A passage in the message to the nobility displays the intense ardour of the convictions that were to be potent in the later history of the Kirk. That priests, by the prescription of fifteen centuries, should have persuaded themselves of their own power to damn men's souls to hell, cut them off from the Christian community, and hand them over to the devil, is a painful circumstance. But Knox, from Perth, asserts that the same awful privilege is vested in the six or seven preachers of the nascent Kirk with the fire-new doctrine! Addressing the signers of the godly Band and other sympathisers who have not yet come in, he (if he wrote these fiery appeals) observes, that if they do not come in, "ye shall be excommunicated from our Society, and from all participation with us in the administration of the Sacraments . . . Doubt we nothing but that our church, and the true ministers of the same, have the power which our Master, Jesus Christ, granted to His apostles in these words, 'Whose sins ye shall forgive, shall be forgiven, and whose sins ye shall retain, shall be retained' . . . " Men were to be finally judged by Omnipotence on the faith of what Willock, Knox, Harlaw, poor Paul Methuen, and the apostate Friar Christison, "trew ministeris," thought good to decide! With such bugbears did Guthrie and his companions think, a century later, to daunt "the clear spirit of Montrose."

While reading the passages just cited, we are enabled to understand the true cause of the sorrows of Scotland for a hundred and thirty years. The situation is that analysed by Thomas Luber, a Professor of Medicine at Heidelberg, well or ill known in Scottish ecclesiastical disputes by his Graecised name, Erastus. He argued, about 1568, that excommunication has no certain warrant in Holy Writ, under a Christian prince. Erastus writes:—

"Some men were seized on by a certain excommunicatory fever, which they did adorn with the name of 'ecclesiastical discipline.' . . . They affirmed the manner of it to be this: that certain presbyters should sit in the name of the whole Church, and should judge who were worthy or unworthy to come to the Lord's Supper. I wonder that then they consulted about these matters, when we neither had men to be excommunicated, nor fit excommunicators; for scarcely a thirtieth part of the people did understand or approve of the reformed religion." {117}

"There was," adds Erastus, "another fruit of the same tree, that almost every one thought men had the power of opening and shutting heaven to whomsoever they would."

What men have this power in Scotland in 1559? Why, some five or six persons who, being fluent preachers, have persuaded local sets of Protestants to accept them as ministers. These preachers having a "call"—it might be from a set of perfidious and profligate murderers—are somehow gifted with the apostolic grace of binding on earth what shall be bound in heaven. Their successors, down to Mr. Cargill, who, of his own fantasy, excommunicated Charles II., were an intolerable danger to civilised society. For their edicts of "boycotting" they claimed the sanction of the civil magistrate, and while these almost incredibly fantastic pretentions lasted, there was not, and could not be, peace in Scotland.

The seed of this Upas tree was sown by Knox and his allies in May 1559. An Act of 1690 repealed civil penalties for the excommunicated.

To face the supernaturally gifted preachers the Regent had but a slender force, composed in great part of sympathisers with Knox. Croft, the English commander at Berwick, writing to the English Privy Council, on May 22, anticipated that there would be no war. The Hamiltons, numerically powerful, and strong in martial gentlemen of the name, were with the Regent. But of the Hamiltons it might always be said, as Charles I. was to remark of their chief, that "they were very active for their own preservation," and for no other cause. For centuries but one or two lives stood between them and the throne, the haven where they would be. They never produced a great statesman, but their wealth, numbers, and almost royal rank made them powerful.

At this moment the eldest son of the house, the Earl of Arran, was in France. As a boy, he had been seized by the murderers of Cardinal Beaton, and held as a hostage in the Castle of St. Andrews. Was he there converted to the Reformers' ideas by the eloquence of Knox? We know not, but, as heir to his father's French duchy of Chatelherault, he had been some years in France, commanding the Scottish Archer Guard. In France too, perhaps, he was more or less a pledge for his father's loyalty in Scotland. He was now a Protestant in earnest, had retired from the French Court, had refused to return thither when summoned, and fled from the troops who were sent to bring him; lurking in woods and living on strawberries. Cecil despatched Thomas Randolph to steer him across the frontier to Zurich. He was a piece in the game much more valuable than his father, whose portrait shows us a weak, feebly cunning, good-natured, and puzzled-looking old nobleman.

Till Arran returned to Scotland, the Hamiltons, it was certain, would be trusty allies of neither faith and of neither party. When the Perth tumult broke out, Lord James rode with the Regent, as did Argyll. But both had signed the godly Band of December 3, 1557, and could no more be trusted by the Regent than the Hamiltons.

Meanwhile, the gentry of Fife and Forfarshire, with the town of Dundee, joined Knox in the walled town of Perth, though Lord Ruthven, provost of Perth, deserted, for the moment, to the Regent. On the other hand, the courageous Glencairn, with a strong body of the zealots of Renfrewshire and Ayrshire, was moving by forced marches to join the brethren. On May 24, the Regent, instead of attacking, halted at Auchterarder, fourteen miles away, and sent Argyll and Lord James to parley. They were told that the brethren meant no rebellion (as the Regent said and doubtless thought that they did), but only desired security for their religion, and were ready to "be tried" (by whom?) "in lawful judgment." Argyll and Lord James were satisfied. On May 25, Knox harangued the two lords in his wonted way, but the Regent bade the brethren leave Perth on pain of treason. By May 28, however, she heard of Glencairn's approach with Lord Ochiltree, a Stewart (later Knox's father-in-law); Glencairn, by cross roads, had arrived within six miles of Perth, with 1200 horse and 1300 foot. The western Reformers were thus nearer Perth than her own untrustworthy levies at Auchterarder. Not being aware of this, the brethren proposed obedience, if the Regent would amnesty the Perth men, let their faith "go forward," and leave no garrison of "French soldiers." To Mrs. Locke Knox adds that no idolatry should be erected, or alteration made within the town. {120} The Regent was now sending Lord James, Argyll, and Mr. Gawain Hamilton to treat, when Glencairn and his men marched into Perth. Argyll and Lord James then promised to join the brethren, if the Regent broke her agreement; Knox and Willock assured their hearers that break it she would—and so the agreement was accepted (May 28).

It was thus necessary for the brethren to allege that the covenant was broken; and it was not easy for Mary to secure order in Perth without taking some step that could be seized on as a breach of her promise; Argyll and Lord James could then desert her for the party of Knox. The very Band which Argyll and Lord James signed with the Congregation provided that the godly should go on committing the disorders which it was the duty of the Regent to suppress, and they proceeded in that holy course, "breaking down the altars and idols in all places where they came." {121a} "At their whole powers" the Congregations are "to destroy and put away all that does dishonour to God's name"; that is, monasteries and works of sacred art. They are all to defend each other against "any power whatsoever" that shall trouble them in their pious work. Argyll and Lord James signed this new Band, with Glencairn, Lord Boyd, and Ochiltree. The Queen's emissaries thus deserted her cause on the last day of May 1559, or earlier, for the chronology is perplexing. {121b}

As to the terms of truce with the Regent, Knox gives no document, but says that no Perth people should be troubled for their recent destruction of idolatry "and for down casting the places of the same; that she would suffer the religion begun to go forward, and leave the town at her departing free from the garrisons of French soldiers." The "Historie" mentions no terms except that "she should leave no men of war behind her."

Thus, as it seems, the brethren by their Band were to go on wrecking the homes of the Regent's religion, while she was not to enjoy her religious privileges in the desecrated churches of Perth, for to do that was to prevent "the religion begun" from "going forward." On the Regent's entry her men "discharged their volley of hackbuts," probably to clear their pieces, a method of unloading which prevailed as late as Waterloo. But some aimed, says Knox, at the house of Patrick Murray and hit a son of his, a boy of ten or twelve, "who, being slain, was had to the Queen's presence." She mocked, and wished it had been his father, "but seeing that it so chanced, we cannot be against fortune." It is not very probable that Mary of Guise was "merry," in Knox's manner of mirth, over the death of a child (to Mrs. Locke Knox says "children"), who, for all we know, may have been the victim of accident, like the Jacobite lady who was wounded at a window as Prince Charles's men discharged their pieces when entering Edinburgh after the victory of Prestonpans. (This brave lady said that it was fortunate she was not a Whig, or the accident would have been ascribed to design.) This event at Perth was called a breach of terms, so was the attendance at Mass, celebrated on any chance table, as "the altars were not so easy to be repaired again." The soldiers were billeted on citizens, whose houses were "oppressed by" the Frenchmen, and the provost, Ruthven (who had anew deserted to the Congregation), and the bailies, were deposed.

These magistrates probably had been charged with the execution of priests who dared to do their duty; at least in the following year, on June 10, 1560, we find the provost, bailies, and town council of Edinburgh decreeing death for the third offence against idolaters who do not instantly profess their conversion. {122} The Edinburgh municipality did this before the abolition of Catholicism by the Convention of Estates in August 1560. It does not appear that any authority in Perth except that of the provost and bailies could sentence priests to death; was their removal, then, a breach of truce? At all events it seemed necessary in the circumstances, and Mary of Guise when she departed left no French soldiers to protect the threatened priests, but four companies of Scots who had been in French service, under Stewart of Cardonell and Captain Cullen, the Captain of Queen Mary's guard after the murder of Riccio. The Regent is said by Knox to have remarked that she was not bound to keep faith with heretics, and that, with as fair an excuse, she would make little scruple to take the lives and goods of "all that sort." We do not know Knox's authority for these observations of the Regent.

The Scots soldiers left by Mary of Guise may have been Protestants, they certainly were not Frenchmen; and, in a town where death had just been threatened to all priests who celebrated the Mass, Mary could not abandon her clerics unprotected.

Taking advantage of what they called breach of treaty as regards the soldiers left in Perth, Lord James and Argyll, with Ruthven, had joined the brethren, accompanied by the Earl of Menteith and Murray of Tullibardine, ancestor of the ducal house of Atholl. Argyll and Lord James went to St. Andrews, summoning their allies thither for June 3. Knox meanwhile preached in Crail and Anstruther, with the usual results. On Sunday, June 11, {123a} and for three days more, despising the threats of the Archbishop, backed by a hundred spears, and referring to his own prophecy made when he was in the galleys, he thundered at St. Andrews. The poor ruins of some sacred buildings "are alive to testify" to the consequences, and a head of the Redeemer found in the latrines of the abbey is another mute witness to the destruction of that day. {123b}

It is not my purpose to dilate on the universal destruction of so much that was beautiful, and that to Scots, however godly, should have been sacred. The tomb of the Bruce in Dunfermline, for example, was wrecked by the mob, as the statue of Jeanne d'Arc on the bridge of Orleans was battered to pieces by the Huguenots. Nor need we ask what became of church treasures, perhaps of great value and antiquity. In some known cases, the magistrates held and sold those of the town churches. Some of the plate and vestments at Aberdeen were committed to the charge of Huntly, but about 1900 ounces of plate were divided among the Prebendaries, who seem to have appropriated them. {124} The Church treasures of Glasgow were apparently carried abroad by Archbishop Beaton. If Lord James, as Prior, took possession of the gold and silver of St. Andrews, he probably used the bullion (he spent some 13,000 crowns) in his defence of the approaches to the town, against the French, in December 1559. A silver mace of St. Salvator's College escaped the robbers.

[Head of Christ. St. Andrews. Excavated from the ruins of the Abbey by the late Marquis of Bute: knox4.jpg]

There is no sign of the possession of much specie by the Congregation in the months that followed the sack of so many treasuries of pious offerings. Lesley says that they wanted to coin the plate in Edinburgh, and for that purpose seized, as they certainly did, the dies of the mint. In France, when the brethren sacked Tours, they took twelve hundred thousand livres d'or; the country was enriched for the moment. Not so Scotland. In fact the plate of Aberdeen cathedral, as inventoried in the Register, is no great treasure. Monasteries and cathedrals were certain to perish sooner or later, for the lead of every such roof except Coldingham had been stripped and sold by 1585, while tombs had been desecrated for their poor spoils, and the fanes were afterwards used as quarries of hewn stone. Lord James had a peculiar aversion to idolatrous books, and is known to have ordered the burning of many manuscripts;—the loss to art was probably greater than the injury to history or literature. The fragments of things beautiful that the Reformers overlooked, were destroyed by the Covenanters. An attempt has been made to prove that the Border abbeys were not wrecked by Reformers, but by English troops in the reign of Henry VIII., who certainly ravaged them. Lesley, however, says that the abbeys of Kelso and Melrose were "by them (the Reformers) broken down and wasted." {125a} If there was nothing left to destroy on the Border, why did the brethren march against Kelso, as Cecil reports, on July 9, 1559? {125b}

After the devastation the Regent meant to attack the destroyers, intending to occupy Cupar, six miles, by Knox's reckoning, from St. Andrews. But, by June 13, the brethren had anticipated her with a large force, rapidly recruited, including three thousand men under the Lothian professors; Ruthven's horse; the levies of the Earl of Rothes (Leslie), and many burgesses. Next day the Regent's French horse found the brethren occupying a very strong post; their numbers were dissembled, their guns commanded the plains, and the Eden was in their front. A fog hung over the field; when it lifted, the French commander, d'Oysel, saw that he was outnumbered and outmanoeuvred. He sent on an envoy to parley, "which gladly of us being granted, the Queen offered a free remission for all crimes past, so that they would no further proceed against friars and abbeys, and that no more preaching should be used publicly," for that always meant kirk-wrecking. When Wishart preached at Mauchline, long before, in 1545, it was deemed necessary to guard the church, where there was a tempting tabernacle, "beutyfull to the eie."

The Lords and the whole brethren "refused such appointment" . . . says Knox to Mrs. Locke; they would not "suffer idolatrie to be maintained in the bounds committed to their charge." {126a} To them liberty of conscience from the first meant liberty to control the consciences and destroy the religion of all who differed from them. An eight days' truce was made for negotiations; during the truce neither party was to "enterprize" anything. Knox in his "History" does not mention an attack on the monastery of Lindores during the truce. He says that his party expected envoys from the Regent, as in the terms of truce, but perceived "her craft and deceit." {126b}

In fact, the brethren were the truce-breakers. Knox gives only the assurances signed by the Regent's envoys, the Duke of Chatelherault and d'Oysel. They include a promise "not to invade, trouble, or disquiet the Lords," the reforming party. But, though Knox omits the fact, the Reformers made a corresponding and equivalent promise: "That the Congregation should enterprise nothing nor make no invasion, for the space of six days following, for the Lords and principals of the Congregation read the rest on another piece of paper." {126c}

The situation is clear. The two parties exchanged assurances. Knox prints that of the Regent's party, not that, "on another piece of paper," of the Congregation. They broke their word; they "made invasion" at Lindores, during truce, as Knox tells Mrs. Locke, but does not tell the readers of his "History." {127a} It is true that Knox was probably preaching at St. Andrews on June 13, and was not present at Cupar Muir. But he could easily have ascertained what assurances the Lords of the Congregation "read from another piece of paper" on that historic waste. {127b}



CHAPTER XI: KNOX'S INTRIGUES, AND HIS ACCOUNT OF THEM, 1559

The Reformers, and Knox as their secretary and historian, had now reached a very difficult and delicate point in their labours. Their purpose was, not by any means to secure toleration and freedom of conscience, but to extirpate the religion to which they were opposed. It was the religion by law existing, the creed of "Authority," of the Regent and of the King and Queen whom she represented. The position of the Congregation was therefore essentially that of rebels, and, in the state of opinion at the period, to be rebels was to be self-condemned. In the eyes of Calvin and the learned of the Genevan Church, kings were the Lord's appointed, and the Gospel must not be supported by the sword. "Better that we all perish a hundred times," Calvin wrote to Coligny in 1561. Protestants, therefore, if they would resist in arms, had to put themselves in order, and though Knox had no doubt that to exterminate idolaters was thoroughly in order, the leaders of his party were obliged to pay deference to European opinion.

By a singular coincidence they adopted precisely the same device as the more militant French Protestants laid before Calvin in August 1559-March 1560. The Scots and the Protestant French represented that they were illegally repressed by foreigners: in Scotland by Mary of Guise with her French troops; in France by the Cardinal and Duc de Guise, foreigners, who had possession of the persons and authority of the "native prince" of Scotland, Mary, and the "native prince" of France, Francis II., both being minors. The French idea was that, if they secured the aid of a native Protestant prince (Conde), they were in order, as against the foreign Guises, and might kill these tyrants, seize the King, and call an assembly of the Estates. Calvin was consulted by the chief of the conspiracy, La Renaudie; he disapproved; the legality lent by one native prince was insufficient; the details of the plot were "puerile," and Calvin waited to see how the country would take it. The plot failed, at Amboise, in March 1560.

In Scotland, as in France, devices about a prince of the native blood suggested themselves. The Regent, being of the house of Guise, was a foreigner, like her brothers in France. The "native princes" were Chatelherault and his eldest son, Arran. The leaders, soon after Lord James and Argyll formally joined the zealous brethren, saw that without foreign aid their enterprise was desperate. Their levies must break up and go home to work; the Regent's nucleus of French troops could not be ousted from the sea fortress of Dunbar, and would in all probability be joined by the army promised by Henri II. His death, the Huguenot risings, the consequent impotence of the Guises to aid the Regent, could not be foreseen. Scotland, it seemed, would be reduced to a French province; the religion would be overthrown.

There was thus no hope, except in aid from England. But by the recent treaty of Cateau Cambresis (April 2, 1559), Elizabeth was bound not to help the rebels of the French Dauphin, the husband of the Queen of Scots. Moreover, Elizabeth had no stronger passion than a hatred of rebels. If she was to be persuaded to help the Reformers, they must produce some show of a legitimate "Authority" with whom she could treat. This was as easy to find as it was to the Huguenots in the case of Conde. Chatelherault and Arran, native princes, next heirs to the crown while Mary was childless, could be produced as legitimate "Authority." But to do this implied a change of "Authority," an upsetting of "Authority," which was plain rebellion in the opinion of the Genevan doctors. Knox was thus obliged, in sermons and in the pamphlet (Book II. of his "History"), to maintain that nothing more than freedom of conscience and religion was contemplated, while, as a matter of fact, he was foremost in the intrigue for changing the "Authority," and even for depriving Mary Stuart of "entrance and title" to her rights. He therefore, in Book II. (much of which was written in August-October or September-October 1559, as an apologetic contemporary tract), conceals the actual facts of the case, and, while perpetually accusing the Regent of falsehood and perfidy, displays an extreme "economy of truth," and cannot hide the pettifogging prevarications of his party. His wiser plan would have been to cancel this Book, or much of it, when he set forth later to write a history of the Reformation. His party being then triumphant, he could have afforded to tell most of the truth, as in great part he does in his Book III. But he could not bring himself to throw over the narrative of his party pamphlet (Book II.), and it remains much as it was originally written, though new touches were added.

The point to be made in public and in the apologetic tract was that the Reformers contemplated no alteration of "Authority." This was untrue.

Writing later (probably in 1565-66) in his Third Book, Knox boasts of his own initiation of the appeal to England, which included a scheme for the marriage of the Earl of Arran, son of the Hamilton chief, Chatelherault, to Queen Elizabeth. Failing issue of Queen Mary, Arran was heir to the Scottish throne, and if he married the Queen of England, the rightful Queen of Scotland would not be likely to wear her crown. The contemplated match was apt to involve a change of dynasty. The lure of the crown for his descendants was likely to bring Chatelherault, and perhaps even his brother the Archbishop, over to the side of the Congregation: in short it was an excellent plot. Probably the idea occurred to the leaders of the Congregation at or shortly after the time when Argyll and Lord James threw in their lot definitely with the brethren on May 31. On June 14 Croft, from Berwick, writes to Cecil that the leaders, "from what I hear, will likely seek her Majesty's" (Elizabeth's) "assistance," and mean to bring Arran home. Some think that he is already at Geneva, and he appears to have made the acquaintance of Calvin, with whom later he corresponded. "They are likely to motion a marriage you know where"; of Arran, that is, with Elizabeth. {131} Moreover, one Whitlaw was at this date in France, and by June 28, communicated the plan to Throckmorton, the English Ambassador. Thus the scheme was of an even earlier date than Knox claims for his own suggestion.

He tells us that at St. Andrews, after the truce of Cupar Muir (June 13), he "burstit forth," in conversation with Kirkcaldy of Grange, on the necessity of seeking support from England. Kirkcaldy long ago had watched the secret exit from St. Andrews Castle, while his friends butchered the Cardinal. He was taken in the castle when Knox was taken; he was a prisoner in France; then he entered the French service, acting, while so engaged, as an English spy. Before and during the destruction of monasteries he was in the Regent's service, but she justly suspected him of intending to desert her at this juncture. Kirkcaldy now wrote to Cecil, without date, but probably on June 21, and with the signature "Zours as ye knaw." Being in the Regent's party openly, he was secretly betraying her; he therefore accuses her of treachery. (He left her publicly, after a pension from England had been procured for him.) He says that the Regent averred that "favourers of God's word should have liberty to live after their consciences," "yet, in the conclusion of the peace" (the eight days' truce) "she has uttered her deceitful mind, having now declared that she will be enemy to all them that shall not live after her religion." Consequently, the Protestants are wrecking "all the friaries within their bounds." But Knox has told us that they declared their intention of thus enjoying liberty of conscience before "the conclusion of the peace," and wrecked Lindores Abbey during the peace! Kirkcaldy adds that the Regent already suspects him.

Kirkcaldy, having made the orthodox charge of treachery against the woman whom he was betraying, then asks Cecil whether Elizabeth will accept their "friendship," and adds, with an eye to Arran, "I wish likewise her Majesty were not too hasty in her marriage." {133a} On June 23, writing from his house, Grange, and signing his name, Kirkcaldy renews his proposals. In both letters he anticipates the march of the Reformers to turn the Regent's garrison out of Perth. On June 25 he announces that the Lords are marching thither. They had already the secret aid of Lethington, who remained, like the traitor that he was, in the Regent's service till the end of October. {133b} Knox also writes at this time to Cecil from St. Andrews.

On June 1, Henri II. of France had written to the Regent promising to send her strong reinforcements, {133c} but he was presently killed in a tourney by the broken lance shaft of Montgomery.

The Reformers now made tryst at Perth for June 25, to restore "religion" and expel the Scots in French service. The little garrison surrendered (their opponents are reckoned by Kirkcaldy at 10,000 men), idolatry was again suppressed, and Perth restored to her municipal constitution. The ancient shrines of Scone were treated in the usual way, despite the remonstrances of Knox, Lord James, and Argyll. They had threatened Hepburn, Bishop of Moray, that if he did not join them "they neither could spare nor save his place." This was on June 20, on the same day he promised to aid them and vote with them in Parliament. {133d} Knox did his best, but the Dundee people began the work of wrecking; and the Bishop, in anger, demanded and received the return of his written promise of joining the Reformers. On the following day, irritated by some show of resistance, the people of Dundee and Perth burned the palace of Scone and the abbey, "whereat no small number of us was offended." An old woman said that "filthy beasts" dwelt "in that den," to her private knowledge, "at whose words many were pacified." The old woman is an excellent authority. {134}

The pretext of perfect loyalty was still maintained by the Reformers; their honesty we can appreciate. They did not wish, they said, to overthrow "authority"; merely to be allowed to worship in their own way (and to prevent other people from worshipping in theirs, which was the order appointed by the State). That any set of men may rebel and take their chances is now recognised, but the Reformers wanted to combine the advantages of rebellion with the reputation of loyal subjects. Persons who not only band against the sovereign, but invoke foreign aid and seek a foreign alliance, are, however noble their motives, rebels. There is no other word for them. But that they were not rebels Knox urged in a sermon at Edinburgh, which the Reformers, after devastating Stirling, reached by June 28-29 (?), and the Second Book of his "History" labours mainly to prove this point; no change of "authority" is intended.

What Knox wanted is very obvious. He wanted to prevent Mary Stuart from enjoying her hereditary crown. She was a woman, as such under the curse of "The First Blast of the Trumpet," and she was an idolatress. Presently, as we shall see, he shows his hand to Cecil.

Before the Reformers entered Edinburgh Mary of Guise retired to the castle of Dunbar, where she had safe access to the sea. In Edinburgh Knox says that the poor sacked the monasteries "before our coming." The contemporary Diurnal of Occurrents attributes the feat to Glencairn, Ruthven, Argyll, and the Lord James. {135a}

Knox was chosen minister of Edinburgh, and as soon as they arrived the Lords, according to the "Historie of the Estate of Scotland," sent envoys to the Regent, offering obedience if she would "relax" the preachers, summoned on May 10, "from the horn" and allow them to preach. The Regent complied, but, of course, peace did not ensue, for, according to Knox, in addition to a request "that we might enjoy liberty of conscience," a demand for the withdrawal of all French forces out of Scotland was made. {135b} This could not be granted.

Presently Mary of Guise issued before July 2, in the name of the King and Queen, Francis II. and Mary Stuart, certain charges against the Reformers, which Knox in his "History" publishes. {135c} A remark that Mary Stuart lies like her mother, seems to be written later than the period (September-October 1559) when this Book II. was composed. The Regent says that the rising was only under pretence of religion, and that she has offered a Parliament for January 1560. "A manifest lie," says Knox, "for she never thought of it till we demanded it." He does not give a date to the Regent's paper, but on June 25 Kirkcaldy wrote to Percy that the Regent "is like to grant the other party" (the Reformers) "all they desire, which in part she has offered already." {136a}

Knox seizes on the word "offered" as if it necessarily meant "offered though unasked," and so styles the Regent's remark "a manifest lie." But Kirkcaldy, we see, uses the words "has in part offered already" when he means that the Regent has "offered" to grant some of the wishes of his allies.

Meanwhile the Regent will allow freedom of conscience in the country, and especially in Edinburgh. But the Reformers, her paper goes on, desire to subvert the crown. To prove this she says that they daily receive messengers from England and send their own; and they have seized the stamps in the Mint (a capital point as regards the crown) and the Palace of Holyrood, which Lesley says that they sacked. Knox replies, "there is never a sentence in the narrative true," except that his party seized the stamps merely to prevent the issue of base coin (not to coin the stolen plate of the churches and monasteries for themselves, as Lesley says they did). But Knox's own letters, and those of Kirkcaldy of Grange and Sir Henry Percy, prove that they were intriguing with England as early as June 23-25. Their conduct, with the complicity of Percy, was perfectly well known to the Regent's party, and was denounced by d'Oysel to the French ambassador in London in letters of July. {136b} Elizabeth, on August 7, answered the remonstrances of the Regent, promising to punish her officials if guilty. Nobody lied more frankly than "that imperial votaress."

When Knox says "there is never a sentence in the narrative true," he is very bold. It was not true that the rising was merely under pretext of religion. It may have been untrue that messengers went daily to England, but five letters were written between June 21 and June 28. To stand on the words of the Regent—"every day"—would be a babyish quibble. All the rest of her narrative was absolutely true.

Knox, on June 28, asked leave to enter England for secret discourse; he had already written to the same effect from St. Andrews. {137a} If Henri sends French reinforcement, Knox "is uncertain what will follow"; we may guess that authority would be in an ill way. Cecil temporised; he wanted a better name than Kirkcaldy's—a man in the Regent's service—to the negotiations (July 4). "Anywise kindle the fire," he writes to Croft (July 8). Croft is to let the Reformers know that Arran has escaped out of France. Such a chance will not again "come in our lives." We see what the chance is!

On July 19 Knox writes again to Cecil, enclosing what he means to be an apology for his "Blast of the Trumpet," to be given to Elizabeth. He says, while admitting Elizabeth's right to reign, as "judged godly," though a woman, that they "must be careful not to make entrance and title to many, by whom not only shall the truth be impugned, but also shall the country be brought to bondage and slavery. God give you eyes to foresee and wisdom to avoid the apparent danger." {137b}

The "many" to whom "entrance and title" are not to be given, manifestly are Mary Stuart, Queen of France and Scotland.

It is not very clear whether Knox, while thus working against a woman's "entrance and title" to the crown on the ground of her sex, is thinking of Mary Stuart's prospects of succession to the throne of England or of her Scottish rights, or of both. His phrase is cast in a vague way; "many" are spoken of, but it is not hard to understand what particular female claimant is in his mind.

Thus Knox himself was intriguing with England against his Queen at the very moment when in his "History" he denies that communications were frequent between his party and England, or that any of the Regent's charges are true. As for opposing authority and being rebellious, the manifest fundamental idea of the plot is to marry Elizabeth to Arran and deny "entrance and title" to the rightful Queen. It was an admirable scheme, and had Arran not become a lunatic, had Elizabeth not been "that imperial votaress" vowed to eternal maidenhood, their bridal, with the consequent loss of the Scottish throne by Mary, would have been the most fortunate of all possible events. The brethren had, in short, a perfect right to defend their creed in arms; a perfect right to change the dynasty; a perfect right to intrigue with England, and to resist a French landing, if they could. But for a reformer of the Church to give a dead lady the lie in his "History" when the economy of truth lay rather on his own side, as he knew, is not so well. We shall see that Knox possibly had the facts in his mind during the first interview with Mary Stuart. {138}

The Lords, July 2, replied to the proclamation of Mary of Guise, saying that she accused them of a purpose "to invade her person." {139a} There is not a word of the kind in the Regent's proclamation as given by Knox himself. They denied what the Regent in her proclamation had not asserted, and what she had asserted about their dealings with England they did not venture to deny; "whereby," says Spottiswoode in his "History," "it seemed there was some dealing that way for expelling the Frenchmen, which they would not deny, and thought not convenient as then openly to profess." {139b} The task of giving the lie to the Regent when she spoke truth was left to the pen of Knox.

Meanwhile, at Dunbar, Mary of Guise was in evil case. She had sounded Erskine, the commander of the Castle, who, she hoped, would stand by her. But she had no money to pay her French troops, who were becoming mutinous, and d'Oysel "knew not to what Saint to vow himself." The Earl of Huntly, before he would serve the Crown, {139c} insisted on a promise of the Earldom of Moray; this desire was to be his ruin. Huntly was a double dealer; "the gay Gordons" were ever brave, loyal, and bewildered by their chiefs. By July 22, the Scots heard of the fatal wound of Henri II., to their encouragement. Both parties were in lack of money, and the forces of the Congregation were slipping home by hundreds. Mary, according to Knox, was exciting the Duke against Argyll and Lord James, by the charge that Lord James was aiming at the crown, in which if he succeeded, he would deprive not only her daughter of the sovereignty, but the Hamiltons of the succession. Young and ambitious as Lord James then was, and heavily as he was suspected, even in England, it is most improbable that he ever thought of being king.

The Congregation refused to let Argyll and Lord James hold conference with the Regent. Other discussions led to no result, except waste of time, to the Regent's advantage; and, on July 22, Mary, in council with Lord Erskine, Huntly, and the Duke, resolved to march against the Reformers at Edinburgh, who had no time to call in their scattered levies in the West, Angus, and Fife. Logan of Restalrig, lately an ally of the godly, surrendered Leith, over which he was the superior, to d'Oysel; and the Congregation decided to accept a truce (July 23-24).

At this point Knox's narrative becomes so embroiled that it reminds one of nothing so much as of Claude Nau's attempts to glide past an awkward point in the history of his employer, Mary Stuart. I have puzzled over Knox's narrative again and again, and hope that I have disentangled the knotted and slippery thread.

It is not wonderful that the brethren made terms, for the "Historie" states that their force numbered but 1500 men, whereas d'Oysel and the Duke led twice that number, horse and foot. They also heard from Erskine, in the Castle, that, if they did not accept "such appointment as they might have," he "would declare himself their enemy," as he had promised the Regent. It seems that she did not want war, for d'Oysel's French alone should have been able to rout the depleted ranks of the Congregation.

The question is, What were the terms of treaty? for it is Knox's endeavour to prove that the Regent broke them, and so justified the later proceedings of the Reformers. The terms, in French, are printed by Teulet. {141} They run thus:—

1. The Protestants, not being inhabitants of Edinburgh, shall depart next day.

2. They shall deliver the stamps for coining to persons appointed by the Regent, hand over Holyrood, and Ruthven and Pitarro shall be pledges for performance.

3. They shall be dutiful subjects, except in matters of religion.

4. They shall not disturb the clergy in their persons or by withholding their rents, &c., before January 10, 1560.

5. They shall not attack churches or monasteries before that date.

6. The town of Edinburgh shall enjoy liberty of conscience, and shall choose its form of religion as it pleases till that date.

7. The Regent shall not molest the preachers nor suffer the clergy to molest them for cause of religion till that date.

8. Keith, Knox, and Spottiswoode, add that no garrisons, French or Scots, shall occupy Edinburgh, but soldiers may repair thither from their garrisons for lawful business.

The French soldiers are said to have swaggered in St. Giles's, but no complaint is made that they were garrisoned in Edinburgh. In fact, they abode in the Canongate and Leith.

Now, these were the terms accepted by the Congregation. This is certain, not only because historians, Knox excepted, are unanimous, but because the terms were either actually observed, or were evaded, on a stated point of construction.

1. The Congregation left Edinburgh.

2. They handed over the stamps of the Mint, Holyrood, and the two pledges.

3. 4, 5. We do not hear that they attacked any clerics or monastery before they broke off publicly from the treaty, and Knox (i. 381) admits that Article 4 was accepted.

6. They would not permit the town of Edinburgh to choose its religion by "voting of men." On July 29, when Huntly, Chatelherault, and Erskine, the neutral commander of the Castle, asked for a plebiscite, as provided in the treaty of July 24, the Truth, said the brethren, was not a matter of human votes, and, as the brethren held St. Giles's Church before the treaty, under Article 7 they could not be dispossessed. {142a} The Regent, to avoid shadow of offence, yielded the point as to Article 6, and was accused of breach of treaty because, occupying Holyrood, she had her Mass there. Had Edinburgh been polled, the brethren knew that they would have been outvoted. {142b}

Now, Knox's object, in that part of Book II. of his "History," which was written in September-October 1559 as a tract for contemporary reading, is to prove that the Regent was the breaker of treaty. His method is first to give "the heads drawn by us, which we desired to be granted." The heads are—

1. No member of the Congregation shall be troubled in any respect by any authority for the recent "innovation" before the Parliament of January 10, 1560, decides the controversies.

2. Idolatry shall not be restored where, on the day of treaty, it has been suppressed.

3. Preachers may preach wherever they have preached and wherever they may chance to come.

4. No soldiers shall be in garrison in Edinburgh.

5. The French shall be sent away on "a reasonable day" and no more brought in without assent of the whole Nobility and Parliament. {143a}

These articles make no provision for the safety of Catholic priests and churches, and insist on suppression of idolatry where it has been put down, and the entire withdrawal of French forces. Knox's party could not possibly denounce these terms which they demanded as "things unreasonable and ungodly," for they were the very terms which they had been asking for, ever since the Regent went to Dunbar. Yet, when the treaty was made, the preachers did say "our case is not yet so desperate that we need to grant to things unreasonable and ungodly." {143b} Manifestly, therefore, the terms actually obtained, as being "unreasonable and ungodly," were not those for which the Reformers asked, and which, they publicly proclaimed, had been conceded.

Knox writes, "These our articles were altered, and another form disposeth." And here he translates the terms as given in the French, terms which provide for the safety of Catholics, the surrender of Holyrood and the Mint, but say nothing about the withdrawal of the French troops or the non-restoration of "idolatry" where it has been suppressed.

He adds, "This alteration in words and order was made" (so it actually was made) "without the knowledge and consent of those whose counsel we had used in all cases before"—clearly meaning the preachers, and also implying that the consent of the noble negotiators for the Congregation was obtained to the French articles.

Next day the Congregation left Edinburgh, after making solemn proclamation of the conditions of truce, in which they omitted all the terms of the French version, except those in their own favour, and stated (in Knox's version) that all of their own terms, except the most important, namely, the removal of the French, and the promise to bring in no more, had been granted! It may be by accident, however, that the proclamation of the Lords, as given by Knox, omits the article securing the departure of the French. {144a} There exist two MS. copies of the proclamation, in which the Lords dare to assert "that the Frenchmen should be sent away at a reasonable date, and no more brought in except by assent of the whole nobility and Parliament." {144b}

Of the terms really settled, except as regards the immunity of their own party, the Lords told the public not one word; they suppressed what was true, and added what was false.

Against this formal, public, and impudent piece of mendacity, we might expect Knox to protest in his "History"; to denounce it as a cause of God's wrath. On the other hand he states, with no disapproval, the childish quibbles by which his party defended their action.

On reading or hearing the Lords' proclamation, the Catholics, who knew the real terms of treaty, said that the Lords "in their proclamation had made no mention of anything promised to them," and "had proclaimed more than was contained in the Appointment;" among other things, doubtless, the promise to dismiss the French. {145a}

The brethren replied to these "calumnies of Papists" (as Calderwood styles them), that they "proclaimed nothing that was not finally agreed upon, in word and promise, betwixt us and those with whom the Appointment was made, whatsoever their scribes had after written, {145b} who, in very deed, had altered, both in words and sentences, our Articles, as they were first conceived; and yet if their own writings were diligently examined, the self same thing shall be found in substance."

This is most complicated quibbling! Knox uses his ink like the cuttle- fish, to conceal the facts. The "own writings" of the Regent's party are before us, and do not contain the terms proclaimed by the Congregation. Next, in drawing up the terms which the Congregation was compelled to accept, the "scribes" of the Regent's party necessarily, and with the consent of the Protestant negotiators, altered the terms proposed by the brethren, but not granted by the Regent's negotiators. Thirdly, the Congregation now asserted that "finally" an arrangement in conformity with their proclamation was "agreed upon in word and promise"; that is, verbally, which we never find them again alleging. The game was to foist false terms on public belief, and then to accuse the Regent of perfidy in not keeping them.

These false terms were not only publicly proclaimed by the Congregation with sound of trumpets, but they were actually sent, by Knox or Kirkcaldy, or both, to Croft at Berwick, for English reading, on July 24. In a note I print the letter, signed by Kirkcaldy, but in the holograph of Knox, according to Father Stevenson. {146} It will be remarked that the genuine articles forbidding attacks on monasteries and ensuring priests in their revenues are here omitted, while the false articles on suppression of idolatry, and expulsion of the French forces are inserted, and nothing is said about Edinburgh's special liberty to choose her religion.

The sending of this false intelligence was not the result of a misunderstanding. I have shown that the French terms were perfectly well understood, and were observed, except Article 6, on which the Regent made a concession. How then could men professionally godly venture to misreport the terms, and so make them at once seem more favourable to themselves and less discouraging to Cecil than they really were, while at the same time (as the Regent could not keep terms which she had never granted) they were used as a ground of accusation against her?

This is the point that has perplexed me, for Knox, no less than the Congregation, seems to have deliberately said good-bye to truth and honour, unless the Lords elaborately deceived their secretary and diplomatic agent. The only way in which I can suppose that Knox and his friends reconciled their consciences to their conduct is this:

Knox tells us that "when all points were communed and agreed upon by mid- persons," Chatelherault and Huntly had a private interview with Argyll, Glencairn, and others of his party. They promised that they would be enemies to the Regent if she broke any one jot of the treaty. "As much promised the duke that he would do, if in case that she would not remove her French at a reasonable day . . . " the duke being especially interested in their removal. But Huntly is not said to have made this promise—the removal of the French obviously not being part of the "Appointment." {148a}

Next, the brethren, in arguing with the Catholics about their own mendacious proclamation of the terms, said that "we proclaimed nothing which was not finally agreed upon, in word and promise, betwixt us and those with whom the Appointment was made. . . . " {148b}

I can see no explanation of Knox's conduct, except that he and his friends pacified their consciences by persuading themselves that non-official words of Huntly and Chatelherault (whatever these words may have been), spoken after "all was agreed upon," cancelled the treaty with the Regent, became the real treaty, and were binding on the Regent! Thus Knox or Kirkcaldy, or both, by letter; and Knox later, orally in conversation with Croft, could announce false terms of treaty. So great, if I am right, is a good man's power of self-persuasion! I shall welcome any more creditable theory of the Reformer's behaviour, but I can see no alternative, unless the Lords lied to Knox.

That the French should be driven out was a great point with Cecil, for he was always afraid that the Scots might slip back from the English to the old French alliance. On July 28, after the treaty of July 24, but before he heard of it, he insisted on the necessity of expelling the French, in a letter to the Reformers. {149a} He "marvels that they omit such an opportunity to help themselves." He sent a letter of vague generalities in answer to their petitions for aid. When he received, as he did, a copy of the terms of the treaty of July 24, in French, he would understand.

As further proof that Cecil was told what Knox and Kirkcaldy should have known to be untrue, we note that on August 28 the Regent, weary of the perpetual charges of perfidy anew brought against her, "ashamed not," writes Knox, to put forth a proclamation, in which she asserted that nothing, in the terms of July 23-24, forbade her to bring in more French troops, "as may clearly appear by inspection of the said Appointment, which the bearer has presently to show." {149b}

Why should the Regent have been "ashamed" to tell the truth? If the bearer showed a false and forged treaty, the Congregation must have denounced it, and produced the genuine document with the signatures. Far from that, in a reply (from internal evidence written by Knox), they admit, "neither do we here {149c} allege the breaking of the Appointment made at Leith (which, nevertheless, has manifestly been done), but"—and here the writer wanders into quite other questions. Moreover, Knox gives another reply to the Regent, "by some men," in which they write "we dispute not so much whether the bringing in of more Frenchmen be violating of the Appointment, which the Queen and her faction cannot deny to be manifestly broken by them in more cases than one," in no way connected with the French. One of these cases will presently be stated—it is comic enough to deserve record—but, beyond denial, the brethren could not, and did not even attempt to make out their charge as to the Regent's breach of truce by bringing in new, or retaining old, French forces.

Our historians, and the biographers of Knox, have not taken the trouble to unravel this question of the treaty of July 24. But the behaviour of the Lords and of Knox seems characteristic, and worthy of examination.

It is not argued that Mary of Guise was, or became, incapable of worse than dissimulation (a case of forgery by her in the following year is investigated in Appendix B). But her practices at this time were such as Knox could not throw the first stone at. Her French advisers were in fact "perplexed," as Throckmorton wrote to Elizabeth (August 8). They made preparations for sending large reinforcements: they advised concession in religion: they waited on events, and the Regent could only provide, at Leith (which was jealous of Edinburgh and anxious to be made a free burgh), a place whither she could fly in peril. Meantime she would vainly exert her woman's wit among many dangers.

Knox, too, was exerting his wit in his own way. Busied in preaching and in acting as secretary and diplomatic agent to the Congregation as he was, he must also have begun in or not much later than August 1559, the part of his "History" first written by him, namely Book II. That book, as he wrote to a friend named Railton {150} on October 23, 1559 (when much of it was already penned), is meant as a defence of his party against the charge of sedition, and was clearly intended (we reiterate) for contemporary reading at home and abroad, while the strife was still unsettled. This being so, Knox continues his policy of blaming the Regent for breach of the misreported treaty of July 24: for treachery, which would justify the brethren's attack on her before the period of truce (January 10, 1559) ran out.

One clause, we know, secured the Reformers from molestation before that date. Despite this, Knox records a case of "oppressing" a brother, "which had been sufficient to prove the Appointment to be plainly violated." Lord Seton, of the Catholic party, {151a} "broke a chair on Alexander Whitelaw as he came from Preston (pans) accompanied by William Knox . . . and this he did supposing that Alexander Whitelaw had been John Knox."

So much Knox states in his Book II., writing probably in September or October 1559. But he does not here say what Alexander Whitelaw and William Knox had been doing, or inform us how he himself was concerned in the matter. He could not reveal the facts when writing in the early autumn of 1559, because the brethren were then still taking the line that they were loyal, and were suffering from the Regent's breaches of treaty, as in the matter of the broken chair.

The sole allusion here made by Knox to the English intrigues, before they were manifest to all mankind in September, is this, "Because England was of the same religion, and lay next to us, it was judged expedient first to prove them, which we did by one or two messengers, as hereafter, in its own place, more amply shall be declared." {151b} He later inserted in Book III. some account of the intrigues of July-August 1559, "in its own place," namely, in a part of his work occupied with the occurrences of January 1560. {152a}

Cecil, prior to the compact of July 24, had wished to meet Knox at Stamford. On July 30 Knox received his instructions as negotiator with England. {152b} His employers say that they hear that Huntly and Chatelherault have promised to join the Reformers if the Regent breaks a jot of the treaty of July 24, the terms of which Knox can declare. They ask money to enable them to take Stirling Castle, and "strength by sea" for the capture of Broughty Castle, on Tay. Yet they later complained of the Regent when she fortified Leith. They actually did take Broughty Castle, and then had the hardihood to aver that they only set about this when they heard in mid-September of the fortification of Leith by the Regent. They aimed at it six days after their treaty of July 24. They asked for soldiers to lie in garrison, for men, ships, and money for their Lords.

Bearing these instructions Knox sailed from Fife to Holy Island, near Berwick, and there met Croft, the Governor of that town. Croft kept him, not with sufficient secrecy, in Berwick, where he was well known, while Whitelaw was coming from Cecil with his answers to the petitions of the brethren. Meanwhile Croft held converse with Knox, who, as he reports, says that, as to the change of "Authority" (that is of sovereignty, temporary at least), the choice of the brethren would be subject to Elizabeth's wishes. Yet the brethren contemplated no change of Authority! Arran ought to be kept secretly in England "till wise men considered what was in him; if misliked he put Lord James second." As to what Knox told Croft about the terms of treaty of July 24, it is best to state the case in Croft's own words. "He (Knox) excusys the Protestantes, for that the French as commyng apon them at Edynbrogh when theyr popoll were departed to make new provysyon of vytaylles, forcyd them to make composycyon wyth the quene. Whereyn (sayeth he) the frenchmen ar apoynted to departe out of Scotland by the xth of thys monthe, and they truste verely by thys caus to be stronger, for that the Duke, apon breche of promys on the quene's part, wyll take playne parte withe the Protestantes." {153}

This is quite explicit. Knox, as envoy of the Lords, declares that in the treaty it is "appointed" that the French force shall leave Scotland on August 10. (The printed calendars are not accurate.) No such matter occurred in the treaty "wyth the quene." Knox added, next day, that he himself "was unfit to treat of so great matters," and Croft appears to have agreed with him, for, by the Reformer's lack of caution, his doings in Holy Island were "well known and published." Consequently, when Whitelaw returned to Knox with Cecil's reply to the requests of the brethren, the performances of Knox and Whitelaw were no secrets, in outline at least, to the Regent's party. For this reason, Lord Seton, mistaking Whitelaw for Knox (who had set out on August 3 to join the brethren at Stirling), pursued and broke a chair on the harmless Brother Whitelaw. Such was the Regent's treacherous breach of treaty!

During this episode in his curious adventures as a diplomatist, Knox recommended Balnaves, author of a treatise on "Justification by Faith," as a better agent in these courses, and with Balnaves the new envoy of Elizabeth, Sadleir, a veteran diplomatist (wheedled in 1543 by Mary of Guise), transacted business henceforth. Sadleir was ordered to Berwick on August 6. Elizabeth infringed the treaty of Cateau Cambresis, then only four months old, by giving Sadleir 3000 pounds in gold, or some such sum, for the brethren. "They were tempting the Duke by all means possible," {154a} but he will only promise neutrality if it comes to the push, and they, Argyll and Lord James say (Glasgow, August 13), are not yet ready "to discharge this authority," that is, to depose the Regent. Chatelherault's promise was less vigorous than it had been reported!

Knox, who now acted as secretary for the Congregation, was not Sir Henry Wotton's ideal ambassador, "an honest man sent to lie abroad for his country." When he stooped to statements which seem scarcely candid, to put it mildly, he did violence to his nature. He forced himself to proclaim the loyalty of his party from the pulpit, when he could not do so without some economy of truth. {154b} He inserted things in his "History," and spoke things to Croft, which he should have known to be false. But he carried his point. He did advance the "union of hearts" with England, if in a blundering fashion, and we owe him eternal gratitude for his interest in the match, though "we like not the manner of the wooing." The reluctant hand of Elizabeth was now inextricably caught in the gear of that great machine which broke the ancient league of France and Scotland, and saved Scotland from some of the sorrows of France.

The papers of Sadleir, Elizabeth's secret agent with the Scots, show the godly pursuing their old plan of campaign. To make treaty with the Regent; to predict from the pulpit that she would break it; to make false statements about the terms of the treaty; to accuse her of their infringement; to profess loyalty; to aim at setting up a new sovereign power; to tell the populace that Mary of Guise's scanty French reinforcements—some 1500 men—came by virtue of a broken treaty; to tell Sadleir that they were very glad that the French had come, as they would excite popular hatred; to make out that the fortification of Leith was breach of treaty;—such, in brief, were the methods of the Reformers. {155}

They now took a new method of proving the Regent's breach of treaty, that she had "set up the Mass in Holyrood, which they had before suppressed." They were allowed to have their sermons in St. Giles's, but she was not to have her rites in her own abbey. Balnaves still harped on the non- dismissal of the French as a breach of treaty!

Arran, returning from Switzerland, had an interview with Elizabeth in England, in mid-September, was smuggled across the Border with the astute and unscrupulous Thomas Randolph in his train. With Arran among them, Chatelherault might waver as he would. Meanwhile Knox and Willock preached up and down the country, doubtless repeating to the people their old charges against the Regent. Lethington, the secretary of that lady, still betrayed her, telling Sadleir "that he attended upon the Regent no longer than he might have a good occasion to revolt unto the Protestants" (September 16).

Balnaves got some two to three thousand pounds in gold (the sum is variously stated) from Sadleir. "He saith, whatever pretence they make, the principal mark they shoot at is to make an alteration of the State and authority." This at least is explicit enough. The Reformers were actually renewing the civil war on charges so stale and so false. The Duke had possibly promised to desert her if she broke the truce, and now he seized on the flimsy pretence, because the Congregation, as the leaders said, had "tempted him" sufficiently. They had come up to his price. Arran, the hoped-for Hamilton king, the hoped-for husband of the Queen of England, had arrived, and with Arran the Duke joined the Reformers. About September 20 they forbade the Regent to fortify Leith.

The brethren say that they have given no "provocation." Six weeks earlier they had requested England to help them to seize and hold Broughty Castle, though the Regent may not have known that detail.

The Regent replied as became her, and Glencairn, with Erskine of Dun, wrecked the rich abbey of Paisley. The brethren now broke the truce with a vengeance.



CHAPTER XII: KNOX IN THE WAR OF THE CONGREGATION: THE REGENT ATTACKED: HER DEATH: CATHOLICISM ABOLISHED, 1559-1560

Though the Regent was now to be deposed and attacked by armed force, Knox tells us that there were dissensions among her enemies. Some held "that the Queen was heavily done to," and that the leaders "sought another end than religion." Consequently, when the Lords with their forces arrived at Edinburgh on October 16, the local brethren showed a want of enthusiasm. The Congregation nevertheless summoned the Regent to depart from Leith, and on October 21 met at the Tolbooth to discuss her formal deposition from office. Willock moved that this might lawfully be done. Knox added, with more reserve than usual, that their hearts must not be withdrawn from their King and Queen, Mary and Francis. The Regent, too, ought to be restored when she openly repented and submitted. Willock dragged Jehu into his sermon, but Knox does not appear to have remarked that Francis and Mary were Ahab and Jezebel, idolaters. He was now in a position of less freedom and more responsibility than while he was a wandering prophet at large.

On October 24 the Congregation summoned Leith, having deposed the Regent in the name of the King and Queen, Francis and Mary, and of themselves as Privy Council! They did more. They caused one James Cocky, a gold worker, to forge the great seal of Francis and Mary, "wherewith they sealed their pretended laws and ordinances, tending to constrain the subjects of the kingdom to rebel and favour their usurpations." Their proclamations with the forged seal they issued at St. Andrews, Glasgow, Linlithgow, Perth, and elsewhere; using this seal in their letters to noblemen, who were ordered to obey Arran. The gold worker, whose name is variously spelled in the French record, says that the device for the coins which the Congregation meant to issue and ordered him to execute was on one side a cross with a crown of thorns, on the other the words VERBUM DEI. The artist, Cocky, was dilatory, and when the brethren were driven out of Edinburgh he gave the dies, unfinished, to John Achison, the chief official of the Mint, who often executed coins of Queen Mary. {158a} As Professor Hume Brown says of the audacious statement of the brethren, that they acted in the name of their King and Queen, their use of the forged Royal seal, "as covering their action with an appearance of law, served its purpose in their appeals to the people." Cocky and Kirkcaldy were hanged by Morton in 1573.

The idea of forging the great seal may have arisen in the fertile brain of Lethington, who about October 25 had at last deserted the Regent, and now took Knox's place as secretary of the Congregation. Henceforth their manifestoes say little about religion, and a great deal about the French design to conquer Scotland. {158b}

To the wit of Lethington we may plausibly attribute a proposal which, on October 25, Knox submitted to Croft. {159} It was that England should lend 1000 men for the attack on the Regent in Leith. Peace with France need not be broken, for the men may come as private adventurers, and England may denounce them as rebels. Croft declined this proposal as dishonourable, and as too clearly a breach of treaty. Knox replied that he had communicated Croft's letter "to such as partly induced me before to write" (October 29). Very probably Lethington suggested the idea, leaving the burden of its proposal on Knox. Dr. M'Crie says that it is a solitary case of the Reformer's recommending dissimulation; but the proceeding was in keeping with Knox's previous statements about the nature of the terms made in July; with the protestations of loyalty; with the lie given to Mary of Guise when she spoke, on the whole, the plain truth; and generally with the entire conduct of the prophet and of the Congregation. Dr. M'Crie justly remarks that Knox "found it difficult to preserve integrity and Christian simplicity amidst the crooked wiles of political intrigue."

On the behaviour of the godly heaven did not smile—for the moment. Scaling-ladders had been constructed in St. Giles's church, "so that preaching was neglected." "The preachers spared not openly to say that they feared the success of that enterprise should not be prosperous," for this reason, "God could not suffer such contempt of His word . . . long to be unpunished." The Duke lost heart; the waged soldiers mutinied for lack of pay; Morton deserted the cause; Bothwell wounded Ormiston as he carried money from Croft, and seized the cash {160a}—behaving treacherously, if it be true that he was under promise not to act against the brethren. The French garrison of Leith made successful sorties; and despite the valour of Arran and Lord James and the counsel of Lethington, the godly fled from Edinburgh on November 5, under taunts and stones cast by the people of the town.

The fugitives never stopped till they reached Stirling, when Knox preached to them. He lectured at great length on discomfitures of the godly in the Old Testament, and about the Benjamites, and the Levite and his wife. Coming to practical politics, he reminded his audience that after the accession of the Hamiltons to their party, "there was nothing heard but This lord will bring these many hundred spears . . . if this Earl be ours, no man in such a district will trouble us." The Duke ought to be ashamed of himself. Before Knox came to Scotland we know he had warned the brethren against alliance with the Hamiltons. The Duke had been on the Regent's side, "yet without his assistance they could not have compelled us to appoint with the Queen upon such unequal conditions" in the treaty of July. So the terms were in favour of the Regent, after all is said and done! {160b}

God had let the brethren fall, Knox said, into their present condition because they put their trust in man—in the Duke—a noble whose repentance was very dubious.

Then Knox rose to the height of the occasion. "Yea, whatsoever becomes of us and our mortal carcases, I doubt not but that this Cause (in despite of Satan) shall prevail in the realm of Scotland. For as it is the eternal truth of the eternal God, so shall it once prevail . . ." Here we have the actual genius of Knox, his tenacity, his courage in an uphill game, his faith which might move mountains. He adjured all to amendment of life, prayer, and charity. "The minds of men began to be wonderfully erected." In Arran and Lord James too, manifestly not jealous rivals, Randolph found "more honour, stoutness, and courage than in all the rest" (November 3).

Already, before the flight, Lethington was preparing to visit England. The conduct of diplomacy with England was thus in capable hands, and Lethington was a persona grata to the English Queen. Meanwhile the victorious Regent behaved with her wonted moderation. "She pursueth no man that hath showed himself against her at this time." She pardoned all burgesses of Edinburgh, and was ready to receive the Congregation to her grace, if they would put away the traitor Lethington, Balnaves, and some others. {161a} Knox, however, says that she gave the houses of the most honest men to the French. The Regent was now very ill; graviter aegrotat, say Francis and Mary (Dec. 4, 1559). {161b}

The truth is that the Cause of Knox, far from being desperate, as for an hour it seemed to the faint-hearted, had never looked so well. Cecil and the English Council saw that they were committed; their gift of money was known, they must bestir themselves. While they had "nourished the garboil" in Scotland, fanned the flame, they professed to believe that France was aiming, through Scotland, at England. They arranged for a large levy of forces at Berwick; they promised money without stint: and Cecil drew up the paper adopted, as I conceive, by the brethren in their Latin appeal to all Christian princes. The Scots were to say that they originally took arms in defence of their native dynasty (the Hamiltons), Mary Stuart having no heirs of her body, and France intending to annex Scotland—which was true enough, but was not the cause of the rising at Perth. That England is also aimed at is proved by the fact that Mary and Francis, on the seal of Scotland, quarter the arms of England. Knox himself had seen, and had imparted the fact to Cecil, a jewel on which these fatal heraldic pretensions were made. The Queen is governed by "the new authority of the House of Guise." In short, Elizabeth must be asked to intervene for these political reasons, not in defence of the Gospel, and large preparations for armed action in Scotland were instantly made. Meanwhile Cecil's sketch of the proper manifesto for the Congregation to make, was embodied in Lethington's instructions (November 24) from the Congregation, as well as adapted in their Latin appeal to Christian princes.

We may suppose that a man of Knox's unbending honesty was glad to have thrown off his functions as secretary to the brethren. Far from disclaiming their idolatrous King and Queen (the ideal policy), they were issuing proclamations headed "Francis and Mary," and bearing the forged signet. Examples with the seal were, as late as 1652, in the possession of the Erskine of Dun of that day. In them Francis and Mary denounce the Pope as Antichrist! Keith, who wrote much later, styles these proclamations "pretty singular," and Knox must have been of the same opinion.

After Lethington took the office of secretary to the Congregation, Knox had for some time no great public part in affairs. Fife was invaded by "these bloody worms," as he calls the French; and he preached what he tells us was a "comfortable sermon" to the brethren at Cupar. But Lethington had secured the English alliance: Lord Grey was to lead 4000 foot and 2000 horse to the Border; Lord Winter with fourteen ship set sail, and was incommoded by a storm, in which vessels of d'Elboeuf, with French reinforcements for the Regent, were, some lost, some driven back to harbour. As in Jacobite times, French aid to the loyal party was always unfortunate, and the arrival of Winter's English fleet in the Forth caused d'Oysel to retreat out of Fife back to Leith. He had nearly reached St. Andrews, where Knox dwelt in great agony of spirit. He had "great need of a good horse," probably because, as in October 1559, money was offered for his head. But private assassination had no terrors for the Reformer. {163}

Knox, as he wrote to a friend on January 29, 1560, had forsaken all public assemblies and retired to a life of study, because "I am judged among ourselves too extreme." When the Duke of Norfolk, with the English army, was moving towards Berwick, where he was to make a league with the Protestant nobles of Scotland, Knox summoned Chatelherault, and the gentlemen of his party, then in Glasgow. They wished Norfolk to come to them by Carlisle, a thing inconvenient to Lord James. Knox chid them sharply for sloth, and want of wisdom and discretion, praising highly the conduct of Lord James. They had "unreasonable minds." "Wise men do wonder what my Lord Duke's friends do mean, that are so slack and backward in this Cause." The Duke did not, however, write to France with an offer of submission. That story, ben trovato but not vero, rests on a forgery by the Regent! {164} The fact is that the Duke was not a true Protestant, his advisers, including his brother the Archbishop, were Catholics, and the successes of d'Oysel in winter had terrified him; but, seeing an English army at hand, he assented to the league with England at Berwick, as "second person of the realm of Scotland" (February 27, 1560). Elizabeth "accepted the realm of Scotland"—Chatelherault being recognised as heir-apparent to the throne thereof—for so long as the marriage of Queen Mary and Francis I. endured, and a year later. The Scots, however, remain dutiful subjects of Queen Mary, they say, except so far as lawless attempts to make Scotland a province of France are concerned. Chatelherault did not sign the league till May 10, with Arran, Huntly, Morton (at last committed to the Cause), and the usual leaders of the Congregation.

With the details of the siege of Leith, and with the attempts at negotiation, we are not here concerned. France, in fact, was powerless to aid the Regent. Since the arrival of Throckmorton in France, as ambassador of England, in the previous summer (1559), the Huguenots had been conspiring. They were in touch with Geneva, in the east; on the north, in Brittany, they appear to have been stirred up by Tremaine, a Cornish gentleman, and emissary of Cecil, who joined Throckmorton at Blois, in March 1560. Stories were put about that the young French King was a leper, and was kidnapping fair-haired children, in whose blood he meant to bathe. The Huguenots had been conspiring ever since September 1559, when they seem to have sent to Elizabeth for aid in money. {165a} More recently they had held a kind of secret convention at Nantes, and summoned bands who were to lurk in the woods, concentrate at Amboise, attack the chateau, slay the Guises, and probably put the King and Queen Mary under the Prince de Conde, who was by the plotters expected to take the part which Arran played in Scotland. It is far from certain that Conde had accepted the position. In all this we may detect English intrigue and the gold of Elizabeth. Calvin had been consulted; he disapproved of the method of the plot, still more of the plot itself. But he knew all about it. "All turns on killing Antonius," he wrote, "Antonius" being either the Cardinal or the Duc de Guise. {165b}

The conspiracy failed at Amboise, on March 17-19, 1560. Throckmorton was present, and describes the panic and perplexity of the Court, while he eagerly asks to be promptly and secretly recalled, as suspicion has fallen on himself. He sent Tremaine home through Brittany, where he gathered proposals for betraying French towns to Elizabeth, rather prematurely. Surrounded by treachery, and destitute of funds, the Guises could not aid the Regent, and Throckmorton kept advising Cecil to "strike while the iron was hot," and paralyse French designs. The dying Regent of Scotland never lost heart in circumstances so desperate.

Even before the outbreak at Perth, Mary of Guise had been in very bad health. When the English crossed the Border to beleaguer Leith, Lord Erskine, who had maintained neutrality in Edinburgh Castle, allowed her to come there to die (April 1, 1560).

On April 29, from the Castle of Edinburgh, she wrote a letter to d'Oysel, commanding in Leith. She told him that she was suffering from dropsy; "one of her legs begins to swell. . . . You know there are but three days for the dropsy in this country." The letter was intercepted by her enemies, and deciphered. {166a} On May 7, the English and Scots made an assault, and were beaten back with loss of 1000 men. According to Knox, the French stripped the fallen, and allowed the white carcases to lie under the wall, as also happened in 1746, after the English defeat at Falkirk. The Regent saw them, Knox says, from the Castle, and said they were "a fair tapestry." "Her words were heard of some," and carried to Knox, who, from the pulpit, predicted "that God should revenge that contumely done to his image . . . even in such as rejoiced thereat. And the very experience declared that he was not deceived, for within few days thereafter (yea, some say that same day) began her belly and loathsome legs to swell, and so continued, till that God did execute his judgments upon her." {166b}

Knox wrote thus on May 16, 1566. {167a} He was a little irritated at that time by Queen Mary's triumph over his friends, the murderers of Riccio, and his own hasty flight from Edinburgh to Kyle. This may excuse the somewhat unusual and even unbecoming nature of his language concerning the dying lady, but his memory was quite wrong about his prophecy. The symptoms of the Regent's malady had begun more than a week before the Anglo-Scottish defeat at Leith, and the nature of her complaint ought to have been known to the prophet's party, as her letter, describing her condition, had been intercepted and deciphered. But the deciphering may have been done in England, which would cause delay. We cannot, of course, prove that Knox was informed as to the Regent's malady before he prophesied; if so, he had forgotten the fact before he wrote as he did in 1566. But the circumstances fail to demonstrate that he had a supernormal premonition, or drew a correct deduction from Scripture, and make it certain that the Regent did not fall ill after his prophecy.

The Regent died on June 11, half-an-hour after the midnight of June 10. A report was written on June 13, from Edinburgh Castle, to the Cardinal of Lorraine, by Captain James Cullen, who some twelve years later was hanged by the Regent Morton. He says that since June 7, Lord James and Argyll, Marischal, and Glencairn, had assiduously attended on the dying lady. Two hours before her death she spoke apart for a whole hour with Lord James. Chatelherault had seen her twice, and Arran once. {167b} Knox mentions the visits of these lords, and says that d'Oysel was forbidden to speak with her, "belike she would have bidden him farewell, for auld familiarity was great."

According to Knox, the Regent admitted the errors of her policy, attributing it to Huntly, who had deserted her, and to "the wicked counsel of her friends," that is, her brothers. At the request of the Lords, she saw Willock, and said, as she naturally would, that "there was no salvation but in and by the death of Jesus Christ." "She was compelled . . . to approve the chief head of our religion, wherein we dissent from all papists and popery." Knox had strange ideas about the creed which he opposed. "Of any virtue that ever was espied in King James V. (whose daughter she," Mary Stuart, "is called"), "to this hour (1566) we have seen no sparkle to appear." {168}

With this final fling at the chastity of Mary of Guise, the Reformer takes leave of the woman whom he so bitterly hated. Yet, "Knox was not given to the practice so common in his day, of assassinating reputations by vile insinuations." Posterity has not accepted, contemporary English historians did not accept, Knox's picture of Mary of Guise as the wanton widow, the spawn of the serpent, who desired to cut the throat of every Protestant in Scotland. She was placed by circumstances in a position from which there was no issue. The fatal French marriage of her daughter was a natural step, at a moment when Scottish independence could only be maintained by help of France. Had she left the Regency in the hands of Chatelherault, that is, of Archbishop Hamilton, the prelate was not the man to put down Protestantism by persecution, and so save the situation. If he had been, Mary of Guise was not the woman to abet him in drastic violence. The nobles would have revolted against the feeble Duke. {169}

On July 6, the treaty of Edinburgh was concluded by representatives of England (Cecil was one) and of France. The Reformers carried a point of essential importance, the very point which Knox told Croft had been secured by the Appointment of July 1559. All French forces were to be dismissed the country, except one hundred and twenty men occupying Dunbar and Inchkeith, in the Firth of Forth. A clause by which Cecil thought he had secured "the kernel" for England, and left the shell to France, a clause recognising the "rightfulness" of Elizabeth's alliance with the rebels, afforded Mary Stuart ground, or excuse, for never ratifying the treaty.

It is needless here to discuss the question—was the Convention of Estates held after the treaty, in August, a lawful Parliament? There was doubt enough, at least, to make Protestants feel uneasy about the security of the religious settlement achieved by the Convention. Randolph, the English resident, foresaw that the Acts might be rescinded.

Before the Convention of Estates met, a thanksgiving day was held by the brethren in St. Giles's, and Knox, if he was the author of the address to the Deity, said with scientific precision, "Neither in us, nor yet in our confederates was there any cause why thou shouldst have given unto us so joyful and sudden a deliverance, for neither of us both ceased to do wickedly, even in the midst of our greatest troubles." Elizabeth had lied throughout with all her natural and cultivated gift of falsehood: of the veracity of the brethren several instances have been furnished.

Ministers were next appointed to churches, Knox taking Edinburgh, while Superintendents (who were by no means Bishops) were appointed, one to each province. Erskine of Dun, a layman, was Superintendent of Angus. A new anti-Catholic Kirk was thus set up on July 20, before the Convention met and swept away Catholicism. {170} Knox preached vigorously on "the prophet Haggeus" meanwhile, and "some" (namely Lethington, Speaker in the Convention) "said in mockage, we must now forget ourselves, and bear the barrow to build the houses of God." The unawakened Lethington, and the gentry at large, merely dilapidated the houses of God, so that they became unsafe, as well as odiously squalid. That such fervent piety should grudge repairs of church buildings (many of them in a wretched state already) is a fact creditable rather to the thrift than to the state of grace of the Reformers. After all their protestations, full of texts, the lords and lairds starved their preachers, but provided, by roofless aisles and unglazed windows, for the ventilation of the kirks. These men so bubbling over with gospel fervour were, in short, when it came to practice, traitors and hypocrites; nor did Knox spare their unseemly avarice. The cause of the poor, and of the preachers, lay near his heart, and no man was more insensible of the temptations of wealth.

Lethington did not address the Parliament as Speaker till August 9. Never had such a Parliament met in Scotland. One hundred and six barons, not of the higher order, assembled; in 1567, when Mary was a prisoner and the Regent Moray held the assembly, not nearly so many came together, nor on any later occasion at this period. The newcomers claimed to sit "as of old custom"; it was a custom long disused, and not now restored to vitality.

A supplication was presented by "the Barons, gentlemen, Burgesses, and others" to "the nobility and Estates" (of whom they do not seem to reckon themselves part, contrasting themselves with "yourselves"). They reminded the Estates how they had asked the Regent "for freedom and liberty of conscience with a godly reformation of abuses." They now, by way of freedom of conscience, ask that Catholic doctrine "be abolished by Act of this Parliament, and punishment appointed for the transgressors." The Man of Sin has been distributing the whole patrimony of the Church, so that "the trew ministers," the schools, and the poor are kept out of their own. The actual clergy are all thieves and murderers and "rebels to the lawful authority of Emperors, Kings, and Princes." Against these charges (murder, rebellion, profligacy) they must answer now or be so reputed. In fact, it was the nobles, rather than the Pope, who had been robbing the Kirk, education, and the poor, which they continued to do, as Knox attests. But as to doctrine, the barons and ministers were asked to lay a Confession before the House. {172}

It will be observed that, in the petition, "Emperors, Kings, and Princes" have "lawful authority" over the clergy. But that doctrine assumes, tacitly, that such rulers are of Knox's own opinions: the Kirk later resolutely stood up against kings like James VI., Charles I., and Charles II.

The Confession was drawn up, presented, and ratified in a very few days: it was compiled in four. The Huguenots in Paris, in 1559, "established a record" by drawing up a Confession containing eighty articles in three days. Knox and his coadjutors were relatively deliberate. They aver that all points of belief necessary for salvation are contained in the canonical books of the Bible. Their interpretation pertains to no man or Church, but solely to "the spreit of God." That "spreit" must have illuminated the Kirk as it then existed in Scotland, "for we dare not receive and admit any interpretation which directly repugns to any principal point of our faith, to any other plain text of Scripture, or yet unto the rule of charity."

As we, the preachers of the Kirk then extant, were apostate monks or priests or artisans, about a dozen of us, in Scotland, mankind could not be expected to regard "our" interpretation, "our faith" as infallible. The framers of the Confession did not pretend that it was infallible. They request that, "if any man will note in this our Confession any article or sentence repugning to God's Holy Word," he will favour them with his criticism in writing. As Knox had announced six years earlier, that, "as touching the chief points of religion, I neither will give place to man or angel . . . teaching the contrair to that which ye have heard," a controversialist who thought it worth while to criticise the Confession must have deemed himself at least an archangel. Two years later, written criticism was offered, as we shall see, with a demand for a written reply. The critic escaped arrest by a lucky accident.

The Confession, with practically no criticism or opposition, was passed en bloc on August 17. The Evangel is candidly stated to be "death to the sons of perdition," but the Confession is offered hopefully to "weak and infirm brethren." Not to enter into the higher theology, we learn that the sacraments can only be administered "by lawful ministers." We learn that they are "such as are appointed to the preaching of the Word, or into whose mouth God has put some sermon of exhortation" and who are "lawfully chosen thereto by some Kirk." Later, we find that rather more than this, and rather more than some of the "trew ministeris" then had, is required.

As the document reaches us, it appears to have been "mitigated" by Lethington and Wynram, the Vicar of Bray of the Reformation. They altered, according to the English resident, Randolph, "many words and sentences, which sounded to proceed rather of some evil conceived opinion than of any sound judgment." As Lethington certainly was not "a lawful minister," it is surprising if Knox yielded to his criticism.

Lethington and Wynram also advised that the chapter on obedience to the sovereign power should be omitted, as "an unfit matter to be treated at this time," when it was not very obvious who the "magistrate" or authority might be. In this sense Randolph, Arran's English friend, wrote to Cecil. {174a} The chapter, however, was left standing. The sovereign, whether in empire, kingdom, duke, prince, or in free cities, was accepted as "of God's holy ordinance. To him chiefly pertains the reformation of the religion," which includes "the suppression of idolatry and superstition"; and Catholicism, we know, is idolatry. Superstition is less easily defined, but we cannot doubt that, in Knox's mind, the English liturgy was superstitious. {174b} To resist the Supreme Power, "doing that which pertains to his charge" (that is, suppressing Catholicism and superstition, among other things), is to resist God. It thus appears that the sovereign is not so supreme but that he must be disobeyed when his mandates clash with the doctrine of the Kirk. Thus the "magistrate" or "authority"—the State, in fact—is limited by the conscience of the Kirk, which may, if it pleases, detect idolatry or superstition in some act of secular policy. From this theory of the Kirk arose more than a century of unrest.

On August 24, the practical consequences of the Confession were set forth in an Act, by which all hearers or celebrants of the Mass are doomed, for the first offence, to mere confiscation of all their goods and to corporal punishment: exile rewards a repetition of the offence: the third is punished by death. "Freedom from a persecuting spirit is one of the noblest features of Knox's character," says Laing; "neither led away by enthusiasm nor party feelings nor success, to retaliate the oppressions and atrocities that disgraced the adherents of popery." {174c} This is an amazing remark! Though we do not know that Knox was ever "accessory to the death of a single individual for his religious opinions," we do know that he had not the chance; the Government, at most, and years later, put one priest to death. But Knox always insisted, vainly, that idolaters "must die the death."

To the carnal mind these rules appear to savour of harshness. The carnal mind would not gather exactly what the new penal laws were, if it confined its study to the learned Dr. M'Crie's Life of Knox. This erudite man, a pillar of the early Free Kirk, mildly remarks, "The Parliament . . . prohibited, under certain penalties, the celebration of the Mass." He leaves his readers to discover, in the Acts of Parliament and in Knox, what the "certain penalties" were. {175} The Act seems, as Knox says about the decrees of massacre in Deuteronomy, "rather to be written in a rage" than in a spirit of wisdom. The majority of the human beings then in Scotland probably never had the dispute between the old and new faiths placed before them lucidly and impartially. Very many of them had never heard the ideas of Geneva stated at all. "So late as 1596," writes Dr. Hay Fleming, "there were above four hundred parishes, not reckoning Argyll and the Isles, which still lacked ministers." "The rarity of learned and godly men" of his own persuasion, is regretted by Knox in the Book of Discipline. Yet Catholics thus destitute of opportunity to know and recognise the Truth, are threatened with confiscation, exile, and death, if they cling to the only creed which they have been taught—after August 17, 1560. The death penalty was threatened often, by Scots Acts, for trifles. In this case the graduated scale of punishment shows that the threat is serious.

This Act sounds insane, but the Convention was wise in its generation. Had it merely abolished the persecuting laws of the Church, Scotland might never have been Protestant. The old faith is infinitely more attractive to mankind than the new Presbyterian verity. A thing of slow and long evolution, the Church had assimilated and hallowed the world-old festivals of the year's changing seasons. She provided for the human love of recreation. Her Sundays were holidays, not composed of gloomy hours in stuffy or draughty kirks, under the current voice of the preacher. Her confessional enabled the burdened soul to lay down its weight in sacred privacy; her music, her ceremonies, the dim religious light of her fanes, naturally awaken religious emotion. While these things, with the native tendency to resist authority of any kind, appealed to the multitude, the position of the Church, in later years, recommended itself to many educated men in Scotland as more logical than that of Knox; and convert after convert, in the noble class, slipped over to Rome. The missionaries of the counter-Reformation, but for the persecuting Act, would have arrived in a Scotland which did not persecute, and the work of the Convention of 1560 might all have been undone, had not the stringent Act been passed.