Our attention lights, a few years after the middle of the sixteenth
century, on a little independent kingdom in the northern part of the
British island--a tract of country now thought romantic and beautiful,
then hard-favoured and sterile, chiefly mountainous, penetrated by deep
inlets of the sea, and suffering under a climate not so objectionable
on account of cold as humidity. It contains a scattered population
of probably seven hundred thousand:--the Scots--thought to be a very
ancient nation, descended from a daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt,
and living under a monarchy believed to have originated about the time
that Alexander conquered India. A very poor, rude country it is, as it
well might be in that age, and seeing that it lay so far to the north
and so much out of the highway of civilisation. No well-formed roads
in it--no posts for letters or for travelling. A printing-press in the
head town, Edinburgh, but not another anywhere. A regular localised
court of law had not yet existed in it thirty years. No stated means
of education, excepting a few grammar-schools in the principal towns,
and three small universities. Society consisted mainly of a large
agricultural class, half enslaved to the lords of the soil: above
all, obliged to follow them in war. Other industrial pursuits to be
found only in the burghs, the chief of which were Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Stirling, Perth, Dundee, and Aberdeen.
In reality, though it was not known then, the bulk of the people of
Scotland were a branch of the great Teutonic race which possesses
Germany and some other countries in the north-west of Europe. Precisely
the same people they were with the bulk of the English, and speaking
essentially the same language, though for ages they had been almost
incessantly at war with that richer and more advanced community. As
England, however, was neighboured by Wales, with a Celtic people, so
did Scotland contain in its northern and more mountainous districts a
Celtic people also, rude, poor, proud, and of fiery temper, but brave
and possessed of virtues of their own, somewhat like the Circassians
of our own day. These Highland clansmen--whom the English of that
time contemptuously called _Redshanks_, with reference to their
naked hirsute limbs--were the relics of a greater nation, who once
occupied all Scotland, and of whose blood some portion was mingled
with that of the Scots of the Lowlands, producing a certain fervour of
character--‘_perfervidum ingenium Scotorum_’--which is not found in
purely Teutonic natures. The monarchy had originated with them early
in the sixth century of the Christian era, and had gradually absorbed
the rest of Scotland, even while its original subjects were hemmed more
and more within the hilly north. But, by the marriages of female heirs,
this thorn-encircled crown had come, in the fourteenth century, into a
family of Norman-English extraction, bearing the name of Stuart.
The present monarch was ‘our Sovereign Lady Mary,’ a young and
beautiful woman, married to Francis II. of France. She had been carried
thither in a troublous time during her childhood, and in her absence,
a regent’s sceptre was swayed by her mother, a princess of the House
of Guise. Up to that time, Scotland, like most of the rest of Europe,
was observant of the Catholic religion, and under vows of obedience to
the pope of Rome. But the reforming ideas of Luther and Melancthon,
of Zuinglius and Calvin, at length came to it, and surprising were
the effects thereof. As by some magical evolution, the great mass of
the people instantaneously threw off all regard to the authority of
the pope, with all their old habits of worship, professing instead a
reverence for the simple letter of Scripture, as interpreted to them
by the reforming preachers. Indignant at having been so long blinded
by the Catholic priesthood--whose sloth and luxury likewise disgusted
them--they attacked the churches and monasteries, destroyed the altars
and images--did not altogether spare even the buildings, alleging that
rooks were best banished by pulling down their nests: in short, made
a very complete practical reformation through all the more important
provinces. This was done by the populace, with the countenance and
help of a party of the nobility and gentry; and the regent, Mary de
Guise, who was firm in the old faith, in vain strove to stem the
torrent. Obtaining troops from France, she did indeed maintain for a
time a resistance to the reforming lords and their adherents. But they,
again, were supported by some troops from Elizabeth of England, whose
interest it was to protestantise Scotland; and so the Reformation got
the ascendency. Mary the Regent sunk into the grave, just about the
time that her faith came to its final and decisive ruin within her
daughter’s dominions.
This change may be considered as having been completed in August
1560, when an irregular parliament, or assembly of the Estates of the
kingdom, abolished the jurisdiction of the pope, proscribed the mass
under the severest penalties, and approved of a Confession of Faith
resembling the articles which had been established in England by Edward
VI. The chief feature of the new system was, that each parish should
have its own pastor, elected by the people, or at least a reader
to read the Scriptures and common prayers. While thus essentially
presbyterian, there was a trace of episcopal arrangements in the
appointment of ten _superintendents_ (one of whom, however, was a
layman), whose duty it should be to go about and see that the ordinary
clergy did their duty. The great bulk of the possessions and revenues
of the old church fell into the hands of the nobles, or remained with
nominal bishops, abbots, and other dignitaries, who continued formally
to occupy their ancient places in parliament, while the presbyterian
clergy were insufficient in number, and in general very poorly
supported.
‘Lo here,’ then, ‘a nation born in one day; yea, moulded into one
congregation, and sealed as a fountain with a solemn oath and
covenant!’ So exclaims a clerical writer a hundred years later; and
we, who live two hundred years still further onward, may well echo the
words. But a little while ago, there were priests, with vestments of
ancient and gorgeous form, saying mass in churches, which were the only
elegant structures in the country. The name of the pope was a word to
bow at. Confession was one of the duties of life. Barefooted friars
wandered about in the enjoyment of universal reverence. Any gentleman
going out with his sovereign on a military expedition, would have been
thought liable to every evil under the sun, and altogether a scandalous
person, if he did not beforehand obtain pardon for his sins from the
Grayfriars, and leave in their hands his most valuable possessions,
including the very titles of his estate, which he might hope to get
back if he survived; but otherwise, he well knew all would go to
the enriching of these same friars, who were under vows to live in
perpetual poverty.[2] The king himself sought for his highest religious
comfort in pilgrimising to St Duthac’s shrine in Ross-shire, or to the
chapel of our Lady of Loretto, at Musselburgh. The bishop of Aberdeen
felt a solacement in the hour of death, in the trust that his bowels
would be buried, as he requested, in the Blackfriars Monastery in
Edinburgh.[3] So lately as 1547, the Scotch, fighting with the English
at Pinkie, called out reproachful names to them, on the score of their
having deserted the ancient faith. But here is now Scotland also
converted, and that as it were in a day, from all those old reverences
and observances, and taken possession of by a totally new set of ideas.
_The Bible in the vulgar tongue has been suddenly laid open to them._
Their minds, earnest and reflecting, though unenlightened, have been
impressed beyond description by the tale of miraculous history which
it unfolds, and the deeply touching scheme for effecting the salvation
of man which the theologian constructs from it. They feel as if they
had got hold of something of priceless value, and in comparison with
which all the forms and rites of medieval Christianity are as dust and
rubbish. The _Evangel_, the _True Religion_, as they earnestly called
it, is henceforth all in all with this poor and homely, but resolute
people. Nothing inconsistent therewith can be listened to for a moment.
Scarcely can a dissentient be permitted to live in the country. The
state, too, must maintain this system, and this system alone, or it is
no state for them. Above all, the errors of Popery must be unsparingly
put down. The mass is idolatry: God, in his Book, says that idolatry
is a sin to be visited with the severest judgments; therefore, if you
wish to avoid judgments, you must extinguish the mass. Even modified
forms and rituals which have been preserved by English Protestantism,
as calculated to raise or favour a spirit of devotion, and maintain
a decency in worship, are here regarded as but the rags of Rome, and
spurned with nearly the same vehemence as the mass itself. Scotland
will have nothing but a preacher to expound, and say a prayer. That,
with the Bible in the hands of the people, is enough for her. No
hierarchy does she require to maintain order in the church. Let the
ministers meet in local courts and in General Assembly, and settle
everything by equal votes. Bishops and archbishops are a popish breed,
who must, if possible, be kept at a distance.
Even one who may now take more charitable and lenient views
can scarcely fail to sympathise with, yea, admire, this little
out-of-the-way nation, in seeing it dictate and do thus against the
might of an ancient institution of such imposing dimensions as the
Romish Church. And to do it, too, in the teeth of their own ruling
power, such as it was. And all so effectually, that from that hour
to this, Rome, in all her back-surgings upon the ground she lost in
the sixteenth century, was never able to put Scottish Protestantism
once in the slightest danger. Undoubtedly, if there be merit in a
faithful contending for what is felt to be all-important truth, it
was a worthy thing, and one that shewed there was some good metal
in the constitution of the Scottish mind. It could not surprise one
that a people who acted thus, should also prove to be a valiant and
constant people under physical difficulties; that they should make
wonderful results out of a poor soil and climate; that they should do
some considerable things in the science of thinking and in letters;
and, above all, stand well to their own opinions and ways, and to the
maintenance of their political liberties and national independence,
frown, threaten, and drive at them who might.
It was so--_and yet_--for every picture of noble humanity has its
reverse--it is forced upon us that the Scots were, at this very time,
a fearfully rude and ignorant people. As usual, they were so without
having the least consciousness of it: their greatest author of that
age, George Buchanan, speaks in perfect earnest of the _refinement_
of his own time, in comparison with the barbarism of former days.[4]
But, whatever the age might be relatively to past ages, it was rude in
itself. The Scotland of that day was ruder than the England of that
day, ruder than many other European states. Few persons could read or
write. Few knew aught beyond their daily calling. Men carried weapons,
and were apt to use them on light occasion. The lords, and the rich
generally, exercised enormous oppression upon the poor. The government
was a faction of nobles, as against all the rest. When a man had a
suit at law, he felt he had no chance without using ‘influence.’ Was
he to be tried for an offence?--his friends considered themselves
bound to muster in arms round the court to see that he got fair-play;
that is, to get him off unharmed if they could. Men were accustomed
to violence in all forms, as to their daily bread. The house of a
man of consideration was a kind of castle: at the least, it was a
tall narrow tower, with a grated door and a wall of defence. No one
in those days had any general conceptions regarding the processes of
nature. They saw the grass grow and their bullocks feed, and thought
no more of it. Any extraordinary natural event, as an eclipse of the
sun or an earthquake, still more a comet, affected them as an immediate
expression of a frowning Providence. The great diseases, such as
pestilence, which arose in consequence of their uncleanly habits and
the wide-spread famines from which they often suffered, appeared to
them as divine chastisements; not perhaps for the sins of those who
suffered--which would have been comparatively reasonable--but probably
for the sins of a ruler who did not suffer at all. The ruling class
knew no more of a just public economy than the poor. Through absurd
attempts to raise the value of coin by statute, the Scotch pound had
fallen to a fraction of its original worth. By ridiculous endeavours
to control markets, and adjust exportation and importation, mercantile
freedom was paralysed, and penury and scarcity among the poor greatly
increased. The good plant of Knowledge not being yet cultivated, its
weed-precursor, Superstition, largely prevailed. Bearded men believed
that a few muttered words could take away and give back the milk of
their cattle. An archbishop expected to be cured of a deadly ailment
by a charm pronounced by an ignorant countrywoman. The forty-six men
who met as the first General Assembly, and drew from the Scriptures
the Confession of Faith which they handed down as stereotyped truth to
after-generations, were every one of them not more fully persuaded of
the soundness of any of the doctrines of that Confession, than they
were of the reality of sorcery, and felt themselves not more truly
called upon by the Bible to repress idolatry than to punish witches.
They were good men, earnest, and meaning well to God and man; but they
were men of the sixteenth century, ignorant, and rough in many of their
ways.
While, then, we shall see great occasion to admire the hardy valour
with which this people achieved their deliverance from bondage, we
must also be prepared for finding them full of vehement intolerance
towards all challenge of their own dogmas and all adherence to alien
forms of faith. We shall find them utterly incapable of imagining
a conscientious dissent, much less of allowing for and respecting
it. We must be prepared to see them--while repudiating one set of
superstitious incrustations upon the original simple gospel--working
it out on their own part in creeds, plats, covenants, and church
institutions generally, full of mere human logic and device, but yet
assumed to be as true as if a divine voice had spoken and framed
them, breathing war and persecution towards all other systems, and
practically operating as a tyranny only somewhat less formidable than
that which had been put away.