The Scottish Reformation Part 4

GEORGE WISHART.

It was about this time that a new evangelist arrived in the country, singularly fitted to impress on the hearts of men the lessons of the Holy Book to which they had now access in their native tongue. This was George Wishart, a younger son or nephew of Sir James Wishart, laird of Pittarrow in the Mearns. He appears to have been born about 1512-13, and to have received his university training in King's College, Aberdeen, then presided over by a distinguished humanist skilled both in Latin and Greek. He acquired a knowledge of Greek--at that time a very rare accomplishment in Scotland--either from the Princ.i.p.al of King's College, or from a Frenchman teaching languages in Montrose. From his early years he seems to have been intimate with John Erskine, laird of Dun, and at that time also provost of the neighbouring burgh of Montrose. The earliest notice we have of him is as attesting a charter granted in favour of Erskine.[57] This lends confirmation to the tradition which Petrie, himself a native of the town, says he had heard from ancient men (who in their youth had seen and known the reformer) that then, or soon after, he was employed as a.s.sistant or successor of Marsillier, the Frenchman Erskine had brought from France to teach the languages, and that, like him, he read the Greek New Testament with some of his pupils.

John Hepburn, then Bishop of Brechin, would not naturally have been quick-scented to detect heresy in one who stood so high with his good friend Erskine of Dun; but David Betoun, Abbot of Arbroath, often resided at the mansion-house of Ethie, half-way between Arbroath and Montrose, and he was both more lynx-eyed and more anxious to stamp out any approach to heresy, and he urged the bishop on.

[Sidenote: Summoned for Heresy.]

Wishart in consequence was summoned by Hepburn, but instead of appearing in answer to the summons, he, like many others in that year of grievous persecution, sought safety in England, and it is said that he was forthwith excommunicated and outlawed. He found shelter under Bishop Latimer, whose diocese comprehended Gloucester and Bristol, as well as Worcester; but in the following year he fell into fresh trouble at Bristol--not, as was at one time supposed, by denying the merits of the Virgin Mary, but by denying the merits of Christ Himself. For this he was duly convented before Archbishop Cranmer, and, after conference with him, was persuaded to recant and bear his f.a.ggot. Soon after the enactment of the b.l.o.o.d.y statute of the six articles, he, like most of the Scottish refugees, left England and sought shelter among the reformed churches on the Continent, especially those of Zurich, Basle, and Stra.s.sburg, and brought home with him, and ultimately translated into English, the First Helvetic Confession,[58] composed and agreed on by the chief theologians of these churches.

[Sidenote: His Appearance and Habits.]

He returned to England about the close of 1542, and soon after entered into residence in Corpus Christi or Benet College, Cambridge, with the view of studying and teaching there. In one of the windows of the common-room in that college, above the arms of archbishops and n.o.bles, distinguished _alumni_ of the college, stands the name of George Wishart, with the martyr's crown over it; and it is to Emery Tilney, his pupil during the year he was in residence there, that we are indebted for our fullest description of his appearance and habits. He was, he tells us, "a man of tall stature, polled-headed, and on the same a round French cap of the best; judged to be of melancholy complexion by his physiognomy; black haired, long bearded, comely of personage, well spoken after his country of Scotland, courteous, lowly, lovely, glad to teach, desirous to learn, and was well travelled; having on him for his habit or clothing never but a mantle or frieze gown to the shoes, a black Millian [_i.e._ Milan] fustian doublet, and plain black hosen, coa.r.s.e new canvas for his shirts, and white falling bands and cuffs at his hands,--all the which apparel he gave to the poor, some weekly, some monthly, some quarterly, as he liked, saving his French cap, which he kept the whole year of my being with him.... His charity had never end, night, noon, nor day, ... infinitely studying how to do good unto all, and hurt to none."[59]

Such, according to his pupil, was the evangelist who--in 1543 according to some, in 1544 according to others--returned to his native land, and for two years testified of the gospel of the grace of G.o.d throughout Angus and Mearns, Ayrshire and the Lothians, but whose favourite fields of labour were to be central Angus and Mearns, the towns of Montrose and Dundee. A portrait of him, as well as one of his great opponent, has been preserved in the Roman Catholic College of Blairs, and the expression of the face harmonises well with the description his pupil gives of him. Another portrait, deemed by Dr Laing not unworthy of Holbein, is in possession of a descendant of the Wisharts.[60]

[Sidenote: A Protestant Pasquil.]

It is supposed that for a short time after his return to Scotland he lived quietly at Pittarrow, in the parish of Fordoun, where the shrine of St Palladius was preserved; and being an accomplished artist, occupied himself with adorning the ancestral mansion with several beautiful fresco paintings, which, after being long covered over by the wainscot, were again brought to light in the present century, but unfortunately were destroyed before their value was perceived. Dr Leslie of Fordoun, who saw them, has thus described the most remarkable of them: "Above the largest fireplace in the great hall was a painting of the city of Rome, and a grand procession going to St Peter's.... The Pope, adorned with the tiara, and mounted on horseback, was attended by a large company of cardinals on foot, richly dressed, but all uncovered.

At a little distance, directly in front of the procession, stood a beautiful white palfrey, finely caparisoned, held by some persons who were well dressed, but uncovered. Beyond them was the Cathedral of St Peter, the doors of which appeared to be open. Below the picture were written the following lines:--

"IN PAPAM.

"Laus tua, non tua fraus, virtus non gloria rerum Scandere te fecit hoc decus eximium; Pauperibus dat sua gratis nec munera curat Curia Papalis, quod more percipimus.

Haec carmina potius legenda, cancros imitando."[61]

Wishart began his work as a preacher in Montrose, the scene of his early scholastic labours, expounding the rudiments of the Christian faith and practice as set forth in the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, and the Apostles' Creed. At that time Montrose was frequented by many of the landed gentry in the surrounding districts who were favourable to the Reformation and the English alliance, and their hearts could not fail to be cheered and their courage raised by the exhortations of the evangelist. Dundee, however, was the chief and favourite scene of his ministrations; and it was from the great success attending them that it gained the name of the Scottish Geneva. It was even more decidedly attached to the new opinions and the English alliance than Montrose; and a reformation, as it was called--including the sacking of the monasteries in the town and neighbourhood--had taken place in the autumn of 1543. The governor confessed, when put to penance, that this had been done with his permission.[62] The martyr cannot with any certainty be connected with it, much less made to bear the blame of it; though another George Wishart, a citizen and bailie of Dundee, with whom the martyr has been recklessly confounded, was afterwards put on his trial for having taken a leading part in it.[63] If the martyr could, his enemies would hardly have failed to have brought it against him at his trial.

[Sidenote: Preaches at Dundee.]

He preached for a time in Dundee with great acceptance, expounding systematically that Epistle to the Romans, the full significance of which the recently published Commentary of Calvin had deeply impressed on the minds of his co-religionists in various lands where Wishart had been. At length he was charged by one of the magistrates in the queen's name and the governor's to desist from preaching, to depart from the town, and trouble it no more. This was intimated to him when he was in the pulpit, surrounded by a great congregation, and with a significant reminder that he had already been put to the horn, and that there was no intention to relax the law in his favour. Thereupon he called G.o.d to witness that he intended not their trouble but their comfort, and felt sure that to reject the Word of G.o.d, and drive away His messenger, was not the way to save themselves from trouble; adding, "G.o.d shall send unto yow messengeris who will not be effrayed of h.o.r.n.yng nor yitt for banishment."[64] He left the town forthwith, and with all "possible expeditioun pa.s.sed to the west-land."[65] There he pursued his labours in the same kindly spirit, refusing to allow his followers to dispute possession of the churches by force of arms with the authorities, and choosing rather to preach in the open air wherever he found a convenient place and audience fit to listen to him.

[Sidenote: Succours the Plague-stricken.]

Soon after he left Dundee, the plague, which that year was raging in several of the towns of Scotland, extended its ravages to that place.

This naturally led the citizens to bethink themselves of the treatment they had allowed the evangelist, who had laboured so devotedly among them, to suffer at the hands of his enemies, as the news of what they were suffering led him to think compa.s.sionately of his friends who were now in trouble, and stood in need of comfort. He returned to the afflicted town, and its inhabitants received him with joy. He announced without delay that he would preach to them; but it was impossible he could do so in a church. Numbers were sick of the plague; others in attendance on them were regarded as infected, and must not be brought into contact with those who were free from infection. The sick were crowded in and about the lazar-houses near St Roque's Chapel, outside the East or Cowgate Port of the town. Wishart chose as his pulpit the top of that port, which, in memory of the martyr-preacher, has been, it is said, carefully preserved, though--like Temple Bar, so long tolerated in London--it is now in the heart of the town, and an obstruction to its traffic.[66] The sick and suspected were a.s.sembled outside the port, and the healthy inside. The preacher took for the text of his first sermon the words of Psalm cvii. 20: "He sent His word and healed them;" and, starting on the key-note that it was neither herb nor plaster, but G.o.d's Word which healeth all, "He maist comfortablie did intreat [_i.e._ treat of] the dignitie and utilitie of G.o.ddis Woord; the punishment that c.u.mis for the contempt of the same; the prompt.i.tude of G.o.ddis mercy to such as trewlye turne to Him; yea, the great happynes of thame whome G.o.d tackis from this miserie evin in His awin gentill visitatioun, which the malice of man cane neyther eak nor paire."[67] By this sermon, Knox tells us, he so raised up the hearts of all who heard him, that they regarded not death, but judged those more happy that should depart than those that should remain behind, considering that they knew not whether they should have such a comforter with them at all times.

No doubt John Wedderburn, as well as the others who had been suspected of heresy and had fled from the town in the persecution of 1539, had before this time returned, and were co-operating with Wishart in his work; and then, in all probability, was prepared that beautiful funeral hymn which pa.s.sed from the Bohemians to the Germans, and from the Germans to the Scotch; and which, in addition to the original stanzas, contains in the Scottish version certain new verses having unmistakable reference to the circ.u.mstances in which they originated--in a plague-stricken town which had just before been occupied by the soldiers of the cardinal and the regent, and might well dread a similar visitation for its determined adherence to the new evangelist.

"Thocht _pest or sword_ wald vs preuene, Befoir our hour, to slay vs clene, Thay can nocht pluk ane lytill hair Furth of our heid, nor do vs deir.

Quhen fra this warld to Christ we wend, Our wratchit schort lyfe man haif end Changeit fra paine, and miserie, To lestand gloir Eternallie.

End sall our dayis schort, and vaine, And sin, quhilk we culd nocht refraine, Endit salbe our pilgremage, And brocht hame to our heritage."[68]

[Sidenote: His Fearless Devotedness.]

Wishart concerned himself not only about the souls but also about the bodies of his hearers in that sad time, fearlessly, like Luther on a similar occasion, exposing himself to the risk of infection, that he might minister to the diseased and the dying, and taking care that the public funds for the relief of the dest.i.tute should be properly administered. He forgot himself only too much, and the terrible risks to which, as an excommunicated and outlawed man, he was exposed in so near proximity to the cardinal, who was so eager to get him out of the way.

One day as the people were departing from the sermon, utterly unconscious of the peril menacing their favourite preacher, Knox tells us that a priest, bribed by the cardinal, stood waiting--with his whinger drawn in his hand under his gown--at the foot of the steps by which the preacher was descending from the top of the port. Wishart, most sharp of eye and swift of judgment, at once noticed him, and, as he came near, said, "My friend, what wald ye do?" and at the same moment seized the hand in which he held the dagger, and took it from him. The priest fell down at his feet and confessed the whole truth. Immediately the rumour spread that a priest had attempted to a.s.sa.s.sinate their favourite preacher, the sick outside burst open the gate, crying, "Deliver the tratour to us, or ellis we will tack him by forse." But the preacher put his arms around his would-be a.s.sa.s.sin, exclaiming, "Whosoevir trubles him shall truble me, for he has hurte me in nothing, bot ... hes lattin us understand what we may feare in tymes to come"; and so, says Knox, he saved the life of him that sought his.[69]

[Sidenote: His Innocence.]

Like Drs Laing, Lorimer, and Weir, I cannot persuade myself that the man who spoke and acted thus is the same as "a Scottish man called Wysshert," who is mentioned in a letter of the Earl of Hertford in April 1544, as privy to a conspiracy to apprehend or a.s.sa.s.sinate Cardinal Betoun, and as employed to carry letters between the conspirators and the English court.[70] There were other Wisharts in Scotland. Yea, as Dr Laing has shown, another George Wishart in Dundee, who was a zealous friend of the English alliance--not only after the conspirators got possession of St Andrews castle, but from the earlier date when the monasteries in Dundee were destroyed and sacked.[71] There was probably another about St Andrews who, while the martyr was yet a boy, was called in to attest a charter by the notorious friar Campbell in 1526. I will not venture to affirm that, with all his gentleness, Wishart might not have been tempted to maintain that violence and murderous intent--such as Betoun had twice shown to get rid of him privately--might be lawfully met and restrained by force, though even that is hardly in keeping with all we know of his gentle ways; but we may be sure that had such thoughts been cherished by him, he, like Knox, would have said this openly, and not have engaged in any secret reprisals. As an outlawed man he came down to Scotland under protection, and never seems to have travelled in it save under protection; and so he was one of the last men likely to be chosen for a secret mission to England. If anything more than the able essay of the late Professor Weir in the 'North British Review' for 1868 were needed to prove that the "pure l.u.s.tre of the martyr's fame is still unsullied," it seems to me to be supplied by himself in his affecting address at the stake. "I beseech Thee, Father of heaven! to forgive them that have of any ignorance, or else have of any evil mind, _forged any lies_ upon me. I forgive them with all my heart."[72] The cardinal was not ignorant of the volcano on which he was sitting or of the plots that had been hatched against him; and he may have suspected Wishart of being in the conspiracy. That may have been the reason why he sent two friars to him to get his last confession, and, when they failed to do so, allowed Wynram to go, as the reformer had requested. Wynram, after hearing it, returned to the cardinal and his abettors, and a.s.sured them that Wishart was innocent. This can only refer to such a suspicion of conspiracy, not to the charge of heresy which was confessed and acknowledged; and Mr Andrew Lang has failed as completely as the cardinal in his laboured attempt to produce a t.i.ttle of evidence against him.

[Sidenote: His Constancy.]

From the time of Wighton's attempt the reformer had a clearer view of the perils which beset him, and a mournful conviction of the issue which awaited him if he would not flinch or flee. By his success in Dundee the rage of his adversaries was lashed into a fury which appalled his friends in various districts; but none of these things moved him that he might finish his course with joy, and make full proof of his ministry.

As soon as the plague abated in the city, heedless of the new proofs he then had of the cardinal's relentless determination to capture or trepan him, and the earnest warnings of his northern friends that they could not be answerable for his safety, he took his last farewell of his kirks in Montrose and Dundee. At all hazards he was determined to fulfil his engagement to meet his western friends in Edinburgh, to prosecute his work there under their promised protection, and to seek a public disputation with some of the popish clergy who about that time were to meet in Synod in the capital. Disappointed of the presence and protection of the western men, he laboured for a brief season in Leith, Inveresk, and East Lothian without much success. At last, forsaken by many of those who should have stood by him, he was seized at Ormiston, under cover of night and promise of safe keeping, by the Earl of Bothwell, Sheriff Princ.i.p.al of the county. The Earl pledged his honour not to give him up to his enemies, but was soon persuaded to deliver him to the governor, as was the governor to hand him over to the cardinal, though he finally protested against his being tried or condemned by the churchmen in his own absence. A full account of his labours during these days of despondency has been given by Knox, who got from him, it is said, the first rudiments of Greek, and who--having rendered his first service to the cause of the Reformation by bearing the two-handed sword for his protection--was dismissed on the night of his betrayal with the significant words, "One is sufficient for one sacrifice," showing what fate he now antic.i.p.ated for himself.

[Sidenote: His Martyrdom.]

I cannot enlarge on these things, nor on the sad scenes which took place at St Andrews on the last day of February and 1st of March 1545-46, when the cardinal, regardless of the remonstrances of the regent and the murmurs of the people, but with the a.s.sent of the Council which he had adjourned from Edinburgh to St Andrews, condemned him to the stake.

Throughout all these trying scenes he comported himself as n.o.bly as Patrick Hamilton had done; and not less plentifully did his blood prove the seed of the church, verifying his words, that few would suffer after him before the glory of G.o.d evidently appeared. No doubt his cruel martyrdom hastened the removal of that tyrant who set himself above all restraint of civil law, and breathed forth threatenings against the saints of G.o.d,--though that removal had not been plotted by him, nor would have been approved by him. The words attributed to him at the stake by Buchanan and Lindsay of Pitscottie, foreshadowing his persecutor's approaching fate, are not generally regarded as authentic.

Knox says nothing of them, nor Foxe, nor Spottiswoode; nor does Sir David Lindsay, in his 'Tragedy of the Cardinal,' make any reference to them. It seems better authenticated that he made the following general statement: "I beseech you, brethren and sisters, to exhort your prelates to the learning of the Word of G.o.d, that they at the last may be ashamed to do evil and learn to do good, and if they will not convert themselves from their wicked error, there shall hastily come upon them the wrath of G.o.d, which they shall not eschew."[73] It is easy to see--especially after the events which so speedily occurred--how a statement which referred to the prelates generally should come to be applied specifically to their imperious chief, just as the example of Eli had, in a well-known ballad, been similarly used for warning by the Reformation poet to the aged James Betoun for his weak indulgence to his nephew and the younger Prior Hepburn, notwithstanding their scandalous excesses.[74]

Such was the end of the life and ministry of George Wishart, one of the most zealous and winning evangelists, and one of the most heroic and steadfast confessors, that our country has ever produced. The remembrance of him was fondly cherished, especially in that district where he chiefly laboured, and where he wrought a work not less memorable than that which M'Cheyne and Burns were honoured to do in our own day. His influence was but deepened by his cruel fate, and he "lived again," as Dr Lorimer has eloquently said, "in John Knox.... The zealous disciple, who had counted it an honour to be allowed to carry a sword before his master, stood forth immediately to wield the spiritual sword which had fallen from the master's grasp, and to wield it with a vigour and trenchant execution superior even to his."[75]

[Sidenote: Church Organisation.]

It may not be inappropriate to state how far the organisation of the Reformed Church had by this time advanced in Scotland. Patrick Hamilton seems to me to have laboured to the last for the revival of Scriptural teaching and Christian living within the old church rather than apart from her. Alesius, and some others of his disciples, were for a time reluctant to separate from her, if her rulers could have been persuaded seriously to set about repairing acknowledged evils and defects. But Wishart, and those who came under his influence, seem to have abandoned this struggle, and to have striven for the formation of a new organisation apart from the old one. He formed kirks or congregations--at least in Montrose and Dundee; the former consisting probably mainly of the lesser gentry in the adjacent districts of Angus and Mearns, and the latter chiefly of the substantial burghers of the town of Dundee. I suppose that some forms of discipline began to be put in practice in the Dundee congregation, and that it was on that account, as well as from the remarkable revival which had taken place under his ministrations, that the town came to be spoken of as "the Scottish Geneva." The New Testament of Tyndale's translation had been introduced both there and in Montrose as early as 1526; and by this time the subsequent editions had been largely imported, and since 1543 might be openly read.[76] John Wedderburn was then in his native city, and I suppose by that date had published, in its most rudimentary form, his 'Psalms and Spiritual Songs,' largely translated from the German. John Scott, the printer, was also there, and under suspicion of the authorities in Edinburgh. Of the psalms and hymns, one, as I have already mentioned, bears unmistakable reference to the _pest_ then infesting the town of Dundee; another was sung by Wishart that evening on which he was apprehended in East Lothian; a third is certainly referred to in the 'Complaynt of Scotland,' which, being published as early as 1549, is a guarantee for the earlier existence of the hymn.[77]

This rudimentary collection of 'Psalms and Spiritual Songs' was the book of praise in family and social gatherings of the reformed until the 'Genevan Psalter' came into use.[78] The earliest editions of it have perished. A nearly complete copy of the edition of 1567 has, however, been preserved, and now at last reprinted.[79]

[Sidenote: Helvetic Confession and Communion Office.]

The translation of the First Helvetic Confession, which Wishart made, was no doubt meant as the Confession of the churches he formed, though it may only have been extant then in ma.n.u.script, and not published till 1548. That fragment of the Communion Office which was used by Knox in the administration of the Lord's Supper at Berwick in 1550, and perhaps had been used by him at St Andrews in 1547--and which was recently brought to light again by Dr Lorimer from among the MSS. in Dr Williams'

library in London[80]--was almost certainly derived from Wishart, for part of it is translated from the Office of the Church of Zurich, with which he could not fail to have become acquainted during his residence there, and part from other German Offices, which were more likely to have fallen in his way (who had been a traveller on the Continent) than in Knox's. It may even have been used by Wishart in 1545, when he dispensed the communion in both kinds at Dun. The same may be said of that interesting burial-service which purports to have been used in the kirk at Montrose, and has been reprinted in the Miscellany of the Wodrow Society;[81] though probably this, as we now have it, may not be the original form, but a recension of it, made later, under the auspices of Erskine of Dun, superintendent of Angus and Mearns. The foundations of the superstructure that was to be were thus laid by Wishart. It was reserved to his successor to raise it, as the martyr had predicted it would be raised, even to the copestone.

FOOTNOTES:

[57] [The charter is dated at Montrose on the 20th of March 1534-35. The Martyr's signature, as "M. Geo. Wischert," proves that he had already taken his degree (Register of Great Seal, iii., No. 1462).]

[58] [His translation is reprinted in the Wodrow Miscellany, pp. 7-23.]

[59] Cattley's Foxe, v. 626.

[60] [This is now in the National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh.]

[61] [Cook's History of the Reformation, 1811, i. 272, 273; 1819, i.

273. Dr Cook says that Dr Leslie, minister of Fordoun, "got a short view of them," and favoured him with the account which he wrote. In a very similar notice of the paintings by Dr Leslie, it is stated that they were discovered when the old house of Pittarrow was being pulled down in 1802 ('New Statistical Account of Kincardineshire,' p. 81).] As Dr Cook long ago surmised, the lines of covert sarcasm on the pope are not original. One evening as I returned to Guildford Street after a long day in the British Museum, I had occasion to pa.s.s through Red Lion Square and the alley to the east of it, where I saw exposed in a p.a.w.nbroker's window a little antique volume, in a very dilapidated state, opened at the page which contained these lines almost _verbatim_. I at once purchased it, and on further examination I found it had been published at Basle in 1537--_i.e._, a few years before Wishart was there. [The little collection which Dr Mitch.e.l.l thus refers to bears the t.i.tle: "Pasqvilli de Concilio Mantuano Iudicium. Qverimonia Papistarum ad Legatum Pontificium in comicijs Schmalcaldianis. Mantua uae miseris nimium uicina Papistis. MDx.x.xVII."

The colophon runs thus: "Impressum Romae in porta Angelorum.

M.D.x.x.xVII."

Wishart evidently found his lines in the following:--

"Lavs Romani Pontificis. Scripta ad placitum Romanae curiae per uenerabilem dominum Doctorem Ioannem Cochleum, Theutonicae Doctor Rotzloffel, et Georgium VVicelium cognomento, Meister Lugenmaul, Romanae Ecclesiae propugnatores egregios.

"Pauperibus sua dat gratis nec munera curat Curia Papalis quod modo percipimus Laus tua non tua fraus, Virtus non copia rerum Scandere te fecit, hoc Decus eximium Conditio tua sit stabilis nec tempore paruo Viuere te faciat hic Deus omnipotens.