History of Civilization in England, Vol. 3 of 3

by Henry Thomas Buckle

In 1581, Robert Montgomery was appointed archbishop of Glasgow. The ministers who composed the chapter of Glasgow refused to elect him; whereupon the Privy Council declared that the King, by virtue of his prerogative, had the right of nomination.[238] All was now confusion and uproar. The General Assembly forbad the archbishop to enter Glasgow.[239] He refused to obey their order, and threw himself upon the support of the Duke of Lennox, who had obtained the appointment for him, and to whom he, in return, had surrendered nearly all the revenues of the see, reserving for himself only a small stipend.[240] This was a custom which had grown up within the last few years, and was one of many contrivances by which the nobles plundered the Church of her property.[241]

This, however, was not the question now at issue.[242] The point to be decided was one, not of revenue, but of power. For the clergy knew full well, that if they established their power, the revenue would quickly follow. They, therefore, adopted the most energetic proceedings. In April 1582, the General Assembly met at St. Andrews, and appointed Melville as Moderator.[243] The government, fearing the worst, ordered the members, on pain of rebellion, to take no steps respecting the archbishopric.[244] But the representatives of the Church were undaunted. They summoned Montgomery before them; they ratified the sentence by which he had been suspended from the ministry; and they declared that he had incurred the penalties of despotism and of excommunication.[245]

A sentence of excommunication was, in those days, so ruinous, that Montgomery was struck with terror at the prospect before him. To avoid the consequences, he appeared before the Assembly, and solemnly promised that he would make no further attempt to possess himself of the archbishopric.[246] By doing this, he probably saved his life; for the people, siding with their clergy, were ripe for mischief, and were determined, at all hazards, to maintain what they considered to be the rights of the Church, in opposition to the encroachments of the State.

The government, on the other hand, was equally resolute.[247] The Privy Council called several of the ministers before them; and Dury, one of the most active, they banished from Edinburgh.[248] Measures still more violent were about to be taken, when they were interrupted by one of those singular events which not unfrequently occurred in Scotland, and which strikingly evince the inherent weakness of the Crown, notwithstanding the inordinate pretensions it commonly assumed.

This was the Raid of Ruthven, which happened in 1582, and in consequence of which the person of James VI. was held in durance for ten months.[249] The clergy, true to the policy which now governed them, loudly approved of the captivity of the king, and pronounced it to be a godly act.[250] Dury, who had been driven from his pulpit, was brought back to the capital in triumph;[251] and the General Assembly, meeting at Edinburgh, ordered that the imprisonment of James should be justified by every minister to his own congregation.[252]

In 1583, the king recovered his liberty, and the struggle became more deadly than ever; the passions of both parties being exasperated by the injuries each had inflicted on the other. The Ruthven conspiracy, having been declared treason, as it undoubtedly was, Dury preached in its favour, and openly defended it; and although, under the influence of momentary fear, he afterwards withdrew what he had said,[253] it was evident, from other circumstances, that his feelings were shared by his brethren.[254] A number of them being summoned before the king for their seditious language, bad him take heed what he was about, and reminded him that no occupant of the throne had ever prospered after the ministers had begun to threaten him.[255] Melville, who exercised immense influence over both clergy and people, bearded the king to his face, refused to account for what he had delivered in the pulpit, and told James that he perverted the laws both of God and of man.[256] Simpson likened him to Cain, and warned him to beware of the wrath of God.[257] Indeed, the spirit now displayed by the Church was so implacable, that it seemed to delight in venting itself in the most repulsive manner. In 1585, a clergyman, named Gibson, in a sermon which he preached in Edinburgh, denounced against the king the curse of Jeroboam, that he should die childless, and that his race should end with him.[258] The year after this happened, James, finding that Elizabeth was evidently determined to take his mother's life, bethought him of what was valued in that age as an unfailing resource, and desired the clergy to offer up prayers on behalf of Mary. This, they almost unanimously refused.[259] And not only did they abstain from supplication themselves, but they resolved that no one else should do what they had declined. The archbishop of Saint Andrews being about to officiate before the king, they induced a certain John Cowper to station himself in the pulpit beforehand, so as to exclude the prelate. Nor was it until the captain of the guard threatened to pull Cowper from the place he had usurped, that the service could go on, and the king be allowed to hear his own mother prayed for, in this sad crisis of her fate, when it was still uncertain whether she would be publicly executed, or whether, as was more generally believed, she would be secretly poisoned.[260]

In 1594, John Ross stated in the pulpit, that the advisers of the king were all traitors, and that the king himself was likewise a traitor. He was also a rebel and a reprobate. That such should be the case, was not surprising, considering the parentage of James. For, his mother was a Guise, and a persecutor of the saints. He avoided open persecution, and spoke them fair; but his deeds did not correspond to his words; and, so great was his dissimulation, that he was the most arrant hypocrite then living in Scotland.[261]

In 1596, David Black, one of the most influential of the Protestant ministers, delivered a sermon, which made much noise. He said, in his discourse, that all kings were children of the devil; but that in Scotland the head of the court was Satan himself. The members of the council, he added, were cormorants, and the lords of the session miscreants. The nobility had degenerated: they were godless; they were dissemblers; they were the enemies of the Church. As to the queen of England, she was nothing but an atheist. And as to the queen of Scotland, all he would say was, that they might pray for her if they list, and because it was the fashion to do so; but that there was no reason for it, inasmuch as no good would ever come from her to them.[262]