stay. “I have one of the greatest matters that have touched me, since
I came into this {81} realm, to open to you, and I must have your
help in it,” said she, with an air of condescension and confidence as
enchanting as if she had put a ring on his finger. She then entered
into a long discourse with him concerning a domestic difference
between the earl and countess of Argyle. Her ladyship had not, she
said, been so circumspect in every thing as could have been wished,
but still she was of opinion that his lordship had not treated her
in an honest and godly manner. Knox said that he was not unacquainted
with the disagreeable variance which had subsisted between that
honourable couple, and, before her majesty’s arrival in this
country, had effected a reconciliation between them. On that occasion,
the countess had promised not to complain to any creature before
acquainting him; and having never heard from her on that subject, he
had concluded that there was nothing but concord between her and his
lordship. “Well,” said the queen, “it is worse than ye believe. But
do this much _for my sake_, as once again to put them at unity, and if
she behave not herself as she ought to do, she shall find no favour of
me; but in any wise let not my lord know that I have requested you in
this matter.” Then introducing the subject of their reasoning on the
preceding evening, she said, “I promise to do as ye required: I shall
cause summon all offenders; and ye shall know that I shall minister
justice.”――“I am assured then,” said he, “that ye shall please God,
and enjoy rest and tranquillity within your realm, which to your
majesty is {82} more profitable than all the pope’s power can be.”
Upon this he took his leave of the queen.[103]
This interview exhibits one part of Mary’s character in a very
striking light. It shows how far she was capable of dissembling,
what artifice she could employ, and what condescensions she could
make, when she was bent on accomplishing a favourite object. She had
formerly attacked the Reformer on another quarter without success, and
was convinced that it was vain to think of working on his fears; she
now resolved to try if she could soothe his stern temper by flattering
his vanity, and disarm his jealousy by strong marks of confidence.
There is reason to think that she partly succeeded in her design.
For, though he was not very susceptible of flattery, and must have
been struck with the sudden change in the queen’s views and behaviour,
there are few minds that can altogether resist the impression made
by the condescending familiarity of persons of superior rank; and our
feelings, on such occasions, chide as uncharitable the cold suspicions
suggested by our judgment. In obedience to her majesty’s request, he
wrote a letter to the earl of Argyle, which was not very pleasing to
that nobleman. From deference to the opinion which she had expressed,
he enquired more narrowly into the conduct of the bishop of Galloway,
and finding some grounds of suspicion, postponed the election. And the
report {83} which he gave of the queen’s gracious answer operated in
her favour on the public mind.[104]
But if his zeal suffered a temporary intermission, it soon kindled
with fresh ardour. On the 19th of May, the archbishop of St Andrews
and a number of the principal papists were arraigned by the queen’s
orders, before the Lord Justice General, for transgressing the laws;
and, having come in her majesty’s will, were committed to ward. But
this was merely a stroke of policy, to enable her the more easily to
carry her measures in the parliament which met on the following day;
and accordingly the prisoners were set at liberty as soon as it was
dissolved.[105]
This was the first parliament which had been held since the queen’s
arrival in Scotland; and it was natural to expect that their first
business would be to ratify the treaty of peace made in July 1560,
and the establishment of the protestant religion. If the acts of the
former parliament were invalid, as the queen had repeatedly declared,
the protestants had no law on their side; they held their religion at
the mercy of their sovereign, and might be required, at her pleasure,
to submit to popery, as the religion which still possessed the legal
establishment. But so well had she laid her plans, such was the
effect of her insinuating address, and, above all, so powerful was
the temptation of self‑interest on the minds of the protestant leaders,
that, by general consent, they passed from this demand, and lost the
only favourable {84} opportunity which presented itself, during the
reign of Mary, for giving a legal security to the reformed religion,
and thereby removing one principal source of national fears and
jealousies. An act of oblivion, securing indemnity to those who had
been engaged in the late civil war, was indeed passed; but the mode of
its enactment virtually implied the invalidity of the treaty in which
it had been originally embodied; and the protestants, on their bended
knees,[106] supplicated, as a boon from their sovereign, what they
had formerly won with their swords, and repeatedly demanded as their
right. The other acts made to please the more zealous reformers were
expressed with such studied and glaring ambiguity, as to offer an
insult to their understandings.[107]
Our Reformer was thunderstruck when first informed of the measures
which were in agitation, and could scarcely believe that it was
seriously intended to carry them into execution. He immediately
procured an interview with some of the leading members of parliament,
to whom he represented the danger of allowing that meeting to dissolve
without obtaining the ratification of the acts of the preceding
parliament, or at least those acts which established the Reformation.
They alleged that the queen would never have agreed to call them
together, if they had persisted in these demands; but that there was
a {85} prospect of her being soon married, and on that occasion they
would obtain all their wishes. In vain he reminded them that poets
and painters had represented _Occasion_ with a bald hind‑head; in
vain he urged, that the event to which they looked forward would be
accompanied with difficulties of its own, which would require all
their skill and circumspection. Their determination was fixed. He
now perceived the full extent of the queen’s dissimulation; and the
selfishness and servility of the protestant leaders affected him
deeply.
So hot was the altercation between him and the earl of Murray on
this subject, that an open rupture ensued. Knox had long looked upon
that nobleman as one of the most sincere and steady adherents of the
reformed cause; and therefore felt the greater disappointment at his
conduct. Under his first irritation he wrote a letter to Murray, in
which, after reminding him of his condition when they first became
acquainted in London,[108] and the honours to {86} which he had been
raised by providence, he solemnly renounced friendship with him, as
one who preferred his own interest and the pleasure of his sister
to the advancement of religion, left him to the guidance of the new
counsellors whom he had chosen, and exonerated him from all future
concern in his affairs. This variance, which continued nearly two
years, was very gratifying to the queen, and to others who disliked
their former familiarity, and who failed not (as Knox informs us)
to “cast oil into the flame, until God did quench it by the water
of affliction.”[109]
Before the dissolution of the parliament, the Reformer embraced an
opportunity of disburdening his mind in the presence of the greater
part of the members assembled in his church. After discoursing of the
great mercy of God shown to Scotland, in marvellously delivering them
from bondage of soul and body, and of the deep ingratitude which he
perceived in all ranks of persons, he addressed himself particularly
to the nobility. He praised God that he had an opportunity of pouring
out the sorrows of his heart in the presence of those who could attest
the truth of all that he said. He appealed to their consciences, {87}
if he had not, in their greatest extremities, exhorted them to depend
upon God, and assured them of preservation and victory, provided they
preferred the divine glory to their own lives and secular interests.
“I have been with you in your most desperate temptations (continued
he, in a strain of impassioned eloquence): in your most extreme
dangers I have been with you. St Johnston, Cupar‑moor, and the Craggs
of Edinburgh,[110] are yet recent in my heart; yea, that dark and
dolorous night wherein all ye, my lords, with shame and fear, left
this town, is yet in my mind;[111] and God forbid that ever I forget
it! What was, I say, my exhortation to you, and what has fallen in
vain of all that ever God promised unto you by my mouth, ye yourselves
yet live to testify. There is not one of you, against whom was death
and destruction threatened, perished: and how many of your enemies
has God plagued before your eyes! Shall this be the thankfulness that
ye shall render unto your God? To betray his cause when you have
it in your hands to establish it as you please?” He saw nothing (he
said) but a cowardly desertion of Christ’s standard. Some had even the
effrontery to say that they had neither law nor parliament for their
religion. They had the authority of God for their religion, and its
truth was independent of human {88} laws; but it was also accepted
within this realm in public parliament, and that parliament he would
maintain to have been as lawful and as free as any parliament that had
ever been held within the kingdom of Scotland.
In the conclusion of his discourse, he adverted to the reports of
her majesty’s marriage, and of the princes who courted her hand;
and (desiring the audience to mark his words) he predicted the
consequences which would ensue, if ever the nobility consented that
their sovereign should marry a papist.
Protestants, as well as papists, were offended with the freedom of
this sermon, and some who had been most familiar with the preacher
now shunned his company. Flatterers were not wanting to run to the
queen, and inform her that John Knox had preached against her marriage.
After surmounting all opposition to her measures, and managing so
successfully the haughty and independent barons of her kingdom, Mary
was incensed to think that there should yet be one man of obscure
condition, who ventured to condemn her proceedings; and as she could
not tame his stubbornness, she determined to punish his temerity.
He was ordered instantly to appear before her. Lord Ochiltree,
with several gentlemen, accompanied him to the palace; but the
superintendent of Angus, Erskine of Dun, was the only person allowed
to go with him into the royal presence.
Her majesty received him in a very different manner from what she had
done at Lochleven. Never had prince been handled (she passionately
exclaimed) {89} as she was; she had borne with him in all his rigorous
speeches against herself and her uncles――she had sought his favour by
all means――she had offered unto him audience whenever he pleased to
admonish her; “and yet,” said she, “I cannot be quit of you. I vow to
God I shall be once revenged!” On pronouncing these words with great
violence, she burst into a flood of tears, which interrupted her
speech. When the queen had composed herself, Knox proceeded calmly to
make his defence. Her grace and he had (he said) at different times
been engaged in controversy, and he never before had perceived her
offended with him. When it should please God to deliver her from the
bondage of error in which she had been trained up, through want of
instruction in the truth, he trusted that her majesty would not find
the liberty of his tongue offensive. Out of the pulpit, he believed,
few had occasion to complain of him; but there he was not his own
master, but was bound to obey Him who commanded him to speak plainly,
and to flatter no flesh on the face of the earth.
“But what have you to do with my marriage?” demanded the queen. He was
proceeding to state the extent of his commission as a preacher, and
the reasons which led him to touch on that delicate subject; but she
interrupted him by repeating her question, “What have ye to do with
my marriage? Or what are you in this commonwealth?”――“A subject born
within the same, madam,” replied the Reformer, piqued by the last
question, and by the contemptuous tone in which it was proposed. “And
albeit I be {90} neither earl, lord, nor baron in it, yet has God made
me (how abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within
the same. Yea, madam, to me it appertains no less to forewarn of such
things as may hurt it, if I foresee them, than it doth to any of the
nobility; for both my vocation and conscience require plainness of me.
And, therefore, madam, to yourself I say that which I spake in public
place: Whensoever the nobility of this realm shall consent that ye be
subject to an unfaithful husband, they do as much as in them lieth to
renounce Christ, to banish his truth from them, to betray the freedom
of this realm, and perchance shall in the end do small comfort to
yourself.” At these words, Mary began again to sob and weep with
great bitterness. The superintendent, who was a man of mild and
gentle spirit, tried to mitigate her grief and resentment; he praised
her beauty and her accomplishments; and told her, that there was
not a prince in Europe who would not reckon himself happy in gaining
her hand. During this scene, the severe and inflexible mind of the
Reformer displayed itself. He continued silent, and with unaltered
countenance, until the queen had given vent to her feelings. He then
protested, that he never took delight in the distress of any creature;
it was with great difficulty that he could see his own boys weep when
he corrected them for their faults, and far less could he rejoice
in her majesty’s tears; but seeing he had given her no just reason
of offence, and had only discharged his duty, he was constrained,
though unwillingly, to sustain her tears, rather than {91} hurt his
conscience, and betray the commonwealth by his silence.
This apology inflamed the queen still more: she ordered him instantly
to leave her presence, and to wait the signification of her pleasure
in the adjoining room. There he stood as “one whom men had never seen;”
all his friends, lord Ochiltree excepted, being afraid to show him
the smallest countenance. In this situation he addressed himself
to the court‑ladies, who sat in their richest dress in the chamber:
“O fair ladies, how plesing war this lyfe of yours, if it sould ever
abyde, and then, in the end, that we might pas to hevin with all this
gay gear! But fye upon that knave Death, that will come whidder we
will or not!” Having engaged them in conversation, by a mixture of
seriousness and raillery, he passed the time, till the superintendent
came, and informed him that he was allowed to go home until her
majesty had taken further advice. The queen insisted to have the
judgment of the lords of Articles, whether the words he had used
in the pulpit were not actionable; but she was persuaded by her
counsellors to abandon the idea of a prosecution. “And so that storme
quietit in appearance, bot nevir in the hart.”[112]
No expressions are sufficiently strong to describe the horror which
many feel at the monstrous inhumanity of Knox, in remaining unmoved,
while “youth, beauty, and royal dignity,”[113] were dissolved in tears
{92} before him. Enchanting, surely, must the charms of the queen of
Scots have been, and ironhearted the Reformer who could resist the
impression of them, when they continue to this day to exercise such
a sway over the hearts of men, that even grave and serious authors,
not addicted to the language of gallantry and romance, protest, that
they cannot read of the tears which she shed on this occasion, without
feeling an irresistible inclination to weep along with her. There
may be some, however, who, knowing how much real misery there is in
the world, are not disposed to waste their feelings unnecessarily,
and who are of opinion, that there was not much to commiserate in
the condition of the queen, nor to reprobate in the conduct of the
Reformer. Considering that she had been so fortunate in her measures,
and had found the nobility so ready to gratify all her wishes,
the passion by which she suffered herself to be transported was
extravagant, and her tears must have been those of anger more than
of grief. On the other hand, when we consider that Knox was at this
time deserted by his friends, and stood almost alone in resisting the
will of a princess, who accomplished her measures chiefly by caresses
and tears, we may be disposed to form a more favourable idea of his
conduct and motives. We behold not, indeed, the enthusiastic lover,
mingling his tears with those of his mistress, and vowing to revenge
her wrongs; nor {93} the man of nice sensibility, who loses every
other consideration in the gratification of his feelings; but we
behold, what is more rare, the stern patriot――the rigid reformer, who,
in the discharge of his duty, and in a public cause, can withstand the
tide of tenderness as well as the storm of passion. There have been
times when such conduct was regarded as the proof of a superior mind;
and the man who, from such motives, “hearkened not to the wife of his
bosom, nor knew his own children,” has been the object not of censure,
but of admiration, in pagan as well as sacred story.
Fertur pudicæ conjugis osculum,
Parvosque natos, ut capitis minor,
Ab se removisse, et virilem
Torvus humi posuisse vultum.
While Knox lay under the displeasure of the court, and had lost
the confidence of his principal friends, his enemies judged it a
favourable opportunity for attacking him in (what had been universally
allowed to be irreproachable) his moral conduct. At the very time
that he was engaged in scrutinizing the scandal against Methven,
and inflicting upon him the highest censure of the church, it was
alleged that he was himself guilty of the same crime. Euphemia Dundas,
an inhabitant of Edinburgh, inveighing one day, in the presence of
a circle of her acquaintance, against the protestant doctrine and
ministers, said, among other things, that John Knox had been a common
whoremonger all his life, and that, within a few {94} days past,
he “was apprehendit and tane furth of ane killogie with ane common
hure.” This might have been passed over by Knox and the church, as an
effusion of popish spleen or female scandal; but the recent occurrence
at Jedburgh, the situation in which the Reformer at present stood with
the court, the public manner in which the charge bad been brought, and
the specification of a particular instance, seemed to them to justify
and call for a legal investigation. Accordingly, the clerk of the
General Assembly, on the 18th of June, gave in a formal representation
and petition to the town council, praying, that the woman might be
brought before them, and the matter examined; that, if the accusation
was found true, the accused might be punished with every degree
of merited rigour; and that, if false, the accuser might be dealt
with according to the demerit of her offence. She was called, and,
appearing before the council, flatly denied that she had ever used any
such words; although Knox’s procurator afterwards produced respectable
witnesses to prove that she had spoken them.[114]
This convicted calumny, which never gained the smallest credit at
the time, would not have deserved notice, had it not been revived,
after the Reformer’s death, by the popish writers, who, having
caught hold of the report, and dressed it out in all the horrid
colours which malice or credulity could suggest, circulated it
industriously, by their publications, through {95} the continent.
Though I had not been able to trace their slanders to this source,
the atrocity of the imputed crimes, the unspotted reputation which
Knox uniformly maintained among all his contemporaries, the glaring
self‑contradictions of the accusers, and, above all, the notorious
spirit of slander and defamation of which they have long stood
convicted in the learned world, would have been grounds sufficient
for rejecting such charges with detestation. Those who are acquainted
with the writings of that period will not think that I speak too
strongly; such as are ignorant of them may be satisfied by looking
into the notes.[115]
The queen flattered herself that she had at last caught the Reformer
in an offence, which would infallibly subject him to punishment.
During her residence at Stirling, in the month of August, the
domestics whom she left behind her in Holyroodhouse, celebrated
the popish worship with greater publicity than had been usual when
she was present; and, at the time when the sacrament of the supper
was dispensed in Edinburgh, they revived certain superstitious
practices which had been laid aside by the Roman catholics, since
the establishment of the Reformation. This boldness offended the
protestants, and some of them went down to the palace to mark the
inhabitants who repaired to the service. Perceiving numbers entering,
they burst into the chapel, and presenting themselves at the altar,
which was prepared for mass, asked the priest how he “durst be {96}
so malapert” as to proceed in that manner, when the queen was absent.
Alarmed at this intrusion, the mistress of the household dispatched a
messenger to the comptroller, who was attending sermon in St Giles’s
church, desiring him to come instantly to save her life and the palace.
Having hurried down, accompanied with the magistrates and a guard,
the comptroller found every thing quiet, and no appearance of tumult,
except what was occasioned by the retinue which he brought along with
him.[116] When the report of this affair was conveyed to the queen,
she declared her determination not to return to Edinburgh until
this riot was punished, and indicted two of the protestants, who had
entered the chapel, to stand trial “for forethought felony, hamesucken,
and invasion of the palace.” Fearing an intention to proceed to
extremities against these men, and that their condemnation would
be a preparative to some hostile attempt against their religion,
the protestants in Edinburgh {97} resolved that Knox, agreeably
to a commission which he had received from the church, should write
a circular letter to the principal gentlemen of their persuasion,
informing them of the circumstances, and requesting their presence on
the day of trial. He wrote the letter according to their request[117]
A copy of it having come into the hands of Sinclair, bishop of Ross,
and president of the Court of Session, who was a great personal enemy
to Knox, he conveyed it immediately to the queen at Stirling. She
communicated it to the privy council, who, to her great satisfaction,
pronounced it treasonable; but, to give the greater solemnity to the
proceedings, it was resolved that an extraordinary meeting of the
counsellors, assisted by other noblemen, should be held at Edinburgh,
in the end of December, to try the cause; and the Reformer was
summoned to appear before this convention.[118]
Previously to the day of trial, great influence was {98} used in
private to persuade him to acknowledge a fault, and to throw himself
on the queen’s mercy. This he peremptorily refused to do. The master
of Maxwell, (afterwards lord Herries,) with whom he had long been
intimate, threatened him with the loss of his friendship, and told him
that he would repent, if he did not submit to the queen, for men would
not bear with him as they had hitherto done. He replied, that he did
not understand such language: he had never opposed her majesty except
in the article of religion, and surely it was not meant that he should
bow to her in that matter; if God stood by him, (which he would do as
long as he confided in him, and preferred his glory to his own life,)
he regarded little how men should behave towards him; nor did he know
wherein they had borne with him, unless in hearing the word of God
from his mouth, which, if they should reject, he would lament it, but
the injury would be their own.
The earl of Murray, and secretary Maitland, sent for him to the clerk
register’s house, and had a long conversation with him to the same
purpose. They represented the pains which they had taken to mitigate
the queen’s resentment, and intimated that nothing could save him but
a timely submission. His reply was similar to that which he had given
to Maxwell, that he never would confess a fault when he was conscious
of none, and had not learned to “cry treason at every thing which
the multitude called treason, nor to fear what they feared.” The wily
secretary, finding him determined to abide the consequences {99} of a
trial, endeavoured to bring on a dispute on the subject, with the view
of ascertaining the grounds on which he meant to defend himself; but
Knox, aware of his craft, declined the conversation, and told him
it would be foolish to intrust with his defence one who had already
prejudged his cause, and pronounced him guilty.