O felix terra! hoc si foret usa duce!
Dira superstitio grassata tyrannide in omnes,
Omniaque involvens Cimmeriis tenebris,
Illa nequit lucem hanc sufferre. Ergo omnis in unum,
Fraude, odiis, furiis, turba cruenta coit.
Igne cremant. Vivus lucis qui fulserat igne,
Par erat, ut moriens lumina ab igne daret.[129]
People everywhere wanted to know the cause for which this young noble had given his life, and everyone took the side of the victim. ‘Just at the time when those cruel wolves,’ said Knox, ‘had, as they supposed, clean devoured their prey, a great crowd surrounded them and demanded of them an account for the blood which they had shed.’ ‘The faith for which Hamilton was burnt,’ said many, ‘is that which we will have.’ In vain was it that the guilty men, convicted by their own consciences, were inflamed with wrath, and uttered proud threats;[130] for everywhere the abuses and errors which up to that time had been venerated were called in question.[131] Such were the happy results of Hamilton’s death.
As the news spread, however, in foreign lands, very different feelings were aroused. The doctors of Louvain, writing to the clergy of Scotland, said, ‘We are equally delighted with the work which you have done and with the way in which you have done it.’[132] Others showed themselves not so much charmed with such hatred, stratagem, and cruelty. A Christian man in England wrote to the Scottish nobles, ‘Hamilton is now living with Christ whom he confessed before the princes of this world, and the voice of his blood, like the blood of Abel, cries to heaven.’[133] Francis Lambert, especially his friend and companion, was a prey to intense grief: he said to the landgrave, ‘Hamilton has offered up to God and to the Church, as a sacrifice, not only the lustre of his rank, but also his youthful prime.’[134]
JAMES V. FLIGHT.