calculated for the finest developments of character. The old high,
fervid spirit of chivalry was not lost; there were the same sense of
honor, the same knightly bearing, the same passion for glory, and the
same admiration for courage and prowess that had prevailed in the
earlier days of its sway. But these were tempered by milder and more
attractive virtues and accomplishments; the clerkly learning, which had
held so humble a rank in the days when nobles could scarcely sign their
names, had now risen into far higher estimation. Great warriors were now
no longer ashamed to know how to read and write; on the contrary, the
possession of learning and literature, the delicate arts of poetry and
music, the graces of conversation and manners, were now as requisite to
the full accomplishment of the knight, as his horsemanship, or his skill
in the management of his lance. In a word, the sterner characteristics
of the ancient knight were softened down, in the age of Elizabeth, into
the more perfect and graceful attributes of the gentleman. The perfect
gentleman was more completely exhibited in the days of Elizabeth than at
any time before; for the chivalry and the accomplishments which were
then united in the same individual, had been formerly divided between
the noble and the churchman or the clerk.
Were we called upon to characterize the age in which Spenser lived, by a
single word, we could find none that would better express its combined
attributes, than the word which the poet uses in describing his principal
hero: "In the person of Prince Arthure," says he in his letter to Raleigh,
"I set forth magnificence." The age of Elizabeth was distinguished by
magnificence, in the highest sense of the word, by the most brilliant
display of great qualities of all kinds; and the hero of the _Faerie
Queene_ seems to be the personification of the splendid attributes of the
age. A prevailing sentiment, in the mind of Spenser, was the perfectness
of character to which the gentlemen of his time aspired, and on this
model he fashioned his hero. He observes that "the general end, therefore,
of all the books is to fashion a gentleman or noble person in gentle and
virtuous discipline." And again, "I labor to pourtraict in Arthure,
before he was King, the image of a brave knight, perfected in the twelve
moral virtues." And as we read the gorgeous description of the prince,
when he first meets the forsaken Una, we could fancy that the magnificent
characteristics of the golden age of England had blended together, and
blazed forth in one dazzling form before us.
JOHN KNOX HEADS THE SCOTTISH REFORMERS
A.D. 1559
P. HUME BROWN THOMAS CARLYLE
In the year of Martin Luther's death (1546) Protestant doctrines
were preached in Scotland by George Wishart. This reformer was
burned at St. Andrew's, in the same year (March 12th), at the
instigation of Cardinal Beaton. Two months later the Cardinal
himself, who practically controlled the Scottish government, was
murdered in the castle of St. Andrew's. Beaton's death was "fatal
to the Catholic religion and to the French interest in Scotland."
The interest of France was represented by the Queen Regent, Mary
of Lorraine, also called Mary of Guise, daughter of Claude, Duke
of Guise. She was the widow of James V of Scotland, and mother of
Mary Stuart, now four years old and living in France.
During his brief season of Protestant preaching, Wishart had
deeply impressed a scholar, then forty years of age, who gave up
his calling as teacher, and in 1547 began to preach the reformed
religion at St. Andrew's. This was John Knox.
From this moment dates the birth of the Protestant Reformation in
Scotland. Knox was imprisoned by the French (1547-1549), was
released, and for two years preached at Berwick. For several years
now he lived a life of many vicissitudes, partly in Great Britain and
partly on the Continent, and by his sermons and writings powerfully
influenced the growth of the Protestant faith. While at Geneva, where
he was much influenced by Calvin, in 1558, he published his _First
Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women_, a
denouncement which brought him into bitter antagonism with the Queen
Regent and with other Catholic authorities in England and France.
In 1559 the Queen Regent took active steps for repressing the
Congregation, as the whole body of Scotch Protestants were called,
and in the same year Knox returned once more to Scotland, there to
perform a work which made his name perhaps second only to that of
Luther among the personal forces of the Reformation.
The first of the following accounts shows Knox and his followers
in the midst of their warfare against the Regent's repressive
policy. In the second we have one of Carlyle's most fervent
eulogies, for to him Knox is the priestly hero enacting a glorious
part.
P. HUME BROWN
The year 1559 began ominously for the success of the Queen Regent's
policy of suppression. To this point national feeling and religious
conviction had been the driving-forces of the coming revolution. But, as
is the case in all national upheavals, there were likewise economic
forces at work which were none the less potent because they were obscured
behind the dramatic development of sensational events. A remarkable
document, the author of which is unknown, gave striking expression to
this aspect of the Scottish Reformation. It was entitled the _Beggars'
Summons_, and purported to come from "all cities, towns, and villages of
Scotland."
On January 1, 1559, this terrible manifesto, breathing the very spirit of
revolution, was found placarded on the gates of every religious
establishment in Scotland. The _Summons_ begins as follows: "The blind,
crooked, lame, widows, orphans, and all other poor visited by the hand of
God as may not work, to the flocks of all friars within this realm, we
wish restitution of wrongs past, and reformation in times coming, for
salutation." It may be sufficient to quote the concluding passage of this
extraordinary effusion, and it is a passage which should never be out of
mind in any estimate of the forces that were about to effect the great
cataclysm in the national life: "Wherefore, seeing our number is so
great, so indigent, and so heavily oppressed by your false means that
none taketh care of our misery, and that it is better to provide for
these our impotent members which God hath given us, to oppose to you in
plain controversy, than to see you hereafter, as ye have done before,
steal from us our lodging, and ourselves in the mean time to perish and
die for want of the same; we have thought good, therefore, ere we enter
in conflict with you, to warn you in the name of the great God by this
public writing, affixed on your gates where ye now dwell, that ye remove
forth of our said hospitals betwixt this and the feast of Whitsunday
next, so that we, the only lawful proprietors thereof, may enter thereto,
and afterward enjoy the commodities of the Church which ye have heretofore
wrongfully holden from us; certifying that if ye fail, we will at the
said term, in whole number and with the help of God and assistance of his
saints on earth, of whose ready support we doubt not, enter and take
possession of our said patrimony, and eject you utterly forth of the
same. Let him, therefore, that before hath stolen, steal no more; but
rather let him work with his hands, that he may be helpful to the poor."
The inflammatory statements of revolutionaries must be taken for what
they are worth; but there is abundant evidence to prove that the above
indictment of the national Church was not without foundation in fact. It
has been computed that one-half of the wealth of the country was in
possession of the clergy; and we have the testimony of unimpeachable
witnesses to the unworthy uses to which it was put. Hector Boece, John
Major, and Ninian Winzet were all three faithful sons of the Church, and
all three cried aloud at the venality, avarice, and luxurious living of
the higher clergy. "But now, for many years," wrote Major, "we have been
shepherds whose only care it is to find pasture for themselves, men
neglectful of the duties of religion. By open flattery do the worthless
sons of our nobility get the governance of convents _in commendam_, and
they covet these ample revenues, not for the good help that they thence
might render to their brethren, but solely for the high position that
these places offer." To the same effect Ninian Winzet wrote after the
judgment had come. "The special roots of all mischief," he says, "be the
two infernal monsters, pride and avarice, of the which unhappily has
up-sprung the election of unqualified bishops and other pastors in
Scotland."
This spectacle of the national Church, with its disproportionate wealth
and its selfish, incompetent, and often degraded officials, could not
but be a growing offence to the developing intelligence of the nation;
and to quicken this feeling there were minor grievances which were an
ancient ground of complaint on the part of the laity against their
spiritual advisers. On every important event of his life the poor man
was harassed by exactions which Sir David Lyndsay has so keenly touched
in his _Satire of the Three Estates_. Says the Pauper in the interlude:
"Quhair will ye find that law, tell gif ye can,
To tak thine ky, fra ane pure husbandman?
Ane for my father, and for my wyfe ane uther,
And the third cow, he tuke fra Mald my mother."
And Diligence replies:
"It is thair law, all that they have in use,
Tocht it be cow, sow, ganer, gryse, or guse."
If the poor had these grounds of discontent, the rich likewise had
theirs; and they made bitter complaint against the protracted processes
in the consistorial courts, and the frequent appeals to the Roman Curia,
by which both their means and their patience were exhausted.
It was in the face of feelings such as these that, in the spring of
1559, the Queen Regent entered on her new line of policy toward her
refractory subjects. Her first steps were taken with her usual prudence.
A provincial council of the clergy was summoned to meet on March 1st for
the express purpose of dealing with the religious difficulty. It was the
last provincial council of the ancient Church that was to meet in
Scotland; and, if the expression of its good intentions could have
availed, the Church might yet have been saved. All that its worst
enemies had said of its shortcomings was frankly admitted, and admirable
decrees were passed with a view to a speedy and effective reform. But
the hour had passed when the mere reform of life and doctrine would have
sufficed to meet the desires of the new spiritual teachers. As was
speedily to be seen, it was revolution and not reform on which these new
teachers were now bent with an ever-growing confidence that their
triumph was not far off. A double order issued by the Regent toward the
end of March brought her face to face with the consequences of her
changed policy. Unauthorized persons were forbidden to preach, and the
lieges were commanded to observe the festival of Easter after the manner
ordained by the Church. The preachers disregarded both edicts and were
summoned to answer for their disobedience.
It was now seen that the Regent was no longer in the mood for
temporizing; and the Congregation despatched two of their number, the
Earl of Glencairn and Sir Hew Campbell, sheriff of Ayr, to deprecate her
wrath. Their reception must have taught them that times were now changed
since the days when the Regent deemed it necessary to conciliate their
party. "In despite of you and your ministers both," she told the two
deputies, "they shall be banished out of Scotland, albeit they preached
as truly as ever did St. Paul." When they reminded her of her previous
promises, she replied in words that were never forgotten, and which her
grandson, James VI, recalled and laid to heart in his own dealings with
his subjects. "It became not subjects," she said, "to burden their
princes further than it pleaseth them to keep the same." For a time,
however, she consented to stay further action against the preachers.
But, if she were to carry out the task she had undertaken, she must
sooner or later make trial of her strength against what had now become
actual rebellion. In Perth, Dundee, and Montrose the Protestant
preachers, with the approval and countenance of the constituted
authorities, openly proceeded with their work of spreading their new
opinions. At length the Regent took the step which was to be the
beginning of the end of the Catholic Church in Scotland. She summoned
the preachers to appear before her at Stirling on May 10th, and on this
occasion it was recognized by both parties that the moment for decisive
action had come. To be ready for all contingencies, a numerous body of
Protestant gentlemen from Angus and the Mearns, all, it is specially
noted, "without armor," took up their quarters at Perth, where they were
immediately joined by another contingent from Dundee. With this last
body came John Knox, who on May 20th had finally returned to his native
country.
All through their contest with the Regent, the Protestant leaders took
up the position that they were acting in strict accordance with the law
of the land. With the formidable following now at their back, they might
have marched on Stirling and gained a temporary advantage by their show
of strength. What they actually did was to send Erskine of Dun to the
Regent to lay their demands once more before her. As she was not yet in
a position to enforce her will, she again agreed to postpone action
against the preachers. It was the misfortune of her position from the
beginning of the struggle that Mary of Lorraine was driven to
subterfuges which made impossible any permanent understanding with her
discontented subjects; and it was of evil omen for the success of her
policy that she now allowed herself to commit a serious breach of faith.
In the teeth of her promise to Erskine, she proclaimed the preachers as
outlaws when they failed to appear at Stirling on the day appointed for
their trial. The news of the Regent's breach of faith was the immediate
occasion of the first stroke in the Scottish Reformation. The day after
the outlawry John Knox preached a sermon in the parish church of Perth,
his theme being the idolatries of Rome, and the duty of Christian men to
put an end to them. At the close of the sermon, when the majority of the
audience had left the church, a priest proceeded to celebrate mass. A
forward boy made a protesting remark; the priest struck him; the boy
retaliated by throwing a stone which broke an image, and immediately the
church was in an uproar. In a few moments not "a monument of idolatry"
was left in the building. The news of these doings spread through the
town, and the "rascal multitude" took up the work. There had been old
quarrels between the town and the religious orders; and so early as 1543
a violent assault had been made on the Blackfriars' monastery. But on
the present occasion the work done was at once more extensive and more
thorough. The main onslaught was directed toward the monasteries of the
Dominicans and the Franciscans and the Charterhouse Abbey; and within
two days, says Knox, "the walls only did remain of these great
edifications."
There was now no alternative but the sword, and both parties at once
took action accordingly. In support of the French troops which were at
her disposal, the Regent ordered levies from Clydesdale, Stirlingshire,
and the Lothians to meet her at Stirling on May 24th. On their part the
insurgents strengthened the defences of Perth--according to Buchanan,
the only walled town in Scotland--and addressed themselves to their
brethren in Ayrshire for instant succor. As they were now engaged in
what might be construed as rebellion, they took steps to justify
themselves in the eyes of the world. In three manifestoes, probably the
work of Knox, they addressed respectively the Regent, D'Oysel, the
French ambassador, and the whole Scottish nobility. In view of the past
history of Scotland the insurgents could present a case which possessed
sufficient plausibility. It had been the exception for the reign of a
Scottish king to pass without some more or less serious revolt on the
ground of his alleged misgovernment. Even during the reign with which we
are dealing, there had been a fair precedent for the late proceedings of
the Congregation. At the outset of the reign, the Earl of Arran was
giving away the country to England and to heresy; Beaton and the French
party had taken up arms against him, and undone all his actions to which
they objected. But as Mary of Lorraine was now governing the country,
the danger of a French conquest was much more serious than had been the
danger of conquest by England. On the ground that the state was in
peril, therefore, there was ample justification for the action of the
Protestant leaders. With regard to religion, the good of the
commonwealth might easily be urged as a plea for the most drastic
dealing with the national Church. By the admission of its own officials
the Church had become a scandal, alike from the character of the clergy
and its general neglect of its duties as a spiritual body. For at least
a century the scandal had been growing; and good citizens had been
forced to the conclusion that their accredited spiritual guides were
either unable or unwilling to set their house in order.
But the time demanded deeds more than words. With a force of about eight
thousand French and Scots, D'Oysel, the Regent's chief adviser, advanced
to Auchterarder, some twelve miles from Perth. With this formidable
force behind her, the Regent naturally expected that her rebellious
subjects would be disposed to abate their demands. To learn what terms
they would now be willing to accept, she sent to Perth the lord James
Stewart, Lord Sempill, and the Earl of Argyle. They were told that the
town would be surrendered if assurance were given of freedom of worship
and security to the worshippers. As a reply to these demands, the Regent
despatched the lyon king-of-arms to make proclamation that all should
"avoid the toune under pane of treasone." At this moment, however, the
Earl of Glencairn, at the head of a body of two thousand five hundred
Ayrshire Protestants, made his way to within six miles of Perth. Thus
checkmated, the Regent was again driven to a compromise; and on the
conditions that she should quarter no French troops in the town, and
grant perfect freedom of worship, the gates were at length thrown open
to her. Thus closed the first act of the drama of the Scottish
Reformation.
This good understanding was of short duration. Again the action of the
Regent gave rise to an accusation of broken pledges. She kept to the
letter of the late compact, but she evaded its spirit. She did not
quarter French troops in the town, but she occupied it with Scottish
soldiers in French pay, and, in further disregard of her pledges,
treated the Protestants with a harshness which gave rise to bitter
complaint on the part of their leaders. Argyle and the lord James, the
two most prominent of these leaders, had accompanied her into Perth (May
29th), but, indignant at these proceedings, they secretly quitted the
town and at once took action to make good their protests. Summoning the
Protestant gentlemen of Angus and the Mearns to meet them in St.
Andrew's on June 3d, they proceeded to that town, as the best centre of
action after Perth. In St. Andrew's as in Perth it is John Knox who is
again the outstanding figure. Here his preaching was attended by the
same notable results. The monasteries of the Dominicans and the
Franciscans were practically demolished by the mob, and with the
approval of the magistrates every church in the town was stripped of its
ornaments. Meanwhile the Regent had not been idle, and was now at
Falkland with a force led by D'Oysel and Châtelherault. Confident in
their strength, those two leaders marched toward Cupar, with the
intention of dealing with St. Andrew's. But again they discovered that
they had miscalculated the resources of the insurgents. Issuing from St.
Andrew's, with little over a hundred horse, Argyle and the lord James
were speedily reënforced by contingents from Lothian and Fife, which
raised their numbers to above three thousand men. Thus strengthened,
they took up their position on Cupar Muir, and awaited the approach of
the Regent's forces. But in number these forces were now inferior to
those of the enemy; and, as many of the French soldiers were Huguenots
and secretly sympathized with their fellow-believers, the issue of the
battle could not but be doubtful. Again, therefore, there was no
alternative for the Regent but to temporize. It was agreed that there
should be a truce of eight days, that the Regent's forces now in Fife
should be removed from that county, and that, during the armistice, an
attempt should be made to effect some permanent understanding.
The new arrangement proved as hollow as the first. In point of fact, it
was borne in on both parties that the struggle had but begun, and that
the sword only could end it. Already, therefore, both were looking for
external support wherewith to crush their opponents. The very day after
the compact at Cupar, D'Oysel wrote to the French ambassador in London
that only a body of French troops could maintain the Regent's authority.
On their part the Protestant leaders now entered on those negotiations
with England which eventually led to results that gave Scotland
definitely to Protestantism and united the destinies of the two nations.
Meanwhile, however, the Regent and her revolted subjects had to fight
their own battles. The truce effected nothing, and it had no sooner
expired than hostilities recommenced. The first object of the leaders of
the Congregation was to relieve their brethren in Perth, and on June
24th they sat down before that place in such numbers that it immediately
and unconditionally surrendered. Perth, Dundee, and St. Andrew's were
now in their hands; but, having gone thus far, their only hope lay in
giving still further proof of the strength of their cause. It was
reported that the Regent meant to stop their progress southward of
Stirling bridge; but, before she could effect her object, they entered
that town with the consent of the majority of the citizens. By June 29th
they were in possession of the capital, whence Mary of Lorraine had fled
to the castle of Dunbar.