CHAPTER XI.

ALESIUS.

We owe it to the Rev. Christopher Anderson, the author of the 'Annals of

the English Bible,' that attention has been once more turned to the

deeply interesting story of Alexander Alane, or Alesius. Principal

Lorimer, in his 'Scottish Reformation,' has thrown further light on him.

And Dr Merle D'Aubigné, who appears to have minutely examined most of

his tracts and commentaries, has wrought into his graphic but

imaginative narrative much of the information which they have been the

chief means of handing down to us. It was after his expatriation that he

received from Melanchthon the name of Alesius, or the wanderer.

[Sidenote: His miraculous Escape.]

This highly distinguished but long forgotten _alumnus_ of St Andrews

University was born in Edinburgh on the 23rd of April 1500, of honest

parents, and received the first rudiments of his education in his

native city. It was probably while he was still there that he had

vouchsafed on his behalf those wonderful interpositions of Providence,

which remained through life engraven on his heart, and which he thus

relates in his preface to his Commentary on the Second Epistle of Paul

to Timothy, published at Leipzig in 1551. "Certe ab infantia [Diabolus]

me saepe incautum opprimere voluit, et perdere non tam insidiis et

crudelitate hostium, quam praecipitio in ignem et aquam. Verum ille, qui

servavit me inter omnia pericula et infantem de gradibus patris mei

cadentem in acervum lapidum advectorum ad extruendum supremum tabulatum

in aedibus, et reptantem manibus in cacumine altissimi montis, ex cujus

declivi vel praerupto, divinitus in alterum latus in quo facilis erat

descensus, subito perveni."[283] With even more than his usual licence,

Dr D'Aubigné thus recounts this adventure: He "was fond of going with

other boys of his own age to the heights which environ Edinburgh. The

great rock on the summit of which the castle stands, the beautiful

Calton Hill, and the picturesque hill called Arthur's Seat, in turn

attracted them. One day, it was in 1512, Alexander and his friends,

having betaken themselves to the last-named hill, amused themselves by

rolling over and over down a slope which terminated in a precipice.

Suddenly the lad found himself on the brink; terror deprived him of his

senses; some hand grasped him and placed him in safety, but he never

knew by whom or by what means he had been rescued. The priests gave the

credit of this escape to the paper with which they had provided him, but

Alexander himself attributed it to God and his father's prayers."[284]

[Sidenote: Discussions with Patrick Hamilton.]

Alesius, or Alane as he was still called, being of good abilities, was

early sent to the university, and seems to have been one of the first

set of students who entered St Leonard's College (the college founded by

Prior John Hepburn, with the consent of Archbishop Alexander Stuart)

after its opening in 1512. His studies appear to have been prosecuted

there in the usual way, and in 1515 he became a determinant, or took the

degree of B.A.;[285] and, probably after acting for a few years as a

regent in the college, he was drafted as a novice into the priory, and

ultimately became one of its canons. When John Major came to St Andrews

in 1523 as principal of the Pædagogium, he, like Hamilton and some

others who ultimately shared the same opinions, studied theology under

him, and made great progress, especially in the study of the schoolmen

and the fathers of the Christian church. He was, like most of the young

scholastics of his time, fond of disputation; and if he listened to

those lectures on the gospels which Major gave to the press some years

after, he probably imbibed from his teacher that combative attitude

towards the new opinions which at this period of his life he showed.

D'Aubigné says: "His keenest desire was to break a lance with Luther....

As he could not measure himself personally with the man whom he named

_arch-heretic_, Alesius had refuted his doctrine in a public discussion

held at the university. The theologians of St Andrews had covered him

with applause.[286] ... Alesius, alive to these praises and a sincere

catholic, thought that it would be an easy task for him to convince

young Hamilton of his errors.... Armed cap-a-pie, crammed with

scholastic learning, and with all the formulæ 'quo modo sit, quo modo

nonsit,'" he had various discussions with him. "Hamilton had before him

nothing but the Gospel, and he replied to all the reasonings of his

antagonist with the clear, living, and profound word of the

Scriptures.... Alesius, struck and embarrassed, was silenced, and felt

as if 'the morning star were rising in his heart. It was not merely his

understanding that was convinced, the breath of a new life penetrated

his soul."[287] He continued from time to time to visit the reformer

while he lived, and to cherish his memory after he had been so cruelly

put to death.

When the opinions and martyrdom of Hamilton were the subject of

conversation among the canons, several of the younger of whom were

attached to him, Alesius refused to condemn him. He was not yet by any

means, as Dr Lorimer would have it, a Lutheran; he was not yet prepared

to separate himself from the old church; but he saw and mourned over her

corruptions, and longed, and in a quiet way laboured, for the removal of

them, and also yearned for the revival of a more earnest Christian

spirit, and more correct moral conduct among those over whom his

influence extended. From that day no one could induce him to express

approval of the proceedings which had been taken against Hamilton, or to

pronounce an unfavourable judgment on the articles for which he had been

condemned to death.

[Sidenote: Patrick Hepburn.]

This silence brought him under the suspicion of his more bigoted

associates, and gave special offence to his superior, Prior Patrick

Hepburn (the nephew of Prior John, who had founded St Leonard's

College), a violent, coarse, immoral young noble, emulous of the

debaucheries and vices, as well as of the cultured _hauteur_, of the

young French ecclesiastics of rank among whom his youth had been passed.

Knox has given a graphic if rather coarse account of the revelries of

this young man and his gay associates, more in keeping with what we

should have expected from the sons of Tarquin in heathen Rome than from

the _élite_ of the young ecclesiastics of a primatial Christian city,

and under the eye of an aged archbishop.[288] The representation of

Alesius is only the more credible because it is the more restrained, and

the one representation corroborates the other, and proves to what a low

ebb morality had sunk among the ministers of the old church in Scotland

before it was swept away. Not only did this bold bad man set at nought

the laws of God and the canons of his church, and make a boast of doing

so among his boon companions, but even when the archbishop sought to

separate him from his unlawful connection, the prior collected his armed

retainers, and would have fought with him had not the Earl of Rothes and

the Abbot of Arbroath, the primate's hopeful nephew, come between the

two bands and patched up a sort of truce between their leaders.

The Christian lives and healthful influence of the younger canons could

not but be felt to be a standing rebuke by their superior, and doubtless

were one main cause why he bore them so deep a grudge and gave way to

such savage outbursts of temper in his intercourse with them. He is

said to have denounced them, and especially Alesius, to the aged

primate, and probably with the view of entrapping him into some

unguarded expression of approval of the new opinions, he got him

appointed to preach the sermon at the opening of a synod of bishops and

priests which was held at St Andrews probably in the Lent of the year

1529. Alesius, while carefully avoiding everything which might give

needless offence to his hearers, thought, to use his own words, that in

such presence, and speaking in the Latin language, he would not

discharge his duty unless he earnestly exhorted those set in authority

over the churches to the practice of piety, the observance of good

morals, the study of Christian doctrine, and the pious teaching and

governing of their churches. He confesses that he earnestly inveighed

against immoral priests, but he adds that as he had said nothing in a

disloyal spirit, or more harshly than the facts warranted, and had

attacked no one by name, the sermon gave no offence to good men. But his

irate and domineering prior imagined that the sermon was specially aimed

at him, and was intended to hold him up to the ridicule of the assembled

prelates and clergy. Having already defied the archbishop, Hepburn could

not brook such a liberty on the part of one of his own subordinates. An

opportunity soon occurred to him of paying back with interest the insult

which he imagined had been done to him.

[Sidenote: Assaulted and Imprisoned.]

It so happened that the whole college of canons resolved, for many and

grave reasons, to lodge a complaint with the king respecting the

harshness and cruelty of their superior. When this came to Hepburn's

ears, he rushed with a band of armed attendants into the sacred

chapter-house where the canons were assembled, and when admonished by

Alesius, who probably presided in the meeting, not in the heat of

passion to be guilty of any foolish prank, he ordered the speaker to be

seized by his armed attendants, and drawing his sword would have run it

through him had not two of the canons forcibly dragged him back and

turned aside his weapon. The affrighted and timid canon cast himself at

his superior's feet and entreated him to spare his life, but in return

only received a kick in the breast which nearly proved fatal to him.

When he had partially recovered from this, and was being hurried off to

prison, another dastardly attack was made on him, but that was parried

by the prior's own retainers, who saw that he was beside himself with

rage and fury. After this all the other canons were seized and

imprisoned, but on the remonstrance of certain noble friends they were

ordered to be released by the king, who was then in St Andrews and was

informed of what had taken place.

[Sidenote: His Prison changed.]

The king's order was speedily carried out in regard to all save Alesius;

but he, notwithstanding all remonstrances of friends, was not only

detained in custody, but was even thrust into a more filthy dungeon,

called by the sufferer, in one of his treatises, _teterrimo specu subtus

terram inter bufones et serpentes_,[289] and in another a

_latrinâ_,[290] or sink, to which I know nothing at all corresponding in

St Andrews save the underground chamber near the college hall,[291] and

the roughly-hewn cavern still subsisting in the rock to the north of the

house at the end of Castle Street, going down by the southern entrance

by thirty or more somewhat irregular steps through the rock, and

terminating in a small chamber of rounded or oval form, having an

opening in its roof originally little more than a foot in diameter, but

now considerably enlarged, and to which on the other side a covered

passage from the castle leads down. They might well abandon hope who

entered there, and possibly one at least of its uses was for literally

immuring those who were never again to have further intercourse with

their fellow-men. In this or some other equally horrible place the poor

canon was confined for eighteen or twenty days; and when, after repeated

remonstrances on the part of the king and the magistrates of the city,

the prior was obliged to produce his victim, he enjoined him strictly on

no account to utter one word about the shameful maltreatment to which he

had been subjected. Alesius, however, had suffered too horribly in this

place to let slip the opportunity so unexpectedly presented to him of

telling the worst to the friendly magistrates, and entreating them to

save him from all further risk of a repetition of this barbarous

cruelty. But the magistrates, though friendly, were easily persuaded

that all was now to go right. As soon, however, as they were got out of

the way under this persuasion, the prior upbraided the poor canon for

having divulged the whole disgusting truth which he had enjoined him to

conceal, and ordered him to be again placed in confinement, in which he

was left to languish for nearly a year. But this confinement was in a

less objectionable place, and apparently within the precincts of the

priory; and when the prior was absent the canons occasionally had the

prisoner brought out from his ward, and even permitted him, as in former

times, to take a leading part in the services at the altar. On one

occasion the prior, coming back unexpectedly, and seeing what occurred

in his absence, ordered Alesius at once into confinement, threatening on

the morrow to have him off to the old filthy place where his life had

been so nearly sacrificed before, and where he was to be entrusted to

the care of a more remorseless jailer.

[Sidenote: He escapes by Night.]

As soon as their superior left them for the night the canons, satisfied

that all hope of preserving the life of their comrade in St Andrews was

at an end, and that if he did not seek safety by instant flight horrible

torments and certain death awaited him, gathered round him and urged him

to escape. On his expressing a wish to consult with other friends before

taking a step so serious, they pressed him only the more urgently to

flee and leave the country at once, as he would certainly be pursued,

and, if overtaken, brought back for condign punishment. The sequel I

give in his own unvarnished statement, which is to me more touching from

its very simplicity than the highly embellished _rechauffées_ of

D'Aubigné: "Etsi maximo dolore afficiebar cum cogitarem mihi è patria,

qua nihil dulcius est bene institutis naturis, discedendum esse, tamen,

et necessitati, et tot bonorum virorum consiliis parendum duxi."[292]

And then follows a parting scene only less affecting than that of St

Paul from the disciples on the seashore at Tyre, and proving that even

yet all good was not extinguished from the hearts of those under the

rule of this vicious prior, and encouraging the hope, which was

afterwards fully realised, that the best of them would ultimately find a

more congenial home in a new and purified church. Only the apostle,

though in a heathen land, could kneel down in open day on the seashore

to pray with his friends, and they without challenge could accompany him

to the ship which waited to receive him; while these men, though living

in a professedly Christian land, had secretly to bring out their friend

from the place of confinement and comfort him, and then send him away

alone into the thick darkness to pursue his weary journey under cover of

night to that broad firth which bounds Fifeshire on the north, if haply

he might find on its shores some boat to ferry him across, or on its

bosom some friendly craft to convey him without loss of time beyond the

reach of his implacable persecutor. "Clam igitur educunt me domo,

instruunt et viatico. Ita cum lachrymantes inter nos vale dixissemus, et

illi suavissima commemoratione illustrium virorum et sanctorum qui

similiter è patria tyrannidi cesserunt, maesticiam meam non nihil

levassent, media jam nocte in densissimis tenebris solus iter

ingredior."[293] Sadly he plodded on his way through the darkness,

oppressed with forebodings, for he knew of no hospitable retreat in

other lands; he had neither friend nor acquaintance among foreigners; he

could speak no language but his native tongue and Latin; and he had some

reason to fear that he might be classed with those vagabonds who had

been driven out from various Continental states because of their

fanatical opinions, and were justly suspected even by Protestants in

Germany. But in the multitude of distracting thoughts within him he

encouraged himself in the Lord his God and in Christ his Saviour. Ere

morning had well dawned his journey was completed, and he got safely on

shipboard, where, according to his own account, _quidam homo

germanus_[294]--that is, according to some, a certain man a German;

according to others, a certain man a kinsman--received him very

affectionately, and afterwards nursed him with great kindness during the

sea-sickness from which he suffered throughout the stormy voyage.

[Sidenote: His Dundee Friends.]

On the day following his escape, when the vessel which sheltered him had

already sailed, there came horsemen to the shore, sent by the prior from

St Andrews, to make search for the fugitive. When they returned without

success to their master, he is reported to have summoned before him a

certain citizen of Dundee, whom he suspected to have aided in providing

a ship for the canon. This merchant citizen[295] took with him another

true-hearted favourer of the Reformation, James Scrymgeour, provost of

the town; and on the former denying that he had given the assistance

which he was accused of doing to Alesius, and which probably he could

deny with a good conscience, his sons in St Andrews and Dundee having

been too prudent to involve him in their little plot, the provost spoke

out boldly to the haughty prior, and said: Why make a work about this?

I, myself, if I had known that Alexander was preparing to go away, would

with the greatest pleasure have furnished him both with a ship and with

provisions for his voyage, that he might be put in safety beyond the

reach of your cruelty. Assuredly, had he been my brother I would long

ago have rescued him from those perils and miseries in which you have

involved him.

Thus Alexander Alesius was driven from his much-loved native land,

destined never to return to it more, or again to see the friends and

relations to whom he was so warmly attached. "Could any one then have

whispered in the ear of the disconsolate exile that he was on the road

to far more extensive usefulness" and freedom; that he would gain many

friends in foreign lands, and would not only be spared to labour there

for more than thirty years, but would also be honoured to be the first

to plead by his writings for the free circulation of the Scriptures in

his native Scotland, and one of the first to help on Cranmer in England,

and Hermann von Wied, the reforming Archbishop of Cologne, in Germany;

that he would be privileged to attend, as one of the Protestant

representatives, many of the most important colloquies of the leaders of

the old and the new church on the Continent, to be the intimate friend

of Luther and Melanchthon, to labour as a professor of theology in two

German universities, and to live and die in the greatest honour and

respect among those with whom he laboured,--"how incredible would it all

have seemed to him!" Yet it was thus God meant it, and thus He brought

it to pass; and if there was one among the Scottish exiles of those

times who was less embittered towards his persecutors than another, or

more ready to yield to them in things indifferent or of minor

importance, if only he could gain their hearts for Christ and His cause

in matters of highest moment, it was he.

[Sidenote: Driven by the Tempest to Malmö.]

[Sidenote: Hermann von Wied's Apologue.]

The ship in which Alesius sailed was bound for France, probably for

Dieppe or Rouen, with which towns the trade of Scotland was carried on,

and where many Scottish merchants resided or had factors; but she had

not gone far on her way from port when a violent westerly gale carried

her across the German Ocean, drove her into the Sound, and made it

necessary to get her into the harbour at Malmö in Scania, in order to

refit her. There, as well as at the French ports named, there was a

community of Scottish merchants, probably by this time enjoying the

ministrations of John Gaw or Gall, another St Andrews _alumnus_, early

won over to the cause of the Reformation. The community of Malmö, a year

or two before, had given its adhesion to the same cause, and its leading

ministers, as well as the Scottish chaplain, were, therefore, prepared

to welcome and treat with all kindness their exiled co-religionist, as

he himself, twenty-five years after, feelingly narrates.[296] After

being refitted at Malmö, the vessel proceeded on her voyage to France,

where Alesius left, and plodding his way along the northern coast,

visited Belgium, where he would meet with friendly Scots at Bruges, and

probably also at Antwerp. He then passed up the Rhine to Cologne,

where, as already suggested, he was favourably received by the

Archbishop, Hermann von Wied, who afterwards became a friend of the

Reformation, though at this time, like Alesius himself, not yet decided

altogether to break with the old church. It is no doubt to this visit he

refers in the following passage of the treatise from which I have

repeatedly quoted: "When lately at Cologne I conversed familiarly with

a certain man of the highest learning and authority, and perceived how

deeply he was grieved by the disturbed state of the church in Germany. I

began to exhort him to interpose his judgment in certain matters of

dispute, because I hoped that milder views might gain the ascendancy if

princes and people only had such monitors excelling in learning and

authority. When I had argued long in support of my opinion, heaving a

sigh, but making no formal reply to my arguments, he bade me listen to

an apologue: When the lion, worn out with old age, could no longer

obtain his prey by hunting, he fell on the device of inviting the beasts

to visit him in his den. There came to him a bear, a wolf, and a fox.

The bear entered first, and being affably received by the lion, and

conducted round the den, he was asked how he was pleased with the

amenity of the place. Being no courtier, the bear answered bluntly that

he could never stay in such a filthy hole, among heaps of decaying

carcasses. The lion, enraged, chid the bear for finding fault with the

amenity of the royal den, and tearing him up, cast away his carcass

among the others. The wolf, who had been standing by, seeing in what

danger he was, thought by artifice to soothe the haughty mind of the

lion. He accordingly approached, was led round the den, and was asked

whether the smell of the heap of carcasses was unpleasant to him. The

wolf replied, in a carefully considered speech, that he had never seen

anything more pleasant. This artifice, however, was of no avail to the

wolf. The lion meted out the same treatment to him as to the bear,

tearing him up for his impudent flattery. The fox, who had witnessed all

this, and how both the simplicity of the bear and the flattery of the

wolf had given equal offence to the lion, was in great perplexity what

to answer when it came to his turn. He went forward, however, and being

interrogated as the others had been whether the smell of the den was

disagreeable, he replied modestly that he could not express any opinion

on the point, as he was labouring under a cold in the head." Alesius

waited to hear from his host the moral or application of the apologue,

but this was not given by him. He preferred to leave it to his own good

sense, merely counselling him to be cautious of engaging in such

discussions for the present. Ultimately, however, both came to see that

there is a time to speak as well as a time to keep silence; and it is

interesting to note that to the last both observed similar moderation in

their statements of doctrine, both evinced the same desire, by

conciliation to gain opponents, rather than to provoke them,

notwithstanding all the hard usage they both met with from their secular

and ecclesiastical superiors.

[Sidenote: Befriended by Melanchthon.]

Soon after this Alesius appears to have passed on from Cologne to

Wittenberg, and there for a time to have resumed the study of theology,

as well as of Greek and Hebrew, under Melanchthon and the other gifted

teachers in that university. Luther he does not seem to have met for a

time, or to have been acquainted with his writings when he published his

_first_[297] treatises. Melanchthon cherished a special affection for

Alesius and the Scottish exiles who soon after followed him to

Wittenberg, believing that they were the descendants of those Scoti who

had sent the early Christian missionaries to Germany, and that it became

him to repay to them the great kindness the heathen Germans had received

from their forefathers in the distant past.[298]

It was while he was thus occupied that Alesius heard of the cruel edict

of the Scottish bishops, and it hardly admits of doubt that he submitted

to Melanchthon, and got corrected by him, his little treatise against

their decree, forbidding the New Testament Scriptures to be used by the

laity in the vernacular. It is a very pithy and forcible bit of

pleading for the right of the Christian laity to possess and study the

Scriptures in their own tongue. This remarkable treatise struck the true

key-note in the contest it ushered in, and helped it on to victory--a

victory which was substantially to be gained ere Knox had taken his

place among the combatants on the side of the Reformation at all.[299]

To this epistle Cochlaeus replied without loss of time,[300] and ere the

year was out Alesius rejoined in that Responsio ad Cochlei

calumnias,[301] in which he has given so touching an account of his own

maltreatment, so interesting a statement of his own opinions in matters

of faith and church polity, and so trenchant a reply to the sophistries

and slanders of his opponent.[302]

[Sidenote: Cochlaeus.]

This able and, for the age, singularly temperate reply made a deep

impression in England as well as in Scotland, and doubtless prepared the

way for that offer of employment there which two years subsequently was

made him by Cranmer, whom, in his moderation and earnest desire to avoid

a total rupture between the old church and the new life, he then so much

resembled. But whatever its merits, the disputatious Cochlaeus--"der

gewaffnete mann," as Luther sneeringly terms him--was determined that

his opponent should not have the last word in the dispute, and

accordingly in August 1534 he published at Leipsic his Apologia pro

Scotiae Regno adversus personatum Alexandrum Alesium Scotum.[303] In

this treatise he repeats the assertion in his previous one that

Melanchthon, not Alesius, was the author of these epistles. He charges

Alesius with putting lies into the mouth of a foreigner to the discredit

of his native country, and tells him that if he had the power he would

gladly send him away to Scotland with his hands tied behind his back to

be ignominiously punished as a traitor and a public slanderer. His

opponent's minute and temperate narrative of facts appears to have made

no impression on him. He is content magisterially to pronounce it absurd

and incredible, and inconsistent with itself as well as with

probability. He appears in his ire to forget that the king of Scots and

his subjects were better able to judge of its truthfulness than he, a

foreigner, could be; and that after saying all he could for the bishops

and superior clergy in his former reply, he had been obliged to conclude

with the damaging admission that possibly there were "bishops and

prelates who, neither in sanctity of life nor in acquaintance with

sacred learning, responded to or satisfied their dignity and office."

[Sidenote: Effect of his Treatises.]

The epistles of Cochlaeus, if abusive and less cogent in reasoning, as

well as less relieved by any sparkle of wit or racy anecdote than those

of Alesius, are certainly written in a more easy and flowing Latin

style, and, in that respect at least, the Scottish prelates had no

reason to be ashamed of the champion who had volunteered his services in

their cause. Nor were they wanting in those more substantial expressions

of their satisfaction which Cochlaeus, like most of the

controversialists of his time, evidently coveted. The Archbishops of St

Andrews and Glasgow testified their gratitude for his services by

sending him liberal presents. The king wrote him a letter, a

contemporary transcript of which is still extant, and also, as is stated

by Cochlaeus himself in a letter to a Polish archbishop, sent him some

more material tokens of his regard.[304] And even the messenger who had

brought over the copies of his first epistle received, as it now

appears, a present of fifty pounds Scots.[305] Alesius, though in quite

another way, did not lack his reward, and it came in the way which he

valued most--the treatises he had written, to a certain extent at least,

got into circulation both in Scotland and in England. They cheered the

hearts of the faithful under all the terrible trials to which they were

subjected in the later years of James's reign, when he seems to have

abandoned his former kindliness, and surrendered himself in a great

measure to the priests and to vicious indulgences. They carried

conviction to the minds of many, and gradually ripened opinion to

demand the right to do publicly what many had learned to do secretly--to

study the Word of God, and especially the New Testament, in their native

tongue. This right was authorised by an Act of the Scottish Parliament

passed in 1543,[306] when Cardinal Betoun was in disgrace, and the

Archbishop of Glasgow was left alone to protest against it. This Act was

the first real victory of the reformed party in Scotland, and it was

mainly due to the able and temperate pleading of Alesius that this great

boon, or indeed I may say this indefeasible right of Christian laymen,

was granted. The same subject had been reverted to by him in his more

elaborate treatise, De authoritate Verbi Dei, which was published in

1542 in Latin, and some time after was translated into English.[307]

[Sidenote: Erasmus intervenes.]

One other episode in this controversy remains still to be adverted to.

This is the intervention of the great humanist, Erasmus,--an incident in

his history on which his biographers with one consent have observed a

judicious silence. Nevertheless, the fact is as undoubted as melancholy

that he--who had done so much to promote the freer circulation and

profounder study of the Greek original of the New Testament, and had

even ventured, under the patronage of Pope Leo X., to bring out a Latin

version of the New Testament more true to the original than the Vulgate

version, that those who knew only Latin might understand more fully the

meaning of the original--in his old age, when irritated by the course of

events, and by his controversies with Luther, consented to recommend

this scurrilous pamphleteer to his friends in Scotland. His own letter

is not now extant, or, if extant, is not at present accessible; but the

answer sent to him by the Scottish king has been preserved, like his

letter to Cochlaeus, among the MSS. in the British Museum. It is

sufficient to prove the fact that Erasmus did intervene, and commend to

his Scottish friends a writer who represents Luther's translation of the

New Testament, which more than any other book has made Germany what it

is, as the "pabulum mortis, fomes peccati, velamen malitiae, praetextus

falsae libertatis, inobedientiae praesidium, disciplinae corruptio,

morum depravatio, concordiae dissipatio ... vitiorum scaturigo ...

rebellionis incendium ... charitatis peremptio ... veritatis

perduellio."

[Sidenote: At Cambridge and London.]

In 1535 Alesius, having received encouragement from the agents of the

English king then negotiating an alliance with the Protestant princes of

Germany, came over to England with a letter of recommendation from

Melanchthon.[308] He was favourably received by Archbishop Cranmer, by

Crumwell the Vicar-General, and by the king himself, who appointed him

king's scholar, and instructed Crumwell, as Chancellor of the University

of Cambridge, to give him a place as a reader in divinity there. He

accordingly went into residence in Queen's College, the same college

which shortly before had been the home of Erasmus while lecturing in the

university on Greek, and towards the end of the year he began a course

of lectures on the Hebrew Psalter. He is supposed to have been the first

who delivered lectures in Cambridge on the Hebrew Scriptures, but he was

not suffered to do it long in peace. It could not be concealed that he

was a favourer of the new opinions and a friend of Melanchthon, and that

he had, in fact, been recommended by him to the king and the chancellor

of the university. By the time he had entered on the exposition of Psalm

viii. he was challenged by one of the champions of the old learning to a

public disputation, and courageously accepted the challenge; but when

the day appointed for the discussion arrived, his opponent did not

venture to meet him in open fight. He preferred to plot against him in

secret, and to foment tumult among the scholars, till Alesius, finding

that his life was in danger, and that he could not count on the

protection of the university authorities, deemed it his duty to leave

Cambridge and return to London.[309]

[Sidenote: Returns to the Continent.]

For the next three years he remained there, supporting himself chiefly

by the practice of medicine, which he studied under a London physician

of note. He occasionally, however, gave assistance to his reforming

friends in the varying fortunes of these unquiet times. He did so

notably in a convocation or a meeting of the superior clergy in 1536 or

1537,[310] being put forward by Cranmer and Crumwell as the chief

spokesman on the reforming side, the opinions of which he defended with

considerable force and ability, so far as the notes of the debates

preserved by Foxe in his 'Acts and Monuments' enable us to judge.[311]

His appearance on this occasion brought him into sharp collision with

Stokesley, Bishop of London. On the other hand, it secured for him the

warm friendship of Cranmer and Latimer, towards both of whom he

continued to the last to cherish a deep affection, and of whose

martyrdom he spoke with so much grief when he published his Commentary

on the First Book of Psalms. While in England, as Thomasius tells us, he

married an English lady, by name Catherine de Mayn; and when Henry VIII.

once more veered round to his former moorings, and passed the bloody

statute of the six articles, insisting _inter alia_ on the doctrine of

Transubstantiation and the celibacy of the clergy, Alesius, like several

other married priests, had to consult his safety and that of his family

by a hurried retreat to the Continent.[312]

Among those who had to leave England about the same time were John

M'Alpine[313] and John Fyffe--or, as they were henceforth to be surnamed

by Melanchthon, Joannes Macchabaeus and Joannes Fidelis--both, like

Alesius himself, Scotsmen, the former having been prior of the Dominican

monastery at Perth, and the latter an _alumnus_ and teacher in St

Leonard's College. They had, along with several other known favourers of

the Reformation, been obliged to leave Scotland at an earlier period,

and after finding a temporary shelter in England, apparently at

Salisbury, under the protection of Bishop Shaxton, who was then a

favourer of the reformed opinions, were, like Alesius himself, to find

their ultimate home and special work on the Continent--the one in the

University of Copenhagen, the other in the University of Frankfort on

the Oder. They seem to have gone first to Wittenberg, and while the

others for a time resumed their studies there, Alesius almost

immediately on his return was selected by Melanchthon to accompany him

to the colloquy at Worms, and then to that at Regensburg, which were

attended not only by the Lutheran and the Catholic theologians, but also

by Bucer, Calvin, and other reforming divines of Strassburg. So it came

about that Alesius, who had suffered exile in the cause of the

Reformation in Scotland, and still had striven to promote it, was

probably the first of our countrymen to be brought into contact with

Calvin, who was ultimately to exercise so marked an influence on the

form and mode of that Reformation, and who too was then an exile both

from his native land and from the scene of his earlier labours. To the

last Alesius seems to have been the one of his pupils to whom the gentle

and timid Melanchthon most closely clung, and it was by his

recommendation that in the very year of his return to the Continent he

was promoted to be Professor of Divinity in the University of Frankfort

on the Oder. And it is something of which a Scotchman and a St Andrean

may be proud, that the university of that little principality of

Brandenburg, which has since expanded into the great kingdom of Prussia,

was indebted for two of its first Protestant professors of divinity to

Scotland and to St Andrews.

[Sidenote: Leaves Frankfort for Leipsic.]

His stay at Frankfort, however, was but short, a controversy having

arisen between him and one of his colleagues about the propriety of

attaching civil punishments to adultery and other offences against the

seventh commandment. In 1542, or early in 1543, he resigned his

professorship, and transferred his family to Leipsic. Melanchthon, who,

though concurring in his opinions, blamed his hasty resignation, yet

exerted himself to procure an appointment for him in the great Saxon

university; so also did Ludovicus Fachsius, at once the Burgomaster and

the head of the Faculty of Law, of whose kindness he makes special

mention in the dedication to his sons of his edition of Melanchthon's

Catechism, which he had used when superintending their religious

instruction.[314]

[Sidenote: The Perth Martyrs.]

The remaining twenty-one years of his life were spent busily and

usefully in this famous university, though he suffered somewhat

severely during the Schmalkaldic war and the seige of Leipsic. It was

there that most of his theological treatises were elaborated and

published. He was twice at least chosen Rector of the university--viz.,

in 1555 and in 1561.[315] In 1542, as already stated, he published in

Latin the arguments he had used in his disputation with Stokesley,

Bishop of London, on the authority of the Word of God, and against the

doctrine of the seven sacraments, both confirming his former arguments

as to the rights of the Christian laity, and maintaining the supremacy

of Scripture over tradition. He had previously published his inaugural

dissertation in the University of Frankfort, 'De restituendis scholis,'

in which he advocated at length the great need for university training

for the ministers of the protestant churches, and gave a detailed

account of his own opinions, which he affirmed were then in full accord

with those of the Lutheran churches. In 1543, probably before he was

fully settled at Leipsic, it is said that on hearing the news of the

favourable change which had taken place in Scotland on the death of

James V. and the accession of Arran to the regency, he, like many other

Scottish exiles, had serious thoughts of returning home, and availing

himself to the uttermost of this unexpected opportunity which seemed to

be opening for carrying forward the work of the Reformation in the land

which was still dear to him. But before he had fully made up his mind to

follow this course, he fortunately heard that the fickle regent had

already begun to change his policy, and that though the privilege of

freely reading the Scriptures in the vernacular, for which he had so

earnestly contended, was legally secured, the triumph of the Reformation

was by no means so near at hand as at first he had been led to suppose.

Shortly after this, roused by the tidings of fresh persecutions which

had reached him from Scotland, and especially by the account of the

cruel executions of the humble martyrs of Perth by the cardinal and his

party on St Paul's day, 1543-44, Alesius on 23rd April wrote to

Melanchthon in the following terms:--

"Three days ago there were here several countrymen of mine, who declare

that the cardinal rules all things at his pleasure in Scotland, and

governs the governor himself. In the town of St Johnston he hung up

four respectable citizens, for no other cause than because they had

requested a monk, in the middle of his sermon, not to depart in his

doctrine from the sacred text, and not to mix up notions of his own with

the words of Christ. Along with these a most respectable matron,

carrying a sucking child in her arms, was haled before the tribunal and

condemned to death by drowning. They report that the constancy of the

woman was such that, when her husband was led to the scaffold and

mounted the ladder, she followed and mounted along with him, and

entreated to be allowed to hang from the same beam. She encouraged him

to be of good cheer, for in a few hours, said she, I shall be with

Christ along with you. They declare also that the governor was inclined

to liberate them, but that the cardinal suborned the nobles to threaten

that they would leave him if the condemned were not put to death. When

the cardinal arrived with his army at Dundee, from which the monks had

been expelled, all the citizens took to flight; and when he saw the town

quite deserted he laughed, and remarked that he had expected to find it

full of Lutherans."[316]

[Sidenote: He pleads for National Union.]

[Sidenote: He repels the Cry of Innovation.]

Before the expiry of that year Alesius addressed to the chief nobles,

prelates, barons, and to the whole people of Scotland, his Cohortatio ad

concordiam pietatis ac doctrinæ Christianæ defensionem. This piece, Dr

Lorimer tells us, "is instinct throughout with the spirit of true

Christian patriotism, as well as with genuine evangelical earnestness

and fervour. Lamenting the distractions of the kingdom by opposing

political factions--the French faction and the English--he [like the

author of the Complaynt of Scotland a few years later] implores his

countrymen to lay aside these divisions, and demonstrates by many

examples from classical history the dangers of national disunion, and

the duty of patriotic concord in defence of the safety and honour of

their common country. His expostulations against the oppression and

cruelty of the bishops, and his allusions to the martyrs who had

suffered in the cause of truth, are full of interest; and his

digression, in particular, upon the character and martyrdom of Patrick

Hamilton, is a noble burst of eloquence and pathos. When he exhorts to

national union he means union in the truth--union in the one great work

of purifying religion and reforming the corruptions of the church of

God. What urgent need there was of such a work he demonstrates at much

length, and with great freedom and faithfulness. Unless the church of

Christ be reformed it must perish from the earth, and those are its

worst enemies, not its real friends, who oppose such indispensable

reform."[317] "Everywhere," he says, "we see the church driven forward

to such reform. Ask even those who are most solicitous for its welfare,

and they will tell you that the church can no longer be safe or free

from troubles unless it be strengthened by the removal of abuses. If

this, then, is a measure of absolute necessity unless we would see the

whole church go to ruin; if all men confess that this should be done, if

facts themselves call with a loud voice that some care should be taken

to relieve the labouring [bark of the] church, to purify her depraved

doctrine, and to reform her whole administration,--why, I demand, are

those maligned and vilified who discover and point out the church's

faults and failings? The proper remedies could not possibly have been

applied till the disease was known; and yet the men who point it out,

warn of its virulence and danger, and wish to alleviate or entirely

remove it, are hated and persecuted as much as if they had been

themselves the cause of all." With equal vigour he repels the cry of

innovation raised against the reformers and their teaching. Their work

was rather an honest attempt at restoration. What they sought, he said,

"was just such a change as would take place in the manners of an age if

the gravity, modesty, and frugality of ancient times were to take the

place of levity, lewdness, luxury, and other vices. Such a change might

be termed the introduction of what was novel, but in fact it was only

the reintroduction of what was old and primitive. Let us," he exclaims,

"have innovation everywhere if only we can get the true for the false,

seriousness for levity, and solid realities for empty dreams." "It is no

new doctrine we bring, but the most ancient, nay rather the eternal

truth, for it proclaims that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the

world to save sinners, and that we are saved by faith in Him. Of Him

even Moses wrote, and to Him give all the prophets witness, that

whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins. This is the

old doctrine which runs through all the ages. Those which are really new

are the doctrines which have obscured or contaminated it, brought in by

those entrusted with the care of the vineyard of the Lord, and who, like

the keepers of the vineyard in the Gospel parable, have maltreated and

slain many of the Lord's messengers."

This was the last service, so far as we know, which Alesius was able to

render to the cause of the Reformation in his native land, and it did

not fail in due time to produce abundant and lasting fruit. As Major

before him, so Knox after him, strenuously contended for union of

Scotsmen among themselves; and after that, but only after that, for a

league with England rather than with France. They laboured, and others

entered into their labours, and, proceeding on the same lines on which

they had worked, at last brought the conflict to a triumphant issue.

Tidings of their success filled Alesius with joy in the land of his

exile. Even these, however, failed in his old age to tempt him back to

the home of his youth, or the scene of those early struggles which were

so deeply engraven on his memory and heart. And, so far as we know, he

received no call to return from those who were then at the head of

affairs in Scotland, though unquestionably he was more deeply read in

theology than any one of them, and though, as unquestionably, the

faculty of divinity was for several years but poorly supplied in the

universities of Scotland, and preachers of ability, culture, and

learning were very rare in the land.

[Sidenote: Appreciation of his Services.]

His life, especially after the close of the Schmalkaldic war, seems to

have passed tranquilly and happily at the great Lutheran University of

Leipsic. He was loved and honoured by his colleagues and by his prince,

and, as I have already hinted, he was the bosom friend and unremitting

correspondent of Melanchthon. As his services had been called into

requisition by the Preceptor Germaniæ at the colloquies of Worms and

Regensburg, so were they sought and got at the colloquy of Saxon

theologians for the preparation of the Leipsic Interim in 1548, at that

of Naumburg in 1554, at that of Nuremberg in 1555, and that of Dresden

in 1561. "In all these"--the Leipsic professor, who on the occasion of

the first centenary of his second rectorship pronounced an oration on

him, affirms that--"he so conducted himself that no one could charge him

with want of perseverance in building up the truth, or of judiciousness

in examining the errors of others, or of faithfulness and dexterity in

the counsels he gave." M'Kenzie, who has inserted a sketch of his career

in his 'Lives of Eminent Scotsmen,' assures us that in the conference of

Naumburg he acquitted himself to the admiration of the whole assembly,

for which he is highly commended by Camerarius in his 'Life of

Melanchthon'; and further, that in the year 1555 the disciples of Andrew

Osiander having raised great dissensions in the city of Nuremberg

respecting the doctrine of justification, Melanchthon made choice of

Alesius as the fittest person to appease them by his wisdom and

learning, and that his management answered Melanchthon's expectations,

though Alesius himself had previously taken a side in the controversy.

In the Majoristic controversy, Alesius, like Melanchthon, so far sided

with Major as to maintain against the extreme Lutherans the necessity of

good works, not to justification, but to final salvation; and in 1560 he

seems to have discussed this question in one of his so-called

_disputationes_.

With respect to his private life, we are told by Thomasius that he had

by his English wife one son, whose name was Caspar, and who died while

still a youth, and had a monument erected by his father to his memory,

bearing the simple inscription, "Caspari. Filiolo. Alexander. Alesius.

Doctor. Lugens. Posuit." He had at least two daughters. One named

Christina, Thomasius tells us, was married to a German bearing the

classical name Marcus Scipio: she outlived her husband, and died in

1604, in the fifty-ninth year of her age. The name of the other daughter

does not seem to have been known to Thomasius, but as he states that she

was given in marriage in 1557, we can have no doubt that she is the same

Anna whose wedding is referred to in a letter of Alesius to

Melanchthon, recently unearthed, and inviting him and other friends in

Wittenberg to the wedding.[318]

[Sidenote: His Death.]

[Sidenote: Deserves a Memorial.]

Alesius himself died on the 17th March 1565, and was buried at Leipsic;

but no stone was raised, or, if raised, now remains, to tell where his

ashes repose. In all probability it was in his son's grave, in the

church of St Paul, in the city of Leipsic, that his ashes were laid to

rest. The only monuments to his memory reared at the time and still

existing are those furnished by our own John Johnston--second master of

St Mary's College, and colleague of Andrew Melville--in his Latin poems

on the Scottish martyrs and confessors, and entitled Περι Στεφανων and

by Beza in his 'Icones.' Johnston, joining together Macchabaeus and

Alesius, says:--

"Sors eadem exilii nobis, vitaeque laborumque,

Ex quo nos Christi conciliavit amor.

Una salus amborum, unum et commune periclum;

Pertulimus pariter praestite cuncta Deo.

Dania te coluit. Me Lipsia culta docentem.

Audiit, et sacros hausit ab ore sonus."[319]

Beza says, "He was a man dear to all the learned, who would have been a

distinguished ornament of Scotland if that country had recovered the

light of the Gospel at an earlier period; and who, when rejected by

both Scotland and England, was most eagerly embraced by the evangelical

church of Saxony, and continued to be warmly cherished and esteemed by

her to the day of his death." The man who was held in such high esteem

by the reforming Archbishops of Cologne and Canterbury; who was the

bosom friend of Melanchthon; who was highly thought of by Luther, and

warmly eulogised by Beza and Johnston, was certainly not one whose

memory his countrymen should willingly let die. He was unquestionably

the most cultured, probably also the most liberal and conciliatory, of

the Scottish theologians of the sixteenth century. He was the first to

plead publicly before the authorities of the nation for the right of

every household and every individual to have access to the Word of God

in the vernacular tongue, and to impress on parents the sacred duty of

sedulously inculcating its teaching on their children, and therefore, as

Christopher Anderson has said, "the man who struck the first note in

giving a tone to that character," for which his native country has since

been known, and often since commended, as Bible-loving Scotland. Had his

countrymen not so long lost sight of him, perhaps some stone of

remembrance might have been found to his memory in Germany; but surely,

though he was so long an exile, the chief memorial of his birth and

death ought to be in Edinburgh or St Andrews. "There, in reference to

the cause he advocated, no inappropriate emblem" would be "a father and

his child reading the same sacred volume; and, for a motto, in

remembrance of his position at the moment, perhaps his own memorable

quotation of the Athenian, 'Strike, but hear me.'"[320]

FOOTNOTES:

[283] [Alesius thus proceeds: "Et in mari inter tempestates et 18 diebus

subtus terram in teterrimo specu inter bufones et serpentes custodivit

(oportet enim me haec alicubi commemorare pro gratitudine erga Deum).

Hic igitur Salvator omnium, maxime fidelium, perficiet id quod per me

facere instituit" (In Alteram ad Timotheum expositio. Autore Alexandro

Alesio. D. Lipsiae, 1551, sign. A 2).]

[284] D'Aubigné's Reformation in the Time of Calvin, vi. 13, 14.

[D'Aubigné is here following, or rather embellishing, the account which

Alesius thus gives in another of his works: "Pueri, me adhuc puero,

quasdam sententias excerptas ex Joanne, scriptas in membrana, ut illam,

in principio erat verbum, Ecce agnus Dei, &c., Sic Deus dilexit mundum,

Ego sum resurrectio et vita, &c., ac similes, vel auro et argento

inclusas circa collum gestabant, non tam ornamenti causa, quàm quod

magnam vim et virtutem in his collocarent contra incantationes et

pericula, in quae diabolus saepe pueros incautos solet conjicere. Memini

frequenter, et quoties reminiscor, toto corpore cohorresco, me in

praerupto altissimi montis manibus et pedibus reptantem, ac proximum

praecipitio, subito translatum nescio à quo aut quomodo, in alium locum:

et alia vice ex eminentiori deambulacro aedium patris cadentem inter

acervum lapidum poliendorum ad aedificium, servatum esse divinitus.

"Non tribuo hanc salutem sententiis ex Joanne, quas forsan aliorum

puerorum more circumferebam: sed fidei parentum, qui harum sententiam

mente circumferebant, et pro me orabant. Sed tamen, ut mihi videtur,

magis deceret nobilitatem Christianam, has et similes sententias in auro

et lapidibus preciosis insculptas à collo dependentes circumferre, quàm

ethnicorum Regum ac Caesarum imagines" (Commentarius in Evangelium

Joannis. Basileae, 1553. Epistola Dedicatoria, pp. 14-16).]

[285] [In a list of names without a heading, he appears as "Alexr.

Allane na. Lau.," which shows that of the nations into which the members

of the university were then classified, he belonged to Lothian. In the

list of determinants he appears as "Allexr. Alan." Opposite his name and

the names of his class-fellows is the word "pauperes," which shows that

they paid no fees.]

[286] He himself at a later period ingenuously acknowledges that his

arguments in great part were borrowed from the treatise of an English

bishop, namely Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who at the request of Henry

VIII. had replied to Luther's attack on that monarch.

[287] D'Aubigné's Reformation in the Time of Calvin, vi. 59, 60.

[288] Laing's Knox, i. 40, 41.

[289] [See it so described in the passage quoted, _supra_, p. 240 n.]

[290] [He calls it a _latrinâ_ in his 'Responsio ad Cochlei Calumnias,'

sign. A v.]

[291] [Now known as Bishop's Hall.]

[292] Responsio ad Cochlei Calumnias, sign. A vj.

[293] Responsio ad Cochlei Calumnias, sign. A vj.

[294] Ibid.

[295] No doubt James Wedderburn, merchant at the West Kirk Style of

Dundee, who carried on a large trade with the Continent, and was known

to be friendly to those holding the reformed opinions. One of his sons

was then studying at St Andrews, and probably had been the means of

communication between the canons and Dundee to secure beforehand a

speedy departure for their fugitive friend. [For many interesting

details concerning the sons of this Dundee merchant, see Dr Mitchell's

Wedderburns and their Work, 1867; and also his edition of The Gude and

Godlie Ballatis, 1897, pp. xvii-xxxii, lxxxiii-civ.]

[296] [In his Introduction (pp. xviii-xx) to Gau's 'Richt Vay to the

Kingdom of Heuine,' Dr Mitchell says: "The treatise 'De Apostolicis

Traditionibus,' in which he [_i.e._, Alesius] has given an account of

his visit, and of the manner in which he was received by his countrymen

and the reforming preachers of Malmö, is one of the rarest of his minor

treatises, and is not to be found in any of our Scottish libraries, nor

in the British Museum, nor even in the library of the University of

Leipsic, in which he was so long an honoured professor.... Neither the

name of Gau nor that of any other of his countrymen then in the city is

given by Alesius.... Principal Lorimer has ingeniously conjectured that

Gau may have come out to act as chaplain to his countrymen at Malmö. And

I am inclined to accept the conjecture to a modified extent.... At any

rate, we find that before the close of 1533 he was in Denmark, and had

got such an accurate knowledge of the Danish language that he had

translated and published a treatise of considerable length from Danish

into his native Scotch." In the Appendix to the same Introduction (p.

xlv) Dr Mitchell explains that "modern Danish scholars express doubts

whether, in the early part of the 16th century, any nation, save the

German as represented by the Hanseatic League, was organised as a

distinct community at Malmö."]

[297] [This sentence is interlined, and the word which seems to be

_first_ is rather indistinct.]

[298] In the preceding narrative I have availed myself of the details

which Alesius has given us of his labours and sufferings in his

commentaries and lesser treatises, and especially in two of the smallest

of them, both published in 1533, the one bearing the title--"Alexandri

Alesii Epistola contra decretum quoddam Episcoporū in Scotia, quod

prohibet legere Noui Testamenti libros lingua vernacula"; the other

"Alexandri Alesii Scotti Responsio ad Cochlei Calvmnias."

[299] [The nature of the arguments used by Alesius in this epistle may

be learned from the lengthy extracts quoted in Christopher Anderson's

Annals of the English Bible, 1845, ii. 430-437.]

[300] [This reply by Cochlaeus, which is dated 6th June 1533, is

entitled: "An Expediat Laicis, legere Noui Testamenti libros lingua

Vernacula? Ad Serenissimvm Scotiæ Regem Iacobum V. Disputatio inter

Alexandrum Alesium Scotum, & Iohannem Cochlæum Germanum. Anno dn̄i

M.D. XXXIII." A beautiful copy of this very rare work was secured at the

Laing sale for the library of the Church of Scotland. There is also a

copy in the Signet Library. A few extracts may be found in Anderson's

Annals, ii. 439-441.]

[301] [A beautiful copy of this excessively rare tract was also secured

for the Church library at the Laing sale.]

[302] [For a translation by Dr Mitchell of that part of the Responsio

which relates to the opinions of Alesius, see Appendix E.]

[303] [Dr Mitchell possessed copies of several of the other tracts of

Cochlaeus, as well as of this: "Pro Scotiae Regno Apologia Iohannis

Cochlei, adversvs personatum Alexandrum Alesium Scotum. Ad Sereniss.

Scotorū regē. M.D.XXXIIII." It ends: "Excusum Lipsiae apud

Michaelem Blum."]

[304] [Alesius says: "I was at Antwerp whan a contryman of myne, whose

name was John Foster, did send a somme of mony unto Cochleus by a

marchant from the Bisshop of S. Andrews, which geveth him yerely so long

as he liveth a certen stipend. And it chanced by the goodnes of God,

wherby He discloseth the wickednes of these hipocytes (_sic_), that a

pistle of Cochleus which he sent unto a certen bisshop of Pole came unto

my handes, wherin he complayneth that he hath gret losse and evel

fortune in setting forth of bokes, for as moch as no man wil wetesaue to

rede his bokes. And he beggeth a yerely stipend of the bisshops of Pole,

saing that he hath bene nobly rewarded of the King of Scottys and of the

Archbisshop of S. Andrews and of the Bisshop of Glasguo" ('Of the

Auctorite of the Word of God').]

[305] [From the Treasurer's Accounts, as quoted by M'Crie, it appears

that the servant who brought over his book received £10 (M'Crie's Knox,

1855, p. 321 n.).]

[306] [15th March 1542-43 (Acts of Parliament, ii. 415).]

[307] [The title is: "De Avthoritate Verbi Dei Liber Alexandri Alesij,

contra Episcopum Lundensem. An. M.D.XLII." The preface is dated:

"Francfordiae ad Oderam. Calend. Maijs. an. Domini M.D.XL." The colophon

is: "Argentorati apvd Cratonem Mylivm an. M.D.XLII. mense Septembri."

The translation, which is in black-letter, bears no date, place, or

printer's name. For a copy of its title, see _infra_, p. 268 n.]

[308] [Alesius says that he was the bearer of the Loci Theologici, which

he had persuaded Melanchthon to dedicate to Henry VIII. (Foreign

Calendar, Elizabeth, i. 525).]

[309] [He was in London during the time of the trial and execution of

Anne Boleyn. He sent Elizabeth an account of a dream or vision which he

then had. See Appendix F.]

[310] [There is "great uncertainty" as to whether this meeting took

place in 1536 or 1537 (Hardwick's Reformation, 1883, p. 182 n.). The

year 1537 is given by Alesius in his 'De Avthoritate Verbi Dei' (p. 18),

and is repeated in the translation. In the latter it is said: "Contrary

to all my expectacion I chanced to fall agayn into such a disputacyon as

I was in before, and in maner with like adversarys.... Unto this

disputacion I came sodenly unprepared, for as I did mete bi chance in

the streate the right excellent Lord Crumwel going unto the Parlament

Howse in the yeare 1537, he whan he sawe me called me unto him, and toke

me with him to the Parlament House to Westmyster (_sic_), where we fownd

all the bisshops gathered together."]

[311] Cattley's Foxe, v. 381-384. [The whole of this account, as Cattley

points out, is taken by Foxe almost _verbatim_ from a statement made by

Alesius himself in his rare tract entitled, _Of the Auctorite of the

Word of God agaynst the Bisshop of London, wherein are conteyned certen

disputacyons had in the Parlament Howse betwene the Bisshops, abowt the

nomber of the Sacraments, and other things very necessary to be known:

made by Alexander Alane Scot and sent to the Duke of Saxon_. Christopher

Anderson says that this translation of the tract De Authoritate Verbi

Dei Liber was made by Edmund _Allen_. So completely had the original

name of Alesius dropped out of knowledge that Anderson actually charges

the printer with committing "a strange blunder in the title." Believing

that _Ales_ was the real name of Alesius, he thought that the printer

had divided the name of the author between the author and the translator

('Annals of the English Bible,' ii. 479 n.).]

[312] [For the circumstances of his departure, see Appendix G.]

[313] [For M'Alpine, see Gau's Richt Vay, Introd., p. xii.]

[314] "I owe much," he says, "to your father, who received me most

hospitably at my first coming hither, and, in name of Duke Maurice (now

Elector of Saxony), invited me to give my services to this famous

university, and retained me here some years after, when I was called

elsewhere" (_i.e._, probably Königsberg), "promising me the favour and

grace of the most illustrious prince elector. Finally, after the war, he

encouraged me, then hesitating, to write to the elector to beg the

restitution of my books and other effects, which I had lost at the time

of the siege of this city, kindly offering his best services in

rendering my supplicatory letter to the prince, by which, however, he

only succeeded in securing that the elector, when departing from his own

dominions to attend the imperial diet, should give instructions on the

matter to his counsellors whom he had left at home, and should deliver

to be sent on to me a letter full of kindness through Damianus

Sybothendorff, secretary to his highness."

[315] On the former of which occasions he inscribed the following

paragraph in the matriculation book of the university: "Anno MDLV, die

23 Aprilis, qui Divo Georgio sacer est, et quo existimo me natum esse,

supputatis retro LV annis, ego Alexander Alesius, gente Scotus, Patriâ

Edinburgensis, atavis consulibus, qui duobus regibus, Jacobo Quinto, et

Henrico Octavo, et quatuor electoribus, Johanni Friderico, Mauricio et

Augusto, Ducibus Saxoniae, et Joachimo Electori Brandeburgensi

inservivi, invitus suscepi officium rectoris universitatis scholae in

inclytâ urbe Lipsiâ."

[316] Lorimer's Scottish Reformation, 1860, pp. 112, 113. [The Perth

martyrs are noticed above, pp. 53, 54. See also Laing's Knox, i. 117,

118, 523-526.]

[317] Lorimer's Scottish Reformation, 1860, pp. 115, 116. [The

quotations from the Cohortatio which follow agree substantially with

those given by Dr Lorimer, but many of the variations in the phraseology

show that Dr Mitchell had the original as well as Lorimer's translation

before him when he wrote.]

[318] See Appendix H.

[319] M'Crie's Knox, 1855, p. 462.

[320] Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, 1845, ii. 485. For a list

of the published writings of Alesius see Appendix I.

APPENDIX A (p. 19).

THE PÆDAGOGIUM, OR ST MARY'S COLLEGE, ST ANDREWS.[321]

St Mary's College, if in one sense the youngest, is in another sense the

oldest, college within the University. It occupies the earliest site of

the University, and gathers up into itself not only the old

_Pædagogium_, but also a still older college. In January 1418 ... a

certain _Robertus de Monte Rosarum_ mortified a site on the south side

of South Street, with the buildings thereon, as a college for the study

of theology and arts. This was the strip of ground on which the eastern

portion of the Library, as well as the new south wing, now stands, but

on which, in the oldest bird's-eye view of the city, a sort of

collegiate building is represented as standing. That was undoubtedly the

College, or Hall, or "Inns" of St John, to which repeated reference is

made in the oldest manuscript records of the University. It had probably

a lecture-room, rooms for the students to lodge in, and a chapel also,

dedicated to St John the Evangelist, in which daily service was

maintained, but, so far as we now know, it was very poorly endowed.

In 1430 Bishop Wardlaw, the illustrious founder of the University,

mortified as a site for a _Pædagogium_ or common school for the faculty

of arts the strip of land and buildings thereon immediately to the west

of St John's College--the frontage now covered by the western portion of

the Library, the porch of St Mary's College, and the Principal's house.

After the erection and endowment of St Salvator's College by Bishop

Kennedy, and of St Leonard's College by Prior Hepburn, the attendance on

the _Pædagogium_, which was but slenderly endowed, seems to have fallen

off, and the number of its regents to have been curtailed. Archbishop

Alexander Stewart, the favourite pupil of Erasmus, and one of the most

accomplished of our long line of chancellors, was the first who formed

the purpose of enlarging and endowing Bishop Wardlaw's foundation, but

his life was prematurely brought to a close on the fatal field of

Flodden. His successor, Andrew Forman, appears to have taken no interest

in the work on which Stewart had set his heart. But James Betoun, who

came next in succession, acted a nobler part. He brought with him from

Glasgow John Major--the one great schoolman of whom Scotland in the

sixteenth century could boast, who had upheld the reputation of his

country in the University of Paris as an able and successful teacher of

the philosophy and theology of the day. Major and Patrick Hamilton--the

one the representative of the old, the other of the new learning--were

incorporated into the University of St Andrews on the same day (9th June

1523); and, for at least two years, the former presided over the

_Pædagogium_, and probably lectured both on philosophy and theology. In

1525-26 he returned to Paris, partly that he might publish there his

commentaries on the Gospels, and partly that he might act again as a

teacher in that wider sphere; but a few years later, on a vacancy

occurring in the principality of St Salvator's College, he returned to

St Andrews, and continued in that more lucrative charge till his death.

It was mainly in his last years, however, that James Betoun set himself

in right earnest to complete the work which Archbishop Stewart had

begun. At his solicitation Pope Paul III., on 12th February 1537, issued

a bull annexing the teinds of the church of Tannadice, in Forfarshire,

and of the wealthier church of Tyninghame, in East Lothian, to the old

foundation, and erecting it into a privileged college under the title of

the Blessed Mary of the Assumption. In this college, medicine, law, and

theology, as well as arts, were henceforth to be taught, and the

privilege was granted to it of conferring degrees in all lawful

faculties, and of conferring them on those who had gained their

knowledge elsewhere as well as on those who had studied within the

college--in fact, making it almost a university within the University,

and conceding to it more extensive powers than were conceded to many

universities. His first work was to replace the decaying buildings of

the _Pædagogium_ by others more massive and commodious. That work was

far from finished at the time of his death, and having been intermitted

by his successor [the cardinal], was only completed by Archbishop

Hamilton, who, with papal sanction, reconstituted the college and added

to its endowments.

Early, however, in 1538, the first staff of teachers entered on their

work as a college organised and equipped "_ut militans Dei ecclesia

indies abundet viris litterarum scientiâ præditis_," and few

institutions through a long and eventful history have more illustriously

fulfilled this object, though in another sense than its founders meant,

and handed on the torch of sacred learning from generation to

generation. Bannerman, who succeeded Major, had the honour of

reorganising the old institution and starting it on its new career.

Archibald Hay, who came next, was the child of the Renaissance, and more

in earnest about religion than many of that school; and, had his life

been spared, and the cardinal given heed to his counsels, the old Church

might have been able to make a better fight for privilege or for life in

the struggle which ensued. John Douglas, his successor, bridged the

passage from the old to the new without any violent break, probably

taking part with Wynram in the composition of Archbishop Hamilton's

Catechism, as he did afterwards in the preparation of the Reformed

Confession of Faith and the First Book of Discipline. He was a man of

the ancient academic type, content to live in single blessedness, to

treat his pupils, who also lived in college, with the familiarity and

affection of a father. He had the honour of training the youthful Andrew

Melville, and perhaps it was with some presentiment of his future

eminence that, as he held the precocious youth between his knees at the

college fire, he fondly said, "My sillie fatherless and motherless

chyld, it is ill to wit what God may mak of thee yit."

God watched over that weakly youth, and prospered his studies at Paris,

Poictiers, and Geneva, so that with a mind stored with all the learning

of his time, he returned to his native land to complete the reformation

of its universities, and to delight successive generations of students

by his stores of learning and wit, and by his accessibility and

generosity. It was to meet his ideas of what a theological school should

be that the college was set apart "allenarly" for the study of theology,

and furnished with professors of the Old and the New Testament, who were

to "expone" the various books of Scripture as well as to read them in

the original, comparing the Hebrew of the Old Testament with the

Septuagint and the Chaldee paraphrases, and the Greek of the New

Testament with the old Syriac translation, while the principal was to

teach the _loci communes_ or the systematic theology of the age. The

first assistants in the "wark of theology" were Mr John Robertson, who

acted as _professor Novi Testamenti_, and his own nephew, James

Melville, who taught Hebrew and the Old Testament, and to whom we owe

that graphic diary which gives us several interesting glimpses of

college life in those early days. To John Robertson succeeded Mr John

Johnston, author of Latin poems in praise of our reformers and martyrs,

and of Latin verses descriptive of the line of our Scottish kings.

Melville was by no means an illiberal theologian, and he and Johnston

wrote to the Protestant churches of France urging moderation on them in

controversies which were then being discussed with great bitterness.

Both lived with and for their pupils, and secured in an unusual degree

their reverence and affection. Both ultimately lost the favour of the

king; and Melville, after being cruelly used in London, had to spend his

declining years in the French Protestant University of Sedan.

FOOTNOTES:

[321] [This is taken from a paper on "St Mary's College," contributed by

Dr Mitchell to the "Student's Handbook to the University of St Andrews,"

1895, pp. 12-15.]

APPENDIX B (p. 30).

CITATIO PATRICII HAMILTON

E FORMULARI VETERE ANDREANO.

_Citatio super suspecto de heresi ad faciendum purgationem alias ad

videndum [ipsum] hereticum declarari._

Jacobus etc., Decano Christianitatis nostre de L[audonia] Universisque

et singulis aliis Dominis rectoribus, vicariis perpetuis, capellanis

curatis et non curatis per provinciam nostram S[ti Andree] ubilibet

constitutis, Illique vel illis ad quem vel ad quos presentes litere

pervenerint, Salutem cum benedictione divina: Quia per fidelem

inquisitionem aliter de mandato nostro legitime receptam compertum

extitit quendam Magistrum P[atricium] H[amilton] de heresi multiplici

suspectum, quem citandum et desuper accusandum antea decrevimus, sed

medio tempore relictâ patriâ ad alia et extera se transtulit loca, nuper

autem vagante fama ad aures nostras clamorosa insinuatione pervenit

Ipsum nuperrime in patriam reversum et quod primo statim adventu non

debite missus nec prerogativis aut privilegiis debitis munitus, sed

propriâ auctoritate et temerariâ presumptione, predicationis officium de

heresi ei designata acceptare ausus est, et suas hereticas pravitates et

perversas Martini Lutheri heretici alias ab ecclesia damnati et suorum

fautorum ac sequacium opiniones promulgare, docens seminansve et

pertinaciter affirmans, ac populum Christianum de eisdem instruere non

erubescit, indeque simplices et illiteratos hujus regni Christi fideles

qui in se et progenitoribus per tanta temporis curricula, spatio viz.

mille et trecentorum annorum et ultra in ecclesiâ Dei constantissime

militaverunt, a verâ nostrâ orthodoxâ fide et catholica ecclesia

seducere, et quantum in eo est pervertere nititur et proponit, dicendo

predicando et temerario ausu inter alia palam et publice affirmando:--

Legibus, canonibus, patrum sanctionibus et decretis, humanis quoque

constitutionibus non esse obtemperandum; Claves et censuras ecclesie

contempnendas, nec sacramentis ejusdem fidendum, Templa non esse

frequentanda, nec ymagines adorandas, pro defunctorum animabus non esse

exorandum; nec decimas Deo et ecclesie solvendas; pro bonis operibus

nullum fore salutis premium nec pro malis cruciatum; Nostros

progenitores in ecclesia Dei et ejusdem sacramentis fidentes in malâ et

iniquâ fide esse mortuos et in inferno sepultos:--

Aliaque dictu et recitatu saltem inter Christianos et fideles horrenda

et nephanda predicat docet et affirmat in Dei viventis claviumque

ecclesie ac nostre fidei orthodoxe contemptum, regni et reipublice

ejusdem damnum scandalum et, digna Dei ultione, si premissis favere

incipiat, sperandam ruinam, animabusque perpetrantium gravissimum

periculum nisi remedio succurratur oportuno: In quibus omnibus et

singulis idem Magister P. communi voce et famâ ex publicâ et notoria

ejusdem predicatione orta de heresi suspectus reputatur, habetur et

divulgatur. Consilio igitur desuper recepto ipsum citandum et de

premissis experiendum decrevimus: Quare vobis et vestrum cuilibet nos

precipimus et mandamus, quatenus citetis legitime dictum Magistrum P. H.

primo, secundo, tertio et peremptorie etc. quod compareat personaliter

coram [nobis] nostrisque consulibus Dn̄is Episcopis, Abbatibus,

Prioribus, sacrarum literarum Professoribus, et Religiosis, aliisque

nobis pro tempore assistentibus, in ecclesiâ nostrâ Metropolitanâ S[ti

Andree] regni Scotie primatiali, die _N_ mensis _N_ proxime futuris,

horâ decimâ antemeridiana vel eo circa, ad respondendum nobis ex officio

de et super suis pertinaciter dictis, affirmatis, predicatis,

divulgatis, tentis et disputatis contra nostram orthodoxam fidem et

sanctam ecclesiam catholicam; et propterea ad videndum et audiendum

ipsum hereticum declarari, et penâ condignâ a canonibus propterea latâ

et imperatâ puniendum fore et puniri debere; superque adherentiâ et

favoribus prestitis peregrinis opinionibus et pravitatibus dicti Martini

Lutheri, heretici ab ecclesiâ damnati, et suorum sequacium; ac aliis

interrogandis similiter reddendis, et tanquam heretice pravitatis

fautorem et male de fide sentientem accusandum fore et accusari ac

condempnari debere. Testimonia quoque et probationes, si necesse fuerit,

desuper recipi, jurari, et admitti; ac in premissis omnibus et singulis

summarie et de plano sine strepitu et figurâ judicii prout juris fuerit

procedendum fore et procedi debere; Vel ad allegandum causam

rationabilem quare premissa fieri non deberent; Cum intimatione debita,

ut moris est, intimamus eidem quod sive dictis die et loco comparere

curaverit sive non comparuerit Nos nihilominus in premissis omnibus et

singulis procedere volumus et intendimus justitiâ mediante; Imprimis

absentiâ seu contumaciâ in aliquo non obstante; et ne periculum sit in

mora, et ut interim hujus hereses in hoc regno hucusque ab omni tali

labe et hereticâ peste per tanta temporis spatia sano, et post Christi

Salvatoris susceptam fidem inviolabiliter preservato, non oriantur nec

per Christi fideles audiantur, vobis omnibus et singulis supradictis,

modo et forma premissis precipimus et mandamus, quatenus auctoritate

nostra inhibentes omnibus et singulis Christi fidelibus cujuscunque

dignitatis, status, gradus, ordinis aut conditionis existant, ne dicto

Magistro P. sic ut premittitur, de heresi suspecto, favorem,

assistentiam, societatem, colloquium seu gratam audientiam praebeant;

nec in suis temerariis et insolentibus predicationibus disputationibus

seu conventiclis publice vel occulte quovis quesito colore vel ingenio

conveniant seu presentiam exhibeant; sed sibi et suis saltem de

premissis fautoribus resistere studeant, resistentiamque faciant et

procurent; ab illo quoque edendo, bibendo aut communicando in premissis

abstineant, donec de heresi et infamia desuper ortâ purgetur, et eundem

vitent sub penâ excommunicationis majoris; Quam contrarium facientes

incurrere volumus et decernimus ipso facto. Et quos vos, etc. Datum,

etc.

APPENDIX C (p. 46).

CARDINAL BETOUN'S INCONTINENCE.

"While ... he was possessed," Mr M'Bain tells us, "of eminent qualities,

he led, in many respects, anything but a moral life. His favourite

mistress was Marion Ogilvie, daughter of Sir James, afterwards Lord,

Ogilvie of Airlie, to whom [as Abbot of Arbroath] he granted a liferent

lease of the lands of Burnton of Ethie, and other lands near the place,

for a small sum of money _and other causes_. This was on the 22nd of May

1528. On the 20th of July 1530, he granted her a liferent lease of the

Kirkton of St Vigeans, with the muir-fauld and the toft of St Vigeans,

and a piece of common land lying to the south of the church. On 17th

February 1533-34, she obtained a nineteen years' lease of the eighth

part of the lands of Auchmithie [lying to the north-east of Ethie], with

the brew-house there, and the lands belonging to it, and on 10th March

1534[-35] there is the record of a feu to her of a piece of land in the

'Sandpots,' for the construction of a toral or ustrina lying 'beyond and

near the red wall of the monastery commonly so called'" (Eminent

Arbroathians, 1897, pp. 37, 38). For these facts Mr M'Bain has the

authority of the 'Registrum de Aberbrothoc,' Bannatyne Club, ii. 482,

500, 519, 521. On p. 482 are the words: "Pro certa summa pecunie et

aliis causis assedat pro toto tempore vite Mariote Ogylwy subtenentibus

coadjutoribus et assignatis," &c. Mr M'Bain adds: "It is not known by

whom Ethie House was built, but it was [one of the mansions belonging to

the abbey and] a favourite residence of David Beaton and Marion Ogilvie,

his mistress.... After Beaton's death a natural daughter of his by

Marion Ogilvie laid claim to the furniture in Ethie House, if not to the

house itself.... But Ethie was not the only place in the neighbourhood

occupied by David Beaton and Marion Ogilvie. In 1542 he acquired the

barony of Melgund, and erected the castle in which he and his mistress

and their children resided. The Beaton and the Ogilvie arms are still to

be seen in one of the rooms. The initials 'D.B.' are over one window,

and 'M.O.' over the other; while on the corbal of the stair leading to

this room are the Ogilvie arms, and the initials 'M.O.' ... David Beaton

settled the property of Melgund on his mistress in liferent, and on his

eldest son David in fee" (Eminent Arbroathians, pp. 38, 39).

[According to Dr Joseph Robertson, "Cardinal Beaton had five bastards"

('Concilia Scotiæ,' ii. 302). There is record evidence, however, to show

that he had at least seven. On the 4th of November 1539, three of his

sons were legitimated in the following terms: "Rex dedit literas

legitimationis Jacobo Betoun, Alexandro Betoun et Johanni Betoun,

bastardis, filiis naturalibus Davidis archiepiscopis S. Andree, &c."

(Register of Great Seal, iii. No. 2037). He had also a son David (Ibid.,

No. 1931), and three daughters, Elizabeth (Ibid., Nos. 1274, 2330),

Margaret, and Agnes (Ibid., iv. Nos. 1353, 2740; 'Liber Officialis

Sancti Andree,' Abbotsford Club, p. 158).]

APPENDIX D (p. 124).

CONDITIONS ON WHICH THE USE OF THE CHURCH OF THE WHITE LADIES AT

FRANKFORT WAS GRANTED TO THE ENGLISH EXILES.

"Nun war bey Ankunft der Engelländer eine Kirche in Frankfurt, die

einigen französischen Protestanten zum Gebrauch eingeräumt war, welche

nun auch zum Behuf der Engelländer in Vorschlag gebracht, und am 14

Julii ihnen wirklich angewiesen wurde. Doch machte der Rath gewisse

Ordnungen, und suchte die Sache also einzurichten, das allerlei

Disputen, die etwa entstehen mögten, der Weg verlaget wurde. Die

vornehmsten waren diese: (_a_) dass die Engelländer und Franzosen

einerley Lehre und Ceremonien führen sollten; Daher sollten jene (_b_)

der Franzosen Glaubensbekäntniss, das diese N.B. dem Rath überreichet

hatten, unterschreiben. (_c_) Liessen sich die Engelländer gefallen,

dass das Volk bey dem gemeinen Gebet das Amen nicht mehr laut sagen

sollte, wie sonst in der Kirche von Engelland üblich ist. (_d_) Dass die

Prediger das weisse Chorhemde, nebst vielen andern in Engelland

eingeführten Ceremonien abschaffen sollten, als welche den Einwohnern,

die solcher Dinge ungewohnt wären, einstossig seyn könnten. Und was der

gleichen Umstände mehr waren, welche die Engelländer, um desto eher zum

Stande zu kommen, freiwillig eingiengen."--J. Hildebrand Withof,

'Vertheidigung der.... Nachricht wie es mit V. Pollane erstem

Reformirten Prediger zu Frankfurt-am-Mayn ... zugegangen,' 1753, folio.

APPENDIX E (p. 260).

THE THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL OPINIONS OF ALESIUS.

(_From the 'Responsio ad Cochlei Calvmnias.'_)

"With all his scribbling, he [_i.e._, Cochlaeus] has never yet, so far

as I know, disclosed what are his own opinions about Christian doctrine;

and therefore his empty and scurrilous treatises miss their mark, and

are justly held in derision by learned men.... But I, renowned monarch,

that you may know that my alliance is with the Church of Christ and not

with any other factions, do not refuse before you and other good men to

give a simple and clear account of my faith as I formerly wrote to you,

for I believe the prophetical and apostolical Scriptures, and embrace

the consensus of the holy fathers whom the Church approves. I also

reverence the ecclesiastical authority, being one who, especially in

doubtful matters, will obey and follow its decisions. Does Cochlaeus ask

anything further? I myself will add, I approve of nothing seditious.

With my whole heart and soul I abhor the ravings of the Anabaptists. No

new doctrine, unsupported by the testimony of the ancient Church, is

acceptable to me. Further still, as I do not undertake the defence of

Luther, so, on the other hand, I do not approve of all the dreams of the

monks which have been received, not only contrary to the decision of the

Scripture, but also to the authority of the ancient church. Moreover, I

cannot approve of the cruelty which is everywhere being practised

against those who, following the judgment of Scripture and of the

fathers, reject or censure any manifest abuse or error that in the

course of time may have crept into the Church. Such is my faith, O

Cochlaeus, use it if you are pleased with it; if not, show me a better.

If the unjust punishments inflicted on the truly pious afford you

pleasure, you are not only a miserable, but a contemptible wretch. I

neither can nor will ever knowingly burden or pollute my conscience by

approving of these parricides. I saw in my own country the punishment of

one, born in a most honourable station, and innocent of any serious

crime, Patrick [Hamilton]. I saw burned at Cologne two men of pious and

orthodox sentiments, and most averse to the fanatical opinions of the

Anabaptists. Nor can I express in words how deeply I was grieved by

these mournful spectacles. And I did not grieve only over the fate of

those who were punished, in whom because, as the poet says, 'grace shone

through their very anguish,' their singular bravery and constancy

brought some alleviation to my grief; but much more did I grieve over

the fate of the Church, which is disordered in many ways, and likely yet

to be more so, by the practice of such cruelty. Finally, there is no

doubt that the State will, in God's appointed time, have to suffer

heaviest punishment for its guilt in permitting such parricides; yet I

do not impugn the laws as to the punishment of heretics, if only there

is due cognition of each case, and care is taken that those who are

really innocent of perverting the true Christian faith may not be

punished."