ' on her lawful errand and business.'! In 1539 she is mentioned in a letter of the Duke of IS'orfolk, the English governor of Berwick, as having been a fugitive in that town ' for a good season, and she dare not return for holding our ways, as she saith.' J * Printed State Papers, vol. v. p. 49 ; Letter of Bishop Stewart to Crumwell. •f See Appendix YII. J Norfolk also mentions that Katherine Hamilton ' had heen in England, and had seen Queen Jane' (Seymour), referring to her journey through the kingdom in 15:36 ; and he speaks of her as having been ' wife to the late Cap- tain of Dunbar ;' which will account for her having had ' lawful errand and business in France,' as the captains of Dunbar, who held the castle for the Duke of Albany with French troops, were at that period always Frenchmen. Katherine was not the only religious fugitive in Berwick at that time, for Norfolk reports to Crumwell that every day there came to him ' some gentle- HEFORMFRS IN PEilTHL-llIRE AKD FIFE. 209 In Angus and the Mearns, the Melvilles of D^'sart and of Baldowey, and the Wisharts of Pitarrow, were united in religious s^^mpathy with their neighbours the Erskines of Dun and the Stratouns of Lauriston. In Perthshire, the noble families of Euthven, Methven, and Errol were all ranged on the same side. Lord Euthven was ' a stout and l not wryt. And gif it be possybyll that ther may be found ony tyme to perform the kyngis plesure and desyr, as ye haf wrytyn with Sir James (Inglis), I saldo my devor and full best to convoy that matter at all puncts. Bot I kan not hastely beleyf as yit quhow it may be less (unless) than the kyng wald cum hymself in this realm. And then mycht he do quhat him hjkit, for he tvald lytell nor na resystance, and be the soverain. I haf gud hope, and is in convoying a mater of discord among our party adversary, on sik ways that I trust ye sail heyr quhow this proniocion now impetrat be yon dysseitful byshop of Murray sail turn to our weill, and cause bayt (l)oth) hym and yon duke cum in evill conceit over all this realm, quhilk man (must) always redound to our profyte and sail purches us ma (more) frends. Gavyn Douglas to Lord Dacee. 21st January, 1515. My Lorde, — I commende me to your L. in my mast hartly wyss. And as towart ye kyngis desyre and instructionnes sende to ye quenys grace with Schir James Inglys, her hienes hes wrytyn heyr with answer to the kyng hyr broder, and to your L., and in sum part as I howth ( could) thynk efter my lytell wyt. I haf wrytyn tyll master Adam to be shawyn to your L., and to ye kyngis grace thare, quhom seyn he sail cum to his presens, and be ye suyr the quenys grace, my lordes and me all wald be als glad to fulfill ye kyngis desyr gif it war to us possibyll as with hande or mynde may be devysit, and kan not so mekyll as we beyn addettyt for our part rendyr thanks to his hienes therof, and not the les of a (one) thyng he salbe snyr that our servys sal be hys be- fore all other man levyng, our allegens to our soveran lord hys nevo alanerly exceppit. My lord, ye sail knaw thar is ane byshop latly deid in jis lande callyt ye byschop of Dunkell, and for als mekyll as yir other benefyces be now in pley, and debait be yis byshop of Murray, therefore ye quenys grace my soverane lady hes wrytyn hyr especial! wrytyngs to ye papes halynes for my promotioun thereto, and ferthar hes by yir hyr wrytingis, solyst ye kyngis grace hyr broder to wryt and lawbor efFectiously to ye samyn effect. Quharefor I beseyk your lordship, y* ye sayd letters myght be conveyt wy* deligence, and gyf your gude assistans and commendatioun to ye kyng for me, sen our houssys ar of ye auld allyat and mekyll togydder aquintans and kyndnes hes beyn betwyx yam of lang tyme as approvyt weyll be my grandsyr atye sege of Nawart, and I beleyf that ay mayr and mayr tendyrnes and amyte sal dalyincres among yam. Gude it war ye sulfyiTyt no other letters to haf passage throw ye realm but syk as salbe sende fra ye queyn, the caus quhy I haf wa^ytyn to maister Adam. And git there be ony stede or servys or plessour I may do to your L., I sal at conimandm*' as knawys God quha haf your L. in hys blessyt keipyng. At Perth ye xxi day of Januar, with hand of yo'- cousyng, and at all hys power, your Gavyn, Postulat of Arbrot. To my Lord Dacres gude lordschip. 248 APPENDIX. Postscript or Letter of Adam Williamson to Gavyn Douglas. My lord Dacres has delyverit to Sir James (Inglish) III. lettres which war direct to fals Panter, ye secretary, wherein yee may see yat Murray has gottjTi ye gift of all ye best benefices of Scotland. Yff ye quene folow ye kingis counsell as I half wrytten, Murray shall be prevyt a tratour, and yee shall have what benefices yt- ye desyre in Scotland, My lord, evyn now wils I was writtyng ys copy, thynking to have writtyn it agyn in niundo, ther cam a post to ye lord Dacre, and tuyk hym a letter from the consell, wiche shew y*- ye kyng ofi" Frans is deid, and yt. ye duke is on ye sei ; wherfore it is nedful to mak hast ifi" ye thynk to save ye quene and her children, my lord of Angus and your frends. Ye XX day ofi" Januarie (1515). II. original correspondence between henry VIII. and pope LEO X., IN relation TO THE ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS OF SCOTLAND, A.D. 1513-14. {From '■^ Monumenta Britannica ex Autographis Romanorum Pontijicum De- prompta," vol. xxxvii., British Museum.)* Letter of Pope Leo X. to Henry VIIL — Sept. 20, 1513. Carissime in Christo fili noster, salutem et apostohcam benedictionem. Nostra, dilectique filii nostri Christophori (Bainbridge, Archbishop of York), Cardinalis Anglise, rerum tuai majestatis studiosissimi, sententia, cUlectus filius Balthasar (Stuart) notarius et secretarius noster idoneus visus est, qui ad carissimum in Christo filium nostrum Jacobum Scotorum regem illus- trem, in hac rerum et temporis varietate, nuntius et orator mitteretur, potissi- mum qui, ut arma inter vos cessent, nostra adhibita auctoritate, eflici curet, ut quaudoque pacatis regum et principum Christianorum animis, sanctissima et pernecessaria expeditio contra perfidos Turcos, Christiani nominis hostes, sumi posset ; prout eadem majestas tua ex eodem Balthasare nobis probato et caro valde, quique prseteritarum et prsesentium rerum scientiam habet non mediocrem, uberius intelliget. Majestatem igitur tuam hortamur in Domino ac paterne requirimus, ut pro nostra et apostolicse sedis reverentia, eundem Bal- thasarem non solum attentius audire, et in quae nostro nomine referat, plene credere, verum etiam, quo tuto in Scotiam per regnum atque dominia majes- tati tuee subjecta exequturus sibi per nos commissa se conferre possit, oportu- num salvum conductum concedere sine ulla mora aut excusatione velit, prout eandem majestatem tuam non dubitamus esse facturam. Nihil enim Baltha- sar ipse curaturus est, quod ad reipublicse Christianse quietem, religionisque nostras incrementum decusque, et commodum majestatis ipsius tuae non per- * These documents are called the " "Vatican Papers." The collection consists of thirty-five bundles, which were transcribed under the direction of the Abbate Marini Archivesta of Pope Leo XII., by the permission of his Holiness, which was obtained in 182G by Mr. William Hamil- ton (who had been, previously to that date, Under-Secretaiy of State for the Foreign Department), were deposited in 1829 in the State Paper Office, and fi'om thence in 1843 and 1845 removed by the order of the Secretaiy of State to the British Museum, where they now remain. APPENDIX. 249 tin eat.— Datum Romse, apud Sanctum Petrum, sub annulo piscatoris, die 20 Septembris, 1513, pontificatus nostii anuo primo. P. Bembris. Superscribitur — Carissimo in Cbristo filio nostro Henrico, Anglise regi illustri. Henry VIII. to Pope Leo X., written shortly after the Battle of Flodden. Sanctissimo clementissimoque d°*> nostro Papae. Beatissime pater, post huraillimam commendationem et devotissima pedum oscula beatorum. Tantum abest ut prospera nobis contingere ac falso a quo- quam jactari velimus, quemadmodum nostros communes hostes nonnunquam facere intelleximus, quod nostras et secundas res quas summa Dei erga nos benignitas continuo quodam cursu nobis largiter subministrat, parce potius quam magnifice, et seriuscole quam propere, ad vestram sauctitatem scri- bere amemus. Ut nuper de victoria qua nostri adversus Scotos et pugnato- rum numero et tornientonim multitudine omnique alio bellico apparatu, bostibus longe inferiores, nobis absentibus, duce illo comite Surrei, in nostro regno Anglian, parvo suo incommodo, ac nemine qui modo alicujus nominis esset amisso, Dei ope nunquam manifestius se ostendente, sunt potiti, Scotis ad xiii millia, cum ipso rege et omni Scotica nobilitate trucidatis. Qute tamen, quamquam ordine ac sigillatim ut gesta fuerant non recte cognoveramus, quum paucissimis vestrae sanctitati superioribus diebus significavimus. Nunc vero omnem earn rem, quam multorura jam litteris exactissime percepimus, ad reverendissimum D. Cardinalem Eboracensem, et D. Episcopum Wigomiensem, Nostros apud vestram sanctitatem oratores, scripsimus ; ut si aliquando vestrse sanct. a suis sacratissimis occupationibus vacaverit, manifesto exemplo perspi- cere queat, Deum optimum maximum pro meliore demum causa pugnare, et sancti foederis omnisque bumanitatisviolatores ac istius sanctse sedis contemp- tores merita ad extremum \dndicta insectari. Quanta autem nobis esset cum dicto Scotorum rege quam affinitatis tam foederis necessitudo, latere vestram sanct. non putamus. Prseterea fidem quoque sape ab eo accepimus debitam nobiscum amicitiam et conjunctionem serv^aturum. Cui tamen nos ita semper credidimus ut tam ad pacem quam ad bellum cum eo nunquam non lueri- mus parati. Et fortassis ipse in fide totiens nobis data permansisset, nisi Galli ingentibus pollicitationibus, multis etiam aureorum millibus, tormentis omnis generis neque non armis et viris ad ipsum missis, bumana et divina jura eum calcare, et captata nostra absentite occasione, quasi ex insidiis bellum, sibi et suis exitiale mox futurum, in nos movere coegisseut; quo sane ingente calamitate regnum suum afflixit, quod quidem nos, utpote de nobis nostrisque majonbus pessima semper meritum, et quieti inimicum, baud quaquam bunc quiescere patiemur, sed victoriam Deo signifero prosequemur, licet quidam qui ex omni- bus Scotorum primoribus, quum fuga mature sibi consuluit, unus remansit, inducias submisse a nobis petierit, quas ei negavimus. Tben follows some account of tbe state of tbe war in France, after wbich tbe letter proceeds tbus: — ' PoiTO,instante bruma quum nee bellare nee tanto nostro exercitu in bis locis ob biemis incommoda ac nuditatem ullo modo esse possimus, rursusque boc medio tempore domi res Scoticas plurimum urgere nos facile posse exis- timemus, communi et conventu totius nosti'i regui Anglise quem ad proximas 250 APPENDIX. kalendas Novembris iudiximns prsesentiam nostram maxime exigente,m idem nosti'um regnum, Deo bene juvante, redire ac primo quoque tempore majore exercitii hue omnino reverti, et banc expeditionem totis vivibus continuare decrevimus. Quare firmo huic iirbi interius exteriusque praesidio relicto, eras Angliam versus iter eapere eonstituiraus, quo, ubi Dei benignitate sospitis pervenerimus, de incolunii nostro reditu, et si quse alia nobis occurrent vestrae sanctitati scribemus, quam etiam atque etiara rogamus, ut de supra dictis non magis nostris quam totius Cbristianse reipubliefe quo potissime nostras cogitationes intendimus secundis rebus, omnipotente Deo duee et imperatore nostro, gratias immensas agat. Ad bsec, beatissime pater, quum dietus Sco- torum rex nonnulla ab ista sancta sede, et ad regni nostri Angliae prelatorum baud exiguum prejudieium et, ut vere dicamus, injuriam, extorsit, ea omnia ut vestra sanctitas, pro singulari sua equitate, ad pristinum statum nunc redigere velit oramus : ac in priniis, ecclesiam Sancti Andrese quee non nisi ante paucos annos metropolitana fuit facta, et novissimus arehiepiscopus qui in supradicta pugna fuit peremptus ejus dignitatis secundus tantummodo erat. Alii vero ejus predeeessores suflfragani nostri Arcbiepiscopi Eboraeensis semper fuerunt. Proinde vestrae sanctitati supplicamus ut dictam ecclesiam S. Andreae, ad metropolitanum honorem, per manifestam sicuti dixinius Arcbiepiscopi Eboraeensis injuriam evectam, rursus ad antiquum gradum — hoc est ad episcopalem solum dignitatem reducat— et eadem quoque ratione priora- tum de Coldingbam, antea semper ecclesiae Dunelmensis prioratui annexum et unitum, ac non multos post annos ab eo disjunetum etdivisum postremoque in commendam dieto archiepiscopo S. Andreae coneessum, vestra beatitudo proprio ipsius corpori, videlicet, prioratui Dunelmensi restituere et denuo unire dignetur. Praeterea, quia propter res Scoticas permultum nostra in- terest, qui irapresentia ad episcopatus in regno Scotiae per neeem quam certo dolemus eorum pvsesulum quos in supradicta pugna armatos absque ullo con- spicuo sacerdotal! habitu occisos fuisse, vestra sanctitas intelliget nunc vacantes proraoveantur. Ideoque a V. Sanct. magnopere petimus ut dictarum eeclesi- arum tam St. Andreae, quam aliarum in dicto regno Scotiae vaeantium pro- visioni tantisper velit supersedere, donee ei nostrum super hae re animum deelaraverimus, quod brevi sumus facturi. ' Restat etiam ut cum vest, sanct^*- venia dicti Scotorum regis (qui multis modis excommunieatus oecubuit) cadaver loco quidein honesto sed minima sacro bactenus asservatum ad nosti'am urbem Londinum deferri et in templura divi Pauli pro regia dignitate sepeliri curare nobis lieeat. Hoc enim ad nostrum honorem non parum pertinere arbitramur. Quoeirca vest, sanct^- rogamus ut dictam veniam nobis coneedere et banc facultatem D°°' Episcop". Londinensi per suum breve committere non gravetur. ' In quibus omnibus non dubitamus vestram beatitudineni pro studiosissimo ae indulgeniissimo suo in nos animo nobis gratificaturara, quam felicissimam ae longaevam Altissimus conservet. Ex urbe nostro Tornaeo, xii Oct. 1513. E. V. S"«' Devot. S. atque obsequentissimus filius, D. G. Eex E. A®- ac D«. Hiberniae.' Henkicus.' Henry YIII. to Leo X. 28th January, 1514. Beatissime pater, post humillimam eommendationem acdevotissiraa pedum oscula beatorum. Certiores faeti sumus serenissimam dominam reginam Scotiae sororem nostram caiissimam, vestrae sanctitati diligentissime nuper commendasse venerabiiem virum D. Grauuinum Douglas, supplieiterque APPENDIX. 251 rogasse nt eiim ad archiepiscopatum Sancti Andrese ac Metropolitan am, ao primariam totius regni ScotijB sedem evehere ac promovere dignetur juxta autiqua privilegia eidem regno Scotise a vestro3 sanctitatis predeeessoribus indulta, de prfefieiendis tantummodo his qui a Scotorum principibus pro tempore existentibus, ad vacantes ecclesias I'uerint commendati. Quum vero nos probe sciamus ejusdem D. Gauuini praeclaram non generis solum sed etiam animi nobilitatem, eminentem videlicet doctrinam, prudentioe, modestise atque egregiae probitati conjunctam ; et quantopere sit communis boni stu- diosus, dignum eum duximus, quem ut nos vestrae sanctitati accuratissime comraendaremus. Ideoque vehementer earn rogamus ut, divina sua pruden- tia, bonam aliquam rationem invenire dignetur, qua idem Gauuinus ad prse- dictam metropolitanensem ecclesiarn perveniat ipsique praeficiatur ; atque ita vestra beatitude hominem meritissimum ornabit, primatumque ecclesiffi egregie consulet, et in pacis concordifeque fundamentis magnum lapidem plane angularem constituet, tum rem nobis summopere gratam efticiet. De episcopo autem Moraviensi preeterquam quod est dioto Gauuino natura ac moribus omnino diversis, pro certo intelligimus eum ad supradictum archie- piscopatum Sancti Andrese admissum nunquam iri. Quare ingenitse vestra? beatitudini pietatis et instituti sui pra^clarissimi de universali concordia operis esse arbitramur, non modo controversiarum semina et causas quae inter regna et regiones intercedunt penitus tollere, sed ab ipsis quoque singulis regnis ac regionibus discordias prohibere, innatumque forte lolium ac zizaniam ■crescere non sinere, sed radicibus potius extirpare, quo nihil potest esse aut Deo altissimo acceptius, aut summae reipublicse utilius, aut vestrae sanctitati gloriosius, quae felicissime ac diutissime valeat. Ex palatio nostro Greni\ici die xxviii Januarii, mdxiiii. E. V. Stis« Devotissimus ac obsequentissimus filius Dei gratia Eex Angliae •et Franciae ac Dominus Hiberniae, Heneicus. Heney YIII. to Pope Leo X. 7th May, 1514. Beatissime Pater, post humillimam commendationem et devotissima pedum 'oscula beatoram. Defendere atque augere istius sanctae sedis dignitatem, non ad nos magis quam ad quemcunque Christianum principem pertinere antea putavimus. Nunc vero postquam omnibus quibus potuimus officiis eam pro virili fuimus tutati, peculiarius quoddam studium nobis accessisse videtur, ut et illam et nostra pariter in eam oflBcia obnixe conservemus ; idecque non facile dictu nobis est quam de ejusdem sedis honore, majestate, et amplitudine facti simus solliciti, quibus profecto nihilominus cura studemus quam qua? summopere nobis sunt cordi. Quamobrem cum reverendus in Christo pater D. Episcopus Theatinus vestrae sanctitatis dignissimus apud nos orator et Tina cum eo Joannes Baptista Reverendi D"i Cardinalis Cibo vestrae sancti- tatis secundum carnem nepotis procurator, homo, ut quidem pro se fert, rerum peritus, circumspectus ac diligens, nobis enarrassent quanto vestrae sanctitatis contemptu atque contumelia non idem solum Johannes Baptista sed ipse etiam D. Baltassar vestrae sanctitatis orator ab ingressu Scotiae turpibus minis deterriti prohibiiique fuerunt, et quod non nisi indecoris demum conditioni- biis idem D. Baltassar fuit admissus. Cujus rei indignitate sane quam vehementer sumus coramoti, atque eo gravius id tulimus, quod Scoti ista, suis afflictis rebus, nee ullius rei quam miserije fiducia, committere non ve- Tentur, quae nulla alia Christiana quam vis florentissima natia^uderet cogitare. Nam quid a Christiano nomine magis diversum quam ejus nuncios cum igno 252 APPENDIX. minia repellere, quern verum certumque Domini nostri Jesu Christi in terris vicarium confiteri sit necesse. Quid, quod hoc facinus non ab agrestibus ferisque illis, sic enim nominant, Scotis perpetratum fuisse intelleximus, sed ab ipsis episcopis et his qui sanctissimo jurejurando isti sanct^e sedi sunt adstricti, ut facile vestra sanctitas queat judicare quale sit Scoticum vulgus et qua erga vestram sanctitatem dictamque sanctam sedem reverentia quum episcopi tam insigniter utrumque contemnunt. Haec vero quamquam non dubitemus vestram sanctitatem quum ex dictis suis oratoribus, tum ex eodem Jo. Baptista coram uberius omnia intellecturam, voluimus tamen et nos non tam hoc factum quam ingentem nostram de eo molestiam vestrae beatitudini significare. Et quum non satis esse arbitramur injuriam vestrse sanctitati et dictaj sedi illatam solum dolere, proinde boni etiam utriusque filii operam pollicemur si eam vestra sanctitas in hoc usui sibi esse posse existimaverit, quod si veht nos suam et ejusdem sedis aucto- ritatem ac dignitatem adversus Scotos armis asserere eorumque temeritatem retundere, et ad officium reducere, nee tam impiam audaciam impunitam re- linquere, vestra beatitudo negocium hoc, ex juris, ut mos est, formula nobis dare et committere dignetur, nosque in hoc juxta ac in aliis omnibus qua ipsa nobis mandaverit, et quemadmodum adversus Gallos effecimus, ita etiam contra Scotos studium et operam nostram vestrae beatitudini comprobare nitemur, quippe in obsequendo vestrae sanctitati istaque sancta sede tuenda nostram immo Dei gloriam potissinium coUocaverimus. Ex palatio nostro Grenivici die viii Maii, MDXim. Heneicus. III. oeiginal correspondence of sir james inglis (chaplain and secretary to queen dowager margaret), dr. magnus, and lord dacre, in relation to scottish ecclesiastical affairs — a.d. 1514 — 1515. Letter of Sir James Inglis (Chaplain) to Lord Dacre. {Cottonian MSS., Caligula, B. x. 24.) 22nd January, 1515. Pleiss it your L. to knaw that the 21 day of January I delivered my credence in Sanct Johnstown, and was deliver* agayn the xxii day. The quene's grace, my L. of Angus, and ^^ appostolate (the postulate of Arbroath, Gavyn Douglas) war rycht giadd of your desii^e — whowbeit yai thocht it unpossible to perform, for it was spokin ower all the countre incontinent efter my departure that I had tane the king and brocht hym in Ingland, and that the queue and hyr husband war salit out of Sanct Johnstown; wharfore grete serche was made incontinent, and when all was found of nane avale thai said it was the queues purpose to do it. Thar is na sclaunderous wordes punysht in this countre ; ilk man says what yai wyll without blame. The servandis are checkmate Avith the masteris. The vylest boy must knaw his maisters coun- sale. Thai are sa full of talk, and sa inquisytyf of tythingis, that thai ymagyne thinges quhilk was never thocht. The queue has sent me to Sterlinge, to tarry yare for a season. The lordis hath ordaint a parliament. Y^ erlesof Huntlee APPENDIX. 253 and Marchall has tane her part. Many of her adversaries laboris for her kyndnes, and all for y^ resistans of y^ bishop of Murray. Thai had tydjnagis of hym here laug or I com by a shyp. I can devys na way possible of y^ mater that your L. speck to (me. Tliair are) sa mony ridars nycht and day ower all ye countre, thar may na man pass secretly unrobbit or slayn. The'quene taks (mekill thocht) for expenss. I dout she sail fall in despar or melancoly for lak of hir mysteris. The conion voice goes that the lords will accord upon sum reform acioun at this parliament, yf the Duke cum not or yan ; and yf he cummis y^ queue hes nane other refuge bot Sanct Johnstown or Sterling till other (help) cums, &c. &c. — At Perth, y^ xxii day of Januaiy. SiK James Inglis to Adam Williamson. {Cottonian 3ISS., Caligula, B.) S^nd January, 1515. Master Adam, I commend me hertly unto you, and I delivered my instruc- tions to y^ queue in Perth, y® xxi day of Januarie. I couth mak na hastier ex- peditione, y^ watters were sa grete. The queue, my lord of Anguss and Arbrot were rycht gladd of y^ kyndly desyre of the kyng and his counsel!. I schawit yam y^ grete lufe and affection y* y« kyng and his said counsell hadde to yam, and whow hartfully I was recyved and entreited with my lord Dacres and master Magnus, with mony other swasious to entrete yam to accomplish yar desyn, quhilk nedeth not to be rehersed, ifor yai war more willinge to do it na I was to desyre it, yff possibilities mycht have bene hadd to perform it. The common voice was, efter my departyng, y* I was gane (to) Ingland, and hadd stollen away y^ kyng, and y* the quene and my L. of Angus war departit out of Sanct Johnstown by water unto Ingland. Ye knaw y^ use of y^^ countre. Every man speke quhat he will without blame ; yere is na sclaunder punished ; y^ man hath mawordes na y^ master, and will no*^ be content except he ken his masters counsell. Yare is na ordir amang us. Nane of God's precepts are kepit except y^ first, and yat full ill. It is unpossible to bring yi^ matter to effect y*^ we spake off, becaus yare is sic watch or all y^ countre — ridars day and nycht robbing and slaying, y* na man may pass between townys wout yere be a grete company topidder. Yare is sic inundacionis of watteris y* all yds cunter is o '■flowing. On Thm'sday, ye xi day of January, ye lord Hamylton set vi hundred men with gons and artilery in way, as my lord of Anguss cum fra Glasgo fra the erl of Lennox to sla hym, he not beyng advertiset yarof, bot be a scurriour of the L. Hamyltons, quhilk ane of my L. of Anguss happynet to tak, els he hadd fallen in hys enemy's hand unwitting. Then ye lord Hamyl- ton sonde for ye lord Chamerlaine, Cassels, and Sempell, with uthurs to cum to Lanrik, and wald have seget ye erl of Anguss in ye castell of Cowtheter, bot ye Chamerlain was aganys yt purjioss. The erle of Lennox hes tane Dumbarton, to quhaes behufe I knaw not. The maister of Kilmawres, with help of the erl of Lenox, has enteret in Kilwynning agane, and put out ye Lord Mongumery, with slachter and hurt on bayth ye sides. Every man tak up abbacyns y* may lest; yai tarry not quhill benefices be vacand. Yai tak yam or yai fall, for yai tyne ye virtue yf yai tuiche ground. I (tr)ow yt all ye lords will keip togidder agane ye bischop of Murray — ye duke will be ye werr ressvit yf he tak hys part. I am comraing to Stirling to tak hede of all things. Ye lord Drummond has causit ye erles Huntlie and Merschall to tak the quene's part. Yar is a parliament ordanit be ye quene and her lords ye xii day of Marche — ye quene is sa cumbred with (y ) y^ it is petie to se 254 APPENDIX. her ; she lailjes money quhilk causes her to grete thocht. The byshop of Dun- kell is dede, and tbe erl of Athol's broder hes entrit in be fors. The quene considers yt all uther benefices are in pley, tharfore she hes gewin it to ye appostolate, and tharupon direct her wrytings to ye Pape. Cambuskenneth was tane be sir Kyngane Seton, hot my L. Erskin and ye secretar (Panther) has put }jym out agane. All frends fare wele. Your sister and bath her sons are in gud helth. Ye appostolate has gefin iiii crowns oflf wet (sic) quhar ye badd hymn. Piyngane tald me yt Grame promittet hym ye crowns, (bot) he has not gotten it; quharfore I rep^pet Grame, and he said he deliveret it to your youngest sister. Gif it be sa I wate mot) giff ye sende ony letters, send yam to Ptyngane or to George Dempster in Stirling, saying, y* yai com fra my (fader) and commend my service to Mr. Magnus, and shaw to my lord yt I am our ferr in his lordshippis comon (or canon), bot he sail hafe my service be ye grace of Good. Quhe hafe you in keping. — At Perth, ye xx day of January. — Tuus English. De. Magnus to Wolsey^ {State Paper Office — the Wolsey Papers.) Kirkoswald, 15th Mai'ch (1515?) It is openly spoken that the Duke of Albany is setting forward into Scot- land. Tbe Scottis are in continual trouble and busyness amonges thaymselves, dayly fightiog, kylling, and robbing, so that the Scottish marches make their raides into thayre own realm as and it were into a land of ward against them. And as for abbots and priors passe by nane ordinary process, bot by the micbt, strength, and power of their frends and kinsmen temporal, in all their elections, and depose them in divers places after the same manner. Other news have we none here, but that ane Sandy Jarden is commen from out of France into Scotland, and avaunceth much the coming thider of the Duke of Albany. LoED Dacee to Gavjn Douglas. {State Paper Office, cantemporanj copy of original.) Kirkoswald, 2nd July (1515 ?) My lord and cousin, — I commend me unto you in full hertie manner. Ascertayning you that this day I half reeeyved a pacquet of letters from the kingis highnes my soverane lord by post, wherein emonges oder there is two breves, with the copie of them, directed by the pope's holines, the an to youe and the oder to the archbishop of Sainct Andrews, and also a little pacquet sent to your lordship by your factour in the courte of Piome — with a letter from Mr. Adam Williamson, which I send unto your lordship with my servaint this berer. My Lord, 1 understand by suche letters as is come to me that the pope's holines, at the instant request and greate laubur of the queen's letters, your soverane lady, sent unto his holines, and also at the request of the king's grace, my soverane lord's writing hath electe you bishop of Dunkell. My said sove- rane lord, for tlie pleasure of the queen his said sister, and also for the grete wisdom, faithful counsale, and stedfastness, that he findeth ye give beres and awe unto the said quone, with duetie of allegeance to the king your maister, and his broder, my soverane lord's nephews, hath obtayned the said Bishop- APPENDIX. 255 rick to you, trusting that yoiar wisdom ^dll induce and counsale the said quene and your nephew lier husband, to be sure of the said king and his broder, and not to departe with them to ony oder handes without the liale assent of the lords spirituall and temporal!, seeing what possibility they stand in. My lord, I understande by the copie of the two breves that the effect of the ane sent unto the archbishop of Sanct Andrews is a speciall revocacion of such auctorite as the pope's holines committed to hym, and also of the king's legacie, which his holines hath fully remit unto you to be executed and done, which shall sounde and growe to your honour and prouflat, and so my said soverane lord intendeth and is well mynded towards you. Wherfor I heartily desire and pray you to deliver, or cause to be delivered, by a substancial per- son afore a notary and record, the breve to the said archbishop, who is fled out of Flandres, and thought he is kept secret in Scotland ; and upon the de- livering thereof to make certificate accordingly. My lord, richt joyous and glad I am of your promocion and help, as I am bounde to be for the grete kyndnes and entire favour that hath been betwixt our antecessours and blood in tymes past, which sail never fail on my partie, &c. LoED Dacre to GA\TrN Douglas. (State Paper Office.) [After statements to the same effect as in the preceding letter (of which this was intended to be a duplicate), Dacre proceeds as follows: — ] Abbey of Hume, 6th July. The effect of the one bnef sent to the said archbishop was, that the pope's holines had revokt all auctorities granted by him to the said archbishop, and also the king's legacy, charging him not to meddle nor intromit with no part of them. And as my said servant and the notary were coming towards the quene and you on Wednesday, in the dawyng at Moffett, Sir Alexander Jar.lain and Thom Moffett Larde of Knok toke them and thare wrytyngs, and had them to the Lord Chamberlayne, and fro hym Sir Alexander toke all the writings and had them, mth the notary and my servant, to the Duke. Note. — From a letter of Dacre to the Privy Council of 4th Aug. (1515?) it appears that Lord Home was then Chamberlain of Scotland, and that he was ' fast and sure upon the queue's party, for he sees that the Duke of Albany is sett to have the children in his own hands and keping, which is expressedlye for their utter destruction.' Lord Dacre to the Privy Council. {State-Paper Office— Border Papers.) Carlisle, 14 July [1515]. My Lordis,— Aftur mooste humble and due recommendatioun had unto your good lordshippis, pleas the same to kuowe that 1 received apacquet of letters from you by pooste the 2^6 daye of this present moneth, anil by my letter therein conteigned I perceive that the kingges commandment and yours is that I shuld with all convenient dihgence not oonly send the poope's two briefes and therr coopies, with a pacquet of letters to the abbot of Arbroothe, 256 APPENDIX. elect of Dunkell, and with the same I shuld wrete unto hym, shewing howe the kingges grace hath bene soo good lord unto hym to opteyn for hym the said bisshopricke of Dunkeld, hot also yf I couthe fynde the mean that at the tyme of delyvere of the said briefes to the said elect there might be present a notary whiche wold testifie the same delyveryng, and therupon make an in- strument in due fourme. My lordis, because I couthe not be in suretie to half a Scottis notary redy at the delyvere of the said brefes, I sent the saide brefes and pacquett with a servaunt of myn ownne, and thereupon made letters to the queue of Scottes and the elect of Dunkeld, and send them with the common notary of the marchies, whiche canne pei-fitely speke and undrestand Frenche, to the intent he shuld see the delyverie of the said brefes, the copies of whiche letters I send unto your lordshippes herein closed. And as they were riding at Moffett, 36 myles within Scotland on Weddins- day, in the mornyng, the -Ith daye of this moneth, Sir Alexander Geardin (Jardine), knight, toke the seid notary and letters; and because they men- tioned of the same brefes which my servaunt had in keping, the same Sir Alexander toke the brefes from my servaunt, and had the notary and letters, with the brefes and pacquet, to the lord chamberlayn, beyng wardain, and from hym to the duke of Albany, in Edinburghe, and there the said notary sawe the saime brefes and writings in the dukis haunds. Of whome he desired that aither the said brefes and writings were gevin to hym that he might deli- ver them according to there superscriptions, or els that it wold like his lord- ship to cause them be delivered accordingly for his discharge, seyng that he came upon the poope's message. The said duke sent the queue hir letter un- opynned, and read the other letters to the counsale openly, and thenne deli- vered as well the poope's brefes as pacquett unto the custodie of Maister Gawan Dunbarris haimdes, beyng clerk of the counsaill and kepar of the register, to be furthecommyng whenne as they be called for. And as sone as it came to my knowlege that the notary and my servaunt were arrested, I made another letter to the seid elect, reciting the effect of my formour letters as Avell sent to the queue as hym, with the popes brefes, whiche letter was delivered to the same electis haundes with all celerite (the copie of whiche letter I in like wise send unto your lordshippes); and anon efter, the same duke sent for the elect, and examined him in the presence of the counsale whedder he made laubor to the poope's holiness and the kinggs highnes, our soveraine lord, for the said bishopricke or not, or howe durst he be soo bold as to laubor therefor without licence of the king of Scottes, or governour of Scotland in his nonage. Who annswered that he made never laubor therefor, and what laubor as the queue his souverane lady made for his promotioun, as tutrice and governour to the king hir sonne, he knewe not. Wherupon the duke, beyng frett with ire and malice, committed hym to warde in the castell of Edinburghe, wheras he yit remaynis ; and thenne suffred the saide notary and my servaunt to departe at ther libertes on Thurisday last past, efter they had bene kept 8 dales in warde. My lordes, seyng the premisses come not to soo good spede as the kyng's highness entended they should half done, there is noo man living more sory for it thenne I am, wherin T did my best deligence for the spede and perform- ance of your commandmentes, as our Lord God knowes. Wberfore I beseche your good lorshippes to have me excused, for had not bene the sending of the notary, whiche was taken as a straungier in Scotland, I couthe haife conveyed the writinges to the haundes of the said elect without daungier. For newes, your lordshippes shall know that I am advertised be myne espies out of Scotland that the bisshop of Murraye hath not oonly opteyned the arch- APPENDIX. 257 bishopricke of Sanctandros, and is come home in Scotland, but also the duke has commanded hym towarde to remaigne in the priory of Pettenwene, within eght myle whar he laundyd, and no nerer to come to the courte ne counsaile. It is thought that he shalbe kept in strater warde unto the season as he resigns the said archibusshopricketo the use of a bastard sone of the late king of Scottes, whiche came home in companye with the said duke. The lord Drommond, captain of the castell of Streveling, was sent for be the duke to appear afore hym, upon his allegiance, whiche at his commyng was accused for the striking of an harrolde, and also that he with other lordes shvild have bene of counsaile to have made the king's grace, our maister, pro- tectour of Scotland, and delyvered the young king to his haundis. And ther- upon he was committe to warde on Weddinsday last past, and shall abyde assise in Edinburghe upon Monday next commyng. I assure your lordshippes that the quene of Scottes canne gitt noo noble man to be capten of Streveling, ne that will take the charge of keping of the younge king and his broder, for every man refuses her and giffes them to the duke, which I fere and canne see no remedy, but in conclusion the king and his broder will come and be delivered to the dukes haundes to their utter destruction by all likelyhoode, and as I am credubly ascertaigned be my secrete espiel. I trust that at the breking up of ther parliament to gitt knowledge of ther determinaciones, and what ordour shalbe taken emonges them, and therof I shall advertise youe with all spede and deligence. My lordes, if suche letters as the queue of Scottes half sent with the poope's legate which hath been in Scotland this yere, passed as well to the king's highnes, the French quene, his and hir sister, as to divers other of you my lords of the king's counsail, to be mean and sollicitous to his highnes for hir help, she is right desirous to half aunswer again. Albeit whenne she might have holpen herself and husbande with his freyndes, and also meanes founde and devised for the suretie of them and hir childer, she regarded it littell, whiche she nowe sore repentis, making great lamentatioun and weping daily for the same. She is great with childe. It is thought by hir freyndis that thorowe the anguyshe of the premisses she wolbe in great jopardie of her lyfe, remembering the daungier that her husbande, uncle, and his graundfader standis in at this tyme as the Holy Trinity knowes, who kepe your good lord- shippes. At Karlisle, the 14 daye of July, Yours at commandment, Thomas Dacee. To my lordis of the kingis most honorable counsale. 258 APPENDIX. IV. LETTERS OF GAVYN DOUGLAS, BISHOP OF DUNKELD, TO CAEDINAL "WOLSEY. The following letters have been preserved partly in the Cottonian Library, and partly in the State Paper Office. I. — Gavyn Douglas to Wolsey. {State-Paper Office.) Dec. 24, 1520. My lord, in all humble and dew maneyre I recommend my lawfull servyce tmto your grace ; quham pleisyt knaw I am cummyn in yis realm sende from my lord Erll of Anguss, other lords of Scotlande and grete personagis to ye kyngis hyenes apon certan neydful dyrectiounes, and specially concernyng ye weylfare and surte of his derrest nevo (nephew) the kyng my soverane. And gif I quhilk am onknawyin with his magestye durst haf presumyt to haf wrytyn onto ye samyn I wald gladly, besekyng your grace to support me in that behalf; and yat it mot playss you to shaw me in quhat place and quhat tyme I sail cum to youi* grace, and safiirth onto ye kyngis hienes ; and I salbe veiTe glad to awayt apoun your commandis. And gif it had not beyn for this the fest of Cryste's natyvyte and alss that I am sumpt by the way, I suld haf cummyn strecht to your grace ; beseykyng elykewyss the samyn to pardon this my hamly wrytyng, and to sende ansuer tharof at your plassor; and ye blyssit lord preserve your grace in lang and eternall prospeiite. At Waltam Cross, this Crystymas evyn. By the hande of Your chaplain with his lawfull servyce, Gawtn, bishop of Dunkeld. To my lorde Cardinall's grace. II. — Same to Same. {State-Paper Office.) Dec. 31, 1521. Pleiss youre grace, — Maister galtere, commendator of the abbay of glenluse and secretar to the duke of Albany, callit governor of Scotland, is cummin to Londoun, and with him Eoss, herald, and ane nother pursavant callit Carrik, qubilk is ane franch man borne, and I traist is to pass to franco and with thame thre uther servandis. Quhairfore I beseyk your grace gif it war youre plessor that I mycht haif presence of the kyngis hienes als sone as yai. And gif I mycht knaw ony of thair directiounis, peradventure I suld iuforme the kingis hienes and your grace of sik thingis as ye wald tliink necessair to mak answer to thair peticiounis and desyris. Farthei', mot pleiss your grace to remembyr my lytill materis at Eome, and in that behalf to geif credence to this berar, my famihar chax^lain and cousyng, with quhom your grace wald APPENDIX. 259 adverteiss me at youre plessr what ye will commande. And the haly Trinite presserv'e your grace eternaly. At Lundoun, the new yeris evin, Subscrivit with the hande of Your humble ser\'itour, Chaplain of Dunkeld. III. — Same to Same. (C Ottoman Library — Caligula.) January 1, 1522. Pleiss your grace, my chaiplane, quhilk was yesterday at your presence, shew me yat Galtere, this secretar of the duke of Albanyis, has said to youre grace that I promyst not to cum within this realm, and therefore of his maister's behalf your grace to withhald me heyre, and lat me pass na farther. My lord, I beleyf your bye wisdome will not geif credence sa lichtlye against me, and alanerlie to the duke of Albany, or any of his servandis, quhilkis is capitalle and dedelie inimye to me and all my houss. And thairfor it is na wounder albeyt he say sik thingis for my harm, quhilk diverss tymes and yet daylie baith sayis and dois all that he may or can ymagyn to my destniccioun and exterminatioun of all my kyn. And as I sail ansuer to god and your grace, the contrare of it he sayis is playn varite; for baith be messenger and Avrite I declaret him playnlie I wald pass thro this realm and na uther way, and gart shew him quhat day I was appoyntit to enter in ye ground of Ingland, the quhilk I kepit trewly. And this youre grace may considder, quhat favour he beris to me, or how I suld be intretit gif I war in Scotlande under his sub- jeccioun, or yet gif I pass to france or ony uther part quhair he may solhst ony thing, quhen he is sa bald within this realm, quhairin I traist he has lytill credence, as to sollyst your grace in my contrare, albeyt ye half grantit me" the king's hienes sauf-conduct, the quhilk I traist I haif not forfait, nor yet your grace wiU suffer be brokyn. And besyde this, the mater is petiouss gif ony kyrkman suld be (kepit fra) gangand to Eome for his lauthfull defence and summond thider. And neththeless your grace knawis full wele I may be lichtlie (easily) intretit to remane heyr, hot in na wayis at his commande nor desyre. And full wele wayt your hye wisdom quhat is to be done or ansuerit to sik ane peticioun, mekyle better yan I or manny sik can ymagyn ; albeyt, gif it mycht stand with your plessr, I wald (beseyk) your grace to ansuer to this Gaiter that gif ye duke his maister wilbe content my accioun and mater be remittit furth of Rome to your grace, and before your auditors, quhairof I wald be glayd, your grace suld causs me remaine. And ellis, quhy or how suld ye bald me fra my lauthfull defense, quhilk is of the law of natm*e, specialhe I havand the kingis sauf-conduct to pass, as said is. This is my little avise, under correctioun of your grace, quham I beseyk to pardoun this ray sa liaymlie wrytnyg. And the haly Trinite haif yom-e grace in his blessit and eternall keping. At Lundoun this new yeiris day, Subscrivit with the hand of Your humble servytour and Chaplain of Dunkeld. 260 APrEi^Dix. IV. — Same to Same. (G Ottoman Library — Caligula. ) January 6, 1522. Placyt your grace, ye had jasterday syk byssynes that I mycht not schew yoiir grace qiihat I thocht twychyng (touching) the cummyng of this Scottis prest, Shir John Duncanson, quha yestirday presentyt wrytyngis to the kyngis hye- nes and your grace for ane sauf-conduct, and is cummyng furth of Scotland with grete dylligens apon vii days, and is rycbt famjlyar with the duke of Albanye, and speciall servand of a lang tyme to ye archhyschop of glasgow, and hes bro* wyth hym wrytyngs and dyrectyounis fra tham bayth to be sped in frans, flanders, and rome, as I knaw by his wordes. Alss thar is commyng with hym an Italian callyt ewangehsta, the mariner of a lumbarde in Scotlande, to convay hym at merchands hande heyr and in flanders. Gif your grace hed seyn thair letters and dyrectyones I traist ye suld knaw mony thyngis tharby. And gif your hye prudens think spedfull ane salve conduct be sped heyr at ye instance and subscryptioun of ye said duke, I report me to your grete wysdom, or yet that the said bishop of glasgwy's materis and promocion for sanct andrews suld prosper, consydderyng he is the maist specyall man that man- tejnis and all ways hes manteynyt the said duke, I dreyd alsso this duncan- son is d}Tekkyt in my contrary and to do me hurt, and besyke your grace to provyd ye rather sum remedy thairfore. And gif it mycht stand with your pless'" that he had na passage, for ye causys forsaidis, onto ye tyme your grace knew mar fully his dyrectyonis. And gyf your hye prudens plesys, so do I wald no man knew this cam by my desyr, because he fenzeis hym famyliar with me, wharby peraventure I sail knaw sumpt (somewhat) mayr of his mynde, albeyt I knaw ellis the fynes (finesse) of the man, and nayn mayr dowbyll in our realm. Do as pleiss your grace, quham God preserve. At Lundoun, this epiphany day, With ye hand of Yo'^ humble servyt' and Chaplain of Dunkelde. V. — Same to Same. (State-Paper Office.) January 31, 1522. Plesit your grace, sen I herd the tythingis and wrytingis of yestirday I am and half bene so dolorous and full of vehement ennoye that I dar nocht aventour cum in your presence, quhilk causis me thus wrj'te beseking the samyn, of your grete goodnes to haif compacience of me, desolatt and wofiill wyght. Albeyt I grant I haif deservyt punycioun, and am under the kyngis mercy and youiis, not for any fait or demeritt of my awne, but by raisoun of thair untreuth that causit me labour for the wele of thair prince and thair securite, quhilk now has wrocht thair awne confuscioun and perpetuall schayme, and hes servit me as your grace may considdyr, that sollistit the kyngis hienes and your grace to wrytt and doo for thayme so often tymes and so largely in divers sortis, als wele to thair support as comfort; quhairof as now I most (must) nedis underly youre mercy, albeyt I dowte not hot youre hye prudens consideris profoundly my part thairof and my hole trew mynde all tyme but (without) ony dissimulance, that in good fayth am forther dissavit in this matter then ony utheris ; by raisoun quhairof I am so full of sorowe APPENDIX. 261 and displesovir that I am wery of my avme lyfe. And promittis to God and your noble grace, as your bumile servand and ane trew cristen preist, that I sail nevir here nor tak way with the duke of Albany, the unworthy erl of Angus, nor na utheris that assistis to the said duke, but (without) yovu' express com- mande and avise, nor nevir sail pass in Scotlande, hut at your plessour, so lang as this wikkyt duke is tharin or has rev,ie thairof. And I traist my brothre and utber my frendis will use my consale, Albeyt yon young wytless fwyll (fool) has runnyn apoun his aune myscheyf be continewall pei-suasiounis of wylye, subtile men, and for lak of good counsale, showing to him, I dowte not, mony fenzeit lettres and wounderfull terrouris, that the lord Hume and utheris wald pass in and lefe him allone, and that I wald be takin and haldyn heyr, and that Gaiter, the dukis secretar, had appoynted with the kyngis hie- nes for his distruccioun, and the duke to mary the qweoe. I dowte not sik thingis and mekle mayr has been sayd ; and with this, the wrytingis at (that) your grace causit me send furth of Hamtoun Courte on Sanct Thomas daye cam not to him, quhill the 14 day of Januair, and so he has remaynet com- fortless in the menetyme, quhill the tother subtile folkis had convayit thair mater, Wuld God I had sende ane servand of my aune with the wrytmgis, or post self with thame in caiss I had lyin 7 yeris efter in preson, for I fynd absence ane screw, and diligence with expeditioun mycht half done grett goode. Albeyt of verjte thair may be non raisonable nor honest excuse that suld causs ony creature brek his lawte or promyt. And I beseyk God that I may see him really punyst for his demerittes and promyss brokyn mayd to the kyngis hienes and me his uncle ; and salbe glayd to sollyst the kyngis hienes and youre grace to this effect at all my poure. Noththeless I beseke your grace to remember the welefare and securite of the kyngis grace of Scotlande, my soverane lord and maister, and to sollist the kyngis hienes to that effect, for his grace has maid na fait, but is allutterlie innocent. This is and was my principal direccioun and causs of my hyddyr-cumraing, as your grace full wele uuderstandis, albeyt I wald haif procurit as I cowthe the weilfayr of myself and frendis besyde, gif thai had not wrocht in the contrair to thair aune de- struccioun and myne, sa fer as in thame lyis. And gif I durst be sa bald as to solhst youre grace, and schew quhat wayis war best for the weyifare of the young kingis grace, my soverane, I wald be glayd to endevour myself thairto at the comaiande of your grace. In caiss now 1 dar nocht aventour to propone na sik thingis, by raisoun that I am dissavit be my most tendyr frendis in my fjTst intei-pryss, in contrair to all goode lyklyhood or naturall equite. Besekyng your grace of your gracious ansuer, and quhat ye will commande me to doo, and to be my good lorde, and to lat me knaw gif it be your plessour that I awayt apon your ser-sdce and doo my dewitee as I audit of dett, and wald be glayd so to doo. For furth of this realm will I not depart, so long as 1 may remane thairinmth the kyngis plessor and youris, quhat penurite and distress so evir I sustene. And youre gracious ansuer huirupoun, in wourde, be message, or writing, I humily beseyke, or gif it pleiss your grace I cum myself to youre nobill presence thairfor. And God allmychty preserve your grace etemalye. At the In of Carlile, the last day of Januar, Subscrivit with the hand of your humble sei-\7tor and dolorous Chaplain of Dunkeld. To my lord Cardinallis good grace. The allusions in the above letter are explained by a letter of Anthony 262 APPENDIX. Oiightred, Governor of Berwick, to "Wolsey, dated Jan. 21, 1522, in which he informs him ' that the Duke of Alhany has taken the castle of Tantallon from the Earl of Angus, and that the Earl has come in and submitted to Albany, contrary to his oath on the evangelists, to Lord Dacre.' — State-Paper Office. STATE OF THE CHURCH IN LINLITHGOW. I. — ExTEACT OF Letter frobi Mr. W. H. Henderson, Linlithgow, respect- ing Altarages in the Church of St. Michael. ' An immense number of " annual rents," as they were called, were payable by the proprietors of almost every property in the burgh to the chaplains of the various altars in the church. I have looked over a list of these, engrossed in the " Register of the Special Evidents," concerning the burgh, and I find that the undermentioned altars had the following numbers of annual rents, payable chiefly from tenements in this town, and a few from houses in Edin- burgh, &c. : — 1. [ rhe altar of the Virgin Mary, . 38 2. Do. do. (founded by Robert Beggs), 21 3. Do. St. John the Baptist, 20 4. Do. St Ninians, 20 5. Do. the Holy Trinity, . 20 6. Do. St. Andrews, 19 7. Do. the Holy Cross, 17 8. Do. St. Katherine the Virgin, . 15 9. Do. the Third Chaplain (dedicated to St. Bridged), 15 10. Do. Lampadis et Luminis ; Sacramenti, 13 11. Do. the Second Chaplain (dedicated to St. Anne), 12 12. Do. St. Peter, . 8 13. Do. Corpus Christi, 6 14. Do. St. Ehzii, . 2 15. Do. Omnium Sanctorum, 1 16. Do. St. Michael, 1 228 In all, a goodly number. I suppose the houses in the town would not much exceed this number. The priesthood seems to have flourished here in all its branches ; for the Carmelite Friars, who were beggars in every corner of Scot- land, and were presumed to be incapable of holding lands or goods, for many years were proprietors of a large piece of fine arable land to the south of the town.' 11. — Copy Obligation by Patric Brone, Chaplain at Corpus Christi Altar in St. Michael's Church, Linlithgow, in favour of the Bailies and Community of Linlithgow. (Taken from the Original in the Burgh Charter Chest) Til al and sundrie quhais knawlege thir present lettres sal to cum, Patric Brone, chapellane, greting in the Salviour of all. Yhoure universite (you all) sal knaw me APPENDIX. 263 to be oblist and be thir present lettres, in tlie faith of my body, leleli and treuli obliss me til honorable and worschipful men, the baileyheis and commuuitie of the bm-gh of Liulithgw for tliare suppli and favoure done to me thankfulli, that 1 sal be lele and trew to thai, obedient and iucliuand to thare ordinance in all lefFul things and honest, tuiching the service of God and haly kirk. In manere as eftir followis. In the first, I obliss me to do divine service at the altar of Corpus Christi, foundat in the parisch kirk of Llithgow be a reverend man of worthie memore, quhilis Maist. Williame of Foulis, archedene of Sanct Andrewis, eftir the tenor of his chartir of fundation made tbareupon, as I will ansere in that actione before the heeast Juge. Alsa I obliss me that I sal mak ministracion at my cunning and knawlege in the parisch kirk and in the quere of the said burgh in divine service, sic as afore used dayli and continualy in matutine, mess, evynsang, lladymes, salve, and processione, gif the said baileybeis and counsale thinkis expedient that continnale service be made, and imiquhiles on festivale dayes and haly daycs, as the eauss requer. And atiour I obliss me that I sal kepe and conserve all tbe graith and reparatione of the said altare, bukis, chalice, cbosabill, albis, towallis, and the apparaling of thai to the profet of the said altare. And at I sal not sell, wedset, nor anale ony part of the graith of the said altare, for na mistere may happyn me in ony tjme to cum, and gif I do the contrare in ony thing I renunce my said ser- vice, to be quite thereof in al tymes to cum. Alsa I obliss me be thir presents that I sal govern my person in honeste and be of honest conversation in mete and drink, lying and rising, and at I sal not use unressonable excess, no con- tinnale concubine. And gif me happyne to do the contrare, I sal, at the ordi- nance and consale of the said baileyheis and communiiie, desist and amend, under payne of deprivacion fra my said service ; and in tymes to cum I sal leyr diligentli to rede and sing in augmentation of Godd's service and for plea- sance of the said baileyheis and communitie. And till all thir thingis before writin leleli and treuli to be kepit in manere and fourme, the haly evangell twichit, I have gevyn a bodily aith in presence of the baileyheis and commu- nitie of the said burgh. And for the mare schures, I have fundyn thir worthi persons borrowis and pleges for me that the said condicione sal be kepit. That is to say, Henry of Livingstone of Middleberry, Walter of Hamilton, William of Saltone, Thomas of Cowers, William Brone my fadyr, and John Brone my brodir. In witnes of the quhilk thing the said persons in takenyng of thare borowgang has set to thare sells the xxiiii day of the moneth of Februare, the yhere of our Lord 1°* foure hundir fifti and fyve yheres. (Seal) (Seal) (Seal) (Seal) (Seal) (Seal) iii. — exceepts from the inilnute-books of the royal burgh of Linlithgow. October 22, 1529. — ' The balzeis and consale delivers y* y^ maister of Werk sal delyver ij merks to Sir Henry Mushet, and he to m^^ gud service at ye singing of ye morn^ mess.' Note. — The ' Master of Work ' was treasurer of the burgh. November 5, 1529. — ' The siss ordanis y* ye bailzeis call yair festmen befor yai, and charge yai to do yair service at mess, mattyness, and evynsangs, eftir ye forme of yair fundacionis and bands, and gif yat yai will no* obey, yai to do yair service eftir ye tenor of ye fundation, to call yai before yair omman w* a scharp sumonds.' 264 APPENDIX. Note. — The ' siss' or ' assize' was the ancient name of the Council, when sitting in a judicial capacity. This minute would argue a laxity on the part of the chaplains. Eo. die. — ' Item. Ye size deliuers j^ Maister Fynlaw Forest get ane suppe- riore grammariare to tech ye skoll, or ellis ye balzeis to discharge ye said Maister Fynlaw of ye skole, and to discharge all ye nythours y* yai put na bairns to him, for he has donne gret hurt to ye towne,' October 20, 1540. — ' Item. Memorandum. It is consentit be ye provest, baillies, and counsale of ye brogh of Linlithgw, and also ordanit, y* y"" be in ilk hour ane mess, fra fywe houris in ye mornyng qll xii houris at nowne in sumyr, and six houris in ye mornyng qll xii houris in wint. And yis roule to be keipit in honor of God and hali kirk.' Note. — In September, 1540, the burgh got permission from the king to elect a provost. < In primis. Ye End aulf, fywe houris in somyr, and six houris in wint. And becaus Sir Hendre Mushett, chapillane of ye said aul', is ane elder man, and may no keip ye said service, the said provest, bailies, and counsale for- said, ordanis ye maister of werk quhatsumever beand for the tyme, to asur ane chaplane y^ sal come of ye said mess saying at ye hour forsaid, siklik as Sir Eobart, townnis chaplane, is assurit of now p°tlie, quhilk extending to in ye hale four merkis viii"^ lyand qll ye said rud aul' walk, and come to the gud townnis hand. Item. Sanct Ninian's chapplane, half-hour to sewin h. ye mornyng. Item. Sanct John ye baptist aul'', the chaplane of ye same at vii houris. Item. 0' ladie chaplane, qlk ye gud brugh fundit, viii houris. Item. Sanct Kathrynis chaplane, half-hour till ix hour. Item. Sanct Androis chappilane at ix hours. Item. Corpus X"^' chapplane at half-hour to x houris. Item. Sanct Peter chappellane at x houris. (Here follows a short blank of a quarter of a page, which has been left seemingly for the rest of the altars to have their service adjusted.) Item. Yat na chapillane ga till ye mess in tyme of ye hie mess, hot all ye chappellanes sal sitt in ye queyr w*' yair surpless on yai; and do sic sei'vice as yai cann. And quha y^ dois ye centre, and he be warnit be ye prowest, bailies, and consale, and will no*, the chappellanis foresaid, keip yis roule and statut, his benefice sail walk, and ye provest, balzeis, and consale, to provyd for ane uyir sufficient kii-kman yarto. And y* ye parech clerk keip his mess, mat- tyngs, evynsangs, and confessionis dailie, siklik as ye festmen gois y* are fest chappillanis at ye townis gyft^ as his baud purportis, w* his surpless in ye queja-, for ye administration of Goddis service. Item. Y* ye sacrament lamp be dailie lytit be ye prech clerk or his servi- tour at fyve houris, &c., &c., and to ring the bells in the morning and 'curfoue' nightly. Item. Y* all ye chappillanes cum till mattyngs, hie mess, evensangs, pro- cessionis, w* y' surpless on yame, and till sitt in ye queyr, and yai y* can- no* syng till do uthir suffrage for ye honestie of Goddis service, as sone as ye third bell is rung, undir ye pane of x* Scottis unforgiven, til be gevin till ye collector of ye festmen. And y* yair be collectours maid and chosin be ye fest chappellanes of ye said kirk for till gaddir in ye obitis, and till maik compt till ye festmen as ye purportis.' October, 1541. — ' The said day it is statut and ordanit be the prowest, bailies, and consale of yis burgh of Linlithgou, for the weillfair of yis brugh, that yai and all honest persones y'of observe and keip all soung, ewinsangs, and mess APPENDIX. 265 in the kirk, sayand y' devotion to God Almighty and his niodir the hlessit virgine Marie, yame for the comone weill of yis burgh qlk be y' interest.' Oct. 19, 1541. — ' The prouest, bailies, and consale of yis burgh of Linlithgw, for the lawd and honor of God omnipotent, and ye halie archangel Sanct Mychaell, patron of ye said brugh, and decor of ye hie altar situat within ye paroch kirk of ye samyn, thinks expedient yat yar he lychtit thua (two) prik- catts ilk haly day apoun ye said aultar, in tyme of ye hie mess and ewinsang, quhilk sail burn fra ye begynning of ye said mess quhill ye complet end yereof. And in likewys at ye ewinsang, and yat yere he three torches lychtitt at ye elevatioun of ye sacrament of ye hie mess, and magnificat of ye ewinsang at ye lest. item. Yat our ladie aultar and yo Eud (Rood) be lychtit with three impes ilk haliday at ewinsang ; and apone dowbill and solempnet festes, ye saids aultar and all iitheris with impis and torches, as hes beyne in tymes bypast. Item. Yat all ye fest lampis within ye said paroche kirk be lychtit conform to ye funditoris will, eftir ye tenor of ye auld statutes and consuetud ; and yat ye provost and baillies vesye the samyn, and correct faultes quhar any herein is fun din. Item. It is statut and ordanit yat ye provest and bailies quhatsumever for ye t}-rae, at yair first entres to yair ofiices, wesy (visit), see, and consider ilk aultar yat yais are patronis to, the albis, tunyklis, chalices, bukkis, and all uyers (other) omamentis y'of, and causs ye samyn to he correkkit, reformit, and mendit, and als reneuit be the chaplans yat are potent ; and quhar ya ma noght, be ye common gudis. Item. Yat ye provest and bailies at y^" said entres als wesye, see, and con- sider yat albis, tunyklis, cappis, chalices, and bukkis, and all other omamentis of ye hie altar and ye queir, and causs the samyn to be observit and kepit be ye paroche clerk and his servaudis, yat nane jTof be spilt, worne, want in y defalt, and yat yai be tikkattit yeirhe in the commoun buke, and yat the said paroche clerk do his ser\'ice at tymes usit and wont. Item. It is statut and ordanit, because ye queir is walk and febill of syngars, yat na chaplan in tyme comj-n be admit till, nor chosin to ony altarage at the townis gift, but gyf he be ane kennand qualif\it man in musyk, notourlie kend, or ellis yat he underlie and abyd ye examination of kennand men in musyk, and be admittit be yame ye provest, baUies, and consale cheisis to examine on him. Item. Yat nyctbouris bernis of ye burgh forsaid, being lik qualifyet in musyk to uyirs extranes (others who are strangers) be erest (first) admitted to altarages, and ye maist kennand and best conditionat first. Item. Yat na infeftment nor mortification of ye townis altars be remane in the chaplanis handes, but be in kepin in the commoun charter kist of ye town, and yat the chaplanis have ye attentik (authentic) copye jTof apone y' expensis, and (if) it be desyrit. Item. Yat the bellman pass for fyre and candiU, and all cristyne saulis, at tyme usit and wont.' April 2, 1543. — ' Ye qlk day ye assyss ordanis the prowest and bailies, w* y' wele avisyt couusale, to pass on Wodynsday, the five day of Aprill in- stant, to ye kirk of Linlithgw, and requyr the chaplains to concur w* yame of the samyn, and y' to commoun and see gyf y' be ony faltis to Godis service qlk suld'be done in ye said kirk dailift. and quha hes ye weyit (blame) y'of, or quharin ye fale and fait is : and y* ye provest, bailies, and their wele a\asit consale, w* ane avyse of the brether and chaplains of ye said kirk to causs all faltis to be reformit, to the honor of God, o' ladie, and guid Sanctis.' 266 APPENDIX. VI. ORIGINAL LETTERS OF JAMES V. AND THE EARL OF ANGUS. (From State-Paper Office.) Two lettei-s of James Y., the one to Henry VIII., the other to Wolsey, are found bearing date Edinburgh, the 27th day of March. The year is not men- tioned, but they contain ample internal evidence of having been written on the same occasion as the follomng letter of the Earl of Angus to Henry, to the contents of which, on the subject of Border affairs, James alludes in these terms : — ' And as tuichand (touching) ye effaris of ye bordore, our richt traist and weilbelovit counsalour, chancellour, and wardane, ye erle of Anguss, sail at mau- lenth advertys you of our mynde in every behalf.' Angus's letter to Henry is dated at Edinburgh, the '28th day of IMarch, and treats of the same topics as the king's letter. It refers the English king for further satisfaction to a letter which Angus dispatched at the same date to Wolsey. Angus's letter to Wolsey concludes as follows : — ' And finalie, my lord, desiring your kyndly and faithfull counsall, the kingis hieness and your grace sal be sure that thare sail nathing be left on this syde in making of dew redress, keping of amite and kyndnes betwix the realmis, and to do and labor that thing may be plesor to the kingis hieness your sove- rane, in sic sort that his hieness and your grace sail tak just occasioun to set forward all my soveranis ressonabill desyris. Praying yoitr grace to excuse the lang tary of this answer, because the kingis hieness, my soverane, at the cummyng of the messinger with your grace's letteris, was in the north countre, in ye extreme partis of his realmye, and at his returnyng the answer was a Is hastily sende as mycht be. And thus I pray God preserve your grace eternalie. * Written at Edinburght the penult day of Marche, 1528, ' Your grace's, with all service, ' Ard, Chanceller.' The year as above is embodied in the letter itself by the writer, Avhich is not at all common in the correspondence of that period. VII. I. — Letter of Sir James Hamilton of Kincavel to Crumwell. (State-Paper Office.) To my lord secretar of Ingland — Ryt honorabill syr, I recomend my humile ser\'es onto your m. (mastership) in my maist hartlye maner, quhome pleiss to wit y* ray wife hes gotten ye copy of ye sentens quhilk was gewin aganis me be ye bischoppis, ye quhilk APPENDIX. 267 copye your m. pleiss to rasaif fray ye berar to be awiset w*, and had no* beyn y* my wife's drowre (dowry) and hir tocher was raservit to hir in it, yai wald no* haif gewin it to me nor hyr for moche monye ; hot yai haif forbyddyne hir yt ever I knaw ony thyng of it, for in gudefay* ye tane half of it is falslye alegj-t aganis me, as I sail shew your m. at o' meting. Ferder ye kyng's grace hes suflferryt my wife to intromet as yit w* my landes, hot he wold haif hir to by yaim fray hyme for a soume of money to my sone, or ells to tak yair assedacione for ane yerelye ferme confowrme to my rentell ; hot I will not sulfir hir to do ane of ya twa onto ye tyme y* I se quhat ye kyngis grace of Ingland may do yareto at ye king's grass's hand, mymastyr; yai'efore I besek your m., for ye luyf (of) god, to help me as sone as ye may w* ye king's wrjte to ye kinge my master for me, y* I may wit your ye gude and ye evill of ye matter, and yan I sail do yareftir w^ yair rn. awise and gude consell. Ferder, as I schew your m., I will tarye apon ye bordo' of Inglande onto ye tyme I haif your m. wryte and answeir quhat I sail do, for my haill hoip off help is in your m. hands, for ye poyr service at I ever may do for you in ony tymis cummin, bayt in words and deids, as knawis god, quhay mo* evir haif your m. in honor and prosperate baj't in sawU and bodye. Of berwik ye xxiv day, be your servand and gudfrend at powar, Jamess Hamylton, Shref of lytgw. Note. — The date assigned to this letter in the calendar of the State-Paper Office is April 24, 1536, but it was probably much earlier, as Sir James fled to Berwick in the summer of 1534:. II. — Letter of Maegaeet, Queen Dowager of Scotland, to Henry VIII., ASKING A Safe-conduct for Catherine Hamilton. (From Crurmoell Papers, Rolls' House, Chancery Lane. This and many other papers, however, have 7'ecently been removed to the State-Paper Office.) Pdcht excellent, richt hie and michtie prince, and oure derest bruder. In oure maist hartlie and tender manner we commend us unto youre grace. Fforsamekle as yis gentill woman, oure familiar servitaire, Catherine Hamil- toun, intendes presently to vesy ye partis of France for hir leiffuU erandis and besynes, yar to be done and addressit, it will pleis youre grace for oure saik and special request, graunt unto hir your sauf-conduct, swa yat sche may pas sauflie and repas throw youre grace's lealme of Ingland without hurt, hami, or molestatioun of hirself or servandis, in yare personnis or gudes in ony manner. And to have gude expeditioun of ye samyn, as oure most singular confidence restis in your grace. Eicht excellent, richt hie and mychtie prince, and our derest bruder, we pray eternall God preserve your grace in tuitioun and gouvemaraent. Written of Edinburgh, under our signette, ye xxiiii day of December, 1536. Your luffent systar, Margaret. LONDON: SERCOMEE AXD JACK, PRINTERS, ICA, GREAT WINDMILL STREET, Y THE SAME AUTHOR. Preparing for Publication, ALEXANDER ALANE, COMMONLY CALLED ALESIUS, THE WANDEEEE, THE COMVERT OF HAMILTON AND COADJUTOR OF MELANCTHON. AN HISTORICAL BIOGRAPHY, COLLECTED FROM ORIGINAL SOURCES, INCLUDING ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE HAMILTON AND WISHART PERIODS OF THE SCOTTISH REFORMATION, AND NOTICES OF NUMEROUS SCOTTISH PROTESTANT EXILES. Lately Puhlislied, price Is., A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND LABOUKS OF THE LATE Pkoeessor HUGH CAMPBELL, PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY AND CHURCH HISTORY IN THE COLLEGE OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN ENGLAND. Hamilton, Adams, & Co. ; James Nisbet & Co. Lately Published, price 2s. Gd., HEALTHY EELIGION EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE OF THE LATE ME. ANDEEW JACK, OF EDINBUEGH. Edinburgh: W. V. Kennedy; London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co. UR ^ Date Due Ip^ SSSWBW***' i 1 '^- 1 ^ m w 1 "^ h um m'^ 1 1 mmm&i !> Ui^Mmk- *«wa^^*^ r