Life of Mary Queen of Scots, Volume 1 (of 2). Bell Henry Glassford
views which different historians have taken of his character, more especially when they come to speak of him as the Earl of Murray and the Regent of Scotland. It would be improper and unnecessary to anticipate these discussions at present, since it is hoped the reader will be able to form his own estimate upon this subject, from the facts he will find recorded in these Memoirs.
It must be evident, that with two such men, each at the head of his own party, the country was not likely to continue long in a state of quietness. The Queen Regent soon found it necessary, at the instigation of the French Court, to associate herself with the Archbishop of St Andrews, – in opposition to which coalition, a bond was drawn up in 1557, by some of the principal Reformers, in which they announced their resolution to form an independent congregation of their own, and to separate themselves entirely from the “congregation of Satan, with all the superstitious abomination and idolatry thereof.” Articles, or Heads of a Reformation, were soon afterwards published, in which it was principally insisted, that on Sunday and other festival days, the Common-Prayer should be read openly in the parish churches, along with the lessons of the Old and New Testaments; and that preaching and interpretation of the Scriptures in private houses should be allowed.
In the following year, one of the first outrages which the Reformers committed in Scotland, took place in Edinburgh. On occasion of the annual procession through the city, in honour of the tutelar Saint – St Giles, the image of that illustrious personage, which ought to have been carried by some of the priests, was amissing, – the godly having, beforehand, according to John Knox, first drowned the idol in the North Loch, and then burned it. It was therefore necessary to borrow a smaller saint from the Gray-Friars, in order that this “great solemnity and manifest abomination” might proceed. Upon the day appointed, priests, friars, canons, and “rotten Papists,” assembled, with tabors, trumpets, banners, and bagpipes. At this sight, the hearts of the brethren were wondrously inflamed; and they resolved, that this second dragon should suffer the fate of the first. They broke in upon the procession; and though the Catholics made some slight resistance at first, they were soon obliged to surrender the image into the hands of the Philistines, who, taking it by the heels, and knocking, or, as the reformed historian says, dadding its head upon the pavement, soon reduced it to fragments, only regretting, that “the young St Giles” had not been so difficult to kill as his father. The priests, alarmed for their personal safety, sought shelter as quickly as possible, and gave Knox an opportunity of indulging in some of that austere mirth which is peculiarly remarkable, because so foreign to his general style. “Then might have been seen,” says he, “so sudden a fray as seldom has been seen among that sort of men within this realm; for down goes the cross, off go the surplices, round caps, and cornets with the crowns. The Gray-Friars gaped, the Black-Friars blew, and the priests panted and fled, and happy was he that first got the house; for such a sudden fray came never among the generation of Antichrist within this realm before.” The magistrates had some difficulty in prevailing upon the mob to disperse, after they had kept possession of the streets for several hours; and the rioters escaped without punishment; for “the brethren assembled themselves in such sort in companies, singing psalms, and praising God, that the proudest of the enemies were astounded.”4
The Commissioners who, about this time, were sent into France, and the motives of their embassy, will be spoken of afterwards. But the remarkable circumstance, that four of them died when about to return home, – one at Paris, and three at Dieppe, – had a considerable influence in exciting the populace to still greater hatred against the French party, – it being commonly suspected that they had come by their death unfairly. The Congregation now rose in their demands; and among other things, insisted that “the wicked and scandalous lives” of churchmen should be reformed, according to the rules contained in the New Testament, the writings of the ancient fathers, and the laws of Justinian the Emperor. For a while, the Queen Regent temporized; but finding it impossible to preserve the favour of both parties, she yielded at length to the solicitations of the Archbishop of St Andrews, and determined to resist the Reformers vigorously. In 1559, she summoned all the ministers of the Congregation, to appear before her at Stirling. This citation was complied with, but not exactly in the manner that the Queen wished; for the ministers came not as culprits, but as men proud of their principles, and accompanied by a vast multitude of those who were of the same mode of thinking. The Queen, who was at Stirling, did not venture to proceed to Perth; and the request she made, that the numbers there assembled should depart, leaving their ministers to be examined by the Government, having been refused, she proceeded to the harsh and decisive measure of declaring them all rebels.
The consternation which this direct announcement of hostilities occasioned among them, was still at its height, when the great champion of the Scottish Reformation, John Knox, arrived at Perth. This celebrated divine had already suffered much for “the good cause;” and though his zeal and devotion to it were well known, it was not till latterly that he had entertained much hope of its final triumph in his native country. He had spent the greater part of his life in imprisonment or exile; he had undergone many privations, and submitted to many trials. But these were the daily food of the Reformers; and, whilst they only served to strengthen them in the obduracy of their belief, they had the additional effect of infusing a morose acerbity into dispositions not naturally of the softest kind. Knox had returned only a few days before from Geneva, where he had been solacing his solitude by writing and publishing that celebrated work, which he was pleased to entitle, “The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women.” This treatise, directed principally against Mary of England, not forgetting Mary Queen of Scots and her mother of Guise, rather overshot its own purpose, by bringing the Reformer into disrepute with Elizabeth, who came to the crown soon after its appearance. To pacify that Queen, for it appears even Knox could temporize occasionally, he gave up his original intention of blowing his trumpet thrice, and his first blast was his last.5
The day after the ministers and their friends, had been declared rebels, Knox delivered at Perth what Keith terms “that thundering Sermon against Idolatry.” The tumult which ensued at the conclusion of this discourse, has been attributed by some historians to accident; but Keith’s suspicion, that Knox had a direct intention to excite it, seems well founded, when we consider the ferment in which the minds of his audience were at the time, and the peculiar style in which he addressed them. Buchanan is of the same opinion, though he would naturally have leant to the other conclusion. He says that Knox, “in that ticklish posture of affairs, made such a pathetic sermon to the multitude who were gathered together, that he set their minds, which were already fired, all in a flame.” If, in addition to this, the usual manner of Knox’s eloquence be considered, it will hardly be questioned but that the outrage of that day was of his doing. His vehemence in the pulpit was at all times tremendous; indeed, in so far as the effect he produced upon his hearers was concerned, he seems to have trusted almost as much to the display of his physical as of his mental energies. Many years after the period now alluded to, when he was in his old age, and very weak, Melville tells us, that he saw him every Sunday go slowly and feebly, with fur about his neck, a staff in his hand, and a servant supporting him, from his own house, to the parish church in St Andrews. There, after being lifted into the pulpit, his limbs for some time were so feeble, that they could hardly support him; but ere he had done with his sermon, he became so active and vigorous, that he was like “to ding the pulpit in blads, and flie out of it.”6 What he must have been, therefore, in his best days, may be more easily imagined than described.
On the present occasion, after Knox had preached, and some of the congregation had retired, it appears that some “godly men” remained in the church. A priest had the imprudence to venture in among them, and to commence saying mass. A young man called out that such idolatry was intolerable, upon which it is said that the priest struck him. The young man retorted, by throwing a stone, which injured one of the pictures. The affair soon became general. The enraged people fell upon the altars and images, and in a short time nothing was left undemolished but the bare walls of the church. The Reformers throughout the city, hearing of these proceedings, speedily collected, and attacking the monasteries of the Gray and Black Friars, along with the costly edifice of the Carthusian Monks, left not a vestige of what they considered idolatrous and profane worship in any of
Keith, p. 68. – Knox’s History, p. 94-6.
M’Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. i. p. 222.
M’Crie’s Life of Knox, vol. ii. p. 206.