ART. I.--_Burton's History of Scotland._ Vols. V., VI., and VII. London.
1870.
The affairs of Scotland will always occupy an honourable and conspicuous
place in the grand drama of national development which makes up the
history of the British Empire. It has been the destiny of the Scottish
people to influence the general fortunes of England in a larger degree,
and more permanently, than could have been expected from their mere
numbers, or their position in the north of our island. In the years
which succeeded the Norman Conquest, Scotland was, in some measure, a
place of refuge for the English name from foreign oppression; and though
deeply penetrated by the Norman elements which consolidated and
strengthened her feudal monarchy, she held up something like a beacon of
hope before the eyes of the down-trodden Saxon, during the calamitous
period of alien domination. Two centuries later, when her nationality
had become more firmly established, when her Highland clans, her
Anglo-Norman colonies, her Norse settlements, and her Lowland commonalty
had been brought nominally under a supreme government, though not yet
formed into one people, she exhibited to the world a magnificent
spectacle of prolonged, stubborn, and successful resistance to the
encroachments of a very superior power; and, in the internecine struggle
which ensued, we see distinctly the high qualities which have made her
the worthy compeer of England. It was probably one of the results of
this contest that France, aided by her Northern ally, was enabled to
throw off the Plantagenet yoke, and to acquire the position she still
holds in Europe; and, but for Verneuil and other battles, it is
possible that, in the fifteenth century, England might have become a
military despotism, extending from the Western Isles to the Pyrenees,
and have had a completely different history. It is unnecessary to say
what Scotland accomplished at the great crisis of the Reformation; if,
in the person of Mary Stuart, her dynasty threatened England with
subjection and with the despotism of the Catholic League, her people
proved the defence of Protestantism, rejected the sovereign they justly
detested, gave strength to the counsels of Elizabeth, and contributed
largely to the success of the policy which culminated in the ruin of the
Armada. For it was at the momentous period of the civil wars of the
seventeenth century that the house of Stuart and part of the Scottish
nobility endeavoured to blight the prospects of England, to stifle
freedom by military power, and to restore what was Romanism all but in
name; but the mass of the nation opposed the movement, and set the noble
example of resistance to it; and though they ultimately separated from
England, they did much to cause the series of events which ended in the
Revolution of 1688. Scotland, in a word, has had a beneficent influence
of a marked and even extraordinary kind in shaping the course of our
English story; and we need not notice how her independent spirit has
affected for good the national character, what eminent men she has given
the State, what valuable additions she has made to the treasures of
British literature and thought, what use some of her institutions have
been, as patterns for our own imitation.
The author of the interesting volumes before us has long held a
distinguished name in connection with the literature of his country. He
has given us an exceedingly good account of the transitional period in
the history of Scotland, which embraces the Revolution of 1688, the
Union, and the final extinction of the reactionary and half-Romanist
party in the nation, when Jacobitism perished in 1745. He has also
described with clear insight, and, on the whole, with an impartial pen,
that honourable episode in Scottish annals, of lasting importance to
these kingdoms, the 'ancient league' of Scotland with France; and no
writer, perhaps, has done more to elucidate whatever is most noteworthy
in the antiquarian remains and monuments of the races which from the
earliest times have inhabited the northern division of our island. The
history, however, which he has just completed, and which deals with the
affairs of Scotland from the Roman invasion, under Agricola, to the
overthrow of the House of Stuart, is, beyond comparison, his greatest
work; and as a repository of the learning with which modern research and
criticism have explored the national life of his countrymen, it stands
alone, and without a parallel. Mr. Burton, in his first four volumes,
which were published in 1867, carried down his narrative from the
legendary period of the Roman occupation, of the Scots and Picts, of
Fergus and the old Celtic monarchy, to the rise of the feudal kingdom of
Scotland and its long contest with the power of England; and he went on
to describe the memorable era when the ascendancy of France, and
national pride resenting Flodden and Pinkie Cleugh, struggled with the
forces of the Scottish Reformation; and Mary Stuart, but for her crimes
and her fall, would probably have united the two crowns, and become the
sovereign of a Romanized Britain. If in treating this important part of
his subject Mr. Burton was sometimes carried away by a somewhat too
exuberant patriotism, if he, perhaps, assigned too high a place to the
position of Scotland in British annals, and if he was never eloquent or
picturesque, he displayed rare and extensive knowledge, a judgment
usually calm and correct, and the faculty of forming sound conclusions;
and his account of the Scottish war of independence, and of Scottish
politics in the sixteenth century, is worthy of very high commendation.
His last three volumes, which have recently appeared, and which we
purpose now to review, comprise the last years of the reign of Mary
Stuart, the triumph of the Reformation in Scotland, the struggle between
the Kirk and the Crown, which marked the beginning of the seventeenth
century, the reaction against James I. and his son, and the memorable
events which were the result; they proceed to describe the great civil
war, the important attitude of Scotland in it, the conquest of the
kingdom by Cromwell, and the dreary epoch which followed the
Restoration; and, as may be supposed, they exhibit the merits and the
shortcomings of the earlier volumes. Mr. Burton is inclined to
exaggerate the part which Scotland played in 1640-1649: he is rather too
lenient to the Stuart kings, and he is not skilful in the art of
composition. But, on the other hand, his learning is profound; his views
of most of the great questions which arose during this memorable epoch,
are sound and judicious, and deserve attention; and, on the whole, he
has placed the events of the drama of which he has followed the
chequered scenes, in their true light and real significance.
Mr. Burton's narrative begins at the period of the imprisonment of Mary
Stuart at Lochleven. A few months previously the Scottish queen had been
the hope of the Catholic Powers, which were ever planning the ruin of
Elizabeth, and the overthrow of the Reformation in England; and, widely
as they were divided from each other, they looked upon her as the
appointed instrument with which to assail the common enemy. Her beauty
too, her extraordinary gifts, the magic of her presence, and her rare
abilities, had won the hearts of the Scottish nobility; and though she
had never deceived Knox and the earnest champions of Scottish
Protestantism, the pride of the nation was aroused in her favour, from
the circumstance that it seemed probable that the two crowns would unite
on her brow, and that she would become the sovereign of England and
Scotland. Distrusted as she was in England by all the real friends of
the Reformation, she was supported by the Catholic party, still most
formidable in rank and numbers; and she had on her side the conservative
feeling, of extraordinary strength in that age, which saw in her the
heir to the throne, Elizabeth being without children, and the means of
bringing England once more into the old order and ways of Europe. Had
Mary Stuart not disgraced herself in the opinion even of that
generation, not over-scrupulous about the acts of princes, there can be
little doubt that she would have been acknowledged as Elizabeth's
successor; and very probably she would have brought the reign of the
heretic Tudor to a close, would have become the ruler of England and
Scotland, arrested the Reformation for a time, and changed the whole
tenor of our history. Providentially, however, this was not to be; and
Mary Stuart, by her own hand, was to destroy the prospect of power and
ambition, fraught with destruction to the destinies of mankind, which
fortune seemed to have opened to her. The murder of Darnley, followed by
the shameless and infamous marriage with Bothwell, revealed the depths
of recklessness and crime in the existence of this singular woman, and
placed her at once under the moral ban of Scotland, England, and
Catholic Europe. At Carberry Hill her followers' arms dropped, as it
were, from their nerveless hands; the nation rose in fury against her;
her adherents were for the time silenced; and she found herself on a
sudden a prisoner, her son proclaimed, the Reformation victorious, and
Murray exercising the powers of a regent; the whole scene changing as if
by magic. Catherine de Medicis, also, gave her up, alarmed at the storm
which had burst out in Scotland; and though undoubtedly the Florentine
queen was not guided by moral considerations, and, at this moment was
beginning to adopt a conciliatory policy towards the French Huguenots,
her complete abandonment of Mary Stuart was caused chiefly by a true
conviction that she had ruined herself in general opinion. Philip II.
also declined to give the slightest countenance to the beautiful fury,
in whom he had hoped to find a St. Teresa; and in Catholic and
Conservative England the revulsion of feeling was so strong, that
thenceforward the cause of Mary Stuart ceased to be national in any real
sense.
Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Froude have given us very different accounts of
the captivity of Mary Stuart at Lochleven. Mr. Burton has taken great
pains to ascertain the facts, and to judge of them, and we quote a few
words from his description:--
'The conclusion of all is, that there is nothing in the
conditions to justify the inference that the captive was to
be sent thither as to a place of sordidness and severity,
as well as of seclusion and security.... There is no
evidence that the Lady of Lochleven treated her prisoner
harshly. Much vigilance was necessary, however, and that
could not be accomplished without giving annoyance and even
pain. The daughters of the house shared the prisoner's bed.
To one who had enjoyed full command over the stately
reserve of the court of France, and the impregnable barrier
of isolation which it had put at her disposal, this may
have been a heavy grievance; it can be paralleled only by
the sufferings of people accustomed to civilized
refinement, when their lot is cast among
barbarians.'--(Vol. v. 98.)
The only personage, as is well known, who seems to have shown any real
sympathy with the Queen of Scotland, in this forlorn condition, was the
sovereign who, it might be supposed, was of all persons the least
likely to do anything in behalf of her cause. On hearing of the
imprisonment of Mary, Elizabeth not only refused to give open support to
her 'rebellious lords,' but actually threatened to invade Scotland,
should they not restore their mistress to the throne, on terms, however,
dictated by England. To suppose that this conduct is to be ascribed to
chivalrous generosity would be a mistake; nor do we think with Mr.
Burton, that it was due wholly to Tudor dislike of disobedience to the
Lord's anointed, though this certainly was one ruling motive. Elizabeth,
undoubtedly, throughout her entire reign, especially in the case of the
united provinces, was averse to countenancing revolted subjects, even
when to do so was her evident interest; but in this instance she was, in
fact, guided by other considerations in her conduct. She seems to have
wished in this, following the traditional policy of English rulers, to
have taken upon herself the settlement of Scotland; and she did not
choose that that kingdom should be revolutionized without her sanction.
She also had a particular aversion to Knox and the Reforming leaders;
and very probably her sagacious advisers may have foreseen that the rule
of Murray and his associates was far from secure. These motives probably
influenced her policy in not siding with the Regent and his followers;
and in one respect the event vindicated, in a great measure, her
cautious prudence. Though the infant James was formally crowned, though
the Reformed Church was established in Scotland, and Murray proved
himself an able ruler, a strong reaction set in in favour of the
imprisoned queen; and though unquestionably the great mass of the nation
remained completely hostile, she was able to rally a party sufficient to
cause a violent counter-revolution. The numerous adherents of the old
Church, the whole body of the Catholic clergy, and a large minority of
the Scottish nobility enlisted themselves on the side of Mary Stuart;
they were joined by some of the politicians and patriots whose one idea
was the giving a Scottish sovereign to England; and pity for misfortune,
the recollection of rare beauty and great gifts, and that strange
loyalty which so often has shown itself superior to the sense of right,
of justice, and of the successful cause, contributed to swell the ranks
of her followers. Mr. Burton describes the escape from Lochleven, and
the stirring incidents of the struggle which ensued, with much research
and even animation; but we can only refer our readers to them. The
unimportant battle of Langside showed that, however imposing it was in
name, the party of the queen was not supported in any degree by the
Scottish nation; a defeat, though little more than a skirmish, was
sufficient to overthrow her career, and to compel her forthwith to leave
her kingdom. After her flight, in which she found few friends, Mary
Stuart was obliged to take refuge in England, abandoning for ever a
country in which she had played one of the most astonishing parts that
have ever fallen to the lot of woman, and which, excepting a
revolutionary faction, had repudiated her for crimes which had effaced
the sentiment of former affection.
We agree generally with Mr. Burton in his estimate of Elizabeth's policy
when her rival had placed herself in her power. That policy was not
generous or high-minded; it was even temporising, doubtful, and
tentative; but it was essentially crafty and prudent. To have listened
to the petition of the Scottish queen, and to have sent her over to
France or Spain, would have been to arm the enemies of England with a
weapon of the most perilous kind, and, at the same time, to make all
Protestant Scotland permanently hostile. On the other hand, Elizabeth
refused to hand her guest over to the Scottish lords, in part certainly
from compassionate feelings, in part from her known antipathy to
rebellion against a lawful sovereign, and in part from a well-founded
doubt whether the government of Murray was really stable, and whether,
if the surrender were made, a violent reaction would not follow. A
middle course was artfully struck out, which had the advantage of
seeming just, of ruining the fair fame of Mary Stuart, and depriving her
of all moral influence, and which, moreover, gave her the right of
intervening in Scottish affairs, and making England the arbiter of them.
Under the form of a charge against her revolted subjects, Mary Stuart
was really put on her trial before the most distinguished personages in
England; and the result of the inquiry was that she was disgraced in
public opinion, that her detention was in part justified, and that,
though made somewhat dependent on England, Murray and the Regency were
confirmed in power. This is what Elizabeth and Cecil had aimed at, and
whatever may be thought of the dignity of their conduct, it fell in with
the interests of England; and it was, on the whole, inspired by wisdom.
Mr. Burton describes at much length the conferences at York and Hampton
Court, but we have no space to dwell on his narrative. The only real
question was as to the guilt of Mary, and of this, like ourselves, he
has no doubt. The evidence contained in the casket letters is confirmed
by numerous subordinate proofs; the authenticity of the letters
themselves was hardly questioned in that generation, and not a single
member of the Commission--though several were devoted to Mary--not even,
apparently, her own advocates, attempted to challenge this decisive
fact. As the Scottish queen has found defenders of the boldest kind,
even in our day, we quote a part of Mr. Burton's comments:--
'There are two theories on which the guilty conclusion to
which the casket documents point has been resisted with
great perseverance and gallantry; the one is, that, as we
now see them, they have been tampered with; the other, that
they are forgeries from the beginning. All questions raised
on the prior theory, are at once settled by the fact that
those to whom the letters were first shown, drew
conclusions from them as damnatory as any they can now
suggest.... The theory of an entire forgery seems not to
have occurred to any of those friends or foes of the queen
who saw the documents.... And it is impossible not to
connect the stream of contemporary impugnment with a
notable peculiarity in these documents. They are as
affluent in petty details about matters personally known to
persons who could have contradicted them if false, that the
forger could only have scattered around him, in superfluous
profusion, allusions that must have been traps for his own
detection. Wherever any of these petty matters come to the
surface elsewhere, it is in a shape to confirm the accuracy
of the mention made of them in these letters.... Though
this controversy has produced dazzling achievements of
ingenuity and sagacity, I would be inclined not so much to
press technical points of evidence, as to look to the
general tone and character of the whole story. In this view
nothing appears to me more natural than the casket letters.
They fit entirely into their places in the dark history of
events.'--(Vol. iv. p. 436, _et seq._)
Events showed that Elizabeth and Cecil were right in calculating that
the power of Murray did not rest on a secure foundation. The Regent was
one of the best governors who ever appeared in Scottish history; he was
honourable, upright, firm, yet humane; and during his too brief rule he
maintained order in a manner unknown in that generation. The religious
movement, too, of which he was the unselfish and sincere champion, was
followed by the great mass of the nation; and though most of the
Reforming lords were simply greedy for the spoils of Popery, Knox and
his adherents went with them, and, as a people, Scotland was sincerely
Protestant. These combined elements of power, however, did not render
the Government safe, and it was exposed to a series of formidable
attacks which kept the country for some years in anarchy. The united
parties which Langside had quelled again formed a perilous coalition;
and the old Church, many of the great feudal lords, and the statesmen
who wished above all things to place a Stuart on the Tudor throne, once
more rallied in behalf of Queen Mary. The leading spirit of this
ill-assorted league was that singular character, Maitland of Lethington,
one of the ablest men of that stirring age, yet, with his keen intellect
and clear brain, an enthusiast possessed by a vain idea. Long one of the
chief opponents of the queen, he had yielded to the alluring
prospect--held out to him skilfully by his wife, one of the captive's
principal attendants--of making Mary Stuart the sovereign of Great
Britain, and he now schemed and plotted in her cause in conjunction with
his worst former enemies. At the same time, Elizabeth maintained a
dubious attitude towards the Regency: wishing to stand well with the
Catholic Powers, with whom for the moment she was at peace, and always
disliking undutiful subjects, she more than once declared she would
release the queen; and though we do not believe she was sincere in this,
the effect was to weaken the Scottish Government, and to add strength to
its many adversaries. Besides, Elizabeth contrived to stir the sense of
Scottish patriotism to the quick by an imperious demand for the
extradition of one of the leaders of the Northern rebellion; and the cry
went forth that the pusillanimous Regency was the dishonoured instrument
of Tudor oppression, and that Scotland under her lawful sovereign should
again vindicate her independence with the assistance of her old ally,
France. The result was a furious civil war, of which, after the murder
of the Regent, the issue was for a time doubtful; and, as Mr. Burton
correctly observes, Scotland was more thoroughly and widely divided than
she had been at any former period. An event, however, which in that age
revolutionized the politics of Europe, was, in Scotland also, to change
the situation. The atrocious massacre of St. Bartholomew stirred to its
depths a people essentially Protestant, confounded the adherents of Mary
Stuart, made the French alliance a source of dread, and threw the nation
on the side of the Regency, now in the hands of the vigorous Morton. At
the same time, it showed Elizabeth that the interest of England
compelled her to support 'the lords,' Knox, and the Reformation; that in
Mary she had an implacable enemy; and that her only chance was to strike
in boldly with Morton and the national Protestant party. The union of
these forces was decisive; Morton and his adherents, backed generally by
the spirit of an indignant people, overcame quickly Mary Stuart's
faction; an English army invaded Scotland, and the siege and fall of the
Castle of Edinburgh put an end to the French alliance, destroyed for
ever the chances of the Scottish queen, and, with the death of
Lethington and Grange, extinguished the prospects of her cause.
Mr. Burton thus describes this conjunction, one of the turning-points in
the history of Scotland:--
'For the future three great disturbing forces, prolific in
action, are seen no more. In the first place, the game of
conquest has been entirely played out by England. We may
say, perhaps, that it came to an end with the Reformation;
but there was still room for it, and it might start up any
day. Now its place was occupied. On both sides of the
border, men looked to another solution of the problem, how
the two nations should be made into one. Secondly, it
followed that there was no longer danger from abroad, since
French protection was no longer needed. The ancient league,
if not dead, was paralyzed, and all its long romance of
heroism and kindly sympathy was at an end.... Thirdly,
Queen Mary has no longer a place in the history of her
country. She was in one sense busier than ever ... but in
Scotland, however many may have been the hearts secretly
devoted to her, her name passed out of the arena of
political action and discussion.'--(Vol. v. 384.)
After these events the history of Scotland passes through a period of
intrigues and factions, in the midst of which James I. grew up. He
abandoned his ill-fated mother, and the Catholic Powers endeavoured to
make his youth the instrument of their designs. The ascendancy of
D'Aubigny and Arran marks the short-lived triumph of this policy. These
attempts, however, were in the long run fruitless; the great body of the
people adhered to Protestantism and the English alliance; the Kirk and
the Reforming nobles worked together against the common enemy; and
James, as he grew to man's estate, had sagacity enough to see the
strongest side, and to direct accordingly his public conduct. Mr. Burton
omits to dwell upon the base selfishness of the young king, in throwing
over the unhappy princess, to whom he owed the love of a son. But
morally he was always a coward; and the prospect of the inheritance of
England, and the dread of alienating Elizabeth, was more than enough to
determine his purpose. The extremely unsettled state of Scotland, after
the death of the Regent Morton, and the rudeness and barbarism of its
government, appear in the frequency and sudden violence of the changes
which took place in its rulers; and it seems to have been assumed, that
whatever faction had possession of the person of the king, was rightly
invested with supreme authority. In these circumstances, as may be
supposed, the progress of Scotland was only slow; the face of the
country seemed scarred with the marks of desolation and war; the nation
was rent by intestine troubles; and travellers from England drew marked
contrasts between the aspect of the Southern land at peace under the
Tudor sceptre, and that of its lawless Northern neighbour. Nevertheless,
the course of events tended inevitably to the approaching union of the
two crowns under a common sovereign--invasion from England had wholly
ceased--and though the aged Elizabeth would not acknowledge the title of
James to her glorious throne, every politician in both countries was
aware that the time was not distant, when the policy inaugurated by
Edward I., and pursued by every great English monarch, of joining
together the whole of the island, would be consummated without civil war
or bloodshed. Meanwhile the tragic and striking figure which had played
such an awful and mournful part in the historical drama of the two
kingdoms had passed away for ever from the stage, and the terrible
career of Mary Stuart had been cut short by the Fotheringay headsman.
Mr. Burton properly does not dilate on the incidents of her melancholy
life during the later years of her long imprisonment, for they hardly
belong to his subject, but his estimate of them is generally correct.
Mary Stuart, after the final overthrow of her party in Scotland,
transferred her energies to intriguing with the Continental powers; and
it can admit of no question that she continued to maintain her claims to
the crown of England, that she plotted directly against the life of
Elizabeth, and that she kept England in a state of apprehension,
intolerable to the Parliament and nation. She was a conspirator of the
worst kind, and deserved the death she bravely encountered; and the
crooked policy, the vacillation, and the duplicity of her rival towards
her prisoner, should not render us blind to the real issue.
While, in circumstances such as these, Scotland was working out her
political destiny, her ecclesiastical and religious reformation was
being developed and matured. In no country, perhaps, in Europe had the
Church of Rome been so grossly corrupt as in the northern part of our
island; it had been the appanage of a vicious court, and the instrument
of coarse spiritual tyranny; and in none, accordingly, was the reaction
against it more rapid, popular, and thoroughly decisive. Although
Beaton and the men of his faction had endeavoured to associate the
defence of Popery with the spirit of stern opposition to the Southron,
their policy had, in the long run, failed; and before Mary Stuart
ascended the throne, Scotland, as a nation, had become Protestant. The
grand and striking figure of Knox was the chief exponent of this
movement; but it is idle to imagine that even Knox could have changed
the spiritual life of Scotland, if the people had not been generally
with him. As usually has happened, the baser elements of selfishness
mingled with this revolution; and the support given by most of the
Scottish nobles to the overthrow of Romanism was chiefly prompted by a
greedy appetite for the spoils of the fallen Church. Nevertheless, the
Reformation took firm root; the old ecclesiastical system of the country
and its ancient faith were violently changed; and the accession of
Murray to the Regency marks the period of this great transformation. Mr.
Burton's account of the new Church which rose on the ruins of its
predecessor, and of its peculiar ritual and doctrine, is one of the most
interesting parts of his book, and abounds in learning and sound
criticism. The Scottish Kirk was founded upon the model of the Huguenot
Church of France; with a large admixture of lay elements, it had the
same definite and strong organization, and the same tendency to create
what was a powerful priesthood all but in name; and its teaching
exemplified the austerity and strictness of the theology of Calvin. From
the first, accordingly, it was calculated to encourage pretensions among
the ministry, and to become an _imperium in imperio_, not without risk
of collision with the State; and its whole system, in its excess, led to
fanaticism and contempt of civil authority. We transcribe a few passages
from Mr. Burton's description of the Second Book of Discipline of the
Scottish Kirk, a specimen of its general principles:--
'It sets forth that, "as the ministers and others of the
ecclesiastical estate are subject to the magistrate civil,
so ought the person of the magistrate be subject to the
Kirk spiritually, and in ecclesiastical government."
Further:--"The civil power should command the spiritual to
exercise and do their office according to the word of God;
the spiritual rulers should require the Christian
magistrate to minister justice and punish vice, and to
maintain the liberty and quietness of the Kirk within their
bounds." Nothing could be on its face a fairer
distribution. The civil power was entitled to command the
spiritual to do its duty; but then the magistrate was not
to have authority to "execute the censures of the Church,
nor yet prescribe any rule how it should be done." This is
entirely in the hands of the Church; but in enforcing it
the State is the Church's servant, for it is the
magistrate's duty to "assist and maintain the discipline of
the Kirk, and punish them civilly that will not obey the
discipline of the same." Thus the State could give no
effective orders to the Church, but the Church could order
the State to give material effect to its rules and
punishments. It was the State's duty, at the same time, to
preserve for the Church its whole patrimony; and we have
seen that this meant all the vast wealth which had been
gathered up by the old Church. Among the prerogatives of
the clergy, it was further declared that "they have power
to abrogate and abolish all statutes and ordinances
concerning ecclesiastical matters that are found noisome
and unprofitable, and agree not with the time, or, are
abused by the people."'--(Vol. v. 470.)
While Knox and his generation survived, the tendencies of the new
establishment were prevented from fully showing themselves. The great
Reformer was at bottom moderate; he had a real reverence for the powers
that be, however he abhorred Mary Stuart. The lay lords had sufficient
influence to control the ministry throughout the country; and the
presence of a common danger compelled the Scottish Protestants to uphold
the Government. But, when the Kirk had become settled, and the
Reformation was completely secure, dissensions rapidly grew up between
the spiritual and civil powers, and the Presbyterian clergy began to
assume that attitude in the affairs of Scotland, which led, afterwards,
to such momentous consequences. The leader of the new school of divines
was the celebrated Melville, thus described by Mr. Burton:--
'Knox had a respect for hereditary rank which only yielded
to a higher duty, when, as the successor of the prophets of
old, he had to announce the law of God even to the highest.
Melville, though born to a higher position, was more of the
leveller. He was the type of a class who, to as much of the
fierce fanaticism of the Huguenots as the Scottish
character could receive, added the stern classical
republicanism of Buchanan.'--(Vol. v. 404.)
An organization of this kind, supported by such spiritual leaders, ere
long displayed its natural tendencies. The Kirk, with its powerful local
ministry, connected with each other by numerous links, attempted to
revive in Scotland the pretensions of the old dominant Church, and it
succeeded in creating a vast spiritual power, often in conflict with the
authority of the State. The principal fact in Scottish history, during
the last years of the sixteenth century and the first of the
seventeenth, was the opposition given, by the Presbyterian clergy, to
the acts and even the rights of the Crown; and though the conduct of
James I. was, as usual, arrogant and unwise, he was subjected to extreme
provocation. The enthusiasm which followed the defeat of the Armada, the
supposed inclination of the king to High Church, and even Romanist
doctrines, and the open favour he showed to several of the old Catholic
Scottish houses, gave strength to the champions of the Kirk; and for
some time, as he ruefully exclaimed, he was not a ruler in his own
dominions. The formal abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland--the
institution had existed in name even after the iconoclasm of Knox--marks
the highest point of Presbyterian ascendancy; and, more than once, the
king and his council were compelled to yield to the demands put forward
by those whom he called the 'Popes of Edinburgh.' Undoubtedly, however,
if James had been a really able and popular ruler, he could have
vindicated his supreme authority, and the national estates, which even
at this juncture often showed jealousy of the heads of the Kirk, would
have upheld the prerogatives of the Crown. As it was, Scotland was
divided by a contest between the Church and the State, and the
Presbyterian Hildebrands assumed an attitude which contributed
afterwards to many troubles. We quote a passage that gives an idea of
the bickerings between the king and the clergy:--
'Entering in the cabinet with the king alone, I show his
Majesty that the Commissioners of the General Assembly,
with certain other brethren ordained to watch for the well
of the Kirk in so dangerous a time, had convened at Cupar.
At the which word the king interrupts me, and angrily
quarrels our meeting, alleging it was without warrant and
seditious, making ourselves and the country to conceive
fear where there was no cause. To the which I, beginning to
reply in my manner, Mr. Andrew could not abide it, but
brake off upon the king in so zealous, powerful, and
unresistible a manner, that, howbeit the king used his
authority in most crabbed and choleric manner, Mr. Andrew
bore him down, and uttered the commission as from the
mighty God, calling the king but "God's silly vassal," and,
taking him by the sleeve, says this in effect, through much
hot reasoning and many interruptions, "Sir, we will humbly
reverence your Majesty, always, namely, in public. But,
since we have this occasion to be with your Majesty in
private, and the truth is, you are brought in extreme
danger, both of your life and crown, and, with you, the
country and Kirk of Christ is like to wreck for not telling
you the truth, and giving of you a faithful counsel--we
must discharge our duty therein, or else be traitors, both
to Christ and you! And therefore, Sir, as divers times
before, so now again, I must tell you, there are two kings
and two kingdoms in Scotland. _There is Christ Jesus the
King, and His Kingdom the Kirk, whose subject King James
the Sixth is--and of his kingdom, not a king, nor a lord,
nor a head, but a member!"_'--(Vol. vi. 81.)
While seeds of trouble were thus growing up in the contests between the
Kirk and the Crown, the great Tudor queen had passed away, and James
became monarch of the three kingdoms. Both England and Scotland
recognised in him the principle of hereditary right, for there was
little in his character or antecedents to recommend him as a national
sovereign. In his own country he had become unpopular, and in England he
was chiefly known as one who had basely betrayed his mother, who had
intrigued with Elizabeth to obtain her throne, and who had no sympathy
with the great alliance with France and the United Provinces in the war
with Spain. James, however, encountered no opposition in assuming the
sceptre of these realms; and his progress to London from the
North--described graphically by Mr. Burton--was a scene of continuous
joy and festivity. The king, at least, had ample reason to feel delight
at the happy change which had come over his life and prospects. He left
a poor and distracted country--where his reign had long been a long
scene of trouble, and where he was being continually reviled by those
who, in his phrase, 'agreed as well with monarchy as the devil with
Christ'--for rich, peaceful, and well-ordered England; and he might well
expect a season of repose amidst the blandishments of a Tudor hierarchy,
and the submissive acts of Tudor courtiers. For some time he was not
disappointed, and what between the unctuous flattery of prelates, who
said that 'he spake like the Spirit,' and of nobles who vied with each
other in adulation, James must have thought himself translated to a
sphere not unworthy even of his own estimate of himself. Before long,
however, he was destined to find out that in England, as well as
Scotland, he was to earn the contempt and dislike of his subjects.
Essentially timid and short-sighted, he abandoned the foreign policy of
Elizabeth; he disgusted Englishmen by his open preference for worthless
and needy Scottish favourites; and in a few years he found himself in
antagonism with the House of Commons, now becoming a real image of the
nation, and with the tremendous force of Puritanism already growing into
ascendancy in England. Mr. Burton gives us, from a contemporary
chronicler, this sketch of the ignoble monarch:--
'He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through his
clothes than in his body, yet fat enough; his clothes ever
being made large and easy, the doublets quilted for
stiletto proof; his breeches in great plaits and full
stuffed. He was naturally of a timid disposition, which was
the greatest reason of his quilted doublets. His eyes
large, ever rolling after any stranger came in his
presence, inasmuch as many for shame have left the room,
being out of countenance. His beard was very thin; his
tongue too large for his mouth, which ever made him speak
full in the mouth, and made him drink very uncomely as if
eating his drink, which came out into the cup on each side
of his mouth. His skin was as soft as taffeta sarcenet,
which felt so because he never washed his hands--only
rubbed his finger-ends slightly with the wet end of a
napkin. His legs were very weak, having had, it was
thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he
was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of
age--that weakness made him ever leaning on other men's
shoulders.'--(Vol. vi. 162.)
As is well known, the dislike entertained for James in England was in
part owing to the favour he showed to Scotch favourites. The nation,
too, abounding in keen adventurers--poor, hardy, and pushing--came in
for a share of this feeling; and the wits and satirists of the day
indulged in sarcasms on the greedy race who crossed the border in hungry
swarms to feed on the wealth of the well-fed Southron. We quote from
one of these pasquinades:--
'Bonny Scot, we all witness can,
That England hath made thee a gentleman.
Thy blue bonnet, when thou came hither,
Could scarce keep out the wind and weather;
But now it is turned to a hat and feather;
Thy bonnet is blown--the devil knows whither.
Thy shoes on thy feet when thou camest from plough,
Were made of the hide of an old Scots cow;
But now they are turned to a rare Spanish leather,
And decked with roses altogether.
Thy sword at thy [back] was a great black blade,
With a great basket-hilt of iron made;
But now a long rapier doth hang by his side,
And huffingly doth this bonny Scot ride.
Bonny Scot, we all witness can,
That England hath made thee a gentleman.'
--(Vol. vi. 191.)
During the years that followed the union of the crowns, Scotland made
considerable material progress, though still troubled by occasional
disorder. The strife which for ages had made the border a theatre of
desolation and rapine came, to a great extent, to an end, and signs of
good husbandry and growing comfort began to appear in this wild
district. The great house of Huntly, 'the cock of the North,' and the
terror of the Reformation party, was balanced by the rival house of
Argyle, and the barbarous Highlands were reduced in some degree to
subjection to the Crown. The wealth of Scotland increased apace under
the influence of trade comparatively free; and the political
consequences were important in weakening the connection of the country
with France. At the same time, the authority of the law, which, since
the death of Murray, had been feeble, began to be again vindicated. The
following, from a contemporary eye-witness, will show the progress of
this revolution:--
'The Islanders oppressed the Highlandmen; the Highlanders
tyrannized over their Lowland neighbours; the powerful and
violent in the country domineered over the lives and goods
of their weak neighbours; the Borderers triumphed in the
immunity of their violences to the ports of Edinburgh; that
treasons, murthers, burnings, thefts, reifs, heirships,
hocking of oxen, breaking of mills, destroying of growing
corns, and barbarities of all sorts were exercised in all
parts of the country--no place nor person being exempt or
inviolable--Edinburgh being the ordinary place of butchery,
revenge, and daily fights.... These and all other
abominations, which, settled by inveterate custom and
impunity, appeared to be of desperate remeid, had been so
repressed, punished, and abolished by your Majesty's care,
power, and expenses, as no nation on earth could now
compare with our prosperities.'--(Vol. vi. 283.)
Yet, though Scotland was growing in wealth, and the authority of the
Crown was increasing, the nation, during the last years of this reign,
abounded in discontent and disorder. The Scots seem to have felt
bitterly the transference of their ancient Royal House to an alien and
lately hostile country; and though they had no affection for James, they
resented the visible loss of the monarchy. A High Commissioner and
Council at Edinburgh could not supply the place of the sovereign; the
evils of absenteeism began to be felt in the capital and the rural
districts; and complaints were made that what had been a kingdom was now
treated as a subject province. Dissatisfaction of this kind, however,
was small, compared to the angry sentiments engendered by the
long-standing quarrel between James and the Presbyterian clergy. Puffed
up by the oriental flattery of the courtiers and prelates at Whitehall,
that sagacious ruler formed the design of revolutionizing the Kirk in
Scotland, and of restoring the mode of Church government which the
Reformation had violently overthrown; and he proceeded to his work with
a timid arrogance which provoked contempt and indignation alike. Many
circumstances concurred to second a purpose, which in the next
generation was to culminate in disaster and ruin to the House of
Stuart. The pretensions of the Presbyterian ministry had disgusted many
moderate persons; their despotic claims to spiritual domination had
aroused the jealousy of the national estates; a large party among the
nobility were ready to comply with the wishes of James; and though the
nation was fanatically Protestant, a minority of it had no sympathy with
what they thought was sacerdotal tyranny. The result was that, without
seeming difficulty, Episcopacy was again set up in Scotland; the king
was enabled to boast complacently that he had built up the chief pillar
of the throne, and he even succeeded in introducing innovations into the
simple ritual which had been established after the Reformation. James,
however, prudently abstained from allying aristocratic selfishness with
popular feeling, and did not venture to lay hands on the forfeited
possessions of the Church, long in the ownership of lay families; and,
on the whole, notwithstanding the tone of pompous dictation assumed by
him, he avoided wounding powerful class interests when he insisted upon
the return to 'Prelacy.' His bishops, indeed, were very different
personages from the mitred tyrants who, a century before, had lorded it
over thousands of vassals, and had exasperated Scotland by their pride
and wickedness. They were, for the most part, needy and insignificant
men, who thought a great deal more of 'making ends meet,' and of winning
the royal ear by adulation, than of asserting the claims of the Church,
and they had little in common with the class of the Beatons. Mr. Burton
gives us a most interesting account of their difficulties and
privations, and of the ignoble means some of them took to keep up their
state. We quote an anecdote to that effect:--
'When I was in England his Majesty did promise to me the
making of two serjeants-at-law, and I travailed with some
to that effect, with whom I covenanted, if they were made
serjeants by my means they should give me eleven hundred
pounds sterling the piece, and the projector a hundred
pounds of it for his pains. Now I have received ane letter,
that these same men are called to be serjeants, and has
received his Majesty's writ to that effect, and desires me
to write to them anent that indenting. I beseech you to
know if his Majesty's will is I be paid by that course or
not.'--(Vol. vi. 265.)
This change, however, though it did not provoke a violent revolution in
Scotland, created a large amount of discontent. The Presbyterian clergy
declared that the Kirk had been contaminated and profaned; they kept up
a sullen agitation; and many of their congregations only awaited an
opportunity to revolt openly. Whenever James paid a visit to his
Scottish dominions, which he occasionally did, his devout respect for
the Anglican ritual, his reverence for 'my Lords, the Bishops,' and his
assiduous care about forms and vestments, aroused indignation and
contempt, and before his death it had become evident that a great
religious movement was at hand. The King, however, continued to avert a
passionate explosion during his life; he avoided acts of high-handed
oppression; and it is remarkable that he expressed an unfavourable
opinion of the wrong-headed personage who in the next reign was to
precipitate the catastrophe and bring his son to ruin. We quote James's
account of the character of Laud:--
'The plain truth is, that I keep Laud back from all places
of rule and authority because I find he hath a restless
spirit, and cannot see when matters are well, but loves to
toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of
reformation floating in his own brain, which may endanger
the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass, God be
praised. I speak not at random. He hath made himself known
to me to be such a one; for when, three years since, I had
obtained of the Assembly of Perth to consent to five
articles of order and decency in correspondence with this
Church of England, I gave them promise by attestation of
faith made, that I would try their obedience no further
anent ecclesiastic affairs. Yet this man hath pressed me to
incite them to a nearer conjunction with the liturgy and
canons of this nation.'--(Vol. vi. 339.)
The death of James, in 1625, was the inauguration of a new era in
Scotland. The king, though full of arrogant pretensions, was timid,
feeble, and not without a certain kind of political insight; and if he
had irritated and alarmed the nation, he did not venture to outrage its
feelings or to assail some of its most powerful interests. His
successor, naturally a firmer man, and taught to believe the odious
doctrines of passive obedience and divine right, had no scruples in
overbearing opposition, however stern and national, to the line of
policy he had marked out for himself; and the conscientiousness he
undoubtedly possessed with respect to certain cardinal principles, made
him obstinate in carrying them out in government. Besides, he seems to
have really thought it was no part of the duty of a king to keep faith
with ministers or subjects, that something in his office placed him
outside the pale of ordinary moral obligations; and in addition, like
all the Stuarts, he was especially addicted to favourites, and to lend
an ear to their unwise counsels. Such a man, a bad ruler as it were on
principle, was calculated to precipitate the great revolution which in
England and Scotland alike had been gradually in course of development.
As Mr. Burton truly observes, the teasing, fitful, and hesitating
attempts of James to cross the will of his people, were as nothing to
the steady and resolute efforts with which Charles endeavoured to
accomplish the ends which from the first he had clearly in view. The
battle in Scotland, as might have been expected, commenced upon the
affairs of the Church; and the king, with singular unwisdom, contrived
to unite against him most of the nobility, the Kirk, and the bulk of the
people, and to stir to its depths the national sentiment. There can be
little doubt that Charles intended to force the Anglican system on
Scotland, and to introduce into that kingdom the well-endowed State
Church, the rich courtier prelates, 'the midge-madge of doctrine,' and
the gorgeous ritual which he considered divine in England. His first
step was audaciously to claim the resumption of the revenues of the old
Church of Scotland, which had been forfeited at the Reformation:--
'A proclamation announced the general revocation by the new
king of all grants by the Crown, and all acquisitions to
the prejudice of the Crown, whether before or after his
father's Act of Annexation in 1587. This was virtually the
proclamation of that contest of which King Charles was
destined never to see the end. It proposed to sweep into
the royal treasury the whole of the vast ecclesiastical
estates which had passed into the hands of the territorial
potentates from the Reformation downwards, since it went
back to things done before King James's annexation.'--(Vol.
vi. 355.)
By this wicked and insensate measure, Charles made enemies of all the
powerful men, the leaders of the nobility of Scotland, who were in
possession of ecclesiastical property, and he gave the whole nation a
significant example of the iniquities of mere arbitrary power. But he
was not satisfied with exasperating a class; he proceeded to touch to
the very quick the religious and patriotic feelings of the nation. At
the stroke of a pen he completely changed the ecclesiastical polity of
Scotland, by proclaiming his right to make canons for the Kirk; and he
not only introduced many of these ordinances, but he peremptorily
enjoined the use of forms and symbols in worship for many years detested
in Scotland. This was done, too, with a coarse contempt of Scottish
sentiment which was especially galling; the innovations being thrust
upon the country by English prelates, regarded as aliens. We quote a
specimen of scenes which, doubtless, were not unfrequent at this
juncture:--
'At the back of this altar, covered with tapestry, there
was ane rich tapestry wherein the crucifix was curiously
wrought; and as those bishops who were in service passed by
this crucifix they were seen to bow their knee, and beck,
which, with their habit, was noticed, and bred great fear
of inbringing of Popery.... The Archibishop of St. Andrew's
and four bishops did "the service" "with white rochets and
white sleeves and copes of gold, having blue silk to their
foot." Bishop Laud took Glasgow, and thrust him from the
king with these words, "Are you a Churchman, and wants the
coat of your order?"'--(Vol. vi. 376.)
In this kind of foreign innovation, Laud, now made a royal favourite,
was badly and conspicuously eminent. This meddling priest, who thought
that he could bind the faith of two nations within his formulas, was
made an overseer of the Scottish prelates, and presented to them with
insolent rudeness the ecclesiastical policy they were to adopt. There is
reason to believe they disliked him heartily, while he was execrated by
the Presbyterian clergy. We quote a few words from one of his
dictatorial letters:--
'You are immutably to hold this rule, and that by his
Majesty's strict and most special command--namely, that
yourself, or the Lord Ross, or both of you together, do
privately acquaint the Earl of Traquair; ... and the earl
will readily do all good offices for the Church that come
within his power, according to all such commands as he
shall receive, either immediately from the king, or
otherwise by direction of his Majesty from myself.'--(Vol.
vi. 386.)
By this policy, Charles had contrived to unite the great mass of the
nation against him. The descendants of the lay lords of the Reformation,
the moderate men who reverenced law, the still powerful Presbyterian
clergy and their congregations throughout the country were alarmed,
irritated, and provoked; and signs of discontent were manifest even in
the Council of National Estates. The last drop that made the cup
overflow was the publication of the famous Liturgy of Laud, which,
itself odious to all true Protestants, was forced on the people in a
manner certain to exasperate a high-spirited country. Mr. Burton
criticises at length and learnedly this celebrated attempt on the faith
of Scotland: it must suffice to say that the new Liturgy was in conflict
with all the forms of Scottish worship, devised, as we have seen, from
the Huguenots, which had existed since the Reformation. The scenes that
ensued are well known, and it is not necessary to dwell on them. The
'rabblings' of the angry mobs at Edinburgh, Jenny Geddes and her 'devout
sisters,' the terror that fell on the appointed bishops, were merely
symptoms of the deep indignation which had taken possession of the
people of Scotland; and, in a short time, a general opposition was
organized against the king and his government. How ignorant Charles and
his ministers in England were of the tempest they had waked, will be
seen from the following passage:--
'The truth is, there was so little curiosity either in the
court or the country to know anything of Scotland, or what
was done there, that when the whole nation was solicitous
to know what passed weekly in Germany and Poland, and all
other parts of Europe, no man ever enquired what was doing
in Scotland; nor had that kingdom a place or mention of one
page of any gazette.'--(Vol. vi. 451.)
Meanwhile the opposition to the king in Scotland had assumed a
formidable shape, and throughout the country crowds of 'supplicants,'
demanding a repeal of the obnoxious measures which had been passed
during the preceding years, had formed themselves into regular
assemblies, connected with a central convocation, which expressed
angrily the will of the people. It has been supposed that the Council of
Edinburgh connived, to say the least, with this movement; it certainly
recognised the representative quality of the delegates by treating
officially with them; and the institution of the celebrated 'Tables'
marks the commencement of the great revolution. Charles, however, and
his councillors were unrelenting; and Laud especially distinguished
himself in invoking fire and sword upon the audacious 'rebels.' The
'Tables,' that is, the leading men of the nation, acknowledged as a
lawful power, in direct opposition to the Sovereign, resolved to make
their authority felt; and the famous compact of the 'Covenant' found the
entire sympathy of all classes with them. The Covenant, in fact, was the
solemn protest of Scotland against the wrong done by the king. The
following, from a contemporary account, shows the deep enthusiasm with
which it was welcomed:--
'Gentlemen and noblemen carried copies about in their
portmanteaus or pockets, requiring subscriptions thereunto,
and using their utmost endeavours with their friends in
private for to subscribe. It was subscribed publicly in
churches, ministers exhorting their people thereunto. It
was also subscribed and sworn privately. All had power to
take the oath, and were licensed and welcomed to come in;
and any that pleased had power and license for to carry the
Covenant about with him, and give the oath to such as were
willing to subscribe and swear. And such was the zeal of
many subscribers, that for a while many subscribed with
tears on their cheeks; and it is constantly reported that
some did draw their own blood, and used it in place of ink,
to underwrite their names.'--(Vol. vi. 488.)
Charles now began to act after the fashion which was to lead him at last
to ruin and death. He had not yet alienated the hearts of his people,
and timely concession and simple justice would certainly have allayed
the tempest. But he resolved to dissimulate with them, to hold out hopes
that he would comply with their requests, and, at the same time, to
prepare the means of chastising them as audacious 'rebels.' He sent
Hamilton, as a commissioner, to Scotland, with full power to redress
grievances, with a promise that a General Assembly and a free Parliament
should be convened; but he secretly determined to put down opposition by
sheer military force. If Charles was not what is called a 'bad man,' if
he was not a mere reckless and wicked tyrant, it must be allowed that
the detestable doctrines of kingcraft had poisoned his understanding; he
acted on system, as though he were free from all obligations of good
faith with his subjects. Mr. Burton gives us the following letter,
written to Hamilton at this juncture; it is one of the worst extant
specimens of royal duplicity:--
'And to this end I give you leave to flatter them with what
hopes you please.... This I have written to no other end
than to show you I will rather die than yield to those
impertinent and damnable demands, as you rightly call
them.... As the affairs are now, I do not expect that you
should declare the adherers to the Covenant traitors until,
as I have already said, you have heard from me that my
fleet hath set sail for Scotland.'--(Vol. vi. 505.)
According to the promise given by the king, a General Assembly was now
held, described fully by Mr. Burton. This great convention met at
Glasgow; and Episcopacy was condemned and set aside, as in the days of
the first Reformation. Charles replied by seizing Edinburgh Castle, and
taking possession of the chief Scottish fortresses; and Hamilton openly
issued proclamations denouncing the Covenanters as audacious rebels.
Civil war broke out in 1639; and in a few weeks, an irregular contest
was raging in the east and south-east, and threatening to overrun the
kingdom. At this juncture, Scotland abounded with soldiers trained in
the Thirty Years' War, not mere mercenaries of the Dalgetty type, but
men really fitted to command; and a resolution was formed to march to
the south, and to make an armed demonstration against England. In an
incredibly short time, 22,000 men were arrayed under the orders of
Leslie, and making for the English border--a force relatively to the
population of Scotland, of extraordinary numerical amount, and a
conclusive proof of the enthusiasm of the country. The composition of
this army, led by some of the noblest men in Scotland, shows all
classes, high and low, joined in the movement against the king:--
'Our crouners (that is, colonels) for the most part were
noblemen. Rothes, Lindsay, Sinclair, had among them two
full regiments, at least, from Fife. Balcarras, a horse
troop; Loudon, Montgomery, Erskine, Boyd, Fleming,
Kirkcudbright, Yester, Dalhousie, Eglinton, and others,
either with whole or half regiments. Montrose's regiment
was above fifteen hundred men.'--(Vol. vii. 56.)
The Scottish army having reached the Border, the king consented to the
brief truce known by the name of the Pacification of Berwick. Once more
Charles made specious promises with a resolution to break faith: the
wishes of the nation were to be respected; Episcopacy was not to be
restored; Presbyterianism was to be the form of Church government; and
the National Estates were to sanction the reforms confirmed by a
paternal and high-minded sovereign. The Parliament, however, was hardly
assembled before it was indefinitely prorogued; and there is ample
evidence that Charles intended, as soon as an opportunity came, to
invade Scotland, and take summary vengeance. At this juncture, the
Scottish leaders unquestionably remembered the 'Ancient League,' and
looked to France and Richelieu for aid; and if we cannot approve their
purpose, we at least should remember the great provocation. The king
thought that the time had arrived to inflict punishment on the 'rebels
of the North;' he felt assured that the old English jealousy of a
political connection between Scotland and France would throw all England
upon his side; and he issued orders for a general armament, for the
invasion and even the conquest of Scotland. But, at this crisis,
political sympathy got the better of past national dislikes; and
England, as a people, was averse to aid the king in crushing discontent
beyond the Tweed. For a series of years the government of Charles had
provoked indignation in England, only less than that which existed in
Scotland; the tyranny of Strafford and the arrogance of Laud had
combined the Constitutional and Puritan parties, and a great revolution
was fast approaching. The future chiefs of the Long Parliament
co-operated with the Scottish malcontents; and Charles found it
impossible to collect a sufficient army to carry out his purpose. Mr.
Burton describes the situation thus:--
'The result is described by one on whom heavy
responsibility lay--the Earl of Northumberland, who was to
command the army of the North: "Most of the ways that were
relied on for supplies of money have hitherto failed us,
and, for aught I know, we are likely to become the most
despised nation of Europe. To the regiments that are now
raising, we, for want of money, have been able to advance
but fourteen days' pay--the rest must meet them upon their
march towards Selby, and for both the horse and foot
already in the North, we can, for the present, send them
but seven days' pay." Those who were considered liable to
serve in the army resisted the conscription; and when
embodied, they were often so mutinous as to be more
dangerous to their officers than they were likely to be to
the enemy.'--(Vol. vii. 99.)
The Scottish army, as is well known, encountered no opposition on the
Tweed, and, having taken Newcastle, was advancing southwards, when its
progress was stayed by the Treaty of Ripon. The sword had been struck
out of the hands of the king; his English subjects had refused to second
his efforts against their ancient enemies; and, in England and Scotland
alike, the national cause was about to triumph. From this time, the
chiefs of the opposition to the court cooperated in the two countries;
and the acts of the Long Parliament and the Scottish Estates were, in a
great degree, of the same kind, and had objects almost similar. Mr.
Burton, however, correctly shows that Scotland certainly has the honour
of having inaugurated this glorious resistance; but for the resolution
displayed by the nation, it is not impossible that Stratford's scheme of
'Thorough' might have been successful for many years, and the
constitutional liberties of England might have been suspended for at
least a generation. Mr. Burton describes at some length the visit of the
Scottish Commissioners to London, and the first proceedings of the Long
Parliament; but we have no space to dwell on a subject which, however
interesting and picturesque, belongs more properly to the History of
England. In 1640-41, the Scottish Estates were convened in accordance
with the conditions of the Treaty of Ripon, and it became evident, at
once, that the authority of the king would be swept away by a violent
revolution. This Assembly, formerly little more than an instrument of
the will of the king, was now intent on putting an end to the policy and
the power of Charles; it was overflowing with religious zeal and with
national, if not democratic passion; and it resolved once for all that
the House of Stuart should no longer trifle with the rights of Scotsmen.
As Scotland had suffered more grievously than England from the tyranny
of the court, the legislation of the Estates was more violent than that
of the Long Parliament, and marked more strongly with precipitate haste;
on the whole, it does not contrast favourably with that of the English
Assembly; but, undoubtedly, not a few of its measures served as
precedents for the Long Parliament, in the later stages of the conflict
with Charles. For instance, after destroying Episcopacy, and sweeping
away all the innovations in Church and State of the twenty years before,
the Estates proceeded practically to abolish the prerogatives of the
Crown in Scotland; and the course they took seems to have suggested the
Nineteen Propositions of the Long Parliament:--
'One of the points which the Estates had determined to
carry, was the appointment, by themselves, of all public
officers. The Secret Council and the Court of Session were
recast, the appointments being made in two separate Acts.
In a general Act, applicable to Government offices at
large, the king's form of appointment is treated with all
reverence; but, at the same time, it is to be exercised in
each instance "with the advice and approbation" of the
Estates.'--(Vol. vii. 140.)
It was not to be expected, after this, that a revolution could be
avoided. Charles, unquestionably, resolved to draw the sword as soon as
an opportunity offered; the Estates, backed by the mass of the nation,
were as determined to maintain their advantage. When such were the
feelings on either side, there is little use in examining with care how
or by whom the Civil War was commenced. But, as in the case of the Five
Members, so in that of the mysterious Incident, the king seems to have
acted with that treacherous malice which so often provoked the
indignation of his subjects; and after this event, war was inevitable.
The great Irish rebellion of 1641 came to add fuel to the gathering
flame; and Scotland, like England, was impressed with the belief that
Charles had connived at an infamous scheme of overthrowing the colonists
of Ireland, and of marshalling a Papist Irish army to put down the
Estates and the Parliament. Mr. Burton examines at some length the
evidence against the king in this matter, and certainly is not inclined
to acquit him; however that may be, it is somewhat curious that he does
not allude to a most significant fact, that the alleged commission to
the rebellious Irish was given under the great seal of Scotland, and was
said to be in the interest of the Scotch, and that the Irish carefully
avoided to lay a hand, at first, on the Scottish colonists, while they
massacred wholesale their English fellows. Civil war now broke out in
England and Scotland; and for some time, as is well known, success
inclined to the side of the king. Mr. Burton describes the brilliant
campaigns of Montrose in the North minutely and well; but he shows
correctly that they were mere raids, of which the importance has been
exaggerated; and Montrose was defeated without difficulty, when
encountered by a really able soldier. The real struggle was in the
South; and Mr. Burton, perhaps, underrates the extraordinary efforts of
Cromwell in restoring the Parliamentary cause, and overestimates the
weight which Leslie and the Scottish army threw into the balance.
Undoubtedly, however, Leslie and the Scots were auxiliaries of extreme
importance. We quote this brief description of Marston Moor, where
Leslie and Cromwell commanded together:--
'Prince Rupert headed one of those impetuous attacks for
which he was renowned, and scattered before him the right
of the allied army under Fairfax and Leven. It was one of
those great blows that may confuse a whole army; but the
other half was in very competent hands--those of Cromwell
and David Leslie. They beat back their opponents, not by a
rush, but a hard, steady fight, and were on the enemy's
ground, when Rupert returned from a pursuit which he had
carried too far. He found that while he had been away
pursuing the defeated enemy, events behind him had arranged
matters for a second battle, in which each occupied the
ground that earlier in the day, had belonged to the other
side. The end was an entire victory.'--(Vol. vii. 180.)
Meanwhile the Solemn League and Covenant had attested the Union of
England and Scotland, and the celebrated Assembly of Divines at
Westminster had been employed in devising means for establishing one
faith in both kingdoms. The inherent difference between the
Protestantism of the two countries was fully developed. The Scottish
Presbyterians, true to the narrowness and bigotry of their peculiar
tenets, claimed that the Kirk was of Divine institution, and endeavoured
to compel a universal adoption of its ritual and forms of worship. These
vain pretensions were strenuously opposed by the Parliament, broad and
Erastian in view, and by the great mass of the Puritan party, trained by
the results of the persecution of years to acknowledge the rights of
freedom of conscience. Disputes, leading to memorable consequences, were
the result of these divergent views which Mr. Burton has fully set
forth:--
'To the Scottish covenanters the calling of this Assembly,
and the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant as
revised by it, were rapidly bringing on the consummation of
that great scheme of Divine Providence destined to
establish the Presbyterian polity over all mankind. The
government of the Church by a General Assembly, Synod,
Presbyteries, and Kirk Sessions, was the divine form of
Church government, and all others must dissolve before
it.... The Parliament, however, had other views, and
skilfully prepared for the consummation. There lurked at
that time, in the class of men who made the Parliament and
the influential circles, a disinclination to reconstruct
any strong priesthood.... The Brownists, Independents, or
Congregationalists, were a large body in England, and had
been growing, even in Scotland, too rapidly for the peace
of the Covenanting party. Their principle was, that there
should be no combined system of Church government, whether
prelatic or Presbyterian, but that each Christian
congregation should be a church in itself.'--(Vol. vii.
209.)
The civil war had gone on during these long and important discussions.
The genius of Cromwell and the power of his army had everywhere overcome
the Royalists; and the great Republican had become the arbiter of the
situation, and supreme in England. In these circumstances the auxiliary
force of the Scots became of little importance, and jealousies had
already begun to grow up between the soldiers of the two nations. As is
well known, the unfortunate king repaired to the Scottish camp, and the
Scottish leaders delivered him up to Commissioners of the Parliament for
a sum of money. We quote Mr. Burton's account of this transaction,
which, if not so base as has been described by writers of the Junius
type, does little credit to Scottish honour:--
'Apart from any question about trust, had the king really
fled from enemies to find refuge with friends? The Scots
army were older and steadier enemies than the English. It
was in the future, no doubt, that in England he was to be
put to death; but the Scots had no more reason to expect
this of the English than to be themselves suspected of such
a design; and it was not by the party to whom he was
intrusted or "sold" by the Scots that he was put to death,
but by the enemies of that party. The Scots had made up
their minds to return home when their arrears were paid.
They could not keep the king except by taking him with them
into Scotland, and such an act would have implied at once
suspicion and hostility towards those who had been so long
their allies. The Scots showed in what they afterwards
attempted for him and his son, that, had he agreed to their
terms, and consented to be a Presbyterian king over a
Presbyterian people, they would have fought for him instead
of "selling" him.'--(Vol. vii. 236.)
It is unnecessary to dwell on the melancholy scene of the execution of
Charles I. In his case, as in that of Mary Stuart, sufferings and a
violent death endured with dignity, have atoned, in the eyes of many
persons, for misgovernment and political crimes. This event was the
signal for an open rupture between the leaders of the various parties
which, in England and Scotland alike, had accomplished the great
revolution of the time. The English Independents, already supreme under
Cromwell and his invincible army, had resolved to establish the
Commonwealth, and to set up Puritanism as the national faith; the Scots
insisted on placing Charles II. on the throne as a covenanting King, and
on Presbyterianism as the church of these realms. A brief but decisive
struggle ensued, which, as might have been expected, ended in the
overthrow of the weaker country, and the complete ascendancy of the
great soldier who had never yet met his equal in the field. Mr. Burton
describes at some length the 'crowning mercies' of Dunbar and Worcester,
but we have no space to refer to the narrative. In the settlement of the
religious affairs of Scotland, the breadth of view and even the
toleration of Cromwell contrast favourably with the high-flown
pretensions and narrow-mindedness of the Presbyterian clergy, who
approved themselves the Pharisees of pedantic formalism. His grand
exclamation--'In the bowels of Christ, I beseech you think that you may
be mistaken,' shows that he recognised one of the principles which in
matters of faith enjoins charity. We quote Mr. Burton's account of the
closing of the General Assembly:--
'Lieutenant-Colonel Cotterel beset the Church with some
rattes of musketeers and a troop of horse. Himself (after
our fast, wherein Mr. Dickson and Mr. Douglas had two
gracious sermons) entered the Assembly House, and
immediately after Mr. Dixon, the moderator, his prayer,
required audience, wherein he inquired if we did sit there
by the authority of the Parliament of the commonwealth of
England, or of the commander-in-chief of the English
forces, or of the English judges in Scotland. The moderator
replied, that we were an ecclesiastical synod, a spiritual
Court of Jesus Christ, which meddled not with any thing
civil; that our authority was from God, and established by
the laws of the land, yet standing unrepealed; that by the
Solemn League and Covenant the most of the English army
stood obliged to defend our General Assembly. When some
speeches of this kind had passed, the lieutenant-colonel
told us his order was to dissolve us; whereupon he
commanded all of us to follow him, else he would drag us
out of the room.... Thus our General Assembly, the glory
and strength of our Church upon earth, is by your soldiery
crushed and trod under foot, without the least provocation
from us at this time in word or deed.'--(Vol. vii. 303.)
It is, however, but just to add that Cromwell did not countenance this
violence; and though the General Assembly was closed, no restriction
existed during his _régime_ on the exercise of the Presbyterian form of
worship.
The northern and southern parts of our island were now under the rule of
Cromwell, the Long Parliament having been swept away, and the great
soldier wholly supreme. Even the worst enemies of the Protector must
allow that in Scotland, as elsewhere, his government was in advance of
his time, and, if despotic, was wise and judicious. After long
conflicts, the nation was at rest; and if its patriotic spirit was
quelled, it enjoyed a large share of real freedom, and grew rapidly in
material wealth. Though the Kirk was no longer established, all forms of
Protestantism were tolerated and favoured; and the Catholic nobles also
had no cause to complain of the harshness of the civil magistrate. In
governing the country Cromwell gave proof of that profound policy and
anticipation of the future, which marks him out as one of the greatest
of statesmen. All restraints on commerce were removed. Scotland was
completely united to England; the feudal jurisdiction of the great
nobles and Highland chiefs was summarily abolished; and forts, armed
with sufficient garrisons, kept the half-barbarous clans in subjection.
In a word, all the capital reforms which it took a century after the
Restoration to introduce into Scotland again, were, in a few years,
carried out by Cromwell; and it is but the truth that his Scottish
policy was a model for three generations of statesmen. Under his
far-sighted and firm government the country began to thrive apace. We
quote from a contemporary chronicler this curious account of Leith and
Glasgow:--
'The town of Leith is of itself a pretty, small town, and
fortified about; having a convenient dry harbour, into
which the Frith ebbs and flows every tide, and a convenient
quay on the one side thereof, of a good length, for the
landing of goods. This place formerly, and so at this time,
is indeed a store-house, not only for her own traders, but
also for the merchants of the City of Edinburgh, this being
the port thereof.... Glasgow, seated in a pleasant and
fruitful soil, and consisting of four streets, handsomely
built in form of a cross, is one of the most considerable
burghs of Scotland, as well for the structure as trade of
it. The inhabitants, all but the students of the college
which is here, are traders and dealers.'--(Vol. vii. 313.)
Our space precludes us from dwelling at length on the history of
Scotland after the death of Cromwell, described fully by Mr. Burton. As
is well known, a loyal reaction set in, in favour of Charles II., and
this was followed by a period of tyranny in Church and State of extreme
severity. Not only were proscriptions frequent, and the scaffold crowded
with many victims, but the legislation of 1641 was cancelled, Episcopacy
was insolently restored, the authority of the Crown considerably
increased, and Presbyterianism barely allowed to maintain a weak and
inglorious existence. The era, indeed, of the ascendancy of Sharp, and
of the tender mercies of Claverhouse and his dragoons, was one of
darkness and sorrow in Scotland--it far exceeded in its melancholy
features that of the Cavalier reaction in England; and the question
arises why a nation, which had proved itself so fiercely tenacious of
its independence in the preceding generation, submitted for years to
this cruel oppression. Mr. Burton has hardly brought out sufficiently
the causes of this remarkable quiescence, which are of deep interest to
the student of history. They are, we think, to be found in the facts
that, after the exertions of the great civil war, Scotland was, in a
great degree, exhausted; that after the Restoration, the power of the
Crown was upheld for the first time by a standing army, not large, but
formidable; and, above all, that the Government avoided one capital
error of Charles I.--it conciliated instead of injuring the nobles, and
did not attempt to assail their interests by threatening to resume the
old Church revenues. Worn out, borne down, and without leaders, the
nation was for a time submissive; its discontent exhibited itself in a
few occasional risings only; and Lauderdale, Charles II., and his
brother were allowed a season to fill up the measure of iniquity and
wrong. At last the fierce awakening came. But it should be observed that
at this conjuncture the movement for freedom began in England; and if
Scotland inaugurated the events which led to the meeting of the Long
Parliament, she played a very subordinate part in the Revolution of
1688. The passages of that memorable time are not narrated in this work,
so it is not necessary to allude to them. An estimate of Mr. Burton's
history will be gathered from what we have already written. It is
deficient as a picturesque narrative; it sometimes, as may be supposed,
displays a too fervent national patriotism; but it is singularly
well-informed and complete, and its conclusions on men and events are
usually careful, correct, and judicious.
ART. II.--_Early English Texts. Publications of the Early English Text
Society._ London: Trübner and Co. 1864-70.
'O Poesy divine! O sacred song!
To thee bright fame, and length of days belong:
Thou goddess, thou eternity canst give,
And bid secure the mortal hero live.'
Thus sings Nicholas Rowe in his translation of the poet Lucan; but can
we agree with the sentiment expressed? It is partly true and partly
false, for although the poet possesses this wonderful power, he himself
creates an enemy that wars against his own and his hero's immortality,
and this enemy is the medium he uses to express his thoughts. Few men
will take the trouble to learn a language for the special purpose of
enjoying an author's works, and therefore for the many it is requisite
that some one should be ready and willing to reintroduce the old writer
into new society. The poet Waller feared that the time would come when
his countrymen would be unable to understand his writings, and he thus
expressed his fear--
'Poets that lasting marble seek,
Must carve in Latin or in Greek:
We write in sand, our language grows,
And like the tide our work o'erflows.'
This is, of course, an extreme view, and time has proved it to be a
false one; but the writers of the centuries previous to Waller are
already in the position that he expected soon to be in himself. Chaucer
is a household name, but we fear that few read his works, and still
fewer the works of those who went before him. This is a state of things
that should not be allowed to exist; but that it does exist, no one
would be rash enough to deny. We do not blame those who neglect foreign
literatures, but we do blame those who turn away from the authors of
their own land because there is some little difficulty in understanding
their writings.
It cannot be right that the literature of England for eight or ten
centuries should be quietly ignored by Englishmen, because it is not
easy to read its language; and, moreover, this difficulty is much
exaggerated, for although a Saxon book may, without previous study,
appear as if written in a foreign tongue, yet the few difficulties of
its language will in a graduated study speedily disappear. The pedigree
is complete that takes us back from the language of the nineteenth to
that of the fifth century. Both in language and literature it is
emphatically true that the child is father of the man, and no one can
thoroughly appreciate the greatness of Shakspeare, Milton, and our
moderns, who has not contrasted them with the authors who preceded them;
no one can rightly judge the force of words and phrases, who has not
followed them up to their sources, and seen the meads of thought they
have flowed through.
Not long ago the early history, language, and literature of England were
thought to be unworthy of study. Men of culture studied the languages
and literatures of France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, but utterly
neglected the early literature and language of their own country, which
were considered rude and unworthy of attention. We do not expect to find
any among the uneducated caring for the old forms of speech, but it is a
disappointment to find men of education, who ought to be justly proud of
the grandest literature in the world, treating our old writers with
neglect. This feeling of contempt for our early literature is by no
means yet destroyed, and therefore no lover of the work done by his
ancestors should rest until it is entirely and for ever eradicated.
In the old English literature there is a choice for all tastes: history,
biography, theology, science, romance, lyrics, and merry tales, have all
come down to us from the earliest times, and in them may be seen the
gradual development of the nation's mind. It should be a cause of pride
for the Englishman to remember that the links in the chain that connects
the language of Tennyson with the language of Alfred are all perfect.
Shall we, then, allow the treasures of the past to crumble and decay? We
are now living in the enjoyment of an intellectual feast that centuries
of our forefathers have prepared for us; and shall we in return leave to
our children less than we have ourselves received? Are we not bound
rather to take no rest until all our MS. treasures are placed beyond the
reach of decay? The printing press must not be allowed to pause in its
work until every line is set in type. Nothing is more likely to
encourage our desire to attempt this great work than for us to see what
has been done of old. All honour is due to the unnamed writer of the
Vernon MS.,[172] to Shirley and Thornton, the contemporaries of Chaucer
and Lyndesay, who recognised the value of the treasures that came in
their way, and copied MS. libraries that have survived in safety to our
times. The man who has consulted the grand Vernon MS. in the Bodleian
Library has obtained a glimpse of the olden time, with its noble desire
to benefit posterity, that he is never likely to forget.
The student, however, may naturally ask, 'Where can I study these works?
I can't read at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, or London; and even if I
could I don't understand the writing. I want the books in print, and not
only in print, but in an accessible form.' It is this question that we
will attempt to answer; this want that we will try to show can be
satisfied.
Various worthy men have at different times laboured to diffuse a
knowledge of our old literature, and societies have been formed for the
same purpose. Hickes, Junius, Gale, Lye, the two Elstobs, and many
others, are editors whose works have been so widely circulated that we
need hardly dwell on them; but the issues of printing clubs are less
known, and we therefore propose to summarize them. In 1812, the
Roxburghe Club was instituted in London, to commemorate the grand sale
of the Duke of Roxburghe's library, and although many trifling matters
were printed by its members, yet through its aid several important texts
have been brought to light. In 1818, John Gower's 'French Ballads' and
other poems were printed; in 1819, Caxton's translation of six books of
'Ovid's Metamorphoses,' 'Le Morte Arthure,' and 'Sir Lancelot du Lake;'
in 1828, 'Havelok the Dane;' in 1832, 'William and the Werwolf;' in
1838, 'The Owl and the Nightingale,' and Old English versions of the
'Gesta Romanorum,' and in later years the 'Alliterative Romance of
Alexander,' the 'Ayenbite of Inwyt,' and the 'History of the Holy
Graal.'
In 1823, the Bannatyne Club was started at Edinburgh, and in 1827, it
printed the 'Palice of Honor,' by Gawin Douglas, and in 1839, a
collection of all the poems relating to Sir Gawayne, and Douglas's
translation of the 'Æneid of Virgil,' which it has left without preface,
glossary, or notes.
In 1828, the Maitland Club was founded in Glasgow, and it printed three
old romances, viz.: 'Clariodus,' 'Sir Beves of Hamptoun,' and 'Lancelot
du Lak.'
The Abbotsford Club commenced its career in 1835, at Edinburgh, and
printed several romances from the Auchinleck MS., as 'Rouland,' and
'Vernagu,' and 'Otuel,' 'Arthour and Merlin,' 'Sir Guy of Warwick,' and
'Rembrun,' and 'Sire Degarre.'
The Spalding Club, which was founded in 1839, at Aberdeen, printed
Barbour's 'Brus' in 1856.
Although the publications of these clubs are very praiseworthy, and
have done much good, the number of copies is so small, and their
commercial value so great, that they are placed almost as far beyond the
reach of the ordinary literary man as the manuscripts themselves. We
believe that all true lovers of their country's literature will echo the
words of a living editor quoted in the first prospectus of the Early
English Text Society. 'I should rejoice to see my books in the hands of
a hundred, where they are now on the shelves of one.'
Soon after the select printing clubs were started, a more popular
movement set in, with the foundation in 1834 at Durham of the excellent
Surtees Society. Although its publications are mostly of an historical
or local character, it has issued several literary relics, such as 'The
Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter,' 'Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon
Church,' and 'The Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels.'
Four years afterwards, the Camden Society was started in London, and
from 1838 to the present time it has continued to publish a most
valuable collection of works. Its chief object has been to advance
historical studies, but it has issued the 'Thornton Romances,'
comprising the early English romances of Perceval, Isumbras, Eglamour,
and Degravant; three early English metrical romances--viz., 'The Anturs
(or Adventures) of Arther at the Tarnewathelan, Sir Amadace, the
Avowynge of King Arther, Sir Gawan, Sir Kaye, and Sir Bawdewyn of
Bretan;' 'The Ancren Riwle,' a treatise on the rules and duties of
monastic life; an 'Apology for Lollard Doctrines' attributed to
Wicliffe; and Mr. Way's invaluable edition of the old English and Latin
Dictionary, entitled 'Promptorium Parvulorum.'
All students of English literature owe a debt of gratitude to the Percy
Society, which was founded in 1840. Unfortunately it did not meet with
the success that it deserved, and died a natural death after some
unfortunate dissension among its editors. Nevertheless, it published in
a convenient form, among other works, 'Selections from the Minor Poems
of John Lydgate;' 'The Owl and the Nightingale' from a better MS. than
that which the Roxburghe Club had printed; 'Reynard the Fox;' 'Poems of
John Audelay;' 'Romance of Syr Tryamoure;' 'Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,'
from the oldest and perhaps the best manuscript known; 'Songs and Carols
of the fifteenth century;' and William de Shoreham's 'Religious Poems.'
In 1843, the Cheetham Society was formed at Manchester, in order to
print the historical and literary remains connected with the palatine
counties of Lancaster and Chester; and the Ælfric Society in London, for
the publication of Anglo-Saxon works, both civil and ecclesiastical.
The Caxton Society was started in 1845, and the Warton Club in 1854.
The late Canon Shirley at one time projected a Wycliffe Society, which
was to print our great reformer's works, but instead he induced the
Oxford delegates to undertake the task, and after great labour he
published, in 1865, his catalogue of Wycliffe's works. His lamented
death has not stopped the undertaking, and one volume of the Latin works
has been published at Oxford, and three of the English ones are nearly
ready for issue.
In January, 1857, the Master of the Rolls submitted to the Treasury a
proposal for the publication of materials for the history of this
country from the invasion of the Romans to the reign of Henry VIII.,
which has resulted in the issue of the valuable series of chronicles and
memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the middle ages. Many of
these works are in Latin and French, but among those to be mentioned as
written in English are Capgrave's 'Chronicle,' Pecock's 'Repressor,'
Cockayne's 'Saxon Leechdoms,' the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,' and Wright's
'Political Poems and Songs.'
We have now scoured the field and shown shortly what had been done
before the formation of the Early English Text Society. This was but
little, for there was a mass of unprinted literature entirely unknown
and unregistered, and it was felt by a few lovers of early English that
the time had come when the great work of producing this literature in
cheap editions must be grappled with.
The Philological Society commenced in 1858 with the occasional
publication of some Old English MSS., and issued 'Early English Poems
and Lives of Saints,' 1250-1406; 'The Play of the Sacrament;' 'Liber
Cure Cocorum,' a cookery book in verse; Hampole's 'Pricke of
Conscience;' and the 'Castel off Love.' In 1864, these texts were
discontinued, and a few of the members of the Philological Society
'formed a committee for the purpose of collecting subscriptions, and
printing therewith early English manuscripts.' From this small beginning
the Early English Text Society has grown to its present flourishing
condition, with a yearly income of over £900.
The publications of the Society are naturally of a very varied
character, but they may be divided under four heads. There are first the
Arthurian and other romances; and these form a large, and probably the
most popular class, for they were the light literature of our
ancestors, and in them we see as in a mirror the love for war and women,
and for action of all kinds. Few of these are of native growth, but are
translations from the French.
The second division consists of works illustrating our dialects and the
history of our language, including a series of early English
dictionaries. Some of these last are of great value and interest, and we
are glad to see that the Committee propose to edit some which will form
worthy companions to the 'Promptorium Parvulorum' of the Camden Society.
A rare old rhyming dictionary has already been issued, and it is
proposed to bring out shortly the 'Catholicon Anglicum' from Lord
Monson's MS. This is a dictionary of a slightly later date than the
'Promptorium,' which contains many new and unregistered words. To this
second division all the texts may be said to belong more or less,
because most of the editors give careful glossaries and introductions on
the dialect of their authors. Dr. Morris's introductions, especially,
are the only real grammars of our early language, and are of the
greatest value to the student of the history of the formation of our
tongue.
The third division consists of Biblical translations and religious
treatises; and the fourth of texts, such as 'Piers Plowman,' which do
not come under either of the three first headings.
We will now pass in review some of the works issued by the Society, and
we shall do so according to their dates, beginning with the 12th
century.
The most valuable monuments of our language are chiefly of a theological
character, and in 'Old English Homilies'[173] Dr. Morris has given us a
deeply interesting collection, from which a curious insight into the
religious views of the time may be obtained. Much of the religious
teaching of these old preachers was of an evangelical character, and is
but little mixed up with the legends of later writers. One writes: 'We
must forsake the broad way which leads to hell, and choose the narrow
and green way along the high cliffs which leads to heaven, where there
are no earthly luxuries, but where the sight of God alone constitutes
the eternal life, bliss, and rest of his saints.' In the homily on the
Lord's-day the author tells the curious legend of St. Paul's and St.
Michael's descent into hell, and how they obtained for the damned one
day's rest in the week unto doomsday. He admonishes all to honour the
Sunday, and fortifies his position thus:--'We ought to honour Sunday
very much, and to observe it in all purity, for it hath in it three
worthy virtues which ye may hear. The first virtue is that it on earth
gives rest to all earth-thralls, men and women, from their thrall works.
The second virtue is in heaven, because the angels rest themselves more
than on any other day. The third virtue is that the wretched souls in
hell have rest from their great torments.'
In the 'Story of Genesis and Exodus,'[174] the author has versified the
most important facts contained in those books, and has included portions
of Numbers and Deuteronomy, so as to give a complete history of the
wanderings of the Israelites, and the life of their leader Moses. The
poet (of whom nothing is known) invokes the aid of the Deity in these
terms:--
'Fader god of alle ðhinge,
Almightin louerd, hegest kinge,
ðu giue me seli timinge,
To thaunen ðis werdes biginninge,
ðe, leuerd god, to wurðinge,
Queðer so hic rede or singe!'[175]
He then goes on to relate, in a spirited manner, the chief incidents of
the Bible narrative. Lamech's bigamy is thus referred to:--
'ðis Lamech was ðe firme[176] man
ðe bigamie first bi-gan.
Bigamie is unkinde[177] ðing,
On engleis tale, twie-wifing.'