PATRICK HAMILTON AT ST. ANDREWS.
It was to St. Andrews that Patrick Hamilton betook himself on his return from the Continent, after a visit to the bereaved family of Kincavil. He was admitted on June 9 of the same year into the University of the metropolitan city, and on October 3 of the following year he was received member of the faculty of letters. St. Andrews had powerful attractions for him. No other university in the kingdom had on its staff so many enlightened men; and the college of St. Leonard’s, which he entered, was the one whose teaching had the most liberal tendencies. The studies which he had pursued, the knowledge which he had acquired, and the rank which he held, gave him distinction among his fellow-disciples. Buchanan, a severe judge, looked on him as a ‘young man of great intellect and of astonishing learning.’[22] Hamilton held the hypocrisy of the monks in such abomination that he never would adopt either their dress or their way of life; and although he was abbot of Ferne he never took up his residence in his monastery. Skilled in the musical art, he composed a chant in parts, which was performed in the cathedral, and delighted the hearers. He did more: he dreamed, as all reformers do at the outset of their career, of the transformation of the Catholic Church; he resolved to seek the imposition of hands, ‘in order,’ says Fryth, ‘that he might preach the pure Word of God.’ Hamilton did not, to be sure, preach at that time with the boldness and the power of a Luther or a Farel. He loved the weak; he felt himself weak; and being full of lowly-mindedness, he was content to impart faithfully the truth which he had received.
About a year after the combat in which Sir Patrick was killed, the duke of Albany returned, with the intention of bringing about an intimate alliance between Scotland and France. Margaret Tudor, who wished for an alliance with England, and who found herself deprived of power by the arrival of Albany, wrote on September 13, 1523, to her brother Henry VIII.: ‘The person and the kingdom of my son are exposed to very great danger; come to our aid, come in all haste, or it is all over with my son!’[23] It might perhaps have been all over with the Reformation too—a far more important matter. But Albany, although he was at the head of a fine army, fled on two occasions before the English, and being despised by everybody, quitted Scotland forever at the close of May 1524.[24]
WRITINGS OF LUTHER PROSCRIBED.
He had only just set sail when the cause of the Reformation, threatened by his presence, received a powerful reinforcement. In 1524, and at the beginning of 1525, some books of Luther and of other Reformers were brought into Scotland by merchant-ships, and getting dispersed over the country, produced there the same effect as they had in France and in Italy. Gawin Dunbar, the old bishop of Aberdeen, was the first to become aware of this. He discovered one day a volume of Luther in his own town. He was in consternation when he saw that the fiery darts hurled by the hand of the heretic were crossing the sea. As like discoveries were made in Linlithgow, St. Andrews, and other places, the affair was brought before Parliament. ‘Damnable heresies are spread abroad in various countries,’ said the partisans of Rome. ‘This kingdom of Scotland, its sovereigns and their subjects, have always stood fast in the holy faith since they received it in the primitive age; attempts are being made at this moment to turn them away from it. Let us take all needful steps to repulse the attack.’ Consequently, on July 17, 1525, parliament enacted that no person arriving in any part of the kingdom should introduce any book of Luther or of his disciples, or should publish the opinions of that German except for the purpose of refuting them, ‘Scotland having always bene clene of all filth and vice.’[25]
This act was immediately published throughout the country, and particularly at all ports, in order that no one might be able to pretend ignorance of it. About four days after the closing of parliament the sheriffs received orders from the king’s council to set on foot without delay the necessary inquiries for the discovery of persons who might possess any books of Luther, or who should profess his errors. ‘You will confiscate their books,’ the order ran, ‘and transmit them to us.’ The Reformation, which till that time had been almost unknown in those regions, became suddenly a public fact, proclaimed by the highest body in the realm, and was on the point of preoccupying all minds. The enemies of the truth were preparing its triumph.
However, the question was whether the young king would lean towards the side of Rome or the side of the Gospel. James V., in whose name the decree against the Reformation had been issued, had in reality nothing at all to do with it. Amiable and generous, but a weakling and lover of pleasure, he was so backward in his learning that for want of knowing English he could not read the letters of his uncle Henry VIII.[26] He was a child under tutelage; he spoke to no one except in the presence of some member of the council, and Angus took care to foster in him the taste for pleasure in order to turn away his attention from public affairs. That taste was moreover quite natural to the young prince. His life was devoted to games, to arms, to the chase; he made request to Henry VIII. to send him swords and bucklers, the armor made in London being far more beautiful than that of Edinburgh. He sacrificed business to pleasure all the more readily because those who were about him were living in a state of entire disunion. The three chief personages of the realm, archbishop Beatoun, head of the priests, Angus, leader of the nobles, and the queen-mother who intrigued with both parties, were at open war.[27] Margaret desired both to get a divorce from Angus and to avenge herself on the archbishop who thwarted her in her projects.[28] In the midst of all these ambitious ones the young king was like a prey over which the vultures fight.
In May 1525, James having reached his fourteenth year, had been declared of age, in conformity with the law of Scotland. It had been a mere matter of form. Angus, supported by the most powerful of the nobles and by the parliament, verified the fears of the queen; he gave all places to the Douglases, and taking the Great Seal from archbishop Beatoun, kept it himself. The queen-mother indignantly entreated her very dear brother to secure the intervention of the pope on behalf of her son.[29] All was useless: the authority of the bold and ambitious Angus remained unimpaired.
JAMES V. AND THE PRIESTS.
The young prince, then, wearied with the yoke, threw himself, after the tradition of his fathers, into the arms of the priests, and in order to escape the aristocracy submitted himself to the clergy. This was a grievous prognostic for Reform. At the end of the summer of 1526, the queen, archbishop Beatoun, and other members of the priestly and royal party, assembled at Stirling Castle, and a plan was there considered and determined on which was to take away the chief power from the nobles and give it to the bishops. John Stuart, earl of Lennox, a friend of James V., set out from that fortress on September 4, at the head of from ten to twelve thousand men, and marched on Edinburgh. But Angus was already informed of what was in preparation, and Arran, who had made his peace with him, was ready. The same day, in the morning, the trumpet sounded in the capital, and the chief of the Douglases set forth at the head of his army, dragging after him the young monarch. The latter was in hope that the hour of his deliverance was come: he advanced slowly in the rear of the army, in spite of the brutal threats of Sir G. Douglas, his guardian. Presently the report of cannons was heard: the king stopped. George Douglas, fancying that he would attempt to escape, cried out, ‘Don’t think of running away, for if our enemies had hold of you on one side and we on the other, we would pull you in two rather than let you go.’ The King never forgot that word. Angus won the day. Lennox had been killed by the savage James Hamilton, and the father of the latter, when he heard it, had thrown his scarlet cloak over the body of Lennox, exclaiming: ‘Here lies a man, the boldest, the mightiest, and the wisest that Scotland ever possessed!’ At the tidings of this great disaster all was confusion in Stirling Castle. The queen fled in disguise and concealed herself: archbishop Beatoun put off his pontifical robes, took the dress of a shepherd, and went into retirement among the herdsmen of the Fifeshire hills, where for nearly three months he kept a flock, no one the while suspecting that he was the lord chancellor of the realm. Thus the anticipated triumph of the primate and the priests, which would have been fatal to the Reformation, was changed into a total rout, and greater religious freedom was given to Scotland.[30]