CHAPTER X.
TERGIVERSATIONS OF KING JAMES V.—NEGOTIATIONS WITH HENRY VIII.—THEY FAIL.
(1540–January, 1542.)
The Romish party was not yet satisfied. ‘These cruel beasts,’ says Knox, ‘did intend nothing but murder in all quarters of the realm.’ James was surrounded with men who urged him on in that direction. Many of his courtiers, associates of his dissipation, instigated him to persecution because they were pensioners to priests for that purpose.[228] Oliver Sinclair was the foremost of these secret tools of the clergy. The cardinal’s influence was increased by circumstances which occurred at this time. Archbishop James Beatoun died in the autumn of 1539, after having attended as a witness at the baptism of the king’s eldest son. By his last will he left his archbishopric of St. Andrews to his nephew David, who, when confirmed by the king, was thenceforth both cardinal and primate of Scotland.
JAMES V. AND HIS BISHOPS.
Henry VIII. was induced by these changes to take fresh steps towards gaining over his nephew. He was acquainted with the cardinal, and knew his relations with France and the papacy. At the beginning of 1540 Sir R. Sadler was sent to Scotland.[229] The moment was well chosen. James V. was just then fully disposed to make peace with his uncle. The Lords Murray, Huntley, and Bothwell were in disgrace, and James wrote to Henry VIII. as his ‘dearest brother and uncle,’ and commended himself to him in his most hearty and affectionate manner. Henry sent him presents and the most gracious messages, inquiring earnestly after his health; and all this courtesy James received in the most amiable manner imaginable. Henry however meant to go to the main point, and Thomas Eure, one of his envoys, strove to discover what were the purposes of the King of Scotland respecting the bishop of Rome and the Reformation. One of the councillors, Ballenden, replied to him with great politeness, ‘The King of Scottes himself, with all his temporall counsaile, was gretely geven to the reformation of the mysdemeanors of busshops, religious personnes, and priests within the realme.’[230] James gave even then some proofs of this disposition. On the day of the Epiphany, January 6, 1540, there was a grand feast at the court, and a dramatic spectacle was given in the palace of Linlithgow. The king, the queen, and all the councillors spiritual and temporal were present; and the purport of the piece was to exhibit the presumption of the bishops, the iniquities of the courts spiritual, the evil ways of the priests, and in one word, the ‘noughtines’ of such religion as then existed. Perhaps the king was minded to let the bishops hear a sermon in that shape. It is very unlikely that anyone would have dared to give such a spectacle without his authority. However that may be, James was struck with it; and when the piece was finished, he had the archbishop in Glasgow, chancellor of the realm, called to him, as well as the other bishops, whose thoughts and fears during the representation may be imagined. ‘I exhort you,’ said the king to them, ‘to reform your fashions and manners of living. If you do not, I will send six of the proudest of you unto my uncle of England,[231] and after he has put them in order, I will do the same with the rest if they will not amend.’ The chancellor, in consternation, humbly answered, ‘One word of your grace’s mouth shall suffice them to be at commandment.’ James rejoined immediately and angrily, ‘I shall gladly bestow any words of my mouth that can amend them,’ The notion of applying to Henry VIII. to set his bishops right was original; and the prelates of Scotland, knowing that that preceptor did not spare the rod nor even the sword, trembled to the very marrow of their bones. Ballenden, in confirmation of these new intentions of James, said to Thomas Eure, ‘The king is fully minded to expel all spiritual men from having any authority by office under his grace, either in household or elsewhere.’ It appears that the author of the drama, author also in part of the change wrought in the prince, was Sir David Lyndsay, who had been the king’s guardian and companion during his minority. This bold man of letters composed many satires against the superstitions of the age, and above all against the ignorance and licentiousness of the clergy; but the king never allowed the cardinal to lift a finger to harm him.
The convictions of James were not very deep, and his own life was not such as to give him the right to criticise the lives of the bishops. So long as this liberal humor of the prince lasted, the cardinal seems to have abstained from demonstrations hostile to the reform of the Church. He was sure of getting him to change his mind, and he did not trouble himself about comedies to which he was bent on replying by tragedies. He was not long in showing his inflexibility, and the capricious humor of the king again bent under his immovable firmness. Other men have been named great, just, or well-bred. Beatoun deserved to be called persecutor. This surname, which history inflicts on him as a disgrace, he seems to have aspired to as a glory.
SIR JOHN BORTHWICK.
Beatoun assembled at St. Andrews the prelates and the nobles who enjoyed his confidence. An elevated seat was provided for him in the cathedral, and he sat there in his twofold character of primate and of cardinal. The earls of Huntley, Arran, and Montrose, the earl Marshall, and Lords Erskine, Lyndsay, Fleming, Seaton, and many other barons and men of rank, Gawin, archbishop of Glasgow and chancellor, the bishops of Aberdeen, Galloway, and others besides, abbots and priors, deans and doctors of theology, were around him. David Beatoun, proud to see beneath him that illustrious and brilliant assembly, began to speak. He set forth with warm feeling the dangers to which the multiplication of heretics was exposing the Roman faith: the audacity with which they avowed their opinions, even at the court, where they found too much support, he added, alluding thus to the famous dramatic representation with which James had been so struck. Then impatient to show the serious import of his words, he announced that he had cited before that assembly Sir John Borthwick, brother of the lord of the same name, provost of Linlithgow, who had probably had a hand in the satirical drama. ‘This heretic gives out,’ he said, ‘that the pope has no more authority than other bishops, that his indulgences have no other effect than to deceive the people, that the religious orders ought to be abolished, that all ecclesiastics are at liberty to marry, and in short, that the Scots, blinded by their clergy, do not profess the true faith. He reads and circulates the New Testament in English, and divers treatises of Melanchthon, Œcolampadius, and Erasmus, and refuses to submit to the see of Rome.’
Borthwick, instead of going to St. Andrews, set out in all haste for England, where he was well received by Henry VIII., and was afterwards employed by him as one of his commissioners to the princes of Germany. But although Beatoun could not send the lamb to the slaughter, he could at least find the way to possess himself of the fleece. On May 28 the confiscation of Sir John’s property was pronounced and his effigy was burnt, first at St. Andrews and two days after at Edinburgh. The fire did him no great harm, but it served to give a certain point to the cardinal’s discourse.[232]
The king had now again returned, under the influence of the cardinal, to the side of Rome. This prince, so thoughtless, hasty, violent, and unprincipled, bent before every breeze and changed his opinion and his will at a word from those who were about him. Money he wanted, and he would have received it from one party as readily as from another, from the nobles as well as from the priests: but the latter were more persevering and more skilful in finding out the crowns of which he had need. ‘They are always at the king’s ear,’ said Sadler, one of the envoys of Henry VIII. Sir James Hamilton, his treasurer, was at his left ear, and Beatoun, the cardinal, at his right. The treasurer had at that time received large sums from the cardinal for the king, and James, won by that argument, pronounced himself against the friends of the Reformation with the passion which he had before shown towards the prelates. Sir James Hamilton, brother of the earl of Arran, a man of dishonorable character, cruel, and the murderer of the earl of Lennox, was then invested by command of the king with functions resembling those of an inquisitor. ‘I charge you,’ said James, ‘to seize all persons suspected of heresy, and to inflict on them after judgment such penalties as they have deserved.’ In the excess of his popish zeal he exclaimed,’Not a man of that sort shall find any mercy at my hands, not even my own son, if it were proved that he was in the number of the guilty.’ This declaration alarmed many. It was plain that an inquisitorial court was to be set up, and Hamilton was already preparing everything for that end. But on a sudden he was himself thrown into the prison in which he meant to confine the friends of the Reformation. Accused either justly or unjustly of treason, even of a conspiracy against the life of the king, he was arrested, and James, in his wrath, had him put to death in August 1540.
BIRTH OF A SON TO JAMES.
James spoke of his son. He had indeed a son, but one not old enough to excite any fears with respect to what he called heresy. The child was born on May 22, 1540, and had been named James after his father. ‘He is fair and lively,’ wrote the king to his uncle Henry VIII., ‘and will succeed to us and this our realm.’[233] Very proud of this son and of having an heir, he felt his crown to be more secure than ever,[234] and began to contemn the nobles. ‘They will no longer dare,’ said he, ‘to attempt anything against my house.’
The baptism of the boy took place May 28, and on the next day the king embarked on some voyage. Nobody could give an explanation of this abrupt departure. Some said that the king was going to France, others said to Ireland, where the leading men, it was reported, would take him for their king.[235] ‘I am only going to visit the isles, to put everything in order,’ he wrote to Henry VIII. The cardinal and the prelates resolved to take advantage of his absence. The king, they saw, was in ill humor with the nobles, and all those who were suspected in the matter of doctrine must be got rid of. But one discreet man, James Kirkcaldy of Grange, the lord treasurer, having received information of this project, made it known to the king, and set before him all the calamities to which he would expose himself if he gave his support to the conspiracy. James, once more turning about, was enraged at this intrigue hatched in his absence. The cardinal, attended by many bishops, came to Holyrood palace to greet him, and presented to him a paper on which were inscribed the names of nobles suspected of heresy and of whom it would be well to get rid. He dwelt even on the gain which would flow to the crown from that course. James said sharply—‘Pack, you jefwellis![236] Get ye to your charges and reform your own lives: be not instruments of discord betwixt my nobility and me: or else I vow to God I shall reform you by sharp whingers if ever I hear such motion of you again.’
The prelates, astounded at this rebuke, withdrew in confusion, and gave up their scheme for a time.
SCOTT OF PITGORNO.
A second son was born to James in the town of Stirling in April 1541, and this event both heightened his joy and increased his pride. His happiness however was frequently disturbed. Certain people were incessantly endeavoring to deceive him. Hateful informers denounced to him one or other of his earls, his barons, and other subjects, as bent on taking his life, and thus threw him into a state of great alarm. In another direction some of his favorites were leading him to blameworthy acts. He had to pay dearly for his errors, and was punished by his very crimes. His mind was often in a state of gloomy reverie. Thomas Scott of Pitgorno, a courtier who had enjoyed his good graces and had been named by him lord of Lefries, and afterwards promoted to a higher office in the administration of justice,[237] had been guilty of many misdeeds. He was accused, among other things, of having plundered pretended Lutherans, and it was added that the king had gained something by it. Remorse tormented these two wretched men. One night, while James was at Linlithgow, he dreamed that he saw Scott coming towards him surrounded by a company of devils, and that he heard him say in a sepulchral tone—‘Woe to the day that ever I knew thee or thy service. For, for serving of thee against God, against his servants, and against justice I am adjudged to endless torment.’ The king awoke in terror. With a loud voice he called for torches (it was midnight), and he made all who were in the palace get up, and said to them—‘Thomas Scott is dead! He has appeared to me.’ He then related his horrible dream. That same night Thomas Scott, then at Edinburgh, was stricken with a terrible agony. ‘I am damned,’ said he, ‘I am damned! It is by the just judgment of God—justo Dei judicio condemnatus sum.’ He died in the midst of these torments. James heard of this death the next morning and was still more terrified. Such is the tale of the chroniclers and historians of Scotland.[238] It is certainly wonderful, but stranger coincidences have been known.
James had yet other causes of uneasiness. His sleepless nights were disturbed, gloomy, and agitated; and even the light of morning did not disperse his inward darkness. The death of Hamilton, whose execution he had hastily ordered on mere suspicion, frequently gave him bitter pain. That unfortunate lord had done for the prince all that he had wished; and the latter now asked himself whether he had done well to deprive himself of so devoted a secretary. Perhaps he was innocent. He might have been calumniated. One night, at Linlithgow, James saw Hamilton in a dream, with his sword drawn, rush upon him and cut off first his right then his left arm,[239] saying to him, ‘Take that! while thou receive a final payment for all thine impiety.’ James awoke trembling, and asked himself what this dream could mean. His imagination was impressed by it. He mused mournfully on the strange vision, and expected that some heavy blow was about to fall on him. It was in this state of mind that a message reached him from Stirling that his son Arthur has just died. Shortly after, another message came from St. Andrews to announce to him that his son James was dead. These two young princes, his hope, his joy, and his glory, were no more. Within twenty-four hours of each other (some say at the same hour), they had been taken from him. He now comprehended his dream. His two arms were already cut off: it only remained for him to lose his own life, and all would be accomplished. Nothing could divert this prince, who was guilty at once of profligacy and of persecution: nothing could beguile his grief. His heart was broken, his mind was disordered.
He shut himself up, and the only person whom he would see was his mother. Unhappy father! unhappy king! The queen-dowager did all she could to console her son and her daughter-in-law. ‘I am never from them,’ she wrote to her brother, Henry VIII., May 12, 1541, ‘but ever in their company.’ It appears that by this large sorrow the natural affections were reawakened in the king. He wrote to his uncle that he desired to see good will and the most perfect friendship and peace prevail between them.[240]
PROGRESS OF THE REFORMATION.
While James was thus taken up with his sorrows alone, the doctrine of the Reformation made progress, and, if only liberty were accorded to it, its triumph in Scotland appeared to be at hand. A great multitude of the common people, both in the country districts and in the towns, held meetings more or less secretly at which they heard the Holy Word read and even explained. By 1540 many eminent men had received the evangelical doctrine. The earls of Errol and of Glencairn, the Lords Ruthven and Kilmaurs and their children, Sir David Lyndsay, Sir James Sandilands, Melville of Raith, and a large number of other influential persons appeared to be attached to the Gospel by genuine conviction.
Henry VIII., when informed of this state of things, thought that he ought to avail himself of it for his own advantage. His favorite notion was to engage the King of Scotland to make his country independent of Rome, and as James was his nephew he did not despair of success. As long ago as 1535 he had sent Barlow to him with books against the authority of the pope. That measure failed. Next he had despatched Lord Howard to James, who was still unmarried, to offer to him the hand of his daughter Mary, and with her the prospect of the crown of England, if he would establish the royal supremacy in the Church. Another failure. In 1540 Henry had charged Sir Ralph Sadler to set before James the advantages which he would obtain from a Reformation, and to propose an interview with him. Sadler, in order to counteract beforehand the cardinal’s influence, communicated to the King of Scotland some letters from that prelate to the pope, which had been intercepted by the English, and from which it was manifest that Beatoun’s aim was to place the state in subjection to the Romish Church. The prince answered with a smile that the cardinal had already shown him those letters.[241]
All the endeavors of the English envoy had proved futile. At bottom, the end which Beatoun was pursuing was the ruin of Henry VIII.; and in order the more surely to attain it, he was ambitious to be appointed legate a latere, a dignity which would invest him in Scotland with the extraordinary powers which he did actually obtain. He did everything to conduct to a happy issue the alliance against England which had been previously projected by the pope. The English Council of the North wrote to Cromwell—‘We think that the cardinal of Scotland intendeth to take his journey towards Rome in Lent next coming, and we think it should appear by the schedule of instructions herein inclosed, which was taken on a ship lost at Bamborough, that the Scots intend some mystery with some of their allies.’[242] Henry, alarmed at this news, caused fresh entreaties to be pressed on his nephew. His ambassadors promised James that if he would go to York to confer with his uncle, the meeting would have the happiest consequences for him, and would afford him the most unanswerable proof of the love which Henry bore him.[243] It appears even that one of them, speaking of the feeble health of prince Edward, held before the eyes of James Stuart the brilliant prospect of the crown of England, leaving Mary and Elizabeth entirely out of sight. The nobles of Scotland, natural enemies of the priests, urged the king to agree to the interview with his uncle. Articles were drawn up at the beginning of December 1541, by the commissioners of Scotland and England. They purported that King James would meet his dear uncle, the King of England, on January 15, 1542, at the city of York, for the purpose of mutual communications tending to increase their cordial love, to draw closer the ties of blood, and to promote the prosperity of their kingdoms.[244] These articles raised Henry to the summit of his wishes, and he took measures immediately for imparting to this interview extraordinary solemnity and brilliancy. This conference of the two kings made a great noise in Scotland, and preparations were also made there. Henry VIII. set out and went to York full of hope. Uncle and nephew were at last to see each other, and to talk together, and every one saw that this meeting would have weighty consequences. Never was Scotland nearer having a reform after the fashion of Henry VIII.
PROJECTED INTERVIEW AT YORK.
No one understood this better than Beatoun. What he feared more than all besides was that the power of the Romish hierarchy would be abolished, and the Gospel be put in its place. The cardinal, for the first time in his life, had been anticipated, surpassed in cleverness and in influence. He did not however lose courage, but with all the adherents of his party applied himself to the task with all his soul. They sowed hatred between the king and the nobles. They employed all imaginable means to dissuade the king from the fatal meeting. At first they sought to alarm him. ‘By going to York,’ said the cardinal to him, ‘you will expose yourself to the suspicions of the emperor, you will make an enemy of your old ally the King of France, and you will bring down on yourself the disgrace of the pope. In short’ (and it was this which most terrified James), ‘you will expose yourself to the greatest dangers. This treacherous king will keep you prisoner in England as James I. was kept in former days.’ James replied that he had given his word, and that the king was awaiting him, that to absent himself from the rendezvous would lead to war with England, and that he had not the means of carrying it on. The cardinal was amazed at this independence of the king, for he was not accustomed to it. Discerning more and more clearly the greatness of the peril, his bishops and he agreed that there was but one means available for inducing James to renounce his purpose. As this prince was always in want of money, they sought to gain him by gifts of large sums.[245] This argument did not miss the mark. They then appealed to him anew and said—‘Sire, there is a good deal of money in Scotland, and it is easy to get possession of it. If war should break out, the clergy will give you thirty thousand crowns per annum, and you will be able to get a hundred thousand more by confiscating the property of heretics, if you will only authorize proceedings against them by a judge whom we will name to you and who is well qualified for the purpose. Will you spare this wicked people? Do they not read the Old and New Testaments? Are they not in rebellion against the authority of the pope and against the king’s majesty? Have they not, by new and detestable errors, troubled the churches, destroyed piety, and overthrown institutions established for many centuries? They refuse to the priests whom God has consecrated all obedience and respect. But there must be no delay.’ James yielded. He conceded to the bishops the inquisition which they claimed, and sent Sir James Learmont, one of the officers of his court, to offer his excuses to his uncle. Of all James’s proceedings this was the most perilous.