Chapter XVII

History of Protestantism in Scotland, and the Conflict of the Clergy with the Government.

THUS far the revolutionary movement awakened and stirred society to the core; but as yet the nation was much divided. On the one hand, the Earls of Morton, Glencairn, Athole, Mar, Lord Lindsay, Lord Hume, and others, with Moray as their leader, were supported by the reformed clergy. On the other hand, a section of the Protestant nobles who disapproved of the treatment of the Queen, still stood aloof and were assuming a decided attitude; while the Roman Catholic party were constantly active and looking for their opportunity. On all sides the elements of conflict were apparent.

On the 11th of August, 1567, the Earl of Moray, who had been recalled from France by his party, arrived in Edinburgh. After conferring with his friends, he consented to accept the regency, but before formally assuming the office, he wished to have an interview with the Queen. He was accompanied to Lochleven, by Morton, Athole, and Lord Lindsay; but the Queen naturally desired to see her brother alone, and her request was granted. What passed between them, is rather hard to ascertain. It has been reported that he reproached her for her conduct in the severest manner, that the Queen was extremely afflicted, and that after a long interview he left her to ponder over what he had said. Next morning the Queen and Moray again met. There was more sympathy between them; and at the Queen’s request Moray agreed to accept the regency.¹

¹ Sir James Melville’s Memoirs, pages 193‒194; Hosack’s Queen Mary, Volume I., pages 373‒375.

On the 22nd of August, Moray formally assumed office in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, and having taken the oath required by the constitution, was proclaimed Regent. The following day the Council issued an order calling in all the seals, that they might be broken and destroyed, and new ones made with a legend appropriate to James VI.¹ The new Regent exerted himself to the utmost to restore order and administer justice in the nation. He commanded the leading men of the Merse to appear before the Council on the last day of August to concert measures for the quiet administration of justice within the East March. The Hamiltons offered some opposition to his authority within their territories, but it was easily overcome. Moray’s next aim was to get possession of the castle of Edinburgh. The Governor, Sir James Balfour, was bought over by a bribe, and the castle was then committed to Sir William Kirkaldy the laird of Grange. The Regent also struggled hard for the castle of Dunbar, and it fell into his hands about the end of September. The castle of Dumbarton, however, still held out for the Queen. Orders were issued for the surrender of many other castles; and great efforts were made to establish peace and order throughout the kingdom.²

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 548‒551.

² Ibid., Volume I., pages 551‒576; Stevenson’s Selections, pages 283, 291‒294.

Moray summoned a parliament which met at Edinburgh in December, 1567, “to treat on the affairs tending to the glory of God, the setting forth of the King’s authority, and for establishing good and necessary laws in the kingdom.” This parliament ratified the most important steps of the Reformation. The acts passed in 1560 which had never received the royal assent, were confirmed, and the Confession of Faith was inserted in the record of the parliamentary proceedings.¹ Henceforward the great revolution which had substituted Protestantism for Romanism in Scotland may be regarded as secured; though there were still many weighty and interesting matters relating to the polity and rights of the reformed Church, and the claims of her clergy, remaining to be settled, which afterwards led to a protracted struggle with the Crown.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 3‒45.

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh on the 25th of December, 1567. All the members present agreed to a proposition that a certain number of ministers should be appointed to meet at any time with such members of parliament or of the Privy Council as the Regent should name, as a committee to advise on the affairs of the Church.¹ The reformed Church gave the Regent a firm and undivided support; and his government required all their aid. It was said that he took great trouble to pounce upon the thieves and vagabonds who distressed the people, and held courts of justice throughout the country; but that he took no such care to settle the differences and whims of the nobility, and thus failed to draw them into obedience to the King. For all the Regent’s energy and the success of his government, the army still required to be kept in the field. On the 14th of February, 1568, the lead on the cathedral churches of Aberdeen and Elgin, part of which had already been stolen, was ordered to be stripped off and sold, and the proceeds applied to maintain the King’s troops.² The Queen’s party continued exceedingly active. A considerable section of the people were still dissatisfied, and the Regent was often warned that trouble was brewing.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, page 113.

² Sir James Melville’s Memoirs, pages 198‒199; Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 599, 608‒614.

In the beginning of May, 1568, the Queen escaped from her imprisonment in Lochleven, and proceeded to Hamilton. Her chief adherents were the Earls of Argyle, Huntly, Rothes, Cassillis; the Lords Harris, Livingston, Fleming, and Claud Hamilton.¹ In a few days she was at the head of a force of four or five thousand armed men. When the intelligence of Mary’s escape reached him, the Regent was at Glasgow holding justice courts. On the 3rd of May he ordered a muster of all the Crown vassals, for the preservation of the King’s authority and person, and for establishing justice and peace in the kingdom. He resolved at once to meet the danger, and marching out of Glasgow, took up a position at Langside. On the 13th of May the followers of the Queen gave him battle. His victory was complete, and Mary herself fled towards the Border;² and in an unhappy hour determined to throw herself upon the hospitality of the Queen of England.

¹ Keith, Volume II., pages 797‒799.

² Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 620‒622.

After the flight of the Queen, the Regent continued his efforts to restore order in the kingdom. This was no easy task. He had a host of enemies, and was always making more, for the peculiar position into which he had allowed himself to be put, necessarily multiplied his foes. When parliament was summoned to meet in July, 1568, the keenness of the struggle was intensified as soon as it became known that the enemies of the Regent’s government would be subjected to forfeiture. The Archbishop of St. Andrews was cited to appear before the Council, and having failed to appear, was declared a rebel and outlawed. The Earl of Crawford and others were also proclaimed rebels. Parliament met at the appointed time, but it was immediately adjourned to August, when proceedings of forfeiture were to be begun against the opponents of the government. From motives of policy, however, only a few were condemned, and hopes were held out to others, with the view of inducing them to submit.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 624‒634, 638; Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 47‒58.

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh on the 1st of July, 1568. John Willock was chosen moderator, and the members proceeded to the business before them. They presented a number of articles to the Regent and craved reform of abuses. Among other things they complained that their stipends were not fully paid; and requested that the College of Aberdeen should be reformed, the corrupted office-bearers removed and others appointed in their places, so that the youth might be instructed in letters and godliness. They desired the Regent to adopt measures for the suppression of vice, that the plague of God might thereby be withdrawn from the nation. The Regent listened with respect to their requests and returned a favourable answer. This Assembly resolved that all the Catholics, who after due admonition refused to join themselves to the Reformed Church, should be cast out of the society of Christ’s body and excommunicated. But the Assembly which met in February the following year, presented to the Regent a series of similar articles praying that remedies might be adopted; and in reference to the Regent’s former proposal touching vice and crime, they added​—“If his grace send us to the Justice-Clerk, experience has sufficiently taught us what he has done in any such matters.”¹ They meant that he had done nothing at all.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 123, 126‒129, 139, 140.

In the end of September, 1568, the Regent, accompanied by the Earl of Morton, Lord Lindsay, and other leading men of his party, passed to England to attend the conference at York touching Queen Mary. But it does not fall within the scope of my work to follow the story of that unhappy Queen after her flight to England; although it has been intensely interesting to some minds, it is not sufficiently important in its bearing upon the main subject to justify its introduction.¹

¹ This matter is treated in the histories of Tytler and Burton, very fully in Hosack’s Queen Mary, and in many other works which need not be enumerated.

When the Regent returned from England in the beginning of February 1569, he found his position in Scotland to be one of extreme difficulty. In the interval the Queen’s party had become more powerful and restless, and were employing every means in their power to harass his government and the unhappy people. Moray continued to act with energy, but some of his supporters deserted, and his enemies multiplied. Maitland of Lethington, who had fallen under the suspicion of the Regent, joined the Laird of Grange, the governor of the Castle of Edinburgh. Both of them threw in their lot with the cause of Mary, and thus the strongest and most important fortress in the kingdom passed into the hands of her party. It was mainly owing to this circumstance that the supporters of the Queen were able to hold out so long in Scotland. The other centres of her party were Huntly and the Gordons in the north, the Hamiltons and Argyle in the west, and some of the border clans. Thus hemmed in and hard pressed on every side, the Regent struggled on, and if his career had not been cut short, he would in all probability, with the assistance of the money of England, have overcome his enemies; but in the beginning of the year 1570, as the castle of Edinburgh was in the hands of the Queen’s adherents, he set out for Stirling; and on the 13th of January, when returning through Linlithgow, he was shot by Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh. The bullet passed through his body, and he died in a few hours. The assassin escaped on a fleet horse and rode to Hamilton Castle. Moray’s death was bewailed by the people and by the reformed clergy, who both regarded him as the arm of their safety.¹ To the party of the young King Moray’s death was a severe blow. He was an unscrupulous man, and his character will not bear close inspection; but he had great energy and some of the qualifications of a successful ruler; and with such means as he could command, he struggled bravely and worthily to maintain order and to administer justice.

¹ Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume III., page 259; Buchanan, Book XIX., chapters 51‒54; Register of the Privy Council, Volume I., pages 644‒649, 654, et seq.; Volume II., pages 11, 20, 25, 37‒44, 51, et seq.

For several years after the death of Moray, the factions of the King and Queen kept the country in an incessant turmoil. The adherents of the Queen still held the castle of Edinburgh; and in May, 1570, the English Government sent a small force to Edinburgh, but instead of restoring order, it intensified rather the general wretchedness. The passion and hatred of the opposing parties went on increasing, but at length the enthusiasm of the Queen’s followers spent itself. In July, 1570, the Earl of Lennox was elected Regent. His election was approved by the English Government, and he received the unswerving support of the reformed clergy.

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh on the 5th of July, and passed an act commanding all the ministers throughout the kingdom to pray publicly in their churches for the preservation of the King’s person and authority, and to proclaim to the people that he should be universally obeyed. The Assembly further unanimously agreed to appoint a commission of their brethren to attend any conventions of the nobility which might be held, and to assist and consent to everything that should be treated, which tended to promote the glory of God, the preaching and ministering of the true religion, the authority of the King, and the common good of the nation. The Assembly also, having regard to the troubled state of the kingdom, appointed a number of their brethren to be sent to all the earls, barons, and gentlemen who had fallen off from the King’s authority, and by every lawful means to endeavour to win them back and to reconcile them to the government of his majesty.¹

¹ Bannatyne’s Journal, pages 23‒28; Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 177‒178, 182; Tytler’s History of Scotland, Volume VII., pages 327‒329.

In the midst of the strife in Edinburgh, about the middle of October, 1570, Knox sustained a shock of apoplexy, which impaired his speech; but he recovered so far as to be able to preach on Sundays. In one of his sermons in the month of December, he made some personal remarks on the proceedings of the Laird of the Grange, the governor of the castle, which led to a bitter quarrel between him and his old friend. Knox defended himself and insisted on his freedom of speech in the pulpit, but anonymous libels were circulated against him. He was accused of not praying for the Queen, and for maligning her name and her adherents. His brethren and friends prevailed upon him to leave Edinburgh for his own safety, and he went to St. Andrews early in May, 1571. The bishop of Galloway, Alexander Gordon, then filled his pulpit in Edinburgh, and preached in a strain more acceptable to the Queen’s party. It was reported that he prayed for the Queen on the ground of her extreme wickedness, thus​—“All sinners ought to be prayed for: If we should not pray for sinners, for whom should we pray, seeing that God came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. St. David was a sinner, and so was she: St. David was an adulterer, and so was she: St. David committed murder in slaying Uriah for his wife, and so did she: but what is this to the matter; the more wicked that she be, her subjects should pray for her, to bring her to the spirit of repentance.”¹

¹ Bannatyne’s Journal, pages 54, 70‒88, 107‒120, 139‒141, 144; Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Knox, pages 250‒256; 1855.

The Castle of Dumbarton was taken from the Queen’s party in the beginning of April, 1571; and Hamilton, the archbishop of St. Andrews, was among the prisoners who surrendered. The Regent Lennox brought him to Stirling, where he was tried, condemned, and hanged on the 9th April. He was the last Roman Catholic Bishop ♦of St. Andrews. He had never ceased to assert his rights, and was therefore obnoxious to the reformed clergy and the King’s party. He was an active and able man in public life; and Lennox was glad of the opportunity to put him out of the way, but his execution was an act of cruelty and gross injustice.¹

¹ ♠Buchanan, Book XX., chapter 34; Dr. Grub’s Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, Volume II., pages 168‒169.

Both parties issued proclamations and counter-manifestoes, and there was much skirmishing about Edinburgh, which produced little result. The Regent summoned a parliament to meet at Stirling in August, 1571. The General Assembly met in the same town on the 6th of August. Knox, being unable to attend the meeting, sent a letter to his brethren. In this he referred to the graceless libels which had been circulated against him, and called on the Assembly to judge the matter as they would answer to God. As his natural strength was daily decaying, and he was looking for a sudden departure to that land where the weary find rest, he earnestly exhorted his brethren to be faithful to the flock over whom God had placed them, and to resist all tyranny to the last. The battle, he said, would be hard, “but they must withstand the merciless devourers of the patrimony of the Church.... God give you wisdom and stout courage in so just a cause, and me a happy end.”¹ This Assembly repeated the injunctions that prayer should be offered up for the King, and that the people should submit to his authority. Complaints were made, touching the oppression of the ministers and the people in the counties of Aberdeen and Banff, by the Earl of Huntly and his servants, and of their neglect to pay the stipends of the ministers.²

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 604‒606; Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 198‒199; Lord Lindsay’s Lives of the Lindsays, Volume I., pages 260‒291.

² Book of the Universal Kirk, page 201.

Parliament assembled at Stirling on the 25th of August. About the same time the Queen’s party held their parliament in Edinburgh. In the Queen’s parliament sentences of forfeiture were passed against the Earl of Morton, and other chiefs of the King’s party; while in the King’s parliament an act was passed which ratified all former acts in favour of the liberty and freedom of the reformed Church. Acts were also passed in favour of Morton and Lord Lindsay, as a reward for their resistance to the open enemies of the King, and in favour of those who had taken the castle of Dumbarton from the enemy. While the King’s party were thus helping themselves and mutually congratulating each other, a company of the Queen’s adherents, under the command of the Earl of Huntly and Lord Hamilton, marched from Edinburgh upon Stirling, and on the 4th of September, surprised them, and slew the Regent Lennox. Ten days after the death of Lennox, the Earl of Mar was elected Regent; but the Earl of Morton had by this time become the real leader of the King’s party.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland Volume III., pages 58, 61, 65‒78; Bannatyne’s Journal, pages 247, 255‒258, 260; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 136, 138‒141. Calderwood says that the rebels in their parliament at Edinburgh forfeited upwards of two hundred persons.

The regency of Mar was of short duration. He died on the 28th of October, 1572. The Earl of Morton was then elected Regent; since the death of Moray he had been the ruling spirit of his party. Morton had been more or less deeply implicated in all the plots and political murders of the past twenty years. He was an ambitious, greedy, crafty, and unscrupulous man; but brave and determined like all his ancestors of the Douglas tribe. He courted the friendship of the English government; and in the spring of 1573, concluded an arrangement by which fifteen hundred English troops and a train of artillery entered Scotland, and assisted in the reduction of the castle of Edinburgh. The Queen’s party throughout the country were broken up, and most of the leaders submitted to the Regent. Her adherents in the castle held out bravely, but were at last reduced to despair, and surrendered in the end of May, 1573. The common soldiers were dismissed. Lethington, who had served so many masters, and attempted to play so many parts, died about the 7th of June, a week after the castle fell. The laird of Grange, William Kirkaldy, the governor of the Castle, was tried, condemned, and hanged at the Cross of Edinburgh.¹ Mary’s party in Scotland never after raised their heads.

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., page 77, et seq.; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 281‒285; Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 213‒219, 236, 237.

Maitland of Lethington’s recent biographer, has with much ingenuity and great literary power, attempted to prove that he was one of the very greatest statesmen of the period. “In fine, Maitland’s was one of the governing minds of the time in which he lived. The number of such men at any particular period is as a rule extremely limited​—much more so than is commonly supposed. I am inclined to hold that, at the period of which I am writing, there were not above three or four men of distinctly original and creative force in the whole island, from John o’ Groats to the Land’s End. In England they had Cecil; in Scotland, John Knox and William Maitland. Cecil’s ‘brothers in Christ’​—the envoys and emissaries of the English Government​—were men of a specifically inferior order, who derived their inspiration from their master, and who, when deprived of his guidance, of the habitual support of his cautious but fertile brain, showed themselves, almost without exception, extraordinarily helpless.... There are eminent writers who would be prepared to place the Earl of Moray beside Knox and Maitland and Cecil. It appears to me that Moray belongs to another class altogether,​—the class of men whose mutual processes are slow, involved, and dependent. It was a common saying, when he came to be Regent, that Moray was the hand and Morton the head; and during the earlier and brighter years of Mary’s reign, it might have been said quite as truly​—with even greater truth indeed​—that if Moray was the head, Maitland was the heart.

“I have said that a statesman in Lethington’s position must be judged less by his actions than by his aims. What were his aims? We shall see that they involved the determination of political and religious questions of the first importance:​—How to diminish the power of an anarchical nobility, how to promote the union of the nations, how to secure the succession to a Scottish prince (to the throne of England), how to establish a religious peace on tolerable conditions​—these were the problems to which, as a Scottish Protestant and a Scottish patriot, Maitland addressed himself.... His field was comparatively narrow; but the issues of the conflict in which he was engaged were momentous and far reaching.”

The aims of Lethington as stated above by Skelton, invites comment:​—1. There is no evidence that Lethington ever made any real effort to reduce the power of the nobles; but there is evidence that he used the influence of his official position, and also exerted his talents and wit, to enhance the power and the wealth of the nobles in connection with the landed property of the old Church. In the face of such evidence, it is surprising that his elegant panegyrist should have ventured to advance this, as one of the leading aims of the great statesman of the period. 2. It may be true that Maitland aimed to promote the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland; yet it is evident that some of his efforts in this direction were short-sighted, impracticable, and inconsistent. 3. Touching his aim to establish a religious peace in Scotland on tolerable conditions, it may be fairly questioned whether he was capable of appreciating and realising the real conditions of the problem. Most of Lethington’s efforts in this department were imperfectly conceived, or unrealisable in the circumstances, and consequently proved utter failures. It seems a rather curious historic phenomenon that one of the three greatest governing minds of the Reformation period in Britain, has somehow left so few traces on the nation of the result of his faculties. The fact is, that Lethington was a clever, glib, and scheming politician, but in no sense a great and wise statesman; and his recent biographer has glorified the Laird of Lethington by investing him with many virtues, which are quite inconsistent with his public career.¹

¹ Maitland of Lethington, By J. Skelton, Volume I., pages 333‒336.

The polity of the Reformed Church so far as yet developed, tended to leave a blank in the chief council of the nation. As the bishops, abbots, and other orders of the Roman clergy died out, the spiritual estate ceased to be represented in parliament. Knox was not decidedly opposed to a gradation of rank among the ministers of the Church; the democratic polity of presbyterianism was not matured in the First Book of Discipline, nor in any work emanating from the Reformed Church of Scotland in the reformer’s lifetime. At this stage, however, the most interesting point centred around the territorial possessions and the wealth of the ancient hierarchy. The nobles, the old orders of clergy, and the reformed preachers, were all scrambling according to the measure of their power and opportunity for what each imagined to be their share of the endowments which the piety of bygone generations had consecrated to religion. For all the preaching against idolatry and the monuments thereof, there was one idol not as yet extinguished​—the golden calf. The aristocracy had recourse to various expedients to reach the revenues of the great benefices, and it must be admitted that in the end they succeeded.

For the settlement of this matter, an extraordinary meeting of the barons, superintendents, and ministers, was held at Leith in January, 1572. They assumed the powers of a General Assembly, and resolved to hand over the business to a committee of six, viz.:​—John Erskine, John Winram, David Lindsay, John Craig, Andrew Hay, and Robert Pont, authorising any four of them to meet with those appointed by the Privy Council, the Earl of Morton, Lord Ruthven, the Abbot of Dunfermline, Mr. James M‘Gill, Sir John Bellenden, and Colin Campbell of Glenorchy, and to ratify whatever they might determine agreeable to their instructions. The joint committee met on the 16th of the same month, and agreed upon a form of polity for the Church, known as the Leith Concordat. It was agreed that the names and titles of archbishops and bishops, and the bounds of the dioceses, should not be altered, at least until the King’s majority or the parliament consented to another arrangement. The document went on to state, that persons promoted to bishoprics should as far as possible have the requisite scriptural qualifications; that they should be elected by a chapter or assembly of learned ministers; that archbishops and bishops should have no greater jurisdiction than the superintendents already had, and that they should be subject to the church and the General Assembly in spiritual matters, as they were to the Crown in temporal; that in the admission of persons to spiritual functions in the Church, they should at least take the advice of six of the best learned of the chapter; that all the archbishoprics and bishoprics then vacant or which hereafter became so, should within a year and a day after the vacancy be filled up with qualified persons not under thirty years of age; and that the dean, or failing him, the next in dignity among the chapter, should be vicar-general during the vacancy. Concerning the abbacies, priories, and nunneries, it was concluded that no disposition of these benefices should be made, nor any grants out of the funds of the same till it was ascertained what portion of the rents consisted in churches and tithes, and what portion of temporal lands, and until provision was made for the ministers properly belonging thereto. Touching the person holding the title and receiving the fruits of the benefice, it was agreed that he should fill the place of one of the ecclesiastical Estate in parliament, and have the style of abbot, prior, or commendator; that all such should be learned and qualified for their office, and that to secure this end, on the recommendation of the King, they should be tried and admitted by the bishops. It was further agreed that when the present members of the convents were all departed this life, the ministers of the churches belonging to the abbey or priory should then act as the chapter of the commendator in the administration of the property and rents of the establishment, and that if these commendators should be found worthy, they might be promoted to act as senators for the spiritual estate in the Court of Session.

There were proposals also for dealing with the rights of lay patrons, with benefices in the patronage of the Crown, and for the disposal of the smaller benefices throughout the kingdom. The latter were to be conferred only on duly qualified ministers, and churches were to be planted throughout the realm, residence secured, and pluralities prevented. The revenues of provostries, prebendaries, and chaplainries in college churches, if founded upon lands or annual rents, it was proposed to apply to the maintenance of bursars at the grammar schools and universities; and a form was drawn up for the election and appointment of bishops.¹

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 203‒205, 207‒232. It is very justly observed by Dr. Grub, that the scheme agreed on at Leith bore a remarkable resemblance to the external polity of the church as it existed before the Reformation in Scotland. Ecclesiastic History of Scotland, Volume II., page 179. Regarding the confused and anomalous points of the system as then proposed from the Episcopalian standpoint, see Russel’s History of the Church in Scotland, Volume I. page 300, and for a strictly Presbyterian view of the matter, compare Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Melville, Volume I., pages 145‒151.

The proposals of the Committee, were immediately confirmed by the Regent and the Council, and an attempt was forthwith made by the government to carry out the scheme they embodied. On the 6th of February, 1572, the chapter of St. Andrews met and elected John Douglas to be archbishop of that ancient see. Douglas was also rector of the university and provost of St. Mary’s College, and besides, he was a man advanced in years. Knox merely protested against the accumulation of offices in the person of one man. Some of the other sees were filled up, but the new bishops were simply the tools of their patrons. They had consented to assume the title with only a very small portion of the episcopal revenues, the greater part being retained in the hands of their masters​—the nobles.¹ To secure the richest portion of the benefices to the court, the nobles, and their friends and dependents, was the motive in which the whole scheme originated; and if the Reformed Church had yielded it would have destroyed its usefulness, and ended in a despotism of a degrading character. But a strong party of the clergy were thoroughly opposed to the scheme, and although the struggle between them and the Crown was protracted and severe, the liberties of the Church and the freedom of the nation eventually triumphed.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, page 241; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 205‒207; Bannatyne’s Journal, pages 269‒285, 286, 323, 324.

When the Articles came before the General Assembly, which met at Perth in August, 1572, that body unanimously agreed that such names as archbishop, dean, archdeacon, chancellor, and chapter sounded scandalous to the ears of many of the brethren, and recalled the ring of popery, and protested that while recognising the names, it did not mean to ratify, consent, or agree to any kind of superstition, but wished rather that the titles should be changed for others less offensive. The Assembly protested also that the articles and heads of the Leith Concordat were only to be received as interim, till a more perfect order could be obtained at the hands of the King, the Regent, and the nobility, for which they were to press whenever an opportunity occurred.

Knox addressed a letter to the Assembly containing a number of suggestions. He exhorted them to contend earnestly for the truth and for the liberty to express it, to endeavour to recover the patrimony of the Church, to petition the Regent to have all the vacant bishoprics filled up according to the order agreed on at Leith, but especially to complain that the bishopric of Ross was given to Lord Methven. He urged also that the Assembly should pass an act, ordering all the bishops admitted under the new articles to give an account of the whole rents of their sees and their intromissions therewith once every year; and that the present Assembly should determine the jurisdiction of the Church, as that part of the polity had long been postponed.¹

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 244, 246, 247‒250; Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 619‒622.

For some time Knox had been in feeble health, but his spirit continued vigorous to the last. When the strife between the two contending parties was at its height, he had retired to St. Andrews, as we have seen, but by the end of August, 1572, he had returned once more to Edinburgh and resumed his preaching in St. Giles. When the intelligence of the massacre of the Protestants in Paris on the 25th of August arrived, he was deeply moved. A proclamation was immediately issued in the Regent’s name, calling on the Protestants to meet at Edinburgh on the 20th of October. Every congregation in the kingdom was directed to send one or more commissioners to consult and deliberate upon such matters and overtures as might be proposed, tending to protect and mutually to defend the professors of the Gospel within the kingdom, “from the furious rage and lawless cruelty of the bloodstained and treasonable Catholics, the executors of the decrees of that devilish and terrible Council of Trent.”¹ On the appointed day a number of the ministers and barons assembled. Among other things, they proposed that a national fast should be held, to begin on the 23rd of November and continue to the end of the month, that thereby the wrath of God might be mitigated. They desired that all the Catholics without exception should be summoned before the Council and the commissioners of the Church, to give confession of their faith, and that all who did not conform to the reformed religion, should be punished according to the acts of parliament. For resisting the Catholics in and without the country, they proposed that a league should be made with England and other reformed kingdoms, for their mutual defence, and the maintenance of the true religion against all its enemies; as it was only by banding themselves together that they could hope to thwart and frustrate the endless machinations which were constantly forming against them. “At this time the ministers then in Edinburgh did most vehemently inveigh against this most beastly and more than treasonable fact; whereat the French ambassador, called La Crocke, was not a little displeased, because that his master the King of France should be called a traitor, and a murderer of his own subjects, under promise and trust; but especially against John Knox, who had pronounced in his sermon, and had declared the same to the ambassador to tell his master, that the sentence is pronounced in Scotland, against that murderer the King of France, that God’s vengeance shall never depart from him nor his house, but that his name shall remain an execration unto the posterity to come, and that none that shall come of his loins, shall enjoy that kingdom in peace and quietness, unless repentance prevent God’s judgments.”²

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 168‒169.

² Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 252‒254; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 227‒230; Bannatyne’s Journal, pages 401‒402.

On Sunday the 9th of November, 1572, Knox officiated at the induction of James Lawson as his colleague and successor. His voice was weak, and he never again appeared in public. On the 11th of the month he was seized with a severe cough, but continued cheerful. Richard Bannatyne, his faithful servant, attended him. He was surrounded by his family, and visited by many warm friends. He died in peace and full of hope on the 24th of November, in the sixty-seventh year of his age. On the 26th of the month his body was laid in the grave in the churchyard of St. Giles.¹

¹ Bannatyne’s Journal, pages 262‒254; Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 634‒560. In these full details of the last days of the Reformer’s life are given.

The character of Knox is manifested in his work, although the manner of performing it is a fair subject for criticism. But there is a prior point which must be noticed. In that and in all ages of recorded history, when a revolution is preparing and even after it is carried through, those who oppose it with all their power and still strive to resist its outcome, and those who struggle with all their energy to hasten and accomplish it, cannot both be animated by identical ideas, principles, and sentiments. The two contending parties must be influenced and swayed in varying degrees according to the strength or the feebleness of their sentiments, the firmness of their belief, the clearness of their ideas, and the grasp which they have of their principles; or their course of action may be partly controlled by the object and ends towards which they look, as these may be conceived from different points of view: as when one party regards the commemoration of the saints as an essential article of religion while the other does not, and so on through many other articles of belief. If then the God of the one party is exactly the God of the other, they at least desire to take different ways of approaching Him. It is the distinctive and characteristic glory of Roman Catholicism to proclaim that it has never changed its creed nor its principles; both are constantly assumed to be infallible. But Protestantism admits of change, and recognises the laws of development and progress, of corruption and decay, in religious systems as in everything else; and endeavours by a process of gradual elimination to advance towards the conception of a supreme moral ideal to which all theology should eventually subordinate itself.

Those who looked upon the Reformation as an evil, and on Protestantism as a heresy which deserved to be condemned and stamped out, could see in Knox only an embodiment of wickedness. For this reason their libels on his character may be justly disregarded. It is a fashionable thing to talk in modern phrases about toleration, and then proceed to stigmatise the Reformers of the sixteenth century for their bigotry, dogmatism, narrowness, and ignorance; but this is neither just nor in accordance with true historical ideas. In the great religious revolutions of the world toleration has had little place; and for ages the expression of difference of religious opinion has been punished as a crime. There is only one way of fairly appreciating the character of all great religious Reformers. To form a true estimate of their character, a thorough knowledge of the state of society in which they lived, and of all the associated circumstances, is a preliminary requisite. It is in the degree which the Reformer’s ideas and sentiments rise above those of his own age that his character must be measured, not by the standard of a later age. That Knox’s ideas were higher and purer than those current among the ruling class of Scotland is a fact, which any one who desires may verify for himself. That he was animated by a firm belief in a righteous and just God who rules the universe, cannot be doubted. His moral ideas were in some respects in advance of those of his age, but some of them were crude, erroneous, and even savage, and as a thinker he takes no rank. Owing, however, to his natural sagacity and shrewd common sense, and to his deep feeling of the realities and the responsibilities of human life, some of his practical views were singularly clear, far-reaching, and well developed.

In common with all great men and religious reformers, Knox exercised a wonderful sway over his followers, and inspired them with confidence in the hour of danger and of battle. He always avowed his opinions openly, and acted on them with a bold and fearless independence; yet in matters of doctrine he was not rigidly dogmatic. The Reformation Confession of Scotland is remarkable for the acknowledgment of its own fallibility.¹ It was only what he emphatically believed to be the inspired word of God, and necessary for the Church and the good of the nation, that he insisted on being adopted by others. To blame him for not embracing a tolerant policy is simply to forget the state of society and the circumstances of the times; and if he had followed such a course, the Reformation in Scotland would never have been accomplished, while he himself would certainly have been crushed. He was greedy of power and impatient of the least opposition. But he believed that he had a message from God, and that it was his imperative duty to proclaim and enforce it, and in this he toiled with untiring industry and energy. There are some of the lighter shades and graces of life which he seems to have been incapable of appreciating, and he certainly showed a disposition to limit the amusements and the enjoyments of others; but this arose from his deep sense of the realities of human life and the gravity of its manifold duties. Among his friends, and in the family circle, he could on occasion unbend and disport himself in an exceedingly social and agreeable manner; he had indeed a humourous and peculiar comic side which comes out in many forms in his writings.

¹ See under page 104.

John Knox, in conjunction with his contemporaries, brought blessings to the people of Scotland which they have never forgotten. Although he was extremely strong in assertion and firm in his own convictions, it should be remembered that he was still stronger in denial and negation. He swept off at once the accumulated mass of legends, traditions, and ceremonies which had enslaved the mind and obscured the glory, purity, and truth of Christianity.

Much of the energy of the leading men among the clergy was still devoted to the improvement of the polity of the Church, and to the planting and the organisation of congregations throughout the country. As yet the practical establishment of the reformed worship was in many places only imperfectly accomplished. The disorder which accompanied the revolution itself, and the internal struggle of the contending factions of the King and the Queen which followed it, had all contributed to leave the Church in a state of disorganisation. The new clergy, with all the power and means at their command, were ardently and incessantly labouring to remedy these evils; but they were met at every turn with the inexorable fact, that it is a much easier matter to destroy the forms and institutions of a religious system than to construct others to replace them. The history of mankind has shown that the genius of destruction is more common than the genius of appropriate construction; hence the curious spectacle presented in the history of Scotland, the constantly recurring tendency and the efforts of the party at the head of the government to return to the forms and modes of the old system of church polity. As the practical solution of the problem involved great secular as well as religious issues, it was hotly contested between the Crown and the clergy for many generations. There was an element of democracy inherent in the very heart of the Reformation; but the Reformers in Scotland went beyond their contemporaries in the admission of democratic principles. Knox maintained that the King and the ruling political powers were responsible to the people, and that if they abused the trust committed to them, the people might lawfully depose them and appoint others in their place. Similar principles were taught by Buchanan. Thus it was that the Reformation in Scotland assumed an intensely political importance, but always in connection with religion and the polity of the Church.

The rarity of original construction among the leaders of the revolutionary movement is very remarkable. Even by Calvin, the greatest master of dogmatic form that the Reformation produced, religion, secular government, and morality were all mixed up and regarded as integral parts of one and the same system. In fact, it could hardly have been otherwise, for philosophy had no separate and independent existence. A Church distinct from and independent of the State was a conception quite alien to the modes of thinking which prevailed among the Reformers. On the other side, a government distinct and independent of the Church was an idea scarcely entertained by the statesmen of the sixteenth century. They all seemed to be more or less possessed with the notions common to theocracies, that the Church and the State as being both under the direction of God, should be associated together. The idea of a theocracy is grand and inspiring in contemplation, but in practical operation it turns out that the Church and the State both claim a supremacy; and they often come to hold very different views as to what is, or is not, the will of God. For the intelligent apprehension of the history of Scotland during the next one hundred years, it is necessary to have a clear conception of this theocratic principle. The struggle of the Crown to establish Episcopacy, and the opposition of the Presbyterian clergy; the Covenants, the Solemn League and Covenant, with many of their attendant tragedies, had their origin in the theocratic notions which were gathered out of the Old Testament, and attempted on both sides to be applied to forms of society and circumstances which were beyond their scope.

After the fall of the castle of Edinburgh, the Regent Morton succeeded in restoring comparative quietness in the kingdom. He was known to be inclined towards the hierarchy of bishops; not from principle but from ambition and greed. The management of the thirds of benefices he took out of the hands of the collectors appointed by the Church, and then united a number of parishes under one minister, who was assisted by readers to whom a trifling stipend was paid. When the Church complained of these abuses, he accused the ministers of seditious and treasonable speeches, refrained from attending their assemblies, and began to question their right to meet and pass acts without his express permission.¹ But crafty and astute as Morton was, he miscalculated his power, and utterly failed to comprehend the intense earnestness and honesty of purpose by which the reformed clergy was animated.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 292‒293, 296‒305; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 304‒306.

The General Assembly met at Edinburgh in March, 1574, and concluded that the bishops should be subject to the discipline of the Assembly, the same as the superintendents in all points. Among the evils which this Assembly enumerated and desired the assistance of the government to remedy, were specified some books issued by the Jesuits and others which contained manifest blasphemies against God and His revealed truth, and were daily brought into the country by Poles and others to the offence of the Church. The Assembly passed an act against simony in the Church, and unanimously declared​—“That all such persons as either buy or sell benefices, or use any other kind of bargaining thereon, either directly or indirectly, should be deprived of all function in the Church; and the discipline of the Church to be laid upon them with the utmost rigour and severity; and the buyers and sellers, or otherwise coupers of the benefices to lose the same for evermore.”¹ This act was much required. It is reported and recorded in many forms that Morton and the nobles carried the traffic in benefices to an enormous length.²

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 294, 306, 310‒311.

² Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 445, 585‒587; 184‒185, et seq.

It was daily becoming more manifest that the clergy would throw off what remained of the forms of Episcopacy. The existing state of the Church was extremely confused and unsatisfactory. A convention of the Estates in the beginning of March, 1575, voted that inconveniences had arisen, and were likely to increase, from the want of a proper government in the Church; and a committee was appointed to draw up a form of polity agreeable to the Word of God, and adapted to the state of the kingdom.¹ The General Assembly met on the 7th of March the same year, and appointed a committee of their number to meet with the Regent’s commissioners, and to reason and confer on the jurisdiction and polity of the Church. The draft of whatever scheme was proposed the committee were directed to lay before the Assembly. Andrew Melville was a member of this committee, which was reappointed from time to time, and at last produced the Second Book of Discipline.²

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 89, 90.

² Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 326‒332; Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Melville, Volume I., pages 158, 159; 1819.

The Assembly met again at Edinburgh in August, 1575, and according to custom the trial of the bishops and superintendents was begun, when John Dury, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, rose and protested that the trial of the bishops should not prejudge what he and others had to propose against the name and office of a bishop. At a subsequent sederunt Andrew Melville addressed the Assembly in support of Dury’s proposition; his speech was attentively listened to, and it produced a marked impression. The question was next proposed, Whether the bishops as then placed in the Church of Scotland had their function in the Word of God or not; and whether the chapters appointed for electing them should be tolerated in a Reformed Church? For the better discussion of the questions, the Assembly appointed John Craig, minister of Aberdeen, James Lawson, minister at Edinburgh, and Andrew Melville, principal of the University of Glasgow, on the one side; and George Hay, commissioner of Caithness, John Row, minister of Perth, and David Lindsay, minister of Leith, on the affirmative side of the subject. In two days the committee reported that they did not think it expedient at present to answer the first part of the question directly; but they were of opinion that if any bishop was chosen without the qualifications which the Word of God required, he should be tried by the Assembly anew and so deposed. Touching the office of a bishop or superintendent, they reported that the name of bishop is common to all who are appointed to have the charge of a particular flock in preaching the word and administering the sacraments, and exercising discipline with the consent of the elders; and that this is the chief function of bishops according to the Word of God. But out of this number some might be chosen to visit and oversee, besides their own congregation, within such reasonable bounds as the General Assembly might appoint to them; and in these districts to admit ministers, with the consent of the other ministers, and the approval of the congregations concerned: and also to admit elders and deacons when necessary, with the consent of the people; and to suspend ministers for reasonable causes, with the consent of their brethren of the province. A full discussion of the report was deferred to the next Assembly.¹ There were six bishops present in the Assembly, none of whom seems to have offered any defence of Episcopacy.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 331, 340, 342‒343; Spottiswood, Volume II., 200‒201.

When the Assembly again met at Edinburgh in April, 1576, the question of the bishops was discussed anew. After a long debate the propositions laid by the committee before the last Assembly were affirmed; and the bishops who had not as yet received the charge of a particular congregation were ordered to make choice of one. There was much reasoning touching the districts of the various bishops, superintendents, and commissioners. It was agreed that the existing districts were too large for them to overtake, and it was arranged to allot only such a district to each as he could duly oversee, and with this aim a new distribution of districts was proposed. The persons who visited such districts whether called bishops, superintendents, or by other names, were interrogated at every General Assembly, and required to render an account of their proceedings.¹

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 352‒356, 358‒359.

Questions and points concerning the patrimony of the Church came before almost every Assembly. At this time it was asked, whether the Assembly should proceed against those who unjustly possessed the patrimony of the Church and the poor, and if so, how far? The Assembly unanimously concluded that they might be proceeded against, first by way of doctrine and admonition, and if in this way no remedy was obtained, then to try the censures of the Church against them. The Assembly reappointed the committee on the polity of the Church, and enjoined its members to hold meetings at St. Andrews, Montrose, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Stirling, and to invite all ranks of the people to attend and give their opinion on the proposed polity.¹

¹ Ibid. pages 360‒362.

The French Protestants who had taken refuge in England from persecution, addressed a letter to their brethren in Scotland, bewailing their sad condition, and desiring that the money which had been collected for them among the Scots should be sent to them. The Assembly had delayed sending it, because much of what had been promised, was not yet collected; but it was resolved to forward at once the sum in hand to the persecuted Frenchmen.¹

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, page 356.

In 1577 the General Assembly met twice at Edinburgh, and on both occasions the book on the polity and jurisdiction of the Church was discussed. The various heads of the subject were put into form and read in the Assembly, and sanctioned by the majority; but the book itself was still reserved for further reasoning. The Regent was asked to attend the Assembly, but he excused himself on the ground that he was otherwise occupied. The Assembly, however, resolved to lay the proposed polity before him. Morton, however, who had never been very popular, was now tottering towards his fall. Early in 1578 he resigned the regency; and the government was committed to a Council of twelve men and the young King, then in his twelfth year.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 115‒117, 120; Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 677‒679; Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 383‒385, 391, 393, 394.

The popular party of the clergy were very active. In 1578 they held three General Assemblies. These enacted that the bishops in the Reformed Church of Scotland should henceforward be called by their own names, and the chapters were prohibited from making any new elections of bishops, under the penalty of deprivation of their offices. All the bishops were ordered to submit themselves to the General Assembly for reformation, and if they refused after admonition, they were to be excommunicated; indeed the ruling party in the Church pursued the bishops with astonishing energy. In the General Assembly which met at Dundee in July, 1580, the subject of bishops was proposed for discussion, and full liberty given to all the members to reason on the matter and express their opinion. After this the Assembly unanimously found that the office of a bishop, as then used and commonly understood, had no warrant nor ground in the word of God. It was therefore declared that this pretended office should be terminated, as being unlawful in itself​—a corruption and an invention of men. All the bishops were charged to demit their office at once, to cease from preaching or administering the sacraments or in any way exercising the functions of pastors, until they received admission anew from the General Assembly, under the penalty of excommunication. So energetic were the measures of the Church that within a year all the bishops had submitted except five;¹ the democratic spirit had become so strong and determined that the Episcopal party had no longer any chance of retaining their position in the Church.

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 408, 409, 413, 423‒425, 432, 433, 453; Dr. Grub’s Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, Volume II., pages 210, 211; Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Melville, Volume I., pages 162, 163.

In 1579 the General Assembly had presented a long address to King James VI., putting him in remembrance of things pertaining to the advancement of God’s glory, the welfare of the Church, and the common good of the nation. In this they pointed out to him his duties to the Church, and warned him of his perils. Referring to the translation of the Bible, which under the direction of the Assembly, had been newly printed and dedicated to his highness, they went on to say:​—“This holy book of God should be set forth, and printed within your own realm, to the end that in every parish church there should be kept at least one, to be called the common book of the Church, as a most meet ornament for such a place, and a perpetual register of the Word of God, the fountain of all true doctrine, to be made patent to all the people of each congregation, as the only rule to direct and govern them in matters of religion, as also to confirm them in the truth, and to reform and to redress corruptions wherever they may creep in; certainly we have great occasion both to glorify the goodness of God towards this country, and highly to extol and commend your highness’s most godly purpose and enterprise. Oh! what a difference may be seen between these days of light, when almost in every private house the book of God’s law is read and understood in the Vulgar language, and the age of darkness, when scarcely in a whole city, without the cloisters of monks and friars, could the book of God ever be found, and that in a strange tongue of Latin, not good, but mixed with barbarisms, used and read by few and almost understood and expounded by none; and when the false named clergy of this realm abused the gentle nature of your highness’s grandfather of worthy memory, made it a capital crime to be punished with the fire to have read the New Testament in the Vulgar tongue; yea, and to make them more odious to all men, as if it had been the detestable name of a pernicious sect, they were called New Testamenters.... Call for the wisdom of Solomon to endue your grace with a spiritual spirit, as well in the civil policy as in advancing the spiritual policy of the Church; imitate the fervent faith of Jehosaphat putting his whole trust in the Lord and believing his prophets; imitate the diligence of Jehoash, in repairing the house of the Lord; follow godly Ezekias in rooting out all monuments of idolatry, making the book of the law of God, a long time ignored and left in silence, yea, utterly forgotten, to be publicly read and accepted by the people and recommended to their posterity. To such diligence as this did the prophets of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi exhort the princes of the Jews.... This is a matter most worthy of your royal heart, a purpose proper for the exercise of the vivacity of your divine and high genius.... All other glory at last shall decay, and all commendations that result from other princely acts, are either not of long duration, or commonly mixed up with such things as are also deserving of blame; but the honour of this act shall endure for ever, and shall be fully approved by Him whose judgment must be equal and right, who is the eternal Lord of lords and King of kings; whom with most humble hearts and instant prayers we beseech to bless your majesty with continual and daily increase of His abundant blessings both spiritual and temporal; and to maintain in wealth and prosperity your princely estate to the praise and glory of His holy name, your assured salvation, the comfort and quietness of this country, the overthrow of the power of Satan and the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Amen.”¹

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 441‒448.

While the clergy were busy abolishing the remaining fragments of Episcopacy, they were, as we have seen, intently engaged in maturing their own scheme of church polity. It had been laid before several Assemblies, and its various chapters and heads had been discussed, altered, amended, and rendered as perfect as possible. It was adopted by the Assembly which met at Edinburgh in April, 1578. This polity, which then became the authorised form of church government in Scotland, is known by the title of the Second Book of Discipline; it was placed before the King, but it was not ratified by the Privy Council nor by Parliament. The Reformed Church, however, acted upon it, and inserted it in the Register of the Acts of the General Assembly in 1581.¹

¹ Ibid. pages 408, 409, 432, 487‒512; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 414‒418; Melville’s Diary, pages 87‒116.

This book of polity is a comparatively short but logical and compact treatise. It contains thirteen chapters, each of which is again divided into a number of short expository statements of the different points of the general heading or doctrines to be established. It is essentially a deductive work, and presents an admirable example of that method of exposition. In the general scope and spirit of the book there are many points of difference between it and the First Book of Discipline: the earlier book was a meritorious and comprehensive production, but some parts of it were ill arranged and not fully developed, and several other matters were simply introduced to meet the exigencies of the time. There is a notable difference in the view taken of the authority of the civil power in the two books, touching ecclesiastical matters; in the latter the distinction between the Church and the State is far more fully worked out than in the earlier work. The first book, as we have seen, gave a large share of power to the people in the election and control of their ministers; the second book also gave a share of power to the people, but divided it between the judgment of the eldership and the consent of the congregation. It deals less with doctrine and more with the external form and order of the Church than the first book. But according to the second scheme, the Church would be altogether independent of the civil government, and the civil government would in things spiritual be subject to the orders of the Church. “This power and ecclesiastical polity is different and distinct in its own nature, from that power and policy which is called the civil power, and belongs to the civil government of the Commonwealth; albeit they are both of God, and tend to the same end, if they be rightly used, namely, to advance the glory of God, and to have godly and good subjects. This power ecclesiastical flows immediately from God and the Mediator, Christ Jesus, and is spiritual, not having a temporal head on earth, but only Christ, the only spiritual King and Governor of His Church. Therefore this power and polity of the Church should lean upon the Word of God immediately as the only ground thereof, and should be taken from the pure fountains of the Scriptures, hearing the voice of Christ, the only spiritual King, and being ruled by His laws.... Notwithstanding, as the ministers, and others of the ecclesiastical estate, are subject to the civil magistrate, so ought the person of the magistrate in spiritual matters to be subject to the Church, and in ecclesiastical government.

“The Civil power should command the Spiritual to exercise and perform their office according to the Word of God. The spiritual rulers should require the Christian magistrate to administer justice and punish vice, and to maintain the liberty and quietness of the Church within their bounds.... The magistrate ought neither to preach, minister the sacraments, nor execute the censures of the Church, nor yet prescribe any rule how it should be done, but command the ministers to observe the rule commanded in the Word of God, and punish the transgressors by civil means. The ministers do not exercise civil jurisdiction, but teach the magistrate how it should be exercised according to the Word.” This style of illustration by contrast is much employed in the Second Book of Discipline. “The magistrate ought to assist, maintain, and fortify the jurisdiction of the Church. The ministers to assist their princes in all things agreeable to the word, provided they do not neglect their own charge, by involving themselves in civil affairs.

“So it appertains to the office of the Christian magistrate to assist and fortify the godly proceedings of the Church in all behalfs, and to see that the public estate of the ministry be maintained and sustained, according to the Word of God. To see that the Church be not invaded nor hurt by false teachers or hirelings, nor their places occupied by dumb dogs and idle bellies. To assist and maintain the discipline of the Church, and to punish them civilly that will not obey the censures of the Church. To make laws and constitutions agreeable to the Word, for the advancement of the Church and her polity, without usurping anything that does not belong to the civil sword, but belongs to the offices that are ecclesiastical.... And although kings and princes who are godly, sometimes by their own authority, when the Church is corrupted and all things out of order, may place ministers and restore the true service of the Lord, after the example of some of the godly kings of Judah, and divers godly kings and emperors also in the light of the Gospel; yet where the ministry of the Church is once lawfully constituted, and those that are placed in offices perform their duties faithfully, all godly princes and magistrates ought to hear and obey their voice, and reverence the majesty of the Son of God speaking by them.”¹

¹ The Second Book of Discipline is printed in the Book of the Universal Kirk; in James Melville’s Diary; and in the third volume of Calderwood’s History of the Church of Scotland.

This treatise laid down the lines of Presbyterianism, that form of church government and organisation which has taken the firmest hold upon the national mind. For some time the Assemblies had been taking steps and labouring incessantly to complete this organisation, but much still remained to be done and various obstacles had yet to be overcome. The most pressing difficulty was the want of a sufficient number of qualified ministers. In 1567 there were upwards of a thousand parishes and churches in Scotland under the charge of two hundred and fifty-seven ministers, one hundred and fifty-one exhorters, and four hundred and fifty-five readers. Thus a number of parishes had neither ministers nor readers. There were only 868 persons, including the superintendents, for all the churches of the country. In 1574 there were two hundred and eighty-nine ministers and seven hundred and fifteen readers engaged in the religious instruction of the people, but there were many complaints that a number of those who had charge of churches were not qualified for the office. To meet the aim of the Presbyterian polity in 1581 a rearrangement of the parishes was proposed. Excepting the Diocese of Argyle and the Isles, it was resolved to reduce the number of parish churches to six hundred, and to divide these into fifty presbyteries​—“twelve churches to every presbytery, or thereabout.” But for some time it was found to be impracticable to carry this scheme fully out, although the unwearying perseverance of the leading ministers was rewarded with a considerable measure of success. It was agreed to abolish the office of reader, and gradually to replace it by regularly ordained ministers. The General Assembly of 1580 concluded that all the readers who had been two years in office should be tried and examined by the superintendents and commissioners, and if they were found unqualified to be pastors and to preach the word, to depose them; and in 1581 it was resolved that no new readers should hereafter be admitted in the Church. We find, however, that there were still readers in the Church at the end of the century. Many of the readers had belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, but they were not allowed to administer the sacraments or to solemnise marriage. Still there was a lack of qualified ministers. This was owing partly to the small and uncertain provision assigned to the ministry, and partly to the disturbing circumstances of the times. Even in 1596 there were four hundred churches destitute of ministers. In Argyle and other parts of the Highlands the doctrines of the Reformation were only very imperfectly introduced, and in some of these portions of the kingdom the people long remained Catholics. “Besides the Diocese of Argyle and the Isles, of which no rentals were ever given up, there are in Scotland nine hundred and twenty-four churches.” But several of them were very small, and many of the churches were demolished. The Diocese of Argyle and the Isles seems to have stood in a rather distant attitude towards the Reformed Assemblies of the Church. In 1586, one of the petitions presented by the Assembly to the King ran​—“That the bishops and commissioners of Argyle and the Isles may be subject to attend upon the General Assemblies, and to keep their synodial meetings as in other parts of the realm, which is a furtherance of the King’s majesty’s obedience, since otherwise they appear to be exempted out of his dominions.” Since the Reformation, however, the means of diffusing religious instruction had been immensely increased; and the facilities for acquiring information were steadily widening.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume II., pages 6‒7, 261‒264, 351‒352; Miscellany of the Wodrow Society, Volume I., pages 325‒328; Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 455‒457, 479, 480‒487, 523, 530‒533, 549, 513, 535, ♦627, 661.

Although Morton had resigned the regency, he was still greedy of power and struggled to regain it; but his enemies were closing in around him and plotting his ruin. The young King naturally had his favourites. They were constantly with him, and aroused the suspicion of the Protestants and the clergy. In the year 1579 Eme Stewart, a cousin of the king, arrived from France. He was kindly received by his royal kinsman, with whom he soon became a great favourite. The two were always together, and whatever interested the King and engaged his attention was sure to interest his cousin. The result was that Eme Stewart speedily rose to greatness. First, he was made an Earl, and shortly after, Duke of Lennox. Then he was appointed High Chamberlain; and in order that his wealth might be commensurate with his rank, the once rich Abbey of Arbroath was freely granted to him. To complete his influence in the councils of the kingdom he was made governor of the Castle of Dumbarton. About the same time a Captain James Stewart, another of the King’s favourites, came upon the scene. In the spring of 1581 he was elevated to the rank of Earl of Arran, and put in possession of a portion of the estates of the house of Hamilton. As long as Morton was at liberty, however, these two upstarts were insecure; they therefore contrived to compass his destruction.¹ The new Duke of Lennox was known to be a Roman Catholic, and it was whispered that he had come to Scotland as a secret emissary of the Pope. To allay the suspicion of the clergy he professed that he was converted and joined the Reformed Church. But the popular mind was not satisfied. It was still feared that a scheme was being formed among those about the court to bring back the old religion; and to calm this apprehension, at the request of the King, a document was prepared, and signed by himself, the Duke of Lennox, and the other members of the royal household in March, 1581. Hence this paper has sometimes been called the King’s Confession, the First Covenant, and in later times the Negative Confession, from its extremely condemnatory character. It was a most vehement protest and denunciation of many of the tenets of the Roman Church, and it concluded with these words, “And because we perceive that the peace and stability of our religion and Church depends upon the safety and good behaviour of the King’s majesty, as upon a comfortable instrument of God’s mercy granted to this country, for the maintenance of His Church, and the administration of justice among us: we protest and promise solemnly with our hearts, under the same oath, hand write, and pains, that we shall defend his person and authority with our goods, bodies, and lives, in the defence of Christ’s Gospel, the liberty of our country, the administration of justice, and the punishment of iniquity, against all enemies within and without this realm, as we desire our God to be a strong and merciful defender to us in the day of our death, and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: to whom with the Father and with the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory eternally. Amen.”²

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 237, 248‒254; Spottiswood, Volume II., page 266, et seq.

² Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 515, et seq.; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 501‒505; Collection of Confessions, pages 101‒107. 1722. This confession was drawn up by John Craig, one of the ministers of Edinburgh.

About the beginning of the year 1581 the Duke of Lennox accused Morton of complicity in the murder of Darnley, the King’s father; and the fallen regent was taken and imprisoned, first in the Castle of Edinburgh, and afterwards in Dumbarton Castle. He was brought to trial on the 1st of June; and on his own confession that he was privy to the plot for the murder of Darnley, was condemned and beheaded on the 2nd of June. Morton faced death as he had faced life, and died with characteristic firmness.¹

¹ Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials, Volume II.; Melville’s Diary, pages 116‒118.

Lennox and Arran were now supreme in the court and in the government. But, as usual in the history of Scotland, a party of the nobles entered into a bond against the favourites to crush them, take the King into their own hands, and hold the reins of government themselves.¹ Some time, however, elapsed before the project was matured. This interval afforded Lennox an opportunity of trying his skill in the affairs of the Church. On the death of Boyd, the Archbishop of Glasgow, the disposal of the see was given to Lennox; and although the regulations which recognised Episcopacy had been abrogated by the General Assembly, and virtually abandoned by the court, they were revived by an act of the Privy Council. The Duke offered the see to various ministers upon the condition of their giving over to him the revenues, and agreeing to accept an annual pension; and at last the offer was accepted by Robert Montgomery, the minister of Stirling. To the reformed clergy this simoniacal paction was extremely odious. The matter came before the Assembly in October, 1581, and in spite of Lennox, the court party, and the King, Montgomery was subjected by the Church to a form of treatment which made him glad to submit, and in the end to supplicate for permission to take the charge of a congregation, instead of the Archbishopric of Glasgow. The King’s favourites and the court party had not reckoned on the determined stand which the clergy made against them; and were greatly enraged at being defeated.²

¹ The bond contained the names of the Earls of Gowrie, Mar, and Glencairn, Lord Lindsay, the Master of Glamis, and a number of others.

² Register of the Privy Council, Volume III., pages 474‒477; Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 524, 525, 529, 532, 539, 541‒547, 557‒566, 569, 571, 575, 578, 580, 583, 590, 599, 607, 609, 691, 700‒701, 709.

The feeling of uneasiness amongst the people, springing out of a fear that the Catholics were preparing plots, continued. The adherents of the old faith were very active; some of the most ardent of those who had fled to the Continent after the Reformation were then returning; and the court was showing a decided leaning towards Episcopacy. The reformed ministers were not silent. They frequently expressed their sentiments and opinions in the pulpit with irritating plainness. Walter ♦Balcanquhal, one of the ministers of Edinburgh, in a sermon which he preached in October, 1581, said,​—“That within these few years Popery had entered into the country, not only in the court, but in the King’s hall, and was maintained by the tyranny of a great champion, who was called Grace; and if his grace would oppose himself to God’s Word, he should have little grace.” For this sermon he was called before the King’s Council, but he declined to recognise their right to try him for anything which he had spoken in the pulpit, and offered to submit the matter to the General Assembly. His case came before the Assembly, and his brethren, after inquiry among the preacher’s session, unanimously found that there was nothing wrong in his sermon; “but that it was solid, good, and true doctrine.”¹

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 527‒529, 540, 542‒543.

By the freedom which they took in the pulpit the ministers of Edinburgh were extremely annoying to the dominant faction, who had the King’s ear. John Dury charged the King himself to his face for exchanging presents with the Duke of Guise, “that cruel murderer of the saints.” When he ascended the pulpit, he made the church resound with his denunciations of the bishops, the King, and his favourites, who ruled the kingdom. Dury was at first an exhorter in Leith, and though not a learned man, he had much energy and intense earnestness of purpose. He could wield a weapon on the field of battle, as well as preach a sermon in the pulpit. It was on the evening of Wednesday, the 23rd of May, 1582, in the Cathedral Church of Edinburgh, that he made his great attack upon the court faction. “I pray you,” he said, “what should move Guise, that bloody persecutor, that enemy unto all truth, that pillar of the Pope, to send this present by one of his trustiest servants to our King? not for any love, no, no, his pretence is known.... What amity or friendship can we look for at his hands who has been the bloodiest persecutor of the professors of the truth in all France, neither was there any notable murder or havoc of God’s people, but what he was at in person. And yet for all this, the Duke and Arran will needs have our King to take a present from him. If God did threaten the captivity and spoil of Jerusalem because their King Hezekia did receive a lure and present from the King of Babylon, shall we think to be free when committing the like or rather worse?” In his prayers, he prayed that the Lord would either convert or confound the Duke. For his sermon he was called before the Privy Council, and banished from Edinburgh by an Act of Council. When the General Assembly met in June, 1582, he placed the whole process against him before it, and the members of the Assembly found nothing amiss in what he had spoken. “The whole Assembly found nothing in him but sound, true, and wholesome doctrine; and that he was upright and honest in his life and conversation.” As the King had banished him from the capital, the Assembly gave him liberty to preach wherever providence might cast his lot, until he should be restored to his own flock.¹

¹ Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 576, 578, 580; Calderwood, Volume III., pages 620, 622‒625; Register of the Privy Council, Volume III., pages 335, 489. Dury was called before the King and Council at Dalkeith​—“Where he narrowly escaped being slain by the duke’s cooks, who came out of the kitchen, with spits and great knives to take his life, as he often told me.”​—Melville’s Diary, page 129.

The plot against the King’s favourites was at length ripe for execution. The King was very fond of hunting, and on August 22, 1582, his Majesty, by invitation, proceeded to the grounds of Ruthven Castle, in the neighbourhood of Perth, to enjoy his favourite amusement. When the sport was concluded for the day, he went to Ruthven Castle as the welcome guest of its noble lord. Everything passed off in the most agreeable fashion, and his Majesty at last retired to rest. The following morning, when he arose and looked abroad, he was alarmed by the throng of armed men around the place, and when he wished to depart, discovered that he was a captive. The Earl of Arran was seized and imprisoned; and the Duke of Lennox was warned to leave the country without delay. This affair is known in history as “The Raid of Ruthven.”

The King was permitted to step about, but he was attended by a body of well-armed followers to preserve his royal person from danger. In a few days he was removed to Stirling, and in October was conveyed to Holyrood House. A Parliament was then held at Edinburgh on the 19th of October, and an act of indemnity, or rather a vote of thanks to the chief actors in the enterprise, was passed. This was a farce which the aristocracy often played. They proclaimed that, under the providence of God, they were moved to attempt the reform of many abuses in the State, which threatened to subvert the established religion, and were equally perilous to his Majesty and the crown.¹ By the most ardent Protestants and the clergy, “The Raid of Ruthven” was regarded as a deliverance for the Church, and the ministers declared their satisfaction from the pulpits. When the General Assembly met at Edinburgh on the 9th October, 1582, the members heartily approved of the proceedings of the Earl of Gowrie and his adherents, and passed an act declaring “that the prosecution and following out of the said good and godly cause, all particulars put aside, is and shall be most acceptable to all that fear the majesty of God aright; and to all who tender the preservation of the King’s Majesty, most noble person, and estate, and loves the prosperous and happy success of this troubled nation.” The members of the Assembly were therefore recommended to explain the affair, and the proceedings of the noblemen connected with it, to the people throughout the country.²

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 326‒331.

² Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 591‒592, 594‒596; Melville’s Diary, page 134; Sir James Melville’s Memoirs, pages 282‒283.

During the time that the King was in the hands of Gowrie and the barons who joined him, the government was carried on pretty much in accordance with the views of the Church. When ambassadors arrived from France in January, 1583, the Presbytery of Edinburgh appointed some of the ministers to go to the King and admonish him to beware of them. The King thanked the preachers for their friendly admonition, but said that he must show the common courtesies to the ambassadors of his old ally, the King of France; but promised, however, to use no great familiarity with them. The ♦distinguished strangers were permitted to celebrate the mass, and their celebration of it excited the popular displeasure; the ministers of the capital declaimed bitterly against them, especially against La Motte, a knight who wore a white cross on his shoulder, which they called the badge of Antichrist. Indeed, such was the feeling aroused against them that the representatives of the King of France could scarcely appear on the streets without being followed by the jeers and hooting of the mob. The King desired the magistrates to entertain them at a banquet before they departed; but the ministers were extremely opposed to it, and immediately proclaimed a fast to be kept on the day of the banquet. On that day the preachers in St. Giles made the walls resound with their denunciations. Three ministers, in succession, mounted the pulpit, and, without intermission for four hours, thundered out maledictions against the nobles and the magistrates who waited on the ambassadors, and took part in the banquet.¹

¹ Calderwood, Volume III., pages 694, 697, 698, 699, 700; Spottiswood, Volume II., page 298.

Despite the vigilance of his keepers, the young King contrived to escape in the end of June, 1583, and to throw himself into the Castle of St. Andrews. The power of the Ruthven party was shortly after terminated. The King issued a proclamation on the 30th of July, touching the Raid of Ruthven, and announcing that he had resumed his independent authority. Referring to the Raid, he expressed his willingness to forget the offence and grant forgiveness to all concerned in it, if they should timeously profess their penitence; and for some time several of the nobles implicated in the Raid continued members of the Privy Council. But on the 23rd of August the Earl of Arran reappeared in the Council, and shortly resumed his power and influence in the government; and he seems to have instigated the young prince to prosecute to the utmost those concerned in the Raid of Ruthven, and at last, on the 31st of March, 1584, it was denounced as high treason. By this time, a number of those implicated in the Raid had been tried one by one or collectively, and sentenced to banishment or imprisonment, and disgraced. But the hatred of the Earl of Arran’s rule had become general, and a new plot, sanctioned by a bond, was formed against him, in which the Earls of Mar, Angus, and Gowrie, the Lords Lindsay, John Hamilton and Claud Hamilton, the Master of Glamis, and others, were associated. They resolved to seize Stirling Castle, and then to raise a general insurrection. On the 10th of April, Mar and Glamis, with a body of their followers, captured Stirling Castle; but on the 15th of April, the Earl of Gowrie was arrested by Colonel Stewart at Dundee, and immediately conveyed to Edinburgh. The capture of Gowrie somewhat disconcerted the insurgent nobles. Arran, with a strong force, advanced against them, and on the 24th of April, they fled from Stirling, leaving only a garrison of twenty-four men in the Castle. The following day, a proclamation was issued for the pursuit and capture, dead or alive, of the Earls of Mar and Angus, the Master of Glamis, and other rebels; but they escaped by Lanark to Kelso, and crossed the border into England. The King and his army appeared before Stirling, the small garrison left by the insurgents surrendered the Castle, and on the 28th of April, their captain and other three men were hanged. On the 2nd of May, the Earl of Gowrie was tried for treason at Stirling by a jury of his peers, including ♦Argyle, Arran, Crawford, and others; he was convicted, and beheaded the same day beneath the castle wall. The same month an Act of Parliament was passed for disinheriting his posterity, and in August an act of forfeiture was passed against the Countess of Gowrie. From May 1584, till Midsummer 1585, Arran was the supreme ruler of Scotland, and his policy was clearly manifested in the two short sessions of what is known as the “running” Parliament, and in the proceedings of the Privy Council during the brief period of his sway.¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 301‒304; Register of the Privy Council, Volume III., pages 574, 585, 590, 602, 608, 611, 614, 644, 651‒662.

Meanwhile the apprehensions of the clergy had risen to an unusual height. They had applauded the Raid of Ruthven, and some of them still continued to reiterate their former sentiments on that enterprise. John Dury, who had returned to Edinburgh, was ordered to retire beyond the Tay, and to abide in Montrose. In the middle of February, 1584, Andrew Melville, one of the chief leaders of the clergy, was cited to appear before the Privy Council, touching seditious language which he had uttered in his sermons. When he came before the Council, he at once offered to give an account of the sermon upon which he was accused, and after he had done this, the Council resolved to proceed with the trial. Melville then protested and declined to answer, on the ground that the case ought in the first instance to be tried by the Presbytery. The reading of his protest seems to have greatly irritated Arran and the King. On the second day of the trial Melville lost his temper, and told the King and Council that they had taken too much on themselves to control the servants of a Master far higher than they were. That they might see their rashness, he took a Hebrew Bible from his girdle, and throwing it down on the table challenged his judges to try conclusions on that and then they would see their folly. The record states that he “proudly, irreverently, and contemptuously declared that the laws of God and the practices observed within the country were perverted and not observed in this case.” The court ordered him to enter as a prisoner into the Castle of Blackness within ten hours, under the penalty of being proclaimed a rebel and an outlaw; but Melville preferred to choose his own place of imprisonment, and immediately fled to Berwick, which in those days was the city of refuge.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume III., page 631; Melville’s Diary, pages 141‒144; Scott’s Narrative, page 51.

The contest between the Crown and the clergy had now reached a crisis. Archbishop Adamson, acting in concert with the King and Arran, was busy concocting a plan for the reintroduction of Episcopacy and the destruction of the Presbyterian polity, which had been rapidly completing its organisation. Adamson drew up a series of articles for the constitution of the Church and the acceptance of the Government. According to this scheme, which recognised in emphatic terms that the King was head of the Church, and that it was therefore his prerogative to appoint the order of her polity, the government of the Church consisted, subject to the headship of the King, in the power and authority of the bishops, whose office is of apostolic institution and in accordance with the primitive purity of the Church of God. On the other hand, it was pointed out that presbyteries in which laymen associated with the ministers, were in fact a continual source of sedition. No General Assembly was to be allowed to meet without a license from the King.¹ These ideas were instilled into the mind of the young King at this impressionable period of his life, and throughout the rest of his career he never ceased to hold and enforce them to the utmost of his power.

¹ Calderwood, Volume IV., pages 53‒55; Dr. Grub’s Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, Volume II., pages 232‒234; Melville’s Diary, pages 151‒153.

Rumours of impending calamities to the Church and the nation filled the land. In the beginning of May several of the most energetic preachers fled to Berwick, and joined Melville and the banished lords. When Parliament met at Edinburgh on the 19th of May, 1584, these gloomy forebodings were fully realised. A series of acts were passed which placed in the hands of the King powers quite unprecedented in Scotland. One act declared that the King had an absolute power and authority over all ranks in the kingdom, and that he was supreme judge in all matters civil and religious. Another enacted that to speak against any of the proceedings of Parliament should be accounted treason; a third, that all the acts and judgments of the church courts, if unsanctioned by Parliament, were to be held as unlawful, and all meetings of the people to consult and deliberate on any matter, either civil or ecclesiastical, without the King’s special licence, were declared criminal and deserving the severest punishment. A fourth act placed the chief ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the hands of the bishops. A fifth commanded that no person whatever should dare to comment upon the proceedings of the King and Council, either in sermons or declamations, in public, in private, or in familiar conversation; nor at all presume to utter any false and slanderous statements to the reproach, the disdain, or the contempt of His Majesty, or to the prejudice and dishonour of his highness and his parents and worthy progenitors, under the penalty of the laws against the makers and tellers of lies. And that these royal prerogatives which by the gift of heaven belonged to his highness and to all his heirs and successors on the throne should continue unimpaired, it was deemed absolutely necessary to condemn Buchanan’s History of Scotland and his Jure Regni apud Scotos; and therefore all persons who possessed any copies of these books were ordered to deliver them to the royal officers within forty days, “that they might be purified of the extraordinary matters which they contained.”¹

¹ Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, Volume III., pages 292‒296; Calderwood, Volume IV., page 38, et seq.

The clergy had become aware that these acts were preparing, and some of them went to the Parliament House, with the intention of protesting for the rights of the Church, but the doors were closed against them. When the Acts were proclaimed at the cross of Edinburgh, three of the ministers, Lawson, Pont, and Balcanquhal, protested publicly against them as injurious to the former liberties of the Church. These acts had been passed in great haste, the parliament having sat but two days, and passed forty-nine acts; and the King and Arran made a bold attempt to carry them into effect. For some time nothing was heard of but arrests, trials, hornings and forfeitures. These measures unquestionably expressed the intentions of the party in power. Orders were issued to apprehend the preachers who had protested against the acts, but they had saved themselves by flight. Soon after more than twenty ministers took refuge in England; and there was then a pretty large party of Scots in Berwick, Newcastle, and other parts of that kingdom.¹

¹ Register of the Privy Council, Volume III., page 668; Miscellany of the Wodrow Society, Volume I., pages 411‒419; Calderwood, Volume IV., pages 64‒65, 72; Melville’s Diary, pages 167‒172.