John Knox and the Reformation Part 5

The truth is that Knox contemplates a State in which the civil power shall be entirely and absolutely of his own opinions; the King, as "Christ's silly va.s.sal," to quote Andrew Melville, being obedient to such prophets as himself. The theories of Knox regarding the duty to revenge G.o.d's feud by the private citizen, and regarding religious ma.s.sacre by the civil power, ideas which would justify the Bartholomew horrors, appear to be forgotten in modern times. His address to the Commonalty, as citizens with a voice in the State, represents the progressive and permanent element in his politics. We have shown, however, that, before Knox's time, the individual Scot was a thoroughly independent character.

"The man hath more words than the master, and will not be content unless he knows the master's counsel."

By March 1558, Knox had returned from Dieppe to Geneva. In Scotland, since the G.o.dly Band of December 1557, events were moving in two directions. The Church was continuing in a belated and futile attempt at reformation of manners (and wonderfully bad manners they confessedly were), and of education from within. The Congregation, the Protestants, on the other hand, were preparing openly to defend themselves and their adherents from persecution, an honest, manly, and laudable endeavour, so long as they did not persecute other Christians. Their preachers--such as Harlaw, Methuen, and Douglas--were publicly active. A moment of attempted suppression must arrive, greatly against the personal wishes of Archbishop Hamilton, who dreaded the conflict.

In March 1558, Hamilton courteously remonstrated with Argyll for harbouring Douglas. He himself was "heavily murmured against" for his slackness in the case of Argyll, by churchmen and other "well given people," and by Mary of Guise, whose daughter, by April 24, 1558, was married to the Dauphin of France. Argyll replied that he knew how the Archbishop was urged on, but declined to abandon Douglas.

"It is a far cry to Loch Awe"; Argyll, who died soon after, was too powerful to be attacked. But, sometime in April 1558 apparently, a poor priest of Forfarshire, Walter Myln, who had married and got into trouble under Cardinal Beaton, was tried for heresy, and, without sentence of a secular judge, it is said, was burned at St. Andrews, displaying serene courage, and hoping to be the last martyr in Scotland. Naturally there was much indignation; if the Lords and others were to keep their Band they must bestir themselves. They did bestir themselves in defence of their favourite preachers--Willock, Harlaw, Methuen; a ci-devant friar, Christison; and Douglas. Some of these men were summoned several times throughout 1558, and Methuen and Harlaw, at least, were "at the horn"

(outlawed), but were protected--Harlaw at Dumfries, Methuen at Dundee--by powerful laymen. At Dundee, as we saw, by 1558, Methuen had erected a church of reformed aspect; and "reformed" means that the Kirk had already been purged of altars and images. Attempts to bring the ringleaders of Protestant riots to law were made in 1558, but the precise order of events, and of the protests of the Reformers, appears to be dislocated in Knox's narrative. He himself was not present, and he seems never to have mastered the sequence of occurrences. Fortunately there exists a fragment by a well-informed writer, apparently a contemporary, the "Historie of the Estate of Scotland" covering the events from July 1558 to 1560. {87a} There are also imperfect records of the Parliament of November-December 1558, and of the last Provincial Council of the Church, in March 1559.

For July 28 {87b} four or five of the brethren were summoned to "a day of law," in Edinburgh; their allies a.s.sembled to back them, and they were released on bail to appear, if called on, within eight days. At this time the "idol" of St. Giles, patron of the city, was stolen, and a great riot occurred at the saint's fete, September 3. {87c}

Knox describes the discomfiture of his foes in one of his merriest pa.s.sages, frequently cited by admirers of "his vein of humour." The event, we know, was at once reported to him in Geneva, by letter.

Some time after October, if we rightly construe Knox, {88a} a pet.i.tion was delivered to the Regent, from the Reformers, by Sandilands of Calder.

{88b} They a.s.serted that they should have defended the preachers, or testified with them. The wisdom of the Regent herself sees the need of reform, spiritual and temporal, and has exhorted the clergy and n.o.bles to employ care and diligence thereon, a fact corroborated by Mary of Guise herself, in a paper, soon to be quoted, of July 1559. {88c} They ask, as they have the reading of the Scriptures in the vernacular, for common prayers in the same. They wish for freedom to interpret and discuss the Bible "in our conventions," and that Baptism and the Communion may be done in Scots, and they demand the reform of the detestable lives of the prelates. {88d}

Knox's account, in places, appears really to refer to the period of the Provincial Council of March 1559, though it does not quite fit that date either.

The Regent is said on the occasion of Calder's pet.i.tion, and after the unsatisfactory replies of the clergy (apparently at the Provincial Council, March 1559), to have made certain concessions, till Parliament established uniform order. But the Parliament was of November-December 1558. {89a} Before that Parliament, at all events (which was mainly concerned with procuring the "Crown Matrimonial" for the Dauphin, husband of Mary Stuart), the brethren offered a pet.i.tion, in the first place shown to the Regent, asking for (1) the suspension of persecuting laws till after a General Council has "decided all controversies in religion"--that is, till the Greek Calends. (2) That prelates shall not be judges in cases of heresy, but only accusers before secular tribunals.

(3) That all lawful defences be granted to persons accused. (4) That the accused be permitted to explain "his own mind and meaning." (5) That "none be condemned for heretics unless by the manifest Word of G.o.d they be convicted to have erred from the faith which the Holy Spirit witnesses to be necessary to salvation." According to Knox this pet.i.tion the Regent put in her pocket, saying that the Churchmen would oppose it, and thwart her plan for getting the "Crown Matrimonial" given to her son-in- law, Francis II., and, in short, gave good words, and drove time. {89b}

The Reformers then drew up a long Protestation, which was read in the House, but not enrolled in its records. They say that they have had to postpone a formal demand for Reformation, but protest that "it be lawful to us to use ourselves in matters of religion and conscience as we must answer to G.o.d," and they are ready to prove their case. They shall not be liable, meanwhile, to any penalties for breach of the existing Acts against heresy, "nor for violating such rites as man, without G.o.d's commandment or word, hath commanded." They disclaim all responsibility for the ensuing tumults. {90a} In fact, they aver that they will not only worship in their own way, but prevent other people from worshipping in the legal way, and that the responsibility for the riots will lie on the side of those who worship legally. And this was the chief occasion of the ensuing troubles. The Regent promised to "put good order" in controverted matters, and was praised by the brethren in a letter to Calvin, not now to be found.

Another threat had been made by the brethren, in circ.u.mstances not very obscure. As far as they are known they suggest that in January 1559 the zealots deliberately intended to provoke a conflict, and to enlist "the rascal mult.i.tude" on their side, at Easter, 1559. The obscurity is caused by a bookbinder. He has, with the fatal ingenuity of his trade, cut off the two top lines from a page in one ma.n.u.script copy of Knox's "History." {90b} The text now runs thus (in its mutilated condition): "

. . . Zealous Brether . . . upon the gates and posts of all the Friars'

places within this realm, in the month of January 1558 (1559), preceding that Whitsunday that they dislodged, which is this . . . "

Then follows the Proclamation.

Probably we may supply the words: ". . . Zealous Brethren caused a paper to be affixed upon the gates and posts," and so on. The paper so promulgated purported to be a warning from the poor of Scotland that, before Whitsunday, "we, the lawful proprietors," will eject the Friars and residents on the property, unlawfully withheld by the religious--"our patrimony." This feat will be performed, "with the help of G.o.d, _and a.s.sistance of his Saints on earth, of whose ready support we doubt not_."

As the Saints, in fact, were the "Zealous Brether . . ." who affixed the written menace on "all the Friars' places," they knew what they were talking about, and could prophesy safely. To make so many copies of the doc.u.ment, and fix them on "all the Friars' places," implies organisation, and a deliberate plan--riots and revolution--before Whitsunday. The poor, of course, only exchanged better for worse landlords, as they soon discovered. The "Zealous Brethren"--as a rule small lairds, probably, and burgesses--were the nucleus of the Revolution. When townsfolk and yeomen in sufficient number had joined them in arms, then n.o.bles like Argyll, Lord James, Glencairn, Ruthven, and the rest, put themselves at the head of the movement, and won the prizes which had been offered to the "blind, crooked, widows, orphans, and all other poor."

After Parliament was over, at the end of December 1558, the Archbishop of St. Andrews again summoned the preachers, Willock, Douglas, Harlaw, Methuen, and Friar John Christison to a "day of law" at St. Andrews, on February 2, 1559. (This is the statement of the "Historie.") {91} The brethren then "caused inform the Queen Mother that the said preachers would appear with such mult.i.tude of men professing their doctrine, as was never seen before in such like cases in this country," and kept their promise. The system of overawing justice by such gatherings was usual, as we have already seen; Knox, Bothwell, Lethington, and the Lord James Stewart all profited by the practice on various occasions.

Mary of Guise, "fearing some uproar or sedition," bade the bishops put off the summons, and, in fact, the preachers never were summoned, finally, for any offences prior to this date.

On February 9, 1559, the Regent issued proclamations against eating flesh in Lent (this rule survived the Reformation by at least seventy years) and against such disturbances of religious services as the Protest just described declared to be imminent, all such deeds being denounced under "pain of death"--as pain of death was used to be threatened against poachers of deer and wild fowl. {92a}

Mary, however, had promised, as we saw, that she would summon the n.o.bles and Estates, "to advise for some reformation in religion" (March 7, 1559), and the Archbishop called a Provincial Council to Edinburgh for March. At this, or some other juncture, for Knox's narrative is bewildering, {92b} the clergy offered free discussion, but refused to allow exiles like himself to be present, and insisted on the acceptance of the Ma.s.s, Purgatory, the invocation of saints, with security for their ecclesiastical possessions. In return they would grant prayers and baptism in English, if done privately and not in open a.s.sembly. The terms, he says, were rejected; appeal was made to Mary of Guise, and she gave toleration, except for public a.s.semblies in Edinburgh and Leith, pending the meeting of Parliament. To the clergy, who, "some say,"

bribed her, she promised to "put order" to these matters. The Reformers were deceived, and forbade Douglas to preach in Leith. So writes Knox.

Now the "Historie" dates all this, bribe and all, _after the end of December_ 1558. Knox, however, by some confusion, places the facts, bribe and all, _before April_ 28, 1558, Myln's martyrdom! {93a} Yet he had before him as he wrote the Chronicle of Bruce of Earlshall, who states the bribe, Knox says, at 40,000 pounds; the "Historie" says "within 15,000 pounds." {93b}

In any case Knox, who never saw his book in print, has clearly dislocated the sequence of events. At this date, namely March 1559, the preaching agitators were at liberty, nor were they again put at for any of their previous proceedings. But defiances had been exchanged. The Reformers in their Protestation (December 1558) had claimed it as lawful, we know, that they should enjoy their own services, and put down those of the religion by law established, until such time as the Catholic clergy "be able to prove themselves the true ministers of Christ's Church" and guiltless of all the crimes charged against them by their adversaries.

{93c} That was the challenge of the Reformers, backed by the menace affixed to the doors of all the monasteries. The Regent in turn had thrown down her glove by the proclamation of February 9, 1559, against disturbing services and "bosting" (bullying) priests. How could she possibly do less in the circ.u.mstances? If her proclamation was disobeyed, could she do less than summon the disobedient to trial? Her hand was forced.

It appears to myself, under correction, that all this part of the history of the Reformation has been misunderstood by our older historians. Almost without exception, they represent the Regent as dissembling with the Reformers till, on conclusion of the peace of Cateau Cambresis (which left France free to aid her efforts in Scotland), April 2, 1559, and on the receipt of a message from the Guises, "she threw off the mask," and initiated an organised persecution. But there is no evidence that any such message commanding her to persecute at this time came from the Guises before the Regent had issued her proclamations of February 9 and March 23, {94a} denouncing attacks on priests, disturbance of services, administering of sacraments by lay preachers, and tumults at large. Now, Sir James Melville of Halhill, the diplomatist, writing in old age, and often erroneously, makes the Cardinal of Lorraine send de Bettencourt, or Bethencourt, to the Regent with news of the peace of Cateau Cambresis and an order to punish heretics with fire and sword, and says that, though she was reluctant, she consequently published her proclamation of March 23. Dates prove part of this to be impossible. {94b}

Obviously the Regent had issued her proclamations of February-March 1559 in antic.i.p.ation of the tumults threatened by the Reformers in their "Beggar's Warning" and in their Protestation of December, and arranged to occur with violence at Easter, as they did. The three or four preachers (two of them apparently "at the horn" in 1558) were to preach publicly, and riots were certain to ensue, as the Reformers had threatened. Riots were part of the evangelical programme. Of Paul Methuen, who first "reformed" the Church in Dundee, Pitscottie writes that he "ministered the sacraments of the communion at Dundee and Cupar, and caused the images thereof to be cast down, and abolished the Pope's religion so far as he pa.s.sed or preached." For this sort of action he was now summoned.

{95a}

The Regent, therefore, warned in her proclamations men, often challenged previously, and as often allowed, under fear of armed resistance, to escape. All that followed was but a repet.i.tion of the feeble policy of outlawing these four or five men. Finally, in May 1559, these preachers had a strong armed backing, and seized a central strategic point, so the Revolution blazed out on a question which had long been smouldering and on an occasion that had been again and again deferred. The Regent, far from having foreseen and hardened her heart to carry out an organised persecution and "cut the throats" of all Protestants in Scotland, was, in fact, intending to go to France, being in the earlier stages of her fatal malady. This appears from a letter of Sir Henry Percy, from Norham Castle, to Cecil and Parry (April 12, 1559) {95b} Percy says that the news in his latest letters (now lost) was erroneous. The Regent, in fact, "is not as yet departed." She is very ill, and her life is despaired of. She is at Stirling, where the n.o.bles had a.s.sembled to discuss religious matters. Only her French advisers were on the side of the Regent. "The matter is pacified for the time," and in case of the Regent's death, Chatelherault, d'Oysel, and de Rubay are to be a provisional committee of Government, till the wishes of the King and Queen, Francis and Mary, are known. Again, in her letter of May 16 to Henri II. of France, she stated that she was in very bad health, {96a} and, at about the same date (May 18), the English amba.s.sador in France mentions her intention to visit that country at once. {96b} But the Revolution of May 11, breaking out in Perth, condemned her to suffer and die in Scotland.

This, however, does not amount to proof that no plan of persecution in Scotland was intended. Throckmorton writes, on May 18, that the Marquis d'Elboeuf is to go thither. "He takes with him both men of conduct and some of war; it is thought his stay will not be long." Again (May 23, 24), Throckmorton reports that Henri II. means to persecute extremely in Poitou, Guienne, and Scotland. "Cecil may take occasion to use the matter in Scotland as may seem best to serve the turn." {96c} This was before the Perth riot had been reported (May 26) by Cecil to Throckmorton. Was d'Elboeuf intended to direct the persecution? The theory has its attractions, but Henri, just emerged with maimed forces from a ruinous war, knew that a persecution which served Cecil's "turn"

did not serve _his_. To persecute in Scotland would mean renewed war with England, and could not be contemplated. If Sir James Melville can be trusted for once, the Constable, about June 1, told him, in the presence of the French King, that if the Perth revolt were only about religion, "we mon commit Scottismen's saules unto G.o.d." {97} Melville was then despatched with promise of aid to the Regent--if the rising was political, not religious.

It is quite certain that the Regent issued her proclamations without any commands from France; and her health was inconsistent with an intention to put Protestants to fire and sword.

In the records of the Provincial Council of March 1559, the foremost place is given to "Articles" presented to the Regent by "some temporal Lords and Barons," and by her handed to the clergy. They are the proposals of conservative reformers. They ask for moral reformation of the lives of the clergy: for sermons on Sundays and holy days: for due examination of the doctrine, life, and learning of all who are permitted to preach. They demand that no vicar or curate shall be appointed unless he can read the catechism (of 1552) plainly and distinctly: that expositions of the sacraments should be clearly p.r.o.nounced in the vernacular: that common prayer should be read in the vernacular: that certain exactions of gifts and dues should be abolished. Again, no one should be allowed to dishonour the sacraments, or the service of the Ma.s.s: no unqualified person should administer the sacraments: Kirk rapine, destruction of religious buildings and works of art, should not be permitted.

The Council pa.s.sed thirty-four statutes on these points. The clergy were to live cleanly, and not to keep their b.a.s.t.a.r.ds at home. They were implored, "in the bowels of Christ" to do their duty in the services of the Church. No one in future was to be admitted to a living without examination by the Ordinary. Ruined churches were to be rebuilt or repaired. Breakers of ornaments and violators or burners of churches were to be pursued. There was to be preaching as often as the Ordinary thought fit: if the Rector could not preach he must find a subst.i.tute who could. Plain expositions of the sacraments were made out, were to be read aloud to the congregations, and were published at twopence ("The Twopenny Faith"). Administration of the Eucharist except by priests was to be punished by excommunication. {98a} Knox himself desired _death_ for others than true ministers who celebrated the sacrament. {98b} His "true ministers," about half-a-dozen of them at this time, of course came under the penalty of the last statute.

He says, with the usual error, that _after_ peace was made between France and England, on April 2, 1559 (the treaty of Cateau Cambresis), the Regent "began to spew forth and disclose the latent venom of her double heart." She looked "frowardly" on Protestants, "commanded her household to use all abominations at Easter," she herself communicated, "and it is supposed that after that day the devil took more violent and strong possession in her than he had before . . . For incontinent she caused our preachers to be summoned."

But _why_ did she summon the same set of preachers as before, for no old offence? The Regent, says the "Historie," made proclamation, during the Council (as the moderate Reformers had asked her to do), "that no manner of person should . . . preach or minister the sacraments, except they were admitted by the Ordinary or a Bishop on no less pain than death."

The Council, in fact, made excommunication the penalty. Now it was for ministering the sacrament after the proclamation of March 13, for preaching heresy, and stirring up "seditions and tumults," that Methuen, Brother John Christison, William Harlaw, and John Willock were summoned to appear at Stirling on May 10, 1559. {99a}

How could any governor of Scotland abstain from summoning them in the circ.u.mstances? There seems to be no new suggestion of the devil, no outbreak of Guisian fury. The Regent was in a situation whence there was no "outgait": she must submit to the seditions and tumults threatened in the Protestation of the brethren, the disturbances of services, the probable wrecking of churches, or she must use the powers legally entrusted to her. She gave insolent answers to remonstrances from the brethren, says Knox. She would banish the preachers (not execute them), "albeit they preached as truly as ever did St. Paul." Being threatened, as before, with the consequent "inconvenients," she said "she would advise." However, summon the preachers she did, for breach of her proclamations, "tumults and seditions." {99b}

Knox himself was present at the Revolution which ensued, but we must now return to his own doings in the autumn and winter of 1558-59. {100}

CHAPTER IX: KNOX ON THE ANABAPTISTS: HIS APPEAL TO ENGLAND: 1558-1559

While the inevitable Revolution was impending in Scotland, Knox was living at Geneva. He may have been engaged on his "Answer" to the "blasphemous cavillations" of an Anabaptist, his treatise on Predestination. Laing thought that this work was "chiefly written" at Dieppe, in February-April 1559, but as it contains more than 450 pages it is probably a work of longer time than two months. In November 1559 the English at Geneva asked leave to print the book, which was granted, provided that the name of Geneva did not appear as the place of printing; the authorities knowing of what Knox was capable from the specimen given in his "First Blast." There seem to be several examples of the Genevan edition, published by Crispin in 1560; the next edition, less rare, is of 1591 (London). {101}

The Anabaptist whom Knox is discussing had been personally known to him, and had lucid intervals. "Your chief Apollos," he had said, addressing the Calvinists, "be persecutors, on whom the blood of Servetus crieth a vengeance. . . . They have set forth books affirming it to be lawful to persecute and put to death such as dissent from them in controversies of religion. . . . Notwithstanding they, before they came to authority, were of another judgment, and did both say and write that no man ought to be persecuted for his conscience' sake. . . ." {102a} Knox replied that Servetus was a blasphemer, and that Moses had been a more wholesale persecutor than the Edwardian burners of Joan of Kent, and the Genevan Church which roasted Servetus {102b} (October 1553). He incidentally proves that he was better than his doctrine. In England an Anabaptist, after asking for secrecy, showed him a ma.n.u.script of his own full of blasphemies. "In me I confess there was great negligence, that neither did retain his book nor present him to the magistrate" to burn. Knox could not have done that, for the author "earnestly required of me closeness and fidelity," which, probably, Knox promised. Indeed, one fancies that his opinions and character would have been in conflict if a chance of handing an idolater over to death had been offered to him.

{102c}

The death of Mary Tudor on November 17, 1558, does not appear to have been antic.i.p.ated by him. The tidings reached him before January 12, 1559, when he wrote from Geneva a singular "Brief Exhortation to England for the Spedie Embrasing of Christ's Gospel heretofore by the Tyrannie of Marie Suppressed and Banished."

The gospel to be embraced by England is, of course, not nearly so much Christ's as John Knox's, in its most acute form and with its most absolute, intolerant, and intolerable pretensions. He begins by vehemently rebuking England for her "shameful defection" and by threatening G.o.d's "horrible vengeances which thy monstrous unthankfulness hath long deserved," if the country does not become much more puritan than it had ever been, or is ever likely to be. Knox "wraps you all in idolatry, all in murder, all in one and the same iniquity," except the actual Marian martyrs; those who "abstained from idolatry;" and those who "avoided the realm" or ran away. He had set one of the earliest examples of running away: to do so was easier for him than for family men and others who had "a stake in the country," for which Knox had no relish. He is hardly generous in blaming all the persons who felt no more "ripe" for martyrdom than he did, yet stayed in England, where the majority were, and continued to be, Catholics.

Having a.s.serted his very contestable superiority and uttered pages of biblical threatenings, Knox says that the repentance of England "requireth two things," first, the expulsion of "all dregs of Popery" and the treading under foot of all "glistering beauty of vain ceremonies."

Religious services must be reduced, in short, to his own bare standard.

Next, the Genevan and Knoxian "kirk discipline" must be introduced. No "power or liberty (must) be permitted to any, of what estate, degree, or authority they be, either to live without the yoke of discipline by G.o.d's word commanded," or "to alter . . . one jot in religion which from G.o.d's mouth thou hast received. . . . If prince, king, or emperor would enterprise to change or disannul the same, that he be of thee reputed enemy to G.o.d," while a prince who erects idolatry . . . "must be adjudged to death."

Each bishopric is to be divided into ten. The Founder of the Church and the Apostles "all command us to preach, to preach." A brief sketch of what The Book of Discipline later set forth for the edification of Scotland is recommended to England, and is followed by more threatenings in the familiar style.

England did not follow the advice of Knox: her whole population was not puritan, many of her martyrs had died for the prayer book which Knox would have destroyed. His tract cannot have added to the affection which Elizabeth bore to the author of "The First Blast." In after years, as we shall see, Knox spoke in a tone much more moderate in addressing the early English nonconformist secessionists (1568). Indeed, it is as easy almost to prove, by isolated pa.s.sages in Knox's writings, that he was a sensible, moderate man, loathing and condemning active resistance in religion, as to prove him to be a senselessly violent man. All depends on the occasion and opportunity. He speaks with two voices. He was very impetuous; in the death of Mary Tudor he suddenly saw the chance of bringing English religion up, or down, to the Genevan level, and so he wrote this letter of vehement rebuke and inopportune advice.

Knox must have given his biographers "medicines to make them love him."

The learned Dr. Lorimer finds in this epistle, one of the most fierce of his writings, "a programme of what this Reformation reformed should be--a programme which was honourable alike to Knox's zeal and his moderation."

The "moderation" apparently consists in not abolishing bishoprics, but subst.i.tuting "ten bishops of moderate income for one lordly prelate."