John Knox and the Reformation

gyll and Glenorchy (now Breadalbane), wrote (July 7) an epistle bidding the brethren be diligent in reading and discussing the Bible, and wen

erely reformed I have not yet seen in any other place." The genius of Calvin had made Geneva a kind of Protestant city state κατ' ευχην; a Calvinistic Utopia-everywhere the vigilant eyes of the preachers and magistrates were upon every detail of daily life. Monthly and weekly the magistrates and ministers met to point out each other's

ble in such a community as Geneva at a moment of spiritual excitement, was brought by Knox and his brethren into

hould express the thirst and languor which I have had for your presence, I should appear to pass measure. . . . Your presence is so dear to me that if the charge of this little flock . . . did not impede me, my presence should anticipate my letter." Thus Knox was read

t was but a common thing." Such a woman was incorrigible. Mary of Guise is always blamed for endangering Scotland in the interests of her family, the Guises of the House of Lorraine. In fact, so far as she tried to make Scotland a province of France, she was serving the ambition of Henri II. It could not be foreseen, in 1555, that Henri II. would be slain in 1559, l

ross Tweed. {74} Thus arose a breach between the Regent and some of her nobles, who at last, in 1559, rebelled against her on the ground of religion. While the weak war languished on, in 1557-58, "the Evangel of Jesus Christ began wondrously to flourish," says Knox. Other evangelists of his pattern, Harlaw, Douglas, Willock, and a baker, Methuen (later a victim of the intolerably cruel "discipline" of the Kirk Triumphant), preached at Dundee, and Methuen started a reforme

id and predacious. Before marrying the Dauphin, in April 1558, Mary Stuart, urged it is said by the Guises, signed away the independence of her country, to which her husband, by these deeds,

ers of a discouraging sort; one correspondent said that the enterprise was to be reconsidered, the other that the boldness and constancy required "for such an enterprise" were lacking among the nobles. Meanwhile Knox had spent his time, or some of it, in asking the most godly and the most learned of Europe, including Calvin, for opinions of such an adventure, for the assurance of his own conscience and the consciences of the Lord James, Erskine, Lorne, and the rest. {76a} This indicates that Knox himself was not quite sure of the lawfulness of an armed rising, and perhaps explains his long delay. Knox assures us that Calvin and other godly ministers insisted on his going to Scotland. But it is quite certain that of an armed rising Calvin absolutely disapproved. On Apr

ting from Geneva to "the sisters," he said, "the cause of my stop to this day I do not clearly understand." He did not know why he left England before the Marian persecutions; and he did not know why he had no

, and quietness, be preached where war is proclaimed, and tumults appear to rise? What comfort canst thou have to see the one part of the people rise up against the other,'" and so forth. These truly Christian reflections, as we may think

nd he feared that the Lords would seize and carry off the Regent. Arran, in 1564, speaks of a plot to capture her in Holyrood. Here were promises of tumults. There were also signs of

nscience, and his confessed doubts as to whether Christianity should be pushed by civil war, seem to indicate that he was not alwa

ch 1558, Knox stayed in Dieppe, preaching with great

of a rising for religion were not the excuses suggested by his own timidity. Perhaps they were just that, not whisperings either of conscience or of Satan. Yet in this condition Knox was extremely active. On December 1 and 17 he wrote, from Dieppe, a "Letter to His Brethren in Scotland," and another to "The Lords and Others Professing the Truth in Scotland." In the former he censures, as well he might, "the dissolute life of (some)

authority in things lawful," nor rebel from private motives. By "things lawful" does he mean the command of the Regent to invade England, which the nobles refused to do? They may "lawfully attempt the extremity," if Authority will not cease to persecute, and permit Protestant preaching and administration of the Sacraments (which usually ended in riot and churc

"ready to jeopardise lives and goods" for "the glory of God." If no more than an appeal to "the Authority" for tolerance was meant, why did Knox consult the learned s

ails, unknown to us, were orally delivered by

or Darnley, or for slaying Argyll and "the bonny Earl o' Murray," under James VI. These Bands were illegal. A Band, says Knox, was now signed by Argyll, Lorne, Glencairn, Morton, and Erskine of Dun, and m

y, preaching must be permitted in private houses, "without great conventions of the people." {81a} Whether the Catholic service was to be concurrently permitted does not appear; it is not very probable, for that service is idolatrous, and the Band itself denounces the Church as "the Congregation of Satan." Dr. M'Crie thinks that the Banders, or Congregation of God, did not ask for the universal adoption of the English Prayer Bo

suggested) miraculous exceptions to their inability might occur, as in the case of Deborah. As a rule, a Queen was an "idol," and that was enough. England deserved an idol, and an idolatrous idol, for Englishmen rejected Kirk discipline; "no man would have his life called in trial" by presbyter or preacher. A Queen regnant has, ex officio, committed treason against God: the Realm and Estates may have conspired with her, but her rule is unlawful

n idolater, and every true believer, as a private individual, has a right to punish idolaters. That right and duty are not limited to the King, or to "the chief Nobility and Estates," whom Knox addresses. "I would your Honours should note for the first, that no idolater can be exempted from punishment by God's Law. The second is, that the punishment of such crimes as are idolatry, blasphemy, and others, that touch the Majesty of God, doth not

stroyed. "To the carnal man, . . . " says Knox, "this may rather seem to be pronounced in a rage than in wisdom." God wills, however, that "all creatures stoop, cover their faces, and desist from reasoning, when commandment is given to execute his judgement." Knox, then, desists from reasoning so far as to preach that every Protestant, with a call that way, has a right to

the Queen being, according to him, an idolater? This doctrine of the right of the Protestant individual is merely monstrous. Knox has wandered far from his counsel of "passive resistance" in his letter to his Berwick congregation; he has even passed beyond his "Admoni

he miserable crowd of exiles should have been driven away, not only from this city, but even from almost the whole world." {84} As far as I am aware, no one approached Calvin with remonstrance about the monstrosities of the "Appellation," nor are the passages which I have cited alluded to by more than one biographer of Knox, to my knowledge. Professor Hume Brown, however, justly remarks that what the Kirk, immediately after Knox's death, called "Erastianism" (in ordinary parlance the doctrine that the Civil po

to revenge God's feud by the private citizen, and regarding religious massacre by the civil power, ideas which would justify the Bartholomew horrors, appear to be forgotten in modern times. His address to the Commonalty, as citizens with a voice in the State, represent

d manners they confessedly were), and of education from within. The Congregation, the Protestants, on the other hand, were preparing openly to defend themselves and their adherents from persecution, an honest, manly, and laudable endeavour, so long

s slackness in the case of Argyll, by churchmen and other "well given people," and by Mary of Guise, whose daughter, by April 24, 155

selves in defence of their favourite preachers-Willock, Harlaw, Methuen; a ci-devant friar, Christison; and Douglas. Some of these men were summoned several times throughout 1558, and Methuen and Harlaw, at least, were "at the horn" (outlawed), but were protected-Harlaw at Dumfries, Methuen at Dundee-by powerful laymen. At Dundee, as we saw, by 1558, Methuen had erected a church of reformed aspect; and "reformed" means that the Kirk had already been purged of altars and images. Attempts to bring the ringleaders of Protestant riots to law wer

led to back them, and they were released on bail to appear, if called on, within eight days. At this time the "id

passages, frequently cited by admirers of "his vein of humour." T

sees the need of reform, spiritual and temporal, and has exhorted the clergy and nobles to employ care and diligence thereon, a fact corroborated by Mary of Guise herself, in a paper, soon to be quoted, of July 1559. {88c} They ask, as they have the reading of the Scr

to the period of the Provincial Council of March

thren offered a petition, in the first place shown to the Regent, asking for (1) the suspension of persecuting laws till after a General Council has "decided all controversies in religion"-that is, till the Greek Calends. (2) That prelates shall not be judges in cases of heresy, but only accusers before secular tribunals. (3) That all lawful defences be granted to persons accused. (4) That the accused be permitted to explain "his own mind and

e. They shall not be liable, meanwhile, to any penalties for breach of the existing Acts against heresy, "nor for violating such rites as man, without God's commandment or word, hath commanded." They disclaim all responsibility for the ensuing tumults. {90a} In fact, they aver that they will not only worship in their own way, but prevent

on their side, at Easter, 1559. The obscurity is caused by a bookbinder. He has, with the fatal ingenuity of his trade, cut off the two top lines from a page in one manuscript copy of Knox's "History." {90b} The text now runs thus (

ws the Pro

e a warning from the poor of Scotland that, before Whitsunday, "we, the lawful proprietors," will eject the Friars and residents on the property, unlawfully withhel

nisation, and a deliberate plan-riots and revolution-before Whitsunday. The poor, of course, only exchanged better for worse landlords, as they soon discovered. The "Zealous Brethren"-as a rule small lairds, probably, and burgesses-were the nucleus of the Revolution. When towns

This is the statement of the "Historie.") {91} The brethren then "caused inform the Queen Mother that the said preachers would appear with such multitude of men professing their doctrine, as was never seen before in such like cases i

ishops put off the summons, and, in fact, the preachers neve

eventy years) and against such disturbances of religious services as the Protest just described declared to be imminent, all such d

ion, but refused to allow exiles like himself to be present, and insisted on the acceptance of the Mass, Purgatory, the invocation of saints, with security for their ecclesiastical possessions. In return they would grant prayers and baptism in English, if done privately and not in open assembly. The terms, he says, were reje

aces the facts, bribe and all, before April 28, 1558, Myln's martyrdom! {93a} Yet he had before him as he wrote the Ch

now, that they should enjoy their own services, and put down those of the religion by law established, until such time as the Catholic clergy "be able to prove themselves the true ministers of Christ's Church" and guiltless of all the crimes charged against them by their adversaries. {93c} That was the challenge of the Reformers, backed by the menace a

"she threw off the mask," and initiated an organised persecution. But there is no evidence that any such message commanding her to persecute at this time came from the Guises before the Regent had issued her proclamations of February 9 and March 23, {94a} denouncing attacks on priests, disturbance of services, administering of sacraments by lay preachers, and tumults at large. Now, Sir James Melv

three or four preachers (two of them apparently "at the horn" in 1558) were to preach publicly, and riots were certain to ensue, as the Reformers had threatened. Riots were part of the evangelical programme. Of Paul Methuen, who first "reformed" the Church in D

sed persecution and "cut the throats" of all Protestants in Scotland, was, in fact, intending to go to France, being in the earlier stages of her fatal malady. This appears from a letter of Sir Henry Percy, from Norham Castle, to Cecil and Parry (April 12, 1559) {95b} Percy says that the news in his latest letters (now lost) was erroneous. The Regent, in fact, "is not as yet departed." She is very ill, and her life is despaired of. She is at Stirling, where the nobles had assembled to discuss religious matters. Only her French advisers were on the side of the R

occasion to use the matter in Scotland as may seem best to serve the turn." {96c} This was before the Perth riot had been reported (May 26) by Cecil to Throckmorton. Was d'Elboeuf intended to direct the persecution? The theory has its attractions, but Henri, just emerged with maimed forces from a ruinous war, knew that a persecution which served Cecil's "turn" did not serve his. To persecute in Scot

without any commands from France; and her health was incons

holy days: for due examination of the doctrine, life, and learning of all who are permitted to preach. They demand that no vicar or curate shall be appointed unless he can read the catechism (of 1552) plainly and distinctly: that expositions of the sacraments should be clearly pronounced in the vernacular: that common prayer s

lt or repaired. Breakers of ornaments and violators or burners of churches were to be pursued. There was to be preaching as often as the Ordinary thought fit: if the Rector could not preach he must find a substitute who could. Plain expositions of the sacraments were made out, were to be read aloud to the congregations, and were published

close the latent venom of her double heart." She looked "frowardly" on Protestants, "commanded her household to use all abominations at Easter," she herself communicated, "and

hould . . . preach or minister the sacraments, except they were admitted by the Ordinary or a Bishop on no less pain than death." The Council, in fact, made excommunication the penalty. Now it was for ministering the sacrament

threatened in the Protestation of the brethren, the disturbances of services, the probable wrecking of churches, or she must use the powers legally entrusted to her. She gave insolent answers to remonstrances from the brethren, says Knox. She would banish the preachers

ch ensued, but we must now return to his own d