Volume 2 — PERIOD VII. FROM AUGUST 1560, WHEN HE WAS SETTLED AS MINISTER OF EDINBURGH, AT THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REFORMATION, TO DECEMBER 1563, WHEN HE WAS ACQUITTED FROM A CHARGE OF TREASON.

In appointing the protestant ministers to particular stations, a measure which engaged the attention of the privy council immediately after the conclusion of the civil war, the temporary arrangements that had been formerly made were in general confirmed, and our Reformer resumed his charge as minister of Edinburgh.1 For several months he had officiated as minister of St Andrews;2 but in the end of April 1560, he left that place, and returned to the capital,3 where he preached during the siege of Leith, and the negotiations which issued in a peace.

Although the parliament had abolished the papal jurisdiction and worship, and ratified the protestant doctrine, as laid down in the Confession of Faith, the reformed church was not yet completely organized in Scotland. Hitherto the Book of Common Order, used by the English church at Geneva, had been generally followed as the rule of public worship and discipline. But this having been compiled for a single congregation, and for one that consisted chiefly of men of education, was found inadequate for the use of an extensive church, composed of a multitude of confederated congregations. Our reformers were anxious to provide the means of religious instruction to the whole people in the kingdom; but they were very far from approving of the promiscuous admission of persons of all descriptions to the peculiar privileges of the church of Christ. From the beginning, they were sensible of the great importance of ecclesiastical discipline, to the prosperity of religion, the maintenance of order, and the preservation of sound doctrine and morals. In the petition presented to parliament in August, the establishment of this was specially requested.4 And Knox, who had observed the great advantages which attended the observance of a strict discipline at Geneva, and the manifold evils which resulted from the want of it in England, insisted very particularly on this topic, in the discourses which he delivered from the book of Haggai during the sitting of parliament.5 The difficulties which the reformed ministers had to surmount, before they could accomplish this important object, began to present themselves at this early stage of their progress. When it is considered, that Calvin was subjected to a sentence of banishment from the senate of Geneva, and exposed to a popular tumult, before he could prevail on the citizens to submit to ecclesiastical discipline,6 we need not be surprised at the opposition which our reformers met with in their endeavours to introduce it into Scotland. Knox’s warm exhortations on this head were at first disregarded; he had the mortification to find his plan of church‑polity derided as a “devout imagination,” by some of the professors of the reformed doctrine;7—and the parliament dissolved without coming to any decision on this important point.

As the ministers, however, continued to urge the subject, and the reasonableness of their demands could not be denied, the privy council, soon after the dissolution of the parliament, gave a commission to Knox, and four other ministers, who had formerly been employed along with him in composing the Confession, to draw up a plan of ecclesiastical government.8 They immediately set about this task, with a diligence and care proportioned to their convictions of its importance. They “took not their example,” says Row, “from any kirk in the world, no, not from Geneva;” but drew their plan from the sacred scriptures. Having arranged the subject under different heads, they divided these among them; and, after they had finished their several parts, they met together and examined them with great attention, spending much time in reading and meditation on the subject, and in earnest prayers for divine direction. When they had drawn up the whole in form, they laid it before the General Assembly, by whom it was approved, after they had caused some of its articles to be abridged.9 It was also submitted to the privy council; but, although many of the members highly approved of the plan, it was warmly opposed by others. This opposition did not arise from any difference of sentiment between them and the ministers respecting ecclesiastical government, but partly from aversion to the strict discipline which it appointed to be exercised against vice, and partly from reluctance to comply with its requisition for the appropriation of the revenues of the popish church to the support of the new religious and literary establishments. Though not formally ratified by the council, it was, however, subscribed by the greater part of the members;10 and as the sources of prejudice against it were well known, it was submitted to by the nation, and carried into effect in most of its ecclesiastical regulations.11 It is known in history by the name of the Book of Policy, or First Book of Discipline.

Considering the activity of Knox in constructing and recommending this platform, and the importance of the subject in itself, it cannot be foreign to our object to take a view of the form and order of the protestant church of Scotland, as delineated in the Book of Discipline, and in other authentic documents of that period.

The ordinary and permanent office‑bearers of the church were of four kinds: the minister, or pastor, to whom the preaching of the gospel and administration of the sacraments belonged; the doctor, or teacher, whose province it was to interpret scripture and confute errors (including those who taught theology in schools and universities); the ruling elder, who assisted the minister in exercising ecclesiastical discipline and government; and the deacon, who had the special oversight of the revenues of the church and the poor. But, besides these, it was found necessary, at this time, to employ some persons in extraordinary and temporary charges. As there was not a sufficient number of ministers to supply the different parts of the country, that the people might not be left altogether destitute of public worship and instruction, certain pious persons, who had received a common education, were appointed to read the scriptures and the common prayers. These were called readers. In large parishes, persons of this description were also employed to relieve the ministers from a part of the public service. If they advanced in knowledge, they were encouraged to add a few plain exhortations to the reading of the scriptures. In this case they were called exhorters; but they were examined and admitted, before entering upon this employment.

The same cause gave rise to another temporary expedient. Instead of fixing all the ministers in particular charges, it was judged proper, after supplying the principal towns, to assign to the rest the superintendence of a large district, over which they were appointed regularly to travel, for the purpose of preaching, of planting churches, and inspecting the conduct of ministers, exhorters, and readers. These were called superintendents. The number originally proposed was ten; but, owing to the scarcity of proper persons, or rather to the want of necessary funds, there were never more than five appointed.12 The deficiency was supplied by commissioners, or visitors, appointed from time to time by the General Assembly.

None was allowed to preach, or to administer the sacraments, till he was regularly called to this employment. Persons were invested with the pastoral office in the way of being freely elected by the people,13 examined by the ministers, and publicly admitted in the presence of the congregation. On the day of admission, the minister who presided, after preaching a sermon suited to the occasion, put a number of questions to the candidate, to satisfy the church as to his soundness in the faith, his willingness to undertake the charge, the purity of his motives, and his resolution to discharge the duties of the office with diligence and fidelity. Satisfactory answers having been given to these questions, and the people having signified their adherence to their former choice, the person was admitted and set apart by prayer, without the imposition of hands;14 and the service was concluded with an exhortation, the singing of a psalm, and the pronouncing of the blessing. Superintendents were admitted in the same way as other ministers.15 The affairs of each congregation were managed by the minister, elders, and deacons, who constituted the kirk‑session, which met regularly once a‑week, and oftener if business required. There was a meeting called the weekly exercise, or prophesying, held in every considerable town, consisting of the ministers, exhorters, and learned men in the vicinity, for expounding the scriptures. This was afterwards converted into the presbytery, or classical assembly. The superintendent met with the ministers and delegated elders of his district, twice a‑year, in the provincial synod, which took cognizance of ecclesiastical affairs within its bounds. And the General Assembly, which was composed of ministers and elders commissioned from the different parts of the kingdom, met twice, sometimes thrice, in a year, and attended to the interests of the national church.

Public worship was conducted according to the Book of Common Order, with a few variations adapted to the state of Scotland. On Sabbath‑days, the people assembled twice for public worship; and, to promote the instruction of the ignorant, catechising was substituted for preaching in the afternoon. In towns, a sermon was regularly preached on one day of the week besides Sabbath; and on almost every day, the people had an opportunity of hearing public prayers and the reading of the scriptures. Baptism was never dispensed unless it was accompanied with preaching or catechising. The Lord’s supper was administered four times a‑year in towns, and there were ordinarily two “ministrations,” one at an early hour of the morning, and another later in the day. The sign of the cross in baptizing, and kneeling at the Lord’s table, were condemned and laid aside; and anniversary holidays were wholly abolished.16 We shall afterwards have occasion to advert to the discipline under which offenders were brought.

The compilers of the First Book of Discipline paid particular attention to the state of education. They required that a school should be erected in every parish, for the instruction of youth in the principles of religion, grammar, and the Latin tongue. They proposed that a college should be erected in every “notable town,” in which logic and rhetoric should be taught, along with the learned languages. They seem to have had it in their eye to revive the system adopted by some of the ancient republics, in which the youth were considered as the property of the public rather than of their parents, by obliging the nobility and gentry to educate their children, and by providing, at the public expense, for the education of the children of the poor who discovered talents for learning. Their regulations for the three national universities discover an enlightened regard to the interests of literature, and may suggest hints which deserve attention in the present age.17 If these were not reduced to practice, the blame cannot be imputed to the reformed ministers, but to the nobility and gentry whose avarice defeated the execution of their plans.

To carry these important measures into effect, permanent funds were requisite; and for these it was natural to look to the patrimony of the church. The hierarchy had been abolished, and the popish clergy excluded from all religious services, by the alterations which the parliament had introduced; and, whatever provision it was proper to allot for the dismissed incumbents during life, it was unreasonable that they should continue to enjoy those emoluments which were attached to offices for which they had been found totally unfit. No successors could be appointed to them; and there was not any individual, or class of men in the nation, who could justly claim a title to the rents of their benefices. The compilers of the Book of Discipline, therefore, proposed that the patrimony of the church should be appropriated, in the first instance, to the support of the new ecclesiastical establishment. Under this head they included the ministry, the schools, and the poor. For the ministers they required that such “honest provision” should be made, as would give “neither occasion of solicitude, neither yet of insolencie and wantonnesse.” In ordinary cases, they thought that forty bolls of meal, and twenty‑six bolls of malt, with a reasonable sum of money, to purchase other necessary articles of provision for his family, was an adequate stipend for a minister. To enable superintendents to defray the extraordinary expenses of travelling in the discharge of their duty, six chalders of bear, nine chalders of meal, three chalders of oats, and six hundred merks in money, were thought necessary as an annual stipend. The salaries of professors were fixed from one to two hundred pounds; and the mode of supporting the poor was left undetermined, until means should be used to suppress “stubborne and idle beggars,” and to ascertain the number of the really necessitous in each parish. The stipends of ministers were to be collected by the deacons from the tithes; but all illegal exactions were to be previously abolished, and measures taken to relieve the labourers of the ground from the oppressive manner in which the tithes had been gathered by the clergy, or by those to whom they had farmed them. The revenues of bishoprics, and of cathedral and collegiate churches, with the rents arising from the endowments of monasteries and other religious foundations, were to be divided, and appropriated to the support of the universities, or of the churches within their bounds.

Nothing could be more unpalatable than doctrine of this kind to a considerable number of the protestant nobility and gentry. They had for some time fixed a covetous eye on the rich revenues of the popish clergy. Some of them had seized upon church‑lands, or retained the tithes in their own hands. Others had taken long leases of them from the clergy for small sums of money, and were anxious to have these private bargains legalized. Hence their aversion to have the Book of Discipline ratified;18 hence the poverty and the complaints of the ministers, and the languishing state of the universities. The Swiss Reformer, by his eloquence and his firmness, enabled his countrymen to gain a conquest over their avarice, which was more honourable to them than any of their other victories, when he prevailed on them to appropriate the whole revenues of the popish establishment to the support of the protestant church and seminaries of literature.19 But it was not so easy a matter to manage the turbulent and powerful barons of Scotland, as it was to sway the minds of the burgomasters of Zurich. When we consider, however, the extent of the establishments proposed by our reformers, including the support of the ministry, of parochial schools, of city colleges, and of national universities, we cannot regard the demand which they made on the funds devoted to the church as extravagant or unreasonable. They showed themselves disinterested by the moderate share which they asked for themselves; and the worst that we can say of their plan is, that it was worthy of a more enlightened and liberal age, in which it might have met with rulers more capable of appreciating its utility, and better disposed to carry it into execution.20

It is peculiarly pleasing to observe the restoration of religion and of letters going hand in hand, in our native country. Everywhere, indeed, the Reformation had the most powerful influence, direct and remote, on the general promotion of literature. It aroused the human mind from the lethargy in which it had slumbered for ages, released it from the fetters of implicit faith and blind obedience to human authority, and stimulated it to the exertion of its powers in the search of truth. It induced the learned to study with care the original languages in which the sacred books were written; and it diffused knowledge among the illiterate, by laying open the scriptures, and calling upon all to examine them for themselves. The unintelligible jargon which had long infested the schools began to be discarded. Controversies were now decided by appeals to scripture and to common sense; and the disputes which were eagerly maintained led to the improvement of the art of reasoning, and a more rational method of communicating knowledge. Superstition and credulity being undermined, the spirit of enquiry was soon directed to the discovery of the true laws of nature, as well as the genuine doctrines of revelation.

In the south of Europe, the revival of letters preceded the reformation of religion, and materially facilitated its progress. In the north, this order was reversed; and Scotland, in particular, must date the origin of her literary acquirements from the first introduction of the protestant opinions. As the one gained ground, the other was brought forward. We have already seen that the Greek language began to be studied almost as soon as the light of Reformation dawned upon this country; and I have now to state, that the first school for teaching the Hebrew language in Scotland was opened immediately after the establishment of the protestant church. Hebrew was one of the branches of education appointed by the Book of Discipline to be taught in the reformed seminaries, and Providence had furnished a person who was well qualified for that task, which those who filled the chairs in our universities were totally unfit to undertake.

The person to whom I refer was John Row. After finishing his education at St Andrews, and practising for some time as an advocate before the consistorial court there, he left the country about the year 1550, with the view of prosecuting his studies to greater advantage on the continent. Within a short time he received the degree of Doctor of Laws from two Italian universities. He did not, however, confine himself to one branch of study; but, improving the opportunity which he enjoyed, made himself master of the Greek and Hebrew languages. His reputation as a lawyer being high, the Scottish clergy employed him as agent to manage some of their causes before the court of Rome. This introduced him to the friendship of Guido Ascanio Sforza, cardinal of Sancta Flora, and to the acquaintance of two sovereign pontiffs, Julius III. and Paul IV. Had he remained in Italy, it is highly probable that he would soon have attained to honourable preferment in the church; but having lost his health, he determined, in 1558, to return to his native country. The reigning pope had heard, with deep concern, of the progress which the new opinions were making in Scotland, and, as he had great confidence in Row’s talents, appointed him his nuncio, with instructions to use his utmost exertions to oppose them. When he came home, he endeavoured for some time to discharge his commission; but despairing of success, and foreseeing the confusions in which the country was about to be involved, he resolved on returning to Italy. From this resolution he was diverted by the prior of St Andrews, who admired his learning, and conceived good hopes of his conversion, from the candour which he displayed in the management of religious controversy. His constancy was soon after shaken by the discovery of the imposture which the clergy attempted to practise at Musselburgh;21 and, having held several conferences with Knox, he became a complete convert to the protestant faith. Upon the establishment of the reformation, he was admitted minister of Perth, and, at the recommendation of his brethren, began to give lessons in the Hebrew language to young men who were placed under his tuition.22

The interests of literature in Scotland were not a little promoted at this time by the return of Buchanan to his native country. That accomplished scholar, since his flight in 1538, had visited the most celebrated seminaries on the continent, greatly improved his stock of learning, and given ample proof of those talents which, in the opinion of posterity as well as of his contemporaries, have placed him indisputably at the head of modern Latin poets. The reception which he obtained from his countrymen evinced that they were not incapable of estimating his merits; and the satisfaction with which he spent the remainder of his life among them, after he had enjoyed the society of the most learned men in Europe, is a sufficient proof that they had already made no inconsiderable advances in the acquisition of polite literature.23

We are apt to form false and exaggerated notions of the rudeness of our ancestors. Scotland was, indeed, at that period, as she is still at the present day, behind many of the southern countries in the cultivation of some of the fine arts, and she was a stranger to that refinement of manners which has oftener been a concealment to vice than an ornament to virtue. But that her inhabitants were “men unacquainted with the pleasures of conversation, ignorant of arts and civility, and corrupted beyond their usual rusticity by a dismal fanaticism, which rendered them incapable of all humanity or improvement,”24 is an assertion which argues either inexcusable ignorance or deplorable prejudice. Will this character apply to such men as Buchanan, Knox, Row, Willock, Balnaves, Erskine, Maitland, Glencairn, and James Stewart, not to name many others; men who excelled in their respective ranks and professions, who had received a liberal education, travelled into foreign countries, conversed with the best company, and, in addition to their acquaintance with ancient learning, could speak the most polite languages of modern Europe? Perhaps some of our literati, who entertain such a diminutive idea of the taste and learning of those times, might have been taken by surprise, had they been set down at the table of one of our Scottish reformers, surrounded with a circle of his children and pupils, where the conversation was all carried on in French, and the chapter of the bible, at family worship, was read by the boys in French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Perhaps they might have blushed, if the book had been put into their hands, and they had been required to perform a part of the exercises. Such, however, was the common practice in the house of John Row.25 Nor was the improvement of our native tongue neglected at that time. David Ferguson, minister of Dunfermline, was celebrated for his attention to this branch of composition. He had not enjoyed the advantage of a university education, but, possessing a good taste and lively fancy, was very successful in refining and enriching the Scottish language, by his discourses and writings.26

The first meeting of the General Assembly of the church of Scotland was held at Edinburgh on the 20th of December, 1560. It consisted of forty members, only six of whom were ministers.27 Knox was one of these; and he continued to sit in most of the meetings of that judicatory until the time of his death. Its deliberations were conducted at first with great simplicity and unanimity. It is a singular circumstance that there were seven different meetings of Assembly without a moderator or president. But as the number of members increased, and business became more complicated, a moderator was appointed to be chosen at every meeting; and he was invested with authority to maintain order. The first person who occupied that place was John Willock, superintendent of Glasgow and the West. Regulations were also enacted concerning the constituent members of the court, the causes which ought to come before them, and the mode of procedure.28

In the close of this year, our Reformer suffered a heavy domestic loss, by the death of his valuable wife, who, after sharing the hardships of exile along with her husband, was removed from him just when he had obtained a comfortable settlement for his family.29 He was left with the charge of two young children, in addition to his other cares. His mother‑in‑law was still with him; but though he took pleasure in her religious conversation, the dejection of mind to which she was subject, and which all his efforts could never completely cure, rather increased than lightened his burden.30 His acute feelings were severely wounded by this stroke; but he endeavoured to moderate his grief by the consolations which he administered to others, and by application to public duty. He had the satisfaction of receiving, on this occasion, a letter from his much respected friend Calvin, in which expressions of great esteem for his deceased partner were mingled with condolence for his loss.31

I may take this opportunity of mentioning, that Knox, with the consent of his brethren, consulted the Genevan reformer upon several difficult questions which occurred respecting the settlement of the Scottish Reformation, and that a number of letters passed between them on this subject.32

Anxieties on a public account were felt by Knox along with domestic distress. The Reformation had hitherto advanced with a success equal to his most sanguine expectations; and, at this time, no opposition was publicly made to the new establishment. But matters were still in a very critical state. There were a party in the nation, by no means inconsiderable in numbers and power, who remained addicted to popery; and, though they had given way to the torrent, they anxiously waited for an opportunity to embroil the country in another civil war, for the restoration of the ancient religion. Queen Mary, and her husband, the king of France, had refused to ratify the late treaty, and dismissed the deputy sent by the parliament, with marks of the highest displeasure at the innovations which they had presumed to introduce. A new army was preparing in France for the invasion of Scotland against the spring; emissaries were sent, in the mean time, to encourage and unite the Roman catholics; and it was doubtful if the queen of England would subject herself to new expense and odium, by protecting them from a second attack.33

The danger was not unperceived by our Reformer, who laboured to impress the minds of his countrymen with its magnitude, and to excite them speedily to complete the settlement of religion throughout the kingdom, which, he was persuaded, would prove the principal bulwark against the assaults of their adversaries. His admonitions were now listened to with attention by many who had formerly treated them with indifference.34 The threatened storm, however, blew over, in consequence of the death of the French king; but this necessarily led to a measure which involved the Scottish protestants in a new struggle, and exposed the reformed church to dangers less obvious and striking, but, on that account, not less to be dreaded, than open violence and hostility. This was the invitation given by the protestant nobility to their young queen, who, on the 19th of August, 1561, arrived in Scotland, and assumed the reins of government into her own hands.

The education which Mary had received in France, whatever embellishments it added to her beauty, was the very worst which can be conceived for fitting her to rule her native country in the present juncture. Of a temper naturally violent, the devotion which she had been accustomed to see paid to her personal charms, rendered her extremely impatient of contradiction.35 Habituated to the splendour and gallantry of the most luxurious and dissolute court in Europe, she could not submit to those restraints which the severer manners of her subjects imposed; and while they took offence at the freedom of her behaviour, she could not conceal the antipathy and disgust which she felt at theirs.36 Full of high notions of royal prerogative, she regarded the late proceedings in Scotland as a course of rebellion against her legitimate authority. Nursed from her infancy in a blind attachment to the Roman catholic faith, every means had been employed, before she left France, to strengthen this prejudice, and to inspire her with aversion to the religion which had been embraced by her people. She was taught that it would be the great glory of her reign to reduce her kingdom to the obedience of the Roman see, and to co‑operate with the popish princes on the continent in extirpating heresy. If she forsook the religion in which she had been educated, she would forfeit their powerful friendship; if she persevered in it, she might depend upon their assistance to enable her to chastise her rebellious subjects, and to prosecute her claims to the English crown against a heretical usurper.

With these fixed prepossessions, Mary came into Scotland; and she adhered to them with singular pertinacity to the end of her life. To examine the subjects of controversy between the papists and protestants, with the view of ascertaining on which side the truth lay,—to hear the reformed preachers, or permit them to lay before her the grounds of their faith, even in the presence of the clergy whom she had brought along with her,—to do any thing, in short, which might lead to a doubt in her mind respecting the religion in which she had been brought up, were compliances against which she had formed an unalterable determination. As the protestants were in possession of power, it was necessary for her to temporize; but she resolved to withhold her ratification of the late proceedings, and to embrace the first favourable opportunity to overturn them, and re‑establish the ancient system.37

The reception which she met with on landing in Scotland was flattering; but an occurrence that took place soon after, damped the joy which had been expressed, and prognosticated future jealousies and confusion. The deputies sent to France with the invitation from the nobles, could not promise her more than the private exercise of her religion; but her uncles, by whom she was accompanied, wishing to take advantage of the spirit of loyalty which had been displayed since their arrival, insisted that she should cause the Roman catholic rites to be performed with all publicity. Influenced by their opinion, and willing to give her subjects an early proof of her firm determination to adhere to the ancient faith, Mary directed preparations to be made for the celebration of a solemn mass in the chapel of Holyroodhouse, on the first Sabbath after her arrival. This service had not been performed in Scotland since the conclusion of the civil war, and was prohibited by an act of the late parliament. So great was the horror with which the protestants viewed its restoration, and the alarm which they felt at finding it countenanced by their queen, that the first rumour of the design excited expressions of strong discontent, which would have burst into an open tumult, had not some of the leading men among the protestants interfered, and exerted their authority in repressing the zeal of the multitude. From regard to public tranquillity, and reluctance to offend the queen at her first return to her native kingdom, Knox used his influence in private conversation to allay the fervour of the more zealous reformers, who were ready to prevent the service by force. But he was not less alarmed at the precedent than his brethren were; and, having exposed the evils of idolatry on the following Sabbath, he concluded his sermon by saying, that “one mass was more fearfull unto him, than if ten thousand armed enemies wer landed in ony parte of the realme, of purpose to suppress the whole religioun.”38

At this day, we are apt to be struck with surprise at the conduct of our ancestors, to treat their fears as visionary, or at least as highly exaggerated, and summarily to pronounce them guilty of the same intolerance of which they complained in their adversaries. Persecution for conscience’ sake is so odious, and the least approach to it so dangerous, that we deem it impossible to express too great detestation of any measure which tends to countenance or seems to encourage it. But let us be just as well as liberal. A little reflection upon the circumstances in which our reforming fathers were placed may serve to abate our astonishment, and to qualify our censures. They were actuated by a strong abhorrence of popish idolatry, a feeling which is fully justified by the spirit and precepts of Christianity; and the prospect of the land being again defiled by the revival of its impure rites produced on their minds a sensation, with which, from our ignorance and lukewarmness, as much as our ideas of religious liberty, we are incapable of sympathizing. But they were also influenced by a proper regard to their own preservation; and the fears which they entertained were not fanciful, nor the precautions which they adopted unnecessary.

The warmest friends of toleration and liberty of conscience (some of whom will not readily be charged with protestant prejudices) have granted, that persecution of the most sanguinary kind was inseparable from the system and spirit of popery which was at that time dominant in Europe; and they cannot deny the inference, that the profession and propagation of it were, on this account, justly subjected to penal restraints, as far, at least, as was requisite to prevent it from obtaining the ascendency, and from reacting the bloody scenes which it had already exhibited.39 The protestants of Scotland had these scenes before their eyes, and fresh in their recollection; and infatuated and criminal indeed would they have been, if, listening to the siren song of toleration, by which their adversaries, with no less impudence than artifice, now attempted to lull them asleep, they had suffered themselves to be thrown off their guard, and neglected to provide against the most distant approaches of the danger by which they were threatened. Could they be ignorant of the perfidious, barbarous, and unrelenting cruelty with which protestants were treated in every Roman catholic kingdom? In France, where so many of their brethren had been put to death, under the influence of the house of Guise; in the Netherlands, where such multitudes had been tortured, beheaded, hanged, drowned, or buried alive; in England, where the flames of persecution were but lately extinguished; and in Spain and Italy, where they still continued to blaze? Could they have forgotten what had taken place in their own country, or the perils from which they had themselves so recently and so narrowly escaped? “God forbid!” exclaimed the lords of the privy council, in the presence of Queen Mary, at a time when they were not disposed to offend her,—“God forbid! that the lives of the faithful stood in the power of the papists; for just experience has taught us what cruelty is in their hearts.”40

Nor was this an event so incredible, or so unlikely to happen, as many seem to imagine. The rage for conquest, on the continent, was now converted into a rage for proselytism; and steps had already been taken towards forming that league among the popish princes, which had for its object the universal extermination of protestants. The Scottish queen was passionately addicted to the intoxicating cup of which so many of “the kings of the earth had drunk.” There were numbers in the nation who were similarly disposed. The liberty taken by the queen would soon be demanded for all who declared themselves catholics. Many of those who had hitherto ranged under the protestant standard were lukewarm in the cause; the zeal of others had already suffered a sensible abatement since the arrival of their sovereign;41 and it was to be feared, that the favours of the court, and the blandishments of an artful and accomplished princess, would make proselytes of some, and lull others into security, while designs were carried on pregnant with ruin to the religion and liberties of the nation. In one word, the public toleration of the popish worship was only a step to its re‑establishment, and this would be the signal for kindling afresh the fires of persecution. It was in this manner that some of the wisest men in the kingdom reasoned at that time;42 and, had it not been for the uncommon spirit which then existed among the reformers, there is every reason to think that their predictions would have been realized.

To those who accuse the Scottish protestants of displaying the same spirit of intolerance by which the Roman catholics were distinguished, I would recommend the following statement of a French author, who had formed a more just notion of these transactions than many of our own writers. “Mary (says he,) was brought up in France, accustomed to see protestants burnt to death, and instructed in the maxims of her uncles, the Guises, who maintained that it was necessary to exterminate, without mercy, the pretended reformed. With these dispositions she arrived in Scotland, which was wholly reformed, with the exception of a few lords. The kingdom received her, acknowledged her as their queen, and obeyed her in all things according to the laws of the country. I maintain, that, in the state of men’s spirits at that time, if a Huguenot queen had come to take possession of a Roman catholic kingdom, with the slender retinue with which Mary went to Scotland, the first thing they would have done would have been to arrest her; and if she had persevered in her religion, they would have procured her degradation by the pope, thrown her into the Inquisition, and burnt her as a heretic. There is not an honest man who can deny this.”43

After all, it is surely unnecessary to apologize for the restrictions which our ancestors were desirous of imposing on queen Mary, to those who approve of the present constitution of Britain, according to which every papist is excluded from succeeding to the throne, and the reigning monarch, by setting up mass in his chapel, would virtually forfeit his crown. Is popery more dangerous now than it was two hundred and fifty years ago?

Besides his fears for the common cause, Knox had at this time grounds of apprehension as to his personal safety. The queen was peculiarly incensed against him on account of the active part which he had taken in the late revolution; the popish clergy who left the kingdom had represented him as the ringleader of her factious subjects; and she had publicly declared, before she left France, that she was determined he should be punished. His book against female government was most probably the ostensible charge on which he was to be prosecuted; and, accordingly, we find him making application, through the English resident at Edinburgh, to secure the favour of Elizabeth; reasonably suspecting that she might be induced to abet the proceedings against him on this ground.44 But whatever perils he apprehended, from the personal presence of the queen, either to the public or to himself, he used not the smallest influence to prevent her being invited home. On the contrary, he concurred with his brethren in this measure, and also in using means to defeat a scheme which the duke of Chastelherault, under the direction of the archbishop of St Andrew, had formed to exclude her from the government.45 But when the prior of St Andrews was sent to France with the invitation, he urged that her desisting from the celebration of mass should be one of the conditions of her return; and when he found him and the rest of the council disposed to grant her this liberty within her own chapel, he predicted that “her liberty would be their thraldom.”46

In the beginning of September,47 only a few days after her arrival in Scotland, the queen sent for Knox to the palace, and held a long conversation with him, in the presence of her brother, the prior of St Andrews. Whether she did this of her own accord, or at the suggestion of some of her counsellors, is uncertain; but she seems to have expected to awe him into submission by her authority, if not to confound him by her arguments. The bold freedom with which he replied to all her charges, and vindicated his own conduct, convinced her that the one expectation was not more vain than the other; and the impression which she wished to make on him was left on her own mind.

She accused him of raising her subjects against her mother and herself; of writing a book against her just authority, which, she said, she would cause the most learned in Europe to refute; of being the cause of sedition and bloodshed, when he was in England; and of accomplishing his purposes by magical arts.

To these heavy charges Knox replied, that, if to teach the truth of God in sincerity, to rebuke idolatry, and exhort a people to worship God according to his word, were to excite subjects to rise against their princes, then he stood convicted of that crime; for it had pleased God to employ him, among many others, to disclose unto that realm the vanity of the papistical religion, with the deceit, pride, and tyranny of the Roman antichrist. But if the true knowledge of God and his right worship were the most powerful inducements to subjects cordially to obey their princes, (as they certainly were,) then was he innocent. Her grace, he was persuaded, had at present as unfeigned obedience from the protestants of Scotland, as ever her father, or any of her ancestors, had from those called bishops. With respect to what had been reported to her majesty concerning the fruits of his preaching in England, he was glad that his enemies laid nothing to his charge but what the world knew to be false. If they could prove, that in any of the places where he had resided there was either sedition or mutiny, he would confess himself to be a malefactor. But so far from this being the case, he was not ashamed to say, that in Berwick, where bloodshed had formerly been common among the military, God so blessed his weak labours, that there was as great quietness, during the time he resided in that town, as there was at present in Edinburgh. The slander of practising magic, (an art which he had always condemned,) he could more easily bear, when he recollected that his master, Jesus Christ, had been defamed as one in league with Beelzebub. As to the book which seemed to have offended her majesty so highly, he owned that he wrote it, and he was willing that all the learned should judge of it. He understood that an Englishman had written against it, but he had not read his work. If that author had sufficiently confuted his arguments, and established the contrary opinion, he would confess his error; but to that hour he continued to think himself able to maintain the propositions affirmed in that book against any ten in Europe.

“You think, then, I have no just authority?” said the queen. “Please your majesty,” replied he, “learned men in all ages have had their judgments free, and most commonly disagreeing from the common judgment of the world; such also have they published both with pen and tongue; notwithstanding, they themselves have lived in the common society with others, and have borne patiently with the errors and imperfections which they could not amend. Plato, the philosopher, wrote his book on the commonwealth, in which he condemned many things that then were maintained in the world, and required many things to have been reformed; and yet, notwithstanding, he lived under such policies as then were universally received, without farther troubling of any state. Even so, madam, am I content to do, in uprightness of heart, and with a testimony of a good conscience.” He added, that his sentiments on that subject should be confined to his own breast; and that, if she refrained from persecution, her authority would not be hurt, either by him or his book, “which was written most especially against that wicked Jesabell of England.”

“But ye speak of women in general,” said the queen. “Most true it is, madam; yet it appeareth to me, that wisdom should persuade your grace never to raise trouble for that which to this day has not troubled your majesty, neither in person nor in authority: for of late years many things, which before were held stable, have been called in doubt; yea they have been plainly impugned. But yet, madam, I am assured that neither protestant nor papist shall be able to prove, that any such question was at any time moved either in public or in secret. Now, madam, if I had intended to have troubled your estate, because ye are a woman, I would have chosen a time more convenient for that purpose than I can do now, when your presence is within the realm.”

Changing the subject, she charged him with having taught the people to receive a religion different from that which was allowed by their princes; and she asked, if this was not contrary to the divine command, that subjects should obey their rulers. He replied, that true religion derived its origin and authority not from princes, but from God; that princes were often most ignorant on this point; and that subjects were not bound to frame their religious sentiments and practice according to the arbitrary will of their rulers, else the Hebrews ought to have conformed to the religion of Pharaoh, Daniel and his associates to that of Nebuchadnezzar and Darius, and the primitive Christians to that of the Roman emperors. “Yea,” replied the queen, qualifying her assertion; “but none of these men raised the sword against their princes.”—“Yet you cannot deny,” said he, “that they resisted; for those who obey not the commandment given them do in some sort resist.”—“But they resisted not with the sword,” rejoined the queen, pressing home the argument. “God, madam, had not given unto them the power and the means.”—“Think you,” said the queen, “that subjects, having the power, may resist their princes?”—“If princes exceed their bounds, madam, no doubt they may be resisted, even by power. For no greater honour, or greater obedience, is to be given to kings and princes, than God has commanded to be given to father and mother. But the father may be struck with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children. Now, madam, if the children arise, join together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison, till the frenzy be over, think you, madam, that the children do any wrong? Even so, madam, is it with princes that would murder the children of God that are subject unto them. Their blind zeal is nothing but a mad frenzy; therefore, to take the sword from them, to bind their hands, and to cast them into prison, till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no disobedience against princes, but just obedience, because it agreeth with the will of God.”

Mary, who had hitherto maintained her courage in reasoning, was completely overpowered by this bold answer; her countenance changed, and she remained in a silent stupor. Her brother spoke to her, and enquired the cause of her uneasiness; but she made no reply. Recovering herself at length, she said, “Well, then, I perceive that my subjects shall obey you, and not me, and will do what they please, and not what I command; and so must I be subject to them, and not they to me.”—“God forbid!” replied the Reformer, “that ever I take upon me to command any to obey me, or to set subjects at liberty to do whatever pleases them. But my travel is, that both princes and subjects may obey God. And think not, madam, that wrong is done you, when you are required to be subject unto God; for it is he who subjects people under princes, and causes obedience to be given unto them. He craves of kings that they be as foster‑fathers to his church, and commands queens to be nurses to his people. And this subjection, madam, unto God and his church, is the greatest dignity that flesh can get upon the face of the earth; for it shall raise them to everlasting glory.”

“But you are not the church that I will nourish,” said the queen; “I will defend the church of Rome; for it is, I think, the true church of God.”—“Your will, madam, is no reason, neither doth your thought make the Roman harlot to be the true and immaculate spouse of Jesus Christ. Wonder not, madam, that I call Rome an harlot, for that church is altogether polluted with all kinds of spiritual fornication, both in doctrine and manners.” He added, that he was ready to prove that the Roman church had declined farther from the purity of religion taught by the apostles, than the Jewish church had degenerated from the ordinances which God gave them by Moses and Aaron, at the time when they denied and crucified the Son of God. “My conscience is not so,” said the queen.—“Conscience, madam, requires knowledge; and I fear that right knowledge you have none.”—“But I have both heard and read.”—“So, madam, did the Jews who crucified Christ Jesus read the law and the prophets, and heard the same interpreted after their manner. Have you heard any teach but such as the pope and cardinals have allowed? and you may be assured, that such will speak nothing to offend their own estate.”

“You interpret the scriptures in one way,” said the queen evasively, “and they in another; whom shall I believe, and who shall be judge?”—“You shall believe God, who plainly speaketh in his word,” replied the Reformer; “and farther than the word teacheth you, you shall believe neither the one nor the other. The word of God is plain in itself; and if there appear any obscurity in one place, the Holy Ghost, who is never contrary to himself, explains the same more clearly in other places, so that there can remain no doubt, but unto such as are obstinately ignorant.” As an example, he selected one of the articles in controversy between the church of Rome and the protestants, and was proceeding to show, that the popish doctrine of the sacrifice of the mass was destitute of all foundation in scripture; but the queen, who was determined to avoid all discussion of the articles of her creed, interrupted him, by saying, that she was unable to contend with him in argument, but if she had those present whom she had heard, they would answer him. “Madam,” replied the Reformer, fervently, “would to God that the learnedest papist in Europe, and he whom you would best believe, were present with your grace to sustain the argument, and that you would wait patiently to hear the matter reasoned to the end! For then, I doubt not, madam, but you would hear the vanity of the papistical religion, and how little ground it hath in the word of God.”—“Well,” said she, “you may perchance get that sooner than you believe.”—“Assuredly, if ever I get that in my life, I get it sooner than I believe; for the ignorant papist cannot patiently reason, and the learned and crafty papist will never come, in your audience, madam, to have the ground of their religion searched out. When you shall let me see the contrary, I shall grant myself to have been deceived in that point.”

The hour of dinner afforded an occasion for breaking off this singular conversation. At taking leave of her majesty, the Reformer said, “I pray God, madam, that you may be as blessed within the commonwealth of Scotland, as ever Deborah was in the commonwealth of Israel.”48

I have been the more minute in the narrative of this curious conference, because it affords the most satisfactory refutation of the charge, that Knox treated Mary with rudeness and disrespect. For the same reason I shall lay before the reader a circumstantial account of the subsequent interviews between them, from which we shall perceive that, though the Reformer addressed her with a plainness to which crowned heads are seldom accustomed, he never lost sight of that respect which was due to the person of his sovereign, nor of that decorum which became his own character.

The interview between the queen and the Reformer excited great speculation, and different conjectures were formed as to its probable consequences. The catholics, whose hopes now depended solely on the queen, were alarmed, lest Knox’s rhetoric should have shaken her constancy. The protestants cherished the expectation that she would be induced to attend the protestant sermons, and that her religious prejudices would gradually abate.49 Knox indulged no such flattering expectations. He had made it his study, during the late conference, to discover the real character of the queen; and when some of his confidential friends asked his opinion of her, he told them that he was very much mistaken if she was not proud, crafty, obstinately wedded to the popish church, and averse to all means of instruction.50 Writing to Cecil, he says, “The queen neyther is, neyther shal be of our opinion; and, in very dead, her whole proceedings do declair that the cardinalle’s lessons ar so deaplie printed in her heart, that the substance and the qualitie are like to perishe together. I wold be glad to be deceaved, but I fear I shal not. In communication with her, I espyed such craft as I have not found in such aige. Since, hath the court been dead to me and I to it.”51

He resolved, therefore, vigilantly to watch her proceedings, and to give timely warning of any danger which might result from them to the reformed interest; and the more that he perceived the zeal of the protestant nobles to cool, and their jealousy to be laid asleep by the winning arts of the queen, the more frequently and loudly did he sound the alarm. Vehement and harsh as his expressions often were—violent, seditious, and insufferable, as his sermons and prayers have been pronounced to be, I have no hesitation in saying, that, as the public peace was never disturbed by them, so they were useful to the public safety, and a principal means of warding off for a time those confusions in which the country was afterwards involved, and which brought on the ultimate ruin of the infatuated queen. His uncourtly and rough manner was not, indeed, calculated to gain upon her mind, (nor is there any reason to think that an opposite manner would have had this effect,) and his admonitions often irritated her; but they obliged her to act with greater reserve and moderation; and they operated, to an indescribable degree, in arousing and keeping awake the zeal and the fears of the nation, which, at that period, were the two great safeguards of the protestant religion in Scotland. We may form an idea of the effect produced by his pulpit‑orations, from the account of the English ambassador, who was one of his constant hearers. “Where your honour,” says he, in a letter to Cecil, “exhorteth us to stoutness, I assure you the voice of one man is able, in an hour, to put more life in us, than six hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears.”52

The Reformer was not ignorant that some of his friends thought him too severe in his language, nor was he always disposed to vindicate the expressions which he employed. Still, however, he was persuaded that the times required the utmost plainness; and he was afraid that snares lurked under the smoothness which was recommended and practised by courtiers. Cecil having given him an advice on this head in one of his letters, Knox replied: “Men deliting to swym betwix two waters have often compleaned upon my severitie. I do fear that that which men terme lenitie and dulcenes, do bring upon themselves and others more fearful destruction, than yit hath ensewed the vehemency of any preacher within this realme.”53

That abatement of zeal which he had dreaded from “the holy water of the court,” soon began to appear among the protestant leaders. The general assemblies of the church were a great eye‑sore to the queen, who was very desirous to have them put down. At the first General Assembly held after her arrival, the courtiers, through her influence, absented themselves, and when challenged for this, began to dispute the propriety of such conventions without her majesty’s pleasure. On this point, there was sharp reasoning between Knox and Maitland, who was now made secretary of state. “Take from us the liberty of assemblies, and take from us the gospel,” said the Reformer. “If the liberty of the church must depend upon her allowance or disallowance, we shall want not only assemblies, but also the preaching of the gospel.” It was proposed that the Book of Discipline should be ratified by the queen; but this was keenly opposed by the secretary. “How many of those that subscribed that book will be subject to it?” said he, scoffingly. “All the godly,” it was answered. “Will the duke?” said he. “If he will not,” replied lord Ochiltree, “I wish that his name were scraped, not only out of that book, but also out of our number and company; for to what end shall men subscribe, and never mean to keep word of that which they promise?” Maitland said, that many subscribed it, in fide parentum, implicitly. Knox replied, that the scoff was as untrue as it was unbecoming; for the book was publicly read, and its different heads discussed, for a number of days, and no man was required to subscribe what he did not understand. “Stand content,” said one of the courtiers; “that book will not be obtained.”—“And let God require the injury which the commonwealth shall sustain, at the hands of those who hinder it,” replied the Reformer.54

He was still more indignant at their management in settling the provision for the ministers of the church. Hitherto they had lived chiefly on the benevolence of their hearers, and many of them had scarcely the means of subsistence; but repeated complaints having obliged the privy council to take up the affair, they came at last to a determination, that the ecclesiastical revenues should be divided into three parts; that two of these should be given to the ejected popish clergy; and that the third part should be divided between the court and the protestant ministry!55 The persons appointed to “modify the stipends,”56 were disposed to gratify the queen, and her demands were readily answered, while the sums allotted to the ministers were as ill paid as they were paltry and inadequate. “Weall!” exclaimed Knox, when he heard of this disgraceful arrangement, “if the end of this ordour, pretendit to be takin for sustentatioun of the ministers, be happie, my judgement failes me. I sie twa pairtis freelie gevin to the devill, and the third mon be devyded betwix God and the devill. Who wald have thocht, that when Joseph reulled in Egypt, his brethren sould have travellit for victualles, and have returned with emptie sackes unto thair families? O happie servands of the devill, and miserabill servants of Jesus Christ, if efter this lyf thair wer not hell and heavin!”57 At a conference held on this subject, Maitland complained of the ingratitude of the ministers, who did not acknowledge the queen’s liberality to them. “Assuredly,” replied Knox, with a derisive smile, “such as receive any thing of the queen are unthankful, if they acknowledge it not; but whether the ministers be of that rank or not, I greatly doubt. Has the queen better title to that which she usurps, be it in giving to others, or in taking to herself, than such as crucified Christ had to divide his garments among them? Let the papists who have the two parts, some that have their thirds free, and some that have gotten abbacies and feu‑lands, thank the queen; the poor preachers will not yet flatter for feeding their bellies. To your dumb dogs, formerly ten thousand was not enough; but to the servants of Christ, that painfully preach his evangell, a thousand pound! how can that be sustained?”—“These words,” he himself tells us, “were judged proud and intolerable, and engendered no small displeasure to the speaker.”58

Knox gave vent to his feelings on this subject the more freely, as his complaints could not be imputed to personal motives; for his own stipend, though moderate, was liberal when compared with those of the most of his brethren. From the time of his last return to Scotland, until the conclusion of the war, he had been indebted to the liberality of individuals for the support of his family. After that period, he lodged in the house of David Forrest, a burgess of Edinburgh, from which he removed to the lodging which had belonged to Durie, abbot of Dunfermline. As soon as he began to preach statedly in the city, the town council assigned him an annual stipend of two hundred pounds, which he was entitled to receive quarterly; and they also paid his house‑rent, and his board, during the time that he had resided with Forrest. Subsequent to the settlement made by the privy council, it would seem that he received, at least, a part of his income from the common fund allotted to the ministers of the church; but the good town had still an opportunity of testifying their generosity, by supplying the deficiencies of the legal allowance. Indeed, the uniform attention of the town council to his external support and accommodation, was honourable to them, and deserves to be recorded to their commendation.59

In the beginning of the year 1562, he went to Angus to preside in the election and admission of John Erskine of Dun, as superintendent of Angus and Mearns. That respectable baron was one of those whom the first General Assembly declared “apt and able to minister;”60 and having already contributed in different ways to the advancement of the Reformation, he now devoted himself to the service of the church, in a laborious employment, at a time when she stood eminently in need of the assistance of all the learned and pious. Knox had formerly presided at the installation of John Spotswood, as superintendent of Lothian.61

The influence of our Reformer appears from his being employed on different occasions to act as umpire and mediator in disputes of a civil nature among the protestants. He was frequently requested to intercede with the town council in behalf of such of the inhabitants as had subjected themselves to punishment by their disorderly conduct.62 Soon after his return to Scotland, he had composed a domestic variance between the earl and countess of Argyle.63 In the year 1561, he had been employed as arbitrator in a difference between Archibald, earl of Angus, and his brothers.64 And he was now urged by the earl of Bothwell to assist in removing a deadly feud which subsisted between him and the earl of Arran. He was averse to interfere in this business, which had already baffled the authority of the privy council;65 but at the desire of friends, he yielded, and, after considerable pains, had the satisfaction of bringing the parties to an amicable interview, at which they mutually promised to bury their former differences. But all the fair hopes which he had formed from this reconciliation were speedily blasted. For, in the course of a few days, Arran came to him in great agitation, with the information that Bothwell had endeavoured to engage him in a conspiracy, to seize upon the person of the queen, and to kill the prior of St Andrews, Maitland, and the rest of her counsellors. Knox does not seem to have given much credit to this information; he even endeavoured to prevent Arran from making it public; in this, however, he did not succeed, and both noblemen were imprisoned. It soon after became evident that Arran was lunatic, but the fears of the courtiers show that they did not altogether disbelieve his accusation, and that they suspected that Bothwell had formed a design of which his future conduct proved him not incapable.66

In the month of May, Knox had another interview with the queen, on the following occasion. The family of Guise were making the most vigorous efforts to regain that ascendency in the French councils of which they had been deprived since the death of Francis II.; and, as zeal for the catholic religion was the cloak under which they concealed their ambitious designs, they began by stirring up persecution against the protestants. The massacre of Vassy, in the beginning of March, was a prelude to this; in which the duke of Guise and cardinal of Lorrain attacked, with an armed force, a congregation peaceably assembled for worship, killed a number of them, and wounded and mutilated others, not excepting women and children.67 Intelligence of the success which attended the measures of her uncles was brought to queen Mary, who immediately after gave a splendid ball to her foreign servants, at which the dancing was prolonged to a late hour.

Knox was advertised of the festivities in the palace, and had no doubt that they were occasioned by the accounts which the queen had received from France. He always felt a lively interest in the concerns of the French protestants, with many of whom he was intimately acquainted; and he entertained a very bad opinion of the princes of Lorrain. In his sermon on the following Sabbath, after discoursing of the dignity of magistrates, and the obedience which was due to them, he proceeded to lament the abuse which the greater part of rulers made of their power, and introduced some severe strictures upon the vices to which they were commonly addicted, their oppression, ignorance, hatred of virtue, attachment to bad company, and fondness for foolish pleasures. Glancing at the amusements which were common in the palace, he said that princes were more exercised in dancing and music than in reading or hearing the word of God, and delighted more in fiddlers and flatterers than in the company of wise and grave men, who were capable of giving them wholesome counsel. As to dancing, he said, that, although he did not find it praised in scripture, and profane writers had termed it a gesture more becoming mad than sober men, yet he would not utterly condemn it, provided those who practised it did not neglect the duties of their station, and did not dance, like the Philistines, from joy at the misfortunes of God’s people. If they were guilty of such conduct, their mirth would soon be converted into sorrow. Information of this discourse was quickly conveyed to the queen, with many exaggerations; and the preacher was next day ordered to attend at the palace. Being conveyed into the royal chamber, where the queen sat with her maids of honour and principal counsellors, he was accused of having spoken of her majesty irreverently, and in a manner calculated to bring her under the contempt and hatred of her subjects.

After the queen had made a long speech on that theme, he was allowed to state his defence. He told her majesty, that she had been treated as persons usually were who refused to attend the preaching of the word of God; she had been deceived by the false reports of flatterers. For, if she had heard the calumniated discourse, he did not believe she could have been offended with any thing that he had said. She would now, therefore, be pleased to hear him repeat, as exactly as he could, what he had preached yesterday. Mary was obliged for once to listen to a protestant sermon. Having finished the recapitulation of his discourse, he said, “If any man, madam, will say that I spake more, let him presently accuse me; for I think I have not only touched the sum, but the very words as I spake them.” Several of the company, who had heard the sermon, attested that he had given a fair and accurate account of it. After turning round to the informers, who were dumb, the queen told him, that his words, though sharp enough as related by himself, had been reported to her in a different way. She added, that she knew that her uncles and he were of a different religion, and therefore did not blame him for having no good opinion of them; but if he heard any thing about her conduct which displeased him, he ought to come to herself privately, and she would willingly listen to his admonitions. Knox easily saw through this proposal; and, from what he already knew of Mary’s character, was convinced that she had no inclination to receive his private instructions, but wished merely to induce him to refrain in his sermons from every thing that might be displeasing to the court. He replied, that he was willing to do any thing for her majesty’s contentment, which was consistent with his office; if her grace chose to attend the public sermons, she would have an opportunity of knowing what pleased or displeased him in her and in others; or if she chose to appoint a time when she would hear the substance of the doctrine which he preached in public, he would most gladly wait upon her grace’s pleasure, time, and place; but to come and wait at her chamber‑door, and then to have liberty only to whisper in her ear what people thought and said of her, that would neither his conscience nor his office permit him to do. “For,” added he, in a strain which he sometimes used even on serious occasions, “albeit, at your grace’s commandment, I am heir now, yit can I not tell what uther men shall judge of me, that, at this time of day, am absent from my buke, and waitting upon the court.”—“Ye will not alwayes be at your buke,” said the queen, pettishly, and turned her back. As he left the room “with a reasonable merry countenance,” he overheard one of the popish attendants saying, “He is not afraid!”—“Why should the plesing face of a gentilwoman afray me?” said he, regarding them with a sarcastic scowl; “I have luiked in the faces of mony angry men, and yit have not bene affrayed above measour.”68

There was at that time but one place of worship in the city of Edinburgh.69 The number of inhabitants was, indeed, small, when compared with its present population; but still they must have formed a very large congregation. St Giles’s church, the place then used for worship, was capacious; for we learn that, on some occasions, three thousand persons assembled in it to hear sermon.70 In this church, Knox had, since 1560, performed all the parts of ministerial duty, without any other assistant than John Cairns, who acted as reader.71 He preached twice every Sabbath, and thrice on other days of the week.72 He met regularly once every week with his kirk‑session for discipline,73 and with the assembly of the neighbourhood for the exercise on the scriptures. He attended, besides, the meetings of the provincial synod and general assembly; and at almost every meeting of the latter, he received an appointment to visit and preach in some distant part of the country. These labours must have been oppressive to a constitution which was already much impaired; especially as he did not indulge in extemporaneous effusions, but devoted a part of every day to study. His parish was sensible of this; and, in April 1562, the town council came to a unanimous resolution to solicit the minister of Canongate to undertake the half of the charge. The ensuing general assembly approved of the council’s proposal, and appointed the translation to take place.74 It was not, however, accomplished before June 1563, owing, as it would seem, to the difficulty of obtaining an additional stipend.75

The person who was appointed colleague to our Reformer was John Craig. A short account of this distinguished minister cannot be altogether foreign to the history of one with whom he was so strictly associated, and it will present incidents which are curious in themselves, and illustrative of the singular manner in which many of the promoters of the Reformation were fitted by providence for engaging in that great undertaking. He was born in 1512, and soon after lost his father in the battle of Flodden, which proved fatal to so many families in Scotland. After finishing his education at the university of St Andrews, he went to England, and became tutor to the family of Lord Dacres; but war having broken out between England and Scotland, he returned to his native country, and entered into the order of Dominican friars. The Scottish clergy were at that time eager in making inquisition for Lutherans; and owing to the circumstance of his having been in England, or to his having dropped some expressions respecting religion which were deemed too free, Craig fell under the suspicion of heresy, and was thrown into prison. The accusation was found to be groundless, and he was set at liberty. But although still attached to the Roman catholic religion, the ignorance and bigotry of the clergy gave him such a disgust at his native country, that he left it in 1537, and, after remaining a short time in England, went to France, and from that to Italy. At the recommendation of the celebrated cardinal Pole, he was admitted among the Dominicans in the city of Bologna, and was soon raised to an honourable employment in that body. In the library of the Inquisition, which was attached to the monastery, he found a copy of Calvin’s Institutions. Being fond of books, he determined to read that work; and the consequence was, that he became a thorough convert to the reformed opinions. In the warmth of his first impressions, he could not refrain from imparting his change of sentiments to his associates, and must soon have fallen a sacrifice to the vigilant guardians of the faith, had not the friendship of a father in the monastery saved him. The old man, who was a native of Scotland, represented the danger to which he exposed himself by avowing such tenets in that place, and advised him, if he was fixed in his views, to retire immediately to some protestant country. With this prudent advice he complied so far as to procure his discharge from the monastery.

At an early period of the Christian era, there were converts to the gospel “in Cæsar’s household;” and in the sixteenth century, the light of reformation penetrated into Italy, and even into the territories of the Roman pontiff. On leaving the monastery of Bologna, Craig entered as tutor into the family of a neighbouring nobleman, who had embraced protestant principles; but he had not resided long in it, when, along with his host, he was delated for heresy, seized by the familiars of the Inquisition, and carried to Rome. After being confined nine months in a noisome dungeon, he was brought to trial, and condemned to be burnt, along with some others, on the 20th of August, 1559. On the evening previous to the day appointed for their execution, the reigning pontiff, Paul IV., died; and, according to an accustomed practice on such occasions, the prisons in Rome were all thrown open. While those who were confined for debt and other civil offences were liberated, heretics, after being allowed to go without the walls of their prison, were conveyed back to their cells. A tumult, however, having been raised that night in the city, Craig and his companions effected their escape, and took refuge in a house at a small distance from Rome. They had not been long there when they were followed by a company of soldiers, sent to apprehend them. On entering the house, the captain looked Craig eagerly in the face, and taking him aside, asked, if he recollected of once relieving a poor wounded soldier in the vicinity of Bologna. Craig was in too great confusion to remember the circumstance. “But I remember it,” replied the captain, “and I am the man whom you relieved, and providence has now put it in my power to return the kindness which you showed to a distressed stranger. You are at liberty; your companions I must take along with me, but, for your sake, shall show them every favour in my power.” He then gave him what money he had upon him, with directions how to make his escape.

We are not yet done with the wonderful incidents in the life of Craig. “Another accident,” says archbishop Spotswood, “befell him, which I should scarcely relate, so incredible it seemeth, if to many of good place he himself had not often repeated it as a singular testimony of God’s care of him.” In the course of his journey through Italy, while he avoided the public roads, and took a circuitous route to escape from pursuit, the money which he had received from the grateful soldier failed him. Having laid himself down by the side of a wood to ruminate on his condition, he perceived a dog approaching him with a purse in its teeth. It occurred to him that it had been sent by some evil‑disposed person who was concealed in the wood, and wished to pick a quarrel with him. He therefore endeavoured to drive it away, but the animal continuing to fawn upon him, he at last took the purse, and found in it a sum of money which enabled him to prosecute his journey. Having reached Vienna, and announced himself as a Dominican, he was employed to preach before the archduke of Austria, who afterwards wore the imperial crown, under the title of Maximilian II. That discerning prince, who was not unfriendly to a religious reform, was so much pleased with the sermon, that he was desirous of retaining Craig; but the new pope, Pius IV., having heard of his reception at the Austrian capital, applied to have him sent back to Rome as a condemned heretic; upon which the archduke dismissed him with a safe‑conduct. When he arrived in England, in 1560, and was informed of the establishment of the reformed religion in his native country, he immediately repaired to Scotland, and was admitted to the ministry. Having in a great measure forgotten his native language during an absence of twenty‑four years, he preached for a short time in Latin to some of the learned in Magdalene chapel. He was afterwards appointed minister of the parish of Canongate, where he had not officiated long, till he was elected colleague to Knox.76

The queen still persevered in the line of policy which she had adopted at her first arrival in Scotland, and employed none but protestant counsellors. She intrusted the chief direction of public affairs to the prior of St Andrews, who, in 1562, was created earl of Murray,77 and married a daughter of the earl marischal. The marriage ceremony was performed by Knox publicly before the congregation, according to the custom at that time; and on that occasion the Reformer reminded the earl of the benefit which the church had hitherto received from his services, and exhorted him to persevere in the same course, lest, if an unfavourable change was perceived, the blame should be imputed to his wife.78 The fact, however, was, that Knox was more afraid that Murray would be corrupted by his connexion with the court, than by his matrimonial alliance.

Although the protestants filled the cabinet, it was well known that they did not possess the affection and confidence of her majesty, and in consequence of this, various plots were laid to displace and ruin them. During the autumn of 1562, the Roman catholics in Scotland entertained great hopes of a change in their favour. After several unsuccessful attempts to cut off the principal courtiers,79 the earl of Huntly openly took arms in the north, to rescue the queen from their hands; while the archbishop of St Andrews endeavoured to unite and rouse the papists of the south. On this occasion, our Reformer acted with his usual zeal and foresight. Being appointed by the General Assembly as commissioner to visit the churches of the west, he persuaded the gentlemen of that quarter to enter into a new bond of defence. Hastening into Nithsdale and Galloway, he, by his sermons and conversation, confirmed the protestants in these places. He employed the master of Maxwell to write to the earl of Bothwell, who had escaped from confinement, and meant, it was feared, to join Huntly. He himself wrote to the duke of Chastelherault, warning him not to listen to the solicitations of his brother, the archbishop, nor accede to a conspiracy which would infallibly prove the ruin of his house. By these means the southern parts of the kingdom were preserved in a state of peace, while the vigorous measures of Murray crushed the rebellion in the north.80 The queen expressed little satisfaction at the victory gained over Huntly, and there is every reason to think, that, if not privy to his rising, she expected to turn it to the advancement of her projects.81 According to archbishop Spotswood, she scrupled not to say, at this time, that she “hoped, before a year was expired, to have the mass and catholic profession restored through the whole kingdom.”82

While these hopes were indulged, the popish clergy thought it necessary to gain credit to their cause, by appearing more openly in defence of their tenets than they had lately done. They began to preach publicly in different parts of the country, and boasted that they were ready to dispute with the protestant ministers.83

The person who stept forward as their champion was Quintin Kennedy, uncle to the earl of Cassilis, and abbot of Crossraguel. Though his talents were not of a superior order, the abbot was certainly one of the most respectable of the popish clergy in Scotland, not only in birth, but also in regularity and decorum of conduct. He seems to have spent the greater part of his life in the same neglect of professional duty which characterised his brethren; but he was roused from his inactivity by the zeal and success of the protestant preachers, who, in the years 1556 and 1557, attacked the popish faith, and inveighed against the idleness and corruption of the clergy.84 At an age when others retire from the field, he began to rub up his long‑neglected armour, and descended into the theological arena.

His first appearance as a polemical writer was in 1558, when he published a short system of catholic tactics, under the title of Ane Compendius Tractive, showing “the nerrest and onlie way to establish the conscience of a Christian man,” in all matters which were in debate concerning faith and religion. This way was no other than implicit faith in the decisions of the church or clergy. When any point of religion was controverted, the scripture might be cited as a witness, but the church was the judge, whose determinations, in general councils canonically assembled, were to be humbly received and submitted to by all the faithful.85 It was but “a barbour saying,” which the protestants had commonly in their mouths, that every man ought to examine the scriptures for himself. It was sufficient for those who did not occupy the place of teachers, that they had a general knowledge of the creed, the ten commandments, and the Lord’s prayer, according to the sense in which these were explained by the church. And “as to the sacramentis, and all other secretis of the scripture,” every Christian man ought to “stand to the judgement of his pastor, who did bear his burden in all matters doubtsome above his knowledge.”86

This was doubtless a very near way to stability of mind, and a most compendious mode of deciding every controversy which might arise, without having recourse to examination, reasoning, or debate. But as the wilful and stubborn reformers would not submit to this easy and short mode of decision, the abbot was reluctantly obliged to enter the lists of argument with them. Accordingly, in the beginning of 1559, he challenged Willock, who was preaching in his neighbourhood, to a dispute on the sacrifice of the mass. The challenge was accepted, the time and place of meeting were fixed; but the dispute did not take place, as Kennedy refused to appear, unless his antagonist would previously engage to submit to the interpretations of scripture which had been given by the ancient doctors of the church.87 From this time he seems to have made the mass the great subject of his study, and in 1561 wrote a book in its defence, which was answered by George Hay.88

On the 30th of August, 1562, the abbot read, in his chapel of Kirkoswald, a number of articles respecting the mass, purgatory, praying to saints, the use of images, and other points, which, he said, he would defend against any who should impugn them, and he promised to declare his mind more fully on the following Sabbath. Knox, who was in the vicinity, came to Kirkoswald on that day, with the design of hearing the abbot, and granting him the disputation which he had courted. In the morning, he sent some gentlemen who accompanied him to acquaint Kennedy with the reason of his coming, and to desire him either to preach according to his promise, or to attend Knox’s sermon, and afterwards to state his objections to the doctrine which might be delivered. The abbot did not think it proper to appear, and Knox preached in the chapel. When he came down from the pulpit, a letter from Kennedy was put into his hand, which led to an epistolary correspondence between them, fully as curious as the dispute which followed.

The abbot wrote to Knox, that he was informed he had come to that quarter of the country “to seik disputation,” which he was so far from refusing that he “earnestlie and effectuouslie covated the samin,” and with that view should meet him next Sunday in any house in Maybole that he choosed, provided not more than twenty persons on each side were allowed to be present. The Reformer replied, that he had come to that quarter for the purpose of preaching the gospel, and not of disputing; that he was under a previous engagement to be in Dumfries on the day mentioned by the abbot, but that he would return with all convenient speed, and fix a time for meeting him. To this letter the abbot sent an answer, to which Knox merely returned a verbal message at the time; but when he afterwards published the correspondence, affixed short notes to it by way of reply. The abbot proposed that they should have “familear, formall, and gentill ressoning.”—“With my whole hart I accept the condition,” replies the Reformer; “for assuredlie, my lord, (so I stile you by reason of blood, and not of office,) chiding and brawling I utterlie abhor.” To Knox’s declaration that he had come to “preach Jesus Christ crucified to be the only Saviour of the world,” the abbot answers, “Praise be to God, that was na newings in this countrie, or ye war borne.”—“I greatlie dout,” replies the Reformer, “if ever Christ Jesus wes truelie preached by a papistical prelat or monk.” As an excuse for his not preaching at Kirkoswald on the day he had promised, the abbot says, that Knox had come to the place convoyed by five or six score strangers. “I lay the night before,” says Knox, “in Mayboil, accompanied with fewer than twentie.” The abbot boasted, that Willock, at a former period, and Hay, more lately, had refused to dispute with him, until they consulted the council and their brethren. “Maister George Hay offered unto you disputation, but ye fled the barrass.” Knox wished the dispute to be conducted publicly in St John’s church, Ayr; for, says he, “I wonder with what conscience ye can require privat conference of those artikles that ye have publicklie proponed. Ye have infected the ears of the simple, ye have wounded the hartes of the godlie, and ye have spoken blasphemie in oppen audience. Let your owne conscience now be judge, if we be bound to answer you in the audience of twenty or forty, of whom the one half are alreadie persuaded in the treuth, and the other perchance so addicted to your error, that they will not be content that light be called light, and darknes, darknes.”—“Ye said ane lytill afore,” answers the abbot, “ye did abhor all chiding and railing, bot nature passis nurtor with yow.”—“I will neither interchange nature nor nurtor with yow, for all the proffets of Crosraguell.”—“Gif the victorie consist in clamor or crying out,” says the abbot, objecting to a public meeting, “I wil quite you the cause but farder pley;89 and yet, praise be to God, I may whisper in sic manner as I will be hard sufficientlie in the largest house in all Carrick.”—“The larger the house, the better for the auditor and me,” replied the Reformer.

The earl of Cassilis wrote to Knox, expressing his disapprobation of the proposed dispute, as unlikely to do any good, and calculated to endanger the public peace; to which the Reformer replied, by signifying, that his relation had given the challenge, which he was resolved not to decline, and that his lordship ought to encourage him to keep the appointment, from which no bad effects were to be dreaded. Upon this the abbot wrote a letter to Knox, charging him with having procured Cassilis’s letter, to bring him into disgrace, and to advance his own honour; and saying, that he would have “rancountered” him the last time he was in that country, had it not been for the interposition of his nephew. “Ye sal be assured,” adds he, “I sal keip day and place in Mayboill, according to my writing, an I haif my life, and my feit louse;” and in another letter to Knox and the bailies of Ayr, he says, “keip your promes, and pretex na joukrie, by my lorde of Cassilis writing.”—“To nether of these,” says Knox, “did I answer otherwise than by appointing the day, and promising to keap the same. For I can pacientlie suffer wantone men to speak wantonlie, considering that I had sufficientlie answered my lord of Cassilis in that behalf.”

The conditions of the combat were now speedily settled. They agreed to meet on the 28th of September, at eight o’clock in the morning, in the house of the provost of Maybole. Forty persons on each side were to be admitted as witnesses of the dispute, with “as many mo as the house might goodly hold, at the sight of my lord of Cassilis.” And notaries, or scribes, were chosen on each side to record the papers which might be given in by the parties, and the arguments which they advanced in the course of reasoning, to prevent unnecessary repetition, or a false report of the proceedings. These conditions were formally drawn out, and subscribed by the Abbot and the Reformer, on the day preceding the meeting.

When they met, “Johne Knox addressed him to make publict prayer, whereat the abbot wes soir offended at the first, but whil the said John wold in nowise be stayed, he and his gave audience; which being ended, the abbote said, ‘Be my faith, it is weill said.’” The reasoning commenced by reading a paper presented by the abbot, in which, after rehearsing the occasion of his present appearance, and protesting, that his entering into dispute was not to be understood as implying that the points in question were disputable or dubious, being already determined by lawful general councils, he declared his readiness to defend the articles which he had exhibited, beginning with that concerning the sacrifice of the mass. To this paper Knox gave in a written answer in the course of the disputation; and, in the meantime, after stating his opinion respecting general councils, he proceeded to the article in dispute. It was requisite, he said, to state clearly and distinctly the subject in controversy; and he thought the mass contained the four following things: the name, the form and action, the opinion entertained of it, and the actor, with the authority which he had to do what he pretended to do; all of which he was prepared to show, were destitute of any foundation in scripture. The abbot was aware of the difficulty of managing the point on such broad ground, and he had taken up ground of his own, which he thought he could maintain against his antagonist. “As to the masse that he will impung,” said he, “or any mannes masse, yea, an it war the paipes awin masse, I will mantein na thing but Jesus Christes masse, conforme to my article, as it is written, and diffinition contened in my buik, whilk he hes tane on hand to impung.”

Knox expressed his delight at hearing the abbot say, that he would defend nothing but the mass of Christ, for if he adhered to this, they were “on the verray point of an christiane agrement,” as he was ready to allow whatever could be shown to have been instituted by Christ. As to his lordship’s book, he confessed he had not read it, and (without excusing his negligence) requested the definition to be read to him from it. The abbot qualified his assertion by saying, that he meant to defend no other mass, except that which in its “substance, institution, and effect,” was appointed by Christ; and he defined the mass, in its substance and effect, to be the sacrifice and oblation of the Lord’s body and blood, given and offered by him in the last supper; and for the first confirmation of this, he rested upon the oblation of bread and wine by Melchizedec. His argument was, that the scripture declared Christ to be a priest after the order of Melchizedec: Melchizedec offered bread and wine to God: therefore Christ offered or made oblation of his body and blood in the last supper, which was the only instance in which the priesthood of Christ and Melchizedec could agree.

Knox said, that the ceremonies of the mass, and the opinion entertained of it, (as procuring remission of sins to the quick and the dead,) were viewed as important parts of it, and, having a strong hold of the consciences of the people, ought to be taken into the argument; but as the abbot declared himself willing to defend these afterwards, he would proceed to the substance, and proposed, in the first place, to fix the sense in which the word sacrifice or oblation was used in this question. There were sacrifices propitiatoriæ, for expiation, and eucharisticæ, for thanksgiving; in which last sense the mortification of the body, prayer, and almsgiving were called sacrifices in scripture. He wished, therefore, to know whether the abbot understood the word in the first or second of these senses in this dispute. The abbot said, that he would not at present enquire what his opponent meant by a sacrifice propitiatorium; but he held the sacrifice on the cross to be the only sacrifice of redemption, and that of the mass to be the sacrifice of commemoration of the death and passion of Christ. Knox replied, that the chief head which he intended to impugn, seemed to be yielded by the abbot; and he, for his part, cheerfully granted, that there was a commemoration of Christ’s death in the right use of the ordinance of the supper.

The abbot insisted that Knox should proceed to impugn the warrant which he had taken from scripture for his article. “Protesting,” said the Reformer, “that this mekle is win, that the sacrifice of the messe being denied by me to be a sacrifice propitiatorie for the sins of the quick and the dead (according to the opinion thereof before conceaved), hath no patron at the present, I am content to procede.”—“I protest he hes win nothing of me as yit, and referres it to black and white contened in our writing.”—“I have openlie denied the masse to be an sacrifice propitiatorie for the quick, &c., and the defence thereof is denied. And, therefore, I referre me unto the same judges that my lord hath clamed.”—“Ye may denie what ye pleis; for all that ye denie I tak not presentlie to impung; but whair I began, there will I end, that is, to defend the messe conform to my artickle.”—“Your lordship’s ground,” said Knox, after some altercation, “is, that Melchizedeck is the figure of Christe in that he did offer unto God bread and wine, and that it behoved Jesus Christ to offer, in his latter supper, his body and blude under the forms of bread and wine. I answer to your ground yet againe, that Melchizedeck offered neither bread nor wine unto God; and, therefore, it that ye would thereupon conclude hath no assurance of your ground.”—“Preve that,” said the abbot. Knox replied, that according to the rules of just reasoning, he could not be bound to prove a negative; that it was incumbent on his opponent to bring forward some proof for his affirmation, concerning which, the text was altogether silent; and that until the abbot did this, it was sufficient for him simply to deny. But the abbot said, he “stuck to his text,” and insisted that his antagonist should show for what purpose Melchizedec brought out the bread and the wine, if it was not to offer them to God. After protesting that the abbot’s position remained destitute of support, and that he was not bound, in point of argument, to show what became of the bread and wine, or what use was made of them, Knox consented to state his opinion, that they were intended by Melchizedec to refresh Abraham and his company. The abbot had now gained what he wished; and he had a number of objections ready to start against this view of the words, by which he was able at least to protract and involve the dispute. And thus ended the first day’s contest.