Reformation was Sir David Lindsay. His “Satyre on the three Estates,”
and his “Monarchies,” had this for their principal object. The former
was acted at Cupar in Fife, in the year 1535; at Linlithgow, before
the king and queen, the court, and country, in 1540; and at Edinburgh,
before the queen regent, a great part of the nobility, and a vast
number of people, in 1554. Chalmers’s Lindsay, i. 60, 61. Row says,
that it was also acted “in the amphitheatre of St Johnstoun.” MS.
History of the Kirk, p. 3. It exposed the avarice, luxury, and
profligacy, of the religious orders; the temporal power and opulence
of the bishops, with their total neglect of preaching; the prohibition
of the reading of the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue; the extolling
of pardons, relics, &c. In his “Monarchies,” composed by him at a
subsequent period, he traced the rise and progress of the papacy, and
has discovered a knowledge of history, and of the causes that produced
the corruption of Christianity, which would not disgrace any modern
author. The poems of Lindsay were read by “every man, woman, and
child.” Row has preserved an anecdote, which serves to illustrate
their influence, and the manner in which the reformed sentiments were
propagated at that period. Some time between 1550 and 1558, a friar
was preaching at Perth in the church where the scholars of Andrew
Simson attended public worship. In the course of his sermon, after
relating some of the miracles wrought at the shrines of the saints,
he began to inveigh bitterly against the Lutheran preachers who were
going about the country, and endeavouring to withdraw the people
from the Catholic faith. When he was in the midst of his invective,
a loud hissing arose in that part of the church where the boys, to
the number of three hundred, were seated, so that the friar, abashed
and affrighted, broke off his discourse, and fled from the pulpit.
A complaint having been made to the master, he instituted an enquiry
into the cause of the disturbance, and to his astonishment found
that it originated with the son of a craftsman in the town, who had a
copy of Lindsay’s “Monarchies,” which he had read at intervals to his
schoolfellows. {378} When the master was about to administer severe
chastisement to him, for the tumult which he had occasioned, and also
for retaining in his possession such a heretical book, the boy very
spiritedly replied, that the book was not heretical, requested his
master to read it, and professed his readiness to submit to punishment,
provided any heresy was found in it. This proposal appeared so
reasonable to Simson that he perused the work, which he had not
formerly seen, and was convinced of the truth of the boy’s statement.
He accordingly made the best excuse which he could to the magistrates
for the behaviour of his scholars, and advised the friar to abstain
in future from extolling miracles, and from abusing the protestant
preachers. From that time Simson was friendly to the Reformation.
MS. Historie of the Kirk, p. 3, 4.
In every protestant country, a metrical version of the Psalms, in
the vernacular language, appeared at a very early period. The French
version begun by Clement Marot, and completed by Beza, contributed
much to the spread of the Reformation in France. The Psalms were sung
by Francis I. and Henry II. and by their courtiers. The catholics
flocked for a time to the assemblies of the protestants to listen to
their psalmody. Bayle, Dictionnaire, art. Marot, Notes N, O, P. At a
later period, cardinal Chastillon proposed to the papal ambassador, as
the best method for checking the progress of heresy, that his holiness
should authorize some “good and godly” songs to be sung by the French,
“cantar alcune cose in lingua Francese, le quali pero fossero parole
buono et sante, et prima approvate de sua Beatitudine.” Lettres de
St Croix: Aymons, ut supra, tom. i. p. 7, 9, 11. It has been said,
that there was a Scottish version of the Psalms at a very early period.
Dalyell’s Cursory Remarks, p. 35. It is more certain, that before the
year 1546, a number of the Psalms were translated in metre; for George
Wishart sung one of them in the house of Ormiston, on the night in
which he was apprehended. Knox, Historie, p. 49. The two lines quoted
by Knox answer to the beginning of the second stanza of the 51st
Psalm, inserted in Scottish Poems of the 16th Century, p. 111. They
were commonly sung in the assemblies of the protestants, in the year
1556. Knox, 96. John and Robert Wedderburn, brothers to the poet of
that name mentioned above, appear {379} to have been the principal
translators of them. Cald. MS. i. 108, 109. The version was not
completed; and at the establishment of the Reformation, it was
supplanted in the churches, by the version begun by Sternhold and
Hopkins, and finished by the English exiles at Geneva.
But the most singular measure adopted for circulating the reformed
opinions in Scotland was the composition of “Gude and godly ballates,
changed out of prophaine sanges, for avoyding of sinne and harlotrie.”
John and Robert Wedderburn were the chief authors of this work also.
Cald. ut supra. Row’s Hist. of the Kirk, p. 4. The title sufficiently
indicates their nature and design. The air, the measure, the initial
line, or the chorus of the ballads most commonly sung by the people
at that time, were transferred to hymns of devotion. Unnatural,
indelicate, and gross as this association appears to us, these
spiritual songs edified multitudes in that age. We must not think that
this originated in any peculiar depravation of taste in our reforming
countrymen. Spiritual songs constructed upon the same principle were
common in Italy. Roscoe’s Lorenzo de Medici, i. 309. 4to. At the
beginning of the Reformation, the very same practice was adopted in
Holland as in Scotland. “The protestants first sung in their families,
and private assemblies, the psalms of the noble lord of Nievelte,
which he published in 1540, ut homines ab amatoriis, haud raro
obscœnis, aliisque vanis canticis, quibus omnia in urbibus et vicis
personabant, avocaret. Sed quia modulationes vanarum cantionum (alias
enim homines non tenebant) adhibuerat,” &c. Gisberti Voetii Politica
Ecclesiastica, tom. i. p. 534. Amstælod. 1663, 4to. Florimond de
Remond objected to the psalms of Marot, that the airs of some of
them were borrowed from vulgar ballads. A Roman Catholic version
of the Psalms in Flemish verse, printed at Antwerp by Simon Cock,
in 1540, has the first line of a ballad printed at the head of
every psalm. Bayle, Dict. art. Marot. Note N. The spiritual songs of
Colletet, although composed a century after our “Godly Ballates,” were
constructed on still more exceptionable models. “Et moy, Monsieur,”
says Mons. Jurieu, “je vous feray voir, quand il vous plaira, les
cantiques spirituels de Colletet imprimés à Paris, chés Antoine de
Raflé, avec privilege du Roy, {380} de l’an 1660. Livre curieux, où
vous trouverés des Noëls sur le chant de ce vaudeville infame qui
commence, _Il faut chanter une histoire de la femme d’un manant_, &c.
le reste est un conte scandeleux autant qu’il y en ait dans le
Satyricon de Petrone. Vous en trouverés un autre sur l’air de ces
paroles libertines d’une chanson de l’opera:
_A quoy bon tant de raison, dans un bel aage._
Un autre sur ce vaudeville impudent:
_Allés vous . . . . .
Un galant tout nouveau, &c._
Dés le temps de Henri II. parce que toute la Cour chantoit les
Pseaumes de Marot, le Cardinal de Lorraine jugea que, pour arrester
un si grand desordre, il seroit très edifiant de faire tourner des
odes d’Horace en rime Françoise, pour nourrir la pieté de cette cour
si devote.” Apologie pour les Reformateurs, &c. tom. i. 129, 4to.
A Rotterdam, 1683.
Note L, Footnote 60.
_Of George Wishart._――The following graphic description of this
interesting martyr is contained in a letter written by a person who
had been one of his pupils at Cambridge, and transmitted by him to
John Fox, who inserted it in his work, p. 1155. edit. 1596.
“About the yeare of our Lord, a thousand, five hundreth, fortie and
three, there was, in the universitie of Cambridge, one Maister George
Wischart, commonly called Maister George of Bennet’s Colledge, who was
a man of tall stature, polde headed, and on the same a round French
cap of the best. Judged of melancholye complexion by his phsiognomie,
black haired, long bearded, comely of personage, well spoken after
his country of Scotland, courteous, lowly, lovely, glad to teach,
desirous to learne, and was well traulled, hauing on him for his habit
or clothing, neuer but a mantell frise gowne to the shoes, a blacke
Millian fustain dublet, and plaine blacke hosen, course new canuasse
for his shirtes, and white falling bandes and cuffes at the hands.
All the which apparell, he gaue {381} to the poore, some weekly, some
monethly, some quarterly as hee liked, sauing his Frenche cappe, which
hee kept the whole yeere of my beeing with him. Hee was a man modest,
temperate, fearing God, hating couetousnesse: for his charitie had
neuer ende, night, noone, nor daye: hee forbare one meale in three,
one day in foure for the most part, except something to comfort nature.
[When accused, at his trial, of contemning fasting, he replied, ‘My
Lordis, I find that fasting is commendit in the scriptur.――And not so
only; bot I have leirnit by experience, that fasting is gude for the
healthe and conservation of the body.’ Knox, 60.] Hee lay hard upon a
pouffe of straw: course new canuasse sheetes, which, when he changed,
he gaue away. Hee had commonly by his bedside, a tubbe of water, in
the which (his people being in bed, the candle put out, and all quiet)
hee used to bathe himselfe, as I being very yong, being assured offen,
heard him, and in one light night discerned him. Hee loved me tenderly,
and I him, for my age, as effectually. Hee taught with great modestie
and grauitie, so that some of his people thought him seuere, and would
haue slain him, but the Lord was his defence. And hee, after due
correction for their malice, by good exhortation amended them, and
hee went his way. O that the Lord had left him to mee his poore boy,
that hee might haue finished that hee had begunne! For in his Religion
hee was as you see heere in the rest of his life, when he went into
Scotland with diuers of the Nobilitie, that came for a treaty to king
Henry the eight. His learning was no less sufficient than his desire,
alwayes prest and readie to do good in that hee was able, both in the
house priuately, and in the schoole publickely, professing and reading
divors authours.
“If I should declare his loue to mee and all men, his charitie to
the poore, in giuing, relieuing, caring, helping, prouiding, yea
infinitely studying how to do good unto all, and hurt to none, I
should sooner want words than just cause to commend him.
“All this I testifie, with my whole heart and trueth, of this godly
man. Hee that made all, gouerneth all, and shall iudge all, knoweth
I speake the throth, that the simple may be satisfied, the arrogant
confounded, the hypocrite disclosed.
τέλος Emery Tylney.”
{382} A particular account of Wishart’s trial and execution was
published in England, apparently soon after the assassination of
Beatoun. This very rare little book does not appear to have been seen
by any of the writers who have mentioned it. The following account is
taken from a copy, belonging to Richard Heber, Esq., who communicated
it to me with that liberality for which he is so eminently
distinguished. The general title is: “The tragical death of Dauid
Beatō Bishoppe of sainct Andrewes in Scotland; Wherunto is ioyned the
martyrdom of maister George Wyseharte gentleman, for whose sake the
aforesayed bishoppe was not longe after slayne. Wherein thou maist
learne what a burnynge charitie they shewed not only towardes him:
but vnto al suche as come to their hādes for the blessed Gospels sake.”
On the next leaf begins, “Roberte Burrant to the reader,” being a
preface extending to 12 leaves, ending on B. iiiii. After this is the
following title of the Tragedy or poem: “Here followeth the Tragedy
of the late moste reuerende father Dauid, by the mercie of God
Cardinall and archbishoppe of sainct Andrews. And of the whole realme
of Scotland primate, legate and chaunceler. And administrator of the
bishoprich of Merapois in Fraunce. And cōmendator perpetuall of the
abbay of Aberbrothoke, compiled by sir Dauid Lindsaye of the mounte
Knyghte. Alias, Lione, kyng of armes. Anno M.D. xlvi. Ultimo Maii.
The wordes of Dauid Beaton the cardinall aforesaied at his death. Alas
alas, slaye me not, I am a priest.” The poem begins on the reverse,
and ends on the first page of C. vii. On the back of that leaf
is,――“The accusation of maister George Wysehart gentlemā, who suffered
martrydome for the faith of Christ Jesu, at S. Andrewes in Scotlād
the first day of Marche. In the yere of our Lorde, M.D. xlvi. wyth
the articles which he was accused of, and his swete answeres to the
same, wherunto are ioyned his godly oratiōs and praiers.――With most
tendre affection and unfeyned herte, considere,” &c. The narrative
ends on the first page of F. vi, with these words, “complayning of
thys innocent lābes slaughter.”――“Imprinted at London, by John Day,
and William Seres, dwellynge in Sepulchres parish at the signe of
the Resurrection, a little aboue Holbourne conduiet. Cum gracia et
priuilegio ad imprimendum solum.” In eights. The tragedy of Beatoun
is printed in small, {383} and the account of Wishart’s trial in large
black letter. The date of printing is not mentioned. Those who have
fixed on the year 1546 have been influenced by the occurring of this
date on the title of the tragedy, which evidently refers to the time
of Beatoun’s death. It is probable, however, from some expressions
in the preface, as well as from other considerations, that it was
printed soon after that event. Fox has embodied the whole account of
Wishart’s trial in his Acts and Monuments, p. 1154‒1158, “_Ex. Histor.
Impressa._” Knox has transcribed it from Fox. Historie, p. 72.
Wishart had travelled on the continent. Knox, 56. Lesly, p. 458.
Buchanan calls him _Sophocardius_, supposing his name to be
_Wiseheart_, a mistake which has been corrected by an intelligent
foreign historian, who says that the original name was _Guiscard_, a
name common in France, from which country the _Wischards_ (for so Knox
writes it) originally came to Scotland. Gerdesii Hist. Reformat. tom.
iv. p. 314. See also Ruddiman’s _Propriorum nominum Interpretatio_,
subjoined to Buchanan’s History.
The following extract from the records of the city of Bristol has been
obligingly sent me by Theodore Laurance, Esq.
“30 Henry viij. That this yere the 15 May a Scot named George Wysard
sett furth his lecture in S{t} Nicholas Church of Bristowe the most
blasphemous heresy that ever was herd, openly declarying that Christs
mother hath not nor coulde merite for him nor yett for us, wich heresy
brought many of the commons of this towne into a greate erro{r} and
dyvers of theym were persuaded by that hereticall lecture to heresy.
Wherupon the said stiff necked Scot was accused by Mr John Kerne deane
of the s{d} diocese and soon aft{r} he was sent to the moost
reverend father in God the archebishop of Canterbury bifore whom
and others, that is to signifie, the bishops of Bathe Norwhiche and
Chichester, with others, as doctors and he bifore theym was
examyned convicted and condemned in and upon the detestable heresy
above mentioned, whereupon he was injoyned to bere a fagott in S{t}
Nicholas church aforsaid and the parishe of the same the 13 July
and in Christe church the 20 July abovesaid foll{g}, which was duely
executed in the time aforsaid:”
This is extracted from the “Mayor’s Kalendar,” a vellum manuscript
{384} book of great antiquity, which is usually produced at the
swearing in of the mayor, as it has a drawing of that ceremony, and
refers to some old customs observed on the occasion. I have no doubt
that the person referred to is George Wishart, the Scottish martyr.
The facts related happened on the year after he left Scotland. In
the course of that year John Lambert suffered martyrdom for denying
transubstantiation, and Henry VIII. was using the severest measures
against the protestants. The circumstance of George Wysard having
recanted what he had taught respecting the Virgin, is not sufficient
to discredit this supposition. Whether his recantation proceeded from
fear, or from his being entangled by the sophistry of his judges, any
stain which it affixed to his character was completely effaced by the
fortitude and constancy with which he afterwards suffered.
The following is the title of a very rare book, which appears to have
been written by George Wishart during his travels on the continent,
and printed after his death:
“The Confescion of the fayth of the Sweserlādes.
“This Confescion was fyrste wrytten and set out by the ministers of
the churche and congregacion of Sweuerland, where all godlyness is
receyued, and the word hadde in most reuerence, and from thence was
sent vnto the Emperours maiestie, then holdynge a gryat counsell or
parliament in the yeare of our Lord God M. V. C. XXXVII. in the moneth
of February.
“Translated out of Laten by George Vsher, a Scotchman, who was burned
in Scotland, the yeare of oure Lorde M. V. C. XLVI.”
Note M, Footnote 71.
_Of Knox’s Language respecting the Assassination of Cardinal
Beatoun._――Mr Hume has, not very philosophically, inferred the
savageness of Knox’s temper from the evident satisfaction with which
he wrote of Cardinal Beatoun’s assassination; and in this judgment
he has been followed by several writers. If to express satisfaction
at cutting off one who was regarded as a public enemy be viewed as
an infallible mark of cruelty, we must pronounce this verdict upon
many who were never before suspected of such a {385} disposition. The
manner in which the Christian fathers expressed themselves, respecting
the death of the persecutors of the church, is not unknown. See Julian
the apostate, chap. vii. viii. in Works of the Rev. Samuel Johnston,
p. 22‒24. Bayle, Critique General de l’Histoire du Calvinisme,
p. 295. Even the mild and philosophic Erasmus could not refrain from
declaring his joy at the violent death of two of the most learned and
eminent reformers. “Bene habet (says he) quod duo Coriphæi perierunt,
Zuinglius in acie, Oecolampadius paulo post febri et apostemate. Quod
si illis favisset Ενυαλιος, actum est de nobis.” Epist. 1205: Jortin’s
Life of Erasmus, ii. 28. Sir Walter Scott, in his Cadyow Castle,
(See Lyrical Pieces,) has lately exerted all his poetic powers
to invest Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh with the character of a hero,
in assassinating the regent Murray, a person who is no more to be
compared to cardinal Beatoun, than “Hyperion to a Satyr.” I know the
apology that will be made for the poet (although I think he might have
found, in this, and in some other instances, a subject more worthy
of his muse); but what shall we say of the historian who narrates the
action of Bothwellhaugh “approvingly,” celebrates the “happy pencil
of the poet” in describing it, and insults over the fall of Murray,
by quoting a sarcastic line from the poem, in the very act of relating
his death! Chalmers’s Caledonia, ii. 571. Yet this same writer is
highly displeased that Sir David Lindsay, in his Tragedy of Beatoun,
has “no burst of indignation” at the cardinal’s murder; and twice in
the same work he has related with triumph, that, on the margin of one
edition of Knox’s history, the part which James Melvin acted in that
scene is called a “godly fact.” And he pronounces the assassination
of Beatoun to be “the _foulest_ crime which ever stained a country,
except perhaps the similar murder of archbishop Sharpe, within
the same shire, in the subsequent century, by similar miscreants.”
Chalmers’s Works of Lyndsay, vol. i. 34, 35, ii. 231. How marvellously
does prejudice distort the judgment even of learned men! And how
surprising to find the assassination of two sanguinary persecutors
represented as more criminal than the murder of the generous Henry IV.,
the patriotic Prince of Orange, and the brave and pious Coligni!
There are not a few persons who can read in cold blood of thousands
of {386} innocent persons being murdered under the consecrated cloak
of authority, but who “burst into indignation” at the mention of the
rare fact (ocurring once in a century) of a person, who, goaded by
oppression and reduced to despair, has been driven to the extremity
of taking vengeance on the proud and tyrannical author of his own and
his country’s wrongs.――I mention these things to show the need which
certain writers have to look at home, and to judge of characters and
actions with a little more impartiality, or at least consistency.
Honest Keith, whose personal feelings do not appear to have been
violent, has expressed with much simplicity the feelings of his party,
in the reflections which be makes on the cardinal’s assassination.
“What might have proved (says he) to be the issue of such procedure
[Beatoun’s severe measures against the reformers], had he enjoyed
his life for any considerable time, I shall not pretend to judge:
Only this seems to be certain, that by his death the reins of
the government were much loosened; and some persons came to be
considerable soon after, who probably, if he had lived, had never
got the opportunity to perpetrate such villanies, under the cloak
of religion, as ’tis certain they did; he being at least no less a
statesman than a clergyman.” History, p. 45. This language needs no
commentary; and the callousness to the interests of (I say not the
Reformation, for that is entirely out of the question, but) humanity,
implied in the prospect that Keith takes of the cruelties which the
protestants must have suffered from the cardinal, if his life had been
spared, is far more reprehensible than any satisfaction which Knox
expressed at his death.
“It is very horrid,” says Hume, “but at the same time somewhat amusing,
to consider the joy, alacrity, and pleasure which that historian
[Knox] discovers in his narrative of this assassination.” History of
England, vol. vi. chap. iv. Mr Hume makes a partial apology for Knox
by the description which he gives of his own feelings; while he allows
that what, in the main, excites horror, may produce some amusement.
It is well known that there are writers who can treat the most sacred
subjects with a levity bordering upon profaneness. Must we at once
pronounce them profane? And is nothing to be set down to the score of
natural temper inclining {387} them to wit and humour? The Reformer
rejoiced at the death of Beatoun; and even those who could not approve
of the act of the conspirators, were happy that he was taken away:
“As for the Cardinal, we grant,
He was a man we weell might want,
And we’ll forget him sone:
And yet I think, the sooth to say,
Although the lown is weell away,
The deed was foully done.”
The pleasantry which Knox has mingled with the narrative of his death
and burial is unseasonable and unbecoming. But it is to be imputed,
not to any pleasure which he took in describing a bloody scene, but
to the strong propensity which he felt to indulge his vein of humour.
Those who have read his history with attention, must have perceived
that he is not able to check this, even on very serious occasions. I
shall at present refer to one instance only. None will doubt that his
mind was deeply affected in relating the trial and execution of his
esteemed friend, and revered instructor, George Wishart. Yet, even in
the midst of his narrative of this event, he could not abstain from
inserting the truly ludicrous description of a quarrel which arose
on that occasion between the archbishops of St Andrew’s and Glasgow;
for which he apologizes thus:――“Gif we interlace merrines with ernest
matters, pardone us, gude reidare, for the fact is sa notable that it
deserves lang memorie.” Historie, p. 51.
Note N, Footnote 97.
_Knox in the French Galleys._――The following curious notice as to this
event in our Reformer’s life, will form an appropriate introduction
to the extracts referred to in the text. It has been preserved by the
learned Dr Fulke, and is given as an answer to a popish writer, who
had said, in the way of detraction, “Knokes was a galley slave three
yeares.”――“The more wicked,” replies Fulke, “those papistes which
betrayed him into the galley. The master {388} whereof was glad to
be rid of him, because he never had good successe, so long as he kept
that holy man in slaverie, whome also in danger of tempest, though
an errant papiste, he would desire to commend him and his galley to
God in his praiers.” T. Stapleton and Martiall (two popish heretics)
confuted. By D. Fulke, master of Pembroke‑hall, in Cambridge, p. 116.
Lond. 1580.