The death of Cardinal Beaton left Scotland and the Church without a
skilled and resolute defender. His successor in the see, Archbishop
Hamilton, a half-brother of the Regent, was more licentious than the
Cardinal (who seems to have been constant to Mariotte Ogilvy), and had
little of his political genius. The murderers, with others of their
party, held St Andrews Castle, strong in its new fortifications, which
the queen-mother and Arran, the Regent, were unable to reduce. Receiving
supplies from England by sea, and abetted by Henry VIII., the murderers
were in treaty with him to work all his will, while some nobles, like
Argyll and Huntly, wavered; though the Douglases now renounced their
compact with England, and their promise to give the child queen in
marriage to Henry's son. At the end of November, despairing of success
in the siege, Arran asked France to send men and ships to take St Andrews
Castle from the assassins, who, in December, obtained an armistice. They
would surrender, they said, when they got a pardon for their guilt from
the Pope; but they begged Henry VIII. to move the Emperor to move the
Pope to give no pardon! The remission, none the less, arrived early in
April 1547, but was mocked at by the garrison of the castle. {99}
The garrison and inmates of the castle presently welcomed the arrival of
John Knox and some of his pupils. Knox (born in Haddington, 1513-1515?),
a priest and notary, had borne a two-handed sword and been of the body-
guard of Wishart. He was now invited by John Rough, the chaplain, to
take on him the office of preacher, which he did, weeping, so strong was
his sense of the solemnity of his duties. He also preached and disputed
with feeble clerical opponents in the town. The congregation in the
castle, though devout, were ruffianly in their lives, nor did he spare
rebukes to his flock.
Before Knox arrived, Henry VIII. and Francis II. had died; the successor
of Francis, Henri II., sent to Scotland Monsieur d'Oysel, who became the
right-hand man of Mary of Guise in the Government. Meanwhile the advance
of an English force against the Border, where they occupied Langholm,
caused Arran to lead thither the national levies. But this gave no great
relief to the besieged in the castle of St Andrews. In mid-July a well-
equipped French fleet swept up the east coast; men were landed with guns;
French artillery was planted on the cathedral roof and the steeple of St
Salvator's College, and poured a plunging fire into the castle. In a day
or two, on the last of July, the garrison surrendered. Knox, with many
of his associates, was placed in the galleys and carried captive to
France. On one occasion the galleys were within sight of St Andrews, and
the Reformer predicted (so he says) that he would again preach there--as
he did, to some purpose.
But the castle had not fallen before the English party among the nobles
had arranged to betray Scottish fortresses to England; and to lead 2000
Scottish "favourers of the Word of God" to fight under the flag of St
George against their country. An English host of 15,000 was assembled,
and marched north accompanied by a fleet. On the 9th of September 1547
the leader, Somerset, found the Scottish army occupying a well-chosen
position near Musselburgh: on their left lay the Firth, on their front a
marsh and the river Esk. But next day the Scots, as when Cromwell
defeated them at Dunbar, left an impregnable position in their eagerness
to cut Somerset off from his ships, and were routed with great slaughter
in the battle of Pinkie. Somerset made no great use of his victory: he
took and held Broughty Castle on Tay, fortified Inchcolme in the Firth of
Forth, and devastated Holyrood. Mischief he did, to little purpose.
The child queen was conveyed to an isle in the loch of Menteith, where
she was safe, and her marriage with the Dauphin was negotiated. In June
1548 a large French force under the Sieur d'Esse arrived, and later
captured Haddington, held by the English, while, despite some
Franco-Scottish successes in the field, Mary was sent with her Four
Maries to France, where she landed in August, the only passenger who had
not been sea-sick! By April 1550 the English made peace, abandoning all
their holds in Scotland. The great essential prize, the child queen, had
escaped them.
The clergy burned a martyr in 1550; in 1549 they had passed measures for
their own reformation: too late and futile was the scheme. Early in 1549
Knox returned from France to England, where he was minister at Berwick
and at Newcastle, a chaplain of the child Edward VI., and a successful
opponent of Cranmer as regards kneeling at the celebration of the Holy
Communion. He refused a bishopric, foreseeing trouble under Mary Tudor,
from whom he fled to the Continent. In 1550-51 Mary of Guise, visiting
France, procured for Arran the Duchy of Chatelherault, and for his eldest
son the command of the Scottish Archer Guard, and, by way of exchange, in
1554 took from him the Regency, surrounding herself with French advisers,
notably De Roubay and d'Oysel.