But the Scottish clergy at that moment received a severe recompense for their contempt of the social amenities, in their aristocratic coadjutors treating them as men who had no need of temporal advantages. The nobles used them to overturn by their preaching the ancient Church; and that done, they quietly but firmly appropriated the substance of it to themselves. The example of the English hierarchy had not been lost upon them. When the clergy put in their claim for a fair share of the booty, the nobles affected great surprise at such a worldly appetite in such holy men. The clergy proposed that the property of the Church should be divided into three portions: one-third for the pastors of the new Church, one-third for the poor, and one-third for the endowment of schools and colleges. Maitland of Lethington asked Knox, "Where, then, was the portion of the nobles? Were they to become hod-bearers in this building of the Kirk?" Knox replied that they might be worse employed. But he and his fellow-ministers had different material to operate upon in the hard-fisted nobles. They might browbeat and insult a young queen, but they could not force the plunder from the grip of their aristocratic patrons. The whole sum which they could obtain for the maintenance of 1,000 parish churches was only about £4,000, or about £6 sterling as the annual income of a parish priest.
As for the unhappy queen, she was equally vexed by clergy and aristocracy. She was soon called upon for extensive favours by her ambitious brother, the Lord James, prior of St. Andrews. She created him Earl of Mar, and she further contemplated conferring on him the ancient earldom of Murray, which had been forfeited to the Crown in the reign of James II. A great part of the property, however, of this earldom had been taken possession of by the Earl of Huntly, the head of the most powerful family in the north. Huntly had offered, if Mary would land in the Highlands, to conduct her to Edinburgh at the head of 20,000 men, and enable her to put down the whole body of Reformers. Mary had declined this offer, as the certain cause of a civil war, if accepted. Huntly, therefore, stood aloof from the present Government, and was especially hostile to the Earl of Mar, who was the leading person in it. Mar determined to break the power of this haughty chief, and thus wrest from him the lands he claimed for his new earldom. Mary was anxious to advance her brother, and did not need much persuasion to sanction this design of Mar; and the son of Huntly, Sir John Gordon, having committed some feudal outrage, was seized and imprisoned for a short term. This punishment was regarded as an indignity by the house of Gordon, and the symptoms of disaffection towards the Government were increased. Mary, therefore, took the field with her brother, the Lord James, and marched into the Highlands at the head of her troops. The Earl of Huntly, dismayed at this spirit in the young queen, who appeared to enjoy the excitement and the inconveniences of a campaign, hastened to make overtures of accommodation; and the matter would probably have been soon amicably arranged, but, unfortunately, a party of Huntly's vassals refused Mary and her staff entrance into the castle of Inverness, and made a show of holding it against her. They were, however, soon compelled to surrender, and the governor was executed as a traitor. At this time, Sir John Gordon, escaping from his prison, flew to arms, roused the vassals of the clan Gordon far and wide; and his father, seeing no longer any chance of agreement, led his forces into the field. He advanced towards Aberdeen, and met Mar, who had now exchanged that title for the title of Earl of Murray, encamped on the hill of Fare near Corrichie. There Murray, as an excellent soldier, defeated Huntly, who was killed on the field, or died soon after. His son, Sir John Gordon, was seized, and executed at Aberdeen, three days after the battle. Murray was thus placed in full possession of his title and new estate, and Mary, with so able and powerful a relative as her chief minister, appeared in a position to command obedience from her refractory subjects. But now a new danger menaced her from the rival queen of England, who was still bent on seeing Mary so married as to give her no additional power.
In the spring of 1562 Elizabeth became engaged in the support of the Huguenots, or Protestants of France, against their Government, as she had supported the Covenanters of Scotland. After the failure of a conspiracy to surprise the court at Amboise, and the accession of Catherine de Medici to the Regency, the heads of the party again flew to arms; but Catherine making concessions, in order to engage the Huguenot chiefs Condé and Coligny to assist her in counteracting the influence of the house of Guise, a treaty was entered into by which the Protestants were to be allowed free exercise of their religion. But the Duke of Guise becoming possessed of the person of the king, soon persuaded Catherine—his mother and Regent—to break the treaty. The Huguenots again rose in defence of their lives and principles, and no less than fourteen armies were soon on foot in one part or another of France. The Duke of Guise headed the Catholics; the Prince of Condé, Admiral Coligny, Andelot, and others, commanded the Huguenots. The Parliament of Paris issued an edict, authorising the Papists to massacre the Protestants wherever they found them; the Protestants retaliated with augmented fury, and carnage and violence prevailed throughout the devoted country. The Duke of Guise found himself so hard driven by the Protestants, in whose ranks the very women and children fought fiercely, that he entreated Philip of Spain to come to his aid. Philip gladly engaged in a work so congenial, his own Protestant subjects having had bloody experience of his bigotry, and sent into France 6,000 men, besides money. On this the Prince of Condé appealed to Elizabeth for support against the common enemies of their religion. To induce her to act promptly in their favour, he offered to put Havre-de-Grâce immediately into her hands. Nowadays, in such a case, the English Government would take the public means of endeavouring by negotiation to lead its ally to concede their rights to its subjects. But Elizabeth took her favourite mode of privately aiding the discontented subjects of a power with whom she was at peace, against their sovereign. She made no overtures to Catherine de Medici, as Queen-Regent. She made no declaration of war, but despatched Sir Henry Sidney, the father of the afterwards celebrated Sir Philip Sidney, ostensibly to mediate between the Roman Catholics and Protestants, but really to enter into a compact with Condé. She was to furnish him with 100,000 crowns, and to send over 6,000 men, under Sir Edward Poynings, to take possession of the forts of Havre and Dieppe.
THE PREACHING OF JOHN KNOX BEFORE THE LORDS OF THE CONGREGATION, 10th JUNE, 1559.
From the Painting by SIR DAVID WILKIE, R.A., in the National Gallery of British Art.
MARS' WORK, STIRLING.