CHARACTERISTICS--(_continued_)
_Did not seek power_
Scaliger’s ascription to Buchanan of a spirit superior to the
temptations of wealth and fame seems thus fairly well justified;
but what of his further claim that he was insensible to ambition?
He rose to be the foremost Latin poet and man of letters, or indeed
poet and man of letters of any kind in his day, and to the highest
positions, political, ecclesiastical, educational, in his native land.
Did he reach all this without aiming at it? Did it all come upon him
unsolicited? Substantially, it would seem, that was so. The key to his
plan of life, I believe, is to be found in the beginning of the short
autobiography which he wrote (1580) in the third person, two years
before his death, not from motives of egotism, but at the request
of friends. He is stating how he came to be sent to the University
of Paris when about fourteen, and then he says, _ibi cum studiis
literarum, maxime carminibus scribendis, operam dedisset, partim
naturæ impulsu, partim necessitate (quod hoc unum studiorum genus
adolescentiæ proponebatur)_, etc.,--‘devoting himself there to literary
studies, and chiefly to writing verses, partly from natural impulse
and partly from necessity, that being the only sort of study open to
youthful learners.’
That is really Buchanan in a nutshell. He followed the bent of his
genius, and did not pick and choose his work, but performed, to the
best of his ability, the task placed before him by Destiny. He lived
up to his nature and his Fate, did with his might what his hand found
to do, then took up the next undertaking that came along, and handled
it in the same fashion. He waited upon ‘time and the hour’ rather than
sought to force its hand--a very good way, if not indeed the best way,
to confront life and its problems, for those who are wise enough and
strong enough to do it. He made himself master of the spirit, ideas,
and style of the great writers and thinkers of classic antiquity,
because it was the work that lay nearest to his hand, and because he
liked it--passionately--and could not rest until it was all and easily
his own, and not because he thought he could make it pay, whether in
money or reputation, or both. Except in the case of the unlucky and
unfinished _Sphere_, he did not sit down to compose poetry deliberately
and in cold blood, at the rate of so many scores or hundreds of lines
before breakfast or dinner, as certain ‘poets’ are said to have done,
or do. His best work of this kind was struck out of him like the fire
from the flint, by the demand of the occasion, or the suggestion of
friends, or an inspiration or impulse that came upon him at the moment.
It was the request of James V. (1537) that led to his becoming the
most powerful satirist of his time and country, much above Lyndsay, at
least on a level with Dunbar, and second only to Burns. His ‘Psalms’
were written (1550-51) to kill time while imprisoned in a Portuguese
monastery. His Elegies, Epigrams, Tragedies, Masques, Addresses
(1530-66) were thrown off in answer to the call of the moment and
the circumstances. The _Detectio Reginæ_ (1569-71) was composed at
the desire of the great anti-despotic and reforming party to which
he belonged. The ‘Admonition to the Trew Lordis’ and the ‘Chameleon’
were political tracts for the times designed to stimulate the flagging
zeal of the friends of freedom. The _De Jure_ (1570-79) was inspired
by a present and a foreseen necessity of making Liberty impregnable as
against the reactionaries of Absolutism. The _History_ was undertaken
and completed (1569-82) less for a scientific than for a patriotic and
politico-paideutic purpose, to set his country and its constitution in
a true light before the world, and to help in moulding its future king
into the constitutional ruler of a free people.
He held many appointments, and executed many commissions, not a few of
them of the highest responsibility and dignity, but most of them sought
him, not he them. Lord Cassilis had him for tutor-companion (1532-37).
King James V. engaged him as tutor for one of his children (1538-39).
The King of Portugal employed him to aid in founding and conducting
his College at Coimbra, and did his best, though in vain, to retain
him in his kingdom (1547-52). The famous Maréchal de Brissac chose him
to mould the mind of his son, and sometimes had him at a Council of
War (1555-60). Queen Mary attached him to her Court, and as we have
seen, read Livy with him, and, no doubt, much else (1562). The General
Assembly of the Reformed Church of Scotland chose him, though a layman,
as their Moderator (1567), he having already sat four years as a member
and aided them in drawing up their _First Book of Discipline_. He was
appointed by Regent Moray Principal of St. Leonard’s College, St.
Andrews (1566), to reorganise its curriculum and constitution. He was
selected as Secretary to the Commission sent by the Scots Government to
deal with the high questions at issue between Queens Elizabeth and Mary
(1568-69). The Scots Parliament chose him to the extremely responsible
office of Tutor to the youthful King James VI. (1570), and continued
him in that position nominally until his death (1582). He sat as a
member of the Scots Parliament (1570-78) in virtue of his keepership of
the Privy Seal, and did secretarial work for it, which nobody else was
qualified to do, while at the same time assisting the General Assembly
in revising their Book of ‘Policy.’ This keepership he may have
solicited--he subsequently resigned it--although there is no proof of
that, but all the other appointments came to him, and engaged his best
ability as they passed him in procession.
_Sir James Melville backs Scaliger_
This view of Buchanan’s character and scheme of life is confirmed
by the remarkable and elaborate account of him given, in his own
_Memoirs_, by Sir James Melville of Halhill (1545-1617), a professional
courtier and diplomatist who had served on the Continent in important
missions and affairs, and had been a confidential servant both to
Queen Mary and her son James VI. He is describing the guardians of
the boy-king at Stirling (1570-78), and after having highly eulogised
the Governor, he proceeds: ‘The Laird of Dromwhassel, his Maiestie’s
maister of houshald, was ambitious and greedy, and had gretest
cair how till advance himself and his friendis. The twa abbots
[Cambuskenneth and Dryburgh] were wyse and modest; my Lady Mar was wyse
and schairp, and held [_i.e._ kept] the King in great aw; and sa did
Mester George Buchwhennen. Mester Peter Young[2] was gentiller, and
was laith till offend the King at any tym, and used himself wairily,
as a man that had mynd of his awin weill, be keeping of his Maiestie’s
favour. Bot Mester George was a stoik philosopher, and looked not
far before the hand; a man of notable qualities for his learning and
knawledge in Latin poesie, mekle maid accompt of in other contrees,
plaisant in company, rehersing at all occasions moralities short and
fecfull, whereof he had aboundance, and invented wher he wanted.
‘He was also of gud religion for a poet, bot he was easily abused,
and sa facill that he was led with any company that he hanted for the
tyme, quhilk maid him factious in his auld dayes; for he spak and
wret as they that wer about him for the tym infourmed him. For he was
become sleperie and cairles, and followed in many thingis the vulgair
oppinion, for he was naturally populaire, and extrem vengeable against
any man that had offendit him, quhilk was his gretest fault. For he
wret dispytfull invectives against the Erle of Monteith, for some
particulaires that was between him and the Laird of Buchwhennen; and
became the Erle of Morton’s gret ennemy, for ane hackney of his that
chancit to be tane fra his saru[v]and during the civil troubles, and
was bocht be the Regent; wha had na will to part with the said horse,
he was sa sur of foot and sa easy, that albeit Mester George had oft
tymes requyred him again, he culd not get him, and wher he had bene the
Regentis gret frend of before, he becam his deadly ennemy, and spak
evil of him fra that tym fourth in all places and at all occasions.
Dromwhassel also, because the Regent kepit all the casualtes[3] to
himself, and wald let nathing fall till v[u]thers that wer about the
King, becam also his ennemy, and sa did they all that wer about his
Maiestie.’
Melville was scarcely the man to take the measure of Buchanan on the
more important side of his character, but he may be trusted to have
given an honest view of him according to his lights--which, in some
serious respects, were darkness--as well as of the impression which
Buchanan had made on better judges of remarkable men than was the
worthy Sir James himself. The latter’s preface is a charming piece of
_naïveté_. He tells us that though a courtier he had dealt faithfully
and not flatteringly with ‘princes,’ but had not found it a paying
procedure, and hints that if he had it to do over again, he might
sail on the opposite tack. He had advised the Laird of Carmichael to
do so, who profited greatly by the advice, both for himself and his
friends, but did not show much gratitude to his counsellor, as the
latter complains--rather unreasonably, one would say, since, if you
corrupt a man’s _morale_, you must not be disappointed if he treats
you accordingly. Perhaps Sir James recovers his honest standing by the
honest simplicity with which he confesses his leanings to dishonesty,
like the M. de Bussy whom he quotes as also bewailing, too late, the
honesty of his courtier career, but excusing himself on the ground that
he could not help it, as it was his ‘nature to.’
All the more trustworthy, however, is probably the distinction Sir
James draws between Peter Young and Buchanan. ‘Mester Peter’ was
evidently no Nathanael in his critic’s view, and his subsequent good
fortune, as attested by history, shows that his character had been
accurately enough diagnosed. There is no reason to doubt, accordingly,
that Sir James is equally correct in describing Buchanan as one who
‘looked not far before the hand.’ That is, he was not a calculating
person, and set his duties above his interests; did his work to the
best of his ability, and took his reward if, as, and when it came, but
was really less anxious about securing the reward than about doing the
work as it ought to be done.
_A Faithful Mentor_
His whole connection with James makes this plain. It begins with his
_Genethliacon_ or Birthday Ode, in which, after apostrophising the
infant prince as the hope of all who desired the unity and consequent
tranquillity of the two kingdoms, he addresses the _felices felici
prole parentes_ (‘parents to be felicitated on an offspring born to a
felicitous career’), and under guise of a sketch, in verse of Virgilian
elevation and beauty, of the standard of character up to which they
should train their child, lays down with ‘faithful’ outspokenness the
lines of duty on which their own lives should run, and warns them of
the ruin which neglect of his counsel would bring. It is not, except
in style, a courtly production. Darnley probably could not, but Mary
certainly both could and would see the poet’s drift, and happy would it
have been for both had they avoided the faults against which the poet
directed his pointed admonition.
If James turned out ‘the wisest fool in Christendom,’ the folly was
not the fault of Buchanan, but of James’s nature, and perhaps also
of flatterers of the ‘Mester Peter Young’ order, who scattered tares
among the wheat of the more worthy sower. At all events he made James
a scholar, if the latter made himself a pedant; and this implied, in
the circumstances and the particular case, an exercise of firm and
even stern discipline--of which a famous if not quite elegant instance
has been quoted above,--and which was better fitted to improve the
_morale_ of the pupil than the fortunes of the disciplinarian. As
Melville puts it, Buchanan ‘held the king in awe,’ an awe which James
felt and resented to the last, although, to do him justice, he also
plumed himself on his training by an unrivalled scholar. Three works
remarkable for their political teaching--his _Baptistes_, his _De Jure
Regni_, and his _History_--Buchanan dedicated to James, in prefaces
as remarkable as the works themselves. All three books were mainly,
the second entirely, motived by the idea which Buchanan seems to have
regarded as constituting and directing his true mission in life,
namely, the unspeakable value of liberty, the constant possibility and
deadly evil of tyranny, and the corresponding and always pressing duty
of forestalling this possibility and resisting this evil by abundant
proclamation and practice of the doctrine that legitimate political
sovereignty exists only for the good and by the will of the people--a
principle, of course, entirely subversive of the despotic doctrine
of the Divine right of kings, so prevalent in usurpationist quarters
in that day, and anticipatory of the modern and accepted democratic
‘platform’ of ‘Government of the People, by the People, for the
People.’
This is not the stage at which to describe the books themselves--it
is their prefaces that make them relevant at present,--but a word
to indicate their general character is necessary. The _Baptistes_
was written (1540-41) when Buchanan was comparatively a young man,
thirty-four or thirty-five, and was ‘regenting’ in a great secondary
school or gymnasium at Bordeaux, called the Collège de Guyenne,
organised and presided over by one André de Gouvéa, a famous Portuguese
Humanist and educator of the day. This _Baptistes_ was simply a
dramatic reproduction of the story of John the Baptist and his tragic
end, the _dramatis personæ_ being King Herod, Queen Herodias, the
latter’s dancing daughter, Malchus the high priest, Gamaliel, and
the unlucky John himself. It was composed, Buchanan tells us in the
dedicatory preface and in his autobiography (1574), in accordance with
the rules of the college, and intended by him to win the students, who
acted it, from the silly ‘mysteries’ of the monks to the imitation of
classic antiquity, and the rising study of religion in its original
documents. But there was something more intended. It is scarcely
necessary to read ‘between the lines’ to find a complete condemnation
of absolutist tyranny, and a picture of the misery which it brings on
the tyrant himself as well as on his victims. This was not the kind
of writing to please monarchs of the period. Nevertheless Buchanan
dedicates it (1576) to the boy-king, as ‘having a peculiar appositeness
to his position,’ warning him of ‘the agonisings and wretchedness which
await tyrants, even when they seem to be most flourishing outwardly.’
This lesson, he goes on to say, he thinks ‘not only useful, but
absolutely essential,’ for his royal pupil to learn now, so that he
may ‘early begin to hate’ a fault which ‘he ought always to shun.’
Moreover, he ‘wishes to place it on record, for the information of
posterity, that if the king should in the future, at the instigation
of evil advisers, or by allowing the lust of power to overcome the
principles of his education, act contrary to the warnings now given
him, the blame must be laid, not on his teachers, but on himself, in
not having listened to those who gave him good counsel.’ This was not
the language of flattery; and though James was only ten when he was
thus addressed, the precocity of his intelligence would enable him
to understand its import. He was destined, in a very few years, to
be king in fact as he was now in name, and Buchanan knew that if his
charge turned out other than he was trying to make him--what actually
happened--his own plain speaking would not be to his advantage. Knowing
this, he did his duty, and had his sovereign for his enemy when the
latter got used to being his own master. The fact reveals an elevation
of character in Buchanan which cannot be justly forgotten in judging
of him in other connections. It is not surprising that the agents
in Scotland of Cecil, Queen Elizabeth’s great minister, when on the
look-out for ‘Biencontents,’ as they were called, who might be dealt
with in the way of bribery with a view to forming a strong Elizabethan
party in Scotland, should have secretly reported (1579, King’s age
thirteen) Buchanan as ‘a singular man,’ while of ‘Mester Peter Young’
they say that he was ‘specially well affected, and ready to persuade
the king to be in favour of her majestye.’
Three years after dedicating the _Baptistes_ to James in the style we
have seen, he dedicated the _De Jure_ to him (1579). This was a still
bolder and more independent proceeding. Without entering, for the
present, into the details of its argument, it may be enough to remember
that, with its doctrine of Sovereignty as originating from the People,
existing for their benefit, and not autocratic, but bounded by laws
to which the People have consented, the _De Jure_ must have appeared
to Absolutist and ‘Divine right people’ generally, revolutionary
rubbish of the most pernicious description; and accordingly, in 1584,
when Buchanan had been dead two years, they had it condemned and its
publication and circulation forbidden by express Statute of the Scots
Parliament--the King, of course, assenting, if not inciting; while,
as we have already seen, the University of Oxford, later on, paid it
the compliment of having it publicly burned. Buchanan must have, in a
general way, foreseen the possibility of something like this, and the
risk he ran if the King should, in his riper age, turn upon him and
seek to rend him. This, however, did not deter him from pressing his
democratic treatise on the attention and study of his royal pupil.
He praises him, not in the fulsome and fawning language of the
Dedication literature of the time, but with evident sincerity and
honest, hearty admiration for the brightness of his abilities, his
intellectual interests, his independence of judgment while inquiring
into the truth of things and opinions. He congratulates him, too, on
his present aversion to flattery, that ‘nurse of Tyranny, and deadliest
of plagues to genuine kingship’--_tyrannidis nutricula, et legitimi
regni gravissima pestis_,--and rejoices that he seems ‘instinctively
to detest’--_naturæ quodam instinctu oderis_--‘the courtly solecisms
and barbarisms’--_solæcismos et barbarismos aulicos_--affected by
those self-chosen ‘arbiters of elegance’--_elegantiæ censores_--who
‘spice their conversation’--_velut sermonis condimenta_--with ‘profuse
employment of “Your Majesty,” “Your Lordship,” “Your Illustrious
Highness,” and any other still more sickening title they can
find’--_passim_ MAJESTATES, DOMINATIONES, ILLUSTRITATES, _et si qua
alia magis sunt putida, adspergant_. Was there any latent reference
here to ‘Mester Peter Young’ and his courtier ways? Anyhow, Buchanan
plainly owns that he has doubts and fears for James’s future. He tells
him of the dangers of evil companionship, and invites him to the study
of the essay thus dedicated to him, not only as an instructor that will
show him the right and wrong of the subject, but as a Mentor that may
‘keep at him’ in importunate and even audacious fashion, as it may seem
for the moment. If he is faithful to the principles commended to him,
there will be peace in the present for him and his, and lasting glory
in the future. James subsequently thought he could do better, and
threw off his early training; but, notwithstanding, or in consequence,
he failed alike to achieve a peaceful career or to transmit a glorious
memory. The citation from the chorus in the _Thyestes_ of Seneca--who
also was tutor to a royal failure, although James must, of course, be
admitted to have been a brilliant success compared with Nero--in which
the great but ill-starred Roman delineates the Stoic king, appended to
Buchanan’s dedication, no doubt expresses his own view of what James
might and should have been: beginning with--
‘Regem non faciunt opes
Non vestis Tyriæ color,’ etc.
‘It is not wealth nor the purple robe that makes a king,’ etc.
and ending--
‘Rex est, qui metuit nihil,
Rex est, qui cupiet nihil.
Hoc regnum sibi quisque dat.’
‘He is a king who has conquered Fear and Desire. Such a kingship every
man may give himself, and none else.’
It is in the same spirit that he dedicates his _History_ to the King
(1582, James sixteen). He knows perfectly well how his book is likely
to be taken. Writing (1577) to Sir Thomas Randolph, Queen Elizabeth’s
representative at the Scottish court, and Buchanan’s _quondam_ pupil
at Paris, he says: ‘I am occupiit in wryting of our historie, being
assurit to content few, and to displease many thairthrow.’ Among the
many ‘displeased,’ he could not but foresee that possibly the young
King might be found, on account of the unfavourable view which, in
common with most historians, he felt himself obliged to take of the
character and career of the King’s own mother, Queen Mary. He must
have felt too that, unless James were all the more magnanimous, he
might take deep offence--as he did, death alone saving Buchanan from
criminal proceedings on account of his ‘seditious’ writings--at his now
nominal preceptor’s contention that by the Constitution of Scotland the
monarchy had, as an historical fact as well as by a true philosophy,
been all along a derivative and limited, even very limited, one, and
anything but a divinely authorised Absolutism, as maintained by courtly
authorities. Buchanan, however, prefers to assume that James had enough
of the king and the public man in him to sink private feeling in public
duty and accept truth, however unpleasant; and accordingly he dedicates
his _History_ to him, urging him to follow the example of his good
predecessors and eschew that of the bad ones, and more particularly
commending to his notice and imitation the career of the saintly
David I., the ‘sair saunt for the crown’ of one of his successors and
descendants, as a ruler who, according to his lights--some of which,
however, especially those that led to his profuse and corrupting
liberality to the Church, Buchanan, herein endorsing John Major, his
early St. Andrews ‘regent’ in Logic, emphatically decries--devoted
himself not to pleasure, or the strengthening of his prerogative, but
to what seemed to him to be the true welfare of his people. In all
this, some of Buchanan’s critics have thought him too stern, and that
gentler methods might have won over James to better thoughts. But
truth must always be stern to those who dislike or fear it. Yet those
only are the real friends of these latter who give them the chance of
profiting by it; and in so acting by James, come what might of himself
and his personal fortunes, Buchanan will be thought by most admirers
of a high _morale_ to have stamped himself as a wholly high-minded and
even heroic character.