Their character also was held sacred; neither were they subject to the same laws, nor tried by the same judges as the laity, a remarkable instance of which occurred on the trial of the murderers of Cardinal Beaton, one of whom was a priest. He was claimed by a delegate from the clerical courts, and exempted from the judgement of Parliament on that account.
By their reputation for learning, they almost wholly engrossed the high offices of emolument and trust in the civil government; but even this was not for acting in their capacity of confessors, they made use of all these motives which operate so powerfully on the human mind, to promote the interest of the church, so that few were allowed to leave the world without bestowing on her some marks of their liberality, and where credulity failed to produce this effect, they called in the aid of law. (When a person died intestate, by the 22d Statute of William the Lion, the disposal of his effects was vested in the bishop of the diocese, after paying his funeral charges and debts, and distributing among his kindred the sums to which they were respectively entitled, it being presumed that no Christian could have chosen to leave the world without destining some of his substance to pious purposes.) Their courts had likewise the cognisance of all testamentary deeds and matrimonial contracts, and to these engines of power, and often in their hands of oppression, they super-added the sentence of excommunication, which besides depriving the unhappy victim on whom it fell of all Christian privileges, cut him off from every right as a man or citizen. To these, and other causes of a similar nature, may be ascribed the power of the Popish church; and to these, also, combined with the celibacy to which by the rule of their church they were restricted, may be attributed the dissolute and licentious lives of the clergy, which in the end destroyed that reputation for sanctity, the people had been accustomed to attach to their character.
According to the accounts of the reformers, confirmed by several popish writers, the manners of the Scottish clergy were indecent in the extreme. Cardinal Beaton celebrated the marriage of his eldest daughter with the son of the Earl of Crawford, with an almost regal magnificence, and maintained a criminal correspondence with her mother to the end of his days. The other prelates were not more exemplary than their primate, and the contrast between their lives, and those of the reformers, failed not to make a considerable impression on the minds of the people. Instead of disguising their vices the Popish clergy affected to despise censure; instead of endeavouring to colour over the absurdity of the established doctrines, or found them on Scripture, they left them to the authority of the church and decrees of the councils; the only apology they have ever been able, even to the present day, to offer for the monstrous absurdity of their system. The duty of preaching was left to the lowest and most illiterate of the monks.
The following anecdote will give a lively idea of their mode of preaching:—The prior of the Black Friars at Newcastle, in a sermon at St Andrews, asserted that the Paternoster should be said to God only, and not the saints. This doctrine not meeting the approbation of the learned of that city, they appointed a Gray Friar to refute it, who choose for his text, “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” which he illustrated in this manner. Seeing we say, good day, father, to any old man in the street, we may call a saint pater, who is older than any alive; and seeing they are in heaven, we may say to any of them, “Our father who art in heaven;” seeing they are holy, we may say, “hallowed be thy name;” and, since they are in the kingdom of heaven, may add, “thy kingdom come;” and as their will is God’s will, “thy will be done;” but when he come to “give us this day our daily bread;” he was much at a loss confessing it was not in the power of the saints to give us our daily bread; “yet they may pray to God for us,” he said, “that he may give us our daily bread.” The rest of his commentary being not more satisfactory, set his audience a laughing and the children on the streets calling after him, Friar Paternoster, he was so much ashamed that he left the city.
The only device by which they attempted to bring back the people to their allegiance was equally unfortunate and imprudent; they had recourse to false miracles, which the vigilance of the reformers detected and exposed to ridicule. The bare-faced impositions that were practised by the monks on the credulous, are almost inconceivable.—Among other customs of those times, it was common for them to travel to Rome and come home laden with relics, blessed by his holiness, dispensations for sin, by which they wheedled the credulous out of their money. One of these, on a holiday, endeavouring to vend his wares to the country people, among other things shewed them a bell with a rent in it, possessing the virtue of discovering the truth or fallacy of an oath; for, as he pretended, if any one swore truly, with his hand on the bell, he could easily remove it, without any change; but if the oath was false, his hand would stick to it, and the bell rent asunder. A farmer, rather more shrewd than the rest of his auditors, suspecting the truth of this assertion, asked liberty to take an oath in the presence of those assembled, about an affair which nearly concerned him. The monk could not refuse; and the farmer addressing the crowd, said, “Friends, before I swear, you see the rent, how large it is, and that I have nothing on my fingers to make them stick to the bell.” Then laying his hand on it, he took this oath.—“I swear, in the presence of the living God, and before these good people, that the pope of Rome is Antichrist, and that all the rabble of his clergy, cardinals, archbishops, bishops, priests, monks, with all the rest of the crew, are locust, come from hell, to delude the people, and to withdraw them from God; moreover, I promise they will all return to hell;” and lifting his hand he added. “See, friends, I have lifted my hand freely from the bell, and the rent is no larger, this sheweth that I have sworn the truth.”
The cause of reformed religion, was powerfully supported by the ambition of the Queen-dowager. (Mary of Guise) After the death of James V. her husband, the Earl of Arran, was appointed Regent of the kingdom during the minority of her daughter; and from that situation she wished to exclude him, that she might enjoy the first honours of the state alone, and promote the designs of her brothers upon Scotland. For this purpose she applied to the favourers of the Reformation, as being the most numerous of the Regent’s enemies, and forming a respectable body in the state; and although her promises of protection were insincere, they, in a very considerable degree, abated the fury of persecution.
John Knox, who contributed so much, both by precept and example, to work out the Reformation from Popery; was the descendant of an ancient family, and born at Gifford, near Haddington, in 1505. On finishing his education at the grammar school, he was removed to St. Andrew’s, to complete his studies under the celebrated John Mair, by whose instructions he made such progress that he received orders before the time prescribed by the rules of the church. After this, he quitted scholastic learning, so much in reputation at that period, and applied himself with diligence to the reading of the fathers of the church, particularly St Angustine, from which, attending the preaching of one Thomas Enillam, a Black Friar, and the conversation of Mr George Wishart, a celebrated reformer, who came from England in 1545 with the commissioners sent by Henry VIII. to conclude a treaty with the Earl of Arran, after the death of James V. he attained a more than ordinary degree of scriptural knowledge, and entirely renounced the Roman Catholic religion.
On leaving St Andrew’s, Mr Knox acted as tutor to the sons of Douglas of Longniddry, and Cockburn of Ormiston, whom, besides the different branches of common education, he carefully instructed in the principles of the reformed religion, having composed a catechism for their use, besides reading lectures to them on various portions of the scriptures. In this practice he continued till Easter 1547, when werried out by the repeated persecutions of Cardinal Beaton, he left Longniddry for St. Andrew’s, resolved to visit Germany, the state of England proving unfavourable to his views. Against taking this step, however, he was persuaded by the gentlemen whose children he had the charge, to remain in St. Andrews, the castle of that place being in the hands of the reformers.
Here he continued to teach his pupils in the usual manner, but his lectures were now attended by a number of people belonging to the town, who earnestly intreated him to preach in public. This task he at first declined, but afterwards accepted a call from the pulpit, and in his very first sermon discovered such zeal, learning, and intrepidity, as evinced the prudence of their choice, and how eminently qualified he was for the discharge of those duties. This success caused such alarm among the Popish clergy, that a letter was sent to the sub-prior by the abbot of Paisley, natural brother of the Regent, who had been nominated to the archbishopric reproving him for his negligence, in allowing such doctrines to be taught without opposition. A meeting of the clergy was held in consequence, and every scheme they could devise put in practice to hurt Mr Knox’s usefulness; but, in a public disputation, he replied to all their arguments with so much acuteness as completely to silence them, and gained many proselytes, who made prefession of their faith by partaking of the communion openly, which he was the first to administer in the manner practised at present.
This success was not of long duration, for a body of French troops was sent to besiege the castle, and it was compelled to surrender on the 23d July, when he, along with the garrison, was sent prisoner to France, and confined in the gallies till the year 1549. On obtaining his liberty he retired to England, where he preached sometime at Berwick, afterwards at Newcastle and London, and was at last chosen one of the itinerants appointed by Edward VI. to preach the Protestant doctrine through England. Upon the death of that prince, on the 6th July, 1553, he went to Geneva, where he resided when he was chosen by the English church at Frankfort, on the 24th September, 1554, to be their pastor, a situation he accepted by the advice of the celebrated John Calvin, but which he did not long enjoy, for having opposed the introduction of the English liturgy, and refused to celebrate the communion according to the forms prescribed by it, he was deprived of his office; and, such was the malice of his enemies, that, taking advantage of a passage in his “Admonition to England,” wherein he compares the Emperor to Nero, and the Queen of England to Jezebel, they accused him to the magistrates of treason. These gentlemen perceiving the spirit by which his accusers were actuated, found means to apprise him of his danger; and on the 26th march, 1555, he left Frankfort for Geneva, from whence he proceeded to Dieppe, and shortly afterwards to Scotland, where he arrived in the month of August.