HISTORY OF SCOTLAND T H K HISTORY OF SCOTLAND FROM AGRICOLA'S INVASION TO THK REVOLUTION OF 1688 BV J ( ) H N II I L L H U R T O N VOL. IV. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS KDlMH'Rr, H AND LONDON MDCCCL.XVI I \U7 t CONTENTS OF FOURTH VOLUME. CHAPTER XXXVII. Reformation. PAOR GOVERNMENT OF MARY OF LORRAINE HER INABILITY TO UNDER- STAND THE CONSTITUTION OF SCOTLAND FRENCH PRACTICE? FRENCHMEN PROMOTED TO HIGH OFFICES ATTEMPT TO PUT THE FORTRESSES IN THEIR HANDS PROPOSAL OF A STANDING ARMY, AND ITS RECEPTION QUEEN MARY's MARRIAGE TO THE DAUPHIN HIS ACCESSION TO THE CROWN OF FRANCE THE COUNTRY ALARMED BY PROJECTS OF ANNEXATION TO THE CROWN OP FRANCE RISE OF SUSPICION AND DISLIKE OF FRANCE AND THE FRENCH ALLIANCE THE ALIEN CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND HOW FAR THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS WERE SPREADING SECULAR CAUSES OF EN- MITY TO THE CHURCH WEALTH AND LUXURIOUSNESS OF THE CHURCHMEN THEIR MORAL CONDITION THEIR TEMPORAL POWER AS ADMINISTRATORS OF THE LAW THE POWER OF EX- COMMUNICATION OR CURSING ITS USE *FOR LEVYING DEBTS AND FOR ACTS OF PERSONAL OPPRESSION SPECIMEN OF A CURSING THE CHURCH CONSCIOUS OF ITS OWN DEFECTS INTERNAL EFFORTS AT REFORMATION REFORMING COUNCILS ARCHBISHOP HAMILTON'S CATECHISM THE TWOPENNY FAITH, . . . 1-47 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXXVIII. JK Reformation. (Continued.) POLITICAL POSITION OF THE REFORMATION QUESTION IN EURO- 1'KAN POLITICS ARRIVAL OF KNOX CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS NATURE AND INFLUENCE HIS COADJUTORS AND THEIR MO- TIVES MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON THE FIRST RAND OR COVENANT THE LORDS OF THE CONGREGATION EMBODIED PRESSURE ON THE QUEEN-REGENT HER DUPLICITY THE FIRST OUTBREAK ATTACKS ON THE SYMBOLS OF POPISH WOR- SHIP AND THE BUILDINGS OF THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS CON- SIDERATION HOW FAR THE CONDITION OF OLD ECCLESIASTICAL BUILDINGS IN SCOTLAND DUE TO THE REFORMERS THE CON- GREGATION AT PERTH DEALINGS WITH THE REGENT OCCU- PATION OF EDINBURGH CONDITION AND DANGERS OF ENGLAND QUEEN ELIZABETH KNOX AND THE "BLAST" AGAINST FEMALE RULE CECIL AND KNOX IN TREATY DIFFICULTY OF FINDING A LEGITIMATE HEAD TO TREAT WITH IN SCOTLAND TREATY OF BERWICK WAR SIEGE OF LEITH DEATH OF THE REGENT DEPARTURE OF THE FRENCH, AND TREATY OF EDINBURGH REFORMATION STATUTES, . . 48-89 CHAPTER XXXIX. Condition of UK Jlntion from UK Jitar of Jfntepcntence to UK Reformation. THE CONSTITUTION OF SCOTLAND THE POWER OF THE ESTATES OF PARLIAMENT THEIR EXERCISE OF THE EXECUTIVE LORDS OF THE ARTICLES THE ESTATES AS A FINAL COURT OF LAW LORDS AUDITORS DAILY COUNCIL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COURT OF SESSION ON THE MODEL OF THE PARLIAMENT OF PARIS INFLUENCE OF THIS IMITATION CHARACTER OF THE INSTITUTIONS ADAPTATION OF THE CIVIL LAW ABSENCE OF THE PREROGATIVE OR INVIDIOUS RIGHTS WHICH SET CLASS AGAINST CLASS CONSTITUTIONAL AND HISTORICAL RESULTS POPULARITY OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS PROVISIONS FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS UNI- VERSITIES THEIR TESTIMONY TO AN ELEMENT OF ENLIGHT- CONTENTS. vii ENKD LIBKKALITV IN THE CHURCH THEIR MODEL BROUGHT FROM FRANCE VESTIGES OF THIS INFLUENCE IN UNIVERSITY CONSTITUTION AND PRACTICE, . . . 90-116 CHAPTER XL. Contrition of tljc Ration from the 11 ai of to the Reformation. (Continued.) SCOTTISH SCHOLARS THEIR EARLY FAME ABROAD COMMENCE- MENT OF NATIONAL LITERATURE THOMAS OF ERCILDOUN RISE AND PECULIAR CONDITIONS OF A PATRIOTIC LITERATURE BARBOUR, BLIND HARRY, WYNTOUN, FORDUN, BOWER, BOECE, MAJOR, BUCHANAN, LESLIE ' THE COMPLAYNT OF SCOTLAND' INFLUENCE OF THE PATRIOTIC LITERATURE DUNBAR, MONT- GOMERY, AND THE OTHER POETS LANGUAGE OF SCOTTISH LITERATURE VESTIGES OF CELTIC LITERATURE PRINTING THE ARTS SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND BARO- NIAL REMAINS SHOW THE POVERTY FOLLOWING THE WAR, AND THE INFLUENCE OF FRANCE MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY EXPORTS AND IMPORTS MINING GOLD, SILVER, LEAD, AND COAL A SPANISH AMBASSADOR'S ACCOUNT OF SCOT- LAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, . . 117-164 CHAPTER XLI. DEATH OF THE KING OF FRANCE - VISITORS TO THE YOUNG QUEEN - HER BROTHER, AFTERWARDS EARL OF MURRAY - EM- BASSY FROM HUNTLY AND THE ROMISH PARTY - PERTINACIOUS DEALING OF QUEEN ELIZABETIl's AMBASSADORS IN 'FRANCE - QUEEN MARY'S RETURN HER COMPANIONS HER RECEPTION HER PAST AND FUTURE POSITION COMPARED - A PAGEANT - THE RELIGIOUS DIFFICULTY - THE QUESTION OF TOLERATING IDOLATRY - CALVIN CONSULTED - METHODS OF REVILING THE OLD CREED AND CEREMONIES - INTERVIEWS WITH JOHN KNOX - THE FIRST BOOK OF DISCIPLINE - FAILURE OF THE CLERGY TO GET IT CONFIRMED BY PARLIAMENT REASONS FOR THE LAY MEMBERS OF THE CONGREGATION DWLIKING IT CONTAINS PROVISIONS FOR APPROPRIATING THE TEMPORALITIES OF THE viii CONTENTS. CHURCH WOULD THUS TAKE THEM FROM THE LAY LORDS WHO HAD SECURED THEM INSTANCES OF THE METHOD OF GETTING AT THEM ROASTING A COMMENDATOR KNOx's WRATH THE COMPROMISE MURRAY'S MARRIAGE AND ELEVA- TION A CLEARING AMONG THE BORDER THIEVES, . 165-198 CHAPTER XLII. C"lurcn (Continued.} DANGERS IS THE NORTH POSITION OF IIUNTLY AS LEADER OF THE ROMANIST PARTY MURRAY'S DESIGNS A ROYAL PRO- GRESS HUNTLY'S FEARS FROM IT HE ARMS BATTLE OF CORRICHIE RUIN OF THE HOUSE OF HUNTLY QUEEN MARY'S POLICY IN ASSISTING IN THE RUIN OF HER FRIENDS POSITION OF MARY'S GOVERNMENT ASPECT OF FIRMNESS AND MODERA- TION HER HOME-LIFE AND AMUSEMENTS HER POPULARITY FURTHER DIALOGUES WITH KNOX QUESTION AS TO WHAT LANGUAGE THEY WERE HELD IN? PROSECUTIONS OF ROMAN- IST PRIESTS ARCHBISHOP HAMILTON THE QUEEN'S DEVOT- EDNESS TO HER CHURCH HER FOREIGN COMMUNICATIONS ASSASSINATION OF HER UNCLE PARLIAMENT TENDENCY TO A REACTION AGAINST THE PROTESTANT PARTY FURTHER ALTERCATIONS BETWEEN THE QUEEN AND KNOX RIOTOUS ATTACK ON OFFICIATING PRIESTS THE RIOTERS BROUGHT TO TASK FEELING AMONG THE PROTESTANT CLERGY, 199-235 CHAPTER XLII I. ( Continued. ) THE QUEEN AND HER ADMIRERS - MYSTERIOUS STORY OF THE PROJECT OF ARRAN AND BOTHWELL - BOTHWELL INDICTED FOR IT - HISTORY OF CHATELAR HIS ADVENTURES - HIS FATE POLITICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE QUEEN'S MARRIAGE -- THE PROJECTS OF THE HOUSE OF GUISE - QUEEN MARY'S OWN VIEWS - PROJECT FOR UNION WITH THE HEIR OF THE SPANISH MONARCHY - POLITICAL PROSPECTS OF SUCH A UNION - MARY ? S FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT IT HER SCHEMES TRA- VERSED BY CATHERINE OF MEDICI - OTHER PROJECTS QUEEN CONTENTS. IX ELIZABETH HER ESCAPADES ABOUT LEICESTER PROPOSED MEETING OF MARY AND ELIZABETH MARY MEETS HENRY STEWART, LORD DARNLEY MARY*S SECRET EMISSARIES DAVJD RIZZIO REACTION IN FAVOUR OF THE ROMANIST PARTY GLOOM AND DIFFICULTIES OF THE REFORMERS PRO- TESTANT RIOT SUPPRESSED QUESTION OF CONSULTING THE ESTATES ABOUT THE MARRIAGE MARRIAGE OF MARY AND DARNLEY, . . 236-277 CHAPTER XLIV. iTUtcrn 4 Han\ ( Continued. ) A STRONG GOVERNMENT DARNLEY GETS THE TITLE OF KING PARLIAMENTARY DISPLEASURE WITH THE ASSUMPTION ARM- ING OF MURRAY AND HIS SUPPORTERS THEIR DISPERSAL-^- PRESENT THEMSELVES TO ELIZABETH HOW TREATED BY HER DANGER OF ELIZABETH AND THE PROTESTANT CAUSED- PRO- JECTS OF THE ROMANIST POWERS CONFERENCE AT BAYONNE PHILIP, CATHERINE OF MEDICI, AND ALVA DARNLEY's CHARACTER DEVELOPS ITSELF ODIOUS AMONG THE COURTIERS HIS WIFE'S APPRECIATION OF HIM PROGRESS OF RIZZIo's INFLUENCE PROJECT FOR PUTTING HIM OUT OF THE WAY THE BAND FOR HIS SLAUGHTER ARRANGEMENTS FOR EFFECT- ING IT THE SUPPER-PARTY RIZZIO DRAGGED QUT AND SLAIN INQUIRY WHEN THE QUEEN KNEW OF HIS DEATH? HER CONDUCT BEFORE AND AFTER THAT KNOWLEDGE LURES BACK HER HUSBAND RETURN OF MURRAY AND HIS FOLLOW- ERS FROM ENGLAND MURRAY MAKES PEACE SECRET AR- RANGEMENT OF THE QUEEN AND HER HUSBAND THEIR ESCAPE TO DUNBAR, . ... 278-316 CHAPTER XLV. (Continued?) THE CONFEDERATE LORDS AND THEIR DANGER - PROJECTS OF RE- TALIATION - THE SLAYERS OF RIZZIO SEEK REFUGE IN ENG- LAND - A PARLIAMENT - THE FIT OF CONJUGAL ATTACHMENT PASSES - SYMPTOMS OF MARY*S FEELING TOWARDS HER HUS- THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, CHAPTER XXXVII. Reformation. GOVERNMENT OF MARY OF LORRAINE HER INABILITY TO UNDER- STAND THE CONSTITUTION OF SCOTLAND FRENCH PRACTICES FRENCHMEN PROMOTED TO HIGH OFFICES ATTEMPT TO PUT THE FORTRESSES IN THEIR HANDS PROPOSAL OF A STANDING ARMY, AND ITS RECEPTION QUEEN MARY'S MARRIAGE TO THE DAUPHIN HIS ACCESSION TO THE CROWN OF FRANCE THE COUNTRY ALARMED BY PROJECTS OF ANNEXATION TO THE CROWN OF FRANCE RISE OF SUSPICION AND DISLIKE OF FRANCE AND THE FRENCH ALLIANCE THE ALIEN CHARACTER OF THE CHURCH IN SCOTLAND - HOW FAR THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS WERE SPREADING - SECULAR CAUSES OF ENMITY TO THE CHURCH WEALTH AND LUXURIOUSNESS OF THE CHURCHMEN THEIR MORAL CONDITION THEIR TEMPORAL POWER AS ADMINISTRA- TORS OF THE LAW - THE POWER OF EXCOMMUNICATION OR CURSING ITS USE FOR LEVYING DEBTS AND FOR ACTS OF PER- SONAL OPPRESSION SPECIMEN OF A CURSING THE CHURCH CONSCIOUS OF ITS OWN DEFECTS INTERNAL EFFORTS AT REFOR- MATION - REFORMING COUNCILS ARCHBISHOP HAMILTON'S CATECHISM THE TWOPENNY FAITH. MARY of Lorraine, the queen-mother, when in 1554 she entered on her acknowledged power as regent, had been sixteen years in Scotland. In these years, how- ever, she had not so sufficiently r#vd the character of VOL. iv. A 2 THE REFORMATION. the people as to be able to avoid cause of mortal offence. She might have seen how the interference of England was detested, and thus have judged that, when France interfered in Scotland, the old ally would get no better toleration than the old enemy. It was to be in the arrangement of events that France was to inter- o fere, and in a vital and unpardonable shape. But even before such projects were ripened, the queen- regent, as if she had intended to awaken all suspicions, tam- pered where she might easily have let alone. The Scots could never be brought to tolerate foreigners, English or Continental, in political offices of trust or power. "We have seen how poor De la Bastie's elevation ended. There was the unpopular history of the other French friends of Albany, and their holding of Dumbarton Castle national offences to the country, only mitigated by the preponderance of the offences committed by England. There never appears a foreigner on the lists of the holders of high political office in Scotland down to this time ; and that there were few foreigners pro- moted in the Church, we may gather from the notoriety surrounding one instance in which a foreigner got pro- motion. His name was Damien. He was made Abbot of Tongueland ; and because he, a Frenchman, obtained this Scots benefice, he was the object of the satirical lash of the poet Dunbar. The office 1 of chancellor was held by the Earl of Huntly, perhaps the greatest territorial lord of the day. A deputy or vice-chancellor was appointed, who did the work of the office and held the power, and the per- son so appointed was a Frenchman named De Roubay. For some cause not fully cleared up, and only known to be connected with his intervention in Highland REGENCY OF MARY OF LORRAINE, 1554-60. 3 quarrels, Huntly came under the letter of the treason law, and had to compound with the crown by a money payment. His humiliation was doubly coupled with favour to Frenchmen. He held a lucrative office, con- nected apparently with the collection of the revenue in Orkney, whence he is called Governor of Orkney. This office, whatever may have been its exact name, was given to a Frenchman, M. Boutot. On the list of comptrollers of the exchequer, too, there appears the name of the famous De Roubay, and, as his successor, Bartholomew Villemore. Another Frenchman, D'Oysel, though not endowed with office, was supposed to have such influence in the counsels of the regent as none but a native Scot ought to exercise. The regent remembered how convenient it was to France to hold a real position in the soil of Scotland, by having Dunbar Castle garrisoned and governed by Frenchmen. She would have done well, too, to remem- ber how offensive that was to the people, and how it imperilled the French alliance. At Eyemouth, to the south of Dunbar, a fort was built on the new method of fortification adopted abroad a step towards the Vaubau type of fortresses. It was garrisoned by French troops. She pondered how she might, one by one, pick the strongholds of the great barons out of their hands and make them royal fortresses. Of these, old Angus's Castle of Tantallou was the most tempt- ing ; and she began to ply its owner with hints, which drew from him, according to tradition, a celebrated an- swer, marked by his own peculiar cast of grim derision. Yes, his castle and all he had were at her grace's com- mand; but before God he vowed that he must himself be the governor, for no other person could hold it so well. 4 THE REFORMATION. The Scots monarclis had not only no standing army, but they had scarcely a guard for the protection of the royal person and residence. When Henry VIII. sup- plied his sister with money to support two hundred men for her son's protection, it was a material boon, though one dangerous to accept, as suspiciously eyed. The only force the monarch could bring into the field was the feudal array, and it was a self-willed force, given to stand upon limitations and privileges, as we have often seen. The queen-regent saw a different sight when she visited the French Court. It had long been surrounded by troops of armed protectors, con- spicuous and supreme among whom was that picked body of men, the Scots Guard. Beyond these, too, the monarch had a considerable standing army, supported by taxes and feudal dues. The queen-regent thought it would be an improvement on the institutions of Scot- land to have a standing army, so that the Government might no longer be left in absolute dependence on that capricious institution, the feudal array. It was repre- sented that the nation would thus be greatly strength- ened against their old enemies of England. A force might be always kept on the border, so as to save the country from the sudden surprises and raids from which it had suffered so vitally for several generations. The project required a new tax. An act for raising it passed the Lords of the Articles. It authorised a minute inquiry into the possessions of every subject lord, landowner, farmer, merchant, and craftsman. The "inquisition" was to be made by a parochial organisation under the sheriff' of each county ; and the whole arrangements are so stringent that the o o act might be supposed to have been prepared by REGENCY OF MARY OF LORRAINE, 1554-60. 5 some one anxious to make it seem as offensive as lie could. 1 By a contemporary noticer of events we are told that discontent at this project broke out through the country in many " privy assemblies and conventions." These tokens of discontent concentrated themselves into a meeting in the Abbey of Holyrood, where some three hundred of the principal territorial magnates assembled. They sent a deputation to the regent and her Council, " desiring most humbly not to alter the ancient custom, laws, and liberty of the realm, in putting them to such charges of payment, and sums of money, affirming that their forefathers and predecessors had defended the same many hundred years valiantly with their own hands/' They maintained that the present inhabitants of the realm were " of as good courage and hardiment, able and valiant to defend their realm, as others their forebears have been in times past ; and therefor would fecht with their own hands, and defend the same with their bodies, for they could not trust any waged man that he wad so faithfully defend their liberty, wifes, bairns, lands, and possessions." They held next that there was not such " substance" in the country, " as to sustain so many idle men as were necessary for the defence of the borders," meaning that a force was idle when not actually fighting or employed against an enemy. But they had a conckisive reason for pro- testing trusting to mercenaries, the country would lose its old strength. As it is put by Leslie, " that the same should cause the lords, barons, gentlemen, fall into sic idleness and unskilfulness through lack of use of bearing and exercising their armour, that they 1 Act. Parl., ii. 604. 6 THE REFORMATION. should become an easy prey to whatsoever nation that would invade the realm." In this protestation there stands a curious little constitutional definition. It is noted that the monarch is not king or queen of Scotland, but of the Scots. " In that respect the king has been called at all times King of Scots that is, rather in respect of men, nor of money and substance of the country." l The obnoxious tax and its occasion the standing army were together abandoned. Since she could not get an army at the absolute disposal of the crown, the regent endeavoured to get the feudal force committed to the policy of France by an invasion of England. As their old troubles on the borders were breaking out, and there was possible danger from England, an army assembled for the defence of Scot- land, but its leaders refused to invade England. Thus there were symptoms of variance between the queen - dowager, as a sort of representative of French interests and principles, on the one hand, and the Scots people on the other. Some great events, however, came to pass, which seemed to remove all discordant influences, and bring the two nations into closer union than ever. In the winter of 1557 the Estates were reminded by the King of France that the proper time had come for completing the promised marriage between his son and the Queen of Scots. A commission was appointed to go to France and re- present Scotland on the occasion. It consisted of six persons, among whom was Beaton, the Archbishop of Glasgow. There were two others, whose appointment to such a purpose was significant James Stewart, Prior of St Andrews, the queen's illegitimate brother, and 1 History, Scots version, 255. QUEEN MARY'S MARRIAGE, 1558. 7 Erskine, the Laird of Dun ; these, as we shall presently see, became the leaders of the Reformation party. The marriage was celebrated with due splendour on the 24th of April 1558. Stipulations, in all forms deemed necessary for the purpose, were made for the maintenance of the Scots nationality and the inde- pendent privileges of the people. If there were a son of the marriage, he was to succeed to both thrones ; if there were but daughters excluded from the French succession the eldest was to reign in Scotland : such were the public and ostensible conditions of the mar- riage. There is little doubt, however, of the fact that, some days before the ceremony, the queen signed three papers, the object and intent of which was to convey her kingdom, as if it were her private property, to the house of Valois. The documents were drawn on the principle so common in all attempts to dispose of governments on parchment. One of them contained the conveyance ; another, in case this should be ineffi- cient, pledged the country for a million of gold pieces, or any other sum that might be claimed as due by the queen for her entertainment in France ; the third nullified any deeds signed by her, under the instruc- tions of her Parliament, of a tenor inconsistent with those now executed : so was one worthless document to prop up another. It is not clear whether these documents were procured merely, by the private deal- ing of her uncles the Guises, or were sanctioned by the King of France himself or by his other advisers. It was agreed that the Dauphin should have the distinction, as it was termed, t)f being called King of Scots. The Scots commissioners were required to send for . the honours of Scotland, as they were termed 8 THE REFORMATION. the crown, the sceptre, and the other decorations which had been used in the coronation of a king of Scots. The commissioners would do nothing to commit them- selves to compliance with this request. Had they re- presented, however urgently, the propriety of sending these precious articles to France, the Estates certainly would not have permitted them to leave the country. The demanding of them was eminently suspicious. It betokened that the house of Valois wanted to have something more than the nominal or honorary title of king for the Dauphin ; and if the honours once left the country, it was very unlikely that they would ever be brought back. A mysterious calamity gave a sinister meaning to the rumours about this and some other matters, calculated to raise suspicion among the Scots. When the six com- missioners reached Dieppe on their way home, three of them the Lords Rothes and Cassilis, and Reid, Bishop of Orkney sickened and died suddenly. It was held that things had been said to these men in France which it was very undesirable that they should repeat in Scot- land, and so they were poisoned out of the way. At that time, in France, such an act was quite within the bounds of likelihood ; and instead of rejecting the suspicion as ungenerous, one is inclined to be surprised that it was not pressed more strongly, and that no investigations or explanations were demanded regarding the cause of so remarkable a fatality. The surviving commissioners, on reporting the com- pletion of their important business to the Estates, which met in November, tendered to them a request, in the name of the queen, which was and has continued to be a cause of much discussion. It wae, that the QUEEN MARY'S MARRIAGE, 1558. 9 Crown Matrimonial might be conferred on her husband. This involved an actual ceremony of coronation, with a crown made for the purpose, and sent over in charge of a special embassy. The commissioners, in putting the request to the Estates, said that it was to be " by way of gratification during the marriage, without any manner of prejudice to her highness's self, the succes- sion of her body, or lawful succession of her blood whatsomever ; " and it was authorised by the Estates, with this limitation, and a declaration that the distinc- tion was to last "during the marriage allenarly." 1 It was said, however, that there was a deep meaning in this device. It came from the Guises, and it was believed that they were prepared to interpret its true meaning from certain precedents, when the right time came. The meaning of the term was much pondered on the occasion of Queen Mary's second marriage, and it was believed that it meant a complete partner- ship, in the crown ; so that, in default of children, it would go to the survivor and the survivor's heirs. On that principle, if Queen Mary died childless before the Dauphin, the crown of Scotland was transferred to the house of Valois. 2 Among those Scots who still held by the French 1 Act. Purl., ii. 506. * Some hints dropped by the Cardinal of Lorraine are thus noted : " Monsieur le Cardinal me respondit, scion faithful whom they have deserted ; for they are restless creatures they are on the move, and though they may have reached the ultimate temple in the line of their changes, and can go no further, they are apt to move about very rest- VOL. IV. B 18 THE REFORMATION. A period of many years had now passed over, in which there had been at intervals several persons put to death for what the Church counted heresy. We must not suppose that in their own day these victims were treated as illustrious martyrs. For that crown their memory had to wait until Protestantism became triumphant. The executions were disagreeable affairs connected with church matters, and the laity in gene- ral kept as well aloof from them as they could. Even the death of Wishart, with its picturesquely tragical retribution, was an isolated matter. The party in favour of the French alliance or, it would be more explicit to say, the party determined to resist English domination swept all before them, and the affair had really very little visible influence. In 1550 there was another victim of the fire, named and described by Knox as "Adam Wallace, alias Fian, a simple man, lessly and troublesomely to their new neighbours, in that abode which they have chosen as the only refuge from doubts and difficulties. Thus individual conversions make a noise ; but at any time the number of persons who have changed faith through calm conviction is very small. Such a process has contributed \-ery little to the distribution of the reli- gious persuasions among the European nations. The Romish and the Protestant communities stand as they were left by the great struggle of the sixteenth century as modified in some measure by the Thirty Years' War. There are millions of tolerably accurate practisers of the require- ments of the Church of Rome who would have been good Protestants had they been bom and brought up in the Protestant communities ; just as, on the other hand, there are millions of sound Protestants who would have been faithful observers of the Romish formularies had they been born and brought up in any of the states which held by the old Church. The boundaries of the Romish and Protestant states have not varied to any perceptible effect for two hundred years ; some of them are as they were three hundred years ago. The Netherlands are Romish up to the boundary where Spain held dominion over them Protestant beyond. The old decayed city of Nuremberg early put in its lot with the Reformation ; and the city of Nuremberg is Protestant, though sur- rounded by communities which still hold by the old Church. WALTER MILL, 1558. 19 without great learning, but one that was zealous in godliness, and of an upright life." 1 In 1558 Walter Mill was burned in St Andrews. His fate created more real excitement than all the others that had gone before. He was a man past eighty years of age, a quiet country priest, of blameless life. Incidents were told about his burning which showed that such scenes were becoming odious. There was difficulty, it was said, in getting the necessary intervention of the civil power, and in securing persons to undertake the executioner's work. It was further said that the people piled stones to make a cairn on the place where he suffered, and ever as they were removed they were replaced. This execution was at St Andrews, and it recalled the death of Wishart there fourteen years earlier, with its wonderful retribu- tion. A horror of such events was creeping into the people's minds. The like had not been known in Scot- land in days of old. To the clergy, they were deeds of duty and humanity. What was the extinction of a life or two to the spread of heresy, which would ruin mil- lions of souls ? And as to the victims themselves, their torture in this world was short, and would expiate for them an infinitely greater amount of torture in the next. In such views the lay population could not sympathise. About other matters, more closely con- nected with the vulgar routine and objects of life, the two classes were drawing off from each other. The ecclesiastics were becoming peculiar, as a rich and luxurious class. The estates conferred on the prelacies and monastic houses centuries before had come, from being almost worthless, to produce great revenues. While there was a continual shifting in the possessions 1 History, i. 237. 20 THE REFORMATION. of the lay barons, the ecclesiastical estates remained unchanged, and ever grew in fertility and value. There were two social specialties in the clergy apt to be irritating to a poor and homely landed gentry. They were rich, and they were aliens in taste and training, spending their affluence in conformity with foreign and luxurious fashions. Among the many Scots who sought a foreign education, those training themselves for the Church predominated. They were thus initiated into foreign tastes and connections, which fitted only too well into their foreign allegiance to the hierarchy of Home. There were in this widened intercourse liberalising and humanising influences, but those of another kind prevailed. On the one side we may see the rich accomplished scholar and French courtier Elphinstone munificently endowing a univer- sity after the model of the University of Paris ; but a type of the other and prevalent side is Beaton, auda- cious in his profuseness and profligacy. 1 For all that the Scots had a rooted prejudice against any precedents coming from England, the revelations made by Henry VIII.'s raid on the monastic houses cannot but have caused a deep impression, and made thinking men ask whether it might be that like con- ditions were to be found in the noble clusters of buildings which lodged the Regular fraternities and sisterhoods in their own country. Henry's commission 1 ' For my niaist princely prodigality Among prelates in France I bore the prise. I schew my lordly liberality In banqueting, playing at cards and dyce. Into such wisdom I was haldcn wise, And sparit not to play with king or knight Three thousand crowns of gold upon a night." Sir David Lindsay, The Tragedy of the Cardinal. CONDITION OF THE CLERGY, 1550-60. 21 of inquiry was a marvellous success. The designs and motives by which it was inspired had no claim to approval, but the result put to silence all that could be said against them. Public rumour, too, and the exaggeration of the designing, deepened the darkness of the revelation. Worse things than those that were done could not be invented by malicious tale-tellers ; but the rare or solitary crime was spread over a wide area, and from an individuality became a generality. The whole story was told in the coarsest and broadest terms to the Government of Scotland by Sir Ralph Sadler, and by others who desired the English prece- dent to be followed there. Enumerating a loathsome and unrepeatable catalogue of vices, we find Sir Ralph telling King James V. that the same will be found in his own dominions, " unless your monks be more holy in Scotland than ours are in England." The king did not stand up for their purity ; but there was no pressure on him to follow an English example, and the disap- pointed ambassador has to relate, " 'Oh/ quoth the king, ' God forbid that if a few be not good, for them all the rest should be destroyed. Though some be not,' qnoth he, 'there be a great many good ; and the good may be suffered, and the evil must be reformed ; as ye shall hear,' quoth he, 'that I shall help to see it re- dressed in Scotland, by God's grace, if I brook life.' " l Some families of the poorer landed gentry held in relation to churchmen a position that could not but subject them to humiliation. Their sisters or daughters were the known concubines of rich priests, and held rank accordingly. For many* of the clergy who lived in concubinage according to the letter of the law, there 1 Sadler State Papers, i. 31. 22 THE REFORMATION. was doubtless the plea that morally they led a life of man-led domesticity. They were dissenters or schis- matics, rather than sinners. They repudiated the doctrine of clerical celibacy; and, holding that the clergy ought to be permitted to marry like other men, they took to their homes women who held the same view, and lived with them in soberness and constancy, regretting that perverse laws denied them the legal privileges of wedlock, but with consciences void of offence, doing what seemed to them right amid the difficulties by which they were surrounded. Whole branches of the Church had acted on this principle, and given to it the respectability of an established in- stitution. So we have seen it among the old Culdees, and perhaps its spirit lingered in Scotland down to the Keformation. At the best, however, it was a lax and dangerous system. Every man who practised it was a law unto himself. There was no distinct sanc- tion drawing, as the law of marriage draws, an obvious unmistakable line between domesticity and profligacy. And of many of the great rich churchmen, such as Cardinal Beaton and his successor, it was known that they did not profess these humble domestic views, or place themselves in the position of dissenters from the Church, by affecting the life of married persons. They flared their amours in the face of the world, as if proud of the soundness of their taste for beauty, and the rank and birth that had become prostrate to their soli- citations. It seemed as if their very greatness as tem- poral grandees enabled them to defy the ordinary laws of decorum, while their spiritual rank secured to them immunity from that clerical punishment which it was their duty to pronounce against less gifted sinners. CONDITION OF THE CLERGY, 1550-60. 23 This blot upon the Romish establishment was not a matter of debate, like the soundness of its doctrines. The proceedings of ecclesiastical councils, and other documents having to deal with discipline and conduct, are profuse in wailings and denunciations of the ever- pervading irregularities. In Scotland they are de- nounced in the earliest ecclesiastical canons those of the thirteenth century and they are denounced with increased emphasis in the proceedings of the latest provincial council held by the Romish clergy. These denunciations make no distinction between those unions which were a virtual protest against the laws of celibacy, and the others which testified to defiant profligacy. Probably the more decorous kind were considered the more dangerous, as a following up of their principles by serious men professing to walk uprightly according to their false lights. But, taken in any way, the protestations and lamentations of the Church itself proclaimed within it -a sore which centuries of endeavour had not cured which had rooted itself all the deeper through all the efforts to eradicate it. We can only know the extent and influence of this social specialty by familiar acquaint- ance with contemporary documents. Those who, at a later period, interpreted the history of the times, when they found that some eminent person who had got a good start in life, and pursued the advantage into a career of eminence, was the son of a Popish clergyman, thought they had traced him to an origin more infamous than ordinary illegitimacy. It was, in his own days, actually more respectable, as coming of a usage countenanced by a party. This unconformity between the spirit of the age and the spirit of the 24 THE REFORMATION. writer dealing with it is productive occasionally of indistinctness. 1 The result in the social condition of the country was that the rule of celibacy, though observed in law, was abrogated in practice among those of the clergy who were rich enough to support households. This was so much of an acknowledged system that, when there was moderation and constancy, the union was deemed respectable. The concubines of the dignified clergy and their illegitimate children had a fixed place in society. Such connection and parentage, instead of being huddled into obscurity, was expressly and definitely set forth in public documents and the title- deeds of estates. But nothing could remove a certain degree of stigma from the class of persons thus marked off. It was felt that what they got from society was bought by sheer wealth, not given by gratuitous social respect. The worshipful houses which had to submit to such alliances felt the humiliation of them, and were led to ponder on the problem whether the wealth of the clergy could not be got at in some more direct and less unpleasant way. King James V. did his best to foster the alienation of the laity from the clergy, by distrusting the heads of 1 Of the excellent Bishop Elphinstone of Aberdeen, one of the most enlightened of the patrons and advocates of the higher reaches of edu- cation, we are told that " there is no doubt that he was, like so many well-educated men of his time, the offspring of a churchman who could not legally marry, but whose connection and family, in violation of his vows, were then tolerated by society, and almost sanctioned by the prac- tice of the highest of his order." As appropriate to the remark made above, it is stated in a note to this how two writers of the eighteenth century Crawfurd and Keith have covered this disgrace under the convenient and pious fiction that the bishop's father took orders after he became a widower. Innes's Sketches, 260. VIEWS ON ECCLESIASTICAL PROPERTY, 1550-60. 25 the feudal houses and taking counsel of the churchmen. o We have seen how hard he pressed upon the aristocracy with forfeitures and penalties. These enabled him to enrich his favourites among the clergy, and the landed gentry felt as if their property and power were gra- dually dropping away from them to enrich their rivals. The two Beatons kept up a magnificence which none of the nobles, except perhaps Arran, could rival. It was said that the elder had prepared a list of forfeitures, and that King James V., taking note of the sum total represented by it as a conclusion, was, by a gradual process of suction, to draw the land away from its lay owners for the enrichment of his clerical advisers. Such rumours, well or ill founded, led men to fa- miliarity with the converse of the process. Long before the crisis of Elizabeth's accession, the lay gentry of Scotland had their eyes pretty steadily fixed on the estates of the Church and clergy. When a set of teachers arose whose doctrine pointed to the conclusion, that these clergy were false prophets who had no title to their position, and consequently no just right to the wealth it brought to them, there was a disposition to listen. The new doctrines, as presented to these greedy laymen, were expressed, after Knox's peculiar method, in the most abrupt and emphatic word's, and in the most startling contrast to old received opinions. But if they were thus likely rather to shock and alarm than to conciliate the cautious and selfish, there was in the end a little sentence concerning the things of this world carrying compensation for novel and un- usual doctrines bearing on the* lext it announced that the tithes did not by God's law belong to the church- men. Perhaps KnOx regretted that he had put this 26 THE REFORMATION. view too generally when the lay impropriators inter- preted it for themselves, and acted on their interpreta- tion in such manner as to make him call down the divine vengeance on " the merciless devourers of the patronage of the Kirk." 1 In later times it has been acknowledged that the race of churchmen who lived in the fifteenth century had left to the world a noble legacy in the establish- ment of universities, and in other efforts for the pro- motion of learning arid the education of the people. 1 The articles are announced by Knox himself in thorough character. The date is 1547. " The bastard bischope, who yit was not execrated (consecrated thei call it), wrait to the Suppriour of Sanctandrois, who (sede vacante) was vicare-generall, ' That he wondered that he suffered sic hereticall and schismaticall doctrin to be tawght, and nott to oppone himself to the same.' Upoun this rebuck, was a conventioun of Grey Freiris and Black Feindis appointed, with the said suppriour, Dean Johnne Wyn- rame, in Sanct Leonardis yardis, whareunto was first called Johne Rowght, and certane articles redd unto him ; and thairafter was Johnne Knox called for. The caus of thare conventioun, and why that thei war called, was exponed ; and the articles war read, which war these : " I. No mortall man can be the head of the Church. " II. The Pape is ane Antichrist, and so is no member of Christis misticall body. " III. Man may nether maik nor devise a religioun that is acceptable to God ; butt man is bound to observe and keap the religioun that fra God is receaved, without chopping or changeing thairof. " IV. The sacramentis of the New Testament aucht to be ininistred as thei war institut by Christ Jesus and practised by His apostles ; nothing awght to be added unto thame ; nothing awght to be diminished from thame. " V. The messe is abominable idolatrie, blasphemous to the death of Christ, and a prophanatioun of the Lordis Suppar. " VI. Thare is no purgatorie, in the which the sanies of men can eyther be pyned or purged after this lyef ; butt heavin restis to the faythfull, and hell to the reprobat and unthankful!. " VII. Praying for the dead is vain, and to the dead is idolatrie. "VIII. Thare is no bischoppes, except thei preach evin by thame- selfis, without any substitut. "IX. The teindis by Goddis law do not apperteane of necessitie to the kirkmen." History, i. 193. OFFENSIVE POWERS OF THE CHURCH, 1550-60. 27 But the contemporaries whose ignorance prompted the clergy to this work were not likely to appreciate it. On the contrary, they felt invidiously the power which these churchmen were gathering to themselves through their superior learning. It enabled them to consoli- date and strengthen their ever-accumulating estates. They were helped towards this end, and towards the oppression of the laity, by becoming the administrators of the law. There was no obdurate conglomerate of local customs, like the common law in England, to bid defiance by its bulk and weight to the subtle influence of the civilians and canonists. The Scots, indeed, when their lot was severed from that of their English fellow-Saxons, avowedly adopted the two foreign sys- tems from their allies of France. The canon law, the child of the civil law, was part of the professional training of the churchman; and having the key to both systems, he had many chances beyond the layman of rendering himself a dexterous adept, and monopolising the administration of justice. The office of Chancellor was nearest to the throne, and its holder was the head of the law. When the chief of any great house was aggrandising it into su- premacy over all others, he would take this office to himself. So it had been held by Oichton, by Boyd the favourite of James III., and by Angus. Gradually, however, the office became absorbed in the Church, and no layman had held it since the beginning of the century. When the Court of Session was established, it was to consist half of clergy, half of laymen ; but its first president was the Abbot of Cambuskenneth. There was, at the same time, a large department in the administration of justice over which the Church 28 THE REFORMATION. arrogated entire management and control as a matter vitally connected with its spiritual functions. After centuries of pressure, the Church had been able to establish in practice throughout Christendom, that her sacrament was necessary to the estate of matrimony and the legitimacy of offspring. The Church could not trust it to the lay authorities to ascertain and deter- mine whether the sacred mystery had been duly per- formed, and the corresponding privileges acquired. Questions of the validity of marriages, of their dissolu- tion, and of the legitimacy of offspring, were conse- quently retained by the Church. This made church- men the arbiters of succession. The feudal law was so far a barrier that they could carry their ecclesiastical law no farther than to separate those who, by illegiti- macy, were excluded from its benefits. But the law of succession to other property was entirely worked by them. Where there were settlements, their interpreta- tion, and where there were no settlements, the distribu- tion of the estate among the next of kin, were business all managed by the bishop's consistory. The working of the system was all the more amenable to suspicion, that the Church or individual churchmen were often party claimants in the distribution of a dead man's goods. To all these legitimate judicial services, the Church was enabled, by a very curious process, to add a large portion in the coercive functions of the common law. It became a practice, when any person undertook an obligation, that he should make a vow or oath to per- form it, and that oath was put on record. Now the breaking of an oath was an ecclesiastical offence, for which a man became liable to Excommunication, or to Cursing, as it was aptly called in Scotland. Exacting OFFENSIVE POWERS OF THE CHURCH, 1550-60. 29 the oath was an established practice of the money- lend el's, and the borrowers, with the proverbial thought- lessness of their class, took it with other risks. It was not the spiritual influence of excommunication that was the temptation for this use of the oath. Persons under process of cursing were subjected to legal execution against person and property. It was the preliminary step of a warrant for arrest and imprisonment, and for the impounding and seizure of goods. Hence " letters of cursing" were as much the usual order in debit and credit transactions as any common writ of later times for seizing the person and distraining the goods. 1 Scot- land had by no means reached that stage in the devel- opment of social science, in which those concerned in executing the severities of the law are to be revered as a terror to evildoers, and a praise and protection to them that do well From the burning of the heretic O down to the troubling of the poor debtor, the Church was monopolising all this unpopular business to itself it was inquisitor, hangman, and bailiff. It was ever endeavouring to widen its powers, even when they were of this unenviable kind. For instance, it had become a practice for the ecclesiastical authorities to curse the exe- cutive officers of the civil courts for giving effect to their decisions. So early as the year 1484, we find steps taken against this aggression. It was adjudged by the Lords 1 This anomalous process became, in the course of events, the parent of one of the most useful and effective means for obtaining rapid justice known in modern legal practice. When the great change came, as a substitute for the oath and the consequent cursing, came the " clause of registration," a clause binding the parties to any deed or contract, on its being recorded in the roll of a court, to submit to its terms as if a judg- ment of the court to that effect had passed against them. It has gone into England in an imperfect shape, as the " warrant to confess judg- ment." 30 THE REFORMATION. of Council that, for any such wrongous and inorderly cursing of the king's officer in the performance of his duty, by any bishop or other ecclesiastical person, " the said bishop or other ecclesiastical person may be cor- rected and punished by the king's highness, that the same may be an example to others to abstain from all such doings in time to come." l This process, as well as many others of the old eccle- siastical tribunals, has excited considerable ungratified curiosity. It is observable that, while we have in abundance the title-deeds and other documents of ecclesiastical bodies which connected them with the outer world, we have very few vestiges of their judicial and executive proceedings, whether for the suppression of heresy or for other purposes. 2 The disappearance of all such records may be likened to what is said about the general burning of private letters in government departments when a change of ministry is undoubted. It hence happens that a very magnificent specimen of letters of cursing found lately among the English state papers is all the more curious. It was trans- mitted in 1525 by Magnus, an emissary in Scotland, to Cardinal Wolsey, as a document worthy of notice. 3 1 Balfour's Practiks, 565. 2 We have the form of an excommunication, or cursing in the vernacu- lar, to be read to the people four times a-year. It enumerates the vari- ous sins supposed chiefly to beset the community, and dooms those who remain in them unrepentant to perdition, by the symbol of extinguish- ing a lighted candle by dashing it down. The expressions of this docu- ment are pretty strong, and not unlike those in use on ceremonial occa- sions in some Protestant communities. But, issued as it is against hypo- thetical offenders, it has not that direct impulsive vehemence which seems to have been inspired by the realisation of the offences committed and the persons committing them. The form will be found iii the Statuta Eccle- siae Scoticana;, 6. s Of Magnus, see above, chap, xxxii. AN ECCLESIASTICAL CURSING, 1550-60. 31 The occasion was one of public importance an at- tempt, through this kind of spiritual warfare with its civil consequences, to subdue the border rievers, and make them give up their evil ways. The document may have risen to the occasion. It is called by Magnus " a terrible cursing," and may be, perhaps, an exaggera- tion on the chastisement administered to the swindler or defaulting debtor. It is certain that, as concerning this document, the usual charges against the Church of Rome regarding unknown tongues, and obscure and ambiguous phraseology, do not apply. After a pre- amble the cursing comes forth as follows : " I denounce, proclaim, and declare all and sundry the committersof the said sackless murders, slaughters, burn- ings, heirschippes, reiffes, thefts, and spulies, openly upon daylight, and under silence of the night, as well within temporal lands as kirklands ; together with their part- takers, assistars, suppliars, wittanlie resetters of their persons, the goods reft and stolen by them, art or part thereof, and their counsellors and defenders of their evil deeds; generally cursed, waried, aggregate, and re- aggregate, with The Great Cursing. I curse their head and all the hairs of their head ; I curse their face, their eyes, their mouth, their nose, their tongue, their teeth, their crag, their shoulders, their breast, their heart, their stomach, their back, their waime, their arms, their legs, their hands, their feet, and every ilk part of their body, from the top of their head to the sole of their feet, behind and before, within and without. I curse them going, I curse them riding ; I curse them eating, I curse them drinking ; I curse them waking, I curse them sleeping ; I curse them rising, I curse them lying ; I curse them at home, I curse them from home ; I 32 THE REFORMATION. curse them within the house, I curse them without the house ; I curse their wives, their bairns, and their servants participant with them in their deeds. I warie their corn, their cattle, their wool, their sheep, their horse, their swine, their hens, and all their quick goods. J curse their halls, their chambers, their kitchens, their stables, their barns, their byres, their barnyards, their kailyards, their ploughs, their harrows, and the goods and houses that is necessary for their sustentation and welfare. All the malisons and waresouns that ever gat worldly creature since the beginning of the world to this hour, mot light upon them. The malediction of God that lighted upon Lucifer and all his fellows, that struck them from the high heaven to the deep hell, mot light upon them. The fire and sword that stopped Adam from the yetts of paradise, mot stop them from the glory of heaven, till they forbear and make amends. The malison that lighted on cursed Cain, when he slew his brother just Abel without cause, mot light upon them for the saikless slaughter that they commit daily. The malediction that lighted upon all the world, man and beast, and all that ever took life, when all was drowned by the flood of Noah, except Noah and his ark, mot light upon them, and drown them, man and beast, and make this realm cumberless of them for their wicked sins. The thunder and lightning that went down as rain upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, with all the lands about, and burnt them for their vile sins, mot rain upon them, and burn them for open sins. The malison and confusion that lighted on the giants for their oppression and pride, building the tower of Babel, mot confound them and all their works, for their open robberies and oppression. All the plagues that fell AN ECCLESIASTICAL CURSING, 1550-60. 33 upon Pharaoh and his people of Egypt, their lands, corn, and cattle, mot fall upon them, their tacks, rowmes, and steadings, corn, and beasts. The water of Tweed, and other waters where they ride, mot drown them as the Red Sea drowned King Pharaoh and the people of Egypt pursuing God's people of Israel. The earth mot open, rive, and cleave, and swallow them quick to hell, as it swallowed cursed Dathan and Abiram that gainsaid Moses and the command of God. The wild fire that burned Korah and his fellows to the number of two hundred and fifty, and others 14,000 and 700 at once, usurping against Moses and Aaron, servants of God, mot sud- denly burn and consume them daily gainsaying the commands of God and holy Kirk. The maledic- tion that lighted suddenly upon fair Absalom, riding against his father King David, servant of God, through the wood, when the branches of a tree freed him of his horse and hanged him by the hair, mot light upon them riding against true Scottishmen, and hang them siclike that all the world may see. The malediction that lighted upon Holofernes, lieutenant to Nebuchad- nezzar, making war and heirschippis upon true Christian men ; the malediction that lighted upon Judas, Pilate, Herod, and the Jews that crucified our Lord, and all the plagues and troubles that lighted on the city of Jerusalem therefor and upon Simon Magus for his simony, bloody Nero, cursed Decius, Maxentius, Oly- brius, Julianus Apostata, and the lave of the cruel tyrants that slew and murdered Christ's holy servants, mot light upon them for their cruel tyranny and mur- therdom of Christian people. And all the vengeance that ever was taken since the world began for open sins, VOL. iv. c 34 THE REFORMATION. and all the plagues and pestilences that ever fell on man or beast, mot fall on them for their open robbery, saikless slaughter, and shedding of innocent blood. I dissever and part them from the Kirk of God, and deliver them quick to the devil of hell, as the apostle St Paul delivered Corinthion. I interdict the places they come in from divine service, ministration of the sacraments of holy Kirk, except the sacrament of baptism only ; and forbid all kirkmen to shrive or absolve them of their sins, till they be first absolved of this cursing. I forbid all Christian man or woman to have any company with them, eating, drinking, speaking, praying, lying, going, standing, or in any other deed doing, under the pain of deadly sin. I discharge all bands, acts, contracts, oaths, and obliga- tions made to them by any persons, either of lawte kindness or manrent, so long as they sustain this cursing; so that no man be bounden to them, and that they be bounden to all men. I take from them, and cry down all the good deeds that ever they did or shall do, till they rise from this cursing. I declare them partless of all matins, masses, even-songs, dirges, or other prayers, on book or bead ; of all pilgrimages and almous deeds done or to be done in holy Kirk, or by Christian people, enduring this cursing. And, finally, I condemn them perpetually to the deep pit of hell, to remain with Lucifer and all his fellows, and their bodies to the gallows of the Boroughmuir, first to be hanged, syne riven and rugged with dogs, swine, and other wild beasts, abominable to all the world. And as their candles go from your sight, so may their souls go from the visage of God, and then* good fame from the world, till they forbear their open sins afore- SECULAR OFFENCES OF THE CHURCH, 1550-60. 35 said, and rise from this terrible cursing, and make satisfaction and penance." * We can suppose all this to have had a very terrifying effect, so long as it was believed that the curses pro- claimed by man were sure to be ratified by God. But if doubts and questions arose on this point, then would the whole resolve itself into wild ribaldry, and the cause of ribaldry in others. The practice came to be ridiculed by the satirists. About the beginning of the sixteenth century, a poet named Rowl a priest, as it would appear issued a rhyming cursing against per- sons who had robbed his poultry-yard and his garden. 2 In 1535 an act was passed for rendering more effec- tive and severe the civil execution to follow upon cursing; and the reason assigned for this was, "because 1 State Papers (Henry VIII.), iv. 418, 419. 1 Reprinted in Laing's Select Remains of the Ancient Popular Poetry of Scotland : " Herefollowis Tkt cursing of .S't'r Jofui Rowlis Upoun the steilaris of kin fowlis. " Devyne power of michtis maist Of Fadir, Sone, and Haly Ghaist, Jesu Chryst and His appostellis, Peter, Paul, and His discipillLs, And all the power under God ; And now of Rome that beiris the rod , Under the hevin to loose and bind, Paip Alexander that we do fynd, With that power that Peter gaif. God's braid malison next they half, And all the blude about their heart. Black be their hour black be their part, For five fat geese of Sir John Rowlis, . With capons, hens, and uthir fowlis, Baith the holders and concealers, Resetters and the pror^ stealers, And he that sauls, seizes, and damns, Beteich the devil, their guts and gammis, Their tongue, their teeth, their hands, their feet, And all their body haill complete, That brak his yaird and stole his frute." 36 THE REFORMATION. the damnable persuasions of heretics and their perverse doctrine gives occasion to lightly the process of cursing and other censures of holy Kirk," &C. 1 John Kuox tells us of a friar named Arth who, in the year 1534, preached at St Andrews, and in the presence of several dignified clergymen, a sermon in which he attacked some usages in high favour with the Church, and that in such manner that only great skill could have prevented him from falling into the terrible pitfall of provable heresy. He said of cursing, that, " if it were rightly used, it was the most fearful thing upon the face of the earth, for it was the very separa- tion of man from God ; but that it should not be used lightly, or for very slight cause, but only against open and incorrigible sinners." And he continued to say, " But now the avarice of priests and their ignorance of their office have caused it altogether to be vilipended ; for the priest, whose duty and office it is to pray for the people, stands up on Sunday and cries, ' Ane has tynt a spurtle. There is ane flail stolen from them beyond the burn. The good wife on the other side of the gait has tynt ane horn spoon. God's malison and mine I give to them that knows of this geere, and restores it not ; " and he followed up with further illustrations " of how the people mocked their cursing." 2 This process of excommunication or cursing had an ugly alliance with another fertile source of quarrel between clergy and laity the levying of tithes, or, as the equivalent word stood in Scotland, teinds. A tithe uncommuted to a fixed payment becomes a tax in- creasing in its pressure with the productive industry of the people. Whatever it had been in early times, it 1 Act. Parl., ii. 342. * History, i. 39. SECULAR OFFENCES OF THE CHURCH, 1550-60. 37 was felt in the sixteenth century to be heavily press- ing on a number of small agriculturists or cottars who were rising into a class respectable and collectively powerful, but individually so little above poverty that a careful parsimony was necessary to the preservation of the self-supporting independence which they loved. The tithe, which this class felt as an oppressive impost, was levied on them, like other debts, through the pro- cess of cursing and the civil execution following on it; and naturally they felt that the clergy, by secular inflic- tions and spiritual anathemas, extracted from them poor, and hard workers the fruit of their industry, to swell their own wealth and minister to their pampered appetites. There were a quantity of other established dues exacted by the Church, the most offensive of which appear to have been made conditional on the rite of burial, which brought them on families in the time of affliction, and often when they were stricken with sud- den poverty. Among these exactions we find " the kirk cow " and the " upmost cloth" recurring in the docu- ments and the popular literature of the day as grievances keeping the common people in continual irritation. 1 1 Sir David Lindsay, in the Satire of the Three Estates, puts the in- cidents of such an extortion into the words of the mendicant who breaks in upon the performance. It is a highly-coloured illustration of the grievance. His father and mother have died, leaving him a small agri- cultural stock " a mare that carried salt and coal, and three kye baith fat and fair," of the purest Ayrshire breed, then as now celebrated. The misfortunes begin with a feudal exaction : ' Our gude grey mare was bating on the field, Our land's laird took her for his haregeld. The vicar took the best cow bv the head, Incontinent, when my father Wtls dead. And when the vicar heard how that my mother Was deed, fra hand he took fra me ane uther. Then Meg my wife did mourn baith even and morrow, Till at the last she deit for very sorrow ; 38 THE REFORMATION. All these transactions, in which the clergy gave offence to the people in matters affecting their secular affairs or interests, had much more influence on the coming change than any differences regarding matters of doctrine. It no doubt aggravated all these matters of offence, that the persons who had so much of the country's wealth and power, and had so much influ- ence over the fate of tire private citizen, took their instructions from and held themselves responsible to a foreign potentate. In other shapes, too, foreign influences and ties were strengthening their hold upon the Church. Its head was not only cardinal a later e from Rome, but was Bishop of Mirepoix, in France ; and there was a busy intercourse between the Scots clergy and those of the great Continental despotisms. The internal condition of the Church was not, like many other matters of accusation and defence con- nected with the times, a question on which there were two sides. The worldliness of the churchmen, regular and secular, their luxurious and profligate living, their neglect of their sacred functions, and their unscrupulous dealings with the property of the Church even the offensive usages which made the clergy the instruments And when the vicar heard tell my wife was dead, The third cow then he cleiket by the head. Their upme.st claithes, whilk was of raploch grey, The vicar gart his clerk bear them away. When that was ga.ne, I micht make na debate, But with my bairnis part for to beg my meat. Now have I told you the black verity, How I am brocht into this misery. Iti.ligtiice. How did the parson ? was he not thy gride friend ? Poor man. The devil stick him ! he cursed me for my teind." Act ii. Scene 1. To feel the significance of this, one must remember that it belongs to a piece which was ejninently popular through the country several years before the Reformation, and while the Romish hierarchy was in the full flush of the powers and prerogatives against which its satire was levelled. SECULAR OFFENCES OF THE CHURCH, 1550-60. 39 of secular oppression, were objects of continued alarm and reprehension within the Church itself, and of censure from its best friends without. There was much internal disquiet from the same cause in the several branches of the Church throughout Europe ; but in Scotland it appears to have been excessive. Indeed, from the time of the great Catholic revival under the sons of St Mar- garet in the twelfth century, the Church's self-reproaches seem to have run on as if the leaven of the old disre- putable Culdees still remained in it. In the year 1424 the Estates recorded among their acts a solemn admo- nition, addressed in the king's name, to the heads of the Benedictine and Austine houses, lamenting their irre- gularities, and sternly calling them to better order if they would save their establishments from ruin. 1 Leslie, Bishop of Eoss, an ardent partisan of the old Church, attributed its abuses to the influence of the crown at the Court of Rome overshadowing that of the local Church. Whatever may be said of his skill in pointing to the cause, his description of the effect is brief and emphatic. " The abbeys catne to secular abuses, the abbots and priors being promo vit furth of the Court, wha lived court-like, secularly, and volup- tuously. And there ceased all religious and godly minds and deeds, wherewith the seculars 'and temporal men, being slandered with their evil example, fell fra all devotion and godlyness to the .works of wickedness, whereof daily mikel evil did increase." ' 1 Act. Parl., ii. 25. Statuta Ecclesiao Scoticansc, Int., Ixxxiv. 5 History, 40. A generation earlier, another eminent ecclesiastic, Archdeacon Bellenden, had expressed Wmself to a like effect at greater length (Chronicles, xii. 17). A portion of the passage has been already cited, as questioning the policy of the profuse establishing of religious houses in King David's reign (see chap, xiii.) The archdeacon's reproof 40 THE REFORMATION. In 1541 the Estates resumed consideration of the abuses of the clergy, and passed a second and broader censure, to be issued in the name of the king, call- ing on the prelates, " and every kirkman in his own degree, to reform themselves, their obedienciaries and kirkmen under them, in habit and manners to God and man." This injunction, expanding into particu- lars was inspired by no Calvinistic teaching ; for among the abuses which it denounces as scandals to the Church is a lapsing from the proper observances to " the Virgin Mary and all holy saints." l But the censures coming from external authority were gentle in comparison with those uttered by the Church against its own unworthy members. A pro- vincial council, held in 1549, before the Reformation was yet a visible power in the state, resolved upon a sweeping reform, and in the remedies it enacted, echoed the depth of the abuses it laid open. A writer of our own day has furnished a narrative of the doings of that council, at once so full, so brief, and so distinct, that any attempt to recast it would be injustice to the reader. The injunctions on the clergy were : " To put away their concubines, under pain of deprivation of their benefices, to dismiss from their houses the children born to them in concubinage, not to promote such children to bene- fices, nor to enrich them the daughters with dowries, the sons with baronies from the patrimony of the Church. Prelates were admonished not to keep in their households manifest drunkards, gamblers, whore- is the more emphatic that he went out of his way to render it. His book professes to be a translation of Boece's History ; but this passage is an addition of his own. 1 Act. I'arl, ii. 370. INTERNAL REFORMATION, 1549-60. 41 mongers, brawlers, night-walkers, buffoons, blasphemers, profane swearers. The clergy, in general, were exhorted to amend their lives and manners, to dress modestly and gravely, to keep their faces shaven and their heads tonsured, to live soberly and frugally, so as to have more to spare for the poor, to abstain from secular pur- suits, especially trading. " Provision was made for preaching to the people ; for teaching grammar, divinity, and canon law in cathedrals and abbeys ; for visiting and reforming monasteries, nunneries, and hospitals ; for recalling fugitives and apostates, whether monks or nuns, to their cloisters ; for sending from every monastery one or more monks to a university ; for preventing unquali- fied persons from receiving orders, and from holding- cure of souls ; for enforcing residence, and for restrain- ing pluralities ; for preventing the evasion of spiritual censures by bribes or fines ; for silencing pardoners, or itinerant hawkers of indulgences and relics ; for com- pelling parish clerks to do their duty in person, or to find sufficient substitutes ; for registering the testa- ments and inventories of persons deceased, and for securing faithful administration of their estates, by bringing their executors to yearly account and reckon- ing ; for suspending unfit notaries, and for preserving the protocols of notaries deceased ; for reforming the abuses of the consistorial courts.'' That in all this there was no intention of a sur- render to the new doctrines is shown in the tenor of the further reformatory injunctions, as follows : " Strict inquest for heresy waS ordered to be made by every ordinary in his diocese, by every abbot or prior in his convent. That the inquest might 42 THE REFORMATION. be the more effectual, the inquisitors were supplied with a schedule of the chief points of heresy. These were speaking against the rights and sacraments of the Church, especially the sacrifice of the mass, the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, extreme unction; penance ; contempt of the censures of the Church ; denial of the reign of the souls of saints with Christ in glory ; denial of the immortality of the soul ; denial of recompense for works of faith and charity ; denial of purgatory ; denial of prayer and intercession of the saints ; denial of the lawfulness of images in Christian churches ; denial of the authority of general councils in controversies of faith ; neglect of the fasts and festi- vals of the Church. Heretical books, especially poems and ballads against the Church or clergy, were to be diligently sought after, and burned." l This national ecclesiastical council was held while the Council of Trent was in the middle of its work. There had been some intention that Scotland should send representatives to that memorable assemblage, since funds were provided to pay the costs of their mission, but none went. 2 Towards the conclusion of its long sittings that council adopted, in the issuing of its cele- brated catechism, a cautious and restricted precept to give the laity religious instruction in their vernacular tongue. The curious? in the minor religious literature of the period are aware that books of devotion were at 1 Joseph Robertson, Preface to Statnta Ecclesise Scoticanso, cxlix. cl. 8 There seems at all times to have been little interest in Scotland in the proceedings of councils-general. From foreign authorities we know that at the Council of Basle, in the fifteenth century, a certain Thomas, Abbot of Dundrennan, was a distinguished and leading member ; but his eminence there has no echo at home, and nothing is said about him in the chronicles and the other sources of history. The fullest inquiry after traces of him will be found in the Preface to the Statuta, xcviii. INTERNAL REFORMATION, 1549-60. 43 that time published for popular use in several parts of Europe, with the sanction of the local Church while still adhering to Rome. One of the most remarkable of these was sanctioned in .1551 by a Scots provincial council. It is known as Archbishop Hamilton's Cate- chism ; but its authorship has been attributed to him on account of the conspicuous way in which his name and style appear in front, as conferring on the work the sanction of the Church. 1 The catechism is a fine piece of composition, full of a spirit of charity and gentleness. It so carefully avoids whatever might irritate those who have a remnant of the old faith- by which they may still be drawn back, that Protestants not gifted with a powerful instinct for the discovery of heterodoxies might read much of it with- out finding cause of offence. It exhorts the world to peace and concord : " Since so it is, as St Paul says, that we are all regenerate in Christ with ane baptism all oblaissed to have ane faith all redeemed with ane blood and dede of our Mediator Jesus Christ all livand in ane hope of the eternal glory all subjectet to the service of ane Lord all guidet by the direction of the Haly Spirit, whilk is ane daily teacher and governour of the haill universal Kirk,^what can be mair convenient, yea, mair necessarie, than that we al, baith prelates and subjects, superiours and inferiours, 1 " The catechisme That is to say, ane commonc and catholick instruc- tioun of the Christin people in materis of our catholick faith and reli- gioun, quhilk na gud Christin man or woman stild misknaw : set furth be the niaist reverend father in God, Johne, Archbischop of Sanct Androus, Legatnait and Prymat of the Kh^c of Scotland, in his provin- cial counsale haldin at Edinburgh the xxvi day of Januarie, the yeir of our Lord 1551, with the advise and counsale of the bischoppis and uthir prelatis, with doctours of theologie and canon law of the said realme of Scotland present for the tyme." 44 THE REFORMATION. always agree and concord together in the brute of ane catholic doctrine concerning all points belonging to our Christian religion?'' Even so critical an injunction as the denial of the right of private judgment is uttered with somewhat of persuasive gentleness, thus : " Seek not to understand thay things that is above thy intelligence ; seek naught to ken thay things whilk are above thy capacity ; but evermair remember of thay things that God has commanded thee to do, and be not curious to understand the marks of God whilk is naught necessary or profitable to thee to knaw for thy salvatioun." The authors of this manual of religious instruction to the laity had no benefit from the celebrated catechism of the Council of Trent, which was not issued until a later time. 1 The Scottish work had the advantage of itself appearing in a shape to be read by the people, instead of affording a mere aid to the clergy in the expositions they were told to make in the vernacular. But throughout its whole tone and tendency one would pronounce the Scottish catechism as the much more skilfully adjusted of the two, both for baffling and appeasing the common enemy. The Church seems to have been less fortunate in another vernacular exposition, avowedly intended for the laity, and written down to their capacity. It 1 The committee to adjust the catechism, the breviary, the missal, and the list of prohibited books, was appointed in the second session of Pius IV., or 1562 ("Sess. xxv. de Indice Librorum et Catechismo"). The object was to afford a manual whence the clergy might give instruction in the vernacular to prepare those coming to the sacraments. " Quam episcopi in vulgarem linguam fideliter verti, atque a parochis omnibus populo fxponi curabunt." Sess. xxiv. ch. vii. INTERNAL REFORMATION, 1549-60. 45 was a brief exhortation issued by the national provin- cial council of 155.9. Its immediate object brought it at once to a point of hostility with the new doctrines. It was to be read as a preparation for receiving the sac- rament of the Eucharist, supplying what in later times has been called " A Companion to the Altar." Hence it begins with an exposition of the dogma of the real presence. 1 It was received with much scorn by the Reformers, and is spoken of by Knox in one of his exulting sneers as "the Twopenny Faith.'' 2 The occasion of this hapless effort to meet one of the popular cries of the day, was a meeting of the clergy in provincial council, to make a last effort at internal reform. Meeting in the spring of 1559, while the exist- ence of the Church itself stood at issue, the delibera- tions of this body got so little attention that they have almost dropped out of history. The business of the 1 " Devote Christian men and women, wha at this present time are to resave the blysset sacrament of the altar, wyt ye perfectly and believe ye firmly, that under the form of bread, whilk I am now presently to minister to you, is containet treuly and really our Salvjor Jesus Christ, heale in Godhead and manhead that is, baith His body and blood and suule conjoinit with His Godhead, wha in His mortal life oft'eret Himself upon the croce to the Father of heaven ane acciptable sacrafice for our redemption fra the devil, sin, eternal dede, and hell ; and now, in His im- mortal life, sits at the richt hand of the Eternal Father in hevin, whom in this blisset sacrament, invisibly containit under the form of bread, I am to minister to you." * Mr Laing says it has often been confounded with Hamilton's Cate- chism, and that " of the Twopenny Faith printed in 1559 no copy is known to be preserved." Note to Knox's History, i. 291. The editor of the Statuta Ecclesise (p. 177) identifies it with a paper which he prints as part of the proceedings of the council, with the title, ' Ane Godly Exhortation made and set forth be the maist reverend father in God, John, Archbishop of St Andrews, Primate of Scotland, Legate, &c., with the avice of the provincial counsal? halden, &c., to all vicars, curates, and others, consecrate priests, lawful ministers of the sacrament of the altar, to be read and shawn by them to the Christian people when any arc to recave the said blessed sacrament.' 46 THE REFORMATION. council was to consider certain suggestions by a body of gentlemen well affected to the Catholic establish- ment, remitted by the regent to the consideration of the council. 1 These men had no sympathy with the new doc- trines on the contrary, the maintenance of Catholic orthodoxy, and the suppression of heresy within the Church, were among the objects desired by them. The changes they sought were in discipline and conduct. They pressed obedience to the injunctions of 1549 against the profligacy, the extravagance, and the idleness of the clergy. They had several proposals for the ex- tended use of the vernacular tongue in church services and devotion. The most important portion of their original suggestions, however, bore on the strictly sec- ular functions of the Church looking to the shorten- ing and simplifying of procedure in the ecclesiastical courts, and to the abolition or commutation of the odious taxes on the burial of the dead, and other ecclesiastical services. The dealing of the council with these suggestions loses nearly all its importance, as being virtually an unheard voice in the tumult. The proposals for ver- nacular services were discountenanced, though, as we have seen, one little morsel in native Scots, not of a hopeful tenor, was issued. Something was passed towards checking ecclesiastical exactions. The most effective part of the resolutions of the council, however, went to the preservation of internal discipline among 1 Articles proponit to the Queen-Regent of Scotland by some temporal lords and barons, and sent by her grace to the haill prelates and princi- pals of the clergy convened in their provincial council in Edinburgh. Statuta Ecclesiae Scoticanae, ii. 146. INTERNAL REFORMATION, 1549-60. 47 the clergy ; and we are told that the efficiency of these was of a kind so little contemplated by the framers, that they served by their strictness to drive many of the churchmen over to the Eeformers. 1 1 Bishop Leslie calls these " sharp statutes," " whilk was the principal cause that a great number of young abbots, priors, deans, and beneficed men assisted to the enterprise and practice devised for the overthrow of the Catholic religion, and tumult against the queen and Frenchmen, fearing themselves to be put at according to the laws and statutes." His- tory, 271. A little more particularity as to a matter so curious would have been desirable. CHAPTER XXXVIII. information. (Continued^ POLITICAL POSITION OF THE REFORMATION QUESTION IN EURO- PEAN POLITICS ARRIVAL OF KNOX CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS NATURE AND INFLUENCE HIS COADJUTORS AND THEIR MOTIVES MAITLAND OF LETHINGTON THE FIRST BAND OR COVENANT THE LORDS OF THE CONGREGATION EMBODIED PRESSURE ON THE QUEEN-REGENT HER DUPLICITY THE FIRST OUTBREAK- ATTACKS ON THE SYMBOLS OF POPISH WORSHIP AND THE BUILD- INGS OF THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS CONSIDERATION HOW FAR THE CONDITION OF OLD ECCLESIASTICAL BUILDINGS IN SCOTLAND DUE TO THE REFORMERS THE CONGREGATION AT PERTH DEALINGS WITH THE REGENT OCCUPATION OF EDINBURGH CONDITION AND DANGERS OF ENGLAND QUEEN ELIZABETH KNOX AND THE " BLAST " AGAINST FEMALE RULE CECIL AND KNOX IN TREATY DIFFICULTY OF FINDING A LEGITIMATE HEAD TO TREAT WITH IN SCOTLAND TREATY OF BERWICK WAR SIEGE OF LEITH DEATH OF THE REGENT DEPARTURE OF THE FRENCH, AND TREATY OF EDINBURGH REFORMATION STATUTES. THEEE were early symptoms that Scotland would not struggle hard for the old religion. In 1542 a project already referred to was laid before the Estates, as a bill is now read in Parliament, authorising the common reading of the Scriptures, " baith the New Testament and the Auld, in the vulgar tongue, in Inglis or Scottis, PRELIMINARY MOVEMENTS, 1558-59. 49 of ane good and true translation." * The Archbishop of Glasgow, on behalf of the clerical estate, protested against this measure until the question should be dis- cussed at a general council ; but it was adopted by the Estates. From 1554 to 1558 that is, during the reign of Queen Mary in England many English converts to the doctrines of the Reformation thought it prudent to seek refuge in Scotland, where anything that had in it an element of opposition to the ruling power in England was still sure to find welcome. Among these was a distinguished preacher named Willock. John Knox, too, was virtually a fugitive from the same danger. He went first from England to France; but in 1555 he returned to Scotland, and there taught for a time, until, for reasons about which there has been much dispute, he went to take charge of the English con- gregation at Geneva, There was nothing in Scotland parallel to the English persecutions under Philip and Mary. The Scots looked upon the troubles there as on the sufferings of their enemies, and would readily listen to Knox's sonorous denunciations of that wicked woman of Spanish blood who was perse- cuting the faithful. It is of great importance, in understanding how the spirit of the Reformation was silently consolidating itself in Scotland, to keep in view that as yet the French connection, however distasteful it was becoming- otherwise, did not of necessity involve hostility to the new doctrines. France, indeed, was that enemy, or at all events unsatisfactory servant, of the Popedom which the Empire, Spain, and England had been united in holy league to bring to reason. Their religion hung 1 Act. Parl., ii. 415. VOL. IV. D 50 THE REFORMATION. lightly on the people, especially those of the higher and educated classes. The doctrines of the more moderate Reformers, which oozed into the northern provinces from England and Germany, were gaining on them before the cause was injured by the fiery and sanguinary zealots of the south. As yet the great discovery had not been made, that disloyalty to the Church was the partner of disloyalty to the Crown. This was a very significant discovery, for it involved the fate of France, and almost of Europe, for half a century. It was the stock in trade with which the great house of Guise worked. It enabled the head of that house to defy the sovereign, and almost drive him from the throne, the house of Guise being more loyal to Church and king than the house of Valois itself. The conspiracy of Ambois may be dealt with as the turning-point at which the party of the league and of the Huguenots appear to have taken up their respective positions, and this event dates in 1560. During the time of the persecution in England, therefore, the queen-regent had not received the hint from her brothers that the enemies of the Church of Rome were to be dealt with as enemies of the state. Indeed there is strong reason to believe that the information she gave of her own experience in Scotland in the years 1559 and 1560, helped her bro- thers to that important conclusion. So little hostility did she at first show to the preachers of the Reforma- tion, that she was supposed privately to favour them ; and this supposition reacted on her, by deepening the charges of treachery to which she became amenable afterwards. Queen Elizabeth had been scarce half a year on the throne when, on "the 2d of May 1559, arrived JOHN KNOX, 1559. 51 John Knox from France." 1 Such are the words in which he enters the event in his own chronicle. Hence- forth for a time we live in the broad clear light of that wonderful book. There certainly is in the English lan- guage no other parallel to it in the clearness, vigour, and picturesqueness with which it renders the history of a stirring period. Whoever would see and feel the spirit of the Reformation in Scotland and in England too, for that matter must needs read and study it. The reader who may happen not to be a zealous Cal- vinist will deal with it as the work of a partisan. From first to last there is no mistaking it for anything else. It is throughout the living spirit of partisanship strong, resolute, and intolerant. But, for all that, it is full of truth. In fact the author had achieved a perfection of positivism which is incompatible with dissimulation and concealment. Whatever is done by him and his is so absolutely right, and so valuable as an example and encouragement to others, that the more loudly and fully it is proclaimed to the world the better. Of all the revelations in this book, none is more re- markable than its writer's own character. His arrival in Scotland is an important event all his doings are important in his own eyes, as well as in those of others. Whether it be for the adoration of the just or the malig- nity of the wicked, "John Knox" is ever the conspicu- ous figure in John Knox's book. When the regent, Mary of Lorraine, is seized with a fit of untimely exultation, it is against him that she flings. " She burst forth in her blasphemous railing, and said, ' Where is now John Knox his God ? My God is now stronger than his, yea, even in Fife/ " 2 Speaking of the last ecclesias- 1 History, i. 318. 2 Ibid., ii. 8. 52 THE REFORMATION. tical council which attempted the internal reform of the Church, he says, " The bishops continued in their provincial council until that day that John Knox arrived in Scotland," as if this conjunction aggravated the audacity of their doings. 1 The way in which he thus sets forth his motions, as if he were writing the biography of some great man whose deeds he had the good fortune to witness, might be called egotism or vanity in one less in earnest. But it all comes of natural impulse, and reads naturally. All the world is astir, and he, John Knox, is the centre of its motion. He was a man of thorough practical experience, who had seen life in all grades from the court to the galley-slave's bench. He was signally acute in penetrating political mysteries, and unfolding the designs of men when these were hostile ; but he was as signally blind to the true character of compliant or perfidious partisans. Working with greedy selfish men intent on their own aggrandisement, he deemed them to be as completely as himself under the influ- ence of an unselfish religious spirit ; and when the evi- dence of sordidness was all too flagrant, he turned his honest eyes on it with surprise, like one who beholds his sober sedate friend take suddenly to drinking, or go off in a fit of acute madness. Although the spirit of the Reformation in Scotland cannot be felt without a full study of the works of Knox, yet his testimony must be limited to the part of the field of battle in which he acted. He viewed the whole conflict as a triumph of the pure faith through its sole purity and acceptance with the Deity, and took little heed of the political and personal forces 1 History, i. 101. JOHN KNOX, 1559. 53 at work. Of these we form a livelier notion from the works of Sir David Lindsay, of which note is taken elsewhere. His attacks on the Church were earlier than Knox's, and indeed belong to a time when there was great danger for those who came within the ban of heresy. That this bold satirist and denouncer should have been spared when others less conspicuous and far less formidable suffered death may at first sight be hard to account for, but is in reality very simple. In attacking the clergy for licentiousness, greed, and cruelty, he was but repeating what the authorities of the realm asserted and the Church itself mournfully confessed. Anything might be said to this purport, if he who said it were so skilful as to avoid points of heresy such as the denial of purgatory, the real presence, and the intermediating power of the saints. To justify his burning, the heretic must have committed the sin which could only be expiated for his soul in the next world by the burning of his body in this. When Knox arrived in Scotland, it was to take up the work where he had left it in 1554. It was scarcely then of sufficiently conspicuous magnitude to affect the tenor of history. It influenced private conferences, and sometimes broke out into polemical discussion. But it is in connection with the public influence of his return that these earlier doings become significant. We have one of his earliest triumphs among the politicians of his country told by himself, and in the full spirit of his own temper and character. It is in the year 1555, when the Reformers, far from suprem- acy, have not even achieved toleration when every- thing tended towards the supremacy of the Romish 54 THE REFORMATION. power, and the Protestant party in Scotland were coming to an understanding with each other in quiet secrecy, doing the while all they could through their external conduct to evade inquiry and notice. Among these Knox naturally found " divers who had a zeal to godliness make small scruple to go to the mass, or to communicate with the abused sacraments in the papistical manner." The singleness of purpose that belonged to his infallibility rendered this intolerable, and he began, " as well in privy conference as in doc- trine, to show the impiety of the mass, and how dan- gerous a thing it was to communicate in any sort with idolatry." His political coadjutors, who understood his vehement, intractable zeal much better than he understood their selfish aims, were disturbed by this. A conference was held at a supper in the house of Erskine of Dun, one of the few among the landed adherents of the Reformation who seems to have had religion at heart. Knox had the advantage which the headstrong and single-purposed often have the others must break with him, or submit. " The question was proposed, and it was answered by the said John, that nowise it was lawful to a Christian to present himself to that idol." He admits that there was much ingenious plead- ing for the " temporisers," and that especially they put forward very plausibly the precedent " that Paul, at the commandment of James and of the elders of Jerusalem, passed to the temple and feigned to pay his vow with others." 1 But Knox repudiated the precedent. Pay- 1 This refers to the narrative in the latter portion of the twenty-first chapter of the Acts. When Paul, having come to Jerusalem, is told that a great crowd of Jews will gather, knowing of his arrival, and that from JOHN KNOX, 1559. 55 ing vows and attending mass were not the same thing. Then he greatly doubted " whether either James's com- mandment or Paul's obedience proceeded from the Holy Ghost." But his most telling point was, that the in- cident was recorded for a warning rather than an ex- ample ; for, in reality, it preceded and was probably the source of St Paul's danger and calamities. Both in broad determination of purpose and in skilful biblical criticism, he was master of the situation ; and he tells, with his usual chuckling exultation, how young Wil- liam Maitland of Lethington, " a man of good learning, and of sharp wit and reasoning," admitted himself to be utterly defeated by Knox's reasoning, saying, " I see perfectly that our shifts will serve nothing before God, seeing that they stand us in so small stead before men." l He, and deeper men than he was, found that, if they were to get service from Knox to their cause at that juncture, they must go with him as far as he would drag them. In such times of revolution, the man who in quiet times would be counted an obstinate and troublesome enthusiast, taxing the dexterity of people to keep out of his way, if he is anything at all in the councils of his party, is its leader. Few things have perhaps ever been said more insin- cere than the admission which thus imposed on a man whose sagacity in some directions was marvellous. what they have heard of his attacks on the observances of the law they may be dangerous, the brethren recommend to him an act of conformity calculated for the time to disarm suspicion. " Do therefore this that we say to thee : We have four men which have a vow on them ; them take, and purify thyself with them, and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads : and all may know that those things, whereof they were informed concerning thee, are nothing ; but that thou thyself also walkest orderly, and keepest the law." 1 History, i. 247* 248. 56 THE REFORMATION. The statesman found that at this time he must go with the stream of their absolute opinions, if he were to make a political use of Knox and his followers. They had other contests of wit, in which Maitland found it more suitable to cast a sneer at the absolute zeal of the polemical leader than to follow his dictation ; and then he would be commemorated, not in praise of his piety and docility, but in fierce rebuke for his worklliness and profanity. This young Maitland, also, had a character and a sphere of his own. He is well known in history simply as " Lethington," the name of his paternal estate. He was deep in all the political doings of that busy time, and perhaps knew more of its bloody mysteries than any other man. His name was a byword for subtlety and statecraft. Yet, though it ever comes up in connection with events as that of one supposed to pull the hidden strings, if we look at his life and doings, we do not find that he was one of those who have left the mark of their influence upon their age. He appears to have been too artificial and techni- cally subtle to have great weight. He was an accom- plished scholar, and bethought himself to draw on the resources of his reading for political influence to bring the sagacity of the whole world of political authors and actors to aid his own. But if it succeed elsewhere, that is not the teaching that makes strong-handed statesmen in this country. Craft and sagacity did much in Maitland's day ; but it was the craft and sagacity of those w r ho were familiar with the political forces close at hand, and all the craft and wisdom of Machiavelli or Aristotle would have added little to their resources. Among men like these, the avowed scientific politician, whose intellect was stuffed with KNOX AND LETHINGTON, 1559-60. 57 foreign subtleties, was a man to be feared and sus- pected. He was like an actor among men who seemed to follow where truth and nature led them ; and he was consequently more easily seen through than those who had not a like reputation for subtlety. Withal, he had great abilities, but they were rather those of the wit and rhetorician than of the practical man. He had marvellous and dangerous powers of repartee, and, like others so gifted, let fly the shaft when he had better have reserved it. We can see, in occasional growls of pain and wrath, how Knox himself winced under such punctures, and repaid them with solid blows. Knox, on his second coming, was not uninvited. His presence, indeed, was urgently demanded, as that of one who had for a time deserted his post of honour and danger. There were several preachers dispersed over the country who were in use to gather the people and read to them the English service-book of King- Edward. A considerable body of the landed gentry had an understanding with one another, as friends of the new religion. They soon saw that an ecclesiastical revolution would set free a great stretch of land for new owners. This, too, made a common interest, which held them firmly together when they professed a union for purely religious objects. In the winter of 1557 they adopted a plan which we have seen in practice in Scotland from a very early day. Many of them signed a band or bond to co-operate with each other for the purposes set forth in the document. This was termed the First Covenant ; and as it is a short, expressive enunciation, it may be allowed to explain its own object : 58 THE REFORMATION. " We, perceiving how Satan, in his members, the Antichrists of our time, cruelly doth rage, seeking to overthrow arid to destroy the evangel of Christ and His Congregation, ought, according to our bounden duty, to strive in our Master's cause even unto the death, being certain of the victory in Him. The which our duty being well considered, we do promise, before the majesty of God and His Congregation, that we (by His grace) shall with all diligence continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives, to maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed Word of God and His Congregation ; and shall labour at our possi- bility to have faithful ministers purely and truly to minister Christ's evangel and sacraments to His people. We shall maintain them, nourish them, and defend them, the whole Congregation of Christ, and every member thereof, at our whole powers and wearing of our lives, against Satan, and all wicked power that does intend tyranny or trouble against the foresaid Congregation. Unto the which Holy Word and Congre- gation we do join us, and also do forsake and renounce the congregation of Satan, with all the superstitious abomination and idolatry thereof : and moreover, shall declare ourselves manifestly enemies thereto, by this our faithful promise before God, testified to His Congregation, by our subscriptions at these presents. At Edinburgh, the 3d day of December 1557 years." Having met to subscribe this document, they passed two resolutions, in these terms : " First, It is thought expedient, devised, and ordained, that in all parishes of this realm the Common Prayer be read weekly on Sunday, and other festival days, publicly in the parish churches, with the lessons of the FIRST PUBLIC ACTS, 1558. 59 Old and New Testament, conform to the order of the Book of Common Prayer. And if the curates of the parishes be qualified, to cause them to read the same ; and if they be not, or if they refuse, that the most qualified in the parish use and read the same. " Secondly, It is thought necessary that doctrine, preaching, and interpretation of Scriptures be had and used privately in quiet houses, without great conven- tions of the people thereto ; while afterward that God move the prince to grant public preaching by faithful and true ministers." The first occasion on which the Protestants came forth as a public power in the state, and had anything resembling a contest with their natural enemies, was in 1558. The affair is thus narrated by Knox : " They kept their conventions, and held councils with such gravity and closeness, that the enemies trembled. The images were stolen away in all parts of the country; and in Edinburgh was that great idol called St Giles first drowned in the North Loch, after burnt, which raised no small trouble in the town. For the friars rowping like ravens upon the bishops, the bishops ran upon the queen, who to them was favourable enough, but that she thought it could not stand with her advantage to offend such a multitude as then took upon them the defence of the evangel, and the name of Protestants. And yet consented she to summon the preachers ; whereat the Protestants, neither offended, nor yet thereof afraid, determined to keep the day of summons, as that they did. Which perceived by the prelates and priests, they procured a proclamation to be publicly made, ' That all men that were come to the town without commandment of the 60 THE REFORMATION. authority, should with all diligence repair to the borders, and there remain fifteen days ;' for the Bishop of Galloway, in this manner of rhyme, said to the queen, ' Madam, ' Because they are come without order, I rede ye, send them to the border.' Now so had God provided that the quarter of the West-land (into the which were many faithful men) was that same day returned from the border, who, understanding the matter to proceed from the malice of the priests, assembled themselves together, and made passage to themselves, till they came to the very privy-chamber, where the queen-regent and the bishops were. The gentlemen began to complain upon their strange entertainment, considering that her grace had found into them so faithful obedience in all things lawful. While that the queen began to craft, a zealous and a bold man, James Chalmer of Gadgirth, said, ' Madam, we know that this is the malice and devise of the jefwellis, and of that bastard (meaning the Bishop of St Andrews) that stands by you. We avow to God we shall make ane day of it. They oppress us and our tenants for feeding of their idle bellies ; they trouble our preachers, and would murder them and us. Shall we suffer this any longer ? No, madam ; it shall not be.' And there- with every man put. on his steel bonnet. There was heard nothing of the queen's part but ' My joys, my hearts, what ails you ? Me means no evil to you nor to your preachers. The bishops shall do you no wrong. Ye are all my loving subjects. Me knew nothing of this proclamation. The day of your preachers shall be discharged, and me will hear the LORDS OF THE CONGREGATION, 1558-59. 6l controversy that is betwixt the bishops and yon. They shall do you no wrong. My lords/ said she to the bishops, ' I forbid you either to trouble them or their preachers.' And unto the gentlemen, who were wondrously commoved, she turned again, and said, ' my hearts, should ye not love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind ? and should ye not love your neighbours as yourselves ?' With these and the like fair words she kept the bishops from buffets at that time." l The burning of Walter Mill was a sort of declaration of war, rousing the Protestant party to wrath and action. The leaders now called themselves " the Lords of the Congregation," and in that capacity laid a remon- strance before the regent charging the Church with, cruelty. " There abideth," they said, " nothing for us but faggot, fire, and sword, by the which many of our brethren most cruelly and most unjustly have been stricken of late years within this realm, which now we find to trouble and wound our consciences ; for we acknowledge it to have been our bounden duties before God, either to have defended our brethren from these cruel murders, seeing we are a part of that power which God hath established in this realm, or else to have given open satisfaction of our faith with them, which now we offer ourselves to do, lest that by our continual silence we shall seem to justify their cruel tyranny." They then demanded a reformation of abuses, and the establishment of religion on the basis of their bond and resolutions. 2 The queen-regent received this and other remonstrances respectfully, and pressed nothing against them but moderation and delay. Her winning 1 History, i. 256-58. 2 History, 302. Calendar of State Papers, 7. 62 THE REFORMATION. pleasant manner had great influence over those she spoke to ; and it was chiefly owing to a reliance on her good feeling that the meeting of the Estates, in the winter of 1558, passed over without a fierce discussion of the great question. Knox even was won by the gentleness of her dealing and its tone of sincerity. "In public letters," he says, " to that excellent servant of God, John Calvin, we did praise and commend her for her excellent knowledge of God's Word, and goodwill towards the advancement of His glory, requiring of him that, by his grave counsel and godly exhortation, he would animate her grace constantly to follow that which godly she had begun." It was to his after mor- tification that he went still farther, and did " sharply rebuke both by word and writing all those who ap- peared to suspect in her any venom of hypocrisy, or were contrary to that opinion which we had conceived of her godly mind." l De Bethencourt soon afterwards arrived as ambassa- dor from France, now closely knit to Scotland by the recent marriage ; and it is supposed that he expounded to the queen-regent the policy of her brothers, which was to be war a deadly unsparing war with the pro- pagators of the new opinions. In the words of Knox, " Then began she to frown, and to look frowardly to all such as she knew did favour the evangel of Jesus Christ. She commanded her household to use all abominations at Pasche ; and she herself, to give example to others, did communicate with that idol in open audience. She comptrolled her household, and would know where that every ane received their sac- rament. And it is supposed that after that day the 1 History, i. 315. ENGLISH ALLIANCE SUGGESTED, 1559. 63 devil took more violent and strong possession in her than he had before ; for, from that day forward, she appeared altogether altered, insomuch that her coun- tenances and facts did declare the venom of her heart." It is just at the same time in January 1559 that we find the suggestions of an alliance with England taking shape. Arran, now called Duke of Chatelherault, or " The Duke," had a meeting with Sir Henry Percy, in which the position of England and Scotland was discussed. The duke admitted that the connection with France was becoming oppressive to Scotland. He said the old enmity to England was dying out ; and he men- tioned, as an instance of this, how the queen-regent had lately ordered a Scots army to invade England, but that, acting otherwise in all duty, they had refused to cross the border, as not a service demanded by their feudal duty. Sir Henry Percy spoke of the favour which England bore to the right-thinking portion of the Scots. The realm was suffering too much, how- ever, from the consequences of the late reign to offer any assistance in the mean time, and nothing was con- cluded between the two representatives. 2 The old project for a marriage of Queen Elizabeth to the duke's son, now Earl of Arran, was renewed. The father was not a man likely to press such a matter, or plot in- geniously in its favour. The proposition was simply made, and courteously declined by the queen. That ecclesiastical council of 1559 which attempted the adjustment of projects of internal reformation in the Church was then assembled in the hall of the 1 History, i. 315. 2 Calendar of State Papers (Foreign), 1 559, 98. 64 THE REFORMATION. Dominican monastery at Edinburgh. 1 It rose on the 10th of April, and adjourned until Septuagesima Sun- day of the year 1560 ; but never met again. The projects entertained and those adopted, with their relations to each other, might have become an import- ant chapter in ecclesiastical history ; but all was swept away by the torrent from without. It has been generally understood that the regent laid the demands of the Reformers before this council. 2 We have seen that there came before the council certain propositions, offered by those well affected to the Church, who pleaded for internal reformation. These are respect- fully recorded ; but the proceedings of the council bear no reference to any proposals by a hostile body. 3 Hence it would appear either that the regent did not, in an official form and from authority, desire the at- tention of the council to the demands of the Protest- ants, or that, if she did so, the council took no formal notice of the document laid before them. They knew that she was prepared to back them in resistance to the new force, and it was during the sit- ting of the council that she was observed to take an attitude of distinct hostility to the Reformers. A deputation from the Congregation touched on the symptoms of her change of policy, and reminded her of the encouragement which she had given to the cause of the Reformation. It was to these visitors that she was accused of making the too characteristic remark, that " it became not subjects to burden their princes with promises further than it pleaseth them to 1 See above, p. 45. * M'Crie's Knox, Works, i. 123. Grub, Ecclesiastical History. 3 See the Record in Statutn Ecclesiae Scoticanse, ii. 146 et seq. DISCUSSIONS, 1559. 65 keep the same." She was about to give a still clearer example of her opinions on this head. She cited cer- tain of the preachers to appear before the Privy Coun- cil at Stirling, to answer for their conduct. A large body of men of influence were prepared to accompany them, and assembled at Perth for the purpose. The regent begged that they would abandon their project, and return home ; and to induce them to do so, she promised to withdraw the citations. They dispersed accordingly, but she had no intention of keeping her promise. The names of the ministers cited were called in court in the usual manner ; and as they did not ap- pear, they were treated as fugitives from justice, and in common form outlawed and proclaimed as rebels. News of this came to Perth, where still there was a remnant of the gathering, who were hearing John Knox preach and exhort ; and here came the first outbreak of popular reforming zeal into actual violence. The scene may best be told in Knox's own words : " The manner whereof was this : the preachers before had declared how odious was idolatry in God's presence ; what commandment He had given for the destruction of the monuments thereof; what idolatry and what abomination was in the mass. It chanced that the next day, which was the llth of May, after that the preachers were exiled, that after the sermon, which was vehement against idolatry, that a priest in contempt would go to the mass ; and to declare his malapert presumption, he would open up ane glorious tabernacle which stood upon the high altar. There stood beside certain godly men, and amongst others a young boy, who cried with a loud voice, ' This is intolerable, that when God by His Word VOL. IV. E 66 THE REFORMATION. hath plainly damned idolatry, we shall stand and see it used in despite.' The priest, hereat offended, gave the child a great blow, who in anger took up a stone, and, casting at the priest, did hit the tabernacle, and broke down ane image ; and immediately the whole multitude that were about cast stones, and put hands to the said tabernacle, and to all other monuments of idolatry, which they despatched before the tent- men in the town were advertised (for the most part were gone to dinner), which noised abroad, the whole multitude convened, not of the gentlemen, neither of them that were earnest professors, but of the rascal multitude, who, finding nothing to do in that church, did run without deliberation to the Grey and Black Friars', and, notwithstanding that they had within them very strong guards kept for their defence, yet were their gates incontinent burst up. The first invasion was upon the idolatry, and thereafter the common people began to seek some spoil ; and in very deed the Grey Friars' was a place so well pro- vided, that unless honest men had seen the same, we would have feared to have reported what provision they had. Their sheets, blankets, beds, and cover- lets were such as no earl in Scotland hath the better; their napery was fine. There were but eight persons in convent, yet had eight puncheons of salt beef (consider the time of the year, the llth day of May), wine, beer, and ale, besides store of victuals effeiring thereto. The like abundance was not in the Black Friars', and yet there was more than became men pro- fessing poverty. The spoil was permitted to the poor; for so had the preachers before threatened all men, that for covetousness' sake none should put their hand MISCHIEF TO RELIGIOUS HOUSES, 1559. 67 to such a reformation, that no honest man was en- riched thereby the value of a groat. Their conscience so moved them that they suffered those hypocrites take away what they could of that which was in their places. The Prior of Charterhouse was permitted to take away with him even so much gold and silver as he was well able to carry. So was men's consciences before beaten with the Word that they had no respect to their own particular profit, but only to abolish idolatry, the places and monuments thereof, in which they were so busy and so laborious that within two days these three great places, monuments of idolatry to wit, the Grey and Black thieves, and Charterhouse monks (a building of a wondrous cost and greatness) was so destroyed that the walls only did remain of all these great edifications.'' l This passage introduces us to a notorious feature of the Scottish Reformation the destruction that befell the monuments of early ecclesiastical architecture throughout the country. Two conditions are apt to give an exaggerated notion of the destruction perpe- trated by these Reformers. One is the frank admission of Knox, that his followers heartily set their hands to demolition. The other is the total disappearance of many ecclesiastical buildings, and the mere ruinous shreds which show where others existed. Tradition, too, has joined to swell the charge against the iconoclasts, or to enhance their glory as it may be otherwise put. Round the ruins of multitudes of Gothic churches there crowd traditions of the righteous Reformers de- stroying the citadels of superstition and infamy. Even in far lona we are asked to believe that a mob tore to 1 History, i. 320. 68 THE REFORMATION. pieces great masses of Norman masonry, and that they even carried off some hundred or so of monuments. But there were other elements of destruction. The most merciless has been mere neglect. In England, the Reformation was not antagonistic to the old build- ings and the old forms ; in Scotland it was. Ecclesias- tical architecture came to a stand in 1560. It seemed as if necessity only would make people submit to worship in the fanes of the old religion, and they raised no new buildings after the same model. The churches thus fell to pieces from exposure and neglect. The several stages of destruction from this cause passed unnoticed. After many years perhaps the roof would give way, then the wet getting into the chinks of the stones the walls would fall piecemeal, so the pillars, and in the end all would be a heap of rubbish, becom- ing more and more chaotic, until, on the revival of the love of Gothic architecture, within the memory of the present generation, the Government Board of Works would make an effort to preserve such fragments as could be saved. Among all the great churches of Scotland the most nearly obliterated is that of Elgin. Yet we know from old prints that about the time of the Revolution its walls were complete, and the pro- gress it had made towards destruction went no farther than the falling-in of the roof. The Reformation mobs, in their destruction of every- thing savouring of idolatry, destroyed not merely the gaudy and valueless symbols by which the Church of Rome strove to impress the minds of the ignorant, but a deal of the fine interior decorative masonry of the first pointed and the flamboyant styles, which are now so much prized. But beyond things thus savouring of MISCHIEF TO RELIGIOUS HOUSES, 1559. 69 idolatry, the fabric of the churches did not excite their destructive indignation. The cloisters and other dwell- ing-places of the regulars, however, did. These were, in a manner, fortresses of the enemy. Hence we must believe in the destruction of the monasteries at St Andrews and at Perth as described by Knox, as well as of many others. 1 It is noticeable at the present day that, even where the churches of the monastic houses still exist, the remnants of the cloisters and other domestic buildings which had surrounded them are extremely scanty. We have, in one instance at least, the formal instruc- tion under which the sweepers-away of the matter of offence did their work. It refers to the Cathedral of Dunkeld. That building as it now stands, no doubt, bears mark of rough handling; but it probably suffered more injury in standing a siege of Highland Jacobites after the Revolution than it received from the Re- formers. At all events, the Directions, while they contain a full and hearty licence for the destruction of images, altars, and all monuments of idolatry, profess carefully to guard against any injury either to the stone or wood work of the fabric of the church.' 2 In the history of the invasions directed by King 1 Sadler, on the 29th of September 1559, when he announces the arming of the Lords of the Congregation and his information on the matter from his spy, says, " He told us also that they had suppressed the Abbeys of Paisley, Kilwinning, and Dunfermline, and burned all the images, idols, and Popish stuff in the same." State Papers, i. 468. 2 The authority subscribed by Argyle and Ruthven on 12th August 1560, requires the Lairds of Arntully and Kinvaid " to pass incontinent to the Kirk of Dunkeld, and tak doun the haill images thereof, and bring furth to the kirkyard, and burn them openly. And siclyke cast doun the altars, and purge the kirk of all kinds of monuments of idolatry; and this ye fail not to do as ye will do us singular empleasure, and so com- 70 THE REFORMATION. Henry and Somerset, we have seen enough to account for large items in the ruin that overcame ecclesiastical buildings in Scotland. For Melrose, Kelso, Jedburgh, and the many other buildings torn down in these in- roads, the Scots Reformers have no censure to incur beyond that of neutrality or passiveness. The ruined edifices were not restored, as they naturally would have been had the old Church remained predominant. Knox, and those who followed him for conscience' sake, had not intended that their followers should perpetrate even what mischief befell ; but once done, and done in the cause, they were not to disavow it or abandon those coadjutors whose only defect was a superabundance of zeal. And, besides, might not the finger of God have been shown in the method of the destruction of idolatry? and was it for them to question His will, or the method in which He fulfilled it ? They issued several manifestoes to the regent, to the French commanders, and to others all casting defiance, and standing on the argument, which never can be refuted, that their work was sanctified, and that they must continue to serve God rather than man. The briefest and perhaps the most characteristic of these documents was the following : - " To the generation of Antichrist, the pestilent pre- lates and their shavelings within Scotland, the Con- gregation of Christ Jesus within the same sayeth " To the end that ye shall not be abused, thinking to escape just punishment, after ye in your blind fury have caused the blood of many to be shed, this we mils to the protection of God. Fail not but ye tak good heed that neither the desks, windocks, nor doors be onyways hurt or broken, either glassin work or iron work." Statistical Account of Scotland, x. 976. THE REGENT AND THE CONGREGATION, 1559-60. ?I notify and declare unto you, that if ye proceed in this your malicious cruelty, ye shall be entreated, whereso- ever ye shall be apprehended, as murderers and open enemies to God and unto mankind ; and therefore betimes cease from this blind rage. Remove first from yourselves your bands of bloody men of war, and re- form yourselves to a more quiet life ; and thereafter mitigate ye the authority which, without crime com- mitted upon our part, ye have inflamed against us ; or else be ye assured that, with the same measure that ye have measured against us, and yet intend to measure to others, it shall be measured unto you that is, as ye by tyranny intend not only to destroy our bodies, but also by the same to hold our souls in bondage of the devil subject to idolatry, so shall we, with all force and power which God shall grant unto us, execute first vengeance and punishment upon you ; yea, we shall begin that same war which God commandeth Israel to execute against the Canaanites that is, con- tract of peace shall never be made till that ye desist from your open idolatry, and persecution of God's children. And this we signify unto you, in the name of the Eternal God, and of His Son Christ Jesus whose verity we profess, and gospel we have preached, and holy sacraments rightly administered so long as God will assist us to gainstand your idolatry. Take this for advertisement, and be not deceived." } This was the critical point in the contest, and it may safely be said that, if the queen-regent had kept her promises, and had not attempted to carry her point by French money and French troops, the Reformation in Scotland would have borne a character different from 1 Printed in Keith, 87; Knox (History), i. 335 ; and elsewhere. 72 THE REFORMATION. what it actually took. Argyle, the Lord James Stewart, afterwards Earl of Murray, Lord Semple, and other men of mark of the party of the Congregation, joined the regent, to show their respect for law and order; and had they found her faithful to the moderate courses which she readily promised, they might have remained by her side. The Congregation strengthened themselves in Perth, and a French force marched to Auchterarder, fifteen miles southward of them. A battle was imminent. Argyle, the Lord James, and Semple went to commune with the Protestants, and had much talk with Knox, in which they found that the yielding of any point on that side was a hopeless expectation. Towards the maintaining of moderation on the other side, however, there came to their assist- ance an unanswerable argument in a small army of two thousand five hundred men, brought to the aid of the Congregation by Lord Glencairn. The enemy now came to terms, which were a distinct triumph to the Congregation. They were that " 1. Both the armies shall be disbanded, and the town left open to the queen. " 2. None of the inhabitants shall be molested on account of the late alteration in religion. " 3. No Frenchmen shall enter the town, nor come within three miles of it ; and when the queen retires, no French garrison shall be left in the town. " 4. That all other controversies be left to the next Parliament." ] The Congregation dispersed from Perth ; but ere they went, Knox preached a sermon, in which he said, " I am assured that no part of this promise made shall 1 Keith, 89. THE REGENT AND THE CONGREGATION, 1559-60. 73 be longer kept than till the queen and her Frenchmen have the upper hand." He was quite right the articles were preadjusted, with a defect which gave the means of discarding them. The Congregation knew that the regent could not levy a feudal force for her purposes, and they thought themselves safe if no French force could be brought against them. But the regent had French money, and with that she hired a native force to garrison Perth, and went thither with a French force under D'Oysel they were her body-guard, and not a garrison. The Congregation counted that the stipulation not to " molest " the inhabitants was grossly violated. This affair gave sudden strength to the Reformers, like a rush of new blood. The influential men who had departed from them for a while came back, and multitudes flocked to them from distant places. They invaded St Andrews. The archbishop threatened a vigorous resistance, but found it hopeless. Knox preached, and his sermon was followed by the usual demonstration against idolatry, and the wrecking of the religious houses. The queen's army marched from Linlithgow to sweep them away, but St Andrews was found to be well fortified and strongly garrisoned. Again there was treaty and stipulations. No French- men were to remain in Fifeshire, and certain commis- sioners were to be appointed by the regent to adjust finally with the leaders of the Congregation. No such commissioners were appointed, however, and it became clear that the regent was working for delay up to the time when a fresh force should arrive from France. On the 29th of June 1559, the Congregation made a decisive stroke by marching on and occupying Edin- burgh, whence the Court and the French had to retire. 74 THE REFORMATION. It was charged against the new occupants that here they took on themselves to perform some of the func- tions of a government ; for instance, that they took and used the coining irons, or the dies of the national mint. They had, doubtless, done enough to cost them all their heads, if their enemies had power to work their will on them. But there was more yet to come. On the 23d of October 1559, a solemn proclamation professed to depose the regent. It was issued with the nearest practicable approach to Parliamentary form. The spiritual lords of the Estates were not parties to it, but the burghs were represented, and the whole body set forth that they acted in " our sovereign lord and lady's name," " whose council we are of native birth in the affairs of this our common weal/' The regent and her party took no notice of this document. In the quietness of inaction, some of the Protestants repented of their course and dropped off. Most conspicuous among these was the wavering duke. Yet the moment should have been one to excite his interest. The driving forth of the Jezebels, mother and daughter, and a change in the succession of the crown, were freely talked of. The natural channel to shift the succession into was the house of Hamilton. Young Arran, the heir of that house, was then in France. It was deemed of moment that he should make his appear- ance in Scotland, and he escaped from France and wandered northward through England in disguise. There is a romantic legend that he thus providentially preserved his life, for the Guises had resolved to strike some distinguished members of the Reform party, and he was selected as the first victim. It was evident, however, that, when a French army THE REGENT AND THE CONGREGATION, 1559-60. 75 arrived, the cause would be lost unless England came to the rescue. In existing conditions, the policy of that step was undoubted ; but for the same reason, inter- ference at the present stage would be the admission of principles against which Queen Elizabeth had a horror. She was a champion of the divine right of sovereigns. She felt that her own right required every sanction she could get, and it might be a precedent to react on herself were she to countenance subjects in opposing their sovereign. It might be otherwise if there were disputed claims, and a legitimate leader to be acknowledged. We shall see how far these demands were supplied by the ingenuity of English statesmen ; but to the end the countenancing of opposition to a crowded and anointed queen was a difficulty. Cecil set his wisdom to work upon the difficulty in " a short discussion of the weighty matter of Scotland," dated in August 1559. In his perplexity he had recourse to some views which at this day sound grotesquely when connected with so great a name for sagacity. He proposed to set to work the claim of feudal supe- riority over Scotland, but after a quite original plan. It was not for the purpose of subjugating the country to a foreign yoke, after the example of King Edward, but that the people might be relieved by the masterful exercise of English power from the foreign yoke now holding them, and might be restored to their native customs and their liberties. But after all, perhaps, looking at it from Cecil's side, the scheme was not so mad as it appears. He, no doubt, seriously believed in the superiority ; for being, as he was, a busy man, if he looked into the documents relating to the matter, he would find at that time the whole story in a very 76 THE REFORMATION. complete form, aud supported by abundance of records which he would have no reason to distrust, though they have been since denounced as forgeries. 1 After he had got some experience of the country he was dealing with, Cecil was wise enough to keep silence on the question of the superiority. Intercourse with practical Scotsmen made him better acquainted with the political conditions. Early in the year we find him in communication with Kirkcaldy of Grange. That ardent and ambitious young man is among the first to strike the key-note of the great change in the 1 " The crown of England hath a just and unfeigned title, of longer continuance than the friendship betwixt Scotland and France, unto the superiority of Scotland ; and for the right thereof, it is as good, and in some respect better, than the right of the French queen to the realm of Scotland, as hereafter shall appear. To prove the antiquity and con- tinuance of the right of this superiority, remain good, ancient, and abundant stories ; and which is the best proof, the authentic and manifest writings under the seals of Scotland, declaring from age to age, from king to king, from parliament to parliament, the homages done to the kings of England by the kings of Scots ; coming sometimes to York, sometime to London, sometime to Lincoln, sometime to Canterbury. By which title of superiority, the crown of England hath upon dif- ferences decided the controversies, and appointed the crown of Scotland as to it was thought fit. And by this title and dignity doth the French queen, as Queen of Scots, owe homage to the crown of England ; and so consequently ought the crown of England to defend the liberties, the laws, the baronage, and people of Scotland, from oppression, and that in honour and conscience, no less than the emperor ought to defend the state of Milan, or the kingdom of Bohemia, being vassals to the empire. And therefore, if it may appear that the French king, by pretence of the marriage of an heir of Scotland, will alter the laws, liberties, and customs of Scotland, and will subvert the lawful heirs of the Scottish blood to the crown, and deprive the barons and states of the realm of their inheritance, whereby the French nation and blood may possess that land ; then the crown of England is bound in honour and conscience to defend and protect the realm of Scotland against the French. And so doth the first question alter in the most principal point ; for then is not the case betwixt subjects and a natural prince, but betwixt a superior king and a realm of the one part, and an inferior king alone joining with strangers on the other part." Sadler State Papers, i. 378, 379. ELIZABETH AND KNOX, 1559-60. 77 national sentiments terror of France, and a desire for common cause with England. We find the Scotsman pressing on the English statesman the danger of both countries, and the infinite importance of England securing the aid of a people who had heretofore been true to themselves, and would be true to their ally in the hour of danger. 1 There was one thing of vital importance to the views of Cecil and his fellow-statesmen of England they must secure the hearty co-operation of John Knox. His own temper and capacity, working under peculiar political conditions, had raised up the preacher to be one of the dictators of the political movements of Europe. Environed by perils as Elizabeth's Govern- ment was, to secure the help of Scotland was an object almost vital. The new party there were influenced by many motives arising from selfish hate and greed; but the cry which united them as a power was the "evangel" of the Reformation, and of that Knox was master. If the self-seeking aristocracy did not satisfy him that their zeal in this cause was orthodox and sufficient, he could break up their power ; and nothing would prevent him from doing so, if he so willed. He must, if possible, be made to see, then, that his own cause and that of England were one. It would not suffice to show him that worldly prudence suggested this union of forces- worldly prudence might go to the winds; but he might be made to see that a junction of forces between the English Government and the Scots Reformers was the shape which the ways of Providence were taking towards the blessed result. To deal with one so absolute in his own spiritual 1 Calendar of State Papers, 1558-59, 385. 78 THE REFORMATION. empire demanded caution and patience. Cecil seems to have required all the training to the ways of a pliant statesman, which his experience of Henry and his daughter had given him, to endure arrogance and dic- tation from so unwonted a quarter. He got a scolding, after Knox's peculiar manner, to begin with. It has generally been thought that Cecil behaved with unex- pected spirit when he retired from Court during the reign of Mary Tudor, carrying with him the avowal of Protestantism. This did not satisfy Knox ; he should have lifted his testimony against the Jezebel, and he is told, " As the benefit which ye have received is great, so must God's justice require of you a thank- ful heart ; for seeing that His mercy hath spared you being traitor to his majesty seeing, further, that amangs your enemies He hath preserved you and last, seeing, although worthy of hell, He hath promoted you to honour and dignity, of you must He require, because He is just, earnest repentance for your former defection, a heart mindful of His merciful providence, and a will so ready to advance His glory, that evi- dently it may appear that in vain ye have not received these graces of God to performance whereof, of neces- sity it is, that carnal wisdom and worldly policy to the which both ye are bruited too much inclined give place to God's simple and naked truth." * Whatever of this kind, however, Cecil had to bear was a trifle to another difficulty. His wilful mistress hated Knox for that book of his against the right and the capacity of women to govern. It was necessary that he should do something to appease her on this point, but would he do it ? To men with ordinaiy motives 1 History, ii 17, 18. ELIZABETH AND KNOX, 1559-60. 79 the opportunity was a brilliant one ; the denouncer of feminine rule had only to say that he had drawn his philosophy from bad examples he was fallible, like all men he had now seen a brilliant reverse of the wretched experience on which he had drawn, and must recant his broad conclusions. It soon became apparent that anything like this was hopeless. The Reformer had many times to admit, with due sorrow, that he had been deceived in the character of individual men who had professed zeal in the great cause and after- wards abandoned it. But that he, John Knox, should admit himself to have been fallible in a broad declara- tion of doctrine as soon expect the holy Court of Rome to drop the keys of St Peter, and recant its whole traditions as wretched fallacies ! He stood by what he maintained to the utmost. He heard that a refutation of his doctrine was to appear : let the author of such an attempt beware, lest it call forth a more con- clusive denunciation, for he must stand by the truth. Yet he could not but feel that it was through Eliza- beth that his great cause could triumph that it could even escape destruction ; and that no other power seemed destined for its work save this which he had denounced as a kind contrary to the Word of God. He had a re- medy, however, and it was as strange and original as everything about the man. It was, in a manner, breaking through the difficulty instead of solving it. He offered to the queen, in his own fervent style, such devotion as is due to a beneficent and powerful human being. He admitted that she was the chosen instrument for the work of the gospel. But it was a special act of Providence a sort of miracle accomplishing a great end by the smallest and basest of human means. 80 THE REFORMATION. All would go well, if she would feel the due humility of one selected for her nothingness rather than her eminence. So it behoved her to remember that it was not her Tudor descent, nor yet her wisdom or ability, that had any concern with the exalted work on hand, and to demean herself with a humility befitting the oc- casion. At least this appears to be the tenor of his ex- planation to Cecil, and of a letter to the queen herself. 1 In this latter document he put the hardest pressure 1 " The wreitting of that booke I will nott deny, but to prove it treas- sonable I think it salbe hard. For, sir, no more do I doubt of the treuth of my principall propositioun, then that I doubt that was the voce of God which first did pronunce this penaltie aganis woman, ' In doloure sail thou beare thy chyldrein.' It is bruitted that my booke is or salbe writtin against. If so be, sir, I greatlie feare that flattereris sail rather hurte nor mend the mater, which thei wald seame to mainteine ; for, except that my error be plainlie schawin and confuted be better autho- ritie then by suche lawis as frome yeir to yeir may and do change, I dar nott promitt silence in so wechtie a besines, leist that in so doing I sail appear to betray the verretie whiche is not subjected to the mutabilitie of tyme. And if ony think me ather enuemye to the persone or yet to the regiment of her whoine God hath now promoted, thei are utterlie deceived of me. For the miraculouse wark of God, contorting His afflicted by ane infirme veschell, I do acknawledge, and the power of His most potent hand (raiseing up quhome best pleiseit His mercie to suppresse such as fecht aganis His glorie) I will obey, albeit that boyth nature and Goddis most perfyt ordinance repugne to suche regiment. Moir plainlie to speik, if Quene Elizabeth sail confesse that the extraor- dinarie dispensatioun of Goddis great mercie macketh that lauchfull unto her whiche boyth nature and Goddis law do deny to all women, then sail non in England be more willing to mainteine her lauchfull authoritie then I salbe ; but if (Goddis wonderouse werk sett asyd) scho ground (as God forbid) the justnes of her title upoun consuetude, lawis, or ordinances of men, then I am assured that, as suche foolishe presump- cioun doeth heyghlie offende Goddis supreame majesty, so do I greatlie feare that her ingratitude sail nocht lang lack punishement. And this in the name of the Eternall God, and of His Sone Jesus Chryst (befoire quhonie boyth you and I sail stand, to mak accomptes of all counsall we geve), I require you to signifie unto her grace in my name ; adding, that onlie humilitie and dejectioun of herself before God salbe the firmitie and stabilitie of her throne, quhilk I knaw sail be assaulted mo wayis then one." History, ii. 20, 21. ELIZABETH AND KNOX, 1559-60. 8 1 on his nature, to draw from it something soothing and satisfactory; and when we consider that nature, he was wonderfully successful. He cheers her with the expec- tation that all shall go well if, forgetting her birth, and " all title which therefrom doth hang," she, with O' ' due humility, remember that her power is held of spe- cial dispensation, " which only maketh lawful to your grace what nature and law denieth to all women." l Cecil managed in the end that Knox should be pro- pitiated, and even that attention should be shown to his wife on her way through England from France to Scotland. It was proposed that there should be an interview between the two great powers at the minis- ter's country mansion of Hatton, in the very centre of England. Whether there was danger, or other reason against it, no such meeting could be held. It had to suffice that Knox should meet the Governor of Berwick on Holy Island. There they had an instructive con- ference. Knox did not enlarge on the topics which charmed his audiences from the pulpit ; but put it plainly, that Scotland wanted men and money from England, with the assistance, if possible, of a fleet. Cecil, and other advisers of Queen Elizabeth, strongly pushed this policy. They represented that the oppor- tunity for severing Scotland from France, and securing as a friend the worst enemy of England, had now at last come, and might pass. It was an object on which money ought not to be spared. The queen, who was keenest of all for setting this barrier against France, yet was, from her odd contradictory nature, the impe- diment to any fair, open-handed help to the Scots in their extremity. She suggested many things that her 1 History, ii. 29, 30. VOL. IV. F 82 THE REFORMATION. advisers might do as " from themselves." Among these was the advancing of the money; it would come better from them as private persons having sympathy with the Scots, than if it came from the English Gov- ernment. But they knew that not only were they unlikely to be repaid their advances, but if matters took an awkward turn, they might be delivered over, without remorse or hesitation, to be dealt with by the English treason laws. Among other clumsy pieces of trickery suggested, one was that an army should assemble in the north, and, without instructions from the English Government, cross the border as sympa- thisers with the Scots cause. They would then be proclaimed traitors for attacking a state at peace with England, and, unable to return, would have nothing for it but to fight out a position for themselves in Scot- land; but no body of men thought proper to put them- selves in this complex and peculiar position. At length, on the 20th of August, Sir Ralph Sadler was sent to the borders to hold communication with the Lords of the Congregation. He was intrusted with three thousand pounds, but he represented that this would merely be so much money wasted if more were not sent. A larger sum was afterwards sent, but the bearer of it fell into the hands of the notorious Bothwell, who had much occasion for such a fund for his own uses. Sadler found political conditions directly the reverse of those he had seen sixteen years earlier. Then, there was dread of England, and the French alliance was all popular ; now, the current was running rapidly the other way, and he found some politicians helping it onwards. " It seemeth," he says, " they make little or no account of the French power, which is looked for out of France, willing that the same should rather THE TWO SIDES, 1559-60. 83 come than not ; for, as the number cannot be great, so think they that the same should so stir and irritate the hearts of all Scotsmen as they would wholly and firmly adhere and stick together, whereby their power should so increase as they should be well able both to expel the French out of Scotland and also better achieve the rest of their whole purpose." l If this was the view held by the Scots Protestants, it is certain that they were far less frightened than Queen Elizabeth's Privy Council. Their view of the prospects of both countries is set forth with gloomy brevity. " They think that the French mean, after their forces are brought into Scotland, first, to conquer it which will be neither hard or long to do and next, that they and the Scots will invade this realm, principally upon the north parts." : Meanwhile the Lords of the Congregation, their people dropping off from time to time, found them- selves too weak to hold Edinburgh against such a force as the queen-regent could bring against it. Again there was treating, but with merely temporary aims, and charges that promises were not kept. The Lords of the Cono-reg-ation retired westward. There came O D then an addition of a thousand troops to the French force, and a fortress or intrenched camp of great strength was constructed by them at Leith. There the regent, with her army, held out, abiding events, vainly besieged by the Congregation. These noticed, and reported to their friends in England, some very menacing special- ties of the new influx of French troops. They seemed to come, not for a campaign, and its mere fighting-work, 1 Sadler State Papers, i. 400. 2 Privy Council to Queen Elizabeth, 24th Dec, 1559 ; Calendar of State Papers (Foreign), 221. 84 THE REFORMATION. but for permanent establishment in the country. These features were described as " the inbringing of soldiers, with their wives, bairns, and instruments for manuring the ground, such as ploughs and suchlike, and for as- saulting strengths, such as mattocks, spades, &c." J The Congregation were joined, at this emergency, by an important deserter or refugee Maitland of Leth- ington whose character has been already discussed. Young as he then was, he was deemed a match for Cecil, as a sagacious, long-headed politician. He had given, he said, unpalatable advice to the queen-regent, to whom he was secretary of state, and he considered himself no longer safe in the camp at Leith. He under- took to do the business of the Congregation in England ; and one like him, who had held high office in Scotland, was likely to have double influence. In January 1560 a treaty was adjusted between Queen Elizabeth and the Congregation, called the treaty of Berwick. In a thing so unprecedented as combining with England against France, the Scots felt something like the misgiving that attends great changes of policy ; and they showed their jealousy to the last in the punctiliousness with which they insisted on their dignity and equality. They would not go to England, but met the English on benches erected in the middle of the Tweed, where it was the national boundary ; and the English complained that from one cause or another, and especially the excessive vigilance of the Scots in guarding their punctilios, they were at last taken over to treat on Scots ground. This treaty of Berwick required very subtle diplo- matic handling. It was, in reality, an arrangement to which the parties were on the one side, the English 1 Calendar of State Papers (Foreign), 1559, p. 225. TREATY OF BERWICK, 1560. 85 emissaries, sent to watch the affairs of Scotland ; and, on the other, that body called the Lords of the Congre- gation, who were at war with the representative of their sovereign. But if it were a treaty, it must be between royalties ; and how were they to be brought into it ? Queen Elizabeth was to be the one party but where was the other party to be found ? The treaty on the English side was ratified by the Duke of Nor- folk " in the name and behalf of her highness ; " but on the other side there was no authorised representative of royalty, and though a body of commissioners acted, they were accepted neither by the young queen in France nor her mother the regent. The best that could be done was to make the commissioners act " in the name and behalf of the noble and mighty prince, James Duke of Chatelherault, second person of the realm of Scotland ; and the remanent lords of his party joined with him in this cause for the maintenance and defence of the ancient rights and liberties of their country." To bring the duke a step still nearer to royalty, it is set forth that he is "declared by Act of Parliament in Scot- land to be heir-apparent to the crown thereof." We learn the significance of the phraseology of this part of the treaty by the correspondence of the time, in which Queen Elizabeth's advisers are at their wits' end to find a political head with whom it might become her, as a crowned and anointed queen, to communicate. It is evident that what they most desired was that some one whose position fitted him for such a project should aspire to the throne. Queen Elizabeth would then be supporting the cause of the right sovereign, at least of the side she thought proper to adopt in a disputed succession. The head of the house of Hamilton was, of course, looked to ; but he was not the man to play 86 THE REFORMATION. so bold a game. Hints were given to the Lord James ; he was the son of the late king, and though he was illegitimate, that was a difficulty that had often been overcome in other instances. Whatever his conscience may have said, however, his prudence was sufficient to keep him from so perilous a project. 1 These difficulties adjusted as best they might be, the treaty goes into thorough business. Queen Elizabeth's object is the preservation of the realm of Scotland in its old freedoms and liberties during a dangerous crisis, and the expulsion from it of the foreign troops, who are virtually foreign invaders. The imminence of the occasion comes out. Her majesty is certain, from the information received by her, and the career of the French troops in Scotland, " that they intend to con- quer the realm of Scotland, suppress the liberties thereof, and unite the same unto the crown of France perpetually." Then comes the practical stipulation for averting this catastrophe, or "for expelling out of the same realm such as presently and apparently goeth about to practise the said conquest ; " that "her majesty shall, with all speed, send unto Scot- land a convenient aid of men of war on horse and foot, to join the powers of Scotsmen, with artillery, munition, and all other instruments of war meet for the purpose, as well by sea as by land, not only to expel the present power of France within that realm oppressing the same, but also to stop, as far as con- veniently may be, all greater force of French to enter therein for the like purpose." There was a clause coming after these substantial undertakings, which served better than the preliminaries to save Queen Elizabeth from the scandal of treating with subjects. 1 Calendar of State Papers, 404, 461, &c. WAR, 1560. 87 Her aid is to be given to the Lords " as long as they shall acknowledge their sovereign lady and queen, and shall endure themselves to maintain the liberty of their country and the estate of the crown of Scotland." There is a provision which, if it do not hint sus- picion, yet shows precaution bred of old jealousy of England. Whenever the English force take fortified places from the French, they are either to be demolished at the hand of the Scots or given over to the duke and his party, and the English auxiliaries are not to fortify themselves anywhere in Scotland without the permis- sion of the duke and his followers. 1 This arduous piece of diplomacy accomplished, it was resolved at last to send hearty aid. The French army, under D'Oysel, made a progress along the coast of Fife, plundering and burning, and purchasing undy- ing enmity among the people, as English armies had done some ten or twenty years earlier. They beheld strange sails in the Firth, which they believed to be a reinforcement from France ; but they were undeceived when they saw the strangers seize their own transports. The new vessels, in fact, brought an English force of six thousand men. There was now a scene, new and interesting Scots and English fighting together against foreigners. But the French, and those who stood by them, held the new fortress at Leith with great firm- ness. There was, evidently, far more engineering science within the walls than without. The attacks were dis- astrous, and repeatedly driven back ; and so far as the position of the two forces was concerned, it seemed likely that the fortress might remain permanently with its holders. Affairs, however, were working elsewhere towards changes. In March 1560 the conspiracy of 1 Fcedera, xv. 569. 88 THE REFORMATION. Ambois made a crisis in France. If it rendered the retention of Scotland to France and the Church of Rome all the more desirable, yet on the other hand it called for the return of all available troops to France. After a conference, it was agreed that the French troops should return home, and that no foreigners should be employed in Scotland without the consent of the Estates. The adjustment in which this and other matters were arranged was called " the treaty of Edin- burgh." One important stipulation in it afterwards the cause of much curious discussion was a condition that the young queen and her husband acknowledged Elizabeth as Queen of England, and were to be bound not only to abstain from any pretences on England by the blazon of arms or otherwise, but to do their best to suppress any such attempts when made by others. 1 The queen-dowager, sick and wearied with anxieties, was taken when the siege of Leith began to the Castle of Edinburgh. She died there on the 10th of June 1560. On her deathbed she showed that air of mag- nanimity and high generous feeling which her remark- able race could assume on all fitting occasions, inso- much so that she left a profound impression even on the hard minds of the sturdiest of the Reformers. She sent for the Lord James, and spoke regretfully, and almost as if penitently, of the past ; and suffered Willock, the preacher, without interruption, to deliver some of the exhortations which his own order deemed good for such occasions. The cause of the Congrega- tion was now triumphant, and about finally and empha- tically to express itself. The Estates convened in August. On the 17th the Confession of Faith, containing a rendering, in English 1 Fcedera, xv. 593. REFORMATION STATUTES, 1560. 89 or Scots, of the principles of the Geneva Church, was approved of as " hailsom and sound doctrine, grounded upon the infallible truth of God's Word." At the same time there was a general repeal or revocation of all acts authorising any other form, of belief or worship, and the authority of the Bishop of Koine was abjured. It was provided that the administering, or being pre- sent at the administration, of the mass, should be punishable for the first offence, by forfeiture of goods, and corporal infliction at the discretion of the magis- trate ; for the second, by banishment from the realm ; for the third, by "justifying to the deid," or death. These Acts were passed on the 25th of August. They have little organisation or legislative detail for the pur- pose of practical application, and may be held, as many Scots Acts then were, to be rather a resolution and declaration of opinion by the triumphant party in the States, than Acts of Parliament in the present consti- tutional meaning of the term. 1 It will be observed, in what has hereafter to be said, and makes a very significant point in the character and policy of Queen Mary, that these Acts never got the royal assent. On the face of the parliamentary record it would seem as if the Reformation in Scotland were the work of one day. On the morning of the 25th of August 1560, the Romish hierarchy was supreme; in the evening of the same day, Calvinistic Protestantism was established in its stead. But the departure of the French and the treaty of Edinburgh were the conclu- sion of past events ; and as to the Acts of Parliament, whether they were of any avail or not depended on events yet to come. 1 Act. Parl., ii. 526 ft seq. CHAPTER XXXIX. Contrition of tfje Nation from tfje 2!Har of Intiepentience to tjje Reformation. THE CONSTITUTION OF SCOTLAND THE POWER OF THE ESTATES OF PARLIAMENT THEIR EXERCISE OF THE EXECUTIVE LORDS OF THE ARTICLES THE ESTATES AS A FINAL COURT OF LAW LORDS AUDITORS DAILY COUNCIL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COURT OF SESSION ON THE MODEL OF THE PARLIAMENT OF PARIS INFLUENCE OF THIS IMITATION CHARACTER OF THE INSTITUTIONS ADAPTATION OF THE CIVIL LAW ABSENCE OF THE PREROGATIVE OR INVIDIOUS RIGHTS WHICH SET CLASS AGAINST CLASS CONSTITUTIONAL AND HISTORICAL RESULTS POPULARITY OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS PROVISIONS FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE PEOPLE GRAMMAR-SCHOOLS UNIVER- SITIES THEIR TESTIMONY TO AN ELEMENT OF ENLIGHTENED LIBERALITY IN THE CHURCH THEIR MODEL BROUGHT FROM FRANCE VESTIGES OF THIS INFLUENCE IN UNIVERSITY CONSTI- TUTION AND PRACTICE. IT is now proposed to pause for a while in the narra- tive, and look back upon such isolated occurrences or established facts as are suggestive about the progress of the nation in wealth, civilisation, literature, the ad- ministration of justice, and other matters coming within the compass of a country's social condition. In the similar retrospect of progress before the War of Inde- pendence, the materials for distinct knowledge were so ESTATES OF PARLIAMENT, 1350-1560. 91 meagre that every trifle had to be seized with avidity. The materials, too, for the succession of historical events were too scanty to supply the significant spe- cialties which enable us to see the manners and condi- tions of a people in the mere telling of the narrative. The fuller particulars of the later periods ought of themselves to tell about the social condition of the several actors who come forward, more expressively than a general dissertation can. On this occasion, then, nothing seems to be appropriate or required beyond a rapid grouping of such specialties as nar- rative does not naturally carry with its current. The reasons have been given for supposing that there was much comfort, if not affluence, in Scotland when the War of Independence broke out. In the earlier summary of national progress we find traces of laws, which had grown up no one knew how, older than the traces of the existence of a parliament- ary body. We have seen how, through the feudal institutions moulded by the spirit of the people, a parliament gradually grew, under the title of the Estates of the Realm ; and we have seen that in the reign of Robert the Bruce, if not earlier, the citizens of the burghs were represented in that body. During the period now referred to, the Estates continued to exist, and to act as a constitutional establishment of the nation. We have had many opportunities of no- ticing the laws passed by the Estates, and the other transactions in which they were concerned. In some of these instances it may have been observed that the Estates interfered with transactions which, according to modern English constitutional notions, belong to the executive ; and from this it would be inferred, 92 CONDITION OF THE NATION. by many practical politicians, that the Estates of Scot- land were not a properly constitutional parliament. There can be no doubt of the superiority of the practice of the present British Parliament on all points in which it differs from the practice of the Scots Estates anterior to the Reformation. But may we not find that the perfection of the British system has grown with the other political conditions surrounding it, and that it is as vain to seek it in the Scotland of the sixteenth century, as to seek the peace, the security, and the other blessings of our civilisation in the same conditions of time and place ? Take, for instance, two features in which the British Constitution has gone far beyond any other human institution in the way to perfection, by affecting the rapid action of a despotism without weakening or checking the influence of popular control and responsi- bility. The one is the sacredness of the sovereign from personal responsibility, while every act of government must pass under the hand of some minister of the crown, who is personally responsible for what is done ; the other is, that it lies with the sovereign to make peace and war, Parliament only having the power of review- ing the conduct of the ministers who have made them- selves responsible for the line of policy adopted in each instance. But these principles were not adjusted by the political skill of wise lawgivers. They were the offspring of strife and bitter enmity. Parliament never conceded the inviolability of the royal person. All the world has heard of the conflict, designed to extinguish in blood that slavish doctrine, when it was resuscitated by the civilians from the maxims which the Roman Empire had taken from Eastern nations. ESTATES OF PARLIAMENT, 1350-1560. 93 Nor, on the other hand, did the crown advisedly give up to Parliament the power of controlling the con- duct of the sovereign's servants. Every devise of the constitution has a complex and contradictory shape, because it has been a remedy found in the period of power, for something that has been lost in the period of weakness. Thus every specialty in the constitution was either the fruit of some victory gained, or the result of a compromise and treaty between two hostile powers. The purport of what was so gained or lost was recorded with scrupulous exactness, and hence came that precision in the working of the machinery of the constitution which is so infinitely valuable in the present day. In this view the English Constitution survived memorable perils, and it is no matter of wonder that a neighbouring constitution should avoid the risk of abandoning the holds it already had, with the dubious prospect of recovering them in a more perfect shape. The Scots Estates did not admit the irresponsibility of the sovereign. We have seen them bringing King James III. to task, and the precedent was made all the more emphatic by the attempt of the lawyers of the seventeenth century to conceal it by mutilating the record in which it" is set forth. The punishment of bad sovereigns is a thing in which the literature of the country deals in a tone evidently directed towards practice. We find the Estates of Scotland dealing with many things now deemed the peculiar function of the executive. They kept in their own hands the power of making peace and war. We repeatedly find ambassadors receiving special instructions from the Estates ; and there was a political crisis about the great question of 94 CONDITION OF THE NATION. marrying Queen Mary to the Prince of England, be- cause a treaty had been negotiated under instructions from an imperfectly constituted parliament. 1 While the power of Rome yet existed, the Estates had made visible progress in establishing such a lay headship over the Church as the crown acquired in England by a sudden stroke. We shall find that at the time we have reached, a critical question was standing over, Whether the crown had a veto on the acts of the Estates ? in other words, Whether the consent of the sovereign was necessary to an Act of Parliament ? and down to the union with England this question was not decided. In forming the constitution of the Scots Estates, there was an element never felt by the English Parliament. There, throughout, the enemy was at home it was the prerogative. The vigilance of the Scots Estates was ever exercised against the conquering encroach- ments of England. There are scarcely any traces of a conflict between the crown of Scotland and the Estates. These, in fact, were the careful guardians of the crown against peril from subjugation by the common enemy. Such faint traces as we have of the Estates coming in conflict with the crown are when there is suspicion that the sovereign is in too close amity with the enemy of England to be trusted with the keeping of the independence of Scotland. 1 In the close discussions with France, at the time of Queen Mary's marriage, the power and functions of the Scots Estates puzzled the French courtiers. When Montluc, Bishop of Valence, had a discussion with the Lords of the Congregation, and put the point of loyalty to them, he says, " Us repliquerent, que le royaulme d'Escosse est gouverne aultrement que ne sont les aultres, et que s'il y a differends entre le Roy et les subjects, il faut qu'il soit debatu et d<5cid par les Estats ; et mesmes que les roys n'ont puissance de faire ligue ni ordonner la guerre sans leur consentement." Teulet, Pieces, i. 593. ESTATES OF PARLIAMENT, 1350-1560. 95 The many calamities of the royal family gave the Estates the opportunity of independent action, and made it a great national duty. From the death of Alexander III. to the majority of James VI. there is a period of 300 years. If we count in these the years when there was a minor king, and the period of the absence in England of King David, we shall have to deduct 134 years from the 300, leaving 166 years during which the kingdom was ruled by an adult monarch. It is less to be wondered at that, with such opportunities, the Estates should have acquired functions unsuited to a representative body, than that the monarchy should have been strictly preserved, and that it should have kept the exact course of hereditary descent unvaried, save by a slight oscillation from the shock of the great War of Independence. This precise observance in Scotland of the strict rule of descent is all the more remarkable from the chaos of the Wars of the Roses in England. Perhaps it may be said that this was because Scotland did not happen, like England, to be afflicted by royal collaterals, whose power enabled them to break in upon any abstract principle, such as that of hereditary descent; but at least it is due to the Estates of Scotland that they took up the true rule of descent, and were careful that there should never be a deviation from it. The Estates were not divided into two Houses, like the English Parliament, but transacted their business in one place of meeting. We have nothing to help us to the method in which this business was transacted, like the precise record of the votes and proceedings of the English Parliament ; but, again, this precision was the growth of contest, everything done by either House, 96 CONDITION OF THE NATION. with the method of doing it, being recorded as a pre- cedent for after reference, in case it should come to be impugned either by the crown or by the other House of Parliament. The practice of passing projects of law from one House to another has been a great protection against impulsive legislation, by requiring that every measure should be reconsidered, even after it seems finally matured ; and this, like the other specialties, was in England the growth of contest. The Scots Estates did the best they could towards the same end, by working through permanent committees, having, after their ap- pointment, the character for the time of separate legis- lative chambers. We find the appointment of such a legislative committee in the reign of David II. there are marks in the wording of the appointment which show that the institution was then a novelty. In the first parliament of the reign of James I., we find that such a committee had gradually become a permanent institution, under the name of the " Committee of Articles," or the " Lords of the Articles." It w r ould appear that from that time the legitimate method of transacting the legislative business of Parliament was that, on the assembling of the Estates, they decided on the tenor of the measures which it was desirable to pass. Certain persons were then chosen from each Estate to be the Committee on the Articles. To them the preparation and maturing of each measure was confided, somewhat after the method in w T hich, at the present day, a committee of the whole House deals with a bill referred to it after the second reading. The Estates stood adjourned while this committee was at work. When the several projects of law were matured, THE CONSTITUTION, 1350-1560. 97 the Estates reassembled. The committee reported to the meeting the bills matured, and they were then put finally to the vote for adoption or rejection. In later times this, the legitimate form of action, was some- times invaded or perverted. The courtiers of the later reigns, when they desired to influence the proceedings of the Estates, found the delegation of business to this committee to be the weakest part of the organisation of the legislature, and they accomplished their ends by corrupting its constitution. The Estates, in their jealousy of all prerogative powers exercised by the crown, strove against its monopolising the administration of justice. While the king's chan- cellor, justiciars, and sheriffs exercised their remedial jurisdiction, the Estates or high court of Parliament professed to administer justice, or give " remeid of law" to those who might apply to them. For this branch of work a separate committee was appointed, called the Lords Auditors of Complaints. The proceedings of this committee, from 1466 to 1494, have been printed by the Eecord Commission, and are a substantial contri- bution to our means of becoming acquainted with the early law and forensic practice of the country. A like contribution is afforded in the proceedings of the Lords of Council from 1478 to 1495. l This tribunal was recast in the year 1503, by an act of the Estates. The lords were to be appointed by the crown, and to "sit continually in Edinburgh, or where the king makes residence, or where he pleases." '' One reason for establishing such a court was that 1 ' Acta Dominorum ad Causas et Querelas Andiendas Electorum,' and ' Acta Dominorum Concilii,' both printed by the Record Commission in 1839. 2 Act. Parl., ii. 241. VOL. IV. G 98 CONDITION OF THE NATION. the Lords Auditors had authority only during the sitting of Parliament, so that the procedure before them stopped when Parliament rose. It became the practice to hand the unfinished litigations before the Auditors, at the end of a session, over to the Lords of Council. The jurisdiction of both was alike. The same men often served on both, and the staff of officers seems to have been common to both. 1 We find that the sheriffs, as representing the crown, occasionally resist the orders of the Auditors, or fail in due compliance, and then orders are issued for their " warding " or imprisonment, raising contests about " privilege," resembling in some measure those which have so often disturbed the equanimity of the English Houses of Parliament. The Church took to itself all legal adjustments which depended on an answer to the question whether the sacrament of marriage had been duly performed ; and so all litigations raising the question whether any persons were man and wife, or whether any person was born in wedlock, so as to take the privileges of legitimacy, fell to the ecclesiastical courts. Hence the Lords Auditors, or the Lords of Council, sometimes found that a question raised is not within their jurisdiction, but belongs to the proper ecclesiastical court. They found, too, occasionally, that a person who has entered appearance as a litigant is under sentence of " cursing " or excommunication, and cannot be heard until that ecclesiastical doom is removed. With ecclesiastical tribunals and persons, 1 In one instance, in the record of the auditors, the clerk is found set- ting down a decision as by " the lords of counsale," but, recollecting him- self, he scores his pen through the words and writes " auditors." Act. Parl., 10. THE CONSTITUTION, 1350-1560. 99 the Lords, although acting as a supreme court, seem generally loath to be authoritative. In a case before them, for instance, a priest is in possession of writs which will help to a right decision ; but the Auditors, instead of taking steps to enforce production of them, apply to the bishop, exhorting and praying him to compel the priest to produce them. 1 On the proceedings of the Lords Auditors, little ap- peal business is perceptible. Perhaps they were shy of exercising the power of reversing the judgments of the king's justiciars. Enough appears, however, to show that, holding delegated power from the Estates as the supreme court of Parliament, they counted themselves a court of review on appeals from the king's courts. On any occasion when this power is exercised, the minute of the finding of the Auditors is expressed with unwonted distinctness and ceremonial. 2 We find this high court of Parliament, in one in- stance at least, taking upon itself to give such remedy in an international question as we may well believe the inferior courts would not venture to apply. The 1 Actn, &c., 94. 2 " The Lords Auditors chosen be the three Estates in this present Par- liament for the decision of the dooms, decreets and delivers that the doom given in the Justice Aire of Cupar, in the tolbooth of the same, before John Haldane of Gleneagles, ane of our sovereign lord's General Justice on north half the water of Forth, be the month of [ ] Dempster, the 25 day of Februar, the year of God 1477, for the burgh fnndin be Alexander Spence, advocate and forespeaker for John Dischinton of Ardross, upon thre breve of mortancestry, purchast be Andrew Bisset, upon the lands of Kinbrachmont, and agane a recontre made be William Richardson, advocate and forespeaker for the said Andrew, was evil given and well again said by the said William, for divers and mony reasons produced and shown before the lords." Acta, &c., 66. The words " evil given and well again said " are equivalent to finding the court below in error, and admitting the appeal. This mere reversal is followed by findings for putting the judgment of the court of appeal in force. 100 CONDITION OF THE NATION. case is remarkable, from the practical testimony afforded by it to the closeness of the exchange of citizenship between France and Scotland even before the marriage of Queen Mary. A certain William Richardson, who is called a burgess of Dieppe, while his name shows him to be of Scottish origin, had got a decision in his favour against William Lennox of Kail, for the sum of six score pounds, fourteen shillings, and fourpence of Parisian money. The decision was by a French court of law; it was pronounced by "James Disome, licen- tiate in the law and Lieutenant-General at the Table of Marbre in the Palace of Paris, under a noble lord, Louis, Lord Grauil, Councillor to the King of France, and Great Admiral of France." This foreign decision was held to be authenticated " by a process, sentence, and certain letters executorial direct by the foresaid James Disome, thereupon shown and produced before the lords." Thereupon they directed that the lands and goods of William Lennox should be distrained for the debt decerned against him by the celebrated court of the Marble Table in Paris. 1 The French connection conies up in another shape, when it was found that the two tribunals the Lords Auditors and the Lords of the Council did not work well ; and it was judged fitting to recast the adminis- tration of justice, and organise a supreme court of law. Hence in 1532 that Court of Session was created which, modified from time to time, still exists as the great fountain of justice in Scotland. It was formed on the model of the Parliament of Paris ; and this French constitution, infused into it at the beginning, gave peculiarities to its constitution all along. The 1 Acta, &c., 181. THE CONSTITUTION, 1350-1560. IOI French Parliaments partook of the double nature, of courts of law, and deliberative bodies with powers of a legislative character. The French crown cultivated, under due subordination, the legislative tendencies of the Parliaments, as superseding the functions of the States General, and at last rendering it unnecessary to assemble that troublesome body. In like manner the Court of Session professed general remedial powers, which pressed close on the office of the legislator. So lately as the early part of the eighteenth century, they raised a storm in Edinburgh by fixing the conditions on which it was just and right that the city brewers should brew their ale. Throughout, the propensity of this court has been to give its remedy on a general view of the whole question before it ; and only by degrees, and with hard adjustment, has the method, long brought to precision in England, of absolutely separating the law from the fact, been brought into Scottish practice. This court took two peculiarities by its constitu- tional descent. It was deemed illogical to appeal from the Court of Session to Parliament, since the Court of Session was but a remodelling of that committee of Estates which was itself the high court of appeal, as exercising the full powers of Parliament. We shall find this specialty opening up troublesome questions in the reign of Charles II. The other peculiarity was, that the practice of the court made no provision for trial by jury. It has been maintained that this, too, was keeping clear of an illogicality, since the court represented Parliament, the grand jury of the nation. As to the substance of the law administered by the tribunals of Scotland, we have seen that, before the 102 CONDITION OF THE NATION. War of Independence, there was a tendency in this, as in other institutions of the country, to follow the example set by England. After that war, each country went its own way. England, which alone among Christian nations repudiated the Civil law, busily piled up that extraordinary mass of precedents known as the Common law. Much as the civil law was pro- fessedly detested in England, the country had to draw upon it for relief from the strange vagaries and utter injustices committed by the chaotic common law when let loose with absolute power. Against it protection was sought in the Equity jurisdiction, presided over by that high officer the Lord Chancellor, and the means of extending such protection to the subject were found in the civil law. Scotland received the civil law as all-sufficient. Hence, looking across the Tweed, the English common or equity lawyer could see a pheno- menon not easily understood by him a country under one harmonious system of jurisprudence ; and he could sometimes only express the nature of a thing so mon- strous, by saying that the tribunals there were courts both of law and equity. The English horror of the civil law came of the auto- cracy at its head, and the ample use made of it in Continental despotisms. It is a flexible system, how- ever, easily adaptable to the desires of a free people. Take from one end of it the divine right prerogative of the emperor, and from the other end the institution of slavery, we have a system made to meet all possible exigencies, on the broad principle that all are equal in the eye of the law. There is no precedent for privilege of peerage, for forest law, or for game law, to be found there ; hence it suited Scotland, where the spirit of the THE CONSTITUTION, 1350-1560. 103 community did not readily adapt itself to the preroga- tives of class, which the Normans had established ill England. There are but scant vestiges of this spirit in the old customs of Scotland. There was no prero- gative law of trespass a law rendering it an offence for a person to be in a particular place whether his being there caused harm to any one or not. Cultivated lands and crops, whoever owned them, were protected by the exaction of damages or recompense from any one doing injury to them. We have seen how certain French visitors were alike amazed and indignant when they found such claims asserted by very peasants. On the other hand, the bare moor was open to all men. Of the English forest laws the prolific parent of a troublesome offspring, the game laws of later times we have seen that they were but feebly and dubiously imitated in Scotland. The country was full of wild animals ; the people were active and armed, and fond of field sports when they had no more serious work for their weapons. It could not be, therefore, but that there should be legislation about game. The tenor of this legislation, however, was to render game abundant, and available for sporting purposes, by pro- hibiting the slaying of animals at the period when slaughter is fatal to their increase, and for the suppres- sion of those methods of killing them which are ini- mical to sport by facilitating the means of converting the animals into butcher-meat. 1 There were restraints, 1 Thus there were penalties against taking the eggs or nests of wild fowl : " Wyld fulis sic as pairtriks, plovers, black-cocks, grey-hens, mure-cocks sould not be taken frae the beginning of Lentern till Au- gust." Act, 1427. "Na man should slay does, roes, deer, in time of storm or snaw, nor their kids until they be ane year auld." Act, 14/4. Among the precautions for economising the game for the purpose of 104 CONDITION OF THE NATION. at the same time, to prevent mischief-doing in the pursuit of the chase. 1 There are provisions for pro- tecting to the owners the animals within enclosed parks or chases, and some other restraints ; but there is no trace of any of those subtle distinctions by which one man might have the possession and cultivation of the ground, while another enjoyed the prerogative right of following the game reared upon it. We must come down to a period later than we have yet reached ere we shall find the Scottish legislature, in imitation of the practice of England, enacting that the ownership of land is a necessary qualification for the privilege of slaying wild animals. The oldest author who professes to give a general survey of the law of Scotland bluntly lays it down, that "it is leasum and permitted to all men to chase hares and all other wild beasts, being without forests, warrens, parks, or wards." 2 No doubt the feudal aristocracy of Scotland had great power ; and where there is power, there will be- more or less of oppression and injustice. The events sport, the use of firearms was prohibited. We must remember that this referred to a heavy machine for deliberate use, a weapon very different from our modern fowling-piece. " The art of ' shooting flying' is one of very recent acquisition, dependent on the improvements in the mechan- ism of the modern fowling-piece ; and the legislation of earlier times, while it encouraged the well-established and authorised use of hounds and hawks, uniformly directed the severest penalties against the em- ployment of such ' indirect' means of destroying game as ' hackbut, gun, net, and fowler's dog.'" Irvine on the Game Laws, Introduction, xxix. Here will be found the best account of the early legislation of Scotland on the matter of wild animals. 1 u That na man tak upon hand to ride or gang in their neighbours' cornis, in hawking and hunting, frae the first of Pasch until the time the samen be shorn, and that na man ride or gang upon wheet na time of the year." Act of 1555. 9 Balfour's Practiks, 542. THE CONSTITUTION, 1350-1560. 105 which have been narrated must be left to give their own impression of the relations to each other of the different orders of society. It has been seen that acts were passed for fixity of tenure to the peasant, and for other checks on the abuse of feudal power. But a large specialty may here be noticed, which, as it is negative, does not naturally come up in the narrative. It was in the spirit of the constitution to confer such powers as were deemed fit for public use ; but not to confer the empty privileges and exemptions, which are invidious to those excepted from them, and have it in their nature to set class against class. Among the multitudinous exemptions from the obligations bind- ing on common men, which made up the privilege of peerage in England, there seems to be no trace in Scotland. In later times these nearly all merged into the one substantial privilege of exemption from im- prisonment for debt. 1 In the administration of criminal justice there was no separate tribunal of their own for the trial of peers, as there was in England. Important cases of treason Avere generally tried by the Estates, whether the ac- cused were lords or commoners. The Estates were ever jealous of leaving political offences to be dealt with by the king's courts. But for other offences, however high, a lord had to " thole an assize/' or stand by the verdict of a jury, like any other subject. The jury 1 At the Union the English privileges were extended to all Scots peers, whether they were returned to Parliament or not. The exasperated party opposed to the Union garnered up every testimony to selfishness and corruption which they could cast against its supporters ; and among the.se, it was said that exemption from imprisonment for debt was a cunnin" device to buy the votes of the impoverished peers of Scotland. 106 CONDITION OF THE NATION. was in some measure modified to equality in rank with the accused. If he were a " landed man," or pro- prietor of land, the jury must have been chosen from the same class ; and if he were a freeholder, a certain proportion of the jury must have held the same rank. But the best testimony to the character of the na- tional institutions is to be found in the tenacity of the people in holding to their " auld laws and lovable customs." In the hostile face they ever presented to all attempts towards annexation by England, it is not so much the sentiment of a national sovereignty that is at work, as the dread of innovation on the national customs. We have seen how this is specially noted by the English statesmen who reported on the national feeling to Henry VI1L, and especially by the acute and observant Sadler. The influence of the feeling was acknowledged in the later attempts at annexation, which were accompanied by engagements to preserve the old laws and customs of the country engagements which could not be taken with reliance from kings who were ever striving to cancel the charters con- ceded to their subjects of England. As yet we have come across no contest of class against class. It would be difficult to trace the history of any other part of Europe, through the same centuries, without finding this sort of testimony to the dissatis- faction of the people with the institutions among which they lived. In Scotland there was no Jacquerie no Wat Tyler or Jack Straw. Whether or not the Scots were, as some have held, subjected to a hard feudalism, their condition seems to have been congenial to them. High and low, they fought together, and were of one mind ; and it was only when the natural EDUCATION, 1350-1560. 107 leaders were supposed to have betrayed the country to the common enemy that there was variance between classes, and the peasant would no longer follow where his feudal chief would lead him. In almost all the periods of the history of Scotland, whatever documents deal with the social condition of the country reveal a machinery for education always abundant, when compared with any traces of art or the other elements of civilisation. Perhaps book-learn- ing is the first of the intellectual pursuits which an inquisitive and ambitious people take to, the others following in their turn. We have naturally no statis- tics of education which would be sufficient to afford an idea of the number of schools in the country, and the matters taught in each, even so far down as the Reformation. But in documents much older than the War of Independence, the school and the schoolmaster arc familiar objects of reference. They chiefly occur in the ehartularies of the religious houses ; and there is little doubt that the earliest schools were endowed and supported out of the superfluous wealth of these houses, whether with the object of supplying a body of scholars from which the Church might take its recruits, or in a general enlightened view of the O O blessing of knowledge to mankind. 1 In later times, schools are found attached to the burgh corporations. They got the name of grammar-schools, and we see from the way they are spoken of that Latin was taught in them. In 149G an Act was passed requiring, "through all 1 The casual notices of schools in the early part? of the ecclesiastical chartularies have been often cited. They will be found summed up in Innes's ' Sketches of Early Scotch History,' 134 et seq. 108 CONDITION OF THE NATION. the realm, that all baroiis and freeholders that are of substance put their eldest sons and heirs to the schools, fra they be aught or nine years of age ; and till remain at the grammar - schools until they be competently founded and have perfect Latin ; and thereafter to re- main three years at the schools of art and jure, so that they may have knowledge and understanding of the laws." The baron or freeholder who should fail in obedience to this injunction was to forfeit 20 to the crown. The forfeiture is to follow upon "knowledge gotten" of the failure a protective condition, since it must have been hard to prove "that the youth, if sent to school, had not got " perfect Latin." But, like many other Scots Acts, this one was in a great measure an exhortation from authority rather than a law to be rigidly enforced. We hear, at the commencement of the sixteenth century, of men acquiring distinction as mere school- masters a sure sign of the respect in which the teacher's mission was held. Among these were An- drew Simson of Perth, and John Vans of Aberdeen, who was so ambitious as to write a grammar of the Latin tongue, Ninian Winzet or Winyet, a distin- guished scholar, was master of the grammar-school of Linlithgow. As a member of the old religion, he was superseded at the Reformation. He went abroad to hold the high office of Superior of the Scots Convent of St James, at Ratisbon. 2 It does not appear to have been thought that the command over this eminent religious house was a startling contrast to the position of teacher of the grammar-school of Linlithgow. Ad- 1 Act. Parl., ii. 238. * See chapters iv. and xii. THE UNIVERSITIES, 1410-1560. 109 vancement it certainly was, but not to a dizzy eleva- tion. 1 But however powerful the school education of his time may have been, the Scotsman ambitious of acquir- ing the learning that went beyond the knowledge of languages must have sought it abroad, until the estab- lishment of universities in Scotland. Three universities had been founded in Scotland more than half a century before the Keformation St Andrews in 1 4 1 0, Glasgow in 1450, and Aberdeen in 1495. It may with truth be said that, in the history of human things, there is to be found no grander conception than that of the Church of the fifteenth century, when it resolved, in the shape of the universities, to cast the light of knowledge abroad over all the Christian world. The skill and energy brought to its completion were worthy of the greatness of the design. It was a thing altogether apart from the public-school system, which doles out 1 Winzet lamented the necessity that parted him from his old friends and accustomed pursuits. When addressing the " gentil reader," he says, " When I, for denying only to subscrive thair phantasy and faction of faith, was expelled and shot out of that my kindly toun, and fra my tender friends there, whas perpetual kindness I hoped that I had con- quest, by the spending about ten years of my maist nourishing age, naught without manifest utility of their commonwealth." His esti- mate of the office of the teacher seems worth noting, as the utterance of a Scots burgh schoolmaster of the time before the Reformation : " I judgeit the teaching of the youthhood in virtue and science, next after the authority with the ministers of justice, under it and after the angelical office of godly pastors, to obtain the third principal place most commodious and necessar to the Kirk of God. Yea, sa necessar thought I it, that the due charge and office of the prince and prelate without it, is to them, after my judgement, wondrous pain- ful and almost insupportable, and yet little commodious to the com- monwealth, to unfeignet obedience and true godlyness, when the people is rude and ignorant ; and contrary, by the help of it to the youthhood, the office of all potestates is light to them, and pleasant to the subject." Winzet's Tracts ; see Irving, ' Lives of Scottish AVriters,' i. 100. 110 CONDITION OF THE NATION. the rudiments of knowledge to the totally ignorant, giving them a little of it with calculated parsimony, as paupers are fed and clothed. The universities called on all the ardent spirits of the age to come and drink their fill at the great fountains of knowledge. Every- thing about the universities was on a scale of liberality, splendour, and good taste sufficient to adjust them to the habits of the aristocracy. Yet the poorest and humblest among the people the children of craftsmen and serfs were tempted to resort to them and partake of their munificence, on the condition of earnestly em- bracing the scholar's life and devoting themselves to the acquiring of learning. The university was to be the same in rank, and if possible in wealth and grandeur, whether it arose in the populous capital of some powerful state, or was planted in some distant region among a scanty people, poor and rude. It was to be the same at Upsala and Aberdeen as at Paris and Bologna ; the same at Greifswalde, on the flats of Pomerania, then but recently rescued from heathendom by the crusades of the Teutonic knights. Thus were there spread over the world organisations for tending and rearing learning wherever the Q-erms of it were to be found o o in youth with an aptitude and a will for study. It waa the fulfilment of the Church's mission to raise up an intellectual power fit to cope with brute force, feudalism, burgher wealth, and the elements of the material governing influences. Surely, too, it must have been seen by those enlightened churchmen who designed it, that it would prove an organisation to protect the world from the influence of superstition and priestcraft. THE UNIVERSITIES, 1410-1560. Ill In Scotland some curious relics of the ancient uni- versities are preserved ; but from England they were so effectually cast forth, that Cambridge and Oxford are in many things antagonistic to the spirit of the institu- tion. In these the original uniformity, with its broad liberal basis, has been eaten out, as it were, by the growth of internal corporations, rich, invidious, and engrossing, under the names of colleges, halls, inns, and entries. These are, doubtless, illustrious institu- tions ; but it is with another glory than that which gave lustre to the university of the fifteenth century. The tendency of their working is not to level material distinctions, and make knowledge all in all. They have got into the hands of the wealthy, who have made them the institutions in which they seek high tuition and all stimulants to scholarship for their sons. Vestiges exist of the old arrangements for securing those scholars who had not worldly means against the pressure of the sordid wants of life. But instead of tending to a general equality of position, as in the old literary republics, they only degrade the stipendiary student by contrast with the luxurious wealth sur- rounding him. Perhaps it has been from their poverty that the small universities of Scotland have been better custodiers of the traditions of the " universitas " or " studium generale " of the fifteenth century. In this the Scots universities are perhaps rather to be counted as interesting relics of a grand old policy, than as institutions responding to the spirit and the demands of the present day. However much we might desire it, we could not have a university in the old sense. The essentials of it were that it belonged not to a province or nation, but to the Christian world. The 112 CONDITION OF THE NATION. universities were a great conglomerate of co-operations, giving and taking among each other. The man who held a certain rank in one, held the same in all. The catholicity of the rank was not affected by national partitions, or even national conflicts. To make this reciprocity perfect, a head was necessary, and that was found in the Court of Eome. The Pope's bull was the conclusive writ establishing the university, and that franked it as a member of the university system stretching over the Christian world. In what- ever efforts there may have been to preserve the spirit of this communication by voluntary concession, England has had no part. Her university honours are her own ; and she neither acknowledges those of other kindred institutions, nor cares to take anything from them. The catholic spirit of the old universities was shown in the division of the students into groups, according to the nations or districts of the Christian world whence they had flocked to the seat of learning. These groups were called the Nations. Among vast assemblages, such as those congregating to the University of Paris, it is easy to understand that this division was of great moment. Each country, or group of countries, associated under one Nation, on the supposition that they had common local interests, had a corporate standing of its own, and was represented in general proceedings by its Procurator. In Glasgow and Aber- deen " the nations " still flourish and act, though their functions may perhaps be counted little better than a mimicry of those originally vested in the institution. There is a nobler remnant of the old spirit at the competition-table for bursaries at Aberdeen, where any man from any part of the world may step forward and THE UNIVERSITIES, 1410-1560. 113 sit down among the others; and if he be a better Latin scholar than his neighbours, may, by the rank which his exercise takes in the competition, carry off a pecuniary prize so solid, that it shall provide for all his needs while he sojourns at the university, obtaining there such a training in the higher walks of learnino- as it is o o o capable of supplying to him. These things have a place here because, as subsisting relics, they show us how thoroughly the Scottish uni- versities were part of the Catholic Continental system. If the Scots universities had any specialties, they were those of France, whence they came. King's College in Aberdeen was an exact model of the University of Paris. Its founder, Bishop Elphinstoue, had been a professor at Paris and at Orleans. Its first principal, Hector Boece, the friend of Erasmus, printed two editions of his celebrated History at Paris. A worthy effort seems to have been made to do credit to such companionship, both in the eminence of the men brought to the spot, and the amenities by which they were surrounded. As the enmity towards the monastic orders did not extend to the universities, the greater part of the original building still remains, retaining more of the seclusion appropriate to the cloister and the ancient retreat of learned leisure, than perhaps anything else in Scotland. It is perhaps from its remoteness that the thoroughly Parisian elements have there, in name at least, had a more tenacious life than with its neigh- bours. There is still the Chancellor. Of old he was the bishop of the diocese, according to the practice of the Continental universities a practice from which Paris happened to be an exception. There is the Rec- tor, chosen by the Procurators of "the nations," repre- VOL. IV. H 114 CONDITION OF THE NATION. senting the republican spirit of the institution. There are Regents, who are the governing body as of old, though they are now also the teachers. There are Deans, or doyens, a Principal, and a Sacristan. It is perhaps, however, in the humblest grade that we shall find the most expressive vestige of Parisian customs. The fresh student during his first session receives the name of Bejeant, from the Bejaune a class for whose protection from the snares by which they were sur- rounded many ancient regulations of the University of Paris make anxious provision. The Scots universities had privileges of exemption from the jurisdiction of legal tribunals, like their more populous and wealthy contemporaries. As it affected the universities in great Continental cities, to which students flocked by thousands, these exemptions represented a great policy, whether it was a wise one or not. The place dedicated to learning, and those abiding in it, were a separate independent state, with all the necessary machinery of government. The privilege did not end here, where its boundaries were distinct, but followed the denizens of the place when they went beyond its walls, creating inextricable entanglements with other authorities. The O great Continental universities enjoyed the countenance both of the civil and the spiritual powers, and carried their privileges with a high hand. In Scotland such instances of a government within a government did not fit easily into the national institutions ; and the universities, losing in their infancy, as it were, the protection of the Church, could not fight a strong battle for them. They did, however, occasionally fight for having them in their utmost purity, as they might be enjoyed in Paris or Vienna, Such contests, especially THE UNIVERSITIES, 1410-1560. 115 brought down as they were into the eighteenth century, are, when mixed up with the contemporary current of events, only incidental troubles overcome and forgotten. But when we connect them with the history of the great confederation of literary republics to which the humble universities of Scotland nominally belonged, they are curious relics of a great policy, intended to influence the whole Christian world. Whatever influences for good or evil these privileges may have had, it cannot be doubted that each of these universities was a centre of civilising or enlightening influences. In later times, plans for planting the apparatus of a high education in poor and remote districts have mortified their projectors by imperfect results or utter failure. For a long time, however, the Scots universities were a great success. They came just in time to serve the Reformation party, among whom there had arisen an ardent zeal for scholarship. Their opponents desired to be armed in like manner for the controversy. Hence it was that, during the latter half of the sixteenth century and the early por- tion of the seventeenth, the foreign universities swarmed with learned Scotsmen. They might be both teachers and learners, for the absolute distinction now estab- lished between the two grades did not then exist. The old-established staff of professors in the Scots univer- sities are called regents. The regents, as we have seen, were the governors or administrators of the several establishments, and were not necessarily or exclusively the teachers belonging to it. By later practice, how- ever, the regents monopolised the teaching, and regent and professor became generally synonymous. Of old, however, every graduate had the privilege of teaching. Il6 CONDITION OF THE NATION. Thus the Scot, having acquired such learning as his native university supplied, would pass over to foreign parts, and do his work teaching what he could com- municate, or learning what he desired to know, accord- ing to the condition of his means and motives. This gave to the Scots, cut off as they were from the natural brotherhood of their close neighbours of the same family, privileges of citizenship and community over Europe, the breadth and fulness of which it is difficult now to realise. CHAPTER XL. Condition of tje Ration from tjje 2Har of Inoepcntrcnce to tjjc information. (Continued?) SCOTTISH SCHOLARS THEIR EARLY FAME ABROAD COMMENCE- MENT OF NATIONAL LITERATURE THOMAS OF ERCILDOUN RISE AND PECULIAR CONDITIONS OF A PATRIOTIC LITERA- TURE BARBOUR, BLIND HARRY, WYNTOUN, FORDUN, BOWER, BOECE, MAJOR, BUCHANAN, LESLIE ' THE COMPLAYNT OF SCOTLAND' INFLUENCE OF THE PATRIOTIC LITERATURE DUNBAR, MONTGOMERY, AND THE OTHER POETS LANGUAGE OF SCOTTISH LITERATURE VESTIGES OF CELTIC LITERATURE PRINTING THE ARTS SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL AND BARONIAL REMAINS SHOW THE POVERTY FOLLOWING THE WAR, AND THE INFLUENCE OF FRANCE MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY EXPORTS AND IMPORTS MINING GOLD, SILVER, LEAD, AND COAL A SPANISH AMBASSADOR'S ACCOUNT OF SCOTLAND IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. IT was among the many misfortunes brought to Scot- land by her ceaseless struggle for national existence, that an excessive proportion of her intellectual affluence was given to foreign lands. This sacrifice was, no doubt, obvious to the founders of the universities, who thought there might be a fairer balance of trade in the matter of scholarship if their own country could com- mand quiet retreats for learned leisure, amid comfort, Il8 CONDITION OF THE NATION. the luxuries of the age, libraries, and good society. The earliest native of Scotland to gain a lasting fame in letters was John Duns, commonly called Scot or Scotus. At the time when Eobert Bruce was fighting at the head of the national party, John the Scot was teaching divinity and metaphysics in Paris and Cologne, and making to himself so brilliant a reputation that it might be a fair question for discussion whether or not he was the most illustrious intellectual leader of his day. In the religious world, he was the leader of the Fran- ciscans ; in the philosophical world, he was so much the author of Kealism that the school who opposed the Nominalists got from him the name of Scotists. Scotland at that time had work all too serious at home to participate in the intellectual treasures which her illustrious son was bestowing on the world. To trace in detail his history, and that of his countrymen who afterwards signalised themselves in the great republic of letters, would be away from the present purpose. Having taken note of him as foremost in the rank of a great body of men who made their country famous abroad, let us turn to such Scottish literature as had a home influence. Of this, even, there can be no room here for a full critical examination. It must sufiice that the conspicuous specialties, and chiefly those which had a peculiar national charac- ter or exercised a strong influence on national feel- ing, be noticed. Whether the metrical tale of Sir Tristrem belonging to the romance school which dealt with King Arthur and his knights was written by a Scotsman, is a ques- tion that has been discussed in a great critical contest. The author to whom Scott and others, who maintain its LITERATURE, 1280-1350. 119 Scottish origin, trace it, is Thomas of Ercikloun, or Thomas the Rhymer. His name was popular in Scot- land, and is still remembered. He had the fame not only of an epic poet or bard, but of a prophet, occupy- ing in his own country somewhat of the position held by Merlin in England, and afterwards by Nostradamus in France. All great national events all national cala- mities, especially such as the English invasions were reputed to have been prophesied by him in rhymes repeated by the people. When compared with the corresponding events, it was ever the specialty of the prophecies of " True Thomas " that they had been uttered in vain to a careless and credulous people, who culpably neglected the warning thrown out by the patriotic seer; yet it is hardly consistent with the logic of prophecy that it should preclude its own ful- filment. His fame was founded in other shapes. The wildest and strangest of the fairy ballads of Scotland are devoted to True Thomas, and his dealings in fairyland with the Queen of Elfin and other persons in authority there. It is, indeed, around his name that the great bulk of the fairy lore of Scotland is found to cluster. Thomas of Ercildoun was a real man; his name was Learmonth, and his property of Ercildoun has been traced in charters. He died a very old man, about the time when Edward I. was shaping his projects against Scotland, leaving by repute, as a legacy to his countrymen, a prophetic warning of the destiny in pre- paration for them. His name became known abroad as that of a rhymer or poet. 1 1 In the Epitome Bibliothecse Conradi Gesneri, piiblished in 1555, we have "Thomas Leinnont vel Ersiletonus, natione Scotus, edidit 120 CONDITION OF THE NATION. At the opening of the romance of Sir Tristrem there is mention of Ercildoun and Thomas. Some boy, or mischievous trifier, has, however, mutilated the pas- sage, by cutting out of it an illuminated letter on its reverse, little conscious, no doubt, of the exciting diffi- culty which the mutilation was to launch into the lite- rary world, in the decision of the question, whether Thomas was referred to as the author of the romance, or in some other capacity. 1 It may be said, however, of Sir Tristrem, and of the romance of Launcelot of the Lake, also attributed to a native of Scotland, that they cannot be counted national literature, in the more interesting shape in which we shall find it growing in later times. There is nothing of a national tone and there are no local allusions in Sir Tristrem, to give help to the argument that it was written by a Scotsman. King Arthur and his chivalry were the materials of a romance literature common to all Europe. To Thomas Learmonth it would have made no perceptible differ- ence in language and tone of feeling, had he lived on the south instead of the north side of the Tweed. It would be known to him only, if he was the prophet he was afterwards held to be, that a time would come when the people inhabiting his Ercildoun and the neighbouring glens would hate, with the deepest feel- ings of national hatred, their neighbours on the other side of the river. In the next stage of Scottish literature we find it rhythmica quaxlam, et ob id Rhythmicus apud Anglos cogriominatus est. Yixit anno 1286." This, with many other valuable notices, is not to be found in the Bibliotheca itself, only in the Epitome. 1 The substance of the discussion will be best read in Scott's edition of the romance, and in Price's edition of Warton's History of English Poetry. LITERATURE, 1350-1500. 121 animated by that hatred. On this account it is a lite- rature coming especially under the notice of the histo- rian, who, when he deals with it, has to regret that its coming was so long delayed. There is, indeed, a great gap in the home sources of Scottish history. It was about the year 660 that Adamnan wrote his Life of St Columba. Adamnan was not a native of Scotland, but he lived in lona, where he was abbot ; and what he gives us of Scots history, or national peculiarities, comes from one who was living in Scotland. We have nothing else written about the annals of the country, by one dwelling in it, until we come to John of For- dun, who wrote about the year 1350 six hundred years later. There is the Chronicle of Mailros, sup- posed to have been kept by the monks of that great Cistercian abbey. But during the period it covers, which is before the War of Independence, these churchmen were to be considered as Englishmen rather than Scotsmen, owing their spiritual allegiance to the successors of St Cuthbert. The history of Scot- land does not preponderate in the chronicle ; it re- ceives little more notice there than from the ordinary chronicles of the English monks. Our excessive poverty in this kind of literature is shown in the greed with which we seize on every crumb that reaches us from the affluent collection of English chronicles. We have first the help to be found in the writings of Bede, exceedingly precious, although they profess only to bear on ecclesiastical matters. They bear their value in their own internal evidence, and it is certified by the precision with which his narrative fits into that of Adamnan. The narra- tive of both is carried on in the chronicle attributed to 122 CONDITION OF THE NATION. Simeon of Durham ; and whether written by himself, or by another monk named Turgot, it is the work of one who lived and saw what was going on in the year 1100. It is from Ailred of Rievaulx and Richard of Hexham, as contemporaries, that we have accounts of Scots affairs at the time of the Battle of the Standard. For what of chronicle information we receive about the wars of Wallace and Bruce's time, we must still take the English chroniclers the Scalacronica, the Chronicle of Lanercost, Hemingford, Trivet, and Langtoft. The succession of chronicles kept by the monks of St Albans, and especially those of Wal- singham and Rishanger, contribute, out of their abun- dance, notifications about the affairs of Scotland of the utmost value to the gleaner of intelligence. It is, for instance, Rishanger who has preserved to us that signally interesting incident omitted in the English records that the community of Scotland had put in a pleading against King Edward's claim of superiority, while the nobles and the Church were silent. There are, besides these, Mathew Paris, Roger of Wendover, Florence of Worcester, William of Malmsbury, Henry of Huntingdon, and Mathew of Westminster. One might go on enumerating the English chroniclers to whom Scots history is indebted, but the process would only be a long list of names. 1 1 The treasury of English chronicle lore is so vast, that hitherto those best acquainted with it have shrunk from the gigantic task of estimating and analysing its resources, so as to let the outer world have a notion of what they are. A gallant effort in this direction was made by Bishop Nicholson in his three Historical Libraries. We owe much to the labours of Hearne, and not less for the chronicles edited by himself, than for his resuscitation of the memoranda of readings among the chronicles left behind him by that voracious devourer of parchment lore, Leland. Everything that has been done in this shape, however, will be totally LITERATURE, 13501500. 123 What it is of moment to remember is that, during ' O the several centuries when Scotland had no recorder of passing events, England had always one or more, con- temporary with the times of which he was the annalist. It is a necessary result of this that, during a period when she had her life-struggle with her great enemy, Scotland must take the account of her own conduct almost entirely from the side of that enemy. When Scotsmen began to write their own annals, they did so in a tone of vehement patriotism, inspired by the hot struggle not yet over. Barbour's Bruce was written about the year 1350, and Blind Harry's Wallace a full century later. We have seen something of the charac- ter of both works, in going over their historical ground. It may be questioned if either author reaches the standard of poetry according to the aesthetic notions of the present day; nor, indeed, did their task, as rhyming chroniclers, demand that they should. But the national feeling, burning within them, forces itself out occasionally in composition which has the dignity and power of the heroic. These passages may be counted as examples of the old Roman idea expressed by Juvenal in his first Satire, that strong passion comes forth in poetry. In the period between these two, we have another rhymer Andrew Wyntoun, the Prior of the Mona- eclipsed by the great work of Mr Duffus Hardy, the ' Descriptive Cata- logue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland to the End of the Reign of Henry VII.' Two volumes of this work have been issued, coming down to the year 1200. The service thus already conferred on British history can only be estimated by those who have gone to the book for practical assistance. The learning and sagacity concentrated in this service are on a scale reminding one rather of the Benedictines of St Maur, than of the common run of contribu- tions to En-dish historical literature. 124 CONDITION OF THE NATION. stery of St Serf, on an island in Loch Leven. His was an ambitious project a metrical history of the world from the creation to his own time. He has given so large a place to his own country in the general dis- pensation of human affairs that his work is virtually a chronicle of Scotland, burdened with a quantity of sur- plus matter, easily removed from the part really valu- able. Wyntoun is less poetic even than the others ; and, from the view which he took of his task, he would probably have been as little grateful for compliments to his poetic power as any historian of later times is to those who call him flowery and imaginative. To many of the metrical chroniclers, indeed, the use of rhyme rather served for restraining verbal luxuriance than for encouraging poetic licence. The couplet became the measure within which a distinct assertion or proposition had to be set forth. Wyutoun bands us over to the most characteristic class of early Scots authors those who wrote the com- plete history of their native land. The " Scotichroni- con," so often referred to in these pages, was written, down to the middle of the eleventh century, by John of Fordun ; and was thence continued, by Walter Bower or Bowmaker, Abbot of Inchcolm, down to the middle of the fifteenth century. Although it is usual to speak of the work as Fordun's Chronicle, yet the continuation, as coming from one who told of events, all of them nearer to, and some of them contemporary with, his own day, is the more valuable part of the work. In Fordun and Wyntoun we have the earliest detailed narrative of that fabulous history which has had so great an influence on Scottish literature, and even on political events. It owed its most egregious develop- LITERATURE, 1500-1560. 125 ment to Hector Boece, who added to the history of Scotland many wonders, some of which have been already noticed. Through his History two editions of which were printed in Paris the wondrous tale of the annals of Scotland got a hold on the European mind. It is noticeable that Hector Boece's narrative, wild as it would now be counted, was skilfully adjusted to the conditions of belief in his own time. In whatever savours of the supernatural, he deals w r ith far more caution and reserve than Geoffrey of Monmouth, the chronicler of the Anglo-British heroics, or Geoffrey Keating, the historian of Ireland. It is easy, indeed, on a comparison, to imagine a time when these would be dealt with as wild romances, while Boece's w r ork might be accepted as sober history. As credulity faded before advancing knowledge, however, there were others to adapt the tale of Scotland's ancient and glorious his- tory to the taste of the age. Even while Boece lived, the sceptical could find relief from his exaggeration in the sobered narrative of John Major, a doctor of the Sorbonne, with a European reputation as a commen- tator on The Sentences. But it was the splendid His- tory of Buchanan, welcomed by the learned world as the restoration of classic Latinity, that gave the his- tory of Scotland its strong position as part of the annals of mankind. If there were orthodox Romanists to question the tale of the brilliant heretic, there was his contemporary, the devout Bishop Leslie, telling in homelier Latin the same tale, and realising it by the actual portraits of Father Fergus and his descendants, worthily executed for the editions of his History pub- lished in the holy father's own capital of Rome. This community of testimony is characteristic of Scottish 126 CONDITION OF THE NATION. sentiment and conduct. There was hot controversy between Scotsmen then, and long afterwards ; but each party, however fierce in abuse of the other, stood up for the ancient dignity of the native land common to both. The fabulous history of Scotland, as we are now bound to call it, was brought into existence with a great national object. It was to vie with the equally fabulous history of England, and to establish a case for ancient independence, which might neutralise the story told by King Edward to the Papal Court about Brutus of Troy and his three sons. 1 The tenor of the case for Scotland was as follows : We are first introduced to an unfortunate division in the royal family of Greece at the period of Moses. It ended in Nicolas, King of Greece, sending his son Gathelus out of the country. The young prince went to Egypt, where he became attached to and married Scota, the daughter of that Pharaoh who was drowned in the Ked Sea. The young couple took to Avandering, and getting out of the Medi- terranean, they founded a state called Portus Gatheli, and now known as Portugal. At length they arrived in Scotland, and settled there. Long afterwards, Ptolemy, King of Egypt, sent ambassadors to Scotland, who were surprised to find how well the country, ruled by the descendants .of the Egyptian princes, adhered to the ways of the dwellers on the banks of the Nile. " They persaivet/' says Bellenden, in his translation of Boece, "the same writs, the same manner of writing, the same tongue, and the same habits and ceremonies, as was usit among the Egyptians." Some time elapsed, however, before the country resolved itself into a firm 1 See above, vol. ii. p. 318. LITERATURE, 1500-1560. 127 monarchy. It was about three hundred years before Christ that a descendant of Gathelus and Scota, named Fergus, reigned supreme. Descending from him, the "Fergus, father of a hundred kings,'"' there was an unbroken royal line. Malcolm Caumore, the first in whom we can now, from authentic sources, identify the attributes of a king of Scotland, stands in this dynasty as the eighty-sixth king. So skilfully was this story told that, in the modified version of Buchanan, it lived after the fabulous ele- ments were deducted from the history of England and of many other countries. Scotland received homage as the most ancient of European monarchies. After the union of the crowns, it was usual to distinguish Scot- land from her neighbour as "the Ancient Kingdom." The fabulous history had great political influence. A belief in the antiquity of the royal line had a consti- tutional effect in favour of the monarchy, which was valuable to those who ruled so restless and self-willed a people as the Scots. After the Revolution, however, it had a disturbing influence in favour of the Jacobite cause. The loss of the house of Stewart was believed to be the loss of the most august dynasty in the world a dynasty that raised Scotland in the scale of nations. In the thirteenth century, such a house as that of Guelph, with its legends of Roman ancestry, could only think of the Stewart of Scotland as the possible descen- dant of a Norway pirate, holding humble office under another, who, although he was called a king, had no nobler orioin. The connection with the Celtic house o of Riadha, which opened to it the succession to the throne, would hardly have given any legitimate lustre to the house of Stewart. The founding on such a 128 CONDITION OF THE NATION. connection might have carried little more than a ple- beian family of later times would gain by establishing a descent from an American cazique, or some question- able Oriental pasha. When the Hanover dynasty came over to reign in Britain, its best friends would not have measured its ancestral claims with those of the descendants of Fer- gus. It was not ancestral lustre, but respectability and political utility, that commended the new dynasty. Curious incidents of the picturesque in literature might be found in the rage with which the earliest doubts about the antiquity of the race of Fergus were received. The doubting went on for ages before it established disbelief, if it has even yet done so. The first malignant whisperings came from the English antiquaries Lloyd and Stillingfleet. The doubters were assailed with hearty goodwill by Sir George Mackenzie, in his Defence of the Royal Line of Scot- land. Sir George was then lord advocate. He seems to have thought that it became him, as the public prosecutor of offenders, to punish, in what fashion he might, those who threatened to abbreviate the line of his majesty's ancestry; and he hinted that, had the perpetrators lived within the country in which he exercised his powers, he might have felt it his duty to bring them to justice as political offenders against the crown. The peculiar character and influence of this special literature commend it to the consideration of the his- torian ; but it is not intended, on this occasion, to give more than a brief allusion to other departments of Scottish literature, which, in the eyes of the critic, might be equally or more important. With Major and LITERATURE, 1450-1560. 129 Buchanan there arose a school of Scottish authors in prose and verse who, addressing themselves to the learned world at large, wrote in Latin. These were but beginning at the period we have reached, and the bulk of their services belong to a later age. As a character- istic morsel of the patriotic literature of the country, we must include ' The Complaynt of Scotland,' printed in 1548, and proving itself to have been chiefly written while Henry VIII. was pressing on the country with cruel wars and treacherous offers of peace. Who was the author of this piece is matter of dispute. 1 The work is a prose pastoral, with a strong tinge of the practically political. Its writer is by courtesy a shep- herd. He thus belongs to the class best fitted to take a survey of human life at large, or any portion of it. They are not subjected to " the corrupt infection and evil air that is generit in ane city, where most con- fluence of people resorts;" but "we live on the fra- grant fields, where we are nourished with the most delicious temperate air, and there is neither hatred, avarice, nor discord among us." 5 For his meditative and reflective purposes he takes up his position with much picturesqueness : " I passed to the green wholesome fields, situate maist commodiously fra distempered air and corrupt infection, to receive the sweet fragrant smell of tender grasses, and of wholesome balmy flowers most odoriferant. Beside the foot of ane little mountain there ran ane fresh river as clear as beryl, whar I beheld the pretty 1 ' The Complaynt of Scotland ' was reprinted by Leyden, with a co- pious introduction, in which the question of the authorship is examined, along with much other matter suggested to that accomplished scholar by the matter of the book. 2 Ibid., 70. VOL. IV. I 130 CONDITION OF THE NATION. fish wantonly stcrtland with their red vcrmyl films, and their skails like the bright silver. On the other side of that river there was ane green bank full of rammel green trees, whar there was mony small birds hoppand fra busk to twist, singan melodious reports of natural music in accords of measure of diapason prolations, tripla and diatesseron, that heavenly harmony appeared to be artificial music." l The devious meditations which start so pleasantly, find a gloomy present in the country tortured by the harassing assaults of King Henry, and contemplate a gloomy future, only brightened up by exhortations to the author's countrvmen to take heart and fight out the / O battle of national independence to the last. The book is so saturated in classicalities, that any glimpses we have of the condition of the country have to be seen through a Greek or Roman medium, by which they are sadly distorted ; and at the points where curious in- formation might be expected, a grotesque mixture of modern purpose and ancient illustration comes in its stead. 2 1 < The Complaynt of Scotland,' 57. 2 So we have a parable of a cordinar or shoemaker from the internal contests in Rome, after the slaying of Julius Caesar : " He by gret subtlety nourised tvva young corbies in twa cages, in twa sundry hooses, and he learned them baith to speke. He learned ane of them to say, 'God save thy grace, noble victorious Augustus Caesar!' and he learned the tother to say, ' God save thy grace, noble victorious Emperor Anthonius ! ' Then this subtle cordinar set ane of his corbies that gave loving til Augustus forth at his window in the plain rue when he beheld any gentilman of Augustus allya pass or repass before his hous ; and siclike he set forth his tother corby at his window when he beheld any of the allya of Anthonius pass or repass before his house. The whilk thing he did to that effect that he might win the favour of Augustus, and not to tyne the favour of Anthonius. Of this sort he was like to the sword with the twa edges. Then when Augustus Caesar vanquished An- honius, and was peaceable emperor, this subtle cordinar presented the LITERATURE, 1450-1560. 131 There were several writers in verse who, aspiring beyond the mechanical rhyming of the annalists, aimed at true poetry. Such were King James I., James V., or whoever wrote the poems attributed to him, Henry- son, Dunbar, Montgomery, Bishop Douglas, and many others. 1 Those who, after overcoming the difficulties of the spelling, are able to enter into the spirit of their poems, are generally surprised, when remembering the tenor of the times in which they were written, by the tenderness and beauty of the sentiments, and the polished harmony of the versification. Their tone generally belongs to corby til Augustus, whilk gave him loving in her artificial speech, of the whilk Caesar was very glad, wherefore he gave to the cordinar fifteen hundred pieces of gold. But soon thereafter it was reported to Augustus Caesar that the said subtle cordinar had ane corby that gave as great loving to Anthonius. Then Augustus caused the said corby and the cordinar to be brought to his presence ; and when he persavit the cordinar was ane astute subtle fellow, and dissimulate, he gart hang him on ane potent before the Capitol, and his twa corbies beside him." P. 285, 286. The moral of the story is the folly of dubious councils, and the especial folly of temporising with the King of England, from whom nothing is to be gained or hoped. If he comes in war, let him be resisted ; if he comes with proffers of kindness, let them be suspected and flung back upon the treacherous giver. "War to the utmost, all men turning " special valiant defenders " of their native country, " is the true policy of Scots- men." " For as Thucydides says in the thirteenth chapter of his first beuk, quoth he, As it is convenient to honest and prudent men to live in peace when their neighbours does them no outrage nor violence ; siclike it is honest and convenient to virtuous men to change their peace, and rest in cruel war fra time that they have receivit outrage and violence from their neighbours. For the changing of ane dis- simulat peace into a cruel war shall be occasion for ane firm and faithful peace." P. 290, 291. 1 For a critical account of the productions of these early poets, see 'The History of Scottish Poetry,' by Dr David Irving, a posthumous work, edited from his manuscripts by his friend Dr Carlisle. Dunbar and Hen- ryson should be read in the accurate versions edited by David Laing, and with the aid of his valuable explanatory matter. Hopes are entertained that we may soon have the works of Sir David Lindsay dealt with after the same fashion, by the same accomplished hand. 132 CONDITION OF THE NATION. what in modern sesthetical phraseology is called sen- suous. There are descriptions extremely minute of real objects or real actions, and with these are connected, by the poet's skill, associations and sentiments touched with some passionate thought generally of a pensive kind. These early Scots poets draw largely on nature. They are full of descriptions of natural objects fresh waters, woods, flowers, and birds. In this dealing with the world of nature there is a notable peculiarity. The present tone of the literature of natural objects would lead us to expect that in Scotland a poet of nature would seek a topic suited to his genius in the mountain scenery of which the country has so many grand examples. We would expect something of the tone of which the poems of Ossian, as rendered by Macpherson, are so full. But the inner eye for these things had not been opened in the early Scots poets. They might have written what they draw from nature and rural life in the flattest parts of England, or in Holland. It is safe to say that, in all this school of poetry, there is not a single reference to mountain gorge or cataract as an object of poetic thought. There is one poem, indeed, that, in the character of a flagrant exception, proves the rule that these poets were in- capable of feeling sublimity or beauty in mountain scenery. In the Lament of Duncan Laideus there are pensive reminiscences of some tracts of Highland scenery much beloved at this day by tourists. Now Duncan Laideus was a robber and a cut-throat a leader of Highland cateran. He is supposed to utter his pensive recollections within sight of the halter. The spots his recollection fondly dwells on are the scenes of his robberies and murders, and the author LITERATURE, 1450-1560. 133 of the piece thought it good irony to make the man of horrible character talk with admiration and affection of those horrible places. 1 There were some satirists in this group of poets among these Sir David Lindsay stood unrivalled. Tliis is the class of poetry that most imperatively of all demands that, to relish its character, we should be con- versant with the nature of the times with the persons and the things on which it alights. Old Davy Lindsay was transcendently popular. We see the marks of his influence on the history of the times, and can understand how it was so, when we read his potent attacks on the abuses of the day. He was a consummate artist. His riotous wit seems to drive him before it ; but when his sarcasm is sharpened for a hit it never misses its aim, but strikes the victim right in the face. We have seen in the history of the Reformation some traces of his handiwork. The literary merits of Knox's works would claim a place here, were they not also referred to in connection with their political influence. It may be mentioned that in more than one quarter Kuox was charged with innovation on the old language of his country, which he corrupted by modern innovations. When put in a friendly shape, the import of the charge is that he improved the language of his country, as he reformed its religion; and it is a singular coincidence, that Luther has the fame of reforming the language of Germany, and Calvin of reforming the language of France. The language of this literature was fundamentally a pure Teutonic of the Anglo-Saxon family. It took 1 See the Lament in The Black Book of Taymouth,' 149. 134 CONDITION OF THE NATION. nothing, as we have seen, from the Celtic dialect spoken by the inhabitants of a great portion of the country the language of those who gave it the name of Scotland. The relations of Scotland with France were too super- ficial to affect the structure of the language, or even its vocabulary farther than in the supply of a few words, which avowed themselves to be foreign in the method of their use. The old Scots has less of classic admix- ture than the old English. This is one of the things that can only be stated as a general opinion taken from general reading. Where such things are matter of degree, there is seldom a means of coming to precise comparison; and here we have it, as a disturbing ele- ment, that in both countries some authors affected words of Greek or Roman origin more readily than others. That the Scots should have less of this element than the English, is in conformity with historical conditions. The Teutonic nations of the Continent admit no mixture of the classical if they have words of Greek or Roman origin, these are distinctly marked off as foreign. There is no doubt that the mixture confers an unexampled richness and subtlety on the English language, by giving the means of expressing abstract or spiritual terms with- out having recourse to the words used for the practical purposes of everyday life ; and affording a double nomenclature, which may be called the real and the ideal, as in the words "cleanness" and "purity;" in " age " or " oldness," as a different quality from " anti- quity," and the like. There cannot be a doubt that England took this, with so many other things distinctive of the English people, from the Normans, who brought with them the LITERATURE, 1450-1560. 135 language of the most eminent of the Latin races. "We have the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written in the purest of Teutonic while Norman-French was the language of the Court, and there emerges the English of later times enriched with words of classic origin stripped of their French garb. This, like the other novelties coming of Norman usage, spread but faintly into Scot- land, and so the language there remained nearer to the character of the old Teutonic stock. 1 It would be difficult to realise the difference in pro- nunciation between the languages of the two countries three hundred years ago, and were it conceived it could not be expressed. The living persons are very few who remember the separate language of Lowland Scotland as spoken by people of education and condi- tion. It lingered with a few living secluded lives in remote districts, yet holding a local position which put them above the necessity of compliance with in- novating fashions ; and those who have heard these lingering vestiges of a national tongue must ever retain an impression of its purity, force, and beauty. It was not the Eno-lish Ianpriam3 of the cultivated O O O classes of the present day; yet though distinct, it was not so far apart from it as the language of the un- 1 An interesting inquiry might be directed to the words belonging to the Scots but not to the English language, which are still used in any of the Continental Teutonic nations ; and to make complete results, the next question in each case would be, whether the word common to both was Anglo-Saxon, though it has ceased to be English. Every Scotsman travelling abroad feels that the pronunciation of the languages which have not admitted any classical mixture is more akin to his own than to the English. Three consecutive numerals in Scots will be almost sufficient to show this : sax, seyven, aucht. " Half audit " means half-past seven an idiom which Englishmen who have been in Germany will at once iden- tify both in pronunciation and idiom with one of the national oddities. 136 CONDITION OF THE NATION. educated iii Scotland, and for that matter in England too. 1 To this negative account it is difficult to add any- thing save further negatives. The spelling of old Scots, tried by the modern powers of letters, is not to be taken as a test of its pronunciation. All readers of old books are familiar with the eclecticism of their spelling how, even after the art of printing made a pressure on uniformity, the same word might appear on the same page in two, sometimes three, different spellings. Spelling varied more easily than pronuncia- tion ; and, apart from any such generality, it can be easily shown that the sounds expressed by letters used in both nations in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were quite different from the sounds expressed by the same letters in modern times. 2 1 It is fortunate that a man with capacity and patience for the task should have set himself to store up a record of the peculiar language of the Scots people ere yet it had entirely ceased to be spoken by the edu- cated. The Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language, by Dr Robert Jamieson, is of great value to the present generation, and pro- mises a value in the future to an extent not to be easily pre-estimated. 2 Of the language as used in literature, state papers, and some other kinds of documents, several specimens will be found in the preceding pages specimens, perhaps, all the more suited to afford a fair test of the character of the language, that they have not been selected with that object, but each for some separate purpose appertaining to itself. This opportunity may be taken for explaining the manner in which the author has rendered passages so cited, in the matter of spelling. Words which are especially Scots, -whether because they were never used in England, or have become obsolete there, are scrupulously retained. Of words still in use, however, the spelling in which they are found is not always employed. Those who must have literatim spelling do not trust to histories, but go to the earliest rendering in manuscript or print. For providing the reader with a notion of the words used, the original spelling would be very fallacious. Besides many instances in which it is likely that letters have changed their powers while spoken words have not, we know many instances in which the change in the power of the letter is certain. There are the well-known instances of j for i, and LITERATURE, 1450-1560. 137 It was not until the year 1507 that the art of printing came in aid of the national literature of Scot- land. It was brought in by Walter Chepnmn, under v for u and iv. The letter o had sometimes the sound of the diphthong ce with a leaning to the e, as where the pronoun she is written sho. Quh was used to express the sound of wh. Z was identical with our present y, and you, was spelt zou or zu. The Scots peasantry, in dealing with names, tell this to the present day. Thus where certain family names are spelt and pronounced by Englishmen thus, Mackenzie and Menzies, they are pronounced by the peasantry as Mackmyie and Jfenyies. So of places Cockenzie, Edzel Castle, and Culzean Castle, which are re- spectively called Cockenyie, Edyd, and Culyean. The dealing with the letter y itself is a specialty of a troublesome kind. It represents one of the last remaining of all the Gothic contractions, which made a theta in the alphabet, as representing the sound of th. This letter was very like the y, differing only in having the left limb elongated upwards, and a horizontal line from it to the other limb, making a triangle. When this remained as the last of the contractions, the printers of the sixteenth century began to use the y instead of it, whence came the well-known ye for the, and yat for that. As a specimen of the way in which the author thinks the spelling of these old writings may be changed with every chance of making it a better representative of the sound, the following passage is given as it is literatim printed by the scrupulous editor of the State Papers of Henry VIII. It is a passage of no great moment, taken from a letter by the widow of James IV., that Queen Margaret who was an English princess, yet spent the greater portion of her days in Scotland : " I haif resaiffit zour lettir be Mons. Gozolis wyth ane letter of ye lordis ; ye quhilk hes schawin me ye ordinance yat ze and yai haif maid, and how yai have prait and ordand me yat I sail nocht abide wyth ye kyng my sone, bott toctim quhilles and se hym. My lord, I thynk it rycht strange yat yis is zour will, seing ye gud and trew part yat I haif kepit to ye king my sone, and to zou, and to yis realme, and ye dis- plesure yat I haf had of ye kyng my broyer, my frendis, for zour part." The author thinks that the words used by the writer will be better rendered to the present generation thus : " I have receivet your letter by Monsieur Gonzales with ane letter of the lords ; the whilk has shown me the ordinance that ye and they have made, and how they have praid and ordaind me that I sail nought abide with the king my son, but to come whiles and see him. My lord, I think it right strange that this is your will, seeing the good and true part that I have keeped to the king my son, and to you, and to this realm, and the displeasure that I have had of the king my brother, my friends, for your part." State Papers (Henry VIII.), iv. 59. 138 CONDITION OF THE NATION. the favour of James IV., who, curious in shipping and other mechanical triumphs, seems to have felt much interest in the printing-press. Chepman, with an assistant who is supposed to have provided capital for their joint undertaking, got a grant of exclusive privi- lege, or letters-patent, as the document might have been called in England. It gave authority for print- ing the ritual books of the Church ; and through Chepman's press there is fortunately preserved to the present day the national service-book, elsewhere men- tioned as the Breviary of Aberdeen. 1 This book of church service, remarkable as a fine specimen of early printing, was, like the foundation of King's College in Aberdeen, due to the munificence of Bishop Elphinstone. When it was issued, copies of the 'Usum Saruni' were excluded from Scotland as contraband goods. Besides the national prayer-book, the Acts of Parliament and other works of public utility were referred to in the grant of privileges to the first printer as books likely to come from his press and to justify the grant of privileges. These were deferred until a later period. The earliest productions of the press in Scotland, so far as vestiges remain, were knightly legends, and the productions of Dunbar and other contemporary poems. 2 1 See chapter viii. 2 A volume of these, of which the only copy known is preserved in the Advocates' Library, was reprinted in facsimile by David Laing, with an instructive introduction. The reprint is an extreme rarity, as the impression was nearly all burned by a fire in the establishment where it was printed. The editor gives, in his introduction, the grant of exclusive privileges by the Privy Council, in 1507, to Chepman and his partner Millar. It is set forth that they, "at his majesty's request, for his pleasure, the honour and profit of his realm and lieges, had taken upon them to furnish and bring hame ane print, with all stuff LITERATURE, 1450-1560. 139 The later history of religion and education in the Highlands would not lead us to suppose that the press had early fruit in Gaelic literature ; yet of the liturgy commonly called John Knox's, a translation was print- ed for the use of the Celtic inhabitants of the Isles not long after it had been published in the vernacular. 1 This leads to the recollection that the language now and for long called Scotch is not the only language spoken in Scotland that indeed there is another, which, whether or not it be older in common use, is certainly older in literature. Any glance taken over the literature of Scotland at this period will naturally comprise that of the Low- lands only, omitting the Highlands as naturally as the critic of the Elizabethan period of English litera- ture passes by the Welsh bards and anything they have to say. That the sovereign state of Scotland took its name from that of the Irish Celts who colon- ised the country, and that these were the first to teach the art of writing and to spread learning and civilisa- tion through the country, had been buried under the eventful history of their Teutonic neighbours, who had gradually pressed them out of the districts available for agriculture into the rocky region of the west. That the despised Celt might treasure the remnant belonging thereto, and expert men to use the same, for imprint- ing -within the realm of the Looks of the laws, Acts of Parliament, chronicles, massbooks, manuals, matin-books, and partures, after the use of the realm, with additions and legends of Scottish saints now gathered to be eked thereto, and all other books that shall be seen necessary; and to sell the same for competent prices, by his majesty's advice and discretion, their labours and expenses being considered." Laing's Introduction to reprint of ' The Knightly Tale of Golagras and Gawane.' 1 Skene, Introduction to the Book of the Dean of Lismore, xxxviii. 140 CONDITION OF THE NATION. of the old heroic poetry sung in the days when his ancestors were civilised and those of the Lowlander were barbarian, was unlikely to occur to the scholars who studied in the French universities, or to the other leaders of opinion in Scotland, at the period we have reached. It is now known, however, that the traditions of the Irish mythical history, which supplied the skeleton of Macpherson's poems, existed at least down to the Eeformation. James Macgregor, Dean of Lismore, the ecclesiastical metropolis of Argyle, who lived nearly down to the Eeformation, left a written volume con- taining transcripts of poems preserved orally or other- wise among the Highlanders. They contained much vague reference to Highland affairs near their own time, and to obscure matters of monkish tradition which may have had a Highland local influence in their day. What gives them their chief interest, how- ever, is that they possess, at least in the names of the heroes who come forth in them, a conformity with those traditions which Irish scholars believed to be history, and out of w r hich James Macphersou made his noble poems. It would be hard to conceive that in the language they were translated from, or in any language into which they could be put, the legends preserved by the Dean of Lismore could take shape as poetry. The tenacity, however, with which the origi- nal Irish legends, and especially the notion of a great conquering and regenerating king called Fin or Fian, have been thus preserved, is an interesting feature in ethnology, if not in literature ; and it is satis- factory to consider that ' The Dean of Lismore's Book ' has been given to the present age with everything ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE, 1350-1560. 141 that Highland zeal and Celtic scholarship could do for it, 1 All that can be said of the condition of early art in Scotland comes within narrow compass, but tells an impressive history. A country possessing the means and the skill to raise edifices of stone, or even of brick, is likely in them to leave the clearest testimony to its condition, unless it has advanced so many stages farther in civilisation as to leave a treasury of literature and art. Scotland, before she had many other means of telling her condition to later ages, had buildings eccle- siastical and baronial. These afford, perhaps, but a narrow source of information ; but it is, so far as it goes, distinct and complete. We have seen that, down to the opening of the war, many noble churches had been built. They followed or accompanied the pro- cession of the same class of buildings in England. First we have the round-arched Norman the tran- sition stage between classic, and Gothic or pointed architecture. Next comes the earliest type of pointed architecture, which proves its origin by the name it has been longest known by the Early English. In the estimation of many this is the noblest style of Gothic architecture the true type of the school, be- side which all others are to be held either as the imperfect development or the degeneracy. Its leading character was the aspiration after loftiness, by a tend- ency to height rather than breadth in all its features, the spirit of the pointed arch ruling the whole. It was frugal in decoration, trusting more to the general influ- 1 ' The Dean of Lismore's Book, a selection of ancient Gaelic poetry,' edited by the Rev. Thomas M'Lauchlan, with an introduction by William F. Skene. 142 CONDITION OF THE NATION. cnce of size and structure. The buildings of this style were lighted by separated, long, narrow windows, termi- nating in the characteristic pointed arch. When the Gothic shifted out of this solemn simplicity into the next style, called the second-pointed, the most re- markable type of the change was the grouping of these long, solemn, simple windows together, so as to bring them into a structural connection ; and next, by nar- rowing and decorating the separations between the openings, to resolve the line of solemn, separated, pointed openings into the large Gothic window of a later age, in which groups of lights were intersected by narrow stonework, according to the varied fantastic shapes which every one is acquainted with in a mul- lioned Gothic window. It is useful to note the facts of this transition, be- cause they interpret the historical testimony which the ecclesiastical remains of Scotland furnish to us. We have seen that there yet exist noble specimens of the Norman. There are vestiges of early English on a yet greater scale ; but after this stage in the transitions of Gothic building, the Scottish specimens become dis- tinctly impoverished. It was but a short time before the War of Independence that the early English type shifted to the "second-pointed" in its own country, Eng- land ; it may have been a generation later in travel- ling to Scotland. We may count that it took no root there before the war, and that the struggle for national life found the Scots expending their wealth on build- ings raised in that noble style of architecture which they had borrowed from their good neighbours on the other side of the Tweed. Judging from existing remains, the greatest Gothic ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE, 1350-1560. 143 buildings Scotland ever had were the three cathedrals of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Elgin. In each of these the architectural forms which Scotland copied from England are so predominant as to fix the type of the building instances of the styles of other periods are incidental adjuncts. What we know of the history of the buildings agrees with the story told by their frag- ments. The consecration of the completed Cathedral of St Andrews followed close on the battle of Ban- nockburn, and was in some measure an act of com- memorative homage to St Andrew, the patron saint of Scotland, for that goodwill to the cause of his devo- tees without which they might not have been vic- torious. The cathedral had been upwards of a hundred years in building, and was probably almost completed before the war began. The remains of Elgin give us very beautiful speci- mens of the early English style. The later work on this building is, in comparison with these old massive fragments, scanty and meaningless. We know, how- ever, that the cathedral had to be rebuilt, as it was said, after its destruction by the Wolf of Badenoch ; and perhaps its condition in the earliest representations we have of it, about a century and a half ago, give it much as he left it the later work having decayed through time, while the more massive masonry of the early English survived alike his burning and the wasting influences to which the fabric was subjected from the Reformation downwards. Glasgow Cathedral is the only eminent Gothic building in Scotland still in good preservation. The whole tone of the building and the fundamental parts of its structure are early English, what there is of the 144 CONDITION OF THE NATION. succeeding stage being secondary detail. We hear of the completion of the building during the War of Independence. Wishart was at that time Bishop of Glasgow. We have seen his name in curious shapes connected with the attempt to subdue Scotland ; and his title of the "Warlike Bishop'' is in harmony with the charge against him, that having been licensed by King Edward to cut timber for the completion of the wood-work of the cathedral, this timber he employed in the construction of instruments of war for the siege of the Peel of Kirkintilloch, then held by the English. The second English stage of Gothic architecture, that of second-pointed, had spread to Scotland before the war, but it was not long enough coeval with the fortunate period of the country to produce any great edifice. We owe to it only a change in the later works of the great remnants, and a few secondary buildings. There is visible, to any one who looks at the remains of Scots ecclesiastical architecture, a distinct gap. The war did not at once stop church-building. The finish- ing touches were given to the great buildings planned and nearly completed, and small buildings arose here and there. But there was a collapse, which lasted so long that, when the country was again able to raise costly churches, the national taste and ways had wan- dered far away from companionship with England. Foreign types came to predominate ; and while the ecclesiastical architecture of Scotland down to the war was identical with that of England, the school which succeeded it was as different from the contem- porary method of church-building in England as any other foreign style might be. The only ecclesiastical building in Scotland that in ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE, 1350-1560. 145 magnificence can be compared to those either entirely or nearly completed when the war broke out, is the far-famed church of Melrose Abbey. It was a very ancient convent, and buildings of some sort had be- longed to it as long ago at least as the earliest speci- mens of Scots church-architecture extant. The Cis- tercian monastery there was a favourite of the great King Robert Bruce, who largely endowed it. When he thus added to its wealth there were, doubtless, the ordinary monastic buildings and a church there, though probably at some little distance from the present ruin. It was, however, some hundred and fifty years after his day ere, from the rents of his endowments and their other wealth, the fraternity were able to build their beautiful church. Perhaps Scotland was then becom- ing rich enough to multiply such examples of archi- tecture ; but the Reformation was not in favour of the development of Gothic architecture, and wealth had no farther opportunity of displaying itself in that shape. Before Scotland had so far recovered from her de- pression as to be able to raise distinguished buildings, the style of her church-architecture had long ceased to come from England, and had, indeed, gone into a direction which separated the two from each other by fundamental differences. The best means of briefly estimating the character and extent of the divergence will be by comparing the ecclesiastical architecture of England and Scotland at the time of the Reformation. The style then prevalent in England was called the Tudor, but it has had other names, such as the " per- pendicular " and the " depressed." Among eminent specimens of this style are Henry VII.'s Chapel and Christ Hospital Chapel in London, the Chapel at Wind- VOL. IV. K 146 CONDITION OF THE NATION. sor, and Christ Church Hall and Brazen Nose College in Oxford ; but in fact it abounds throughout England in specimens great and small. The contemporary style in Scotland was an adaptation of the French flam- boyant, a school utterly at variance with the specialties of the Tudor. In the larger features of the latter, straight lines, horizontal and perpendicular, predomi- nate. The mouldings and other decorations, including especially the mullions of the windows, have a ten- dency to geometrical division by angles and straight lines. On the other hand, the French flamboyant, sometimes called the florid, luxuriates in curves, and has a tendency to throw out from a centre, or an upright line, a symmetrical design coming out in curves, which return as loops to their starting-point after having thrown out lateral curvilinear tracery, the process going on to any extent. To take a very common form of this process the centre of the design is parallel to the spring of the arch of a pointed Gothic window, and of course midway between the two sides. If all round this point there are grouped curved or loop- shaped departments of the window, they will be narrow towards the centre and will broaden outwards ; hence comes the flame shape of the tracery of the windows which has given to the style the name of flamboyant. Fair specimens of this style may be seen in the Cathedrals of D.unkeld and Brechin, the Church of Linlithgow, and the Chapel of King's College in Aberdeen. It will perhaps afford a more distinct notion of di- vergence from English practice to speak of what is to be found there in abundance, and is not to be found in Scotland. The arch of the Tudor period is peculiar to BARONIAL ARCHITECTURE, 1350-1560. 147 England. It is neither circular like the Roman and Norman arch, nor pointed like the Gothic of the first and second periods. It is from the peculiarity of the arch that the style has been called the depressed Gothic ; and to those unaccustomed to it, an arch of this type is apt to justify the term by suggesting that it had been originally pointed, but that the superincum- bent weight had pressed on it on either side, and given a horizontal curve to the ribs of a pointed arch. This form has another name the four-centred arch, because the variation in the curve requires that on either side it should be drawn from a double centre. This arch is abundant all over England, in buildings both baronial and ecclesiastical : there is probably no English county in which it is not the conspicuous and characteristic feature of several buildings. In Scotland it may be said that it is unknown ; if there be a single instance of it, that instance must be an exception of mark. 1 These facts suggest two inferences. The one that, for many generations after the War of Independence, Scotland had not wealth enough to raise ecclesiastical buildings on the scale of those completed, or nearly completed, when the war broke out. The other is that, when the country was again rich enough to spend 1 Of course an old exception is supposed. In the attempts at the restoration of Gothic architecture in Scotland, this and all the other features of the Tudor type are common. There can be no objection to this ; the style has its merits, and if any modern architect can produce a building vying with Henry VII.'s Chapel, it should be thankfully ac- cepted, without consideration for the ethnical history of the style. It is provoking, however, that restorations of buildings of thoroughly Scottish type have often been made in this style. St Giles's, in Edinburgh, is a flagrant instance. There are windows of the four-centred arch in King's College Chapel, in Aberdeen, which the Author might admit to be the exception he anticipates above, had he not himself seen them let into the wall. 148 CONDITION OF THE NATION. money in this shape, it was no longer England that she sought as her teacher in architecture, but France. The same conclusions are shown by the remains of baronial or castellated architecture, and perhaps even more emphatically. We have seen that there is in Scotland no known remnant of the Norman school the method of castle-building, from the Conquest down, let us say, to the reign of Henry III. The oldest exist- ing castles in Scotland belong to the succeeding period, known in England as that of the Edwards. As these are the oldest castles in Scotland, so also they are the most magnificent. Not even Tantallon, Glammis, or Craigmillar, the greatest efforts of any later age, can vie with them. A general mystery hangs over them. We do not seem to have means of knowing, as to any one of them, what particular lord of the soil it was who had it built. The remains of some of them stand on the possessions of the Norman houses which were so eventfully connected with Scotland those, for instance, of Corny n and Bruce. But it would be difficult posi- tively to contradict any one who should maintain that they were all built by the English invaders. The structural history of this noble class of buildings can be traced step by step from the simple square tower of the Conqueror's reign. It has been the natural growth of European fortification to expand into flanking works. At the period of the War of Independence, castles had so far developed in that direction that they consisted of great walls or screens flanked by strong round towers. In England the process of expansion went on down to the Vauban fortress, spreading over an expanse of country. In Scotland the expansion suddenly stopped ; nay, more, castle-building went back to the simple BARONIAL ARCHITECTURE, 1350-1560. 149 square tower, which was a novel feature in England two hundred years earlier. The two were so much alike that strangers taking a cursory tour in Scotland have returned with the impression that the country contains a great many Norman keeps. A close in- spection, however, shows distinctions which to the adept are conclusive. The details of the Norman castles are in the style of work still called Norman the transition between the Roman and the Gothic. The Scots square towers show the work of the four- teenth or fifteenth century, and in their general masonry are inferior to the oldest English castles. Among the square towers so large as to be mistaken at a distance for Norman keeps may be counted Clack- mannan, Borthwick near Edinburgh, Melgund in For- farshire, Niddry in Linlithgowshire, Hunting-tower near Perth, and many others. The same class of work, how- ever, was repeated in smaller shapes. The country was in one sense amply fortified. The buildings were meagre, significant of the limited means of impoverished builders, but they were very numerous. Many of them, indeed, though for accommodation and the means of O domestic comfort they would not have in England been admitted to the rank of yeoman's granges, were still strong fortresses. The peel or bastle-house, which spread a considerable exterior before the eye, would contain three, perhaps only two, small chambers mere cells let into a solid mass of masonry. These humble fortresses were naturally numerous on the border. Along the banks of the streams they may there be seen at short intervals, more or less in ruins. They are the only remnants of old buildings designed for human habitation in that district. In the border towns, such ISO CONDITION OF THE NATION. as Hawick, Roxburgh, and Kelso, the absence of old houses is observable, and at once accounted 'for by the recollection of the many burnings by the English invaders. The necessity of some flanking work for these square towers seems to have been soon felt, and the impover- ished owner supplied it in an economical shape credi- table to his ingenuity. Instead of attempting to run up from the ground flanking round towers like those of the Gothic castles, he perched turrets or machicola- tions on the corners of the top of the tower. Generally there was one on each corner ; but sometimes the laird had to be content with two, which, if placed at oppo- site angles, would serve to flank the whole four sides of the square block. Before the time we have reached, the country had been recovering from its prostration, and acquiring the means for enlarged efforts in this and in other direc- tions. It did not, however, follow the example of Eng- land; but, as in church-architecture, took its models from friendly France. The spiral character of the French chateau-architecture is well known. It had begun to appear in Scotland, but its full development there was in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Even already, however, it touched the grim square tower with relieving features. The spiral roof of the French flanking tower was set on the corner machico- lation, and by the clustering of ornamental chimneys, and other devices taken from the same source, a certain rich variety was given to the top at least of the old peel tower. Had the houses of the gentry been subject to the influence not of the French chateau but of the English hall and mansion style, known as the Tudor, ART, 13501560. 151 the internal condition of Scotland would not have admitted of such a method of building. It was one incident to a country where there was a strong central government keeping internal peace. The English squire could turn his castle into a mansion two hundred years before the Scots laird could imitate his example. Some of the royal residences partook in the profusely decorative character of the Renaissance; remnants of it may still be seen in Stirling, Linlithgow, and Falkland. Among feudal castles, the only one that now preserves the ambitious design and extensive decoration belong- ing to the period which followed the pointed Gothic, is Crichton Castle, the stronghold of that Chancellor Crichton who had a struggle for supremacy with the Douglases in the reign of James II. In its "stony cord," with "twisted roses laced," its "courtyard's graceful portico," and the "fair hewn" facets rising row on row above the cornico, it stands in signal contrast to its grim square neighbour Borthwick. Among the few other instances of ambitious decora- tion on the buildings belonging to subjects in that early period, the best specimens are to be found in a spot where one would hardly expect to find such things the village of Maybole in Ayrshire. This, however, was the ancient capital of the bailliary of Carrick, the domain of the Bruces ; and within it the Lord Cassilis, the hereditary bailie, and the other magnates of the district, had their hotels or town residences, and formed a little court by themselves. We know nothing of the personal history, or even the identity, of the architects who planned the palaces, the ecclesiastical buildings, or the feudal castles of the day we cannot even tell whether they were foreigners 152 CONDITION OF THE NATION. or natives. 1 We can only suppose, from other condi- tions, that Scotland had not within herself sufficient art to compass the finer work in the palaces and churches, and that it was done by foreigners. The mason must go to the spot where the work of his hand is to remain ; and whatever was to be wrought in stone by foreigners must have brought them to Scotland. We have no testimony to the practice of the portable arts, as they may be called painting and sculpture in Scotland, within the early period now in view, unless we may count some illuminations on manuscripts made in the cloisters as specimens of art. The carved wood- work of the churches, and the beautiful oaken sculpture in the Palace of Stirling, known as "the Stirling heads," were doubtless foreign work. Perhaps the finest piece of carved work, both for beauty of Gothic design and practical finish, existing in the British Empire, is that of the screens, stalls, and canopies in King's College Chapel in Aberdeen ; but it is a testimony to the comparative richness of the Church and her zeal for education, rather than to the progress of national art. While thus artificially destitute and dependent on others for these physical fruits of intellectuality, Scotland was in other departments of intellectual work giving far more than she got. The contrast is a curious exemplification of the conditions necessary to the prosperity of what are called the fine arts. The stuff that made those great scholars and rhetoricians who rendered Scotland illustrious abroad, could have also given inspiration to the painter, the sculptor, and 1 See the observations connected with the violent death of Cochrane the mason in King James III.'s reign. TRADE, 1350-1560. 153 the architect; but these could only grow in a soil pre- pared for them by peace and prosperity. About the material progress of the nation during the three hundred and fifty years since the War of Inde- pendence, there is little to be said. Much of stirring life as we have during that long period, there occur no instances of impulse given to trade, manufactures, or the other producers of wealth. We have seen that at the outbreak of the war the elements of wealth and comfort were noticeably large. The impression left on more than one of those who have mused over such testimony as can be had from the records of this long period is, that though Scotland had somewhat recovered from deep depression, the country was not so rich at the time of the Reformation as the long war found it. France gave facilities of trade to her ancient ally, by exemption from customs duties, and otherwise ; but the opportunities so offered seem to have met but a languid co-operation. In foreign places where the Scots had a commercial treaty, it became the practice to appoint a " conservator of privileges," whose function resembled that of the consul of the present day ; the office, in one instance at least, remained as a sinecure after its uses had come to an end, and even been forgotten ; and John Home, the author of Douglas, was provided for as " the conservator of Scots privileges at Campvere." There is extant the record of transactions or ledger of Andrew Haliburton, conservator of the Scots privi- leges at Middleburg. It runs over ten years from 1493 to 1503. 1 He seems to have been himself as 1 This is likely to be the earliest of the collection of " chronicles and memorials " relating to Scotland to be issued under the auspices of the Lord Clerk Register. 154 CONDITION OF THE NATION. many consuls now are an agent or dealer in mercantile transactions. The aspect of his book does not assure us of an active intelligent commerce, conducted with the newest arrangements for facilitating business. Book- keeping had advanced so far in practice among the Geno- ese and Netherlands merchants, that daring the period of Haliburton's transactions it had been systematised in a literary treatise. But he has none of it. Further than that there is a separate statement of transactions with each of his employers or correspondents, there is no analysis, with corresponding figures, to enable the state of his business to be posted up. Each account is a history, the money equivalent being stated in Roman figures, and of course supplying no means for arithme- tical adjustment. Were one to judge by comparing his accounts with those of the lord chamberlain so far back as 1263, it might be inferred that in the interval there had been no improvement in account-keeping. The transactions are narratives. From these he might have told any correspondent which of the two was the other's debtor, and for how much; but he could not have wrought out his own pecuniary position, by making up anything approaching to the nature and services of a balance-sheet. 1 The goods he receives from Scotland, 1 Of book-keeping as an exact art, which gives no more expression to the success or failure of the transactions recorded in it than so many algebraic formulas, the conservator had so little conception that his entries of pecuniary payments and receipts bear marks of the joys or griefs associated with them. Having to record a hopeless balance against a correspondent, which a modern book-keeper would perhaps "write off" into the limbo of bad debts, he puts a note, " God keep all good men from such callants ! " and of another hopeless customer he notes, " He mansworne me with evill malyssious langag ; and to be quyt of hym in tym to cum, I gaf hym a hayll quittans, and whyll I lyff never to deal with him." P. 269. MINES AND METALS, 1350-1560. 155 and sells abroad, are all raw produce salmon, herrings, hides, furs, and wool. It would be difficult to find in his record any article of Scots handiwork, farther than that the wools may have been sorted, since they are of various quality. The fish must have been cured for keeping, and the hides probably tanned. He sends back wine, with spices and other articles, now called colonial produce, evidence that Scotland bought these things from the Continental merchants instead of im- porting them from the place of production. On this side of his transactions are textile fabrics and other manufactures. It is observable that a large proportion of the goods he sends to Scotland are for churchmen, in the shape of books of devotion, sacerdotal robes, reliquaries, images, and the like. Thus we see that the large revenue drawn by churchmen from the land made the supply of their professional and personal wants fill up a great proportion of the traffic of the country a certain sign of the narrowness of its trade. The mineral riches of Scotland were so far sought that we can trace a small export trade in metals. We have seen that gold belongs to the geological forma- tion of Scotland. Down to the period we have reached, it seems to have been from time to time found disintegrated from the rock. Bishop Leslie describes the streams of the Lanarkshire heights carrying so much of it in the gravel brought down by the floods, as if each were a very Pactolus ; but he makes a significant admission in telling us that the sifting of this gravel for gold is the occupation of the poor. 1 1 De Origine, &e., 11. The 'Scotiso Uescriptio,' in which such matters are mentioned, has no counterpart in the vernacular history by Leslie, often referred to above. 156 CONDITION OF THE NATION. Among the Acts passed in the busy Parliament held by James I. when he returned from England, gold and silver mines were made the property of the crown, " as is usual in other realms." The form of the Act is peculiar, as being an offering of this prerogative to the crown by the lords of Parliament. At the same time a duty was laid on all gold and silver exported from the realm. 1 At the time when Henry VIII. was casting greedy eyes on Scotland, the richness of the gold-fields of the country seems to have been an object of con- sideration, as affecting the value of the proposed plun- der. Wharton sends a specimen of " gold coined in Scotland, the time of Duke Albany being there," from nuggets found on Crawford Moor, and says, " If it shall so stand with the king's majesty's pleasure, I shall cause the ground to be seen without suspicion thereof, and the manner and order of the work, as the same hath continued and at this present standeth, and shall make certificate thereof accordingly." But Whar- ton seems to have taken too sensible a view of the affair to stimulate much hope of riches from such a source. Sir Adam Otterburn told him how James IV. " made great work upon the moor, and all that he did find was gold in pieces loose in the earth, and never could find any vein thereof ; and, as he said, the charges of workmen surmounted the value of the thing gotten." '" Lead was extracted, at a very early period, in the district of the present Wanlockhead mines. The method of separating any portions of silver that might be in the matrix of lead must have been early in use, 1 Act. Par!., ii. 5. 2 State Papers (Henry VIII.), v. 575. FOREIGN NOTICES, 1435-50. 157 as the royalty established in favour of James I. applies to those mines where " three halfpennies of silver may be found out of the pound of lead." Whenever any names come up in connection with mining operations, they generally belong to Englishmen, Germans, or Dutchmen. 1 About the time we have reached, a con- tract was entered on for giving a foreigner the work- ing of the lead mines, on the condition of his sending a certain amount of silver to the royal cunyie-house, coin-house or mint. 2 That there was iron in Scotland was known at an early age ; but there are but faint, if any, traces of its having been wrought, and there is nothing until long after the period we have reached to show that the country was conscious of the enormous source of wealth it contained in this shape. Coal was used, but probably only found where it cropped out on the surface of the soil. We are told of its use, and of other customs, by an eminent observer, known to literature as ./Eneas Sylvius Piccolomini, and to history as Pope Pius II., who visited Scotland in the year 1435, to transact business about some obscure affair of ecclesiastical patronage. The notes left by such visitors are naturally considered very precious ; but we may find, as on this occasion, that there is not much of distinct truth to be gained from their appreci- ation of the broad social conditions of a country. In 1 See several details about early mining, picked out of charters and other documents, in Chalmers's Caledonia, iii. 733. 2 " Herefore we bind and oblige us faithfully to the queen's majesty, and her said treasurer in her name, to deliver to her grace's cunyie-hous, betwix this and the first day of August next to cum, forty-five unce of utter fine silver for every thousand stanewecht of the said twenty thou- sand stanes of led-ore." The Discoverie and Historic of the Gold Mynes of Scotland, by Stephen Atkinson, Appendix, 88. 158 CONDITION OF THE NATION. his judgment regarding feminine modesty and decorum in Scotland, lie utterly contradicts, at least in essen- tials, another observer, Don Pedro de Ayala, who a few years afterwards had fuller opportunity of notic- ing the social conditions of the country. Piccolomini tells what we can easily believe very noticeable to an Italian belonging to a distinguished and wealthy family that the country was very poor ; that many houses in it were built without lime, and roofed with turf ; and that the towns were not fortified. He says something much more distinct to the interests of the present day, when he reports, to his own special audience, a practice of the Scots, which he gives with the exactness of a man who knows that he is telling truth to the incredulous. He finds, among the other poverties and barbarisms of these Scots, that they dig out of the earth a mineral of sulphurous quality, and use it as fuel. He tells, with the misgiving of a man who scarcely expects to be believed, how he first noticed the value set on this black mineral. He observed that the half-naked beggars at the church doors received portions of it as alms, and went away thankful. It is, on the whole, treated compassionately, rather than otherwise, that a people should be reduced to the use of so sordid a fuel. He notes that the country is tree- less. Perhaps it was so in the district of the south, which alone he saw. He would have both reason and opportunity for observing the bareness of the ten long miles of country over which he walked twice bare- footed on the frozen ground on a pilgrimage, though that district is now thickly wooded. 1 The Highlands, on the other hand, were covered with native forests, 1 De Europa, Sylvii Opera, 443. See above, iii. 35. FOREIGN NOTICES, 1490-1500. 159 which have been destroyed in later times. John Major, who was acquainted with other countries, mentions the dense forests of the Highlands, or Caledonian Alps, enhancing their inaccessible nature. Hence came a significant element in the distinction between the two races inhabiting the land the Saxon Lowlander delv- ing the ground, and striving to extract nourishment from the sterile soil on which his lot was cast; the mountaineer hiding in the deep forests which clothed his mountains, and issuing from fastnesses nearly inac- cessible, to plunder from time to time his industrious neighbour. Although it has been noted, as a general impres- sion created by the tenor of the Author's reading, that Scotland was not so rich at the Eeformation as at the beginning of the War of Independence, it is proper to note that there was one period of evidently rapid prosperity in her annals. This was during the reign of James IV., when the Wars of the Eoses kept the national enemy busy at home. We have seen how, in that reign, Scotland obtained a considerable diplo- matic position among the European powers, and how an ambassador from the proud monarchs of Spain was observing, with close interest, the turn of Scottish politics. We have seen his picturesque description of the King of Scots transmitted to his own court. He reported at the same time on the institutions of the country its agriculture, its trade, and in some measure on its social conditions and customs. He writes as one who had found on his mission a powerful and prosper- ous community, with which it were better to be in alli- ance than at war. On the sources of revenue he says, " The import duties are insignificant, but the exports 160 CONDITION OF THE NATION. yield a considerable sum of money, because there are three principal articles of export that is to say, wool, hides, and fish. The customs are worth about 25,000 ducats a-year. They have much increased, and will continue to increase." This revenue on exports would some fifty years ago have been denounced by the prevalent school on the economy of trade as a gross folly, leading to certain national ruin ; but the later school of political economy has left import and export duties pretty nearly on a balance against each other. The ambassador reported to his court on many matters coming under his notice in Scotland. From his Spanish training, even had he cultivated the faculty of observing political institutions at the Court of the Emperor or at Paris, he was not likely to form a clear notion of the political and social condition of such a country as Scotland. In the dearth, however, of notices of the country from without, his should not be thrown away. They want the -coherence which might be given to the facts coming under his notice, if we had them now as he got them. In some things, too, he has been mistaken ; and his estimate of the force of mounted men available for war in Scotland is so pre- posterous that we must suppose it to have come of a slip of the pen. Without seeing a way to anything more precise or instructive by way of commentary upon the following passages, they are given as they stand in the report on the Court of James IV. and the people of Scotland, in the year 1498, sent by the protho-notary, Don Pedro de Ayala, to Ferdinand and Isabella : " They spend all their time in wars, and when there is no war they fight with one another. It must, how- FOREIGN NOTICES, 1490-1500. l6l ever, be observed that since the present king succeeded to the throne, they do not dare to quarrel so much with one another as formerly, especially since he came of age. They have learnt by experience that he executes the law without respect to rich or poor. I am told that Scotland has improved so much during his reign that it is worth three times more now than formerly, on account of foreigners having come to the country, and taught them how to live. They have more meat, in great and small animals, than they want, and plenty of wool and hides. " Spaniards who live in Flanders tell me that the commerce of Scotland is much more considerable now than formerly, and that it is continually increasing. " It is impossible to describe the immense quantity of fish. The old proverb says already ' piscinata Scotia.' Great quantities of salmon, herring, and a kind of dried fish, which they call stock fish (stoque fix), are ex- ported. The quantity is so great that it suffices for Italy, France, Flanders, and England. They have so many wild fruits which they eat, that they do not know what to do with them. There are immense flocks of sheep, especially in the savage portions of Scotland. Hides are employed for many purposes. There are all kinds of garden fruits to be found which a cold country can produce. They are very good. Oranges, figs, and other fruits of the same kind, are not to be found there. The corn is very good, but they do not produce as much as they might, because they do not cultivate the land. Their method is the following : they plough the land only once when it has grass on it, which is as high as a man, then they sow the corn, and cover it by means of a harrow, which makes the land VOL. IV. L 162 CONDITION OF THE NATION. even again. Nothing more is done till they cut the corn. I have seen the straw stand so high after harvest, that it reached to my girdle. Some kind of corn is sown about the Feast of St John, and is cut in August. " The people are handsome. They like foreigners so much that they dispute with one another as to who shall have and treat a foreigner in his house. They are vain and ostentatious by nature. They spend all they have to keep up appearances. They are as well dressed as it is possible to be in such a country as that in which they live. They are courageous, strong, quick, and agile. They are envious to excess. " The kings live little in cities and towns. They pass their time generally in castles and abbeys, where they find lodgings for all their officers. They do not remain long in one place. The reason thereof is twofold. In the first place, they move often about, in order to visit their kingdom, to administer justice, and to establish police where it is wanted. The second reason is, that they have rents in kind in every pro- vince, and they wish to consume them. While travel- ling, neither the king nor any of his officers have any expenses, nor do they carry provisions with them. They go from house to house, to lords, bishops, and abbots, where they receive all that is necessary. The greatest favour the king can do to his subjects is to go to their houses. " The women are courteous in the extreme. I men- tion this because they are really honest, though very bold. They are absolute mistresses of their houses, and even of their husbands, in all things concerning the administration of their property, income as well as expenditure. They are very graceful and handsome FOREIGN NOTICES, 1490-1500. 163 women. They dress much better than here (England), and especially as regards the head-dress, which is, I think, the handsomest in the world. " The towns and villages are populous. The houses are good, all built of hewn stone, and provided with excellent doors, glass windows, and a great number of chimneys. All the furniture that is used in Italy, Spain, and France, is to be found in their dwellings. It has not been bought in modern times only, but inherited from preceding ages. " The queens possess, besides their baronies and castles, four country-seats, situated in the best portions of the kingdom, each of which is worth about fifteen thousand ducats. The king fitted them up anew only three years ago. There is not more than one fortified town in Scotland, because the kings do not allow their subjects to fortify them. The town is a very consider- able borough, and well armed. The whole soil of Scot- land belongs to the king, the landholders being his vassals, or his tenants for life, or for a term of years. They are obliged to serve him forty days, at their own expense, every time he calls them out. They are very good soldiers. The king can assemble, within thirty days, 120,000 horse. The soldiers from the islands are not counted in this number. The islands are half a league, one, two, three, or four leagues distant from the mainland. The inhabitants speak the language and have the habits of the Irish. But there is a good deal of French education in Scotland, and many speak the French language. For all the young gentlemen who have no property go to France, and are well received there, and therefore the French are liked. Two or three times I have seen, not the whole army, 164 CONDITION OF THE NATION. but one-third of it assembled, and counted more than 12,000 great and small tents. There is much emula- tion among them as to who shall be best equipped, and they are very ostentatious, and pride themselves very much in this respect. They have old and heavy artil- lery of iron. Besides this, they possess modern French guns of metal, which are very good. King Louis gave them to the father of the present king in payment of what was due to him as co-heir of his sister, the Queen of Scotland." l 1 Bergenrotli, Simancas Papers, 168-75. CHAPTER XLI.