growing alarm from the attitude of lukewarm and dubious friends. The
sincerity and good faith of all who had taken part in the late
revolution were about to be subjected to the most stringent of tests. By
the enactments of the preceding year the ancient Church had been swept
away; but the work of rearing a new edifice in its place still remained
to be accomplished. With this object the Protestant ministers had been
intrusted with the task of drafting a constitution for a new church
which should take the place of the old. The ministers had discharged
their trust, and the result of their labors was laid before the estates
which met in Edinburgh on January 15, 1561.
The document presented to the estates was the famous _Book of
Discipline_--the most interesting and in many respects the most
important document in the history of Scotland. If any proof were needed
that the revolt against the ancient Church was no ill-considered act of
irresponsible men, we assuredly possess that proof in this extraordinary
book. Though in its primary intention the scheme of its ecclesiastical
polity, it is in fact the draft of a "republic," under which a nation
should live its life on earth and prepare itself for heaven. It not
only prescribes a creed, and supplies a complete system of church
government: it suggests a scheme of national education, it defines the
relation of church and state, it provides for the poor and unable, it
regulates the life of households, it even determines the career of such
as by their natural gifts were especially fitted to be of service to
church or state. As we shall see, the suggestions of the _Book of
Discipline_ were to be but imperfectly realized; yet, by defining the
ideals and moulding the temper and culture of the prevailing majority
of the Scottish people, it has been one of the great formative
influences in the national development.
It was on this memorable document that the estates were now to sit
in judgment. In the case of the Confession of Faith they had been
practically unanimous; but that had been a mere statement of abstract
doctrines which involved no question of worldly interests, and might
be subscribed with a light heart and with any degree of spiritual
conviction. With the _Book of Discipline_ it was very different. The
fundamental question that had to be answered in that book was the
question of the "sustentation" of the new Church. The answer given was
the most natural in the world: the reformed Church had an indisputable
right to the entire inheritance of the Church it had displaced. There
were, however, two formidable difficulties in the way of this claim.
Without manifest injustice the ancient clergy could not be deprived
wholesale of their means of subsistence. The second difficulty was also
formidable. Of late years a considerable amount of Church property had
passed into the hands of the nobles, barons, and gentry. Would these
persons now be willing to lay their possessions at the feet of the
ministers from whom they professed to have received the true Gospel?
The proceedings of the convention left no doubt as to the answer.
As in the preceding August, the assembly was a crowded one, but on
this occasion there was no such unanimous action. "Some approved it,"
says Knox, "and willed the same have been set forth by law. Others,
perceiving their carnal liberty and worldly commodity somewhat to
be impaired thereby, grudged, insomuch that the name of _Book of
Discipline_ became odious unto them. Everything that repugned to their
corrupt affections was termed in their mocking 'devout imaginations.'"
After long and heated debates, no definite conclusion was reached. A
large number of the nobles and barons, however, signed the _Book_ as
being "good and conformable to God's Word in all points"; but they
signed it with a qualification that did them credit. The old clergy
should be allowed to retain their livings on condition of their
maintaining Protestant ministers in their respective districts. The
denunciations of Knox have given an evil name to this convention of the
estates, yet the act of spoliation to which he would have had them put
their hands would have done little credit to a religion whose special
claim was to have reproduced the purity and simplicity of the primitive
gospel.
While the supporters of the Reformation were thus divided among
themselves, the prospect of the Queen's approaching return was further
confounding their counsels. That she must be their open or their secret
foe, they could have no manner of doubt. Her character and opinions had
been formed under the immediate supervision of her uncle, the Cardinal
of Lorraine; and to the French Protestants the Cardinal was already
known as "_le tigre de France_." As a Catholic and as a Queen, her
natural desire must be to undo the work of the late revolution, which
she could only regard as the work of rebels and heretics. "Whenever she
comes," wrote Randolph, the English resident, "I believe there will be
a mad world." Mary might prove to be as able as her mother, and she
would possess many advantages over Mary of Lorraine in any contest with
her subjects. She was the legitimate sovereign of the country; and, now
that the immediate danger from France was removed by the death of her
husband, there was no reason why the national party, as distinguished
alike from Catholic and Protestant, should not return to its natural
allegiance. Moreover, though, with the help of England, Protestantism
had triumphed in the late trial of strength, the great majority in the
country--nobles, barons, and commons--were still on the side of the old
religion.
Even before her return Mary had clearly indicated the policy she
intended to follow. In February she had sent deputies to the estates to
urge the renewal of the ancient league with France--a step which, at
their meeting in May, the estates decisively refused to take, as being
the virtual abandonment of their cause. In view of her imminent return,
Mary's supporters began to bestir themselves in a fashion that boded ill
for the future peace of the country. At Stirling the bishops met in
council to consider their best policy; and we have it from one of their
own number that they were acting in concert with the earls Huntly,
Athol, Crawford, Marischal, Sutherland, Caithness, and Bothwell. As the
result of their counsels, a proposal was sent to Mary which she had the
prudence to reject in her own interest as well as in the interest of her
kingdom. The proposal was that she should land at some point on the
northern coast where the earls would be ready to support her with twenty
thousand men. As a safer course for the immediate future, Mary chose the
advice proffered to her by the party for the present in the ascendant.
Through the lord James Stewart as their deputy, the Protestant leaders
urged upon her the necessity of leaving religion as she would find it,
and of adopting as her advisers the persons now at the head of affairs.
When at length, on August 19, 1561, Mary landed at Leith, it appeared
that at least for the time she was content to take things as she found
them. That she would accept them as definitive, no one, and least of all
John Knox, could so far delude himself as to believe.
THOMAS CARLYLE
In the history of Scotland I can find properly but one epoch: we may
say, it contains nothing of world-interest at all but this Reformation
by Knox. A poor, barren country, full of continual broils, dissensions,
massacrings; a people in the last state of rudeness and destitution,
little better perhaps than Ireland at this day. Hungry, fierce barons,
not so much as able to form any arrangement with each other _how to
divide_ what they fleeced from these poor drudges; but obliged, as the
Colombian Republics are at this day, to make of every alteration a
revolution; no way of changing a ministry but by hanging the old
ministers on gibbets: this is a historical spectacle of no very
singular significance! "Bravery" enough, I doubt not; fierce fighting
in abundance, but not braver or fiercer than that of their old
Scandinavian Sea-king ancestors, whose exploits we have not found worth
dwelling on! It is a country as yet without a soul: nothing developed
in it but what is rude, external, semi-animal. And now, at the
Reformation, the internal life is kindled, as it were, under the ribs
of this outward material death. A cause, the noblest of causes, kindles
itself, like a beacon set on high; high as Heaven, yet attainable from
Earth, whereby the meanest man becomes not a Citizen only, but a Member
of Christ's visible Church; a veritable hero, if he prove a true man!
But to return: This that Knox did for his Nation, I say, we may really
call a resurrection as from death. It was not a smooth business; but it
was welcome surely, and cheap at that price, had it been far rougher.
On the whole, cheap at any price--as life is. The people began to
_live_: they needed first of all to do that, at what cost and costs
soever. Scotch Literature and Thought, Scotch Industry; James Watt,
David Hume, Walter Scott, Robert Burns: I find Knox and the Reformation
acting in the heart's core of every one of these persons and phenomena;
I find that without the Reformation they would not have been. Or what
of Scotland? The Puritanism of Scotland became that of England, of New
England. A tumult in the High Church of Edinburgh spread into a
universal battle and struggle over all these realms; there came out,
after fifty years' struggling, what we all call the "_Glorious_
Revolution," a _Habeas Corpus_ Act, Free Parliaments, and much else!
Alas, is it not too true, that many men in the van do always like
Russian soldiers, march into the ditch of Schweidnitz, and fill it up
with their dead bodies, that the rear may pass over them dry-shod, and
gain the honor? How many earnest, rugged Cromwells, Knoxes, poor
Peasant Covenanters, wrestling, battling for very life, in rough miry
places, have to struggle, and suffer, and fall, greatly censured,
_bemired_--before a beautiful Revolution of Eighty-eight can step over
them in official pumps and silk stockings, with universal
three-times-three!
It seems to me hard measure that this Scottish man, now after three
hundred years, should have to plead like a culprit before the world;
intrinsically for having been, in such a way as it was then possible to
be, the bravest of all Scotchmen! Had he been a poor Half-and-half, he
could have crouched into the corner, like so many others; Scotland had
not been delivered; and Knox had been without blame. He is the one
Scotchman to whom, of all others, his country and the world owe a debt.
He has to plead that Scotland would forgive him for having been worth to
it any million "unblamable" Scotchmen that need no forgiveness! He bared
his breast to the battle; had to row in French galleys, wander forlorn
in exile, in clouds and storms; was censured, shot at through his
windows; had a right sore fighting life: if this world were his place of
recompense, he had made but a bad venture of it. I cannot apologize for
Knox. To him it is very indifferent, these two hundred and fifty years
or more, what men say of him. But we, having got above all those details
of his battle, and living now in clearness on the fruits of his victory,
we, for our own sake, ought to look through the rumors and controversies
enveloping the man, into the man himself.
For one thing, I will remark that this post of Prophet to his Nation
was not of his seeking; Knox had lived forty years quietly obscure,
before he became conspicuous. He was the son of poor parents; had got a
college education; become a priest; adopted the Reformation, and seemed
well content to guide his own steps by the light of it, nowise unduly
intruding it on others. He had lived as Tutor in gentlemen's families;
preaching when any body of persons wished to hear his doctrine:
resolute he to walk by the truth, and speak the truth when called to do
it; not ambitious of more; not fancying himself capable of more. In
this entirely obscure way he had reached the age of forty; was with the
small body of Reformers who were standing siege in St. Andrew's
Castle--when one day in their chapel, the preacher, after finishing his
exhortation to these fighters in the forlorn hope, said suddenly, That
there ought to be other speakers, that all men who had a priest's heart
and gift in them ought now to speak; which gifts and heart one of their
own number, John Knox the name of him, had: had he not? said the
preacher, appealing to all the audience: what then is _his_ duty? The
people answered affirmatively; it was a criminal forsaking of his post,
if such a man held the word that was in him silent. Poor Knox was
obliged to stand up; he attempted to reply; he could say no word; burst
into a flood of tears, and ran out. It is worth remembering, that
scene. He was in grievous trouble for some days. He felt what a small
faculty was his for this great work. He felt what a baptism he was
called to be baptized withal. He "burst into tears."
Our primary characteristic of a hero, that he is sincere, applies
emphatically to Knox. It is not denied anywhere that this, whatever
might be his other qualities or faults, is among the truest of men.
With a singular instinct he holds to the truth and fact; the truth
alone is there for him, the rest a mere shadow and deceptive nonentity.
However feeble, forlorn the reality may seem, on that and that only
_can_ he take his stand. In the Galleys of the River Loire, whither
Knox and the others, after their Castle of St. Andrew's was taken, had
been sent as Galley-slaves--some officer or priest, one day, presented
them an image of the Virgin Mother, requiring that they, the blasphemous
heretics, should do it reverence. Mother? Mother of God? said Knox,
when the turn came to him: This is no Mother of God: this is "a _pented
bredd_"--a piece of wood, I tell you, with paint on it! She is fitter
for swimming, I think, than for being worshipped, added Knox; and flung
the thing into the river. It was not very cheap jesting there: but come
of it what might, this thing to Knox was and must continue nothing
other than the real truth; it was a _pented bredd_: worship it he would
not.
He told his fellow-prisoners, in this darkest time, to be of courage;
the Cause they had was the true one, and must and would prosper; the
whole world could not put it down. Reality is of God's making; it is
alone strong. How many _pented bredds_, pretending to be real, are
fitter to swim than to be worshipped! This Knox cannot live but by
facts: he clings to reality as the shipwrecked sailor to the cliff. He
is an instance to us how a man, by sincerity itself, becomes heroic; it
is the grand gift he has. We find in Knox a good, honest, intellectual
talent, no transcendent one; a narrow, inconsiderable man, as compared
with Luther: but in heartfelt, instinctive adherence to truth, in
_sincerity_, as we say, he has no superior; nay, one might ask, what
equal he has? The heart of him is of the true Prophet cast. "He lies
there," said the Earl of Morton at his grave, "who never feared the
face of man." He resembles, more than any of the moderns, an old Hebrew
Prophet. The same inflexibility, intolerance, rigid, narrow-looking
adherence to God's truth, stern rebuke in the name of God to all that
forsake truth: an old Hebrew prophet in the guise of an Edinburgh
minister of the sixteenth century. We are to take him for that; not
require him to be other.
Knox's conduct to Queen Mary, the harsh visits he used to make in her
own palace, to reprove her there, have been much commented upon. Such
cruelty, such coarseness, fills us with indignation. On reading the
actual narrative of the business, what Knox said, and what Knox meant,
I must say one's tragic feeling is rather disappointed. They are not
so coarse, these speeches, they seem to me about as fine as the
circumstances would permit! Knox was not there to do the courtier; he
came on another errand. Whoever, reading these colloquies of his with
the Queen, thinks they are vulgar insolences of a plebeian priest to a
delicate high lady, mistakes the purport and essence of them altogether.
It was unfortunately not possible to be polite with the Queen of
Scotland, unless one proved untrue to the Nation and Cause of Scotland.
A man who did not wish to see the land of his birth made a hunting-field
for intriguing, ambitious Guises, and the Cause of God trampled
underfoot of falsehoods, formulas, and the Devil's Cause, had no method
of making himself agreeable! "Better that women weep," said Morton,
"than that bearded men be forced to weep." Knox was the constitutional
opposition party in Scotland: the Nobles of the country, called by their
station to take that post, were not found in it; Knox had to go, or no
one. The hapless Queen; but the still more hapless Country, if _she_
were made happy! Mary herself was not without sharpness enough, among
her other qualities: "Who are you," said she once, "that presume to
school the nobles and sovereign of this realm?" "Madam, a subject born
within the same," answered he. Reasonably answered! If the "subject"
have truth to speak, it is not the "subject's" footing that will fail
him here.
We blame Knox for his intolerance. Well, surely it is good that each of
us be as tolerant as possible. Yet, at bottom, after all the talk there
is and has been about it, what is tolerance? Tolerance has to tolerate
the _un_essential; and to see well what that is. Tolerance has to
be noble, measured, just in its very wrath, when it can tolerate no
longer. But, on the whole, we are not altogether here to tolerate!
We are here to resist, to control, and vanquish withal. We do not
"tolerate" Falsehoods, Thieveries, Iniquities, when they fasten on us;
we say to them, Thou art false, thou art not tolerable! We are here to
extinguish Falsehoods, and put an end to them, in some wise way! I will
not quarrel so much with the way; the doing of the thing is our great
concern. In this sense Knox was, full surely, intolerant.
A man sent to row in French Galleys, and suchlike, for teaching the
Truth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest humor! I am not
prepared to say that Knox had a soft temper; nor do I know that he had
what we call an ill temper. An ill nature he decidedly had not. Kind,
honest affections dwelt in the much-enduring, hard-worn, ever-battling
man. That he _could_ rebuke Queens, and had such weight among those
proud, turbulent Nobles, proud enough whatever else they were; and could
maintain to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and Sovereignty in that
wild realm, he who was only "a subject born within the same": this of
itself will prove to us that he was found, close at hand, to be no mean,
acrid man; but at heart a healthful, strong, sagacious man. Such alone
can bear rule in that kind. They blame him for pulling down cathedrals,
and so forth, as if he were a seditious, rioting demagogue: precisely
the reverse is seen to be the fact, in regard to cathedrals and the rest
of it, if we examine! Knox wanted no pulling-down of stone edifices; he
wanted leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of the lives of men. Tumult
was not his element; it was the tragic feature of his life that he
was forced to dwell so much in that. Every such man is the born enemy
of Disorder; hates to be in it: but what then? Smooth Falsehood is
not Order; it is the general sum total of _Dis_order. Order is
_Truth_--each thing standing on the basis that belongs to it: Order
and Falsehood cannot subsist together.
Withal, unexpectedly enough, this Knox has a vein of drollery in him;
which I like much, in combination with his other qualities. He has a
true eye for the ridiculous. His _History_, with its rough earnestness,
is curiously enlivened with this. When the two Prelates, entering
Glasgow Cathedral, quarrel about precedence; march rapidly up, take to
hustling one another, twitching one another's rochets, and at last
flourishing their crosiers like quarter-staves, it is a great sight for
him everywhere! Not mockery, scorn, bitterness alone; though there is
enough of that too. But a true, loving, illuminating laugh mounts up
over the earnest visage; not a loud laugh; you would say, a laugh in
the _eyes_ most of all. An honest-hearted, brotherly man; brother to
the high, brother also to the low; sincere in his sympathy with both.
He had his pipe of Bourdeaux too, we find, in that old Edinburgh house
of his; a cheery social man, with faces that loved him! They go far
wrong who think that this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking
fanatic. Not at all: he is one of the solidest of men. Practical,
cautious-hopeful, patient; a most shrewd, observing, quietly discerning
man. In fact, he has very much the type of character we assign to the
Scotch at present: a certain sardonic taciturnity is in him; insight
enough; and a stouter heart than he himself knows of. He has the power
of holding his peace over many things which do not vitally concern
him--"They? what are they?" But the thing which does vitally concern
him, that thing he will speak of; and in a tone the whole world shall
be made to hear: all the more emphatic for his long silence.
This Prophet of the Scotch is to me no hateful man! He had a sore fight
of an existence; wrestling with Popes and Principalities; in defeat,
contention, life-long struggle; rowing as a galley-slave, wandering as
an exile. A sore fight: but he won it. "Have you hope?" they asked him
in his last moment, when he could no longer speak. He lifted his finger,
"pointed upward with his finger," and so died. Honor to him! His works
have not died. The letter of his work dies, as of all men's; but the
spirit of it never.
One word more as to the letter of Knox's work. The unforgivable offence
in him is, that he wished to set-up Priests over the head of Kings. In
other words, he strove to make the Government of Scotland a
_Theocracy_. This indeed is properly the sum of his offences, the
essential sin; for which what pardon can there be? It is most true, he
did, at bottom, consciously or unconsciously, mean a Theocracy, or
Government of God. He did mean that Kings and Prime Ministers, and all
manner of persons, in public or private, diplomatizing or whatever else
they might be doing, should walk according to the Gospel of Christ, and
understand that this was their Law, supreme over all laws. He hoped
once to see such a thing realized; and the Petition, _Thy Kingdom
come_, no longer an empty word. He was sore grieved when he saw greedy,
worldly Barons clutch hold of the Church's property; when he
expostulated that it was not secular property, that it was spiritual
property, and should be turned to _true_ churchly uses, education,
schools, worship; and the Regent Murray had to answer, with a shrug of
the shoulders, "It is a devout imagination!" This was Knox's scheme of
right and truth; this he zealously endeavored after, to realize it. If
we think his scheme of truth was too narrow, was not true, we may
rejoice that he could not realize it; that it remained, after two
centuries of effort, unrealizable, and is a "devout imagination" still.
But how shall we blame him for struggling to realize it? Theocracy,
Government of God, is precisely the thing to be struggled for! All
Prophets, zealous Priests, are there for that purpose. Hildebrand
wished a Theocracy; Cromwell wished it, fought for it; Mahomet attained
it. Nay, is it not what all zealous men, whether called Priests,
Prophets, or whatsoever else called, do essentially wish, and must
wish? That right and truth, or God's law, reign supreme among men, this
is the Heavenly Ideal (well named in Knox's time, and namable in all
times, a revealed "Will of God") toward which the Reformer will insist
that all be more and more approximated. All true Reformers are by
nature of them Priests, and strive for a Theocracy.
MARY STUART: HER REIGN AND EXECUTION
A.D. 1561-1587
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Apart from the peculiar interest of her own life and reign, Mary
Stuart is an important personage as having been the mother of the
first sovereign of the Stuart line in England (James I).
Historical critics take widely differing views of the conduct and
character of the Queen of Scots, both in her individual life and her
relation to public affairs. In the complications then involving the
political and religious organizations of Europe, the play and
counter-play of motives are difficult to follow, and just
discrimination becomes at times almost impossible.