They were all met to the preaching upon a certain day, the date of which

is not given, but which was presumably in the summer of 1547, Knox

having arrived with his pupils in St. Andrews in the Easter of that

year. The principal persons present were aware of what was coming, and

probably the mass of the congregation knew that some event more than

ordinary was preparing, which would quicken the eagerness of their

attention. The sermon was upon the right of the congregation to the

services of "any man in whom they espied the gifts of God," and the risk

on his part of refusing their call. Mair, sitting by in his doctor's

gown, though he had committed himself to no religious heresy, had

discoursed much to his students upon the rights of the people as the

source of power--a doctrine, indeed, which Knox did not hold in that

naked form, though most probably he had been influenced by these

teachings towards the still more tremendous form of doctrine which sets

forth the voice of the Christian people as representing the voice of

God. And no doubt up to this point he gave his adhesion to the words of

the preacher. But when Rough had reached the crown of his argument he

suddenly turned to where Knox sat and addressed him individually, while

the people held their breath.

"Brother," he said, "ye shall not be offended albeit that I speak unto

you that which I have in charge even from all those that are here

present: which is this. In the name of God and of His Son Jesus Christ,

and in the name of those that presently call you by my mouth, I charge

you that ye refuse not this holy vocation, but that as you tender the

glory of God, the increase of Christ His kingdom, the edification of

your brethren, and the comfort of me, whom ye understand well enough to

be oppressed by the multitude of labours, that you take upon you the

public office and charge of preaching even as ye look to avoid God's

heavy displeasure and desire that He shall multiply His grace with you."

And in the end he said to those present, "Was not this your charge to

me? and do ye not approve this vocation?" They answered, "It was, and we

approve it." "Whereat the said John, abashed, burst forth in most

abundant tears and withdrew himself to his chamber."

It would be difficult to find a more striking scene. Any sudden incident

of an individual character thus occurring in a public assembly calls

forth a thrill of interest, and gives at once to the most disconnected

crowd a pictorial unity. The interest and excitement in those roused and

eager eyes, the crowd all turned towards the astonished subject of this

appeal, the soft young faces making a little circle round him, half

terrified, half flattered by the sudden consciousness that all eyes were

turned towards them, would make a fine theme for a historical painter.

And "the said John, abashed," finding no refuge in the great excitement

and surprise of the moment, he so stern and so strong, but in tears! It

was thus that the ministry of the great Reformer began.

It is unnecessary to follow in detail a career so well known. Every

particular of it, and even the sermons with all their heads, may be

found in the _Historie of the Reformation in Scotland_, which yields in

interest, in picturesqueness and the most living and graphic power of

narrative, to none of the primitive chronicles. No professional

word-painter has ever put a dramatic scene, a contention, a battle, such

as those which were everyday occurrences in Scotland at that time, upon

paper with more pictorial force, or with half the fervour of life and

reality. The writer goes through all the gamut of popular passion. He

exults sometimes fiercely, laughs sometimes coarsely, throws in "a merry

jest," which is often grim with savage humour; but throughout all is

always real, always genuine, writing not impartially, but with the

strong conviction and sentiment of a man elucidating matters in which he

has been himself a prominent actor. The arguments of his adversaries

when he enters upon a public controversy are unaccountably feeble, which

perhaps may be explained by the fact that the friars were not much

accustomed to controversy, perhaps by the natural bias of a

controversialist to lessen the force of his antagonists' arguments; and

he does not pretend to contemplate his adversaries, either spiritual or

political, with any tolerance, or permit any possibility that they too

might perhaps mean well and have a righteous intention, even though it

was entirely opposed to that of John Knox: such ideas had no currency in

his day. That Mary of Guise might really mean and wish to avoid

bloodshed, to strike no blow that was not inevitable, to keep the breach

from being widened by actual civil war; and that the policy of

temporising as long as that was possible was anything but wicked wiles

and intentions of betrayal, was an idea which he would seem to have been

incapable of conceiving. This is a drawback perhaps common to every

struggle so important and fundamental as was the strife which began to

rage in Scotland. Had we a history compiled by the spectators to whom we

have referred it would probably, unless nature gave them an exceptional

keenness of vision, be wanting in those qualities of animation and force

which he who is confident of having every good influence on his side,

and nothing but the powers of evil against him, is likely to possess.

Major indeed was a historian, but he did not meddle with the history of

his own time; and Buchanan, while separated from the reader by the bonds

and cerements of his Latin, and therefore shut out from a popular

audience, is as great a partisan as Knox.

The little garrison of St. Andrews was taken, as everybody knows, by the

French, and carried away to prison and the galleys; but no blood was

shed to avenge the blood of Beatoun, a point which ought to be put to

their credit. John Knox suffered all these misfortunes with a steadfast

soul, still declaring to all who surrounded him, in the extremity of

suffering, hardship, and sickness, that he should again preach in that

Church of St. Andrews from which he had been taken. This is the first of

the many prophecies completely verified afterwards with which he is

credited. He escaped after about three years of captivity and misery in

France, during which he would seem to have been actually employed in the

galleys, and came to England, where it is to be supposed the story of

his influence and power with the Scotch Reformers had preceded him,

otherwise the advancement to which he reached, and which might have been

greater but for his dissatisfaction with the imperfectly Reformed Church

there, and the bondage of ceremonials and traditions still left in it,

would have been still more extraordinary. He was one of the chaplains to

the boy-king Edward, for whom he had the amiable prejudice common to

those who secure the favour of very young princes, expecting from him

everything that was great and good. At the death of the young King,

however, Knox removed hurriedly to the Continent with many others,

knowing that under the reign of Mary there would be little acceptance

for men of his views. During his stay in England he had met with a pair

of ladies who were henceforward to be very closely connected with his

life--Marjory Bowes, his future wife, and to all appearance still more

important her mother, Mrs. Bowes, to whom, contrary to the ordinary idea

of that relationship, he seems to have given much regard and affection,

notwithstanding that she was a melancholy woman, depressed and

despondent, sometimes overwhelmed with religious terrors, and requiring

continued support and encouragement in the faith. One cannot help

feeling a sort of compassion for the silent Marjory, of whom nothing is

ever heard, between her solemn lover of fifty and her sad mother. But

she is voiceless, and though there are letters of religious counsel

addressed to her under the title of "weill belovit sister," there is not

among them all, so strange is the abstract effect of religious

exhortation thus applied, one gleam of anything like individual

character, or which can throw any light upon what she was; which,

considering the marked individuality of the writer, is curious

exceedingly. We must hope that on other occasions, notwithstanding his

mature years, there were letters calculated to give more satisfaction to

a young woman than these expositions and addresses.

For the next two years Knox, now it is evident universally known

wherever the Reformation had penetrated, filled the place of minister to

a congregation of exiles assembled at Geneva, most of them refugees from

England, who had fled, as he himself had done, at the accession of Mary.

But his heart was in his own land, where in the meantime the progress of

the new Reformed faith was arrested, and silence and discouragement had

fallen over the country. The leaders were dispersed or destroyed, the

preachers silenced, and there was no one to gather together the many

groups of believers all over the country in whose hearts the seed had

sprung up strongly, but who as yet had made no public profession. In

1555 Knox suddenly reappeared in Scotland, brought thither at once by

urgent letters and by the eagerness of his own heart. When he arrived in

Edinburgh he found that many who "had a zeal to godliness" still

attended mass, probably finding it more difficult to break the continual

habit of their lives than the bonds of doctrine--and that the outer

structure of the Church remained much as it had been, without any such

shattering and falling asunder as had taken place in regions more

advanced. That this arose from no want of zeal was proved as soon as the

preacher appeared: for his arrival was no sooner known than the house in

which he had alighted from his journey was filled by a stream of

inquirers, whom he "began to exhort secretly." One night he was called

to supper with the Laird of Dun, the well-known John Erskine, who was

one of the most earnest of the Reforming party, and in the grave company

he found there--among whom were one or two ministers and the young but

already promising and eminent William Maitland of Lethington--the

question was fully discussed, Was it lawful to conform while holding a

faith not only different but hostile? was it permissible to bow down in

the house of Rimmon? To this Knox answered No, with all the

uncompromising and stern sincerity of his soul. "Nowise was it lawful."

The question was very fully defended from the other point of view.

"Nothing was omitted that might make for the temporiser"; even the

example of Paul, who went up into the Temple to pay his vow by the

advice of the Apostle James, which step, however, Knox pronounced at

once, notwithstanding his absolute reverence for Holy Writ, to have been

wrong, and not of God--a mistake of both the Apostles, and manifestly

bringing no blessing with it. His bold and assured argument cut the

ground from under the feet of the hesitating Reformers, to whom no doubt

it was very difficult thus to break away from all the traditions of

their lives.

This scene throws a strange and in some respects new light upon the more

human side of the great movement. It is easier perhaps to us who are

acquainted with all that followed to understand the fiery zeal which

flamed against every accessory of what they conceived to be

idolatry--the saintly image, which was nothing but a painted board, and

the "round clipped god" upon the altar which was blasphemously asserted

to be the very Lord Himself--than to remember that these men had also

many links of use and wont, of attachment and habit, to the churches in

which they had been christened, and the position, with all its needs and

simple duties, to which they had been born. To see them standing there

for a moment reluctant, with the tremendous breach that must be made in

life gaping before them, and the sense of universal disruption and

tearing asunder which must follow, is to me more touching than the stern

conviction which never pauses nor fears. They were so thoroughly

convinced, however, of the necessity which he reasoned out with such

remorseless logic, that Erskine first, and after him many gentlemen

through Scotland, craved the help of the preacher to put the crown upon

their convictions, and spread in their halls and private chambers, no

church being attainable, what was now for the first time called the

Table of the Lord. Knox went to Dun in Forfarshire across the great

firths of Forth and Tay, and to Calder, the house of Sir James

Sandilands, afterwards Lord Torphichen, in Lothian, where many gathered

to hear him. But it would seem to have been in the West, always the most

strenuous in doctrine, that he first celebrated the new rite, the holy

feast as yet unknown in Scotland. During the eventful winter of 1555-56

he pervaded the country thus, setting forth the special bond of

evangelical religion, uniting those different groups by the sacred seal

of the bread and wine--who can doubt received with a profound and

tremulous awe by lips to which the wafer had been hitherto the only

symbol of that act of closest communion?

This would seem to have been the chief work of Knox during the visit

which, in the midst of his Geneva ministry, he paid to his native land:

and it is easy to perceive that it was of supreme importance as

identifying and separating the converts into a definite community, bound

together by that sacrament of fealty, an oath more binding than any

expressed only in words. Hitherto the preaching and teaching of the

Word, which was itself a discovery, and came with all the freshness of a

new revelation, had been the only sacred office carried on by the

Reformers. The Sacraments were all in the hands of ecclesiastics, who

had been for generations past losing the confidence and respect of the

nation--though one cannot but believe there must still have been here

and there a humble curate, a parish priest like Chaucer's Parsoune, to

strengthen the hold of the accustomed ordinances upon men's minds, who,

however strongly they might turn against the miracle of

transubstantiation, could not cast aside the only means of partaking in

the great mystery of the body and blood of Christ. To all such here was

now the answer set forth, and the hope--the holy Table, the communion of

saints, the bread and wine of the great and ceaseless commemoration. It

would be doing the greatest wrong to these small devout assemblies, and

to the fervent preacher, devoured with eagerness to make them all, not

almost but altogether such men as himself, to call this an act of

policy. Yet that it was so, and that a bond was thus established to

consolidate the party, more sacred, more binding than any other, there

can be no reasonable doubt.

While travelling on this solemn mission from place to place and house to

house of the religious gentry of Scotland, Knox would seem to have made

Edinburgh his headquarters, and preached there from time to time, not

always secretly. He had here "a greater audience than ever before" in

"the Bishop of Dunkeld's great lodging," that ancient habitation from

which Gawin Douglas, the poet-bishop, had watched and waited while the

fight went on within the gates of the Nether Bow, and from which he

rushed out to rescue the other prelate whose corslet rang under his

rochet. Strange association, yet not inappropriate; for the mild Bishop

of Dunkeld had also found many potent words to say against the abuses of

the Church, though the new presbyter who now took his place was rather

of Beatoun's warlike mettle than of Douglas's. The nobles who came

thither to hear the preacher were so "weill contented" with his

doctrine--which is his own moderate version of what was no doubt an

enthusiasm of grave approbation--that they seem to have imagined, in

that solemn simplicity which belongs to fresh conviction, that he might

perchance, could she but hear him, move the Regent Queen herself, Mary

of Guise, an unlikely convert no doubt. He was accordingly exhorted by

three gentlemen, specified as the Earl of Glencairn, the Earl Marischal,

and Harye Drummond, to write a letter to the Queen, which Knox, always

eager for the pen, and full of matter boiling to have utterance,

immediately did. It is difficult not to think of the _sancta

simpilicitas_, which rarely belongs to such a group of men, when we

think of the grave trio of advisers, and the still graver but fiery

prophet-preacher, making this wonderful appeal. It was less wonderful in

him who loved nothing so much as to write when he could not be

preaching, to set forth those high-handed arraignments before the

visionary tribunal of the one true and only faith, of whomsoever he

could address, queen or peasant; but it is strange that men of the

world, and of the society of their time, should have thus thought it

possible to convert a lady so full of policy and cares of government, so

entirely occupied with the most important matters of statesmanship, not

to say so determined a Catholic, as the daughter of the Guises, the

sister of the Cardinal.

The attempt, as was natural, failed completely. "Which letter," resumes

Knox, "when she had read within a day or two she delivered it to the

proud prelate, Beatoun, Bishop of Glasgow, and said in mockage, 'Please

you, my lord, to read a pasquill?'" It is against the perfection of the

prophet, but not the character of the man, that this scorn stung him as

no persecution could have done. He made certain additions to the letter,

and published it in Geneva on his return there. We are not told which

part of the letter these additions are, but what he tells us seems to

indicate that the threatening prophesies, of which he says in his

_Historie_, "lett those very flatterers see what hath failed," had been

added to the original text. We forgive him his ready wrath, and even the

"threatenings" which he always considered himself at liberty to launch

at those who, in his own language, "withstood the truth": but we could

have wished that Knox had been more magnanimous, and could have

forgotten the offence after the passage of years. Mary's careless speech

would have been but "ane merry boord" had it been directed against one

of his enemies.

When Knox went back to Geneva after this winter's work to resume his

pastorate there, he left the growing cause of Reform in Scotland with a

constitution and organisation sanctified by the most sacred rites of

religion, an advantage quite inestimable in the circumstances, and

placing the cause as in an ark of safety. And when he returned to

Edinburgh two years later, the scattered groups to whom in country

houses and castles he had administered the Lord's Supper had become the

Congregation, an army existing in all quarters of Scotland, ready to

rally to the aid of any portion of the body, or eminent individual, who

might be attacked: and headed by a phalanx of Scots nobility, Lords of

the Congregation, the heads of a new party in the State, as well as of a

new Church, an altogether novel development of national life. It would

have been difficult to have spoken more boldly than Knox had done in his

letter to the Queen Regent three years before, but the Congregation in

its established position as a national party took stronger ground, and

pressed their claims to a hearing with a force of petitioners too strong

to be gainsaid. Knox had called upon Mary herself in her own person to

hear the Word and abjure her errors, but the body of Reformers asked for

measures more comprehensive and still more subversive of the established

order of things. In their first address to Mary they upbraided

themselves, with a manly penitence which must have been bewildering to

royal ears, that they had permitted their brethren in the faith to be

destroyed by "faggot fyre and sword" without resistance. "We acknowledge

it," said these strange petitioners, "to have been our bounden duty

before God either to have defended our brethren from those cruel

murtherers (seeing we are a part of that power which God hath

established in this realm) or else to have given open testification of

our faith with them." This, however, being no longer in their power,

they besought the Queen to make such horrible accidents impossible in

the future, and to grant to them permission to establish their worship;

to meet publicly or privately to make their common prayer, and read the

Scriptures in the vulgar tongue; to have the assistance of "qualified

persons in knowledge" to expound to them "any hard places of Scripture,"

and to have the Sacraments administered "in the vulgar tongue," and the

Lord's Supper in both kinds. Last of all they desired of the Queen that

"the wicked, scandalous, and detestable life of prelates and of the

State Ecclesiastical" should be reformed, stating at the same time their

wish to have the case between themselves and the priests tried not only

by the rules of the New Testament, but by the writings of the ancient

Fathers. In all this there was no intolerance, but a wholly just and

reasonable prayer, suggesting harm to no one, not even the persecutors

from whom they had suffered; altogether a claim of justice and native

right magnanimously as well as forcibly made, with dignified

recollection of their own position as "a part of that power which God

hath established in this realm," to which it would have been difficult

for any reasonable sovereign to return a discourteous or imperious

answer.

Mary of Guise did no such thing. She did not receive the address of the

Congregation as she had done the letter of Knox. But she did what was

worse, she gave no answer at all save fair words and delay. It would

have been perhaps too much to expect that even those moderate and manly

petitioners should have taken into consideration the complicated

circumstances by which she was surrounded, or the difficulties of her

position, with the "State Ecclesiastical" so strong and wealthy,

arbiters for the moment of her faith, and France and her kindred

expectant of impossible things from her, and Rome itself regarding with

a watchful eye what a Princess of so Catholic a family--defender of the

faith in a distant but at this moment exceedingly important

field--should do. Mary temporised, which was perhaps the best thing

possible for the Reformers if not for herself, and promised to take

order, to regulate matters for their advantage so soon as it was

possible, when she should have concluded various matters of more

importance that were in hand, such, for instance, as that of awarding

the crown matrimonial to her daughter's husband the young King of

France, to whom all earthly distinctions were soon to matter so little.

During this period of delay the Reformers were left unmolested to

multiply and mature, so that when her other business was despatched, and

the Queen could no longer avoid some action in the matter, the

Congregation had attained both numbers and power. When the preachers

were summoned to appear before her to plead their own cause "it was

concluded by the whole brethren that the gentlemen of every county

should accompany their preachers to the day and place appointed." This

was a proceeding entirely sanctioned by Scotch custom, of which there

were many historical examples, but it was not perhaps calculated to

promote the ends of peaceful discussion; for the gentlemen thus

described were accompanied by their households at least, if not by a

stout following of retainers, and the result was the assemblage of "such

a multitude" that even the leaders considered it likely to have "given

fear" to the Queen, although this multitude was, as the record says,

with a gleam of grim humour, "without armour as peciable men, minding

only to give confession with their preachers." Mary wisely interposed

another period of delay when she was warned what the "peaceable" escort

was with which the preachers were obeying her call.

It was, however, as little safe to let loose such an army of confessors

through the country which had to be traversed before they could reach

their homes, as to receive them in Stirling where the appointment had

been. For, mild as was their purpose and godly their intentions, it

proved too much for the sense and moderation even of that religious

crowd when they found themselves on their way northward masters of St.

Johnstone (or Perth, as moderns call it) with the fumes of a sermon of

Knox's still in their brain, and a report about that the Queen meant to

put the preachers "to the horn," for all so softly spoken as she was.

Knox's sermon had been "vehement against idolatrie," though preached in

a church still wealthy and bright with all the adornments of the ancient

faith, and in which, as the crowd dispersed, a priest appeared in his

vestments to say his mass. It gives us a curious impression of the chaos

that reigned, to hear that in the town, which was full to overflowing of

this Protestant crowd, and in the very church which still rang with the

echoes of Knox's vehement oratory, he who had no words strong enough to

denounce that idolatrous rite--there should come forth in the calm of

use and wont a nameless humble priest with his acolyte to say the mass,

which was his bounden duty whatever obstacles might be in his way. The

manner in which it is recorded, with the violent antagonism of the time,

is this--"That a priest in contempt would go to the masse; and to

declare his malignant presumption he would open up ane glorious

tabernacle which stood upon the Hie altar." On the other side no doubt

the tale would be, that with the faith and courage of a holy martyr this

venerable confessor ascended the steps of the altar to give his life, if

needful, for the holy mysteries, and fulfil his sacred office whoever

might oppose. And which was the more true version who can tell? On

neither side would it be believed, what was probably the fact, that it

was a simple brother taking little thought of the commotions round him,

who, as soon as the clamour of the preaching was over, concerned with

nothing but his mass which had to be said during canonical hours, had

come in without other intention to perform his daily duty.

But in any case, the sight of the glorious tabernacle filled with a fury

of excitement the dregs of the crowd who still lingered there. A child's

outcry, more "malapert" than the priest, called the attention of the

lingerers, and before any one knew, the passion of destruction had

seized like a frenzy upon the people. They flung themselves upon the

"glorious tabernacle," and all the statues and adornments, and laid them

in swift and sudden ruin. The rumour flew through the town, along with

the shouts and crash of metal and stone; and the remainder of the

lately-dispersed multitude came rushing back to the church which was the

scene of the outbreak, a mob "not of the gentlemen, neither of them that

were earnest professors, but of the rasckall multitude," which finding

nothing to do in the stripped walls and chapels, hurried on, led, no

doubt, by the first of the iconoclasts, who had become intoxicated with

the frenzy of destruction, to the convents of the Grey and the Black

Friars. Their violence grew as they passed on, from one scene of

destruction to another, many of them finding substantial inducements in

the shape of booty, in the well-filled meal-girnels and puncheons of

salt beef in the larders of the monks. By the time they came to these it

may be presumed that the special rage against idolatry had been

assuaged; but the demon of destruction had taken its place. And when the

excited multitude reached the noble Charterhouse with all its

picturesque buildings, "the fairest abbaye and best biggit of any within

the realm of Scotland," surrounded by pleasant gardens and noble trees,

every restraint was thrown aside. It had been founded by James I., and

there lay the remains of his murdered body along with those of many

other royal victims of the stormy and tumultuous past. So much

conscience was left that the terrified monks, or at least the Prior who

is specially mentioned, was allowed to take away with him as much silver

and gold as he was able to carry. The rest was beaten down into

indiscriminating ruin, and "within two days these three great places,

monuments of idolatrie, to wit the Grey and Black thieves and

Charterhouse monks (a building of a wondrous cost and greatness), were

so destroyed that the walls only did remain of all these great

edifications."

That this was in no way the doing of Knox and his colleagues is evident;

but it is equally evident that they treated it as a mere accident and

outrage of the mob, without consequence so far as the greater question

was concerned. When the Queen, exasperated, threatened in her anger on

the receipt of the news to destroy St. Johnstone, and began to collect

an army to march upon the offenders, the Congregation assembled in Perth

professed astonishment and incredulity, treating her threats as the mere

utterances of passion, and thinking "such cruelty" impossible. There is

not a word in the letters to the Queen's Majestie, to the Nobilitie of

Scotland, and the fierce address to the priests in which they afterwards

stated their case, of any wrong on their own side or provocation given.

The Congregation takes at once the highest tone. They declare that,

faithful servants of the realm as they have always been, if this unjust

tyranny is carried out they will be constrained to take up the sword of

just defence, notifying at the same time their innocence not only to

"the King of France, to our Mistress and to her husband, but also to the

Princes and Council of everie Christian realm, declaring unto them that

this cruel, unjust, and most tyrannical murther intended against towns

and multitudes, was and is the only cause of our revolt from our

accustomed obedience." Thus they treat the threatened attack throughout

as wholly directed against their religion and religious freedom, without

the least reference to the just cause of offence given by riots so

alarming and destructive, and by the ruin of a national monument so

important as the Charterhouse. All these are as completely ignored as if

the population of St. Johnstone had been the most tranquil and

law-abiding in the world. And they do this with such evident good faith

that it is impossible not to believe that what had happened was to

themselves an unimportant incident: though it was something like what

the destruction of Westminster Abbey would have been in England. In

these respects, however, the state of feeling produced by the

Reformation followed no ordinary laws; the fervour of hatred and

contempt which the priesthood called forth in Scotland being beyond all

example or comparison, except, indeed, in some parts of France, where

Farel and his followers had set the example of destruction.

The Queen, however, did little more than threaten. Before she could move

at all, the Westland lords, who had gone home, had heard the news and

turned back in hot haste to succour their brethren. Even without that

reinforcement the French general had hesitated to approach too near the

town occupied by so many resolute men, no longer "peaceable," but

determined to defend themselves. It is very apparent that Mary wished

above all things to avoid bloodshed and any step which would precipitate

the beginning of a civil war: and she sent embassy after embassy,

selected sometimes from her own side, sometimes from that of the

Reformers, to exhort them to submission. If her part in the matter was

that of an anxious and in many ways considerate ruler, bent, so far as

in her lay, upon keeping the peace, the attitude of the Congregation

was, at the same time, a perfectly manly and moderate one, granting

their dulness of conscience in respect to the real outrage. "If the

Queen's grace would suffer the religion then begun to proceed, and not

trouble their brethren and sisters that had professed Christ Jesus with

them," they declared themselves ready to submit in any way to the

Queen's commandment; but without this promise they would not stir. Knox

himself, however, who was the soul of the party, was, according to his

wont, less self-controlled. He considered it his duty to make a special

statement to Argyle and the Lord James, the future Earl of Murray, who

were the Queen's first envoys, and to send a message to the Regent in

his own name, with a curious assumption of the prophet's office, which

is exceedingly remarkable so near the beginning of his career, and is at

once an evidence of the enormous influence which he had acquired, and of

the astonishing confidence in his own mission and powers which must have

helped him to acquire it. "Say to the Queen's Grace Regent," he required

them, "in my name, that we whom she in her blind rage doth persecute are

God's servants, faithful and obedient subjects to the authority of this

realm: that that religion which she pretendeth to maintain by fire and

sword is not the religion of Christ Jesus, but is express contrarie to

the same, ane superstition devised by the brain of man: which I offer

myself to prove against all that within Scotland will maintain the

contrarie--liberty of tongue being granted to me, and God's written word

being admitted for judge."

Thus the preacher flung down his glove like a knight of the old

chivalry, with a fiery and eager hardihood which we could the better

admire had he done more justice to his adversaries, especially the

Queen, whose good intentions it seems so difficult to misconstrue. He

warns her also, in the same high tone, that her enterprise will not

succeed, and that the end shall be her confusion, "onless betimes she

repent and desist," with all the stern certainty of an inspired prophet.

Whether the serious emissaries, who, though they were Protestants, "had

begun to muse," and perhaps could not keep their eyes from remarking the

smoke and dust of the ruins behind the energetic figure of the Reformer,

conveyed this message in full we may be permitted to doubt. They were

both young men, and it is unlikely they would prejudice their own career

by repeating to the Queen's Grace anything about her blind rage or the

confusion which would follow. Lord Sempill, who accompanied them, and

who was of the Queen's party--"a man sold under sin," says Knox--perhaps

did more justice to the message; but Knox's sole desire was that it

should be repeated word by word.

We need not, however, follow the advances and retreats, the always

imminent encounter for which the Congregation was fully ready, but from

which the Queen and her general constantly retired at the last moment,

before the gates of Perth, on Cupar Muir, and other places, making

agreement after agreement of which nothing came. In the course of this

curious dance of the two powers confronting each other much ink was

shed, however, if no blood, and the representations, letters, bonds, and

assurances must have kept the scribes on either side in constant

occupation. The Congregation was certainly the more argumentative and

long-winded of the correspondents, and never seems to have lost an

opportunity of a letter. They pervaded the country, an ever-increasing

band, which, whenever an emergency occurred, was multiplied from every

quarter at the raising of a finger on the part of the reforming lords.

That the violent beginning made in Perth had given to the populace a

taste for the pleasures of destruction, however, is very fully evident,

and it soon became clear that when the preachers and their protectors

moved "to make reformation," the mob who followed them would leave

nothing but ruins behind. This and the method of it is very well set

forth in the case of Scone, a place of great historical interest, where

the ancient kings of Scotland had been crowned. It would seem to have

been a raid of private vengeance which directed the operations, "four

zealous men," irrestrainable, it would seem, by the leaders, having set

out from Perth, "to take order with that place," considering how

obstinately proud and despiteful the Bishop of Murray had been. The

lords had already sent a letter of warning to the Bishop, who was housed

in some abbey near, advertising him that unless he would come and join

them they could neither spare nor save his place. But while the answer

lingered the town of Dundee took up the quarrel and set forth to carry

out the work.

"To stay them was first sent the Provost of Dundee and his brother

Alexander Halliburton Capitain, who little prevailing was sent unto

them John Knox; but before his coming they were entered to the

pulling down of the idols and dortour (dormitory). And albeit the

said Maister James Halliburton, Alexander his brother, and the said

John, did what in them lay to have stayed the fury of the multitude,

yet were they not able to put order universalie; and therefore they

sent for the lords, Earl of Argyle and Lord James, who coming with

all diligence laboured to have saved the palace and the kirk. But

because the multitude had found buried in the kirk a great number of

idols, hid of purpose to have reserved them for a better day (as the

Papists speak) the towns of Dundee and St. Johnstone could not be

satisfied till that the whole reparation and ornaments of the church

(as they term it) were destroyed. And yet did the lords so travel

that they saved the Bishop's palace with the church and place for

that night; for the two lords did not depart till they brought with

them the whole number of those who most sought the Bishop's

displeasure. The Bishop, greatly offended that anything should have

been enterprised in reformation of his place, asked of the lords his

bond and handwriting, which not two hours before he had sent to them

(this was a promise to come immediately to arrange for the safety of

his see, and also to support them in Parliament in gratitude for the

warning they had given him); Which delivered to his messenger, Sir

Adam Brown, advertisement was given that if any further displeasure

chanced unto him that he should not blame them. The Bishop's

servants that same night began to fortify the place again, and began

to do violence to some that were carrying away such baggage as they

could come by. The Bishop's girnel was kept the first night by the

labours of John Knox, who by exhortation removed such as would

violentlie have made irruption. The morrow following, some of the

poor in hope of spoil, and some of Dundee to consider what was done,

passed up to the said Abbey of Scone; whereat the Bishop's servants

offended began to threaten and speak proudly, and as it was

constantly affirmed one of the Bishop's sons stogged through with a

rapier one of Dundee because he was looking in at the girnel door.

This bruit noised abroad, the town of Dundee was more enraged than

before, who putting themselves in armour sent word to the

inhabitants of St. Johnstone, 'That unless they should support them

to avenge that injury, that they should never from that day concur

with them in any action.' They, easilie inflambed, gave the alarm,

and so was that abbey and palace appointed to the saccage; in doing

whereof they took no long deliberation, but committed the whole to

the merriment of fire; whereat no small number of us was so

offended, that patientlie we could not speak to any that were of

Dundee or Saint Johnstone."

The reader will see in this frank narrative how many elements were

conjoined to bring about the outrage. Local jealousy and despite, the

rage against the Bishop and his priests, the eagerness of the needy in

hope of spoil, the excitement of a fray in which the first blow had been

struck by the adversary with just the crown of a supposed religious

motive to give the courage of a great cause to the rioters: while on the

other hand the Bishop's rashness in taking the defence upon himself and

slighting the assistance offered him is equally apparent. It is evident

enough, however, that the lords themselves had no urgent interest in the

preservation of the ancient buildings, and that Knox cared little for

any of these things. The watch of the preacher at the door of the

Bishop's girnel or storehouse, keeping back the rioters by his

exhortations, is a curious illustration of this point. He would not have

the people soil their souls with thieving, with the Bishop's meal and

malt; as for the historical walls, the altar where the old kings had

been anointed or the sanctuary where their ashes lay, what were they?

Knox was too much intent on setting Scotland loose from all previous

traditions--from the past which was idolatrous and corrupt, and in which

till it reached to the age of the Apostles he recognised no good

thing--to be concerned about the temples of Baal. What he wanted was to

cut all these dark ages away, and affiliate himself and his country

direct to Judaea and Jerusalem, to the Jewish church, not the Gothic or

the papal, or any perverted image of what he believed primitive

Christianity to have been. He served himself heir to Peter and Paul, to

Elijah and Ezekiel, and perhaps in the strong prepossession of his soul

against contemporary monks and ecclesiastics did not even know that the

Church which was so corrupt, and the religious orders which had fallen

so low, had ever brought or preserved light and blessing to the world.

Scottish history, Scottish art, were corrupted too, and woven about with

associations of these hated priests and their system which was not true

religion, but "devised by the brain of man"; and though he was himself

the most complete incarnation of Scotch vehemence, dogmatism, national

pride, and fiery feeling, he was indifferent to their national records.

His pride was involved in making his country stand, alone if need was,

or if not alone, then first, in passionate perfection in the new order

of things in the kingdom of Christ: not to keep her a place in the unity

of nations by preserving the traces of an old civilisation and

institutions as venerable and noteworthy as any in Christendom, but to

make of her a chosen nation like that people, long ago dispersed by a

sufficiently miserable catastrophe, to whom was given of old the mission

of showing forth the will of God before the world. Whether what he

gained for his country was not much more important than what he thus

deliberately sacrificed is a question that will never be answered with

any unanimity. He gained for his race a great freedom, which cannot be

justly called religious freedom, because it was, in his intention at

least, freedom to follow their own way, with none at all for those who

differed from them. He set up a high standard of piety and probity, and

for once made the business of the soul, the worship of God and study of

His laws, the most absorbing of public interests. He thrilled the whole

country through and through with the inspiration of a fervent spirit,

uncompromising in its devotion to the truth, asking no indulgence if

also, perhaps, giving none, serving God in his own way with a fidelity

above every bribe, scornful of every compromise. But he cut Scotland

adrift so far as in him lay from the brotherhood of habit and tradition,

from the communion, if not of saints, yet of many saintly uses, and much

that is beautiful in Christian life. He made his country eminent, and

secured for her one great chapter in the history of the world; but he

imprinted upon her a certain narrowness uncongenial to her character and

to her past, which has undervalued her to many superficial observers,

and done perhaps a little, but a permanent, harm to her national ideal

ever since. A small evil for so much good, but yet not to be left

unacknowledged.

More interesting in its human aspect is Knox's appearance in St.

Andrews, whither the Congregation now crowded to "make reformation,"

though doubtful if even the populace were on their side. The Bishop

"hearing of reformation to be made in his cathedral church, thought time

to stir, or else never"--which was very natural. He was accompanied by a

hundred spears, which must have meant a company at least of four or five

hundred armed men, while the Lords of the Congregation had "their quiet

households," no doubt a very adequate escort. The Bishop threatened that

if John Knox showed his face in the cathedral he should be saluted with

a dozen of culverins, and the gentlemen with him hesitated much to

expose him to such a risk: but their doubts were not shared by the

preacher. He had himself given forth, when in the galley labouring at

the oar in sight of the beloved town and sanctuary, a prophecy that he

should yet preach there, unlikely as it looked; and to recoil from any

danger, when such an opportunity arose, was not in him. "To delay to

preach the morrow (unless the bodie be violentlie witholden) I cannot,"

he said. He preached upon the casting out of the money-changers from the

Temple--a very dangerous subject for such an occasion, and "applied the

corruption that was there to the corruption that is in the Papestrie" so

well that the magistrates of the town, and also the commonalty "for the

most part, did agree to remove all monuments of idolatrie, which also

they did with expedition." But it was not on that day that the great

church shining from afar on its rocky headland, a splendid landmark over

the dangerous bay, was reduced to the condition in which it now remains,

with a few forlorn but graceful pinnacles rising against the misty blue

of sea and sky. No harm would seem to have been done except to the

altars and the decorations; and according to all evidence it is more to

the careless brutality of the eighteenth century, which found an

excellent storehouse of materials for building in the abandoned shrine,

than to any absolute outrage that its present state of utter ruin is

due.

[Illustration: ST. ANDREWS]

The Congregation set forth on its march to Stirling, and thence to

Edinburgh in June, and so great was the commotion which had been raised

by the rumour of the "reformation" wrought in the north in Scone and St.

Johnstone that the mere news of their approach roused "the rasckall

multitude" to the mood of destruction. They had cleared out and

destroyed the convents in Stirling, and those of the Black and Grey

Friars in Edinburgh, before the Reformers came--a result which Knox at

least in no way pauses to deplore: they had left nothing, he says, "but

bare walls, yea, not so much as door or windok: wherthrou we were the

less troubled in putting order in such places." Thus the flood of

Revolution, of Reformation, of fundamental, universal change flowed on.

The victory was not assured, however, as perhaps they had hoped when

they entered Edinburgh, for though for a time everything went well, and

the preaching seems to have been followed by the greater part of the

city, the Queen, ever active, though never striking any decisive blow,

had received reinforcements from France, and to the great alarm of the

Congregation had begun to fortify Leith, forming a strong garrison there

of French soldiers, and making a new stronghold near enough to be a

perpetual menace to Edinburgh almost at her door. The position of

affairs at this moment was curious in the extreme. The Queen in Leith,

surrounded by the newly arrived forces of France, with Frenchmen placed

in all the great offices, fulminated forth decrees, commands,

explanations, orders, from within the walls that were being quickly

raised to make the fort a strong place, and from amidst the garrison of

her own countrymen, in whose fidelity she could fully trust. In

Edinburgh the Congregation were virtually supreme, but very uneasy;

their substantial adversaries quieted, but ever on the watch; the

populace ready to pull down and destroy at their indication, but not to

change their life or character--an unstable support should trouble come;

while in the castle Lord Erskine sat impartial, a sort of silent umpire,

taking neither side, though ready to intervene with a great gun on

either as occasion moved him. The fire of words which was kept up

between the two parties is one of the most amazing features of the

conflict. For every page the Queen's secretaries wrote, John Knox was

ready with ten to demonstrate her errors, her falsehood, the

impossibility that any good could come from an idolater such as she.

Other persons take part in the great wrangle, but he is clearly the

scribe and moving spirit. He writes to her in his own person, in that of

the Lord James, in that of the Congregation. She accuses them of

rebellion and treasonable intentions against herself--and they her of

her Frenchmen and her fortifications. She summons them to leave

Edinburgh on peril of all the penalties that attend high treason; they

demand from her that the Frenchmen should be sent away and the

proceedings stopped. She accuses the Duke Chatelherault--the head of the

Hamiltons, the next heir to the throne--of treasonable proceedings, and

he vindicates himself by sound of trumpet at the Cross of Edinburgh. The

correspondence grows to such a pitch that when she loses patience and

bids them be gone before a certain day, they meet in solemn conclave, to

which the preachers are called to give their advice, to discuss whether

it is lawful to depose her from her regency: and all consent with one

voice to her deprivation. The excitement of this continual exchange of

correspondence, the messages coming and going, from the Queen's side the

Lyon King himself, all glorious among his pursuivants, advancing from

Leith with his brief letter and his "credit" as spokesman, the others

replying and re-replying, scarcely ever without a response or a

denunciation to read over and talk over, must have kept the nerves and

intelligence of all at a perpetual strain. At St. Giles's and the

Tolbooth close by, which were the double centre of life in the city,

there was a perpetual alternation of preachings, to which Lords and

Commons would crowd together to listen to Knox's trumpet peals of fiery

eloquence, always upon some appropriate text, always instinct with the

most vehement energy, and consultations upon public affairs and how to

promote the triumph of religion; the lords pondering and sometimes

doubtful, the preacher ever uncompromising and absolute. A question of

public honesty had arisen in the midst of the struggle for the faith,

and the Reformers had seized the Mint to prevent the coining of base

money, which the Regent was carrying on for her necessities, and which

the Congregation, no doubt justly, considered ruinous to the trade of

the country; and the determined struggle with the Queen in respect to

her scheme for fortifying Leith and establishing a French garrison

there,--a continual check upon and menace to the freedom of the

capital,--was at least as much a question of politics as religion.

The Congregation, however, was not yet strong enough to be able to meet

the French forces, and when they attempted to besiege Leith and put a

forcible stop to the building they were defeated with shame and loss. A

curious sign of the inevitable "rift within the lute," which up to this

time had been avoided by the concentration of all men's thoughts upon

the first necessity of securing the freedom of the preachings, becomes

visible before this futile attempt at a siege. When the leaders of the

Congregation, among whom on this occasion the contingent from the towns,

and especially from Dundee, seems foremost, began to prepare for their

expedition, they chose St. Giles's Church as the most convenient for the

preparation of the scaling ladders, a practical evidence that sacredness

had departed from the church as a building, not at all to the mind of

the preachers, who probably saw no logical succession between the

hammers of the destroyers pulling down the "glorious tabernacles" and

those of the craftsmen occupied with secular work. They did not, indeed,

put their objections on this ground, but on that of the neglect of the

"preaching," a name now characteristically applied to the public worship

of God. "The Preachers spared not openly to say that they feared the

success of that enterpryse should not be prosperous because the

beginning appeyred to bring with it some contempt of God and of His

word. Other places, said they, had been more apt for such preparations

than where the people convened to common prayer and unto preaching, and

they did not hesitate to affirm that God would not suffer such contempt

of His word." Whether these objections stole the heart out of the

fighting men, who had hitherto felt themselves emphatically the soldiers

of God, it is impossible to say. They had hitherto overawed the Queen's

party by their numbers, and had never outwardly made proof of their

powers or sustained the attack of regular soldiers. And the assault of

Leith ended in a disastrous defeat. The expedition set out rashly

without leaders, while the lords and gentlemen "were gone to the

preaching," and had consequently no accompanying cavalry, and few, if

any, experienced soldiers. They were driven back with loss, and pursued

into the very Canongate, to the foot of Leith Wynd--that is, into the

cross-roads and narrow wynds which were immediately outside the city

walls. Argyle and the rest, as soon as they were aware of what had

happened, got hastily to horse, and did all they could to stop the

flight, but even this turned to harm, since the horsemen coming out to

the aid of their friends proved an additional danger to the fugitives,

and "over-rode their poor brethren at the entrance of the Nether Bow."

After this all was confusion and trouble in Edinburgh. The castle fired

one solitary gun, which stopped with a note of sudden protest the French

pursuit, coming with extraordinary dramatic effect into the always

graphic and picturesque narrative, over the heads of the flying,

discomfited crowd which was struggling among the horses' hoofs at the

narrow gate, and the Frenchmen straggling behind, up all the narrow

passages into the Canongate, snatching a piece of plunder where they

could find it, "one a kietill, ane other ane pettycoat, the third a pote

or a pan." "Je pense que vous l'avez achete sans argent," the Queen is

reported to have said with a laugh as the pursuers came back to Leith

with their not very important booty. "This was the great and motherlie

care she took for the truth of the poor subjects of this realm," says

Knox bitterly; and yet it was very natural that she should have been

overjoyed, after all these controversies, to feel herself the stronger,

if not in argument at least in actual fight.

This defeat told greatly upon the spirits of the Congregation which had

hitherto been kept together by success, and which was in fact a mere

horde of men hastily collected, untrained in actual warfare, and in no

position for taking the offensive though strong in defence of their

rights. And money had failed. It was determined that each gentleman

should give his plate to be made into coin to supply the needs of the

Congregation, as they had the Mint in their hands: but the officials

stole away with the "irons" and this was made impracticable. They then

sent for a supply to the English envoys who were anxiously watching the

progress of events at Berwick: but the sum sent to them in answer to

their application was intercepted by the Earl of Bothwell--his first

appearance in history, on which he was to leave thereafter such traces

of disaster. And other encounters with the Frenchmen took the heart

entirely out of the Congregation; the party began to dissolve, stealing

away on every side. "Our soldiers" (mercenaries it is to be supposed in

distinction from the retainers of the lords and gentlemen) "could

skarslie be dang out of the town" to meet a sally from Leith. In

Edinburgh itself the rasckall multitude, which had been so ready to

destroy and ravage, began to throw stones at the Reformers and call them

traitors and heretics. Finally with hearts penetrated by disappointment

and the misery of defeat the Congregation abandoned Edinburgh altogether

and marched to Stirling with drooping arms and hearts.

"The said day at nine in the night," says a contemporary authority, "the

Congregation departed forth of Edinburgh to Linlithgow and left their

artillerie void upon the causeway lying, and the town desolate." It was

November, and the darkness of the night could not have been more dark

than the prospects and thoughts of that dejected band, a little while

before so triumphant. As the tramp of the half-seen procession went

heavily down the tortuous streets at the back of the castle, probably by

the West Bow and West Port, diving down into the darkness under that

black shadow where the garrison sat grimly impartial taking no part, the

populace, perhaps frightened by the too great success of their own

fickle and cruel desertion of the cause, and hoping little from the

return of the priests, would seem to have beheld with silent dismay the

departure of the Congregation. The guns which had done them so little

service which they left on the road, as the preachers would have had

them leave all the devices and aid of men, were gathered in by the

soldiers from the castle with little demonstration, and the town was

left desolate. The anonymous writer of the _Diurnal of Occurrents_ is

curiously impartial and puts down his brief records without any

expression of feeling: but a certain thrill is in these words as of

something too impressive and significant to be passed by.

It is at this miserable moment that John Knox shows himself at his best.

Hitherto his vehemence, his fierce oratory, his interminable letters and

addresses, though instinct with all the reality of a most vigorous, even

restless nature, represent to us rather a man who would if he could have

done everything,--the fighting and the protocolling as well as the

preaching, a man to whom repose was impossible, ever ready to draw forth

his pen, to mount his pulpit, to add his eager word to every

consultation, and enjoying nothing so much as to press the most

unpleasant truths upon his correspondents and hearers,--than one of

sustaining power and wisdom. The uncompromising fidelity with which he

pointed out the shortcomings of those about him, and the terrible

penalties laid up for them; and the stern denunciations in his letters,

even those which he intended to be conciliatory, make his appearance in

general more alarming than reassuring. An instance which almost tempts a

smile, grave as are all the circumstances and surroundings, is his

letter (written some time before the point at which we have now arrived)

to Cecil whom he had known in England, and whose favour he desired to

secure and indeed was confident of securing. For once he had something

to ask for himself, permission to land in England on his way back to his

native country; and greatly desired that a favourable representation of

his case might be made to Queen Elizabeth, who was naturally prejudiced

against him by his famous Blast against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.

The following letter was written from Dieppe in April 1559 with the hope

of procuring these favours from the great statesman.

"As I have no plaisure with long writing to trouble you, Rycht

Honourable, whose mind I know to be occupied with most grave

matters, so mind I not greatly to labour by long preface to

conciliate your favour, which I suppose I have already (howsomever

rumours bruit the contrarie) as it becometh one member of Christ's

body to have of another. The contents, therefore, of these my

presents shall be absolved in two points. In the former I purpose to

discharge in brief words my conscience towards you, and in the other

somewhat I must speik in my own defence and in defence of that poor

flock of lait assembled in the most godly Reformed church and city

of the world Geneva. To you Sir, I say, that as from God ye have

received life, wisdom, honours and this present estate in which ye

stand, so ought you wholly to employ the same to the advancement of

His glory, who only is the Author of life, the fountain of wisdom,

and who, most assuredly, doth and will honour those that with simple

hearts do glorify Him; which, alas, in times past ye have not done;

but being overcome with common iniquity ye have followed the world

in the way of perdition. For to the suppressing of Christ's true

Evangell, to the erecting of idolatrie, and to the shedding of the

blood of God's dear children, have you by silence consented and

subscribed. This, your most horrible defection from the truth known

and once professed, hath God to this day mercifully spared; yea, to

man's judgement He hath utterly forgotten and pardoned the same. He

hath not entreated you as He hath done others (of like knowledge),

whom in His anger (but yet most justly according to their deserts)

He did shortly strike after their defection. But you, guilty in the

same offences, He hath fostered and preserved as it were in His own

bosom. As the benefit which ye have received is great, so must God's

justice require of you a thankful heart; for seeing that His mercy

hath spared you being traitor to His Majesty; seeing, further, that

among your enemies He hath preserved you; and last, seeing that

although worthy of Hell He hath promoted you to honour and dignity,

of you must He require (because He is just) earnest repentance for

your former defection, a heart mindful of His merciful providence,

and a will so ready to advance His glory that evidently it may

appear that in vain ye have not received these graces of God--to

performance whereof of necessity it is that carnal wisdom and

worldly policy (to the which both ye are bruited too much inclined)

give place to God's simple and naked truth--very love compelleth me

to say that except the Spirit of God purge your heart from that

venom which your eyes have seen to be destruction to others, that ye

shall not long escape the reward of dissemblers. Call to mind what

you ever heard proclaimed in the chapel of Saint James, when this

verse of the first Psalm was entreated, 'Not so, oh wicked, not so;

but as the dust which the wind hath tossed, etc.' ... And this is

the conclusion of that which to yourself I say. Except that in the

cause of Christ's Evangel ye be found simple, sincere, fervent and

unfeigned, ye shall taste of the same cup which politic heads have

drunken before you."

This manner of approaching a powerful statesman whose good offices might

be of the uttermost consequence both to the writer and his party, is

highly characteristic. There is something almost comic, if we dared to

interpose such a view between two such personages, in the warning

against "carnal wisdom and worldly policy to the which both ye are

bruited too much inclined," addressed to the great Burleigh. It is

difficult to imagine the outburst of a laugh between such a pair, yet

grave Cecil surely must have smiled.

The man who wrote this epistle and many another, leagues of letters in

no one of which does he ever mince matters, or refrain to deliver his

conscience before conveying the message of State with which he is

charged--is often wordy, sometimes tedious, now and then narrow as a

village gossip, always supremely and absolutely dogmatic, seeing no way

but his own and acknowledging no possibility of error; and the extreme

and perpetual movement of his ever-active mind, his high-blooded

intolerance, the restless force about him which never pauses to take

breath, is the chief impression produced upon the reader by his own

unfolding of himself in his wonderful history. Though he is too great

and important to be called a busybody, we still feel sympathetically

something of the suppressed irritation and sense of hindrance and

interruption with which the lords must have regarded this companion with

his "devout imaginations," whom they dared not neglect, and who was sure

to get the better in every argument, generally by reason, but at all

events by the innate force of his persistence and daring. But when they

came to Stirling, after "that dusk and dolorous night wherein all ye my

lords with shame and fear left the town", the eager nervous form, the

dark keen face of the preacher, rose before the melancholy bands like

those of the hero-leader, the standard-bearer of God. It was Wednesday

the 7th of November 1559 when the dispirited Congregation met for the

preaching and to consider afterwards "what was the next remedy in so

desperate a case." Knox took for his text certain verses of the

eightieth Psalm. "How long wilt thou be angry against the prayers of thy

people? Thou hast fed us with the bread of tears; and hast given us

tears to drink in great measure. O God of hosts, turn us again, make thy

face to shine; and we shall be saved." He began by asking, Why were the

people of God thus oppressed?

"Our faces are this day confounded, our enemies triumph, our hearts

have quaked for fear, and yet they remain oppressed with sorrow and

shame. But what shall we think to be the very cause that God hath

thus dejected us? If I shall say our sins and former unthankfulness

to God, I speak the truth. But yet I spake more generallie than

necessity required: for when the sins of men are rebuked in general,

seldom it is that man descendeth within himself, accusing and

damning in himself that which most displeaseth God."

To this particular self-examination he then leads his hearers in order

that they may not take refuge in generalities, but that each man may

examine himself. "I will divide our whole company," he says, "into two

sorts of men. The one, those who have been attached to the cause from

the beginning; the other, recent converts."

"Let us begin at ourselves who longest has continued in this battle.

When we were a few in number, in comparison with our enemies, when

we had neither Erle nor Lord (a few excepted) to comfort us, we

called upon God, we took Him for our protector, defence, and onlie

refuge. Among us was heard no bragging of multitude or of our

strength or policy, we did only sob to God, to have respect to the

equity of our cause and to the cruel pursuit of the tyraneful enemy.

But since that our number has been multiplied, and chiefly since my

Lord Duke his Grace with his friends have been joined with us, there

was nothing heard but 'This Lord will bring these many hundred

spears: if this Earl be ours no man in such and such a bounds will

trouble us.' And thus the best of us all, that before felt God's

potent hand to be our defence, hath of late days put flesh to be our

arm."

This proved, which was an evil he had struggled against with might and

main, forbidding all compromises, all concessions that might have served

to attract the help of the powerful, and conciliate lukewarm supporters,

he turns to the other side.

"But wherein hath my Lord Duik his Grace and his friends offended?

It may be that as we have trusted in them so have they put too much

confidence in their own strength. But granting so be or not, I see a

cause most just why the duke and his friends should thus be

confounded among the rest of their brethren. I have not yet

forgotten what was the dolour and anguish of my own heart when at

St. Johnstone, Cupar Muir, and Edinburgh Crags, those cruel

murderers, that now hath put us to this dishonour, threatened our

present destruction. My Lord Duke his Grace, and his friends at all

the three jornayes, was to them a great comfort and unto us a great

discourage; for his name and authority did more affray and astonish

us, than did the force of the other: yea, without his assistance

they would not have compelled us to appoint with the Queen upon

unequal conditions. I am uncertain if my Lord's Grace hath

unfeignedly repented of his assistance to those murderers unjustly

pursuing us. Yea, I am uncertain if he hath repented of that

innocent blood of Christ's blessed martyrs which was shed in his

default. But let it be that so he hath done, as I hear that he hath

confessed his offence before the Lords and brethren of the

Congregation, yet I am assured that neither he, nor yet his friends,

did feel before this time the anguish and grieving of heart which we

felt when they in their blind fury pursued us. And therefore hath

God justly permitted both them and us to fall in this confusion at

once; us for that we put our trust and confidence in man, and them

because that they should feel in their own hearts how bitter was the

cup which they had made others to drink before them. Rests that both

they and we turn to the Eternal, our God (who beats down to death to

the intent that He may raise up again, to leave the remembrance of

His wondrous deliverance to the praise of His own name), which if we

do unfeignedly, I no more doubt that this our dolour, confusion, and

fear, shall be turned into joy, honour, and boldness, than that I

doubt that God gave the victory to the Israelites over the

Benjaminites after that twice with ignominy they were repulsed and

dang back. Yea, whatsoever shall come of us and our mortal

carcasses, I doubt not but this cause in despite of Satan shall

prevail in the realm of Scotland. For as it is the eternal truth of

the eternal God, so shall it once prevail, however for a time it may

be hindered. It may be that God shall plague some, for that they

delight not in the truth, albeit for worldly respects they seem to

favour it. Yea, God may take some of His devout children away before

their eyes see greater troubles. But neither shall the one or the

other so hinder this action but in the end it shall triumph."

When the sermon was ended, Knox adds, "The minds of men began

wonderfully to be erected." "The voice of one man," as Randolph

afterwards said, was "able in an hour to put more life in us than six

hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears." The boldness with

which Knox thus exposed that elation in their own temporary success, and

in the adhesion of the Duke of Hamilton, which had led the leaders of

the Congregation into self-confidence and slackened their watchfulness,

was made solemn and authoritative by the force with which he pressed his

personal responsibility into every man's bosom. No turn of fortune, no

evil fate, but God's check upon an army enlisted in His name yet not

serving Him with a true heart, was this momentary downfall; the cause of

which was one that every man could remove in his degree; not inherent

weakness or hopeless fate, but a matter remediable, nay, which must be

remedied and cast from among them--a matter which might quench their

personal hopes and destroy them, but could not affect the divine cause,

which should surely, triumph whatever man or Satan might do. More than

six hundred trumpets, more than the tramp of a succouring army, it rang

into the men's hearts. Their spirit and their courage rose; the dolorous

night, the fear and shame, dissolved and disappeared; and the question

what to do was met not with dejection and despair but with a rising of

new hope.

The decision of the Congregation in the Senate which was held after this

stirring address was, in the first place, to address an appeal for help

to England, the sister-nation which had already made reformation, though

not in their way, and to fight the matter out with full confidence in a

happy issue. About this appeal to England, however, there were

difficulties; for Knox who suggested it, and whose name could not but

appear in the matter, had given forth, as all the world and especially

the persons chiefly attacked were aware, a tremendous "blast" against

the right of women to reign, particularly well or ill timed in a

generation subject to so many queens; and it was necessary for him to

excuse or defend himself to the greatest of the female sovereigns whom

he had attacked. Of course it was easy for him to say that he had no

great Protestant Elizabeth in his eye when he wrote, but only a bigoted

and sanguinary Mary, of whom no one knew at the time that her reign was

to be short, and her power of doing evil so small. It is almost

impossible to discuss gravely nowadays a treatise which, even in its

name (which is all that most people know of it), has the air of a

whimsical ebullition of passion, leaning towards the ridiculous, rather

than a serious protest calculated to move the minds of men. But this was

not the aspect under which it appeared to the Queens who were assailed,

not as individuals, but as a class intolerable and not to be suffered;

and it was considered necessary that Knox should write to excuse

himself, and apologise as much as was in him to the Queen, who was now

the only person on earth to whom the Congregation could look for help.

Knox's letter to Queen Elizabeth, whom he addressed indeed more as a

lesser prince, respectful but more or less equal, might do, than as a

private individual, is very characteristic. He has to apologise, but he

will not withdraw from the position he had taken. "I cannot deny the

writing," he says, "neither yet am I minded to retreat or call back any

principal point or proposition of the same." But he is surprised that

subject of offence should be found in it by her for whose accession he

renders thanks to God, declaring himself willing to be judged by

moderate and indifferent men which of the parties do most harm to the

liberty of England, he who affirms that no woman may be exalted above

any realm to make the liberty of the same thrall to any stranger nation,

"or they that approve whatsoever pleaseth Princes for the time." Leaving

thus the ticklish argument which he cannot withdraw, but finds it

impolitic to bring forward, he turns to the Queen's individual behaviour

in her position as being the thing most important at the present moment,

now that she has effectively attained her unlawful elevation.

"Therefore, Madam, the only way to retain and keep those benefits of

God abundantly poured now of late days upon you and upon your realm,

is unfeignedly to render unto God, to His mercy and undeserved

grace, the glory of your exaltation. Forget your birth, and all

title which thereupon doth hing: and consider deeply how for fear of

your life ye did decline from God and bow till idolatrie. Let it not

appear ane small offence in your eyes that ye have declined from

Christ in the day of His battle. Neither would I that you should

esteem that mercy to be vulgar and common which ye have received: to

wit that God hath covered your former offence, hath preserved you

when you were most unthankful, and in the end hath exalted and

raised you up, not only from the dust, but also from the ports of

death, to rule above His people for the comfort of His kirk. It

appertaineth to you, therefore, to ground the justice of your

authority, not upon that law which from year to year doth change,

but upon the eternal providence of Him who contraire to nature and

without your deserving hath thus exalted your head. If then, in

God's presence ye humble yourself, as in my heart I glorify God for

that rest granted to His afflicted flock within England under you a

weik instrument: so will I with tongue and pen justify your

authority and regiment as the Holy Ghost hath justified the same in

Debora that blessed mother in Israel. But if the premisses (as God

forbid) neglected, ye shall begin to brag of your birth and to build

your authority and regiment upon your own law, flatter you who so

list your felicity shall be short. Interpret my rude words in the

best part as written by him who is no enemy to your Grace."

It must have been new to Queen Elizabeth to hear herself called "a weik

instrument," and it is doubtful whether the first offence would be much

softened by such an address. Neither was Elizabeth a person to be amused

by the incongruity or impressed by the uncompromising boldness of the

Reformer to whom the language of apology was so hard. Policy, however,

has little to do with personal offences, although to some readers, as we

confess to ourselves, it may be more interesting to see the prophet thus

arrested, hampered by his own trumpet-blast, and making amends as much

as he can permit himself to make, though so awkwardly and with so bold a

return upon the original offence, to the offended Queen. It was far more

easy for him to warn her of what would happen did she fail in her duty

than to soothe the affront with gentle words; and his attempt at the

latter is but halting and feeble. But when he promises with tongue and

pen to justify her if she does well, Knox is once more on his own

ground--that of a man whose office is superior to all the paltry

distinctions of kingship or lordship, a servant of God commissioned to

declare His divine will, endowed with an insight beyond that of ordinary

men, and declaring with boundless certainty and confidence the things

which are to be.

We may, however, pass very shortly over the coming struggle. The English

army marched into Scotland in April 1560, and addressed itself at once

to the siege of Leith, the headquarters of the French whom the Queen

Regent had brought into Scotland, and whom it was the chief aim of the

Congregation and of their allies to drive out of the country. The siege

went on for about six weeks, during which little effect seems to have

been made, though Knox bears testimony that "the patience and stout

courage of the Englishmen, but principally of the horsemen, was worthy

of all praise." These proceedings, however, were brought to a pause by

an event which changed the position of affairs. The Queen Regent, who,

for some time, had been in declining health, harassed and beaten down by

many cares, had left Leith and taken up her abode in Edinburgh Castle

while the Reformers were absent from the capital. In that fortress, held

neutral by its captain, in the small rooms where, some seven years

after, her daughter's child was to be born, Mary lingered out the early

days of summer: and in June, while still the English guns were

thundering against Leith, her new fortifications resisting with

diminished strength, and her garrison in danger--died, escaping from her

uneasy burden of royalty when everything looked dark for her policy and

cause. Many anecdotes of her sayings and doings were current during her

lingering illness, such as might easily be reported between the two

camps with more or less truth. When she heard of the "Band" made by the

leaders of the army before Leith for the expulsion of the strangers she

is said to have called the maledictions of God upon them who counselled

her to persecute the preachers and to refuse the petitions of the best

part of the subjects of the realm. Shut out from the countrymen and

advisers in whom she had trusted, with the hitherto impartial Lord

Erskine alone at her ear, adding his word concerning the "unjust

possessors" who were to be driven "forth of this land," and overcome by

sickness, sadness, and loneliness, this lady, who had done her best to

hold the balance even and to refrain from bloodshed, though she had

little credit for it, seems to have lost courage. She saw from her

altitude on the castle rock the great fire in Leith, which probably

looked at first like the beginning of its destruction, and all the

martial bands of England, and the Scots lords and their followers, lying

between her and her friends. After some ineffectual efforts to

communicate with them otherwise, she sent for the Lords Argyle,

Glencairn, and the Earl Marischal, with the Lord James, who visited her

separately, "not all together, lest that some part of the Guysian

practice had lurked under the colour of friendship." Knox's heart was

not softened by the illness and isolation, nor even by the regrets and

repentance, of the dying Queen. She consented to see John Willock, his

colleague, and after hearing him "openly confessed that there was no

salvation but in and by the death of Jesus Christ." "But of the Mass we

had not her confession," says the implacable preacher. She died on the

9th of June, worsted, overthrown, all that she had aimed at ending in

failure, all her efforts foiled, leaving those who had been her enemies

triumphant, and the future fate of her daughter's kingdom in the hands

of "the auld enemy," the ever-dangerous neighbour of Scotland. "God, for

His good mercy's sake, rid us from the rest of the Guysian blood," was

the prayer Knox made over her grave.

And yet, so far as can be judged, Mary of Guise was no persecutor and no

tyrant. To all appearance she had honestly intended to keep peace in the

kingdom, to permit as much as she could without committing herself to

views which she did not share. And nothing could be more touching than

such an end to a life never too brilliant or happy. She had gone through

many alternations of gladness and of despair, had stood bravely by her

sensitive husband when the infant sons who were his hope had been taken

one after another, had discharged, as faithfully as circumstances and

the accidents of a tremendous crisis would let her, her duties as

Regent. Her death, lonely, desolate, and defeated, with no one near whom

she loved, to smooth her passage to the grave, might have gained her a

more gentle word of dismissal.

Within little more than a month after her death peace was signed; the

French forces departed, and the English army, not much more loved in its

help than the others in their hostility, was escorted back to the Border

and safely got rid of. On the 19th of July, all being thus happily

settled, St. Giles's was once more filled with a crowd of eager

worshippers, "the haill nobilitie and the greatest part of the

Congregation,"--a number which must have tried the capacity of the great

church, large as it is. Knox does not give his sermon on the occasion,

but we have a very noble and devout prayer, or rather thanksgiving,

which was used at this service, and in which, though there is one

reference to "proud tyrants overthrown," the spirit of devout

thankfulness is predominant. He tells us, however, that the subject of

his discourses, delivered daily, were the prophecies of Haggai, which he

found to be "proper for the time." Some of his hearers, he informs us,

spoke jestingly of having now to "bear the barrow to build the house of

God." "God be merciful to the speaker," cries the stern prophet, "for we

fear he shall have experience that the building of his ain house, the

house of God being despised, shall not be so prosperous or of such

firmity as we desire it were"--so dangerous was it to jest in the

presence of one so tremendously in earnest. The speaker referred to, of

this, as of most of the other caustic sayings of the time, is said to

have been Lethington.

The first thing done by the Parliament was the distribution of the

handful of ministers then existing among the districts which most needed

them; the second, the verification and establishment of the Confession

of Faith. No more curious scene could have been than this momentous

ceremony. The Parliament consisted of all the nobility of Scotland,

including among them the bishops and peers of the Church, and the

delegates from the boroughs. The Confession was read article by article,

and a vote taken upon each. Three only of the lords voted against it.

The bishops said nothing. What their feelings must have been, as they

sat in their places looking on, while the long array of the Congregation

voted, it is vain to attempt to imagine. There was nothing the Reformers

would have liked better than that discussion to which Knox had vainly

bidden his opponents, throwing down his glove as to mortal combat. "Some

of our ministers were present," he says, "standing upon their feet ready

to have answered in case any would have defended the Papistrie and

impugned our affirmations." But no one of all the ecclesiastics present

said a word. The Earl Marischal, when he rose in his turn to vote,

commented upon this remarkable abstinence with the straightforwardness

of a practical man. "It is long since I have had some favour to the

truth," he said, "and since I have had a suspicion of the Papistical

religion; but I praise my God this day has fully resolved me in the one

and the other. For, seeing that my Lord Bishops here present, who for

their learning can, and for the zeal they should bear to the veritie

would, I suppose, gainsay anything that directly repugns to the veritie

of God, speaks nothing in the contraire of the doctrine proposed, I

cannot but hold it to be the very truth of God." Even this speech moved

the bishops to no reply. They sat silent, perhaps too much astonished at

such an extraordinary revolution to say anything; perhaps alarmed at the

strength of the party against them. It might be that there was little

learning among them, though they had the credit of it; certainly the

arguments which Knox reports on several occasions are inconceivably

feeble on the side of the old faith. But whatever was the meaning there

they sat dumb, and looked on bewildered, confounded, while the new

Confession was voted paragraph by paragraph, and the whole scope of the

Scottish constitution changed.

[Illustration: KNOX'S HOUSE, HIGH STREET]

The next step was the abolition of the mass, an act by which it was

forbidden that any should either hear or say that office "or be present

thereat, under the pain of confiscation of all their goods movable and

immovable, and punishing of their bodies at the discretion of the

Magistrates." Another edict followed abolishing the jurisdiction of the

Pope under pain of "proscription, banishment, and never to brook honour,

office, or dignity within this realm." "These and other things," says

the Reformer, "were orderly done in lawful and free Parliament," with

the bishops and all spiritual lords in their places sitting dumb and

making no sign. The Queen was at liberty to say afterwards, as was done,

that a Parliament where she was not represented in any way, either by

viceroy or regent, where there was no exhibition of sceptre, sword, or

crown, and in short where the monarch was left out altogether, was not a

lawful Parliament. But the most remarkable feature of this strange

assembly amid all the voting and "bruit" is the dramatic silence of the

State ecclesiastical. It is curious that no fervent brother should have

been found to maintain the cause of his faith. But probably it was

better policy to refrain. The extraordinary absence of logic as well as

toleration which made the Reformers unable to see what a lame conclusion

this was after their own struggle for freedom, and that they were

exactly following the example of their adversaries, need not be

remarked. John Knox thought it a quite sufficient answer to say that the

mass was idolatry and his own ways of thinking absolutely and certainly

true; but so of course has the Roman Catholic Church done when the

impulse of persecution was strongest in her. There is one only thing to

be said in favour of the Reformers, and that is, that while a number of

good men had been sacrificed at the stake for the Reformed doctrines, no

one was burned for saying mass; the worst that happened, notwithstanding

their fierce enactments, being the exposure in the pillory of a priest.

Rotten eggs and stones are bad arguments either in religion or

metaphysics, but not so violently bad as fire and flame.

Thus the Reformed religion was established in Scotland, and Knox settled

in St. Giles's for the remainder of his life. Whether he was at once

placed in the picturesque house with its panelled rooms and

old-fashioned comfort and gracefulness which still bears his name,

standing out in a far-seeing angle from which he could contemplate the

abounding life of the High Street, the great parish in which half his

life was spent, is not certain; but it was a most fit and natural

lodging for the minister of St. Giles's. And for the rest of his life,

with very few intervals, all the stream of public life in Scotland

flowed about this dwelling. His importance in every national question,

the continual references made to him, the appeals addressed to him by

monarch and noble, as well as by burghers and retainers, show better

than any statement the unique position he held. He was at this time a

man of fifty-five. His Marjory Bowes, never I think mentioned but by

this name, the "weill belovit sister" who is associated with so much of

his life without one trace of human identity ever stealing through the

mist that envelops her, was dead; disappearing noiseless into the grave,

where it would seem her mother, Mrs. Bowes, the religious hypochondriac

who had required so many solemn treatises in the shape of letters to

comfort her, had preceded her daughter. Two boys, the sons of Marjory,

were with their father in these panelled rooms. They both grew up, but

not to any distinction; he did not spare the rod as appears in an after

statement, but loved not to see them in tears, and probably was a fond

father enough. All these things, however, are too petty to find any

record in what he says of himself.

CHAPTER II

UNDER QUEEN MARY

When the Parliament which did these great things was over, the

newly-established Kirk began to labour at its own development, supplying

as far as was possible ministers to the more important centres. There

were but thirteen available in all according to the lists of those

appointed to independent charges: and though they no doubt were

supplemented by various of the laymen who had already been authorised to

read prayers and preach in the absence of other qualified persons--one

of whom, Erskine of Dun, became one of the superintendents of the new

organisation--the clerical element must have been very small in

comparison with the number of the faithful and the power and influence

accorded to the preachers. When these indispensable arrangements had

been made the chiefs of the Reformers began to draw up the Book of

Discipline,--a compendium of the Constitution of the Church establishing

her internal order, the provisions to be made for her, her powers in

dealing with the people in general, and special sinners in

particular,--as the Confession of Faith was of her doctrines and belief.

But this was a much harder morsel for the lords to swallow. Many a stout

spirit of the Congregation had held manfully for the Reformed faith and

escaped with delight from the exactions and corruptions of the Romish

clergy who yet had not schooled his mind to give up the half of his

living, the fat commendatorship or priory which had been obtained for

him by the highest influence, and upon which he had calculated as a

lawful provision for himself and his family. One would have supposed

that the meddling and keen supervision of every act of life, which was

involved in the Church's stern claim of discipline, would also have

alarmed and revolted a body of men not all conformed to the purest

models of morality. But this seems to have troubled them little in

comparison with the necessity of giving up their share of Church lands

and ecclesiastical wealth generally, in order to provide for the

preachers, and the needs of education and charity. "Everything that

repugned to their corrupt affections was termed in their mockage 'devout

imaginations,'" says Knox: and it was no doubt Lethington from whose

quiver this winged word came, with so many more.

[Illustration: HOLYROOD PALACE AND ARTHUR'S SEAT]

A number of the lords, however, subscribed to the Book of Discipline

though with reluctance, but some, and among them several of the most

staunch supporters of the Reformation, held back. Knox had himself been

placed in an independent position by his congregation, the citizens of

Edinburgh, and he was therefore more free to press stipulations which in

no way could be supposed to be for his own interest: but he evidently

had not taken into account the strong human disposition to keep what has

been acquired and the extreme practical difficulty of persuading men to

a sacrifice of property. In other matters too there were drawbacks not

sufficiently realised. There can be no grander ideal than that of a

theocracy, a commonwealth entirely ruled and guided by sacred law: but

when it is brought to practice even by the most enlightened, and men's

lives are subjected to the keen inspection of an ecclesiastical board

new to its functions, and eager for perfection, which does not disdain

the most minute detail, nor to listen to the wildest rumours, the high

ideal is apt to fall into the most intolerable petty tyranny. And

notwithstanding the high exaltation of many minds, and the wonderful

intellectual and emotional force which was expended every day in that

pulpit of St. Giles's, swaying as with great blasts and currents of

religious feeling the minds of the great congregation that filled the

aisles of the cathedral, it is to be doubted whether Edinburgh was a

very agreeable habitation in those days of early fervour, when the

Congregation occupied the chief place everywhere, and men's thoughts

were not as yet distracted by the coming of the Queen. During this

period there occurs a curious and most significant story of an Edinburgh

mob and riot, which might be placed by the side of the famous Porteous

mob of later days, and which throws a somewhat lurid light upon the

record of this most triumphant moment of the early Reformation. The

Papists and bishops, Knox says, had stirred up the rasckall multitude to

"make a Robin Hood." We may remark that he never changes his name for

the mob, of which he is always sternly contemptuous. When it destroys

convents and altars he flatters it (though he acknowledges sometimes a

certain ease in finding the matter thus settled for him) with no better

a title. He was no democrat though the most independent of citizens. The

vulgar crowd had at no time any attraction for him.

It seems no very great offence to "make a Robin Hood": but it is evident

this popular festival had been always an occasion of rioting and

disorderly behaviour since it was condemned by various acts of previous

Parliaments. It will strike the reader, however, with dismay and horror

to find that one of the ringleaders having been taken, he was condemned

to be hanged, and a gibbet erected near the Cross to carry this sentence

into execution. The _Diurnal of Occurrents_ gives by far the fullest and

most graphic account of what followed. The trades rose in anxious

tumult, at once angry and terrified.

"The craftsmen made great solicitations at the hands of the provost,

John Knox minister, and the baillie, to have gotten him relieved,

promising that he would do anything possible to be done saving his

life--who would do nothing but have him hanged. And when the time of

the poor man's hanging approached, and that the poor man was come to

the gibbet with the ladder upon which the said cordwainer should

have been hanged, the craftsman's children (apprentices?) and

servants past to armour; and first they housed Alexander Guthrie and

the provost and baillies in the said Alexander's writing booth, and

syne come down again to the Cross, and dang down the gibbet and

brake it in pieces, and thereafter past to the tolbooth which was

then steekit: and when they could not apprehend the keys thereof

they brought hammers and dang up the said tolbooth door perforce,

the provost, baillies, and others looking thereupon; and when the

said door was broken up ane part of them passed in the same, and not

only brought the said condemned cordwainer forth of the said

tolbooth, but also all the remaining persons being thereintill: and

this done they passed up the Hie gate, to have past forth at the

Nether Bow."

The shutting up of the provost and bailie in the "writing booth"--one of

the wooden structures, no doubt, which hung about St. Giles's, as round

so many other cathedrals, where a crowd of little industries were

collected about the skirts of the great church, the universal centre of

life--has something grimly comic in it, worthy of an Edinburgh mob.

Guthrie's booth must have been at the west end, facing the Tolbooth, and

the impotence of the authorities, thus compelled to look on while the

apprentices and young men in their leather aprons, armed with the long

spears which were kept ready in all the shops for immediate use, broke

down the prison doors with their hammers and let the prisoners go

free--must have added a delightful zest to the triumph of the rebels,

who had so lately pleaded humbly before them for the victim's life, but

in vain. The provost was Archibald Douglas of Kilspindie, a name little

suitable for such a dilemma. When the rude mob, with their shouts and

cries, had turned their backs, the imprisoned authorities were able to

break out and take shelter in the empty Tolbooth; but when the crowd

surged up again, finding the gates closed at the Nether Bow, into the

High Street, a scuffle arose, a new "Clear the Causeway," though the

defenders of order kept within the walls of the Tolbooth, and thence

shot at the rioters, who returned their fire with hagbuts and

stones--from three in the afternoon till eight o'clock in the evening,

"and never ane man of the town stirred to defend their provost and

baillies." Finally the Constable of the Castle was sent for, who made

peace, the craftsmen only laying down their arms on condition not only

of absolute immunity from punishment for the day's doings, but with an

undertaking that all previous actions against them should be stopped,

and their masters made to receive them again without grudge or

punishment--clearly a complete victory for the rioters. This extorted

guarantee was proclaimed at the Cross at nine o'clock on the lingering

July night, in the soft twilight which departs so unwillingly from

northern skies; and a curious scene it must have been, with the

magistrates still cooped up behind the barred windows of the Tolbooth,

the triumph of the mob filling the streets with uproar, and spectators

no doubt at all the windows, story upon story, looking on, glad, can we

doubt? of something to see which was riot without being bloodshed. John

Knox adds an explanation of his conduct in his narrative of the

occurrence, which somewhat softens our feeling towards him. He refused

to ask for the life of the unlucky reveller not without a reason, such

as it was.

"Who did answer that he had so oft solicited in their favour that

his own conscience accused him that they used his labours for no

other end but to be a patron to their impiety. For he had before

made intercession for William Harlow, James Fussell, and others that

were convict of the former tumult. They proudly said 'that if it was

not stayed both he and the Baillies should repent it.' Whereto he

answered 'He would not hurt his conscience for any fear of man.'"

It was not perhaps the fault of Knox or his influence that a man should

be sentenced to be hanged for the rough horseplay of a Robin Hood

performance, or because he was "Lord of Inobedience" or "Abbot of

Unreason," like Adam Woodcock; but the extraordinary exaggeration of a

society which could think such a punishment reasonable is very curious.

Equally curious is the incidental description of how "the Papists"

crowded into Edinburgh after this, apparently swaggering about the

streets, "and began to brag as that they would have defaced the

Protestants." When the Reformers perceived the audacity of their

opponents, they replied by a similar demonstration: "the brethren

assembled together and went in such companies, and that in peaceable

manner, that the Bishops and their bands forsook the causeway." Many a

strange sight must the spectators at the high windows, the old women at

their "stairheads," from which they inspected everything, have seen--the

bishops one day, the ministers another, and John Knox, were it shade or

shine, crossing the High Street with his staff every day to St. Giles's,

and seeing everything, whatever occurred on either side of him, with

those keen eyes.

This tumult, however, was almost the end of the undisturbed reign of the

Congregation. In August, Mary Stewart, with all the pomp that her poor

country could muster for her, arrived in a fog, as so many lesser people

have done, on her native shores; and henceforward the balance of power

was strangely disturbed. The gravest of the lords owned a certain

divergence from the hitherto unbroken claims of religious duty, and a

hundred softnesses and forbearances stole in, which were far from being

according to the Reformer's views. The new reign began with a startling

test of loyalty to conviction, which apparently had not been

anticipated, and which came with a shock upon the feelings even of those

who loved the Queen most. The first Sunday which Mary spent in Holyrood,

preparations were made for mass in the chapel, probably with no

foresight of the effect likely to be produced. Upon this a sudden tumult

arose in the very ante-chambers. "Shall that idol be suffered again to

take its place in this realm? It shall not," even the courtiers said to

each other. The Master of Lindsay, that grim Lindsay of the Byres, so

well known among Mary's adversaries, standing with some gentlemen of

Fife in the courtyard, declared that "the idolatrous priests should die

the death." In this situation of danger the Lord James, afterwards so

well known as Murray, the Queen's brother, put himself in the breach. He

"took upon him to keep the door of the chapel." There was no man in

Scotland more true to the faith, and none more esteemed in the

Congregation. He excused himself after for this act of true charity by

saying that his object was to prevent any Scot from entering while the

mass was proceeding: but Knox divined that it was to protect the priest,

and preserve silence and sanctity for the service, though he disapproved

it, that Murray thus intervened. The Reformers did not appreciate the

good brother's devotion. Knox declared that he was more afraid of one

mass than of ten thousand armed men, and the arches of St. Giles's rang

with his alarm, his denunciation, his solemn warning. He recounts,

however, how by degrees this feeling softened among those who frequented

the Court. "There were Protestants found," he says, "that were not

ashamed at tables and other open places to ask 'Why may not the Queen

have her mass, and the form of her religion? What can that hurt us, or

our religion?' until by degrees this indulgence rose to a warmer and

stronger sentiment. 'The Queen's mass and her priests will we maintain:

this hand and this rapier shall fight in their defence.'" One can well

imagine the chivalrous youth or even the grave baron, with generous

blood in his veins, who, with hand upon the hilt of the too ready sword,

would dare even Knox's frown with this outcry; and in these days it is

the champion of the Queen and of her conscience who secures our

sympathy. But the Reformer had at least the cruel force of logic on his

side, the severe logic which decreed the St. Bartholomew. To stamp out

the previous faith was the only policy on either side.

Then, as now, we think, there are few even of those who are forced to

believe that the after-accusations against Queen Mary were but too

clearly proved, who will not look back with a compunctious tenderness

upon that early and bright beginning of her career. So strong a sense of

remorseful pity, and the intolerableness of such a fate, overcomes the

spectator, that he who stands by and looks on, knowing all that is

coming, can scarcely help feeling that even he, unborn, might send a

shout from out the dim futurity to warn her. She came with so much hope,

so eagerly, to her new kingdom, so full of pleasure and interest and

readiness to hear and see, and to be pleased with everything--even John

Knox, that pestilent preacher, of whom she must have heard so much; he

who had written the book against women which naturally made every woman

indignant yet curious, keenly desirous to see him, to question him, to

put him on his defence. I think great injustice has been done to both in

the repeated interviews in which the sentimentalist perceives nothing

but a harsh priest upbraiding a lovely woman and making her weep; and

the sage of sterner mettle sees an almost sublime sight, a prophet

unmoved by the meretricious charms of a queen of hearts. Neither of

these exaggerated views will survive, we believe, a simple reading of

the interviews themselves, especially in Knox's account of them. He is

not merciless nor Mary silly. One would almost fancy that she liked the

encounter which matched her own quick wit against the tremendous old man

with his "blast against women," his deep-set fiery eyes, his sovereign

power to move and influence the people. He was absolutely a novel

personage to Mary: their conversations are like a quick glancing of

polished weapons--his, too heavy for her young brilliancy of speech and

nature, crushing with ponderous force the light-flashing darts of

question; but she, no way daunted, comprehending him, meeting full in

the face the prodigious thrust. A brave young creature of twenty

confronting the great Reformer, in single combat so to speak, and

retiring from the field, not triumphant indeed, but with all the honours

of war, and a blessing half extorted from him at the end, she secures a

sympathy which the weaker in such a fight does not always obtain, but

which we cannot deny to her in her bright intelligence and brave defence

of her faith. When his friends asked him, after this first interview,

what he thought of the Queen, he gave her credit for "a proud mind, a

crafty wit, and an indurate heart." But curiously enough, though the

effect is not unprecedented, the faithfulness of genius baulks the

prejudices of the writer, and there is nowhere a brighter or more genial

representation of Mary than that which is to be found in a history full

of abuse of her and vehement vituperation. She is "mischievous Marie," a

vile woman, a shameless deceiver; every bad name that can be coined by a

mediaeval fancy, not unlearned in such violences; but when he is face to

face with this woman of sin it is not in Knox to give other than a true

picture, and that--apart from the grudging acknowledgment of her

qualities and indication of evil intentions divined--is almost always an

attractive one.

He, too, shows far from badly in the encounter. In this case, as in so

many others, the simple record denuded of all gloss gives at once a much

better and we do not doubt much more true representation of the two

remarkable persons involved, than when loaded with explanations, either

from other people or from themselves. It cannot be said that Knox is

just to Mary in the opinions he expresses of her, as he is in the

involuntary picture which his inalienable truthfulness to fact forces

from him. It must be remembered, however, that his history was written

after the disastrous story had advanced nearly to its end, and when the

stamp of crime (as Knox and so many more believed) had thrown a sinister

shade upon all her previous life. Looking back upon the preliminaries

which led to such wild confusion and misery, it was not unnatural that a

man so absolute in judgment should perceive in the most innocent bygone

details indications of depravity. It is one (whether good or bad we will

not say) consequence of the use and practice of what may, to use a

modern word, be called society, that men are less disposed to believe in

the existence of monstrous and hideous evil, that they do not attach an

undue importance to trifles nor take levity for vice. Knox had all the

limitations of mind natural to his humble origin, and his profession,

and the special disadvantage which must attach to the habit of

investigating by means of popular accusation and gossip, problematical

cases of immorality. He was able to believe that the Queen, when retired

into her private apartments with her ladies, indulged in "skipping not

very comelie for honest women," and that all kinds of brutal orgies went

on at court--incidents certainly unnecessary to prove her after-guilt,

and entirely out of keeping with all the surrounding associations, as if

Holyrood had been a changehouse in "Christ Kirk on the green." It did

not offend his sense of the probable or likely that such insinuations

should be made, and he recorded them accordingly not as insinuations but

as facts, in a manner only possible to that conjoint force of ignorance

and scorn which continually makes people of one class misconceive and

condemn those of another. Dancing was in those days the most decorous of

performances: but if Mary had been proved to have danced a stately _pas

seul_ in a minuet, it was to Knox, who knew no better, as if she had

indulged in the wildest bobbing of a country fair--nay, he would

probably have thought the high-skipping rural performer by far the more

innocent of the two.

This is but an instance of many similar misconceptions with which the

colour of the picture is heightened. An impassioned spectator looking on

with a foregone conclusion in his mind, never apparently able to

convince himself that vice does not always wear her trappings, but is

probably much more dangerous when she observes the ordinary modesties of

outward life, is always apt to be misled in this way. The state of

affairs in which a great body of public men, not only ministers, but

noble men and worthy persons of every degree, could personally address

the Queen, and that almost in the form of an accusation couched in the

most vehement terms, because of a libertine raid made by a few young

gallants in the night, on a house supposed to be inhabited by a woman of

damaged character, is inconceivable to us--a certain parochial

character, a pettiness as of a village, thus comes into the great

national struggle. The Queen's uncle, who had accompanied her to

Scotland, was one of the young men concerned, along with Earl Bothwell

and another. "The horror of this fact and the raretie of it commoved all

godlie hearts," said Knox--and yet there was no lack of scandals in that

age notwithstanding the zeal of purification. When the courtiers,

alarmed by this commination (in which every kind of spiritual vengeance

upon the realm and its rulers was denounced), asked, "Who durst avow

it?" the grim Lindsay replied, "A thousand gentlemen within Edinburgh."

Yet if Edinburgh was free from disorders of this kind, it was certainly

far from free of other contentions. The proclamations from the Cross

during Mary's brief reign give us the impression of being almost

ceaseless. The Queen's Majestie proclaimed by the heralds now one

decree, now another, with a crowd hastily forming to every blast of the

trumpet: and the little procession in their tabards, carrying a moving

patch of bright colour and shining ornament up all the long picturesque

line of street, both without and within the city gates, was of almost

daily occurrence. It was some compensation at least for the evils of an

uncertain rule to have that delightful pageant going on for ever.

Sometimes there would arise a protest, and one of the lords, all

splendid in his jewelled bonnet, would step forward to the Lord Lyon and

"take instruments and crave extracts," according to the time-honoured

jargon of law; while from his corner window perhaps John Knox looked

out, his eager pen already drawn to answer, the tumultuous impassioned

sentences rushing to his lips.

When it was found that no punishment was to follow that "enormitie and

fearful attemptal," but that "nightly masking" and riotous behaviour

continued, some of the lords took the matter in their own hands, and a

great band known as "my Lord Duke his friends" took the causeway to keep

order in the town. When the news was brought to Earl Bothwell that the

Hamiltons were "upon the gait," there were vows made on his side that

"the Hamiltons should be driven not only out of the town but out of the

country." The result, however, of this sudden surging up of personal

feud to strengthen the bitterness of the quarrel between licence and

repression, was that the final authorities were roused to make the fray

an affair of State; and Murray and Huntly were sent from the abbey with

their companies to stop the impending struggle. These sudden night

tumults, the din of the struggle and clashing of the swords, the

gleaming torches of the force who came to keep order, were sights very

familiar to Edinburgh. But this fray brings upon us, prominent in the

midst of the nightly brawls, the dark and ominous figure whose trace in

history is so black, so brief, and so disastrous--once only had he

appeared clearly before, when he intercepted in the interest of the

Queen Regent the money sent from England to the Congregation. Now it is

in a very different guise. Bothwell, as probably the ringleader in the

disorders of the young nobles, was apparently the only person punished.

He was confined to his own lodging, and it was apparently at this time

that he sought the intervention of Knox, who seems to have been the

universal referee. Knox gladly granted his prayer for an interview,

which was brought him by a citizen of Edinburgh, with whom the riotous

Earl had dealings. No doubt the Reformer expected a new convert; and

indeed Bothwell had his preliminary shrift to make, and confessed his

repentance of his previous action against the Congregation, which he

said was done "by the entysements of the Queen Regent." But the Earl's

object was not entirely of this pious kind. He informed Knox that he had

offended the Earl of Arran, and that he was most anxious to recover that

gentleman's favour, on the ground, apparently, that a feud with so great

a personage compelled him to maintain a great retinue, "a number of

wicked and unprofitable men, to the utter destruction of my living."

Knox received with unusual favour this petition for his intervention,

and for (to the reader) an unexpected reason: "Albeit to this hour," he

said, "it hath not chanced me to speak to your lordship face to face,

yet have I borne a good mind to your honour, and have been sorry in my

heart of the troubles that I have heard you to be involved in. For, my

lord, my grandfather, goodsire and father, have served your lordship's

predecessors, and some of them have died under their standards; and this

is part of the obligation of our Scottish kindness." He goes on

naturally to exhort his visitor to complete repentance and "perfyte

reconciliation with God;" but ends by promising his good offices for the

wished-for reconciliation with man. In this mediation Knox was

successful: and as the extraordinary chance would have it, it was at the

Kirk of Field, doomed to such dismal association for ever with

Bothwell's name, that the meeting with Arran, under the auspices of

Knox--strange conjunction!--took place, and friendship was made between

the two enemies. Knox made them a little oration as they embraced each

other, exhorting them to "study that amitie may ensure all former

offences being forgotten."