were no sooner gone than the King again thought of trying his craft on
the ministers of the capital, who he imagined would be more manageable
when alone. He accordingly invited them to an interview, but in reply
they said that unless the commissioners were recalled as openly as they
had been dismissed, there could be no communication between the court
and them. The King’s flatterers continued to keep him upon the line
of thought towards which he had always inclined; and he next commanded
twenty-four of the most ardent Protestants among the citizens to leave
Edinburgh within six hours. The excitement in the capital then became
extreme. On the 17th of December a rumour spread that Huntly had been
at the Palace of Holyrood, and the alarm of the preachers was intense.
Balcanquhal was ascending the pulpit for the week-day sermon when
this story was told to him, and unaware of its falsehood, he commented
on it in his discourse, and aroused the feelings and passions of the
congregation to the highest pitch. At the close of his sermon, he
called on the barons present not to disgrace their names and their
ancestors, but to meet the ministers immediately in the Little Church.
A crowd had already collected there, and when the barons were seated,
the preacher addressed them on the dangers to which the Church was
exposed by the return of the Catholic lords. He reminded them of the
rigour lately shown to the faithful professors of the reformed religion,
and desired them to hold up their hands and swear to defend their faith
against all opposers.¹
¹ Spottiswood, Calderwood, Volume V., pages, 510‒511.
A deputation was sent to the King, who at the moment was in the
Tolbooth with the Lords of Council. When admitted, they informed him
that they were sent by the barons convened in the Little Church, to
lay before his Majesty the imminent dangers which threatened religion.
“What dangers see you,” said the King, “and who dares to assemble
against my proclamation?” Lord Lindsay replied, “we dare do more than
that, and will not suffer religion to be overthrown.” The clamour
increased, and a number of the people rushing into the room, the King
started to his feet in great alarm, and without giving any answer,
ran down the stairs and ordered the doors to be shut. The deputation
returned to the Little Church, where one of the ministers had been
reading the story of Haman and Mordecai; and when it was announced that
the King had given no answer, the multitude were furious. The tumult
thickened, and Lord Lindsay shouted at the top of his voice not to
separate, that their only hope of safety was to remain and send notice
to their friends to come and assist them. Some cried “to bring out the
wicked Haman;” others shouted, “the sword of the Lord and of Gideon.”
One of the crowd cried, “Fy, Fy, save yourselves, the Catholics are
coming to massacre you, To arms! to arms! bills and axes.” The seething
mob rushed hither and thither in wild confusion. Some fancied that
the King was a prisoner, and ran to the Tolbooth; others, imagining
that their ministers were being murdered, flew to the church; some
knocked on the Tolbooth door, and called for President Seaton and other
councillors to be delivered up to them, that summary punishment might
be executed upon the misdoers. At last the provost of the city arrived.
He addressed the multitude, and advised them to go quietly to their
homes; and thus the uproar which threatened to be dangerous was quelled
without serious mischief.¹
¹ Moysie’s _Memoirs_, page 131; Calderwood, Volume V., pages
512‒513; Bruce’s _Sermons_, pages 173‒176, 1843; Birrel’s
_Diary_.
After the King’s courage had revived, he determined to let the
ministers and the citizens feel the weight of his wrath. The
following morning he left Edinburgh for Linlithgow; and there issued
a proclamation which described the disturbance of the preceding day as
a treasonable uproar, excited by the ministers; and ordered the courts
of law to leave the capital, which was no longer a fit place for the
administration of justice. At the same time he commanded all the barons
to depart to their own homes, and not dare again to assemble until they
had received his permission.¹
¹ Calderwood, Volume V., pages 514, 515.
This unexpected move on the part of the King, cowed the citizens and
cooled their ardour. The burgesses and craftsmen saw in it the decay
of the town, and the loss of their trade, and were therefore ready to
yield, and implore his Majesty’s clemency. The clergy, on the other
hand, were prepared to brave the tempest. When all the people were in
despair, Mr. Robert Bruce ascended the pulpit, and upbraided them for
their timidity. He said, “A trial shall go through all men, from the
King and Queen to the council and nobility, from the session to the
barons, from the barons to the burgesses, yea, to the very craftsmen.
The love of all men shall be seen, both towards God and the religion.
Sorry am I that I should see such weakness in many of you, that ye dare
not so much as utter one word for God’s glory and the good cause....
I am heartily sorry that our holy and gracious cause should be so
obscured by this late tumult, and that the desperate enemies should be
emboldened to pull down the crown off Christ’s head.... Let us suffer
cheerfully, and in the meantime stand to the cause. The Lord so bear us
out that, if the greatest were sitting there, we shrink not to admonish
them with all reverence.... The Lord prepare us in mercy, enlarge the
narrow bounds of our wretched hearts that they may be capable, and
multiply His holy and divine unction on them, that His glory may break
out, and shine on our constancy and holy perseverance; and, on the
other side, that the tokens of His hot and just wrath may break up and
begin in the heart of the enemy, and awaken their conscience, and open
their mouths to confess their own turpitude, to the honour of the good
cause, and the glory of Christ for ever.” The ministers invited Lord
Hamilton to place himself at the head of those who had embraced the
cause of the Church; but he modestly declined the honour, and sent the
letter of invitation to the King. The citizens of Edinburgh dispatched
humble messages to the King to appease his wrath, and solicited him to
return to his capital, but in vain. The only answer he returned was an
announcement, that ere long he would come to Edinburgh, and let them
know he was their King. The Provost was meantime ordered to imprison
the ministers; and the tumult was declared to be treason by an act of
the Privy Council. A rumour arose that the city was to be sacked, razed,
and sown with salt. But on the 1st of January 1597, the gates and
streets were occupied with bodies of armed men, and the King re-entered
the capital with all the pomp and circumstance of a conquering hero.
The magistrates and the citizens offered the most complete submission,
but the King declined to accept it. A convention of the Estates at
Holyrood anew denounced the disturbance as a treasonable riot and
ordered the Provost and Bailies to be imprisoned in Perth before the
11th of February, and there to remain till they were tried.¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_; _Register of Privy Council_;
Birrel’s _Diary_; Calderwood, Volume V., pages 515‒521, 530,
535‒538.
The day of the trial was at last fixed for the 5th of March, 1597;
and the case was then put into this form:――two of the bailies, the
treasurer, the dean of guild, four of the council, the town clerk,
and four of the deacons, were summoned to attend their trial, as
representing the city. On the appointed day they all appeared, except
one, who, it was alleged, had the King’s dispensation; but the plea was
overruled, and they were all found guilty of not fulfilling the order
of the council, which required thirteen to be present. The city was
denounced, the burgesses declared rebels, and all their public property
forfeited to the crown. This sentence filled the capital with dismay;
the magistrates threw up their offices and refused to act, and for
fifteen days the city was without either magistrates or ministers.
After this the provost, the magistrates, and the deacons were admitted
into the King’s presence at Holyrood, and on their knees besought
his highness to take pity on the city as they had thrown themselves
entirely upon his mercy. The King severely reprimanded them, and after
expatiating long on the enormity of their offence, he ordered them to
retire, till he should resolve upon their doom. When recalled, they
were commanded to give up to his Majesty the houses in the churchyard
where the ministers used to dwell, who were henceforth to live
separately; to protect the Lords of Session during their sittings under
a penalty; to give up the lower council house for exchequer chambers,
and to pay a fine of twenty thousand marks.¹ Such was the enormous
punishment which the wisdom of James VI. deemed it necessary to inflict
upon the inhabitants of Edinburgh for a harmless hubbub, which it was
impossible for them to have foreseen or prevented, and for which the
King himself and his courtiers were more to blame than any one else in
the kingdom.
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_; _Acts of the Parliaments of
Scotland_, Volume IV., pages 103‒109.
This severe punishment of the people of Edinburgh enabled the King to
extend his influence and power over the Church. For a time the chief
ministers of the capital were silenced and put out of the way. Two of
the most active had fled to England, and other two were in Fife. James
had thus gained ground in the direction of the object which he had
in view――the establishment of Episcopacy. He was aware that any overt
attempt to reintroduce the bishops would be firmly resisted; and in
accordance with the statecraft and pedantry on which he prided himself,
a series of fifty-five questions were drawn up and published in the
name of the King,¹ touching the polity of the Church, and appointing
a General Assembly to be held at Perth on the last day of February,
1597. Those questions were drawn up by Secretary Lindsay, and they were
issued with the intention of casting discredit upon the established
government of the Church. The points raised in this long string of
questions involved among other matters the great and difficult problem
of the relations of the Church and State, a subject on which the
King and the clergy held directly opposite views. The Church, in all
spiritual things, claimed a supremacy over the civil government, as
Jesus Christ was her Head and King, and the word of God her guide, to
these only was she bound to render obedience. But the weak side of this
principle, as then understood, came out clearly in the realities of
political and practical life. The proceedings of the Church were held
to be independent of the civil government in form and doctrine; and
yet, according to the theory of the Church, the civil authorities must
enforce the decisions of the spiritual courts by the infliction of
secular penalties, as when a person was excommunicated all the legal
machinery of the land was to be employed to crush him. This singular
confusion of ideas was one of the main embittering stings in the
long conflict of the Church and State in Scotland. It seems to have
originated from the theocratic conception embedded in the Old Testament,
already noticed, as influencing the form and spirit of the reformed
religion. Thus it was that the Church and the King both claimed to be
directly under God, and each consequently thought they were supreme.
According to some of the notions of the time the King was accountable
to God alone, and therefore his authority must be above all persons
and courts in the kingdom. At this period the social advantages of the
contention were nearly all on the side of the Church, and it was with
the aim of turning the balance in his own favour that the King proposed
the questions.
¹ They are printed in the _Book of the Universal Kirk_, and in
Melville’s _Diary_, pages 390‒403.
The clergy of the age had no idea of a Church existing separately from
the State. They were continually calling on the King and the government
to pass laws relating to the establishment of the Church, and also on
points of discipline and doctrine; and many acts of parliament, and of
council, were passed on these matters from the Reformation to the end
of the century. But the conditions of society, and the circumstances
in which Protestantism found itself placed, rendered the sanction and
support of the State necessary to its existence; and even if an idea of
the complete separation of the Church and State had arisen in the minds
of the Reformers, it could not have been realised anywhere in Europe
for long after their day.
The King’s questions were industriously circulated among the
presbyteries and synods. The leading ministers, however, were opposed
to the discussion of them, because they wished to hold by the existing
polity and discipline. The Synod of Fife drew up instructions for the
guidance of the commissioners of all the presbyteries within its bounds,
who were to attend the ensuing Assembly at Perth; and the Presbytery of
Edinburgh did the same. The tenor of these instructions were directly
adverse to the renewed discussion of the polity of the Church.¹
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 903‒911.
When the Assembly met at Perth, after a long debate on the manner of
appointing a General Assembly, the majority agreed to hold the meeting
to be a lawful General Assembly. The proposals submitted by the King
were then considered. They were hotly contested; but in the end the
King gained his object. It was carried by a majority, that the King
or his commissioner might propose any point of the external polity of
the Church which he desired to be reformed; that the ministers in their
sermons should refrain from rebuking individuals by name, and from
introducing political subjects in their discourses; that they should
hold no unusual meetings without his Majesty’s consent; and that in
all the chief towns the ministers should be chosen with the consent of
the King. The rest of the King’s questions were postponed to the next
Assembly, on the understanding that in the meantime they should not be
condemned either in pulpits, synods, or presbyteries. These conclusions
were ratified by the parliament then sitting in Perth.¹ The King had
thus gained a footing in the General Assembly, which he retained, until
it became a mere organ of the court, and the clergy opposed to his
measures were kept in the background for many years.
¹ _Ibid._, pages 895‒896; _Acts of the Parliaments of
Scotland_, Volume IV., pages 110‒112; Melville’s _Diary_,
pages 403‒411.
Another General Assembly met at Dundee on the 10th of May, 1597, when
the Assembly at Perth was declared lawful, and its proceedings were
ratified. The court party had made great exertions, but it was with
difficulty that they carried their measures. The King was present, and
he obtained the consent of the Assembly to a standing commission of
fourteen ministers, who were to meet with his Majesty and consult and
deliberate on all matters concerning the Church.¹
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 924‒928.
The conditions prescribed for the absolution and admission of the
Earls of Huntly, Errol, and Angus, came before this Assembly; and a
commission was appointed to receive them into the Church. The ceremony
of their reconciliation to the Church, and their restoration to their
estates, took place at Aberdeen in the Old Church on the 26th of June,
1597. The church was crowded. Immediately before the sermon, the three
earls publicly subscribed the Confession of Faith. After the sermon,
they rose and with a loud voice confessed their defection and apostacy,
and professed their present conviction of the truth of the Protestant
faith, and their resolution to adhere to it. The Earl of Huntly then
declared before God, the King, and the Church, his penitence for the
murder of the Earl of Moray. The three earls were then absolved from
the sentence of excommunication and received into the bosom of the
Church. They next communicated in the Protestant form, and solemnly
swore to keep order in all respects and to execute justice within their
territories. The following day their reconciliation was proclaimed at
the cross amid a multitude of the people, who shouted for joy, drank
their health, and tossed their glasses in the air.¹
¹ The Laird of Gight was also reconciled. In the garb of a
penitent he threw himself upon his knees before the pulpit,
and there implored pardon for supporting Bothwell, and
prayed to be released from the sentence of excommunication.
Scott’s _Narrative_, page 98; _Analecta Scotica_, page 299;
_Spalding Club Miscellany_, Volume II., page 60.
The four ministers of Edinburgh, who had sought refuge in flight, were
permitted to return, and began to preach in their own churches in July,
1597. The King was all the more bent on his project of improving the
polity of the Church, as the democratic elements of Presbyterianism
were extremely hateful to him. It was soon shown what he intended
to effect by the commission of ministers. He called them together at
the Palace of Falkland, and having summoned the Presbytery of St.
Andrews to appear before them, they reversed two of its judgments.
The King with his commissioners next proceeded to the University of St.
Andrews, and instituted an inquiry into the teaching of the professors.
The commission manifested an intention to find matter for censure
against Andrew Melville, the rector of the new college and professor of
divinity; and, though nothing was proved against him, he was deprived
of his rectorship.¹ The King had at last got his foot pretty fast
upon the chief university and the Church. He aspired to be the supreme
dictator in literature as well as religion.
¹ Calderwood, Volume V., pages 550‒654; Melville’s _Diary_,
pages 417‒419; Dr. M‘Crie’s _Life of Melville_, Volume II.,
pages 111‒117.
Parliament met at Edinburgh in December, 1597, and the Commissioners
of the Church presented a petition, asking that the ministers should
be permitted to vote in parliament as the third estate of the realm.
This was the way which the King took to restore the order of bishops
and episcopacy; and the presbyterian clergy at once saw the drift of
the proposal, and attempted to oppose it. But parliament passed an act
authorising the King to appoint such pastors as he thought fit to the
office of bishop or abbot, and conferred upon them the right to vote in
parliament as in past ages. In keeping with the petty craft of the King,
it was left to himself and the General Assembly to determine the limits
of the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishops.¹ It was well known that
there would be much opposition to this act among the clergy, and the
commissioners endeavoured to represent what they had done in the most
favourable light.
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume IV., pages
130‒131.
When the Assembly met at Dundee in March 1598, the question of the
bishops, and their voting in parliament in the name of the Church, was
hotly discussed. The King’s party had made great efforts to pack the
Assembly, yet there were still members present whom his majesty wished
to exclude from the debate. At the beginning of the Assembly, when
Andrew Melville’s name was called, the King challenged it, and said
that he could not agree to the admission of one whom he had restricted
from attending on Church courts. Melville, of course, defended his
right to be there; and was supported by the venerable Mr. Davidson, who
reminded the King that he was present only as a Christian, and not as
the President of the Assembly. The King then, with his characteristic
tactics, declared that he would not allow the business of the Assembly
to proceed till Melville retired; and accordingly he was ordered
to confine himself to his lodgings; but when it was found that his
brethren repaired to him, he was charged to quit Dundee under the
penalty of rebellion. After a week spent on the complaints given in
against the commissioners, and a number of other matters, the chief
question was introduced by a speech from the King. He reminded the
Assembly of his own services to the Church; how he had laboured to
remove controversies, restore discipline, and increase the patrimony
of the establishment; and how that in order to secure this, it was
now necessary that she should have a voice in parliament. He therefore
desired the members to discuss every point of the act lately passed
on the subject. The question whether ministers should have a vote in
parliament was then debated at great length, and the affirmative was
carried by a majority of ten. It was further agreed that the number
of the representatives of the Church should be fifty-one, about the
same number as under the Roman Catholic system. Their election was to
belong partly to the King and partly to the Church; but this and other
details were referred for consideration to the presbyteries and synods,
and then to the delegates of the synods, who were to meet with the
theological professors, and, in the presence of his Majesty, to reason
and conclude on the points undecided; and if they could not agree, the
whole matter was to be again put before the General Assembly.¹
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 932, 940, 942‒946;
Melville’s _Diary_, pages 439‒441.
The resolutions in the southern Presbyteries and Synods showed a
strong opposition to Episcopacy, and an attempt to confine the powers
of their representatives in Parliament within narrow limits. When
the discussions in the provincial meetings were concluded, and their
deputies chosen for the conference, several meetings were held with the
professors; but the result was not satisfactory to the King. He then
summoned the leading ministers of the kingdom to meet at Holyrood in
November, 1599, where with their brethren of the commission they opened
a debate upon the whole subject. The chief proposition was, whether it
was lawful for ministers of the Gospel to have a seat in Parliament?
A long and hot discussion ensued, which naturally enough ended in
settling nothing. Those who took the affirmative side argued that the
Gospel was not intended to destroy civil polity, that the ministry
were a part of the State, and ought therefore to be represented in
Parliament, as well as any other class; that it was reasonable that
they should assist in framing and passing the laws by which they were
to be governed; that ministers were not prohibited from discharging
the social duties of life, and that to debar them entirely from
secular business would be to carry the doctrine as far as the
Catholics had done, when they forbade the priests to marry. It was
also pointed out that, as matters had actually stood for some time
past, the Commissioners of the Church had waited on meetings for fixing
stipends, and often presented petitions to Parliament, and that General
Assemblies had repeatedly craved that no one should vote in Parliament
for the Church without their commission. Those who opposed the
proposition maintained, on the other hand, that though the Gospel by no
means sought to destroy civil polity, Christianity was distinct from it,
and might exist under any form of government; that a seat in the high
council of a kingdom constituted no part of this religion; and that
the ministry was not a civil corporation, nor recognised as a distinct
body in the State, but only as a portion of the general community, and
the ministers, like their fellow-citizens, were already represented
in Parliament by the commissioners of the shires and the burghs. The
performance of the natural duties of domestic life, and the social
duties which devolved upon them all, was a different matter, they said,
from being directly engaged in the offices of the government; and the
presenting of a petition occasionally, had little resemblance to a
regular attendance in Parliament. They knew little of the importance
of the ministerial function, who thought that it was compatible with
the holding of civil offices, and the worldly titles and dominion
which it was sought to import into the Church were not in harmony,
they maintained, with the injunctions of the Gospel, but opposed to
the leading example of Jesus Himself, who professed that His kingdom
was not of this world. It was suggested that the elders and deacons
might be commissioned by the General Assembly to vote for the Church
in Parliament, if it was necessary, which, however, was not admitted.
It was urged also that no General Assembly, before the last, had ever
solicited a seat for the ministers in Parliament; and since 1580, the
Church had objected to bishops and other ecclesiastical persons sitting
in Parliament in her name. The meeting ended where it began. The King
saw that he could gain nothing by it, on the second day he broke it
up, and announced that he would leave the matter to the ensuing General
Assembly.¹ The scheme for the establishment of Episcopacy meantime
continued to be pushed on.
¹ Calderwood, Volume V., pages 745‒761.
James had at last got the preachers of Edinburgh, who had for long been
rather free in their comments on him and his government, pretty well
under his hand. But he was greatly mortified to meet with a rebuff
in a quarter where he least expected it. He had deprived the popular
preacher, Mr. Robert Bruce, of a part of his stipend. Bruce sued the
Crown before the Court of Session, and got a decision in his favour.
James appealed, appeared at the bar in person, and ordered the judges
to give their votes against Bruce. Seaton, the President, then rose
and said: “It is my part to speak first in this court, of which
your highness has made me head. You are our King, we your subjects,
bound and ready to obey you with our lives and substance; but this
is a matter of law, in which we are sworn to do justice according to
conscience and the laws of the realm. Your Majesty may indeed command
us to the contrary; in which case I, and every honest man on this
bench, will either vote according to conscience, or resign and not vote
at all.” Lord Newbottle next rose and said: “It had been spoken in the
town, to his Majesty’s great slander and theirs, who were his judges,
that they dare not do justice to all classes――a foul imputation,
to which the lie that day would be given; for they would deliver an
unanimous opinion against the crown.” For this the King was utterly
unprepared, and proceeded to use the most childish arguments, taunts,
and threats; but in vain. The judges re-affirmed their decision in
favour of Bruce, and the abashed monarch, flung out of court, vowing
vengeance and raging like a maniac.¹
¹ Tytler’s _History of Scotland_, Volume IX., pages 289‒291.
It is noted by Tytler, that Seaton was a Roman Catholic.
The King, however, by the most deplorable means afterwards
managed to deprive Bruce of this part of his stipend. There
are full details of this matter in the _Life of Bruce_,
published by the Wodrow Society, along with his _Sermons_,
pages 80‒83; and in Dr. M‘Crie’s _Life of Melville_, Volume
II., pages 169‒171.
Much interest was felt throughout the country in the General Assembly
which met at Montrose on the 28th of March, 1600. Both parties had
exerted themselves to the utmost to bring up their men, and there was a
very full attendance of members. It was well known that the decision of
the Assembly would fix the fate of the establishment. The Presbyterians
were confident of their superiority in point of argument and debating
power. Andrew Melville attended the Assembly as the representative
of the Presbytery of St. Andrews; but he was called before the King,
who asked him why he persisted in coming to the Assemblies after his
Majesty had prohibited him. Melville answered that he had a commission
from the Church, and it was his duty to discharge it, on higher grounds
than the command of any earthly monarch. He was not allowed to take
his seat in the Assembly, but he remained in the town and assisted his
brethren with arguments and advice.¹
¹ Melville’s _Diary_, pages 468, 485; Dr. M‘Crie’s _Life of
Melville_, Volume II., pages 144‒146.
The debate on the proposition of ministers voting in parliament
was resumed. Many arguments were adduced against it and backed by
references to the Scriptures, the writings of the reformed divines, and
the decision of general councils. The court party finding themselves
fairly vanquished by their opponents in the field of open discussion,
then shifted their ground, and affected to condemn the union of sacred
and civil offices, and asserted that the ministers who were to sit in
parliament, would have no civil charge, but would simply be present
to watch over the interest of the Church. But they were quickly driven
from this position; and at last retired behind the maxims of their
master, and asserted that the King alone makes the laws, and the
estates only gave him advice. When the discussion reached the words of
the act of parliament which restored “the office, estate, and dignity
of bishops,” the discussion became too hot, and the King intimated that
this point had been already settled by the last General Assembly, which
at once terminated the debate. If the general question had been put to
the vote, it seems probable that the scheme would have been defeated;
yet, by one device and another the Assembly sanctioned the measure.
A series of restrictions were framed by the Assembly to keep the
commissioners, who were to vote for the Church to their duty; but
the King had no intention of observing these customs. His object
was the re-establishment of Episcopacy, and he filled up several of
the bishoprics; although, in spite of all his efforts, he failed to
materially alter the presbyterian organisation of the Church, till
after his accession to the throne of England.¹
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 954‒956; Calderwood,
Volume VI., pages 2‒21.
However much the policy of James the VI. has been admired,¹ it is a
fact, that for many years he distracted the reformed clergy by his
childish notions and his scheme of Church polity. Much of the energy
of the ministers, which but for him might have been employed in
the instruction of the people, was wasted without producing any
good results. The higher aims of religion were neglected, and the
introduction of the reformed religion into the Highlands was greatly
retarded.
¹ “Those who wish to perceive the glory of James’s reign must
carefully attend to this part of his history. It was at
this time that he found a stage on which he could exert his
distinguished talent, and stick the doctor’s chair into the
throne. It was at this time that he acquired that skill in
points of divinity, and in the management of ecclesiastical
meetings, which afterwards filled the English bishops
with both admiration and shame, and made them cry out that
they verily thought he was ‘inspired.’ Never did this wise
monarch appear to such great advantage, as when, surrounded
with his own northern men, he canvassed for voters with
all the ardour and address of a candidate for a burgh; or
when presiding in the debate of the General Assembly, he
kept the members to the question, regaled them with royal
wit, calling one ‘a seditious knave,’ and another ‘a liar,’
saying to one speaker ‘that’s witch like,’ and to another
‘that’s anabaptistical,’ instructing the clerk in the true
geographical mode of calling the roll, or taking him home
to his closet, helping him to correct the minutes.”――Dr.
M‘Crie’s _Life of Melville_, Volume II., page 152.
The reader of Scottish history soon becomes familiar with the plots
of the aristocracy against the Crown. The 5th of August, 1600,
was memorable for an event of this character, known as the Gowrie
conspiracy. The Earl of Gowrie of that time was the grandson of Lord
Ruthven, who acted a leading part in the Riccio tragedy. It seems, for
the evidence is imperfect, that Gowrie intended to imprison the King
and then rule the kingdom in his name, as had often been done before.
Very few persons were aware of the plot; hence the doubts of its
reality, and the natural suspicion that it was got up by the King
himself. The main facts were, that the Earl of Gowrie decoyed the
King to his house; and after dinner conducted him into a room in which
the Master of Ruthven handled him rather roughly, but the nobles who
accompanied the King coming to his rescue, after a short scuffle, the
Master and his brother, the Earl of Gowrie, were both slain in the
house. The family of Gowrie, of course, was utterly ruined. The King
insisted that all men must believe that his escape was miraculous. The
ministers of Edinburgh, who had not quite so high an idea of the King
as he had of himself, refused to admit that there was any conspiracy at
all, and would not give thanks to God for his Majesty’s deliverance in
the exact words dictated to them. Five of them were therefore removed
from the capital. With one exception they afterwards submitted and
professed to believe in the conspiracy. The exception was Robert Bruce,
who refused to believe in this conspiracy, and was banished.¹
¹ Tytler’s _History of Scotland_, Volume IX., pages 329,
351‒358; _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 1000‒1002;
_Register of the Privy Council_; Bruce’s _Sermons, Life_,
pages 84‒96, 188‒196.
The King manifested his vanity and want of common sense in connection
with this affair more than in any of his proceedings. Granting that
the conspiracy of the Earl of Gowrie was real, it was not an unusual
occurrence or one which stood alone. At the utmost it was simply one
of those projects which were from time to time attempted by the nobles
against their kings. It is not surprising therefore that some of the
clergy and the people should have failed to see anything miraculous
about the matter; and especially those who knew how great an adept the
King was at making conspiracy and treason out of a harmless affair,
such as the recent example of the tumult in Edinburgh. The King issued
a mandate to change the week-day religious service in all towns to
Tuesday, the day on which the event happened. Nor was he content with
this. An Act of Parliament was passed which ordained that the fifth of
August should be observed yearly――“In all times and ages to come, as a
perpetual monument of their humble, hearty, and unfeigned thanks to God
for his miraculous and extraordinary deliverance from the horrible and
detestable murder and parricide attempted against his Majesty’s most
noble person.”¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume IV., pages
213‒214; _Book of the Universal Kirk_, page 1061.
Notwithstanding that the King continued his efforts to complete his
scheme of Church polity, his success while he remained in Scotland was
very limited; and he looked eagerly forward to the time when he could
command greater resources for the accomplishment of his projects.
Queen Elizabeth died on the 24th of March 1603. The same day the King
of Scots was proclaimed her successor. For some time the English had
been looking toward the rising sun; and James immediately prepared
to go and take possession of the throne. If he did not fulfil all the
expectations of his new subjects, this was perhaps more their own fault
than his, for if they had moderated their hopes and expected little,
they would not have been disappointed. On the 5th of April James began
his journey, and entered London on the 6th of May, greeted by the
shouts of his English subjects.
Before proceeding further, it seems appropriate to ask what is the
ultimate problem of the Reformation in relation to the development
of Civilisation? The first thought that strikes one is the extreme
complexity of the problem. The influence of the Reformation was felt
throughout the entire organisation of the nation. The domestic, the
social, the moral, the political, and the intellectual relations of the
people were affected by it, not less profoundly than their religious
practice and faith. Their whole circle of thought and action was
moved to its centre. This revolutionary movement, then, must have a
connection with the philosophy of the human mind. But the historical
manifestation of the mind, for obvious reasons, is exceedingly
difficult to handle; when it is applied to nations or communities, and
not merely treated as a history of systems. There have been various
elaborate philosophical systems emanating from individuals and schools,
which have had comparatively little effect on the progress of the
race, or on the civilisation of independent nations. The philosophy of
the Reformation, however, whatever it was, deeply affected the people;
and this at least is an indication of its reality. In its essence
the Reformation was a religious movement springing out of the devout
feeling and aspiration of the people, which was then associated with
the belief in the divine revelation of the Bible. It opened to the
individual a free access to the heavenly promises offered in the Gospel,
and thus for the time satisfied the inherent cravings of his being and
the deepest emotions of his mind; warm thrills of joy passed through
his soul, till his nature was renewed and he lived in peace and hope.
Another tendency of the movement was to withdraw the senses from
the mere external emblems and material forms of worship, in order
to concentrate the mind on the essential dogmas and the doctrines of
religion in their ideal modes. Hence religion became more allied with
morality and the understanding; but this was rather a result which
ensued in the subsequent development of Protestantism than a special
aim of the Reformers.
The search for the ultimate problem of the Reformation suggests
the question of the relative efficacy of the religious feelings,
the moral sentiments, and the intellectual ideas, as factors in the
development of civilisation; in other words, the comparative potency
of religion, morality, and science, in advancing social organisation,
the development, the progress, and the happiness of mankind. Upon the
evidence adduced in the first volume, and especially on the evidence
in the preceding chapters of this volume, the following tentative
deduction is proposed:――That the supreme sustaining power of the
Reformation throughout was the moral sentiments and ideas, coupled
with the religious feeling and aspiration. In the succeeding chapters
of this volume more evidence will be advanced and summarised, and
finally the various steps of the generalisation will be explained and
formulated.
CHAPTER XIX.
_The Social State of the People in the Sixteenth Century._
SECTION I.
PRIOR TO THE REFORMATION.
IN the preceding volume the characteristics of the government and
the institutions of the kingdom were described; the general traits of
feudalism, the powers and privileges of the nobles, and their action,
as exhibited in the history of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Resuming the social history of the people from that period, it is
unnecessary to dwell on matters of a similar kind to those treated
in the foregoing chapters. The aim of this work will be attained by
giving a connected view of the social relations of the people, and thus
present a continuous account of their development, while noting the
causes adverse or favourable to their progress. In the main the present
chapter is a continuation of the chapters in the first volume, with
this difference, that the habits and the institutions of the people
are now assumed to be more familiar, so that only the changes and
modifications, and especially those consequent on the revolutionary
movement, have to be noticed at length. Such is the method which will
be followed, in order to throw light on this interesting department of
human activity.
The Crown of Scotland had few great royal prerogatives which it could
wield at pleasure; the government was, at all points, essentially
aristocratic. The pretentions to prerogative which the kings sometimes
assumed, were soon dashed to the ground by the dominant faction of
the nobles. While in other nations of Europe the kings were augmenting
their power by curtailing the privileges of their nobles, the Scottish
nobility had gradually, during the last two centuries and a half, been
increasing their power, till, at the time of the Reformation, they
became supreme. But from that time onward other influences came into
operation which slowly undermined their power.
In 1533 James V. remodelled the Court of Session, as the supreme
court for the administration of justice in civil cases. From this date
the Court of the Lords-Auditors ceased; but the Privy Council still
retained the judicial power of the old Lords of Council. The theory
of these courts seems to have been that the Council could administer
justice by its inherent prerogative, and therefore it should interfere
if the strict rule of law inflicted a wrong; while the Court of Session
was supposed to proceed according to the rules of law. In consequence
of this distinction, the lords of the Privy Council assumed something
like a right of superiority over the Court of Session, and on critical
occasions the former sometimes took a very emphatic and decisive
attitude.¹
¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 317‒318,
520‒526, 620, _et seq._ The Records of the Privy Council for
the greater part of the 16th century are still preserved.
Two volumes of the Register, embracing the period from 1545
to 1579, have recently been published under the authority
of the Record Commissioners, and these volumes have been
ably edited by Dr. Burton, who has conferred a great boon on
historical students by rendering this valuable record easily
accessible.
The ordinary official staff of the executive comprised the sheriffs
of the counties and their deputes, the bailies of the hereditary
regalities, baronies, lordships, stewardships, and their subordinate
officers. In time of peace throughout the Lowlands, this organisation
afforded a comparative measure of rough order and security to the
inhabitants, though, even in the best settled parts of the kingdom,
acts of violence and lawlessness were very common, and, owing to the
defective means for detecting and apprehending them, and the want
of simplicity in criminal procedure, the offenders often escaped
unpunished. Upon the Borders and in the Highlands, on the other hand,
the state of society was little removed from intermittent anarchy. In
both regions the small clan system prevailed; feuds were frequent and
bloody. At short intervals, when the excesses rose to an unusual height,
the government proceeded to punish and repress them. The chiefs of
the clans were made responsible for the action of their followers, but
this was soon found to be but a very imperfect restraint. When, as it
frequently happened, the chiefs and their men were both engaged in the
same lawless depredations, it often became necessary for the government
to interfere directly. The usual mode of treating the Borderers was
this: the king mustered an armed force, and proceeded against the
reivers and notorious thieves, and executed justice upon them by
seizing and hanging them on the spot, or by occasionally bringing some
of them to Edinburgh to be hanged. The national records during this
century are full of such raids on the border thieves and reivers. The
mode of dealing with the Highlanders was much the same, only the Crown
often delegated its power to a local noble, as to the Earl of Huntly in
the north, and the Earl of Argyle in the west.
During the minority of James V. the administration of justice was
wretchedly neglected in every quarter of the kingdom. But in 1530
disorder on the Borders had risen to such a crisis that the King,
at the head of an army, scoured the glens of Yarrow and Ettrick, and
seized Cockburne of Henderland, and Scott of Tuschielaw, two of the
most notorious offenders. They were taken to Edinburgh, and tried for
extorting black-mail from the poor tenants, and for common theft and
reset. Both were convicted and executed, and their lands forfeited to
the Crown.¹ In connection with this raid the king summoned the Earl
of Bothwell, the Lords of Home and Maxwell, the Lairds of Buccleuch,
Fernihirst, Johnstone, and Mark Ker; all of them were imprisoned, and
Bothwell was at last banished. At the same time the King compelled
about fifty other barons and lairds in the counties of Berwick,
Roxburgh, Peebles, and Selkirk, to find security to appear before the
Justiciary when required. In this way the Crown sought to bridle the
reivers and cattle-lifters by making their superiors and neighbours
responsible for the crimes and depredations of those who lived and
harboured upon their lands.² The same year the King made another raid
on the Borders, partly for pleasure, but at the same time prepared to
punish any noted thief who came within his grip. He was accompanied
by the Earls of Athole, Huntly, Argyle, and many other barons, and it
was reported that they killed eighteen score of deer. It was on this
occasion that the famous John Armstrong was taken, a border marauder
who, it seems, operated chiefly on the English side of the marches.
He is represented as surrounded by his followers, and coming to meet
the king to offer him homage; but when James saw him and his company
mounted on horseback, he ordered the chief and most of his men to be
immediately hanged, without the formality of a trial. Armstrong’s fate
excited great commiseration amongst the people of the district, and his
memory is commemorated in a stirring ballad.³ By repeating these harsh
measures, the King for a time reduced the borderers to comparative
quiet,⁴ but it is doubtful whether the severe punishment he inflicted
on them was at all calculated to promote the permanent peace of the
district. Excessive severity often defeats itself; and, besides, the
lawlessness of the borderers could be effectually remedied only by
changing their circumstances; harsh treatment might aggravate existing
evils, but could not reform them.
¹ Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume I., pages 144‒145. There
is an exceedingly spirited and touching ballad――“The Widow’s
Lament”――which is supposed to refer to the fate of Cockburne.
Though rude and turbulent, the Borderers had some fine
traits of character; even this reiver and king of thieves
had some estimable qualities.
² Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume I., pages 146‒148.
³ Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, pages 152‒154; Veitch’s
_History of the Poetry of the Scottish Borders_, pages
287‒294; 1878.
⁴ Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume I., pages 171‒173.
After the death of the King the borderers broke out in greater excesses
than ever; and throughout the regencies of Arran and the Queen mother,
they grew worse and worse. In the end of the year 1546 the Council
resolved that the regent should pass with an army towards the Borders
and restore order; but the government being then occupied with the
siege of the Castle of St. Andrews, had not a sufficient force.
Accordingly an Act of Council was passed in March, 1547, calling a
muster of the local forces to accompany the regent to the Borders to
assist in stanching the theft, reif, and oppression of the thieves
and reivers. Five years later the Queen regent again attempted to
remedy the evils of the borders, but the people there daily became
more disorderly. The Master of Maxwell in 1553 declined to accept
the Wardenship of the West Marches which his deceased brother had
held. The government offered him five hundred pounds yearly, and some
other reward, such as a benefice or the like, but he still refused to
undertake the office till the offenders against the public authority
were punished, or a sufficient force was placed at his command
to punish them. This could not be done, and Sir James Douglas of
Drumlanrig took the office, but threw it up in less than a year, and
the troubles of the region thickened.¹
¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 28, 57, 64,
120‒125, 132, 137, 140, 143‒146, 152, _et seq._
The social state of the Highlands resembled that of the Borders in
many particulars, but there were some differences between them. The
peculiarities of race which have been made so much of, were in reality
of little consequence. The social condition of the Highlanders was
the result of a long chain of causes, rather than of any peculiarities
belonging to the race. This is well shown by the quickness with which
the Highlanders adapt themselves to the requirements of a higher
civilisation so soon as their surroundings are changed. If they had
been the incapable and erratic savages that some have represented
them, how came it, that on being removed from the mountains and glens,
and placed under a course of training for a few months, they proved
themselves amongst the best soldiers in the British army? If idleness,
thieving, and fighting, for the mere love of such things, had been
essential features in the Celtic population of the Highlands, why
was it that they were so easily and readily cast aside when the
circumstances of the Highlander were changed? The fact is that
the social condition of the Highlands was due to a long chain of
circumstances by which the inhabitants were forced into those habits
of living that characterised them, and which were explained in the
preceding volume. To talk, therefore, of their social condition being
due to their defects or peculiarities as a race is inapt and misleading,
and calculated to distort justice and obscure history. The main
difference between the Borderer and the Highlander consisted in the
more complete dependence of the latter on his chief. The vassals and
dependents of the Highland chief stood by him with a fidelity and love
in misfortune as well as in prosperity, which we do not meet with among
the Borderers. In this respect, one of the moral elements of clanship
was decidedly higher in the Highlands than on the Borders.
The heads of the clans Cameron and Ranald having failed to appear
before the Council at Inverness, the case of the latter was entrusted
to the Earl of Argyle. In 1552 Argyle reported to the government that
the captain of the clan was loyal to their authority, and that he
would have attended before the justiciary if the charge had reached him
previous to his departure for Ireland. Argyle was ordered to continue
his proceedings, and to cause the head of the clan to appear before the
regent and council before Christmas, and take their orders for the good
government of the district. If he failed, Argyle was to make war upon
the clan, and to pursue them with fire and sword, according to the Act
passed at Inverness. At the same time the Earl of Huntly was ordered to
proceed against the Camerons and to pursue them in the same fashion.¹
¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 125‒126.
In the autumn of 1553 it was recorded that for a long time there had
been great slaughter, reifs, enormities, and oppression, committed
upon the people in the northern quarters of the kingdom, and especially
by the strife between the Earl of Caithness and M‘Kay, and their kin
and adherents. The Earl of Caithness was summoned to meet the Earl
of Huntly and the Bishop of Ross at Inverness, in order to concert
measures for restoring order in the county; but he neither appeared
nor condescended so much as to answer the Regent’s letters. The Council
then directed the officers at arms to charge the Earl of Caithness to
come to Inverness and meet the Earl of Huntly and the Bishop of Ross,
and to bring sufficient pledges for himself, his kin, and his allies,
that he would maintain better order in future, under the penalty of
rebellion and horning.¹
¹ _Ibid._, page 147.
There was one enemy of peace and civilisation common in the Highlands,
the Borders, and the Lowlands; this was the numerous feuds which had
sprung up and accumulated during centuries of internal strife, till
they were spread throughout the entire nation. The bonds of manrent by
which the different clans and families became bound and banded together,
and against one another in all their causes and quarrels, constantly
tended towards anarchy and confusion. An injury, or the slaughter of
a member of the clan, was never forgotten by the surviving kin; and
an intense feeling of revenge had been fostered so long that it had
assumed an almost incredible strength, as the feud had in many cases
been transmitted from father to son, and from kindred to kindred,
through many generations. In Catholic times the Church recognised its
power by leaving the right hand of male children unchristened, that it
might deal the more unhallowed and deadly a blow to the enemy.¹ This
sentiment now appears to us extremely shocking, but it is one which
belongs to all stages of predatory society. It was nursed, not only
among the Highlanders and the Borderers, but also among the Lowland
aristocracy, and was encouraged and prolonged by the weakness of the
central authority. The feuds among the Lowland nobles in the sixteenth
century were notorious, and often formed the subject of parliamentary
enactments and acts of Council.² Some of the bonds which they entered
into for gaining their ends through deeds of violence have long been
matter of history. The habits of the Scottish nobles always tended
towards lawlessness. Whatever party was at the head of affairs, there
was always sure to be another party plotting, scheming, or fighting
against them, and thus the nation was continually kept in a state
of insecurity. Revolutions in the government followed each other
so rapidly that no encouragement whatever was afforded for peaceful
industry among the people.
¹ Scott’s _Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders_; Veitch’s
_History of the Poetry of the Scottish Borders_, page 299;
Evan’s _Ballads_, Volume III., page 106.
² _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume III.; _Register
of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 133‒134, 150‒151.
During the half century immediately preceding the Reformation, the
national records disclose a deplorable state of crime among all ranks
of society. Murder, slaughter, mutilation, and theft in the form of
cattle lifting, were extremely prevalent. Theft in these times often
led to assault, which usually ended in slaughter, or something like
robbery and murder. Parliament passed many Acts against these crimes,
and the phraseology of the Acts themselves vividly recalls the state of
society. Homicide and slaughter were so common that many respites and
pardons were granted every year. In the end of the year 1501 the Master
of Errol, the son of the Earl of Errol, and three others, were granted
a remission for stealing thirty-one oxen from Sir William Keith of
Inverugy. In 1508 a remission was given to Lord Oliphant and two of his
accomplices for the oppression of Lord Drummond, by casting down the
dykes between the lands of Drymane and Balloch, “and for the murder of
John, Earl of Buchan, in Perth, after the slaughter of James Oliphant,
committed by the said Earl and his accomplices, and for all other
oppressions, felonies, and crimes.” Here we see the action of the
feeling of revenge; the Earl of Buchan had murdered an Oliphant, Lord
Oliphant then murdered the Earl, and we may pretty safely assume that
Lord Drummond was an ally of the Earl of Buchan. To grant pardons for
these crimes was perhaps the best thing that the government of the
time could do. If every one had been hanged who committed slaughter
and murder, there would have been two or three executions every day
of the year. In 1517 “The Master of Glencairn, the son of the Earl of
Glencairn, and twenty-seven others, obtained a remission for the cruel
murder of Sir Matthew Montgomery, Archibald Caldwell, and James Smyth,
and for hurting John Montgomery, the son of the Earl of Eglinton.”
The Earl of Argyle, in 1532, and ninety-two of his followers, obtained
a remission for treasonable fire-raising in the Islands, with his
standard unfurled. “The King and his Council dispensed with the general
act, on the condition that the Earl satisfied the kin of Donald Ballo
M‘Ancrum, Donald Crum M‘Cowuane, Farquhar M‘Sevir, and others having
lawful claims.”¹ These few cases of pardon for crimes are merely a
selection from hundreds of a similar character; and though the criminal
records for the first half of the century are very incomplete, an
examination of what remains discloses a state of society absolutely
lawless.
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 250,
282, 347, 372, 492; Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume I.,
pages 102, 108, 234, 247.
Although in 1528 Parliament attached a severe penalty to the crime of
rape, this crime was often passed over with a very light punishment.
Bigamy and adultery were common offences, and in 1551 Parliament
enacted a measure which proposed severe penalties against them. The
Act proceeds to deal with married persons “that are open, manifest,
and common, and incorrigible adulterers, and will not desist nor cease
therefrom, for any fear of the spiritual jurisdiction or the censure
of holy Church, to the great peril of their own souls,” and directs
that such persons shall be visited with the processes of the Church,
and then denounced as rebels and put to the horn. Divorce was also
extremely common among the upper class in Scotland, and was encouraged
by the fashion of granting papal dispensations.¹
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., pages 298,
377, 486; Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume I., pages
28‒406; _Statutes of the Scottish Church_, Volume II.; A.
Robertson’s _Lectures on the Government, Constitution, and
Laws of Scotland_, pages 133‒134, 183; 1878.
As indicating the absence of respect for the law, and the defectiveness
of the police organisation, the treatment which the executive officers
and messengers often met with may be instanced. Their summonses
and letters were often taken from them and torn to tatters; “and
the evildoers boasted, menaced, disobeyed, struck, and pursued the
officers, and sometimes killed them outright.” In 1546 the Lords of
Council passed an Act imposing severe penalties upon offenders of this
description; and it was resolved to grant no respites to any one guilty
of such crimes for three years to come. On the other hand, the officers
of the law were often guilty of oppression and corruption. They took
bribes from the rich and powerful and permitted them to remain at home,
so that when the pursuer’s case came on before the court, there was
not a sufficient number of jurymen, and the case broke down, while
the injured party lost all the value involved, and the trouble and the
expense of the action. They were accused of summoning poor and simple
persons as jurymen, who had no knowledge to enable them to decide
upon doubtful matters. In 1531 twelve messengers-at-arms were by one
sentence proclaimed fugitives from the law and rebels, and forbidden to
exercise their office on pain of being hanged and drawn. In 1539, again,
thirty-three messengers-at-arms were convicted at once, and deprived of
their offices, for common oppression of the people, “by the false and
unjust exercise of their office, and frustrating them in their just
actions through their ignorance.” After the Reformation attempts were
made to remedy the defects among the officers at arms.¹
¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 66‒660;
Volume II., pages 74, 176, 365‒367; Pitcairn’s _Criminal
Trials_, Volume I., pages 48, 74‒75, 154‒157, 217.
The municipal organisation of the burghs was pretty complete, but owing
to various causes the state of society in them was by no means peaceful
or secure. In 1529 it was stated in the Town Council of Edinburgh
that in past times there had been slaughters and murders in the burgh,
because the officers and citizens had not been careful to resist and
punish evildoers, and that thus the character of the town had been
defamed. It was therefore enacted, “That every merchant and craftsman
should always have beside them in their shops ready for use an axe or
two or more, according to the number of their servants, that they might
be prepared to fortify and assist the magistrates in the administration
of justice.” Those failing to comply with the Act were to be fined
forty shillings for the first fault, and for the second, forty pounds.
This Act was repeated in 1539, and again in 1553, when it was stated
that there had been great slaughters and tussles in the town, which
were likely to recur. It was therefore enacted that “all persons who
occupied shops or chambers in the Highgate should have long weapons
therein, such as a hand axe, a Jedburgh staff, or a halbert, and that
after the ringing of the common bell, or when they saw or apprehended
any brawls on the streets, they should immediately turn out and assist
the officers in stanching and quelling the disturbance. Those who
absented themselves from a tussle on the streets, after being warned,
were to be deprived of their freedom for ever. Each bailie was ordered
to search his own quarter of the city to see that the statute was
obeyed.”¹ Similar regulations for meeting sudden brawls on the streets
were enforced in all the burghs of the kingdom. In 1522 the citizens
of Aberdeen unanimously ordained that all men dwelling in the town,
both burgesses of guild and other craftsmen, should always have in
their shops and office-houses a good fencible weapon, such as an axe, a
halbert, or a Jedburgh staff, for the defence of their persons, goods,
and the commonweal of the city. But in 1530, at a meeting of the whole
citizens called by the provost, it was resolved that――“Considering
the cruel slaughters, murders, and oppression done to them and their
neighbours by gentlemen of the country, ... every neighbour dwelling in
the town should wear daily his weapon on his person, until some remedy
be found how this good town may be freed from such cruel oppressors;
and that every craftsman have his weapon beside him in his workshop,
and when he passes into the street to truss it in his hand, that they
may be able at all times to defend themselves and their neighbours.”²
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume II., pages 7‒8, 93, 177.
² _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume I., page 103, 111, 131,
448‒449.
In 1529, during the months of October and November, there were nineteen
persons, male and female, banished from Edinburgh for various offences.
Margaret Clapane was banished for buying oysters to regrate contrary
to the statutes; William Cawdor was banished for buying wild fowls
contrary to the statutes; Janet Brown for her demerits was banished
for all the days of her life; David Christeson was banished because he
was a young stark fellow, who begged and would not work for his living.
An Irishman that sung with a lass, and begged through the streets of
the town, was banished because he was a stout young fellow, and would
not work; if he failed to depart out of the city, he was to be burned
on the cheek. Luke Jamison was expelled for regrating herring; and
Andrew Gibson for regrating the king’s money. In 1536 all the vagabonds
without masters were ordered forthwith to decamp from the town under
the penalty of imprisonment, and thereafter to be banished. The same
year, vagabonds who would not pay their debts, were to be banished from
the burgh; and vagabonds who had no occupation, nor anything to live
upon, nightwalkers, and players at dice and cards, were all commanded
to remove out of the city, under the penalty of imprisonment. No
beggars were to be allowed to live in the town, except those who had
been born in it, and of these such only as were feeble and unable to
work for their living, under the penalty of burning of their cheeks and
banishment. It appears, however, from other statutes that the beggars
in Edinburgh were many. In 1538 Agnes Wright was convicted for causing
a disturbance, and was sentenced to be put in irons at the market cross,
or else above the cross on the scaffold, that the people might see her,
when her offence was to be openly proclaimed, and thereafter she was to
be banished. In 1551 all the sergeants of the burgh were dismissed for
failing in the execution of their duties, and the bailies were
commanded to receive others in their places.¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume II., pages 8‒16, 73, 80,
88, 90, 156.
Among the sums disbursed by the Treasurer of Edinburgh for the year
1554‒55, we find the following: “For taking of a great gibbet off
the nether Tolbooth, and bringing it to the top of the Dow Crag, to
have hanged hummil Jok on, and bringing it down again to St. Paul’s
Work, the sum of twelvepence; and for cords to bind and hang him with,
eightpence. In November, for cords to bind and hang a thief, who was
convicted before the sheriff, eightpence. The same month, a great long
chain of iron for the thieves’ hole, with four arms extended from it,
and four locks and bolts, weighing eleven stones and three quarters,
made by John Ahamnay, blacksmith, and the price of each stone was
eleven shillings and fourpence――the total sum six pounds fourteen
shillings and twopence: and for bringing it from the workshop, and
helping to fasten it――eightpence. For cords to bind and hang Tom
Gelirson, and to bind a woman when she was burned on the cheek――two
shillings. For cords to bind Nicoll Ramsay when he was hanged――sixpence.
For cords to hang the man that burnt Lord James’ corn――eightpence.” In
the month of February, 1557, the Town Council ordered their treasurer,
“To pay to John Wauchlott, officer and surgeon, the sum of three pounds
for curing and mending of James Henderson’s leg, which was broken in
the town’s service at the taking of Ramsay, a thief who was slain in
the taking.”¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume II., pages 294, 295,
_et seq._; Volume III., page 16; _Old Dundee prior to
the Reformation_, pages 350, 208, _et seq._, by Alexander
Maxwell, 1891.
The surgeons of the period had considerable work in attending to the
broken heads and limbs which resulted from brawls and assaults, and it
appears that the injury inflicted by an assailant was usually assessed
upon their judgment. “When David Arthor hurt Wille Terbat, it was
ordered that the Leech, by the great oath, deponed how many days Wille
might not work through the hurt, and David to pay each day eightpence,
and also pay the leech-craft.” So also “when Rob Dawson struck Wille
Pangell, he was ordained to pay the Leech for his craft of Wille’s head
breaking, and give Wille twelve pence each day that the Leech deponed
that he might not freely labour through the hurt.”
Persons appearing before the burgh court were required to show due
respect to it, and to give the bailies becoming honour. On the 13th
of March, 1551, in the burgh court of Dundee, Andro Kynneris was
sentenced to pay “to Our Lady light two pounds of wax for causing a
disturbance in the court.” Three years later David Spankey was fined
ten shillings, and ordered to ask the bailies’ forgiveness, for saying
in their presence “that there was no justice done in the Tollbooth.”
Subsequently the Head Court of the burgh enacted: “That if any person
be found disobeying or slighting any officer holding office, he shall
pay to Our Lady Kirk five pounds of money; and the person convicted of
such an offence shall come to the High alter and offer a pound of wax
in a candle, and, if he disobeys, to lose his freedom. But, if he has
not goods or gear, in that case, he shall lie forty-eight hours in the
stocks, and on the following Sunday shall pass about the Kirk, afore
the procession, in linen clothes, and a wax candle of two pounds in
his hand; and if he fails to perform this, to be banished from the town
for a year and a day.” Shortly after this Act was made, Robert Peblis
disturbed the court and uttered defaming words to the bailies, for
which he was fined five pounds.
In 1556 harlots were ordered to wear a distinctive dress when they
appeared on the streets of Edinburgh. The Town Council of Dundee, on
the 10th of January, 1559, said that “It had been reported to the great
defame, slander, and shame of honest men’s wives, their daughters, and
women servants, that they have been seduced by panders and procurers
to use themselves unlawfully in fornication; for remedy of which the
Council ordered that if there be any such men or women panders in the
burgh, they despatch themselves off within twenty-four hours, under the
penalty of being openly taken to the Market Cross, and there banished
for ever.” Regarding the places where immoral practices were carried
on, it was enacted “that from this day forth no brothels should be
permitted within the burgh.” The custom of “hand-fasting” was then
not uncommon, which was an agreement between a man and a woman to live
together either for a limited or an indefinite yet a terminable time.¹
¹ _Ibid._, Volume II., pages 248; see also _Burgh Records of
Aberdeen_, and _Old Dundee_, page 285.
In Catholic times a form of penance was sometimes imposed on offenders
as a part of their punishment. In the year 1523, John Pitt, a tailor
in Aberdeen, was convicted, on his own confession, for disobeying David
Anderson, one of the bailies. The tailor had refused to take his proper
place, with the sign of his craft, in the Candlemas procession, and
he abused the bailie and the merchants of the town by calling them
“coffers, and bidding them take the salt-pock and the fire-brush in
their hands.” For this offence he bound himself before the council to
appear the next Sunday bare-headed and bare-footed in the church, in
the time of high mass, with a wax-candle in his hand, and to offer it
to their patron saint, Nicholas; he also promised to have the usual
token of his craft on his breast――that is, a pair of patent shears; and
then to sit down humbly on his knees and beseech the provost to remit
his fault. Bessie Dempster was convicted in 1538, before the council
by a jury, for the aspersion of David Reid, both by word and deed; and
a part of her punishment was that, on the next Sunday, she should go
before the procession, with nothing on her but her shift, and enter
the High Church with a wax-candle in her hand, and offer it “to the
holy blood light;” and then sit down on her knees, and beseech the
magistrates and the good men of the town to request David to forgive
her. In 1544 the Town Council commanded Mage Durtty, who had been twice
convicted before, and at this time for disturbing Janet Lesly, that she
must go the next Sunday, with a wax-candle burning in her hand, into
the church, and sit down on her knees, and ask Janet to forgive her.
But if ever she again committed such offences, they ordained that “her
crag should be put in the jougs.” Thomas White was convicted by the
bailies, in 1549, for interfering with David Reid, an officer, in
the execution of his duty, and for assaulting Duncan Fraser. He was
ordered to appear on Sunday in the church, in the time of high mass,
bare-headed and bare-footed, with a wax-candle in his hand, and then
sit down on his knees, and ask the magistrates and council to forgive
him, and the officer, Duncan Fraser; and, finally, to offer the candle
to St. Nicholas light.¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume I., pages 93, 154, 155,
198, 206, 212, 271, 272, 429, 445.
There is little variation in these cases of public penance, but they
enable us to understand some of the peculiar features of the Catholic
system; and it will be found that something of the old forms of
penance passed into the discipline of the Reformed Church. Although
the hierarchy in Scotland was tottering to its fall, and was upon the
very brink of destruction, yet within a few years of the Reformation
the surface of things was seemingly little disturbed. In 1555, John
Sandris, a couper, and his wife, were tried and convicted by the
bailies of Aberdeen, for striking and drawing blood of Thomas Gellane
and his wife; and their sentence was that they should pay Thomas twenty
shillings, to be given to the barbour for curing his wounds; and to
go next Sunday to St. Nicholas Church, in the time of high mass, each
of them with a candle of wax in their hands, and there ask forgiveness
of Thomas and his wife. The same year, other two persons in Aberdeen
underwent penance in a similar form for their offences.
In Dundee between the years 1520‒3 the bailies in the burgh court,
among other cases, disposed of the following, which have the
characteristic of penance. Willy Marshall for disobedience to the
bailies, and not paying the King’s tax, was sentenced to go to the kirk
“on Sunday before the time of high mass in shirt and gown, barefooted
and bareheaded, with a candle of a pound of wax, and ask the bailies’
forgiveness, and offer the candle where they command him: and, if he
fails, to come next Sunday with a candle of four pounds; and, if he
fails the third Sunday, to pay a stone of wax to Our Lady.” Reche Crag
had threatened the town’s officers with a dirk, and having confessed
the fault, he was “ordered to come on Sunday in the time of high mass,
and the knife drawn in his hand by the point, and on his knees ask the
provost’s forgiveness, and give him the knife to be placed where he
pleases.” If he failed to do this, he was to pay half a stone of wax
to Our Lady light.¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, pages 282, 285, 288; also _Old
Dundee_, pages 17, 18.
All classes of the people were in the habit of swearing. The literature
of the period contains ample evidence of the number of oaths which were
then common among the Scots. The writings of Sir David Lindsay alone
exhibit upwards of fifty forms.¹ Parliament, in 1551, passed an act
touching “the abominable swearing, execration, and blaspheming of the
name of God, swearing in vain by His precious blood, body, and wounds;
devil stick, cummer-gor, reist or rife them, and other vulgar oaths and
execrations against the command of God. Yet, both among the high and
low, it has come into such vain-glorious use that the people may be
heard daily and hourly blaspheming openly God’s name and majesty.” The
remedy proposed was a graduated scale of fines for those who could pay
them; and the poor people found guilty were to be put in the stocks
or imprisoned for four ♦hours; but women guilty of swearing were to be
treated according to their blood and station, and the parties with whom
they were coupled.²
¹ In a note on Lyndsay’s _Satire of the Three Estates_,
Chalmers says――“The one-half of conversation in that age,
both in England and in Scotland, was made up of swearing.”
And he then gives a list of the most fashionable oaths which
occur in Lyndsay’s play, and they amount to thirty-three.
Among them may be mentioned the following:――“By God’s wounds;
by God’s cross; by God’s bread (that is, the altar); by Him
that made the moon; by Him that herried hell; by our Lady;
by St. Mary; by sweet St. Gile;” and so on.――_Works of Sir
D. Lyndsay_, Volume I. pages 360‒363.
♦ “honrs” replaced with “hours”
² _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., page 435.
Some of the habits of the people and their modes of living were
extremely defective. This appeared most in the deplorable sanitary
state of the towns. The necessary conditions of health were but little
understood, and usually disregarded, till pestilence reached a height
which compelled the authorities to take active measures, and endeavour
to mitigate the suffering. The streets of the towns, and the houses
of the poorer classes, were in a wretched state; and throughout this
century the country was never long free from the pest. Many acts of
parliament and council were passed for dealing with the pestilence,
and the records of all the burghs are full of regulations about it;
but they are chiefly remarkable for the single idea, that to prevent
contact with the persons affected with the disease was the only
remedy and protection against it. The efforts of the authorities were
mostly directed to this, and thorough cleanliness seems to have been
greatly undervalued and neglected. The authorities, however, often
showed commendable energy to prevent the spread of the pest by actual
contact; they exerted themselves to separate those affected with the
disease from the healthy portion of the people; and, in carrying out
their regulations on this point, they frequently acted with great
determination.¹ On the second of October, 1559, the Town Council of
Dundee ordered “that all persons, either rich or poor, having middens
in any place within the boundary of the burgh, should remove them
before Wednesday night, and lay no more in time coming.” Each bailie
was enjoined to visit the quarters where they were, and to cause the
Act to be put into execution. Subsequently the town’s officers were
ordered to pass through the burgh once every twenty-four hours, and
enforce the Act. But, although repeatedly prohibited, the offensive
heaps still continued. It is now well known, though as yet only
imperfectly acted upon, that the rational mode of preserving health
depends on the proper sanitary conditions of the country, and
especially of the great centres of population――thorough drainage and
sewerage arrangements, which tend to promote the general vigour of the
entire population of the Island.
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volumes II., III.;
_Register of the Privy Council_, Volumes I., II., III., IV.,
V., VI.; _Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow,
Peebles, Perth, and Dundee_.
In Scotland the streets, even of the chief towns, were not lighted at
night. The Town Council of Edinburgh, in November, 1554, ordained that,
“for eschewing of the evil doings of the vagabonds and others who go
in the burgh in the night, stealing and robbing within the same, there
be nightly, from this day forth till the 24th of February, lanterns and
bowets set up and lighted at five o’clock in the evening, and to burn
till nine, by the following persons:――Each barber on the highgate, each
candlemaker on the highgate, each apothecary, each taverner, each baker,
and each common cook, to have a lantern or bowet burning in front of
their shops and houses during the said hours; and likewise each brewer
in the closes and outwith should furnish a bowet; and also that all
the persons dwelling in closes must furnish bowets night about, as
they shall be ordered by the bailies: and where it happens that two
candlemakers or barbers dwell near to each other, then the bailies
shall put one of their bowets to any other place as he pleases; and
these parties were required to comply with this statute under a fine
of two shillings.”¹ This was a primitive enough mode of lighting the
streets of the capital of a kingdom.
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume II., pages 204‒205;
_Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, 262.
In 1557 Bessie Campbell having been brought before the magistrates of
Edinburgh, promised that she would desist from making _aqua vitæ_, or
selling it in the burgh, except on the market days. It appears from
various records that the use of spirits was quite common amongst all
classes of the people; and drink-money and drink-silver was a very
common phrase in the accounts paid to the different classes of workmen
by the Town Councils throughout the kingdom.
Reference has already been made to the oppressive burdens which were
imposed upon the tenants, the occupiers, and the tillers of the land.
Contemporary literature abounds with evidence of the wretched state
of these classes of the people. Sir David Lyndsay enumerates by name
several of the burdens which the landlords enforced upon their tenants;
such as “the great fine on the renewal of leases,” and the fines which
had to be paid on the marriage of their daughters.¹ In the _Complaynt
of Scotland_, which was published in 1549, the oppression of the
tenants and labourers of the ground is touchingly related. Their corn
and cattle were often reft from them, and they were then turned out of
their holdings. The poor especially were excessively oppressed.² Prior
to the Reformation, however, some efforts were made to relieve them.
In 1535, Parliament enacted that the poor who cannot work should be
supported by the parishes in which they were born.³ In 1553, James
Henderson laid proposals before the Town Council of Edinburgh for the
improvement of the burgh; and it was then suggested that a new hospital
should be built, with forty beds, for helpless men and women, with a
priest, a surgeon, and a doctor attached to it. The scheme, does not
appear to have been carried out; but about the same time the necessity
of some mode of assisting the helpless poor was recognised. The Town
Council, in 1555, appointed a committee to devise means for supporting
the poor, and expelling sturdy beggars from the town. The next year the
Council appointed two men to receive the bread and the silver collected
for the poor, and to distribute them till the next term. In 1557, the
Council resolved to provide for the maintenance of the poor in the
meantime, and passed several Acts in 1559 for expelling beggars who did
not belong to the town. It was also proposed to make provision for the
poor, according to the Act of Parliament and the statutes of the burgh.
The most common mode of dealing with the poor in the burghs seems to
have been to grant to those who were born in the town liberty to beg,
and to expel all other beggars.⁴ Many of the hospitals for the sick
and infirm which had formerly existed in many places throughout the
country,⁵ had fallen into a state of decay; and as yet there was no
definitely organised scheme for giving assistance to the poor, although
the matter had frequently engaged the attention of public bodies.
¹ _Works_, Chalmers’s Edition, Volume II., pages 6‒7, 118;
Volume III., page 147.
² Dr. Murray’s Edition, page 123, _et seq._
³ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II.
⁴ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume II., pages 169‒172, 232,
261; Volume III., pages 50‒51; see also _Burgh Records of
Aberdeen_, Volume I., page 234.
⁵ Mackintosh’s _History of Civilisation in Scotland_, Volume
I., page 434.
The religious feelings and opinions of the people themselves, as
manifested in their daily life during this revolutionary period, is
a highly interesting subject; and an attempt will be made to show
what they were immediately before the crisis of the Reformation. In
1514, the Town Council of Aberdeen resolved to impose a tax for buying
ornaments and books to the church of their “glorious patron Saint
Nicholas.” At the same time an act was passed by which no burgess was
admitted, nor any unfreeman licensed to sell, without the payment of a
certain sum of money for the repairing of St. Nicholas church and choir.
This act was often repeated, and others similar to it were enacted with
the consent of the whole community of the city.¹ The citizens also gave
voluntary contributions for furnishing ornaments to the altars of their
“glorious Saint Nicholas”; and in many other ways they exhibited their
feelings by bestowing a liberal share of the good things of the earth
and of the waters on the Church.² The Town Council of Edinburgh, in
1518, ordained that the servants of the guild and the beadle should
keep the College Church of St. Giles and its choir free from all evil
persons in the time of matins, high mass, and evensong; and that no
beggars should be permitted to enter the church at such times. In
1521, the Town Council resolved that the dean of guild and seven others
should form a committee, to meet every Friday, and sit one hour, and
deliberate and advise touching the good of the church and the making
of freemen and guild brethren. The Council, in 1546, ordered that all
the fines taken from those who had broken the price of wine, should be
applied to the reparation of the high altar; and the following year the
magistrates resolved that the tavern keepers should be poinded for the
dues which they owed to St. Anthony’s altar. In 1552 the magistrates
entered into a contract for making the stalls of the choir of St. Giles;
and in 1555 they appointed a man to sing in the choir at the masses
of Our Lady and the Holy Blood, for which service he was to receive
twenty merks a-year. The same year the council ordered the musicians
who played before St. Giles on that saint’s day to be paid out of
the town’s funds. In the beginning of the year 1556, the provost and
bailies granted to Alexander Scott a pension of ten pounds for one
year only, for his attendance and singing in the choir on all the
festival days, and for playing on the organ when he was requested by
the authorities of the town. On the 5th of November, 1557, the Town
Council granted the benefice of St. Andrews altar in St. Giles’ church
to Robert Craig, the son of a goldsmith, “who promised to be a priest
within two years, or else renounce his prebendary.” The great church
of St. Mary in Dundee had upwards of thirty altars, and a large staff
of priests and officials. There was a peal of five bells in the tower,
on which a chime of one hundred and twenty-nine strikes was rung three
times daily, to call the people to matins, mass, and evening song.
In such churches, and in the grand cathedrals of the kingdom, the
magnificence of the ritualistic service was exceedingly imposing. The
varied and beautiful decoration of the whole interior of the churches,
the altars adorned with cloth of gold, silver vessels, and fine service
books, the beautiful hues of the vestments of silk and tissues of gold,
the sacred crucifix, and the greatly venerated relics of the saints,
and withal, the vocal chanting of touching hymns to the resonant
harmony of the organ, were all carefully calculated to touch the devout
hearts and impress the souls of the humble worshippers.³
¹ _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume I., 88, 89, 96, 178, 176,
218, 235, 248.
² _Ibid._, 119‒120, 149, 151, 180, 279, 299.
³ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume I., pages 177, 208;
Volume II., pages 125‒127, 142, 174, 218, 220, 236; Volume
III., page 12; _Old Dundee_, Maxwell, page 13, _et seq._
Touching the processions in which the craftsmen joined on notable saint
days, pretty full accounts are contained in the Records of Aberdeen,
where they were an important institution. It appears, however, that
these displays sometimes ended in bickerings, that is, in a general
uproar, especially among the young.¹ In 1531 the Town Council of
Aberdeen passed the following statute: “According to the lovable custom
and right of this burgh, and of the noble burgh of Edinburgh, of which
rite and custom the provost has received a copy: that is to say, that
in the name of God and the blessed Virgin Mary, the craftsmen of this
burgh, in their best array, keep and decorate the procession, as on
Corpus Christi day and Candlemas day, as honourably as they can, every
craft with their own banner, with the arms of their craft thereon,
and they shall pass each craft by themselves, two and two, in this
order:――First the fleshers, and next the barbers; next the skinners and
furriers together; next the shoemakers; next the tailors; after them
weavers, walkers, and listers together; next them the bakers; and last
of all, nearest to the Sacrament, passes all the hammermen――namely,
smiths, wrights, masons, ♦coupers, slaters, goldsmiths, and armourers.
And every one of the said crafts, in the Candlemas procession, shall
furnish their pageants, according to the old statute of the year
of God 1510.” The crafts were ordered to furnish their pageants as
follows:――“The fleshers, St. Bestian and his tormenters; the barbers,
St. Lawrence and his tormenters; the skinners, St. Stephen and his
tormenters; the shoemakers, St. Martin; the tailors, the coronation
of our Lady; the listers, St. Nicholas; the weavers, walkers, and
bonnetmakers, St. John; the bakers, St. George; the hammermen, the
Resurrection and the Cross.”²
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume II., pages 8, 73.
♦ “coupars” replaced with “coupers” for consistency
² _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume I., pages 449‒451.
Turning to another class of illustrations of the religious sentiments
of the people, the shoemakers of Edinburgh were incorporated by a seal
of cause, 1510, which contained rules touching payments to the altar
of the craftsmen. “For augmentation of divine service at the altar of
St. Crispin, in the College Church of St. Giles, we desire that the
following statutes, articles, and rules, should be sanctioned by your
authority.” Every apprentice at his entry to the craft had to pay six
shillings and eightpence, for upholding of divine service at the altar
of St. Crispin; and when a shoemaker commenced business as a master,
he had to pay four marks to the altar of St. Crispin. Every master had
to pay one penny weekly for keeping the altar in repair, and each of
his servants a half-penny. All the fines for breaking the rules of the
craft, or disobeying the kirk-master, were also to be applied to the
service of the altar of St. Crispin. The candlemakers were incorporated
in 1517; and it was stated in their seal of cause, “that when they set
up shop, each master must pay to St. Giles’ work half a mark of silver,
and to the reparation and upholding of the light of any altar in St.
Giles’ Church, where the deacon and craftsmen think it most needful,
half a mark weekly; ay, and until they be furnished with an altar
of their own. And, likewise, each master of the craft, in honour of
Almighty God and his Blessed Mother St. Mary, and of our patron St.
Giles, and of all the saints of heaven, shall give the sum of ten
shillings yearly to the helping and furnishing, either of light or
any other needful thing to any altar in the church of St. Giles.” The
bakers were incorporated in 1523, and their patron was St. Cuthbert,
whose altar was in St. Giles; and they kept a chaplain of their own
to perform divine service at their altar. All the fines for disobeying
the rules of the craft were to be devoted to the altar, chiefly in the
form of wax candles to lighten the church and enliven the worship. The
tailors had St. Ann for their patron; and they also had an altar and a
chaplain of their own, “who said prayers.” The bonnetmakers were under
the protection of St. Mark. The skinners and furriers of Edinburgh
were incorporated in 1533. “In example of others, and for augmentation
of divine service at the altar of St. Christopher our patron, in the
college church of St. Giles. Seeing that all virtuous practices depend
on a good beginning, thence persevering and advancing to the end,
therefore all those who set up as skinners and furriers should pay
five pounds for the maintaining of divine service at their altar of St.
Christopher; unless, indeed, they be skinners’ sons within this burgh,
in which case, they shall only pay ten shillings. Every master who has
a shop, should pay one penny weekly to the reparation of the ornaments
of our altar and sustaining of the priests’ meat thereof, as it comes
about.” Indeed almost every craft had its special saint and altar.
Toward the end of the fifteenth century the weavers of Dundee resolved
to found an altar to St. Severus, their patron saint, and the erection
having been sanctified, they then framed rules, which were presented
to the town council. In 1512, the council granted a seal of cause,
incorporating the weavers, “for the supplying and upholding of divine
service and reapparelling of their altar of St. Severus, uphorlden by
them in Our Lady Kirk, and for the government of their work and labours.
It was provided that the fees and fines exacted for infringement of the
rules of the craft should go to the upholding of the altar, and that
each man and woman engaged in the craft, who gives not to the priest of
the altar his meat in the year, as the rest does, shall pay every week
to the altar a penny, to be collected by the deacon of the craft.” In
1516, the town council incorporated the glovers, and the craft became
bound, “in honour and loving of God Almighty, and of the glorious Lady
the Virgin Mary, and of St. Duthac, our patron, to the reparation of
our altar in the parish kirk, for the upholding of God’s service daily
at the said altar, and to the honest sustentation of a chaplain daily
to sing and say at the altar;” and to collect from every person engaged
in the craft forty shillings, for upholding the altar and the service
thereof, except freemen’s sons of the craft, who should pay only six
shillings and eightpence. St. Cuthbert was the baker’s patron saint,
and they founded and maintained his altar in St. Mary’s Church, and
appointed their chaplain annually. In 1515 the guild merchants of
Dundee, with the consent of the town council, resolved to erect an
altar in St. Mary’s Church, “to the loving of God Almighty, of Christ’s
precious blood, and to his blessed mother the Virgin Mary, and to
appoint a chaplain daily to sing and say divine service there, and for
singing mass solemnly every Thursday in honour of the Holy Blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ.” For the reparation of the altar and the upholding
of the service, the merchants were empowered to elect a dean, who was
authorised to exact duties on all goods exported, to tax all merchants
beginning business, and to exact fines from those who encroached on the
High Market Gait with their goods.¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume I., pages 127‒129,
170‒172, 214, 215; Volume II., pages 22‒24, 48‒50, 52‒55,
61‒66, _et seq._; _Burgh Records of Dundee_.
In the preceding pages some of the religious sentiments of the people
have been indicated, as manifested in their life and action; the next
point is to look for the signs of the new religious opinions amongst
them before the crisis of the Revolution. The magistrates of Aberdeen
in 1525 received a letter from the King, stating that the bishop of
the diocese had informed him that there were several persons in the
district who had the books of the heretic Luther, and who favoured
his opinions; and the act of parliament newly passed against heresy
was ordered to be proclaimed, and a searching inquisition made of all
suspected persons within the bounds of the diocese. The king’s letter
and the act of parliament were both inserted in the records of the city.
There was no more mention of heresy in Aberdeen till 1544, when some
of the citizens were committed, and convicted for injuring the black
friars; while the same year two of the townsmen were found guilty of
hanging the image of St. Francis. In the beginning of the year 1559 the
buildings of the black and the gray friars were attacked by some of the
citizens, who were assisted by certain strangers; and the bailies then
inquired whether these buildings should be preserved for the good of
the town, “and the setting forth of God’s glory, and the suppression
of idolatry;” notwithstanding the provost’s protest, which was adhered
to by fifteen of the inhabitants, in March the whole community of
“the good town” resolved to support the Lords of the Congregation. In
the month of June the chaplains of St. Nicholas church petitioned the
magistrates to devise some means for defending their church, and for
preserving the chalices, silver work, caps, and ornaments, till the
uproar and tumult of the people was quelled by the ancient and wise
council of the kingdom.¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume I., pages 206, 211,
315‒323.
In 1551, parliament had passed an act prohibiting the printing or
publishing of any books or ballads, either in Latin or English, unless
licensed by the king and government; and in 1554, the Town Council
of Edinburgh passed an act against the makers of defamatory and
blasphemous ballads. The ballads had been placed before the people,
and had raised discord among them; but the parties who composed the
ballads were unknown, and the bailies ordered that no one should dare
to make such ballads, under the penalty contained in the common laws.
On the 22nd of September, 1556, the archbishop of St. Andrews sent
a document to the town council of Edinburgh, touching the images
which had been taken down in the churches; and the council agreed
to make inquiry concerning the matter, and to report to the justice
clerk. The following day the council received a message from the Queen
Regent, in the name of the primate, which she desired to be inserted
in the records of the burgh. It proceeded, “as we are informed that
there are certain odious ballads and rhymes lately set forth by
some evil-inclined persons of your town, who have also taken down
divers images, and contemptuously broken them――which is a thing very
slanderous to the people, and contrary to the ordinances and the
statutes of Holy Kirk――and we understand that the makers of this
misorder are all dwellers and inhabitants of your town. Wherefore
we charge you that immediately after the sight hereof, ye diligently
inquire, search, and seek for their names, and deliver them in writ to
our cousin the archbishop of St. Andrews, to be used according to the
statutes of the Kirk; assuring you, if ye do not your utmost endeavours
therein to bring the same to light, that ye shall be considered by us
favourers and maintainers of such persons, and shall underlay the same
punishment that they ought to sustain, in case we get knowledge thereof
by you.”¹ Thus we see that the popular ballads had an influence on the
revolutionary movement.
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume II., pages 199, 200, 251.
In June, 1559, Matthew Stevenson, a servant of a barber, was accused
before the Council of Edinburgh for throwing stones at the windows of
the buildings of the black and the gray friars, the last night that he
was upon the watch. He pleaded guilty, and his master became bail for
his appearance when required. On the 27th of June the Council appointed
a number of persons to whom the vestments, the ornaments, and the gear
of the church of St. Giles were committed for safety. The council met
in the Tolbooth on the 29th of June, and after long reasoning upon
the coming of the Lords of the Congregation to Edinburgh, they at
last resolved to send a deputation to meet them at Linlithgow; and to
arrange with them for the preservation of the religious buildings and
the churches of the burgh.¹ There is something very touching in the
anxiety and the care which the town council of Edinburgh exhibited for
the preservation of the furnishings and the ornaments of their churches,
which, as we have just seen, had been so long and so closely associated
with their altars, and with the religion of their fathers.
¹ _Ibid._, Volume III., pages 40‒45.
SECTION II.
AFTER THE REFORMATION.
When the Protestants came into power the evidence of the great change
was soon seen in the proceedings of the citizens. In May, 1560, the
town council of Edinburgh ordered their treasurer to pay the sum of
forty pounds for furnishing the household of their minister, John Knox,
and because he had been living with David Forester since he came to
the town, to settle this account also; and they ordered the treasurer
to pay for a lock to Knox’s lodgings. In June the council ordered that
twenty pounds should be paid to John Willock, the Reformer; while the
council and the deacons of the crafts resolved that the bell, called
the Mary Bell, and the brazen pillars of the Church of St. Giles,
should be made into cannon for the use of the town; they also directed
that the silver work belonging to the town, which had been used in St.
Giles’ church in bypast times, both the gilt and the ungilt, should
be at once sold or coined into money; and the whole of the vestments,
caps, and other gear of the church were to be sold, and the proceeds
to be applied to the common works of the town, and especially to the
rebuilding of the interior of the church, according to the requirements
of the new order of worship. The dean of guild and the treasurer were
appointed to carry these arrangements into effect.¹ The interior of
the churches of Edinburgh were refitted on the 1st of August, 1560,
and the deacon of the tailor craft presented the following complaint to
the provost and council:――“Bearing in effect that the traves close room
or seat, built and made by command of James Barron, dean of guild, at
St. Anne’s altar, sometimes called the tailor’s altar, ought and should
be removed, and the deacons and brethren of the tailor craft permitted
to build their seats there, to be used by them and their craft at all
sermons and other times convenient and none others, conform to their
old possession; to this it was answered, and for plain ordinance by
the provost, bailies, council, and deacons, declared, that in respect
of the goodly order now taken in religion all title and claim to altars
and such other superstitious practices are and should be abolished, and
no further word nor claim thereof to be in time coming; but as it is
commanded by God’s most holy Word, brotherly amity should be amongst
us who are joined in his congregation, the nobility, provost, bailies,
council, elders, and deacons, being first placed, the honest merchants
and the honest craftsmen to place and set themselves together as loving
brethren and friends in that and all other places of the church vacant
at all times needful, providing always that nowhere the apprentices
or servants of the merchants or the craftsmen, or other common people
take up the places and seats of the said merchants and craftsmen; and
this act to take effect without alteration in all time coming.” In
the beginning of January, 1561, the town council of Aberdeen agreed to
sell all the silver and brass work, the images and the ornaments of the
church of St. Nicholas; and the whole of the inhabitants of the city
were warned to attend on the 6th of that month and see these articles
sold by auction. The caps brought one hundred and forty-two pounds,
the brass work sixteen shillings the stone, the silver work was sold at
twenty-one shillings per ounce, and the total sum of the sale amounted
to five hundred and forty pounds. Two men, David Menzie and Gilbert
Collison, dissented and protested against this sale for themselves
and their adherents, but the goods were delivered to the purchasers by
the voice of the majority.² On the 8th of May, 1562, the town council
resolved to apply the above sum of money to the building of a pier
and quay-head;³ so swiftly had the religious notions of the leading
citizens changed.
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume III., pages 63‒65, 66,
70‒71, 85.
² _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume I., pages 328‒329, 331.
³ _Ibid._, page 344.
It will be seen that a new epoch had begun. When objects which had been
venerated for many centuries, and were still believed to be possessed
of uncommon virtues, were turned into cash and cannon, and applied to
build harbours, it was obvious that a revolution had been effected.
The citizens of Edinburgh entered warmly and earnestly into the
reformation movement. The town council and some of the deacons of
the crafts met in June, 1560, and having considered the great number
of idolaters, whoremasters, and harlots who daily resorted within
the burgh, provoking the indignation of God upon it, as had been
oftentimes foreshadowed by the preachers, so they issued a proclamation
in a comprehensive form――“That all such persons should come into the
presence of the ministers or the elders, and give testimony of their
conversion from such abuses before next Sunday, or failing that, the
said idolaters to be defamed by setting them upon the market cross,
there to remain for the space of six hours; and carrying of the said
whoremasters and harlots through the town in a cart for the first
fault: and burning of both classes of offenders on the cheek for the
second fault, and banishment from the town; and for the third fault
to be punished to the death.” On the 20th of September, 1560, the
town council ordered the Act of Parliament against idolaters to be
proclaimed.¹ On the 30th of October, the town council enacted that
henceforward the holy day commonly called Sunday should be kept by
all persons in the burgh, and that no one make market, nor open their
shops, nor exercise any worldly calling on this day, but that all
should attend the ordinary sermons both in the forenoon and in the
afternoon: “And that from the first toll of the bell announcing the
hour of the sermon to the final end thereof, there should be neither
meat nor drink sold in open taverns, but that during this time they
should be closed. That the flesh market, which used to be held on
Sunday, should be henceforth held upon the Saturday; and that the
cattle market at the House of the Muir, which had been held in past
times on Sunday, should in all time coming be held on the Thursday.”
At the same time they passed an act against swearing and taking
God’s name in vain, under the penalty of being placed in the iron
branks, “there to remain during the pleasure of the judge.” They also
enjoined concerning taverns: “Because in past times the iniquity of
women taverners in this burgh has been a great occasion of whoredom,
insomuch that there appears to be a brothel in every tavern; therefore
all vintners of wine who may engage women taverners before the
next Martinmas hereafter were to be certified, that if their women
committed any immoral fault they should have to pay forty pounds,
except they deliver the offender into the hands of the bailie, to be
banished, according to the laws, as soon as the offence comes to their
knowledge.”² In November the same year, John Sanderson, the deacon of
the fleshers, was convicted for adultery, and the bailies sentenced him
to be carted through the town and then banished. But when the deacons
of the various crafts heard of the sentence, and their aid was asked to
carry it into execution, they unanimously dissented, and declared that
they would not allow such extreme punishment to be inflicted upon any
honest craftsman. The bailies and council then applied to the Lords of
the Privy Council for their help and support in this case, and after
much wrangling it was at last settled.³
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume III., pages 65, 82‒83.
² _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume III., pages 85‒86.
³ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume III., pages 89‒95.
Compare the _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume I., pages
345, 367‒370, and Maxwell’s _History of Old Dundee_, pages
77‒81. 1884.
These social immoralities not only engaged the attention of the burgh
magistrates and the courts of the Reformed Church, but Parliament also,
and the Privy Council passed acts for their suppression. There can be
no doubt that a clearer sense of the enormity of social vice originated
with the Reformation; the most strenuous efforts were made to purify
the feelings and the sentiments of the people, as well as to purge the
nation of idolatry. The first General Assembly of the Reformed Church
declared that fornication should be punished according to the law of
God, and that public repentance should be made by those who were guilty
of this sin. All through the acts and proceedings of the Assemblies
of the Church, the clergy, as may be seen, were incessantly and
earnestly trying to improve the morals of the people.¹ It is somewhat
disagreeable to touch much on these matters, but social vice affects
the very foundation of society, and should not be summarily dismissed;
a false delicacy which would ignore the roots of social evil will never
do much to help the onward and upward movement of mankind towards a
higher civilisation and a happier life.
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 5, 19, 29, 39, 44, 54‒56,
79, 91, 98, 114, 140, 170, 180, 267, 308, 366, 377, 379, 388,
536, 953, _et seq._
As we have seen, the clergy were well supported by the authorities
of the towns, and especially by those of Edinburgh, in their efforts
to reform the morals of the people. In November, 1561, the bailies
of Edinburgh banished an adulterer; and in May, 1562, they prepared a
hole in the North Loch for dipping fornicators in, as the best means
of suppressing them. On the 6th of November, 1562, the town council
passed an act which directed the bailies to search all parts of the
town for offenders of this description, and to apprehend them, whether
man or woman, without exception of persons; “and then put them in the
iron-house, and there to be fed on bread and water only for the space
of a month, and afterwards to banish them from the town for ever. And
suchlike offenders who had been tried and convicted by order, both
the man and the woman should be scourged at the cart’s end through
the streets and banished from the town; aye, and until some evidence
be presented to the kirk and the magistrates of the amendment of
their lives; and this order was to be observed in Edinburgh till it
should please the Almighty to move the hearts of the higher powers to
establish better laws for the punishment of these crimes.” In December
the town council ordered a prison to be prepared for the reception of
adulterers and fornicators, which should be secure and lockfast.¹
¹ _Burgh Records of Edinburgh_, Volume III., pages 129, 135,
152, 154; _Register of the Kirk Session of St. Andrews_,
pages 36, 142, 172, 180, 377, 417, _et seq._
The wish expressed in the last paragraph was realised. In 1563,
parliament passed an act against notorious adulterers: and the Privy
Council in 1564 passed an act prohibiting brothels, either openly or
privately, under the penalty of eight days’ imprisonment with bread and
water, and then to be scourged through the town, for the first fault;
and for the second fault to be burned on the cheek and banished from
the town for ever. At the same time the Privy Council ordered that
those convicted of fornication, should be punished in the following
manner:――“For the first fault they shall pay the sum of forty pounds,
or else both he and she shall be imprisoned for the term of eight days,
and their food to be bread and small drink, and thereafter presented
in the market-place of the town bareheaded, and there to stand fastened
that they may not remove for the space of two hours, from ten o’clock
to twelve noon. For the second fault, when convicted, they shall pay
the sum of one hundred marks, or else sixteen days’ imprisonment on
bread and water only, and in the end to be fastened in the market-place,
and the heads of both the man and woman to be shaven; and on conviction
for the third fault they shall pay one hundred pounds, or else the
above term of imprisonment, their food to be bread and water only, and
in the end to be taken to the deepest and the foulest pool of water
in the town or parish, and there to be thrice ducked, and thereafter
to be banished from the town for ever; and thenceforward, that however
often they may be convicted for this vice, the third penalty shall
be executed upon them.” Parliament repeated this act in 1569; and it
was then enacted that incest should be punished by death. The vice
of adultery was also made punishable by death, according to the acts
of parliament. But in spite of the severity of the laws this vice
continued to be common; and as late as 1592 an act was passed which
declared that the crime of adultery was daily increasing.¹ The citizens
of Edinburgh had anticipated Parliament and the Privy Council, and it
was because a section of the people were prepared to enforce a better
social order that gave to these acts historic importance.
¹ _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume II., page 539;
Volume III., pages 25‒26, 213, 543; _Register of the Privy
Council_, Volume I., pages 296‒298; Volume II., pages 306,
499: Pitcairn’s _Criminal Trials_, Volume I., pages 13‒14,
22‒40, 78‒80, 100, 169.
In 1562, the General Assembly resolved to petition the Queen for
the punishment of all vice that the law of God commanded, which,
as yet, was not commanded by the public laws of the kingdom: Such
as blaspheming of God’s name, contempt of the Word and sacraments,
perjury, breaking of the Sunday by holding common markets on that
day, and profane talking. The clergy directed their efforts especially
to the abolition of markets on the Lord’s-day.¹ This is a point of
much interest, and well deserves to be further explained. We have seen
that the Town Council of Edinburgh passed an act, in October, 1560,
immediately after the establishment of the Reformation, ordering
that Sunday should be observed; and it may safely be assumed that the
ministers of Edinburgh had been consulted by the magistrates before
this act was passed.
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 19, 30.
The Privy Council passed an act in 1564, re-enacting the statute of
James IV., which prohibited the holding of markets on holydays, or
in churches or churchyards. But this act, like many others, had never
been observed, and the Council then enjoined that no markets should
be held on Sunday, nor in churchyards. And in July, 1569, the Regent
issued a proclamation prohibiting markets on Sunday, which directed
the authorities throughout the country to seize and confiscate the
goods of those who exposed anything for sale on Sunday. The provost
and bailies of Elgin were charged by the Lords of Council, in November,
1569, to put the acts prohibiting markets on Sunday into execution. It
was further ordered that in all the free burghs common harlots should
be banished; and the provost and bailies of Elgin were imprisoned for
not executing these acts. In 1574, the magistrates of Aberdeen were
enjoined by the Lords of Council to prohibit markets on Sunday, within
the bounds of the freedom of the burgh, under the penalty of forfeiting
all the goods offered for sale on that day.¹ Parliament, in 1579,
re-affirmed the act of James IV., and added, that as markets were yet
held in the towns and in the country on Sunday, and that the people
still continued to work at their usual occupations on the Lord’s-day,
or gamed and played, and passed the day in taverns, and remained away
from the church in the time of sermon and prayers: it was therefore
anew enacted that no markets should be held on Sunday, nor in churches,
nor churchyards, on any other days, under the penalty of forfeiting
the goods exposed for sale, and the proceeds thereof to be given to the
poor of the parish. All manual labour was strictly forbidden on Sunday,
and the frequenting of ale-houses, and the selling of meat and drink,
and also all gaming and playing, under the penalty of severe fines,
which were to be applied to the relief of the poor and helpless.²
¹ _Register of the Privy Council_, Volume I., pages 296, 688;
Volume II., pages 64‒65, 390.
² _Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume III., page 138.
In 1574, the Town Council of Glasgow ordered that every Sunday one of
the bailies, with an officer and some other honest men, should pass
through the town to visit the taverns and the flesh-market; and if
any flesh was found exposed for sale after nine o’clock, it was to be
confiscated, and given to the poor; and if the taverners offered any
contempt, they were to be punished according to the judgment of the
council. In 1576, two persons were convicted in Glasgow for selling
meal in their houses on Sunday; and the same year the council and
bailies agreed to a conditional restriction touching the taking of
salmon on Sunday. “No salmon-cobles were to be employed on the Sunday,
within the freedom of the city, by the inhabitants thereof, providing
that the whole of the cobles on the waters of the Clyde, burgh and
land, do likewise and keep the same, and otherwise not.” But in 1577,
the Town Council of Glasgow concluded that no market should be held on
Sunday, under the penalty of forfeiting all the goods exposed; yet some
persons were shortly after convicted for selling flesh on Sunday.¹ The
Town Council of Aberdeen, in 1580, ordained that the fish-market should
in future be held within the Iron-ring, and around the Fish-cross; and
that on Sunday, from the ringing of the first bell in the forenoon and
in the afternoon, until the sermon be done, there should be no market,
under the penalty of the confiscation of the fish to the poor. The
General Assemblies were always complaining that the acts of Parliament
and of the Privy Council touching the keeping of Sunday were not
enforced. In 1581, the Synod of Lothian complained before the General
Assembly that the act of parliament for prohibiting markets on Sunday
was not put into execution, that the people still continued to hold
their markets on that day, absented themselves from the church, and
remained in their ignorance, and that thus atheism was increased.²
¹ _Burgh Records of Glasgow_, pages 21, 48, 60, 63, 65, 74.
² _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume II., page 38; _Book of
the Universal Kirk_, pages 253, 284, 536.
But it is extremely difficult to change the customs of a people; and
in spite of all the efforts of the clergy and the authorities, ♦the
observance of Sunday for several generations after the Reformation was
far from universal in Scotland. In 1588 the Town Council of Aberdeen
recorded that many of the citizens stayed away from the church on
Sunday, frequented taverns and alehouses, dealt in merchandise,
and continued at their manual labour during the time of the sermon,
contrary to the order of the Reformed Church. The council then proposed
the following scale of fines to be exacted from those who absented
themselves from the preaching: “Every burgess of guild and his wife
for their remaining from the sermon on Sunday, thirteen shillings and
fourpence; and for their remaining from the sermon on the weekly days,
two shillings. Every craftsman, householder, and other inhabitants, for
remaining from the sermon on Sunday, six shillings and eightpence; and
every week-day, twelvepence. And in case any merchant or burgess of
guild be found in his shop after the ringing of the third bell on the
week-day, he must pay six shillings and eightpence.”¹ The days on which
sermons were preached in Aberdeen, besides Sunday, were the Tuesdays
and Thursdays; and down to the present time there is a service in one
of the city churches every Thursday, though sad to tell, few of the
inhabitants are even aware of it.
♦ duplicate word “the” removed
¹ _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume II., page 62; Compare
_Burgh Records of Glasgow_, page 93.
In 1590 the General Assembly found it necessary to pass an act for
restraining of markets on Sunday, the going of mills, the delivering
of loads, and the selling of flour and fruit in Edinburgh; and in 1592
parliament passed another act touching the holding of markets on Sunday.
It enacted that the markets formerly held on Sunday should be held on
any other day of the week, except the day on which the neighbouring
burgh held their market. In 1598 the town council of Aberdeen ratified
the act passed before concerning the holding of markets on Sunday in
the time of the sermon. From this it seems to follow that markets were
still held on Sunday in Aberdeen about the end of the century, though
not during the hours of worship.¹ Even as late as 1602, more than forty
years after the Reformation, the General Assembly reported that the
churches in many places were not well attended, owing to the people
continuing to labour on Sunday, especially during the harvest and
seed-time, and also by the going of the mills, and by many of the
people fishing on Sunday for white fish and salmon. The Assembly
ordered that all such labour upon the Lord’s Day should cease, under
the penalty of incurring the censures of the Church; and at the same
time the Assembly requested the King to enact some special punishment
for those who persisted in working on Sunday.² The observance of Sunday
in Scotland was not attained till after a long and vigilant struggle.
On this point the reformed clergy and the magistrates both may have
sometime been rather severe; yet it is difficult to see how they
could have reached their end otherwise. The importance of the day of
rest, even on the comparatively low ground of the physical and social
advantages resulting from it to the people themselves, is very great,
apart from the higher aims of morality and religion.
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 776, 777; _Acts of the
Parliaments of Scotland_, Volume III., page 548; _Burgh
Records of Aberdeen_, Volume II., page 167.
² _Book of the Universal Kirk_, page 996; _Register of the Kirk
Session of St. Andrews_, pages 309, 314, 343, 349; _et seq._
It is true that the discipline of the Reformed Church of Scotland
assumed an austere and rigid form, although on the whole it was far
more moral and vigorous than the system which it superseded; but in the
special region of feeling and emotion it was weaker than its Catholic
rival. The strongest characteristic of Roman Catholicism has always
consisted in the art of presenting to the human senses a variety
of easily comprehended objects. The immense multitude of her saints
and martyrs can be easily localised anywhere, and in the requisite
proportion to fit the capacity of her humblest votary. In the chief
church of the city or parish there may be ten, twenty, thirty, or
forty altars, each dedicated to a particular saint, as in St. Giles
at Edinburgh, where each of the different crafts of the town had their
own special saint and altar, at which they worshipped. It must be
admitted that there is something indescribably fascinating in the
feeling of having the assistance and the protection of a great saint;
and the element of selfishness in it merely raises the emotion to
a higher pitch, and enhances the value of the benefits which spring
out of the union between the saint and his devoted adherents. In this
connection everything has been very skilfully arranged for avoiding
any unnecessary strain on the imagination of the worshipper: the image
of his patron saint is pleasingly and gracefully placed before his
eyes, and he is thus relieved from all troublesome cogitation. As the
God of the universe has condescended to make the Roman Catholic Church
infallible, the true Catholic can have no religious doubts; he has
no occasion to ruffle the serenity of his mind, for his Church has
settled everything, and his simple duty is to believe what she teaches,
and he cannot be wrong. This is a primary article of faith with all
Roman Catholics. It has taken a firm hold on multitudes of the human
race, and penetrates deeply into the minds of many earnest and able
men. Hence Roman Catholicism has a stronger tendency to make men
docile and submissive than Protestantism. Those who believe that
the Church is infallible on earth and supreme in heaven, can have no
motive to venture beyond the comparatively narrow circle marked out for
them. Thus it is, that in those countries where Catholicism has most
completely maintained its sway, there has been little real progress
in the region of science, or philosophy, or the higher criticism, and
less freedom of thought, than amongst the Protestant nations. But in
the realm of the fine arts Catholicism has held her own, if she has not
always been able to maintain an unchallenged supremacy. Yet our deepest
thoughts touching God, the world, and man, cannot be successfully
handled by the figurative arts; as these thoughts are too abstract for
sensuous representation.
The discipline of the Reformed Church was brought to bear upon the
people in many ways. The process of censure which she then wielded
was a great power. The form of excommunication used in the Church of
Scotland was drawn up by John Knox, and, as finally revised, it was
adopted by the General Assembly in 1569, and ordered to be printed.
It is a treatise containing an enumeration of the crimes which deserve
excommunication, the forms to be followed, the pains and penalties
incurred, the form of repentance, and of readmission to the society
of the Church.¹ The first part treats of summary excommunication. And
under this head the following crimes are noted as deserving of such
a sentence: Wilful murder, adultery, sorcery, witchcraft, conjuring,
charming, giving of drink to destroy children, and open blasphemy
against God and his holy Word, or railing against the Sacraments. All
who committed these offences were to be excluded from the society of
Christ’s Church, that their impiety might be held in greater horror,
and that they might be the more deeply moved when they saw themselves
abhorred by the godly. Against these open malefactors the process
of summary excommunication might be applied. When the offender had
been tried by a jury, the Church was not to excommunicate him, but to
proceed by way of admonition, and to show him how precious human life
is in the sight of God, and that no one ought to shed blood, except by
the sword of the magistrate; and upon sufficient evidence of repentance
he was to be restored to the fellowship of the Church. If the offender
was fugitive from the law and his crime well known, the sentence of
excommunication was to be pronounced without delay.² There were forms
also for the readmission of penitents. After confessing their sin
and admitting that Satan had for a time gotten the victory over them,
they had to present themselves on three Sundays before being finally
restored.³
¹ The General Assembly in 1563 requested John Knox to put
in order the form and manner of excommunication. In 1567
the Assembly appointed a committee to revise the order of
excommunication, composed by John Knox; and in 1568 the
Assembly nominated John Craig, John Willock, John Row,
Robert Pont, James Gray, William Christeson, and David
Lindsay, to revise the order of excommunication, which had
been penned by John Knox. _Book of the Universal Kirk_,
pages 37, 93, 131, 155. This treatise is printed in the
Collection of Confessions published at Edinburgh, 1722,
Volume II., pages 700‒752. It is also printed in the sixth
volume of Dr. Laing’s collected edition of Knox’s works,
pages 445‒470.
² As may easily be conceived, the process of summary
excommunication must have been open to grave and fatal abuse.
In 1590 the General Assembly had under consideration the
state of crime, such as murder, adultery, and incest; many
persons guilty of these evil deeds eluded the Church by
shifting from place to place, and thus continued to evade
the final sentence. The question was then asked whether
summary excommunication should be pronounced on persons
falling into such odious crimes, and it was answered in the
affirmative. But in 1595 the King proposed to the General
Assembly that summary excommunication should be utterly
abolished; the Assembly however did not comply with his
request, the subject was postponed. The point again came
before the Assembly in 1597, and without giving a final
decision, they agreed in the meantime to suspend all summary
processes of excommunication. _Book of the Universal Kirk_,
pages 779‒852, 853, 947.
³ The Church in handling those guilty of capital crimes,
proceeded with the aim of strengthening the hands of
the magistrate. See _Acts of General Assembly.――Book of
the Universal Kirk_, pages 144‒145. “Those who have been
excommunicated for their offences, should present themselves
in sackcloth, bareheaded and barefooted, on six preaching
days, and the last one after sermon, to be received in
their own clothes.”――_Ibid._ page 159. Touching those guilty
of heinous crimes but not excommunicated. “They should be
placed in the public place, where they may be known from
the rest of the people, bareheaded the time of the sermon;
and the minister must remember them in his prayer after the
sermon: after going through this, they had to appear before
the Assembly bareheaded and barefooted in linen clothes, and
humbly to request the Assembly to restore them to the bosom
of the Church.” _Ibid._, pages 176‒177, 283, 284, 309, 358,
583, 748, _et seq._
One class of offences came under the punishment of what was called
public repentance, such as fornication, drunkenness, swearing, breaking
the Sabbath, and common contempt of the order of the Church. Lesser
offences, as vain words and uncomely gestures, were visited with
admonition.
The form of excommunication and the rules of the process for the case
of the absolutely obstinate sinner who resisted all admonition were
minutely laid down. The final words of the sentence ran thus: “And at
the command of this congregation, cut off, seclude, and excommunicate
this man from the body and from our society, as a person slanderous,
proud, a contemner, and a member at present altogether corrupt and
pernicious to the body. And this his sin by virtue of our authority
we bind and pronounce it to be bound in heaven and in earth. We
further give him over into the hands and the power of the devil to the
destruction of his flesh.” Every one who associated with or sheltered
an excommunicated person rendered himself liable to a similar sentence.
The last part of this remarkable treatise laid down the mode of
procedure for receiving the excommunicated person again into the
fold of the faithful. The civil penalties attached to the sentence
of excommunication was enough to make it a terrible punishment. No
other punishment at all approaches that which deprives a man of all
intercourse with his fellowmen; and probably if a human being were
certain that no other person in the world sympathised with him, and
that he was abandoned and abhorred by all men and driven from their
presence, he could not live. Even the most degraded individuals
need the sympathy of their fellows. Among the criminal class this is
the case; the most hardened criminal feels that he has at least the
sympathy of his companions and confederates. A criminal who has often
eluded the hand of justice and defied the laws of his country, is
regarded as a hero among his own class. Though he has been convicted
often and has suffered many years of imprisonment, he is still looked
upon by them as a distinguished character, and is conscious that he
has their sympathy. But the man who was excommunicated in the sixteenth
century was probably placed in a much more harrowing position than the
worst criminal of the present day.
Fasting in the Reformed Church of Scotland was a mode of discipline
which was often resorted to; and there was a treatise on the subject
composed by Knox and Craig, in 1565, by the authority of the General
Assembly, which reduced this exercise to a regular form.¹ When the
General Assembly of 1565 proposed to hold a fast, the order and form to
be observed was drawn up and printed. This form was afterwards followed,
and a brief notice of the occasions on which, according to a statement
afterwards added to it, it was deemed necessary to hold a national fast,
will give a vivid impression of the ideas and sentiments of the clergy
and of the state of society.
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages, 279, 578‒581, 590; 74.
The treatise on fasting is printed in the _Collection of
Confessions_, published in Edinburgh in 1722, Volume II.,
pages 642‒700; and in the sixth volume of Laing’s edition
of Knox’s _Works_, pages 391‒429.
In 1572 the Assembly resolved that there should be a public humiliation
among all who feared God and professed the true religion, with prayers
and fasting throughout the kingdom, to begin on the 23rd of November,
and to be continued to the last day of the month, “with the intent
that the notorious offenders and open slanderers of the Church may be
brought to amend their lives, or else to be excluded from the society
of the faithful.” It was deemed necessary that before the fast the
superintendents and the ministers should appoint certain days and
call before them all the known offenders in their respective districts
and parishes, such as murderers and their accomplices, adulterers,
robbers of the patrimony of the Church and of other men’s possessions;
commencing with the ministers themselves and the nobility, and then to
proceed through every other class of the people, that wickedness and
heinous crimes which offend the majesty of God may be purged out of
the nation. A rigorous scrutiny was to be made of the diligence and the
life of the clergy themselves, and also of the life of the nobility,
who ought to be the chief example of the whole country.¹ The General
Assembly which met in April, 1577, having considered the great iniquity
that overflowed the whole face of the community, as it appeared by the
light and revelation of the true religion, justly to provoke and stir
up the justice of God to take judgment and vengeance on this unworthy
and unthankful nation; “observing also the many perilous storms
and the rage of persecution daily invading the true Church of Jesus
Christ; the extreme suffering of her members in France and elsewhere,
that therefore earnest recourse should be had to God by prayers, the
Assembly appointed a fast in all the congregations of the realm, to
begin on Sunday the 9th of July and to be continued to the following
Sunday.”²
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 252‒253.
² _Book of the Universal Kirk_, page 390.
The cry of the Church was that corruption pervaded all classes of the
nation, that it was therefore necessary to have recourse to fasting,
and to call upon God to avert His righteous judgment impended over
the people. Another specimen of the language commonly used to express
their ideas and sentiments as to the grounds of fasting, may suffice
to illustrate this phase of the reformed religion, as it was then
understood and practised. The General Assembly in 1581, “ordained a
general fast to be observed universally in all the kirks of the realm,
with doctrine and instruction of the people, to begin the first Sunday
of July and to be continued to the next Sunday thereafter inclusive,
using in the meantime, exercise of doctrine according to the accustomed
order; and the commissioners were instructed to call on the King and
to request him to assist therein by sending out proclamations to that
effect.” The causes of this fast are stated in the following order.
“1. Universal conspiracies of the papists and the enemies of God in all
countries against Christians, for execution of the bloodthirsty Council
of Trent. 2. The oppression and thraldom of the Kirk of God. 3. Wasting
the rents thereof without remedy. 4. Falling from the former zeal.
5. Flocking home of Jesuits and Papists. 6. Manifest bloodshed, incest,
adultery, and such horrible crimes defiling the land unpunished. 7. The
danger wherein the King’s majesty stands through evil company resorting
about him, by whom it is feared that he may be corrupted in manners
and in religion. 8. Universal oppression and contempt of the poor.”¹
About this time, the Church of Scotland stood almost alone in her bold
and unflinching opposition to the pretensions of the Church of Rome.
Through all the vehement and rude language of the Protestant clergy,
they never forgot to plead for the oppressed and the struggling poor.
¹ _Ibid._, pages 407, 409‒410, 569‒570, 730, 747. In 1596
the General Assembly drew up a list of what was called
“The common corruptions of all the Estates within the
realm.” This report gave a fearful description of the
state of society. But there is always hope of amendment and
reform for a nation that has the heart and the honesty to
acknowledge its errors and misdeeds. The clergy were not
afraid to admit and proclaim their own shortcomings, and it
is only foolish mockery to cry peace, peace, when crime, and
injustice, and oppression, and vice, and suffering, abound
on every side. Those who wish to see this representation
of the state of society in Scotland at that period, should
consult the original document in the records of the Church,
and in other national and local documents.――_Book of the
Universal Kirk,_ pages 864‒867, 872‒875.
When a national fast was proclaimed by the Church its observance was
strictly enforced. In the General Assembly of 1580, Mr. Thomas Buchanan,
the minister of Ceres, was questioned for not causing the fast to
be observed within his bounds; “so that when the rest of the country
was humbled in fasting, there was no fasting in Fife.” His answer was
that he had done all that he could to cause the fast to be observed,
but there were instances which no one could remedy, and these he
had particularised in his report to the Assembly.¹ As we have seen,
the saints’ days, festivals, and holydays, were all discarded at the
Reformation; and although sometimes here and there the people showed a
tendency to revert to observances of them,² the sermons on two days of
the week, the occasional fast days, and the entire devotion of Sunday
to religious exercises, were amply sufficient to satisfy the spiritual
needs of the people.
¹ _Book of the Universal Kirk_, page 451.
² _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_, Volume II., pages 25, 39, 66;
_Book of the Universal Kirk_, pages 332, 334, 389; _Register
of the Privy Council_, Volume II., page 390.