History of the Reformation in Europe in the Time of Calvin, Vol. 6 (of 8)

by J. H. Merle d'Aubigné

Some days after, the king returned from the north of Scotland, whither the priests had sent him to worship some relics. Hamilton was no more. What were the feelings of James V. when he learnt the death of this noble scion of the royal house? We have no means of ascertaining them. The young prince seemed to be more alive to the humiliation to which the nobles subjected him than to the cruelty of the priests. Fretted by the state of dependence in which Angus kept him, he made complaint of it to Henry VIII.[135] Hunting was his only amusement, and for the sake of enjoying it he had taken up his abode at Falkland Castle. On a sudden, caring no more for hounds, foxes, or deer, he conceived the project of regaining his freedom and his authority. This might be fraught with grave consequences for the Reformation. If at a time when the nobles kept a tight hand over the priestly party Hamilton had been put to death, what might happen in Scotland when the priests, on whom James leaned for support, should have once more seized the chief power? The deliverance of the young king, however, was no easy matter. A hundred men, selected by Angus, were about him night and day; and the captain of his guards, the minister of the royal house and the lord treasurer of the kingdom, had orders to keep their eyes constantly upon him. He determined to resort to stratagem. He said one evening to his courtiers, ‘We will rise very early to-morrow to go stag-hunting; be ready.’ Everyone retired early to rest; but no sooner had the prince entered his chamber than he called one of his pages in whom he had full confidence. ‘Jockie,’ said he to him; ‘dost thou love me?’ ‘Better than myself, Sire.’—‘Wilt thou run some risk for my sake?’ ‘Risk my life, Sire.’ James explained to him his design; and then, disguising himself as a groom, he went into his stables with the page and a valet. ‘We are come to get the horses ready for the hunt to-morrow,’ said the three grooms. Some moments elapsed; they went noiselessly out of the castle, and set off at a gallop for Stirling Castle, where the queen-mother was residing. The king arrived there in the early morning. ‘Draw up the bridges,’ said he, so fearful was he of his pursuers. ‘Let down the portcullises, set sentinels at all points.’ He was worn out with fatigue, having been on horseback all night; but he refused to lie down until the keys of all the gates had been placed under his pillow; then he laid down his head upon them and went to sleep. On the morning after this flight, Sir George Douglas, the king’s guardian, rose without suspicion, thinking only of the hunt which James had appointed. While he was taking certain precautions against the escape of the prince, a stranger arrived and asked to speak to Sir George. It was the bailiff of Abernethy. He entered the apartment of the royal gaoler, and announced to him that in the course of the night the king had crossed the bridge at Stirling. Sir George, startled at this unlooked-for news, ran to the apartment of the king; he knocked, and as no one answered, he had the door burst open. He looked round on all sides and exclaimed, ‘Treachery! the king is fled!’ He gave instant notice to his brother, the earl of Angus, and sent messengers in all directions with orders to arrest the king wheresoever he might be found. All was useless. The tidings of this event being spread abroad, the enemies of the Douglases hastened in crowds to Stirling. Without loss of time the king called together the parliament and got a decree of banishment issued against Angus. The latter, cast down suddenly from the height of greatness, made his escape into England, passing safely through many difficulties and dangers.

From that time James V. bore rule himself, so far at least as the priests would allow him. In the character of this strange prince were combined insatiable ambition and unparalleled feebleness, kindliness full of affability and implacable resentment, a great regard for justice and violent passions, an eager desire to protect the weak from the oppression of the powerful and fits of rage which did not spare even the lowly. The king reigned, but the clergy governed. As the aim of James V. was to humble the nobles, a close alliance with the clergy was a necessity for him, and once having taken the side of the priests, he went to great lengths. The archbishops of St. Andrews and Glasgow, the bishop of Dunkeld, and the abbot of Holyrood were placed at the head of the government, and the most distinguished members of the aristocracy were immediately imprisoned or sent into exile. No Douglas, and no partisan even of that house, was allowed to come within twelve miles of the court. Persecution attacked at the same time the evangelical Christians; men who might have elevated their country perished on the scaffold. The course pursued by the priests tended to defeat their own end. The nobles, exasperated by the tyranny of the bishops, began to feel the aversion for the Church of Rome which they felt for its leading men. It was not indeed from the Romish religion that they broke off, but only from an ambitious and merciless hierarchy. But erelong we shall find the nobles, ever more and more provoked by the clergy, beginning to lend a willing ear to the evangelical doctrine of those who opposed the clergy.

ALESIUS.

Before that moment arrived, the conquests of the Reformation in Scotland had begun. It counted already many humble but devout adherents in convents, parsonage houses and cottages. At the head of the canons of St. Augustine at St. Andrews was an immoral man, an enemy of the Gospel, prior Hepburn; nevertheless, it was among them that the awakening began. One of the canons, Alesius, had been confirmed in the faith of the Gospel by the testimony which Hamilton had borne to the truth during his trial, and by the simple and heroic beauty of his death, which he had witnessed. On returning to his priory he had felt more deeply the need of reformation. ‘Ah,’ said he, ‘how wretched is the state of the Church! Destitute of teachers competent to teach her, she finds herself kept far away from the Holy Scriptures,[136] which would lead her into all truth.’ Alesius gave utterance at the same time to the love which he felt even for the persecutors. ‘I do not hate the bishops,’ he said; ‘I do not hate any of the religious orders; but I tremble to see Christ’s doctrine buried under thick darkness, and pious folk subjected to horrible tortures. May all learn what power religion displays in men’s souls, by examining with care its divine sources.’[137] The death of Hamilton was day after day the subject of the canons’ conversation, and Alesius steadily refused to condemn him.

The worthless Hepburn and his satellites could not endure this. They denounced Alesius to the archbishop as a man who had embraced the faith for which Hamilton had been burnt, and they added that other canons seemed likely to take the same path. In order to ascertain the sentiments of the young man, the primate resolved to lay a snare for him; and when a provincial synod met at St. Andrews, he appointed Alesius to preach the sermon at its opening. Alesius entered the pulpit, and, while avoiding anything which might uselessly offend his hearers, he brought forward the doctrines of the truth, and boldly urged the clergy to give an example of holy living, and not to be stumbling-blocks to the faithful by scandalous licentiousness.

HIS IMPRISONMENT.

As they went out of the church, many expressed approval. The archbishop was grave, and did not say a word; but Hepburn, a proud, violent, and domineering man, whose shameless connexions, says Bayle,[138] were known to everybody, thought that Alesius meant to point him out and to excite his superiors against him, and he resolved to take vengeance on him. His fears were not unfounded. The discourse of Alesius had impressed the best men among the canons, and these, convinced of the necessity of putting an end to public scandals, joined together, and decided to carry to the king a complaint against the prior. Hepburn was immediately informed of their purpose, and, being constitutionally more fit for a soldier than for a canon, he took some armed men and entered suddenly into the hall in which the conference was held, to the great astonishment of the assembly. ‘Seize that man!’ said he to his men-at-arms, pointing to Alesius. The young canon begged the prior to keep his temper; but at these words the proud Hepburn, no longer master of himself, drew his sword, advanced towards Alesius, and was going to attack him, when two canons thrust themselves in front of their chief, and turned the blow aside.[139] The impetuous prelate, however, was not pacified, and, calling his men to his aid, he followed up Alesius, in order to strike him. The latter, in confusion and terror, finding himself within an inch of death, fell at the prior’s feet, and implored him not to shed innocent blood. Hepburn, to show his contempt for him, would not honor him so much as to pierce him with his sword, but gave him several kicks, and this with such force that the poor canon fainted away, and lay stretched on the floor before his enemy.[140] When he came to himself, the fierce prior ordered the soldiers to take him to prison, as well as the other canons; and they were all cast into a foul and unwholesome dungeon.

These deeds of violence were noised abroad in the whole city, and men’s feelings were divided between contempt and horror. Some of the nobles, however, who had esteemed Hamilton, were profoundly indignant; and they betook themselves to the king, and implored him to check the intolerable tyranny of the prior. The young king gave orders that all the canons should be set at liberty, and kindly added, that ‘he would go himself and deliver them with his own hand if he did not know that the place in which they were confined was infected with the plague.’[141] The prior obeyed the royal command, but only in part; he had Alesius thrust into a place that was fouler still.[142] And now he was alone; had no longer a friend to clasp his hand; saw only hostile faces. He knew that God was with him; but the sufferings inflicted on him by the cruel prior, the filth, the bad smells, the vermin that began to prey on him, the dark and perpetual night which filled that frightful sink, endangered his life. It was known in the city that he was ill; it was even reported one day that he was dead. James V. had the prior of St. Augustine’s called before him, and commanded him to liberate Alesius. The hypocritical prior swore by the saints that the canon was free; and returning immediately to the priory, he gave orders to bring out of the frightful dungeon the wretched man, who had languished there for twenty days. Alesius came out, covered with filth, and horrible to look on.[143] It was some comfort to him to once more see the light of day. Some of the servants took him; they put off his filthy garments, washed him carefully, and then put on him clean and even elegant clothes.[144] Thus attired, the victim was led before Hepburn, who forbade him to tell anyone how he had been treated. The prior then summoned the city magistrates, and showing them, with an air of triumph, Alesius, clean and well dressed, said—‘There is the man who is reported to be kept in prison by me, and even to be dead. Go, sirs, and give the lie to these calumnies.’ The wretch added to his cruelty, falsehood, stratagem, and shamelessness.

The magistrates then turning with kind looks to the prisoner, required him in the king’s name to tell the whole truth; and Alesius related the shameful treatment which he had suffered. The prior, embarrassed, could not deny the fact, but assured the provost and his colleagues that from that moment the prisoner was and would remain free; on which the council withdrew. The door had hardly closed before the enraged prior loaded Alesius with reproaches, and ordered him to be taken back to prison. A year passed, and neither king nor magistrate had snatched from that savage beast the prey on which he set his mind. In vain was it that Alesius had his complaint laid before the archbishop; the latter replied that he had noticed in his discourse a leaning to Lutheranism, and that he deserved the penalty which had fallen on him. His deliverance seemed impossible.