Chapter XXI

The Literature of the Reformation, and the latter part of the Sixteenth Century.

IN the preceding pages an account was given of the pre-reformation literature of Scotland; in this chapter the class of writings more immediately associated with the revolution will be treated. In this connection, the writings of Sir David Lyndsay had more influence among the people in hastening on the Reformation than those of any other man of the age in Scotland. It is a singular and notable fact that Lyndsay was not interfered with, nor accused of heresy in the Church, though he made many bold attacks upon the priesthood and the corrupted doctrine of the Roman Church: probably it was his rank and position that saved him from the heresy hunters of the times. Whether he ever actually renounced his general adherence to the Roman Catholic faith is uncertain. His name, however, is always reckoned among those of the early adherents of the Scottish Reformation. His death took place before the reformed party in Scotland had assumed a distinct attitude toward the government of the kingdom, or had even formed themselves into an open congregation; but, if he cannot be exactly counted as one of the Protestant Reformers, we must at least regard him as a great power in preparing the national mind for the reception of the radical revolution, which triumphed in Scotland within a few years after his death.¹ In fact, Lyndsay was a real and worthy Reformer. He openly and bravely stood up and exposed the abuses of the government of his country, and held up to scorn the corruptions of the Church; he was not afraid to denounce the host of traditions, of puerile fancies, and inherited prejudices, which had been venerated for centuries; he felt keenly for the hard lot of the toiling mass of his countrymen, and the whole force of his nature and power over the language was thrown into his writings, with the aim of mitigating the suffering of the people. Having honestly faced the storm, he has had his reward in the grateful remembrance of succeeding generations.

¹ Poetical Works of Sir D. Lyndsay, edited by Dr. Laing, 2 Volumes, 1871, Memoir, Volume I., pages 45‒50. “Had Lyndsay survived for a few years beyond the actual term of his life, we need scarcely doubt he would have joined himself to the Lords of the Congregation in the abjuration of Popery; but it cannot be said that, at any period of his life, he had actually renounced his general adherence to the Romish Faith.” Compare Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Knox, pages 17, 25, 324; 1855. “His poems were very famous among his countrymen; but they were admired not so much for their poetical charms as for their powerful help to the good cause of the Reformation.”​—Minto’s Characteristics of the English Poets, pages 143‒144.

Little is known about the early days of Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount; but it appears that he was employed at the court of Scotland during the greater part of his life. For a period of nearly fifty years, excepting the short time that the Earl of Angus held James V. in captivity, Lyndsay seems to have been constantly engaged in various offices in the royal household. About the year 1529, he was appointed chief Herald, or Lyon King of Arms, as it is called, and he held this office till his death. In the latter part of the reign of James V. he was occasionally sent on foreign embassies in the service of the government. He died about the year 1555.¹

¹ Dr. Laing’s Memoir, pages 12‒22, 29, Chalmers’s Edition of the Poetical Works of Sir D. Lyndsay, Volume I., pages 11‒14, 17, 36; 1806.

Lyndsay was not a great poet nor a man of very remarkable genius; all his works had practical aims, and were intended to produce moral results. He was well informed, familiar with the history of his own and other countries, and his writings are interspersed with many historical allusions. He had a fund of genuine humour, and his satire is often pungent and stinging; but his taste was rather coarse, which, however, was partly the fault of his age, and sprang out of the state of society. If his style had been pitched on a higher key, it is certain that his writings would not have been so popular, and that his influence as a reformer must have been greatly circumscribed. Some of Lyndsay’s productions were printed in his own lifetime, but it is uncertain if any of the existing early impressions had the advantage of his own revision when passing through the press.¹ The earliest collection of his writings extant is the edition which was published in France in 1558. From this date to the year 1614 there was no fewer than fourteen editions of his works published, including the two French and the three English ones. His writings were not only very popular among all ranks of the Scots; they were also well received in England and France, and were printed in Holland and in Ireland. It is reported that his poems were read by the children in the schools,² but there is little evidence of this; though for three or four generations his writings were to be found in almost every household throughout the kingdom.

¹ “Some of his works were undoubtedly circulated during his own life in a printed form, but of the existing early impressions, it cannot positively be asserted that any one of them had the advantage of his own superintendence.” Dr. Laing’s edition, Preface. Volume I., page 1.

² Chalmers said that Lyndsay’s poetical works were read in the schools. Works of Sir David Lyndsay, Volume I., pages 83‒91.

In the days of Lyndsay the orthography of the vernacular language was not definitely fixed, and the spelling of the same word is often varied in his writings. He sometimes makes violent changes in words to suit the necessity of his rhyme, and occasionally carries this so far as to obscure the sense. But he had a copious command of words, and used a great variety of all sorts of terms. His chief object was to instruct and to make himself intelligible to the common people; in his own words—

“Howbeit that divers devote cunning clerks

In Latine tongue has written sundrie books,

Our unlearned knows little of their works,

More than they do the ravying of the rooks.

Wherefore to colliers, carters, and to cooks,

To Jok and Thome my rhyme sall be directed,

With cunning men howbeit it will be lacked.”¹

¹ Poetical Works, Volume I., page 248, Dr. Laing’s edition; see also pages 65‒66, 231. In those days it was common to make apologetic prefaces for composing works in the vulgar tongue; the great Chaucer deemed it needful to do this, also Lydgate, Gavin Douglas, and the author of the Complaynt of Scotland, as already mentioned; even in the reign of Charles I., Abacue Bysett, in the preface to the Rolment of Courtes, apologised for “using my awin natural Scottish language.”

He went on to state that when the Romans held universal sway, “the ornate Latin was their proper lingo;” but if St. Jerome, who translated the Scriptures into Latin, had been born in Argyle, he assuredly would have written his books in Gaelic. He argues that all the books necessary for the commonweal and our salvation should be translated into the language of the people. His works are full of moral sentences and proverbial phrases, but many of his words are obsolete, and others which he freely used are regarded as profane slang; in fact, some of his expressions can only be characterised as swearing at large; on the whole, his language gives a sad impression of the state of society in pre-reformation times.

Lyndsay’s first poem, “The Dreme,” in which he began his attack upon the clergy and the Church, was written in 1528. It contains a deplorable picture of the religious orders. Pride had usurped the place of humility amongst them, sensual pleasure had banished chastity; the lords of religion were more absorbed in counting their money than in observing their rule and attending to their duty, as ambition had so utterly blinded them. In his Complaynt, written in 1529, and addressed to the King, Lindsay warns his royal master to keep his eyes upon the clergy, to cause them to perform their functions, to preach and to administer the sacraments according to the injunctions of Christ, to put aside their vain traditions by which the silly people were deluded, as in praying to graven images, and making superstitious pilgrimages, expressly against the Lord’s command. He recalls the examples of the kings of Israel, who were punished for assenting to idolatry, and then instances David and Solomon, who suffered no images to stand in the Temple, and their reward was heavenly bliss, which should also be granted to the King of Scotland if he followed in their footsteps.¹

¹ Poetical Works, Volume I., pages 39, 59‒60. All the references are to Dr. Laing’s edition, unless otherwise noted.

Lyndsay’s next production, “The Testament and Complaynt of the King’s Papyngo,” that is, the king’s parrot, was written in 1530. He brings out this bird to laugh at clerical persons and the attendants of the court, and uses his satirical faculty with much effect, ridiculing in turn the courtiers, flatterers, and clergy. One of the latter is made to reply in these words:—

“No marvell is, though we religious men

Degenerated be, and in our life confused:

But sing, and drink, none other craft we ken,

Our spiritual Fathers has us so abused:

Against our will, these swindlers been intrusted.

Great pleasure were to hear a bishop preach,

A Deane, or Doctor in Divinity,

An Abbot who could well his convent teach,

A Parson flowing in philosophy:

I tine my time, to wish what will not be;

Were not the preaching of the Begging Friars

Tint were the faith among the Seculars.

As for their preaching, said the parrot,

I them excuse, for why, they been so thrall

To Property, and her worthy daughters two,

Dame Riches, and fair lady Sensuall,

That may not use no pastime spirituall;

And in their habits, they take such delite,

They have renounced russat and raploch¹ white.”²

¹ A coarse woollen cloth.

² Poetical Works, Volume I., pages 99, 101. “The first edition of this poem, and indeed of any of Lyndsay’s poems, is that printed at London by John Byddell in the year 1538.” Dr. Laing.

The “Supplication to the King, in Contemplation of Side Tails,” is an extremely curious commentary on the dress of the period. Lyndsay here directs his satire against the long trains and veiled faces of the ladies; but rarely lets slip an opportunity of having a fling at the clergy and the monastic orders, as the following lines bear witness:—

“But, I think most abuse,

To see men of religion,

Gar beir their tails throw the street,

That folks may behold their feet,

I trow Sanct Bernard nor Sanct Blais,

Gart never man beir up thair clais;

Peter, nor Paul, nor Sanct Andrew,

Gart nevir beir up thair tails, I trow,

But, I laugh best to see a Nun,

Gar beir her tails abone her bun,

For nothing else as I suppose,

But for to show her lily white hose:

In all thair rules they will not find,

Who should beir up their tails behind.”

To show the power of fashion, he asserts that even moorland Meg, who milked the ewes, will immediately counterfeit the queen’s dress, and have her kirtle with its tail wherever she goes. In summer when the streets are dry, the long tails of the ladies’ dresses raise such a dust, he says, that no one can walk near them without covering their mouth and nose and eyes, and many other rather comical effects of wearing long tails are noticed.¹

¹ Poetical Works, Volume I., pages 130‒135.

In the short poem “Kitteis Confession,” Lindsay directed his satire against auricular confession, and exposes this source of priestly influence with much pungency and some happy touches of humour. He pursued a similar end in “the Tragedie of the Cardinal,” but with less spirit and energy. To a rather general account of Cardinal Beaton’s life, and his end in the castle of St. Andrews, he adds an admonition and a warning to the bishops, and another to princes; the latter concludes with the following:—

“Wherefore I counsel every Christian king,

Within his realm to make reformation,

And suffer no more rogues to reign

Abuse Christ’s true congregation:

Failing thereof, I make narration,

That ye princes, and prelates, all at once,

Shall burnt be in hell, soul, blood, and bones.”¹

¹ Poetical Works, pages 136‒140, 157. The tragedy of “The Cardinal” was printed at London in 1547. In the prologue to this composition, Lyndsay referred to a work on Boccaccio​—“The Fall of Princes,” which was translated into English by Lydgate, and published at London in 1494, and again in 1527.

The most remarkable of all Lyndsay’s works is his play, “The Satire of the Three Estates.” It is a curious production, and in the history of dramatic literature comes under the class of what is called moralities or moral plays.¹ In its construction a number of real and allegorical characters are brought upon the scene, such as king humanitas, diligence, wantonness, good counsel, the bishop, the abbot, and the parson; the shoemaker and his wife, the tailor and his wife, the cottar and his wife, the old man, common theft, oppression, and many other mixed characters. Much ingenuity in the marshalling of these various characters is displayed in order to suit the action of the play; though it is hardly possible for such a multitudinous rally to exhibit a natural succession of incidents throughout so long a performance. The action of the play, however, is sustained with wonderful spirit, and occasionally with comic effect. The characters sometimes express themselves in very coarse and obscene language, and there is much of what would be called swearing, and would not be tolerated on the stage of the present day or anywhere else; yet, there is not the slightest reason to doubt that the “Satire of the Three Estates” is a pretty faithful representation of the state of society in Scotland in pre-reformation times.

¹ The full title is​—“Ane Pleasant Satire of the Three Estates, in Commendation of Virtue and Vituperation of Vice.”

The play, as its title imported, is a satire on the chief ranks of the kingdom. But, as usual with Lyndsay, the burden of his rhyme and the force of his lash falls upon the religious orders. He proceeds from point to point, and charges them with a catalogue of immoralities which is appalling. The bishops, with their lordly riches and immoral modes of life, are represented in the most glaring colours, as are also the abuses of their courts and the oppressions of the poor people. The pardoner and his ways of extorting money are handled with boldness and effect. It is forcibly shown that the priesthood had entirely neglected to instruct the people in the religion of Christ; and that most of the clergy were utterly ignorant of the Scriptures. It must be added that the language itself which imparts this information affords evidence of the fearful corruption of the nation: the profane swearing, the obscene words and phrases, the extreme licentiousness, and the lack of delicacy, which pervades the performance, all shows that there was great need for a reformation.

In the course of the play the abbot is called upon to tell how he has performed the duties of his office, and he replies in these words:

“Touching my office, I say to you plainly,

My monks and I, we live richt easily;

There is no monks, from Carrick to Crail,

That fairs better, and drinks more helsum ale.

My prior is a man of great devotion:

Therefore, daily, he gets a double portion.”

Next, the abbot is asked how he has kept his three vows, and returns this answer:—

“Indeed, richt well, till I got home my bulls,

In my abbey, when I was sure professor;

Then did I live, as did my predecessor.

My parmours are both as fat and fair,

As any wench intill the town of Ayr.

I send my sons to Paris to the schools,

I trust in God that they shall be no fools.

And all my daughters I have well provided.

Now judge ye if my office be well guided.”¹

¹ Works, Volume II., pages 263, 264. For evidence that the monks lived luxuriously and drank large quantities of ale and wine, see Mackintosh’s History of Civilisation in Scotland, Volume I., pages 431, 433. New Ed., 1892.

On being asked whether he can preach, the Parson replies:—

“Though I preach not, I play at the caiche:¹

I wait there is not one among you all,

More fairly can play at the football;

And for the carts, the tables, and the dice,

Above all parsons, I may bear the prize.

Our round bonnets, we make them now four-nuicked,

Of richt fine stuff, if you list, come and luke it.

Of my office I have declared to thee;

Speir what ye please, ye get no more of me.”²

¹ A game of hand-ball.

² Lyndsay’s Works, Volume II., pages 264, 265.

There was no theatre at the time in Scotland, and the satire of the “Three Estates” was acted in the open air, upon the green. It was first played at Linlithgow, on the 6th of January, 1540, in the presence of the King and Queen, the ladies of the court, the bishops, and a great assemblage of the people. It was again acted at Cupar Fife, on the playfield, about the year 1552; and at Edinburgh in 1554, before the Queen Regent, the nobles, and a large gathering of the people. On the latter occasion the performance of the play began at nine in the morning and continued till six at night; but it appears from the play itself that there were short intervals, when the chief auditory retired for refreshments.¹

¹ Works, Volume I., pages 33‒35, Preface. Volume II., pages 346‒348, and Chalmers’s edition, Volume I., pages 356‒358. Dr. Laing holds that there is no evidence that Lyndsay’s play was acted at Cupar in 1535, as had been supposed by Chalmers and others.

Some information respecting dramatic exhibitions of the period may be obtained from the records of Edinburgh. According to these, in June, 1554, the provost and council ordered the treasurer to pay the workmen, the merchants, the carters, and others, who furnished the gear to the convoy of the moirs to the abbey, and for the play which was acted the same day, the sum of thirty-seven pounds, sixteen shillings, and fourpence, “provided always that the master of work deliver to the dean of guild the hand-scene and canvass, to be kept to the behoof of the town.” On the 27th of the same month the treasurer was ordered to pay the sum of twenty-four pounds for the making of the playing place. On the 20th of July the town council ordered the payment of forty-two pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence, to complete the playfield “now building in the Greenside.” On the 18th of August the council directed that the twelve minstrels who passed before the convoy and the players on Sunday last should be paid forty shillings. The play-gear it seems belonged to the town, as the council ordered the treasurer to pay Walter Binning the sum of five pounds for making the play-gear, painting the hand-scene and the players’ faces, “provided always that the said Walter make the play-gear underwritten, forthcoming to the town, when required, and which he has now received​—eight play-hats, a king’s crown, a mitre, a fool’s hood, a sceptre, a pair of angel-wings, two angel-hair, and a chaplet of triumph.”¹ On the occasion of Queen Mary’s marriage with the Dauphin of France in 1558, the magistrates of Edinburgh voted various sums of money for plays and triumphs;² and there are many indications that the people delighted in rude plays and pageants.

¹ Burgh Records of Edinburgh, Volume II., pages 193, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199.

² Ibid., Volume III., pages 26, 28. So different was the progress of the drama in England and Scotland, that before the year 1633 nineteen playhouses had been opened in London, while on our side of the Border there was hardly one worth the name of a theatre.​—Percy’s Essay on the Origin of the English Stage, page 151.

Sir David Lyndsay’s other works are “Squire Meldrum,” and “The Monarchy” or “A Dialogue between Experience and a Courtier of the miserable Estate of the World.” The first is a kind of rhymed tale of chivalry, though the hero of the story lived at the time, and Lyndsay reported that he received some of his information from the lips of the champion himself; and thus by a mixture of fact and romance, he has woven a long and pretty animated poem. The many exploits of the heroic squire are narrated with much energy throughout a performance extending to nearly two thousand lines.¹ In 1553 Lyndsay finished his longest work, the Monarchy, which extends to 6333 lines. In this work, his chief object seems to have been, to make use of the great events recorded in history for the purpose of illustrating general positions. After a review of the most notable events narrated by Moses, and of the four great ancient monarchies​—Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, of whose history he evinces some knowledge, he proceeds to handle the spiritual monarchy of the Pope. In this he was more in his element, and soon shows that none of the rulers of the ancient monarchies ever had such powerful armies to uphold their authority throughout their dominions, as the Pope of Rome actually commanded. He illustrated his view by referring to the cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, and the vast legions of priests, vicars, monks, friars, and nuns​—all holding under the Pope, and mentioned the enormous privileges and powers which this army had obtained in every Christian kingdom. He then goes on to show that the Popes had abused their power, by corrupting religion, by enslaving and oppressing the people without mercy; and he lashes the occupant of the chair of St. Peter and all his hosts down to the begging friars on the street, and the pardoners that hawked the country selling salvation. Waxing bolder, he predicts the downfall of the temporal power of the Pope, and fixes the day of God’s judgment of the world to be​—“in four hundred and forty-seven years” from the date when he wrote. This remarkable work concluded with these words:—

“And speed me home, with heart sighing full sore,

And entered in my Oritore.

I took paper, and there began to write

This misery, as ye have heard afore.

All gentle readers heartily I implore

For to excuse my rural rude indite,

Though Phareseis will have at me despite,

Who would not that their craftiness were kend:

Let God be Judge! And so I make an end.”²

¹ Much information about Squire Meldrum will be found in Chalmers’s Notes to Lyndsay’s Poems, and in Dr. Laing’s Notes, also in Pinkerton’s Ancient Scottish Poems, 1786, and in his Scottish Poems, reprinted from scarce editions, 1792. The rhymed story itself was probably composed about the year 1543.

² Works, Volume II., pages 104‒105. The three-volume Library edition containing a complete text of Lyndsay’s works, published about eighteen years ago, was enriched with the curious information and the careful research of the late Dr. Laing. Another work of a different character, may be noticed​—“The Register of Arms of the Scottish Nobility and Gentry,” executed in the year 1542, under Lyndsay’s direction, as Lyon Herald. The arms are carefully drawn, and properly blazoned; indeed they are among the most creditable products of Scottish art which now remain of that period. It contains the arms of the Royal Family of Scotland; and the arms in full blazonry of many of the ancient nobles, and the shields and quarterings of 194 of the principal families in the country. The original volume has been preserved in the Advocates’ Library since 1698, having been acquired with Balfour’s Manuscript Collections. A limited impression of an exact facsimile of the original Register was published at Edinburgh in 1821, by W. and D. Laing. In 1879, another impression limited to 250 copies, was published by Mr. Paterson, at Edinburgh, which was also edited by the late Dr. Laing. There is a pretty full account of Sir David Lindsay, in the first volume of the Lives of the Lindsays, by Lord Lindsay; in Tytler’s Lives of Scottish Worthies, and other sources easily accessible. In short, students that wish to understand the state of Society in Scotland immediately before the Reformation, must make themselves familiar with the writings of Sir David Lyndsay of the Mount.

There were other writers of rhymes in Scotland, who attacked the abuses of Catholicism, though their names are not so well known as Sir David Lyndsay’s. Killor, a friar, who was burnt for heresy, is reported to have composed a tragedy on the crucifixion of Christ, in which the Catholic clergy was attacked. About the same time James Stewart, son of Lord Methven, wrote short poems and ballads satirising the priesthood. James Wedderburn, a poet of some note, the son of a merchant, was born in Dundee about the beginning of the sixteenth century. According to the Bannatyne manuscript, he was the author of three short poems, commencing respectively with the following lines:​—“My love was ♦fals and full of flatterie,” “I think thir men are very fals and vain,” “O man, transformit and unnaturall.” It is also reported that he composed two dramatic pieces, which were acted at Dundee about the year 1540; in both of which the Catholic clergy were attacked, but these are now lost.¹ James Wedderburn and his brother Robert are the reputed authors of another and a very important production of the Reformation period. This is the curious collection known by the title of “The Gude and Godlie Ballads.”² It is true that this singular book may appear to modern taste as “only a tissue of blasphemy and absurdity;” but it is equally true that these rhymed parodies and ballads had a real influence upon the mind of the people in connection with the Reformation movement; and the historian is not at liberty to ignore anything which was conducive to that revolution, on the ground of its being unpleasant to existing notions of taste. The mixture of sacred and profane subjects was quite common in Catholic places of worship, both in Scotland and in other countries long before the Reformation.

¹ Calderwood, Volume I.; Dalzell’s Cursory Remarks, page 31; Sibbald’s Chronicle of Scottish Poetry.

² The references are to the edition of 1868 edited by Dr. Laing, unless otherwise noted. The original title of the collection is​—“A compendious Book of Psalms and Spiritual Songs.” The earliest printed edition of it, yet discovered, is that of 1578, but it appears from the title page that there were earlier printed editions: it passed through several editions in the later years of the sixteenth century and the beginning of the seventeenth, but very few copies of these early impressions are now known to exist. See Dr. Laing’s Preface, pages 6‒7; Notes, pages 211‒215.

The collection naturally falls into three divisions: the first doctrinal, embracing a short Catechism, the Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer, which are repeated both in prose and in metre. The second part contains versions of twenty-two psalms, and a number of hymns mostly translations from the German. The third comprises secular songs, but they are parodied, or mixed up with religious opinions. During the Reformation era the practice of adopting rude popular songs along with their airs to sacred subjects was common in several countries. In Scotland, the initial line or the chorus of the ballads then popular among the people were transferred to hymns of devotion; this as may be seen in the collection of “Godly Ballads,” often resulted in an odd kind of parody.¹ Though the association of the coarsely profane and the sacred appears to be ridiculously out of character, it is, nevertheless, certain that compositions of this description had a powerful effect in contributing to the change of the religious opinions. From allusions which occur in them to the Queen Regent, the Pope, and the Priesthood, it is evident that some of them were written during the heat of the Reformation; and that ballads touching the Roman Catholic religion, were circulated among the people, appears from the national records.² Though these ballads were popular among the common people, who could easily appreciate words sung to popular airs, it is not probable, however, that many of the pieces in the collection had been printed in Scotland before the Reformation. It is hardly necessary to say, that the book was never authorised by the General Assembly, nor known to have been used in the public service of the Church.³

¹ The source of the song and the tune is seen in the well-known lines​—“Hay now, the day dawns,” which stands as the opening words of one of the godly ballads. To give it a religious turn it is put into the following connection:—

“Hay now, the day dawns,

Now Christ on us calls,

Now gladness on our waves,

Appears anone.

Now the word of God reigns,

Who is King of all Kings,

Now Christ’s flock sings

The night is near gone.”

The refrain “The night is near gone,” closes each stanza to the end of the ballad. “Dunbar and Gavin Douglas, in the reign of James IV., mention the tune, ‘now the day dawns,’ and ‘the jolly day now dawns,’ as one that was well known to the common minstrels.” There are several versions of early ballads which begin with the words, ‘the day dawns,’ and close each stanza with​—‘the night is near gone.’ Alexander Montgomery, who wrote in the reign of James VI., composed a short lyric poem which opened with, ‘haw the day dawns,’ and adopted the refrain​—‘the night is near gone.’ The fine plaintive air called ‘Hey tuttie tuitie,’ was from a very early period sung with the foregoing words; but it is best known from Burns’s address, ‘Scots wha hae wi’ Wallace bled.’ Dr. Laing, Notes, page 256, page 168. Poems of A. Montgomery, pages 219‒221, 314; 1821.

² See under pages 77, et seq.; Dr. M‘Crie’s Life of Knox, pages 323, 325; 1855.

³ Godly Ballads, Preface, pages 8‒9, 43, 47.

Touching the authorship of the “Godly Ballads” in the form that we now have them, little can be said with certainty. As indicated above, it has sometimes been attributed to James Wedderburn, while other early authorities attribute the collection to two brothers of his, John and Robert Wedderburn; all the three flourished in the second quarter of the century. The earliest reference to the book is by James Melville, in the year 1570 when speaking of his own education; he says that, at that time he first saw Wedderburn’s songs, and learned several of them by heart, with a great diversity of tunes. Melville does not mention Wedderburn’s Christian name; and although the Wedderburns may have translated some of the psalms, recast or composed some of the songs in this collection, there is no available information for distinctly assigning the contents of the book to the respective translators and authors. A number of the psalms were versified, printed, and circulated in England and in Scotland before the Reformation. In the former country Coverdale compiled a book of psalms and spiritual songs which was printed about the year 1539; and four of the psalms in this collection are almost verbatim with four of those in the book of “Godly Ballads;” and the presumption seems reasonable that they had been taken from Coverdale’s collection. The chief source of modern hymnology, however, is Germany. The Hussites in the fifteenth century had their devotional songs; Luther’s collection of hymns was published in 1524, and it was enlarged from time to time by himself and others. As these hymns were written in the vernacular tongue and many of them set to popular airs, they were admirably suited for private instruction as well as for public worship.¹ These hymns accompanied with the music which the people understood and loved, formed one of the strong points of the German Reformation. The poetic inspiration that glowed in the heart and stirred the soul of the German Reformer, joined with his sublime confidence, rang out in many of his popular hymns.²

¹ Dr. Laing’s Preface, pages 8‒25, 33‒39. Regarding the variety and extent of German hymns, Dr. Laing in his preface and notes to the “Godly Ballads,” gives a good deal of information. He notices the collections of Dr. Wackerangel and the Chevalier Bunsen; Miss C. Winkworth’s “Lyra Germanica,” first and second series, 1859. As to more recent works on German hymnology, he mentions “Hymns translated or imitated from the German, by the Rev. George Walker,” 1860. A Lecture by Professor Mitchell of St. Andrews, entitled, “The Wedderburns, and their work on the Sacred Poetry of the Scottish Reformation, in its historical relation to that of Germany,” 1867. “The Scottish Reformation; a historical sketch by Professor Lorimer,” see pages 27‒29, 60.

² In 1521 Charles the Fifth issued the first of a series of enactments for extinguishing heresy in the Netherlands; and in 1522 two monks were burned at the stake in Brussels. This execution moved Luther to write a stirring hymn, of which the following is one of the stanzas:—

“Quiet their ashes will not lie:

But scattered far and near,

Stream, dungeon, bolt, and grave defy,

Their foeman’s shame and fear.

Those whom alive the tyrant’s wrongs

To silence could subdue,

He must, when dead, let sing the songs

Which in all languages and tongues,

Resound the wide world through.”

Quoted by G. P. Fisher in his work, The Reformation, page 287; 1873.

A number of the spiritual songs in the collection of “Godly Ballads” are derived or founded upon German hymns of the Reformation period: others are merely modifications of the original songs current among the Scots at the time; while others are entirely of a satirical turn, directed against Roman Catholicism, and naturally sprang out of the struggle of the Reformation in Scotland. It is the two latter that are of most importance in connection with the subject in hand. In one of the spiritual songs the burden of a very old ballad is retained​—“The wind blaws cauld.” It is found in the following connection:—

“The wind blaws cauld, furious and bauld,

This lang and mony a day—

But Christ’s mercy we man all die,

Or keep the cauld wind away.

Then be not wo, see that ye pray

To Peter, James, nor John,

Nor yet to Paul, to save your soul,

For power have they none.

Save Christ only, that died on tree,

He may both loose and bind:

In others more, if ye trust so,

On you blaws cauld the wind.”¹

¹ Ibid., pages 165, 166‒168, 158‒161, 184.

Another satirical ballad refers to events when the Protestants, under the name of “the Congregation,” had taken matters into their own hands, in the year 1559, and it retains the following refrain:​—“Hay trix, tryme go trix, under the green-wood tree.” The drift of the effusion is directed against the Pope and all the religious orders, the cardinals, bishops, priests, abbots, and monks and nuns are each in turn severely handled, and charged with obscene immoralities.¹ The doctrines of Catholicism are also boldly, fearlessly, and effectively attacked in these rude ballads. Not a tenet of Romanism is spared. All are treated with scorn and contempt. Of the fire of purgatory, it is said, there is not left a spunk; and the reek, that was sold so dear, is said to have fallen into utter disrepute. The monks having long neglected to pray for the souls of the founders of the monasteries​—“their souls were left to burn and biss” as they might. Touching the worship of saints, it is said:​—“I wat St. Peter, nor St. Paul, nor yet any saint, can save your soul, though many lies make many brawl.” Relics, the adoration of images, indulgence, the mass, and other doctrines of Catholicism, are treated with sharp and bitter derision.² It is easy to understand the effect of this upon the mind of the people; and in connection with other influences the tone and spirit of these ballads and rhymes tended to intensify the Protestantism of the Scots.

¹ Gude and Godly Ballads, pages 166‒168. “‘The wind blaws cauld.’ This is the burden of an English song in praise of Christmas, entitled ‘A pleasant country ditty,’ merrily showing how to drive the cold winter away.”​—Dr. Laing, Notes, page 255.

² Ibid., pages 163‒165, 167, 169‒173, 175‒177, 183‒186.

John Knox was more remarkable as a reformer and a preacher than as a writer and a thinker. He was aware of this himself, for he said that, “considering myself rather called of my God to instruct the ignorant, comfort the sorrowful, confirm the weak, and rebuke the proud, by tongue and living voice, in these most corrupt days, than to compose books for the age to come.” That he did his duty to his country and to society, as thus conceived by himself, is matter of history. Looking to his life and the important work which he so actively contributed to effect, the writings that he produced are surprising. His compositions it must be remembered were hastily prepared, under the pressure of many disquieting influences, or amid constant and exciting occupation.¹ Neither great elaboration nor the finer graces of style can be expected from him; yet, for all the unpropitious circumstances under which he laboured, his writings in the language of the people will compare favourably with those of any of his contemporaries in Britain. He had a good command of his mother tongue: his style is equally remarkable for strength, clearness, and vehemence. He never leaves any doubt about his meaning; as he held his opinions firmly, so he expressed them with all the force of his nature; his thoughts and judgments are thrown out, with a rapidity and animation which is striking and effective. He had a keen vein of humour in his constitution, and frequently adopted a strain of remark and expression of a grotesque and humorous character; and sometimes touches of sarcasm and bitter scorn occur in his compositions. His humour is often coarse and even vulgar; but this was partly the fault of his age, and partly a result of the kind of work that fell to him.

¹ The Works of John Knox, collected and edited by Dr. Laing, Volume VI., page 229. Preface, pages 85, 89. This edition of our national reformer’s writings in six volumes is a great literary monument to his memory. It has placed his life and work in a clearer and juster light. The learned editor bestowed much and unusual care on the execution of his task; and he deserves our warmest gratitude for his research, his unwearying industry, and his devotion to the accomplishment of a worthy object. Dr. Laing did his work in a manner that cannot fail to command the respect of his countrymen, while the principle of Protestantism retains a hold upon their minds.

Knox’s works may be described as mostly admonitory and historical. In the department of theology itself he produced nothing, except a treatise on predestination. As a writer, he is best known by his History of the Reformation in Scotland. He began it in 1559, and finished the fourth book, bringing the narrative down to 1564, in 1566. He left a few marginal notes and materials for a continuation of the history, which were used by others after his death in compiling the fifth book, and also the volume of memorials published under the name of Richard Bannatyne. Many references have been made to his history in the preceding chapters of this work, and quotations given, which render any lengthy account of its contents and character unnecessary. Its historical value and general accuracy have now been fully recognised. When narrating events which happened under his own eyes, it could hardly be expected that he should always be able to refrain from bitter reflections on his opponents; but his humour for abusing them he has often carried to an extreme length. The only excuse for the coarse expressions and hard epithets which he hurls at their heads must be sought in the corrupt and immoral state of society, and the inflamed and enraged feelings of the people around him.

Knox’s admonitory writings consist of his public letters, such as the “Admonition to the Faithful in England,” “to the Godly,” “to the Professors of the Faith,” his “Letter to the Queen Regent,” “The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous Regime of Women,” and others of a similar description. In this department he was particularly strong; he had a special faculty for scolding, and employed it with much effect. Many examples of this might be quoted from his writings. In his “Faithful Admonition to the Professors of God’s Truth in England,” which was printed and circulated in 1554, there are some passages touching Queen Mary and those at the head of the government of England, which are extremely vehement. “And, now, does she not manifestly show herself to be an open traitress to the imperial Crown of England, contrary to the just laws of the realm, to bring in a stranger, and make a proud Spaniard king? to the shame, dishonour, and the destruction of the nobility; to the spoil from them and theirs of their honours, lands, possessions, chief offices, and promotions; to the utter decay of the treasure, commodities, navy, and fortifications of the realm; to the abasing of the yeomanry, to the slavery of the commons, to the overthrow of Christianity, and God’s true religion, and, finally, to the utter subversion of the whole estate and commonwealth of England.”¹

¹ Works, Volume III., page 294, et seq.

After the death of Queen Mary, Knox wrote, in 1559, “A brief Exhortation to England for the speedy embracing of the Gospel.” In this tract, which was printed at Geneva, he at once strikes the keynote and states what should be done: “Touching reformation of religion, you must at once so purge and expel all dregs of papistry, superstition, and idolatry, that thou, O England, must judge and hold execrable whatsoever God hath not sanctified unto thee by his word, or by the action of our master Christ Jesus. The glistening beauty of vain ceremonies, the keeping of things pertaining nothing to edification, by whomsoever they were invented, justified, or maintained, ought at once to be removed, and so trodden under the obedience of God’s word, that continually this sentence of thy God be present in thy heart and ready in thy mouth:​—‘Not that which appears good in thy eyes, shalt thou do to the Lord thy God, but what the Lord thy God hath commanded thee, that shalt thou do: add nothing to it, diminish nothing from it.’”¹ He then proceeds at length to admonish and counsel them to embrace the gospel, and to cast aside the devices of men, and to rest only on the word of God.

¹ Works, Volume V., page 515, et seq.

In the Reformer’s letter to the Queen Regent of Scotland in 1558, which was printed the same year, there are also some characteristic and important passages. The following is one:​—“As Satan by craft hath corrupted the most holy ordinance of God’s precepts, I mean of the first table, in the place of the spiritual honouring of God, introducing men’s dreams, inventions, fantasies; so hath he, abusing the weakness of man, corrupted this precept of the second table, touching the honour which is due to parents, under whom are comprehended princes and teachers; for the devil hath so blinded the senses of many, that they cannot, or at the least, will not, learn what appertains to God, and what to Cæsar. But, because the Spirit of God hath said, ‘Honour the king,’ therefore whatsoever they command, be it right or wrong, must be obeyed. But heavy shall the judgment be which apprehends such blasphemers of God’s majesty, who dare be so hold as to affirm that God hath commanded any creature to be obeyed against himself. Against God it is, that for the commandment of any prince, be he never so potent, men shall commit idolatry, embrace a religion which God hath not approved by his word, or confirm by their silence wicked and blasphemous laws made against the honour of His Majesty. Men, I say, that do so, give no true obedience; but as they are apostates from God, so are they traitors to their princes, whom by flattery they confirm in rebelling against God.” After citing several examples from the Old Testament, he continues: “But, Madame, more profitable it is that the pestilent tumours be expelled with pain, than that they be nourished to the destruction of the body. The papistical religion is a moral pestilence, which shall assuredly bring to death eternal the bodies and souls from the which it is not purged in this life. And therefore take heed betimes, God calls upon you, beware that ye shut not yourself up.... I come to you in the name of the eternal God, and of Christ Jesus his Son, to whom the Father hath committed all power, whom he hath established Sovereign Judge over all flesh, before whose throne ye must make account with what reverence ye hear such as he sends. It shall not excuse you to say or to think, that ye doubt whether I be sent of God or not. I cry unto you, that the religion which the princes and the blinded papists maintain with fire and sword, is not the religion of Christ; that your proud prelates are none of Christ’s bishops. I admonish you that Christ’s flock is oppressed by them; and therefore I require, and that yet again, in the name of the Lord Jesus, that with impartiality I may be heard to preach, to reason, and to dispute, in that cause, which ye deny; ye declare yourself to bear no reverence to Christ, nor love to his true religion.”¹

¹ Works, Volume IV., pages 440‒443.

The Roman Catholic clergy did not show much energy in their writings, nor in their arguments in defence of their religion in England and Scotland; no very memorable effort of eloquence or argument was put forth within the Island during the progress of the Reformation. Those who desired to maintain the ancient worship unimpaired, staked the issue more upon the fire and sword principle than on reasoning and discussion; and they were wise in their generation, for when it came to this, the palmy days of a conservative priesthood were well-nigh past. There were a few, however, from the humbler ranks of the Roman Catholic clergy, that came forward and wrote in defence of their faith. Quintin Kennedy, the abbot of Crossraguel, ♦Ninian Winzet, a schoolmaster, and James Tyrie, a Scottish Jesuit, were the only controversialists on the Catholic side in Scotland, whose writings have been preserved.

Ninian Winzet was born in 1518, in the burgh of Renfrew. He received a liberal education, and was appointed schoolmaster of the Grammar School of Linlithgow about the year 1551. Winzet himself said, in 1562, that his happiest days were “spent in teaching of the Grammar School of Linlithgow about the space of ten years;” but, at the command of Dene Patrik Kinloquhy, preacher in Linlithgow, and of his superintendent, “when I, for denying only to subscribe their phantasy and factioun of faith, was expelled and shut out of that, my kindly town, and from my tender friends there, whose perpetual kindness I hoped that I had conquest.” The superintendent mentioned was John Spotiswoode, whose jurisdiction extended from Dunbar to Stirling; and it appears that Winzet then made a severe attack upon the creed of the Reformers. He was a priest as well as a schoolmaster, and he was one of the ablest and boldest defenders of Catholicism in Scotland. He held out vigorously, and addressed questions to Knox and other reformed preachers; as he had asked and received the permission of Queen Mary to address the Protestant leaders touching certain doctrines, order, and forms, approved by them. In the end of February, 1562, Winzet, as a first instalment, specially addressed three questions to John Knox and the reformed preachers of Scotland touching their vocation, which were stated thus:​—“1. Is John Knox a lawful minister? Since we read, that none should take the honour of ministration of God’s Word and sacraments on him, except he be lawfully called thereto, either by God immediately, or by a man having power to promote thereto. 2. If John Knox be not a lawful bishop, how can they be lawfully ordained by him? If he cannot show himself a lawful bishop, how can ye superintendents or other inferior preachers, elected and ordained by him, not having power thereto, judge yourselves to be lawful ministers in the Church of God? 3. If John Knox and ye affirm yourselves lawful by reason of your science, and that ye are permitted always, if ye be not admitted by these Churches, whom ye serve, why have ye preached manifestly a great error and schism in your congregation, contending with tooth and nail, some lords and gentlemen to have greatly failed, administering your communion in bypast times to their own households and tenants, since the lords and gentlemen were men of science; by their own judgment, in that case, was permitted by their said servants to that office, who affirm themselves to be a Church of God?” Knox referred to these questions in his sermons, but he never sent a written rejoinder to Winzet. Three tractates of Winzet’s were published at Edinburgh on the 21st of May, 1562, in which the position of Knox was boldly assailed. He said:​—“I exhort ye cause your prophet, John Knox, and your superintendent, John Spotiswoode, to impeach saints Hierome and Augustine as leading witnesses in the premises; and cause them deliver their answer in write, for these holy Fathers books are patent to us and them. And some of our faithful brethren have written several times to them both, and got no answer in write, but waste wind again. But peradventure, albeit, these two, your champions, dare not for shame answer in this matter, ye will appeal to the rest of your learned theologians of a great number in Scotland and Geneva. But to them we oppose all the Christian Catholics in Africa, Asia, and Europe.”

It seems that Winzet had some influence in the court of Queen Mary, and he continued his attacks on the leaders of the Protestants. His “Last Blast of the Trumpet of God’s Word,” printed at Edinburgh, 31st July, 1562, was directed “against the usurped authority of John Knox and his Calvinistic brethren, intruded preachers, etc.” Only a fragment of five leaves of the original edition is known to be extant. As mentioned in a preceding chapter, the printer of the book was seized and imprisoned, and Winzet narrowly escaped. He gained a ship bound for Flanders, and reached Antwerp on the 13th of September, and immediately proceeded to Louvain. His Book of Four Score and Three Questions was published at Antwerp in 1563, to which he added a postscript personally addressed to John Knox. For some time he was connected with the University of Paris; and in 1577 Winzet was appointed Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of St. James, at Ratisbon, by a bull of Pope Gregory XIII. At Ratisbon Winzet continued to labour industriously till his death, which occurred on the 21st of September, 1592, in the seventy-fifth year of his age. His writings consists of certain tracts, already mentioned, and The Book of Four Score and Three Questions, proposed to the Calvinistic preachers in Scotland, and written in the vernacular: these were reprinted in a volume issued by the Maitland Club in 1835. He also translated into Scots the once well-known work on dogmatics, entitled, Commonitorium pro Catholicæ fidei antiquate et univeritate, adversus profanas omnium Hæreseon nouationes, written in the fifth century by Vincentius, Abbot of the monastery of Lerinum; and Winzet, in the title page to his translation, called it “a right goldin buke, written in Latin about eleven hundred years past,” and he prefaced it with an address to Mary Queen of Scots. He was further credited with making translations of Optatus, Tertullian, and other fathers, which are not now known to exist. But two of his Latin treatises have been preserved​—one entitled Flagellum Sectariorum, and the other Velitatio adversus Georgium Buchananum. The first treated the question whether obedience should be shown to kings or ministers; he handled this subject because the teaching of the Calvinists tended to unsettle all legitimate authority, and in his treatment of the subject he showed considerable research; it also dealt with the subject of the Vocation of the Calvinistic ministers. The second was a political pamphlet of one hundred and thirty-three pages​—an answer to Buchanan’s Dialogue De Jure Regni apud Scotos​—and it was published in 1582. Winzet’s argument against Buchanan was that kings must be paramount, and that the people had no right to rebel against them, until the Church declared a king unfit to rule.

The Scottish Text Society issued an excellent edition of Winzet’s works in 1888‒90, which contains his writings and translations in the Scottish language, and also a useful glossary, valuable introductions, and notes.

Kennedy was the fourth son of Gilbert, the second Earl of ♦Cassillis, and was appointed abbot in 1548. He attended the Provincial Council of the clergy held in Edinburgh in 1549, and had the reputation of being a learned man. His treatise entitled, “A Compendious Tractive, conform to the Scriptures of Almighty God, Reason and Authority,” etc., was published in 1558. It was praised by his friends, and in latter times by Bishop Keith, and others. It is hardly necessary to say, that the Abbot’s chief and final argument was whatever the Church of Rome said must be true and right. Kennedy’s “Tractive” was answered by John Davidson, principal of the University of Glasgow, in a book printed at Edinburgh in 1563.¹ The Abbot’s next work was an “Oration,” printed in the year 1561, mainly intended to demolish a position held “by a famous preacher called John Knox.” After some correspondence had passed between Kennedy and Knox, a public discussion took place between them, on the subject of the Mass, at Maybole, in September, 1562, when the discussion lasted three days, and ended as disputes of the kind usually end, without either of the parties convincing the other. In 1563, Knox published a curious and rather interesting narrative of this three days’ talk. The following are the concluding sentences:​—“And therefore, must I say, the Mass standeth groundless, and the greatest patron thereof, for all his sicker riding, hath once lost his stirrups, yea, is altogether, set beside his saddle. And yet the common brute goes, that you, my Lord, your flatterers and collaterals, brag greatly of your victory obtained in disputation against John Knox; but I will not believe you to be so vain, unless I shall know the certainty by your hand writ. Let all men now judge upon what ground the sacrifice of the Mass stands. The heavenly Father hath not planted within his Scriptures such a doctrine; it follows, therefore, that it ought to be routed out of all godly men’s hearts.”²

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 153‒155. The Writings of Kennedy were printed in the first volume of the Wodrow Miscellany, together with some correspondence that passed between him and John Willock. Davidson’s answer to Kennedy’s book is also printed in this Miscellany.

“Among the persons who accompanied Queen Mary from France was her preacher and confessor, Réni Benoist. He was a divine of some note, and produced two or three small treatises, in a vain endeavour to conciliate differences of opinion in matters of religious faith and practice. One of these was a Latin epistle, addressed to the most learned John Knox and other Protestant ministers, dated from Holyrood House, the 10th of November, 1561. It was translated by a certain friar, and was ‘greatly boasted of’ or commended. At the urgent request of some of his brethren, David Ferguson, minister of Dunfermline, wrote an answer, passage by passage, to what he calls ‘this pithless Epistle.’ This answer, including the Epistle itself, was printed soon after, but it is of such rarity that only one single copy has been discovered; but having recently been reprinted; it is now beyond the chance of destruction.” Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 151‒152. It was reprinted by the Bannatyne Club, 1860.

² Works, Volume VI., pages 219‒221.

The latest of Knox’s writings was a tract published in vindication of the reformed religion, in answer to a letter of Tyrie, a Jesuit.¹ It was composed in 1568, and printed at St. Andrews ♦in 1572. Knox gives a portion of Tyrie’s letter in separate paragraphs, then his own comments follow, and thus each in turn succeed the other to the end of the discussion. The Jesuit began by asking​—“What words, if any, would apply to those new formed Kirks, and especially of your invisible Kirk of Scotland, not yet eight years old, he is convicted.... Wherefore if ye cannot show what place of the world afore three hundred years your Kirk was into, it follows of necessity, that it is not a kirk.” The argument is the very old one, namely, that there is but one Church​—the Roman Church. Knox answers this point at great length, and closes with these words:​—“We say yet again, that whensoever the Church of Rome shall be reduced to the state in which the Apostles left her, we are assured that she shall vote in our favour, against all such as shall deny us to be a Church, if God continue us in the simplicity which this day is mocked of the world.”² The other points which the Jesuit advances touching the Reformed Church, are forms of the arguments always used by the Roman Catholic writers. Such as, that the Protestant Church had no succession from Christ; that there is a continual succession of doctrine which has never varied in the Catholic Church, but has prevailed in all ages. With more truth and reason, he refers to the differences of the Protestants among themselves, and specially notes the contrast between some of the congregations of Germany and those of Scotland. Immediately after Knox’s answer, Tyrie prepared a refutation, which was published at Paris in 1573, but ere this Knox was dead. In March, 1574, the General Assembly had under consideration an answer to James Tyrie’s book, composed by John Duncanson, minister of the King’s household.³

¹ James Tyrie was born near Perth in 1543, and it is supposed that he spent some time at the University of St. Andrews. Early in the year 1563 he left Scotland with Father Edmund Hay, the Jesuit, to follow his theological studies at the University of Louvain. In August of that year he visited Rome, and there joined the society of Jesus. He was afterwards appointed professor of philosophy and theology in the Jesuit College of Clermont, at Paris. His elder brother, David Tyrie of Drumkilbo, embraced the reformed faith, and the Jesuit was naturally anxious to reclaim him to the mother Church, and addressed to him several letters, including the one submitted to Knox. Tyrie in 1590 became Provincial of the Jesuits in France; he was in Rome in 1591; and two years later he was appointed assistant to the General of the Jesuits for the provinces of France and Germany. He died at Rome in March, 1597, leaving behind him for publication several manuscripts to the library of the professed house “Il Geni.” Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 475‒478.

² Knox’s Works, Volume VI., pages 486‒497.

³ Ibid., pages 497‒511, 475‒476; Book of the Universal Kirk, pages 289, 361.

The longest of Knox’s polemical works is his treatise on predestination, published at Geneva in 1560. It was directed against an anonymous adversary, and its full title was, “An Answer to a great number of blasphemous cavillations written by an Anabaptist and an adversary to God’s eternal predestination; and confuted by John Knox, minister of God’s word in Scotland; wherein the author so discovers the craft and falsehood of that sect, that the godly, knowing that error, may be confirmed in the truth by the evident word of God.”¹ At that time the doctrine of predestination itself, as well as other tenets of the Anabaptists, had evoked much controversy. But, before saying anything about Knox’s contribution to the mass of this class of theological literature, it is necessary to refer briefly to the writings of Calvin himself, and to those of some of his predecessors and contemporaries.

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume V. “And, that it was prepared for the press before his final return to Scotland is sufficiently clear, when we consider how fully his time was afterwards occupied, and this renders it probable that it may have been chiefly written at Dieppe in 1559, during the interval of his application for permission, which was denied him, to pass through England on his way to his native country. That the author had no opportunity of correcting the sheets while at press seems also evident.... This task of revising the work at press seems to have been done by William Whittingham, an Englishman.” Dr. Laing, pages 15‒17. Knox’s treatise on predestination was reprinted in 1591.

At an early stage in the history of Christian doctrine the idea of an eternal decree of God began to arise. The notion of predestination was held with varying degrees of definiteness, and it early became associated with the freedom of the will. But the crude psychology of the Fathers was entirely subordinated to the assumed necessities of the conditions of salvation.¹ About the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries conflicting doctrines touching sin, grace, and liberty, were advanced and maintained. Original sin was supposed to have entailed utter ruin upon the human race; but Celestius and Pelagius both denied the natural depravity of man; and it was out of these controversies that the doctrine of predestination, or the eternal decree sprang. When St. Augustine carried the notion of original sin to its logical consequences, he arrived at the following statement of his doctrine:​—“As all men have sinned in Adam, they are justly exposed to the vengeance of God, because of this hereditary sin and guilt of sin.” He could see nothing in the natural power of man to choose between good and evil, but only a liberty to do evil, since the regenerated man alone can will aright. In short, Augustine held that all mankind were in a state of depravity; that those alone will be saved to whom the grace of God is imparted: in this way he led up to the eternal decree.²

¹ Several theories of the mind, or the soul, and the relation between the soul and the body, were held during the early centuries of Christianity. Some considered the soul as forming the medium between the purely spiritual in man, the ideal principle of reason, and the merely animal or the grosser and sensual elements of his nature. They also fancied that this threefold notion of the organ of the human mind was supported by Scripture. Several of the early Fathers, especially those of the Alexandrian school, adopted the triple division of the mind; while others, like Tertullian, adhered to the old opinion that man consists of soul and body only. A few of the Gnostic sects carried the triple notion so far as to divide men themselves into three classes, according as the one or the other of the three constituents prevailed to the apparent exclusion of the others. “Accordingly, it is not every man who is composed of three parts, but he only who has received the gift of the Holy Spirit, as the third part.”​—Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, Volume I., pages 141‒143, 180, 183, 184; 1846; also Baur.

This is not the place to enter into a full exposition of the curious theories of the mind which prevailed in the early centuries of the Christian era. It may be stated, however, that the anthropology of the Fathers was very different from that of the present time; although the problems demanding explanation were much the same, the modern conceptions of mind and matter have little or no resemblance to the ideas of Origen, Tertullian, Augustine, and the rest of the Fathers. Touching the origin of the soul itself, there were three principal theories:​—1, The pre-existence of all souls; 2, The continual creation of souls by divine agency; 3, The traduction of souls by natural procreation. Of these in their order: The first theory taught that all the souls and finite spirits in the universe were formed simultaneously at the beginning, and prior to the creation of matter: the intellectual universe thus preceded the sensible universe. The souls of men, therefore, existed before the creation of Adam. This theory is allied to the Pythagorean and Platonic speculations. The second theory maintained that God immediately created a new soul in every instance that a new human being was born. The body, however, was not created in this manner, it was naturally propagated. The third theory held that both the soul and the body of the human individual are propagated. But the last view fell into disrepute; and in the Middle Ages, the notion of the special and the continual creation of new souls generally prevailed.

² Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, Volume I., pages 297, 300‒302, 304. “According to Augustine, not only was physical death a punishment inflicted upon Adam and all his posterity, but he looked upon original sin itself as being in some sense a punishment of the first transgression, though it was also a real sin, and can therefore be imputed to every individual. But it is on this point, viz., the imputation of original sin, that his views differed from all former opinions, however strict they were. He endeavoured to clear himself from the charge of Manichæism (in opposition to Julian) by designating sin not a substance, but a vitium, a languor; he even charged his opponent with Manichæism.”​—Ibid., page 302. See also Wiggers.

Pelagius and Celestius, on the other hand, held, along with other heresies, that every human being is a moral agent, and must be accountable for himself; hence it naturally followed that sin was a voluntary act of the individual. According to this ethical view, every infant is in the same state as Adam was before the fall; so that neither sin nor virtue is innate, but the one as well as the other develops itself when man comes to exercise his liberty, for which he alone is responsible. Touching liberty and grace, however, Pelagius admitted that man in his moral efforts had need of the Divine aid; the grace of God assisted man in various ways, although he thought that it is something external, merely added to a man’s own efforts. In short, Pelagius’s theory assumed that man had it in his power to choose between good and evil. These opinions were condemned at Carthage in 412; again, in a synod of the North-African bishops at the same place, in 418. The controversy was hot, and the Emperor Honorius put a check to his external manifestation.¹

¹ Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, Volume ♦I., pages 200, 300, 302. The chief tenets of Pelagius, the heresiarch of the fifth century, have been summarised as follows:​—“1. Adam was created mortal, so that he would have died whether he had sinned or not. 2. Adam’s sin has only affected himself, and not the human race. 3. New-born infants are in the same condition in which Adam was before the fall. 4. The whole human race dies neither in consequence of Adam’s death, nor of his transgression; nor does it rise from the dead in consequence of Christ’s resurrection. 5. Infants obtain eternal life, though they should not be baptized. 6. The Law is as good a means of grace as the gospel. 7. There were some men, even before the appearance of Christ, who did not commit sin.”​—Wiggers, Volume I., page 60. Gieseler, section 87. Some of Pelagius’s writings are preserved, among others, a treatise on “Free Will.” Many works were written against the Pelagians.

Still the peculiar views of Augustine were not recognised in the east; even in the west his notion of predestination never became universally popular in the Roman Catholic Church. As we approach the Reformation period it is evident that the doctrines of Augustine did not prevail. Instead of free grace through the mercy of God and the merits of Christ, the supererogatory works of the saints formed a ladder by which the greatest sinner might easily mount to heaven, provided he paid enough for the privilege, or left his lands to the Church. It was therefore natural that the Reformers should look back to the belief of the primitive Church, and receive with gladness some of the tenets of St. Augustine.

Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion was first published in 1536. Although in subsequent editions it was greatly enlarged, the principles which he then enunciated were pretty consistently maintained to the end of his days.¹ Knox followed Calvin, with little deviation, in dogma and doctrine. In 1559 he was very anxious “to read Calvin upon Isaie, and his Institutes revised,” but the common troubles at that time were forcing him to forego such important things.² Calvin in his Institutes gives four chapters of the third book, 21‒24, to the treatment of election and predestination. He was aware of the difficulties of the subject, and discussed it with a sobriety of judgment, a sense of responsibility, and a power of intellect, rarely matched in theological literature. But the line of argument that he followed, the definite issue that he arrived at, and the evidence from Scripture which he adduced to confirm the doctrine of predestination, are not satisfactory.³ After he had expounded, illustrated, and repelled objections to the doctrine of predestination, exhibiting much power, logical skill, and ingenuity, the eternal decree is still hard to reconcile with the moral attributes of a just and beneficent God of the universe.⁴ On a pure moral principle the doctrine of the eternal decree as stated by Calvin cannot be consistently maintained. He asserts that the will of God is the supreme rule of right, and that the mere fact of his willing anything makes it to be right. Indeed, Calvin seems to have been controlled in the treatment of predestination by practical religious considerations. His point of view is unphilosophical, and moral truth and consistency were subordinated in his mind to the assumed necessities of the conditions of salvation. That God should voluntarily and knowingly condemn myriads of his creatures to endless torture, merely because He so willed it, is certainly not an elevated conception. On the other side, the doctrine of predestination afforded to all who adopted it, ample scope for insisting on the duty of submission to the will of God; and for inveighing against the pride and self-conceit of those who might pretend that their own merits entitled them to claim a right to heaven, instead of being absolutely indebted for it to God’s pleasure, grace, and benignity.

¹ The first edition of his Institutes, printed at Basle, is now extremely rare, not more than half a dozen copies are known to exist. It is a small octavo volume of 514 pages, with five pages more of index placed at the end. The whole work is described as one book, divided into six chapters. A second edition appeared at Strasburg in 1539. It contained seventeen chapters, the original matter being about doubled. This edition is also very scarce. The other editions are those of 1543, 1545, 1550, 1553, 1554, and an entirely new edition in 1559, containing his last revisal, and from it all the subsequent editions were printed. An English translation was published at London in 1561.

Dyer, in his Life of Calvin, says that passages favourable to a mild and tolerant treatment of heretics which appeared in the earlier editions were expunged or made more intolerant in the latter ones.​—pages 357, 358. Calvin’s final conclusions on the punishment of heretics and allied matters are given in the fourth book of the Institutes, chapter 12, section 1‒13.

² Knox’s Works, Volume VI., page 101.

³ When answering the objection, that predestination was a stumbling-block, Calvin said, “I admit that profane men lay hold on the subject of predestination to carp, or snare, or cavil, or scoff. But if their petulance frightens us, it will be necessary to conceal all the principal articles of faith, because they and their fellows scarcely leave one of them unassailed with blasphemy. A rebellious spirit will display itself no less insolently when it hears that there are three persons in the Divine essence, than when it hears that God, when he created man, foresaw everything that was to happen to him. Nor will they abstain from their jeers when told that little more than five thousand years have elapsed since the creation of the world; for they will ask, Why did the power of God slumber so long in idleness? In short, nothing can be stated that they will not assail with derision. To quell their blasphemies, must we say nothing concerning the divinity of the Son and the Spirit? Must the creation of the world be passed over in silence! No. The truth of God is too powerful, both here and everywhere, to dread the slanders of the ungodly.”​—Chapter 21, section 4.

⁴ “By predestination we mean the eternal decree of God, by which He determined with Himself whatever He wished to happen with regard to every man. All are not created on equal terms, but some are preordained to eternal life, others to eternal damnation; and, accordingly, as each has been created for one or other of these ends, we say that he has been predestinated to life, or to death.” “The will of God is the supreme rule of righteousness, so that everything which He wills must be held to be righteous, by the mere fact of His willing it. Therefore, when it is asked why the Lord did so, we must answer, Because He pleased. But if you proceed further to ask why He pleased, you ask for something greater than the will of God, and nothing such can be found. Let human temerity then be quiet, and cease to inquire after what exists not, lest, perhaps, it fails to find what does exist.”​—Chapter 21, section 5.​—Chapter 23, section 2.

The doctrines of Calvin were opposed in his own lifetime by Jerome Bolsec, Sebastia Castellio, and others. Bolsec openly impugned the doctrine of the eternal decree of predestination, and fought over the points involved with Calvin himself. He had little difficulty in showing that the human mind was unable to cope with the eternal and unalterable counsel of God, or to lay down dogmatically what its issue must be in relation to mankind. Castellio vehemently attacked the Calvinistic doctrines, and especially assailed the tenet of election by grace, with the weapons of acute thought and satire. Both maintained that the eternal decree tended to fatalism, and made God the author of sin, as everything happened according to an inexorable purpose. Calvin answered both opponents, and prepared a public declaration of the doctrine of predestination, which was approved by the consistory of Geneva. The controversy, however, went on; but Calvin boldly faced all his enemies, and fought with an energy and a resoluteness which at last commanded a large measure of success.¹

¹ Dyer’s Life of Calvin, pages 168‒172, 265‒283, 388; Henry’s Life of Calvin, Volume I., page 289.

In Geneva Calvin had many difficulties to contend against. There were anabaptists in the city who sometimes caused disturbance, and anti-Unitarian doctrines had also sprung up. After the burning of Servetus, his disciples published several libels and attacks upon Calvin. These parties were bitterly opposed to various points of his system of theology, and one of their onslaughts was written in the following strain:​—“Moreover, though you affirm yours to be the true doctrine, they say that they cannot believe you. For since your God very often says one thing, and thinks and wills another, it is to be feared that you may imitate him, and deceive men in like manner. I myself was once taken with your doctrine; and though I did not quite understand it, I defended it, because I so much esteemed your authority, that it seemed to me forbidden even to think differently from you. But now, when I hear the objections of your adversaries, I know not what to reply.” He concludes with the request to Calvin, “If you have any good arguments let me know them.”¹ The anabaptists were annoying, and though often persecuted, not only in Switzerland, but also in Germany, England, and other countries, they continued to spread and multiply.

¹ Dyer’s Life of Calvin, pages 66, 366‒367, 446, et seq.; Knox’s Works, Volume V., pages 12‒15; Dorner’s History of Protestant Theology, Volume I.; Hagenbach’s History of Doctrines, Volume II., pages 200‒206.

As already mentioned, it was against one of the anabaptist class that Knox composed his book on predestination. Many of this unknown writer’s objections to the Calvinistic tenets he states with much force; and, although he insists throughout that his opponent’s inferences are not deducible from their doctrines, this is not always the case.¹ In the sixth section of his book “the adversary” advanced the following statements on the Calvinistic conception of God:​—“Of all sorts and sects of men, I have judged them to be the most abhorred who are called Atheists, that is to say, such as deny that there is a God. But now, methinks these careless men are much more to be abhorred; my reason is because they be more injurious to God than the Atheists; for it is less injurious to a man to believe that he is not, than to call him a cruel man, a tyrant, and an unjust person; so are they less injurious to God who believe that he is not, than they that say he is unmerciful, cruel, and an oppressor. Now what greater cruelty, tyranny, and oppression, can be, than to create the most part of the human race to everlasting damnation? so that by no manner of way they can escape and avoid the cruel decree and sentence against them. Seeing that the philosopher Plato judged them unworthy to live and to be suffered in any commonwealth who spoke evil of God, what ought the judgment to be of such men who have so wicked an opinion of God? Whatever our judgment be of them, and whatsoever their deserving be, let us labour rather to win them than to lose them. But, forasmuch as he that touches pitch is in danger of being defiled therewith, therefore ought we to walk warily with such men that we be not defiled and infected of them; seeing that now-a-days this horrible doctrine does fester even as the disease of a canker, which infects from one member to another until it has occupied the whole body, unless it be cut away; even so this error hath already infected from one member to another a great number. The Lord grant them the true meaning and understanding of His word, whereby they may be healed and the sickness cut off, the member being saved.”

¹ Dr. Laing thought that the author of this book, which Knox set himself to refute, was Robert Cooke, one of the gentlemen of Queen Elizabeth’s Chapel. Knox’s Works, Volume V., page 16.

Knox answers this reasoning in a carping way. He does not attempt to grapple with the real difficulty; the inconsistency of the decree of predestination and special election of only a small number of the human race to everlasting happiness; while the great majority is inevitably doomed to endless suffering. He merely says​—“Because that in all this your long discourse, ye more show your malice, which unjustly against us ye have conceived, than that either you expunge our belief, either yet promote your false opinion. I will not spend time to recompense your dispute. Only this I will offer in the name of all my brethren: that if you will be able, in the presence of a lawful judge and magistrate, evidently to convict us that either we speak evil of God, either yet that by our writings, preaching, or reasoning, it justly can be proved that our opinion is evil of His eternal majesty, power, and wisdom, and goodness, that then we refuse not to suffer the same punishment which by the authority of Plato ye judge us worthy of.... What is your study to win us, and whether our doctrine be a horrible error or not, I do not now dispute. Thus you reason:—

“‘God created man a very good thing; and dare you say that God ordained a very good thing to destruction? thus God delights in the destruction of that which is good. Man at his creation was a just and innocent creature, for before the transgression there was no evil neither in Adam nor in us; and think you that God ordained his just and innocent creatures to condemnation? What greater tyranny and unrighteousness can the most wicked man in the world, yea, the devil himself, do, than to condemn the innocent and just person? Hereby may we see that these careless men are more abominable than the Atheists who believe that there is no God. But these affirm God to be as bad as the devil, yea, and worse; forasmuch as the devil can only tempt a man to death, but he can compel none to fall into condemnation; but God may not only tempt, but also compel by his eternal decree the most part of the race to destruction, and has so done, as they say, so that of necessity, and only because it was his pleasure and will​—then must God be worse than the devil; for the devil only tempted man to fall, but God compelled them to fall by his immutable decree. Oh, horrible blasphemy!’”¹

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume V., pages 88‒90.

To these questions Knox has given no satisfactory answer, nor has anyone else. They have engaged the minds of many writers, but so far as theological exposition is concerned, they remain in much the same state at the present day; though few cultivated preachers would now attribute the wrathful and avenging character to God, which it was common to do in the sixteenth century. The statement of the theory of the eternal decree in any form is extremely difficult, if not impossible, in connection with the doctrine of the conditional and limited salvation of the human race, especially when it is deemed right to employ all the examples of what is called the pouring out of God’s wrath upon the enemies of the Jews, and upon the Jews themselves, when their turn came. From one standpoint this is the weak side of Calvinism; yet to many it has been, and is now, exceedingly fascinating to imagine that they know the eternal counsel of God, and are able to formulate His will and intention.

One other quotation and then I will leave this subject. “If God reprobated man before the foundation of the world, then God reprobated man before he had offended; and if God reprobated and damned man before he offended, then is death the reward of God’s ordinance before the world, and not the reward of sin. But the apostle teaches us, that by sin death entered into the world, and also that death is the reward of sin. I pray you, does either God’s law, or man’s law, condemn any man before he has offended? I am certain ye are not able to prove it to be so; then ought you to be ashamed to burden God with such unrighteous judgment. Does not God rather forgive the offence already committed? Let him be your God who condemns the innocent before he offended; but he shall be my God who pardons and forgives the offence already committed, who in his very wrath thinks upon mercy. And so with Job will I conclude,​—‘The great God casts away no man.’” Knox’s answer to this is as follows:​—“How ignorantly and how impudently ye confound the eternal purpose of God’s reprobation with the just execution of his judgments I have before declared, and therefore here it only rests to admonish the reader that most unjustly ye accuse us in that ye say, that we hold and teach that God damned man before he offended. This ye be never able to show in any of our writings; for constantly, in word and writing, we affirm that man willingly fell from God, and made himself a slave to Satan before that death was inflicted upon him; and so neither make we death to be the reward of God’s ordinance, neither do we burden Him with unrighteous judgments.”¹ This reasoning is not to the point; the adversary’s objections are deductions from the theory of the eternal decree of predestination, election, and reprobation, which were all fixed before the foundation of the world. It is no refutation to say that his opponent cannot find the words which he used in their writings. How could man “have willingly fallen from God,” when, according to their theory, God had it all inexorably settled before the creation? These are questions which the human mind cannot settle dogmatically; they are immeasurably beyond its powers. But when men assume that they can form definite ideas and pronounce true judgments upon these mysterious and in a sense inscrutable matters, and enforce people to profess their belief in them, suffering and persecution often ensued, and men are tortured and put to death for not believing what they are unable to understand; not only so, but for not believing things which no human being has ever yet been able fully to comprehend. The arrogance of those that presume to fix what the eternal counsel of the Godhead is and must be, can hardly be expected to manifest much respect for the people who do not think and believe as they do. We need not be surprised, therefore, that intolerance was a characteristic of men that professed to know the eternal counsel and will of the Supreme Being. Seeing that they were thoroughly convinced and firm in their faith, they deemed it their highest duty to compel others to adopt their creed, that they too might have a chance of entering into the glories of heaven, and of escaping the torments of hell. It is easy for us now, with more varied, wider, and more minute knowledge of nature and mankind, to point out the weak side of the great men of the sixteenth century; but we are bound, at the same time, to recognise the noble and unfaltering spirit which the leaders of the Reformation displayed, however much we may deplore the use of coercive means which they were far too eager to wield.

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume V., pages 110, 111.

Perhaps the most interesting class of Knox’s writings is his letters, of which upwards of a hundred are included in Dr. Laing’s edition of his works. They chiefly relate to the Reformation and the historical events of the time; and many of them are valuable. His letters also show him in a more amiable light than that in which he is usually represented. He had a warm and tender heart, and for all his reputed harshness of demeanour and his inflexible firmness of purpose, he was by no means a man of blood; indeed there is no evidence that he was ever accessory to the death of any one for his religious opinions. In his history of the Reformation there are passages full of comic humour. The description of the scene that happened in Edinburgh, at the close of the procession on St. Giles’ day, is a fair example of his wit​—“The people began to cry down with the idol, down with it; and so without delay it was pulled down.... Then might have been seen so sudden a fray as seldom has been seen among that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the crosses, off goes the surplices, round caps corner with the crowns. The Gray Friars gaped, the Black Friars blew, the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first got to the house; for such a sudden fray never came among the generation of Antichrist within this realm before.”¹

¹ Knox’s Works, Volume I., page 260.

The Literature of the Reformation in Scotland may be said to close with George Buchanan, whose life was prolonged to a comparatively old age. Buchanan was born on the lands of Moss, in Stirlingshire, in the beginning of February, 1506. The spot of his birth was a few yards from the river Blane, and about two miles to the south-east of the village of Killearn. On his father’s side he was of Celtic descent, and probably Gaelic was his mother tongue; and, at least, it is clear that he was quite familiar with that language; as he had the feeling and intuition of a Celt, which was manifested throughout his writings. He probably received the elements of his education at the schools of Killearn and Dumbarton. At the age of fourteen he was sent to the University of Paris, in which he spent two years, mainly devoted to Latin, and writing verse in that language. He returned to Scotland in weak health in 1522, and it was nearly a year ere he recovered. In 1525, Buchanan proceeded to St. Andrew’s University to complete his first stage in the curriculum of Arts, and, as mentioned in a preceding page, he was under the teaching of John Mair. In October, 1525, he graduated as a Bachelor of Arts, so it appears that his studies in Paris must have been recognised by the Faculty of St. Andrews. Buchanan returned to Paris in the summer of 1526, and entered the Scots College; and in March, 1528, he graduated Master of Arts. Shortly after, he commenced his teaching career as a regent in the University of Paris. He returned to Scotland in 1535, and immediately became closely connected with the Court of James V. At this time he wrote the poem entitled “Somnium,” which gave great offence to the order of the Franciscans, who thenceforth in Scotland, England, France, Portugal, and Italy, pursued him with every weapon at their command. Buchanan was engaged by James V. as tutor to one of his natural sons​—Lord James Stuart, then a child, not the James who was afterwards known as the Regent Moray, but another natural son of the King, of the same name, who died in 1558. Thus Buchanan was brought into very close connection with the Court, and then the King prompting him to write more satires against the Franciscans, he produced two severe writings against them. But the resentment of the friars and the clergy was roused, and Buchanan soon realised that even the countenance of the King would not protect him from their wrath; and, as mentioned in a preceding chapter, he escaped and fled to England, and shortly after proceeded to France. From this time (1539), for upwards of twenty years, Buchanan was mainly engaged as a professor in the Universities of France and Portugal, and occasionally acted as a private tutor to the sons of personages of high rank. At this period thought, creeds, doctrines, and opinions, were in a state of great agitation and transition throughout Europe, which rendered the calling of a public teacher one of extreme difficulty and danger. Buchanan did not escape the anxieties, the troubles and dangers then associated with his mode of life; for he had often to face privation, and to encounter extreme difficulties and perplexities in his career abroad. In March, 1547, under an engagement to act as a professor in the Faculty of Arts in the University of Coimbra, Buchanan proceeded to Portugal, and left France. For a short time, under the management of Gouvéa, the principal of the institution, everything succeeded delightfully, but he suddenly died in the end of the year 1547.

The following year Buchanan and other humanists connected with the college were assailed by the Jesuits, and public charges of heresy were made against them. Buchanan and other two were seized and imprisoned in a dungeon. After long confinement they were brought to trial, and for several days subjected to the most cruel reproaches, although no accusers were even named, and they were sent back to prison. Towards Buchanan the Jesuits were especially bitter; they accused him of writing a poem against the Franciscans, and of having eaten flesh during Lent, and that in conversation with some young Portuguese, when the subject of the Eucharist was mentioned, he had said that Augustine was far more with the heretics than the Church in his teaching on that subject. After the inquisitors for a year and a half had worn out Buchanan’s patience and their own, they shut him up for some months in a monastery, in order that he might be more accurately instructed by the monks, who proved neither unkindly nor ill disposed, though they were utterly ignorant of religious truth. It was mainly at this time that Buchanan translated a number of the Psalms into various measures. At length, being restored to liberty, he embarked at Lisbon in a Cretan ship, and sailed for England, where he arrived towards the end of 1552; but shortly after proceeded to France, where he was again engaged in public and private teaching, sometimes in Italy and sometimes in France. After having experienced many vicissitudes in foreign lands, in 1561 Buchanan returned to his native country, after an absence of twenty-two years.

On his return to Scotland, Buchanan became allied with the Protestant party. He was not, however, a reformer in the same sense as Knox or Calvin; he had more of the characteristics of a humanist and a scholar, a man of genius and of letters. Buchanan became connected with the court, and in 1562 he was acting as classical tutor to Queen Mary; and in February, 1563, he was appointed to interpret documents written in foreign languages, “that the Queen and council might thereafter understand the same.” He addressed several of his short poems to Mary herself, and he wrote and addressed a remarkable poem to her on the birth of James VI. in 1566. The Earl of Moray, as Commendator of the Priory of St. Andrews, appointed Buchanan principal of St. Leonard’s College in 1566, an office which he held till 1570. Afterwards Buchanan became attached to the party opposed to the Queen, and was closely associated with the Regents Moray, Lennox, Mar, and Morton. In 1570 he was appointed tutor to the young King, and directed to devote attention to his education; and, along with Peter Young, Buchanan was in 1572 and 1578 confirmed by acts of the Privy Council in his office as “Master” to the King. When Lennox became Regent, Buchanan was made Director of Chancery, and then Keeper of the Privy Seal, an office which he held till 1578; and in virtue of this office, he had a seat in parliament. He died on the 28th of September, 1582, in the seventy-seventh year of his age.¹