marriage with Bothwell; but his colleague ably supported the honour
of his place and order on that occasion, when the whole nobility of
Scotland preserved a passive and disgraceful silence. Being required
by both the parties to publish the banns, Craig reluctantly complied,
after taking the advice of his session; but, at the same time, he
protested from the pulpit, on three several days, and took heaven and
earth to witness, that he abhorred and detested the intended marriage
as unlawful and scandalous, and solemnly charged the nobility to use
their influence to prevent the queen from taking a step, which would
inevitably cover her with infamy, and involve her in ruin. Being
called before the council, and accused of having exceeded the
bounds of his commission, he boldly replied, that the bounds of his
commission were the word of God, good laws, and natural reason, to
all of which the proposed marriage was contrary. And Bothwell being
present, he charged him with the crime of adultery, the precipitancy
with which the process of divorce had been carried through, and the
suspicions entertained of collusion between him and his wife, of his
having {154} murdered the king, and ravished the queen, all of which
would be confirmed if they carried their purpose into execution.[182]
The events which followed in rapid succession upon this infamous
marriage――the confederation of the nobility for revenging the king’s
death, and preserving the person of the infant prince; the flight of
Bothwell; the surrender and imprisonment of Mary; her resignation of
the government; the coronation of her son; and the appointment of the
earl of Murray as regent during his minority, are all well known to
the readers of Scottish history.
Knox seems to have returned to his charge at the time that the queen
fled with Bothwell to Dunbar. He was present in the General Assembly
which met at Edinburgh on the 25th of June, and was delegated by them
to go to the west country, and endeavour to persuade the Hamiltons,
and others who stood aloof from the confederated lords, to join
with them in settling the distracted affairs of the country, and
to attend a general convention of the delegates of the churches, to
be held on the 20th of July following.[183] In this negotiation he
was unsuccessful. But the {155} convention was held, and the nobles,
barons, and commissioners of boroughs, who were present, subscribed a
number of important articles, with reference to religion and the state
of the nation.[184]
On the 29th of July, 1567, the Reformer preached the sermon at the
coronation of James VI., in the parish church of Stirling.[185] He
objected to the ceremony of unction, as a Jewish rite abused under
the papacy; but it was deemed inexpedient, on the present occasion,
to depart from the accustomed ceremonial. It was therefore performed
by the bishop of Orkney; the superintendents of Lothian and Angus
assisting him to place the crown on the king’s head.[186] After the
coronation, Knox, along with some others, took instruments, and craved
extracts of the proceedings.[187]
When the queen was confined by the lords in {156} the castle of
Lochleven, they had not resolved in what manner they should dispose
of her person for the future. Some proposed that she should be allowed
to leave the kingdom; some that she should be imprisoned during life;
while others insisted that she ought to be capitally arraigned. Of
this last opinion was Knox, with almost all the ministers, and the
great body of the people. The chief ground upon which they insisted
for this, was not her maladministration in the government, or the
mere safety and peace of the commonwealth; which were the reasons upon
which the parliament of England, in the following century, proceeded
to the execution of her grandson. But they founded their opinion upon
the personal crimes with which Mary was charged. Murder and adultery,
they reasoned, were crimes to which the punishment of death was
allotted by the law of God and of nations. From this penalty persons
of no rank could plead exception. The ordinary forms of judicial
procedure made no provision for the trial of a supreme magistrate,
because the laws did not suppose that such enormous crimes could
be committed by him; but extraordinary cases required extraordinary
remedies, and new offences gave birth to new laws. There are examples
in Scripture of the capital punishment of princes, nor are precedents
of it wanting in the history of Scotland.[188]
{157} Upon these grounds, Knox scrupled not publicly to maintain,
that the estates of the kingdom ought to bring Mary to a trial;
and, if she was found guilty of the murder of her husband, and an
adulterous connexion with Bothwell, that she ought to be put to death.
Throkmorton, the English ambassador, held a conference with him, with
the view of mitigating the rigour of this judgment; but though he
acquiesced in the resolution adopted by the nobility to detain her
in prison, he retained his own sentiments, and, after the civil war
was kindled by her escape from confinement, repeatedly said, that he
considered the nation as suffering for their criminal lenity.[189]
Though the earl of Murray, after his return from banishment, had
been pardoned, and re‑admitted to his place in the privy council, he
did not regain the confidence of her majesty. Perceiving the ruinous
tendency of the course on which she was bent, and despairing of being
able to prevent it by his advice, he declined taking any active part
in the management of public affairs, and appeared very seldom at court.
Soon after the king was murdered, he obtained liberty to leave the
kingdom, and retired to France, where he remained till recalled by
a message from the confederated lords, after Mary had subscribed the
instruments by which she resigned the crown, and appointed him regent
during the minority of her son. Having arrived in Scotland, he was
formally invested with {158} the regency, on the 22d of August, 1567.
No sooner was he confirmed in the government, than he exerted himself
with great zeal and prudence to secure the peace of the kingdom, and
settle the affairs of the church. A parliament being summoned to meet
in the middle of December, he, with the advice of the privy council,
previously nominated certain barons, and commissioners of boroughs,
to consult upon and digest such overtures as were proper to be laid
before that assembly. With these he joined Knox, and four other
ministers, to assist in matters which related to the church. This
committee met in the beginning of December, and sat until the opening
of the parliament. The record of their proceedings, both as to civil
and ecclesiastical affairs, has been preserved; and, as many of their
propositions were not adopted by the parliament, it is valuable as a
declaration of the sentiments of a number of the most able men in the
kingdom.[190]
On the 15th of December, Knox preached at the opening of the
parliament, and exhorted them to begin with the affairs of religion,
in which case they would find better success in their other business.
The parliament ratified all the acts which had been passed in 1560,
in favour of the protestant religion and against popery. New statutes
of a similar kind were added. It was provided, that no prince should
afterwards be admitted to the exercise of authority in the kingdom,
without taking an oath to maintain the {159} protestant religion;
and that none but protestants should be admitted to any office, with
the exception of those that were hereditary or held for life. The
ecclesiastical jurisdiction, exercised by the assemblies of the church,
was formally ratified, and commissioners appointed to define more
exactly the causes which came within the sphere of their judgment.
The thirds of benefices were appointed to be paid at first hand to
collectors nominated by the church, who, after paying the stipends
of the ministers, were to account to the exchequer for the surplus.
And the funds of provostries, prebendaries, and chaplainries were
appropriated to maintain bursars in colleges.[191]
In the act ratifying the jurisdiction of the church, Knox was
appointed one of the commissioners for drawing out the particular
points which pertained to ecclesiastical judgment, to be presented to
next meeting of parliament. The General Assembly, which met about the
same time, gave him a commission, along with some others, to act for
them in this matter, and, in general, to consult with the regent and
council on such ecclesiastical questions as might occur after their
dissolution. He was also appointed to assist the superintendent of
Lothian in his visitation, and afterward to visit the churches in
Kyle, Carrick, and Cunningham.[192]
During the regency of Murray there were no jars between the church
and the court, nor any of those {160} unpleasant complaints which had
been made at every meeting of the General Assembly before that period,
and which were renewed under the succeeding regents.[193] All the
grievances of which they complained were not, indeed, redressed; and
the provision made by law was still inadequate for the support of
such an ecclesiastical establishment as the nation required, including
the seminaries of education. But the regent not only received the
addresses of the general assemblies in a “manner very different from
that to which they had been accustomed;” but showed a disposition to
grant their petitions, whenever it was in his power. It was chiefly
through his influence that the favourable arrangement concerning
the thirds of benefices was made; and he endeavoured, though
unsuccessfully, to obtain the {161} consent of parliament to the
dissolution of the prelacies, and the appropriation of their revenues
to the common fund of the church.[194]
Our Reformer had now reached that point from which he could take
a calm and deliberate view of the bustling scene through which he
had passed, and of the arduous struggle which he had been so long
engaged in, and had at length brought to a happy termination. Papal
superstition and tyranny were suppressed and abolished by law; the
protestant religion was established; the supreme government of the
nation was in the hands of one in whose wisdom and integrity he had
the greatest confidence; the church was freed from many of those
grievances under which she had hitherto groaned, and enjoyed the
prospect of obtaining the redress of such as still remained. The work
on which his heart had been so ardently set for such a long period,
and for the success of which he had so often trembled, had prospered
beyond his utmost expectation. He now congratulated himself on the
prospect of being released from all burden of public affairs, and
of spending the remainder of his days in religious meditations, and
in preparation for that event of whose near approach he was daily
admonished by the increasing infirmities of his body.[195] He even
secretly cherished the wish of resigning his charge in Edinburgh, and
of retiring to that privacy, from which he had been {162} drawn at the
commencement of the Scottish Reformation. Speaking of the congregation
of which he had been pastor at Geneva, he says, in one of his
confidential letters, “God comfort that dispersed little flock, among
whom I lived with quietness of conscience and contentment of heart;
and amongst whom I would be content to end my days, if so it might
stand with God’s good pleasure. For, seeing it hath pleased his
majesty, above all men’s expectations, to prosper the work for the
performing whereof I left that company, I would even as gladly return
to them, if they stood in need of my labours, as ever I was glad to be
delivered from the rage of mine enemies. I can give you no reason that
I should so desire, other than that my heart so thirsteth.”[196]
But “the way of man is not in himself.” Providence had allotted him
farther trials of a public nature: he was yet to see the security of
the reformed religion endangered, and the country involved in another
civil war, even more distressing than the former, inasmuch as the
principal persons on both sides were professed protestants.
From the time that the queen was imprisoned, and the government
transferred to the young prince under the regency of Murray, a
considerable number of the nobility had withheld their approbation of
these proceedings. The popish party were decidedly attached to Mary,
and inimical to a revolution, which crushed the hopes which they had
all along cherished of accomplishing {163} the restoration of the
ancient religion. Others, though professed protestants, were induced
by various motives to oppose the new government. Argyle was at this
time alienated from Murray by a family quarrel.[197] The house of
Hamilton followed that line of narrow and interested policy which they
had adopted on former occasions of a similar kind. They were jealous
lest the late settlement of the crown should invalidate the right of
their chief, the duke of Chastelherault, to the succession; and they
were offended that the regency, which they considered as due to him,
should have been conferred on Murray.[198] No governor can gratify the
expectations of all; and some of those who were early friends of the
regent, or had contributed to his advancement, thought that they were
not sufficiently rewarded. The very means which he found it necessary
to employ, to restore tranquillity and order to the kingdom, created
him enemies. During the late confusions, many parts of the country
had fallen into a state of anarchy; and the northern counties and the
borders presented {164} nothing but scenes of rapine and bloodshed.
It was impossible to repress these disorders without making severe
examples of the most guilty; and the turbulent and licentious
naturally sought the overthrow of a government by which they felt
themselves overawed and restrained.[199] But the abilities of the
regent enabled him to overcome these difficulties; and he was daily
receiving submissions from the most powerful of the opposite party,
when, on the 2d of May, 1568, the queen escaped from her confinement
in Lochleven. The discontented nobles immediately joined her standard,
and, having mustered a large force, avowed their determination to
restore her to the exercise of that authority which she had renounced
by constraint. This formidable insurrection was defeated by the
promptitude of the regent; and, in consequence of the battle of
Langside, Mary was driven into England, and her party broken.
Elizabeth having procured herself to be chosen umpire between the two
parties, the conferences were protracted during so long a period, and
the conduct of the English court was so equivocal and contradictory,
that the friends of Mary were encouraged to renew their attempts to
restore her by force of arms. But although the duke of Chastelherault
returned from France with a large sum of money contributed by the
popish princes, and came into Scotland in the character of lieutenant
of the queen,[200] the regent, {165} by his vigilance, and his
vigorous measures, prevented any insurrection, and preserved the
kingdom in obedience to the young king’s authority.
Despairing to accomplish their darling object during his life, the
partisans of Mary resolved to cut off Murray by private means. During
the year 1568, two persons were employed to assassinate him; but the
design was discovered and prevented.[201] This did not hinder new
machinations. Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh, a nephew of the archbishop
of St Andrews, undertook to perpetrate the deed. He was one of the
prisoners taken at the battle of Langside; but, after being arraigned,
condemned, and brought out to execution, he had his life given him
by the regent, and was soon after set at liberty along with the
other prisoners.[202] It is said that he was actuated by revenge, on
account of an injury which he had received, by detaining one of his
forfeited estates, or by the cruel manner in which his wife had been
dispossessed of it.[203] Whether this was {166} really the case, or
whether it was afterwards alleged to diminish the odium of his crime,
and turn it away from his party, cannot perhaps be now certainly
determined. But it does not appear, that any part of the regent’s
conduct towards him was such as to afford the slightest alleviation
of a crime, in the commission of which he burst the ties of gratitude,
as well as of humanity and justice. On the other hand, there is ample
proof that he was incited to make the attempt by the political party
with which he was connected.[204] Having formed his resolution,
{167} he deliberately followed the regent in his progress to Glasgow,
Stirling, and Linlithgow; and, finding an opportunity in the last of
these places, shot him through the body with a musket‑ball. The wound
proved mortal, and the regent died the same evening. While some of his
friends, who stood round his bed, lamented the excessive lenity which
he had shown to his enemies, and particularly to his murderer, he
replied, with a noble and christian spirit, that nothing would ever
make him repent of an act of clemency.[205]
The consternation which is usually produced by the fall of a
distinguished leader, was absorbed in the deep distress which the
tidings of the regent’s murder spread through the nation. The common
people, who had experienced the beneficial effects of his short
administration, to a degree altogether unprecedented in the country,
felt as if each had lost a father, and loudly demanded vengeance upon
the authors of the parricide. Many who had envied or hated him during
his life, were now forward to do justice to his virtues. Those who had
not been able to conceal their satisfaction on the first intelligence
of his death, became ashamed of the indecent exultation which they
had so imprudently expressed. The Hamiltons were anxious to clear
themselves from the imputation of a crime which they saw to be
universally detested. They dismissed the murderer, who was glad
to escape {168} from ignominy by condemning himself to perpetual
banishment. The only one of his crimes for which the archbishop of
St Andrews afterwards expressed contrition before his execution,
was his accession to the murder of the regent.[206] Nor were these
feelings confined to Scotland; the sensation was general through
England, and the expressions of grief and condolence from that
country evinced the uncommon esteem in which he was held by all ranks.
It was the happiness of the regent, that, in his youth, he fell into
the company of men, who cultivated his vigorous understanding, gave
a proper direction to his activity, and instilled into his mind the
principles of religion and virtue. His early adoption of the reformed
sentiments, the steadiness with which he adhered to them, the uniform
correctness of his morals, his integrity, sagacity, and enterprising
but cool courage, soon placed him in the first rank among those
who embarked in the struggle for the reformation {169} of religion,
and the maintenance of national liberties, and secured to him their
cordial and unbounded confidence. The honours which Mary conferred
on him were not too great for the services which he performed; and
had she continued to act by his advice, those measures would have
been avoided which brought on her ruin. He was repeatedly placed in
a situation which would have tempted the ambition of persons possessed
of far inferior abilities; yet he showed no disposition to grasp
at the supreme authority. When he accepted the regency, it was in
compliance with the decided and uncorrupted choice of the acting
majority in the kingdom, pointing him out as the fittest person for
occupying that high station; and his conduct, in one of the most
delicate and embarrassing situations in which a governor was ever
placed, showed that his countrymen were not mistaken in their choice.
He united, in no ordinary degree, those qualities, which are rarely
combined in the same individual, and which form the character of an
accomplished prince. Excelling equally in the arts of war and peace,
he reduced the country to obedience by his military skill and valour,
and preserved it in a state of tranquillity and order by the wise and
impartial administration of justice. Successful in all his warlike
enterprises, he never once tarnished the laurels of victory by cruelty
or unnecessary rigour to the vanquished. He knew how to maintain
the authority of the laws, and to bridle the licentious, by salutary
severity, and at the same time to temper the rigour of justice by the
interposition {170} of mercy. He used to sit personally in the courts
of judicature, and exerted himself to obtain for all the subjects an
easy and expeditious decision of litigated causes. His hospitality,
his unostentatious charity, his uncommon liberality to the learned,
and the anxiety he showed to confer his favours in the manner least
calculated to hurt their feelings, have been celebrated by one who
had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with these amiable
traits of his character.[207] Nor has the breath of calumny, which has
attempted in many ways to blast his reputation, ever insinuated that
he oppressed or burdened the public, during his regency, in order
to enrich himself or his family. Add to all these qualities, his
exemplary piety, the only source of genuine and exalted virtue. His
family was so regulated as to resemble a church rather than a court.
Not a profane or lewd word was to be heard from any of his domestics.
A chapter of the bible was always read at table after dinner and
supper; and it was his custom, on such occasions, to require his
chaplain, or some learned man present, to give his opinion upon the
passage, for his own instruction and that of his family. “A man truly
good,” says archbishop Spotswood, “and worthy to be ranked among the
best governors that this kingdom hath enjoyed, and, therefore, to this
day honoured with the title of The Good Regent.”[208]
This may perhaps be deemed, by some readers, an improper digression.
But though it had been less {171} connected with the subject of this
work than it is, and though the familiarity and co‑operation between
the regent and the Reformer had been less intimate and cordial than
they really were, I could not have denied myself the satisfaction of
paying a small tribute to the memory of one of the greatest men of
his age, who has been traduced and vilified in a most unjustifiable
manner, and whose character has been drawn with unfavourable, and, in
my opinion, with unfair colours, by the most moderate and impartial
of our historians. All that I have attempted, is to sketch the more
prominent features of his character. That he was faultless, I am far
from wishing to insinuate; but the principal charges which have been
brought against him, I consider as either irrelevant, or unproved,
or greatly exaggerated. That his exaltation to the highest dignity in
the state which a subject could enjoy, produced no unfavourable change
on his temper and behaviour, is what none can be prepared to affirm;
but I have not seen the contrary established. The confidence which
he reposed in his friends was great, and he was inclined to pay much
deference to their advice; but that he became the dupe of worthless
favourites, and fell by listening to their flattery, and refusing to
hearken to wholesome advice, and not by the treachery of his friends
and the malice of his enemies, are assertions which have been repeated
upon the authority of a single witness, unsupported by facts, and
capable of being disproved.[209]